Piercing the Heavens

by Calm Wind

Rating: teen
Tags: Rainbow Dash, Romance, Fleetfoot, Comedy, Slice of Life, Wonderbolts, Spitfire, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Soarin
Length: 2321572

Sequel to Flying Sky-High. A lot has happened, but now Rainbow Dash finally has a chance to fulfill her dream and become a Wonderbolt. As the process begins, will her relationship with Soarin be a blessing? Or will it be a curse?

So much has happened in the past year. Friends have been made, battles have been fought, and love has bloomed. Now at long last, Rainbow Dash has the chance of a lifetime: a chance to become a Wonderbolt and instantly be part of an elite squad. However, one of the key judges for the tryout is none other than her love: Soarin. He is bound by his profession to be fair and honest in his selection. Will their relationship give Dash an edge in the tryouts? Or will it strike her down before she even gets there?

Also what of the dark magic within Soarin? He's kept quiet about it for a while, but not all is as well as he lets on.

And what of the Shadowbolts? They scattered after the battle with Nightshade. Surely they didn't just disappear.

A story of remaining strong in the face of harsh challenges. Life and love can be tough, but strong hearts always find a way to prevail.

Originally Edited by: Kestrel (and on occasion: Lucky424)

New editors: Delphina34 and Zoljen

This Fic's length is a bit intimidating, but it is broken into four parts, each of which could be considered their own stories with clear beginnings and conclusions. I decided to keep it all together because it was how my outline was structured (aka i completely underestimated the length).

This is not a Gurren Lagann Crossover. The title was a coincidence. (But said coincidence has led to many references and characters that parody the anime)

Featuring multiple chapter illustrations by: Scootafail/Chiwee, PenumbraGlow0290 Deviantart: darkmoonrising, Colorstrike, and foxenawolf

I also like including pieces of fan art drawn by my readers if they drew certain scenes. So far i have included some fan art by: GlitterDash (Dev art: chessaw), Hopscotch, MyLittleXyo, Ice Blade, mlplover789 (aka NightyScribbles), EchoSong, sweet Isolation, Pie Is Epic, melovedogs123, CowgirlVK, CrystalMelody_kc, Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin), Those Kids In The Corner/Catalyst, natis120, eveyannie, PhonicBoom, bambiki, Randompig212, Schemmer, SOARINDASH1, Neonspirit, NorthernLights8, kikirdcz, Fuzzette, SilverWolfFTW, Cantil, Coco Candy, -_Rainbow_Dash-_, Lazzari, Valentine_X, Nightalein and Lucky Autumn

Published 2014-06-03 22:10:04 UTC
Last updated 2023-03-28 23:55:02 UTC

Chapter 2: Magical Headaches

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 2:

“Ah!” Soarin writhed in his bed, breathing heavily, and sweating bullets. “Ah! RGH! AHHH!!” he sat up straight, his eyes snapping open, only to meet the darkness of his room. His head was throbbing like crazy and his heart beat furiously in his chest. He reached his hoof over his heart and winced as he felt it pound endlessly. His other hoof went to his head as he fell back down to the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Art by: mlplover789

“Dammit,” he cursed as he rubbed his forehead and took deep breaths. His heart calmed down a little, but his body was burning all over and the mattress and sheets were damp from his sweat. Forget it, he wasn’t falling asleep again. It was hard enough to fall asleep normally. The discomfort would make it impossible.

This was also the fifth night in a row. The fifth night he had the same mysterious nightmare and woke up as he had just moments ago. He was tired of this. His methods of getting sleep despite the inner power had all failed him now. It was also getting awkward bringing sweaty sheets to their laundry manager every day.

He groaned, grabbed his pillow, and stuffed it over his face to muffle a loud growl. If only Dash were with him. Her presence always calmed the dark magic raging within him. Of course he wanted her for other reasons too, but now more than ever, he wanted her for the calming effect. He loved her with all his heart, but her ability to ease the inner power made her even more special to him. She had become a need. His life had actually become hell without her on a physical level. He hoped she’d show up for the tryouts. Who was he kidding? He knew she was going to show. Dash missing something Wonderbolt related was unheard of. It would sooner snow in Saddle Arabia.

“Dash…” he spoke her name softly as he let the pillow roll off his face, “what’s happening to me Dash?” he kept talking as if she were there. More than anything else, he wanted her there for comfort. He wanted her close by so he could go to her, hold her in his arms, and feel at ease.

Every day since he had been restored from the brink of death, the grip the magic had on him seemed to tighten little by little. It was hard to notice at first, but as the days went on it became clear he was slowly losing all control of it. These past five nights had been a wakeup call, literally.

The repeating nightmare? It was identical to the strange vision he had whilst being pulled from the gates of hell:

Back when Celestia imbued him with the dark magic, he found himself stuck in a void of darkness, unable to move. Scraggily black extensions appeared from the dark, restrained him and pulled him in. Then Dash and Spitfire appeared in the vision. The two fought to keep him from being consumed. Spitfire and Dash’s voices reached him, bringing his motionless body to life, and with their help he was torn from the grip of the darkness. Then he awoke in the hospital, body restored, and Dash sleeping peacefully in the bed beside him.

It was a strange event indeed, and he never got to thank Celestia, in fact she disappeared right after. It did, however, lead to the first time he cuddled up with Dash. What exactly Celestia did to revive him, to this day he didn’t know.

This Nightmare he was having was the exact same vision. Yet there was one clear difference: nopony came to save him. He was pulled down into the void of nothing, his whole body searing with pain as if being burned and buried alive at the same time. Then he would wake up, and feel like he was having a heart attack.

He sighed heavily. He was done trying. This was no longer in his control. He feared something bad would surely happen if he kept waiting. He didn’t want to bother Luna, but Spitfire was right, he should have gone to see the princess a long time ago.

He looked at his clock. It read 3 AM. Whatever, he was going now.

He shifted to the side of the bed and took a deep breath as he set his hooves on the floor. He felt his way around the room until he found the door and left the darkness of his room. Forget how late/early it was, Luna was princess of the night. If she wasn’t up and about right now then she’d be slacking.

Dash’s alarm clock blared beside her bed. It barely sounded for two seconds before Dash’s hoof slammed over it and she sat upright, stretching her arms and wings out. She twisted her upper body side to side and cracked her neck loudly.

“Up and at ‘em!” she stretched her arms forward and scooted off the edge of the bed. She trotted around her bed and halted in front of her large mirror. She flexed once with a smirk. “Lookin’ awesome, and only gonna get more awesome!” she stated to her own reflection as she turned and slipped on a pile of towels and sheets that had been growing bigger by the day. She fell face first into the cloud floor. She pulled her face up and blinked. “Not so awesome,” she sighed and looked the pile over. “I should probably wash this stuff today,” she thought out loud. She stared at the pile for only another second before turning away. “Nah.”

She pranced down the stairs into her kitchen, reached up, and threw open a cabinet.

“Now should I have,” she rolled her eyes at the contents. It was stuffed full of boxes of oatmeal, “oatmeal, oatmeal, or oatmeal? I think I’ll go with oatmeal.” She said with a monotonous tone.

Dash had not forgotten Soarin’s advice about nutrition, but compared to everything else he did for her training-wise, it was the hardest thing to adapt to. She pulled open her fridge and pulled out a carton of egg whites and a jug of orange juice while balancing a small bowl full of berries on her nose. There wasn’t much else in the fridge. Because of how hard it was to get used to Soarin’s “super diet” she literally had to get rid of everything else to keep the temptation away. She purposely made it an “eat this or eat nothing” scenario.

She put two pans on the stove, one small, flat one for the eggs and the other for the oatmeal. Scrambled egg whites, oatmeal, mixed berries, and orange juice EVERY SINGLE MORNING. Apparently it was the breakfast of ace Wonderbolts. It sucked, but she was taking every step to be the best she could be, and this was only breakfast.

It was clearly helping though. It was crazy how much faster she built up strength, speed, and endurance after starting the diet. Her body had so much more energy to do anything. Soarin wasn’t just trying to make her miserable, he clearly knew his stuff.

She smiled as the egg whites simmered in the pan.

Soarin.

It was crazy how much he had changed her life. She thought back to how she used to be and cringed. Before him she was lazy, overconfident, and felt like the glory of a Wonderbolt would come to her. Okay, maybe she was still a tad overconfident at times, but confidence was part of her game. She wouldn’t be the awesome pony she was if she didn’t believe in herself and her abilities.

Anyway, she was thinking about Soarin, but her ego got in the way.

Yes. Soarin.

She sighed as she refocused on him. The eggs suddenly sizzled a little too much and a large bubble rose up off the pan. A loud POP caught her attention as a small smidge of EXTREMELY hot eggs sprang up from the pan and landed on her cheek.

“OO! AH! OW! OW! OW!” she instinctively turned off the burner before frantically rubbing the small bit of eggs off her face. “EEEEEYAIYAIYAI!!!!” she screeched as she galloped over to the sink, threw on the cold water and stuck her face beneath the stream. After a few seconds, she pulled her head out of the sink and sighed in relief. “Fricken smooth Dash…” She cringed as she felt her cheek, the spot was tender, but it didn’t feel burnt. At worst she probably would have a small mark that was slightly bluer than the rest of her face.

Then she heard another simmering noise: the oatmeal. She whipped her head around just in time to see it boil over the top and spill down the sides of the pan.

“Crap!” she yelled as she glided over and shut off the heat. She groaned in frustration as she slammed the pan cover over it. Not much had escaped, but now she had quite a mess to clean up. This was, admittedly, not the first incident she had while trying to make breakfast. In fact it was one of many. She could mimic ace Wonderbolt techniques and fight off magically imbued mercenaries, but the kitchen was a whole different world that she had barely set hoof into. At least nopony bore witness to her struggles. This was something she could keep to herself.

“HIYA RAINBOW DASH!” a familiar voice made Dash freeze. So much for that. But wait a second…

“Scoots?” Dash glanced towards the hallways exiting the kitchen. Standing right there in her cloud house, smiling as wide as she possibly could, was Scootaloo. Dash just stared, blinking. Was she dreaming? Actually, that would be preferred. That meant she could wake up and redo breakfast without the slip ups. Scootaloo stopped smiling and tipped her head to the side.

“You okay Dash?” she asked. Dash wasn’t dreaming. She looked around, her eyes landing on the kitchen window. She galloped over to it and threw it open, taking a good look outside. The early autumn breeze met her face as she peered out. No, her cloud house wasn’t any closer to the ground than it was yesterday. That meant—

“Scoots,” Dash turned and looked at her little friend in disbelief, “Did you…” she paused as Scootaloo’s smile returned and she spread her wings, which were not so little anymore.

“I flew up here!” she beamed, “It was hard, but I made it up!”

“SCOOTS!” Dash rushed forward, picked up Scootaloo and hugged her tightly. Scootaloo couldn’t get much happier. “That’s awesome!” Dash exclaimed as she set Scootaloo down. “I can’t believe how fast you got it down!” Scootaloo blushed and smiled.

“Hey, if you're gonna work super hard, I ain’t gonna be a slacker,” she said in a tone that was very similar to Dash. Dash lifted an eyebrow and smirked.

“You talk tough kid,” Dash ruffled Scootaloo’s mane with her wing, “Keep talking tough.” She added with a wink.

Wow. Speaking of lives Soarin had changed, here was another one. Scootaloo went from being condemned to a flightless life, to almost achieving full flight. How long did it take? A little less than a year? Like Dash had thought just prior, Soarin really knew his stuff.

“Wait,” Dash realized something else. She looked over at the wall clock. “Scoot’s its 5:30 in the morning, what are you doing up so early?” she asked with a sarcastically stern tone. Scootaloo looked about while trying to find an answer.

“Heh heh, well I was kinda excited to show you. I didn’t sleep too well,” she admitted. Dash sighed and chuckled.

“Well kid, it’s not the best, but you’re here just in time. Want some breakfast?” She offered.

“YOU made breakfast?” Scootaloo looked in disbelief. Dash flinched, but luckily Scootaloo’s surprise was innocent, not insulting. “Wow! You can do anything!” She hopped up and down and fluttered her way across the room to the table. Dash smiled as she watched Scootaloo fly gently over. It was adorable to see it happen, to see a pegasus who had just learned to fly. Dash was sure Scootaloo wouldn’t use her legs for weeks. It’s exactly what Dash did as a filly, the first feeling of flight was pure euphoria and she never wanted to land.

She would find a way. She would find a way to get Scootaloo to Soarin. Soarin typically denounced himself as not being very special. Scootaloo would be Dash’s bargaining chip to prove him wrong about that once and for all. He’d still deny it, because he was stubborn, but he still deserved to see it. He deserved to see the lives he had touched.

Seriously, who has business at this hour? Soarin thought as he paced back and forth in the hall behind the throne room. He’d been waiting for an hour now, fighting off headaches and cursing to himself as the bat guards continued to bar his path into the throne room.

She had five more minutes. If she didn’t get her lunar plot out of whatever was keeping her occupied, he’d storm right back through the palace-to-compound tunnel and make the morning hell for every single fellow Wonderbolt that looked at him funny.

The one downside of Rapidfire being gone: he had nopony to direct anger and annoyance towards. Soarin actually missed that.

He jumped as the doors cracked open and a bat guard stuck his head out.

“The Princess will see you now.” The guard spoke in a monotone.

“About damn time!” Soarin trotted towards the door, but stopped in his tracks when the guard glared daggers at him.

“Right. This. Way.” The bat pony growled at him. That was new. Then again Soarin had never really interacted with Luna’s bat guards before. He was used to the stoic, statues of Celestia’s guard during the day. The bat guards were certainly less stiff, but apparently more emotionally protective of their princess. That or because it was nearly dawn. Maybe this one was just cranky from a long shift. Soarin lurched slightly as the bat pony pushed him in. “Mind your manners with the princess,” he snarled before letting Soarin go on.

“Sheesh, shove the stick a little farther up your—,” he said under his breath as he made his way around the throne. His blinked as he caught glimpse of something leaving the throne room through the main entrance. Three ponies disappeared through the doors as soon as he came around the corner. He didn’t have time to make out color, gender, or type of pony, but Luna DID have business at this hour. He wondered who it could’ve been.

“Welcome, Soarin of the Wonderbolts,” Luna addressed him from the throne. Soarin looked to her, then briefly back at the doors before forgetting about it. Forget whatever Luna was up to, he had his own problems to worry about.

“Sorry about the short notice, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” Soarin addressed politely while still receiving the stink-eye from a few of her guards.

“Your timing was sudden, but we are inclined to meet with all of our subjects,” Luna nodded. “What brings thee to us?” she questioned. Soarin thought for a moment on how to word it. He was aware the topic of Celestia was currently a… strange one, for lack of a better word. He had no idea where Celestia was or what had happened to her, and Luna was always put off upon it being mentioned, but he had no choice here.

“I need to ask you something,” he paused as he averted his eyes for a moment. “It has to do with… how Celestia saved my life,” he braced himself. Luna’s expression immediately flattened. He called it. Luna took a deep breath, held it in, and slowly exhaled with a hint of annoyance escaping from the back of her throat.

“Very well,” Luna glared straight forward, but not directly at Soarin.

“What kind of magic did she use on me exactly?” he posed his question. Luna hesitated to answer. “Princess, this is my body we’re talking about. I think I deserve to know,” Soarin pressed as he picked up on her mannerisms. Luna shook her head and let her ears droop.

“It was an illegal forbidden magic,” she began. She glanced to see Soarin’s reaction. He was already surprised and it was only going to get worse. “Our sister claimed to have a vision of a conflict in the future in which you were present. It’s a long story, but our sister has recently predicted all of the major catastrophes in Equestria. Each one was ignored as one would a bad dream. She was determined not to ignore this one, and vowed to have all the pieces of her vision intact. When she heard of your unfortunate incident, and your sure demise, she refused to let it happen,” Luna sighed as Soarin sat down to keep listening. He was curious about this so-called “future incident,” but that could wait. “So she broke the seal on an old necromancy created by the mad king Sombra, and used it to restore you.”

“WHOA WHOA!” Soarin sharply stood up and his jaw dropped. “Hold on a second! My magic terminology is kinda iffy, but I’ve seen plenty of horror movies! Isn’t… necromancy…” he trailed off.

“Using thine own life force to reanimate the dead,” Luna put plainly.

Soarin choked on his own breath. No. It couldn’t be.

“Does that mean… I’m… dead?” he looked himself over frantically. Luna shook her head.

“No, thou art still of this world, just… being supported. If Celestia had not used the magic, you would have perished,” she explained and trailed off slightly. Soarin caught on.

“The way you said that suggests there’s more to it,” he kept feeling himself over despite being told he was indeed alive. Luna stood from her throne and paced away from it while shaking her head some more.

“The magic requires so much life force to cast, that it almost killed King Sombra himself,” she turned sharply back to Soarin. “It was made forbidden by him, not by my sister,” she made the point very clear. A magic made forbidden by an insane king? This just kept getting better and better.

“Wait,” realization hit Soarin in the face, “Celestia used it on me… she hasn’t been around…” Soarin’s eyes widened.

“NO!” Luna stomped, breaking his thought. “Our sister is alive! Do not think such horrible things!” she snapped harshly. The windows shook as her voice boomed throughout the throne room. Soarin was almost knocked over by the force. “Sorry,” she put a hoof over her mouth and quieted down, “our sister is merely… recovering,” she put shakily, “Do not worry yourself on the matter. Now, I’m sure there is more you wish to say.”

“Sheesh,” Soarin sat back down. Great. Just great. He came here hoping for a solution, but it seemed like he was stuck with it, “Well…” he began again while rubbing his head. He described to her the way the dark power seemed to leap from him randomly, about his lack of sleep, about how Dash had an effect on it, and how he had been having headaches recently that have only been getting stronger and stronger.

Luna seemed to react slightly when he mentioned the headaches.

“Headaches?” she thought out loud. Soarin watched as she seemed to ponder it.

“What? Can you tell me anything?” he got up and took a few steps towards her.

“We have… a theory.” she rubbed her chin. Soarin waited patiently for her to say more, but she took her sweet time thinking about it. He quickly lost his patience.

“What theory? Tell me! Tell me something! Anything!” he flinched when she pointed a hoof at him.

“A MOMENT!” she snapped. He sat back down and shut his mouth. She turned away from him and walked a circle around the throne while pondering something. Soarin followed her with his eyes, letting her think, and quickly becoming irritated. One problem he always had with Luna was her long way of doing just about everything. Celestia was always very quick and decisive. They were both apparently thousands of years old, but Celestia clearly had more executive experience.

She finally turned back to him.

“We apologize, this is more of our sister’s expertise,” she began.

“Coulda told you that,” Soarin whispered to himself. Luckily for him, she didn’t hear.

“Let us take a look at you for a moment. Hold still,” she commanded as magic began to glow around her horn.

“Oh jeez,” Soarin stiffened. Sure Luna was only examining him, but after all he just heard? He was a little iffy about letting alicorns near him with all their crazy powerful magic.

The glow around Luna’s horn shone brightly. She opened her eyes, light emitting from them as well. Soarin remained completely still as a small square of blue light appeared above him. It slowly descended, passing down through him. Once it touched the ground, it slowly moved back up.

“Hmm…” Luna’s face scrunched as the light repeated the motion three more times, “we see…” her magic faded and she huffed.

“I don’t like that look,” Soarin’s ears flattened. Luna shook her head.

“No, we believe we know what’s wrong,” she admitted, yet didn’t seem to enthused, “In all of the ancient scrolls we deciphered about this particular magic, none ever mentioned the effect on—,” she tipped her head to the side, “a pony that was not dead. It’s having an interesting effect,” she started walking around the throne again. Soarin grinded his teeth together.

“LUNA,” He growled. She paused and glared at him.

“You are most impatient,” she snorted.

“Forgive me for being eager, I only want to know what’s happening. You know, with all the crazy dark magic your sister decided to pump into me!” he stared flatly at her. Luna flared her wings out.

“WHAT OUR SISTER DID WAS TO SAVE THY LIFE! DO NOT SPEAK LIGHTLY OF IT!” the royal Canterlot voice completely blew him onto his back. Soarin quickly rolled back up, but was surprised to see her sitting, facing away from him, “This is a very interesting and unique case we have on our hooves,” she turned her neck to look at him, “but it is also simpler than you might imagine.” She turned back and let her shoulders droop.

Soarin got to his hooves and approached her. He made a mental note not to bring up Celestia anymore. Luna was already having a hard time in the leader role, the subject of Celestia only seemed to stress her out. As he approached, Luna stood back up and faced him.

“Thy body is now imbued with magic… the same way a unicorn’s is naturally,” she nodded. Soarin blinked,

“But I’m—,”

“A pegasus, yes,” Luna looked him over. “You said the headaches hurt the most where?” She questioned. Soarin put a hoof to his head and rubbed around.

“Around the sides a bit,” he moved his hoof to the middle of his forehead, “but mostly right here in the middle.”

“Then we are correct,” Luna sighed and looked up at her horn, “A unicorn uses magic through its horn. The horn acts as a canal for the magic to be channeled and flow freely when the unicorn sees fit,” she pointed at his forehead, “however, you have no such canal. Your magic is literally stuck within you.”

“Oh great,” Soarin rolled his eyes, but he was also curious, “But hold on a sec, I’ve seen unicorns go for days without using magic. Why is it painful for me?” he pointed out.

“The magic stuck within you was devised by a unicorn with frightening power. We must admit we are surprised it has not completely torn you apart. You should have come to us sooner,” she scolded him. Just like Spitfire had said. He just couldn’t catch a break, could he?

“So now what?” Soarin shrugged, not really seeing any avenue of escape from the power. Luna closed her eyes.

“We are afraid that if you do not learn how to control what lies within you, it will surely consume you in a matter of months.”

Boy, that sure was encouraging. Soarin just stared in disbelief. Consume him? What the hell? He came here hoping to get some pain relievers or something, and now he was gonna get eaten from inside out? If that was gonna happen he was sure he’d almost feel better not knowing! Also, controlling magic? A pegasus?

“Luna, are you forgetting something?” he tapped his forehead, “How am I supposed to control magic without a horn?”

Luna flinched and averted her eyes. She suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

“Luna?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. She almost looked embarrassed. In fact a small blush had appeared on her face.

Suddenly something came flying down from the ceiling and landed right on Luna’s back.

“OOF!” She grunted as she was forced to the floor. Soarin leapt back and set his hooves hard into the floor. All the bat guards jumped in surprise and stood ready, but—

“YEEHAW! RIDE ‘EM COWBOY!” It was Discord. Luna quickly stood up with Discord still on her back. She frantically looked herself over. She now had a harness with reigns and a saddle on her back. She growled and glared up at Discord, who wore a leather vest and ten gallon hat. Soarin blinked and relaxed, but the five bat guards all charged at him. Discord snapped his fingers as they approached. Strings appeared around one hoof on each of them. They all spontaneously inflated like balloons and dangled above Discord by the strings. “Really Lulu, your guards need to relax. Celestia’s guard doesn’t even try with me,” he tugged on the strings in his paw, bouncing the bloated guards up and down as they flailed and squeaked in confusion.

“Mmmph! MMPH!” Luna tried to yell at him, but the harness kept her mouth clamped shut.

“Oh, my mistake,” he snapped his fingers. The harness and saddle disappeared. He stood beside her free of his vest and hat. The guards all deflated and fell into a disoriented pile. They quickly untangled themselves and readied to make another run at him.

“STOP!” Luna ordered. They all halted and looked to her, “Don’t even try. Save thyselves the humiliation,” she admitted. Discord clapped while chuckling.

“Bravo Lulu! You’ve finally learned,” he draped his arm over her neck.

“DON’T. TOUCH. US.” She snapped. He pulled his arm back.

“Oh ye of little fun allowed,” he mocked her as stepped back and crossed his arms, “Well, go on, I believe you were about to tell him about… it,” Discord snickered. Luna held her breath, puffing her cheeks.

“Um…” Luna bit her bottom lip and shut her eyes tight.

“Time’s up!” Discord snapped his fingers. Luna disappeared and reappeared in the corner of the throne room, sitting on a stool with a dunce hat on her head, and a large, rainbow swirl lollipop wrapped to her hoof with duct tape. Discord put himself in between Soarin and Luna as she tried to shake the lollipop off her arm. “Well then!” Soarin blinked and he was suddenly strapped to a diagonal table. Discord stood beside him wearing a white doctor’s coat.

“Hey!” Soarin struggled, but could not move.

“Let’s see how the old ticker is doing, shall we?” he put on a stethoscope and placed the chestpiece over Soarin’s heart. A hoof extended out of the right eartip and punched Discord square across the jaw. “Oo! That’s a new one!” He said with his jaw stuck three inches out of place. Everything disappeared and Soarin fell back first onto the ground. Discord reclined in mid-air above him. Soarin looked over to see Luna standing up on her hooves, but now freaking out because the stool was stuck to her plot.

“Seriously, how the hell does Celestia put up with you?!” Soarin flattened his ears and brow, “I’m pissed enough as is!” He snarled. Discord sighed and rolled over as if laying on an invisible couch.

“I honestly don’t know how she puts up with all of you,” he waved his paw in the air, “Fine.” He snapped his fingers. Luna was back beside him. She blinked and looked about before realizing she was right back where she started, “let me help Lulu a little with this,” He poked Soarin in the forehead, “You are not the first non-unicorn to be graced with the gift of magic.”

“I’d hardly call this a gift…” Soarin commented.

“Oh you may find it yet,” Discord winked before doing a loop in the air and slithering behind Luna, “I believe the last one was a good three thousand years ago! Quite a gifted earth pony, I’m sure Celestia would recall her well. The catch, is that the lovely princesses here—” he grabbed and pulled on Luna’s cheek. She rolled her eyes, letting him do it, knowing it was unwise to fight back, “—has a certain old device that can help you control the magic,” Luna shut her eyes and shook her head as he brought it up.

That was three times now. Soarin was so confused, what was it about this “device” that had the princess all flustered?

“Well Lulu?” Discord continued to sneer and snicker.

“We… um…” she stuttered.

“Pff, must I do everything around here?” Discord held up his paw. After a dim flash of light, something appeared in his hand. Soarin blinked and eyed the simple object floating above Discord’s claws. It looked like a unicorn horn made of plastic. At least he thought it was plastic. It had a long leather strap attached to it with a small gold buckle.

“A… false horn?” Soarin guessed as he looked it over.

“Yes, but that’s not what it’s called,” Discord bit his bottom lip and smiled mischievously, “is it, Lulu?” He elbowed her in the side as she scrunched her face.

“Keep in mind,” Luna began hesitantly, “This device has been around for thousands and thousands of years… it was named during ancient times. We cannot go back and change thousands of year’s worth of scriptures. Its name… is quite inappropriate in this day and age.” Luna kept dodging it.

“Lulu,” Discord pressed his face against hers, “Just say it,” he said flatly. Luna took a deep breath and sighed.

“It’s called a Strap-On,” she said quietly while blushing uncomfortably. Soarin’s left eye twitched.

“WHAT.”

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

Fleetfoot is gonna have a field day with this one xD

You may have noticed, both chapters i've submitted so far have barely scratched 24 hours worth of time in the story :)

I'm not frantically writing these for a contest like i was with Flying Sky High, you can expect a lot more detail and content in every scene. The udates are still gonna be fast, but i'm making sure to put as much as possible into the story to make it enjoyable :D

Thanks for reading!

(Also, for newer readers, there will be some events/minor instances in future chapters that may not make sense. This trilogy is part of a much larger timeline all of my stories take place in ^_^ the context isn't necessary to enjoy this story, but if anything confuses you, or if you're wondering about how something came to be. It's probably explained in my other stories)

Again, thanks for reading!

Chapter 3: A WHAT-NOW?!

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 3:

“Scoots, you don’t have to eat it, I know it’s not good,” Dash chuckled as she watched Scootaloo choke down the eggs and oatmeal. She swallowed and cringed before pounding a hoof against her chest and smirking.

“You said this was a super diet, right?” she nodded, “If it makes me like you, I’m gonna eat it!” she proclaimed while stuffing her face with more oatmeal.

“It’s important, but ya gotta work for it too,” Dash ruffled Scootaloo’s mane, “but I think you have that part down,” she said while eying Scootaloo’s new wings. Scootaloo cringed again. She clearly didn’t like it, but she was a determined little filly.

“Where did you get this diet stuff anyway?” she looked up at Dash.

“You have one guess,” Dash winked, knowing that would answer it. Scootaloo smiled and extended her wings.

“Mr. Sorewings?” she flapped her wings happily.

“Bull’s eye,” Dash pounded her hooves together. Scootaloo bounced up and down in her seat.

“He’s so cool!” she exclaimed, “Not as cool as you obviously, but wow he’s awesome!”

“Yeah,” Dash leaned back in her chair as Scootaloo expressed her liking for the incognito Soarin.

“I wish I could see him again,” Scootaloo suddenly said. She folded up her wings and sighed, “I wanna thank him so much,” she had missed him completely during his most recent visit. Dash felt bad about that too. She was so blown away by Soarin’s surprise visit that she completely forgot to tell Scootaloo. He was there for almost a month and they never crossed paths with Scoots. She, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom were on a rampage with their cutie mark searching all of those days, but Dash still felt bad about forgetting.

Dash began contemplating. Why keep it from her anymore? Well, it risked making Scootaloo think Soarin was more awesome than her, but whatever. He had done a lot for Scootaloo and she didn’t even know who he really was. She deserved to know it was a great stallion that helped her. Plus Dash was getting tired of always referring to him as “Sorewings” around Scootaloo. It was funny for a while, but she loved Soarin, why keep something like that from a filly she treated like a little sister?

“Hey Scoots,” Dash rested her arms on the table, “I think it’s time I shared something with you.” she said with a smile.

“Dash, I already know you and Mr. Sorewings are getting married,” Scoots instantly cut in. Dash’s face turned completely red and her wings fired out to her sides with a loud FWOOMP. Scootaloo burst out laughing and rolled off her chair onto the floor.

“HAHAHAHA! The look… on your face!” she clutched her sides and rolled from side to side on her back. Dash puffed her cheeks and quickly refolded her wings.

“Little smartass…” Dash said to herself with a chuckle, “Real funny Scoots, real funny,” she said as Scootaloo pulled herself back up to the chair, “You’re right about one thing, it is about Sorewings… or rather…” Dash paused.

“What about him?” Scootaloo tipped her head slightly and blinked. Dash smiled.

“Hold on a second,” Dash smiled and lifted off from the chair. She glided over to the stairs and disappeared. A few seconds later she came back down. She had a framed picture in one hoof, and a newspaper tucked under her other arm. “Here,” she held out the picture frame.

It was a picture of her and Soarin walking side by side, both glaring at each other while smiling. Pinkie had snapped the candid photo during Soarin’s last visit. The two were in the middle of trying to one up each other about their flight skills. It really captured the essence of their relationship: their competitive natures clashing, but also completing the other at the same time. The picture was so perfect that Dash had it framed.

“Now you remember Sorewings,” Dash began, “Take a good look.”

“Okay…” Scootaloo nodded.

“Now…” Dash set the picture on the table and grabbed the newspaper. She unfolded it and turned the front page towards Scootaloo. The headline read: “Wonderbolts debut new show in the skies of Ponyville!” It was the newspaper Dash received almost a full year ago that notified her of the Wonderbolts coming to Ponyville. Dash had kept it and cherished it because it was the beginning of a long winding story that changed her life forever.

The picture below the headline was one of Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Rapidfire flying in a staggered formation. Dash folded the newspaper back to condense the picture and put emphasis on Soarin. Then she held it beside the photo on the table.

“See it?” Dash grinned. Scootaloo just blinked as she looked back and forth. Then her eyes snapped open. She looked between the pictures faster, realizing the manes were identical as well as the small bit of light blue sticking out from Soarin’s uniform.

“OH,” Scootaloo scooted backward in her seat, “MY,” her wings flared out, “GOSH!” she shoved her hooves against the table, tipping her chair back. Her chair fell over and she rolled softly onto the cloud floor. “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Life’s full of surprises, eh?” Dash chuckled as Scootaloo sat upright and put her hooves to her head.

“Soarin?! Mr. Sorewings is… THE Soarin?!?!” Scootaloo’s eyes darted about and her wings flapped giddily. “How… HOW DID I NOT RECOGNIZE HIM!?!?!?!” she squealed.

“He’s a real trickster,” Dash smirked. Scootaloo looked like her head was going to explode.

“Gosh, no wonder he knows so much cool stuff!” she glanced back at her wings and her pupils suddenly grew three sizes, “I got help from a famous pony!!!” she started bouncing in her spot.

“Yeah,” Dash sighed again, letting her mind wander. Such a great pony. Such a great stallion. Her thoughts were getting overly girly again, but whatever. She was a mare. She was allowed to internally swoon at least.

“Whoa, hold up,” Scootaloo stopped bouncing and stared at Dash, “That means…” she pointed at the photo on the table.

“Yes,” Dash said with a sheepish grin. She quickly replaced it by swishing her mane, smirking, and placing her hoof on her chest, “What can I say? If I’m gonna have a stallion, he better be awesome!” she winked at Scootaloo.

“Too much…” Scootaloo slowly keeled back over and landed on her back with her wings, arms, and legs spread out.

“Too much what?” Dash approached while chuckling.

“Too much awesome. Body shutting down. I can’t take it,” she squeaked. Dash flopped down on the floor beside her.

“Scoots?”

“Yeah?”

“I really, truly hope,” Dash looked turned her head to look at her, “that you find somepony like him someday,” she smiled.

“Psh,” Scootaloo scoffed, “I’m too young and cool for that stuff right now,” she sat up straight. She tried to whisk her mane over her shoulder like Dash always did, but it failed to fully flip. After two more failed attempts, she sharply blew air at her mane while flipping it to fully boost it over.

“Needs work kid,” Dash chuckled as she sat up and smoothly flipped her mane over her shoulder. Scootaloo giggled as Dash placed a hoof on her shoulder, “I’m serious though Scoots, I hope you find someone like him. I don’t necessarily mean a love interest. It could be stallion, mare, or whatever. I just hope you know someone that can push you to be the best you can be no matter where you are or what you end up doing in your life. Soarin is that pony for me. I hope you find one too.”

“Dash, I’m looking at her,” Scootaloo crossed her hooves glared with a smile. Dash blinked. “Why do you think I worked so hard to fly? Sure Sorewi— Soarin showed me how to do all that stuff, but you’re still my motivation!” She smiled happily. Dash didn’t know what to say. Well, she knew Scootaloo looked up to her, but her motivation? Dash had no idea. “I wanna be just as awesome as you and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get there!” Scootaloo jabbed Dash in the arm lightly.

Dash just stared. Her? Motivational? She hadn’t even given it a thought. She had spent so much time being motivated by Soarin and the Wonderbolts she hadn’t even thought about what her efforts might be doing for others around her. Scootaloo’s words just now? Confidence boost off the charts.

“It’s Saturday, right?” Dash looked around, but there was no calendar in the kitchen.

“Yep! No school!” Scootaloo cheered. Dash smiled and ruffled her mane.

“I’m touched Scoots, I really am,” she stood up sharply, spread her wings and crouched down to get face to face with Scootaloo, “You just earned a day of awesome training with the one and only Rainbow Dash! Think you can keep up kid?” Dash smirked. Scootaloo’s eyes grew.

“YES! You better bet I’m ready!” she barely gave it thought. It was an instant accept, “Just don’t slow me down!” Scootaloo fired back with a sneer.

“That’s the spirit! Let’s go!” Dash patted her on the back and the two sprinted towards the door. Dash was going to miss Scootaloo so much if she became a Wonderbolt. The little filly just had this way of always making her happy, as if she really were Dash’s little sister.

“Ha. Haha. Good one Discord,” Soarin pointed a hoof at him with a less than convinced expression. He looked back to Luna, “He made that up right? He made you say that. It’s just a bad joke… right?” he directed at Luna.

“Tis not,” she clarified while exhaling loudly through her nose.

“I must commend the ancients for planning this far ahead into the future to give me a good laugh!” Discord chuckled while tossing the fake horn up and down in his hand.

“I am NOT wearing something called a ‘strap-on!’” Soarin stomped his right hoof down and glared.

“Oh, I’m afraid it’s this or let the mean old magic monster inside you eat you up,” Discord slithered over and rested an elbow on Soarin’s back. “I’m more than certain you don’t want that.”

“What good will a phallic plastic costume piece do me?!” he growled while bucking his legs at Discord. Discord’s body bent to avoid it, keeping his elbow stationary.

“Tis not plastic,” Luna spoke up, “It’s made of an ancient enchanted stone that shares similar properties to porcelain,” she clarified.

“It shares many physical properties with a unicorn’s horn, the magic doesn’t know the difference,” Discord took over, “keeping the beast within at bay by tricking it… sounds like fun, wouldn’t you say?”

“Your definition of fun is twisted,” Soarin sighed as he eyed the horn. As humiliating as it felt, it would apparently help him. Besides, it’s not like any other pony had to know it was called a “strap-on.” After a bit of thought, it was a risk he was willing to take. He’d rather not be eaten alive by dark magic. “Fine, I’ll use it,” he sighed.

“I’m glad you agree,” Discord slithered behind him and loosened the straps, “Believe me, you’ll be happy you did,” Discord’s tone was surprisingly serious.

“As much as we hate to say it, we must agree with Discord,” Luna spoke up as Discord prepared it for Soarin’s head, “Should thou have been consumed, you would have most certainly begun rampaging. Dark magic is a dangerous entity. It fights who wields it for control at all times. As we said earlier, we are surprised thou has lasted this long.

“That’s a lovely thought,” Soarin thought out loud as he looked up.

“Now hold still, trust me, you don’t want me to miss,” Discord ordered. What did he mean by miss? Soarin didn’t want to know. He just did as he was told. You don’t argue with the god of chaos. Soarin watched as Discord slowly moved the base of the false horn towards Soarin’s forehead. He paused and looked at Luna, “Ready Lulu?” he suddenly said.

“Yes, we are.” Luna stood up and set her hooves. Soarin blinked. Ready? Ready for what?

Without warning, Discord slammed the base of the horn hard onto Soarin’s forehead.

Soarin felt his body completely stiffen. His body began to tingle all over. The tingling quickly turned to pricking, then stabbing pain.

“Ah! AHHH!!!!” Soarin cried out as his body shook. Discord quickly buckled the leather strap tight to the back of Soarin’s head. As soon as it was firmly attached, Discord pushed back and put ten feet between him and Soarin. Soarin felt his hooves leave the ground as dark blue sparks crackled and popped around him. His vision became blurry as a bright light shone from his eyes. What was happening? What was this sensation? This pain? It was foreign to him. His limbs twitched and jittered as bursts of blue light began to swirl around him. They all eventually concentrated near his head as if drawn up by the horn. The light got sucked into the horn, causing it to glow brightly.

“NOW!” Luna yelled. Her horn glowed brightly. On the other side, Discord reached his arms forward, a swirl of distorted energy surrounding his hands.

“AHH!” Soarin fell roughly to the ground, a huge bubble of magical energy encasing the false horn. Luna fired her magic from her horn with Discord releasing his simultaneously. The two magic beams expanded and created a dome over Soarin. Soarin’s neck strained and lurched as if his head was trying to rip free from his body. The dome created by the two gods fully expanded and hardened just in time.

The magic swirling from Soarin got sucked completely into the false horn, and fired from the point in a thick blast, it repelled off the magical dome and bounced violently all around him. After a few moments, the magic had run out of room and was about to hit Soarin.

Discord released his paw hand from his casting and snapped his fingers. Soarin teleported out of the dome and a large explosion was muffled within it. Soarin dropped to the ground beside Discord, still twitching with little crackles of blue light emitting all over his body.

“Job well done,” Discord nodded while brushing his hands together.

“WHAT THE HELL!?!?!?!” Soarin yelled out as he frantically struggled to his hooves. He looked up, the horn just in his field of view. He breathed heavily as he backed away from both of them, “What did you just DO to me?! What’s with you damn gods and completely messing with my life!?” The false horn began to crackle.

“You may want to…” Discord reached towards Soarin, but was too late.

“AH!” Soarin grunted as the magic collected in the horn and a blast of blue light fired from it. It careened through the air and exploded against one of the stained glass windows. It shattered with a loud CRASH, falling to pieces on the floor below. Discord cringed.

“Oooo… those are expensive,” he scratched his head. Luna quickly moved over to Soarin as the frightened Wonderbolt stared up at the window in horror, a faint blue glow still alight in his eyes. She knelt down and gently draped a wing over his back.

“Relax thineself. Breathe. Concentrate. Think of what calms you. Think of what you hold dear.” She whispered into his ear. Soarin didn’t know what to think. He was terrified. Gods were messing with his body, apparently he had just accidentally used destructive magic, and there was still a pricking pain all over. But Luna’s voice reached him. Her words registered as they slipped into his ears like those of a comforting mother.

As she said, he took slower, deeper breaths. He focused on the floor directly beneath him. Think of what calms him? Rainbow Dash. He wanted Dash. Where was Dash? Think of what he holds dear? Same thing. Dash. He wished she was there, she always comforted him, and she always made the dark magic relax. He wanted the pony he loved with all his heart. He felt like his life was being crushed, tampered with, and manipulated. Thoughts of Dash poured into his mind. He didn’t know who else, or what else to think of. He wanted her to save him from this crap.

“Yes. Good. Keep it up,” Luna spoke softly. Soarin felt the pain lessen. His body twitches mostly subsided, and his vision slowly returned to normal. Luna slowly removed her wing from his back and walked up before him.

“Ah… ahhh…” Soarin sputtered as he dared not move his body, “what… what have you done to me…?” he asked, no longer feeling the slightest bit normal.

“Do not fear, the sensation will calm down,” she reassured him, “You merely experienced your first magic resonance. All unicorns experience it as they mature. It’s when their magic becomes fully functional,” she tipped her head back and forth, “Although, it’s not quite as intense and is usually more gradual… and not associated with a forbidden and absurdly powerful magic, hence why we contained you in the dome.”

“It’s also a small repercussion of using the fake horn,” Discord appeared beside Luna. He leaned down with his elbow out. She glared at him, but realized he was just barely not touching her, “The horn makes it happen all at once because you didn’t have the luxury of growing up as a unicorn. Tell me, how did it feel to have your face slammed through the years of puberty all at once?” He chuckled.

“That’s… not funny.” Soarin grunted as he slowly moved his limbs, worried that a false move would trigger another uncontrollable magic reaction, “You… didn’t warn me?” he frowned.

“Would you have gone with it if we had told you?” Discord shrugged, “Either you went with it or we fight a dark magic imbued husk in the near future. There was little room for consent.”

Soarin felt like he had been duped. Then again, if they had told him it would have been excruciatingly painful, he’d have probably argued against it.

“But, what am I supposed to do now?” he looked up at the broken window. Bat guards were already moving in to clear away the shards of fallen glass while waving off others who had flown in to see what the explosion was. “I…” His body twitched and a couple of blue sparks popped around him, “I can’t go back like this! I’ll hurt somepony!”

“Do not worry, Soarin of the Wonderbolts,” Luna shook her head, “In a few moments your body will feel just as it had before. Once it does, the magic should remain calm with the… horn attached,” she nodded, “How does your head feel?” she asked.

“Oh,” Soarin had completely forgotten about the headaches, but that’s was just it. The pain in his head had faded. It was gone without a trace. He reached up and felt around his head, bumping into the horn a few times. This was weird, how did unicorns deal with this? “Actually, my head feels… perfectly fine,” he blinked. Ridiculous name and painful attachment sequence aside, the “strap-on” was doing everything Luna and Discord said it would. Perhaps he should have a little more faith. They were higher powers after all. Luna wouldn’t do something like this to him for amusement. Discord maybe, but he had just helped her with it. If Discord was HELPING prevent something it had to be serious.

“And you thought we were just pulling your leg,” Discord reached down and detached one of his own legs. He swung it around in the air as Luna rolled her eyes and stepped in front.

“Then it was attached successfully. We apologize for the discomfort, but now all should be well,” she assured him.

“You said something about controlling the magic,” Soarin questioned as his body randomly twitched, “I don’t feel very in control right now,” he said while stealing another glance at the shattered window.

“Your body is no doubt adjusting as we speak. It only takes one or two misfires for the body to figure out how to contain it. This may all be a tad confusing, but all unicorns experience it, you should be in no danger nor shall you pose any danger for your colleagues. Merely wear the horn for now and return to the compound. We suggest resting for a few days. Your body will eventually become accustomed to the new magical canal. We shall summon thee again when we are ready to teach the ways of controlling magic to thee,” Luna bowed her head. Soarin looked up at the horn strapped to his head and sighed.

“Thanks… I guess,” he shook his head.

“Art thou… alright?” Luna asked as he started walking. She herself thought it was a silly question. After everything that just happened to him he was clearly not alright. She only asked out of courtesy. Soarin nodded.

“Sorry, I AM thankful for the help… I just…” he sighed again, “I just feel like I no longer have control of my life… that’s all,” he said somberly as he slowly moved towards the doors.

What had he gotten himself into? Better yet, what were his fellow Wonderbolts going to think? Soarin suddenly shows up in the compound with a fake unicorn horn strapped to his head, what a weirdo! He braced himself mentally for the millions of times he was surely going to have to explain it. Better yet, Fleetfoot was going to give him hell for this. Spitfire probably wouldn’t give a damn and go right back to concentrating on her work. But Fleetfoot… he was never going to hear the end of it from her.

Discord watched as Soarin made his way behind the throne and left. He snorted, crossed his arms, and turned to Luna.

“Lulu, Lulu, Lulu… I’m disappointed in you!” he shook his head. Luna sat down and turned her head away.

“What dost thou mean?” she clumsily avoided the question. She blinked and Discord was directly in front of her face, upside down. She pulled her neck back, but as her head moved, Discord’s moved with it as if he was tethered to her.

“You didn’t tell him,” Discord put flatly. Luna caught on. There was something she kept from Soarin.

“He…” she closed her eyes, “he didn’t need to know,” she opened her eyes to find herself lying down on a psychiatrist bed. Discord sat on a stool beside her while jotting “notes” down.

“So let me get this straight,” he leafed through the pages of the notebook, “You made him wear an ancient practical joke, put him through the pain of amplified magical resonance, scared the feathers off of him, and didn’t tell him how much it’s gonna hurt when…” Discord put a finger to his forehead. Luna avoided eye contact. Discord shook his head and sneered, “My, my Luna, even for a guy like me, that’s cold!” he leaned down near her and bounced his eyebrows. Luna sighed and rolled off the bed.

“We could not bear it. Thou saw the fear already in his eyes. How could we frighten him further? He’s already in a position he should never be in!” she grinded her teeth, cursing her lack of ability to ease Soarin’s suffering.

“Oh Lulu, so young for being so old. Do you think your sister ruled all these eons without a step or two outside the lines?” he chuckled and slithered on the ground, weaving through her legs and rising to meet her face to face, “How much longer do you think you can play this all by the book?”

“Rgh…” she looked away. He hooked her chin with a claw and pulled her face back towards him.

“Sooner or later you’ll have to understand,” he flipped her chin up, “that sometimes we cannot merely follow the rules.”

“But!” she looked back down, but Discord was gone, “But…” she trailed off as she looked around for him, but he was nowhere to be found.

--- To be Continued ---

Author's Note

Ooo... the plot thickens...

Sorry if you were expecting Fleetfoot cracking jokes in this chapter. In general things are going to be taken slower story wise in this one. I want to make sure every detail is addressed and every possible thing is done to make the story clear and epic. It's gonna be a long ride so strap in ;)

Thanks for reading!

Next update will be either Tuesday or Wednesday. :3

Chapter 5: Fancy Training and Easing Troubles

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 5:

“Now?!” Soarin gawked at the royal guard standing outside the door to his room. The guard nodded.

“Princess Luna requests your presence immediately for magic basics!” the guard repeated his orders.

“But…!” Soarin stopped himself and sighed exasperatedly. “Fine. I’ll head over in a moment,” he caved, remembering Spitfire’s concern the day before. No more putting things off. If Luna wanted to do this now, he’d do it now.

“See that you do,” the royal guard nodded before leaving.

“See that you do~” Soarin repeated quietly to himself in a heavily distorted imitation of the guard. “What’s worse, the stiff ass soldiers or the bite-your-face-off-if-you-breathe loonies?” he grumbled, comparing Celestia’s guards to Luna’s.

He was certainly NOT in the mood for this right now. It had been a long day. It was hard to “sleep” the night before. Soarin obviously hadn’t been getting much sleep period due to the dark magic, but he had ways to get a few hours. Unfortunately, the horn proved to make sleeping positions more awkward. He couldn’t let his face sink into the pillow because it would push against the horn. Pressure against the horn actually hurt, as if the magic channeling between it and him had created a fifth limb. The leather strap was also getting annoying. It was definitely going to leave a mark once he finally removed it. That is, if he ever did remove it. He had no idea what was going to happen going forward. He wished he could focus on being a Wonderbolt, and occasionally Dashie. Now he had to worry about this magic all the time. What a hassle, it was only getting in his way.

He had gone through his solo training routine for the day. He reviewed countless double takes, and if he was asked about it one more time he was going to stab whoever did through the heart with the horn. Last but not least, he had just returned from the mess hall and they had officially hit a new low. It was far and away the worst dinner they had ever prepared. Soarin didn’t even know what the main course was. It looked like quiche that had been left out in the sun for a hundred years.

Misty Fly was in front of him in line. When Soarin saw Misty try to scoop some of… it… out of the serving pan, the “food” stayed solid and the whole pan lifted out of the buffet with the spoon. Soarin quickly got out of line and got a deli sandwich instead for the first time in ages. How he managed to go the whole day without another accidental magic explosion was a mystery. He was being sure to keep his anger in check, but his patience had worn thin and then some.

Now Luna called him at seven thirty at night. He was just about to plop into his desk chair and relax. He would obey the calling of a royal, but if Discord was there…

“Rgh…” Soarin growled to himself as he made his way through the halls and towards the castle access tunnel. How bad of a mood does one have to be to consider fighting the god of chaos? Discord could really mess him up if he wanted. REALLY mess him up, but that’s just how much of a damn Soarin didn’t give at the moment.

He made his way into the castle, and after being confronted by the guards, he was allowed through the back door into the throne room.

“Soarin of the Wonderbolts has arrived milady,” a guard who jumped ahead of Soarin informed Luna.

“Most excellent,” Luna’s voice came from around the throne. Soarin trudged in, expecting to see Discord as well as he moved into the open. However, he was relieved to find that Discord was nowhere to be found. This made him feel a little better, but only a little. It was very likely Discord was still there, just not visually. He was known for that.

“Princess Luna,” Soarin greeted with a bow.

“Soarin of the Wonderbolts, we thank thee for answering our summons so quickly,” she stated from up on the throne. “How has the… relic been treating thee?” she avoided using the “technical” term for the false horn.

“I don’t know how you or unicorns live with it,” Soarin answered bluntly while looking up at the false horn. “It’s been getting in my way while eating and sleeping… it also almost got caught in a cable when I was in the gym. I had only one little mishap magic wise, but luckily it was small and nopony got hurt,” he explained fully. Luna kept nodding as he spoke.

“We have had our horn since birth. It is a part of us… In time we are sure thou will adjust to it,” Luna stated, inadvertently answering a question on Soarin’s mind. “In time.” Great, it sounded like he’d be wearing the damn thing for a while. “As for thy magic,” Luna spoke up again, “We hope after tonight, thou shall have finer control of it to avoid future hiccups.”

“You make it sound easy,” Soarin spoke out, “how am I supposed to just use something I’ve never understood?”

“We…” Luna paused and sighed. She stood up and walked down the steps of the throne. “Sadly, we do not possess the teaching expertise of our older sister,” she admitted shamefully. “If thou were but a colt, it would be easy. A young mind is easy to teach, for they develop as their magic develops. Since you are a fully grown stallion with a fully developed mind, trying to push a concept that was once impossible is beyond my skill. However we know of another pony who has some experience in this field.” She smiled as she sat beside Soarin, facing the main entrance to the throne room and pointed a hoof towards the doors. “See him in please,” she ordered the guards.

Soarin watched as the guards moved to the doors. A pony who could teach magic as well as Princess Celestia herself? Soarin had heard of Celestia’s wondrous magical education prowess. The last disciple she had apparently became the fourth alicorn princess. Whoever this pony was, he/she had to be quite something.

The doors to the throne room opened and revealed a pony that Soarin recognized. It was a very well dressed white unicorn stallion. He wore a black suit, had a well groomed blue mane, a small mustache at the end of his nose, and a monocle nestled in his right eye.

“Wait, isn’t that… Fancy Pants?!” Soarin blinked as Luna nodded beside him.

“Tis,” she replied with a smile.

There was no way Soarin couldn’t have recognized him. Fancy Pants was famous Equestria-wide. He was well known for being the most successful businessman in nearly all of history, very generous, open minded, and an expert in more fields than thought existed. Soarin had seen him multiple times at Canterlot Wonderbolt shows. Fancy had a personal penthouse box at Canterlot Stadium. He had also donated large sums of money to the Wonderbolts in the past. Apparently, he was good friends with Surprise’s father. Soarin was also sure 60% of the companies that sponsored their shows were owned by Fancy.

Fancy approached with a smile and immediately held out a hoof. Soarin had to reach down slightly. He had never seen Fancy Pants in person. Soarin was a little taller than him. It was hard for Soarin to picture such a big name stallion who had his face everywhere as being short, but here he was about half a head below Soarin’s height.

“Soarin! The famous, young Wonderbolt “Power Flyer” himself! It is an honor to finally make your acquaintance,” Fancy spoke very formally and confidently.

“Uh… likewise Fancy Pants,” Soarin answered shakily as they shook hooves. This was interesting. Soarin was famous himself, but not quite on the level of the stallion standing before him. He was seldom on the wowed end of a greeting.

“I’m quite a fan of yours, my boy!” Fancy smiled cheerfully. “The Wonderbolts have long been a great source of good business and even better entertainment. The amount of physical work that goes into honing your body and skills must be immeasurable, I’m truly impressed!” he kept showering Soarin with praise.

Impressed by him? Soarin felt it was a little lopsided. Fancy Pants had made more bits through honest means than the value of the entire royal Canterlot treasury and apparently Soarin was impressive?

“We can count on you Fancy of Pants?” Luna butchered his name. Fancy chuckled and bowed to Luna.

“Please m’lady. Just call me Fancy.” His demeanor and action reminded Soarin heavily of Fire Streak. Only unlike Fire, Fancy was much more in control of his formalities. “In fact,” Fancy motioned towards Soarin while still looking at Luna, “if you wish to observe, your highness, by all means. I learned these teaching techniques from your sister after all.”

“Ah!” Luna’s ear perked up. “If that is the case we would love to observe,” Luna’s eagerness was noticeable. Soarin couldn’t blame her. It was clear Luna was struggling with many of the duties usually handled by Celestia. He could only imagine the slight humiliation in having to rely on a unicorn to handle something she, as a princess, should be able to do. Although Fancy had a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his face.

No way, did he know that’s how Luna felt? Did he pick up on her mannerisms in the minute he was in here? Soarin was thoroughly impressed. Not to mention Fancy also said he had learned teaching methods from Celestia. Everything about Fancy made him seem more than qualified to handle anything.

“Now then,” Fancy turned to Soarin and eyed the false horn, “I’m sorry to say that, while briefed on your situation, I have little knowledge of the strap-on,” he said without a single bit of hesitation. Soarin’s eye twitched but Fancy continued on as if he said absolutely nothing wrong. He remained perfectly professional. “However, I’ve been told it shares the same properties of the horns upon us unicorns, so hopefully the same rules apply towards conjuring magical energy,” He paced back and forth. “We also have one additional hurdle to jump over. You’re not a little colt,” he brought up Luna’s earlier concern, “it will be very difficult for you to grasp the concept of magic because you mind and body have developed through the years without it by your side.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Soarin shrugged and shook his head.

“That’s just it my boy!” Fancy turned sharply to him and winked. “First, you must do nothing!” Soarin just stared at him.

“Pardon?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow as Fancy chuckled.

“Have you ever meditated before?” Fancy asked.

“Meditating?” Soarin blinked. “Uh… no,” he answered truthfully.

“Well, the only way for us to open your mind towards magic is to first relax and clear your mind,” Fancy explained as Soarin mistook the explanation.

“Sounds an awful lot like brainwashing,” Soarin said with a snort. Fancy chuckled.

“You’re a tough nut to crack!” Fancy waved his hoof. “The best way to put it is sit down, relax, and let the magic within you flow all on its own. If the brain is less stimulated, the easier it will be for your magic to flow through your mind.”

This shit’s freakin bananas… Soarin thought to himself as he sat down. Clearing his mind? Letting the magic flow? This sounded like a sci-fi movie. Then again, after what happened months back with the Shadowbolts, not much would surprise him. It was kind of hard to forget watching a pony pump herself full of artificial energy and almost explode out of her own body.

Meditation? Fine. This all seemed dumb. If it were anypony else he would have given up by now. It’s because it was Fancy Pants. One does not simply ignore the advice of quite possibly the most interesting pony in Equestria.

Soarin did as he was told. He sat and did nothing. He closed his eyes and tried to relax his body as much as possible. He was pretty good at relaxing his limbs. He had to do it every time he performed the Sonic Blast-off after all.

At first absolutely nothing happened, as one would expect when they are told to do nothing. He was prepared to give up and call it all pointless, but then something did happen. About two minutes after he began, his body felt like it was tingling. Was he doing anything? No. He was sitting completely still. The tingling had covered his body from head to hoof, but seemed to be slightly more concentrated in his head.

Was it the magic? If it was, Fancy Pants knew exactly what he was talking about and Soarin would stop whining. The feeling had a certain… imprint to it. There was no other way for Soarin to describe the sensation. It was almost as if the magic was greeting him, and showing him how to call upon it. No words were spoken and no visual cues were given, but the magic made itself familiar.

“That’s it, my boy!” Fancy suddenly spoke again. “I can see it! Jolly good!”

“Huh?” Soarin opened his eyes. His concentration broke and the sensations faded, but he caught a brief glimpse of a light blue light fading from around him. “What?” he blinked.

“That was much faster than I’d imagined! Your magic came pouring out within minutes of relaxing!” Fancy looked overly excited. “To be expected from one of your skill, you are a fast learner!”

“Whoa, wait, but I didn’t do a thing!” Soarin held his hooves up to stave off the praise.

“That’s what you think!” Fancy winked. “My dear Soarin, relaxing the body and opening the mind is the first step of controlling magic,” he chuckled and nodded.

“You duped me?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “I know it worked, but…” he looked himself over, trying to figure out what exactly he had done.

“Ignorance is bliss, eh?” Fancy spoke up and walked up besides Soarin. “When unicorns first learn to control their magic, they are very young. The world is still very much a mystery to them. They are still in the dark about life as a whole; ignorant to what’s around them,” he tapped Soarin’s head with his hoof. “I told you to do something while leading you astray on what the effect would be. By doing so I emulated the feeling of being left in the dark. You had no idea what to do or what would happen, much like a unicorn colt would upon his first magic lesson. You cleared you mind, expecting to prepare yourself, when in reality it was the key to using magic all together.”

“Uh…” Soarin blinked. Fancy pointed to his own head.

“You felt it didn’t you? The magical imprint? It had no real trace or feeling, but you can recall how it flowed. Correct?” he asked.

“I… yes I did…” Soarin remembered. The sensation was so different than anything he had ever felt before, there was no way he could ever forget it. He remembered exactly how his body felt as the sensation welled up within him. He felt as if he could easily recall it… and do it again. “Like… this?” Soarin relaxed his body, calming every inch of himself to match perfectly how it felt before. The sensation returned instantly. He opened his eyes at the sound of a soft, high pitched hum that came from the false horn. It was glowing, the false horn was glowing. His surprise broke the concentration and the light faded as it had before.

“Just. Like. That.” Fancy nudged him with each word.

Soarin stared dumbly at Fancy Pants. Fancy had just tricked him into learning the basic control of magic. He turned and looked at Luna. Her eyes were wide with wonder. An ordinary unicorn had just wowed an alicorn goddess. That sold it. Soarin would listen to and follow everything Fancy Pants said. Ordinary? There was nothing ordinary about this unicorn.

“Now, we don’t have much time tonight, but I at least want to teach you the bare minimum that all unicorns know, no matter how well versed in magic they may be,” Fancy’s horn came to life and a small marble floated out of his suit pocket. “Levitation,” his magic placed the marble at Soarin’s hooves.

“Okay…” Soarin nodded as he eyed the marble.

“A large part of magic is visualization,” Fancy began again. “It’s a mixture of calling upon the magical sensations within you and visualizing what you wish to happen. In a way, think of it as making the impossible possible. You have to believe you can do something before your magic can make it happen. Then the amount of control you have over the magical sensations in your body dictates how well the belief is manifested. That is something that grows over the course of practice and time.” He motioned to Luna. “I’m sure you have borne witness to the incredible magical prowess of the princesses in the past. They use magic no different than ours, but they’ve had thousands upon thousands of years of experience, hence their ability to do what most of us cannot.”

“So in short,” Soarin rubbed his chin and locked his eyes on the marble, “I have to call on the sensations and believe I can move the marble into the air at the same time.”

“Precisely!” Fancy pointed sharply at Soarin. “Give it a go!”

Soarin swallowed and looked at the marble. He called upon the sensations and felt the tingles swirl around him again. Upon hearing the soft noise emit from the false horn he tried to switch his thoughts towards moving the pebble, but as soon as he did, the sensations stopped and the magic dissipated.

“Whoa… that’s harder than it sounds,” Soarin scrunched his mouth as he stared down at the marble.

“Indeed my boy,” Fancy tapped his hoof against his own horn. “This is why it will be difficult for you. It is not a matter of you being a pegasus, it is a matter of you being a fully matured pony,” Fancy’s magic came to life and lifted the marble with ease. “You have grown up and lived your whole life with your brain fully focusing itself on everything you do. Using magic requires you to figuratively cut your brain in half. You must be able to control the magic with one half while imagining what you wish to do with the other, and as you can see,” he made the marble fly rings around Soarin’s head and put his hoof up, “it comes naturally to one who has done it their whole life. Having created one disconnect makes it easy to form others, hence how I am able to conjure the magic, move the marble, make this hoof motion, and speak to you all at the same time,” he placed the marble back at Soarin’s hooves. “The disconnect is easy to establish when you are young and still growing. Since you are fully grown, it will be quite difficult to get this part down.”

“Yikes,” was the only response Soarin could muster. He would never look at a unicorn the same way again. He assumed magic came as easily to them as flying came to pegasi. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

“If you wish, we can let you dwell on it for a while and practice on your own,” Fancy suggested. “I’m not expecting this part to go as smoothly as—”

“No, let me try again,” Soarin waved his hoof before focusing on the marble again. Fancy smiled at his eagerness while flashing a grin to Luna.

Luna was pleased as well. Soarin showed little interest in learning to control the magic, which was problematic. If Soarin didn’t learn, the magic would consume him and most likely run rampant. This was the first time she had interacted with Fancy Pants. She could see now why her older sister placed so much faith in him. He was a unicorn of seemingly endless expertise. Most impressive.

Soarin tried. He tried, and he tried, and he tried, but the marble refused to move. After his fifth attempt, he dropped to his legs, panting. It felt like it was getting harder.

“Hm?” Fancy looked Soarin over curiously. Something wasn’t right, Soarin shouldn’t be as tired as he showed. Being a pegasus was not a factor in any of it. The only thing that could cause the fatigue was the magic, but… “Your highness,” Fancy turned to Luna.

“Yes?” Luna broke her eyes from Soarin and faced Fancy.

“What was the manner of the magic Princess Celestia imbued him with?” He asked. Luna bit her lip and glanced away.

“We suppose… you should be aware,” she sighed, “Soarin of the Wonderbolts was imbued by a powerful forbidden magic. It was the only way to save him,” she kept looking away from Fancy as if ashamed. Fancy nodded.

“That would explain the quick wear on his body. Thank you Princess,” he trotted up to Soarin.

“Damn!” Soarin cursed as he got the aura to appear around the marble, but it dissipated before it could move.

“Soarin,” Fancy walked up to him, “It has been brought to my attention the nature of the magic within you. Magic use can drain a pony over time, but from what I’ve seen, your magic is so powerful that it drains you very quickly,” Fancy explained sternly and seriously. “The strain should not be a risk to you, but I suggest, as a pony who has used magic for a long time, not to overexert it. Over time you may be able to withstand it for longer, but for now, let us call it a night,” he finished. Soarin simply nodded as Fancy spoke. He had learned quickly that this pony was very wise. Ignoring his advice didn’t seem like the smartest thing to do. However, Soarin wanted to try one more time.

“Just one more!” Soarin focused back on the marble. Fancy protested, but Soarin ignored. His competitive side had taken over. He wanted to make this damn marble move! He did all as he had before. He called the sensation, and this time he tried as hard as he could to multitask. He could do it. He could do it!

“Oh, my!” Fancy stepped back as Soarin’s horn shinned brightly and a larger light blue aura surrounded him. The magic appeared around the marble and it slowly and shakily rose up. “Dear me! You’ve got it!” Fancy cheered. Soarin squeaked one of his eyes open to see the marble barely up off the ground. He had it! He was holding something with magic! He—

“AH!” Soarin cringed as a sharp pain shot through his whole body. The marble shot upward violently, getting lodged into the stone ceiling overhead.

“Oh, wow…” Fancy adjusted his monocle as he realized the marble wasn’t coming back down, “That’s some strong resonance…” he looked towards Luna, who was staring up at the ceiling.

“At least he didn’t break a window this time,” she said as they both looked towards Soarin. He was sprawled out on the ground, breathing heavily.

“Heh… I got… it…” he said with a smile in between breaths. Fancy shrugged and smiled,

“Well then! I believe I have quite an interesting student on my hooves!” He beamed towards Luna. “He should rest now, we’ll continue another night.”

“We agree,” Luna smiled back while waving for the guards to come help Soarin.

Soarin’s head was hazy, but he felt some hooves helping him up to move. Well, he messed up something in the process. It felt like he did after the dark power took over multiple times in the past, worn out, and barely conscious. But he just used magic! He really, actually used magic through his own will. It was different from when he couldn’t control it. He had experienced something that no other pegasus ever had. It felt pretty cool.

Maybe this whole magic business wouldn’t be so bad. Besides the whole… strap-on thing.

“Alright! I heard the first time!” Dash yelled as an annoying knocking at her door refused to cease. She had just finished her “appetizing” breakfast and was in the middle of cleaning the dishes. Somepony really wanted her to answer the door. She wiped off her hooves and approached the door, ready to give the persistent knocker a piece of her mind. “WHAT?!” She barked as she opened the door.

“Sheesh, is that how you greet your friends too?”

“Huh?” Dash knew it wasn’t Fluttershy, she was barely capable of knocking at all. She didn’t know who it was going to be, but she wasn’t expecting… “Thunderlane?” she looked the black, silver maned pegasus up and down as he stood outside her door.

“Hey, what’s up?” Thunderlane said as if he came to her door all the time. Dash eyed him carefully then smirked.

“What, did you make Applejack angry again? Look she’s—”

“How about hello?” Thunderlane cut her off while folding his ears back. Dash stopped and sighed.

“Fine, hello, why are you on my property?” she asked flatly. Thunderlane rolled his eyes then forced a smile.

“Wanna come get breakfast?” he asked completely out of left field. Dash lifted an eyebrow at him as she fully stepped out from behind her door.

“Uh…” she wasn’t sure how to answer, “One, I already ate. Two, What did Applejack do?”

“This isn't about Applejack!” he fumed while arching his neck back. Dash chuckled.

“Okay, okay, what is it farm lover?” she teased as she asked.

“Look, just come with me okay? It’s fine that you already ate,” he turned and readied his wings, but Dash didn’t budge. He glanced back at her, but she just shook her head.

“I gotta schedule to keep, Thunderlane. Training and—”

“It actually has to do with that,” he cut her off again.

“Huh?” Dash was slightly curious.

“Look, just follow me alright? I told the others you’d be there,” he spilled a little info.

“Others? Who?” Dash questioned as she stepped out of her house and stretched her wings out. “Wait, you know I don’t get along with Flitter and Cloud Chaser,” she flattened her brow. Thunderlane shook his head.

“It’s not them. Just come on, you’ll see when we get there. Trust me,” he winked.

“If you say so…” she rolled her eyes, “but if you waste my time I’m leaving,” she made clear as they both took off.

She followed close behind Thunderlane as they glided through the air. Dash couldn’t help but wonder after his sharp reaction. She glided up beside him with a smirk.

“I don’t like that look. You’re gonna annoy me aren’t you,” he looked away with a sigh.

“Bet your ass,” Dash chuckled. “How are things with you and Applejack?” She paused to let him groan. “Every time I ask her she tries to punch me,” Dash added with a snide grin.

“We’re… fine,” Thunderlane dodged the question.

“Aw, c’mon,” Dash nudged him. “Why all the secrecy? It’s not like you two haven’t been seen around.”

“I’d just rather not talk about it. She’s just a little hesitant to show any sort of affection in public, and it’s getting to me a little,” he paused and rolled his eyes. “I just talked about it didn’t I?”

“Kinda, yes,” Dash smirked as she twisted her body and flew backwards in a reclined position. “Of course she’s hesitant. This is Applejack we’re talking about. If it makes her look like less of a hard-ass, she’s not gonna do it. Have you talked to her about it?”

“I have…” Thunderlane tipped his head back and forth, “but whenever we do, it ends with her yelling at me and storming off. We’re fine later, but she refuses to listen.”

“That’s a nice pair of relationship pants, she’s wearing, huh?” Dash sneered.

“Yeah, she’s… wait, WHAT?!” Thunderlane glared at Dash. Dash burst out laughing as she spun back around to fly normally.

“Listen Thunderlane,” she began as they pitched down, “you can’t back off when you want to prove a point to A.J. You’ve gotta stand your ground and push the subject, or else you won’t get through a whole sentence. Trust me, I’ve done it more times than I can count,” they landed outside the hayburger joint.

“I guess,” Thunderlane answered simply as he thought it over. Dash looked where they landed.

“Hayburgers? For breakfast?” Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“They have a breakfast menu here, you know,” Thunderlane chuckled. “Ah look, just in time!” He pointed back into the sky. Dash followed his hoof to see two more pegasi flying side by side. The first was unmistakable. White, blond buzzed mane, over pumped body, wait for it…

“YEEEAHHH!!!!!!!” Bulk Biceps yelled out as he waved at Thunderlane. The other pegasus came into view. She was hard to see at first, but as she drew near, Dash could make out a familiar, less than smooth flight pattern.

“Hiiii!!!” She yelled down. The goofy voice was also a clear sign as her grey body and straight yellow mane came into view.

“Bulk and Derpy?” Dash thought out loud as the two landed.

“Awesome! C’mon let’s get some food!” Thunderlane quickly beckoned them inside.

“YEAH! BURGERS!” Bulk squeezed his way through the door.

“Hi Rainbow Dash!” Derpy waved as the door closed and bumped into her. “Oops! Teehee!” She played it off and entered. Dash just blinked and shrugged. Talk about a motley crew. Oh well, apparently Dash was there for a reason. She’d go along with it.

Having just eaten, Dash merely asked for a cup for water. She walked over to the drink dispenser as Derpy bounced up beside her, holding her own cup. Dash put her cup under the water dispenser and pushed the button, filling it close to the brim. A strange noise that sounded like the machine was having a hernia screeched out beside Dash. She turned and looked to see Derpy smiling happily with a muffin wedged in the cup. Dash quickly looked between the drink dispenser and Derpy.

“Derpy, how did you get a muffin from the drink machine?” Dash asked in confusion. Derpy blinked, her eyes switching positions.

“Muffin button,” Derpy replied while she grinned at the muffin sticking out of her cup.

“But—”

“NAM!” Derpy giddily bit into the muffin and floated over to a table. Dash just let it be, Derpy was happy, why try to figure it out?

Dash followed Derpy to the table. She was actually surprised. She never knew the local Hayburger served breakfast. Granted, it was probably not good for you, but there were a lot of ponies there. She scooted into the booth across from Derpy. Bulk and Thunderlane followed soon after. Thunderlane had an egg English muffin. Bulk had the same, only ten of them. Thunderlane sat beside Dash and Bulk nearly pressed Derpy to the wall as he sat down. Thunderlane quickly spotted the muffin Derpy was happily eating out of a twenty ounce cup.

“Huh?” Thunderlane looked back at the menu, then to Derpy. “They don’t sell muffins here, Derpy how did—”

“Muffin button!” She repeated for Thunderlane.

“Wha—?”

“MUFFIN BUTTON, YEAH!” Bulk yelled out, blowing back Thunderlane’s and Dash’s manes.

“Yay, muffin button!” Derpy yelled out with him.

“Okay, okay! Muffin button! Sheesh you two, we’re in public,” Thunderlane chuckled as he glanced around at weird looks their table was receiving. Dash took a sip of her drink and eyed them all.

“Okay, so mind telling me what's going on Thunderlane?” she asked, eager for an answer. Thunderlane smiled and looked at Derpy.

“You wanted to tell her right Derpy? Go ahead,” he nodded. Derpy looked up from her muffin and smiled.

“Dashie! We’re gonna tryout for the Wonderbolts with you!” She smiled so wide it looked like her mouth was going to pop off. Dash nearly spit out her water.

“What?!” she stared dumbly at Derpy, and then moved her eyes to Bulk and Thunderlane, “Uh, you guys are kidding right?” she asked seriously.

“Does it look like we’re kidding?” Thunderlane chuckled.

“YEAH!” Bulk followed. Thunderlane shook his head.

“Bulk, that would be a no,” he said flatly. Bulk sat silently for a moment.

“Oh, whoops,” he said quietly before popping a whole egg sandwich in his mouth.

Dash wasn’t sure what to say. Thunderlane and Bulk had attended flight camp with her, but flight camp was nothing. This was the real deal. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it was most likely going to be very physically taxing. Derpy was coming too? She wouldn’t last a second!

“Uh, you guys know it won’t be the same as flight camp right?” Dash explained reluctantly.

“Oh, we know,” Thunderlane chuckled. “It’s an open tryout. We can go if we want.”

“But,” Dash looked at all of them, “I’ve been training my tail off for this! Have you guys been getting ready?” she asked.

“Well, no…” Thunderlane began. Bulk slowly leaned towards him while giving Thunderlane the stink eye.

“Do you even…”

“Bulk, we’ve been over this. No, I have not lifted,” Thunderlane answered him quickly. “Look Dash, don’t think we haven’t been seeing you train hard,” he suddenly brought up.

“You’ve been awesome!” Derpy blurted out while bouncing in the booth seat. “We wanna go with you!”

“But… why?” Dash was beyond curious. Apparently they wanted to go because of her? Why would they do that?

“Dash, you’ve been… very inspirational,” Thunderlane said while rubbing the back of his head. “I’ll speak for all of us here, none of us are expecting to be recruited,” he admitted a little shamefully. “Hell, we haven’t even done a fraction of the work you’ve done… but the three of us recently ran into each other while watching you train. We’d all been a bit inspired by you. Even if we don’t get selected, I think we all feel like at least supporting you. That’s if you don’t mind,” Thunderlane smiled. Dash didn’t know what to say. Bulk and Derpy both smiled at her as well. She was inspiring others again?

Just how many lives were being changed by Soarin? It was like a cascade effect. Soarin inspired her, and then through her work, she was inspiring many others.

“You guys don’t have to do that for me,” Dash put a hoof on her chest. “Really, it’s gonna be very hard, I don’t want anypony to get hurt,” she explained truthfully.

“We all have other reasons too actually,” Thunderlane nodded and looked to Bulk and Derpy.

“I GET TO SEE MY PAPPY!” Bulk shouted while bouncing his pecs.

“I just wanna see you be awesome!” Derpy smiled, swaying back and forth while still nomming the muffin.

“I…” Thunderlane hesitated, “I’ll be honest, I want Applejack to think I’m tougher,” he looked away. Dash lifted an eyebrow. She knew it. Thunderlane was a terrible liar.

Talk about unexpected. Dash still felt the three were in over their heads, but now she would be among a few others she knew well. So many ponies claiming to be inspired by her. Dash wasn’t used to this, but it felt good. She smiled sheepishly.

“Wow guys… thanks… really, I’m speechless,” she chuckled and smiled at all of them. The smile quickly turned from sheepish to confident. “Well now I feel like helping out a little these last couple of days. What say you all to joining my workout today?”

“YAY!” Derpy cheered.

“YEAH!!!!” Bulk, of course, replied.

“I dunno…” Thunderlane grimaced, Dash elbowed him in the side.

“There you go again. Don’t be passive. Applejack will eat you alive like that,” she chuckled. Thunderlane growled, but smiled right back.

“Fine, I’m in,” he nodded.

“Alright team,” Dash pounded a hoof on the table, suddenly excited. Maybe this would be fun. “Finish up your breakfast, we’ve got drills to do!”

“No, I’m fine. Like I said, just a little surprised, what’s the occasion?” Soarin asked as he flew behind Spitfire and Fleetfoot. They were heading in the direction of Rusty’s diner. Spitfire glanced back at him.

“Well, it’s our day off. I figured since, you know, you’re life has been hell recently that we’d go have a nice breakfast together,” she explained as she reached over and pulled Fleetfoot back into formation.

“Snrk, uh, wha?” Fleetfoot shook her head and blinked. Soarin chuckled and pulled up beside Spitfire.

“Like I said, I’m fine, but how did you get her out of bed so early on a day off?” Soarin made a head motion towards Fleetfoot as she struggled to stay awake mid flight.

“There was some kicking and whining,” Spitfire paused to pull Fleet back towards them again, “but I eventually convinced her.”

“Convinced?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. Spitfire lifted one right back to him. Soarin shrugged and smirked.

“She’ll be fine once we get her a cup of Rusty’s Express Extreme,” she sighed and just hooked her arm with Fleetfoot’s to prevent her from going off course. “And by convince, I meant she owed you for the…” Spitfire tried to hold it, but one snort escaped, “For the princess comments,” she finished while glancing at the fake horn on Soarin’s forehead.

“Spitfire, really?” Soarin sighed. “It wasn’t funny the first time either.”

“Oh relax Soarin, like you aren’t gonna get it non-stop from Rusty,” she said as they glided down and landed in front of Old Rusty’s. “It sucks, yes, but you’re stuck with it, so might as well have a little fun with it.”

“If only it were ‘fun,’” Soarin grumbled to himself. Spitfire, dragging a half asleep Fleetfoot along with her, pushed the doors open. They got one step into the diner before—

“WHOA-HO! Look at this!” Rusty wheeled up on his skateboard and nearly flung himself at Spitfire and Fleetfoot. He put them both in gentle headlocks. “How’ve you lady-wings been? It’s been a dog’s age since I saw ya!”

“Rusty I was here last week—”

“DOG’S AGE I TELL YA!” he cut off Spitfire. Fleetfoot fell asleep. Rusty glanced at Fleetfoot and blinked. He released Spitfire and dug his hoof into his apron pocket, pulling out an air horn. He held it right in front of Fleetfoot’s face and blared it into her face.

“AAAHHH!!!!” Fleetfoot flinched hard, reached up, and punched Rusty across the face. He kept his grip on her regardless and turned his head back to her with a big smile. Fleetfoot gasped when she realized what happened. “Oh god! Sorry!”

“Ya still got plenty o’ bite!” he chuckled and let go. She fell to the ground awkwardly and stood back up, quickly feeling sleepy again, “And how are ya doin’ Soa—” Rusty froze in place when he eyed Soarin. He stared specifically at the fake horn strapped to Soarin’s head. Soarin looked away with his ears flopped down and his cheeks puffed. “AHEM!” Rusty cleared his throat. He turned around, messing heavily with his apron, mane, and face. When he turned back, his mane was smooth and parted, his beard was combed and twirled at the edges, his face was free of all grease marks and he held his apron over his front arm like a towel.

“Rusty…” Soarin sighed, trying not to chuckle.

“Right this way, m’lady,” Rusty motioned towards a booth. Spitfire lost it at “m’lady.” Rusty grabbed Fleetfoot by the tail and dragged her along with them.

Rusty sped off as soon as he showed them to a table. Spitfire dragged Fleetfoot into the booth seat beside her and Soarin sat opposite. Soarin frowned as he glanced around. There were a couple of other ponies and families present. Almost all of them made confused glances towards him. He liked Rusty’s because it made him feel normal, just coming to get breakfast like everypony else. Even here, his new “addition” made him stand out. How long would things last like that? He did find that he appreciated Rusty’s humor though. Rusty didn’t make a big deal about it, or even ask about the horn. He just went right for a joke. It was better than how most had gone about it, and by most he meant Fleetfoot.

“Sheesh Fleet, when did you go to bed last night?” Spitfire asked as Fleetfoot slumped into the booth seat and fell asleep again with her head resting against the back rest.

“The usual for everypony?” Rusty rolled up without a notepad, assuming they would all get the same thing. Soarin and Spitfire both nodded. Rusty’s eyes narrowed as they landed on Fleetfoot. He sped away, returning quickly with a large pot and a wooden spoon. He held the pot over her, slipping her head into it. “WAKE UP AND SMELL WHO KNOWS WHAT!” he yelled while beating the pot with the wooden spoon. Fleetfoot jolted awake and her wings flew outward, smacking Spitfire in the face.

“AHHH!!! WHAT THE HELL?!” she yelled out as Rusty removed the pot from her head. Rusty quickly rapped her on the nose with the wooden spoon.

“No! Bad pony!” he pointed the spoon towards a table with a family. A young colt and filly were laughing hysterically at Fleetfoot’s expense. “Watch your language around the kids…” he pointed the spoon at Soarin, “and the princess please.”

“Hey!” Soarin tried to retort, but Rusty sped off.

“God, he’s on a roll… today…” Fleetfoot, despite just having a pot rapped over her head, started swaying and leaned forward. Her head landed face down on the table with a thump. Spitfire flattened her brow and looked around for Rusty.

“Rusty, I think we need—”

“WAY ahead of ya!” Rusty rolled up to their table with a tiny tea cup and a coffee jug labeled: “Express Extreme” in magic marker with bubble letters and a lightning bolt drawn beneath it. He placed the cup in front of Fleetfoot and tipped the jug towards it. “I’m giving her a double shot,” he snickered.

“That won’t kill her will it?” Spitfire asked seriously as she watched Rusty pour the coffee perfectly into the tiny cup.

“I said double shot, not triple shot,” he chuckled. He finished pouring and eyed Fleetfoot still asleep.

“I got it this time,” Spitfire reached down by Fleetfoot’s leg and gave her a poke right where her thigh met her pelvis.

“YEEEEP!” Fleetfoot woke with a start, blushed and covered the spot. Soarin and Rusty glanced at each other, and then back to Fleetfoot.

“I didn’t need to know that,” Rusty shook his head. “Now drink up missy!”

“Oh? Thanks…” She said sleepily, forgetting all about a “weak spot” of hers that had just been exploited. How did Spitfire know about it? Fleetfoot said a lot of things whenever she got drunk, that’s how.

Fleetfoot nestled the tiny cup between her hooves and poured it into her mouth. It was barely enough to take a full sip, but then—

“Whoa…” Fleetfoot blinked, “WHOA!!!!!” she shook her head back and forth vigorously, “Brrrrrrrrrlaaaaaagh!” she finally stopped and blinked, wide awake. She coughed twice and pounded her chest. A small puff of smoke flew from her mouth. “Gah! What do you MAKE that with? Dynamite?!”

“SHE LIVES!” Rusty cheered before speeding off on his skateboard. Soarin and Spitfire were holding back fits of laughter as Fleet cracked her neck and twitched a couple times.

“So,” Spitfire spoke up, “Soarin have you had a chance to put together your tryout plan yet?” she made conversation. Soarin shrugged.

“I’ve got some stuff put together. Don’t worry, I’ll have it ready in two days. I’ve just been… occupied.” he looked away.

“I saw you go back to the castle last night,” Fleetfoot spoke up as she sat completely upright with the caffeine turbo-charging her alertness. Soarin hesitated, but why would he keep stuff from them? He was just a little passive after being called a princess by Fleetfoot. Spitfire was right, he would just have to get used to it and forge on.

“Yeah I was learning how to use this,” Soarin pointed to the false horn.

“Use it?” Spitfire’s ears perked up, “I thought it was just to keep the magic from, what did you say? Overtaking you?” she tried to recall his explanation.

“Nah, I gotta actually use it too. After last night my respect for unicorns increased about a thousand percent. You have no idea how hard it is,” he explained casually, but both Spitfire and Fleetfoot were staring at him in astonishment.

“So you can use magic now?” Spitfire asked, slightly eager. Soarin blinked and looked up at the horn.

“Kind of? I didn’t get very far, I only learned how to grab things and sort of levitate them,” he admitted. Fleetfoot leaned across the table and got in his face.

“SHOW US!” she bounced up and down. Spitfire grabbed Fleetfoot and pulled her back into the seat.

“Control the buzz Fleet,” she chuckled as Fleetfoot jittered slightly.

“I’d rather not show,” Soarin answered honestly. He didn’t want anything to go wrong.

“Do not fear my princess! We merely wish to witness the wonder of thy feminine powers!” Fleet teased. Soarin glared at her from across the table, and then smirked. He closed his eyes and relaxed his body. He felt the sensation of the magic build up quickly. Spitfire and Fleetfoot’s eyes widened as the false horn began to glow softly. Soarin opened one eye and glanced towards Fleetfoot. She lifted an eyebrow as Soarin looked towards her, then—

“AH!” she yelped and quickly reached a hoof towards her plot. She glanced at her rear, then back at Soarin. He had his head turned to the side, magic dissipated, and a smirk curling on his lips as he snickered. “Did you just pinch my plot?!” she fumed as her face turned bright red.

“Now how could I have done that Fleet? I’m sitting over here!” Soarin shrugged and failed to hold back a grin. Spitfire sighed and shook her head.

“Can I take you two anywhere?” she grumbled as Fleetfoot leaned back and crossed her hooves.

“I’m telling Dash,” she stuck her tongue out at Soarin.

“Like she’ll believe you,” Soarin jeered right back to Fleet.

“Speaking of Dash,” Fleetfoot leaned back down and rested her arms at the table while snidely bouncing her eyebrows at Soarin, “I dunno about you, but I think she’ll like your… sixth leg you got there,” she pointed at the horn. Soarin looked at her curiously for a moment. Then it hit him, but Spitfire spoke up first.

“Fleet, that’s just weird,” she groaned as she rubbed her hooves on her forehead. “And thanks for the image, but you’re one to talk about weird sexual encounters,” she rested her face on her hoof to stay turned towards Fleetfoot.

“I dunno Spitfire,” she turned to Soarin, “what could be weirder than a ‘head-dance?’” she snickered. Soarin was about to fire back, but Spitfire saved him the effort.

“Well Fleet, there was that one time…” she trailed off.

“One what?” Fleetfoot blinked and tipped her head.

“Remember that one night when you… and Lightning Streak…” Spitfire cringed slightly as she spoke.

“Wha—OH!” Fleetfoot’s eyes widened and her ears shot up. Soarin stared blankly at Fleetfoot. He swore he just heard Spitfire mention something about Fleetfoot and Lightning Streak.

“That was weird,” Spitfire put simply.

“Um… well… I was drunk,” Fleetfoot folded her ears back.

“Yeah. Still weird,” Spitfire repeated before turning to Soarin. “Don’t ask,” she suggested.

“I’ve no urge to know,” Soarin shook his head very uncomfortably.

“ORDER UP! I TOTALLY WAS NOT EAVESDROPPING ON YOU KIDS!” Rusty sped by and dropped all the food on the table in almost a blink of an eye. It was oatmeal, eggs, and fruit for all three. The Wonderbolt diet was strict, but it was a sacrifice they made for their bodies to be in top condition. Soarin rolled his eyes when he saw his dishes were fine silver.

“Rusty, joke’s over,” Soarin commented on his fancy set up.

“Huh? Oh whoops, how did I screw that up?” Rusty reached forward and switched Soarin and Spitfire’s dishes so Spitfire had the silver.

“I honestly don’t know what this is implying,” Soarin shrugged as Rusty scooted away laughing.

“So new princess!” Fleetfoot turned to Spitfire as they dug in. “How’s your prince been?” she asked with a smirk. Spitfire stopped mid spoonful of oatmeal and gave Fleetfoot a very annoyed look.

“Why do you keep asking about Wave and me?” Spitfire growled. Fleetfoot’s smile grew wider.

“Oh! Okay, we can talk about Wave Chill! You should’ve said so in the first place!” Fleetfoot giggled. Spitfire’s eyes widened for a moment, realizing she walked right into it.

“Fleet, we’re just good friends.”

“Bull—” Fleetfoot clamped her mouth shut as Rusty appeared in front of her holding the wooden spoon at the ready again, “—lony!” she corrected herself. Rusty nodded and sped off.

“Fine Fleet,” Spitfire rolled her eyes, “I like him okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?” she grumpily shoved an overloaded spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth.

“Nope!” Fleetfoot shook her head and leaned into Spitfire. “Have you… chilled his wave yet?” she asked goofily. Spitfire nearly choked on her oatmeal. Soarin just casually ate his food as the ladies had their girl talk. He had been wondering about Spitfire and Wave Chill himself, but unlike Fleetfoot he wasn’t one to take a crowbar to somepony else’s personal life.

“Fleet, I’m his superior officer!” Spitfire exclaimed after clearing her throat. “It is not proper for the two of us to partake in such extremely intimate relations!”

“Oh, drop the formal talk,” Fleetfoot waved a hoof at her. “You’ve clearly thought about it.” Fleetfoot flapped her ears up and down. Spitfire blushed and looked back towards her food.

“Fine, maybe I have… but it’s still wrong for us to do anything. My duty comes first as the captain of the Wonderbolts, I can’t let desire drive my actions,” she stated seriously.

“Have you ever had a steady coltfriend before?” Fleetfoot suddenly asked. Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“No, what does that have to do with anything?” she refused to look back at Fleetfoot, hoping she would be left alone.

“Oh, so you’ve never had… an option… when the heat kicks in, have you?” Fleetfoot sneered.

Soarin sighed uncomfortably. This was becoming too much information, but at least they weren’t focusing on him and his horn. Maybe that was the point of all this. They just wanted to take him out and be casual to show him he’s no different despite the horn. He could get behind that, he just had to not listen to this awkward conversation.

“What?” Spitfire looked towards Fleetfoot in confusion.

“You heard me. You’ve never had a stallion of your own when the fun times start,” she pointed between Spitfire’s legs. Spitfire shifted so her legs were closed and completely under the table.

“How will that make a difference? I had ways to cope before Wave, I’ll just do the same,”

“Trust me, it’s different,” Fleetfoot chuckled. “It’s almost impossible to resist when you have a stallion right there. It’s like free candy,” she nudged Spitfire in the side. Spitfire scooted as close to the wall as she could. She had a small blush constantly on her face. Fleetfoot was really getting on her nerves about this.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sticking to my duty and what’s right. I don’t care how hard it will be,” Spitfire pounded a hoof on the table. Fleetfoot just eyes her for a moment before giggling softly.

“You think you can hold it in,” she lifted an eyebrow at Spitfire.

“Yes.”

“You think you’ll be able to resist him.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re pitting your sense of duty against the untamable sex drive you’ll experience while in heat with a stallion nearby for easy access.”

“What’s your point?” Spitfire glared at her. Fleetfoot kept giggling and patted her hooves together.

“Did you know that if you put a little hat on a snowball it lasts a long time in hell?” Fleetfoot managed to say before she lost her composure and burst out laughing. Spitfire stared for a moment, before catching on.

“Oh shut up,” she shook her head and went back to eating.

Soarin laughed quietly to himself. This was great. He had great friends to lean on. This was exactly what they were trying to do. Have a normal, good time. He’d been put through a lot of shit lately and this was exactly what he needed to feel better.

He smiled and went on eating his breakfast as Fleetfoot continued to harass Spitfire.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Woo! Long chapter for everyone!

Check it out! First time Fancy Pants has appeared since Hard Pressed! It's about time he had another role.

Want to know more about my version of Fancy Pants and his seemingly endless amount of expertise? See my older story-> Hard Pressed to Impress (how shameless of me xD)

Thunderlane is dating Applejack?!?! When and how did that happen? See my older story -> The Weight of Responsibility (Double the shameless xDD)

I hope you enjoyed some good old character interaction! Thanks for reading! :)

(Next one might be up tuesday or wednesday, i have a busy weekend >_<)

Chapter 6: Departure

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 6:

One month short of a full year ago, Dash met the Wonderbolts in person for the first time. What a wild spin the meeting put on her life. She had encountered a magical tornado, dressed up and danced, made new friends with remarkable ponies, and fought magic imbued mercenaries to the death.

Most importantly though, her life collided with that of a very special stallion: Soarin. Not only did she fall in love with him, he inspired her to push her limits. Because of him she grew faster, stronger, and wiser. Now here she was with a chance to realize her dream much sooner than she ever thought possible. The tryouts had arrived.

She’d be gone for a long time, possibly forever if she was selected for the elite squad spot, but Ponyville and all of her friends would always be in her heart.

This was the opportunity of a lifetime, but even so, that didn’t make it easy to say goodbye.

“I’m going to be fine Fluttershy, and so are you. I promise I’ll visit as much as I can,” Dash said as she dropped her duffle bag on the platform and hugged Fluttershy tightly as she wept in Dash’s arms. “Stay strong for me, and take good care of Tank and my place while I’m gone okay?” Dash put her at arm’s length. Fluttershy hiccupped and nodded while trying to wipe her tears away with her wings.

“Okay,” she squeaked quietly as she spoke.

A cool autumn breeze blew through the train station. It mixed with the warm air that surrounded the simmering steam engine as it awaited the boarding passengers. The conductor was walking up and down the platform, trying to get all the passengers on board so they could depart in a timely fashion. This process was being slightly delayed by a small group of eager pegasi who were saying their goodbyes before leaving on a rough journey. It would be a challenge, and only one was expected to succeed, but their confidence ran high, and their wings twitched in excitement.

Rainbow Dash was nervous. She was beyond nervous, but this time her nerves weren’t holding her down. It was a mix of nervousness combated with eagerness: Eagerness to show up and wow not just the Wonderbolts, but all of Equestria. It was her time, and she had friends coming along to see her through it.

Dash looked towards all of her friends. They all made the trip to see her off and none of them were taking it very well. Twilight seemed to be taking it the best. She was clearly sad, but not in tears. Pinkie’s hair was completely deflated, but she had a smile on her face, happy that Dash was on her way towards something important to her. Rarity was shedding a tear or two, and quickly hugged Fluttershy as she fluttered back over to them. Where was Applejack though?

Dash looked over to see Bulk Biceps and Derpy climb aboard the train. Behind them stood Thunderlane, with Applejack quickly approaching him. Of course. They were a more than a few yards away, but Dash could pick up most of what was being said.

“Ya don’t have to do this ya know. I ain’t gonna think differently of ya if ya stay,” Applejack said with a frown. Thunderlane smiled at her and shook his head.

“A true stallion never backs down from a challenge,” he said with a slight chuckle. Applejack gave him a harsh glare.

“A ‘true stallion’ always bites off more than he can chew too, apparently. This is gonna be rough! Ya seen how much Dash has been trainin’. I don’t want ‘em killin’ ya out there!” she said while jabbing him hard in the chest.

“Oof!” he grunted as she pulled her hoof back quickly.

“Er, sorry,” she tugged her hat down.

“I dunno, you might kill me first if I stay here,” Thunderlane joked. Applejack pushed her hat back up.

“Look, just… come back safe alright?” she eyed him with concern. “I’ll be waitin’ for ya,” she removed her hat and looked him in the eyes.

“Count on it,” Thunderlane placed a hoof on her shoulder. Applejack glanced over at the rest of her friends. Dash quickly looked away just in time for Applejack not to see her. Dash glanced back after a few seconds to catch Applejack hiding both her and Thunderlane’s faces with her hat as she leaned in.

Dash sighed as she watched the two of them share their usual “hidden kiss.” She missed Soarin. She missed him so much. She was heading to the Wonderbolt compound, but it was for tryouts, not pleasure. She would be beyond happy to see him, but would they even get a chance to say hello? Soarin would have to play it professional. It was his job after all.

She couldn’t let it bother her. This was an important moment in her life. Soarin was going to approach his role with full focus and professionalism. Dash would do the same. The time for pleasure would come. It was time to wow ALL of the Wonderbolts, not just him.

Still though, she was so jealous of both Applejack and Fluttershy. If they needed a hug or comfort, all they had to do was take a small walk to find their stallion. Soarin was a tiring hour flight away, and he was always busy. The Wonderbolt life was both taxing and action packed, but she would gladly do it every single day for both her dream and for him.

“Dash!” Scootaloo’s voice suddenly caught Dash’s ears. She turned to see the little orange filly gliding as fast as she could towards the platform. “Whoaaa!!!” she lost control, and fell into a pile of fallen leaves at the base of a tree beside the station. She quickly pulled herself out and sprinted up to Dash whilst covered in orange, yellow, and red.

“Scoots!” Dash smiled, but was caught off guard as Scootaloo thrust herself at her and hugged her tightly. Dash quickly hugged Scootaloo back as the filly squeezed her tightly.

“I can’t believe I almost missed you…” Scootaloo said with a small sniff. “It’s gonna suck without you here,” she said shakily as she pushed back and stared up at Dash. Dash smiled and ruffled Scootaloo’s mane.

“Hey, no tears kid! It’s time for me to show the rest of Equestria what I’ve got. While I’m gone I need you to cause enough mischief for the two of us combined okay?” she said with a wink. Scootaloo squeezed her eyes shut to prevent tears from falling and nodded.

“I’ll be extra awesome to make up for you,” she said while pounding a hoof to her chest.

“That’s what I like to hear,” she patted Scootaloo’s shoulders. “I hope you’re right behind me in a few years Scoots. I think a Wonderbolt uniform would look awesome on you.”

The train’s whistle blew loudly and the conductor called for all aboard. Scootaloo sniffled, and failed to fight back one tear as she backed away from Dash.

“See ya everyone!” she waved to all her friends as she slung her duffle bag over her shoulder and made her way towards the rear coach. Her friends waved back while yelling goodbyes and good lucks. She passed Applejack as she neared the car. “I saw that,” she jeered as they crossed paths.

“Stuff it,” Applejack huffed. Dash chuckled and took another step, but, “Hey Dash?”

“Huh?” Dash stopped mid step and turned to look at Applejack. Applejack wasn’t looking at her.

“Keep an eye on Thunderlane for me… okay?” she asked. Dash stayed silent for a moment, and then smiled. Applejack really liked him, didn’t she? If Applejack was asking a favor of her, then she really would do anything for him.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t slip up too much,” Dash joked, but assured Applejack. Applejack chuckled to herself before turning to Dash briefly.

“Give ‘em hell,” she tipped her hat. Dash nodded back before the two parted ways and Dash climbed aboard the coach. She looked back one more time and waved to her friends before she stepped into the coach. It was the first step on her new journey.

“Seriously Fleet?” Spitfire rolled her eyes as she leaned forward on her desk.

“What?” Fleetfoot asked nonchalantly as she reclined on the couch to the right of Spitfire’s desk.

Soarin sat in a folding chair to Spitfire’s left as he listened to Fleetfoot give her plans for the tryouts. He was busy trying to figure out the best way to explain his portion. He hadn’t heard Fleetfoot’s, but apparently Spitfire didn’t like it.

“You can’t always be silly Fleet,” Spitfire looked sternly at her. “These are tryouts to gain both new recruits and somepony to fill in for Rapidfire.”

“Duh, that’s why I put together this plan,” Fleetfoot casually defended herself.

“Fleet, everything you have is slightly… prankish. We want to encourage them, not piss them off,” Spitfire slid her hoof in a circle on her desk while tipping her head down to intensify her stern stare.

“Prankish?” Fleetfoot sat up and crossed her hooves while pouting. “I’m hurt you think so lowly of me!” she said overdramatically.

“Rivet has designed multiple types of obstacle courses for us. It’s hard to miss the ‘trend’ in your selections,” Spitfire kept her stare constant.

Rivet was the Wonderbolts’ chief engineer of their obstacle courses and other equipment such as their protective training gear and their machines that produced clouds or other elements such as controlled fire, mist, wind, and even weak lightning. He wasn’t widely known outside the Wonderbolts, but was commended within them for his hard work and many different mechanical skills that allowed them all to train on such a high level. He preferred to keep his “fame” within the compound. He was quite brilliant, but a little sheepish.

He was most popular amongst the Wonderbolts for a specific reason though. Whenever he designed a course, he did so with a specific Wonderbolt by his side. This allowed the Wonderbolts to each have personal courses to challenge themselves or other fellow wingmates. It added a little personality to each course, and sometimes it was easy to tell which course belonged to whom.

His mention by Spitfire reminded Soarin that he wanted to talk to Rivet at some point. Soarin wasn’t sure exactly yet, but as he learned to use his magic he was sure Rivet could design a thing or two for him that would help with practice. He’d get to that point later though. He was still trying to figure out how to report his plan. Luckily Fleetfoot was keeping Spitfire occupied.

“You fail to convince me I’m ‘up to something,’” Fleetfoot made hoof quote motions at Spitfire.

“Every course you’ve chosen was a personal course he made for Surprise,” Spitfire pointed out. “Don’t play dumb with me Fleet.”

“Would you rather I used the courses designed with Silver Lining at his neck?” Fleetfoot shrugged. “I mean if we wanted to kill the cadets…”

“Don’t try to dodge your way out of this one Fleet,” Spitfire negated Fleetfoot’s attempt to change the subject.

“Okay, okay, fine,” Fleetfoot admitted. “So I wanna mess with them a little, but it’s more than that.”

“This I gotta hear,” Soarin chuckled as he picked up on their conversation. Fleetfoot pointed at him.

“Listen up, princess. I bet it’s better than whatever test of “manliness” you put together…” she paused and glanced at the fake horn, “or the recent lack thereof,” she added with a sneer.

“Fleet,” Spitfire tapped her hoof gently on her desk.

“Oh right,” Fleetfoot turned back to Spitfire as Soarin glared daggers into the side of her head. “Think about it, all of Surprise’s courses are based on wacky and random things happening. I dunno if you’ve been asleep this past year, but I’d say wacky and random about sums up how things have been lately.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Soarin commented.

“Quiet duchess, I’m talking here,” she put herself between Soarin and Spitfire as she continued. “I want to throw the unexpected at them! What better way to do that than with courses designed with a loony at the wheel?” she made circle motions with her hoof beside her ear before winking.

“You know, just because you actually thought it through, I’ll let you do it,” Spitfire chuckled. “I don’t like it too much, but you are right about the strange part. It could help us weed out the impatient ones,” she gave a nod of approval.

“I knew you’d see it my way,” Fleetfoot hovered back over to the couch, batting Soarin in the face with her tail as she passed.

“So Soarin,” Spitfire spoke up before Soarin could retaliate. “Anything on your plan besides what we discussed?” she asked.

“CoronationHAAACHOO!! Is it dusty in here?” Fleetfoot waved her hoof in front of her nose while failing to hold back a smirk. Soarin flattened his ears as he turned to her.

“How about you go play outside or something?” he suggested seriously.

“Okay mom!” Fleetfoot got up and left before Soarin or Spitfire could say anything else.

“She’s really pushing it,” Soarin grunted, “I mean, it’s not as bad as Rapidfire used to be, but at least I could punch him.”

“She’ll get bored eventually, you know how it goes,” Spitfire grinned as she leaned back in her chair.

“I dunno, I think you’re both enjoying it,” Soarin eyed her suspiciously as her grin grew slightly wider.

“Like I said at Rusty’s Soarin, just have fun with it. Now,” she clapped her hooves together twice, “your tryout plan.”

“Oh right,” Soarin blinked. “Well, like you suggested, I’m gonna run them all through a couple of courses I helped design as well as do a few other tests to gauge strength. It’s going to focus more on their ability to use their strength instead of just how strong they are.”

“Right, right…” Spitfire nodded in agreement. “Which of your courses are you going to use?”

“Three, four, and eight,” he put simply. Spitfire’s eyes widened for a brief moment.

“Eight?”

“Yes, eight,” Soarin confirmed.

“Soarin, that course is a death trap for anyone but you,” Spitfire leaned forward while eyeing him incredulously.

“I know. I have a special test planned for it. It will fit heavily into the overall quality we are looking for in terms of the elite spot. Trust me,” he assured her. She leaned back again and sighed.

“If you say so, just don’t forget our liability practices. If they do it willingly, then fine, but if any of them get severely injured when you could’ve prevented it, it’s on you,” she made clear for him as Fleetfoot suddenly re-entered the office. She bouncily trotted back over to the couch while giggling and reclined on it again. Soarin eyed her suspiciously.

“What, was the playground closed?” he teased. She only giggled harder.

“Hehehe! Nope!” she answered. Soarin didn’t like that. Not one bit.

“What did you do?” Soarin asked while narrowing his eyes.

“Nothing that wasn’t gonna happen eventually,” Fleetfoot giggled even harder. Spitfire rapped her hoof against her desk again to grab their attention.

“I’ve got a meeting with the squad captains in fifteen minutes, so let’s wrap this up. Last thing, Soarin,” she focused on him. He looked away from the giggly mess of Fleetfoot on the couch to pay attention. “I just want to remind you one more time…”

Soarin immediately picked up on what was coming. She didn’t have to speak any further for him to know what was about to happen. He held back a growl as she continued.

“If Dash shows up for these tryouts, which she better, you must make your selection fairly, no favors for—”

“Spitfire, really? Again?” Soarin lost his restraint. Spitfire paused and looked at him sternly.

“I trust you will not let your feelings—”

“If you trust me…” Soarin stomped towards her desk, “then why do you keep telling me this?! Do you trust me or not?!”

“Soarin, calm down,” she ordered.

“NO!” Soarin pointed at her. Her eyes widened and turned into a glare. “This is the fifth time! Dash won’t be treated any differently!”

“Soarin, this goes for more than the selections. You do realize that the two of you in a relationship may have an effect on how she's viewed by the other recruits?” she tried to explain, but Soarin didn’t listen.

“Stop giving me crap about Dash! I know my duties! I’ve done it every single year! You need to stop treating me like I forget how to do my own job!” he kept barking. Spitfire stood from her desk as he kept yelling.

“Soarin, you’ve got five seconds to calm down before I remind you, the hard way, how I’m supposed to do my job!” she leaned over the table to try and force her will on him. It never worked. Soarin was one of few who could withstand her presence when things got serious. Soarin’s false horn began to glow slightly and crackled a little as his emotions escalated.

Soarin was tired of this. He loved Spitfire as if she were family, but she always tried to force an “older sibling who knows better” role with the two of them. The subject of Rainbow Dash seemed to start many quarrels recently, because unlike with other subjects, Soarin NEVER backed down. What happens when two unstoppable stubborn forces collide? Everything is screwed, unless something breaks them up.

“Son of a bitch, will you two quit it?!” Fleetfoot landed roughly on Spitfire’s desk, placing herself right between both of them. “Get over yourselves! Seriously! I feel like a marriage counselor!”

“But she—”

“No.” Fleetfoot pressed her wing over Soarin’s head.

“Fleet he—”

“NO!” she did the same to Spitfire. “Both of you just shut up and let things be. We have the tryout greeting in an hour so let’s get ready for it,” she calmed down as she spoke about something of greater importance just around the corner. Soarin and Spitfire both sighed as Fleetfoot lightened her wing grip on them, but were both surprised when Fleetfoot’s wings suddenly pushed them forward. “Now kiss like lesbians and make out… er, up.”

“Fleet!” Soarin yelled as his and Spitfire’s faces got smushed together. The two pushed off each other and shook their heads out as Fleetfoot rolled back laughing.

“Okay fine, we get it,” Spitfire rubbed her nose. “Was that last part necessary?”

“I thought the princess would like to experiment,” Fleetfoot snickered while motioning to Soarin. He rolled his eyes as he had millions of times at her already about it.

“Whatever,” Spitfire stood up. “Let’s try it this way. I trust each of us to do a professional job. Simple enough. Let’s get moving. I still have to meet the other captains. Be at the train station in an hour to pick them all up,” she glanced at Soarin, but neither said anything as they all left the office and went their separate directions.

As Soarin walked towards his room however, a certain few words by Spitfire struck him hard. He had ignored them initially out of anger, but she had a point. It was no mystery that he and Dash were a couple, at least among the current Wonderbolts. This could actually prove to be a bit of a problem. He would literally have to avoid her. To maintain a professional air, he had to show no favor towards any one pony trying out. This meant even just talking to them on the side. As much as he wanted to see her again, he’d have to watch his every move.

But then something else occurred to him. If he selected her for the elite spot, and either Spitfire or Fleetfoot did as well, she’d be a high ranking Wonderbolt instantly. What sort of gossip would that cause though? It was inevitable. There would be suspicion that she was given a free ride. It would quickly spread outside the compound. The media would be on both his ass and hers faster than they could blink. She’d be pushed up against the wall to be perfect. One slip-up and the story would be that she was given a free ride regardless of skill.

He did not want her to be drowned by the media. He hated it, and he was more than certain she’d hate it too. Suddenly he felt like the situation had been flipped around. He found himself wondering if not selecting her would be for her own good. She’d make a recruit for sure, and it would spare her any sort of media strain.

No. He shook his head out and grunted. He’d give her a fair chance. It would be unprofessional of him to approach it that way too.

Great. He knew this was going to be hard, but now it was going to be even harder. He also couldn’t shake the thought that he was forgetting something.

“Huh?” Soarin stopped in front of his door. The word “Princess” had been written in sharpie above his nameplate. “Fleetfoot…” he grumbled as he pushed it open.

That’s right, he was kind of half alicorn now. That would be an interesting conversation once he and Dash finally got the chance.

This was all of course, assuming she was even coming.

Dash swayed gently in her seat as the train cars clattered down the tracks. The ride to Canterlot wasn’t very long, roughly half an hour if the train’s journey was unhindered. One would think Dash would take advantage of this to visit Soarin on a regular basis, but the tickets were expensive, a good twenty to thirty bits more expensive than a ticket to anywhere else. Canterlot was a large hub for trains to anywhere. The station itself was almost as large as Ponyville. It was smack in the middle of the richest part of town, and its upkeep required a pretty steep fare by the railway companies. Not even a small town like Ponyville was exempt from the expensive ticket prices, so travel to and from Canterlot was either a long, tiring flight or a hole in the wallet for Dash.

Dash sat quietly with her duffle bag beside her. She had packed light. She brought along her flight goggles, bathroom supplies, a copy of the first Daring Do book, a picture of her friends, and of course, her favorite picture of her and Soarin. What else would she need? She was more than certain there would be very little downtime. If there was she could either go for walks or read her book (for the millionth time). Actually, who was she kidding? These tryouts were probably going to be beyond rough. Any free time would probably be spent trying to regain feeling in her body on a bed.

She frowned and glanced over at her companions. Bulk, Derpy, and Thunderlane all looked as cheerful as they could be. She hoped they would be okay through all of it. The only one of them that wasn’t flat out exhausted after five minutes of training with Dash was Bulk. Then it took him five more minutes to catch up with them because… well… speed wasn’t his thing.

She decided to talk with them a little. She knew the brief reasons for them all coming along, she wanted to know more. Bulk was sitting in his own seat back to back with Derpy and Thunderlane, taking up the whole thing as usual. Thunderlane and Derpy seemed to be talking already, so she decided to converse with Bulk first. She left her duffle bag on the edge of her seat, keeping it in plain sight so she could keep one eye on it as she shuffled towards the seat flanking Bulk’s. Now for the challenge, could she converse with him without her face being blown off?

“Hey Bulk?”

“YEEEEAAAH!?” Challenge failed. Dash shook her head out and blinked before sitting down.

“So what’s up big fella? Excited for the tryouts?” she covered her ears preemptively. She saw him yell and waited till he was finished. “So last time I was in Canterlot I had a training day with the Wonderbolts. I met your dad, Pec Bounce.”

“Aw, yeah! That’s my pappy!” Bulk bounced his pecs as he referred to his dad.

“He’s pretty tough,” Dash nodded as Bulk kept flexing his chest.

“It’s gonna suck, but I get to see him at least, YEAH!” he yelled as he flexed. Dash tipped her head. Sure, she didn’t think he was going to make it either, but that attitude would never do, not while she was around.

“Hey, don’t talk like that. These are tryouts, you never know what they might be looking for,” she reached over and jabbed him in the arm. He sat quietly and blinked as he thought over her words. “You’re going for it. Give it your all. Leave nothing behind. You do it when you lift weights right? You may not be the best flyer, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it your all,” Dash smiled and leaned back. Bulk blinked again.

“Huh,” he looked down. “Huh,” he said again. “You know what, I CAN GET BEHIND THAT!” Dash felt her mane and ears get blown back again, but she shook her head out with a smile.

“That’s better,” she winked as she glanced around him. Thunderlane had gotten up to walk around and Derpy was digging through her bag. Dash stole a quick glance to see her own bag still present before getting up. “Stay positive big fella,” she said to Bulk before making her way around to speak to Derpy.

Dash walked up and sat across from Derpy, simultaneously snickering because Derpy had her head and half of her body shoved into her duffle bag. What was she looking for anyway? Dash jumped slightly when Derpy suddenly pushed her entire body into her duffle bag. Dash blinked to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Derpy had somehow managed to fit herself into a bag that was barely the same size as her.

“Derpy, what the heck are you doing?” Dash spoke up with a chuckle. Derpy’s head popped out of the bag. She smiled when she saw Dash.

“Hi!” she said cheerfully before diving back in.

“What’cha looking for in there?” Dash leaned forward.

“Nuthin’. It’s comfy in here!” Derpy’s voice came from the bag. What an adorable goofball. Derpy had always been a bit… strange. It wasn’t Pinkie Pie strange. It was a different breed. Derpy found satisfaction in the strangest little things. She wasn’t dumb or missing a few wires in the head by any means. Some ponies just had their own way of doing things. Derpy was just especially good at being loveable in her own special way.

“Say Derpy,” Dash began as she got up and sat next to the jostling duffle bag, “why exactly are you coming with? I can agree with me being awesome, but there must be something else.

Derpy’s head popped out of the bag again. She blinked twice, her eyes switching positions both times.

“Um,” she looked down. So there was something else. It looked like it wasn’t easy for her to admit though.

“Sorry Derpy, if you have personal reasons I won’t—”

“I just wanna be cool like you,” she said out of nowhere. Dash froze and her ears stood up. Derpy wanted to be like her? Was she talking to Derpy or Scootaloo?

“Derpy?”

“You’ve always been so awesome. I always hear ponies talk about how fast and strong you are. I just wish ponies would talk about me too.” Each word was a little shaky. Dash was most certainly not expecting that. “I know I’m not the best flyer, if I at least try they’ll notice me, right?” she looked up at Dash with uneven puppy dog eyes.

“Aw, Derpy…” Dash rubbed the back of her head. Talk about embarrassing. She had another admirer she never knew about. “You shoulda said something sooner, I would’ve helped you.”

“I know but,” Derpy’s head lowered so only her eyes were above the rim of the bag, “I didn’t want to get in your way,” she averted her eyes shamefully. Dash quickly leaned forward and pulled her slightly out of the bag.

Dash felt like she was full of crap. How many ponies had been feeding off her hard work all these years? How did she not notice it? She had known Derpy as long as she had known Fluttershy. How did this go right over her head for so long?

“Derpy, I know I might be gone for a long time once this is over, but I promise you I’ll do something to help you. I don’t ever want you to think you’d be wasting my time. Okay?”

“Okay…” Derpy slid back down into the bag.

“Promise me you won’t hide from it anymore. That’s the first step to improving yourself,” Dash added with a smile. Derpy looked Dash over as she smiled at her. She slowly rose back up and grinned sheepishly.

“Thanks Dash, you’re the best.”

“Shucks…” Dash chuckled. “Now get comfy again,” Dash encouraged as Derpy nestled herself back into her bag.

Dash glanced about, catching Thunderlane walking back towards the seat. She quickly got up and grabbed hold of his wing as he came near.

“Ow! What the—?” he yelped as Dash pulled him over to her seat. She wanted to talk to him, but she was tired of keeping an eye on her bag from afar.

“C’mere sissy, I wanna talk,” she teased as he sighed and let her yank him.

“Oh boy, I can hardly wait to be looked down upon,” he rolled his eyes as he sat down.

“Oh stuff it, I’m not that bad,” Dash chuckled. “So I saw that little exchange between you and Applejack,” she bounced her eyebrows. Thunderlane flattened his ears.

“So? Wouldn’t you kiss your special somepony goodbye before going somewhere?”

“Fair enough,” she leaned back and crossed her hooves. “So you wanna look tougher for Applejack, huh? This is one hell of a way to prove a point. The tryouts are gonna be brutal,” she turned her head and looked out the window. Canterlot was approaching in the distance.

“If that’s what it takes, I’m gonna do it. She’s still too soft on me, like I break if I so much as fall off a chair. I feel like I need to be better for her, to be stronger. I want her to acknowledge me as an equal, not something she has to watch out for,” he trailed off while sighing.

“Thunderlane, that’s just how she is. I hate to break it to you, but she’s like that with everypony she’s acquainted with,” Dash explained with a shrug.

“Okay, how about I want to prove I’m not a ‘flower?’” he suddenly said. Dash flinched.

“Oh, she told you that one? Sheesh, being the element of honestly must suck,” Dash laughed awkwardly.

“I just… ugh… forget it,” Thunderlane grunted and glared at the floor.

“What?” Dash pried. Now she had to know. It involved Applejack so she had to know.

“It’s nothing… I just…” Thunderlane struggled to decide whether or not he wanted to tell. “Just hear me out on this okay? It’s your fault things are like this,” he suddenly accused. Dash blinked and retracted her neck a little.

“My fault?” she pointed a hoof to her chest.

“You have to see it from my perspective Dash,” he motioned both of his hooves towards her. “I can’t help but shake the feeling that she’s a little… jealous of you.”

“This just keeps getting better and better,” Dash lifted an eyebrow. “Please, continue while I try to understand how the male brain works,” Dash said sarcastically. Thunderlane completely ignored her.

“Dash, think about it. You two both have a stallion. We are both pegasi. One of them is a world famous stunt flyer, male face of the whole organization, stronger than an earth pony and one of the fastest pegasi in this day and age. The other? Me. I’ve got nothing on him. How am I supposed to feel?” he thrust his wings out as he pounded the seat cushion. Dash just stared at him, eyes, ears, and brow all flat.

“You’re a dumbass,” she put plainly.

“You are the BEST pony to talk to Dash, you know that?” he arched his neck back against the seat.

“No Thunderlane, that’s a load of crap. She cares about you. Not me or Soarin… you. She asked me to look after you before we left just now.” Dash explained. Thunderlane’s head quickly whipped back down as he heard it. “You can do all this guy toughness crap if you want, but don’t think for a second she’s ashamed of you, alright?”

“Huh,” Thunderlane looked down and blushed lightly. He shook his head. “Fine… but I still want to look tougher,” he nodded, making up his mind.

“Stallions…” Dash shook her head. She’d never understand how they thought. The process was just so much different than a mare.

“Oh look,” Thunderlane suddenly pointed out the window. They had entered Canterlot and were making their way through the less desirable parts of town. The station could be seen in the distance. They were roughly five minutes away.

“Here we go,” Dash bashed her hooves together as her heart beat quickened in excitement. It was time. It was really, actually time to pursue her dream: A dream that would hopefully become a reality.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Woo! New chapter a day early :)

More of a transitional chapter than anything. Nothing really important happening besides insight on how the characters are feeling about certain things, and of course, more Fleetfoot shenanigans xD I'm honestly having more and more fun writing for her by the day, i can see why she's one of my favorite characters.

So to give everyone some perspective here... on just how long this story will be.

I've split my outline into four major parts...

This is currently... the halfway point of part one ;)

I'm not rushing this one for a contest, so expect a long, fun, and quality ride :D

Thanks for reading!

Next chapter should be up Friday maybe... if not, Saturday at the latest.

Chapter 7: Arrival

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 7:

Soarin glided to the ground outside Canterlot Central Station. He was a few minutes late, but if anyone grilled him for it, he’d ask them if they could get a spandex headpiece on with a horn attached to their head. He dared not take it off in case it had the same repercussions as putting it on did. He had to slip the headpiece over the leather strap around his head, and then poke a hole through the forehead section for the horn to fit through. It effectively made a process that was supposed to take a few seconds take almost ten minutes.

Soarin pulled his goggles off and let them dangle around his neck as he landed. He squinted and contorted his face a couple times in discomfort. His goggles felt tighter because the strap of the goggles had to also go around the strap of the… strap-on. He grumbled as he started trotting. It was just a SILLY FAKE HORN and it was causing uniform issues. He’d have to get his goggles adjusted and possibly get a uniform tweak because the small hole in the material was making the headpiece hold awkwardly against his face.

With yet even more problems to think about, Soarin approached the station doors.

The only building that beat Canterlot Central Station in terms of awe factor was the royal palace itself. Despite being the second most beautiful building in Canterlot, it still most definitely held the rank of largest. The building spanned more blocks than Soarin ever tried to count. It was one large rectangular structure built with hardened sandstone. Along the outer walls were multiple tall windows with large pillars flanking them. The doors to the station appeared to be massive from a distance, but as one approached it became for show as fifty doors leading in and out lined the edge. So many ponies came and went through these doors that it was actually difficult for one to squeeze in despite how many entrances and exits existed.

In the center above the entrance was a sculpture carved right out of the stone. The sculpture consisted of three faceless ponies: earth, unicorn, and pegasus, all staring up at statues of the divine princess sisters, depicting them rearing on their hind legs with their backs turned to one another. In the center of this sculpture, between the normal ponies and the sisters, was an enormous clock with ancient numerals on it. Rails extended in every direction, from above, below, and from within the building itself. From here, one could effectively buy a ticket to any location in Equestria, granted you had the bits.

The interior of the building was equally impressive. The main hall of the station was almost completely wide open save for a few rectangular pillars close to the edges. Even with the hundreds of ponies moving about, Soarin could walk in a straight line with both wings extended and not even come close to batting someone with them. The ceiling was incredibly high and arched at the top, painted green to make it stand out from the light brownish sandstone color the rest of the structure possessed.

At the other end was a large ticketing area, but Soarin walked right through it towards the most important part of the station: the prime platform. It was not only where he was told to meet the other Wonderbolts, it was also the main hub of the station. All the rails that extended out from the station converged at this one point. The prime platform extended the wide length of the building with arrival platforms branching out towards the rails. Each platform was beside a “dead-end” track, one for each location traveled from. It didn’t take long for Soarin to spot the sea of blue-clad ponies.

Soarin made his way across the prime platform towards the gathered Wonderbolts. Squad two and three were there along with Spitfire and Fleetfoot, all donning their spandex uniforms as well. Soarin remembered the briefing: they were expecting cadets from Manehatten, Cloudsdale, and Canterlot. A few others may be mixed in (like Ponyville, he hoped) but the main bulk would be from the three large cities. Thinking of Ponyville, of course, made Soarin excited about Dash arriving, but he couldn’t help wondering who else might show from the small town, if any. The only other pegasi he knew in Ponyville were Thunderlane and Fluttershy. One of those two was most definitely not going to show.

The plan was for squad two to gather the cadets from Manehatten and for squad three to handle the Cloudsdale arrivals. The lead squad would pick up any others that arrived and put them with the Canterlot cadets upon reaching the compound. After Spitfire’s introduction and instructions, each squad would take their group and get them situated in the compound for the tryouts to start the very next day.

Fleetfoot took notice of Soarin as he approached. She glanced at the horn sticking awkwardly through the head piece of his uniform.

“Pfff,” she quickly suppressed a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Soarin rolled his eyes as he approached. “I didn’t really have a choice.”

“I don’t know what’s funnier…” she snickered as she shook her head, “thinking about how much of a pain that must’ve been, or the fact that we have a princess Wonderbolt,” she let a few giggles escape.

“You know, I’m just gonna start ignoring you. Maybe that’ll get you to stop,” Soarin sighed as he looked around at the others.

“Challenge accepted, your highness,” Fleetfoot smirked as something much more interesting caught her eyes. “Oo!” she hopped once and her wings flared out.

“What?” Soarin looked back just in time before his head was yanked down to Fleetfoot’s level by her wing.

“Speaking of somepony being girly,” she pointed a hoof. Soarin followed it until his eyes landed on Spitfire sitting on a bench off to the side. Soarin glanced slightly left and saw Wave Chill approaching her, smiling sheepishly as she greeted him. Soarin frowned.

“Fleet, just let them be. Don’t you think you’ve given her enough shit about it already?” Soarin tried to reason with Fleetfoot, which was like trying to talk a lion into being vegan.

“Never!” she proclaimed with a devilish grin while squishing her cheek against his. She let him go and trotted quietly towards them. Soarin shook his head and went to check in with the other squads.

“Hey,” Spitfire said quietly as she smiled at Wave Chill. She glanced briefly at the others to make sure they weren’t watching or making a big deal out of it. She completely missed the fact that Fleetfoot was gone from view. Wave sent a smile right back.

“How are you ma’am? I mean, Captain Sp… sorry… Spitfire,” he looked down and blushed madly. Spitfire chuckled.

“At least you caught it this time. Just be at ease. Unless we’re in a professional situation just relax,” she explained as she swayed back and forth slightly.

“I’ll get it eventually…” said Wave as he took the spot next to her on the bench. “I’m just not used to it. Silver really grinded respect for authority into my brain over the years, it’s hard to switch off,” he sighed.

“Well, if he doesn’t like it,” she leaned into him subtly, “tell him he can take it up with me. He needs to lighten up anyway. I’m all for being strict, but he takes it about fifty steps over the line,” she joked.

“That’s still putting it lightly,” Wave rolled his eyes with a smile.

“How are the mares?” Spitfire asked.

“Same as always,” Wave answered. “I'm surprised Windy is still up,” he pointed over towards squad two as Soarin conversed with them. High Winds was swaying slightly and her eyes were half closed. Soarin suddenly glared at Blaze. It looked like she was making fun of the fake horn. “And Blaze…” Wave chuckled. “It’s a wonder Silver hasn’t punched her in the face yet. I can’t believe you two are related, you couldn’t be more different.”

“Loosely related,” Spitfire clarified with a grunt. “Let’s make that clear.”

“As always,” Wave smiled. The two just looked at each other for a few moments, Spitfire taking in his features. Upon examining his face, Wave looked like he had something on his mind. She was about to ask, but he spoke up before she could. “Say, Spitfire…” he trailed off quickly.

“Yes?” Spitfire tipped her head. Wave looked away briefly, face flushed. He wasn’t good at this. Being a stiff “yes-pony” and acting all soldier-like was mostly a cover up. He really didn’t know how to handle personal matters smoothly.

“Well, you know… after all this recruitment work and what not… we should… maybe we could… I think…” he turned his head away in the other direction as his thoughts raced. He stopped dead as his eyes met Fleetfoot’s about a foot away. She was staring starry eyed at both of them, her hooves squishing her cheeks, and a very quiet, high pitched, “EEEEEEEEEEEEE~” was escaping her mouth.

Spitfire blinked and turned as well. Her eyes widened in surprise, then glared as she saw her wingmate. Her yellow color was replaced by a bright red blush atop the glare. Before either of them could react, Fleetfoot pressed her hooves against the backs of their heads and forced their faces together.

“AND THEN…” she said in a low voice, “…THEY KISSED,” she giggled as their noses bumped. Spitfire quickly swiped Fleetfoot’s hoof away with her wing and stood up from the bench. She glared daggers at Fleetfoot, who only giggled uncontrollably while clutching her stomach.

“SHIPPER ON DECK!” Surprise suddenly appeared between them, standing up straight on her back hooves and saluting.

“Hey Spitfire!” Soarin called from near the arrival platforms. “First train!” he yelled out. Spitfire’s attention was drawn away from Fleetfoot. She blinked as she saw a diesel locomotive pull into Manehattan’s platform. She gave Fleetfoot another brief, flat stare and glanced at Wave again before gathering herself.

“Let’s get this started. Look alive everypony,” she quickly got into character and approached the first train.

Dash’s heart pounded vigorously in anticipation as their train pulled up to the Ponyville arrival platform. She had her duffle bag slung over her back, and was standing in front of the exit before anypony else had even gathered their belongings yet. She lurched slightly as the train came to a complete stop and smiled very wide as her wings began to twitch.

This was going to be so awesome. She got to see Soarin and she got to try out for the Wonderbolts! It was double the awesome! Dash blinked and looked down. Priorities Dash, get the priorities straight. She took a deep breath. She got to try out for the Wonderbolts and she got to see Soarin on top of her! Er… DAMMIT! ON TOP OF IT! IT! IT! IT!

She had to remember what was going on here. She had been psyched for the tryouts sure, but she couldn’t let Soarin distract her. There was no way in hell she wasn't going to see him, hopefully talk to him, and maybe spend some time with him, but TRYOUTS! This was her chance to fulfill her dream! Focus on THAT!

The solution to this sudden little brain dilemma: Soarin would kick her ass if she didn’t focus and give it her all. It was simple, Soarin loved her, and if she didn’t try her hardest and give it her best… well… that just wouldn’t be Rainbow Dash. Problem solved.

With her mind reset on her objective, Dash went back to being giddy.

“I could be wrong, but I think you’re excited,” Thunderlane joked as he, Derpy, and Bulk all lined up by behind her. Dash was visibly bouncing now and her wing feathers were puffing out a little here and there.

“What tipped you off?” Dash remained sarcastic in her bouncy state.

The conductor opened the door from outside and Dash was ready to sprint out onto the platform, however she didn’t get far.

“Whoa!” she came to an abrupt halt before getting sucked out into a sea of ponies that were departing a train on the other side of their arrival platform. Dash looked over the crowd as the other three joined her. The crowd was all pegasi: some big, some small, mares and stallions, and there was A LOT of them. There had to be at least seventy at first glance. It was to be expected since Ponyville’s railway shared an arrival platform with Cloudsdale’s, but there were so many and the platform was only wide enough for six ponies to stand side by side. Each pegasus also carried a bag of some sort that suggested they were staying for a short while.

This was one thing Dash had not taken into consideration. The Wonderbolts were holding open tryouts to bring in new recruits… but they were also looking to fill in an open elite spot. With the possibility of being allowed right into one of the Wonderbolts’ twenty elite squads, the turnout was going to be enormous! And that wasn’t counting the already existing Wonderbolt recruits that would most likely join the tryouts as well.

“That’s… a lot of ponies,” Derpy squeaked while peeking out from behind Dash.

“Well, at least we know where to go,” Dash turned and nodded to the rest of them. “Let’s follow the crowd,” she beckoned them as they slid into the flowing river moving towards the prime platform.

The crowd was dense but it was easy to stay together because they put Bulk in front. His girth effectively plowed a nice comfortable space for the other three to walk behind him. Dash eventually hopped up and stood on his shoulders as they moved. She wanted to make sure they didn’t just pass right by the Wonderbolts. After a rough walk, Dash caught glimpse of an even bigger crowd gathering and she was more than certain she could see Wonderbolt uniforms beyond it.

“Bulk! Thattaway!” she tapped the back of his head with one hoof and pointed with the other. Bulk blinked and spotted the larger crowd himself.

“YEAH!!!” he yelled as he shifted left, accidentally knocking two pegasi over as he did.

“Sorry,” Thunderlane apologized to the two as he followed behind Bulk’s new warpath through the crowd.

“Wow…” Dash’s mouth hung agape as she saw even more Pegasi pour from a Manehatten arrival platform. With their crowd and this new one there was effectively two hundred pegasi gathered at least. This was not going to be a cake walk. Dash already expected a challenge, but this only added to it.

“Alright, everypony shut their damn shit the hell up and listen!” A familiar voice rang out from above as they joined the massive gathering. Dash hopped down from Bulk’s back and looked up past the pony in front of her. It was… Spitfire? It looked like her: yellow body beneath the uniform and an orange blown back mane. Her voice was similar too, but… the Wonderbolt was moving sporadically, yelling obscenities with a hint of amusement in her voice, and was smirking in a devilish way Dash had never seen Spitfire do before. The rest of the pegasi seemed confused as well. Some of them stiffened, thinking it was Spitfire, others looked on in confusion.

Upon closer inspection of this Wonderbolt, Dash realized that a streak of yellow was missing from the mane. Wait! She knew this Wonderbolt! She was in the locker room during her visit. Plus, Dash knew the top squad rosters well. Before Dash could think further, a hoof reached up and yanked the Wonderbolt down with a yelp.

“Blaze!” Spitfire growled as she forced her down. Blaze turned while chuckling.

“I think I had ‘em all convinced!” she pounded her chest. “I dunno sis, I think I might go as you for next Nightmare Night.”

“How about you just stand still and await orders? For once?” Spitfire glared at her flatly.

“Pff…” Blaze scoffed. “Don’t suck the whole uniform up your ass while you’re at it,” she rolled her eyes as Spitfire ignored her and shoved her back towards squad two. Silver Lining quickly grabbed Blaze away from Spitfire and forced her to stand attention beside High Winds. Blaze pulled her ears up and stuck her tongue out at Silver Lining as he turned away from her.

Soarin chuckled as he watched Blaze before he turned his head back to the crowd. This was most certainly a massive turnout. Much larger than the last recruitment drive or any other he had worked in the past. As expected, he was getting a lot of weird looks from the crowd. He didn’t blame them, how often do you see an alicorn? Forget that the horn was a fake. They had no way of knowing.

His eyes passed over the crowd as Spitfire trotted back towards it. He was looking for a rainbow. She wasn’t up front, but once they started organizing, it’d be hard to miss. Rainbow Dash had to be here, why wouldn’t she?

Spitfire rose up above, taking Blaze’s place to address the crowd.

“Alright, everypony listen up!” she yelled out. Her voice was much more booming and influential than Blaze’s. The pegasi stiffened and looked to her, this time completely recognizing the lead captain of the Wonderbolts addressing them. “There’s a hell of a lot more of you then we anticipated. I’m only gonna say this once, so PAY ATTENTION!” she motioned her hooves to her right. “Everypony from Cloudsdale line up over here behind squad two!” as she ordered, the members of squad two stepped forward and put two feet in between themselves. “Everypony from Manehatten,” she pointed her hooves to her left, “line up behind squad three!” Squad three stepped forward just like two had. “Single file! One line behind each member! Make it snappy!” she clapped her hooves together.

“Uh…” Dash looked back and forth as the rest of the ponies began moving. She glanced back at her friends, who all shrugged, just as confused.

“Oh, and anypony from elsewhere, just stay put! The lead squad will put you together with our Canterlot Cadets when we get back!” Spitfire yelled out before lowering herself down and out of sight.

“Ah, there we go,” she chuckled as they waited. This made Dash a little curious. Manehatten and Cloudsdale had a huge turnout, but she wondered if anypony else besides them made the trip from somewhere small? The crowd slowly separated into the lines dictated by the elite squad members. Dash watched as the area around them cleared. It looked like they were going to be the only ones outside of the big cities. Talk about a let-down.

“Whoa!” Thunderlane suddenly reacted. Dash turned, but Bulk was in the way, so she took two steps forward and her eyes widened. There was another cadet that fit in their “category”.

Dash blinked as her eyes rested on a very large male griffon. That was putting it lightly. He was HUGE, about the size of Bulk. His body was jet black in both feathers and the fur of his lion half. At his neck, his feathers turned white, contrasting the rest of him. His eyes were bright red, stuck in an endless glare above his large golden beak. His golden eagle arms, lion legs, and whole damn body were very muscular and his massive wings looked like they could pick up Dash and crush her like a walnut. Everything about him just looked powerful.

He didn’t look at any of them as he stood attention. It had been a long time since Dash had seen a griffon. She was instantly reminded of Gilda, but she was like an ant compared to this guy. A griffon wanted to be a Wonderbolt? Griffons weren’t really known for fancy flying. They were much bulkier than pegasi and not very aerodynamic either. They did tend to have bigger and stronger wings, which was clear with this one, but besides that they really didn’t fit the mold. What an interesting scenario.

Upon examining her friends, none of them seemed sure of what to do. Dash took a quiet breath, and decided to introduce herself.

“Hey there!” She stepped around Bulk towards the griffon. He kept staring straight forward. Dash continued anyway. “Never thought I’d see a griffon here, I’m Rainbow Dash,” she held a hoof out, but he still didn’t budge. Now it just felt awkward. What was this guy’s deal?

“Matteo,” the griffon suddenly spoke in a very deep voice with a thick griffon homeland accent.

“Huh?” Dash blinked.

“My name,” he added, still while staring forward.

“Uh… yeah… cool,” Dash stepped back while biting her lower lip and raising an eyebrow. Thunderlane, Bulk and Derpy watched her awkwardly move back before Spitfire was suddenly upon them.

“Well, lookie here, I recognize a couple of faces,” she said as she got right up into Thunderlane’s face. They all stiffened as she walked her way past them. Dash smiled as Spitfire approached. Last time she saw her, Spitfire was in a bed, recovering from intense trauma. It was great to see her up and about. Dash got caught in the moment, a little too much.

“Sup, Spitfire?” she said quietly with a smile. Spitfire was more than close enough to hear it, but she ignored Dash and kept walking, not even so much as giving Dash a glance through her flight goggles. Dash blinked, feeling hurt for a moment, then realizing the situation. Spitfire didn’t ignore her per-se. They may have been friends for a while, but here she was the lead captain, and Dash was a cadet. Dash actually felt stupid for forgetting so quickly.

Dash looked straight forward as Spitfire examined each of them. Her eyes landed directly on somepony she had completely forgotten about in the moment. Her eyes widened and she smiled with a small blush across her cheeks.

Soarin!

Soarin stood beside Fleetfoot a few yards away from Spitfire. He had spotted Dash as soon as the groups had dispersed and he was trying his hardest to contain himself. He told Spitfire he would play this professionally, but he could barely contain his excitement upon seeing Dash.

He cringed slightly when he saw Dash try to converse with Spitfire. It looked like Dash was going to learn quickly that chain of command would take a large precedent over friendship during this event.

He wasn’t facing her, trying to keep the appearance up, but he couldn’t control his eyes. His eyes were locked on her and he hoped his goggles hid his eye movements enough. After how clear he made it to Spitfire about how hardnosed he would be, he felt like she was just looking for any reason to call him out on it.

“Eh…? Eeeeehhhhhhhh?” Fleetfoot suddenly cooed from close by. Soarin glanced at her briefly and saw her making wing motions towards him and slight head motions towards Dash. He held his breath and tried not to react. Fleetfoot knew she was pushing it. Spitfire would eat her alive if she was caught goofing off, but Fleetfoot would never pass up a chance to harass Soarin, ever.

Dash looked at him.

It made his wing feathers tingle in place when she did. He wanted so badly to drop the professionalism, charge up to her, hug her as tightly as he could, and most likely kiss her too. But he had to restrain himself.

Then he noticed an extreme look of confusion on her face. Upon closer inspection, her eyes were diverted to slightly above his face. Soarin sighed.

Of course.

The horn.

Dash blinked multiple times, switching which eyebrow she had raised and tipping her head from side to side every couple of seconds.

Seriously, what? Why did Soarin have a horn? Dash found herself both confused, and snickering. She was bewildered, but the first thing that popped into her head was…

Princess Soarin.

The thought was much more amusing than it should have been. Honestly though, he had to have a reason. Pegasi don’t just grown horns, and Soarin wasn’t the kind to joke around like this, unless of course, he lost a huge bet with Fleetfoot or something. She was sure she’d find out everything later, but seriously. Her stallion had apparently become royalty, or so it appeared. Gahhhh, she wanted to know. She also couldn’t help but giggle to herself a little. She could see Soarin’s eyes darting between her and looking straight forward. They were moving so rapidly that she could actually see it beneath his goggles. Spitfire may be holding it in, but Soarin sure couldn’t.

Dash flinched as she heard Spitfire speaking again. Spitfire had slowly made her way down the line of the “extra” recruits and stopped when something really caught her interest.

“Hello, what have we here?” Spitfire stopped when she eyed Matteo. “This is a new one,” she commented as she eyed the large griffon before her. “All the way from the griffon kingdom… you’ve definitely caught my attention by default,” she tipped her goggles down and stared up into his eyes as he looked down at her. “You have me curious… are you lost? This is the Wonderbolt tryouts, not the Sky Wings.” His eyes sharpened into an intense glare as she brought up something called the Sky Wings. Dash tipped her head and kept one ear straight up to listen further. “Did I hit a soft spot?” Spitfire didn’t budge an inch beneath his crushing stare. “Fine, you’ve made your point Feathers… I’m not gonna stop anypony or anything from trying out. I guess we’ll just have to see if you have the skill to match that death glare you’re giving me,” Spitfire finished as she lifted off high above the full crowd again.

“Hmph,” Matteo simply grunted in response.

“Attention!” she yelled out. The lines of pegasi froze on cue. Dash quickly followed suit. She didn’t want to make any more silly mistakes. “The tryouts begin tomorrow! Today will be for getting situated in the compound! It’s gonna be cramped, but you’re the ones who decided to roll an army into the station!” she flew in a slow circle as she addressed the crowd. “Now stay put for a minute, then we’ll be on our way!” she landed upon finishing, beckoning the other squads in as she landed. The other squad members trotted over to her.

Dash eyed squad two. She was very familiar with squad three since her last visit. The only one she really had any exposure to was Wave Chill, and all she got from him so far was he was a meek, yet stiff-ass soldier that had the hots for Spitfire.

Speaking of Spitfire, Dash began to worry about her first slip up. Spitfire was clearly doing this by the book. Dash hoped her little attempt at conversing didn’t put her in a tight spot from the get-go. Spitfire wouldn’t do that to her, would she? Well, Spitfire was very professional. Maybe she cared about Dash as a friend, but when it came to this kind of stuff she had to drop all connections. After all, it wouldn’t be fair to the other cadets if Spitfire showed favor to one.

Did this mean that ALL of the Wonderbolts had to be approached this way? Even… Soarin? It felt wrong. She had made good friends with more than a few of them. Something about a friendly environment becoming a hostile one was a little unnerving, and something she most certainly wasn’t prepared for.

Squad three walked past them as they moved in to converse with Spitfire. Fire Streak walked by in front. Dash smiled at him, but he kept his eyes forward. Not even a glance. She felt slightly crushed as she followed him with her eyes. This almost hit Dash harder than Spitfire. The time she had spent with them was almost more personal than that spent with the lead members. She thought being on a first name basis with most of them would be a blessing, but instead it only made her feel neglected.

Dash flinched and yelped quietly as she felt something brush against her side. It felt like a tail. She quickly looked back forward to see Misty Fly passing. Misty turned her head slightly, smiled, tipped her goggles up, and winked at Dash before quickly going back into professional mode.

Dash could almost feel the weight being catapulted off her chest. Misty’s little gesture almost completely turned her swirling thoughts in the opposite direction. Spitfire and Fire Streak were just being professional. None of them wanted to treat her this way, they just couldn’t show favor. It was part of their job. Dash kind of already figured that, but it didn’t stop it from hurting a little at first. Leave it to Misty Fly to make her feel all better. She had a knack for doing that. Dash was glad to see them again. It was under different circumstances, but she was really, truly glad to see them again, especially Soarin. Now she just had to wow them.

“Oof!” Dash grunted as somepony clumsily bumped into her in a way that felt completely intentional. She looked away from Misty and back forward to see Lightning Streak passing by. He slightly tipped his head towards her, put his hoof to his ear, and mouthed the words: “call me babe.”

Okay, so maybe she was happy to see almost all of them again.

Dash watched as Spitfire gave out orders to each squad quickly and efficiently. It wasn’t long before they dispersed again.

“Alright everypony! Stay in line behind your designated elite squad member! Let’s move!” she called out and beckoned the small group to follow her, Soarin, and Fleetfoot.

It was a mass exodus from the prime platform, spelling relief for any other ponies trying to use the station. Dash’s heart began pounding again in excitement. Thanks to Misty Fly, all the sudden anxiety nearly faded. There was a little lingering, but it was nothing compared to the approaching thrill. Dash glanced back at Thunderlane, Bulk, and Derpy. They all looked the same as her. Dash really did appreciate them coming out. They all knew their chances were low compared to her, but they wanted to share the experience with her.

And what an experience it was bound to be.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

You better bet i'm gonna keep teasing and teasing y'all about the personalities i've come up with for squad 2 :D Eventually they'll be out in the open, but for now you are only getting little previews to make you guess (i'm evil x3)

Another chapter down! Ooooo a griffon eh?

Still lots to go here in part ONE of FOUR (god this is gonna be a long story...)

Thanks for reading!

Next chapter could be out as early as Sunday if i get enough done on it :)

Chapter 8: Piling into the Barracks

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 8:

The elite Wonderbolts each lead their single file line of cadets out of the station and into the streets of Canterlot’s high end district. Soarin and Fleetfoot flew above to make sure all the cadets moved in an orderly fashion, and that no fights broke out.

Soarin remembered last year’s recruitment drive well. While there weren’t even half as many ponies as there were here, he had to break up three fights, all between stallions of course. While mares also showed disdain for each other, it tended to be more of a silent fury and full of cheap shots as opposed to full out brawling like the stallions. Competition ran extremely high during this annual event, and more often than not, it would start before they even reached the compound.

This year however, it seemed like everypony was behaving themselves. Perhaps the prospect of being let directly into the elite squads kept them calm. This was a golden opportunity, and none of them were willing to put their chances in danger. They understood that gaining the favor of the lead squad would not be easy. Causing problems would make a cadet instantly disregarded for sure.

Spitfire had a keen eye on all of them from the get-go, as did Soarin and Fleetfoot. Everything would be taken into account.

Although while Soarin was supposed to be keeping his full attention on the cadets below, he kept stealing glances towards Dash every time he passed. This sucked. She was right there and he couldn’t even say hello. He hoped she wasn’t having as hard a time as him.

Dash’s eyes widened as the whole gang came to a stop a few blocks from the compound. A whole other group of ponies filed in behind her, her friends, and Matteo. It was the Canterlot cadets. There were effectively three hundred ponies here at least. The tryouts were only supposed to last a few days!

Dash also knew a little bit about the Wonderbolt recruit squads. There were currently seven of them. The Wonderbolts never had more than ten recruit squads. Whenever they recruited, they accepted only twenty recruits, which got shaved down during the first month of training. The last five left officially became part of the Wonderbolts in a five pony squad that backed up the elite squads. The current recruits were sure to be trying out as well. They were safe, even if they didn’t get the elite spot they’d just be sent back to the recruit barracks. The three hundred or so new cadets didn’t have that luxury.

This meant that over the course of a few days, the Wonderbolts were going to send home around two hundred and seventy-nine of the ponies gathered here. Of the twenty-one left, one would be given the elite spot (unless it was taken by a recruit). Of the remaining twenty, fifteen would be sent home after more intense training, leaving only five.

Dash gulped as she did the math. There was a reason the Wonderbolts were such unbelievable flyers. Just getting in their lowest ranks was nigh impossible. Only the strongest and most unique flyers had even the slightest chance.

With the group now as full as it was going to get, the Wonderbolts led them down the last few blocks until they finally reached the Wonderbolt compound.

It just as awesome as Dash remembered it. It only seemed like yesterday she was here taking part in a training day and getting to know the Wonderbolts much more closely than most others. She’d never forget those days, but this was no time to reminisce. They were filed into the lobby in a fast, orderly manner.

They stayed in their lines as they were led up to what looked like small ticket dispensers that had been rolled in. The members of squad one, two, and three were all handed small clipboards and directed each of their lines to a dispenser. After molding into the crowd from Canterlot, Dash, Thunderlane, Derpy, and Bulk had formed the front of the line behind Spitfire. Matteo had been pulled into the line following Fleetfoot, but they didn’t exactly lose him. It was hard to miss him from anywhere, being a tank…and a griffon on top of that.

“Listen up!” Spitfire’s voice echoed into the corners of the lobby as she leapt up into the air again. “Everypony stay in line! We’re going to hand out bunk assignments in our recruit barracks! After you get your number, go through these doors behind me!” she motioned to a large set of multiple doors that were on the opposite side of the main entrance.

Dash had been down the long hallways to the left and right, which lead to all the facilities, but she had never seen the recruit barracks. It was a smaller section of the building that extended out the back end of it, flanked by the combat dome on one side and the mess hall on the other.

“If you get there and you have no bed in your bunk spot, be patient dammit! We’re in the process of letting our staff, chefs, and maintenance crew all know how screwed they are!” she said with a straight face as Fleetfoot snickered below. “Get situated! Then use the rest of the day to figure out the compound! I don’t want anyone slowing us down tomorrow because they don’t know where the hell to go! We have enough problems to sort out as is! Lunch is at noon and dinner is at five!” Spitfire finished and dropped down in front of Dash and began fiddling with the ticket machine. Dash waited patiently as the front of their line, glancing over at Soarin, who was on the other side of Fleetfoot.

Her view was obstructed by Fleetfoot, but she got a closer look at Soarin now. She was still beyond confused by the horn, but forget whatever the hell the horn’s purpose was for now, she was taking in a view she hadn’t seen for a while. A sexy view. She bit her lower lip as her eyes ran over his face and down to his muscular body. He was wearing the spandex uniform, and as Dash remembered well from herself trying one on, they really put emphasis on the muscles, and boy did he have great muscles. Damn, she’d love to help him out of that uniform right now… slowly.

“Alright! First up!” Spitfire tapped the machine beside her as the other Wonderbolts began handing out the numbered tickets. Dash flinched and quickly looked straight forward at Spitfire. Spitfire was glaring at her, but it was a glare Dash had seen in the past. It was the business glare.

Be serious. Don’t act buddy-buddy. You’re a friend of hers elsewhere, but right now you are a cadet. Dash’s thoughts coached her as she took a deep breath and stepped forward. She looked directly at Spitfire, but didn’t say a word or smile. Spitfire pressed a button on the machine, a ticket with a blue number thirty-two on it popped out. She handed it to Dash, their hoofs clicking together as it was passed. Spitfire wrote something down on her clipboard beside her and made a head motion to start walking. Dash kept her poise and started moving.

“That’s more like it Dash.”

“Huh?” Dash stopped in her tracks. She glanced back at Spitfire.

“Next!” Spitfire yelled as Thunderlane approached her shakily. Dash blinked as she looked straight ahead. She definitely did not imagine it. A small smile curled on her lips as she trotted towards the barracks. This was Spitfire’s job. She had to be strict and run things with an iron hoof, but it didn’t mean she still wasn’t the kind, awesome mare Dash knew her to be.

“What the…” were the only words that escaped Dash’s lips as she stepped through the doors. It was a single hallway about twelve yards wide, painted completely blue like the rest of the damn compound, with three doors on each side about twenty yards apart each, and a dead end. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Dash figured the doors led to where the recruits stayed. There could be up to ten recruit squads, meaning probably two or three squads could occupy one room at a time if need be. Spitfire used the term “bunks” so Dash figured it could be at least ten to fifteen per room.

This wasn’t what had stopped her. The hallway was a warzone. Wonderbolt staff members were running everywhere, pulling bunk frames and mattresses out of closets and from other access hallways and scrambling to put them together. Bunks were being lined up along the walls of the main hallway outside of the rooms. The staff was yelling and screaming at each other, tempers were flaring, and Dash was sure she saw a pony deck another one with a swing of a mattress in frustration.

As Dash took a few steps in, a small pegasus stallion ducked beneath two staff members carrying a mattress, He was a mustard yellow color, with a short brown mane and matching short brown tail. He was a little smaller than Dash, and rather skinny. His cutie mark was three small blue gears attached together.

“Excuse me,” Dash tried to say something to him, but he was busy looking back at the two ponies he had just walked past. Dash was about to try again, but he ran square into her chest.

“Ah!” he squeaked and took a very fast step backwards. He stared slightly up at her with his yellow eyes, which shrunk upon him looking Dash up and down.

“I’m confused, what’s going on in…” Dash tried to ask, but he darted around her and escaped through the doors she just came through. “Uh… okay,” Dash looked back at the cacophony before her as a few more cadets including Thunderlane entered and joined her in her confusion. One of the staff members glanced at them.

“Son of a bitch, they’re already coming in! GET THOSE DAMN BEDS UP!” He yelled to the rest as the scrambling continued.

Ah, so that was it. There were so many recruits that they had to set up extra beds in the hallway. By the looks of things, this was going to be pretty cramped at first. The staff member who had just yelled trudged up to them, a look of pure annoyance plastered to his face.

“The number on your ticket will be taped to the wall next to your bunk ON THE RIGHT. Not the left, THE RIGHT. Go to your spot and wait if you don’t have a bunk. Just please, please, please stay the hell out of our way!” he turned, stopped, and glanced back. “And pass that back. I’m not explaining it again,” he disappeared into the carnage.

“Uh…” Dash glanced behind her as the group behind her grew. “Okay then!” she tried her best to avoid any moving bed frames and mattresses as she advanced into the hallway.

Dash found her bunk, luckily set up and ready to be used, about halfway down the hall with the door to the second room on the right a foot away to the bunk’s left. A large “32” was taped to the wall with blue duct tape to the right of the bed. She quickly slid out of the aisle in the center to avoid getting in the way and tossed her duffle bag onto the bottom bunk.

Under normal circumstances she would’ve gone right for the top, especially since she had such early dibs, but she went for the bottom. She was known for being a little twitchy when she slept, something Soarin knew well due to her accidentally “ringing his bells” one morning with a kick before she woke. She didn’t want to shift and slide out of bed. She couldn’t afford to have any bruises or soreness from something stupid like falling out of the top bunk.

Beside the bunk there was a simple nightstand with two large drawers. Obviously, these would be shared. The stand itself was about two feet wide, almost completely filling the mere three feet of space between the head of her bunk, and bunk number thirty-one. Dash opened the bottom drawer and unzipped her bag to unload the contents, which wasn’t very much. Flight goggles, toiletries, Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, and…

Dash slowly pulled out the framed picture of her and Soarin. A wave of quiet motivation rushed through her as her eyes scanned it. This was it, this was real, she was here and her dream was in her grasp. She looked back and forth to make sure nopony, ABSOLUTELY nopony could see her, before planting a small kiss on the picture over Soarin’s face.

This would have to be kept secret. The Wonderbolts were aware of their relationship, but the cadets didn’t need to know. She was sure at least one out of the three hundred or so here would try to use it against her in some way, shape, or form. She quickly lifted up the copy of Daring Do and slid the picture beneath it.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me! Both of you got this number!?”

Dash flinched and turned around quickly. The voice wasn’t directed at her, she looked through a few bed frames to her left as ponies kept filing in. Her eyes landed on Bulk Biceps and Matteo standing side by side, staring at one bunk, with a staff member looking at them incredulously. Beside them was a bed frame that was bent and falling apart, suggesting one of the two hulks had already tried it.

“Uh… yeah?” Bulk confirmed as he and Matteo held their tickets out for the staff to see. The pegasus smacked his face with his hoof while growling and pulling his face down.

“Is Rivet still in here?!” he yelled to the other workers. They all stopped briefly and looked around, all shaking their heads. “Dammit… somepony go tell him we need a very large bed frame… made with steel beams like the ones on the lobby ceiling!” A couple of laughs came from the workers as one of them trotted towards the entrance. “And tell him I’m not kidding!” he added before rushing off elsewhere. Through the whole exchange, Matteo just stared at the bed and grunted once or twice in annoyance.

Dash snickered at the ridiculous scenario. What were the odds of the two largest cadets getting the same bunk? She was sure there would be much more hilarity to come. This was going to make for some great stories to tell in the future.

“Like, move it!” a high, sassy voice came from Dash’s right as somepony forced her out of the way.

“Oof!” Dash grunted as she grabbed the bed frame with her wing to balance herself. A pure white pegasus mare with a straight, icy blue mane had just forced her way past Dash and tossed her bag up on the top bunk. It actually looked more like a large purse than a bag.

“Uh…” Dash cocked an eyebrow. The mare paused and turned to Dash. Her eyes were as ice blue as her mane, but she was wearing the most ridiculous fake eyelashes Dash had ever seen. They were almost longer than Rarity’s. “Hi, we must be bunkmates,” Dash forced a smile despite the rude entrance and held a hoof to her.

“Duh!” The mare rolled her eyes and opened the bottom drawer. She scoffed when she saw Dash’s stuff in it, slammed it shut and opened the top to stuff her things in. Dash scrunched her face.

“Um… I’m...” Dash tried to start again, but the mare turned quickly to her.

“I’m Arctic Blast, better remember that name, cause you’ll be seeing it in the newspapers real soon with the Wonderbolts!” she exclaimed right into Dash’s face. Dash stood still with her mouth hanging open and quite possibly one of the most disturbed faces she had ever mustered. Was this mare for real?

“I’m Rainbow…”

“Don’t care!” Arctic whisked her mane around, batting Dash in the face with it as she turned. Dash shook her face out and just stared in disbelief. Great, talk about luck of the draw for a bunkmate. She already saw the dilemma Bulk was in, but she hoped Derpy and Thunderlane at least had better luck.

Dash decided to not even try, and flopped down into her bed as Arctic continued to stuff things into the top drawer. So many beauty supplies… Did Rarity get a mane dye, lose her horn, grow wings, and become a MASSIVE bitch? Seriously Dash had never gotten a worse first impression from a pony before in her life.

Dash’s eyes widened as Arctic suddenly pulled out and unrolled a huge poster. Dash was well aware that the Elite Wonderbolts were featured in many athletic magazines. There was a particular magazine that did an annual “beach” photo shoot. Spitfire and Fleetfoot had been featured in the last one. Dash found it very amusing that Spitfire posed for a sexy sports photo. She probably found a reason to refer to it as “business.” Fleetfoot was no surprise at all. However this image on the wall was from this year’s issue, as the date in the corner suggested. It had been blown up to be poster sized… and it was a picture of Soarin.

Soarin was standing up from the water, little streams falling from over him, suggesting it had been taken as he was standing up. He wasn’t facing the camera, but looking off to the left, with his large, powerful wings spread out. The picture had to have been taken with a super-high definition camera, because you could see the individual droplets of water dripping from his wet mane and falling down his body.

Dash’s wings started twitching uncontrollably and her face felt hot. That body… oh, that body. His incredible muscles were all wet in high definition… Contain yourself Dash, no spontaneous explosions, there are others around! Her brain fought against her hormones, but seriously, she had to find this magazine now in case there was more of this eye candy.

“Hmmmmmmmm…” Dash was broken from her daze as she heard Arctic sigh dreamily at the poster. Arctic turned slightly and saw Dash’s full body reaction to the poster. “Hey!” she quickly flared her wings out to block Dash’s view of the poster. “Eyes off my stallion!” she huffed while glaring at Dash. Dash blinked multiple times.

“YOUR stallion?” she said with a sarcastic voice. Arctic completely missed the sarcasm as she turned sharply back to the poster and clasped her hooves together.

“He’s the sexiest, DREAMIEST stallion EVER! And he’ll be all mine when I become a Wonderbolt!” she nearly squealed as she spoke. Dash stared blankly for a few seconds.

“Pfffff,” Dash felt laughter building in her. Seriously? For real? This mare had no idea, absolutely no idea. Arctic turned to her in confusion as she heard Dash snickering.

“What?”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!” Dash burst out with uncontrollable laughter. Arctic continued to eye her, not a clue in the spacious brain of hers.

“Like, what are you laughing at?” she asked angrily. Dash finally calmed herself down.

“Hoooheeeehehehe,” she shook her head and took a breath. “Nothing, nothing at all. Just…” Dash glanced up at the sexy poster of her stallion and snickered again. “Good luck with that!” Dash gave a fake salute and rested her hooves behind her head while laying back, a huge smile plastered to her face.

“Psh, weirdo,” Arctic went back to admiring “her” stallion.

Dash wanted so badly to burst this bitch’s bubble something fierce, but she had just decided to keep it under wraps for her own sake. She wasn’t going to go back on that so quickly. One thing was for certain however, she was going to get tired of this bunkmate of hers real fast. With any luck she and her sass would be gone after the first cut. Maybe Dash would try to swipe the poster and hide it before that happened.

This was shaping up to be an interesting experience… and so far all Dash had done was get assigned a bed.

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

SURPRISE UPDATE!~

A little shorter than usual, but the next part has a scene that i KNOW will be adored by you guys. I didn't want to take focus away from the scenes in this chapter, so i cut my outline in half.

I hope people are ready to feel... fluffy... ;) cause there be fuzzy moments approaching...

If all goes well i might get the next chapter out tomorrow at the earliest, if not then monday or tuesday. We shall see how my days go.

Thanks for reading!!!!

Chapter 9: Unsubtle Fraternizing

Chapter 9: Unsubtle Fraternizing

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 9:

Dash was lucky to get into the barracks before the hilarity and insanity of the whole damn cadet group came pouring through the doors. However, she was effectively stuck in her bunk. Could she have flown out? Definitely not. Some of the pegasi just trying to get in had the same idea. So she was forced to wait until all the ponies were in and settled before she could even think about going elsewhere. She was also stuck with a swooning top bunk, self-centered, make-up experiment gone horribly wrong, who kept sighing at a poster of Dash’s stallion.

Well, at least the poster was there. Dash had plenty of fun admiring the sexy body of Soarin taped to the wall. All of that gorgeous hunk was hers. Oh, how she wanted to ruin Arctic Blast’s life… A pony like her deserved a reality check to the teeth.

She also got quite a kick out of the bed they rolled into the place for Bulk and Matteo. It was literally made with thick steel beams and effectively scrunched the spaces between their bunk and those flanking it much smaller. The exasperated dismay of the ponies that had the two juggernauts as neighbors gave Dash a chuckle or two.

But back to the poster. This GLORIOUS poster. She hated having to be all serious. Soarin was so close by and she couldn’t do a thing about it. Plus, what was up with the horn? Forget it, she just wanted to talk with him, hang with him, and… do other things.

With her eyes overdosed on eye-candy, Dash was able to somewhat wait comfortably until it was time for lunch.

Since Bulk was nearby, she easily got a hold of him so she could at least eat with a friend. They had effectively lost Thunderlane and Derpy, and hoped the two would find their way to them. Just like with the bunks, Dash made a point to be one of the first to the mess hall. She didn’t like the idea of waiting for food like it was a ride at an amusement park.

“Yeesh, glad we got here early…” Dash commented as she watched the line for food quickly extend out the entrance. Just like the staff members assembling the beds, the chefs were going absolutely nuts. Dash wondered how the Wonderbolts didn’t see this coming. They were offering a free ride through their recruitment process right into their elite squads. Any pegasi with the right desire would jump at this opportunity.

Dash and Bulk carried their trays over to a random table. They were all vacant, so they just claimed the first one that piqued their interest for no particular reason. Dash spotted Thunderlane near the front of the line right before Bulk sat down and completely blocked her view of the entrance. Dash peeked around him to take another look, but didn’t see Derpy anywhere.

Dash hoped she would be okay. Of the three who decided to join her on this tryout run, she worried the most about Derpy. Thunderlane wasn’t the best flyer, but he wasn’t bad by any means. In fact he was very strong willed, and more often than not was able to power through things despite the difficulty. Bulk… well, he was sturdy. He couldn’t fly very well, but he was really strong. If anything he’d be noticed for his massive appearance and great strength.

But Derpy? She didn’t really have many talents. She was an average flyer, but had a tendency to never fly completely straight. She was also a bit… clumsy, for lack of a better word, a class-A klutz actually. It was IMPOSSIBLE to hate her because of how adorable and sincere she was to everypony around her, but she was very accident prone and had a knack for getting others caught up in her follies. Dash hoped to Celestia that Derpy had a bottom bunk. She’d fall out of the top bunk about twenty times per night if she was stuck in one.

“So Bulk,” Dash began as she eyed the food: steamed broccoli, undercooked spaghetti marinara, and grilled chicken. Again with the chicken, she had a feeling they’d be getting it a lot. “I see you and… Mattato? What was his name?”

“Matteo, I think,” Bulk answered as he stuffed the whole chicken breast in his mouth at once.

“Talk about bad luck, they had to get you guys a custom bed,” she chuckled as she started on her broccoli. “Talk to him at all? Did he actually say anything?”

“Er… not really. He kinda scares me man… every time I get pumped he gives me the stink eye,” Bulk tried to imitate Matteo’s glare, but without the beak the sharpness of the effect was lost.

“I doubt we’ll be getting much out of him. He looks like he’s got a chip on his shoulder about something. I wonder what Spitfire was talking about… what are the Sky Wings?” she wondered out loud as she prodded the spaghetti. It was so underdone it looked like it could bounce off the floor.

“I’ve seen more appetizing meals while dumping my trash out…” Thunderlane’s voice came from behind Bulk as he stepped around the table and took a seat next to Dash.

“You made it,” Dash chuckled as she checked the line again. “I don’t think Derpy was so lucky.”

“I saw her before I left the barracks,” Thunderlane spoke up and looked towards the line himself. “I was gonna grab her, but she was talking to some stallion. Might be her bunkmate. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Derpy getting fresh with the competition?” Dash lifted an eyebrow. Thunderlane chuckled.

“Knowing her she was probably asking him random questions, you know how curious she can be,” Thunderlane stuck his tongue out slightly as he eyed his broccoli.

“Speaking of bunkmates, how is yours?” Dash purposely kept asking, hoping to avoid talking about Arctic Ass Blast. Thunderlane blinked as he let the broccoli slip back onto his plate.

“I wish I could tell you. I think he’s got a few screws loose,” Thunderlane cringed.

“How so?” Dash was curious. Did Thunderlane have worse luck than her?

“Well, I grabbed the top bunk and got comfortable. When he showed up, after putting his stuff away, all he did was Kilroy stare at me creepily over the edge of my bed. It was awkward as hell,” Thunderlane leaned to look around Bulk. “Oh god, there he is,” he pointed. Dash leaned over as well. Thunderlane pointed towards a neon green stallion with a blue mane that looked to have a mind of its own. It was sticking in all directions and had more split ends than a splintered wooden board. His cutie mark was a tornado… with trees flying out of it. His eyes were opened wide constantly and his mouth was always curled into a disturbing smirk. “All I got out of him was his name is Twister. After that he just eyeballed me like he wanted to spoon or something,” Thunderlane quickly ducked back behind Bulk so his odd bunkmate wouldn’t see him.

“He looks like a clown put through a wood chipper…” Dash joked while snickering. Bulk nearly choked on his spaghetti while laughing, quickly grabbing for his glass of water and pounding down the contents.

“So what about your bunkmate?” Thunderlane asked, much to Dash’s dismay. Dash groaned and let her head lightly smack against the table. “That bad, huh? Dare I ask?”

“I’m probably gonna murder her in her sleep,” Dash said with a tone that sounded very believable. “She’s by far the bitchiest mare I have ever met in my life. She introduced herself as the new elite Wonderbolt and didn’t even let me tell her my name,” Dash suddenly smirked. “But I already got a way to blow her mind eventually.”

“Careful Dash, I don’t think pranks will be taken too kindly here,” Thunderlane chuckled as he finally took a bite of his food in disgust. Dash shook her head.

“Oh no, this will be much better,” she winked at Thunderlane. “She brought along a huge blown up poster of Soarin,” Thunderlane stopped mid-chew and lifted an eyebrow. “She’s calling him her stallion.”

“Oh, what a small world,” Thunderlane chuckled.

“I plan on letting her think she has a chance, then laying it on real thick. A little payback for the wonderful first impression she gave me,” Dash rubbed her hooves together sinisterly.

“Hiii~” a familiar goofy voice caught their attention. Derpy appeared from around Bulk, carrying a tray with three muffins on it. She sat right down next to Bulk. Dash looked at Derpy’s tray.

“Derpy where did…”

“Muffin button.”

“Of course…” Dash just let it happen as Derpy grabbed one and happily bit into it. Something was odd about Derpy. Both Dash and Thunderlane picked up on it. Bulk was too busy stuffing his face with broccoli to notice. She had an incredibly dreamy look in her eyes, a light blush lingering over her cheeks, and her wings were slowly unfolding.

“Are you okay Derpy?” Thunderlane spoke up. Derpy looked up from her muffin and smiled so wide her face nearly stretched.

“I’m more than perfect!” she almost yelled out as her wings fluttered at her sides. Dash and Thunderlane glanced at each other in confusion. Derpy suddenly looked to her left and released a very quiet, high pitched squeal. Dash followed her eyes to a stallion sitting down with a few other cadets a few tables away. He was brown with a blown back yellow mane that was similar to Soarin’s, but not quite as wild. He was pretty big, not quite Bulk Biceps big, but around Soarin big and pretty well built too. His cutie mark was a thundercloud with two lightning bolts firing out of it.

“Hey! That’s the stallion you were talking to,” Thunderlane mentioned as he also followed Derpy’s eyes. Derpy sighed and took another happy bite out of her muffin.

“Bunkmate?” Dash asked simply as she finished off her food and pushed the tray away. Derpy bounced up and down in her seat.

“Yes!” she squealed as she hugged the muffin to her chest, squishing it against her. “Oopsie…”

“Looks like one of us got lucky,” Thunderlane chuckled. “I take it he’s nice?”

“He’s so sweet,” Derpy blushed harder as she wiped the muffin crumbs out of her fur. “He was already there when I got to the bunk. His name is Storm Front… he greeted me and introduced himself… his voice was so calm and caring,” she swooned harder. “He already had the bottom bunk… so I took the top,” Derpy’s ears drooped. “I tried to get my stuff situated, but I fell off…” her ears shot right back up. “He was up so fast, asking me if I was hurt. I was okay… but then I fell out again…” she blushed sheepishly, “but he caught me! He was watching to make sure I didn’t fall again!” she sighed and slowly laid the side of her head on the table, staring in Storm Front’s direction. “Then he offered me the bottom bunk, even though he was already settled in, because he didn’t want me to get hurt…”

Dash, Thunderlane, and Bulk all blinked and glanced at each other as Derpy looked like her fur would grow three feet and float her away as a big ball of fluff.

“Wow Derpy, you’re gonna burn a hole through the table if you keep swooning like that,” Dash chuckled as she rested her head in her hoofs.

“I’ve never met such a kind pony before… he didn’t even ask about my eyes…” Derpy sighed again before moving her head up and happily nomming one of her muffins without using her hooves.

The other three shared a good laugh. They had hardly been there half a day and they were already having fun of all types. Dash ran through the names in her head.

Matteo.

Storm Front.

Twister.

Arctic Blast.

Only four out of three hundred, but all so unique in their own way. Every pegasus here probably had their own story. She was no exception. These tryouts would be a challenge. What kind of challenge? She had no way of knowing until tomorrow.

“Make yourself familiar with the compound.”

Those were Spitfire’s words. For the rest of the cadets it made perfect sense, but for Dash it meant nothing to do for six hours between lunch and dinner. She already knew the rest of the compound back to front. She could go back and read her Daring Do book… but the less time spent in the possible company of Arctic Blast, the better.

She decided to go for a walk through the compound anyway. She thought maybe she could run into some familiar Wonderbolts, but then she quickly remembered the professional air they had to keep up during this event. She doubted any of them would talk to her to keep any rumors of “favor” down. Whatever, it would be a nostalgia walk. She could go around and remember the fun times she had her last visit.

The Wonderbolt’s gave no restrictions on where they were allowed to go. Almost the entirety of the cadet group was moving to and fro on the first floor where all the facilities were. To get away from the swarm and enjoy a little bit of silence, Dash made her way up the stairs to the second and third floors.

There wasn’t much besides the dormitory style rooms for the elite squadrons. Spitfire’s office was on the second floor, but the door was shut. Dash sighed, realizing this little walk was barely going to shave off an hour, but she decided to walk the third floor anyway. Of course there was something very important on the third floor.

Soarin’s room to be exact. Not like he would actually be there, nor was she in a position to knock without being seen.

Dash trotted slowly down the hall of the third floor, stopping right in front of Soarin’s door. She blinked at first glance, eyeing a white sheet of paper that was taped above his nameplate. She looked back and forth before reaching up and lifting it. She had to hold in laughter as she saw the word “princess.” Dash didn’t have to think long. Fleetfoot. Definitely Fleetfoot’s work.

Despite the possibility of being seen, she contemplated knocking on his door. Her morals were conflicting. Part of her didn’t think it would hurt to try. The other half was telling her she was out of her damn mind, taking such a risk.

She sighed as the more reasonable choice won her over. Besides, he was probably down on the first floor. He was either helping with tryout preparations or working out.

Great.

Now she had the sudden urge to check the gym. After staring at the poster of him for a good few hours earlier, the thought of seeing him all pumped and sweaty sounded like a delicious meal for her eyes.

Again though, she had to be careful. She would have to just deal with it. She didn’t get to see him often, but she wouldn’t forget the importance of being discreet in these circumstances. She sighed and turned away from his door.

“Huh? AH!” Dash yelped as she ran face first into a large wing. It was about an inch from her eyes the moment she turned. Before she could do anything else, the wing closed around her. She yelped as she got dragged along, unable to see anything. She heard a door open and close as she struggled. The grip of the wing suddenly loosened. She thrust her arms and wings out, and instinctively threw a punch towards whoever was just forced her along.

A hoof reached up and caught hers right before it connected with the owner’s face.

“Saw that coming this time.”

That voice…

Dash’s eyes widened and she gasped. The hoof holding hers was light blue. She had been pulled into a very familiar room. She pulled her hoof back…

She looked directly into the eyes of Soarin.

“Hey Dashie,” he said with a smile. He was out of uniform, and right in front of her. Dash didn’t hesitate.

She reached forward, grabbed his face, and yanked it towards hers, crashing their lips together fiercely. Soarin chuckled beneath the kiss and wrapped his arms around her as she forced his back up against the wall. She pulled back quickly and glared at him.

“What the hell? I thought somepony was trying to molest me!” she pouted.

“Maybe I was?” he bounced his eyebrows. Dash’s pout was overtaken by a smirk.

“Jerk,” she closed the gap again. She kissed him passionately, releasing a moan of delight as he rubbed his hooves over her back and gently brushed over her sweet spots beneath her wings. He pushed her away gently.

“I think we did this out of order,” he chuckled. “How are you? I’ve missed you.”

“I was getting to that,” Dash snorted while pressing herself into him hard. “I’m so glad to see you, and I freaking miss your guts every single day,” she nuzzled the bottom of his chin.

“I kind of wanted to do this earlier…” Soarin sighed. “I’m sure you’ve noticed though, I’m trying to keep the professional act up. It’d be pretty bad if we started making out in the middle of the cadet crowd,” he chuckled as she let go of him.

“I know somepony I wouldn’t mind seeing it…” Dash grumbled while rolling her eyes.

“Huh?” Soarin tipped his head. Dash looked into his eyes, and then tipped her head slightly up to see the horn. She finally got a good look at it. It was fake, as she thought, strapped to his head. Just… what?

“Alright Soarin, care to explain that?” she pointed to the horn. Soarin sighed.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. It’s kind of a long story. I don’t want to keep you in here too long in case Spitfire comes to the door…” he rambled. Dash tapped a hoof against the floor.

“Got a short version? I’m curious about when you got decided to be a princess,” she said with a snicker.

“God, both you and Fleet…” Soarin scrunched his face. “Short version? Well… The dark magic in my body was gonna kill me. If I could use magic it wouldn’t. This is a fake horn, but it’s an ancient artifact that let’s non-unicorns use magic. I have to use it a few times per day to avoid the magic overwhelming me. That’s about as simple as I can… Dash?” he blinked as she stared at him wide eyed.

“You had me at… it was gonna kill you. Soarin! You… You are going to be alright aren’t you!?” she quickly put her hooves up on his shoulders, a look of terrified concern in her eyes. Soarin smiled warmly. He reached out and drew Dash into his arms, hugging her as tightly as he could.

“I’m going to be perfectly fine as long as I do what I need to do with this horn,” he gave her an extra squeeze, “but thanks for being so concerned. You know I love that about you.”

“Sheesh, you really can’t catch a break can you?” Dash commented as she found a way to reach her arms around him and return his embrace. “I feel like every time we meet something’s not going right.”

“You’ve never complained about a little spice in life,” Soarin joked. He felt Dash shake slightly in his arms as she giggled.

“With you I think spice is putting it lightly… try a brick wall to the face around every corner,” she joked right back as the two shared a good laugh. Soarin released her, but she stared up at the horn. “So… you can use magic then?” she asked out of curiosity. Soarin smiled and nodded.

“I’ve only learned some extreme basics… it was hard at first but I think I’m getting it down,” Soarin closed his eyes as he finished. Dash’s eyes widened slightly as she watched the horn slowly glow to life. It was nowhere near as intense a glow that shone from Twilight or Rarity when they used magic, but she was watching Soarin, a pegasus, conjure magic. The sight alone was unexpected. Dash flinched as she felt her tail move against her will. She turned around to see a blue aura surrounding the tip of her tail and lifting it up.

“Hey!” she laughed while blushing. “You dirty colt!” she yanked her tail down back over her plot.

“Huh… I was trying to pick up something over there,” he pointed to a nearby shelf. “How did I get your tail instead?” Soarin faked confusion while rubbing his chin and failing to hide a smirk.

“Liar,” Dash stuck her tongue out at him playfully. “But… that was kind of… incredibly awesome,” she smiled wide.

“I only wish to wow the mare I love,” Soarin said with a forced suave tone while trotting over and draping a wing over Dash’s back. She cocked an eyebrow in his direction and chuckled.

“God you’re terrible,” she leaned up and kissed him softly on the lips. A kiss Soarin eagerly returned. “And I love you so damn much,” She added while nuzzling the side of his neck. Soarin sighed happily as he felt her press against him, and then he thought he heard movement outside his door. He quickly took his wing and pushed Dash back behind him. She yelped quietly, but stiffened when she saw him stand firm, facing the door. They stood still for a few moments, but nothing else happened. Soarin sighed in relief.

“There’s so much I’d like to do with you right now, but you should probably get going. We may get a couple of chances to see each other, but until the tryouts are over, we’ll have to play it safe,” he explained reluctantly. Dash nodded, and then smirked.

“You mean when I take the open elite spot, right?” she nudged him in the side. Soarin flinched, but luckily it went unnoticed. He was still wondering about how to approach that decision. He obviously didn’t want Dash to know his little dilemma though. He quickly played along, in an encouraging way.

“I wanna see you kick ass out there and earn it first,” he winked. Dash grinned and bumped her hooves together.

“Challenge accepted.”

“Good,” Soarin looked into her eyes and smiled. “C’mere you,” he mumbled as he reached for her face and drew her in again. She happily let him do so and the two pressed their lips together one more time, sharing a sweet, soft kiss. “Good luck Dash,” he added as they parted, before going to his door.

Soarin opened the door as slowly as he could. He peered out to make sure the hallways were just as clear as they were before. To his relief, they were empty.

“Coast is clear,” he nodded to Dash. She trotted up beside him and planted a small kiss on his cheek.

“Love you, sexy,” she winked as she peered out.

“Love you too babe,” he whispered to her as she made her way out into the hallway and quickly moved towards the stairs with a spring in her step.

Soarin watched her turn the corner and go down the steps.

“She’s so cute, isn’t she?” Fleetfoot leaned into Soarin’s side.

“Yeah, she… WHA?!!?!?! WHAT THE…?!?!” Soarin nearly leapt into the ceiling as he turned and saw Fleetfoot standing right beside him, smiling dreamily. She pressed a hoof against his mouth as he tried to speak.

“You two are the best, I never shit more live puppies and kittens than I do when you two are around,” she giggled. Soarin glared at her with her hoof still pressed over his mouth. She eyed his glare and shook her head. “I’m the least of your worries princess,” she smirked while pointing a hoof to the door one down from his room. Soarin followed her hoof and froze solid.

Spitfire was standing in the door. He had no idea she was in her room. She probably heard the entire exchange through the wall. She was glaring harshly at him. Fleetfoot burst out laughing and removed her hoof from Soarin’s mouth as she rolled around on the floor. Soarin and Spitfire just stared at each other for a moment. Soarin eventually fought off his surprise and hardened his expression.

“Spitfire... I just… wanted to say hello to her. I’m not changing my approach to the tryouts,” he spoke first, eager to get his point across before she could berate him. To his surprise however, Spitfire smirked.

“Soarin, don’t worry about it,” she shook her head. Soarin blinked in confusion, the hardness escaping from his glare. “Look I’m sorry I’ve been a little rough on you about this, I just wanted to be absolutely sure you would take all of it seriously. The way you almost bit my head off the last time I brought it up was all I needed to see,” she glanced back into her room briefly, then over towards where Dash had left. “I trust you’ll be fair, and I trust Dash to understand you’ll be fair as well.”

“I dunno, you might lose sex for a few years if you don’t pick her,” Fleetfoot commented from the floor, which she decided to just recline on after falling over laughing. She tried not to burst out laughing again when she saw Soarin actually think about it.

“That’s not funny Fleet,” Soarin shivered. “Seriously, that’s not funny at all.”

“I don’t mind at all that you decided to have a little make out session in your room right next to mine where I could hear every bit of it,” Spitfire chuckled. Soarin blushed a little. He had completely forgotten about the thinness of the walls. He suddenly became self-conscious about other nights he had spent with Dash in his room in the past.

“Nothing’s wrong with a little romance… eh? Spitfire?” Fleetfoot slid herself across the ground, on her back, towards Spitfire. Spitfire glanced into her room again, then away from Fleet.

“Fleet, get off the ground, that’s…”

“What’s going on out…?” Wave Chill’s face appeared behind Spitfire’s door. She quickly extended her hoof and slammed the door shut right in his face while blushing furiously. A few painful swears echoed from behind her door. Fleetfoot and Soarin just stared in surprise, before the both lost themselves in laughter. Spitfire looked away from them both, unable to hide the red overtaking her yellow face.

Nothing was wrong with seeing the one you love. Soarin was happy Spitfire truly understood, and wasn’t just getting on his ass about it. He was still a little uneasy about the decision he would have to make though. He was more than certain Dash would clean house and make the recruits… but would she show the qualities needed to be chosen for the elite spot? The tryouts started tomorrow… Soarin would know soon enough.

--- To Be Continued---

Author's Note

SHA-BAM! More for ya this weekend! :D

decided to challenge myself a little. Wrote this whole thing between 3-6 pm xD

I want everyone to tank my editor Kestrel for biting the bullet and editing this via private message on short notice so i could surprise you all two days in a row :3

Anyway, LOVE! I finally got to the first SoarinDash moment of the story. and it felt so good writing it. I hope you all enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Next chapter, probably wednesday, we shall see ;)

Chapter 10: Fancy Moves and Resisting the Urge to Kill Your Bunkmate

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 10:

“The princess will see you now,” the guard beckoned Soarin into the throne room. Soarin nodded and waited for the door to fully open before he trotted in.

Talk about a hell of a night to call him for magic training. The tryouts started the next morning! Soarin had everything ready to go, but he was hoping to relax the rest of the night. Now he had to mentally drain himself. At least he’d get a good night’s sleep because of it.

Despite it all, he was in quite a good mood. He not only managed to sneak Dash into his room and get some smoochy time, but Spitfire also took her hoof off the overly-serious bitch pedal. He didn’t feel quite so pressured now, at least from Spitfire. He was still worried about Dash. For some reason he was still contemplating whether or not to choose her for the elite spot. Of course if she proved capable he’d choose her… right? He was still worried about the rumors that might spread amongst the Wonderbolts. All it took was one word about him and Dash with the media’s ears nearby and it would get ugly, fast.

But was it right for him to base his choice on that? He didn’t want her to have to deal with the negative attention, but if she really, truly earned it? He’d been thinking about this almost non-stop for the past few days with no clue where to turn. He couldn’t ask any of the Wonderbolts, that would start rumors beforehand. Did he know anypony else who could offer wise, intelligent advice?

“Ah! There he is m’lady,” Fancy Pants’ voice met Soarin’s ears as he came around the throne. Oh, that’s right. Maybe he could ask Fancy. He seemed to be well versed in… well… everything. Soarin also blinked as something by the main entrance caught his attention again. Three ponies were leaving as he entered. No Big deal, at least under normal circumstances. While he only caught a glimpse of them, they appeared to be the same three ponies Soarin barely saw leave the first time he visited Luna recently. This time Fancy was present. It was sort of a little “huh” moment for Soarin, but if he saw them again, he’d begin to wonder.

“Soarin of the Wonderbolts, how dost thou fair?” Luna’s voice pulled Soarin’s attention to her and Fancy. She wasn’t specific, but Soarin assumed she was talking about the horn. Soarin glanced up at it and tipped his head back and forth.

“Ehh… I’ve been alright. The magic has been very docile thanks to the horn and using it a few times. Other than a few uniform issues that I can easily fix, there have been no problems,” he explained while facing the two of them. Fancy nodded contently.

“Very good! Have you practiced a little like we discussed?” he asked. Soarin smirked. He closed his eyes and recalled the magical sensations. They built much quicker due to the little bit of practice he made sure to get each day. Fancy jumped in surprise as a blue aura surrounded his coat pocket and a red marble popped out of it.

Fancy smiled and chuckled as the marble hovered slowly over towards Soarin. Soarin winced and grunted slightly as he kept his eyes half open and focused them on the marble. It wasn’t very smooth or easy, but he managed to move the marble all the way over to him. He exhaled, releasing the magic, and let the marble drop into his hoof.

“I think I’m starting to get the hang of it a little,” Soarin cracked a smile.

“Marvelous! To be honest I was expecting a ‘no,’” Fancy grinned as Soarin tossed the marble up and down in his hoof, feeling pretty good about beating the expectations of a pony like Fancy. In fact he felt a little snarky in the process.

“No? Who the hell do you think I am?” Soarin chuckled along with Fancy as he picked up the marble with his magic again.

Off to the side, Luna watched the small exchange with great interest. She was beyond impressed that Soarin could control the magic as well as he did in such a short time. Just grasping the concept of magic alone seemed like it would be impossible for Soarin at first. He proved her wrong very quickly. Soarin was most definitely a pony of great talent and his will to learn and perfect all things related to him was almost without match. She was eager to see more.

She was also glad he seemed to be enjoying himself. She wasn’t sure if something had made him happy earlier, but seeing him smile lifted a weight off her chest. He had been forced through so much beyond his control and had clearly been a frustrating experience for him thus far. Not to mention the timing was inconvenient with the Wonderbolt tryouts.

She frowned as she thought over what Discord had said to her though. There was much more about what was going on within Soarin than she had revealed to him. She could sense it and Discord could sense it, but she kept it in. As long as Soarin kept the horn on, he should be safe from any further pain and hopefully it would prevent the power from overwhelming him. She refused to involve herself any more than she did. She didn’t want to end up like her sister.

“Shall we test your bravado further then?” Fancy spoke up as his magic came to life and a green marble floated out of his other pocket. “Holding more than one object at a time?” he turned his head to the side and lifted an eyebrow.

“Two at once?” Soarin didn’t sound quite so confident. “So… I already slightly figured out how to AH!” Soarin flinched and the red marble fell out of his magic. “I’ve kinda got the whole split mind thing figured out, but… another object would mean… three different thought processes?” he thought out loud. Fancy nodded as he hovered the green marble over to Soarin and set it beside the red one.

“Where’d the confidence go?” Fancy chuckled as he walked towards Soarin.

“Still got it,” Soarin lied. “It just seems a little hard.”

“Nonsense my boy,” Fancy smiled as his horn glowed again. Seven more marbles, all different colors floated out of different pockets, each surrounded in its own separate aura. “Once you’ve learned how to form the pseudo-disconnect, creating more is just a matter of practice. Here I am with seven marbles floating in the air and speaking to you while walking. I’ve got nine different things happening. I’m not expecting you to ever get this far with it, but just know that it is very possible,” he smiled as all seven marbles tossed themselves into the air. Fancy stood completely still as each marble fell back towards the ground naturally and landed in his coat pockets.

“You sure like your marbles,” Soarin chuckled, trying to hide how awesome he thought that little trick was. Fancy smiled and pulled a blue one out of his pocket again.

“A simple, small, spherical object. It’s more than perfect for teaching basic magic. Now, go on,” Fancy made a head motion towards the red and green marble on the floor. “Just remember the visualization. Remember what it takes to form two states of mind, and simply create a third. There is nothing special you have to think or feel, you merely have to conjure one more constant thought,” Fancy explained as the blue marble in his magic orbited his head.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do,” Soarin nodded as he focused on the two marbles. He conjured the magical presence and focused his mind to create the two separate thoughts. Magic began to swirl around the fake horn and slowly enveloped the red marble. He shifted his squinted eyes to the green marble and grunted in slight discomfort. He moved his head ever-so-slightly towards it, trying to pry a third thought out of his mind. A small blue light began flickering around the green marble. Soarin winced and growled as he tried to focus it, but as soon as the aura fully surrounded the green marble, the red marble fell out of the magic and back to the floor. “Damn!” he cursed as he exhaled and panted. This made his brain hurt.

“Not bad for a first attempt, give it a couple more tries. Practice makes perfect,” Fancy encouraged as Soarin tried again.

As Luna watched, her attention was drawn away by a royal guard that suddenly sprinted into the throne room. Fancy turned to see as well as Soarin cursed, losing his focus once more.

“Your majesty! We have an… issue,” the guard’s voice had a tone of calm urgency. Luna tipped her head.

“What sort of issue?” she asked.

“Well,” the royal guard glanced back towards the entrance. “Discord is… pulling pranks in the servant quarters… we’d try to stop him, but… you know…” the guard admitted a little embarrassed. Luna snorted loudly as soon as she heard Discord’s name.

“We swear he is putting us on the end of our rope!” Luna growled as she stood up. “We shall go see to him,” Luna turned to Fancy. “We trust thee to continue without us?”

“Go on m’lady, we’ll be fine. Give that ruffian a good thrashing,” Fancy chuckled as Luna turned and galloped out the entrance.

Fancy and Soarin watched her leave, but looked on in confusion as the guard who came to warn her made no attempt to follow. He snickered as he turned to Soarin and Fancy.

“Really… it’s too easy sometimes…” the guard’s voice changed to something very familiar. With a loud POOF, the guard disappeared into a cloud of pink smoke. “Oh Lulu, so adorably dupable!” Discord slithered out of the cloud and floated above them.

“Oh, great…” Soarin rolled his eyes as he sat down to take a breather. A loud HONK echoed throughout the throne room and he quickly stood back up to reveal a clown horn beneath him.

“Excuse you,” Discord chuckled as Soarin kicked the horn away and sat down again. Another HONK sounded out, but this one sounded different. Soarin stood up sharply again to see a goose sitting below him, glaring up at him angrily. The goose honked at him again before lifting off and flying out the broken stained glass window (that had yet to be fixed). “Really princess, what did you eat?” Discord appeared above Soarin and poked the false horn.

“Can you like, piss off?” Soarin snapped at him as he moved to sit again. He paused and looked below him to make sure there was nothing beneath him. He kept his eyes on the floor until his plot had touched down. “We’re kinda busy with something importaAAAHH!” he turned his head back only to see Discord’s face directly in front of his.

“That’s precisely why I’m here! I figured I’d get a better seat to watch this time! Up near the ceiling almost put a marble through me during your last session,” he glared one eye at Soarin. Discord disappeared and reappeared reclining on the throne. “And what better seat in the house than this one?” he chuckled. “I just had to chase away its former occupant first.” The royal guards posted near the throne made brief movements before stopping and going right back to standing still. “Good choice,” Discord taunted them as they sighed in frustration. Soarin groaned as he focused on resting his brain instead of worrying about Discord. Fancy however, seemed intrigued by the god of chaos.

“You seem awfully relaxed my friend. Surely your ruse won’t occupy the princess for long?” Fancy spoke calmly and casually to Discord. Discord rolled over, and laid across the throne on his stomach.

“Oh please, as if I’m some sort of amateur,” he appeared next one of the royal guards beside the throne. The guard’s helmet was gone and instead on Discord’s head. “I laid a trail full of pranks for her to follow. It should keep her busy for a while. Now please…” he removed the helmet and shoved it down onto the guard’s head, making him grunt in discomfort. “Go on, continue, I promise I won’t annoy you too much,” he chuckled as he once again appeared on the throne. Fancy lifted an eyebrow, and then his eyes came alight with interest. He glanced at Soarin.

“How are you faring? Need another minute?” he asked. Soarin nodded as he still tried to fully catch his breath.

“Yeah, my head’s still in a vice,” Soarin admitted as he shook his head out.

“Take your time, I feel like playing a little game with our friend here,” Fancy smirked. Soarin’s eyes widened.

“With… Discord?!” he whispered in disbelief.

“With Discord,” Fancy sounded a little too eager.

“It’s been nice knowing you,” Soarin added comically.

“Secrets are no FUN~!” Discord appeared between them with fake tears flowing out of his eyes in a wavy pattern.

“So you’re the infamous Discord? The god of chaos himself?” Fancy casually stepped away from Discord, whose eyes dried up upon formal mention of his name. “I’m sure you don’t get this very often, but for me it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Fancy bowed politely. Discord blinked in confusion.

“Well this is a new one,” he commented with and interested smile creeping across his jaw line.

“Allow me to introduce myself, I’m…”

“You’re Fancy Pants: billionaire, businessstallion, philanthropist, the most successful pony of our time, but just one step behind your father, eh?” Discord cut him off and winked. Fancy’s face faltered for only a moment. But a moment of weakness from a pony who is otherwise perfect, does not go unnoticed. To Soarin it was like a big red flag extended out of Fancy’s head. Father = soft spot.

But it was still only for a moment. Fancy’s confidence was back faster than Soarin could perform the Sonic Blast-off.

“I see I require no introduction. I have a proposal for you my friend,” Fancy slowly walked in a circle around Discord. Discord’s head followed his movement, even past the point of how far his neck could reasonably turn like an owl.

“This should be good,” Discord sneered.

“I propose a little contest, a game of wits. If I win, you leave us alone for the duration of our lessons,” Fancy’s expression never wavered.

“And if I win?” Discord sneered. Fancy didn’t even hesitate.

“Then you may tie me to a flag pole and parade me around Canterlot while I repeatedly sing any song of your choice,” Fancy offered casually. Discord burst out laughing and rolled onto his back as Soarin’s jaw nearly hit the floor.

“Fancy! What the hell are you doing?” Soarin asked frantically. Fancy chuckled and patted Soarin on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry my boy, I won’t lose,” he assured Soarin as Discord regained himself.

“Oh, you are CREATIVE! I gladly accept! What sort of challenge do you suggest?” Discord asked while stroking his scraggily beard. Fancy smirked.

“I’m the challenger, so the choice is yours,” he offered as Soarin silently screamed to himself behind him.

“You’re confidence is commendable,” Discord smirked as he tapped his chin, “So Mr. Pancy Fants, you fancy yourself able to match wits with the god of chaos himself? There’s little I enjoy more than showing a pony how out of their league I am!” he snapped his fingers and a small wooden table appeared before him. “I hope you’re ready to sing,” he taunted. “Even the simplest games against me will twist and confuse you to no end!” Three small cups appeared on the table.

“We shall see,” Fancy kept calm. Discord held out his hand.

“Might I borrow three marbles?” Discord asked with puppy dog eyes. Fancy hovered a red, blue, and green marble over to him. Discord placed them on the table. “Now,” he extended his neck so his face just barely pressed against Fancy’s face. “Keep an eye on the red marble,” he directed.

Fancy looked down at the table. The red marble was in the center, the green on the left, and the blue on the right. Discord placed the three cups over the marbles.

“If I were you,” Discord bounced his eyebrows, “I wouldn’t blink.”

Fancy paid no attention to the taunt as Discord began rapidly moving the cups around. He moved them faster and faster until they couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. Fancy just kept his eyes straight down at the table.

“HA!” Discord abruptly stopped. There were now nine cups on the table. “Whoops, looks like I went a little too fast, but you do enjoy a challenge don’t you?” Discord sneered at Fancy. He stood up from the table and patiently swayed back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. “So? Which one has the red marble?”

“That’s not fair at all!” Soarin blurted out from behind Fancy. “Fancy, you don’t have to…”

“What might you have in your hands behind your back?” Fancy smirked as he looked snidely at Discord. Discord’s eyes widened slightly, but he quickly played it off. He made an extremely subtle glance at his left hand behind his back. The red marble was in it, but how did Fancy see him do it? Without a single indication of shenanigans, Discord blinked and the green marble now lay in his hand, sending the red marble beneath one of the cups. He looked back towards Fancy.

“You’ve a keen eye McPantaloons, but I’m afraid it’s not the marble you’re looking for,” Discord chuckled as he held the green marble out in his palm. Fancy tipped his head up, his smirk cracking into a grin.

“Oh? Did I say you had the red marble in your hand?”

“Hm?” Discord blinked. As a matter of fact, Fancy never mentioned the red marble being in his hands.

“Actually I’m curious,” Fancy rubbed his chin. “Do you know which cup the red marble is under?” he challenged Discord.

“Pfft, you can’t bluff me, silly pony,” Discord reached for one of the cups. “It’s right…” there was nothing beneath the cup. “Eh?” Discord’s pupils shrank. He stared blankly at the table for another moment before grabbing all the other cups off the table. The red marble was gone, and the blue one was gone too.

“Looking for this?” Fancy spoke up. Discord’s eyes snapped to Fancy. Fancy was holding the red marble up in front of him with his magic. Discord looked between the table and the marble.

“What in Equestria?” Discord tried fruitlessly to understand what Fancy had just pulled. Suddenly the green marble floated up beside the red one.

“Could I have my blue marble back too, please?” Fancy asked politely.

“Huh?” Discord blinked and looked down into his hand. He was now holding the blue marble. Discord’s jaw detached from his face, bounced off the floor, and uppercut him upon reattaching. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he screamed out while clutching his head. He took a deep breath and exhaled before glaring at Fancy.

“Now I believe we had a deal?” Fancy winked at him. Discord’s glare slowly faded, replaced with a calm, serious expression. He sat down on the throne.

*HONK*

Discord jumped back up and stared at the the throne. The clown horn he summoned earlier was on it. He gawked at it, and then looked back at Fancy. Fancy shrugged as Discord just stared in disbelief. How? How did he just get beaten so soundly at his own game? To Discord, it was so incredibly baffling that all he could do was laugh. Discord laughed uncontrollably.

“I honestly have NO idea how you pulled that off!” he managed to calm himself a little. “You sir, Pants Oh-So Fance… are DANGEROUS, and it’s DELICIOUS! I’ll have to keep an eye on you,” one of Discord’s eyes detached from his head and orbited Fancy once before returning. “And a deals a deal, it’s the least I can do, nopony has been able to play me like that in centuries!” he did a loop in the air and waved at the two of them. “You two have fun, I’ll be watching from afar! Taa taa!” he rose up towards the ceiling, slowly disappearing while laughing heartily to himself again.

“Oh dear, it looks like it’s getting late already,” Fancy casually checked his pocket watch as he turned to Soarin. He stopped as he saw Soarin staring wide eyed. “What?”

“What do you mean ‘what!?’” Soarin threw his hooves up into the air. “How the hell did you do that?!” he questioned hysterically. Fancy smiled.

“Trade secret,” he winked. “I’m afraid that little escapade used up the rest of our time tonight. At least it ensured he’ll stay out of our business,” Fancy replaced his pocket watch in his jacket. “Make sure to practice multiple object carrying, if you have that down by our next meeting I can show you something new.”

“Wait Fancy… I’ve got a question…” Soarin stopped him. Did Soarin know any wise and intelligent ponies who could give advice? Well… he knew one that could wow the celestial sisters and outsmart the god of chaos. It would have to do.

“What’s on your mind my boy?” Fancy smiled.

“Well…” Soarin began. He relayed his worries to Fancy about Rainbow Dash and the decision he would have to make. He made sure not to leave out a single detail: the choice, the potential rumors, and what might happen should he not choose her. “…I just don’t know what to do. Every time I fix my mind on one possibility, it only takes a few seconds before I think the other is better. What would you do here?” he finished, looking to Fancy in hopes of getting some good advice.

“Hmm… that is quite a dilemma,” he rubbed his chin. “But I believe the answer is simple,” he nodded. “You, Soarin, are the power-flyer of the Wonderbolt lead squad. You rightfully earned your place in the Wonderbolts. If Rainbow Dash rightfully earns her place, then who are you to deny her it?” Fancy smiled. “And if she is as great as you describe her, I’m sure she will understand your choice, should you not select her. Those who push themselves will always push themselves, even if they are knocked down in the process.”

Damn, Fancy was smart. Soarin hadn’t looked at it from that perspective. Sure, Dash might get a little angry if she’s not selected, but that didn’t mean she would up and quit on them. And if she earned it, then she earned it. Anything the media had to say about them would be answered by her skill.

“Thanks Fancy,” Soarin smiled, now more confident than ever he could trust his new magic teacher.

“WHERE IS HE?!?!?!” Luna suddenly burst into the throne room. She was wearing a frilly pink dress, her mane was in pigtails, her face was covered with what looked like bits of cherry pie, and there was a string tied around her neck, at the other end of which floated a big yellow balloon with the word “SUCKER” in big red letters on it.

MysticBlue

Soarin and even Fancy had to hold in their laughter.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! How long does it take to wash up? I’m turning the lights out in five minutes whether or not you’re in bed yet!” Spitfire’s voice reached through the recruit barracks hallway from the entrance. Dash had just pushed her way out of the bathroom, carrying her toothbrush in her mouth. The line to use the mare’s bathroom was still extending out the door.

Dash made her way quickly back to her bunk and tossed her toothbrush in her drawer beside the Wonderbolt cadet uniform she had been issued after dinner. It had her bunk number and color along with an A, to signify she was on the bottom bunk. This number system made it much easier for the Wonderbolts to keep track of them all. It was much definitely much better than remembering three hundred names. Dash made herself comfortable on her bed as the rest of the cadets eventually finished cleaning up for the night. Dash glanced over and saw Fleetfoot enter the barracks. She whispered something to Spitfire.

“Oh, good idea, ATTENTION!” Spitfire called out, making more than half the cadets flinch. “Fleet and I are gonna come around and collect your consent forms now!” she said as the two of them began moving down the line. All of the cadets started shuffling around to grab their form.

Obviously the tryouts were going to be physically taxing. The Wonderbolts were not going to be held responsible for any injuries. Dash had signed a similar form when she had her training day. She went for her drawer, but was nudged aside by Arctic Blast.

“Hmmm, hmm, hmmmm,” Arctic hummed as she stuffed multiple brushes, cloths, and other beauty gear into her drawer.

“How about, ‘excuse me?’” Dash grunted as Arctic stopped and turned to her.

“How about you just stop getting in the way?” she tipped her head sassily to the side and spoke with a condescending tone. Arctic pulled out her consent form and tried to get around Dash, but Dash purposely bumped into her.

“Oh sorry, I was in the way,” said Dash as she reached for her drawer and removed the form.

“Pff, rude,” Artic whisked her mane over her shoulder.

“Says you…” Dash just let it be and waited for either Spitfire or Fleetfoot to reach them.

Fleetfoot got to them first. She winked at Dash when she grabbed her form and went for Arctic’s, but froze and looked behind them at the giant poster of Soarin.

“PFFFFFFF~!!!!” Fleetfoot’s cheeks puffed out and her face turned red, “HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” she burst out laughing at the sexy picture of her wingmate on the wall. Dash just averted her eyes and tried not to blush. It wasn’t even her poster, but it was pretty blatant. Spitfire stopped and glanced over from the other side of the aisle, two bunks down.

“Fleetfoot? What in the hell…?” she trotted over and flinched when she saw the poster of Soarin, “SNRK…” Spitfire instantly snorted when she saw the poster. Fleetfoot was pounding a hoof on the floor, completely losing it, but Spitfire did everything she could to keep her laughter down. Dash tried not to laugh awkwardly herself. She hoped they didn’t think it was her poster. Spitfire took a deep breath and put the business glare back on. “Nice poster,” she said with a straight face as she yanked Fleetfoot back to her hooves.

“Oh man… that’s just rich,” Fleetfoot wiped a tear from her eye as she went back to collecting forms. She and Spitfire got two more bunks down and both stopped again. Three bunks down from Dash and Arctic’s there was a pair of stallions standing very awkwardly and looking away from them. Behind them was a poster of an exclusive “sexy” picture of Spitfire and Fleetfoot from the same beach photo shoot that was only given to “longtime” subscribers of the magazine. It was the two of them lying on the beach, back to back in sultry poses while staring up at the camera. Spitfire looked slightly annoyed in the picture, but Fleetfoot was giving the sharpest bedroom eyes possible and blowing a kiss towards the camera.

The two stared at the poster, then back down at the stallions. Spitfire, with a glare, Fleetfoot with a smirk. The stallions continued to not look at them and hold their consent forms out awkwardly. Spitfire grabbed the forms and shook her head.

“I’m gonna kill Photo Finish for publishing that one,” she sighed as she started walking again. Fleetfoot leaned in towards one of the stallions, who began blushing like mad as she gave him a sly, sexy grin.

“Maybe if you buy me a drink first,” she whispered into his ear before Spitfire turned around and yanked her along. Dash chuckled at the sharp contrast between Spitfire and Fleetfoot. As always, the two were the perfect pair for unintentional comedy. Dash hadn’t noticed the poster of them before (and had no idea how because it was just as big as the one on her wall), but she began to wonder. Would she have to… pose like that if she became a famous Wonderbolt? The thought made her squeamish. If she was going to pose for anypony it would be for Soarin, nopony else, but would she have a choice? Spitfire definitely didn’t. Business was business.

“Well look at this!” Spitfire exclaimed as she counted the forms and walked back towards the entrance. “Only two hundred-forty-four forms?” she turned and faced them all. “Looks like about sixty got scared off by the consent form! Good, that makes our job a little easier tomorrow!”

A slight buzz went about the cadets. Sixty cadets up and left already? Dash glanced around the bunks. She didn’t even notice it before! There were a few empty bunks!

“The rest of you had the guts to sign it! I guess we’ll see who can back it up tomorrow! Now get some sleep! You better be at your best if you want to be one of the last one hundred standing after tomorrow!” a collective gasp went throughout the hallway. Only 100 would be left standing after tomorrow. Dash was confident she’d be fine, but it was still heavy news for the rest of the cadets.

“If anypony starts snoring, you have my permission to slap ‘em silly!” Fleetfoot added with a giggle. Spitfire flared her wing out into Fleetfoot’s face. Before anything else could happen, Spitfire slammed her hoof over the light switch, plunging the room into darkness.

“GOODNIGHT!” she yelled as she and Fleetfoot left, slamming the doors behind them.

Dash chuckled to herself as she simply leaned over and rolled into her bed. She had to suppress more laughter as Arctic clumsily bumped into the bed frame six times before actually finding the top bunk.

Time to get some sleep, which hopefully wouldn’t be to hard. Dash was nervous, but the excitement had her nearly bouncing. It took a few minutes for the hall to quiet down anyway. There was a lot of rusting of mattresses and sheets along with a few clumsy clangs of bed frames colliding with hooves.

When everything quieted down, Dash sighed and curled up beneath her sheets. Sleep. Sweet dreams. Dreams of Soarin. Dreams of being awesome. All of the above plus more Soarin please.

*SNNNNNNNRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKK*

Dash’s eyes opened wide. What the hell was that ungodly noise?

*SNNNNNNNRRRRRKKKKK RRRKKK RRKKKKKKK*

It was coming from directly above her.

*SNNRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNKK*

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Dash mumbled to herself as she heard stirring from the bunks beside hers as well. Arctic Blast was snoring. It was atrociously loud, like somepony was trying to cut a piece of cardboard in half with a bike chain. Dash covered her ears as the noise echoed from above her again.

“Wait…” she suddenly remembered.

“If anypony starts snoring, you have my permission to slap ‘em silly!” – Fleetfoot

Dash smirked and rubbed her hooves together.

Well… Spitfire never said no…

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Surprise early update!

AND I PROMISE... that the tryouts start next chapter xD

I'm trying to cram as many details into this story as possible. I would have done the same for Flying Sky High if i didn't have a two month deadline. So yeah, we're still in the first part of the story! This is gonna be a loooooong fic, but i relish the chance to take it at my own pace this time ;)

Oh yeah... and Fancy Pants just punked the hell out of Discord. In my universe, you don't mess with Fancy Pants. As i mentioned once earlier, if you wish to see more of Fancy being awesome at nearly everything, check out my story: Hard Pressed to Impress. He wows the whole mane six and then some ;)

I also just want to thank all the readers in general ^_^ the ride has only just begun with this story and all of you are making it so enjoyable for me :)

Thanks for reading!

next chapter? ... I'd have to say Friday.

Chapter 11: The Tryouts Begin

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 11:

It’s not like Dash could actually do anything to Arctic in fear of causing trouble, but she did take action against the snoring. Once her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she made three trips to the top bunk, swatting Arctic in the face with her wing, and quickly dropped back down. Arctic was one hell of a heavy sleeper. None of the three face swats woke her, but after the third, she finally turned over to her stomach and the horrible noise ceased.

Thanks to Dash’s efforts, both she and many other surrounding cadets were able to get a good night’s sleep. It was lights out at 9:30pm and they were apparently getting a wakeup call at 6:00am. Dash fell asleep wondering what sort of “wakeup call” they would get. She knew the higher ranking Wonderbolts pretty well. They were bound to get creative with it.

Dash along with every single cadet in the bunks jolted awake as the loud, ear-piercing blare of an air horn screamed through the hall. Dash quickly covered her ears and leaned towards the hoof of her bed, peering around the frame towards the entrance.

Squad three was standing by the doors, all in uniform with their goggles around their necks. The Streak twins and Surprise were standing firm with large headphones covering their ears. In front of them was Misty Fly with a large air horn the size of her. It looked like an oil drum with a gramophone and TNT plunger attached to it. Misty was pressing the plunger down with a hoof, but wasn’t wearing anything over her ears, obviously. She let up on the horn as all the cadets began to emerge from the bunks, turned to the rest of squad three and nodded. Fire Streak nodded back to her and then turned to Surprise and Lightning.

“Let’s get them on their hooves and over to breakfast,” said Fire as he removed his headphones and made hoof and wing signals to Misty. Surprise bounced up to the giant air horn and began dragging it back towards the doors. Lightning looked it up and down.

“Like… how did you even get that?” he asked lazily while cleaning out his left ear with a wing feather.

“Rivet put it together for me! I had to buy all the parts though!” Surprise explained happily as she pushed it against the wall for the time being. Lightning blinked as he flicked the earwax off his wing.

“Dude… where the hell can you buy an oil barrel, gramophone, and TNT plunger all in the same place?” Lightning scratched his head as Fire beckoned them.

“Stalmart! Duh!” Surprise shrugged as they followed behind Fire.

Good old squad three. Dash smiled as she watched them make their way down the rows of beds to make sure everypony was up. Anypony caught snoozing got a second Surprise wakeup call.

“Up! Up! Up! Everypony up and get those uniforms on!” Fire yelled out as they walked, followed right after by a scream from a stallion as a party noise maker got sent through his ear by Surprise.

“Yeah, I want all the mares to form a line in front of me and bend oveOW!” Lightning Streak received a smack upside the head from Fire. Misty just walked along beside Fire, inspecting the cadets and their designated areas. She stopped a few times to force a cadet or two to clean up their space. Fire glanced at her. He chuckled as he watched her silently demand for every space to be spotless. Misty had always been a little obsessive about keeping things clean. Fire decided to help both her and the cadets so they could speed things up. He began shouting again.

“I’ll save you the trouble now. If you’re still in bed, Surprise will make you regret it! If your space isn’t clean, Misty Fly will glare at you until you clean it,” he paused and smirked. “If you wish to argue with Misty what the definition of “clean” is… good luck!” he added.

Dash chuckled to herself as she pulled open her drawer and retrieved her cadet uniform. She’d love to see some idiots try to argue with her. They’d have absolutely no idea. Dash turned to see squad three passing as she started slipping on her uniform. Fire only glanced. Misty gave a brief look and a subtle wing wave. Surprise waved her whole arm and smiled brightly. Lighting made the “call me” motion again and ran directly into his brother’s flank as Fire came to a stop.

Dash blinked and focused on Fire Streak. He had turned slightly and was staring into the top bunk.

At that moment, Dash realized that Arctic was still asleep. This would be good.

“Surprise,” Fire glanced back at Surprise and made a head motion towards the bunk. In an instant, Surprise was peering over the edge of the top bunk at the sprawled out, sleeping form of Arctic.

“Surprise attack!” Surprise sprang up and landed roughly with her legs straddled over Arctic’s back. Arctic grunted, but remained asleep. Heavy sleeper? That put it lightly. Surprise grabbed Arctic’s pillow and yanked it out from beneath her head, making her face plop into the mattress. Surprise put her hooves into the air and yelled out: “THIS IS THE WAKE-UP SONG… FROM YOUR OWN PRIVATE HELL!” she grinned wide with her tongue sticking through her teeth.

“Oh god…” Dash glanced between Surprise and the rest of squad three as they didn’t even flinch at Surprise’s antics.

Surprise proceeded to smack the pillow over Arctic’s head repeatedly while yelling.

“WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP!”

“Argh! Like…what the hell?!” Arctic finally woke as she was vigorously beaten over the head with her own pillow.

“WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKEUP!” Surprise kept going, and kept smacking her with the pillow.

“OH MY GAWD! I’M UP!” Arctic sat up roughly and glared at Surprise. Surprise pressed her nose to Arctic’s.

“That’s what they waaaaaaaaant you to think!” she said with a loud, sharp whisper as her pupils grew and shrank seemingly at will. Arctic froze in place as Surprise slowly pressed her face further and tipped Arctic back down until the back of her head was stuck firmly against the mattress.

“Okay Surprise, I think she’s awake now. Probably will be for a few days,” Fire chuckled as he hovered up and removed Surprise from atop Arctic.

From below, Dash was trying her hardest not to completely lose it. Arctic would think twice about sleeping in again.

After getting the cadet uniform on, Dash decided to make a quick fly to the bathroom. She was one of the first out of bed and ready to go, so she had time. As she glided above the aisle, she spotted Lightning and Fire staring incredulously at the massive bed made for Matteo and Bulk. Lightning was looking specifically at Matteo, who stared back down at him with his harsh glare.

“Whoa dude, you’re like, even bigger up close…” Lightning Streak said as Dash passed them. Matteo, of course, only scoffed and continued to struggle with his extra-extra large cadet uniform.

It looked like Dash wasn’t the only one with the idea to use the bathroom. There was already a line out the door. She groaned in frustration and set down to get in line. As she waited, she spotted Thunderlane nearby. She noticed his bunkmate was still in bed on the bottom bunk. Twister was his name? The one with the creepy stare and a mane like an electrified urchin?

“Surprise, another one,” Fire Streak pointed towards the bottom bunk as Thunderlane watched them pass. Surprise crouched down and skittered along the floor towards the edge of the bed, peering over the edge. Twister had the covers pulled over his head. Surprise smirked.

“IT’S TIME FOR…” she got real close to where his face would be and ripped the covers off, but she froze solid. Twister was wide awake, staring directly into her eyes with an incredibly creepy grin on his face.

“…seeeeeexxxxxxxxxxx?” he finished the sentence for her while inching his face towards hers very slowly. Surprise’s hair deflated and she pulled herself away with a shriek. The Streak twins instantly turned, and stared in disbelief. Had Surprise just been… beaten? Fire quickly stepped forward and put his hoof on Surprise’s shoulder. He looked at Twister in confusion and grimaced as he saw Twister bouncing his eyebrows at him with the creepy smile still intact. Fire turned back to Surprise.

“Surprise? Are you okay?” He asked as she stared blankly into space.

“I have seen the end…” she mumbled.

“What?”

“There were no more cookies…” Surprise kept babbling as she turned and started walking towards the entrance. Fire, along with many other cadets, watched in confusion as Surprise slowly moved along. Fire looked to Lightning and pointed. “Can you handle it? You’re better with her.” Lightning gave a half-assed salute.

“I’m on it,” he cracked his neck and casually followed after Surprise. “Yo babe, what kind of cookies?” he yelled to her.

Fire shook his head and shrugged. It was nearly impossible to understand how Surprise’s brain worked, but for some reason, his brother’s idiocy seemed to make him understand her. Surprise seldom needed anypony to cheer her up, but when she did, it was a job for Lightning. Fire went on with his round, making one last hesitant glance at Twister as he moved.

“Huh…” Dash had seen the whole exchange. Thunderlane wasn’t kidding. This Twister stallion was… creepy as hell. Not quite on the Nightshade level, but… that stare… and the way he so easily broke Surprise. She’d have to keep an eye on him. How did Thunderlane sleep last night knowing THAT was below him?

Dash finally got into the bathroom. When she emerged, the cadets were beginning to file out. Dash could see Silver Lining of squad two by the entrance directing them along. A few were still by their bunks though, and as Dash glided back to grab her flight goggles, something caught her eye.

Misty Fly had stopped by Derpy’s bunk. Derpy was cleaning up what looked like muffin crumbs that were all over her mattress. Misty was watching carefully to make sure Derpy didn’t miss any. Dash perked up as she saw the stallion Derpy had mentioned hop down from the top bunk. Storm Front, she remembered his name. Derpy wouldn’t stop talking about him before. From what Dash had heard, this stallion was beyond polite, and naturally charming. Dash got a closer look as well as Storm Front started helping Derpy clean up her mattress. Yeah, he was pretty damn good looking, not that it meant anything for Dash because of Soarin, but she could see why Derpy was swooning over him.

“Sorry ma’am, we’ll fix this up,” Storm turned and nodded to Misty. Misty couldn’t hear him of course. She just kept looking at the mattress sternly. “Ma’am?” Storm tried again. Fire Streak saw the exchange and trotted over. Storm looked up at Fire as he approached. Fire put a hoof up to his ear and shook his head.

“Deaf,” he said simply. There was no way to avoid it if someone actually tried to speak with Misty. Storm blinked.

“Ohhh… so that’s why… the signals…” Storm thought out loud. Dash stopped in midair to watch as she saw Storm reach out and tap Misty on the shoulder. Misty blinked and faced him, tipping her head in confusion. Storm opened his wings and put his front hooves up.

“Wait… no way…” Dash’s jaw dropped. Fire Streak’s eyes widened as well.

Storm Front proceeded to make multiple hoof motions and wing signals at Misty Fly. Misty’s ears shot up and her wings swung open in surprise. Storm Front knew sign language. He was talking to Misty Fly. Fire Streak was left speechless. Storm Front almost did it faster and smoother than he could.

One of the widest smiles Dash had ever seen found its way onto Misty’s face and her pupils almost doubled in size. She quickly answered him using her own signs. The two made signs back and forth for another minute before Misty made the "thank you" and "goodbye" motions. She bounced up and down giddily before trotting down the aisle towards the entrance.

Fire Streak watched her move with an incredibly light bounce in her step. He turned to Storm.

“Cadet… where did you learn sign language?” he asked out of curiosity. Storm smiled.

“My late grandfather was deaf,” his ears drooped slightly. “It was the only way we could talk to him.”

“I see…” Fire glanced over at the happy Misty Fly, then back at Storm, then to Misty, and once more back to Storm. He sighed with a hint of frustration in his voice. “Very impressive. Now come on, to breakfast,” he said flatly as he made a head motion towards the entrance. Dash moved aside as Fire drew near. He didn’t look at her, but Dash could see it. He almost looked… jealous? She kept her eyes on him until he was out the door after Misty.

Dash looked back towards Storm Front and saw him clean off the last bit of crumbs before turning and speaking to Derpy. Derpy was bright red in the face and smiling goofily at him.

What an interesting stallion. She wasn’t so much impressed at first, but after the sign language? Storm Front was certainly not your everyday stallion. Dash was glad to see at least one of her friends got a respectable bunkmate.

Silver Lining started yelling from the entrance… something about sticking all four of his hooves up anypony’s ass who wasn’t out the door in the next five minutes. Dash winced uncomfortably as the words struck home. Talk about an unpleasant image and thought. First impression of Silver Lining? Don’t piss him off. She quickly retrieved her flight goggles and made a beeline for the doors. She was already going to have to wait in line for breakfast, so the sooner she got there the more time she had to eat. The Wonderbolts were clearly trying to keep a schedule here, and she didn’t want to be the one who slowed it down.

Only one word was needed to describe Dash’s breakfast: FAST. Wave Chill and Soarin were directing the cadet’s along in the mess hall. Dash did her best to remain calm in the presence of Soarin. She was happy that she at least got an indirect wink from him as she moved through the food line.

As soon as a cadet got their food, they were given ten minutes to eat before they had to move along and keep the tables near the entrance and cleanup areas clear. Spitfire flew overhead as they ate, giving out instructions.

They were all to eat as quickly as possible and then head for the auxiliary indoor flight gym on the west end of the compound. If anypony had to go get special attention from the trainers beforehand, they only had thirty minutes. A few ponies left quickly to do just that. The Wonderbolt training staff was undoubtedly unprepared as well. It would be first come, first served. Take too long at breakfast? Then you were shit-out of luck.

Dash was glad her wings were still at peak performance. She was one of the younger cadets in the whole group. While most were young and full of youthful spirit, there were a few who had showed up who seemed to be past the point of being called young. Dash had picked out at least twenty or thirty cadets who looked to be in their late twenties to early thirties.

Some dreams never die. Seeing a few individuals clearly past their prime give it a shot was honestly a little sad to Dash. She knew what it was like to have a dream she would go miles and miles for. Seeing those who had clearly tried in the past and always fell short was both depressing and encouraging. Depressing because… well… they spent their lives dreaming of being a Wonderbolt and never made the cut and encouraging because they were determined to keep trying. Unwavering perseverance is not an easy trait to come by. Many ponies in Equestria shy away from challenge, find a comfort zone, and are stuck in it all their lives despite the potential to improve. While those who make the effort may not be successful, it’s their attempt that makes them stand apart.

Dash would never give up. She was determined to become a Wonderbolt. She would hold nothing back and play all her best cards from the word “go.” It was a mix of skill and chance that lead to Soarin, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot becoming the lead squad of the Wonderbolts. Dash was confident that she had the skill, refined over the past few months while gaining strength and speed alongside. The chance? This was her chance. If Soarin did it, so could she.

“Everypony listen up!” Spitfire tried yelling to the cadets as they started packing into the gym. She huffed in frustration when her voice didn’t quite reach all of them.

Dash had flown to the front, and had quieted down to listen, but unlike yesterday, it seemed like there was much more commotion in the group. It was probably due to excitement.

“Tough crowd, eh?” Fleetfoot said as she stepped up beside Spitfire. Spitfire turned to her as Soarin walked up as well.

“Could you two get squads two and three to help quiet them down? There’s so many this time…” she ordered as she thought about solutions.

Dash blinked as she saw a small, yellow, brown maned pegasus stallion approach Spitfire. It was the same stallion that ran into her in the barracks and scurried off before she could say anything. He had a megaphone tucked under his arm.

“Hm?” Spitfire turned to him as he landed and held the megaphone out to her. “Oh, thanks. That works too. Soarin, get the other squads lined up and ready,” she said as she grabbed the megaphone and nodded to the small stallion. “Go ahead and raise the curtains too, please,” she said. Fleetfoot slowly leaned towards the stallion while smirking.

“Aw, you’re being so helpful! Maybe I should give you a BIG kiss!” she cooed while her wings fluttered subtly. The stallion shied away from her nervously, crouching down slightly as he looked away from her, blushed, and scampered away quickly. Spitfire rolled her eyes as Fleetfoot giggled.

“Fleet, how many times have I told you to stop teasing him? He’s nervous enough on a regular basis,” she eyed Fleetfoot sternly. Fleetfoot batted her eyelashes at her.

“But he’s so cute when he’s nervous!” she tipped her head all the way to the side and edged towards Spitfire. “Kinda like Wave, eh? If he’s your type I’m surprised you didn’t first go for—”

“Squads two and three are ready,” Soarin dropped in and nodded. Fleetfoot scoffed as Spitfire shifted her attention.

“Interrupting princess says what…?” she grumbled to herself as Spitfire acknowledged Soarin’s report.

“Good, we’ll have the gym curtains up soon and we can get started,” she turned to eye the large curtain behind her.

The auxiliary flight gym was different from most of their facilities. It had no true purpose. It was a single, long gym about fifty yards wide and two hundred yards long. There were three large, cheap thin leather curtains that hung from the ceiling that could separate the gym into four fifty yard sections. The gym was used often by the lower ranking and recruit squads for multipurpose training or activities while the main facilities were occupied by the higher squads. Because of how large this room was, Spitfire was most definitely going to need to use the megaphone.

“LISTEN UP!” she yelled into it. Her voice amplified about ten times and the whole place actually shook. She pulled her head back from it in surprise as the whole group of cadets went dead silent. Fleetfoot shook her head out and blinked.

“Could you say that a little louder? I don’t think they heard you in Saddle Arabia!” she exclaimed sarcastically as Soarin examined the side of the megaphone.

“I think Silver Lining used this last…” he chuckled as he pointed to the dial on the side. Spitfire turned the megaphone over and saw the dial Soarin was pointing at. It was labeled one to eleven. It had been jammed one tick past eleven. She sighed and forced the dial back, turning it down to five.

“He doesn’t even need one of these , how many more things do I have to ban him from?” Spitfire shook her head before putting the megaphone back up. “Sorry about that!” the megaphone amplified her voice in a much more controlled manner. “Today is the first day of our tryouts… for a good number of you, it will be the only day. If you aren’t ready to show us the best you’ve got, leave now and save us the trouble!”

“Welp, that’s it for me,” Fleetfoot took a step to the left, but Soarin’s wing reached out and put her back into place as she giggled. Spitfire continued.

“Today will be simple testing to gauge general physical fitness. We only want to bother with the one hundred of you that showed up the most prepared to be the best!”

As she explained, the gym curtains all opened, revealing the full two hundred yard length. Members of squad two were already posted around the one hundred yard mark. They each had a sign above them with a single color box on it. There was one sign with nopony beneath it, most likely to be occupied by a lead squad member after the announcement.

“Our first test is a simple speed test! We have marked from here to the middle of the gym, exactly eighty yards!”

Squad three moved in and took places right behind her. They each pulled a colored sign like those across the gym and placed them down, leaving one spot open again.

“Take a look at the color of the number on your uniform. That color will tell you which Wonderbolt to line up behind based on which color sign they are under! You get three chances to show us how fast you can accelerate and speed through the other side. There’s plenty of room to slow down, so go all out. If a hundred yards is not enough to slow down, my god you need to work on that!”

She turned and nodded to Fleetfoot and Soarin. Fleetfoot took the empty spot beneath the blue sign at the starting lines with squad three. Soarin took off into the air and hovered above.

“This WILL be a clean tryout! No funny stuff and no cheap shots!” Spitfire pointed towards Soarin, who was hovering above with a bird’s eye view of the cadets with his hooves crossed. “Soarin will be keeping an eye on all of you! I wouldn’t try anything, that horn he’s wearing isn’t for show, he CAN use magic!”

“And the prettiest princess!” Fleetfoot whispered towards a few cadets including Dash. Spitfire eyed the small group of chuckling cadets and shook her head.

“You are being timed from the first movement you make past the starting line! Good luck, and for Celestia’s sake, give us something to be excited about!” Spitfire finished before turning and flying towards the vacant spot at the finish, lining herself up with Fleetfoot across the gym.

“You heard the loud lady! Get in your lines! Hop to it! Let’s go!” Fleetfoot yelled out.

Dash was nudged forward slightly as the group began to mingle and move. She had a blue number, and Fleetfoot was directly in front of her. She was already where she needed to be so she stepped right up. Fleetfoot gave her a grin and bounced her eyebrows at Dash. Dash chuckled as she stepped up.

“Give the rest of your buddies a second to get organized, then we’ll get going,” Fleetfoot explained with a forced businesslike tone. She glanced back and forth and leaned slightly towards Dash. “Like my impression of Spitfire?” she giggled. Dash glanced behind her to make sure nopony was paying attention to them.

“Needs more stiffness,” Dash joked back with a wink. Fleetfoot chuckled and peered over Dash’s shoulder.

“Alright, looks like the lines are almost there, we can get started.”

Dash looked behind and saw the cadets organizing. There was almost a completely straight line behind her.

“Alright! First up!” Fleetfoot tapped her hooves together and grabbed a stopwatch that was dangling off a hook on the sign pole. Dash took a deep breath and stepped towards her. She glanced left and right to see a few cadets had already been sent off. The speed was good, but they seemed subpar. “Give us a show Dash,” Fleetfoot whispered as Dash stood at her starting line.

Dash nodded and faced down the length of the gym. Spitfire said to give it everything? Fine, she’d give them everything. She had a trick up her sleeve that she was certain no pony else could pull off.

The Sonic Blast-off.

Dash focused, and set her hooves firmly on the gym floor. She relaxed her body but kept a strong base. Her eyes widened and she made her first motion. Fleetfoot started the watch. Dash proceeded to smoothly go through the motions of Soarin’s Sonic Blast-off…

But her last step dragged. She was sent face first into the floor and into a rough tumble.

Dash panicked for only a moment, quickly rolling back up and kicking off the ground as hard as she could. She accelerated quickly within her own wing power, shooting down the full eighty meters and firing past Spitfire.

“Dammit!!!” Dash cursed as she smacked her hooves against her head. How the hell did she screw it up?! She hadn’t messed up the Blast-off in ages! She glided around and over by Spitfire.

“Nice recovery, but you better impress me with the other two,” Spitfire said towards her as she passed. “Fly higher to avoid those testing,” she ordered before jotting something down on a clipboard and giving Fleetfoot a wave for the next cadet.

STUPID!

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID!!!!!!!!

Dash felt like a complete dumbass. Way to stumble immediately.

From above, Soarin winced and shook his head. Dash shouldn’t have tried it. She wasn’t used to performing the Sonic Blast-off under pressure. It was different on your own or when fueled by adrenaline. He hoped she would keep it simple. Sometimes risks just aren’t worth taking.

He went back to keeping an eye on the crowd, and the instant he did a small scuffle broke out between stallions.

“HEY!” He yelled as he propelled towards them.

Dash was on her own. He had to keep his focus on his part of the tryouts.

Dash kept cursing to herself as she flew back. The frustration was heavy, but she had to keep in mind she had two more chances. Should she risk the Sonic Blast-off again? That probably wasn’t the best idea. She only had two chances left. If she messed it up again on the second, she’d be pressured on the third. Better to get a clean run first, and then try the blast-off again to at least have one clean run in the books.

She looked down at the cadets testing as she glided. She saw Thunderlane zoom by. It wasn’t quite as fast as her, but he didn’t stumble. Thunderlane always had pretty decent wing strength despite being lazy. Of all her friends along, Thunderlane was most likely to make it to the next round at least.

She glanced over just in time to see Storm Front fire from his spot and shoot down his lane. Pretty impressive. He was about the size of Soarin and had a similar powerful follow-through with his wings. He didn’t seem to be as fast as Soarin or herself, but he had a lot of strength in his movements. Storm Front had already proved to be interesting. He seemed certain to move on.

“HHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Dash knew that unnecessarily long and loud battle cry all too well. She turned her head the other way to see Bulk Biceps giving it his all. He was putting absolutely every bit of effort into flying… but he was going very slowly. Dash sighed and chuckled. Bulk was going to clean house in the strength testing, but that was about it. She hated thinking this way, but he most definitely wasn’t advancing.

Dash made it back to her line and grunted in frustration. She wanted desperately to take another crack at the Sonic Blast-off as soon as she got up, but she refused to let her pride get the better of her. She had to play this smart.

“Care to repeat that?!”

Dash blinked and glanced behind her. The two stallions in line behind her were in each other’s faces. Oh god… testosterone idiocy incoming.

“I said you fly like a little bitch!” the other taunted back.

“I’ll show you, who’s a bitch!” they grappled their front hooves and others nearby backed away. Dash paid no attention until.

“Enough!” Soarin slammed down between them, forcing their arms apart and pushing them away. They both flinched and froze as Soarin looked back and forth at them with glares. “First the mess hall, now here!” he bared his teeth and snorted. “One more time and BOTH of your asses are GONE! Got it?!” Soarin snarled. The two quickly nodded in compliance. “Now get back in line and shut the hell up!” Soarin added before he lifted off again.

He didn’t look at Dash, but damn… that was hot. Soarin just went full alpha on these two stallions who weren’t that much smaller than he was. Seeing him dominate them so easily with just his presence was… pretty sexy.

FOCUS DASH!

Dash shook her head. She had to stay on task. It was about to be her turn again anyway.

“Try less face to floor application this time,” Fleetfoot whispered to her with a smirk.

“Har, har…” Dash replied sarcastically. Fleetfoot meant well, but it really did bother Dash. She would take this one normally. She set her hooves again, and this time, did a simple takeoff and acceleration. She picked up speed and sped down the length of the gym, crossing the finish line much quicker than she did last time. She flared her wings out, and glided back around.

“Much better,” Spitfire said simply as she passed again.

Dammit.

That was nothing. Dash knew she could do a hell of a lot better. She got to top speed, but only after wasting the first forty yards picking up said speed. She had to use the Sonic Blast-off. It was the only way she could truly show off her acceleration prowess.

As she glided back, something caught her eye. Something huge.

Matteo was up in Fire Streak’s line. It was interesting to see a griffon in a Wonderbolt uniform. He also had lots of wrappings taped around his wing joints for stability. Dash watched carefully, she had to see this. Matteo grunted loudly and extended his wings. They were massive! At least four or five times the length of Dash’s wingspan! The cadets in the lines besides his both waited as he began pumping his wings. Ponies all around him shielded themselves as powerful gusts pulsated from each wing pump. He was very slow to start, which was no surprise, but he really started moving fast for his size and apparent weight. He ended up only gaining about half the speed that Dash did, slamming to the ground and skidding to a stop as he crossed the finish line and Blaze, but if he had kept going… Dash could only imagine the power that would be behind him if he was given a lot of space to speed up. Dash looked behind her and saw Spitfire watching from two lines over, she definitely looked intrigued.

What was Matteo’s story? Dash would have to try and ask him at some point. He was such a mystery, but it seemed more than likely he’d be sticking around past day one.

As Dash neared her line again, she spotted Arctic getting ready. Hmph, Dash didn’t care one bit, but she watched anyway. Arctic took her damn sweet time getting situated and ready to go. She set her eyes forward, and sprang from her spot… really damn fast.

Dash watched as Arctic sped down the lane, reaching speeds close to what Dash had just performed. Dash stared wide-eyed, not believing such speed just came out of such a bitchy brat. Not all was perfect though. It took Arctic almost the full one hundred extra meters to slow down, and she tumbled to a stop. Nopony can out-bitch karma… not even Arctic.

An untamable fire lit in the pit of Dash’s stomach. She REFUSED to be seen on a similar level as such an unpleasant mare. Her mind was set right then and there as she got back in line. She was going to use the Sonic Blast-off, and this time she WASN’T going to screw it up.

Soarin kept his eyes out from above. Thankfully, it seemed like most of the initial biting and hoofing was over, at least what he could see. He had no idea if any mares had thrown any cheap shots at others. They tended to be very subtle about it, unlike the stallions.

“Hm?” he looked down towards Fleetfoot as Dash stepped up for her third trial. He watched her crouch down and his eyes widened. “Oh god, no, no, no, Dash, don’t do it again! Don’t risk it!” he spoke to himself as he gritted his teeth.

“On your go Dash,” Fleetfoot gave her the go ahead. With a new, additional determination alight in her eyes. Dash focused down the lane. This time she’d do it. This time they would see who was top pegasus. She relaxed her body, extended her wings forward, and went through the motions.

Front hooves…

Back hooves…

Front jump…

Back jump…

And force wings!

It was perfect.

Dash exploded from her spot, breaking an air cone inches from the starting line.

“OH, SHIT!” Fleetfoot yelled as the blast of wind blew her over. Dash was out of the start and through the finish line so fast that Spitfire nearly missed the moment of shutting off the timer.

Art by: PhonicBoom

Colored by: -_Rainbow_Dash-_

Dash thrust her wings out to air brake as a huge smile crossed her face. SHE DID IT! She turned around to see Spitfire glancing between her and the stop watch.

Spitfire couldn’t believe her eyes. Dash had just crossed eighty yards in just barely over two seconds. Dash approached to check the time, but was confused when she saw Spitfire eying her in disbelief. Dash looked around and saw that everything had stopped, and every pony was staring at her.

Oh… that’s right. Fleetfoot and Spitfire had never actually seen Dash pull off the Sonic Blast-off. The only one who had was…

Soarin breathed a heavy sigh of relief and held a hoof over his heart as it beat quickly. Dash had just taken one hell of a risk. Had she messed it up again, he was more than certain she’d get some sort of demerit mark on her trial record.

Soarin watched as the silence slowly ended and everypony went back to finishing their last trial. Soarin realized too that this was the first time anypony else had seen her pull of his signature move. It still wasn’t as smooth or controlled as his, but it was still nothing short of incredible that she could. She had pulled it off during the battle with Nightshade, but based on Spitfire’s reaction, and the way Fleetfoot’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head, Soarin assumed they hadn’t seen it then.

Soarin smiled as Dash rejoined the crowd and got mobbed instantly. Leave it to Dash to wow a crowd. But sheesh, did she have to take such a risk? Who was he kidding? This was Rainbow Dash he was thinking about. His rainbow Dash. Risks and danger were part of her, and damn he loved it. The start was rocky, but she came right back with flying colors, literally.

Now she just had to keep that fire going as the tryouts continued.

--- To be Continued---

Author's Note

BAM! Update! :)

The tryouts finally begin! Dash had a rough start, but she picked up the pieces and wowed everypony! At least here, can she keep it up?

SQUAD 3 WOOO!!!!! It was fun to write with them again, don't expect too much from them now, but when the story hits part two, you can expect a lot from squad 3 AND from squad 2, whom i'm also making personalities for ;)

speaking of parts and what not. This chapter has put the word count for this story OVER the total word count of Head in the Clouds and about HALF the word count of Flying Sky High...

AND WE AREN'T EVEN ONE FOURTH DONE YET.

I'm geeking out man, this story is gonna be long as hell and i love it.

Thanks for reading and thanks for all being so awesome!

Chapter 12: Successful Blunders and Chili Wrestling

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 12:

Dash sighed in relief as she glided back towards her line. That was her third trial run and it couldn’t have ended it more perfectly, although she made a mental note to be careful. She already felt it in her legs, and a little bit in her body. The Sonic Blast-off was an extremely physically taxing move. She hoped acceleration wasn’t a part of the other tests approaching. Dash yelped slightly as she finally landed and was instantly surrounded by cadets.

“That was awesome!”

“How did you do that?”

“Was that Soarin’s move?”

So many ponies were talking to her at once, she could barely move.

“Whoa!” Dash reached her wings and arms out. “Give me some space guys!” she felt a little embarrassed. She had gotten so used to using Soarin’s signature move that she had forgotten she was using a famous move of the one and only Wonderbolt “Power Flyer.”

“Hold it!” Arctic’s voice came from behind a few other ponies. Dash groaned as she saw Artic push her way past ponies to get to Dash. Dash lifted an eyebrow in annoyance as Arctic approached and got in Dash’s face. “Are you stealing my stallion’s moves?” she belted. Dash just snickered.

“Arctic, really?” Dash tipped her head to side. She couldn’t believe this mare.

“Ya, really!” she glared harder at Dash. “I’m not gonna let you copy him!”

“I think…” Dash sneered. She should just stay out of it. Don’t feed the airhead. Who was she kidding? She wanted to mess with Arctic’s head. “I think you’re jealous I know his moves!” she bounced her eyebrows. "What? Afraid he’ll notice little ol’ me now instead of you?” Arctic turned so red with anger it was a wonder smoke didn’t shoot out of her ears.

“WHY… YOU!!!!!!” she grabbed Dash by the shoulders and tried to shake her, but Arctic was a dainty flower compared to Dash. Dash wasn’t even sure if Arctic knew what a muscle was. Arctic’s attempts to move Dash failed miserably, but Dash was effectively weirded out.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa now!” Dash’s ears stood up quickly as a very familiar and desired voice caressed her ears. Soarin landed beside them and pushed the two of the apart. “That’s the most interesting attempt at fighting I’ve ever seen,” he said with a shrug towards Arctic.

Dash had to hold it in. She had to hold it in so hard she thought her head was going to inflate Pinkie Pie style. This was a GOLDEN opportunity to just RUIN Arctic with knowledge of her and Soarin being a thing, but she held back the urge. Soarin made it clear before about not showing favoritism. If she did something here… well… the whole damn cadet group was here. That wouldn’t go down so well.

“Oh…my… gawd…” Arctic’s face lightened from red to light pink as she eyed Soarin up and down very thoroughly.

Hold it back Dash. Hold it back.

“Let’s keep the scuffles to a minimum okay?” Soarin looked at both of them. Dash nodded, acting as casual as she could. Soarin lifted an eyebrow at Arctic. “Okaaaaaay?” he repeated to her, but she was too busy swooning.

“Oh my gawd, Soarin! Can you, like, sign my…” she frantically looked around. Alas, she had nothing for him to sign. “Oo! Can you sign my forehead?!” she tipped her head towards him.

“Uh…” Soarin took a step back while looking back and forth in complete and utter confusion. “Maybe… later…” he avoided.

“Okay that works!” Arctic giddily bounced up and down. Soarin glanced at the other cadets and Dash, all equally slightly disturbed by Arctic’s ‘behavior.’ Soarin looked towards Dash briefly and mouthed the words: “What the hell?” Dash tried not to lose it as Soarin fought off Arctic’s last attempts at flirting and trotted towards Fleetfoot as the first test came to a close.

“Wow,” Fleetfoot blinked as Soarin came near. She had seen the whole scene with Arctic. “Can I do everypony here a favor and punch her in the face? Repeatedly?”

“I don’t think that would work,” Soarin shook his head with an amused smirk. “Not much up there to punch out of her. That’s what I call a far-gone fan-girl.”

“I refuse to let her stain my gender. Talk about centuries of mare development and intelligence flushed right out the uterus.”

“…Right…” Soarin replied uncomfortably with Fleetfoot’s choice of words.

“I expect crap like that from a stallion… but…” Fleetfoot shivered as she trailed off. Soarin glanced at her and lifted his brow as they began walking towards Spitfire.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked with a chuckle. Fleet tipped her head and smirked.

“All stallions are born with ingrained stupidity, it doesn’t matter how smart they are, they always end up doing something dumb. I’ve done research!” she nudged him in the side.

“Oh, I bet you have,” he rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Another constant trait is being stubborn. Like you! You’re always stubborn!” she nudged him again.

“No I’m n… oh, I see what you did there,” Soarin sighed with a smile as Fleetfoot lost herself in a fit of giggle.

“Too easy!” she beamed as Spitfire met them in the center of the gym. She specifically focused on Soarin as the members of squad two passed by them to prepare for the next test.

“So far so good?” Soarin asked. Spitfire completely ignored him. She had too much interest focused on something else.

“Did I just see Rainbow Dash pull off the Power Acceleration?” she questioned with disbelief in her voice. Soarin blinked and nodded.

“I actually call it the Sonic Blast-off now… Yeah, that was my move.”

“Did you teach it to her?” Spitfire kept questioning.

“I actually only showed her how it’s done… believe it or not, she figured out the rest herself. I let her rename it for doing so, why?” Soarin was curious. Spitfire didn’t seem angry. She usually only questioned him like this when she was angry.

“Nothing,” Spitfire cracked a smile. “Just pretty damn impressive, that’s all. It was one hell of a start. I’m looking forward to what else she’s got for us.”

“Oh,” Soarin internally sighed in relief. Spitfire was loving it, thoroughly impressed by Dash’s first test. He hoped Dash could keep it up as well. If both Spitfire and Fleetfoot chose Dash for the elite spot, then his vote didn’t matter regardless. That would be one way to avoid the choice. He followed behind Spitfire and Fleetfoot as they moved to prepare the second test. Fleetfoot slowly hovered back to him as they trotted. She had a familiar cheeky smirk plastered to her face. Soarin saw it coming. She was going say something about Dash. What was she going to come up with this time?

“So you both know how to use the ‘Sonic Blast-off,’ huh?” she couldn’t keep herself from giggling.

“Yes?” Soarin answered simply while rolling his eyes.

“Ever use it during sex?” she suddenly asked out of nowhere. Soarin scrunched his face and looked towards her.

“What?!”

“C’mon big colt! I bet a Sonic BLAST—,” she thrusted her hips, “—off, would give her one hell of a rainBOOM! HE HE HE!!!” she bit her bottom lip while trying to contain herself. Soarin just shook his head.

“How do you come up with this stuff?!”

Dash kept a curious eye out into the open space of the gym as she watched the Wonderbolts change the setup. All of the colored signs were being pulled aside and squad three was dragging something else out towards the far end of the gym. They stopped in the center and began fiddling with it. A large pole extended up towards the ceiling, just barely touching it at the peak of the extension.

“Alright!” Dash’s attention was drawn away from the pole in the distance as Spitfire spoke into the megaphone again. “That went fairly smoothly. Let’s keep it that way! Our next test is going to be high speed turning control!”

“Shit,” Dash cursed as soon as she heard. This was one thing she admittedly was not the best at. She could reach some killer speeds, but she had a hard time controlling it. It had gotten a little better over her months of training due to buffing up a little bit and gaining lots of core strength, but at top speed her turn still had a bit of a lazy arc.

“I’m sure from here you can see squad three setting up a simple, large pole! It is at the 150 meter mark in the middle of the gym’s width! The object of this test is to use the LEAST amount of space possible to make a full U-turn before slowing down on the other side. You have fifty yards from the pole to the wall. If you can’t turn in that amount of space… One: seriously? Two: There is thick padding along all of the walls. If you lose control or can’t make it, you won’t have to worry about hitting a solid wall. That doesn’t mean it won’t hurt though. Good thing you signed those consent forms!”

It was rather amusing to see Spitfire in business mode. Dash had gotten so used to Spitfire being friendly and normal. She got a little taste of serious Spitfire during her last visit, but this time it was full blast. Spitfire really knew how to harden up when it came time to be professional.

“In order to ensure everypony gets the same speed… we will have the Streak twins of squad three give you a synchronized assisted start. Also, because we only can go one at a time, you get only TWO chances at this before we’ll have to break for lunch, so MAKE THEM COUNT! You’ve got five minutes until we begin so stay loose!” Spitfire finished before turning back to the other Wonderbolts.

Dash decided to play this one a little differently. She wouldn’t jump to the front of the line. She wanted to see how this one worked a few times before tackling it herself. Better to see a few other ponies blunder first than do so herself.

Maybe she shouldn’t have started so far back. She purposely got in line later, but she ended up so deep in the line that she couldn’t see anything for a while. There were a few “ooo’s” and a few cheers, but she couldn’t make anything else out. As Spitfire had said, it was taking a while. Only one pony could do this trial at a time.

She finally got into viewing range and saw the Streak twins position themselves behind the pony hovering in midair. Lightning Streak placed his hooves on the pony’s shoulders, and Fire Streak placed his hooves on the pony’s back legs below his plot. The pony flattened his wings in a glide position.

Perfectly synchronized, Fire and Lightning began pumping their wings hard, pushing the pony along until they reached a pretty fast speed. When they cleared the fifty yard mark, they pushed off, accelerating the pony to a ridiculous speed. The pony kept his wings flat as he quickly approached the turning point. He made a slight angle out before pitching hard left. The turn was wide and ugly, but he managed the full turn without hitting the pole or wall.

“Hm…” Dash pondered to herself as she watched. So the speed was taken care of for them, she would just have to worry about the actual turn itself. It was hard for her to determine just how much force and angle she would need just by watching. She’d need to actually experience it first. It sucked that they only had two tries. Essentially, their only true attempt was the second, because the first was more of a practice to figure it out.

“Oh man…” Lightning Streak’s voice caught Dash’s attention. She looked up to see both him and Fire eyeing Bulk Biceps.

“How are we supposed to throw this big guy?” Lightning looked to his brother. Fire Streak scratched his chin, and then looked out towards the course. The other Wonderbolts were positioned along the flight path to ensure there was no cheating and to make sure the cadets actually went around the pole. All the mares were out on the course, the other three stallions were keeping an eye on the cadets. Fire looked up above the cadets.

“Commander Soarin!” Fire called up. Soarin halted in his patrol circle and glanced down. Fire pointed towards Bulk with one hoof and beckoned Soarin down with the other.

“Oh,” Soarin chuckled. Yeah, they were going to need help with this one. Dash watched with interest and a little bit of amusement as Bulk lifted into the air and the three Wonderbolts got behind him. Lighting and Fire each took one of Bulk’s shoulders, and Soarin positioned himself behind Bulk’s legs. “How fast before we push?” Soarin questioned. The Streak twins had “pre-set” speeds they had determined in order to make synchronization easier. Soarin had worked once or twice with them in the past, so he knew their speed settings well.

“Speed four,” Fire answered before turning to Bulk. “Are you ready cadet?”

“YEEEEAAAAH!” Bulk cheered vigorously.

“I think he’s ready,” Lightning nodded as Fire shook his head out to stop his ears from ringing.

“Very well then! GO!” Fire called out. The three pushed hard, giving it their all to force Bulk into motion. With the help of Soarin’s greater strength, they were able to get Bulk into motion. They took a little longer to pick up the required speed, but after they passed the seventy-five yard mark, Fire called for the push and they all gave the strongest press they could.

It may have been a little much. Bulk was propelled from their grip a little faster than he should have been.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Bulk yelled out intensely as he went careening down the way. His little wings were caught in the glide and he approached the turn. “—EEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHuhoh…” Bulk found that he couldn’t turn in the slightest. In fact, his attempt to do so made him do a flip instead.

Blaze, Fleetfoot, and Misty Fly all winced as Bulk crashed back first into the padding on the opposite end and tumbled down. They moved in to stop him from falling, but that proved to be quite fruitless.

“What did this damn chump eat for breakfast? BRICKS?!” Blaze yelled out as she Misty and Fleetfoot tried to slow his fall. No matter how much they pulled, Bulk’s weight was just too much for them. They all got yanked down with him and landed roughly on the ground.

“Huh?” Bulk shook his head out as his eyes adjusted. He blinked and looked himself over, realizing that three mares were on top of him, also recovering from the fall. It all clicked in his head and he smiled wide. “YEAH! I SCORED!”

Back over by the start, Fire, Lightning, and Soarin all cringed.

“That blows dude…” Lightning scratched his head. Fire glanced at the cadets as a lot of them had hit the floor laughing. It was amusing, but he wanted to get this over and done with as efficiently as possible.

“Sorry, I may have pushed him a little hard,” Soarin shrugged as he failed to hold back a few chuckles.

“I doubt a stallion of his girth would have been able to turn regardless,” Fire shook his head. “I almost feel like sparing him his second chance.

“MY TURN?!” a sharp voice blasted into Fire’s ear and a head appeared next to him.

“GAH!” Fire snapped forward and turned to see Twister up in his face. The wild stallion had a crazy grin stuck to his face and his eyes remained open very wide. Soarin and Lightning backed off slightly. He seemed to appear out of nowhere. Fire quickly looked sternly at him. He had made a note to keep an eye on this pony since this morning when he somehow caused Surprise’s antic to backfire on her. Surprise was fine now, but… come on, who just breaks Surprise like that? “Y-yes…” Fire looked to see Bulk was up and the mares were back in place.

“Launch me! Heheheh!” Twister was up in the gliding position quickly. Fire glanced at Lightning, who just shrugged.

“You guys got this? I think I’d rather… not touch him,” Soarin said before lifting off. He didn’t even wait for them to answer.

“Let’s go,” Fire pointed at Twister. He and Lightning took their positions.

“Today pleeeeeease…” Twister’s voice slithered as the Streak twins readied to fly.

“GO!” Fire called.

The two pushed Twister forward with much more ease than Bulk, obviously. They picked up the required speed and launched him from the fifty yard mark.

“HAHAHAHA!!!!!” Twister started laughing as he was launched. He began flapping his wings instead of gliding, picking up more speed as he seared through the air towards the turn.

“Is he balls-shitting CRAZY?!?!” Blaze yelled out while readying her wings.

“Have you seen this guy yet? That’s an understatement!” Fleetfoot got ready to dive also, but they both froze when he hit the turn.

Twister suddenly straightened his wings. He didn’t widen his angle at all. The instant he passed the pole, he began twisting in his flight path. As he did, he executed the sharpest high speed turn anypony in the gym had ever seen. Even Spitfire was speechless. He never went further than five feet from the pole as he turned.

Art by: PhonicBoom

“THAT’S THE GOOD SHIT!” he yelled hysterically as he slowed down on the other side of the path.

“What the hell…” Dash stared wide-eyed along with the rest of the cadets and Wonderbolts. How did Twister do that? It was almost like wind resistance didn’t affect him.

Dash began to wonder about her chances. Sure she was strong and yeah she was fast, but there were clearly a lot of other important skills that would be factors in being chosen. She came in thinking her chances were high and she’d have little competition. That mindset had changed drastically over the course of two days. Was she scared though? Absolutely not. If anything this was a blessing. Competition always brought out the best in her.

After a few more normal attempts by other ponies, it was her turn. She took a deep breath and lifted into the air. She got a nod of acknowledgement from Fire with a small smile. Finally. He had been in professional mode each time they had encountered each other so far. It was good to see his welcoming air at least once.

“I think we should switch spots for this one,” Lightning suddenly got down behind Dash before Fire could. Dash lifted an eyebrow as he moved. Fire’s position in the pushing was on the back of the legs right below the—

“Uh, no,” Dash whipped her tail out and smacked Lightning with it below the chin. His head bounced up and he chuckled.

“She still wants me,” he said before Fire shoved him into place.

“Sorry, Miss Dash. Are you ready?” Fire asked as the Streak twins placed their hooves on her.

“Always,” Dash nodded confidently as she pushed her goggles on.

“Here we go!” Fire called out.

Dash set her eyes down the track and flattened her wings as the Streak twins pushed her into motion. They went faster and faster until they hit the proper speed. Dash focused as they passed the fifty meter mark and winced as the Streak twins propelled her down the lane. She tucked her body in while remaining as flat as possible to maintain the speed. As the turn approached, she decided not to be insane like Twister and widened her angle a little. As soon as she passed the pole she pitched as hard as she could to the left.

“Hrgh!” she grunted as she felt the pressure slam into her. The turn was wide, but she managed to maintain the speed all the way around. Her hooves just barely missed scraping against the opposite wall as she angled out and began slowing down. “Phew!” she exhaled as she decelerated.

She glanced back to see how far over she ended up after the turn. It was a pretty damn wide turn. Hopefully, her second would be better. She glanced up to see Spitfire overhead, marking something on a clipboard before waiting for the next cadet. Dash pounded her hooves together in frustration. She had to do better. She couldn’t keep doing okay once then blow minds. She had to wow from the start!

“Hm?” Dash looked up to see which cadet was going after her. It was Matteo. Wait, Matteo was behind her the whole time she was focusing in line? Sheesh, how did she not see him? She must’ve been really focused. She watched as the Streak twins had to not only get help from Soarin, but also Wave Chill, and Silver Lining just to get Matteo moving. Talk about a real tank.

Dash kept her eyes on them as she casually glided back. It took them almost a full hundred yards to get him to the right speed before they launched him. She hoped he would be able to make the turn, because if Fleetfoot, Blaze, and Misty couldn’t stop Bulk from falling, there’s no way they’d stop Matteo.

Dash twisted and flew backwards as she watched Matteo spread his massive wings and widened his angle a lot, which was smart since he was so huge. He pitched left and thrust his wings down at the same time. The force was so intense that the wind blazing off his wings made a BANG noise as it hit the wall. His momentum shifted drastically and he managed to make the turn… with less of an angle than Dash had.

“No way,” Dash’s mouth hung open as she watched something about seven times her size turn with less of an arc. She glanced behind her and lowered to the ground as she reached the end of the line, then looked back to keep her eyes on Matteo as he approached and came in for a heavy landing. His talons and paws pounded against the ground as he folded his wings and flipped his tail around once before getting in line behind Dash and patiently waiting.

Dash faced forward as he landed, but couldn’t help stealing a few glances back at him. This guy was a real mystery. Her curiosity was piqued when he just showed up. What was she supposed to say to him though? He already proved he wasn’t much of a talker. He didn’t come off as anti-social, he just seemed… angry. He gave her his name, but besides that, he didn’t seem to want to talk to anypony. Well, he was a griffon… and a huge one at that, he stood out among them all like wildfire in a blizzard. Maybe he preferred to keep to himself because he stood out? She’d never know unless she asked him.

Dash looked back forward as she thought on it. She caught a brief glimpse of Derpy being launched. Dash hovered up to get a better look. She hit the turn, but her angle was so wobbly she almost lost all of her speed while turning. At least she made it through unscathed.

Dash set back down as the line moved a little. She glanced at Matteo again. He was still staring straight forward as if he had to be glaring at something 24/7. Dash doubted he’d like it if she just started asking about him. He already looked annoyed. She betted he wouldn’t like it if some little pony started asking random personal questions about him.

The line moved again, Dash saw Storm Front lift up and get launched. Still curious about this stallion as well, she leaned over to watch. Again, just like in the first test, he performed perfectly with no mistakes, but there was nothing eye popping about it. She had to talk to him later too and see for herself why Derpy was so into him.

Dash looked behind her again, this time Matteo’s eyes shifted and caught her looking. She quickly played it off and acted like she was stretching her neck before shaking her head out. Maybe it would be better to approach with small talk first? Maybe a compliment? He did just pull off one hell of a turn for a flyer his size. What the hell, it wouldn’t hurt. She turned to him.

“Hey big fella!” Dash said up to him. His eyes widened a tiny bit before he glanced down at her. “That was an awesome turn!” she complimented him. He blinked once, still glaring.

“Thank you,” he said plainly before looking back up and away from her.

“Uh…” Dash hadn’t thought this far ahead. She was expecting more. She scrambled for something else to say and winged it. “So how’d you do that?” She asked. Matteo glanced at her again.

“I turned,” he replied. Dash stood still with a forced smile and her mouth slightly ajar.

“Right,” she hopped up and hovered beside his head. “I got that much. So you got a secret technique for getting this huge body to move like that?” she poked him slightly in the shoulder.

“No,” he didn’t look at her.

“Uh… okay then,” Dash felt a wave of awkwardness rush over her as she touched down and moved with the line. So much for that, he was going to be a tough nut to crack. She flinched as she felt something sharp poke her. She looked to see Matteo nudging her with a talon. “What?”

“Your turn,” he pointed.

“Oh, crap!” Dash had not been paying attention to the line moving. She had spent so much time trying to figure out how to approach Matteo that time just sped by. She quickly stretched and shook her wings out before lifting off towards the Streak twins again. Fire caught Lightning by the neck before he could attempt switching their places again and the two got into their positions.

“Ready?” Fire asked.

“Go for it,” Dash got serious. No time to be overconfident, this was her second and final chance to do this better.

The twins pushed her from behind and launched her when they reached fifty yards. Again, Dash careened down the lane, remembering how the flight went last time. She angled out a little less this time and pitched hard as she passed the pole. The familiar pressure throttled her, but she tried to force it more this time.

Big mistake. Dash winced as one of her wings bent awkwardly against the wind. She was batted out of her turn and flew towards the opposite wall.

“RGH!” She grunted as she forced her body upright and flattened her wings. She was about five feet from the wall and guaranteed to collide painfully. With little time to do anything, she did the first thing that came to mind. She put all of her core strength into a twist left. Why? She had no idea if it would make a difference, but she saw Twister do it earlier and he was able to turn on the edge of a bit. Using her mimicking prowess, Dash copied the twisting motion perfectly, and to her surprise, she was ripped from her current path and thrown to the left. It effectively saved her from hitting the wall and completed the turn, but not without the tips of her hooves catching the wall, bouncing twice before she angled out and headed back down the other lane.

“FFFFFFFSHIT!” Dash yanked her goggles up and swore out loud. She shouldn’t have risked it. She should have just played it safe. If not for her spontaneously copying Twister’s odd movements, she would have hit the wall hard, not to mention her turn beforehoof was too sharp and she lost control. “Way to impress the Wonderbolts, Dash. Way to FRICKEN impress them!” Dash kept berating herself as she flew back.

Two things went unnoticed though as she landed.

The first was Twister floating up higher from the rest, eyeing Dash curiously. She did just copy his move after all.

The second was Spitfire. The turn was sloppy and almost gave Dash a bruised face, but in this trial, a recovery like that was more impressive than it was a blunder. That and how she copied a move she had just seen so quickly. It may not have been the purpose for the particular test, but Spitfire had her eye out for anything of interest. Dash’s ability to mimic moves on the fly was definitely piquing her interest.

Rainbow Dash kept sulking all the way from the gym to the mess hall. Day one of the tryouts: so far Dash had messed up, recovered, did okay, and then messed up again. She was supposed to be doing HER BEST. So far she was doing anything but, at least in her opinion. A lot of ponies had blundered much worse than her, like Bulk for instance, but she wanted to be perfect! PERFECT! She didn’t fly all those drills and lift all those weights to screw up when it really mattered! She’d have to make up for it in the last three tests today. She knew strength would be one of them. Her muscles weren’t for show, she’d excel there. The other two though, she hadn’t a clue what to expect.

She sat down at a table by herself and groaned in frustration. Then she had to eat this shitty food. It was the exact same thing that was for lunch the day before. She knew they were feeding hundreds of cadets but really? Broccoli, chicken, and undercooked spaghetti again?

“Oh! Let’s sit over here!”

“Whoa! Okay, I’m coming haha!”

One of those voices was familiar. Derpy to be precise, but Dash didn’t recognize the other one. It was a friendly sounding, male voice. Not very deep, but not very high. Right in the middle, pitch-wise. Dash turned her head to see Derpy pulling Storm Front along behind her with one hoof while carrying a tray of muffins, of course, in the other. She was smiling happily and Storm followed along willingly.

“Hi Rainbow Dash!” Derpy greeted as she sat down across from Dash. A muffin wobbled and rolled off her tray, onto the table, and off the edge. Storm Front quickly extended a wing as he came around and caught the muffin. “Oh! Thanks!” Derpy smiled while bouncing as he placed the muffin back on her tray. Storm smiled and sat down next to her. He looked up and saw Dash eyeing him suspiciously. “Oh! Right!” Derpy realized. “Dash, this is Storm Front!” she pointed to him. Storm smiled sheepishly.

“Hello,” he said quietly while blushing a little. “Derpy’s told me a lot about you, it’s nice to meet you,” he reached a hoof across the table. Dash blinked and quickly reached forward to shake it.

“Hey…” she said unenthusiastically. Storm tipped his head to the side as Dash sighed and grumbled.

“Um… are you okay?” He asked as Derpy began happily eating her muffins.

“Do I look okay?!” Dash suddenly snapped. Storm reclined slightly. “Uh… sorry,” Dash apologized while rubbing her forehead. “I’m just a bit… pissed about the tests so far.”

“Really?” Storm Front asked quizzically. Dash looked up at him to see him looking at her in confusion.

“What do you mean really?” Dash said rather impolitely. Storm waved a hoof in front of him.

“Oh! No, I meant nothing, it’s just… you pulled of some pretty awesome stuff! I’m just surprised you’re angry after that. You’ve definitely caused a buzz amongst the other recruits, especially in the first test.”

Dash didn’t see that coming. She suddenly felt a little better. The last thing she expected was getting praise from somepony she was technically in competition with. Maybe there was something to this stallion after all.

“I’m just a little miffed I made a few errors,” Dash sighed as she sat back and prodded at her broccoli. “I want to show them my best WITHOUT the blunders in between.”

“I can get behind that,” Storm agreed as Derpy stared at him dreamily. “Still, I wish I could pull off moves like you and some of the other cadets I’ve been seeing. The competition here is really intense,” he started on his food. Dash felt curious now. He was definitely nice like Derpy had mentioned. She saw no hints or cracks in his demeanor. Plus, she saw the unthinkable sight of him talking to Misty Fly with sign language earlier. There was nothing that pointed to him playing up his personality or faking. Also, she had just failed to get anything out of Matteo, so why not rebound and learn about Storm Front instead?

“So I’ve been seeing you around, you’re not too bad yourself, very consistent,” Dash complimented as Storm looked up from his food.

“Thanks,” he smiled. “Well to be honest, Derpy told me about you yesterday, I meant to introduce myself earlier, but… I’m not the best at meeting new ponies,” he admitted while rubbing the back of his head. He placed a hoof on Derpy’s shoulder. “Derpy was so friendly right off the bat. I’ve been a bit nervous since I got here, but she’s been a big help and a good friend,” he smiled at her. Derpy hovered slightly off her seat. Dash had to hold back a chuckle. Derpy looked so damn happy. She had mentioned that Storm Front had not once said anything about her eyes. Dash could understand how this meant something to her, because that was usually the first question she got. He was polite to just leave it be.

“So, I’m curious, where are you from?” Dash began the questions.

“Cirrus Valley, Cloudsdale,.”

“Hey! That’s where I grew up!” Dash perked up. Talk about a small world. “Where in Cirrus Valley?”

“In the dead end circle of Drizzle Court.”

“WHAT?!” Dash stood up. “That’s where I lived too!”

“Whoa, really?” Storm smiled and shrugged. “Were we neighbors?”

“I live on the house on the north corner,” Dash sat down. Now she was extra interested. “This is crazy! I wonder if our parents knew one another.”

“I lived in the middle of the south end, I don’t know, they may have,” he chuckled. “What a coincidence, huh?”

“Tell me about it,” Dash chuckled. “Well, Storm. You seem like a pretty good guy, you can consider me a friend,” Dash pounded her chest. “Good luck with the rest of the tryouts.”

“Likewise Dash,” he nodded as Derpy gave him a random hug.

“I told you he was awesome!” she beamed as Storm Front blushed in embarrassment.

“Heh, thank you Derpy,” he said as he patted her on the head and grinned. Dash was convinced. Even when Derpy hugged him, nothing seemed suspicious. She watched as Storm conversed with Derpy and he was very good with her. Derpy tended to ask questions at random or do things out of the ordinary. He handled it very well and looked to be enjoying himself in the process. Derpy had found and made a very good friend indeed.

Dash turned her head towards the food line and quickly found something much more attention grabbing. Soarin had just gotten his food and was walking towards a side room the Wonderbolts had separate for them to eat in. She looked back at Derpy and Storm talking, laughing, and having fun, and then looked at Soarin again as he disappeared into the side room.

She found herself jealous of Derpy. She wished she could just have fun with a good friend of hers right now, but there was a clear divider between them that wouldn’t move until after the trials. It sucked, but Dash really had no choice.

Soarin carried his tray over to one of two tables set up in their separate little lounge. Both tables had six spots. At the first table, Blaze and High Winds sat on one side, with Spitfire and Fleetfoot on the other. Silver Lining, Misty Fly, and the Streak twins sat at the other.

Soarin had no real preference, but the first table was closer, so he claimed the seat next to Blaze.

“I see our chefs aren’t even trying…” Soarin mumbled as he sat down. Blaze took a swig of water and slammed her cup on the table.

“You whining out of your vagina again, Princess?” she verbally jabbed him followed by a loud belch. Soarin looked at her flatly.

“How long is this ‘princess’ thing gonna go on?” Soarin asked while rolling his eyes.

“Until you stop menstruating,” Blaze elbowed him in the side while eyeing the fake horn. She flinched slightly as High Winds suddenly tipped towards her and her head landed on Blaze’s shoulder. Blaze turned and propped her back up, clapping her hooves together in front of High Winds’ face. “Yo, Windy, food.”

“Huh?” High Winds’ eyes opened and she yawned loudly. “Oh, right, when did dinner start?”

“Lunch,” Blaze chuckled.

“Right, Lunch,” High Winds yawned again before starting on her food. Soarin just ignored Blaze’s last comment and went for his spaghetti. It all came off his plate at the same time. He sighed, let it fall, and went for his chicken instead.

“Dash has been interesting so far, huh?” Fleetfoot suddenly asked Soarin from across the table. Soarin blinked and tipped his head back and forth.

“I guess, she’s done some great things, but it’s been a little sloppy too,” he admitted.

“I think she’s doing well,” Fleetfoot winked. “A couple spills here and there, but she’s still putting on a show. Don’t you agree Spitfire?” she nudged Spitfire, who kept eating and didn’t look up.

“I have no comment to give until the tryouts are concluded,” Spitfire put plainly. Blaze pounded her hoof on the table.

“Aw, come ON sis, have some god damn fun with your own job!” she leaned forward. Spitfire didn’t look at her either.

“Blaze, this is how I’m SUPPOSED to handle my job. You should be more serious too, not that you ever are,” she finished her broccoli and looked sternly across the table.

“Oh, blow me Spitty,” Blaze stuck her tongue out. Soarin nudged her shoulder.

“Windy’s out again,” he made a head motion. Blaze turned as saw High Winds with her chin resting on the table, eyes shut.

“Son of a hell mother…” Blaze shook High Winds lightly. “Windy, seriously, food time.”

“When’s breakfast?” Winds said the instant she sat up again.

“Tomorrow morning dammit, we’re at LUNCH!” she bopped Winds on the back of the head.

“Oh…” Winds answered sleepily before she started eating again. Wave Chill entered the room as Silver Lining left. He eyed the tables as he moved in and started walking towards the table with the Streak twins and Misty. Somepony else had her eyes on him however, and it wasn’t Spitfire.

“Hey, hey, HEY! Where do you think YOU’RE going?” Fleetfoot popped up in front of him. He blinked and looked back and forth.

“Uh… to eat?” he barely had time to answer before Fleetfoot grabbed him and turned him towards their table. Spitfire already had her head on the table, groaning with her hooves on her head.

“No duh, Sherlock Homey, but you are sitting riiiiiight…” she guided him over to the seat next to Spitfire, grabbed his tray, set it down at the spot, and shoved him into the seat. “HERE!” she giggled and retook her seat on the other side of Spitfire. Wave Chill blushed and sat still for a few moments as Spitfire sighed and went back to eating like nothing had happened. Blaze didn’t let it stay that way though.

“So Wave,” she sneered at him as he took a sip of his water.

“Blaze…” Spitfire tried to interrupt her with a growl. Blaze continued regardless.

“So how’s my sister in bed? I bet she fucks like a tiger!” she made a clawing motion and a cat-like growl.

“BLAZE!” Spitfire turned bright red. Wave Chill spat out all the water he was drinking right into High Winds’ face. Winds didn’t even flinch as she blinked and turned to Blaze.

“Wait, they’re doing it?” she asked very calmly. Blaze rolled her eyes.

“Yes Windy, welcome to two months ago,” she turned to Spitfire, who was fuming at her. “Does he spank the ass nicely? I bet he has one hell of a time… knowing your serious shit I bet he has to fight you just to get you to spread ‘em,” she kept bouncing her eyebrows as she spoke.

“Blaze I’m warning you…” Spitfire glared.

“Oh, loosen the cheeks a bit Stifffire!” Blaze burst out laughing. “Damn, it’s too easy to rustle your shit!”

“Okay, the swearing is getting a little excessive,” Soarin commented. Blaze turned sharply to him.

“Don’t get me started on your ass!” she pointed, “Rainbow rider! How’s it like holding in the libido?” she teased. Soarin shook his head and tried to ignore her. “Come on, how many times did you do her in your head over the past five hours?” she chuckled while almost falling out of her chair.

“What was he doing in his head?” Winds asked while blinking.

“Sex,” Blaze replied flatly.

"Oh, cool," Winds went back to her food.

Soarin kept ignoring Blaze. He was used to her being a pain in the ass. She wasn’t like Rapidfire. There was no mal-intent behind it. She was just a hotshot with a vulgar mouth… A very vulgar mouth. Fire Streak and Misty Fly left the room, leaving Lightning Streak alone at the other table with his usual bowl of chili.

“So I’m still waiting for an answer,” Blaze directed back at Wave. Wave’s ears stood up and he glanced at Spitfire. She flattened her ears as he did.

“I need more water,” Spitfire quickly claimed as she grabbed her cup and left. Blaze stared at Wave Chill as he just continued to blush.

“Come on soldier! You’re good at saluting! How quickly does she get you full salute?!” she kept prying.

“Pffftttt…” Fleetfoot finally let slip. Blaze cocked an eyebrow and glanced at Fleetfoot.

“What are you laughing at?” she gave Fleetfoot the stink eye. Fleetfoot burst out laughing.

“YOU!” she leaned back and shook her head. “You are just… such a bitch!” she continued laughing. Blaze stood up and pointed at her.

“Excuse me?!” she glared. Fleetfoot looked at her smugly.

“You heard me Blazey!” Fleetfoot swayed back and forth once as she said the name.

“Call me that again…” Blaze glared harder, “I swear I’ll come over there and smack your shit.”

“You know you can’t,” Fleetfoot jeered. “I always win… Blazey.”

“THAT’S IT!” Blaze leapt over the table at Fleetfoot. Soarin and Wave Chill leaned away to avoid getting kicked in the face as Fleetfoot pushed back from the table. Fleetfoot caught Blaze’s hooves and the two lifted off slightly. When Fleetfoot’s back hit the wall, she pushed her wings back and fired them towards the other table. They hit the table with a heavy THUMP, Fleetfoot pressing Blaze’s head right into Lightning’s chili bowl. It splashed everywhere, on both of them, and all over Lightning’s face. They rolled off onto the floor and began fighting for the upper hoof.

Soarin, Wave Chill, and Lightning just sat and watched as the two mares grappled… with an extra bit of interest. Spitfire came back through the door with a new cup of water, eyes widening instantly.

“WHAT THE F—” she blinked as the scene registered. Fleetfoot and Blaze were wrestling on the floor, covered in chili, and the three stallions in the room were just… watching? Oh, and High Winds was asleep again. “What are you guys sitting around for?!?! Stop them!” Spitfire rushed forward while looking at Soarin specifically.

“Huh?” Soarin blinked and looked at her. Wave Chill just averted his eyes.

“Nah, I’m okay with this,” Lightning nodded, leaning his arm on the table as he watched Blaze and Fleetfoot roll around, chili still dripping off his face.

“Ugh! Stallions!” Spitfire smacked her forehead and shook her head.

Fleetfoot finally pinned Blaze down on her back and straddled her stomach while holding her arms down.

“Say uncle!” Fleetfoot taunted.

“FUCK YOU!” Blaze spat up at her.

“That’s a funny way to pronounce ‘uncle!’” Fleetfoot swayed back and forth on top of Blaze while sneering.

“Fleetfoot, get off of her,” Spitfire yanked Fleetfoot free of Blaze. “Both of you go get cleaned up. We have to have the next test up in half an hour,” she ordered.

“Oh fiiiiiiine…” Fleetfoot giggled as she trotted towards the door. Blaze followed while grumbling.

“*SNORT* huh?” Winds' eyes cracked open and looked around, she spotted the chili everywhere. “What did I miss?” she asked as she yawned.

“Just eat,” Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Hello longer chapter!

Well look at this! I have revealed Blaze and High Winds! Blaze: overzealous potty mouth and High Winds: super aloof with hypersomnia.

What about Silver Lining? Sorry but this was just a little teaser of how Squad 2 will be. I'm saving Silver Lining for part 2 in full force ;)

Looks like Dash has her work cut out for her eh? She has three more tests to go in day one.

Thanks for reading!

The next chapter could be up either monday or tomorrow(if i can buckle down and concentrate)

(You are now thinking about Blaze and Fleetfoot cat fighting while covered in chili.)

Chapter 13: Agility Test

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 13:

“Get those lanes set up! We’ve got ten minutes before Silver brings them in!” Spitfire yelled out as the Wonderbolts rolled multiple padded poles into place. They were setting up two lanes within the first hundred yards of the gym. One lane had twenty zigzag staggered poles set up and ready. The other was still being worked on by squad three, High Winds, and Wave Chill.

Soarin waited by the doors as Wonderbolt staff members rolled the poles in on dollies.

“Thanks,” Soarin nodded as a pole was rolled up by the same small, yellow pegasus stallion that had given Spitfire the megaphone. Before the stallion could leave, Fleetfoot flew in and scooped him up off the floor.

“Aw, you came back! I knew you liked me!” she teased the poor stallion while squeezing him until he squeaked and flailed in her grip. His yellow face turned bright red as he struggled to get free.

“Fleet, put him down, he’s busy,” Soarin chuckled as he flew up towards them.

“MINE!” Fleetfoot held the stallion away from Soarin while sticking her tongue out at him. Soarin shrugged.

“If you want Spitfire breathing down your neck, be my guest,” Soarin pointed into the gym where Spitfire was barking orders vigorously.

“Oh, fine. You get off easy,” she let the little stallion go and he quickly scurried away.

“You’re the queen of harassment, you know that?” Soarin chuckled as he began pushing the dolly.

“Said the princess of drama,” Fleet fired back instantly as she trotted up beside him.

“Instigator,” Soarin shot back.

“Horny.”

“Chili wrestler.”

“Hey, YOU liked it!” she elbowed him in the side.

“Did not,” he retorted.

“I saw all three of you! I was surprised there was no popcorn or inflatable chairs by the time we were done!”

“We…” Soarin’s ears flopped back and he scrunched his face.

“You DID like it! Hahaha, I’m telling Dash!” Fleetfoot bounced away while giggling.

“Hey!” she was out of range before Soarin could respond. He sighed and shook his head. Lightning Streak pulled up beside Soarin, pushing another dolly.

“I’ve often thought of becoming a bowl of chili.”

“Oh, shut up,” Soarin pushed him away.

“Everypony in! Let’s go, let’s go! If I catch you dragging your hooves, I don’t care if you’re a mare or a stallion, I’ll give you a limp the HARD way!” Silver Lining yelled in his raspy, gruff voice as the cadets filed into the gym. Dash pushed her way in quickly to avoid being caught in a funneling backup of ponies. She didn’t want to be first in line again, but she didn’t want to get caught in the back again either. Third time’s the charm.

“Dash!” A familiar voice called to her. Dash turned to see Thunderlane trot up to her. Dash’s eyes lit up upon seeing him. She had been very distracted and had kinda lost track of him. She had an idea of how Bulk and Derpy were doing, but she hadn’t seen Thunderlane since the first test. Something was odd though. His wings weren’t fully folded.

“There you are,” Dash smirked. “Haven’t seen much of you, I thought you ran away or something,” she joked. Thunderlane scoffed and shook his head.

“After the shit I’ve put up with? I’m seeing this through,” he stated as a line started forming in the gym for the next test. They could both see the multiple poles set up, but had no idea what they were for. Spitfire was waiting for all the ponies to enter before giving the explanation.

“What’s up with your wings?” Dash asked as she eyed his wings. They were slightly unfolded and twitched every few seconds.

“I’m trying to loosen them up a little… they’re already stiff as hell,” he explained as he looked back and opened and closed his wings a few times. Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“Already? Thunderlane we’ve done two things!” she failed to hold back a chuckle.

“Hey, I haven’t been doing super pony training like you, cut me some slack,” he said while fully stretching his wings out.

“EVERYPONY SHUT THE HELL UP! I JUST GOT DONE WRESTLING IN CHILI SO I’M NOT IN THE DAMN MOOD FORWHHOAAA!” Dash and Thunderlane looked up just in time to Spitfire yank Blaze down from overhead. A few incoherent scuffles were heard before Spitfire hovered up and Soarin tossed the megaphone up to her.

“Please ignore my annoying look-a-like! Our third test today will be agility! We have two lanes set up here with twenty padded poles in a zigzag! We want to see how fast you can change direction while maintaining as much speed as possible! After the last pole, turn and fly as fast as you can fifty yards through our marked finish line! Since we have three tests to do before dinner, you are only getting two shots at this! Again, MAKE THEM COUNT!” Spitfire finished and hovered back down.

“Wrestling in chili?” Thunderlane blinked as he pondered what Blaze said. Dash shrugged as two lines formed.

“Weird stuff happens here, trust me, I’ve seen it,” Dash chuckled as they found a place in the line on the right. “So what did you mean by ‘shit you’ve put up with?’” she asked as the first trials began.

“Twister,” Thunderlane said plainly.

“You know, I don’t know why I asked. How do you sleep with…?” Dash froze. Twister had suddenly appeared right between them.

“Sleep with whAHHH!!!” Thunderlane freaked out as he saw Twister.

“I hear my name…” he tipped his head towards Thunderlane and began slowly tipping it back towards Dash. “Don’t mind me… I’m just a fly on the wall… pleeeeeease keep talking about me,” he kept tipping his head until it was upside down and facing Dash.

“Uh…” Dash fought for a response but he reached a wing out and yanked her towards him so they were cheek to cheek.

“Oooooohhh! You’re the one who copied my Spiral Turn!” his voice was slightly distorted due to having his face pressed into Dash’s. “I admit… it made me shiver with delight.” He dropped down, slid underneath Dash’s legs and popped up on the other side of her, pressing his other cheek to her face. “I’m keeping a close eye on you…” his words slithered in and out of her ears. Dash’s eyes just remained stuck wide open and her pupils followed him as he hovered over her back, placing himself between her and Thunderlane again. “Oh, don’t worry…” he lightly bonked his head against hers. “I promise I won’t be a creep about it,” he swiftly turned and bopped his head against Thunderlane’s. “Hi bunkmate!” then he slipped away so quickly that neither of them saw where he went. Thunderlane and Dash just stared at each other in silence.

“What… just happened?” Dash blinked, not sure if she was disturbed, annoyed, or terrified. Twister gave off such a strange air. Nothing he did seemed dangerous… just… WEIRD. Dash wondered what he had gone through in life to make him so… strange.

“I don’t even try…” Thunderlane shook his head as the two looked back forward. Dash hovered up slightly to see the trials running. Her attention was caught by a familiar white and ice blue bitch stepping up to the line. Dash had completely missed her speed turn testing, but now she got to scout the agility.

Fire Streak gave Arctic Blast the go ahead. Arctic leapt from her spot into a fast, but controlled pace. She made clean turns around each pole, but had to regain her speed each time. Dash scoffed as she watched. Looks like ol’ SassaBlast was fast, but she couldn’t quite keep it going under non-straight circumstances. That’s what she gets for being a beanpole. Dash was surprised Arctic’s body didn’t snap beneath the pressure of wind resistance. She broke past the last pole quickly and sped towards the finish line, but her time had already been butchered by poor turning.

After indirectly cheering for Arctic’s failure, Dash hovered back to the ground. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of Storm Front and Derpy together in the other line.

“Oh, I met Derpy’s little crush,” Dash spoke up to Thunderlane.

“Storm Front?” he turned and looked in the direction Dash was staring. “Is he as great as she says?”

“Actually, he kinda is,” Dash nodded. “I talked to him a little, no signs of hidden assholery. He’s genuinely a pretty nice guy. I’ve seen him fly a bit too. He’s not really anything special, but he’s super smooth. I don’t think he’s made a single error yet,” Dash explained as they saw Storm Front step up to the other lane. Lightning Streak gave him a nod and he propelled through the course. His turns were clean and he only lost a little bit of speed each one. He hit the last pole and fired through the finish, not quite as fast as Arctic’s finish sprint, but the first half of his run was spotless. “Looks like he’s still keeping it clean. He’s got some great consistency.”

“Oh hey, check it out!” Thunderlane pointed forward. The two of them were only five ponies from the front of the line now, but a certain, non-pony in front of them was about to go. Matteo stepped up to the line.

“I tried talking to him too,” Dash mentioned as she hovered up to take a look.

“Get anything out of him?” Thunderlane chuckled.

“Nope!” Dash laughed along with him.

Fire Streak stepped back a little to give extra room for Matteo’s wingspan before giving the large griffon a nod. As with his previous tests, Matteo started very slowly, but as he neared the first turn, he pulled an interesting technique out of his feathers. As he neared the first turn, instead of pitching hard while gliding, he twisted so his back was completely parallel to the pole, and flapped his large wings down hard. The motion propelled him in the correct direction towards the next pole while blowing a powerful gust of wind that almost knocked over Wave Chill and High Winds standing nearby.

“Whoa!” Dash floated further up to watch. Not only did the motion allow Matteo to change direction at almost a perfect ninety degree angle, it also sped him up! He repeated the technique around the second pole, then the third, then the fourth, and continuously as he moved through the course. He picked up more speed each turn and was soon spending less than a second between each pole. As he reached the last pole, he angled a little less and thrust his wings down before beating them vigorously and propelling him towards the finish. He nearly blew over Fleetfoot as he crossed the finish and effectively clocked the fastest time.

Dash had no words to describe it. The largest and heaviest cadet just clocked the fasted time so far in the agility test. Not only that, but he reversed the downside of the test. Instead aiming to not lose speed on each turn, Matteo gained speed on each turn. Dash had never seen anything like it. She didn’t have long to think on it though. Before she knew it, it was her turn.

“Good luck,” Thunderlane smiled as she stepped forward.

Dash set up on the line and waited for the go-ahead from Fire Streak. This was her first run. Better play it safe and see how the course goes. She may not have been good at turning under high speed, but she knew she could handle sharp turns at a more controlled pace.

“On your go, Miss Dash,” Fire nodded to her.

Dash nodded back and took a deep breath. She dug her hooves into the ground and leapt towards the first pole. She approached with a good amount of speed and pitched hard left. She made sure to get a good feeling for the angle and pressure of the turn. She only lost a little bit of speed, but tried her best to regain it. As she rounded each turn, she was able to build up her speed a little each time before the next. Her eyes locked on the final pole as she passed it.

Could she… She had never done it sideways… but it was possible, she had seen Soarin do it in the past…

She pumped her wings hard and sped through the finish line. She pulled up and slowed down, getting a nod and wink from Misty Fly as she glided around and back towards the line. It was a good clean run. Nothing bad, but nothing stellar. How could she make the second one better?

Dash watched Thunderlane go through as she glided. He did pretty well despite having stiff wings, but one of his back hooves caught two poles in the process. That wouldn’t go unnoticed.

She set down and began moving up in line again. There had to be a way to improve her time. She just had a decently fast run, so she didn’t have to worry about giving them a perfectly clean run, but she didn’t want to mess up either. Was it worth the risk?

Dash looked up just in time to see Twister step up to the line and go the instant Fire gave him an uncomfortable nod. Twister, as he had done previously, used his “Spiral Turn” maneuver to navigate the turns with very little arc. However, it seemed his speed didn’t remain constant. So the Spiral Turn wasn’t perfect, by spinning so much, it caused more wind resistance. Twister’s time was still good because of the quick turns, but he definitely lost some valuable seconds with the slowdowns.

So Matteo was able to use his powerful wings to propel himself faster after each turn, and with his clearly super strong body, he could turn enough to make the angle each time despite the building pressure of wind. The Spiral Turn negated the pressure of a turn, but slowed one down…

Dash blinked as she saw the line had moved a lot. It was close to being her turn again, she was barely paying attention.

She wondered if she could… use a little of the two moves she had seen. Then she remembered passing the final pole. The turn was less sharp and the padding on the pole was pretty thick. It was a long shot, but she needed to stand out.

Her turn came up again. She stepped towards the starting line and set her hooves. She was going to try it. If it didn’t work the first time, she’d just recover and do it normally.

“On your go,” Fire nodded and stepped back.

Wow them Dash. Show them all who’s worthy of being elite!

Dash fired from her spot towards the first turn. This was it. Do it now or never.

Instead of pitching left, Dash folded her wings and did a half, fast spin so her back was flat facing the pole, she quickly spread her wings and thrust them down. She almost wasn’t ready for how fast it propelled her towards the second pole. Without missing a beat, she mimicked Twister’s Spiral Turn again only halfway before copying Matteo’s powerful downward thrust. She went faster still towards the third pole.

From above Spitfire tipped her goggles up and her mouth hung open slightly as Dash proceeded to go faster and faster and faster from pole to pole. Dash was now copying two moves at the same time.

Dash picked up so much speed that she had barely half a second in between each pole. She began overshooting the last few poles a little because it took more time for her to twist and push than it did for her to get between the turns.

The last pole came into view. Dash had less than a second to think on it. So she didn’t. She did a full twist while reaching her hooves towards the thick padding of the pole.

Front hooves…

Back hooves…

Front jump…

Back jump…

And force wings!

She was pumped so full of adrenaline that her body executed the moves… sideways… against the pole… without a single fault. Dash shot off the pole, a loud BANG of a sonic boom echoing throughout the gym. She covered the distance between the last pole and the finish line, all fifty yards, in barely over a second. She tried to pull up after speeding past Fleetfoot, but she lost control and ended up flailing upwards with her momentum. She had lost all control.

Then another loud BANG sounded out from nearby. Shortly after, she ran into something.

“Oof!” She grunted as she was brought to a complete stop. She felt two arms holding onto her. She shook her head up and looked down to see two light blue, muscular arms cradling her.

“I gotcha,” the voice made her head snap upward instantly. Oh, what a perfect sight. “Almost wiped out hard there,” Soarin chuckled as he lowered them towards the ground. “By the way, stop it, you’re gonna make me look bad,” he whispered and winked. Dash finally snapped out of her daydream while lost in Soarin’s eyes and smirked.

“Dream on, I’m the best flyer in history,” she whispered back. Soarin chuckled at her gusto as he touched down and set her back on her hooves. “But thanks, if we weren’t ‘being professional’ I’d forcefully make out with you for that,” she bounced her eyebrows. Soarin pointed.

“I’m down for later if we can sneak you out,” he bounced his eyebrows right back. “But get going before anypony gets suspicious.”

“Right… later, hot stuff,” she gave him a smile before taking off back towards the line, knowing full well she’d get mobbed again about the moves.

Soarin watched her go, sighing as he lifted up and glided back over to his spot. He received a wink and a sly giggle from Fleetfoot as he flew by, which he ignored, but Spitfire set down nearby as he landed.

“Please tell me, this isn’t about catching her,” Soarin rolled his eyes as Spitfire approached.

“It won’t be as long as you do it for all the ponies who lose control,” Spitfire chuckled. Soarin took a deep breath. Good, he really didn’t want to fight Spitfire right now. They had plenty to worry about already. Mainly, making sure nopony killed themselves. “But did you see that?!” Spitfire suddenly asked with a hint of giddiness in her voice. SPITFIRE. GIDDY. The ffffffffffffffff—

“Yeah, those were some pretty awesome moves… plus the Sonic Blast-off again…” Soarin droned on.

“Those moves were used by two other cadets separately before her second trial,” Spitfire cut him off. “She mimicked them on the fly.”

“What?” Soarin blinked. He actually hadn’t been paying much attention to the techniques being used. Dash had copied his Sonic Blast-off in the past… and now she was doing it with other moves? He always wondered what her specialty would be. Mimicking other moves? While it risked her being labeled a jack of all trades, but a master of none… it was still pretty damn impressive and no Wonderbolt had ever done that before.

Soarin shook his head. Hold it, she isn’t a Wonderbolt yet. She still has to earn that title, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t impressive. Soarin watched Spitfire as she rose back up above. She seemed to be impressed by Dash. She already was before, but now it seemed even more so. However, knowing Spitfire, just being impressed wasn’t going to be enough to choose somepony for the elite position. Skill and ability were great, but it took more than that to be an elite Wonderbolt.

“Yoooooouuuuuuu…”

Soarin cracked his neck and readied to keep watch for the remaining cadets.

“Shooooould’vvvvvvvveeeee…”

Soarin rolled his eyes.

“Fuuuuuuuuucccckkkkeeeddddd…”

“Go to hell Blaze,” Soarin said flatly.

He caught a glimpse of a cadet moving in a wobbly pattern through the course in the opposite lane. It was a grey mare with a blonde mane… who looked to be wall-eyed. She was definitely having a hard time flying around the turns. Soarin stepped up in case he needed to do a fast rescue again. As Spitfire said, after saving Dash so “gallantly” he would have to do the same for anypony else to avoid suspicion.

“WhoooOOAAAAaa!!!” the mare yelled out as she lost control, floated up, and bounced off the top of the final pole, flailing like crazy as she lost control and fell head first towards the floor. Even though Wave Chill was much closer than Soarin, the little pep talk from Spitfire made Soarin too nervous to not go for it. He didn’t have to cover quite as far as a distance, so he didn’t use the Sonic Blast-off. He sped towards the grey mare, Wave Chill pulling up as he saw Soarin approach. Soarin reached his arms out to catch her and she landed gently in his arms.

However, her hooves were flailing. One of them swung up and struck Soarin’s fake horn REALLY hard. So much so that it shifted slightly on his head. Soarin’s pupils shrank as an excruciatingly painful pulse fired through every inch of his body.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!” Soarin cried out as he dropped the mare and she landed softly on the ground below him. The surrounding Wonderbolts all stopped what they were doing and looked quickly towards Soarin. “AAAH! ARGH!!!!” Soarin bent down and held his hooves firmly over his head. Small, blue crackles and pops began to sputter from the horn.

Spitfire was speeding towards him the moment she saw Soarin get hit. She landed beside him and quickly put her hooves on his shoulders.

“Soarin?! Soarin?!” she called his name as his body winced and flinched heavily.

“What… what did I do?” the grey mare looked at Soarin, mortified as he continued to grunt and wail. Fleetfoot landed beside her and quickly shook her head.

“You did nothing, this is a different problem… come on,” she quickly led the mare back towards the cadets, who were all silent and staring towards the Wonderbolts gathering around Soarin.

Dash spotted Fleetfoot leading Derpy towards them. She quickly jumped up.

“What’s going on over there?!” she questioned, seeing clearly it was Soarin who was down. Fleetfoot pointed sternly at her.

“Nothing! Stay put!” she ordered. Dash froze in place. If Fleetfoot was being serious, then she wouldn’t question anything. She was told to stay put, so she would, but… what happened to Soarin?

“Rgh… Ow…” Soarin twitched as the blue magic continued to crackle around his horn. It had been knocked slightly off where it was before.

“We gotta get him to Luna, there’s nopony else who knows anything about the horn,” Spitfire ordered.

“It’s been skewed?” Blaze lifted an eyebrow as she eyed it. “Can’t we just…” she reached for it.

“Blaze!” Spitfire tried to stop her. As Blaze’s hoof came near the horn, a ribbon of dark blue energy lashed out and struck it.

“YEEEOW!” Blaze cried out as the force blew her backward and into High Winds. Soarin cried out in pain again as the energy dissipated and flew back into the horn.

“NOPONY TOUCH THE HORN!” Spitfire growled at the other Wonderbolts as they all took a slight step back. “I need two volunteers to take him to Luna. I can’t leave the tryouts.”

Before anypony else could speak up, Misty Fly stepped forward and patted a hoof against her chest. Spitfire nodded.

“Who el—”

“I’ll go too!” Fire streak quickly volunteered as well. Misty smiled when she saw him step forward. Spitfire nodded at him as well.

“Wave Chill, take over Fire’s spot as the starter for line one. Fire, move him SLOWLY, okay? Take the side exit to avoid the cadets, it’s faster to the tunnel anyway,” she explained before turning to Misty and making a few signs to repeat the order to her. She nodded in response. “Come on, let’s get back on track,” Spitfire waved her hoof in a circle.

Fire Streak and Misty Fly carefully grabbed Soarin’s arms and hoisted him up on their shoulders.

“ARGH!” he grunted in pain, a few sparks shooting off from the horn. Fire and Misty both ducked down a little until the sparks stopped before Fire spoke quietly to Soarin.

“Commander Soarin, we’re taking you to Luna… can you walk with us?” he asked. Soarin grit his teeth and nodded his head slightly. “Okay… one step at a time, let’s go,” he gave a nod to Misty and the two slowly led Soarin out of the gym through a side door while the cadets all watched in confusion. One specific rainbow maned cadet watched with much worry added onto the confusion.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

FAST UPDATE WOO!

only 4K words, but i liked where i stopped for now :)

Ouch, that must've hurt... Hopefully Misty and Fire can get him to Luna without anything happening...................................*COUGH*

Sorry if this chapter is a tad cliffy... but its not like you have to wait long to find out what happens xD

Thanks for reading!

Next chapter? probably tuesday night ;)

Chapter 14: A Fragile Horn

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 14:

“Slowly. Slowly. One hoof at a time, commander,” Fire spoke to Soarin constantly, comforting him in the presence of friends. Soarin’s eyes were shut tight, he continuously groaned in discomfort, and his teeth were grinding together. Misty kept her eyes on him as they moved making sure Soarin was okay as Fire mainly guided them along. Little sputters of blue light kept spitting up from the horn as if it was trying to get out, but was being wedged through a tight space.

Misty and Fire kept the pace slow and easy as they moved through the side passage. There were multiple small hallways like this one littered throughout the first floor of the compound. It allowed staff members and Wonderbolts to travel quickly between facilities if need be, or avoid crowds or media in the hallway. The passages weren’t painted and had no ceiling, exposing heating and water pipes that ran below the second floor. They neared the doors leading into the lobby. It was a short walk from there to the access tunnel for the palace. Hopefully they would make it there without any mishaps.

“GRRRAAAAAAHHH!!!!” Soarin suddenly arched his neck back and the horn began to glow brightly. Misty and Fire both instinctively dropped him and backed away. Soarin thrust his neck forward and a large magical blast jettisoned from the horn. It traveled in a slightly bent line due to the horn being off center, but it still collided with the metal double doors leading into the lobby.

A loud POW resonated through the passage and the heavy doors got blown right off their hinges. Fire and Misty shielded themselves as a small shockwave battered against them. Loud clangs and clattering rang out as the doorframe collapsed as well.

“AH!!!” Soarin crouched down and smacked the side of his head against the concrete floor. The horn began to glow brightly again. “N-NO!” Soarin clamped his hooves over the horn. Misty made a move towards Soarin, wanting desperately to help him. Fire quickly stepped forward, grabbed Misty by the hoof and yanked her into his body. He put his back to Soarin as the magic exploded from the horn again. Soarin’s hooves painfully muffled the blast, but little streams of magical energy shot out in all directions. Most of them hit the walls, but one struck a water pipe overhead, causing the pipe to burst and send searing hot water spraying everywhere. Three more of the smaller beams struck Fire in the back.

“ARGH!” Fire winced and grunted. Misty felt his body twitch in pain followed by the super-hot water spraying all over them. A sharp exhale escaped Misty’s throat as the burning water showered over them. With Fire still slightly stunned by the magic, Misty took action and quickly pushed herself into Fire’s chest. The two fell forward and rolled out of the water.

“Damn!” Fire cursed as he struggled to his hooves. Misty quickly got in front of him, tapping his shoulder rapidly. He looked up at her as hot water dripped from his mane. She crossed two feathers on her right wing, held them to her lips and slowly extended them towards him, pointed at him with a hoof, then used the same wing feathers to make a small circle with her feathers, then extend one up and flattened another.

Her symbols read: “Are you okay?”

Fire glanced over at Soarin. He was still on the ground and groaning, but it looked like the magic had calmed for the moment. This wasn’t just a magic spasm. This was much more dangerous than he thought.

Fire turned his head back to Misty. Her eyes were filled with worry. Fire gave a small smile. He tapped a hoof against his chest, then held it in front and lowered it slightly. He reached a wing around his body, flattened it and slowly moved it in and out from his chest. Then he put his other wing up flat by his lips and slowly extended it towards her.

He replied with: “I am fine, thanks.” But he cringed again right after at the sharp pain in his back. The magic blasts weren’t very strong, but they stung and burned. Misty pouted at him, not convinced he was fine, especially since he had just used his body to shield her.

“What the hell’s going on in here?!” a few security guards appeared in the lobby through the wrecked doorway. They saw Soarin lying on the ground and began moving towards him.

“STOP!” Fire yelled to them. They all froze in place and looked to him. “Let us move him! Get back in the lobby and make sure we have a clear path to the castle access tunnel!” Fire ordered as he got to his hooves shakily with the help of Misty. They all blinked and stared at him and Soarin in confusion. “THAT MEANS NOW!” Fire stomped his hooves on the floor kicking up little bits of water as it spread along the ground. “And get somepony to stop this leak!” he added as the guards moved back into the lobby.

There was much more wrong here than Fire or Misty had knowledge of. What was supposed to be a simple task of leading Soarin carefully to Princess Luna had effectively turned into a hazardous situation. Just what was going on in Soarin’s body to cause such a strong and dangerous magical presence?

Fire placed his hoof on Misty’s shoulder and made a head motion towards Soarin. She nodded in response and the two carefully approached him. The magic was flickering off the tip of the horn, but otherwise it looked like it had been tamed for the moment. They had to take this opportunity now. If there were to be any more mishaps, Fire preferred it was in the confinement of the castle passage and not the lobby. Not only would other ponies get hurt, but it would be one heck of a bite out of their paychecks if Soarin broke some of the expensive lobby architecture.

“Commander Soarin?” Fire crouched down beside him as Misty gently rubbed her hoof on Soarin’s back.

“Ugh…” Soarin grunted in response. His brain was so scrambled he could barely focus.

“We’re here, stay vigilant!” said Fire as he and Misty propped him up on their shoulders again. They moved faster this time. A steady pace no longer seemed like a good idea. They thought it would help the magic stay calm at first, but a burst pipe and few explosions on the back later, Fire realized they needed to hurry to avoid any more unneeded damage.

They emerged in the lobby and, as Fire ordered, the security team was holding off staff members and other Wonderbolts so they could pass. A stir passed through the small gathering as Fire and Misty moved Soarin through the lobby. The collective focus was on Soarin’s false horn. The fact that it was actually crackling and popping with magic was shocking to most of them. Soarin had been seen around wearing the fake horn, but most had passed it off as an odd fashion statement or a lost bet. Most of them never had guessed there was real magic involved.

“Back them up further!” Fire ordered the security guards. “Give us as much space as you can! This is a dangerous situation!” he warned, causing most of the surrounding viewers to back up before the security team expanded the blockade. They had a clear path and a large buffer zone in case something else happened. It seemed like it would go smoothly from there.

“Rgh… RRRGHHH!!!!!” Soarin suddenly growled and thrust his neck downward, almost pulling Fire and Misty with him. The horn began to glow again. Fire didn’t hesitate.

“EVERYPONY GET BACK!” He yelled. This time however, the small ribbon of magical energy passed over Soarin’s body as well.

“AH!” Soarin cried out as a wave of energy exploded out from his body. Fire and Misty were blown back in opposite directions. “S-S-S-STAY…” Soarin tried to say something. His body twitched and lurched, making him stumble all around. He suddenly fired forward from his spot, taking to the air briefly, before turning downward and slamming back to the ground. “AH! ARGH!!!!” he pushed himself back up and his eyes locked on the doors leading to the castle tunnel.

“Commander Soarin!” Fire Streak got to his hooves and leapt towards Soarin. Misty followed close behind.

“S-S-S-STOP!!!” Soarin yelled out as they approached. Fire tried to grab Soarin’s arm. “NOOO!!” he thrust his arm out. Fire yelped as Soarin threw him off almost effortlessly. He slammed right into Misty and the two landed in a pile on the floor. Fire quickly sat up and turned to assist Misty. “S-STAY… BACK!!!” Soarin pleaded as he forced his body to move towards the passage. Every few steps, Soarin’s body rebelled and tried to throw him in a different direction. He slammed against the floor and the walls multiple times as he moved. It was as if the magic was trying to go one direction while he was going another. The glow around him was becoming more intense and the bursts of energy were popping all around his body. His eyes were glowing with a bright blue light. “ST-STAY AWAY!!!!” he yelled out as he pushed towards the one place he knew he could go to fix this: to Luna.

Misty, however, could not hear Soarin’s warnings. Oblivious to the danger, her kind nature compelled her to try and assist. She stood up quickly and fired towards Soarin again.

“MISTY!!!” Fire called to her. Alas, she could not hear his warning.

The glow around Soarin intensified as she drew near, and a large magical pulse shot out from around him right as Misty’s hooves touched his body. The effect was strange. She was not pushed back immediately. A few sparks of the dark magical energy ran off of Soarin’s body, through Misty’s arms, and onto her body. After a two second delay, Misty was propelled away from Soarin, her goggles shattered to pieces and the uniform around her neck, head, and face ripped to shreds. She crashed violently against the wall beside Soarin and fell roughly to the floor.

"MISTY FLY!!!" Fire yelled out as he sprung up and shot towards her. She was lying face down on the floor, small ribbons of blue magic pulsing all over her body. She twitched and writhed as Fire approached.

Soarin grunted in pain one more time before his body performed the Sonic Blast-off and crashed him right through the doors of the castle passage. Fire only gave a quick glance in the direction of Soarin before turning back to Misty. Fire ripped his goggles off and removed the mask portion of his uniform before he crouched down and reached for Misty. He quickly and gently supported her and turned her over. Her eyes were stuck wide open, her body tensing and relaxing spontaneously.

Her muscles began to spasm like crazy, causing her limbs and body to reach and swing uncontrollably, the ribbons of dark energy visibly running over her body. Fire panicked as he tried to hold her steady, forgetting all about Soarin, who was at this point, long gone. He wanted to call Misty’s name to let her know he was there, but it would literally fall on deaf ears. Raspy squeaks began to escape Misty’s throat, as if the pain coursing through her was forcing noise through her unused vocal chords. Fire gritted his teeth as he frantically looked her over. He reached for her, but a crackle of blue energy zapped against his hoof.

“Argh!” he pulled his hoof back and shook it out. That really hurt… if just a small touch felt like that, what sort of unbearable pain was Misty in? Fire stared down at Misty in horror as tears began falling out of her eyes like streams. If she had a voice, she surely would be screaming and wailing. Fire shook his head and slammed his eyes shut.

He reached forward and clamped his arms around Misty. The painful shocks from her body surged into him, but he didn’t care. If he could absorb some of the pain and ease hers, that’s all that mattered to him.

“SOMEPONY GET HELP! PLEASE!” Fire yelled out to those standing nearby. “PLEASE!!!” He yelled out again as he felt the tears from Misty’s eyes dampen the chest portion of his uniform.

“Oh relax, I’ve got it,” a voice suddenly came from above them. An eagle talon suddenly reached down from above and lightly touched to Misty’s head. Fire instantly felt the pain fade and watched as the magic was pulled out of Misty, collecting in a small, baseball sized sphere on the talon. Fire looked up to see none other than Discord standing above them, balancing the sphere of dark magic on his finger. “That should do it.”

Fire looked back down to Misty. Her body stopped flailing and her breathing slowed, but her eyes were still open wide and tears were still falling from her eyes. She immediately clung to Fire’s uniform as tightly as she could and shivered with fright. Fire held her as tightly as he could for a moment before freeing his right arm slightly. He didn’t make her look up. He made the motions within her line of sight. He tapped his chest with his hoof, and then let it fall slightly before bringing his wings around and making two small circular motions towards him.

His signs said: “I’m here.”

Misty dug her face into his chest as she sniffled every few seconds. Fire just held her tight, waving off the medical crew as they approached until Misty was ready to move.

“Hmph,” Discord grunted as he examined the small mass of dark energy he pulled from Misty. “A small smidge of it managed to get out? That’s no good,” he blew at the sphere, causing it to dissipate like dust in the wind. “I should probably get to Lulu before he does,” Discord spoke to himself before disappearing as suddenly as he appeared.

“Wait!” Fire tried calling too little too late. He looked around for signs, but Discord was gone. “…thank you…” Fire sighed as he held Misty.

Soarin grunted and gasped as he sped through the castle access tunnel. He was bouncing off the walls and ceiling frequently, his body unable to choose a controlled direction. His head felt like it was under intense pressure, like it would explode any minute. His limbs were numb, but moving regardless. He felt like he was only half in control of his body. He’d try to move one direction, but his body would go in another.

He felt like he was in a pinball machine and his head was the ball with extra weight attached to it. He finally reached the other end of the tunnel, only to slam against the floor.

“RGGHH!!!! ARRGHH!!!!!” no matter what he tried he couldn’t reach the door handle. It just had to be a pull door, he couldn’t just blow through this one (at least not consciously), and he couldn’t concentrate enough to grab the handle, much less move his arm.

“Who’s there?” a passing royal guard suddenly opened the door. Soarin didn’t think. He only forced himself to move. He propelled forward and ran right into the guard, toppling him and tumbling to a halt inside the room behind the throne room. Multiple guards posted about stepped forward as Soarin barged in.

“NO!” Soarin forced his body to stand and shook his head as a few approached. “DON’T! DON’T COME NEAR ME! PLEASE!!!!!!” he pleaded. He took a step towards the throne room, but the step turned into a bound and his body thrust skyward. “JUST STAY…” Soarin was cut off as he landed face first on the ground. “AWAY!!!!” this was the tenth time he had smashed his head to the ground, at least. He had a wide trail of blood running down his left cheek.

Unfortunately, the guards were bound by duty to protect the princess no matter what. They bared Soarin’s path.

“NO! RUN! PLEASE!” Soarin forced his body forward, blowing right through the first two guards in his way.

He felt his conscious slipping. The strain on his mind was becoming too great for him to bear. He had to get to Luna now. He had no idea what was happening to him and had nopony else to turn to. Two more guards put their hooves on him. They were instantly blown aside by a magic pulse that fired out from around Soarin’s body.

“You cannot enter!” The last two guards posted in front of the door waited for Soarin to come to them, but they were cast aside like waste paper. Soarin’s vision had become blurry. He couldn’t see straight nor make out anything around him. All he could feel now was pain. Pain searing through his head like an arrow had just been put right through his skull. His body lurched forward once more and he burst through the doors.

“Ah, ah, ah…” Discord was right on the other side of the door. He reached forward with his hand and grabbed the tip of the false horn in his fingers.

“AAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHAAAAAA!!!!!” Soarin cried out as the magic sparked and jolted out of control around the horn. Discord didn’t even flinch as the magic snapped and clawed at his hand. With one solid yank, Discord moved the horn back into the proper place.

Soarin felt like an explosion went off in his brain as if his whole skull had been shifted. And then the pain instantly ceased, leaving not a single trace of discomfort behind. Unfortunately, his mind was still completely battered by the experience. His hazy vision grew hazier as he slowly collapsed to the ground.

“What the devil was that?!” Soarin heard a male voice.

“We do not know!” Luna’s voice came from around the throne. Soarin caught the sights of three different, completely blurry ponies and Luna step around the throne.

“Soarin?!” a female voice called his name.

Then he completely passed out.

What had happened to Soarin?

Dash couldn’t keep her mind off of it. She may have been far away, but she saw most of it. She saw the sparking blue light shoot from him as Blaze tried to touch the fake horn on his head. She didn’t get much of an explanation from him on what was going on in his body, but seriously, what was wrong? What happened to him?

The third test was still finishing up, but Dash took absolutely no notice of the rest of the runs. She was too busy thinking about her stallion. She wanted to go with him. She wanted to make sure he would be okay. She trusted everything would be fine with Fire Streak and Misty Fly helping him, but what really struck her was the way Fleetfoot acted. Fleetfoot gave Dash a stern order. Being serious was something Fleetfoot almost never did. Something had to be up if she was taking it seriously. Dash wanted to know! She felt like she had the right to know! This was Soarin they were talking about… you know… her lover!

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?”

Dash cringed at the sharp, bitchy voice. She half expected to see Arctic glaring at her when she turned, but as she moved she saw something much worse.

Arctic Blast was glaring down at Derpy. Derpy had almost completely contorted herself into a ball towards the ground as Arctic imposed her will upon her.

“I… I don’t know! I didn’t mean…” Derpy shivered beneath Arctic’s ice cold stare.

“HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO HIM?!?!” She yelled again, nearly spitting on Derpy in the process.

“I… I…” tears began to well up in Derpy’s eyes.

OH.

HELL.

NO.

“HEY!” Dash yelled, sharply turned, and glared at Arctic before making her way over. She grabbed Arctic’s shoulder and forced her to look at her. “What the hell is WRONG with you?!”

“With me? ME?!” Arctic pressed her hooves to her chest then pointed at Derpy. “She PUNCHED Soarin! MY SOARIN!”

“Derpy did NOTHING!” Dash spat back, resisting the urge to punch Arctic in the face for calling Soarin 'her stallion' again. “Take your self-centered bullshit elsewhere!”

“Psh!” Arctic rolled her eyes and looked back to Derpy. “I can’t BELIEVE you would do such an awful thing!” she talked down to Derpy, completely ignoring Dash. Derpy began to whimper and Dash was quickly losing her cool.

“Hey! Back off!” Storm Front suddenly stepped over Derpy, shielding her underneath him and flaring his wings out defensively. Arctic raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, look at this white knight!” Arctic glared at Storm. A crowd of cadets was beginning to form around them, mostly due to backing off from the scuffle. Arctic pointed at Derpy again. “Are you all taking pity on this dumb bitch cause of her ugly wall-eyed face?!”

Dash snapped.

“THAT’S IT! I’M GONNA—”

A hoof landed on her shoulder, followed by a loud yawn.

“No,” a nonchalant voice spoke. Dash turned to see High Winds holding her shoulder. Before Dash could say anything else, Winds pulled her aside and approached Arctic. She grabbed Arctic’s arm and started forcefully dragging her away.

“HEY! What did I do?!” she barked as she tried to rip free from Winds’ grip. She failed miserably and Winds pulled her out of earshot of everypony save for Dash.

“Enough,” Winds put plainly before yawning again and looking at Arctic as sternly as she could with her sleepy expression.

“Enough WHAT?!” Arctic threw her hooves up.

“Bitching,” Winds blinked and cracked her neck.

“Excuse me?!”

“I said bitching.”

“I KNOW! But what about her?!” Arctic pointed back towards Derpy. “Did you see what she did?!”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not doing anything?! She punched MY stallion!” Arctic repeated to Winds. Winds just blinked again. “Seriously, you have to do something abou—,”

“Sorry, all I’m hearing right now…” Winds paused to yawn. “Is, blah, blah, blah… I’m a whiney little skank that takes it in the ass,” she said with a completely calm, straight face. Arctic’s body froze so hard it was a surprise the sound of glass breaking didn’t echo from her. Her mouth hung open and her eyes grew in disbelief.

“Whoa, there!” Blaze hovered down while chuckling. “I think you’ve made your point Windy, I’ll just stop you while you’re ahead.”

“Okay,” Winds replied calmly as Blaze turned her around and the two flew off, leaving Arctic behind with High Winds’ words still sinking in.

Dash had heard the whole thing and was trying not to burst out laughing. Not at Arctic’s expense… okay maybe a little bit at her expense… but more so at how BLUNT High Winds was to her. That ought to shut up Arctic for a while.

It only lasted a moment though, because Derpy suddenly came back to mind. She quickly turned around to see Derpy crying. The tears were gushing down her face. That horrible comment from Arctic really hit her hard. Dash would have moved in to comfort her, but Storm Front had beaten her too it. In fact he was already down with a wing and arm draped over Derpy before Dash even turned.

“Hey, don’t cry, I’m here,” he spoke softly to her as she sniffled.

“But… she… she said…” Derpy hiccupped and dug her eyes into her arm.

“Don’t listen to her, you have wonderful eyes,” he countered Arctic’s insult while rubbing his hoof gently on her back. Dash smiled and trotted up to Storm while eyeing the other cadets that were watching. She bent down and whispered to Storm.

“You’re a great guy. Thanks,” she smiled at him. “Stay with her, I’ll get this crowd away.”

“Alright,” Storm nodded.

“Okay, break it up, BREAK IT UP!” Dash turned to the cadets and threw her hooves out. “Nothing to see here! Get lost!” she barked at them as they all moved away. “HEY! I said get lost!” She pointed at one cadet that didn’t move before trotting over and pushing him away.

Dash turned and looked back at Storm as he comforted Derpy. While the sight made her happy and made her feel more than ever like she could trust Storm, she had to look away. It only made her think of Soarin.

Seriously… what the hell happened to Soarin? Was he hurt? Was something else wrong? She didn’t give a damn what was wrong actually, she just knew something wasn’t right and he had been injured in some way. She wanted to comfort him. The sight of Storm over Derpy only reminded her that she was unable to go to Soarin’s side.

She hoped nothing bad had happened or was happening.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

FAST UPDATES AHOY!

Bet you didn't see THIS coming eh?

I've been wanting to write a scene with Fire and Misty as the focus for a while. I never got a chance to really explore their sign language communication. That and i wanted to show how far Fire would go for her ;3

And man... Arctic... i've never written a more awful character in my life. It's different from Nightshade. Nightshade was evil. Arctic is just a plain bitch.

Good thing Storm is there to comfort our little famous pony mascot :)

I managed this one quick, but i dunno if i'll be able to do it again tomorrow, it depends on how things go as always.

So i'd say a safe bet for the next chapter is Wednesday. But don't count me out of getting it here tomorrow, i'm just makign a safe bet ;)

Thanks so much for reading!

Chapter 15: The Griffon Speaks

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 15:

Thankfully the scene surrounding Derpy cleared away through Dash’s efforts. Storm Front also quickly had Derpy back on her hooves and feeling better. Dash was impressed. She was more than certain she had never known a nicer stallion in her life. At the same time couldn’t believe Arctic Blast (who was still stuck frozen where High Winds had told her off). What she said to Derpy… it was just HEARTLESS. How in Equestria did the nicest and absolute worst pony end up in the same place at the same time?

Although everything was mostly back to normal among the cadets, Dash stared up blankly towards the Wonderbolts setting up the next test. Again, thoughts of Soarin occupied ever corner of her brain. She had to stop. She was worried sick about him, but she couldn’t forget why she was there. She was there to make the Wonderbolts. Besides, she was sure that Soarin would tear her a new one if she skipped out on making her dreams just to check up on him. It looked like something bad had happened, but he had Fire and Misty with him! He’d be fine… nothing would happen… right?

This was driving her crazy… WHAT WAS WRONG WITH SOARIN?!

“You,” a thick accented voice came from above her.

“Whoa!” Dash flinched hard and spun around quickly. Her face bopped right into black feathers. “Blah! Ptooey!” Dash pulled her head back and spat a black feather out of her mouth. She looked up to see Matteo towering over her and looking down with his usual glare.

“Your name was Rainbow Dash, correct?” he asked quickly and sharply.

“Uh… yeah?” Dash lifted an eyebrow in confusion.

“You used my Air Burst technique. How?” he drilled her.

“Your what?”

“You haven’t the wings nor the strength to pull off my maneuvers. How did you do it?” his tone of voice never changed, but his presence felt like it was pressing her to the floor. Dash finally registered it. He wanted to know how she pulled off his strange wing thrust move. Dash blinked, and then smirked.

“It was nothing,” she said and turned her back on him while whisking her mane over her shoulder.

“It clearly was,” he pressed.

“Oh, so it’s fine for you not to tell me about your moves, but when you wanna know about mine I have to tell you?” Dash tipped her head to the left and gave Matteo a smug look. Matteo blinked, and then snorted. Dash wasn’t quite sure, but she swore she saw a small grin form on the side of his beak.

“Very well,” he sat down in his spot and looked back towards Dash. “I have no idea how you managed to do it, but I commend you. It is not an easy technique to execute.”

“T-thanks…” Dash didn’t know what to say.

“She had help, eh, eh, EH?” Another voice… this one right beside Dash’s ear.

“AH!” Dash pulled her head away and saw Twister standing beside her, eying her creepily.

“Hey, big bird!” Twister sped around Dash and was now reclining in the crook of Matteo’s back between his wings. “Wanna know how she did it? She used my move at the same time to counter the pressure!” Twister explained with a hint of excitement in his voice. He slid down Matteo’s back and circled around back to Dash.

“Your point?” Matteo cocked his head to the side as the peculiar pony kept rambling.

“HEEEEEheheheheheeee, she’s watching us!” he appeared on Dash’s other side. “Seeing our moves!” he appeared behind her. “And putting them together!” he dropped to the ground and slithered on his stomach like a snake over to Matteo. “In short…” his wings extended and fluttered so fast with such a small follow through that they made a buzzing noise as he lifted up to eye level with Matteo. “She’s making us look bad. HEEEE!”

“Ugh!” Matteo grunted in annoyance as he tried to peck at Twister with his beak. Twister fell back to the ground and slithered backwards back towards Dash. “That is merely how you see it,” Matteo huffed. Dash tried to take a few steps away as Twister approached, but he popped up beside her and put her in a gentle headlock.

“Nonsense, my fine feathered brute. I SAY WE KILL HER NOW!” his voice turned extremely sinister.

“WHAT?!?!” Dash flailed in his grip, which was a lot stronger than it was initially. Twister burst out laughing for exactly two seconds before instantly stopping and looking towards Dash with pouty lips.

“Only kidding… silly filly. Or am I? I guess it depends on your outlook in life,” he sat down, keeping Dash in the headlock, effectively pulling her down onto her stomach. “Am I being half honest or am I half lying? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Is the sky blue or red? If a tree falls on you in the forest, and nopony is around to see it happen, does it hurt?” Twister blinked and bent his neck all the way down and got in Dash’s face. “What were we talking about again? HAH! Doesn’t matter!” He let go of Dash and floated up towards Matteo. Dash didn’t bother getting up. She lay still with the biggest “what the hell” look she could muster. Because seriously… what the hell?

“You’re beginning to annoy me,” Matteo glared as Twister began flying continuous circles around his head.

“Big birdie doesn’t know how to have fun! I’m being myself! What are you going to do about it? HURK!” Twister choked on his sentence as Matteo reached out and grabbed Twister around the neck with one of his talons. Twister didn’t struggle, he just let his body go limp as Matteo held him up in front of him. “HA! I KNEW you were going to do that! Now for my next trick…” Twister reached up a hoof and coiled it into part of his wild mane. He griped a firm amount of it and yanked hard, pulling a good amount of hair out of his head. “AAAAAHHHH HAHA!”

“I have no words for you… crazy pony…” Matteo said simply as he furrowed his brow, thoroughly disturbed.

“Whoa, big fella!” Lightning Streak suddenly flew down with Surprise in tow. “I think he’s weird too, but put him down. Gotta keep the cadets calm, you know?” Lightning spoke casually while scratching the back of his head with his right wing. Surprise set her eye on Twister immediately and fixed an unprovoked glare in his direction. Dash noticed as she stood up and decided to step back just a little. She had already had her fill of crazy ponies… Surprise wasn’t going to alleviate feeling.

“Oh, hey daaaaaarling,” Twister directed at Surprise as Matteo reluctantly let go of him. Twister bounced his eyebrows at her as he smacked the uprooted hair back against his mane and it somehow stuck. Surprise pushed past Lightning Streak and got in Twister’s face.

“Nice try wacko, I’m ready for you this time!” she poked him hard in the chest. His pupils shrank to tiny little dots as his sneer widened and almost reached his ears.

“Ready?” His pupils grew and filled the entirety of his eyes. “For me?” they shrank back to normal size. He blinked and Surprise was gone.

“It there an echo in here?” she said from behind him. He turned. She was gone again. “Is there an echo in here?” he looked up, nothing. “Is there an echo in here?” he looked down, she wasn’t there either. Surprise appeared back in front of him. “What do you think of—”

“I think I found the echo,” Twister was behind her.

“WAH!” she flipped forward, turned and glared at him. He was flying upside-down and frowning so it looked like a smile to those who were right-side up. “You’re good!” Surprise pounded her hooves together. “But NOPONY out-crazies Surprise!”

“Oh man, I am staying out of this one…” Lightning Streak stepped back

“Try me!” Twister provoked Surprise as he zipped over to Matteo and flew beneath his legs.

“Hey!” Matteo yelled as he tried to move away, but no matter where he stepped, Twister moved with him like he was tethered to him. Twister hopped up and tucked his head underneath Matteo’s left wing.

“You can’t hide from me!” Surprise yelled while hopping over Matteo’s back and pulling up his left wing.

“Nope, I’m under this one!” Twister appeared from under Matteo’s right wing.

“So am I!” Surprise was suddenly beside him under the wing.

“Not bad…” Twister disappeared beneath Matteo’s thick coat of feathers.

“Get back here!” Surprise dove in after him. Matteo twitched and shook his body as Surprise chased Twister beneath his feathers. He finally just stood still, a look of pure, annoyed, reluctant, acceptance on his face as he realized there was no stopping the two silly ponies.

“Actually I’m over here,” Twister suddenly said casually while stepping up between Dash and Lightning, who were standing at least ten yards away from Matteo. Surprise popped up from Matteo’s feathers and stared in disbelief. She scrunched her face and growled before smirking sinisterly.

“Oh no, I’m pretty sure you’re right…” Surprise dug a hoof deep into Matteo’s feathers. Twister flinched as something suddenly yanked him backwards. Dash and Lightning looked behind them to see Twister was gone. “…HERE!” Surprise lifted her hoof up, pulling Twister out of Matteo’s feathers.

“How the…” Twister looked around quickly before locking his eyes on Surprise, who had a victorious grin on her face. “You…” Twister gritted his teeth. “You are delicious!” he licked his lips and looked towards Surprise with a new wave of interest.

“Eh?” Surprise leaned away from him.

“I must have you!” he began leaning towards her with his arms outstretched.

“EW! NO!” Surprise dove into Matteo’s feathers and the chase began all over again, this time with Twister chasing Surprise through Matteo’s feathers. Matteo just stood still and grunted in annoyance.

“I’m surrounded… by idiots…” he grumbled.

“Should we stop them?” Dash glanced at Lightning Streak. Lightning shrugged.

“I ain’t gettin’ between those two,” he shook his head. Dash smirked at him.

“That’s a surprisingly intelligent choice for you,” she said sarcastically.

“Heh, thanks,” Lightning smiled and nodded. Dash blinked and stared at him for a good thirty seconds. She rolled her eyes, checked to see if the forth test was set up yet, and trotted over to get a better spot, should the line start forming early. Lightning sat and watched Matteo get harassed by the two weird ponies for another minute before he blinked twice. “Wait, what?”

“Soarin…”

A voice filled with care and sweetness caressed the edges of Soarin’s ears. He awoke, but not pleasantly.

“Soarin…”

The voice sounded like that of an angel. Soarin’s own personal angel. It did little to make his head feel better, but it caused a warm feeling that countered the pain. Every stallion had an idea of what an angelic voice was supposed to sound like. It all was a matter of preference.

“Dammit Soarin, WAKE UP!”

Oh, it was like music to his ears. He opened his eyes slowly. His left eyelid stopped halfway by a large bandage that had been wrapped around the left side of his head. It was awkwardly tied over the leather strap of the horn. It was slightly red, probably because his head was bleeding from multiple blows of the face to the floor. He didn’t feel concussed, which was a miracle with how much head trauma he had taken, but he was probably somewhat shielded by the magic itself as it ran rampant. Despite his woozy, slightly dizzy state, he’d probably be much worse off right now if not for the magic strengthening his body.

He immediately searched for the source of the voice. He was in his room, in his bed. How long had he been out? He didn’t know. The blood seemed fresh on the bandage, but he didn’t know for sure. All he could think of was the voice. He knew the owner and she would make things perfect, no matter what his body’s state.

“Rainbow Dash?” he turned his head to the right. She was there, she was standing right there.

“Sheesh! Finally! I thought you were gonna sleep forever!” Dash chuckled as she leaned onto his bed. “But I was worried, don’t get me wrong. You gotta stop getting yourself hurt, seriously,” she reached a hoof forward and stroked his arm gently.

“Heh,” Soarin looked straight up at the ceiling, “where would I be without your sass?” Soarin reached his arm over and pulled her in. Her body slid onto the bed and she giggled while smirking at him.

“You’d be nothing without my sass,” she bounced her eyebrows.

“Shut up and come here,” he winked.

“Yes sir,” she licked her lips and leaned in. Soarin closed his eyes, waiting for the perfect feeling of Dash’s lips pressed to his. “Treat me like a dirty little rainbow!” It wasn’t Dash’s voice anymore. It was male, it was sly, and it was painfully familiar.

Soarin’s eyes snapped open to see Discord’s snake-like neck in the crook of his arm. Soarin’s face turned white as Discord made kissing noises towards him and batted fake feminine eyelashes at him.

“AHHHH!!!!!” Soarin pushed Discord away and tried to sit up. His head throbbed like mad, causing his body to flinch. On top of that, Soarin instinctively brought a hoof up to his chest as his heart started beating rapidly, almost jumping out of his chest. “Rgh!” he grunted and twitched.

“Oh, no, no, no little pony…” Discord reached forward and gently forced Soarin to lay back flat. “I would avoid strenuous activity at the moment. Your body just went through an incredible amount of magical stress… to be honest if you weren’t so stubborn it probably would have killed you,” he backed away from Soarin. Soarin’s breathing calmed and he felt his heart rate slow. “It would be best if you just stayed put and rested.”

“So…” Soarin scrunched his brow. “Let me get this straight… it’s best for me and my body right now to get lots of rest and stay down… so you decided to play a trick on me and scare the ever-living shit out of me?!” he barked at Discord before wincing and putting a hoof towards his head. Discord reached out and caught Soarin’s hoof.

“Trust me, you’d rather leave your head alone right now,” he pushed Soarin’s hoof back down. “And come now… is it really my fault you fell for it so easily? You haven’t been out long. You’re head is still bleeding for me’s sake. You should know your little Dashie would never…” he disappeared and reappeared on Soarin’s chest, shaped like an incredibly small pony. He was wearing a Wonderbolt uniform and a pair of goggled that were too big for his face. “…skip out on a chance to fulfill her fillyhood dream!” he did a pirouette and struck a silly pose before blipping right back to where he was.

“That’s just wrong,” Soarin grunted in annoyance.

“How was it by the way?” Discord was right beside him now, leaning an elbow on the bed.

“How was what?” Soarin asked, confused. Discord snapped his fingers and Rainbow Dash appeared right next to him. She had a default smile and vacant expression.

“My puppet ponies of course!” Discord reached his hand up and moved his fingers around. The fake Rainbow Dash began walking in a circle. “They’re just like the real thing! Only they’re not of course. Oh, think of the PRANKS!” he turned his fist and pointed his thumb up before bending and straightening his thumb. The fake Dash crouched and stood repeatedly. Soarin just watched with his mouth agape and a disturbed expression plastered to his face. Discord continued by putting one hand flat on top of the back of the other, interlocking his fingers, and flapping his thumbs up and down. The fake Dash hopped up and flapped its wings.

“OKAY! I GET IT! You’re creeping the hell out of me!” Soarin demanded.

“Just like the rest… not a single bit of fun blood cells flowing in that mortal body of yours…” Discord snapped and the doll disappeared.

“So are you here for a reason? Or just to harass me?” Soarin averted his eyes, not wanting to even acknowledge the god of dickery.

“Both of course! You should know by now that I’m not a god of one hit thrills,” he slithered around the bed. “You see… I’m completely on board with Lulu on this one… But I don’t care what she says. If I have to make little changes here or there to make it work, she can deal with it and sweep up the little chaos magic repercussions with her dainty magical princess broom.”

“Just get to the point please… my head hurts enough,” Soarin groaned.

“FFFFFFFFine,” Discord scoffed. “You took a slap to the strap-on, and it got knocked out of place. I did not expect you to get slapped in the face so soon, but you went ahead and made it so. The disturbance from the off-center horn made the magic run rampant. It was only just getting used to having a clear canal… distorting that canal... well, you’re lucky you didn’t kill anypony. You almost killed one.”

“What?!” Soarin’s eyes shot open. He almost sat up in bed, but he didn’t want to repeat that blunder again.

“I believe her name is Misty Fly. At least that’s what your other Wonderbolt friend cried out when a smidge of your magic tried to rip her apart from inside out,” Discord said while crossing his arms and leaning his back into the corner of the room.

“I hurt Misty? No…” Soarin looked straight up.

“You didn’t hurt her. She merely touched you right at the moment of a dark magical pulse. The exact moment of magic gathering is always when it is the most potent. It passed right through her body. I drew it out of her, so don’t go thinking you killed the poor thing. She’ll be perfectly fine… probably just in shock for a day. Your red maned stallion friend is already taking care of her… ah, how sweet of him,” Discord slumped a little on the wall. “Really, I thought you Wonderbolts were supposed to be soldiers. There’s an awful lot of fluff in the air,” he made all his fur puff outward briefly.

“Fire Streak…” Soarin thought of his teammate out loud. As Discord had said, it wasn’t really his doing, but he felt responsible for exposing Fire and Misty to a problem they weren’t even a part of. “Wait…” Soarin realized something. The whole thing happened because he took a simple blow to the fake horn. “Are you telling me that any sort of force applied to this dumb thing will cause… THAT to happen?” he shook his head lightly. “How the hell am I supposed to engage in combat when a light tap to the head can make my brain explode!?”

“I’ve already got it covered,” Discord appeared beside him. He touched a finger to the leather strap of the horn. It glowed for a brief moment before Soarin felt something clamp tightly around his head.

“Ow! What the—”

“Taadaa! I doubt it will move now!” Discord motioned his hands to it. “Oh, allow me.” He held up a small mirror. Soarin looked into it and saw the leather trap had been replaced with a thick metal band. It was somewhat heavy and it was really tight. “Reinforced! I doubt the horn will budge an inch now. Even if it was hit by a passing train! Congratulations Soarin! You’re the first pony in history to use protection with a strap-on,” he snickered vigorously at his own joke.

“Could you have made it any more…” Soarin twitched and winced. “Uncomfortable?!”

“Waaaaaah!” Discord cried into Soarin’s face. He was gone the instant later and reappeared in the spot against the corner he stood in earlier. He snapped his fingers and a group of thirty tiny violins began playing high-pitched classical music above Soarin’s face. “Your telling me you just had you insides bear hugged and your head almost twisted off by dark magic inside of you… and you’re going to complain about a slightly uncomfortable metal band around your head? It’s either this or possibly lose your mind again with another mishap. I don’t think you can afford the freedom of choice in this situation… it affects those around you as much as it affects you.”

“Fine…” Soarin sighed heavily and rested his head firmly on the pillow. Even resting, the metal band felt like it was digging into his head. Discord shook his head as he watched Soarin internally whine about the new fixture.

“This whole rampage scenario could have been avoided you know,” Discord spoke up again. Soarin looked towards him grumpily.

“Oh, really? Enlighten me.”

“What a grouch,” Discord lifted an eyebrow before shaking his head. “If only you had taken Rainbow Dash with you. The magic would have been tamed and none of the crazy things would have happened.”

“You know I couldn’t do that. We’re staying apart to remove suspicion from the tryouts,” Soarin shook his head. “It’s too risky… wait, how do you know about that?” Soarin was pretty sure he had told nopony about the way Dash’s presence eases the dark magic.

“Do you even know why that happens?” Discord leaned towards Soarin, turning his head slightly sideways and his eyebrow detaching, rising all the way up until it touched the ceiling. Soarin opened his mouth to speak, but stopped when he realized… no, he didn’t know why.

“I—”

“Of course you don’t,” Discord cut him off as he pushed himself off the wall. “When Celestia used the forbidden dark magic, she required more life force to power the spell than she… the mighty goddess of the sun… possessed… at least if she didn’t want to erase herself from existence,” Discord slowly approached the bed. “With the help of two volunteers she was able to spread the strain of the magic between her and two other small life forces… specifically, your old friend Spitfire… and Rainbow Dash.”

Soarin listened quietly. He stared straight up as the information sank in.

“So when the magic was contained within you, effectively reviving you… it was forced into your body with a familiar imprint of Spitfire’s and Rainbow Dash’s life force. They were the two keys that helped lock the gate… and it fears them,” Discord paused to glance at Soarin.

“But… Spitfire has never caused the effects to ease or multiply… only Dash did!” Soarin questioned. Discord leaned down.

“Is a mutual friendship as strong as the bond of love?” he winked. “They were chosen to aid the princess because they shared a connection with you. It both made the magic stronger and easier to lock away. You’re friendship with Spitfire is strong, and it left a strong imprint, but it is nothing compared to Dash’s. You and Dash are in love correct? I assume you are. You’ve caused enough drama to hit Bridleway in Manehatten for centuries,” he chuckled as hearts floated up above him, which were all suddenly popped by tiny arrows that shot up from the ground. “Dash left an imprint so strong on your magic, that her mere presence causes it to back away… and even listen to you in fear of being punished! Quite an interesting development wouldn’t you say? I didn’t even think such a thing was possible!”

Discord sighed as Soarin didn’t answer. He pointed to his chest, the letters “TL;DR” appeared in his fur.

“Long story short…” Discord began again. “Dark magic fears love,” he paused to let it sink in. “The magic Celestia used on you was devised by King Sombra you know… want to know what Sombra feared? The crystal heart. The magic of love.”

“Huh…” Soarin couldn’t believe Discord was making sense. Again, just like before when Discord helped Luna apply the fake horn. There was clearly a real threat to letting his magic run wild. If Discord of all… things was willing to help and be “supportive” then it had to be important.

“BLARGH!” Discord suddenly cringed, pulled out a very large brown bag and began making heavy heaving noises into it. “Dear me, I almost couldn’t hold it in…” he fake heaved more. “Me… the god of chaos… talking about love! The universe is going to end and this time I didn't mean to do it!”

“Still though…” Soarin ignored him. “I can’t risk bringing her into it. Not even now like this,” he lightly lifted his arms and let them fall back down.

“Nonsense,” Discord was back upright and perfectly fine, and wearing his doctor costume again. “Dr. Discord recommends you sneak your little rainbow here and spend one hour with her. That should ease the magic enough for you to recover quickly. You have tryout courses to run the day after tomorrow, correct? Trust me, this is the only way you’ll be up for that. I’ll pull my own leg to prove that I’m not pulling yours,” he reached over and pulled off his left arm.

“That’s your arm,” Soarin said flatly.

“Beside the point!” Discord re-attached his arm. “I’m not joking about the sneaking your lover in here.”

“Fine, I’ll see what I can do,” Soarin admitted defeat. Discord may be a god of chaos, but he’s still a god. It’s not good to ignore advice from a god.

Then the door to Soarin’s room swung open.

“What the hell is—” Wave Chill’s face appeared in the door. He froze, blinked and closed the door quickly. Shortly after a knock came at the door.

“Wow, for real?” Discord chuckled to himself.

“Just come in Wave,” Soarin called towards the door. Wave Chill re-entered slowly and stood attention. He was still in his full uniform.

“Commander Soarin!” he saluted. “I was sent by captain Spitfire to…” he paused as he saw Discord in the corner.

“Don’t mind him… what is it?” Soarin just wanted to hear what Wave had to say before it got lost in his formalities.

“Sir, I was sent by captain Spitfire to assess the situation sir! I found the lobby had battle scars, you were not with Princess Luna, and 3rd captain Fire Streak and 3rd Commander Misty Fly were missing!” as he gave his stoic report, Discord appeared behind him and began making over dramatic salutes with his tongue sticking out and eyes crossed. Wave glanced behind himself, but Discord was back up against the wall where he stood before. “Sir, what should I report?!” he asked as he looked back to Soarin.

“First, cut the damn soldier stuff. Second, just tell her we had a bad dark magic mishap. Tell her to check on Misty Fly and I’ll give her more details later,” Soarin explained.

“Sir! Yes, Sir! I will report to Spitfire, sir!”

“I’m right here, save yourself the walk.”

Wave and Soarin both flinched as Spitfire walked in through the door, in uniform. She removed her goggles and fixed her eyes on Wave.

“Well? Give me the report,” she ordered. Wave looked between her and Soarin, but she kept looking at him.

“Um… Yes ma’am!” he saluted, “Commander Soarin said—”

“Actually…” Spitfire cut him off. Wave’s lips froze. “Forget the report.”

“Ma’am?” Wave lifted an eyebrow. Spitfire reached up and removed the mask portion of her uniform. She whisked her mane back and forth with her eyes closed. Her mane swished around, and she slowly opened her eyes, looking directly into Wave’s eyes.

“Forget all the reports,” Spitfire swayed her plot back and forth as she stepped towards him. Wave didn’t move. He was stuck in place with no idea what she was doing. She reached up and pulled off his goggles. His eyes darted around as she removed the mask portion of his flight suit as well. “These things are in the way… wouldn’t you agree?” she said seductively as the noise of the zipper on her spandex suit ripped quietly into the air around them.

Soarin was having trouble seeing because of how he was forced to lay down, but he heard every word. What the bloody hell was happening?

“C-C-C-C-Captain…” Wave tried to keep his eyes from going down to her body as she slipped her uniform off completely. A mad blush covered Wave’s face as she got real close to him. He finally found the strength to move and backed all the way up against the wall to the point where he was standing only on his hind legs. Spitfire hovered up and gently pressed the entirety of her body against him while never once taking her eyes off of his.

“Kiss me… that’s an order…” Spitfire crashed her lips against his. Wave’s eyes widened, his wings shot out at his sides and his face turned so red the dark blue of his fur almost completely vanished.

Soarin’s mouth hung agape as he saw it all happen in his peripheral vision. What the hell was Spitfire doing?! Why the hell was she doing it in his room!?!?!

Wait…

Soarin quickly glanced over at Discord. Discord was grinning snidely with his hands balled up in fists and rubbing the bases of his thumbs together.

“DISCORD!!!!!!” Soarin yelled out. Discord burst out laughing and Spitfire suddenly disappeared into thin air, leaving a very flustered, very red, and very admittedly turned on Wave Chill with his back against the wall. Wave fell from the wall back onto all four hooves, still blinking with his mouth agape.

“I…” Wave barely managed to say as his body covered with goose bumps and jittered all over. “I have to go report,” he said quickly and sprinted out of the room as fast as he could.

Soarin turned his eyes sternly to Discord, who was STILL laughing like he had heard the world’s funniest joke for the first time.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” Soarin shook his head.

“Only the best kind!” Discord gave him a wink and a thumbs-up. “Now rest, and get some rainbow sugar later,” he shook his finger at Soarin. “Au revoir! I have pranks to pull!” he disappeared without a trace.

Soarin groaned and let his head rest naturally on the pillow.

Why did everything have to be so damn annoying and complicated?

--- To be Continued ---

Author's Note

Fast update!

I'm such an asshole for doing that to Wave Chill.

Surprise vs Twister! Just don't move! It's not worth trying!

oy... this was a very information heavy chapter i dunno if i'll be able to crank out another one in a day again... so i would expect the next chapter to be out thursday... if i can get one out tomorrow i'm officially obsessed with making my readers happy daily xD (not really a bad thing at all)

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 16: Derpy Makes History

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 16:

“Damn!” Dash cursed as she barely passed through the check point in time.

The fourth test was another unexpected trial: an endurance test. It was fairly simple. All the cadets had to fly circles around the gym, while staying outside certain boundaries which were marked off by four large poles, one near each corner of the gym. Fly laps till you drop. Very appealing. There was a catch though. Each lap had to be completed in less than 25 seconds.

The starting line near the entrance to the gym also served as a checkpoint. Any pony that didn’t make it around in a twenty-five second increment was stopped by one of the Wonderbolts and forced to land. The pace for making it around all four sections of the gym within twenty-five seconds was pretty fast. One couldn’t just mosey through it. It appeared the only thing they were being judged on here was how long they lasted.

Dash was on her tenth lap and she was already feeling it. It had only been a little over two minutes and she was slowing down. She shouldn’t have used the Sonic Blast-off twice. She was feeling the drag on her wings. Her body wasn’t quite so bad, but her wings and stamina felt more drained than they should have. She pushed through her eleventh lap with a small burst of speed to catch the checkpoint right before twenty five seconds. She wouldn’t be able to hold this out much longer. Showing off made her dazzle in the third test, but now it was coming back to bite her, and boy, did it bite hard.

She glanced down to see a number of cadets were already done. She easily spotted Bulk Biceps below. No offense to the big lug, but she wasn’t really surprised. She saw Thunderlane get forced to the ground by Blaze. Again, not surprised. Thunderlane didn’t work out much.

Dash looked back up to make the wide left turn around the pseudo-track they had laid out. She winced and wheezed as she worked her wings as hard as her fatigue allowed. She took a quick look to her left down the incoming straightaway. She was also lagging behind. It wasn’t a race, but Dash hated it regardless. She didn’t want to look slow, ever, even if it was an endurance test.

She pumped her wings down the straightaway, catching a few familiar colors pitching into the turn ahead of her. Storm Front was near the front of the pack, followed closely by… Arctic Blast? Dash gritted her teeth. She didn’t care that endurance wasn’t her forte. Being behind Barktic Last was unacceptable. Dash grunted and forced her wings to flap harder. She passed two other cadets while pitching into the second turn. She would push through one more lap. Then one more, and then one more. She WOULD NOT fall before Arctic.

She passed through the checkpoint to start her twelfth lap, an instant before Wonderbolts jumped in to stop those behind her. She glanced back and saw Matteo being pushed down by Fleetfoot and Lightning Streak. How the hell did Matteo keep being behind her without her noticing? She would never expect a big lumbering griffon to sneak around so quietly.

Back into the first turn Dash went, she blinked as she saw Storm Front slowing down. It wasn’t only him. It looked like a lot of the ponies ahead of her were hitting their endurance wall. Dash was determined to make a move. Unfortunately, as soon as she made it around the turn…

“Shoot…” Dash mumbled as her resolve could no longer overpower her tired wing muscles. They couldn’t press any harder, her wings began slowing down. She took the second turn much slower than the first. She grimaced as her wing muscles began to burn, but if she could just make one more check point…

It was too late. High Winds, Blaze, and Silver Lining all popped up to stop cadets that were still ahead of her.

“Sorry Dash,” Fleetfoot’s voice came from below. Dash looked down as Fleetfoot softly pulled her down to the ground. Dash landed softly and Fleetfoot lifted back off to continue her duties. Dash gasped and wheezed as she fell lightly on her stomach. She could have done more. She knew she could go longer. The Sonic Blast-off was her undoing here. She looked around, seeing Storm Front among those who had been pulled down.

But there was no sign of Arctic. Dash’s head snapped up. She pounded a hoof against the floor in frustration. Arctic was still flying. A lot of ponies had been brought down after the twelfth lap. There were maybe only fifty cadets left. Fifty… a whole fifty cadets looked better than her in this trial. The trial and circumstances were much different… but fifty better than her. The only bit of info that sunk in was there were fifty who scored better in this trial.

Dash watched as the remaining ponies circled around. More of them began faltering. The twenty-five second mark was approaching.

“DAMN!” Dash cursed again as Arctic barely made it through to the fourteenth lap. Twister was forced down by Surprise along with thirty more.

Arctic ranked in the top twenty for endurance. This was not looking good. Arctic had performed well in the other trials… she was sure to make it past the first day now. Arctic along with all but five hit a wall hard as they came around the first turn. Arctic was stopped along with fourteen others and forced to land. The pack was slowly being whittled down.

Who else remained? The last five ponies were bunched really close together. Fifteenth lap. Sixteenth lap. Seventeenth lap. Two of the ponies were stopped as they fell behind. Now only three remained. Eighteenth lap. Nineteenth lap. Twentieth lap. There ponies had rad endurance. If Dash hadn’t been so tired because of the Sonic Blast-off, she was sure she would have only gotten around sixteen laps.

Then on the twenty-first lap, two of the three ponies slowed right before the finish and missed the mark. It left only one pony in the air. Dash blinked as she tried to make out who it was, but she couldn’t see that far down the track. The pony was moving at a very constant pace and seemed like it had been doing so for the entire run. Suddenly, Thunderlane dragged himself over to Dash.

“Dash! That’s—!” he didn’t even get to finish. The pony came into view and Dash’s eyes widened.

“DERPY?!” Dash blurted out in disbelief.

Indeed it was Derpy. Derpy was puttering along at her own pace. She didn’t look very tired. In fact her movements were very controlled and natural. She had kept the pace up for twenty-one laps and hit the checkpoint into the twenty second at the twenty four second mark. She kept the pace and again, hit the next lap at twenty-four seconds. Exact same time, exact same pace, and never changing it.

“Holy crap…” Dash blinked as she watched Derpy enter her twenty-seventh lap. “How’s she keeping this going?!”

Within the boundary of the course, Spitfire watched in awe as Derpy kept passing the timer at exactly twenty four seconds. Spitfire reset the clock each time, but Derpy was so constant she almost felt like the clock was unnecessary.

“Silver!” Spitfire called down to Silver Lining as Derpy began yet another lap. Silver Lining slowly rose up beside her. “What was Flashwind’s record on the endurance test?” she asked. Silver was the oldest of the current Wonderbolts, he had extensive knowledge of their course records.

“Thirty-five laps, ma’am,” he answered respectfully. Spitfire turned and reset the stop watch again as Derpy passed.

“She’s on twenty nine… I wonder if she can do it.” Spitfire grinned as she watched Derpy circle around.

“That’d be quite something, ma’am,” Silver commented as Derpy began her thirtieth lap.

“Go get the other squads up here and post them around the course to cheer her on. This is crazy, I love it!” Spitfire chuckled.

“Yes, ma’am,” Silver gave a salute and dropped back down.

“That’s gotta be thirty-one… is there some sort of record for this?” Dash smiled as she saw Derpy put on an unexpected display of near super powered endurance. She watched in awe as both Bulk and Storm Front approached them as well.

“YEEEEEAAAAHHH DERPY!!!!” Bulk roared out as she made another pass and started her thirty-second lap.

“This is amazing! Go Derpy, GO!” Storm Front cheered on as well. All eyes were now up towards Derpy as she casually continued her pace. Her flight was uneven, wobbling up and down slightly as she went, but never once did she break her pace.

Dash watched with growing excitement as the Wonderbolts all rose up around the flight track.

“Keep it going!” Fleetfoot yelled as Derpy passed.

“Don’t stop now! Go for it!” Blaze called.

Derpy got to her thirty-third lap.

“Come on girl!” Lightning called out.

“Keep it moving, keep it moving!” Silver Lining swung his arm around as she passed.

Thirty-fourth lap.

“YAY! RANDOM GREY PONY!” Surprise yelled out while throwing confetti into the air.

“Woo…” High winds said before yawning.

Derpy hit lap thirty-five. She was beginning to look a little tired, but her pace remained. She smiled as she saw all the Wonderbolts cheering. It felt so good.

“Come on! You got it! You got it! Go! Go! Go!” Spitfire yelled while beckoning Derpy towards the finish line. Derpy ran through. Tying the record she didn’t even know existed and starting a lap that would break said record if she finished it. “GO!!!!” Spitfire called one more time as Derpy passed.

From below all the cadets were now gathering and watching. They picked up on the Wonderbolts’ excitement and began cheering on as well. All save for one. Dash glanced and saw Arctic through the crowd with her front hooves crossed and her face scrunched. She was a double bitch, so karma now bitched her twice.

“HAHAHA!!!!!!” Spitfire laughed and pumped a hoof in the air as Derpy came around and made it through thirty six laps.

But she still didn’t stop. In fact her pace picked up. She was smiling incredibly wide and feeding off the energy of the Wonderbolts and the cadets below.

Thirty-seven laps… Thirty-eight laps… she began slowing down, but her pace was still just fast enough. The Wonderbolts and cadets began calling out the number lap she was on.

“Thirty-nine!”

“Forty!”

Derpy’s wings began tiring, but she pressed on.

“Forty-one!”

“Forty-two!”

The Wonderbolts were going absolutely nuts. Dash thought Fleetfoot was going to pull her mane out she looked so excited.

Art by: Randompig212

Derpy winced as her wings began to fail her. She came around the final turn and slowed considerably. After forty two laps and almost a forty-third, Derpy missed the checkpoint by half a second. Spitfire instantly came forward and helped Derpy stay up before she could wobble towards the ground. Cheering erupted from below and all the other Wonderbolts flew in while whooping and hollering.

Derpy had absolutely no idea why everypony started cheering, but it made her so happy. She felt like a superstar. She was getting pats on the back and her mane ruffled by famous Wonderbolts. It gave her goose bumps.

“What’s your name cadet?” Spitfire asked as the Wonderbolts gave her a little space, but still gathered around.

“Derpy Hooves,” Derpy replied sheepishly while glancing around at all the celebrities. Spitfire smiled.

“Well Derpy, you just set a Wonderbolt endurance course record. You’re the first non-Wonderbolt to hold a course record in the history of our organization. Congratulations!”

“Oh my goodness! Yay!!!!!” Derpy’s pupils grew three sizes and she smiled so brightly she almost squeaked with delight and the Wonderbolts gave her another cheer. Spitfire lowered her towards the ground as the cadets all eagerly awaited to greet her.

“We’ll find you after dinner tonight. Whether or not you move on to tomorrow, you still earned this honor so we have a few things to do,” Spitfire set Derpy down and gave her a pat on the back. “Congrats again, and good luck with the last test!” She gave Derpy a half salute before rising back up towards the Wonderbolts.

Dash had already weaved her way through the crowd and almost full-out tackled Derpy.

“Derpy! That was amazing! Did I hear that right? You broke a record?!” Dash asked with wide, starry eyes.

“I guess I did!” Derpy shut her eyes, smiled brightly, and flapped her wings despite how much they hurt. Other cadets gathered around them, congratulating Derpy and/or telling her how awesome she was. Thunderlane weaved through the crowd and gave Derpy a quick hug as well.

“Derpy! How the hell did you do that! That was amazing!” he asked eagerly.

“I dunno!” Derpy shrugged. Dash began to wonder herself how Derpy could have such incredible endurance.

Then Dash realized… Derpy delivered the mail every single day in Ponyville. She was always on time and never missed a house. She may have been clumsy and had a physical blunder or two in the process, but she was reliable and always came through. That, and she was the only mail delivery pony in Ponyville. Most towns and cities had a small army of mail ponies. Derpy was the sole delivery mare, so she was pretty much flying on schedule 24/7. She’d been doing it for years too. All that flying day-in and day-out had to have really conditioned her over time. Leave it to Derpy to accidentally become a badass at something.

Storm Front pushed his way through the cadets, approaching Derpy with a huge smile to match hers.

“Derpy! That was incredible!” he laughed as he gave her a very strong hug. Derpy squeaked and blushed as she hugged him back.

“I did it! I did something!” she bounced in his grip. Storm looked around him and saw all the ponies trying to get to her.

“Come on, I think they all want to see little hurricane Derpy,” Storm winked at her and hoisted her up. He placed her on his back and spread his wings, lifting slightly into the air. The cadets cheered when they saw her rise up. She blushed and hid her face with her wings, but she was smiling beneath.

Dash thought her heart was going to swell right out of her ribs. This was something she would never forget, and something Derpy would cherish forever. She remembered back on the train, Derpy told her she wanted to be awesome, just like her. Well, Derpy was already awesome and she just didn’t know it.

“Heh, you were right, he is a great guy,” Thunderlane nudged Dash as he watched Storm Front parade Derpy around. “She’s loving it too.”

“She earned it,” Dash smiled. “I admit, I’m a little jealous.”

“Heh, you should tell her you are. She came here following in your footsteps after all,” Thunderlane turned his head to Dash. “It would mean the world to her if the pony she looked up to now looked up to her a little too.”

“I will later. This is her moment,” Dash chuckled and sighed.

Eventually the crowd died down and Storm Front landed. He carried Derpy on his back over to Dash and the others. Spitfire hovered down with the megaphone.

“Alright! Celebration time is over! We still have one more test before the first day is officially over!” she paused and pointed towards the doors as staff members wheeled in water coolers. “We’re going to take a fifteen minute break! Get some water and stretch your muscles out. When the break’s over, follow Silver Lining to the weight room!”

The weight room. Strength. Dash knew it was coming.

“HELL YEEEEEEEAHHHHH!!!!!” Bulk yelled out as soon as he heard weight room.

“Looks like we finally have something for Bulk,” Dash joked to Thunderlane as they both chuckled at Bulk’s enthusiasm.

The Wonderbolts all left, save for Silver Lining who waited by the doors with his eyes on a clock. Dash and the others began making their way towards the water to make sure they stayed hydrated. Dash chuckled as she saw Derpy still on Storm Front’s back. Derpy leaned down and tapped his neck.

“You don’t have to keep carrying me,” she said while still smiling endlessly. Storm Front shook his head.

“Nonsense… I’m carrying our little champion until she’s not tired anymore,” he tipped his head back and smiled at her.

“He he he!” she giggled while blushing. She leaned forward and hugged him around the neck as they continued forward.

Dash thought she was going to turn into… well… more rainbows. It was such an adorable sight. Storm Front had an endless river of nice guy points flowing from him in every direction. Derpy was so lucky to be paired with such a gentlestallion as a bunkmate. Dash on the other hand…

“Hmph!” Dash heard from a few ponies back. It was a familiar huff that she had heard more than a few times in the past twenty-four hours. She looked behind her and saw Arctic Blast a little ways behind. Dash smirked and casually slowed down, weaving her way back through a few ponies until there was only a stallion standing between her and Arctic.

“It sure sucks to have your ass on fire, doesn’t it, bitch?” Dash whispered loud enough for it to reach around the stallion before quickly weaving through a few ponies to her right. Dash gave a quick glance over the small barrier she put between them and saw Arctic looking around frantically with the biggest glare Dash had ever seen.

Dash snickered and carefully made her way back towards her friends. No mercy for Arctic. She deserved every bit of misfortune she got.

“There you are!” Spitfire called across the weight room as Wave Chill entered slowly.

The rest of the Wonderbolts had made their way to the fitness center. Spitfire had just finished speaking with the strength coach, Pec Bounce, and was directing staff members about bringing in additional equipment.

“Wave?” Spitfire called to him as it seemed he was frozen in place. He flinched upon her saying his name again and averted his eyes as he approached. “What took you so long?” Spitfire questioned as he approached. Wave didn’t look at her, nor did he speak. “Wave…” Spitfire flattened her brow.

“AH! Er… yeah! The report! Haha! I mean, YES MA’AM! The report!” He blushed madly as he tried to look her in the eyes. Fleetfoot was trotting by and blinked when she saw Wave’s strange behavior. Spitfire tipped her head to the side.

“Wave? What’s wr—”

“COMMANDER SOARIN HAD A… UM… MAGIC MISHAP… UH… HE SAID HE WOULD EXPLAIN LATER!” Wave Chill’s face turned completely red and his eyes darted in every direction as he belted out his report. Fleetfoot rushed over, sensing something juicy.

“Whoa! Chill! Wave Chill, Chill, Chill Wave, Wave Chill, gah, that’s confusing…” Fleetfoot grabbed his shoulders before he could turn.

“Wave, did something else happen? You look strange,” Spitfire stepped forward and took a closer look at his face. Wave had turned so red it was a wonder a high pitched whistling noise wasn’t coming out of his ears. Fleetfoot cocked an eyebrow.

“What, did you go to Spitfire’s room instead and rummage through her underwear drawer?” Fleetfoot giggled.

“NO!!!!” Wave Chill’s wings flared out, knocking Fleetfoot off his back. “UH… SHIT!” his demeanor completely shattered. “DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!” he shook his head and folded his wings… mostly. He looked at Spitfire again. She was looking at him with concern, but all he could think of was her slowly undressing, humping him, and kissing him like a wild animal. He was late reporting because he tried to wait for the image to go away, but he had no such luck. “I have to go help!” he looked away from Spitfire and trotted away at a quickened pace.

“What the hell was that?” Spitfire watched him leave with a mix of confusion and concern.

“He looked like he just got molested or something,” Fleetfoot said, still on the ground on her stomach while twiddling her back hooves in the air. “Did you do something to him while I wasn’t looking? HOW DARE YOU!” Fleetfoot rolled over on her back and started laughing.

“Fleet, I’ve been here the whole time,” Spitfire rolled her eyes. Fleetfoot stood up, trotted over to her and leaned into her side.

“I dunno Spitfire... you are pretty shifty… and there are plenty of closets around…”

“I didn't molest him Fleetfoot!” Spitfire glared at her.

“Um… is this a bad time?” Spitfire and Fleetfoot turned to see Fire Streak standing behind them minus his goggles and his spandex hood down. Fleetfoot took notice of the three burns on the back of his uniform as well.

“Fire!” Spitfire quickly turned to him. “What the heck happened? Wave’s report was… not quite up to snuff. Also, what was with the damage in the lobby?”

“Well…” Fire sighed. “His magic… ran wild soon after we left the gym. It was almost like he was possessed. Misty and I tried to stop him, but it ended poorly each time. He eventually somehow found his own way to the Princess… but Misty took a severe blow before he did,” Fire looked down in shame. He felt entirely responsible for the damage caused to Misty.

“Misty?! Is she alright?” Spitfire quickly grabbed Fire by the shoulders. Fire nodded slowly.

“She was in pain… Some of Soarin’s magic apparently entered her… but Discord showed up and drew it out of her. If you’re going to thank somepony… or god, thank him. I was powerless.” He refused to look at Spitfire.

“Where is she now?” Fleetfoot asked with concern.

“In her room. She is still in slight shock. That’s all I have to report. I must return to her at once,” he nodded and tried to leave.

“Fire,” Spitfire stopped him with her wing and made him turn around. He looked at the ground, but she forced his head up. “Look at me,” she forced his eyes to hers. “You are not powerless. Go to her and stay with her until she feels better. That is an order, understood?” She knew she didn’t have to give the order. Fire would have been at Misty’s side regardless, even if it meant disobeying direct orders from the captain. Spitfire gave the order regardless to show her support for Misty as well.

“Yes ma’am,” Fire replied simply before turning and leaving quickly.

“I have to go see Soarin later,” Spitfire huffed, feeling there was no other way to get the full story.

“Let me know when you do,” Fleetfoot requested. “And I promise I won’t call him a princess… for now,” she added with a smirk.

“Being considerate? Who are you and what did you do with Fleetfoot?” Spitfire taunted back.

“Spitfire being sassy? Wait… Blaze? Is that you?!” Fleetfoot grabbed Spitfire’s cheeks. Spitfire chuckled and brushed Fleetfoot’s arms away.

“Oh, don’t forget to check with Rivet on the setups for tomorrow. I want the courses in place quickly. So we can be more efficient,” Spitfire suggested.

“Already did,” Fleetfoot nodded.

“Check again,” Spitfire ordered.

“Fine, fine. Hey, let ME worry about the courses. It’s MY portion of the tryouts,” Fleetfoot crossed her hooves and stuck her tongue out at Spitfire.

“I’m just doing my job Fleet. Come on, let’s make sure the equipment is in—”

“EEEEEEEE~!!!” Fleetfoot suddenly squeaked with delight. Spitfire looked up and followed Fleetfoot’s eyes to the entrance. The little yellow stallion was helping move some of the gym equipment in.

“Fleetfoot, NO. Let him do his job without your antics for once!” Spitfire reached up and grabbed Fleetfoot’s back hoof before she could fire towards the doors.

“But he’s so small and adorable! I wanna hug him!” Fleetfoot whined while pouting at Spitfire.

“You’re lucky I’m not already slapping workplace harassment misdemeanors on your record Fleet…” Spitfire looked sternly at her. “Don’t lead the poor guy on like that. Besides, you’re gonna give him a heart attack or a nervous breakdown one of these days.”

“But he’s CUUUUUUTE…” Fleetfoot intensified her pout. Spitfire didn’t change her glare. Fleetfoot suddenly blinked and looked behind Spitfire. “Wave?” she said while staring over Spitfire’s shoulder. Spitfire instantly turned around. There was nothing behind her. Fleetfoot kicked Spitfire’s hoof off her leg and sped towards the doors giggling uncontrollably. Spitfire flattened her brow and didn’t even look back towards Fleetfoot.

She was wondering more about Soarin and Wave Chill.

She was under the impression that Soarin had the magic under control for the most part. She wasn’t so sure about that now… especially since Misty was apparently injured by it. All it took was a rough blow to the head and one of the major icons of the Wonderbolts could have been severely injured. She was going to have a long talk with Soarin. A new liability issue had arisen, and if he couldn’t keep this damn dark magic of his under control, there would be consequences to his career.

But what the hell was wrong with Wave Chill? She had just spoken to him in the morning and at lunch. He looked like he had seen a ghost. Then he looked so embarrassed he almost turned his Wonderbolt suit from blue to red. Did something happen along the way? Something that involved her?

“Huh?” Spitfire suddenly flinched as she felt something brush against her side. She blinked and looked down to her right to see the little yellow stallion hiding behind her and panicking. He released a high pitched squeak before ducking.

“WHOA, LOOKOUT!” Fleetfoot’s voice suddenly came from the opposite direction. The yellow stallion crawled beneath Spitfire’s legs and Fleetfoot crashed headlong into Spitfire, knocking them both over and tumbling to a stop. Spitfire was on her back with Fleetfoot flopped on top of her.

“Fleet…” Spitfire glared at her as Fleetfoot pulled her nose out of Spitfire’s chest fur.

“Er…whoops?” she shrugged while grinning sheepishly.

“Whoops is right. GET. OFF.” Spitfire growled.

“Okay fine—” Fleetfoot made a motion to push off, but they both froze as Lightning Streak walked by, saw them, and stopped right in his tracks. He stared at them and blinked as they stared right back. He cleared his throat and took a seat facing them before motioning one hoof towards them.

“Go on…” he encouraged calmly. Fleetfoot scoffed and wiggled her plot at Lightning Streak.

“You wish, perv,” she taunted. Lightning shrugged.

“That’s not what you said that one night…” he trailed off. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened and she quickly retorted.

“It doesn’t count when I’m drunk off my ass,” she scrunched her face.

“Embrace it babe, you got some of this…” Lightning made slow hoof motions from his chin down the length of his body. Fleetfoot glared at him and folded her ears back.

“You are so damn full of—”

“What’s going on over—” Surprise trotted over and stopped when she saw Fleetfoot still on top of Spitfire. She blinked, then quickly took a seat beside Lightning. “Go on…” she encouraged while resting her chin in her hooves.

“DAMMIT FLEET! GET OFF!” Spitfire shoved Fleetfoot off of her.

“Everypony get in here! On the double! Move it!” Silver Lining’s voice came from the doors and the cadets began pouring in.

“Rgh…” Spitfire grunted as she stood up. “Alright, fun’s over everypony. Let’s get this day over with already!”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Okay i swear this is going to be the last single day update for now this time (i think i'm the only author ever to say that...) I need time to collect my thoughts and make sure i don't accidentally goof a plot point.

BUT YAY FAST UPDATE YET AGAIN!

Derpy prooved to be much more than anyone expected huh? (YEAH! TAKE IT IN THE ASS ARCTIC!"

And boy, Fleetfoot sure loves harassing that poor little stallion doesn't she? xD

Thanks for reading! I'm more than certain it's going to take at least till saturday for the next chapter... but knowing me... i might find a way to make it out tomorrow because i'm silly crazy...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GLITTERDASH! :D

Chapter 17: Lots of Love Going Around

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 17:

The cadets all filed into the gym, packing in and weaving between the weight machines over to the large stretching area as the Wonderbolts guided them along overhead.

Dash smiled as she moved along into a familiar place. The auxiliary gym was a new venue for her, but here it was familiar territory. She wondered what exactly they would be doing for strength testing. Whatever it was, Dash was confident she’d do well. If there was one thing she had improved on greatly during her training back home, it was her strength. She’s built up her muscles enough to take down Applejack in a hoof wrestle. She’d never thought in a million years she’d be stronger than Applejack, but now she was. She looked forward to making the other mares look weak in comparison, especially one specific bitch of a bean pole.

Dash finally got a good look at the set up. The stretching mat had been rolled all the way up and pushed aside to create a large area of floor. Eight weight benches had been set up in a two by four pattern. Spitfire lowered towards them with the megaphone.

“Okay, time for the last test of the day, and it’s about time too! For the strength test, we are testing ONE THING! Bench press for upper body strength!” she paused as if she expected a sudden stir to go through the crowd, which it did. “Thought I was gonna say wing strength, huh?” Spitfire spoke again. “Take note rookies, one of the most important factors of being an ace flyer… is your ability to twist and turn your body against the pressure of wind resistance. How do you do this? UPPER BODY AND CORE STRENGTH!” she made clear. “Now that I’ve blown most of your minds, I want all the mares to line up behind these benches…” she motioned to one of the rows of four. “And I want all of the stallions behind these benches…” she motioned to the other. “Yes, we are testing you by gender. Why? Ask your hormones!” Spitfire paused and turned to the line of male cadets already forming. “On second thought, I don’t want the stallions asking their hormones anything, this is a fitness center, not an orgy.” several giggles came from the mare lines. “ANYWAY… LET’S GET TO IT! You get one set each and your choice of weight. We want to see HOW STRONG YOU ARE, NOT HOW MANY TIMES YOU CAN REP!” she finished.

Dash chuckled at Spitfire’s little jab to stallions. She worked with some interesting ones that was for sure. Her words held their weight. Dash shifted into line about seven mares from the front of the first bench.

“HEY SON! YOU READY TO LIFT?!”

“Oh, right…” Dash wondered out loud as she turned her head towards the voice. She had almost forgotten. Pec Bounce, the Wonderbolt strength coach, was Bulk Biceps’ father. She turned to see the two of them in each other’s faces, lightly butting heads.

“YEEEEEAAHHH I AM POPS!”

“ALRIGHT!”

“YEAH!”

“ALRIGHT!”

“YEAH!”

“ALRIGHT!”

“YEAH!”

“ALRIGHT!”

“YEAH!”

They went back and forth continuously. Fleetfoot, standing nearby, pressed her hooves to her head, grabbed her ears, and yanked them down as hard as she could.

“OH MY GAWD! THERE ARE TWO OF THEM?!?!?!?!?!” she yelled as she tried to save her ears from the loud voices.

Dash chuckled and focused back forward. One mare had already gone. Dash took a look at the next one in line.

“What’ll it be?” High Winds was working their bench. Dash wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that as she saw High Winds yawn loudly. Dash didn’t know much about High Winds, but from what she had seen thus far, it seemed that Winds was always a bit… tired. She nodded off twice during some of the previous explanations. It was hard to miss Blaze behind Spitfire, smacking High Winds across the face or upside the head.

The mare just shrugged as High Winds asked for a weight to put on the bar. Winds blinked and slapped five pounds on each side. The bar weighed forty-five pounds by itself, making it merely fifty-five pounds total. Dash snickered to herself. The stallions probably weren’t caught off guard quite so much… but a lot of mares were definitely unprepared. In general Dash knew no other mares that lifted weights. It was such an old fashion standard, but if only they knew how many benefits came with a stronger body.

The mare barely pushed the bar up once before almost dropping it on herself. High Winds was luckily awake enough to catch it.

“Whoa there… somepony doesn’t even lift,” Winds said with a straight face as she easily yanked the bar off the mare’s chest. This was great. Dash was certain this would be an easy victory for her. Now with only a few other mares in front of her, Dash decided to do some warm-ups. She got down in place and started doing some pushups to loosen up the chest. She wanted to show her best, and one never lifts their best on the first set if they didn’t warm up properly.

“Show off…” a voice mumbled behind her. Dash stopped mid pushup. That damn voice again. She was having a problem with not realizing ‘acquaintances’ behind her. Dash finished her pushups and stood back up while glaring over her shoulder. Arctic Blast was right behind her.

“Got something to say to me?” Dash growled. Arctic blew air at her mane to make a few bits of it fly up and back down.

“Why would I want to talk to you? Stallion stealer,” she scrunched her nose in disgust at Dash. It was funny because Dash really did have Soarin as her stallion, but all Arctic was referring too was Soarin saving Dash earlier.

“Then don’t talk to me,” Dash went back to doing pushups. She warmed up until she felt nice and loose, got up, and swung her arms out. She pushed her arms forwards and back, tensing and relaxing her chest muscles a few times to make sure they felt ready. She was up next after all.

“Ew,” Arctic said something again. Dash sighed.

“Seriously, you got a problem?” she asked while facing Arctic.

“Who turned up the bitch dial on you?” Arctic asked out of nowhere. Dash scoffed so loud she almost spat right in Arctic’s face.

“ME?! Says the mare who insulted the new champion of the endurance course,” Dash lifted an eyebrow and smirked.

“What-EVER,” Arctic rolled her eyes in a very wide arc. “Fine, wanna know what I’m looking at? Your masculine body,” she hissed. “Seriously, mares don’t have muscles, and stallions don’t like banging stallions.”

“Wow, what was that about the bitch dial again?” Dash looked at her in disbelief. Dash wasn’t the slightest bit offended. She worked hard to become as strong as she had, and she most certainly did not look like a stallion. Besides, it was quite ironic of Arctic to claim to know what stallions like… especially since Soarin had told Dash in the past that he found her muscular yet feminine physique to be sexy. Dash had never seen a mare heading faster face first towards a brick wall in her life. It was going to be great blowing her mind at just the right time. “Think what you want…” Dash began again. “If you were the slightest bit smart… maybe you’d understand what it really takes to make the Wonderbolts,” Dash smirked as High Winds called her to the bench. “Watch and learn, skinny,” Dash huffed as she approached High Winds.

“Whaddaya want on it?” High Winds asked while resting an arm and her chin on the bar, her eyes half closed. Dash glanced back at Arctic, and then looked back at High Winds.

“One hundred and thirty-five pounds,” Dash said with a confident face. High Winds’ eyes opened a little wider.

“You sure?” she asked sleepily.

“What do you think?” Dash smirked while flexing her arm briefly. High Winds blinked again and snorted.

“Wise ass… I like it,” she smirked before reaching down and hoisting a forty-five pound plate onto each side of the bar.

Dash focused hard. She had never lifted this much weight before. She’d barely lifted ten pounds less than this recently. Was this a gamble? Yes, but she was so charged up by her desire to show Arctic a thing or two. Dash laid flat on the bench and took a deep breath as she slid beneath the bar so its shadow cast a line over Dash’s forehead.

“On you,” Winds said while putting her hooves in place to catch, should Dash be way in over her head.

Dash reached up and fit her hooves into the hoof grips. She took a deep breath with her eyes closed. Just down and up. She only had to do it once. She inhaled sharply and her eyes shot open. She counted quietly to herself.

“One… two… three…!” She pressed her hooves hard into the bar, lifting it off the rack and holding it over her chest. It was really damn heavy, but too bad, she was already going for it. She took a deep breath and held it in as she lowered the bar down to her chest. She gently tapped it against her before exhaling and pushing up with all the strength she could muster. “HRGH!” she grunted as gravity worked against her. The bar rose slowly, but never once stopped. Dash felt an extra wave of adrenaline pulse through her as she hit the top. New record for her, but she had the strength to keep going.

“All done?” High Winds asked while sniffling and yawning.

“No way!” Dash yelled as she went for a second repetition. She lowered the bar again, remembering to breathe in. She tapped it off her chest and pushed up again. It moved a lot slower this time, but never stopped. “Rgghhhhh!” Dash growled quietly as she pushed it all the way up, successfully doing two reps of a weight she had never lifted before.

“Alright, lemme-OOF!” High Winds grunted as Dash smacked the bar back into the rack and bumped Winds away from the bench in the process. Dash sat up while pumping her hooves in the air.

“AWESOME!” she yelled out as several other mares looked over to her in disbelief. From above Spitfire jotted down something on her clipboard before turning and smirking towards Dash. She chuckled and went back to observing the others.

Dash sneered at Arctic, held out a wing and folded all the feathers down, save for the middle one.

“Don’t mess with me Ice Bitch, you might get burned,” Dash showed no mercy. She had been willing to give Arctic a little bit of a chance all the way up till she insulted Derpy. That tore down all the chances Dash would ever be willing to give.

“Pff…” Arctic rolled her eyes. Dash hopped off the bench as Arctic took her spot on the bench, keeping one eye on High Winds. It would be hard to forget what Winds said to her earlier.

“Weight?” High Winds asked nonchalantly. Arctic scrunched her face in disgust.

“This is so dumb,” she whined.

“Bitch, bitch, BITCH, bitch, BITCH,” High Winds shook her head at her while sighing. “That was bitching Morse code for suck it up.”

“Er… just the bar,” Arctic didn’t fight back. High Winds shrugged and pointed at the bar.

“Any day now then… while I’m still…” she yawned loudly. “Awake. And while I still slightly give a damn about you.”

Arctic huffed and shakily slid her hooves into the grips. Dash watched with slight interest as Arctic shakily lifted the bar up. The form almost made Dash puke as Arctic lowered the bar… and it stopped there.

“Before I age a hundred years please…” High Winds said while looking down at Arctic. Arctic began squirming.

“Help!” She squeaked barely audibly. She couldn’t move the bar alone.

“You’re shitting me right?” High Winds blinked as she looked down.

“I… can’t…” Arctic squeaked again with the bar flat against her chest.

“Louder?” High Winds bent down to ‘listen.’

“It’s crushing me!” Arctic whined, still raspy from the ‘pressure’ against her.

“One more time without the dick in your mouth?” High Winds snickered slightly as she put her ear closer down.

“WINDY!” Blaze hopped over and pulled the bar off of Arctic. Arctic exhaled loudly as Blaze put the bar back in the rack, then lifted an eyebrow at Winds. “Okay, I know you said she’s a fucking bitch, but man you can be cruel,” Blaze couldn’t help but crack a small grin as High Winds only shrugged.

“Whoops…” she said as she yawned.

“C’mon back to work, dammit,” Blaze failed to hold back a few laughs as High Winds reached forward and pushed Arctic off the bench. She flopped onto the floor. Pec Bounce suddenly sped up behind her and took a deep breath.

“DO. YOU. EVEN. PICK. UP. THINGS?!?!?!” he yelled at her while she was down before rushing off to something else that caught his attention.

“UGH!” Arctic grunted as she got up and walked away, grumbling. As she trudged, Dash flipped her tail out and batted Arctic in the face. Arctic turned sharply to her and glared. Dash reached her arm up, flexed, and kissed the muscle. Arctic stuck her tongue out at Dash like a little filly and stormed off.

With victory thoroughly achieved both physically and mentally, Dash floated into the air a little to check out the other’s testing. She got up just in time to see Bulk Biceps step up to Lightning Streak’s bench.

“How much bro?” Lightning asked.

“THREE-HUNDRED! YEEEEEAH!” Bulk answered immediately, blowing back Lightning’s mane so much it was identical to his brother’s for a brief moment.

“Three-hundo it is,” Lightning replied casually. He stacked two forty-five pound plates on each side, followed by a thirty-five, and a little 2.5 pound weight to make the bar exactly three-hundred pounds. “On your—”

“GO FOR IT SON!” Pec Bounce slid over and knocked Lightning Streak out of the way to spot Bulk. “I GOT YOU!”

“YEEEEAHHHH!!!!!” Bulk slammed his back down against the bench, thrust his hooves into the grips and had the weight up all in less than three seconds. The weights clanged together on each side as they were thrust into the starting position. Bulk took an enormous breath before lowering the bar down, tapping it against his large chest muscles, and roaring out. “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” his battle cry echoed throughout the gym as the bar slowly rose all the way back up to the start. “YEEEEEEAH!” He yelled when he reached the top before slamming the bar back into the rack so hard it made the bench tip slightly.

“Damn!”

“Holy shit!”

“Mother of god…”

The stallions standing around voiced how impressive they found the lift.

“ALRIGHT!” Pec Bounce yelled as Bulk sat up hard, turned around, and faced his father.

“YEEEAH!” Bulk yelled while coming around the bar and butting heads with Pec.

“ALRIGHT!” Pec bounce suddenly punched Bulk across the face.

“YEAH!” Bulk swung right back, punching Pec across the face. The both reached a hoof forwards and clasped them together while bouncing their muscles.

Dash thought her sides were going to launch off her body. It was impressive, but quite possibly the most comical and overly male thing she had ever seen in her life. She was literally on the floor pounding her hoof against it.

“Next,” Lightning retook the spot behind the bench as Bulk and Pec moved away to continue their stallionly random beatings and handshakes.

Dash looked up, and quickly regained herself to watch. Matteo was up next.

“How much weight?” Lightning asked while leaning against the bar.

“All of it,” Matteo said simply. Lightning blinked and looked at him.

“Heh, good one big fella, really, how much?” he asked again. Matteo glared at him and pointed to the plates racked on the edges of the bench.

“I said all of it,” he repeated while strengthening his glare more, if it were even possible. Lightning looked down at all the weights. They had two Forty-five pounders, a thirty-five, a twenty-five, two tens, a five, and a 2.5 racked on both sides of every bench.

“You mean all of this here?” Lightning asked while pointing to both sides of the bench.

“Yes.” Matteo replied flatly.

“Your funeral bro,” Lightning shrugged.

“Unlikely,” Matteo said back as Lightning whistled to Wave.

“Yo! Chiller! I’m gonna need a hand with this one!” he called as Wave Chill helped another stallion rack his bar back in. Wave Chill blinked and trotted over.

“What is it?” he asked upon glancing between Matteo and Lightning.

“Bird bro wants everything put on. We need a double spot.”

“What?!” Wave looked between Matteo and Lightning again.

“He means it, come on,” Lightning made a head motion as he began loading up one side of the bar. Wave Chill shrugged and shook his head as he loaded up the other. Every single weight from the rack plus the weight of the bar came out to four hundred pounds.

Dash glanced over and saw Pec and Bulk had stopped punching each other and were staring with interest.

Matteo flopped down onto the bench, his beak just missing the bar. He was almost too big, just barely fitting on both the bench and beneath the bar.

“Alright, let us—” Wave began as he and Lightning moved to spot on both sides.

“No need,” Matteo put flatly as he reached up and clasped his talons around the bar outside of the hoof grips. The bar rose off the rack with ease, the plates clashing and clanging as they were hoisted up, and the bar bending slightly in the middle from all the weight. Matteo proceeded to pump the weight up and down at a controlled pace. Everything in the gym froze. Spitfire pushed her goggles down to get a better look from above.

Matteo pumped out twelve reps, grunted, set the weight back with a loud CLANG. He sat up, cracked his neck and stood from the bench.

“Have you nothing heavier?” he asked with a little bit of amusement in his voice as he walked away.

A crack. The armor wasn’t perfect. Dash saw him smirk. So he wasn’t a complete stonewall. He grinned slightly before when he asked her about using his technique, but she assumed that was because she had played his own words against him. He looked like he enjoyed showing his superiority just now. She had to find out more about him. Matteo was still a bit of an enigma, but he was too interesting to leave it that way.

Also… holy crap. He was damn strong. He had large visible muscles all over his body, but DAMN he was strong. Griffons had more muscular builds than ponies to begin with, and he was huge on top of that. Off to the side both Bulk Biceps and Pec Bounce were gawking in Matteo’s direction. Dash didn’t blame them one bit. Matteo was proving to be quite the contestant.

Dash began to wonder how exactly the hundred cadets staying through the day would be chosen? She was all done with day one… she was confident she would move on… she just had to wait and find out.

Once the strength testing was over, Spitfire announced that the Wonderbolt staff was going to “crunch the numbers” and post the results on a big board in the lobby after dinner. She directed Fleetfoot to take Derpy to get her picture taken for the record board… and then released a heavy sigh.

Spitfire ripped her goggles off and pulled the mask portion of her uniform down. She handed her clipboard to a staff member and shook her head back and forth.

“I… am… NEVER… having a mass tryout ever again!” she yelled to herself as she left the gym and headed for the mess hall. She walked until she hit the stairs in the center of the lobby and stared at them. As hungry as she was, there was something else she needed to do.

Soarin. She had to go punch him in the face for making the day go less smoothly. It was terrible handling all those ponies while down three Wonderbolts.

She made her way up the stairs while also contemplating the more serious end of the incoming confrontation. Soarin needed to get the magic under control. She would not allow him to stick around if he would be a hazard to the rest of the Wonderbolts and the compound. Her feelings and friendship with him aside, she could not put the others at risk.

After a short walk, she stood directly outside Soarin’s door and gave it a gentle knock.

“Come in,” Soarin’s voice came from inside. Spitfire pushed the door open, peeking in before completely letting herself in. She eyed Soarin on the bed.

Head wrapped up.

A new metal headband for the horn.

Looking completely drained.

As miffed as she was about all the different situations. She couldn’t help but also feel sad. It hurt a little just to look at him. She and Soarin had been through so much together in their wild lives of going from nothing to the best of the best. Soarin’s life took such a crazy turn and hers just didn’t follow. Dark power infusions, fake horns, magic spasms… what other curveball could be thrown into Soarin’s life. While Spitfire had to be strict about Wonderbolt safety and policies, Soarin would always be her best friend, and she would always do anything to help him.

“Hey,” she said quietly as she trotted up. Soarin turned his head towards her slightly before looking right back up.

“Before you say anything, I screwed up. I know that already. So let’s skip that part,” Soarin spoke first. Spitfire blinked and scrunched her face.

“Soarin, why would you think that?” she questioned. He looked at her, not expecting that. “How can you blame yourself for something you don’t have control over?” Spitfire sat down beside the bed.

“That’s just the problem,” Soarin looked away. “I promised you I’d have it under control. I clearly don’t, and I almost killed Misty Fly. That sure looks good on my record doesn’t it,” Soarin berated himself.

“Soarin, shut up,” Spitfire shook her head, “I’m not here to listen to your self-inflicted shame.”

“Gee, you know how to cheer me right up,” Soarin shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Just tell me what happened okay?” Spitfire demanded as politely as she could.

“The horn got put off center and the magic ran wild. Discord stopped it from killing me and slapped this uncomfortable thing on it,” he pointed to the new metal headpiece. “He said it won’t happen anymore because of it,” Soarin explained in the shortest way he could.

“How do you feel otherwise?” Spitfire asked while letting the info sink in.

“Oh… bring Dash here will you?” Soarin skipped right to the part about Dash, purposely avoiding the part about an effigy of Spitfire humping the shit out of Wave Chill. Spitfire tipped her head in confusion.

“Soarin we can’t do that. We’re in the bulk of the tryouts now,” Spitfire explained. Soarin shook his head.

“Discord’s recommendation. It’s a long story, but I just need one hour with her. It will help me heal in time for day three,” he ignored her concern.

“Soarin, what did I just—”

“Spitfire. Please,” he turned and looked at her. She huffed and bit her lip.

“Fine, I’ll find a way to get her up here after dinner,” she admitted defeat. Soarin was lying here after getting punched in the gut by magic he wasn’t supposed to have. The least she could do was pull a few strings for him, she felt compelled to despite the risks. “Speaking of which, I’m tired and hungry. Do you need any food?” Spitfire asked as she got up to leave.

“That would be nice,” Soarin nodded, remembering he was hungry.

“Alright, I’ll see if I can find anything somewhat appealing,” she joked as she reached for the door.

“Spitfire,” Soarin called to her before she left.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for checking in,” Soarin smiled. Spitfire chuckled and leaned her head to the side to look at him.

“Anything for a friend who keeps getting screwed,” she joked before she left Soarin alone.

Soarin let his head fall back down to the pillow, confident that he’d have Dash with him soon. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being torn to shreds from inside out if it meant he got to spend extra time with his one and only badass mare. He didn’t think he’d make it a habit though… despite it seeming like it already was.

“One side! Move it! Move! It!” Dash called out as she tried to push her way through the crowd surrounding the scoreboard. She cursed herself for taking so long in the mess hall. The scores were posted and the top one hundred cadets would advance to day two.

Spitfire gave the whole explanation before dinner. All Cadets ranked 101 and below were to clean out their bunk areas and be out of the compound by nine o’clock, which was three hours after dinner. The Wonderbolts had multiple trains booked to leave to Cloudsdale and Manehatten throughout the night. If somepony required a different location they would take care of that for them too. 200 train tickets were paid for. They just had to show a special Wonderbolt coupon to the ticket master at the station.

All of it was irrelevant to Dash. She was drilling herself before she even reached the board. She made it though. She had to have made it through. She showed them all so much. She may have taken a fall here or there, but that couldn’t have been enough to knock her out.

She finally pushed to the front through ponies that were both cheering and hanging their heads.

Her name… her name… where was her name. It was a ranking system with scores written off to the side. Apparently the score would be reset each day as if you earned a clean slate for making it through to the next round.

“HUH?!?!” Dash’s eyes widened as they moved up and stopped at the top of the board.

Her name…

Was at the very top of the list.

1st: Rainbow Dash

“AHHHHHAHAHAHA!!!!” Dash leapt up into the air and did two backward loops before pressing her face to the board over her name. “Oh my gosh!” she squeaked as she blinked to make sure it was real.

She was at the top of the pack after day one? She had made so many mistakes though! Were her dangerous feats enough to sway the opinions? WHO CARES?! She made it through to the next day and then some! Talk about being worried for nothing!

But wait… what about the rest?

Dash quickly landed after getting many weird looks from the other cadets viewing the board. She began scanning down from her name.

She took note of the ponies listed in 2nd and 3rd. In second was a pony by the name of Squall. She hadn’t seen or heard about anypony named that yet. Apparently he/she was good. In third, a pony named Little Star. Again, Dash had not seen this pony. She made sure to remember the names however. It looked like there was new competition on the horizon.

But now to find those she was acquainted with. She hoped all of them had made it through. There were a few… she wasn’t so sure about. She scanned down the names.

7th: Storm Front

No surprise there. He was no slacker.

15th: Matteo

Again, no surprise. He displayed many unexpected abilities despite being very large and a slow accelerator.

17th: Twister

Eh, he had some interesting moves. Dash wouldn’t have minded the absence of creepiness though.

25th: Arctic Blast

“What?! Son of a—” Dash verbally expressed her discontent. Not only did she have to deal with Arctic Blast for another whole day, Arctic also finished in the top 25. Dash didn’t know how she earned that spot, but it meant she was more than likely gonna pass the second day too if she kept it up.

The list began extending far down. Dash began to worry about her Ponyville friends. She had a bad feeling in her gut that this was going to be goodbye for—

Scratch that thought.

78th: Thunderlane

Holy crap! Thunderlane made it to day two! Dash didn’t catch most of his trials, but he must’ve done something to impress the Wonderbolts. Dash could picture it right now. Wherever Thunderlane was in the crowd, he was probably frozen with his jaw hanging open, wondering how the hell he made it so high up out of so many ponies.

But what about Bulk and Derpy? Dash would hate to see them both go. She quickly kept going down the list. There wasn’t much left after Thunderlane in terms of those advancing. She bit her lip as she reached the nineties, slowly making her way down. Her eyes widened and her ears stood up.

99th: Derpy Hooves

“YES!” Dash pumped a hoof in the air. Derpy made it through too!? That was even more awesome! Derpy had done rather poorly in most of the trials, but her little record breaking stunt must’ve been just enough to squeak her through! It was awesome… but…

Dash looked back to the board. There was only one name after Derpy’s going onto the next round. It wasn’t Bulk Biceps. Dash’s ears drooped and her wings hung down as her eyes scanned the list lower… and lower… and lower.

245th: Bulk Biceps.

Ouch.

Dash had high hopes after seeing Thunderlane’s name so high on the board… but it looked like she’d be down one friend going into the next day.

“Sorry big guy,” Thunderlane floated up and patted Bulk on the back as he packed his belongings up into his duffle bag. They were all back in the barracks. Most of the cadets had left already, but there were still a few cleaning out their bunks. It was crazy how much more space there already was, and not all of them had left yet.

“Nah… it’s cool,” Bulk turned and smiled. Dash and Derpy were there to see him off as well. They were standing in the aisle to avoid being completely squished together by the girth of the custom bed frame. Bulk hoisted his duffle bag up over his shoulder. “It was fun while it lasted, I wasn’t expectin’ to make it very far. I got to see my pop anyway, he don’t get off work very often.”

It was weird to hear Bulk without the usual enthusiasm in his voice. He said it was alright, but it was clear he was sad to be the only one leaving. Dash floated up beside him as he stepped out into the aisle.

“Hey big guy, I promise to cause enough of a ruckus as if you were still here,” she winked. He smirked.

“Sure you can handle that?” he sneered. Dash sneered right back.

“Who the hell do you think I am?” she got in his face while smiling.

“I think yer talkin’ tough!” he butted heads with her.

“Oh yeah?!” Dash pushed right back. She covered her ears as he took a deep breath.

“YEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” He belted out. Making them all smile. He chuckled and reached over. Pulling them all into a bear hug. “Good luck you guys, you know where I’ll be,” he set them down, gave a quick wave, and lumbered his way down towards the doors.

They all watched him leave with a mix of sadness and closure. Dash handled it perfectly. They didn’t really know what to say. He was the only one that didn’t make it through. How are you supposed to try and ease a failure when it’s put right beside your own success in the same field?

As Bulk left, it seemed most of, if not all the cadets leaving were up and gone. It had been a tiring day, and it was going on nine o’clock. They were told to take the rest of the night at their leisure. Lights out was at 10:30 tonight. They weren’t getting up quite so early tomorrow. The bang, bang, bang efficiency of day one was mostly due to the sheer number of cadets that showed up. It looked like things would be taken a little slower the next two days, and nopony was complaining about that.

Thunderlane went right to his bed after voicing how fatigued he was. Dash still didn’t know how he got any sleep with Twister below him, but when sleep called Thunderlane, it called him hard. Derpy said something about finding Storm Front and fluttered away.

Dash chuckled as she watched Derpy go. She was completely in love with that stallion. She picked a good one to fall for too. She was glad Storm Front had place in the top ten. He was such a nice stallion and most certainly deserved any honor he achieved. Dash hoped he’d make it all the way through. He had made Derpy so happy and he did it all by just being himself. Dash had a feeling she and Storm would be good friends going forward.

“Excuse me.”

Dash jumped as she turned and saw Matteo standing behind her. Then there was this big guy. Dash was still standing in front of the custom bunk.

“Oh, sorry,” she hovered up out of his way as he squeezed into the cramped space to hang up a towel and grab his super large cadet uniform. Dash started moving back towards the bunk, but saw Arctic Blast on the top bunk, ogling the poster of Soarin, again.

Why, oh why did she have to score so high? She was hoping, wishing, and praying that Arctic would not make it through. She met the nicest pony ever in Storm Front and then had the honor of meeting the polar opposite in Arctic. Dash really didn’t want to deal with her crap right now. They had clearly established a sour relationship. Dash wasn’t going to give Arctic any bit of kindness or sincerity after what she said to Derpy.

Dash glanced back at Matteo as he tossed his uniform into a laundry bin being rolled down the aisle by a staff member. They had an hour or so to themselves before the lights went out. Maybe she could finally learn something about him. He had acknowledged her after she copied his flight moves. Perhaps he’d be a little more willing to open up and talk now. Dash wasn’t going to hold her breath on that, but it was worth a shot. She hovered down over towards the bottom bunk of the custom bed as Matteo climbed in and laid on his stomach in a very lion-esque manner and released a long sigh.

“Hey big guy,” Dash floated down and leaned against the bed. “What’s up?”

Matteo just stared at her briefly before raising an eyebrow.

“Hello,” he said simply. Dash could see it now. She wasn’t getting any further than that. She quickly decided to go with the praise. That usually worked.

“That was a pretty awesome display of strength in the last test. Although I can’t say I’m very surprised, you are kind of a tank,” she added a little light heartedness, hoping he’d pick up on the vibe of an actual conversation.

“Hm,” he nodded. “Thank you. You did quite well yourself,” he didn’t change his stoic expression. But he repiled. Dash wasn’t quite ready for it.

“Oh, you saw that huh?” she grinned sheepishly and blushed lightly.

“You are quite strong for a mare. It’s impressive,” he said more. More praise. Dash wasn’t sure if she was talking to Matteo anymore. “You also copied my moves along with another pony’s moves and landed the top ranked spot going into tomorrow. You are quite skilled Rainbow Dash,” he kept adding onto it.

“Aw sheesh,” Dash waved one hoof while rubbing the back of her head with the other. “Well, I hope you don’t mind me asking…” she hopped up and rested herself on the far corner of his mattress, as far from him as possible to not imply anything. She just wanted to get comfortable. She had had one particular question on her mind since she first ran into him. “What are the… Sky Wings?” she subtly gritted her teeth as she asked. He didn’t look too thrilled back when Spitfire brought it up the day before.

Matteo’s expression hardened for a moment, but he took a deep breath and exhaled before reaching over and opening his bunk drawer. He pulled out a small pamphlet and turned it so Dash could see it.

It was a small booklet with the words: “JOIN UP!” stretching across the top. In the center of the cover were three griffons wearing red spandex uniforms with a white wing insignia stretching from the chest all the way to the lower back on both sides. They wore blue tinted goggles with white straps. Dash blinked as she looked it over.

“They look like—”

“The Wonderbolts yes… they are very similar,” Matteo reached over and put the pamphlet away.

“Similar… implying there’s something different?” Dash tipped her head to the side. Matteo nodded.

“There is no stunt side show. The Sky Wings are purely a military force,” he paused as he saw Dash flinch. He shook his head. “Please, I know full well what the Wonderbolts are for. They were considered to be the Sky Wings’ rivals back in the days of our ancestors.”

“Oh… well, I guess I just spilled that I know about that too, it’s not the most common knowledge around here,” Dash chuckled and shrugged. The Wonderbolts always hid under the guise of a stunt performance team. It was probably another reason so few were admitted into their ranks. To keep that as under wraps as possible. Matteo continued, as if eager to keep talking about them.

“While the Sky Wings have a ranking system much like yours, there is a special honor bestowed upon the strongest member of the force. Through a series of tests and combat against fellow members, one can earn the right to be called ‘Master of the Sky.’ It is the greatest honor in all the Griffon Kingdom. It was my dream to one day claim this honor for my own…” he suddenly trailed off. Dash noticed his quick change in expression.

“I’m guessing… something didn’t go right?” Dash chimed in as Matteo’s pause continued. Matteo nodded.

“I spent years training, honing my body and mind to as close to perfection as I could reach. I steeled my senses, hardened my focus, and achieved a level of ability higher than I could have ever first dreamed of… but then I tried to join the Sky Wings,” Matteo shook his head and sighed. “I didn’t even make it in the front door…”

“Huh?”

“I was rejected immediately,” he balled one of his talons up as if trying to hold back anger.

“What?!” Dash blinked. Matteo was rejected from a military force? After all the incredibly astounding things she saw him do… he was… rejected? “Why?” Dash had to know.

“The Sky Wings are run with a very strict code in both manner and combat. Every squad has six members and they fly into battle in a line side by side. This is meant to do three things. It makes it so no single griffon can be attacked without the aid of five others close by, and so they can all attack in perfect synch. However, the third reason… is why I was rejected,” he paused as if gathering his thoughts. “You can’t see it in the picture I showed you, but the uniforms have an extra bit to them that the Wonderbolts’ don’t. There is a thin layer of metallic shield plating on the inside of the wings. It is nearly weightless and does not hinder flying once one is used to it. It can curve and bend easily with the wings making it possible to deflect projectiles and even magic. When the griffons fly side by side, they have those on their left or right to protect them should they be caught off guard. If one griffon sees an incoming attack directed at his teammate beside him, he can reach his wing out and protect him if need be.”

“That’s pretty cool… but why did they reject you?” Dash questioned. The wing plating was an awesome concept… but still, why the hell would they turn away Matteo? He could be a war machine with his abilities along with their interesting methods and technology.

“I’m too big.”

“Pardon?” Dash blinked.

“They rejected me because I’m too big,” he repeated. “My size would make it difficult to fit into our basic formation, and it would be hard for other griffons to shield me with their wings. I was given that explanation and immediately turned away,” he finally relaxed his talon and gave out another heavy sigh.

“That’s… stupid…” Dash scrunched her brow. Matteo glared at her.

“Watch your tongue, I still respect the Sky Wings and everything that they are as part of my heritage,” Matteo quickly retorted. Dash quickly waved her hooves in front of her.

“Oh, no, no, no… I didn’t mean they are stupid… they sound awesome. I just think it’s silly they just turned you away. I mean look at you. You’re a juggernaut. If I were part of a military force and you walked through the door I’d be signing you up before you said hello,” Dash chuckled, earning a smirk from Matteo as well.

“Alas, it is their way. I could do nothing about it.”

“So you went for the next best thing… in your opinion,” Dash drew the conclusion.

“Precisely,” Matteo nodded. “I refuse to let my training go to waste. If not there, then here,” he finished. Dash nodded briefly, before looking towards Matteo again. Matteo saw her staring and lifted an eyebrow. “You look as though you have another question.”

“Huh?” Dash blinked and chuckled. He was perceptive. She was wondering about something else. “Nothing really, I’m just curious… you’re from the Griffon Kingdom. I know the place is huge and all, but I have to ask. I was good friends with a griffon back when I was younger. Do you know any griffon by the name Gilda?” Dash asked. Gilda was the first thing that came to mind when she saw Matteo, she couldn’t help but wonder if they knew each other.

“Gilda?” Matteo’s eyes opened up slightly and he blinked. “What does she look like?” he immediately asked. Dash suddenly got excited. He knew A Gilda from his change in demeanor. Wouldn’t it be something if it was her old pal?

“Well, she’s got a similar color arrangement to yours. Only she has brown feathers instead of black. Her white feathers extend farther past her chest than yours. Her wings are a darker shade of brown compared to her body…” as Dash went on Matteo turned to his drawer again and reached in for something. “She’s got three white feathers that stick out off the top of her head with pink tips. She’s got slightly lavenderish feathers surrounding her eyes and she had gold eyes like yours… her beak is MUCH smaller though—” Dash froze as Matteo turned back to her and held out in front of him a picture… of Gilda. She was lying on a bed, lion style much like Matteo was, and giving a smug expression towards the camera.

“This Gilda?” he asked. Dash smiled and looked back at Matteo.

“Oh my gosh! That’s her! You know each other?” Dash asked eagerly. Matteo held up his other talons. Dash waited for him to say something. She wasn’t sure if she was meant to get something from the way he was just holding his empty talons in the air while holding the picture of Gilda in the others. “Um…” Dash tipped her head in confusion.

Matteo pointed a talon towards his empty talons while still holding the picture of Gilda. Dash blinked and leaned in. As she got closer she noticed something she hadn’t before. There was something blending in with the yellow color below the talon. On the middle one... it looked like a ring.

“Gilda is my wife.”

“She’s your wife? That’s W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-W-WHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTT?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!” Dash’s eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and she rose up so quickly she lost her ground and tipped over, falling off the bed and onto the floor. She quickly clambered back up and rested her elbows on the bed while her eyes darted between Matteo and the picture of Gilda. “WIFE?!?!?! GILDA?!?!?!?! MARRIED?!?!?!” Dash blurted out in disbelief while pressing her hooves into the sides of her head.

“Yes,” Matteo put his talons back down and casually replaced the picture of Gilda back into the drawer.

“That’s just… I don’t… huh… what… I don’t even…”

“Something wrong?” Matteo asked. Dash smiled and shook her head.

“No, I’m just… I never took her as the type to get married. I’m just surprised.”

“Is Rainbow Dash in here!?”

Dash and Matteo both looked towards the entrance to the barracks. Spitfire was standing by the door and scanning the area. Dash blinked and nodded before turning back to Matteo.

“I’ll have to get the details later. I can’t believe you’re married to one of my oldest friends. See ya later!” Dash gave a quick wave before responding quickly to Spitfire’s call.

Matteo watched her glide off, looked to the ring on his shank and cracked a small smile.

“So… uh… where are we going?” Dash asked as she followed Spitfire through the hallway towards the stairs. Spitfire was out of uniform for the night, and by the looks of things very stressed and tired. Dash was worried about prodding too much, but seriously, where was she being taken?

“Just follow,” Spitfire said under her breath, but loud enough for Dash to hear. Dash swallowed and obeyed, following Spitfire up the stairs to the second floor, and then the third. They weren’t going to her office… what was going on?

Spitfire heaved a long sigh when they reached the top of the stairs.

“Alright Dash, this way,” she motioned towards Soarin’s door and they moved towards it. “Something… serious happened when Soarin was taken away earlier.”

That was not a good way to begin. Dash visibly panicked. Spitfire shook her head.

“Relax Dash,” she put her hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “Soarin is fine and nobody was… severely hurt. I’m sure you saw some of the random damage in the lobby. Soarin’s magic apparently went haywire and he almost severely injured Misty Fly while she and Fire Streak were trying to take him to Luna. Discord was there to save them and stop Soarin as well,” she explained and started pulling Dash towards Soarin’s door. “Soarin is resting right now. I don’t know why, but he claims having you for an hour will help him recover.”

“Oh…” Dash perked up, remembering her last visit when her presence seemed to ease the dark power flowing in Soarin. Her presence allowed him to get a full night’s sleep as well as take control of the power during their battle with Nightshade.

“I see you know what he’s talking about…” Spitfire rolled her eyes as they stood in front of Soarin’s door. “Again, he’s leaving me out of the loop in favor of you. I don’t blame him, but sometimes I think he forgets I’m his best friend,” she shrugged. “He’s all yours Dash. Please help him,” she stepped back and Dash looked at Soarin’s door. Dash nodded and knocked on the door.

“Come… in…” Soarin’s voice came from inside. His voice sounded slightly strained. Dash paused, but disregarded it and entered anyway.

Spitfire watched as Dash entered the room and the door shut. She looked up at the clock on the wall near the stairs. Dash had one hour, then Spitfire had to take her back. Spitfire yawned as she turned towards her room. She took one step and stopped. She turned and glanced down the hallway. She looked back at the clock one more time before turning and walking past Soarin’s room, down the hall in the opposite direction of her room. She couldn’t take it anymore. It had been bothering her since his little swearing explosion before the strength test. What was up with Wave Chill?

She made her way down the hall slowly towards his room. As she passed Misty Fly and Surprise’s room, the door gently opened. Spitfire kept walking, but she gave a quick glance back to see Fire Streak step out and close the door very gently behind him. He gave Spitfire a quiet nod as she passed. Spitfire nodded back and continued towards Wave’s room.

Fire Streak watched Spitfire head down the hall, curious as to why she was going that way when her room was in the other direction. He quickly concluded that he was too damn tired to really wonder about it. He had had a little too much excitement, his back was still sore from the three small blows he took from Soarin’s magic, and he had spent the rest of the day comforting Misty Fly.

It was awful looking at her. She was nine years older than him, but she clung to him like a frightened child. It seemed as though a small bit of Soarin’s inner magic had been forced into her. The way she twisted and churned while under its influence was a sight Fire would not soon forget. He could only watch, powerless. There was nothing he could do to save her from the pain. If Discord had not been there, he shuddered to think what would have happened.

Misty was alright, but the physical trauma on her body was immense. The mere thought of the immeasurable pain that coursed through her made her shake with fright. Her nerves were sore and taught from firing so much, her body was littered with small aches and pains from all the flailing and twitching. She felt like she had been pulled through a nightmare. There was nothing that Fire could do except offer his presence, let her know someone who cared was nearby so her mind could be at ease after almost being torn asunder.

Fire looked up at the door to his room before looking back two doors down to Misty’s room. She had finally fallen asleep. He didn’t want to leave her, but Surprise was back now, so she wouldn’t be alone.

Their door still had “thing one and thing dolt” written on it. Surprise’s little sign had been on their door for such a long time now. Speaking of “thing dolt,” Fire wondered if his brother was back in the room yet.

As soon as Fire opened the door the incredibly unnerving sound of his brother snoring blared out into the hallway. Lightning was most certainly back and he was already sleeping. Fire was looking to get some sleep himself, but as usual, his brother was snoring incredibly loud. It sounded like somepony was trying to tear a piece of leather over a whoopee cushion.

Fire closed the door behind him and made a small arc around the room. He stepped over all the piles of dirty laundry on Lightning’s side of the room and gave Lightning’s bed a solid, one leg buck as he passed.

“*SNRKSNORT* Urf…” Lightning turned over onto his stomach. The snoring ceased. Fire nodded in satisfaction and approached his bed while removing his spandex uniform. He balled it up and dropped it in a hamper. Fire was about to get into bed, but stopped.

Lightning grunted again and slowly pinched the longest, squeakiest fart Fire had ever heard in his life. Fire remained completely still for the duration of it with a very uncomfortable look on his face. When the fabulous one pony chorus finally ended, Fire shook his head.

“Mother would be so proud…” he mumbled as he slid into bed and pulled the covers up. Right as he yawned and put his head to the pillow—

*knock* *knock* … *knock* *knock*

Somepony was at the door? Fire lifted his head up and looked towards the door. He only partially heard it. He listened again.

*knock* *knock* … *knock* *knock*

That pattern. Only one pony knocked with that two knocks, pause, two knocks pattern. Fire was up quickly. He put his hooves to the floor and walked up to the door. He opened it slowly.

Misty Fly was sitting outside the door. Fire blinked and opened the door fully. Misty was staring up at him with wide pupils and a very distraught look on her face. She may have fallen asleep, but it looked like she still wasn’t ready to be left alone… but wait. Surprise was back in Misty’s room… that meant…

Fire sighed, cracking a small smile. He had been taking care of Misty since the incident. Looks like where she found comfort was with him alone. No words were needed, not even the sign language. Fire stepped aside and beckoned her in. Misty stood up and quickly entered. It was dark in their room, so Fire switched on a bedside lamp that shined a dim light onto his bed.

Misty was still looking directly at him. Fire really wanted her to get rest, but she couldn’t be left alone. After contemplating his options, he looked towards Misty and patted the mattress, offering it to her. She looked at the mattress, then back to him in confusion. Her look said it all. She wondered what he would do. Fire walked around her to his closet and pulled out a large spare blanket. He folded it up multiple times so it became nice and cushy and laid it on the floor beside the bed. He reached into the closet again and pulled out a spare pillow. He plopped it on the floor beside the blanket, then approached his bed again and tapped the mattress with his hoof while giving her a wink. She gave him a weak smile and obeyed, climbing up onto his bed and getting comfortable. She turned back to Fire and he held up a hoof to catch her attention. He unfolded his wings as well.

He patted his chest, took one of his wings and brushed it past his ear, made the same wing flat with the edge against his lips and pushed it forward, then pointed at the blanket.

His motions read: “I will be right here.”

Misty smiled and nodded in response. Fire looked down at his makeshift bed, but looked back up as Misty reached over with a wing and tapped his shoulder.

She put the tips of her wing to her mouth and extended it towards him, then pointed a hoof to say: “Thank you, Fire.”

Fire smiled back and shrugged. He put his right hoof up by his right shoulder and pushed it towards his left, followed by putting the tip of his last wing feather to his mouth and tipping towards her. His motions read: “It’s nothing.”

He made another move to go towards his mock bed. Misty’s wing reached out again and this time tapped his shoulder harder. He looked back once more in confusion. She was looking sternly at him. She closed her eyes and shook her head back and forth. Fire tipped his head to the side as Misty brought her wings up again.

She made the right hoof to left shoulder motion, she extended the two longest feathers in her right wing and tapped them into the flat inside part of her left wing twice, she put her hooves up in front of her chest and swiped her right hoof against her left before swinging it down and out away from her body, she extended the longest feathers on both wings and tapped them together once, and pointed at herself.

*It means everything to me.*

Misty leaned towards Fire and planted a very soft, gentle kiss on his left cheek. Fire’s eyes widened and he jumped slightly as she made the small, but meaningful gesture of affection.

Misty pulled back and gave Fire a very warm smile. She put her right hoof to her chin, lowered it over her left hoof and hovered it there for a moment to say: “Goodnight.” She kept her eyes on Fire as she pulled the blanket on his bed over her body and nestled her head into his pillow before turning over.

Fire’s body felt like it was moving in slow motion as he reached and turned out the light.

Misty kissed him. Misty Fly just kissed him on the cheek.

He didn’t know what to think. He had always cared greatly about Misty Fly. He did everything he could to make her rough life easier. She had done so much to help him and his brother climb the Wonderbolt ranks. He only saw it fitting to return the favor.

But was that really all it was? Was there more than gratitude behind his actions? Misty’s kiss made him think there may be. He suddenly wasn’t so surprised she kissed him. How could a mare… any mare not notice when a stallion goes so far out of his way to help her on a regular basis and more? It’s certainly what he did for her. He was by her side every single day. She couldn’t go anywhere without him coming along to aid her (save for the obvious such as the bathroom or locker room).

Fire finally laid down on his makeshift blanket. It wasn’t as nice as his bed, but he didn’t care because he wanted Misty to be comfortable.

They say that deep down inside every mare, there is a desire to be treated like a princess. Fire had certainly stayed by Misty’s side like a knight would stand beside his princess. Perhaps the meaning of his own actions had gone right over his head. Perhaps just by doing what came naturally to him… he had made Misty regard him more highly than a friend?

The thought was baffling… yet… welcoming. This night wouldn’t change anything in terms of how he acted or how he helped her as he had day in and day out… but perhaps now his actions would hold more meaning for both of them.

“*SNRRRRRRRRRRKSNRKSNRKSNRKSNORTSNORT*” another unholy noise came from the direction from Lightning.

“Good lord…” Fire was not in the mood to deal with his brother’s snoring. He had too much on his mind, so he took action.

He stood up, grabbed Lightning’s mattress, and heaved it off the bed with Lightning still on it. Lightning snorted loudly, but didn’t wake up. He was a very heavy sleeper after all. He dragged the mattress and his noisy brother towards the door and opened the door roughly. He didn’t need to keep the noise down because… well… Misty couldn’t hear.

He squeezed the mattress through the door, hoisting it slightly sideways, but making sure Lightning didn’t roll off. Fire pushed the mattress across the hall to the opposite wall, brushed his hooves together and re-entered his room, leaving his loud snoring brother out sleeping in the hallway.

Silver Lining came up the stairs and started down the hall. He didn’t even look at Lightning as he shifted on the mattress in the hallways while snoring so loudly you’d think he was driving a knife through his mattress. Silver walked right by while rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

He kept walking towards his room he shared with Wave Chill, but stopped at least five doors away because he saw Spitfire standing outside the door to his room. He grunted in annoyance when he saw her knock on the door. He was tired and wanted to go to bed, but the door opened and Spitfire pushed her way into his room.

“Damn colts and fillies these days…” he sighed as he approached his door and took a seat outside against the opposite wall. He could barely make out the conversation inside.

“Spitfire!? Er… I mean Captain Spitfire! What a surprise! What brings you—?”

“Wave…” Spitfire looked at him sternly. Wave shut his mouth tight. His eyes widened as Spitfire moved towards him slowly.

Code red, code red. Wave Chill was caught with no avenue of escape. Silver Lining just had to close the armored shutter over their window every day. Wave was stuck and there was nothing he could do about it. He took shaky steps backward as Spitfire moved forward. His hooves stumbled and tripped over themselves as he moved, easily catching Spitfire’s attention.

“Wave, what the hell?” she looked at him in confusion as his eyes darted back and forth, refusing to look at her. His face grew redder and redder as she closed in. “What’s wrong? I was just talking to you this morning! Now you won’t even look at me?”

“Um…” Wave forced his eyes to hers for all but a brief moment before slamming them shut. All he could think of was earlier in Soarin’s room. The way the fake Spitfire locked her eyes on his, the way she batted her eyelashes, the way she slowly slipped off her uniform, backed him against the wall and pressed her body against his. It all felt so real. He let it all happen thinking it was real. It felt… so good. He felt his wings twitching as he opened his eyes. He yelped when he saw Spitfire had moved much closer to him. He almost fell back as he scurried backwards. A quiet THUMP as he stopped made his heart leap up into his throat. He had his plot to the wall. He couldn’t run from it anymore.

“Wave, why are you avoiding me?!” Spitfire suddenly raised her voice a little.

“I…” Wave began to sweat and his blush deepened further, his face no longer dark blue. This wasn’t the fake Spitfire. This was the real Spitfire. He would never mistake that stern glare. However, she had no idea about the situation she had just put him in. When the fake Spitfire approached him, she backed him against the wall before undressing. Here, Spitfire had just backed him up against the wall, and already was without her uniform. The situations were overlapping in his brain and now all he could think of was Spitfire rubbing herself all over him and kissing him with intense sexual passion. Curse his male brain. The image just wouldn't leave him.

“Wave!” Spitfire yelled his name louder.

“NO!” Wave yelled back while shaking his head. His wings flared open with a loud FWOOMP. Spitfire took a step back in surprise while looking him up and down.

“No…what…?” she asked while scrunching her face. Wave’s eyes shot open he looked at his wings before quickly forcing them closed.

“I… I’m sorry I…” FWOOMP. His wings shot back out. “Uh…” He forced them closed again. “I don’t mean to be avoiding you… I just…” FWOOMP. “DAMMIT!” he cursed as he failed to gain control over his wings.

“Wave… what happened when you checked on Soarin?” Spitfire put it together. Wave’s blushing and inability to hide his… 'excitement…' made it clear something had happened and it had to do with her. Wave gave up on trying to refold his wings and crossed his back legs to keep other signs of his dilemma from sight. He released a long sigh, but still didn’t look at her.

“I… went to check on Soarin… as ordered…” he paused while biting his lower lip.

“Aaaaaand?” Spitfire rolled her hoof end over end in the air, encouraging him to continue.

“Discord was also there…” his voice got quieter. He glanced at Spitfire. There was no avoiding this. “He… decided to mess with me… made an image of you… and made it…” his voice became squeaky and sputtering. Spitfire was leaning in to make sure she could still hear him. “He made it undress seductively, press me to a wall, rub itself against me, and kiss me.” He said the last portion very quickly, but Spitfire heard every word.

Spitfire pulled her head back, her eyes growing wider as each word sunk in. Her mouth hung open slightly and a blush quickly crossed over her face.

“Oh… um…” Spitfire suddenly felt terrible. It’s not like she could have known, but she just forced Wave to admit something he clearly wasn’t too happy about apparently… enjoying. Wave was very duty bound, much like her. Despite the two of them having become closer than acquaintances over the past few months, they were both still very strict about keeping their bodily desires in check. Wave’s body language was quite clear. His insane blushing, his wings disobeying him, and his legs crossed to conceal a… “I…” Spitfire looked away from him.

While a sudden untamable urge to kill Discord burned in her chest, she was more focused on how much Wave was trying to hide his urges out of respect for her. Charming as it was, she couldn’t stop feeling bad about effectively putting a wrench into his attempts to regain himself. He was purposely avoiding her so he could clear his mind of the image Discord put in his head. Sure he liked it, he was a stallion… she’d be worried if he didn’t like it. That didn’t mean he’d forget his rank and duty though. He was trying to fight it and she barged right into his room, putting him in an incredibly uncomfortable situation.

“I’m sorry…” Spitfire turned away and headed for the door.

“Spitfire?” Wave suddenly found the strength to pry his ass from the wall. She kept walking. “Spitfire, wait!” He tried to reach for her, but she was already out the door and heading down through the hallway. Wave looked out his door and thought about going after her, but she was clearly uncomfortable, so he didn’t press it.

Silver Lining stood up from against the wall, stretched out his back and cracked his neck as he approached the open door.

“Careful where you stick it, sonny,” he said plainly as he pushed past Wave into their room. Wave just groaned and rubbed his hooves against his head. This was going to take a while to wear off.

“Soarin?” Dash spoke quietly into the room as the door shut behind her. She saw Soarin in his bed, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was sitting up with his back against the head board, looking down at something in his lap while the false horn was glowing brightly. She tipped her head to the side, wondering what was going on. He looked very focused.

“Gah! Haaaa.” Soarin exhaled as the magic glow faded from the horn.

“Soarin?” She called his name again. His eyes widened upon hearing her voice. He looked up and smiled upon seeing Dash. She smiled back. He reached his hooves out in her direction.

“You. Hug. Now. Pronto,” he said goofily. Dash snickered and hovered into the air. “I said NOW, dammit!” He began waving his arms up and down comically. Dash stopped in midair and sneered.

“I dunno… I think I’ll take it niiiiiiiice and slooooooow.” She taunted while moving barely an inch through the air every second. Soarin flattened his expression, then closed his eyes and squinted while smirking. “Huh?” Dash felt something press against her plot. She turned to see a magic aura surrounding her back side. She suddenly was launched forward at Soarin. “WHOA!”

“Huh?” Soarin opened his eyes in time to see Dash crash face first into his chest. “OOF!” he grunted as she hit him and her face slid down his body right between his legs. Soarin just sat and stared at their position as Dash struggled to place her hooves on the mattress beside them. Soarin just shrugged and let her take her time before she finally pulled her head out of his lap and shook her head out. “Nice landing,” he chuckled as Dash half glared, half smirked.

“What magic technique was that, the pony launcher?” Dash chuckled. Soarin shrugged.

“Sorry, I’m not too good at controlling force yet. By the way, HI!” He reached his arms beneath hers, lifted her into his body and gave her a very tight hug. Dash squeaked, but quickly wrapped her arms around his neck, returning the embrace with as much strength as she could muster to match his. They let up and looked into each other’s eyes.

“So we’re living a life of danger I see. How in the world did you convince Spitfire to let me see you?” Dash sighed as she took a long look into Soarin’s eyes.

“Well, let’s just say when a god gives you a suggesting it’s kind of a good idea to follow it,” Soarin chuckled.

“A god?”

“Discord.”

“Huh?” Dash lifted an eyebrow. Soarin shook his head.

"I’m going to have to give you all the details at some point. We only have an hour together, I don’t want to waste it,” Soarin pulled her slightly closer to him. Dash reached a hoof out and it pressed against his chest, halting her.

“At least… tell me a little. Spitfire told me about what happened earlier today. You…” her ears drooped. “I love you Soarin, and I want to know what’s happening to you… please?”

Soarin looked into her eyes as they showed a sign of worry. He’d been around Dash enough by now to read her emotions. Dash was always snarky, confident, and turning everything into a competition if she could. Soarin could barely kiss her without her trying to make it a fun adventure.

Whenever Dash approached something quietly or with sincerity he knew it was important because Dash was more often than not, lighthearted 24/7. He smiled and rubbed his hooves against her back.

“I love you too Dash,” he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Thanks for thinking so much of me,” he flashed her a quick smile. “It’s very confusing, but Discord and Luna have been working very hard to contain the dark power in me,” he tapped the horn. “Remember how having you near calms the power and lets me rest? Well, giving the magic more room to flow and using it through this horn has a similar effect… kind of like appeasing the magic’s urge to be used for a little while.”

“Is that what you were doing when I came in?” Dash tipped her head slightly. Soarin nodded.

“Yeah… you’re sitting on two pebbles I was using for magic practice,” he chuckled. Dash blinked, leaned and looked beneath her plot. There were two pebbles in Soarin’s lap. She looked back at him with a sly grin. Soarin saw it and braced himself. Incoming smarm.

“Pebbles, huh? I saw you looking down while using your magic… followed by a grunt. I thought you were, you know, flogging the dolphin,” she snickered.

“You would think that…” Soarin chuckled while rolling his eyes and smirking. “There’s something else though,” he tried to bring the mood back to serious. “Discord told me why you have an effect on the magic.”

“Oh?” Dash perked up. She had been curious about this too. There never really was a full explanation for it.

“When Celestia used her magic to revive me, and had you and Spitfire help her, the two of you left some sort of life force imprint in the magic. The way Discord put it, is that it’s afraid of you.”

“Oh, so Spitfire could do this for you too?” Dash crossed her hooves and pouted. Soarin quickly shook his head.

“Absolutely not,” he chuckled. “The imprinted you left behind is apparently twenty or so time stronger. The magic is so afraid of you that it calms completely, and even lets me command it. I can confirm that right now, because you’ve been here for what, five minutes? The magic has been the calmest it’s been in a long time, just right now.”

“Why’s that?” Dash asked with curiosity.

“Because of this,” Soarin smiled.

Soarin forced Dash towards him, locking his lips with hers. She yelped quietly in surprise, but immediately played along, caressing his lips with hers while a light blush crept over her nose. Soarin reached a hoof around and lightly brushing it through her mane before gently pressing her harder against him. Dash quickly pressed her tongue against his lips, demanding she be let in. Soarin obeyed, but quickly met her advance by pinning her tongue down with his. Dash released a soft moan and her wings twitched madly as Soarin ran his hoof to the top her head and brushed it against her sensitive ears. Soarin took advantage of her tingly state, and ran his lips around her mouth, sucking on her bottom lip before lightly biting playfully. He released her lip and pulled away from her. She blinked and smiled at him while narrowing her eyes seductively.

“You are so damn sexy, you know that?” she sighed and bit her lip while swaying back and forth in front of him. “So is that really a reason? Or did you just get bored and decide to make out?” Dash leaned forward and rested her head against his chest. Soarin reached his arms around her and hugged her tightly again.

“It’s the biggest reason. The imprint you left against the dark magic is huge because of the connection we share. Spitfire and I are good friends, but Dash, I LOVE you. There is no connection stronger than that. The fact that the imprint you left is so large also proves how much you love me,” he smiled while stroking her side. “You really liked me that much back when we first met?” he chuckled, realizing the imprint was made on the back end of their first encounter with each other.

“Of course I did you jerk,” she jabbed him lightly in the side.

“I guess I’m sexier than I thought,” he joked while rubbing his nose roughly into her mane. She giggled and pushed off of him. They looked into each other’s eyes again for a moment, before Dash looked down at the pebbles in his lap.

“Can I see you use magic?” she asked while shifting back slightly to remove herself from the pebbles completely. It was a request, but since she already moved it was more of a demand. Soarin wasn’t going to say no though.

“Sure,” he nodded before looking down at the two pebbles. Maybe with Dash watching, his eagerness to show off would finally help him grab two things at a time.

He closed his eyes and recalled the magical sensations, quickly forming the single mental split so he could keep the magic resonating, but also lift the pebble. Dash watched with interest as the fake horn began to glow light blue. It was dim at first, but slowly grew brighter. One of the pebbles was encircled by a blue aura. It slowly lifted into the air and hovered. Soarin squeaked one eye open and focused it on the second pebble. It felt overly forced, but he tried to create a second split. He didn’t know why it was so hard. Fancy Pants could do it so quickly and form nine or ten different thought processes… what did it take? An aura flickered around the second, but before anything else could happen, it all stopped.

“Damn!” Soarin cursed as he eyes the pebbles in frustration.

“That was… pretty awesome,” Dash blinked and smiled. Soarin shook his head.

“I can’t get this one down though… picking up two things at a time…” he glared at the pebbles. Dash watched him contemplate, and then had an idea. She smiled and shifted towards him.

“Here…” she floated up and landed right beside him on the bed. “You said my presence makes the magic listen to you right?”

“Yyyyyes?” Soarin blinked, and then realized what she was doing. “Oh!”

“Mmhmm,” Dash nodded and pressed herself against his side while nestling her head into his neck. “Try again.”

“Okay…” Soarin took a deep breath and focused on the pebbles again. He shut his eyes and went through the motions. “Whoa!” Soarin reacted as the magic appeared nearly instantly. He had never called it so quickly before. Was Dash really having an effect on his magic basics? He formed the mind split quickly and the first pebble was up in the air, floating higher above his head than it had before. Soarin opened his eyes and looked up. He was maintaining two thought processes so easily. He usually had to concentrate so hard. He looked down at the other pebble and locked both eyes on it. He calmly focused and slowly… very slowly… forced his mind to form a third. The light did not flicker around the second pebble this time. It was surrounded smoothly and it lifted up into the air right beside the other pebble.

“You did it!” Dash bounced happily beside him as Soarin smiled up at the two pebbles. He released the magic and let them fall back to the bed before turning towards Dash.

“You are incredible,” he said as he grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Tell me something I don’t—MMMPH!” she got cut off as Soarin leaned in and kissed her passionately. “Mmmmm…” she moaned as the two fell to the bed and began making out again.

They only had 45 minutes left in their hour, and Soarin knew exactly what he wanted to do with all 2700 seconds. Dash wasn’t gonna complain. She wanted it just as much.

On the other side of the wall between Soarin and Spitfire’s room. Spitfire sat with her back up against it. She could hear everything. Part of her wanted to move and put a pillow over her ears, the other part thought of nothing but Wave Chill.

She just had to run off. They had made so many strides in their relationship and now it was going to be awkward as hell. She sighed as she heard the moaning and kissing through the tin walls.

Duty.

Being bound by duty. It was something both she and Wave Chill lived by. It was built into their brains and they respected each other through it. How long could they last though? How much did they really want from each other? As much of an ass Discord was… maybe he did them a favor.

Maybe Spitfire wanted more. Maybe Wave Chill wanted more. Could they hide behind their line of work forever?

Spitfire shook her head and got up from the wall. She could still hear Soarin and Dash through it. All she could think of as the noise passed through her ears… was Wave Chill. Spitfire had never had a pony she felt… attracted to. She found herself thinking of her and Wave on her bed… partaking in the same actions going on next door. She blushed, but at the same time mentally berated herself. She flopped on the bed, making sure to keep an eye on the clock for when she’d be taking Dash back.

Maybe everypony was right. Maybe Fleetfoot and Blaze weren’t being so stupid. Maybe she did have to loosen up.

Whatever she had to do… it wasn’t going to be easy.

Talk about getting no sleep tonight for sure…

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

I didn't update yesterday... why? So i could give you guys THREE chapters in one! :D

I honestly think this is the best chapter i've ever written for anything. I'm rather proud of it and i hope you all liked it ;3

oh man lots of stuff in here...

MATTEO AND GILDA ARE WHAAAAAT?! (betcha didn't see that one coming) ;)

Also gave a little gift to the FirexMisty fans among my readers ;3

WAVE! Control those wings! xD

Fluff EVERYWHERE of all different kinds. (Super love fluff, uncertain silent fluff, and awkward wing boner fluff xD)

I AM TAKING TONIGHT OFF. My brain is completely fried after this >_<

I plan on getting a start on the next chapter tomorrow, but i don't think it'll be done until sunday.

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 18: Fleetfoot's Wake Up Call From Hell

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 18:

It was an unexpected, but great night for Rainbow Dash. It was sad to see Bulk leave, and it sucked to know she’d be putting up with Arctic Blast longer, but the rest of her friends, both new and old had made it through day one. She was also the top ranked cadet so far. Oh, who was she kidding? Highlight of the night? She got to suck on Soarin’s face.

It was the perfect way to conclude a wild day.

Spitfire took her back to the barracks right before lights out at 10:30. They were being allowed to sleep until 8:00am instead of 6:00am. No real reason was given, but Dash assumed it was because one hundred cadets were going to be a lot easier to manage than two hundred fifty-ish.

The night began the same way the first had: With a bear being pushed off of a mountain while having its arms torn off. Seriously, how did Arctic snore so loudly? Apparently holding your nose so high up in the air day in and day out made you hell in a bitch’s skin during the night.

Dash was already settled in and didn’t want to get up and wing-slap her until she turned over again. Luckily, somepony else took action this time. Or in this case somegriffon else. Matteo had enough of the snoring after only a few minutes of it. Dash watched, trying not to laugh, as he grumbled, lifted the whole mattress with Arctic off the top bunk, carried her into the far corner of the long barrack hall and shoved her into a corner. The loud roar had become a small buzz off to the side and now the rest could get to sleep.

Dash had to ask Matteo about Gilda later. Gilda… married… Gilda… married… it just didn’t fit together. Dash’s old friend, fellow badass and prankster, and as of recently, a bit on the bitchy side when she visited... WAS MARRIED. First of all, she was Dash’s age. Dash didn’t even have marriage within a thousand miles of her brain right now. But even if they were older, Gilda never seemed like the type to settle down. Dash wondered what sort of hell Matteo must’ve gone through not only to woo such a rebel type like Gilda, but get her to marry him on top of it! That would be quite the story.

For now though, sleep. Dash was heading into the second day strong. It was best she got plenty of sleep to meet it head on. 8:00 am? It was 11:00 by the time everything died down. Nine hours of sleep sounded great.

“HEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVERYPONY ON YOUR HOOVES!” Fleetfoot’s voice blasted through the barracks as she flew back and forth down the aisle between the beds.

“Wha…?” Dash’s eyes slowly opened and she yawned loudly. What? It was time to get up? Why did she feel so… groggy?

“Up! Up! Up! Up! Up! Up! Up!” Fleetfoot kept yelling as she made passes by every bunk. Dash turned over and pushed herself up from the bed. She shook her head out and looked out from her bunk towards the wall clock.

It read 4:30 am.

“Huh…?” Dash rubbed her eyes and blinked to make sure she read it correctly. “4:30?!” she yelled out as she fought her heavy eyelids. Fleetfoot halted right in front of her.

“Bet your rainbow ass Dashie!” she winked and giggled while making her way back down the aisle to the entrance.

What the hell? What happened to 8:00am wakeup? Dash rolled out of bed and got to her hooves, feeling stiff and sore from the day before. More repercussions of the Sonic Blast-off no doubt, mixed in with general soreness from lots of flying. She’d have to be more careful with Soarin’s move. She was going to be stiff today and there was nothing she could do about it. She stepped out to see what was going on.

More ponies were finding the will to roll out of bed and look out like she was. Dash spotted Matteo, Storm Front, along with a few others standing. Storm looked groggy as well, but Matteo looked just fine, that or his large beak was hiding how tired his eyes were. A good number of ponies were still in bed though.

Dash looked down towards the entrance to see Fleetfoot, Blaze, and High Winds standing at the doors.

Something about that trio made Dash feel uneasy.

“Well, well, welly, welly, well, well!” Fleetfoot yelled out as she saw the ponies struggling to rise. “Congratulations for making it this far in the tryouts, but your only reward is something much harder!” she chuckled as she took a good look down the aisle. She huffed as she noticed that not all of the cadets had quite gotten her wakeup call. “Hmmm… looks like I gotta go the extra mile for some of you dolts!” Fleetfoot began walking down the aisle.

“Get your fucking asses up now or we’ll make ya regret it!” Blaze started following Fleetfoot, leaving High Winds by the doors. Fleetfoot flattened her ears for a moment and glanced at Blaze before continuing.

She looked back and forth, as she moved, looking for her first victim. She came across a stallion that was still asleep in a bottom bunk. She sneered at him and entered his bunk space.

“Hey, Snoozalooza, up,” she poked him.

“Uuuhhhggg…” he groaned and tried to pull the sheet over his head.

“Bad choice!” Fleetfoot ripped the sheet off of the stallion, and grabbed his pillow out from underneath him.

“Huh?” The stallion’s eyes squeaked open to see Fleetfoot winding up with the pillow.

“Time to ring the bells of glory!” Fleetfoot yelled out before swinging the pillow around and launching it RIGHT into the stallion’s crotch.

“OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH GODDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!” The stallion yelled and his face turned blue. He let out a small squeak, rolled over and fell off the other side of the bed. Fleetfoot smirked as she heard lots of shuffling in the hall. One example was all it took. Most of the sleepyheads were getting up when they saw what might be coming. At least most of the stallions were up now.

Fleetfoot nodded in satisfaction and stepped back out into the aisle. Blaze pushed past her, went to the other side of the bunk and got down into the face of the stallion who was still rolling on the floor.

“HA! YOU GOT DICK PUNCHED!” she yelled in his face. Fleetfoot reached over and pulled Blaze away from him.

“Come on sweetie, let’s let him writhe in peace,” she dragged Blaze away.

Dash was half mortified and half trying not to burst out laughing. Fleetfoot’s methods were delightfully evil, but effective. That stallion was not going to have a good day.

“Derpy! Derpy! Wake up!” Storm Front’s voice came from nearby. Dash glanced over at Storm Front and Derpy’s bunk.

“Huh?” Derpy woke slowly in the bottom bunk and looked up at Storm.

“Fleetfoot is messing with ponies who are still asleep, get up now before she gets here!” he whispered while glancing at Fleetfoot approaching.

“Oh? Oh!” Derpy sat up and rolled out of bed just in time as Fleetfoot passed by and gave them a brief look. Storm breathed a sigh of relief as Fleetfoot let them be.

“Awww… the wishful thinkers are gone!” Fleetfoot’s voice caught Dash’s attention again. Dash looked out to see Fleetfoot standing by the bunk where the poster of her and Spitfire used to be with a vacant bunk beside it. “Oh well, it’s not like I can’t get another from Photo Finish and post it right outside Spitfire’s door,” she chuckled as she looked about and her eyes landed on Dash’s bunk. “Hm?” she floated up and saw the mattress missing from the top bunk. “Dash, where’s McBitch with Fries?”

“Arctic?” Dash glanced up at the top and snickered. “She was snoring last night so Matteo put her in the far corner,” Dash pointed down the hall. Fleetfoot leaned out and looked down the aisle. She saw the mattress sticking out slightly on the end in the corner and started chuckling.

“You guys keep this up and you’ll fit in perfectly,” she said as she lifted up and glided down the aisle. “Shoulda slapped her shit too,” she winked at Matteo as she passed him. Matteo just grunted.

Fleetfoot glided all the way over and landed by the mattress in the corner. Blaze landed close behind. Arctic was still fast asleep on the mattress. She wasn’t snoring because she had at one point, turned onto her side and was now facing the wall.

“Lemme at the bitch,” Blaze tried to come forward, but Fleetfoot reached out her wing to block her.

“She needs more than ringing ears Blazey,” Fleetfoot winked as she used the pet name. Blaze growled at her, but stepped back as Fleetfoot rubbed her hooves together. “I know just what will freak the ovaries out of her,” she sneered.

Fleetfoot carefully slid onto the mattress behind Arctic and edged herself closer and closer until she was in a big spoon position. She snickered and suddenly clamped her arms around Arctic’s chest, and her legs around Arctic’s waist.

Arctic awoke with a start, her body remembering the rude awakening Surprise gave her the morning before. Only this time, something was clamped to her.

“Goooooood morniiiiiiiing…” Fleetfoot raspily whispered into Arctic’s ear.

“Uh…” Arctic’s ears flattened and her eyes shot open.

“You taste gooooooooood…” Fleetfoot whispered again while licking the entire outer edge of Arctic’s ear. Arctic’s pupils shrank and she began to squirm, but Fleetfoot was too strong. “You’re the bessssssssst little spoooooooon,” Fleetfoot continued while nearly poking her nose into Arctic’s ear.

“OH MY GAWD! GET OFFA ME! GET OFFA ME!!!!!” Arctic began screaming and flailing. Fleetfoot suddenly pushed herself off of Arctic and off the mattress, grabbed the edge of the mattress and flipped it up, smashing Arctic between the mattress and the wall. Arctic fell off the mattress and it flopped over on top of her. She struggled beneath it and finally managed to poke her head out from underneath, only to meet the face of Fleetfoot directly in front of her.

“Sleep in again and you might wake up with a limp,” Fleetfoot winked and turned to leave Arctic in shock.

“HA! GET FUCKED, BITCH!” Blaze got down and yelled into Arctic’s face. Fleetfoot stopped and rolled her eyes.

“Blaze, you’re killing the effect,” she reached back and pulled Blaze along again.

Again, Dash was trying not to completely lose it. Now most of the ponies were up. They didn’t have to be told twice after quite the display of antics from Fleetfoot. Dash didn’t blame them. She wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it either.

Fleetfoot trotted back down the aisle, smiling at her work. It looked like all the ponies were up. Well, save for two she was passing.

“Hmmm…” Fleetfoot paused as she reached Thunderlane and Twister’s bed. Neither of them was awake. Dash didn’t really mind Twister, but Thunderlane was going to regret his lazy ass not getting up.

Fleetfoot eyed Twister in the bottom bunk with the covers pulled all the way up over his head. Fleetfoot tapped her hooves together.

“Looks like I found another idiot that wants to do this the hard way." She reached for the covers and pulled them off. Twister was not even there. Blaze yelped as Twister appeared directly behind Fleetfoot with his chin resting on her shoulder, the creepiest grin plastered to his face. Fleetfoot just glanced to her right shoulder with an unnamused look on her face. Twister began snickering loudly and tipped the top of his head into Fleetfoot’s cheek.

“I never dreamed Wonderbolt mares would be so s—”

Before he could finish Fleetfoot jabbed her elbow back towards him. She hit nothing, but she reached up to her other shoulder and clasped her hooves on Twister’s head the instant he reappeared there.

“What?!” Twister blinked as Fleetfoot flipped him over her back, and slammed him against his mattress. She quickly pressed her arm against his chest so he couldn’t move and smirked as she got down into his face. Twister looked absolutely puzzled as to how Fleetfoot predicted his randomness.

“Listen up Freaky Friday,” Fleetfoot began as she pressed her nose against his. “I’ve known lots of silly ponies like you… and lemme tell ya, you’re not as skilled as you think,” she winked at him. “Now try that little stunt on me again and… well… I’ll make you regret it. I may not be as crazy as you…” she leaned to his ear and whispered. “But I can be pretty creative. So don’t try me. Got it?”

“Y-yes ma’am.”

“Good,” Fleetfoot removed her arm from his chest. Twister sat up fast and quickly turned to look at her with disbelief. Surprise may have beaten him at his own game, but Fleetfoot beat him with conventional methods. Dash was insanely impressed. She had lived with Pinkie Pie her whole life and could never figure out her methods. Fleet seemed to have it down from working with Surprise for so long.

“POW! Take that you crazy fucker!” Blaze yelled right into Twister’s ear, but he didn’t even look at her. His eyes remained locked on Fleetfoot.

“One more time and I’m punching her…” Fleetfoot mumbled to herself as she looked up.

“Oh no…” Dash put a hoof over her eyes as she saw Fleetfoot look up towards Thunderlane. This was bound to be one hell of a story to tell Applejack later.

“Double duty for this bunk, eh?” Fleetfoot chuckled as she rose up to the top bunk. She reached forward and started poking Thunderlane repeatedly in the ribs. Thunderlane grunted and stirred. Fleetfoot sneered and suddenly pushed both of her hooves into his body. Thunderlane woke up as he rolled off the top bunk.

“Whoa!” He yelped as he managed to twist around in midair and flap his wings once to soften the landing as his hooves slammed to the floor.

“What the hell?! OOF!” Thunderlane grunted as Fleetfoot hopped off the bunk and landed on his back, stretching her body out along the length of it while stroking his mane. Thunderlane froze and slowly turned around to see Fleetfoot eyeing him seductively.

“Nice recovery,” she wiggled her body a little bit to rub herself against his back. “You’re a brave stallion if you can sleep with Freaky Deaky below you,” she made a head motion towards Twister, who was still frozen and staring at her.

“Um…” Thunderlane was as stiff as a statue. He had no idea where the situation was going, nor how to act in it. Fleetfoot leaned towards his ear.

“I guess that makes you a brave stallion in bed. I wonder how brave?” she teased while stroking a hoof up and down the side of his neck. Thunderlane's wings fired outward with a loud FWOOMP as a mad blush covered his face. Fleetfoot flinched in surprise as they did, and then giggled. “Wow that didn’t take much. Looks like somepony needs a good bang,” Fleetfoot teased further as she got up off Thunderlane and hopped over his head to the ground in front of him. She gave her plot a wiggle in his face, planning to leave it like that to keep him flustered, but—

“ZING!” Blaze shot up beside Thunderlane, making him jump almost as high as the ceiling and breaking him out of the daze Fleetfoot left him in. He quickly refolded his wings and his eyes darted around, hoping his excitement went mostly unnoticed.

Fleetfoot stopped and let out a heavy sigh as Blaze stood beside Thunderlane chuckling. She folded her ears back and flattened her brow.

“That’s it Blazey, you’re just being annoying as hell now. Go sit in the corner,” Fleetfoot said and pointed towards the entrance without looking at Blaze. Blaze turned her head sharply towards Fleetfoot and she stomped towards her. Fleetfoot turned to face Blaze as she growled.

“Excuse me Fuckfoot? Would you like to repeat that to my face?!” Blaze pressed her nose to Fleetfoot’s and glared. Fleetfoot did nothing for a moment, and then a small smirk crept over her face. She removed her face from Blaze’s and casually walked in a circle around her. Blaze turned her head in confusion as Fleetfoot stopped directly behind her. Fleetfoot leaned her face towards Blaze’s plot.

“That’s it Blazey, you’re just being annoying as hell now. Go sit in the corner,” she repeated to Blaze’s plot. Blaze’s face turned red with anger. Fleetfoot reached up and smacked her hoof against Blaze’s plot while keeping her eyes on it. “C’mon Blaze! Answer me!”

“WHY YOU—”

Blaze turned around and leapt at Fleetfoot with her hooves flying. Fleetfoot reached up and caught both of Blaze’s arms, forcing Blaze to land on her back hooves. The two grappled for a few seconds, turning around and bumping into bed frames as the cadets all watched the scuffle. Fleetfoot smirked and pushed Blaze back hard, bumping into Thunderlane. Using Blaze, Fleetfoot pushed Thunderlane all the way back against the wall.

“Hey look! You’ve got another mare that wants some!” Fleetfoot joked as she forcibly rubbed Blaze’s body up and down Thunderlane.

“Help…” Thunderlane sputtered as Blaze growled. Fleetfoot suddenly released the pressure on Blaze and ducked. Blaze lurched forward and toppled over Fleetfoot’s back, rolling to the floor and sliding face first across the floor back into the middle of the aisle.

Fleetfoot swiped the pillow off of Twister’s bunk as she stepped out and sat down, straddling Blaze’s lower back. She took the pillow and slid it under Blaze’s face as she tried to pick her head up off the floor. Fleetfoot took both hooves and pressed Blaze’s face down into the pillow. Fleetfoot began sliding the inside of her thighs back and forth on Blaze’s back.

“I AM THE ALPHA MARE! I. AM. THE. ALPHA MARE!” She yelled out as Blaze roared multiple muffled swears into the pillow.

Dash watched, admittedly a little disturbed at how far Fleetfoot took humiliating Blaze. She glanced around and saw a similar reaction among the mares, but the stallions… all seemed to be having trouble with their wings. Big surprise. Thunderlane specifically had a front row seat to the action. He just stared with wide eyes and wings to go along with a large blush on his face.

“Who’s the alpha mare?” Fleetfoot let Blaze’s face off the pillow briefly.

“SHIT FUCK COCK SON OF A—”

“Nope,” Fleetfoot pressed Blaze’s head back down.

Back by the entrance, Silver Lining stepped through the door and took a few steps in. He stopped and blinked as he saw his fellow Wonderbolts on the floor. Fleetfoot was rubbing her crotch against Blaze’s back while yelling and holding Blaze’s face against a pillow. Silver sighed, rolled his eyes, and shook his head. He looked to his right to see High Winds asleep in the first bunk on the right. She had the covers pulled up over her and everything.

“Typical,” Silver grunted and gave the bunk frame a kick.

“SNRK… huh?” Winds woke up, yawned, and smacked her lips. She looked over at Silver Lining and saluted sleepily while still lying in bed. “Morning Captain,” she said sleepily. Silver looked back towards the odd scene in the hall and then back to Winds.

“When Commander Fleetfoot is done ramming our wingmate, let her know the chefs have our early breakfast ready.” he ordered. Winds rolled out of bed and onto her hooves.

“Sure thing Captain,” she said while cracking her neck. Silver just sighed again and left the hall before he could be drawn into anything else.

“SO!” Fleetfoot turned around and lay her back against Blaze’s, still keeping her pinned. “I’m sure all you cadets are wondering about the wakeup time! Guess what, we lied. Also, you’re probably wondering why all the shenanigans?” she extended her wings and finally let Blaze up. Blaze shot up from the ground and turned to make a run at Fleetfoot, but Fleet put her in a headlock and held her steady. “I am in charge of today’s trials and today’s tests will focus on one thing! How you handle the unexpected! Weren’t expecting a 4:30 wakeup call? TOO BAD! Sometimes you may have to get up and go on short notice!”

That smooth, sly bitch. Dash chuckled as Fleetfoot explained. Handling the unexpected… and Fleetfoot was in charge? This was going to be an interesting day.

High Winds casually made her way down the aisle and whispered something to Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot grinned and giggled before focusing back on the cadets.

“Alright everypony! To breakfast! No complaining either cause our chefs were just as pissed about getting up this early as you probably are. Now let’s go!” she ordered while dragging Blaze along with her. The cadets all followed behind.

Today was going to be interesting indeed.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Penumbraglow
HEY! one day update ;)

Yeah it's one of my shortest chapters... and it came after the longest chapter, but all i wanted to do in this chapter was give Fleetfoot a nice big intro as the one in charge of the day 2 trials. With Fleetfoot in charge and using courses designed with the help of Surprise... We are in for some crazy and weird stuff huh?

I'm unfortunately very busy tomorrow so i doubt another chapter will be out, but i should have something done and ready by monday :)

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 19 (OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH MAMA!!!!!)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 19 (GASP!):

Disclaimer: There is no actual sex in this chapter.

Soarin carefully pushed open the door to the side room attached to the cafeteria. He edged through it while balancing his tray on the other hoof and made it through without dropping anything. He was the first Wonderbolt to arrive at breakfast so he took a random place at one of the two tables and sat down.

It was incredible how good he felt. After the scene yesterday, he was sure he was going to be drained completely; either physically, mentally, or both. Having Dash spend a little “quality” time with him before going to bed calmed down the magic so much that he pretty much fully recovered. It was as if Dash’s presence made the magic behave and get right to work on healing him at its quickened pace. As much as he hated the sly son of a bitch, Discord was completely right about Dash. Now if only Discord could be helpful without messing with ponies at the same time. Unless he gets a good laugh, Discord saw no need to bother with anything it seemed.

Soarin had purposely come early to eat. He was all better, but he wanted to get in and out before two particular Wonderbolts arrived.

The door opened.

Soarin flinched and slowly looked to see Fire Streak and Misty Fly enter. He just had to think about it, didn’t he? Both Misty and Fire immediately looked at him and stopped walking. Soarin met their eyes for a moment, hesitating once to turn back around before breaking eye contact and going back to eating.

He felt so ashamed. Both of them were exposed to danger that they were never meant to face. Soarin had no control over the power, but it still came from him. So he felt completely responsible for what happened. Fire was lucky he only received a few minor burns on his back. Misty was the one Soarin felt truly horrible about. If what Discord told him was true, Soarin’s magic nearly killed her. How could he even look her in the eye after that? He wouldn’t be surprised if she was afraid of him for the rest of his life… assuming he’d be stuck with this power anyway.

“Huh?” Soarin blinked as he felt something tap his shoulder. He swallowed a portion of scrambled eggs and slowly turned to see Misty standing right behind him. Before he could do anything else, Misty reached around his neck and gave him a very tight hug. Soarin stiffened for a moment, but relaxed while looking at Fire. Fire was smiling at them as he went to put both his tray and Misty’s on the other table.

“How are you feeling Commander, sir?” Fire gave a quick salute.

“I’m fine Fire, thanks…” Soarin glanced at Misty. She let go of him, gave herself about one arm’s length distance, and began making signs to Soarin.

She put two wing feathers to her lips and extended them towards Soarin, and then she pointed a hoof at him. She took her two wing feathers and made them into an O shape before flattening one feather and pointing the other up.

Soarin blinked as he watched her symbols. He knew basic sign language from trying to talk to Misty on occasion. After running through his knowledge of the signs he figured it out. Misty was asking if he was okay.

“Ah…” Soarin put his wings up. He was about to make the motion’s for ‘I’m okay,’ but he stopped and thought for a moment. Instead he put his hoof up to his chest and made a circular motion to say: “I’m sorry,” and then looked away from Misty. She reached forward and turned his head back to her while looking at him sternly.

She repeated her motions for: “Are you okay?”

Soarin sighed and smiled at her. Soarin put his hoof to his chest, and then lowered it out in front of him. He flattened his wing in front of him and tapped it to his chest to say: “I’m fine.”

Misty smiled and gave him another small hug before turning towards the other table.

“Sorry about… you know… all that yesterday,” Soarin said as he focused on Fire.

“Don’t dwell on it Commander, we’re all fine,” Fire nodded while keeping an eye on Misty.

“It could’ve been much worse,” Soarin sighed while staring down at his food.

“But it wasn’t,” Fire made clear before turning to his table. “Nopony got hurt, so there’s no reason to think on what could have happened,” he finished with a brief smile before sitting down next to Misty.

Soarin thought it over as he went back to his eggs. Fire was right. There was no point in focusing on what didn’t happen. It was a dangerous mishap, but nopony was severely injured.

Soarin heard the door open and close again. He glanced to see Lightning Streak approach the table his brother and Misty were sitting at with a tray full of thirteen… fourteen… fifteen pancakes? Soarin couldn’t count them all, he just had a lot. Was he the only one who entered?

“HEY! I thought you died!”

No, Fleetfoot was right behind him.

“Good morning to you too Fleet,” Soarin shook his head. “And that’s not funny.”

“Of course it is!” she slapped her tray down beside his and sat down. Soarin didn’t even fight her on her comment. Fleetfoot was a force of nature when it came to having a sense of humor.

“I’m assuming you have everything ready?” Soarin asked. He was out of the loop about a few things because of yesterday.

“Of course, princess. I made all the checks last night. What, you thought I was gonna wake up this early, THEN put everything together?” she cocked a grin at him.

“What would you do if I said yes?” Soarin chuckled while raising an eyebrow.

“I’d punch you in the ovaries,” Fleetfoot threatened. Soarin rolled his eyes, and then smirked.

“Then yes,” Soarin instantly dropped his hoof down and caught Fleetfoot’s arm as it went for his stomach. Fleetfoot snickered and pouted at him.

“I don’t know if I should be impressed you saw that coming, or hurt that you were ready thinking I was gonna punch you!” she said with fake whimpers.

“But you did try to punch me?” Soarin shrugged.

“BESIDE THE POINT!” Fleetfoot jabbed him in the arm with her other hoof. Her body swung a little bit in the motion.

“Meep!” A quiet squeak came from behind her. Soarin’s ears picked up the squeak and he blinked. He looked at Fleetfoot and noticed something he hadn’t seen before: straps, extending down from over her shoulder.

“Fleet… are you wearing a backpack?” He tried to look behind her, but she shifted so he couldn’t see.

“No,” she bit her bottom lip and averted her eyes. Soarin contemplated why she would be hiding a backpack, and then made the connection with the squeak.

“Fleet, you’ve gotta be kidding me…” he flattened his expression.

“What? WHOA!” Fleetfoot yelped as Soarin reached forward and forced her to turn. She was wearing a backpack. In the backpack, with his head sticking out of the top and the zippers zipped all the way up to his neck, was the little yellow stallion. He mouthed a quick ‘help’ to Soarin before Fleet quickly turned back.

“Spitfire is going to tear your head off Fleet,” Soarin said while looking at her sternly.

“It’s not my fault he’s cute!” she pouted at Soarin. “I wanted to bring him to breakfast with us!”

“Fleet, he’s not a TOY, he’s a professional! You need to respect him like one!” Soarin scolded her.

“Hey! I—”

She was cut off as the door swung open and slammed loudly against the doorstop on the wall beside it. Blaze trudged in, locking her eyes on Fleetfoot immediately with High Winds following close behind. Blaze stomped around the table and sat across from Fleetfoot while glaring at her and digging into her pancakes. High Winds made her way around as well. She tripped while yawning and fell face first into the floor. She took it to the face like a champ while keeping her tray in the air with her hooves.

“That’s gonna leave a mark…” she said casually as she stood up and sat beside Blaze.

“Something wrong Blaze?” Soarin asked as Blaze kept glaring at Fleetfoot. Blaze said nothing and just growled in Fleetfoot’s direction.

“I molested her in front of the cadets about ten minutes ago,” Fleetfoot chuckled.

“Oh,” Soarin rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“I fucking swear…” Blaze stood up from her spot and pointed at Fleetfoot. “You do that to me again and I’ll stick my arm so far up your ass, you’ll be shitting prints of my hoof until Hearth’s Warming!” Blaze threatened across the table.

“Oh really?” Fleetfoot leaned in while smirking. “You’re really gonna try me again so soon? It usually takes you awhile to get that false confidence back,” Fleet bounced her eyebrows at Blaze.

Soarin glanced at the backpack while Fleet was leaning forward. She was completely focused on Blaze.

“I have the damn right mind to fuck you up right now!” Blaze spat back.

“Empty threats Blazey!” Fleet taunted.

Soarin quickly reached over and unzipped the backpack. He stood up and lifted the little yellow stallion out of it.

“Get behind me,” Soarin whispered to him.

“YOU WANNA FUCKING GO?!” Blaze flared her wings out, catapulting the top pancake off of High Winds’ plate into Lightning Streak’s face at the other table.

“Sweet, sixteen pancakes,” Lightning said to himself.

“Blazey, I dare you. I guarantee you it won’t be me shitting hoof prints if you try,” Fleetfoot wiggled back and forth in her spot.

Soarin backed towards the door with the yellow stallion hidden behind him. He reached out and opened the door.

“You really should fight back you know…” he chuckled. The yellow stallion just shook his head quickly. “Alright, alright. Go,” he whispered and the yellow stallion made his escape. Soarin quickly moved back to the table and sat back down. Blaze readied to leap across the table, but High Winds stood up and grabbed her.

“C’mon…” she yawned. “…Blaze. You’ve been humped enough today already,” she pulled Blaze back down. Blaze grunted in frustration and began pounding down her food.

“Good choice,” Fleetfoot sat down and went back to her food. She glanced at Soarin and smirked.

“So…” she slowly began.

“I never like it when you start like that...” Soarin sighed.

“The walls between our rooms are pretty thin you know,” she winked. “I heard things… So did you and Dash shaboink it last night?” she asked with a wide mischievous grin.

“No,” Soarin replied flatly.

“Get some stankie on the hang down?” Fleetfoot pressed.

“No.”

“Hide the sausage?”

“No.”

“Take old one eye to the optometrist?”

“No.”

“Do the horizontal bop?”

“No.”

“Make the beast with two backs?”

“FLEET! WE DIDN’T HAVE SEX!”

“Not even a jiffy-stiffy?”

“NO!” Soarin yelled as Fleetfoot burst out laughing and fell out of her seat back first.

“Oh god!” Fleetfoot quickly rolled over and stood up from the floor. She took off the backpack and looked at it, mortified. But the backpack was empty. “What the..?”

“I let him go,” Soarin shrugged.

“HEYYYYYY!” Fleetfoot pouted at him.

The door opened beside her and Surprise bounced in carrying a tray with a large pony shaped waffle on it. No plate or drink or anything. Just the waffle. She bounced over to the table with the rest of her squad and sat down beside Lightning Streak.

Squad three had been eating silently for the duration of breakfast, mostly due to the ruckus at the other table. Neither Misty nor Fire however, had picked up on the way Lightning kept glancing between them. He leaned forward with a goofy grin on his face.

“So bro, how does Misty like takin’ it?” he said out loud, no hesitation. Fire spat out his eggs and looked at his brother with an incredulous expression.

“Brother!? How could you say—?”

“Is she built for speed or for comfort?” Lightning cut him off. Fire’s face turned red with anger.

“That is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard! Misty! Don’t… oh…” Fire glanced at Misty. She was happily eating her pancakes as if nothing had happened. Lightning burst out laughing and pounded a hoof against the table. Misty looked up as she felt the table vibrate. She saw Lightning laughing and Fire holding a hoof over his eyes. She blinked, shrugged, and went back to eating.

“She can’t even hear me bro! So what was it like?” Lightning continued. Fire glared at him.

“I kicked you out last night because you were waking the dead… again… with your snoring. NOT to take advantage of Misty!” Fire’s nostrils flared.

“Why ya gotta put such a negative twist on everything, man?” Lightning leaned back in his seat. “I bet she liked it too!”

“STOP SUGGESTING WE MADE LOVE!” Fire yelled out. He flinched and looked to his right to see everypony at the other table just staring at him. He gulped and smiled sheepishly. “Eh… nothing! Nothing at all! Carry on!” he sat back down and tried to hide behind Misty, who was still eating, oblivious to the situation.

“Wait… they diddled last night?” Surprise chimed in. She had mostly only been paying attention to her waffle, but she finally picked up on the conversation.

“NO!” Fire smacked his head against the table. Misty looked up from her food and saw Fire looking very distraught. Lightning jabbed Surprise lightly on the shoulder.

“Yeah girl! I woke up in the hallway! They totally bumped nasties!”

“WE. DID. NOT!” Fire growled across the table. Misty looked between Fire and Lightning with a look of pure confusion on her face. Lightning saw her looking at him and waved a hoof at her. She focused on him as he took his wings, made an O shape with the feathers on one and extended a single feather towards it with his other wing. Fire leapt over the table and grabbed Lightning by the neck before he could finish the motion and began shaking him.

“WHOA! WHOA BRO, WHOA! CHILL! CHILLLLL!” Lightning yelled as Fire nearly lost his mind. Surprise appeared beside them.

“FOOD FIGHT!!!!!!!!” she yelled as two pies appeared on the table near both of the Streak twins. She pressed her hooves to their heads and plunged them both face first into the pies.

Misty blinked, shrugged, and went about finishing her breakfast.

The door opened again. Soarin turned around to see Wave Chill enter rather quickly. He glanced around and spotted the seat beside Blaze. He sat down and began eating with his head low to the table as if he was trying to get Soarin to block the door.

“Wave? What’s—” Soarin was cut off as the door opened again. Spitfire walked in. She saw both tables were mostly full, but something weird was happening at the table with squad 3, so she went for the other. She greeted Soarin and Fleetfoot as she went for the seat beside Fleetfoot, but was halfway through sitting down when she froze.

Soarin looked up at her with confusion, and then followed her eyes. She was staring at Wave Chill. Wave was looking away, acting like the antics over at the other table had his full attention. Spitfire began standing up, but stopped, sighed, and just sat down. Fleetfoot looked between her and Wave with a confused expression.

Spitfire kept stealing quick glances, diagonally across the table. Wave was doing the same. Every couple of second they would catch each other looking and quickly both look away while blushing. Fleetfoot quickly picked up on this.

“Okay, what’s with you two?” she directed at both of them. Spitfire didn’t say anything, but Wave nearly flinched out of his uniform.

“What? I mean… uh… all is well, Commander!” he forced. Spitfire stopped trying to eat and just put her hooves over her eyes. Fleetfoot turned to Spitfire.

“Hey!” she poked Spitfire. Spitfire thrust her wing out to bat Fleet’s hoof away. “Whoa!” Fleetfoot pulled her hoof back and glanced between the two of them again. “Alright, show’s over guys. What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” Both Wave and Spitfire yelled at the same time. They glanced at each other and both looked away quickly… again.

“We…” Spitfire began, but instantly shut her mouth. Fleetfoot leaned towards Spitfire.

“What?” she asked while blinking. “What?” she asked again while glancing at Wave. “Whaaaaat?” she threw her hooves into the air. Neither Wave nor Spitfire looked at her. “WHAAAAAAAAAT?” she got louder. Spitfire started groaning. “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?” Fleetfoot poked Spitfire. She turned and saw Wave face down on the table. “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!” Fleetfoot yelled out.

“SHUT! UP!” Spitfire and Wave both retorted and glared at Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot stared blankly at both of them, completely silent for only a brief moment.

“Did you two have sex?” she asked simply.

“ARGH! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” Spitfire grabbed Fleetfoot’s head and forced it down against the table.

“OW! Hey! It was an honest question!” Fleetfoot flailed beneath Spitfire’s grip. Soarin blinked and looked at Wave, who was blushing while trying to get back to his breakfast.

“Uh…” Soarin looked to Spitfire, then back at Wave. “Did you?”

“GOD DAMN NO!” Wave threw his hooves up into the air and slammed them hard against the table. His plate flipped up and smashed scrambled eggs all over his face.

Silver Lining came through the door and stopped as he stood in the doorway. Spitfire was holding Fleetfoot’s head against a table, Blaze was angrily stuffing her face while grunting obscenities, High Winds was asleep, Wave Chill’s face was covered with eggs, Surprise was holding the Streak twins’ faces down in pies, and Soarin was still a princess. The only Wonderbolt acting normally was Misty Fly.

“This place gets stranger every damn day…” he mumbled while rolling his eyes. “Captain Spitfire, may I have a word with Commander Fleetfoot when you’re done… killing her?” he asked. All attention in the room turned to him. Spitfire looked towards Silver, sighed, and let Fleetfoot up.

“Sheesh Spitfire, simmer down that rage…” Fleetfoot mumbled as she shook out her mane. Spitfire sat back down in her seat roughly and continued eating while facing away from Wave.

“Commander Fleetfoot?” Silver addressed her while saluting. Fleetfoot turned in her seat and smiled when she saw Silver.

“What’s up? Good news?” she asked while standing and trotting towards him.

“Yes ma’am,” he nodded. “None of them noticed. They’re all in place whenever you’re ready.”

“Mwahaha! None of them will see it coming!” Fleetfoot rubbed her hooves together. The rest of the Wonderbolts looked about at each other in confusion. Surprise’s ears stood up as she let the Streak twins out of the pies.

“Oh! You’re using that one?! YAY!” she bounced up and down on her back hooves while clapping her front hooves together.

“Wait… what?” Soarin looked between the two of them. Fleetfoot sneered.

“Check it out!” she walked over to the door and pushed it open. Soarin blinked, stood up, and looked out into the mess hall. He looked every direction, then back at Fleetfoot.

“Wait… Where are the cadets?!”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

So i'm full of shit again...

well my friend bailed on me so i ended up not being busy so yeah here's a chapter...

YES IT IS CHAPTER 19 SO I MADE IT ABOUT SEX WAHAHA

*ahem*

sorry to leave it on a cliffhanger, i wanted to keep the theme for the chapter 19 gag. It's not like you have to wait long because i keep posting chapters despite me saying it'll be more than a day.

So im gonna say, the next chapter will most likely be out tomorrow because i can't seem to pry my fingers away from the keyboard.

I hope you enjoyed some good fun innuendos!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 20: The Mess Hall?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 20:

Dash groaned, grunted, and grumbled as she groggily carried her tray towards the tables in the mess hall. She wasn’t the only one dragging her hooves. Everypony was feeling the lack of sleep. There was very little talking and much more mumbling mixed with yawns and curses.

Today’s theme was the unexpected? Dash suddenly had the urge to murder Fleetfoot… and it was barely past 5am.

Dash sighed and plopped down at a table. They were only serving pancakes and eggs. She didn’t mind. She was honestly expecting to find chicken and broccoli on her plate again. At least they made breakfast different. With her body relaxed and sitting down, she found that her eyelids felt heavy. She caught herself as she began to sway, but not before bumping against something soft.

“Not used to early rising?” Matteo’s voice came from beside her as she quickly sat back up straight. Dash blinked and looked to her right to see Matteo sitting beside her, casually eating his breakfast. Okay, this was the… third… fourth time now?

“Seriously big guy, how do you keep appearing out of nowhere?” Dash eyed him carefully.

“I was sitting here before you were,” he tipped his head while looking down at her.

“The past like, I dunno, seven times I’ve run into you, you’re just suddenly there. You’re like a giant ninja or something,” Dash shrugged as she began poking at her pancakes. Matteo chuckled and shook his head.

“Do I scare you?” he asked with a slight grin cracking on the edge of his beak. Dash scoffed.

“Please, I’ve kicked a dragon in the face,” she waved a hoof at him.

“And how did that end up going for you?” he quickly asked. Dash paused.

“Eh… not well, but I ain’t scared of you!” She huffed up at him as he went on eating.

“Good, I’d hate to scare off a friend of my wife,” he suddenly brought up Gilda again. Dash kept looking at him. They were at breakfast, why not ask him now? She already sat by him by accident, so that saved her the trouble of figuring out how to approach him.

“Say, big fella…”

“My name is Matteo,” he suddenly snorted and gave her a stern look. Dash didn’t falter.

“And you’re huge, so deal with it,” she said while remaining completely calm beneath his gaze. He rolled his eyes.

“Yes..?”

“You don’t mind me asking about… Gilda do you?” she made sure.

“Of course not… if you are a friend of hers I’d be happy to answer,” he nodded.

“Okay… I was wondering… I haven’t seen Gilda in a long time, but the way I remember her she was definitely not the type to settle down and get hitched. She was a bit of a wild rebel, you know?” Dash stopped briefly, not really thinking about that last part before she said it. She was hoping Matteo didn’t take offense to it. Thankfully, he scoffed while smiling.

“Oh, that is not far off from how she is,” he took a drink of water before continuing. “She is the very definition of a rebel. I don’t think I could count how many times she’s yelled at me or we’ve gotten in fights… And by fights I mean throwing punches,” he started chuckling. Dash lifted her brow, half confused, and half amused.

“Before or after getting married?” Dash questioned.

“Before, during, and most certainly in the future too,” Matteo confirmed while shaking his head.

“Then how the hell did you convince her to marry you?” Dash chuckled while shrugging. Matteo sighed and glanced at Dash.

“She’s strong, she’s a fighter, and she never backs down. What more could a warrior want in a mate?” his choice of words was interesting. Griffon culture was so much different from pony culture. “We had been at each other’s throats for years, did she not ever mention me to you?” he suddenly asked. Dash was caught off guard by the question. She and Gilda stuck together in flight school all the time. She had a good memory of all the stuff they used to do and talk about.

Dash blinked as she remembered one thing in particular. Dash once asked Gilda about life the Griffon Kingdom. The first thing Gilda mentioned was some jerk she was always getting into fights with when she was very young: “There was this one idiot I could never stand… Fatty Matty… I silently pray every night he gets his face stuck in a waffle iron.” Dash’s ears stood up as she recalled Gilda’s words.

“WAIT! You’re Fatty Matty?!” she stared at him wide eyed. Matteo flinched hard at the name, and then sighed heavily.

“Yes… she used to call me that…” he said with an audible amount of frustration in his voice.

“Dude, whenever you came up, she’d tear on you for HOURS! And…” Dash snickered. “Now she’s married to you? Seriously, how did that happen?” Matteo grunted and rested his arms on the table.

“When she finally came home after years of being away, it was as I was training to become a Sky Wing. She didn’t believe me when I told her who I was because as the nickname suggests, I was quite… overweight for a long time. One would think this would change her opinion of me, but Gilda is stubborn as I’m sure you know. Things went on as they always had, only this time I could fight back. One night we got into a rather… deadly brawl,” he paused and looked at Dash. “Do you know the significance of a griffon’s talons?” he suddenly asked.

“Uh…” Dash tried to remember if Gilda had said anything, but nothing came to mind. Matteo took her silence as a no and continued.

“It’s not widely known beyond the kingdom,” Matteo held his talons towards Dash and opened them fully to show her all the sharp points. They looked like they could puncture anything with a simple jab. “The Sky Wings, and griffons from all past ages, fight with spears. It is to honor the only ancient tradition of our kind to survive to this day. Throughout our history, for centuries we were considered to be the fiercest warriors in all of Equestria. Because they are a part of our bodies, our talons were considered to be a weapon bound to us and our own honor. If a griffon were to use their talons to draw the blood of another living creature, they were sworn to kill it, or else their talon would be forever stained by the blood of a creature that yet lives. This warrior tradition… includes other griffons,” he closed his talons into a fist.

“Um, that seems a bit… brutal,” Dash commented while leaning away from his talons. Matteo chuckled and shook his head.

“These days Griffons are strictly taught from a very young age never to use their talons against other griffons. However, while very few and far between, I have witnessed a few fights to the death… I even once lost a close friend to it.

“So if a griffon is attacked by another griffon with its talons… they have no choice but to defend themselves… and kill them or be killed?” Dash scrunched her face in disbelief.

“Correct, but as I said. I have seen it happen only twice in my lifetime.”

“Sheesh… I always kinda wondered what it would be like to be a griffon… but I guess I got my answer, no thanks!” Dash shook her head.

“You may have thought differently were you a griffon from birth. It is merely our ways,” Matteo nodded while poking back at his food.

“So how does this tie into Gilda?” Dash wondered out loud to him. Matteo looked back to her and smiled.

“Because I should have killed her,” he said without a single bit of hesitation in his voice. Dash flinched and leaned away from him. He snorted and let a few laughs go. “Are you sure you’re not afraid of me?” he gave her a smirk. Dash puffed her cheeks out and sat back up straight.

“Of course not! Continue,” she crossed her hooves and nodded.

“It was still a few months to go before the Sky Wings recruitment drive… mind you this was about a year and a half ago. I didn’t come straight here after I got rejected. Anyway, Gilda had been training to become a Sky Wing herself. Despite how much I had changed she still despised me and still lashed out every time we spoke. She desperately wanted to know what I had done to become so strong, but I felt I owed her nothing for the way she treated me over the years. I always went out into the Sky Skimmer mountain range to the west of the kingdom to do my training. She followed me and demanded I show her my training. This was the last straw. She had been on my back for months, doing nothing but insulting me, yet demanding I share my secrets. I told her to buzz off, and that I would never share my methods with a bitch like her.”

“Oooo… if I know one thing Gilda hates… it’s being called a bitch,” Dash chimed in.

“I soon learned that too,” Matteo added. “She went for the verbal deathblow for a griffon. She insulted my family name. In our traditions, challenging the credibility of one’s family is no different than starting a war. Now remember, she had softened me up with insults and demands for months… I completely snapped. With no other griffon around to witness, I charged at her with my talons drawn. On the first swipe I left a large cut on the side of her shoulder, and drew blood. I didn’t care, I was so fed up with her I didn’t care how I removed her from my life. What I didn’t expect was how fiercely she defended herself,” Matteo looked up towards nothing in particular with a smile on his face. “She didn’t even hesitate. She came right at me with her talons and plunged them into my chest. We had both drown blood, It was a battle to the death.”

Dash’s mouth hung open as she listened. She was friends with Gilda for so long and she had never heard of anything like this. Griffon culture was so different she could hardly believe it.

“We were locked in deadly combat for half an hour at least. It wasn’t long before we were both drenched in our own blood, trickling from multiple small cuts and gashes from each other’s talons. Being much more powerful than her, I eventually wore her down, grabbed her by the neck, and pinned her against a boulder. I drew back my arm with my talons opened and covered in her blood. I was ready to rip her face to shreds… but I… I couldn’t,” he paused.

Art by: Colorstrike

Dash glanced at him with confusion. His eyes changed as he recalled the moment.

“Through my days of training before Gilda’s return… I had fought and bested countless other griffons in combat. Every single time I overpowered them, they would cower in fear and beg for mercy beneath my strength. Not a single true warrior among them. Gilda however… Gilda was not only the most skilled griffon I had ever faced in combat, she also stared headlong into my feral glare, as if daring me to kill her. All I had to do was bring my talons down and she’d be dead. Yet she wasn’t even the slightest bit afraid of me,” Matteo turned to Dash. This was the first time she had seen a full blown smile on Matteo’s face.

“It was… magnificent,” he chuckled. “She was the only true warrior I had ever faced. We gave each other our fiercest glares for minutes that seemed like hours… but I could not kill her. I refused to. I will never forget the look in her eyes when I closed and lowered my talons. I had violated our most sacred and ancient tradition… to spare her. Why? I could not put a reason into words, and she could not put her feelings into them either. It was right then and there, when we first mated. Soon after that, we were wed,” he ended, on a note Dash was not expecting.

“Well… that escalated quickly… twice…” she winced uncomfortably. “Talk about an interesting first date… Griffons are crazy…” she shook her head. “Thanks for… opening up though,” she jabbed him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you trust me. Just… keep those talons away from me okay?”

“Heh, the tradition only stands if we initiate the attack ourselves. If you are idiotic enough to trip and fall on my talons I don’t have to kill you.”

“Good to know,” Dash rolled her eyes. She went back to eating her breakfast as she thought over everything she had just been told. What an interesting culture indeed. Wait…

Dash blinked and dropped her pancake back onto her plate. One word stood out from everything she had been told. Her eyes widened and the word “REALIZATION” could have easily flown out of both of her ears to match her expression. She turned back to Matteo.

“Hey… you said… you mated…?” she asked. Matteo looked back at her.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

“Speaking in… nature terms… that means…” Dash hesitated, not quite sure how to word it. So she pointed at her stomach. Matteo caught on.

“We have two children with a third on the way.”

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFWHAAAAAT!??!?!?!?!” Dash slammed her head down on the table, then leaned back while groaning because, well, it hurt. She ignored the pain and the red spot on her head while turning wide eyed to Matteo for the second time in twenty four hours. “GILDA’S… A… MOTHER?!” This just kept getting better and better.

“Again, is something wrong? Every time I tell you something about her, you hurt yourself,” Matteo gave her a confused look.

“Look, do you blame me?” Dash held her hooves out at her sides. “This is a childhood friend of mine that’s suddenly fives steps too far forward in life at the age of twenty. I’m not even thinking about that kind of stuff!” she exclaimed while trying to wrap her head around everything.

“It is customary for us to find mates around that age,” Matteo cut in. “In our culture I’m late to the mating process. I’m twenty-four. It’s just another difference in our cultures.

“NICE STORY. Bet I could top it!”

Both Dash and Matteo flinched and looked across the table. Twister was sitting directly across from them. He had a tray at his place, but there was nothing on the tray. He was resting his elbows on it and slowly sliding the tray back and forth against the table while resting his chin in his hooves.

“How long have you been there?!” Dash’s mouth hung agape as she stared at him. Twister chuckled slowly and creepily.

“Only the whole time, it’s your fault for not paying attention,” as soon as he finished the sentence we was sitting beside Dash, in the exact same position and still sliding the tray back and forth.

Dash thought about retaliating, but took a moment to think. Twister did things in a similar manner to Pinkie Pie and Surprise. She had seen Fleetfoot handle him flawlessly. Dash wondered if she could copy Fleetfoot in such a manner. One thing she had noticed about Twister, was that he followed a pattern when he did his silly antics. He wasn’t quite on the level of Surprise or Pinkie Pie. He always went for those around him and used them for his effects. Meaning he’d go for Matteo right after she retaliated.

A while ago, Pinkie Pie had said something to her that she really didn’t quite understand: “If you wanna keep up, you gotta THINK like the PINK!”

Dash smirked. She stuck her wing out at Twister, and reached her opposite hoof behind her at the same time. Twister vanished from the spot, but—

“OOF!” He grunted as he ran smack into Dash’s hoof.

“Heh, Fleetfoot was right! You aren’t that—” Dash pulled him around, but found only Twister’s tray in her hooves. “Huh?”

“Fleetfoot was right…” Twister was sitting right back where he started across from them. “But you... aren’t Fleetfoot,” he bounced his eyebrows.

“Feh,” Dash scoffed and tossed his tray back at him. He made no effort to catch it. It smacked right against his face, fell back to the table, and he put his elbows on it. He was back in the same position he started in.

“Heeeeehehehe…” he chortled to himself as Dash rolled her eyes.

“Alright smartass, you said you could top Matteo’s story? Well let’s go! Where are you from?” Dash quickly asked.

“The sky is blue,” he fired back.

“How old are you?”

“Dandelions.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“Exactly three cups of baking powder.”

“You know what?” Dash flattened her ears and brow. “I don’t know why I expected a clear answer from you on anything," she sighed and went back to eating. Twister glanced at Matteo, who was looking up and over Twister. Twister suddenly appeared on Matteo’s back.

“Hey birdie! Whacha lookin’ at? Whatcha lookin’ at?” he said while staring in the same direction atop Matteo’s shoulders. Matteo growled.

“You have to the count of five to get off me before I actually consider killing you,” he threatened. “One,” Twister didn’t move. Matteo’s eyes narrowed. “Four.”

“Alright, alright, made your point,” Twister was back down at his place. His tray suddenly filled with pancakes and eggs. Dash didn’t ask. Some ponies were just… different. Dash glanced back at Matteo and, like Twister, noticed he was looking towards the wall just below the ceiling.

“What are you looking at?” she asked while following his eyes. There was nothing special on the wall above the mess hall entrance. Nothing besides the wall clock at least.

“We’ve been in here for about half an hour…” Matteo began but trailed off. Dash blinked and looked back to him.

“Yeah, I’d say so. Why?” she asked while scrunching her brow in confusion.

“The wall clock still says 5:00am,” Matteo said while pointing a talon towards the clock. Both Dash and Twister turned and looked at the clock. As Matteo said, it hadn’t moved from exactly 5:00 o’clock. The second hand was even frozen to the twelve. Dash gave it a puzzled look, but shrugged.

“Maybe it just broke when we got here,” she suggested. Matteo shook his head.

“I saw Wonderbolt staff members fixing the clock yesterday during dinner.

“Hmm…” Dash took another look at the clock.

“Also, the chefs are all gone,” Matteo turned and pointed at the serving area. Dash glanced back and saw that everypony had their food, the chefs were long gone, and the buffets were all cleaned out too. That was rather puzzling.

“Uh… I dunno, maybe they got pissed about being up so early and refuse to give out seconds?” she made up as she spoke. Matteo shook his head.

“No, something is definitely wrong here,” Matteo’s eyes darted about. Twister snickered.

“What, little bird is afraid of a broken clock and angry chefs? Careful you might—” he halted mid-sentence and turned his head sharply to beside Dash’s left. Dash blinked.

“What are you—” she turned and froze as well.

A penguin waddled casually past them. The three all followed it with their eyes as it went past their table and turned down the aisle. When it was gone they all looked back at each other. Even Twister looked stumped.

“Was...” Dash slowly began. “Was that a… penguin?”

Suddenly loud crashes rang out from near the entrance. Dash, Matteo, Twister and everypony else sitting in mess hall all looked towards the doors. They had been covered by steel shutters.

“What the—” Dash flinched as she heard sharp clicking and snapping sounds.

“The walls!” Matteo exclaimed. Dash turned to see the three other walls of the mess hall slowly buckle and begin to fall back. Panic began to run through the cadets as the walls fell down around them. When they hit the ground, the area was filled with a very thick fog. Dash quickly lost sight of the cadets sitting on the far end of the hall. The visibility had been cut to no more than twenty feet.

“WHAT IS HAPPENING?!” Dash freaked out. Suddenly, her seat fired upward below her like a spring. She was catapulted into the air. Twister was flung upward as well along with every other pony. Matteo proved to be too heavy, instead receiving a very uncomfortable spank to the rear while releasing a startled BRAWCK!

Dash grunted and quickly extended her wings to control her flailing trajectory. She evened out and hovered while examining the situation around her. A few other ponies managed to gain control, but a good number of them fell back to the floor while flailing and trying to find their wings. Dash was still within view of the ground below her and the blocked exit, but every other direction was completely shrouded by the thick fog.

“Seriously, what is—WHOA!” Dash ducked to the side as a pie came flying right at her face. It careened past her and went SPLAT against the wall above the doors. “Was that a pie?! OH SHIT!” Dash began ducking and weaving as more pies came flying towards her. A few ponies in the air took them right to the face so hard that they were knocked back and fell to the ground. Dash glanced down as she moved and saw ponies on the ground were also being assaulted with pies. Yelling and screaming ensued as ponies ducked for cover under tables and a few charged for the blocked doors. They banged their hooves against the shutters as they got hit with pies.

Spring loaded benches…

False mess hall…

Dense fog…

Pies out of freaking nowhere…

A certain light blue, white maned pegasus mare came to mind…

“I am in charge of today’s trials and today’s tests will focus on one thing! How you handle the unexpected!”

“FLEETFOOT,” Dash growled as she put it together. The unexpected? This was the definition of the unexpected. This was supposed to be a test, but what the hell was it testing? Reflexes?

Dash continued dodging the pies as they came searing towards her. There was no other thing she could think of. The dense fog made it so they’d have to react on short notice. She wondered for how long it would go on for. Nearby she spotted Twister dancing about as pies seemed to come a little more readily towards him. None were making their mark however as he continued to twist and turn briskly as they whisked by.

Dash took in the rest of the area as she moved about. There were two other pegasi still in the air. She didn’t recognize either of them and it was hard to make out their colors in the fog. What she could see though, was that one of them was small and moving sharply to avoid the pies, much different from Twister’s curving and twisting style of movement. The other was bigger than Dash, and it looked like he was batting the incoming pies away with swift hoof movements that looked to be martial arts.

“AHHHH!!!” A familiar nearby scream caught her attention. Dash’s ears sprang up and she glanced in the direction of the scream. Derpy was in the air, having managed to even out, but was doing little to try and dodge the pies. She was flying erratically, and only that was saving her from being hit.

“Derpy!” Dash called out, but somepony bumped into her roughly. She turned and met the eyes of Arctic Blast. Dash glared for a moment, but Arctic only turned her head as a pie came flying at them.

“EEK!!!” she screeched and quickly grabbed Dash.

“Hey!” Dash grunted as Arctic moved Dash in front of her. Dash blinked and saw the pie mere feet from her face. Her reflexes were quick, and she ducked as soon as the pie was in her view. The pie went right over her head and slammed HARD into Arctic’s face, blowing her right out of the air.

“MYYYYYY MAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNEEEEE!!!!!” she cried out dramatically while furiously rubbing her hooves through her mane, completely disregarding the fact that she was falling.

“Pff… serves you right bi—DERPY!” Dash quickly forgot about Arctic and glanced around while evading two more pies. She spotted Derpy a little ways away and made ready to chase, but a pie glanced off her nose. “AH! Damn!” Dash winced and shook her face out as tiny bits of pie sprinkled over her face.

“I’ve got you Derpy!” a voice came from below. Dash looked down to see Storm Front rocket up from the ground towards Derpy. He took three body shots from the pies as he flew up and put himself in front of Derpy just in time before she took a pie directly to the face. He quickly grabbed hold of her and tried to evade more incoming pies.

“Phew!” Dash felt relieved for Derpy, but she was still stuck dodging seemingly endless pies. What was the point of this? Was Fleetfoot just trying to annoy the hell out of them?

A loud BANG from below caught Dash’s attention. She glanced down to see that Matteo had pulled together two of the dining tables. He looked like he had taken a few hits. Dash began making her way down towards him. As she glided and dodged, he kicked the tables up and onto their sides to make a makeshift barrier. Dash dove down, angled, and did a sharp U-turn before slamming her hooves to the floor and sliding to a stop behind the barrier beside Matteo.

“Well this odd,” Matteo said casually as he ducked behind the tables with Dash beside him.

“Gee, what tipped you off?!” she asked sarcastically as pies splattered against the upturned tables.

“The penguin,” Matteo answered seriously as he peered over the edge. The whole mess hall was still in mass hysteria. The ponies who were banging their hooves on the steel shutters had given up and it had mostly become everypony for themselves. “It’s amazing how easily some panic…”

“OOF!” Thunderlane suddenly dove over to them from beneath a table. His face was covered in pie bits.

“This is not what I signed up for!” he shook his head while frantically brushing pie off his face and mane. Dash shrugged.

“They said the unexpected… weren’t you listening or were your stiff wings in control of your brain earlier?” Dash rolled her eyes as Thunderlane huffed at her.

“Well excuse me for—” he stopped and looked up. “Whoa! Incoming!” he pointed. Dash followed his hoof and gasped. Storm Front was tumbling down towards them with his arms and legs tucked into his body. He took a sharp angle down and slammed back first against the ground with a painful grunt. He bounced a few times across the floor before skidding to a stop near the barrier. Thunderlane tried to reach out, but Matteo’s wing extended and pushed him back against the barrier. Using his long arms and body, Matteo quickly reached out and pulled Storm Front into the protection of the tables.

“Storm! You okay?” Dash quickly scooted over to him. He pushed her away and shook his head.

“I’m fine, worry about her!” he unfolded his arms to reveal Derpy. Dash eyes widened as she examined her. She was shivering and looked absolutely terrified.

“I don’t know what’s going on!” she cried out as Dash quickly pulled her into a hug.

“Derpy! Stay calm!” she quickly spoke to her as more pies battered against the table. Thunderlane shifted around so Derpy could see him.

“It’s only pies, Derpy! Nothing to be afraid of!” He patted her on the back.

“It’s one of our tests, Derpy! Fleetfoot’s a practical joker!” Dash said as she let go of Derpy and set her down against the barrier to keep her completely out of the line of fire. Derpy seemed to calm down in the presence of her friends.

“O-okay,” she nodded, but still looked scared and shivered.

“Just sit right here, you’ll be completely safe,” Dash patted her on the head as Storm Front shook himself off and put his back to the barrier beside Matteo.

“You look like you still have your head on your shoulders… any ideas?” he asked. Matteo flinched as a pie went right over his head and skimmed against his head feathers.

“They seem to all be coming from the same direction,” he explained. Dash blinked and realized the pies were only hitting the barrier. None were flying in from the left or right. Matteo must’ve have realized earlier, hence the tables facing one direction.

“You sure?” Storm glanced up at the pies flying overhead. Matteo took a chance and popped his head up over the top of the tables. A pie caught him square in the face so hard that his beak went through the pie tin and stuck out the other side of it. He didn’t even as much as flinch though. He sighed and sat back down with the pie tin stuck to his face.

“Yes, they are definitely only coming from that way,” his beak moved with the pie tin over it. Dash snickered and helped Storm pry it off his face.

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Storm shifted and pressed his hooves to the ground.

“Wait!” Dash reached up and yanked him down right as he put his head above the barrier. A pie flew right over him. Had Dash not pulled him down, he’d have received a similar blueberry facial.

“Whoa… that was close,” Storm winced as he realized Dash saved him from a painful hit. Dash shook her head.

“I think the pies are reacting to our movement!” Dash blurted out to both of them. Storm and Matteo both looked at her blankly.

“You know… if it were under any different circumstances I’d think that was the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Storm chuckled. Dash shrugged.

“Think about it!” she pointed at Matteo. “He got hit the instant he popped his head up,” she pointed to the tables. “Every time we shift, more pies hit the table,” then she pointed at Storm. “I took a gamble and pulled you back down as you looked over… if I hadn’t, you’d be licking pie off your chops right now!”

“Interesting observation,” Matteo rubbed the tip of his beak. He looked at the table he was sitting against, balled up his left talon, and gave the table a solid, but soft punch. Three pies smacked against the other side of the table in the exact spot. “I think she’s right.”

“Okay, so what do we do?” Storm asked while testing it himself. Just like with Matteo, pies flew right to the spot he knocked his hoof against.

“We know what direction the pies are coming from… but they are coming in insanely fast and are responding to our movement…” Matteo thought out loud. Dash perked up.

“A distraction! We need somepony to distract the pies!” she exclaimed. Storm Front snickered.

“This is by far the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had,” he shook his head. “So somepony who can dodge pies at that speed has to fly in front… can either of you dodge like that? I sure can’t,” he looked to Matteo.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Matteo shook his head while motioning to his large body. Storm looked to Dash. Dash shook her head.

“Don’t look at me… I’m fast, but those things are already coming in at the speed of sound. I could barely dodge them flying in place, forget while flying AT them…” they were stuck in their dilemma. Thunderlane was sitting off to the side, listening while staying with Derpy. He looked up and blinked.

“Guys…” he spoke up. All three looked to him. “What about… him?” Thunderlane pointed up. Dash, storm and Matteo all looked directly above them.

Twister was the only pony still in the air. He was casually twisting and winding as the pies flew at him furiously. Not a single one of them was hitting their mark.

“HAHAHA! You can’t hit me! You can’t hit me! HEHEHEEEEE!!!!” he taunted into the fog as the pies continuously failed to hit him.

“Talk about an unlikely hero…” Storm sighed while watching the crazy pony above.

“TWISTER!” Dash called up to him. The instant she called his name the barrier suddenly began buckling as a barrage of pies thundered against it. Matteo and Storm quickly put their bodies against the undersides of the tables to keep them from tipping back up.

“You RANG?” Twister appeared in front of them. His body was facing away from them, but his head was turned all the way around at them. Thunderlane reclined in horror, but Dash wasn’t taking his crap right now. She reached forward and smacked his head. It did a full 360 before making another half turn and locking back into place. He leaned back and put his head in Dash’s lap. She grunted in annoyance, grabbed his head and forced him out of her lap. He rolled once and ended in a relaxed, reclined position, while bouncing his eyebrows at all of them. Dash eyed him cautiously, and then smirked. She knew how to get him to cooperate.

“So you think your pretty good at dodging, eh Twister?” she spoke with a jeering tone. Storm and Matteo glanced at each other as they braced themselves against the barrier. The pies seemed to continuously splatter against the barrier as if a good number of them were locked on Twister.

“Oh, I’d say I’m the best…” he shot forward and pressed his face against Dash’s. “WHY DO YOU ASK, HM?!” he stuck his tongue out between his teeth. Dash didn’t even flinch, she just maintained the smirk.

“I bet you can’t fly head on towards where the pies are coming from… without taking… at least twelve pies to the face,” she pressed her face back into his.

“HAH!” he fell backwards onto his back. One pie flew over the top of the barrier. He reached up and caught it, taking a bite out of it as he eyed Dash. “Nice try…” he said with his mouth full of pie. “But you want me to fly decoy while you all slip by… riiiiiiiight?” he sneered. Dash flinched and glanced at Matteo and Storm. They both just rolled their eyes and shook their heads. Twister appeared between the two of them while laughing maniacally. “That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard! LET’S DO IT!” he sneered even harder and bumped his hooves together.

Before any of them could react, Twister fired directly upward into the line of fire. The pies seized their assault on the tables, following the crazy pony into the air.

“I suppose this works!” Matteo chuckled as he stood up and vaulted the barrier. Dash leapt up and followed close behind. Storm hesitated and glanced at Derpy.

“Stay here, you’ll be safe,” he patted her on the head. She only nodded while still shivering slightly. He pulled himself over the tables and gave chase. Thunderlane blinked, looked up to see pies still flying at other ponies, and then back down at Derpy.

“Rgh!” he chook his head and stood up. He refused to sit by while the others looked badass. If this really was part of the tryouts he wasn’t going to sit back while they had all the action. He gave Derpy a quick nod and pat on the shoulder before taking off and following the others.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!” Twister cackled as he flew high above the floor and headlong into the endless barrage of pies. There was definitely a much larger number of pies being launched at Twister. Either it was because he was the closest, or he was being personally targeted by whatever was launching the pies. Despite flying at a high speed and flying against the pie trajectory, Twister still managed to twist, turn, and spin his way past every pie that came his way.

Slightly behind him and down below, Dash, Storm, and Matteo pumped their wings to keep up. They flew low to the floor, dodging any pies that happened to come their way. With Twister effectively distracting a majority of the swarming pies, the three were able to speed along with little resistance.

“Keep moving, but stay behind him!” Dash yelled to the other two as she took a small lead. She pitched left and right as a few stray pies whisked by. What a strange scenario indeed. Pies being launched through fog, using a presumably mentally unstable pony as bait, flying side by side with a griffon that was married to one of her oldest friends, and another pegasus who she probably lived next to her whole childhood. Stranger things had happened, but it was definitely interesting.

“Whoa! Look out!” Storm called to them. Dash and Matteo glanced up to see the amount of pies flying at them was increasing. Matteo slammed to the ground and pushed off hard to the left as a stream of constant pies followed him. Dash did Twister’s Spiral Turn, followed by Matteo’s Air Burst to propel herself out of the way as pies came for her as well. Storm dove down and pressed his hooves to the ground. He slid along the floor on his hind hooves while using his wings and arms to bat away six pies that flew towards him. He ducked, tucked and rolled, and fired back up as Dash angled around and rejoined him.

“Uh oh… he’s being overwhelmed!” Dash pointed to Twister. The pies seemed to be coming in even faster now. Twister was not laughing anymore, he was wheeling, turning, and twisting as he had been, but now he was only barely dodging each pie. It was pretty damn impressive, but he had been slowed almost to a complete stop.

“Yikes!” Storm quickly grabbed Dash’s arm and pulled her aside as pies came raining down upon them. They evened out and pumped their wings in unison to propel themselves along as the pies thundered to the ground in their wake.

“Gah! Twister yelled out from above.

“Oh man…” Dash cringed as she looked up and saw Twister finally falter. He proceeded to get absolutely peppered with pies. He was only stationary for a moment before the force of the pies knocked him back and effectively put him behind the others. Dash gulped, knowing full well it meant that she, Storm, and most likely Matteo were the closest target. They were bound to get sprayed with pie fire shortly.

“Dash! Storm!” Matteo suddenly appeared from the fog directly in front of them.

“Huh? WHOA!” Dash yelped as she and Storm were lurched backward. Matteo had hooked them both by the torsos with arms as he passed and pulled them back the other direction with him.

“Matteo, what are you—” Storm tried to question him.

“No time! Ready yourselves!” he slammed his hind paws to the floor and skidded to a stop. He locked his eyes in the direction the pies were flying from, but grunted. “Damn!” he yelled as the concentrated stream of pies was seconds away from hitting them.

“I got it!” Thunderlane’s voice suddenly called out from behind Matteo. Dash watched while stuck in Matteo’s grip as Thunderlane leapt up and kicked off Matteo’s shoulder. He put himself into the path of the rapid firing pies and crossed his hooves over his face. The pies began pounding and splattering against him as he grunted in discomfort.

“Fantastic!” Matteo smirked as Thunderlane sacrificed his body to shield them. “Now FLY!” Matteo yelled out. He took a step to the left while holding up Dash and Storm in his talons. He griped them gently before turning three times, the first was slow, the second faster, the third even faster, then pumped his wing hard, using his Air Burst to create a blast of wind behind him. He used the extra momentum as a boost while flinging the two of them towards the target, first Dash, then Storm. As soon as Matteo launched them, he was absolutely assaulted by the pies and forced to the ground.

“WHHHOOOOAAAAAAA MAAAMAAA!!!!” Dash yelled as she and Storm shot through the fog at an incredible speed. It was hard to tell how fast she was going, but Dash was sure she was going faster than she could with the Sonic Blast-off. The stream of pies turned towards them, but they were moving so fast it just couldn’t follow their flight path.

Then suddenly, Dash and Storm fired out of the fog and into the clear. All Dash saw upon emerging was some sort of giant contraption. She was going too fast to make out what it was exactly, but she had only one objective in mind: break it. She pulled back a hoof, ready to blow a hole right through the machine.

“Whoops! I don’t think so!”

Fleetfoot’s voice.

Dash yelped as she was suddenly forced to a full stop. After lurching forward and getting some nasty whiplash. She pushed off of whatever stopped her and blinked.

Fleetfoot was directly in front of her, wearing red flight goggles and smirking.

“I don’t think Rivet would be too happy if you broke it… he spent months on this one,” Fleetfoot winked. Dash glanced back at Storm Front to see Soarin, also wearing red goggles, had stopped him as well. She finally got a good look at her surroundings.

“What…? How did we get in the battle dome?!” Dash exclaimed as Fleetfoot snickered. They were indeed in the battle dome, which was one facility over from the mess hall. There was a large collection of fog packed into the first half of the dome, being created by the same machine that was launching the pies into said fog. The machine itself was a large, cubical contraption that had multiple cannons, slingshots, and catapults all over it, firing, slinging, and launching pies. One large barrel in the center of the machine was firing pies at an incredible rate. That explained the one constant stream of pies. The machine had a sign on the front that read: “Surprise’s Pie n’ Fog Two-for-One.”

All of the Wonderbolts were gathered around and all of them wore strange red goggles.

“Surprise! That’s it, turn it off!” Fleetfoot yelled down by the base of the machine. Surprise peeked out from behind the machine, balancing a stack of at least twelve blueberry pies on her head.

“WHAT?! Already? Awww, how did they figure it out so fast?” she whined as the pies tipped off of her head and scattered out on the floor.

“We’ve got some talent this year it seems,” Fleetfoot nodded and smiled as she pushed her goggles up.

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine,” Surprise pouted before pulling a large lever on the side. The machine stopped completely, no longer launching pies or spewing the thick fog. The fog slowly faded, revealing all the confused ponies back by the entrance. Matteo and Thunderlane sat up from the ground close by completely covered in crusty and goopy bits of blueberry pie. There was a large collection of pie debris built up on the wall above the doors. Eventually a shape that looked like a pony peeled off of it and fell to the ground. It got up and shook itself off, revealing Twister’s crazy mane and sneer.

“Surprise were you… aiming the main cannon at him?” Fleetfoot joked as Surprise flew up beside her. Surprise looked towards Twister as he tried to shake pie off every inch of his body.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Surprise rolled her eyes up, then back down. “No?” she smiled super wide.

The rest of the ponies emerged from beneath the tables and from pie piles littered about the fake mess hall as the Wonderbolts approached them. Spitfire beckoned Dash and Storm to follow them. Dash and Storm gave each other a quick, very confused glance. Storm shrugged and chuckled before following as Dash followed while contemplating all of it.

Just how the hell did they get them into the battle dome without noticing? Dash knew the Wonderbolt compound layout quite well. She was more than certain they took the first left after the stairs. The entrance to the battle dome was an extra forty or so yard walk down the hall. She was groggy from lack of sleep, but she wasn’t that unaware of her surroundings.

“Well now!” Fleetfoot called out from above as the confused ponies all began gathering around. “How was that for a surprise test? Never thought you’d be eating breakfast then BAM dodging pies in the fog! Eh? Ehhhhhh?” Fleetfoot glanced around while holding her hooves out bouncing her eyebrows. She didn’t get a single response. In fact all of the cadets looked rather pissed off. Fleetfoot clapped her hooves together. “Just the reaction I was going for! But really, this was a test. Wonderbolt life isn’t always scheduled, sometimes things come up and you have to be able to adapt or react quickly. Luckily for all of you we had a group of five ponies… er… four ponies and a griffon in here who just set the fastest time in ending the test ever,” she referred to Dash, Storm, Matteo, Twister, and Thunderlane.

“How… did she know it was us?” Storm thought out loud. Fleetfoot caught ear of him and tapped her goggles.

“We were able to track eveypony's movements using these handy dandy infrared goggles! How could we tell who’s who? Every cadet uniform gives off a slightly different subtle heat signature we can identify. NEAT, HUH?!” She pulled back and snapped the goggles against her face and held her breath, trying not to curse against how much it stung. Spitfire shook her head and hovered in front of Fleetfoot.

“What Fleetfoot is taking forever to mention… is that this particular test… while it was goofy and operated by a very silly pony…” as she spoke Surprise floated up behind her while waving her arms wildly. “It was also meant to also show your willingness to work together.”

“I thought so,” Matteo chuckled beside Dash. Dash blinked and looked up at him, then back to Spitfire. Dash hadn’t even thought of that. Since it was also a bit of a “disaster” scenario, she reflexively worked with the others to solve it. Had she just impressed the Wonderbolts without thinking about it?

“Don’t get me wrong. We are looking for the best, and you are expected to compete for that role, but there are times when one must put aside their differences in order to survive or reach a common goal,” Spitfire finished.

“Hold on a second!” Storm Front raised a hoof. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow at him.

“What is it, cadet?”

“How did you get us into the battle dome? I was a bit groggy, but awake enough to know we took the first left after the stairs,” he asked the question that was on Dash’s mind. Soarin chuckled and hovered down by Spitfire.

“Should we tell them?” he smirked. Spitfire glanced at him and shrugged.

“Why not, they just wowed the hell out of me,” she nodded at Storm, and then turned looked towards the entrance. “WONDERBOLT MAGIC AND EFFECT RESEARCH UNIT SIX, ENTER!” she yelled towards the steel shutters. Dash blinked. Magic and effect research. Where had she heard this before? Spitfire had once mentioned something like before…

Dash’s eyes widened and she turned to look at the entrance with everypony else. The metal shutters lifted and through the doors walked four unicorns, all wearing Wonderbolt officer uniforms. A collective buzz ran through the crowd as UNICORNS wearing WONDERBOLT attire just revealed themselves. Spitfire glided over and hovered above them.

“Everypony say hello to some of the lesser known, but much more important members of the Wonderbolts. You think we discovered how most of our effects work? Absolutely not. We only train and perfect them. If not for these hard working mares and stallions, I doubt we’d do much else besides fly around aimlessly,” she smiled right as Fleetfoot popped up right in front of her.

“Quit stealing my show!” she joked while completely blocking Spitfire. “Yep! We had to dupe ya! Our unicorn friends here used their magic to distort your perception of the hallway and lead you into the fake mess hall! Didn’t notice any unicorns mixed in with the crowd? Well, that’s what happens when you’re groggy from lack of sleep!”

Dash sighed heavily, but not without a small smile curling on her lips. What a trickster… but seriously, unicorn Wonderbolts. Dash remembered when Spitfire mentioned them back during her first encounter with them all. She had almost completely forgotten about it because of what had happened right after: the restoration of Soarin.

“Alrighty!” Fleetfoot rubbed her hooves together. “Since we kinda interrupted breakfast, we have a brunch planned in an hour. Everypony go shower up, I’m sure pie isn’t fun to wear,” she stopped and looked at all of them, but nopony moved. “Well… go on…” she tried to beckon them out the door. Again, none of them moved. Fleetfoot blinked, then realized why. “Ohhhh… you’re all smart! There are no more tricks planned until after brunch!” she patted a hoof to her chest. Still nopony moved. “Hey, come on! I’m serious!” she pouted at them. Soarin shook his head and floated up beside her.

“We have yet to even set up the second test, go ahead and get cleaned up and get some food. We’ll inform you what’s next after brunch,” he spoke for her. At his word, all the cadets began moving out. Soarin snickered and smirked at Fleetfoot as she puffed out her cheeks and glared at him. “What?”

“Don’t what me!” she poked his nose. “They seriously don’t trust me at all now? I’m hurt!”

“And you wonder why nopony around here takes you seriously…” Soarin chuckled while shrugging.

Down below Dash walked up between Storm Front and Matteo. They both looked at her as she looked between the two of them. Storm was the first to start snickering. Dash soon caught on and began giggling. Matteo cracked a smile as he saw the two losing their composure. He started chuckling himself as Dash and Storm Front laughed away. What a twist. They were competing to be recruited by the Wonderbolts, but they all seamlessly and spontaneously cooperated under pressure. To top it off, it was something the Wonderbolts were looking for. Thunderlane and even Twister cooperated with them as well. Despite feeling duped and still a bit flustered, Dash could tell it wasn’t only going to be an interesting day going forward, but also an interesting experience as she made new friends and learned so much in the process.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

IN BEFORE PEOPLE DEMAND I WRITE A FIC ABOUT MATTEO AND GILDA.

ahem, anyway xD

Lots in this chapter eh? the whole Matteo and Gilda thing keeps greeting more and more SAY WHAT?!

Also, epic pie battlefield... there were no survivors (except for everypony)

well then, since i hope to have most chapters around this length you can expect mostly 2 day updates now. So i'd say expect the next on thurdsday

Thankd for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 21: Fangirls and Jealousy

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 21:

Dash’s body tingled as the warm water splashed against her head and began slowly running down her face and neck. She didn’t have the luxury of a long shower, but after feeling sleepy and getting thrown into a foggy pie battle field, it felt good to have the soft pitter patter of heated water against her body. She felt the morning stiffness ease and her startle nerves calm as she began looking for and removing all the little bits and pieces of pie from her.

They were given two whole hours before the next test. It seemed like plenty of time to shower up, grab an extra bite to eat and still have enough time for the food to settle before strenuous activity. The only problem being there were a hundred cadets and the barrack showers only held only eight at a time. There were only forty-three mares compared to the fifty-seven stallions, but it seemed a lot of the mares were more worried about making their manes and tails spotless and re-grooming them. All Dash needed was a good rinse and shake out. Rarity would fume if she saw it, but Dash just wasn’t the pretty-pretty type. She was there to make the Wonderbolts, not to wiggle her plot around like a certain bitchy headcase that slept in the bed above hers.

The shower rooms were obviously separate for stallions and mares, but they weren’t build for mass groups of ponies. They were merely small rooms, about eight by ten feet, with four show taps along the ten foot walls. There was plenty of room to Dash’s left and right to extend her wings and rinse out any bits of pie or blueberry goop.

“Damn…” a voice suddenly said next to her with an impressed tone. Dash whipped her head around to get her wet mane out of her eyes and turned her head towards the shower beside hers. A pink pegasus mare with a straight white mane was looking her up and down.

“Uh…” Dash furrowed her brow, wondering what the mare was looking at.

“Oh! Sorry,” the mare grinned sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to stare, you just have… quite an impressive body,” the mare complimented genuinely. Dash blinked and looked down at herself.

“Oh, the muscles?” Dash grinned. She wasn’t getting and strange or negative vibes from the mare, she just seemed curious.

“Yeah! I’ve seen you pull off those cool moves and stuff. Plus, your by far the buffest pegasus mare I’ve ever seen, at least,” the mare smiled as she put her head under her shower stream and rotated her head around in it. “You looked pretty awesome from far back, you look even more awesome up close!” the mare complimented again.

“Heh, thanks…” Dash grinned while shrugging. After Arctic was so negative towards her body during the strength test, it was good to run into a mare that found it interesting.

“So how exactly did you get so ripped? I trained so hard but…” the mare looked down at her body. “I’m just nice and trim because of it,” she pouted. Dash chuckled and shook her head.

“You gotta lift weights,” she said simply as she turned to get her tail wet. The mare looked surprised.

“But…” she tipped her head in confusion. “Won’t you just bulk up and slow down?”

“Heh…” Dash shook her head and smiled. “That’s not quite how it works. I did a lot of weight training, at least five times a week. Do I look over-pumped?” Dash winked. Indeed Dash had gained muscle on her body, but she hadn’t lost any speed and retained her aerodynamic form. The mare listened intently as Dash explained. “Mare bodies don’t work the same way as stallion bodies. I’d have to work probably five times as hard as a stallion if I actually wanted to ‘bulk up.’ I learned a lot about training, the importance of strength, diet, and many other things from So—” Dash froze.

Whoa.

That was a close one.

She almost spilled the beans right there. She quickly faked a wince as if water had gotten in her eyes and shook her head out.

“From a friend of mine back home,” she quickly dodged, hoping the mare didn’t suspect anything.

“Wow. That’s interesting…” the mare thought out loud as she shook her wings out beneath the running water, dropping pie bits everywhere. It was going to be fun for the maintenance staff if all the pie going down the drain caused any pipe blockage. “Well you definitely look great,” the mare gave her a warm smile.

“Hey! Hurry up in there!” a voice called from outside. Dash and the mare both jumped slightly and looked towards the entrance. There was still a line reaching out into the hall to use the showers.

“Oh shoot, I’ve been in here way to long!” the mare quickly turned off her shower and shook out. “It was nice talking to you!” the mare gave a very quick wave and trotted out of the shower room.

“Whoa, wait a sec!” Dash tried to call after the mare, but she was already shuffling past the long line waiting outside. “Huh…” Dash shrugged. She didn’t even get the mare’s name. One thing was for certain though: the small encounter gave Dash an idea of how the remaining competition was. If a pony made it this far into the tryouts they weren’t just a common pony trying out for the hell of it. There was something about them that caught the attention of the Wonderbolts. These were the ponies who trained and who tried as hard as they could. A few others made it by, most likely through chance and luck, but a majority of them were serious.

The mare Dash encountered just now was undoubtedly one of these many who cared about being their best and doing their best. She was interested in how Dash had achieved a strong and efficient body. That was the kind of mare Dash could relate to and get along with. It sucked that she was stuck with Arctic Sass as a bunkmate, but cadets like her would definitely be long gone by tomorrow. Dash felt relieved and excited; relived that only the true flyers would be left by day three and excited that the competition would be fierce. She was going to make it to tomorrow, of course. She was ranked at the top of day one and just put on a show in the first test of day two. There was no way she wouldn’t make it.

Dash turned off her shower and shook herself vigorously until most of the loose water was gone from her fur, mane, tail, and wings. She did her best to avoid being sprayed by the other showers as she walked toward the exit and grabbed her towel.

She rubbed the towel vigorously over her face and head as she shimmied past the line that extended through the bathroom and out into the bunk hallway. She had to dry off a little more before stepping out. Her body and mane were dripping water all over. She made her way over to the sinks and mirrors, flinching as she saw Arctic Blast in front of one along with two other mares. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were only four sinks and the only one open was the one between Arctic and the last bathroom stall.

Dash sighed and tried to act like she didn’t notice Arctic as she trotted up to the mirror. She didn’t really have to try though. Arctic had her face nearly pressed to the mirror and was busily running a brush through her mane endlessly.

Dash’s brain suddenly clicked and she found she had the urge to annoy Arctic. She draped her towel over the faucet, grabbed the porcelain edges of the sink and roughly shook herself from head to tail. Water sprayed everywhere, but the majority of it splashed against Arctic. When Dash stopped her mane was almost exactly how she always wore it. She flattened out the loose ends with her hooves, cracked a smile at her reflection while striking a quick flex, and nodded. She turned and began walking out, making sure to glance at Arctic as she did.

Arctic was glaring at Dash with her mouth hanging open. Her brush had stopped mid-sweep through her mane and she was covered in droplets of water from Dash’s body. Dash snickered as she draped the towel over her back and left the bathroom.

Dash made sure she was relatively dry before making it back to her bunk. She shook her wings out and ran the towel over them gently before folding it and hanging it up above her night stand.

“Hmm…” Dash sighed in frustration as she glanced at her wings. Usually she would keep her wings unfolded for a while and let them drip dry. She didn’t have the luxury of space to do so, or time to let them dry, so she had to use the towel. Normally she avoided using a towel though, because her wing feathers never seemed to agree with them. They would stick or pull, and always ended up in a mess. She still had more than enough time to grab a quick brunch and get ready for the second test of the day, so she plopped her flank down on her bed and reached her right wing around first.

Using her teeth, she gently bit down into the feathers to separate a kink right in the center of her wing. With the wings separated, she slowly moved her mouth around, guiding the feathers in to the right place with her lips before moving to the next knot.

“Ow!” Dash winced as one of her teeth scraped a little roughly against the top of her wing. She had been using her drip dry method for a long time, so she was a little out of practice at preening. If they ever got out of place just a little, a few hard flaps and shakes could usually move them into place. The towel had really twisted and knotted them here. The last couple times she had gotten Fluttershy to do it for her because she just disliked doing it that much.

Once her right wing was all straightened out, she extended and retraced the wing twice before reaching her left wing forward. The bunk suddenly jostled as she began working her mouth around the left feathers. She glanced up and saw the top bunk mattress shifting a little.

Oh, goody.

Bitch-Face McGee was back.

Dash rolled her eyes and continued preening her left wing. She blinked and glanced up as Arctic’s hooves suddenly hung down over the edge of her mattress. Dash lifted an eyebrow as the hooves began to sway back and forth followed by a dreamy sigh. Dash scoffed and looked towards the sexy poster of Soarin.

She couldn’t stand Arctic. As much as she disliked her nauseous attitude and downright barf worthy gawking of Soarin, Arctic was clearly there with an ulterior motive. Soarin was her goal, not the Wonderbolts. Yet here she was, into day two of the trials when two hundred some other ponies, who more than likely had a dream of being a Wonderbolt, were turned away in favor of her. Ponies who were serious about it, had been forced to go home while this celebrity chasing flake was still here. That pissed off Dash more than anything else.

The bunk began to creak and sway a little as Arctic’s fluffy body movements shook the bed. Dash lurched slightly and accidentally bit harder into her left wing as she just finished preening it.

“RGH! Dammit!” Dash quickly stood up from her bed and hovered up while glaring at Arctic. Arctic took no notice of Dash as her pupils remained locked on her poster of Soarin. Dash cleared her throat loudly. Arctic blinked, her face scrunched and she looked towards Dash.

“What do you want?” she asked coldly. Dash stood firm and let Arctic’s sass bounce right off of her.

“I want to ask you a serious question,” Dash folded her arms. Arctic went back to staring at the poster, but Dash continued regardless. “Are you actually here to become a Wonderbolt? Or are you just here to stalk Soarin?” Dash’s question broke Arctic out of her dreamland, but—

“Uuuuhhhhh… yes,” she replied. Having no idea what Dash actually asked. Dash flattened her brow and folded her ears so far back against her head they nearly disappeared into her mane.

“God, you’re stupid,” Dash shook her head as she landed.

“Mmhmm,” Arctic agreed by accident because she was distracted by Soarin again.

Dash felt like her intelligence was decreasing just by standing near Arctic. Brunch? Yeah, brunch sounded really good right now.

The mess hall was quickly busy with ponies who hadn’t had a full breakfast, but it wasn’t too crowded. For one, there were almost two hundred less cadets, but since showering was taking forever, they were also showing up little by little instead of all at once.

Squad three (minus Surprise due to test setup) had been assigned to chaperone the mess hall during brunch. Fire Streak was standing near the buffet tables while keeping an eye out. He wasn’t expecting to find any misconduct. Most of the bruisers and backstabbers had been flushed out of the cadet rankings by the first cut. These were his orders from Spitfire though, so he would take it seriously just as he did everything else.

He scanned back and forth diligently, but every couple of scans, he found his head getting stuck. Why? Because a certain bright yellow, light blue maned mare was patrolling up and down the center aisle within his field of view. He would lock his eyes on Misty and the brief moment of weakness where he felt her lips lightly press against his cheek pushed into his brain. Weakness? That’s how Fire’s overly serious brain was viewing it. Misty suddenly showed affection, and instead of finding it immoral against his code of duty, he liked it.

He didn’t know what to think in all honesty. Was Misty trying to give him a hint? Or was it just a way of her showing just how much she wanted to thank him? He felt the need to ask her, to clarify it, but would he be able to perform the sign language symbols while he was so flustered his arms tingled?

He went back to scanning, hoping he could somehow forget it and go back to how things were, but then his eyes landed right back on her as she stopped at one of the tables. Fire instantly recognized who she had stopped in front of. It was that cadet, the one who knew the sign language. Storm Front was his name if Fire recalled correctly. Fire had seen Storm’s manner and demeanor a few times during the tryouts. Storm was definitely a good pony alongside his consistently above average abilities.

No reason to worry. Misty probably just wanted to talk to him again.

…

…

Why did that bother him so much? Fire kept his eyes trained on Misty and Storm as they began speaking through sign language. Storm kept a warm smile on his face the whole time. He was responding incredibly fast and efficiently. Misty was making symbols faster than she ever had to Fire or the others. She also looked incredibly happy. She was nearly bouncing as she kept talking to him.

Fire found himself… put off. Why? There was absolutely NOTHING wrong about Storm speaking to Misty. There weren’t many who could speak to Misty. Storm was just being friendly. He should be happy that she made another friend, but why was he… angry?

Was he jealous?

Nonsense, jealousy was for the weak-hearted and those who can’t move on. So why did he feel that way? He was better than this, he had a sense of duty, and he knew what was important and what he should be paying attention to.

Then why the hell did he have the sudden urge to strangle Storm? That was wrong, it was improper. Storm was doing nothing to deserve it. Well, nothing except for talking to a pony Fire lo—

Oh dear…

Fire forced his head away from the conversation while taking a deep breath and holding it while shaking his head. Enough of this. He had to clear his head. He didn’t care if Storm was much better than him than talking to Misty fly. Okay, maybe he cared a little. Maybe a lot. Okay, maybe he felt like walking up and yanking her away from him.

“You look like yer gonna throw up bro,” Lightning’s voice made Fire flinch and he exhaled hard as if being punched square in the stomach. “I thought that look was reserved for me, are you actually mad at something else? That’s a first,” Lightning turned and leaned up against the buffet beside Fire. Fire grunted and looked away. Lightning was surprised again. “You broken? Doesn’t sound like the gears are turning in that head.”

“Pff, says you,” Fire suddenly spat at him before turning sharply away again and staring out into the cadet crowd. Lightning stood still for a moment and blinked as he registered what just happened… slowly. He shifted and leaned his other arm on the buffet while glancing at Fire, and then back out into the cadets. He saw Misty talking with Storm using sign language. He looked back at Fire.

Then Misty.

Then Fire.

Then Misty.

Then Fire.

Then his ears stood up when the obvious finally struck him and a smirk crossed his face.

“Bro,” he said simply as he draped a hoof over Fire’s back. Fire flinched, but kept glaring out into the mess hall. “You see that?” he pointed a hoof towards Misty and Storm. Fire’s eyes widened for a moment, but he quickly averted them.

“See what?”

“Bullshit, you were looking this way,” he grabbed the back of Fire’s head and forced it back towards Misty. “You see that?” he repeated. Fire sighed.

“Yes brother, I see Misty Fly. She’s just speaking with a cadet who knows sign language,” Fire humored Lightning and tried to look away, but Lightning’s grip was firm.

“Yeah, I see Misty, but you know what else I see? I see a smooth operator cakin’ on yo’ lady,” he felt Fire flinch hard in his grip. “You really just gonna stand here and let it happen?”

“Brother… we’ve been over this. Misty and I are NOT an item,” Fire argued.

“And I’m not an INCREDIBLY sexy stallion,” Lightning’s attempt at sarcasm was laughable, but Fire’s mind was so bent and twisted with conflicting thoughts he found neither the energy nor the will to even grace his idiotic brother with a scoff. He suddenly lurched left as Lightning forced him cheek to cheek. “Listen to me bro,” he started while smushing their cheeks together and forcing them to face Misty and Storm. “I ain’t a romantic type, but if there’s one thing that runs in common with every approach to mares… you gotta go for ‘em or else somepony else’ll be helpin’ themselves to that plot,” he gave Fire a rough pat on the back, making him grunt as Lightning pulled his cheek free of Fire’s. “It’s simple as that bro,” he glanced at the buffet table he was leaning on, reached over and grabbed a pancake, rolled it up, dunked it into the syrup vat beside it and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. “This shit’s only good when you drench it in sugar,” he said with an extremely muffled voice due to his mouth being full.

Fire wasn’t paying attention to his brother anymore though. He was actually thinking about what Lightning had said. While it was very crude and very typical of him to put things so… idiotically, but he did have a point. If he really did like Misty as much as his brain was trying to tell him, then hesitation would lead to disaster. Misty had found another pony that made her extremely happy. It didn’t seem wrong at all. But watching another stallion make her smile the same way he did just wasn’t sitting well in his stomach.

He was not okay with it.

For the first time in his life he felt the need to thank his brother, not that he actually would. Where would he go from here? He hadn’t a clue, but one thing was for certain. He was falling for Misty Fly. As much as his brain was going to fight him on that one, it was true. Now he just had to figure out what to do next… if anything. He felt so conflicted it was like there was a war going on in his head, but both sides were causing more damage to themselves than to the enemy. He needed to get his mind off this for now. He’d think about it, but right now he was on duty.

“Hey! Shit Streaks!” Blaze’s shrill voice slammed through Fire’s head. He blinked and turned, ignoring her crass reference to their name because of how typical it was. Blaze trotted up and leaned against him much like how his brother just had prior.

“Yes Blaze?” Fire said unenthusiastically.

“Spitty-Ass-Cheeks wants to see you guys, we’ll take over here,” she explained while pointing to High Winds, who was already leaning on a nearby table. She fell asleep and her head plopped right onto a stallion’s plate. The stallion just stopped, blinked, and looked around as the other occupants of the table laughed.

“Who?” Fire tried to decode her foul speech. Blaze flattened her brow.

“My sister,” she confirmed plainly.

“Oh… alright then,” Fire nodded. He turned to his brother, but Lightning was already moseying towards the exit.

“Sheesh Windy…” Blaze shook her head and pulled Winds off the table, much to the cadets’ amusement. Fire flinched in surprise as he saw Misty suddenly approach. She glanced over at the doors, saw Lightning leave, and then turned back and tipped her head in confusion.

Fire made a few quick signs to explain that Spitfire called them. Misty simply smiled and nodded. She was clearly very happy. Fire could always tell when she was happy. She had an extra spring in her step and the tips of her wings twitched and bounced as she walked.

But it wasn’t him that had made her happy, and once again he found his brain heavily disliking that fact.

She’s a teammate.

She’s a friend.

There’s nothing there.

Fire sighed heavily as his morals fought endlessly in his head. He was glad Misty couldn’t hear him because he was grumbling at his own confusion the whole walk to the auxiliary gym.

“What the hell IS this thing?” Soarin said to himself as he sat against the wall near the entrance of the gyms. He watched as multiple members of the Wonderbolt maintenance staff wheeled in huge pieces to one of Surprise’s courses.

Soarin didn’t know much about Surprise’s personal courses designed by her and Rivet. He usually stuck to his courses and Silver Lining’s if he wanted to change it up. If the pie launcher was any indication, this was going to be something absolutely ridiculous. In fact, as Soarin watched it slowly get put together… it looked like a very large water slide.

It was one long ten-foot wide and tall tube. It started really high up and twisted and turned around the extended gyms with absolutely no rhyme or reason. It was definitely not just a tube, knowing Surprise there was a catch. Whatever was inside the tube would be the real source of the test, but Soarin wasn’t gonna find out until they started.

He already had a pair of x-ray enhanced goggles dangling around his neck that was handed to him by one of the workers. Rivet had so many fancy gadgets for them, some of which they didn’t have much use for, but were handy to have around in case a mission or unique scenario ever called for it. Spitfire was curious how they were going to keep track of cadets inside the tubes and Fleetfoot was quick to remind her of the x-ray goggles tested a few months back.

“Never thought we’d find a use for ‘em but I’m glad we have them now,” Spitfire had said. It was true, they were pretty nifty.

With nothing to do, Soarin reached into a small pouch he had clipped to his uniform and pulled out a small pebble. He started playing a small game of catch with himself to pass the time, throwing the pebble up and freezing it in the air with his magic. He had really gotten the hang of catching or moving a single object. He could call the magic through the false horn almost instantly now. Two objects was still rough, but he felt proud of improving the most basic magic so quickly. He was a pegasus after all, it had to be some kind of achievement.

He’d been so occupied with the tryouts. He wondered what else Fancy Pants had in store for him when he got back to their little magic sessions a few days from now. He tipped his head up to catch the pebble in a blue aura as he tossed it a little higher. Something else caught his attention though. He let the pebble drop into his hoof as he looked up towards Spitfire and the little yellow stallion helping her look at the course setup instructions. Soarin sighed as he saw Fleetfoot hovering sneakily towards them.

“I’m so confused… this doesn’t look right,” Spitfire eyed the blueprints while glancing at the tubes. “Did we do this backwards?” she asked while scratching her head. The little stallion hovered up to her, gently took the blueprint from her and turned it around so it was right side up. “Oh… that helps,” Spitfire said while blushing slightly in embarrassment. She blinked as the stallion suddenly ducked behind her wing. Spitfire glanced slightly to her left and saw two light blue hooves slowly extending towards the stallion.

“Fleet…” Spitfire said her name once and Fleetfoot sped off while giggling. The stallion slowly emerged and went back to looking at the blueprint with Spitfire. “Jeez, I can’t make heads or tails of this stuff. I don’t know how you do it. It’s really something.”

The little stallion shook his head as if disagreeing with the compliment.

“Oh, have a little pride,” Spitfire ruffled his mane. Fleetfoot’s right hoof suddenly reached up behind the stallion. Without looking, Spitfire extended her wing and batted Fleetfoot’s hoof down. Again, Fleetfoot sped off while giggling. “So this…” Spitfire pointed to one portion of the blueprint. The yellow stallion leaned in. “What’s this underneath here…?” Spitfire turned to look at the stallion, but he was suddenly pulled away with a squeak, followed by Fleetfoot’s laughter. “God dammit… FLEET!” Spitfire yelled as Fleetfoot sped towards the exits while clutching the blushing little stallion in her hooves.

Soarin saw them approaching and was ready to intercept, but before he could get up, Misty Fly and the Streak Twins came through the doors. Misty’s reaction time was incredible. She only saw Fleet for half a second before she stepped aside, let Fleetfoot pass just a little, braced her hooves firmly on the ground, and then clamped her mouth down on Fleetfoot’s tail.

“OW!” Fleetfoot yelped as her tail nearly got yanked off, she whiplashed back towards Misty as she fell on the floor, her grip on the stallion loosening as she flailed back. The stallion was launched from her arms, but Misty reached up a wing and caught the stallion, cradling him safely before lowering him gently to the ground.

Spitfire landed and stomped up to Fleetfoot.

“FLEET! This is your test! STOP fooling around and HELP us set up!” she barked at Fleetfoot as she lay face down on the floor. Fleetfoot rolled over while wearing a very uncomfortable look on her face.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll be up there as soon as I reattach my ass… DAMN that hurt!” she whined while patting her flank.

“Serves you right for thinking you could get past Misty,” Soarin chuckled from off to the side.

“STUFF IT, MISS EQUESTIRA!” Fleetfoot pointed and yelled without looking at him.

As Spitfire checked on the little stallion, the doors opened again and Wave Chill walked in. He was walking with his head down, clearly thinking about something over paying attention to where he was going. Right in front of Soarin, Fleetfoot, the Streak twins and Misty, Wave walked nose first directly into Spitfire’s plot.

“WHOA!” Spitfire jumped three feet into the air in surprise. Wave blinked and his eyes widened in pure, mortified horror. Spitfire turned around as she caught herself in midair and glared, but then her eyes widened too upon seeing Wave.

“Uh… um…” Wave’s brain completely broke. “SORRY… M-Ma’am!” he turned and sprinted out the doors. The rest of the Wonderbolts blinked, then looked towards Spitfire. A heavy blush had drawn over her nose as she furrowed her brow and bit her lower lip. She looked at all of them and scowled.

“What are YOU all looking at!?” she snapped before pulling the little stallion back up into the air with her. He yelped in surprise, but at least it wasn’t Fleetfoot. “Oh,” Spitfire stopped and turned back. “Squad three, I need to talk to you guys,” she beckoned them, leaving Soarin and Fleetfoot alone by the entrance.

“What’s gotten into her?” Soarin wondered out loud. Fleetfoot giggled.

“Wave’s face almost did just now,” she sat up while snickering. Soarin glanced back at the doors. That was twice now. Something was up with Wave and Spitfire. He wondered if it had anything to do with Discord’s little trick with the false sexy Spitfire.

Soarin made up his mind. He’d have to wait until later because they were just way too busy now, but it was time to have a bro talk with Wave Chill. Soarin had plenty of experience with mare problems. Hell, his first encounter with Dash was nothing but one big over emotional angst fest. He felt the need to ask for Spitfire too.

Funny.

At one point Spitfire slapped him across the face to shape up and get after Dash. Now he was going to help her, using her own techniques, on a pony that liked her. Strange how the world works sometimes.

But not till later. Soarin was curious about this… tube of Surprise’s.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Poor Fire... so confused...

Poor wave... so derp... much fail... wow...

I wonder which of Surprise's ridiculous courses fleet chose for test 2 eh?

I barely got this out on time... i need to sleep now...

id expect the next one on saturday i guess

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 22: A Pipe Full of Surprises

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 22:

“Come on! Come on! Everypony in! Before my damn mane gets any greyer! Come on!” Silver Lining barked at the cadets as they quickly shuffled into the auxiliary gym. It didn’t take nearly as long with only a hundred cadets, but it only took a day for Silver to effectively intimidate them all. All he did was direct them around, but if any of the ponies lagged behind he got really creative with his threats. A majority of which were different ways to kick a pony in the ass.

Dash pushed through the doors with the rest of the cadets, and like most upon entering, blinked and stared up at the monstrosity that was set up before them. She ended up running into Thunderlane from behind, who in turn lurched forward and ran into Matteo. After Dash and Thunderlane regained their hooves, they walked up beside Matteo while viewing the… thing in the gym.

“Uh… should I be scared?” Thunderlane furrowed his brow.

“What is this thing?” Dash glanced up at Matteo. He shook his head.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he put plainly while scanning the large construct.

They were looking at what seemed to be a long, winding silver cylinder that had gone up in the auxiliary gym at some point while they were elsewhere. As Dash traced the tube along, she saw there was a clear area that looked like a finish line, and that the cylinder was, in fact, a tube. She looked up towards where the front end of the tube began. It was surrounded by a large box attached to the cylinder that was propped up by thick steel supports as was the rest of the tube.

What was in the tube? Hell if Dash knew. Fleetfoot made it clear more than once. Today was all about how they handle the unexpected. There was no way to prepare or be ready for whatever shenanigans were about to ensue. After fighting an uphill battle against a pie launching machine in thick fog, Dash was sure something ridiculous was ahead.

“See!? I told you guys no pranks until the next test!” Fleetfoot hopped up and flew in a lazy circle over the cadets as Silver Lining kicked the last one through the door. “But noooooooo, you all thought I was gonna pull a fast one! I know Soarin is a princess and all, but my word is just as good as his.”

“Just get them going!” Soarin’s voice came from off to the side.

“Quiet, princess!” Fleetfoot shouted as she flew back to the front of the group to give in instructions. “So as you can see…” she turned her back to them. “Behind me is a large tube,” she turned back around. “You have to fly through it,” she nodded. “Any questions?” she looked out into the cadets. Thunderlane slowly raised his hoof. “Didn’t think so! Surprise!” Fleetfoot called while backing away.

Dash blinked and flattened her ears. Those were supposed to be instructions? Gee, thanks for all the details Fleetfoot.

“HI!” Surprise dropped down from above and gave a huge smile to all the cadets. “Everypony say hello to one of my FAVORITE personal courses!” she motioned to the tube. “The Slide of Unconventional Possibilities!” she smiled as an explosion of confetti erupted behind her.

“Slide of Unconventional Possibilities?” Dash repeated while looking up at Matteo. Matteo looked down at her, then back towards Surprise.

“S.O.U.P?” Matteo put the acronym together.

“EXACTLY!” Surprise popped up from the feathers on his back. “It’s a tasty mixture of unexpected things cooked in a pot and served hot, hot, HOT!” she dove back into Matteo’s feathers. “WhooooooooOOOAAAAAOOF!!!” Surprise fell from the ceiling and landed flat on the ground in front of the cadets. She looked up and scratched her head. “Huh… that's never happened before…”

“Uh…” Thunderlane tipped his head to the side. “What sort of things would those be?”

“SILLY!” Surprise was suddenly right in front of Thunderlane and pressing her face completely against his. “Would it be the special S.O.U.P. surprise if I told you what the ingredients were?” she bounced her eyebrows up and down against his face. Her body contorted and flung away from Thunderlane with a loud SPROING as if her body was spring-loaded.

“Whoa!” Fleetfoot ducked as Surprise flung over her head and crashed into High Winds behind her. Fleetfoot winced as she watched the collision before turning back to the cadets. “Well then! To breed some competition, we’re going to have you cadets go two at a time. While we aren’t testing to see who gets out first, we do want to see who competes versus who goes through the motions!” The cadets began moving to form a line near the base pillar that held up the apparent starting line. “HOLD IT!” Fleetfoot threw her hooves out. The cadets all froze and looked back to her. “We’re gonna do this differently too! BLAZE!” Fleetfoot called down. Blaze was trying to untangle Surprise from High Winds. She stopped and glanced up. “All yours Blazey!”

“Rgh…” Blaze growled and dropped Surprise and High Winds onto the ground. Winds had fallen sleep anyway. “Stop calling me that,” she grinded her teeth and glared at Fleetfoot as they passed.

“Who’s the alpha mare?” Fleetfoot cooed slyly as they passed.

“Fuck you,” Blaze hissed back as Fleetfoot giggled all the way to the ground. “ALRIGHT LOSERS! LISTEN YER SHIT UP!” Blaze puffed her chest out as she hovered above the cadets. “You’re going two at time! Who will you be paired with?! It’s up to me to use my powers of matchmaking to find you the PERFECT RIVAL!”

“Aka, she’s gonna pick completely at random!” Fleetfoot yelled from the ground.

“SHUDDAP!” Blaze spat down towards Fleetfoot as she giggled away again. “First up is…” Blaze pushed her goggles up and eyed the one hundred cadets carefully as if she really was trying to determine something. “You and you!” she pointed at Twister and Thunderlane.

“What?” Thunderlane blinked and his ears flopped down.

“Well…” Twister suddenly slithered his body up onto Thunderlane’s back like a snake. “What are we waiting for…?” he sneered before extending his wings and taking off towards the start above them.

“Just my luck…” Thunderlane groaned as he followed.

“Good luck with… whatever the hell’s in there!” Dash chuckled as Thunderlane just shook his head in response. Dash watched as Thunderlane and Twister were allowed into the box. The Wonderbolts all hovered up and fastened a different pair of strange looking goggles to their eyes. Dash examined the length of the tube again and realized there was no way to see inside. There were small hatches littered around, but nothing like windows. Dash looked back at the Wonderbolts as they flew around the tube, looking closely at blank spots on it.

She put it together. The Wonderbolts had special infrared goggles to see them in the fog. Were these goggles that let them… see through things? Where did they get all these cool gadgets?

Dash’s suspicions were confirmed when she saw the Wonderbolts suddenly move their heads along the outside of the pipe as if they were keeping track of something moving. They could see into the pipe. A few faint yelps and screams sputtered out the finish end of the pipe. All the cadets turned and looked at the finish line with dread as the sound of the yelling resonated all the way through.

“OOOOOOOO!! That’s gonna leave a mark!” Soarin suddenly commented. Dash looked up and saw the rest of the Wonderbolts wincing as well. Fleetfoot did a single backward somersault while absolutely cracking up.

“WOW! He hit that hard! Good thing we had them sign the consent forms!” she chortled while clutching her sides. They all gradually moved along the pipe, giving Dash an idea of where the two were inside. Every few seconds the Wonderbolts would react to something happening inside. Most likely something unpleasant, but amusing to them. After about five minutes, the Wonderbolts gathered by the finish line. The pipe to the finish was against the ground and facing horizontally after a huge dip just before it. It looked like there was one final dive on the inside followed by leveling out and launching the occupants out with plenty of space to safely slow down once free from the pipe.

“Oo! OW! Oh god! GAH!” Thunderlane’s voice came from the inside. Twister suddenly shot out of the tube, did a quick flip and landed on his hooves, skidding to a stop before striking a gymnast finishing pose.

“TAADAA!!!” he yelled out. Immediately afterward, Thunderlane launched back first out of the pipe.

“OHHHH SHIIIIIIIT!” he yelled as he his plot smacked against the floor. He started painfully tumbling along the ground until finally coming to a stop after his face skidded on the floor for a few feet. Everypony, cadets and Wonderbolts alike, all cringed as he came to a full stop.

“Oh damn…” Soarin hovered over Thunderlane. They were hard to see with his black fur, but Thunderlane clearly had some nasty bruises. A few welts were all Soarin needed to see to figure that out.

“Ow… ow…” Thunderlane grimaced as he tried to push himself up. Spitfire quickly turned to Fire Streak.

“Fire, get the training staff in here, I get the feeling we’re gonna need them more than once,” she ordered. Fire saluted and made his way towards one of the side passage doors.

“I can’t believe he finished… did you see how many times he wiped out?” Soarin asked Spitfire as he pushed his goggles up and helped Thunderlane get to his hooves.

“Perseverance is a valuable trait,” Spitfire walked up and lightly held her hoof to Thunderlane’s shoulder. “It was sloppy cadet… but one hell of an effort. Hang tough, the trainers are on the way.”

Thunderlane just nodded and sighed as his body twitched in discomfort. Dash gulped as she saw the beat up state Thunderlane was in. What the hell was IN this thing?

“YOU AND YOU! YOU LOOK LIKE YOU HATE EACH OTHER’S ASS WITH A PASSION!” Blaze yelled as she pointed at two more cadets. Dash turned and saw two mares look at each other and shrug. Blaze was being completely random. Seeing as how there were a hundred of them, and they were only going two at a time. That meant fifty runs. This was going to take a while. Dash steeled her nerves for the incoming cacophony and did some light stretches and wing-ups to stay loose.

“Rainbow Dash… I’m scared… what’s in there?” Derpy approached Dash while dragging her hooves and looking up at the tube. Dash pushed through one more wing-up before standing up and glancing at the tube herself. She looked back down at Derpy, then over near the finish line.

Twenty-seven runs… and Dash still hadn’t been picked. Neither had Derpy, Matteo, or Storm Front. The Wonderbolt training staff had arrived soon after Thunderlane took a beating inside the pipe. They now had their hands full with multiple cadets who seemed a little banged up after their run. Although none of them looked half as beat up as Thunderlane. What the hell did he do in there? It sure made the Wonderbolts react.

“Don’t worry Derpy, Thunderlane has a history of… crashing into things…” she snickered, but gently draped a hoof over Derpy’s back. “Whatever’s in there, just take it at your pace,” Dash assured her. Derpy cracked a small smile and nodded. She looked like she was going to say something else, but she got distracted by Storm Front coming into the general vicinity to talk to Matteo. She quickly left Dash’s side to join them.

Dash chuckled as she watched Derpy approach Storm and Matteo. Derpy had said more than once she was scared of Matteo, even after Dash had told her he was a nice guy. Yet, with Storm Front over there, Derpy didn’t give a DAMN about Matteo being right there.

Dash couldn’t help but feel a little sad at the sight. Derpy was clearly drawn to Storm. It was no surprise, Storm was probably the nicest stallion Dash had ever met… and Derpy didn’t really get the amount of kindness she deserved. How long could Derpy stay afloat in the tryouts though? Dash hated thinking about it, but Derpy barely squeaked into the second day. Was she going to be forced away from Storm after today?

“OW! Like, STOP!”

Dash turned her head towards the trainers. She snickered as she saw Arctic Blast being looked at by a trainer. She had just finished her run. She came out of the pipe way before the stallion she was chosen to go with, but she had a large bruise on her right shoulder. It didn’t look very painful. Arctic was one of the skinniest ponies Dash had ever seen, so she probably bruised when a fly landed on her. She had white fur though, so the bruise was very visible and she was FUMING about it.

Dash blinked as she saw High Winds trot over as the trainers struggled to keep Arctic from squirming. High Winds stopped beside Arctic and began poking the bruise with a hoof over and over again. Arctic yelped each time while demanding High Winds stopped, but she kept doing it. Silver Lining was standing right next to them, but didn’t do anything. Eventually Blaze sped towards them and pulled Winds away while saying something about being a little too cruel.

Dash was not quite as familiar with squad two, but she was seeing little things as the tryouts went on.

High Winds was interesting. She always seemed tired and half asleep, but she was also very blunt and had a bit of a guilty pleasure in being overly blunt and harsh to those she disliked. Blaze looked nearly identical to Spitfire. Dash wondered if there was any relation. If there was, Spitfire definitely got the maturity.

Blaze was wild, crazy, and swore way too much. Also she seemed to get into many fights she could never win. Fleetfoot demonstrated that for all of them in the barracks earlier.

Dash hadn’t gotten much of a read on Silver Lining yet. He was tough, stoic, serious, and very creative with threats. She hadn’t seen him do anything besides yell at the cadets so far. He also looked old. He was definitely older than Misty. Maybe he was in his forties? He had to be at least. Dash knew that Wonderbolt ranks were determined by ability, not quite by experience. If Silver was able to maintain the highest non-lead squad rank, captain of squad two, at his older age, then he had to be a badass.

She had briefly met Wave Chill before. Soldier type. Yes pony. A bit robotic around senior officers. Speaking of Wave Chill, where was he? Dash looked around the while gym. Every member of squad one and three was there, but Wave was missing from two.

“YOU AND YOU!” Blaze suddenly flew up to them. Dash’s head snapped up, hoping Blaze was pointing at her.

Unfortunately, she was pointing at Matteo and Derpy. Dash’s pupils shrank.

“M-m-m-me?” Derpy pointed at her while glancing at Matteo. Matteo looked down at her with a regular expression. He did not glare nor give any look meant to intimidate. But a big scary griffon was looking down at her. Derpy squeaked, quickly grabbed Storm Front’s left wing, and covered herself with it.

“Yes, you Blondie! You and the big ass feather bag!” Blaze confirmed. The look Matteo gave Blaze was definitely a glare. Blaze cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, what up G? You wanna go?” she taunted in a condescending tone while putting up hoofticuffs and bobbing back and forth in the air. Matteo rolled his eyes and grunted before spreading his large wings and slowly taking off towards the start.

“Um… um…” Derpy squeaked while fidgeting and rubbing her hooves against two of Storm’s wing feathers. Storm reached a hoof up and patted her on the head. She looked up at him hesitantly.

“Go ahead Derpy, Matteo may be scary looking, but he won’t hurt you,” Storm gave her a wink. Derpy gulped before unwrapping herself from Storm’s wing and taking off very slowly towards the start.

Dash watched as Derpy and Matteo entered the box, then turned and approached Storm as he preened the two feathers Derpy had nervously rubbed out of place with her hooves.

“I hope she’s alright in there…” Dash made small talk as Storm refolded his wing.

“I’m sure Matteo won’t do anything to her,” he answered while cracking his neck. Dash shook her head.

“I’m not so much worried about him, I’m worried about whatever’s in this… crazy huge clusterf— tube thing,” Dash confirmed. She gulped as she saw the Wonderbolts moving along, implying the course had begun. Storm merely nodded as he sat down and kept his eyes firmly fixed on the pipe. Dash glanced at him, her curiosity getting the better of her. “So Derpy’s a real big fan of you, huh?” she threw out. Storm’s reaction was not what she expected. He didn’t flinch in surprise, nor did his eyes widen. He just smiled and shrugged.

“She’s a very nice mare,” he began. “I haven’t really done anything besides be myself.”

“Well, have you seen the way she looks at you?” Dash nudged him as she sat down beside him. He turned and gave her a slightly uncomfortable expression.

“Getting a little personal here isn’t it?”

“Hey, I’ve been friends with her for a long time, I’m just curious,” Dash crossed her hooves while looking back up at the pipe. Storm sighed while swishing his tail back and forth.

“Well… I’m not gonna lie, Derpy is very pleasant. She’s happy, carefree, and bubbly. I’ve done nothing but smile every time she’s around,” a small smile cracked on the edges of his mouth, but they almost instantly turned down. “I’ve only known her for two days, but… I have taken a liking to her. I just don’t know though. We’re in different places. Plus, who knows what’s going to happen here.”

“Whoa there,” Dash extended her wing and jabbed him in the shoulder. He jumped slightly and turned to her while rubbing his shoulder.

“What was that for?”

“Something I’ve heard in the past and I’m stopping you right now,” Dash winked at him. “Look, distance is a bad excuse. It’s way too early to know for sure if the two of you could be a thing, but don’t say it won’t work because of distance,” Dash sighed while smiling. “It’s not like Cloudsdale is very far from Ponyville. You can easily see her again if you want. But if something does happen between you two… make it work. Trust me, I’ve made it work,” she nodded to him. Storm blinked at her.

“You’re in a long distance relationship?” Storm asked. Dash pounded a hoof to her chest.

“And proud of it!” she chuckled. “If you find another worth the trouble, it’s totally worth it.”

Storm looked away as he thought it over, but both of them were caught off guard by sudden laughter from above.

“PFFFFF!!!!!!! HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”

Dash and Storm looked up to see Fleetfoot near the pipe, laughing so hard that she almost couldn’t stay afloat.

“That just looks… painful…” Soarin cringed beside her. He turned and looked at Fleetfoot as she did multiple forward tumbles in the air while laughing hysterically. “You are terrible,” he said while shaking his head.

“HahahaWHOA!” Fleetfoot yelped as she nearly dropped like a rock out of the air.

From below Dash and Storm looked up with dread as squad three gathered around with Soarin and Fleetfoot at the one particular spot near the halfway point of the pipe. Squad two and Spitfire kept following the line of the pipe.

Something had happened. Dash began dreading that Derpy got hurt. She flinched as Storm suddenly stood up and took off towards the stationary gathering of Wonderbolts.

“What happened!?” he yelled as he approached.

“WHOOOAAAAA buddy…” Lightning Streak flew up in front and pressed his hooves to Storm’s chest. “Go wait your turn.”

“But… did something happen?!”

“Yeah bro, painful shit,” Lightning tipped his goggles up.

“Is—”

“Come on now, let’s just back off,” Fire Streak flew up and joined his brother’s side as the two pushed Storm back down to the ground. They pushed him all the way back down to Dash. Lightning Streak shrugged.

“Don’t go all bonkers bro, we’ll help him,” he put his goggles back on as he and Fire Streak took back off towards the tube. Storm blinked.

“Him?” he scrunched his face.

“Look!” Dash pointed towards the finish line.

Squad two and Spitfire neared the end of the pipe and spread out by the finish line.

Derpy flew out of the pipe. She had a huge smile on her face.

“That was so much FUN!!!!” she yelled out as she slowed down. Surprise was suddenly all the way over by the finish line. She bounced up and down in the air beside Derpy.

“I know! Isn’t it?!” Surprise yelled while the two bounced happily.

“Huh…” Storm blinked, sat back down, and refolded his wings. Dash snickered.

“The gallant switch sure flipped on quickly there, eeeehhhh?” she nudged him again. Storm sighed.

“I was worried about her,” he admitted. Dash smiled as she got up to do a few more wing-ups.

“Like I said, don’t use distance as an excuse,” Dash put plainly as she stretched her wings out.

They both kept an eye on the tube as eventually Soarin, Fire Streak, and Lightning Streak entered the pipe through a hatch. A few moments later, they emerged and the gathering began following the pipe again. Did Matteo get stuck? How the hell did he manage that?

Eventually Matteo shot out of the finish and slammed his talons and paws to the ground. He skidded to a stop and fell to the ground while panting. The training staff was over by him immediately. He didn’t look too banged up, but there was a large chunk of feathers missing from his left side right before his lion body. He quickly dismissed the trainers, claiming to be fine. However, he started walking with his back legs spread more apart than usual. It didn’t look right at all. He was quickly approached again, and this time he couldn’t fight them off.

“Yikes… and I was worried about Derpy…” Dash chuckled as she saw Derpy and Surprise still talking and giggling off to the side.

“YOU TWO! I CAN SEE FIRES BURNING AGAINST EACH OTHER’S SORRY GUTS!” Blaze zipped up to them.

She was pointing at Dash and Storm Front. Dash glanced at Storm.

“Pfff…” Dash tried to hold it in while covering her face with her wings.

“You think this is a damn GAME?!” Blaze got in Dash’s face. Dash barely flinched. Blaze tried. She tried real hard. But she just wasn’t intimidating. At all. If she was related to Spitfire, she got the short end of the stick for sure.

“Fine, we’re going,” Dash chuckled as she and Storm took off.

Finally, it was her turn. Dash was getting sick of waiting. She flew down beside Storm as they ascended.

“So just cause I think you’re a nice guy doesn’t mean I’m not gonna kick your ass in this,” she jeered while giving him a light body bump as they flew. Storm lifted an eyebrow and smirked.

“Bring it on, Colors,” he taunted back.

“You do have a snarky side!” Dash chuckled as they reached the large box at the start of the tube. It was just a large wooden box that looked to be about twelve by twelve feet sticking to the start of the ten by ten foot tube. They approached the simple door, but were stopped as Surprise shot up in front of them, glaring.

“Y’ALL… READY… FOR… THIS?!” she emphasized each word while slightly tipping her head more to the right with each one. Dash and Storm glanced at each other, and then looked back to Surprise.

“Er…”

“NO! NOPONY EVER IS!” She appeared behind them and shoved them both through the door. They tumbled in and rolled to a stop on the floor. Dash sat up first, shaking her mane out. The box was completely empty on the inside. Nothing but a single light bulb hanging overhead.

“Well… this should be fun,” she chuckled, but then she blinked as she stared straight forward at a wall. There was no entrance into the tube. Storm picked himself up off the floor and looked towards the wall as well.

“Uh… what are we supposed to—” he looked behind them. “What?!” he remarked. Dash quickly turned and looked back… at a solid wall.

“HUH?!” she rubbed her eyes. The door was gone, vanished as if it never existed. “What the hell?” she looked to Storm, who only shrugged.

“So what the hell are we supposed to—” Storm stopped as both he and Dash heard a quiet sliding noise. They both looked to the wall on the right. A small little door had opened.

A penguin emerged from the door.

It casually made its way past Dash and Storm, never hesitating or stopping to look at them. Dash and Storm just silently watched it as it made its way from one side of the box to the other before opening another small door with its flipper and ducking inside. Dash and Storm blinked and looked at each other.

Suddenly, the floor began shifting. Dash and Storm both yelped as they felt the floor moving beneath them. Out of nowhere, the floor tilted down from the walls, then catapulted towards the wall connected to the pipe. Dash and Storm both shielded themselves for a collision, but at the last second, the wall dropped and they were flung into the tube. It was pitch black inside. The only source of light was the light bulb from the box that was slowly growing fainter as they careened into the tube.

“RGH!” Dash flattened out and extended her wings, but she had no idea where she was going, she couldn’t see a thing, nor could she see Storm. Then something opened in front of them. Dash shielded her eyes as the light poured in right after her eyes had somewhat adjusted to the dark. She felt the nip of very cold air suddenly prick her body. She opened her eyes.

She and Storm had been hurled into a pipe that was completely lined with ice. It explained the sudden, severe cold, but what was this supposed to accomplish? Dash blinked as Storm took off down the pipe.

“Ah!” Dash quickly remembered, this was a test, and they wanted them to compete. She pumped her wings and sped up as the pipe began to wind to and fro. The cold was biting at her and making her fur stand on end, but beyond that, was this supposed to present a challenge?

As soon as Dash thought about it, an extremely sharp U-turn approached. It was right after another turn, so Dash was caught completely off guard by it. She tried to hit the brakes as she turned, but there was no way she wasn’t going to hit the wall of ice.

Ahead of her, Storm Front was in the same bind, but as he neared the wall, he suddenly turned his body to face the approaching wall. He extended his hooves, struck them against the wall, and was propelled in the other direction, continuing down the pipe. Dash reached her hooves out to try and kick off the icy wall, but as soon as her hooves made contact, they lost traction and her body crashed against the wall.

“YEEOW!” Dash shivered as the sting of cold clawed at her underbelly. She tried to push off, but each attempt just made her hooves slip uncontrollably. She slid down the wall as she rounded the U-turn and down to the floor of the pipe. She concentrated, realizing her hooves would only slip more if she hurried. She was sliding down the pipe, but she didn’t think the Wonderbolts would find it very impressive if she body surfed the whole way down.

She carefully pushed her hooves down while extending her wings, managing to catch the air and lifting herself from the ice. A feeling of relief rushed over her with her body no longer pressed to the cold.

“Huh?” She looked down as she regained her flight.

Six penguins, riding a mattress, slid past her down the pipe. The penguin in front was wearing a red hat and overalls. They all looked up at her before they flew by and disappeared around the corner.

Dash shook her head and focused down the pipe. This course was designed by Surprise, there was no use questioning anything. Just go!

Dash took off around the corner, zipping past the penguins and doing her best to make up lost ground. She hit a straightaway and caught a glimpse of Storm Front ahead, making another sharp turn. Again he turned and tapped off the wall, shooting in the desired direction. Dash was too far away to see how he was doing it, but she refused to body board it again. She maintained her speed and hugged the left wall. When the pipe turned hard to the right, she used Twister’s Spiral Turn while touching her hooves to the wall, followed by sharply pumping her wings in a full follow through to use Matteo’s Air Burst. She angled her legs to brace her body as the Air Burst propelled her forward. Her hooves slid against the wall, sling shotting her around the outside wall and down the straight away after. She was slowly closing the distance between her and Storm.

They approached what looked like a zigzag pattern in the pipe. Dash used the straightaway beforehoof to her advantage, closing as much space as possible between her and Storm in case he used that technique again. Although a zigzag was much more manageable than a U-turn, she wondered if he would even go for it.

“Huh?” Dash watched Storm as she closed in and he reached the pipe pattern. He wasn’t even changing his flight path. He was going to hit the wall! Then he turned towards the wall in the wrong direction. Was he nuts?!

But Storm did not crash. He flipped around, striking his back hooves against the wall. It propelled him hard towards the first corner of the crooked pipe. He reached his front hooves out, and repeated the motion, ricocheting off the first corner towards the second. Storm proceeded to bounce his way through the zigzag pattern seamlessly without losing any speed.

Dash’s mouth hung open in awe as she slowed down to weave normally through the pattern. How the HELL did he do that? She only caught a brief glimpse of it. He wasn’t just kicking off the wall. Each time he did, his front or back hooves were slightly staggered as he hit the wall. She’d have to see it up close.

Great. Here she was stumbling around while Storm Front showed off some wicked moves. She had to pick it up.

She rounded the last zigzag, spotting another turn ahead. She pitched hard to the right, making a clean turn.

“Whoa!” she quickly pumped her wings down as the pipe suddenly turned upward. She pitched up, coming over the top of the sudden hill, but— “OOF!” As soon as she came up, Storm Front came flying backwards and crashed into her. The two tumbled for a moment, but broke apart and regained flight. Storm turned to her, but she didn’t even stop to think about it. Dash propelled herself back upward.

She emerged in a new pipe. She eyed it quizzically as she flew into it. The sides of the pipe looked different, almost soft… and rubbery… with multiple colors. There was a sudden dip in the pipe ahead. Dash turned down, only to see too late that the dip was less than three feet down.

“Yikes!” she shielded herself as she struck the wall… and bounced wildly back in the other direction. “What the—!” she freaked out as she began bouncing off the wall continuously. Up, down, left, right, every direction. She couldn’t regain control. It was like she was in a bounce castle and every wall was like a super ball.

Suddenly Storm’s hooves extended out and caught her as he flew by. He quickly let go of her and continued down the tube, being careful not to touch the incredibly bouncy walls. Dash blinked, wondering why Storm had helped her, but she quickly put the thought aside and took off after him.

She caught up to him fast, but followed his example by slowing down and making her way around the turns carefully. The pipe winded and turned with much less sharpness, but one false move and she might be bouncing forever again.

But Dash’s competitiveness got the better of her. She had been behind long enough. She wanted the Wonderbolts to see her in the lead. She took a reckless chance and sped up as they approached a turn that was slightly sharper. She closed the distance between them little by little, catching up to his back hooves right as they began to turn.

Dash instantly regretted her speedup. She pitched hard to the left to make the turn. She passed Storm in the process, but right before she could even out, her body bounced roughly against the wall. The rubber wall propelled her across the pipe towards the opposite wall as it straightened out. There was a straight away ahead, but Dash found herself bouncing back and forth down the length of it.

“Oo! Ow! Ah! Ee!” she grunted and squeaked as she continuously bounced and bounced and bounced and bounced.

This was heavily embarrassing. What a great show she was putting on. What was worse, she could see a new pipe approaching once again. If she didn’t regain control soon, she’d possibly have a painful collision in the very near future. It grew closer and closer. Dash tried to fight the bouncing, but every time she tried to slow herself down, her wings were thrown off balance by another bounce.

The new pipe was drawing near. Dash braced herself for a painful impact.

“OOF!” her eyes opened in surprise to see Storm holding onto her. Again? He caught her again? He let go of her and made a sharp turn around the first corner of the new pipe. Dash shook her head in confusion as she made the turn herself. “What?” Dash blinked as she came around into a long straightaway… that was littered with trees and wildlife like a forest. A deer was front and center, eating grass and looking up at Dash.

Ignore it. Just ignore it. There’s no rhyme or reason, just GO!

Dash followed after Storm, weaving through the trees and catching up to him. Storm suddenly veered directly towards one of the trees.

Oh no.

Not this time.

Dash veered over as close as she could. She was going to see how he did this.

Storm staggered his hooves as he came near. Dash focused her eyes on his hooves.

It was fast… really fast. Dash almost didn’t catch it as he propelled off the trunk and proceeded to bounce his way through the forest, ricocheting off the tree trunks at an incredible speed just as he had through the zigzag in the ice pipe.

Just as she though, he wasn’t just kicking or punching off the walls. It was very precise and very quick, but he was using some sort of rapid tap on the surfaces. He pushed one hoof forward, hitting the surface to almost completely counter his momentum, and then he punched hard with the other hoof, completely reversing the course of his forward motion while turning his body in the direction he wanted to go.

It all happened so quickly it only seemed like he was just kicking off.

Dash pondered it as she continued to duck and weave through the trees.

“OH SHIT!” she yelped as two trees, stuck really close together, appeared before her. She twisted her body to make it as vertically flat as possible, squeezing between the two trunks while only lightly scraping her stomach against one of them. “Whoa…” she sighed in relief, but blinked as she saw a couple of black feathers fall off her arms, body and mane. She glanced back to see black feathers all over the small opening.

She put two and two together.

Oh man… was that where Matteo got stuck? And seeing how fast Dash was going before they appeared… ouch… that HAD to hurt.

She focused back forward as she cleared the last trees and found herself making a turn into yet another new pipe. Just how many of these were there?

“Whoa!” Dash suddenly put on the breaks as she came around the corner. The pipe dipped down… and as it dipped down, it was nearly filled to the brim with water. There was barely a foot of space between the top of the pipe and the water. “What?! Are you KIDDING ME?!” Dash exclaimed as she set down at the edge of the water and frantically looked around.

Storm Front wasn’t there. That meant…

“Ooooo! I will NOT be discouraged!” Dash smacked her hooves against her head and dove right into the water.

Dash wasn’t a bad swimmer, but she wasn’t too stellar either. Driven by her urge to catch up, she swam vigorously through the water, coming up for air whenever she needed to. Here was a place where her training would pay off. Her wings were useless underwater, so she had to rely on her body strength to get through this.

She swam around two turns, one right after the other, and to her relief, this was the shortest pipe yet. She saw the pipe tip back up as she slowly came around the bend. She also caught a view of Storm out of the water and vigorously shaking himself off.

There was a thought… Dash suddenly realized something that made her beyond confused as she clambered out of the water and began shaking herself dry the best she could.

She had seen multiple ponies finish… not one of them looked wet. How?

She stopped thinking so hard when she saw Storm take off to the best of his ability with wet wings and turn the next corner nearby. Dash shook herself out one more time before breaking into a gallop and leaping up while pumping her wings. They felt soaked and heavy, but she would not fall behind.

She rounded the turn right behind Storm into what looked like a simple, straight tube that had absolutely nothing in it. She could hear what sounded like a loud humming noise, but could see nothing in their way. Dash focused down the length of it, determined to get in front.

Then Storm suddenly yelped and fell sharply to the floor, his hooves slamming hard to the ground. Dash’s eyes widened as she suddenly felt an invisible force slam hard against her back. She went shooting downward and barely readied her hooves in time to land cleanly. She forced her head up the best she could, to see the top of this particular pipe was lined with large vents. The vents were blasting air at them with incredible strength. Dash looked back down to see Storm had begun advancing on his hooves down the pipe with quickened but heavy steps.

Unlikely possibilities was right.

Slippery surfaces…

Rubber walls…

A forest…

Swimming…

And now this.

These were situations Dash never thought she’d be in.

She forced her body up and took a few steps, only to get her body forced back down by the air. She had to concentrate here too.

Don’t rush! You’re strong enough to pound through this! What’s the point of all these muscles if you can’t push your way through a little breeze?!

Dash forced her body up, tensing her legs to stabilize as she locked onto Storm ahead of her. She pushed herself forward, first in a staggered walk, then in a strong stride, and eventually she managed to form a slow gallop. Storm had only managed a normal walking pace. So Dash not only caught him, but passed him as they made their way down the straightaway. After taking the lead, Dash felt a surge of adrenaline that made her feel like she could push a train. She broke into a full gallop, making full use of her well-earned strength to get all the way to the end of the vents.

“AH!” she yelled victoriously as she broke free from the powerful air ducts and instantly picked back up into the air.

Oh look… she was all dried off. That explained it.

She gave a quick look to see Storm still struggling through the air. He was stronger than Dash, but it looked like his larger body gave the air more to push down upon. How the hell did Arctic or Derpy get through this part? A mystery Dash would probably never figure out, nor would she waste time thinking about. She turned the corner and dipped down again into…hopefully… the last part of the tube. She was getting tired. This was a bit of an endurance test too.

She turned the corner and flinched as she careened towards her next obstacle.

Exercise balls…

Exercise balls... EVERYWHERE…

Dash hovered for a moment as she saw the cacophony before her. It was another straight shot… but the walls were made of the same bouncy rubber as the second tube… and large exercise balls were bouncing ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Dash could place absolutely no reason for this section. It was like Surprise had thrown together a bunch of actual unlikely circumstances… and then got to this point and ran out of ideas.

Not wanting Storm to catch up, Dash stopped hesitating and shot into the pipe of flying balls. It wasn’t cluttered to the max, but the balls were bouncing and flying past her incredibly fast. She pitched and weaved and weaved and pitched, nearing the end of the end of the short pipe and doing all she could to avoid contact with—

“ARGH!” Dash grunted as one of the balls launched up from the floor and directly into her stomach. She flailed as she was forced upward. She knew full well what was coming next. She could do nothing to stop her momentum as her back struck the rubbery ceiling. She bounced back down, then up then down. It was a repeat of the bouncy pipe. She neared the edge again. This was gonna hurt.

“GOTCHA!” Storm dove in… and caught her… for the THIRD TIME. He let her go and sped ahead as the pipe dipped down.

What the hell? Why did he keep saving her? It was actually bothering her now. THIS WAS A COMPETITION!

Dash shot after him, dipping into the pipe. She expected it to be another short drop, but her eyes widened as she looked down into a pipe that extended straight down.

Realization hit. There was only one section of the pipe shaped like this, the dive right before the finish line. Dash glanced back and forth as she dove after Storm. There actually appeared to be nothing special about this pipe. It was merely a freefall to the finish. Dash flattened her body and pumped her wings. She wanted to catch up, but she didn’t have much space to do so. She couldn’t go too fast because she risked slamming into the pipe as it angled out at the bottom.

Dash saw only one option to catch up… and it was a long shot. Storm was already angling out as he neared the bottom of the dive. Instead of slowing down, Dash sped up and angled herself towards the wall of the pipe, opposite of the direction it flattened out at the bottom. This was going to be either the coolest thing ever… or a one-way ticket to the emergency room. Why risk it? Because these were the Wonderbolts watching her!

As the angle of the pipe drew near, Dash forced her wings in opposite directions. The force threw her into Twister’s Spiral Turn. With the twist she was able to angle herself so her back hooves were facing the wall, slightly staggered.

The moment of truth. Storm glanced over his shoulder just in time to see it happen.

Dash gave the wall a hard tap with one hoof and instantly kicked the wall as hard as she could with the other. She launched from the wall at an incredible speed, angling perfectly with the pipe and searing towards the finish line, and still twisting a little from the Spiral Turn. She used the remaining spin in her twist to give her the extra boost she needed for Matteo’s Air Burst. She pumped her wings down; causing a burst of wind that propelled her further and effectively doubled her speed.

The gap between her and Storm closed quickly…

And they crossed the finish line at the exact same time.

The two fired out of the pipe and both threw their wings out to slow down. Finally free of the confined space, Dash felt relieved. That was… BY FAR… the most complicated physical experience of her life…

She blinked as she caught a glimpse of Storm veering around and heading down towards the rest of the cadets who had finished. She glared at him as he passed her. Something in particular was nagging her. She followed after him and the two landed, but before she could say anything to him, they were surrounded by trainers to get checked out.

It’s not like they were going anywhere. Dash had made a mental note to confront him later.

Soarin and Spitfire hovered side by side above the end of the pipe. Soarin glanced at Spitfire as she nodded in approval.

“I’d say that’s the best I’ve seen yet,” she commented.

“Which one?” Soarin asked.

“Both,” she tipped her goggled up and smiled. “Dash may stumble a bunch, but her recovery is always incredible. Not to mention that’s the third move I’ve seen her copy. Storm Front is quite a strong flyer. That bouncing move is something I’ve never seen before. And of course, I’m sure you noticed the last thing about him…” she trailed off. Soarin blinked and thought about it.

“Oh. Yeah.” Soarin realized what she was talking about. Soarin breathed a sigh of relief. He was worried about Dash going in, worried about her little slips-ups, and worried how Spitfire would react. It seemed Spitfire was focusing on more than the overall performance. She was really looking at the little things that set each cadet apart.

Storm Front specifically…

No other cadet had…

Soarin found himself pondering. Spitfire was seeing it. Now he was too. Storm Front was really standing out, just like Dash. Twister and Matteo were really creating a buzz themselves… as well as a couple other ponies. But Storm and Dash were stellar. Especially after this test, and what he saw Storm Front do… Soarin realized he might have a little trouble selecting who would earn the elite spot.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Was that some crazy stuff or what? ;D

And... if anybody caught the absolutely HORRENDOUS reference i made... feel free to come at my house with fire and pitchforks. Seriously, i encourage it.

Anyway, i wonder what Dash is all bent about with Storm?

Also... Soarin... what are you thinking? What made Storm Front stand out?

Eh? EHHHHHH? i'll stop teasing now.

Anyway... it happened with my last chapter actually, but this is now officially my longest fic... and we're barely a 1/4 through it... i've created a monster :O

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 23: Fathers

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 23:

Rainbow Dash floated grumpily through the mess hall, carrying her tray, and looking for one specific pony. Other cadets were instinctively moving out of her way. She was pretty much radiating irritation.

Why did Storm Front save her three times during the crazy pipe flight? Fleetfoot made it clear beforehoof that they wanted to see competition. COMPETITION. As in try to reach the goal before your opponent. As in why the hell would he help her? It made no sense. Dash’s competitive brain was screaming at her to get answers.

Not only that, but Dash was sure it didn’t look good to the Wonderbolts that she needed to be saved three times. She was a tough pony! She could’ve taken a few painful crashes! It wouldn’t have been the first time.

She hovered up to get more of a bird’s eye view. It was still hard to find a specific cadet even though the crowd was considerably thinner since day one. It didn’t help that Storm had a fairly generic color scheme.

Dash spotted Matteo instantly. It was pretty hard to miss him. Dash was in luck. Maybe their earlier teamwork in the fake mess hall had bred some camaraderie, because Storm was in the process of sitting down across from Matteo.

Target locked. Intercept.

Dash hovered back down and quickly made her way over to the table. Matteo glanced as she moved in and tried to greet her, but Dash didn’t even look at him. She slammed her tray down, plopped down in the seat next to Matteo, and glared straight ahead at Storm. Storm blinked as his eyes met the attack of hers.

“Uh… hi?” he greeted quizzically. He and Matteo glanced at each other as Dash took a large bite out of her wheat roll, and chewed it angrily while continuously staring at Storm. “What?” Storm finally asked.

“I’m trying to figure you out,” Dash said with her mouth full of bread. She swallowed and took a swig of her water. “What’s your game? What are you trying to pull?” she sharpened her glare further.

“Wait, are you talking about the test?” he put together.

“No shit Thunder Back!” Dash rolled her eyes. “What was with all of the damsel in distress catching?” she got right to the point. Storm just kept eyeing her and blinking, and then it hit him.

“Wait… you’re angry because… I caught you?” he furrowed his brow. Dash stood up.

“It was a competition! Why would you help me?” she grilled him.

“Uh…”

“And come on, do I look like a frail little flower? I can take a few bruises!”

“I just…”

“I don’t need your help to get through this stuff, I can—” she was cut off as Matteo reached over, clamped his talons over her head, and forced her to sit back down.

“Rainbow Dash, calm down. If you want to know so badly, you’ll have to let him speak,” he said while holding her down. Dash huffed, puffed her cheeks, and crossed her hooves, whipping her tail around fiercely behind her to vent her anger while she waited for an answer.

“Thank you,” Storm said to Matteo as he took a deep breath, sighed, and looked at Dash. “First of all, you're welcome,” he said sternly. “And second? I don’t like seeing other ponies get hurt, I—”

“I can take a little pain you know, I’m not a weakling!” Dash lost her restraint and lashed out.

“I DON’T care!” Storm retorted strongly, surprising Dash. “Look,” Storm put his elbows on the table and rubbed his hooves against his temples. “I don’t care who it is, or how tough they are. I hate seeing ponies get hurt. If I see a pony in danger, and it is in my power to save them from harm, I will. It’s a reflex. It’s just who I am, okay? I would’ve done the same for anypony,” he put his hooves down on the table and looked at Dash.

Dash’s expression had changed completely. She suddenly felt terrible. All she could think of was how his actions affected her. His kindness was clear, and she was grateful for him saving her the pain, but all she could see was his actions humiliating her. Humiliating how? Okay, so he stopped her from taking a few blows. Sure, the Wonderbolts saw her slip up, but his actions also gave her the ability to finish the course cleanly… and here she was yelling at him?

“Oh gosh… sorry,” Dash’s ears drooped. “Geez, now I feel like a bitch.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Storm shook his head. “I can see how you may have taken it the wrong way. Now you know why, so no offense taken,” he let it go so easily too. He was too nice. Dash felt like she had just stepped on him and he just let it go?

Storm glanced up at her again as he chewed on some spinach leaves. Dash looked mortified. She was frowning, her ears were dropping as far as they could go, and she stopped eating. Storm quickly tried to change the subject.

“So during the test… I glanced back just in time to see it before the finish line. You used my Surface Tap move. How did you know the steps?” he asked, trying to make her feel better with some praise.

“Heh,” Matteo let a chuckle slip, catching Storm’s attention. “You aren’t the first she’s copied,” he smirked while glancing at Dash. She saw them both staring at her and blushed sheepishly.

“Oh, uh…” she rubbed the back of her head, “I guess… I’m just a fast learner.”

“You used Soarin’s signature move earlier too,” Storm smiled and nodded at her. “You can copy abilities you only see once? That’s quite a talent,” he complimented. Dash blushed a little harder. She loved getting praise. Whenever she got it from other ponies who were also awesome, she never knew what to say. She quickly cleared her throat and puffed her chest out pridefully.

“Thanks! I mean…” she quickly deflated. “Well… yeah I can copy abilities, but I don’t really have one of my own. When I make a sonic boom, the light bounces off my mane and tail to make a rainbow effect… but that’s not really anything special.”

“You think being able to do other new moves on the fly isn’t special?!” Storm chuckled as he threw back some water. Matteo let a snicker go as well.

“As Storm said, that is quite unique,” Matteo took over. “I did some research on the Wonderbolts before traveling here. I wanted to know if they were worth my time. There was an interesting bit about there being only one other pony who had a similar mimicking ability. You are a rare find for them to be sure,” Matteo patted Dash on the back a little hard.

“OOF!” She grunted and almost went face first into her plate.

“Say Matteo, you had a little mishap in the last test,” Storm smirked at Matteo. Matteo’s eyes widened very slightly. “I even saw a bunch your feathers in the tree pipe,” Storm chuckled. Matteo grunted and moved one of his wings to cover the patch of missing feathers on his left side. Dash joined in the friendly jeering.

“Yeah big guy, you were walking all funny afterward too! What happened there?” she nudged him. Matteo sighed.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” he stated firmly. Dash threw her hooves out.

“Aw, come on. I got humiliated by the hoovesy white knight over here. Level with me!”

“Hoovesy white knight?” Storm murmured to himself. Matteo rolled his eyes.

“I hit something you don’t have… really hard… then lost control and got stuck between two trees,” he explained before quickly digging back into his food. Dash blinked, but Storm reacted quickly.

“OOOOO!!!!!” Storm winced and put his hooves between his legs. “I felt it just thinking about it!”

“Huh?” Dash flattened her brow, then her eyes widened and her ears flopped down. “Oh! OH! HA…HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” Dash fell sideways onto the seat beside her as she cracked up.

“Oh jeez, don’t laugh Dash! You have no idea how painful that… Oooo, and at that speed?” Storm chuckled. “Mares are so cruel," he and Matteo both joined Dash in finding the amusement of the situation.

They all shared a light laugh as Dash glanced up at both of them. She came in here on a warpath, did her yelling and got it thrown right back at her, but she liked these guys. Just as with Soarin, she loved her Ponyville friends to death, but it was very nice to hang with others who shared her direct interests.

Dash looked at Storm specifically, curious about something else they had mentioned briefly the first time she really sat down and talked to him.

“Say Storm, we brought up our parents before…” she didn’t notice, but Storm flinched slightly. “I’m still curious if they knew each other. Where did your parents work? My dad worked at the weather factory on the edge of town and my mother was on the weather team,” Dash finally noticed something was up. Storm’s ears had slowly drooped down while he was talking.

“No, neither of them did those things,” he began before sighing. Before, the topic of parents skimmed right by, but asking specifically seemed to bring up some less than good memories for Storm. “My mom was a cloudscaper… my dad… I don’t know what my dad does,” he looked to the side while putting an elbow on the table and rested his cheek in his hoof.

“Oh, uh…” Dash gritted her teeth. “I don’t mean to pry.”

“It’s alright,” Storm shrugged. “My mom and dad… don’t really get along. In fact they aren’t married. Apparently I was the product of… a drunken night,” he explained. Dash’s eyes widened. This got heavy real quick. “My mom is always yelling and complaining about ‘my good for nothing father, who knocked me up and left me with a son.’”

“So you never knew your father?” Matteo asked straightforwardly. Dash was too nervous to speak. Storm sighed and shook his head.

“No, I saw my dad every month or so. He always flew in when my mother wasn’t around, asked me how I was holding up, dropped a bag of bits in my lap, patted me on the head, and would leave before mom could get home. He stopped showing up about half a year ago,” Storm shrugged and smiled. “My mom can say all she wants about him, but he always came back and always dropped off money for us. I don’t know how he got it, but he cared enough do his part in supporting us. I hope he’s alright.”

“Gee… I… uh…” Dash didn’t know what to say. Storm chuckled and waved a hoof.

“Sorry, depressing sob story. I like to think I turned out fine… I guess the way my dad cared and tried regardless of my mom rubbed off on me.”

“That’s putting it lightly. You’re like… nice guy 101.” Dash found a path to humor and quickly took it.

“Then I am doing something right I guess,” Storm smiled and sat back up straight. Dash smiled back, and then looked at Matteo. She found herself curious here too, and since they were on the subject, why not?

“What about you big fella?” she asked. Matteo blinked and looked down at her. “I bet you were a hoofful when you were younger. What are your parents like?”

“Hmph,” Matteo looked up proudly. “My mother is a lieutenant in the Griffon Royal Guard. My father was the former Master of the Sky.”

“Whoa! Of the Sky Wings!?” Storm reacted before Dash could. How did Dash never know about them? Looks like she was just THAT focused on the Wonderbolts.

“I see you know your griffon history,” Matteo cracked a small smile at Storm. “Correct. My father was once Master of the Sky.”

“Yet they still turned you away?” Dash recalled. Matteo sighed.

“Lineage means nothing in the Sky Wings. Every griffon must earn their honor.”

“But you were… ‘too big.’” Dash pouted in disgust. It seemed so hypocritical. Matteo grunted.

“Their ways are strict. I would not be useful in their combat style,” said Matteo reluctantly. Storm thought over Matteo’s words.

“So you said ‘former.’ Did your dad retire?” Storm asked.

“No. He was killed in combat three years ago.”

Storm flinched hard and Dash spat her water out across the table.

“Whoa! That’s… I’m sorry to hear that…” Dash was caught completely off guard. She fought for words to say, but couldn’t find any. Wow, Dash suddenly felt like she had had an easy life. Storm was an accident and had two parents who never got along… and Matteo’s father was killed?

“Save your sympathy. For a griffon warrior, the only true way to leave this world is to die with a weapon in hand, fighting to your last breath,” Matteo kept his eyes firm, and free of any sort of emotion.

“He’s your father,” Storm bravely stated while giving Matteo a look of disbelief.

“And he died honorably.”

“But he’s your father!” Storm held his hooves out to his sides. “Aren’t you at least a little sad he’s gone?”

Dash blinked and looked between Storm and Matteo. The two had locked eyes. Matteo was glaring daggers at Storm, but Storm was holding firm under the crushing gaze.

“Hmph…” Matteo looked slightly away. Dash certainly wasn’t expecting Matteo to back off first.

“Do not mistake me. It’s not that I feel nothing… I seek something that is forbidden in our kingdom,” Matteo explained while grinding the tips of his beak together. Dash looked up at Matteo, wondering what he was getting at.

“Revenge?” Storm blurted out.

“Revenge,” Matteo repeated and nodded. Dash eyed Matteo with interest. There was so much about the Griffon Kingdom she just didn’t know. Every time he spoke it was like she was being exposed to a whole new culture.

“Was he challenged for the honor of Master of the Sky?” Storm pressed. Matteo shook his head slowly.

“He was killed by a pony.”

“What?!” Dash and Storm exclaimed in unison.

“Yes. A pegasus,” Matteo specified.

A pegasus. A pegasus strong enough to kill the strongest of all griffons… Only one thing came to mind.

Shadowbolts.

Dash shivered as thoughts of Nightshade poured into her head. They never found out what happened to her, but Nightshade was like a nightmare that never truly went away.

Although… Matteo did say his father was killed three years ago. Nightshade may not have even been the captain yet. This is also if it even was a Shadowbolt who killed Matteo’s father. Who knows what other forces might be out there in Equestria… after meeting the Shadowbolts, Dash wouldn’t be surprised if there were others. She didn’t know of the Sky Wings until now after all… Dash was jumping to conclusions. She felt like asking but—

“I do not know their name, or who they represent. The report was returned by a griffon beaten within an inch of his life who died shortly after in the infirmary. Griffon law dictates that revenge is dishonorable. To seek revenge on the killer of a fellow griffon is to tarnish their honor with your own blood,” Matteo slammed a fist down on the table. “But that pony already tarnished my family name by ending my father’s life long before he could bring us the glory he truly deserved. And… as you say Storm Front, he was my father. I refuse to let it just slip by. One day I shall find them, and I shall finish the battle my father started.”

“Hmph…” Storm huffed as he listened. “I don’t question your reasons, but is revenge really worth it?”

“You’d never understand, you are not a griffon,” Matteo calmly retorted.

“Fair enough,” Storm shrugged. The two went back to eating. Dash looked back and forth at the two of them. Those were crazy stories… she had nothing to compare to those.

She started snickering. Both Storm and Matteo looked up at her, confused. Dash saw them looking and her snickering grew louder.

“No! No… it’s nothing…” Dash tried to hold it in, but the snickering turned to chuckling.

“What?” Matteo glared. Dash didn’t even flinch beneath his stare.

“My dad makes rainbows,” Dash said simply before she burst out laughing. Storm blinked and glanced at Matteo before he too started losing his composure. Soon Storm was laughing along with Dash. Matteo blinked and looked between the two. He let a snort escape his nose before even he, the mighty stoic griffon, released a few chuckles of amusement. “You guys… are so interesting. It’s pretty awesome really…” Dash wiped a tear from her eyes as the laughter finally died down.

Soarin made his way across the mess hall towards the dirty tray racks. The sound of a familiar, snarky laugh met his ears. He glanced over at a nearby table to see Rainbow Dash sharing a good laugh with Storm Front and Matteo.

He smiled as he placed his tray into the rack and looked back at them. Dash was having a good time. He had a feeling she would be, but seeing it himself made his heart flutter. He just wanted her to be happy at all times. She was one little bundle of tough, sassy, confident, and competitive. Those were some of the things he adored the most about her. There was plenty more to love… but he was in public and didn’t want his wings to give away his thoughts.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Soarin snapped from his thoughts, realizing he was standing directly in the way of the tray racks while staring at his mare. He moved out of the way to let Wave Chill by before refocusing on Dash.

This was hard. Every time he saw her, he had to resist the untamable urge to rush up to her and give her a big hug. The need to feel her touch was so great that his body nearly ached when he held himself back. He missed the comfort she gave him. It was a comfort he could really use more than ever right now. Especially with all this crap with his inner magic, the “strap-on” horn… he just needed her and—

Soarin blinked and looked towards the mess hall doors just in time to see Wave Chill’s tail disappear through them.

“Wave!” Soarin called, but the door closed. He was so lost in thought about Dash that he had forgotten he wanted to talk to Wave about Spitfire. He just walked right by him too. They had a good chunk of time to spare while squad three set up the last test of the day. It was perfect timing for a talk with Wave that Soarin felt needed to happen sooner rather than later. Soarin moved towards the doors with a quickened trot. He reached forward to push one of the doors open, but right before he could—

“Did somepony call my n—” Wave opened the door from the other side the moment Soarin lunged to push the door.

“WHOA!” Soarin lurched forward and bumped face to face with Wave. Wave grunted and stumbled back a little as Soarin regained his balance and shook his head out about a step outside the doorway. “Damn, sorry about that Wave I AHHHH!!!!!” Soarin yelped painfully as the door closed on his tail behind him. He quickly reached his wing back and yanked the door open, flicking his tail free. “Ooo! Owww!” Soarin groaned while reaching back to his flank, grabbing his tail and blowing air on it.

Wave blinked as he finally recovered from the face smash and wondered what the heck was going on. Soarin wanted to talk to him, but this was one hell of a graceful start.

“S-sir?” Wave addressed Soarin.

Soarin took a deep breath and let his tail drop back down. Soarin had had close calls while flying and had been in battles to the death, but he was more than certain their compound was more likely to kill him first. He’d gone a few weeks now without getting himself into avoidable mishaps. He hadn’t tripped over anything recently in the halls, so that was a start, but his current run was ended by running face first into Wave and then getting his tail eaten by the mess hall.

“Sorry,” Soarin chuckled as he moved up to Wave and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Got a minute?” Soarin asked casually.

“Sir! Yes, s—” Wave stopped and his eyes widened. “Wait… this isn’t about—”

“It’s about Spitfire,” Soarin winked. Wave stared directly at Soarin for five seconds. His left eyelid twitched and his right ear fell down against his head. He quickly turned and started trotting away at a very fast pace. “HEY!” Soarin galloped after him. He moved in front of Wave and placed himself firmly in his path before he could get very far into the hallway. “Seriously Wave… this has to stop. Watching the two of you stumble around awkwardly has been like watching somepony’s face go through a glass pane in slow motion,” Soarin held his hoof out against Wave’s chest as Wave’s eyes darted around for another escape route.

“Um… SIR! I, uh… THERE IS NOTHING WRONG! Er… NO SIR! No way, no how, sir, nope, nadda, nothing, sir, oh man, what am I doing?” Wave let his head droop down. Soarin sighed, reached down, and pulled Wave’s face back up.

“First, look at me. Second, I’m not Spitfire or Silver, drop the formalities. Third, talk to me! Spitfire’s been my best friend for my whole life. You can ask me anything about her!” Soarin offered with a smile. Wave looked away again and Soarin quickly pulled his face back towards him. “What did I just say about that?”

“Sorry sir!”

“And that?”

“I…” Wave gave in. “Sorry Soarin. I just don’t know what to do. So many bad things have happened.”

“Bad things?” Soarin asked while tipping his head. Wave nodded.

“You saw the first… Spitfire… rubbing against me.”

“But that wasn’t even real,” Soarin rolled his eyes. “That’s not bad. Discord’s just an asshole.”

“The effect it had on me though…” Wave continued. “She actually cornered me later to ask me what was wrong… she refused to let it be so I had to tell her about that.”

“Oo…” Soarin winced. “Okay, that’s kinda bad.”

“And if that wasn’t awkward enough, just now before the second test, I ran face first into her… plot,” his ears drooped. Soarin tipped his head back and forth.

“Okay, so maybe a few bad things have happened,” Soarin shrugged. “But what are you planning to do about it?”

“I… I don’t know,” Wave admitted. “I think it would be best if I just let it all go,” he so easily accepted fate. Soarin sighed and shook his head.

“Look Wave, I’m going to speak from experience here. THE WORST thing you can do in this situation is avoid her,” he poked Wave in the chest. “Spitfire is in a funk about this just as much as you are. You have to go to her and try to fix it.”

“Me? But…”

“Wave, mares are strange creatures. We stallions share the same emotions as them, but the way our brains work about those emotions couldn’t be more different. You feel at fault for giving her a nose to the plot, right? Then start by apologizing for that,” Soarin moved beside Wave as he talked.

“But… is she angry at me for that?” Wave had fully given in and was listening intently.

“Hell if I know!” Soarin chuckled. “But it doesn’t matter. Just apologize. Trust me, when it comes to mares, the stallion is always the one at fault. Even if she isn’t angry and knows you did it by accident, go apologize. Calmly, not while running away,” he added with a smirk. “That’s the first step.”

Wave Chill remained silent while staring blankly at Soarin.

“Wave?” Soarin blinked. Wave just sighed and shook his head.

“I can’t do this…” he pulled away from Soarin and began walking down the hallway. Soarin growled. Wave was giving in way too easily.

“Wave Chill,” Soarin trotted with heavy steps around and in front of him again.

“I’m sorry commander, I just—”

“Do you like her?” Soarin cut him off sternly. Wave’s eyes widened at the straightforward question. Yes or no. That’s all Soarin was looking for. Of course, he said neither.

“Captain Spitfire is my superior officer. It is improper for me to—”

“Oh sweet Celestia alive! SHUT UP!” Soarin stomped a hoof, both effectively quieting Wave and drawing a few confused looks from others passing by in the hall. Wave held his lips shut tight. “I’ll ask you again, and I want you to give me a straight up, honest answer… OKAY? Do. You. Like. Her?” he thoroughly emphasized each word.

Once again, Wave stared silently. This time however, it looked like he was actually thinking. He averted his eyes from Soarin. Something Soarin was really getting tired of.

“Y…yes. I do like her.”

“Was that so hard? Then what’s stopping you from trying to make things right?!” Soarin smacked Wave’s shoulders lightly with his hooves. Wave shook his head.

“I’m way out of my league to begin with… I’m not worthy of her.”

“ARRRGHHH!!!!!” Soarin pressed his hooves to his head. “Are you kidding me Wave?” he flattened his brow. Wave looked back and forth.

“I’m not,” he added. Soarin shook his head.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. She’s been enthralled with you since you helped her during the Shadowbolt incident,” Soarin tapped one hoof against the side of the other to make sure his point got across. “Plus, weren’t you just in her room the other night?”

“Er… we were just talking,” Wave tried to dodge the subject.

“You know she never invites anypony into her room besides Fleet and I right? At least not until recently. Keep trying to convince me you aren’t worthy. If you can’t convince the captain, you most certainly cannot convince me,” Soarin crossed his hooves and bounced his eyebrows.

“But… I couldn’t possibly…” Wave stubbornly continued. Soarin sighed and walked around Wave.

“Wave… let me put it this way. You have… one of the most extraordinary mares in the history of Equestria… interested in you. And you are trying to dodge her?”

“She’s not interested in…”

“Stop talking,” Soarin reached a hoof over and placed it firmly over Wave’s mouth. “You have a mare unlike any other within your reach. And you’re avoiding her. I simply cannot see how your brain is putting this together for you,” He removed his hoof from Wave’s mouth. Wave stood still, Soarin’s words circling in his head. “Talk to her,” Soarin continued. “Make things right. I know she’s a big time pony, but be a stallion and make the first move to fix things. Trust me… I’ve been in your horseshoes. The sooner you do it, the less painful the whole thing will be.”

Wave looked down and took a deep breath.

“Fine… I’ll talk to her,” he said with a hint of reluctance, but he at least said it.

“That’s the spirit!” Soarin patted him on the back.

“But maybe later,” Wave added quietly. Soarin looked straight up and groaned.

“Dammit Wave…” he shook his head as the two began walking again.

While Soarin was frustrated with Wave, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was the exact way Spitfire felt back when she drilled him about Dash.

This whole scenario was making Soarin really miss Dash. Fortunately for Wave, the moment following his drilling wasn’t that of a magical tornado… but Soarin hoped he would get a moment similar to the one he had with Dash.

He could remember it like it was yesterday. How frantically Dash stumbled clumsily across the hospital room just to know for sure that he was alive. It was one of the most touching moments of his life. He hoped for the best for Spitfire and Wave. Both of them could use a little pleasure.

“WHOA!”

Both Soarin and Wave looked up to see Fleetfoot with her back up against the wall as they drew near. She had her eyes locked on them as they stopped and eyed her quizzically.

“What?” Soarin asked, sensing a bad joke. Fleetfoot shook her head and beckoned them along.

“Please keep moving, I don’t want to get drawn in!” she frantically requested with a small smirk curling on the edges of her mouth.

“To what?” Soarin rolled his eyes.

“The two clumsiest Wonderbolts! I dare not make physical contact!” she pressed herself harder to the wall. Soarin scoffed.

“Very funny Fleet…”

“Soarin, tripper of wet floor signs and buckets of water…” Fleetfoot began overdramatically. “Wave Chill, the oblivious walker and stuffer of nose into forbidden places! BACK! BACK I SAY!” she yelled while waving her hooves out in front of her. Soarin flattened his brow and ears.

“Just keep walking…” Soarin said to Wave Chill, but then— “WHOA!” Soarin jumped just in time to avoid a wet floor sign blending in with the blue floor. He glanced back at Fleetfoot, who was snickering while peeling herself off the wall. Soarin puffed his chest out triumphantly as he kept looking at her and continued walking. “Sorry to disappoint you FLEET. But—”

“Commander! Look ou—” Wave chill yelled out.

Soarin walked directly into a folding ladder that was set up to change one of the fluorescent lights in the hallway. Soarin fell into it, got tangled in it, toppled it, and fell to the ground with a loud crash. A toolbox fell off the top of the ladder as it tipped, the tools spilling and scattering all over the floor with loud clangs and clatters.

Wave winced and flinched as he watched Soarin completely wipe out and land in a heap on the floor with his limbs intertwined in the ladder and tools everywhere.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot immediately burst out laughing. She clutched her stomach and leaned forward so hard that she did a forward roll, landing on her back. She proceeded to guffaw her lungs out while tipping back and forth.

“Uh…” Wave leaned back and forth slightly at the mess in front of him. “Are you okay… sir?”

Soarin lifted his head from the rubble, the open tool box fixed atop his head, held in place by the fake horn. If anything… the new metal headband was as sturdy as Discord said it was. Soarin took a deep breath and sighed as Fleetfoot started log rolling down the hallway past other Wonderbolts while endlessly laughing her hooves off.

“Dammit…”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

A nice transition chapter with character development :3

also, i'm so tired and need to sleep. So i'm keeping this short. xD

Next chapter might be anywhere from thursday to saturday. i have something interesting planned for it and it might take longer than usual.

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 24: Who Killed Who What Huh?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 24:

“Heheeee! This is gonna be perfect!” Fleetfoot giggled snidely as she watched the members of squad two push rain clouds through the battle dome.

She was looking up at a large cubic structure that was being set up in the center of the dome’s infield. It was about fifty by fifty meters and nearly extended to the ceiling. The top was uncovered and squad two was busily pushing dark clouds into it.

Soarin and Spitfire rose up from inside the cube and flew down towards Fleetfoot. Their uniforms had small droplets of water running off the shiny surface of the spandex. Spitfire landed first and looked at Fleetfoot sternly.

“Fleet…” she said with a harsh tone as Soarin landed beside her. “On the report you gave me, you said the third course was going to be Surprise’s Silly Rings course,” she pointed a hoof towards the cube as Fleetfoot scrunched her mouth and looked back and forth. “That—” Spitfire flattened her brow. “Is NOT the Silly Rings course.”

“I don’t even know what the hell that’s supposed to be in there…” Soarin added as he glanced back at the cube himself. “Did Rivet make this?”

“Ehhh…” Fleetfoot’s eyes did a full cycle of looking in every direction, except right at Spitfire. “I made some last minute changes." Spitfire groaned and shook her head.

“FLEET, you can’t just do whatever here! These tryouts are important! We’re looking for an ELITE SQUAD replacement while we’re at it too!” Spitfire barked at her. Soarin backed off slightly, knowing full well not to get in Spitfire’s way. Spitfire turned and held out both of her hooves towards the cube. “What the hell is this supposed to test anyway!?”

“Hey!” Fleetfoot huffed as she floated up and around. Soarin stepped back as she came around. “My tests are all about the unexpected! The Silly Rings were just goofy, so I changed it. Trust me! I know what I’m looking for here. I have a scoring system laid out and I’m not gonna give a good score to any dumbasses or idiots… or idiodumbasses…”

Soarin backed away from them casually as Fleetfoot started making up more words for less than satisfactory cadets.

“Okay, I get it Fleet…” Spitfire sighed and rolled her eyes. “If you claim you know what you’re doing…”

“I’m getting a vibe you don’t like this,” Fleetfoot pouted.

“I don’t, but I trust you to do your job, so if you think this will help, I’ll play along,” Spitfire finished before lifting off and going to check in with squad two.

“Sheesh…” Fleetfoot sighed as Soarin continued to edge towards the doors. Fleetfoot looked to her right. “Yo! Threezies!” she yelled while waving. Squad three flew down, all landing before her. “You guys all set?” she asked.

Fire turned to Lightning and Surprise. They both nodded. Fire looked to Misty. He unfolded his wings, stuck out two wing feathers on each, held them to the right, and then swiped them left. The motion for: ready? Misty nodded. Fire turned back to Fleetfoot and smiled.

“We’re all set. Just give the order.”

“Go right ahead, they’ll be here soon,” Fleetfoot winked at them. Fire turned and twirled his hoof once in the air. Surprise bounced giddily before shooting upward, the rest of squad three followed right behind. Fleetfoot rubbed her hooves together in satisfaction. Content with how things were going, she hovered up into the air and glanced around. After a moment she frowned. “Hey! Where’s my little helper?!”

Soarin finally shuffled all the way over to the doors. He looked up to make sure Fleet was occupied, and then unfolded his left wing to reveal the little yellow stallion clinging to his side.

“All clear buddy, go,” he chuckled. The yellow stallion nodded sheepishly and quickly scurried out the door.

The cadets all shuffled into the battle dome quickly and without a single quarrel or mishap. It seemed that Silver Lining’s methods of persuasion had sunk in. He merely stood right inside the doorway with his eyes glaring aimlessly into the crowd and the cadets moved fast and efficiently.

Dash got separated from Matteo and Storm as they all bunched together through the doors, but instead of being left alone she heard a familiar painful grunt.

“Watch where you’re walking Dash… ow…” Thunderlane showed up beside her. He had actually saved Dash the trouble of finding him. She had been curious about how he was doing. He was the first run in the pipe course. He looked like he had been cornered and curb stomped when he emerged. He wore a few bandages and was probably a little bruised (she couldn’t tell because of his black fur), but he was up, walking, and willingly moving towards the final test of the day.

“Nice to see you too, Thunderlane,” She chuckled as they shimmied through the doors with the crowd. “How are you holding up? You look like you flew through a forest fire,” she joked while poking his side. He yelped, moved his wing to block the spot, and glared at her. “Oh, sorry. Bruise?” she grimaced. Thunderlane sighed.

“I think my whole body is a bruise… seriously, I’m pretty sure I hit every freaking obstacle in that pipe. I bet that looked good to the Wonderbolts,” he grunted in frustration. "Oh, I guess I’m fine… to answer your question.”

“At least you didn’t get stuck…” Dash snickered. “Matteo got wedged between two of the trees. The Wonderbolts had to go in and dislodge him.”

“That sounds unpleasant…” Thunderlane shuddered at the thought. “Hopefully this test won’t be quite so bad,” he wondered out loud as the group was stopped by High Winds. Dash and Thunderlane looked up at the massive cubic structure before them.

“Great… more hidden stuff…” Dash leaned her head back and sighed so hard that the motion went down her spine and made her tail flip up once behind her.

“As long as it isn’t painful…” Thunderlane gulped.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome one more glorious time my little cadettas!” Fleetfoot descended from above. “So what we have here…” Fleetfoot motioned behind her. “Is a box!” She didn’t say anything else for a whole minute while just hovering in place, smiling insanely wide, and staring at the cadets with very wide starry eyes.

“What’s in the—” Dash tried to ask, but stopped as Fleetfoot zipped down to her, narrowed her eyes into a very sharp glare. She slowly inched her face towards Dash’s while turning her head slightly to the left and opening her right eye very wide as she stopped less than an inch from Dash’s face.

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered quietly before slowly backing away and hovering back into the air while keeping the same face and expression the whole way and her eye on Dash. Dash just blinked and decided it would be best not to fight it. Especially since, by now, it was clear NOTHING would be clear as long as Fleetfoot was in charge.

Fleetfoot kept her eye trained on Dash for another few seconds before completely reverting to a goofy smile and wide eyes.

“SO THERE’S THIS BOX!” she giggled again. The cadets were becoming uneasy. Not only was this something else they wouldn’t be able to see before it began… but Fleetfoot was clearly overly excited for it. “You have twenty minutes to solve it!” she said nothing more and just smiled at them.

“Solve what?! Sweet Celestia I’m sick of this!” Thunderlane blurted out, startling Dash as he held his hooves against his head and groaned.

“Hey…” Fleetfoot flattened her ears, brow, and eyelids while locking her eyes on Thunderlane. “Hey…” she closed the distance between them by half. “Hey…” she moved halfway again. “Hey…” and another half. “Hey…” and another half. “Hey…” and another. “Hey… and another. She was now directly in front of Thunderlane’s face. “Hey…” Fleetfoot moved forward again, making Thunderlane recline. “Hey…” she kept moving. Thunderlane was forced to sit. “Hey…” he was forced to lean back so far that he tipped over and landed on his back. Dash just stepped away slightly as she hovered over Thunderlane and got her face as close to him as possible. “Hey… how about… you untie that knot around your nuts… before I feel the need to yank it so tight that everypony will have a different reason to call you ‘Blue Balls?’” she softly landed and stood on top of his stomach while still staring down at him. “Well? You gonna unwind or am I gonna have to choke your two pals?” she threatened. Thunderlane gulped and his face paled, making him appear light grayish. He quickly nodded vigorously. “I’m getting mixed messages here…” Fleetfoot smirked while lifting one of her back hooves up.

“I’LL LOOSEN UP! I’LL LOOSEN UP!!!!!” Thunderlane yelled out. He kept flinching as Fleetfoot made a few fake leg twitches to make it look like she was about to stomp. While Dash found Thunderlane’s unfortunate position to be obscenely amusing, her attention was completely drawn to behind Fleetfoot.

“Mmmm? You sure?” Fleetfoot jeered. “Just to make sure, I might have to—EEP!” she squeaked as she felt hooves press against her sides and lift her off of Thunderlane.

“Too far Fleet,” Soarin’s voice came from behind her. She turned her head around, flopped her ears down and pouted at him.

“But mooooooooooooooooooommmmmmm…” she said while failing to hold back a subtle grin. Soarin rolled his eyes.

“Let’s just get this crazy day finished alright?” he said while suddenly letting go of her. Fleetfoot yelped, but quickly caught the air with her wings.

“Fine… you and Spitfire, seriously,” she huffed.

Dash was glad she was in front and facing away from the rest of the cadets. She couldn’t stop it. Her face was heating up and her smile kept growing wider. Soarin was too sexy. Even with the princess horn, he made it work. Whenever he took command of a situation, it sent chills through her. Whenever they were alone and thing got heated, it always ended with one of them pinning the other down. He could overpower her… but she couldn’t overpower him. Over time she found that she kinda liked it when he held her down and there was nothing she could do about it. She was a pretty strong pony, but he was just that much stronger. It was sinfully delightful.

“Eeeeeeee…” a barely audible, high pitched noise suddenly came from close by. Dash blinked and glanced around until her eyes narrowed on instinct. The noise was coming from two ponies over. The source? Slappy McBitchathon. Dash growled as she saw Arctic Blast swooning out of her own face as Soarin flew back up with the other Wonderbolt squads.

How much longer? How much longer could Dash hold it all back? Arctic was driving her insane. She had to do something soon. Something to get her to back off… or something, she didn’t care. Hopefully, this test was the last of Arctic’s tryout career. Maybe she could reveal it while Arctic was packing up to leave… an extra dose of hoof to the face to go along with failing to become a recruit. The idea sounded dreadfully delightful to Dash. She just had to wait till the time was right. Well, the time better hurry the hell up because she was losing restraint and she was losing it FAST.

“So as I said… we have a big box!” Fleetfoot continued while hovering above. “And you have twenty minutes to solve… WHATEVER IS IN THE BOX!” she turned over and hovered while reclining. “Oh yeah, and you’re going five at a time,” she added.

“Five?” Dash said to herself as she perked up. Was this another test to see if they worked together? Didn’t they already do that?

“Will you work together or will you fight to solve it yourself? I wonder which one we want you to do? Hehehe! I’m such a bitch!” Fleetfoot giggled while doing a forward roll in the air. “Anyway… I have my special semi-intelligent helper right here… Blaze?” Fleetfoot turned around and saw Blaze hovering up and talking to High Winds. Fleetfoot gave a sharp whistle towards her. “BLAZE!”

Blaze stopped talking and turned to look at Fleetfoot.

“You lost the bet remember! Get down here my little servant!” Fleetfoot said with a sinister smile on her face. Blaze uttered multiple incoherent words that were most likely swears as she floated down beside Fleetfoot.

“Reporting,” she said with an eye roll.

“Was I supposed to feel the love there? Come on, like you mean it!” Fleetfoot leaned towards her and smirked.

“I oughtta rip your damn eyes out…” Blaze grumbled quietly.

“What was that?” Fleet pressed while moving closer.

“I said YES MA’AM!” Blaze gave a salute while puffing her cheeks out in anger.

“Good!” Fleetfoot turned back to the cadets. “This time, my little assistant is going to group you together in teams that LIKE each other as opposed to hate each other…” she paused. “What I mean by that is, she’s gonna choose you completely at random again and claim she knows what she’s doing!” Fleetfoot giggled while backing up and placing a hoof on Blaze’s back. “GO, MY NOBLE STEED!” she gave Blaze a firm push forward, sending Blaze into a tumble, tuck, and roll. She stood right back up like she meant to do it and cleared her throat.

“Alright! Everypony DON”T MOVE DAMMIT!” Blaze leapt up and scanned the cadets while hovering in place and holding her hooves on her waist. Her eyes landed on Dash and then moved them about at the others. “Ah, I can sense the love already! You!” she pointed at Dash.

Good, Dash didn’t have to wait this time.

“You!” Blaze pointed at Thunderlane beside her. “You!” Blaze pointed behind Dash. Dash turned to see Blaze was pointing to Derpy beside Storm Front.

Well, so far, so good. Maybe Blaze had a better sense for who got along as opposed to who hated each other.

“You!” Blaze looked towards Thunderlane and pointed again. Thunderlane looked at her while tipping his head in confusion. Dash sighed, nudged Thunderlane in the side, and pointed down beneath his body. Twister was laying down on the ground, intertwined in Thunderlane’s legs.

“GAH!” Thunderlane leapt up and floated away.

Okay, so nopony is perfect. Blaze was three for four at least.

“And... YOU!” Blaze pointed off to Dash’s left. Dash’s nerves fired and she felt all tingly in a foreboding way. She gulped and slowly turned. Her eyes followed Blaze’s hoof, and landed on Arctic Blast.

Damn—

It.

Zero out of a million, Blaze failed forever.

Matched with ponies they get along with? Blaze couldn’t have gotten further from that fact.

“Well, come on then! Get going! If we’re late to dinner later I’m gonna fucking choke some bitches!” Blaze swiped her hooves towards the cube to get them moving.

“Right over here!” Soarin called from the middle of the cube at its base. Arctic was up and gliding as soon as Soarin beckoned them.

Hell. No.

Dash lifted off and glided close behind her. Derpy, Thunderlane, and Twister followed suit.

“Oh gosh! Soarin!” Arctic landed right in front of him instead of going through the door he had opened for them. She was effectively blocking their way into the cube.

“Er… hi?” Soarin cringed and leaned away.

“I’m sure you remember me?! Arctic Blast, right? Remember? Uh huh! Well, I was wondering, if after the tests today you’d like to—” she talked a mile a minute, but—

“OKAY! Let’s just keep going!” Dash gave her a hard shove from the side. Arctic yelped and tumbled through the doors.

“I hope this one is fun too!” Derpy hopped giddily and she walked in beside Thunderlane. Thunderlane sighed.

“I’m sure looking forward to more bruises…” He flinched as Twister squeezed through the doorway while rubbing up against him.

“Ooo, I like bruises, can I have some?” he asked Thunderlane before continuing in while leaning his head back farther than usually possible. Thunderlane just blinked and held a hoof out.

“What the hell am I supposed to say to that?!” he shook his head and entered. Dash, who had stood aside to let the others in, gave a quick glance to Soarin.

“So what’s in here?” she whispered with a smirk. Soarin cracked a grin and shrugged.

“I only got one look… and to be honest, I have no clue what’s going on in there,” he chuckled.

“Lovely…” Dash sighed while giving him a quick smile.

“Good luck Dashie,” he winked at her.

Her pet name and the wink sent a fun shiver through her body that made her blush ever so slightly. Hold it in Dash, hold it in.

She winked back and moved in. As the door closed behind her, she ran right into Arctic Blast, who was glaring at her. Dash sighed through her nose and tipped her head.

“What?” she asked in annoyance. Arctic scrunched her face further.

“I saw you talking to my stallion! Back off, will you!?” she pressed her hoof against Dash’s chest, but Dash didn’t even budge. If Arctic had any strength in her frail, skinny body, that probably was supposed to be a shove. Dash held it in, but… why not build it up? Arctic was so flakey and out there, she’d never put two and two together.

“What make you think he’s your stallion?” Dash put on a snide smile and turned her head slightly while keeping her eyes trained on Arctic.

“Duh! It was meant to be… Wait, why do you ask?” she blinked and kept glaring. Dash rolled her eyes comically and chuckled.

“Oh… no reason at all.”

“Hey, you two,” Thunderlane interrupted them. “How about we have the cat fight later… have either of you noticed where we are?” he asked. Dash and Arctic withdrew their focus on one another and looked around. Dash groaned.

“Not again…” she sighed. They were in a twelve by twelve foot blank room, just like the start of the second test.

“So what are we gonna do? Don’t we only have fifty minutes?” Derpy pondered while tapping a hoof against her mouth.

“Twenty, silly pony,” Twister appeared in front of Derpy’s face. She yelped in surprise and dove behind Thunderlane. “Heeeehehehe, I can hardly wait for this one…” Twister laughed creepily as he sat down, tucked his legs in, wrapped his arms around them and began bouncing on his plot around them in a wide circle. Dash growled and pushed her way past Arctic.

“Hey, if you’re gonna be all creepy and shit, please direct it at any of us except for Derpy, okay?” Dash requested in defense of Derpy. Twister laughed out loud again while bouncing in place on his plot and making a full 360 turn.

“Oh, relax ‘Dashie’,” he jeered, having apparently heard Soarin. “I’m just having fun until the penguin goes by!” he tipped back and began rolling backwards in uneven intervals like an egg rolling on its vertical faces.

“The penguin? Oh!” Dash blinked in realization. Leave it to somepony wacky to bring her attention to something wacky.

As if on cue, a small door opened up off to the side and a penguin walked out. They all turned and looked at it as it began to casually waddle towards and past them.

These “courses,” if one could even call them that, were designed by Surprise. Things were random, but it didn’t mean there weren’t trends. Dash recalled in both of the earlier trials, the test started right after a penguin inexplicably appeared and walked by. Dash turned away from the penguin, spread her wings and locked her hooves in place. Whatever this was, she’d be ready this time! After all she had seen today, nothing was going to catch her off guard. Thunderlane caught on as he saw Twister do the same. He reached back and gently pulled Derpy forward while motioning for her to get ready. Arctic blinked, glanced at the penguin, and then hopped beside Twister, reading for takeoff as well.

“Ahem…”

Dash flinched. She loosened up her body and glanced at Thunderlane beside her. Thunderlane was looking at her. They both looked at Twister, who in fact, was looking at them in confusion. All three of them looked at Arctic and Derpy… but they were looking back.

“Good evening, fillies and colts.”

The penguin had stopped… faced them… and was now talking to them in a very stern, refined voice. They all looked at each other and turned to it… none of them, not even Twister, sure what to do or say if anything. The penguin cupped his flippers together and gave them each a nod before continuing.

“Tonight, through the medium of a silly pony’s imagination, we present a murder mystery condensed from authentic criminal record. It is my sincere purpose in exposing the brutal killer involved in this horrible case… to prove to YOU beyond the shadow of a doubt… that crime does not pay,” The penguin paused and took a breath. “Our story begins on a dark and stormy night…”

The five ponies yelped as the floor suddenly lurched. The wall behind them, opposite of the entrance, fell backwards revealing… an open area that looked like it was outside. Thunder boomed and lightning cracked as rain fell from above. The ground was hilly and muddy, thick and sticky from the rain, a sign that read “Gruesome Stables” pointed away from their spot and a single stone path winded around the elevations towards a spooky mansion in the distance.

All they could do was stand and stare.

Scratch that.

Dash was caught completely off guard and had no idea what she was looking at.

“What the flying f—” Dash turned back towards the penguin but it was gone. In its place was a small scrap of paper. They all turned and looked at it, still bewildered beyond comprehension. Dash gulped, stepped forward and picked up the piece of paper. She turned it over to see a small message, and read it aloud.

“Solve the murder mystery to find the way out.” – Fleetfoot & Surprise

Dash blinked, then growled and crumpled the piece of paper up.

“You know what?! No. Forget it, I’m not asking any questions!” Dash tossed it aside and huffed. Another piece of paper floated down and landed on her nose. She reached up, and turned it over.

“P.S. twenty minutes. Get moving.” – Fleetfoot

“Dammit…” Dash turned to the rest. “Well, come on. There’s no use trying to figure this out. Let’s just go.”

“Where?” Thunderlane shrugged while looking out into the storm. Twister started chuckling beside him.

“Where?! Why… there’s only one place to go!” he pointed at the mansion. “They even have ME surprised! I wonder what’s in store!” Twister leapt out into the rain and flew towards the mansion. Dash looked to the rest.

“Well, it’s not like we have a choice. Let’s go,” she motioned for them to fly. Derpy and Thunderlane took off after Twister, but Arctic stayed put. “Well?” Dash looked towards her sternly.

“But… I’ll get my mane all wet!” Arctic whined while backing away from the new opening in the wall. Dash blinked and sighed before growling as she stomped towards Arctic.

“DEAL WITH IT!” Dash yelled into Arctic’s ear as she got behind her and pushed her towards the rain.

“No! No! No! No!” Arctic flailed and wailed as Dash effortlessly pushed Arctic’s lack of weight along. “AAAAIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!” She screeched as Dash just grabbed her and began flying through the rain.

She really wanted to just leave Arctic there to stew and get nothing out of the trial, but Fleetfoot had purposely made it unclear whether or not this was a competition or a team oriented exercise. Dash didn’t want to take the chance, so she forced Arctic along with her.

The spooky mansion grew closer and closer as the rain pelted against them, the lightning flashed above them, and the thunder boomed around them.

Just… what the hell was this test for?

Rainbow Dash, Thunderlane, Derpy, Twister, and Arctic all flew quickly through the dark thunderstorm and landed at the front door the spooky mansion. The mansion was fancily constructed with a large center building with visible balconies sticking out from upper floors on both sides. The front entrance had long pillars reaching the full height of the building and the entryway led up to a large wooden door.

The entryway provided slight protection from the rain, but the wind was blowing little droplets at them from the side. Taking command of the situation, and letting Thunderlane deal with Arctic’s complaining, Dash reached up and gave the door a few heavy knocks.

After turning and yelling at Arctic to shut the hell up a few times, they all flinched as the door opened.

“My, what have we here?” An old looking stallion stuck his head out from inside. They all looked up at him in confusion. The pony was white, with a white, scraggily, long mane. He balanced a pair of circular rimmed glasses on the end of his nose and had a big white bushy moustache that only covered his upper lip. He wore a robe that was mostly bright red, but had about two inches of black fabric on the cuffs, collar, and bottom end of the robe each. “What are a bunch of fine young ponies doing out in this terrible storm? Please, come in quickly,” the stallion opened the door fully and bid they enter.

“Uh…” Dash looked at the rest, who were all frozen in utter confusion. “Okay?” Dash shrugged and walked in. She stopped halfway through the doorway and turned back to the rest. They were all still just standing still. “Well, come on guys! Let’s get out of the rain!” she beckoned them. Twister blinked and stepped in first. It was interesting to see Twister so confused. He seemed able to control reality around him to an extent, much like Pinkie Pie and Surprise, but more than once now, Dash had seen him easily defeated or confused at something. Perhaps he was an amateur just as Fleetfoot had said.

With Twister’s entrance, the other three swallowed their confusion and did the same.

“Yes, please do come in, it’s dreadful outside,” the stallion nodded and closed the door behind him.

They all stood in the doorway, instinctively letting the old stallion walk ahead of them before moving any further. The house was very dimly lit, the only source of light coming from around the corner in the hallway. Right beside the entrance were two large suits of pony armor both holding halberds.

They followed the stallion down the dark hallway to the right of the entrance. The carpet below their hooves felt solid, almost worn down as if it hadn’t been replaced in years. The walls were covered in dusty old paintings, most of which had faded so much that one could barely tell what it was supposed to be. The corners of the ceilings and the spaces between statues and sculptures were littered with spider webs.

Arctic had forced herself between Twister and Thunderlane and was whimpering the whole time. Dash rolled her eyes as they walked. She doubted Arctic was actually scared. She was probably more worried about getting dust in her mane than anything.

As they followed the stallion, they all froze and looked at a large painting in the center of the hallway. The canvas was entirely black and the words “Spooky, Isn’t it?” was written in large white letters on it. They all glanced between each other, shrugged it off, and kept following. None of them had any idea what was going on, but there was clearly some joke going on here.

They followed the old stallion around a corner and into a large, wide open room. The walls of the room were actually bookshelves that extended from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. Each section had a rolling ladder attached to it. There was large window, as tall as the wall itself between the two bookshelves on the right. Its long white curtains were closed, but the lightning shone through, slightly illuminating the room with each flash. In the center of the room was a large tapestry of a pony dressed for war. It looked to be centuries old. Below the tapestry was a large fireplace that provided the only light that had shown around the corners upon entering. A single, large, comfy looking chair sat facing the fireplace and beside it was a table with an empty glass.

“Please make yourselves comfortable… you can wait out the storm here, and be on your way,” the stallion smiled at them before taking a seat in the chair. Dash and the others slowly entered the large room, still trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The piece of paper said, ‘solve the murder mystery.’ Did that mean something was about to—

Dash quickly turned her head towards the back of the chair the stallion sat in. The words, “the victim” were flashing on the back of the chair. Dash blinked and looked to her fellow cadets, but they were all equally confused.

Suddenly a knife flew in from nowhere, if hurled past all the cadets and stuck to the wall right beside the fireplace. It had come nowhere near the cadets, but it sure had startled them. The old stallion jumped as well, quickly standing up from the chair.

“I say! What the devil is that!?” he stood up and shuffled towards the knife sticking in the wall. There was a note attached to it. It read:

“YOU WILL DIE TOMORROW!”

“Goodness!” The stallion flinched as Dash and the others slowly approached. “I can’t die tomorrow!” the stallion exclaimed. Dash and the others yelped again as a second knife, about three times smaller than the first, flew in and stuck to the wall beside the first. It also had a note dangling from it. This one read:

“OKAY, FINE. YOU CAN DIE NOW, SHEESH…”

“Oh my…” the stallion gulped. He quickly turned to the five cadets. “This is terrible! We mustAAAARRRGGGHH!!!!!!!!!” the stallion suddenly reared back and cried out in pain. He fell forward and began stumbling around. Dash quickly backed off, Derpy yelped and hid behind Thunderlane. Twister jumped back and ran into Arctic. Arctic got pushed slightly up, and spread her wings to catch herself in the air. She looked down at the stumbling stallion and shrieked.

There was a knife sticking out of his back. Dash gasped, she and the rest noticed it too as the stallion turned sharply to their right and stumbled towards the window. He grunted and groaned in pain as he fell towards the curtains. He clutched them with his hooves as he fell, yanking them off their rail above, and pulled the curtain down. He fell to the ground below the window and tried to crawl along the floor. He managed to turn himself around and face them, giving off one last breath before dropping lifelessly. The five all stood in shock as the curtain slowly floated down and landed on top of him, covering him up. The fire in the fire place blew out, leaving them in the dark.

Dash couldn’t breathe.

What.

The.

Hell.

Was going on?

If this was a prank, it was a damn realistic one.

Suddenly, lights came on, a door swung open on the other side of the room, and a white mare burst through the door. She wore a blue suit with a light blue vest and white undershirt. The entirety of her mane was stuffed into a bowler hat. She had incredibly thick black eyebrows and a massive cigar sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

“WHO DID IT?!?!?!” she yelled in a voice rather gruff for a mare while opening the jacket to show an overly large gold star badge.

“EVERYPONY STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!!!” she ordered while glaring at the five of them.

“DON’T NOPONY MOVE!"

“…”

“…”

*POW*

“THAT GOES FOR YOU TOO, BUB!”

The mare heavily adjusted her suit before walking towards the cadets with a very heavy stride. She gave each of them a long, hard look before approaching the curtain. She shook her head and pulled out a camera. She aimed it at the curtain covering the body, but right before she took the picture, the old stallion suddenly sat up straight, held a top hat beside his chest, turned his head to the side and smiled. Right after the camera flashed, the stallion laid back down, dead.

The mare flinched and stared at the covered body in confusion and, of course, the five cadets saw it too. Dash blinked and realized she was worried for nothing. This was obviously a set up… but she had to wonder, who were these ponies?

“YOU FIVE!” The mare turned to them. Dash and Twister remained calm, but Thunderlane, Derpy, and Arctic all flinched. “What took you so long!? I called for backup hours ago!” she barked in their faces, moving between each of them and pressing her nose to theirs. Dash shook her head out after getting her personal space violated.

“Uh…” Dash tried to put up a hoof, but the mare appeared in front of her and forced it back down.

“NO TIME! I’m gonna check around the outside of the house! You look for clues in here!” she ordered. Before they could say anything, the mare was heading back out the door. It slammed behind her.

They all looked around, at each other, around, and at each other again.

“Well, I ain’t falling for this,” Dash shrugged. “Let’s just play along and…” Dash blinked and stared towards the curtain. The body was gone. “SEE!? We’re being played! Come on everypony… yes, even you Arctic,” Dash glared specifically at her. She huffed and crossed her hooves.

“So what do we do?” Thunderlane scratched his head while looking around. Twister suddenly started chuckling to himself again.

“Heheheh…” he grinned. “They had me going for a second… but this is fun! Time to outsmart them!” he snickered while flying up and looking around the room.

“What he’s doing,” Dash said to Thunderlane while pointing at Twister. “The instructions are: solve the murder mystery. So, let’s solve it. I dunno what the hell this has to do with the Wonderbolts, but we’re in here, we might as well play along,” Dash shrugged before walking around the room herself.

The ponies all dispersed, save for Derpy, who sat in the middle of the room, confused. She blinked, her eyes switching positions before she caught a glimpse of something on the table beside the chair facing the fire place. She didn’t want to get in anypony’s way, but it looked like nopony else had noticed it.

She stood up and trotted towards the table. Something new was on its surface. There was a button on it, with a label above it that read: “Ring bell for suspects.” Derpy tipped her head back and forth while eyeing the button curiously. She glanced around at the others one more time before slowly reaching a hoof towards it.

She pressed it and a loud ringing noise sounded throughout the room. She flinched in surprise and removed her hoof from it. At the same time three ponies suddenly popped up from behind the table. One was white and bald stallion, dressed like a butler. The second was a white mare with a black, bowl shaped mane, dressed like a maid. The third was light blue and dressed like a chauffeur with his mane hidden beneath a cap. Derpy yelped and hopped back in surprise.

The three ponies were all hunched over with their hooves up in a scheming manner. They all wore identical scowls and their eyes looked back and forth in synch. Dash and the others quickly noticed the scene Derpy caused and rushed down beside her. Dash blinked and saw the button on the table, then looked towards Derpy, who looked a little spooked. Her fur was puffed out and her wing feathers were all frizzy. Dash patted Derpy on the shoulder and smiled.

“Nice find Derpy,” she complimented. Dash made a move to confront the “suspects” but before she could, Twister slipped in front of her and slammed his hooves down on the table.

“OKAY…” he pointed at them. “WHICH ONE OF YOU MUGS BUMPED OFF THE OLD COLT?!?!” he demanded. “WHO DID IT!” he slammed his hooves on the table again.

All three of the ponies suddenly put huge smiles on and put their hooves behind their backs as they leaned forward.

“OOOOOHHHHHHH, NOW WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?!” they all said in unison while leaning so far forward that they knocked Twister over. They instantly pulled back and retook their sinister poses. Dash sighed and stepped forward, pointing at them.

“One of you bums is guilty of killing this guy!” she glanced between them all.

Dash hadn’t read many mystery novels… in fact she hadn’t read many novels besides Daring Do, but Daring Do sometimes solved mysteries. What could she do to get some evidence? Then she had a thought. She smirked and looked back at the three ponies.

“I’m gonna turn out the lights!” she barked at them. “And when I turn ‘em back on, I wanna see the knives, RIGHT ON THIS TABLE!” she pounded her hooves on the table. She made a motion to Thunderlane. Thunderlane looked around and saw a light switch by the entrance of the room. He trotted over and looked back towards Dash. She gave him a nod, and he turned out the lights.

With the room pitch black, the sound of something hitting the table echoed throughout the room.

“Hit it, Thunderlane,” Dash called through the darkness. Thunderlane flipped the lights back on. They all yelped in surprise. Dash looked back at the table. Her eyes widened as she saw some knives, but then there were so many knives stacked on the table that the stack reached all the way up to the ceiling. Dash squeaked and jumped back slightly, eyeing the massive stack of knives up and down. She glared at the ponies across the table, who were still stuck in their sinister poses. “ALRIGHT! Cut out the funny stuff!” she looked back towards Thunderlane. “Let’s try it again!” she nodded.

Thunderlane flipped the switch and the room was dark once again. There was no noise this time.

“What the… Thunderlane! Back on!” Dash yelled. Thunderlane threw on the lights.

EVERYTHING IN THE ROOM WAS GONE.

The three ponies had vanished, along with everything else in the room. The table, the chair, the curtains, the tapestry and even every single book was gone from the tall shelves.

“What…?” Dash blinked as she looked around.

“This is stupid…” Thunderlane sighed and sat down. “How much longer do we have? Ten minutes?” he complained. Dash turned to him and flattened her brow.

“Come on Thunderlane, I don’t think they’d like that mindset,” Dash shook her head. “If they wanna prank us, I’m beating the prank!”

Dash began examining the room. Twister hopped up to get a better look at the shelves. Thunderlane grumbled and started looking around himself with Derpy following behind. Arctic just stood still and scoffed, not particularly interested in helping. She was standing beside the door the police mare initially came through. It was slightly ajar, but then suddenly closed with a light click. Arctic blinked and looked at the door. She glanced at the others, but none of them seemed to notice. She looked at the door again and her curiosity got the better of her. She faced the door, and slowly cracked it open, peering inside. There was no light in the room. She couldn’t see a thing, but then suddenly, the sharp noise of somepony hocking up saliva followed by a sharp spit. A loogie came flying out of the dark and hit Arctic right in the eye.

“AH! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW! EW!!!!!!!!!!!!” She slammed the door shut and frantically backed away from the door while rubbing her hooves against her eyes. The others all looked towards her. Dash was quick to roll her eyes before gliding over.

“What are you wailing about now?” she asked, unamused. Arctic pointed towards the door with one hoof while continuously rubbing her face with the other.

“Somepony is in there! They spat on me!” she whined before crying out in anguish again. Dash looked towards the door, but once again Twister was already on it. He placed himself in front of the door and cleared his throat.

“I’ll give ya to the count of three to get out here!” Twister yelled in a voice deeper than his usual voice. “One! Two!” the door swung open and a large, ghostly image of a pony stepped out, looming over him. “Threefourfivesixseveneightnineten…” Twister turned pale and his voice got higher as the ghostly image grew larger before him. Derpy shrieked and was instantly running out of the room. Thunderlane called after her and followed. “eleventwelvethirteenfourteenfifteen…” Twister’s voice cracked as he backed away. The image glared at him and began to bend down. Twister ran into Dash, who ran into Arctic. “sixteenseventeeneighteennineteentwenty!!!!!” Twister squeaked.

The ghastly image began falling towards them. Dash quickly grabbed Arctic and Twister around their necks she hoisted them up and kicked off the ground, firing them towards the entryway of the large reading room. They tumbled to the ground outside the room as the ghost flopped to the ground the image burst into little puffs of cloud.

“OH MY GAWD!” Arctic pushed herself up out of Dash’s grip. “WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THIS?!?!?!” Dash quickly got up and shoved Arctic against the wall of the hallway.

“OKAY, LOOK DINGBAT! They are obviously playing a prank on us to see how we handle the situation! I’m NOT gonna let you drag us down, GOT IT?! Now quit moaning and groaning and HELP us figure this out!” she said sternly. Arctic yelped and nodded quickly. Dash turned to Twister. “Twister, we need—” Dash blinked and looked around. Twister was gone. “Son of a…” Dash groaned.

Great. Not only were they separated from Thunderlane and Derpy, but now Twister had disappeared on her too. Now she was stuck with Arctic.

“Rgh…” Dash growled to herself as she released Arctic from the wall. “Listen, I hate your guts, but right now, I need help figuring this out, and if you want to get a good score on this…”test”… then you better start helping!” she glared right into Arctic’s eyes. Arctic pouted.

“Hmph! Fine.”

“Now let’s go. We need to either find more clues, or find our friends,” Dash explained as they began walking through the halls. They turned the corner through the main hall and past the front door, taking a path down a different hallway they at first avoided upon entering. Arctic stopped as they moved, eyeing a closed door on the right wall.

“Look!” she pointed while approaching the door. Dash stopped and turned back. Arctic found a door, good at least she was doing something. Dash felt better having Arctic opening mysterious doors, who knew what was behind them?

Arctic opened the door… and shrieked. Dash backed off and moved around to see what she was looking at. It was only a broom closet… but there was the body of a white mare with no mane in the door, standing up on its hind legs. Its arms were flat against its body, tied up with ropes. Its mouth was covered by a cloth tied around its head. It fell forward and on top of Arctic, knocking her to the ground and exploding into little clouds upon hitting her. Arctic looked up and shrieked again, seeing another tied up, maneless, white mare was behind the first. That one fell on her too and also exploded into clouds. Then there was another behind that, and another behind that, and another behind that. Fake mare bodies began falling endlessly out of the closet and slamming against Arctic as she screamed. Each one bursting into little clouds as they fell.

Then suddenly, they stopped. Arctic peeked up at the door, but one of the bodies had stopped right in front of her. It opened its eyes, forced one of its tied hooves up and pulled the cloth off its mouth while smiling.

“OH YES! QUITE A BUNCH OF US, ISN’T IT!?” the mare said in a comical tone before it slammed against Arctic and the fake mares endlessly fell on her again.

Dash freaked out when the first one fell but as they started falling and as she realized they were fake… she just rolled her eyes. This was definitely the kind of silliness Fleetfoot or Surprise would partake in.

The false bodies finally stopped falling, leaving Arctic in a shivering mess on the floor. Dash sighed, reached down, and pulled her up.

“Arctic… they aren’t real, none of this is,” Dash smacked her on the back of the head. Arctic blinked and took a deep breath before groaning uncomfortably. Dash looked back into the empty closet. Her eyes widened as she saw the back of the closet open like a door and a large bucket being held by a pair of hooves appeared. Dash quickly backed away.

A splash of red liquid came flying out of the closet and floored Arctic in the face.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” she screamed as she looked herself all over. “IT’S BLOOD?!?!?!?!?!” she keeled over and fainted.

Dash, again, stared wide eyed for only a moment before she sniffed the air. She looked at Arctic, puzzled. She approached Arctic, bent her neck down, and sniffed the liquid dripping off of her.

Cranberry juice.

Oh, Dash could only imagine how much of a kick Fleetfoot was getting out of this right now. They were probably all outside the cube with their x-ray goggles, laughing their plots off.

Dash looked back to Arctic and shook her head. Forget it. Arctic was NOT helping. Dash looked around, but found nothing she could comfortably leave Arctic on. Then she realized… she didn’t give a damn about Arctic, so Dash grabbed her by one of her back hooves and dragged her along the ground, and slid her roughly up against the opposite wall. She didn’t need Arctic slowing her down.

Dash continued on through the hallway and turned another corner into another large room, a cylindrical living room to be precise. It was very wide open and even had a staircase that led up to the second floor wrapping around the back wall as it moved up. Dash perked up as she saw a small trap door close on the floor in the middle of the room.

“Ah ha!” she dove towards it, gliding across the room quickly, and running head first into another pony who had apparently spotted it. “Ow!” Dash yelped and stumbled backward. She shook her head out and looked up to see Twister standing before her, also shaking his head out. “Twister?!” Where the hell did you go? He smirked and shrugged.

“That little ghost trick was sick! I had to see if I could catch the ones doing it, but alas… no luck. I followed them here, and saw the trapdoor…” he crouched down and hissed at Dash. “It’s MINE!”

Dash reclined and blinked, and then realized something.

“Fine, go ahead and open it,” she shrugged. If she learned anything from Arctic, it was not a good idea to open random doors in this mansion.

Without hesitation, Twister grabbed the small ring handle and yanked the trap door open. There was nothing but a circular hole in the floor beneath it. Dash floated around to get a look herself as Twister eyed it quizzically. It appeared to be deep, but it that was only because there was no light coming up from below. She was curious about how far down it went, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.

Before she could say anything, Twister got up and glided over to a wall. He grabbed a glass vase off a table, poured the water and the dead flowers out of it, and glided back over to the hole. He held it up over his head and threw it down into the hole. Dash shrugged and held her ear up to listen for a crash. Twister looked down into the hole… but no crash came.

“Hm…” he tipped his head as he kept staring down the hole, “This is peculi—“ the vase came flying down from above and shattered against the back of his head. He tipped forward and began leaning into the hole. Dash quickly jumped around, grabbed his back hooves and pulled him out of the hole. The two tumbled backwards and landed in a pile. Twister rolled off while rubbing the back of his head. “Oh… they’re good… they’re good alright…”

“They’re toying with us!” Dash growled while smacking her hooves against the floor. She got up and looked around. “They’re drawing our attention to things and using them to play tricks on us!”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impresssssed,” Twister chuckled while rolling back and forth on the ground.

“Get up you crazy bastard,” Dash ordered as she walked towards the one of the curved walls in the room. “We gotta stop playing into their hooves… we gotta look for our own clues, not follow their trail of crumbs…” she glanced at a painting on the wall. “For instance… we’ve gotta check things… places they might be hiding stuff…” she trotted up to the painting, grabbed it, and unhooked it from the wall. She looked behind it, but all she saw was an outline of the painting frame that was free from the rest of the dust, and within the less faded spot of wall was written:

“Well~ What did you expect to see back here?!” in thick permanent marker. Dash blinked, then scrunched her face and growled.

Then a door closed across the room. Dash looked back and saw Twister already going for the door.

“Twister wait!” Did he even listen to her just now?!

Twister opened the door, but instead of a prank, he came face to face with a pony wearing a full body black robe and a matching black executioner’s mask. Dash froze in her path and Twister took steps back. The pony was holding a knife and slowly moving it towards Twister.

Twister instinctively turned and took off, flying up the stairs against the wall towards the upper floors. Dash looked down and saw the pony go right back into the door.

“Twister, wait!!!!!” she called as she rose up to the small balcony that overlooked the living room. She got to the top just in time to see Twister run directly into the black clothed pony again. Dash looked down, and then back up. How did the pony get up there so fast?! Twister yelped and did a full reverse, gliding back down the stairs. Dash moved in to intercept and the two roughly collided. “OOF!” Dash grunted as she stopped him with her body. “TWISTER! COOL IT!”

Twister blinked, shook his head out and looked around. A moment later his smirk returned.

“Heh..heheheheeehoohaaa… they startled me pretty good there…” he suddenly scrunched his face. “But now it just feels like I’m being messed with… and I can only take so much before—” he looked over Dash’s shoulder. Dash turned around and saw the door at the base of the staircase. It was just a plain door last time she saw it, but now it had a wreath hanging on it with a sign in the center that read:

“Do not open until Hearths Warming.”

Dash rolled her eyes. Did they really think she was going to fall for that one?

“Oh, that does it!” Twister pushed Dash aside. Dash groaned and backed off. Apparently they knew somepony was going to fall for it.

Twister grabbed the door knob and began pulling. The door didn’t budge. He growled and began yanking at the door harder. It swung open and he made a charge for it before anything could pop out and surprise him… but he ran directly into the face of another pony. The pony didn’t budge as their face’s collided, but Twister bounced off and stumbled back a step.

The pony was much larger than Twister in both height and girth. He was light blue, wore a bright red and white fluffy coat, a red and white winter hat with a white pompom at the end, and a big black belt around his waist. He had a white bushy mustache and a very large and bushy white beard. He looked just like Santa Hooves… and Santa looked PISSED OFF. He leaned down and glared into Twister’s confused face.

“Listen, Doc…” he snarled. “Can’t you READ?!” Santa slapped Twister across the face, forcing him to turn around, and then gave him a swift kick in the plot, sending Twister tumbling away from the door.

Dash yelped and ducked as Twister bounced over her and landed on the trap door in the center of the room. He blinked and sat upright as Santa slammed the door. The sign that said “Do not open until Hearths Warming” now had the word “DAMMIT” written at the end, circled and underlined.

Dash heard a yelp from Twister. She looked back just in time to see the trapdoor had opened beneath him and he fell into the hole.

“Twister!” Dash yelled as she jumped over and looked into the dark pit. She cringed as she heard multiple painful crashing noises. It sounded like somepony was falling through multiple shelves filled with china plates. However after a couple of seconds, the crashing noises kept coming. Dash tipped her head, wondering if just how much one could crash into. Then suddenly she looked up and saw Twister tumbling down the steps coming from upstairs. Dash’s expression went completely blank as he bounced off the last step and landed in a heap on the floor in front of her. Twister lifted his head up and looked around.

“I’m so confused… I don’t think I’ve ever been confused before…” he said as his ears flopped down. Dash looked up and saw the pony dressed in black at the top of the stairs. She had had enough.

“YOU!” She yelled as she lifted off and fired towards the second floor. Dash’s eyes widened slightly in surprise as the pony turned and a pair of yellow wings extended from the black robe. It was a pegasus. The pony took flight down the winding corridors of the mansion. Dash pitched and turned through the cramped hallways. Whoever this pegasus was, they were really good.

Twister skidded to a halt in an approaching hallway, cutting off the pony. The pegasus took a sharp right down another hall. Dash and Twister gave chase, flying side by side. Dash pointed towards the pony. Twister glanced at her and nodded. Dash broke off down a different hallway as Twister chased the pony around and back down the stairs. Twister chased the pony into the main hall and towards where Arctic was still out cold. Dash turned the corner from inside the reading room, down the hall leading to the front door, and slammed her hooves down, sliding to a stop and effectively baring the pony’s path between her and twister. There was only one avenue of escape, the stairs beside the front door. There was just enough space to squeeze between the banister and the ceiling. The pony leapt for it, but—

“GOTCHA!!!!!” Thunderlane’s voice came from the stairs. He and Derpy dove out over the banister and tackled the pony back to the ground, holding them down firmly. Twister came up and helped them as the pony squirmed beneath them.

“Huh? WHA?!” Arctic suddenly awoke and saw the other four all piled on top of a disguised pony. She freaked out when she saw the cranberry juice stains all over her, but Dash just ignored her as she focused on the hooded pony.

“Now we’ll see who did it!” she reached forward and yanked. The hood off the pony.

They all froze. Derpy, Thunderlane, and Twister all instantly let go. Dash blinked.

“Misty Fly?!” Dash exclaimed.

Misty sat on the floor, still donning the black robe. She smiled at Dash and waved.

The sound of clapping hooves came from the hall heading towards the reading room. Around the corner stepped the butler, the maid, and Santa hooves.

“You know, I never thought anypony was actually going to catch us! You are quite something Miss Dash.”

That voice… and the “Miss Dash…” it was unmistakable. The pony reached up and pulled off a bald cap. A bright red and orange mane poofed out from beneath it. It was Fire Streak.

“Fire?! What… wait…” Dash looked at the other two. The maid began giggling uncontrollably. She removed her headpiece and a bright yellow mane sprang out along with the sound of party horns. “Surprise?” Dash blinked. “That means…” she looked at Santa. Santa belched, and before he could remove anything— “Lightning Streak…” Dash placed it. The belch was all she needed.

“So this was all an act?” Thunderlane asked. Surprise burst out laughing.

“OF COURSE IT WAS! Silly!” she giggled. “We do lots of comedy routines you know! We’re pretty good actors!” she smacked Fire Streak hard on the back. “He’s pretty good at dying wouldn’t you say?” she pointed at Fire. Fire shrugged.

“I also played the old stallion,” he explained.

“I was the chaffer…” Lightning waved. Fire rolled his eyes.

“That’s… CHAUFFEUR, dear brother.” Fire corrected.

“I also did the gruff cop, the big ghost, and the fake bodies!” Surprise bounced up and down. “And doesn’t Misty make an awesome silent killer?”

“Uh…” Dash glanced at Misty, who was still giving a cheerful smile.

“WHICH ONE OF YOU SPIT ON ME?!” Arctic demanded as she stepped over to the rest of the cadets. Squad three looked about each other and began averting their eyes. Surprise zipped up and got in arctic’s face.

“Don’t ruin our fun,” she said in a dead serious voice before slowly lowering to the floor and crawling over to Twister. “By the way… you’re gullible as hell!” she giggled before bouncing back over to the Streak twins. Misty stood up from her spot and joined them as well. Fire smiled at the cadets.

“Well… you just barely did it in time. Nineteen minutes! Good work… now please don’t ruin the surprise for anypony else,” he suddenly slammed his hoof against the floor twice. “TRAPDOOR NUMBER SEVEN!” he yelled into the floor.

“Huh? WHOA!” Dash yelped as the floor opened beneath all of them. They fell into a small tube slide and began careening down dark pipes.

“WHOOAAAAA!!! OOF!” Dash flew out of the slide and landed flat on something soft. She quickly looked up to see she was no longer inside the cube, rather now on the other side of it. She had landed on a very soft, large mat. Before she could get up—

“EEEEEEE!!!!!” Arctic came flying out of the slide and landed right on top of Dash. “Huh?!” Arctic looked up and frantically glanced around. Dash cringed, feeling the stickiness of Arctic’s fur from the cranberry juice spilled on her.

“Get offa me!” Dash yelled while pushing her wings up to knock Arctic off her back and tried to stand.

“YIIIKES!!!!” Thunderlane fell out next and slammed into Dash’s back, pushing her back down. Unlike Arctic, Thunderlane actually had some meat on his bones, so Dash was forced down roughly and her face smushed into the mat. Thunderlane realized how and who he landed on and quickly tried to push himself up, but—

“WOOOO!!!!!” Twister flew out of the slide backwards, running plot first into the back of Thunderlane’s head. Thunderlane was forced back down, squishing Dash further into the mat, but Twister bounced and flung back into the air. He halted himself after flying up a few feet and turned over so he was hovering in the air above them while upside down.

“Wheeee!!!!” Derpy’s voice echoed through the slide. She slide out slowly and landed extra softly on Thunderlane’s back, sitting up straight and smiling. “So much fun again!” she lightly bounced up and down.

“MMMMRRRRGGGGPHHH!!!!!!!” Dash yelled into the mat as she flailed her arms and legs about. Thunderlane quickly stood up with Derpy perched on his back. “GAAAAHHH!!!!” Dash pulled her head free from the mat.

“Hey! That was pretty good!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from above them. Dash looked up to see her, Soarin, and Spitfire descend towards them while removing their special goggles that they had also used on the previous test. Soarin looked up towards the ceiling and waved. Silver Lining saluted from above and flew back over to the start.

Fleetfoot landed in front of the five of them and smiled.

“You know, I honestly wasn’t expecting anypony to actually figure it out… I bet you surprised squad three too! Now let’s WHOA!!!” Fleetfoot reclined as Dash reached forward and grabbed Fleetfoot’s shoulders while glaring angrily.

“WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT?!?!” Dash barked while shaking Fleetfoot.

“Whoa there…” Soarin flew over and pulled Dash off of Fleetfoot. “Fleet, I told you it was gonna just piss them off.” Soarin chuckled as he held Dash back. Dash grunted in disapproval and pouted while crossing her hooves. Soarin, however, kept his hooves on her. She didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but Dash seized the opportunity. She glanced over and Arctic… who was, of course, glaring at Dash because Soarin was touching her. Dash couldn’t do much, and she wanted to honor Soarin’s choice of keeping knowledge of their relationship low, but she had some options.

Dash subtly leaned into his muscular arm and rested her side against it while keeping her eyes on Arctic. Soarin didn’t notice, but Arctic’s eyes widened. Dash snickered and subtly rubbed her side up and down Soarin’s arm. Arctic noticed the motion. Dash had never seen a pair of eyes go so wide while also glaring so hard at the same time. It almost looked unnatural. Arctic looked like she was about to explode into a fit of frail fury, but Fleetfoot recaptured their attention.

“What was the point of it?” Fleetfoot began as Soarin let Dash back down (much to her dismay). “Simple really! The Wonderbolts do more than stunt shows… and to be completely honest with you, there may be times when you are put in a situation where things won’t make sense, or you don’t have the right expertise to handle the situation,” she paused and landed before them. “The point of this test was to see who buckled down and tried to solve the problem regardless. It’s easy to give up and pass the job on to somepony who’s more qualified… but you may not always have that luxury! Sometimes you’ll have no choice but to go with it!” she smiled.

“But… a murder mystery?” Thunderlane rolled his eyes and looked towards Spitfire. Spitfire shook her head.

“Don’t look at me cadet, I didn’t approve it,” she explained. Fleetfoot zipped up to Thunderlane and got in his face.

“Do I sense more sack choking over here?” she gave him an overdramatic, angry pout. Thunderlane stepped backward so suddenly that Derpy tipped off his back and landed with a quiet “oof!” on the mat.

“Shoulda been more blood… REAL BLOOD,” Twister hovered beside Fleetfoot’s ear while still flying upside-down. Fleetfoot swung her head left to hit his face, but he disappeared. Fleetfoot quickly released her hooves from the mat, letting her body drop. “URF!” a grunt came from directly below her. She had slammed her body right down on top of Twister as he tried to slink beneath through her legs. She was lying completely on top of his stomach and she looked into his eyes seductively and creepily.

“What did I tell you would happen if you pulled this crap on me again?” she taunted while wiggling her body side to side. Twister’s ears completely drooped and his pupils shrank. Dash could have sworn his face turned three lighter shades of green. “You’re lucky I’m busy,” Fleetfoot winked and removed herself from him.

She looked towards Dash, and then moved her eyes about the rest of them.

“As I said, that was not bad at all. Now please stay over here. We don’t want to ruin the surprise for anypony else,” she pointed to the floor before lifting off and heading back up. Spitfire followed close behind her. Soarin gave Dash a subtle nudge and a wink as he passed before following as well. Dash smirked at him, then sat down and released a heavy sigh of relief.

Finally, she was done with the crazy day. She felt like she performed well throughout. She was part of the group who beat the first “test.” She stumbled a bit on the second test, but it didn’t go too bad. And then… whatever this was… went alright, at least Fleetfoot said so. Dash was confident she’d be in the lineup for the third day. Now she wondered about the rest. It was sad to see Bulk go the day before, would she have to say goodbye to another friend? Speaking of—

“So that was a hell of a thing…” Thunderlane sighed and plopped down beside Dash. “At least it this one didn’t kick my ass.”

“Heh,” Dash chuckled as Derpy landed on her other side. She observed Derpy and the goofy smile still plastered to her face. “You look like you’re having a good time,” Dash smiled at her. Derpy bounced a little in place while smiling.

“The first one was scary, yeah!” she beamed. “This one was weird… and a little scary too, but there was a slide at the end!” Derpy giggled innocently. Dash could never stop smiling whenever Derpy was happy. The pony was just downright adorable.

“HEY YOU!”

This pony on the other hand…

Arctic pushed past Derpy and got in Dash’s face.

“What do you want now?”

“I saw you rubbing on Soarin! How many times do I have to tell you?! He’s MINE! MINE, MINE, MINE!” she yelled in Dash’s face. Dash didn’t even budge. She smirked.

“Sure he is,” she shrugged. “Whatever you say,” Dash laid down and reclined on her back as they began waiting. Arctic was giving her looks mixed with anger and confusion.

She was so damn dense… Dash was going to LOVE breaking the news to her eventually. A mare like her could use a reality check.

For now though… it was one hell of a day. She just wanted to lie down and relax.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

If anyone can name what that whole thing was a parody of... you win the internet! xD

And Noble, you were the lucky winner of "I'm gonna scroll down my comments and take the first user that comments often to put in a gag" xD

SO WEIRD HUH WEIRD!!!!!!!!

but... weird time is over.

Next chapter will be about anticipation of the results...... AND TURBO FLUFF!

if i buckle down tomorrow morning i could have it out in a day ^_____^

but for now... i'm gonna play games... this was not easy to do xD

I hope you all enjoyed the craziness!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 25: Just Let Me Look At You

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 25:

What a busy day.

Soarin sighed as he waited in line to get food. The cadets were all packed into the mess hall and the Wonderbolts were taking their turn at the buffets. Thankfully, because of the sharp decrease in cadets from day one into day two, the chefs were able to prepare a more reasonable food selection.

While he was relieved the day was over and excited to get some better food (at least compared to the day before), Soarin still felt a little stressed. Spitfire was in charge of day one. Fleetfoot was in charge of day 2. It was his turn tomorrow and he had the toughest job.

He had to whittle down the last remaining fifty to twenty one, using rather physically demanding methods. There was sure to be some injuries tomorrow. Hopefully none of them would be severe, but they had to determine who’d be able to survive the grueling recruit training after the tryouts were over. Being a cadet was one thing… being a recruit… was different. Soarin sometimes wondered if their training and selection processes were too brutal, but then again, they were the best. The best of the best within the best.

Due to the ability to fly, pegasi had a natural advantage when it came to combat capabilities. While their military use was limited, the Wonderbolts could only afford to have the most astounding individuals in their ranks to meet any objective required of them. Soarin always felt their aerobatic shows were misleading. Not many ponies were aware of their combat capabilities. He was sure the chunk of cadets that ran off after reading the consent forms were in it for the shows.

He had too much on his mind. Dash, his magic, Dash, his duty tomorrow, Dash, the recruitment process, Dash, the difficult selection he had to make soon, Dash, Dash, Rainbow Dash, Dash, his bedroom, SON OF A…

Soarin shook his head out and moved along slowly behind Silver Lining. He was in line for the deli, hoping to get a nice fresh sandwich after dealing with all the horrible food they had had as of late. The line was moving really slowly.

He still couldn’t focus on much without Dash being a part of it. He was still worried about the selection for the elite spot. There was more than a pony’s skill going into making that decision. They had to exhibit certain qualities on top of that. Qualities like duty, compassion, loyalty, perseverance, etc. While he believed Dash was capable of all of these, particularly loyalty, it was his job to select the cadet that fit these qualities the best. There were more than a few potential candidates that exhibited these qualities along with her. It wasn’t going to be an easy choice, and she’d understand if he didn’t choose her right? But he was getting ahead of himself. There was still one more day of tryouts. Dash was sure to pull through with flying colors... figuratively and literally.

As he waited, he glanced over Silver’s shoulder to figure out what was taking so long. He was distracted however, by something going on right in front of Silver. Wave Chill was in line ahead of Silver. He was fidgeting and kept taking a brief step out of the line before going right back in. Soarin leaned further. High Winds and Blaze were in front of him, the two were conversing and laughing about something, but he couldn’t hear. In front of them however, next in line for the deli counter was Spitfire. Soarin glanced back at Wave and saw that every time he made a move to leave the line, he was glancing at her first.

Oh, what a wreck…

Was Wave thinking about talking to her now? Clearly. Soarin could read his body language. But time and place Wave… time and place. This would be a terrible time to do it. Trying to confront Spitfire about something personal when she’s hungry was like trying to convince a stop sign it needs to rethink its career choice. It just wasn’t gonna happen. Spitfire was grumpy as hell when she was hungry.

But at least Wave was thinking about it. It was good to see he actually took Soarin’s advice.

Then Soarin remembered he was trying to find out why the line was moving so slowly. He leaned over further to check, and wasn’t very surprised when he finally saw.

Fire Streak was taking sign language cues from Misty Fly. He was relaying it to the pony at the deli to get Misty a sandwich just the way she wanted it. Fire kept looking between her and speaking to the deli attendant. Eventually the pony placed the plate with the sandwich up on the counter. Misty examined it, then smiled wide and bounced up and down. She gave Fire a really big hug before grabbing her perfect sandwich and trotting happily towards the side room with Fire in tow. They passed Lightning Streak as they walked. He made a few vigorous motions with his arm while making “Unf Unf Unf” sounds. Without a second of hesitation, Fire gave him a quick kick to the leg.

“YEEOW!” Lightning yelped while limping towards the soup line.

Soarin smiled as he watched Fire and Misty. The two made it to the door. Fire balanced his tray on his wing and opened the door for Misty. She smiled and bowed her head slightly to him before entering. Fire took a deep breath and sighed heavily before entering behind her.

RAINBOW DASH.

…

RAINBOW DASH.

…

RAINBOW D—

Soarin grunted and looked down. All this new romance floating around the compound… Dash was right here and he couldn’t do anything about it. He felt like he was at a museum. He had something beautiful and interesting right in front of him, but it was strictly: look, don’t touch.

Forget it. He wanted to spend time with her. He needed to spend time with her. Besides, as Discord said, Dash’s presence alone was physically healthy for him in his magical imbued state. No asking this time. Spitfire could deal with it. He was going to sneak Dash out tonight. He was a lead squad Wonderbolt… he could easily mask it as something else.

As the line shifted forward again, his curiosity got the better of him. He hovered up slightly into the air and scanned the cadets in the mess hall. It wasn’t that hard to find Dash. Rainbows were very vibrant after all. He quickly spotted her. Why he looked for her just now? No reason. She was just on his mind and he wanted to know where she was.

She was eating very fast. In fact, she finished right as he spotted her. She quickly took her tray over to the tray racks, stuffed it into the rack unevenly, and darted out the doors.

Soarin chuckled at her sense of urgency. No doubt she was rushing to check the rankings board for day two. They were just posted after all. He had already seen the rankings and knew that she had absolutely nothing to worry about. Perhaps she wanted to check on her friends as well. That would be so like her. She cared just as much about her friends’ success as her own.

Soarin blinked as something began moving slowly into his peripheral vision. It looked like a waffle cone from the dessert area. Soarin glanced to his right to see Fleetfoot slowly moving her face in the way of his, while wearing an eyes and mouth wide open expression, and holding an empty waffle cone, open end against her forehead.

Art by: Cantil

“Do you like rainbows?! I hear princesses LOVE rainbows!” Fleetfoot said in a very high pitched voice. Soarin flattened his ears, grabbed the cone from her grip and shoved the open end over her nose until it got firmly stuck on her face. He then took his wing and pushed her head down. They both landed, but Soarin kept his wing locked firmly over her head. “My lady! I apologize for my insolence!” She yelled, muffled by the cone, and still giggling in between.

“Not helping your case Fleet,” Soarin chuckled as he held her down.

All joking aside…

He was going to sneak Dash out tonight. Spitfire would just have to deal with it.

Rainbow Dash burst out of the mess hall, sliding across the floor with her hooves before turning and galloping down the main hallway. The results were posted up in the lobby again. She wasn’t the only pony with the same idea. In fact, there were already a few ponies already checking the board. Without the need to push through the crowd this time, Dash skidded to a stop and quickly focused on the board.

…

What?

No way!

Dash’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened.

1st: Rainbow Dash

HOLY CRAP! She was still at the top?! Dash blinked and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t think she’d do so well after her slip ups in the tube course? Then again… she was a major part of solving the pie battle… and she took command in the random ass murder mystery scenario… Geez, she really had to stop focusing so much on what she did a little bit wrong and realize how much she was doing right! The Wonderbolts sure thought so.

Well then! She wasn’t worried about her rank, but it was quite an ego boost to see herself still at the top.

“Hmph!” a grunt came from beside her. She glanced to her right and saw a grey stallion with a messy brown mane glaring at the board. He was bigger than her. Not as big as Soarin, but he definitely came close. He glanced at Dash briefly, then back at the board, and then back at Dash again. He looked her over before grunting again. He turned and stomped away.

Dash blinked and watched him leave before shrugging. What the hell was his problem? Anyway, time to look the rest of the list over.

2nd: Squall

Squall… that name again. She saw it on the first day too in second. Realization hit Dash. She glanced over her shoulder again, but the grumpy stallion was gone. Squall, huh. She wondered if that was him. There were lots of cadets and she had completely missed some of their performances during the first day. Though how could she miss a pony doing well enough to be stuck in the second spot two days in a row?

She looked back to the board.

3rd: Little Star

Again, here too. Little Star was third last time. Dash hadn’t met either of these apparent super stars. She was sure she’d notice them tomorrow though.

She’d speculate on them later however. Dash was much, much more interested in finding her friends on the list. Only fifty were being taken into the third day… she hoped for the best as she began scanning down. She didn’t have to look very far.

5th: Twister

Twister had been bumped up! It made sense to Dash though. Today’s tests were about the ridiculous… and Dash had seen him work through all three. He handled each of them well. The last test he got pranked a bunch, but Fleetfoot said that test was to see who just went with it.

Dash scanned further. She was surprised to see that she recognized none of the names as she went down. It wasn’t until seventeen, that she found another name.

17th: Matteo

He got bumped down two places. While he played a key role in the defeating the pie machine, he did have that huge mishap in the pipe course. He must’ve also slipped a little in the murder mystery. Dash actually found herself chuckling. How DID Matteo handle that prank? Squad 3 must’ve had a field day with him.

Dash suddenly realized something. Where was Storm Front? Dash quickly scanned down the list while holding her breath.

25th: Storm Front

Dash released a heavy sigh of relief. Yikes! How did he fall so far on the list? He was awesome in both the first and second tests! Something must’ve gone horribly wrong for him in the third test. In fact, knowing him, he probably went hell bent on protecting the others from harm instead of solving the case. Either way, he got hit pretty hard in the rankings, but Dash was glad. Unlike a certain other pony she knew, Storm Front was very deserving of a spot as a Wonderbolt recruit. Such a nice guy deserves a well earned victory.

But last time, Arctic was in 25th. Dash had yet to see her. So she crossed her feathers and prayed Arctic would be long gone as she continued down.

Down.

Down.

And down.

She was at 40th. No sign of Arctic yet… but also no sign of Thunderlane or Derpy. Dash was half excited and half worried.

Arctic leaving = praise Celestia!

Thunderlane and/or Derpy leaving = depressing.

They both got farther than they expected they would, but it didn’t mean Dash felt they should keep going.

Down.

Down.

48th: THUNDERLANE!

“Yes!” Dash pumped a hoof in the air. Thunderlane made it to the third day?! Oh, she couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he found out. Talk about being rewarded for taking your licks. Thunderlane hadn’t had the most… pleasant time here, but he was staying alive and getting a chance most pegasi could only dream of. She was compelled to be proud of him. He earned it.

But… Derpy?

Dash looked at 49th. No idea who that pony was.

Only one more spot could possibly be Derpy…

50th: Arctic Blast.

“WHAT?!?!” Dash yelled out, startling the other ponies around her. “Are you KIDDING ME?! ARGH!!!!!!” she reached up and yanked at her mane.

Why?

Why? Why? Why?!?!?

She just COULDN’T get rid of her! It was maddening! How did she barely pass?! She did terrible in the first and third tests, at least in Dash’s opinion. It looked like she got through the second mostly unscathed except for the big bruise on her side.

Ugh…

Such a mood killer.

Dash blinked… and her ears drooped. She looked down the list past the 50th mark. She stopped near the bottom.

82nd: Derpy Hooves

Dash sat down and sighed. Derpy had done well in the second test… and okay in the third. In the first, she locked up and hid. Knowing how the Wonderbolts truly were… Dash could see how that probably killed her chances. But… It felt wrong. It felt SO DAMN WRONG That a pony as rude and bitchy as Arctic was allowed through to the defining day of the tryouts… and a pony as sweet and kind as Derpy was left out. Personality didn’t decide if you made it or not… but it still just felt so wrong.

Dash had made it through. She was still at the very top, and very happy to be, but losing Derpy… it killed any reason for her to be happy.

Dash stood up and began slowly walking towards the barracks. It was easy to give Bulk Biceps a hearty pat on the back and get him to be happy… but Derpy was much more sensitive and had more than one reason to be sad about leaving. Sure, she couldn’t tryout with them any more… but there was something she’d have a much harder time dealing with.

Leaving Storm Front.

Just as Dash predicted, it wasn’t easy.

Like the night before, the cadets who didn’t make it were to pack up and head out with train tickets waiting for them at the station. They had plenty of time to do so however, so there was no rush.

Derpy sat on her bed, head down, but not crying. Dash and Thunderlane were there beside her bed, but neither knew what to say. Thunderlane was still a little flustered about making it to day three, and he felt it wouldn’t be his place to comfort a pony that didn’t make it. While Dash had a similar feeling, she felt compelled to say something. Derpy’s reason for coming to the tryouts was because she wanted to be more like her. Dash wanted to tell her what an amazing job she had done, but the words were so hard to find.

Dash sighed and set next to Derpy on the bed. She draped her wing over Derpy’s shoulder and rubbed it up and down gently.

“Sorry Derpy, I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better,” Dash openly admitted not knowing what to say. She felt it was better than saying nothing. At least Derpy would know that they were thinking about her. “You…” Dash tried to think and talk at the same time. “You did very well though. Please be proud of that. You also broke a record! I’m sure the Wonderbolts think highly of you for it.”

“I’m fine,” Derpy suddenly spoke up quietly. Dash flinched, but quickly relaxed and continued to rub her wing on Derpy’s shoulder. Thunderlane still couldn’t find any words, but he sat down on the other side of Derpy to at least show he was there for her too. Derpy smiled at them both. “It was so much fun… but… I’m not so sad about the tryouts,” she sniffled.

Dash knew it.

“I’m…” Derpy sniffled again. “I’m sad because… I’m leaving… Storm…”

Dash quickly pulled Derpy tighter against her as the sniffling became more frequent.

Of course. Storm Front. Just as Dash predicted. She didn’t blame Derpy for being so sad. Outside of Ponyville… hell, even IN Ponyville sometimes, Derpy didn’t get much love and respect. At least, not as much as Dash felt she deserved for being so friendly and sweet. Storm was a rare find for her. Not only was he quite possibly the friendliest stallion Dash had ever seen in her life, but he also showed a genuine respect for Derpy and enjoyment of her company. This was extremely rare for Derpy. She would possibly never know a stallion like this again.

“Derpy…”

Dash, Thunderlane, and Derpy all looked up.

Storm Front was standing in the aisle, looking in at them. Dash reached over and poked Thunderlane. He grunted and looked over at Dash. Dash made sweeping hoof motions towards him. He looked back at Storm as he moved towards Derpy, and then looked back to see Dash scoot away. Thunderlane caught on quickly and moved away himself.

Storm went right up to Derpy, reached out his arms and pulled her into a very tight hug. Derpy squeaked and blushed, but quickly wrapped her arms around him as well. Dash slid over to the other side of the mattress and hopped off before trotting around to join Thunderlane in the aisle. The two were giving them space.

“Derpy, I’m so sorry you have to leave already…” Storm said quietly as he released the hug. Derpy looked away from him, frowning and ears drooping.

“I know… but… I had fun,” she said with a weak smile. “And… I got to meet you!” she said, forcing her smile to be stronger. Storm pulled her back into a hug.

“It’s been… great for me too Derpy. You are such a fun mare… I’ll be honest… you made this experience for me so enjoyable so far. I hate seeing you go. Who’s gonna make me laugh now?” he said while giving her a light playful squeeze before putting her at arm’s length again. “Cloudsdale isn’t very far from Ponyville. If I don’t make it, I can come visit you as much as I can.”

Dash had to suppress an audible “awwww” when she saw just how much Derpy’s face lit up when he said that. He continued.

“And if I become a Wonderbolt, Ponyville’s just a short train ride away. With a Wonderbolt salary, I can easily afford as many tickets to see you as I want.”

Double dose of d’aww.

“Yay!!!” Derpy flung herself at him and hugged him again. He caught her and chuckled as he returned the embrace.

Dash was glad. Not just for Derpy, but for Storm. He had listened to her. He was willing to keep trying with Derpy despite a little distance. She sighed heavily as she watched. It wasn’t a dreamy sigh. It was a frustrated sigh.

The scene was reminding her of Soarin.

Soarin, Soarin, Soarin, and more Soarin, with a side of Soarin, and some extra Soarin for later.

It didn’t matter how hard she tried. Dash found it impossible to focus entirely on the tryouts, not when the stallion she loved with every fiber of her being was right there. She felt like she was being tortured. Something she desired greatly was taunting her. It was just out of her reach.

As much as she risked sounding like Shove-it Bitchalot, she felt it was another motivation for her to become a Wonderbolt. It was her dream to fly with them. It always had been her dream to fly with them… but now she had another reason too: to be with the love of her life.

“Derpy Hooves? Where’s Derpy Hooves?!” Spitfire’s voice suddenly echoed throughout the barracks.

They all turned to see Spitfire walking down the aisle, out of uniform for the night. She was holding something under her wing as she approached.

“Ah! There you are!” she smiled when she saw Derpy. Storm quickly backed away as the lead captain of the Wonderbolts made her way over to Derpy. “I was afraid you already left. We wouldn’t want you to leave without this…” she unfolded her wing and grabbed what was tucked beneath it, holding it out to Derpy. “It’s too bad you didn’t make it through, because we’ll definitely never forget you,” Spitfire winked at her.

Dash’s curiosity was piqued. She walked over to the other side of the bed to see what Spitfire was holding out to Derpy. It was a picture frame. In it was a picture of Derpy smiling very wide beside another pegasus mare.

Dash blinked. The mare looked familiar. She was old, not elderly, but her face had some age on it. More age than Silver Lining’s at least. The mare was yellow with a long, pure white mane. There was a faint signature on the picture. Dash leaned in and read it… then—

“WAIT!!!!!” yelled as her eyes widened. She flopped onto the mattress to get a closer look at the mare. “Tha…thaaaaaa…” she slurred and stuttered in disbelief. “IS THAT FLASHWIND?!?!?!?!” she finally blurted out. Flashwind… one of the two legendary Wonderbolt captains… who once saved her life in a weather mishap… and mother of Rapidfire…

“Mmhmm…” Spitfire nodded. “She held the record on the endurance test. Whenever a pony breaks a record, they get to meet to previous holder."

Dash looked at Derpy in disbelief.

“Derpy you met the Flashwind… and you didn’t tell me?!?! I’m SO JEALOUS!!!” Dash lightly shook Derpy while smiling widely. Derpy smiled back, slightly confused. She had no idea who Flashwind was.

“She was very nice,” Derpy commented while looking back at the picture. Spitfire tapped her hoof on the frame.

“This one is for you,” Spitfire explained. “There is another one just like it being hung up in the lobby by the record boards,” she smiled at Derpy and ruffled her mane. “That was quite a show you gave us yesterday. You may have fallen short this year, but we’d love to see you again next year.”

“Yay!” Derpy replied simply while hugging the picture and bouncing happily on the mattress.

Spitfire gave Derpy a nod and a pat on the shoulder before leaving to attend to other duties. Dash and the others quickly surrounded her again to congratulate her and express their awe. Derpy immediately set the picture down and gave Storm another big hug as he approached. It was unprovoked. She was just really happy and felt like doing it. It was not like he was going to complain anyway.

Dash was beyond happy for Derpy. She came into the tryouts hoping to be cool like Dash. She didn’t make it all the way through, but she had thoroughly impressed Dash and made her a little jealous on top of that. Derpy deserved all of it. She had a rough time in life and something like this was just the pick-me-up she deserved.

They all said their goodbyes. Derpy received one last hug and one more promise from Storm. They waved as Derpy trotted towards the doors to the barracks, turned and gave them one last smile, and left.

Derpy was gone, but she left the compound as happy as could be.

A half an hour passed and Dash couldn’t believe how empty the barracks felt now. With only fifty left, it felt like there was so much open space to move and interact with others. Even some of the beds were being removed by staff members. They would be shooed out soon to let the cadets relax, but Dash could understand if they wanted to lighten their workload a little for when they had to really dismantle the whole mock sleeping quarters.

Dash contemplated moving to a different bunk. She didn’t know why she hadn’t considered it the day before.

Dash glanced up and down the aisle as she tossed her cadet uniform into a passing laundry bin. There were so many open beds now. Well, the mattresses hadn’t been washed or anything, but she could easily have draped her sheet over one or something. She just wanted to get away from Arctic.

The only real thing that was stopping her from moving was that she’d have to move all of her stuff too. It wouldn’t be too hard to conceal the picture of her and Soarin as she moved, but she wasn’t sure if it was a risk she was willing to take.

She didn’t give a damn if Arctic found it. Dash wasn’t the only pony who was tired of her. She could see it every time she walked by. She received so many eye rolls and scowls. Everypony was sick of her. If Arctic saw the picture and began barking around about it, Dash doubted anypony would listen to her. She never shut up about Soarin to begin with, so it would come off as her trying to start false rumors.

The problem for Dash was everypony else. Should any other cadet besides Arctic catch a glimpse of the picture, it was sure to spread quickly. The last thing she and Soarin needed was that extra monkey on their backs.

Once she was IN the Wonderbolts, they could make it look like it happened after the fact. Until then however, it was best to not take any risks, at least that’s how Dash felt. If Soarin came in here and pulled her out, she wasn’t going to resist. She was keeping quiet for him mostly. She wanted to blurt it out and let everypony know, but that would definitely put him in a bind.

“EVERYPONY LISTEN UP!”

Speaking of the sexiest voice Dash knew…

She had just flopped onto her bed when Soarin’s voice reached through the barracks from the entry doors. She scooted forward on her mattress and looked out into the aisle… with more excitement than she let show.

Soarin, also out of uniform (and providing full eye candy for Dash) was walking slowly down the aisle. This was the first time he had addressed the cadets in the barracks. Dash was still getting used to the horn… but even with such a strange, attention diverting headpiece… Soarin still had an incredible presence that radiated off of him with each stride. All the cadets had stopped what they were doing and were focused on him.

A faint, “Eeeeee~” was coming from directly above Dash. Dash growled quietly as Arctic swooned above her. Dash waited for a moment when Soarin was looking away from them. As soon as his head turned, Dash reached up and jabbed her hoof hard between the metal grate that held Arctic’s mattress above hers. A sharp “EEP!” sounded out and Dash went right back to looking at Soarin. Arctic looked over the edge of her bed and huffed at Dash before instantly going gaga over Soarin again.

“First I would like to congratulate all of you for making it this far!” Soarin began as he slowly moved through the aisle. “I also want to express how impressed we are with each and every one of you! As some of you know… we had current recruits trying out amongst you for a chance to get the elite squadron spot. Well, guess what? None of them made it past this cut. We have an exceptional class of cadets here... unlike anything we’ve ever seen before!”

Dash couldn’t believe that. She had almost completely forgotten that there were current recruits going through the tryouts. The lure of an elite squad spot must’ve attracted the best of the best from all over Equestria. Not all fifty of the cadets here would become at least a phase one recruit, and even fewer after that would become a phase two recruit (a.k.a. a full-time recruit squad of five), but the Wonderbolts were definitely licking their chops with all these new faces to send tryout invites in the future.

“That being said…” Soarin continued. “I—” he stopped dead in his tracks as he came across Dash’s bunk and his face quickly wore a mortified expression. Dash eyed him curiously, wondering why he stopped, but then she realized he was looking into hers and Arctic’s personal space to her left.

Oh. Right. The poster.

Soarin stared directly at the Sexy Beach Soarin poster that was hanging on the wall. He sighed, flattening his ears and brow. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He looked at Dash and lifted an eyebrow. Dash quickly pointed up. Soarin looked up and reclined slightly to see Arctic nearly falling off of her bed as she tried to lean her face as close to him as possible from the top bunk. His ears flopped down and he scrunched his face as he glanced down at Dash again.

Dash couldn’t hold it in. She began to snicker. More chuckles started coming from around the bunks. Eventually it erupted into full out laughter as everypony became aware of the scene. Dash was trying so hard not to laugh at Soarin’s expense with him right in front of her, but she just couldn’t hold it in. Dash looked around to see Twister, Thunderlane, and Storm Front all losing it. Even stone faced Matteo had a smirk cracking on one side of his beak.

Dash looked back to Soarin as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, Dash immediately stopped laughing and her eyes grew slightly. His expression was hard and serious. He looked around at all the cadets laughing.

“Hahahaha!!!!” he started mocking them. “Hahahahaha SHUT IT!!!!!” his voice boomed.

It was unreal how quickly the place went dead silent. All the laughter instantly ceased and the cadets had all frozen in place, staring at him with a mix of surprise and fear. The tone was different. Dash had never seen Soarin lash out with such a heavy and demanding tone in his voice.

“Ha ha,” he slowly began to turn while glaring. “He he,” he kept turning. “Ho ho,” he made a full circle. “Hardy har har har!” he finished while slightly baring his teeth. “Are we done laughing now? I think we’re done laughing now!” he started walking again, moving past Dash’s bunk. “Today sure was fun wasn’t it? All the silly stuff and fun times… WELL GUESS WHAT?!” he made it halfway to the opposite wall and sharply turned around. “Fun time’s over!” he began walking back down the aisle. “There’s only fifty of you left… and tomorrow, it’s my job to see which of you is truly ready to be a Wonderbolt!” he barked loud and clear as he moved past Dash again.

This was… hot. Dash struggled to control her wings. The way he had taken full control of the situation… and how he held the focus of all the cadets through intimidation… Dash loved it. She had yet to see the more professional side of Soarin. She liked it. Oh, she liked it a little too much.

“Tomorrow, it’s my turn to run you through some tests. No jokes and no pranks! It’s going to be tough, and it’s going to be hard! Wonderbolts don’t become Wonderbolts by taking it easy!” he stopped halfway between Dash’s bunk and the entrance before slowly turning again. “When the lights go out tonight, do your body a favor and get right to sleep! Trust me… you’re going to need the rest for what’s coming tomorrow! If you don’t bring your A-game, you’re gonna find your ass sitting in a train car home faster than you can blink!” He faced down the aisle again and glanced back and forth. “That’ll be all!” he nodded before he turned and headed towards the door.

The hush faded quickly, but only enough for murmurs to pass through the cadets. The next day was going to be brutal, huh? This day was wacky and now it was back to the more serious grind.

Dash couldn’t help but wonder what Soarin had in store for them… Okay, she was really still internally swooning at how Soarin asserted his influence so fiercely over the cadets. She saw if first when he broke up the scrapping stallions on the first day… and now this. She’d be sure to show him her “interest” in this new quality of his he’d been hiding from her.

Dash flattened her expression as she heard Arctic release a heavenly sigh above her. That does it. Dash felt the need to really give Arctic a piece of her mind.

“Rainbow Dash?”

Dash stopped mid stand and glanced to her left. It was Soarin. He hadn’t left. Dash wanted to give him the usual smile, but his eyes were still locked in serious professional mode. Dash simply continued her motion and stepped off the bed.

“Yes?” replied. She could almost feel Arctic already glaring at her. Dash knew she was. Hooker McLadyBonerforSoarin was one of the most predictable mares Dash had ever met.

“That’s yes, SIR… cadet.” He said sternly. Dash froze. Okay, that was unexpected.

“Y—yes, sir?” she rephrased it, feeling a bit stiff. Soarin made a small head motion towards the doors.

“We need to speak with you. Follow me.” His face remained stoic throughout. Dash gulped and slowly followed behind as Soarin walked back out into the aisle. She felt nervous. She really couldn’t tell if Soarin was playing this up or not. If he was, he was doing a flawless job. A few other cadets gave them looks as they passed, and eventually the two were out the doors.

Back by Dash’s bunk, as Dash predicted, Arctic was still glaring. She had been glaring since Soarin approached Dash. She didn’t pay attention at all to what they were saying or the fact that Soarin was being super serious. All she saw was Soarin talking to another mare, but not just any mare: a mare that had more than once challenged her interest in Soarin. Arctic wasn’t buying it. All her brain could picture was this being some sort of set up by Rainbow Dash to steal Soarin from her.

The cadets had around an hour before lights out. If Dash wasn’t back in around thirty to forty-five minutes… Arctic decided she would “step-out” and thwart Rainbow Bitch’s scheming.

Dash stiffly followed Soarin down the hallway and to the stairs in the lobby.

What was going on? She couldn’t get a read on him… she could always get a read on him in the past. Had she actually done something wrong?

They started up the stairs. She wanted to say something, but there were other Wonderbolts still within earshot down on the first floor. Was he taking her to Spitfire’s office? She suddenly felt extremely anxious.

They got to the top of the stairs and Dash could see past him towards Spitfire’s office. The hall was mostly empty though. It seemed like aside from those still downstairs, most of the Wonderbolts had called it a night already. It didn’t surprise her though. They did get up earlier for Fleetfoot’s surprise wakeup call.

Dash took two steps towards Spitfires office—

“OOF!” she grunted as Soarin suddenly reached over and grabbed her around the waist. “Whoa!” She yelped as he suddenly yanked her towards the second flight of stairs to the third floor. He hopped up and kicked off the walls in a diamond pattern to reach the third floor before sharply turning left, skidding to a stop in front of his door. He threw the door open, and threw Dash in. “YIKES!!!” she yelped as she tumbled through the air and landed on his bed, back first.

“SHHHH!!!!!” Soarin shushed her as she looked up. He looked back and forth outside his room. Dash blinked and shut her mouth. Soarin closed the door behind him, grinned at Dash, and dove at her.

“Yipe!” Dash squeaked quietly as Soarin landed on the bed, bounced once, landed on top of her, and wrapped his arm around her, squeezing her tightly.

It was all a ruse. He really had her going!

“You ass…” she whispered as he nestled his head into her chest, being sure not to poke her eye out with the false horn. “I thought I was actually in trouble!” she repeatedly bopped her hoof against his head gently.

“Hey, if you believed me, everypony else would,” he said while resting his chin on her chest and looking up at her. Dash giggled, reached down, and pressed his cheeks in. He didn’t resist.

“So I take it you’re not worried about getting in deep shit with Spitfire?” she asked while removing her hooves from his face. He rolled his eyes.

“‘In deep shit with Spitfire' is just a different way for me to say: ‘another day at the office,’” he winked. Dash tried to suppress the chuckling as much as she could.

“I just really wanted to do something with you, okay? You’re a risk taker, are you complaining?” he asked as he pushed himself up and loomed over Dash. She smirked at him, crossed her back legs, and put her front hooves behind her head.

“I like risk takers,” she gave him bedroom eyes. Soarin bit his lip and quickly went in for a hard kiss. Dash kept her limbs where they were, allowing him full access. Soarin quickly broke the kiss as a quiet THUMP came from next door. They both quickly looked at the wall.

“Dammit… these walls are too damn thin,” Soarin grunted as he heard movement in Spitfire’s room.

“Do we have a choice?” Dash reached up and moved his head back to her. She pouted at him while glaring, wishing he hadn’t cut off the kiss so quickly. Soarin looked down at her, and then looked up at the window behind them.

“Actually… yes we do,” he grinned. “It’s cloudy tonight, I’m sure we can find a nice puffy cloud to… share our thoughts of the day on…” he chuckled as he and Dash got up off the bed.

“Oh, that's what you’re gonna call it?” she smirked. “But aren’t there… you know… other windows out there? How are we not gonna be seen?”

“Fly straight up,” Soarin pointed up. “Actually I was thinking we could go press our faces to Spitfire’s window first, I don’t think she’d find that suspicious at—”

“Okay, I get it, jerk,” she giggled as she pushed him towards the window. Soarin turned and faced her as he opened the window and climbed into the windowsill. Dash suddenly gave him puppy eyes.

“What?” he asked while trying not to laugh at how uncharacteristic it looked of Dash. She unfolded her wings and let them droop to the bed.

“Flying? Aren’t you gonna ask me if my wings are feeling okay? I did lots of tryout stuff you know,” she faked a lame tone. Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“You’re fine, don’t bullshit me,” he quickly replied. Dash instantly burst into a fit of giggles, trying her hardest not to burst out laughing.

“Such a gentlestallion. Lead the way asshat,” Dash picked up her wings and stretched them out.

“Going up!” Soarin said comically before leaping backwards into the night and shooting upward. Dash quickly hopped out and spread her wings, following close behind.

The two flew gently skyward, finding a nice puffy cloud right above the Wonderbolt compound. Soarin popped up above the cloud first, waiting patiently for Dash. She didn’t come up though. Soarin glanced over the sides of the cloud, wondering where she was. As he looked around, Dash’s head slowly popped up behind him from within the cloud. Right as he turned to look, she leapt out and pounced on him, pinning his back to the cloud.

“Damn,” he chuckled as she looked down at him with desire in her eyes. Soarin sighed and tried to take a nice long look, but Dash was quickly upon him. She pushed herself down and slammed her lips against his, kissing him with all the built up passion from seeing him, but being unable to be with him. Soarin played along, wrapping his arms around her back as she nearly pushed him through the cloud with her body. She pulled back for a moment. Again, Soarin tried to look into her eyes, but she came right back at him.

“Hey, hey…” Soarin suddenly pushed her up. She eyed him quizzically .

“What?” she asked while tipping her head. “Oh, I get it,” she smirked. “You gotta fight me if you wanna be on top, buster.” She taunted while wiggling her body.”

“No… Dash…” Soarin shook his head and smiled. “First of all, I don’t want to get rough and hurt you by accident before tomorrow…” he trailed off. Dash blinked.

“What, are you implying I will get hurt tomorrow?” she asked. Soarin shook his head.

“That’s not what I meant. Tomorrow is going to be extremely physically demanding for all of you. You saw me earlier… the fun stuff is over, I have to be a hard ass about this.”

“Speaking of…” Dash interrupted as her wings fluttered and shuttered slightly. “I’ve never seen you be so… intimidating before,” she laid her body down on top of his and shivered. “It was… pretty damn sexy, I’m not gonna lie.” She inhaled sharply and sighed. Soarin bounced her eyebrows at her.

“Gotta be alpha if you want to keep control, especially with the stallions. The mares are harder to tame.”

“Oh? You don’t say,” Dash looked at him smugly.

“If you're any indication, I firmly stand by that statement,” he gave her his own smug look right back. He looked at her for another moment then frowned.

“What? Soarin, you’re being weird tonight,” Dash pouted. “Whoa!” she yelped as he suddenly pushed her gently until she rolled off and lay beside him. “Soarin? Seriously what’s the—” she stopped as Soarin turned on his side to face her. There was a different look in his eyes. Different from the usual competitive gaze. His eyes looked calm. They looked gentle. Dash remained silent as those eyes looked her over.

“You know Dash…” he began quietly. “I’m all for the roughhousing and wrestling…” he reached a hoof forward and gently stroked it against her face. “I don’t think… I really, truly show you how much I love you enough,” he ran his hoof over her cheek, around her ear into her mane, and stroked it all the way down the back of her neck.

Dash stared back at him. This was… different.

“Soarin…” she spoke up as a light blush crept on her face. “You’re getting super sappy on me…”

“I don’t care,” he said instantly. Dash flinched slightly and her eyes opened wider. “Just let me look at you… enjoy you…” he said while his light touch continued down her cheek again.

This was a much different situation than the usual. Dash was so used to the two of them fighting over who had who pinned. Soarin had put them side by side, facing each other. They were on equal terms with nothing to scrounge for. She felt her body tingle at his gentle touch. It sent delightful shivers through her. This was different… but she kind of liked it. Not that she would admit it. She was actually a little disappointed when Soarin suddenly stopped and pulled his hoof back, but he looked right into her eyes again, studying her features carefully.

“Dash, you’re a tough mare. You’re a badass. You’re a bundle of action. But…” Soarin reached his hoof out, but this time ran it from her neck down the curve of her physique. “But I feel like you need to be told… just how beautiful you are…”

“Huh…?” Dash felt her face heat up.

“I need to tell you how lost I get in your eyes…” he continued.

Dash didn’t know what to say or do. She thought he was being so damn sappy, but she was swooning like mad at his romantic words. She liked it so much more than she was willing to admit. He was completely in control. She could not move, and his words had frozen her in the warmest way imaginable.

“Sometimes… I want to dial back the roughness…” Soarin edged towards her and reached a hoof behind her head. “I want to be soft… and gentle… because you’re just that special to me…”

Dash instinctively closed her eyes as Soarin’s lips softly caressed hers. Dash felt her whole body heat up, but it wasn’t an untamable desire, it was more relaxed and comforting. She leaned her head in, completely locking their lips together, but keeping the feeling smooth and slow. Soarin continued. Making sure he left no part of her lips unattended to. There was no tongue battling, no nipping or play biting, just genuine romantic kissing.

When he finally pulled away from her, he did so very slowly so he could both hear her exhale in delight and feel her warm breath splash against his nose. He smiled as she slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. She looked confused, but at the same time very happy.

What did… what did Soarin just do to her? She was in love with him already and this sure as hell wasn’t the first time they had kissed… but that kiss was so much different. They had always been so rough… Dash just felt like that was how it would always go. Was this how true love felt? The way each and every small and gentle motion made every little piece of fur on her body tingle and stand on end… was unbelievable. Her body shivered with a delight that not even sex brought her. Just when she thought she had love figured out… this happened.

And… it was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Art by: GlitterDash (Dev art: chessaw)

“I think I liked that more than I should have,” Dash’s voice was slightly higher than normal and squeaked slightly. “I just… Soarin… ahhh…” she hugged herself. This was so unnatural to her. She felt so… mushy. Soarin chuckled and stroked her mane with his hoof again. She stiffened, but then relaxed and sighed so much that it was a surprise she didn’t turn into a liquid and rain down from the clouds.

“It’s okay to be romantic and girly sometimes Dash. You don’t need to put that shield up with me,” he reassured her. She puffed her cheeks out and looked away from him while glaring. He couldn’t help but laugh at how adorable it looked with her face blushing madly at the same time.

“Fine,” Dash huffed. “But if you tell anypony about this, I’ll kill you.”

“Fair enough,” Soarin smiled. Dash looked him in the eyes and lay completely still. Soarin had the feeling she wanted something. “Yes?” he asked instinctively. Her eyes widened slightly and darted around a couple times.

“Um…” she closed her eyes tight and her face grew redder for a moment. “Um…" she opened her eyes. "Could you… do it again?” she asked very quietly before slamming her eyes shut once again. She felt so stupid. This wasn’t like her at all… but for him. He was a special case.

“I was going to anyway,” Soarin leaned into her again. Dash surrendered immediately, closing her eyes and reaching her face towards his. The shocks of delight surged through her again as she felt the gentle touch of both their lips and of his body against hers. Dash released a soft moan: a moan of pure delight, not pleasure. Dash reached her hooves up and gently placed them against the sides of his head, as if demanding he not stop.

Soarin obeyed, tipping his head to give their lips different angles as they moved softly over themselves.

Soarin pulled away again and watched with satisfaction as Dash pulled her legs up to her chest and shuddered with a content sigh.

“Gosh, Soarin… I don’t… I don’t know what…” she stopped as he placed a hoof gently over her lips.

“Nothing needs to be said,” he smiled at her. “I just… really wanted you to feel it. To feel what I feel whenever you’re on my mind,” he stuffed one arm into the cloud and reached his other arm over her to grab her around the midsection and draw her into a tight hug. He nuzzled the top of her head. “I love you so much, Dashie…” he said softly. Dash tingled in his grip, then smiled while nestling herself into him.

Fanart by: Fuzzette

“I love you too you big dumb—” she stopped. Soarin blinked and looked down at her. “Sorry…” she grinned sheepishly. “I love you too… Soarin,” she corrected herself while tipping her head up and giving him a light peck on the cheek.

She could get used to this. It was new… it was different… but it felt so damn good. Sweet romance was not her thing… but with Soarin she could make an exception… especially if it always felt that amazing.

Soarin sighed and glanced down at the compound.

“I’d love for this to last another few hours… but I should get you back,” he grunted in frustration.

“Aww…” Dash voiced her disapproval. Perfect timing… just when she had felt perfectly comfortable.

“If you aren’t in the barracks by lights out and I’m missing too, Spitfire will get suspicious. Hell, I bet Fleetfoot already noticed and is combing the whole damn base to find and spy on us,” he added, earning a chuckle from Dash.

“Okay… I guess…” Dash sighed. “When I become a Wonderbolt we won’t have this damn problem,” she said as they stood up.

“You still gotta earn that,” Soarin nudged her. She looked at him and pouted.

“What? You don’t think I will?”

“I never said that,” Soarin chuckled as the two lifted off and glided back towards the base. “To be honest I’m looking forward to the show you’ll be putting on tomorrow,” he reassured her as they glided down back to his window.

Soarin found his thoughts going to the elite selection again… nopony had earned it yet… but he was bound by his profession to make the best choices. He’d have to choose against her if she didn’t fit the mold, but it was still too early to determine any of that. Dash was perceptive and resourceful. He was sure she’d have no problem in figuring out and showing them what they wanted to see.

Why was he thinking about this now?

After such a tender moment, his head was still in a battle over what he should do. It would be over soon. Tomorrow he’d know for sure what he had to do.

He and Dash landed back on the windowsill and entered his room.

“I know she’s up to something, I just know it!” Arctic Blast mumbled to herself as she came across the stairs in the lobby.

It was fifteen minutes until lights out. She had just combed the whole ground floor. The Wonderbolt rooms were on the third floor… she had to check. She’d pull Dash right off of Soarin if she had too. He’d never let a pony like Dash get on him willingly.

Arctic slowly made her way up the stairs.

Soarin peeked out from his door before giving Dash a quick nod. They both stepped out, seeing absolutely nopony in the halls at all.

“Yeah, you better get back down there,” Soarin smiled. “Trust me, Silver Lining is in charge of cadet curfew tonight… and you don't want to piss him off.”

“I’ve actually gathered that much,” Dash chuckled, remembering Silver’s creative threats.

Arctic paused halfway between the second and third floors. She definitely heard some talking. She quickly trotted up the rest of the steps.

“Well, thanks for sneaking me out…” Dash smiled at him. “Screw the professionalism, I was dying to spend time with you,” she nuzzled her head against his neck.

“Likewise Dash…” Soarin replied while glancing back and forth to make sure the halls remained clear.

Arctic moved towards the main hallways of the third floor. She could hear voices coming from right around the left corner. She slid up against the wall and edged towards it.

“Good luck tomorrow Dash,” Soarin smiled. Dash looked back and forth.

“There’s nopony else around, gimme one more?” she puckered her lips and batted her eyelashes at him.

“Heh, I’ll never say no…”

Arctic reached the corner of the hall… and slowly peeked around the corner.

Soarin pulled Dash’s face towards his, and kissed her softly.

Arctic’s eyes slowly grew. They grew wider, and wider, and wider as they registered what lay no more than ten feet before her.

Soarin was kissing Rainbow Dash. Dash wasn’t forcing him. He was kissing her.

Arctic’s ears flopped down, her legs began to shake, her mouth hung open, and all the air left her lungs. Her brain was telling her to scream, but she had no air to create even a simple squeak.

“Love you Soarin,” Dash said as she broke away.

“Love you too, Dashie,” Soarin said back before moving back into his room.

Love you too, Dashie.

Love you too, Dashie.

Love you too, Dashie.

Love you too, Dashie.

Love you too, Dashie.

Love you too, Dashie.

Love you too, Dashie.

Each time the words swirled around in Arctic’s head she felt like somepony was breaking a chair over her back.

But…

But…

But Soarin was HERS!!! Not Dash’s! This wasn’t right at all!

She shuffled backwards, falling onto her plot. She didn’t know what to do or where to go. Her brain was literally broken. The sound of hooves came closer and closer.

Dash turned the corner and stopped dead in her tracks. She yelped in surprise and stared wide eyed.

Arctic Blast!?

Had Arctic seen them?

Judging by Arctic’s body language and “flick away from shattering” look… she had seen. She had seen them kiss.

Dash began to panic. Now what? An excuse? An explanation? What would she do to—

Dash instantly stopped herself. She had almost completely forgotten something she was thinking about before: Arctic had no credibility.

Arctic had literally been a thorn in everypony’s side the whole time she had been there. She could say anything she wanted about seeing Soarin and Dash… who was going to believe her? Nopony at all. It’s what she got for being such a bitch and never shutting up about “her stallion.”

Speaking of…

“Hmph…” Dash smirked. She felt… a frightening urge to pour salt on the wound. “You know… Arctic…” Dash began as she slowly walked beside the broken fan girl. “Normally I’d have sympathy in a situation like this…” she glared at Arctic. “But you’ve done nothing to earn it.”

She walked up real close to Arctic, who just stared into Dash’s eyes with disbelief.

“How about I take a page from your book here, hmmm?” Dash narrowed her eyes. “Back off.”

Arctic flinched and gasped as Dash said the words harshly. She wasn’t done either.

“He’s MY stallion. Not YOURS. In fact… he’s BEEN my stallion for almost a year… so BACK… THE HELL… OFF,” Dash stomped her hoof down with each word.

Arctic quickly stood up on her shaking legs, turned, and sprinted back down the stairs.

“Good riddance…” Dash added for her own satisfaction after the fact.

Part of Dash felt like she was a bit harsh… but Arctic had been nothing but the most unpleasant pony she had ever met in her life. She had been a bitch to her friends and had been trying to climb all over Soarin since she got there. Arctic was here for Soarin, not for the Wonderbolts. Many others came and tried their hearts out, but she got farther than most with such idiotic intentions driving her.

Arctic just barely squeaked through. There was no way she’d make the top twenty-one, especially after the apparent brutal testing happening the next day.

Dash had never felt so much ill will towards another before… but Arctic had dug her own grave. It was time for her to roll in it.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Well i finally did it... Arctic finally got what was coming to her... but gee Dash... was that a bit... harsh?

ANYWAY

FWUFF! Writing the SoarinDash scene made me feel all poofy on the inside.

It's too bad about Derpy... but she got to leave with plenty of reasons to be happy.

Anyway IMPORTANT NOTICE!

So... next chapter is going to be the end of part 1... but wait there's still one more whole day of the tryouts... exactly. You see, whenever i finish a story i like to make the final chapter nice and long for the readers to enjoy. I'm going to treat the end of each part the same way. Therefore, chapter 26 is going to be a honker of a chapter, probably 20K+ words, and cover the entirety of day 3 and conclude part 1.

THAT BEING SAID. it will probably take me about a week to write. So don't expect an update until... i dunno... saturday or sunday? That would be my best bet. But i'll make sure it's worth the wait ;)

I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as i enjoyed writing it! :D

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 27 (Part 1 Finale)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 27:

Rainbow Dash took several deep breaths as she turned towards the doors of the auxiliary gym.

It was time for focus.

Time for speed.

Time for power.

Time for success.

Visualize success.

Be victorious.

Be the best, and nothing else.

Dash mentally prepped herself for the challenges ahead. This wasn’t going to be easy, but she was ready. She did all the training, she did all the wing ups, she lifted all the weights, and she wasn't gonna let it all go to waste.

“Nervous?” Storm Front’s voice suddenly came from her right as she entered the gym. She glanced up at him.

“Would you think I’m lying if I said no?” she smirked. Storm chuckled and shrugged.

“I would expect you to scoff in my face and say something like who the hell I think you are or something,” he joked.

“Three days in and you know me too well,” Dash chuckled along with him as they joined the much smaller crowd of fifty cadets.

The gym had no Wonderbolts in it, save for Silver Lining and Fleetfoot at the entrance. The curtain was down, leaving them in the open area of the first fourth of the gym. The cadets were all standing together as the last few entered. Fleet and Silver closed the doors as Soarin and Spitfire flew over the top of the curtain and down towards them.

Dash stood firm and confident, ready for anything they would throw at her. She wasn’t “hoping” she was ready. SHE. WAS. READY. She focused on Soarin as he and Spitfire hovered a few feet above all of them. The rest of the cadets followed her example as Soarin floated in place, crossed his arms, and looked all of them over. His head bobbed up and down slightly as if he was counting them.

“Hmm… all still here, huh? We’ve got some balls on these cadets. Last time we did this half of them ran off after the pep talk,” he nodded. “We’ll see which of you can live up to your confidence,” he turned around and looked at the closed curtain. “Today is gonna be a little different compared to the other two days… all three tests… are going to be held before lunch,” he said while sharply turning back to them.

It seemed like he purposely paused to let it sink in. Dash was unaffected, but a small stir past through the cadets. It was a slight change up, but after how weird yesterday was, Dash was prepared for anything. Perhaps that was the true reason of Fleetfoot’s tests… to prepare them all for the unexpected… even if it’s just the next day.

“I have three courses set up behind me,” Soarin continued. You will get only one chance on each course, so make it count!” he floated back and forth. “These courses are all from my personal collection. I will warn you right now: they are not for the faint of heart. If you make it through all three tests without taking at least one, hard, painful fall… I’ll eat my damn goggles for lunch.”

A few snickers came from the crowd.

“You think it’s funny now, but I don’t think you’ll be laughing much soon,” Soarin growled at them. “We will go from course to course with no rest time in between. This is going to be about efficiency and your ability to keep up with vigorous training… Open up!!!” Soarin suddenly yelled. The curtain behind him activated and slowly rose up from the ground.

“Oh man…” Storm said as the first course came into view.

The first course was a series of small moving rings. Big enough for a pegasus to fit through with about three feet of space from the edges if one went through the center. The rings were swinging back and forth at different paces; some slow and some fast. Each ring was about fifteen feet apart and there was a total of twenty of them extending from start to finish.

It seemed like a simple rings course… but of course it wasn’t that simple.

Flanking the space between each ring were two contraptions on both sides that had long cannon barrels pointing in. Whatever they were for, they were probably going to find out soon enough. There were four of them pointing in between every two rings. It was probably going to be some sort of distraction. There was also a large mat laid on the floor. Probably to cushion falls.

Soarin began gliding towards it and beckoned all of the cadets to follow. They all lifted off and followed him slowly. Dash was gliding along naturally until something shoved her from the left. She easily regained control of her flight, but quickly glared in the direction it came from. She spotted Arctic Blast just as she finished scowling and turned her head away.

What the hell? Was Slutty McFangirlgasm trying to start something? Again, this was not the type of response Dash was expecting. Instead of leaving Arctic in a broken crying heap, she seemed to have… enraged her. Dash decided to keep one eye on Arctic when she wasn’t testing. Who knew what an angered, desperate mare like her would do?

They all flew up to a starting platform at the front end of the course. As they closed in and landed, Dash found the course to be elevated roughly thirty feet in the air. She looked out towards the rings and each one of them was covered with padding from the base all the way up. Good thing too, it would probably hurt like a bitch to hit one of those while falling.

“So here we have the ‘Moving Rings and Projectile course…’ I like to call it the ‘Multitask course’ for short,” Soarin flew up above them again with squads two and three joining behind him. “The point of this test will be to test your ability to control the speed of your flight, while changing directions, and while dodging,” he floated back towards the course within the line of sight of the first cannon. The cannon automatically zeroed in on him and fired. A large red dodge ball careened towards him. He reached up his left hoof and caught it before gliding back down to the cadets.

“The cannons will be firing these heavy dodge balls at you… not too bad right?” he shrugged. “Oops!” he let it drop out of his hoof. It fell to the platform and landed with a loud PLOP, bouncing about an inch before it rested firmly on the ground. “Don’t expect them to be soft,” Soarin dropped down and picked the ball back up. “And don’t expect them to be easy to catch should you think you’re a badass…” he suddenly flung the ball towards Lightning Streak. Lightning reacted and lifted his hooves to catch it in his chest. The ball SLAMMED against him and nearly knocked him out of the air.

“Oof!!!” Lightning grunted as he struggled to balance his flight.

“A couple of other things to note before we begin…” Soarin floated up to the first ring, which was stationary. “These are magically enhanced rings. There is a barrier within each one. Not only will it let us know if you actually went through a ring…” he reached up and held his hoof towards the center of the ring. It struck an invisible force and Soarin pulled his hoof away quickly. “It also will only allow you through the ring if you are going fast enough. How fast? Hell if I know, I don’t hover through courses; I FLY through courses.” He hovered back down. “Oh, and that mat on the gym floor? I wouldn’t count on that providing a soft landing. And finally, speaking of rough landings…” his expression turned very harsh, adding weight to his presence as if he wanted this last point to be very clear.

“If you fall and wipe out… Your run is NOT over. Read my lips cadets. If you fall, you get your ass back up and keep going. Your run isn’t finished until you’re on the finish platform. If you can’t complete the course… I guess you can fly over it to the finish, but I don’t think we’ll find that very appealing,” he finished and glanced around at them as they remained silent.

Dash smirked as she thought about it. Magical moving rings with speed force fields, rock hard dodge ball cannons, and the possibility of rough landings? All in a day’s work. She was stoked.

“Since I have a little bit of a heart…” Soarin began again. “I’ll spare the first poor bastard in line the challenge of figuring it out for the rest of you. Want to know how it’s supposed to look? Watch and learn,” Soarin said as he lowered himself to the starting line.

Dash’s ears stood up and her eyes widened. She got to see Soarin in action! It had been such a long time, she was sure it would be an awesome show.

All the cadets backed away as Soarin landed and firmly grinded his hooves into the platform. The rest of the Wonderbolts, save for Spitfire and Fleetfoot, all took off and glided down to the gym floor.

Soarin fixed his eyes on the stationary ring and waited for the moving ring beyond it to be in a position to his liking. When it hit just the right spot, Soarin leaned back and held his wings forward. Dash braced herself, knowing exactly what was coming. Soarin pushed through the motions of the Sonic Blast-off and catapulted from the line. The burst of wind smacked against Dash and the cadets. She held firm, but the rest staggered slightly against the force.

Soarin careened towards the first ring and burst right through the magic barrier within it, leaving small sparks behind as he passed. The four cannons between the first two rings instantly turned to him and fired separately in a random pattern. Soarin did an inline twist while thrusting his arms and legs out to bat away all four dodge balls as they flew at him. He pierced through the second barrier, and pitched hard to the left without sacrificing speed. He caught one ball flying at him and twisted to chuck it at another two incoming, avoid the fourth, and even himself out through the third ring all at the same time.

It didn’t matter how sharp of a turn he had to make, Soarin’s powerful wings and the shifting of his powerful body allowed him to navigate the rings while maintaining his speed. The more impressive part was how easily he dodged and knocked away the dodge balls as if he could sense them coming. His reflexes were something else.

Each ring was flawless. He weaved and pitched with extreme expertise while fending off the projectiles with ease. However, right before he cleared the nineteenth ring…

“Argh!” Soarin grunted as he caught one ball while another smacked right into the side of his face. He was knocked off course, but he quickly pumped his wings to put himself back into position. The one problem was that he lost most of his speed.

He did not falter.

Soarin slowed all the way down, and placed all four of his hooves on the barrier within the final ring. He performed the Sonic Blast-off again, shooting himself off the barrier and straight up into the air. He did a hard loop, coming all the way back down and firing through the last ring as hard as he could.

“Heh… bitch slapped at the end,” Fleetfoot chuckled beside Spitfire. Spitfire let one snort go before giving Fleetfoot a light elbow to make her shut up.

Soarin flew back around while shaking his head out. He reached up and felt around the metal band that held the false horn in place. Once again, it didn’t budge. The metal headpiece was most definitely not going to move.

“Well then!” Soarin said began as he came to a stop above all the wide eyed cadets. “As you can see…” he reached up and rubbed his left cheek. “Even I have trouble getting through these courses perfectly clean. So my offer to eat my goggles stands,” he chuckled before hardening his expression again. “I’m sure you also saw my recovery. Here’s something I want all of you to think about before we start. I care less about how fast you get through the first two courses… more about if you get through them or not. That being said, as you saw, speed is still required to get through some of the obstacles. I’m looking for effort! Not records!”

This calmed Dash’s nerves a little. She wasn’t nervous about the courses, but she had gotten a little nervous when Soarin mentioned they were getting only one chance per course. It didn’t matter how clean it was, this was about being tough and showing effort. Although Dash was sure they would be impressed if one managed to get through unhindered.

Soarin turned and glanced over the edge to see squads two and three had gathered up all the dodge balls and were placing them in the reload tubes near the floor. He nodded and clapped his hooves together.

“Let’s get this day rolling then, shall we? Line up! Give me something to be excited about!”

Dash decided to play it safe as she had with day one. She found a nice spot about ten cadets back from the front of the line to get more good looks at how the course operated. Something else she was still debating was using the Sonic Blast-off. She wanted to impress them, but Soarin made it clear they weren’t looking for times. In fact, it didn’t look like any of the Wonderbolts were timing. This was about getting from point A to point B no matter what stood in their way… that’s exactly the kind of course she expected from Soarin.

The other things she worried about with the Blast-off was the control. Soarin was obviously much better than her when it came to controlling trajectory while at high speed. It was unreal how easily he navigated the sharp turns required to hit each ring while moving so fast. It was a luxury his great strength provided him… a strength she did not possess. She’d have to sacrifice a little bit of awe to make sure she didn’t screw up. It’s not like she didn’t have other moves at her disposal. She knew how to use the abilities of Twister, Storm, and Matteo. Besides… it was still the first test. She didn’t want to tire herself out. She’d save using the Sonic Blast-off for if and when she needed to use it.

Dash moved up in line little by little, visualizing victory as before. A positive mindset would be the key to success. She knew she still had six other’s ahead of her. Matteo, Storm, Thunderlane, Twister, and… Dash took a brief look around… and Arctic. All got sucked into the back of the line. Dash glanced out to see if she recognized any ahead of her, but was surprised to see only five cadets ahead. She blinked and stepped further out.

But there were six cadets there… one of them… Dash just couldn’t see her!

Dash stared in confusion at what seemed to be a small, bright yellow filly that stood next in line to run the course. She was smaller than Scootaloo! She had a long, magenta colored mane and tail with small yellow stripes that ran through it and a pair of viridian eyes. Her cutie mark was three black outlines of stars interlocked in a triangle pattern.

Dash quickly stepped back as the filly turned and looked towards her. Dash tried to register what she had seen. Had this filly been here the whole time? How could Dash miss a cadet like that?! Well, besides the fact that she barely reached the bottom of Dash’s chest in terms of height.

Then it hit her… Little Star.

Dash wondered if this tiny filly was the name that kept appearing in third on the ranking board. Well… Dash was about to find out, because the filly was up next.

Dash stepped out to get a better view as the filly stepped up to the line.

Spitfire looked up toward Soarin, who was floating near the middle of the course to observe. Soarin watched to make sure all the dodge balls were reloaded before waving to Spitfire. Spitfire turned to the filly and nodded.

The filly did a little plot wiggle as she crouched down before leaping up and shooting towards the first ring. She made it through the speed barrier… and then stopped. Dash blinked, wondering what she was doing. The filly was just outside the sensor range of the cannons. She stuck her small wings out flat and began flapping them so fast they made a very faint buzzing sound.

She suddenly shot forward and the cannons fired. Not a single one hit their mark. She moved through the air so randomly with sudden jerks and movements. The way she moved and the way her wings buzzed reminded Dash of a dragonfly. Whenever an obstacle came near, she could shift or correct her trajectory… all while remaining perfectly straight and upright in the air. It was a very interesting flight style that Dash had never seen before. It seemed flawless at first… but nothing ever is.

With a loud crackle and pop, the filly was repelled from the second ring. The buzzing flight really increased her agility, but it killed her speed. She quickly recovered however, pulled back and gained some momentum before bursting through.

It took her a while to get through the course due to her unique flight, but she made it from start to finish with a little mishap here and there including another few barriers not broken on the first try and one dodge ball that got lucky and knocked her clear out of the air. It was damn impressive. Dash wondered how old the filly was. It was nuts that such a young flyer made it this far into the tryouts and was ranked so high on top of that.

Competition was steep, but it was better this way. Dash felt it would be awesome if the Wonderbolts just let her in… but it would be no fun. Competition added spice and challenge to it, not to mention Dash would feel like she earned it.

After a few more minutes and witnessing two rather hard falls by other cadets, it was Dash’s turn.

Dash took a deep breath as she stepped up to the line. Fleetfoot looked back at her and gave her a subtle wink as she approached while mouthing the words: “Good luck” as she smiled back, glad that at least Fleetfoot didn’t give a damn about remaining completely professional. Spitfire turned to Dash and gave her a nod.

It was time.

Dash focused on the first ring, remembering what she saw Soarin do. He had waited for the second ring to line up with the first one and got through both of them at the same time. She’d have to start a little earlier because she couldn’t risk the Sonic Blast-off, but she had good timing, she could figure it out. Then she had to worry about the dodge balls. She was the dodge ball champ back when she was a filly. That part wouldn’t be too hard. Now the question remained, could she do it all at the same time?

The second ring swung back around… GO!

Dash pulled back and fired forward. She knew she was going fast enough, but she couldn’t help but squint slightly as she pushed through the first barrier. There was no extra shock to it confirming to Dash it was just a matter of going fast enough. Then she heard the cannons fire. She actually had briefly forgotten about them. Luckily her instincts kicked in. She did a half Spiral Turn and forced her wings back to do an Air Burst. The sudden propulsion not only threw a blast of wind against the balls, knocking them away from her, but it also pushed Dash right through the second ring.

“Ah!” Dash yelped as the third ring was way off course from the first two. She was forced to slow almost to a complete stop right as the second set of cannons fired. She halted herself completely, leaning back to let the first two balls fly past her. Then she tucked her body and wings in, letting herself drop downward. The second two balls collided right where her waist would have been had she not dropped. She quickly untucked her wings and body while giving a hard downward flap to regain flight. She pitched left and pumped her wings hard as the third ring neared the end of its swing and started back in her direction. Dash forced all of her weight to the right, turning her body with the speed she had built up, and penetrating the third ring.

Then she looked forward.

She saw an opening… about a second from the current moment… the next ten rings would be swinging in an interval where she could possibly get though all of them at once. Was it worth the risk? She had no time to decide… so because she was the one and only Rainbow Dash… she went for it. Dash pulled back to let all four dodge balls whisk by between the third and fourth ring before she locked onto the fourth. She glanced behind her and made her back hooves slightly uneven. The ring she had just passed through was coming back around.

She tapped one back hoof to the ring, and then kicked the other against it HARD. She executed Storm’s Surface Tap, effectively firing her forward with more than enough speed to break the speed barriers. Her timing was perfect. The rings were lining up as she went. She passed through the fourth, making it to the fifth before the cannons could even fire. Then from the fifth to the sixth. Then the seventh… the eighth… the ninth… tenth… eleventh…

It was working! Dash couldn’t believe it worked! She only had two more to clear before she had to retake control, but it looked like it was going to be close.

She squeaked through the twelfth and gritted her teeth as she pushed her wings to the limit. The thirteenth ring was already in place… her better judgment told her to pull up and play it safe, but her inner badass told her not to pussy out.

She hardened her nerves and went for it….

It wasn’t going to work… at least if she stayed straight. Dash forced her body to the left, trying to give herself just enough of an angle at her speed in order to still make it through the ring cleanly. Even with the slight correction, it was gonna be real close. She quickly mixed Twister’s and Matteo’s moves again, doing a Spiral Air Burst to propel herself even faster. She risked not being able to control herself between the thirteenth and fourteenth rings, but at least she wouldn’t have a painful collision.

The first half of her body passed through with barely an inch between her and the edge of the ring… but then the ring struck her back legs.

“WHOA!!!” She yelled as it forced her body to tip forward wildly. She quickly ceased pumping her wings and flattened them out as she did a full front flip. The fourteenth ring was already coming about and she had to control herself. Unfortunately, she lost a lot of speed, but she couldn’t stick around or else she’d be pulverized by the dodge balls. She evened out and made a quick, hard, single flap to push herself towards the ring… and smashed right against the barrier.

“OW!” Dash yelped as she bounced off and tumbled back. She regained her flight quickly and made ready to adjust, but then…

BAM

SMACK

THUMP

She took four dodge balls to the body. The first to the right arm, the second to the side of the head, forcing her body to turn and allowing the third to smack her square in the gut. She exhaled loudly as all the air was forced up out of her lungs. Then the last ball flew in and struck her in the back, right between the wings.

“AHH!!” Dash cried out as her body was forced into a flailing fall. She was startled by the glancing blow on the arm, disoriented from the blow to the face, barely able to breathe from the blow to the stomach, and left in extreme discomfort by the blow to the back… right on the spot that was cramped up in the morning. With so many things diverting her focus, she couldn’t find her equilibrium. All she could do was curl her body up as the ground approached.

“HRG!!!” she grunted as she hit the floor mat. Soarin wasn’t kidding. It probably helped absorb some of the shock, but the mat was NOT soft in the slightest. “Oof!!” she grunted again as she bounced and tried to put her hooves to the mat, only to have them slip, causing her to land and painfully skid on her stomach. She ignored the pain and stood up quickly while wobbling. She looked up back into the course, but she was still a little dizzy. She fell back down and grunted before forcing herself up again. She spread her wings, but the left shoulder attached to her wing had a sharp spasm as she did.

“OW!” Dash cried out as she dropped back down.

NO!

NO! NO! NO!

She would NOT let this happen!

From above, Soarin held his place. Dash had taken a hard fall, but she would get up. He knew she would. She didn’t need to be saved. If anypony tried, they’d regret it. Soarin chuckled as he saw Fire Streak turn and head towards her. Oh, Fire was in for it.

Fire Streak glided over to Dash as she continued to struggle. He reached out to her as she tried to stand again. Dash looked over at him and instantly glared.

“No!” she yelled while sweeping her hoof out and knocking his away. She fell right back down without the support of all four hooves.

“Miss Dash… really, you’re hurt!” Fire tried to convince her. He quickly stepped back as she growled loudly.

“BACK OFF!” she spat at him as she forced her body up and forced her wings out again. The left wing lurched in pain as her shoulder had another spasm. “Dammit! WORK WITH ME!” she yelled as she forced her left wing in and out over and over again, wincing in pain each time. Then a loud CRACK echoed from her wing and Dash screamed in pain.

“MISS DASH!!!” Fire reacted while readying to help her, but he stopped when he saw Dash moving her left wing about normally.

“HAHA! YES!” she cheered before she crouched down and fired herself back up into the course, leaving Fire Streak in her dust.

She shot right back up into the course. She wasn’t sure if she was in the same spot that she was before falling, but it didn’t matter. She went right to work, piercing through the first ring. The cannons fired, but she dodged and used her wings to swat them away. She burst through the next ring… then the next… and the next, making slight flight adjustments between each and moving about to dodge more projectile collisions.

She was in the zone now. She had fought through the pain and the adrenaline was pumping like crazy.

With only three more rings to go, she pulled back to let the balls fly past her, and then shot forward. She penetrated the eighteenth, used the Spiral Turn to make a sharp move to the right and catch the nineteenth, and then came out of the Spiral with enough force to use the Air Burst, pushing her wings back to propel herself at an angle and through the twentieth.

She angled around and aimed for the finish platform… but was going way to fast.

“Whoooooaaaaaa!!!! OOF!!!!” Dash slammed flat against the platform and bounced, sending her over the edge. “AHHH!!!” she yelped as she tumbled all the way down and crashed to the floor again. Dash pulled her face off of the mat and sighed with a small smirk.

Not the smoothest landing… but she did it! They were looking for effort, right? Well, she couldn’t really give much more than that.

Soarin winced as he watched Dash’s “graceful” finish. It was sloppy and a little painful for him to watch, but he wasn’t looking for a smooth run.

THAT EFFORT.

Dash just got pulverized by the dodge balls. It looked like she had a wing problem too, but she forced herself up, made her wings agree with her, then finished the course. She skipped one ring on her way back up, but he didn’t care. He was looking for toughness and boy, did she show it there. He couldn’t help but also be impressed at how she discerned the swing interval of the rings and shot in a straight line through almost ten of them in a row. He had never pulled that off before!

Dash was off to one hell of a good start. She was at the top of the ranking board for a reason. Now she just had to show him if she was right for the elite spot. She wasn’t the only candidate, but he was rooting for her.

“Oo… Ow… Ah…” Dash cringed as she glided back over to the cadets. “Haaaaa…” she sighed when she found the group of the ponies down on the gym floor who had finished. She caught a glimpse of the bright yellow filly again, but was too focused on the pain in her wing to give it much thought.

She plopped down and began flexing and extending her left wing to make sure it stayed loose.

“Way to take a hit RIGHT to the tender spot…” Dash mumbled to herself as she rotated the wing. When she was down it felt just like it had earlier. The spasm returned and it was painful to move. She didn’t have Bliss to smooth it out, but apparently forcing it out painfully was enough to get it to smooth out.

Oh yeah, that was painful. She was glad she was in the zone, because she hadn’t felt that much pain since Nightshade dislocated her wings.

Dash glanced up just in time to see Storm Front step up. She kept rotating, flexing, and extending her wing as she watched. Storm had little trouble with the rings. He was able to cleanly maintain his speed throughout. He had more problems with the dodge balls, taking at least one hit between every ring. They were mostly glancing blows, but even when he did take one to the side or the back, he held firm. He definitely showed his sturdiness. Dash hadn’t seen him, or many of the others take any hits yet. These tests would show who could take the pain.

Storm had a rough landing on the finish platform, skidding across, but not falling off like Dash had. He grunted as he stood and shook his head out before gliding down. Dash gave him a wave as he approached and he turned to land beside her.

“Ow,” he said while comically swinging his head around.

“Did you suck at dodge ball back in school?” Dash initiated the smarm immediately. Storm tipped his head and snorted once while holding in a laugh. “What?”

“Says you. It looked like you got hit by a wrecking ball when you went down,” Storm fired back with a chuckle.

“Oh, haha…” Dash rolled her eyes but shared in the laughter.

“But man…” Storm rotated his right arm. “That was brutal! The Wonderbolts sure don’t mess around when they get serious… I hope nopony gets hurt…” he sighed in frustration as he looked over. He flinched as he saw Twister take a hit to the face and go falling towards the ground. Storm took a step forward and spread his wings, but quickly grunted and snapped them both back against his body.

“You’re really serious about keeping ponies from harm, huh?” Dash observed as Storm turned back to her.

“I wasn’t kidding. I hate it when others receive pain I could have prevented… don’t ask, I don’t know why… I guess that’s just how my brain is wired. I hate seeing others get hurt,” he explained.

“I wasn’t calling it a bad thing…” Dash cleared up as they watched Twister swan dive face plant onto the finish line. They both cringed. “But… I’m sure you’ve been holding back something fierce already,” she nudged him with a smirk.

“I have actually…” Storm frowned. “But I will respect what the Wonderbolts want here.”

“Oh man…” Dash suddenly looked up.

“What?” Storm looked over to the starting platform.

“I dunno, you may want to consider saving this one,” Dash took a deep breath and exhaled. Thunderlane was up. She wanted to have confidence in him, but… after how banged up he got from Surprise’s slide… this wasn’t going to be pretty. At all.

“Oh…” Storm looked back at Dash. “He’s—”

“He’s gonna get pulverized,” Dash finished for him.

The two watched…

“Oo…” Dash cringed.

“Ow…” Storm grimaced.

“Yikes…”

“Oh damn…”

“That’s gonna leave a—”

“OH SHIT!!!!” They yelled in unison.

“WhoaaaaAHHHHH!!!!” Thunderlane yelled as he fell and slammed to the ground shoulder first. He bounced twice, tumbled to a halt… and didn’t move.

“Dammit…” Wave Chill shook his head while looking up at Soarin.

“Let’s help him,” Fire Streak tapped Wave on the shoulder as he passed. Wave nodded and the two approached Thunderlane.

“RGH!” Thunderlane suddenly grunted and forced himself up. Wave and Fire both stopped and blinked in surprise as Thunderlane shot back up towards the course.

THWACK

“AAHHH!!!!” Thunderlane fell right back down and landed roughly once again.

“Cadet!” Wave called as he and Fire moved to assist.

“WAVE! FIRE! BACK OFF!” Soarin yelled from above. The two stopped and looked up at Soarin incredulously. Soarin stared down at Thunderlane from above. He was keeping an intense analytical eye on him.

“Come on… get up again…” Soarin said to himself as Thunderlane stirred.

“Damn!” Thunderlane cursed as he rolled over and forced himself back to his hooves.

Ignoring how much his body hurt, Thunderlane fired skyward once more… and was knocked down again. He got up a third time… flew up… got knocked down. The process repeated and repeated and repeated until he fell for the tenth time.

“AH! Ahhhh…” Thunderlane sprawled out on the ground. He was covered in bruises, had a black eye, and a small trickle of blood slid down his nose.

“That’s enough!” Fire jumped over to Thunderlane and tried to assist.

“NO!” Thunderlane lurched up and threw Fire’s hoof off. Fire glared.

“Cadet! I will not allow you to hurt yourself like this!” he grabbed Thunderlane’s arm before he could attempt another takeoff. Wave joined in and held him down from the other side.

“LET ME GO!” Thunderlane yelled as he tried to shake them off. “I CAN DO IT!!!” He thrust his wings out and knocked the two of them off. “ARGH!” he grunted in pain and fell back to the ground. He pulled his face up from the mat and shook his head out before forcing his hooves to the ground and standing up once again, but his face ran right into Soarin’s chest.

“Stop,” Soarin said calmly while pressing his hoof down on Thunderlane’s shoulder. Thunderlane looked up at him while wheezing and gasping as he grimaced from pain all over. Soarin chuckled. “Heh… just like when I first met you. Nice to see that attitude hasn’t changed,” he turned and slung Thunderlane’s arm over his shoulder. “No more, you’ve shown me what I wanted to see,” he said as he turned his head to Wave and Fire. “One of you go get Bliss. He’s done for the day,” he ordered. Wave gave a salute and headed for the gym doors. Soarin lifted off, pulling the disoriented Thunderlane with him.

“Huh… wait! No!” Thunderlane realized through his daze what Soarin was suggesting. “I’m fine! I can do it!” he struggled. Soarin shook his head.

“Relax,” Soarin gave him a nudge to make him stop as they approached the finish platform. “I don’t need to see any more from you. You’ve made your point… and trust me… we’ve taken notice,” Soarin winked to him as he landed on the finish platform. He let go of Thunderlane, who collapsed as soon as Soarin let go of him. Fleetfoot and Spitfire glided over to them. Soarin made a head motion to Fleetfoot.

“Could you take him to the doors so Bliss doesn’t have to walk all the way in here?” he asked. Fleetfoot smirked.

“Sure,” she said while landing and crouching beside Thunderlane. “Hey sandbag, still with us?”

“Urgh…” Thunderlane grunted quietly in pain.

“Come on, let’s get you up,” she reached down and pulled him up before pulling his arms over her shoulders and propping him up on her back. “Sheesh… you’ve really got some determination…” Fleetfoot commented as she examined his physical state. She took off with him, leaving Spitfire with Soarin.

“That was quite something…” Spitfire thought out loud. Soarin nodded as the two took back to the air.

“I’ve never seen a pony keep trying like that before… his will to keep trying is unreal,” Soarin commented. Spitfire chuckled.

“I’ve seen it before,” she smirked. Soarin glanced at her and blinked.

“Really? Who?” he asked. Spitfire rolled her eyes and gave him an unamused look. Soarin tipped his head to the side and flopped his ears down as he tried to read what she was saying. “Oh…” he grinned.

“Took you long enough…” she chuckled. “Your medical record speaks for itself.”

“Alright, alright…” Soarin smiled and shook his head.

“Is that the same Thunderlane that whined all through breakfast about his body hurting?” Storm asked while glancing back at Dash.

“That’s how he is,” Dash Shrugged. “He moans and groans about everything, but when shit hits the fan he never quits… he’s a strange mix.”

“Well, Soarin had to give him a personal ceasefire there… He was about to break himself,” said Storm as they watched who had left to go.

Matteo was up next.

As expected, the big guy had some trouble with the rings. Not only was he about four to five times the girth of the others, but the added precision made it hard for him to hit the rings at the right speed. He had to use the Air Burst to get through almost every single one. On the flip side, it was rather amusing to watch him not even bother to dodge the projectile attacks. The dodge balls literally bounced off of him as he focused on making it through the rings. Soarin wanted toughness? He’d definitely get it here, no question.

It seemed like there was no right way to go through the course. Dash felt like that was the case on purpose. It was less about how you got through the course and more about if you could adapt to the course. Soarin couldn’t fool her, that’s exactly the kind of thing he would set up.

“Hm?” Something caught Dash’s eye. The pony up next… Arctic Blast. Storm was being hassled by Twister, who had just randomly decided to appear, so Dash focused entirely on Arctic. She wasn’t worried about Arctic outdoing her… but she couldn’t shake a bad feeling that Arctic would find a way to make it through. Dash began to wonder if laying it on super thick to her last night gave Arctic incentive to try harder.

Arctic began her run, and as expected, had little trouble getting through the rings. Arctic’s biggest flaw in flight had been her control. She had decent speed and maneuverability, but her precision and ability to slow down were cringe worthy. She overshot the rings almost every time… but she always arced back around to hit the ones she missed. She seemed pretty good at dodging.

What Dash wasn’t expecting though, was the show of resilience. Arctic took hits, she crashed twice, not very roughly, but she was forced to land. Yet, she kept at it… and eventually made it all the way to the end.

Dash’s eyes narrowed as Arctic lifted off from the finish platform and glided back over. Had Dash accidentally created a worthy adversary? She refused to respect Arctic in any way like that, but Arctic’s new determination was clear. Her mane was a mess after taking those few falls, and she didn’t even flinch at it. She clearly had a new motivation.

Arctic landed nearby and trotted towards the gathering finishers. She looked around until her eyes met Dash’s glare, and she glared right back as sharply as she could. Arctic took an angle to move closer to Dash, never breaking eye contact.

Dash lifted an eyebrow as Arctic approached. What was she gonna do? Yap at her agai—

Arctic suddenly spat. Dash winced as the spit splashed right between her eyes.

“AH! HEY!” Dash quickly wiped the saliva off her face and looked towards Arctic with a mix of anger and disbelief.

“HMPH!” Arctic scoffed as she continued walking.

“Did she just...?” Storm glanced over and blinked. The action had also grabbed Twister’s attention.

“Popped a loogie right between the eyeballs, eh? Mares sure are NASTY to each other!” Twister snickered while sneering.

“What the HELL?!” Dash grunted as she glared in Arctic’s direction. “What a bitch…” she shook her head and growled. Under any other circumstances she would have rearranged Arctic’s face for that, but she didn’t want to cause trouble. For all she knew, Arctic could be baiting her to do something stupid. She wouldn’t fall for that.

Arctic wouldn’t catch her off guard. There was too much on the line for Dash to lose focus. She would keep doing her best, and laugh as soon as Arctic was sent home in a nice broken pile of bitching and whining.

Soarin floated down towards the cadets as he observed the group post ring test. They were all a bit banged up, some worse than others. There was some moaning and groaning, but a good majority of them still had a look of determination in their eyes.

“So let me get this straight…” Spitfire hovered down beside him. “You’re going to put them through the Blast Walls… and then you expect them to run your challenge course?” she didn’t sound to enthused.

“Spitfire… I’ve gotten enough of this from the others already…” Soarin rolled his eyes. Spitfire didn’t like that.

“Soarin, you are walking a thin line between what we’re allowed and not allowed to do. I’m giving you this one warning right now. If any cadets end up in the hospital, there will be consequences.”

“Huh?” Soarin glanced at her in confusion. “You’re sending me mixed signals here. A few minutes ago you were going nuts over Thunderlane getting the tar beat out of him,” he pointed out.

“But he’ll be fine. He pushed himself to exhaustion through external pain. I know it’s been hard for you to understand lately with all this dark magic business, but the body does have limits. If you strain the cadets to a point where a bone gets broken, as I said, there will be consequences. I want tough cadets, but don’t leave your good judgment behind. I’m expecting you to take proper action should the testing become too brutal. We want to see who fights through adversity… not who breaks last, got it?” she poked him in the shoulder. Soarin sighed. Once again he was powerless under Spitfire’s logic and reasoning.

“Fine,” he acknowledged as they stopped and faced the cadets. The cadets quickly turned their attention to Soarin as he scanned the group over again. “Alright! Not bad! I’m gonna admit, I didn’t expect most of you to get from start to finish, but you proved me wrong. Now it’s time to see if you can keep it up!” he yelled as he turned and gave a twirling hoof signal in the air. Squad two and three disappeared over the second curtain. “Because it’s not gonna get any easier!”

The curtain separating the second and third sections of the gym lifted, revealing the second course.

“Let’s go! Hop to it!” Soarin clapped his hooves and beckoned the cadets to follow.

Dash lifted off carefully as the cadets began following Soarin. Her wing seemed to behave itself. This had certainly been the three most physically challenging days of her life. She had been pushed to her limits and beyond in the past, but it was never constant. With her wing cooperating, she flew further forward to escape the middle of the pack and to get a look at the second course approaching.

The course was… very different.

The layout of the course was a straightaway, a U-turn, and a third path the waved back and forth with very long, lazy curves. The path was marked by padded flagpoles that flanked the flight path. The avenue of travel was about seven feet wide. Except for the sharp U-turn at the halfway point, it seemed rather easy and short. Yet of course, it was more than a simple flight track. There were obstacles.

After the first thirty feet of the opening straightaway there were what appeared to be three padded walls. At the very peak of the sharp U-turn there was another wall. Then on the lazy, wavy path, there was a padded wall placed at the wide end of each curve.

So there were seven walls in their way? It had to be more than that.

“This is the Strength Efficiency Course!” Soarin suddenly began as they all landed on the starting platform. “I have a solid belief that there is no point in having strength if you don’t know how to properly use it!” Soarin hovered over to the finish platform a few feet from the starting one and pointed at the back of the last wall. “If you take a look here, these are not straight up walls! He hovered closely and tapped a spring contraption that was attached to the back of it. “These are ‘Blast Walls!’ If you hit them hard enough from the front…” Soarin suddenly pumped his wings hard and forced himself into full flight. He did a full loop, moving up, over, and back down, picking up speed and shooting towards the front side of the last wall. He pulled his right arm back and thrust his shoulder forward into the padded surface. The wall split in half from the force like a pair of double doors as Soarin shot through them and immediately put on the brakes. He slammed his hooves to the finish platform and slid to a stop. “… then they’ll be polite and let you through!”

He hopped up and hovered back over to the cadets.

“This is a similar concept to the rings. If you don’t go fast enough, you will bounce off. Only this time it’s a solid object, so do yourself a favor and hit them with enough power to move them,” he glanced up at Spitfire, who was giving him a stern look. He rolled his eyes. He was getting to it. “Also, just as before, we want you to attempt breaking through as many as you can. We want to see effort, not record times!” he repeated from the first test. “But believe me! We will most definitely be more impressed if you break through them! So let’s go! Line up! Show me what you’ve got!” Soarin ordered while motioning to the course.

Controlling strength. That was the game Soarin had going here. Dash felt like she had a slight advantage. Through her recent unintentional experiences with combat, she had learned a thing or two about putting her weight into a punch or strike of any kind. She saw Soarin throw his shoulder into the wall to break through it. This would be much easier for her than the rings, at least at first glance. She had no idea how much force was required to split the walls, but she had a feeling Soarin left that out on purpose.

Thunderlane got let off easy. Dash wasn’t sure what getting forced to stop was going to do for his chances, but with the state he was in after the first course, she doubted he’d be in one piece after this one… and they still had another course left to go.

“Oo!” Dash winced as she took an awkward step.

Pain. Not just in her wings, but in her body now too. Thank god for being more built than she used to be. Her newfound sturdiness would clearly be a key factor in her surviving this hellfire of final tests. It was nothing she couldn’t handle at this point, but they were far from done.

She moved to get into the forming line. She wasn’t in a very good position to be near the front, but she made an effort to slip in closer to the start rather than farther. She didn’t want her wings to relax too much in fear of her left cramping up again.

“Move it,” a harsh, grumpy voice suddenly came from behind her as she was nudged aside.

“Hey!” Dash reacted, expecting it to be Arctic… but the voice was masculine. The owner of the voice had pushed past her and was now in line right in front of her. It was the grey, brown maned stallion that had scowled at her by the ranking board the day before. Dash glared into the back of his head. She didn’t know if this stallion was the number two ranked Squall or not, but that was just plain rude. “That was kinda dickish you know,” Dash said to him. He didn’t look at her. He just continued to stare forward. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” she tried again. He ignored her again. Dash narrowed her eyes further and shook her head while backing off. “What a jerk…”

Forget it, not everypony she met was going to be friendly in their own way. She had already learned that from Arctic, but it was frustrating to meet another. She decided to take her mind off of it by watching the first cadets run through the course.

The very first pony in line was the little yellow filly. Dash felt sorry for her before she even began. How was she supposed to break through the barriers? That little body could only generate so much power.

As Dash suspected, the filly had a lot of trouble. However, she did get through the barriers. The filly approached each wall as fast as she could. While she didn’t blow through them like Soarin had, she hit them with just enough power to force it open slowly and slip through. It wasn’t the most impressive run, and it took her forever to finish, but she made it all the way to the end. Dash was sure the Wonderbolts would take into account the size to strength ratio when figuring out how impressive certain cadets were.

Speaking of size, Matteo was up right after. To the surprise of absolutely nopony there, he put on quite a show. Matteo didn’t even need to use speed. He made each wall move aside by simply striking it hard with either a punch or a shoulder ram. His run was far from perfect though. Three times during the course his large body was his downfall. The walls kept lightly nicking him on the leg or body as they closed behind him. The U-turn wall and two of the three walls in the wavy path to the finish caught him painfully by the leg. He took a sharp fall each time it happened, but managed to catch himself before hitting the ground. Besides those little mishaps, he ran a mostly clean run.

Then came a moment Dash had been secretly wishing to see. Arctic was ahead of her in line this time, and it was her turn. Dash had to see this.

Arctic fired from the start, locked onto the first wall, and pumped her wings to build speed.

Then she bounced right off the first wall.

Dash threw her hooves over her mouth to stifle laughter as a loud snort escaped her nose. That was gonna leave a beauty mark… and not the good kind.

Arctic growled, leveled out, and went at it again. She bounced right off. She simply didn’t have any strength to speak of. She tried again and again and again, but never got the springs attached to the walls to budge an inch.

“Okay, okay that’s enough…sheesh…” Blaze said as she and High Winds flew up and held her back.

“LEMME GO!” she snapped at them.

“No can do,” Winds replied with a yawn. “I hate your whiney ass, but we can’t let you break your neck,” she said bluntly as the two forced her down to where the finishers were gathering.

She put forth the effort… but in terms of strength that was just laughable. Dash was confident Arctic wouldn’t be in her mane any longer after these tests, but the fact remained that she was until they reached that point. After having her eyes spat in, Dash was keeping tabs on where Arctic was and what she was doing. Arctic was clearly trying to disrupt her. She wasn’t going to grace the bitch with the chance.

The line moved on, and several cadets that Dash had never interacted with took their turn in the course. There were a few cringe worthy falls and collisions, but there was nothing that really stood out. Eventually it was nearly her turn… and she finally got to confirm if this jerk in front of her was really the second ranked cadet. If this guy actually was Squall… he would have to be very impressive.

The stallion ground his hooves into the platform and shot towards the first. The start was the first indication that this guy was good. It wasn’t Sonic Blast-off caliber by any means, but his start and acceleration had to be the fastest she had ever seen without the assist of special techniques. He approached the first wall, but suddenly straightened upright.

Dash tipped her head as she watched. What was he doing? Why did he pull up? He was going to smash right into the—

“RRRAAHHH!!!” the stallion spun around and put all of his weight into a punch. His hoof struck the wall and it blasted open roughly, slamming against the limits of its hinges as he coasted through. He focused on the second, spun in the other direction and landed a punch to the next wall with his other hoof, knocking it clean open again. He turned his body so his back hooves were facing forward. He kicked them both out as he reached the third wall and once again blew it open. He flipped back around and pumped his wings into the U-turn, pitching hard to the right. He lost a considerable amount of speed on the sharp turn, but as he approached the wall at the edge of the turn he turned upright again. He put up his hooves in front of him, crossed, but one slightly further out than the other.

“HRYA!” he yelled out as he struck the wall with two rapid punches, one to each section of the wall. The wall slammed open… but he wasn’t going fast enough. He had hit it with so much force that the hinges bounced, and sent the wall panels right back at him. He edged past the right one, but the left smacked against his shoulder. He was sent spiraling downward and struggled to regain his balance. With no other option, he stuck his hooves out right before impact and slammed them to the ground. No more than an instant later, he was airborne again and shooting up towards the path to the finish.

He used similar methods to break through the last three walls as he had with the first and slammed to the finish platform. His hooves bounced once, but he found the ground and steadied himself as he slid to a stop.

Not that… was impressive. If not for the slip up at the U-turn, Soarin would be putting salt and pepper on his goggles. Those moves he used… those looked like martial arts! Dash suddenly recalled seeing a silhouette of a pony during the foggy pie battle throwing unique punches and kicks to deflect the pies. Was that this stallion? It had to be. She also assumed this stallion was Squall. Especially after the performance he just put on. If they were ranking her over him… she had to be doing something she didn’t realize.

Too bad he was a jerk. Maybe his rude demeanor was dragging him down. Dash could only imagine how the tests that required flash teamwork went with him.

Dash was snapped from her thoughts by a whistle. She blinked and looked up to see Soarin looking down at her.

“Come on! Let’s get going!” he called down to her.

Oh, right… she was up next.

Dash quickly refocused and rotated her left wing a few times to make sure it was still loose. No problems, it was still behaving itself. Hopefully it stayed that way. She pushed down her flight goggles and shuffled her hooves around to shake out her body and take a ready stance. Again, she decided against the Sonic Blast-off. No need for too much speed here, just get through the walls, make use of the body she trained so hard to get. She took a deep breath and exhaled, opening her eyes wide and locking on the first wall.

Focus Dash.

Focus.

Focus and EXPLODE!

Dash pulled back and leapt into the air while throwing her wings back for an initial burst of speed. She went right into pumping her wings as hard as she could as the first wall approached. She felt a slight tinge of pain in her left wing, but the muscle didn’t cramp up. It was merely tender from so much action.

Dash remembered what she saw Soarin do, and decided to give the first wall a good, solid shoulder. She pulled back her right arm and thrust her shoulder towards the door.

“Oof!” She grunted as the impact sent a slight shock through her body. The wall opened and she made it through, but yow! They were NOT as soft as they looked!

The impact reduced her speed, but she made up for it by getting three hard wing pumps in before approaching the second wall. Her right shoulder was still tingling from the first hit, so she threw her left shoulder instead. The second impact yielded enough force to let her through again… but now her arms were both numb.

“Damn!” Dash cursed as she tried to shake her arms out. She didn’t have much time. The third wall in the initial line was approaching fast. She forced her arms to move and desperately punched both hooves at the wall. The impact sent more shocks through her, making her arms almost go numb again, but the feeling clung to them. The wall panels themselves pushed open, but not enough for her to get through. In fact, they sprung back against her. “RGH!” Dash grunted as she flapped her wings hard and pushed with all her strength, straining her muscles against the weight of the panels and the returning force of the springs. They inched apart just a tiny bit more, but that was all she needed, she gave one mighty push and flattened her body, twisting through the door before it slammed shut on her.

She desperately shook her arms out as she flew into the U-turn. She wasn’t doing something right. She was hitting them with similar force and style to Soarin and others she had witnessed, but why did she go numb after each hit? Maybe she had to put more weight behind the hits? She was just throwing herself into the walls. She recalled watching Squall and seeing him use martial arts against the wall. Now while copying his martial arts moves would be impossible, she did remember his way of shifting his weight right before a strike. It was crazy how the wall panels literally blew aside for him with each attack he dealt.

Luckily for Dash, feeling returned in her right shoulder as the U-turn wall neared. She did her best to recall Squall’s movements as she readied her shoulder for another strike. She leaned her upper body backward and fired it back forward while thrusting her shoulder at the same time.

The impact felt surprisingly light… and she watched in awe as the wall panels burst open in front of her.

“HAHA! Alright!” she cheered at her discovery as she continued around the turn, now with feeling returned in both arms. She reached the end of the turn with only three doors and a lazy side to side pitch standing between her and the finish line. Part of her secretly wanted to see Soarin eat his goggles for making such a bold claim earlier.

Using Squall’s attack method, she burst through the first wall, shifted right to follow the path, burst through the second wall, shifted back left, now only one more!

She pulled back, but mistimed her shoulder thrust.

SLAM

Dash bounced right off the wall and fell towards the ground.

“Yikes!” Dash yelped as she tucked her body into a ball. She crashed against the ground back first and damn luckily on the non-cramping side. The landing was rough, but Dash quickly ignored the pain, rolled onto her hooves and leapt skyward. She realigned herself with the final wall, did a half Spiral Turn to build power followed by Matteo’s Air Burst to propel herself at the door. She pulled back, and this time lined up the attack and thrust perfectly.

She burst through the panels and angled for the finish platform.

“WHOA!” She angled a little too high and found herself touching down more than halfway across the platform. She quickly put her weight on her front hooves as she skidded closer and closer to the edge. She came to a halt, with the tips of her hooves just reaching over the edge. She pushed herself backward and landed with a solid plop on her plot. “Phew…”

Up above Soarin released a loud sigh of relief. Spitfire chuckled to herself as she hovered up beside him.

“That’s twice now you’ve come close to having your goggles for lunch. I think you underestimated some of these cadets,” she commented with a smirk.

“I should’ve picked a harder course…” Soarin shivered. “I like these goggles…”

Dash glided down towards the gathering of finished cadets, heart still pounding and breath still heavy from the strenuous activity. Wanting to avoid all contact with Arctic, Dash quickly spotted Skinnybones Malcobitch and landed on the opposite side of the group from her.

“Oooo!!!”

“Oh damn!”

A few reactions caught Dash’s attention. She looked up just in time to see a cadet mare take a hard fall. The mare struggled over and over again to stand, but couldn’t find her hooves. Soarin and Spitfire quickly landed beside her as Misty and Surprise flew over too. They helped the mare stand, but she looked extremely disoriented. Fleetfoot landed and said a couple words to the four of them before they handed the mare over to her. Fleetfoot supported the mare and took off, flying her over to the mock trainer area set up by Bliss and a few others.

That was two cadets knocked out before the end. Dash glanced back at Soarin to see him and Spitfire arguing quietly about something. Spitfire kept making motions towards the mare and Soarin kept shrugging.

These tests were pretty rough… and Soarin said these courses came from his personal collection… Dash had a feeling this wasn’t sitting well with Spitfire. These were courses built for an elite among the elite. There was no way any of the cadets would get through unscathed.

She could imagine Soarin’s thought process though. After all the encounters and messed up scenarios within the past year… of course they’re looking for a tougher brand of Wonderbolt. In Dash’s opinion, these courses were perfect for this purpose. They needed fighters, not those who shied away from pain.

“Have you no moves of your own?” Matteo’s voice suddenly came from behind her. Dash blinked and turned to him. He was wearing a smug smirk on his face as he approached. Dash met the smugness of her own.

“What? Afraid I’ll get better than you at your own move?” she taunted between her heavy breaths as she sat down. Matteo scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“You aren’t even close. I’ll be impressed the day you pull it off without cheating,” he said as he sat down beside her.

“Cheating?”

“You use Twister’s Spiral turn to create momentum before thrusting the wings back. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to pull it off,” he chuckled.

“I call that being resourceful, not cheating,” Dash whipped her mane around. “I’m awesome like that.”

“Do tell,” Matteo snorted with a smile as he looked up at the course. “You also copied Squall’s movements…” he added. Dash blinked and looked up at him.

“Wow, you saw that from over here? All I did was shift my weight…” she explained while rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.

“The effect was the same… and you’d be surprised how good the eyes of an eagle are,” he pointed to his face.

“Guess there’s no fooling you, huh?” Dash shrugged and smiled. “Yeah… I may have taken a little from him… So he IS Squall… I was wondering about him…”

“Twister.” Matteo pointed up.

“Eh?” Dash looked towards the start just as Twister had taken off.

“WHEEEEEEHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” he cackled as he began twisting long before he hit the first wall.

“How does his brain work?” Dash sighed while shaking her head.

“I stopped trying to figure that out,” Matteo added as they watched.

Twister blasted right through the first three walls as if they weren’t even there. He was hitting them so dead center while twisting that they pushed aside easily. He wasn’t even hitting them that hard. They opened just enough for him to get through and immediately closed behind him.

But when he got to the U-turn wall…

“HURK!” He suddenly grunted and his body whiplashed back. His minimal use of force ended up being his undoing. The wall closed before he could make it through, wedging him in between the panels. He kicked and flailed, but none of his attempts freed him.

“HA!” Surprise was suddenly in front of him and pointing a hoof at his face.

“Surprise,” Fire’s voice came from behind Twister. “Just help me,” he asked while peering around the front side of the wall.

“Aw, fine…” she moved around as Twister stared at her with a smirk while making his eyes as wide as possible.

Fire and Surprise gave the both panels a hard kick. It pushed the wall open just enough to dislodge Twister. He immediately continued as if nothing had happened and penetrated the next two walls with the same ease as before… only to get stuck in the last one too. He blinked and glanced up at Soarin and Spitfire.

“Assistance pleeeeeeeeeease?” he said with a grin as Soarin and Spitfire sighed.

“Looks like even Twister got punked…” Dash snickered as she and Matteo watched Soarin pull him out of the last wall.

“At least they finally gave us a true challenge,” Matteo chimed in. “I was getting tired of all the simple tests and practical jokes.”

“More your cup of tea?” Dash asked while she stood up to move her wings about a bit. Matteo nodded.

“These courses remind me of my Sky Wings training… only my training used the environment and not these… contraptions,” he explained.

“Punch a lot of rocks?” Dash said jokingly.

“Yes, actually,” Matteo replied quickly. Dash blinked and chuckled.

“I wasn’t serious, but for some reason I have a hard time not believing you,” she said as she shook her wings out and began making circular motions with her left wing.

“Storm’s up,” Matteo pointed up, catching Dash’s attention again.

“YESSSSSSSSSS he issssssss,” Twister was suddenly resting his arms atop Dash’s head. Dash blinked and flattened her brow.

“Twister… planning on having foals someday?” she said flatly. Twister leaned forward far enough so he could look into Dash’s eyes upside-down.

“What makes you ask, hmmmmmmmm?”

“Cause if you don’t get off…” Dash narrowed her eyes and folded her ears back. “I’ll make sure you never do.” The instant she finished the sentence Twister was gone and in the exact same position, only atop Matteo’s head.

“No time to argue, Storm’s going!” Twister ignored the subject and pointed. Dash quickly turned to catch Storm’s run.

Storm was already up and through the first wall by the time Dash looked up. His approach was similar to Dash’s initial attempts. He threw his shoulder into the first three walls and sped around the curve. As he came around the U-turn, he shifted his strategy. He readied his hooves in a similar manner to the way he did for his Surface Tap maneuver. He aimed near the center of the wall and gave it the soft tap followed by the hard punch.

It didn’t have the desired effect.

His technique was used to ricochet off surfaces, not push them. He ended up almost completely killing his speed upon impact, despite having blown the wall wide open. He made a dive for the opening before it could close, but didn’t quite make it through cleanly. The left panel struck him in the flank as he tried to preemptively pitch into the second half of the U-turn. His body was forced into a twist and his awkward angle caused him to go into a nosedive. He managed to turn upright and pull up, but not without dragging his hooves noisily across the mat on the gym floor. He made a hard left turn, spiraling back upward and into the course, propelling through the last three walls using the same methods he had with the first three. He managed to land cleanly on the finish platform, but looked frustrated.

Dash couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. Once again, Soarin got lucky with his goggles. Had Storm not taken the chance on the U-turn, his run would have been flawless.

“Not bad,” Matteo was the first to comment. Dash looked over to see him casually watching Storm while holding Twister by the neck out to his side. Twister wasn’t even trying to get free, he was just trying to reach his tongue down to lick Matteo’s talon, but it was just out of his tongue’s reach.

“I think Soarin is freaking out,” Dash chuckled. “Most of us are coming really close to clean runs.

“Hey Wainbow…” Twister was suddenly turned around in Matteo’s grip and looking down at Dash. Dash rolled her eyes and glanced up at Twister.

“What?”

“I think you’ve got a secret admirer…” he looked over Dash. She turned around and through the crowd spotted Arctic Blast glaring at her. Dash lifted an eyebrow, and didn’t even hesitate before reaching up her wing and closing all her feathers down save for the middle one. Arctic scoffed and turned away as Twister burst out laughing. “WOW! No hesitation! I love it!” he was suddenly out of Matteo’s grip and down right beside Dash.

“I’m tired of her bullshit,” Dash growled while completely ignoring Twister’s shenanigans.

The second test was concluded. Luckily for Soarin, but to the dismay of Fleetfoot, none of the cadets pulled off a perfect run, saving Soarin the glory of eating his goggles.

Dash and the others were feeling the blows, but their spirits still ran high. There was only one test left. One more test and the tryouts would be over. Dash was confident she had made the cut, but she was gunning for the elite squad spot. She was already ranked at the top of the cadets two days straight. She had to make this run count. Three days in a row at the top would most certainly guarantee her being lifted straight into the elite ranks.

She’d reach her life dream much earlier than she could have ever imagined… thus being able to live the dream longer than most.

What more reason did she need to push through the pain and give it her all? None, but she had more anyway. She’d also get Soarin and never be without him again.

With this in mind, Dash paid attention as Soarin gave one more signal in the air. Squad two opened the last curtain to reveal…

“Sweet foal Luna…” Dash’s jaw dropped as the last ‘course’ came into view.

“BEHOLD!” Soarin yelled while flying up above the cadets and motioning his hooves towards the complicated course. “This is my personal challenge course! My wingmates call me crazy!”

“You ARE crazy!” Fleetfoot called from off to the side.

“And I ignore them!” Soarin continued without hesitation.

Complicated was actually a rather weak way to describe it. Dash felt ‘what the hell’ or ‘holy shit’ would be better. It appeared complicated, but that was only because of how many contraptions were packed into it. The path of the course was simple, much like the second test. It was a switchback path with four straight sections and three sharp U-turns… however the straight sections looked impossible to actually traverse in a straight line.

Each straightaway was littered with contraptions and obstacles, some moving and some stationary. There were pendulums, narrow tunnels, fixed walls, windmills, and a few surprise obstacles that shot up at random intervals.

It was impossible to see from below how one was supposed to navigate the course. Dash tried to get a better view as the cadets followed Soarin up to the starting platform, but it was still hard to see through the cacophony of contraptions.

Who built this stuff for them?! Whoever it was, they had to be a genius.

“I’m going to do all of you two favors here,” Soarin caught their attention as he hovered above them. "First… I want everypony to follow me up to get a good look at this course layout,” he glanced at Spitfire as she nodded in approval. “Come on, let’s go,” he beckoned them. The cadets obeyed and they rose off the platform to look down at the course.

Dash could see it now. Also… this was going to be really difficult.

Each straightaway had a path marked by small flags much like it had been in the second test. The path itself was only about six feet wide and it winded in, out, and around the obstacles. It split around some of them as well, offering more than one option to get around something.

The first straightaway was a large collection of padded pendulums of six foot wide padded poles that were placed in a very staggered formation. There were six on the right and six on the left with fifteen feet of spacing between the line on the left and the line on the right, but barely five feet between a pendulum and the one that came right after it. The path marked was sharply zigzagged, forcing the flyer to pass through a point that could possibly be completely blocked by the pendulum. Since they were currently not moving, the pendulums sat right between marker flags of the path, showing that they did indeed take up the whole path if when in the exact center of its swing.

Should one be fortunate enough to even make it through the first part, after the sharp U-turn were three transparent tunnels. They were all very small, and large enough for a pegasus with its wings fully spread to fit into. Each tunnel led a different path, but they were all the same length and all converged into a single large tunnel for ten feet right before the exit.

Immediately outside the exit was another wide pendulum that didn’t cover the whole exit, but its swing arc was wider than the dimensions of the exit, meaning a pegasus had to be ready to react if the pendulum swung down suddenly as they neared the tunnel exit. As if that wasn’t enough, there was a stationary padded wall about seven feet from the tunnel. It completely blocked the path, save for a small opening to the right. The tunnel released the flyer near the left side of the wall, so they would have to put on the brakes and adjust to get around the wall.

The final insult to injury was one more pendulum right around the turn past the wall. If successfully avoided, the flyer made it into the second U-turn and into the third stretch.

Down the third stretch the path was very winding and angular, flanked on both sides by tall padded walls that were at least ten feet tall. From the outside Dash could see pistons attached to sections of the wall. These pistons were meant to suddenly and randomly force small sections of the wall out and into the way of the flyers as they navigated the airborne canyon. The sudden, angled turns within the path looked like they required precise control of speed to navigate effectively. That mixed with trying to dodge being slapped in the face by the wall pistons made the section a formidable challenge.

Once out of the path and around the final U-turn, the path widened considerably into a long straight shot to the finish line… save for one obstacle. There was a large double sided windmill like contraption. It had two sets of four large padded panels. The one in front turned counterclockwise, and the one behind it turned clockwise a little faster than the first, giving the flyer multiple avenues of travel that kept opening and closing in random places. Once one passed this obstacle, it was thirty-five yards to the finish platform.

Dash and the cadets carefully analyzed the course. Soarin’s personal challenge course, huh? While Dash was a little nervous, she was also psyched. The personal course of a lead squad Wonderbolt… even if it didn’t go well, this was the real deal. She was experiencing challenges faced by Wonderbolts daily. This one was probably a little more over the top than most of the personal courses, but that made it even more of a beast that would be twice as satisfying to tackle.

“And now… to prove I’m not just blowing my ego out of my ass…” Soarin began lowering himself down. Dash perked up, realizing what was about to happen. “I’ll give a demonstration!”

“Show off!!!” Fleetfoot yelled from off to the side.

“And will somepony please fire a cannon into the peanut gallery!” Soarin added without flinching as he lowered himself all the way down to the start.

Now Dash was even more psyched. Another chance to watch Soarin at work… It sent chills through her.

Soarin touched down to the platform and forced the goggles’ strap taught as he pulled the eye protection over his false horn and placed it atop his eyes. He took a deep breath and focused straight forward.

He whistled down to squad three below. Fire Streak answered with a salute, before approaching a machine at the base of the first support beam. There were wires and pipes running from it along the ground, towards, and up every support beam. Fire reached for a large lever on the machine, grabbed it with both hooves and yanked it down. The machine came to life and suddenly a soft hum spread throughout the entire course.

Slowly, the pendulums began to swing, the wall pistons began to fire, and the double windmill at the end began turning. The whole course had come alive. Soarin smiled contently as he readied for takeoff.

To Dash’s surprise, Soarin did not use the Sonic Blast-off. He crouched down and leaned back, before snapping forward and leaping into the air. He spread his powerful wings and pumped them hard to gain speed as he pitched right and flew towards the first pendulum. He reached it while the pendulum was out of the way, so all he had to do was adjust his speed and make the very sharp turn towards the second pendulum. Unlike the first, the second pendulum was swinging down, and moved right in his path as he approached. Soarin quickly changed the rate he flapped his wings to “stutter” his speed and slow down briefly as the pendulum passed, before he reset his flight and burst towards the next.

He navigated each pendulum masterfully, either breaking past them in the nick of time or adjusting his speed to avoid collisions. He came around the last pendulum before he shot into the U-turn and pitched his body hard to the right, using his strength to withstand the wind pressure as he maintained his speed.

He came out of the curve and aimed right for the center of the three small tunnels. Soarin was bigger than the average pegasus, but he still slipped in. The cadets watched with awe as Soarin easily navigated the winding and twisting confined space through the transparent tubes. He came to the joint exit and tipped sideways to try and slip by the pendulum swinging around by the exit.

It nicked his back hoof and disrupted his flight path. He found himself turning out of control as he careened towards the stationary wall.

“HRG!” He grunted as he forced his torso to turn and spin his body upright. He crossed his hooves in front of his face and ran straight into the padded wall. He bounced off of it, but thrust his wings out and did a backward somersault before pressing forward once more and moving down the wall. He grabbed the edge of the wall, forcing his body to stop as the second surprise pendulum swung by before he pulled his body around the wall and kicked his back hooves against it to propel himself into the third U-turn.

He shot around and flew right into the confined wall canyon. He slowed down as he came to the first turn, using the walls to help him navigate. He kicked off the walls into the angled turns, passing through quickly and efficiently. The wall pistons began firing, occasionally forcing Soarin to change his trajectory or make quick adjustments to his flight path. The last piston before the exit sprung right up in front of his face.

Soarin instinctively pulled back his right hoof and punched the wall padding as hard as he could. The pop-up panel was forced right back to its starting position as he flew by it and into the last heavy turn.

He evened out and pumped his wings as hard as he could towards the double windmill, keeping his eyes locked on possible openings. He found a perfect moment approaching and flew perfectly straight in the middle of the widened path. To the cadets it looked like he was going to slam right into the large metal pillar that held the windmills up. Soarin was crazy, but not that crazy. Moments away from hitting the pillar, Soarin pulled upward hard while angling right. He threw himself into a barrel roll corkscrew, passing perfectly through a small opening on the right side of the windmill while facing upside-down. Once free of the windmills, he finished the maneuver and slammed to the finish platform, skidding to a stop perfectly in the center of the platform.

“Damn!” He cursed while panting slightly. He pushed his goggles up, only to have them bounce and fall back over his face by the fake horn. He pulled them down over his neck instead and growled in frustration. He was so close to a perfect run. If not for the tunnel exit pendulum catching the edge of his hoof, the run would have been flawless.

“Hot… sexy… damn…” Dash said quietly as she stared wide eyed at her stallion from above. Soarin had never mentioned his courses before… or how well he could navigate such perilous obstacles… and even make messing up look badass… how did he hide all these things that multiplied his sexiness? She had seen him fight, but she had never really seen the extent of his flying abilities. They were absolutely unreal.

Soarin pushed his frustration aside and flew back up towards the cadets.

“Well, there you have it… it’s doable.”

“Especially if you’re a pretty princess!!! OW!!!” Fleetfoot yelled from above followed by Spitfire jabbing her in the side.

“Thank you Spitfire!” Soarin yelled without looking towards them. “This test will show us how well you can adapt and control yourself in very unlikely flight situations. You won’t always have time to stop and think!” he paused and smirked. “And to assure that you DON'T stop and think too much… you are going three at a time… and racing.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“No way!”

The group reacted. Spitfire quickly flew down and tapped Soarin on the shoulder.

“What?” he turned to her.

“Are you kidding me Soarin? This course is dangerous enough, did you not listen to me before?” she snapped at him quietly. Soarin grunted.

“Spitfire, I did listen. But you know what? I would really like it if you stepped back and trusted me. This is the last test and I KNOW what I’m doing,” he made clear while meeting Spitfire’s glare head on. They tested each other’s will for a few moments more, before Spitfire growled and shook her head.

“Fine,” she gave in. “BUT!” she pointed at him. “My previous words still stand. Send one of these cadets to the hospital an I’m tearing you a new one. Got it?”

“Got it,” Soarin complied as he turned back to the cadets. “So, any questions before the mayhem begins?” he asked as all the cadets went silent again. For a moment, it remained quiet, but then Matteo raised a talon. “Yes?” Soarin pointed to him. Matteo looked down at the second section of the course with the small tunnels.

“I hope you don’t expect me to fit in those little tunnels…” Matteo said, slightly embarrassed. Soarin blinked, realizing Matteo had a point. He looked down at the tunnels while a few laughs emitted from the group of cadets. Soarin turned back and shrugged.

“Fly alongside one of the tunnels, there’s really nothing else you can do. We’ll station a Wonderbolt down there to make sure you don’t cheat it. That was a very good question, I don’t want to break my course,” Soarin joked before he hardened his gaze on the cadets again. “Anything else?” he asked. The cadets remained silent and stared at him. “Then let’s do this. Just line up, you’ll go in groups of three with whoever is in line with you,” he motioned down.

Dash began floating down while contemplating the possibilities. A race, huh? That added a whole new factor to the test.

“Oh, and I should mention,” Soarin chimed in from above, catching their attention. “Whoever wins the race amongst the three of you will be given extra points… so don’t lose,” he nodded with a grin.

Another wave of adrenaline rushed through Dash. Oh yeah, competition really got her psyched. She was the best, and she liked nothing more than proving that fact.

“Soarin!” Spitfire grabbed him and forced him to dace her. “You can’t be serious! We can’t show favor like that! They need to be judged equally!”

“They will be,” he answered with a smug smile. Spitfire blinked.

“But, you just said…”

“I lied,” Soarin admitted straight up. Spitfire’s jaw dropped. “It’s called motivation Spitfire. Sometimes desperation can bring out the strongest traits and abilities in a pony… trust me… I’ve been there more than once,” he turned away from her and flew up to get a better view of the course.

Dash moved along as a line started to form on the platform. For some reason, she felt like spicing it up. She didn’t want to straight up decide who she wanted to race again. She wanted to be surprised. So as she approached the line, she kept her head down and shuffled into place. As soon as she had a place in line, she looked up and stared right into the back of Storm Front’s head.

“Oh…” Dash blinked and chuckled. So much for a ‘new’ opponent. Storm turned around and looked at her.

“Oh hey,” he chuckled. “Trying to get back at me for catching you yesterday?”

“You wish, I walked up with my head down… I think you're following me to make sure I don’t fall again,” she joked back.

“I promise you I won’t go out of my way to save your life this time… that’s if we’re even together…” he glanced over as the first three stepped up. He couldn’t count exactly how many were in line ahead of them, but there was a chance Storm would be the third in a group of three and Dash was stuck with two others.

Dash looked behind her and saw two other mares conversing. She didn’t know either of them. She didn’t recognize the stallion in front of Storm either. So no matter what happened there was going to be at least one pony in her test run that she was unfamiliar with.

Dash and Storm waited patiently as the line moved little by little. This was different from the other tests. It was hard to see any of the runs taking place before them because of all the contraptions blocking their view. Both Matteo and Twister were in line ahead of them. Dash only caught brief glimpses of them as they went. Matteo seemed to make it through okay, but Twister, surprisingly, finished way behind the other two in his group and crash landed on top of it.

Dash and Storm could only wonder how such a mishap occurred. It was quickly put into the back of their minds though. Their turn was approaching, and by the looks of things, it was going to be Storm, Dash, and the mare behind her.

The group in front of them stepped up and was given the signal to start. They took off, and sloppily made their way through the pendulums before disappearing into the second section of the course.

Storm took a deep breath as Dash waited patiently behind him. She smirked.

“Nervous?” she asked, mocking him from earlier.

“To be honest… yes,” he admitted, surprising Dash.

“Huh? Why? You’ve been putting on a good show, they’d be stupid to reject you,” Dash nudged him, but he frowned and shook his head.

“After that fall I took on the ranking board after yesterday I can’t afford any major mistakes… I envy you Dash, you’ve been ranked first the whole time… your position is secured… mine isn’t. I can’t help but worry…”

“Stop,” Dash smacked him upside the head.

“Ow! What was that—”

“Enough!”

“Dash—”

“SHUT IT!” Dash stuffed her hoof over his mouth. “You’re gonna be fine. Just give it your all, that’s what they wanna see,” she leaned back and crossed her arms. “Quit being such a downer, you’re depressing me over here.”

“Heh,” Storm rolled his eyes. “I’m glad you’re sympathizing with me,” he chuckled sarcastically.

“Psh, why would I? I’m about to beat you in a race!” she taunted.

“Oh, are you now?” Storm lifted an eyebrow at her. “I see what you just did, now I have the urge to kick your ass.”

“That’s the spirit!” Dash jabbed him in the arm. “It’s no fun if the competition is depressing!”

“HEY!” a voice suddenly came from behind them. Dash turned around to see mare behind them get shoved out of the way… by none other than Arctic Blast. “Wow, bitch…” the mare commented and just let Arctic have her way.

Dash scrunched her face and scowled at Arctic. She had just forced her way into the line so she could be part of Dash’s group.

“Seriously?” Dash asked while putting her hooves out to the side. Arctic just stared at her. “Can’t you just piss off?” Dash tried again. Arctic only glared harder. Dash looked at Storm. He was looking at Arctic uncomfortably, remembering well how mean she had been to Derpy.

Dash glared back at Arctic. It was clear she wasn’t going to respond, and it was clear she was up to something.

Great.

This was something neither Dash nor Storm needed right now. Arctic had effectively put herself in a position to race against them, and now Dash had to worry about Arctic pulling something. She still had no idea what Arctic’s true intentions were. Her actions so far had given off an air of either being annoying, trying to get Soarin to be hers, or trying to hinder Dash. There was no constant, but whatever it was, it was meant to have an effect on Dash’s performance.

Dash was not about to let Arctic get in her way on her path to victory. If Arctic stepped over that line, Dash was going to do something about it. There was no room for blunders, and even less room for dumb shit caused by personal vendettas.

Whatever, it’s not like Arctic could keep up with Dash anyway… at least she assumed. Dash had not competed against Arctic yet, but she was willing to bet Arctic would have trouble with the obstacles. In a way, Dash felt this could help too. It would give her added incentive to keep a good lead.

Whatever the result of Arctic forcing into their group would be… Dash was about to find out.

The group ahead of them finished.

It was their turn.

Dash and Storm both stepped up to the starting line while keeping a wary eye on Arctic. She took her place beside Dash and faced forward.

Dash shook her head and focused as well.

No distractions. Use this as motivation. Leave her in the dust. Beat STORM, not Arctic… she’s not worth the time. Dash drilled herself as she shuffled her wings to keep them loose. She had to ignore Arctic, she was nothing. Storm was the challenge here. Arctic was clearly just trying to get under Dash’s skin. Dash wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Finish line is clear!” Lightning Streak called out from over on the finish platform while waving both arms in the air. Fire Streak nodded and turned to the three.

“All set?” Fire asked. Dash and Storm gave a nod. Arctic just huffed. Fire took it as a yes and continued. “Good luck cadets… begin on my mark,” he ordered as he reached his left hoof up.

Dash unfolded her wings and firmly planted her hooves. She focused all of her attention on the first path in front of her and how it angled towards the first pendulum. Fire had faced away from them, watching the pendulum move. Dash was waiting for the exact moment Fire thrust his arm down. She would use her quick reflexes to get an early lead.

She watched… and waited… body lightly tingling in anticipation.

And then a white wing reached over and batted her in the face.

“Hey!” Dash pulled her head back and shook it out. Then blasts of wind blew her mane back from both sides. She blinked and saw Fire’s arm down. Both Storm and Arctic had started! “Shit!” Dash quickly burst into the air from the starting line and gave chase.

That bitch…

Oh, that bitch…

Arctic… she was most definitely in it to hinder Dash. While Dash was determined to ignore her, Arctic was going to make it very hard to do so.

Because of Arctic’s craven tactics, Dash was forced to make up ground on top of navigating the complicated course.

Both Storm and Arctic were already approaching the second pendulum by the time Dash reached the first. She barely made it around the tight corner before the pendulum gave her a one way ticket to the gym floor. She pumped her wings vigorously as she approached the second, but was forced to stop and let it pass before she could move on.

In the brief moment that she had to pause she noticed something ahead of her. Storm had already gained a lead on Arctic, and Dash was slowly gaining on Arctic. Dash remembered Arctic’s fatal flight flaw: momentum control. She was flying very slowly between the pendulums. If she picked up any more speed she would fly right past them or be unable to avoid smacking into them.

Because she was forced to wait for the second pendulum, Dash was now two pendulums behind Arctic and four behind Storm. Storm was really booking it. Dash made it her goal to catch Arctic first.

Quickly, but carefully, Dash navigated back and forth throughout the pendulum zigzag. She stopped if she needed to wait, and sped around the sharp turns if there was an opening. With the help of Twister’s Spiral Turn she was able to keep her speed around them. She avoided using Matteo’s Air Burst though, in fear of it giving her too much momentum. This part was about being fast, but cautious.

She slowly closed the gap between her and Arctic. Dash made the last turn before the final pendulum, but cursed as she was forced to stop and let it pass. She got another good look ahead of her. Arctic was about to head into the U-turn, but Storm was out of sight.

Dash was legitimately pissed off. She was so ready to compete and hold a lead… and then Arctic ruined it. Now here she was playing catch-up when she could’ve… SHOULD’VE been in front racing Storm.

Dash forced her wings to flap with all the strength and speed her body could muster as the path past the last pendulum cleared. She would catch Arctic RIGHT NOW during the U-turn, leave her in the dust, and focus on catching Storm.

Arctic had picked up speed into the turn, but she was still keeping her speed down a little due to her lack of control. Dash used this to her advantage, giving 150% effort as she pitched hard to the right and sped around the turn. She ended up closing the distance between her and Arctic to three pony lengths as they hit the straightaway leading towards the three small tunnels.

Arctic had sped up since she was now flying in a straight line. Dash was still closing in, but only little bits at a time. Dash glanced over Arctic and up at the transparent tubes. Storm was already within the center one that extended up above the other two as it made a few loops. Dash grimaced slightly as Storm suddenly wiped out in the tube and slid back down. He was back up quickly though, and continued through his tube a little more carefully. The little mishap would eventually help Dash catch him (if she didn’t mess up herself), but she couldn’t help but cringe at it. Crashing in a confined space seemed uncomfortable by default.

Dash looked back down and shifted right. She would take the right tunnel. She took a moment to follow its layout with her eyes so she could get a good idea of how she would be flying through it.

It wasn’t until she drew near however, that Arctic suddenly pulled back beside her and began pressing against Dash.

“What the—?!” Dash was caught off guard. She wasn’t expecting Arctic to purposely slow down. Arctic used Dash’s confusion to her advantage and nudged her off course in a manner that she disguised as fighting Dash for positioning. “Crap!” Dash yelled as she was forced into a flight path that would put her face right into the outer edge of the tunnel. She had no choice. She was forced to put on the brakes and pull up. Dash swore she heard Arctic scoff as she successfully warded her off. Dash quickly made a sharp right turn loop around and slung herself into the pipe on the far left instead.

Arctic had not once, but TWICE hindered her. Dash was determined to not let it get to her, but that time it was incredibly blatant. Arctic still had some space on her and she purposely slowed down to get in Dash’s way.

Dash was now also put at the disadvantage of having no idea how the left tunnel was laid out. She dipped down, doing her best to fly fast and smart. The tunnel dropped, followed by a tight corkscrew, then turned hard to the right and made a large vertical loop that wrapped around the other two tunnels. Dash pushed the speed through all of these the best she could without sacrificing control. She could see out of her tunnel and into the one Arctic was navigating. The tunnels were the same length, but of different configuration, so Dash had no idea if she was actually catching up or not. It was irrelevant. All she needed to do was try her hardest because when all was said and done… SHE WAS BETTER THAN ARCTIC.

After the end of the loop, the tunnel turned immediately towards the converging tunnel that had the exit. Dash came out of the loop a little too hard and ended up dragging her hooves along the bottom of the tunnel for a good portion of the final turn. She winced in discomfort, but pressed on as she shot out of the small tunnel and into the large one. Arctic was only about ten feet ahead of her.

Arctic sped out of the exit, but Dash was forced to stop as the large exit pendulum swung by and nearly took her nose off. It was like the pendulums were out to get her or something. Dash was frustrated at how often she was forced to stop, but luckily for her, a chance came.

Arctic did not approach the tunnel exit well. She was going very fast, and had completely forgotten about the solid wall placed right after the tunnel. The pendulum moved out of the way just in time for Dash see Arctic crash headlong into the wall, bounce off, and tumble downward.

The pendulum blocking Dash was actually a blessing this time. Dash had forgotten about the stationary wall as well. The pendulum gave her a moment to see it and approach it slower. It also knocked Arctic the hell out.

Dash accelerated past the pendulum and pitched hard to the right to make the turn against the wall. She gave the wall a small jab with her front hooves to keep her from slamming against it as she approached the wall corner. She glanced down briefly to see Arctic getting to her hooves, but she still had to fly back up and get back into the course. Dash glanced ahead of her next and caught a glimpse of Storm’s flank right before it disappeared around the second U-turn.

Perfect.

As long as Dash kept up the hard flying, Arctic was effectively out of the picture. Now she just had to catch Storm. The canyon of high walls and pop-up obstacles was ahead. Hopefully it would slow him down. She should be able to catch him either way… and she should’ve been paying more attention.

“AUGH!” Dash grunted in surprise as the hidden pendulum around the wall corner struck her in the side. It punted her to the left, sending her tumbling side over side towards the ground.

SMOOTH RAINBOW DASH! SMOOTH! Dash berated herself as she tried to gain control. On instinct she turned her torso in the direction she was spinning, effectively giving it enough power to equal the Spiral Turn. She waited until an exact moment where her body was facing down and forced her wings down hard. The momentum of the turn and the force from her wings caused an Air Burst beneath her. It propelled her right back up.

“Whoa!” Dash blinked as she hovered in place for a second before realizing it worked. She chuckled as she restarted and shot into the U-turn. She glance to her left as she cleared the turn to see Arctic just entering it.

Thank Celestia her instincts kicked in and used the Spiral Turn/Air Burst combination to make a quick midair recovery. Had she crash landed, Arctic would have surely made up all the ground Dash had gained on her.

Dash quickly refocused, not wanting to repeat a mistake she just made. The canyon of walls was approaching and the first right angle turn was visible from outside. Dash wished she had paid more attention when she watched Soarin do this part. She knew there was a quick left turn right after the first right, but beyond that she’d have to take a more controlled approach.

She entered the airborne canyon and made quick adjustments to her flight pattern to hit the first two angled turns. Then she had to slow way down. There was no way for her to see or predict the turns coming. Her speed was cut in half as she navigated through, but she couldn’t shake thinking there was a better way to approach this.

If she was on the skill level of Soarin, she could use the walls to her advantage. She remembered how he kicked off the walls gracefully and efficiently… Wait…

Dash realized she was trying to catch somepony who had a move that used surfaces to change the direction of momentum: Storm’s Surface Tap move. But was it a good idea in here? The walls were far enough apart for her to move freely, but some of the sharp angles and turns came up so fast. Would she be able to reset her hooves into the Surface Tap’s starting position each time? The result was a quick burst of speed after all… she risked slamming into the wall.

She had to catch him though. If she thought it was reckless, Storm most likely thought it was reckless too. He didn’t share her love for reckless maneuvers. She was more than certain he was taking this part slow.

Pull out all the stops. This was no time to be careful. It was time to take action.

Dash approached the next turn, staggered her back hooves, and shifted her body to aim them against the wall opposite of the turn. She tapped the first and kicked the second rapidly, propelling herself towards the next wall mere feet away. She readied her front hooves and repeated the tap/kick, propelling her in the right direction once again. She had it! She could do it! She had a second or less each time to prep the next surface tap, but she was a badass. A second was more than enough time to put her hooves up or back. She bounced through the canyon, a little sloppily, but it was much more efficient.

At this rate she’d catch Storm in no ti—

“ACK!” Dash heard from around the next corner as she readied the Surface Tap, only to get struck in the side by something large. She wasn’t hit very hard, in fact the pressure was almost instantly lifted from her and she didn’t lose a hold of her flight. She quickly straightened up and saw it was actually Storm who had run into her! Why? She didn’t know nor care. She had caught him. She didn’t bother to figure out what caused him to fly into her, she whisked around him and made her way into a much less angled corridor of the walls…

But she couldn’t shake the suspicion that she had forgotten something important.

“WHOA!” She yelped as a section of the wall suddenly popped out and nearly hit her right in the face. She pumped her wings down hard to propel herself over the padded panel the instant before collision. The upward thrust sent her into an awkward upward tumble, but she quickly rounded out and blinked as she glanced down at the piston.

Right… the SURPRISE BITCH walls…

“Ah!” Dash regained her focus as Storm approached the wall she just narrowly avoided, flipped over it, and Surface Tapped his back hooves against the other side of the panel. He fired forward, while adjusting his speed to meet the panels as they sprung into his path and repeat the move.

Dash didn’t have time to acknowledge how cool it looked. She quickly dove back down into the path. The piston walls were harder to avoid than she thought. They were being activated randomly, so she had no way of knowing if she was in danger or not. She was forced to slow down to avoid getting a padded facial, allowing Storm with his superior execution of the Surface Tap to pull ahead again.

She then remembered something she had seen earlier that day. Little Star… or the filly she thought was Little Star. She had an interesting flight style where flapped her wings minimally and rapidly, allowing her make sudden shifts in her trajectory.

Dash’s wings were much bigger than the filly’s, but maybe she could make similar movements by using a flat, rapid winged flight style. Maybe at least faster movements than she was currently making. Dash took another gamble and tried it out. She flattened her wings into a glide as she made it around a piston wall, and began flapping very minimally. The next piston wall popped up and Dash moved to the right.

“Yipe!” Dash yelped as she suddenly lurched to the right. She quickly stuck her right hoof out to prevent herself from smashing against the wall, but smiled right after. It did work. It was a little different, but it worked!

She flew up a little higher and angled down into a glide to pick up some speed as she flattened out her wings and repeated the same wing motions. She was now going twice as fast as her careful flight, but every time a wall panel popped in front of her, the littlest movements pushed her flight path out of harm’s way. With her increased speed she was able to keep up with Storm and prevent the gap between them from increasing.

Storm eventually cleared the canyon and made haste for the last U-turn. Dash closed in on the exit and dodged a panel a few feet from the end, only to have another one pop up directly in front of her. Even with the filly’s flight style, she wouldn’t move out of the way in time. Dash’s body reacted before she could think.

Soarin punched one of these panels to move it out of his way. There were much sturdier than the blast walls… so Dash couldn’t just hit them and expect them to move, but at the same time she had seen a move that added force to a blow. Squall’s martial arts, the quick two hoof strike.

In the mere second she had before impact, her instincts put the possibility together that Squall’s move could clear her path. She didn’t know what sort of martial arts he used, but his stance and movements were clear in her head.

She shifted upright, put one hoof out while keeping the other in. She leaned her body back, and thrust forward while rapidly jabbing both hooves once into the padded wall.

The wall panel blew back into its starting position. Dash quickly flattened out, and executed the Spiral Turn/Air Burst combo to propel herself out of the canyon and after Storm. The momentum from her Air Burst was a boon. She shot out of the canyon like it was a cannon and soon found herself passing by Storm right before the curve. She saw him visually flinch in surprise as she flew by. Finally she was in the lead! To top it off Arctic had been nowhere in sight. This was going to end well, she could feel it!

Dash approached the last turn at full speed. This was it, all that stood before her and finishing first in the hardest test was this curve and one more giant double windmill before a straight shot to the finish line. Storm suddenly appeared in her peripheral vision.

Dash cursed to herself as Storm pulled up to her right. She should’ve taken the turn tighter! She left too much space and Storm managed to get inside of her on the curve. It wasn’t a sharp curve, so Dash put all of her effort into pumping her wings, adding to her speed to compensate for the wider angle she had to take compared to Storm.

Despite her best efforts, they came off the curve staggered with Storm slightly ahead of her. The last factor was dead ahead: the windmills. Dash and Storm’s angle put them on course to pass by on the left side. There was an open opportunity approaching. The wide, padded panel moving down the front windmill on left side had just hit eight o’clock and the second behind it had just passed nine o’clock. There would be a clear opening between them for a few precious seconds. They both adjusted their speed down slightly to time their flight through the opening. They’d pass through at the exact same time at this rate with only thirty five yards to make a final push right after. Dash knew she was faster than Storm. With nothing in the way it would be easy to just out-fly him. If only that were the case…

“RRRGGHHHH!!!!!!!” A loud growl came from behind them. Dash blinked and glanced behind her.

Arctic?!

What? How? How did she catch up? Dash and Storm had slowed down to make a clean pass through the windmill obstacle, but Dash hadn’t seen Arctic once behind her since she left her in the dust in the second section.

“OH, COME ON!!!!” Dash gritted her teeth as Arctic pulled up to Dash’s left and pushed against her again. They glared at each other as they neared the windmill. With Arctic nudging into her she couldn’t pump her wings efficiently. Storm began to pull slightly ahead of them and if she didn’t speed up, Dash would miss her chance to speed smoothly past the windmill. The next panel on the front windmill was already at ten o’clock, and would soon be in her way…

That did it. Once... was annoying. Twice… was angering. Three times… Arctic had crossed the line. Dash had had it with her.

Dash snapped her eyes towards Arctic with the sharpest glare she could muster. Just before they reached the windmill, Dash shifted to her left and thrust her body back to the right, ramming Arctic as hard as she could.

“Ah!” Arctic yelped and was pushed slightly upward…

She ran face first into the bottom edge of the front windmill’s panel at full speed, her whole body got clothes lined… knocking her out and sending her tumbling downward.

Dash quickly did Twister’s Spiral Turn and Matteo’s Air Burst, propelling her past the second set of windmill blades and towards Storm. Storm glanced over his shoulder as Dash passed by his left.

She had pulled out in front. An adrenaline fueled wave of victory rushed over her as she shot through the finish line.

“YES!” she called out as she angled down, slammed her hooves to the finish platform and skidded to a halt. “HAHA!” she pumped her hooves up into the air. She turned, expecting to see Storm right there behind her… but he wasn’t. He was nowhere to be seen. “Huh?” Dash wondered out loud as she looked around for him.

Then he rose up from below, still a good thirty yards from the finish line…

He was cradling Arctic Blast in his arms.

“What?” Dash blinked as she watched him cross the finish line with the unconscious Arctic and gently set her down.

“Phew! That was a close one…” he shook his head as the Streak twins hurried over to check on Arctic. Dash didn’t say a word. She only looked between Storm and Arctic, beyond puzzled.

Why?

Why the hell…?

From above, Soarin and Spitfire looked down upon the scene on the finish platform. Soarin glanced at Spitfire, who was rubbing her chin.

“Hmm…” she pondered aloud. Soarin watched her carefully as she shook her head. He looked back towards Dash himself. He crossed his arms and looked carefully down at Dash.

Well, that did it. Dash was done with the tryouts.

Now he just had to make a decision. It was most certainly not going to be an easy one either.

“Oo! That’s cold! COLD!” Dash yelped as Bliss placed a plastic bag full of ice over the base of Dash’s left wing.

“Ice is cold, honey,” Bliss said with a giggle as she heaved up two much larger bags of ice over to Matteo on a double table across from Dash. She heaved them up and placed them at the base of both his wings.

“Thanks,” he said as Bliss rushed around to help whoever was next.

The training room was packed to the brim with cadets after the brutal third tests were over. Dash was glad she did well… at least she thought she did well. It would suck to have to go home, not only after taking such a beating, but after making it this far into the tryouts as well. She felt sorry for Thunderlane in particular. He got the crap beat out of him immediately and was forced to bail after the pleasant surprise of making it so far.

Dash looked up as she winced and shivered at the cold touch of the ice on her back. She huffed as she saw Matteo not even flinching under the cold pressure of the much larger ice bags.

“How can you…” she paused to shiver. “…take this so easily?” she asked. Matteo gave a very subtle shrug.

“I suck it up, because I know it will help,” he put plainly.

“It’s so cold…” Dash grimaced. Matteo looked to his right and chuckled.

“Well, I’d do that if I fit in them,” he made a head motion towards the metal tubs. Dash looked to her left. She was only two trainer tables from the start this time, so she was still within sight and speaking distance of the tubs. Storm Front was sitting in one of the tubs. It was filled with water and ice.

“Dear god! She reacted upon seeing Storm sit in the tub so casually. Storm blinked and turned to her.

“What?” he said with a confused look. Dash motioned a hoof towards the tub.

“Isn’t that… like… REALLY painful? How cold is that?!” she asked in disbelief.

“I dunno, it hurt like hell for about two minutes… now it feels amazing,” Storm exhaled comfortably. “Probably because I can’t feel my body anymore,” he chuckled.

“You’re crazy,” Dash shook her head. There was no way in hell she was ever taking an ice bath, she could barely stand one pack of ice on her back.

“GAH!” Storm suddenly yelped the instant Dash looked away. She looked back to see Twister had suddenly appeared in the tube with Storm.

“No, I’M crazy!” he sneered while tipping his head ninety degrees to the right and bouncing his eyebrows.

“That’s it, ice bath’s over…” Storm shakily stood up and forced his limbs to pull him out of the ice tub despite how numb he felt.

Dash rolled her eyes and chuckled. She really hoped they all made it through. These guys were too much fun. She looked around for more familiar faces. She hadn’t seen Thunderlane since he was taken away. She guessed he was probably already taken care of and sent on his way. He did get a good hour head start to the training room ahead of all of them.

She kept looking and her eyes landed on… Arctic Blast.

She was lying on her back on a trainer table about ten down from Matteo. Her eyes were open and she was looking around occasionally, but she looked really out of it. She had an ice bag sitting on her forehead and a tissue stuffed in her nose that was stained with blood.

Whatever, the bitch deserved it. Multiple times during the last test she tried to push Dash, yank her down, or in general mix up her flight path. It was nothing bad, but she was being so damn annoying and hindering Dash’s chances of finishing ahead of Storm. Dash was tired of her shit, and Arctic finally learned what happened when you messed with her.

Speaking of Storm…

Dash turned back to Storm as he tried wiping his body dry with a towel.

“Storm,” she called his name. He blinked and looked up at her.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you do it?” she asked. He stared as if waiting for her to say more. So she did. “Why did you catch Arctic?” she asked further while making a head motion towards Arctic’s bed. Storm sighed and flattened his brow.

“Dash, we’ve been over this. I don’t like ponies getting hurt,” he said with a hint of annoyance as if Dash didn’t seem to get the point. Dash glanced between Storm and Arctic.

“Storm… she’s been nothing but a horrible pony to everypony here…”

“I don’t care.”

“You remember what she said to Derpy?” Dash pressed.

“I said I don’t care!” Storm snapped. Dash flinched in surprise. “Personal vendettas mean nothing to me! I don’t like her either! But she was falling head first, she could have broken her neck or worse had I not caught her. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if something bad had happened to her when I could’ve prevented it… I’m sure she’s already concussed. I didn’t see it, but she must’ve hit the windmill really hard. As soon as I saw her falling I had to help… I don’t give a damn who it is…” he said as he went back to drying himself off.

Dash pondered his words as she looked back and forth again.

Storm’s reasoning was… chivalrous and protective… but… why her, WHY HER? It seemed backward that he would do a favor for Arctic, especially after how she treated Derpy! Dash thought he’d feel more like her… that Arctic deserved the pain she got for being such a thorn in everypony’s side.

To each their own. Dash was a-okay with it. Arctic had it coming anyway.

Once again, Dash was barely at her table for more than a minute for lunch. She was already late to the mess hall because of her stop in the training room, so she was sure the ranking board was already posted. Top twenty-one become recruits… one of them becomes an elite squad member… Dash was psyched. She was already number one for two days straight. She was sure her odds of being selected for the spot would be ridiculously high even if she wasn’t in first anymore.

Dash quickly stuffed her tray unevenly into the return racks and sprinted out of the hall. She pushed past Thunderlane as she ran through the hall. Under normal circumstances she would have stopped and asked him how he was doing… but there was too much she had to know right then and now. She approached the board in the lobby, which already had a good twenty cadets in front of it. She slid to a halt and stared up at the board.

The payoff was instant.

Dash’s eyes grew and her smile nearly ripped her mouth off of her face.

SHE.

WAS.

STILL.

NUMBER.

ONE.

No cheering this time. Dash was too busy staring at her name beside the number one spot on the board.

Three days straight. All three days she was deemed to be the best cadet… in a group that had performed better than any current recruits that the Wonderbolts had… that sealed it. SHE WAS THE BEST CADET. She was a recruit, but this acknowledgement indicated there was more for her on the horizon. Elite spot, here she comes.

“Sheesh Dash, you should try harder," Thunderlane said as he came up behind her and eyed her name before scanning down the list.

Dash didn’t even hear him. She was so excited and internally squealing so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. She was the best cadet… the best cadet. Best cadet. Best cadet. Best cadet. She could smell the elite squad spot already.

She took a deep breath and tapped her front hooves happily against the floor to somewhat vent her excitement, but most of it stayed bundled up in her brain and had a rave party. It was such an incredible feeling. The Wonderbolts thought she was the best of all three hundred cadets that initially showed. She never would have predicted this outcome… but she was badass… so maybe she should’ve seen this coming.

With her own excitement still running laps around her head, she started looking down the list, realizing there were quite a few names she wanted to see up there.

But first up...

2nd: Little Star

Oh wow… the little filly had over taken Squall… seeing as how he was grumpy about being in second, Dash could only imagine how hard he scowled at this result.

3rd: Squall

Yep… he had been taken down a notch. Karma for being a jerky grump. Dash continued down the list.

6th: Matteo

Not surprising. Matteo had put on an amazing show of strength during the day’s tests. He deserved it.

7th: Twister

Also not surprising. He was crazy… but showcased great skill in flight and maneuvers. Despite his crash landing at the end of the third test, he must’ve done something else to grab their attention.

Dash continued down the list… and blinked as she continued down. She bit her lip nervously, but then sighed heavily in relief.

15th: Storm Front

He pushed his way back into contention. Good. He deserved it. She liked Storm a lot. It was impossible to ever think badly of him, he was such a nice guy.

“Phew, Storm made it back in. Close call, eh?” she nudged Thunderlane beside her… but he didn’t answer. Dash blinked and turned to him. “Thunderlane?”

He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the board with his eyes wide and his jaw nearly unhinged. What was he looking at? Dash looked back at the board and ran down the list.

“OH!” she hopped slightly in surprise as she found what he was looking at.

21st: Thunderlane

Oh… sweet… Celestia…

Dash turned to Thunderlane with a look of happy disbelief.

“Thunderlane!!!!!!!” she grabbed his shoulder and began shaking him. “DUDE! DUDEDUDEDUDEDUDE!!!!!! YOU MADE IT!!!!!!!”

“Uh…” Thunderlane responded while remaining completely stiff.

“HOLY SHIT! THUNDERLANE YOU ARE A WONDERBOLT RECRUIT!!!!!!!” she shook him harder.

“Buh…” Thunderlane uttered nothing more.

“HAHAHA!!!! Oh man! Wait till Applejack here’s about this! I think you’ve proved a thing or two!”

“Fuh…” Thunderlane blinked. Dash chuckled and ruffled his mane fiercely with her hoof. It wasn’t pretty, but he made it. Soarin mentioned they were looking for effort in the tests today. Thunderlane didn’t even make it through the first course, but damn did he try, he kept trying until Soarin himself had to stop him. That was the kind of attitude they wanted to see.

But then Dash realized something else…

Something that effectively tripled the victory right after it had been doubled…

Arctic Blast… was not in the top twenty-one. In fact, Dash scanned down the list, and found her name at 42nd.

Game… set… and match… BITCH!

Wow… could this day get any better?

The tryouts were over, Dash was considered the best cadet, all of the ponies she liked were recruits, THUNDERLANE beat all odds and became a recruit, and now Arctic Blast was done. The only thing left to happen was for Dash to get the elite spot. Who else would they choose? They clearly thought she was the best.

Soarin leaned against the wall of Spitfire’s office. He kept his eyes up at the fluorescent lights on her ceiling. It was for no particular reason, but he really had nothing better to do… besides worry about the incoming decision.

He glanced down at the couch across the room from him. Fleetfoot was reclined on her back with her hooves behind her head. She had her legs crossed and was continuously swing one of her hooves up and down gently. She kept glancing between Spitfire, the wall clock, and the ceiling directly overhead.

Soarin looked towards Spitfire. She had a stack of papers on her desk that she was looking over carefully. The papers were eleven personal reports, one from each currently acting members of the top three Wonderbolt elite squads.

Before the third day began, the elite of the elite members were assigned to watch the cadets closely, and then put together a small report of cadets that stood out amongst the twenty-one chosen. Right after the conclusion of the third day, they all went to their personal quarters and put together a quick report for Spitfire to analyze alongside her own. From there, she was going to determine which cadets showed the best potential to be in the elite squad.

Spitfire finally pushed the papers down and sighed. Soarin pushed off the wall and Fleetfoot swung around before sitting up.

“So… I read through the reports… and it looks like a few names stand out,” she began. “However…” she switched gears suddenly. “It looks like the reports have made this simple for us. I was expecting at least four or five to choose from… but of all the cadets observed… there are two that have showcased traits that we are looking for in an elite member beyond personal skill…” she paused.

“Well?” Fleetfoot beckoned her to continue. Spitfire looked at her sternly.

“Fleetfoot… and you too Soarin…” she shifted and gave him a look as well. “I will give you one final reminder… we cannot let personal feelings guide our choices. Both of these cadets have shown us great ability as well as personality and drive… but we can only choose one of them, and I trust you choose based on what you have seen… not how you feel.”

“Who’s the other one Spitfire? I get it,” Soarin rolled his eyes. “Rainbow Dash and who?” he glared at her sharply. He thought they were done playing this game. Spitfire remained completely unaffected by his glare.

“Rainbow Dash and Storm Front,” Spitfire said flatly. “Based on the consistency of his performance, and his willingness to put others before him no matter what the circumstances… I vote for Storm Front,” she kept her eyes on Soarin… but like a good professional, Soarin showed no reaction. Fleetfoot cleared her throat and leaned against Spitfire’s desk.

“Well I hear you loud and clear Spitfire… but I’m making this choice based entirely on what I’ve seen. I’m voting for Rainbow Dash. She’s shown great heart and a willingness to succeed unlike anything I’ve ever seen. She barely batted an eye in my courses, took risks that yielded rewards on the first day, and ran Soarin’s courses pretty well. Plus, can we deny that her ability to copy moves is an incredibly rare find?” she finished while leaning towards Spitfire.

“I stand by my choice Fleetfoot just as I believe you will stand by yours.”

“Shit…” Soarin muttered to himself as they both turned to him.

This was exactly… EXACTLY what he was afraid was going to happen. The choice had boiled down to whatever he decided. Choose his lover, who he felt did do a lot to earn the chance… or choose another who showed him many other specific qualities that would be amazing to have in their ranks. He still thought about the consequences of choosing Dash. Would the media call it a scandal once their relationship came into the light? Would she be able to handle it? Would she be mature about it?

Maturity… on second thought there was something here he had thought about. Was Dash ready for the responsibility of being a Wonderbolt? Storm Front did show a lot more qualities specific to duty and responsibility. On the flipside, Dash’s abilities were much more impressive than Storm’s. As Fleetfoot said, her copying ability was extremely rare.

He had to look at this professionally. He could almost feel Spitfire’s eyes testing him. Forget the possibility of a scandal. Which of these two showed that they are ready to be a Wonderbolt?

…

Actually… something that had occurred during the third tests… proved which of them was… and which of them wasn’t. As a professional, he had to choose who would be the best for the Wonderbolts. Ability was a factor, personality was a factor, drive was a factor, perseverance was a factor… loyalty was a very important factor… And one of them radiated the loyalty they needed. He knew who to choose.

“Well Soarin?” Fleetfoot chimed in. Soarin blinked and saw both of them staring at him.

“Who’s it going to be Soarin?” Spitfire pressed. Soarin took a deep breath and sighed.

“I choose…”

“Humph… I didn’t want to be a Wonderbolt anyway…” Arctic pushed past Dash. Dash just rolled her eyes and grabbed her bag from beneath her bed.

It was the usual exit of cadets who didn’t get selected, only this time it was a double process. The cadets who were dismissed had to leave and the cadets who were becoming recruits had to move their belongings into recruit barracks number six. Dash had already moved most of her stuff into her new living space. It literally looked identical to the main half where all the cadets had been stuffed, only with a lot more space between the bunks.

They were told to get situated and stay out of the way once moved while the staff began disassembling the makeshift beds in the hall to clear it out. Dash knew it was going to be weird the first time she stepped out into the main barracks hallway and it was not only free of beds, but also so wide.

“Humph!” Arctic huffed again. Dash rolled her eyes.

“Sheesh, I think I preferred it when you were scowling at me,” she jeered as she quickly moved her copy of Daring Do and the picture of Soarin out of the drawer and into the bag.

“Psh, you aren’t worth my time. None of this is,” Arctic scoffed as she made hoof motions to everything around her. Dash flattened her brow and ears while looking at Arctic in disbelief. Again… there was at least one cadet that had to go home before they should have because this bitch with a mixed up ambition made it through. It would forever seem like an injustice to Dash.

“Good! I hope I never see you again!” Dash whispered to herself as she went on gathering her goggles and toiletries. She glanced up and saw Arctic leaving, then glanced up and saw the poster of Soarin still on the wall. Dash felt an evil urge to pour salt on the wound. “Hey! You forgot the poster of YOUR stallion!” she snickered multiple times as she spoke. Arctic stopped and turned sharply to her, glaring for about three seconds before suddenly stopping.

“Feh, whatevs… I’m too good for him anyway, I got better fish to catch,” she said very smoothly.

WOW.

Dash had never known a more shallow pony, and hoped to CELESTIA she would never meet one worse because holy GEEZE… you just can’t make this stuff up. On the flip side… Dash could keep this poster, she wouldn’t complain about that… at least Arctic brought something worthwhile.

As Arctic began walking again, Lightning Streak was coming through the aisle, chaperoning the moving with Fire, who was by the entrance handing out the vouchers for train tickets.

“Yo, hurry it up, our staff’s already itching to kick our asses. Get a move on so they can clean this hall out!” he yelled while looking back and forth at the commotion around him. Arctic’s eyes lit up as Lightning approached and she quickly rushed up to him, planting her side against his chest. He flinched and stopped dead in his tracks, blinking as he looked down at her.

“Hey sexy!” she said shamelessly. Dash thought her jaw was going to unhinge. Like she said… you just… CANNOT… make this stuff up.

“Uh… hi…” Lightning tipped his head while looking down at her.

“You free this week, I’d love to have a good time with you…” she flirted while gently tracing his chest muscles with her hoof.

“Eh…” Lightning looked up and straight forward. “Whoa man…” he shook his head. “It… ain’t the same when they want it first…” he quickly removed himself from Arctic and began back in the other direction.

“Hey! Come back handsome!” Arctic called after him.

And that was that…

Dash never had to see Arctic again.

She entered a nuisance… and left a nuisance.

Dash felt the strangest wave of relief rush over her. Arctic had been nothing but a full blown pain in the ass the whole time… and now it was gone. So this is what heaven felt like…

“Listen up recruits!” Fire Streak walked up the aisle. All the cadets were gone now. Something about being called a recruit made Dash shiver. “Get situated in your new living spaces while the maintenance team moves in to clear out all these unsightly bed frames. At 6:30 you are all invited to the mess hall to eat dinner with squads one, two, and three to celebrate your success. We will also be naming the lucky recruit who has been selected to ascend to elite status… so don’t be late!” he looked around as all the recruit’s eyes lit up upon mentioning the elite squad selection. “As you were,” he nodded and the recruits all began moving into room six.

Scratch that, Dash was at the gates of heaven. Once they chose her for the elite spot… then she would know what heaven feels like.

Damn she was excited. Her heart hadn’t beat this fast since the first time Soarin kissed her… and her heart had to beat really fast to match that.

She wasn’t the only one excited.

All the recruits were excited. Storm, Twister… Thunderlane was still shocked, but happy. Even Matteo couldn’t hold back a grin on his beak. This had to be a defining moment for him in general. Dash could only imagine how hard he must’ve taken it when the Sky Wings turned him away for such a dumb reason. After how hard he worked too… it must’ve been awful. She felt so glad for him… and hey, maybe if Gilda ever visited she could get in that bitch’s face and grill her on how weird it was for her to be married and be mother… AND NEVER TELL HER OLD PAL.

Either way, Dash was glad for him, and she was happy in general too.

She STILL couldn’t believe Thunderlane made it all the way through. He came along as support… and hit the jackpot. Derpy and Bulk were sure to be ecstatic when they found out. Dash was also beyond happy for him because he was heavily rewarded for all the punishment he took. Seriously, Thunderlane got the ever-loving crap beat out of him by all the strenuous tests. Now he emerged from the pain with a chance to do what most pegasi could only dream of. She was proud of him, he earned it.

Dash caught a glimpse of the yellow filly on her way into the mess hall. Dash was more than certain the filly was Little Star now. Dash decided to go congratulate the little squirt at some point… maybe after dinner if she got the chance. The fact that such a young filly made it to recruit status was astounding.

Lastly… even in the air of celebration there had to be at least one downer. Squall cut her off as they entered the mess hall. Dash didn’t even try speaking to him. It really wouldn’t hurt him to smile. He was actually a pretty good looking stallion… he just never looked friendly.

Ah, what a refreshing feeling. The feeling of success… everypony gathering in the mess hall had the air about them, and Dash was ready to receive more. She was the top cadet after all.

They all got their food and sat down at one large table that was pushed together. To show the welcoming air of the small event, the Wonderbolts all sat among them. Each recruit had at least one Wonderbolt sitting next to them. Dash ended up between Storm Front and High Winds… with whom Dash soon learned it was hard to keep a conversation going due to her always nodding off.

Soarin was sitting three seats down and across from her. She wished he had set next to her… but at the same time she could tell the professional atmosphere was still being upheld. Oh well, she’d have him soon enough as an elite member. Finally no more barriers between them! The thought made her giddier than she already was.

The dinner progressed smoothly and the Wonderbolts did an amazing job making them all feel welcome. It was like they were all being pulled into a new family. When the eating was mostly done, Spitfire, who was sitting at the head of the table, stood up and cleared her throat and whistled loudly.

All the recruits and Wonderbolts quieted down and turned to face her.

“Recruits, I want to be the first to formally congratulate all of you on making it through the tryouts,” she began. “You should all be very proud of what you’ve accomplished. We’ve never had more than eighty cadets show up at a time for tryouts. There were three hundred this time… and even with such a large pool of different skills and talent… you all stood out amongst them. We are all very impressed and are looking forward to what you show us when formal training begins… welcome to the Wonderbolts,” as she finished all the elite Wonderbolts present began clapping for them.

Welcome to the Wonderbolts. Those words sent chills down Dash’s spine… The best kind of chills.

“Now that that’s been said… here is the schedule going forward,” Spitfire continued as the clapping died down. “Your recruit training program will begin in a week from now. We encourage you to go home, rest, and relax. We understand we’ve put you through a lot these past three days. We want you to be fully recovered and ready by the time we begin the real training…” she paused and stepped away from the table. “Now I’m sure you’re all curious about our recruit squads… since there are only five members per squad on the recruit level. Well, this is how it works. After a month of heavy training, we will be selecting five of the twenty of you to remain on the compound as an official recruit squad that will take part in our daily routines and be invited to perform when we do shows… the other fifteen will be sent home…” she paused as a sudden stir passed through the cadets. “They will be sent home as official members of the Wonderbolt reserve…” she paused again and smiled as the stir instantly faded. She secretly loved that little moment every time she did this. “As reserve Wonderbolts you may be summoned often to partake in events or fill roles of recruits who are away or for some reason cannot partake in certain activities. You will also be on the top of our list to send invitations for future formation of recruitment squads should we decide to add more.

Only five… Dash thought while nodding. It looked like there was still one challenge yet to overcome for the recruits, but even if they didn’t get chosen to stay, they still earned the official right to call themselves Wonderbolts.

“But I’m sure you’ve realized that there are twenty-ONE of you… not twenty,” Spitfire suddenly spoke again. One could almost hear the heartbeats of all the recruits quicken.

This was it…

“One of you has been chosen for the opportunity of a lifetime… the chance to be given elite status fresh out of the tryouts… we never expected such an amazing turn out… but we of the Wonderbolt elite have found one of you to be very worthy of walking amongst our ranks…”

The suspense was unreal… Dash thought her heart was going to leap right out of her throat.

“This cadet… above all the others… showcased all the best qualities that we look for when determining who deserved this position… they showcased consistent skill, a desire to succeed, and a certain quality of loyalty that we have never seen before…”

Dash’s ears shot up. Loyalty? Spitfire might as well have called her name out right there! That sealed it. They chose her. Like there was ever any doubt at all…

“It is my pleasure to welcome to our ranks… Storm Front!”

…

…

Wait…

Hold up…

That didn’t sound like Rainbow Dash…

Dash’s eyes opened wide and her face grew slightly pale. If her expression was capable of making noise it would have sounded like a window shattering.

Storm…

Front…

Spitfire said Storm Front… not Rainbow Dash.

Dash turned and looked at Storm beside her as Lightning Streak put him in a friendly headlock.

Her ears went deaf to all noise around her. She merely stared at Storm as everypony around her clapped and cheered.

Storm looked unbelievably happy, in fact he had tears in his eyes. He couldn’t believe it. They had chosen him!

Dash couldn’t believe it either… they chose Storm… Storm was ranked… 15th…

She was ranked 1st…

1st…

15th…

1st…

15th…

What was wrong with this picture? Since when did placing fifteenth win a gold medal?

This… this made no sense! What… what happened? Did she do something wrong?!

And loyalty… they mentioned loyalty… she was the freaking ELEMENT of loyalty! How did… somepony else show it more than her?

Dash slowly turned and looked towards Soarin.

Soarin wasn’t looking at her… in fact it looked like he was specifically trying to avoid eye contact with her.

Dash had to know. She had to know what the hell had just happened. She was happy for Storm… she guessed. It’s not like she could get angry at him, he was impossible to get angry at… but she couldn’t help but feel she had been cheated… in some… sick… and twisted sort of way…

She had to talk to Soarin… there had to be some kind of mistake. First thing after being dismissed, she was going right to his room.

Soarin saw it. He saw it in her eyes as soon as Spitfire made the announcement. It almost looked like Dash’s brain had broken. Soarin was afraid of this. He was afraid of how she would react. From his time with Dash he had come to learn she was one that worked her tail off for everything, and if she didn’t get what she believed she rightfully earned… hell was paid.

He chose Storm Front. He chose Storm Front over her. He had his reasons… while some were more personal, he made the choice based on the PROFFESSIONAL reasons. He could see the initial shock in Dash’s eyes, but he hoped that she would soften up and make the right connection. She would understand that they had reasons for making their choices… right?

Soarin flinched as a rapid knocking came from his door.

He was in his room. He left as quickly as he could after dismissal and hoped that Dash wouldn’t come to him. He didn’t know if it actually was Dash outside… but his instincts were telling him it was her… and he braced for impact as he opened the door.

He could almost feel her gaze floor him in the face as he looked out into the hall.

It was Dash. Dash had come to him. This… was not going to go well.

“Hey… Dash, uh… congrats on becoming a—”

“Soarin, what’s going on?” she quickly asked while forcing herself into the room. She stared up at him with a mix of confusion and anger.

“What?”

“Soarin, why wasn’t I chosen for the elite spot!?” she pressed. Just as he feared… what the hell was he supposed to do now? “Soarin I was the top cadet on the ranking boards ALL THREE DAYS in a row… how did…” she trailed off while looking down at his hooves and shaking her head in bewilderment.

“Dash…” Soarin sighed and shook his head. “You were the top ranked cadet… the highest prospect for becoming a recruit… but we… looked at more than skill to determine that. Other qualities that mattered…” he flinched as she stepped right up to him and looked into his eyes, mortified. He could see it… she was going to ask it.

“You didn’t…” Dash blinked and her mouth hung slightly agape. “You didn’t choose me?”

Soarin looked down at her. He shut his eyes and swallowed before taking a deep breath and looking into her eyes with most serious look he could muster.

“I chose Storm Front.”

“WHAT?!?!?!?!” Dash slammed her hooves against her head and yanked at her mane.

“Dash…” Soarin tried to calm her down.

“What… what the HELL Soarin?! How could you?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!?!” she yelled in his face. Soarin struggled to try and control her. She was getting hysterical. She was clearly not thinking straight.

“Dash… calm down…” he kept trying.

“Did you... is this why you were so lovey dovey last night!?” she snapped at him. “To butter me up and make me all soft… thinking I would take the blow better when you dropped the damn news on me?!?!”

“DASH!!!” Soarin glared at her incredulously. How could she say something like that? Could she really not accept something that was handled fairly? Her brain was making up terrible things and she was blurting them out without even a thought! “Dash! Listen to me!” he grabbed her by the shoulders. “The selection was narrowed down to either you or Storm! You two were equals in what we were looking for all the way up to the LAST TEST. I chose Storm because he sacrificed his cadet ranking for the well being of another pony… not to mention… the pony he SAVED was the mare that you TOOK OUT before the finish line… a fellow cadet Dash…”

“What? Arctic? You’re kidding me right? She was an unpleasant BITCH! She had done nothing but annoy the shit out of me! She was HELL to be around!”

“SO WAS RAPIDFIRE!” Soarin slammed both his hooves to the floor. Dash flinched and her eyes widened slightly. Soarin shook his head. “I hated Rapidfire with a bloody passion… but he was STILL a member of my squad… a fellow Wonderbolt… while he was still among our ranks, I wouldn’t have hesitated to save him from harm if need be. We fought in competition as well, but I would NEVER have aimed to seriously injure him… EVEN IF he did so to me.”

“Soarin… that is a load of BULLSHIT!” Dash yelled back in his face as tears began to squeak out of his eyes. Soarin released a heavy, groaning sigh while turning away from her. “And what was that bullshit about showing loyalty?!” she referred to Spitfire’s choice of words. “You guys were looking for loyalty? Have you forgotten that I represent the very freaking ELEMENT of loyalty?!”

“You sure showed Wonderbolt loyalty Dash… the best I’ve ever seen!” Soarin couldn’t help but reply sarcastically. What was he supposed to do to get through to her? She wasn’t thinking straight, and she was stubborn. It was a horrible combination. “Wonderbolt prime rule number one Dash!” he leaned closer to her in hopes she would hear it loud and clear. “No Wonderbolt shall EVER attempt to seriously injure another! Bumps and bruises are fine, we do combat for god sakes, but during the test you put another pony’s head into a metal beam and left her to fall unconscious! If you were a Wonderbolt, that would be considered a DIRECT violation of our most important prime rule! LOYALTY to the Wonderbolts includes recognizing and never breaking our codes or rules… HOW ABOUT YOU SIT AND THINK ABOUT SOMETHING FOR ONCE?!” he gritted his teeth as she stared up at him. She shook her head, tears now streaming out of her eyes.

“I thought I meant something to you…” Dash suddenly said. Soarin blinked.

“Dash?! Are you even listening to me?!” she was avoiding the point… why? Why was she avoiding the point?!

“All the help… all the training… all the encouragement… and this is what you do…”

“Dash, STOP IT!” he reached out to grab her, but she leaned away from him.

“You do so much for me and then bar me from my dream… you… are a sick BASTARD!” she scowled at him, the tears moving around her scowl and dripping from her cheeks to the floor. Soarin couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You don’t get in for free!” he tried. Dash blinked and tipped her head while glaring harder.

“DIDN’T YOU?!?! MR. BLAZETAIL-AND-FLASHWIND-FOUND-ME-IN-A-DUMP-SOMEWHERE?!”

“GOD DAMMIT DASH! NO! I DIDN’T GET IN FOR FREE! I EARNED IT!” he yelled while pressing his face to hers and nearly pushing her over. She pulled back sharply and looked at him with broken disbelief. She shook her head.

”Forget this…” she suddenly said. Soarin’s ears stood up.

“What?!”

“I guess I’ll go have fun being a lowly recruit… and don’t expect me to come get any more… 'help' from you… asshole…” she said harshly as she turned away from him and headed for the door, droplets still dripping from her face and staining the floor.

“Dash?!” Alarms went off in Soarin’s head.

No… she wasn’t seriously… walking out on him?

“DASH!!!!!” He stopped the door from closing and looked out into the hallway as Rainbow Dash broke into a sprint for the stairs. His heart felt heavy as she turned the corner and disappeared. His ears flopped down and his face was wrought with a sudden anguish. “Dash…”

---END OF PART 1---

Dash is finally within the Wonderbolt ranks...

But her failure to reach the top weighs heavy on her.

She was barred from instantly realizing her dream because of a choice Soarin made.

A choice that was firm and just... but a choice she could not accept.

The road to Dash's dream... has torn them apart.

How will things go from here?

Will Dash survive the grueling recruit training?

How will Soarin go forward in his magic training?

Will the two... be able to look past this incident, mend their relationship, and accept the embrace of love once more?

We shall all see...

As we continue into:

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

Piercing the Heavens Part 2: Wonderbolt Life and Love

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

Thank you ALL so much for supporting me so far.

This part may have ended on a rather dreary note... but hey... there are at LEAST 50-60 chapters left to go in this story ;)

Now that my brain is effectively MUSH. i'm going to take a day or two off before i begin working on part 2.

Thank you ALL for reading!

I hope you enjoyed it, and will continue to enjoy it! ^_^

Chapter 28 (Part 2: Wonderbolt Life and Love)

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

Part 2: Wonderbolt Life and Love

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 28:

A buzz of excitement surrounded the Ponyville station platform as the morning train arriving from Canterlot chuffed and chugged into the station.

All of Dash’s friends as well as Derpy, Bulk, Scootaloo and Rumble were waiting impatiently for the train as it slowly came to a complete stop. Wide smiles became wider as the group caught a glimpse of two familiar silhouettes moving through the train car before them. It was an early morning arrival from Canterlot on a weekday. It only had two passengers.

Dash and Thunderlane stepped out.

Their friends erupted in cheers, all except for Applejack, who looked mortified at the beat up state Thunderlane was in. He had a bandage or two still wrapped around him and bruises that were so bad they were visible through his dark fur.

They didn’t know whether or not Dash and Thunderlane had been recruited yet, but they didn’t care. They were at the moment just happy to see their friends return safely.

Amidst the cheering though, Dash simply grunted and shook her head while averting her eyes from all of them. She had no reason to be happy, and neither did they. She got stiffed. All that effort and all that praise… got her a recruit spot. What was the point of being the best ranked cadet if it didn’t land her the holy grail of her life’s dream? It was pointless. At least that’s how it felt now.

The cheering became hushed as Dash and Thunderlane approached the group. Why? Because Dash was clearly very upset. She was leaving her mood out in the open for everypony to see. Why hide it? She felt cheated.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Rarity was the first to speak up as she approached Dash. Dash didn’t say anything. Rarity eyed her carefully then gasped. “Oh no! Don’t tell me they didn’t accept you!” the single gasp became a collective gasp as the whole group zeroed in on Dash. Due to her lack of willing communication though, Thunderlane answered for her.

“Actually…” Thunderlane smiled proudly. “We both got recruited!”

The collective worry was instantly flipped upside down as smiles spread across all of them… except for Applejack who looked mortified.

“B-both?” she stuttered, but was immediately cut off by—

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!” Bulk roared out while flexing as hard as he could to the point where it looked like his eyes were going to pop out. His battle cry was followed by cheers from the rest as they advanced to give hugs and pats of approval. Scootaloo sped in front of the rest directly up to Dash, smiling and bouncing giddily and Rumble landed on Thunderlane’s back.

“You’re the best, big bro!” Rumble cheered as he hopped up and down.

“OOF! AH! Whoa there little dude!” Thunderlane scooped up Rumble with his wings. “Careful, I’m a little beat up…” he admitted with a chuckle. Over by Dash, Scootaloo looked like she was going to shoot up into the sky like a firecracker.

“Dash! You did it! You’re a Wonderbolt! That’s so awesome!” she floated up and stared at Dash with wide, almost sparkling eyes.

Dash’s expression remained upset with the slight glare still in place as well. All of her friends sensed this as they approached and even Scootaloo caught on after a second. They all stared at Dash, beyond confused.

Dash didn’t want this. She failed. No wait, she didn’t fail… she did everything she needed to do. Soarin’s the reason she didn’t get chosen.

“Yeah, sure…” Dash finally spoke. Her tone was harsh, cold, and unpleasant. “I’m a recruit… a stupid, insignificant recruit…” she continued as her friends all looked between each other. “Whoop-dee-shit!” she finished and walked right past Scootaloo and began moving around her friends. Fluttershy stepped out with a face wrought with concern.

“Dashie? What’s wrong? EEP!” Fluttershy squeaked as Dash roughly pushed her aside.

Dash just shoved Fluttershy.

Shoved.

Fluttershy.

Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie all gasped.

“HEY!” Applejack quickly moved to Fluttershy’s side and rested a hoof on the little pegasus’ back as she trembled slightly in disbelief. Applejack glared in Dash’s direction as she trudged out of the station. Pinkie Pie bounced over to Fluttershy as well to get a look at Dash as she left.

“What’s up with her? I thought this was what she wanted! She’s sending me mixed signals, it’s making my brain hurt!” Pinkie said as her tone grew from calmly concerned to overdramatic within three sentences.

Indeed they were all curious. Some were a little angered as well. Not only did Dash completely scoff at their personal homecoming welcome… but she just shoved Fluttershy! Seriously! Who shoves Fluttershy?! A heavy sigh from Thunderlane grabbed their attention.

“She’s been like that since last night…” he began while shaking his head. “She was the number one ranked cadet all three days, but she wasn’t selected to be the new member of the elite squads,” he explained. Twilight and Rarity glanced at each other before Rarity spoke up.

“But… she’s a recruit… right?” she asked.

“Yeah, but I’m sure you can tell she expected more,” Thunderlane tipped his head back and forth and rolled his eyes. He turned and looked at Bulk and Derpy. “She lost the spot to Storm Front.” Rarity blinked as the name went in and out of her ears with no registration.

“Storm Front? Who’s—” She was promptly cut off.

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!” Derpy leapt up and threw her hooves up into the air. “Storm became a full Wonderbolt! Oh my gosh, WOOHOOO!!!!!” she cheered triumphantly and began flying in circles around Bulk as he yelled out a hearty ‘yeah’ along with her. Rarity blinked and glanced back down at Thunderlane.

“Long story,” he chuckled.

Twilight had her eyes locked on the path leading from the station. She caught a glimpse of Dash lifting off and taking to the sky. She looked back towards Scootaloo, who hadn’t moved since Dash had stiffed her praise.

This wasn’t right. There was more to this than what lay on the surface. Dash had been cranky and grumpy in the past, and at times had lashed out physically, but she had NEVER, EVER, done so to Fluttershy. Twilight entertained the idea that Dash may have done something that caused her to lose the elite spot. It was just a hunch, but Dash did have a tendency to be… impulsive. She frequently got herself into situations that could have been avoided if she had thought before acting. Twilight was well educated in the Wonderbolts system. The only reasonable explanation was Dash either said or did something that they didn’t like… maybe both. The extra anger though? Twilight was more than certain a certain stallion was involved too.

That settled it. Twilight decided to wait a little while to let Dash get situated, and then question her. She and the others would get to the bottom of this.

Soarin quietly grunted and gritted his teeth as he pressed the heavy weights up above his chest. He was counting in his head with each repetition.

8…

9…

10…

“Haaaa!” he exhaled loudly as he slammed the barbell back into the bench rack and quickly sat upright. The horn lightly tapped against the bar as he sat up, but it was enough to make his head and neck move unevenly. “Argh! Dammit!” He grunted as the small collision sent a wave of discomfort through his head. He shook his head out and blinked. There were five other Wonderbolts nearby who were staring at him in confusion. “WHAT?!” he snapped at them. They all flinched and scurried away quickly.

Soarin was getting a hard gym workout in. It was something he usually didn’t do so early in the morning, but he fell asleep uneasy, didn’t sleep well, and woke up angry.

What was with Dash? She had absolutely no right to treat him the way she did. He did everything the way he was supposed to and she came up barking at him for it. It was like it was more about her than the Wonderbolts. It was selfish and unnecessary. Then on top of it all, she brought their relationship into the picture, questioned his love for her after all he had done to show it, and walked out on him.

His heart was torn in two. Half of it was sad, the other half was angry. The imbalance of his emotions had been doing weird things to his magic. It refused to behave itself. He had already singed the ends of a large recruitment poster in the lobby by accident. With no other place to turn and no urge to see anypony else about it, he went right to the gym. Nothing helped clear his mind and focus more than pumping iron.

It was kind of working. While it helped the magic calm down, he was still pissed. Dash had struck nerves. Nerves that were going to sting for a while.

“Sheesh Soarin…” a voice behind him made Soarin jump in surprise. “Mood swings now too? Did you get pregnant on top of all this princess stuff?”

“Fleet…” Soarin growled as he looked over his shoulder and saw Fleetfoot leaning on the barbell he was just using. “I’m not in the mood.”

“No shit,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re scaring off everypony that comes near.

“How about you follow their example?” Soarin threatened while narrowing his eyes at her. She just lifted an eyebrow, unaffected by his sharp glare.

“Doesn’t work on me Soarin. I don’t care if your nose is shooting fire and lightning, you don’t scare me,” she put flatly, with an air more serious than the usual Fleetfoot. Soarin rolled his eyes, grunted in annoyance, and turned back. Before Fleetfoot could say anything else, he laid back down on the bench and went for the bar. “HEY!” Fleetfoot quickly pressed all her weight down on the bar to keep him from picking it up. “I’m talking to you!”

“I’m busy,” Soarin glared up at her from the bench.

“Too damn bad! I’m—Whoa!” Fleet suddenly grabbed onto the bar as Soarin growled and forced the bar up with her added weight on it. Fleetfoot quickly spread her wings and lifted off from the bar. She pouted down at Soarin as he pumped the weight up and down again. She patiently waited for him to finish before she floated back down again. “Quit being an asshole!” she snapped at him.

Soarin visibly cringed.

Asshole…

It was still fresh in his head, and the reason he was doing such a hard workout in the first place.

“That didn’t look healthy…” Fleetfoot referred to the twitch. She blinked as she realized something. “Oh… damn, I didn’t think about that…”

“About what?” Soarin grunted while slamming a hoof against the bench in frustration.

“Dash,” Fleetfoot said simply.

“What ABOUT Dash?” Soarin grinded his teeth together, trying desperately to control his temper. Fleetfoot sighed while staring at the back of his head.

“You two weren’t very quiet last night you know…”

“It’s none of your business,” Soarin quickly fired back.

“Oh, I think it is!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she came around and sat down on the bench so Soarin wouldn’t be able to use it.

“What, are you going to tell me I did my job wrong too? That’s pretty much what she did. Of course you’d side with her, you chose her for the elite spot,” Soarin grumbled continuously. Fleetfoot suddenly smacked him upside the head. “GAH!” Soarin turned and glared at her. “What the hell, Fleet?”

“Just shut up. Look at it this way Soarin… I can sympathize with Dash a little bit here. I believed she was what we needed in the Wonderbolt ranks. Did I get what I wanted? No. She clearly had a strong belief she would be chosen. Did she get it? No. We both got rejected in this process, but unlike Dash, I accepted it. I acted maturely, I didn’t flip out,” she paused as Soarin snickered.

“Thinking of you and ‘mature’ in the same sentence…” he couldn’t help but crack a smile despite his mood. He ducked as Fleetfoot’s hoof went over his head. “Nice try, OOF!” she came back around and jabbed him in the side.

“You shouldn’t have blown up at her,” Fleetfoot continued.

“What was I supposed to do?!” Soarin threw his hooves up in the air, getting gradually more frustrated with Fleetfoot.

“Not blow up at her,” she repeated.

“Fleet, are you trying to make me mad?” he really couldn’t scrunch his face any more than he already was, but she was making him want to try.

“I dunno, if you couldn’t handle it without yelling, you should’ve told her to take it up with Spitfire,” Fleetfoot suggested calmly, but Soarin growled with anger.

“I DON’T need Spitfire to do everything for me Fleet!” he quickly retorted. She huffed and glared.

“Soarin, calm down.”

“No! I’m tired of both of you treating me like I can’t handle any ARGH!!!” Soarin threw a hoof to his head as the horn began to glow brightly. Fleetfoot immediately sprang up. This is exactly why she wanted him to calm down. It happened much faster than expected. She ducked beneath the bench. “RGH!!!” Soarin grunted as his head lurched around. A few Wonderbolts nearby all stopped what they were doing, saw what was happening, dropped their weights and took cover. Most had heard about Soarin’s little incident in the hallway a few days ago. “AHHH!” Soarin lurched his head to the left and a stream of magical energy burst from the horn, zipping across the gym and completely frying a squat rack against the far wall.

Lightning Streak walked in right after the incident, turned right, blinked as he saw the squat rack broken and mangled, and shrugged.

“Guess I’m skipping leg day…” he said as he turned and left.

“Gaaaah… ha…” Soarin panted and wheezed as his head throbbed with pain. Fleetfoot peeked out from underneath the bench just in time to see Spitfire burst into the gym and look around. Spitfire hovered up into the air, saw the squat rack in shambles, scanned the gym, and quickly saw Soarin sitting across the room with a small trail of smoke rising from his horn. She furrowed her brow and slowly flew over to him. As she approached, she struggled to keep her eyes locked on Soarin’s face.

“Soarin!” She yelled his name as she approached. A small hue of pink crept onto her face as she scrunched her face. “What the hell happened? I thought you had control over that by now!”

“Rainbow problems,” Fleetfoot said as she stood up from beneath the bench. Spitfire glanced at her, then back at Soarin as he finally looked up to acknowledge her. Spitfire’s eyes kept darting to his body then back up.

“The stuff last night?” she tipped her head, showing concern on her face. Soarin groaned.

“Oh great, you heard it too,” Soarin shook his head. He just wanted to get back to lifting, or at least try. His head legitimately hurt after that. He hoped he’d be summoned for magic training again soon, because apparently emotional outbursts had a drastic effect on it.

“Of course I did, I…” Spitfire gulped and her face turned slightly pinker. “I was in my room, the walls are thin, remember?”

Fleetfoot blinked as she watched the two converse. Spitfire was acting… different.

“Look, I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Soarin forced himself to calm down. “Things were said, and shit happened… I came in here to forget about it. Sorry about the magic,” he averted his eyes. Spitfire could not avert her eyes. In fact, she lost the battle with her eyes and was now staring directly at Soarin’s muscles. He had been lifting weights and doing so hard, as he always did. He had built up quite a sweat and of course his muscles were all pumped from heavy lifting. He looked up and saw her staring at his body. “Spitfire?”

“Ah!” she pulled her head back and looked straight up at the ceiling. “Yes! Magic! Accident! Don’t do it again! Etcetera! I have to go!” she turned and bumped right into another male Wonderbolt.

“Oh! Sorry captain!” he quickly apologized. Spitfire looked him up and down, carefully. She slammed her eyes shut and shook her head.

“Uh… Yes! I mean no! No worries!” she kept up her pace towards the exit while keeping her head down and blushing madly. Soarin just watched in confusion. Fleetfoot on the other hand had an idea. One that she hoped was right for her own entertainment’s sake. Then… the perfect indication.

Wave Chill turned walked through the door right as Spitfire was reaching to open it. Her nose ran square into his chest. He grunted and blinked as he looked slightly down at her. Spitfire yelped and looked up at him, her pupils shrank considerably and her face turned completely red. Wave instantly stiffened and stood attention, saluting her.

“Uh, good morning captain!” he forced. Spitfire’s tail suddenly twitched uncontrollably.

“Bingo!” Fleetfoot said to herself.

“What?” Soarin looked at her briefly before looking back just in time to see Spitfire nearly run over Wave Chill as she scurried out of the gym.

“Oh, you understand Soarin… unless you really did turn into a princess,” she giggled. “Spitfire is having some… mare issues. If you’ll excuse me, I must observe the rarely seen, flustered captain of the Wonderbolts!” she winked at Soarin before chasing after Spitfire.

“What?” Soarin blinked and scrunched his brow. What was Fleet— “Oh…” Soarin blinked, putting it all together. The dead giveaway was how she suddenly looked him all over while blushing… then did the same to the other stallion… and then Wave Chill… “Ohhhhhhhh…!”

Wow… awkward. Soarin had been around before when Spitfire was… dealing with it. Looks like Fleetfoot was right… now that she had Wave Chill as a factor…

Also, wow. Talk about a close call. A day sooner and she’d have been dealing with it during the tryouts… that wouldn’t have ended well.

This was going to be a long couple of months for Spitfire… this was one of those times Soarin was glad he wasn’t a mare.

“Alright! Fine! I’m coming!” Dash whined as Twilight pushed her out the door of her cloud house.

“Oh dear…” Fluttershy squeaked and moved out of the way as Dash took control of her movement. Dash turned and glared at Twilight.

“Why the hell do you guys need me anyway?!” she spat as Twilight remained perfectly calm, yet stern.

“We’re all getting together at Sweet Apple Acres. You’ll be leaving for a while soon, so I don’t think we’re getting many more chances to all hang out together. I’m not gonna let you sulk in your house when you have friends who want to support you,” Twilight explained while remaining in control of her emotions. She wanted to smack Dash upside the head for being such a bitch at the train platform, but she didn’t feel like that was the right approach… yet.

“Ugh! Fine!” Dash sighed in frustration as she took off in the direction of the farm. Twilight shook her head in frustration.

“Come on Fluttershy,” Twilight beckoned her to follow. Fluttershy whimpered.

“She’s not… going to push me again… is she?” Fluttershy shivered. Twilight glanced towards Rainbow Dash as she flew further and further ahead, before landing beside Fluttershy.

“I won’t let her,” Twilight assured her. “She needs all of us whether she likes it or not.”

“O-okay…” Fluttershy reluctantly spread her wings and lifted off. Twilight followed close behind as the two flew after Dash.

Dash grumbled and growled to herself as she landed right outside the main barn of Sweet Apple Acres. She didn’t want to be there. She had no reason to be there. She knew what was going to happen. They were going to try and pry her for information while claiming they were just worried about a friend. They were too predictable. Why did she let Twilight convince her?

Dash slowly trotted towards the open door as Twilight and Fluttershy landed behind her. She didn’t even look at them as she heard the patting of their hooves behind her. She kept her eyes forward and walked into the barn, immediately spotting Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie. Pinkie was mid-punch line.

“Then I open the oven and notice the cupcake liners had fallen off. The cupcakes all look up at me and scream!” Pinkie waved arms back and forth in the air. “But it’s too late! I’ve seen everything!” Pinkie burst out laughing and began rolling around on top of a bale of hay as Applejack and Rarity just glanced at each other in utter confusion. Rarity blinked and glanced over Applejack’s shoulder, causing Applejack to turn and look as well. The two stared towards Dash in the doorway.

Pinkie just kept guffawing her lungs out.

“Come on Dash… In,” Twilight said as she lowered her head and pushed Dash into the barn by the plot. Dash was ready to retort, but held it in. She wasn’t even going to argue about being there. She knew it would be a losing battle before it even began. She obeyed, walked in, and took a seat on a bale of hay near the others as they all settled in and Pinkie finally stopped laughing.

They sat in complete, awkward silence for a whole minute before Dash finally got fed up.

“Well?” she threw her hooves out. “You dragged me out here, I’m waiting!” she gave each of them a hard look. Fluttershy squeaked and hid behind Rarity as Dash’s eyes fell on her. Rarity stepped up first.

“Darling…” Rarity pouted as she shifted and reached a hoof around to comfort Fluttershy. “What has you all…” she paused, trying to figure out the best, non-blunt way to describe Dash’s mood.

“Superbitch?” Applejack put bluntly. Dash’s eyes snapped to Applejack, who met Dash’s glare head on with her own. Twilight quickly stepped between them, giving Applejack a firm look of disapproval first before turning to Dash.

“Rainbow Dash…” Twilight began as Applejack rolled her eyes. “What happened during the tryouts? You left with high spirits and got recruited… but then you come back and you’re suddenly—”

“A SUPERBITCH!” Pinkie appeared to the right of Twilight with very wide eyes and a very wide smile. Twilight didn’t even look at Pinkie. She just extended her right wing and shoved it down over Pinkie’s head before continuing.

“You’re suddenly bitter and cold to us despite your achievement?” she finished uninterrupted. Dash rolled her eyes.

“Twi, the elite spot. I didn’t get it,” she answered simply.

“But you’re a Wonderbolt now Dash. Regardless of rank, you’ve become what you always wanted!” Twilight quickly pushed the subject further. Dash growled and lashed out.

“There’s a huge difference between being recruit and being an elite! I showed the lead squad everything! I was the top recruit! I wasn’t chosen! It was bullshit!” she stood up and pointed. "How could you know how that feels, huh Twilight?! You’re an amateur flyer! You’ll never know the feeling of your blood sweat and tears being turned down like that!”

“SIT DOWN!” Twilight’s magic came to life. It surrounded Dash and forced her back to the bale of hay. Dash glared at her through the aura, but something about Twilight’s expression intimidated her. She found herself being overpowered by the young alicorn’s gaze. “Dash… that was one of the most selfish things I have ever heard anypony say!” she stepped forward and glared harder. “How many cadets showed up to the tryouts?” she suddenly asked. Dash blinked, feeling compelled to answer.

“Three hundred…” she answered quickly.

“How many are now recruits?” Twilight immediately asked.

“Twenty…”

“So…” Twilight backed away a little bit. “You are one of twenty recruits chosen from amongst three hundred others who dreamed of becoming a Wonderbolt… and you’re pissed off?!” Twilight slammed her hooves to the ground. “Do you understand what you’ve accomplished?! There are pegasi out there who will NEVER have the chance you have right now! Not to mention there are those who are thankful they are at least able to fly! Like a certain little orange filly who looks up to you! Who you owe an apology for being so cold to at the station!!!” Twilight looked away slightly and panted steadily to catch her breath. She didn’t like doing this, but she also hated seeing her friends forget some of the most important lessons they’ve learned through their lives.

Dash just looked down. She was angry. She was so very angry, but Twilight was right… as always… damn egghead. She was being a bitch, taking her anger out on everypony else.

“This isn’t the Rainbow Dash I know,” Twilight began again after catching her breath. “What else happened?” she suddenly asked. Dash’s eyes widened and her head shot up, ready to protest, but she fell prey to Twilight’s stern gaze again. “The Rainbow Dash I know would NEVER act this way… something else is causing this. Tell us.”

Dammit Twilight.

Dammit, dammit, dammit! Dash just had to be friends with the damn princess of friendship… an expert on everything related and flawless at reading moods and mannerisms. It was impossible to hide things from Twilight. It was both a blessing and a curse, but Dash wasn’t quite sure which one it was this time.

“Soarin,” Dash said while puffing her cheeks out and looking away from them.

“CALLED IT!” Pinkie yelled, slightly muffled by Twilight’s wing feathers.

“What ABOUT Soarin?” Applejack pressed.

“The asshole chose against me,” Dash gritted her teeth as she brought it up. The collective surprise that ran through the rest of her friends was less about Soarin not selecting her… and more about how Dash referred to him.

Asshole.

Whenever Dash was grumpy about a pony over something small or easily fixed she usually referred to them as a jerk. It wasn’t only the word choice, it was the way she said it. Her tone was full of hate and malice.

“What?!” Twilight blinked and stared in disbelief. For a moment Dash felt relief… because it seemed like Twilight shared her feelings. Only she wasn’t done speaking. “Dash, how could you call him that!?” she added. Dash instantly growled.

“He threw me to the side! He saw firsthoof what I could do and didn’t choose me! ME! After all we’ve been through together and all the lovey dovey crap! He turned on me! I hate him!” Dash shouted as she flared her wings out.

“Dash… I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Twilight tipped her head while looking towards Dash with her mouth agape. She was about to continue, but a hoof landed on her shoulder. She turned to see Applejack.

“Sugarcube, how ‘bout ya sit down and let me handle this,” she suggested to Twilight as Dash sat back down and turned away from them.

“But…!”

“Sit,” Applejack repeated while looking down at Twilight sternly. Twilight sighed and gave in. She backed up and sat down, removing her wing from Pinkie’s head as she did so. Pinkie popped up and sprung slightly into the air before landing softly on her hooves. Applejack glanced at Pinkie. “Pinkie, can ya make a Pinkie promise with me?” she asked. Pinkie’s eyes lit up and she bounced up and down in place.

“Oo! Oo! I love making Pinkie promises!”

“I know, so make this one with me. No matter what I do right now, I don’t want ya to do anythin’ to stop me… and make sure nopony else stops me either. Aight?” Applejack asked while making the comical Pinkie promise gestures.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” Pinkie gladly recited the words that went with it.

“Good, I’m holdin’ ya to this one aight?” Applejack nodded to her.

“Of course! I never break a Pinkie promise! EVER!” Pinkie proclaimed loudly and proudly.

“I know…” Applejack turned towards Dash as Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy wondered why Applejack made the Pinkie promise.

Applejack took a deep breath, exhaled, locked her eyes on Dash, and slowly walked towards her. She casually approached Dash, who was still turned away from all of them, and lightly tapped her on the shoulder.

“WHAT!?” Dash turned and barked at Applejack, but she wasn’t facing that way for long.

Applejack wound up… and punched Dash across the face as hard as she could. A strong blow to the left cheek. Dash yelped in pain and was sent tumbling to the floor. Twilight and Rarity gasped, standing from their seats immediately as Fluttershy shrieked and dove behind a hay bale.

“APPLEJACK!!!” Rarity yelled as she and Twilight began sprinting towards her. They were both suddenly put into headlocks by Pinkie Pie and forced to the ground.

“Pinkie?! Let us go!” Twilight shouted as Dash got up, glared and charged at Applejack.

“I can’t!” Pinkie shouted painfully while biting her lower lip. Twilight grunted and looked towards the two fighting. They were now grappling and after a few seconds, Applejack connected another punch to Dash’s other cheek, sending her to the ground again.

Twilight and Rarity both channeled magic into their horns, both with the intent of separating them. However, as they tried, their magic was suddenly snuffed. They looked up at their horns to see a cupcake shoved over each of them.

“PINKIE!!!!” Twilight shouted.

“I MADE A PINKIE PROMISE!!!!!!” Pinkie slammed her eyes shut and shook her head as she held them down.

Applejack and Dash were grappled again. Dash was confident she could beat Applejack after she won the hoof wrestling contest… but she couldn’t make up for how tired her body was from the tryouts. Eventually, Applejack had pushed her all the way back against a wall, pinning her there.

“What the hell Applejack?!” Dash finally spoke up. “Fine, does this make you feel good?! Does this make you happy?! Don’t worry, I’m used to it now! Even those I care about the most seem to turn on me!”

“SHUT UP!!!!!” Applejack belted in her face while pulling Dash forward and slamming her back hard against the wall. “Are you even listenin’ to yerself?! I can’t believe the words I’m hearin from yer sorry trap right now!” she berated Dash. “After all the shit ya went through t’be with him and all the pain ya suffered to protect an’ fight beside him… yer gonna dump him to the curb cause he made a professional choice? It’s his damn job Sugarcube! If he didn’t choose ya, it’s because ya did somethin’ that didn’t sit well with what they were lookin’ for! That sounds like YOUR fault! Not his!”

“S-SHUT UP!” Dash shook her head, small tears beginning to squeak out. “How could you know how it feels!? I did so much for him! We did so much together! He turned on me! He barred me from my own damn dream!” Dash was yelling whatever came to mind. She could barely think straight.

“Newsflash Rainbow Dash!” Applejack cut her off. “Was Soarin the only one that decided!? Ya said the lead squad got the final choice, right?” she asked. Dash blinked. Applejack was right about that. She nodded in response. Applejack glared harder. “Well guess what?! That means Spitfire and Fleetfoot chose too! Since ya didn’t get the spot… one o’them, or both o’them, didn’t choose ya either!”

Dash’s eyes snapped wide open. Applejack… was right. There were three of them so Soarin couldn’t have been the only one to decide against her.

“Yer makin’ excuses Dash! Yer pointin’ the hoof at somepony and blaming it on them cause there ain’t no way YOU could be wrong, Celestia forbid! Yer tellin’ me yer gonna let Soarin go cause YOU can’t accept yer own faults!? That’s pathetic!” Applejack swiped the back of her right hoof around and smacked Dash across the face. “You’re pathetic!”

Applejack felt Dash’s attempts to force against her cease. Applejack let go of her and Dash fell onto her plot while clutching her face with a hoof.

“APPLEJACK!” Twilight yelled to her as she continued to struggle in Pinkie’s grip. “This is NOT the way to handle this!” she claimed. Applejack glanced back at Twilight briefly, then back at Dash while shaking her head.

“I beg ta differ Twi…” she said as Dash continued to rub her pain filled cheeks and began to quiver slightly. Applejack took a step towards Dash and looked down at her. “I’m the element of honesty… Honesty is all about tellin’ the truth," she reached down and tipped Dash’s chin up so she was looking her in the eye. “And sometimes… the truth can hurt… it needs to hurt.”

The tears were now flowing freely down Dash’s face. She felt broken with absolutely no will to retort. Her head was filled with anger, anguish, and confusion. Everything Applejack said was right, but she refused to accept it. The refusal was stinging her nerves. Why couldn’t she see it the way it was? She was too proud.

Without another word, Dash sprung up to her hooves and ran out of the barn. Applejack made no move to stop her. Dash burst out the doors and took to the sky, disappearing from view quickly.

Applejack sighed and shook her head. She did what she needed to do. Now the rest was up to Dash. SHE had to see things the way they were. Applejack could only guide her towards the path. She couldn’t make Dash walk it.

Applejack quickly made her way over to Fluttershy to let her know she could come out. Fluttershy stepped out and frowned.

“Now don’t look at me like that,” Applejack averted her eyes.

“That was mean,” Fluttershy whined.

“You’d rather I let her keep treatin’ us that way?” Applejack shrugged.

“No, but… I’m going to talk to her later… she’s being scary, but I’m her friend,” Fluttershy stated with a nod.

“Do what ya gotta do, I ain’t gonna stop ya. Just give her some space fer now,” Applejack patted Fluttershy on the head.

Applejack blinked as she heard noises of struggling. She glanced over and saw Twilight flat on the floor, Rarity lying flat on top of her, and Pinkie sitting on top of both of them.

“Ya can let ‘em go now Pinkie…”

“Okay…” Pinkie bounced off of them and landed on her hooves. Twilight immediately stood up. Rarity shrieked as she rolled off of her back and landed roughly on the floor. Twilight stomped up to Applejack and glared.

“That didn’t help at all!” Twilight growled. Applejack stood her ground.

“Y’all wanted to play patty cake with her,” she rolled her eyes as Twilight shook her head.

“I’m going after her,” she stepped towards the door but Applejack grabbed her and stopped her. “Applejack…” Twilight glared at her and her magic sparked over her horn.

“Let her be for now,” Applejack ordered.

“Why?!” Twilight turned and gave her a look of confusion and disbelief.

“Um…” Fluttershy actually spoke up from behind Twilight. Twilight turned and blinked. “Actually… please leave her alone… I agree with Applejack,” she said very quietly. Twilight looked back to Applejack with her ears flattened out straight. Applejack shook her head as she trotted over to the door and looked up into the sky.

“This is her problem Twi… not ours. She’s gonna be on her own again soon. She won’t be able t’rely on us there, so we should let her figure this one out herself. Sooner or later she’s gonna have t’be mature and see things by how they are, not by how they affect her personally.” Applejack turned and looked at all of them. “This is her fight.”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Phew! Got this out just in time! ^_^

I didn't want to leave you guys completely hanging for another week, so here is the intro of part 2!

Looks like Dash has to take a good look at herself eh?

And oh man... Spitfire... control thy mare urges... xD

Alright, my one week hiatus starts now :)

Hopefully it will help my brain rest and i can get back to my usual turbo updates :3

Thanks for all the support!!!

I hope you all enjoyed! :)

Chapter 29: Heavy Regrets

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 29:

Finally.

Finally the tryouts were over…

Soarin felt so relieved that he could go back to his daily routine. It was only three days, but it felt like a month and a half. There were so many cadets. It was HELL trying to keep them all under control and in order. Had they known the turnout was going to be so huge, they probably would have assigned a few more squads to help out. They didn’t even have the option on such short notice. Squads four, eight, and ten were all out doing single shows. Squads five and nine were out making formal business appearances. Squad seven was out on a long range patrol. That was all of the high tier elite squads right there.

Squads eleven through twenty were all available, but they already had a hard enough time keeping the low tier elite squads under control. Trying to keep those hotshots in order while also worrying about the large number of cadets would have been even more work for the three command squads.

Whatever… it was over and done. Soarin was just happy that he could relax.

But that was really the only thing he was happy about. In fact, he wasn’t happy at all. Why? Well, considering he had a pony that meant the world to him come to him in a state of hysteria, yell at him, question his love for her, avoid her own shortcomings by pinning it on him, and then walk out on him coldly… nah… he was feeling pretty damn shitty.

Not only that, but his mixed emotions were messing with his magic control. He fried a squat rack in the gym earlier just because he was angry. His frustration and angst related to the situation with Dash was apparently creating an imbalance in his ability to control the magic as well. Talk about a double deal.

Two for the price of one! The main attraction is a loved one yelling in your face with a side show of not handling the situation well and having her walk out on you! Don’t forget to stop at the gift shop on your way out! We have a blue light special on your own damn body blowing apart from the inside out with dark magic that’s been forced into you by higher powers! Right outside we have a stand where you can guess the weight of Celestia’s plot and win a prize! Do enjoy your stay in the wacky world of Canterlot, the Wonderbolts, and Soarin’s imagination! We hope you visit us again!

Dammit…

“Thanks,” Soarin nodded to the chef as he grabbed his full tray and made his way over to the tables in the mess hall. He was glad they didn’t have to eat in the side room anymore. It made him feel so secluded. It was back to meals as usual with the rest of the squads all in attendance. He was still going to sit with the command squads like they always did, but the atmosphere was back to normal.

What else was back to normal was the food. Soarin never thought he could look at a simple plate of corn, bowtie pasta, and grilled chicken and feel like he was looking at fine cuisine. He was going through mental hell at the moment, so a semi-nice meal was welcome.

He blinked as he neared the tables he and the rest of the command squad members typically sat at. It looked like it was going to be the old gender split today. Wave, Fire, Lightning, and Silver were all packed at the same table. None of the mares had shown up yet, so Soarin’s choices were narrowed down. Either join stallion time or look anti-social.

It was an easy choice. Soarin went right for an empty seat with the stallions. Besides that, unlike a certain turquoise, bubbly bundle of personal space invasion… also known as FLEETFOOT… Soarin was sure the rest of the guys would leave him be about Dash. He wasn’t sure if they knew, but even if they did they wouldn’t pry him.

Soarin eyed their food selections as he sat down. Fire and Wave had the same thing as him from the main line, Silver had a turkey sandwich, and Lightning had… twelve hot dogs. Soarin had no idea how Lightning wasn’t really fat. He ate like such a slob and was known for not always doing his solo training routines like he was supposed to, but he somehow stayed in shape. Silver always went for the sandwich line. Soarin didn’t blame him. After twenty-two years in the Wonderbolts he was probably sick to death of the normal food cycle. A custom made sandwich was his only escape from the monotony.

“HEY! WINDY!” Blaze’s voice suddenly came from behind Soarin. Some of them glanced up, but paid little attention as Blaze and High Winds trotted by with their food. “You smell that?” Blaze continued as the two of them comically sniffed the air.

“Huh? Hey… this smell…” Winds played along as the two of them slowly passed the stallion table.

“YES!” Blaze chimed back in. “It smells like a SAUSAGE FEST!” she finished before the two burst out laughing.

“Don’t act like you ain’t impressed!” Lightning quickly fired back casually as the two set up at the table beside theirs.

“Too much testosterone concentrated in one place… I can’t even see the table beyond you guys it’s so thick…” High Winds joked as she sat down and yawned. Lightning reached for his plate and grabbed one of the hot dogs out of its bun.

“Brother…” Fire tried to calmly stop Lightning, but it was too late.

“Fire in the hole!” Lightning yelled as he volleyed the hot dog over Silver and it hit Blaze right in the cheek. Fire sighed and shook his head, knowing exactly what this was going to instigate.

“Oh, this means war…” Blaze glared over towards the stallion table as the hot dog rolled off the table and fell on the floor.

“We almost lasted a week this time,” Wave commented as a single bit of corn flew over his head and bounced to a stop on the table.

“For the record, she started it… again…” Lightning commented as he ducked to let another piece of corn fly over his head.

“Says the stallion who threw a full hot dog…” Fire grumbled as he kept one eye on the other table. Blaze and High Winds were tossing one piece of corn at a time over at their table as they ate.

“Wow! Check out all the hunks over here!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from behind Soarin. Soarin glanced over his shoulder to see Fleetfoot walking side by side with Spitfire. Fleetfoot was walking so close to Spitfire, she was almost rubbing against her, and Spitfire was blushing madly.

“Stop it Fleet…” Spitfire calmly demanded.

“Wish I could Spitty, woo wee, a whole table full of 'em, YOW!” she kept making silly gestures and nudging Spitfire.

“Fleet, this isn’t funny!” Spitfire kept making quick glances towards the table. Soarin and the rest were all looking up at her now, except for Wave, who looked like he was trying really hard to keep focused on his food.

“Remember guys!” Fleetfoot suddenly addressed them while draping a hoof over Spitfire. “Keep the eyes up and forward in the showers!” she was clearly trying to hold in hysterical laughter. She yanked Spitfire to make her turn and face all of the stallions. She leaned into Spitfire’s ear and whispered. “You are now imagining a hot steamy shower with every single stallion you see in front of you… yes… even Silver.”

“AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!” Spitfire yelled out as she thrust her wing out and knocked Fleetfoot aside. Fleetfoot giggled uncontrollably as she struggled to keep everything balanced on her tray. Spitfire quickly made her way over to the mare table and sat down beside Blaze, hiding herself behind her half-sister.

“Sheesh Sis… just bang one of ‘em if it’s that bad.”

“SHUT UP,” Spitfire growled while digging into her food ravenously. The stallions shrugged as another bit of corn landed in the middle of the table, fired by High Winds. They knew what was going on. They were all old enough to recognize a mare having mare issues.

A slightly devilish look suddenly crossed Lightning’s face as a bit of corn bopped off of his nose. He leaned in towards Wave Chill beside him.

“Hey… Chiller,” he spoke quietly. Wave Chill flinched, so focused on his food he was startled. He hacked and coughed a few times before grabbing his water and taking a long swig.

“Huh?” he finally replied as he panted and blinked. Lightning nudged him in the side.

“Your lady’s feeling it bro… you’ve got a clear path to some action, I envy you bro!” As he spoke, Wave’s eyes slowly grew wider and wider.

“Uh! What!? I… my lady?!” he struggled to find his composure. Wave was always known for being stoic and dutiful, but those that knew him well could easily break his shell. He wasn’t quite as hardnosed as Silver. “She’s… my commanding officer! I will do nothing of the sort!” He replied frantically but quietly enough that it wouldn’t reach the mare table.

“Your loss bro, she wants it right now… REALLY WANTS IT… like COMPLETELY—”

“I GET IT!” Wave hissed at him. “Just… argh! Leave me alone!” Wave grunted in frustration while blushing.

Lightning chuckled and leaned back in his chair while stuffing another hot dog into his mouth. He blinked as he saw Misty Fly walk by with a tray. She glanced at the stallions all sitting together and smiled warmly before continuing on to join the mares. Lightning quickly glanced at Fire and saw his eyes locked on target.

“I should go help and—” Fire quickly got up, but Lightning reached out and grabbed him.

“Whooooaaaaaaa Romeo… Misty’s a big pony, she can take care of herself,” he chuckled as he yanked Fire back down. “Stallion and mare time. You’ll get eaten alive if you go over there,” he joked. A piece of corn hit him right between the eyes.

“Score!” Blaze yelled triumphantly as Lightning blinked and sighed heavily.

“I tried playin’ the pacifist… time to return fire,” Lightning grabbed his napkin, balled it up, and dunked it in his water cup. Once it was nice and wet, he looked over towards the mare table and lazily tossed the wet napkin towards them.

His aim was way off. It hit Fleetfoot right in the cheek.

“WHO THREW THAT?!” she instantly stood up and looked towards the stallions as the wet napkin slowly peeled off her face and fell to the table. Lightning had ducked behind Fire, but both Silver and Fire casually leaned aside to reveal Lightning trying to conceal himself.

“Aw, you guys suck…” he sighed as Fleetfoot pointed sharply at him.

“You better watch your back,” she said while giving him a harsh, but slightly sinister glare.

Soarin chuckled and refocused on his food after Fleetfoot sat back down. His friends always found a way to keep his mind off of his own problems… but at the same time they were reminding him of them. He envied both Fire and Wave right now. Wave more or less had Spitfire in his life, and it was obvious Fire cared a little more for Misty Fly than he preferred to let on. Both scenarios were bombarding him with thoughts of Dash. He’d have to figure something out. Dash couldn’t stay angry at him, could she? She’d realize she was at fault, right? He hoped she would. He said everything he had to say. Any more would be… feeding into her unwillingness to accept responsibility.

Whatever, he just wanted Dash back. Less than a day had gone by since their disagreement, but the gap it left felt endless. He really didn’t want to think about it now though. What else was going on around him?

“You’ve been giving me the stink-eye the whole lunch hour Old Timer, what’s up?” Lightning chuckled as Silver rolled his eyes.

“All you kids are getting too fresh with the mares. Back in my day that wasn’t tolerated,” he put plainly. Fire blinked as he eyed Silver curiously.

“Pardon me Second Captain… but weren’t the former Lead Captains of the Wonderbolts… married?” Fire asked, referring to Blazetail and Flashwind. Silver nodded.

“Married and flirting are two different things. It’s not professional to engage in personal relationships within an important organization. Things have changed a lot,” Silver went on monotonously.

“Aw, come off it Grey-Mane,” Lightning reclined. “You can’t get on us for enjoying life! Mares make a stallion’s world go ‘round!”

“HA!” Silver suddenly let one guffaw out as he shook his head. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week… especially coming from you,” Silver continued to chuckled and set down his sandwich. “With your track record I’m surprised you know what a mare is! They avoid you like the plague.”

“Dunno where you’ve been lookin’ Geezer,” Lightning shrugged as he began motioning to his body. “It’s hard for them to resist this,” he slid his hooves up and down his chest. Silver cocked an eyebrow up.

“Could’ve fooled me son. From what I’ve seen, it could be raining pussy outside and you’d STILL get hit in the face with a dick!”

Soarin, Fire, and Wave all burst out laughing on the spot. Soarin nearly coughed up the chicken he had just swallowed, Fire shot water out of his nose, and Wave was face down in his pasta. All the mares (except Misty Fly) turned and stared with curiosity as the three stallions continued to laugh to their heart’s content. Silver still had a very straight look on his face with his eyebrow up and Lightning was shaking his head.

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

“That’s cold Old Timer, real cold,” Lightning commented. Silver went back to his sandwich.

“I rest my case,” said Silver as he took another bite. Lightning eyed Silver suspiciously.

“You know… you’ve got a quick wit and a creative head… I bet you were quite the lady chaser yourself a hundred years ago,” Lightning jabbed back while bouncing his eyebrows. Silver glared at the age comment, but beyond that… said nothing. Lightning noticed this. “Whoa, hold up… no response? Am I right?”

“Eat your hot dogs dumbass…” Silver quickly tried to deflect.

“HA! I knew it!” Lightning chuckled as Silver continued to ignore him.

Soarin finally managed to calm down. He had stopped laughing, but Silver’s comment had kept him within random fits of chuckles for a good minute. Again, he was glad he had something to distract him a little bit. Dash was on his mind, but he had other things he had to focus on at the same time. It was a nice release from his own problems.

“So Soarin, how’s the rainbow lady?” Lightning suddenly asked as Soarin was taking a drink.

Soarin spat out his drink. He looked up as his expression quickly turned from normal so a look of dread.

Rainbow Dash.

They…

They had a fight… and…

Soarin looked up to see all the stallions looking at him. Soarin quickly looked down at his plate. He still hadn’t finished half of his food, but his appetite was suddenly gone.

“Excuse me…” he quickly got up and left. He left his tray at the table and exited the mess hall as quickly as he could.

Lightning blinked in confusion as Wave, Fire, and Silver looked at him.

“Uh…” Lightning shrugged. “Was it something I said?” As soon as he finished a hoof smacked him upside the head. “Ow!” he turned and saw Fleetfoot glaring at him.

“As a matter of fact it was…” she looked towards the exit. “Just… don’t bring up Dash for a while, okay?” she said before glancing back at the mare table. Spitfire was already getting up to follow. Fleetfoot quickly moved back over and stopped her.

“Fleet, let me go to him,” she demanded. Fleetfoot shook her head.

“Not in your current state, Heat Pack,” she poked Spitfire in the stomach. “Besides, let him handle it. We don’t need to coddle him all the time.”

Spitfire looked past Fleetfoot one more time before giving up and sitting back down. Fleetfoot was right. Soarin needed to sort out his demons himself.

Dash didn’t know what to do.

She didn’t know what to do, where to go, or who to talk to. So she just flew. She flew in random directions with no destination in mind. Her only goal was to get away from what was bothering her… but even with that her brain was telling her otherwise, calling her a coward for not facing the issue. That and her cheeks hurt. Applejack was a bitch. Why did Applejack have to punch her? She was upset, did Applejack really think punching her in the face would make her feel better?

But… Applejack was still right…

Why did everything SUCK!?

Dash’s head was so cloudy she didn’t even realize she was nearly flying in circles. She hadn’t actually gone far from the barn, she was still within the vicinity of Sweet Apple Acres! Her head was spinning in circles, so it seemed that, consequently, she flew in circles.

How did everything happen? She did everything she was supposed to do! She trained herself hard. She became better, stronger, and faster. She showed up and showed the Wonderbolts everything she could do! It couldn’t have been something she did!

…

Arctic…

Arctic Blast… this was her fault… if not for her she surely would have gotten the elite spot. Soarin said it himself. Dash took down Arctic and that was what made him choose Storm over her… right? No… Soarin still had to decide. Arctic was hindering her in the course, and Dash took action against it! So it was Soarin's fault for not seeing things correctly! Right?!

But…

Either Spitfire or Fleetfoot had to choose against her as well for her not to get the spot… she couldn’t blame it on Soarin could she? He chose against her! HER! How could he do that?! He was…

He was just doing his job… a job that was important to him and he worked his entire life to achieve. No… she couldn’t blame it on Soarin.

It wasn’t Arctic’s fault, it wasn’t Soarin’s fault…

Storm Front…

It’s his fault! If he wasn’t at the tryouts, she'd have been chosen for sure! He…! He…

Oh dammit…

Who was she kidding?!

Dash slowed down considerably as the only real conclusion finally came to her.

She had no one to blame but herself.

Her chest felt tight as the reality of it sank in. She hadn’t even entertained the thought after the fight with Soarin. She had just been plain mad. She had felt like the whole damn world had done her wrong and basically walked around, shoving some of her best friends out of the way like they were part of the problem.

It took a punch to the face to get her mind working… but it looks like even Applejack was right in doing that. Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie, and of course Fluttershy would never thought of striking her… but Applejack knew her on a different level. Applejack knew her on a physical and toughness level. Getting punched in the face was exactly what it took to make her run through all of her dumb excuses and see that… in reality… it was her own fault.

Dash slowed to a stop and hovered in the air. She didn’t feel like flying anymore… not with how damn stupid she suddenly felt. She just wanted to sit or lay down, but she also really didn’t want to be seen. She was still over Sweet Apple Acres…

Apple tree it was. It didn’t look like any of the Apple siblings were out, so it was perfect. More than anypony else she didn’t want to see Applejack at the moment. As right as Applejack was, Dash still didn’t want to admit it to her.

Dash floated down to one of the trees and nestled herself between the leaves until she was among the branches. She found a nice branch and laid down on it.

How much…? How much stuff had Dash messed up in her angry hysterics? Well, for one she owed Fluttershy an apology. She shoved her… seriously, who shoves Fluttershy?! Dash felt like such a bitch for doing that. Second, she had to apologize to Scootaloo. Talk about a downer. Scootaloo was so supportive throughout everything and was the first one to greet her upon return… and Dash gave her the cold shoulder. A VERY cold shoulder. Scoots was her number one fan… how could she just push her aside?

What else had she—

Oh.

Right.

Soarin.

The gravity of everything really began to sink in. She… kinda yelled at him, said some awful things, and walked out. After everything and after how sweet and amazing he had been to her. One small thing happens and she throws all her anger at him. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.

But this was one place where she felt a little less like it was entirely her fault. He did snap back at her. She instigated it, but he did speak harshly towards her too. Even so, it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been nasty to him in the first place.

But one thing was stabbing her. She walked out. She made a statement that challenged his love for her… and walked out. What was she going to do about that? Apologize? She wasn’t good at apologizing. She felt the need to, but at the same time she just couldn’t find it in herself to believe she was the only one at fault. Everything indicated that it was her fault… so why?! Why did her stupid brain still dig for reasons to think Soarin was part of the problem?!

“Here, I like this tree,” a voice from below made Dash flinch and stiffen. She remained still as she moved her eyes down. Applejack was right below her, smiling and looking back out towards the path. Before Dash could wonder what was going on, Thunderlane appeared in her view and trotted up towards Applejack.

“Looks like the rest of the trees,” Thunderlane joked as Applejack gave him a playful jab.

Shit.

Dash did her best not to grumble or groan. She didn’t want to be near anypony. She began trying to make subtle movements for a silent takeoff.

“So ya… made it through, huh?” Applejack spoke. Dash froze.

“Yeah, I still can’t believe I did. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it cause I’m still a bit in shock myself,” Thunderlane chuckled.

“I mean look at you! Don’t tell me they ain’t there! Ya may have dark fur but I can tell yer real beat up,” Applejack pouted at him with a stern look on her face. Thunderlane looked away and his eyes darted back and forth.

“Eh… it’s not that b—YEOW!” Thunderlane yelped as Applejack poked a spot on his shoulder that was clearly a little swollen.

“Yer real beat up… I don’t like that,” she looked at him with concern. “I also don’t like that yer goin’ back… it’s gonna be even harder now! I don’t want ya to get hurt real bad!”

“Applejack, it means a lot to me that you’re so worried about me and all, but you’ve gotta understand…” he sat down below the tree and Applejack sat right down beside him. “I would have never even dreamed of being in this position. I have a chance to do something most pegasi will never get the chance to… I may have stumbled in ungracefully, but I’m in and I have an opportunity. I’d be crazy to pass this up.”

Dash listened to Thunderlane’s speech… and found herself thinking again.

An opportunity.

Just like Twilight had said. Dash didn’t listen to Twilight at all… dismissing her due to not understanding or being in her situation… but now she was hearing it from Thunderlane.

More reality began to hit her in the face. Sure she didn’t get the elite spot… but neither did Twister, Matteo, Little Star, or Squall. They all looked happy to have just made it… or at least they all showed their own way of being happy. All she could think of was being cheated out of the elite spot. What about the other 279 cadets that were turned away? They all dreamed of being Wonderbolts… but they didn’t make it. She did.

Wow… now on top of it all, she felt ungrateful. Every course of action she took after the elite spot selection was dropped felt like the right course of action. Now everything she did was slowly feeling like the worst possible decision.

Could all of this been avoided had she just stopped and thought about it first?

“I… I know. Thunderlane, I ain’t gonna lie. I’m real proud of ya,” Applejack said while reaching up and pulling her hat slightly down on her face. “In fact… I wasn’t expectin’ much of anything… but ya proved me wrong… again. It’s just like when we first met all over again. I don’t give ya enough credit.”

“Aw, thanks,” Thunderlane blushed slightly with a smile. Applejack tipped her hat up just enough to reveal her eyes and a small blush of her own.

“Yer always full of surprises and… I love that. I really do,” she yanked her hat back down.

“C’mon A.J…” Thunderlane reached a wing over and easily removed her hoof’s grip from her hat, removing it slowly from her head. “You don’t need this with me, remember?”

“Sorry,” she looked up at him, blushing a little harder. “I still ain’t very good at this romance thing… I’m tryin’ though.”

“The effort is what counts, trust me,” Thunderlane winked. Applejack smiled, but then looked away.

“But… now yer gonna be gone for what… a month?” she suddenly asked while biting her lower lip.

“Maybe more if I’m selected to be an on compound recruit,” Thunderlane frowned, knowing where this was going.

“I…” Applejack sighed. “I barely lasted three days without ya…”

“Applejack…” Thunderlane reached over and tipped her head up. “I don’t like being apart from you either… but backing down from this would surely destroy the pride you feel for how far I’ve managed to come. I’m going to try hard for both of us. If hell freezes over and I become a full Wonderbolt, that’s a lot of bits I’ll be earning. You can bet I will have the farm in mind when it comes to spending it,” he smiled. Applejack’s eyes widened.

“Thunderlane! Ya don’t have ta—”

“Why not?” he cut her off. “You’re an important part of my life. Besides, if it’s my money, I get to chose what to do with it. Don’t forget what happened last time you tried to deny my help?” he smirked at her. Her brow flattened, but she smiled.

“Yeah, ya barged on in on my business and begged at my hooves,” she chuckled. Thunderlane rolled his eyes.

“You make it sound so pathetic,” he chuckled along with her.

Dash felt like she was going to throw up in her mouth. These two were so cheesy. Applejack would probably lay an egg if she knew Dash was seeing this. At the same time though… Dash’s heart was feeling heavier and heavier as she watched the two interact.

“It was a little…” Applejack smiled. “But that was special… and…” she twiddled her hooves together. “And I… still love thinkin’ about it. I just don’t know what I’m gonna do when yer gone fer so long and—” she was hushed by Thunderlane’s wing.

“Just get over here already,” he smiled. Applejack’s eyes widened for a moment, only to revert to a dreamy gaze as she and Thunderlane leaned in.

Dash felt her heart ache as they slowly closed the gap between them and kissed softly.

Dash could think of only one thing.

Soarin.

I don’t think… I really, truly show you how much I love you enough…

Dash felt her throat tighten as Applejack and Thunderlane kissed more than once.

Just let me look at you… enjoy you…

Dash kept her eyes locked on the couple below her.

But I feel like you need to be told… just how beautiful you are…

Thunderlane caressed Applejack’s face as he pulled away briefly to look into her eyes.

I need to tell you how lost I get in your eyes…

They were being so soft… and so gentle…

I want to be soft… and gentle… because you’re just that special to me…

“I love you Applejack…” Thunderlane said quietly to her.

I love you so much, Dashie…

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

Tears.

Tears were falling down Dash’s face.

What had she done?

What… What did she do?

Soarin poured his heart and soul into his words to her two nights ago… then the next day Dash treated him like an obstacle… how… how could she do that? Why did she do that?!

She remembered how it felt. She remembered how amazing it felt when Soarin said all those words to her. When he was gentle with her… when he expressed his love in a way that was so romantic and honest. It was so strange to her, but it felt so good. It felt beyond good, it felt incredible. But… oh right… what did she say to him the next day?

I thought I meant something to you… You do so much for me and then bar me from my dream… you… are a sick BASTARD!

Dash slammed her eyes tight, but failed to keep the tears from squeaking out between her eyelids.

No.

This was wrong.

This is not how she wanted things.

She had to fix it.

She couldn’t stand watching Applejack and Thunderlane kissing. It was the last thing she needed to see to make her realize exactly what she had done.

It was almost as if she completely disregarded Soarin’s love and care in favor of her own personal goals… how the hell could she do that? She had to fix it… She wanted to feel the love again like she had two nights ago. Call it uncharacteristic of her, but being loved so intensely was unlike any other feeling she had ever felt.

But…

Could she fix it? Had she done too much damage? Would he forgive her?

Soarin was pretty stubborn… and so was she. So first she had to muster up the courage to bow her head and apologize… but then if and when she did… would he accept it?

What a mess.

Dash quickly got up and took off from the branch. Tears whipped from her face as she frantically moved. She disregarded the possibility of being seen or heard. She didn’t know or care if the two noticed her, she just had to get away.

What a slap to the face… or in this case a punch. Applejack’s punch really put everything into perspective for her. Dash was confident she had never screwed up more in her life. This time it wasn’t even a competition… it was her own stupid emotions and her own stupid impulsive behavior. Perhaps this was the most important test of all in her becoming a Wonderbolt.

Learning to accept her failures.

She failed. She failed in reaching her personal goal… but she pinned the failure on others. It led to more problems than she felt she could handle. It was up to her and only her to set things right.

But there was so much to set right.

HOW ABOUT YOU SIT AND THINK ABOUT SOMETHING FOR ONCE?!

Soarin was absolutely right. There was no fast way to fix this. She had a lot to fix… but she was going to do it one step at a time.

She would start by apologizing to Fluttershy and Scootaloo. Then when she returned to the compound in a week… she would assess the situation and find out how to handle things with Soarin…

And she was hoping… sweet Celestia, she was hoping he’d quickly accept it… but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

okay before ANYTHING ELSE is said...

I want everyone to give Scootafail a round of applause for making BOTH of those pics for me on such short notice.

*pauses for clapping to die down*

HEY! ALL! I'm back! Sorry for the slightly longer wait than expected. Everyone was all so kind and patient with me about taking a week off i felt like i needed to give you guys a little extra treat. So i went to my very good friend Scootafail and requested some illustrations to go along with it. And WOW she did them fast! :O

So it looks like Dash finally realized what she had done... we make mistakes in life, but if we dont accept them and learn from them, we will never grow. It's a lesson Dash learned the hard way and it wont be easy for her to mends what she has broken... but she is damn well going to try.

Also (incoming shameless self-promotion (at least i admit it)): Curious about the romance between Applejack and Thunderlane? It all happened in my fic that takes place between Flying Sky High and Piercing the Heavens. The Weight of Responsibility (http://www.fimfiction.net/story/164303/the-weight-of-responsibility) There is some light Soarindash in it as well as Soarin becomes a minor character about halfway through ;) (be warned though, this fic was written before i had Kestrel... so it's most likely full of small errors >_<... the difference a good editor can make huh?)

It's good to be back! i hope to get back on my regular writing groove :3 so hopefully i'll have the next chapter out in a few days :)

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 30: Forgiveness and Secrets

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 30:

“Fluttershy… can’t… breathe…” Dash gasped for air as Fluttershy hugged her tightly.

Dash had decided to apologize to Fluttershy first. She was very eager to get to Scootaloo, but she knew Fluttershy needed more immediate attention. Scootaloo was built tough like Dash. She’d be able to hold out a little longer. Fluttershy on the other hoof… looked absolutely crushed when Dash arrived at her house.

Needless to say, it was clear Fluttershy was ready and willing to accept an apology and forgive her. Dash had barely gotten a few words into her apology before Fluttershy began squeezing the life out of her. She may be small, but Fluttershy sure knew how to give a strong hug.

“I’m just so glad!” Fluttershy squeaked as she pulled away. “You were so angry… and then the stuff with Applejack… and then…” she squeaked again, but with a huge smile on her face as she gave Dash another strong hug.

“Yeah… sorry for causing all of that too…” Dash chuckled as she had to literally force Fluttershy off of her. Fluttershy smiled and clapped her hooves together happily.

“I’m just glad you came around! I was so worried about you,” Fluttershy explained as she reached out and caught Angel Bunny as he bounced by. He struggled as she pulled him in and began applying nonconsensual snuggles to him. Angel eventually stopped struggling and glared at Dash as if it was her fault he was suffering.

“Thanks for putting up with me,” Dash sighed. “I gotta go find Scootaloo now, okay? I owe her an apology more than anypony,” she explained as she turned towards the door. She chuckled, assuming Fluttershy had heard her. She was still forcibly cuddling Angel and smiling happily.

Confident this portion had been mended, Dash left Fluttershy’s house. She stretched and shook her wings out, preparing them for flight as Big Macintosh casually made his way up the path towards Fluttershy’s house. Dash smirked as he approached and gave her a simple nod.

“Watch out,” she spoke up as she started lifting off. “She’s feeling extra huggy right now,” Dash chuckled as she took off.

Mac lifted an eyebrow briefly, his usual minimalist response to something that slightly confused him. He turned and knocked on Fluttershy’s door. He got two knocks in before the door swung open and Fluttershy leapt out of her house and clung to Mac’s neck while nuzzling him.

“Whoa!” Mac reacted, realizing what Dash meant.

“Scoots… Scoots…” Dash mumbled as she looked down and around Ponyville.

She had no idea where Scootaloo would be right now. Up until recently, Scootaloo’s locations were limited, but now that she could fly a little, it was highly possible that she could be up on a cloud as well. It didn’t help that it was a partly cloudy day.

Dash pondered, trying to narrow down where she could look to find Scootaloo. Scoots had a bit of pride… much like Dash. Where would Dash go if she was bothered by something? Probably to her house. So where would Scootaloo go?

Dash blinked as she thought about one additional factor. She had to take into account that Scootaloo was a diehard fan of hers. So it was highly possible that Scootaloo was at, or at least near Dash’s house despite how Dash treated her earlier. It was the only possible lead Dash had. It wouldn’t hurt to at least check.

Dash glided along casually towards her house, wondering exactly what to say to her little sis. Fluttershy was easy, all Dash had to do was show up and say ‘I’m sorry.’

Since Scootaloo was more like Dash… it would probably take more than that. Hopefully not much, Dash was already not very good at apologizing. She drilled herself over and over again as she flew to keep her cool no matter what. When stubbornness meets stubbornness, it tends to escalate even if it wasn’t intentional.

“Huh?” Dash blinked in surprise. She didn’t even have to look as she approached her house. Scootaloo was lying flat on a cloud, facing Dash’s front door from a few feet away. Dash gulped as she approached Scootaloo from behind, hoping to Celestia the little filly wasn’t crying. She wasn’t expecting Scootaloo to let tears fall so easily, but it would tear Dash’s heart in two if she knew she made her little admirer cry.

“Hey…” Dash said quietly as she came close. Scootaloo visibly flinched at her voice, but remained facing away. Dash gently landed on the cloud beside her. She glanced briefly at Scootaloo, granting her some slight relief. Scootaloo was just staring forward. She looked distraught, but as soon as Dash landed, small tears began building in the corners of her eyes. She was clearly trying to hold it back though. Scootaloo was concerned with keeping up a tough image. She wasn’t going to cry. Dash knew she wouldn’t.

“Hi, I guess…” Scootaloo suddenly spoke up harshly. Dash winced as the words stabbed at her.

No.

It was alright. She deserved that one. Dash literally pushed her aside coldly upon returning. Scootaloo was angry with her. It was to be expected.

“Hey look, I…” Dash paused to gather her thoughts. “Look, Scoots, hear me out, okay?” she tried, but Scootaloo still didn’t look at her.

“I dunno Dash, you didn’t hear me out at the station,” Scootaloo continued the cold tone.

Double ouch. Dash wasn’t sure how to handle this.

“C’mon squirt, I didn’t mean to… I mean, I… well I was angry and…”

“No shit,” Scootaloo’s eyes narrowed, but she kept them off of Dash. Dash flinched REALLY hard. First course of action, Dash would have to watch her mouth a little more around Scootaloo. She was still a bit young to be cursing like that and it was kind of Dash’s fault.

Secondly… wow…

Scoots was being very stubborn. Dash came to a small realization as her brain fought to find her next course of action: Scootaloo was like a mirror image of Dash… Was this what she was like whenever her friends tried to talk sense into her? Dash never realized how much of a pain in the ass she was whenever she got all stubborn on her friends.

Part of her felt like retaliating, but the last time she pitted anger against another’s anger, it put a rut in her relationship with somepony very, very important to her. She was not going to repeat that mistake.

“Scoots… I had a rough time and I…” no matter what Dash tried to say it all sounded like bullshit. “Screw it, I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, I’m sorry,” Dash saw no change on Scootaloo’s face. Her heart sank slightly. After how easy it was with Fluttershy, Dash assumed she had gotten the hang of it… but apparently not. Scootaloo was a tough nut to crack… and if she couldn’t get her diehard fan to accept an apology, how was she going to get Soarin to? She had done him more wrong than anypony else.

Dash felt defeated. It was a feeling she’d usually fight, but after the harsh realizations of the day, she didn’t feel like fighting back. It was clear to her that damage had been done, and she would have to work to repair it, although she wouldn’t have expected to have to do so with Scootaloo. Dash sighed and stood up from the cloud while spreading her wings.

“Wait! Don’t… don’t go…” Scootaloo suddenly spoke up. Dash stopped and blinked. “Stay, please,” Scootaloo added. Dash was confused, but refolded her wings and retook her spot beside Scootaloo.

“Sorry…” Dash repeated.

“Stop saying sorry, I don’t care,” Scootaloo said quickly. Dash flinched at the harsh tone, but still couldn’t figure out what was on her mind.

“Scoots, I was a bi— I mean, it was really mean of me to push you aside, I was frustrated and—”

“I get it…” Scootaloo cut her off again. This time Dash felt the need to retaliate.

“Scoots, I just want to apologize…”

“It’s FINE Dash!” Scootaloo suddenly yelled. Dash reclined slightly, still confused. “I just…” Scootaloo finally showed more.

“Just what?” Dash quickly tried to pry loose Scootaloo’s mind. Scootaloo let a single sniffle slip.

“I just wish you came to me… I thought we were like sisters y’know?” she finally let out. Dash’s eyes widened.

So that was it.

She hadn’t even contemplated that. She just assumed Scootaloo was angry for being pushed aside, but it was less about that more about how Dash neglected her little sister to cope with it.

After all… A family is all about supporting each other.

“Great, now you have me getting all sappy…” Scootaloo whined while facing away. “Tough ponies don’t cry, I— whoa!”

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

Scootaloo stopped mid rant as Dash turned her around and pulled her into a hug.

Not just family… but also friends. Dash felt like her moment of weakness had made her forget so many life lessons. What was the point of all the friendship lessons she had learned throughout her life if she was so quick to lash out? She felt like she was learning the most important lesson of her whole life in the course of a single day… and it hurt.

Seeing and realizing just how easily she messed up a lot of things that made her life so great… it stung. Pain right in the heart.

She had to shape up and face her mistakes. The Wonderbolts didn’t select her… so it was up to her to show them they should have. Most importantly, she would do it with the support of all those around her. It was no time to be stubborn. It was time for action. She just hoped the most important piece of the puzzle was willing to hear her out… because without him, she would never truly feel complete.

“Scoots,” Dash finally spoke up while still clutching the little filly tightly. “It’s okay to cry. I was crying earlier,” she released Scootaloo, who just stared up at Dash with wide misty eyes. “I didn’t mean to forget you or anypony else who could have helped me. It was wrong of me to face it alone. It sucks that I didn’t get chosen, but I’m heading right back soon and I’ll take ‘em by storm,” she ruffled Scootaloo’s mane. “I’ll do it for both of us,” she smiled.

And she’d do it for Soarin. Things were in a bit of a mess because of her. She was sure he was more than miffed at her for being so stupid. If re-earning his respect was the only way to show him her heart was still strong, then that’s what she would do.

“So what do you say squirt?” Dash smirked. “Wanna go flying?”

Scootaloo instantly hugged Dash again.

Dash felt she still needed to give a small apology to the rest of her friends… maybe not to Applejack… she’d have to get her back for the sore cheek later. Bulk, Derpy, and Thunderlane as well. In fact, she felt the need to give Derpy more details about Storm Front, she was sure Derpy would be giddy about it.

For now though, Dash just wanted to spend some time with her little sister.

“You can’t?”

“Rgh! It’s just… I can’t focus like this right now!” Soarin grunted as the magic faded from the false horn and he sat down roughly. The red marble hovering before him fell to the floor and bounced between a blue and green marble before it rolled to a stop in front of Fancy Pants.

Soarin had been called in for magic training. Considering how much his head hurt already, he wasn’t even slightly eager to report, but he’d rather do as he was told. It was better than having Luna personally hunt him down later and shout until his brain fired out of his opposite ear.

It was proving to be difficult. Soarin was having trouble holding just one marble up. He couldn’t even grab the second. Fancy and Luna glanced at each other as Soarin sat and panted on the throne room floor.

“My boy, is there something troubling you?” Fancy spoke up, putting together the possible circumstances quickly. Soarin glanced up at him as sweat ran down from above the metal headband. Fancy was perceptive, plus Soarin was more than certain his lack of concentration was a bright red flag.

“Yeah, I’m frustrated,” Soarin said nothing further. Fancy eyed him, expecting the conversation to go further. Fancy opened his mouth to speak, but stopped to think first.

“Frustrated, you say? Well, I will not ask the details, but I can see why this is a problem. Emotions tie heavily into how our minds function and work. An experienced magic user knows how to form a disconnect between emotions and magic, much like how you create disconnects in your mind to pick up multiple objects…” Fancy turned and paced back and forth. “However, it is a much more difficult disconnect to achieve, I don’t expect you to master it,” he stopped and faced Soarin. "Emotions can cause negative feedbacks with untrained magic, but it can also help channel the magic as well if properly taught. With a magic as powerful as yours, it’s important to keep your emotions in check.”

“Your point?” Soarin snapped rudely. Fancy didn’t even flinch.

“Do you wish to talk about your troubles to clear your head?” Fancy suggested.

“No, not particularly,” Soarin answered flatly while averting his eyes. He didn’t even want to think about it right now. Rainbow Dash was normally such a wave of motivation for him, but after the previous night… Soarin felt like part of him was missing now. The part that had full control over whether or not he was happy. He was stuck on the wrong side of it. His initial moping had subsided and had been replaced with a little bit of anger. He still couldn’t believe the way Dash had treated him. He did what was best and what was right. If she couldn’t see that, it was all the more necessary for him to make the choice he did. She was immature. Immaturity would get her hurt or worse in their line of work.

So no, he most certainly did not want to talk about it. Thinking about Dash only made it even harder to concentrate.

“Then this is a perfect opportunity to work on something else,” Fancy smiled. Soarin blinked in confusion. “The best way to learn offensive magic capabilities is to do so with an emotional catalyst first. Much like how you originally felt the flow of magic, if you can recall the way your emotions sparked you magical power, it can be rekindled without the intense emotions later.”

“Hold on a sec!” Soarin held his hooves out. Did he hear Fancy correctly? “Did you say… offensive capabilities?”

“That I did, my boy,” Fancy confirmed casually. Soarin glanced at Luna, who was sitting as if nothing was the matter. Soarin looked back to Fancy and put a hoof up.

“One moment…” Said Soarin as he approached Luna. Luna kept a straight face as Soarin glared at her. “Look Your Highness… I can’t help but feel like I’m being left in the dark about a lot of things. You’ve given me the impression that the point of these lessons was to allow the magic room to move and be used… but offensive capabilities? I thought we were containing the magic, not using it as a weapon!”

Soarin had been wondering for a while now. The magic lessons were helping with his problems… but things never seemed that simple. Why was it always in the throne room? Why was it usually under the watchful of Luna, and a good number of royal guards? Why was it that every time he came to the throne room he always saw the three same ponies leave just before he could get a good look at them?

Luna bit her lip and averted her eyes.

“Um… we… we only wish to help you,” she stuttered. Soarin shook his head.

“Princess, you aren’t telling me the whole truth. I believe I deserve some explanation for all the shit I’ve been put through,” Soarin was NOT in the mood to be led on and around blindly. He had enough problems already with his magic being stubborn and all the problems with Dash.

“No, she’s not,” an arm suddenly rested on Luna’s head. She flinched, but her brow and ears instantly flattened in disgust. Discord had appeared beside her and was leaning all of his weight down atop her head. She grumbled and grinded her teeth together, but she did nothing to retaliate, having learned well it only ever led to more humiliation.

“A-HEM!” Fancy cleared his throat while glaring at Discord. Discord blinked and scoffed.

“Oh, get your pants out of a fancy knot,” Discord rolled his eyes.

“We had an agreement,” Fancy reminded him. Discord appeared beside Soarin and hovered a finger over the false horn. It was really close, but he wasn’t touching it.

“And I haven’t interfered!” Discord pouted, while edging his finger closer and closer to the horn to the point where it was hard to tell he still wasn’t touching it. “That was the agreement, was it not? I never said I wouldn’t observe with interest,” he bounced his brow before lowering himself into Soarin’s face. “Awww, is someone having love problems?”

“Discord…” Soarin immediately glared and gritted his teeth.

“Rainbows are spicy aren’t they? Did you bite off more than you could chew?” Discord taunted again. Soarin released a deep, loud growl and the horn suddenly sparked to life with an intense aura swirling around it. Fancy backed off and Luna rapidly stood from her spot. Discord casually reached up and pressed his fingers over the tip of the horn.

The horn’s aura sputtered and shot back down into Soarin’s forehead.

“GAH!” Soarin yelped as small bursts of light shot out from his nose, eyes, ears, and mouth. He stumbled back and fell onto his plot, panting as small trails of steam rose from his mouth, ears and nostrils. He felt completely disoriented, like there had been a small explosion in his head.

“That hurt didn’t it?” Discord crossed his arms and shook his head. In the blink of an eye he was gone and appeared beside Luna. For once, he made no effort to annoy her, he simply stood by her side. “Now imagine that pain externally applied to some poor soul who rubbed you the wrong way. I’m sure you’d feel terrible if you were to inflict such a large amount of pain on another pony by accident,” Discord tapped a finger against his own forehead. “Already forgot what happened this morning? It’s too bad you didn’t stay for your strength coach’s reaction to the equipment you fired, he was plain livid! I almost un-camouflaged from the ceiling I was laughing so hard!” Discord chuckled.

Soarin blinked as his head slowly refocused. Yeah, hell, that was VERY unpleasant just now. Discord had a point, he was lucky he didn’t hit anypony with that blast.

“And of course I’m sure you remember…” Discord appeared in front of him, reclining flat on his back. “When you lost control and your poor deaf friend suffered greatly…” the words stabbed into Soarin as he remembered the pain he caused Misty Fly. “She was touched by a bit of your magic that’s roughly the size of a baseball,” he snapped his fingers and a football appeared in his hand. “Whoops!” he hid the football behind his back and snapped his other fingers, making a baseball appear in it. “Just imagine how much it would hurt if you gave a pony the full force!”

“OKAY! I get it!” Soarin shook his head and let it hang. “This… all of this… why…”

“We never wished this upon you…” Luna slowly walked over from the throne to him as Discord turned, pulled back and hurled the baseball at one of the royal guards. The Guard stood completely still as the baseball bounced off his helmet with a loud PANG. Luna rolled her eyes and sat down beside Soarin. “Our sister saved thy life in hopes that you would continue to be a pony of great service, love, and kindness to those around you. It is… our only hope that we may help you achieve balance,” she looked away.

“Liar liar! Fancy Pants on fire!” Discord yelled as he appeared on the other side of Luna.

“Good heavens!” Fancy Pants yelled out as his suit spontaneously combusted. Discord snapped his fingers and a large bucket of ice water appeared above Fancy, dumping its entire contents and leaving Fancy confused and a tad disgruntled.

“Now Lulu…" Discord reached around her neck and put her in a headlock. “There comes a point where you can’t avoid the truth… not even I, the master of being a fly on the wall, know everything that’s going on in that head of yours. Besides, I believe we owe Soarin here at least some details, hmmmmm?” Discord edged Luna’s face towards Soarin. Soarin just kept looking away.

“Fine…” Luna sighed, then yelped as Discord’s grip on her instantly released and she fell in a heap on the floor. She picked herself up and brushed herself off while glaring at Discord as he shrugged innocently. “Soarin of the Wonderbolts… your life and ability to control what has been given to you will be needed in the future of Equestria…” she started. Soarin instantly looked up at her.

Hold up. This got heavy fast.

“Wait, what? No, no, no… don’t start talking to me about some destiny bullshit…” Soarin quickly reclined while shaking his head.

“There is no such thing as destiny…” Luna looked up at the stained glass windows in the throne room, each one depicting a major moment in Equestrian history. “Our sister and us can only show paths to those who look up to us. They must walk their paths and create their own purpose. Our sister has an ability that even we envy… the power of premonition. She can see events before they come to pass… and act accordingly to prepare. It was a power that she herself only gained recently, one that she ignored for quite some time… until every event came to pass,” Luna’s eyes shifted by every window. “After a few major catastrophes… she vowed never to ignore them again,” Luna looked back down to Soarin. “We have a strict rule as higher powers: we are not to tamper with the course of a mortal’s life. However, about a year ago our sister had a premonition of an incident… and it included you alive and well. You nearly died a year ago… which threw a very bad possibility into the mix. That somepony else was tampering with the balance of life. Celestia refused to let the premonition go unchecked… and that's why she…” Luna stopped.

Soarin was already staring wide eyed at her. Her stopping at a moment that could reveal where the hell Celestia was all this time made him fume.

“Why she what? WHY SHE WHAT?!” Soarin stood up.

“We’re sorry, we are not comfortable speaking of it,” Luna admitted shamefully.

“RGH!” Soarin slammed his hooves down and his horn sparked to life again. Discord was ready to snuff it once more, but Soarin backed up and took a deep breath. The magic calmed down and he sat completely still shaking. “Hell… god damn… bloody… hell…” Soarin turned and made his way to the exit. As if his brain didn’t hurt enough already… as if he wasn’t already dealing with enough crap.

“Fear not, it has been over a year since her premonition!” Luna tried reaching out to him. “The event could be years from now! It could be—” A zipper suddenly ran over her lips and locked them shut.

“Let him go Lulu, Mortals don’t quite have the resilient minds we do,” Discord suggested. Fancy Pants, still soaked, walked up beside them and nodded.

“I feel strange saying this, but I agree with Discord… Any more magic practice now is pointless until another night,” he added. The three remained quiet until Soarin had quit the area.

“But ONCE AGAIN!” Discord unzipped Luna’s mouth and hung upside down before her. “I still can’t believe you keep avoiding the most important part!" Discord berated her while pressing a finger against the middle of his forehead. Luna puffed her cheeks out.

“We can’t simply reveal such a thing!” Luna spat back. “Did thou not just say mortal minds have less resilience?!”

“Oh Lulu… Celestia is laughing at you for sure…” Discord taunted while slowly rotating in the air.

“LEAVE OUR SISTER OUT OF THIS!” Luna's voice boomed through to the far corners of the room and made the walls vibrate.

“Pardon me… but I probably should go change before this suit is ruined for good, I take my leave…” Fancy Pants spoke up, but the two were too busy locked eye to eye. Fancy was a pony of great skill and expertise, but he knew better than to get between two deities so he simply left without another word.

As soon as Fancy was gone. Luna grunted in annoyance and sat right down on the floor where she was standing. Discord hovered down beside her and floated at head level.

“Come now Lulu, your sister made her choice and I have no doubt she had good reason. Celestia isn’t one to just take such heavy risks without provocation,” he twirled the end of his scraggily beard with a finger.

“There’s just too much… We can’t handle it without her…” Luna let her head hang. Discord sighed and turned over in midair to face the other direction. “So many responsibilities… taking care of the sun and the moon… and now all the recent events… this shadow of a villain Kayn Ost out there somewhere, biding his time—”

“Hold up… what did you say?” Discord was suddenly beneath her looking up into her eyes as she continued to let her head hang. Luna pulled her head back in surprise. “That name just now…” Discord added.

“Did you not hear it before?” Luna lifted an eyebrow.

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself Lulu, I’m not always stalking you,” Discord scoffed.

“The Shadowbolt uprising a few months back,” Luna began. “It was orchestrated by an unknown villain by the name of Kayn Ost,” she stopped as Discords eyes widened.

“Kayn… Ost…?” Discord’s cheeks suddenly puffed out and his expression became extremely goofy. “Kayn Ost?! PFFFFFHAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” Discord shot out from beneath Luna and began rolling around on the floor. Luna stared at him blankly, beyond confused.

“What… dost thou… find funny?” Luna asked as Discord kept guffawing.

“Kayn Ost?! That… OH SWEET LORD that’s terrible! I thought I was bad!” he yelled out as he laughed so hard tears were in his eyes.

“Wait…” Luna blinked. “Dost thou know something we don’t!?” she stepped up as Discord calmed down. “Dost thou know who this villain is?!”

“Oh my… oh my, oh my, oh my…” Discord snapped his fingers and he stood before Luna perfectly straight. “Sorry! I know nothing!” he said cheerfully as he reached up and grabbed hold of nothing, only to sharply shoot upward and disappear.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Hey all, i decided to cut this chapter into two shorter ones. I felt like it would be better instead of sticking a sudden week time jump in the middle of a chapter. So here you get 4.5K words a day early and im guessing the next chapter will be out thursday ^_^

D'awwwww Scootafail's art is too cute.

and eh? EH?

What does Discord know about Kayn Ost?! JUST WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO CELESTIA ARGH WHY WONT I TELL YOU PEOPLE IM SUCH A JERK xD

anyway i hope you enjoyed!

Incoming Wonderbolt Shenanigans next chapter! ;D

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 31: This Chapter Shall Pierce the Heavens!

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 31:

A week of rest was exactly what Dash needed.

Her first day back was a roller coaster of emotion, starting at the epitome of pissed off, falling into a pit of sadness, pulling herself out with newfound confidence, and responding sympathetically to make up for the trouble her initial anger had stirred up. That was more mood swings than Rarity on an ice cream binge after a less than satisfactory sale of a fashion line she worked so hard on.

It took a punch to the face and an accidental stalking of Applejack and Thunderlane’s make out session, but Dash felt like a new mare. She had always been reckless. She had always been one to throw punches before asking questions. It was never really of consequence. In fact, it became something that set her apart from her friends.

That was only part of it though. Normally she had her friends around to hold her back if the situation called for a more controlled approach. Her friends weren’t there to hold her back when she stormed into Soarin’s room. She was on her own pursuing her dream. It became clear that she wouldn’t always be able to rely on them to cover her shortcomings.

Her rash behavior finally had true, real consequences… and it was something she would never forget. She still had to fix the most important piece to put everything back together the way it was, but she was confident if she approached it maturely, she would find a way.

The week went by fast, but she couldn’t help but wonder how Soarin was doing the whole time. The fact that they had to go a whole week without contact after what she had done tore her apart. She wanted to go to him immediately, but she couldn’t. She just hoped a week for him to stew wouldn’t make the damage permanent.

As for Soarin… the only word that could describe how he felt… was tired.

So very, very tired.

He just wanted to be a Wonderbolt and live his life without any more shit. He was tired of all the drama caused by both him and those who got close to him. He was tired of his body and the way it felt like he had no control over it. He was tired of the higher powers keeping him in the dark and using him to satisfy what they believed to be right. He was tired of Rainbow Da—

No… that wasn’t true. If there was one constant in his life aside from the Wonderbolts that had been welcome, it was Dash. He was miffed at her for being so immature about his decision… but it didn’t mean he wanted to just get rid of her. He’d never dream of leaving her behind. Just as he took on a major commitment with the Wonderbolts, he felt Dash was the same.

Despite her forceful way of getting him to realize how dumb his old way of approaching mares was, Dash was a choice he ultimately made. He wanted her in his life. He didn’t want magic, nor did he want a fake horn with a terrible name or to always be at the mercy of deities and their agendas.

He wanted Dash. He loved her. Why did she have to make things complicated and difficult for him right now though? He was going through enough… he didn’t want relationship woes on top of that. He hoped she would wise up and be realistic. An apology would be nice, but it didn’t feel like an apology would immediately mend the situation. He had poured his heart out to her. He did quite literally everything he could possibly do to show and prove he loved her… and she was so quick to step on it? He’d forgive her… maybe… but how could he know she was being sincere? She’d have to prove that to him.

As if this wasn’t enough, what the hell was with these Celestia premonitions? Back when he was infused with the magic they gave him a simple explanation upon waking. Celestia stepped in and used an old abandoned magic to restore him. Why? Because he was a valued member of the Wonderbolts and still had much to accomplish.

He wished that was still the explanation. Future incidents? Somepony else changing what was meant to happen by trying to kill him? Shadowbolts? Addictive magical crystals? Kayn Ost? What the hell?! Why couldn’t anything be given to him straight?!

He could yell all he wanted. He couldn’t do much about it. This was the course his life had been forced into, so he’d have to live with it.

At least Luna didn’t call him in again for the remainder of the week. He didn’t really feel like talking to her anyway. He was able to get back to his daily routine of training, magic practice, and never feeling tired enough to get a decent amount of sleep.

The week flew by… and Soarin wasn’t sure if he was ready to see Dash again… Or if she would be ready to see him.

Their relationship seemed unbreakable at first… but in reality it had only just begun. They had overcome challenges from without… now they had to face one from within. If they could conquer this challenge together, then their relationship would truly have the strength to be unbreakable.

“Come on, come on, come on…” Dash tapped her front hooves against the floor of the train car frantically as it approached the station. She was standing directly in front of the door, waiting for train to come to a complete stop and for the conductor to give the all clear to disembark.

The train was late. Dash was mentally slapping herself the whole ride for not getting an earlier ticket to Canterlot.

They were to report to the lobby of the Wonderbolt compound promptly at 3:00 PM. The train to Canterlot was a half an hour ride. Thunderlane had warned her to take the noon train. All she said in response was ‘have fun sitting around and doing nothing for two and a half hours when you get there.’

She was eating those words like a gourmet meal. The 2:00 PM train was twenty minutes behind schedule. She was already prepared for an ‘I told you so’ from Thunderlane, but she most definitely DID NOT want to show up late. She couldn’t afford a single slip up if she wanted to be chosen as one of the five to be the new on-compound recruit squad. Talk about a terrible first impression during a very important selection process.

As soon as the door opened, Dash fired out onto the platform and zipped down through Canterlot Central Station, nearly knocking over a few other ponies before she got to a safe flight altitude above the floor.

She glanced at the large clock in the main lobby. 2:52 PM… give or take knowing how old the clock was. She knew she could make it to the compound from the station in five minutes or less, but she refused to let herself feel safe until she was standing in the Wonderbolt compound. She slowed down to go through the doors of the station exit and then burst right back up into the sky.

Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go!!!!

The compound was easy to find, being right next to the castle and all. Dash locked on target and pumped her wings as fast as she could. Other pegasi moved out of the way as Dash shot through the sky like a freshly fired arrow.

She was impressing herself. A week of rest did wonders for her. No sore joints and no wing spasms. She at least had that going for her. She mentally cheered as the compound slowly came into view and approached faster and faster. She was sure she had only been in the air for four minutes at most.

She touched down on the front walk of the compound a few feet from the doors, and did her best to calm down. She didn’t want to make it look like she was rushing. She slowly walked through the doors and smiled upon entering. The clock above the admissions desk and the large Wonderbolt logo read 2:57 PM. All the other recruits were gathered, but still just lingering in the lobby. Dash glanced around and saw all the familiar faces.

Matteo, Twister, and Thunderlane. She also caught a glimpse of Little Star waiting patiently near the front and off to the side, Squall was leaning against the wall by himself.

No Storm Front though. It actually made Dash feel sad. She liked Storm Front. He was one of the most pleasant ponies she had ever met in her life. He had earned his spot among the elite squads, but she was going to miss having him around with them.

“Train troubles?” Thunderlane’s voice came from beside her as she joined the group.

“Don’t start with me jackass,” Dash rolled her eyes but smiled, earning a chuckle from Thunderlane. “I didn’t miss anything did I?” she asked while subtly holding her breath. Thunderlane shook his head.

“Fleetfoot came out here and told us all to give them a few minutes. Spitfire’s gonna come greet us apparently,” he explained. Dash glanced over the group to see Fleetfoot speaking to a nearby staff member.

“Okay good,” she sighed in relief. She looked about at her fellow recruits. They all looked like worthy flyers. The Wonderbolts definitely did a good job at whittling down the large number of cadets that showed. She wanted to go greet Matteo and ask how Gilda was, assuming he went back to the Griffon Kingdom on their week off. He was busy talking to others though, so she decided not to bother him for now. Twister… well, if Twister wanted to talk he’d find her. Dash wasn’t even going to try with Squall, he had made his point. Maybe Little Star? Too late, she had disappeared into the group of ponies that all towered over her.

Dash settled on just waiting with Thunderlane. She leaned against the admission desk and glanced around the compound lobby.

Her interest was immediately caught by Fleetfoot. She had finished talking to the staff member at some point and was now low to the ground, slowly creeping along as if trying to sneak up on something. Dash leaned further over in curiosity, but wasn’t too surprised at what she saw.

There was a mail counter along the left wall of the lobby before it turned down into a hallway towards some of the facilities. Waiting patiently with his hooves up on the counter, was that little yellow stallion Dash had seen Fleetfoot basically torture with affection on more than one occasion.

An orange pegasus stallion with a short, messy brown mane walked up and nodded to the yellow stallion with a smile.

“All set, I’ll let you know when the shipment arrives,” the orange stallion said. He looked up suddenly and chuckled. “Better get moving. Your mistress is after you again," he made a small head motion towards Fleetfoot. The yellow stallion flinched and sharply turned his head to see Fleetfoot approaching fast.

“Oh Riiiiiiiivet!” she cooed.

Rivet? Dash blinked as the name registered. She had heard that name on more than one occasion as well. Usually paired with ‘have Rivet fix this’ or ‘tell Rivet we need this.’ So that little guy was this Rivet? He apparently made lots of stuff for them… and apparently was also Fleetfoot’s personal toy.

Rivet squeaked in surprise when he saw Fleetfoot and immediately darted for the nearby hallway as the mail stallion chuckled. Dash watched with amusement as Fleetfoot gave chase. What a poor little guy… but at the same time Dash was sure many stallions would kill to have a famous, good looking mare like Fleetfoot be that affectionate with them.

As Rivet neared the corner of the hallway, Dash’s eyes widened as a very large and muscular light blue stallion with a straight, semi-long brown mane casually walked out into Rivet’s path. Rivet ran nose first into the stallion’s side. The stallion blinked and looked down to his right to see Rivet bounce off and shake his head out. The stallion looked past him to see Fleetfoot fast approaching.

The stallion immediately scooped up Rivet with his right wing and passed him over his back into his left wing, closing it over his small frame. Fleetfoot stopped in her tracks and glared up at the stallion as another large, but not quite as pumped stallion with light brown fur and a black mane of similar style but slightly messier, walked past them and continued into the lobby. Dash’s attention was drawn to the second stallion briefly because he had some interesting features, namely a large scar over his nose and black tips on his wing feathers.

“Come on! I saw you pick him up!” Fleetfoot’s voice drew Dash’s eyes back towards the first stallion. Good god, he was massive! He was almost twice the size of Fleetfoot. He looked like he spent 24/7 in the gym, but he had a more balanced musculature compared to Bulk Biceps. He resembled Big Macintosh more in terms of size and body type. Dash had never seen him or the other stallion that had walked by. She wasn’t familiar with all of the Wonderbolts, but she never expected to see a stallion bigger than Soarin among them. The other was about Soarin’s size, but this blue guy was just BIG.

The blue stallion had a smirk on his face and kept shaking his head whenever Fleetfoot demanded to be given Rivet.

“Open your wings!” she finally asked. The stallion shrugged and opened both of his large wings, but Rivet was nowhere to be seen. “What the?” Fleetfoot blinked as the stallion snickered. “WAIT!” Fleetfoot sharply turned around and pointed at the light brown stallion who was now almost halfway into the lobby. “Hold it, you!” she ordered.

The stallion flinched and casually turned to face Fleetfoot, also wearing a silly grin on his face. Fleetfoot trotted up to him and gave him a comical glare.

“You guys think you’re so clever, but I’ve got you figured out!” Fleetfoot chuckled as she hovered up and crossed her hooves. “Well? Where is he?” she asked.

The blue stallion over by the hallway suddenly gave a sharp, loud whistle. The brown stallion quickly extended his wings. Rivet fell out of the left onto the floor. Before Fleetfoot could do anything, the brown stallion reached his left wing down and reached it beneath Rivet, he did a similar maneuver, tossing Rivet with his left wing over to his right, but instead of grabbing hold of Rivet with his right wing, he used it to launch Rivet into the air.

“Yipe!!!” Rivet squeaked as he lifted into the air until he was about five feet below the high ceiling of the lobby.

Dash’s eyes widened as some…thing zipped in from the opposite hallway and intercepted Rivet. Dash couldn’t tell who or what it was. Whatever it was, it was both moving very fast and blended in almost completely with the dark blue color of the walls and ceiling. It grabbed hold of Rivet and swiftly shot down the hallway past the light blue stallion, who didn’t even flinch as they sped by.

As soon as Rivet and his unseen savior had disappeared the blue and brown stallions burst into laughter. Fleetfoot pouted at them both.

“You guys SUCK!” she whined as Spitfire and Soarin came down the stairs. “Oh!” Fleetfoot quickly gained her composure, ready to be professional… at least a little.

Dash was amused by the whole exchange. She kept her eyes trained on the two big stallions as they continued through the lobby and into the other hall, but her curiosity quickly took a back seat as the lead squad approached.

Dash felt her throat tighten when she saw Soarin. He hadn’t spotted her yet, but she wasn’t prepared for how… nervous she would feel. She was very adamant and very gung-ho about fixing everything, but would it be easier said than done?

“Everypony listen up!” Spitfire called to them. It was amazing how quickly all other conversation stopped. Those who had made it this far had already learned to greatly respect Spitfire’s authority. “Let me be the first to officially welcome you all back to the compound,” she began pacing back and forth. “Tonight is all about getting settled in. We aren’t going to start kicking your asses until tomorrow. So… just like with the tryouts last week. Get comfortable and get some sleep tonight. Your barracks room has been cleaned and all set up for you… try your best to keep it that way,” she stopped pacing and nodded to Soarin. Soarin walked over to the admissions table.

“We have schedules, issued water bottles, and binders here for you,” Spitfire motioned towards the admissions desk. “The schedule will give you a basic idea of how the weeks will go. Until you memorize it, please keep it with you so you don’t waste our time looking for you. Our training is rough and taxing on the body. Keep your water bottle with you at all times… filled… so you stay hydrated. Show up to training without a water bottle, you aren’t training till you haul your ass to find it. Lastly the binders. Any information you need to know about the facility or about our office hours is in the binder. Please don’t bother us unless it’s really important, okay? The binder will also be where you keep any notes during meetings on flight formations, maneuvers, etc.” she stopped and smiled proudly.

“No matter which five of you get selected to stay on the compound, we are all proud of all of you for earning some form of Wonderbolt status. Again, welcome. Now form a single file line to pick up your gear,” she motioned towards Soarin and Fleetfoot.

As they were told, they all lined up and began receiving the schedules, binders, and water bottles. The water bottles were light blue with white pop-tops. The Wonderbolt insignia was in the center of the bottle on two different sides. The binders were just plain white binders. There were only a few sheets of paper in them now, but Dash was confident it would be packed full later.

Dash purposely got in line near the back. She was still nervous about facing Soarin. What was she supposed to say? Should she say anything? It’s not like this was a good time to apologize. It was in front of the rest of the recruits. Dash had nearly forgotten about her desire to keep their relationship quiet… but if she remained quiet, could she fix it?

She got closer…

And closer…

And closer…

And then she was at the front of the line. Fleetfoot said something to Dash as she handed her a schedule and water bottle, but Dash paid no attention.

Soarin’s eyes met hers.

They looked directly into each other’s eyes.

Soarin’s expression was flat. Devoid of emotion. Dash wasn’t sure if he was staying in character… or if it was meant to be hurtful. While there was a large chance that he was keeping professional… why could Dash only think of the hurtful side? She stared right back at him. She wanted desperately to say something, anything. But she said nothing… and he said nothing.

Soarin simply handed her a binder.

Dash took it… and kept walking.

Dash felt crushed. It wasn’t a good time to do anything… but, she was hoping to at least give off a vibe, or maybe give him a smile. Nothing happened. Neither of them showed any love or hate. It felt so… plain.

Dash sighed as she continued walking towards the barracks… but she did not see that Soarin had turned to look at her as she disappeared through the doors into the recruit barracks.

“What the hell was that Soarin?” Fleetfoot remarked as they entered Spitfire’s office. Soarin blinked as he closed the door behind them. Spitfire wasn’t there yet, but she said to meet in her office after handing out the recruit paraphernalia.

“What was what?” Soarin asked while walking over and leaning against the wall. Fleetfoot rolled her eyes and flopped down on the couch.

“Not even a hello? You were so cold to her!” Fleetfoot threw her hooves out, visibly annoyed. Soarin picked up on what she was saying and quickly glared.

“Fleet… this is none of your business. For once, could you just leave me the hell alone to deal with my problems? You don’t have to stuff your nose in my crotch every time I have an issue.”

“Bleh! You wish! That was rather crass, don’t you think?” Fleetfoot stuck her tongue out in disgust.

“Well pardon me, I think I’m actually gonna stand up for my personal space for once,” Soarin pushed off the wall and sat down in one of Spitfire’s chairs. “Besides… I’m an elite squad member and she’s a recruit. Personal stuff is going to have to happen off the record.”

“Oh that’s a load of shit and—”

“No, it’s exactly what I want him to do,” Spitfire cut off Fleetfoot as she entered. Fleetfoot scoffed and turned over onto her back on the couch. “Soarin,” Spitfire began as she walked around behind her desk. “As your friend, I hope you can find a way to mend relations with Dash… but as your captain I remind you to keep things professional when you must. Personal issues are taken care of during personal time, not during Wonderbolt time,” she paused as Soarin glared at her. “It’s JUST a reminder Soarin, you’ve already shown composure once, I expect you to continue it,” she added and Soarin’s glare faded.

“So what’s this meeting for?” Fleetfoot asked as she turned so her hooves were propped up in the air and her head hung off the front of the couch. Spitfire sat down in her desk chair and leaned back.

“Something really important we need to take care of…” she said with a very serious tone. Soarin perked up.

“Our fourth member?” He asked. Spitfire nodded.

“Precisely,” she acknowledged Soarin as she bounced the swivel chair back and forth lightly. Fleetfoot spun around and sat up.

“So… full or part time?” she asked, suddenly very interested. Spitfire shook her head.

“We can’t afford to do a full roster re-haul right now. What we need to focus on is the organization and our secondary functions. We are a military force, that will always be our most important role in Equestria… but donation money doesn’t cover half of our expenses. In short, we need a stand in member for the time being in order to continue our shows. Without the lead squad in attendance, we’ve been getting terrible show reviews and the money flow has weakened considerably. We need to change this and get our finances back on track.”

“Rapidfire was an effect specialist…” Soarin thought out loud. “So… we need another effect specialist? Or are we going to change it up?”

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” Spitfire replied while leaning forward and resting her elbows on the desk. She took a brief look at Soarin’s body, but quickly diverted her eyes and took a deep breath. Soarin rolled his eyes. At least she was keeping it under control. Spitfire refocused and continued “So yes, we need another effect specialist.”

“Surprise?” Fleetfoot chimed in. Spitfire instantly shook her head.

“Under normal circumstances… or should I say under the old Wonderbolt code that would be exactly what we do,” Spitfire gently rubbed her hooves together as she explained. “However, I’m willing to bend them a bit for two reasons. One, squad three is a family. They share a very strong bond, and I would rather step down as lead captain than force them apart. Two, we have to take into account that whoever we pull up to our squad… will be replaced in their squad by Storm Front.”

“Oh… that’s right…” Soarin looked down and pondered. “That puts us in a bind, Spitfire… do you really want a low tier elite member in the lead squad? No offense to them, but…” he trailed off as Spitfire shook her head again.

“It may cause a little bit of controversy, but I already have somepony from a high tier squad in mind.”

“Wow Spitty,” Fleetfoot chuckled. “Brave move. Not only are you gonna put Storm through the high tier training… but you’re also gonna put him up in front of all our cocky low tier squads? You sure you want to put that monkey on his back?”

“He’s already earned the elite spot,” Spitfire nodded. “I’m sure he can handle it. Besides… this is also for the good of our squad… which right now is very important for the organizations finances. We can’t have Surprise, but we can have the next best pony for the job.”

“Next best pony?” Soarin thought. Squad four was a synchronized flying squad. Squad five only had element handlers. Squad six was a mock battle squad… “Squad seven?” Soarin spoke up. Fleetfoot froze and her eyes widened. It was so harsh that Soarin could see her lock up clearly from his peripheral vision. He blinked for a second, then realized why. “Oh… ha… haha…” Soarin chuckled at Fleetfoot’s reaction.

“Spitfire…” Fleetfoot looked at her in a state of shock and pure disbelief. “You aren’t seriously considering…”

“Is there a problem Fleetfoot?” Spitfire raised an eyebrow at her.

“I HUMBLY request you pick someone else!” Fleetfoot sharply stood up and planted her hooves on the other side of Spitfire’s desk.

“Fleet, he is the most qualified member of the Wonderbolts to fill this role for now. Do you have reasons to object? I’m listening,” Spitfire kept a straight face.

“He’s a dumbass… and annoying as hell… and I can’t stand him! Want me to get a list? I’m sure I could write them ALL down!” Fleetfoot grinded her teeth together, but the look of dread stayed plastered to her face.

“All personal reasons,” Spitfire said sternly right back. “Do you have any professional reasons?”

“I…” Fleetfoot’s mouth hung open, but she found nothing to say.

“I thought so,” Spitfire nodded as Fleetfoot backed away from the desk. “Now then… I sent for Storm Front before we gathered, he should be here any moment—” she was cut off by three knocks on the door. “Wow, talk about timing! Come in!” Spitfire called as Soarin glanced at the door. He chuckled as he saw Fleetfoot flop back down on the couch and sulk in his peripheral vision.

The door opened and Storm Front walked in with a unicorn mare staff member behind him.

“Thanks,” Spitfire said to the unicorn. “Sorry to bother you again, but could you also go grab squad seven for me?”

“Yes ma’am,” the unicorn saluted before leaving and closing the door behind her.

Storm Front immediately stood attention to show respect, but Spitfire waved a hoof at him.

“At ease, Storm,” she requested. He exhaled and stood casually. Soarin did his best to suppress a chuckle. Storm looked so nervous that he might have an accident. “First, I just want to congratulate you again,” Spitfire began. “You stood out amongst so many and deserve the elite spot. I expect great things from you.”

“T-thank you, ma’am!” Storm stuttered nervously. Soarin failed to hold in a snort, but he quickly focused as Spitfire shot a glare at him. She turned back to Storm and looked at him sternly.

“Now… because of certain circumstances we must adapt to meet, you are being given another opportunity. We are merging a member from squad seven into our own for the time being and we need somepony to take his spot...” she noticed a visible flinch, but it’s not like she was expecting him not to be a little nervous. “The training will be incredibly difficult… but from what I’ve seen you do, I am confident you will be able to handle it. "Squad seven will be here shortly to exchange their member for you… but before they come I want to make sure of one thing…” Spitfire took a deep breath and hardened her expression even more.

“Storm, I am sure you are aware by now… or are figuring out that we are not just stunt flyers… yes?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am, in fact I’ve known for a while ma’am,” he replied in form despite being told to be at ease.

“I’m curious then,” Spitfire kept her eyes locked on him. “You have made it apparent that you dislike seeing others get hurt… yet you join a military organization… that at any time can be called into combat. You have me worried this will be a problem. Prove me wrong.”

“Ma’am, I have always disliked hurting others and seeing others get hurt,” Storm quickly began almost as if on cue. Soarin blinked as he listened. The timing was too perfect. It was as if Storm knew the question was coming. Always prepared? He just proved that to Spitfire. Storm continued. “However, if I see those I care about, or those who cannot protect themselves in danger… I will fight and defeat our opponents to keep them safe.”

Soarin nodded in satisfaction. He glanced over at Fleetfoot, but she was still sulking. Soarin rolled his eyes and looked to Spitfire instead. She was smiling.

“Good answer. No, that was a perfect answer. Welcome to the Wonderbolts, Storm,” she nodded and extended a hoof. Storm hesitated, but reached forward and shook hooves with Spitfire. He almost looked giddy to do so. “Now…” Spitfire leaned back. "Squad seven should be here any minute. But… be warned, we’re exchanging you with their captain… and their captain is a tad—”

Spitfire was cut off as a large BANG came from the door as if it was kicked. Storm turned around in surprise, but the door was still closed.

“Stupid…” Spitfire finished with a sigh.

The doorknob turned very quietly and the door was pushed open just enough to take it off the bolt. There was a brief pause before the door was kicked again and it swung open.

A tall, white, absolutely ridiculous looking stallion jumped in and pointed dramatically into the room. He had a short, blue, spiky mane, wore a red cape, and was wearing a pair of red sunglasses that were shaped like two long triangles, extending way past the sides of his head.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Calling us away from training… you’ve got a lotta balls captain! I like it! Bringing us here can only mean you have a mission of DEE-VINE proportions for us!” the stallion yelled out at the top of his lungs as three other Wonderbolts walked in behind him: two stallions and a mare.

The first stallion was very short, cream colored with a poofy orange mane. He wore a pair of large circular rimmed glasses and looked absurdly unamused.

The second stallion was a little smaller than Soarin, but very muscular… at least up top. He wasn’t very proportional just like their strength coach Pec Bounce. He was red, with a scraggily brown mane pressed down to his neck by a red handkerchief that was tied over his head and a full brown beard. He donned a pair of sunglasses that were so ridiculously designed they looked more like ski goggles.

The mare was… well… huge. In fact she was the same size as Soarin, and almost as muscular. Her fur was a dark shade of green. She had a large, fluffy mane and tail that were a nice golden brown color. Despite her rather strong figure and appearance, she wore a very gentle expression along with her dark blue eyes and faint freckles right above her cheek.

“Air Mach…” Spitfire sighed while addressing the stallion in front. “Do you ALWAYS have to kick my door open?”

“Air Mach? How dare you call me by a name I’ve long abandoned! It lacked the stallion spirit! The name is Animak! It sounds kinda like my old name and rolls off the tongue a lot better! Plus, it'll be easy for my enemies to yell out when I fly into battle to kick some ass!”

“He’s an idiot…” Fleetfoot mumbled loud enough for them to hear.

“A real idiot…” the small stallion said with a thick foreign accent.

“A huge idiot…” the large mare said with a sigh.

“OH YEAH! CAPTAIN ANIMAK IS FOR REAL!” the gruff stallion nearly strained his voice. The small stallion turned to him.

“You’re an idiot too.”

“Air Mach,” Spitfire addressed him again despite what he had just passionately proclaimed. “The lead squad needs a highly skilled effect specialist to stand in for Rapidfire until we can formally find a new member. I have decided it will be you,” she rolled her eyes as he struck another pose. Soarin couldn’t stop snickering. Air Mach was such an idiot… but he sure knew how to entertain. Fleetfoot might not like it, but Soarin always enjoyed Air Mach’s antics. Spitfire continued. “I hereby temporarily relieve you of captain of squad seven in favor of becoming the fourth member of the lead squad.”

“HA! My rise to fame and a whole new level of greatness!” Air Mach pointed his hoof towards the ceiling. “Rest assured captain ma’am! With my added might, surely we will have the strength to pierce the heavens!” He turned to the other members of squad seven. “Macho Savage!” he pointed at the disproportionate, bearded stallion. “While I’m gone I appoint you in charge! I can think of no finer stallion to carry on my spirit!”

“Point Dex, you are the new captain of squad seven for now,” Spitfire said to the small stallion with the glasses.

“Point Dex!” Air Mach shifted his body so he was pointing at the small stallion instead. “While I’m gone I appoint you in charge! I can think of no finer stallion to carry on my spirit!” he repeated word for word as Dex rolled his eyes and Macho hung his head in defeat.

“Celestia alive! Do you have to yell EVERY TIME YOU SPEAK?!” Fleetfoot suddenly snapped from over on the couch. Air Mach turned and pointed at her.

“Ah! Fleetfoot! Fear not, your one and only stallion among colts is now here to protect you around the clock!” he smirked while leaping over and standing before her.

“Spitfire whyyyyyyyyy?!” Fleetfoot whined as she shifted as far down the couch as she could.

“Hey! That’s no way to treat a sincere stallion! Give it time, lady! You’ll never know what hit ya once I’ve been around!” Air Mach continued to yell.

“JUST KILL ME NOW!!!!!” Fleetfoot flopped chest-first onto Spitfire’s desk and slowly slid off in despair as Spitfire sat perfectly still and serious.

Storm hadn’t moved the whole time. He just watched quietly as the ridiculous scene unfolded around him. Soarin finally calmed his constant chuckling, took a deep breath and walked over to Storm.

“Come on, let’s introduce you to squad seven…” he said as Fleetfoot and Air Mach continued to bark at each other in the background. He pulled the confused Storm by the shoulder over to the short stallion first. “This is Point Dex. I guess he’s going to be your captain. He may be small and not much of a force, but he’s probably the smartest pony I’ve ever met save for our chief engineer of course,” Soarin looked to Dex, who furrowed his brow

“I will figure out how Rivet does it someday, I swear it,” he said as he reached a hoof out. “Welcome Storm, I hope you aren’t like Captain Idiot over there,” he made a head motion towards Air Mach. Storm turned and looked just in time to see Fleetfoot punch Air Mach square in the face, but Mach didn’t even flinch, nor did his sunglasses bend an inch as if they were unbreakable.

“I guarantee you I’m not like that,” Storm said with a nervous chuckle. Soarin led Storm over to the large mare. Storm blinked, finally getting a good look at her. “Whoa…” he blinked as he looked her up and down, and then up again to see her face. She blushed in embarrassment, but smiled.

“This is Autumn Rain,” Soarin introduced her. "As you can probably guess, she’s the strongest mare we have in our ranks. But don’t let the muscles fool you. She’s very kind and gentle.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said quietly while holding out a hoof. Storm reached forward to shake it, but was almost yanked down as he did.

“Whoa!” He steadied himself before falling.

“Oh my! Sorry… I get excited when I meet new people…” Rain hunched her shoulders up shyly while sticking only the very tip of her tongue out of her mouth.

“Yeah, she’s gentle unless she gets excited. Then be careful,” Soarin chuckled as he led Storm over to the bearded pony. “Last but not least, this is—”

“OOOOH YEEEEAH! I’m THE Macho Savage! I bring the MADNESS! And the madness is ALWAYS runnin’ wild! DIG IT!” Macho cut him off.

“Uh… yes,” Soarin tried to take over as he had to hold tight to Storm’s shoulder to prevent him from reclining too much. “He’s—”

“YOU’RE IN THE DANGER ZONE NOW BROTHER!” Macho reached forward and pulled Storm into a head lock. “I’m a tower of power! Too sweet to be sour!”

“Right, now—” Soarin tried again.

“TOO HOT TO HANDLE AND TOO COLD TO HOLD! YA BETTER WATCH OUT KID! THE MADNESS IS COMIN’ AT YA!”

“Help…” Storm looked at Soarin desperately. Soarin smirked.

“Have fun Storm!” Soarin gave a brief wave and turned away. They were an interesting bunch, but Soarin was sure Storm would be in good hooves. Confident all was well, despite Fleetfoot trying to choke Air Mach a few feet away from them, Soarin leaned on Spitfire’s desk. “Everything looks normal, what do you think?” he joked. Spitfire let one laugh escape.

“We’re a bunch of highly trained comedians… I swear…” Spitfire shook her head, but she looked satisfied.

“Oh, I was curious…” Soarin suddenly remembered something. “Who did you assign to train the new recruits?” he asked. Spitfire leaned aside as Air Mach came flying at her desk, bounced off, and fell in a heap on the floor. He sprang up quickly, completely unscathed and pounded his chest.

“Fleetfoot, you fight with the spirit of a true stallion!” he proclaimed passionately as he approached her again.

“I’M A MARE!” she snarled back at him.

“Well then…” Spitfire turned to Soarin. “As I’m sure you are well aware, this is the most potent group of recruits I have ever seen. So I want to make sure they have the absolute best training we can offer them,” she answered, but stopped there. Soarin blinked and stared, waiting for her to say more.

“So… mind telling me who you chose?” he rotated his hoof towards her, beckoning her to answer.

“I just did,” she replied seriously.

Soarin continued to stare as he repeated her words in his head.

“The absolute best training we can—” Soarin’s eyes widened. “Wait… Spitfire, what? You can’t be serious…”

“Mmhmm…” Spitfire nodded.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Now wasn't that fun? ;D

and first i must say, Y'ALL WERE PUNKED. Those five sneak peak oc's in the blog a while back? they were all real. I'm so bad xD

Anyway, Storm has quite an experience ahead of him, and now the lead squad has to deal with KaminaCOUGH i mean Animak! er... Air Mach! Whatever his name is!

And hoo boy what is in store for Dash and the recruits? I guess you'll find out in a day or two eh? ;3

Anyway, this chapter flew by, i was so happy to finally write this part! :3 the next chapter is another part ive been dying to get at, so who knows, i might pull another fast one! but don't quote me on that, i'll try but i dunno for sure.

Thanks for reading!

I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 32: Senior Flight Instructor Silver Lining

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 32:

Dash sighed as she walked through the hallway that used to be filled to the brim with makeshift bunks. As weird as it looked for the main hallway of the recruit barracks to be so wide open, she barely even registered it.

It didn’t matter what she saw or did, if Soarin was ever on her mind, he took precedent. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself he was just being professional, something about their exchange… or lack thereof in the lobby upon arrival just felt so cold. There was no feeling between them. She felt no emotion from his eyes.

It’s not like she expected him to be happy. She did yell at him and say some awful things. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy to apologize… but she never dreamed the pressure in her chest would feel so heavy. She found her worry expanding into every inch of her heart.

This was not good. She had to focus on why she was there, not her personal problems. She could solve the dilemma with Soarin later… but it was just bothering her so much! She felt the need to keep her relationship with Soarin under wraps like she had before, but she felt like if she waited too long things would go even further south. If things went further south, her focus would surely suffer. She was at a three way stop, and every direction was a dead end.

“Are you alright?”

“GAH!” Dash’s wings spread and she fired straight up. A large black wing extended and stopped her ascent.

“Careful, the ceiling’s low in here,” a sharp griffon accent stuck to the words.

“Sweet foal Luna… Matteo, how the hell are you so quiet?!” Dash put a hoof over her chest and took a few deep breaths.

“I’ve been walking behind you since the mess hall. It’s not like I’m trying, paws and talons are quieter than hooves,” Matteo put simply as he they continued towards their assigned barrack.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” Dash lied through her teeth so hard they almost got knocked out.

“That’s not how I see it,” Matteo commented. “I saw you in the mess hall. I was one table down. You said nothing, and didn’t even flinch when Twister tried to annoy you.”

“Wait, what did Twister do?” Dash stopped in her tracks and glanced at Matteo.

“You really didn’t see him? He was making faces at you from all directions… even right in front of you,” Matteo explained as he stopped and turned slightly to look down at her. Dash blinked as she tried to recall it. She remembered eating a few minutes ago… but she couldn’t recall anything else that happened in the mess hall. She was too busy thinking about Soarin. Twister was messing with her and she didn’t even notice?

This was worse than she thought.

“Okay, fine…” Dash gave in as they began walking again. “I’ve got some shit on my mind right now.”

“Bad timing,” Matteo put bluntly. Dash rolled her eyes.

“No, really?” she said sarcastically as they approached the door to their assigned barrack.

“I suggest you put it aside for now,” Matteo continued. Dash stopped again and shot him a slightly annoyed look.

“You’re also very helpful…” she said even more sarcastically.

“When I make the top five I’d hate for one of your skill to be left out,” Matteo said with a completely straight face as he opened the door. Dash’s face made a full shift from annoyed to surprised. “Or would you rather go home a reserve?”

Dash blinked as she looked up into Matteo’s permanent glare. He was being completely serious. He was also… completely right. Dash was worried about Soarin and Soarin was very important to her, but even if she did work to fix things ASAP, if she screwed up in the Wonderbolt process, she’d be stuck back at square one. Order of operations. Soarin was important, but she had to secure HER future before fixing theirs.

Dash may have been without her old friends to guide her, but she had new ones that could offer aid here and there. Even if it was blunt and stone-faced. The effect was what mattered.

“Ha!” Dash chuckled and smiled as she felt some confidence return. “Me? A reserve? Get real,” she flipped her mane over her other shoulder. “Just don’t slow me down,” she winked at Matteo and she swore she saw just a little smile in the corner of his beak.

They walked into the room and through the aisle of bunks. These bunks were different than the makeshift ones thrown together for the tryouts. These were real, wooden bunk beds with real mattresses. There were five bunks on each side of the room for two ponies each, with an extra-large single bed shoved into the corner on the left side for Matteo. It reminded Dash of the bed Soarin had in his room. She was sure the staff had no choice but to give Matteo a deluxe bed. He certainty didn’t fit on any of the standard bunks.

With a smaller room and only twenty of them total, Dash felt a hell of a lot less cramped. There was even at least five feet of space between the bunks. A lot more room to move and stretch. They even had large footlockers to store their things instead of makeshift dressers. She liked it. She had already claimed a bottom bunk before the week of rest. She had grown accustomed to it during the tryouts. She had yet to see who decided to be her bunkmate though.

She looked around the room examining the other recruits as she sat down on her bed. She actually still hadn’t met most of them. She figured at some point she’d get to know them, but she already had a little bit of a crowd she rolled with.

Speaking of, she scanned the room to find her acquaintances. Matteo was over by his bed, but she had just talked to him. She looked to her left to see Thunderlane setting up in the bottom of the bunk to the immediate left of hers. He looked up and gave her a brief wave. She nodded and went back to scanning. Twister was perched on top of the bunk across from hers. He was leaning over the side and staring like a vulture down at Squall, who was in the bottom of the bunk beside Twister’s, sitting with his back against the pillow with his front arms crossed, and still scowling for no reason.

Twister and Squall? Dash could only imagine how that conversation would go.

The only one she couldn’t find was Little Star… Where was that little filly? Dash really wanted to introduce herself to her. So young, but a Wonderbolt recruit? It was kind of awesome. Dash blinked when she felt the bunk move slightly. Dash looked straight up and saw the mattress shifting above her.

Oh… no wonder she couldn’t see Little Star. Were they bunkmates?

Dash stood up from her bed and took two steps out to create a little distance between her and the bed frame. She didn’t want to creepily peer over the side of the top bunk at a filly. That was a one way ticket to being feared or disliked on the first impression. Dash softly hovered into the air, and lo and behold, Little Star was on the top mattress, mixing up her pillow. Perfect, Dash could finally meet her, and since they were bunkmates, maybe get to know her.

“Hey there!” Dash spoke up while putting on the friendliest air she could muster. The filly stopped fluffing the pillow and turned to look at Dash. Her long, pink and yellow mane swished around and covered her face, but she quickly reached up and pushed it aside. “You must be Little Star, I’m Rainbow Dash, I guess we’re bunk mates,” Dash stuck out a hoof. Little Star gave her a warm smile and nodded. Star opened her mouth to speak, but her voice was completely muffled by—

“DAMMIT! QUIT IT!” Squall's voice echoed across the room.

Dash sharply turned to see Twister standing on the vacant portion of Squall’s bed and stretching his neck all the way forward to get in Squall’s face.

Dash sighed and shook her head. Those two were going to be a disaster.

Well then…” Dash turned back to Little Star. “You know I’ve been wanting to say this for a while. You are kind of really awesome. I mean, come on who would expect a little filly like you to become a Wonderbolt? It’s really inspiring and—” Dash suddenly stopped when Little Star’s expression quickly changed from cheerful to flat. Dash blinked. “Uh… what?” she asked while tipping her head slightly. Little Star sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Honey, don’t worry, I get this all the time…” Little Star’s voice was finally heard… but it was mature and refined… “I’m not a filly. I’m thirty,” she said very calmly and casually.

Dash’s eyes widened and her mouth slammed shut. She stared at star with a completely blank look.

“Oh… uh…” Dash found her voice as her eyes darted back and forth. “Er…” she really didn’t know how to respond. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry…” she just apologized and let her head hang, but Star let out a hearty giggle.

“Oh stop, stop…” she inched forward, grabbed the sides of Dash’s head and forced her up. “Like I said, I get it all the time. Besides, does my age change the opinion of your compliment?” she asked as Dash blinked.

“Huh? Oh!” Dash realized and thought for a moment. “No… you had some really sick moves. That’s what really caught my attention,” Dash explained. Star smiled and nodded contently.

“Then thank you!” she bowed. “It’s nice to meet you Rainbow Dash,” she replied politely before going back to her bed. It looked like she was trying to make it seamless and wrinkle-free, so Dash left her alone, sitting back down on her bed.

Well… that was unexpected. Dash was beginning to lose count of how many ‘out of the ordinary’ ponies she had met during this whole experience. But she supposed if one wanted to be a Wonderbolt, they already had to be at least a little out of the ordinary. Needless to say, Little Star was yet another pony of interest, but she also seemed very nice. Dash was confident they’d get along.

“Huh?” Dash looked up as she saw Wonderbolt staff members, earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi alike passing through their room with bedroom supplies. Pillows, pieces of a bed frame, a dresser, even a desk at one point.

Dash followed them with her eyes and realized they were taking them to a separate room that she at first assumed was a janitor’s closet. The back wall of their barrack had two doors, leading to the mare’s and stallion’s bathroom/shower rooms. On the left side of the wall next to the entrance of the stallion’s bathroom, was Matteo’s bed, but on the other beside the mare’s bathroom, was an open space where this mystery door was. If the staff was setting up a room in there… who was going to use it?

A sharp whistle suddenly came from the entrance. Dash, the recruits, and all the Wonderbolt staff turned to look. High Winds was standing in the doorway. She released a loud, high pitched yawn before waving her hoof in a circle in the air.

“All staff… Skedaddle. It’s show time,” she said lazily as she turned and walked right back out the door. Dash and the recruits all stared in confusion, but the staff members quickly finished moving what they had brought so far before all making haste towards the entrance. They were all gone within half a minute, closing the door behind them.

Dash glanced over at Thunderlane. Thunderlane looked at her and shrugged. Dash looked to Matteo across the room next, but he was just as confused.

Then the door suddenly slowly opened again.

Soarin pondered what to do. Dinner had just ended, they had no meetings scheduled, and he didn’t feel like hitting the gym again.

He stopped in the middle of the lobby and glanced in every possible direction. The flight track? No. Maybe stop in the training room for a massage? Nah. The gym? Wait didn’t he already decide against that one?

“Rgh…” Soarin shook his head. The only other option was to go back to his room, but he didn’t feel like sitting down. He had too much on his mind still. The little comedy show in Spitfire’s office before dinner was a nice, but brief relief from his other troubles.

He had to just forget about Dash for now. Damage had been done, but trying to fix it all when neither of them were in a position to do so would only lead to more potential problems. They’d get to it… but it sucked having to wait so long with a sour taste in his mouth. If only he could just approach her and find out what was on her mind…

“Hey Wonderbro!” Air Mach’s voice suddenly came from behind him. Soarin turned in time to see Air Mach sling his arm over his shoulder and point towards the recruit barracks. “What are you standing around for!? You’re gonna miss the show!”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked as Air Mach began pulling him along. Soarin didn’t retaliate as Air Mach pushed through the doors into the main hallway of the barracks. There was a large gathering of Wonderbolts in front of one of the doors.

Upon closer inspection, Soarin realized the crowded door was the room where the new recruits were being kept. Lightning Streak and Surprise were closest to the door with Blaze and High Winds right behind them. A large number of other Wonderbolts from multiple squads had gathered around.

It took him a moment, but then Soarin realized what was happening.

“Oh… that’s right…” Soarin blinked as he remembered asking Spitfire about who was training the recruits.

“Got the list? Don’t miss any details,” Lightning asked surprise as a grin curled on his lips. Surprise unrolled a very long list that rolled along the floor, through the gathered crowd, and all the way to the opposite wall.

“You betcha! Ready and waiting!” Surprise exclaimed as she ruffled to the end of the list and crouched down with a feather quill. Soarin chuckled at the elaborate preparations. He pulled himself free of Air Mach and approached the door as well, leaning in.

“Did he just go in?” Soarin asked Blaze.

“Yeah, shit’s about to get real!” she smirked giddily.

“Oh man, this’ll be good…” Soarin listened carefully.

“EVERYPONY LINE THE HELL UP! IN FRONT OF YOUR BUNKS! TWO EACH!”

All of the recruits jumped as the voice boomed into the room and ricocheted off every surface. They froze and stared towards the entrance.

Silver Lining was standing right inside. He quickly looked at all of them just staring and he glared harshly.

“Did I STUTTER!? GET! LINED! UP!” he belted in a voice so terrifying and demanding that it only took the recruits five seconds to line up accordingly and stand attention. Dash remembered this from flight camp, only it was Spitfire barking at them. She expected it would be the same, but something about Silver Lining… was much more intimidating.

Silver slowly began pacing up and down the center of the aisle. He shot heavy looks back and forth at all the recruits as he moved. He walked from the entrance to the opposite wall, then back, then once more down and back before turning and stopping by the entrance again.

“Hmm… I wasn’t expecting pansies…” he said to himself before clearing his throat. “Evening recruits, and welcome to Wonderbolts training camp! I guarantee you that is the first and last time you will hear me say something nice to you during your one month of training to come!”

Silver began pacing back through the aisle again.

“For those of you who don’t have a goddamn clue… my name is Silver Lining… I have been selected by Captain Spitfire to be your Senior Training Instructor. Why did she select me? Because for some reason she thinks you’re all the best she’s ever seen… Well I beg to differ…” he stopped in the middle and sharply turned to the recruits on his right. They all flinched. “If you were the best… you wouldn’t NEED training!” he turned all the way around to his left. “You’re nothing but doormats under our hoofs!” he paced to the other end of the room and faced them with his back to the bathrooms.

“In one month’s time,” he scanned the room. “You’re all gonna hate my guts to the point where I’ll have to sleep with a security guard posted outside my room! But it will be because of ME that you will be the finest flyers we’ve ever had. Spitfire thinks you already are… well she’s wrong, I have to MAKE you the finest flyers first,” he paused and scanned them again.

“Now it’s time to set some ground rules… RULE NUMBER ONE! Why the hell are you all still looking at me?!” he suddenly yelled out angrily. “When I am present you stand attention and FACE FORWARD!” On cue, Dash and the rest of the recruits all turned, stiffened, and faced straight forward. “You will not look at me unless I’m looking directly at you! If you turn your head so help me Celestia I will force feed you LIGHTNING! REAL LIGHTNING!”

Dash swore she heard a few snickers outside the entrance door, but she didn’t look. She didn’t feel hungry for lightning at the moment.

“Good, we got that one down… RULE NUMBER TWO!” he started walking back down the aisle. “When I speak to you… the first and last words out of your damn mouths will be SIR! Do I make myself crystal clear?!” Silver froze mid-step and glanced around. “WELL?!”

“Sir, yes sir!” the recruits all said together in sloppy unison.

“Was that supposed to convince me?!” Silver fumed. “I can’t make you do anything, BUT I CAN MAKE YOU WISH YOU HAD!”

“SIR, YES SIR!” the recruits all yelled in better sync.

“That’s more like it! Something that I find absent among a lot of our flyers today… is proper respect for authority! Well guess what? By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be licking our hooves clean unless we tell you not to!” Silver snorted in slight satisfaction. “Now then… lemme see what kind of ponies they gave me…”

There had been a lingering fear amongst the recruits since Silver had made them all stand attention. The fear had just become a reality. He was walking up to each recruit and eyeballing them closely. None of them dared to move. He had already successfully intimidated them all. Even Dash felt no urge to test Silver.

Silver stopped directly in front of Squall first. Squall was standing attention, but even in this scenario his heavy scowl remained. Silver stared headlong into it as if it wasn't even there.

“That’s a pretty smile you’re giving me recruit! What’s your name dirt bag?!” Silver yelled in his face.

“Sir! Squall, sir!” Squall replied with a hint of annoyance that didn’t go unnoticed.

“Whoa ho! I sense animosity! That’s a damn record I’ve only been in here for five minutes! Are you that fast at everything?! Huh?!” Silver barked. Squall picked up on what he was saying and his scowl hardened. “Don’t you look at me in that tone of voice recruit! Answer the question!” Squall glared even harder. “This is rich, do you honestly think you scare me chuckle nuts? Think again smiley, you’re about as vicious as a bowl of Ovaltine! Since you’d rather not say, I’m gonna go with ‘yes!’” he sharply turned away and kept walking before Squall could glare at him even harder.

Silver was walking with heavy stomping steps as he looked back and forth for his next target. He stopped at the end of the left side and stared up at Matteo.

“Holy shit! You’re the ugliest pony I’ve ever seen!” Silver extended his wings and hovered up to he could get in Matteo’s line of sight. “Either that or you took one hell of a wrong turn looking for the Sky Wings! I know how griffons are, warrior spirit and some other fun shit! Should I expect you to look down on me? HUH?!” he yelled as he rose slightly higher than Matteo’s head to look down at him. Matteo didn’t flinch, nor did he miss a beat.

“Sir! I will respect your authority at all times, sir!” Matteo replied. Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“Apparently griffons are suck ups too! I’m already feeling the love! How hard can you suck recruit? Can you suck hard?” Silver got as close to Matteo’s face as his beak allowed.

“Sir, no sir!” Matteo tried to deflect.

“I doubt that, fatass! I bet you could suck a watermelon through a saxophone!” Silver shot back before instantly breaking away and heading for the other side.

Dash gulped as he started walking and stopped in front of Little Star beside her. Silver looked down at her, blinked, put his hoof up to his forehead, and then slowly lowered it down to her head.

“Sweet mercy recruit… I’ve pinched loaves bigger than you… come find me next time we go get a drink, I’ll be sure to order you a thimble of whiskey!” he said nothing more to her. Star got off easy.

Dash froze solid as Silver stepped towards her, but right before he stopped, Silver’s head turned to Thunderlane beside her instead. Dash couldn’t see him well in her peripheral vision, but Thunderlane was clearly shaking. Silver slowly walked over to Thunderlane and slowly moved his face forward until his nose was almost pressed to Thunderlane’s. Silver was at least a head taller than him, which just added to the effect.

“What’s the matter recruit? Are you scared?” Silver sniffed sharply. “You smell like fear. You afraid of me recruit!?” he raised his voice slightly at the end. Thunderlane gulped.

“S-sir, y-yes sir!” Thunderlane’s voice cracked so hard Dash winced.

“Could you repeat that in a frequency we can hear, recruit?!” Silver pressed his nose to Thunderlane’s.

“S-S-S-S-Sir!” Thunderlane stuttered, only managing the first sir.

“What the hell recruit!? I’m a fun guy! I can carry a conversation, you just gotta speak, dammit!” Thunderlane tried again but only squeaked. He pushed his head further into Thunderlane's face, making making him stumble. “God dammit recruit! Do us a favor, grab your balls and twist until you find a voice!”

Dash felt a snicker try to escape her throat. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Dash would hold it in. She was more than certain if she laughed at all Silver would tear her a new one.

However, in her effort to not laugh, she didn’t realize that she was turning her head to look towards them.

“LET’S TALK LIKE FRIENDS, RECRUIT!” Silver continued. “IT’S EASY TO TALK TO FRIENDS, RIGHT?!”

“S-sir, yes sir!” Thunderlane managed to find his voice.

“That’s more like it!” Silver pushed his face harder into Thunderlane, Thunderlane stumbled backward again, but still stood attention. “Now, ask me if I’m a tree!”

“Sir, Uh…wha—?”

“I SAID ASK ME IF I’M A TREE!” Silver repeated. Thunderlane blinked.

“Are you a—”

“NO!” Silver cut him off, yelling at the top of his lungs. Thunderlane’s mane nearly blew back under the pressure of Silver’s voice.

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

Dash let it slip. She quickly put a hoof to her mouth as she snorted. She instantly realized what she had done. As soon as she looked back up, she noticed she had not only turned slightly to watch, but Silver Lining was staring directly at her. Dash quickly turned back and faced forward.

Silver slowly pulled away from Thunderlane and slowly moved over to Dash.

“And just what the hell were you staring at, Skittles?” he narrowed his eyes. Dash was fearing for her life, but there were still laughs trying to surface. A goofy smile refused to leave her face. “Don’t you smile at me…” he said quietly as he instantly got right in her face. Dash flinched and her eyes widened. “I’m not your mother. I do not make you cookies. I don’t hold your hoof across the street and I sure as HELL don’t want to see you smile.”

Dash suddenly felt very, very intimidated.

“It didn’t take long for you to break my first rule… do you think you’re better than me?” he kept speaking quietly.

“SirNoSir!” Dash replied so fast, the words almost merged together. She felt it build up in her throat again. Why was she struggling to suppress laughter? She was going to bring death upon herself at this rate. She snorted again and the smile crept back on her face. Silver’s eyes narrowed considerably and he gritted his teeth.

“What the hell did I just say to you recruit?!” he barked. “Why do you keep smiling at me?! Do you wanna bang or something?!” He stepped forward, forcing Dash to step back.

“Sir, no sir!” Dash desperately replied as she forced her face back to a serious expression. Silver raised both his eyebrows while still keeping them angled down… Dash had never seen anypony do that before, but it was terrifying.

“Huh?! I’m suddenly not good enough for you?!” He had pushed himself so far forward that Dash’s plot was pressed against her bunk. She was forced to crouch as he forced himself over her.

“Sir! Uh… y-yes… Sir?”

“OH! SO YOU DO WANNA BANG ME THEN!” Silver started moving his head down as Dash condensed further.

“Uhhhhhh, SIR, THIS RECRUIT DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO RESPOND SIR!” Dash desperately replied.

“Well that’s too bad!” Silver pulled back completely, returning Dash’s personal space to her. “Get up!” he ordered. Dash was back on her hooves faster than one could blink, standing attention, and no longer feeling the urge to laugh. Silver was still right in front of her though. “From now on, if you eye me like that again, I might just consider it! Hell, you were looking into my eyes like you wanted to be the little spoon!” He pressed his face to hers again. “But so help me Celestia, if you break my number one rule one more time, I will shove my head through your chest and DROP KICK YOUR HOPES AND DREAMS! IS THAT CLEAR RECRUIT!?”

“SIR, YES SIR!” Dash yelled out. Hoping, wishing, and pleading for him to move on. Thankfully he did. Dash had never had so much willpower thrust upon her in her life. Silver Lining sure knew how to make a pony regret breaking rules. She sure as HELL was never going to break attention again!

Silver began walking towards the entrance, making the recruits believe for a moment that the worst was over… for now. But then Silver stopped and turned sharply towards the left side again. His eyes landed on Twister, who was facing forward, but had his typical maniacal grin plastered to his face.

“What the hell?” Silver said quietly as he turned and strutted up to Twister. Twister was smaller than Thunderlane, so Silver towered over him. “I’ve seen some shit in my life… but this…” Silver bent down and locked eyes with Twister.

Despite being afraid of him now, Dash was legitimately curious how Silver would handle Twister. Fleetfoot was able to take him down a notch… but it didn’t seem like Silver had the same crazy spirit as Fleetfoot.

“Do you always look this stupid or is it just when I’m around?” Silver asked him. Twister didn’t respond, he just smiled wider to the point where his teeth were showing and lifted one of his eyebrows. Silver didn’t flinch. “Has anypony ever told you that you have the traits of a foal who’s mother frequently drank bleach during pregnancy? You’re about as screwed up as a soup sandwich! Well, I’m all ears recruit… what do you have to say for yourself?”

Twister was suddenly gone in the blink of an eye. He tried… Dash couldn’t believe Twister ACTUALLY tried.

Silver didn’t move from his spot. In fact, he kept staring right where Twister was before disappearing. All Silver did was lift up his right hoof and slam it down hard.

“ARGH! ACK!!!!” a painful shout came from below him. Silver slowly looked down. Twister was stuck with Silver’s hoof pushed firmly on his chest. Silver leaned his head down and pressed his nose against Twister’s.

Dash had seen Twister look confused… but this was the first time she had seen him look afraid. He had a genuine look of fear in his eyes as Silver grinded his teeth together so hard it could almost be heard from everywhere in the room.

“You got balls… I admire them. But if you seriously thought you could mess with me and get away with… you’re SADLY mistaken. YOU LITTLE SHIT!” He yelled into Twister’s face.“I’ve got your soul! I’ve got your ass! You will not smile! You will not laugh! You will not enjoy a single moment of this month and I will make sure of it!” He was yelling so hard, Twister had to shut his eyes. “You think you’re so sly and sneaky?! You’re about as sneaky as a ten pound bag of hammered dog shit! I’ve never met a recruit more messed up in the head! I bet your birth certificate is an apology from the condom factory!”

Dash definitely heard it that time… from the entry door… snickering and the sound of stifled laughter. What was going on out there?

Silver pulled his head back from Twister, but kept glaring down at him. He lightened the pressure of his hoof a little, but still kept it in place so Twister couldn’t get up.

“Damn son, the only thing keeping me from breaking you in half right now is that I don’t want TWO of you around!” he picked up his hoof. “ON YOUR HOOVES!” he barked. Twister scrambled to his hooves in an extremely clumsy manner. Dash had never seen Twister so broken… Silver was… unreal.

Silver waited for Twister to stand at full attention before getting in his face again.

“You better wise up wise ass, or I will FIND WAYS to make you!” He yelled. “I swear if I find you pulling your creepy disappearing acts again, I will crawl up your ass and EXPLODE!” he thrust his face forward on the last syllable. “We clear, recruit?!”

“Sir, yes sir!” Twister’s voice sounded… normal. The creepy tone completely gone. Silver pulled away from him and walked towards the entry door.

“Well! It was nice getting to know you all! I’m sure I’m gonna have lots of fun!” he pointed towards the other side of the room. “I’m sure you saw our staff setting up that room… that is MY room. That’s right, I even have to sleep down here with you slapdicks. Get comfy cause we’re gonna get to know each other very well!” he turned to the door. “At ease!” he called before exiting.

Nopony moved. Despite Silver calling ‘at ease…’ nopony moved for a good minute. Dash was in awe. Silver Lining was unlike anything she had ever experienced. The way he could control an entire room of ponies at the drop of a hat was insane. He also made her quickly understand what would happen if she disobeyed orders.

Silver was the oldest member of the Wonderbolts… and it was clear why he was still among the elite past his prime. You don’t find a pony as intimidating as that very often… but on the positive side? Dash was sure she would get the best training imaginable. With a pony like Silver Lining, there was nothing less expected. This month was going to be one hell of a ride.

Silver Lining stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. He turned and froze, looking directly at Soarin, Lightning, Surprise, Blaze, High Winds, Air Mach, and many more all gathered around.

As soon as he looked, everypony burst out laughing. Silver flattened his brow and shook his head at all of them. Lightning patted him on the back.

“Dude, I was in tears out here. You are GOLD man! Pure gold!” he chuckled. Silver rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I just do my job son,” He started walking away. Surprise dove at his hooves with the long list of Silver’s rants folded and tangled around her.

“HOW ARE YOU SO CLEVER?! TEACH ME YOUR SECRETS!” she begged.

“Later,” he answered casually as he kept walking. Air Mach stepped in front of him and pounded a hoof against his chest.

“Hey Old-Timer! You’ve got a spirit of steel! I like it!” he yelled passionately.

“Shut up, dumbass,” Silver said plainly.

“Yes sir!” Air Mach saluted. Silver finally got free and made it out into the lobby as Surprise and Lightning gathered the rest around to read off some of the new quotes from the list.

“So…” Soarin walked up, having followed Silver instead of staying behind. “How are the recruits?”

“Like putty in my hooves,” Silver smirked.

“You sure gave it to them in there,” Soarin chuckled. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Son,” Silver stopped and placed a hoof on Soarin’s shoulder. “Sometimes, you have to set aside the good guy and roll with the bad. They ain’t gonna live up to their potential if we go easy on them. Spitfire wants strong fighters?” Silver chuckled and winked. “I’ll give her fierce warriors.”

He removed his hoof from Soarin’s shoulder and continued towards the stairs. Soarin stood still and blinked as he thought over Silver’s words and smiled.

Hard and relentless, but the recruits didn't know just how lucky they were.

---To be continued---

Author's Note

I love Full Metal Jacket don't you? ;D I can't hope to be as clever as Lee Ermey... but i tried.

So there we have it folks! Silver Lining, the hardnosed, old badass with a clever wit and an iron hoof. A little rough and harsh? yeah, but he only wants to see the recruits go farther than Spitfire could ever expect. Expect much more from him to come, i haven't run out of jokes for him yet ;D

And goddamn Scootafail, you are awesome! :3

Anyway, yikes i fried myself these past few nights. i'm thinking i might take tomorrow off then get a fresh start on the next chapter on saturday. So i would expect chapter 33 on Sunday. :)

Thanks for reading!

I hope i made you laugh, and hope you are enjoying the story! ^_^

Chapter 33: Spitfire's Bad Case of Hot Plot

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 33:

Dash awoke with a start as a noise that sounded like a clown horn blared through the P.A. speakers placed right above the bunk. She shot up in bed and looked around as the sound stopped and soon after, the lights began flashing on and off. In the brief moments of light she could see the other recruits all up and looking around in confusion.

“Wake up and smell the Vaseline! Get up now or I guarantee the smell will get stronger!” Silver Lining’s voice sounded out from his side room. “Everypony up! Up! Up! Up! On your hooves and line up!”

Dash felt groggy as hell. There was no way she had gotten a full night’s rest. Never the less she started scrambling to get out of bed, only to struggle due to being disoriented and tangled in her sheets. She finally managed to get free as the rest of the recruits were scrambling to stand attention. Twister, however, was in place and waiting as if he’d been there since the night before. He looked scared to death. Silver had him completely tamed.

Silver noticed Twister at the ready before anypony else and lifted an eyebrow as he walked by him.

“Don’t try so hard recruit, I couldn’t like you any less,” he said as he passed by Twister. He came around to the other side as all the recruits finally got into place. Little Star hopped down beside Dash and stood at the ready. Silver stopped, turned and bent his neck down to get in her face. “What’s the view like down there!?” he yelled in her face.

“Sir, I can’t see past you, sir!” Star answered honestly. Silver furrowed his brow.

“Are you calling me fat, recruit?!” he yelled while pressing his nose to hers. Star was surprisingly resilient, not even flinching and holding her ground.

“Sir, no sir!” She replied, never once looking him directly in the eye.

“Good! Cause we all know nothing blocks out the sun more than how awesome I am! I eat, sleep, breath, and shit awesome! How are you feeling this morning? Are you feeling awesome?! Cause if we both are, there might be a problem!” Silver barked. Little Star remained stoic.

“Sir, no sir! I’m feeling okay, sir! How are you sir?” she asked while constantly addressing him properly as if she had done it many times before.

“IF I WAS ANY BETTER, I’D BE SHITTIN’ KITTENS!” Silver pulled back and kept walking. Dash was impressed. She began to wonder if this wasn’t the first time Star had been in this situation. Had she been a recruit in the past? “Alright everypony, time for some morning laps on flight track five! Let’s go!” he yelled, stomping his hoof. The recruits all blinked and looked around. Thunderlane spoke up.

“Sir, what about breakfast sir?” he asked. Silver’s head snapped to Thunderlane. All the other recruits instantly stiffened and looked back forward. Dash sighed internally. Thunderlane just made a huge mistake. He thought with his stomach… and he was going to regret it. Silver Lining stomped over to Thunderlane and pressed his nose to Thunderlane’s cheek.

“ARE YOU HUNGRY RECRUIT?!” he yelled so loud he spat all over Thunderlane’s face. Thunderlane squinted his eyes shut to avoid getting saliva in them.

“Sir, uhhh yesER Uhhh NO SIR!” Thunderlane stumble over his response.

“WELL ARE YOU HUNGRY OR NOT!?” Silver pressed harder, causing Thunderlane to stumble to the right.

“S-sir, I—”

“IF YOU'RE THAT HUNGRY I CAN GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO EAT… IN EITHER END!”

“SIR NO SIR!” Thunderlane instantly replied.

“What? Nervous?! I know I’m hung like a champion but if I had a bit for every time I was told ‘I don’t think it will fit’ I’d have 39,532 bits! YOU SURE YOU’RE NOT HUNGRY?!” At this point Silver had pushed Thunderlane so far to the right he was almost rubbing against Dash.

“SIR, ZERO HUNGER SIR!!!!!!!” Thunderlane cried out desperately.

“GOOD! Then you can bring up the back of the line when we do get breakfast!” Silver removed his nose from Thunderlane’s cheek, grabbed Thunderlane by the shoulder and dragged him back over to where he was supposed to be standing. “ANYPONY ELSE WANT BREAKFAST!?”

“SIR, NO SIR!!!!!!” All the other recruits answered instantly. Silver looked like he had to suppress a laugh. Of course he didn’t let it show for more than an instant.

“GOOD! At ease! Follow me! Let’s go!” he turned and roughly smacked the door open. The recruits all quickly followed. Dash nudged Thunderlane as they began moving.

“Smooth,” she whispered to him.

“You don’t think… he’d really do that to me… do you?” Thunderlane gulped as he whispered back, a look of fear plastered to his face.

“Are you willing to find out?” Dash tried to hold in a snicker as they came near the door. Thunderlane didn’t answer, he only shook his head vigorously as they left the barracks.

Wonderbolts moved aside as Soarin trudged through the mess hall. He had made three trips to the food counters, turning back each time after getting halfway towards the tables because he kept forgetting things. He was having a hard time focusing. He couldn’t stop thinking about Dash, the so-called “purpose” Luna claimed Celestia had for him, and on top of it all, he suddenly found he couldn’t sleep at night again.

Why did that problem come back? He was still practicing his magic every night like instructed. It was proving to be a little more difficult with how much shit was on his mind, but he could still work it enough to tire himself out. It didn’t seem to be enough though. It was almost as if the magic was adjusting to his methods of calming it down. Was it becoming immune to it? That didn’t seem likely. It was just magical energy, not a living being.

Then again, it wasn’t like his magic was normal magic. What did Luna call it? ‘Powerful forbidden magic created by the Mad King Sombra.’ Soarin was happy to be alive, but simply living had become a tedious task. So many things to do piling up with his already busy schedule… he’d keep doing it obviously, but it was just hard.

He really didn’t feel like talking to anypony, but it was kind of hard to sit alone in the mess hall. He’d eventually be swarmed by the top squads, it always happened.

“Hm?” Soarin blinked as he glanced over at a table in the corner. Spitfire was sitting there, alone and facing the wall. Strangely enough, despite having just determined he wanted nothing to do with any other pony at the moment, Soarin felt the urge to go sit with her.

Spitfire was currently dealing with problems of her own. They were of much different nature, but Soarin wasn’t going to claim to know how a mare felt during… a natural mating cycle. Soarin made his way over to Spitfire’s table. She was looking down as she shoveled oatmeal into her mouth in a manner that suggested she was frustrated and taking it out on her breakfast. She didn’t see Soarin until after he had come around the table and sat down directly across from her. Her head shot up in surprise, her eyes immediately scanned his body thoroughly, and her face turned bright red as she slammed her eyes shut. Soarin lifted an eyebrow as she pushed her oatmeal bowl out of the way and put her face down on the table while groaning and pulling at her mane.

“Soarin… I specifically sat here to avoid stallion contact… it’s really bad this morning…” she whined into the table. Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

“Sorry, I was just curious how you were doing,” he voiced his concern as she glanced up at him once or twice, both times putting her face right back to the table and blushing so hard it was a wonder steam wasn’t rising from her head. “Spitfire, just don’t look at me if it’s that bad, I’m not gonna be offended. Besides, you’re like a sister to me, even if you tried I wouldn’t let you,” he said with a snicker.

“That’s not funny Soarin…” Spitfire turned her seat slightly to the left and grabbed her oatmeal bowl. She did her best to try and eat while facing slightly away from him, but her eyes kept wandering to Soarin’s body, over his muscles, and to his face. It was very blatant, and Soarin easily noticed. Spitfire wasn’t kidding. She looked like she was seconds away from reluctantly pouncing on him.

“Wow, this actually is kind of awkward…” Soarin frowned uncomfortably.

“What tipped you off?!” Spitfire put her hooves over her eyes and groaned. She turned around, trying to look in any direction except for at Soarin… only for her eyes to lock on another stallion that was coming down the aisle.

Wave Chill flinched and froze as Spitfire’s eyes landed on him. Spitfire’s eyes widened considerably and her wings shot out to her sides, knocking over the chairs on both sides of her as all of her wing feathers puffed and disoriented. She quickly turned back and looked directly down at the table as she reached behind her, grabbed her wings and yanked them forward, wrapping them around the front of her body and holding them there.

Soarin looked towards Spitfire sympathetically. She wasn’t kidding. It wasn’t just bad right now… it was really bad right now. Soarin looked over her towards Wave Chill, who hadn’t moved. Soarin made a quick hoof motion away from the table while shaking his head. Wave glanced at Spitfire and sighed before turning and finding a table a little ways away from them.

“That sure didn’t help, did it?” Soarin rested his head in his hoof as he started eating his eggs.

“Nnnnggghhhh…” Spitfire groaned as she leaned down and rested her chin on the table. “This sucks…” she complained as she hugged her wings tighter to herself.

“It doesn’t look fun,” Soarin commented as Spitfire blushed and glared at him.

“Quiet you,” she quickly hissed at him, but not without eyeing him up again. “Stupid, sexy Soarin…” she mumbled while scrunching her face and putting her oatmeal bowl in the way to block him from her view.

“Speaking of Wave—”

“NO!” Spitfire cut Soarin off. Soarin flattened his brow.

“Spitfire, I’m being serious,” he said as Spitfire let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I don’t know if that was an indication just now… but how are things between you and Wave? Are you guys back to normal?”

“No,” Spitfire quickly replied. Soarin frowned.

“Wait, what?” he tipped his head. “Still? Spitfire, really?” he wasn’t surprised, but he was also a little incredulous.

“Soarin… you weren’t there when… it got weird. It’s been weird since,” she still didn’t look at him.

“I was there when Discord did it to him, I already know why,” he crossed his arms and leaned back. “But really? You guys were getting along so well before this. Now you’re just gonna avoid him for the rest of your life?”

“I can’t do anything about it right now…” Spitfire admitted as her body shivered at the thought.

“I know that… but you’re making it hard for him too, you know. He really likes you. He denies it all the time, but that’s just the old Silver Lining type duty stuff he spouts. Promise me you won’t leave him hanging like that.” Soarin nodded. Spitfire looked up past her bowl and glared at Soarin.

“Fine…” Spitfire gave in. “But practice what you preach, buster. Have you apologize to Dash yet?” she suddenly brought up. Soarin’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Don’t give me that look.”

“I think she owes me an apology…” Soarin sighed while looking away. While he did want to apologize to Dash… it’s not like he was the only one at fault.

“That’s a terrible excuse Soarin,” Spitfire said, slightly muffled after stuffing her face into her arms.

“Hey, didn’t you vote against her too?” Soarin snorted angrily.

“I’m not the one who yelled at her after,” Spitfire quickly fired back.

“It’s not like I have the chance to right now anyway. She’s busy, I’m busy… dammit it’s like we’re back to square one…” Soarin thought out loud.

“I understand keeping it professional… but it’s still a bad excuse. Especially if you’re gonna get on my ass about Wave,” Spitfire was being very snappy. Much more so than usual, but Soarin knew why.

“Guess we both have our issues then, huh?” Soarin shook his head as he pondered.

“At least mine aren’t my fault,” said Spitfire, earning a glare from Soarin. He was about to fight back, but—

“HEYYYYY!!!!! I couldn’t help but overhear the names Wave and Dash! What are my favorite drama machines talking about?” Fleetfoot sat down beside Spitfire while draping a hoof over her shoulder. She quickly reclined. “YEOW! Somepony is feeling super hot right now… eh?” she nudged Spitfire, who shot back the strongest glare she could muster.

“Fleet, you are REALLY pushing it…” Spitfire growled.

“Aw, loosen up heat lamp… hey, that might actually help…” Fleetfoot kept giggling as Soarin shook his head. Fleet noticed. “What about you princess? Been chasing rainbows lately?” She teased.

“Fleet, I swear to Celestia…” Soarin was not in the mood. Normally, Fleetfoot was easy to handle, but she clearly didn’t know she had stepped into a conversation that had both Soarin and Spitfire ready to punch somepony in the face if they looked at them the wrong way.

“Oh please, both of you are such downers. You’ve gotta—”

“IT’S TIME TO EAT WITH MY GLORIOUS NEW TEAM!” Air Mach slammed his tray down beside Soarin. They all flinched in surprise as he got up on the table. “LET IT BE KNOWN FAR AND WIDE THAT THE GREAT ANIMAK OF WONDERBOLT SQUAD ONE PREFERS HIS TOAST BUTTER SIDE DOWN!” he yelled out, drawing looks of confusion from around the mess hall.

“Oh my god, SIT DOWN!” Fleetfoot yanked her ears down as she yelled at him. Air Mach smirked, reached for his chair, shifted it around so it was right next to Fleetfoot, and then slid his tray over beside hers. He leapt off the table dramatically, but missed the seat, landing in a heap on the floor. “Rgghhhhh…” Fleetfoot put her head to the table as Air Mach quickly stood up and struck a pose.

“HA! I meant to do that! Can’t be a true stallion if I’m not willing to take a few hits at all times!” he sat down and grabbed Fleetfoot. She squeaked as he pulled her in and pointed towards the ceiling. “NOW WE EAT!”

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” Fleetfoot yanked herself free from him and glared. “I’m already trying to eat!” she snapped as Air Mach smirked and pounded his chest.

“If you’re doing it, I’m doing it! If I don’t do it, will you? If you don’t do it, I’ll do it, so you do it too!” he went on with no real reason or focus.

“SHUT. UP.” Fleetfoot grabbed the back of his head and plunged his face into his mountain of scrambled eggs on his plate.

“The great Animak prefers eating his eggs face to face!” He yelled, muffled by the eggs.

“UGH!” Forget it! I’m sitting with Wave!” Fleetfoot let go, grabbed her tray and started walking away.

“Where do you think you’re going!? Real stallions fight their opponents face to face!” Air Mach yelled as he grabbed his tray and pursued.

“FOR THE LAST TIME! I’M A MARE!” Fleetfoot yelled back as she tried to get away from him.

Soarin just stared blankly at them and blinked before turning back to Spitfire.

“Uh… Spitfire? I have the strangest feeling that you did this on purpose,” a small smirk curled on his lips. Spitfire was already looking away from him, but she couldn’t hide a smile either.

“Maybe a little,” she failed to hold back a snicker.

“Wow, you do have an evil side sometimes,” Soarin shook his head as he watched Air Mach chase Fleetfoot in circles around the mess hall.

“I made the choice based on what we needed… but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about getting back at her for how much she’s been bothering me these past few days… with… you know,” she blushed as she crossed her legs. Soarin looked back towards Spitfire.

“You know… if we keep Air Mach on her, she’ll be so focused on him, she won’t be able to pester Rivet,” Soarin brought up jokingly. “He’s gonna have the most productive days ever for a while.”

“That’s not gonna stop the other guys from messing with him,” Spitfire rolled her eyes. Soarin shrugged.

“They aren’t half as bad as Fleet. Plus, Shine always stops them if they go too far,” he chuckled, as his eyes suddenly moved to the entrance of the mess hall. Spitfire scoffed.

“I dunno, sometimes she can be no better than Fleetfoot…” Spitfire trailed off as she noticed Soarin looking towards the entrance. She turned around to see Silver Lining step into the mess hall and sharply turn to the door.

“Step it up! It’s chow time and… WHO’S THAT LAGGING BEHIND!? RERUIT THUNDERLANE?! WHAT THE HELL, I THOUGHT YOU WERE HUNGRY!”

“Oh boy, here we go…” Soarin chuckled as they watched Silver drag the new recruits in. The recruits all looked completely drained and covered in sweat. “He took them flying before breakfast? Brutal…” Soarin commented as Silver stepped around the counter and told the chefs serving the food to ‘beat it.’

“Oh, he’s serving them? This should be good…” Spitfire smirked as Silver began following the recruits down the food lines and putting random things on their trays. It was always some combination of oatmeal, eggs, and fruit, but he kept switching it up on them. One of the recruits ended up with eggs in a bowl and oatmeal on a plate with a banana shoved in his mouth.

Squall came up to the line, his plate was put upside down with the eggs spread around his tray and the oatmeal bowl was put on top of the upside-down plate. He scowled at Silver, but Silver easily shook it off.

“What do you want for fruit, Happy?” Silver asked Squall. “An apple or an orange?”

“Uh…” Squall was surprised Silver asked. He didn’t let any of the others ask. “An apple?”

“Too bad,” Silver grabbed an orange and chucked it at Squall’s chest. Squall stumbled as the orange bounced off his chest and rolled around on his mess of a tray. “Next!” Silver yelled as Squall walked away grumbling.

Soarin and Spitfire couldn’t hold it in. Silver had been at this for years, but it never failed to amuse.

Eventually all the recruits were down and eating at the tables nearest the serving lines. Silver was walking in circles around them. He didn’t say anything, but one could almost feel the fear. The recruits all looked so nervous. As if he was suddenly going to stop and start yelling at one of them. Dash was sitting beside Little Star and Matteo, and not really paying full attention to her food as she kept stealing quick, nervous glances up at Silver. Eventually this led to eggs going down the wrong pipe.

“Ack!” Dash sputtered as she began coughing. She quickly grabbed her water and took a swig, but it only made it worse. Silver quickly ran up to her as she coughed up little bits of scrambled eggs.

“Quick! Fight back!” He yelled in her ear as Dash leaned down and pounded her chest. “You’ve gotta be kidding me Skittles! Eggs?! You’re losing to eggs?!” Dash kept coughing as Silver threw his hooves up into the air. “IT’S JUST A PLATE OF SCRAMBLED EGGS! HOW IS IT KICKING YOUR ASS?!” He barked. It didn’t help, Dash started snickering too as she finally managed to dislodge the eggs from her throat.

Art by: Hopscotch

Soarin watched the exchange with a mixture of humor and worry. Sure, Dash and the others were getting the best of the best training… but he was still worried about her. They had stuff to fix between them, but it didn’t mean he suddenly stopped caring.

“Spitfire… I know Silver’s training is the best we can offer them… but… do you think we should ask him to let up? Mayyyyyyyyybe just a little bit?” Soarin looked towards her, but she was already shaking her head.

“No. These are the best recruits I’ve ever seen Soarin. Through Silver, I’m confident they will become some of the best flyers in Wonderbolt history. He’s hard, and he’ll drill authority into their skulls while he’s at it too. You’ve seen how our low tier elite squads have degraded over the years,” she gave a very serious look to Soarin. He thought for a moment. She was right. The low tier elites were all good fliers and all earned their spots… but they weren’t the most controlled individuals.

Soarin realized that maybe this was the reason Spitfire brought Silver back as a recruit instructor. Most of the current high tier elite squad members had had him as an instructor when they were recruits. He used to be very physical along with the verbal. When Spitfire became the captain, it didn’t take long for her to remove him from instructor duty for being “too harsh.” However, as Spitfire had said, without him, the difference in quality of Wonderbolt had faded a little since he had been removed from that duty.

So Spitfire brought him back, with the intention of having him train some of the best recruits ever brought in. Spitfire had a reason for everything, and as lead captain, she always did what she felt was best for the organization.

But Soarin had noticed he was being a little less physical than he used to be. Soarin remembered being pushed around endlessly by him during his recruit days. Spitfire probably had a long talk with him about being tough, but keeping it mostly rational.

“YOU’VE GOT THIRTY SECONDS TO FINISH! MOVE IT!” Silver suddenly yelled. The recruits all looked up in disbelief; having barely started. “TWENTY FIVE!” Silver called out. The recruits quickly went to work on their food, quickly, and sloppily.

Soarin rolled his eyes. Silver really had only turned back the dial a teeny bit.

--- To Be Continued---

Author's Note

A little short, but this is where my outline took me. No worried though cause i already have the next 2-3 chapters outlined, expect the next chapter real soon ;3

More Silver and more Fleetfoot repellent xD

Things are definitely getting interesting!

Thanks for reading!

I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 34: Where Were You When Silver Lining Tore You a New One?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 34:

“Move your sorry asses, dammit! MOVE!” Silver yelled as the cadets followed him back to the flight track he had them fly before breakfast. A few moans and groans came from among the recruits as they arrived. All of which were instantly regretted as Silver began fuming. “GOD DAMMIT, IF I HEAR ONE MORE RECRUIT FART OUT A WHIMPERING MOAN, I WILL PUT ON CLOWN MAKEUP, AND STARE AT YOU AS YOU SLEEP WHILE PLAYING A CIRCUS FANFARE IN G MAJOR THE WHOLE DAMN NIGHT!”

All the recruits stared.

“YOU THINK I’M KIDDING!? I WILL DO IT!” He yelled again. The recruits all stiffened up and no more sounds were heard. “Now stand at attention and listen up!”

‘Stand attention’ was all the recruits needed to hear. They all instantly stood still and faced forward. Silver Lining started walking back and forth in front of them before saying anything.

“This morning was just a little thing I like to call ‘surprise conditioning!’ Get used to it because you never know when I might spring it on you! A good Wonderbolt is skilled, and can fight… but if they can’t keep it up for very long, they are USELESS! If you can’t fly from here to Appleloosa and back in one go by the time I’m done with you, I don’t know how the hell you made it this far in the first place!”

Silver stopped and turned away from them all for a moment as if he was contemplating. He turned back and faced them with an expression that was less anger filled and more professional.

“Now then, before we formally begin your training as recruits… I want to let you all know what lies on the horizon. If you survive… if you make it through my training… you will either be selected to stay… or sent home to be called upon when we need you… but it doesn’t stop there!” he began pacing. “The Wonderbolts are always looking for ponies to fill staff positions! If you are good at helping ponies and don’t get selected… we might consider you for our medical staff! If you prove to be good at coordination, but aren’t selected… we’ll consider you for staff management! Just know that there is a future for all for all of you as a Wonderbolt! You’ve already earned that much!”

A collective wave of surprise washed over the recruits… they weren’t expecting any words of praise. It quickly ended though.

“ALRIGHT! NOW YOU KNOW! TIME TO HARDEN THE HELL UP!” Silver suddenly yelled at the top of his lungs. “WE’VE HAD OUR FEEL GOOD MOMENT! IT’S OVER NOW!” Silver barked as he stepped away from them all. “Get comfy, cause our first few days are going to be lots of the same stuff! If you want to be a Wonderbolt, you NEED to know how to fly in perfect formation! If you are selected to be one of the five to stay here… you will be expected to know standard five pony squad formations! Yes, I know, the elite squads use four. DON’T ASK! I DON’T MAKE THE RULES! I JUST MAKE YOU FOLLOW THEM!” Silver turned and walked toward the group. He got into the face of a recruit up front, and then moved along from recruit to recruit. They had no idea what he was doing, but they didn’t question it.

“You!” Silver yelled in Twister’s face. “Step up!” He yelled. Twister was up front before he even finished. “You!” he yelled at Squall. “Get the hell up!” he yelled again. Squall moved up.

Dash watched as Silver called forth both Thunderlane and Little Star as well. Silver went from recruit to recruit once again before sharply turning to Dash. He walked right up to her and stuck his nose into her face.

“What do you think, Skittles!? Think you can lead a formation!?” he snarled into her ear. Dash flinched, but held her ground. Her? Lead a squad? She was already afraid to answer him. Should she say yes? She felt like she’d be damned if she did and she’d be damned if she didn’t. So whatever, she went with it.

“Sir, I think I can, sir!” she replied confidently. Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“You think so, huh?!” He pressed his nose to her cheek. “You better bite like you bark! If I’m not tasting the rainbow after this, you’ve got wing-ups till tomorrow morning! Still think you can?” he pressed harder to her cheek.

Once again Dash felt inclined to say yes. Silver had quickly made it clear that shying away from something was worse than recklessly agreeing.

“Sir, yes sir!” She replied.

“Then get your ass up there!” he made a sharp head motion towards the other four he had called forward.

Dash gulped as she proceeded. She stood with Thunderlane, Twister, Squall, and Little Star. She stole a quick glance at Twister. It was just so weird to see him so locked up. He wasn’t trying anything and he looked afraid to move without being told to do so first. Silver’s nonchalant pacifying of Twister’s reality bending skills had really left their mark. Dash was sure once they were free of Silver, he would go right back to being crazy, but for the time being? Silver had effectively broken Twister.

“There are four basic formations for the recruit squads!” Silver yelled out, breaking Dash from her examination of Twister. “Arrow! X! Plus! And Delta!” He walked up beside Dash and grabbed her by the shoulder. “The recruit five pony formations are always formed around a ‘head’ or ‘lead’ pony. They are the anchor that keeps the formation together. You follow every move they make and you do not break formation unless ordered or forced to!” Silver turned Dash and pressed his nose against hers. “NO PRESSURE!” he yelled in her face before tossing her out into the open. “Stand there and don’t move!” he ordered.

Dash stiffened as soon as she found her hooves and awaited orders. Silver never gave the ‘at ease’ so she wasn’t going to tempt fate.

“Everypony else, five feet, hover and watch!” Silver ordered. The rest of the ponies aside from the five he had called forward quickly obeyed and hovered five feet above the ground, looking down towards Dash. One by one, Silver grabbed the other four ponies and fit them into position near Dash. Squall and Star were put on her right, angling backwards. Thunderlane and Twister were put on her left, angling backwards. They were in what looked like a miniature flying V. Silver had placed them all evenly spaced apart before flying up to face the recruits observing.

“This is the arrow formation!” Silver yelled out. "We will get to the purpose of each formation later! For now, take it in and remember it!” he flew back down and stood between Dash and Thunderlane. “Spread your wings!” He yelled to them. They all obeyed. Every single formation has ONE SIMPLE RULE!” he emphasized each word. “TWELVE INCHES! One foot! Thirty centimeters! Three decimeters! I don’t care what you call it! TWELVE INCHES between your wings and the wings of the pony beside you at ALL TIMES! This is crucial! When we get to formation functions this is essential! I will drill this into your heads!” he flew back up to the recruits viewing. “You fall out of formation… you will fly a mile. If you get a formation wrong… you will fly a mile… if you don’t keep your distance from your wingmates at EXACTLY twelve inches… I will break off and eat BOTH of your wings… and THEN you will fly a mile! Perfection! There is no room for ANYTHING less!”

He dropped back down and moved up to Dash. He grabbed Twister, and forced him up, angling him in front of Dash. He moved over to Squall and did the same, putting them in an X pattern.

“X formation!” Silver yelled out. He stepped back and faced the Dash and the four in the formation. “All of you move two hours counter clockwise!” he ordered. They all looked to him in confusion. He narrowed his eyes. “Really? Counter clockwise. Two hours… please tell me you get me…” he said quietly.

Dash picked up on what he wanted. Luckily, she was not supposed to move as she was in the lead position. She wanted to tell the others to all move in a circle around her into a plus shape… but she didn’t want to speak out of turn.

“Sweet Celestia!” Silver grabbed Twister and moved him in front of Dash. “This isn’t that damn difficult!” he moved to Squall and pushed him back to be even with Dash. “It’s not like I asked you to shave a bobcat’s ass in a bathroom stall!” he looked sharply looked towards Thunderlane and Little Star. He pointed towards the two he had already moved. Little Star quickly shifted behind Dash. Thunderlane flinched and looked at Little Star. He blinked and glanced at Silver, who was glaring daggers at him. Thunderlane gasped quietly and quickly tried to move back to make himself even with Dash, but in the process, stumbled slightly and lost his bearings on exactly how far he was from Dash. He steadied himself and stood up straight… clearly way closer to Dash than twelve inches. Silver lifted an eyebrow and moved over to check the distance. He growled at Thunderlane when he saw how close he was standing.

“Blunderlane… do I even have to say it?!” Silver snapped at him. Thunderlane quickly glanced down and shifted slightly to his right, but his wingspan was still way to close, only about six inches from Dash’s. “TWELVE INCHES!!!” Silver barked. Thunderlane shifted again, but remained too close. “Sweet Luna! I hate to break it to you Blunder, but if you think that’s twelve inches… SHE LIED TO YOU!” he stepped over and forced Thunderlane to step out until he was in the right spot.

Dash’s cheeks were puffed so far out she thought her face was going to explode. She and many of the other recruits as well. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.

“This is the PLUS formation! Last but not least…” he pointed at Squall and Thunderlane. “Shift back one pony length. That’s ONE pony length Blunder! ONE! NOT TWO! NOT HALF! ONE!” he yelled as Thunderlane made sure to copy Squall’s shift perfectly. Silver nodded contently. “This is the DELTA formation!” he looked up to make sure all were paying attention. “And there you have it! The four basic recruit formations!”

Dash nodded to herself as she mentally wrote them all down. Wasn’t too hard to remember. The hard part was going to be maintaining such formations in flight. Although if she landed a lead pony spot… she was in control. There were so many possibilities to think about.

“Now… SURPRISE CONDITIONING!” Silver yelled out. All the recruits froze. “WHILE IN FORMATIONS!” Silver added.

All it took was one. One recruit let out a groan of discontent. Silver’s face went completely red.

“YOU’VE GOTTA BE HORSE COCKING ME!” he sped up to the group of recruits. “Who’s the bitchylittlesonofashittwinklehoovedassclown who just signed up for a midnight visit?!” he moved back and forth among the recruits with the angriest expression imaginable on his face. “Nopony, huh? Princess DAMN Cadance must’ve come all the way from the Crystal Empire and stuck her love horn in my ear and through my brain! I KNOW I AIN’T DEAF! WHICH ONE OF YOU GROANED?!”

Nopony answered. Silver’s anger faded and he landed below them.

“Everypony down!” he ordered. The recruits all landed. “Wing-up position!” he yelled out. The recruits all hesitated, but slowly got down into starting wing-up position. Silver turned to Dash and the others in formation, who were still all up. “YOU TOO, DAMMIT!”

“Ah!” Dash yelped before getting down and ready as well.

“Wing-ups till the pussy hoof that’s guilty over here comes clean! ON MY COUNT!” he started pacing around. “DOWN!” they all went down. “UP!” they all pushed back up. “DOWN! UP! DOWN! UP!”

And so it continued for a long time… nopony ever confessed. Apparently being stalked by Silver as a clown at night was more terrifying than endless wing-ups.

Soarin pitched and turned sharply as he zipped in and out of padded poles that were set up in a wide zigzag pattern over forty yards. There were twenty yards between each turn, and one pole every five yards moving forward over forty yards, making the course a hundred and sixty yards total from start to finish.

About half way through, Fleetfoot pulled up alongside him, slapped his plot, and sped past.

“Hey!” Soarin yelled as she pulled away from him while blowing raspberries. They were flying the simple course together. Soarin’s incredible acceleration abilities had given him a nice early lead… but as usual, once Fleetfoot picked up enough speed, he stood no chance. He was curious though, how was she catching him this time? It was a zigzag course, which required sharp and precise turns. Speed control was necessary in order to decelerate before the turn and then accelerate again after. Technically speaking, he should be destroying her in this course.

Soarin watched carefully as she neared the next pole ahead of them. Fleetfoot flattened her wings into a glide, twisted her left wing, and grabbed the pole with it. She slung around and fired towards the next pole without losing speed like a slingshot. Soarin grunted in disapproval.

“That’s cheating!” he yelled at her as she zipped by and he slowed down for the turn.

“Kiss my ass, Princess! If you can catch it!” she taunted back as she repeated the maneuver on the next pole before Soarin even got halfway to it. He rolled his eyes and finished the course, zooming through the finish and coming to a halt directly in front of Fleetfoot, who was flying slowly in circles upside down while making back stroke motions. “What took you so long?” she smirked as Soarin shook his head.

“Honesty,” Soarin shrugged as he began descending and Fleetfoot followed.

“Like you never cut corners,” Fleetfoot giggled. Soarin furrowed his brow.

“I don—” he stopped as Fleetfoot shot him a comical glare with one eyebrow raised. “Okay, maybe I do from time to time.”

“See?” Fleetfoot smirked as she went into a controlled free fall. “Besides, Spitty isn’t here to scold us. So whatever, it’s not like I don’t try hard.”

“Fair enough,” Soarin nodded as he wondered. “Where is Spitfire anyway?” Soarin asked as he glanced about. Today was an ‘open training day’ for most of the elite squads. Soarin and Fleetfoot were only using a small area. Members from both squads two and three were present as well. Spitfire usually came along whenever they did informal training. It was sort of a way they ‘hung out’ because it was more casual. Spitfire had implemented the idea of ‘open training days’ when she first became a captain. The concept was very popular right out of the gate.

Basically, it was a day that a Wonderbolt was expected to get in a full day of training, but they could do it at their own pace and in whatever order they chose. There were still formal training days where the captains would guide their squads through organized workouts and meetings, but the ‘open training’ gave Wonderbolts a chance to work on anything they wished, whether it be a personal challenge, hitting the gym, or perfecting a flight tactic. Spitfire received lots of praise for the new addition. It allowed more individual freedom, while still maintaining discipline.

Soarin looked to Fleetfoot as his visual search for Spitfire failed. Fleetfoot scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“I think she’s got the idiot in her office right now. He’s getting the lead squad pep talk/rundown/moral code/whatever Spitfire needs to run by him,” she answered unenthusiastically. Soarin held in a chuckled as they landed.

“You really hate Air Mach’s guts, huh?” he purposely pointed out the obvious.

“Boy, you’re as sharp as your damn horn,” Fleetfoot snapped back at him. Soarin lost it and burst out laughing. Fleetfoot turned and glared at him. “What’s so funny?”

“You can dish it, but you can’t take it, eh?” Soarin chuckled as he tried to reign in the laughter.

“I don’t know how you can stand him! He’s such a dumbass!” Fleetfoot whined as they made their way over to a few Wonderbolts that had gathered near the locker room doors.

“Hey,” Soarin shrugged. “It’s not my fault he thinks you’re the sexiest mare alive.”

“At least he has that right…” Fleetfoot said with the hint of a smirk creeping onto her face. Soarin just shook his head and smiled as they approached the gathered Wonderbolts.

“Ha! Look what we have here!” Soarin reacted as they approached.

There was a large space between the mare’s and stallion’s locker room entrances. A big stretching mat was placed between them to offer easy access to the locker rooms once Wonderbolts were done stretching post workout. At times it also served as a comfortable place to sit and chill out after a workout… which was actually the purpose it seemed to serve about seventy percent of the time.

A few familiar top elite members were gathered up on the mat: Lightning Streak, Blaze, High Winds, and Wave Chill. But they had all been drawn there for the same reason that caught Soarin’s attention. Storm Front was sprawled out on the mat, drenched in his own sweat, panting and wheezing. Autumn Rain from squad seven was sitting with him while Macho and Dex had gone for another few runs in the courses. The Wonderbolts were already cracking jokes, but all just having fun with the situation.

“Welcome to the Wonderbolts, kid!” Lightning chuckled as he gave Storm a rough pat on the back. Storm sputtered and coughed.

“Ow…” he quietly replied as Autumn shot a glare at Lightning. Blaze and High Winds couldn’t stop laughing at the sight as Wave Chill just sighed and shook his head at his brutal wingmates. Soarin approached Autumn and crouched down in front of Storm.

“He’s out already, huh?” Soarin asked Autumn. Autumn rolled her eyes.

“I told Dex we should ease him in… but he was set on ‘actually being productive without Air Mach to mess things up…’” Autumn said sarcastically as Storm opened his eyes and glanced up at Soarin.

“C…Commander Soarin?” he wheezed. Soarin shook his head.

“Oh no, don’t turn into Wave,” Soarin made a hoof motion towards Wave Chill. Wave blinked.

“Wha— hey!” Wave caught on, but Soarin ignored him.

“Just call me Soarin. No formalities needed with me,” Soarin winked. “Can you sit up? It’ll be easier to breath,” Soarin suggested. Storm tried moving, but it was painful to watch and only made Blaze and High Winds guffaw harder to the point where they had fallen on top of one another. Soarin rolled his eyes and glanced at Autumn. “Here, help me get him up.”

Soarin came around to Storm’s other side as Autumn stood. Soarin and Autumn carefully hoisted Storm up and sat him down upright. Storm took a few deep breaths before finally finding his voice.

“Thanks…” he said, still panting and sweating a little as Blaze spoke up.

“You made the jump to the elite ranks kid, get used to this!” She commented as she rolled off of High Winds. “It ain’t a damn cake walk!”

“I know…” Storm managed a small smile as he replied. “I guess it could be worse…” he continued as he finally caught his breath. “I saw Captain Silver with the other recruits earlier… he seems… a little harsh,” Storm commented. Fleetfoot stepped up and poked him in the chest.

“Don’t let the old guy hear you say that! He still gets on our asses all the time. You never really graduate from being a recruit to him. He just can’t do anything bad to you once you do,” Fleetfoot explained.

“In fact…” High Winds chimed in while pausing to release a long yawn. “If you ask me, kid… you’re missing out. Ol’ Silver’s a hardass, but he’s an experience,” she waved her hoof about lazily as she spoke. Blaze perked up and smiled. Soarin noticed, and knew what was coming.

“Oh?” Blaze bounced her eyebrows. “Do I sense we’re about to tell some Silver stories?” she glanced about energetically. Soarin chuckled.

“You know I can never resist,” Soarin smiled and looked around at them. “I’m all for it, Storm’s gotta know what he’s missing!”

They all agreed eagerly, all with their own tales to recount. Except for Wave, who looked like he didn’t want to… would never turn down the chance to recall some crazy things his captain had done over the years. This was a common past time for the Wonderbolts: recounting the hilarity of their basic recruit training under Silver. Their sudden eagerness had caught Storm’s attention. He listened intently, expecting some good stories.

“Who wants to go first?” Soarin looked around. Fleetfoot quickly raised her hoof.

“Oh, I have so many!” she giggled as she tried to pick out her favorite. “So hard to choose… OH!” she snickered. “It was our first morning after being brought in. I woke up when I heard the back of the door to his side room slam against the wall. He ran up to the window as the sun began shining through and started yelling more swears than I knew existed. He turned to all of us and shouted, ‘WHO THE HELL AUTHORIZED THIS SHIT?! WHO TOLD CELESTIA SHE COULD RAISE THE DAMN SUN?! EVERYPONY UP! WING-UPS! GO!’” Fleetfoot did her best impression of Silver yelling. It was almost spot on, earning snickers from the rest. “Basically,” she continued. “We ended up doing wing-ups because Celestia put up the sun,” she shrugged as the rest burst into laughter.

“Oh man, the old guy’s gonna kill me one of these days…” Lightning took a deep breath. “I got one…” Lightning chimed in. “When Fire and I were recruits, our recruit class only had like… three mares in it. This was before they remodeled the barracks, so our bathrooms only had three shower stalls. He was sick of us taking forever, so one morning he said, and I quote, ‘You have approximately three minutes to shower. That’s more than enough time to wash all your greasy asses. Take longer and we have wing walks for an hour.’” All the Wonderbolts winced as Lightning mentioned ‘wing walks.’ Storm tipped his head in confusion. Lightning quickly explained. “‘Wing walks’ are the same as walking… only you use your wings instead of your front legs… it’s brutal dude. Anyway… none of us wanted any more wing walks after we were first forced to do them… so we all showered… in three minutes… with seventeen stallions… and three showers… Shit got weird.”

“PFFFFFTTTT!!!!!” Blaze nearly spat all over as she reacted with the rest all cracking up with her. “Naw, naw, I remember…” she took over. “This one night… I swear it was three in the morning. Silver blared something over the P.A. I have no idea what it was, it was incoherent. He burst out of his room, yelling, screaming, and literally flipping ponies’ mattresses over with them still on it. He took us to the flight track and made us fly three laps before forcing us all back to the barracks and making us stand attention. He walked in a circle around the room about twelve times until this one poor bastard across from me yawned. Silver zeroed in on him instantly and went crazy in this guy’s face, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! YOU’VE GOT BALLS, YAWNING AT ME! YOU SMELL LIKE PUSSY!’ He stopped instantly and pulled away from the recruit… sniffed the air… and said, ‘no, wait… that’s just my upper lip. Ya’ll have a good night!’ and went back into his room. I swear he was drunk.” She finished just in time to be drowned out by laughter. Fleetfoot fell over onto her back and Lightning stuffed his face down into the stretching mat. Soarin regained himself and held a hoof up.

“Oh man, I remember him messing with my recruit class endlessly…” Soarin chuckled to himself as the laughter died down. “You remember Fleet… with us it was always trying to keep a straight face. If we laughed, it was wing-ups. If we laughed during wing-ups, it was more wing-ups.” Soarin paused, trying not to laugh AS he recalled it. “We always ended up doing wing-ups for hours because he’d keep making us laugh over and over again. His personal favorite was making us count ‘clowndicks’ as we did wing-ups. ‘One clowndick, two clowndick, etc.’ none of us ever made it past fourteen clowndick before losing it… resulting in more… and probably counting more clowndicks.”

“Oh man… Silver and his dick jokes…” High Winds took over. “I remember he was always getting on me for different reasons. If it wasn’t cause I…” she paused to yawn sleepily. “Yawn so much, it was because of some other bad habit I had. I was full of them. One bad habit I still have…” Winds lifted up one of her hooves, the edges of it look gnawed on. “I still bite the tips of my hooves unconsciously. I used to do it every second I wasn’t walking, eating, or flying. One day he got fed up with me doing it and explained… in detail… how the barracks get used by new recruits every year and how hundreds of stallions have probably pulled on themselves at some point and then touched something else in the barracks later. He made me sit there and do the math to figure out how many transitive dicks I had in my mouth whenever I put my hooves near it… apparently I had upwards of ten thousand dicks in my mouth.”

It wasn’t so much what Winds said, more how casually she said it that got the whole group rolling on the mat.

“Oh, oh! I didn’t have him, but Dex told me this one!” Autumn chimed in. “Apparently one time Dex was cleaning the barracks with another recruit. As they worked, the other guy started singing as he worked. Silver burst out of his office, took the guy, and shoved him into a locker. He made the guy sing from inside the locker, and every time he stopped, Silver inserted a bit through the locker grate and the recruit would start singing again,” Autumn barely finished before cracking up herself. Lightning just stared in awe at her as Fleetfoot was laughing so hard she punched Soarin in the side.

“The old jukebox!” Fleetfoot fell over.

“Dude…” Lightning shook his head. “That is INSPIRED. He’s so damn clever.”

“He gets pretty creative,” Soarin spoke up again. “Like… oh man, Fleet, you remember how much he hated Rapidfire?”

“Didn’t we all?” Fleetfoot scoffed in response.

“Do you remember…?” Soarin snorted halfway through and took a second to gather himself. “Do you remember when he made Rapidfire go out in the courtyard and salute squirrels for five hours straight?” Soarin grinded his teeth as he tried to contain himself.

“HAAAAAAAA!!!!” Fleetfoot was over on her back instantly. “I DO REMEMBER THAT!” She exclaimed as the others joined in.

“It didn’t matter if he loved you or hated you!” Lightning exclaimed as he tried to remain upright. “I mean hell, he loved my brother for obvious suck up reasons, but he still messed with him… just like, oh man my personal favorite…” he began. “The old dude really loves the P.A. system. This one night after he turned the lights out… he went into his room, fired up the P.A… and started playing zombie noises over it for about five minutes… followed by a chainsaw and bloody screaming. As soon as the P.A. was cut off, he burst out of his room and yelled at Fire to ‘stop wanking.’ We all lost our shit, the lights were on, and we were doing wing-ups, but it was totally worth it.”

Laughter erupted once again. Storm was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

Blaze suddenly turned and saw Wave Chill sitting behind them. As soon as she looked, a smile disappeared from his face. She quickly pointed at him.

“Oooooooh no! I saw that smile, Wave! C’mon, you’re his favorite little soldier, I bet you’ve got some great stories!” she encouraged him as the rest all turned to him. He blinked and sat still for a moment before the smile began curling on his lips again. High Winds chuckled.

“You totally have a juicy one for us, don’t you?” she asked while swaying and catching herself on Blaze’s shoulder. Wave looked about, smiling goofily.

“I may have a few…” he said while chuckling. Fleetfoot sat right up and leaned towards him.

“Oh! I’ve never heard any from you! Tell us!” she demanded.

“Okay, fine…” Wave gave in as he let a smile cover his face. “My best memory of Silver was one day near the end of our month with him… we were all eating in the mess hall and a staff member runs up to our table urgently. He pointed at me and said ‘Wave! Go to Silver’s room in the barracks immediately! You have a medical report letter from your family!’” Wave turned to Storm. “Now, the only reason you ever get medical reports directly from your family is if somepony died… so I freaked out. I was up, out of the mess hall, and all the way to the barracks so fast. I burst into Silver’s room. He was facing away from me at his small desk. He slowly turned around and told me to come in. He wasn’t yelling or smiling. He was being nice to me, which wasn’t a good sign. He looked me in the eye and said calmly, ‘I’m sorry Wave… It’s never easy to get news like this…’ before giving me an envelope. I quickly opened it, and unfolded the letter… it read: ‘Do fifty wing-ups. With love, Silver Lining. PS. I hate you.’ I looked up at him and he said ‘NOW.’ I was so happy my family was okay. I didn’t give a damn…”

Wave had a hard time finishing the story because the rest were laughing as soon as he mentioned what the letter said.

“Damn… I guess I really am missing out…” Storm chuckled as they all calmed down. Fleetfoot shrugged.

“Well, kind of,” she said. “It depends really. It wasn’t fun when he messed with you, but as you can see, he makes for some hysterical memories,” she winked.

“Speak of the devil!” Blaze pointed out towards the main entrance of the course gym. They all looked to see Silver walk in alone. “Oh geez, I wonder where the recruits are?”

They all watched as Silver scowled and made his way over to the locker room entrances. First he stopped in front of the stallions’ locker room.

“I SAID BATHROOM BREAK! YOU CAN SWORD FIGHT LATER! GET THE HELL OUT HERE!” he yelled before moving past the group sitting on the mat towards the mares’ locker room. “MOVE IT! DON’T MAKE ME TURN THIS INTO A UNISEX LOCKER ROOM! I WILL COME IN THERE!” he yelled. He stepped out and began to walk out into the gym. He paused and looked at all of the Wonderbolts sitting on the mat. “The hell are you all staring at?” he said calmly as they all burst into fits of laughter, chuckles, and giggles.

“Well,” Soarin stood up. “If he’s bringing them in here I’m gonna clear out. Might take a shower before lunch…” he thought out loud. The rest agreed and started dispersing. Soarin walked past the entrance to the mares’ locker room towards an exit that put him closer to the stairs, but as he walked, Rainbow Dash came barreling out and ran smack into his side.

“Oof!” They both grunted and stumbled.

Dash shook her mane out as Soarin quickly looked to her and froze.

“Sorry, I…” Dash looked up. Their eyes locked together.

“Oh shit…” Fleetfoot held her breath from off to the side.

But nothing happened.

Once again… nothing happened. Both stood completely still and stared at each other. Soarin couldn’t take it. What was wrong with him? He didn’t know why he couldn’t speak to her, or why she never said anything either.

He just wanted to get away.

He quickly gritted his teeth and forced his eyes away from Dash before moving towards the exit at a quickened pace. Dash turned and opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came to her. Soarin was out the door… and she was stuck in her spot. That was, until another mare from the recruits ran into her by accident. Dash was snapped from the moment and quickly moved towards Silver with the rest of the recruits, but not without stealing one glance towards the exit.

From above at the finish of a course… Misty Fly had seen the whole thing. She blinked several times and hovered slightly closer in small, one foot increments as if doing so would correct it. She had no idea what had just happened between Soarin and Dash. She adored the relationship they shared. Why did they act so disconnected just now? Misty had good eyes, and she saw clearly that neither of them even spoke.

She turned just in time to see Fire Streak finish his run of their course and quickly zipped up to him.

“Hm?” Fire blinked in surprise as Misty began poking him rapidly on the shoulder. He turned and looked. He casually made the hoof and wing motions for ‘what is it?’

Misty proceeded to use the sign language to describe the scene she had just witnessed. Fire grimaced as she did. He hadn’t realized that Misty was unaware of the recent… exchange between them. Fire looked away for a moment, not quite sure what to do. He knew Misty was extremely fond of the two of them and always ‘spoke’ very highly and giddily of their relationship. Misty reached up, grabbed Fire by the face and forced him to look at her. She made no signs. She just glared at him sternly.

Fire sighed and reluctantly put up his hooves. He made the hoof signals to describe how Soarin and Dash… were not currently on very good terms. He kept his eyes averted as he made the signs, and slowly looked back when he finished. Misty’s eyes had widened and her mouth hung open in disbelief. Fire was afraid of this, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

Misty turned her head sharply to Dash, who was down with the recruits being yelled at by Silver. She turned quickly to look at the door Soarin had just left through.

She shook her head once. Then twice. She turned and looked at Fire, shaking her head many times before she turned towards the exit and sped towards it. Fire tried to reach out and stop her, but she was long gone.

Fire had no idea what she was planning… but he wished he hadn’t had to tell her.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Dammit Soarin... Dammit Dash... way to take a lighthearted chapter and make it all depressing at the end... but oh? What's Misty up to?

And if i have any more fun writing for Silver Lining im gonna pass out. xD

For the next chapter might be an extra day or two wait. I have a busy schedule the next few days, but no worries, i have the next chapter already outlined, so once my time frees up, it wont take long to get it to paper ^_^

I hope i made you laugh, and i hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 35: Impossible to Focus

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 35:

Nothing… Nothing worked.

Soarin didn’t want to focus on Dash, but no matter what he did, something would end up reminding him of Dash. Telling stories about Silver ended with him running right into Dash. He tried to get lunch earlier, only to catch a glimpse of Autumn Rain and her special Wonderbolt stallion. Frustration slowly building, he decided to hit the weights, but when he was in the locker room, a few stallions were talking about mares.

It was a good thing lifting weights gave Soarin stress relief, because he really needed to vent some pent up aggression. He avoided the combat dome. He was sure one of the new combat specialists wouldn’t mind going a few rounds with him, but in his current mood Soarin didn’t want go overboard. There was only one pony Soarin was certain he wouldn’t actually injure should he lose control… and that stallion was currently occupied with Autumn Rain.

Soarin wasn’t going to take that chance. He was responsible for his actions. He was one of the strongest Wonderbolts, so he had to be careful during combat training. This was the one thing he missed Rapidfire for. He felt NO reason to hold back against that douche. Spitfire always broke them up, but it was the only time Soarin didn’t hold back… well, not including the rare chances he had to spar with Spitfire. If he held back against Spitfire… she’d have him on the ground begging for mercy in much less time than she usually did.

“Oh, come on…” Soarin grumbled as he neared the back door of the locker room heading into the weight room. Spitfire made him think of Wave Chill, Wave made him think of Wave and Spitfire trying to find even ground in their relationship, and relationship made him think of Dash.

He couldn’t even form a complete thought without Dash finding a way in!

Soarin grumbled as he roughly pushed the doors open and trudged out into the gym with a water bottle tucked beneath his right wing and a towel over his shoulders.

How much longer was this going to go on? He needed a moment. Just one moment of time to find Dash and put a stop to this. He wanted to apologize… but he also wanted an apology from her. He was afraid of it not being an even deal. They were both at fault… both said hurtful things. Soarin wanted to be sure she was sorry, before he extended his apology. That felt… dickish to him, but would Dash learn her lesson… the REAL lesson she was supposed to learn from the whole thing if he apologized first and she just went with it? Why couldn’t it be easier?

“Rgh!” Soarin grunted and shook his head.

No. No more thinking about Dash right now. He’d just have to wait for the right time. He had no other choice. It would either be random, or something else would allow it. He didn’t have the luxury right now and neither did she.

It just… really sucked.

He forced his brain to drop the subject. Why was he in the gym? To lift weights. Chest press? Hell yes. Get a good pump and a good sweat, don’t worry about anything else.

Soarin focused on the weight machine he was approaching, dropped his water bottle, and slung the towel over the padded seat. Before sitting down in it, he dropped to the floor and did push-ups.

One…

Two…

Three…

Four…

Whatever, these are super easy…

Just keep going, going, going, okay that was… what… twenty? Good enough.

Soarin stood up sharply and plopped down in the seat. He set the weight pin down to a hundred pounds. He proceeded with an easy warm-up set, forcing the weight up using the handles that started at chest level, pushing forward. Ten easy repetitions.

He let the weight fall back down and removed his hooves from the hoof holds. He let out a casual sigh and looked around the gym. Not too many were there right now. None from the top three squads at least. He recognized a few faces from squad five, and eight. The members had switched around a little lately, he barely every got a chance to get all the names down. It was relatively quiet too.

“MAKE WAY! THE MADNESS IS IN THE HOUSE!”

At least it was quiet until Macho Savage walked in.

“I AM TEN THOUSAND YEARS THE HEAVY WEIGHT CHAMP OF THIS GYM! DIG IT!” Soarin watched and chuckled as Macho Savage made his way from one end of the gym, past him, and to the other while going on his usual rambles. “ALL WHO OPPOSE WILL EAT MY REAR ROCKETS AND LIKE IT! OHHHHH YEEEEEAAAHHH!!!!!” He made his way over to the stretching mat and leapt towards a stallion who was in the middle of a set of crunches. “SUPER SLAM!!!!!!” Macho yelled as he fell towards the stallion with his elbow extended.

“AHHH!!!!” The stallion yelled and shielded himself. Macho’s elbow struck the mat right next to the stallion’s face, and Macho rolled away quickly.

“CHANGED MY MIND!” he yelled out and strutted towards the dumbbells as the poor stallion recovered and caught his breath.

Soarin chuckled at the scene before leaning back into the seat again. He reached down, removed the weight pin, and placed it at two hundred pounds. It was time to turn up the power and give his muscles a challenge.

“HRGH!” Soarin grunted as he thrust the handles forward. He pushed the weight as far as the machine allowed, exhaling as he reached the end of the movement. The first was always the toughest. Time to kill it. Soarin let up and the handles returned to him, only to force them back forward as his hooves reached his chest. He pumped the weight back and forth eight times, breathing in rhythm as he made full, complete motions to get the most out of the exercise. He let out one final exhale on the eighth push before slowly letting the weight all the way back down. The weight touched down quietly and Soarin removed his hooves from the holds once again.

He stood up and rotated his arms to keep his chest muscles loose.

This was nice. A good pump always helped put his mind at ease. Nothing else to worry about. Push some heavy weight, get a good sweat, work the muscles nice and tight… While using his magic helped fatigue him before bed, a tired body made it easier as well. It didn’t matter if Autumn Rain suddenly walked in with her stallion and the two of them looked like they were having a great time together in the gym like they always did…

Wait…

Soarin blinked. He was staring directly at Autumn Rain… who had just walked in with her stallion, and the two were getting a workout in together. They were known for this. In fact it was funny, because he was a MASSIVE light blue stallion. Even bigger than Soarin, and she was the strongest mare… the running joke was to take cover if they ever spent the night in the same room… because the compound would probably come down. They were quite the power couple. The big blue lug and the big green sweetheart…

Love…

“Urghhhh…” Soarin groaned as he sat back down in the seat. Just when he had gotten his mind off of Dash… Seeing Autumn with her special somepony pushed the dagger right back into Soarin’s heart.

He quickly looked away and did his best to refocus. He reached down and tacked twenty more pounds onto the machine. He usually didn’t do this much weight… but he’d have to focus harder, and that’s exactly what he wanted.

He forced the machine into motion, pumping the weight up and down, venting his frustration to the point where he went way past how many reps he wanted to do and didn’t even realize it until his arms nearly gave out. Soarin did his best to let the weights fall gently, but they landed with a loud CLANG. He winced and looked up to see the other gym occupants look in his direction. He put his head back down and sighed, standing up and yanking the towel angrily off the padded seat.

Less thought, more heavy lifting.

Soarin did his best to keep his mind off of Dash. Autumn and her stallion were in one corner of the gym, so Soarin would go to the other. What he wanted to use next was over there anyway. He approached a stand-up cable machine that was already set up for chest flies. It faced away from the gym couple too. Perfect. Soarin set the weight for both cables, whipped his towel from his shoulder to over the top of the machine, and turned his back to the machine. The only thing in front of him was another cable machine and then the large stretching mat.

Soarin fluttered his wing lightly to lift his arms from the ground and stand up on his hind legs. He reached to his left and right, hooking his hooves into the straps before off-setting his back hooves. He kept his back locked straight and began pulling the cables in from the sides until his arms were straight, directly in front of him. He exhaled and let his arms reach back out with the cables.

Forget everything else. Focus on this. Breath in, pull, breath out, squeeze the muscles at the top of the motion, slowly let the weight back down. Repeat. Don’t think about any problems. You are moving heavy weight, focus on that.

“MOVE IT! LET’S GO!” Silver’s voice completely broke Soarin’s concentration.

Soarin blinked as his arms swung back to his sides, but this time he regained control before impact and let the weights touch softly. But… if Silver was there… that meant…

“Dammit, if you slapdicks don’t pick up the pace, I’ll give you a reason to not sleep on your stomach at night!” The recruits began pouring in, two by two at a quickened pace. Silver still seemed unsatisfied. “I don’t think I was clear… All’s fair in love and war, but I make love LIKE it’s war! SO DON’T TEMPT ME! PICK UP THE DAMN PACE!”

That definitely did the trick. The recruits moved in even faster.

Soarin slammed his eyes shut. He knew who would be there and he just DIDN’T want to see her right now. It was bad enough he had to keep his distance professionally. He knew he could do nothing to help their relationship right now, but she just refused to leave his head.

His effort didn’t last long. He opened his eyes and immediately spotted Rainbow Dash. She was trotting beside Matteo, which made her light blue coat and rainbow mane stand out even more against his black feathers. Thankfully she wasn’t looking at him. Soarin held completely still as they moved to the stretching mat. He was somewhat blocked from their view by the other weight machine in front of him, so he was certain she didn’t see him.

Good, he didn’t want to distract her either. He was sure he had done so considerably when he ran into her before lunch.

Silver immediately began grilling them about not dragging their hooves… or asses about the compound. He didn’t hear it all, but Silver said something about saving ass wiping for after the only thing he found more satisfying than sex… that was two indirect sex references Silver had made after entering. Soarin could see a trend going. Silver wasn’t just random, sometimes he’d stick with a theme.

Dash had disappeared from Soarin’s sight. Good, he could concentrate again. The logical choice would have been to leave right there… but Soarin always finished a workout. ALWAYS. He wasn’t going to let some stupid emotions stop that.

Soarin hooked his hooves into the cable handles again and pumped out another set. It was getting harder. Good. That meant it would be easier to get tired later. He managed eight repetitions, the eighth taking him a while to bring his arms all the way forward.

“Hrgh!” He grunted quietly as he pulled the cables together and flexed his chest muscles, holding the weight in place.

Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus.

He exhaled and slowly let the weight back down.

“Alright! Everypony! We are doing push-wing-ups! Half push-ups, half wing-ups!” Silver’s voice reached Soarin’s ears again.

Ooo… the gauntlet. On the first day? Silver was being brutal. Out of interest, and making sure not to look towards Dash, Soarin glanced around the side of the machine.

“Watch carefully! If you do it wrong… god damn, I hope you burn in hell!” Silver barked as he got down in a push-up position. “It’s easy! First a push-up!” Silver lowered his body down, and then pushed back up. “And then a wing-up!” he spread his wings and put them to the floor. He picked up his arms and put them straight out at his sides. Using his wings, he lowered himself to the floor, and then pushed back up. “THAT’S ONE!” he yelled. He stood back up and flattened his brow. “It’s easy! I’m not asking you to eat a bushel of apples and shit me a fruit salad! SO DO THEM RIGHT! NOW GET DOWN!” he snarled. All the recruits instantly dropped to the mat in the push-up ready position.

Soarin chuckled as they began the ‘push-wing-ups.’ It felt like just yesterday when he was in the exact same position. Silver’s training had been… slightly tweaked by Spitfire, but Soarin could see that he was still given freedom to hammer discipline and commitment into their brains. If the slight drop in recent Wonderbolt quality was any indication… letting Silver return was going to turn this already great class of recruits into some of the best they’ve ever seen. Soarin would be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to it.

Having effectively kept his focus, Soarin went for his last set on the cable machine. The recruits were going to be at it for a while…

“If I hear one peep from you little shits, we’re doing more!” Silver’s voice reached to the corners of the gym.

Scratch that, Soarin knew what Silver was doing. He was going to make them laugh and they were going to do more push-wing-ups because of it.

Soarin took a deep breath and looked straight at the ground. Keep focus. Keep focus.

He reached out, hooking his hooves in the cable handles one more time. He kept his mind on the heavy weights. He pulled forward, held, exhaled, let back, rinse and repeat. He got to the seventh repetition, and found his strength failing him earlier than before. He held strong and slowly closed his arms together one last time before letting the weight fall back down.

“Are you smiling at me again Skittles?” Silver’s voice caught Soarin’s ears once again. Skittles? Silver was known for giving nicknames. Soarin grabbed his towel and slung it over his shoulder as he leaned around the machine. He flinched and cursed as he saw Dash.

Wait… how had he not put that together? Skittles… Rainbow Dash… dammit. Well, it was too late. Dash was now on his mind again. However, the scene was quite comical. Dash was performing the push-wing-ups just like everypony else, but she was trying and failing to suppress a grin. Silver was lying on the ground right in front of her, reclined on his side, his head turned towards her, and his chin resting on his hoof. He had clearly targeted her. Silver was very good at figuring out who was the easiest to mess with. Silver stared directly at her as Dash’s cheeks began to puff out.

“Did you know…?” Silver began while keeping a completely straight face. “I’ve been scientifically proven to be cheaper and more effective at preventing premature aging than Equestria’s leading beauty products?” Dash shut her eyes tight, as her composure began crumbling fast as Silver continued. “For just twenty bits I will agree to show up unannounced at your house at some point before your twenty-first birthday and kill you.”

“PFFFHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” Dash fell flat to the mat while cracking up.

“WHAT THE HELL IS SO FUNNY, SKITTLES?!” Silver instantly stood up. “Everypony! Fifty more!” He yelled out. He listened carefully, but there were no groans. He nodded in satisfaction.

“Sir!” A brave recruit suddenly spoke up. “How many push-wing-ups can you do, sir?”

“ALL OF THEM!” Silver yelled out without missing a beat.

“Heh…” Soarin shook his head as he turned and walked back down the aisle between the weight machines. As he walked, he heard more laughter, and more barking from Silver. These recruits were going to have a long afternoon.

Soarin stopped in his tracks briefly. He blinked as his thoughts circled around the image of Dash laughing. The tone and pitch of her laugh played over and over again in his ears. He frowned and his ears drooped.

He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand the current spot he and Dash were stuck in. No chance to mend the wrongs… convinced she had to apologize before he could… he felt like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place that was stuck between another rock and a hard place.

NO! This was NOT the time! He was here to work out!

Soarin shook his head out, his ears whipping around with his mane before standing back up straight. This was only a brief session, he just had to get one more exercise in and then he could be out of there.

Soarin approached a frame designed for both pull-ups and dips. There was a bent bar high up on the frame for pull ups, and further down there were two small flat surfaces about two feet apart for dips. Soarin dropped his towel on the ground and quickly hopped up before his brain could look for more distractions.

He hovered above the two flat bars, placing his hooves firmly on the surfaces before folding his wings and tensing his arms to lock them straight. He held this position, elevated with his legs tucked up towards his body. He slowly allowed his arms to bend, lowering himself as far as his elbows let him, before pushing all the way back up. He exhaled at the top, took a deep breath and did another. Dips were rough… especially because he wasn’t the lightest pegasus. He was big, and muscular, so the extra weight made anything like dips or pull-ups a little harder for him.

Despite the slight extra challenge, the dips still did plenty for him. He could feel the strain in his chest and shoulders as he moved up and down. It was rough on the chest due to having done two other chest motions with the other two exercises, but Soarin had been lifting heavy weights for years. His body had adjusted to the strain so much that he had to go a little overboard just to give his body a good workout. This of course had also become harder recently due to the dark magic apparently making him almost completely resistant to fatigue. It was something he was now certain he’d have to live with the rest of his life.

He hopped down from the bar and made sure to put most of the pressure of his landing on his back hooves. He spread his wings out and fluttered them lightly to allow his front hooves down slowly. He shook out both arms after landing and leaned against the metal frame.

He suddenly felt a little parched. He glanced down by his towel and blinked, realizing he had left his water bottle by the chest press machine where he started. His arms felt a little wobbly still. So he hovered an inch off the ground and glided back over. He found his water bottle tipped over on the floor and behind the machine, having rolled a few inches after whenever he knocking it on its side. As he crouched down and reached for it, he got blindsided by a straight on view of Autumn’s stallion walking down the aisle with Autumn tucked beneath one of his wings... He was probably the only stallion who could do it to her. Despite how big she was, he was kind of a giant, so he was able to get her up off the ground. Hell, he was only about a head shorter than Matteo. Autumn was scolding him and telling him to put her down before he hurt himself, but he didn’t listen and kept walking.

Soarin’s ears drooped again. He did that to Dash very often… or at least he used to…

“Gah!” Soarin shook his head out furiously as he stood back up with his water bottle. Used to? USED TO?! Soarin actually felt ashamed for even letting words like that go through his thoughts. There was nothing past tense about him and Dash!

He was losing focus fast. He had to concentrate on his work out. He took a deep breath and looked up, only to look DIRECTLY in the direction of Dash.

“FFFFFFFF-dammit!” Soarin quietly exclaimed as he turned around. He took a very fast swig of his water as he turned back to the dip bars.

Just workout. Worry about this stuff LATER!

Soarin hopped up and started moving up and down again.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Dash.

Seven... wait.

“Screw it!” Soarin yelled out, but it was mostly inaudible. It sounded more like a grunt than words. He hopped down, grabbed his towel and water, and stormed towards the locker rooms.

Fleetfoot and Misty emerged from the mare’s locker room as he approached. Soarin ran directly into Fleetfoot, knocking her over.

“Oof!” she grunted as she fell on her side and looked angrily up at Soarin. “Watch it, princess!” she snapped at him, confused, and a little peeved.

“Shut up!” Soarin spat back in a manner that was quite uncharacteristic of him. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened as he stormed past her and made the turn into the stallion locker room.

“What the hell crawled up his ass and laid half a dozen eggs?” Fleetfoot commented as she stood up and brushed herself off.

Misty kept her eyes glued to Soarin until he was completely out of sight. She narrowed them in discontent. Soarin wasn’t acting like himself and she knew exactly why. She glanced over towards where Silver was drilling the recruits. She found Dash and took a good, long look at her.

This was wrong. It couldn’t go on like this.

Not on her watch.

“Oh god…” Dash gulped. “That… looks so unpleasant…” Dash gritted her teeth as she stared at the large silver tub filled up with cold water and ice cubes.

She and the other recruits were all loosely spread around the training room. They had all mostly survived the first day of Silver’s intense workouts. Siren Bliss was running around checking to make sure they were all taken care of. It wasn’t often twenty or so ponies all poured in at once.

Dash’s body felt absolutely spent. It didn’t feel too bad, but she knew if she didn’t get some treatment, her muscles would refuse to work the next morning. The only problem was that there was no specific area that was tired. It was straight up her whole body. When she asked Bliss for a solution, she instantly suggested an ice bath.

Dash’s initial reaction was one of confidence and ‘yeah, I can totally do that.’ However, that confidence ducked for cover as she watched the tub fill up, watched Bliss pour the ice in, and watched the thermometer attached to the tub slowly fall to around fifty degrees.

Bliss walked by behind Dash as she stared at the tub.

“Sweetie, the longer you stare at it, the harder it’ll be to get in,” Bliss said casually as she moved on to help out some of the trainers struggling with Matteo’s large wings.

Dash looked back to the tub and slowly reached a hoof up. She dipped it in the water and quickly pulled it back while shivering. Was she way in over her head?

“Ice bath! Now! Please!” A familiar voice suddenly came from the door. Dash quickly turned to see Storm Front trip and fall over himself as he stepped through the door. He quickly stood up before the trainers could help him. “Nonono, I’m alright, I just need an ice bath!” he played it off as he hobbled over to an empty tub.

Dash watched as the trainers quickly filled the tub with cold water and ice… and Storm Front hopped right in without a single thought. Submerging his body in the cold water, shivering for a moment, and then relaxing.

Oh, hell no.

Dash’s brain worked in weird ways sometimes. Something about seeing the guy who beat her out of the elite spot accomplish something she was struggling to do… made her get all competitive for the silliest reasons.

Dash glared at the cold water, grabbed the sides of the tub, and hoisted herself up, plunging into the cold water.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIPE!!!!!” she shrieked as her body instantly felt chilled to the bone. She sat her plot down on the bottom of the tub, the water reaching all the way up past her wings and up to her chest. “Hoooo! Haaaaaa! AAAYYYEEEEEE!” she continued to yelp as she hooked her hooves onto the edges of the tub, squeezing them as hard as she could.

Quite a few others had stopped what they were doing and glanced in her direction, but as soon as they saw her in the ice bath they all went back to what they were doing.

As for Dash, this was one of the most unpleasant experiences of her life. How the hell did Storm do this so casually? She felt like she was being stabbed by icicles. BUT SHE WOULD ENDURE.

Storm watched the whole scene from the tub beside her. If he didn’t feel so wrecked, he would be dying with laughter. He simply coped with the cold and waited patiently for his body to go mostly numb to the point where it actually felt good.

Storm perked up as Point Dex walked into the training room. Storm watched his captain write his name on the sign-in sheet, walk over to a cooler on the floor and grab a single ice bag. He took it to Bliss and she wrapped it up to hold it against his left wing joint below his shoulder. He thanked her and began walking out, but stopped when he eyed Storm and walked over to him, pushing his glasses up on his nose as he approached.

“How are you feeling?” Dex asked as he stood beside the tub and looked up at Storm. He was pretty small, his eyes could barely see over the edge of the tub. Storm sighed as the cold water swirled around him.

“I’ll live,” he said with a chuckle. "How are you Captain?” he asked out of courtesy. Dex looked back at his wing with the ice bag wrapped to the joint.

“Besides this wing being a tad stiff I’m fine,” he said with a nod. Storm’s jaw dropped. Dex’s body was small and a tad frail compared to Storm’s. How in the world was Dex perfectly fine after what they had done today?

“A tad?! My body feels ready to fall apart!” Storm said while rolling his eyes. Dex pushed his glasses up again.

“You are new. In time your body will adjust and physical activity such as that which we partake in daily will not affect you as much. I have been a Wonderbolt for exactly four hundred and twenty seven days. I have had more than enough time to adjust to our training,” he explained in many more words than were necessary.

“I’ll take that as it will get better over time,” Storm simplified for himself.

“Exactly,” Dex nodded in agreement. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find Autumn before Calm kidnaps her for the night again,” he said with slight annoyance as he turned to leave.

“Hooooookay… Hoooooooooooooooookay…” Dash was still being over dramatic beside him. She had finally reached a point where she was getting used to the cold. Storm glanced at her and began snickering. Dash looked towards him sharply while pouting. “Oh, look at you Mr. Badass… balls feeling extra blue?” she jeered. Storm broke into a chuckle and shook his head.

“You should’ve seen your face when you got in. You looked like you were being electrified,” he fired back as she snickered and shrugged. “By the way, HELLO! How’ve you been?” Storm suddenly said. Dash blinked in realization. He was right! She hadn’t seen Storm since they parted ways after the tryouts, him being in an elite squad now.

“Whaddya know… you’re right,” Dash smiled. It was funny to her… a week back she felt like Storm had stolen something from her. Thanks to a punch to the face, she was right back to seeing and knowing what a nice guy he was. “So what’s it like being an elite member? I take it that was your captain?” she asked while making a head motion towards the door. Storm nodded.

“I’ve never been more tired in my life… and it’s only been one day,” he sighed heavily and leaned back further into the water. “And yeah, that was Point Dex. He’s the new captain of squad seven.”

“SEVEN?!” Dash blinked. “Whoa! They put you in a high tier squad? Lucky ass!” Dash exclaimed incredulously.

“Well I’m definitely feeling it now,” Storm said alluding to how broken he felt. “Anyway, yeah. Point Dex is the new captain. Their old captain was brought up to fill the spot in the lead squad for the time being until they have time to test for a true lead squad member. Air Mach is his name… and he’s kinda nuts. I’m glad Dex is in charge to be honest.”

“I know a thing or two about crazy Wonderbolts,” Dash commented with a smile. “What about the other members?”

“Well first there’s Macho Savage…” Storm said with slight discomfort. “He’s… weird. There’s really no good way to put it. He’s really over the top and says things that make no sense. He’s a good guy though. I just wish he’d stop putting me in headlocks,” Storm chuckled while rubbing his neck. “The other is a big mare name Autumn Rain. I’m not kidding around she’s the biggest mare I’ve ever seen and she’s really damn strong. Very quiet and gentle though.”

Dash perked up as Storm described Autumn.

“Is she green? With a poofy mane?” Dash asked.

“Yeah, have you seen her?” Storm nodded.

“Dude, how could I not?” Dash’s eyes widened. “She was in the gym earlier when Silver had us in there. She’s not just huge... she’s buff as hell…”

“Yeah, like I said, she’s really strong. Almost killed me with a hoofshake.” Storm chuckled as he shook out his arm. Dash had no doubt she was strong. She was also in awe because she saw the really big light blue stallion with her too. The same stallion she saw help Rivet get away from Fleetfoot the day before.

Storm looked away from her and around the training room. He spotted the other recruits all getting treatment.

“So, how are the rest holding up?” He asked. Dash followed his eyes towards the tables.

“Well…” Dash began. “Matteo hasn’t really changed. He even withstands Silver’s yelling without flinching…” she trailed off as she watched Bliss and three other ponies work together to stretch out Matteo’s huge wings. Storm looked over to Twister, who was sitting completely still with a blank look on his face, a single icepack wrapped to one of his shoulders.

“What the hell happened to Twister?” Storm asked. Dash looked over and had to hold in laughter. She turned back to Storm while smiling and shaking her head.

“Silver broke him. I wish you could have seen it…” Dash smirked.

“He didn’t seriously try anything… did he?” Storm asked in disbelief.

“Oh, he did,” Dash nodded. “And boy, did Silver make him regret it,” Dash winked.

“It was only a matter of time,” Storm snickered while shaking his head. “I knew he’d be struck down sooner or later!”

“Oh!” Dash perked up as she saw Squall and Little Star being helped at tables beside one another. “Those two,” Dash pointed. “Remember them?”

“Huh?” Storm looked up. “Oh yeah… they were ranked really high in the tryouts, what are they like?”

“Squall’s a jerk. That’s all I can say…” Dash rolled her eyes, but then smiled. “Get this though… Little Star is thirty years old!”

“Wha!?” Storm’s plot suddenly slipped on the bottom of the tub and he went completely belly up into the tub. He frantically grabbed the sides of the tub and pulled himself back up. “GAH! OH MAN THAT’S COLD ON THE FACE!” he yelled as Dash burst out laughing. “She’s… thirty?! Sheesh, we’ve got quite an interesting crew here, don’t we?”

Dash was about to reply, but she stopped as she saw Bliss walk up to Thunderlane.

“I think I’m dying…” Thunderlane whined. He was on his back on the trainer table with his hooves up in the air. Bliss sighed.

“This again? Honey, are you going to say that every time you come here?” She shook her head.

“And Thunderlane,” Dash rolled her eyes. “Is still Thunderlane.”

“I can see that.” Storm chuckled as he turned back to Dash. “How are the other two? How’s Derpy and… Bulk? Was that his name?”

“Yeah,” Dash nodded. “They’re good. Back to everyday life, but they had fun while they were here.”

“I sent a letter to Derpy before returning,” Storm smiled. “I really hope I get a chance to see her again soon, I already miss that bubbly mare,” he said with a content sigh.

Dash watched as Storm thought about Derpy. She could actually picture it. She could see Derpy opening the letter, squealing, and spinning in circles as she clutched Storm’s letter to her chest. Derpy was adorable like that.

Dash suddenly felt her chest tighten.

Soarin.

Watching Storm think about Derpy, and thinking about Derpy reacting to Storm… INSTANTLY made her think of Soarin again. She leaned back in the tub and frowned. Barely a day had gone by and the whole subject of her and Soarin’s current status was tearing her apart. She saw him in the gym. But the situation in the gym was a perfect example of how things were for them right now. She was busy being drilled as a recruit, and he was busy keeping a workout schedule as an elite Wonderbolt. Neither had enough time to even catch each other’s eyes.

She wanted to apologize. She wanted to go to him. She also wanted to hear an apology from him. She felt like she owed one first, but what if he didn’t accept it? She felt like they were back to square one, but with different implications. Back when he first visited Ponyville, the uncertainty was just about getting together. Here the uncertainty was about fixing a hole that they had both dug… but just like before their relationship began, Dash felt like they were going nowhere fast.

What was she supposed to do?

She stole one more glance at Storm. He had completely lost himself in his thoughts about Derpy. Dash just sighed and enjoyed the now comfortable ice bath. All she could do now was focus on becoming a Wonderbolt.

Misty Fly walked by outside the training room. She stopped, backed up, and glanced in. She caught a glimpse of the back of Dash’s head as Dash slumped into the ice bath.

Misty pouted and flattened her brow before continuing down the hall.

Fire Streak was walking a few feet behind her. He stopped and looked into the training room as well when he saw her do the double take. He spotted Dash, blinked, and then looked back towards Misty as she rounded the corner.

He took a deep breath and exhaled as he shook his head.

Just what was Misty up to?

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

whew finally got this out!

I know, it was a little shorter than i promised, but i decided to cut this chapter off here.

For those who missed my blog post, my work schedule is more intense now since i have been promoted and work longer hours. I will still update as frequently as possible. I'm going to aim for at least 2 chapters a week.

Misty Misty Misty... what are you up to? ;D

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 37: Soarin's Unstable Power

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 37:

“Hello my boy! I apologize for such a late meeting…” Fancy looked at his watch as Soarin trudged into the throne room. “I guess nine at night isn’t so bad, it could be worse… How are—” Fancy Pants stopped the instant he saw the look on Soarin’s face.

Soarin had been summoned for magic training… and he was clearly not amused. Fancy stepped aside as Soarin trudged in. He looked toward the throne to see that Luna was not present.

“Where is Princess Luna?” Soarin asked with a hint of annoyance. Fancy cleared his throat as he walked over to Soarin. He used his magic to both pull a handkerchief out of his suit pocket and wipe off his monocle.

“I’m afraid the Princess had other guests to attend to tonight. It’s just you and me…” Fancy paused, looked up to the ceiling, and around the room. “Actually, I’m going to assume that Discord is watching too.”

“NUH-UH!” A voice echoed from every direction.

“Yes, he is definitely watching,” Fancy huffed, but then smirked. “I’m sure he will honor the agreement though… right?” Fancy blinked and waited a few seconds. There was no response. “I thought so.”

“Whatever, can we just get this over with?” Soarin snapped. Fancy reclined slightly at Soarin’s tone.

“Still feeling a bit negative, I see…” Fancy lifted an eyebrow. “To be honest, that might be helpful. I was planning on returning to our offensive magic lesson from the other night, if you remember.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Soarin diverted his eyes as he stepped up to Fancy. “Bullshit about me having a destiny and… whatever the other crap Luna said was,” he grumbled.

“Yes, quite right…” Fancy just went along with it. Soarin was in an extremely bitter mood and he had no idea why, nor did he wish to pry. “Now then… first we—” Fancy stopped again. This time thought in realization. “Oh, dear me… I believe I forgot something important.”

“What?” Soarin said with little actual interest in his voice. Fancy turned to him.

“I just realized that I’ve brought nothing with me to act as a target. We don’t want you breaking anything now as we practice…” Fancy rubbed his chin.

“OH?!” A voice echoed from the ceiling. “Do I sense somepony is in need?” Discord slowly materialized in front of Fancy. Fancy grinned at him.

“What took you so long?” Fancy smirked as Discord lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, come now Snazzy Pants…” Discord hovered right into Fancy’s face. “You actually expect me to believe you planned for me to volunteer all along?” Discord swung his tail around and brushed the tuft of his tail back and forth along the top of Fancy’s head. Fancy’s smirk grew slightly larger.

“What if I said ‘yes?’” Fancy’s smirk turned into a confident grin. Discord flattened his brow.

“I honestly don’t know what to believe with you…” Discord backed away from Fancy. “After the stunt you pulled on me, I feel the need to actually be cautious with you about. Be honored it is not something typically practiced by a god of chaos,” Discord lowered himself to the ground and stood before both of them. Fancy turned back to Soarin.

“Alright, now as I mentioned to you before, in order to use your magic for offensive purposes, you must be able to harness the negative side of magic, the destructive side. For that, you simply do what you’ve already done… only slightly different,” Fancy stepped to the side of Soarin and faced Discord. “You focus on something before you, recall the magic sensations, and focus them on the target,” Fancy finished with a nod. Soarin blinked.

“That… doesn’t sound any different from what I’ve already been doing,” he said with a slight grumble.

“Oh, a one dimensional way of thinking!” Discord spoke up. Both Soarin and Fancy looked towards him, but Discord had been replaced by a single black line. “At least try to think two dimensionally!” He stretched out into a perfectly flat image. He bounced his eyebrows up and down, making squeaky noises with them before inflating back to his normal shape. “Every force in this world has a positive and negative side. It doesn’t have to be magical. It exists on all levels…” he snapped his fingers and a hammer appeared in his hand. “You give a pony a hammer… what can they do with it?” he snapped his fingers in his other hand and a small model of a house appeared in it. “While one pony may use it to build…” he wound up with the hammer and smashed the hammer against the model house, breaking it to pieces. “Another pony may use it to break,” the hammer disappeared and he let the scraps of the house fall to the floor. “One pony will learn to fight to hurt others… another pony will learn to fight to defend others,” he wiped his foot on the floor and the pieces of the house disappeared. “Magic is one of the easiest things methods of separating positive from negative… because all you really need is good control over your emotions.”

“Precisely,” Fancy pointed to Discord. “The difference between casting positive and negative magic is comes down to the emotional level. Tell me…” Fancy smirked. “Has practicing magic been more difficult lately? You’ve seemed slightly bitter about something these last two lessons.”

Soarin just narrowed his eyes slightly. Discord failed to hold in a laugh.

“That’s a yes!” he chuckled. Fancy blinked, waiting for Soarin to answer his question.

“Yeah, it hasn’t been working too well,” Soarin admitted while narrowing his eyes further towards the chuckling Discord.

“We are in luck then!” Fancy smiled. "The easiest way to learn a certain magic under a different emotional control… is to already be immersed in that emotion. I’m sorry to hear that something is troubling you, but here and now it’s actually working to our advantage! Amusing, isn’t it?” Fancy chuckled. Soarin didn’t find it amusing in the slightest, but he played along.

“Just tell me what to do already…” Soarin complained.

“YES! Keep that attitude!” Fancy chuckled. This situation was very backward, but apparently it would work. So Soarin listened carefully. Fancy motioned towards Discord. “So… as I said, in terms of calling forth the magic and aiming it, the fundamentals remain exactly the same. When you throw a negative emotion into the mix… the mental shift actually changes the form of the magic. Instead of an incredibly fast… near invisible transfer from horn to target… the magic will expel violently from the horn in the form of a focused beam that is slow… at least compared to how fast calm magic flows.

“Well, are you going to love tap me or what?” Discord spread his arms out and wiggled his body around. Fancy furrowed his brow, smirked, and turned to Soarin.

“I shall demonstrate…” he bowed to Soarin.

Fancy turned and faced Discord. He set his hooves firmly on the ground, and his smirk turned upside down. Fancy gritted his teeth and his magic sparked to life on his horn. It didn’t swirl… it sparked. There was a sharp difference in how the magic manifested in his horn compared to what Soarin had seen. Fancy angled his head down and a sharp beam of purple magic fired from his horn. Discord reached a hand up, primed his middle finger beneath the pressure of his thumb, and flicked at the magic beam. The beam diverted back towards Fancy and slightly upward, flying over Soarin’s head before dissipating.

“Heh, show off…” Fancy chuckled as Discord yawned and stretched out. Fancy turned back to Soarin. “As you can see, the magic traveled slower… and was thicker to the point where it was visible. Whenever you use magic to lift or move things, there’s really an extremely tiny ribbon of magic between you and the object.”

“But…” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. The magic blast wasn’t necessarily slow. It moved quickly, but Discord had more than enough time to prime a ‘defensive’ tactic. “How effective is a slow beam of magic? I can fly about ten times faster than that…” Soarin commented. Fancy patted Soarin on the shoulder.

“There’s more than one way to manipulate the beam. Because the beam is so thick and concentrated… simple movements can have an impact on it,” Fancy glanced back at Discord to see him doing jumping jacks. Fancy turned back and winked at Soarin. “Like so!” he suddenly spun his body towards Discord and whipped his neck and head forward as his magic sparked upon his horn. The magic shot from his horn and an incredibly fast speed. It smacked Discord right in the face and caused a small purple explosion on his face. When the smoke cleared from the blast, Discord was standing still, glaring at Fancy without his beard or eyebrows. He was holding them in his hand off to his right. He carefully reattached his facial hair before scoffing.

“Sneaky pony, this one…” Discord rubbed his snaggletooth back and forth along his lower lip.

“Magic is a very malleable essence. Especially when it’s in a dense form such as this,” Fancy explained as Soarin took in what he just saw. “One can easily—”

“I dare you to try that again Fancy Shmancy!” Discord suddenly yelled. Fancy turned to see Discord wearing two boxing gloves while prancing back and forth, a black tattoo pattern appeared on his face. “My defense is impregnable! I will eat yo’ children!” he said in a very high voice. Fancy lifted an eyebrow and shrugged before leaning in towards Soarin.

“One can easily bend the beam as well… with very simple movements,” he whispered with another wink. He whipped back around, repeating the same motions and firing a fast beam of magic towards Discord. Discord held up his hand again, but Fancy suddenly yanked his head up. The beam bent and shot straight up. Discord blinked and followed the beam with his eyes. Fancy swung his head down, causing the beam to arc and drop towards Discord. Discord scoffed and merely put his other hand up in the air… but Fancy wasn’t done. Fancy took a deep breath and squinted while puffing air into his cheeks. The beam suddenly scattered into eight tiny beams which all angled out and moved around Discord’s hand, before combining again and shooting directly into Discord’s face, leaving another small explosion.

When the smoke cleared, Discord’s head was missing. A moment later, it popped out from between his shoulders with a slightly miffed look on his face.

“There are many ways to manipulate it… as you just saw,” Fancy motioned towards Discord while smiling at Soarin, who was beyond impressed once again. “Aside from controlling it, one can also control the amount of power through pure focus of will… along with the strength of the emotion,” Fancy turned back to Discord. “No tricks this time my friend,” he assured him.

“I’ll believe it when I see it…” Discord did not sound very amused. Fancy was the one mortal pony Discord was legitimately wary of.

“Observe…” Fancy nodded to Soarin as he placed his hooves again. “I can make it very small…” only the tip of his horn sparked and a beam roughly an eighth the size of the previous fired out. It struck Discord in the chest and dissipated with a tiny POOF.

“Pfff…” Discord scoffed.

“Or…” Fancy suddenly glared heavily and grinded his teeth together. He reared back on his hind legs and the magic crackled and popped intensely around his horn. He thrust his body down, slamming his hooves against the floor as he angled his horn straight. A large beam of magic about a foot and a half in diameter, fired fiercely from his horn. Discord’s eyes widened slightly and he quickly thrust an arm forward. The blast collided with his palm and Discord grunted while taking a single step backward. The magic split off in multiple directions from Discord’s hand, creating tiny beams and popped against the floor, walls, ceiling, and a few helmets of the Royal guards. “You can put a lot of oomph behind it,” Fancy smiled at Soarin as Discord shook his hand out from the shock. Fancy sighed heavily and sat down. “Of course… putting a lot into it can be a little taxing on the body. It’s hard to unleash magic on such a scale consistently.”

“So…” Soarin contemplated as Fancy caught his breath. “It’s the same… but I have to be angry?”

“Correct,” Fancy nodded.

“I can do that,” Soarin nodded. He was frustrated. VERY frustrated. It would be easy to vent… and to make it even better, he got to take his anger out on Discord.

“Give it a go…” Fancy motioned towards Discord as he took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’ll be watching… just… be careful on your first couple of attempts. Nothing too strong,” he suggested. Soarin nodded as he set his hooves and readied himself to give it a shot.

Nothing too strong? Soarin wasn’t going to make any promises. He was pissed.

Soarin locked his eyes on Discord and glared. He saw Fancy glare in a similar manner, but Fancy was emulating his emotions. Soarin was actually angry… but apparently it would help. He wasn’t a unicorn, he didn’t know how it worked, but he wasn’t going to doubt the word of Fancy Pants… not after how many times he had gotten the better of Discord.

Without losing his focus, Soarin closed his eyes and relaxed his body, letting the magic sensation grow and collect in the center of his body until it poured towards the horn. It was different. The magic flow seemed… hard. It moved fiercely within him instead of smoothly. He struggled to hold his body still as the magic shot through him and towards his head. The false horn released a brief flash of blue light, followed by glowing harshly and small sparks flowing from the base. Soarin grunted as the sparks slowly made their way from the base to the tip of the horn, but stopped half way.

“Ah!” Soarin’s eyes snapped open and released all the air from his lungs. The magic quickly receded and he dropped to his legs while panting. “What? That was…”

“Different? Yes,” Fancy slowly stood up and walked towards Soarin. “It felt like it was thrashing about within you?” he asked. Soarin blinked and looked to him.

“Yeah… did you keep something from me again?” Soarin grumbled as Fancy chuckled.

“My boy… I’m merely trying to teach you magic as if you were a young unicorn experiencing it yourself. If I told you everything that was going to happen there would be no thrill, would there? Your magic is something you discover more than it is taught. Try again. This time brace yourself. The magic will jump about, but don’t let it get the better of you. It’s all a mental battle, remember that.”

Soarin rolled his eyes. He was getting SO TIRED of being left in the dark about things, but if this was how learning magic was supposed to be, he’d deal with it. He took a deep breath and focused on Discord again. He went through the motions, calling forth the magic and feeling the different sensation of the magic bouncing about in his body. This time he was expecting it and he held strong. The magic sparked to life in the false horn and this time covered the length of it quickly. Soarin instinctively bent his head down and aimed it towards Discord.

“WHOA!” Soarin yelled as the blue magic fired from his horn. The beam was wider than the one Fancy first demonstrated with, and his aim was a tad off, but the most surprising factor was the recoil. Fancy had held himself steady, but Soarin nearly lurched back three steps upon firing.

Discord shifted himself into the path of the inaccurate beam and held out his hand. The beam smacked against it and he quickly closed it around. The beams energy dissipated with a small POP and Discord pulled his hand back quickly.

“YEOW!” he cried out while shaking out his hand. He looked at it and back to Soarin. Soarin’s magic wasn’t quite the same as a normal unicorn’s apparently. That stung when it really shouldn’t have. “Hmmm…” Discord eyed Soarin.

“Whoa…” Soarin blinked as he regained his hooves after the small stumble. It was an interesting feeling, almost as if he was releasing his anger in the form of magic, leaving less of it behind. It almost felt good, like a weight lifting off his shoulders. Soarin had the strangest urge to do it again.

“Do it again. Put more behind it,” Discord ordered. Soarin was surprised. It looked like his magic actually hurt Discord to stop it.

“Okay…” Soarin shrugged as he readied himself again.

Discord locked his eyes on Soarin. Something was… off about the magic. Discord was aware that the magic Celestia had used on Soarin was of forbidden dark necromancy origin… but it shouldn’t have hurt… even if it was just a little sting.

Soarin recalled the magic and reared back slightly. The magic was even more jumpy within him this time. He slammed his hooves down and fired another beam of magic. This one was a little bigger than the first. Discord reached his left arm out, this time bracing himself a little more. The beam smacked into his hand. He winced and he skidded a few feet backward as the energy exploded against him. He shook his hand out again and glanced at Soarin. Soarin was panting… there was a very faint glow coming from his body… and appearing in his eyes. Something was definitely amiss. Discord’s curiosity got the better of him.

“Give it a lot more. Show me what you’ve got!” Discord beckoned as Fancy looked between them in confusion.

Soarin had plenty of anger to spare. Discord wanted more? Oh, he’d give him more! Soarin repeated the process, but this time tried to mimic Fancy’s moves completely. He reared back as he grinded his teeth together. The magic surged in him again. This was the third time he had felt the increased magic activity. He felt like he was gaining control of it… but the sensations… it wasn’t like with the other magic. The pure force behind it with the emotions of anger made it feel strong. Like it was expanding within him and growing stronger. It made his body tingle. He most certainly wasn’t expecting it. The magic suddenly seemed to be listening to him as he prepared to slam his hooves down.

“RRGGHH!!!!!” Soarin growled. A dark blue glow began to surround him. It slowly turned into an aura that swirled fiercely around his body. The same blue light began to shine from his eyes.

“What the devil…?” Fancy stepped back.

Discord’s eyes widened slightly. He had seen this before. It was the same aura that surrounded and boosted Soarin back when he was squaring off against the Shadowbolts. Discord snorted and glared as he cracked the joints in his fingers and put his arms up to receive whatever was coming.

Soarin thrust down, slamming his hooves hard to the ground, and whipping his head forward.

The magic surrounding the false horn expanded greatly as it traveled to the tip… and fired. The beam was ENORMOUS, expanding to at least five feet in diameter as it hurled towards Discord. Discord’s pupils shrank and his ears flopped down.

“Oh… crackers…” he threw his arms out to his sides, the purple, distorted light of his chaos magic surrounding them. He sharply crossed his arms in front of him and a purple sphere of magic encased him.

The giant beam of magic floored against Discord’s shield, engulfing it completely. The beam split and splintered in multiple directions. The royal guards stationed in the throne room all sprang up upon seeing the fierce display, shifting and ducking to avoid the split off beams as they fired uncontrollably around the room. The force behind the blast quickly began pushing Discord back.

“HRGH!!!!! WHAT IS THIS?!?!” Discord remarked as he, a god, was being pinned and pushed along the ground by an impossibly strong magic blast from a mere mortal. Discord shifted his body and braced his legs, trying to push back, but the magic had caught him off guard, and in his current defensive stance, he was powerless. Despite bracing himself further, Discord was pushed back further and further, faster and faster until he smashed against the back wall of the throne room and crashed through it. The castle shook at the impact and a good portion of the wall beside the back door collapsed with it.

Fancy froze in place, his mouth agape, and his monocle sliding off his face as he viewed the new hole in the throne room wall. The guards all stared as well, before turning back to Soarin.

What was he feeling?

What was going on?

Soarin knew this feeling. He had felt it before. He had felt it while fighting Descent… and while fighting Nightshade! It was a feeling that was accompanied by power. A large flow of power.

But this time it was different. It emerged before out of the desire to protect those he cared about. The Streak twins were in danger, being beaten to a pulp by Descent… and the magic awakened. Nightshade over-absorbed power from the energy crystals and only he stood between her and Dash… and the magic came to life to protect her.

This time… he was just angry.

Very angry at himself, angry with Dash for yelling at him, and angry at his inability to fix things.

He… he couldn’t control it…

Using the magic with such negative emotions was making the power grow uncontrollably.

He couldn’t stop it! It was breaking free! He… he liked it.

“Heh… heheheheh… HAHAHA!!!” Soarin found himself laughing, but he didn’t know why. He was terrified… but it felt so good. It was if something else… was taking control of him. It was like his mind was there… and it was being overwhelmed by another mind.

“S…Soarin?” Fancy backed away slowly as Soarin began to twitch and smile menacingly. Small crackles and pops of blue energy sparked from his body.

“I… c-c-can’t...” half of Soarin’s face looked like it was in pain. The other half showed pleasure. “I…” Soarin’s neck strained and his head lurched hard to the left, completely hiding the portion of his face that was in pain. “I…” his head slowly turned back to face Fancy… but now his whole face showed pleasure. “I am in control!” he yelled out, his voice had changed. It sounded like another voice was mixed with Soarin’s. “HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”

Ice Blade

Fancy and the guards watched in horror as Soarin extended his wings and slowly lifted into the air. The glow around him had intensified and his pupils disappeared behind the light shining from his eyes. Soarin turned to Fancy and slowly bared his teeth while releasing a long, satisfied breath. He reared his head back and swung it down, firing a powerful beam of blue magic towards Fancy.

“MY WORD!” Fancy leapt out of the way, the beam singeing the coattails of his suit before it careened past and exploded against the far wall. Fancy tumbled to a halt and frantically got to his hooves. He turned just in time to put his hooves up as Soarin fired towards him. Fancy caught Soarin’s hooves as they were thrust towards him. Fancy’s back hooves ground against the floor as he slid backward under the pressure. Soarin pointed his head down, aiming the false horn directly at Fancy’s face.

“HRAAAAHHH!!!!” Soarin yelled as the magic collected. Fancy mustered his strength and lurched his head to the left just in time as the magic jettisoned from Soarin’s horn. The magic shot over Fancy’s shoulder, but widened to the point where it skimmed over the length of his back.

“ARGH!” Fancy cried out as the violent magic ripped the back of his suit to shreds and left a rather nasty burn down his back.

“SUBDUE HIM! NOW!” One of the guards yelled out.

Every guard stationed in the throne room took flight and charged towards Soarin.

“Feh! Weaklings!” Soarin yelled as he tossed Fancy aside.

Fancy was thrown into the air by the simple movement, Soarin’s strength seemingly multiplied many times by whatever was happening to him. After bouncing on the ground and rolling to a painful stop, Fancy inhaled sharply as the pain seared throughout his back. He slowly rolled over onto his stomach and placed all four hooves on the ground. He looked up, squinting his eyes in pain as he saw the guards engage Soarin.

The guards stood no chance.

Soarin was beating them senseless. They were being blown away by strong blasts of magic, tossed aside like scraps of paper, being swung around and thrown into each other. It wasn’t long until their numbers dwindled and the last four charged from different directions. Soarin scoffed and slammed his front hooves to the ground. A wave of magic burst from his body and slammed against the guards, throwing them in different directions.

In less than a minute, Soarin had subdued sixteen royal guards.

“Heh…HAH!!!!” Soarin laughed and turned towards the exit.

Fancy’s eyes widened as he realized Soarin was going to leave.

No. He wouldn’t allow it!

“Hurgh!” Fancy grimaced as he pressed his hooves to the ground. Every inch of motion shot pain through his back, but he fought it. He stood up firmly and glared towards Soarin, discarding the tattered remains of his suit and cracking his neck back and forth. He tipped his head back and slung it forward, firing a strong beam towards Soarin. The beam careened through the throne room and collided with the back of Soarin’s head, releasing a small explosion upon impact.

Soarin stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around. Fancy snarled as his magic sparked within his horn.

“Where do you think you’re going?!” Fancy barked at him. Fancy was actually terrified. Something had possessed Soarin. It was something conjured by whatever magic was being contained within him. Fancy knew full well he could not stop Soarin in this state, especially after knocking out all the posted guards AND Discord. However, Princess Luna was present in the castle. Surely she had felt not only the magical disturbance, but also the castle shaking. All he had to do was hold out and keep Soarin in one place until she arrived… hopefully without being killed in the process.

“HHRRRRAAAAHHH!!!!!!” Soarin roared as he performed the Sonic Blast-Off and shot towards Fancy at high speed. Fancy anticipated the move, and as Soarin closed the gap, leaned back. Fancy’s magic came to life, grabbing hold of Soarin’s arm as it punched over his head, and using Soarin’s momentum to fling him past. Soarin flailed as his momentum was used against him, but did a quick somersault before turning around and firing back towards Fancy.

Fancy turned and fired a quick burst of five small magic beams. Soaring swiped his hooves in front of him, batting away all five as they approached, but they offered enough distraction for Fancy to leap in the air. As Soarin passed beneath him, Fancy collected a large amount of magic in his horn and fired a powerful blast into Soarin’s back. The magic did nothing to him, but the shock forced him to crash to the floor and bounce to a halt.

Fancy landed on his hooves, but stumbled. He had already used one powerful blast during the demonstration… this was the second. Soarin’s magic was being generated my some seemingly endless supply of power… but Fancy’s magic was only his own. He was feeling the fatigue and mental strain, but he held fast.

“Damn you!” Soarin scrambled to his hooves and glared at Fancy.

Art by: mlplover789

“Just a little longer…” Fancy whispered to himself as he panted, covered in sweat and still in a ridiculous amount of pain. He blinked as Soarin shot up into the air and a large amount of magic began charging in the false horn. “Oh… dear…” Fancy stepped back as the magic grew larger and larger. Soarin thrust his head upward and hundreds of thin beams spewed out, all raining towards Fancy.

Without hesitation, Fancy turned and ran. The swarm of magic bolts thundered to the ground, pelting the ceramic tiles of the floor apart as they followed close behind Fancy. Fancy dared not stop nor even turn to look. He could hear the explosions right behind him, so he forced his body through the pain and galloped like he had never galloped before. He ran a wide circle around the throne, making sure not to go near any unconscious guards to avoid any of them being struck by the endless stream of magic projectiles. He stole a glance at Soarin as he fought to stay ahead.

Soarin had his eyes fixed on Fancy. As long as he was focused on him there was no way Fancy would be able to counter. He had to find a way to sneak an attack into a blind spot, but he didn’t have the convenience of time to focus and bend a beam.

But there was an alternative… however it wouldn’t work unless he had his front hooves free. By the looks of things, Fancy would have to get… well… fancy.

Fancy charged towards one of the walls of the throne room, the hellfire still raining behind him.

“HRGH!” Fancy put all of his strength into a jump and leapt at the wall. He reached all four of his hooves towards the wall, ready to kick off. Right before he did though, he angled his horn down and fired a blast of magic at the wall right beneath where his hooves touched. He pushed off right as the blast exploded beneath him, propelling himself into the air. The rain of magic from Soarin fell behind as Fancy flew through the air. With his front hooves now free from the ground, Fancy held them in front of his face, focused his magic, and angled his horn at them. The magic gently extended from the horn and collected in his hooves, creating a ball of magic roughly the size of a basketball.

Fancy locked his eyes on Soarin as he passed the ball of magic into his right hoof, Fancy pulled his right arm back and threw it forward with a bit of a twist in his hoof. The ball of magic launched towards Soarin, but took a wide curved arc to the side as it approached. Fancy quickly curled up his body and encased himself in a small magic shield as the magic bolts caught up to him and pelted against it as he landed roughly on the ground.

The ball of magic curved all the way around Soarin and turned towards him, approaching from behind. Soarin was focused on Fancy, but he sensed something. He canceled his attack and turned just in time to swipe a hoof out and swat the ball of magic away.

Fancy uncurled from the ground, stood up and aimed his horn towards Soarin, fixating on where the false horn would be once Soarin turned around. He collected all the remaining magic he could muster without blowing his brain to pieces, focused it in his horn and fired it in a sharp, fast beam.

Unfortunately, Soarin turned back around faster than Fancy had anticipated. Soarin reached a hoof forward.

With one final effort. Fancy squinted his eyes shut, inhaled, and puffed his cheeks out. The beam split into four smaller beams, all sliding right past Soarin’s extended hoof, before re-combining and firing directly into the false horn.

“AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!” Soarin’s head reared back as Fancy’s magic exploded in his face, the bulk of the force centered on the horn. Soarin fell limply to the ground, landing roughly on his back.

Fancy blinked as he saw Soarin hit the ground. Did he actually do it? Attacking the horn was a gamble, but it worked…

“Ohhh…” Fancy’s legs wobbled and he plopped on the ground. He fought to keep himself conscious. His body was in pain and his head hurt, but at least he stopped Soarin… right?

“YOU…”

Fancy’s head shot up and his eyes widened as the glow reappeared around Soarin’s body. Soarin slowly stood up from the ground and shook his head out. He sharply turned to Fancy, glaring with all his might and magic slowly collecting in the horn again.

Well, that was it. Fancy had done what he could, but it seemed he could not hold out long enough for Luna to arrive…

Soarin’s eyes glowed brightly and he angled the horn towards Fancy.

“HEY!” A voice came from the other side of the throne room. Soarin glanced to the side and Fancy’s eyes snapped to behind the throne.

Discord was standing in the freshly blown hole in the wall. He was glaring towards Soarin and his chaos magic was sparking in his arms, horns, and eyes.

“IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT?!” Discord shouted, diverting Soarin’s attention to him. Discord lifted off the ground and shot towards Soarin while gathering more chaos magic around his body.

“RAAAHH!!!!” Soarin turned and fired the large collection of magic at Discord instead. It was of the same strength and intensity of the blast that had initially knocked Discord out of the picture… but this time Discord was ready for it. Discord pushed all of the chaos magic into his arms, causing bright, powerful auras to surround both of them. The blast smashed into his outstretched hands and was instantly scattered in all directions.

Fancy looked up in alarm as the blast split and a stray beam careened towards him, but a purple dome of light encircled him, as well as all the fallen royal guards. Discord’s horns were still alight, generating shields around the rest as he pushed against the blast.

The initial impact had slowed Discord down at first, but he slowly regained his movement, pushing against the unimaginable force of the dark magic Soarin was throwing at him. Slowly but surely, grunting and straining, Discord closed the distance between the two of them. The throne room was being torn to pieces. The small, splintering blasts smashing against the floor walls and ceiling, knocking down tapestries, pulling down shingles, blowing out parts of the stained glass windows, and pulling up floor tiles.

Discord pushed and pushed, slowly shrinking the beam he was fighting against as he neared its point of origin. He stood a mere foot from Soarin, and with one mighty push, reached forward and forced ALL of the magic back into the false horn… and clamped his hands over Soarin’s head. The chaos magic in Discord’s arms shot over Soarin’s body, surrounding him completely. It forced every last bit of the dark blue aura back into Soarin’s body.

Soarin stood still for a moment, eyes wide and body shaking.

“Oh boy…” Discord leapt back and ducked to the ground.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” Soarin cried out as an incredible shockwave propelled from his body.

“AH!” Rainbow Dash yelped as she suddenly sat straight up in bed. She blinked even thought it was pitch black in the room. She quickly reached a hoof over to her chest. Her heart was beating furiously.

What was that? She hadn’t even fallen asleep yet. One moment she was laying in bed, the next she was tossing and turning as if she couldn’t shake discomfort, and then BAM! For a moment it felt like her heart was going to rip from her chest.

This was… familiar, but not something she had felt. It had been described to her. She immediately made a connection.

“S…Soarin?”

Discord barely held himself down as the force of the shockwave surged against him, Fancy and the guards were thrown against the walls, and every single stained glass window in the throne room completely shattered, raining to the ground in thousands of small pieces.

Fancy covered his head as the glass shards rained down, but luckily Discord’s shields were still up, protecting him from any painful lacerations.

With all danger out of the way, Discord’s shield around Fancy faded and Fancy slowly looked up towards Soarin.

There was a trail of smoke rising from Soarin, and Discord was standing over him. Discord was looking over Soarin carefully, his eyes narrowing and a quiet growl escaping between his teeth.

Before Fancy could gather himself or say anything, Discord reached down and snatched Soarin up off the ground. He held him underneath his armpit and snapped his fingers on his free hand. He disappeared with Soarin in tow.

A few seconds later, the front door to the throne room swung open and Luna burst into the scene. Her eyes instantly widened as she frantically looked around the throne room, taking in the nearly destroyed state it was in.

“WHAT?!” Her voice boomed. She glanced all around, eyeing all of the guards until her eyes landed on Fancy. She leapt towards him.

Fancy glanced up towards the door. Three pegasi entered and froze in shock as they looked around, but before he could do anything else, Luna slammed to the floor directly in front of him.

“WHAT HAS HAPPENED HERE?! WHERE IS SOARIN!?”She demanded.

Fancy braced himself as the Royal Canterlot Voice forced him back to the floor.

Honestly? He had no idea where to start.

Discord appeared out of thin air in a dimly lit hallway. Before him was a large set of double doors with two pegasus guards standing in his way. They flared their wings out.

“Halt! None are allowed to—”

Discord snapped his fingers and the two guards were forced off to the side, transformed into parrots, and put in large gold bird cages. They immediately began squawking loudly as Discord stepped towards the door.

“Save it!” Discord snarled at them as he pressed his free hand firmly against the door. As it opened, an extremely bright light shone from the inside. Discord snapped his fingers again, and a pair of sunglasses appeared over his eyes.

He waltzed right into the room, which appeared to have nothing inside it besides the incredibly bright light. Discord walked to the center of the room, dropped Soarin on the floor, and looked straight up into the light, glaring angrily.

“You have A LOT of explaining to do… Celestia…”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Oh what have i done?

The first TRUE action scene i've written where something more than bragging rights have been at stake... it's been a long time and it felt GREAT to write it. But oh man... this is cliffy as hell... but don't expect any explanations any time soon xD

ANYWAY!

Fancy in action! Thrown into a magic duel with a pony who somehow decked Discord! Twas fun to write Fancy in combat again i haven't done it in a long time.

I have a full week of work ahead of me, so it will most likely not get the next chapter out until friday. Bear with me, this new schedule is killer, but it's important for my life going forward.

Until then...

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 38: Stupid Sexy Stallions...

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 38:

Spitfire slumped into her seat and groaned while wrapping her arms around her abdomen and grinding her nose against her tray of food. It had barely been over a week since her body… started burning, to put it lightly. This was by far the worst this “time” had ever been for her.

She couldn’t do anything without her mind or eyes wandering. She did her best to suck it up and remained composed whenever in a meeting, but as soon as she was alone she’d go right back to swearing and punching herself in the gut. There was no relief. The gym offered none… her work offered none… not even a nice meal offered any. Here she was, once again at breakfast… more than certain she’d start ogling every stallion that came through the door.

Wave Chill.

Fleetfoot was right. The way Spitfire and Wave had been coming along, it offered an EASY source of relief… too bad she didn’t find it proper to have such encounters with one of her officers. Not to mention the two were… still sort of avoiding each other.

She felt pathetic. They had a good friendship going and she was enjoying his more casual company. One awkward moment set them into a downward spiral with no end in sight. She always got on Soarin’s ass about Dash and not letting things get in his way… but she was starting to feel like a hypocrite.

She picked her head up and stared at the food on her plate. Eggs, pancakes, and… sausage…

“DAMN IT!” Spitfire groaned while tilting her head back and groaning. This was unbearable. Anything slightly phallic caught her attention… who was she, Fleetfoot?!

“Morning Hot Buns!” On cue Fleetfoot chimed in, sat down next Spitfire, and flashed a cheerful smile. Keeping her head tilted back, Spitfire folded her ears down and flattened her brow as she turned her head slightly towards Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot snickered as Spitfire gave her an extremely unamused look. “Aren’t you a bundle of sunshine!” she turned and started poking at her food. “Did you wake up on the wrong side of Wave Chill this morning?” Fleetfoot asked with a mischievous grin. When she got no response, she glanced back at Spitfire to see her in the exact same position only with a heavy glare aimed at Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot burst out laughing.

“HAHAHAWHOA!” Fleetfoot tipped back too far in her chair and almost toppled.

“It’s not funny Fleet…” Spitfire sighed as she looked back forward. Her eyes landed on the Streak twins as they entered the cafeteria and got in the food line. Spitfire’s eye locked onto them for a moment. Her face flushed and she quickly shut her eyes. “It’s… really, actually turning into a problem.”

“PFFFFFFFFF…” Fleetfoot released a long scoff with half a pancake stuffed in her mouth.

“I’m glad I have your support…” Spitfire rolled her eyes sarcastically. Fleetfoot shook her head, swallowed her food, grabbed a banana off her tray and pointed it at Spitfire.

“You’re making it a problem,” Fleet said while subtly jabbing the end of the banana towards Spitfire. “Just spend a night with Wave. I’m sure he won’t complain.”

“Fleet I’m not—” Spitfire paused as she felt something poking her arm. She turned and saw Fleetfoot tapping her arm with the end of her banana while bouncing her eyebrows. “STOP THAT!” Spitfire snarled as Fleetfoot tried desperately to hold in the laughs. “We CAN’T do that Fleet. I’m the lead captain of the Wonderbolts! I’m the ICON of the organization. I must show composure and discipline at all times! I can’t go backing my plot up to one of my officers that’s—”

“You could always be on top…”

“FLEET!” Spitfire slammed her hoof down. She blinked and looked up to see Fire and Lightning Streak standing across the table from them. They looked like they were about to sit down, but had frozen in place. A raging blush crossed Spitfire’s face. She reached up and pressed her ears against her head while groaning and lowering her nose back down to her plate, nestling it right into her scrambles eggs.

“I think we should sit elsewhere…” Fire suggested as he caught on.

“I dunno bro, I kinda like where this conversation is going,” Lightning smirked. Fire reached back and pulled Lightning along with him. Spitfire picked her face up off of her plate, blinked, and licked up the stray bits of eggs around her mouth before shaking her head.

“I just don’t know Fleet, I—” Spitfire froze as she turned her head. Fleetfoot had peeled the banana and was slowly licking it from the bottom towards the top while slowly widening her eyes and looking directly into Spitfire’s. “You’re NOT helping!” Spitfire fumed while turning back forward and grinding her teeth together.

“Of course I am! The more I drive you insane about it, the sooner you’ll do something about it!” Fleetfoot giggled as she took a bite out of her banana and leaned back.

“You make it sound so easy Fleet… I’m not like you. I don’t just sleep around for fun…” Spitfire commented with a bit or anger in her voice. Fleetfoot flattened her ears.

“Yikes Spitty, don’t make me sound like a slut or anything…” Fleetfoot pouted.

“Is there a better way to put it?” Spitfire was visibly miffed.

“Of course there is!” Fleetfoot leaned an elbow on the table and rested her head in her hoof. “I don’t just pick a random stallion, I gotta like them too!”

“You like me?!” Lightning’s voice came from the table across from them. Spitfire suddenly snorted as Fleetfoot shot a glare at Lightning.

“When I’m drunk doesn’t count…” she muttered. “Spitty, do something about it. Hell, if Wave is the only one, go with him. I’m not suggesting you get to know the male Wonderbolts like I have…” Fleetfoot paused and bounced her eyebrows once. “I just know that once you take care of it you’ll feel a lot better! Drop the stern captain act… think of yourself for once!”

Spitfire released a long, exasperated sigh as Fleetfoot went back to her food. Spitfire had barely touched her food, but was too busy being distracted by her “situation” to give much of a damn. Fleetfoot was right. Spitfire didn’t want to admit it, but Fleetfoot was completely right. Spitfire wasn’t a party girl like Fleetfoot, but as she said, Fleetfoot didn’t just throw her plot around (unless she lost count of how many drinks she had).

Spitfire had dealt with this in the past… but it was unbearable this time… and…

She looked up towards the food lines. Front and center were Misty Fly and Surprise. Surprise was bouncing happily with Misty smiling right behind her… then as soon as Misty moved out of the way, Wave stepped forward. Spitfire kept her eyes locked on him as he gathered his food. He turned and took a few steps towards the tables, but stopped and turned back after forgetting something. It was bad timing.

“Move it! Move it!” Silver’s voice came from outside the doors near the line. Wave soon found himself engulfed in the crowd of recruits pouring through the doors, luckily moving his tray up to avoid dropping it at the last second. Silver stomped in behind them all and sniffed the air sharply. “It smells like fear and sex in here!” he took a few more whiffs, and then nodded in satisfaction. “Just like all of my mornings!” he exclaimed as he followed behind.

Spitfire looked away before Wave could emerge. The last thing she wanted at the moment was Wave to catch her doing him with her eyes. She looked around for something else to take her attention as Misty Fly sat down beside her.

Good, somepony that wouldn’t bother her. Talk about a contrast, she had Fleet the chatter box on her left and Misty on her right. Surprise had sat down at the other table with the Streak twins, instantly talking their ears off, but they were used to it. Spitfire was surprised Misty sat by her, it was rare to ever see Misty apart from the Streak twins, or at least Fire. Spitfire leaned over and noticed two trays were already down in the last two spots at the other table. She looked out towards more of the serving tables and saw Blaze and High Winds by sandwich line.

“You heard me! Jalapñeos!” Blaze yelled at the chef.

“On an egg and bacon breakfast sandwich?” The chef asked in confusion. “We already put normal peppers on it. That would just be ridiculous… and probably burn your tongue off!” He flinched and yelped as Blaze reached over the counter and grabbed him by the apron.

“I KNOW YOU HAVE THEM BACK THERE! JALAPEÑOS! PILE. THEM. ON,” she demanded as she shook him. High Winds had fallen asleep with her head on the serving counter beside her, sleeping through Blaze’s yelling.

“Alright!” the chef yelled as he freed himself from her grip, reached down into the refrigerated cabinets below where they kept the deli food for lunch, and pulled out a container filled to the brim with jalapeños. Blaze removed herself from over the counter and bumped her flank against High Winds’ face. Winds’ head slipped off the counter and she fell into a heap on the floor. Blaze blinked and looked down.

“Dammit Windy…” she reached down lightly slapped Winds across the face a few times. Winds awoke with a start and stood up fast.

“And extra relish! And… wait, is it dinner time yet?” she yawned.

“Breakfast, now wake up and HEY!” Blaze yelled as the chef tried to put the jalapeños away.

“What?!” he blinked and looked at her in confusion.

“What the hell is this shit?!” Blaze pointed to her egg sandwich. There were six jalapeños on it. “Give me that!” She reached over, grabbed the container from the chef, and dumped all of the jalapeños onto her sandwich. The chef’s eyes widened as Blaze discarded the container, and put the top of the English muffin on the pile of jalapeños, effectively making her sandwich ten percent egg and bacon and ninety percent ‘hell in your mouth.’

“I’ll just have mine normal please…” Winds asked casually as Blaze laughed maniacally at her tower of a sandwich.

Typical Blaze… Spitfire thought as she looked for more things to distract herself from Wave. She saw him approach the tables and sit down at her table. She didn’t want to make it look obvious… but she was avoiding eye contact.

Squad seven suddenly emerged as the recruits were rushed to the tables. Spitfire locked on them. ‘Observing Storm Front’ seemed like a good excuse, so she went with it. Storm was the first to get his food and crossed the rest of the cafeteria eagerly to get eating. It was interesting to see an elite squad member act with an overcharged sense of urgency like a new recruit.

Unfortunately his eagerness made him collide with Blaze as their paths intersected.

“WHOA!” Blaze yelped as she barely managed to keep her jalapeño sandwich from scattering everywhere.

“Ah! Sorry!” Storm quickly apologized, but he this was Blaze.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going! I swear if I had lost one of these damn good jalapeños I woulda—”

“Hrg…” Winds groaned from behind her. She reached over and stuffed her hoof in Blaze’s mouth. “Blazey, I’m hungry, quit yelling at everypony that looks at you funny.”

“But he—!” Blaze tried to retort.

“Nope,” Winds reached back with her wing and spanked Blaze’s plot fairly hard.

“WHOO!” Blaze yelped in surprise as she lurched forward. “Alright! I get it!” she grumbled as they finally sat down and let Storm be.

“Pff…” Spitfire rolled her eyes at her half-sister and turned her head slightly. She instantly stopped and looked back at the other table.

This was bad… she was afraid to just look at him.

“GAH! HAAAAAA!!!!! HOOOOOO!!!!!” Blaze suddenly coughed and choked off to the side. Spitfire looked over to see Blaze downing all of her water, then reaching over, grabbing Lightning’s water and chugging his too. Fire Streak shrugged while leaning slightly towards her.

“Honestly miss Blaze… what did you think was going to happen?!” he questioned as Lightning absolutely lost it beside him.

Spitfire shook her head and tried to focus on something else… anything. Then she saw Misty looking sternly towards the recruits. Spitfire blinked and tried to follow her eyes. Misty had locked onto somepony, but it was too far away to figure out which.

Misty suddenly stood up and began trotting towards the recruits. Fire blinked and watched her leave, turning to keep his eyes on her as she did. As soon as she was half way to them, Fire got up and began following.

Misty stopped in her tracks when Silver suddenly started yelling at the recruits again. She was right beside squad seven’s table. She glanced at them before focusing on Storm Front. She tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up at her and paid attention as Misty began giving signals to him.

Fire froze mid-step. As soon as she say Misty conversing with Storm, he proceeded no farther. He watched them converse as Misty kept eying the recruits, then turned around and returned to his seat with a sigh. Lightning glanced at Fire, and then peeked back at Misty with Storm. He lifted an eyebrow and shook his head before going back to his food.

Spitfire wasn’t sure what to make of that situation, but before she could do anything else, a hoof suddenly grabbed the back of her head. Spitfire spotted Fleetfoot’s hoof in her peripheral vision. Before she could retaliate, Spitfire’s head was forced to the left, making her look directly at Wave Chill. Wave froze as the two locked eyes.

Fleetfoot went back to eating the instant after as if she did absolutely nothing. She waited a minute, and then glanced up at the two of them. Neither Spitfire nor Wave had said anything or moved.

“Wow!” Fleetfoot smacked her hoof against her head. She looked between the two of them. “Seriously you two?!” she threw her hooves out while glaring. Neither of them said anything, nor took their eyes off the other. “JUST DO IT ALREADY!”

“I KNEW YOU’D COME AROUND ONE DAY FLEETUMS!” Air Mach suddenly shoved himself right next to Fleet in her seat and wrapped a hoof over her shoulder. Fleetfoot’s eyes shot open and she pulled her face away from him in disgust.

“WHAT THE— Did you just call me… ‘Fleetums?!’” she glared at him and snarled. He kept going regardless.

“We can most CERTAINLY do it, hot stuff!” He said while pounding his hoof on the table eagerly.

“I WAS TALKING ABOUT THEM!” Fleetfoot made a head motion towards Spitfire and Wave. She pressed both of her hooves to Air Mach and tried to push him off, but he didn’t budge.

“My room later? Or hey, why not right now, where everyone can watch? I’LL SHOW MY FELLOW STALLIONS HOW A TRUE STALLION DOES IT!”

“NO!” Fleetfoot finally managed to pry herself from him. “Do you love hearing yourself talk or something?!”

“I love eating breakfast!” Air Mach reached down and picked up one of Fleetfoot’s pancakes. He shoved the whole thing into his mouth and swallowed it whole. “That’s what we’re talking about right?! REAL STALLIONS NEVER NEED TO CHEW THEIR FOOD!”

“UGHHHH!!!!” Fleetfoot groaned while grabbing her ears and yanking them as hard as she could. Air Mach grabbed another one of her pancakes.

“Breakfast is full of tasty morsels!” he ate the pancake in the exact same manner as the first. Fleetfoot turned and glared at him. He smirked right back in her face, before leaning back slightly. “Say…” he tipped his sunglasses up and began eyeing Fleetfoot up and down. He eventually stopped at her flank and kept staring. “You’re a pretty tasty morsel yourself!”

Fleetfoot’s expression changed from a glare to an extremely flat expression with her ears flattening out as well. She lifted up her tray and grabbed her plate off of it.

“Here, hold this for me?” she handed the plate to Air Mach casually.

“Sure thing!” he complied without question and took the plate from Fleetfoot.

“Thanks,” said Fleetfoot as she hopped up and stood on her chair, held the tray by one end, pulled it way back over her, and slammed it down as hard as she could over Air Mach’s head. The plastic tray broke completely in half and all the Wonderbolts nearby turned and looked in alarm.

But Air Mach didn’t flinch, nor did he even budge. He simply ate another pancake off of Fleetfoot’s plate and pumped a hoof in the air triumphantly.

“How did you know I like my breakfast rough? IT’S LIKE THE HEAVENS MEANT FOR US TO BE TOGETHER!” he yelled out proudly.

“That’s it…” Fleetfoot dropped the broken half of her tray on the floor and hopped down. “Spitfire, let me know when we start working out today, I have to go swear into my pillow for an hour or something,” she quickly trotted out.

Spitfire just stared as the whole scene concluded. Oh well… Fleet had it coming.

She turned back and saw that Wave had disappeared in the cacophony. She actually reacted. She stood up quickly and looked around frantically, but Wave was gone. Probably finished and left before anything else bad could happen.

That tore it, Spitfire had had enough… she had to find a way to face Wave… even if it was during a rather… heated time for her.

Spitfire was about to sit back down, but she stopped. She looked around at all the Wonderbolts present. She seriously had not noticed until just now.

“Where the hell is Soarin?”

“If you’re late, you have a hundred push-wing-ups with me sitting on your back!” Silver yelled as he slammed the door to the barracks behind him.

“Must he slam the door every time? It seems a bit excessive…” Little Star huffed as she and Dash turned and moved towards their footlockers. Each bed was flanked by a footlocker on both sides, one for each occupant. Dash held in a snicker as she almost lost sight of Little Star over the other side of the bottom bunk. She still couldn’t get over how short Star was.

“I think he just likes being loud,” Dash commented as she opened her locker. She heard a scoff from directly beside her as Thunderlane walked up and opened his footlocker placed right beside hers for the next bunk.

“What tipped you off on that one?” he rolled his eyes, opened his footlocker and fished around in it. Dash did the same until she found her flight goggles and put them around her neck.

“How are you holding up by the way?” Dash asked out of curiosity. Thunderlane shuddered.

“I think I’m gonna fall apart,” he whined as he rotated his wings and the joints made painful cracking noises. “Oo! Ow!” he winced as Dash grimaced at the sound. “Well, that’s one way to get them loose…” he took a deep breath as he closed his locker. Dash chuckled as he exaggerated the pain.

“You might want to get those knots rubbed out after today at least,” Dash turned back to her locker as Thunderlane trotted elsewhere. She pushed some of her things around and stopped when the picture of her and Soarin showed itself slightly.

She blinked as she stared at it before quickly reaching down and pushing the Daring Do book back over it. She closed her locker gently, but didn’t move for a moment. She just stared down at the closed locker. She slowly reached her right hoof up to her chest and held it over her heart. She took a deep breath and exhaled as she felt the steady beat within her chest.

Why did her heart jump the night before? She had a very strange and awful feeling that it involved Soarin. Under normal circumstances, such a thought would seem absurd… but after Soarin’s description of his sleepless nights during her first visit… and especially after being informed her magical imprint on him and how her presence calmed the magic…

Could something have happened to Soarin? She hadn’t thought at all about the effect she had on the dark power within him. Could their recent disconnect… be hurting Soarin?

Dash shook her head out, turned, and sat down on the side of her bed. She didn’t even know if it had anything to do with Soarin. It could have just been a weird position she laid in… or something. But the possibility was enough to send a shock of dread through her. She and Soarin were currently at odds… but she didn’t want him to get HURT. NEVER!

She couldn’t do anything at the moment though. She had to report to gym number two half an hour for ‘basic element handling.’ She could figure it out later. She had a free day tomorrow… or at least that’s what the schedule said, who knew what Silver might make them do. If they were, in fact, free she would see what she could find out.

She decided to try and take her mind off the subject. It would be easier to get focused if she wasn’t worrying so much. She hadn’t really taken a good look at all of the recruits yet. It was a mix of her being nervous, and knowing which recruits she felt comfortable around. She wondered if she’d recognize any more from the tryouts… at least physically.

Dash looked around. Something interesting caught her eye. There was a group of three pegasi sitting in a small huddle. They had their arms out, resting on the shoulders of the other two to the left and right of them as if they were having a little secret meeting. One of them was a pure black pegasus stallion with a mane styled similar to Dash’s but it was colored black and white. To his left was a dark blue mare with a messy back, ice blue mane. The last was a light blue mare… with a curly, bright green mane in a style that reminded Dash of Pinkie Pie or Surprise. From the angle Dash could only see her cutie mark out of the three… it was a potato… wearing sunglasses... and a top hat… and had a stylish moustache... whut?

Dash tipped her head to the side and blinked as the three seemed to bounce excitedly as they conversed. She couldn’t hear what they were whispering, but they looked like they were enjoying themselves. They were setting themselves apart, but it’s not like Dash wasn’t talking to the same three recruits at all times. She kinda talked to Twister… and Squall was… an ass for lack of a better term.

Dash looked around her, eyes falling on Matteo. Then she looked to Thunderlane. Then to Squall. She looked around more, but Little Star and Twister were nowhere to be seen. Probably in the bathroom.

“Dammit…” Dash cursed. This wasn’t working. She was still worrying about Soarin. She decided just to get up and head to the gym. Maybe the walk would help clear her mind, and she’d be the first one there. She might get a suck up comment from Silver, but whatever, she needed to focus and it wasn’t working in the barracks.

Dash stepped out into the barracks hallway and made her way to the set of doors leading into the lobby. She trotted through past the reception desk, but stopped briefly when she saw Fleetfoot walking around.

Fleetfoot was walking from object to object in the lobby. Chair, plant, statue, everything, and checking behind it.

Dash was… still a little sheepish about talking to any of the lead squad. Sure the conflict was with Soarin, but as Applejack had said back before she returned, ‘One of them also chose Storm over her.’ She just wasn’t sure how to approach them.

So Dash went on her way, turning to her left and down the hall. She took about ten steps and stopped.

“Wait…” she blinked, turned around, and examined the hallway. “This is the wrong way…” she mumbled to herself. The last time she reported to a specific gym, her bearings were from the entrance. If she was coming from the barracks, it was reversed. She’d get used to that after a while, but at least no one saw her blunder. She turned around, but as she did she stopped in her tracks… setting her eyes on exactly what… or rather who Fleetfoot was looking for.

Rivet was scurrying along the ground, staying as low as possible to avoid detection. Dash could see him subtly making his way around the lobby furniture and towards the hallway she currently stood in. Rivet put his back up against one of the leather chairs, only one more piece of furniture to pass by before he was home free. Dash remained still. She actually felt kinda bad for the little guy, so she didn’t want to blow his cover…

Art by: MyLittleXyo

“Rivet! Come oooooooooon, I’m stressed out! I need something soft and cuddly to hug!” Fleetfoot cooed while looking IN one of the potted plants. She was leaving no stone unturned. She had clearly already seen him once or else this whole scenario wouldn’t be happening. Rivet leapt out and dove into one of the potted plants that Fleetfoot had already checked. It was the last obstacle. He peeked out over the top to see Fleetfoot still looking through one of the plants as if digging through it would find him. Rivet focused on the hall and readied to make his last move…

Art by: Pie Is Epic

Unfortunately, he didn’t time it very well.

“AHA!” Fleetfoot yelled as she looked up. Rivet flinched upon hearing her voice and made a break for the hall… but Fleetfoot was the famous Silver Streak of the lead squad… you don’t outrun her.

“EEP!” Rivet yelped as Fleetfoot landed in front of him before he could get two steps away from the chair. He made a break to the left… but that was another critical blunder. Fleetfoot gave chase and ended up cornering him where two of the lobby walls met. He had no way out.

“Why do you run from me? I just wanna hug you!” Fleetfoot pouted at him.

Dash snickered and shook her head. Fleetfoot was ridiculous… it was awesome, but she still felt sorry for Rivet. Being small may have its advantages at times, but apparently to Fleetfoot, that made him a stuffed animal. Dash peeked out to see Rivet cornered against the blue walls.

Rivet suddenly crouched down, his fur puffed up, he extended his wings and turned them down flat… in the same manner a small cornered creature would try to make itself look bigger.

Line art by: foxenawolf Coloring by me.

Fleetfoot stopped and her eyes widened. This was the first time she had actually cornered him. Rivet still looked terrified despite the ‘intimidation’ tactic… as if it was a reflex and he couldn’t control it. Either way… Fleetfoot completely lost it.

“OH MY GOHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!” She clutched her stomach and keeled over. Rivet’s face went from scared to blank. He had no idea what he had done. “THAT!” Fleetfoot wiped a tear from her eye as she continued to guffaw uncontrollably. “That’s the most ADORABLE thing I’ve ever seen!”

Dash admittedly thought it was hilarious too. She never would have seen that coming either… She wondered what Rivet was waiting for. He had a chance to escape now… it looked like he really was frozen in place.

But then…

“Huh?” Dash blinked. Rivet… disappeared. Literally disappeared. She blinked a couple more times as Fleetfoot rolled over and stopped laughing in an instant.

“What the…?!” Fleetfoot got up and looked around. Rivet had vanished… he was just there with the blue walls at his back. Fleetfoot began hopping around, looking for him again. “Where did he go?!” she made her way through the lobby and over to the mail desk. The orange mail pegasus had just turned around to grab a few papers, only to yelp as Fleetfoot reached across the counter and shook him by the shoulders. “WHERE DID RIVET GO!?” she yelled in his face.

“Whoa! I just handle the mail!” he frantically answered as she let go and he fell over from the force.

Dash was puzzled… ponies just don’t disappear like that… how did he—

“OOF!” Dash grunted as something suddenly ran directly into her. Then just like that, Rivet appeared in front of her at eye level, fell as if rolling off of something, and plopped on the ground. He looked up at Dash and held his hooves up in front of his chest defensively. Dash just pulled her neck back while wondering how the HELL he suddenly was in front of her.

“Whoops! Sorry about thaaaaaahey there!” A voice spoke. Dash flinched in surprise and looked around. Rivet hadn’t said anything, she was looking right at him. “Right here,” the voice spoke again. It was to her left. Dash glanced to her left… and looked right into a pair of FLOATING yellow eyes.

“WHA—!?” she yelped.

“Shhhh! Don’t blow my buddy’s cover!” said the eyes.

Dash shook her head out and blinked before squinting real hard. She could just barely, barely see it… the outline of a pegasus stallion. She also could faintly see a pure black, short mane. The pony was literally blending into the dark blue walls of the compound.

“Ah!” Rivet squeaked as the pony picked him up, put him on his back, and folded his dark wings over him. Just like that, Rivet was gone. Completely camouflaged by this pony’s ridiculously dark blue wings.

“Haven’t seen you around before…” the eyes kept talking to her.

“Uh…”

“Nice mane, never seen a rainbow color… kinda awesome, hey are you free tonight?” the invisible pony suddenly asked.

“What?!” Dash could barely keep her thoughts together as this mystery pony just kept talking.

“Oh wait, haha rewind, my name is…”

“Riiiiiiiiveeeeeeeeettt!!!!” Fleetfoot whined as she approached.

“Whoops! Gotta get this guy back to his workshop! I’ll see ya round!” and just like that, the pony was gone. Dash didn’t see him leave. She blinked and furrowed her brow.

What the hell was that all about? Come to think of it, she remembered when those two other large ponies helped out Rivet, something that was hard to make out flew in and made an escape with Rivet in tow… was it this stallion?

Who were these Rivet saviors anyway? All three of them seemed to have a bit of a presence and it was clear the other Wonderbolts were aware of them… but who were they?

Dash shrugged and began walking through the lobby in the right direction. If anything this helped get her mind off of Soarin… her curiosity was set on these three mystery stallions.

The Wonderbolts and their secrets… Dash wouldn’t be surprised if they had some top secret underground complex or something at this rate…

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

SURPRISE!

I actually buckled down and finished a chapter... and my brain is officially shot... i can't believe i got this out so early =3= sleepy...

But ah yes... finally we visit another secondary POV... think i forgot about all the Spitfire Wave chill and Fire Misty Fly goodness? And the rest of the Wonderbolts? Of course not... there is relevance in the story for all of them. Plus... it was meant to drive home Spitfire's realization... all these shenanigans... and Soarin isn't there? *GASP*

And yes we had a few Cameo's this time among the background recruits... if you recognized yourself congrats on making me want to use you xD

Anyway i must sleep... tired as hell... next chapter will probably be out this weekend. Don't know which day for sure.

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 39: Discord: The Double Douche, and Squad Two: The Elements

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 39:

Spitfire trotted up the stairs and turned sharply to the right towards Soarin’s room.

What was it now? Soarin’s little issues had put enough dents in their plans and schedules already. She was starting to lose her patience. Soarin was her best friend and she cared about him, but she had responsibilities and an organization to run. He was in a position of high importance to the Wonderbolts, and if he continued this trend of not being able to perform his duties, she was bound by the Wonderbolt code to take action. She had already threatened him with it a few times. She didn’t know how much more she’d be able to bend the rules for him before it brought her down as well.

Soarin couldn’t have timed this specific event any worse. They had a show in Manehattan in a week and a half and they had barely practiced their routine. It was bad enough that they were trying to get Air Mach ready to perform on their higher standard.

The shows were important. They were what generated eighty percent of Wonderbolt funds. Lately their revenue had been incredibly low. The absence of the lead squad at recent shows had plunged ratings and attendance. The other squads weren’t bad… but their fans adored the lead squad’s performances. The other squads complemented them. Because of their decreased revenue, their expenses chopped off a much larger chunk of their funds… making profits barely a fraction of what they had been before the whole incident with Rapidfire. Things needed to change. Friendship aside, Spitfire wasn’t going to let the whole compound fall down for Soarin’s sake.

She stopped in front of Soarin’s door and took a deep breath before lifting her hoof to knock. Suddenly a hand reached out and caught it.

“Now now, ma capitan… It’s not very polite to knock on somepony’s door while they’re resting.”

Spitfire’s ears flattened the instant she heard the voice. She slowly turned her head to the left and glared directly into the smug eyes of Discord.

“You have five seconds to let go of me before you lose that arm,” she snarled at him, not in the mood for his antics. Discord leaned back, his arm detaching from his body as the hand remained clamped on her.

“Ha! Beat you to it!” Discord puffed his chest out with pride. Spitfire grabbed his arm, yanked his hand from her, and threw the disembodied appendage down the hall. Discord looked up and watched his arm fly down the hall and bounce to a stop near the stairs. “That wasn’t very polite either—” he was cut off as Spitfire hovered up, grabbed his ears and yanked him down so he was face to face with her.

“Listen you disgruntled pile of animal parts, if there’s a good reason for you coming here and annoying the hell out of me then OUT WITH IT! I’m not in the mood for any crap!” She growled in his face.

“Psh…” Discord scoffed as he lifted his head up, his ears detaching and remaining in Spitfire’s hooves. “Do you honestly you can scare me?” his arm walked by them on two fingers. Discord leaned down and let his arm hop back up into his shoulder. “It’s not MY fault you’re in the middle of an irritable bodily function,” he reached down and plucked his ears from Spitfire’s grip, snapping them back to the sides of his head. “Besides, I’ve seen much worse… want to see a truly terrifying mare when they are feeling the heat? You should see Celestia… there’s a reason I like to call her Sun Butt from time to time, you know…” Discord paused and glanced down at Spitfire. She was still glaring at him.

“Just shut up and tell me what’s wrong with him…” she demanded while scrunching her face. Discord sighed and leaned against the wall.

“Is that any way to ask nicely?” he pouted. Spitfire’s glare only sharpened further. Discord rolled his eyes. “Youngun’s these days… no respect…” he pushed off the wall and crossed his arms while looking seriously at Spitfire. “Well…” he began. “We had a little mishap during our last magic training session. I’m sure he’s told you about those.”

“He’s brought them up, yes… and he uses it every once in a while, go on…” Spitfire encouraged. Discord looked towards Soarin’s door.

“Let me put it this way… Celestia can be a real pain in whatever constitutes as my ass…” Discord scoffed. He shook his head and looked back towards Spitfire. “I honestly don’t know what she was thinking. She claims she wishes to meet an incoming threat to Equestria head on, but then effectively takes herself out of the picture...” he paused when he saw Spitfire glare again. “Oh, relax. I’m getting to the point,” he shifted and began pacing back and forth. “Celestia has done something that she really shouldn’t have… at least in my opinion. She’s released the bonds on a great destructive power that she herself has been holding down for a long time… and gave it to a mortal. I hate to say it, but she probably would have been better off letting him die.”

“EXCUSE ME?!” Spitfire snapped at him and leapt up, pressing her face angrily against his.

“You heard me,” Discord put up a finger. Chaos magic surrounded Spitfire. He moved his finger forward, and pointed down. In synch, Spitfire was moved away from him and placed back on the ground. “Celestia has put Equestria in danger by handing such power to Soarin. If I were a logical entity… I wouldn’t hesitate to kill Soarin and destroy the power before it grows any stronger…” he said with an unusually serious tone.

Spitfire’s eyes widened. Discord was being serious. This was… really bad.

“However…” Discord sighed. “Celestia would never do such a foolish thing unless she had a very good reason. She is one if not the only one I have ever come to fully trust over our timeless existence. If giving the power to Soarin was necessary… then I plan to make sure it stays with him. It may sound farfetched to you, but I do care about the future of the world I exist in.”

“But…” Spitfire flattened her brow. “You still haven’t told me what’s wrong with Soarin!” she complained. “What did Celestia do? What sort of power did she really put inside him?! It’s not just some random forbidden magic, is it?” she demanded to know. Discord stared at her for a moment and then looked away.

“It is not my place to say,” he said plainly.

“Oh, BULLSHIT!” Spitfire stomped. Discord glared down at her.

“I’m only honoring Celestia’s wishes. If you want to argue, take it up with her… but I doubt you’ll be able to right now…” Discord shrugged.

Spitfire held her breath and squinted her eyes shut. She shook her head and released a loud, annoyed grunt, whipping her tail out straight once before turning around and walking towards the stairs. Discord blinked as she moved away before vanishing and appearing right in her path.

“And just where are you going? Trudging off like that without speaking your mind makes others curious… and it’s not wise to make a god of chaos curious…” he snickered while twirling the end of his scraggily white beard with his finger. Spitfire didn’t glare at him. She gave him the flattest, most unamused expression she could muster.

“Soarin is slowing our schedule down. I have to release him from service until he sorts everything out. I have to think about the Wonderbolts before personal relationships,” she replied dutifully.

“You will do no such thing,” Discord instantly replied. Spitfire blinked and looked up at him in annoyed confusion.

“What?”

“I said you won’t do that,” Discord confirmed. Spitfire cocked an eyebrow.

“Why not?” she asked. “You have five seconds to convince me.”

“Fullmasteryofthemagicrequireshimtohavefullaccesstohisregularworkingshedulesohecanremaininacomfortableandfamiliarenvironmentashisbodyadjuststothenewinternalstrain.” Discord fired the words out all in five seconds.

“Uh…” Spitfire couldn’t understand a word of it.

“That was the five second version… want to hear the three?” Discord chuckled and sneered.

“Just… tell me,” Spitfire sighed, realizing she wasn’t getting out of this unless she played along.

“Soarin needs to be on his normal routine. The most effective way for him to learn control over his power is to have him do so in an environment and schedule his body is already used to. So… you will not remove him from service. He’s already having issues due to certain mare screaming at him for no reason… I won’t let you throw him off more,” Discord stated while crossing his arms and bending his neck all the way down so his face was eye level with hers. Spitfire huffed and tried to walk past him.

“Fine. I’ll put him on a lower squad so—”

“No, you won’t do that either,” Discord shifted in front of her and lowered his face in front of hers again. Spitfire’s patience completely snapped. She growled and pointed at him.

“Look! You don’t make the rules around here! If I want to keep my job and lead the Wonderbolts in the right direction, I have to do something about Soarin! We are having expense issues and low profits! This is a REAL issue. A business issue! One that a dumbass god like yourself never has to worry about! Now get the hell out of my way!” Spitfire yelled as hard as she could into his face. Any saliva that shook free of her mouth took convenient, artificial arcs around Discord’s face as she belted.

Discord stood up straight as she walked by, looking down at her while slowly narrowing his eyes. A small, devilish smirk curled onto his lips. He held up his hand, sneered, and snapped his fingers.

Spitfire flinched and froze in place as a faint aura of chaos magic surrounded her. Her eyes widened considerably as she felt an intense… sensation in her stomach. She wasn’t quite sure how to describe it… it felt like cramping… but at the same time felt good?

“AH!” She lurched back and clutched her abdomen. It actually felt like… it was a little lower than her stomach. Suddenly a raging blush crossed her face and she curled down, nearly touching her head to the floor. “OH! AAAHH! WHAT THE HELL?!” she started to freak out as she staggered backwards.

“Hmmm… this should be a little familiar to you… as I do recall, you’ve had your mind overtaken by chaos magic in the past…” Discord began pacing around her as she clutched her body and shivered. “The Shadowbolt crystals are bred from wayward chaos magic… and one of their overzealous rookies used one to amplify your emotions and sent you into a crazed rampage…” he stopped and faced her with a sneer so wide that his grin extended past the boundaries of his face. “But that’s just boring… there’s so many other… better things it can do!”

“Shit!” Spitfire yelled as she fell onto her plot, but the impact sent an unexpected shockwave through her. “AH!” she yelped, her face turning redder by the second.

“In my opinion amplification of emotions is just the tip of the iceberg…” he snapped his fingers again. The glow around Spitfire brightened slightly.

“AYEYAIAYIAYAI!!!!” Spitfire curled up on the ground while breathing heavily.

“Amplification of the body… whether it be strength, function, or whatever might be convenient to the situation… that is where chaos magic shines in terms of boosting…” he snickered. “You heard me, bodily functions can be amplified…” he snapped his fingers again. The glow brightened once more.

“YOW!” Spitfire hopped up on all four hooves and frantically back-stepped until she fell down and tumbled into the wall. “STOP IT!” she yelled out as she blushed and clutched her abdomen with both her arms and wings.

“You thought you were feeling the heat? Well I can make it worse… still this isn’t even a fraction of how bad Celestia has it when the time comes around… imagine being the embodiment of the sun… in heat… it’s not pretty, I assure you.” Discord spoke to Spitfire casually as she writhed on the floor. “You know you should really consider relieving yourself… I can only imagine how much you want it now… seeing as how I’ve at least bumped it up seven or so notches.”

“WHAT IS AHHH! WRONG WITH YOU!?” Spitfire tried to chastise him as her body jittered and twitched within the natural urges he was amplifying. “THIS IS OOOAAHH!!!! THIS IS JUST WRONG! AH!” She curled up on the floor again.

“What’s wrong with me? Moi? Innocent, wittle old me?” Discord began prancing around her and an angel halo appeared above his head. “You’re the one that’s not listening to a god…” he mumbled. “Listen to me…” he leaned down to Spitfire as she moaned and groaned on the floor. “If you don’t change anything about Soarin… I will cancel the magic and leave you alone. Don’t challenge me, I could do MUCH worse than I’m doing right now,” he threatened as Spitfire looked up at him and glared through her blush.

“I ah! I will not be swayed by OW! Meaningless temptations!” she growled despite her female urges spiking so hard it was a wonder she hadn’t blown to pieces yet.

“You asked for it…” Discord shrugged and snapped his fingers again. Spitfire slammed her eyes shut, expecting another wave to pulse through her… but nothing happened. She slowly opened her eyes…

“WHA!?” She yelped as her eyes widened as much as they could. Discord did not amplify her body any more… instead he did something much… MUCH worse.

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

“Captain… are you alright?”

Spitfire’s jaw dropped. She was surrounded by Wave Chills. She couldn’t even count them all. There were at least twenty of them, maybe even more, she couldn’t see past them from the floor. They all approached and surrounded her, crouching down as if to check on her and make sure she was alright. Spitfire knew they weren’t real. She knew it was an illusion. That didn’t change the fact that she was surrounded by upwards of thirty of the stallion she wanted to be with… and her heated mare urges were being amplified at least ten times over… she couldn’t take it! It was too much!

“OKAY! OKAY! STOP, STOP, STOP! I WON’T DO IT! JUST STOP, PLEASE!!” Spitfire cried out while blushing furiously. She was almost driven to the point of tears, not because it hurt… because it felt too good and wasn’t real.

“Very well…” Discord’s voice hovered above her and all the Wave Chills disappeared. Discord floated down in front of her and snapped his fingers. The glow disappeared from around Spitfire and she exhaled loudly before finally getting to relax her body.

“You… are… a… bastard…” Spitfire grumbled as she panted and wheezed.

“A GLORIOUS one I might add… I apologize for going to extremes when there is no other way…” he threw his arms out. “This is your fault, not mine. I told you what needed to happen and you didn’t listen… maybe this will teach you to think that your word goes over a god’s…” he crossed his arms and scoffed. “Don’t do a thing to change how Soarin goes about his life. If you do… well, let’s just say I wasn’t trying very hard just now…” he stopped and looked up on the clock on the wall. “Oh dear, I’m afraid I have to get moving,” he leaned down to her as she slowly sat up. “I’ve got my eyes on you…” he said sinisterly. He slowly faded away, his eyes staying behind and blinking a few times before they disappeared as well.

Spitfire laid flat on the floor on her stomach, gasping and panting for a moment, just trying to capture her breath. Having her mind controlled was one thing… having her body controlled… and manipulated? That was less painful, more… absurdly unpleasant, especially how Discord manipulated her.

Although… what was worse… was when he made the fake…

“Ah!” Spitfire scrambled to her hooves and galloped towards her room a few doors down. She kicked her door open and dove in. She tumbled to a stop, quickly got up, slammed the door behind her, and propped her back against it. She was still panting… and her abdomen was still churning a little… but not necessarily in a way that hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut and slowly slid her back down the door until she was sitting on the floor. She hugged herself tightly.

What an asshat… Discord…

Messing with her and her current internal issues to get what he wanted. Spitfire had never known a more low, disgraceful, despicable, disgusting…

Spitfire opened her eyes.

“Huh?” she blinked. Was she dreaming? When she entered her room, it was empty save for her bed, closet, desk, and the like. She had shut her eyes as she slumped against the door… but when she opened them, there were multiple large burlap bags everywhere. She looked back and forth at all of them. Curiosity overpowered the desire to remain still for the rest of the day. She stood up and trotted towards the closest bag up against her bed. It was almost as large as her. She reached up, and forced the bag open.

She almost had to shield her eyes. Bits. It was filled with bits… to the brim. Spitfire’s jaw dropped as she stared. She quickly looked at the bag sitting on her desk. She darted over to it and ripped it open. She yelped as a bunch of spring loaded snakes fired out of it, but as soon as she looked back, it too, was filled with bits. She looked back at the rest of them.

There were at least twenty-five bags of bits the size of her in her room. If her estimate was correct based on the size of the bags, there was at least five thousand bits per bag… maybe even more.

“What the…” Spitfire was speechless. She flinched as a small piece of paper suddenly floated down in front of her face. She reached up and grabbed the paper, turning it over. On it was written:

Don’t worry about expenses… Worry about Soarin.

Sincerely (for once),

The Big D (you know you want it)

Spitfire rolled her eyes and crumpled up the piece of paper… but she held onto it as she stared at the bags of bits.

Discord confused her… as he did all. However, if he was willing to help for Soarin’s sake, then there really was something up.

Never in a million years did Spitfire think she’d say this… but she would trust Discord.

“Five… four… three…” Silver counted down. Twister burst into the gymnasium and stood among the recruits. “Two…” Thunderlane and a few others barely made it. “One…” Silver stopped and looked at the crowd. “Line Up!” He suddenly yelled. The recruits quickly scrambled to get into a straight line and stand at attention.

“Oof!” Dash grunted as she somehow managed to run into Matteo twice during the shift. She eventually stood between him and Thunderlane, standing perfectly still as Silver walked before them.

“Come on in!” Silver yelled into the air. Dash blinked and made very subtle glances at the other recruits. Good, she wasn’t the only one confused. Was that an order? Or…

Suddenly, Wave Chill, Blaze, and High Winds all glided over the top of them in full uniform and goggles on. They landed behind Silver, stood in a perfect line side by side, all folded their wings simultaneously, and stood perfectly still.

“Squad two, at ease!” Silver yelled to them as he turned and faced the recruits. Wave, Blaze, and Winds all relaxed, pulled their goggles down around their necks and stood comfortably. As soon as Silver’s back was to them, Blaze nudged Winds and started whispering to her.

Silver glanced back and forth at all the recruits, none had budged since his order and he was pleased with that.

“Now then! Which one of you thinks you’re smart?!” he barked while eying all of them. None of the recruits dared to move. Silver cracked a smile and chuckled. “At least none of ya are dumb enough to move or speak after I call attention! Alright then! You have my permission to raise your hoof and answer any REAL questions I ask! Now again, which one of you thinks you’re smart?!” he belted. Two hooves rose up from the recruits. “Good to know, now which of you are ACTUALLY smart?!” he continued. Another hoof went up. “PUT YOUR HOOF DOWN! I HAVENT ASKED A REAL QUESTION YET!”

Dash just decided not to move until it felt reasonable. Three ponies already got blasted for jumping the gun. Although something caught her attention. Blaze had stopped whispering to High Winds and was now quietly walking up behind Silver. Winds was already trying to stifle laughter. Wave just kept glancing between Blaze and Silver. He slowly shuffled his hooves and put more space between himself and Winds.

“I said a REAL question!” Silver yelled in the face of the recruit who just tried to confirm his intelligence. Blaze stood about a foot behind Silver, took a breath, and made a face that looked identical to the scowl Silver always greeted the recruits with.

Dash instantly puffed her cheeks out while trying to hold back a laugh as Blaze began to mimic all of Silver’s motions.

“If you actually were smart, you’d know that wasn’t a real question!” Silver poked the recruit in the chest and flared his wings out. Blaze copied the motions exactly and even copied his mouth movements. Behind them High Winds clutched her stomach with her wings, brought her hooves up to block the laughter from escaping her lips, and in doing so ended up with her face on the ground. Wave just stared up into a corner of the gym, he did NOT want to be dragged into this. Silver kept yelling at the recruit, now with his face so far forward, the recruit had to pull his neck back.

“I HAVE MORE INTELLIGENCE IN MY LEFT ASS CHEEK THAN YOU DO IN YOUR DAMN SHRUNKEN HEAD! I OUGHTTA— ” He swiftly turned and glared directly into Blaze’s eyes, pressing his nose to hers. It took her almost a full second to drop the expression and mocking gestures. Silver clearly saw it all. The recruits kept glancing elsewhere while he grilled the one. It wasn’t hard for him to put together, he knew his own squad well. “What. Are. You. Doing?” he asked putting extreme emphasis on every word.

Winds completely lost it and rolled onto her back laughing. Wave had moved at least ten extra feet away from her. Blaze quickly tried to cover it up.

“Sir! I was just observing and learning your damn fine, sublime technique, sir!” she said in a fake dutiful voice.

“If I catch you doing that again, I’ll show you damner, finer, sublimer technique when I invite you to dinner this weekend, strap you to the couch, prop your eyelids open, and pork my wife on the coffee table in front of you! NOW STEP THE HELL BACK!” he barked before turning right back around to the recruits, many of which who were clearly holding in chuckles. Blaze stuck her tongue out at him and grinded her hooves against the side of her head as she backed up towards Winds.

“There’s a Silver line to remember,” Winds nudged Blaze and the two shared giggles.

“Now that we’ve got that all cleared up… time for a REAL question!” Silver continued. “Which one of you can tell me… what the form and function of Wonderbolt squad two is?! Assuming at least one of you little knob stoppers actually stayed after the lead squad was done performing!” he paused and looked back and forth.

Dash blinked. She actually knew the answer to that. Only… she was afraid to raise her hoof. Silver had done a hell of a job intimidating them… even when he said it was okay, she was afraid to move unless ordered to do so.

Dash decided to take the chance. She took a deep breath, swallowed, and slowly put a hoof up in the air.

“Skittles!” Silver instantly pointed at her. He said nothing else. Dash figured he was waiting for an answer.

“Sir!” she remained firm and puffed her chest out. “The members of Wonderbolt squad two are known as ‘The Elements!’ They each are an expert in handling one of the four natural elements the Wonderbolts use in their shows! Not even the lead squad compares to them in this regard, sir!” she finished and kept still. Not even looking in Silver’s direction. Dash stiffened as she heard the sound of Silver’s hooves close in from the right. He eventually stood before her. She took a chance and glanced down to see him… smiling? At least it was what would pass for a smile on Silver’s face. It was more like a glare with a wide smirk.

“Check out the big brain on Skittles!” He reached up and tapped her forehead. She didn’t dare budge. “You’re a smart one, and you’re absolutely right!” He stepped back and looked over his shoulder at his squad. Wave was still standing attention, but Blaze and Winds were whispering. They quickly stopped and looked straight ahead with innocent smiles on their faces. Silver made a head motion towards him and let off a sharp, brief whistle.

As the three stepped up, Dash noticed Blaze reach into a well hidden pouch on the right side of her uniform. She pulled what looked like two hoof gloves out of it. She slipped them over her hooves. The other two merely stood at the ready.

Silver looked back at the recruits, the smile disappearing, replaced with his usual glare. He took a deep breath,

“Basic demonstration maneuver one-zero-one! Combination B! Mix and match! Go!” He yelled out.

The ears stood up on the other members of squad two as he spoke. Wave and Winds leapt back as Blaze sneered. She reared back, held her arms out unevenly, and thrust them back inward, the ends of the hoof covers striking together. There was a loud POP followed by a spark and a bright flash. Dash and the recruits all jumped in surprise as flames rose from Blaze’s hooves.

Fire.

“That’s the good shit!” she said with a disturbing amount of satisfaction as she hovered into the air. She brought the flames in her hooves together, combining them into one large collection of fire, before swinging her arms back out, and spinning. The motion created a ring of fire around her. She dropped to the ground and struck her hooves together again, but this time swung her hooves up as the spark ignited. The air above her combusted and a tower of fire shot up through the ring of flames. It eventually expanded and engulfed the ring, creating a giant fireball that lingered in the air. Blaze leapt up and began hovering around it, pressing her hooves into it and moved them around it to keep the fire alight. It threatened to dissipate on all sides, with no base or fuel to keep it going, but Blaze kept it alive through manipulation of heat.

Dash couldn’t believe her eyes. She had basic knowledge of heat manipulation from her weather team training, but most definitely not to the point where she could keep a fire going IN MIDAIR.

“YOU’RE UP WINDY!” Blaze yelled towards Wave and High Winds. Wave hopped up and took off. He flew up above the recruits as Winds firmly placed her hooves on the ground and thrust her wings out at her sides. She took a deep breath and stretched her wings up above her.

Winds held the breath in for three seconds before her eyes snapped open. She twisted her wings so that the bottom of them tilted forward, and thrust them down, full swing around her body. A loud POOF sounded out from her.

Dash tipped her head in confusion as she eyed Winds… but then she felt a gentle breeze tap against her face… followed by loud POW as an invisible force comparable to a head on body slam smacked against her. Dash and the rest of the recruits were blown right off their hooves, save for Matteo who was forced two steps backwards before lowering himself a little and latching his talons into the floor. Silver however, didn’t budge an inch as the force plowed by him.

Wind.

Dash couldn’t believe it. High Winds just produced a gust of wind with the strength of a hurricane with ONE wing beat.

Dash quickly sat up… only to see Blaze’s airborne flames flying at them. Matteo glanced back at all the recruits still recovering from their fall, then back at the incoming fire. Without a second thought, Matteo instinctively put himself in front of the fire’s path. He stood back on his hind legs and readied his talons as he wound up with the intention of batting the flames away.

Before he could though, High Winds twisted her body, and forced it to right, spinning while extending her left wing out. A spiral gust of wind propelled from her wings and shot towards the fireball. It lowered until it was beneath the fire, and then shot upward. It catapulted the flames high into the air.

“WHOOAAA!!” Matteo yelled as he swiped his talons, missing the flames horribly because of their change in course. He was also caught by the aftershock of the spiral gust, which spun him around and toppled the mighty griffon over.

“Yikes!” Dash rolled out of the way as Matteo fell… but Thunderlane didn’t quite react in time.

“Oh god…” was all Thunderlane said as Matteo landed back first on top of him with a solid THUMP. Dash cringed as she glanced at Thunderlane’s hooves flailing out from beneath the bulk of Matteo’s body accompanied by muffled screams, but she quickly looked to the ceiling. The fire was heading up towards Wave Chill.

Before the spiraling flame reached him, High Winds reared back, and repeated her first motions while angling her body towards the rising pillar of fire. She pumped her wings down again. The loud bursts of wind echoed throughout the gym again as a harsh blast shot towards the peak of the flames. Upon the wind and fire colliding, the flames were blown in all directions, shooting out and almost completely reaching the walls in all directions.

Dash winced as she felt the intense burst of heat from above. She squinted her eyes to shield them, but managed to barely catch Wave Chill as he began zipping about above them. It looked like he was just flying in circles. He made around ten passes around the gym before he stopped right above them. Dash felt a drip on her cheek. She reached up and wiped it off, staring at her hoof for a moment before looking back up in realization.

Water.

There was water dripping from Wave’s wings. It took a moment, but Dash put it together here too.

Heat rises, and as heat rises, it collects moisture in the air… when that moisture is brought together it forms…

Wave spun in a circle, sprinkling the water from his wings and whipping his hooves around to catch and push them together. The heat from the fire was still very present, and as soon as the droplets came together, mist began forming around Wave. The more and more the mist collected, it eventually turned into a small cloud.

Wave Chill created a cloud from moisture he gathered out of the air… that was damn impressive considering he had so little to work with. And once he had one cloud, it was much easier to make more.

Wave began puffing and expanding the cloud and he whipped his wings around to grab more moisture out of the air and added it to the cloud. He soon had four small clouds floating around him.

Fire, wind, and water… that mean Silver was…

Wave grabbed the clouds and one by one chucked them down towards Silver. Blaze sneered and struck her hooves together again, creating a flame that lingered upon her right hoof. She held it up in front of her and readied her left hoof behind it.

“COMIN’ IN HOT!” Blaze yelled out as she swiped her left hoof quickly over her right four times. Each flick sent a small burst of fire forward. They collided with the four clouds as they fell. As the flames touched the clouds, they darkened, but only a little. Little volts of electricity sparked to life as they approached Silver.

Silver stood up on his back hooves and reached his right arm forward Two of the clouds burst over his arm, small ribbons of electricity crackling and popping through his arm as they dissipated. He did the same with his left, absorbing the electricity from the other two clouds.

The recruits all stared in awe as Silver faced them and stiffly moved his hooves close together. Volts of electricity bounced and flared between his hooves. His mane stood up slightly and the ripples of electricity zipped to and fro over his body. He smirked and looked at all the recruits standing with their jaws on the floor.

Lightning.

“That’s right! We are ‘The Elements!’ And we will teach you how use the four base elements with precision and expertise!” He clapped his hooves firmly together and the electricity snapped and popped outward. Dash took a step back as a loose ribbon of electricity struck the ground near her hooves. Silver thrust his arms and wings out, just as Soarin had once explained to Dash, and just as Soarin had showed her, the electricity calmed, but it seemed to stay within Silver. “STAND LINE ATTENTION!” He yelled.

The recruits didn’t know what that one meant, but they all rested easy when the other members of squad two lined up behind him. Silver turned around and motioned to Wave Chill first.

“Wave Chill! Master at manipulating water!” Silver yelled out. As he did, Wave spread his wings and shook them out, sprinkling the remaining condensation off.

Silver moved on to High Winds.

“High Winds! Master at manipulating wind!” Silver patted her on the shoulder. Winds casually spread her wings. Dash’s eyes widened, she had never gotten a close look. Winds’ wings were normal sized, but her wing muscles at the base of the feathers were huge. They looked like Matteo’s wings, only smaller in scale. That explained how she could make such powerful gusts of wind.

Silver stepped up to Blaze.

“Blaze! Master at being a goddamn pyromaniac!” he switched it up. Blaze didn’t seem to mind though. She instantly cracked another flame between her hooves and tossed it up into the air.

“DAMN RIGHT!” She added.

“Shut up,” Silver said flatly to her as he turned and held a hoof up. The electricity in his body crackled around the arm until he shook it out and nodded. “And yours truly… Master of manipulating electricity,” he finished. None of the recruits budged, but Silver was looking around as if he expected an answer of some sort. “You all seem quiet… I guess that means I gotta convince you some more!” He yelled out. “YOU!” he pointed to Thunderlane who was still recovering from having an oversized griffon land on top of him.

“Wha? ER, YES SIR?!” Thunderlane quickly stood up straight. Silver pointed to a nearby wall.

“Go stand against that wall! Left side up against it!” he ordered. Thunderlane didn’t answer, he was against the wall, sideways with his right side facing out as he had been ordered. “Now don’t move!” He ordered.

“Wh-WHAT?!” Thunderlane flinched and looked towards Silver.

“DID I SAY ‘LOOK AT ME’ RECRUIT?!” Silver barked. Thunderlane quickly turned his head back. “DON’T MOVE! I DON’T CARE IF A FLY LANDS ON YOUR EYEBALL AND TAKES A TEN POUND SHIT! YOU DO NOT MOVE!” he made very clear.

Thunderlane whimpered quietly as Silver brought his limbs closer together. His mane spiked up and the electricity began running through his arms again. He fixed his eyes on Thunderlane and gritted his teeth.

“RAH!” Silver yelled as he reared back and punched his right arm forward. The electricity shot from his hoof, careened towards Thunderlane and struck the wall right in front of Thunderlane’s nose. Thunderlane shut his eyes as Silver began throwing wild punches into the air. Each punch fired more electricity from his hooves towards Thunderlane. The streams bent and lurched, smacking against the wall, but never hitting Thunderlane. Silver punched again and again and again and again… until finally he had released all of the electricity built up in him.

Thunderlane didn’t budge. He was holding his breath, shivering, and his eyes were shut tight. He didn’t dare open them. Silver sighed and shook his arms out.

“Alright, you can move,” Silver said in a surprisingly calm tone. Thunderlane’s eyes snapped open and he instantly took three quick steps away from the wall.

“Holy shit…” Dash spoke out as she eyed the wall. Thunderlane turned around and flinched.

There were singe marks all over the wall, but it was in a perfect outline of his body. It even had his mane shape right.

“So as you can see… we are experts in this field… so if there’s any time in this one month I don’t wanna hear any shit from you little runts, it’s during elemental training. It’s a difficult craft, but we will teach you!” Silver paced back and forth as Thunderlane rejoined the recruits. Blaze scoffed off to the side.

“Psh… it’s not that hard…” she shrugged. Winds turned to look at her, then looked slightly up.

“Blazey, your mane’s on fire again,” she said, absurdly casually. Blaze glanced up to see the very tip of her main alight like a candle. She instantly freaked out.

“AH! AH! SHIT! NOT AGAIN! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT—” she was cut off as a deluge of water fell on her from above. She stood completely still, her brow and ears flat with her mane completely pressed down against her head and neck. She glared up at Wave Chill.

mlplover789

“Sorry?” he said while smiling and shrugging. Silver didn’t look at the three of them throughout the whole little exchange. He kept a completely straight face as a few of the recruits snickered.

“Like I said… it’s a very difficult craft…”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

whew got this out...

Sometimes i feel like im such a dick to Spitfire xD Well, it was Discord, so it's not like i could hold him back.

And i've FINALLY revealed the form and function of Squad two... about friggen time eh?

So something is seriously wrong with what Celestia did to Soarin... Did the almighty Sun Butt hide the truth? If it wasn't a random forbidden necromancy, just what kind of magic did she REALLY use on Soarin? We gotta get Dash to him STAT! I wonder if i'll get that whole process going next chapter... :trolololo:

Anyway, next chapter? i dunno, i would say thursday or friday... depends on how the week goes. I have a ton of work to do now, but i'm still finding time to write.

I hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 40: Talking Tough

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 40:

“Ooh… ah… aye…” Dash cringed as she walked into the mess hall. She groaned when she nearly bumped into the back of the line as soon as she was through the door. The place was packed to the brim. She and the recruits were slightly delayed due to their first element training session going long, but also being in the gym furthest from the mess hall.

To top it off, she had a slight pain in her right shoulder from a very light burn. Needless to say, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be very good with fire.

The training didn’t go very smoothly. It wasn’t that great for any of them really. It was only their first session though… Dash was sure it would get easier with practice. She had handled wind and water on many different occasions as part of Ponyville’s weather team, but fire? That were new to her. She didn't get a chance to work with lightning, but that was fine because fire was a disaster.

The way Blaze had described it was ‘treat it like wind, only you can touch it.’ Handling wind with one’s hooves instead of wings sounded simple… but fire was wild. Wind didn’t bounce and flare around… it flowed. Basically, Blaze’s explanation was shit… as Silver actually said right after Dash burned herself.

Silver then proceeded to give one of the best explanations Dash had ever heard in her life.

“The number one thing to remember about the elements is that they are outside of us! Unicorns conjure their magic and then manipulate it. WE, as pegasi, cannot conjure, we can only manipulate. You must treat the elements like untamed beasts. Learn their properties, how they react to you and your movements… and from there learn how to tame them and bend them to your will! It’s easy to make a gust of wind with your wings… it’s easy to light something on fire with a match… it’s easy to fill a bucket with water… it sure as hell ain’t easy to get struck by lightning… but it’s easy to find a thunderstorm! The elements are outside of us… you have to FORCE them to be a part of you!”

And then Blaze’s mane caught fire again.

Dash chuckled as she recalled Silver putting out Blaze’s mane by smacking her upside the head… somehow putting out the flame in the process. Squad two wasn’t quite the straight up comedy show squad three was… but Dash felt like she was going to have fun working with them. Now if only they were always around with Silver… they seemed to absorb a good portion of his yelling, or at least Blaze did. It was a nice breather for the recruits.

Dash finally got her tray of food. A good ten minutes… that was the longest she had ever waited to get food, and it was more than enough incentive to never be late to the mess hall. It was far from over though. Dash stepped up to the aisle between all the tables and glanced back and forth.

Wonderbolts… Wonderbolts EVERYWHERE.

Some were in uniform, most weren’t. Dash was certain some of the current recruit squads were around, but there was no way she could tell in this sea of ponies. It looked like there were barely any seats open. In fact, Dash had yet to spot an open seat. She also didn’t want to sit down with a bunch of ponies she didn’t know.

Dash froze as she eyed the left side of the mess hall.

Duh… of course she could find her group… they only had a massive griffon sitting with them…

Matteo stuck out like a black sheep amongst all of them. He was also a tower compared to everypony in the—

“Yikes!” Dash yelped as something ran right into her cheek. She tilted slightly and her glass of water began to tip on her tray.

“Ah!” A voice came from above her. A large, light blue hoof reached down and stopped her glass from falling. “Ah jeez, sorry…”

Dash looked to her right and stared directly into light blue fur. It took a second for her to realize she was looking at a pony’s chest. Her ears flopped down and she looked up to see the huge stallion she had seen help rescue Rivet from Fleetfoot, as well as in the gym with the large green mare Storm had mentioned.

This was the first time Dash had seen him up close and good lord… he sure was a big pony. He wasn’t quite as big as Matteo, but he was definitely at least the size of Big Macintosh.

“You okay?” he asked. Dash blinked, not sure what to say. Her attention shifted as the light brown pony she saw help Rivet stepped up beside him. The stallion with the scars on his nose and the interesting black wing tips.

“You really need to watch where you’re going dude…” he chuckled while nudging the light blue stallion in the side. Dash glanced back and forth between them. They were both big ponies. The brown stallion wasn’t quite as tall… and didn’t look like he spent twenty-five hours a day in the gym like the blue one… but he was also much taller than Dash. He looked to be the same size as Squall.

“I know, I know…” the blue pony sighed as the two started walking again before Dash could say anything.

“At least she didn’t get stuffed between your pecs like Shine did yesterday…” the brown pony snickered as he stole a quick glance back at Dash.

“That one was on purpose,” the blue pony stated as they turned the corner towards the exit.

“Bullshit.”

“No really! It was!” They kept going as they neared the exit.

“You’re full of shit!” The brown pony let loose a few laughs. The blue pony was cracking a smirk too. “So you want me to go to Autumn and tell her you’re stuffing little mares into your chest muscles for the hell of it?”

“HEY!” The blue pony thrust his hooves at the other, the smirks remaining.

“You wanna go?!” the brown pony taunted back.

“Bring it!” The blue pony yelled as they grappled right in front of the exit. The brown pony was instantly pushed against the door. The door was forced open and the two tumbled out over each other, apparently scrapping as they fell out of the mess hall.

“O…kay then…” Dash shrugged as she relocated Matteo and began weaving through the tables. She was meeting some strange ponies lately. Most of the Wonderbolts were pretty generic looking. They varied in shape, size, style, and gender… but these three… she had met three ponies that were different. This was the second time she had seen the large, muscular light blue stallion, and the sly looking light brown stallion with the scars and black wing tips. Earlier that day she had met a pony that she wasn’t sure actually existed or not… he was literally invisible against the walls of the compound.

Dash began to wonder if there was a connection. She hadn’t seen them together yet… but maybe they were just another squad. Dash had met her share of interesting Wonderbolt squads. For some reason though, Dash felt like they stood out. Two big stallions and an ‘invisible’ one, but they had a different air about them. For some reason… they didn’t seem like Wonderbolts.

She dismissed the thought for the time being as she reached the table with Matteo. He was sitting down beside Little Star and there were two seats open across from them. There was no sign of Thunderlane or Twister, but they were probably somewhere in the sea of ponies in the mess hall. Godspeed to Thunderlane if he was stuck alone with Twister.

Dash smiled and sat down across from Matteo. She received a nod as a greeting from Matteo as usual, but as soon as she sat down, Little Star hopped up on the table in alarm.

“Sweetie!” she gasped as she stared at Dash. Dash blinked and looked directly at Star. Dash was still getting used to the way Star called her by pet names you’d give your children. Star was older than them all by a lot, but she wasn’t old enough to be their mother. It seemed more like a way for her to constantly remind them she was, in fact, not a filly.

“What?” Dash blinked as Star took a few steps over the table towards Dash.

“What happened to your shoulder?!” Star asked while leaning over Dash’s tray to get a closer look.

“Oh, it’s just a small burn. Mostly just singed my fur…” Dash trailed off and edged slightly away as Little Star tried to look closely at it.

Matteo paid no attention and kept eating. He blinked and looked up as Squall walked behind the two mares with a tray. He eyed the spot beside Dash, scowled, and moved on.

“Did you get anything put on it?” Star asked.

“I went to the trainer right after, it’s fine really,” Dash lifted an eyebrow while glancing at Matteo. He was just eating. She was on her own.

“Did you wash it off? You might want to get it covered,” Star continued to mother the hell out of Dash. Matteo looked up again. Squall made a pass by every other table nearby. There were no seats open. He approached the open seat beside Dash and stared at it. He glanced at Little Star and Dash, glared, scoffed, and moved on again. Matteo cocked an eyebrow as he watched Squall pass them by a second time, shook his head and kept eating.

“This could get infected!” Star hopped up, her little wings fluttering with the small motions, creating a low humming buzz as she lifted up into the air in front of Dash’s face. “You should—”

“STAR!” Dash grabbed Star by the shoulders. Star held still in Dash’s grip, but her wings kept going. “I already took care of it… it’s nothing. Okay?” she said sternly, but not without a small chuckle. “I’m perfectly fine. It was just a small burn.”

“Okay…” Star pouted as Dash released her. She floated back over to her seat and lowered herself down. Dash watched her with curiosity. She hadn’t noticed before, but she wasn’t actually sitting on the seat. She was hovering in place using her specialized wing fluttering technique as she ate. It kept her steady and afloat as she ate her food.

It looked like Star did this all the time. She kept the motion going non-stop without breaking a sweat. She had probably conditioned herself to do this because… really, if she had sat down, her face would have barely been over the table. She seemed to have adapted quite well to her small size.

It was also rather hilarious to see her side by side with Matteo. He’d probably punt her across the mess hall by accident if he decided to stretch his wings out.

“Squall,” Matteo suddenly said. Dash blinked and jumped slightly as she heard the sound of hoofs striking the floor and skidding. Dash glanced behind her and saw Squall behind her, holding a tray and glaring up at Matteo. “There are no other seats open…” Matteo pointed at the spot beside Dash. “Just sit down.”

Squall looked at Dash, then Star, and then back at Matteo.

“Whatever…” he grumbled, placed his tray down, sat in the seat, and looked nowhere else but directly at his tray as he began eating. Dash just rolled her eyes and shook her head. She stole a couple glances up at him, but he showed no signs of conversing, so she didn’t bother trying. Instead she turned back to Little Star.

“So… Star… we’re bunkmates, but I have yet to ask, where are you from?” She asked out of curiosity. Star looked up as she swallowed some rice.

“Right here in Canterlot… a good mile or two west of the castle,” she smiled and dug her face back into her rice.

“Whoa, you’re right at home then, huh?” Dash nodded while thinking it over. Star pulled her head back up, chewing rice with bits of it stuck to her face. She swallowed and shook her head.

“Actually I moved here two years ago… I was born and raised in Whinneyapolis,” she replied while licking at stray pieces of rice around her mouth.

“Whinneyapolis?!” Dash exclaimed. “That’s… really far away!”

“Yep!” Star winked. “Two days by train.”

“Yeah… really far…” Dash thought aloud. “Heh… I can barely stand the train from Ponyville to Canterlot…” Dash chuckled.

“You’re from Ponyville?” Star suddenly asked. Dash nodded. “Oh my goodness, that’s where they make Zap Apple Jam, right?!” she smiled very wide and her eyes got all starry. Dash lifted an eyebrow and chuckled.

“You betcha!”

“Oh Celestia, I loooooooooooooooooooooove that stuff…” Star sank down and landed in her seat. Dash almost lost sight of her as the little mare hugged herself while gushing. Dash smirked.

“One of my best friends is part of the family that makes it,” Dash said very casually. In the moment that Dash blinked, Star had zipped up and directly into Dash’s face, squishing Dash’s cheeks together with her little hooves.

“NO. WAY. YOU MUST INTRODUCE ME.” She demanded.

Beside them Squall grimaced and shifted uncomfortably. Matteo caught the motion in his peripheral vision. It was very subtle… but Matteo’s eyes were quite sharp.

“Something tells me you like Zap Apple Jam…” Dash chuckled as Star realized she was invading personal space and backed off.

“Oh, I’d kill for it!” she said while happily licking her lips, imagining the taste.

“Ponyville isn’t very far, I’m sure we’ll have a chance at some point, I can show you the whole orchard,” Dash suggested as Star hovered back to her food.

“I’ll be your friend forever if you do that,” Star said very seriously.

Dash liked Little Star. She was a little too motherly, but she was pleasant and fun. One little bundle of joy… and a bat out of hell if you pissed her off. They were going to get along just fine.

Squall on the other hoof…

Dash glanced to her right. Squall was still staring directly at his plate. The big guy hadn’t said a word since he sat down. Dash felt it was incredibly pointless, but she decided to try since she and Star were on the subject.

“So… what’s your story?” she asked. Squall flinched and couched as some food went down the wrong pipe. He pounded his chest with his hoof before taking a swig of water.

“What?” he asked while only slightly looking at Dash.

“Where are you from?” Dash moved forward, hoping to get something besides a ‘whatever’ out of him. He looked away from her, then back. Dash blinked, then tipped her head down slightly, kept her eyes on him, and rotated her hoof, encouraging him to say something. Squall’s eyes darted from his food, to barely looking at Dash, and then back. He scowled, but only a little as if annoyed, but…

“Fillydelphia…” he actually replied. It was quiet and more grumbling than actual speech, but Dash could make it out.

This was strange. Dash wasn’t quite sure how to feel. In her first few interactions with Squall, he came off as a complete asshole. He had yet to smile and was always brooding. However, the exchange they just had showed something Dash wasn’t expecting. He answered the question, but it took him a moment to speak. It looked like he was hesitating or that he didn’t know what to say… or even how handle being spoken to.

“I see,” Dash nodded. “So Squall… tell us about yourself,” Dash tried to go further.

“No,” he replied simply and went back to his food. Dash flattened her ears down. Matteo snorted and released a chuckle. Squall’s eyes shot up and glared at Matteo. “What’s so funny?!” Squall lashed out while snarling.

“Heh… nothing. Nothing at all,” a small smirk cracked on the edge of Matteo’s beak as he kept eating.

Dash looked between the two of them. Squall kept glaring at Matteo, but Matteo didn’t even take notice. She decided to avoid the testosterone for the moment and turned back to Little Star.

“Hey Star, I’m actually a little curious…” Dash trailed off.

“Mmhmm?” Star replied with a piece of broccoli shoved in her mouth. Dash recalled their first few encounters with Silver and his methods of intimidation. Something had stood out to her.

“You held yourself solid with Silver in your face…. I mean if you’re just a badass that’s cool too, but have you tried out before?” Dash asked.

“This is my eighth try,” Star said the instant she finished her broccoli.

“EIGHTH?!” Dash’s ears stood up.

“Yeah, this is the first time I’ve gotten this far, I’m pretty excited!” she spoke causally.

“That’s… wow… eight?” Dash could barely wrap her head around it. “You’ve been trying for eight years… that’s dedication,” she thought out loud.

“Why thanks dear,” Star smiled warmly. “Took a while, but it finally paid off! If I become a Wonderbolt, my career won’t be very long, but hey… how many pegasi get to say they used to be a Wonderbolt?” she shrugged and winked.

Yeah, Dash definitely liked Little Star. Now if only she could figure out Broody McSourpuss sitting next to her.

“This your first time trying out Squall?” Dash asked. Squall flinched heavily again. That was twice now. It was almost as if he didn’t expect anypony to talk to him. He glanced at Dash, but said nothing before going back to his food. “You could… talk to us, you know…” Dash narrowed her eyes at him.

“Whatever…” he replied monotonously.

“Honey…” Star spoke up, making Squall flinch again. “You’ve gotta drop this attitude… you’re stuck with us for a month at the least, so you better get used to us.”

“Whatever…” he repeated in the same tone. Dash huffed and shrugged.

“What’s the deal with you anyway? Like Star said, you’re stuck with us. We’re just trying to be friendly…” Dash was slowly losing her patience with Squall. Squall suddenly pounded the table with his right hoof and snarled at Dash.

“I don’t need friends!” he shouted. Dash and Star both flinched in surprise, but Matteo only stared directly at him. Star hovered up high enough for Squall to her put her hooves on her hips.

“Look buster… you do realize that Wonderbolts work in squads, right?” she pointed out.

“Whatever!” Squall was getting visibly pissed, but Star didn’t stand down.

“A squad! As in a team! As in others you have to work together with! Get along with! There’s no avoiding it… there’s no I in team!” she pointed at him.

“Feh!” Squall scoffed and looked off to the right. “But there’s definitely a U in cun—”

Dash was in the process of standing up to yell at him, but before she even pushed her hooves to the floor Star had zipped across the table and was pressing her nose as hard as she could against his with the most terrifying rage filled glare Dash had EVER seen in her life.

“WHAT. DID. YOU. SAY?!” Star’s teeth ground together so hard that Dash could hear them clicking. “I OUTTA STICK MY HOOF DOWN YOUR THROAT, RIP OUT YOUR SKULL AND SPINE, AND USE THEM LIKE A MACE TO BEAT YOUR FORMLESS CARCASS TO A BLOODY PULP WITH IT!”

Star.

Was.

LIVID.

Dash had forgotten all about the taboo word Squall had fallen just short of calling Star. She was actually a little frightened, and most of the mess hall had turned to look. Squall however, was somehow holding his glare, firing it right back into hers as she continued to yell at him.

I DON’T KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU THINK YOU ARE, BUT YOU’RE NOTHING BUT Ayipe—!!” she squeaked as she was yanked back.

“Enough,” said Matteo as he pulled her away from Squall. He had a full grip on her with one set of talons, holding her from the back and almost completely wrapped around her body. She kicked, flailed, and buzzed her wings as he easily pulled her back and set her down in her seat. Dash could only see the top of her head over the edge of the table as she began to grumble fume, and swear. “Yelling and screaming solves nothing,” Matteo shook his head as Star continued to rant to herself.

“Damn, little, annoying…” Squall grumbled. Matteo fixed his eyes on him.

“As for you…” he began, narrowing his golden eyes into a glare. “That’s no way to speak to a lady. You should apologize,” he scolded Squall. Squall’s eyes snapped to Matteo.

“WHAT?!” he snorted in amusement.

“You heard me,” Matteo narrowed his eyes further. Squall’s scowl deepened as well.

“To hell with that!” he snapped.

“You can quit the tough talking too,” Matteo added.

“Huh?!” Squall shifted, leaned forward, and slammed a hoof flat against the table. Dash shifted back slightly, but Matteo didn’t budge an inch.

“I’m hardly intimidated,” Matteo stated as he bared a single talon and began tapping it against the table.

“I’m warning you, fat ass! Don’t make me come over there!” Squall stood up and flared his wings out.

“Save your breath,” Matteo scoffed. “You’re transparent… and all I see is a coward.”

“What?!” Squall bared his teeth. Matteo shook his head.

“You act tough… but you’re a coward,” Matteo stopped tapping his talon on the table and balled his talons into a fist. “A coward that hides behind glares, scowls, and empty threats,” Matteo continued. Dash glanced between the two of them and cautiously inched herself away.

“Sh… shut up…” Squall stammered as his arms began to shake with anger.

“You have a loud bark… but all dogs can bark… very few can actually bite.”

“SHUT UP!!!!!” Squall yelled out, attracting glances from all around again.

“There's is no need to fear a dog with no bite,” Matteo looked back down to his food.

“I’LL SHOW YOU BITE!” Squall suddenly clambered up onto the table and threw himself at Matteo. He pulled back and aimed a right hook right for Matteo’s face. Without looking, Matteo reached up and caught the hoof with his left talons. He glanced at Squall…

“Now do you see wh—” before he could finish, Squall flapped his wings down hard twisting his arm free of Matteo, and spinning his body directly into a kick. His back hoof struck Matteo right in the eye. “ARGH!” Matteo grunted. Dash and Little Star immediately backed away from the table.

“NO BITE, HUH?!” Squall taunted, satisfied for all of a second before Matteo reached both arms up and grabbed Squall’s leg.

“No bite!” Matteo clarified as he swung Squall around effortlessly and slammed him down against the table.

“AHH!!” Squall grunted as the trays, dishes and glasses all bounced and spilled everywhere. Squall’s eyes snapped open to see Matteo holding him down with his left arm while pulling back the right to throw a crushing strike. Squall managed to rip himself free the moment Matteo brought all of his strength down. He missed Squall, but struck the table and broke it CLEANLY in half down the middle with a loud crash. Squall tumbled down to the floor with the two halves of the table and all the food on them. He got to his hooves, but as soon as he was up—

“WHOA! WHOA!” A voice from behind Squall called out as he was put in a full nelson. Dash picked her head up from the floor, she took cover when food and dishes were sent everywhere by Matteo’s strike. Storm Front had flown in and put Squall in a full nelson, several Wonderbolts had flown over and were restraining Matteo with Lightning Streak in front of him and holding out his hooves.

“COOL IT BIG GUY!” Lightning yelled in his face as Matteo tried to rip free from the seven Wonderbolts holding him back.

“Settle down!” Storm yelled at Squall as he struggled to hold him back. Squall was bigger than Storm by a little, but Storm managed to hold him back.

“Let go of me, wuss!” Squall spat as he tried to shake free.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Storm yelled back. “He just broke a damn table in half and you still want to fight him?!?!”

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA’S ROYAL SUN TATOOED ASS IS GOING ON OVER HERE?!?!?!”

Everything froze. Neither Matteo nor Squall budged another inch.

Silver Lining stomped over to the commotion as every pony in his path quickly moved aside.

“Let them go,” he ordered. All the Wonderbolts moved away from Matteo quickly and Storm let Squall down. The two stood perfectly still as Silver walked between them. “Well, well, well… So Happy and Wide Load decided to fight in MY mess hall…” he folded his ears back and growled. “Both of you up against the wall!” he made a head motion over to the wall next to the doors. “NOW!”

Both Matteo and Squall quickly moved to the wall and stood attention. Silver looked around and saw both Dash and Little Star closest to the table.

“Skittles! Short Stack! Both of you up against the wall too!” He ordered. Dash’s eyes widened. What?! But she didn’t do anything! She was about to retort, but Silver was glaring directly at her as Little Star had already made her way over. Dash quickly remembered who was talking to and quickly lined up against the wall. Dash stood on the left end with Star beside her. To the right of Star stood Squall, and on the right end Matteo.

Silver stomped up to them and right up to Squall and Matteo. Dash kept her eyes forward, but could see Silver pace back and forth in front of the two of them, not in front of her or Star.

“We haven’t even started combat training yet… and I already have two shit eaters who are at each other’s throats…” he began as he stood sideways to them. “You have anger? Good. “You have rage? Even better…” he sharply turned to them. “BUT LET’S GET ONE GODDAMN THING CLEAR RIGHT NOW!” he yelled right into squalls face. He quickly shifted to Matteo. “The only place you’re allowed to fight another Wonderbolt… IS IN THE BATTLE DOME!” he shifted back to Squall. “If I catch you two fighting anywhere else I will PERSONALLY skin you both alive and make you into a pair of fancy rugs!” He pulled back and stood a foot away from them.

“Now then…” he continued. “Which one of you started it?” he asked quietly. Neither of them answered. “Well? Who threw the first punch?” he began pacing back and forth in front of them. Again, neither of them answered. Matteo glanced down at Squall. Squall was scowling, but also shaking very, VERY subtly. He was afraid of Silver and trying very hard not to show it. He couldn't fool Matteo. Silver turned and glared at both of them. “Anypony gonna speak up?!” Silver snarled at them. “Don’t make me ask the ladies over here… it’ll be twice the pain if I have to get the truth from them!” Silver barked into Squall’s face. Matteo stole another glance at Squall… and shook his head. Squall wasn't going to come forward.

“Sir, I did sir!” Matteo spoke up. Squall flinched really hard and his eyes widened. He glanced up at Matteo as Silver moved all of his focus over.

“Well… no shit?” Silver hovered up and nearly pressed his nose to Matteo’s beak. “Looks like you’re working off all the calories I’m sure you just consumed! Two hundred wing-ups! You better bet I’m gonna stand here and count them all!” he ordered.

“Sir, yes sir!” Matteo replied and got down to do wing-ups. Silver turned to the rest of them.

“One hour till combat training! Now get the hell out of my face!” he yelled. Dash exhaled and started walking beside Squall. She looked over her shoulder at Matteo as he started the wing-ups, and then looked up to Squall. Squall was looking back at Matteo as well.

Matteo was staring directly at Squall… and smirking. He mouthed the word:

Coward.

Dash jumped slightly as Squall flinched so hard his joints cracked. Squall turned and hurried out of the mess hall quickly. Dash watched him leave, contemplating what she just witnessed. As Matteo had just so skillfully deduced, there was more to Squall than what appeared on the surface.

Fire Streak looked left and right as he entered the lobby. Did he lose her? He was sure he saw Misty come this way. His ears stood up as he saw a light blue tail disappear up the stairs.

“Ah!” Fire quickly trotted after her.

Why was he following her? He kept feeling like an idiot. Every time she talked to Storm Front, he wanted to stand up and pull her away. Obviously, he never would though. That wouldn’t be very proper. Also, who was he to decide who Misty… communicated with?

Fire sighed as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up to make sure Misty wasn’t lingering. Who was he kidding? His idiotic twin brother was completely right. He was jealous. Nopony could communicate with Misty like he could. It was something special the two of them shared and she relied on him for so much. That was… until Storm Front showed up.

Fire had absolutely no reason to dislike Storm Front. He was simply a friendly pony who also knew sign language. The only reason he was put off was because Misty had found another she could fully ‘speak’ to… maybe even better than she could with him. Storm was incredibly fast with the signs.

He was over thinking it. Misty didn’t suddenly think less of him. He just had to—

Fire froze and stepped back before he could turn the corner into the left hallway of the third floor. Did he… see that correctly?

He carefully pressed himself to the wall and peered around the corner.

Misty Fly was standing before Discord?! In front of Soarin’s room?

Fire looked closer. Discord had two fingers pressed to Misty’s forehead with a faint glow of chaos magic surrounding his hand.

Art by: mlplover789

“So we have an agreement?” Discord spoke. Misty nodded. “I can only interfere with pony lives so much, I trust you can get Rainbow Dash up here?” he asked. “I know tomorrow is a ‘free day’ for them. That will be our best bet.” Misty nodded again.

Fire was so confused. Misty could hear him? That… was impossible… unless…

“You can convince Silver if you need to?” Discord continued questioning. Misty replied with a wink. “Heh, good answer.”

Fire suddenly remembered. During the Shadowbolt incident, Discord had mentioned that something with no trace can only be seen by the blind and heard by the deaf… But that would mean Discord could use magic similar to the Shadowbolt crystals? Or… were the crystals… chaos magic? Whatever it was, Fire didn’t really care at the moment. What the hell was Misty doing with Discord? It sounded like they were planning something.

“I’m counting on you then. Soarin needs her if he is to fully regain control. This is for the good of both of them. Now run along, I have things to attend to,” Discord finished and removed his fingers from Misty’s forehead. Misty nodded and Discord disappeared into thin air.

Fire stared for a moment before quietly stepping out. Misty was staring straight at Soarin’s door. He slowly approached her. He moved slightly out to her side as he closed in. He flinched when her eyes snapped to him.

Before he could make any signs to her, she grabbed him by the arm and looked back and forth. There was nopony else in the hallway. She quickly turned and yanked Fire along towards her and Surprise’s room.

“Wha?!” Fire yelped as he was dragged. He couldn’t say anything to get her attention for obvious reasons, so he was at her mercy. She pulled him right into her room and closed the door behind them. She grabbed Fire and put him up against the wall.

Fire had no idea what was going on… but Misty was being a little rough…

No… No, Fire… don’t think like that.

Misty got right up in his face and tapped her hoof against his chest. She was so close to him. Fire couldn’t hold it back. He was blushing.

But why was Misty glaring at him?

She took a step back and began making signals. Fire didn’t pay attention to any of them. He blinked, and realized he had completely missed Misty’s signs. He shook his head out and looked directly at her. She repeated her signs, tapping her hoof to her chest first before bringing a wing forward, putting one feather up and curling it down. She pointed to him, placed her left hoof atop her right in front of her and slowly lifted it to her face.

“I need your help.” Her signs read.

Fire tipped his head to the side. He put his front hooves up and brought them together in front of him before spreading them out with a slight shrug.

“With what?” his signs replied.

Misty began making multiple signs at a high speed. Fire watched them closely, making sure not to lose track. She was going faster than she usually did, probably because she was used to doing so with Storm Front. Misty seemed to realize this halfway through and slowed down. For some reason… this felt shameful to Fire.

Misty relayed everything she was talking to Discord about. Apparently Discord needed Rainbow Dash to help Soarin… and he wanted Misty to do whatever she needed to either sneak her away tomorrow or convince Silver she was needed elsewhere. After that, she needed Fire to translate everything she wanted to say to Soarin and Dash so she could get through to them. She ended by asking if she could count on him.

Fire paused… thought… and simply nodded. Misty smiled and reached over, giving him a very tight hug. Fire’s eyes widened as she did, forgetting to return the hug for a few second before reaching up and returning the hug half-heartedly. Misty released him, gave him another warm smile before opening her door. The two left, but Fire turned towards his room. Misty turned and watched him go the opposite direction. She tapped her hoof twice.

Fire stopped and turned to look at her. She tipped her head in confusion. Fire quickly put on a fake smile and pointed to his room. Misty made a head motion that would have been accompanied with an ‘oh, okay’ if she could speak and continued towards the stairs.

Fire entered his room and closed the door behind him. He really didn’t have any reason to be in his room… he just… was disappointed. Misty Fly dragged him to her room, threw him against a wall, got real close to him… and then explained what she needed him to do to help Soarin and Dash…

Why was he wishing it had ended a little differently?

He sighed and sat down on the floor beside his bed.

Well… at least he could help another mare and stallion with their love… it’s not like he was going to get any.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

SUR-FREAKIN-PRISE!

eh... i had time... so i did it... but i'm tired as hell now >_<

Looks Like Squall ain't quite as badass as he plays himself up to be eh? Leave it to Matteo to expose his lack of true warrior spirit.

Discord and Misty working together to help Soarin and Dash?! Well... i'f im gonna trust anyone to get those two stubborn silly ponies back together, it would be the silent guardian angel and... the god of chaos i guess? xD

Who were those two silly ponies walking through the mess hall? That sly guy with the fun wing tips and the muscle head who forgets to look where he's going? I swear i have no idea who these ponies are :trolololestia:

Anyway...

Dunno when the next one will be out... could be anywhere between friday and monday, depends on many things.

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for Reading!

Chapter 41: Silver: The Iron Horse

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 41:

“What the shit-diddly butt plunder cock-slap is taking them so long?!” Silver fumed as he paced back and forth in the battle dome.

All the mares were present, and all feeling a little weird. Dash kept shifting her body around, moving her arms, shoulders, neck, and wings about, occasionally reaching up to adjust her mane. They were all wearing protective gear, the same kind Dash saw Soarin wear back during his sparring match with Rapidfire where… things got a bit ugly. She saw the gear up close afterward, but she wouldn’t have guessed it would feel so… awkward.

The gear was basically a collection of thinly padded surfaces that were strapped to the body, protecting mainly the stomach, back, flanks, legs, wings, the neck, and the head. She wore padded hoof covers as well. Some of the pieces had straps that ran between them to hold them firmly in place as if they were part of the pony. The headpiece reminded Dash of a boxing mask, but it wasn’t quite as thick. In fact, most of it seemed rather thin for protection. It was very flexible and none of Dash’s movement was restricted, but would it really soften blows? It was also weird, and not the most comfortable thing she had ever worn… but if it actually did the job, she would trade comfort for safety any day.

But the question at the moment… why were the stallions taking so long in the locker rooms? They had all been briefly measured and given sets of the light training armor. Apparently they had a set that was close to Matteo’s size, close being the keyword. It probably belonged to an old hefty member of the Wonderbolts, maybe Pec Bounce.

They were sent to the locker rooms to suit up… and for some reason all the mares had done so and were out before a single stallion emerged. Squad two all stood ready for Silver’s orders, but he was busy grinding his teeth together, walking up and down, and glaring at the door to the stallion locker room attached to the battle dome.

“Damn shit I put up with…” he mumbled and finally trotted over to the door. Blaze and High Winds snickered.

“Ten bits he uses a dick joke,” Winds whispered to Blaze followed by a yawn. Blaze smirked.

“No way, I know he’s gonna use one,” Blaze fired back as the two giggled. Wave just stood at attention, doing his best to keep still and be professional… but really, he agreed with Blaze. Silver had lots of go-to taunts and insults for certain situations. They varied in words and delivery, but the themes never changed.

Silver stomped right up to the door of the stallion’s locker room and yanked it open.

“What the hell is taking so long in there?!” He yelled. “Y’all better not be having a dick measuring contest! Better finish it quick! If I have to come in there YOU WILL ALL LOSE!”

“See? I saved ten bits today!” Blaze nodded in satisfaction. “Eh, Windy?” Blaze turned just tin time to see Winds fall asleep and tip over, leaning up against Blaze. Blaze lifted an eyebrow before shaking her head and just letting Winds sleep.

“Is that…!? SAVAGE! I HEAR YOUR DUMB ASS IN THERE!” Silver continued to yell. He stood still for about five seconds before Macho Savage appeared in the door.

“You RANG drill instructor man?!” Savage stood against the door in a position where he could easily bounce his chest muscles.

“Quit jiggling your fat at me you disproportionate grab-ass! Are you holding up the recruits?!” Silver barked, but Savage just bounced his chest muscles faster.

“I’m just teaching them the glory of the MACHO MADNESS!” he tipped his full-face sunglasses up, bounced his eyebrows and let the glasses fall back down. “OOOOHHH YEEEEAHHH!!!! The tykes gotta know that when they’re around me, they’re in the DANGER ZONE! Cause I’m the creeeeeeam of the crop!” he droned on while flexing an arm and kissing it.

“Heaven of Luna’s mercy you’re the dumbest piece of shit I ever met in my life! And I know Air Mach!” Silver flattened his ears. “Now let them out here, dammit! I’ve got a camp to run!”

“Only cause the MACHO MADNESS chooses too!” Macho Savage ducked back into the locker room and a few seconds later, Thunderlane appeared in the door. He froze when he saw Silver, but Silver just waved him on.

“Come on, come on, let’s go…” Silver said while shaking his head. “The road block ego was in your way, just get out here…” it was strange to hear Silver give orders calmly, but soon all of the male recruits were out and standing among the mares.

“What was that all about?” Dash whispered to Thunderlane as he stood beside her.

“I have no idea…” Thunderlane lightly shook his head.

“LINE UP! ATTENTION!” Silver yelled as he followed close behind. The recruits all scrambled to get into an orderly line. Dash ended up with Twister to her left and Squall to her right. Dash stole a quick glance up at Squall before they all stopped moving. His expression was flat and unreadable. It was clear some of what Matteo had sunk in, but Dash wondered if he would actually change.

She quickly looked forward as everypony got into place and waited for Silver to begin.

“Welcome to the Battle Dome!” he yelled while waving his right arm around in a wide arc. The same spacious area with the lightly cushioned floor. The same place Soarin fought Rapidfire… and the same place Rapidfire almost killed Soarin…

Dash shivered slightly at the memory. She subtly glanced at the wall far on the other side of the arena. They had installed a new clock and scoreboard. The other one had been blown to pieces by Soarin deflecting Rapidfire’s compressed lightning attack. It ripped the whole thing down in a fiery mess… and Rapidfire was subdued right after…

Wow… a lot had happened since then, Dash could hardly believe it.

“YOU HEAR ME?!” Silver’s voice punted her face first back to reality. Luckily he wasn’t yelling at her. He was beside her, yelling at Squall. Silver sharply turned his head and darted over and up to Matteo’s face a few recruits down. “THIS IS WHERE YOU ARE ALLOWED TO FIGHT!” he yelled into Matteo’s face before pulling back, landing, and continuing his usual pacing routine.

“Rgh…” Squall suddenly growled beside Dash. Her eyes darted to him only briefly. What was he getting so angry about? Well, besides the obvious. Dash had a feeling Squall was going to do something stupid… he was already building quite a track record of that.

“Any and all sparring, combat, and anything that falls under the category of fighting… will be done in here! Nowhere else! Every Wonderbolt is expected to have a certain degree of combat skill!” he stopped and faced all of them. “This will be one of the largest factors in us deciding which of you five are gonna become the new recruit squad! SO TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!”

Dash could understand that. In the cadet tryouts, they tested basic skills as well as situational awareness and reaction. There was nothing combat related, except maybe the Blast Walls in Soarin’s personal courses.

A faint tapping caught Dash’s attention. She blinked as she shifted her eyes to make it look like she wasn’t looking… but it was Squall. He was tapping his back left hoof glove against the arena floor. Was he having problems standing still? Dash couldn’t tell if he was nervous… or possibly eager to fight? Perhaps he was feeling a little eager to prove he wasn’t the coward Matteo had just proved him to be beneath his hard exterior.

This wasn’t going to end well.

“Now… the most important part of combat… is self-defense!” Silver continued. “If you can’t defend yourself or take a few hits… then you’re useless to us! We are a military organization! Sure we do flashy shows… but our top priority is the protection of Canterlot and all ponykind! You have to be ready for anything!” He stopped and turned to the rest of squad two. “It is our job to—” Silver paused and glared at High Winds, who was still asleep on Blaze.

Blaze’s ears stood straight up, she reached her back left leg over and gave Winds a light kick. Winds snorted and her eyes fluttered open. The instant she saw Silver glaring, she was up and standing firm like Blaze and Wave.

“It’s our JOB…” Silver began where he left off. “To whip you all into shape and make sure you’re ready and able to fight any opponent! The royal guard is a bunch of yes stallions and mares in fancy armor! The Canterlot police are just crime chasers! Neither of them are warriors. That’s where we come in! And warriors… must know how to defend themselves before they can defend others!” He turned back to the recruits. “So for our first three sessions… we are focusing only on defense!”

“Ha!” Squall suddenly scoffed. Dash and the rest of the recruits all flinched as Silver’s head turned sharply to Squall. Blaze grimaced behind Silver and looked at Wave.

“Oh boy…” Wave shook his head. Blaze turned and looked at High Winds.

“Here it comes…” Winds added.

“I’m sorry, do you have something you wanna share with us Happy?” Silver said with a sinisterly quiet tone as he pressed his face into Squall’s.

“This is stupid,” Squall said straightforwardly without properly addressing Silver. Dash couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Squall did do something stupid. What was he thinking? Was he trying to prove he wasn’t a coward… by talking back to SILVER?! There’s a fine line between bravery and utter idiocy… and Squall had just taken a leap over that line.

“Oh? It’s stupid, huh? What part of it is stupid?” the way Silver spoke so quietly was causing more alarm than it should have. It seemed so wrong… and that was exactly why it was terrifying… all were sure he would explode at any moment.

“Three days of learning to defend yourself? I’ve been in martial arts for years and you want me to learn how to block?!” Squall snapped back.

“You think you can fight?” Silver asked calmly.

“I damn well know I can fight!” Squall quickly answered. Silver pulled away from Squall and stood a foot away. He looked Squall up and down and shook his head.

“God damn son…” Silver sighed. “I’d love to see things from your point of view… but I can’t seem to fit my head that far up my own ass!” he raised his voice slightly. “You fancy yourself a fighter! Okay then, get your ass out here!” he reached over, grabbed Squall by the back of the neck, and yanked him out of the line. He tossed Squall forward, making him stumble to a stop out in front of every pony. Silver walked up and faced him so they stood parallel to the line of recruits. They stood with less than a foot between them. “Punch me.”

“Huh?” Squall lifted an eyebrow.

“I said punch me,” Silver repeated. Squall looked him up and down. Perhaps there was an extent as to how far he would go to look tough.

“But…” Squall hesitated. Silver wasn’t wearing protective gear. He wasn’t even wearing his goggles. Just his Wonderbolt uniform.

“What?! You aren’t a fighter anymore?!” Silver suddenly yelled. “Get lily-livered at the last moment?! Blow your load before she even said hello?!” Silver taunted. Squall’s eyes narrowed. “You say you’re a fighter! That means you know how to throw a punch right?! You better damn well know how to throw a punch!” Silver kept taunting relentlessly. Squall bared his teeth and snarled. This was a familiar scenario… of about an hour ago. “ARE YOU ALL BARK AND NO BITE?!”

Those were the magic words. The exact same words that got him to snap and attack Matteo.

All the recruits gasped as Squall pushed his wings down to get up on his hind legs, he put up his hooves, pulled his right hoof back and locked right onto Silver’s face.

“HYRAH!” Squall yelled out as he threw the heavy punch.

Silver didn’t dodge it…

In fact, Silver LEANED INTO IT.

Squall’s hoof connected right between Silver’s eyes.

Multiple loud snaps and pops sounded… but they weren't from Silver’s face. After a few seconds of holding his hoof against Silver’s face, Squall pulled back his arm painfully.

“AHH!!” He cried out as he reached over his left hoof to cradle his right. His right hoof was shaking and jittering in pain. He looked back towards Silver, who was glaring sharply at Squall… harder than any other look he had given the recruits yet. A single, small trickle of blood ran down Silver's face and over his nose, but he wasn't even fazed.

Dash’s jaw hung open… as did the rest. Even Matteo couldn’t believe what he saw, his eyes fixed on Silver with pure wonder. Silver not only took the full force of Squall’s punch… a punch that had blown aside Blast Walls at ease… but he had also leaned into it… and possibly sprained Squall’s hoof. How did he even DO that?!

“You call that a punch?” Silver scoffed while keeping his intense glare fixated on Squall. Squall didn’t move. He just stared at Silver while holding his hurt hoof. “THIS… is a punch!”

Silver picked up and slammed his back hooves firmly to the ground. He reared back and pulled back his right arm while twisting his body as well. He took a firm step forward… and shifted, while twisting his body back and throwing the punch at the same time… but right before he connected he shifted his weight very subtly. Dash barely caught the extra movement, but it was right before his hoof connected with Squall.

Silver’s hoof landed right into the left cheek guard of Squall’s headpiece. The initial impact was so hard it actually made a loud POW as it connected. The headpiece buckled inward, the straps holding it to Squall’s face popping and snapping apart. Squall’s head was forced back and his entire body lifted off the ground from the force, he flew backwards through the air and bounced to the ground a good eight yards away from where he first stood.

As soon as Squall skidded to a stop, he quickly rolled over and stared at Silver with an absolutely terrified expression on his face. Silver walked up to him with heavy steps as the recruits all stared wide eyed. He wiped the tiny amount of blood from his nose and forehead and got down in Squall’s face.

“Let’s get you a new head guard and teach you proper defense basics… shall we?” he said very calmly. Squall quickly nodded in agreement, his face twitching as pain seared through his jaw. The armor had done its job, he didn’t break anything, but his headgear lay in pieces. Silver’s punch had torn it apart, but it saved him from a broken jaw… or not having a jaw anymore period.

Dash had never seen a punch that hard before. Well, she had seen Soarin, Nightshade and Descent throw some pretty heavy blows, but Soarin and Nightshade were imbued with magical energy… and Descent was just a freak of nature. Silver wasn’t even as big as Soarin… who was smaller than Descent. To see so much power come from a more average sized stallion was incredible.

Dash tried to break down what she had just seen. Silver didn’t just throw a punch… he shifted his body in so many small increments. It was even smoother than the movements in Soarin’s Sonic Blast-off. It looked like he moved all at once and put a simple twist into it, but she saw it. What he was really doing was segueing from one tiny shift into another… eventually making so many shifts that it added so much extra force to the blow. Dash had no idea how he managed to shift so little, so quickly, and so many times so smoothly. She prided herself in being able to mimic other techniques… but seriously… how the hell did he manage that!?

She had to rewind and think about something else one more time…

She knew how hard Squall could hit based on the Blast Walls… And Silver willingly took Squall’s punch to the face… while leaning into it… and hurt Squall’s hoof in the process…

What a HARD ASS!

Silver was quite an amazing Wonderbolt indeed.

“Anypony else think they can fight?” Silver barked to the recruits as Wave Chill helped Squall up behind him and took the shocked recruit to get a new headpiece.

“SIR, NO SIR!” every single recruit answered instantly.

“I thought so!” Silver nodded in agreement. “Now stay in line! Put up a guard! Blaze, High Winds, and I will be coming around to beat some skill into you! We are fixing all the holes in your defenses RIGHT NOW!” he barked. “We don’t have much time today… due to getting you all outfitted for armor and because Macho Savage is a dingbat out of hell… but we can at least give you all a few hits to think about!” Silver explained as Blaze and High Winds walked up beside him. “Cooperate! And for Celestia’s sake don’t back away from us! We need to be done and out of here in half an hour… and if we aren’t, whoever slowed us down can personally explain to squad four and five why we cut into their combat training time!”

Dash glanced to her left. Twister literally hadn’t moved… probably hadn’t blinked either. Dash looked past him and found who she was looking for.

Thunderlane was standing on the other side of Twister. He looked rather uncomfortable… maybe a little scared. She didn’t really blame him. Thunderlane was getting about a hundred times more than he had initially bargained for. He attended to support Dash… got selected… and was thrown into a world or training and strain that he wasn’t used to. He had been to Wonderbolt flight camps before, but those were just flying lessons. This was the real side of the Wonderbolts.

He was adamant about seeing it through, understanding that he had an opportunity like none other, but he was clearly struggling. They had barely begun and he looked like he wanted to go home.

Dash sighed as she looked back forward. Even if Thunderlane did feel that way though, there was no way he’d back out. He was even more stubborn than her. Thunderlane’s defining quality was how he never gave up at anything… ever. Even if his face was being dragged through a gravel road littered with broken glass, he wouldn’t back down.

He might be scared of something, but when faced with a challenge, he would face it to the bitter end.

“HEY! COLORS! PUT UP YER DUKES!” Blaze suddenly hopped in front of Dash and brought up her hooves. Dash yelped as Blaze approached her and brought up her hooves, but before Blaze could go any further, Silver reached in and yanked Blaze away. “YOW!” Blaze yelled as she lurched away and glared at Silver. “What the shit, captain?!”

“Keep moving down the line…” he ordered.

“RGH…” Blaze grunted and moved down the line of recruits. She stopped at Matteo and hopped up. Matteo instinctively put up a guard as Blaze began throwing wild light punches at him while making silly grumbling noises. Matteo just blinked and went along with it.

“Skittles… come over here for a second,” Silver suddenly beckoned her. She blinked as her turned and started walking away. He paused and turned back. “That means now, dammit!” he yelled. Dash instantly started walking and followed him. He took her about fifteen yards away from the rest and faced her.

What was he doing? Why single her out?

“So… been a while since the Shadowbolt attack, eh?” Silver asked out of the blue. Dash flinched and her ears folded backward. Silver lifted an eyebrow. “What? I was there too, you know… and I saw you fight as well.”

Dash wasn’t sure what to say. Well… she didn’t want to say anything because she was afraid to speak out of turn. She had given absolutely no thought to this. Silver… and every single elite member of the Wonderbolts were present when she and Soarin fought together against Nightshade.

“You fought alongside one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen… and held your own against an opponent that… really should have killed you both. Now I don’t say this very often… but I’m impressed,” he paused as Dash’s eyes made a visible change to surprise. “Don’t get used to that, you ain’t hearing it again until you give me a reason to!” he suddenly belted. Dash quickly stiffened again. “Is that clear?!”

“Sir, yes sir!” Dash answered instantly. Silver stepped closer to her and leaned over to her ear.

“But listen… during the free days in our schedule, don’t be surprised if I pull you aside every now and again for a personal training session. If you were able to fight like you did against the Shadowbolts without proper training… I’m gonna make sure we squeeze every bit of potential out of you.”

What?

Of all the things Dash was expecting to hear… that was the last. She pulled away slightly and looked at him in confusion. He narrowed his eyes as she gave him the look.

“Don’t get the wrong idea…” he glared and bared his teeth. “This is not me playing favorites, and this is not me doing you any favors. This is me making a judgment for the good of the Wonderbolts based on what I’ve already seen from you…” he looked back at the other recruits. When he looked back at Dash, his calm, stern expression had returned. “This doesn’t mean you’ve already been chosen for the recruit squad… this means you have to live up to the potential I see in you… more so than any other recruit. I have MUCH higher expectations for you… and dammit, if you fall short of them, you’ll fail just the same as a recruit who I didn’t expect shit from,” he stepped up beside Dash, but didn’t look at her. “This isn’t a blessing… it’s a curse. And you better break it before the month is over… or else I’m sending you right home… Spitfire’s opinion be damned…” he started walking back over towards the recruits, leaving Dash behind.

Dash suddenly felt an intense amount of pressure build up in the pit of her stomach.

Her?

Potential?

You’d think that would have boosted her ego through the roof... but Silver…

Silver made it perfectly clear for her. The Wonderbolts had expectations for her. She had been on a first name basis with the LEAD SQUAD for quite some time… and even fought alongside them. At first she thought this would have no positive impact on their selection process, wanting to keep it fair and all with no connections being taken into consideration. However, that’s exactly what happened… just in the polar opposite way she thought it would.

Of course the Wonderbolts were keeping a watchful eye on her… she had been in their direct line of sight for almost a year now! How could she have not considered this? She suddenly realized how heavy her situation was. Every move she made was being watched, examined, and broken down. No wonder she didn’t earn the elite spot… losing her cool and nearly causing a major injury to a potential wingmate… she could only imagine how much they all looked down upon that little shoulder thrust she threw into Arctic Blast.

Silver had just opened her eyes to a whole other side of her training here at the compound. She could suddenly see new standards she had to measure up to. Being ‘good enough’ was no longer an option. She had to be the best, or go home. Plain and simple.

“SKITTLES! THE HELL ARE YOU STILL DOING OVER THERE?!” Silver’s booming voice snapped her back to reality. “We’ve got twenty minutes! If you waste any more of them I’m gonna rip your arm off and beat your face in with it! LET’S GO!”

Dash was moving before he even finished.

It was loud and clear to her now. Was she worried about Soarin? Yes… but if Soarin shared Silver’s expectations, then she wouldn’t want to disappoint him either. She especially, wouldn't want to disappoint Soarin.

She lined up and put up her guard, at the ready as soon as she was set.

“Blaze!” Silver called over. Blaze was still throwing super-fast light punches at Matteo… who still hadn’t moved his arms much at all and was looking at Blaze with confusion. She finally stopped and turned towards Silver while panting and sweating from the over the top mini assault on Matteo’s guard. “Now you can hit her!” he gave her a nod and made a head motion at Dash.

“AW YEAH!” Blaze glided down and placed herself in front of Dash. “It’s ON!” she yelled while bobbing back and forth.

Dash gulped.

Yep… this was going to be unpleasant… but bring it on. They wanted to see her shine? Then that’s what she was going to do.

Soarin lay still… his eyes closed… his body devoid of strength. Where was he? When was he? What was he? Wh…who was he? Why was his brain running in circles? Why were so many obvious things confusing? It was like his brain was fighting for control of his own mind.

He couldn’t see anything. He tried to open his eyes but they were so heavy… he could hear noises around him, but the sounds reaching his ears were all muffled. His body was completely out of his control.

Something reached up and began wrapping around his limbs. Then he felt it around his body too. Something was grabbing him. He didn’t know what… but it hurt. It felt like thousands of pins and needles were being driven through his flesh… alas, he had no voice to scream out in pain.

“NO!”

A voice called out. It was the first sound he could fully deduce. And the voice… he knew that voice… it was a voice he would never ever forget. He’d rather die than forget that voice…

It was Rainbow Dash.

He could hear growling, thrashing and sounds of struggling, but he couldn’t see anything… he was in complete darkness without any indication of what was going on.

“Don’t let the darkness consume Soarin! If we lose his spirit, the healing magic will fail!”

Another voice…

Wait… Soarin knew that voice too!

Celestia?!

“Only those with a strong bond to Soarin can tear him free of his own demise! I’ll keep the darkness after us at bay! Save him!!!”

What was going on? Why did it feel so familiar?

Suddenly, Soarin felt something else grab him by the arms. However, unlike the pain of the first feeling… it felt warm… as if the touch was familiar… or something he had known for a long time. Whatever grabbed him pulled hard at his arms, trying to rip him free from the painful bindings that already had hold of him. Whatever was trying to pull him free… was failing. He could feel the grip on his arms slipping.

“DAMMIT SOARIN WAKE UP!”

A third voice?

He recognized this one the instant it yelled.

Spitfire!

What was going on? Dash, Celestia and Spitfire?

“What kind of little wimp sleeps when he’s being eaten alive? You’ve gotta be kidding me! GET ON YOUR HOOVES!”

Spitfire’s voice… brutal as ever… but she was right! Why was he laying still? Why wasn’t he fighting the pain?!

“Uhn—huh?!” Soarin suddenly sputtered and his eyes squeaked open. There was nothing. He couldn’t see anything even with his eyes open. Pitch black… save for two ponies. Spitfire holding his right arm and Dash holding his left.

Something was trying to pull him down, but they were fighting to keep it from happening. Soarin realized the situation. They were fighting for his life and he was just laying there like a dumbass. He suddenly felt strength return in his body.

He positioned himself to push.

All he needed was one good thrust and he would get free with the help of Dash and Spitfire…

But…

“AH!” Dash suddenly yelped as ribbons of darkness reached up from below and wrapped around her. Soarin watched in horror as her hooves released from his arm. She cried out endlessly in excruciating pain as the darkness began to engulf her.

“Dash?!” He yelled out. “DASH!!!!!”

He couldn’t get to her…

Spitfire’s grip was loosening…

And soon he would fall…

“DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

“AHHHH!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Soarin sat upright in bed. His body was covered in sweat, and ached all over. His eyelids were stuck open to the point where it hurt, his breathing was erratic, and his heart pounded in his chest like a hammer against a stubborn nail.

He was in his room. All four walls were safely around him.

But that didn’t matter… that was the third time he had had that dream.

It always ended the same way… with Dash being pulled away from him and… who knows what after that’s what always scared him awake.

But it also felt so familiar… like it was something he had gone through before.

“OH! OW! AGRH!!! AHHH!!!!” Soarin’s hooves flew to his head. A migraine pushed itself into his brain so suddenly. “AH!!!!!” He cried out as a faint blue glow shimmered around the fake horn. “RGHH!!! ARGH!!!!” He grunted and thrust his head downward, smacking his head against his knees, looking for some sort of relief from the pain.

“Simmer…” a voice suddenly spoke quietly as something touched Soaring’s forehead above the horn.

“Ah!!!! Ah…” Soarin exhaled as the pain slowly disappeared. His vision was distorted… but upon opening his eyes he could make out a very familiar figure.

It was Discord.

“Hmm… you almost had it that time…” Discord spoke as Soarin slowly lay back down in his bed. “What have we been teaching you for? You’re telling me you can’t keep it down?” he berated as Soarin continued to lay still and pant.

“Dash…” he sputtered. “Rainbow… Dash…” he forced out.

“I know what you want…” Discord sat down on the edge of the bed. “But I won’t let her in here unless YOU have control of the magic,” he made perfectly clear. “So either you figure it out… or you’re shit out of luck.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Soarin spoke louder. Discord crossed his arms and scoffed.

“I’m warning you Soarin…” he began. “I’m giving you a chance I shouldn’t. If I had it my way you’d already be dead… don’t make me consider going against Celestia’s word.”

Soarin felt Discord’s finger against his head again.

“I can’t always be here to calm the magic… you have to figure out how to do it… this is your last warning… Don’t make me think twice about not killing you.” Discord made perfectly clear.

Soarin couldn’t see Discord because his eyes were slammed shut, but he heard the distinct POP of Discord disappearing.

He was left alone… his body numb… the magic hardly under control… and a reoccurring nightmare of Dash being consumed by darkness…

Why did everything have to be so… difficult?

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

WOO! an update just in time for the weekend!

Silver's quite the badass eh?

Squall... you fail... again.

And Dash is being watched closely?! *LE GASP!*

Oh man Soarin... so much undeserved pain... i hope he can work it out soon (in like a chapter or two ;D)
Also kudos for anyone who recognizes the events in the first Soarin scene. ;)

God im tired as hell... >_<

Anyway... i'd assume the next chapter wont be out till monday or tuesday... cause i need to rest my brain over the weekend.

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 42: Mystery Ponies and Twister the Poet

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 42:

“Ooooo… ow…” Dash whined as she took the weight off her front hooves and sat down on the edge of a trainer table.

Her forearms hurt… A LOT. They were only at it for twenty minutes and they were wearing the padded arm guards, but all the blows she received while practicing her guard really added up. It would have been fine if Blaze had kept hitting her, Blaze wasn’t hitting very hard, nor did Wave Chill when he made his way around to her, but High Winds and Silver didn’t hold back quite as much. Her arms were tender to the touch. If not for the arm guards, they would surely be covered in bruises.

She wasn’t alone. A good number of her fellow recruits were present as well. They also sat on the end of trainer tables, waiting for attention from the busy trainers. It was the end of the day, so there were quite a few Wonderbolts present as well.

Thunderlane was nearby, although it looked like things hadn’t gone so bad for him. He already had ice bags wrapped around his arms and was sitting patiently until told to remove them. Maybe he felt better seeing somepony else take a punch to the face. Knowing his luck, Thunderlane probably assumed he’d be the one taking sucker punches.

Speaking of somepony else… Squall was already there as well. Dash spotted him four tables down, lying on his back while pressing a bag of ice to his jaw with his left hoof and grumbling. His head-piece had saved his face from being blown apart by Silver’s bone crushing punch, but he’d definitely be feeling the repercussions for the next few days. He also had an ice bag over his right hoof. Understandable after how painful it looked like it was to punch Silver in the face… a thought that just sounded so backwards in Dash’s head. How often does it hurt you more when you punch someone directly between the eyes?

“Hrgh…” Matteo grunted as he passed in front of Dash and sat down on the table beside hers. He too looked like he was having slight issues walking, but he was working very hard not to show it.

“Finally stuff you’re used to, eh?” Dash spoke up as they waited. To her surprise, Matteo shook his head.

“No actually…” Matteo replied as he examined his arms and talons. “I have… admittedly… not trained defense very often.”

“Really? You?” Dash blinked as she thought about it. One would think defense would be second nature for one of Matteo’s size and ability.

“Keep in mind I was turned away from the Sky Wings before I made it through the front gate,” he huffed as he recounted. “All of my opponents were young, weak, and lacking… I never had the pleasure of fighting one with true strength and skill. Against such meager opponents, their blows practically bounced off my well trained body,” he sighed. “Yet another reason I came all the way here… what would be the point, after all the hard work I did, if I were to never use the extent of my abilities?”

“I see…” Dash smiled. “Well, if you wanted to prove them wrong, you picked the right place to come,” she winked at him. Matteo turned and lifted an eyebrow.

“I did not come to prove anything… I merely wish to make use of my—”

“Matty, save it,” Dash chuckled. “I’ve seen you crack smirks, your big ol’ beak can’t even hide those. I know you actually enjoy things… and I know if you become an elite Wonderbolt, you wouldn’t think twice about walking right into the Sky Wings, proudly donning the Wonderbolt uniform, and flipping them off…” Dash sneered while putting her wings forward and retracting feathers until just the center feather on the ends of her wings were extended. “Hell, you have talons, flip four birds at them!” Dash laughed while putting her hooves up in front of her.

“Well…” Matteo looked away from her. The small smirk appearing on the edge of his beak.

“SEE?! There it is again!” Dash pointed at him while rolling back on her table and laughing.

“I admit to being a little… bitter about it,” Matteo shook his head while he continued to smirk. “While I don’t think I’d do anything that… extravagant… I would find success here to be rather satisfying… and solid proof of what they denied me.

“There you go!” Dash nodded as she sat back up. A male unicorn trainer suddenly passed by them and hovered two bags of ice to each of them. Bliss trotted by, using her magic to pass a roll of plastic wrapping to the unicorn before she continued on down the line towards the elite Wonderbolts present.

“Arms up,” the unicorn got right to the point. Dash raised her arms in front of her, showing the tender sides to the trainer. He quickly pressed one ice bag to Dash’s arm and used the plastic wrapping to firmly wrap it around her arm before doing the same with the other, and then helping Matteo the same way.

He was doing a quick, but quality job. This seemed to be the prime time for Wonderbolts to come in, being right after training ended for the day. Bliss didn’t even stop to say hello, she was in the zone and rushing around to make sure all of her helpers were doing everything right.

Dash glanced over to the door just in time to see Twister both enter the training room and immediately trip and fall flat on his face. Two trainers near the entrance stopped what they were doing and glanced at him.

Twister remained face down and his ears flopped up and down a few times before he straightened his body out from head to hoof. He proceeded to inch his body along like a caterpillar, making his way into the aisle, to the trainer table on Dash’s right, and somehow managed to pull himself up onto the table without using his hooves. He lay flat on the table, on his stomach with his back hooves on the head pad and his chin resting on the end. He stared straight forward, his eyes covered with his wild mane.

Dash thought about saying something, but her attention shifted to Little Star passing by them, hovering past with her front hooves crossed and her nose held high in the air. Dash and Matteo kept their eyes on her as she slowly made her way past Thunderlane and over to Squall.

“Here we go again…” Matteo said quietly as Star stopped directly in front of Squall and put her hooves on her hips. Squall turned his head to see past the icepack pressed to his face as she came into view. His signature scowl appeared as soon as he saw her.

“What?” he asked quickly and flatly. Star huffed and hovered just high enough so she could keep her nose turned up and still look down at him.

“So… what have we learned today?” she asked in her motherly tone. Squall’s eyes widened with his glare remaining.

“Are you kidding me?!” he yelled at her, unable to do much with an ice pack on his right hoof and using his left to press another to his face.

“You heard me, wise guy!” Star crossed her hooves and leaned in a little closer despite the glare she was receiving. “I’d say you got a nice dose of reality today! I’d like to hear it, along with an apology for your comments earlier, young stallion!”

“You’re NOT my mom!” Squall snapped. Star lifted an eyebrow.

“Huh? Is this a familiar conversation for you?” Star smirked. Squall’s ears flopped down and his face turned from a glare to pure dread. It only lasted a moment, but it happened. Dash, Matteo, Thunderlane, and Star all saw it. “Oh… strike a nerve?”

“I…rgh!!!” Squall growled. “How about you go twinkle twinkle in someone else’s business?!” He shouted into Little Star’s face.

To Dash… that not only sounded really stupid… and like something Star had probably heard millions of times in the past…

But as for Star… it looked like that was a real sensitive spot.

That was it. Squall was in for it yet again.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!?!” Star’s hooves went roughly back to her hips as she hovered forward and got in Squall’s face. “HUH?!” she pressed her nose to his, meeting his glare head on. “CARE TO REPEAT THAT TOUGH GUY!?” she forced herself forward slightly, making Squall lose his grip on the icepack against his face. It fell to his side as he tipped back from her force. “YOU BETTER WATCH IT, OR ELSE I WILL TWINKLE TWINKLE MY LITTLE HOOF UP YOUR ASS AND DISEMBOWEL YOU!”

“Whoa…” Dash had seen this three times now. She still wasn’t used to it.

“GOD! LEAVE ME ALONE!” Squall swiped his left hoof around and shoved Star away to his left between him and Thunderlane. He quickly reached down and grabbed the ice bag he dropped, throwing it at Star. Star barely moved as she used her special hovering technique to easily shift herself aside. The ice bag flew right past her and hit Thunderlane in the face.

“Ow! Hey!” Thunderlane ripped the ice bag from over his nose and looked incredulously towards the two bickering recruits.

Suddenly, an aura of purple magic surrounded Star.

“Alright little fire cracker…” Bliss’ voice came from past Squall’s table. Star was slowly passed around the table and over to Bliss. “Now I have to separate you two. I’m already super busy, the last thing I need is more injuries… especially from inside my own training room,” Bliss explained as she tugged Star along with her magic.

“LET ME AT ‘EM! I’LL RIP HIS FACE OFF!” Star yelled while she swung her arms wildly towards Squall to no avail.

“Is it strange that I knew exactly how that scenario was going to play out?” Matteo asked as he turned and looked at Dash. Dash snickered.

“Nope…” she nodded. “That’s pretty much what I thought too,” she blinked as she finished, realizing that Matteo wasn’t looking at her, but over her. She turned her head and glanced at Twister. He still hadn’t moved from his initial caterpillar-esque entry. Dash looked back at Matteo. He looked down at Dash and made a very subtle head motion towards Twister. Dash glanced at Twister again, then back at Matteo and shrugged. Matteo made a weak circular motion with his left talons. Dash saw him do it, blinked, and then realized what he was saying. “Again…?” she whispered.

“Mmhmm…” Matteo nodded. Dash rolled her eyes before turning back to Twister.

“Heya, Twister…” Dash began with a fake smile. “Uh… how ya doing? You’ve been quiet lately…” Dash gulped as Twister turned his head towards Dash, somehow all the way towards her without moving his shoulders at all.

“How polite of you to asssssssk,” he slurred as his head began to slowly tick clockwise, despite the motion being impossible from the angle he had his head turned. “I’ve NEVER been better! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehehehehehehehehehehehehehe…” as he chuckled, he turned his head back forward, the back towards Dash, then back forward, than faked a third look, moving back halfway through the motion.

Dash stared blankly at him, and then turned back to Matteo.

“He’s fine,” she said casually. She was being honest too. Twister locked up around Silver, but here he wasn’t being any weirder than usual.

Dash looked forward to see a large, folded brown wing with black feather tips pass right in front of her. She blinked in surprise before locking onto the pony it belonged to. It was the tall brown stallion she saw with the oversized blue stallion in the cafeteria. He was walking down the aisle with a very odd stride that caused his plot to sway back and forth. A silly smirk was plastered to his face as he headed in the direction of Bliss as she finished helping out a Wonderbolt.

He approached her slowly, and right before she turned around, he let his neck fall limply and drape over her back. She yelped in surprise, but immediately flattened her ears and rolled her eyes.

“Oh, doctor! I… I think I’m broken! Fix me!” the stallion wailed in a very comical tone.

“Honey, what have I told you about bugging me at prime hours?” Bliss said flatly while slowly turning her head and glaring down at him over her shoulder.

“But my wings!” he cried out while extending his wings and letting them droop. “They are so stiff! I need medical attention!” he bounced his eyebrows. Bliss stared at him for about ten seconds before a devilish smirk appeared on her face.

“I guess a few stretches wouldn’t hurt…” she said as her magic came to life in her horn.

“Oh, thank you doctor, I— WHOA!” the stallion yelped as Bliss’s magic grabbed him by the plot and tossed him onto a nearby trainer table on his stomach. “Yow! Careful there! You could’ve—” he was cut off as Bliss hopped up on the table and stood above him.

“So what’s sore?” she demanded.

“Oh uh… my—”

“Your right wing?” Bliss decided for him as her magic grabbed his wing and extended it out before reaching it towards her right hoof. “Okay, let’s just start…” she began giving his wing a normal stretch.

“Oh, yeah that’s the spoaaaahhhhh ow ow ow ow ow!!!!!” the stallion began flailing beneath her.

“You’re so tight! Here’ just lemme loosen it up…” she cooed as she pushed his wing further.

“My wing doesn’t bend that way! My wing doesn’t bend that way! My wing doesn’t bend that way!” the stallion yelped and yelled as she stretched it out. A loud POP rang out. “OOOOOHHHHH NOW IT DOES!!!!!!” the stallion shouted hysterically. Bliss let go of his wing and he instantly rotated, extended, and retracted it. “Ohhhhh, ahhhhhh, ayyyyeeeee…” he panted.

“Time for the other wing!” Bliss cheerfully exclaimed as her magic forced his left wing up to her and grabbed it.

“Oh sweet Celestia!” the stallion’s eyes went wide. “Ow ow ow!!! Ayeayeayeayeayeayeayeaye!”

POP

“OHHHHH MY LIIIIIFFFFFFEEEEEE!!!!!!!!”

“Uh…” Dash stared wide eyed as Bliss continued to pretty much torture the brown stallion.

“That takes care of the wings! Oh! Your leg looks a little sore!” Bliss mentioned as she turned around and reached for one of his back legs.

“What!? No! It’s fine! I swear it’s fiiiiiiihihihihihihiiiiiiine!” the stallion whined as Bliss began yanking his leg up uncomfortably. “OOOH AHHHH EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”

POP

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATES OF HELL!”

“This is… a tad disturbing…” Matteo commented as he, Dash, and the rest of the recruits nearby all stared in horror.

Dash shook her head as her eyes were drawn to the left of the torture table. The giant light blue stallion was walking down the aisle from further in the training room. Again… she kept seeing these guys in the same place. She was beginning to wonder which squad they belonged to, because they were clearly sticking together.

However, what shocked Dash was that the giant stallion walked right passed the table where his friend was being yanked apart without even batting an eye. As he drew near Dash, she instinctively reached out and tapped the big stallion’s arm in curiosity. He stopped and looked down at her.

“Uh… excuse me…” Dash asked and pointed towards the torture. “But uh… what the heck is that all about?” she asked with a look of confusion. The light blue stallion glanced over his shoulder at Bliss as she plopped her body down on top of the brown stallion’s back and reached up underneath his arm pits before yanking the stallion’s body up awkwardly.

“YEOW! OH! AH!” the brown stallion yelped, but then smirked. “Ha! Didn’t feel that one! Looks like my spine prevai—” Bliss let him back down and tried again. HARDER.

POP POP POP

“OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH MYYYYYYY SPIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNEEEEEEEE!!!”

The light blue stallion snickered and shook his head before looking back at Dash.

“Don’t sweat it, they’re married… he probably instigated it,” he explained casually.

“Huh?!” Dash blinked as she looked towards Bliss again. She remembered Bliss mentioning her husband… and how Dash would know when she found the right stallion… aaaaaaaand she was breaking him in half at the moment…

“You think that’s something? You should hear the make-up sex!” the stallion added with a chuckle. All recruit eyes snapped to him and grew wider. Without another word the big stallion continued on his way.

Dash eyed him carefully… and jumped in surprise right as he passed.

A very dark blue stallion with gold eyes and a black mane was reclined on the big stallion’s back, hitching a ride, it seemed. The dark stallion pointed a hoof at Dash.

“Eyyyyyyy…” he said with a forced suave tone as he winked at Dash.

Art by: foxenawolf

No mistaking it, this was the stallion that was practically invisible against the compound hallway walls. She was right! These three mystery stallions were all connected.

She watched as the dark stallion proceeded to point and wink at every mare they passed while saying ‘eyyyy…’ until the big stallion reached the door.

“Free ride’s over,” the big stallion said as he kicked the door open, grabbed the dark stallion off his back and flung him towards the door.

“Whoa!” the dark stallion yelped as he was tossed out before the big stallion followed.

“The hell just happened?” Thunderlane chimed in from the other side of Matteo.

“All done!” Bliss hopped down with a smile on her face as her husband slowly slipped off the other side and crashed into a heap on the floor. She trotted around the table and lowered her head down to him as he shakily rose to his hooves. “Don’t forget to sign the sheet on your way out,” she said professionally before returning to work.

“My internal organs… they bleed…” Bliss’s husband whimpered as he limped his way towards the exit, dragging his large wings along the floor with him.

Not another word was spoken between the recruits. After all giving each other blank glances, they merely waited for the trainers to come by and let them know it was time to remove the ice bags. None spoke of what they just saw… because frankly… they didn’t know where to start.

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes, but as she did, everything remained pitch black. She looked down and saw her body as if it was clear as day, but she stood in a void of complete nothingness. She quickly glanced around and caught sight of Spitfire close by to her left, who was also in the process of trying to figure things out. Before they could converse, there was a single white flash a few yards in front of them.

Soarin’s body, devoid of color, floated limply where the light had occurred. They both tried to move towards him, but black bands of energy reached up and grabbed their legs. They struggled to free themselves, but the bands began reaching up over their bodies, and pulling them to the apparent floor.

As she struggled, Dash looked up and saw similar bands pulling Soarin down, only as he touched to the floor, it began consuming him.

“NO!” Dash began to rip and tear at the bonds with her teeth. She flailed with her legs and thrust her wings all around, anything to force herself loose. As she and Spitfire struggled, Celestia suddenly came searing down from above and landed roughly before them. The black energy began wrapping around her legs as well, but with a single swipe of her horn a white blade of magical energy swept through them, fending them off. She turned to Dash and Spitfire and blasted their bonds with her magic as well.

“Don’t let the darkness consume Soarin! If we lose his spirit, the healing magic will fail!” She grunted and swiped at the dark bands again as they tried to reach for her. “Only those with a strong bond to Soarin can tear him free of his own demise! I’ll keep the darkness after us at bay! Save him!!!” She ordered. Neither questioned her because as soon as she spoke, a large pillar of dark energy rose from below and flew towards them. Dash and Spitfire rocketed at Soarin as Celestia shielded against the dark flow of energy. They both clutched Soarin’s hooves and pulled with all their might. The dark energy had already consumed half his body, from back hooves to halfway up his back. It had a good grip on him and their efforts yielded little success. Dash began to panic. They couldn’t get him free.

“DAMMIT SOARIN WAKE UP!” Spitfire suddenly belted directly into his face. Dash glanced at her with a slightly disturbed expression. “What kind of little wimp sleeps when he’s being eaten alive? You’ve gotta be kidding me! GET ON YOUR HOOVES!”

“Uhn—huh?!” Soarin suddenly sputtered and his eyes squeaked open. Dash couldn’t believe it. On a whim, Spitfire just decided to lay it thick on him and it got him to wake up? She really did know him well. Now that she knew what would work—

“Rise and shine ‘Sorewings’! Since when are you lazy!? Better start practicing what you preach!” Her words smacked him in the face and his eyes sprung open.

“What the hell?!” Color returned to his body and he saw the situation he was in. He wiggled his body until his wings were free and started flapping them against the pull.

“On three, Dash!” Spitfire ordered. “One, two—”

Dash was ready to yank Soarin free of the darkness pulling him down. However, right before Spitfire finished her count… ribbons of darkness lashed out from Soarin’s body and struck Spitfire heavily in the face. Spitfire’s hooves were ripped free of Soarin’s arm, and Dash suddenly felt double the pull against her strength.

“ARGH!!!!!” Soarin screamed in pain as the darkness began to envelope him further.

“Soarin!” Dash shifted her weight and pressed as hard as she could to the invisible ground with her back hooves. “NOOO!!!” She yelled out as her efforts yielded no reward.

“Hurry!” Celestia called from behind her. “Rainbow Dash! YOU MUST HU—” Celestia was suddenly blindsided by a surge of darkness. It completely enveloped her. She yelped and screamed as it slowly covered her entire body, all the way up her neck, over her head, and finally snuffing out her horn and stopping her mighty magic.

“Soarin…” Dash whimpered as she found herself being pulled into the darkness with him. “Soarin!!!” she yelled as she watched him slip from consciousness again and the color left his body. She tugged and tugged, but the battle had already been lost. She glanced behind her and saw the darkness that had engulfed Celestia flying towards her. Tears began flowing from her eyes as she turned back just in time to see Soarin’s face devoured by the dark. “SOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAARRRIIIIIINNNN!!!!!!!!!!”

“AH!” Dash yelped as she landed flat on the floor of the barracks. She quickly turned herself over and sat up as sounds of groans and snorts filled the room, the other recruits disturbed, but luckily not awakened by the noise. She blinked, panting, and heart jumping in her chest. She was wrapped in her bed sheet, which came off the bed with her as she fell. It was damp, covered in her own sweat.

Again? No… it was different this time. Her heart jumped again and her breathing was heavy… but this time there was a dream accompanying it. Or rather, a nightmare.

It was no mystery to her. She recognized everything that happened in it. How could she forget it? It was one of the strangest, yet most important moments of her life, rescuing Soarin from being engulfed in darkness. It was a gamble, but if they hadn’t done it, Soarin would have either died anyway, or be forced to live a life without flight. Both of those were pretty much death in the eyes of a pegasus.

However, it was exactly how she remembered it… up until the very end. Spitfire knocked away? Celestia overpowered? Soarin being consumed and her along with him?

That wasn’t right. That didn’t happen…

What did it mean? Was she more connected to Soarin than she once realized?

Now more than ever she wanted to go to him. She HAD to go to him. It was no longer a question of when she’d go, what she would say, or who would apologize first. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. She had to fix things.

She had no idea what time it was, but she had to get back to bed. The next day was a free day. If Silver didn’t pull her aside at all, she would try to find Soarin immediately. That was… if free day had the connotation Dash thought it did.

She shed the sheet from around her body and tossed it on the end of the bed. She readied to climb back in.

“Hmm…” Dash stopped and contemplated.

She really had to use the bathroom. Silver wouldn’t get on her ass for that… right? He said he wouldn’t. Besides… even Silver has to sleep at some point. Unless he actually was as crazy as he seemed.

Dash stepped down from her bed and carefully made her way down the aisle towards the bathroom.

“Phew…” Dash sighed as she left the bathroom stall. It was pitch black in the bathroom, but her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light.

As hoped, she had no trouble making it to the bathroom, and hopefully she’d have no trouble getting back to bed either.

She stopped at the sink to wash her hooves and the sink furthest from the door… thoroughly washing them and reaching to turn off the water.

The instant she did…

A single bathroom light turned on two sinks down. Dash froze. Her head snapped to her right.

Twister was there…

He sat on a high stool, the single light shining down on him overhead. He had a mane brush attached to one of his hooves and he was brushing his crazy mane… very slowly. Every stroke he made with the brush did nothing to change his wild mane, the strands bouncing right back to their usual position each time. His eyes were narrowed, but his smile was so wide it nearly stretched his face out.

Dash just stood perfectly still, not sure what she was looking at.

Why was Twister in the mare’s bathroom? Why was he brushing his mane? How did he get only one light to turn on? The switch controlled all the lights at once.

Twister suddenly stopped brushing his hair and SLOWLY turned his head to look at her. His right eye twitched a few times, but otherwise his expression remained the same.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” he slurred her name in a very low tone.

Dash had no idea why… but something about the situation had her completely paralyzed. She wasn’t afraid of Twister, she had seen him overpowered and beaten at his own game multiple times. So why was she afraid to move?

She took one step closer to the exit… and before she could blink, many things happened. She saw Twister move slightly, but he somehow made multiple things happen at once. Her arms were suddenly tied down to her body with a rope, her bottom hooves tied together as well, and she was suddenly sitting on the stool with Twister standing beside her.

“WHAT THE—” Dash was cut off as Twister clamped her mouth shut with his hooves. He gave her a goofy grin before putting a very tight rubber band around her nose and mouth to hold it shut. Twister stepped away and Dash stared straight forward into the mirror above the sink. Twister appeared directly behind her, the wide devilish smile attached to his face.

Dash bounced a very disturbed look at him off the mirror and began moving to try and break free of the bonds. Twister snickered and rested his chin on her shoulder, despite how much she shook about… Then he began to speak.

“Alone was I… With Rainbow Dash,”

“A spunky mare… who is quite Rash,”

“I watch as she tries… to squirm and thrash,”

“And it makes me feel… quite craaaaaazy…”

Dash’s ears flattened as she stopped moving and lifted an eyebrow at him. He pulled his chin from her shoulder while laughing like crazy for about three seconds before he instantly stopped and snapped his head back down, looking into her eyes through the reflection.

“Oh, Dash I just wish… to tell you a story,”

“Truly… there is no reason to worry,”

“I promise that it’s not… clop or gory,”

“But it does make me feel… craaaaaazy…”

Twister moonwalked around her in a circle, attaching the brush to his hoof as he stared at Dash through the reflection again.

Art by: sweet Isolation

“When I see you… I’m reminded of a mare,”

“Who’s beauty was… beyond compare,”

“I couldn’t help… but always stare,”

“She drove me absolutely… craaaaaazy…”

Dash flinched as Twister began to… brush her mane?

“Oh, with many colors… her mane did flow,”

“And her soft fur… t’was white as snow,”

“I loved her more… than you could know,”

“Alas, she thought I was… craaaaaazy…”

Dash’s eyes darted back and forth as he brushed her mane faster.

Art by: mlplover789

“She had ways to keep me… from getting near,”

“‘Did she despise me?’ … I would always fear,”

“But things aren’t always… as they appear,”

“In fact, they can be… quite craaaaaazy…”

If her mouth wasn’t tied Dash would have yelped as Twister suddenly pushed her off the stool. She shut her eyes as she bounced lightly against the floor.

“Now, now… you shouldn’t lie on the bathroom floor… it’s unclean.”

Twister picked her up and placed her head in his lap. She stared up at him, thoroughly perplexed. He was sitting on the floor, still brushing her mane with one hoof, while resting his chin on the other and staring up away from Dash with a dreamy look on his silly face.

“Soon I learned… it was all a ruse!”

“My confusion to her… it did amuse!”

“Oh, ho ho this mare… I simply could not lose!”

“She enjoyed that I was… craaaaaazy…”

His expression turned down, no longer smiling. He almost looked depressed. His brushing of Dash’s mane slowed down.

“But to my dismay… nothing became of us,”

“Both so very busy… it would be quite a fuss,”

“Then one day she was gone… many words I did cuss,”

“I guess I went a little… more craaaaaazy…”

He gently picked Dash back up and placed her on the stool. Dash had stopped trying to figure things out.

“Another mare like her… I shall never come across,”

“If we never meet again… I will be at quite a loss,”

“I pray for the day… that our paths again cross,”

“And I hope she still likes that I’m… craaaaaazy…”

Twister ran the brush through Dash’s mane one more time before resting his chin on her shoulder again.

“So that is my story… how it fills me with glee,”

“Thanks for listening Dash… to a certain degree,”

“Now I must get back… sleep well! Bonne nuit!”

“I hope you don’t think I’m… too craaaaaazy…”

Twister gave a bow. The single light shut off and the stool disappeared from beneath Dash. As she fell the bonds around her limbs and mouth vanished and she yelped as she plopped on the floor.

“With love,”

“Twister.”

Dash scrambled to her hooves and blinked. She glanced around, unable to see in the darkness of the bathroom. She quickly felt her way around the wall to the light switch and flipped it on. The light poured into the corners of the mare’s bathroom… but there was absolutely no sign of Twister. She stared into the empty bathroom for another minute before switching the lights off and leaving.

She stepped lightly as she slowly made her way back to her bed… still trying to make heads or tails of what just happened to her. She stopped before turning to her bed, glancing away from it at Twister’s bunk. She could see him on the top bunk, covers pulled up, and fast asleep backwards in the bed with his hooves at the head board and his head and the hoof of the bed.

Dash stared at him for a moment before flattening her brow and ears and shaking her head. She glanced at Matteo’s bed in the corner, and shook her head again. Matteo kept making her ask Twister if he was okay…

Yeah.

Everything was normal.

Twister was perfectly fine.

Still the same crazy-ass…

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Whoa... some weird stuff happening in this chapter! O_o

But... oh god... im so damn tired.

Dash seems to have similar dreams to Soarins... i wonder what i meants?

Did i break PlayBitz? i totally did...

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! (I promise the Soarindash is soon :pinkiecrazy:

next chapter? im gonna guess thursday or friday... don't know for sure...

Chapter 44: Ooooohhh yeeeeaaaah! I feel GREAT! YEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!!

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 44:

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” Soarin released a long sigh as he opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling in his room.

It was morning already… time flies when you actually get a good night’s sleep. For Soarin, that was something that was hard to come by.

But after what happened the day before… there was no way he wasn’t getting the best sleep in his life.

Soarin smiled as he sat up in bed and glanced around the room. He looked to his left and clutched the sheet beside him.

Rainbow Dash… she was there yesterday. She was brought to him in his time of need. They overlooked their little disagreement in favor of restoring their bond. It was a magnificent feeling… even if it came right after an incredibly excruciating amount of pain.

Their needs brought them back together… and he held her tight in his arms for at least three hours after.

Unfortunately, she had a schedule to keep. It was a free day for the recruits, but she still had to get some training in. He reluctantly let her go… then tried to tend to himself. He had gotten up, walked around, and even went to the mess hall to get some much needed food. He mostly avoided contact with most. He ran into Spitfire once, but besides her, nopony of any consequence. He was actually glad he ran into Spitfire. He got to assure her she was fine in person.

Then she blushed and ran away.

Seriously she needed to get after Wave Chill already.

With little happening, he came back to his room after eating enough for six ponies and spent the rest of the day resting, until night fell and he went to sleep. The whole day he felt mentally drained after containing the magic. His body felt tingly and light… so he refrained from anything strenuous. He definitely slept well because he felt pretty good.

Actually… he felt really good…

“Huh…?” Soarin blinked and looked around.

He felt… great!

“Er… haha… what?” Soarin smirked as he looked his body over. It felt slightly tingly, but also warm.

He felt… pretty damn awesome!

“Woo!” Soarin rolled back and sprung up onto his hooves before leaping off his bed and landing perfectly on the floor. He smiled from ear to ear. “Wow! Whoa!” he blinked as he shook his body out. It was strange… ever since he had the dark magic pressed into him, he constantly felt like he had some sort of invisible restraint on his body… or at least a tiny headache or slight noggin discomfort at all times.

This morning he felt completely free. All the pressure and strain… it was gone!

“AW YEAH!!!!” Soarin threw his hooves up into the air and pumped them up and down a few times while flapping his wings in tandem. He levitated slightly off the ground before dropping back down. He continued to chuckle as he started prancing in circles about his room.

This was so weird, but it felt great! It was like the dark magic was completely gone, or at least completely tamed! Was this the effect getting back together with Dash had? Did it have to do with him forcing the magic back into his body? To be honest, he didn’t give a damn how it happened at the moment because DAMN he felt WAY TOO GOOD!

“Hahaha!” he laughed cheerfully as he finished one more lap around his room before veering off towards the bathroom, kicking the door open and diving in, doing an action roll on the floor before sharply standing up and looking at himself in the mirror.

He paused for a moment noticing that his fake horn was emitting a very faint glow that barely shone beyond the surface of it. It looked like it did have something to do with the yellow magic that appeared… but hey, whatever it was… it was clearly making him feel pretty damn amazing!

“Hey there, sexy…” Soarin smirked at his reflection as he stood up on his back hooves and put his front hooves on his hips. Damn, he looked good. He felt good. He felt so free… and hell he felt strong too! More than ever before. “Oh damn look at that!” he joked with himself as he reached his arms up and flexed them in the mirror. “Ha! Ha! Hoohaa!” he made silly grunts as he bounced his arm muscles before putting his hooves back down and doing the same with his chest muscles. “I think today is going to be a good day!” he chuckled as he grabbed a nearby towel with his magic and draped it over his shoulders before grabbing it the ends with his hooves and turning from side to side to flex some more.

Wait…

Soarin completely froze. He looked at the towel over his neck.

He just used his magic to grab a towel across the bathroom and hover it over to him… almost unconsciously. He didn’t even look at the towel, much less focus on it. He just thought about looking sexy with a towel, his magic came to life, and the towel came to him.

“Wait… oh man… oh man!” Soarin suddenly got really excited. The yellow magic… could he do more with it? He had to try! Soarin whipped the towel off his shoulders, dropped back down to all four hooves and sprinted back into his room. There were four small pebbles sitting in the corner on his desk. He has been using them for magic levitation training. His current record was barely lifting three at once.

He looked at the four pebbles. He narrowed his eyes at them… and simply thought about lifting them up.

A yellow aura encircled the false horn… and the four pebbles all rose up.

“No way…” Soarin cracked a smile as the four pebbles spread apart and flying in a big circle. He had so much trouble lifting just two… much less three. He just had a brief thought about making all four pebbles move… and voila. What the hell? This was too awesome!

Soarin looked around at other things in the room as the pebbles began to orbit around him. Why stop there? Soarin added a book, a pen, his clock, and a tissue box. He now had eight things being moved by his magic at once! Eat your heart out Fancy Pants! Soarin couldn’t believe it! This was too good to be true!

The clock orbiting around him came into view. Soarin quickly reached out and grabbed it. It read 7:30. Breakfast had already been open for half an hour. PERFECT! He was hungry! It was hard to be sexy on an empty stomach!

Soarin let go of all the objects in his magic. They all clattered to the floor, some making louder sounds than others, but who the hell cared?! He felt like a trillion bits plus interest! It was time to get some food! Everypony better move aside! The god damn Soarin was coming through!

Soarin walked right out of his room, not bothering to close the door behind him as he strutted and slightly bounced down the hall. What had gotten into him? Hell if he knew! All he knew was he felt freaking PERFECT!

Was that a good or bad thing?

“We should try to line this up in the morning, I honestly miss sitting with you guys,” Storm Front chuckled as he and Dash sat down across from each other in the mess hall.

“I wouldn’t mind that at all…” Dash shrugged as she eyed the oatmeal, eggs, and banana on her tray. Was it bad that she didn’t even taste the food anymore? It was almost the same thing every day, but she didn’t care because she needed the fuel. “I like all the recruits… but I miss talking to somepony a little more… stable,” Dash smirked as she spoke and ending up loosing a few laughs. Storm looked up from his eggs and lifted his brow.

“Stable?” he asked with amusement. Dash tipped her head back and forth.

“Well, I don’t mind Matteo, he’s a bit too serious, but I’ve gotten him to crack a smile or two. Thunderlane is alright, he whines a little too much, but I’ve known him forever, so nothing he does is anything I’m not used to,” Dash’s ears flattened. “That’s kind of where it stops though. I don’t think I need to tell you much about Twister…”

“Nope, he speaks for himself in his own special way,” Storm commented with a cringe.

“Squall’s an ass…” Dash shook her head. “He acts all tough, but he can’t really back it up,”

“Yeah, he’s lucky Matteo didn’t snap his neck…” Storm recalled when he pulled Squall away from Matteo two days prior. “Doesn’t seem too… smart.”

“Little Star…” Dash contemplated how to put it. “She’s nice… but absurdly motherly, and if you get her pissed it’s like having a water balloon full of nails burst in your face… you know she’s thirty right?”

Storm spat out a hunk of eggs.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Dash chuckled as Storm blinked at her.

“I thought she was… like… ten years old,” Storm wondered out loud as he reached for his water and took a drink. Dash continued.

“So, like I said, it’s nice to talk somepony who’s more or less calm and collected,” Dash said as she looked up over Storm’s shoulder towards the food line and saw Fleetfoot standing with Blaze in a headlock. Blaze was yelling more swears than Dash knew existed and Fleetfoot was giving her an extremely rough noogie. “That’s kinda hard to find around here period,” she joked as she sat back down. “But I will say… that none of them are even as close to being as bad as Arctic Blast was…” Dash and Storm both cringed at the name.

“That’s for certain… Well thanks, I appreciate it,” Storm smiled at Dash as his fellow squad seven mates suddenly walked by behind him. Point Dex did nothing. Autumn Rain gave Storm a friendly tap on the shoulder. Dash watched as Autumn rain walked by. She was literally as big as Soarin. Dash would never get used to that. Storm turned to look at Autumn, reacting to her shoulder tap. She waved to him hello, but as he waved back, Macho Savage came up from behind.

“HEYYYYYYYYY BUDDYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!” he yelled in his loud raspy voice before ruffling Storm’s mane so hard it almost completely flattened against Storm’s head. Savage eventually let up and continued strutting towards the table squad seven was getting settled at.

“Oh… but if you want to go sit with your squad or the other Wonderbolts that’s fine,” Dash quickly added. “You did earn your spot with them, you know.”

“Eh… I get plenty of them all day,” Storm chuckled as he shook his mane out and pressed his hooves to it in attempt to get it back in place. “I like squad seven, but Point Dex and Macho Savage are quite a handful. Autumn Rain is very polite and nice all the time though.”

“Okay then, your turn! Tell me about them a little more,” Dash rested her elbow on the table and leaned forward with interest. “You already told me what they’re like… what has training with them been like? How about the other squads? Do much with them yet?” Dash piled the questions on.

Storm nodded and smiled as he swallowed a helping of oatmeal. He looked happy to answer. Dash was happy for him, but at the same time felt bad. Storm seemed eager to speak and interact with her and the recruits. She could only imagine what it had to be like for him among the high tier elite Wonderbolts. He probably felt under pressure at all times, not to mention like a rookie amongst the most seasoned flyers in Equestria. The elite Wonderbolts were also already acquainted with each other. Storm was thrown into a casual atmosphere with celebrities. Dash was also sure his ascension from tryout cadet to high tier elite didn’t sit well with some of the low tier elites. Spitfire could easily quell complaints with her reasoning, but there was no way Storm’s quick rise into the ranks was without some controversy.

“Let’s see,” Storm began as he pondered Dash’s questions. “Our schedule’s been pretty rough so far, at least for me, it doesn’t seem to affect them so much. I’ve had combat, obstacle courses, a free day, and formation flying…”

“You’ve had combat practice with squad seven? Oo! Tell me about that!” Dash suddenly chimed in. Storm chuckled at her.

“Too many questions… brain shutting down…” he comically went face first into his oatmeal bowl.

“Sorry…” Dash snickered and shook her head. “I’m a big fan of Wonderbolt combat.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve deduced…” Storm sat up and licked up the bits of oatmeal stuck to his nose. “Point Dex is not much of a combat pony. Don’t let him fool you, he’s a strategic genius, and from what I’ve heard, he actually is a bit of an inventor, apparently has some combat devices he uses… he obviously doesn’t use them against us though, so I have yet to see any.”

“What about Autumn? Dash asked while glancing to her left and eyeing the big mare two tables down from them. Storm glanced at her as well, his eyes widened slightly, he took a deep breath and exhaled while shaking his head.

“She’s… kind of a beast…” he commented as if unsure how to describe it.

“Well I figured that, look at her!” Dash pointed. “She looks like she could bend a steel bar if she wanted.”

“That’s why it’s so interesting, she’s super gentle… but when she fights…” Storm shrugged. “She’s a hard hitter obviously, but that’s not the interesting thing about it.”

“Oh?”

“She’s a passive fighter. She waits for her opponent to strike first, either blocks or takes the blow, then counters,” Storm explained.

“Blocks or takes the blow?” Dash repeated while blinking. “As in… lets you hit her?”

“Not as easy as it sounds…” Storm lifted up one of his hooves and shook it out. “Her body is pretty solid… felt like I was punching a rock…” Storm cringed. Dash rolled her eyes. That went without saying. Autumn was no skinny, slender mare… Hell, Blaze referred to Dash as ‘a smaller Autumn Rain’ the day before while the two were… feeling her up her physique.

“Color me not surprised in the slightest,” Dash smarmily commented. Storm smirked right back.

“You have enough colors already,” he fired back with a chuckle. Dash snorted and lightly tapped her nose to her tray as the two shared a light laugh.

“And then there’s… Macho Savage…” Storm almost looked like he dreaded the thought. Dash quickly picked up on this and her interest was thoroughly piqued.

“That guy already looks like a wacko. I bet he fights like one too…” Dash guessed while glancing at the squad seven table. Macho Savage was eating his oatmeal by holding the bowl at arm’s length above his head and letting it drip out into his mouth.

“That’s putting it lightly…” Storm shivered. “It has no rhyme or reason… it basically looks like he’s flailing about,” he paused as Dash started cracking up. “No really,” Storm faked being serious. “He fights like an octopus falling down a flight of electrified stairs! I’m not kidding around here! I thought he was going to tear me to pieces!” Storm continued with a slight smirk as Dash completely lost it.

“That’s the best description of a fighting style I’ve ever heard…” Dash managed to say as she tried to take deep breaths between laughter.

“As for the other elite squads, I’ve been around them, but I have yet to do any cross-squad training,” Storm’s ears suddenly stood up slightly. “Oh! Speaking of elite squads, I’ve been hearing some hilarious stories about Silver Lining… how’s he been? I’ve been told I’m missing out,” Storm asked.

“Ha!” Dash tipped back in her chair a little. “He’s been ridiculous… it’s so hard to keep a straight face when he starts going off on some recruit… but if it’s happening to you, it’s terrifying… I’ve gotten in more shit for laughing at what he does than for anything wrong I‘ve actually done.”

“That’s what I’ve been told,” Storm nodded and smiled. “You’re lucky. Apparently all the members of the current squads one, two, and three had him as their recruit instructor when they were new.”

“Really?” Dash set all four chair legs back on the floor. “Huh…” she thought about it. Soarin, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all had him too? Wait… that also meant Rapidfire. Dash nearly cracked up imagining what kind of hell Silver put Rapidfire through. “That’s… pretty cool… we’re getting the same training they did…”

“Like I said, you’re lucky,” Storm winked. “I wish I could have that honor…” Storm’s focus shifted behind Dash. “Hey! Matteo! Over here!” he suddenly waved and yelled. Dash looked over her shoulder and saw Matteo glancing towards them while carrying a tray of food. He saw Storm flagging him down, and changed directions to come sit with them. Storm smiled as Matteo approached. “Hey big fella, how’ve you been?” Storm asked. Matteo cracked a small smile as he walked up and sat down beside Dash.

“Good to finally speak with you again,” Matteo got comfortable in his chair. Matteo seemed to approve of Storm. Knowing Matteo, it was because of the ‘honor and bravery’ Storm had showcased during the tryouts. It was really the two of them working together who deduced the façade of Surprise’s fog pie machine. “I don’t think I have congratulated you on becoming an elite Wonderbolt…” Matteo began. “I would like to extend my admiration of—”

“HEY!! What’s going on over here?!”

Dash flinched really hard as a tray of food slammed down beside hers. It had a plate with twelve pancakes and eight sausage patties. She also recognized the voice… but it was not who she expected to either approach her like this, nor was the food on the plate what she expected of him.

Lucky Autumn

Soarin suddenly leapt over the back of the chair and landed roughly in it, almost hitting his face against the table in the process. He patted Dash roughly on the back while smiling at all three of them.

“S-Soarin?!” Dash yelped as she recovered from being roughly forced forward.

“Commander?” Storm’s eyes widened as Soarin cracked his neck loudly, grabbed three of the pancakes and shoved them all in his mouth.

“It’s a fine morning, isn’t it?!” Soarin triumphantly yelled out as he swigged all of his water and chucked the plastic cup back over his shoulder. “I feel great! How do you all feel!?”

Storm and Matteo were frozen, speechless.

Dash eyed Soarin quizzically. Was she happy to see him? Of course she was! But… that was a rather uncharacteristic entrance… not to mention his breakfast went heavily against his diet… and he was being… quite strange.

“Hey I know it’s hard to feel and LOOK this good!” Soarin pounded his chest. “But you guys can do it too! Trust me!” he pointed at Matteo and Storm. He then reached his arm around Dash and pulled her into him, smushing her face against his chest muscles.

“Yikes! Soarin! What’s gotten into you!?” Dash blushed and sharply whispered to him. He tipped his head down over the top of hers so his mouth was right in front of one of her ears.

“Hey pretty lady of mine, I don’t know about you, but I could sure go for some fun… in private… after dinner tonight…” he whispered slyly yet smoothly into her ear.

“Uh…” Dash’s face turned completely red as Soarin let go of her and she slowly moved upright in her seat. Soarin looked up and over Storm towards a table where Spitfire and Fleetfoot were sitting.

“Hey, nice talking to you guys! Gotta run! Lead squad stuff!” he stood up, grabbed his tray and walked around the table behind Dash, intertwining his tail with Dash’s as he passed before giving her plot a swipe with his wing. Dash jumped in surprise and continued blushing as she watched Soarin move away from the table.

Storm and Matteo watched Soarin leave, looked at each other, then looked at Dash.

“I’m so confused…” Matteo spoke up. He looked back at Storm. Storm only shrugged.

Dash kept her eyes trained on Soarin as he walked towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot. He was walking with a very confident bounce in his step, and he swayed his plot back and forth in a manner that was almost… hypnotizing. She quickly looked down, bit her lip and glanced around her tray as if looking for something else to focus on, but it was too late, and her wings were already twitching at her sides.

That was weird. Soarin had some strange confidence radiating from him. They had just made up… and she helped him get control of his magic, but… WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!

And why was it… so… sexy?

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot yelped as Soarin sat down beside her, but not without nearly body slamming her in the process.

“What’s jumping ladies?!” Soarin greeted while grabbing another handful of pancakes and wolfing them down.

Fleetfoot sat up and glared sharply at him.

“What the hell?!” She turned her body towards him and put her hooves on her hips. “Okay… first, where the hell have you been?! Second… Why the hell did yooouuuuuuu— why are you looking at me like that?” Fleetfoot cut herself off and looked directly in to a confident smarmy smile that was plastered to Soarin’s face.

“First answer! Don’t worry your pretty little head about it!” Soarin reach over and ruffled her mane gently. “Second answer! I’m feeling extra alive todaaaaaaaaaaaay—” he imitated the way she had just cut herself off. “And don’t get any ideas missy, I’m taken…” he bounced his eyebrows while lightly sliding a hoof down his chest and body.

Fleetfoot followed Soarin’s hoof as he slid it down his body and then rubbed it in a circle on his leg. She blushed lightly, looked back up with an incredibly confused look on her face.

“Spitfire, what…” Fleetfoot glanced over at Spitfire. She had her head down on her tray with her hooves pressed firmly over her head while groaning uncomfortably. Fleetfoot could clearly see the bright shade of red surrounding Spitfire’s face through her hooves. “Oh right…” Fleetfoot rolled her eyes. As soon as she turned back Soarin was up against her again and had his arm over her shoulder.

“What’s the deal, can’t I enjoy feeling good and spending time with my oldest buddies?” Soarin said with a fake pout.

“Could you… touch me less…please?” Fleetfoot found herself blushing more.

“No fun allowed, eh?” Soarin smirked as he literally spun away from Fleetfoot and retook his position in front of his tray. As soon as he was in place another tray slammed down beside Spitfire.

“HEY! I THOUGHT I SMELLED THE BURNING SOUL OF A TRUE STALLION!” Air Mach leap into his seat, but missed and crashed on the floor. He sprung up, tried again, missed again, then finally just sat down normally and crossed his hooves while tipping his head down just enough so he could see over his ridiculous glasses and look at Soarin. “Like a boss!” He added to compliment himself. “Were you touching my mare Soarin?!” he suddenly pointed dramatically.

“Maybe I was…” Soarin leaned back while smirking. He shook his head lightly to whisk his mane about before winking and pointing right back at Air Mach. “She’s my friend though, I’m sure you’re aware I have rainbow I love to follow to the gold!”

“Oh my god, what is happening…?” Fleetfoot couldn’t take how overly stupid the conversation was getting.

“Oh, it was just a friendly greeting?!” Air Mach smiled while pushing his glasses really hard up onto his face. “Good!” he hopped up and belly flopped on the table, his face landing right at the edge of Fleetfoot’s tray. Fleetfoot instantly reclined as far as her chair let her. “In that case I can continue pursuing my angel without any obstacles!” he put on a massive cocky grin as Fleetfoot grabbed her mane and began to yank it while moaning in frustration.

“Oh, I don’t think so!” Soarin suddenly hopped up as well, landed plot first on the table top, and leaned down to put Air Mach in a headlock. “She’s my friend you know! You’re clearly making her uncomfortable, I don’t think I like that!” Soarin challenged him with the sly look still on his face. Air Mach began to struggle in his grip.

“Hey! How dare you accuse Fleetfoot of lying about loving me!” Air Mach fired back.

“I NEVER SAID—” Fleetfoot got cut off as the two stallions on the table began to thrash about until Soarin had him pinned again.

“You can’t beat me Animak!” Soarin taunted as Air Mach sneered.

“HA! You are an opponent worthy of my greatness! Allow the great Animak to show you how it’s done!” Air Mach yelled as he tried to struggle out of Soarin’s headlock, but after a good minute of thrashing around, he found he couldn’t break free. “Ha! I’ll let you off the hook this time! The mighty Animak is still tired this morning!” he tried to play it off.

“Nice try tons-o-fun!” Soarin sat up and shifted off the table, yanking Air Mach with him. It was a wonder that neither of them hit any of the trays on the table during the whole exchange… which by now had also attracted a few spectators. “Don’t worry Fleet, I’ll make sure THIS idiot leaves you be,” Soarin assured Fleetfoot while giving Air Mach a good few jabs in the side before dragging him away.

“The mighty Animak was NOT done with his breakfast!” he tried to break free again, but Soarin dragged him all the way out of the mess hall as other Wonderbolts, mainly mares, watched with a mix of confusion and interest.

Fleetfoot stared dumbly with a light blush still on her face. She glanced over at Spitfire again, who was done overheating and now looking up as well. Fleetfoot looked back at the door and lightly wrapped her hooves around her sides.

“Um… why is Soarin turning me on…?” Fleetfoot shuddered.

Spitfire was skeptical. Soarin was better… she heard it straight from him yesterday as well as what happened with him and Dash… but what was this going on now? She was sure she saw a very faint yellow glow running within the false horn the whole time, but she never got close enough to confirm.

Soarin was suddenly radiating sex appeal and strutting around in ways he never had before.

What was going on?

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Hey all... everything is already back on track...

Seriously haha... i didn't mean to scare you guys so much. i was a little down i mesed up my otuline, but i already fixed it. And to clarify, i was refering to people demanding to know when certain STORY events are going to happen... i'm okay with you guys asking me how close a chapter is to being released ;3 i just felt pressure to move forward the Soarindash moment and wished to have those type of questions limited.

But please, feel free to bug me about when chapters will be out, i don't mind that at all ^3^

Oh guess what THIS chapter is! This chapter is the frist chapter in the second half of part 2! Which means we are halfway done with this part already?! oh gosh... that means in a little while we'll be HALFWAY DONE WITH THIS MONSTER! :O

But hmmm... Soarin seems to be experiencing quite a heavy libido boost... looks like the blue and yellow magic have different effects on him... but what the heck?! whats with all this magic in Soarin anyway? What won't Discord tell?! I guess we shall all find out in due time ;3

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! (i'm fine really, don't worry about me... but thanks for all the concern and friendly PM's ^_^)

Chapter 45: Soarin, Go Home, You're Drunk

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 45:

“To move from a basic ‘arrow’ to an ‘X’ formation you have to take into account the speed at which the whole squad is traveling. There are two ways to morph the formation into the ‘X;’ either have the back two fly up and close in, or have the leader drop half a pony length back and the two ponies flanking them move up and out while those in back move in to compensate… now when the compensation is…”

Dash frantically scribbled notes into the notebook attached to her binder as Silver went on and on and on about how to change from an ‘arrow’ to an ‘X’ and back, drawing on the whiteboard with so many arrows and lines it looked like a spaghetti factory exploded. She and the rest of her recruit class were all packed into a small classroom with uncomfortable plastic chairs and four long tables that were so old they had scribbles on them with dates beside them going back at least thirty years. Dash was sitting third table from the front… where Wing Buster apparently sat thirty years ago, who was also apparently the best… whoever the hell Wing Buster was. Well, Wing Buster’s memorial, written in blue ink on the old wooden table was now being used as an elbow rest… hopefully he felt proud.

Dash was having hard enough time keeping up with what Silver was saying and drawing… it didn’t help that she was tired… and this was very boring. Silver was one hell of a flight instructor… but he didn’t seem to be a very good teacher. If he was any more monotonous, the dried up gum pressed to the bottom of the tables would fall asleep too.

Dash dared NOT let her eyelids get heavy though. She was sure the rest of the recruits were just as worried as her… anypony who fell asleep would get hell from Silver. He was carrying a yardstick around, using it to point at the different sloppy diagrams he had drawn. Silver was bad enough by himself… getting yelled at by Silver whilst he was holding a three foot long piece of wood made the possibilities much worse.

She was having a hard time concentrating… but the boring lecture was far from the reason.

She was thinking about Soarin… and the… scene at breakfast earlier. The last time she saw him before that was when they were brought back together. He looked so drained when she left him… and then he showed up nearly bouncing off everypony and everything, puffing his chest out, strutting around, and looking… sexy as hell in the process…

Dash crossed her legs and blushed lightly as she thought about it. Okay, she had to be reasonable about this. Did they solve one problem with Soarin and cause another…? Or was something different happening altogether? She had to find him later and find out. Or at least try to find out, he seemed adamant to press her to a bed the moment she got anywhere near him later.

THUMP

Dash flattened her ears and slowly glanced to her right. Dash thought that Thunderlane would’ve been a little more worried about nodding off in front of Silver… Or at least enough to keep him awake. Apparently not. Thunderlane had just passed out beside her. Dash quickly glanced between Thunderlane and Silver. Silver still had his back turned to them. Dash quietly reached over and began nudging Thunderlane, trying to wake him while keeping her eyes on Silver.

“And from there we can—” Silver turned around and stopped mid-sentence. Dash was sitting back upright the instant she saw Silver move.

That was it.

Thunderlane was on his own. He was sitting on the right end of the table, leaving himself open for Silver to easily do something to him.

Dash gulped as Silver began moving towards the tables, but he suddenly diverted, and walked down the left side instead. Heads turned to look as Silver walked down the left aisle and passed Dash’s table, stopping at the forth in the very back left corner of the desk arrangements. Dash glanced at Thunderlane once before turning and looking. She saw Squall sitting in the back left seat, reclining and holding his pen in his mouth. His notebook was completely blank. Matteo, sitting beside Squall, was already shifting his chair over so as not to be drawn into whatever Silver was going to do/say.

Squall looked directly at Silver as Silver glared hard at him, his grip on the yardstick tightening.

Once again… Squall was clearly trying to act tough… and picked the worst pony to do it to.

“Say…” Silver began while gently bouncing the yardstick on his shoulder. “I happen to notice that I just drew up diagrams for the past twenty minutes… and you haven’t taken a single note down… care to explain yourself?” his voice was menacingly quiet. All eyes were trained on Silver, specifically on the yard stick.

“This is boring,” Squall instantly. The yardstick stopped bouncing on Silver’s shoulder, making the rest of the recruits flinch so hard the noise of shifting seats quietly filled the room.

“Boring, eh?” Silver narrowed his eyes further.

“Yeah, boring, just like everything else so far!” Squall yelled back at Silver. “I don’t need all this basic stuff! It’s not challenging!” Silver stood quietly as Squall yelled in his face. Dash couldn’t believe it. Squall was either extremely stupid, or extremely delusional. She glanced over at Thunderlane again, who was still asleep. She tried to nudge him awake now that she had a chance, but he remained out. Had he not gotten much sleep the night before or something? He was sleeping like a rock. “Seriously! How hard is it to fly side by side or in shapes?!” Squall continued. “I made it this far! I think I know how to fly straight!

“Son…” Silver started quietly. “Were you an expert the first time you blew your uncle?” he paused as Squall eyed him in confusion. “I didn’t think so. There’s a learning curve, just like here,” he said while remaining calm and stoic. A few snickers sounded out, but none dared to make a scene.

“What?!” Squall threw his arms out to his sides.

The moment he did, Silver reared back and slammed his hoof hard against the table right next to Squall’s notebook. Squall flinched and yelped as Silver got down into his face.

“DAMMIT, YOU SON OF A SHITDICK! DID I NOT PUNCH YOU HARD ENOUGH TWO DAYS AGO OR SOMETHING?! I THOUGHT YOU’D WISE UP AFTER THAT!” He barked as Matteo shifted even further away, pressing himself into Twister and Little Star by accident as he shifted all the way to the end of the table to stay out of Silver’s way. Silver leaned forwards and firmly pressed a hoof against Squall’s chest.

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE THE LEAST INTELLIGENT ASSWIPE I HAVE EVER HAD THE AGONY OF INSTRUCTING! I’D LOVE TO DRAW UP A LIST OF HOW MANY THINGS ARE WRONG WITH YOU, BUT I DON’T HAVE THE TIME OR THE CRAYONS TO DO SO!!!” Silver didn’t let up. There was something different about his yelling this time. He sounded legitimately angry. Normally it sounded like he was just doing his job… but was Squall really pushing him over the edge?

“SOMEWHERE OUT THERE, THERE IS A POOR, TIRELESS TREE PRODUCING OXYGEN FOR YOUR SORRY, STUPID ASS… I BELIEVE YOU OWE IT AN APOLOGY!” Silver finally stopped yelling. Squall was staring with wide eyes, frozen in his chair. Silver pulled back, resting his hooves back on the ground before resting the yardstick over his shoulder and bouncing it casually again. He took a deep breath and sighed. “Congratulations son… I officially can’t think any less of you. I bet your ass is jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouth…” he turned and made his way all the way around the back table before walking back up the right side.

Dash blinked as she realized Thunderlane was still asleep. How he managed to sleep through the yelling was beyond her, but he managed. It was too late, Silver was a few steps away from being right beside them. Dash held her breath… but Silver didn’t yell.

With one swift motion, Silver took the yardstick and smacked it HARD against the desk right in front of Thunderlane’s nose.

“AH!” Thunderlane awoke with a start and leaned back so hard he almost fell back in his chair.

“Wake up, sweetheart,” Silver said simply as he walked the rest of the way back up to the whiteboard.

Dash breathed a silent sigh of relief. Thunderlane got off easy. Squall took the brunt of Silver’s wrath of the moment. Dash subtly turned to look back at Squall.

Wait…

He was…

Smiling?

Squall was smiling. After all that berating he got? Silver had just thrown enough insults into Squall’s face to level a brick wall! Dash would have been in pieces after insults like that. Was Squall trying to get on Silver’s bad side? Normally that would sound sarcastic… but it was almost as if he was… literally.

“Is this shit boring?” Silver suddenly spoke up. “Yes,” he answered for them before rapping the yardstick hard against the whiteboard. “But if I don’t drill this into your head I ain’t doing my job! SO DEAL WITH IT!” He yelled, making all the recruits jump slightly in surprise. “If I really have to give all of you with a short attention span something to be excited about… we are having combat demonstrations after lunch,” he said with little change in his tone.

However, a wave of excitement swept through the recruits. Silver looked around and saw all the faces light up. He shook his head.

“Wow… suddenly interested? Yeah we’re having a three elite squad combat session later today…” he lifted his brow at them with an unamused look on his face as the recruits suddenly all looked incredibly excited. “Wow, don’t go wetting yourselves while you’re at it…” he stomped his hoof hard on the floor. “BUT WE’RE NOT DONE HERE YET, SO SIT THE HELL DOWN AND PAY ATTENTION!” he yelled before turning back to draw up some more formations.

Excited? That was an understatement. Dash could barely sit still in her seat now. They were going to watch a combat practice between three elite squads after lunch?! She was suddenly fired up!

But… she had to sit through another hour of this first… son of a—

“Now up!” Spitfire yelled as she and Soarin pitched upward, flying through three cloud rings while twisting around each other back to back. “Then throw!” she said next as she reached her arm toward Soarin.

“Alley-oop!” Soarin yelled as he grabbed Spitfire’s arm and spun her around once. Fleetfoot passed perpendicular to them as Soarin released Spitfire and flung her with perfect timing so she could turn around and fly side by side with Fleetfoot.

As they flew, Soarin fell back, freefalling towards the ground. He positioned his body to look like he was reclining and relaxing as he fell. He tipped his head back to see Spitfire and Fleetfoot coming back around towards him.

“Incoming!” Air Mach’s voice came from below. A giant cloud careened up towards him, Soarin leveled out as he fell, paying no attention to the cloud coming at him. “DOUBLE CLOUD BURST OF MY BURNING STALLION SOUL!” Air Mach yelled dramatically as a SECOND cloud came flying up from the ground at about ten times the speed of the first. It struck the first cloud before it could hit Soarin. The collision caused the clouds to combine, then bust into four smaller clouds that dispersed in a pattern that left Soarin untouched.

“LLLLLLLLLLLLadies!” Soarin smirked as he turned his back to the incoming mares while holding his arms out at his sides. He braced himself to prevent whiplash as Spitfire and Fleetfoot grabbed hold of his arms and yanked him along with them. As soon as Soarin was moving at their pace, he latched his hooves to their arms and began twisting. The trio became a blur of light blue and yellow for a few moments until Soarin released Fleetfoot, slinging her upward towards the four clouds. He grabbed Spitfire with both hooves swung her around and released her down towards Air Mach.

Fleetfoot shifted her pace and momentum as she rose to create a spiral motion. Her speed created cross breezes as she rotated her motion, causing a whirlwind to build up behind her. The clouds got sucked together into her wake and began following her.

Down below, Air Mach had lifted into the air and used a pair of hoof covers similar to Blaze’s to start a flame and packed together a dense ball of fire. The fire raged violently within Air Mach’s hooves as he forced the strong flames into a diameter roughly the size of a grapefruit.

“BURNING FLAME OF MY BURNING SOUL TO ANOTHER BURNING SOUL AND—”

“JUST THROW IT!” Spitfire cut him off as she neared.

“YES MA’AM!” Air Mach yelled as he pulled back and flung the small fireball towards Spitfire.

Spitfire readied her hooves as the fireball closed in. When it was roughly a foot away from her, Spitfire brought her hooves in, clapping them over the flames. The ball exploded, shooting flames towards her and up her arms. Her speed prevented her from catching fire, but she worked to control the flame, keeping it around her arms as she turned back and began heading towards Fleetfoot, who still had the clouds in tow.

Air Mach landed on the ground and Soarin slammed down beside him.

“Watch and learn, Animak!” Soarin nudged him as he set his hooves firmly into the mat. He proceeded through his motions to execute the Sonic Blastoff as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. A loud BOOM sounded out as Soarin exploded up towards Fleetfoot and Spitfire. The force of the sonic boom crashed against Air Mach. He held firm against the force while smirking at giving chase as soon as he was stable.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot drew near each other on a collision course. They grew closer and closer, Fleetfoot with the four clouds in tow and Spitfire with the flames hovering and streaking around her like an aura.

“Disperse!” Spitfire yelled as she shook her hooves roughly, shedding the flames from her body. Fleetfoot ceased her spinning and released the clouds from the whirlwind. They both shifted slightly to pass right by each other, and as they did they pushed off each other’s hooves, sending themselves in opposite directions, clear from the paths of the flames and the clouds. The fire crashed into the clouds, the two forces cancelling each other’s speed and stopping in midair, creating a pillar of clouds… that was on fire.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” Soarin yelled out as he zoomed upward, still speeding up from his Sonic Blastoff. He punched a hoof forward as he collided with the bottom of the cloud pillar, going right through the bottom cloud as well as the other three as he moved up. The clouds burst and expanded creating four growing rings of fire in his wake. He slowed down and hovered in place about the rings with a lingering trail of fire dying in his path.

“WOOOHOOO!!!!” Air Mach yelled as he flew up after Soarin, passing through the rings as he began spinning violently. His spinning caused a whirlwind like Fleetfoot, but his had opposite cross breezes, sucking the rings of fire back in. Air Mach ceased spinning as he reached Soarin above the rings and they watched as the rings capsized and exploded in a fireworks fashion as they crashed in on themselves.

“Aw yeah! That was sick!” Soarin hoof-pumped as the flames died and the clouds disappeared. He angled down towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot on the ground with Air Mach close behind. He landed beside Fleetfoot. “I dunno about y’all, but I’m feeling PUMPED for this show already!” he remarked while giving Fleetfoot a really hard pat on the back.

“Oof!” she grunted and fell to the ground as Soarin approached Spitfire.

“So waddya say? I think I picked it up real quick!” Soarin cracked a suave smile while winking. Spitfire rolled her eyes and shook her head. She had her… urges under control for the time being, but Soarin was still not quite… acting like Soarin.

“It looked good,” Spitfire nodded while turning away from him. “You picked it up quick. We’ll just have to make sure it’s fine-tuned before next week. Including…” she turned to Air Mach, who was trying to pull Fleetfoot up, but she was batting his hooves away. “Air Mach!” Spitfire yelled at him. He was a foot from her and saluting in an instant.

“What’s up boss lady?” he stood pridefully with his chest puffed out.

“You did fine… just tone down on the yelling okay?”

“NO CAN DO MA’AM!” he quickly replied. She didn’t say anything back. She only glared at him. Air Mach glanced back and forth before saluting again. “CAN DO MA’AM!”

“Good—EEP!” Spitfire jumped in surprise as Soarin draped an arm over her shoulders.

“I dunno babe, the yelling kind of adds some dramatic effect to it all, you know what I’m saying?” he casually gave his opinion. Spitfire blushed lightly and glared at him.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!” she snapped at him, but Air Mach interrupted.

“I like your style commander Soarin! Only true stallions like us can understand the heat of a burning soul within our chests!” he pounded his chest hard.

“Yeah!” Soarin reached forward and the two bumped hooves. “See S’fiery? You’ve gotta—WHOA!” Soarin yelped as Spitfire grabbed him by the neck and yanked him down to her height.

“Will you two excuse us for a moment? I need to have a little chat with Soarin…” Spitfire addressed Fleetfoot and Air Mach before dragging Soarin along with her.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! What gives?” Soarin asked as she dragged him a good enough distance away from the others two. She let him go, walked in front of him and looked at him sternly.

“Soarin, what’s going on with—” Spitfire paused. Soarin shook his head out, whisking his mane around, cracking his neck and rotating his arms a few times before looking right back at her with a confident smile. Spitfire glared and bit her lips, blushing as she looked down and shook her head. “DAMMIT!” she cursed, breathed in and composed herself before breathing out. “Soarin, what’s going on? What’s with all this recently?”

“What’s with all what?” he grinned wider while tipping his head to the side. Spitfire growled.

“Soarin, don’t bullshit me. You were bedridden and in pain a day ago… and then you shoot out of a libido cannon, swaying your plot, puffing your chest out, dancing about, and hip thrusting everything with your mind. Seriously, why are you suddenly like this?” she asked with concern. He didn’t waver though.

“Aw don’t be such a downer!” he shrugged and gave her shoulder a playful light jab. “Everything with Dash got fixed, I controlled the dark magic, and DAMN I just feel GREAT!” as he said ‘great’ a small flash of yellow light shone from his eyes and the horn. It was less than a second, but Spitfire saw it.

“There! That! What was that?”

“What was what?” Soarin blinked.

“Your eyes and horn! Yellow magic! Is that the magic you mentioned? The one that absorbed the dark magic?” Spitfire pressed him. Soarin looked like he was having trouble standing still. He was now bouncing back and forth gently on his left and right hooves.

“I have no idea… all I know is it feels awesome!” he repeated while fluttering his wings and hovering slightly. Spitfire looked him over carefully. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Soarin was clearly feeling better… but that was just it. He looked like he felt too good. He also had no idea why he felt so good. Apparently it had to do something with the yellow magic, but beyond that they knew nothing. She decided to let it be for the time being and see what happens… as weird and slightly uncomfortable as it was to have her childhood friend one step short of a brother appear to be incredibly confident and sexy.

“Alright… if you say so,” she sighed as she walked past them and the two returned to Air Mach and Fleetfoot. “Alright guys… that will do for our show training today. We have combat demonstrations for the recruits after lunch, so get to the mess hall early. I don’t want anypony getting cramps during the sparring,” she made clear. She flinched in surprise as Soarin put her in a headlock and ruffled her mane.

“Combat demonstrations?! SIGN ME THE HELL UP! YEAH!” Soarin let go of her and trotted towards the door with quite a bit of spring in his step. Air Mach followed while yelling challenges at Soarin, leaving Fleetfoot and Spitfire behind. Spitfire grumbled she tried to get the static out of her mane from the noogie. Fleetfoot walked up beside her and shrugged.

“So… what the hell is with him?” Fleetfoot asked, just as confused as Spitfire. Spitfire glanced at the door and shook her head.

“I have absolutely no idea…”

“JUMPING DAMN JEHORSEPHAT! SETTLE THE HELL DOWN!” Silver yelled as he led the recruits into the battle dome. “We ain’t going to the amusement park! Single file! Let’s go!”

Dash was almost bouncing as she walked. Combat demonstrations. The last time she saw an organized combat session was when Soarin and Rapidfire fought. It… almost ended terribly, but she got to at least watch Soarin beat the stuffing out of a pony she wholeheartedly disliked.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you look excited,” Thunderlane joked as he walked beside Dash.

“Can’t help it!” Dash smiled. “I’ve seen this before, it’s gonna be awesome!” she preached. Dash had seen FAR BEYOND friendly sparring in terms of combat… but something about it made it much more interesting. The fact that it was a competition as opposed to a fight to the death made it so much more appealing.

They were led up into the spectator seats by Silver and given a designated spot to sit before Silver himself made his way out into the field towards where a few elite Wonderbolts were already gathering. From where they sat, Dash could make out Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Autumn Rain, Point Dex, and High Winds along with Silver. Blaze and Wave Chill emerged from the main entrance carrying a few sets of the padded sparring armor.

The more Dash saw, the giddier she got. She had been side by side with some Wonderbolts already, but she had yet to be able to sit and focus on Wonderbolts as they fought. She wanted to watch and analyze how the best fought. This was quite a treat.

Dash moved into the seats, but right before she sat down, Storm Front flew up from below and landed beside her.

“Storm?” she blinked as he gave her a smile.

“Hey!” he greeted cheerfully as he sat down.

“What are you doing up here? Matteo asked as he took a seat behind them. Dash sat down, awaiting his answer, for she too was curious.

“They won’t let me fight,” Storm said with a sheepish grin and a shrug. “Which I’m okay with. They want me to watch and learn anyway.”

“SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSay…” Twister was suddenly on the seat beside Storm with his head in Storm’s lap. “Haven’t seen you in a long time!” he sneered so wide his teeth went past the edges of his face. “What’s it like being better than us?” Twister’s mouth rotated… he didn’t change his expression, his mouth literally rotated on his face so the giant sneer turned into a toothy frown. Storm lifted his eyebrows, glanced at Dash then gently patted Twister on the head.

“Good to see you again too Twister…” Storm joked as he slowly pushed Twister off his lap.

“So who’s fighting? I see… members from Squad one, two, and seven…” Dash squinted as she looked at the Wonderbolts out in the infield of the dome.

“That’s all,” Storm nodded. Dash blinked and looked to him. He glanced at her. “One, two, and seven, That’s what Autumn told me," Dash thought for a moment, and was admittedly a little disappointed.

“No three?” Dash pouted. She was hoping to watch Misty fight. During the confrontation with Nightshade, Misty proved to be quite a unique and admirable opponent. Dash was hoping to actually watch Misty, but it looked like she’d have to settle for the rest… not like they wouldn’t be just as awesome.

“I heard Squad three has a show in Cloudsdale tomorrow,” Storm nodded. “They’re making final preparations or something,” he turned to Dash. “Squad four, five, and six are out attending events as well, so they called us up. But like I said, I’d rather watch, especially if they’re fighting squad one and two…” Storm looked back forward.

Dash followed Storm’s gaze and spotted Silver speaking with Spitfire. Spitfire glanced towards the recruits before nodding and replying. Dash’s attention was drawn away as Soarin, Air Mach, and Macho Savage all emerged from the stallion’s locker room. They all strutted towards the rest in a rather… silly, but testosterone fueled way. Dash found herself snickering. Soarin was being ridiculous. She found it funny, but really, she couldn’t help but feel like something was off.

She had to press him about it later. It was fun… and kind of sexy… but Soarin wasn’t acting like Soarin. Dash was good at getting him to fess up about things, so if he was going to tell anypony anything, it would be her.

“Alright recruits, listen up!” Dash flinched in surprise as Spitfire’s voice met her ears. Dash, along with the rest all quickly turned and listened as the LEAD CAPTAIN of the Wonderbolts herself addressed them. “Good to see you all today,” Spitfire began as she began hovering back and forth in front of them. “As I’m sure… or rather I hope Silver has drilled into your heads at this point… Wonderbolts are not just show time flyers… we are a military combat force that specializes in being able to meet and combat abnormal threats that Equestria’s regular guard… tends to bounce off of. We have to be at our best, and be out of the ordinary, plain and simple. This is why our training schedule is rigorous and why we participate in friendly sparring matches on a regular basis,” Spitfire paused, stopped, and faced them. “So sit tight and watch carefully… if you’re worth half of what we think you are, you’ll be able to fight like this someday too,” she said very sternly.

Spitfire was very different from Silver. Spitfire didn’t need to intimidate anypony. She was THE CAPTAIN of the whole Wonderbolt force. Her words held weight just for that.

“The way we do this is simple. We get together a few squads… and using a random selection method, we chose who will fight who. The matches are either five minutes long, until a pony gets pinned for five seconds, or until a pony gets the shit kicked out of them. This is for sport, competition, and to keep our skills sharp… so as I said… PAY ATTENTION,” Spitfire smirked. “And welcome to Wonderbolt combat.”

Dash was literally bouncing in her seat now. So much so that she was getting weird looks from Thunderlane, Storm, and Matteo. She didn’t care though. She was going to see some action. REAL. WONDERBOLT. ACTION. It had been a long time since she watched Soarin and Rapidfire duke it out… she only hoped it was just as exciting with the rest.

---To be continued---

Author's Note

Sorry for the cliffy... but the next scene would've pressed the chapter length awfully far.

But hey at least you know you have some awesome Wonderbolt combat on the horizon!

And seriously... what the heck is up with Soarin?

And... Squall? Is he... getting yelled at on purpose now? You'd think after how he was scared to fess up to Silver during the cafeterai scuffle he would be more afraid of Silver... but since then he's been pulling REALLY dumb stuff that would clearly anger Silver... i wonder what's up with him?

Anyway, thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 46: Combat Demonstrations

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 46:

(MY APOLOGIES. There is a typo I just fixed in the last chapter. Spitfire mentioned ten minute matches or held to the ground for ten seconds. That’s supposed to be five minutes or held for five seconds, my mistake.)

Spitfire left the giddy recruits behind and glided back over to the group of Wonderbolts picking through the sets of battle armor.

“Hold up, hold up…” she called to them before any of them could start putting armor on. She landed and folded her wings before shaking her head. “Everypony hold themselves… you’re not all going to get a chance to fight,” she quickly explained. The response she got was mixed.

“Can I just leave now?” Point Dex raised his hoof. Spitfire instantly shook her head.

“Nice try Dex…” she looked between them all. “We have time for four standard sparring matches. Also… these will be straight up matches. No effects or clouds, only fighting.” Spitfire paused as Blaze, High Winds, and Wave Chill all groaned. “Deal with it,” she huffed. “We only have the battle dome for an hour time slot and it’s already taken us fifteen minutes to get everypony in here. So let’s not waste any time… everyone have their I.D. cards?” as she asked they all held up said I.D. cards… minus Macho Savage who flexed his arm instead. “Savage…” Spitfire narrowed her eyes.

“Oh… you mean THIS I.D. card…” Savage put his arm down and pulled out his Wonderbolt I.D. “Oh yeah, you gotta be more specific boss lady!”

“Whatever… now who brought the—” she stopped as Silver handed a small plastic bowl towards her. “There we go!”

“Wait… they choose who fights who… through a raffle?” Dash blinked. Storm chuckled beside her.

“You sound disappointed,” he nudged her in the side, but she just threw her hooves forward.

“Well, come on! You’ve seen some of the technology they have around here! A raffle? I dunno, just seems a little… low tech,” said Dash with a raised eyebrow.

“According to Point Dex,” Storm chimed in, “Spitfire decided on a raffle system to keep the selections completely random. She never lets the same Wonderbolt fight another twice in a row. They must fight a different Wonderbolt every time…”

“So they don’t get used to the same opponent?” Matteo suddenly spoke up from directly above Storm.

“GAH!” Storm flinched as he looked up right into Matteo’s genuine glare.

“What?” Matteo tipped his head in confusion as Dash snickered.

“Sheesh big guy, be careful, do you have any idea how scary you can be?!” Storm joked as she smirked up at the towering griffon.

“Trust me, I know,” Matteo replied… seriously. Storm rolled his eyes with a smile before continuing.

“To answer your question, O’giant of feathers…” Storm picked up where he left off. “Yes, it’s to keep Wonderbolts from getting too comfortable fighting others. Apparently it’s the same within the squads themselves. If I fought Point Dex today, I’d have to fight Autumn or Savage once before being permitted to fight Dex again.”

“Yow, so many rules…” Dash cringed at the thought. She’d follow rules set by the Wonderbolts without a second thought… but it didn’t mean she liked it. She preferred freedom over authority… and luckily the Wonderbolts seemed to have a healthy balance of both.

“Silly,” Matteo huffed. “Back home you want to fight another griffon... you punch them across the beak. If they don’t fight back, they’re a coward,” he nodded contently at the thought while crossing his arms over his chest. Storm turned towards Matteo with a smirk.

“Get used to it Puff Ball, around here a punch across the face isn’t the best how-dee-doo,” Storm quickly countered. Matteo narrowed his eyes at him, but again couldn’t hide the small smile on the edge of his beak.

“Puff Ball?” Matteo snorted, but his voice sounded more amused than angry. “I ought to give you a nice griffon ‘how-dee-doo’ right now for that one…”

“Oh really—?” Storm was about to continue, but Dash grabbed him by the face and glared at him.

“QUIET! I’M TRYING TO GET PSYCHED HERE!” she yelled while shaking him. She snapped her eyes to Matteo and hissed. “YOU TOO!” she ordered before letting go of Storm. He nearly fell over on top of her as she did, but held himself steady before blinking and glancing up at Matteo. Matteo just shrugged and the two looked on with Dash as Spitfire shook up the bowl of I.D. cards and reached in to make the first selection.

The mood was mixed amongst the Wonderbolts as Spitfire swirled the I.D. cards around in the bowl. Some were eager for some action, some were eager for a fight, some were eager to show off in front of the recruits, and one brainy Wonderbolt would rather be elsewhere.

Fleetfoot blinked as she heard a tapping noise beside her. She glanced to her right to see Soarin bouncing subtly. He had a very wide grin plastered to his face and was tapping his hoof repeatedly against the mat.

Soarin wanted all of the above. Action, a fight, and to show off. He was feeling ALL of them! Nothing like a good brawl to get the adrenaline pumping! He could barely sit still in anticipation.

“Do you have to use the bathroom or something?” Fleetfoot asked as she eyed him quizzically. Soarin exhaled and started chuckling.

“Naw, I just really wanna kick somepony's ass right now!” he said very loudly. All the Wonderbolts turned and looked at him. Even Spitfire stopped shuffling the bowl and glanced at him. “Hey! Come on! Let’s go!” he complained once everything stopped. Spitfire narrowed her eyes at him before returning to the bowl and reaching in.

“Alright…” Spitfire began as she reached into the bowl, dug her hoof into the cards and pulled out a random one. “First up is…” she turned the card over. “Blaze.”

“HELL YEAH!” Blaze leapt up and punched towards the ceiling. “Let me at ‘em!” she began hopping back and forth on her back hooves while jabbing at the air in front of her.

“And Blaze will be fighting…” Spitfire reached back in, ruffled around the cards, and pulled out another. As soon as she looked at tag her eyes widened for a moment. All the Wonderbolts watched and waited as Spitfire let out a long groan followed by tipping her head back. “Fleetfoot…”

Soarin instantly stopped bouncing and his ears drooped. Damn… he wanted to throw down…

“YES!” Both Fleetfoot and Blaze yelled at the same time. Blaze instantly shot Fleetfoot a glare as Fleetfoot burst out laughing.

“What are you so happy about Blazey?” Fleetfoot taunted.

“I’m happy I get to kick your ass!” Blaze snapped back while getting in Fleetfoot’s face and grinding her teeth together.

“Remind me how this always goes again?” Fleetfoot snidely pressed her nose to Blaze’s and stuck her tongue out.

“I’ll tell ya how THIS one is gonna go!” Blaze growled as Spitfire stepped up and pushed them apart.

“Ladies, not the time. Let’s just get this over with,” she said while pointing towards the pile of training armor.

“Your ass is grass along with your sass!” Blaze tried and failed to deliver a witty threat as she turned and eagerly dug through the armor for a set her size. Fleetfoot was about to do the same, but Spitfire caught her by the shoulder before she could move.

“Fleet…” Spitfire gave her a stern look. “Don’t humiliate her too much, okay?”

“Can’t make any promises,” Fleetfoot giggled and winked before leaving Spitfire behind. Spitfire made a move to argue, but realized this was Fleetfoot, and Blaze would most likely instigate it anyway. The best course of action was to just let it happen and get to the next fight.

Spitfire took flight and glided out to the center of the battle dome arena and waited patiently for Blaze and Fleetfoot to come forward. In the interest of time, Spitfire began explaining the rules per standard procedure.

“You both know how the standard sparring matches go,” she started. “Five minutes, unless one of you gets pinned for a five count or one of you somehow manages to get knocked out while wearing a faceguard…” she paused and glanced back and forth at them. Fleetfoot was making silly faces at Blaze and Blaze looked like her face was going to turn red from anger. They weren’t even listening to her. “Oh, forget it, just get to the starting positions and wait for my go.”

“I’m beating the shit out of you!” Blaze yelled as the two turned and walked to the start spots. Fleetfoot casually waved with her back turned.

“If you say so!” she taunted back, earning more growling and swearing from Blaze as Fleetfoot giggled her way over to her spot.

The two turned and faced each other, a good thirty yards apart. Spitfire looked back and forth at them, and then up at the scoreboard to see it set to five minutes. She glanced over at the control box for the board and an earth pony staff member gave her a wave. Spitfire nodded and took a deep breath.

“BEGIN!” she yelled as she pushed her wings forward to back herself all the way up to where the rest of the Wonderbolts were watching from.

Blaze fired toward Fleetfoot, hooves ready and teeth bared while growling dramatically. Fleetfoot smirked as she waited for Blaze to close in, rise up and come crashing down with a hay maker. Fleetfoot stepped aside at the last moment, letting Blaze’s hooves slam to the mat. Fleetfoot gave Blaze’s mane two gentle strokes.

“You know you’re mane isn’t quite as—” Fleetfoot jumped back and began blocking a flurry of punches from Blaze. “—awesome as your half-sister’s. It lacks the second color, so honestly—” Fleetfoot dropped to her stomach as a punch from Blaze zoomed over her head. Fleetfoot pressed her hooves and wings hard to the ground to propel herself into the air. Blaze gave chase, but Fleetfoot spread her wings out after rising only ten feet, causing Blaze to fly past her and flail as she tried to slow her momentum. “—it doesn’t quite look so good… WELP! I guess Spitfire got the better genes!”

“RGGH!” Blaze looped back down and headed straight for Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot started flying away from Blaze, but purposely gauging her speed so Blaze could catch up. “QUIT RUNNING!” Blaze yelled as she slowly caught up.

“Blazey… dearest…” Fleetfoot taunted as she turned around, facing her right side towards Blaze. “If I was trying to run from you—” Blaze caught up and began throwing wild punches at Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot, with only her right arm, blocked every punch and kick Blaze tried to land. Fleetfoot smirked as Blaze tried to no avail to land a blow. As Blaze launched a hoof towards Fleetfoot’s face, Fleetfoot let it pass by her nose, and then reached up with her right arm, hooking it with Blaze’s. Fleetfoot tugged her forward and put Blaze in a headlock from behind. “—you would NEVER catch me… wanna see?” Fleetfoot giggled as she tensed her wing muscles and began pumping them as hard as she could.

Blaze growled and struggled in Fleetfoot’s grip, but she couldn’t get free. Fleetfoot dragged her towards the edge of the arena. As soon as they were near the wall, Fleetfoot pumped her wings harder and harder. She picked up speed… LOTS of speed. She began making circles around the large arena with Blaze in tow. Faster and faster and faster and faster she went. Soon she was going so fast… the recruits got to see firsthoof why she was known as the Silver Streak. The two became a blur of white and orange as one sonic boom sounded out, causing all the recruits to flinch as the shockwave hit them.

“AH! DAMMIT!!!” Blaze yelped as she felt the g-forces weigh down on her.

“Feel the speed, Blazey!” Fleetfoot yelled as she continued to pick up speed.

Dash watched with awe. She had yet to actually witness Fleetfoot’s combat up close… but what was really blowing her away was Fleetfoot’s speed. Fleetfoot has just broken through an aircone, causing a sonic boom… and… looked like she was heading towards making a second? Was that even possible? Dash had seen Fleetfoot do so at a show a long time ago… but she was diving, adding to her speed. Here Fleetfoot was literally flying using her own wing strength… could she really break a second air cone without the assistance of gravity?

“Ready Blazey?! Here comes the good one!” Fleetfoot yelled as Blaze found herself no longer able to move under the force of Fleetfoot’s speed. Another aircone began forming.

Dash’s mouth hung open. Fleetfoot was going to do it… no… freaking… way.

“HRGH!!!!” Fleetfoot grunted as the force began to weigh on her, but her swift and strong wing strokes pushed her through, countering the heavy forces that tried to swat her down. She pushed her wing strength to the limit, as the aircone began to strain… and burst around her, causing another sonic boom. “AW YEAH! FEEL THAT, BLAZEY!” Fleet yelled as they began making circles around the large arena, the laps counting up in nearly one second per pass.

Then Blaze bit Fleetfoot’s arm.

“YEEEOW!” Fleetfoot freaked out… and let go of Blaze.

“WhoooooaaaAAAAA!!!!” Blaze yelped as the momentum sent her right into the outer wall of the arena. She began bouncing, but still moving forward due to the incredible velocity built up by Fleetfoot’s double sonic boom. She tried to open her wings, but it only made it worse. As soon as her wings caught the air, the wind resistance forced her body to turn back into the arena and nose dive directly into the mat.

All the Wonderbolts and recruits cringed as Blaze struck the mat hard and began bouncing several timed before she skidded face first across the mat and eventually came to a complete stop.

“That’s… gonna leave a mark…” Spitfire said to herself as she watched Fleetfoot land beside Blaze.

“That’s what you get for biting me Blazey…” Fleetfoot chuckled as she bent down. Blaze wasn’t moving. “Oh shit… did she knock herself—?”

Blaze suddenly launched herself from the ground, twisted her body and aimed a hoof right for Fleetfoot’s jaw. She had been playing possum and had a clear opening.

Or so she thought.

Fleetfoot ducked down and latched onto Blaze’s arm. Fleetfoot shifted her body and lurched forward, heaving Blaze over her back and slamming her back-first into the mat. Blaze’s eyes snapped open and she growled as she pressed her wings to the ground to propel herself back up. She didn’t take into account the fact that Fleetfoot was still holding on though. Fleetfoot used Blaze’s self-generated momentum to swing her over her back again and slam Blaze back to the mat stomach first this time.

Fleetfoot quickly straddled Blaze’s back and pressed her forearms to the back of Blaze’s neck. Blaze’s face was half pressed to the ground with the faceguard not helping in that respect, and the other half was glaring up at Fleetfoot as she pinned Blaze down.

“Feels like a soft breeze in here!” Fleetfoot taunted as she began blowing air into Blaze’s face.

“BITCH!” Blaze yelled up.

“Aw, I love you too!” Fleetfoot taunted as she reached down and hugged Blaze while keeping her pinned down.

“RGGGGHHHHH!!!!!”

“And FIVE!” Spitfire yelled as she glided in. Fleetfoot let up on Blaze and stepped back. Blaze got up and thrust herself at Fleetfoot, but Spitfire grabbed her by the tail and yanked her back roughly.

“OW!” Blaze yelped as she was tossed to the mat by her sister.

“Blaze… five count. You lost,” Spitfire glared at her.

“THE DAMN I DID!” Blaze snapped back as she ripped her faceguard off, straps and all and butted heads with Spitfire. Spitfire quickly reached forward and grabbed Blaze by the chest piece of her armor and pulled her closer so Blaze’s nose was uncomfortably pressed against hers.

“YEAH. YOU DID. Now simmer down!” Spitfire ordered before pushing Blaze away from her. Blaze winced and shook her head out before growling and puffing her cheeks out.

“Alright, let’s see who’s next up…” said Spitfire as she ignored her overzealous half-sister. Spitfire grabbed the bowl again as the Wonderbolts gathered around. Another scuffle broke out between Fleetfoot and Blaze as they were discarding their armor, but nopony paid mind because that was just another day at the office with them. None of them had to look to know that Fleetfoot would eventually have Blaze on the ground in some fashion while taunting her.

“That… was sick…” Dash looked on into the arena starry-eyed. It had been so long since she saw the match between Soarin and Rapidfire. Fleetfoot and Blaze weren’t quite as exciting but it was really cool to see Fleetfoot marehandle Blaze almost effortlessly. Fleetfoot definitely earned her spot in the lead squad.

“Too bad they didn’t hump each other again…” Twister suddenly said from the other side of Storm. Storm just flattened his brow and didn’t answer. Thunderlane, who was sitting in front of Dash, suddenly flinched and turned around to face Twister.

“Wait… WHAT?!” he gave Twister a very disturbed look. To which Twister merely winked at. Dash quickly reached down and forced Thunderlane to turn back around.

“Ignore the silly pony, watch the badasses,” Dash ordered as Spitfire readied to make the next selection.

Soarin began grinning and bouncing again as Spitfire stuck her hoof back into the bowl. DAMN he wanted to fight. WOOO HAAAAA he wanted to clobber somepony. He whipped his head back and forth as he began hopping back and forth, drawing weird looks from the other Wonderbolts around him.

“Alright, alright, alright, hoo haa!” Soarin chanted to himself as his grin widened.

Silver eyed Soarin carefully before scrunching his face in disapproval. He didn’t know what had gotten into Soarin, but it was starting to irritate him. He genuinely respected Soarin as a fighter and a fellow Wonderbolt. Seeing Soarin like this was… shameful. His composure and decency had suddenly ceased to exist. It was really bothering Silver.

“Next we have…” Spitfire pulled out an I.D. card and rolled her eyes. “Oh joy… we have Air Mach…”

“WAY AHEAD OF YA!” Air Mach called from the center of the arena. Spitfire blinked and looked over her shoulder to see Air Mach already wearing a full set of training armor and waiting in the center circle. He was still wearing his ridiculous sunglasses, despite them fitting awkwardly with the padded headpiece.

“And…” Spitfire completely ignored Air Mach and dug out another card. “Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me… and Macho—”

“—SAVAGE IS READY!!!!!” Macho Savage was also already over in the inner circle with Air Mach wearing a full set of training armor. He two managed to keep his ski mask type glasses on even with the padded headpiece making it awkward.

“My own system… giving me migraines…” Spitfire sighed as she handed the bowl to Silver and flew over in between the two… idiots. “Okay guys… I would like for this to—”

“SAVAGE!” Air Mach did a pirouette and pointed dramatically at his former squad mate. “AT LONG LAST! WE MEET AGAIN!”

“You changed squads four days ago—” Spitfire tried to interject to no avail.

“SHOW ME SAVAGE! SHOW ME THE BURNING FIRE OF YOUR STALLION SOUL!” Air Mach continued.

Macho Savage had stood completely still during Air Mach’s opening exclamation. Spitfire glanced at Savage just in time to see him make a head fake towards her.

“What was that?” Spitfire pouted at him. Savage cracked his neck.

“Happened so fast you can’t even TALK about it…” he began. “Lucky pony, yeah, out there SOMEWHERE is gonna win a silver cloud, what a lucky, lucky, lucky pony…” he droned on. Spitfire didn’t even try to understand what he was saying but he kept going. “And Animak… if YOU cross hooves with THE Macho Savage and escape with your LIFE, you are a lucky, lucky pony yeah. That’s what they're gonna be callin’ ya…” Savage suddenly reached behind him and lifted up a plastic waste basket. Spitfire recognized it as one of the trash bins by the desks in their offices.

“Cause comparatively speaking to the MACHO SAVAGE…” he held up the waste basket. “You are nothin’ but GARBAGE yeah… nothin’ but garbage… and I’m talkin’ inevitable… and I’m talkin’ you can’t HANDLE it with me comin’ at ya…” he reached into the bin and pulled out a towel, “Spitfire here’s a cryin’ towel…” he draped it over Spitfire’s head and she instantly pulled it off her face while flattening her ears and brow at Savage, but he was far from done.

“AND I WANT YOU TO GIVE THAT TO ANIMAK!” he smacked the bottom of the bin, knocking it out of his grip. Spitfire ducked as the bin flew over her head and landed on the mat behind her. “Yeeeeeeah… cause THINGS are just poppin’ right now… things are startin’ to cultivate… things are startin to grow…” he began turning in a slow circle as he spoke. Spitfire was losing her patience.

“Savage—”

“THINGS ARE GETTING REEEEEEEEEEEEAL COLORFUL!” Savage drowned her out as he turned and pointed towards Air Mach. “Animak, comparatively speaking… you are like a grain of sand in the desert… yeeeeaahhh… and I AM THE ENTIRE DESERT!!!!” Savage pointed at Spitfire. “I’m tellin ya now Lady Captain… DON’T bet against me…”

“That’s enough Sav—”

“DON’T lose your life… DON’T change your life! The time is getting near!”

“Savage!” Spitfire snapped. “You are WASTING our time!”

“Ohhh yeeeaaah, doesn’t matter… NOTHIN’ matters… no… NOTHIN’ matters except this match… which I will WIN. Oh yeah, Animak climbing the garbage can… cause COMPARITIVELY SPEAKING… you are nuthin’… but garbage…” he pointed at Air Mach again. Spitfire stayed silent for a couple of seconds before stepping up.

“Done?” she asked calmly.

“Oh, I’m never done… yeah…” Savage replied before once again being silent. Spitfire took it as a yes.

“Brought a tear to my eye Savage!” Air Mach thrust his hoof into the air and shook it. “Your souls burns bright and true! I accept your challenge! Just give the word Captain!” he said towards Spitfire, but she was already walking away.

“Just start fighting already…” she waved as she lifted off to get a safe distance.

“ALRIGHT SAVAGE! YOU HEARD THE LADY! IT’S TIME FOR US TO SEE WHO HAS COOLER MOVES! YOU FIRST!” Air Mach belted out towards Mach Savage. Savage cracked the joints in his hooves and bobbed his head back and forth.

“DON’T mind if I do! OH YEAH!!!” Savage leapt towards Air Mach. “DIVING DOUBLE AXE HANDLE!” Savage yelled as he twisted his body in the air, put his hooves together and slammed them over the top of Air Mach’s head. Air Mach’s head and body were forced to the mat and Savage jumped back while striking a few ridiculous poses. “YEAH! FEEL THE MADNESS!” he yelled while flexing his top heavy body.

“Not bad!” Air Mach stood right back up, completely unaffected by Savage’s attack. It was partly due to the padded armor he was wearing, but as Air Mach had proved often, he had a very hard head. “MY TURN!”

“Bring the SPICE!” Savage yelled as he stood at the ready. Air Mach set his hooves and leaned back. Bouncing a few times before launching himself at Savage.

“WHO-THE-HELL-DO-YOU-THINK-I-AM-KIIIIIIIICK!!!!!!!!” Air Mach yelled as he shot through the air and aimed a back hoof at Savage’s face. Just as Air Mach had before, Savage stood perfectly still as Air Mach’s hoof collided with the cheek-guard of Savage’s headpiece. Savage was sent twisting through the air, tumbling to a halt ten yards away.

“I ain’t even feelin' it!” Savage yelled as he instantly stood upright. Air Mach pointed towards him.

“That’s what I’m talking about Savage! NOW GIMME ANOTHER!” Air Mach yelled while holding his ground.

“OOOOOH YEEEEEAHH!!!!!” Savage yelled as he ran at Air Mach and leapt into the air… again. He used the same motions as his last attack… only leading with an elbow instead of his hooves. “SUPER SLAM!!!!!!!” He yelled as he drove his elbow into Air Mach’s headpiece again. Air Mach fell to the ground… again… and stood right back up… again.

“Similar moves! Different styles! You know how to impress Savage!” Air Mach smirked and pointed. “ARE YOU READY FOR MY NEXT ATTACK!?” he asked as Savage stepped back and pointed at his face.

“You couldn’t break this image of pure beauty if you tried! YEAH!” Savage beckoned. Air Mach pulled back and launched himself towards Savage.

“THIS IS MY ATTACK IF SOMEONE TOUCHES MY ONE AND ONLY MARE!” he exclaimed as he careened towards Savage.

“Oh god…” Fleetfoot face hoofed as she overheard.

“HOOVES-OFF-MY-BELOVED-FLEETFOOT-PUUUUUUUUUUUNCH!” Air Mach pulled his hoof back and punched Savage in the face… again. Savage skidded back across the mat with his hooves, but didn’t go the ground.

“OH YEAH! I LIKE ME THE EXPOSITION!” Savage commented while shaking his head out.

“Your passion makes me proud to call you a fellow stallion!” Air Mach pointed. “Now we must fight face to face!” He jumped at Savage again, who in turn, jumped at Air Mach. The two slammed together, grappling each other by the shoulders and butting heads.

“You can’t beat the Madness at his own game!” Savage yelled as the two struggled against each other’s strength. Air Mach’s eyes widened from behind his sunglasses as he felt himself being hoisted into the air. Savage soon had Air Mach up in the air above him, ready to suplex him. “SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!!!!!” Savage roared out as he flipped Air Mach over his body, heading back first for the mat.

But right before he hit the mat, Air Mach swung his legs around and slammed his back hooves to the ground, halting his body from colliding roughly with the mat. The two were now stuck in an awkward position, both completely bent over backwards while still grappling each other by the shoulders. Both upside-down and face to face.

“HA! Little do you realize Savage…” Air Mach began. “I have a finishing move that requires me be start in this position!” he claimed as he began straining his whole body. This time Savage was surprised as Air Mach began to stand upright… while hauling Savage’s massive body up into the air over him. “PERFECT-COMBUSTION-OF-A-STALLION’S-SOUL-CANNONBALL-ATTACK!!!!!!!!!” Air Mach yelled as he flipped Savage over and aimed to slam him down stomach first on the mat.

But instead, Savage just landed upright on his back hooves.

The two paused for a moment, still grappling, but not sure where to go from there.

“HA!” Air Mach scoffed. “BACK WHERE WE STARTED! I DIDN’T KNOW A FINISHING MOVE COULD WORK IN REVERSE!”

“Alright, That’s all I can take…” Spitfire flew up and pushed the two of them apart. Air Mach blinked and looked up at the scoreboard clock.

“Hey! We still had a minute left!” he complained.

“The Madness can’t be interrupted!” Macho Savage whined. Spitfire glared at them both.

“I stopped it here cause this is just stupid, we are trying to give the recruits a demonstration…” she held her hooves out at them. “Not only did it take you both forever to do your moves, both of you did the same move twice, followed by a two pony circus stunt, you both yelled like idiots throughout… AND NEITHER OF YOU EVEN FLEW DURING ANY OF IT!” she pulled at her mane. “It was driving ME crazy! You two are banned from fighting each other, effective immediately, I’m not letting you guys waste time like that again…” Spitfire finished and turned away before either of them could retort. “NEXT UP!” she yelled over anything they might have said as she retrieved the bowl of I.D. cards from Silver.

“What did we just watch?” Thunderlane asked in monotone. Matteo scoffed.

“Two idiots who are apparently better than all of us…” Matteo shook his head.

“Yep,” Storm shrugged. “Welcome to my life now… every damn day…” he said with a chuckle and glanced to his left. Storm’s ears perked up as he saw Squall, sitting alone, four rows up and away from the rest of the recruits. Storm eyed him curiously before looking back down at Dash. “Say Dash…” Storm said her name but stopped. Dash was already staring towards Spitfire and eagerly awaiting who would fight next. Dash was a real die hard. Storm decided to let it go. She was completely focused, nothing would pull her away.

But still…

Storm glanced up at Squall again brooding all alone. Something didn’t sit well with Storm about Squall. He couldn’t put his hoof on it, but Squall… bothered him. It could have easily been the way he had seen Squall treat his fellow recruits… but it seemed like there was more beneath the surface. It was nothing bad nor did Storm sense an ulterior motive… but it bothered Storm.

He made a note to figure it out at some point. But for now, there was combat to watch, AWESOME combat.

“I’m gonna make this clear, whoever fights who next… please actually fight…” Spitfire said while glaring towards Air Mach and Macho Savage. The two silly ponies shrugged in response before hoof bumping. “Now then…” Spitfire shook the bowl again.

“Yessssssssss…” Soarin start bouncing again. His turn, his turn, his turn, his turn, his turn, his—

“Stop that.”

“Huh?” Soarin ceased bouncing for a moment and looked to his left. Silver Lining was glaring at him.

“I said stop… you look like a damn idiot,” Silver commented bluntly. Soarin cracked a smirk at Silver and leaned towards him.

“Aw, c’mon ya old fart! I’m in the ZONE! I gotta get some punches in! Gotta clean me some clocks! Eh? Eh?” he jabbed at Silver’s shoulder twice, going in for a third, but Silver reached up and grabbed Soarin’s hoof tightly.

“What the hell has gotten into you, son?” Silver asked seriously, giving Soarin a fierce glare. Soarin didn’t even flinch at the amount of pressure Silver was applying to his wrist, he just grinned and bounced his eyebrows.

“Just feelin' young and alive! I feel sorry for ya Silver! It must be hard being a Wonderbolt with two hooves in the grave!” Soarin said snidely.

“EXCUSE ME?” Silver’s grip on Soarin’s hoof tightened and he bared his teeth. “Have you lost your mind or something? Where the hell did your respect go?”

“I guess wherever the color in your mane went, old timer!” Soarin fired back. Silver threw Soarin’s hoof down and stomped one of his against the mat.

“You’re really pushing it Soarin…” he growled.

“And you’ll be pushing a hundred years soon, right?” Soarin crossed the line. Silver took a threatening step towards him. Soarin turned and did the same with the sneer still wrought across his face.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Fleetfoot suddenly stepped between them. “Guys? What the hell’s going on?” she asked while glancing between them. Silver looked down at Fleetfoot, then up at Soarin.

“FEH!” Silver grunted and sharply turned away.

“Ha!” Soarin scoffed. Fleetfoot turned to look at him just in time to see a faint yellow glow shine for a moment from his eyes and horn as he turned away as well.

“What was that…?” she blinked in confusion.

“Autumn Rain!” Spitfire called out while holding up her I.D. card. Autumn took a deep breath and headed for the pile of armor sets. “And…” Spitfire dug her hoof into the cards and pulled out a second. Her wings visibly twitched and two yellow feathers popped off, floating slowly to the ground. She blushed and looked away from the card before looking back up at the group. “…and Wave Chill…” she added.

“Oh…” Wave had been trying to figure out Spitfire’s sudden change in demeanor, and that explained it. Oh well, he was up… but… “Wait… I have to fight Autumn?! Aw dangit…” Wave grimaced as he approached the armor.

“What? Can’t hit a mare? You punch me and Blaze all the time.” High Winds joked as he walked past. Wave shook his head.

“Autumn’s… difficult to fight…” Wave admitted as he passed. Winds and Blaze glanced at each other. Neither of them had actually fought Autumn before… but apparently Wave had.

“Alright, let’s go, no more time wasting!” Spitfire called them over as they fastened the armor pieces and approached the inner circle. She continued as they approached. “Five minutes, five count pin, or knocked out… you two know the rules.” She explained in short. Wave easily noticed that Spitfire was looking at Autumn the whole time and not him. “Please… for the love of Celestia, give the recruits a good fight… we have to make up for that embarrassment…” Spitfire said as she pointed to the starting spots. “Go get in place and wait for my signal.”

Wave Chill sighed as Spitfire didn’t look at him throughout the whole sequence.

“Good luck, Commander!” Autumn said politely as she turned and moved to her spot. Wave blinked and flinched.

“Ah! Yeah, you too…” he said with embarrassment as he turned and moved to his spot as well. He had to focus on the fight. His troubles with Spitfire could wait. Silver was training the recruits, and as part of Silver’s squad he had to give a good demonstration of Wonderbolt ability.

He turned and stood ready behind the start position marker. Autumn reached hers and did the same.

Spitfire retreated a safe distance and gave a wave to the operator in the scoreboard box.

“BEGIN!!!!” Spitfire yelled out.

Wave Chill readied himself and set his eyes on Autumn. She wasn’t charging. She was waiting for him. Wave took a brief moment to assess his situation. He knew he could beat Autumn. He didn’t have access to water based techniques here, but he was still more skilled in combat than her. But he’d have to be quick and careful. Autumn was bigger than him, and possibly stronger than him. They had never strength tested side by side, but her large, muscular body spoke for itself.

More than anything though, Wave wasn’t looking forward to landing blows. Autumn’s unique combat style made it… painful for opponents to strike her. He didn’t have the time to think about it. He had to start. Spitfire wanted a good sparring demonstration for the recruits. So he’d give them one.

Wave spread his wings and fired from his spot. Autumn set her hooves firmly on the mat and waited for him to close in. She focused on Wave as he began laterally shifting back and forth, trying to misdirect her. As Wave closed in and moved within arm’s length, Autumn threw a head fake. Wave flinched, but pumped his wings down hard, propelling himself in a small arc over her. Autumn quickly made a 180 turn to face him as he landed.

Wave, however, twisted his wings to divert his path and land beside her instead. He pulled back and threw a punch towards her lower shoulder. The punch connected to the lightly padded surface of Autumn’s armor… but a painful jolt shot through his arm.

“Argh!” Wave grunted as he jumped back. He looked up to see Autumn looking in his direction with a smirk before relaxing her arm and shoulder. This was how she fought, she used her strong body to her advantage, tensing the muscles in a spot that was about to receive the blow to make the opponent feel like they were punching a rock. This wasn’t a defense tactic. It was a “punishment tactic.” She preferred to block attacks, but if something penetrated her defenses, she just had to tense her body in the right spot to make her opponent regret it.

Wave ducked as a punch from Autumn flew over his head. He dropped to the ground and turned his body sideways to kick her in the chest, but again, despite the padding of her armor, his hoof bounced right off, hurting him more than it hurt her.

Autumn charged forward, throwing heavy punches. Wave stepped back, dodging them easily, and readying another punch… but he hesitated. He was afraid to hit her now. He received an upper cut below the chin, sending him up slightly. He quickly spread his wings and rode the momentum of the blow he received into the air. Autumn spread her large wings and followed.

Wave had to think back to the moment before the match started. He had to be quick and clever. So far he had just pointlessly attacked. Autumn rose up to his level and spun around to deliver a kick. Wave ducked and dodged as she threw more kicks and a few punches. She kept trying but she couldn’t seem to land a hit.

Wave saw three separate opportunities to counterattack, but each time he found himself hesitating in fear of punching a solid wall of pony again.

“Ah!” Wave put up both his hooves just in time to receive and incoming punch. The force of the blow pushed him backwards through the air. Autumn rushed forward to continue her assault, but Wave tucked his wings in and fell down. Autumn tried to chase, but it was a fake out. Wave spread his wings to stop himself after dropping only a foot and jammed his elbow upward.

“OOF!” Autumn exhaled as the blow connected before she could even react with her usual defense tactic. She reached down and grabbed Wave’s other arm.

“Whoa!” Wave yelped as she swung and tossed him to the ground. “RGH!” Wave grunted as he bounced against the mat, but quickly stood upright. “Yikes!” he jumped back as Autumn slammed to the ground before him.

Wave had an idea. Fakes. It worked like a charm. Maybe that was her weakness!

“Whoa!” Wave hopped back and took to the air as Autumn slammed her front hooves to the ground where he previously stood. Didn’t mean it was going to be easy. Autumn was strong and smart. She wouldn’t fall for fake outs without them being well planned, especially now. She already had one pulled on her, she’d be wary of them now on top of it.

Autumn spread her wings and rocketed up towards Wave. She was playing aggressive. She had had Wave on the run the whole fight since his initial attack. He had to turn the tables back on her… and he knew exactly how to do that.

As soon as Autumn was within striking distance, Wave pumped his wings hard, sending himself harder as her hoof swipe met nothing. He was already arcing back down by the time she started after him, and he surprised her by angling right towards her. She tensed her body as he aimed a punch for her chest, but instead of hitting her, Wave twisted and passed right beneath her legs. She tried to stomp down on him, but he picked up speed in the process, causing her leg to miss and inadvertently skew her midair balance.

“Ah!” she flailed as her body rotated in the air after the miss. Wave made another quick turn and rammed her in the chest, this time pulling back as she lurched to avoid being grabbed again. Wave had to use his advantages against her. He had earned his rank as a second commander through his overall ability. While she was as strong as, if not stronger than him, Autumn did not have the same flight skill as him. This was how he would claim victory.

Wave gave chase to press his attack as Autumn gained control of herself. He threw a punch towards her cheek, hoping to catch her quickly before she fully recovered, but she reached up and blocked it.

“Crap…” Wave mumbled as Autumn wound up and delivered a heavy blow to his stomach. Wave’s eyes bulged as he exhaled sharply. He was wearing protective gear, but DAMN Autumn was strong. He pulled himself back while clutching his stomach as his lungs fought for air.

Yeah, he had to press the attack… but he couldn’t get careless. Autumn was a truck.

Autumn quickly readied another attack as she saw Wave start to fall, but he spread his wings, did a twist and flew beneath her again. This time she did half a somersault and followed after him.

Wave glanced behind him as Autumn gave chase. He turned up the speed and began out flying her, taking wide arcs around the arena and angling back towards her. He made one or two passes near her, trying to provoke her to attack again, but she had wizened up to that already. She was clearly not going to throw any more attacks until he tried to.

After Wave’s efforts yielded no fruit, he decided it was time to try something else. He lined himself up with her and slowed down while keeping his eyes back. As she approached, Wave sprang into action. He flattened his wings vertically, causing him to air brake before twisting his body around and firing back towards Autumn. Autumn anticipated it, and pulled back a hoof for another heavy punch. She aimed it right for his cheek-guard.

Wave grunted and forced his body into a twist so close to the incoming punch that the edge of Autumn’s hoof grazed the side of the cheek-guard. Wave swung the back of his right hoof towards Autumn’s shoulder.

She quickly tensed it, but received no blow. She peaked further back to see Wave continuing his twist motion and aiming his left hoof for her upper flank. She tensed it just in time… but he faked her out again! Before she knew it, Wave had grabbed hold of her back right leg and yanked her along with him.

“HHHRGH!!!” he grunted as he swung her large body around and let go, sending her tumbling towards the mat. Autumn braced herself as she crashed and bounced twice before rolling to a stop. She turned over and shook her head out, dazed from the impact. Wave quickly fired towards her, slammed to the ground beside her and leapt over her back and went to put her in a headlock with the intention of pinning her for a five count. This was an instinctive maneuver Silver had drilled into his head. If your opponent goes to the ground, go for the kill, or in this case, the pin for the victory.

But he never saw it coming.

Autumn quickly reached up, grabbed him around the neck, slammed him to the ground and flipped over on top of him to pin HIM to the ground.

“Augh!” Wave grunted as he felt her apply intense pressure against him.

Unbelievable. Autumn was very smart. He had been faking her out the whole match, and never once considered she might do the same. She wasn’t dazed by the impact at all, let him approach, and now had him firmly pinned to the mat.

Wave imagined the countdown in his head as he tried to free himself.

One…

Wave tried to force her off of him.

Two…

It was no use. She was too strong, not to mention her body mass made her heavy to begin with.

Three…

He lost. Silver was going to give him hell for this.

“Time’s up. Draw.” Spitfire landed beside them.

“Darn… so close…” Autumn pouted as she released the pressure from Wave. Wave blinked and looked towards the scoreboard. Time had expired. He was saved by the scoreboard? Autumn offered him a hoof. He sighed, accepted her hoof and she hoisted him up.

“Draw? I completely lost that match…” Wave shamefully admitted as he glanced at Spitfire. She was looking at him, but quickly turned her eyes away, face turning slightly pink before picking up her pace back towards the Wonderbolts.

“Pff…” Autumn scoffed, drawing Wave’s attention. “Commander… I hit you once… and pinned you at the end. I couldn’t keep up with you, I got lucky… and then YOU got lucky too,” she nodded to him as they both followed Spitfire.

“I suppose…” Wave still sounded ashamed.

“Wave Chill,” Spitfire suddenly spoke up and stopped in front of them. She didn’t look, but she had Wave’s full attention. “You… fought in a manner worthy of your rank. One mistake doesn’t change that…” she stated. Wave’s eyes widened.

That was the first time Spitfire had spoken to him… in…

“Alright next…!” Spitfire quickly continued towards the group.

“Ah! I… um… thanks…” Wave said too late as she was out of hearing range. His ears flopped down over the padded headpiece and he sighed while keeping his eyes on her. Autumn blinked and rapidly looked between them. A small smirk crept onto her face as she slowly and smugly turned to look at Wave.

“Oh… I didn’t know… he he!” Autumn giggled. Wave quickly put a hoof up.

“Wait… know what? WHAT?!” Wave failed miserably to divert. Autumn just shook her head and gigged to herself as she trotted back towards the rest. Wave groaned to himself before following right behind.

“Now THAT was more like it!” Matteo nodded in approval.

“Yesssss… quite entertaining…” Twister agreed as he perched atop Matteo’s head. Matteo flattened his brow.

“You have three seconds to get off my head…” he threatened Twister.

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about—HRK!” Twister was cut off as Matteo reached up and grabbed him around the neck.

“ARGH! OW!” Thunderlane’s voice suddenly came from Matteo’s talons.

“Huh?” Matteo brought his arm down to see Thunderlane in his grasp instead of Twister. Twister was sitting in front of Dash and Storm suddenly, where Thunderlane was an instant ago.

“I’m obviously down here… heheeeeeeeeee…” Twister chortled as Matteo gently set Thunderlane down.

“Damn! You weren’t kidding about Autumn…” Dash asked Storm while ignoring the silly scene around them. Storm nodded.

“Yeah… she’s really strong… and it kinda hurts to punch her…” Storm instinctively rubbed one of his hooves and shuddered. “My wrists are still sore…”

“I guess she found a way to put a strictly professional spin on the term… ‘hard body’” Dash snickered. Storm puffed his cheeks as he tried to stifle a laugh. He failed and let a few go before shaking his head.

“That’s… wow… that’s funny cause she’s incredibly modest… she’s like the anti-Fleetfoot. You couldn’t get a camera near Autumn without her trying to hide… much less get her to pose or ham it up…” he smirked. “She’s really, really nice too. Made me feel right at home immediately.”

“That sounds familiar…” Dash nudged him in the arm. He caught on instantly and looked away sheepishly.

“I didn’t do that much. Derpy just needed a friend,” he tried to play it down.

“And now you’re writing letters to her? I’d say you did a lot, you charmer,” Dash snickered.

“Stop being such a sourpuss!” Little Star’s voice suddenly sounded out from behind them. Both Dash and Storm turned to see Little Star… once again hassling Squall. This time he wasn’t even answering her. He just kept scowling and looking away every time she tried to get in his face. “Don’t you ignore me, buster! You think you look tough or cool brooding up here by yourself?!” Storm blinked and looked back down at Dash. Dash chuckled and shrugged.

“Welcome to our life the past few days… I’m already getting used to this…” Dash stated as she turned back around. Storm kept his eyes trained on the two for a moment longer before turning back as well.

“Wow… she’s brutal—”

“SHHHH!!!” Dash suddenly threw her arm out and pushed him back slightly.

“Huh?”

“Spitfire’s choosing the next match!” Dash exclaimed as her wings flared out in excitement and batted Storm in the face.

“We have time for one more fight, and then we have to vacate the dome for other squads,” Spitfire explained as Silver handed the bowl back to Spitfire once more. Silver stepped back as Spitfire began rummaging through the cards. He blinked and subtly glanced to his right. Soarin was bouncing again.

Silver growled to himself as he looked away from Soarin.

“Come on, come on, come on…” Soarin eagerly said to himself was he waited for Spitfire.

Silver glanced at Soarin again and glared. He had the right mind to put one across Soarin’s jaw. He was making a COMPLETE ass of himself. This wasn't the Soarin who had earned his respect. It was disgraceful.

“Soarin,” Spitfire held up the I.D. card. Silver glanced back at Spitfire, but Soarin went nuts.

“YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAAAA! About time!” he rotated his arms frantically. “Who’s ass am I kicking?!” He bounced his eyebrows at Spitfire.

Spitfire rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Soarin is fighting…” She dug through the bowl again and pulled out another card.

She looked at it.

Then she looked up at Soarin.

She blinked.

Then she looked slightly to the right.

“Silver Lining.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

OH DAMN DID I DO IT AGAIN!? (trololololo)

So there ya go, some nice awesome and goofy Wonderbolt combat!

BUT THE BEST ONE WILL BE NEXT TIME. ;D

So Silver's not to happy about Soarin's... "mannerisms" i wonder how this little scuffle of theirs is gonna effect their sparring match? Eh?

Also, and i'll put this in a blog too, but im visiting my lady friend this weekend and i doubt i'll have any time to write. (because time with the lady is the most precious time) So if i don't manage to get the next chapter out by thursday or friday... i hate to say it will be delayed till next monday. If i do get it out, the next chapter will be delayed anyway so yeah...

Anyway, i hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! :)

Chapter 47: Soarin vs. Silver

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 47:

“Oh? Oh ho!” Soarin hopped over to Silver and grinned at him smugly. “I get to fight the old guy?” Soarin’s smirk widened. Silver glared right back into Soarin’s eyes, not giving an inch. “Hey, what gives?!” Soarin jeered further while nearly pressing his face to Silver’s. “A few minutes ago you looked like you wanted scrap! Scared?” Soarin chuckled. Silver’s eyes narrowed slightly, but once again he did nothing else.

Spitfire looked at the exchange and bit her lip. She looked down at the two I.D. cards, and then back up at them as Soarin continued to taunt and egg on Silver. She specifically looked at Soarin, and then at the false horn.

She wasn’t sure what to do here. Soarin was feeling better, that was crystal clear… but the way he was acting suggested it wasn’t so simple. Something clearly had him in a euphoric state. He wasn’t acting like himself, he couldn’t sit still like a little colt on a sugar rush, and frankly, he was being a real ass. She suddenly felt iffy about having him fight in this state. Soarin and Silver had fought in the past, in fact they were a spectator favorite. She was more than confident that Silver could handle it… it took more than a slight beating to bring him down, but she was still worried. Too worried.

“Sorry Soarin,” Spitfire shook her head and put his I.D. card back in the bowl. “I don’t want you fighting today,” the instant she finished, Soarin had turned and was in her face.

“WAIT, WHAT!?” he shouted into her face. She winced and glared at him.

“You heard me, I don’t want you fighting today… you just solved an issue with your magic, I don’t want something else going wrong,” she explained, bending the truth a little. She was really just worried about him… or him doing something stupid. But she added some believable reasons to give it more credit. Unfortunately, Soarin was going to fight her choice.

“Spitfire! I’m perfectly fine!” he threw his hooves out to his sides. “I can totally fight! Are you trying to hold me back or something?!” he pouted dramatically at her. Spitfire blinked as she saw a dim flash of yellow in his eyes and around his horn.

“Soarin, you are not fighting today. That’s an order! And—”

“No.”

Both Spitfire and Soarin stopped and looked towards Silver. He was glaring at Soarin and growling.

“I’m fighting him,” Silver stated sternly.

“What?” Spitfire tipped her head and flattened her heard.

“You heard me,” Silver glanced at Spitfire before returning his glare to Soarin.

“Silver, I said—”

“I know what you said,” Silver cut off Spitfire. “And I’m ignoring it,” he stated firmly. Spitfire didn’t like that. Not one bit. Soarin smirked and nudged Spitfire.

“You heard the old grump!” he chuckled and turned towards the armor sets. “Show must go on!” he yelled triumphantly while pumping a hoof in the air. Silver began following, but Spitfire stomped up to him and pressed her hoof hard against Silver’s chest.

“Silver, I will not stand for this. You are blatantly disrespecting my authority as the lead captain... You are NOT fighting Soarin and that’s—”

“Who said I’m fighting Commander Soarin?” Silver cut her off. Spitfire froze and her eyes widened. “I’m fighting whoever the hell THAT is…” he pointed towards Soarin. “I don’t know what happened, but I refuse to believe that’s Soarin. Soarin is a proud and honorable individual who has earned my respect. I don’t know what happened to him… but I plan to give him a beating until he comes to his senses,” Silver tried to walk past her. Spitfire didn’t move for a second, but quickly came to her senses and followed, stopping Silver again by the shoulder.

“Silver… wait…” she dropped her stern glare and put on a look of concern. “That’s… why I don’t want you to fight him. You’re right, I’ve been skeptical since this morning. Something is wrong with him,” she shook her head. “That’s why I’m worried! I don’t know what he’ll do! I don’t want him to hurt anypony.”

“Hah!” Silver let one laugh loose. “Soarin fights with composure and discipline… without it I won’t lose to him,” Silver stated. Spitfire flattened her brow.

“I’m talking about his magic, Silver…” she clarified.

“Doesn’t matter,” Silver huffed. “I won’t lose,” he was adamant. Spitfire could tell she wasn’t going to change his mind. He said he wasn’t going to lose, but would that truly be the case? She felt like a bit of testosterone went into this decision because it didn’t seem reasonable in the slightest.

Plus… she had to consider her system. She fought long and hard to get this system of random selection implemented. She had to remain true to her policies as the lead captain. Going against one blatantly for a “hunch” would not look good, especially in front of other high ranking Wonderbolts and the recruits spectating. So she caved.

“Fine…” Spitfire sighed. “I should remain true to my system. Random selection, no exceptions. It’s a policy I made and all have an equal chance of being selected…” she turned away from Silver and looked towards Soarin eagerly fastening the padded armor pieces to himself. “I trust you...” she said reluctantly.

Silver glanced at Spitfire, then down at the bowl of I.D. tags on the ground. He looked back to her and lifted an eyebrow as he stepped up beside her.

“Equal chance, huh…?” he reached his wing out and suddenly swiped its feathers against her wing. She jumped in surprise as she felt Silver’s feathers intertwine with hers.

“Hey!” she yelped as took a step away from him.

Silver pulled his wing away from hers and quickly flattened it as something landed on it. It was an I.D. card…

Spitfire’s I.D. card.

Spitfire turned and saw her card sitting in Silver’s wing, then nervously looked up at him.

Art by: EchoSong

“It’s perfectly fine to be worried. You are responsible for us after all…” Silver flipped her I.D. card back to her and she quickly hid it beneath her wing again. “It’s a lot to ask of you at your age… but as our system dictates… those with the highest degree of skill and ability are given the highest ranks,” he started walking. “If something gets out of hand… just step in. How long did Soarin last against you last time? Ten seconds?”

Silver said no more. Spitfire watched him as he made his way over to put on an armor set. She reached her hoof back and dropped her I.D. card into her hoof. She looked at it carefully. Then she looked at the bowl on the ground filled with the rest of the I.D. cards… and then back at Silver.

She hoped she wasn’t too transparent… but then again, it was hard to keep anything from Silver. With how long he had been in the Wonderbolts, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had a sixth or seventh sense.

“Whoa… whoa, whoa, whoa…” Thunderlane leaned forward. “Am I seeing that correctly?” he blinked. Matteo was leaning forward as well, casting a shadow over the others.

“Commander Soarin and Instructor Silver?” there was a rare tone of excitement in Matteo’s voice.

“Oh my god… this is going to be AMAZING!” Dash bounced up and down in her seat.

On the surface Dash was giddy… but in the back of her mind she was… worried?

Of course she was. Soarin was fighting… but Soarin was acting strange, and the whole deal with the magic just happened. Should he be fighting?

Also… she found herself worrying about Silver. Soarin wouldn’t use the magic against him. He was smarter than that, but based on Soarin’s… ‘happy’ state earlier, Dash couldn’t help but think Soarin was having trouble controlling himself.

On the flip side, she was excited to see Silver fight. She had seen little bits, but she had never gotten to fully observe his technique. He was her mentor now after all, this was a golden opportunity to analyze and break down how her ‘master’ fought… and to apply the rules of a battle he had drilled into her head during their first session.

It was going to be interesting indeed.

Soarin and Silver stood in the inner circle as Spitfire walked up between them. Soarin was smirking and snickering as he had since he put the armor on. Silver took no notice, cracking his neck and shaking his head to shift faceguard slightly.

“You two know the rules…” Spitfire glanced between the two of them. Silver spoke up before she could continue.

“Five minutes, held for a five count, or until I beat his face in,” he put flatly. Spitfire opened her mouth, but stopped before saying anything.

“Pfffffffhahaha!” Soarin let a few laughs go. “You’re a hoot, you relic!” Soarin taunted while bouncing one eyebrow at Silver. “I wanna see you try it!” Soarin pointed to his face as his smile widened and he snickered some more. His left eye twitched and a faint yellow light flashed from the horn.

Spitfire glanced at Silver as Soarin began laughing like an idiot. They both saw it. Silver could see the concern in Spitfire’s face, but he only shook his head. Spitfire nodded, she would let Silver have his way and step in if things got bad.

“Alright… get to the starting spots and wait for my go,” Spitfire ordered while pointing. She turned and proceeded to a safe distance as Silver gave Soarin one more harsh glare.

“Oh… so scared…” Soarin cooed as he bouncily trotted towards his start line. Silver growled as he proceeded to his. It seemed like Soarin was getting worse. From what he had seen, it was just pure overconfidence at first… now it was becoming belligerent… and childish. It seemed like Soarin was slowly losing more and more control of himself. Silver decided it was time to stop it.

Silver turned and faced Soarin from thirty yards away. Soarin wasn’t even getting ready. He was still bouncing around while hooting and hollering. With a sharp grunt and a loud crackling of joints, Silver set his hooves firmly into the mat and awaited the start.

“Hoohaa! YEAH! Let’s do this!” Soarin finally turned around and set his hooves down and facing Silver. Soarin was ready to throw down. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of seriousness in his body. In fact, he was still smirking and snickering smugly.

Spitfire turned and faced them after moving back towards the group of Wonderbolts and checked the clock and scoreboard operator as usual. She looked back down and glanced between Silver and Soarin one more time before taking a deep breath.

“BEGIN!”

As soon as the word left her lips, Silver had crouched down, spread his wings, gotten a three gallop running start and took flight while remaining barely three feet off the ground.

Soarin remained in place, waiting for Silver to come to him. Silver didn’t like it. It was an uncharacteristic tactic of Soarin. Soarin always, always took the fight directly to his opponents. He’d use his greatest weapon, the Sonic Blastoff, and close the distance between him and his enemy in an instant. Silver almost felt like Soarin’s standstill was a taunt… one he did NOT take kindly to.

Soarin spread his wings, grinning while keeping his eye trained on Silver as he approached quickly. With one solid flap of the wings, Soarin rose up onto his back hooves.

Silver pulled back his right hoof, ready to punch as soon as he got in range.

Soarin pulled back his right hoof as well.

“BRING IT!” Soarin yelled as Silver closed the gap. Soarin poured all of his strength into his punch, aiming it right for Silver’s face. “Huh…?”

In the blink of an eye, Silver swiped his left arm across, batting Soarin’s punch aside effortlessly. Silver used the motion of his body twisting with the left arm swipe… as the first motion as he began making all the small subtle shifts to pour as much power into his movement as possible. Silver fired his right hoof forward, using all the extra momentum and motion from his body shift for the maximum effect.

KA-POW

Silver punched Soarin SO HARD against the faceguard that the impact sounded like an explosion. Soarin was sent flying backwards. The headpiece to his armor tore to pieces and flew off his face as he was sent airborne.

Off to the side Dash gasped in surprise, but held herself down. The rest of the recruits were going nuts, but she didn’t want to freak out and cause a scene. But… holy hell, Silver just punched the CRAP out of Soarin!

Silver touched to the floor briefly before springing back up into the air and giving chase.

“He’s still going?! Soarin lost his faceguard!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as both she and Wave Chill readied to take off. Spitfire quickly stepped in front of them and shook her head.

“Let them fight,” she said sternly. Wave glanced over Spitfire’s shoulder as Silver approached the defenseless Soarin.

“But Captain—”

“LET THEM FIGHT!” Spitfire yelled in Wave Chill’s face. “That’s an order!” she added as Fleetfoot and Wave quickly backed away in confusion.

Silver caught up to Soarin and dove into him, tackling him by the stomach and driving Soarin hard into the mat. Silver bounced off after the impact, and quickly tapped off the ground, twisting towards Soarin as he tried to get up. Silver prevented him from doing so by spinning and dropping his back right hoof into Soarin’s stomach, forcing him to exhale and slam back to the ground.

“OOF!” Soarin grunted as his back crashed against the mat. Silver twisted his body again, planting his hooves to the mat beside Soarin and pulling himself forward. He grabbed one of Soarin’s legs and pumped his wings. Silver rose up in the air, dragging Soarin by the leg with him. He began spinning as soon as he had Soarin off the ground. He spun around and around and around and around before letting go of Soarin and sending him careening towards the wall at the edge of the arena, right below the bleaches where the recruits sat.

“Hgh!” Soarin rounded himself until he was upright and threw his wings out to air brake. He slowed down and stopped himself a foot from the wall.

Silver had been following, and was about twenty yard away. Before Soarin could do anything else, Silver stretched his wings up and cupped them in a manner similar to High Winds for her powerful wind blasts. Silver thrust his wings down, a loud POOF sounding throughout the arena followed by a loud BANG as the powerful gust of wind pounded against Soarin and the wall behind him. Soarin was thrust roughly and painfully against the wall below the bleachers. A few of the recruits above were knocked out of their seats as well.

Soarin peeled off the wall… and fell face first against the ground.

Silver backed off and landed. He kept his wings and hooves at the ready as he panted steadily, sweat building on his brow.

“Soarin!” Dash called out as she was the first to spring up. She scrambled down to look over the edge of the stands. The rest of the recruits struggled to pick themselves up after the sudden slap of wind to the face. Dash’s eyes landed on Soarin, sprawled out on the ground and not moving.

The instant before she called his name again, a yellow aura flared around Soarin’s horn.

Silver flinched in surprise, but held his ground as the aura pulsed from the fake horn, ready for whatever was going to happen. But then… the glow stopped.

“Well then!” Soarin stood up casually and cracked his neck. Silver’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t falter, nor show signs of surprise… unlike the rest of the Wonderbolts and the recruits, who were all staring in complete awe that Soarin seemed nearly unscathed by all that, save for a faint bruise on his cheek. “Not bad for an old stallion!” Soarin’s smirk quickly returned and a faint yellow glow began to rise from his eyes. “You’re a tough one alright! So sorry! But I gotta get rough!”

The instant he finished speaking, Soarin executed the Sonic Blastoff so fast it looked like he went from a complete standstill to breaking a sonic boom and closing the gap between him and Silver faster than Silver could blink. Soarin landed a heavy kick right into the forehead of Silver’s headpiece, whiplashing Silver’s head back and sending him through the air away from Soarin. A large divot was pressed into the padding of Silver’s headgear and two of the straps ripped off, but it remained in place.

Spitfire’s eyes widened, and Fleetfoot made another attempt to fly in, but Spitfire grabbed her by the tail and yanked her back down.

“YYEEEOW!!!” Fleetfoot yelped as she reached for her plot in pain. She turned and glared at Spitfire. “Spitty! What gives?!” her glare instantly faded as Spitfire pressed her face against Fleetfoot’s so hard it made Fleetfoot fall backwards.

“LET. THEM. FIGHT.” She repeated… reluctantly.

“GRRRH!!!” Silver did a quick backflip to turn himself upright and landed on the mat. “AH!” He crossed his hooves in front of his face to meet an incoming punch. The force of Soarin’s punch caused Silver’s back hooves to slide against the mat and skid to a halt a few feet away.

Soarin pursued, but Silver forced his hooves down to stop sooner than expected and twisted his body to pack power into another heavy punch. Soarin smirked and reached up in time to block Silver’s surprise attack and counter with another heavy blow to Silver’s face.

Silver’s head was whipped around and he stumbled back, the loosened headpiece shifting awkwardly over his face. Silver quickly grabbed it and tossed it aside as he readied both his hooves and charged at Soarin.

“Yeah!” Soarin grinned as he put up a guard. “Come at me, old bro!” he beckoned as Silver closed in.

“RAAAH!!!!” Silver roared in frustration as he began throwing rapid punches at Soarin’s face, switching up his power strategy in favor of quick attacks. Soarin however demonstrated his defenses by blocking every single punch that Silver threw at him. Silver could both see and feel that none of his attacks were getting through, but he kept up the attack anyway.

“Hey! Hey!” Soarin taunted as he batted away two more punches and ducked under a third. “Doesn’t this look familiar?” Soarin dodged side to side before pushing down another punch. “Mr. Perfect Guard Silver Lining!” Soarin jeered as shifted back and met two punches with his own. “Damn, you NEVER shut up about it back when I was a recruit!” Soarin reached forward and caught Silver’s hooves as he thrust at him. The two had their hooves locked in a power struggle.

“Too bad you didn’t listen!” Silver answered as he reared his head back and delivered a hard headbutt to Soarin’s face, aiming for the eyes to avoid hitting the fake horn. Soarin’s head snapped back, but instantly slung back forward and delivered his own headbutt back to Silver. The metal band of the horn smacked right up against Silver’s nose. “ARGH!” Silver’s hooves were ripped free from Soarin’s as he fell to the mat on his back.

Dash gasped as Soarin leapt above him.

Rule number three… Never go to the ground if you can avoid it. A wall that’s knocked down no longer stands in the way of those it was halting… if you go to the ground...

Soarin plunged down towards Silver with both hooves cupped over his head.

You are giving your opponent a perfect opportunity to knock you out, severely injure you…

Silver’s eyes snapped open as he saw Soarin right above him.

Or worse...

Silver rolled left as Soarin’s hooves crashed to the mat beside him. His hooves went through the padded surface and the impact caused a small yellow shockwave that burst out and pushed Silver away. Silver leaned over and looked up at Soarin. The yellow glow was surrounding the horn now as well as his eyes. Silver glanced over at Spitfire to see her literally struggling to hold the other Wonderbolts back.

Good. That’s what he wanted. Silver felt something wet on his face. He reached up, wiped his arm over his nose, and looked down at it.

Blood. His nose was bleeding. Normally this would cause a match to stop… but he told Spitfire to only step in if she absolutely needed to… and it took more than a bloody nose to slow him down. He pressed his hoof to his non-bleeding nostril and blew hard through the bloody one. A large hunk of blood shot out of it and splattered to the mat.

“Damn allergies…” Silver said to himself as he fixed his eyes on Soarin again… right as he charged.

Dash saw it too. The magic. Soarin’s yellow magic was flaring. She wanted to get up right there and stop them, but upon looking at Spitfire, she noticed the lead captain was restraining the others. There had to be a reason… but… she didn’t know what to do!

Silver quickly got up and took to the air to avoid an incoming flying kick from Soarin. Silver turned around and looked down as he ascended as Soarin made an incredibly quick turn before exploding after him.

Soarin would have never attacked a fellow teammate with such a devastating attack… that settled it, Soarin had completely lost control of himself. Silver refused to lose to an opponent drunk on a power he didn’t understand. Silver stretched his wings up, readying them for another wind attack. He locked his eyes on Soarin, and waited for him to get within range.

“HA!” Silver shouted as he thrust his wings down with all his might. A sharp, powerful gust of wind shot down towards Soarin…. But Soarin smirked.

“Right…” Soarin shifted upright and twisted his body as the spiral gust approached. “Back…” he lurched his body while extending his left wing and his body did a full turn. “AT YA!!!!!” Soarin yelled as his wing came around and crashed against the pulse of air… bouncing it back towards Silver!

“WHAT!?” Silver yelled out in disbelief as he shielded his body with his hooves and wings. The wind crashed against him with a loud POW and forced him up towards the ceiling. “RGH!” Silver grunted as he flipped helplessly upward. He finally righted himself and looked towards the ground, but Soarin was already in his face.

“Getting a little dizzy?” Soarin taunted as he threw a blow into Silver’s stomach.

“Gah!” Silver coughed up saliva as Soarin lifted above him and slammed his hooves over Silver’s back, sending him flying back towards the ground. Soarin dove after him, but the moment he caught up, Silver flipped upright and threw a surprise punch. Soarin spun and let Silver’s hoof pass by his face, and used his spinning momentum to turn and drive his elbow right into Silver’s eye. “AUGH!” Silver yelped as Soarin did a somersault and kicked both of his back hooves into Silver’s chest, sending him the last twenty feet to the ground and crashing hard to the mat, grunting and gasping as he bounced at awkward angles.

Soarin slammed to the ground a few feet away and sneered as Silver twitched on the ground.

“Aw… you all done?” Soarin jeered, and then burst out laughing. Silver’s ears twitched and a low growl escaped his throat. He slowly and shakily forced his body up, placing one hoof on the ground at a time. He stumbled and swayed as he stood, but managed to stand up, turn around, and glare at Soarin. Blood was trickling from his nose and past his lips and he had a left black eye from the elbow to the face.

“I’m far from done, you punk ass son of a bitch…” Silver hissed as he grinded his teeth together. Soarin scoffed and shrugged.

“If you say so!”

Off to the side Spitfire frantically looked up at the clock. There was still forty-five seconds on it.

That was it, she was calling this off. She whistled up to the score box. The earth pony looked down at her. She made a sharp motion with her hoof across her neck. The earth pony waved in response and cut the timer on the clock. She fired from her spot and sped towards the two.

“Time’s up!” She yelled as she landed near them. Silver’s ears perked up and he glanced over at her. Soarin however, was still staring at Silver, the yellow light now rising from his eyes and horn. “Soarin… time’s up…” Spitfire repeated but he still didn’t look at her.

Then he leapt at Silver.

“No!” Dash yelled as she pressed her hooves to the railing at the bottom of the bleachers.

Dash was too focused on Soarin to see it… but suddenly Spitfire was directly in front of him, between him and Silver.

“I SAID…”

Spitfire pulled back a hoof…

Dash blinked. And apparently missed it…

Spitfire had stepped forward and her hoof was jammed into Soarin’s gut… THROUGH the padded armor piece he was wearing. Soarin’s neck and body were strained forward, his eyes were bulging out, and his mouth was stuck open. Not a single sound escaped his throat as the light faded from his eyes and horn and he fell forward, draped over Spitfire’s shoulder.

“Time’s up…” Spitfire finished as she gently set the unconscious Soarin on the ground. She quickly turned and moved to Silver as he dropped down, struggling to stay on his hooves. “Silver!” she exclaimed as she moved him to help. He instantly swatted her hoof away.

“I’ll live…” he growled as he forced his body up, as wobbly as it felt. Spitfire sighed and shook her head.

“Well Silver? Was it worth it?” Spitfire questioned, a little peeved that she listened to him and let that all happen.

“It was worth a shot,” he looked away from her, “I guess I’m…” he winced and almost fell over. Spitfire stepped up, but he quickly caught himself. He shook his head in dismay. “… not quite the warrior I used to be…” he turned and hobbled towards the exit, ripping the loose pieces of practice armor off his body and tossing them aside as he left.

“Sir!” Wave tried to go after him, but Spitfire stopped him.

“Wave! Leave him…” Spitfire paused, and looked away to conceal her face changing color. “Leave Silver be…”

“Huh? Dash!?”

Spitfire’s ears perked up as she heard Storm Front call from the stands. Spitfire, honestly, wasn’t surprised. She turned to see Rainbow Dash shooting towards Soarin. Spitfire quickly stepped away from Wave to intercept.

“Whoa there Dash…” Spitfire said as she blocked Dash’s way.

“Spitfire! Let me…” Dash flinched and froze. She quickly stepped back and saluted. “Captain! Please allow me to help Soarin! Er… the Commander!” she corrected herself while biting her lip nervously.

“Heh… at ease Dash,” Spitfire quickly gave the word. Dash relaxed and looked towards Soarin with concern.

“What’s going on…? I thought we fixed him…” Dash frowned. Seriously… Soarin couldn’t catch a break.

“I thought we did too…” Spitfire pondered. “But it looks like we solved one problem and jumped into another…” she glanced at Dash and saw the worried look on her face. “Oh… he’ll just be out for a little bit,” Spitfire chuckled. Dash gave her a confused, slightly mortified look. “That’s not the first time I’ve done that to him. He’ll be fine… but…” she narrowed her eyes. “While he’s out… I think I’m gonna go have a chat with Luna…”

“Oh!” Dash perked up. “I’ll come too…”

“No,” Spitfire shook her head. “You still have some recruit business today. I’m gonna put Wave Chill in charge of you guys until Silver is—”

“Wait… where did Silver go?” Dash looked around. She was so focused on Soarin she didn’t see him leave. Her eyes landed on the trail of training armor Silver left behind as he hobbled out. Spitfire shrugged.

“He limped out… refused help… as usual…” she sighed. Dash scrunched her face.

“I’m gonna go help him then…” Dash stated and started towards the door.

“Dash! Let him be!” Spitfire called after her.

“Hell no! I get enough of that from Soarin!” she yelled back as she left, following after Silver. Spitfire blinked and glanced at Soarin. She smirked and chuckled before tending to him again.

Up in the stands, Storm and Matteo blinked as they watched Dash leave.

“Uh… what?” Storm looked up at Matteo. Matteo shrugged.

“Indeed… I’m confused…” he rubbed the edge of his beak.

“Well… haha…” Thunderlane spoke up. The two looked at him as he scratched the back of his head. “Actually…”

“Silver!” Dash yelled as she caught up to the hobbling wreck of a Wonderbolt. He flinched as he heard his name. “Silver! Hold up!” she yelled as he turned and looked at her, glaring painfully with his black eye.

“What the…?” he muttered as she approached. “Skittles, what the hell do YOU want?” he snapped.

“I came here to help you,” she stated as she reached for him. He instantly put up a hoof and shoved her away.

“I DON’T NEED—” he winced and nearly fell forward with the motion of his own shove. “Ah!” he grunted in pain as he tried to push his left front hoof to the ground, but it gave way and he was forced down onto his leg.

“Let me help you…” Dash said quieter, with less demand in her voice.

“I’m your damn flight instructor… the day I need help from you is—” he tried to force himself up, but failed miserably and sighed. He flinched as Dash crouched down and pushed her shoulder against his, allowing him to stand. She reached under his arm and supported him.

“You’re my mentor now too, you know…” she said sternly. Silver blinked. “Or did you already forget yesterday?” she added as she started assisting his walk. "So let your student help..."

“Fine…” he admitted defeat. “Would’ve taken me twenty years to get to Bliss by myself anyway…” he chuckled as Dash helped him slowly move towards the medical training room.

Silver let out a frustrated sigh as they moved.

“Dammit Dash… something isn’t right with your stallion…” he said casually. Dash stopped in her tracks and her eyes widened. Silver grunted in discomfort as they came to an abrupt stop. He turned and looked at her. “What?”

“How…” Dash blinked. Silver… knew?

“You’ve gotta be kidding me… You two were humping each other in the damn hallways when you visited months ago…” Silver rolled his eyes. “And he never shut up about you either. It ain’t no secret.”

Dash… wasn’t sure how to feel. She had gotten so used to keeping her relationship with Soarin under wraps with the rest of the recruits, that she didn’t even consider the rest of the Wonderbolts knowing about it. Then again, she WAS with Soarin for an extended time during her visit months back… and Soarin apparently WAS very passionate about her. Hell… all the Wonderbolts probably knew by now.

“But seriously…” Silver continued. “I dunno what the hell is going on with him… fake horns, magic and all that crap, but something ain’t right… I just didn’t think I’d get my ass kicked that badly…” he trailed off. Dash looked at him in confusion as they started up again.

“Wait… you’re telling me you expected to lose… and still went at it for that long?” Dash failed to see the logic in it.

“Dash… what were the first two things I taught you yesterday…?” he asked her as they stopped outside the training room.

“Uhhhhh….”

“Rule number one,” Silver tapped his right hoof against her forehead. Dash blinked and remembered.

“Never be afraid of your opponent,” Dash repeated his words.

“Exactly. I know Soarin's better, faster, and stronger than me... but that didn't mean I couldn't win. I gave it my best shot despite my opponent. Didn't quite go my way though...” Silver sighed as he lightly pushed Dash away. “I can make it from here… and… thanks,” he said as he turned and entered the training room.

Dash watched until the door closed behind him. Silver just thanked her? That was a first, but it also felt… really good. He was her instructor, but as she just reminded him, he was also now her mentor. He had to yell and scream at her like the rest of the recruits, but she also got to spend time learning directly from him… she was under the wing of one of the oldest, wisest, most experienced…

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?!?!?!?!” Bliss’ voice boomed from inside the training room.

…but also plain stubborn Wonderbolts out there.

Dash felt like she was forming a connection with Silver, an understanding between master and student… she was excited for what would come in the future between the two of them…

But for the time being… she had another stallion to worry about… one that was, frankly, much, MUCH more important to her…

--- To Be Continued---

Author's Note

AND YA'LL THOUGHT I WAS GONNA LEAVE YOU HANGING?!

MY CRAZY BRAIN TOOK THAT CHALLENGE!

seriously, i feel a tad burned out now... but hey... i saved you all from the cliffhanger xD

So... Silver's pretty badass huh? Facing down opponents that are better than him... fighting when most would stand down... calling out his captain for keeping her I.D. card out of the raffle cause it wouldn't be fair if she fought... cause holdy damn Spitfire took Soarin out in ONE SHOT... that went THROUGH his armor...

Now ya'll are probably saying... but she wasn't that badass before!

Don't forget... Head in the Clouds she was caught off guard... Flying Sky High she was taken out of the picture before the battle started...

The only time we saw her "fight" was when she beat the CRAP out of Nightshade in front of Dash at the end of the battle in Head in the Clouds...

Well, let's just say... i've been purposely holding her back... there's a reason she's the lead captain after all ;)

Anyway... i hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

(NOW there will probably be a small delay... since im spending this whole weekend with mah lady :3)

Chapter 48: Breaking Free

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 48:

“Whoa!” Storm stepped aside as Dash nearly ran right into him in the mess hall. He shifted to stabilize his tray before looking towards her. “Dash?” he blinked as he watched her move quickly.

“Can’t talk! Gotta—MRPH!” she ran face first into Matteo’s chest. Matteo held his tray up to avoid anything being knocked over. “Pa-tooeh!” Dash pulled back and spat out a few black feathers that got lodged in her mouth.

“Um… pardon you…?” Matteo lifted an eyebrow.

“Oh… we heard something interesting…” Storm approached and tried to start, but Dash shook her head.

“Sorry! I gotta go! I already ate! Bye!” Dash shifted past Matteo, leaving both him and Storm very confused.

Dash burst out of the mess hall and almost hit Little Star with the door.

“Whoa!” she yelped as she tumbled backward.

“Sorry!” Dash turned her head and yelled before running directly into Twister. She fell over on top of him and quickly propped herself up. He snickered and sneered.

“I know I’m hard to resissssst…” he bounced his eyebrows, “but you know my heart is already set.”

Art by: mlplover789

“Oh, get over yourself…” Dash scoffed and pressed her hoof awkwardly against his nose to support herself as she got up off of him and continued down the hall.

“Where are you in such a hurry to?” Twister appeared beside Dash, hovering as she trotted.

“None of your business, Freaky,” Dash reached her wing up and pushed him back, but he appeared on her other side as she did.

“You don’t run me over and expect me not to wonder why you’re in a hurry…” he twist-turned in the air to avoid Dash’s other wing as she swiped it at him. He hovered in front of her upside down.

“I expect you to mind your own business…” Dash snapped at him. He was getting on her nerves. He lifted an eyebrow… well, dropped an eyebrow since he was upside down. The eyebrow detached from his head, went down and out of Dash’s view, then came down from above and reattached to his face.

“If you say so… but…” he lifted up and stopped to let Dash pass beneath him. “Can’t guarantee I won’t try…” he said slyly as he went on his way towards the mess hall.

A sudden chill ran down Dash’s spine. She blinked and looked back, but Twister was already long gone. Dash flattened her ears and shook her head. She decided to just ignore it… because Twister was… well… weird.

Dash blinked as she closed the door to Soarin’s room and stood in the hallway, confused. He wasn’t in his room? She assumed Spitfire would take him there… unless she was still with Luna. She was curious though because Spitfire never said she was taking Soarin with her to see Luna.

“Hmmm…” Dash thought out loud as she began making her way back down the steps towards the lobby. Where could Soarin be? She had some time to look around still before she had to report back to the barracks for the night, so she ran through the possible scenarios in her head. If Spitfire took Soarin with her to see Luna… which would make the most sense since it seemed Soarin was having control issues… and she wasn’t back yet, Dash was sunk either way. If she didn't take Soarin with her, Dash assumed he’d be in his room… but he wasn’t there…

Dash hit the lobby and looked back and forth. Her eyes landed on the east wing. Most of the recruits were still at dinner… Bliss’ training room was nearby too. Did they take Soarin there? It seemed unlikely because Bliss, while she was a unicorn, was a practitioner of athletic medicine, not a paranormal magic doctor.

So if Soarin wasn’t in there…

“Ah!” Dash’s ears stood up. Of course! If she couldn’t find Soarin anywhere else in the compound… it never hurt to check the gym! Dash quickly turned and trotted down the west hall.

She had to do something. She didn’t know what, but she had to do something for Soarin. She was already a little pissed that Spitfire didn’t let her near Soarin. Dash was aware she had her recruit schedule to follow, but this was important! As awesome as the fight between Soarin and Silver was, Soarin didn’t seem himself. It didn’t help that the new yellow magic was practically rising off his head like a flame on a candle wick by the end of it. Spitfire also had to step in and stop him. If he were fighting Rapidfire that would make sense, but Soarin was fighting Silver Lining! An old, respected member of the Wonderbolts! Soarin would never go too far against somepony like that!

She also had to consider Soarin’s strange mannerisms throughout the day. At first she thought he was just feeling good and the blue dark magic was suppressed, but now it seemed like he was possessed by something completely different… but unlike the dark magic it was putting him in a euphoric state instead of a painful state.

It’s much harder to resist something that feels good than it is to resist something that gives you pain. Dash didn’t care how confident or sexy it made Soarin.

It was still kind of a longshot… but at least there was a chance that—

“WHAT THE?!” Dash yelped.

Something grabbed her. She was about to retort, but she was roughly yanked towards a nearby meeting/classroom. She stumbled in as she was let go and sharply turned as the door was slammed. She blinked and her eyes widened.

“S-Soarin?!” she exclaimed as he stood beside the door, leaning against the wall, and grinning rather smugly at her.

“Hey babe, what’s up?” he ‘greeted’ her.

Dash stared at him quizzically as he approached, but soon found herself… feeling a little tingly. The way he was moving towards her was so smooth and suave. He… he looked sexy. She felt her face heat up and she bit her lip, but she forced her mind to stay on topic, no matter how much her eyes liked what they saw.

“Where…” she blinked and shook her head out and puffed her cheeks out while blushing slightly. “I was looking all over for you, where did you go after you woke up?” she wanted to know. His answer would help her understand her current situation.

“Pff…” Soarin shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Spitfire was talking to Luna… it was boring… so I left,” he winked. He suddenly dipped forward slightly and grabbed his stomach while groaning slightly. “Yikes… Spitfire throws a mean punch, eh?” he chuckled. Dash’s eyes widened.

“You left? But… it’s about your—EEP!” Dash yelped as Soarin suddenly rushed forward and grabbed her arms. Within seconds he had her up against the wall and staring wide eyed into his seductive gaze. She blushed madly as he leaned forward and brushed his body against hers, sending shivers throughout her body.

“Hey, forget about it. When’s the last time we had some fun?” Soarin said smoothly into Dash’s ear. She felt her face heat up and she inhaled sharply as she felt Soarin’s hoof gently run across her chest, around her neck, and down to her back.

“Soarin? I… oh…” Dash shivered as he rubbed his hoof against her weak spot, the spot right in the pit of her wing joint. Soarin ran his hoof over it before pressing gently against it. Dash’s wings flared out and she gasped quietly. “It’s… been a while…” she finally replied to him, giving into how good it felt. Soarin sneered and ran his lips across the crook of her neck.

“Way to long…” he said slyly as he made his way up to her other weak spot, her ears. “I could use some quality Dashie time… I’m feeling it babe, I need you,” Soarin kept talking to her seductively.

“Soarin…” Dash was too busy tingling and twitching to think straight. Soarin was disabling her with her sensitive spots… and he was coming onto her so fast, asserting himself. Normally she’d get her own action in, but he was being so… sexy. She couldn’t fight back.

It was like he was a different…

Dash’s eyes widened as Soarin kept feeling around her body. She tried to say something, but he crashed his lips upon hers. She once again found herself unable to say or do anything as she got drawn into a hardcore make out session. She didn’t fight it, why would she? This wasn’t the first time they had gone hard like this… it was probably going to lead to more. She moaned as she felt Soarin’s lips press hard against her. He forced his tongue into her mouth and pinned hers before she could fight back. It was incredible, he had her at his mercy instantly, and she wanted it. It was like he was radiating sexual desire and she couldn’t resist it. He began feeling around her body as he kissed her, his hooves running all over her and teasing her by pulling away every time they felt like they would get extra adventurous. Dash couldn’t deny it… she was loving every bit of it… but…

Something…

Something felt wrong.

For some reason, despite how much she was loving it, she suddenly was struck with a tremendous sense of dread.

You know Dash… I’m all for roughhousing and wrestling… But I don’t think… I really, truly show you how much I love you enough…

Dash’s eyes opened quickly as Soarin continued to kiss her and feel around her body.

Dash, you’re a tough mare… you’re a badass… you’re a bundle of action. But... I feel like you need to be told… just how beautiful you are…

Dash suddenly felt like… like…

Sometimes… I want to dial back the roughness… I want to be soft… and gentle… because you are just that special to me…

Like it wasn’t Soarin!

“No… NO!!!!” Dash thrust her arms out and shoved Soarin off of her roughly. Soarin looked at her in disbelief.

“Dash? What the hell?” he threw his arms out. Dash shook he head roughly.

“Stop! Just STOP IT!” she yelled and pointed at him. “Soarin, THIS ISN’T YOU!” she yelled as she backed away from him.

“What are you talking about?” he took a step towards her as his horn and eyes began to glow a faint yellow again. “Babe, what’s wrong with…”

“NO! SHUT UP!” Dash didn’t let up. Soarin’s eyes widened as she went on. “I don’t know who you are… you’re not him…” she backed into a wall. Soarin tried to approach her. She grabbed his hooves as he tried to get ahold of her and threw them away.

Fed up, she pulled back and punched Soarin across the jaw. He stumbled back and looked at her while shaking. The yellow glow in his eyes had intensified to the point where Dash could barely see his pupils.

“You’re not the stallion I fell in love with!” she yelled as a tear squeaked out of her right eyes. “I want my Soarin back!”

Soarin froze. His eyes slammed shut and the horn began to flicker with the bright yellow light.

“Ah!” Soarin opened his eyes and the light was gone from them. He slammed them shut and opened them again… the light was back. “D-Dash…? AH!” Soarin flinched and stumbled backward, the yellow light both pulsating and flashing from around his horn and in his eyes. His body was twitching and shaking.

Dash watched in confusion and alarm. What was going on? Was… it what she said?

“RGH!” Soarin dropped to the ground and smacked his head down against the floor once. His body stopped shaking.

“Soarin…?” Dash took a step forward, but yelped in surprise when Soarin’s head rapidly picked up from the ground and he sneered at her. The horn and his eyes were enveloped by the yellow light again.

Dash didn’t hesitate. Her flight reflex kicked in. She made a move towards the door, trying to get away from Soarin. She was yanked back as Soarin easily intercepted her and grabbed her by the arm. Dash yelped and turned around, pressing her free hoof against Soarin’s chest as she tried to pull free. Despite being caught, the two still moved towards the door until Dash’s back was up against it.

She was cornered and had no idea what to do. Soarin had her firmly pinned against the door, his eyes were glowing bright yellow and he was licking his lips. Dash tried desperately to reach for the doorknob, but her left arm was being held down. She couldn’t reach it with her right.

She was trapped.

Art by: mlplover789

“Soarin!” she tried calling his name, but he didn’t back off. “SOARIN!!!!” she tried again to no avail. It was like his mind was completely gone. She could no longer see his eyes beneath the magic. The horn was glowing so bright she had to squint her eyes. All she could hear was his heavy, pleasurable breathing and the quiet chuckling that seemed to never end.

CLICK

The door opened.

Dash fell back with it as it opened, pulling Soarin with her.

THUNK

Dash heard what sounded like a punch as she shut her eyes and fell over, but something caught her from behind and gently let her to the floor.

“That’s no way to treat a lady… son.”

Dash gasped and opened her eyes. She tipped her head up to see Silver Lining standing over her, rolled up, bloody gauze stuffed in one nostril, black eye, and everything. He glared at Soarin with his good eye as Soarin shook his head out from the punch to the face. The light faded slightly from his eyes, but still remained in force.

“What?! You can’t be serious Old Timer…” Soarin burst out laughing. “Back so soon? C’mon man, you couldn’t wait a few minutes? I was about to get some!”

Dash literally shivered at Soarin’s words. He was definitely not in control of anything… he almost… sounded like Rapidfire. It was scaring her. She flinched as Silver stomped a hoof down beside her.

“You’re about to get a reality check if you don’t back off and get your ass under control!” Silver barked at him as he stepped around and in front of Dash.

“Reality check?! HA!” Soarin reared his head back as he guffawed. “Listen to yourself! I just beat you black and blue three hours ago! You can’t be serious!” Soarin kept laughing.

Silver cracked his neck and firmly set his hooves on the floor, spreading his wings out and glaring.

“I don’t joke, son.” Silver stated sternly. “Now are you gonna fight or taunt me like a coward?!” he yelled. Soarin stopped laughing and smirked at Silver.

“You crack me up…” Soarin snickered loudly as his horn and eyes began to gleam brighter. “You want another beat down that badly? FINE!” Soarin leapt at Silver.

Dash scooted to the wall as the door closed behind her. Silver stepped up into Soarin’s path, but instead of going on the attack, Silver put up his hooves and shifted his stance to take a defensive position. Soarin knocked aside a table and a few chairs in the small room as he threw a heavy punch towards Silver. Silver weaved and batted Soarin’s punch aside. Soarin’s momentum sent him flailing to the right of Silver and crashing into a few chairs. Silver backed away and retook his defensive stance.

“Heh… lucky shot…” Soarin jeered as he stood up and faced Silver.

“You think so, huh?” Silver said through his guard.

“I KNOW SO!” Soarin charged Silver again. He put his hooves together and tried to smash them over Silver’s head. Silver put his hooves up and braced his body. Soarin’s attack struck Silver’s hooves, but his body absorbed all the shock as he shifted his body down very slightly like a spring compressing under force. Silver thrust his hooves up, throwing Soarin’s arms up, before thrusting his shoulder forward to knock Soarin off balance. But instead of pressing his attack, Silver again shifted to defense.

Soarin growled and threw another heavy punch, looking to break Silver’s arms off if he had to. Silver ducked and twisted his body 180 degrees. Soarin’s hoof passed by his right cheek. Silver grabbed Soarin’s arm and used the forward motion to hoist Soarin over his back and throw him. Soarin yelped as he crashed into and knocked over a table before tumbling into the wall.

“I guess that was a lucky shot too,” Silver taunted as he put his hooves and bobbed back and forth.

“Rgghhh!!!!” Soarin growled as he rose to his hooves.

Dash watched with curiosity. Silver just got destroyed by Soarin a few hours earlier… what was different here? Dash used her analytical eye to take in all the differences of this confrontation.

For starters, they were in a classroom, a very condensed space. Neither of them had the luxury of flying and they were stuck in close quarters. They were forced to use straight up combat without the swiftness of flight. Secondly, Silver was only defending. When they fought earlier Silver was pressing the offense like none other. Here he had shifted tactics, and it looked like Soarin didn’t have an answer for it.

“Where’d that confidence go, son?” Silver cracked his neck back and forth as Soarin snarled at him. “You mean to tell me all the basic combat I taught you went down the drain?” Silver scoffed. “Your fancy strap-on horn magic makes you supercharged, but apparently it makes you careless too!”

“Shut up!!!” Soarin yelled as the yellow magic flared brightly from the horn, his eyes and his mouth. He charged at Silver, using his wings to lift his body up slightly and pull his hooves back for an all-out assault.

Dash stood up, keeping her eyes on Silver. She had to see it. She had to see how he could suddenly have the upper hoof against an opponent who was better, faster, and stronger than him. She had to see and analyze the skills of her mentor and at the same time pray he could subdue Soarin before anything bad could happen.

Silver batted Soarin’s first punch away… and then proceeded to block and deflect every single punch Soarin threw. The punches were wild and careless. Filled with strength, but easily tamed by Silver’s refined defenses. Silver didn’t take a single step backward either, holding his ground like an unbreakable wall.

“Listen well, son!” Silver spoke up as he continued to shield himself perfectly. “Cause I don’t think you heard me the first thousand times I drilled into your skull!” Silver grabbed Soarin’s arm as it came straight at him. He diverted it to the left while sticking out his leg. Soarin flew forward and tripped over Silver’s leg. Soarin fell face first to the ground, grunting painfully as the horn struck the ground.

“SHUT UP!!!!” Soarin yelled wildly as he pushed himself up and nearly tripped over the chairs strewn about while trying to charge at Silver again.

“The most important part of combat…” Silver weaved to avoid an incoming punch, then put up his hooves to block two more followed by sweeping his hoof out to divert an incoming lariat. Soarin thrust himself forward, clashing head on and pressing his arms against Silver’s. Silver didn’t move but glared at Soarin through their arms. “IS SELF-DEFENSE!” Silver barked in his face.

Dash blinked. Those were the exact words Silver had said to the recruits two days prior. She could see it up close too. The way Silver moved with precision and control, the way he shifted his weight as he blocked to nullify Soarin’s strength. It was masterful. Soarin’s magic made him unstoppable out in the open, but in close quarters his basic fighting abilities were hindered by it.

Silver forced Soarin off and quickly put his guard up. The tables had turned, completely and literally around the room. Soarin thrust at Silver again, but Silver stepped aside and pushed him along, tossing Soarin past him and towards Dash. Dash yelped and dove out of the way as Soarin tumbled and crashed against the wall.

“If you can’t defend yourself… or take a few hits…” Silver continued as Soarin scrambled to his hooves and charged wildly towards Silver. Using both his hooves and wings, Silver shielded himself completely. Soarin charged and rammed Silver like an angry bull, no longer even bothering to use his hooves. Silver’s back hooves skidded against the floor, but Dash saw the shifts in Silver’s body. They were subtle, but he put himself in a position of leverage with his legs bent and his back locked upright. They slowly came to a halt. “THEN YOU’RE USELESS!” Silver finished right into Soarin’s face.

“RRRRRGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Soarin growled as he pushed off and began throwing rapid, wild punches. They were all sloppy and inaccurate, some of them missing horribly, and others looking more like flailing swings than powerful controlled punches. Silver continued to repeat the words he spoke to the recruits.

“It’s my job to whip you into shape and make sure you’re ready to fight any opponent!” said Silver as he used small, controlled movements to easily defend himself against the barrage of aimless attacks. Silver ducked as Soarin tried to headbutt him. Soarin yelped and fell forward onto Silver’s back. Silver forced his body up, toppling Soarin over the top of him and landing near Dash.

Dash pressed herself against the wall as Soarin looked up at her, his eyes completely blank and filled with the yellow light. He growled and pulled back a hoof to strike her. She gasped, not registering what was happening in time. She was moving to put her hooves up, but Soarin’s hoof was already heading for her face.

But then Silver reached forward and caught his arm. He yanked Soarin away from Dash, pulling Soarin towards him.

“And warriors…” Silver pulled back his free hoof, and made subtle shifts in his body. He delivered a heavy punch right between Soarin’s eyes while pulling Soarin towards him. Soarin flew and struck the wall beside Dash back first before crying out in pain and falling to the floor. Silver quickly dove at Soarin, got on his back, and pinned him to the floor. Silver forced Soarin’s hooves behind his back with one arm and pressed his forearm to the back of Soarin’s neck with the other. “MUST know how to defend themselves…” Silver glanced at Dash. “Before they can defend others!”

“RGH!!!” Soarin began to growl and thrash beneath Silver’s grip.

“Damn!” Silver cursed as he struggled to hold Soarin down. “Dash!” he suddenly called to her.

“Huh?!” Dash flinched in surprise as Silver yelled her name. He looked up at her and made a head motion to him. “Call to him again!” he ordered. Dash blinked.

“Wh-what?!” she was still up against the wall without a clue of what to do or what Silver was asking. Did Silver… see the whole interaction between her and Soarin before this? There was a window on the door… was he talking about when she yelled at him and apparently caused a brief break in the magic? Was that the key to stopping Soarin?

“YOU GONE DEAF OR SOMETHING, SKITTLES?! OPEN UP YOUR DAMN TRAP AND TALK THIS DUMBASS INTO CONTROLLING HIMSELF!” Silver barked at her.

Just as she thought, that’s exactly what Silver wanted her to do.

Dash quickly shook her head out and focused on Soarin. She pushed off the wall, positioned herself in front of Soarin, and crouched down so she was nearly face to face with him as he lurched and pulled at Silver’s grip.

Dash remembered well… the kinds of things that really got through to Soarin. No amount of pleading and crying would do any good. Back during the dark magic transfer, the only reason they were able to save Soarin was because Spitfire…

“What the HELL is wrong with you Soarin!?” Dash yelled in his face. “You spent all that time learning to control magic and for what?! To get drunk on it?! Get a hold of yourself, dammit!” she projected so hard she was almost spitting on him. Silver blinked in surprise, he clearly wasn’t expecting it. Silver’s eyes widened and he moved his head aside as Soarin suddenly arched his neck up, nearly stabbing Silver in the eye with his horn.

“AH!” Soarin yelled out as the yellow magic began flickering around his horn and eyes. It was working.

“I know you’re in there, Soarin! I know you can hear me! And I KNOW you are better than this!” She yelled as she reached forward and grabbed his head. “BREAK FREE!” she yelled while shaking his head.

Soarin slammed his eyes shut. The yellow light expanded out from his horn, forcing both Dash and Silver to squint as it shone brightly to the corners of the room. Then it quickly condensed back towards the horn… but it didn’t disappear, it hovered in a small aura around the horn.

“Ahhhh rrrgghhhh…” Soarin groaned painfully as he stopped thrashing beneath Silver.

“Soarin?” Dash said his name quietly as Soarin’s eyes remained shut. Dash jumped back in surprise as the horn began flickering again, but this time it was different. The horn began flickering with both yellow and dark blue light. The flickers were random and sporadic, but the two colors could clearly be made out as they crackled, popped, and fizzled around the horn. Dash suddenly panicked. “Silver! Get off of him!” Dash quickly yelled. Silver blinked and glanced between them. “Get off of him! Quickly!” she repeated. Silver thought she was crazy, but clearly she knew more about this than he did, so he obeyed.

“Ahh… Ahhhhh...” Soarin continued to groan as Silver released the pressure from Soarin’s back and the different colored auras continued to flicker. Soarin remained on the ground, panting and wheezing, his body shivering slightly as the two auras continued to glow.

The blue aura would grow, but then be pushed away by the yellow. The yellow would grow, and then be pushed back by the blue. It was almost as if the auras were fighting for dominance.

“D-Dash…” Soarin suddenly forced out quietly. His voice sounded labored.

“Soarin?” Dash quickly bent down to him. “Soarin! I’m here!”

“Dash…” he sputtered again as the auras flared randomly. Dash yelped and blinked as the magic seemed to lash out towards her, but she felt nothing as it crashed against her face and dispersed. She blinked and quickly refocused on him.

“Soarin, what’s happening, talk to me!” she reached for him. Before her hooves could get close his right arm shot out towards her and clutched her hooves tightly.

“It… it hurts…” Soarin grimaced as the two colored lights continued to press against each other atop the horn. The magic seemed to react to her touch, flickering in different patterns more frantically. That was all Dash had to see and hear. She immediately reached for him, hugging him around the neck tightly. It was all she could do. She knew she could calm his magic. She had to get him out of the pain. “AAAHHH!?!?!?” Soarin suddenly cried out in pain in a tone that suggested it was sudden and unexpected.

Dash blinked and looked towards him in confusion. The flickering blue aura began to shrink and fade… but the yellow aura grew?! The yellow magic pushed itself all the way back onto the horn and began glowing brightly. Soarin’s eyes remained stuck open, but his mouth slowly began curling into a smile again.

“Haaaa… hahaha…” Soarin began chuckling again.

“What?! But…but…!” Dash stuttered. The blue magic receded from her as it always had… but the yellow magic didn’t?! “AH!” Dash yelped as Silver suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her off of Soarin.

“Ha ha-AAHH!!!” Soarin cried out again as the blue magic suddenly flared back up intensely, pushing back against the yellow with such force that a small shockwave fired out from the horn. Dash and Silver were so close to him that they were blown back the blast. Silver toppled over onto his back, grunting as Dash landed on top of him and rolled off beside him.

“Soarin!!!” Dash quickly rolled over and got to her hooves. She wanted to go to him, but her trump card against the magic was not working.

“HRG!!!!” Soarin grimaced and his eyes snapped open while glaring forward. He slammed his front hooves to the floor as he remained on his stomach and strained every inch of his body.

The two auras calmed and returned back down to the flickering, conflicting auras as they had been before Dash tried to hug him. He gasped and let his chin fall to the floor, panting and sweating from the amount of stress being applied to his body from within.

Dash was speechless, and felt powerless. What was she supposed to do? It was always as simple as her getting to him to make the magic behave, but the yellow magic clearly didn’t work the same way as the blue. If she went to him he would only revert to the shameless and crass state she and Silver had just worked so hard to get him out of.

“L-Luna…” Soarin suddenly spoke, his voice laced with unbearable pain.

“Huh?” Dash’s ears perked up as she approached Soarin again. Silver started reaching forward to hold her back, but stopped halfway and let her approach. “What is it Soarin?!” Dash crouched down, taking care not to touch him again.

“The… Princess…” Soarin forced out while grinding his teeth. “Take me… to Luna…!” he pleaded desperately.

Dash hesitated as she readied to reach for him. To Luna. She needed to get him to Luna, but she couldn’t touch him. She wasn’t about to ask Silver and put him in danger, who knows what would happen along the way.

What was she supposed to do?!

“We are already here.”

Dash and Silver both sharply turned to the door to see Princess Luna herself in the doorway with both Spitfire and Fleetfoot behind her.

“There he is…” Spitfire sighed and shook her head as they entered.

“What the hell happened in here?!” Fleetfoot glanced around all the tables and desks pushed and strewn about. “It looks like a tornado interrupted class…”

“Hmm…” Luna ignored Fleetfoot as she stepped around the chairs and tables, making her way over to Soarin. She merely gave a nod to Dash as she stepped up and began examining Soarin, specifically focusing on the flickers of blue and yellow light in the horn. “Most puzzling…” she pondered out loud. Dash made a move to confront Luna, but Silver reached up and pulled her back.

“Don’t get in her way,” he ordered. Dash glanced back at him, the look of unwavering worry for Soarin stuck to her face. They both looked towards Spitfire as she approached.

“From the looks of things…” Spitfire began as she looked around and then focused on Silver. “There was a bit of a confrontation.”

“Perceptive, Captain,” Silver huffed he looked at Spitfire sternly. “I was told you had taken him to see Luna, I guess he didn’t like that?”

“Yes…” Spitfire sighed again and shook her head. “I took him to Luna, but when he came to, he escaped quickly,” she glanced down at Silver’s arms. They were covered in light bruises. “Did you fight him again!?” Spitfire asked in disbelief. Silver motioned to the wrecked state of the room.

“Speaks for itself,” he stated. Spitfire shook her head.

“After that ass kicking you took, I’m surprised you were able to subdue him… Good work,” she didn’t ask for the details.

“Captain Spitfire,” Luna suddenly called Spitfire to her. Spitfire diverted her attention to Luna. Dash watched as the two conversed quietly before Spitfire turned to Fleetfoot.

“Fleet, go get Air Mach, fly downtown, and bring back Fancy Pants,” she ordered. Fleetfoot’s ears flattened instantly.

“What?! With Air Mach? Can I take somepony el—?”

“NOW!” Spitfire yelled, cutting her off.

“Okay! Okay! I’m going! Jeez!” Fleetfoot rushed out.

Dash turned her attention back to Luna. She watched as the princess’ horn and eyes began to glow as she examined him. Spitfire returned to Luna’s side.

Dash wanted desperately to go to Soarin’s side, but she knew it was a bad idea… and that hurt. It REALLY hurt. Up until now she felt like she could always be part of the solution to Soarin’s magic problems… but this time, her presence almost made it worse. She was able to call out to him with her voice, but the effect on the dark magic appeared to only make the yellow magic stronger.

She felt like she suddenly went from being a release for Soarin, to being another problem for him.

She perked up as Silver sighed and sat down on the floor. Dash glanced at him for a moment, and then looked back at Soarin before giving up and plopping down beside him. She eyed Silver’s bruised arms.

“Are you alright?” she asked him out of courtesy. Silver blinked as if surprised. He looked down at her beside him briefly, looked back forward, and nodded.

“Physically, I’m fine. I have no idea what the hell is going on, but I’m not gonna bother asking… it looks too complicated,” he commented as he watched Luna and Spitfire tend to Soarin. Dash looked back as well, before suddenly realizing that she had yet to do something very important.

“Um…” she hesitated, but caught Silver’s attention. “Thanks…” she bowed her head slightly. “Dunno what would have happened if you didn’t step in… I really couldn’t stop him.”

“I saw you looking around the lobby, so I followed you,” Silver suddenly admitted. Dash instantly picked her head back up and blinked. “When I saw Soarin pull you into this room I decided to stay nearby just in case. It was already strange that he was back so soon from seeing Luna with Spitfire. When things got out of hoof, I saw fit to step in,” he explained.

“You… followed me?” Dash was still processing that part. Silver suddenly chuckled and smirked at her.

“You’re my student now too, you know,” he used her own phrase. “Or did you already forget yesterday? Let your mentor keep an eye on you.”

“Heh…” Dash smiled, she couldn’t argue with that. Something about Silver straight up calling her his student felt REALLY cool.

“I saw you watching the fight,” Silver spoke again, re-catching Dash’s attention. “What did you see?” he glanced down at her. Dash thought for a moment, but really could only think of one response.

“I saw you turn around your fight with him earlier and kick his ass instead,” she said with a slight amusement. He narrowed his eyes at her. Dash’s smug feeling faded and her eyes widened slightly under his gaze. Was that… not a good answer?

“I guess that’s a crude way to put it,” Silver grunted as he looked between Luna and Spitfire at Soarin. “A few things can be taken from what you saw. The first being rule number four,” he looked at Dash. “Never fight angry. Controlling your emotions is essential to survival. I made the mistake of fighting with the urge to rip Soarin’s head off three hours ago. Here, I remained calm while his emotions ran wild. Despite his superiority to me, my level head gave me the means to victory,” he looked back forward and sighed. “No Wonderbolt is perfect Rainbow Dash, not even those of us that have been around the longest. You saw me make a critical mistake and I paid for it. Remember that.”

Dash took in everything he said and nodded.

“What else did you see?” he suddenly questioned again.

“Huh?” Dash blinked. “Um…” she fought for a response.

“Come on Dash, you can copy special techniques within minutes of seeing them, but that analytical eye of yours missed the whole fight?” Silver huffed with a slight tone of disappointment in his voice. It actually stung a little to Dash. So she quickly thought over everything she had just witnessed, remembering something key.

“Oh!” she quickly turned to Silver. “The battlefield was different, close quarters, both of you were forced to fight without flight,” she recalled for him. Silver lifted an eyebrow while cracking a smile very briefly.

“Good. You were at least aware of that much, but you left out something very important,” he nodded as Dash listened intently. “Rule number five: learn from defeat. You don’t experience defeat the first time you lose to a specific opponent. You are defeated if you lose to them again. You must analyze and adapt to your enemies. You have to figure out and exploit their weaknesses,” he motioned to Soarin. “Under the influence of his magic, Soarin fought very differently. I was already hindered by my emotions, but I was also unprepared for his assault. However, I realized that while his attacks were strong and made great use of speed in the wide open space, I realized his basic movements were sloppy and lacking discipline,” Silver pointed to the ground. “It was a lucky break that we fought in a room such as this. I was able to exploit that weakness by fighting in an environment that forced us into basic fighting tactics.”

“Wow…” Dash said out loud as she realized how complicated Silver’s breakdown of the battles were when in her eyes all she initially saw was a battle in a meeting room. There was so much more to combat than she realized.

“Victory is not guaranteed through strength, speed, and skill,” Silver went on. “Awareness and discipline will always be stronger than any punch or kick you can throw. If you can master those, even opponents who outclass you physically…” he motioned to Soarin. “Can be brought down.”

Dash stared at Silver as he looked back forward and cracked his neck while grunting in discomfort. So much wisdom at once. It was almost overwhelming. Silver was almost too much to handle. The lead squad Wonderbolts were obviously more impressive physically and skillwise, but so far Silver had blown her away more than any Wonderbolt ever simply through his experience and valuable lessons given.

And she had only been his student for a day. What would she be capable of once released from under his wing? The thought alone was enough to make her shiver in anticipation.

“We are very confused…” Luna suddenly spoke up as the magic faded from around her horn and her eyes reappeared from the light.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Spitfire voiced her worry as Dash’s attention was drawn back to Soarin. Luna was confused? That wasn’t a good sign. What was wrong with Soarin? She had to know!

Luna sighed and shook her head.

“We wish we could explain it… but the only explanation we can offer is that Commander Soarin seems to have two separate reserves of magic within him,” she stated. Spitfire stood still while staring at Luna as if waiting for her to continue.

“And…?” Spitfire beckoned her. Luna blinked and shook her head.

“That’s it.”

“That’s it!?” Spitfire threw her arms out. “That’s really reassuring Princess!”

“We’re sorry,” Luna let her head hang in shame. “This is… something even we have never encountered before. Our sister may have known something, but we’ve never seen a pony with more than one source of magic in their body before… it’s quite puzzling. Even more so because Commander Soarin is a pegasus.

“Um…” Dash stepped forward. Silver flinched as she interrupted, since he told her specifically not to, but he sighed and let her go. “Princess…” Dash walked up to her. “Soarin… he…” she stopped and looked at him as he breathed steadily on the floor, but his face was still written with pain. His horn continued to flash the two different colors. “Something strange happened,” she mentioned. Luna’s ears perked up.

“What dost thou mean? Please tell us, anything you can tell us will help. We are left in the dark,” Luna eagerly pressed Dash.

“You know how his magic reacted to me right? It would calm and he would have better control?” Dash was actually curious, she had never actually relayed this information directly to Luna, but to her surprise, Luna nodded while rolling her eyes.

“We are aware… Discord reminds us often…” she said with slight annoyance.

Discord? Dash was a little surprised at first, but then she realized Discord was always bringing her into the picture to help with Soarin. So that made sense. She continued.

“Well… it was strange, I tried to calm the magic like I always do… but while the blue magic receded... the yellow magic didn’t. He almost lost control again when I tried,” Dash explained. Luna stared at her while contemplating… but looked very confused.

“We…” she blinked a few times. “That’s… we don’t know… That’s very strange…” she bit her lip as if embarrassed that she couldn’t provide an explanation. Luna sighed and let her head hang. “I apologize… once again, we wish we could provide wisdom like our sister, but… we are at a loss. We appreciate your information though… hopefully Sir Fancy Pants can provide more insight. It is shameful for one such as us to admit, but he shows an understanding of magic on a level even we do not possess. Hopefully he can give more insight.”

“But—” Dash wanted to know more. Luna just told her she knew nothing, but Dash’s desperation to know about Soarin compelled her to press the subject. Unfortunately Spitfire felt otherwise.

“Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire spoke up as she stepped forward and placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “I appreciate your concern for Soarin, and I know you care for him more than any of us… but we’ll handle it from here…” she glanced up at the clock on the wall that somehow remained in place despite how many chairs had been tossed about the room. “You need to get back with the recruits. Silver, take her back,” she ordered.

“What?!” Dash stared at Spitfire in disbelief. Did she just hear that correctly? Dash thought that Spitfire more than anypony would understand how important this situation was to her… and to Soarin. Silver already had his hoof on her shoulder and was trying to coerce her away. But Dash resisted against him. She didn’t even pay attention to his orders to stand attention and start walking. When it came to Soarin, she didn’t care about rank or status. He was more important to her than anything!

“Dash…”

Dash’s eyes widened. Luna, Spitfire, and Silver all looked towards Soarin. Spitfire and Luna took a step back as Soarin suddenly forced his hooves to the ground and slowly rose up. He grunted and shook his head out before slowly opening his eyes. The two magic auras suddenly flared from his horn, but Soarin stiffened his body and glared towards the horn on his head. The magic was quickly sucked back in and he exhaled sharply.

“Soarin?” Dash said his name as he chuckled and looked up at her.

“Sorry… Dash…” he managed to say between heavy breaths. “I don’t… know… what’s… happening…” it was almost painful to hear, every word was labored, filled with discomfort, but Soarin kept speaking regardless. “But… I won’t… give in… any… more…” he forced out as the yellow aura suddenly flared around his horn. She growled and whipped his head around as the magic slowly receded back into the horn. “This damn… magic… doesn’t know… who… it’s messing… with…” he smirked as he winced in pain. “I’ll AH!” Soarin fell to the ground. Spitfire stepped towards him and offered a hoof, but Soarin swiped his hoof around and batted Spitfire’s away. “I’ll be fine…” he chuckled between breaths and winked at Dash. “This magic… doesn’t know… who the… HELL… it’s dealing with…” he said with confidence.

Literally the instant after he said it, his eyes rolled back and he fainted. Dash’s ears shot up and she took a step towards him, but Silver’s grip on her shoulder stopped her. Spitfire walked up in front of Dash and shrugged.

“Dash… we are lucky…” Spitfire’s demeanor was surprisingly casual. Dash stared at Spitfire with a mix of confusion and worry. “We are the only two that understand how stubborn this idiot can be,” she chuckled as she made a hoof motion to Soarin. “Leave him to us. Like he just said, it’ll take more than a little rebellious magic to keep him down,” Spitfire winked at Dash.

“Uh…” Dash glanced at Soarin, then found herself smirking. Spitfire was right. Soarin wouldn’t go down easily. The fact that Soarin managed to break free and say to her himself that he would fight the magic gave her pause unlike any other. “I’m worried about him,” Dash said. “But he’s also stubborn. He’ll be fine," Dash nodded to Spitfire. Spitfire smiled back and pointed at Silver.

“Get her back to the barracks. New training cycle tomorrow, right?” Spitfire asked Silver. Silver nodded. “It’s already nine,” Spitfire mentioned as she glanced at the clock again. “She needs her rest, get going,” Spitfire made a hoof motion to Silver.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Silver replied obediently before yanking Dash along with him. She was surprised when he did initially, but any fears she had for Soarin were suddenly gone… she was so worried, but did it make her forget that Soarin would sooner kiss Rapidfire than let ANYTHING control him?

Dash smiled as Silver pulled her towards the door.

He’d be fine.

After all, he was a stubborn ass… a stubborn ass she loved to death.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oy... sorry for the long wait. I know there was a delay because i was out of town... but something else came up and it really killed my concentration.

ANYWAY

Y'ALL THOUGHT I WAS GONNA HAVE SILVER WALK OFF AND NOT BE AS BADASS AS YOU THOUGHT!

he's more than you can imagine, despite being weaker and older than the younguns... he still knows what one must do to TRUELY win a battle ;)

also seriously, wtf is wrong with Soarin? maybe we'll find out next chapter? MAAAAAAYBE?!

but yar, i dunno when the next chapter will be out, lots of stuff on my plate as of late, but i would assume saturday.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 49: A Little Chaos Goes a Long Way

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 49:

“Skittles, I’ve about had it up to here with your stallion and all this magic crap,” Silver huffed as the two of them emerged in the lobby and turned towards the doors to the barracks. “Different colored lightshow… acting like a sass ass… damn fake horns…” Silver grumbled as Dash just awkwardly looked away. It was still kind of weird to have Silver refer to Soarin as ‘her stallion.’

She had been so careful about keeping it quiet, but apparently Soarin chatted their ears off about her and it was common knowledge. At least to the elite Wonderbolts it was, but she’d rather still keep it quiet around the recruits to avoid suspicion of favorites.

Even though she was getting private lessons from Silver.

Maybe she was just overthinking it.

“Sorry… I guess…” Dash replied, not quite sure how to respond. She looked up as Silver chuckled.

“Just too much weird shit. It’s gonna give me more grey hairs…” Silver shook his head. Dash blinked and looked at Silver’s mane.

“More…? Ah!” Dash quickly threw a hoof over her mouth as Silver stopped in his tracks and glared at her. Dash quickly released two fake coughs before shaking her head out and putting on a very fake serious face. “I agree, sir!”

“I’ll just bet…” Silver rolled his eyes as they entered the hall and approached the door to their barracks.

Dash gave him a sheepish grin as Silver put his hoof to the door. He took a deep breath and turned his head back to her.

“I’m going to make this very clear right now Dash,” his tone took a very serious turn. Dash paid attention. It had become a reflex. Any time Silver’s voice took this tone, her ears were up and she was taking in every syllable like it was the word of Celestia herself. “Just because I have taken you under my wing for personal training… DOES NOT mean you will be getting any favors during out normal training days. In fact, you are still being watched under higher expectations than the rest. Don’t forget that,” his stern look was unwavering. Dash took in all of his words and then nodded obediently.

“Yes sir,” she replied formally.

“SO GET YOUR BLUE ASS IN THERE!” he suddenly yelled in her face while yanking the door open. Dash flinched and froze for a moment, but as soon as it all registered, she quickly trotted through the door. Silver entered behind her and quickly walked past her into the room with all the recruits still moving about.

All the recruits moved out of Silver’s path as soon as they realized his presence. They all just saw him get beat up… but none of them were aware that he had just turned that outcome around on Soarin. Silver walked right to his room and slammed the door behind him.

Dash made her way into the room and took in her surroundings. She stopped immediately and blinked at something that was out of place.

Storm Front?

He was in their barracks talking to Matteo. At first it seemed strange, but after thinking about it, Storm had mentioned how much he missed being with them. Storm was accepted into the elites, but Dash could imagine how it would feel if one was suddenly pushed in among celebrities. Storm missed the even plain camaraderie he had with them. It was easier for him to relate and interact with them. Plus, it seemed like he and Matteo had a mutual respect for each other, so they probably wouldn’t pass up the chance to catch up and trade stories of what’s happening around them.

There was no sign of Thunderlane or Twister… Dash prayed for Thunderlane’s sanity if the two were in the bathroom at the same time. She kept trotting and glanced to her left as she approached her bunk. Squall was sitting on his bed, his back propped against his pillow, arms crossed and sulking.

Seriously, what crawled up his ass and laid a baker’s dozen of eggs? Was he capable of not being dark and broody? He was actually starting to bother Dash.

She couldn’t get a read on him. No matter how hard she tried, Dash just couldn't figure him out. It wasn’t like Twister, who was just plain weird. Squall was a mystery. His drive and his motives all seemed… clouded. She didn’t know what made him click or why he was always so rude. Most of the time, stuff like that would be paired with some sort of life experiences that were clear and present, but nothing gave Dash the feeling that he was feeding off colthood drama or angst. He just… always… seemed… MAD. What could—

“YOU!”

Dash’s ears stood up and she cringed as somepony yelled so loudly directly into her ear, it felt like her brain was vibrating. Dash pulled back and shook her head out before turning and looking directly into the glaring eyes of Little Star, hovering at eye level.

“Uh…” Dash blinked. “What?”

“Ooooooohohoho, don’t you ‘what’ ME young lady!” Little Star hovered closer. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Um… I’m very confused?” Dash had no idea what Star was getting at. Star pouted.

“Maybe I should go ask SOARIN then?” she lifted her brow slowly.

Dash’s eyes widened so fast it nearly strained her eyelids.

What?

Wait…

Oh no…

“S-Soarin? What about… Soarin?” Dash stuttered. This was bad. This was REALLY bad.

“Don’t play dumb!” Little Star glared at her. “I’m so angry with you!” she pressed her face into Dash’s making her neck recline.

“Uh… I mean… what?” Dash sputtered. Star hadn’t given any specifics yet, but…

“You’ve got lots of explaining to do…” Star turned her back to Dash. Dash was about to speak up and fail to divert the conversation, but before she could, Star whipped back around, grabbed Dash by the face, and smiled giddily with starry eyes. “BECAUSE I’M SO JEALOUS!!!!!!!!!” she yelled while shaking Dash’s face.

“What…?” Dash blinked as Little Star let go and did a little pirouette in the air.

“You’re in a relationship with one of Equestria’s most well known celebrities!!! How did you nab such an incredible stallion?! IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!” she wailed while shaking Dash harder.

“STAR!” Dash reached up and yanked the little mare off her face. She looked back and forth hoping not too many were looking at her. Most weren’t, but Storm and Matteo we looking over with curiosity. “Will you keep it down!?”

“But whyyyyyyyy?” Her little wings buzzed as she giggled and pressed her hooves against her cheeks while smiling and blushing. “It’s so awesome and adorable! How long have you two been together?!” she pressed. Dash couldn’t believe this.

“How the hell did you find out?!” Dash tried to pry information from her.

“So…” Storm’s voice. Dash gulped and glanced to her left. Both Storm and Matteo were approaching. She was trapped. “You and Soarin, huh?” he smirked. Dash felt like she was going to die of embarrassment and anxiety. “When I heard, I just had to drop by and ask for myself… how did you keep it so well hidden?” Storm showed no signs of hostility, but Dash kept fearing this wasn’t going to be good. She was about to press Storm how they found out but— Matteo made it awkward.

“You’ve chosen a fine mate,” Matteo nodded. “He is an incredible warrior.”

“I GOTTA GO!” Dash dropped Little Star on the floor and turned around to walk back out of the barracks, but the moment she turned she felt something land on her back, and Twister’s head suddenly lowered down in front of hers. Dash froze in place as he sneered at her upside down.

“It sounds like sompony’s sex life is…” Twister paused and slowly placed a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. “SOARIN!!!”

A loud ‘YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!’ suddenly blared over the P.A. system in the barracks.

Less than three seconds later, Silver burst out of his room in a fit of rage. He held up a CASSETTE PLAYER in his hoof, and on his wing beside it he balanced a cassette tape that was labeled ‘YEAH (5 seconds).’

“FIRST OF ALL, WHICH ONE OF YOU BRAVE LITTLE SHITSTERS WENT INTO MY ROOM AND TOUCHED MY BELOVED P.A. SYSTEM?!?!?!” Then surprisingly he calmed down and held up the cassette player. “Secondly, how the hell did you get my old cassette player to work? It’s been dead for fifteen years…” he held it in front of his face and began fiddling with it. It seemed to preoccupy him, and all worry of punishment for the P.A. was dispelled… but Dash blinked and looked around. Twister was again… gone. Disappeared as quickly as he appeared. Dash flattened her ears. She was getting tired of HIS shit a little too. Dash growled.

Escape was pointless, they clearly all knew. They didn’t seem to be very angry or weirded out by it… which was a plus, but she seriously wanted to know how it was discovered. She sharply turned to Matteo, Storm, and Little Star and pointed sharply at them.

“OKAY! FINE! Soarin and I are a thing! How the hell did you guys find out?!” she threw her hooves out.

On cue, the door to the stallion’s bathroom opened.

Thunderlane strolled casually out of the bathroom with a towel slung around his neck and his toothbrush tucked behind his ear. He was whistling 'Winter Wrap Up' as he made his way back over to his bunk beside Dash’s. The group all stared at him as he walked by and kept staring as he hung up his towel, and put away his toothbrush while whistling the tune cheerfully. He finally turned and saw all of them staring at him, his whistle slowly stopping and trailing off as he blinked at all of them.

“What?” he blinked as Dash looked between him and the other three. Storm, Matteo, and Little Star all pointed at Thunderlane. Dash’s ears folded back and she gritted her teeth as she slowly turned her head and glared at Thunderlane. “Oh…” Thunderlane’s ears flopped down in realization. A long, awkward silence passed with Dash glaring and Thunderlane’s eyes darting back and forth. He ended up putting on a VERY fake smile and slowly lowered himself down until he disappeared behind the bed.

“OH NO YOU DON’T!” Dash yelled as she leapt over Thunderlane’s bed. She blinked as she landed on the other side, he was gone? No… she heard a shuffling noise. She glanced under his bed and saw him frantically pulling himself along the floor under the bed and out the other side. “Hey!” Dash gave chase as Thunderlane tried to cross the barracks. She reached him before he could get past, but their legs clashed mid-stride and she stumbled into him. Thunderlane was forced towards a nearby bed… right as Squall was stepping out into the aisle.

Dash eased up, but Thunderlane and Squall ended up tumbling into a heap on the floor.

“Ah! Sorry!” Thunderlane quickly apologized as he got up. Dash was ready to jump at him again, but she suddenly gasped in alarm.

Squall stood up sharply, growled, turned to Thunderlane, and delivered a sucker punch right into Thunderlane’s stomach.

“GAH!!!!” Thunderlane stumbled backwards and fell over, clutching his abdomen.

“HEY!” Dash exclaimed as she suddenly found herself switching from wanting to strangle Thunderlane to protecting him. She quickly ran up and put herself between Squall and Thunderlane as Squall advanced. “What the hell is your—WHOA!” Dash ducked as Squall threw a punch at her, it sailed right over her head, but it nearly whistled as it went by. He just tried to punch her really hard in the face! Dash blinked and looked directly at Squall. His eyes were alight with anger and he was grinding his teeth together so hard Dash was surprised they weren’t chipping.

Where did this come from? Little Star had been annoying the hell out of him and he barely retaliated against her… Thunderlane runs into him by accident and he loses his mind?! Dash yelped as Squall pulled back for another strike.

Dash’s instincts kicked in. She focused, anchored her back hooves to the ground, and put up a guard. She shifted and batted Squall’s punch away, throwing his momentum off. He grunted and stumbled to the side before regaining his hooves and glaring again. Dash shuffled to face him and put her guard back up. Squall tried again, this time Dash crossed her hooves and took the block head on. Her hooves skidded slightly, bumping into Thunderlane. She flinched and stumbled, Squall throwing a punch down towards her as she fell. Dash grunted and found solid ground with her back hooves, straightening her back for leverage as she blocked the incoming punch. She subtly compressed her body little by little to slow down and ultimately soften the blow before throwing it off.

“STOP!!!” Storm yelled as he made a move to approach and push them apart, but he was forced to a stop as a talon gripped his shoulder. Storm looked back and up at Matteo in confusion. “Matteo? What are you doing?!” he asked in disbelief. Matteo said nothing in response. He just pointed away from them. Storm followed Matteo’s gesture to see Silver.

Silver Lining was still standing outside his door with the old cassette player in hoof… but he was watching Dash and Squall fight. It seemed absurd that he wasn’t trying to stop it after the whole ‘don’t fight outside the battle dome’ thing, but after looking closer, Storm thought he saw… interest in Silver’s eyes?

Dash and Squall continued to tangle in the middle of the barracks with nopony trying to stop Squall, but it was almost as if nopony needed to.

Silver kept his eyes on Dash… trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

It was sloppy…

It was unrefined…

But Dash was blocking and deflecting Squall’s attacks… with the EXACT SAME techniques Silver had just used to fend off Soarin. Her motions, the way she shifted her body subtly to cushion a blow or throw Squall off. Silver had just done all of this… and Dash was copying him… almost move for move. Silver eventually found his mouth slightly ajar.

He had seen ponies who could copy abilities in the past… but nothing as advanced as his defensive tactics… it had taken him years to figure out how some of the moves worked, and here Dash was, doing it on the fly after seeing it less than an hour ago. It wasn’t prefect… but she was making it work regardless.

“Hup!” Dash grunted as she dodged right, turned, and grabbed Squall’s arm as his hoof passed by from behind her. She clamped down, and used his momentum to lift him up and throw him over her back. Squall cried out as he flew helplessly across the room.

His trajectory sent him right towards the wall where the group of three silly ponies Dash saw often were huddled together. The dark blue mare and the black stallion with glasses both yelped and jumped aside, but the light blue mare with the poofy green mane was crouched down, covering her ears.

“Huh?” she looked up and saw Squall flying at her. The black stallion reached back and yanked her out of the way with a yelp as Squall crashed against the wall upside down and fell to the floor.

Dash turned and reset her guard, standing ready for Squall to charge again.

“Squall!” she yelled as he growled at her. “SQUALL, STOP IT!” She yelled again, but he charged at her.

Right before he could throw another punch, Silver stepped up and got between Squall and Dash. Squall still threw the punch. Silver swiped his arm and hoof around, snatching Squall’s arm right out of the air and yanking him so hard towards the ground that Squall’s whole body flipped and crashed to the floor. Silver quickly twisted his arm around and pressed it to Squall’s body so he was in such an awkward position he couldn’t move without pain searing through his arm.

“Enough,” Silver said simply as Squall glared up at him from the corner of his eye. Dash exhaled and relaxed her body.

“Euuurrgghhh,” Thunderlane groaned behind her. Dash perked up and quickly turned to him, reaching down to help him stagger to his hooves.

“You okay?” Dash asked as Thunderlane coughed and shook his head out.

“The hell… was that… for?” Thunderlane sputtered as he tried to catch his breath. Squall had completely knocked the wind out of him. “Thanks…” he said to Dash as she helped him up. She pouted and jabbed him in the shoulder.

“I’m still gonna kill you later,” she hissed, making his eyes widen slightly and back away.

“SKITTLES!” Silver’s voice made Dash turn back around so fast she nearly tossed Thunderlane back to the floor.

“SIR!” she stood attention.

“Over here! Now!” he pointed to the floor beside Squall. Squall was back up and standing still. Dash had heard a few words exchanged between the two while she was tending to Thunderlane, but she didn’t pick out any specifics. Apparently, it calmed Squall down, because he was standing completely still and no longer glaring or growling.

“Yes sir!” Dash quickly moved and stood beside the suddenly docile Squall. Silver shook his head and grumbled.

“I thought I made it perfectly clear… about fighting outside the battle dome,” he said as he paced back and forth. Dash’s ears flopped down in realization. She… did just violate that rule, technically. “Sometimes I wonder if a single rule I put down gets through any of your thick skulls…” Silver’s voice however, was strangely calm. “Storm!” Silver suddenly turned to Storm Front. Storm flinched, stood attention and saluted.

“Yes sir?” he quickly replied.

“At ease son, come over here,” he quickly ordered. Storm blinked and relaxed before trotting over. Silver turned back to Squall and Dash. “Don’t do it again. Fifty push-wing-ups!” he turned to Storm. “Make sure they do them all,” Silver turned to look away from Dash and Squall. Dash noticed… throughout the last few seconds, Silver had kept randomly turning away from them.

“S-sir?” Storm was confused.

“You’re an elite Wonderbolt, kid. I gotta do something, make sure they do them all!” he repeated and started walking toward his room before Storm could reply.

“Uh…” Storm glanced at Squall and Dash. Both of them were still standing up. As weird as it felt, Storm swallowed and took a deep breath, remembering he was an elite Wonderbolt. It just felt strange giving out orders to ponies he was up until very recently on the same level as. “Fifty push-wing-ups! Um… get to it!” he tried to sound strict, but it would need some work.

Dash was also caught off guard. Storm, while she considered him a friend, was a superior officer. It felt weird doing so, but she quickly replied.

“Sir, yes sir!” she replied and got down. Squall only scoffed as he got down.

“Begin!” Storm yelled with a little too much gusto, cringing to himself as he felt it was a bit much.

Dash and Squall began doing the push-wing-ups. Dash groaned internally. Fifty of them? She was going to be dead at the end of it. She was surprised however, that the punishment was that light. After the hell Silver had given Squall and Matteo about fighting outside the battle dome, it felt like they got off really easy.

Out of curiosity Dash glanced to her left as she finished her tenth wing-push-up. Squall was glaring directly at her. She lifted an eyebrow as his eyes met hers. He no longer looked like a feral beast swinging his hooves wildly, his anger looked calm. Dammit, he was really getting on her nerves because she seriously couldn’t figure him out. What the hell was with the outburst of anger against Thunderlane? It seemed so uncontrolled and random.

She rolled her eyes and looked away as he kept glaring at her. Whatever it was with Squall, it wasn’t something simple. She just couldn’t see any reason behind the way he acted, at least not on the surface. What the hell was up with him?

Storm watched awkwardly as Dash and Squall carried out their punishment. It didn’t feel right giving orders to them, but he technically could now, and Silver requested it. Storm turned and glanced towards Silver’s room. Silver was still by the door and looking towards them. As soon as Storm turned, Silver looked away and acted like he was in the process of opening his door.

Storm swore… he swore to Celestia… that he saw a smile on Silver’s face before he disappeared through the door.

Silver was smiling.

And as soon as Silver was safe within his private room, he smiled wide and chuckled to himself.

“God damn…” he couldn’t stop laughing as he thought about what he just saw. “That mare… just… ha ha, what have I found?” he continued to smile as he trotted into his room.

“Why fight? Why try to contain it? You’re fighting a losing battle!”

Huh?

“I will not fail… and I will not fall…”

What…?

Soarin was hearing voices.

“There is nothing you can do to stop me… You will destroy him if you unleash your power… and I know you won’t take that risk… You’ve already fallen… and already failed. It’s only a matter of time.”

It was not a voice Soarin recognized, nor did it seem like a voice that could be recognized. It was constantly changing pitch, warped and just audible enough to understand the speech.

“You’re a fool… you are greatly underestimating me… and him! I swear as long as my strength remains… you will not succeed!”

Both voices while different pitches, were so warped and distorted that it was almost impossible to deduce which one was speaking.

“YOU WILL FAIL!”

“I WILL NOT!”

“I will NOT stand for this Princess!” Spitfire’s voice stirred Soarin. He groaned quietly as his eyes cracked open and the light of the room shined brightly into his pupils. “I’m done with all the mysteries! Soarin is a valued member of the Wonderbolts and my best friend. I’m tired of seeing his mind and body be kicked around by something caused by your sister that was supposed to save him, not torture him slowly!”

Soarin’s eyes adjusted. He was in Spitfire’s office, lying on the couch.

Was he dreaming just now? He had to be. It was weird. Voices in his head? It was the first weird dream he had had in a while, remembering some of the dreams he had when he first received the dark magic. He wondered if now that there was more magic bombarding him if it had its own dreams to give him. Again, too much and too complicated to think about with how much his head hurt.

He turned his head slightly to see Spitfire in the air and nearly pressing her face against Luna’s. Luna’s expression remained calm as Spitfire finished her rant.

“You can’t expect me to believe a sublime entity such as yourself has no answers for me!” Spitfire snarled. Luna huffed and glared slightly back into Spitfire’s eyes. Her magic shone from her horn and an aura surrounded Spitfire, pushing her away.

“We wish we could give you answers, we truly do,” she sighed and shook her head. “But we assure you, that this is far from a natural phenomenon we are experiencing… we are left in the dark just as much as you are.”

“What about Discord?” Spitfire suddenly asked. Luna blinked and lifted an eyebrow.

“What… ABOUT Discord?” she tipped her head to the side.

“Oh, come off it princess,” Spitfire swiped a hoof across her body. “All of you gods are in cahoots, I know you are. He knows something, but refuses to tell!”

“And…” Luna flattened her ears, “dost thou honestly expect he has told us?” she remarked as she flattened her brow to match her ears. Spitfire groaned in dissatisfaction.

“No shit, he hasn’t told you! But don’t you have even the slightest desire to possibly… I dunno, PRESS him about it!? Get him to talk?” Spitfire pounded her hooves together. Luna suddenly guffawed, releasing two loud, sarcastic laughs before leaning forward towards Spitfire.

“By all means thou art WELCOME to try! If thou can withstand his mischief,” Luna shook her head. “Thou would have a better chance at defeating a dragon with a sponge!” Luna clearly found it amusing because she kept releasing chuckles at random increments, suggesting she was trying to hold them back, but Spitfire’s suggestion was apparently just that farfetched.

Soarin’s head was starting to hurt even more from all the noise from their argument, so he decided to make himself heard.

“Could you two… argue any louder?” Soarin said weakly. The bickering instantly ceased as both Spitfire and Luna turned sharply towards Soarin. “Guy can’t even get some sleep around here…” he whined as he slowly shifted and tried to sit up despite how depleted his body felt.

“Soarin, wait…” Spitfire quickly landed and trotted up to him. “Don’t overexert yourself,” she said with concern as she reached for him. She stopped as he brought up a hoof and stopped her.

“I can at least SIT UP, Spitfire… I’m a little brain scrambled, not broken…” Soarin put clearly. Spitfire blinked and scoffed.

“At least I know the real Soarin is back,” she shook her head with a smirk.

Soarin grunted as he propped himself up and shifted so his legs hung off the side of the sofa. He gripped the cushions and winced as his throbbing headache pressed his head in a vice.

“How dost thou feel?” Luna asked with an expression on her face that suggested the answer would be obvious.

“Terrible…” Soarin sighed as he held a hoof to his head. It felt like there was a rave party in his head and an endless brawl had broken out on the dance floor. He grunted uncomfortably as he gently rubbed his hoof against his forehead, the metal band of the false horn hindering how much area he could cover.

“Well…” Spitfire spoke up with a sigh. “So much for being ready for our show… we might have to rethink that now…” she thought out loud. Soarin was poised to react and show his disapproval, but two voices sounded from outside the office. As they grew closer, they became incredibly loud, though muffled enough for them to be inaudible. Luna stared towards the door in confusion, but Spitfire rolled her eyes. “3… 2… 1…” Spitfire counted down.

The door to the office suddenly forced open, slamming against the opposite wall as Air Mach came careening in, while tumbling through the air. He bounced along the floor before skidding along the ground on his face until sliding to a stop at Luna’s hooves, the rest of his body flopped down and he lay flat.

Less than a second later he looked up at Luna, his extravagant sunglasses somehow completely unscathed from the face drag, and gave her a salute from the floor.

“M’lady!” he said cheerfully as Fleetfoot stomped into the room with an amused Fancy Pants behind her.

“If you EVER… spank my plot again, I will FORCE FEED you your stupid sunglasses through your nose!” Fleetfoot fumed towards Air Mach, her face nearly bright red with anger.

“Quite a lively fellow, isn’t he?” Fancy chuckled as he stepped around Fleetfoot.

“Don't get me started…” Fleetfoot growled. Spitfire stepped into Air Mach’s view and he was instantly up standing at attention.

“Mission accomplished Captain! We have brought Fancy Pants in a display of extra awesome and serious—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks, you’re dismissed,” Spitfire cut him off quickly.

“YES MA’AM!” he turned and started towards the door without question. He passed beside Fleetfoot’s right side. He stopped and raised a hoof. Fleetfoot locked her eyes on him, ready to throw him again if he was seriously dumb enough to touch her. “You’re on your own little dude!” He lightly poked a spot on Fleetfoot’s wing.

A small ‘MEEP!’ squeaked out as Air Mach’s hoof pressed down on the spot on her wing. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened and she quickly looked towards Spitfire as Air Mach left, whistling.

Spitfire shot her an annoyed glare.

“Fleet…” she said with a disapproving tone.

“What?” Fleetfoot looked back and forth while trying to play it off.

“Drop him,” Spitfire ordered.

Fleetfoot sighed heavily and opened her right wing. Rivet dropped out of it and lightly plopped on the floor.

“We were going the same direction! I just wanted to carry him!” Fleetfoot whined but stopped when Spitfire’s glare narrowed further. “Okay, fine…” Fleetfoot pouted. Spitfire turned away to watch Fancy as he approached Soarin. Rivet took one step away from Fleetfoot, but she quickly reached her wing down and held him in place.

“Let’s see here…” Fancy adjusted his monocle as he looked Soarin over. “From what I’ve been told… there seems to be a separate source of magic within you… I’m curious, can you show me?” he asked. Soarin looked at Fancy with disbelief.

“Show you? I can barely blink without my brain punching me in the face!” Soarin complained as he winced in discomfort again. Fancy shook his head.

“I can understand your frustration in the matter, but you must cooperate with me, Sir Soarin,” Fancy stated very professionally. Soarin looked at Fancy very carefully before giving in and looking straight down.

“Alright… I’ll try…” Soarin said as he took a deep breath and began to concentrate. It was hard with the splitting headache throbbing down his head and sparking his nerves, but he tried regardless. Recalling the magic sensations was difficult. Anything beyond basic thinking and brain function seemed to make Soarin’s head retaliate, but he kept trying.

Fancy blinked as small flickering lights began to pop and crackle from the horn. He watched carefully as Soarin’s magic came to life. Two colors emerged from the horn: blue and yellow. Fancy narrowed his eyes, focusing as he watched the yellow and blue lights dance around, collide, and in a way seem to fight each other.

“Ah...” Soarin grunted quietly. The magic spurts faded and he panted, sweating while catching his breath.

“Hmm…” Fancy furrowed his brow as he carefully looked at Soarin. Luna and Spitfire looked at each other and then back to Fancy Pants as he contemplated the reasoning behind what he just witnessed. “Hmmmmmm…” he hummed with a hint of frustration.

Behind them all, Rivet managed to carefully push himself free of Fleetfoot’s wing. He tried to get away, but without looking, Fleetfoot reached her wing out and pushed him back towards her, smooshing his cheek against her leg.

Luna bit her lip and took a step towards Fancy.

“Dost thou… know what’s happening?” she asked shakily. It was strange for all of them to hear. Luna was a goddess. The Lunar half of the sublime sisters… and she had no clue what was going on with Soarin. It was shameful for her to admit, but there was truly nothing she could offer to these ponies who often looked to entities like her for guidance. Here she was, relying on the incredible expertise of a mortal unicorn where she could offer no answers.

Fancy turned to Luna with a confused expression. Luna and Spitfire both knew his answer before he even said it.

“I’m going to be completely honest with both of you…” he began while shaking his head. “I’ve… never seen anything like this before.

The collective mood in the room sank. Spitfire found herself more frustrated, Luna felt more ashamed, Fancy Pants was mostly stumped… and Fleetfoot was still paying more attention to Rivet than what was going on. In fact, she had scooped up the little stallion in her wings and now held him down on her back. He struggled to get free, but she had a firm hold on him.

“Sir Soarin, Miss Spitfire, Miss Fleetfoot…” Fancy suddenly spoke up again. “I don’t know what I’m observing here… but I want the details… When and where this started occurring… and what happened when it did.”

Spitfire and Fleetfoot glanced at each other, both blinked, and both glanced back and forth in embarrassment with a slight change of color in their faces. Fancy looked at them curiously before turning to Soarin. He too was diverting his eyes.

“He was…” Spitfire spoke up, but paused.

“Kind of a douche,” Fleetfoot cut in. Spitfire turned and glared at her. “What?! He was!”

“Gee, thanks Fleet…” Soarin rolled his eyes. Spitfire batted a hoof upside Fleetfoot’s head before continuing.

“He was very forward, very confident, a little indecent, and kind of…” Spitfire stopped herself. Fancy listened carefully, waiting for her to continue. Spitfire glanced at Soarin again and quickly brought her back legs closer together.

“Kind of what?” Fancy pressed, but Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“Forward, confident, and indecent!” Spitfire quickly repeated the first three, Fleetfoot nodding behind her while scrunching her mouth and looking everywhere in the room besides towards Soarin.

“Interesting…” Fancy rubbed his chin, still not quite sure what he was dealing with.

“It was bad…” Soarin suddenly spoke up, all the attention turning to him. “I knew from the start something was off… but I didn’t fight it. It was different from the dark magic. It didn’t cause me pain, it felt good… too good. I was aware of everything I was doing and I didn’t give a damn…” Soarin’s voice was composed, but little cracks of shame were noticeable. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor throughout.

“Euphoric sensations?” Fancy’s eyes lit up. Luna instantly looked towards Fancy in hopes of an answer. Soarin nodded.

“I guess that’s a way to describe it. I had never felt better in my life… and after how shitty I’ve been feeling lately, you could imagine how incredible it felt,” Soarin explained as he recalled all his actions while the yellow magic was running free.

“Would you say…?” Fancy began walking in a wide circle around the room. “That you were being possessed or that you were in control?”

The question took them all by surprise, especially Spitfire and Fleetfoot. Of course Soarin was possessed! He wasn’t acting like himself!

“I was in control,” Soarin quickly answered. All eyes flew back to him. Spitfire and Fleetfoot were sure they heard him wrong… but they had not. “The magic made me feel good. So good, that I didn’t give a damn. I did… tasteless things. I almost did something horrible to Rainbow Dash… I didn’t try to fight it…” Soarin admitted. Fancy stepped up and placed a hoof on Soarin’s shoulder.

“Nor would I if I were to experience my own personal magic for the first time at your age!” Fancy chuckled.

“Huh?” Soarin looked up at him. Spitfire and Fleetfoot were confused as well, but Luna gasped.

“Sir Pants… are you suggesting…!?” she hesitated as if Luna, the goddess of the moon herself was in a state of pure disbelief. Fancy pulled back from Soarin and shook his head.

“I cannot be certain. This is only a theory, but… when a unicorn first discovers their magic as a colt or filly, the first couple days of use can be... interesting for them. The sensation of a magical force flowing through their bodies is almost overwhelming at first and they become a bit wild. As a child… this constitutes a lot of running around, hooting and hollering, and quite a bit of a handful for parents. It’s like having a child that never sleeps and is always doing something mischievous or silly,” Fancy pointed at them. “Now… imagine those sensations in a full grown pony. Euphoria and energy unlike any other… Mixed with the simplest urges… can be quite a disaster towards one’s moral code.”

“But I’m not a unicorn…” Soarin stated obviously while extending one of his wings. Fancy winked and pointed to the false horn.

“Do you recall when we mentioned what the original purpose of the Strap-on was? It was meant to—”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFHAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHHAAHAAAAA!!!!” Fleetfoot suddenly burst out laughing behind Fancy. Soarin flattened his ears and cringed as Fancy’s expression went blank. Soarin glanced around Fancy to see Fleetfoot down on the ground on her stomach, pounding a hoof against the floor and flapping her wings. Rivet clung to her back as if afraid he’d be flung off of her by the way she was shaking. Spitfire’s ears were flopped down and a bright red shade ran across her nose.

“The… what?” Spitfire asked, hoping she misheard it.

“They didn’t know?” Fancy blinked as he looked back to Soarin.

“Would you have told them?” Soarin grunted in dissatisfaction as Luna suddenly stomped her hoof hard, getting all their attention back.

“Yes, yes, our ancestors were unaware of future innuendos… please continue Sir Fancy, we wish to know!” there was a sense of urgency mixed with annoyance in Luna’s voice… and it wasn’t wise to make Luna angry. Fancy cleared his throat and continued.

“The purpose of the… false horn artifact throughout history has been to provide a medium of casting for pegasi and earth ponies who had signs of magic within them,” Fancy smiled. “I could be wrong… but it may be possible that this yellow magic could be a reserve of magic that was already within Soarin!” Fancy sounded excited at the idea.

“Me?” Soarin pointed at himself. “Magic? That seems highly unlikely,”

“That’s because it’s rare, my boy!” Fancy winked at him. “There have been very few cases like this throughout history, but it’s not impossible,” Fancy turned to Luna, who was still somewhat wide-eyed at the possibility.

“Indeed!” she chimed in. “If that is indeed the case… he’d be the first in three millennia!”

“Hohohooooo!!!” a new voice suddenly sounded throughout the whole room. “Now wouldn’t that be something?”

The surprise was incredibly brief, save for one tiny stallion stuck between Fleetfoot’s wings who was frozen solid. The rest all sighed and rolled their eyes almost perfectly in sync. Luna huffed as she glanced around the room. Her eyes landed on the top of Spitfire’s bookshelf beside on the wall to the right of her desk. There was a wide toothy smile floating in the air above it. Fancy noticed it as well.

“I’m actually beginning to think you stalk me…” Fancy sighed as he lifted an eyebrow at the smile.

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself…” Discord slowly appeared, reclining on the top shelf, smiling wide. “It’s not my fault Lulu relies on you for something that greatly concerns me as well,” he slithered down the shelf and stood up, pacing slowly towards Soarin.

“Discord…” Luna growled. Discord blinked and looked towards her while smiling. She shuffled his feet so he slowly slid along the floor over to her side.

“Oh, Lulu, why the anger? You have my word that I will… mostly behave myself. That also depends on if anyone gives me a hard time…” he leaned his head down in front of hers. “Including you,” he bounced his eyebrows. “So!” He turned away from Luna as she internally fumed. “We seem to be having yet another problem with our dear, beloved Soarin…” he reached over and pinched one of Soarin’s cheeks. Soarin’s head hurt too much to retaliate. “I should have known you wouldn’t invite me… I thought you’d all be smarter than that, especially after how out of control he was during your little battle games this evening.”

“You were watching?” Spitfire asked as she stepped forward. Discord gave a nod without looking at her.

“From afar, yes… I’ve been keeping a loose eye on things, it’s been giving me SOMETHING to do at least,” he turned to Fancy. “Now… that’s an interesting theory you have there my Fancy Pantsless friend… but it’s extremely unlikely. I hate to say it, but I too am at a loss at what it could be…”

“Wow!” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up. “Grand entrance! Knows nothing! Can you actually be helpful for once?!” Fleetfoot’s sudden outburst surprised even Spitfire. Fleetfoot had a good memory of trying to get straight answers out of Discord. She hadn’t forgotten when he ‘helped’ her figure out how to save Soarin and Dash from the Shadowbolts with a RIDDLE.

Discord narrowed his eyes towards her. He blinked when he noticed Rivet still struggling to get free, but with little success. Discord smirked and snapped his fingers. There was a bright flash of magic behind Fleetfoot. Rivet suddenly grew to five times his size. Fleetfoot yelped as she instantly felt an incredible amount of weight on her back and she fell flat to the floor with the super Rivet on her back. Fleetfoot flailed her arms about, grunting and yelping beneath him as Rivet remained completely still and wide eyed without a clue of what was going on.

Art by: mlplover789

“Discord!” Luna yelled in frustration.

Discord ignored Luna and took his time bringing his arm back up and snapping his fingers again. With another flash, Rivet was shrunk back down to his normal size in midair. He fell towards the floor and landed softly on Fleetfoot’s back with a quiet ‘meep!’

Before anything else could happen, Discord surrounded Rivet with an aura of chaos magic, lifted him up and slowly floated him towards the door.

“Really now, Fleetfoot…” Discord began as he let Rivet out of the room. “It’s so cruel to mess with another against their will like that!” Discord said with a very fake tone of disappointment. Fleetfoot scrambled to her hooves and pointed at him angrily.

“SAYS YOU!” Fleetfoot yelled, but gasped and flinched. Her voice was about two octaves lower. She glanced around the room in confusion. Soarin, Fancy, and Luna were all looking at her in confusion. She glanced at Spitfire… and she was blushing while looking her up and down. Fleetfoot quickly reached up to her face and felt around. It was angular.

Discord suddenly held a mirror down to her face… er… his face?

She was a stallion.

Art by: mlplover789

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—” as she freaked out, Discord snapped his fingers and Fleetfoot’s voice was suddenly high pitched again. “—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh…” her scream died down as she blinked and felt around herself. She was a mare again.

“Don’t tempt me to mess with you and I WON’T,” Discord clarified while snickering.

“Stop stalling!” Spitfire floated up into his face. “I’m tired of you being so vague about everything! YOU CLEARLY KNOW SOMETHING WE DON’T! SPILL IT!” she yelled despite how well that had just gone for Fleetfoot. Discord just smiled smugly at her. She lifted an eyebrow, wondering why he was remaining silent. Then her eyes went wide. “DON’T. YOU. DARE.”

“Oh, now I have to!” Discord smiled wide. Spitfire watched in horror as he snapped his fingers.

“AH!” Spitfire clutched her stomach and blushed so hard her face made a full color change. “AAAAYYYEEEE YAI YAI YAI!!!!!!” she wailed as she fell to the ground and began rolling around.

“DISCORD!!!!!!!!!!” Luna yelled in the Royal Canterlot Voice so loudly that Discord’s beard got blown and stuck flat out to the side of his face.

“What, I can’t retaliate? They’re not being very welcoming…” Discord snapped again and Spitfire stopped writhing on the ground.

Soarin saw both ridiculous things happen, but he was too mentally tired to give much of a damn. He gave a brief glance up as Discord and Fancy approached him again, but looked back down, only finding the strength to listen.

“So…” Fancy began professionally despite talking to Discord. “You say this might be something else besides his own magical reserves? What do you think it could be?” He asked. Discord shook his head.

“While there is the possibility that this could be magic that was dormant within Soarin, I’m almost more than certain that is not the case,” Discord reached forward and poked the metal headband of the horn, making Soarin grunt uncomfortably. “You see, Celestia pushed a very unstable magic into Soarin. The Mad King Sombra himself was unable to keep control over it, so you can imagine the pressure,” Discord growled as he curled the end of his beard with a finger. “If I had it my way, I would cascade myself into pure chaos magic and go into his mind through the horn myself. I’d like to get a look at what’s actually going on in there and confirm that Celestia had lost her mind… but I run the risk of putting enough pressure on Soarin’s brain to turn him into a vegetable. I’m sure none of you want that,” Discord blinked as Luna walked up beside him.

“We would also not permit that. Tampering with a pony’s life is forbidden…” she tried to make herself heard. Discord turned sharply to her and held both of his hands out towards Soarin.

“We already HAVE, Lulu!” he scoffed at her. “He wouldn’t even be alive if your sister hadn’t!”

“We only wish to stop while we’re ahead!” Luna stated. “Why do more when we’ve clearly already made grave mistakes!?” She stopped as Discord held a finger to her lips.

“Because sometimes you have to bend the rules to fix the bent rules,” Discord said as he turned back to Soarin and continued to twirl his beard with a finger. He stared long and hard at Soarin, awfully perplexed for a god that seemed to always be one step ahead of the rest.

“You truly are stumped, aren’t you?” Fancy chuckled. Discord stopped twirling his beard and slowly looked at Fancy.

“Does it amuse you?” he asked with a slight hint of anger. Fancy shook his head.

“Oh no… not at all, it only makes it all the more fascinating. It’s a shame it had to come at Soarin’s expense, but trying to figure this all out has been quite an experience,” he explained. Discord kept a wary eye on Fancy for a moment before turning back towards Soarin.

“I’m not… completely stumped. I know the nature of the dark magic. I simply don’t know what to do about it thanks to Celestia. This NEW yellow magic however, is a complete mystery to me. I witnessed it emerge initially and it completely fought off the dark magic, but at the same time it cause Soarin to be reckless and wild… such things that could easily release the bonds on the dark magic with one wrong move,” Discord put his hands on his hips as if contemplating further.

“So what do you suggest we do? I’m not sure where to turn,” Fancy admitted. Discord growled and shook his head.

“Forget it! I’m just going to draw a line down Soarin’s brain and keep them apart…”

“Huh?!” Soarin finally perked up and leaned back on the couch. That suggestion sounded… quite painful.

“Discord, what did we JUST SAY?!” she stepped forward to protest, but stopped dead in her tracks.

Discord had turned his head to her and was glaring sternly. No tricks, no pranks, no clothespins on the horn or lips. Discord was looking her directly in the eyes.

“Lulu, I’ve just about had it up to HERE with you on this manner!” Discord suddenly yelled at her. Luna’s eyes widened and she took a step back as Discord turned and started pacing towards her. “By the book, by the book, by the book. You really need to change the record!” he held his arm out towards Soarin. “Look at what we have here! We have a pony that your sister deemed fit to bend the very rules she wrote to save… he’s in pain and under risk of losing control of the power SHE put into him!” he brought his arm back around as Luna found herself back up against the wall with Discord in front of her, pressing a finger down atop her nose. “We tried following the rules, we tried doing it your way, and guess what? It ain’t working sister!”

“We…! We need to give him more time! We cannot expect—” Luna tried to defend herself as Fancy and the Wonderbolts stayed far away from intervening. Discord cut her off.

“Time? His magic has nearly run free twice and you want to give him more TIME!? For what?! So it can happen a third time?!” Discord’s face was pressed against Luna’s. “This magic has put me through a wall and held me down against one as well! I was powerless to stop it the second time! It’s growing stronger. Strong enough to overpower a god! I’ll be damned to the depths of Tartarus before I allow that to happen!” he bared his teeth. “If you’re so damn adamant about following the rules and laws of the universe set forth… how about hubris?” he pointed at Soarin. “King Sombra wished to become a god… and his power grew to the point where it took a great amount of effort from the gods to seal him away! Your beloved sister has gone and used the same magic, effectively putting it in Soarin! If we don’t use our powers as gods to contain it, the hubris of Sombra will surely happen again, this time with a power possessed Soarin… I don’t know about YOU Lulu… but that seems like a pretty good reason for us to intervene…”

Luna looked like she wanted to speak out and tell him off, but she couldn’t. Discord was right. Her proposed method had more or less failed.

“Now you sit there…” Discord’s magic came to life in his hand and Luna’s plot was suddenly forced to the floor. “And think about what you’ve done,” he said as he turned and walked back over to Soarin.

Soarin watched as Discord approached, a little nervous about the whole ‘drawing a line in his brain’ thing.

“Oh, relax…” Discord scoffed as he stopped in front of Soarin.

“Easy for you to say…” Soarin grumbled back. “Especially after that little argument you just had with Luna… you seriously think I can relax right now?” he weakly threw his hooves out. “If I had the strength to, I’d be flipping shit right now!” Soarin complained while falling back against the couch. Discord shook his head.

“Believe me Soarin… I’m as fed up with this crap as you are. We don’t know what’s going on with the two separate magics in your body, but from what we can see, having them constantly clash is going to do you no good… and may be bad for everypony if left uncheck…” he held up a finger in front of his face. “So I’m going to forcefully separate them while they are still calm. If you hold still and stay relaxed, you won’t feel a thing,” he explained as a purple aura surrounded his finger.

Soarin gulped as Discord slowly reached it towards the tip of the false horn. Soarin took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He felt the light pressure as Discord applied his finger. He waited for something to hurt like hell because Discord hadn’t really told the truth about pain the last time he worked magic on him.

“Done,” Discord suddenly said. Soarin’s eyes widened and he blinked.

“What?”

“You heard me…” Discord held his finger up towards his mouth and blew on it, making the chaos magic disappear.

“That was…” Soarin stopped mid-sentence. He looked up and around at everypony else. He moved his arms about and then stood up. The dizziness was gone. Completely gone.

“How do you feel now?” Discord asked as the rest watched Soarin with curiosity. Soarin took a few steps before walking in a slow circle around the room.

“Um… I feel, normal…” he said with confusion. No headaches, no insane urges. He felt just like he did before everything began. It had been a long time.

“What did you do?” Fancy asked as Soarin continued to move about with curiosity. Discord held his finger up again.

“My chaos magic has the ability to cancel normal magic. It can’t destroy it, but it can make it dissipate or repel it. I simply stuck a thin sliver of a wall in the center of Soarin’s mind. The dark magic on one side, the euphoric magic on the other. There was no balance between the two, so I created an artificial balance,” he explained.

“That’s… brilliant,” Fancy complimented. Soarin blinked and turned back to Discord.

“This is… strange, but I feel perfectly fine… I guess I should say thanks?” Soarin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

“You bet your ass you should…” Discord scoffed. “All of you were going on about how annoying I am and how all I like to do is mess with other ponies… tables have turned now that I’ve helped, eh?” he glanced over at Spitfire and Fleetfoot. Both of them had their ears flattened and they were glaring harshly. “See!?” Discord pointed at them. “I can feel the love already!” he fluttered his eyelashes.

“I’m curious…” Fancy spoke up again. “What does this mean for his control over the magic?”

“That is a very intelligent question,” Discord nodded. “It would be wise to continue the lessons, especially now. Soarin must learn control over both types of magic within him. The barrier I placed between them is strong… but it is impossible for me to know if it can hold them at bay forever, especially with how strong the dark magic has become. In time he will have to be able to control the powers within him. That much hasn’t changed.”

“Very well…” Fancy nodded and turned to Soarin. “You heard the god, Soarin, it looks like we’ll still be getting to know each other,” he smiled as he pulled out his pocket watch. “Oh, dear me, it’s getting late… I think it’s safe to say we’ve found a strong temporary solution, wouldn’t you say your Highness?” he asked Luna. Luna blinked before letting her head droop.

“Yes… yes… glorious occasion…” she said unenthusiastically, earning an interested look from Discord.

“Then meeting adjourned… good luck my boy!” Fancy patted Soarin on the back as he left. Soarin watched as Fancy left before turning to Fleetfoot and Spitfire. He trotted up to them and smiled.

“Hey…” he said sheepishly. They both just stared at first, but Spitfire smirked.

“After all this, that’s the first thing you say to us?” she pouted. Soarin flinched and stood still, not quite sure what to say. Spitfire chuckled. “Never change Soarin…” she said with a smirk. Soarin breathed a sigh of relief and shook his head. “You had me going there.”

Soarin looked up and watched as Luna dragged her hooves over to the door. Soarin felt like saying something to her, but after the verbal beat down Discord had given her, he was sure the good princess didn’t feel quite as high and mighty as she should.

Discord stepped in front of Soarin, held a finger to his lips and shook his head.

“I’ll handle her,” he winked as he followed her out.

Soarin turned his attention back to Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

One flip of a finger by a god and he was suddenly feeling alright… so… that meant all was well for now?

Soarin’s eyes widened slightly.

You’re not the stallion I fell in love with!!!

His ears flopped down. It was vivid. Clear and present in his mind.

I want my Soarin back!!!

The way he advanced on her…

Soarin!

He was aware of everything he was doing… but…

SOARIN!!!!!!

But he didn’t try to stop it. Had Silver not stepped in… he might have…

“Soarin?” Spitfire wave her hoof in front of his face. “Is everything okay?” she asked as she and Fleetfoot looked him over with concern. Soarin blinked and looked at both of them. He bit his lip and looked down before looking back up at them with a painful look in his eyes.

“No…” he shook his head. “It’s not…” he walked between them towards the door. “I need to go take care of something…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Once again i want to apologize for the extra wait time. This really should have been out on friday but i slacked pretty hard this week. Hopefully i can pick my schedule back up.

So quite a developement here! It seems like the gods are disagreeing on how to make a mistake one of their own kind made! (or was it a mistake?) Either way, this problem has reached a concern on the sublime level... Discord is chewing out Luna for crying out loud! This is much more serious than any of them could imagine... it would seem though that they've found a solution for the time being.

Silver is more impressed with Dash than he is willing to show! He's so excited to have her he can't help but smile!

It looks like Soarin and Dash being revealed as a couple... ended up being less painful than Dash thought it would be... could it be all along she was just REALLY overthinking it? They all seemed more interested in it!

And what does Soarin have to take care of?

...

i dunno bout y'all... but do you feel... fluffy?

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! ^_^

Chapter 50: I Couldn't Stop It...

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 50:

“Lulu!” Discord called after Luna as she sulkily walked towards the stairs leading to the lobby. She growled and ignored Discord as she trudged down the stairs. “Oh, come now Lulu… why the long face?” Discord appeared in front of her with his face stretched out to the point where it was three times longer than usual.

“Leave us be…” she requested quietly as she touched the floor of the lobby. Discord scoffed and slithered down the railing after her.

“Since when has me doing nothing gotten any of us anywhere?” Discord said snidely. Luna stopped in her tracks as Discord paused. “Since this whole ordeal began,” he answered for her. Luna sighed and shook her head as she started making her way across the lobby.

“Fine… do whatever, we are clearly not cut out for all this…” as she spoke Discord narrowed his eyes. He gritted his teeth and hurried after her. “If our sister was here… she would have this all solved in an instant, I’m nothing compared to—”

“Lulu, look at me,” Discord suddenly said. Luna turned her head towards Discord.

WHAP

Discord struck her across the face with the back of his hand. Her neck arched in the opposite direction. She froze in place for a moment, stiff and wide eyed. Her bottom lip quivered for a moment before she released a low growl, her eyes narrowed in rage and she whipped her head back around with her horn alight with magic.

Discord stood still before her, arms crossed, and glaring down at her.

“Y-you!!!” Luna yelled. Something was off. She was raising her voice, but the force of the Royal Canterlot Voice was absent. The magic coursed violently through her horn as it was aimed right at Discord’s face, but he didn’t budge. Luna roared at him and fired her powerful alicorn magic at point blank. Discord turned and opened one of his palms. The magic crashed against it, but the power was contained within it. As the beam jettisoned and Luna stepped back from the recoil, Discord closed his palm over the collected magic. A loud POW sounded out as the magic exploded within Discord’s palm, but it barely shot out between his fingers.

Luna looked up in fear as Discord took a step towards her and winced as he reached towards her, but all he did was lightly press a finger against the top of her snout.

“Lulu… YOU. ARE. NOT. CELESTIA!” he emphasized each word. “You know you aren’t her… I know you aren’t her… EVERYPONY knows you aren’t her…” he berated her. Luna blinked and quickly looked down. Discord traced his finger around her muzzle until it was beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him. “You will never be Celestia, you will never have the wit of Celestia, and you will never have the prowess of Celestia…” his words struck her hard. She wanted to pull away, but her legs were shaking. “But it doesn’t matter because you are LUNA,” Discord snapped.

“But… But…” Luna stuttered. She yelped as Discord flipped the bottom of her chin, making her head jolt upward.

“Celestia is not here, nor will she be here for a while… I wish I could sit on that throne and start giving out orders… but I cannot,” he held his arms out to his sides. “Ponies see me… they scream and run. Ponies look at Celestia… they grovel and beg for guidance. Chaos… and order. The natural balance of all things,” he pointed towards Luna. “With Celestia gone… our world as we know it is just as imbalanced as the magic within Soarin. Only you can fill her seat Luna,” he stepped towards her again and crossed his arms. “But you sit there on that throne and constantly remind us that you wish your sister could help! You wish Celestia was there! Celestia would know what to do! Celestia! Celestia! Celestia!” Discord threw his arms up and walked in a circle around her. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to accept that you sister is not the solution to this problem! And until you do… we are sunk.”

“But… we can’t… We’re not qualified,” Luna shook her head. Discord’s hand rushed forward, grabbed the edge of her chin and yanked it up so she was looking right into his eyes.

“Lulu… don’t make me consider striking you again...” Discord snarled.

“And what would that solve?!” Luna suddenly barked back as tears dripped down her face. “We were unprepared! We were not ready! How do you expect us to suddenly—” Luna stopped and yelled as Discord’s hand swiped towards her again. She shut her eyes… but nothing happened. Instead she felt a hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and she looked up at Discord as he shook his head.

“Luna… nopony expected anything from you… but they turned to you in their time of need. Celestia made a rash choice and now you are all I have to turn to,” said Discord. Luna blinked and looked tipped her head slightly in confusion. “Balance must be restored to all things… Without Celestia… Chaos and order are out of balance. I’m here, but she is not,” he explained. Luna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Discord… looking for balance?

“Then what is stopping thou from having thine way?" she asked. Discord chuckled.

“I may be the god of chaos… but what fun is chaos if there is no order to disrupt? What fun is order if there is no chaos to subdue?” he folded his arms once again. “I care about our world, Lulu… I care more than you might think or wish to believe,” he pointed at her. “And how can we contain an imbalance within a single pony… if we can’t balance out the world we live in?” he sighed and shook his head. “I need you Luna. I need you to be strong and to take up the role as a leader,” he pleaded. Luna bit her lip.

“But…” she turned away from him. “We don’t know how… we never dreamed a time like this would arrive…”

“For starters…” Discord slithered around in front of her. “Don’t let mortals get in your face and speak their mind too roughly… and if they do, punish them...” he shrugged. Luna looked at him in disbelief. "I turned a tiny pony into a heavyweight macho stallion to crush the instigator he was sitting on… and then gender bent the instigator. If they don’t fear you, make them… you have to be a symbol of strength! They won’t take you seriously until you force your presence,” he gave an example. “I could go on and on about this… but Lulu…” he looked at her seriously. “Stop comparing yourself to your sister. It’s not only getting YOU nowhere… it’s getting US nowhere. The sooner you stand tall on your hooves and influence those around you… the sooner this whole mess will end… got it?”

Luna stared at Discord, taking in everything he said.

“We…” she paused, clamped her eyes shut, and shook her head out. “Yes,” she nodded. We… apologize, but you are right. We can’t keep wishing our sister was able to help because she is not. We will do our best to—” she was cut off as a finger landed on her lips.

“Talk is cheap Lulu…” Discord winked. “Just show me… and all the others.”

“Yes…” Luna nodded, a newfound spirit welling up within her. “We… um…” she tried to say something to Discord as he turned away. He glanced back at her.

“Yeeeeessssssss?” he encouraged her.

“Thank you,” Luna bowed her head to him.

“Oh, save it…” Discord waved his hand out to his side. “I was just sick of you brooding. A good slap across the face was all you needed. Now get back there and do your job, dammit. I need your help with this,” he said comically.

“We shall,” Luna smiled behind him.

“Hm?” Discord looked towards the stairs. Soarin was slowly making his way down the steps. He stopped every couple of stair as if his mind was preoccupied, continuing shortly after. “Ah…” I have a few things to attend to,” Discord said back to Luna. He looked over to the mail counter. “Hey, you there behind the counter… it’s safe now, I’m leaving!” Discord called with a chuckle as he snapped his fingers and disappeared.

“Huh?” the orange pony behind the counter peeked over the top and glanced around.

Luna blinked and smiled.

Discord was right… she had to stop worrying about Celestia. Multiple times now, Luna had felt useless in a time of need. Perhaps she was thinking too hard. She wasn’t Celestia, but she had to think like Celestia. Her mere presence alone as one of the two high alicorn sisters was to be an icon for those looking for hope and guidance. That would be a good place to start.

Even so… Luna wondered what sort of “business” Discord had to take care of.

“Awww c’mon… gimme some details!!!” Little Star whined as Dash brushed her teeth at the sink beside her. Dash grumbled and shook her head before spitting her toothpaste out in the sink. “Why not?” Star pressed.

“Because reasons,” Dash put flatly as she rinsed her mouth out.

“Dash, honey, that’s just plain stupid,” Star commented. Dash suddenly smacked the counter in frustration. Star had been bothering her about Soarin for the past hour. She was fed up, so she spilled the reasoning.

“Look Star, Soarin is one of the best of the best in the Wonderbolts and I’m a lowly recruit. Doesn’t that make you suspect something?” Dash was sure the answer was obvious, but—

“Pff… why would it?” Star answered. Dash looked at her in confusion.

“Oh, come on!” Dash threw her hooves out. “Think about this for a second, Star! If I make it all the way and it’s known I’m in a relationship with Soarin, everypony is gonna suspect favoritism!” Dash explained. Little Star giggled and waved a hoof at Dash.

“That’s just silly Dash. I’m happy for you… maybe a little jealous, but I’m happy! I would never think about that with someone like you,” Star explained as she hopped down from her stool and began pushing it out of the bathroom. Dash followed behind.

“Sorry Star… I’m glad you understand, but I just don’t want the other recruits to know, it’s bad enough that Storm and Matteo know too. Let’s leave it there,” Dash requested. Star stopped in her tracks, stool and all. Dash took two steps past her, turned and looked at her quizzically. Star had puckered her lips and was looking away from Dash. “What…?” Dash blinked. “Oh… oh no… what? I’m not gonna like this am I?” Dash looked to Star in horror.

“I may…” Star tipped her head back and forth. “Have blurted it out in surprise when I was told. She grinned sheepishly at Dash. “I think everypony knows…”

“WHAT?!” Dash’s mouth hung ajar. You’ve got to be… uuuurrrghhhh…” Dash groaned as she struck her face with her hoof and slowly pulled it down in frustration.

“I think you’re overreacting,” Star commented as they left the bathroom and emerged in the barracks.

“What makes you say that? I was only trying to keep it completely secret,” Dash grumbled. Star scoffed.

“I mean it… look…” Star turned to her right away from Dash. Dash stopped and saw Star looking at Matteo, who was looking at his picture of Gilda. “Hey! Big guy!” she called to him. It took a second for Matteo to react, but he eventually looked up at Star.

“Yes…?” he replied. Star pointed at Dash.

“Are you skeptical of Dash dating Soarin?” she asked. Matteo shifted his eyes to Dash and looked at her for a few seconds. He turned back to Little Star and shook his head.

“For what reason?” he posed. Star turned and gave Dash a smarmy look. Dash just rolled her eyes.

“Okay Star, fine. ONE pon—griffon agrees with you. That doesn’t speak for the rest.”

“Oh yeah?” Star lifted her brow. She turned and looked towards the bunk right beside Matteo’s bed. Both ponies were present. Dash was unfamiliar with them, but Star apparently knew them. “Ten! Shadow!” she called to the bunk. A whitish grey stallion with a dark-maroon mane peered over the top bunk. On the bottom, a silver-grayish bat pony mare with a dark blue mane turned over and looked as well. Star pointed at Dash. “Do you think it’s weird that Dash is dating a lead squad Wonderbolt?” she asked them. They both looked at Dash.

“Not really…” the stallion replied.

“Why would I?” The bat mare shrugged.

Dash stood still as the answers came in. Had she… thought a little too hard about this? Star turned and hopped over into the path of three other ponies that were heading towards the bathrooms. One was a stallion with a similar color scheme to Soarin, but a different mane style, the other two were mares. One of them was pink with a long, full brown mane and one was deep purple with an even darker flowing mane.

“Ice!” Star addressed the stallion. “Spectrum!” she looked towards the purple mare. “Sketch!” she called to the pink mare. She pointed at Dash. “Are you skeptical of Dash dating Soarin? Is she getting a free ride?” she asked them. The three looked at her.

“No… she’s been kicking ass…” the stallion stated.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it…” the pink mare answered.

“I think it’s adorable!” the purple mare added.

Star turned and hovered triumphantly up to Dash.

“Still worried?” she bounced her eyebrows. Dash shrugged.

“Uh… heh…” she hadn’t really considered this scenario. The whole time she was so worried about exposing the truth about her and Soarin. Was she worrying too much the whole time? Was she making a mountain out of a molehill? It sure seemed that way. It’s not like she was underperforming. She was definitely earning her recognition by the Wonderbolts. Maybe all this time she really didn’t need to worry about it.

“Thunderlane!” Star suddenly called his name as he was making his way by. Dash perked up and blinked as he came into view. “Oh…” Star paused. “Right… hehehe…”

“YOU!” Dash stepped up and pressed her nose against Thunderlane’s. “Seriously!?”

“Whoa… uh… hold on…” Thunderlane tried to back away, but the more he tried the further Dash pushed against him. Little Star suddenly hovered forward and got between them.

“Hey, hey… Dash…” she began while blushing slightly in embarrassment. “Look Dash…” Star grinned sheepishly. “Like I said in the bathroom… I kinda…” She shrugged. “Blurted it out for everyone to hear,” she admitted. Dash just stared at her dumbly before turning back to Thunderlane. Thunderlane looked back and forth before saying anything.

“Dash you kinda… leapt out of the stands to see if Soarin was okay,” he explained. “They were all curious, I wanted to avoid them speculating, so I told them,” Thunderlane grinned awkwardly. “Uh… you should… thank me?” Thunderlane wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say, but it was too late, he said it.

Dash pulled away from him while contemplating it all. Was she over reacting? Matteo scoffed, grabbing her attention.

“Speculation? You ponies have a strange culture,” he began. “In the griffon kingdom, if one manages to attract a high end individual, it is considered to be a great honor!”

Dash smirked at Matteo’s different way of thinking, but… really had she been a little paranoid all along? They all were taking this incredibly well. What an interesting way to have a weight pulled off one’s chest… completely unintentionally.

“Hey…”

They all stopped and turned towards the new voice. They were all incredibly surprised to see the last pony they thought would approach them.

Squall.

“Um…” he reclined slightly once he saw them all staring directly at him, scowling slightly, but his face twitched like he was trying his best not to. Dash around glanced at the others. They were all looking at Squall with a mix of curiosity and their own forms of disapproval. Star was giving him a sharp look, Thunderlane looked a little afraid, and… well Matteo didn’t make much on an expression as usual. Dash looked back to Squall and realized he looked a little nervous? She took a step towards him.

“What’s up?” she said, hiding most of the animosity from her voice, but a little squeaked through. Squall flinched as Dash took her one step. His scowl remained as he averted his eyes from her just enough so that he wasn’t looking directly at her.

“S-sorry…” he said quietly. Dash blinked in surprise.

“Huh?” Dash cocked her head slightly to the right, her ears twitching as if completely confused.

“I’m sorry…” Squall said again, this time louder this time so all of them could hear. Dash looked back at the rest to see them all just as flabbergasted as her.

“Uh…” Dash picked her brain for responses, but before she could—

“GOD!” Squall whipped back around. “What’s wrong with all of you?! I was just— ARGH!” he suddenly burst out before stomping back over to his bed, flopping into it, and yanking to covers up over his head.

“What… was that?” Thunderlane asked while lifting his brow. Dash turned, looked at all of them, and shrugged. Little Star suddenly gasped.

“Did Squall…?!” she said overdramatically. “Just… apologize?!” she hopped up and hovered in midair while grabbing her neck with her hooves. She made fake choking and sputtering noises while slowly spiraling down and landing softly, back-first on Matteo’s bed while letting her legs dangle up stiffly in the air. Dash chuckled.

“Okay… that’s a little much…" Dash said to Star as she stole a brief glance over where Squall was brooding.

They were all confused, but Matteo was interested now more than before. Squall was a unique case. He seemed… fake. Like everything he did was meant as an act or to cover up something he found embarrassing. Whatever it was, Matteo was onto it, and he was more than certain Dash had picked it up as well.

Soarin stopped as soon as he was through the doors between the lobby and the main barracks hallway. His body felt little warmth or strength. His head was filled with shame and he wore a dejected expression. It wasn’t like he didn’t know why he was there, but he constantly hesitated in fear of what he was walking towards.

He couldn’t let it be. He simply couldn’t. It was great and all that he was feeling better for the time being, but as soon as he thought over what had just happened… and remembered what he almost did… lots of things came crashing down on him.

It was more than just the way he lost control of his common sense. It was really just a small part of a really big, ugly picture… and uncomfortable never ending ride that was his relationship with Rainbow Dash.

At this point Soarin had been pushed past the breaking point. His life had become a living hell, and Dash was getting dragged into it. She didn’t deserve it. She was too great a mare to be pushed around by his problems.

Soarin stopped halfway between the doors to the lobby and the recruit barracks housing Silver and Dash’s recruit class.

No.

Why did he even contemplate it for a second? Dash was too good of a mare, but after all he went through for them to be lovers he would never for a second think of letting her go. It was just… the more all this nonsense with dark inner magic and quarrels between gods continued, the more he felt those important to him were going to be hurt.

Soarin stepped in front of the door to the new recruit barracks and stared at it for a moment.

What put him over the edge exactly? What caused him to contemplate this and feel all the weight press down on his shoulders? Soarin was in control of himself with the yellow magic running rampant inside of him. But it made him forget who he was and what he stood for. It basically made him into an ass that wouldn’t take no for an answer no matter what the circumstances.

He was fully aware that Dash was resisting him, he was fully aware that Dash was trying to get free, and he was fully aware that Dash didn’t want it… but with the yellow magic making him feel so good… he didn’t care… he was that lost in the ecstasy of the power.

Had Silver not been there and put him in his place…

Soarin was more than certain…

That he might have…

Soarin felt a cold chill run through his body at the thought. Was it all too much for him to handle? Was the magic’s influence so strong that he allowed the sensations to drive him over the safety and well being of the mare he loved more than anything?

He… he had to see her. He had to say something. He didn’t know what, but he needed her. Silver was probably going to argue it, but he needed Rainbow Dash.

Soarin reached up and pressed an intercom button linked to Silver’s personal room. A green light flashed beneath the speaker, indicating an entry request had been sent to Silver.

About twenty seconds later, Soarin heard the sound of hooves approaching from the other side.

The door swung open.

“Who the f—” Silver stood in the doorway and went silent the instant he recognized Soarin. Soarin blinked and stared as Silver stood still, a stern look on his face, and said nothing either.

This was awkward. The two of them had had a very interesting day. One that wasn’t very pleasant and even less memorable.

Soarin wanted Dash, but he found himself faced with another pony who had been done wrong through his out of control actions. He kept opening his mouth slightly to say something to Silver, but each time nothing came out.

Silver took a deep breath and lightly shook his head.

“Rainbow Dash?” He suddenly said to Soarin. Soarin’s eyes widened.

“Uh…” before he could muster any words, Silver turned his head back.

“Skittles! Get your ass over here!” he yelled. Soarin remained silent as Silver looked back at him and glared. “Son… you owe her lots of reassurance,” Silver nodded. “Make sure she gets it. Light’s out is in thirty minutes, so don’t dawdle.”

“Um… sure…” Soarin replied meekly as Silver heard Dash approaching from behind. He stepped aside as she hopped into a salute.

“Sir, yes… sir…” Dash quieted down and flinched when she saw Soarin standing outside the door. There was a visible, slightly uneasy look in her eyes as she looked upon him.

And it killed Soarin inside out.

Dash remained inside the door behind Silver, staring at Soarin, unsure how to proceed. Silver looked at them both and grumbled as he reached his wing back and pushed Dash out the door.

“Lights out in thirty,” he said simply before closing the door and leaving the two alone in the dimly lit main hallway of the barracks.

After Silver pushed her out, Dash stood less than a foot from the top of Soarin’s chest. She looked up at him weakly as he looked down at her. This was unexpected… but her expression changed from surprise to concern very quickly.

Soarin looked… incredibly sad. The look in his eyes as he looked down upon her was one of sorrow and regret. After his little reassurance before passing out earlier, Dash thought Soarin would be in any mood besides this, but… this was heavily concerning.

“Hi…” he said quietly.

“Hi…” she said back. It was just the night before they had spent a good amount of time in each other’s arms after she helped Soarin resist the dark magic and subdue it… but with all the strange events that had occurred throughout the day with the yellow magic and how it made him act, it felt like forever since they had embraced. Before anything else was said, Dash slowly closed the empty space between them, reached up and hugged him around the neck softly.

Soarin’s response was delayed. It took him a couple of seconds to reach up and return the hug… which felt light and weak as opposed to the typical strong embrace he usually applied to her. This alarmed Dash. It wasn’t like before where Soarin’s uncharacteristic actions were due to magic. She could tell this was her Soarin… but her Soarin didn’t hug like that… ever.

“Soarin, what’s wrong?” she said caringly as she remained attached to him.

Soarin wanted to squeeze her and tell her he was fine and all was well, but if he did, he’d be lying through his teeth. A lot of things were wrong… where was he supposed to begin? He let his arms slide off from around her, an action that made her pull back slightly so she could see his face. Soarin shook his head.

“Everything… absolutely everything…” he sighed. Dash’s eyes widened and her ears drooped at the depressing sight. Soarin looked like he was about to cry. Dash released her hooves from around his shoulders and gently touched his face.

“Soarin, talk to me… please…” she begged him. She refused to see him this way, she had to know what was on his mind. “Soarin!” she looked at him sternly.

Soarin blinked and looked into her determined gaze. If only she knew how much the problem had to do with her… how much suffering he felt he was causing her. He looked up and around the hall.

“Not here…” he looked behind him. The recruit barracks room across from Dash’s was currently not in use. Nothing but bunks and bare mattresses within. “Come on…” he made a weak head motion.

Dash pouted as he moved away, but followed close behind. This was terrible for her. Soarin was much more than her lover. He was an icon of strength and influence in her life. He had remained strong and pushed through every problem he had come across in this whole ordeal thus far… Why the sudden fall? Why did he suddenly look so weak he would snap in two with a simple touch?

She followed behind him and walked into the vacant barracks. Soarin flipped one of the light switches, turning on only a few of the lights mostly concentrated on the bunks to the left of the entrance. Soarin walked over to the first bunk and sat down on the bottom bunk without a word. Dash quickly copied his path, sitting beside him and cuddling up against him as soon as she did.

Whatever was wrong, Dash wanted Soarin to know and feel that she was right there for him.

“I’m… so sorry Dash,” Soarin began with his head hanging. He had yet to hold eye contact with her for very long.

“About…?” Dash had a feeling what, but she wanted to ask regardless, he clearly needed to get something off his chest. Soarin shook his head and gritted his teeth.

“First… about earlier… and all day for that matter,” he explained.

“The yellow magic?” she questioned. Soarin nodded slowly.

“I did a lot of dumb things… but nothing was as bad as what I almost did to you,” his voice was shaky. Dash quickly reached around his body and held him tightly.

“Soarin, it’s okay, you—”

“It’s NOT okay, Dash!” he shook his head vigorously. “If Silver hadn’t stepped in… I would have… forced myself on you,” he explained shamefully. Dash pulled herself away slightly to look at him sternly even though he wasn’t looking at her.

“But it didn’t happen Soarin. Besides, why would I think poorly of you? You were being controlled by the magic! That’s why—”

“NO!” Soarin yelled. He sharply stood up from the bed and took a few steps forward Dash was about to get up, but Soarin turned around sharply while glaring at her. “That’s just it Dash!” he yelled. “I… I was in control!”

Dash froze in place and her eyes grew wide.

“I was… in control…” Soarin winced at his own words and looked straight down. “Every move I made was my own. Every action I took was my own. Every word I said was my own. The magic wasn’t controlling me, it just felt too good to resist… it was euphoric, it made feel like I could do anything…” Soarin slammed his eyes shut. “Dash… I… I couldn’t stop myself, it felt so good! I wanted and needed more… I chose to keep going with it, I chose to let myself run rampant,” small tears began building up and slowly trickled down his face. “I didn’t even try… I didn’t try to stop myself. I forgot my morals, I forgot my decency… the sight of you made me…” he fell back onto the floor on his plot, tears flowing harder as his confession continued. “Made me want it… I didn’t care if I had to hold you down to get it… Dash I’m… I’m so sorry!” His front legs buckled and he laid flat on the ground, pressing his face to the cold floor of the barracks and sobbing with his hooves clasped over his head. “I’m… so sorry…” the tears dripped from his face, making small stains on the floor beneath him.

Dash listened to every word, and every word felt like it stabbed her in the heart.

Soarin was in control? Soarin willingly did everything he did?

Dash’s ears flopped down as she imagined it. Soarin’s actions were not due to brainwashing or possession… the yellow magic made him feel so good that that was all he cared about.

Soarin had incredibly strong willpower for a pony… if the euphoria of the magic was strong enough to overpower Soarin’s will… she could only imagine how hard it would be to resist the sensations.

“I would have hurt you… I would have violated you… I wasn’t strong enough Dash! I wasn’t strong enough!” He sobbed into the floor. “Why?! Why!? WHY COULDN’T I RESIST IT!?” he pounded his hooves on the floor. “I would do anything for you… then why… why couldn’t I…?”

Dash couldn’t take it. She had never seen Soarin in such a broken state. Soarin had been putting up with so many things he was never meant to… if it were any other pony they’d have been done so quickly. Soarin had been holding steadfast and strong. Was this event the straw that broke the camel’s back?

“Soarin!” Dash pushed off the mattress, sat down before him and reached for him. She tried to lift his head up, but he refused to budge.

“I’m so messed up. My life is so MESSED UP!!!” Soarin wailed. Dash glared down at him.

“Soarin STOP IT!” she yelled. “STOP! IT!” she shook her head roughly. “PLEASE JUST… UGH! STOP!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. As she yelled Soarin stopped resisting her pull. Dash lifted his head up to look at her and the sight was terrible. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot. The tears were not stopping. This had really hit him hard. His demeanor had finally collapsed. He said it himself, his life was messed up. REALLY messed up.

But Dash didn’t give a damn.

“This is… I can’t…” Dash snarled at him. She wanted him to stop, she absolutely hated seeing this from an idol and her loved one.

“My life is screwed Dash…” he continued to speak as she held his head up. “I’m so sorry…” he apologized again. What was he apologizing for this time?

“Soarin, you… you can’t blame yourself, you…” Dash wanted nothing more than to find words that would fix everything for him, but she failed to find any.

“I’m sorry for EVERYTHING, Dash…” Soarin continued. Dash blinked and stopped glaring. She let him speak. “I’ve lost all control of my life… I’m constantly manipulated by higher powers... something is always going wrong,” his lip quivered again. “You’ve been sucked into all this. All of my shit… you don’t deserve this…” he suddenly thrust forward and hugged Dash tightly, knocking her backwards into the bed frame behind her. He dug his face into her chest, taking care not to jab Dash with the false horn, and began sobbing again.

“Soarin…” Dash instantly hugged him as he lay against her in a defeated sprawled out manner.

“I just… want to be normal… I want to be like everypony else…” he suddenly said.

The words struck Dash like an arrow through the heart.

Those words.

Just like when she first met Soarin. He loved and enjoyed what he did, but he wanted to do so while also just living his life however he chose. He hated the attention, he hated the media, he hated the false face everypony gave him for being a celebrity… he fell in love with her to begin with because she treated him like a normal pony.

It was his one true desire, and he had been denied it by fate. He could never be normal, not after the dark magic transfer over a year ago. He’d never get to feel normal ever again.

Dash felt the dam breaking. She told herself she’d remain strong for him. She wanted to hold fast the moment she saw him cry. She couldn’t hold it back. She felt ashamed, she even gritted her teeth and tried to keep her eyes shut, but it was no use. A single tear fell from her eye.

She loved Soarin more than anything, and to see him in such a shattered state was destroying her.

She wrapped her arms around him as tight as she could, pressing him harder to her chest, making sure he could feel the steady thumping of her heart as she tried and tried and tried to provide him comfort.

He began to speak as he rested against her.

“Dash… where?” Soarin managed to say muffled against her chest. He turned his head to his mouth was free. “Where did it all go wrong?” he said as his tear stained face rubbed against her, dampening her fur. “The day I met you was the happiest day of my life… at least once it all came around and you were the best thing that ever happened to me…” he started gushing his heart out to her. “My life was no longer half empty with you… you completed me… and then…” he sniffled hard. “Then… the tornado… the Shadowbolts… the battle… why? Why did it have to happen? Everything’s gone to hell since then and I can’t stop it!” he reached his arms around her. “Would it all have been better if we never met? Could this all have been avoided?” he shook his head, rubbing it roughly against her. “You don’t deserve this Dash… you’re an amazing mare… you need a real stallion… not one like me who’s being drowned in shit he doesn’t even understand…”

Soarin felt Dash flinch. It was such a hard flinch he was almost thrown off of her. He felt the grip on him squeeze even harder. Dash was holding him as tightly as she could.

“No…” Dash said quietly. Soarin couldn’t look up at her, but he felt a drip on his cheek. “Just… NO! Soarin… a better stallion than you? Last time I checked, there is no such thing!” Dash cried out as she continued to squeeze him with all her might. “Has it been hell keeping up with everything? YES! Has everything gotten crazier than I can ever imagine?! YES! Do I give a damn?! NO!” she yelled. “NO! NO! NO!” Dash yelled over and over directly into his ear. She leaned down and forced his head to turn so he could see her clearly. “Soarin, I don’t care how many times I get caught up in whatever crazy stuff is happening to you… I will stick by your side… you’re everything to me, dammit! You hear me!? Everything! Or did I not make that clear back at Grand Galloping Ball?”

“Dash…” Soarin took her words to heart… but it was going to take more than that to break him from his funk. Dash wrapped her arms around his head and tucked him against her chest. The false horn was poking her a little, but she didn’t care about that damn thing, it was part of the problem she was trying to make him forget.

“Don’t talk Soarin… just… let it out…” she told him as he let his tears go.

She just wanted to be there for him. She didn’t care what was happening to him or how many times she got roped into his issues… she loved him. Nothing could change that.

After a few minute of comforting, the two decided it was incredibly uncomfortable on the hard floor. They ended up moving back up onto the bare mattress of the bottom bunk they were up against and lay on it while cuddling.

The cuddling came naturally as soon as they were up on the mattress, but Soarin was still feeling incredibly down… and a bit unworthy.

“I’m sorry…” Soarin broke the silence, apologizing again.

“Soarin… stop apologizing,” Dash quickly replied. “I’m a part of all this. I’m doing this for you. I’m not on the end of my rope, I’m here to stay. So STOP!” she said sternly. She felt Soarin flinch. Maybe that was a bit harsh of her. She quickly rubbed her hooves on his back. “That was a bit much… but I’m serious…” she assured him.

Soarin sighed as he held Dash in his arms. Why did it all have to happen? Why did everything go wrong for him? Why was he spared from death if he was only going to be tortured for the rest of his life by an inner power he had no true control over?

His heart jumped and he clutched Dash even tighter. He never wanted to let go of her. She was too good for him. She was sticking by him through all of his shit. Any other mare would have been long gone by now, so why?

“Dash…? Why do you love me?” Soarin suddenly asked. Dash remained silent. He suddenly felt her shift and move in his grip. He tried to look up and figure out what she was doing, but she ended up pushing him down and lying on top of him. Soarin blinked as she looked him directly in the eyes and pouted while reaching around his body and holding tight to him.

“Do I really need a reason Soarin?” she questioned him. Soarin blinked and stared at her. “I love you… just because,” she continued. “Sure, I guess I could give you lots of great reasons… but… in the end I just love you…” she shook her head. “You can put on as many fake horns as you’d like,” she tapped the metal headband. “You’re still my Soarin,” she looked away. “Even if things are hard with you… I’ll never find another you…” she trailed off, not even blushing because they were beyond such little flirty things.

“Dash… you’re too good to me…” he reached up and wrapped his arms around her as well. “Especially after what I did to you today, I really don’t deserve you…” he watched as Dash readied to protest, but she stopped as he cracked a weak smile. “But since you insist on me being so great… I guess I’ll allow it,” he smirked.

“Psh… nice to see you suddenly feeling better…” Dash giggled while nestling her head against him.

“I wouldn’t say I’m feeling better…” he sighed. “You’ve helped a lot Dash… you have no idea just how… TERRIBLE I felt after all that happened today. It wasn’t just you. I embarrassed Spitfire and Fleetfoot… I beat up Silver… he beat up me… I almost did something terrible to you…” he shook his head. “It was a huge blow to the confidence, and I don’t think it’s gonna heal anytime soon… but you have helped, as always. I’d be nowhere without you,” he gently rubbed a hoof against her mane.

“Soarin?” Dash suddenly said his name.

“Yes?”

“Just… please… PLEASE… never say you’re not good enough for me, or I’m too good for you. I wouldn’t have stuck by you like this for so long if you weren’t who I wanted to be with…” she looked at him sternly. “Element of loyalty and don’t you ever forget it,” she added. Soarin smiled weakly at her.

“You’re the best, Dash…” he chuckled lightly as he held her tight.

“You better believe it…” she smiled as she adjusted herself to be more comfortable atop him.

They lay there for a little while longer. They both knew they didn’t have much time left. Soarin spent a good ten minutes crying and they had just spent another ten cuddling. Dash would have to leave shortly to make it to the barracks in time for lights out.

But… before she did…

Dash thought back for a moment. She thought back to how Soarin advanced on her earlier and how it made her think of a particular moment they shared not too long ago that she really wanted to experience again.

“Soarin… can you do something for me?” Dash looked up at him. Soarin blinked as he looked upon her and smiled.

“Anything,” he replied in the best way possible. Dash blushed slightly, feeling this was extra girly of her, but she remembered how good it felt and wanted to do it again.

“Could you… kiss me?” she asked. “You know… like you did that night… before the last day of the tryouts?” she bit her bottom lip. Soarin just stared at her, but if only she knew how warm it made him felt.

Soarin remembered it just as well. He remembered forcing himself upon her ravenously while power drunk. She wanted him to do the opposite, to do what he too wanted to do again, but wasn’t sure if it was the right moment. She answered that question for him.

“Of course… come here,” he said as he gently tugged her forward. She helped him by shifting forward.

Their eyes locked as they slowly moved in, and then slowly closed as their lips drew near. Soarin placed his lips softly upon hers, applying gentle pressure to casually increase the feeling of the kiss. Nothing sloppy, nothing hard, and nothing seductive. It was just like the one they shared upon the cloud a few weeks prior.

A kiss of love, and not a kiss of lust.

They slowly pulled away from each other. Dash exhaled and shivered as the familiar sensations of that night returned to her. It felt just as good as it had before. She didn’t know why it felt so good… maybe because it felt so perfect and true. It quickly made her forget about the incident earlier.

This was definitely her Soarin. Nopony else could kiss her like that.

“Thanks,” she said while smiling at Soarin.

“Likewise,” Soarin said back while nuzzling his nose against hers. Soarin frowned as they stared into each other’s eyes. “You have to get back, don’t you?” he suddenly asked. Dash pouted and nodded.

“Yeah… I probably should,” Dash sighed.

“Well, I’ll at least walk you there,” Soarin offered graciously as Dash rolled off of him. Dash snickered as she stood up.

“You mean fifteen feet across the hallway? Woe is me Soarin, how could I ever make the journey alone?” she joked. Soarin let his head hang.

“Fine… I get it… I’ll leave…” he said with an absurdly dejected tone. Dash quickly stepped towards him.

“Hey! Wait! I was kidding!” she stopped when she saw him smirking as his head was down. She quickly gave him a playful shove. “You’re bad,” she stuck her tongue out at him.

“You know it, and love it,” Soarin said as the leaned against her while walking.

“Damn right I do…” Dash agreed as the two left the empty barracks and crossed the hallway back to hers.

“Soarin…” Dash said his name as they stopped in front of her door and she turned to face him. “We’ll get through this together, alright?” she assured him. “I promise I’ll see you through this till the end.”

“I have no doubt Dashie,” he nuzzled her face while reaching forward and giving her a hug.

“One more for the road?” Dash comically asked while puckering her lips.

“Someone’s greedy tonight,” Soarin chuckled.

“NOW,” Dash demanded.

“Yes, ma’am…” Soarin obeyed.

They leaned in and shared another long, soft, sweet kiss while embracing each other and enjoying the feeling of each other pressed together. It was a feeling they didn’t get to experience very often, so it was incredibly welcome whenever they got the chance.

“G'night, hot stuff,” Dash winked as she reached for the door. “And no more crying… ever,” she pointed at him. Soarin smirked and crossed his heart.

“You have my word,” he winked back. Dash blinked and put her ear to the door. It didn’t sound like any ponies were near it from the inside. She looked back at Soarin, leaned at him, and planted a peck on his cheek.

“Love you,” she smiled and reached for the door.

“Love you too, Dashie…” Soarin replied as she stepped through the door and watched him until the door cut off her view.

Soarin sighed.

What a rough day… what a weird chain of events…

And what a damn amazing mare he had…

He literally crawled to her, crying his eyes out because he had had enough of it all. He didn’t know where to turn.

Half an hour spent with her later, and he felt a lot better. He didn’t feel right as rain, but he sure as hell felt much better.

He took a deep breath and exhaled before turning towards the lobby.

On the inside of the barracks, the moment Dash closed the door, she turned and ran face to face into none other than her favorite clown.

“Gonna feel a little… SOAR…IN the morning?” Twister bounced his eyebrows rapidly as he let the pun sink in. Dash groaned heavily and shook her head before glaring directly at Twister.

“Y’know Twist... I’ve often wondered if your whole body fits into a footlocker… wanna try?!” she narrowed her eyes at him. He disappeared in an instant. Dash blinked and looked to her right. A footlocker was suddenly beside her, tipped upright and strands of blue mane were sticking out of it.

“ToO LaTe!” Twister’s voice came from within the locker standing up next to Dash.

Dash flattened her brow. She reached her wing past the locker and opened the door to the janitor’s closet behind them. She shoved the occupied footlocker into the closet and closed the door. She brushed her hooves off and turned to finally walk into the barracks, but—

“Well that wasn’t very nice…” Twister stood before her again, arms crossed and pouting.

Dash blinked and was about to question how he got out so quickly, but then she remembered who she was talking to.

“EVERYPONY BETTER BE IN BED IN ONE MINUTE!” Silver’s voice suddenly boomed throughout the room.

The instant Dash was done wincing from the yell, Twister was gone. Dash quickly looked about and walked in, noticing Twister already up in his bed and FAST asleep.

“You know what? No… I’m too tired for this bullshit,” Dash went right to her bed and climbed in below Little Star.

Soarin climbed into his bed and reached for the lights.

Dash yawned as Silver turned out the lights.

Soarin thought of Dash.

Dash thought of Soarin.

And together they knew… as long as they had each other, they could overcome any obstacle. Hell, if Soarin gave up, she’d throw him a good one across the jaw.

Their love would definitely keep them strong as the days were set to continue.

--- To be Continued---

Author's Note

Time for a time jump!

And by time jump, i mean we are going to move forward about a week and a half to the forth cycle of their training. And Soarin has had some time to settle back in.

As silver said at the beginning of part two, the first three weeks are all gonna be the same stuff. so why would i bore you all with three weeks of the same thing? I'm not gonna just jump in though, i'm gonna give a quick recap of minor details between when this chapter ends and the week and a half later when chapter 51 begins ^_^

That being said...

HOLY SHIT I HIT 50 CHAPTERS!!!!! And i'm not halfway done yet?! i thought this would be 80 chapters tops... WHAT HAVE I CREATED HERE?!?!?! AHHHHHHH!!!!!! (im sure it will be fun ;3)

Well, looks like Discord finally knocked (slapped) some sense into Luna. I know some of ya'll were getting tired of her seeming weak and clueless... well you now all know it was because she was constantly comparing herself to Celestia.

What's this? The recruits dont really give a damn about Soarin and Dash being together? WHAT HAS SHE BEEN WORRIED ABOUT?!

Also the hell? Squall tried to apologize and in the process still flipped the hell out... uh... hmm... Matteo see's something, i wonder what?

And finally... the SoarinDash... it was quite heavy wasn't it? but i made sure the heaviness was weighted with plenty of Fluff to balance it out...

Thanks to all who have stuck with me to this point... here's to another 50 chapters and beyond! :D

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!!!

Chapter 51: Everything's Back to Normal?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 51:

With Dash’s first cycle of recruit training complete… and Soarin’s new magical developments subdued for the time being…

Life resumed at the Wonderbolt compound.

If you asked any of the Wonderbolts, it was the quietest week and a half they had had in a long time.

Dash went through three more training cycles, which became redundant due to repetition of the basics. All the recruits were excited though. During the fifth cycle, according to Silver, they would finally break from the basics and see how the recruits handled more difficult challenges. Dash was definitely ready, especially for the combat. Her skills had been sharpened by her sessions with Silver… but she had yet to gain any ground on him. Every time she felt like she was finally catching up to him, he’d just hold back less. While it was a little frustrating, why would she complain? It was a privilege to train with such a master. Finally, for the first time in her life, she was in a position where she could see Soarin consistently. Nothing was better than that.

Soarin was able to continue his daily routine with his first show in a while right on the horizon. He felt good and his body hadn’t lost its edge throughout the troubles. There was one lingering mystery though. He had seen Fancy Pants twice in the past few days… and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t conjure the yellow magic. Every attempt, only the blue would react. Both Luna and Discord were addressed on this matter, but neither could give an answer. It seemed the yellow magic was merely dormant. Perhaps it would return little by little later, at least Soarin hoped. He needed a chance to learn about it. On the flip side, he got to see Dash every day. It had been a goal of his for a while and he had complete confidence in her ability to become a full time recruit. She would be there to stay, he knew it.

So all was well… Soarin and Rainbow Dash felt good… the magic was contained… and life continued at a comfortable pace…

But would it last?

“ARROW!” Silver yelled as flew alongside. “X!” he yelled again. “ARROW! DELTA! X! PLUS! X! ARROW! PLUS! DELTA!” he kept yelling out formations.

Beside him, Dash flew with four other ponies. She was in the spot to the left of the lead. As Silver yelled out the formations they had to shift and continue to fly synchronized through moving rings as they made their way around one of the many indoor flight tracks.

Dash was doing alright. She had studied up on her formations and was executing each in tandem with the pony in the lead position, but others were struggling. However, the pony to her left was faltering terribly.

“DAMMIT!” Silver flew up, reached for the pony beside Dash and yanked him out of the formation. “FREAKY! GET YOUR ASS UP HERE!” Silver yelled. The formation continued to fly as Twister took the pony’s place beside Dash.

“X! DELTA! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS!” Silver started yelling out the same formation over and over again. As the group of five including Dash and Twister made their way around the turn and into another weaving pattern between rings. “PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! PLUS! MINUS!” Silver suddenly yelled a formation that didn’t exist. The pony in the lead and the pony to their right flinched and faltered. “GET OUT OF MY FORMATION!” Silver yelled as he flew backwards in front of them and pointed at the two ponies that messed up.

The two of them dropped, leaving a gap between Twister, Dash, and the last pony on the far right.

“SHIFT LEAD!” Silver yelled. Dash’s ears perked up and she quickly moved into the lead spot. Whenever the lead pony was removed from the picture, the pony closest to the lead spot was required to shift and become the lead. “BLUNDER! WIDE LOAD! FILL IN! ARROW!” Silver yelled down.

Dash kept pace with Silver and another mare beside her. Seconds later, Thunderlane filled in the empty spot beside Twister, and Matteo rose up into the spot beside the mare.

“X! ARROW! PLUS! PLUS! ARROW! X! DELTA!” Silver yelled out the formations, Dash’s fellow recruits shifted around her as they banked into the back curve of the track. “ARROW! DELTA! CIRCLE! FORK! SPLEEN! HOOF! CONDOM! TACOS! TRAIN! CELESTIA! HUGE! PLOT! DONKEY! PUNCH!” he started saying very random things. Dash kept her ears perked and waiting to hear a real formation name. “HEARTS! STARS! HORSESHOES! CLOVERS! BLUE MOONS! POTS! GOLD! RAINBOWS! RED BALLOONS! MAGICALLY DELTA!”

Twister, Thunderlane, and Matteo all shifted into the delta formation, but the other mare didn’t budge.

“OUT!” Silver yelled as he flew through their formation and yanked the mare down. “SHORT STACK! GET UP HERE! RESET ARROW!” Silver called down. Dash remained in place as Twister, Matteo, and Thunderlane all moved back into the arrow formation. Matteo shifted in one spot and Little Star quickly zipped up to fill in the empty slot beside him.

“PLUS! DELTA! PLUS! X! PLUS! ARROW! PLUS!” Silver began firing formations again. Dash smirked as she remained still in the lead spot and directed them. She knew they’d all remain together. With the slight exception of Thunderlane, Dash knew that Matteo, Twister, and Star wouldn’t be fooled. Thunderlane was holding his place well. He didn’t fall for the fake outs either.

Down below, the doors to the track opened and Soarin stepped through. His eyes were instantly drawn up to the five recruits flying overhead with his love in the center lead position. His ears caught Silver’s strict orders as the instructor continued to bark out formations and try to trick the recruits… but they were holding strong.

“Huh…” Soarin said to himself as he watched the group of five remain vigilant through Silver’s drilling. It was pretty impressive. From the looks of things down below, Soarin could tell more than one pony had been pulled from the formation, due to some of the fatigued faces on the ponies sitting down on the ground.

Soarin looked back towards the flying recruits with pride. Dash was leading them well through the obstacles. She wasn’t flying too fast and she was keeping her motions easy to follow. Being the center of a formation wasn’t as easy as it sounded. One had to be controlled and steady as the others shifted. The smallest inconsistency in the movement of a lead in the formation and the whole arrangement could fall apart.

“Alright! I ain’t fooling you guys! Go in for a landing!” Silver ordered.

Soarin watched as Dash led the four other recruits around and they came in for a smooth, easy landing in front of the other fifteen recruits. Silver trotted up to all of them and nodded.

“That’s it for formation training,” he nodded at them all. “Get some lunch and meet in the weight room in two hours!” Silver ordered. He glanced around at them and smiled. “At ease!” he said before turning and walking towards the doors where Soarin stood. It seemed like the recruits and Silver had both gotten used to each other. The amount of yelling and insulting had decreased (but was still there from time to time). If anything, Silver was happy the recruits were wizening up to his rules and improving as a whole.

Soarin gave Silver a simple wave as he passed.

“Couldn’t fool those five, huh?” he smirked as Silver stopped beside them. Silver scoffed and shook his head.

“The little shits have a long way to go still… but… they show some promise,” he nodded and walked out as Soarin chuckled. ‘Some’ promise. Silver was never one to blow thing out of proportion, but he also usually kept his admiration hidden. Soarin remembered his formation training clearly. He along with Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Rapidfire were pulled down often for screwing up. Seeing a few recruits hold perfectly… was quite a sight. Silver probably left quickly to avoid anypony catching him smiling.

Soarin stood off to the side as the recruits began piling out of the indoor flight track. He waited patiently, simply smiling back as some of the recruits looked towards him.

Little Star stopped and glanced back at Dash as she “subtly” veered off to go speak with Soarin.

“Awwwww…” she cooed as Dash flinched. She turned and pouted at Star, who in turn, giggled as she scurried out after the last recruits. Dash approached Soarin with a smile, glancing at the door once to make sure nopony else was there before leaning up to him and sharing a brief, sweet kiss.

“Hey handsome,” she winked at him after they broke apart.

“That looked like fun…” Soarin smiled at her as the two turned to the door and walked out, making sure to keep a good distance behind the rest of the recruits.

“HA!” Dash pounded her chest. “That was too easy, Silver couldn’t fool me!” she stated with pride.

“Oh, trust me, I noticed,” Soarin nudged her back.

“So what’s up?” she asked, getting straight to the point. It was rare for Soarin to give her a visit in the middle of the day. Most of the times they met up was either after training hours on her free days, or on a rare occasion they could grab a meal together without Fleetfoot butting in.

“I just wanted to come see you,” he smiled down at her as they walked side by side. “I’m heading out for the Manehatten show literally right now, so I thought I’d come get a good luck kiss?” he said sappily while leaning his cheek towards her head. Dash blinked.

“Oh! That’s right! You have the show tomorrow, I completely forgot,” Dash said to herself before finally looking at Soarin. She saw that he had his head about two inches from hers and he was lightly tapping his hoof against his cheek. Dash snickered at him and rolled her eyes. “You’re such a goofball, never change you dope…” Dash leaned over and planted a light kiss on his cheek. “There, happy?”

“I now have the power to ignite a thousand suns!” Soarin said while holding a hoof in the air. Dash burst out laughing and pushed him along.

“Get out of here!” She yelled while laughing hysterically.

“Yes, ma’am!” Soarin began strutting down the hall. Dash watched him advance in front of her, thought for a moment, and then quickly rushed up to him.

“Wait…” She grabbed him by the shoulder. Soarin stopped and turned to her. He looked into her eyes as she smiled up at him. She stole a quick glance around, and luckily, nopony was nearby. She grabbed him around the neck and slowly drew him, pulling his face directly to hers, for a soft, prolonged kiss. Soarin let her have complete control, taking in the pleasure of his marefriend’s lips that she allowed him to experience. “Good luck…” she said with a warm smile. Soarin smiled much wider than he should have, but whatever, he had a great marefriend that was worth an overzealous smile.

“Thanks Dash,” he smiled back at her.

“Now get going!” Dash pointed towards the lobby and ordered with a smirk. Soarin reached forward again and gave her one more, quick hug before turning to leave.

“I’ll be back in two days… don’t steal all my thunder while I’m gone,” he said as he winked at her and walked away.

“Can’t make any promises!” she yelled after him as he trotted towards the main entrance to the compound.

Dash smirked as she watched Soarin leave through the front doors. Things had really been smooth over the past week and a half. Dash felt like so much had happened through the first training cycle… and when it was suddenly resolved, if only temporarily, she was able to focus on her training and weeks started to pass by. She was confident she was doing well, and seeing Soarin in high spirits only made her feel even better.

“You two are so cute, I might just crap a puppy.”

Dash yelped and jumped in surprise as Fleetfoot walked past her giggling. Dash blushed, and opened her mouth to protest… but why would she? She just smirked and watched as Fleetfoot followed after Soarin.

There was something really special about feeling casual at the compound. While Dash felt like she was still under the knife in terms of Silver and the expectations she had to meet, going from one day to the next without some sort of crazy random magical problem happening to Soarin was a boon. Everything suddenly went smoothly and day by day.

Dash enjoyed it, and she hoped it would continue… at least for as long as it could.

“Alrighty, alrighty, alrighty…” Soarin said to himself as he adjusted his duffle bag from one shoulder to the other and entered the main hall of Canterlot Central Station. He got several glances as he casually trotted in. Most of them were because Soarin of the Wonderbolt lead squad just strolled by, but as usual, he was getting a few looks because of the horn.

He had gotten used to the horn. It was very awkward for a while, publicly and personally. He could barely go anywhere without somepony either asking him or getting stared at. He was a pegasus wearing a false horn after all… at first glance most would probably wonder why Soarin was acting like a princess with the silly headpiece. Even alone it caused him problems for a bit. It was hard to sleep in certain positions because of how sensitive the horn could be to the touch. His flight goggles were harder to get over his head, and his uniform for a while had a defective mask, due to making a hole for the horn.

Since then, he had adjusted and gotten all of his apparel adjusted as well. He simply now understood what everyday life was like for a unicorn.

He spotted Spitfire near the ticketing area. Soarin made his way through the main hall, smiling and waving at fans who called out his name and politely letting a mare and stallion take their picture with him before he finally made it to Spitfire.

“There you are,” Spitfire immediately flashed a ticket towards him. “Both you and Fleet are cutting it very close here. The rest are already here,” she said referring to squad seven, twelve, and eighteen who were all coming along with them. Soarin glanced behind him at the large clock in the hall as he received his ticket from Spitfire.

“Cutting it close? Train doesn’t even leave for thirty minutes…” Soarin chuckled.

“I’d prefer you are all here—”

“An hour beforehand, I know Spitfire,” Soarin nodded. “But it’s not like you have to pep talk us,” he shrugged.

“Sorry buddy, gotta run!” Fleetfoot walked up to them while waving and batting her eyelashes at a poor stallion who either just got turned down, or Fleetfoot had led him on for shits and giggles. Either was possible. Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Fleetfoot, you’re the last one here. What do you have to say for yourself?” Spitfire berated her while handing her a ticket.

“I’m feeling a cinnamon bagel!” she replied cheerfully as she took the ticket, stuffed it into her backpack, and immediately turned to a coffee shop beside the ticketing area. Spitfire opened her mouth to reply, but this was Fleetfoot. Battle was lost before it began. She just shook her head, picked up her duffle bag from the floor beside her and made a head motion towards Soarin for him to follow. They began walking towards the prime platform.

“So…” Spitfire broke the silence as they walked. “How has everything been going lately? You’ve been quiet about it,” Spitfire asked. Soarin thought for a moment.

“That’s actually just it,” Soarin shrugged. “Nothing’s been happening at all. Discord’s little ‘help’ has pretty much put everything back on track.”

“Why didn’t they do that in the first place?” Spitfire said with a huff. Soarin shook his head.

“Something about me having to eventually know how to control it regardless… don’t look at me, I still don’t understand it. Everything’s been fine though. It’s nice to be back on my normal routine, even if it’s only for the time being,” Soarin said with a content nod.

“What about the yellow magic?” Spitfire pressed as they turned a corner and proceeded down a long ramp towards the platforms, clearly concerned for her friend. Soarin appreciated it.

“Still nothing,” he shook his head. “Apparently it’s in there…” he tapped his forehead. “But since the ‘barrier’ was put up, it’s been completely docile.

“Back to being a dark magician then?” Spitfire said with an exasperated sigh. Soarin smiled at her.

“Hey, it’s under control, and I’ve been getting better with it…” Soarin glanced at a bit somepony had dropped on the ground. He focused on it and smoothly called forth the magic. The blue aura surrounded his horn and the bit, floating it up and over in front of Spitfire. “See?”

Spitfire held her hoof up and Soarin let the bit fall into it. She lifted her brow, looking sarcastically impressed.

“Do you do birthday parties?” she smarmily replied. Soarin snorted and chuckled.

Spitfire placed the bit in her duffle bag and then looked back at Soarin as they walked. She found herself looking longer. And longer. And across his body and—

“So how are—”

“I’M FINE!” Spitfire flinched, completely cutting off Soarin and looking forward with a slight glow in her cheeks. Soarin flattened his ears and brow, stopping in place. Spitfire took two more steps before halting as well and turning to look at him. “What?!”

“Spitfire…” Soarin looked at her sternly. “You STILL haven’t talked to Wave?” By the way Spitfire reacted, Soarin could almost hear a nail being hit on the head. “Really?” Soarin added to drive the nail to the board.

“I—” she blushed harder, unfolding her right wing and covering her face with it.

“Spitfire, I can’t believe you two are still going on about this! You need to go to him,” Soarin demanded. Spitfire shook her head vigorously behind her wing feathers.

“No I don’t,” she replied adamantly.

“YES. YOU DO,” said Soarin sternly. “I’ve told BOTH of you probably a hundred times now. The sooner you guys come back together and let each other know everything is fine, the less embarrassing it will be. You guys got pranked… it’s not like something tragic happened, you got messed with and it’s thrown you two apart?! You were both going steady before it happened—”

“STEADY?!” Spitfire removed her wing from her face and stepped up. “Soarin, we were FRIENDS! GOOD FRIENDS! There was nothing like that between Wave and I, just like how there’s been none between me and you, it’s no different!” she pouted while still blushing and looked directly at Soarin. Soarin’s flat look remained. Spitfire eventually puffed her cheeks out and waivered, looking away from Soarin. “Okay fine… that’s a lie,” she admitted.

“Seriously Spitfire,” Soarin sighed and leaned in towards her while keeping one eyebrow up. “You two have been PAINFUL to watch… it’s like having somepony slowly let the air out of a balloon into my face… you know, a slow, steady pthhhbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbth…” Soarin comically emulated the sound. “I swear, if you two don’t stop this incredibly dumb avoiding act, I’m going to force your heads together and run a whole roll of duct tape around them!”

“You wouldn’t…” Spitfire knew he was joking about the duct tape, but Soarin stepping in?

“Give me a reason not to, and I won’t,” Soarin encouraged.

Spitfire grunted and turned away from him. Before he could say anything else, she began walking again at a quickened pace, leaving him in the dust quickly. Soarin sighed as Fleetfoot approached from behind and walked up beside him with a large cinnamon raisin bagel stuffed in her mouth.

“Shr strll brnrn rp?” Fleetfoot’s voice was completely muffled by the bagel. Soarin gave her an amused look.

“La prego di ripetere che nel Equestrian?” Soarin asked her to speak in Equestrian using old Griffonese. Fleetfoot rolled her eyes, took a bite out of the bagel and let it fall into her hoof.

“She still burning up?” Fleetfoot repeated while pointing at Spitfire, still slightly distorted due to chewing, but Soarin could understand her.

“More than ever…” Soarin said with an eye roll. Fleetfoot watched Spitfire as she quickly turned the corner at the bottom of the ramp. She swallowed the piece of bagel and lifted an eyebrow.

“We better do something quick… or else she’s gonna start humping doorknobs…”

“Wow!” Soarin blinked and his ear folded back. “Thanks for that image!” he scrunched his face and squinted. Fleetfoot giggled.

“Oh please!” She whipped Soarin’s flank with her tail. “I’m sure you’d be drooling if it were Dashie,” she winked at Soarin before breaking into a quick trot, giggling all the way. Soarin’s eyes snapped open briefly before glaring towards her.

“HEY!” Soarin took a step but stopped as something caught his eye in his peripheral vision. He quickly turned around, but saw nothing. He stared behind him towards the main hall for a moment. He was almost certain he saw something moving very fast, but it could have just been a fly or something going past him as well. He blinked and shrugged before following after Fleetfoot.

He emerged on the prime platform where all the Wonderbolts were gathered. They were leaving from platform thirty-two, which was right in the center so they didn’t have to walk very far. Soarin casually strolled towards them all, taking note of all the Wonderbolts present. The members of squad seven, twelve, and eighteen were all present. Spitfire was talking to Air Mach near platform thirty-two, but the rest were all spread around. Fleetfoot was ducking behind the other squads as she moved to avoid eye contact with Air Mach.

Soarin kept walking until something grabbed his attention.

Off to the side, Storm Front was sitting on a bench away from the others, reading a piece of paper. Soarin looked between Storm and the rest of the Wonderbolts before turning and walking towards Storm. As he approached it looked like Storm was smiling, but Soarin could also see some light shivering.

“Hey kid,” Soarin spoke up as he dropped his bag and sat down. Storm flinched and quickly closed his hooves over the paper. Soarin looked at him in confusion as Storm shuddered and shook his head out.

“Oh! Uh… Commander Soarin! Sorry, I’m…” he fumbled to respond. Soarin quickly placed a hoof gently on Storm’s shoulder.

“Whoa there Storm… relax, you don’t have to be all formal with me, remember?” Soarin reassured him with a chuckle. Soarin was quickly concerned. He could feel Storm’s body shivering. “You alright?” Soarin asked. Storm looked down at the ground and took a deep breath.

“I’m… nervous…” he admitted sheepishly. Soarin removed his hoof from Storm’s shoulder immediately. Of course, how had Soarin not put that together? Storm slowly swayed his head from side to side. “If you told me I was going to be performing in front of a MANEHATTEN crowd with ELITE HIGH TIER Wonderbolts less than a month after trying out… I’d have called you crazy…” he turned his shoulders inward while he continued to shake slightly and breathe quickly but steadily. “We aren’t even on the train yet, and I already feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

“Ah, jeez… that should’ve been obvious, sorry…” Soarin sighed as he leaned back on the bench and scratched his head. “This has been pretty sudden for you. I don’t blame you, I wasn’t expecting Spitfire to put you in a high tier squad… and it’s luck of the draw that you’re performing today,” Soarin glanced at Storm.

“I swear I’ve been shaking since Spitfire announced it last week. I barely slept the past two nights…” he trailed off while taking another deep breath and exhaling. Soarin glanced over at the other members of squad seven briefly.

“Have you talked at all to your wingmates?” Soarin asked while looking out towards the Squad seven.

“Can… can I be frank…?” Storm spoke up, re-catching Soarin’s attention. “My squad is great… I’m not gonna knock their skills because they are great… but…” Storm looked towards Squad Seven. Point Dex was reading a physics book and Macho Savage was walking around with a wingful of coffee creamers he stole from the coffee shop out front, placing them in the other Wonderbolts’ bags and trying to balance them on their heads. “Besides Autumn Rain… Dex and Savage are… not the most welcoming ponies…” Storm said with a slight hint of shame in his voice. He clearly did not like talking down anypony, but Soarin could tell he was being honest here. “They kind of… do their own thing.”

“That’s an understatement…” Soarin chuckled as he watched the two ponies in question go about their rather silly routines… if one could even call Savage’s way of doing things a routine. “Well, I can tell you this right now Storm…” Soarin suddenly spoke up again. He looked towards Storm and smiled. “You can trust Autumn. I honestly don’t know how she put up with Point Dex, Macho Savage, and Air Mach all at once before the split recently… but you can bet she loves having you on the squad, so you can trust her,” Soarin relayed his opinion.

“Heh, you don’t have to tell me that. She’s the only one I’ve felt comfortable talking to,” Storm admitted. “Dex talks in terms that are too technical to follow, and Savage never makes sense. Autumn is the only pony I’ve been able to fully understand. I’ve tried reconnecting with some of my friends from the tryouts but we are still separated by rank…” Storm sighed as his voice slowly faded. “It hasn’t been too easy for me, Commander… and here I am preparing for a show… it’s a bit much,” Storm looked up to the ceiling of the station.

Soarin felt bad for Storm. He really was thrust into a world he knew little about on very short notice. As much as Storm had earned the right to be an elite Wonderbolt, he was still yellow in the confidence department. He had never performed in front of a crowd before and now they were asking him to deliver in front of a Manehatten audience? It seemed like a lot to ask of him, but that’s where his current position was.

Soarin glanced down at Storm’s hooves, fixing his eyes on the piece of paper that Storm hid quickly when Soarin approached. It looked like a note, or a letter. He would be lying if he wasn’t curious.

“So…” Soarin hesitated. He was worried he might be prying, but his curiosity got the better of him. “What were you looking at there?” Soarin pointed to Storm’s hooves and the piece of paper.

“Huh?” Storm looked down to the paper in his hooves. “Oh…”

Soarin was expecting Storm to play it off as nothing and try to sway the topic… but to Soarin’s surprise, a smile formed on Storm’s lips.

“The only thing keeping me from going insane right now…” he slowly opened it. “It’s a letter from my dad… and… well it’s a long story,” Storm looked away, not sure if he had time to really brief Soarin on how his life had gone.

“Actually, Dash has told me about it,” Soarin spoke up as he leaned back forward. “Mother and father separated, father still does all he can for you… she gave me the rundown on all the recruits,” Soarin nodded.

“I see…” Storm sighed. “Yeah, I was sort of an accident… my mother despises my father, never lets him in the house, etc… I can’t believe how much my father has done for me despite all of it. He used to visit me all the time in secret, he’d leave bits, for both me and my mother… until recently, I hadn’t heard much from him, but about a week or so ago, I got this letter forwarded from home,” he held the letter over to Soarin. Soarin took it and looked it over.

Dear Storm,

I’m sorry it’s been so long since you’ve seen or heard anything from me. Times have been rough, but I’m managing. Hopefully I’ll be able to piece together some more bits for you soon.

Don’t you start worrying about me now, I’m doing just fine. I’m taking things day by day and I’ll continue to do everything I can to support you and your mother.

You’re a grown stallion now. We haven’t touched base in ages, but I’m sure whatever you end up doing, you’ll make a smart choice. I’m proud of you, my son.

Love,

Dad

Soarin smiled as he read the letter over and handed it back to Storm.

“Your father sounds like quite a guy,” Soarin patted Storm on the back lightly. “Chased away constantly from his own family, but still makes the time for his son… and from what I’ve seen, he’s raised you well.”

“Yeah…” Storm took another deep breath. “Knowing he’ll always have my back no matter how brutal it is for him… it’s just so touching to know I have someone like that in my life. It puts me at ease,” Storm looked over the letter. “I wish there was a way I could let him know what I’ve achieved. I don’t know where he lives, or what he does… there’s no way for me to contact him. I’m sure he would be filled with pride if he knew I had become an elite Wonderbolt.

“I’m sure he would,” Soarin nodded in agreement. He watched as Storm continued to look the letter over.

“What about you, Commander?” Storm suddenly asked. “What’s your dad like?”

The question caught Soarin by surprise. His dad? It had been a while since he thought about his own family. Of course he hadn’t forgotten about them… but he’d barely talked to them besides a few letters over the past year.

In fact he had yet to tell his family about the whole… dying and being revived by dark magic thing.

However in terms of fathers…

“Heh, you’re putting me on the spot here Storm… that’s quite an incredible father story you have there and mine… well, my dad is pretty normal. In fact my family is pretty normal,” he explained with a chuckle.

“How so?” Storm was curious. Soarin looked Storm over carefully. The conversation seemed to be calming him down a bit, so Soarin obliged.

“Well, unlike Spitfire’s family, there’s nothing very exciting about mine. We’ve been normal pegasi since as far back as I know. Weather workers, cloudscapers, rainbow producers… we’ve never really been known for our flight skills. My dad is part of a weather team. Probably still is. He never really cared for the Wonderbolts, but always tells me he’s proud of my achievements nonetheless,” Soarin explained. “I was kind of a black sheep. If not for us knowing Spitfire’s family, I’d never be in this position. Spitfire is the one that kicked my ass over and over until I was good enough.”

“The captain’s family?” Storm thought out loud. Soarin nodded.

“Is full of freaks of nature,” Soarin chuckled. “Her family has been full of fantastic flyers for generations. More than half of her family line has been Wonderbolts at some point.”

“Wow…”

“There’s a reason she’s up there,” Soarin nodded. “But yeah, sorry, got side tracked. My dad is nothing special, but he did raise me, sent me to school, and taught me how to fly… all the good stuff. So you can bet I love and appreciate him. Being a good father makes a normal stallion a hero regardless,” Soarin looked up as he spoke, memories flowing due to the nature of the conversation. How he and Spitfire met, how he became what he was today, and how his family supported him despite not being too sure of Soarin’s career choice. It was a gamble, but if not for their support alongside Spitfire’s drilling, Soarin doubted he’d be in his position.

He suddenly felt bad about keeping his troubles a secret from his mom and dad… and his two little brothers. He made a mental note to possibly make a visit in the future… maybe he could take Dash along. That sounded very nice…

“Alright everypony! Let’s load up!” Spitfire yelled from near the train. Soarin perked up and looked towards the other Wonderbolts as they began to pile into the train.

“Time to go!” Soarin stood up and turned back to Storm, he quickly put a hoof on his shoulder to catch Storm’s attention. “You’ll do fine kid, it’s alright to be nervous, but…” Soarin pointed to the letter. “Go out there and perform as if your father is in the crowd watching… and who knows?” Soarin smirked. “You don’t know where he is or what he’s doing… wouldn’t it be something if he’s at the show and suddenly his son is flying with the Wonderbolts?” Soarin felt a warm glow in his chest as he saw Storm’s eyes brighten. He smiled and ruffled Storm’s mane. “C’mon, we’ve got a train to catch,” he said as he picked up his duffle bag, and the two began moving towards the rest.

“MACH!” Spitfire’s voice caught Soarin’s attention as he and Storm proceeded down the platform. Spitfire was yelling up at Air Mach, who was standing in an inspiring pose atop of the train cars. “IN the train car, please!” she demanded. Air Mach scoffed and pointed towards the front of the train.

“Real stallions ride on TOP of the train!” he announced with lots of gusto.

“I don’t give a damn Mach, get down here right—” Spitfire was cut off as Fleetfoot suddenly yanked her aside.

“Spitfire, if he’s out here… it means he WON’T be in the train with us!” she explained. Spitfire blinked, staring into Fleetfoot’s eyes and realizing she was dead serious. She thought about it, and eventually nodded.

“Fair enough…” she shrugged and the two entered.

Soarin chuckled as he glanced up at Air Mach and followed close behind Storm. Right before he stepped on, Soarin quickly turned his head to the right towards the end of the platform. The edge of a tail. He saw a tail, the last bit of somepony rushing onto the train. For a moment, he remembered what he saw earlier. The way it entered and left his peripheral vision was just like before he reached the prime platform. This time though, he was sure he just saw the end of a tail.

“ALL ABOARD!” the conductor called. Soarin stepped on the train and began making his way into the car reserved for the Wonderbolts.

Maybe he was over thinking it. They only reserved one car, not the whole train. It could have easily been somepony rushing to get on, the conductor did just call for departure. No need to worry, he had a show to focus on… and it felt good to be back on his regular schedule.

“C’mon Thunderlane!” Dash yelled as she spotted him. Thunderlane struggled and grunted, but the barbell didn’t budge. He was stuck halfway.

“Help!” he grunted as the weight began to fall. Dash sighed and grabbed the bar, helping him push it the rest of the way up before racking the weight and letting his arms flop down beside him. “Dammit…” he muttered as he exhaled.

“Seriously Thunderlane? I can lift twenty pounds more than this!” Dash exclaimed while leaning over the bar.

“Thanks for reminding me…” Thunderlane glared up at her as he rolled upright. “I haven’t been pulling apple carts and lifting weights in my personal home gym you know…” he grumbled.

The two glanced to their right. Matteo was on the bench beside them. The bar was loaded up with at least four hundred pounds. Blaze and High Winds were also sitting on the weights on each side as Matteo easily pumped the weight up and down continuously.

“Hey Windy, I think this guy’s pretty strong!” Blaze joked. Winds shrugged.

“I suppose…” she said sleepily as they continued to move up and down with his barbell.

“Yow…” Dash commented as Thunderlane sighed again and fell back onto the bench.

“I’m such a weakling…” he moaned. Dash scoffed and lightly bopped him on the head with a hoof.

“Have you seen Little Star try to bench press?” Dash snickered. It didn’t seem to help Thunderlane’s mood.

“Oh, that’s great Dash, I can lift more weight than a thirty year old filly…”

“BLUNDERLANE!” Silver’s voice made Thunderlane yelp and nearly hit his head on the barbell above him. “THIS AIN’T A LOUNGE! SIT UP!” Silver yelled as he walked by. Thunderlane was up instantly.

Dash watched as Silver walked by another recruit who had just finished bench pressing.

“Sir, how much can you lift, sir?” The recruit asked.

“More than you!” Silver quickly replied before starting another round around the gym to check on the recruits.

As she watched Silver, Dash’s attention was caught by something else.

Three ponies over by the stretching mat. The three mystery ponies to be precise: The incredibly dark blue pony with the gold eyes, the large, light brown pony with the black wing tips and nose scars, and the incredibly large, muscular light blue pony.

The light blue giant was wearing what looked like a weighted vest, and he was doing one armed push-ups. He was doing them continuously, a look of concentration on his face as he occasionally switched arms every eight or so push-ups.

Beside him, the dark blue pony was… trying to do one armed push-ups. He wasn’t wearing a weight vest, but he was struggling more because he didn’t quite have the balance figured out. He did a shaky, single pushup for every twelve his bigger friend did.

Then a mare walked by.

“ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SEVEN! UGH!” the dark blue stallion suddenly yelled out to make it seem he was struggling due to how many he had done. The mare didn’t even look at him, but he called out, “ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-EIGHT!” before falling flat on his face.

Dash looked to the right a little more. The light brown pony was wearing a weight vest similar to the large light blue pony, only instead of doing push-ups, the pony was using his large wings to do single wing-ups. He did ten on one wing before switching to the other.

Dash couldn’t help but wonder as she watched the three… well… the two workout and one fail to hit on passing mares.

She had been seeing them a lot lately… but she still couldn’t figure them out. They HAD to be Wonderbolts because they were always around and always using the facilities. They definitely weren’t instructors because they were never training or training with other Wonderbolts. She always saw them working individually or together.

However, she NEVER saw them in uniform, which was strange. How often the flight suit was worn differed from Wonderbolt to Wonderbolt, but they always had it on at some point. These guys NEVER wore it.

At first she didn’t pay too much attention to them, but they had been appearing more and more lately. She was beginning to wonder who they were and why they seemed to be just… there. They didn’t seem like Wonderbolts, and she knew the compound was not a public facility.

They had to be Wonderbolts… but… if they were, where was their fourth? She constantly saw these three stallions together. The only other pony she ever saw with them was Rivet. But Rivet was the chief engineer, he wasn’t a stunt flyer, and the little guy was definitely not a warrior.

It was starting to bother her… who the hell were these guys?

“Rainbow Dash.”

“Ah!” Dash flinched as she turned to Matteo standing right beside her. Again the big guy somehow managed to be silent while moving… the advantage of paws and talons over loud hooves. “Dammit big guy, wear a bell or something!” she commented, but Matteo took no notice, he had his eyes fixed on something else. “Matteo?” she called his name, but he kept looking away.

“Squall,” he suddenly said.

“Huh?” Dash blinked. Matteo pointed across the gym. Dash followed his talon and saw Squall working out alone. Every other pony had somepony helping them or tagging along, but Squall was all alone. “What about Squall…?” Dash thought out loud.

“He’s been avoiding everypony else this whole week,” Matteo mentioned. Dash took a longer look at Squall. She was actually well aware that Squall had been avoiding them lately, but she honestly didn’t give a damn. As much as she was curious about Squall’s sudden attempt at an apology about a week back, it didn’t overwrite how much of an ass he had been in general.

“I’ve noticed, what about it?” Dash asked. Matteo looked down to her.

“We should fix that,” he said straightforwardly. Dash cocked her head to the side in confusion.

“Fix?” Dash blinked, not sure what Matteo was getting at.

“There’s clearly more to him than we know. We should figure it out,” Matteo continued to lay down a plan without giving Dash a full explanation. Dash glanced back at Squall. Yeah he was alone… and, he did look a little dejected. But…

“Wait, hold on…” Dash held a hoof to Matteo’s leg as she looked out towards Squall. “Why? What’s to learn? He’s an ass!” Dash exclaimed. She flinched as Matteo suddenly glared down at her.

“He has the heart of a warrior… but a misguided one. He is troubled, and it’s leading him to be cowardly. I’ve been seeing it since our training began,” Matteo turned to Dash. “We need to open up to him.”

“To him!?” Dash looked at Matteo in disbelief. “Matty, I get where you’re coming from, but I think you’re a bit in over your head feathers! Squall’s a little far gone if you ask me…”

“Think what you wish… I see more in him,” Matteo sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m not too... good at making friends…” he suddenly admitted.

Then Dash realized it. She realized why Matteo suddenly dropped this one her. She had made a friend in him… something which she still wondered how she pulled off. Matteo felt Squall could be brought around… so he came to her.

Squall was a loner. That much was certain. However he had this odd air around him at all times, an air of loneliness. His lack of friends was his own fault, but… that didn’t mean he didn’t want them. Matteo had exposed his façade more than once in training. The first, and most prominent being when he called him out for being a coward in the cafeteria.

Maybe it was high time Dash put her hoof down and figured Squall out.

Dash looked up at Matteo and nodded.

“You want my help?” she asked. Matteo hesitated… but nodded.

“Yes, if you don’t mind…” he admitted. Dash smirked.

“Well… I guess I can give it a shot. I don’t know how he’ll take it, but if you think Squall is worth it, I’ll try…” Dash shrugged.

“Please do,” Matteo said before returning to do another bench press set.

Squall, huh?

Dash hadn’t even considered the possibility from the beginning. She frankly did not know what Matteo’s sudden interest was in him, but Matteo wasn’t an idiot, he had made that crystal clear. There was definitely a reason. She’d humor him… at least as long as Squall didn’t piss her off.

“LESS DO NOTHING, MORE HEAVY LIFTY!” Silver suddenly appeared in front of Dash and yelled at the top of his lungs. Dash yelped and quickly got back into the gym mood. She had nearly forgotten they were in the middle of a gym session.

She looked over to where Squall had been. He had moved on.

She looked towards the stretching mat, the three mystery ponies were gone.

Things were back to normal for her and Soarin… but Dash suddenly found herself with a few new mysteries to solve…

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

WOO! time to move the plot along! I'm admittedly excited to start diving into new events ^_^

So here we have... A show in manehatten coming up! Spitfire is STILL avoiding Wave?! Storm is in a tough spot, suddenly having to perform so soon, but the letter from his father seems to be helping him stay cool. Air Mach want you to know that TRUE STALLIONS RIDE ON TOP OF TRAINS NOT IN THEM! And what the hell is Soarin seeing sneak around? or is he just being paranoid?

Also... Who the hell are these three jokers Dash keeps seeing? (DOHOHOHO) and Matteo... suddenly wants to befriend Squall? Is he out of his big griffon mind?

MUCH MORE TO COME AS WE CONTINUE ON!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! ^_^

Chapter 52: Showtime Nerves

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 52:

“Like this?”

“No…”

“Like this?”

“No…”

“Like this?”

“No…”

“Like—”

“SON OF A BITCH! NO!” Blaze grabbed her mane and yanked on it as Twister sat in front of her casually with his entire body on fire... seemingly unfazed by the flames.

Art by: mlplover789

Blaze angrily whipped around and looked towards Wave Chill across the multi-purpose gym. “WAVE! I NEED SOME WATER OVER—”

“Like this?” Twister suddenly held his hoof out in front of Blaze’s face. The fire around his body was completely gone and now fully controlled and concentrated within his hoof. Blaze turned and glared at him flatly.

Art by: mlplover789

“I oughtta beat you senseless and shitless…” she hissed at him as his pupils began subtly making circles around his eyes… in opposite directions. The other recruits nearby began backing away from him slowly. Wave had turned towards them, but stopped when he saw all the fire was under control.

“I guess not…” Wave shrugged as he turned back to Matteo and Squall, but they were both completely drenched with empty buckets of water beside them. The rest of the recruits were dripping as well. “Oh… sorry, I should’ve been paying attention…” he sheepishly chuckled as they glared at him.

Off to their right, High Winds was showing wing movements to Little Star and some others.

“It’s all in the initial movement and the follow through…” she yawned and smacked her lips, pausing for ten seconds. “The motion from a dead stop is—” she pushed her wing down. A small, but strong burst of wind pushed towards the recruits. They all lightly braced themselves, flinching only a little as the wind hit them, except for—

“Whooooaaaaa!!!” Little Star was sent tumbling across the gym, colliding with Blaze and knocking her over. Winds blinked and sighed.

“Really? Again?” she pouted sleepily as multiple obscenities came from Blaze’s direction. Winds looked at the other recruits who had held their ground. “Can one of you rope her down or something? I’d like to be able to breathe without punting her to Appleoosa…” she was about to continue, but a volt of electricity suddenly struck the ground right beside her hoof. “WHOA!” she blinked and looked towards Silver, who was glaring at Rainbow Dash, who was grimacing as she looked where the lightning flew after mishandling it. Winds waved. “Should I move over? What mile radius do I need not to get zapped? That’s the third time!” she yelled lazily… which was something only she could truly pull off.

“Sorry ma’am!” Dash quickly apologized before she turned back to Silver and flinched as he met his stern gaze.

“What is it Skittles?” he leaned in, completely getting in her face. “You’ve got a problem with lightning?” he asked. Dash opened her mouth to answer but only a squeak was released before she slammed her mouth shut again. “Pardon?” Silver held an ear to her.

“Sir! I… uh…” Dash bit her lip.

“You don’t seem to have a problem with wind, water, or fire… what’s your deal with lightning?!” he yelled.

Dash honestly didn’t know what to say. She had been perfect with the other elements so far… well, at least water and wind. Fire took some trial and error, but she eventually got that down. Lighting was… different.

She couldn’t do it. Every time she received even a small bundle of electricity… her hooves began to shake. She would fight to keep them steady, but it never worked. She would lose control and it would bounce from her hooves.

Hooves shaking… was she afraid of lightning? Her? Afraid of something? That seemed unlikely, but what if it was a phobia? How could it be a phobia? She couldn’t recall any time she had had any sort of traumatic experience with…

Oh… right…

Rainbow Dash came streaking in, driving her hooves full speed into Descent’s side. Descent’s hooves were ripped free from Soarin, as Dash directed him towards the thunder clouds. She hoped Soarin still had control of his flight, and if he did she hoped he wouldn’t try to help her. She was on a collision course with the thunder clouds, but that’s exactly what she wanted. She had risked her safety to come and help Soarin. He now had a chance to stop the tornado and she’d give him what for if he ignored the opportunity she gave him to save her home.

Descent growled and snapped at Dash as she pushed him as the lightning packed into his body sparked and sputtered around him. She could feel some of the electricity passing into her, but she kept stretched out full length, remembering what Soarin had said about controlling lightning. If she let up at all she knew Descent would beat her to a pulp. She aimed them right at the group of storm clouds that were pulsating with electricity, hoping to give Descent a double dose of thunderstorm to cool off his hot temper.

She drove him into the clouds, the energy stored inside instantly being displaced by the energy within Descent’s body. It almost acted like a magnet, drawing the rest of the energy towards him. Dash tried to pull back, but ribbons of electricity crashed against her, surging through her body. She felt herself being dragged closer. She desperately shielded herself.

And the shock and explosion that followed were most definitely the most painful thing she had ever experienced… even more so than when Nightshade had been stomping on her head right before it. The energy felt like it burned her body inside and out, pricking her insides with thousands of electrically charged needles.

She physically whimpered and shivered as the memory flowed in post realization. Silver’s glare instantly faded and he pulled his head back. He looked her over carefully, tipping his head from side to side as he analyzed her expression and the way her body lightly jittered.

“Go work on fire some more,” he ordered while walking past her. She was about to turn but he slowed down and leaned closer to her. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he whispered to her before nudging her towards Blaze. Dash stopped for a brief moment to glance at Silver as he barked at the recruits to pay attention.

She suddenly felt mortified. Silver, as he let her know often, had incredible expectations for her. She just sputtered and whimpered in front of him over a sudden fear of lightning from past trauma.

We'll talk about it tomorrow

Why did that feel so ominous? She began a slow trot over to Blaze, now dreading what this meant for her. Had she disappointed Silver? She couldn’t be sure, but the bad possibilities were overshadowing the good. She made her way past the other recruits towards Blaze, a look of worry clearing in both her face and the way she moved.

Squall watched Dash trot towards Blaze as he continued to try and dry himself off with a towel after the small water accident. Dash’s confident step was gone, and she looked afraid. Squall eyed her carefully, as if intrigued.

“We’re not perfect…” Matteo suddenly spoke up beside him. Squall flinched and took a step away from Matteo, acting like he hadn’t heard. “And neither are you,” he added. Squall’s eyes widened and he glared towards Matteo.

“Huh?!” he grunted while turning to face Matteo. Matteo didn’t look at him. He only released a small grunt as he began wiping off his head with the towel.

“Just a thought… it’s not like we’re all really that different… wouldn’t you say?” he said as he continued to vigorously rub the towel over his head feathers. The instant he stopped, all the feathers from his neck up puffed out, making his head look like a white fluffy ball. “Dammit…”

Squall’s glare faded, replaced by a look of confusion. He kept looking at Matteo as the big griffon tried to smooth out his head feathers, but gritted his teeth and quickly turned away. Matteo glanced towards Squall, cracking a brief smirk before grumbling over his feathers some more.

Spitfire readied her hooves as the fireball closed in. When it was roughly a foot away from her, Spitfire brought her hooves in, clapping them over the flames. The ball exploded, shooting flames towards her and up her arms. Her speed prevented her from catching fire, but she worked to control the flame, keeping it around her arms as she turned back and began heading towards Fleetfoot, who had clouds in tow.

Air Mach landed on the ground and Soarin dropped down beside him soon after

“Ready?” Soarin nodded to Mach.

“Lead the way!” Mach grinned.

Soarin set his hooves firmly on the ground. He proceeded through his motions to execute the Sonic Blastoff. A loud BOOM sounded out as Soarin exploded up towards Fleetfoot and Spitfire. The force of the sonic boom crashed against Air Mach. He held firm against the force while smirking at giving chase as soon as he was stable.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot drew near each other on a collision course. They grew closer and closer, Fleetfoot with the four clouds in tow and Spitfire with the flames hovering and streaking around her like an aura.

“Disperse!” Spitfire yelled as she shook her hooves roughly, shedding the flames from her body. Fleetfoot ceased her spinning and released the clouds from the whirlwind. They both shifted slightly to pass right by each other, and as they did they pushed off each other’s hooves, sending themselves in opposite directions, clear from the paths of the flames and the clouds. The fire crashed into the clouds, the two forces cancelling each other’s speed and stopping in midair, creating a pillar of combusting clouds.

Soarin zoomed upward, still speeding up from his Sonic Blast-off. He punched a hoof forward as he collided with the bottom of the cloud pillar, going right through the bottom cloud as well as the other three as he moved up. The clouds burst and expanded creating four growing rings of fire in his wake. He slowed down and hovered in place about the rings with a lingering trail of fire dying in his path.

Air Mach held in the urge to yell out triumphantly as he flew up after Soarin, passing through the rings as he began spinning violently. His spinning caused a whirlwind like Fleetfoot, but his had opposite cross breezes, sucking the rings of fire back in. Air Mach ceased spinning as he reached Soarin above the rings and they watched as the rings capsized and exploded in a fireworks fashion as they crashed in on themselves.

The crowd erupted in roaring cheers and thunderous applause. Soarin pulled up beside Air Mach as the two slowly glided back down towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot on the ground. Soarin smirked as he saw Air Mach smiling wider than ever before, reveling in the crowd’s awe as the lingering flames from the explosion slowly fell with them. It was both strange and cool to see Air Mach almost speechless.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Soarin asked. Mach looked towards Soarin and nodded while visibly shivering.

“Yeah… it’s incredible…” he nodded. Soarin reached a hoof out towards him.

“Welcome to the lead squad Mach… and nice job,” Soarin congratulated Mach as the two bumped hooves.

They landed beside Spitfire and Fleetfoot and joined them in waving at the enormous crowd.

Equine-Nox Stadium was by far the largest in Equestria. The infield was surrounded on all sides with three decks that had a max seating capacity of 120,000… and the show had a sellout crowd. Upon hearing of the return of the lead squad to the shows, the tickets were sold out quickly. They were definitely making an enormous revenue mark from this show.

The lead squad continued waving and turning to make sure they faced every direction before they lifted off and began gliding back towards the tunnel entrance connected to their waiting room. Fleetfoot flew backwards while blowing kisses to the crowd as they all eventually made it to the short tunnel and landed… before breathing sighs of relief.

“Great to see all this unexpected time off hasn’t made us rusty,” Spitfire removed her goggles and whipped her head around to get loose strands of her wind-blown mane out of her eyes. “Good work guys… and Mach,” Spitfire pointed at Air Mach. “Superb performance. Way to answer the call,” she patted him on the back.

“Doesn’t matter how much I do that, my heart always races…” Fleetfoot commented, pushing her goggles up on her forehead, and patting her chest as they walked down the tunnel. Air Mach was on his hooves and pressing against her side in an instant.

“Wanna do something else that’ll make your heart race? I’ve been told I’m superb you know!” he claimed confidently, using Spitfire’s own words about him. Fleetfoot flattened her brow and glanced at him.

“I hear you fall flat in that regard,” she replied monotonously. Air Mach flinched.

“Ooo… ouch… metaphorical blow to the stallionhood…” he groaned as he backed away.

Spitfire glanced at Soarin as they drew near the waiting room. He looked… worried.

“What’s up Soarin?” Spitfire asked as she shifted towards him. Soarin blinked and looked up.

“Huh? Oh… nothing. I’m just preparing myself for media bombardment after the show… 120,000 ponies just saw me with this after all…” he pointed towards the horn.

“RIGHT?!” Fleetfoot squeezed herself between them while giggling. “You’re gonna have to explain to all of Equestria why you’re wearing a strap on!” she lost herself in a fit of giggles as Soarin groaned. He glanced at Spitfire and caught her trying and failing to hold back a smirk.

Fancy Pants just HAD to say it out loud.

In reality Soarin wasn’t thinking about the press. That was going to be a hassle, but as soon as his mind was off of the show it went right back to wondering about the two little incidents of somepony possibly following him. He felt paranoid for thinking about it again, but he had a recent history with ‘shadowy figures’ so he had plenty of personal reasons to at least be alert.

“That was awesome guys!” Autumn Rain complimented the lead squad as they entered the small waiting room filled with couches and comfy chairs.

“Autumn! Focus!” Point Dex ordered, making Autumn flinch and turn right back to the rest of squad seven. “Just like we practiced. Stay in formation and listen for my commands before shifting. Got it?” Dex asked as he looked at the other three members.

“Got it!” Autumn nodded.

“Oh YEAH!” Macho Savage pounded his chest. Point Dex looked towards Storm. Storm was literally staring into space.

“Well, Storm?” Dex spoke to him. Storm suddenly broke from his daydream and nodded very quickly.

“Uh! Y-y-yes sir!” he continued to nod vigorously while breathing at a very quickened pace. Dex took a long, careful look at Storm, lifting an eyebrow one before nodded in response.

“Okay then… we’re on in three, be ready!” Dex pointed out.

As soon as the huddle broke, Storm frantically cantered away from the rest, standing in the corner. He drew looks from the other Wonderbolts present as he frantically reached into a pouch on his Wonderbolt uniform and pulled the letter from his father out. He looked it over several times, but it was not having the desired effect.

Soarin saw the whole thing from huddle to corner. He quickly trotted up to Storm.

“Storm… breathe…” Soarin said before anything else. Storm pressed the letter to his chest, feeling the rapid thumping of his heart as he nearly hyperventilated. Soarin placed his hoof on Storm’s back and he could immediately feel the shaking and the constant fill and release of Storm’s lungs as he breathed heavily. “Storm…” Soarin narrowed his eyes into a stern stare. “RELAX,” Soarin said with a harsh tone. “Take deep breaths. Inhale... exhale…” he advised as Storm listened and did as he was told. “Now look at me,” Storm forced him to turn around.

“S-sir?” Storm blinked as Soarin glared at him.

“You will do FINE. Don’t worry about messing up. This was short notice, but you have had plenty of training… FOCUS!” Soarin put a hoof to Storm’s forehead. Storm flinched and his eyes widened slightly. “There is no crowd, there is no anxiety… you are in a practice gym back at the compound. Visualize that,” Soarin suggested. Storm continued to take rapid breaths. Soarin sighed. “But before you do any of that… BREATHE! B-R-E-A-T-H-E!” Soarin spelled it out for him. “Steady and relaxed.

“One minute!” Point Dex yelled out.

“Listen Storm. Just stick next to Autumn as you have throughout your training. That’s your position in the formation… right?” he asked. Storm said nothing. He simply nodded quickly. “Then do that,” Soarin smiled. “You’ve got this. No regrets okay?”

“O-okay…” Storm swallowed and took a deep breath, exhaling as he stepped towards the tunnel where the rest of squad seven was gathering. He quickly folded the piece of paper, tapped it against his chest, and tucked it back into the pouch on his uniform.

“Oh damn…” Fleetfoot grimaced as she walked up to Soarin. “This isn’t gonna go well, he looks like he’s about to throw up,” she commented as she examined Storm’s demeanor.

“I have faith in him…” Soarin nodded. He waited for Dex to give the go ahead and for them to be out of earshot before he spoke again. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a mistake…” Soarin added regretfully. “Hopefully not more than one… the poor kid looks like he’s about to explode.”

“Welp, don’t look at me, Spitty is the one who ranked him so high,” Fleetfoot shrugged before moving towards the tunnel. “C’mon! Let’s go watch!” she suggested. Soarin looked towards the rest of the Wonderbolts as he took his first step to follow Fleetfoot.

However, he saw something… and this time he knew he wasn’t imagining something. It was only for a second, but a pony head was poking around the doorway, looking into the waiting room. It disappeared before Soarin could make any distinctions, but it was clear somepony was looking in. Soarin quickly rushed for the door, actually knocking aside two members from the lower squads as he did.

Soarin grabbed the edge of the door way and looked out.

Nothing.

There was a long slightly curved hallway to his left and to his right. He growled quietly to himself before taking a deep breath and exhaling.

“Soarin?" Spitfire walked up to him as Soarin stepped back into the waiting room. “What is it?” she asked as Soarin looked back and narrowed his eyes towards the doorway.

“Thought I saw something…” he said as the two joined Fleetfoot.

“What was that all about?” Fleetfoot also asked. Soarin merely shook his head. Fleetfoot lifted an eyebrow before picking up to a canter. “Well come on! They’re about to start! I don’t want to miss Storm’s first show!” she exclaimed as Soarin and Spitfire increased their pace as well.

Soarin decided to leave it be. Some crazy fan must’ve just snuck by security. There was no way to tell if all of his suspicions were related. Somepony passing him in the station, somepony rushing to get on the train, and a sneaky fan peeking at their idols. None of it was farfetched. He had to relax like he had just told Storm. It was time to see their new elite acquisition in action. Soarin just hoped Storm remain strong throughout.

Air Mach was already at the end of the tunnel, eyes locked on his former squad. Fleetfoot made sure to position herself on the other side of Spitfire and Soarin as they approached and joined him.

“WONDERBOLT SQUAD SEVEN!” the announcer’s voice echoed through the air as said squad flew up and waved to the crowd. All except Storm, who looked as stiff as a brick. “Featuring Point Dex!” Dex did a small back flip in the air. “Machoooooooooooooooo Savage!”

“OHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Savage yelled out while flexing.

“Autumn Rain!” The announced continued. Autumn smiled and waved both arms out to the crowd. “And… Storm Front!” the announcer clearly hesitated, seeing a new name on the roster. He had to look twice. Storm didn’t do anything until Autumn leaned over and whispered something to him. Storm Flinched and quickly sheepishly waved to the crowd.

“He looks terrified… I should’ve changed up the squads…” Spitfire grimaced as she kept her eyes on Storm. Soarin shook his head.

“Squad seven’s been at the compound too long, and the other three were due for a big show. There was no way around it,” Soarin patted her on the shoulder. “We chose him, so let’s see how he does.”

“Five bits says he makes two mistakes,” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up.

“FLEET!” Both Spitfire and Soarin yelled as she giggled.

“Sheesh, I’m kidding! Un-bunch your flight suits from your asses…” she stole a quick glance at Air Mach. He was completely focused on his old squad. Fleet had rarely seen determination in his eyes (which she could see behind his ridiculous sunglasses.) He really cared about his old squad. He was an annoying dumbass… but at least his heart was in the right place.

Squad seven dispersed as Dex gave the order and began their routine. It was a much less complicated routine than the lead squad’s, a simple synchronized flight show with added effects and cloud busting. The synchronization was split into two halves. Dex and Savage flew together and Storm and Autumn flew together. The pairs would do their own maneuvers, coming back together every few moves for a special effect or a full squad maneuver before breaking apart again.

Storm didn’t look relaxed in the slightest. From all the way down in the tunnel Soarin could see it clear as day… and as he feared… Storm blundered.

In fact Storm made FOUR errors throughout the course of the show. None of them were show stoppers, but they were all fairly noticeable, especially to the lead squad.

The first was very minor. He took a turn to tightly and cut off Autumn in the process. The two didn’t lose their timing with Dex and Savage, but they had to adjust and fix the bad move. It did nothing to hinder the process, but it clearly effected Storm’s confidence… in that it left it completely shattered.

He made three more mistakes. Two of which were missed cues that were easily fixed, but the fourth was pretty bad. They had to reset a formation run and do it over half way through because Storm broke off in the wrong direction, bumping wings with Dex. It earned a loud gasp from the crowd and forced the two of them into a light tumble. Autumn and Savage helped them regain control and Dex, without saying anything specifically to Storm, calmly ordered them to just restart the stunt.

Storm did it perfectly the second time, and their final stunt went unhindered as well… but the damage had been done.

The crowd cheered and applauded as they finished. There wasn’t quite as much gusto in the response as the first, but it was typical, the lead squad always got the most applause.

“Shouldn’t have put him up to this… I shouldn’t have…” Spitfire turned around and paced in a circle, berating herself.

“Spitfire, stop…” Soarin huffed as he looked at her. “He would’ve been nervous in his first show no matter where or when his first—”

“Whoa!” Fleetfoot yelped. Soarin and Spitfire turned to see Storm the first one back in the tunnel. He nearly shoved past Fleetfoot as he reached for his goggles.

“Storm,” Spitfire tried to get him to stop. Storm ripped his goggles off his face and threw them aside as he broke into a gallop towards the waiting room. “STORM FRONT!” Spitfire yelled and turned to chase. She got two steps away before she felt a very painful yank on her plot. “OW!” she yelped as she looked back to see Soarin with a hold of her tail. She glared at him, but he only shook his head in response.

“Let me handle this…” he nodded to her. Spitfire growled at him.

“Soarin, it is my responsibility as lead captain—”

“To let me talk to him,” Soarin cut her off, taking on her glare without flinching. Spitfire flattened her brow and pouted angrily.

“That’s not funny Soarin…” she said, but it didn’t sway Soarin.

“Stallion to stallion talk,” Soarin patted her on the back as he walked past her before she could protest some more. Spitfire took a deep breath and rolled her eyes.

“Fine… but make it quick, we have an encore retro show after squad twelve and eighteen go,” she reminded him.

“I won’t be long,” Soarin assured her before continuing after Storm. He didn’t get very far though.

“Did someone say STALLION TALK?!” Air Mach zipped up besides Soarin. “I’m an expert! Sign me the hell up!”

“Absolutely not,” Soarin said flatly. Mach looked hurt.

“Commander! You need all the help you can get to reignite the burning passion of Storm’s soul! I guarantee I can do it in the blink of an eye!” he kept going on and on without sign of giving up.

Soarin felt like a douche for doing this, but he didn’t have time to confront Mach.

“Sorry Fleet…” Soarin mumbled to himself before turning to Mach. “Actually Mach, you may want to go talk to Fleetfoot! I heard she wants to take you out after the show!” Soarin glanced back towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot, seeing the visible twitch in Fleetfoot as her ears stood straight up. Mach’s grin grew three sizes as he turned back towards Fleetfoot.

“I KNEW SHE WOULD! IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME, TOO!” he yelled out as he bounced towards her.

“SOARIN!!!!!!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot yelled out in rage. Soarin knew he would pay for that one later, but for the time being it did the job. He stopped before moving on, turning back for a moment to pick up the goggles Storm had thrown aside before he trotted down the tunnel to follow.

“Again!” Fire Streak yelled as he and Lightning put up guards side by side. They were only wearing the padded arm guards of the training armor.

Dash sprung towards Fire, donning a full suit of training armor. She threw a punch into Fire’s guard as he crossed his arms top cushion the force. At the same time beside them…

“Aw hell…” Lightning sighed as he braced himself and did his best to anchor his hooves. Matteo zoomed past Dash and landed a heavy blow into Lightning’s guard. Lighting’s hooves instantly buckled under the force, but he leaned back and flapped his wings up to propel himself into a back flip and land back on his hooves. Dash glanced towards them as she watched Matteo pursue, but she quickly regretted it.

“Pay attention!” Fire yelled as he delivered a blow to her head-guard.

“Ah!” Dash grunted as she put her hooves back up and started throwing more punches towards Fire. He wasn’t as skilled or rough as Silver, but he was doing his job well.

Finally some real combat. They had been doing nothing but defense training for the first four weeks. There was a collective cheer when Silver revealed they would be allowed to take some shots at Wonderbolts finally… which resulted in them doing wing-ups, but it didn’t matter. Combat training had been a bore, and after how many times they put up with Wonderbolts repeatedly punching at their defenses, many recruits were more than ready to throw a few back. To make it even better, squad three was brought in to assist with the session.

Silver had his eyes trained carefully on Dash. Watching her as she fought Fire. Fire Streak was a disciplined, seasoned fighter, but it looked like Dash was actually making him work hard. Silver nodded in approval as he glanced at Lightning and Matteo. It didn’t matter how ‘skilled’ Lightning was, Matteo was three times his size and strength, so it put him at a disadvantage in a situation where he couldn’t fight back.

Lightning ducked and weaved more than he blocked. Matteo’s blows were strong, but slow and easily predicted. He seemed to have a problem with telegraphing his attacks. There wasn’t much variety. Matteo kept his eyes and attacks forward. He didn’t use any feints or body shifts. Silver made a mental note to address that, Matteo had incredible strength, but that would only take the griffon so far.

Fire deflected a kick from Dash, grabbed her leg and gently spun her, disorienting her just long enough to back up and make a sharp two toned whistle towards Lightning. Lightning’s ears perked up as he ducked and whipped around the side of Matteo. He turned and saw Fire make a motion that ended in him clapping his hooves stiffly together. Lightning nodded before yelping and throwing his hooves up to block a hard punch. It sent him flying, but right towards Fire.

Fire backed towards his brother as Lightning managed to back flip again and land. They went back to back as Dash and Matteo careened towards them. Fire smirked.

“Shift-n-switch!” Fire yelled. He leaned forward, letting Lighting fall back as their backs remained together. Dash and Matteo blinked as they saw the sudden maneuver, neither of them expecting to be attacked by the other twin. Lightning rolled off his brother’s back and landed a kick into Dash’s cheek-guard. Fire scooted out below Lightning and pressed his hooves hard to the ground, delivering a body blow into Matteo’s chest.

Dash was sent in the opposite direction by Lightning’s kick and Fire’s attack propelled Matteo up and over the twins uncontrollably. Dash landed roughly on the ground, her eyes widening as Matteo’s massive body came falling towards her. She rolled out of the way just in the nick of time as Matteo crashed less than an inch beside her, bouncing once before immediately anchoring his talons into the mat and rounding himself upright. Dash scrambled to her hooves as the twins approached.

They had switched targets. Lightning was now heading for her and Fire was aiming for Matteo. Dash readied herself. Lightning was a few feet in front of Fire and Matteo was further back than her. She’d clash with Lightning before anything else. At first it seemed like the Wonderbolts were only on the defensive, but it looked like they were turning up the heat a little bit and throwing some punches of their own. Lighting had pulled back to throw a punch… and in the instant before he attacked, Dash saw an opportunity.

She thought back to when Silver fought Soarin. Silver had ways to counter opponents stronger than him… and one in particular came to mind.

Dash twisted her body to the right while reaching both arms out. She forced her body back, her left hoof swinging around and batting lightning’s hoof away while her right arm launched towards his face within the same motion. Lightning barely had a chance to blink.

THWACK

Fire came to a sudden, complete stop and turned to see his brother fly backwards and bounce to a halt on his back. He blinked and glanced at Dash in surprise as Lightning propped himself up and shook his head out with a light bruise on his cheek.

“PFFFFFFFFFHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!” Everything in the battle dome stopped and everypony turned to Silver.

Silver Lining fell back while laughing hysterically, rolling around on the ground while kicking his hooves and clutching his sides.

“Woohoooo! Hooohaaaa! HEEEEEHAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!”

It was actually a little disturbing. A moment later, Dash suddenly realized all eyes were on her, including Fire again. She glanced about as Matteo walked up beside her, glancing between her and Lightning as Lightning slowly got up. Dash caught Matteo staring at her, put her hooves behind her back, and grinned sheepishly.

“Uh… oops?” she chuckled as Silver finally simmered down, rolled over, stood, and walked towards Dash. He stopped and tossed a glare at everypony still staring, causing them all to instantly go back to training, before he continued towards her. He was smiling and snickering the whole way, a rare sight indeed.

“What’s the matter son!?” Silver called to Lightning. Lightning finally got back to his hooves and cracked his neck before blinking and staring at Dash. Silver couldn’t stop chuckling. “So what’s it like to finally have a mare touch you without being drunk?” he taunted. Lightning flattened his ears, keeping his usual lackadaisical expression and shaking his head.

“Cold, Old Timer… real cold…” he huffed as he walked towards them.

“Miss Dash… how did you do that?” Fire asked, still trying to figure out how his brother got the offensive reversed on him so easily by a recruit.

“Uh…” Dash wasn’t ready to answer, but Silver did for her.

“She used a twisting reversal deflection following with a punch using the momentum caused by it,” he explained. “In other words… she copied one of my favorite combat tactics,” Silver smirked, glancing at Dash before snickering at Lightning some more.

“So much for pain free assistance…” Lightning complained as he moved his jaw around to make sure it was still in place. Silver turned and nodded to Dash and Matteo.

“Not bad you two… take a breather,” he said with satisfaction before going to observe the other recruits. Fire and Lightning watched Dash and Matteo move on before smiling at his brother.

“Those two are quite good… we’ve got quite a recruit class here…” he stated as Lightning kept rubbing his cheek.

“Mmhmm…” Lightning replied, visibly a little upset he got punched in the face.

Dash and Matteo walked back to the center of the battle dome where a few recruits were resting in between their turns.

“Copying techniques of your colleagues and superiors…” Matteo spoke as the two sat down. Dash blinked and looked up at him. “Knocking down opponents that are far superior to you…” he smirked and glanced down at Dash. “It’s a shame you aren’t a griffon,” he chuckled. Dash flattened her ears and smirked.

“Nice backhooffed—” she paused and glanced at his talons. “Er… backtaloned compliment.”

“I only speak the truth, you’d fit right in,” Matteo nodded before glancing around. His eyes landed on Twister… who was fighting Surprise. Dash followed Matteo’s eyes and hers widened upon seeing it.

Twister and Surprise weren’t really fighting, it looked more like a fake-out contest. Every time one of them went in for an attack, they faked and circled around. All the while yelling—

“NUH-UH!” Twister circled around her.

“UH-HUH!” she circled around him.

“NUH-UH!”

“UH-HUH!”

“NUH-UH!”

“UH-HUH!”

“NUH-UH!”

“UH-HUH!”

“NUH-UH!”

“UH-HUH!”

Dash’s ears flopped down.

“Who let THEM fight each other?!” Dash yelled out while throwing her hooves forward.

“Have you talked to Twister lately?” Matteo suddenly asked her. Dash glanced up at Matteo quizzically.

“First Squall, now Twister? You’ve got strange taste in desired squadmates big fella,” Dash commented while letting her body relax.

“You’ve had the same problems with Twister?” Matteo asked. Dash blinked and shook her head.

“Oh no, not at all. Twister is just… you know…”

“Strange?” Matteo finished for her. Dash rolled her eyes.

“That’s like calling the weather on the sun ‘a little warm…’ Matty, Twister has so many screws loose. I’ve never had a full conversation with him, and he tied me up and recited self-composed poetry to me in the mare’s bathroom one night,” she listed. Matteo sharply turned to her with an eyebrow lifted as high as possible.

“P-pardon?” he said while blinking.

“You heard me. Tied me up, sat me on a stool, and read me a poem with the lights off in the mare’s bathroom. He’s definitely skilled and a good flyer, but seriously, what?” Dash finished ranting.

“Very well, let’s leave him be for now,” Matteo decided.

“IF ONLY IT WERE THAT EASY!” Twister popped out of the feathers on Matteo’s back and hung his neck like a vulture over Matteo’s shoulder to stare at Dash. Dash yelped and fell back as Matteo grimaced and arched his neck away.

“HEY!” Surprise popped out of Matteo’s feathers right behind Twister. “I’m not finished with you!” she growled, tackling Twister back into Matteo’s feathers. The instant they disappeared they were back out in their sparring spot, continuing the game of cat and mouse fake outs.

Dash and Matteo glanced at each other before silently agreeing to drop the subject so as not to encourage Twister’s randomness.

Dash took a deep breath and exhaled, making sure to let her body rest in case called upon again for another go at one of the Wonderbolts.

She felt better now. Earlier, she was worried that she disappointed Silver with her lack of willingness to handle lightning. However, he seemed thoroughly impressed with her just now after she clocked Lightning Streak across the jaw unexpectedly.

Heh… ironic… she was worried about a fear of lightning and dispelled it by hitting an idiot named Lightning…

Dash glanced over to her right and caught a glimpse of Thunderlane trying to land hits on Misty Fly. Dash turned to get a better look and chuckled at what she saw.

Misty had her eyes closed. She was defending and deflecting Thunderlane’s attacks using her single sense fighting tactic. Thunderlane wasn’t going to land a single hit. His movements caused more than enough displacements in the air around her. Her wings were extended and the tips of her feathers were feeling every bit of air movement nearby her.

Thunderlane however, didn’t back down. His tryhard senses kicked in and he was throwing continuous punches, despite clearly tiring and sweating like crazy.

Eventually Misty could feel the air movements weakening. She opened her eyes, catching one of Thunderlane’s hooves and then the other as he kept trying. Thunderlane glared at her for a moment, but then lightened his gaze as Misty slowly and gently moved Thunderlane’s hooves back to his chest while giving him a smile and a nod to indicate they were done.

Thunderlane exhaled and fell back onto his plot, panting and wheezing. Misty looked up and around until her eyes landed on Fire Streak. She brought up her hooves and clapped them together four times, pausing between the second and third. Fire’s right ear stood up and turned towards the sound before he himself turned and looked towards Misty.

She cheerfully waved at him and then beckoned for him to come to her. Fire, of course, was cantering towards her before she even waved. The two clap, pause, two clap. Whenever Misty wanted to get Fire’s attention, it was always two percussions, a pause, and then two more. It was a little personal understanding they had.

Dash watched as Misty and Fire exchanged a few words via sign language before Fire turned and cleared his throat. It was hard to hear from where she sat, but Dash could make out what sounded like advice. Misty must’ve used Fire to relay pointers to Thunderlane.

It made Dash smile. It had been a long time since her training day visit to the compound many months prior. The whole experience was incredible and extremely fun because of squad three. It was great to watch Fire and Misty work together again. She had nothing against Surprise and Lightning, but Fire and Misty were just so friendly and—

Dash’s eyes widened as she saw Misty hug Fire incredibly tight after helping her. Fire’s face nearly turned the color of his mane. Dash had been on the receiving end of intense hugs, and she could tell even from where she sat… that wasn’t the kind of hug you gave to a typical friend. Dash found herself feeling a little speck of giddiness in her heart. She wasn’t a gossip queen or anything, but did she just see Misty give Fire an extra affectionate hug? Something about that just seemed… perfect to Dash’s interests, almost like a little sister going nuts over seeing her older brother and his marefriend hug. Dash was far from that kind of mare, but she liked Fire and Misty so much it felt so good to see it.

That or it was just extra hilarious to see Fire streak trying to conceal a blush on his white fur.

“Huh?” Dash perked up as she felt something tap her arm. She looked to her right to see Matteo taping a talon against her. “What?” she asked as she looked up at him. He pointed to their left.

“He’s about to lose it again…” Matteo said. Dash scooted forward to see past Matteo’s massive body and saw Wave Chill working with Little Star and… Squall. Dash took a closer look to confirm what Matteo has just stated. Squall was in fact, glowering and baring his teeth as Wave was explaining something to him.

“You had a good approach that time, but the blow wasn’t well timed or executed...” Wave stood beside him. “Here look at my movements and see if you can—”

Dash grimaced as Squall released a loud growl. Wave and Little Star both instantly turned to him as well as many others nearby.

“Dammit! I know how to fight already! I thought we were done with this stupid teaching shit!” Squall yelled right into Wave’s face. Wave took a step back and gave Squall a very stern glare.

“Recruit, what right do you think you have to—” Wave’s scolding was cut off as Little Star zipped up in front of Squall.

“Are you 500% STUPID or something?! How many times are you gonna make them consider kicking you out?!” she pressed one of her small hooves to his nose. “I swear, if you don’t shape up, I might just—”

Then STAR was cut off as Silver stepped in, grabbed her out of the air and yanked her away, holding her by the tail over towards Wave.

“Hold this for me, will you?” Silver ordered Wave as Little Star flailed while dangling upside down.

“Uh… sure?” Wave reached up and grabbed Little Star, keeping her upside down as Silver put his full attention on Squall.

Art by: CowgirlVK

Silver pressed his hoof so hard against the chest guard of Squall’s training armor that a few buckles and straps snapped off from the pressure.

“YOU,” Silver snarled. Dash gulped. Silver had mostly eased up at how much he yelled at them since they had started falling in line and getting used to things, but he had yelled at Squall often.

“Think he’ll smile again?” Matteo said quickly. Dash blinked, but before she could respond—

“YOU CAN’T GET MUCH DUMBER OR HEADSRTONG CAN YOU!? I’VE SEEN ROAD SIGNS WITH MORE PROMISING INTELLIGENCE THAN YOU!” Silver belted into his face as Wave slowly backed away while holding Little Star (still upside-down.) “SERIOUSLY?! I’VE WILLINGLY PUT UP WITH YOUR BIG HEAD SHIT-DICKERY! BUT I WILL NOT TOLERATE YOU GIVING THE ATTITUDE TO ANY OTHER SUPERIOR OFFICERS! IT’S LIKE YOU THINK YOU OWN THE PLACE! IF I WANTED TO KILL MYSELF, I WOULD CLIMB UP YOUR EGO AND SWAN DIVE TOWARDS YOUR IQ!!!!”

Silver pulled back and glared down at Squall. However, Silver lifted an eyebrow in confusion.

“You called it,” Dash said as she and Matteo observed. Squall was smiling again after being told off. Silver shook his head.

“Does it get you off to be yelled at or something?” he asked a lot quieter. He got no response from Squall so he just shook his head and turned away. “You’ve got issues, son…” he scoffed. “Go sit the hell down and think about it,” he pointed towards the recruits resting in the middle of the mat. Silver stopped and looked as Star in Wave’s hooves, still upside-down with her arms crossed and pouting. Wave blinked and glanced down at Star.

“Oh!” he reacted, quickly turning her upright.

Silver pointed towards the rest area.

“You two, Short Stack,” he ordered.

Dash and Matteo watched as Squall and Little Star approached them.

“I don’t get the smiling thing…” Matteo admitted while lightly shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anyone smile while being berated before…”

“You and me both…” Dash agreed while scratching her head.

The two remained silent as Squall and Little Star reached them. They split apart, Little Star taking a grumpy seat next to Matteo and Squall making at least ten feet of space between him and Dash before sitting down and the smile fading.

Dash kept her eyes on Squall for a moment before turning back to Matteo. Matteo was looking straight down at her. She looked back up at him and shrugged, feeling like he was expecting her to do something. He made a subtle head motion towards Squall. Dash shrugged again. Matteo huffed and glared at her. Dash rolled her eyes and nodded before looking towards Squall. She took a deep breath and got up, walking towards him slowly.

Get Squall to open up.

Befriend him.

Dash was still convinced Matteo had lost his mind. She and her friends back in Ponyville had made friends out of those one would least expect… but sometimes it just didn’t feel worth the trouble. Squall was an ass… and constantly did things to make him appear to be just a straight up terrible pony.

But… if Matteo was certain it was worth a shot, she wouldn’t say no.

First step, just be friendly.

“Hey…” Dash said as she approached. Squall didn’t even look. Dash was convinced he was either ignoring her, or assumed she wasn’t talking to him. Since either seemed equally possible, she tried again. She cleared her throat loudly and took another few steps towards him. “HEY,” she said a little louder.

Squall blinked and sharply looked at her with the usual scowl attached to his face. Dash resisted the extreme urge to roll her eyes at him before continuing.

“Rough day, huh?” she said as she sat down beside him. She glanced briefly to see he still had the glare trained on her.

Off to the side Matteo watched subtly. Even Little Star has poked her head around him to take a look, wondering what Dash was up to.

“At least they’re finally letting us do some actually fighting,” Dash just gave simple small talk. “How did element training go for you this morning?”

“What the hell do you want?” Squall harshly snapped at her.

Back over by Matteo, Little Star growled in disapproval. She lifted up and began crossing in front of Matteo. When he saw her doing so, he quickly reached out a talon and grabbed her around the body.

“Hey!” she yelped. Matteo opened his right wing and stuffed Star against his body before closing his large wing completely over her. He sat perfectly still and watched Dash work as his wing bulged and ruffled with Little Star struggling and fuming beneath it.

Dash narrowed her eyes for a moment after Squall’s uncalled for remark, but took a deep breath and kept calm.

“I’m just asking Squall,” she continued to speak softly.

“Why the HELL do you wanna know?” he snarled. Dash looked straight into his glare.

“Just curious about how a fellow recruit is doing, that’s all,” she stood up. “But if you want, I’ll leave you alone,” and without another word, Dash turned and walked back towards Matteo, who had turned to look elsewhere the instant Dash stood up.

Squall’s eyes changed as soon as Dash turned to leave. He watched Dash until she was all the way back over to Matteo before looking back down at the ground… but not scowling.

Dash and Matteo glanced at Squall.

“Looks like you have him thinking…” Matteo commented. “Gilda always said you were the friendship type,” Matteo chuckled. Dash gave him a smarmy smirk.

“I was wondering where this sudden faith in my friend making skills came from…” she joked.

“Well, she’s right. It looks like he’s legitimately wondering why you bothered,” Matteo subtly eyed Squall from where they sat, which was easy for him to do since his eyes were much smaller and sharper than a pony’s eyes. “He looks unsure, he’s not used to somepony being so friendly and then tolerant,” Matteo flinched as he finished. “Ow! What the… Oh…right.”

Dash glanced at Matteo and noticed him looking back at his right wing. It looked like something was moving beneath it. Matteo opened his wing and Little Star fell out of it to the ground with a yelp and a faint PLOP as she landed on her stomach. Dash snickered and eventually let a few laughs go when she realized Matteo had Star under lock and key in his own wing.

“She was about to step in, had to stop her,” Matteo explained casually. Star glared at him.

“You could’ve just SAID that!” she fumed at him. Matteo glanced all the way down at her.

“With your rage tendencies, I couldn’t take any chances,” Matteo continued to talk in a completely serious tone despite how much Dash was laughing at the situation beside him.

Off to the side, none of them knew that Squall was subtly looking towards them.

Watching…

And wondering.

“Storm?” Soarin called out as he walked through the long, curved hallway of the lower levels of the stadium. The lower level was meant for performers and athletes only depending on what the day’s entertainment was. Soarin failed to see which direction Storm Front had turned after running off, so Soarin took a wild guess and took the right hall in case Storm tried to leave the stadium.

As he walked, Soarin contemplated what had happened. He had learned more about Storm this one day than he had observing him in the tryouts and during his initial training. Storm had proven to be smart, kind, skilled, and level headed. To most, from the outside, he seemed like a perfect pony. Even with the family issues, he always had a smile on his face and was always quite to be friendly.

Because of all this, Soarin, and most likely every other pony that knew him failed to think about the negative side of his life. It seemed like it was nonexistent… but maybe there was more to it. Something definitely showed through after his minor blunders in the show. It was clear why he was angry… but he threw his goggles down? He ran off? He ignored Spitfire? After how flawless he seemed?

As the one who shared a little personal contact with him before they left on the train, Soarin felt like it was up to him to seek Storm out.

Eventually… Soarin found Storm sitting with his back against the wall with his head down and his arms over his eyes a good twenty yards from the exit. Soarin breathed a sigh of relief as he slowed to a walk and approached him. He opened his mouth to say something, but felt like it was the wrong approach. Instead he let the quiet clip-clop oh his hooves indicate to Storm that somepony was near.

As Soarin approached… he heard sniffling. As he grew closer, he saw wet stains on the arms of Storm’s flight suit.

Storm was crying?

Again, Soarin said nothing. He walked up right beside Storm, turned, and sat down beside him.

Storm glanced up at Soarin for a very brief moment before putting his head back down. Soarin saw him move, but didn’t look. He stared straight forward as Storm cried into his arms.

Storm was aware he was there, and that’s all Soarin wanted him to know. He wasn’t going to say anything until Storm did.

Soarin knew he had only about twenty-five minutes until he had to go back out and perform in the encore, but rushing this situation would do nothing. If Storm remained quiet twenty-five minutes, then that’s all that would happen and Soarin would have at least offered him the option to speak.

Luckily, Storm found his voice only after a few minutes.

“So many ponies…” he said, his voice muffled by his arms. “So many ponies saw me mess up… oh god…” he picked his head up, tears streaming from his eyes. “I’ve… I’ve never felt more humiliated in my life…” he trailed off, but kept his head up this time. Soarin turned slightly to look at him, but again said nothing as Storm continued to sniffle. “I felt like I was being stabbed repeatedly in the heart… they all saw it… they all saw me fail…” he let his head fall back down for a moment before whipping it back and letting out a cry of frustration.

It definitely surprised Soarin… but he was beginning to piece some things together.

“I screwed up… after all the faith the Wonderbolts placed in me, I screwed up…”

Storm wouldn’t stop referring to something he did wrong.

He was terrified of failure, no matter how severe.

Soarin took a good long look at him before sighing.

“Storm…” Soarin finally spoke up. “You don’t like things going wrong… do you?” he asked. Storm’s eyes widened and he looked towards Soarin. “Your family life has been a living hell for you. You have a father that you love and care about, but a mother that constantly pushes him away… your life has felt wrong to you…” Soarin looked directly at Storm. “So you do whatever it takes to make things right… am I correct? This is also why you dislike violence isn’t it? It’s wrong unless you are protecting someone you care about… I can see it,” Soarin pointed out.

Storm looked away so quickly his neck joints almost cracked.

“Bulls-eye, huh?” Soarin released a light chuckle. He shook his head before looking towards Storm again. “It’s okay to be afraid of failure. Everypony is. By nature we wish to succeed by any means necessary. You have extra motivation to do so… but in the end, you are no different,” Soarin stared back forward. “Storm… I’m not here to sugarcoat this for you… you messed up,” he paused and looked at Storm as Storm sharply looked at him, mortified. “You messed up four times. That’s what happened… nothing can change that,” Soarin took a deep breath and exhaled. “You failed… but failing is part of life.”

Storm’s sniffling calmed and he looked back forward. Soarin smiled.

“You can’t be afraid of it, or assume it should never happen. If you didn’t fail, you would never grow. The greatest successes in life are only achieved after multiple failures… trust me, I’ve failed many more times that I’ve succeeded in my life,” he winked.

Soarin took a good long look at Storm. Storm took in Soarin’s words, but laid his chin back down on his arms. As much as Soarin felt his little talk was good, it didn’t change the fact that Storm would be frustrated by the show. Soarin would be the same way.

“Thanks Soarin… but still, they all saw it… It’s gonna be the talk of Equestria… Newbie Wonderbolt let into the high tier elites makes a fool of himself in front of a massive crowd…” Storm groaned as he thought about it. That is… until Soarin burst out laughing.

“Storm… really… I doubt that,” Soarin snickered and shook his head. “THIS,” he pointed to the false horn. “Is going to be on the front page of every paper… this is the first time I’ve appeared on a mass stage with this stupid thing on my forehead… and trust me, the media follows the lead squad like a hawk,” Soarin winked.

Storm cracked a small smile, but Soarin was convinced he was still feeling down.

“Look Storm…” Soarin put a hoof on Storm’s shoulder. “You’re overthinking this. A lot of ponies came to see us today… and did you hear boos after squad seven finished? No. They applauded you guys. It’s not like every Wonderbolt show is mistake free. We do complicated and dangerous stuff, there’s always a margin of error. I’d like to think our fan-base is aware of that…”

At this point Soarin felt like he was rambling, but at least it seemed like Storm was feeling a little better. He took the mistakes really hard, but it was his first show and he was feeling the pressure, so it was normal. At least to a point. Storm’s frustration and extreme fear of failing made it much worse on him than it needed to be.

“I’m sorry, but nopony is allowed past this point…” a voice from further up caught Soarin’s attention. It was one of the security guards. “Oh… is that a VIP pass? I’m sorry, go right in,” the guard continued.

Soarin blinked as he saw the shadow of a pony making their way around the corner. Storm took no notice, but as soon as the pony came into view, Soarin’s eyes widened and he smiled. He quickly stood up and leaned his head down to Storm’s.

“Also… don’t forget about ponies that believe in you,” Soarin said with a big smile before turning and trotting away.

Storm looked up at Soarin as he left, wonder what he meant by that.

“Storm…?” a slightly raspy female voice caressed his ears and made them stand up to fast they almost shot off his head towards the ceiling.

He instantly turned, fixing his tear stained eyes on the owner of the voice.

“D-d-d-d-d-Derpy?” Storm stuttered her name. Indeed it was her, wearing a backstage VIP pass around her neck.

“Hi!” She said cheerfully while blushing.

“Y-you…” Storm felt tears welling up in his eyes again. “You came to see me perform?”

“Of course!” she walked up to him, smiling while blushing madly. “You were… so cool out there…” she sheepishly complimented him. Storm just stared at her, slamming his eyes shut and letting a single tear fall from each eye before reaching forward and pulling her into a hug. “EEP!” she squeaked as he squeezed her, but returned the hug affectionately.

Soarin peeked around the corner and smiled. He recalled seeing Storm and Derpy together all the time during the tryouts, her timing here couldn’t have been more perfect… but… how did she get her hooves on a VIP backstage pass?

“Derpy… how did you get one of these, please tell me you didn’t spend all your bits for this just to see me…” Storm suddenly spoke up again.

“Nope!” she replied happily. “Rainbow Dash gave it to me! It’s good for five seasons! I get to see you every time!”

“Really?! Derpy that’s…” Soarin heard no more, assuming he hugged her again because she squeaked again.

So that explains it. The VIP backstage pass Soarin gave to Dash so long ago wasn’t going to waste. Dash wouldn’t need it anymore. She gave it to Derpy so she could visit Storm… this was good. Storm would get a much needed confidence boost knowing he had a friend always watching from the crowd.

Soarin glanced up at a clock nearby on the wall. He had been out with Storm for twenty minutes.

“SHIT!” Soarin cursed as he broke into a gallop back towards the ready room.

But he was happy… Seeing Storm work through his fears and learn from his mistakes was reminding Soarin of how much he fought through to become a Wonderbolt, and how much he had struggled through thus far with the crazy turn his life had taken.

As much as he hoped he had been motivating to Storm… Storm was also motivating him. It was a good tradeoff.

Now if only he could figure out if somepony was stalking him or not…

Dammit… just when he had gotten the paranoia out of his head…

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Whew... this was a long one.

Well GUESS WHAT FOLKS!? STORM FRONT WAS NEVER PERFECT! IT JUST SEEMED THAT WAY! (sorry >_<) But really, Storm Front was MEANT to seem perfect in the first part of the story, it was all part of the effect, i couldn't say much back to some people who complained about him recently though because i didnt want to ruin this particular chapter and more to come later.

Storm screwed up pretty hard in his first show, and we see now that he takes failure especially hard because he just wants things to go right... he hasn't had much of that in his life. Good thing Derpy showed up to cheer him up eh? :D

Dash is afraid of electricity? Ohhhh flash back to some shock trauma she had in Head in the Clouds... never really hit her till now though eh?

Speaking of Lightning she gave Lightning Streak a good clock in the face, which Silver found HEAVILY amusing haha

And it would seem Squall is unsure about how to feel with Dash's calm attempts at being casual with him... will it get through his thick skull?

Until next time!

Thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 53: The Watcher Revealed

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 53:

It was so exhilarating to perform again.

Soarin smiled to himself as he stepped off the cab carriage and paid the driver. Spitfire and Fleetfoot stepped out as well as the other cabs pulled up with the rest of the Wonderbolts in tow.

“You look stupid happy…” Fleetfoot nudged Soarin as they waited for the rest to gather. Soarin shrugged.

“Feels good to be on a normal schedule again. I missed doing shows,” he explained.

“You and me both, princess,” Fleetfoot giggled while tapping the metal band on the side of Soarin’s head. He pushed her away comically as she snickered.

They were a military force. Soarin was well aware of that, but the shows were always so much fun, a way to entertain others, and how they earned most of their money. Heavy combat training came with the job, but a lot of the job satisfaction came from performing. He could do two things at once. Protect those in times of need, and bring smiles. Shows were a constant reminder why he never wanted to be anything else other than a Wonderbolt.

Soarin shifted his duffle bag on his shoulder as he looked around and spotted Storm Front lingering as they waited for their security team to arrive. Soarin walked over to him.

“How are you feeling Storm?” he asked. Storm looked towards Soarin, his ears flopped down, he scrunched his face, and averted his eyes. Soarin puffed his cheeks out as snickered. “What?” he asked as he approached. Storm exhaled and shook his head.

“Oh, nothing… I’m fine just…” Storm remained facing away. “Just a little embarrassed… I mean, I was crying like a little foal in front of you yesterday,” he admitted. Soarin smiled and shook his head.

“It’s alright to be vulnerable sometimes, Storm,” Soarin looked around at the rest of the Wonderbolts relaxing and taking a load off as the final two cabs arrived. “The Wonderbolts are like one big family, Storm. We look after each other,” he nudged Storm in the shoulder. “You think crying once is bad? Do you have any idea how many time’s Spitfire has pulled my bawling ass out of a corner and told me to stallion up?” Soarin cracked a smile as Storm burst out laughing.

“Wow! I’m glad you didn’t do that to me…” he comically brushed his hoof over his forehead in relief.

“That’s not what you needed. That works on me because I used to cry over the dumbest things, but that was something personal you were dealing with, so I took the soft approach.”

“Well, thanks, I really did appreciate it…” Storm paused and snickered.

“What?” Soarin smirked.

“The great commander Soarin was a crybaby?” Storm chuckled to himself. Soarin firmly placed a hoof on Storm’s head.

“Don’t you go around telling everypony that now!” Soarin said harshly, but with a smile.

“EVERYPONY READY UP!” Spitfire called out. Soarin and Storm looked towards the final two cabs.

“Alright, time to move out,” Soarin said as they moved towards the center of the plaza with the rest of the Wonderbolts. Storm was actually curious why they had stopped in this particular clearing instead of Grand Manehatten Station which was one block around the corner. Soarin spoke up again before he could ask though.

“So how is your little lady friend?” Soarin suddenly sprang on him, making Storm think back to Derpy. He smiled as he remembered how happy he was to see her the day before.

“She’s doing fine… I’m so glad she showed up. You have no idea how much that helped my mood,” Storm grinned sheepishly and blushed lightly.

“You kidding me?” Soarin laughed. “Your head turned around so fast when you heard her… I’m surprised your neck didn’t snap off!”

They shared a good laugh. Soarin was taking a liking to Storm. Dash was right, he was a nice guy. If there was one thing Soarin had felt was lacking over the years as a Wonderbolt, it was that he didn’t really have a guy friend. A bro. Spitfire and Fleetfoot were his best friends, he would never deny that, but he lacked male camaraderie.

Rapidfire, obviously, did NOT fit that criterion. As much as he liked Fire and Wave, they were both a bit duty bound and stiff. Silver, while the two shared a mutual respect for each other, weren’t really buddies. Lightning was an idiot. Soarin wasn’t minding Air Mach, but he was so ridiculous that Soarin didn’t always feel comfortable being seen around him. From there on down through the Wonderbolt ranks, to everypony else, he was Commander Soarin.

Storm, in a way, reminded Soarin of himself, the way he was always trying to be friendly and putting others way before himself. Storm was new to the elites, so Soarin tried to forge the relationship quickly. He wanted Storm to trust him and not feel the need to be a kiss ass to authority. Soarin was happy… he may finally have found a real bro.

“Glad you guys could make it,” Spitfire’s voice caught their attention. However, she wasn’t speaking to them. Storm watched as eight large earth stallions wearing the Wonderbolt officer uniform stepped out of the cabs. Spitfire looked between them all. “Traffic on the way from the hotel?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am!” the stallion in front nodded.

“No matter, you know what to do. There’s twelve of us, can you guys manage that?” Spitfire continued. The stallion nodded again.

“Leave it to us!” he replied.

“Everypony pile in!” Spitfire yelled to the rest of the Wonderbolts. Storm looked around as they all bunched together and the eight earth stallions surrounded them.

“I’ve been meaning to ask…” Storm spoke up to Soarin. “Why were we let off almost two blocks away? And I didn’t know a security team was here with us…”

“Oh…” Soarin chuckled as they began moving as a group towards the corner before the station. “They usually arrive separately at night after our show is over, they spend the night and help us leave,” Soarin explained.

“Help us leave?” Storm asked what was on his mind. Soarin nodded.

“Ponies usually don’t know exactly when we’re arriving… so going places isn’t so bad save for a few reporters who get their hooves on that info… but when we leave…” Soarin trailed off as they turned the corner. The station was in view, but Storm found himself nearly blinded by camera flashes.

Reporters and the media were everywhere, packed on the path leading up to the station. They were taking photos and trying to ask questions, but the earth stallion security team pushed their way through the crowd, giving the Wonderbolts a comfortable bubble as they moved. Storm wasn’t sure what to do, he was being asked questions… should he answer?

“Just keep walking,” Soarin smirked as they moved. “Company policy states that we only answer questions and get interviewed right after shows. This is a well-known fact, but reporters try this anyway,” Soarin shrugged. “Besides, I’m tired of answering questions about this…” Soarin tapped the metal band of the false horn as multiple questions about it came flying in his direction.

“Yikes… and I thought it was bad after the show…” Storm commented as he subtly glanced around.

“Welcome to our life,” Soarin patted him on the back as they neared the station entrance. Station security was doing their best to prevent reporters from entering while trying to keep a path open for Manehatten citizens to access the station amid the cacophony. Once the Wonderbolts got into the station they would be home free with little hindrance, save for maybe a fan or two looking for a picture or autograph.

They were a few steps from the entrance when Soarin blinked and glanced up.

Up on the roof of the station…

A white pegasus with a short grey mane and—

The pony ducked down, hiding before he could make out anything else.

Soarin froze in place, staring upward. He KNEW he saw that. So he wasn’t going crazy, was there somepony watching them? The pony was wearing a strange outfit too, but they moved away before Soarin could get a good look.

“Soarin!” Spitfire yelled, catching his attention. Soarin looked down and saw Spitfire pointing into the station where the rest of the Wonderbolts had already entered. One of their guards was already holding back a reporter trying to get to him. “Let’s go!” Spitfire ordered. Soarin glanced up one more time before trotting towards the doors and entering the station.

The Wonderbolts made their way through the halls of Grand Manehatten Station, eventually finding their way to their designated platform. They had an area roped off with their security team posted around it to give them a comfortable space to relax since they had an hour before their train left.

The platforms were organized differently than at Canterlot Central. Instead of one prime platform there were five ‘main’ platforms, each with seven platforms that extended out from dead end sidings. Also, instead of a ‘hangar’ type room, the platforms at Grand Manehatten were open air with a large glass canopy overhead.

A few pegasus reporters tried to sneak in from outside, but Grand Manehatten security was on their hooves and alert, especially with the Wonderbolts in the station.

Spitfire rolled her eyes as Fleetfoot went off to harass the clerk at a nearby coffee shop… again, before turning her attention to Soarin. He was looking around as if keeping an eye out. He had been acting strange both days. She thought it was nothing, but when he did it again just now before they entered the station, she had to ask.

“Alright Soarin… what is it?” she asked sternly as she approached him. Soarin looked down at her, before glancing about again.

Soarin sighed. He didn’t think it was anything, but after finally catching somepony who was suspiciously watching, he had to address it.

“This whole trip, from Canterlot Central, during the show, and up till now, I swear somepony is watching us or following us,” he stated. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow.

“Being watched? That’s a new one…” she replied sarcastically. Soarin furrowed his brow.

“Spitfire, I’m being serious,” Soarin tried to put his hoof down on the matter. Fleetfoot trotted up to them holding a paper coffee mug in her hoof.

“Did you forget we’re celebrities?” she joked as she took a sip. Spitfire smirked at her.

“That was fast, I take it he wasn’t worth the flirt?” Spitfire glanced back at the stallion running the coffee shop. Fleetfoot shuddered.

“He was a chatter box, I had to escape before he sucked out my soul…” she explained as she took another sip.

“HEY!!” Soarin stomped, re-catching both their attention instantly. Fleetfoot yelped as she almost spilled her coffee in surprise. “I’m not kidding!” he exclaimed. Spitfire and Fleetfoot glanced at each other briefly. “I saw a strange looking pony up on the roof of the station just now. As soon as I looked, it ran away! I’ve been seeing somepony sneaking around out of the corner of my eye the whole trip!”

“Soarin, relax, it could’ve been a shy fan,” Spitfire flattened her ears. “I think you’ve been bottled up in the compound too long.”

Soarin ignored her and kept glancing around.

“Soarin… RELAX!” Spitfire repeated.

“Hmph…” Soarin grunted as he turned away from them. He was certain the pony wasn’t a reporter or fan… they had clearly been following them since Canterlot the day before. Soarin kept looking about because he was convinced he would find something if he looked hard enough.

Speak of the devil. He purposely didn’t look directly at whoever it was… but Soarin could see the head of a grey pony sticking out and looking at him all the way down by the train at the edge of their platform.

If Spitfire and Fleetfoot didn’t want to believe him, fine, but he wasn’t going to sit by.

While constantly keeping a ‘subtle’ eye on the pony in the distance, Soarin casually took a deep breath and slowly let his bag off his shoulder. He cracked his neck and shook his hooves out with his back turned to the observer in the distance. Spitfire and Fleetfoot both looked at him quizzically.

“What are you doing warm-ups for?” Spitfire lifted an eye brow as Fleetfoot happily sipped her coffee while mumbling the word ‘caffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeine’ slowly. Soarin glared at Spitfire.

“Because they’re behind me over by the train,” he said with a wink before spinning around quickly and planting his hooves on the concrete of the platform. He immediately pushed through the motions of his Sonic Blast-off and fired from his spot down the platform.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot yelled as she was blown over and spilled her coffee all over the ground. Spitfire held herself steady and her eyes widened as she saw Soarin speeding towards a pony by the train.

“SOARIN!?” she yelled after him.

Soarin streaked along the ground, the pony watching him realizing Soarin was shooting towards him a little too late. The mystery pony stepped back and kicked off the platform, but couldn’t turn around before Soarin was upon him. Soarin collided with the pony, pressing his hooves forward, but the pony caught his hooves as they rose up into the air.

“Fleet! Let’s go! After him!” she ordered.’

“My coffeeeeeeeee…” Fleetfoot whined with her nose to the ground. Spitfire yanked her up by the shoulders.

“NOW!” Spitfire yelled as she took off. "Everypony else stay put!" Spitfire ordered as she and Fleetfoot took off after Soarin.

Soarin pushed the pony out of the station and up into the air. The pony was a pegasus, spreading its wings and pumping them down to rip free of Soarin’s grip. They came to a stop high above the station and Soarin stared… his eyes widening as he took in the pony’s outfit.

Like he saw before, the pegasus was white stallion with a short grey mane. He was wearing a pair of red flight goggles and a red headband tied off around the back of his head.

These things were all beside the point…

He wasn’t wearing the head mask… but the pegasus was wearing a flight suit… a black and purple flight suit with a thin lightning bolt design along the sides…

A Shadowbolt uniform.

“Who are you?! Why are you following me!?” Soarin demanded, but before he could get an answer, the Shadowbolt smirked and dropped into a nose dive. “HEY!” Soarin yelled out as he gave chase. “GET BACK HERE!”

The Shadowbolt pulled up, using his speed from the dive to shoot himself towards downtown Manehatten. Soarin gritted his teeth and pumped his wings. He had to close the distance between them as much as possible. He wasn’t going to catch them before they reached the tall buildings of the city. If he didn’t get close enough he would easily lose the Shadowbolt.

Soarin grunted as he forced his wings as hard as he could. The Shadowbolt glanced back at Soarin and smirked. He stretched his wings out and gave a heavy wing beat forward. An audible blast of wind burst out in front of him, shifting his momentum so much that he nearly came to a complete stop just before entering the city.

“Whoa!” Soarin yelped as he flew right past the Shadowbolt and instantly put up his wings to air brake. He spun around twice, out of control before catching the air with his wings and stabilizing himself. He glared at the Shadowbolt as he readied to thrust at him again.

“Heh!” the Shadowbolt chuckled as he stopped flapping his wings and let himself free fall. Soarin growled and dove after him. Clearly this Shadowbolt had no idea who he was messing with. Soarin was NOT going to be taunted.

The Shadowbolt extended his wings out to his sides, but didn’t flap them. Right before he hit the street below, he pulled up into a glide, zooming right above the busy streets in between the buildings. Soarin’s eyes followed the Shadowbolt, but he didn’t give immediate chase. The Shadowbolt was gliding down a fairly wide open area in a perfectly straight line.

Soarin dropped all the way to the sidewalk and fixed his eyes down the road. A bunch of ponies stopped and stared at him. A few calling out his name and some approaching. Soarin quickly stomped his front hooves to the ground and bared his teeth.

“STAY BACK!” he barked at the bystanders. They all flinched and backed away. Soarin proceeded through the motions of the Sonic Blast-off. Soarin propelled down the street, pitching slightly upward so he would shoot over all the carriages and ponies packed in the area. His sonic boom caused the ponies to yelp and gasp and the wind in his wake caused ponies to lose their hats, food stands to be knocked over, and carriage drivers to sway as their carts tipped and lurched. “GOT YOU!” Soarin yelled as he rapidly approached, less than two pony lengths from the Shadowbolt.

Again, the Shadowbolt chuckled at him. He tilted his wings slightly up, the wind riding beneath his wings pushing him a little higher. Soarin zoomed right beneath him again, but Soarin wasn’t fooled this time.

Soarin flattened his wings and forced himself to turn around while air braking backwards. He slowed down just enough to touch down and let his hooves skid backwards across the pavement. A few carriage drivers had to veer off to avoid him.

“HEY! WATCH IT BUDDY!” one of them yelled at Soarin, only to have both him and his carriage blown completely over as Soarin pulled another Sonic Blast-off and fired right back at the gliding Shadowbolt. There was no way he could avoid it, Soarin was too close.

But then the Shadowbolt made an impossibly tight turn, turning down another street.

“No way!” Soarin exclaimed as he tried to force himself to turn down the same street. Soarin ended up taking the curve way too wide due to his speed and bounced against a window of a nearby shop, luckily not breaking it as he lost control and bounced against the concrete. The false horn smacked against the ground, sending a painful shock through his head. “OW!” Soarin put a hoof to his forehead. It was only a sudden jolt, but for a moment he was worried something would happen again. He had to be careful about the horn regardless of how he was feeling. At this point he was aware it was kind of connected to his brain.

He shook off the discomfort and glared after the Shadowbolt as he continued to glide and pitch upward among the tall skyscrapers of the city.

Gliding… this pony was doing all of this while gliding? He had never seen a pony use gliding in such a skillful way before, it was almost like he didn’t have to pump his wings and simply ride the wind by keeping his wings firm and steady.

Soarin readied to use the Sonic Blast-off again, but stopped himself before lifting off and accelerating after the pony normally. He couldn’t risk overusing the Blast-off. There was much less strain on his body than their used to be, but he didn’t want to overdo it.

He had to approach this more carefully. The Shadowbolt was toying with him. Soarin couldn’t keep leaping full speed at him. Every time he did he ended up being tricked or horribly overshooting his target. Unfortunately, this made it hard to keep up.

Soarin pitched and turned around the tall buildings as he chased the Shadowbolt high into the city skyline, making multiple circles and passes around some buildings. He almost felt like the Shadowbolt was testing him. Whatever it was, it was clear the Shadowbolt wasn’t too interested in escaping, which seemed strange since he had been ducking and hiding while stalking Soarin.

It was getting frustrating. No matter how many times Soarin managed to catch up, the Shadowbolt would take another sharp turn or make another sudden height change to throw him off.

Soarin was CLEARLY a better and faster flyer, but this Shadowbolt and his strange gliding flight style were playing him for a fool. It didn’t help that Soarin still had a bit of a headache from when he hit the horn against the—

Soarin blinked in realization as he tried and failed to make another turn as sharply as the pony he was chasing.

He didn’t even think about it! Magic! He had magic! But… was it a good idea to trust something he had only recently gained SOME control over? He didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. The way things were currently going, he was never going to catch up. For all he knew the Shadowbolt’s strategy was to wear him down and then attack.

Soarin stopped thinking about it and fixed his eyes on the Shadowbolt as the two weaved and turned around the buildings at high speeds.

“Grgh…” Soarin grunted in frustration as he found it hard to focus. He had never used his magic willingly while flying. Nor had he ever used the offensive magic on a moving target. “C’mon! Concentrate Soarin!” he coached himself as he kept his eyes on the Shadowbolt. “Yes!” he exclaimed as he felt the magic sensations build from within him and focus in the horn. A faint blue glow shone from the top of his vision as the horn came to life.

He steadily aimed the horn at the Shadowbolt, doing his best to keep concentrated as they made three circles around a building. The instant they left the building’s orbit, Soarin planned to unleash the built up magic.

“Come on! Come on!” Soarin used negative emotions built from being toyed with the fuel the power flowing into the horn.

The Shadowbolt finally broke off and glided in a straight line down a street.

“NOW!” Soarin whipped his head back, flapping his wings a little extra to keep himself level, and snapped his head forward. The magic jettisoned from the horn, expanding into a thick, powerful beam that expanded to about a five inch diameter. It shot towards the Shadowbolt as Soarin struggled to keep himself perfectly still in fear of any movement off center bending the beam either towards the buildings or down to the pony filled streets.

The Shadowbolt looked back just in time to see the magic less than a foot from colliding with him. In a nearly impossible display of reflexes the Shadowbolt forced his wing upward out of the glide. The motion pushed him down, but not before the magic beam nicked him on the shoulder. The Shadowbolt grunted in pain as the glancing hit caused the beam to bend upward and fly harmlessly into the sky.

“Damn!” Soarin yelled as he saw it miss. The Shadowbolt quickly took evasive action. Now it looked like he was running.

Soarin decided to give it another shot as he turned the corner to follow. Soarin was having a hard enough time keeping up with this crafty Shadowbolt while he was toying with him. Now that he was actually trying to get away, Soarin had maybe one more shot. He focused, the magic building faster this time after having just felt it. The focus came easier. The first trial of magic in flight was over. Now he had a clear shot.

“GOT YOU!” Soarin yelled as he pulled back and thrust his head forwards again.

Or maybe he didn’t…

The beam fired from the horn, but curved way off target. Soarin barely had time to gasp before the beam struck the corner of a building and exploded… quite violently. It was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was good because the shockwave of the explosion actually forced the Shadowbolt to shield himself and slow down. Debris even struck him, knocking him off course. But there was debris… that was the bad thing.

A few heavy chunks of metal and glass fell from the building a good twenty stories up from the ground. Soarin looked down in horror as ponies screamed and scrambled below. He had to go help, but if he did he would surely lose the Shadowbolt.

Luckily, the dilemma solved itself.

“Everypony MOVE!” Fleetfoot yelled as she came shooting towards the hazard area at a low altitude. As she approached she began spinning slowly, eventually twisting very fast, creating a circular wind around her body, she pitched upward and threw her limbs out, forcing the orbiting wind around her to expand as it grew in strength. Turning it into a mini tornado that cushioned the debris as it fell. She flew in circles around her whirlwind to keep the debris airborne long enough for the ponies to clear out.

“Soarin!” Spitfire yelled from behind Soarin. He didn’t listen. He rushed at the Shadowbolt, pressing his hooves to his shoulders and slamming him against the side of another building. “Soarin!" Spitfire yelled his name again, flying up behind him. “What the HELL are you—”

The Shadowbolt sneered and unexpectedly threw a headbutt right into Soarin’s nose. Soarin grunted and backed away while holding his nose, but the Shadowbolt held steady in the air with his back to the building. Spitfire stopped and stared wide eyed.

“Wh-what…?” Spitfire blinked as she gawked. “A Shadowbolt?!” she exclaimed, but looked him over curiously, taking in the red headband and goggles as well.

“Still think I need to relax?” Soarin hissed at Spitfire for doubting him as the two faced the smirking Shadowbolt.

Fleetfoot let go of the whirlwind once all of the ponies below were clear and flew up to join them.

“What the hell is going—” she paused for a second as she eyed the Shadowbolt uniform. “WHAT THE F—”

Before anything else could happen, the Shadowbolt pumped his wings forward sharply and suddenly. A small burst of wind extended from them and crashed against the Wonderbolts. It was weak, and only blew them back a couple of inches, but it distracted them just long enough for the Shadowbolt to break to the right and try to get away…

However…

“PAH!” Air Mach came in out of nowhere and body slammed the Shadowbolt back against the building. Soarin, Spitfire and Fleetfoot all regained their composure and blinked, quickly looking to their left to see Air Mach struggling to hold the Shadowbolt down. The Shadowbolt pushed off with his wings and punched Air Mach clean across the jaw, sending both of them floating out from the building. Soarin was already moving in to assist, but Mach spun around and returned the punch with twice the power, smacking the Shadowbolt right in the eyes, forcing his goggles to shift awkwardly and the band to snap completely as his head spun around from the blow. The goggles flew off his head and fell from his face all the way down to the street below. Air Mach shifted around as Soarin, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all moved in and surrounded him.

The Shadowbolt had turned around, facing the building with his back to the four of them.

“You’re outnumbered! Give up!” Spitfire yelled as the Shadowbolt slowly removed his hooves from his face he shook his head and started chuckling.

“What’s so funny?” Soarin snarled at him, fed up with how much the Shadowbolt had messed with him. The Shadowbolt turned his head just enough so they could barely see his eyes and face.

“Oh… nothing…” he spoke. His voice was of middle pitch, but sounded older or refined. “I just find it amusing… it takes four of you to corner me…” he continued to snicker. “So much for the young, fresh, and fast replacing the ‘old and worn out’…” he commented.

“What?” Spitfire blinked and glanced at Soarin. Soarin glanced at her and shrugged.

“Don’t mind me… I’m just getting nostalgic…” the Shadowbolt sighed.

“Wait… that voice…” Spitfire blinked.

“Taataa!” the Shadowbolt suddenly waved, folded his wings and dropped like a rock below them.

“Oh no you don’t!” Soarin was after him in an instant, with Fleetfoot, Spitfire, and Air Mach all following close behind. They were no more than twenty-three stories high, but the Shadowbolt pumped his wings, accelerating his descent towards the street. The Wonderbolts gave chase, but began worrying about pull up time as the concrete approached.

Then the unthinkable happened.

The Shadowbolt shot full speed towards the ground… and fired RIGHT into an open sewer hole that was being worked on below. All the sewer workers yelped and fell away from the hole as the Shadowbolt shot directly into it.

“WHOA!” Soarin yelped as he quickly thrust his wings out. He had the strongest air brakes of the lead squad, so he quickly threw his arms out and caught Spitfire and Fleetfoot as he strained his wings against their fall. He managed to veer off and the three of them fell roughly against the ground, but only with the force equal to falling from four feet in the air. They bounced to a stop as Air Mach came streaking by while trying to pull up, and ran into them, causing a four pony pile to roll and scatter, all four of them falling back in different directions.

They all lay still for a moment, groaning in discomfort from the impact. Soarin was the first to sit up. He glanced around as ponies began to approach them.

“Shit…” he cursed as he got to his hooves. Spitfire, Fleetfoot and Air Mach all did the same, slowly.

“Everypony back-off!” Spitfire yelled, halting the advance of civilians. Her voice was stern enough to get through to them. Soarin ran up to the open sewer, pushing past a few workers as he did, and peered into it.

The Shadowbolt was long gone.

“DAMMIT!” Soarin yelled while stomping his hoof hard to the concrete. Spitfire joined him and looked into the hole.

“I owe you an apology Soarin…” she began as the two peered in. “Somepony was following us…”

“I thought the Shadowbolts were over and done with…” Fleetfoot said as she trotted up behind them and looked around.

“We never confirmed anything afterward…” Spitfire shook her head. “They literally scattered in all directions, their airborne fortress broke to pieces, and we found no sign of Nightshade…” she rambled as she turned to Fleetfoot. “That’s what your report said right?” she asked. Spitfire was absent during that battle and still felt ashamed about it.

Soarin looked up and around, his eyes landing on the cracked pair of red flight goggles lying on the ground nearby. He broke away from the mares and trotted over to the goggles, picking them up off the ground and staring at them carefully.

He had been wondering about the round, red goggles… and the red headband for that matter. The Shadowbolts typically wore yellow, angled goggles. The Shadowbolt also didn’t have a head mask piece to his uniform.

“I like the color!” Air Mach walked up beside Soarin and looked down at the goggles. “But the style is off… round is too bland!” he commented, not being serious at all, but Soarin smiled. Had Air Mach not stepped in and given the Shadowbolt a good clock across the face, Soarin wouldn’t be holding onto the only piece of mysterious evidence left over by the encounter.

“Thanks for the help Mach,” Soarin patted him on the shoulder.

“Hey! I’m a GENUINE lead squad Wonderbolt! You all took off and you thought I was gonna let you go without me?! HELL NO!” Mach looked like he wanted to keep preaching, but Soarin held a hoof over his mouth.

“Let’s leave it there dude,” he held up the goggles. “But seriously, thanks,” he nodded before walking back towards the mares, who were looking around at the ponies approaching them again.

“We should probably get back to the station… our train is leaving soon,” Fleetfoot suggested. “And I’m not in the mood to fight off a crowd right now…” she added while grimacing at the approaching fans/bystanders. Spitfire nodded.

“Let’s fly!” she ordered. All four of them sprang up and flew back towards the station before any more of a scene could be caused, and before any local authorities began to question them. The Shadowbolts were their problem, nopony else’s.

Soarin pulled up alongside Spitfire as they flew.

“Spitfire, his goggles…” he held them out. She took a good look at them as he spoke. “Something’s up here, these aren’t Shadowbolt goggles.”

“But he wore the uniform. At least part of it,” Spitfire scratched her chin as they flew around the buildings. “And… I swear…” she pondered out loud.

“Swear what?” Soarin quickly asked. Spitfire shook her head.

“I can’t remember if I’ve seen him before, I didn’t get a good look at his face, but I swear I’ve heard his voice before… I just don’t know where,” she explained while furrowing her brow. “And then what he said… the ‘the young, fresh, and fast replacing the old and worn out’…”

“Just great…” Soarin growled. “I thought we were done with Shadowbolts…”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to call him a Shadowbolt…” Spitfire spoke up again.

“What do you mean?” Soarin asked as they cleared the tall buildings and the station platforms came back into view.

“The Shadowbolts were mercenaries, right?” Spitfire pointed out. “They were all scattered after you fought Nightshade…” she shrugged. “Mercenaries will do anything to make bits… so maybe he’s working for somepony else entirely,” Spitfire explained. Soarin blinked as he thought about it. That actually was highly possible.

“But it seems awfully convenient he was watching us. I’m not convinced he’s just working for a random client,” Soarin gave his opinion as they all pitched down towards their platform. Spitfire shook her head.

“I said it was a possibility. To be honest, Soarin… they could have just changed uniforms. We honestly don’t know,” they landed and were approached by the other squads, including Storm Front, but Spitfire put up a hoof and shook her head. They all stopped and left them be as Spitfire turned to the rest of the lead squad. “Whatever it is, we have little to go by to start making assumptions,” she pointed to the goggles in Soarin’s hoof. “I want to take these back and show them to Luna… possibly Discord too. Just in case they’ve seen or know anything. For now… let’s just go home, I’m tired,” she admitted as she finished. Fleetfoot let her head lean back and she groaned.

“I hear you there… I’m going right to the training room and demanding a massage from Bliss as soon as we get back…” she whined as she turned and went to find where she set her belongings down.

“I could give you ONE HELL of a massage if you’d like FLEETUMS!” Air Mach called out as he zipped over to her. Fleetfoot instantly grabbed him around the neck and snarled into his face.

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU CALLED ME THAT AGAIN?!” she growled.

“Something about disemboweling me? YOU CAN’T DISEMBOWEL A STALLION LIKE ME! I’M DISEMBOWEL-PROOF!” he chanted as Fleet forced him to the ground before moving on.

Soarin snickered a few times as he gathered his duffle bag. He had never heard somepony use a four syllable word three times in ten seconds. Only Air Mach.

“Soarin…” Spitfire suddenly put a hoof on his shoulder. He blinked and turned to her.

“Yeah?” he said as he turned to her. She shook her head.

“PLEASE… be careful with your magic… I don’t want to start getting damage bills,” she ordered.

“Oh…” Soarin grimaced, remembering his second attempt at magic blew the twentieth story corner of a building to pieces… and almost hurt ponies below. “Sorry… first real attempt.”

“I’m aware,” she said sternly. “But… again, I apologize… I shouldn’t have doubted you so easily,” she bowed her head slightly in shame. Soarin smiled and ruffled her mane.

“Hey, I thought I was seeing things at first too. Don’t worry about it,” he held up the red goggles. “Worry about this…” he said as the conductor called for all aboard. The Wonderbolts began moving towards the train, walking past Soarin and Spitfire.

“Seriously though… let’s just get home first…” Spitfire let out a long, heavy sigh.

“I agree…” Soarin nodded as they brought up the rear as the last to get on the train.

Soarin stared down at the goggles as he walked into the private car and sat down beside Storm. Storm looked to Soarin and carefully eyed the goggles in Soarin’s hoof.

“So…” Storm began while glancing between Soarin’s pondering expression and the goggles. “What was all that about?” he asked.

Soarin said nothing at first. Contemplating the situation.

Shadowbolt?

Not a Shadowbolt?

The things he said to them…

His skill and ability to elude the number one flyers in the whole Wonderbolt organization…

What was going on? Was that what Storm asked him?

“I…” Soarin took a deep breath and sighed. “I really don’t know…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

WHOA! THIS WAS QUICK!!!!

Why? Cause i actually decided to break chapter 53 into two chapters xD

I got done with this scene and realized it was VERY important to the story and already past 6K words. I didn't want to drop a jumbo chapter on you guys... and i didnt want the crazy next couple of scenes to draw you away from what happened here.

So GASP! A SHADOWBOLT!!!!!! IM SURE NONE OF YOU SAW THAT COMING!!!!

But wait... whats with the red headband and goggles?

Spitfire thought he sounded famliar?

What was with what the shadowbolt said? (ZOMG FORESHADOWBOLTS *kill me*)

Because this was broken off a bigger chapter plan... the next chapter is already outlined... and already 3K words done. So expect another quick update soon!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 54: Who Are These Idiots?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 54:

“Hmm…” Dash rubbed her chin.

“What?” Matteo asked as he looked up from his lunch. Dash blinked.

“Oh! Nothing…” she shook her head. “I’m just trying to figure something out.”

Not being one to pry, Matteo went back to his food. He knew Dash would tell him if she wanted him to know anyway.

Dash refocused on a table in the mess hall that was on the other side of the aisle and three rows down. Specifically, she was focusing on the inhabitants.

Very dark blue, gold eyed, super flirt stallion who blends into every wall and floor in the halls of the compound…

Giant, overgrown, light blue, muscle-head stallion who tends to not look where he’s walking…

Big, light brown stallion, oversized wings with a unique pattern with a sly grin as if he’s always up to something silly…

Besides knowing that the light brown stallion was Bliss’ husband (after she broke him in the training room for being a doof), she had yet to figure anything out about them. She had seen the giant blue stallion with Autumn Rain often… assuming they were a thing since she often had to playfully push him away for being so huggy with her.

She was set on observing them and figuring out who they were or what they were around for, but she was at the end of her rope. She had to ask either Silver or Soarin about them.

Dash perked up when she saw Surprise bouncing by. She stopped when she saw the three stallions and smiled happily.

“HEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!” she exclaimed as she zipped up between the large blue stallion and the brown stallion. She put them both in gentle headlocks. “Long time, no talk guys! How’ve you been?!” she asked cheerfully.

Dash watched with interest as the stallions began talking to Surprise. So they definitely had to be Wonderbolts. Surprise treated them like they were acquaintances. She did it to almost everypony she met, but they were conversing, probably talking about what they had been up to, so it wasn’t like she just met them.

TWO of them were conversing with Surprise actually… the blue and brown stallion. The dark stallion on the blue’s right was staring up at Surprise with an incredibly dreamy look in his eyes. He was blushing so hard his dark face turned bright red and by the way he was looking at her, Dash was surprised hearts weren’t floating out of his head. It was an interesting switch from the flirty nature he had exhibited before.

Dash lifted an eyebrow as she watched him pick up the salt shaker… but sprinkle it into his water instead of on his mashed potatoes because he was too busy paying attention to Surprise.

“Hey! How about you?!” Surprise slung herself around while holding onto the giant stallion’s neck before plopping down next to the dark stallion. He just kept staring with the goofy love-stricken grin on his face. When he didn’t reply, Surprise blinked at him a few times before ruffling his mane. “You’re silly!” she smiled before lifting off and going on her way.

Dash kept watching as Surprise left, but before she could make any other observations, her view was blocked by a certain green and blue freak science experiment who decided to sit across from her beside Matteo.

“WHY HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Twister said in a voice that sounded helium infused as his pupils grew and shrank. Dash flattened her ears and eyes as she looked at him. Matteo just kept eating as if to avoid confrontation. “Ah! The love! You two spoil me with so much of it!” Twister puckered his lips and made smoothing noises towards Matteo. Matteo grabbed a piece of broccoli off his plate and stuck it in Twister’s mouth.

Dash snickered at first, but then watched with a mix of horror and disgust as Twister swallowed the piece of broccoli whole, then put his hoof to one nostril and blew hard out of the other one, causing a blueberry to fire out of his nose and onto his tray beside his plate that had a mountain of mashed potatoes on it.

A single blueberry.

“That was… gross…” Dash commented, not bothering to ask HOW he did it.

“Sooooooooooooooo…” Twister began as he ducked behind his mountain of mashed potatoes and slowly peeked around at Dash. “What have my favorite pony and favorite not-pony been up to on their free day?” he asked while smiling creepily at Dash. Dash looked up at him with her flat expression again, but blinked when she saw the blueberry had become a strawberry.

“We…” Matteo began to answer, but paused when he saw the strawberry on Twister’s tray. “We were in the gym. Weight training…” he tried to take Twister seriously, but it was kind of hard when Twister’s idea of ‘looking at Matteo’ was wearing a pair of glasses with spring loaded googly eyes, a nose, and mustache on the back of his head. Dash and Matteo glanced at each other again and Dash just shrugged. They both look back and flinched when they saw the strawberry had turned into a pear.

“Uh…” Dash tried to move the conversation along. She was aware that Matteo was interested in Twister as a high caliber recruit and worth their effort. “Where were you this morning?” she asked.

“Commandeering the gravy boat!” Twister held up a gravy boat from the buffet counter above him before dumping the entire contents over the top of his head. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” he sighed creepily as the gravy trickled through his mane, over his ears, past his eyes and over his nose.

“Um…” Matteo looked down at Twister, thoroughly disturbed, but before he could say anything else, Twister placed the empty gravy boat on his head like a hat and slammed his face down into the mashed potatoes. Dash and Matteo looked away while shielding themselves, expecting potatoes to fly everywhere, but they blinked and looked back to see they had actually cushioned Twister’s face plant.

And the pear was now a grapefruit.

Dash looked at Matteo. Matteo looked back at her. They both just shook their heads and kept eating their food.

“Have you seen Squall at all since breakfast?” Dash asked Matteo while ignoring Twister. She could hear him snickering from inside his mashed potatoes, but she didn’t let it distract her. “I didn’t see him in the gym or anything,” she thought out loud.

“I don’t know where he was before,” Matteo spoke up. “But he came into the gym about five minutes after you left,” Matteo explained, catching Dash’s attention. “He destroyed one of the stand-up punching bags and was kicked out by Pec Bounce right after.”

“Oh…” Dash blinked. “Was that what all the yelling was about? I could hear it from all the way in the locker room.”

“HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!” Twister pulled his head back up. Dash and Matteo both jumped and looked towards him. His face had a big mashed potato beard that made him look like Santa.

And the grapefruit at some point became a pineapple.

Twister stuffed his face right back into the potatoes and said no more.

“Probably…” Matteo nodded, continuing the conversation despite Twister’s absurd randomness. “He was acting strange last night too.”

“Heh…” Dash smiled. “You had your back turned at breakfast… he was walking towards us and backing away. He did it at least four times,” she chuckled. Matteo blinked and scoffed.

“You mean to tell me he was actually considering sitting with us on his own accord? You’re better at making friends than I thought!” Matteo exaggerated as Dash rolled her eyes.

“No, it looked like he would sooner take a crap in the middle of the mess hall,” she waved her hoof out. “But he was looking at us a lot.”

“I must say!” Twister suddenly spoke up. “My sexiness has that effect on ALL ponies!”

Dash and Matteo looked over to him. The mashed potatoes were completely gone from his plate and from around his face. His head was also completely clean of gravy, but he still wore the empty gravy boat atop his head. He sat upright and pounded his chest with pride while holding his nose in the air.

And the pineapple was now a watermelon.

Dash groaned and tapped her head lightly against the table once before looking back up at Twister.

“Right… I’m sure that’s it Twister…” she said with a defeated tone. There was only so much randomness she could ignore. Out of the corner of her eye Dash saw Twister’s hoof reach out and rap her once on the head. “Ow!” Dash yelped and looked up. Twister was all the way across the table, but she saw him stop moving his arm as if he had hit her without moving from his spot.

“NO,” his left eye shrank three sizes and his right grew five. His eyebrow popped off his head and lifted a few feet above him. “I’M JUST GETTING STARTED,” he stated as he grabbed the gravy boat off his head… it was suddenly filled with gravy again. He scooped up the watermelon with his free hoof and slammed it onto his plate before pouring ALL of the gravy over it.

Matteo opened his beak to speak while holding a single talon in the air, but stopped when Dash cleared her throat. Matteo glanced at Dash and saw her just shake her head subtly as if warning him not to even bother. So he didn’t.

“I REGRET NOTHING!” Twister yelled before tossing the gravy boat aside and headbutting the gravy covered watermelon so hard that his head breached the outer skin and rind, effectively lodging his whole head into the watermelon. He let his arms fall and dangle off the table.

“SO!” Dash clapped her hooves to get Matteo’s attention back from staring wide eyed at Twister. “We may actually be getting through to Squall. He’s a dick and a creep, but with the right approach I think—” Dash perked up as she looked past Twister’s motionless watermelon head. “Speak of the devil…” Dash blinked.

Matteo turned and looked up the aisle to see Squall hesitantly walking among the tables as if looking for a place to sit. He glanced back at Dash.

“Perfect opportunity?” Matteo asked while shrugging. Dash kept watching Squall as he slowly approached due to stopping often. He looked like he was browsing for an empty table, but the mess hall was fairly packed for peak lunch hours.

“Hey, you lost kid?”

Dash glanced over to the left of Squall. The light brown stallion and light blue stallion were both looking at him. Squall suddenly snorted and growled at them before sharply turning away and continuing on. The two stallions glanced at each other.

“The hell was that?” The light blue one said while looking towards Squall, slightly confused.

“Well,” Dash nodded. “He’s not gonna sit anywhere else, might as well try,” she stood up from her spot and began waving her hooves. “Squall!” she called out. Matteo turned and looked too to at least show acknowledgement.

Squall flinched and his ears stood up when he heard his name. He glanced over towards Dash and Matteo, giving them a curious look. Dash kept waving and pointed a hoof to the spot next to her.

“Come sit with us!” she added.

There was a visible change in Squall’s expression when Dash offered. Matteo smirked. Squall looked like he couldn’t believe he was being offered a place to sit.

Squall stood still for another few seconds before taking one step towards them and pausing again.

“Come on…” Dash said quietly only within earshot of Matteo. “You can do it… just start walking towards us…”

Squall finally took another step, and then finally started walking, in fact he quickened to a trot as he approached. It looked like they may get some trust out of him after—

Suddenly something came out from one of the rows. Neither Squall nor the others saw what it was in time. It crashed into Squall’s legs and he couldn’t catch himself due to holding his tray. He fell into a heap on the floor, his tray and food crashing with him as he landed face first.

“Oh! Oh damn…” Dash winced as she and Matteo both watched.

Squall quickly stood up and looked around as all the ponies sitting around had stopped and were staring at him. He looked around frantically, slightly covered with mashed potatoes, gravy, and broccoli. A few ‘Ooooo’s came from the other Wonderbolts, but among them were a couple of laughs. He gritted his teeth started breathing heavily, hissing through his teeth and nose.

Suddenly his tray beneath him shuffled and pushed aside. Dash leaned over to see what was happening.

Rivet stood up from beneath Squall’s tray. He was slightly damp from water pouring on him. He quickly shook himself off briefly and turned to Squall with worry.

“Oh… I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you coming! I didn’t mean to run into you, honest, I was just… eep!” Rivet squeaked after quickly trying to apologize. Squall was glaring angrily down at him. Rivet froze and began shivering as Squall stood up sharply while never removing his harsh glare from the little stallion.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Squall belted down into Rivet’s face. Rivet immediately contorted his whole body to make it as small and low to the ground as possible. His eyes were so wide they almost covered the entirety of his little face. “HOW ABOUT YOU WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING?!” Squall leaned down, nearly pressing his face to Rivet’s.

“I-I-I-I-Uuuuhhhhh…!” Rivet stuttered as Squall kept looming over him.

“Shit…” Dash quickly slid out of her seat and started moving towards them, Matteo turned to get up as well.

Last time somepony ran into Squall, they got punched in the gut… apparently Squall really disliked other ponies not watching where they were going.

“YOU LITTLE TURD! I OUGHTTA SMASH YOU FLAT!” Squall yelled as Rivet shut his eyes and pushed his hooves over his ears. Dash was ready to pick up the pace and pull Squall away. Matteo was up and moving as well…

But before they got there… a new shadow loomed over Squall, and a pair of large, light blue hooves firmly stomped down to the left and right of Rivet.

“Excuse me…” a voice came from above Squall. He flinched and looked up… directly into a light blue chest. He blinked and looked further up into a pair of dark blue eyes glaring down at him. “Do you have a problem with my little bro?”

Dash and Matteo paused halfway to Squall. The giant, light blue stallion was standing over Rivet like a protective monolith, completely negating any harsh presence Squall had moments ago. However, Squall proved his stubbornness by not backing down. He didn’t say anything immediately, but he held firm in the shadow of the big stallion before him.

Squall, showing another dumbass display of no fear, glared up at the large pony.

“Your ‘little bro’ better watch where the hell he’s going!” Squall snarled. The blue stallion’s eyes narrowing as he spoke. “Getting in the way of ponies that could squash him like a little bug! The little shit pile should feel lucky I didn’t step on him!” the instant he finished, the blue stallion stepped forward, butting heads with Squall and pushing him a few feet back. Rivet yelped as the blue pony’s hooves thundered against the ground. He held perfectly still now with the blue pony standing completely over him.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL HIM?!” the blue stallion bared his teeth. Squall didn’t back down, despite the one he was facing down almost looked like he could squash him like a bug.

Art by: Sweet Isolation

Almost everything had stopped in the mess hall and all eyes were on Squall and the blue stallion. Dash and Matteo scanned the observers and both were surprised most of them ignored or watched with a look of worry. In fact, a few nearby picked up their trays and moved. Dash saw the Streak twins and Surprise sitting nearby. They were all looking, but only Fire Streak showed signs of getting up in case something happened. Surprise and Lightning sat still.

Rivet’s eyes darted between Squall and the big pony standing over him. He quickly, but quietly shuffled along the ground, moving through the blue stallion’s back legs until he was behind him. But then a light brown hoof reached out and stopped him.

“Whoa there, what’s going on here?” the light brown stallion stepped up beside the blue, gently pushing Rivet forward with him despite Rivet’s clear desire to get away.

“This guy was—” the blue stallion tried to speak up, but he got instantly cut off by Squall.

“BACK OFF ASSCLOWN!” Squall yelled directly in the brown stallion’s face.

Something was wrong. Dash could see it and she wondered if Matteo could see it too. Squall had shown misplaced fits of bravery very often in the past week and a half, most of the time lashing out at Silver, ending in him being yelled at. But here, Squall didn’t look like he had any confidence. His yelling was harsh, but sounded a little desperate.

“Uh…” the light brown stallion blinked as he pulled his head back slightly.

“I’M SICK AND TIRED OF PONIES THINKING THEY CAN JUST WALTZ AROUND ME AND DO WHAT THEY WANT! NO ONE TAKES ME SERIOUSLY! BACK THE HELL OFF!” Squall yelled with his voice coming close to cracking more than once. The brown stallion glanced at the blue. The blue stallion shrugged.

“Wow!” the brown stallion blinked and chuckled. “Somepony DEFINITELY fell out of bed this morning! You have a top bunk? Did you land on your head?” the brown pony fired back instantly, not missing a beat. Squall went from pissed to FURIOUS faster than a mare turning down Lightning Streak.

“FUCK YOU! I’LL KICK YOUR ASS I SWEAR I WILL! DON’T TRY ME!” Squall yelled, nearly foaming at the edges of his mouth as he stepped up to the brown pony, who unlike the blue stallion was about the same size as Squall.

“PFFFF!!!!” the brown stallion pressed his teeth against his bottom lip trying to stifle a laugh. “Wooooohoohoo!” he comically hooted as he took a step back, turned away from Squall and pointed a hoof at him. “Everypony watch out! We’ve got ourselves a BADASS over here!”

“GrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRGH!!!!!” Squall growled fiercely. He looked like he was ready to leap at the brown stallion. Rivet quickly retreated below the blue stallion again. It was the closest safe haven he could find.

“Squall!” Dash quickly leapt towards him, grabbing him by the shoulders right as he tried to jump at the brown stallion. Dash struggled to hold him back, slowly giving ground as the brown stallion just smirked at Squall. Dash was about to lose her grip on Squall, but Matteo stepped up, reached out one arm and grabbed Squall’s opposite shoulder, stopping him completely in place. The blue stallion instantly fixed his eyes on Matteo, almost as if he didn’t see Squall anymore. Matteo looked back at him briefly with curiosity, but quickly focused back at Squall as he tried to rip free of Matteo’s grip.

Suddenly the dark blue pony popped his head over the other shoulder of the large stallion.

“What’s going on over—” he fixed his eyes on Dash and blinked. About half a second later he zipped down beside the large stallion and smirked. “Heyyyyyy! It’s Rainbowlicious!” he pointed at Dash while running his other hoof through his mane suavely.

Dash scrunched her face and flattened her brow as she leaned back slightly. Her focus quickly returned as Squall tried to thrash again, but with Matteo anchoring him down, he wasn’t going anywhere. The brown stallion rolled his eyes at the dark pony, but with a grin on his face. He reached forward and pulled the dark pony back, putting him in a friendly headlock.

“Hey… aren’t these the new recruits?” he asked the dark pony.

“Yeah, I think—” the dark pony began but—

“They are,” the large pony stated, still staring at Matteo. Matteo had noticed and was now interested at what the pony, who was almost as big as him, found so fascinating about him.

“I thought I recognized them…” the brown pony released the dark pony from the headlock unexpectedly. The dark pony fell to the ground with a grunt, but was up and standing in front of Dash again before she could blink.

“So!” he winked at her. “How about you and me go have a nice night of dinner, a movie, and bed—

“I’LL KILL YOU!” Squall yelled suddenly towards the brown pony, making the dark pony jump in surprise. The brown pony looked at him like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing… and not in a serious way.

“You wanna fight me that bad, huh?” he snickered. “Kid… you’ve gotta calm down before you hurt yourself… or I do… by accident…”

“I MEAN IT!” Squall belted again, the same shakiness present in his voice.

Dash got fed up and grabbed him around the neck.

“SQUALL!” she yelled directly into his ear. “GET A DAMN GRIP! No fighting outside the battle dome, remember?!” she tried to remind him, but he didn’t seem to care.

The brown pony’s ears perked up as Dash spoke.

“Hey wait a minute… we have the battle dome reserved right after lunch, don’t we?” he turned to the giant blue pony. The blue pony didn’t answer. He and Matteo had locked eyes. Matteo was trying to figure out what the blue pony wanted, but it almost seemed like the blue pony was trying to intimidate him… and if he wasn’t, he was trying to test him.

The brown pony cleared his throat, but the blue pony still didn’t look at him.

“Calm!” he yelled while jabbing the blue pony in the side. The large stallion flinched, blinked and looked at the brown stallion. “You reserved the battle dome for us, right?”

“Yeah… we have it for the next two hours…” the blue stallion replied before looking right back at Matteo. The light brown pony smiled and looked right back at Squall.

“Well then! You wanna kill me that bad, kid? Then how about we solve this dispute in the battle dome? Or are you all bark and no bite?” he lifted an eyebrow, not knowing just how sore of a spot he verbally jabbed. Squall lurched forward towards the stallion, growling like a feral beast. The lurch was so sudden that even Matteo had to tighten his grip on him. That phrase was an instant fight starter for Squall.

“Squall. Calm down.” Matteo spoke down to him. Squall stopped briefly but then thrashed again. “I SAID… CALM. DOWN,” Matteo repeated with an extra amount of quiet force in his voice. “You have no chance if you charge at him mindlessly,” Matteo stated as Squall stopped trying to rip free. Squall didn’t calm down at all, but he at least stopped moving about.

Squall glared at the brown pony.

“Lead the way asshole! I’ll destroy you!” Squall hissed. Matteo let go of him. Dash’s eyes widened for a moment, but when Squall didn’t move, she relaxed and gingerly let him go as well. The brown stallion turned and started heading for the exit. Squall started following him.

“Wait! Squall!” Dash hesitated as she watched them near the exit. She quickly turned back to Matteo. “Matteo, should we—”

“You,” the large pony cut Dash off. She turned and looked at him… but he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at Matteo. Matteo narrowed his eyes at the large stallion.

“You’ve been eyeing me since I walked over. What do you want?” Matteo asked, getting straight to the point. The blue stallion had in fact been staring at Matteo since he came forth to restrain Squall.

“You’re that griffon I’ve been seeing around… and breaking all the records in the gym…” he pointed out as a smirk curled on his lips.

“So what if I am?” Matteo proceeded carefully.

“We have the battle dome reserved… fight me,” the blue stallion suddenly demanded. Dash’s eyes widened and she glanced at Matteo, but Matteo’s expression did not change.

“I have no reason to,” Matteo put flatly. “Griffons do not fight those—”

“—who ask for it… I’m aware,” the blue stallion finished for him. Matteo’s eyes widened slightly, out of surprise. This pony knew griffon culture. “Then I’ll give you one,” the blue pony stepped forward.

Rivet looked up and around quickly once his cover had moved. He got up and tried to sneak away, but he ran directly into the dark pony. Dash glanced at the two as Rivet squeaked in surprise, and then she leaned back slightly when she saw the dark pony was looking at her with bedroom eyes and bouncing his eyebrows. Dash folded her ears back and glared at him.

“I have a coltfriend,” Dash said flatly. She saw the dark pony flinch, but his expression remained. He quickly ran a hoof through his mane and pointed his other hoof at her.

“You look like the kind of mare that could use two!” he tried to save… but Dash only gave him a more disgusted look.

“What are you do—BRAWCK!” Matteo suddenly squawked. Dash quickly looked back to see the blue stallion standing beside Matteo, and holding one of Matteo’s back feathers from his wing. Dash blinked and looked between the two. The blue pony held the black feather up towards Matteo’s face with a smirk. Matteo’s eyes were fixed on him with a look of surprise.

“I formally challenge you to a duel,” the blue pony said while opening one of his own large wings and holding it out towards Matteo. “Do you accept? Or are you a coward?” he added. Matteo’s expression immediately went back to stoic. He reached up with his talons, grabbed a feather on the blue stallion’s wing and plucked it. The stallion winced very slightly, but his smile turned into a grin.

“I accept your challenge,” Matteo held the blue feather up. The two crossed their arms while holding the feathers up, and then let them go at the same time. They glared directly into each other’s eyes. It was an intimidating sight, the large stallion standing at beak level of the massive griffon. The two feathers softly floated to the floor and landed side by side. “Lead the way.”

Dash kept looking between the two as the blue pony turned and started walking.

“Swift,” he suddenly said as he grabbed the dark pony by the shoulder. “C’mon,” he said simply as he began dragging him along.

“Wait, I have to come too?” he protested.

“Yes,” the big stallion said plainly as he dragged him.

“Fine… hold on let me finish my water…” the dark pony reached for his glass of water and downed the whole glass, only to gag and spit it all back out. “WHO PUT SALT IN MY WATER?!”

Dash was incredibly confused, but became alarmed when she saw Matteo start following the blue pony.

“Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Hold on! Matteo, what are you doing?!” Dash jumped forward. Matteo stopped and looked down at her.

“I must fight this stallion,” he stated.

“Silver is already gonna be pissed at Squall if he finds out!” Dash fumed. “I know you’re not stupid!”

“I’m also not a coward,” Matteo snorted. “He performed a formal rite of challenge within the griffon culture. To pluck a feather from a griffon’s wing is to humiliate them… but to do so, and then offer one from your own wing… is to challenge them. Had I not accepted, it would be dishonorable.”

“OH FOR CRAP’S SAKE!” Dash yelled as Matteo started walking again. “We’re not in the griffon kingdom!” she kept yelling, but Matteo kept walking. “You don’t have to stick with all the…” she grabbed Matteo’s lion tail in her mouth and pressed her hooves to the floor to try and stop him. “Grrrrrrrr!!!!!” She groaned in frustration as her hooves screeched along the floor. “Blah!” she spat out his tail and fell forward, face planting on the floor. She sat up and puffed her cheeks out, annoyed that her fellow recruits were being so… stupid. Sure, Silver said only to fight in the battle dome… but that was amongst themselves! These guys were clearly Wonderbolts, NOT recruits! Who knew what they were capable of?

Dash blinked and looked to her right. Twister was suddenly sitting on the floor beside her. He still had his head stuck in the watermelon, but he at some point had carved two eyeholes out.

Art by: CrystalMelody_kc

He turned and looked at her, blinking a few times to add to the effect of being a watermelon with eyes. Dash knew that silly endless grin of his was in there too.

Ignoring him, Dash glanced around. All of the other Wonderbolts had gone back about their business. Even squad three had sat back down. Clearly, nopony was going to go after them.

“Dammit! Twister!” she stood up and forced him up. She grabbed the watermelon and yanked it off his head.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeees?” he asked while making his eyebrows move like a wave in sync with one another. She pulled him up.

“We’re going after them,” she ordered. Before she could say anything else, he was sitting on her back.

“GO MY NOBLE STEED!!!!” he yelled out.

“Oh, HELL no!” Dash instantly reared back, knocking him off before lifting into the air, grabbing him by the shoulders and flying towards the exit, dragging his body across the floor with her.

Rivet was still sitting in the middle of the floor near where the trays had been dropped. He had heard the whole exchange, but he kept quiet in fear of attention being drawn to him. He shook his head out and looked around frantically, realizing what was about to happen.

“Oh no… oh no, oh no, oh no, they’re going to fight because of me!” Rivet got up and took two steps towards the exit, but stopped realizing there was probably little he could do to actually stop them from fighting. He spread his wings and hovered up into the air, scanning the whole mess hall. “Shine?! SHINE?! Has anypony seen Shine Struck?!”

Dash forced herself through the doors of the battle dome, tossing Twister in before setting down and trotting towards the inner arena.

Squall and Matteo were standing side by side, about ten yards from the center, the three stallions standing opposite of them, equal distance from the middle.

“HEY!” Dash yelled as she flew in. She glided all the way over and placed herself in front of her fellow recruits. “Guys! You are going to get in DEEP SHIT for this!” she yelled at them.

“Get out of my face!” Squall growled back at her. She was about to snap right back at him but Matteo shook his head.

“I cannot back down from a formal challenge, it would disgrace me,” he stated. Dash held her breath, trying her hardest not to explode.

“HEY! We fighting or what?!” The brown stallion yelled from across the inner circle.

“Rainbow Dash,” Matteo said her name. Dash exhaled and looked up at him. “Just stop interfering.”

“Matty, I just don’t want to get you guys in trouble with Silver again. I don’t care if you want to fight, but—”

“Just shut up and get out of my way!” Squall cut her off. Dash narrowed her eyes as tightly as she could while growling at Squall. She threw her wings and hooves out.

“You know what?! Forget it! I don’t care! Both of you go get your asses kicked!” Dash yelled out in frustration, moving around and walking a little ways away before sitting down beside Twister. She grumbled to herself as she kept her eyes locked on Squall and Matteo as they readied themselves. The blue and the brown stallion both stepped forward.

Dash quickly turned to Twister, but blinked. He wasn’t there. She rolled her eyes and turned to her other side, where he had suddenly appeared.

“Twister, listen up,” she spoke to him.

“I only listen down,” he said while turning his head upside down and grinning.

“Whatever! Look, if they get into trouble, I’m stepping in to help… I might need your help for that, okay?”

“No,” he nodded. Dash blinked and tipped her head. “I mean yes,” he corrected himself.

Dash let Twister’s silliness slide and refocused on the standoff before her. She squinted as she looked past the blue and brown stallion, barely making out the dark, smaller stallion sitting behind them. Why was he there? She saw the blue stallion drag him along. Dash decided it would be best to keep an eye on him as well.

“Well? Come on now!” the brown stallion beckoned Squall.

Squall didn’t wait a second longer. He spread his wings, let out a battle cry and leapt towards the brown stallion, pumping his wings as he shot along about a foot off the ground. He had his eyes locked on target and was already pulling his hooves back to strike.

The brown stallion smiled as Squall approached.

“Alley-oop?” he said as he glanced at the blue stallion. The blue stallion smirked and nodded. The brown stallion hopped up as the blue cupped his front hooves together. The brown stallion placed a back hoof in the blue’s.

“Going up!” the blue stallion yelled as he grunted and swung his whole body up while flinging his hooves into the air. The motion catapulted the brown stallion towards the ceiling. Squall’s eyes followed the brown stallion as he rose into the air.

“GRH!!” Squall slammed his hooves to the ground, angling himself up and following after his ascending opponent.

As soon as Matteo saw the blue stallion move, he latched his talons into the mat while spreading his wings. The blue stallion looked back down and focused on Matteo. He grinned with anticipation, spreading his wings as well. Matteo pumped his wings hard, pushing himself into the air and taking a slight dip into a glide towards the stallion. To his surprise, the stallion did not take off, he started cantering, then speeding up into a gallop with his wings spread out to his sides. Matteo narrowed his eyes as they closed the distance, feeling as if the lack of flight was a taunt.

But the instant before they collided, the stallion slammed his front hooves down so hard the BANG resonated throughout the battle dome. Matteo looked up in surprise as the stallion propelled himself up and over, slamming down behind Matteo, but KEPT galloping. Matteo grunted, folding his wings while turning around, reaching them out and pumping them down in a full hard swing to use his Air Burst.

A loud POW rang out as Matteo changed direction, flying after the grounded opponent. But… as he followed, the stallion’s gallop picked up speed… an incredible amount of speed.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as she and Twister leapt out of the way as the large stallion came galloping by, his hooves thundering against the mat as he started reaching a speed that seemed impossible without flight. Dash shielded herself as Matteo shot by them as well, trying to keep up with the stallion. “How is he galloping that fast!?” Dash thought out loud as she blinked.

“RRRRRRRAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” Squall’s voice rang out. Dash blinked and looked up into the air towards him.

Squall was trying… and failing miserably to land a hit on the brown stallion. But… the stallion wasn’t even flying, he was… freefalling?

“Whoops! Whoa! Oh! OH! Almost got me there!” The brown stallion taunted Squall as he made pass after pass. Squall was trying to knock him out of the air, but each time he tried, the stallion just twisted or shifted in the air ever so slightly, effortlessly dodging every attempt.

As they neared the ground, the stallion finally spread his enormous wings. Dash’s jaw dropped when she saw them. His wings weren’t just an odd two color scheme. They were also disproportionately HUGE for his body. They were as big as the blue stallion’s despite the brown stallion being smaller. He spun and used his built up speed from the fall to glide along the ground at an insane speed. Squall tried to take an angle and intercept, but as soon as he reached the stallion—

“Lookout!” he yelled as he turned aside and let Squall pass right by, hitting the mat really hard. The stallion pressed his hooves to Squall’s back and bounce back up, gliding all the way back up towards the ceiling.

“STOP MESSING AROUND AND FIGHT!!!” Squall demanded as he forced himself up off the mat and took back to the air after the stallion.

“Maaaaaaaake meeeeeeee!” the stallion yelled down comically as he rose to the ceiling again.

A loud THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP made Dash’s ears stand up she looked to her right to see a light blue blur pass right in front of her followed by Matteo streaking by. She fell back from the powerful wake of the two massive fighters firing by. The blue pony was still galloping, but going EVEN FASTER! Matteo was actually falling way behind.

Then out of nowhere, the stallion struck a single front hoof to the mat while swinging his other arm around. He launched himself into the air while using the swing to pitch hard to the right. All of his built up galloping speed transferred to his flight and he circled around quick enough to head right towards Matteo. The two pulled back as they approached one another, ready to strike head on.

“Oh god…” Dash gritted her teeth as the two closed in.

They threw their punches at the exact same time, their arms crossing, heavily striking one another on the cheek. However, Matteo’s arms were longer, so it looked like the blue stallion received a much heavier blow. In fact, while Matteo kept moving perfectly forward, the stallion’s body was forced into an awkward turn.

For a moment it seemed like Matteo was going to have the advantage on this first exchange, but Dash watched in awe as the stallion used the motion caused by Matteo’s blow to swing his other hoof all the way around and deliver a heavy hammer strike to Matteo’s back.

“GAH!!!!” Matteo cried out as the blow forced him straight to the mat below, his large body bouncing more than once as his speed forced him to tumble before stopping.

Even though he had punished Matteo for getting the stronger first strike, the blue stallion was still not in control of his flight and ended up crashing to mat roughly as well. The two both quickly stood up and faced each other.

“YEAH! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!” the stallion hooted before cracking his neck and starting into a gallop again right towards Matteo. Matteo was clearly a little slower to get up.

Dash was already worried. These guys were clearly higher ranking Wonderbolts of some kind. Squall and Matteo had not picked good fights.

Matteo shook his head out and grunted as he fixed his eyes on the stallion charging towards him. Matteo did NOT take flight. He decided to meet the stallion head on. He broke into a sprint, looking to clash head on again.

However as the two approached, Matteo put up both arms as if he wanted to grab the stallion. The stallion reached by putting up both his hooves. The two came together roughly, hooves to talons, creating a standoff contest of strength.

Art by: foxenawolf

The pressed with all their might, but for the moment it seemed like they were deadlocked. There was no way the stallion was as strong as Matteo… he was a griffon and bigger than him!

“AH!” Dash ducked as the brown stallion zoomed directly over head before pitching back up again. She looked back up for a moment only to duck again as Squall followed right behind.

“RAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!” Squall roared as he turned up and followed.

“You should REALLY get that temper under control!” the brown stallion jeered as he slowed up near the ceiling again. Squall rose up, perfectly level, and threw a punch, but the stallion shifted right, grabbed his arm and threw him over his back and downward. The stallion folded his wings up and let himself freefall towards Squall. Squall quickly regained his flight, gave himself a little space and began throwing punches and kicks at the stallion as they fell. But the stallion was just too nimble in a freefall state. Every punch was smoothly dodged, every kick cleanly blocked.

“Now you see me…” the stallion tapped a hoof against one of Squall’s missed punches and rolled across Squall’s back and shoulders, putting himself behind him. “And now you don’t!” he pressed his hooves down on Squall’s shoulders, causing him to drop out of flight and slam hard against the ground again. “You should really keep track of how close the ground is!” the stallion chuckled as he leveled out and pitched upward. Squall shakily stood up and forced himself after him, clearly not understanding just how slim his chances of winning were.

Dash was beginning to contemplate intervening as she glanced back down at the dark stallion. He was still sitting well off to the side. If he tried anything funny, Dash was stepping in regardless.

“Hahaha!” the blue stallion laughed. Dash glanced down to see he and Matteo had still not moved. “You're damn strong!” he complimented Matteo as it seemed neither could move the other.

Matteo said nothing. He just kept his eyes locked on his opponent in front of him. But then he growled and snorted… and pushed forward.

“Whoa!” the stallion grunted and smiled wider as Matteo began taking steps with his back legs. The stallion’s hooves began to grind against the mat, ripping and tearing at it as he was pushed. “WOW! You're REALLY strong!” the stallion seemed to be enjoying the competition despite Matteo proving to be stronger than him. Dash watched as Matteo ended up pushing the stallion a good twenty yards back. But then the Stallion suddenly shifted his body and flattened his back with his shoulders up and square. “But…” he chuckled as Matteo looked down in confusion. He could no longer move the stallion. “Can you…!” the stallion pushed with his whole body, using a slight hip and body thrust with each push to maximize the power. Matteo grunted as his back paws slid slightly. “Use that strength…!” Dash watched with awe as the stallion’s large muscles flexed and tense with each push, veins bulging from his arms, legs, and chest as he forced his strength towards Matteo. “Effectively!?” he sneered as Matteo struggled against the powerful motions of the stallion.

Matteo was clearly stronger, but even with his claws on his back paws latched into the mat, he could not counter the pushes. Ripping and tearing noises screeching from the mat as his claws dug in and split the surface. Matteo was pushed all the way back to where they started.

“I guess not!” the stallion grinned as he suddenly shifted his body again. He took an even lower body position and drove his back hooves into the ground while forcing the rest of his body upward. At first Matteo was wondering what he was doing, but then his eyes widened when he felt his body rise up? He didn’t have time to re-anchor his claws in the mat, or shift the direction of his strength. The stallion used his own strength and the opposite motion of Matteo’s to LIFT MATTEO UP IN THE AIR, and swing him all the way over.

“ARGH!!!!” Matteo shouted helplessly as his massive bulk was pulled in an arc over the stallion, and slammed back-first to the ground behind him. Matteo grunted in pain as he landed square on his back. The stallion had fallen as well, but only from the motion of the attack.

“Damn! You’re heavy too!” the stallion pointed out. Matteo quickly rolled over and pushed off the ground, trying to create some distance, but the stallion had already begun galloping at him again.

“Rggghh!!!!” Dash growled looking back up at Squall.

“Noogie, noogie, noogie, noogie!” the brown stallion taunted as he held Squall in a headlock and gave him a rough noogie on the head as they fell towards the mat. Squall was glaring at him intensely, teeth bared and snarling, but he didn’t intimidate the stallion in the slightest.

Art by: foxenawolf

“Aaaaaaaaaand STICK THE LANDING!” he yelled as he let go of Squall. Squall crashed hard against the mat AGAIN.

“Urgh…” Squall groaned as he struggled to stand. He refused to go down. It wasn’t doing him much good though.

“Man, you are a stubborn one!” the stallion commented as he flew backwards across the ground before flying towards the ceiling. There was definitely a pattern. The stallion seemed to like freefalling, and whenever he was in such a state of falling he was untouchable. Squall couldn’t seem to get that through his head.

That was it.

Dash had stood around long enough.

“Twister! Let’s go!” she looked back

“Way ahead of ya!” Twister was already a few yards ahead of her. Dash didn’t even think, she just followed right behind, moving towards Squall since Matteo seemed to still be holding his own.

However, before they could get within ten yards of Squall, something swept in front of them and knocked Twister directly to the mat. Twister bounced several times.

“Oo! Ee! Ow! Oh!” he grunted as he rolled back upright and stood ready. Dash came to an immediate halt and looked around.

“Sorry, no entry permitted!” the dark pony appeared in front of them, descending from above. The mat was grey, but everything else in the area was dark blue. It was hard to see him, but Dash could tell he was there. She immediately rose up slightly to see him fully.

“Out of my way!” Dash yelled at him. The dark pony shrugged and shook his head.

“No can do, hot stuff! They told me to keep you guys from interfering. So… I ain’t gonna let you guys interfere!” he stated very confidently.

“Twister! Go!” Dash yelled over the stallion’s shoulder. Twister instantly turned and headed for Squall, but he got roughly five feet further before the stallion somehow zipped in front of him and pushed him down to the mat again. Dash took the chance, dropping down and quickly executing the motions for the sonic blastoff. She fired from the spot… but as soon as she did, she found herself completely turned around and heading in the opposite direction. “WHAT THE?!” she tried to stop, but moving her wings caused the wind resistance to swat her down. She ended up bouncing against the mat just as Twister had. She rolled to a stop, but quickly stood back up, only to have Twister come flying out of nowhere and slam right into her. The two tumbled into a pony pile before they both rolled off and stood up, staring as the faint trace of the dark pony and his bright yellow eyes.

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news you two… but you gotta get past me if you wanna get to them… and that ain’t happening,” he nodded and smiled, his teeth visible, but the rest of his head barely.

“Then I guess we’re just gonna have to beat your ass!” Dash growled, thoroughly pissed that this stallion was getting in the way of her helping her fellow recruits.

“Ooo… that’s harsh…” the stallion winced.

“Two against one! There’s no way you can beat us at the same time!” Dash stomped her hooves. The stallion laughed heartily.

“You are hilarious… well… go ahead! Give me your best shot!” he beckoned them.

“Twister! Get behind him! We’ll go from both sides!”

“Way ahead of ya!” Twister called from the other side of the dark stallion.

“GO!” Dash yelled to him. The two shot towards the stallion, pulling back their hooves to punch.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE!” the stallion jeered while spinning as they drew near.

“Whoa!!!” Dash didn’t even see the stallion make a move, she just suddenly found herself shooting up into the air. Twister threw his punch, but it somehow turned around and he punched himself in the face.

Dash flailed, failing to regain control of herself before plopping to the ground. Twister whiplashed back from his own hoof clocking him between the eyes. Dash was up and flying at him again, holding her hoof out as if purposely telegraphing her attack. The stallion chuckled, bringing both hooves up and easily stopping Dash’s blow. Dash pressed down, almost forcing the stallion to keep his grip on her.

“Twister! Now!” she yelled. Twister was up and flying at the stallion as Dash tried to hold his hooves in place.

“Oh, PLEASE!” the stallion snickered, extending his wings and slamming one down over Twister’s head, putting Twister's face first to the mat.

Art by: foxenawolf

He spun Dash around and aimed her low as he flung her into Twister, causing two to roll back again into a pile of each other.

“I have no chance, huh? I’m actually feeling pretty good!” the dark stallion hopped back and forth on his back legs while holding his hooves up and jabbing them forward in a mocking manner.

“Dammit!” Dash threw Twister off of her in frustration, got up and fired towards the stallion. The stallion leapt into the air, pumping his wings to gain altitude. Dash could barely see him, but his eyes helped her at least get an idea of where he was. Twister was up and right behind her shortly.

The two stopped as the stallion’s eyes ceased the ascent and they began throwing quick punches and kicks. However, no matter how many times they tried, they either got blocked, deflected, or hit absolutely nothing. As much as this was frustrating Dash, she couldn’t help but notice the stallion wasn’t attacking them at all. He was purely using defense and turning their own attacks against them.

All three of these stallions had incredibly unique styles of combat, the likes of which seemed extremely unconventional and used physical and skillful attributes not usually seen within the range of pegasus combat.

Galloping…

Falling…

Pure defense…

And they were… untamed. They were encouraging combat. They didn’t seem disciplined or trained like the Wonderbolts. It was almost like they were doing things naturally.

“ARGH!” Dash grutned as she found herself tumbling towards the ground, despite being sure she was just about to hit the stallion. She stopped herself mid fall and looked back up, but again Twister was thrown directly into her and the two were sent to the ground. They both quickly stood up again, but—

“Gotcha!” the dark stallion’s voice came from in between them. Before either Twister or Dash could move, the stallion had them both in headlocks, one under each arm.

“Shit!” Dash cursed as she tried to struggle, but the stallion lowered them just enough to the ground that Dash couldn’t get full power or leverage from her limbs. She and Twister were both stuck. It seemed like even Twister’s reality bending antics couldn’t get him out of this one.

Dash looked on with worry.

“WHA-PAH!” the brown stallion yelled as he drove Squall to the floor for the tenth time at least. Squall twitched and struggled to move, but he was finally down for the count it seemed.

“ARGH!”

Dash looked over to see Matteo sent crashing to the ground. He rolled and slammed against the wall at the edge of the arena, the blue stallion landing a good ways away.

Both Squall and Matteo were down. That was it, they were finished and Dash hoped they would stay down… but…

“CITIZEN’S ELBOW!” the brown stallion yelled from above as he began dropping towards Squall with his elbow primed to deliver a crushing blow.

“NO!” Dash tried to struggle, but she couldn’t get free. She looked over towards Matteo. The blue stallion was galloping towards him, picking up speed as if intending to smash Matteo into the wall. “DAMMIT!” Dash thrashed harder and harder.

“Whoa there! You’re feisty!” the dark pony commented as Dash failed to get free. “Hey, they picked the fight not us, it’s their own fault that—”

Before he could finish…

Two pegasi suddenly fired over the top of them, one heading straight for the brown stallion, the other moving to intercept the blue.

Right before the brown stallion could land the crushing elbow into Squall’s back, the newcomer rammed him in the side so hard that he was sent flying away from Squall, tumbling to a stop on the mat.

Dash blinked and gasped as she saw the new pony hovering over Squall.

“Misty Fly?!” Dash exclaimed as she saw Misty turn to look over Squall. Dash diverted her gaze just in time to see the second pony catch up to the large blue stallion. “Silver!?” she exclaimed, recognizing Silver Lining as he roped his arms around the blue stallion’s neck.

“Wha—?” the stallion looked up as Silver suddenly yanked his WHOLE MASSIVE BODY off course and wrestled him to the ground. The two fell to the mat and slid off course, slamming into the wall right beside Matteo. Silver held the stallion down, and kept him down.

Dash blinked as she looked between Misty and Silver.

“Uh oh…” the dark stallion gulped, suddenly sounding a little nervous.

“A-HEM!!!!!!!” a new voice came from behind them. the dark stallion turned around, with Dash and Twister still in the headlocks. Dash looked up to see Rivet standing behind them, with a new pony standing beside him. It was a thistle colored mare, with a three toned mane of dark blue, light blue, and yellow. Her eyes were yellow with orangish pupils. She looked much younger than the other three stallions and was fairly small, almost as small as Rivet. She threw her wings out and yelled at the top of her lungs.

“SWIFT JUSTICE! PLAYBITZ! CALM WIND! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?!” she belted towards the three stallions.

Art by: foxenawolf and the little faces by: Scootafail

Rivet yelped and shied away, ducking as her wings flared out and hoping not to get caught in her anger. The three stallions all looked towards her with a look comparable to a young colt getting caught stealing cookies from the kitchen.

Dash was so confused her brain hurt. A fourth pony? Wait a second…

The brown stallion looked up into the glaring eyes of Misty Fly. He blinked, grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his head, obviously aware that nothing he could say would matter for more reasons than Misty being deaf.

“Uh… can I get up now?” the blue stallion said to Silver, who was still holding the large pony down.

“No,” Silver put plainly as he sat still.

All incredibly skilled in their own way… but so wild and unrefined…

All immediately caving like caught children…

Misty and Silver downed them really quick…

And now this mare…

“Swift… DROP THEM!” the new mare ordered.

“Yes ma’am!” the dark stallion instantly let go of Dash and Twister, the two dropping to the ground. The dark stallion was back down on all fours and exaggerating a smile as the small mare moved towards him. “Well, uh… we were just—” before he could get any further, she reached up and clasped her hoof around one of his ears, she yanked his head down and began pulling him along. “OWOWOWOW!!!” the dark pony whined as she dragged him along by the ear.

Dash stood up and watched as Misty helped Squall get up and move towards them. Silver finally let the blue stallion go, but not before giving him a good kick to the side. Silver helped Matteo get up, but the griffon managed to limp on his own power, moving back towards them.

Dash looked towards the small mare as she rounded up the three stallions. Rivet followed close behind her, glancing back at the recruits once or twice as he did.

“You guys are terrible!” she started yelling at them. “Seriously! New recruits! You were beating on new recruits!” she sounded both disturbed and angry.

“Sorry…” they all replied in unison.

It was so strange to see a small, young mare who literally looked like she was no older than eighteen, berating three full grown stallions, two of which were much larger than her.

Dash’s ears stood up.

No…

She had been wondering for a while… if they really were a Wonderbolt squad… this little mare couldn’t possibly be… their CAPTAIN?!

“And really guys?! How many times do I have to tell you… if you’re gonna get into a fight, COME GET ME! I don’t want to miss out! That’s three times now! Seriously! Let me know, I wanna fight too!”

Or maybe not… there seemed to be no authority among them, despite how it seemed like they were afraid to anger the little mare.

Dash refocused as she heard Silver grumbling sharply to himself. Matteo, Squall, Twister, and Dash all stiffened, readying themselves for the fury of Silver that they were about to get…

But to their surprise, Silver only shook his head. He stopped by each recruit and looked them over. Matteo and Squall were beat up pretty bad all over. Twister had taken a few blows to the face, most of which were self inflicted due to the dark stallion’s strange tactics, but Dash got off easy, with nothing but a few bruises from rough landings… her right shoulder was a bit stiff though… in fact it felt a little swollen. She did get hit there all three times she collided with Twister.

“Come on,” Silver pointed towards the door calmly. “Go to Bliss,” he ordered before motioning for them to leave. Dash and Matteo glanced at each other as they all began following Silver and Misty Fly. Silver even held the door open for them as they started exiting one by one.

Dash glanced back as the group of five strange pegasi started moving towards the exit as well. She had to ask now.

“Instructor Silver!” Dash spoke up. Silver blinked and looked towards her. “Who… are these ponies?” she asked. Silver took one look at the ponies approaching, gritted his teeth and growled.

“A bunch of dumbass slap-dicks that I’m REALLY starting to get tired of…” he said harshly before leaving. Dash stepped out into the hallway before the door could close, but before moving towards the training room, she waited for the five ponies to emerge. She knew who Rivet was… but the other ponies’ names escaped her. She heard them all briefly, or at least the stallions’ names, but she didn’t remember them flat out. She stood aside and watched as the odd group trotted by, but before they all passed, the small mare stopped and looked at Dash.

Dash blinked and stared back into the yellow orangish eyes.

“Wait…” the mare blinked as she looked Dash over. “Are you… Rainbow Dash?” she asked suddenly. Dash blinked and nodded.

“Uh… yeah, why?” she asked, curious as to how this mare knew her. However, the mare flinched upon her assumption being clarified.

“Oh, um… n-nothing…” her voice sounded shaky. “Sorry about everything…” she bowed her head before quickly following after the guys.

Dash watched the mare carefully as she herself started walking. Dash caught up behind the rest of the recruits as they angled towards the training room, but she stopped when she looked into the lobby and saw the lead squad walking right in the front door, travel bags and all.

Including Soarin!

Dash was about to wave, but stopped when she saw the lead squad greet the strange ponies. Dash halted in place and watched carefully. Even Soarin knew about them?

Then she saw the small mare glance over at Soarin… and her face turned bright red with a blush.

What…

She waved at Soarin. Dash’s eyes locked on her stallion to analyze his response. Soarin merely gave a friendly grin in response and waved back… before he looked around and his eyes instantly landed on Dash. He looked like he was about to wave to her, but then saw the state of Squall and Matteo. Before Spitfire or Fleetfoot could ask him where he was going, Soarin had broken off and was trotting towards them.

“Skittles! Get in here!” Silver suddenly ordered. Dash jumped, quickly turning and entering the training room. She trotted up behind her fellow recruits, waiting patiently in line as Silver let the door close behind them. The instant after it clicked shut, it opened again and Soarin walked through, duffle bag still over his shoulder.

Dash smiled at him, but restrained herself from doing anything else to remain professional. However, Soarin rushed towards her, grabbed her by the shoulder, and looked her over carefully, noting her bruises and pulling hoof back quickly when touching her shoulder made her wince. He blinked and looked over the other recruits, seeing how beat up Matteo and Squall were in particular. He looked back at Dash, incredibly confused.

“First of all, hi…” he nodded to her. “But more importantly… what the heck happened to you guys?!” he asked quickly. Dash sighed.

“We got in a little scuffle…” she explained.

“With who!?” Soarin demanded. Dash put a hoof against his chest, silently signaling him to calm down.

“The guys you just greeted in the lobby,” Dash clarified with an unamused tone. Everything was put back in place… but they did all just get their asses handed to them.

Soarin’s expression instantly lightened and his eyes widened.

“Wait…” he let his ears flop down. “You fought… them?!” he asked as if he didn’t hear her correctly. Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“Yeah… and got messed up…” Dash admitted shamefully. Soarin suddenly clamped his mouth shut and puffed his cheeks out. Dash looked at him quizzically as he began to snicker.

Silver shot Soarin a glare for a moment before rolling his eyes.

“Oh… so I see you met Spitfire’s little experiment…” Soarin took a deep breath but kept chuckling a little.

“Spitfire’s experiment…?” Dash blinked. “Who the hell are they?” she demanded. Soarin glanced at Silver. Silver just scoffed. Soarin gave him an amused look and shrugged before turning back to Dash.

“You just had a run in… with Wonderbolt Squad Zero!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

TURBO DISCLAIMER: Squad Zero was written into my outline LONG... lemme repeat that... LOOOOOOOOONG before the Pegasus Posse was formed. As i went on i merely decided to substitute them in. This is not going to turn into an OC self insert story. Squad Zero has a significant role in the plot, but they are not... NOT the focus of the story!

Sorry, i'm just REALLY worried people would think the Posse stepping into the spotlight suddenly would mean we would take over the story... THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Our presence has importance and significance to my overarching plot.

But hey hey hey! Finally! We're in the background all this time and i DONT include characters as often as that without them being important!

Curious as to who they are, what they do, and why they are there? Why are they referred to as "Spitfire's experiment?" Why does Silver think they're a bunch of idiots? That and more to come as we go!

Also... Twister is... WEIRD! xD

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 55: Oh... THAT'S who they are...

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 55:

“Squad… zero?” Dash blinked, confused. “Uh… what?” she gave Soarin a quizzical look. Soarin nodded.

“Yep! Squad zero,” he smiled. Dash stared at him, waiting to continue.

“I’m so confused…” Dash shook her head as Soarin chuckled.

“As you should be… they are quite a bit different. They are technically part of the Wonderbolt ranks and—”

“They are NOT Wonderbolts,” Silver suddenly cut Soarin off. Soarin halted mid speech with his mouth still open. “They’re a bunch of blowhards.”

“Yikes, Silver…” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “That’s being a little harsh,” he commented, letting his ears flop down. Dash looked between Soarin and Silver with interest. She still had little to no idea who squad zero was… but by the looks of things, their presence was a disputed one.

“Nothing harsh about it, son…” Silver grunted as he leaned against a trainer table to let Matteo and Squall pass towards the trainers. “‘Wonderbolt’ is a title that’s earned… not one that’s pinned to you,” he narrowed his eyes. “As far as I’m concerned, Spitfire dragged them in here and handed it to them,” Silver explained sternly. Soarin looked at Silver carefully.

“Are you gonna say that to Blazetail and Flashwind too? They are just as responsible for them, you know,” Soarin pointed out.

“I’m well aware,” Silver huffed. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it…”

“Dash too?!” Bliss suddenly stepped around Silver and walked up to Dash. Silver kept his eyes on Soarin, but Soarin turned to Bliss and Dash. “What the hell happened? I thought today was a free training day for them!” Bliss exclaimed as she took note of Dash’s slightly swollen shoulder and began feeling around it with her hooves. Silver scoffed.

“That would be your husband and his fellow idiots,” Silver commented. Bliss stopped everything when Silver mentioned her husband. She sighed and turned around, pouting at Silver.

“Look Commander, I know Bitz can be a dope, but… the others aren’t so bad!” she said with a completely straight face. Soarin instantly burst out laughing. “What?” Bliss looked at him confused. Soarin shook his head while snickering.

“Did you hear what you said?” Soarin pointed out as Bliss went looked over to Silver, who was almost cracking a grin. Bliss flattened her ears.

“Did I mess that up? Whatever, Silver knows what I mean. We have this argument all the time. They aren’t bad… just a little wild…” Bliss said with a slightly miffed mumble as she turned back to Dash to examine her shoulder more.

“But who are—”

“Looks like you just need some ice… just a bad bruise,” Bliss cut her off. “Go sit down,” she pointed towards Squall, Matteo, and Twister.

“But—” Dash glanced back at Soarin and Silver.

“I get what you mean Silver, but it’s not like all they do is freeload… I mean they help Rivet with equipment testing and research.” Soarin shrugged.

“Letting a bunch of random dolts into the Wonderbolt compound, housing them and giving them free run of the place sounds like they’re bumming to me…” Silver retorted. Soarin shook his head.

“Man, you do NOT like them do you?” Soarin couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.

“How long did it take to put that one together?” Silver said back sarcastically. Dash couldn’t see that discussion ending any time soon.

“Alright…” Dash agreed as Bliss nudged her over to the trainer tables.

Dash walked carefully as a little bit of stiffness and pain began to settle into her shoulder. Nothing was hurt or broken, but having a bruise on a spot that moves so often was just super uncomfortable. She was perfectly fine, she was more worried about Squall, Matteo, and… okay maybe she was a little worried about Twister too.

Squall was sitting the closest. Dash was assuming he’d be pissed off… or maybe smiling since he seemed to smile at weird things. However, once she got close enough to see him… she got something completely different.

He looked… incredibly sad. In fact, he was almost curled up on the trainer table, looking away and looked like he was almost on the verge of tears.

“Squall?” Dash said his name with concern in her voice. His ears perked up and his eyes widened as he looked at her. “Are you alright?” she pressed. Squall simply stared at her for a few moments without saying anything. Eventually, his ears drooped back down, he pushed himself up slightly, and shuffled until his body turned and faced away from Dash before getting comfortable on the table again.

Dash didn’t know what else to say. Squall seemed completely broken. She decided it would be best to let it be. Pressing him further wouldn’t help. She wanted him to learn to trust her, not find her annoying or pushy.

She moved onto Matteo… who was sitting upright, clenching his talons and grumbling to himself.

“Uh…” Dash thought about what to say to him, but based on his current appearance and mood… he didn’t look like he wanted to talk. She could, however, pick out a few words amid his grumbling. The words ‘dishonored’ and ‘disgraced’ were repeated fairly often. Dash just rolled her eyes and moved on to Twister.

“Twister are you—”

“PUMPKIN?!" Twister held a pumpkin twice the size of Dash’s head out to her.

“You’re perfectly fine,” Dash quickly stated before sliding onto the table beside Twister’s.

“Here you go,” Bliss was already walking towards her with an ice bag by the time Dash got settled. “Just keep that on there for a little bit.

“Thanks…” Dash nodded as she balanced the ice bag on her shoulder and looked back out towards Soarin and Silver.

She was still looking for a clear answer. From what she had heard so far… squad zero sounded like something that was just thrown together… but it had to be more than that. She was kind of miffed that Silver butted in because Soarin was about to tell her more.

“What the hell happened in here?!” Little Star’s voice suddenly came from the entrance. Dash looked past Bliss examining Matteo to see Little Star and Thunderlane. Little Star was already fluttering towards them, the faint buzz of her wings getting louder as she drew near. She hovered by each of them looking them all over. She yelped when she turned to Twister because the pumpkin was suddenly a very highly detailed jack-o-lantern depicting his face and he was wearing it on his head.

Art by: CowgirlVK

Little Star instantly growled, grabbed the pumpkin and turned it around on his head so it was backwards before turning to Matteo.

“Seriously! What happened?” she pressed.

“Dishonor, disgrace, and humiliation… that’s what…” Matteo grunted in disgust. Star stared blankly at him as her wings kept humming, keeping her afloat.

“We got beat up cause of these two…” Dash answered for him, pointing her wing towards Matteo and Squall, extending two wing feathers towards them. “Picked fights… Twister and I tried to assist.” Dash gave her the short version.

“I was challenged!” Matteo turned roughly towards Dash, reaching out and pushing Twister aside with his talons. Twister, still blinded by the pumpkin over his head, tumbled off the side of the table and crashed on the ground while releasing muffled maniacal laughter from inside the pumpkin. Matteo gave Dash a heavy glare. “Griffons do not ‘pick fights!’” he hissed at her. Dash glared right back at him.

“You didn’t have to accept the challenge!” Dash fired back.

“He invoked a formal griffon rite of—”

“He’s a PONY!” Dash threw her hooves out. “And this ISN’T the Griffon Kingdom! No one would have thought less of you! It was stupid!” she berated him. Dash blinked and looked beyond Matteo for a moment. She saw Silver glancing over at them, but Matteo instantly got back in her face.

“Watch your tongue, pegasus! Lest I rip it out with my beak the next time you insult my—”

“SHUT UP!!!!!!!” Little Star put herself between them, her wings buzzing furiously. Dash pulled back in surprise, but Matteo didn’t waiver.

“I will not let a pony—” before he could go any further, Star turned, grabbed his face by his cheek feathers, and yanked him towards her, putting her face into his so hard she nearly headbutted him.

“LISTEN UP, TUBBY!” Little Star snarled, their foreheads literally pressed together. “I DON’T CARE WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE OR WHERE YOU’RE FROM! YOU GOT INTO A FIGHT! YOU LOST! IT AIN’T THAT HARD TO ACCEPT! GET OVER YOUR OVERSIZED SELF!!!!!” she raged at point blank.

Matteo went completely silent. He didn’t look scared or intimidated, but Little Star had completely stolen the argument. He scoffed, pulled himself away from the tiny mare and went back to brooding.

Then Star turned to Squall… who was still facing away and was still curled up in a defeated manner. Star blinked, not really expecting such a display from him.

“What’s up with you?” Star asked as she floated over to him. Squall flinched and looked up at her very briefly. He quickly put his head back down and sighed.

“Nothing… Leave me alone…” he said in a very dejected tone of voice. Star looked upon him with disbelief. Squall had yet to talk to her without yelling in her face and he just tried to avoid her?

While Dash decided to leave him be, Star seemed to have a different plan. She hovered around Squall, confused and interested. She realized that to get Squall in such a mood had to be quite a challenge, he had always challenged her and yelled in her face, but here he backed off and shied away?

“You sure about that?” she asked him as she landed beside the arm he was using to hide his face.

“Leave me alone…” he repeated. Star just stared. She really didn’t know how to react to it.

“Whatever you say…” she said while landing beside him. She didn’t do anything else. She just sat beside him.

Art by: CowgirlVK

From off to the side, Dash watched curiously.

Little Star was always so quick to blow up at Squall… but at the same time she was also very motherly. Despite her obvious disapproval of Squall’s usual behavior, as soon as she saw him in distress, she changed to comfort mode. Dash had to remember often that Star was thirty years old. Even though she had a bad habit of becoming enraged at the first sign of dissent among her wingmates… she also had a strong sense of care and looking out for those around her. It was a common ‘older sibling’ complex and Star couldn’t radiate it more. In fact, it was almost on a parent level with her.

Dash let the situation be. She and Matteo were working towards getting him to open up. Without even telling her, Little Star was helping. Squall was clearly in a defeated state of mind. Little Star could see it, and just went along with it. As much as Dash and Matteo disliked the scenario they just experienced… it may have helped them in their quest to understand Squall.

Thunderlane eventually made his way over to Dash after talking to Bliss.

“So, uh…” Thunderlane began as he approached. “What actually happened?” he asked. Dash shook her head slowly.

“I’ve yet to really figure that out…” she answered. Thunderlane looked her up and down.

“You telling me you guys are all bruised because you fell down the stairs or something?” he asked sarcastically. Dash rolled her eyes and glared at him.

“No dumbass, we got beat up. I’m still trying to figure out who they are because I can’t seem to get a straight answer…” she trailed off. She heard the training room door open again, but she didn’t look towards it.

“For Celestia’s sake, it isn’t even peak hours yet!” Bliss grumbled as she walked past the recruits.

“Oh! No I’m not here to get treated…”

Dash’s ears perked up. That was Storm Front’s voice. She leaned out to look towards the door.

“Commander Soarin,” Storm stepped up to Soarin and saluted.

“Who?” Soarin looked over his shoulder. Storm paused and blinked.

“Um… Sir?” he tipped his head. Soarin chuckled.

“Storm… we’ve been over this, just call me Soarin,” Soarin reached forward and ruffled Storm’s mane.

“Er, uh… yes… Soarin,” he sheepishly corrected himself. Silver cleared his throat, drawing Storm’s attention.

“Just make sure you keep calling me CAPTAIN Silver, thank you very much…” Silver stated as Soarin snickered. Storm just nodded, ready to give a formal response, but Soarin cut him off.

“Alright, what is it, Storm?” Soarin refocused Storm. Storm nodded to him quickly.

“Captain Spitfire wants you and Rainbow Dash to report to her office immediately,” he explained while looking towards Dash. Soarin’s ears stood up as he looked towards Dash as well.

“Oh… probably because…” Soarin nodded. Dash blinked as she saw Soarin turn to Silver for a moment.

Spitfire wanted to see her? What for?

“Dash!” Soarin called from the entrance, “Let’s go!” he beckoned her. Dash took the ice bag off her shoulder and stepped back to the floor. She took one step before Bliss cleared her throat loudly. Dash froze and turned her head to see the ice bag floating back up to her.

“Keep that on for another ten minutes please,” she ordered as Dash let the bag balance on her should. She nodded sheepishly before walking over to Soarin, leaving her confused fellow recruits behind. She passed by Storm, the two giving each other a smile and a nod as he made his way over to Matteo and Thunderlane.

Dash glanced once back at Storm, he looked happy. She wondered how his first show went. She’d have to get the details from him later and get a full rundown on what it was like to perform for the first time.

“C’mon, we shouldn’t keep Spitfire waiting,” Soarin’s voice brought Dash back to what was going on. She nodded as Soarin stood in the door, holding it open for her.

Silver kept his eyes on Dash as she left. He looked back over towards Matteo, then back at Dash again, or rather the door as it closed behind her. He scratched his chin while pondering… specifically the exchange between Dash and Matteo.

“So now can you tell me about squad zero?” Dash asked as she walked side by side with Soarin, admittedly close enough to nearly lean against him.

“Actually… if she’s calling you for what I think she is… she can explain it. It’s her project anyway,” Soarin explained as they started up the stairs from the lobby. Dash blinked and tipped her head towards him.

“What… do you think she’s calling me in for?” Dash asked as they made it the top of the stairs, Spitfire’s office within view.

“We had an interesting situation in Manehatten this morning,” Soarin sighed heavily. “One that I believe, and I’m sure Spitfire believes is definitely something you should be aware of,” he explained with a very serious tone.

“Which would be?” Dash asked as they neared Spitfire’s office.

“A Shadowbolt,” Soarin revealed as he reached for the doorknob. Dash’s ears stood up and her eyes widened.

“WAIT, WHA—”

“PAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

Both Soarin and Dash flinched as the sound of Fleetfoot’s uncontrollable laughter blared from inside.

“HHOOOOO HOHAAHAHAHAHAA!!!! OH MY GOD YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!” she continued. Soarin blinked and looked at the door.

“And what the hell does she find so funny?” Soarin wondered out loud.

Dash was still in shock from what Soarin said. They had a run in with a Shadowbolt? She remembered seeing them disperse after their flying fortress went down, literally in all directions. Had they built back up? If so, what was their goal? What about Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust?

She shook her head out roughly and took a deep breath. She was jumping to conclusions. Soarin said they encountered a ShadowBOLT. Singular. They were mercenaries after all, could one of them been on a job?

She needed some answers. Squad zero, Shadowbolts… she needed to know something before anything else unexpected occurred.

“HAHAAAAAAHAHAHAHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”

And what the hell was Fleetfoot laughing at?

Soarin reluctantly opened the door to Spitfire’s office and the two walked in. The first thing they saw was Fleetfoot on her back, rolling back and forth on the floor, laughing her plot off while kicking her hooves up in the air.

Dash glanced over to the couch to see Air Mach sitting on the couch, but he had his sunglasses removed, hoof over his eyes and chuckling to himself. Soarin looked towards Spitfire, who had her head down on her desk, with her hooves over her head, and clearly trying to suppress laughter due to the amount of shaking she was experiencing.

“What’s… so… funny?” Soarin asked carefully as he braced for an answer. There were few things that got Fleetfoot to guffaw so loudly. Spitfire slowly removed a hoof from her head while letting a few quiet giggles go, reached for a newspaper sitting on her desk, and pushed it towards Soarin. Soarin and Dash approached her desk, Soarin stepping over Fleetfoot as they approached.

Dash shoved a hoof over her mouth and her cheeks puffed out the moment she saw the front page. Soarin’s eyes widened and his ears folded back.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Soarin groaned as he read the front page.

In the dead center of the front page was a photo taken when they were being bombarded by reporters post show the day before… the photo was zoomed in on him… and the headline read: PRINCESS SOARIN?!

Dash lost it. She dropped right to the ground, clutching her sides as she tried… and failed to hold back the laughter.

“How the hell does news travel so fast?” Soarin sighed as he waited for the mares to calm down. Air Mach had already had his laughs and put his pointy glasses back on.

“Hey Commander! At least you got on the front page! I envy your public presence! You’re a worthy rival!” he yelled passionately.

“We’re on the same squad, but whatever…” Soarin didn’t feel like arguing with Air Mach. It was pointless anyway.

Soarin stood still, tapping his hoof as Dash and Spitfire eventually calmed down and regained themselves, but it took a light kick to the side to get Fleetfoot to stop and get up.

“Best thing I’ve seen all week… scratch that… all year!” Fleetfoot kept giggling to herself as she finally got up.

“So… I brought her with me, Spitfire.” Soarin nodded to Spitfire while placing a hoof on Dash’s shoulder.

“Thank you Soarin,” Spitfire nodded back before focusing on Dash. She blinked and looked Dash up and down. She took note that Dash looked a bit bruised… not to mention Dash was rebalancing an ice pack on her shoulder that fell off during her fit of laughter. She was about to ask, but Dash took the initiative.

“So… What’s this all about?” Dash asked. Spitfire narrowed her eyes for only a moment. Which was all Dash needed to remember. She quickly stiffened and stood up straight, the ice bag shifting and falling off again. “Er! I mean, why have I been called, ma’am?!” Dash quickly fixed.

“Pfffff!!” Fleetfoot held in a chuckle as Spitfire shot her a glare as well.

“At ease Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire nodded to her. “And nice catch… I’d rather you remain disciplined than follow certain examples…” she shot another quick glare towards Fleetfoot.

“Heat buns…” Fleetfoot muttered while rolling her eyes.

“So…” Spitfire refocused on Dash. “Has Soarin filled you in on our interesting morning?” she glanced at Soarin. Soarin shook his head.

“Besides the Shadowbolt, I gave little detail,” he confirmed. Spitfire nodded and looked back to Dash. Dash had been given the ‘at ease’ order… but Shadowbolts? There was no ease on her mind at all. This was certainly a shock already and she didn’t want one detail to go unheard. She paid close attention as Spitfire began to speak.

“Yes… a Shadowbolt…” Spitfire sighed. “But… there were a lot of confusing factors to this confrontation,” she leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. “For starters… we were being watched. Stalked. Observed. The Shadowbolt made no attempt to come after us. In fact, when Soarin finally went after him, the Shadowbolt made no effort to retaliate. He ran.” Spitfire took a deep breath and exhaled. “He didn’t even cause any damage around Manehatten. The only damage caused during the chase was a little magical mishap…” she glanced towards Soarin. Dash blinked and looked towards him as well.

“Hey, it worked the first time…” Soarin looked away, embarrassed.

“Second time blew a whole chunk off a building twenty stories up,” Fleetfoot relayed to Dash with a smirk. “Luckily, I was there to clean up her majesty’s mess!” she pressed her hoof to her chest proudly. Soarin lifted an eyebrow at her.

“Really? I doubt you would’ve come had Spitfire not dragged you. Too busy mourning your spilt coffee, I heard,” he jeered with a sneer. Fleetfoot turned her head sharply to Spitfire.

“Spitty! You had to tell him that one?!” she whined.

“Alright, alright! Let’s focus! This is serious!” Spitfire tapped her hooves against her desk, followed by Air Mach zipping up beside her and pounding his hooves against the desk.

“That’s right! We have to get to the part about the great Animak saving the day!” he shouted proudly while pointing up towards the corner of the ceiling.

“Mach. Sit down,” Spitfire said once in a harsh tone.

“Yes Ma’am!” he yelled while plopping down on the floor beside her, still behind her desk.

“On the couch!” Spitfire shouted while reaching and pushing him back towards the couch. Dash subtly leaned towards Soarin.

“Do all your meetings go like this?” she whispered to him. Soarin looked up just in time to see Air Mach try to sit on Fleetfoot’s lap on the couch, but without a single bit of hesitation she launched her leg upward, blasting him RIGHT in the crotch. Air Mach yelped and flapped his wings down, the combined motion of Fleetfoot’s kick and his wing pump sending him up, head smashing against the ceiling before falling back down and landing roughly on top of Fleetfoot anyway.

“GET OFF!” She barked at him while trying to push him off.

“THE GREAT… ANIMAK… FEELS… NO… PAIN!!!!” Mach’s voice was squeaky and at least one octave higher.

Soarin looked back at Dash and nodded slowly.

“Welcome to a normal day in my life…” he said sarcastically as they looked back to Spitfire. She had her nose down on her desk and was rubbing her temples with her hooves.

“Mach… Fleet… I will cancel tomorrow morning’s meeting if you two sit down… and shut up,” she said quietly. There was a lot of sudden shuffling. Soarin, Dash and Spitfire all glanced at the couch. Fleetfoot and Air Mach were sitting upright and perfectly still. Fleetfoot was smiling brightly. Air Mach was smiling, but he was holding his breath and his eyes were still watering from the crushing blow to the giggleberries.

Dash found herself snickering and holding back laughter again. She couldn’t believe how easily the offer got them to quiet down.

“ANYWAY!” Spitfire said loudly. “Now that all the seriousness of the moment has been LOST…” she shot a glare at the two on the couch. “Let’s see if we can pick up a few scraps and remember that we’re talking about the SHADOWBOLTS HERE!” she kept directing her rage towards the two on the couch, but both Dash and Soarin did their best to regain their composure. This was indeed a serious topic… and Dash was desperately seeking answers. As soon as this whole Shadowbolt thing was explained in full, she was asking about squad zero. Spitfire cleared throat and turned back to Soarin and Dash.

“Now then…” she began again. “As I said before, we chased this Shadowbolt down… but even with all four of us chasing him, he managed to get away. We even had him cornered at one point and he still slipped free. That kind of skill is dangerous, especially in the hooves of a Shadowbolt,” she explained. Dash’s ears perked up.

“Was he using one of their crystals?” Dash asked, clearly remembering the addictive false magic from her previous encounter with Nightshade. Spitfire shook her head.

“That was one of many things that were odd…” Spitfire reached into a drawer on her desk. “Thanks to a well timed punch by Air Mach,” she paused and looked up, expecting him to interrupt, but Mach was still sitting still in hopes of getting the next morning off. “We recovered these,” Spitfire pulled out the pair or round, red-tinted flight goggles, the strap still snapped off one end.

Dash blinked and stared down at the goggles. She tipped her from side to side as she examined them, but wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at. She looked back to Spitfire.

“He was wearing these?” Dash asked in confusion. Spitfire nodded. Dash glanced back down. “But… the Shadowbolts wore…” she trailed off.

“Angled, yellow flight goggles,” Spitfire finished for her. “However, as I said, there were other differences. He wore the Shadowbolt flight suit, but only the body portion, no mask. There was also no sign of the magic crystals…” Spitfire listed off everything. “He also made a comment about the Wonderbolt ranking code…” she started pacing back and forth. “We have a lot of mysteries to solve here,” she stopped and sharply turned to Dash, her hooves squeaking on the floor as she did. “Dash, you had a run in with the Shadowbolts before the tornado stunt they pulled a year ago… correct?”

“Yeah…” Dash nodded. Spitfire pointed to the goggles.

“By your confusion, I’m assuming even back then they still had the yellow goggles?” Spitfire questioned her. Dash nodded again. “Damn…”

“He was older…” Soarin chimed in. “Maybe he branched off from them a while back. They are mercenaries after all,” Soarin glanced between Dash and Spitfire. “Also, he wasn’t wearing the full uniform. I honestly think there’s a good chance he could be detached.”

“While true…” Spitfire pondered. “I still can’t quite place it, but I swear recognized his voice…” Spitfire sat back down in her chair and sighed. “Sorry Dash, we really don’t have much to say or go by right now… but as far as I can see, anything Shadowbolt related greatly involves you,” she said while looking up at Dash. “I didn’t want there to be any surprises. This single Shadowbolt was watching us from afar, I want you to keep an eye out for anything suspicious around the compound and report anything to me just in case.”

Dash gulped and nodded. Keep an eye out? Anything suspicious? She had been at the compound on and off in the recent days, totaling to about a month’s time. If they were being watched… and she too was being watched… just how long had it been going on for and why?

“Yes, ma’am!” Dash stated dutifully.

“And Dash…” Spitfire’s voice suddenly became concerned. “I thought the recruits had a free day today… how did you get all beat up?” the instant Spitfire asked, Soarin snorted, his shoulders bouncing up and down as he snickered to himself. Spitfire cocked an eyebrow towards him. “I suppose this means you already know?” she asked sarcastically. Dash’s ears flopped down as she pouted at Soarin. He looked up at her and let a few chuckles go before turning to Spitfire.

“She and some of her fellow recruits… picked a fight with squad zero,” Soarin explained.

Spitfire’s ears stood up upon hearing the brief explanation. She instantly groaned and leaned back in her chair, letting her head hang back while slumping down.

Dash watched her reaction curiously. After Soarin had called it her “experiment” and how much Silver seemed to be against the whole thing, Dash expected Spitfire to seem a little more excited and eager about them.

“Whyyyyyyyyy?” Spitfire quietly wailed before sitting up and groaning again. “Why must they be so difficult…?” she pounded her hooves against her desk.

Dash was done being confused.

“Spitfire…” Dash reached up and placed a hoof firmly on Spitfire’s desk. “What is squad zero? Who are they?” she asked.

Spitfire looked Dash square in the eyes. They were certainly no secret, at least to the rest of the Wonderbolts. They had also just beat up a group of their most promising recruits in their history.

“They are…” Spitfire placed her elbows on her desk, clasped her hooves together and leaned her chin against them. “An anti-Shadowbolt project… a combat-oriented special force.”

“Anti-Shadowbolt?” Dash was not expecting that. Aside from what she had heard just now, she had seen nor heard of anything Shadowbolt related since her first visit to the compound almost half a year ago. Spitfire nodded to her.

“Dash…” Spitfire sighed heavily and closed her eyes. “Our last encounter with the Shadowbolts was a very eye opening experience. We were unprepared… and outmatched. To top it off, they effectively incapacitated me before I could do anything to counter the situation, ruling me out of both combat and coordination,” she opened her eyes. “We’re lucky we came out of that conflict on top.”

“Wait…” Dash blinked. “But during the battle above their flying fortress… it looked like we had the upper hoof!” Dash recalled the whole thing well. The Wonderbolts arrived just in time and a massive dogfight broke out above as she and Soarin took on Nightshade.

“Nope…” Fleetfoot spoke up, drawing their attention. “I’m going to be honest with you Dash… we were extremely lucky,” she shook her head. “After the element of surprise wore off… they started taking us down pretty hard. Thankfully, Soarin and Nightshade becoming all super glowey and explodey got everypony’s attention before any of us got killed. We got away with only a few severe injuries.”

“One of them broke my wing,” Air Mach spoke up, extending his left wing and pushing aside some fur to reveal a scar from recently removed stitches.

“But that’s not all, right Fleet?” Soarin pressed her. Fleetfoot nodded.

“Yep… we also outnumbered them… we had about seventy-five elite Wonderbolts with us, that’s just shy of the entire elite force… they had MAYBE fifty.”

“They were also missing two of their commanding officers,” Soarin cut in. “Descent and Starry Skies both freed us and abandoned Nightshade before the battle… they took Lightning Dust with them, maybe they convinced a few more to follow.”

“Despite the advantages we had…” Spitfire took over again. “Due to their skills mixed with the power of the false magic crystals… they could have eventually taken us all down… which brings me all the way back…” Spitfire stood up. “To squad zero…”

Dash listened eagerly as Spitfire paced back and forth while gathering her thoughts.

“The Shadowbolts clearly know us… they know who we are, how we think, and how we fight… I say ‘know’ and not ‘knew’ because we are unsure, now more than ever, of their disbanding. The fact remains that they could still be out there… and if they are we need an answer. I boosted all of our workouts and training regimes. I’m confident that we are all better, faster, and stronger than we used to be… but I wasn’t satisfied. We needed more. We need something they can’t anticipate… something unexpected… a hidden trump card. So I sat down with Blazetail, Flashwind, and the current top three elite squads… and proposed the Zero Project.”

“I still think Zeroes to Heroes is catchier and less cliché…” Fleetfoot commented from off to the side while reclining on her portion of the couch.

“Fleet, do you want tomorrow morning off or not?” Spitfire hissed at her.

“Oh! Right!” Fleetfoot quickly sat back up and put on an incredibly fake, innocent smile.

“The Zero Project…” Spitfire repeated to Dash. “Basically breaks more than half of the rules in the Wonderbolt code… and breaks them hard. Many were opposed to it… but Blazetail and Flashwind both agreed with our need for a Shadowbolt response, and they helped me convince most of the others to approve. So we went to work…”

Spitfire started pacing back and forth.

“We wanted something the Shadowbolts would never see coming… so… we searched,” she nodded towards Soarin. Dash glanced at Soarin.

“A month after we finished picking up all the pieces…” Soarin glanced at Fleetfoot, “Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Silver and I hoofpicked a small group of Wonderbolts to accompany us each… and we spread out to the corners of Equestria. Our mission… was to find undiscovered ability. Pegasi… it didn’t matter who… we just had to find any pegasus out there who stood out in some unique way. Observe, examine, evaluate, and bring back one pony each,” he explained looking back to Spitfire.

“I found PlayBitz…the stallion with the nose scars and black wing tips,” Spitfire nodded. "A member of an advanced storm control team based in St. Filly. We watched from a distance as he and his team fought a severe storm. There was an accident, one of the members lost control of flight… and I watched Bitz free fall through a storm to catch her and ultimately save her life. Now…” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “It wasn’t so much that he saved the mare that impressed me… it was his freefalling. Freefalling is not often considered a skill… in fact, it’s usually neglected as not being one, but if only you could’ve seen it Dash… he kept control of his trajectory amidst the intense wind of the storm and smoothly maneuvered his body between debris being kicked up from the ground as he neared. The landing was ugly… but I already saw what I needed. This stallion had turned a simple joy practice into a heavily refined ability. Movement, agility, and acceleration of great degree all within a freefall? I had never seen that before,” she finished and looked towards Soarin.

“I found Swift Justice… well… barely found him. He’s the super dark blue pony. Half pegasus, half bat-pony,” Soarin chuckled. "He was at a university in Manehatten practicing defense law… We were just passing through during the day when I saw him from above. Spitfire told us to look for anything, so I took a chance and waited the day out. As I thought, at night he literally disappeared. He was walking down the street beneath the street lights and became invisible between each one. While it was interesting… it wasn’t much to go by. We were about to move on when I saw him get jumped by four thugs in the street. We were about to assist… but we didn’t need to. He defended himself effortlessly. Ducking, weaving, and dodging like the thugs weren’t even there. It got to a point where the thugs GAVE UP AND LEFT. That sold me. His stealth potential mixed with his natural quickness and self-defense… he had me convinced,” Soarin nodded and glanced at Fleetfoot.

“I…” she pounded her chest with pride. “Tracked down Calm Wind! That oversized lunk of a pegasus you’ve most certainly seen walking around the compound, hitting his head on doorways and running into ponies who cannot ignore his girth!” Fleetfoot joked. “I was staying away from the big towns and cities. I came across a small village called Stream Hills. It’s out in the middle of nowhere between Fillydelphia and Whinneyapolis… so like I said, LITERALLY in the middle of nowhere. We were flying overhead and I saw this HUGE ASS PEGASUS walk out of a shop and hit his head on the sign. There was no way I was letting him go unnoticed. We landed and watched him for a bit, never seen such a buff nor LARGE pegasus before in my life… but all he did was stay at home while writing or lifting weights. So I asked around and found out he was a former Equestria games athlete… a sprinter. Yeah, a pegasus that sprinted, never heard of that before in my life, but he did. So we confronted him, found out he’s the only pony in his family that isn’t an earth pony… and convinced him to come here! Then he instantly fell for Autumn…” Fleetfoot pouted. At the end. Soarin snickered.

“Oh, so THAT’S why you brought him back?” Soarin laughed and shook his head. "I can just imagine the starry look in your eyes when you first talked to him… just like Big Macintosh back in Ponyville…”

“Hey, I like em big and strong!” Fleetfoot scrunched her face at Soarin. Soarin cocked an eyebrow.

“And you chase around our head engineer… treating the poor little guy like your personal plushie…” Soarin flattened his ears.

“But he’s cuuuuuute!” Fleetfoot whined while crossing her arms and turning away.

“And you traumatize him…” Soarin sighed.

“AND THEN…” Spitfire spoke up, re-catching everypony’s attention.

Dash realized that the only pony left who went looking… was Silver. But… Silver had shown disapproval of them and the plan… and the only pony left among them was the young mare.

“Silver found Shine Struck,” Spitfire explained for him. Dash blinked as the name registered. Shine Struck… the lone, small mare among the two big stallions and the stealth flirt. The pony who blushed at Dash’s stallion…

Dash scrunched her face slightly and let one ear flop down. She understood that Soarin was one big hunk of a sexy stallion… but seriously, was she going to have to fight another mare off of him? Dash listened carefully as Spitfire continued.

“Believe me, I was surprised that Silver brought back anypony at all… even more surprised when he returned with such a small mare, barely an adult. Silver always had an eye for talent though. He found Shine in the Crystal Empire. She was working for the local weather team, but is an artist by hobby and was looking to possibly make a career out of it. Silver’s report detailed how he not only watched her skill and precision in art, but also followed her to another hobby of hers… a Taekwondo practice. Her keen eye for precise movement grants her a VERY rare ability… one that may sound familiar…” she said while winking at Dash. Dash’s face unscrunched, her flopped ear stood back up and she blinked several times as Spitfire smirked at her. “She can copy the abilities of other pegasi.”

“Huh?” Dash glanced at Soarin, then back to Spitfire.

“Mmhmm…” Spitfire nodded. Dash tipped her head from side to side.

“Wait… then—”

“Why didn’t we come to you? Even though we saw you copy Soarin’s Sonic Blast-off and mimic the Streak twins’ synchronized fighting?” Spitfire spoke for her. Her smirk disappeared and she sighed. “Because… and I’m not going to sugar coat this… Project Zero is a risk. It has the potential to crash and burn hard…” she looked up towards Dash. “I had thought about it Dash, your abilities would have been a perfect addition to Project Zero, however… Silver pushed for you not to be included. After thought and consideration… we agreed with him. We didn’t want to put you at risk. You were too valuable.”

Dash’s eyes widened slightly. Silver? But… how long did Spitfire say it was since the decision went through? Had Silver been keeping track of her since… the Shadowbolt conflict?

“From the beginning Silver was against the project,” Soarin spoke up from beside Dash. “But there’s another reason he wanted to leave you out… because we knew you were going to come to us. In the Wonderbolts’ long history, every member has come to us. We don’t scout or try to sway ponies to join us. We have made appearances and suggested coming to try out… like how Blazetail and Flashwind did with Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and I, but we ultimately let them decide. In short: He didn’t like the idea of just randomly observing and bringing in ponies with unique skills. We were taking a more pleading/demanding approach with these four… telling them we had need of new, different Wonderbolts. That we were impressed by them, and formally requested they report to the compound. As soon as they all showed up, we slapped high paying contracts down on the table for them. None of them said no,” Soarin shrugged.

A writer, a storm chaser, a law student, and an artist… talk about a motley crew. Dash was still trying to put it all together.

“As if we didn’t already have enough opposition from Silver…” Spitfire took over, “He spoke out against giving them contracts, as well everything that followed. I’m sure you’ve quickly realized that they aren’t very well behaved. Shine Struck can control herself a little, but the three stallions are a hoofful…” she exhaled heavily through her nose. “While they have signed contracts to be admitted into the Wonderbolt organization… they are treated as an entirely separate entity. They’ve been giving free use of all facilities and benefits within the compound as long as they don’t interfere with the other squads and their training schedules. They each have a highly advanced training regime that they are expected to keep up daily save for one day each week for rest. Two of those six days they train per week, they report for special training… under Blazetail and Flashwind.”

“Whoa!” Dash perked up. Trained by Blazetail and Flashwind? That explained their skill over such a short period of time… that alongside their supposed training regime. It seemed though that while they were incredible fighters, they weren’t quite on the level of the elite squads, at least not the kind of skill of Misty, Silver, or the lead squad.

Dash was beginning to wonder… this was an awful lot of explaining about something that only loosely involved her. She began to wonder if there was another purpose for her in the meeting, but for the time being she just kept listening.

“The two former Wonderbolt captains have been training them in basic and advanced combat… as well as anti-magic techniques that haven’t been practiced since two generations of Wonderbolts before us… back during a long running conflict with Changelings over a century ago. Obviously, this is to counter the false magic. We decided to limit such training to them because we are unsure if the techniques will work against the “fake” magic of the crystals.”

“But wait a sec… I’m trying to figure this out…” Dash interrupted with a certain part of this explanation on her mind. “Why let them do whatever?” She could see why Silver disliked them now. Silver was adamant at teaching and upholding the code of authority among the Wonderbolts. Squad zero didn’t have to obey it? “It’s no wonder they’re causing problems and beating up recruits… that seems dumb if you ask me,” Dash put bluntly, earning a snicker from Fleetfoot as Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“It’s part of the experiment. I want them to be warriors, not soldiers… yet another reason Silver won’t let me hear the end of it.” Spitfire said sarcastically. “Soarin gave me a very detailed report on how the Shadowbolts operated within their flying fortress…” she eyed Soarin. Soarin nodded and took over.

“You remember when we were there right?” Soarin asked Dash.

“Vaguely…” Dash cringed and rubbed a back hoof above her opposite leg. “I was kind of more focused on hoping Nightshade would stop violating me,” she shivered as she recalled some of the disturbing moments they experienced in the Shadowbolts flying fortress.

“They were very unorganized. They pretty much were doing whatever they pleased from what I could see. Starry Skies even stopped escorting us once to break up a fight in the middle of the hallway.”

“Wild,” Spitfire quickly took over. “And untamed. Loose cannons with short fuses. Part of my experiment is giving them free will like the Shadowbolts. Why? We train our whole careers to be disciplined and assess situations before acting… the Shadowbolts aren’t. If we are caught by surprise, I want them to strike first, buying us time to gather ourselves and counter. I was skeptical we would even need them for a while, and was considering disbanding the whole thing… but then Manehatten happened, and now I think we may need them more than ever. However…!” Spitfire’s voice suddenly became very stern and she glared specifically at Dash. “There is one MAJOR drawback here that cannot be ignored… which also brings me to the main reason I wanted you here for this meeting…”

Dash quickly stood up straight and turned her ears forward. Spitfire was about to answer her biggest question for her.

“Squad Zero’s free will protocol has a potential catastrophic flaw that we must be ready for should the worst case scenario occur… the temptation of the crystals,” she stated. Dash blinked and looked around as the rest of the lead squad nodded. “Without the usual training and discipline… it leaves them wide open to such a threat. Like squad zero in general, the Shadowbolts don’t know that, and the chances of them finding out are slim… but if they do, and the members of squad zero give in… then the project is over and we’ll have to take them down,” Spitfire explained adamantly, showing how strict she was about going through with the project despite the risks. “And that… is what we need you for. That is, assuming you are one of the five recruits selected.” Spitfire suddenly said on top of it all. “And if you aren’t, I don’t know what the hell you are doing…” she quietly added right after.

“Wait… ME?!” Dash pointed to herself. “Uh… Spitfire, I just got my ass kicked by one of them, how would I fight one of them enhanced?

“Which one of them were you fighting?” Spitfire quickly asked. Dash blinked and recalled his name.

“Uh… Swift Justice?” she said. Spitfire shook her head.

“Silver and Fleetfoot are assigned to him.”

“Assigned?” Dash was so confused. Luckily Spitfire was already explaining.

“I have hoof-picked eight Wonderbolts… and assigned two to each squad zero member. Their assignment is to take their designated zero member down and knock them out should they be consumed by the power of the crystals. I decided to include you because you fought and survived against NIGHTSHADE. I’m looking for a mix of experience against the magic, and skill of the high tier elites. Soarin and I are assigned to Calm Wind, the Streak twins are assigned to Playbitz, and you and Misty are assigned to Shine Struck. This is all for precaution… because without it, squad zero could either give us an edge… or be our ultimate downfall, and I refuse to let my own project turn against us without a plan. After how easily they took control of my body with some simple negative emotions, I can’t rule out the possibility.”

“O-okay…” Dash nodded with a hint of uncertainty. Something about being assigned to beat up a pony she barely knew should something bad happen to them… it was a bit sudden and a little harsh, but if Spitfire trusted her, she wasn’t going to falter. She was trying to prove to them she was Wonderbolt material. “I’ll do it.”

“Just what I wanted to hear…” Spitfire sat back in her chair. “I’m sorry if that was a lot of information for you to take in all at once Dash. I planned on letting you in on it all over time, but after this morning I had to get you into the loop. The Shadowbolts could still be out there… and as somepony who has fought them on more than one occasion, I need you to be ready to help,” she gave a quick nod. “That’ll be all.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Dash nodded back before turning towards the door. Soarin blinked and glanced after her, turning to follow.

“Hold it Soarin, we have more to discuss without her,” Spitfire called to him. Soarin stopped for a moment, but started walking again while looking back at Spitfire.

“Just give me a minute, I’ll be right back in,” he clarified before following Dash out. “Hey…” he said to Dash as he closed the door behind him. Dash stopped in place, having only moved a few steps from the door. She turned to face him, a mixed look on her face. She looked like she was trying to smile at him, but it was half-hearted as if her mind was preoccupied. He didn’t blame her, she just got force-fed a month’s worth of information she was supposed to learn as things went on.

“What’s up?” she tried to sound cheerful, but the tone was clearly not all happy.

“That’s my line…” Soarin said while looking directly at her. Dash tipped her head slightly, her expression not changing in the slightest. “Don’t give me that Dash, what’s wrong?” Soarin stepped towards her and reached a hoof up to gently stroke her left shoulder and neck. He was surprised when she instantly pressed herself against his hoof to double the feeling of his touch and released a heavy sigh.

“It’s nothing… bad,” she huffed as she stepped towards Soarin and end gently rested her forehead against his chest. “I guess I’m just a little frustrated,” she grumbled as she rubbed her head against him back and forth. Soarin reach his arm all the way around her, pulling her towards him, crossing their necks and resting them against each other.

“The Shadowbolts?” Soarin easily deduced. He felt Dash’s mane rub up and down against the side of his neck as she nodded.

“I was kind of hoping to have a Wonderbolt related experience without them ruining it… seriously, this is the third time…” she continued to grumble. Soarin felt her grind her hoof against his side. “That and I just got all this new stuff dumped on me about some special force squad full of anti-Shadowbolts that could become anti-Wonderbolts if we’re not careful and how I’ll suddenly have to help Misty Fly take one of them down and UGH!” she grunted as her head tried to process all the information and accidentally pressed her hoof harder against Soarin’s side.

“Dash… hoof… ow…” he said in a painful, hushed tone.

“Oh! Sorry…” She removed her hoof and stepped back from him slowly. Soarin could see it in her eyes. She was just as frustrated as she sounded, maybe even more. She puffed her cheeks out and exhaled. “I want to focus on my training and concentrate on becoming a full Wonderbolt. I didn’t need this… this is bullshit. It’s like you guys can’t go a few months without something weird happening,” she complained. Soarin sighed and shrugged before putting a hoof on her shoulder again.

“Dash, before the tornado in Ponyville… absolutely nothing like this happened in my career as a Wonderbolt. The same goes for Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and most of the other current elites as well, save for Misty and Silver. So if you think about it, all of this is just as new and frustrating to us as it is to you,” he lowered his head, turned it slightly to avoid poking her with the horn, and lightly bumped foreheads with her. “We’re all in the same boat here… and we’ll get through it together, alright?” he said while sliding his cheek down hers and giving her a nuzzle. When he pulled back Dash was lightly blushing but also looking at him with a very wide smirk. He grinned back, confused, but curious as to what was going on in that head of hers.

“Look at you knowing exactly what to say like some kind of badass,” she said while bouncing her eyebrows at him. Soarin was caught off guard for a moment, but quickly played along, rolling his eyes very slowly.

“Well… I am pretty good at just about everything…” he joked along with her, but was cut off as Dash grabbed his head and yanked him down to her eye level.

“I know,” she said before kissing him. It was brief, They were on the upper floors where only elite Wonderbolts traversed… and they all knew they were a thing. But still, Dash didn’t want to be caught making out in the hallway. “That includes you being a pain in the ass, but I’ll let that one slide,” she said with a wink as they parted.

“Take me now,” Soarin playfully demanded while flopping down over her shoulders. Dash was about to giggle, but Soarin accidentally put most of her weight on her bruised shoulder.

“OW! OW! OW!” she yelped, Soarin instinctively pushed himself back up, but Dash pushing him at the same time caused their arms to get intertwined and the two fell over on their sides. Luckily, Dash landed on Soarin, sparing her shoulder from more pain.

“I guess this also makes us both idiots?” Soarin said as they chuckled and slowly stood up.

“Alright… you should back in there before they get any ideas…” Dash joked. Soarin nodded.

“Yeah, I—” Soarin glanced back at the door just in time to see Fleetfoot peeking out at them before she quickly disappeared and the door slammed shut. “Dammit…” Soarin sighed.

“Was that Fl—?”

“Yes,” Soarin answered before Dash could get even a quarter of a way through the name.

“Go ahead,” she flashed him a smile. “I should get back down and figure out what’s going on,” she leaned back up and gave him a quick peck on his cheek. “Slam Fleetfoot’s face into a wall for me, okay?” she added with a wink. Soarin snorted and winked back.

“Gladly…” he said before the two turned their separate ways. Soarin stepped back into Spitfire’s office and narrowed his eyes as he looked around… admittedly with a hint of a smile curling on his lips. Spitfire was looking away from him and blushing. Air Mach had fallen sleep sitting up perfectly straight. Fleetfoot however, was squishing her cheeks together and a high pitched squeal was becoming louder and louder from her as Soarin walked in.

Soarin walked directly up to her and butted heads with her as she continued to squeal.

“You’re terrible,” he said flatly to her.

“AND YOU TWO… ARE SO ADORABLE!” Fleetfoot said with a very girly, squeaky voice.

“Oh… shut up…” Soarin shook his head with a hint of red in his cheeks.

Feeling a little better thanks to Soarin, Dash made her way down the stairs towards the lobby. Shadowbolts… squad zero… it was all a lot to take in at once, but Dash started thinking about it on a broader scale. Sure, it was a lot of sudden information, but based on what had been told, there had still yet to be any proof that the Shadowbolts were back together and planning something. It was just one, he apparently wasn’t even wearing the full uniform, and they are mercenaries at heart, so who knows who was paying him and why he was following Soarin?

The whole thing was making her think back to Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust. Dash wondered where they had gone. They deserted Nightshade and left her at the mercy of the magic crystals… and whoever Kayn Ost was. She hoped the three were okay.

The Kayn Ost thing had yet to be solved too. Dash had all but forgotten about it. Whoever they were, they had to be a frightening individual. Kayn Ost had crafted an addictive power that was able to control Nightshade… who was already a frightening and powerful pony, ultimately destroying her with the very power she desired.

At least… Dash hoped Nightshade was gone. They never did confirm her demise. Her body looked like it literally exploded… but if there was one thing Nightshade proved to have over their encounters… it was resilience and toughness. SO MUCH… that Dash didn’t feel ruling out the possibility that even an explosion from inside her own body would be enough to stop Nightshade.

Dash was getting ahead of herself. This was all stuff she didn’t need to worry about for the time being. The presence of a Shadowbolt was bringing all this back to her, but it was only one, and for all they know he could’ve just been doing a job.

“So then I grabbed him by the neck and punched him in the face until his eyes were crossed!” Blaze’s voice came from lobby as Dash stepped off the stairs and walked in. She saw High Winds asleep on the first couch near the stairs. Over by the mail counter, Blaze was behind the counter with the orange mail pony, laughing uncontrollably and pounding her hooves on the counter as the orange pony went about his business.

“That’s great Blaze…” he said, clearly unamused and trying to be efficient.

“No, no, no! It gets better!” Blaze sat back up and grabbed him around the shoulder. “Then I told him… if his dumb ass tried hitting on me again, I’d guarantee he never has foals!” Blaze was talking unnecessarily loud to the point where she could probably be heard down the length of both east and west wings of the compound. She burst out laughing again at her own story, falling off the mail pony and landing with a heavy THUD behind the mail counter. The mail pony just stared at her on the floor, sighed, and shook his head as he went into the back room to check some packages.

Dash walked in slowly as she heard Blaze find herself hilarious. She jumped slightly in surprise when High Winds released a loud SNORT beside her.

“Huh…?” Winds opened her eyes, blinked, yawned, and did a full-body stretch before sitting up and scratching her plot. “Oh…” she glanced at Dash for a moment before standing up and looking towards the mail counter. “Blazey! Dash is here!” she yelled.

“Hooooho hahahaaaaaa heeeeeee gimme a second Windy I’m cracking myself up!” Blaze yelled back with only her hoof visible and waving over the inside edge of the mail counter. Dash lifted an eyebrow as Blaze continued to guffaw and then turned to Winds.

“You were looking for me?” Dash asked as Winds casually turned towards the east wing.

“Yep, the captain wants you in our gym…” Winds explained as she started walking. Dash glanced at Blaze, still keeled over and laughing, before quickly trotting to catch up to Winds. “She’ll catch up…” Winds said with a yawn as Dash followed close behind.

“Oh, that was a good laugh… thank you, me…” Blaze said as she glided up behind and landed besides Winds. Dash didn’t say a thing, still not quite sure how to handle the two mares of squad two. The only real interaction she had had with them outside of training was when they harassed her while helping her put the training armor on. She simply walked behind and hoped nothing would happen.

But it was inevitable.

As they walked Blaze suddenly shifted over, nearly pressing herself up against Winds. The two were whispering back and forth and Dash didn’t like that in the slightest. The two suddenly glanced back at her for a second before looking back forward and snickering.

Bad sign.

“So… Dash…” Blaze began. Dash braced herself for the imminent awkwardness as Blaze and High Winds slowly spaced themselves out just enough for another pony to fit between them… and slowed down just enough to let Dash step up in the middle. Dash kept her eyes forward as the two felt like they were purposely giving Dash as little personal space as possible. “Tell me…” Dash flinched as she felt Blaze poke her in the arm. "Just how much time did you spend in the gym before trying out? I couldn’t get this buff if I tried…” she said with a sassy tone in her voice. Dash blushed in embarrassment and squinted in discomfort. She almost squeaked when High Winds suddenly bumped into her other side.

“Yeah girl,” Winds spoke up. Dash could feel Winds’ curly mane brush against her. “I know how to work my wings, but damn you know how to work your bod,” Winds gave her a nudge in the side.

“Uh… thanks?” Dash said before one of Blaze’s wings draped over and pulled her against Blaze.

“Hey! I asked you a question!” Blaze pouted, their cheeks pressing together.

“Oh, uh…” Dash was having a hard time concentrating because the two were making it incredibly awkward for her once again, but judging by their snickering right before, this was definitely their intention. “I… pulled apple carts on a farm… and then followed a strength routine Soarin gave me… with home gym equipment Soarin also gave me,” she explained sheepishly.

These two literally broke her. They were both so forward and touchy feely. It put Dash in a position of vulnerability, something she wasn’t in very often in a casual setting. Her confidence got stuck at the door and she found herself wishing they’d reach the gym faster.

“Two-thirds Soarin, huh?” Winds spoke up with a devilish smirk appearing on her sleepy face. “Note to self Blazey, if we want sexy bods, we gotta ask Soarin,” she joked. Dash tried to pick up the pace a little, but the two stuck to her like glue.

“Looks like it!” Blaze chuckled while poking Dash in the chest. Dash actually squeaked this time and blushed while puffing her cheeks out and holding her breath. She wished they would STOP TOUCHING HER. “Say, I bet your nights together are pretty wild!” Blaze added. Dash’s eyes snapped open and glared forward. “Soarin’s pretty buff himself! I bet you get quite a thrott—”

“ALRIGHT!!!!!!” Dash yelled while flaring her wings out. However, she didn’t hit either of them. They both jumped clear right before her outburst.

“Whoa! That didn’t take as long as I thought!” Blaze chuckled as they came back in towards Dash.

“One hell of a wing reflex you’ve got there…” Winds commented as Dash panted, red in the face and breathing through her nose. “Relax girl, we were just messing with you… we do it to all the recruits,” Winds explained as the gym drew near.

Dash looked between the two of them, heavily embarrassed. What a couple of trolls. Blaze and High Winds sure knew how to embarrass a pony… at least they were just doing it for fun and not really to humiliate her. Didn’t mean she enjoyed it though.

“Hey, if anything, I can respect Soarin for at least going for his mare…” Blaze suddenly spoke up again while rolling her eyes. “Now if only Wave would suck it up and give it to my sister already. If he waits any longer they’re both gonna explode,” Blaze shook her head. It took Dash a second to put it together, but when she did she stopped in place.

“Wait… I’m assuming you’re talking about Spitfire… right? So you two are sisters?” Dash asked. She had been curious, but never actually knew for sure. Blaze and High Winds both stopped and turned to face her.

“Half-sister,” Blaze clarified. “Same mom, different dads. Long story.”

“And…” Dash put something else together. She remembered seeing Wave and Spitfire come together right before her first visit to the compound ended… and… “Spitfire and Wave Chill aren’t together?!” she looked between them. Blaze and Winds both nodded. “But… I swear I saw them like that six months ago…” Dash pondered out loud.

“THAT… would be Wave Chill being an uptight dumbass…” Blaze sighed. “Same goes for my sister, but Wave needs stallion up and come onto her already!” she fumed as they closed in on the gym door. Winds shook her head.

“I wouldn’t bet on him doing that anytime soon Blazey. Wave’s libido is locked away so tight… if he fell into a barrel of tits, he’d come out sucking on his hoof.

Dash and High winds both stopped in place as Blaze burst out laughing instantly. She clutched her stomach without balancing herself out, falling forwards and doing a somersault on the ground before landing on her back as she guffawed. Dash admittedly thought it was pretty funny too, but Blaze was rolling back and forth across the width of the hallway. She and Winds watched as Blaze passed in front of them four times while holding her sides and laughing like she had just heard the funniest thing ever.

“Blazey… it wasn’t THAT funny…” Winds tried to get her to stop. It didn’t work at all. “Oh well, she’ll catch up,” Winds yawned and gave a head motion to Dash to follow. Dash kept her eyes on Blaze as they walked past and finally made it to the gym door. Dash immediately spotted Wave Chill and Silver on opposite ends of the gym. Wave was working with the water hose again, and Silver was standing against the wall as if waiting for somepony.

As soon as Silver spotted Dash, he stood up straight off the wall and made a hoof motion towards him.

“Skittles! Get over here!” he yelled. Dash took a step, but yelped as High Winds spanked her plot.

“Get that PERSONAL training in!” she joked. Dash just stared at her for a moment as the sound of hysterical laughter neared the slowly closing door of the gym. Dash glanced back to see Blaze for only a moment before the door closed and a loud THUMP followed by a swear was heard on the other side. The door was kicked open and Blaze stumbled in, still laughing like crazy.

“Hahahahahaha! Hohoahahaheeeeeeeee hahahahahahaha!” She lifted off, flew right up to Wave Chill, landed firmly in front of him, and pointed right into his face. “HA!!!!! YOU’RE A BITCH!” she barked before keeling over laughing again.

“Uh… What?” Wave looked up and at Dash and Winds.

“SKITTLES! WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST SAY?!” Silver’s voice boomed, drowning out Blaze’s laughter. Dash yelped and quickly flew over to Silver on the opposite side of the gym. She set down before him and saluted. “At ease…” he instantly said in a less angry tone. Dash blinked and relaxed as Silver walked towards her and stood directly in front of her. He looked her up and down carefully as she stood and let him do so, not daring to question him. “So… what did Spitfire tell you?” he suddenly asked, catching Dash slightly off guard.

“Huh? Oh…” she looked up at him for a moment to meet his harsh gaze and instantly looked down. “She told me about Project Zero… and—”

“How pitiful it is?” Silver cut her off. Dash’s eyes widened and she looked straight up, meeting the exact same glare again.

“Pitiful?” Dash thought out-loud as Silver grunted and walked past her right side. Dash turned and watched him as he stopped and looked out towards Blaze, High Winds, and Wave Chill. He watched them for a moment before shaking his head.

“The Wonderbolts are soft these days…” he began. Dash opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself as he continued. “Their strength and character have faded. A mere shadow of what it once was,” he turned around and looked directly into Dash’s eyes. “The Wonderbolts have been crippled by tradition. Replacing the experienced with the fast and skilled… did they ever stop and think of what else that could erase over time?” he walked up to Dash and stood directly in front of her. He tapped his head. “The mind of a veteran…” he brought his hoof down and tapped his chest. “And the heart of a soldier,” he nodded. “We didn’t struggle against the Shadowbolts in our last encounter because they were better than us. We struggled because we are barely half the force we used to be. Easing of rules, elites who are lax or complain…” he shook his head. “Not when I was a young blood… we have maybe five Wonderbolts now that can compare to the strength of all eighty that once flew under our name.”

Dash listened closely as Silver spoke. His long pause suggested that she could speak now, but she held herself back. Silver walked to Dash’s side and turned so they were both facing the rest of squad two before he continued.

“What will Squad Zero accomplish? If they get lucky, they may last one battle. Spitfire, Blazetail, and Flashwind are failing to see what’s right in front of them,” Silver glared forward, causing Dash to recline slightly in his pure presence. “They can give those four all the training they want… they can make them as strong and fast as imaginable… but they are all civilians. They will have their “fun”… but there’s something that will destroy them inside out,” he stopped, but kept staring forward.

As much as Dash wanted to question him on a lot of what he just said, Silver had her full attention.

“What will?” she asked instinctively. Silver glanced down at her, and then back up at his squad.

“Fear.”

Dash’s ears stood up as Silver cleared his throat.

“BLAZE! WAVE CHILL! I NEED A THUNDERCLOUD OVER HERE!” he ordered. Dash felt her fur tingle as she watched Blaze and Wave Chill quickly throw together a thundercloud using a mix of moisture and heat. “When I say fear…” Silver began. Dash’s eyes slowly widened as the thundercloud floated over to him. “I mean something entirely different from our first lesson about not being afraid of an opponent,” he paused, glanced at the cloud fizzing with electricity beside him. He roughly jammed his arm all the way into the cloud.

Dash yelped and took a step back. Silver grunted as the cloud completely dispersed, but all the electrical energy stored within gathered around his arm and began to jump and flare about his upper body.

“I’m talking about the kind of fear that builds up in your chest. Fears that make us cower at the first sight of something,” his voice was slightly labored as he remained stiff to control the lightning crackling and popping about him. He turned and took a step towards Dash. Dash squeaked, her face going a paler shade of blue as she shuffled backwards. “The kind of fear that turns bravery into cowardice…” Silver kept stepping towards Dash. Dash began to sweat and her breathing quickened. She started getting flashbacks of when she was electrocuted by the powerful clouds. The more she looked at Silver and the energy flowing around him, the more it made her recall the traumatic shocks and unbearable pain. Dash’s plot bumped against the wall, and as soon as she had no more room, she instantly sat down and tucked her head between her legs, shivering as the memories came back. “The kind… that cripples you.”

Silver crouched down and pushed himself up hard, throwing his hooves into the air. All the electricity flew from his body towards the ceiling. Sparking and cracking, but expanding and losing its charge as it moved upward, ultimately dissipating above them.

Silver exhaled and let his hooves back down to the ground gently. He looked down at Dash as she shook against the wall, curled up in a ball. Silver huffed moved beside her, turning around and sitting down next to her against the wall. He reached a wing out and gently draped it over her head.

“Squad zero is comprised of regular ponies thrust into a soldier’s world. At the first sign of things going wrong… they will not stand strong, they will not hold steady, and they will not fight to their last breath,” Silver explained as Dash calmed down at both the sound of Silver’s voice and the touch of his wing. Like the way a father comforts a child. Her ears picked up and listened closely to every word. “They will run… because a pony who is not trained to be a soldier, fears death. It is a common fear that we all conquer…” he lifted the wing from Dash’s head and looked down at her as she began to slowly unroll and sit up. Silver watched her, giving her time to regain herself before he continued.

“Fears come from within. They aren’t something you are afraid of before you,” he looked back forward as the two remained against the wall. “I’m not going to ask how or why you are afraid of it… but tell me Rainbow Dash. If, say, Soarin and more of your friends were down and wounded… and you were the only one that could save them. Would you be able to stand strong should the enemy approach with electricity?”

“Ye—” Dash was ready to answer before he even finished, but when it came time for her to claim she’d never let her friends down and especially not Soarin, she found herself thinking. Would she be able to? Her newfound fear of lightning was a reaction from within… not something that intimidated her from without. Silver watched her as she contemplated and walked in front of her.

“Uncertain?” he asked simply. Dash bit her lip and looked down. Silver was right. She didn’t know. Her reactions to it were very severe. All her life she had preached not being afraid of anything. Sure, she caved a little against Nightshade, but she had Misty Fly and Soarin to help her remain strong. The lightning made her panic. It made breathing hard. The amount of pain and pressure her body took all at once from the thunderclouds half a year ago had left hidden trauma.

What a terrible time to find it. How was she supposed to impress the Wonderbolts if she was afraid of lightning?

“Look at me,” Silver suddenly ordered. Dash’s ears twitched and she quickly looked up at him. “Why do you think I decided to train you personally? Or should I say… do you now UNDERSTAND why I decided to?” he looked at her for a few moments, but looked as though he didn’t expect her to answer. “Because I don’t want you to end up like squad zero.”

“What?” Dash said quietly as her eyes widened. Silver nodded to her.

“They may become strong… they may get special treatment. But despite my warnings, Spitfire went forward with her plan,” he put a hoof on her shoulder. “You have the potential to be one of the best Wonderbolts this organization has ever seen… but I also want you to help prove I’m right,” he nodded to her. Dash didn’t know what to say. Silver wanted her to help him prove to Spitfire that squad zero was a flop? Or was it more to it? Didn’t he personally bring in Shine Struck? “I want to show Spitfire, Blazetail, Flashwind, AND the rest what it takes to be a true Wonderbolt. The ponies of squad zero are all formidable… but without proper training, they will fall. Will you help me show them the way?” Silver asked while offering Dash a hoof.

Dash looked at it for a moment as his words swirled around in her head. It was a day of information… and lots of it. She was getting so many mixed signals about the Zero Project… but while Dash respected Spitfire, it seemed like Silver had the more reasonable outlook on the whole thing.

She took a deep breath, reached up, and accepted his hoof, standing up and looking him adamantly in the eyes.

“Yes, sir,” she replied with a strong nod.

“Good,” Silver smiled a little. Which was a lot more than usual. “The very first thing we have to do then…” he turned and whistled sharply. His squad mates looked over to him, he made a simple hoof motion, and before long a smaller thundercloud floated towards him. “…is destroy your fear.”

Dash gulped as she eyed the cloud. She shivered and felt short of breath again.

Nopony said it was going to be easy…

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Dang this took forever... SOrry for the extra wait, i did take some time off.

Lots of stuff happening here! Squad zero's origin! But... are they a good thing or bad thing? we're getting mixed signals here! And it looks like Dash has her work cut out for her!

Anyway, im tired so i'll keep this short. I dunno when the next chapter will be done, hopefully before or during the weekend.

So i hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 56: Gods and Their Secrets

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 56:

“Think she’ll have any answers?” Soarin asked as he paced back and forth. He glanced at Spitfire as she sat patiently with her eyes locked on the large door.

“She’s the only one left who has had past exposure to the Shadowbolts…” Spitfire said as she eyed the red goggles in her hoof. “If she doesn’t know what this is about, then we’ll have to assume he was working alone… or is part of something entirely different…” Spitfire’s ears perked up when a click came from the door. Soarin turned and looked as well as the large door opened and a royal guard stuck his head through.

“Princess Luna will see you now,” he stated formally before pushing the door open and beckoning them to enter. Spitfire looked back at Soarin, but he was already walking past her. She quickly stood up and followed after him.

Soarin grimaced as he entered the throne room. He glanced back at Spitfire as her eyes went wide and she looked around. She clearly hadn’t been to Canterlot Castle since… his little incident.

The place was bustling with construction workers and scaffolding. They were busy making repairs to all the walls and windows that had holes in them. It looked like the floor had finally been fully repaired, but there were clearly spots that had been filled in with new stone.

“What the hell happened here?” Spitfire wondered out loud as they made their way around the throne.

“Um…” Soarin scrunched his face and looked up. Spitfire eyes him carefully. “Maybe there was an—”

“You blew up the throne room, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Soarin immediately caved and nodded. Spitfire looked about at all the damage that had yet to be repaired as Soarin sighed to himself. “We had a little incident here one night…”

“Incident?” Spitfire flattened her brow at him. She hated it when Soarin kept things from her.

“Uh…” Soarin glanced up at his horn.

“Well?” she pressed as they turned around the throne and saw Luna talking to a guard.

“I almost got… possessed by the magic. Apparently I put Discord through the wall over there…” he pointed to the big hole in the wall near the back doors. “Almost killed Fancy Pants… and eventually lost a power struggle against Discord. After that I woke up in bed,” he explained and put on a fake, nervous smile. Spitfire’s eyes widened and her ears flopped down. Soarin was ready to get yelled at, but Spitfire shut her eyes, grunted in frustration, and put a hoof up.

“You know what? No. Forget it. If you’re going to insist on leaving me out of the loop on your well-being, I’m not gonna bother…” she growled as she turned away from him.

“C’mon Spitfire…”

“No. I have enough shit to worry about as is. Luna time,” Spitfire pointed to Luna as the guard left her side. Soarin tried to speak further, but just let it be as Luna turned to them.

“Captain Spitfire. Commander Soarin. What brings thee to us today?” Luna greeted them with a very straightforward and professional attitude. Soarin tipped his head slightly. Luna’s demeanor seemed a little different but he couldn’t quite put his hoof on it. Spitfire took no notice as she got right down to business.

“Princess Luna, we had an interesting encounter before our departure from Manehatten this morning. A stalker that ended up being a Shadowbolt,” she explained. Luna didn’t even flinch at the mention of a Shadowbolt. Soarin glanced at Spitfire, wondering if she found it a little strange as well, but she remained focused. Luna spoke up before anything else could be said.

“A Shadowbolt? Are you certain?” Luna asked. Spitfire nodded, but Soarin quickly stepped forward, realizing Spitfire missed an important point.

“I wouldn’t say we’re one-hundred percent certain m’lady,” Soarin interjected. The pony we caught following us was indeed wearing a Shadowbolt flight suit, but he did not wear the mask portion…” Soarin stopped there and looked at Spitfire. Spitfire held out the red goggles.

“He was wearing these,” Spitfire said as she showed the goggles to Luna.

Luna’s eyes snapped open as she saw the goggles, her head reclining back slightly in surprise. There was an obvious reaction, one that Soarin and Spitfire could’ve seen from a mile away.

“Princess?” Soarin took another step towards her. “What is it?” Based on her reaction, Soarin was certain Luna recognized them.

Luna quickly shut her eyes and cleared her throat, returning to her upright, powerful sitting position as well as replacing the stern expression in her eyes and face. Her magic came to life in her horn and pulled the goggles away from Spitfire.

“Hey!” Spitfire reacted and tried grabbing at them, but they were already out of her reach. The goggles hovered up in front of Luna’s face and she eyed them up close. After lifting her brow once or twice, she hovered them back to Spitfire and shook her head.

“We’re afraid we’re at a loss…” Luna placed the goggles at Spitfire’s hooves. Soarin looked up in confusion, ready to question, but Spitfire stomped a hoof.

“Princess… don’t act like we didn’t just see you’re mini-heart attack reaction just now!” she reached down, grabbed the goggles and held them back up. “Don’t play dumb! You were also once involved with the Shadowbolts, what do you know?!” she demanded. Luna glared at her.

“We know nothing of the goggles,” Luna put flatly, not wavering at all.

“Spitfire…” Soarin tried to reach out.

“Luna! DON’T bullshit me! I have had it with you hiding stuff from—”

“THOU SHALT NOT SPEAK TO US IN SUCH A MANNER!!!!!” Luna threw her wings out and belted the Royal Canterlot Voice towards them, her pupils disappearing behind a light blue glow that filled her eyes. Both Soarin and Spitfire instantly flinched and stepped back, their manes blowing with the force of Luna’s voice. A few yelps of surprise sounded from the workers by the walls and a three foot piece of scaffolding collapsed. “You dare make demands while addressing us informally and speaking in such a vulgar manner?! We have nothing to say to thee!”

Soarin and Spitfire blinked and looked at each other. Who was this and what had they done with Luna?

“Further pressing and insubordination will not be tolerated in our throne room! If thou wish to be stripped of rank and duty, then by all mean continue this disrespect!” she snapped at the two stunned Wonderbolts. “Nothing else to say?” she glanced between them. “Good. We are busy at this hour… begone.”

“What?!” Spitfire broke from her surprised state. “But Princess! This is—”

“Guards!” Luna called out. Six guards came forward from the east wall. They put their hooves on Soarin and Spitfire and began pushing them out.

“Whoa! Hold on a second!” Soarin tried to complain, but the guards kept pushing them.

“LUNA!!!!” Spitfire yelled, despite the threat she just received about speaking informally.

They were both pushed all the way back out the door behind the throne and it was shut tight, two guards stepping in front of it as soon as it was closed. Soarin and Spitfire stood completely still, staring at the door. They both turned their heads and looked at each other before resetting their eyes on the door.

“Um… what just happened?” Soarin asked with a small chuckle.

“Rgh…” Spitfire kicked at the carpeting beneath her before turning away from the door. “Everypony’s keeping things from me… I’ve had it with this!” she grumbled.

“She nearly launched her eyes out of their sockets when she saw the goggles… she’s clearly seen them before, why isn’t she telling us?” Soarin stated… and then waited for Spitfire to reply. He turned and looked towards her. She was still looking down and grumbling. Soarin had been meaning to ask since the meeting. Spitfire had seemed a little off since they returned. “Is something else wrong Spitf—” Soarin paused when he saw a small blush appear on her face before he was even done asking. She had been holding it down well throughout the show and the meeting with Dash… but that slip was all he needed to see.

And frankly? He had had it with her.

“Good god Spitfire…” Soarin rolled his eyes. Her head snapped towards him.

“What?! I’m tired of being left out of the loop! And what the hell was with Luna just now?! And—”

“Wave Chill,” Soarin cut her off. Her blush deepened.

“I’M NOT THINKING ABOUT HIM!!!!!” she blurted out immediately… which confirmed she indeed was thinking about him.

“Spitfire, to quote you… No. Forget it. If you’re going to insist on torturing yourself and him despite my efforts to get you two to suck it up… then I’m not gonna bother…”

“Soarin…” Spitfire’s expression flipped completely. Soarin turned his back to her.

“I’ve got my own problems to deal with…” he purposely said a little harshly, feeling a little miffed at how she spoke to him a few minutes prior. He left it at that and went for the door, leaving Spitfire behind.

He didn’t feel particularly good about doing it… but if Spitfire was going to get miffed at him for being stubborn then he wasn’t going to let it slide when she did the same. He WAS tired of her being so stiff about Wave Chill. If Discord hadn’t pulled that little fake Spitfire seduction on Wave it would never have gotten so awkward… or painful to watch. It had become a frequently talked about topic in the compound. Half the Wonderbolts were mentally screaming at them to just get a room already. Spitfire was worried about it not looking good as the captain? It was kind of late to get attention away, they already had it.

Of course… Spitfire and Wave aside…

What the heck was up with Luna?! She had a clear reaction upon seeing the goggles… what was all that about?

Luna sharply inhaled and then exhaled. She flinched slightly when the sound of a slow steady clap came from behind the throne.

“Brav~o! Brav~O!” Discord’s voice accompanied the clapping. Luna sighed and waited patiently for Discord to saunter around the throne and stand before her while he continued the slow clap. A few gasps came from around as the a few workers spotted him. Luna rolled her eyes, knowing Discord soaked up that kind of attention. Being feared even though he didn’t need to be anymore reminded Discord of the old times. “To be completely honest Lulu…” Discord’s upper half remained stationary, but the bottom half of his body kept walking, rising up as if walking on a curved ramp before he was in the perfect position to recline while floating in midair. “I didn’t think you were actually going to put your hoof down. That’s how you be a figure of authority,” he winked at her. Luna glared back.

“Then how about you remove yourself from our presence as well?” she hissed. Discord burst out laughing and fell down to the ground. He rolled around, stopping on his stomach and pounding the floor.

He eventually propped an elbow on the floor, rested his head in it and sneered at her while shaking his head.

“Hey Lulu…” Discord stood back up, and reached his hands over his head, clasping them together as chaos magic built up in them. He slowly pulled his hands apart and let them fall to his sides, keeping them stretched out the whole way down. As he moved his arms a rainbow appeared between them in an arc over his head as he moved them. Within the rainbow were the words, “Buck your shit!” in black letters but the bottom right corner of the B chipped and fell off, clattering to the ground, making the B look like an F instead.

“Discord…” Luna snarled, her magic coming to life. Discord chuckled and let go of the rainbow. It disappeared but the words fell to the ground, grew tiny legs, and started running circles around him.

“Oh, please Lulu, put away your throbbing magical horn. Since when have I listened to authority?” he shrugged. “Ow!” he suddenly yelped and looked down to see the word ‘shit’ stomping on his feet. He quickly kicked the word away. “Cut that out you little shit!” he yelled as the word scurried away.

“Good point…” Luna sighed, the magic fading from her horn. Discord suddenly appeared with his body loosely encircling her several times. She kept her glare strong as he looked at her face to face, while wearing a royal guard helmet he had stolen off one of the guards nearby.

“I commend your shift Luna, you were merely going through the motions and not asserting yourself. A position of power is not just nodding your head and explaining things… sometimes you have to put your hoof down!” he unwound himself and hovered in a slow circle around the throne. Each time he passed in front of her he had another guard helmet stacked on his head. “They don’t need to know certain things… so you didn’t tell them… brilliant Luna… just brilliant, you can’t bend to the will of those below you, that ruins the whole point of your position…” by the time he was done speaking he had passed in front of her eight times and had eight guard helmets stacked high on his head and all the guards near the throne were helmetless.

“We are SO glad we have your approval,” Luna rolled her eyes. Discord stopped in front of her, now with ten helmets stacked.

“Actually… there’s one thing I’m still curious about Lulu…” Discord stopped. He snapped his fingers and all ten helmets appeared on the head of a single guard nearby. He yelped and began struggling to balance them all. “You are so cruel to Soarin, I don’t get why you won’t tell him!” Discord shrugged while sneering, as if he enjoyed the thought. Luna blinked and her ears flopped down. “Oh, don’t you revert on me now…” Discord floated up in front of her and squished her cheeks together with a hand. Luna instantly glared and spat in his face. The spit made a full turn in front of Discord’s eyes and flew back at her, but she put up a magic shield to block it. “So feisty! Celestia would be proud!” Discord cackled as he floated back and reclined in midair again.

“Just as they don’t need to know about the goggles… Soarin does not need to know about…” Luna hesitated and grunted. She looked up at Discord and saw him tapping a finger in the middle of his forehead. A loud CRASH suddenly caught both of their attention as the guard balancing the helmets finally fell and the helmets clattered everywhere. When Luna looked back, Discord was now sitting on the throne and she was floating in midair where he had been. She yelped and extended her wings to float down before she could fall flat.

“Standing by a decision… you’ve turned yourself around, haven’t you?” Discord bounced his eyebrows. Luna blinked and they were suddenly back in the right spots; him in the air and her on the throne.

“There’s no guarantee it will happen anyway. If he can keep the magic under control—” Luna started, but was cut off.

“Oh, believe me… after what I’ve heard from your sister, one false move… and it’s happening to Soarin,” Discord said as he touched down and crossed his arms. Luna’s eyes widened.

“Our sister?! You spoke to Tia? What did she say?!” Luna demanded. Discord burst out laughing and disappeared. Luna looked back and forth, flinching when Discord’s head dropped down in front of her, but his face was upside down, making it appear right side up.

“You’re so set on keeping your secrets Lulu! So why in Equestria would I reveal mine?” He said as he smiled do wide his face nearly stretched. “Anyway… keep up the good work Lulu… You’re doing absolutely everything I need you to do!”

Then in the blink of an eye… Discord was gone.

As his final words registered in Luna’s head, he eyes widened. Exactly what HE needed her to do? What did that mean?

It was one thing when the gods kept secrets from the mortals… but when the gods kept things from each other…?

Even though he was trying to take a shot back at Spitfire for being a bit snappy at him, Soarin did indeed have things he had to take care of, one of which had been on his mind since a little mishap he had in the morning during the Shadowbolt chase.

Soarin casually walked down the west wing of the first floor as he replayed the incident in his head. It was clear his magic was now stable enough for him to use when he felt it necessary. It was such a foreign concept to him, being a pegasus and all, but now with magic at his disposal, if there was indeed a threat of a Shadowbolt attack, he wanted to make sure he’d be ready to call on all his abilities. He walked past the door to the auxiliary gym they used often during the tryouts and stopped at a pair of metal double doors on the opposite side of the hall.

He pushed the door open and stepped through.

“Hey! Authorized personnel onl—” an earth pony security guard stepped in front of him and froze. “Oh! Commander Soarin! Sorry, go on through,” Soarin smiled and nodded at the guard as he proceeded forwards and made his way down two flights of stairs. He emerged in a long hallway that ran perfectly beneath the first floor of the compound.

Just like the rest of the damn compound, the walls and ceiling were painted dark blue, but there was plenty of lighting, just no windows.

It had been a long time since Soarin visited the underground complex. It was mostly used for storage and research labs. Earth pony security guards were stationed all over the place and unicorns in lab coats and officer uniforms alike were walking up and down the halls. Soarin gave a few nods and ‘hellos’ as he walked, stopping in front of one door about halfway down the hall. The name plate beside the door read: ‘Rivet’s Laboratory’. Soarin chuckled as he looked below the sign. A small sticker of a chocolate chip cookie had been stuck to the wall beneath the plate and a piece of paper had been taped to the door that had written in black marker: “Enter at your own peril.”

Squad zero no doubt, and since the cookie sticker and the sign were still on the door, Soarin assumed squad zero was currently in the lab with him, either testing something out or… breaking something. Either way, Soarin had come for a specific purpose… and he needed Rivet’s help.

Soarin pushed the door open and—

“WHOOOAAAAAHOHO!!!!”

Soarin instantly stepped aside. Playbitz flew past him and out the door, crashing against the wall opposite of the door in the hallway. Soarin instinctively looked out to see if he was okay, but as soon as he did, Playbitz was already back on his hooves and laughing heartily. Soarin looked him over and realized he was wearing some interesting looking protective gear. It looked like their training armor, but it was a lot thinner and a lot sleeker, it also appeared to be made of different material.

“Dude! That didn’t even hurt! Haha!” Playbitz trotted back in. “Oh, hey Soarin, what’s up?” he said casually as Soarin chuckled.

“Are you and Calm trying to break something again?” Soarin asked as he followed Playbitz into the lab.

“Calm’s trying to… not me,” Playbitz winked as they walked across the testing area.

Rivet's workshop was set up in a room similar to one of the personal squad gyms on the upper floor. It was about forty yards long and wide with a high ceiling. The first half of the length was a wide open area, fitted with a safety mat similar to the one in the battle dome. This first twenty yards of the room’s length was used for testing new or upgraded Wonderbolt equipment. There were a few pieces of equipment strewn about in the area, but still plenty of open space. Halfway through the length of the room was a wall of thick, reinforced glass. Beyond the glass, was a large workshop with half finished or in progress equipment EVERYWHERE along with more workbenches and tools one could count.

Squad zero was currently out in the testing area, Calm Wind wearing a set of the new armor identical to Playbitz’s. Shine and Swift were off to the side, taking turns with a machine that looked like a large piston with a spring loaded cylinder sticking out from it. There was a large, circular, yellow pad that resembled a punching bag attached to it. It had a digital number counter attached to it.

Soarin watched as he walked by. Swift and Shine took turns striking the pad with different forms of attacks. As they did a number would count up. It looked like it was measuring the power of the attacks. A machine that measured power output? That was a new one… and a very interesting one. Rivet was a genius whether he liked to admit it or not.

“My turn?” Calm’s voice caught Soarin’s attention. He glanced over at the large stallion, who was bouncing up and down almost like an excited little colt. Playbitz laughed in response.

“You know I’m not gonna launch you half as far as you did me… right?”

“Don’t care,” Calm nodded and pounded the armored chest guard. “HIT ME!”

“Okay!” Playbitz smirked as he spread his large wings and took to the air.

Soarin stopped at the safety door that connected the testing area to the workshop beyond the glass barrier to watch the shenanigans.

Calm set his hooves firmly into the mat as Playbitz tapped the ceiling and began freefalling. He picked up as much speed as he could. Right before hitting the ground, he forced his body up, flattening out his trajectory and pumping his wings as he sped towards Calm. Calm didn’t move, he just tensed his muscles and anchored himself, awaiting the collision.

Soarin gritted his teeth and squinted as Playbitz rammed Calm square in the chest guard with as much speed and power as he could muster.

“OOF!” Calm grunted as all of Playbitz’s momentum transferred and the large stallion found his hooves leaving the ground. Calm flew backward, traveling through the air a good fifteen yards back before he fell to the mat and bounced a few times before rolling to a stop. A high pitched yelp echoed throughout the testing area as he finally stopped.

“WOOHOO!!!” Calm whopped as he sat up. “That was awesome!” he pounded his hooves together.

“CALM!” Shine Struck’s voice suddenly came from beneath him.

“Huh?” the large stallion looked behind him to see Shine stuck beneath his plot, glaring up at him with her cheeks puffed out. Apparently he had rolled on top of her at the end of this rough landing. “Oh, whoops!” he quickly rolled off and she exhaled with the pressure gone from her back.

“Keep your big plot on your side of the testing area!” she complained as Calm shrugged and chuckled. Shine continued walking towards the door where Soarin currently stood.

Soarin couldn’t help but smile as he watched the four test Rivet’s equipment. They had fun. It was work they were assigned to do alongside their training, but they always found ways to spice it up.

Soarin personally felt that some of the other Wonderbolts were too hard on them. Silver in particular. He also wished Spitfire would have a little more faith in her own project. The more Soarin watched the four work, the more he felt they would be a fine and unique addition to the Wonderbolt force. Soarin was sure that Silver’s overly harsh view on them was solely because they were different. Silver already didn’t approve in the more relaxed demeanor around the compound in recent years under Spitfire’s command… but while they may have been a slight decline in the hard-nosed disciplined, there was a huge increase in both moral and overall confidence in the force. Something that Silver never seemed to acknowledge in favor of how things used to be under Blazetail and Flashwind. The ironic thing was that the two former captains often praised Spitfire for the way she managed to change things around and make it work out for the better.

Soarin respected Silver more than any other Wonderbolt. Silver had been around longer than any of them, and had far outlived the usual career span of a Wonderbolt. To be able to still perform, fly, and fight at a level that matched the young talent they had around, some even young enough to be his kids… was unbelievable. This was one of the few times Soarin found himself disagreeing with his old comrade.

Soarin understood the potential risks that came along with squad zero… but from what he had seen and how much he had watched them grow over the months they had been there, he placed his confidence in them. They were good ponies with lots of drive and potential. He looked forward to seeing what they could do for the Wonderbolts.

“Oh! Hey Soarin!” Shine blinked and smiled brightly as she approached the door. Soarin smiled back and nodded, pushing the door open for her.

“Going in to see Rivet too?” he asked as the young, little mare approached.

“Yep! Gotta let him know his new punch machine works,” she explained as Soarin stepped aside to let her in. “Thanks!” she said while hiding her face to conceal a light blush as Soarin held the door for her.

“Punch machine?” Soarin asked curiously as they made their way past the work benches and stray tools that littered the floor. Shine giggled.

“That’s what we call it. Rivet had some super complex name for it, like the strength-piston-measurement-whatever…” she trailed off. They eventually passed into a slightly more open area where several unicorns were walking around as well, all wearing lab coats and safety goggles either on their eyes or around their necks.

On the opposite side of the area was a workbench that was very long, about ten yards across. All sorts of different tools, contraptions, bits, and pieces covered it. In the very middle of it all was Rivet, sitting on a block stool, work goggles pushed down over his eyes as he used a welding torch to connect to pieces of… something he was building.

Shine and Soarin both stopped in their tracks as two unicorns trotted over to Rivet, both holding identical pieces that looked like a little ball joint attached to a foot long metal rod. As soon as they approached, Rivet flipped off the torch and pushed his goggles up.

“Chief, how are these?” the unicorns presented the pieces to him. Rivet grabbed one, looked it over, and tested the mobility of the ball joint. After moving it about a little bit, he scrunched his face in disapproval.

“No. No, no, no. I’ll say it again! It has to have full range of motion on this side!” he berated the unicorns, who both stiffened. Rivet held the ball joint in front of them and moved it around. “It can’t get stiff or stuck as it nears the edge or else the whole thing will slow down or not work properly. Now do it again, and this time PLEASE follow ALL the directions I put in the assembly manual!”

“Y-yes sir!” the two unicorns said in unison and scurried back to a separate workstation. Rivet sighed as he pushed his goggles back down and continued to work.

Soarin blinked and glanced down at Shine.

“Wow, he sure is a different pony in his workshop, huh?” Soarin chuckled, impressed at Rivet’s authority in his workplace. Shine rolled her eyes.

“Don’t remind me…” she groaned as they approached. “Ri—”

CRASH

A loud, cringe worthy noise of something breaking sounded from the testing area. Soarin and Shine both jumped in surprise. Rivet’s ears shot upward and he instantly turned and pushed his goggles up. Most of his assistants had stopped as well, turning to the source of the noise.

Two seconds later, Swift Justice frantically made his way into the workshop and stared directly at Rivet with his yellow eyes.

“I just wanted to clarify before anything else… I DIDN’T DO IT!” he yelled. Rivet was up and gliding towards the door before Swift even finished. Shine and Soarin both turned and followed, coming to the door just in time to see Rivet angrily stomp towards Calm Wind and Playbitz as they stood in front of the punch machine… that was sparking and had smoke coming from it… along with a large stallion shaped dent in the side.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Rivet growled as he ripped off his goggles and bit down on the elastic band while growling. “I give you guys something you can’t possibly break… and you break something else WITH IT?!”

“Uh…” Calm bit his bottom lip as he eyes the dent in the machine that was the size of his body. Playbitz shrugged nervously.

“On the flip side… the, uh… new armor works pretty well!” he tried to save.

“Out,” Rivet pointed.

“Aw, c’mon bro…” Calm scratched the back of his head.

“No,” Rivet shook his head. “That’s the third thing today between you two. So you’re done for the day.”

“But…” Playbitz tried to argue.

“OUT!” Rivet got behind both of them, lifted into the air, and began flapping his little wings, trying to push the two large ponies towards the door. Obviously, he couldn’t move them, but the message was clear. The two shrugged, got up, removed the armor, and headed for the door. Rivet kept trying to push them the whole way, but ultimately they left under their own power.

Rivet grumbled to himself as he trotted back towards his workshop.

“Rivet,” Shine stepped in front.

“What?!” Rivet snapped. Shine glared at him and pouted. “Sorry… what is it?” he lowered his tone.

“Well…” she rolled her eyes, “Before they broke it, the punch machine worked—”

“Digital-strength-measurement-piston,” Rivet corrected her.

“Whatever, it worked fine. So at least the design isn’t flawed,” she explained. Before Rivet could even nod in approval, Swift zipped up in between them.

“I SWEAR! I DIDN’T DO IT!!!” he repeated from before.

“I know, I know, you’re fine…” Rivet backed away slightly as Swift yanked at Rivet’s hoof.

“Swift… just move on to the next machine,” Shine yanked him off Rivet. “Rivet has an important guest…” she motioned to Soarin behind her.

Rivet glanced towards Soarin… and the change was so dramatic that Soarin couldn’t hold back a chuckle. Rivet completely stiffened and his fur stood on end.

“O-o-oh! Uh… Commander Soarin! Oh shoot, how long have you been here?” he nearly tripped over his own words, and himself trying to stand up straight as if giving attention. Soarin shook his head.

“Only a few minutes, don’t worry about it, you were busy,” Soarin assured him, but Rivet didn’t loosen up.

“But, no! I wasn’t! I mean, I was… but…” he continued to be nervous, clearly taken completely by surprise with Soarin being there.

“Rivet…” Shine stepped up behind him and brought her hooves down over his shoulders. “RELAX!” she demanded as he finally stopped jittering.

“Sorry… um…” Rivet swallowed and cleared his throat. “Wh-what do you n-need, sir?” he asked. Soarin smiled warmly, trying to look as harmless as possible.

“I was just wondering if you could build something for me,” Soarin explained. “We had a little incident this morning and the outcome may have been different if I was able to properly aim my new magic…” he tapped the horn. “At a moving target. Do you think you could build me something… maybe like the cannons we use in some of our courses, only tweak it so I can control the speed and angle of the balls and use them for target practice?”

Rivet blinked several times as Soarin explained as if registering all of it.

“Oh, sure! I’ll g-get on it right away!” he saluted awkwardly. Soarin shook his head.

“This is a request Rivet, if you have other more important work that should come fi—”

“I’ll have it done by the end of the week!” he claimed before slipping free of Shine’s grip and diving back into his workshop. Shine sighed and shook her head.

“He’s impossible…” she commented as Soarin chuckled.

“But he’s incredibly talented and gets things done around here,” he glanced down at Shine. “I can’t even begin to tell you how unproductive this whole division was before he showed up to apply for a job…” Soarin nodded contently.

“Yeah… I guess…” Shine replied in a way that sounded distracted. Soarin glanced down at her and caught her staring straight into his eyes. Her face turned red the moment he looked and she quickly looked back into the workshop while holding her breath.

“Something wrong?” Soarin asked… despite knowing why she was looking at him.

“No… nothing… I better get back to work…” she quickly trotted over to Swift as he tried and failed to move a piece of heavy equipment by himself.

Soarin looked between Shine and the door, sighing as he walked towards the exit. Shine wasn’t the only Wonderbolt to have a thing for Soarin. He didn’t mean to brag, but several had made passes at him in the past. Before he met Rainbow Dash he simply turned them down because he didn’t want it to interfere with the workplace, but now he had a whole different reason for turning one down.

Shine was nothing like the mare that caused all the trouble for Dash during the tryouts… but he hoped nothing bad would start between them. Dash, Shine, nor Soarin needed that right now.

All of that aside however, Soarin took one last glance into the room before leaving.

As far as he could see… squad zero had everything they needed in a Wonderbolt squad in the current day and age: friendship, fun, camaraderie, competition, and dedication. He also knew of many other Wonderbolts who liked them. Fleetfoot thought they were hilarious, aside from when they played hot potato with Rivet to keep him away from her. Wave Chill was indifferent, wishing to see for himself what they could do before passing judgment. Blaze and High Winds, of course, thought they were great, the two buying in heavily to the comical nature. Surprise treated them like her bestest friends ever… like she did with everypony. Lightning Streak obviously liked having more fun around. Fire Streak didn’t quite approve of them, and of course Misty’s view was mostly unknown due to her inability to voice it.

With the rest, besides the obvious of Autumn Rain and Calm Wind being special someponies, the view on squad zero was split even. There were those who thought they would be great… there were others who thought it would be a disaster.

Either way… nopony would know for sure until they were called upon.

But Soarin believed in them.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Hope you enjoyed.

Chapter 57: Overcoming Fear

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 57:

“Steady… don’t tense up…” Silver directed as Dash sat on the floor of the gym. She had her right hoof up in front of her face, small volts of electricity pulsing around it. “Stay relaxed, but keep control. If you want the electricity to remain calm, you have to remain calm.” Silver explained. He was sitting directly behind her, left hoof on her right shoulder, and right hoof cradling her elbow to help her keep steady.

Dash stared at the bits of lightning flowing up and down her arm. She was fighting to keep her breath steady. For the most part she was succeeding, but she felt it was mostly because Silver was assisting.

“I’m going to count to three and let go, okay?” said Silver suddenly. Dash gulped and gave a very brief nod. “One…” Silver began counting down. “Two…” Dash felt the touch of his hooves lighten. “Three…” He completely let go.

Dash managed to hold steady for about two seconds before she stiffened. The electricity flared up towards the tip of her hoof and she panicked.

“Ah…” she gasped as the electricity jumped and snapped towards her face. “AHH!!!” she threw her hoof up. The electricity shot up and dissipated about a foot above her. She shook her hoof out as her breath remained at a quickened pace. Silver sighed as he looked her over.

As soon as Dash was out of her flustered state, she growled and stomped her hooves on the ground.

“DAMMIT!” she yelled out as she gritted her teeth. “I can’t do it! It’s pointless!" She yelled.

“Dash,” Silver narrowed his eyes at her. This was their twelfth attempt. Silver could see the frustration settling in around the eighth. It finally boiled over.

“I just can’t, OKAY?! I’m afraid of lightning! There! I said it! I can’t do it! You’re asking the impossible of me!” she yelled directly into Silver’s face.

Silver didn’t have to say a thing. In fact, he merely glared down at Rainbow Dash. Dash flinched, her anger dissipating when she realized she just yelled into her instructor’s face.

“S-sir… I’m sorry—” Dash stammered as she stepped back, sat down, and let her head hang.

“Impossible?” Silver cut her off. Dash glanced up at him quickly, but looked right back down. Silver took a deep breath and exhaled. “There are a lot of things that are impossible…” Silver walked up and sat down beside her, facing the other direction. “And it’s foolish to think you can achieve the impossible… But overcoming a fear is not of that category,” he shifted his eyes towards her. “Those who give up on overcoming their fears are not accepting them… they are running from them.”

Dash looked towards him, meeting his stern, but sincere gaze before he got up and walked a few steps behind her. Dash turned and watched him as he moved. It looked like he was contemplating or recalling something.

“Dash, how familiar are you with the ongoing conflict between the Griffon Kingdom and the Draco Empire?” he suddenly asked.

Dash blinked as the two locations registered in her brain. The Draco Empire… the home of the drakes? Aside from being further north of the Griffon Kingdom and Gilda bringing them up once or twice, Dash never knew too much about them. Although… Dash recalled Gilda never speaking too kindly of the miniature dragons. In fact, Gilda often referred to them as ‘Dricks’ which Dash assumed had to be some sort of racial slur or derogatory term. From this Dash could draw the conclusion that the two species didn’t get along very well.

“Not much…” Dash admitted as Silver stopped and turned to her.

“The drakes and the griffons have been at war constantly throughout their existence. Every once in a while, like now, they go their separate ways for a year or two, but they always end up fighting again and again and again…” Silver explained. “About eighteen years ago… Celestia attempted to end the conflict, claiming she was tired of seeing so much pain and suffering on both sides. So she hoof picked several squads of Wonderbolts to join her on a visit to leaders on both sides,” he patted his chest. “Young Silver Lining, Wonderbolt squad seventeen,” he recalled. “My squad was one of many chosen to come along. With Blazetail and Flashwind of the lead squad taking command in meeting with the griffons, squad two, under the command of my former… and late mentor, Blizzard Strike… was sent to meet with the drakes. Squad seventeen along with a few others were assigned to back them up.”

Silver paused and sighed. Dash noticed a sharp change in his expression.

“We were unaware that the drakes were under order to attack any who ‘challenged’ their borders… we were ambushed less than half a mile across the border between the two nations. The drakes, unlike the griffons, consider their bodies to be their weapons. They attack with claws, sharp teeth… and can breathe fire…” he looked towards Dash, but he looked sad. “I was young and inexperienced, pinned down by a drake soon after the ambush began. He glared down at me into my terrified eyes with flames sputtering between his teeth and unleashed his fiery breath upon me. I yelled and screamed in pain for five seconds that felt like five years… had Blizzard Strike not flown in and rammed the drake off of me…”

Silver reached up, removing the head-mask of his flight suit, before grabbing the zipper, pulling it down and completely removing the suit. Dash had yet to see him without the suit on… and she gasped as her eyes landed on the bottom of his neck and down to his chest. There was a large burn scar that extended from his neck, down to his chest, across his right shoulder and halfway over the right side of his body towards his flank. The whole scarred area was devoid of any fur. His exposed skin looked cracked and chipped with some areas pale while others were bright red. Dash cringed and gritted her teeth as she looked upon the scarring.

“I would have surely been burned to death… I was already lucky I survived. Burn treatment is a very painful experience as well, your nerves are constantly on fire as if you have a billion pins and needles stabbing you all over your body,” Silver gave a very detailed description. “You can imagine… I didn’t do too well with fire for a while. I became so afraid of fire that I even avoided Wonderbolts that specialized in it. Fire had become a label for ‘evil’ in my head. I was afraid of any individual capable of commanding it in fear that they would turn on me. But…”

Silver paused. He glanced over towards the rest of squad two. Blaze and Wave Chill were doing a joint practice where Blaze tossed fireballs into the air and Wave launched blasts of water up to douse them.

“BLAZE!” Silver yelled.

“WHOOP!” Blaze tripped as she was trying to throw more fire. It flew out of her hooves and ran smack into Wave, but because he was surrounded by water, it caused a big puff of steam to poof out and surround him. “Oops…” Blaze snickered as Wave coughed and rolled out of the steam cloud. “Yessiree!” Blaze yelled as she turned and saluted Silver.

“Come over here for a second!” he ordered. Blaze trotted over as soon as he gave the word. “Right there,” he held a hoof out, stopping her about five feet away. “Hit me with your best flame,” he ordered.

Dash blinked and looked at Blaze, expecting her to be surprised or alarm, but…

“Alright! Incoming barbecue!” Blaze yelled as if finding the idea fun. Dash looked towards Silver, her eyes widening… he was once afraid of fire… but now… “YAHA!!!” Blaze yelled as she clapped her flint gloves together three times, causing an enormous collection of fire to build up around them. She worked her hooves around the make the fireball three times the size of her head before pulling back a hoof. “Catch!” she yelled to Silver as she thrust her hoof forward into the fire.

It pulsed and shot towards Silver. Dash yelped as Silver put up his hoof and let the flame collide with it.

As soon as the fire was upon them, Silver spread out his hooves and smacked the floor with both of them. The flame danced up above him. He reached up, stuck his hooves into the fire, and spun around once, expanding it and coating himself in it before turning and facing Dash. The fire was hovering around his body, but it was not against him or burning him. Dash watched in awe as the flames danced and coursed about his body, passing directly over his burn scars and in front of his eyes. He hadn’t handled it as masterfully as Blaze, losing a bit of the flame during the control process, but there was still more than enough to severely burn him had he not bent it to his will.

“I learned to face my fear…” Silver said between the swirling flames. “Because I never wanted to be a victim of fire again… nor did I want to run when others facing it depended on me,” Silver grunted and threw his body up while swinging his hooves into the air. The fire spiraled off of him and dissipated in the air. “So DON’T tell me it’s impossible… because from what I’ve seen…” he looked Dash over. "You seem like you didn’t have it half as bad.”

Half as bad…

Dash looked down as she thought it over carefully. Was the lightning surge she experienced really as bad as she was making it out to be? It gave her an extremely painful jolt… but she had no burns or scars on her body to show for it.

Then she remembered something. There was a second pony who experienced the lightning during the tornado incident. She had pushed Descent into the center of the clouds. Descent took the full force of the thundercloud, while she got hit by the powerful aftershocks that spread out. She was knocked out by the blast… but when she saw Descent again during the Shadowbolt attack on the Wonderbolt compound… he was covered in scars and burns from the lightning, some of which looked like they were still healing.

Dash didn’t have to wonder if Descent had developed a lightning phobia, because she knew very well that Descent feared nothing.

Dash looked back up at Silver as he dismissed Blaze and slipped his flight suit back on.

Maybe she was just complaining. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. It was only one day of practicing it personally with Silver, she would have time to overcome it. Compared to Silver and Descent, she felt like she had gotten off easy.

“Okay… let’s try it again…” she swallowed her pride and stepped forward.

“No,” Silver looked down at her sternly as he stretched the mask back over his face. Dash opened her mouth to reply, but she wasn’t expecting it and thus had no way to reply. Silver tugged on the ends of the mask while moving his mouth and nose around until it was in place like he wanted it and made a hoof motion towards the equipment closet. “Since you yelled at me, we’re done with lightning and going to do some combat training instead.”

Dash followed his hoof and looked towards the closet.

“Go put on a set of training armor… and make sure it’s all fastened properly. You’re going to need it,” he grunted before turning, cracking his neck, and throwing a few punches into the air to loosen up.

Dash gulped as she walked towards the equipment closet. She did just yell at her instructor… she guessed she had this coming. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too hard on her.

“That’s enough for today, dismissed!” Silver nodded as Dash fell into a sweaty heap on the floor.

As suspected, Silver did not go easy on her. Their combat session was mostly working on her defense… and Silver really amped up the intensity. He let her have one minute long rest in the whole half hour they battled.

Dash picked herself up and dragged her tired body towards the equipment closet.

“Broke a sweat, huh? Didn’t know the old stallion still had it in him!” High Winds suddenly trotted up besides Dash and nudged her. Dash rolled her eyes at the clear innuendo, but yelped suddenly as Winds pressed up against her. When she looked however, Blaze had run up and pushed Winds over, squeezing Winds between them.

“You broke a sweat too, Windy! Hell, we all did! Squad two knows how to go HARD… eh, Dash?!” Blaze giggled as Dash blushed uncomfortably.

“Yeah… sure…” Dash half-heartedly agreed as she unbuckled pieces of her armor, removing most of them herself, flinching as Blaze and Winds unbuckled the back leg guards for her. “PERSONAL SPACE!!!!” Dash finally yelled as she hopped forward, the leg guards coming off as she did. Blaze and High Winds both burst out laughing.

“HEY! YOU TWO!” Silver yelled towards them. “SQUAD MEETING! GET YOUR ASSES OVER HERE!” he yelled.

“Toodles!” Blaze waved to Dash as the two went to see what Silver wanted.

Dash just shook her head and groaned in discomfort. Those two loved teasing her a little too much.

Dash noticed a box sitting beside the door to the closet that was marked, ‘dirty armor.’ Dash glanced at the armor she was just wearing. It was covered in her sweat and kind of smelled.

Dash sniffed the air around her, then turned her head around and sniffed her shoulder.

As a matter of fact, SHE was covered in sweat… and kind of smelled. She didn’t really want to go to dinner reeking… so as she left the gym she decided to stop in the closest locker room and find a shower. Lucky for her, there was a pair of locker rooms right across the hall, a mare’s and a stallion’s, meant for quick access to bathrooms and showers for the five personal squad gyms nearby. One of the convenient things about the compound was that there were no designated locker rooms. The Wonderbolts and recruits all had their own facilities and kept their uniforms and such in their living spaces. The locker rooms strewn about the compound were like that of a public gym: for one’s use if needed, with lockers, bathrooms and showers alike, complete with stacks of towels at the entrance.

Feeling like taking a good shower, Dash entered the mare’s locker room, grabbed a towel and trotted towards the showers.

The locker room was a small with four square rooms that twenty by twenty feet each, arranged in a square. The entrance opened up into the locker area, which had two rows of lockers and a ‘hallway’ along the left side. Along the left wall was a door leading into a bathroom, and the other two rooms were shower rooms, each with five showerheads and connected by an open doorway. These shower rooms were opposite of the entrance, and one could reach them through both the bathroom and the locker area.

Dash took a turn into the bathroom on her way in to look at herself in the mirror, sticking her tongue out in disgust as she looked. She definitely needed to shower, she looked extra scuzzy and her mane looked slick with sweat.

She whipped her towel onto a hook beside the entrance to the left shower room and walked right in. Her eyes landed on a showerhead on the opposite wall. They were simple showers, all the pipes hidden in the walls. She walked over, and turned both knobs. She shivered as the water burst from the showerhead and began to pour over her. The warm water felt good against her stiff joints and sore muscles.

As she found a soap dispenser and started cleaning up, she finally had a moment to think on the weird day she had had so far.

Squad zero.

That had been the true shock of the day. A secret, not-so-secret-anymore squad specifically hired and trained to counter Shadowbolts… by being like the Shadowbolts? As much as Dash respected the word of her instructor… she was still not sure what to think of them. Silver had shown an incredibly harsh view on them and how they would fail… but Dash recalled seeing Surprise being super friendly to them. That was natural of Surprise, but Soarin also seemed to have a more positive view based on the short exchange between him and Silver that she saw in the training room.

Dash wondered what Soarin thought of them in full, she never got the chance to ask him.

Dash slightly blushed to herself as the warm water ran down her mane and streamed over her body. Thinking about Soarin… while taking a shower… led to thinking about Soarin taking a shower… led to thinking about Soarin taking a sexy steamy shower… led to thinking about Soarin taking a sexy steamy shower with HER.

“Heeeheheee…” Dash giggled to herself while squinting, biting her bottom lip, and crossed and rubbed her back legs together. She had to be careful, it was already hot enough with the warm shower, if she kept thinking like that she’d have to switch to cold water real quick.

It had been a long time since she and Soarin had a chance to just spend some time with each other. To be honest, she missed it dearly. She found herself missing him even though he was right there in the compound with her. Her goal, of course, was still to become a Wonderbolt and be one of the best flyers ever in the history of Equestria… but she had a little extra motivation knowing she’d get to do it with the love of her life nearby… and get to spend time with one of the best, most awesome stallions in existence. They could train together and spend time together. It was the perfect deal. She could never pass it up.

She turned the shower knobs until the water shut off and last droplets of waster dripped down onto her head. She reached out into the bathroom area, grabbed her towel and stepped back in, rubbing herself down and wondering if she had time to preen her wings before heading off to dinner.

“DAMN! That was a rough day of training!”

Dash flinched and froze.

Blaze.

If it were any other mare, Dash wouldn’t have suddenly locked up. But then she heard a yawn.

“You know how the captain is Blazey… if we don’t break enough sweat to wash a barn then ‘we didn’t try hard enough.’" High Winds mocked Silver’s voice, earning hysterical laughter from Blaze.

Scratch that… if it were any other mare besides Blaze and High Winds.

“You do the best impersonations,” Blaze complimented her as High Winds yawned again.

“What can I say? I’m a natural at imitating jackasses…” Winds joked about Silver again, earning more laughs from Blaze.

Where Dash stood, she was hidden in the left shower room in the corner between the open doorway connecting the shower rooms and the doorway leading into the bathroom. Both doors were about five feet from her. She dared not move, she knew the moment they saw her, they’d harass her again. But if she moved… the shower rooms and bathroom floors were both tile. Her hooves would give her away instantly.

Dash flinched as she heard one of them enter the right shower room. She thought about waiting for the sound of the showers to mask her hooves against the tile floor, but even then she still might be seen depending on which showerheads they chose. If they were using ones facing the door, she’d be seen, and they’d be upon her… she just knew they wouldn’t pass up the chance. Her other option was to stand still, wait, and hope they didn’t decide to make a stop in the bathroom through the right shower room. Either way, it seemed unlikely she would find a good distraction for—

“What’s the holdup, Blazey?” Winds suddenly said as Dash heard the sound of streaming water start up from one of the showers.

“Hey, it’s your fault I was laughing so much!” Blaze’s voice came from the locker area before Dash could hear her hooves on the tile floor of the showers as well.

Dash remained perfectly still, contemplating the risk of her first option. Could she make it out without being seen? She also realized she wasn’t fully dried off. Would be strange if she dove out of the locker room still wet? She wanted to avoid anything stupid as well if she could.

Dash’s ears suddenly perked up. Not at something she heard… but rather… Something she didn’t hear.

Blaze had walked into the right shower room, but Dash had yet to hear another shower turn on.

“God damn, Windy…” Blaze’s voice suddenly sounded from the right shower room. “I can’t get enough of your wings…”

What?

Dash blinked.

“Hmmm?” Winds began. “If I had a bit for every time you said that to me…” she said in a voice that sounded… seductive?

“Can you blame me, Windy? Mmm… I love the shoulder and wing muscles…”

Whoa…

Whoa, whoa, whoa… hold up… rewind…

One of Dash’s ears flopped down as she squinted and scrunched one side of her face.

What the hell… was going on in there?

“Well Blazey…” Winds spoke up again, pausing with a slight yawn. “Keep complimenting me with that wet mane look you have going and I might have to do something about it.”

Dash couldn’t stop herself. She was beyond confused… and more curious than cat with multiple sets of nine lives to spare.

So she carefully… and quietly… peeked around the corner.

Blaze and High Winds… were using the same shower. Both drenched beneath the same stream, manes wet and stuck to their bodies. Winds was sitting on the floor and Blaze was walking around her, while sliding a hoof along one of Winds’ powerful wings. They both wore seductive expressions on their faces as Blaze came around in front and sat down directly in front of Winds… so close that the spray of water from the shower equally covered them both.

“Are you threatening me with what I want?” Blaze licked her lips as she leaned forward, lightly touching their noses together. Winds smirked and brushed her slick wet mane out of her eyes with a hoof before bringing the same hoof around and sliding it over Blaze’s side from the flank all the way up to her chin.

“Because…” Winds slipped her hoof behind Blaze’s head. Blaze reacted by sliding her hooves around Winds. “I know you like it when I’m stern…”

The two attacked each other’s lips, kissing each other intensely beneath the warm running water of the shower.

Dash instantly pulled back and pressed herself up against the wall. Her face made a full color change from blue to red as the vision fully registered in her head.

Blaze and High Winds… were lesbians.

It suddenly made a hell of a lot more sense why they were being so touchy and forward with her. Dash wondered why she hadn’t contemplated that possibility already… especially after all the comments about her muscles and physique.

Several moans became audible through the sound of the running shower. Dash leaned over and peeked around the corner again. The two were still lip locked beneath the water with their hooves wandering all over each other. Dash pulled back quickly again, her face turning so bright red that she’d be whistling if she were a tea pot.

This was FAR from the scenario she was expecting. Now she really felt the need to get away to avoid revealing herself by accident due to embarrassment.

One thing she noticed was that the two lovers were not only completely distracted by each other, but also using a showerhead in the far right corner of the right shower room. They were as far away from being able to see into the rest of the locker room as possible. This was her chance.

Dash stepped carefully, doing her best to make no noise against the tile floor with her hooves. She was also trying not to yelp or squeak from the embarrassment of hearing two celebrities moan, kiss, and rub themselves on each other.

The moment Dash cleared the bathroom and all four hooves touched the carpeted floor of the locker area… she made a beeline for the door. She was still a little wet, but she also still had her towel. She’d be able to dry off completely on her way and drop the towel off at the east laundry cage.

She made it through the door, and quickly shut it behind her. She propped her back up against the door, panting in relief, but still blushing uncontrollably, the sound of moaning barely audible behind the closed door, but still loud enough to hear.

She took a deep breath relaxed. Her face was still a little red, but she quickly rubbed the rest of the water from her fur with the towel, balled it up and carried it with her as she slowly made her way down the hall.

Talk about unexpected.

What a way for Dash to find out that two members of the Wonderbolt’s she had seen perform so often were lesbians. She didn’t have a problem with the concept at all. Love is blind and love is free… but she wished she could have found out in a different… less raunchy way. She wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight because she’d be too busy remembering the image of Blaze and High Winds, rubbing against each other and moaning in the shower.

Dash found herself blushing uncomfortably again. Yeah… the image was definitely not leaving for a while.

It seemed a little unprofessional or careless of them to get so heated with each other in an open locker room… then again it was dinner hours and the hallways were pretty much clear. The locker room was also the last one at the end of the east hallway, meant for easy access from the personal squad gyms…

Either that or the two of them being a couple was actually a well-known fact within the compound and they just didn’t give a damn… or… knowing them, they just didn’t care.

Dash glanced back towards the locker rooms as she stopped to drop off the towel at the east laundry cage. She caught a glimpse of Silver and Wave Chill exiting the gym and making their way towards the stallion’s locker room beside the mare’s. Wave walked right in, but Silver stopped and glanced at the mare’s locker room door, his ears pointing up.

Dash kept her eyes on Silver as he grunted, stepped over and pushed open the door to the mare’s locker room open.

“ARE YOU TWO BUMPING DONUTS IN THERE AGAIN?!” he barked into the mare’s locker room.

“FUCK OFF, YA OLD FART!” Blaze’s usual crass voice poured from inside. Silver rolled his eyes and let the door close before entering the stallion’s locker room.

It looked like it was a well-known fact.

Dash was still a bit flustered by the whole thing though… she could only imagine what would have happened if they had found her.

A blank expression remained on her face as she made her way towards the mess hall. On the way, a classroom door opened and Storm Front stepped out. His face instantly brightened when he saw Dash walking by.

“Hey Dash!” he greeted her cheerfully as they kept moving. She didn’t answer him. Storm awkwardly looked around, but could tell she wasn’t being rude… mostly because of the look on her face. “What’s up with you?” he asked with a chuckle. Dash blinked and shook her head as the two turned towards the mess hall doors.

“I’ve seen some shit today…”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Shorter than usual, but this was where the outline cut off.

Hey look, another Wonderbolt couple...

Bet you weren't expecting that though.

So Silver is going history lesson on us... the drakes huh? i really do have a whole different world set up for the griffons... maybe i'll be visiting this later? if not in this fic... in another one? Plus, Dash might just need to suck it up a little... if Silver can use fire after being nearly burned to death... than Dash should be able to handle lightning after receiving half the shock descent did.

Onward to the mess hall, you know i love my shenanigans in there.

I've actually already have more than half of the next chapter written, you know, because i'm writing a lot to forget certain things. So it wont be a long wait for the next chapter.

Chapter 58: Drama in the Compound, and Twister Strikes Again

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 58:

Chicken, rice, and peas…

“Nice to know the mess hall is trying something different…” Dash grumbled to herself. Soarin warned her… he warned her back when she visited the compound. The mess hall food was repetitive and unappetizing… but she would get used to it.

She seemed to be missing the ‘get used to it’ part. How had Soarin gone on this long with this food? It was no wonder he at least went out to Rusty’s for breakfast every once in a while. This food was bad enough to drive anypony nuts over time.

But with a growling stomach… food was food. And she’d rather eat bad food than go hungry.

Dash made her way down the aisle of tables. She never really had to look for a table to sit at because all she ever had to do was look for a big-ass griffon sticking out above the sea of ponies. She had her eyes locked on the back of Matteo’s head as she turned down the row and towards the table.

She was the last one to dinner due to her little… run in. All the usual suspects were already there. Little Star, Matteo, Thunderlane… even Twister. Dash and Storm quickly got separated when they entered the mess hall moments ago. He was probably going to sit with some of the squads.

But there was one very big surprise.

“Squall?” Dash blinked as she quietly said the name to herself. Squall was sitting at the table with them? Between Little Star and Twister? Dash was late, so she had no way of knowing, but she found herself wondering if he had been guided to the table… or if he had sat there on his own power. Squall looked up at Dash as she approached. She flashed him a friendly smile. He immediately looked back down and kept eating.

It was a start. At least he sat down with them. The rest would come.

Now there was a slight complication. The only seat left open was between Matteo and Thunderlane. Dash had gotten used to being wedged into a tight space near Matteo. However that was not the issue here.

The last time the two conversed, it wasn’t very friendly. In fact, if Dash remembered correctly, he threatened to rip her tongue out. He was busy eating, So Dash didn’t disturb him. He was probably still brooding about his damaged honor anyway, so she let him be.

“Where have you been?” Thunderlane asked Dash as she sat down. “You’re usually the first one here!” he chuckled.

During her thought process of how to word her ‘reason’ for being late… she was obviously reminded of… the little show of ‘affection’ she witnessed in the locker rooms. Her face instantly scrunched as an uncomfortable, light blush ran over her face. Thunderlane blinked and looked at her carefully, picking up on her sudden flustered state.

“Uh…” he lifted an eyebrow. “You okay?” he asked.

“I…” Dash paused and glanced at the rest at the table. She didn’t really feel comfortable having them all hear about it. Thunderlane already asked, so it was unavoidable for him. She beckoned him to lean in. He obeyed, turning his ear to her, expecting to hear something about Soarin based on her blushing.

She began whispering into his ear… and in seconds his eyes widened, followed by his wings firing outward with a loud POOF. Dash pulled back and instantly saw his little wing reaction.

“Wow Thunderlane, really?” Dash admittedly found it a little amusing. Thunderlane quickly glanced at his wings, reached back, and forced them back to his body with his hooves.

“Um… wings are a bit sore… it happens…” he failed miserably to deflect. Dash rolled her eyes.

“I didn’t know you were into that… I should tell Applejack,” she sneered. Thunderlane instantly shook his head while grabbing Dash by the shoulders.

“NO!” his wings flew back out without his hooves to hold them down. No, PLEASE don’t do that!” he let go of Dash and pressed his wings back down. “Um… I mean it… that was something…” he blushed hard. It was Dash’s turn to be curious. “Something… the sisters used to do… to tease me… before I, you know, broke everything at Sweet Apple Acres…” he admitted.

Dash blinked and thought it over… followed by a very disturbed look on her face.

“Flitter and Cloud Chaser used to…” she trailed off, the look of disgust on her face deepened.

“Yeah…” Thunderlane admitted while looking away.

“But… they’re sisters!” Dash looked towards Thunderlane, her expression stuck in place. Thunderlane turned further away.

“It was still hot…” Thunderlane shamelessly admitted.

“Stallions…” Dash grunted while rubbing her temples to try and forget that image. Great now she had the image of Blaze and High Winds kissing in her head… along with a new image of Flitter and Cloud Chaser doing the same thing… while Thunderlane watched?! Double the ‘I didn’t need to know!’

"Really though…” Thunderlane spoke up again. “I’d rather you didn’t tell Applejack… I’ve kind of left all that behind me,” he requested.

“Don’t worry. I’m already trying my best to forget it myself…” Dash groaned as she started picking at her food.

“What’s all the gossip over there?” Little Star suddenly spoke up from across the table. Dash glanced up, but Thunderlane answered before she could swallow her food.

“OH! Nothing! Stuff about Ponyville! My marefriend! You know! Haha!” Thunderlane forced every word, blushing and smiling like a doofus. Little Star eyed him carefully before shrugging.

She looked towards Dash, keeping her eyes on her as Dash finished a helping of rice.

“Yes…?” Dash asked as she noticed Star staring.

Star suddenly looked to Dash’s right at Matteo. She cleared her throat… but nothing happened. Star narrowed her eyes at him before clearing her throat again, this time a lot louder. Everypony at the table looked up at her, but Matteo kept eating and took no notice. Star puffed her cheeks out, irritated.

“Matteo,” she finally just said his name. Matteo stopped right before closing his beak down on a piece of chicken and glanced over at Star. She made a small head motion towards Dash, but again Matteo didn’t react. He just stared at Little Star. “You’re kidding me, right?” she shot him a flat look, completely unamused. She sharply pointed at Dash.

Dash had been watching the exchange, and as soon as Star pointed at her, Dash turned and looked at Matteo. Matteo turned his head, glancing at her briefly before looking back at Little Star.

“Oh… right…” Matteo sighed. Star furrowed her brow at his unenthusiastic attitude.

“Oh, sure, act like you didn’t know… just do it, ya big fat dummy!” she scolded him. Dash glanced between the two of them, wondering what the hell they were talking about. She ended up landing all of her focus on Matteo as he completely turned to face her.

“Rainbow Dash…” he addressed her. She looked up at him and nodded.

“Yes?”

“I…” Matteo glanced at Little Star, who immediately angrily pointed at Dash again. “I apologize for threatening you in the training room…” his voice was slightly broken up, as if he was hesitating. Dash wasn’t expecting an apology… but by the looks of things, it seemed Little Star had put him up to it. “My dishonor was clouding my judgment… I should not have yelled at you,” he finished, looking a little embarrassed. Dash couldn’t help but smile in amusement. Seeing Matteo at such a disadvantage was interesting, he was usually completely on top of things. Dash waved a hoof at him and winked.

“Aw, don’t worry about it big guy… I used to get into fights with your wife all the time. Trust me, Gilda was much worse!” she joked. Before Matteo could say anything else, Little Star was up and hovering in front of Matteo’s face, eyes wide and wings buzzing.

“WAIT?! YOU’RE MARRIED?!” Star asked with her front hooves pressed firmly to her mane. Matteo reclined slightly to get some personal space before sighing, holding up his talons and pointing to the gold ring blending in with the yellow color of his shanks. “OH!” Star’s eyes widened. “MY!” she shifted all the way back over her seat. “GOD!” she dropped down into her chair while pressing her cheeks together. “No way! Tell me about her!” she pressed. Matteo grunted, realizing he wasn’t going to get out of it, so he proceeded.

Dash chuckled as she watched Little Star press Matteo for information. In general it was amusing to watch the two of them interact. She was roughly the size of his head, so it was a comical sight, especially when she got in his face earlier in the training room.

“Um… Dash…?”

Dash was certain Tatarus had just frozen over.

She looked over at Squall. He was looking at her, but looked away as soon as she turned. Dash could’ve sworn she just heard him address her. She hadn’t imagined it right? No… she definitely heard it. He kept glancing back at her as if waiting for a response, so she replied.

“What’s up Squall?” she spoke to him in the most casually friendly tone she could muster. Squall swallowed and his eyes darted about the table in front of him as if he was trying to find the words.

“Um…” he hesitated. “Th—” he squinted and gritted his teeth for a moment. “Thanks for… invitingmetothetablebefore…” he said incredibly fast and quiet.

“Huh?” Dash said while tipping her head to the side.

“Thanksforinvitingmetothetablebeforeatlunch…” he repeated in the exact same tone and speed.

“I can’t…” Dash pointed to her ears and she looked at him quizzically.

“Forget it…” Squall sighed and went back to eating.

“Squall…” Dash flattened her brow.

“I said forget it!” he snapped slightly. Dash exhaled loudly through her nose.

“And I say no. Tell me again… slower and louder please,” she asserted herself. Squall visibly stiffened, but looked back up towards Dash. He sighed and took a deep breath.

“Thanks for inviting me to the table at lunch…” he said slower, and only a little louder.

Victory.

Dash got Squall to be nice about something. It’s too bad Matteo was currently being drilled for information on his unruly spouse. He would be pleased with this.

“It’s nothing Squall, you’re always welcome to sit with us,” she nodded and smiled.

“And…” he continued, but stopped and looked straight down again.

“And?” Dash leaned forward, hoping to get a little more out of him. He sighed.

“Thanks for… watching out for me when we fought those guys…” he forced out.

So he had noticed Dash and Twister during their little run in with squad zero. Dash was wondering if he even knew Matteo was there with him. Squall as so intent on bashing Playbitz’s skull in that it looked like he wasn’t aware of anything else.

“Just looking out for a fellow recruit,” Dash flashed him another smile. “Gotta stand up for one another, right?” she looked to him as his mouth hung slightly ajar. He looked like he was trying to say more, but instead he just looked down again.

“Whatever…” he finally caved and went back to his usual response. Dash chuckled and went back to her food. They were making quick progress with him already. Dash was sure in a few weeks he’d be seeing them as friends in no time. Now if only they knew why he was such a loner.

She had spoken to everypony at the table now… save for one. As she bit off and chewed a piece of chicken, she was actually a little afraid to look at Twister. Not because she was afraid of him, but because he had been on quite a roll all day with the random and silly, she could only imagine what he’d be up to the instant she looked.

Alas… her curiosity got the better of her, as it had been all day.

She looked over at Twister…

He was eating… and looking directly at her with one eye much wider than the other as if he was waiting for her to look. He had a plate of two eggs, bacon, and toast…Dash instantly paused and eyed his food in confusion.

Art by: mlplover789

“Twister, how did you get breakfast at dinner?” she asked… wondering why she had an instant after.

“Kidnapped the chef’s firstborn son, took him to a farm where he raised me some chickens and pigs before planting some wheat. The wheat laid me two eggs, the chickens made for some good bacon, and I put the pigs in a toaster until they were nice and crisp!” he ‘explained.’ Dash stared blankly at him.

“What?”

“What?” he replied instantly after.

“Right…” Dash rolled her eyes.

“GOING IN HOT!” Twister suddenly yelled and slammed his face down onto the plate. All five other ponies at the table flinched in surprise and looked towards him. He picked his face back up. The toast was impaled on his nose, the bacon was stuck to his mouth in the shape of a wide smile, and the two eggs were over his eyes. They even blinked twice as he looked at them.

The best part was that none of them really reacted to him. It was such a normal thing now. Dash rested her head in her hoof while lifting her brow at him.

“You’ve been on a ‘food-for-face’ kick today, huh Twister?” Dash observed as he turned to her and one of the eggs fell off his face back to the plate. No more was said as Twister began eating the bacon right off his own face.

It wouldn’t have mattered if somepony else talked anyway… because Dash’s attention was suddenly completely taken over as Soarin walked by with Storm Front.

Soarin smiled and shot a wink towards Dash as he passed. She blushed lightly and waved back before she got bombarded by Little Star for being adorable. Soarin chuckled and kept walking beside Storm Front until the two found a table. There were two trays on the other side already, so the two sat down together on the vacant side.

“So…” Storm began as they sat down. “What was that all about this morning?” Soarin glanced up at him, already with a mouthful of rice. “When you and the lead squad suddenly took off out of the station,” he clarified. Soarin swallowed.

“Oh, that… well…” he shrugged. “I honestly don’t know how to tell you Storm… it’s a long story and there’s a lot of context to it…” Soarin trailed off while scratching his head. Storm tipped his head back and forth.

“Something classified?” he asked. Soarin shook his head.

“Nah… nothing most of the Wonderbolts don’t know about… but to be honest, we weren’t quite sure what we saw… may have been linked to an old nemesis of ours, but we don’t even have the facts down…” Soarin tried to explain it simply.

“Ah, I see… don’t worry about it then, I don’t want to keep you from your food,” Storm smiled as Soarin agreed with a nod and dug right back in. The food wasn’t the best, but he was hungry and it was food.

Soarin looked up towards the food line as they began eating. By chance his eyes landed directly at Spitfire, who was making her way around the buffet lines, but she was doing so with her head down and blushing.

It looked like her ‘personal heated mare’ problems were flaring up again… in the middle of the mess hall. Talk about bad timing. Seeing her like so reminded him of her little Wave Chill outburst after they visited Luna…

Soarin was giving them both exactly one more chance to get their acts together and forget about some stupid prank pulled on both of them. Their little nervous avoidances of each other were fun and adorable at first. But as they continued to act like little nervous teenagers it got old… really fast. Not only did it get old, they kept doing it. It had gotten to the point where everypony was plain sick of the two of them being so stupid around each other.

No more. If they didn’t clean it up and get back to being friends like they were, then Soarin was going to lock them both in a closet.

His attention was suddenly diverted as the owners of the two trays across from them finally returned to the table.

Misty Fly walked around the table towards her tray, she smiled and waved at Soarin and Storm the instant she faced them. Fire Streak followed close behind, holding a cup in each wing. One filled with cranberry juice, the other with water. He smiled and nodded towards Soarin, but when he looked at Storm Front, his eyes narrowed very slightly. The smile remained, but it looked forced. Luckily, Storm was still waving at Misty when Fire gave him the look. Soarin could see it clear as day though… making him wonder why. Did Fire have a problem with Storm that he didn’t know about?

Fire placed the cup of cranberry juice down on Misty’s tray as she sat down. She smiled up at him, put the tip of her wing to her lips and extended towards him to thank him. Fire did the same in response. Misty quickly turned to Storm and tapped her hoof on the table. Storm looked up from his plate towards her. Misty smiled and started speaking to him in sign language. Storm blinked, quickly focusing on her motions so he could read her words. He smiled back and started replying with his swift, quick motions that were almost as efficiently produced as speaking. Fire glanced over as he helped himself to his food, gritting his teeth subtly as he watched Storm’s masterful use of the symbols and signs as if it were his first language.

As Fire watched them, Soarin watched HIM. He took note of Fire’s expression and how it seemed to be related to Storm. Soarin made subtle glances between the two conversing and Fire looking on from the side. Soarin knew that Storm could communicate with sign language. He had seen Storm and Misty ‘speak’ to each other on multiple occasions. Soarin actually felt glad for Misty. The only pony she could really fully communicate with was Fire. Lightning Streak and Surprise knew the sign language along with he and Spitfire, but none of them were experts. Having somepony else to talk to in full without pausing like that was probably great…for…

Soarin blinked.

He suddenly had a theory… one that worked perfectly with why Fire looked to disapprove of the silent conversation going on. Fire was INCREDIBLY protective of Misty Fly… and while he never said it out loud, it was clear he was proud of his ability to speak to Misty in full. It was a special connection that only he shared with her…

At least until Storm showed up.

From what Soarin had heard, Storm once had a grandfather who was deaf. He had no idea how long Storm had known the sign language, but he was clearly a master at it. In fact… he was better at it than Fire.

It all made sense… Fire was jealous of Storm. But in what way? Soarin knew from listening into to some squad three shenanigans between surprise and the brothers that Fire had developed a liking to Misty… one that was a little more serious than he’d like to admit.

Soarin took another quick glance between the two stallions. If that’s what was causing the jealousy, Fire didn’t know that Storm already had a little goofy mare he was currently attached to.

Soarin decided to sit and watch for the time being. He put all those pieces together, but he had no evidence confirming it.

But his attention was suddenly pulled away as somepony set their tray down on the open spot to his right… at the same time that somepony else put their tray down across from it.

Soarin glanced up to his right to see Spitfire standing above the chair beside him. However, she was frozen in place, staring straight forward. Soarin followed her eyes to see who had tried to sit down the same time she did. It was Wave Chill. The two stared directly at each other and neither moved nor said a word.

Soarin slowly sighed and lightly bumped his nose against the table top. What incredible timing creating an incredibly awkward moment.

Wave Chill looked away from her as he slowly lowered himself into the chair. Spitfire tried to get up and leave, but Soarin sat up, reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

“Spitfire… Sit down,” he demanded. He gave no reason why, he simply ordered her to. She yelped as she plopped down in the seat, looking forward at Wave for a moment before looking directly down at her plate, stuffing food into her mouth while blushing.

Soarin shook his head as he watched her try to get dinner over with as quickly as possible. Assuming Wave was being just as silly, Soarin stole another glance at him. To his surprise though, Wave was looking at Spitfire. There was a look in his eyes that gave Soarin the idea he wanted to say something. Soarin cleared his throat while making a very subtle hoof motion to Wave. Wave blinked and looked towards him. Soarin made a head motion towards Spitfire while giving him a stern glare… as if to silently remind Wave of the multiple times he had drilled him on talking to Spitfire. It seemed like Wave was already thinking about, so Soarin wanted to add some outside encouragement.

Wave’s eyes returned to Spitfire as she continued to eat and not pay attention to anything else. Wave took a deep breath and exhaled. Soarin watched with anticipation as the look in Wave’s eyes slowly filled with determination. Was he actually going to do it? Was he really going to finally say something to her?

“Spitfire…” he spoke up. Soarin smiled the instant Wave said her name. Spitfire’s ears shot upward and she instantly stopped eating. Looking at Wave was making her face heat up, but he got her attention. Soarin kept a subtle eye on them as he leaned back towards his food. He wanted to see this end himself, but he didn’t want to get in their way.

Wave gathered his thoughts and prepared to say more.

“Spitfire I think—”

SLAM

Soarin flinched in surprised as everything on the table suddenly bounced. Soarin’s rice sprayed up from his plate and got all over his face. Spitfire squeaked at the sudden jolt and Wave was completely cut off.

Soarin looked over towards the other three.

Fire Streak was standing up from his seat, a hoof firmly planted and grinding against the table. His eyes were sharpened into a harsh glare that he was aiming across the table, directly at Storm Front. Storm was leaning slightly away in his seat, wondering why Fire was giving him such an angered look. Misty was focused on Fire, with a look of confusion and worry on her face. She made small glances at Storm, but her eyes remained predominantly locked on Fire.

Fire got up from his seat, stomped around the table, grabbed Storm by the shoulder, and pulled him right out of his seat.

“Ah!” Storm yelled as he was suddenly forced along.

“Fire?” Soarin stood up as Fire started dragging Storm away from the table. “FIRE!” Soarin yelled again as the scene drew looks from the surrounding Wonderbolts in the mess hall. Soarin glanced back at Misty, who was still seated, but looking towards Fire and Storm in alarm. Soarin was about to follow, but flinched and looked back towards Wave Chill and… well… Spitfire had gotten up and left. Wave was face down on the table, groaning with his hooves pressed over his head.

Soarin sighed and facehoofed. They were so close to solving the Spitfire and Wave Chill dilemma, but a separate personal incident completely derailed it.

Pushing the thought aside, Soarin quickly trotted after Fire and Storm. Misty finally got up, looking at Wave Chill for a moment before following as well.

Fire continued to drag Storm, who was struggling in confusion. Fire pulled him past all the tables and was heading through the buffet area towards the exit. Lightning streak emerged from the line holding a whole block of cheese from behind the deli counter. He smiled when he saw Fire walking towards him, completely failing to see that Fire was dragging another pony along with him.

“Hey bro!” Lightning waved while holding the block of cheese out towards Fire. “This is what it looks like before they slice it!”

Fire’s glare snapped towards Lightning. He grabbed the block of cheese and shoved into Lightning’s mouth, wedging it and knocking Lightning over in the process.

“Bleh!” Lightning pulled the cheese out of his mouth as he sat up. “Too much cheese, bro…”

“SAID NOPONY EVAR!!!!” Surprise yelled as she jogged by, completely up on her back hooves, carrying at least ten blocks of cheese along with her as the mess hall servers chased after her. Lightning only gave the comical chase a quick glance before he looked towards his brother. He saw Fire was dragging the new elite along with him… the one that could talk to Misty. Soarin suddenly rushed by after them, and Misty followed behind a few moments later.

“Bro’s finally snapping, huh?” Lightning said to himself as Surprise continued to run around with all the cheese behind him.

Fire Streak pulled Storm roughly out of the mess hall and beside the doors. He pushed Storm’s back roughly against the wall and pressed a hoof to his shoulder to pin him there. He glared and slightly bared his teeth while growling. Storm looking up in confusion and alarm with literally no idea what was happening.

“I’ve had enough of this!” Fire snapped while sternly pointing his free hoof towards Storm’s chest. “What are your motives towards Misty Fly?!” he demanded, almost spitting in Storm’s face. Storm looked at him quizzically.

“What?! Motives?! Th-third captain, I was just talking to her!” Storm formally addressed Fire even though he was being held down.

“I’m not buying that!” Fire shouted back.

The doors to the mess hall swung open and Soarin jumped out. His eyes darted around until he spotted Fire holding Storm against the wall. He quickly stepped up, grabbed Fire by the shoulders and forced him off of Storm.

“Fire!” Soarin yelled as Fire Streak tried to rip free and go back to Storm. “FIRE! What the hell has gotten into you?!” Soarin frantically questioned as put himself between Storm and Fire. Storm remained against the wall, slumped down on the floor, and still unsure of what he had done.

“I won’t let him lead Misty on!” Fire shouted slightly up into Soarin’s face. Soarin furrowed his brow and shook his head.

So that was it. It was definitely about Misty Fly. Soarin had never once seen Fire lose his cool like this… how long had Fire let this little misunderstanding build up in his head? Soarin had to stop in… instantly.

“Fire… Storm has a marefriend…” he calmly pointed out. Fire’s eyes reverted slightly from the glare, but he still looked angry. Storm perked up upon hearing.

“Wait… you think I’m…” Storm put the pieces together as his eyes went wide. Soarin reached up and forced a hoof against Fire’s cheek to make Fire look at him.

“She visited during the Manehatten show… I don’t know where you got this idea of Storm coming onto her, but you need to stop!” Soarin ordered.

“But… but…” Fire took a few heavy breaths. They all flinched as the mess hall doors swung open one more time and Misty Fly jumped out. She quickly saw the three of them… he eyes landing on Fire first, seeing Soarin restraining him… and then she looked towards Storm. The look on her face and the manner in which her mouth moved suggested she would have gasped if she knew how to make the sound. She quickly cantered up to Storm and bent down to make sure he was alright. She looked back up at Soarin and Fire with an expression that demanded to know what had happened.

All Fire knew though… was that as soon as Misty stepped out, all she saw was Storm down on the ground against the wall… and Soarin restraining him, keeping him away from Storm. Fire knew Misty was a smart pony. It probably didn’t take her long to put things together. Fire’s ears flopped down and a terrified look made its way upon his face. Soarin let go as Fire’s strength left him and he stood perfectly still in place.

“No… I… I didn’t mean…” Fire said towards Misty, so alarmed and flustered that he spoke to her instead of making signs. His eyes widened further as he realized he tried talking to Misty. He brought his hooves up for a moment to start making signs, but he froze in place, the shame already too great. He shut his eyes tight before turning and galloping down the hall.

Misty quickly got up and tried to start into a gallop after him, but slowed after five steps and came to a stop. She simply stared as Fire turned the corner in the lobby and disappeared from sight. Soarin stepped up beside Misty, getting a good look at her face. She didn’t even notice Soarin there, she was too busy looking towards where Fire had run. Soarin thought about indicating to leave him be… but Misty already knew that. It was probably the reason she stopped running after him. Soarin turned to Storm.

“C’mon, let’s go finish our dinner,” he helped Storm get up. Storm looked between Soarin and Misty.

“What about…?” Storm trailed off, making a head motion towards Misty, showing his concern despite the circumstances.

“She’ll be fine… they’ll figure things out, they’re really close,” Soarin explained as he and Storm re-entered the mess hall.

Talk about polar opposite circumstances.

With Wave Chill and Spitfire, Soarin felt like he had to rope the two of them together and put them in a tumble dryer just to get them to say hello to each other.

With Fire and Misty Fly, Soarin did his best not to get involved, because it was clearly something the two needed to… and most likely would work out on their own… needless to say, there was lots of romance drama going on at the compound.

“So I saw that…” Dash said as she walked out of the mess hall side by side with Soarin.

“Oh… Fire Streak?” Soarin asked. She nodded and glanced behind her to see Little Star and Fleetfoot following behind while making kissy faces. Dash ignored them and returned her attention to Soarin.

“Yeah, what did Storm do?”

“Well…” Soarin shrugged. “Fire is overprotective of Misty…”

“I gathered that much,” Dash nodded as Soarin shot a glare behind them. Little Star disappeared behind Fleetfoot and Fleetfoot started whistling while looking away. Soarin shook his head and turned back. “But…” Dash began again. “What did Storm Front do?”

“Nothing, actually,” Soarin chuckled. “Fire used to be the only one who could fully speak to Misty… I don’t think he likes that somepony else can too. He took it as Storm coming onto her.”

“Wait… Fire lost his composure over that?” Dash blinked in surprise. “He’s so calm and straight laced… I called it, he has a thing for Misty,” Dash smirked.

“How long have you figured that?” Soarin asked. Before Dash could answer both Fleetfoot and Little Star slowly slid up behind Soarin and peeked around him, making dreamy faces at Dash. As soon as she narrowed her eyes, Soarin rolled his, extended his right wing and batted the two of them down with it. Fits of giggles were heard as they scurried away.

“I noticed the other day… he was totally turned on when she hugged him,” Dash joked. Soarin found himself snickering.

“Thinking of Fire Streak… and turned on in the same complete thought just doesn’t seem right at all. But I guess he’s either hid it very well, or I’m just blind or something. That was a crazy out of nowhere reaction, I’ve never seen Fire act like that before,” said Soarin as they stopped outside the entrance to the recruit hall.

“Think they’ll be alright?” Dash asked. Soarin nodded and smiled.

“Unlike a certain other to be couple that’s getting on everypony's nerves around here… I’m confident Fire and Misty will work things out,” Soarin glanced at the doors. “This is your stop.”

“Yep…” she smiled at him. She glanced around and frowned. “Sorry, I wanna give you a goodnight kiss, but too many ponies around.”

“Has that ever stopped you?” Soarin cooed while bouncing his eyebrows and leaning his head towards hers. Dash scoffed and lightly batted her wing against his face… but did so with a smile.

“Gotta be somewhat professional… besides, if I know you, you’ll fall asleep and dream about me with a hoof between your back legs,” she bounced her eyebrows back at him.

“Fair enough…” Soarin shrugged “I’ll see you tomorrow th—”

Fleetfoot suddenly appeared behind Soarin and Little Star behind Dash.

“Now!” Fleetfoot yelled. The two pushed Soarin and Dash’s heads together. Their noses collided first, but their lips crashed together, Dash yelped into Soarin’s mouth, making his cheeks puff out, and forcing air through his nose. He pulled back, coughing and pounding his chest as Dash shook her head out and glared at Fleetfoot. She leapt over Soarin and dove at her, but Fleetfoot zipped out of the way. Dash wiped out on the floor, but her back legs got caught in Soarin’s mane and yanked him down with her.

Little Star bolted into the recruit hall while giggling furiously. Fleetfoot flew backwards towards the stairs leading up to the Wonderbolt quarters, laughing hysterically as Dash and Soarin slowly got up from their heap on the floor.

“I swear I’m gonna kill them both…” Dash pouted as Soarin sat up beside her.

“Guess I got a good night kiss anyway!” he chuckled while grinning happily.

“Might as well give you a real one now,” Dash rolled her eyes.

“A what now—mmph!” Soarin was caught off guard as Dash grabbed his face and forced him into a kiss. She pulled back and winked.

“G’night, hot stuff,” she said as she turned and curled her tail beneath his chin.

“Good night…” Soarin said with a goofy smile on his face. He sat there and watched until Dash was through the doors and out of sight.

“So what’s it like having TWO horns?” Fleetfoot suddenly said from beside Soarin. Soarin blinked and his ears shot upward. “DOUBLE-SHA-WING!” Fleetfoot yelled into his ears before taking off back towards the stairs.

“COME HERE, YOU!” Soarin growled while chasing after.

Dash was about half embarrassed, half feeling awesome. Even though it was a well known fact that she and Soarin were a thing, she still felt the need to not be so out there about it. But it was too late, Fleetfoot and Little Star caused a scene, so she went with it.

Speaking of that duo… talk about the sudden embarrassment team from hell… Little Star and Fleetfoot, two enthusiasts when it came to getting juicy info about other’s relationships. Had they even met? Or did the two just randomly come together in a fit of giggles to harass them?

Well, it sure had been a strange day… but the day was now over and it was time to—

“WHOA!” Dash suddenly yelped as something grabbed her around the waist, hoisted her into the air. She had been turning towards her barracks, but the moment she faced the door, she was swept off her hooves and taken in the opposite direction towards the room across the hall. The same room that she and Soarin had used for some privacy a week or so back.

She had absolutely no control over her movement. Her hooves were up above her and her wings were firmly pinned to her body by whoever was carrying her. The room was dark… with a single light shining on the bunk just to the left of the entrance.

“Yipe!” she squeaked as her kidnapper tossed her onto one of the mattresses. The instant she landed, she felt something wrap around her three times. When she looked up, there were three ropes holding her down to the mattress. Her arms and back legs were free, but the ropes were so tight that she couldn’t budge. The light over her was dim, a shadow being cast due to the top bunk blocking the light from above.

“Hi!” a cheerful female voice suddenly sounded from beside her. Dash frantically turned her head and stared in complete confusion.

“Surprise?!” Dash blinked as she looked at the white mare from squad three.

“You betcha!” she smiled wide as her eyes grew wide as well. Dash kept staring… not sure what to make of the situation nor knowing why Surprise of all ponies decided to suddenly kidnap her.

“Oh fine, I’m not fooling you…” the voice suddenly turned to male… and very familiar. Surprise reached up and pulled off a mask, revealing… Soarin?

“Soarin?” Dash tipped her head again. Soarin looked down at himself.

“Whoops!” Soarin reached up and took off a mask to reveal… Surprise again?

“Hiya!” Surprise cheerfully bounced up and down.

Dash stared for a moment… then flattened her brow.

“Twister… you’re not fooling me,” she said flatly.

“Aw… you’re too perceptive…” Twister’s voice suddenly came from Surprise. Surprise removed the mask to reveal none other than Twister. “Brilliant, Rainbow Dash… simply brilliant… you figured me out so quickly!”

“It’s not very hard… you’re the only one nuts enough to do something like this,” Dash growled while struggling in the ropes.

“But isn’t that just part of who I am?” he bounced his eyebrows so fast they were almost blurry. Dash was simply not amused.

“This wasn’t funny the first time Twister… and it’s not funny now. Let me go right now and I won’t beat your face in,” Dash threatened with a snort. Twister fell over laughing, disappearing below the bed as he fell to the floor.

“But you see…” his voice suddenly came from above. Dash looked up to see him peering down from atop the top bunk. “You’re right… it wasn’t funny or fun last time… because you didn’t feel threatened at all… did you? Oh no, of course you didn’t. Simply Twister being Twister… him and his lack of rhyme or reason… despite the rather masterful poem I put together on the spot. How about we fix that…”

Twister suddenly dropped down and appeared directly beside her. Dash glared, but gasped and her eyes widened. Twister was holding a large knife in his hoof with the word ‘dramatic effect’ written on the side of the blade.

“Twis—”

“Shhhhhhhhhh…” Twister stood directly over her, all four hooves down on the mattress at her sides. He put a hoof over her mouth as she tried to speak. He made no motions with the knife, but Dash had her eyes glued to it. She tried to swipe and kick at him, but every attempt was swatted down by his free hoof and wings. “Now, now… just relaaaaaaaaaax…” Twister’s smile grew as he passed the knife over Dash to his other hoof. “If you keep kicking around I might slip and drop it…” he sneered as he kept passing the knife between his hooves. Dash froze in place and kept eying the knife. “That’s more like it…”

“Twister… this is NOT cool… at all… last time was fine… but this… no, I don’t like it, stop!” Dash panicked as she watched the knife pass between his hooves.

“Oh, but Dashie… who else can I trust? Who else can I tell the stories of my past… the miserable woes tucked away in the deepest corners of my despair?!” he tried to sound dramatic, but his snickering killed the effect. Dash flattened her brow and looked up at him with disgust.

“Twister… you’re lucky I put up with your bullshit! I’m starting to wonder if there’s any sanity in that head of yours, you—”

“Do I really look like a pony that’s sane?” Twister calmly cut her off with an uneven expression upon his face. He sat his plot down on her stomach and tapped the flat edge of the knife against his opposite hoof, making a quiet TAP TAP TAP that echoed throughout the empty room. He looked down at her with an uncharacteristically serious face. “Matteo… is sane. Squall… is sane. Little Star… is sane. Even Silver… is sane. Me? No. Not in the slightest, I’m far from sane, Dashie…”

He started passing the knife back and forth again. Dash swallowed and began to sweat as she watched the knife go back and forth.

“Y’see… it’s who I am…” Twister began as he took his eyes off the knife but continued passing it. “I can do anything… literally anything I want. I can be weird, I can be strange, and I can be silly… and nopony bats an eye… they’re used to it, they know it, it’s part of who I am to them.” He grabbed the knife out of the air and turned it so the tip of the blade was facing down, directly at Dash’s chest. She tensed up and her pupils shrank as she eyed the knife. “But if anypony else were to do the things I do… THEN EVERYPONY FREAKS OUT!” he yelled as he plunged his hoof down.

“AH!” Dash yelped and shut her eyes tight. But all she felt was a hoof lightly tap her chest. Her eyes snapped open and she saw Twister’s hoof resting against her… but during the motion he had passed the knife over to his other hoof.

“I can do all sorts of things… anything I want… and that’s exactly how I like it… it’s how I want it… but it’s not like it’s my fault…”

Twister leaned way down until he was right in Dash’s face. The knife blade was about an inch from her chin. She remained perfectly still, not wanting cause any unneeded pain.

“You wanna know why I’m like this?” he suddenly asked as he slowly moved the knife around in front of her face, as if it amused him by how her eyes followed it so perfectly. “Well… do ya? I’d think carefully… I’ll give you a hint… ‘no’ is probably a bad answer.” He chuckled. Dash gulped.

“Y-yes?” she obeyed. Twister rested one forearm on her chest. While pulling the other one back with the knife firmly gripped. He slowly began to move the blade towards her as he spoke.

“So… when I was younger… or was I? I don’t even remember how old I was. All I ever wanted was to do things my way… you know, how everypony does. All I ever saw around me were smiles, happiness, and everyone else doing what made them enjoy life…”

Dash averted her eyes towards the knife, which was still steadily approaching.

“Ah, ah, ah…” Twister reached his free hoof forward and directed her head back to look him in the eyes. “Pay attention now,” he sneered as the knife grew closer in Dash’s peripheral vision. “But not me… no, I couldn’t. I tried… like everypony else… but all I ever got from the others was the same thing over and over again. ‘Stop that!’ ‘You can’t do that!’ ‘That’s wrong’ ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

Dash felt the pressure of Twister’s free hoof strengthen a little.

“No matter what I did… it was wrong. I couldn’t be myself! I couldn’t be me! Nopony would let me… and it hurt, Dashie… oh, it hurt… so…” his smile grew extra wide. “I did it anyway. I was shunned. Cast out,” he put his face less than an inch from hers. “You think losing one you love with all your heart makes things bad…? Sure, I once lost the only love of my life… but when that happens, you’re supposed to fall back on others… you’re supposed to have support… well… can you imagine what happens when that support… shuns you as well? HEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEEEEE…” Twister’s eyes went in different directions as the creepy giggle escaped his throat. “I’m alone Dashie… but I can do as I please… a tradeoff to surely turn one to insanity… don’t you think?”

Dash’s eyes darted between the knife and Twister’s eyes. The knife was now less than six inches from her eyes.

“I’ve only ever had two ponies hear me out Dashie… you… and the most perfect mare in the world, but she’s gone. Even she left me… now all I have is you, but you could never compare to her… you are nothing compared to what she is…” He suddenly sat up, pulling the knife back with him.

“BUT WHO SAID I WANTED TO BE UNDERSTOOD?!” he yelled as he plunged the knife down again… and this time he didn’t pass it off. Dash didn’t even have time to shut her eyes. She stared as the tip of the knife connected with her chest…

But the blade folded and bent… bouncing right back up off her chest.

Dash continued to stare at stare at the spot Twister had struck, blinking several times as Twister held the knife up in front of him.

“Fooled ya!” he winked while grabbing the edge of the blade, bending it down and letting it spring back while flapping back and forth. “It’s RUBBER! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!” he laughed maniacally as he stabbed the rubber knife against his chest continuously, causing comical springing noises to come from the fake blade.

Dash’s jaw dropped and she glared at him in a tremendous amount of rage.

“YOU… DISGUSTING… LITTLE… TROLL!” she barked at him at the top of her lungs. Twister froze in place and looked down at her. Then back to the knife. Then down at her… and then back to the knife again. He put on a very goofy grin as he hopped off of her and onto the floor while affectionately rubbing his cheek against the rubber blade of the fake knife.

“Oh, rubber knife… Only you truly understand me…”

Before Dash could blink, Twister reached down and pushed the mattress off the bed. It was turned so she couldn’t see him as he shoved it towards the door. The ropes disappeared, but as they did the mattress catapulted upward, throwing Dash through the door that was somehow open.

“Oof! Ee! Ow!” Dash grunted and yelped as she bounced along the floor and tumbled to a halt in front of the door to her barracks.

She was up on her hooves immediately, firing from the spot and back through the door of the empty barracks, glaring, growling and grinding her teeth with the urge to beat Twister’s face in for scaring her like that.

She burst into the room and threw the lights on. The room was in perfect order. The mattress was back in the bottom bunk, and Twister was nowhere to be seen. She darted over to the bathrooms, but both doors were locked from the inside, as most of them were when no squads occupied the space.

“Dammit!” she yelled as she turned and fired out of the room, across the hall and barged into her recruit barracks. She drew a few looks as she stomped in and glared up at Twister’s bunk above Squall. She could see a lump in it. She leapt up, hovering beside the bunk as she reached down and threw the sheet off.

Pillows. Twister was not there… only wooden sign post that had been driven into the mattress with a big white sign that said ‘gone fishing’ on it.

Dash flattened her brow and tossed the sheet back down onto the bed before dropping to the floor and stomping towards her bed. Thunderlane and Little Star watched her trudge over and flop down on her mattress while grumbling. Thunderlane broke away from Star and walked up behind Dash.

“What’s up, Dash?” he asked, wondering what had her in such a sour mood. Dash snorted.

“I DON’T want to talk about it…” she snapped, instantly repelling Thunderlane’s curiosity.

As she was left alone, Dash shook her head and sighed in extreme annoyance.

Scratch her previous thought… now it had been the strangest day ever.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh Twister... why are you so silly?

LOOK! Wavefire and Firefly! I havent forgotten about the auxilliary ships! In fact... their time of glory is approaching... i know all the fans want it, welp im happy to say it wont be long.

(Little Star and Fleetfoot = the best romance troll team)

I hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 59: Breaking Tough Exteriors

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 59:

“He did what now?!” Little Star remarked to Dash at the shower beside her, the water got in her eyes as they widened, forcing her to squint and rub them with her hooves. Dash whipped her wet mane around to get it out of her eyes and over her opposite shoulder as the water dripped down her body.

“Roped me to a bed and sat on top of me while holding a knife I thought was real until after he tried to stab me with it, and the whole time told me another vague story about his past,” Dash said monotonously as she rubbed shampoo into her prismatic mane.

“Excuse me, WHAT?!?!” exclaimed Star in disbelief as she tried to hover up to eye level with Dash, but with her wings all wet, her typical flutter failed and she plopped back down onto the floor.

“Think I know?” Dash said sarcastically as she rinsed her mane. Star pushed her mane up over her body. It was so long that it touched the floor already, but when it was wet, it was like tugging a mop along with her.

“That’s just… wrong. Isn’t this the second time he’s done something?” she asked as she hopped up and down, trying to reach the knob for her shower. Dash shut her shower off, then reached over and shut Star’s off for her.

“Yeah… the first one wasn’t so bad… just strange…” Dash began as the two shook themselves out vigorously. They left the shower area and grabbed their towels, drying off as she continued. “This time though… I should’ve seen it coming, but I was convinced that was a real knife.” She rubbed her face and mane dry before grabbing a brush. “It’s become clear that things are never what they seem with Twister… and I mean that 110%. He never gives straight answers to questions, and he masks everything with a joke or trick,” she said unenthusiastically as she ran the brush through her hair only twice to make it look how it usually did before unfolding her wings and shaking any access water out of them so she could preen them once back at her bunk.

“Do you think…?” Star spoke up again as she wrung her mane out before stepping up on her personal stool and brushing much more than Dash had. “We should tell Silver about it?” she asked.

Dash blinked as she thought it over. She hadn’t thought about that… but, WHY hadn’t she thought about it? Two troubling cases… but what kept her from thinking she should? After thinking some more a clear answer came to mind.

“I don’t think we need to,” Dash replied. Star stopped mid brush and turned to face Dash.

“You’ve been roped to a bed and straddled while given a monologue and you’re OKAY with it?” Star asked in disbelief. Dash’s eyes widened for a moment and she quickly shook her head.

“I didn’t say I liked it Star…” Dash quickly clarified. “But…” she shook her head as she looked back and whipped her tail a few times to help it dry. “He hasn’t done anything wrong yet.”

“Define wrong…” Star asked sarcastically as she tried to keep brushing, but the brush had gotten stuck. “Ow!” she remarked quietly as Dash gathered her thoughts.

“He’s been an extreme creep, but he hasn’t done anything to cause actual harm… not to me, not to anypony else, nor during the training,” Dash turned and looked towards Star as she finally managed to yank the brush free with a painful yelp. “Everything he’s done so far has been a ruse, or a prank. I’m not saying it wasn’t disturbing… it was disturbing as HELL, but otherwise it’s been innocent,” she finished as Star hopped off and started pushing her stool along the floor. “Here, just let me get that…” Dash offered as she scooped up the stool with her wing.

“Thanks…” Star nodded. “Well… if you say so. I don’t know how you put up with it.”

“I have experience with crazy individuals,” Dash chuckled as they walked out of the bathroom and into the barracks. “Although I much prefer my friend back home… not this twisted, creepy son-of-a…”

“HEARD YOU TALKIN’ SHIT LIKE I WOULDN’T FIND OUT!” Twister suddenly popped up directly in front of Dash while pressing his face into hers. Little Star yelped as she tripped over Twister’s tail and Dash instantly pushed her hooves to the floor to back off. She was seconds away from giving him a piece of her mind like she wanted to last night, but—

“Hey… Freaky,” Silver stepped up behind and brought a heavy hoof down over the top of Twister’s head. He pushed Twister all the way down to the floor, before putting him in a headlock and turning him away from Dash to face his bunk. “How about you make your bed again… right side up?” Silver said sternly while pointing at Twister’s top bunk above Squall. The bed was made, but the mattress and everything had been flipped upside down, even the pillow.

“But I prefer my world upside down!” Twister snickered while looking directly up at Silver, tilting his head so far back that he was literally looking upside down. Twister reached his other hoof around and forced his head to look back at the bed.

“If I wanted to hear from an asshole, I’d fart! Now go make your god damn bed the RIGHT way!” Silver yelled as he picked up and threw Twister with the exact power and trajectory necessary for him to land on his top bunk a few yards away.

Without another word, Silver kept moving past and into his room. Dash and Star glanced at each other, and then up towards Twister. Twister somehow already had the mattress back upright, but had himself wrapped in the sheet like a burrito and was continuously spinning in place on the bed while snickering. Squall was sitting on the bunk below, completely ignoring him. Star and Dash both shrugged before making their way back to their bunks.

They had an hour to get breakfast before the first events of the day… but she decided to preen her wings beforehoof. She knew she would completely forget after breakfast, and she wasn’t in the biggest hurry to get the day going anyway. They had a lecture on flight formations… again after breakfast. It was the fourth day in the cycle, she knew it was coming, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and reached her right wing around, shuffling through some of the loose feathers with her nose before coming to a few twisted clumps. She lightly bit down on the first bunch of tangled feathers, gently working her teeth around the feather shafts to pull them apart and straighten them out.

“Bleh… soapy…” Dash said quietly to herself as she stuck her tongue in minor disgust. The taste the scentless soap from the shower room dispensers still clung to the feather barbs. As she reached for the second bunch, her eyes shifted up. Across the room, Squall was looking at her as he sat in the shadow of Twister’s bed above him. He had the usual scowl and glare on his face, but as soon as Dash’s eyes caught his he simply flipped his mane out of his eyes and looked away without changing his expression.

Dash lifted an eyebrow as she carefully preened the second bunch of feathers. She ran her nose through her wing again, finding two more smaller clumps further out near the tip of her wing. She worked her teeth gingerly into the first, parting it quickly and smoothing it out with her lips. As she moved to the other close by, she instinctively looked up again.

Again… Squall was looking at her again. This time he looked the other direction with his grumpy expression unwavering. What was he looking at her for? Well… aside from the fact that she showed him respect and gave showed him the light of day. Dash got the feeling there weren’t many ponies like that in his life. He was lucky she had a high tolerance for idiocy… because she was surprised he hadn’t been discharged yet for insubordination. In general, Squall was troubled and the troubles often got him into trouble.

The way he was looking, she imagined he was doing so out of curiosity. Who was she and why was she being friendly to him? Dash bet that was the kind of thing going through his head. She had made progress on making him open up and be friendly… but he still had a very long way to go.

As Dash refolded her right wing and moved for her left, she spotted something on her footlocker as she started poking her nose through her other wing. Her binder, now stuffed full of Wonderbolt information and drawn up formation patterns, was sitting atop it. This was completely normal, but last time she tossed it down must’ve ripped some of the already frayed binding holding the schedule in it. The schedule was jutting out the top.

She found only two bunches in her left wing… lucky. Her left wing was usually worse than the right. She kept eyeing the schedule as she worked the feathers into clean positions, actually curious because she hadn’t given the schedule a look at all after the first time. This was the fifth cycle coming up after this day… it had been a little more than two weeks since she arrived for training. It felt like it had gone by so fast so far.

Dash pressed her last clump of feathers into a smooth, organized fashion before she instantly reached for the binder and opened it up to the very front. As soon as she opened it, the schedule slide out and floated gently to the floor. The binding had definitely come loose. She closed her binder and set it beside her, reached towards the floor and picked up the schedule, reading it over again carefully.

This was the final day of the fourth cycle… making it the sixteenth day of her recruit training… There were thirty-two days total on the schedule. So ironically, the second time she decided to take a look at this thing was exactly halfway through. Sixteen days down… sixteen more to go. She had a feeling that meant it was only going to get harder.

She was feeling good though. It was too early to gauge significant improvements in her physical ability… but she felt like there was so much she had learned already. Silver was slowly turning them into Wonderbolt material… and knowing that she may soon be on a level to be considered among their ranks was literally a dream come true.

She still had to get past the recruit training stage… but unlike the tryouts her certainty of her success was not driven by her ego this time. She could really, truly feel it.

“Breakfast?”

“GAH!” Dash flinched and tipped over onto her mattress in surprise. She flipped back up to see Matteo standing directly in front of her. She didn’t even hear him approach… again. “I know you have talons and paws but seriously, it’s nuts that you can move all that bulk around so quietly!” Dash remarked as she pouted and glared.

“So… breakfast?” Matteo repeated.

“Heard ya the first time, let’s go get some grub,” Dash nodded to him as she stuffed her schedule back into her binder and hopped to the floor.

“Hold up! I’m coming too!” Star cheerfully added herself as she landed softly on Matteo’s back. Dash glanced back by their area.

“Thunderlane! Breakfast?” Dash called to him. Thunderlane blinked and looked up.

“Uh… yeah!” he didn’t have to think long, trotting up behind them. Dash looked back forwards and stopped dead in her tracks. Twister was standing in front of her with his head wrapped up in his bed sheet to the point where there was a globe of cloth around his head.

“Somepony say breakfast?” he asked as the bed sheet slowly unraveled and dropped to the floor at his hooves. Dash furrowed her brow.

“No, what gave you that idea?” she snorted at him. Before she could blink, Twister was up on Matteo’s back, reared back on his legs and holding Little Star underneath his armpit like a hoofball.

“TOGETHER WE RIDE!” he yelled as he pointed for the exit.

“HEY!” Star yelled as she struggled in his grip. Dash let it go, knowing there was no way to get rid of Twister, but again, until he actually did something harmful, she had no reason to truly be pissed at him.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

They were about to all start up again, but Dash stopped after one step. Matteo did the same and eyed her curiously.

Silver emerged from his room, cracking his neck as he angled for the bathroom. However, he stopped when he looked through the recruits moving about and saw the group standing near the doorway. He watched carefully as Dash looked towards Squall.

“Squall,” Dash suddenly spoke up. The others, except for Twister who was still holding Little Star and pointing, looked at Dash then turned to Squall. Squall’s scowl suddenly turned into a look of surprise mixed with nervousness, as if he wasn’t expecting anypony to talk to him. Dash made a beckoning motion. “We’re getting breakfast, come with us!” she offered. Squall looked between them all multiple times before suddenly looking away and turning his whole body to face the opposite direction.

Matteo and Dash made brief eye contact before shrugging.

“Oh well, let’s go guys,” Dash nodded as they all made for the exit.

Silver locked his eyes on Squall as soon as his apprentice and her little group left. Squall’s expression made multiple changes from angry, to sad, to confused, and to slamming his eyes shut and grinding his teeth together…

Squall held that face with his eyes closed for five seconds… then quickly rolled over, got up, and cantered to the door to follow Dash.

“Heh…” Silver chuckled to himself in satisfaction as he watched Squall leave. He couldn’t figure out or get anything through Squall’s thick skull… but Dash had him following her around as if they were friends… It seemed that in some cases the student already trumped the master.

“Hey, Soarin!”

Soarin jumped slightly in surprise, dropping a helping of eggs back on his plate. He looked up to see Storm Front plop down in the seat beside him with his own breakfast.

“Morning, how are you doing?” Soarin asked as he looked Storm over carefully. Storm looked incredibly happy. That… and Soarin was already sitting with Wave Chill and Fire Streak. Storm just sat down across from Fire Streak… despite the little incident the two had. Wave had already dismissed Storm’s entrance, clearly miffed at himself for losing his chance to speak with Spitfire the day before. Fire just stared at Storm though. It wasn’t in a threatening way, but Soarin could tell as soon as he ran into Fire earlier that morning, that Fire was not happy with himself.

“Haha!” Storm smiled wide at Soarin. “I couldn’t be better!” he exclaimed. Something had Storm bouncing like a little colt. Soarin’s curiosity got the better of him.

“Alright kid, what’s got your head in the clouds?” Soarin asked with a chuckle. Without missing a beat, Storm reached back, unfolded his left wing and let to envelopes drop into it.

“I got a letter from my marefriend… AND from my dad!” Storm exclaimed happily as he waved the two envelopes back and forth. One of the envelopes had hearts and bubbles drawn on it. Soarin looked towards Fire and Wave briefly. Both of them visibly flattened their expressions… not towards Storm specifically, but hearing about a marefriend wasn’t the first thing they wanted to listen to. Storm was in his own little world, he clearly didn’t realize what he was doing. So Soarin quickly addressed the other letter.

“Your dad, huh?” Soarin spoke up while giving quick glances at Fire and Wave. “Still getting forwarded from home?”

“Yep!” Storm nodded as he opened up the letter from his father and read it over again.

“How’s he doing?” Soarin kept the conversation going in hopes of keeping the subject of marefriends down.

“Sounds like things are getting better for him… said he’s getting lots of work and hopes he can make a visit at some point in a month or so…” Storm’s smile suddenly lessened. Soarin caught on.

“But you’re here… right? Not at home. Still no way to contact him either?” he asked as Storm’s smile returned.

“Yeah, still don’t know where he is, but maybe I’ll let somepony back in Cloudsdale know to keep an eye out for him or listen for yelling coming from my house… the moment he steps in, my mother is going to scream at him…” Storm sighed. “I’m sure as soon as he finds out, he’ll be here in an instant. Every time he’s said he plans to visit, he’s made it happen, so I know he won’t disappoint,” Storm smiled again as he folded up the letters and placed them beside his tray.

“Storm Front…” Fire Streak suddenly spoke from across the table. Soarin glanced between them as Storm looked towards Fire with curiosity.

“Yes sir?” Storm politely replied. Fire took a deep breath, looked down, and shook his head.

“I apologize for my unprofessional behavior last night…” Fire began. Soarin realized that Fire was apologizing and backed off to let it happen. “I forgot my composure on a sensitive subject and lashed out… it was not right of me,” Fire’s eyes remained away from Storm as if too ashamed to even look Storm in the eyes.

Now as much as Soarin didn’t want to get involved, he was curious how Storm would reply. He was happy that Fire turned around and fixed things so quickly, unlike a certain dark blue pegasus sitting across from him, but Soarin also wanted to hear Storm’s response.

“Third Captain… it’s alright. You were only acting in protection of Commander Misty Fly,” Storm explained. “Your care for her is nothing to be ashamed of… no harm was done, so nothing to worry about. I accept your apology, no strings attached,” Storm ended. Fire looked up at Storm and smiled weakly.

“Not a very good first impression I gave you…” Fire openly berated himself. Storm shook his head.

“Actually, stepping up to defend somepony important is one of the best first impressions… at least in my opinion,” Storm tried to make Fire feel better. Fire chuckled.

“I wish I could see it like that… but thank you, it was not the best way… but I’m pleased to finally make formal acquaintance,” Fire extended a hoof over the table. Storm accepted it and they shook.

Soarin was already expecting something good… but Storm continued to wow him with how he kept his manners but also managed to stay relaxed. Storm was brought up very well… only by his father based on what Soarin had put together. Storm seemed to get nervous under pressure and have an intense fear of failure, but the fear had a good side and a bad side. The good side was that it made Storm try extra hard to bring everything he did to near perfection… the bad side was that should it go wrong anyway, it hit him like a ton of bricks and drove him down to anger and frustration in a heartbeat. Soarin could only imagine the amount of mental pressure that put on Storm at times, but it caused him to work twice as hard as most Wonderbolts Soarin knew, so he had no doubt Storm would be a great addition… not to mention that was mostly the reason he was selected for the new elite spot.

With Storm and Fire now engaged in casual conversation, Soarin decided to turn his attention to the grumpy stallion sitting across from him. Wave was looking straight down and eating his food in a slightly quickened manner that suggested he was miffed about something.

“So Chiller…” Soarin spoke up. Wave froze in the middle of taking a bite out of his toast and looked up. “You almost had her yesterday, please tell me you went to her after,” Soarin already knew the answer was no… but he wanted to hear it from Wave Chill… and hopefully how he intended to try again.

As expected, Wave sighed and shook his head.

“No… I didn’t go after her,” he dropped his toast on his plate and rubbed his forehead in frustration. “I was too pissed, it wouldn’t have worked,” he grumbled.

Soarin was at least happy to see Wave finally trying to fix it… all Spitfire did was ignore it. She had fun heated mare times currently going on, but if anything Wave could be HELPING her with that… in a certain way. She was just being stubborn as usual.

“So when are you going to try again?” Soarin asked, expecting a quick answer that he wanted to hear.

“I don’t know…” Wave answered while letting his hoof fall from his head and lightly bang against the table. Soarin flattened his ears.

“I hope that’s how you say ‘next chance I get,’ in some different language… because seriously Wave, you—”

“I KNOW what I have to do, Soarin!” Wave suddenly snapped at Soarin. He flinched immediately after and put his head down to the table. “Er… commander… I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be!” Soarin exclaimed with a chuckle. “Wave! That’s what I want to hear!” Soarin clapped his hooves together once. “I can’t get Spitfire to talk to you at all… it’s good to know you’re at least trying. Just give it another go at some point… focus on your training and workouts until you get another chance… just be ready for when you do, Spitfire is more elusive than needle in a haystack when things bother her,” Soarin rolled his eyes as he finished.

“I… yes sir… I will…” Wave took a deep breath as he sat up straight.

As they finished conversing, Silver Lining walked up with a tray and sat down on Soarin’s other side. Before Soarin could greet him though—

“Hey! Stallion table? I’m game!” Lightning Streak slapped his tray down across from Silver. Silver sighed and immediately ignored Lightning. Air Mach was following close behind.

“The mighty Animak will also accompany his fellow stallions!” Air Mach exclaimed… even though every seat at the table was taken. He pulled a seat from the table beside them and put himself at the end between Silver and Lightning.

Soarin snickered as the two instantly ruined Silver’s clear attempt to sit with Wonderbolts that didn’t annoy him. After a quick glance to his left past Storm… Soarin could tell this was going to be a comical breakfast… Blaze was approaching the table, a sly smirk on her face. Initiate countdown sequence to cocky smarmy comments in three… two… one…

“Sure are a lot of dicks hanging out at this table!” Blaze remarked as she reached the table. Lightning must’ve seen her coming because he was already looking up.

“Play your card right and by the end of the night I’ll turn you bi!” He winked at her while pointing.

“OH, YOU WISH!” Blaze yelled back while laughing so hard she almost reared back. Her eyes suddenly locked onto the table where Storm was sitting. She lifted an eyebrow as she spotted the letters sitting beside him, specifically the one with all the hearts and bubbles on it. “What have we here?” Blaze reached down and swiped up Derpy’s letter.

“Hey!” Storm instantly stood up while blushing and reached for it. Blaze shifted away.

“Ohhhhh, is this a love letter?” she cooed at him as his face turned completely red. Soarin turned and folded his ears back while looking sternly at Blaze.

“Blaze, c’mon don’t tease the rookie…” he said. But of course she didn’t listen.

“Aww… it’s covered in hearts… this is so cute I could puke!” she started hovering past the table while using her front hooves to open it.

“No! Give that back!” Storm yelled desperately as he tried to follow. Right before Blaze could open the letter though, Silver thrust his wings back. Blaze ran right into them, grunting while dropping the letter. Silver reached back and caught the letter, folding it back up and sliding it back across the table towards Storm.

“What the hell, you old bastard?!” Blaze growled as Silver casually turned around in his seat to look at her.

“I know privacy ain’t your thing, but sometimes you’re just being a bitch,” Silver said without hesitation. Blaze growled.

“Well how about I squat over your food and take a massive sh—”

“Also it’s dangerous to run while scissoring,” Silver cut her off casually while looking over Blaze’s shoulder. She stopped and let one ear flop as she tried to comprehend what he meant.

“Run while scissoring…?” Blaze mumbled.

“What was that about… scissors?” High Winds’ voice suddenly came from behind Blaze accompanied by the usual yawn. Blaze’s face suddenly turned completely red and all the stallions at the table, except for Fire Streak, burst out laughing.

“Oh, that’s just wrong…” Fire cringed, trying to keep up the proper demeanor. Blaze glared at Silver while grinding her teeth together.

“I hate your guts, you sly old asshole…” Blaze hissed at him. Silver gave her a flat, unamused look as he fully turned to face her.

“Blaze… I don’t hate you, but if you happened to set yourself on fire again… and I had a glass of water, I’d probably drink it,” he said in a mundane tone. Blaze scrunched her face as the stallions erupted in laughter again. Even Fire found himself snickering.

Soarin quickly turned to Storm as the laughing died down. This was the first time Storm had been present for Silver’s incomparable wit. He was in for a show.

“You feel like you’re missing out with Silver? Here he is!” Soarin whispered with a snicker.

“Oh yeah?!” Blaze growled. Winds put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Blazey… you know how this is gonna end…” she nonchalantly tried to convince Blaze to back off, but she never would.

“What’s it like flying with a walker?” Blaze sneered into Silver’s face. Again, Silver’s expression remained flat and unamused as he responded.

“I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and shit out a better comeback than that,” he said. Silver’s tray bounced slightly as Air Mac’s hoof pounded against the table beside it before his head hit the table as well amongst all the laughing. Blaze refused to be defeated.

“Count your grey hairs lately?!” she got in his face.

“Last time I checked, they’re all grey. If you’re gonna be a smartass, first you have to be smart… otherwise you’re just an ass,” Silver replied. Lightning leaned way back in his chair as he lost it, Fire and Wave both guffawing as well. Storm was laughing so hard that he fell out of his seat.

“Dammit…” Blaze cursed she turned and left while grumbling with Winds in tow. Soarin reached down and helped Storm off the floor.

“It’s… how does he come up with this stuff?” Storm asked as she sat back down. Soarin shrugged.

“Believe me, if I knew, I’d do it too…”

Silver turned back around and continued to casually eat his breakfast as Lightning’s chair fell back down on all fours with a loud THUMP. Silver glanced up and saw Lightning nodding at him in satisfaction.

“You’re a real piece of work Silver… sometimes you scare me, sometimes I can’t get enough of it!”

“Mmhmm…” Silver replied without interest as he ate his oatmeal.

“Damn, if I had your quick presence of mind, I’d be gettin’ mares every night!” Lightning chuckled as he looked straight up. All ears turned towards Silver as he lifted an eyebrow at Lightning.

“Wouldn’t make a difference son… With your current record, the only way you'll ever get laid is if you crawl up a chicken’s ass and wait.”

Silver went right back to eating, but not a single stallion remained sitting. Even Fire nearly flung himself out of his chair laughing as Lightning quickly looked back down with wide eyes.

“Damn, I walked right into that one…” Lightning said as he shook his head.

Fleetfoot and Surprise walked by as half the stallions continued to roll on the floor, clutching their sides while Silver casually ate his breakfast and Lightning looked completely defeated. Surprise looked at Fleetfoot, Fleetfoot looked at Surprise. They both shrugged and kept moving.

Air Mach was the last to get up and back into his seat. He pushed his sunglasses back up onto his nose and cocked a huge grin.

“You can’t challenge Silver Lining!” he exclaimed while putting an arm over Silver’s shoulders. Silver’s eyes instantly narrowed as Air Mach continued. “If you come anywhere near this raging fire, you’re sure to get burned!” he said overzealously while pointing at Lightning. Silver cleared his throat as he reach up his right hoof to grab Air Mach’s arm.

“Touch me again… and I’ll shove that hoof someplace you WON’T find it,” Silver said sternly. Air Mach instantly pulled away and saluted.

“YES SIR!” he yelled before sitting back down.

“Somehow I don’t think I ever get through to you…” Silver mumbled as Air Mach seemed unfazed by the threat.

The stallions were all focused on eating once more. It took a while, but Soarin finally got Storm to relax. Storm was having a hard time controlling his laughter. It was understandable though, it was his first Silver Lining experience. Soarin couldn’t stop laughing the first time Silver tore Rapidfire a new one either back when they were just recruits.

Speaking of recruits…

“So, Silver…” Soarin addressed the veteran beside him. “I’ve been curious. We’re at the halfway mark of the recruit training cycles, right? Which ones have been showing promise?” he asked. Silver glanced at Soarin and lifted an eyebrow.

“Which ones? I know which one you want to know about,” Silver pointed out. Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

“Well, obviously… but I am legitimately curious about the others. This is the best recruit class we’ve had in ages, or so I’m told. Storm was good enough to make an elite spot. I want to hear about some of the others. Give me a quick rundown,” Soarin requested. Silver finished his oatmeal and pushed the bowl away before exhaling.

“Okay… let’s see…” he took a moment to think before turning to Soarin. "There are six recruits that are standing out,” Silver began. Soarin instantly caught a little detail.

Six.

Silver had his eyes on six recruits… the recruit squads, once chosen after the training… were comprised of FIVE members. When Silver found talent… he stuck by it. Meaning he had a hard choice ahead of him.

“First we have Little Star. She’s incredibly small, and not the sturdiest pony around. But her hovering ability and her spirit are impressive. She’s a brave little shit too, getting in the face of ponies five times her size if they make her angry. She’s thirty… so her career might not be lengthy, but I can see her contributing positively.”

“She’s thirty?!” Soarin blinked, remembering seeing what he thought was a filly among the recruits. “Wow… that’s unexpected,” he pondered as Silver nodded.

“Matteo, the griffon… I’m not just singling him out because of that. The big bird is far stronger than any griffon I’ve ever encountered… making him strong among a race that are already naturally stronger than ponies. He’s a bit slow to get moving, but he had techniques to compensate… and he’s also quite skilled in combat scenarios,” Silver explained.

Of course there was no way Soarin wouldn’t know about Matteo. For starters, he was a griffon… and he was also the size of a train. It was good to know his size and intimidating air weren’t the only things he had to offer.

“Twister…” Silver sighed and shook his head. “That pony has more than a few dozen screws loose… but he’s not a slacker. He’s weird, he’s strange, and he’s more unstable than Surprise… but he hasn’t disrupted any of our training with it yet. He’s clearly in enough control of himself to be ambitious, so as long as that continues, he has a solid chance.”

Soarin had been curious about Twister. Every time he say the green pony, the look on his face made Soarin believe Twister should be wearing a straightjacket… but if he was keeping his antics away from the training itself, he clearly had enough of a mind to know what he needed to do to succeed in the recruit training.

“Thunderlane, whom I’ve been told you met… is—”

“A try-hard?” Soarin cut off Silver with a smirk. Silver glanced at Soarin and nodded.

“So he’s like that no matter where he is?” Silver chuckled.

"Yeah, you haven’t seen half of it,” Soarin nodded with a smile, recalling his time watching Thunderlane help repair the damage he caused to Sweet Apple Acres and refuse to lay down even when told to.

“Yeah, the kid is the least impressive of the six physically… but he has a spirit of steel. He’s been knocked down and beaten up more than any other recruit, but he always refuses to stop until he’s completed whatever I’ve thrown at him. He’s definitely one to keep looking at for now.”

Soarin was glad to hear that. Thunderlane did not have it easy making it as far as he did. He at least rightfully earned Wonderbolt status. Even if he ended up just being a reserve, Soarin could already tell it was much more than Thunderlane expected to achieve.

“Then there’s Squall…” Silver growled. Soarin blinked and looked at him quizzically.

“You don’t sound too enthused,” Soarin pointed out, curious to hear what Silver had to say.

“Yeah, I hate the kid,” Silver put bluntly while grinding his teeth. “He’s good… he’s really good. The kid is already heavily trained in advanced martial arts, he’s strong, and he’s stubborn… but his attitude… I just don’t get it,” Silver exhaled through his nose.

“I’ve seen a few incidents caused by him…” Soarin recalled as he thought about the recruit in question.

“I’ve dealt with idiots in the past that like to challenge authority… a certain deserter named Rapidfire comes to mind… but Squall… I don’t KNOW why he challenges me. Every time I yell at him, he starts smiling. Not a cocky smile… he looks happy. Seriously, what the hell?” Silver shrugged, visibly frustrated. It was an odd sight for Soarin. Silver was generally always on top of things and always knew how to handle situations, seeing him at a loss about something was… different.

“Think it’s something personal? I’ve never heard of anypony enjoying being yelled at like that. Twister might be crazy… but Squall sounds like… there may be something legitimately psychologically wrong with him,” Soarin tried putting the facts together.

“Too early to make that call,” Silver shook his head. “He’s definitely one of the best recruits we have even among the six. I’m not taking any action until it’s clear… but I don’t think I’ll have to,” he smirked. “The last recruit that’s caught my eye… is working on him for me,” he winked at Soarin.

“Dash?” Soarin cocked his head to the side. Silver nodded in satisfaction.

“My yelling ain’t doing shit to him. Rainbow Dash on the other hoof… seems to have befriended him to a certain extent… don’t ask me how the hell she managed that, but she has. If he shapes up and becomes the Wonderbolt he has the potential to be, we can thank your mare for it.”

“That’s my Dashie,” Soarin pounded his chest.

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten started…” Silver smiled. “Dash is far and away the most impressive recruit we’ve ever had. She may not have any signature moves of her own… but she can copy any movement she sees in seconds. In general, the ability to copy techniques is an incredibly unique ability… I only know two other ponies who can do that… as do you.”

“Mmhmm…” Soarin nodded. He was really excited to see Silver talk so highly of Dash. Soarin hadn’t had much of a chance to observe many of the training sessions due to his own schedule, but knowing Dash was more or less secured in becoming a fulltime recruit was one of the best things he had ever heard.

“She’s incredible, Soarin. Minus a few things here and there that are mainly due to inexperience, she’s definitely Wonderbolt material.”

“And you’re personally helping her fix those things right?” Soarin smirked and lifted an eyebrow. Silver flinched and quickly looked towards Soarin. He flattened his brow and didn’t even try to hide it.

“Okay, did she tell you I was giving her personal training?” he said with a tone of disapproval. Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

“You aren’t the only squad that uses the private gyms you know… I was walking by and I saw a rainbow through one of the windows… she doesn’t have the most subtle appearance with that mane, I can pick her out in any crowd,” Soarin explained with a hint of pride.

“Heh…” Silver smiled and rolled his eyes. “Listen, Soarin… I chose to train Rainbow Dash for more than one reason. Her abilities are great… but it’s what she has inside,” Silver tapped a hoof over his heart. “She’s got ambition and drive… she’s got an incredible willingness and desire to learn and improve herself. She’s never fast enough, never strong enough, never good enough… she has no limits. She’s also set on succeeding… and quick to take control of situations that are out of hoof… that’s captain material right there, the most condensed into one pony I have ever seen,” Silver looked away from Soarin.

“I ain’t gonna sugarcoat it for myself Soarin… I’ve lasted this long, but I don’t know how much longer until my body finally gives out and I have to retire. Every morning my body is so stiff that I can barely get out of bed. I keep up with the training, but it gets harder every day and the strain is taking its toll,” he looked back at Soarin. “I’ve been a Wonderbolt for a very long time. I’ve seen, learned, and experienced more than anypony in this compound… and I want to pass it on.”

Soarin’s ears perked up when he heard that. He had never really considered Silver’s retirement… Silver had always been there since even before Soarin was a Wonderbolt. It seemed that Soarin and many others in the compound liked to not think about Silver leaving… because the day he did would be sad. He’d probably find a way to keep working for the Wonderbolts, but no longer flying beside him would be a blow to morale for a long time. But this was interesting… he wanted to leave his wisdom behind… through Dash?

“I mean no offense to any of the current Wonderbolts… but Rainbow Dash is the best candidate for this… Everything about her makes her perfect. The way she strives to better herself, the way she absorbs information physically and visually. I was overjoyed when I saw her pass the tryouts, because I could see this the very first day of the tryouts… she’s unique Soarin… she may be a bit brash, and a loose cannon at times… but god damn she’s unique.”

“Why do you think I love that mare?” Soarin added with a smile. Silver snorted.

“Because ‘simple’ isn’t in your dictionary…” Silver fired back while eyeing Soarin’s fake horn. Soarin glanced up at his horn as well and tipped his head back and forth.

“Fair enough…” Soarin shrugged. “So six, huh?” Soarin brought up the issue he recognized earlier. Silver sighed and nodded.

“Yeah… six… I know, I can only choose five…”

Soarin watched with curiosity as Silver kept his eyes down, but slowly smiled.

“I don’t like when you smile like that, it makes me nervous…” Soarin joked. “I take it you’ve come up with a way to figure this out?” Soarin asked. Silver nodded as he looked up, but still away from Soarin.

“The rest of the recruits aren’t going to do very well… but I really need to see how these six handle it. It may be the deciding factor in which one ultimately has to go, assuming they keep up the fine work they’ve done so well…”

“You are a master of suspense,” Soarin joked. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Silver finally turned and looked at Soarin with an amused look plastered to his face.

“I’ve already gotten authorization from Spitfire… I’m bringing back ‘The Test.’”

Soarin blinked.

“The… Test?” Soarin pondered to himself. Then his eyes widened. “OH!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Sorry for the little extra wait. I've been busy with family gatherings and such for thanksgiving. (I also have the new wii U smash bros... that's not helping my productivity xD)

Nothing too special here... just a little character development and some good old Silver humor. We have one more chapter before a second brief time skip (12 days) to reach the concluding days of the tryouts... wrap up some minor plot points, and conclude part 2. Then we will officially be halfway through the story. (I wonder what "The Test" is? trololoooooo)

I was going to post an art blog tonight... but its late and im super tired. I have A LOT of art to post, including some art that i've yet to share from Mlplover that she has had up for a while that's been very interesting to me. I'll get that blog up at some point after i get back from the gym tomorrow morning.

Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 60: The Wonderbolts do EVERYTHING awesome

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 60:

“This is pretty intense for a game of dodgeball…” Thunderlane commented as he stared up into the airspace of the west main gymnasium. “Can the Wonderbolts do anything without it turning into a—”

“TOO MUCH TALKING!” Dash suddenly cut him off and stuffed her hoof in his mouth without looking.

She was too busy staring in awe at the ‘dodgeball’ match going on above them.

“ARGH!” Soarin grunted as he took a high speed ball to the chest and was thrown backward. “Crap, crap, crap!” he yelled as he tried to even out and slow himself down, but right before he turned—

“Out of bounds!” Silver yelled from above. Soarin was already moving back in, but came to an abrupt halt while looking up at Silver.

“Dammit…” he cursed and shook his head.

“First round goes to team A!” Silver called out as he pointed. Past the middle line of the gym, Spitfire, and the Streak twins hovered in place as four of their other five teammates cheered from below.

Soarin’s seven teammates all floated up from the ground, Fleetfoot hovering up beside him.

“Nice dodge, princess,” she said sarcastically. Soarin pushed her away playfully.

“At least I wasn’t the first one out…” he shot back. Fleetfoot shrugged.

“Hey, I hit the only target I cared about first,” she chuckled as they looked over to Spitfire’s side. Air Mach was still on the ground below, hooves clutching his crotch as he took deep breaths and twitched.

“You’re brutal,” Soarin cringed as he saw Wave Chill land to help Air Mach to his hooves.

“I’m honest!” Fleetfoot said with a fake bright smile, puckering her lips and batting her eyelashes as if an angel halo was floating above her head.

The recruits were all sitting off to the side, watching from below. Dash was literally bouncing after what she had just witnessed. The Wonderbolts made EVERYTHING awesome, even dodgeball!

This version of dodgeball was played up in the air with two teams of eight. Squad one, three, fourteen, and nineteen were participating. Each squad was split into two so that each team had two members from each squad. They played in the middle of the gym, divided in half. Squad two and squad seven were present, acting as both the officiating crew, and as the markers for the invisible boundaries, creating a ‘box’ around the playing field that was forty yards long, and twenty yards wide and tall, creating a twenty by twenty yard area of movement for both teams when split down the middle.

The point of the game was not simply to strike your opponent with a dodgeball, but to hit them hard enough with one to knock them out of flight and send them past the invisible boundaries. Each Wonderbolt donned a light, padded face-guard to protect the eyes and nose. If they flew or tumbled out of bounds, they were out until the next round.

The dodgeballs were being collected by a crew of earth ponies on the floor who were feeding them into low powered cannons that fired them up to the Wonderbolts. As the balls flew up, the Wonderbolts could catch and throw them… or they could kick, punch, or bat them with their wings towards their opponents. This opened up many different strategies, including reflecting dodge balls back at those who initially launched them since simply being hit didn’t count as being out. However, one also now had to be aware of the balls coming up from below. The cannons were low powered, but it didn’t mean they didn’t pack enough oomph to throw a Wonderbolt off balance from below.

Soarin’s team consisted of him, Fleetfoot, Surprise, and Misty Fly along with two members from both squad fourteen and nineteen.

Spitfire’s team had her, Air Mach, the streak twins and the other members of fourteen and nineteen.

The match was best of three rounds and Soarin’s team had just lost the first round, meaning Spitfire’s team needed just one more victory to win the match.

Dash was so excited she felt like she would burst into confetti, Pinkie Pie style. The first round was already one of the coolest things she had ever seen. She wanted Soarin’s team to win because of Soarin obviously, but now she also wanted Soarin’s team to win so it would go for three rounds instead of just two!

As they were setting up for the next round, Dash took a look around at the two squads officiating. It didn’t look fun at all, but it was amusing to see Blaze fidgeting. She clearly wanted to play, but she was stuck officiating and being a boundary marker. Storm was up there as well. Squad seven was probably purposely brought in as part of the boundary crew to give Storm the chance to observe a ‘skill game’ practice as Silver had called it.

Speaking of Silver, he was acting as the main referee, starting and ending the matches as well as being the last boundary marker. He was patiently waiting for the earth ponies below to gather up the rest of the dodge balls and load up the cannons before starting the second round.

“This sucks! Why do we have to be the referee crew?!” Blaze suddenly blurted out from behind Spitfire’s team. Spitfire just rolled her eyes and didn’t even look as her half-sister whined. “Seriously, we were last time too! Can I sub in?” she yelled down. Then suddenly, a dodge ball came out of nowhere and hit her square in the face. “OW!” she quickly grabbed her face before looking up and glaring out, a large red mark where she got hit. “WHO THREW THAT?!”

“You’re so bad…” Soarin rolled his eyes and glanced at Fleetfoot who was smiling innocently.

“My hoof slipped,” she shrugged while sticking out her tongue.

“All set!” an earth pony yelled from below up to Silver. Soarin looked down as well briefly before turning to his team.

“Alright, new strategy…” he addressed his team. “Spitfire first. She’s the most dangerous,” he said simply. He got nods from everypony except for Misty, who wasn’t even looking at him. “Oh… right…” Soarin tapped Misty on the shoulder. She looked at him. “Um…” Soarin had his hooves up, ready to make signs, but he didn’t quite know enough of the sign language to express what he wanted.

“I got this,” Fleetfoot nudged him aside and looked Misty in the eyes. Fleetfoot turned and pointed towards Spitfire, then rammed one of her hooves into the other before lifting an eyebrow. Misty blinked then smiled and nodded. “I think we have an understanding here!” Fleetfoot giggled as she turned and got ready for the match to begin.

On the other side, Lightning was hovering behind Fire in a teasing manner.

“Twenty bits you won’t throw a single ball at Misty…”

“Brother, I’m respecting her ability,” Fire growled as Lightning kept swaying back and forth behind him.

“Tell that to last round… either you didn’t or your aim sucks that hard,” Lightning chuckled. Fire puffed his cheeks out and exhaled.

“Sh-shut up…” he huffed.

“I KNEW IT!” Lightning did a back flip in midair while laughing.

“Streaks!” Spitfire suddenly yelled, causing them both to flinch and look towards her. “Ready up, the next round is starting!” she yelled before focusing forward.

On the other side Soarin and his team prepared to play as well.

“Remember… Spitfire first!” he reminded his team quietly.

From his spot Silver looked down at the earth ponies as they moved into positions to quickly retrieve fallen dodgeballs, then looked back up.

“Round two! GO!” he yelled.

As soon as Silver gave the order, the cannons fired from below, sending five dodgeballs up into the air on both sides.

“HA!” Air Mach grabbed a ball, struck an upright pose, and pointed the ball forward towards Soarin’s team. “The great Animak stands strong and ready to meet any challen—”

A dodgeball screamed through the air and floored him right between the hind legs… again…

The other four dodgeballs from Soarin’s team flew towards Spitfire. She dipped and dodged them skillfully before glancing at Air Mach and rolling her eyes.

“Almonds… Pistachios… Pecans… oh my…” Air Mach’s voice squeaked in a high pitch as he slowly fell all the way to the floor again while twitching and clutching his lower regions.

“I SAID AT SPITFIRE!” Soarin growled towards Fleetfoot as he ducked an incoming ball.

“Hey! I’m not a very accurate thrower!” Fleetfoot said with an obvious smirk as she batted a ball down with a wing.

“My ass you’re not! Three direct hits to ‘key targets?’” Soarin scoffed as he caught a ball flying up from below and launched it hard into the gut of a member of squad nineteen, knocking him back hard and out of bounds.

“I prefer to call them targets of interest!” Fleetfoot chuckled as she leaned back to dodge an incoming ball. It flew over her and clocked one of their squad fourteen members across the jaw, sending her in a spiral to the ground.

“Your interest?” Soarin scoffed as he punched a ball, sending it back at Fire Streak, but Fire deflected it.

“It’s the best kind of interest! OOF!” Fleetfoot grunted as she took a dodgeball to the chest. She wrapped her hooves around it to catch it, but was sent backward. She stuck her wings out and glared towards Lightning Streak who turned kissed his hoof, turned around and spanked his plot. “Oh, hell no!” Fleetfoot growled towards him.

“So bro…” Lightning smiled as he began dodging multiple incoming balls all thrown by Fleetfoot. “Still haven’t thrown one at Misty,” he taunted.

“I’m getting there!” Fire growled as he caught a ball that glanced off Lightning’s shoulder.

“I still say you won’t!” Lightning said again. Fire glared at him.

“FINE!” Fire gritted his teeth.

“Oh shit, he’s gonna do it!” Lightning announced as he kept rapidly dodging Fleetfoot’s assault.

Fire took the ball and aimed for Misty. There was a brief hesitation, but he respected her as a Wonderbolt, and going easy on her was not respecting her. Besides… she was using her ‘blind fighting’ technique. There was no way he’d actually hit her… right? Too late…

Fire launched the ball at Misty. Misty remained in place, eyes closed, wings sensing the faint changes in the air around her. The ball was headed right for her face. Fire suddenly became alarmed. She was about to get hit!

At the last moment, Misty’s wings twitched. She spun, swiping the ball right out of the air with a hoof while spinning, adding her own momentum to the ball, and sling-shooting it back at three times the speed. The ball seared over the mid line and caught Lightning right in the forehead, whiplashing him backward and sending him flipping out of bounds.

Fire watched as his brother landed roughly on the ground before staring back at Misty.

“Heh, serves him right…” Fire smirked, then his eyes widened. “SWEET CELESTIA!”

“INCOMIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!” Surprise yelled from behind Soarin and Fleetfoot. She somehow had fifteen dodge balls stacked up in BOTH of her front hooves. She tossed them up in the air and began twisting as they fell with her wings outstretched. They launched the balls one by one rapidly towards the other team. Spitfire and Fire Streak dove out of the way, but the members remaining from squad fourteen and nineteen were all pummeled and sent out of bounds.

“A little more warning next time, Surprise?!” Soarin chuckled. She got directly in his face with her face and mouth scrunched.

“But why ruin…” she spoke in a VERY low and raspy tone as a pair of sunglasses suddenly fell over her eyes. “The surprise?!?!”

“YEEEEAAAAACHOO!!!” Blaze suddenly sneezed. “Whoa… that sneeze came out of nowhere…” she blinked and sniffled. A dodgeball suddenly zipped towards her and struck her directly in the face… again. “ARGH!!!! WHAT THE HELL?!” she clutched her face.

“Fleet…” Soarin pushed Surprise away and stared flatly at Fleetfoot.

“What makes you think I did that?” she asked while puckering her lips and pressing her hooves to her chest. Soarin didn’t change his expression. “Oh, who am I kidding…” she giggled as they both turned and faced their opponents.

They were in an incredibly favorable position. Soarin still had Fleetfoot, Surprise, and Misty up, as well as all but one of his low tier elites. They had lost one member of squad fourteen and that was it, as opposed to Spitfire’s team, where the only other Wonderbolt standing was Fire Streak.

“Fire!” Spitfire quickly yanked him close and spoke quietly. “They’re all going to aim for me, take them out for me while they do!”

“What?” Fire blinked.

“GO!” Spitfire pushed him away as she dipped down to avoid incoming balls.

“Spitfire! Get Spitfire!” Soarin yelled to his teammates. “Oof!” he grunted as a dodgeball struck him in the side. He was pushed back but held steady. He turned to look back towards his opponents, but as he did two more dodge balls came flying at him. He folded his wings and dropped, effectively dodging them, but the low tier elite behind him wasn’t so lucky. A member of squad nineteen took both of dodge balls to the chest rapidly. He was thrown back and ran into Surprise.

“EEP!” Surprise yelped as the two both fell out the back of their zone.

“Damn!” Soarin glanced at them before looking back. Spitfire and Fire Streak were in the process of dodging as Fleetfoot, Misty, and the other two low tiers continued their offensive. Soarin pumped his wings to join, but watched closely as he did. Spitfire was making no effort to attack. After Fleetfoot and the low tiers launched a new wave of dodgeballs, Spitfire simply flew in circles, changing her speed to avoid the attacks. At the same time, Fire was throwing counter attacks.

“Back up!” Soarin suddenly yelled as he stopped his own advance. Fleetfoot’s ears perked up and she quickly turned around, grabbing Misty by the shoulders and yanking her back as well. The remaining member of squad fourteen was late, but made it. Unfortunately the last of squad nineteen was taken out, knocked up and out of bounds by a ball fired up from below.

Soarin quickly pulled them in.

“I’m going to give an order to hit Fire Streak, but when I do I want the three of us to hit Spitfire instead,” Soarin whispered to Fleetfoot and the low tier. Misty tipped her head in confusion. Soarin gave her a quick look, put both hooves up in front of him at shoulder width and twisted them while moving them aside.

Misty quickly nodded.

“Okay let’s WHOA!” Soarin was sure they had only taken a few seconds, but apparently it was enough time for Spitfire to launch a dodgeball at incredibly high speed. Soarin leaned to the side, but the ball ricocheted off his face guard and directly into the face of the last low tier with a loud POW. The last squad fourteen Wonderbolt was knocked right out of the air and out of bounds. “Stick with the plan!” Soarin yelled to Fleetfoot.

It was foolproof, except for one specific part.

Fire saw Soarin make the sign language for ‘distract’ to Misty Fly. Misty was in front, almost purposely trying to draw their attention. Spitfire had already thrown two at her, but Misty was quick and relied on her sharpened sense of touch, rendering her almost impossible to hit directly. Fire could tell something was up, but he didn’t know what exactly… until he saw Soarin and Fleetfoot rush forward, each with two dodge balls.

“Captain! Incoming!” Fire yelled, alerting Spitfire to their approach. Spitfire glanced and focused on her approaching squad mates. She turned and got ready to dodge but—

“HIT FIRE STREAK!” Soarin yelled out.

“Uh oh…” Fire’s eyes widened as they both suddenly turned to him. He was much closer to the middle line than Spitfire… and Soarin and Fleetfoot were already winding up to throw. Spitfire broke her focus and turned to Fire.

“NOW!” Soarin yelled. He and Fleetfoot changed direction mid throw, sending their first throws careening towards Spitfire instead.

Spitfire only had time to shield herself as the first two struck against her arms, pushing her backward. Soarin and Fleetfoot wound up and fired their second throws. Soarin’s struck her in the arms again, but Fleetfoot’s dodgeball nicked Spitfire in on the left wing mid flap.

“Whoa!” Spitfire yelped as she suddenly spun and tipped downward, a few yellow feathers tossing up where her wing was struck. She spun out of control only briefly, regaining her equilibrium… but was instantly struck in the stomach by one of the serving cannons below. She exhaled as it hit her right in the diaphragm. The air got forced out of her lungs and she started falling limply while gasping for air.

“Oh… that’s gonna hurt…” Soarin winced as he saw Spitfire tumbling awkwardly towards the floor. Soarin suddenly felt the need to help, despite having just pelted her with dodgeballs, but he was way too far away, and couldn’t use the Sonic Blastoff while airborne. It wasn’t like Spitfire had never taken a fall before, so ultimately he wasn’t worried.

“Captain!” Storm front detached from his boundary marker spot and dove towards her. His protection reflexes kicked in hard.

Spitfire continued to flail and grunt as she tried to even out, but it was clear to her she was about to have a rough, possibly awkward landing.

Storm was on the verge of catching her, but—

“GOTCHA!” Wave Chill swiftly whisked by and caught Spitfire right before Storm could grab her. Storm instantly pulled up and glided around to see Wave holding the dizzy Spitfire in his arms.

Spitfire shook her head and bumped a hoof against it a few times and blinked.

“A-are you o-okay?” a familiar voice stuttered beside her. Spitfire flinched as she heard the voice and slowly turned her head to see Wave Chill holding onto her. He had his eyes averted, a slight blush creeping onto his nose.

“Um…” Spitfire’s face turned from yellow to red. She looked away as well… but directly into multiple pairs of eyes. She froze as she saw where they had stopped. Wave looked over as well and his eyes widened.

He had caught her and stopped right in front of all the recruits. Most of stallions were blankly staring… and most of the mares had starry eyes. One in particular, the tiny yellow mare, was slowly hovering up from the floor with her little hooves squishing her little cheeks together.

“I’m fine!” Spitfire quickly pushed off and put a few feet of distance between her and Wave. From above, Fleetfoot was trying her hardest not to laugh.

“Whoa! Look at who got bold all of a sudden!” she chuckled while pointing towards Wave.

“Fleet! Look out!” Soarin tried to warn her.

“PRFF” Fleetfoot’s voice sputtered as a dodgeball seared through the air and struck her in the cheek of her face guard, squishing her face with the impact and sending her spiraling way out of bounds.

Soarin quickly turned and saw Fire backing up to grab another ball. The match wasn’t over, Fleetfoot should have known better.

What started as seven on two was suddenly two on one… a much more manageable situation for the other team even if the odds were still in Soarin’s favor. He also had Misty Fly, so he doubted he would lose.

Soarin turned to Misty and waved to get her attention. She looked at him and blinked. Soarin pointed to her, then one side of their half, then pointed to himself and pointed to the other half. Then he brought his hooves together. This was not sign language, but it was meant to communicate ‘flank and attack from opposite sides.’ Misty had gotten used to reading simple movements like this as well, and she easily understood.

The Wonderbolts who had been knocked out stood off to the side and watched as Soarin and Misty prepared their maneuver, each grabbing a dodge ball as they floated up to them.

Fire had a ball tucked in one hoof, keeping the other free to deflect if need be. He obviously needed to go on the defensive. Both Misty and Soarin outclassed him in pure skill. As much as he didn’t want to, he decided to focus on Misty. After the way she took out his brother, he couldn’t afford to keep his eyes off her. Soarin was better than her, but much more predictable. If he could get her out quickly, he could focus on Soarin without worrying about Misty’s surprise attacks.

Fire had an idea. He hated exploiting Misty’s own strength against her, but this could work.

“Ha!” Soarin launched a dodge ball at him. Fire ducked and dipped down, snatching a second dodgeball out of the air as it flew up from the cannons below. Misty hurled her dodge ball at Fire as Soarin glanced back and whipped backward to grab a dodgeball flying up near the back of their area. Fire twisted and flew right up to the mid-line. Misty already had her eyes closed and her wings ready in her usual ‘detection’ defensive stance.

Perfect.

Fire gently tossed one of the dodge balls towards Misty. It moved so slowly and lazily towards her that it barely created and scant air movements. Misty still felt it, but swiped her arm out immediately, confused when she hit nothing. The ball lightly bounced off her chest. She opened her eyes and looked down at it as it fell.

“Forgive me Misty!” Fire whispered to himself as he wound up and fired the second dodgeball towards her. Misty’s head snapped up… and in a TREMENDOUS display of reflexes, twisted her body while swiping her opposite hoof around. Her hoof struck the dodgeball, slightly altering its course without killing any of its speed… but accidentally sending it straight for Soarin.

Soarin was in the middle of turning around after grabbing a new dodgeball…

The incoming ball’s trajectory and speed mixed with the angle of Soarin’s head and his movement in the opposite direction caused an unfortunate, spot on impact…

The false horn had already been hit six times during the match… Soarin had been worried about it, but the metal headband was keeping it in place as it had the whole time. Soarin hadn’t felt anything abnormal upon it being struck… but odds would have it that this time it was struck in such a precise way that transferred all the force of the powerful throw directly into it, amplifying it with the opposite movement of Soarin’s head. There was a bright blue flash.

“ARGH!” Soarin wailed as he fell towards the ground. It didn’t look like he simply fell, it looked like he was propelled down by the flash of light.

Everypony in the area froze. Fire and Misty both stopped and looked towards Soarin.

“SOARIN!” Dash was up on her hooves and in the air instantly. Spitfire and Fleetfoot took off as well.

“Rgh!” Soarin grunted as blue sparks crackled and popped from the horn.

Fire remained still in midair, terrified that he may have caused another catastrophe. He remembered well what happened the last time Soarin had a magical mishap… the memory of Misty being in so much pain was one he wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

Misty on the other hoof, quit the field of play and flew down to check on Soarin despite the former disaster.

As all four mares approached, Soarin suddenly held his arms out to stop them.

“Wait! Wait! Hold on!” he said as he grunted. All four of them came to an abrupt halt, Misty only stopping because Spitfire reached out and caught her by the arm. The magic was sputtering wildly around the horn. A small aura kept growing and shrinking around it as bits of magical energy crackled and popped both around the horn and around Soarin’s head.

Soarin slowly stood up and firmly planted all four of his hooves on the floor. He dipped his head down and gritted his teeth.

“HRGH!!!!!” He suddenly grunted as his neck and shoulder muscles flexed and strained.

Dash’s eyes widened slightly as the magic began to calm. The aura stopped pulsating and only shrunk. The sparks and pops subsided and eventually all the magic receded into the horn. The horn itself glowed for a moment but eventually completely stopped. Soarin released a loud exhale and dropped back to the ground while panting. He looked up at them and smiled.

“See? No big deal… I got it…” he sighed in relief and slowly stood up. Dash and Spitfire were instantly at his side. Spitfire did NOT look happy.

“Soarin… you told me it could handle impact!” she snapped at him as Soarin took a few deep breaths.

“It did… it got hit a bunch before this… I think the ball hit it literally just right,” Soarin chuckled. Spitfire didn’t find it very funny, but before she could say anything, Fleetfoot cut her off.

“But hey! You kept it down! Right?” she leaned over and gave Spitfire a nudge. “I mean, that’s showing he made progress, riiiiight?” she smiled at Spitfire. When Spitfire’s expression remained stoic, Fleetfoot flattened her brow. “You’re real good at encouragement, Spitty…”

“Is it okay to worry about Wonderbolt safety?” Spitfire rolled her eyes.

Dash watched as the two bickered back and forth, she looked up and saw Soarin, covered in sweat, and looking slightly put off. She quickly alleviated that.

“By the way, are you okay?” she asked with a slight smirk. Soarin blinked and looked down at Dash beside him. Seeing her bright smarmy face made him smile.

“Thanks for being the only one to ask,” he replied while rolling his eyes.

“You were able to hold it back though?” Dash asked, again making Soarin happy for actually noticing.

“Yeah, I’ve been getting much more control over the magic lately in general. I think it’s starting to listen to me… a little mishap is now manageable. Discord’s little head balancer thingy has been helping too.”

“Okay! Let’s just finish this match, alright?!” Spitfire yelled into Fleetfoot’s face, bringing Soarin and Dash back to the situation at hand. Spitfire was clearly frustrated… but was she that put off by Soarin’s magic making a brief entrance? Soarin knew Wave catching her before had something to do with it, Spitfire was too easy to read.

“Actually the match is over…” Silver hovered down by them. Soarin’s ears perked up.

“What? But…” he looked up. Fire had not left the playing field… but Misty… was down with him. Silver pointed at Misty.

“Misty left the playing field. So Spitfire’s team wins again. Two wins. That’s the match.

“Aw…” Soarin grunted in frustration. Dash was disappointed as well, she wanted to see more.

“Dinner’s starting soon anyway, those were long matches,” Silver pointed at the clock by the entrance.

“Fine by me!” Blaze instantly lowered to the ground as Silver went to gather the recruits. “I’m tired of watching everypony else have fun!” A dodgeball came flying in and struck her directly in the face… a third time. “WHAT THE F—WHO KEEPS DOING THAT?!” she demanded and snarled and looked in every direction while rubbing her face.

Soarin glanced at Fleetfoot hiding behind him.

“Okay Fleet, that’s enough…” he said casually.

“Had to get one more!” she giggled to herself as Blaze pinned and questioned one of the earth pony helpers to the floor, accusing him of throwing it. Spitfire stepped up.

“Squad one, two, and three! Gather up for a quick meeting! And somepony get Blaze off of him before the unions breath down my neck!” she ordered as High Winds and Wave Chill pulled Blaze away from the earth pony.

Soarin glanced towards the recruits and reached back to nudge Dash along.

“Silver’s giving a little talk before sending you guys to dinner… get going,” he winked.

“See ya,” Dash gave his shoulder a quick nuzzle before heading off to follow. Soarin watched her leave before something else nearby caught his attention.

Air Mach was still subtly twitching on the floor, holding his stallionhood.

“Yikes, dude… how hard did she hit you?” Soarin chuckled.

“My descendants have been cursed…” Air Mach sputtered.

“HOLD UP!” Twister yelled, stopping Dash and her friends in place right outside the door. Twister looked back and forth. “These are dangerous waters! I’ll scout ahead!” he said before lifting off and zipping down the hallway.

They all just stared and blinked for a second before shrugging and moving on towards the mess hall.

“Twister is still very Twister, I see…” Storm Front chuckled. He had hung back to walk with his old tryout buddies. Dash rolled her eyes.

“I’d tell you more, but I don’t think you’d believe it,” Dash scoffed.

“Oh?” Storm lifted an eyebrow. Little Star hovered up beside him.

“Mare’s bathroom poetry… rubber knife murders… the kind of stuff you really can’t make up!” she said casually. Storm had only recently met Little Star due to spending little bits of time with Dash, Matteo, Twister, and Thunderlane, but Star was quick to befriend him.

“You know, if it were anypony else… I’d probably be very disturbed,” Storm joked, which Dash found ironic because that was specifically something Twister himself admitted.

Dash couldn’t help but smile. Storm had a way of making others around him happy. Matteo respected him for his achievements, Thunderlane was inspired by him, Twister didn’t faze him, Little Star instantly got along with him, and in general he gave off a good vibe to Dash… however…

Dash glanced behind her subtly… Squall was lagging slightly behind the group… and glaring directly at Storm. She thought she had saw him do so a few times in the past, but now that Squall was making somewhat of an effort to stick with them, it was clear as day. Squall seemed perfectly fine so far as the day went on, but when Storm joined them, he went right to being broody and scowling.

Was Squall jealous of how Storm seemed to soak in their attention?

Dash was certain Storm was aware of it… Squall wasn’t being very inconspicuous about it. Dash was hoping to figure it out before it caused any problems… but unfortunately, Storm’s curiosity beat her to it as he glanced back and caught Squall’s glare.

Storm sighed and stopped. The rest of them all stopped as well as if they were tethered to him. Squall took two more steps forward before stopping, his expression unchanged.

“Squall… right?” Storm recalled his name. “Why do you keep giving me the evil eyes?”

“I don’t like you,” Squall quickly and flatly answered. Dash bit her bottom lip and glanced at the others. Star and Thunderlane were watching with curiosity. Matteo had his eyes fixed on them as if ready to move if something happened. She liked Matteo’s approach… with Squall’s outburst record it was probably a good idea.

“Um…” Storm tipped his head and let one of his ears flop down. “Okay? Uh… why not?” Storm asked calmly.

“I just… don’t,” Squall answered, the brief hesitation clear to the rest.

Dash suddenly had a theory. Squall was definitely one that liked to solve problems with his hooves rather than his brain… individuals liked that tended to have lots of pride. Dash was the top recruit in the tryouts… Squall was in the top three as well. Storm wasn’t even in the top five and was selected for the elite spot. Dash remembered well how she felt immediately after finding that out. She wondered if Squall felt the same way, but instead of getting over it like her, was Squall still dwelling on it?

“That’s not a very good reason…” Storm looked at him flatly. Squall growled and stepped up. Dash and Matteo both watched carefully. The growl was the first sign of Squall doing something stupid.

“I don’t get how your worthless ass became an elite Wonderbolt over me!” Squall suddenly belted. Dash blinked. Yep, she hit the nail right on the head.

“Excuse me?!” Storm pulled his neck back slightly as Squall scrunched his face in anger and pointed at Storm.

“What did it take, huh? Did you suck a few dicks? Sleep with a few of the mares? You got their favor somehow! What, did your family pay you in?” Squall continued to irrationally yell at Storm. Dash quickly stepped up.

“HEY!” she yelled as she got between them, put the crown of her head into Squall’s chest, and slightly pushed him back. “Squall! Storm earned his spot in the Wonderbolts!” she tapped his chest with her hoof. “Just because they didn’t choose you, doesn’t mean he cheated his way in!” she almost wished she had left that part out because it clearly made Squall livid. So much for making him trust her, she forgot how fragile it could be with types like Squall.

“Yeah, right!” Squall refocused on Storm. “Walking around, being the center of attention and soaking it all up. You’re the kind of goody, goody pussy that’s always gotten what they want! That shitfaced smile you wear around says it all!” Dash glanced at Storm. His expression was very distraught and devoid of retaliation, as if he was letting Squall vent and knew that trying to stop him before he was finished was pointless. “I bet you’ve never earned anything for yourself!” Squall continued. “It’s all been handed to you! Your whole life your parents spoiling you and giving you everything you’ve ever—”

“DON’T TALK LIKE YOU KNOW MY FAMILY!” Storm suddenly exploded. Dash yelped in surprise and could barely turn before Storm roughly pushed her aside and he butted heads with Squall. Storm pushed Squall back, forcing him all the way up against the wall behind him despite Squall’s size advantage.

Dash regained herself and looked over the two of them, alarmed.

Family… Squall made a comment about family… and Storm just lost his mind in an instant. Dash had yet to see Storm like this, but it was clear why. Of course the subject of family was an incredibly sensitive spot for Storm, and Squall had just stepped on it.

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT FAMILY, HUH?!” Storm spat in Squall’s face as the two began pushing hard against each other. “I BET YOU’VE NEVER GIVEN A DAMN ABOUT FAMILY!”

“AT LEAST I DON’T NEED MY HOOF HELD TO DO EVERYTHING!” Squall fired back.

“I BET YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT HAVING YOUR HOOF HELD FEELS LIKE, YOU LONE WOLF BASTARD!” Storm had completely lost it… and Dash didn’t like it.

“Storm!” Dash yelled as she stepped back up and grabbed his arm. “Storm! Get a hold of yourself! OOF!” Dash grunted as he shook her off. “STORM!” Dash grabbed him again.

Storm violently swung his arm… hitting Dash REALLY HARD, square on the nose. A shock of pain ran right through her face to the back of her head.

Art by: eveyann

“AHH!!” Dash yelped as she stumbled backwards and crouched down with her face to the floor.

“Dash!” Matteo quickly stepped up. He couldn’t see Dash’s face, but there was blood trickling over her hoof and dripping onto the floor. She had a bloody nose. Matteo quickly put himself between Dash and the two stallions at each other’s throats. Thunderlane and Little Star both quickly approached Dash to make sure she was okay.

“ADMIT IT! YOU WERE GIVEN A FAVOR!” Squall yelled into Storm’s face. “NOT EVEN IN THE TOP THREE! HOW ELSE DID YOU GET CHOSEN?!”

“OH, I SEE!” Storm smirked and pulled his head away, seemingly calming down. “If you’re so damn good…” Storm tapped his hooves against his Wonderbolt Uniform. “Then how come you’re not wearing one of these, hm? I sense some serious plothurt over here!”

The change from yelling to smarm and the shot to the pride seemed to have exactly the effect Storm was going for. Squall’s steadfast air changed to one of pure rage. Before anypony knew what was happening, Squall threw a punch.

Storm blocked the punch and threw one of his own, missing and stumbling forward. Squall stepped past him and readied to spin around with another punch, but Storm hopped up and used his rapid ‘surface tap” with his back hooves against the wall. The two lunged forward, crossing arms and punching each other in the face.

Matteo quickly turned, scooped up Dash, Thunderlane, and Little Star in his large arms and moved them a few yards away before turning and making haste towards the fight.

Matteo tried to step in and stop them, but they completely ignored him, stepping around the bulk of the large griffon and diving at each other again and again. Matteo knew if he could just get them in his strong grip, they wouldn’t get free, but they weren’t sitting still, slipping away each time he tried. It looked like nothing could stop them, but then—

“WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!!!!! HEY!!!!!!!” Soarin yelled as he and Fleetfoot rushed forward. Soarin grabbed Storm and yanked him away as Fleetfoot helped Matteo corner and restrain Squall.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT HERE?!” Silver’s voice echoed throughout the hallway as he galloped forward. He stopped as he saw both Storm and Squall being restrained. The two had a couple of fresh bruises and they were struggling and growling at each other.

Storm was not Silver’s responsibility… but Squall…

Silver sharply turned to Squall and stomped towards him. He got in his face and readied to give him a piece of his mind… but then he saw the small smirk forming on Squall’s lips. The one that lead to the strange smile he always wore when Silver verbally abused him.

“You know what…? No,” Silver said quietly, before turning away. “You’re simply messed up son… really messed up.”

It had a noticeable effect. Squall’s eyes changed and the smirk disappeared as if he was extremely disappointed that he didn’t get yelled at. Silver just kept his back turned to him.

Soarin let Storm go as soon as he calmed down and quickly turned his attention to Dash.

“Dash!!!” he shouted in horror as he saw the blood both on the floor and oozing over her hooves. Thunderlane and Little Star backed away as Soarin crouched down and gently supported her head.

“Ack… Soarin?” Dash’s voice sounded stuffed up. She slowly removed her arms from around her face and sure enough, blood was flowing from her right nostril, running slowly around her lips and dripping off her chin.

Soarin’s expression turned to anger and he sharply looked at Squall, assuming he had done this, but he blinked in surprise when Dash reached up her clean hoof and grabbed Soarin.

“Soarin! Squall didn’t do this!” she defended him to the surprise of everypony there… including Silver. “Storm…” Dash said simply as she paused to wipe blood off of her face.

“What?!” Soarin looked up in confusion. Storm was in the process of trudging away, but Fleetfoot zipped past them to stop him.

“Hold it you…” she said as she got in Storm’s path. He stopped in his tracks, obeying a superior officer.

“It wasn’t on purpose…” Dash clarified as she tried to sniffle but it only caused her to cough painfully. “It’s still Squall’s fault…” Dash said as she rapidly stood up. Soarin glanced at Dash in surprise as she walked right past him and up to Squall, vigorously rubbing the blood off her chin and mouth as she got in his face.

“Well?!” she began as Matteo let go of Squall and backed away. “Are you happy now?!” she snapped. “Why did you say those things to Storm, huh? What did it accomplish!?” she yelled.

Silver watched closely. Whenever he yelled at Squall, all he got in return was the weird smile… but Dash yelling at him seemed to have a different effect. Squall’s eyes were darting back and forth and he turned his head away.

“LOOK AT ME!” Dash shouted while reaching up and forcing his head back to face her. She pointed to her bloody nose. “This is what you accomplished! That’s three times now you’ve done something stupid and either hurt others or gotten others hurt in the process! Think before you act, dammit! You’re a grown stallion! You should know better! Quit the tough guy act before you hurt somepony else! Nopony wants that… and I don’t think you do either!”

Squall’s eyes suddenly widened at those last words as she backed away and shook her head.

“Use your damn brain…” she grumbled as she stepped away from him and started wiping blood from her face again.

Silver made eye contact with Soarin as the scene before them ended. Silver smiled and winked. Soarin chuckled in response. Silver wasn’t kidding. Dash just got in the face of another recruit for misbehaving. Definitely captain material.

As Dash went up to Matteo, Thunderlane, and Star, Soarin took a deep breath and turned to Storm. He walked up to him and waved at Fleetfoot. She blinked and gave Soarin a confused look.

“Stallion talk,” Soarin said while waving her off again. She rolled her eyes.

“Pff… fine… I’ll go see if Spitfire needs help…” she sighed as she made her way back towards the gym. Soarin turned to Storm, who was looking down at his own hooves. Soarin stepped in front of him.

“So… what was that all about?” he asked. Storm shook his head, his eyes glued to the floor.

“Is that what I should report to Spitfire? That you got into a fight for no reason?” said Soarin while lightly tapping a hoof on the ground. Storm didn’t answer. “Look Storm, we’re friends… but I can’t make exceptions to the rules. What happened?” he asked again. Storm sighed.

“He said something about my… family,” Storm forced out.

“So you punched him?” Soarin cocked an eyebrow.

“He threw the first punch!” Storm looked up and quickly defended himself. Soarin wasn’t expecting his expression. It almost looked like Storm was about to cry. Nevertheless, it didn’t excuse him.

“But you punched back?” Soarin stated. Storm quickly looked back down. “Look, Storm…” Soarin sighed as he placed a hoof on Storm’s shoulder. “This isn’t new to me. We once had a Wonderbolt here by the name of Rapidfire… in fact the only reason you’re here as an elite now is because he’s gone. The two of us were always getting into trouble for fighting. Let me tell you… if I had a bit for every time I got into trouble for scuffles he instigated, I’d be living better than royalty.”

Storm remained still, as if ashamed to even look at Soarin. Soarin removed his hoof from Storm.

“Your personal life and any issues you may be dealing with are not part of our code of conduct. If it’s a sensitive subject, that’s fine… but you can’t just start throwing hooves when a fellow Wonderbolt hits a sore spot. Understand?”

“Yes, sir…” Storm replied quietly.

“I will explain what happened to Spitfire… but there will be consequences. Silver will handle Squall, but as an elite Wonderbolt, you need to show more restraint. Trust me, I’ve had my share of punishments, save yourself the trouble,” Soarin nodded.

“Yes, sir…” Storm repeated. Soarin sighed and ruffled Storm’s mane.

“Go get some food, it’ll get your mind off of it,” he suggested as he walked past Storm and made his way over to Dash.

Her nose was still bleeding. He nodded to the other recruits surrounding her.

“I’ll take her to Bliss… go get dinner,” he suggested. They all nodded and all made one last check on Dash before leaving her to her stallion. “How are you doing?” he asked as they started walking towards the training room.

“Blood tastes nasty…” Dash stuck her tongue out trying to avoid all contact with her face and lips where her blood had been smeared. The bleeding wasn’t severe, and it already had mostly stopped, but they needed to get it properly cleaned up.

“Sorry I didn’t get there sooner…” Soarin frowned as they walked through the lobby. Dash instantly nudged him in the side.

“None of that now… I tried to stop a fight and got clocked in the face, it’s my fault,” she stated.

“But…” Soarin tried to make a case but she nudged him again, a little more roughly.

“And if you try to tell me otherwise Bliss will be cleaning off two bloody noses,” she smirked up at him.

“Fair enough,” Soarin shrugged and chuckled as they entered the east hallway and approached the training room. They opened it just as Bliss was apparently reaching for the doorknob on the inside.

“Whoa!” Bliss stumbled forward and ran face first into Soarin’s chest, poking her horn against him.

“Ow…” Soarin reacted calmly while rubbing the spot she poked. Bliss looked up and her eyes instantly went to Dash’s face covered in dried blood and a light trickle oozing from her nose. Her expression flattened and she sighed.

“Always when I’m about to go on a break or get food…” she grumbled as she stepped back and let them in. The training room was completely empty. Her entire staff was already in the mess hall it seemed. “Hop up on the first table, this won’t take long,” Bliss went right into professional mode. Soarin walked with Dash and stood beside the trainer table as Dash sat and awaited treatment.

It didn’t take Bliss long to approach holding several gauze pads and some tissues. Using her magic, she ripped a tissue in half and rolled it up, gently stuffing it into Dash’s bloody nostril before grabbing a mostly empty bottle of disinfectant and dabbing it on a gauze pad.

Soarin waited patiently as Bliss cleaned the blood stains off Dash’s face and did the same with her chin and her hooves where she had wiped blood.

“Hold on, I have to get more of this…” Bliss wiggled the empty disinfectant bottle back and forth in the air before she tossed it into a nearby trash can and trotted over to the other side of the training room to look through the cabinets.

Soarin looked to Dash and was about to speak but—

“Aw, why are you cleaning it up? That was a good look for you!”

Soarin jumped in surprise and quickly turned around at the familiar… unwanted voice.

Discord was reclined on the trainer table beside them. Both Soarin and Dash didn’t say a word. They both just stared at him with their brows and ears flattened. Discord snickered.

“Now, now, don’t all jump at me at once, there’s plenty to go around!” he joked as he sat up. Soarin shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Just do whatever stupid prank you came to do and leave us alone,” he said sharply. Discord pouted, crossing his arms and turning his body away while keeping his head stationary and closing his eyes.

“Such hostility! It’s as if you assume I’m in this for cheap laughs!” he opened up one eye while smirking to see both Dash and Soarin giving him the flat look again. “Oh, who am I kidding, if you two didn’t assume that by now, I’d question if you even know me!” he chuckled. “But really…” he slithered off the table and around to the other side of Dash’s table. “I’m here to congratulate you!” he pointed at Soarin.

“Huh?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“Don’t think I didn’t see it!” Discord appeared behind Soarin and tapped a finger against the tip of the false horn. “The magic started getting uppity… and you showed it who was boss! I was quite impressed!” Discord chuckled as he leaned back on the table.

“I’m so glad I have your approval… are you always watching me?” Soarin glared at him. Discord burst out laughing and draped an arm over Dash’s back.

“This guy cracks me up, eh?” he asked her. She nipped at his hand beside her, but he had already pulled away. “Why WOULDN’T I watch you?” he shrugged while addressing Soarin. “You’re the most interesting thing I’ve seen in centuries! Trust me, when you’ve existed as long as I have, it’s hard to find entertainment. I’ve seen it all… but you’re something brand new, I can’t get enough!” he kept chuckling throughout.

Suddenly Bliss cleared her throat loudly. The three all looked towards her. She was focused on Discord.

“Are you here for treatment?” she asked, completely disregarding that she was addressing Discord, the god of chaos.

“Do I look like I nee—”

“If not… out,” she pointed towards the door. Dash and Soarin glanced at each other and then back at Bliss. She… DID know who she was talking to right? Discord wore an amused look as he floated over Soarin and placed himself in front of Bliss.

“Aren’t you a bold one? This place is just full of interesting ponies! Tell me…” he leaned way down and got into Bliss’ face. “If I don’t leave, what will you do?”

“Already doing it wise guy…” she said simply. Discord blinked as he felt something… four things attach to his back. He twisted his neck around to look. There were four small nodes attached to his back with wires running from them. The wires connected to a small machine with a dial on it. It was an electric stimulation machine meant for easing knots and sore muscles.

“Oh…” Discord’s ears flopped down as Bliss’ magic hovered around the dial… and she turned it all the way up to maximum. “EEEEEEEEYYYYYYY AAAAAHHHH AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAAIAIAIAAAAAAA!!!!!!!” Discord twitched and jittered as the electric pulses resonated through his body, making him stiffen, relax, and strike all sorts of funny poses and dance moves.

Art by: CowgirlVK

Soarin and Dash edged away with wide eyes, but Bliss remained completely stoic, eventually using her magic to turn it off.

Discord fell to the floor sprawled out with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting and wheezing as his body twitched and jolted slightly.

“Now out…” Bliss pointed to the door again.

“Yeth ma’am…” Discord slurred with his tongue between his lips. He reached up and snapped his fingers, but a twitch caused him to fling across the room and into the wall near the entrance instead of teleporting. Not wanting to repeat the same mistake, Discord shakily dragged himself along the floor and out the door.

“Where were we?” Bliss got right back to work, completely unfazed by the encounter as Dash and Soarin just stared at her.

Dash made a mental not to never mess with Bliss. She had to be a tough mare for a job like this. She’d probably seen enough weird things to last a life time, but catching Discord off guard? Not many ponies could do that!

“All done. Sign the clipboard before you leave,” Bliss said as she simply tossed everything she didn’t use on the counter beside a sink, washed her hooves and headed towards the door.

“Well, that was interesting…” Soarin chuckled as he watched Bliss leave. He turned back to Dash just in time to see her slump to her side and lean her head against him. “Dash?” he blinked as he moved closer to the table, concerned she would fall off otherwise.

“Just… stay there for a second,” she sighed contently as she nuzzled her check against his shoulder. “I need this… it’s been too long,” she requested. Soarin smiled down at her and rest his chin gently atop her head.

“Alright…” he agreed without hesitation.

Dash soaked up the feeling of resting softly against him. It had been so long. So long since the two of them had a chance to simply, casually enjoy each other. They had a few moments here and there where they would sneak off or catch a quick moment… but it was always brief or had a time limit. They longed to get some quality time together like they used to.

Both Dash and Soarin hoped… that things would go right… and soon Dash would be a full time recruit. Without any more tests or special recruit training, they’d be able to spend actual time together on non training days.

“So you’re halfway through the training schedule, huh?” Soarin asked as her reached his arm up and stroked Dash’s mane.

“Mmhmm…” Dash replied simply as she sighed at his touch.

“I heard from Silver you’re doing quite well. Only sixteen more days to go before the big decision, from what I hear, you’ve got a great chance,” Soarin ran his hoof up to her ear and gently scratched behind it. Dash shivered and squeaked quietly.

“Only if I keep it up… and I plan to,” she managed to say adamantly despite one of her sweet spots being exploited.

“Spoken like a true recruit under Silver…” Soarin chuckled. As soon as he stopped a gurgling noise came from below him. He looked down to see Dash holding her stomach.

“Eh…” she turned her head and looked up at him.

“Sounds like somepony’s hungry,” Soarin smiled. “C’mon, we should get to the mess hall before there’s nothing left.”

“Aww… okay…” Dash pouted as she got up and hopped off the table. The two walked side by side towards the exit, both glancing at each other at the same time as they reached the door.

Half-way there. Dash was ready and willing to take on any other challenge she needed to fulfill her dream… and having the love of her life nearby was enough motivation to do it five times over.

“C’mere you,” Dash reached up and grabbed Soarin’s face. He gave no resistance as Dash pulled him in and planted a loving kiss on his lips. Soarin’s eyes widened and he pulled away instantly.

“Bleh!” he stuck his tongue out. Dash looked directly at him, mortified. Soarin quickly shook his head. “Disinfectant tastes horrible!” he said while chuckling. Dash instantly snorted and couldn’t hold back the laughter. She did just have her face cleaned off, didn’t she?

“Oh, get moving you jerk!” she pushed him out the door while giggling.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

EPIC WONDERBOLT DODGEBALL!

Wow... looks like Storm can take being barked at... at least until you say something family related. Talk about a sore spot WOW that was a quick outburst huh? Safe to say Squall and Storm don't get along! (ha... the names... i see what i did there...)

And awww... it felt good to write a little but of loving interaction between Soarin and Dash. It's been hard for them with their schedules, all the more reason for Dash to succeed eh? She needs her stallion.

NOW it's time for the last short time jump! That means 4-5 more chapters left in part 2! we are nearing the halfway point! :D

I hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 61: Creating Stronger Bonds

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 61:

It became clear for Dash very quickly that nothing is simple when it comes to being a Wonderbolt. Their tendency to recruit and employ very unique and different ponies made for an interesting learning experience. Whenever Dash thought she had one of them figured out, something new would come along.

Those who were always angry seemed to be troubled. Those who seemed extra hardened had a soft side. Those who seemed unbreakable snapped at specific things. Those who were tiny could explode with quite a bang. And of course… those who seemed really weird were actually five times weirder.

After the halfway point of the recruit training, Dash felt like she was finally starting to understand all her new friends on a deeper level, coming close to an understanding like she had with her friends back home… who she missed dearly, but she knew were constantly cheering her on in spirit.

Despite some of the scuffles and run-ins that occurred at the midway point, things began running smoothly again with the difficulty of the drills and training sessions steadily increasing. Soarin’s magic seemed to finally be under control as well, so that was another major thing Dash didn’t have to worry about.

However… the fact that things were going smoothly actually worried Dash. After how strange things got during the tryouts before her recruit training… she couldn’t help but wonder if Silver had something hidden up his sleeve that he was going to pull on them when they least expected it.

If there was one thing she learned about the Wonderbolts… it was that nothing was simple. With four weeks passed since the midway point and only one week and two cycles left to go, Dash was certain that something was going to be sprung on them. And when it was, would she and the others be ready for it?

Eight days in the cycle left… at least that’s what their schedule said. She found she wasn’t even trusting that. Either way, she would definitely know soon enough.

“Sleeping on a train isn’t fun…” Soarin sighed as the lead squad entered the front doors of the compound with Squad three, ten, seventeen, and twenty in tow.

“You slept? I sure as hell didn’t…” Fleetfoot groaned as she walked right over to one of the couches and plopped down on it. Spitfire turned to Soarin and Air Mach, assuming Fleetfoot would hear her from the couch.

“Do whatever you’ve gotta do today, we’ll have a short meeting later tonight and then take tomorrow off…” she paused and clapped her hooves together twice to grab the attention of the rest of the squads. “That goes for all of you! Get some rest and we’ll pick up our normal schedule the day after tomorrow! No silly injuries now, get some rest!” she relayed to the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“I never knew Appleloosa was so far away…” Air Mach groaned as he set his bag down and sat right on the floor to take a brief rest.

Soarin chuckled at the tired state of his squad mates. He didn’t blame them. Not only did they have an intense show of mixed racing and performances, the only train available direct from Appleloosa to Canterlot left the night right after the show and arrived in the morning. It was a bit of a bumpy ride as well, heavy rain and wind made the cars sway a little more than usual, making it hard to sleep.

Fleetfoot was already napping on the lobby couch, Spitfire was hiding the fact that she was completely drained, and Air Mach’s usual gusto was subdued by his own fatigue. They all got a good laugh from Air Mach during the train ride because he insisted on riding on the roof again even though it was pouring rain. He ended up entering the reserved sleeping car they had an hour later, completely drenched and looking miserable. Fleetfoot got her share of giggles from it, that was for sure.

Soarin himself didn’t sleep that well, but he was used to broken sleep by now. As much as having control of his magic allowed him to sleep better, it still woke him up every once in a while. Needless to say, he still felt a bit stiff and sore. Riding on a train with sore muscles didn’t help recovery much.

As the rest of the squads began to shuffle around lazily, Soarin glanced up at the clock above the mail counter. The orange pegasus behind the counter was moving to and fro, gathering mail for any of the Wonderbolts that decided to check their mail before crashing for a few hours.

The clock read 10:00 AM.

Soarin’s curiosity instantly overpowered his desire to rest. He had time, so why not go watch a recruit training session? He already thought about doing so on his day off tomorrow, but why not get a head start? They had formation and obstacle course training this morning. He was eager to see Dash and the rest of these amazing new recruits in action, especially since it was nearing the end of the training cycles, and their new recruit squad would be chosen soon.

“Where you off to, bro?” Air Mach asked as Soarin began walking.

“Thought about checking out the recruits… wanna come?” Soarin offered. Air Mach forced himself off the ground.

“Why not? I hear these recruits have got some serious skill!” he found his usual enthusiasm despite his body saying no.

Soarin nodded and the two made their way to the front desk. They checked the schedule for the day to see where Silver had reserved training time, and once clarified, they headed down the west hallway towards the auxiliary gym.

“As soon as they’re done, you all better be in the air in less than a second or you can be sure I’ll break each of you in half!” Silver hissed in Dash’s face as Matteo, Squall, Twister and Little Star stood with her. They were organized in the arrow formation and standing at the ground starting line of the… rather insane obstacle course above.

All they had to do was complete the course while staying in whatever formation Silver put them in at the start. In their case, it was the arrow. If they got separated or knocked out of formation during the course, they had three seconds to correct it or else they would be ordered to land and had fifty wing-ups.

It didn’t sound too bad at first… but they were the fourth group of five waiting to go through the course. The first two both didn’t make it far at all and the third was currently going…

The course was… insane. That was putting it lightly. It was a course Silver pulled directly from his own personal training arsenal. It was clear how Silver toughened himself up throughout his career because… just… what?

Dash gulped as she looked the course over. It set up in a long straight line across all four sections of the auxiliary gym, with a large U-turn at the far end and returning along the opposite wall. It reminded Dash of the tryouts when they flew in a straight line and tested turning ability… only this time there were an incredible amount of automated obstacles in the way.

There were at least ten large pendulums from the start to the end of both straight-aways with multiple pistons littered everywhere facing up, down, left, and right. The pistons were built to fire randomly, and the pendulums changed speeds randomly, so there was no set way to navigate through the gauntlet, it all had to be on the fly and reaction based.

The first two groups didn’t even make it to the curve at the end on their first attempt.

However the third… had just rounded the turn and was heading back through the second straight-away. They were in the flying in the delta formation… with Thunderlane at the lead position with the bat pony mare lined up behind him and the three silly ponies bringing up the three positions spread in the rear. Thunderlane was doing a great job guiding them, and they were all doing a great job keeping up. They had been knocked out of formation three times, but they were all glancing blows and each time shifted right back in place.

“Alright Thunderlane!” Dash cheered as the third group dodged and weaved through the crazy course. The second straight-away was even more densely packed than the first. The group was clearly struggling to keep steady, their formation buckling every couple of seconds, but they were managing… at least until they hit the halfway point.

“AH!” Thunderlane grunted as a piston shot up from below, the pad on the end of it punching him right in the gut.

He was sent up out of formation, but his group quickly reacted, moving upward to stick with him as he regained his balance. Unfortunately the blow had come very close to knocking the wind out of him. He felt a little dizzy and was having trouble flying straight. The group was forced to scatter as a pendulum swung by right through their formation. The bat mare got hit and was sent way off course. The three ponies bringing up the read were forced apart and fell behind.

“Get back! RGH!” Thunderlane cringed as he grabbed his stomach. “Back in Delta!” He yelled to them.

Dash mentally counted in her head as they struggled to get back in formation.

1… 2… 3…

They still hadn’t regained the delta form.

“Come on! We can make it!” Thunderlane yelled as he slowed down to allow them to get back in place.

Dash glanced at Silver. It had been at least six seconds. The previous two groups were on the ground seconds after the three-count. Silver had stepped forward and had opened his mouth, but he stopped and stepped back while keeping his eyes on Thunderlane.

“Delta! Delta! YES!” Thunderlane exclaimed as they all moved back into place. “Keep it up! We’re almost—”

Less than ten yards from the finish line, piston fired out from the right and struck Thunderlane across the face. With his forward momentum unchanged, he careened off course and into an uncontrollable spiral as he fell at an angle towards the padded floor.

Air Mach and Soarin were stepping through the doors right as Thunderlane began to fall. Soarin was immediately distracted by the course set up, failing to notice the black projectile falling towards him. Soarin’s eye widened as he identified the course setup.

“He’s running them through one of his—OOF!” Soarin was cut off as Thunderlane crashed right into him, knocking Air Mach aside as the two tumbled into a heap on the floor.

“Oooo!” Dash cringed along with the rest. She was worried about both Thunderlane and Soarin but she remembered Silver’s orders. She and her group were to take off right after the other group fin—

“Hold for a moment,” Silver quickly tapped Dash on the shoulder before lifting off and gliding towards the crash site.

“Whoa… nice to see you too Thunderlane…” Soarin chuckled as he shook his head out and got to his hooves before examining Thunderlane.

“Ow…” Thunderlane said simply in response as Silver landed near him. He and Soarin reached down to help Thunderlane to his hooves. “Damn… I almost had it.”

“That was a great effort, son…” Silver complimented as Thunderlane finally managed to stand. Soarin couldn’t help but smile at the look of surprise that crept onto Thunderlane’s face as Silver praised his run through the course. “You missed the reformation time by three extra seconds, but I let it go. You fought to keep your squad under control. That’s what I like to see,” Silver nodded.

“Thank you, sir…” Thunderlane forced out, still feeling a little short on breath from the blow to the stomach. He slumped a little as if he wanted to sit down, but Silver hoisted him back up.

“What? Took a hit or two and now you’re down? We’ve got one more run per group after the next, you’re not gonna disappoint me after that fantastic run are you?!” Silver shouted.

Thunderlane shook his head out and set his hooves.

“No, sir!” he yelled out despite his voice feeling sluggish.

“Good! Now get your ass back over to your group!” he gave Thunderlane a light push. Thunderlane forced his wings out and lifted off towards his current wingmates. Silver flash a smirk at Soarin, who nodded back before Silver followed right behind.

“Kid was doing alright, huh?” Air Mach stepped back up beside Soarin as the two walked in to get a better view. “Too bad we missed it… what were you saying about this course before?” he asked as they found a nice spot by the finish line and sat down. Soarin shook his head.

“This is one of Silver’s personal death-traps… a.k.a., one of his training courses,” Soarin explained.

“All of the elites in the top three squads get a hooffull of personally designed training courses for their use and anypony else who wishes to use them… have you commissioned Rivet for yours yet?” Soarin asked. Air Mach shook his head.

“The little dude is hard to corner. Every time I try to talk to him he runs off,” Air Mach shrugged.

“Talk or yell tales of your stallion prowess?” Soarin asked with a chuckle.

“I can’t address a fellow stallion without them!” Air Mach pounded his chest.

“No wonder!” Soarin laughed as he shook his head. “You gotta catch him sometime in his lab, it’s one of the few places you can get a few words out of him… anyway,” Soarin looked back up. “All of Silver’s courses are known for being incredibly brutal and impossible to get through without a few new bruises. It speaks for how the old guy toughened himself up so much over the years, but of all the courses built, his are used the least.”

“That sounds like a challenge!” Air Mach rubbed his hooves together as he eyed the starting line.

“Nopony will try to stop you, but don’t say we didn’t warn you!” Soarin smirked as he too looked towards the starting line. Silver was approaching the forth group that consisted of Dash and all the recruits Silver mentioned, save for Thunderlane who had just flown. They arrived just in time to see this spectacle, Soarin was expecting a show.

“GO! GO! GO!” Silver yelled.

Dash and her wingmates launched from their spot. Dash kept her acceleration and speed manageable, knowing well that only Squall and Twister could keep up with her usual takeoff. She had to compensate a little for Matteo and Little Star. Once they got moving, both of them would adjust and fall right in.

They flew in the arrow formation with Dash in lead, Matteo to her right with Twister in the next position over, and Squall to her left with Little Star in the far left. They managed to keep the formation perfectly balanced as they approached the start of the obstacles.

Trusting her wingmates to follow, Dash fixed her eyes down the straight-away and mapped out a path in her head, figuring out how close she could fly by each one without compromising her wingmates. At the same time, she figured they could easily adjust if need be for a second or two, but she didn’t want to force them to react. She was leading, so she had to make the best flight path choice for all of them.

With her best guess of a clean path set, they entered the obstacles. The pendulums swung by, picking up and slowing down periodically, but Dash made small adjustments in speed accordingly as they moved. The flight path remained, doing her best to pass safely out of the range of the pistons without coming into contact with one of the pendulums. However, even with this safe flight path in mind, they were forced near some of the pistons.

“Ah!” Little Star yelped as she and Squall were forced to break off due to one of the pistons firing from below. Trusting their abilities, Dash didn’t adjust her course, and within a second, the two were back in place.

Dash gave them a brief glance, which was a critical blunder in her plan. Taking her eyes off her path for that one instant caused her to miss a sharp change in speed in one of the incoming pendulums.

“DASH!” Matteo yelled, alerting her just in time.

Dash’s head snapped back forward and she veered hard to the left. She ran right into Squall, forcing him and Little Star out of formation again, only now Matteo and Twister were forced away as well.

Dash was certain that if she managed to just get upright it would already be too late to fix the formation.

At least that’s what she thought… until Squall reached out and grabbed her hoof, instantly stopping her tumble and instantly recovering her flight. She quickly looked up as Squall pulled her back over, but Little Star was already thrown far ahead of them, struggling to stop due to being pushed so hard after the formation break.

But then a lout POW of Matteo’s Air Burst technique sounded out and he zipped over to Little Star while holding Twister by the top of his head. Matteo reached out and grabbed Star with his free talons, stabilizing her.

“Squall!” Dash yelled as Squall nodded and pulled her towards Matteo. Within three seconds they came back together and retook their position, luckily not colliding with any other obstacles in the process. “Now turn!” Dash yelled as they cleared the last obstacle and headed into the wide U-turn.

“WOW!” Soarin chuckled as he nearly fell backwards. “Did you see that?!” he pointed as Air Mach nodded.

“Class-A recovery! Working together with a purpose! I like it!” Air Mach grinned as he flicked the tip of his large sunglasses.

Soarin slowly shook his head. That was a clear scatter in the formation with all members flying in different directions… it was incredibly difficult to recover quickly from a situation like that. The lead squad practiced a “scramble-recovery” often… but even they had trouble recovering in less than four seconds. The way the recruits used and helped each other to recover in way that seemed instinctive… Maneuvers like that took connections that could only be formed by bonds like friendship and camaraderie… knowing the others will come to your aid and being able to read and tell what another would do without even a look.

Had Dash already formed a great friendship with these other incredible recruits? Honestly… he wouldn’t be surprised at all. She could do that.

“Keep it going! Keep it going! On me!” Dash yelled as the group rounded the curve and hit the second straightaway with their formation steady. Again, Dash used the precious seconds she had before entering the cacophony of moving obstacles to map out a possible flight path. Again, she watched how the traps were moving and tried to see how she could fly a safe route while giving the wide formation enough room to maneuver.

Just one problem…

There was no safe route. In fact, there wasn’t even a safe route for one flyer to squeeze through, let alone five. Dash could now see why Thunderlane’s run went from looking like a finish to a crash landing so quickly!

From down below, Silver tapped his hoof on the ground. His eyes were trained on Dash and he whispered to himself.

“C’mon Rainbow Dash… C’mon… I know you can see it…” he said as he lightly grinded his teeth together.

Dash had less than a second to make a choice. She would have to pick a path… but none of them seemed like the right choice! The formation was too wide, even wider than it should be to compensate for Matteo’s size! There’s no way their formation would make it through this! Because…

Dash’s eyes widened.

It was the wrong formation!

“SHIFT! PLUS FORMATION!” Dash yelled. She spun around, grabbing Matteo’s arm. She could see the look of confusion on his face, but as soon as he felt her tug on him, he reached back and grabbed Twister. Matteo shifted into the middle and pulled Twister up beside him. Little Star didn’t even think about it. As soon as she heard Dash say it, she used her hovering prowess to quickly shift herself behind Matteo and Squall, with a quick glance followed, filling in the spot. To Matteo’s left. With the plus formation in place, the four on the outsides tucked into Matteo to condense the formation and squeeze through the first few obstacles in their path.

“Yes!” Silver pumped his hoof in satisfaction as they made the shift. The groups were ordered to stay in a certain formation… but that did not mean they couldn’t briefly use the others as long as they shifted back quickly. He was going to explain that after the first run-through of all the groups… but he put his faith in Dash figuring it out… and she did not disappoint!

“Shift back! Delta!” Dash yelled as soon as they had some breathing room. They were all back in place quickly, less than three seconds after their shift to the condensed plus.

It worked, it worked and they pulled it off. Dash was now confident they would heed her orders.

“X!” she yelled as they neared another set that was blocked by crossing pistons and pendulums. As she hoped… the group quickly shifted with her in the center, the others at two, four, eight, and ten o’clock. “Expand and penetrate!” she yelled. The recruits shifted out to fit through the small openings among the traps. “ARROW!” Dash yelled as soon as they passed and they were back in formation before she could finish the word.

Dash’s confidence soared. Just one more group of obstacles to pass.

Then something unexpected happened. Four crossing pistons fired… and jammed. Stuck in the out position and condensing the area even more than it already was with the swinging pendulums. Dash was more than certain that wasn’t supposed to happen. The pistons were even making a weird whirring and buzzing sound.

“That’s not right…” Silver stepped forward and blinked. The pistons were malfunctioning. “DROP! DROP OUT!” he yelled towards the recruits, but they were too far away to hear him.

Dash eyed the predicament carefully. Again, she had little time… what was she supposed to do? There was no formation that would fit through, even if they scattered… there was only one opening…

One path…

Time for a little improvising!

“Line up! Single file! Behind me! NOW! NOW! NOW!” Dash barked back and forth. The others glanced between each other. “DAMMIT! NOW!” Dash yelled as the obstacles were less than fifteen yards away.

Twister grabbed Matteo’s back leg and Star did the same with Squall. Matteo glanced at Squall and made a very quick head motion back. Squall, with Little Star in tow, dropped back far enough for Matteo and Twister to fit between them and Dash. They were now in a perfect line. Dash, Matteo, Twister, Squall, and Star. One by one they passed through the small opening through the malfunctioning pistons.

“WHAT!? HAHAHA!!!!” Silver reared his head back laughing and stomping his hooves on the ground. “You’ve gotta be shitting me! Hahaha!!!!”

“Arrow!” Dash yelled with a huge smile on her face. The recruits reformed the arrow. She glanced back and forth as they went in for a landing… the rest seemed to share her enthusiasm, all looking relieved with a feeling of victory… even Squall.

“Did she… just make up that line formation?” Air Mach blinked and turned to Soarin. “Or is that a new one?” he asked with a wide smirk. Soarin grinned and shook his head.

“Nope!” Soarin chuckled. "I think she called that one on the spot! What a reaction!” Soarin had been hearing about Dash’s exploits, but he had yet to really sit down and watch her. She just pulled something worthy of an elite squad captain on the fly… what did they discover in Ponyville? Soarin had goose bumps just thinking about it.

“We did it!” Little Star sprung up and did loops in the air as soon as they all came to a complete stop.

“Phew!” Dash exhaled and plopped right down on the floor, holding a hoof over her heart. It was beating furiously from both nerves and from physical activity. She never thought changing the formation up would work… but it did… and then they all followed her orders to the end of it. It was an exhilarating feeling.

“That was well done, you have keen presence of mind,” Matteo commented from behind Dash. “I was certain we were going to fail.”

She looked back at him with a smile, but blinked in surprise as Twister stood atop Matteo’s head.

“WE DONE GOOD!” he called out as he slowly tipped off Matteo’s head and fell towards Dash with his arms outstretched before Matteo could shake him off.

“Yikes!” Dash squinted her eyes shut, waiting for Twister to fall on her, but—

“OOF!” Squall suddenly grunted. Dash opened her eyes and saw Twister on Squall’s back a few feet beside her. Twister had his arms wrapped around Squall’s neck and was nuzzling his mane.

“Gee-willickers aren’t we all such good friends!” Twister cooed as Squall visibly freaked out and tried shaking Twister off to no avail. Twister sat upright. His upper body remaining nearly stationary as Squall shook below him. “Quite brilliant Dashie!” he reached behind him and pulled out a top hat. “You’ve always got some tricks up your sleeve, eh?” he stuffed his hoof into the hat and—

“Wha—?!” Little Star yelped. Dash glanced towards her and saw she was gone. She turned back to Twister as he pulled Little Star out of the hat.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

“I have to step up my game!” Twister snickered as Star and Squall both glared at him. Twister looked back and forth between the two and sighed. “Tough crowd…”

“Rainbow Dash!” Silver’s voice boomed, cutting them all off. They all quickly turned to look towards their instructor. Twister shoved Little Star back into the hat, making her fall flat to the ground from above and he hopped off Squall’s back, smiling innocently. Silver didn’t even acknowledge Twister’s antics. He stared directly at Dash. “That was the most ridiculous stunt I have ever seen…” he said with a glare.

Dash gulped.

“S-sorry, sir!” she quickly replied, not sure if she had broken a rule. She technically didn’t follow orders completely… but shifting the formation seemed like the best way to get through. Her worry suddenly disappeared though when Silver smiled.

“Sorry?” Silver chuckled. “If you hadn’t shifted the formation I was going to explain for the second run how that was essential… but you figured it out. Clever mare…” Silver nodded as Dash blushed in embarrassment from praise. Silver seemed almost uncharacteristically happy. He must have really gotten a kick out of how she took control of the situation. “It was almost perfect…” he suddenly said. All the recruits perked up.

“Almost?” Matteo asked first. Silver shrugged.

“Took you four seconds to reform the arrow after shifting to the straight line…” Silver pointed out. “So good job, but too bad, you failed anyway,” he said while slowly raising his brow.

“Aw, WHAT?!” Star flopped onto her back as Dash’s ears flattened.

“Really?” she sighed in frustration as the rest reacted in their own way. Dash glanced back at Squall as he growled and stomped at the ground once.

If there was one thing the 99% successful run they just pulled off showed her… it was how far Squall had come. He cared about nothing but himself when they first met, but just now, he not only saved her from a nasty fall, but willingly worked together with the rest to make it through the course.

His little incident with Storm Front really knocked some sense into him… after Dash yelled at him and Silver quietly ran him through twenty five laps of high speed conditioning every night for the next three cycles, Squall’s attitude seemed to have faded… mostly. He seemed more aware of what he was doing and thinking more often before acting, which was something Dash lectured him about. Did he take her words to heart? She certainly didn’t expect that.

He also seemed a little more laid back and tolerant of antics. He clearly disliked Twister both sitting on him and nuzzling him jokingly, but after a few attempts to get rid of Twister, Squall stopped and went no further. This is the same pony that punched Thunderlane and yelled at a stallion half his size for just running into him.

Unfortunately, despite the shift in demeanor he was still a closed door when it came to anything personal. Whenever asked how he was doing, he replied ‘fine’ and whenever asked about his life he changed the subject or dodged the question. The strange thing was how he did it. Dash was having a hard time putting her hoof on it. Sometimes Squall seemed bitter when dodging the question… other times he seemed… embarrassed? She knew nothing about his life, but something caused him to be the way he was. She just couldn’t figure out what. The only way she’d find out was through him.

From off to the side, Soarin and Air Mach still sat, impatiently awaiting the second round of run-throughs. Soarin couldn’t stop staring at Dash. He just couldn’t get over it. How she could figure things out so quickly. Sure, she didn’t have a signature move of her own… she could copy the moves of others to an extent, but nothing beyond that. However, what she DID have… was an incredibly quick and analytical mind, one that could analyze and deduce a situation, even when flying at high speed. It was this same mind that allowed her to critically examine signature moves and reproduce them. He had to find her later and tell her how awesome she was.

Well… he already did that on a regular basis… but damn… damn he wanted to tell her especially right now after seeing it for himself. Dash was one hell of a mare… and he planned to make sure she always knew it.

Soarin poked his head into the mess hall. Lunch had only been open for five minutes, but he thought he saw Dash and some of the recruits go in already. There was almost nopony there yet, but as he thought, Dash was indeed in the mess hall with Squall, Matteo, and Twister. They already had their food and were moving to one of the first empty tables on the aisle.

There were only ten other Wonderbolts present, but Soarin knew it wouldn’t be long until the bulk of the force was rushing in. It looked like they were serving chicken soft tacos… Yeah, the mess hall was going to fill up fast.

As much as Soarin wanted to get himself one of the fresh tacos, one of the few things he ate outside of his usual strict diet, he wanted to get a chance to talk to Dash and the other guys about the amazing display they put on. Little Star seemed to be absent, unfortunately.

He walked towards them at a slightly quickened pace to avoid the incoming flow of Wonderbolts behind him. The news of the tacos traveled fast.

Dash blinked and looked up from her plate, spotting Soarin as he broke away from the large number of Wonderbolts pouring in. She instantly smiled and gave him an enthusiastic wave.

“Hey fellas,” Soarin greeted them casually as he reached the table. Squall and Matteo both flinched and quickly looked towards Soarin. Dash was just smiling and Twister… he suddenly had a thick flat moustache and his eyebrows were suddenly thicker as well with a pair of round glasses balanced on his nose.. He had the end of a taco in the corner of his mouth like a cigar… the other end was on fire. He bounced his eyebrows up and down as he blew puffs of smoke out the other side of his mouth.

Knowing well that Twister was basically a less stable, male version of Surprise, Soarin ignored him and first turned his attention towards Squall and Matteo.

“Commander?” Matteo addressed him.

“I prefer you just call me Soarin,” Soarin smiled before glancing at Dash. She was still smiling and clearly trying to restrain herself while around her fellow recruits. “I just wanted to let you guys know, that was an AMAZING show you put on with Silver’s training course!” he complimented them.

Dash glanced briefly at the other three. It was interesting to see their reactions to Soarin in person. Matteo had completely locked up, clearly following protocol for respecting a superior officer. Squall was… interesting. He looked at Soarin, but didn’t say anything or wear any expression. It was almost a blank stare. The fire on the end of Twister’s taco had traveled to his head and now his mane was on fire… right.

“We owe it mostly to Rainbow Dash,” Matteo motioned to her. “If she hadn’t started calling out formations, we’d have hit every one of those obstacles,” he explained. Dash waved a hoof at him.

“Aw, c’mon Matty, I didn’t do everything. Squall over here pulled me back into formation after that first mistake. If he didn’t do that, I’d have never gotten the chance!” she made sure to compliment Squall. Soarin turned to look at Squall, but as soon as he did, Squall looked away and down at his plate.

“That was an awesome assist on the recovery, Squall,” Soarin complimented him.

“T-thanks…” Squall said very quietly.

Dash chuckled as Soarin continued to speak to Squall. Squall looked so awkward, but Soarin didn’t let that faze him. She glanced out towards the cloud of ponies filling up the mess hall and her eye caught a group of ponies standing in line that she hadn’t seen in a while.

Squad zero.

Well… she saw Calm Wind and Playbitz. Calm was just a little smaller than Matteo so he was hard to miss, and Playbitz had the two toned wings along with being large. The two of them were easy to spot. Swift Justice was only visible because he was standing among other brightly colored ponies. After looking closer, Dash found Shine Struck walking slightly in front of them. She was on the left of Calm so Dash could only see the front of her, the three colors of her mane sticking out against her fur. While Playbitz and Swift were conversing about something, both Calm and Shine were laughing at something. Dash leaned a little further over to see what was so amusing.

Rivet was in front of them all… but he wasn’t in line alone. He had two pegasus mares to his left, both happily chatting with him. One was very light blue like Soarin with a long mane of a jagged dark blue and light blue pattern that hung down past her shoulders. The tips of her wings were a darker blue than the rest of her. The other was a light pink mare with a long blue mane that was neatly braided and curled around the left side of her neck and down in front of her chest.

Rivet’s eyes were darting back and forth between the two as he nervously nodded, clearly not quite sure what to do or say as the two mares, who were both a head taller than him, kept talking to him casually. Calm and Shine were doing their best not laugh out loud as Rivet tried to keep up with the two ladies.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

It looked like Fleetfoot wasn’t the only mare who enjoyed the little stallion. She could imagine his small build and stature made many mares find him rather adorable, and the shy nature on top of that just added to it.

Dash turned back to Soarin as he finally finished trying to get a conversation out of Squall.

Soarin took one look at Twister. His head was now encased in a block of ice instead of fire. He still had the taco in his mouth. Soarin shook his head.

“That looks pretty cold,” he commented with a smirk before turning to Matteo.

“So I’ve heard from Dash that you were turned away from the Sky Wings…” he started. Matteo took a deep breath and sighed.

“Yes… that is correct,” he replied. As the conversation began, unbeknownst to Dash… Fleetfoot silently began rising up behind her with a mischievous grin on her face.

“I’m heavily confused as to why they would turn you away… unless of course it’s some sort of—,” Soarin paused briefly and glanced at Dash. Fleetfoot was standing behind her pointing at Dash while making hip thrusting motions. Soarin looked right back to Matteo. “Some sort of traditional thing?” Soarin finished his question as he glanced back at Dash. Fleetfoot hovered her head right beside Dash’s and gave a bedroom stare towards Soarin. She bounced her eyebrows and wiggled her plot back and forth.

Dash tipped her head curiously and turned as Soarin looked back to Matteo. Fleetfoot ducked down to the floor and luckily Dash didn’t look down.

“You would be correct,” Matteo nodded to Soarin. “I was rejected due to my size. I cause a misalignment in their standard formation, so they couldn’t…” as he spoke Soarin glanced towards Dash again. Fleetfoot was beside Dash, just outside her peripheral vision. Leaning in close to Dash while puckering her lips and making kissing motions. “…I came here so my training wouldn’t go to waste… Commander?” Matteo narrowed his eyes slightly as if Soarin wasn’t paying attention.

Soarin looked back at him quickly, blinked and shook his head.

“Oh! Sorry, no, I heard what you said… just… one moment,” he nodded before pumping his wings down, lifting up and floating over the table before slamming down behind Dash.

“HEE HEE!” Fleetfoot giggled as she darted away from Dash and sharply turned the corner into the aisle…

Unfortunately… she didn’t look before swinging around into the main aisle of the mess hall. Rivet was walking by with his tray of food with squad zero close behind.

Fleetfoot’s hoof swung around as she made the turn… and it crashed right into Rivet’s face, making a sweeping motion across his eyes after impact.

“AAHHHH!!!!!!” Rivet cried out, keeping a hold of his tray, but instantly dropping down. Nothing spilled, but he laid the tray flat on the floor and quickly reached up. It looked like something fell out of his eyes as he put his hooves to his face.

All eyes turned to him. Dash and the recruits all looked quickly. Twister even cut his shenanigans and peered out around Matteo. Soarin cringed when he saw how Fleetfoot’s hoof connected. That had to hurt. Now Soarin felt bad for chasing Fleetfoot…

But how he felt paled in comparison Fleetfoot. Upon seeing who she hit and how she hit him. Fleetfoot released the LOUDEST gasp Soarin had ever heard. Squad zero was already looking for a place to set their trays down to help their friend, but the tables around them were all full. They ended up heading towards the recruit table to dump their trays.

“OH MY GOD!” Fleetfoot quickly stepped up to him as squad zero scrambled to get their hooves free. “Rivet! Oh god! Are you okay?!” she frantically asked while crouching down to him.

Rivet looked up, his eyes were red and puffy as he squinted. It looked like it hurt a lot… but then he started blinking and looking in every direction.

“My… my contacts! I lost my contact lenses!” he started pressing his hooves to the floor, but only a moment after they went back to his face as he groaned in pain.

Soarin quickly stepped out, knowing what was about to happen.

Rivet did not like situations he could not control... especially when he felt he was in danger or unable to protect himself in some way. He never had a negative reaction to Fleetfoot chasing him because he knew all she would do was forcefully cuddle him. However, in circumstances such as: face in a lot of pain and can’t see… Rivet was going to have a panic attack.

He was already breathing more rapidly.

“Rivet!” Calm yelled as he pushed by Soarin with Shine close behind. They crouched down to help, but before they could, Rivet reached out for anything close by. He grabbed Fleetfoot’s arm and pulled himself into her, clutching her arm tightly while shaking and breathing heavily.

“Found his contacts!” Swift called out from the floor. Playbitz looked up from the floor and turned to Swift but stuck out his tongue.

“I don’t think he’s gonna want to put those back in…” he commented as Swift held up the lenses. They were stained with salsa. They had fallen from Rivet’s eyes directly onto his taco plate.

Calm and Shine turned back to Rivet and Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot felt absolutely CRUSHED. She could feel Rivet shaking and how heavily he was breathing… and it was her fault. She quickly reached down and hugged him tightly.

“I’m so stupid!” she berated himself. “I’m sorry!” she desperately apologized as she hugged him tighter. Soarin trotted up to them as he looked between them and squad zero.

“We should get him to Bliss to make sure his eyes are okay… and then get him a new pair of lenses,” Soarin suggested. Calm instantly stepped up.

“Here, let me take him to—”

“No!” Fleetfoot cut him off as she looked up and shook her head, her eyes showing faint signs of tears in the corner. “This was my fault! I’ll take him!” she stated as she gently lifted Rivet and rose up into the air while gently cradling him in his arms. He clung to her body as she glided above all of the tables and right to the exit.

Soarin took a deep breath and exhaled as he watched them leave. Rivet was the assertive word of law in his workshop with an iron hoof… but outside of those walls became so sheepish and fragile. Soarin was glad he had befriended squad zero because he felt Rivet needed strong friends to hold him up and keep him safe… but freak accidents can happen. Soarin was just happy that Fleetfoot immediately took responsibility and took care of him.

Things quickly returned to normal and everypony went back to eating.

Soarin glanced at Dash and approached her. She looked worried as he approached.

“Don’t worry,” he spoke directly to her. “Fleet’ll make sure he’s alright,” he winked.

“That’s what you to get for rough housing,” Dash crossed her hooves and lifted her brow. Soarin smirked.

“So you’re okay with Fleetfoot making kissing and hip thrusting motions towards your ear?” he shrugged. Dash blinked.

“Wait, THAT’S what she was doing?!”

“Yep!” Soarin chuckled.

“Okay, fine. You were protecting me. Dash rolled her eyes with a smile.

They both suddenly looked at the rest of the table to see squad zero surrounding the table. They all stopped when trying to gather their trays, realizing who they had bumped into while distracted by Rivet. Awkward glances were being exchanged between the recruits and the special force squad that beat them up a few weeks ago.

However, Shine Struck… was looking directly at Soarin and Dash.

“Guys,” Shine suddenly spoke. “Let’s sit right here,” she said as she plopped down in the spot right next to Dash. After a few more uncomfortable looks. Calm, Playbitz, and Swift all sat down as well. Soarin examined the situation and decided to let it happen. He leaned down to Dash and lightly nuzzled her ear.

“I’m gonna get some food now… have fun with your… friends,” he joked as she shivered from the touch of his nose against the tip of her ear.

“Okay, I’ll see you around,” she smiled back while brushing a hoof against his shoulder. Shine sighed subtly to herself as she watched the short goodbye. Dash didn’t hear it, but Soarin did.

He didn’t think it was a good idea to leave a pony that had a crush on him next to his marefriend… but he had a feeling Dash would work it out.

Soarin made his way towards the food line and quickly found exactly where to step in. Storm Front had just walked in, so Soarin took a spot right behind.

“Hey, Storm!” Soarin cheerfully greeted.

“Ngh…” Storm groaned. Soarin blinked and leaned over to get a good look at his face. Storm looked exhausted.

“Spitfire is still flying you through extra conditioning?” Soarin chuckled.

“Yes…” Storm sighed while extending and folding his wings periodically to ease stiffness.

As if extra conditioning wasn’t bad enough, Storm had also been assigned to clean all the locker room bathrooms after training each day for the past few weeks. Spitfire even sent the janitorial staff on paid vacation so Storm could clean them all for them. Needless to say, Spitfire was merciless when it came to punishments for breaking prime rules. Soarin could remember all of his and Rapidfire’s punishments quite well… not that he wanted to.

“Well, this is good incentive not to lose your cool again… even if they hit a soft spot, alright?” Soarin nudged him.

“Definitely don’t have to tell me twice,” Storm shuddered.

Soarin nodded and stepped back into his place in line. He glanced back towards the table where squad zero, the recruits, and Dash were sitting.

Hopefully that was going alright…

“So…” Shine Struck finally broke the awkward silence between the two groups. “I… uh…” she struggled as Dash looked to her. The rest of the recruits were busy carefully eyeing the members of squad zero they fought. Except for Twister who was creepily right up in the face of Swift, who tried to back away, but each time Twister stayed tethered to him. “Guys!” she quickly turned to them instead. “We all wanted to do this right? Help me out!” she nervously pleaded. Playbitz stopped looking back at Squall and cleared his throat.

“I thought you wanted to start it?” he asked.

“Changed my mind,” Shine replied quickly. Playbitz shrugged and nodded.

“Alright… all of you…” he turned and looked at each of the recruits. “We’d like to apologize for… you know… going a little too far when we first met,” said Playbitz.

“Gee, thanks…” Squall grumbled.

“Squall!” Dash snapped at him. Squall flinched and huffed as he turned away. Dash looked back to Playbitz and to each squad member before nodding. “Don’t worry about it… we walked into it just as much as you instigated it… so we’re both at fault. Water under the bridge, we’re all Wonderbolts right?” Dash smiled.

“Mmhmm…” Calm agreed with a nod.

“Yep!” Swift agreed as Twister closed in again. Swift put up a hoof and pushed Twister away slowly. “Personal space, Smiley… You’re also blocking the view!” he smirked as he looked past Twister at Dash. Dash ignored him and continued.

“Right guys?” Dash asked as she looked between Matteo and Squall. Both did not look so amused. “Matty…” Dash flattened her brow as Matteo glared at Calm. “This isn’t a griffon dispute, let it go,” she suggested. Matteo closed his eyes and sighed.

“Very well…” Matteo snorted. Calm lifted an eyebrow from across the table.

“I do not believe I damaged your honor…” Calm spoke up, catching Matteo’s attention. “I didn’t hold back… I gave you everything I had. Isn’t it considered an honorable respect for one’s opponent if no punches are pulled?” he ended with a slight grin. Matteo blinked.

“Actually… that is true, however you invoked the rite of challenge… therefore it was a battle with honor at stake,” Matteo corrected him.

“Was it?” Calm continued. “The traditions apply to griffons… not ponies. I did it because I wanted to fight you… and I knew you would take the bait. As a pony, griffon traditions don’t apply to me… so if you think about it… all we did was fight. Griffon tradition does not apply to me,” Calm lifted his brow as he finished.

“But…” Matteo stopped and thought. “Well… that’s actually true,” he smiled slightly. “Your knowledge of our culture is commendable.”

“So tell me!” Calm quickly sensed the change in mood. “You're ridiculously strong! How much can you bench press?”

Dash quickly shifted her focus. As much as she liked working out and lifting weights that conversation was about to get very stallion.

“C’mon kid, I’m not that bad…” Playbitz chuckled while trying to converse with Squall. “Hey, I bet you wanted to give me two black eyes to match my scars, right?” he joked.

Squall let an amused snort slip.

“You DID! I knew it!” Playbitz chuckled as Squall held his breath, trying to sulk despite actually finding the comment funny.

“Um…” Swift looked at Twister uncomfortably as his head popped out from beneath the table beside Swift’s seat. “Are you going to actually eat?” he chuckled. Twister reached up really fast and stole a single carrot off Swift’s plate before diving back under the table. “HEY!” Swift tried to reach after him while laughing.

Well, it didn’t take long for the situation to turn light hearted. Dash turned and glanced at Shine. She was smiling at the situation as well, as if this was what both of them were looking for when the two groups met again.

“So you guys are a special force unit, right?” Dash spoke up as she went for one of her tacos. Shine nodded as she did the same.

“I assume they told you everything?” she asked. Dash nodded with a mouthful of taco.

“Mmhmm…” she swallowed. “I mean… these three kicked our flanks, if they didn’t explain I would’ve broken down Spitfire’s door and demanded an explanation!” Dash smiled confidently as Shine giggled. “So I hear you’re a martial artist…” Dash continued.

“Yep, Taekwondo,” she clarified.

It was interesting… Shine struggled to start the conversations… but once they started it seemed like she had no trouble getting into it.

“I also hear…” Dash smirked. “That you can copy abilities… that’s pretty neat, I guess…” Dash was purposely being a little smarmy, trying to build up to saying she could as well.

“Heh, yep! It’s true! I AM awesome!” Shine replied confidently. Dash couldn’t hold it in. She burst out laughing. “What?” Shine tipped her head and smiled.

“Sorry…” Dash managed to say in between chuckles. “This is just kind of weird,” she kept laughing.

“Oh? Do tell…” Shine asked with a smirk.

“Well, we’re kinda like… twins here,” Dash explained. “I can copy abilities too… and I was planning on saying I was awesome after revealing it! Because I am,” she added at the end while pounding her chest.

“This is an outrage, we can’t have two awesome ponies at this table!” Shine fake pouted.

“Bring it on!” Dash comically bit off a huge portion of a taco… only to start coughing because it was too much at once. The two shared a good laugh as Dash regained her breath. It seemed like Shine was like her in more ways than one… this was a great little encounter Dash and her friends were having… Silver may have voiced a great deal of disapproval of them… but that was mainly the professional and technical side of things. They weren’t bad ponies… in fact, they seemed pretty fun.

Dash looked around, eager to talk to some of the others as well. She fixed her eyes on the giant sitting across from her own giant friend. She had seen Calm Wind in the gym more times than she could count… and usually with…

“So Calm… how often do you and Autumn Rain hit the gym together?”

Every member of squad zero instantly went silent and cringed while staring at Dash. Calm coughed and forcefully swallowed a large bit of food he was chewing on. His ears flopped down and his eyes filled with… sadness?

It only took a moment for Dash to put it together. Her eyes widened and she instantly threw her hooves over her mouth. Before she could say anything, Calm slowly got up from the table and stepped out into the aisle before walking towards the exit, dragging his hooves. Shine and Swift both quickly rose up.

“Wait! Wait…” Playbitz stood up. “Leave him be…” he said reluctantly as if forcing himself to stay put as well. Shine and Swift frowned, sitting back down and going back to their food.

“Oh god… I...” Dash stumbled over her words. “Did they…? I didn’t know… oh shoot…” she felt like she had just derailed a perfect social atmosphere.

“Don’t worry about it… you didn’t know…” Playbitz sighed. “Yeah… things didn’t quite work out between them. She ended it though so he’s been beating himself up about it being something he did wrong for the past few weeks.”

“Still, I’ll have to apologize later…” Dash felt terrible, even if it was an accident. She had recently had a little bit of self-induced heartbreak herself… she knew it was horrible feeling. Calm on the other hand... they were both Wonderbolts! They lived and worked in the same place! They most likely saw each other all the time! Just like how she and Soarin did during their little relationship rut… only for Calm… she definitely had to find him later.

“Speaking of relationships…” Shine suddenly spoke up, drawing Dash’s attention back to her.

“Yeah?” Dash asked, visibly upset.

“You’re…” Shine gulped. Whatever she was about to ask, it looked like she felt nervous to ask it. “You’re Soarin’s marefriend, right?”

Red alert.

Warning.

NO!

Dash was instantly reminded of something… all the times she saw Shine blush and smile around Soarin. How had she forgotten about that? As much as Dash had just connected with her… the last things she wanted was another Arctic Blast scenario. Shine was clearly not a dumb, bitchy, slut like Arctic… but the concept of fighting another mare over Soarin was not something she wanted to revisit.

“Y-yes…” Dash answered cautiously. She was waiting for it… waiting for Shine to say something how Soarin was her stallion.

“You’re… very lucky…” she smiled as her ears flopped down.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and tipped her head to the side. Shine glanced at her and smiled weakly.

“To have him… Soarin,” she clarified. “He’s such an amazing stallion and he’s all yours… how, does it feel?”

“Um…” Dash wasn’t sure what to say. She certainly wasn’t expecting that. Shine quickly put a hoof up and shook her head.

“No, don’t answer that, I’m getting ahead here…” she chuckled. “It’s just… I haven’t known him for very long, but he’s SUCH a sweet guy… not to mention he’s buff and handsome and always knows how to make everypony smile… I’ve kinda… had a crush on him since I got here…” she suddenly revealed.

“I don’t get it…” Dash suddenly cut in. “Why tell me this?” she asked. Shine shook her head.

“Dash… how could a mare not have a crush on him? Seriously!” she giggled. “But… don’t worry, he’s yours, not mine. He’s always talking about you… that’s how I recognized you after the little incident a few weeks ago… you fit all of his descriptions perfectly… down to every last feature,” Shine patted Dash on the shoulder. “It’s clear where his heart is… and if I really care about him, I would never get in the way of what he wants… I wouldn’t do that to him… or a great mare like you,” she ended with a smile before taking a deep breath, exhaling, and going back to her food.

The exact opposite of what Dash thought would happen… just happened.

Shine was enamored by Soarin… but she wasn’t a stallion stealer. She was reasonable and she acknowledged that Soarin loved somepony else. That sounded hard to do. Really hard to do. This situation made Dash think back to when she piled the truth harshly onto Arctic after she saw the kiss.

Dash couldn’t believe it… she found herself feeling… bad? Bad about what she did to Arctic? Even if it was an undesirable mare, the way Shine clearly just forced her heart to acknowledge the relationship of a stallion she wanted to be with… it seemed harsh.

Either way… Arctic was long gone. Shine… was much different. Dash couldn’t help but feel warm after such a selfless confession.

“Thanks, Shine…” Dash smiled back to her as she went to finish her food.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

Squad zero… they all seemed like the kind of ponies Dash could be good friends with. Maybe… Silver was being a little too harsh on them?

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

REMINDER: Ponies eat chicken and pork products in my universe... please don't gasp and point that out anymore. -_-

*HAPPY TIMES COME BACK*

(I should mention, the two mares talking to Rivet belong to CrystalMelody_kc (light blue) and CowgirlVk (pink) :eeyup:)

So! Fun chapter we have here! We've jumped forward to near the end of the training! I wonder what's in store these last cycles? Is Silver planning something? (duh) Can Dash trust the schedule? (most likely not!)

Ooooo Fleetfoot, you better watch where you're going... at least we know she has a caring side now though... Rivet's not just a little plushy... he's a friend, and she immediately took responsibility after accidentally hurting him.

Squad Zero and the recruits reunite! Perhaps they can get along despite their past scuffle... is Dash questioning Silver's judgement on them? She's seeing things for herself!

Shine respecting Soarin and Dash's relationship? Doesn't mean she doesnt like our sexy male protagonist though... i wonder how this is going to go between them, but hey! She's not the Arctic Blast type! So what could possibly go wrong?:twistnerd:

And... if anyone is wondering... the reason i included Calm's heartbreak... is because i wanted to physically acknowledge it... i didnt want to simply run from it. Autumn is still a part of this story, i can't change that. So this is the path i've chosen... don't worry about me, it was my choice and another way i'm coping with it all.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!

Chapter 62: It Should Be Illegal to Look This Good

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 62:

“Eight…” Dash exhaled as she curled the dumbbell up with her left arm. “Oof!” she grunted as she almost lost it on the way back down. “C’mon Dash! Two more!” she quietly encouraged herself. “N-nine…” she counted as she managed one more. “Last one, ah!” Dash exhaled sharply. She tried to move her arm up a tenth time, but an inch from the start her strength gave out and she put the dumbbell down. “Damn…" she exhaled as she sat down on the bench while flexing and relaxing her left arm to keep the muscles loose. She still had two more sets, but she couldn’t get to ten with her left arm so she was forced to stick with twenty five pounds.

That was coach Pec Bounce’s rule. On most of their standard weight lifting exercises there was a six to ten repetition policy. When you do a certain lift, if you can’t manage at least six reps, it’s too heavy for you. If you can get ten, then you’re strong enough to use a heavier weight. She managed ten with her right arm, but only nine with her left. So she was stuck.

She glanced to another bench a few feet over. Squall was doing the same routine with her… using thirty five pound weights. Dash flattened her brow, feeling her competitive nature kick in. She stood up and walked towards the dumbbell rack, approaching the thirty fives. She glanced to make sure Squall wasn’t looking before hooking her hoof around one of them. She could lift it from the rack, but as soon as she felt its weight, she knew there was no way she could curl it up with one arm.

“Hmph…” she grunted in frustration as she set back down and went back to her bench. Stallions had it so easy building up strength. Dash had seen Soarin do what she was currently doing with forty pounds, Calm with forty-five, Matteo with fifty… well, he was also a griffon, but STILL! It came so much easier to them! Thunderlane was starting to catch up to her! He had only been training since the start of the cycles… and he had closed in on most of her numbers in terms of weight lifted. It was a little frustrating since she had worked harder and longer, but that was going to be just another challenge for her to overcome, especially if she wanted to make strength part of her game. It took her about twice the work to keep up… but she’d do it.

She needed strength for Soarin’s Sonic Blastoff… a technique that was almost second nature to her now because of how much stronger she had gotten (despite still having some control issues with it), but she was certain more strength would be essential in the future, especially to help her copying ability. If being able to copy a move was the difference between success and failure in a situation, the last thing she needed was an obstacle like the lack of necessary strength to get in her way.

“I’m gonna do it!” Little Star’s voice suddenly caught Dash’s attention. “I’M GONNA DO IT!” Little Star was over on Dash’s left. She had a fifteen pound dumbbell on the ground in front of her and she was clutching it with both hooves. She growled and slowly hoisted it up until she was holding it over her head. “YES!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

Squall walked past Dash with Little Star blocking his path. He reached down with his left hoof, grabbed the dumbbell and lifted it up with her still hanging onto it and set her down a foot back before passing in front of her. She shot an angry pout at him as she dropped the dumbbell.

“Oh, look at you, tough guy!” she hissed while fluttering her wings rapidly to produce a faint buzzing sound. Squall didn’t reply as he kept walking.

Dash turned all the way around and saw Matteo over on the stretching mat. He was doing pushups with Silver sitting on his back. Silver was sitting upright with his arms crossed, glaring forward. After twenty fast pushups, Matteo suddenly switched to one arm pushups. Silver instantly turned his head towards Matteo’s while lifting an eyebrow.

“You trying to impress me or something, fatass?” he snapped at Matteo.

“Yes, sir!” Matteo replied without hesitation. Silver let a quite snort slip and cracked a subtle smile for a second before hardening his expression and glaring again.

“Well, I ain’t!” he shouted. “You’re still moving and the floor is stationary! If you want me to be impressed you better make the opposite happen!”

“I’m working on it, sir!” Matteo quickly replied seriously while switching arms. Silver couldn’t hold it in.

“Heheheh, heh… damn showoff…” he snickered to himself. It seemed even Silver was enjoying himself. He was still keeping up the tough instructor demeanor, but he was letting more smiles slip by the day.

Dash turned a little further and spotted Thunderlane bench pressing… with Pec Bounce and Macho Savage leaning over him…

“BRO, DO YOU EVEN LIFT?!?!” Pec Bounce yelled.

“BRETHREN, DOST THOU EVEN HOOOOOOIST?!” Macho Savage shouted right after.

“SON, DO YOU EVEN RAISE HEAVY THINGS?!” Pec growled.

“BROTHER, DO YOU EVEN RAISE HEAVY OBJECTS AGAINST THE FORCE OF GRAVITY?!” Savage cut in.

“I get it! I’m lifting!” Thunderlane shouted back in annoyance in between reps.

Dash had no idea how Thunderlane hadn’t dropped the bar on himself yet while laughing. She peeked a little to Thunderlane’s right and saw Twister lying backwards on a leg press machine, pushing on the bottom of it with his arms while grinning at a few disturbed onlookers.

“AM I DOING IT RIGHT?!” he asked every single pony that walked by.

Dash rolled her eyes and returned her focus to the dumbbell beside her bench. She already rested a little too long in between sets, so she quickly leaned down, picked it up, position herself in a firm sitting position on the bench, and started her next set.

She focused entirely on getting through the set, right arm first, steadily up and down. She managed ten reps and then switched arms. As she went through her first rep for the left arm, she slipped off balance slightly.

“Shoot…” she grunted as she looked up in the wall length mirror to try and reposition her arm. “Whoa!” Dash suddenly blinked.

Admittedly, it had been a long time since she did her whole “flex in the mirror I’m awesome” morning routine. Mainly because she now shared a bathroom with a bunch of other mares who would probably find it weird that she liked to do that.

She had been doing an incredible amount of strength training and cardiovascular training over the past month, not to mention intense combat training with Silver… they all had and they all had gotten stronger and faster, Dash hadn’t even thought about checking out how she looked!

She spent the rest of her left arm reps staring at her arm in the mirror as she did them. The muscles were a little bigger. If anything, they were definitely more noticeable. All the intense flying and fighting had really trimmed down any fat. Dash barely had any to begin with, but now she looked totally sleek and muscular. She wasn’t half as pumped up as most of the stallions, but she was pretty impressed she managed to look as strong as she did as a mare.

She glanced back and forth as she finished her set and set the dumbbell down quickly. Nopony was looking in her general direction… so she figured she could get away with it. She looked directly into the mirror and subtly flexed her arm in front of her chest. Being a little pumped from the current workout helped.

“Damn, I look awesome!” Dash whispered to herself as she leaned from side to side. She thought about the compliments Soarin gave her physique during the royal ball half a year back. Soarin liked her athletic body… he really liked it and he told her that very often. And by the looks of things, he was gonna like it even more next time they got some privacy and—

“I’ve got my tickets! Is this the gun show?” Fleetfoot’s voice suddenly came from directly behind Dash. Dash leapt ten feet into the air with a high pitched yelp before floating back to the ground and staring wide eyed at Fleetfoot, who was laughing hysterically. She snuck up in the mirror’s blind spot behind Dash.

“Fleetfoot! I… uh… I was just staying loose!” Dash blushed having been caught not only being a little narcissistic but also while having dirty thoughts.

“I hear doing arm swings works better than bouncing your muscles in the mirror,” Fleetfoot winked while smiling with her tongue sticking between her teeth. Dash quickly turned back to the mirror and hunched over while puffing her cheeks out. “Show me,” Fleetfoot suddenly asked. Dash blinked.

“What?” she turned her head to see Fleetfoot walk up beside her.

“I wanna see up close! Show me the guns!” Fleetfoot chuckled while grabbing and holding up one of Dash’s arms. Dash scrunched her face and glared. “C’mon, please?” Fleetfoot pouted comically.

“Fine…” Dash sighed, taking control of her arm. Fleetfoot let go and sat back. Dash turned slightly towards Fleetfoot and shook her arm out briefly before flexing the muscles in her arm while moving it around a little. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened slightly and she nodded while whistling.

“DAMN!” she chuckled. “No wonder you can pull off Soarin’s moves,” she lightly tapped Dash in the shoulder. “I ain’t gonna lie Dash, you have a crazy awesome body. How often did you hit the gym back home?” she asked as she sat down. Dash shrugged.

“Six days a week…” she said casually.

“SIX?!” Fleetfoot’s jaw dropped. “That explains the buffness… I wish I was that committed… I honestly don’t come here as much as I should…” Fleetfoot admitted while glancing around the gym. It sounded funny coming from her because Fleetfoot was actually known well among the Wonderbolts for her sleek, fit physique… She was featured almost every month in athletic magazines. She definitely had the body to fit her incredible speed prowess.

“It was easier than you’d think,” Dash chuckled. “Soarin bought me a complete gym for my house. Paid for it all plus installation. We don’t have any public gyms in Ponyville.”

“Oh, he would…” Fleetfoot smirked while looking Dash up and down. “Soarin always did like mares with a little muscle on them. Talk about a win-win situation for his interests!” Fleetfoot joked a she bounced her eyebrows at Dash. Dash felt a wave of smug pass over her as she smirked right back.

“Trust me… I know he likes it,” she winked. Fleetfoot burst out laughing, rolling onto her back once before rolling right back up.

“Well, one thing’s for sure Dash… next time Photo Finish comes in to recruit some of us for a photo shoot… you won’t be able to run or hide,” Fleetfoot tapped her hoof against Dash’s chest. “With an awesome body like that, you can bet Photo will come right after you… even if she has to tie you up and drag you out there with us!”

“Eh…” Dash grimaced. “I don’t know…” Dash wasn’t quite sure how she felt about being in a photo shoot. She wasn’t surprised by the concept, she was well aware that the Wonderbolt’s were featured very often in more than one magazine. It made perfect sense, with all the working out they did as part of their job, the mares and the stallions were known far and wide for being some of the most impressive looking ponies in Equestria. “I don’t think I’m gonna do that…” she said nervously as she sat down and grabbed the dumbbell for her last set.

“Believe me, Dash…” Fleetfoot snickered. “There is no escaping Photo Finish. She convinced SPITFIRE to do sexy poses with me on the beach… think about that for a second.”

Dash froze and her ears flopped down before she could start her set.

“Yep…” Fleetfoot nodded. “As soon as she’s interested in you, your plot is hers, no questions asked,” Fleetfoot smiled. “Of course I never say no…” she trailed off as Dash pumped through all ten reps of her right arm quickly, trying to get her mind off of the subject.

She switched arms as Fleetfoot giggled at her flustered state. Great… it was nice to know at some point she’d be dragged off to display herself to the rest of Equestria… well, it wasn’t that bad…

Dash smirked as she finished her last set.

She would get to see Soarin do the posing in person instead of the magazine.

“Smile for the cameras Dashie!” Fleetfoot nudged her again, bringing Dash’s thoughts back to forcefully having her picture taken. She decided it was time to change the subject from her body to something else.

“So… is Rivet alright?” Dash asked. She felt Fleetfoot’s hoof freeze as it rested on her shoulder. Dash turned to see Fleetfoot’s eyes wide. Her ears slowly flopped down and she sat down beside the bench.

“He’s fine…” she mumbled.

“Um…” Dash suddenly felt bad. She felt like she should’ve expected that. “Sorry…”

“No… it’s okay,” Fleetfoot shook her head. “I took him to Bliss to check on his eyes and fetched a new pair of contacts from his room while he was with her. He’s okay now… I hope.”

“Fleet, it was an accident…” Dash turned around on the bench and placed a hoof on her shoulder.

“I swatted him across the eyes Dash…” she sighed. “Even if it was an accident, I still feel bad… I was being stupid and he got hurt.”

“Is he angry at you?” Dash asked. Fleetfoot shook her head.

“No… in fact, I apologized to him so much he had to tell me to stop and that he was alright,” she chuckled quietly.

“See? You’re alright, it wasn’t on purpose,” Dash reassured her.

“I guess…” Fleetfoot sighed again.

It was pretty strange to see Fleetfoot in such a sad mood. She felt really bad for hitting Rivet by accident. She clearly considered Rivet to be a friend and enjoyed being silly with him. It really showed that just being carefree and casual with somepony was Fleetfoot’s way of showing she genuinely cared. Also, it wasn’t like she hit one of the Wonderbolts across the face. She hit Rivet… who wasn’t in the business for anything physical or pain related. That only doubled how bad she felt.

Dash decided to try and change the subject again… because the first time clearly failed. So she glanced around.

First she saw Twister hanging upside down with his legs hooked on a lat cable machine, pulling himself towards the seat with his arms while singing ‘Pop Goes the Weasel” in reverse.

“Right…” Dash looked past him, finding what she was looking for. More of the lead squad.

She spotted Spitfire using one of the weight machines near Twister. Air Mach had just walked into the gym as well… but after examining the room further… Soarin was nowhere to be found.

“Say Fleet… where is Soarin?”

“Thank you for punctual on such short notice,” Luna spoke out from the throne before Soarin even walked around it from behind. Soarin shrugged as he stepped around and looked up at the princess.

“I got back from a show this morning… Spitfire granted us leave for today and tomorrow,” he briefly explained. “Honestly, I was surprised when you called on me, not only because it’s about four hours before you usually call me in, but in general it’s been a long time since you’ve summoned me.”

“Your magic training is close to complete. There was one lesson we could not teach until a certain other individual was available. Sir Fancy of Pants is on his way with him right now,” Luna explained before giving Soarin’s horn a close look. “Tell us though, Soarin of the Wonderbolts, how has the magic been as of late?”

Soarin quickly thought over her question. To be completely honest, there had been nearly nothing wrong with it lately, save for the little accident in the dodgeball match that he quelled all by himself.

“To be honest, I haven’t had any problems at all… I’ve been using it a lot on my own time lately, I even have some new equipment to help me practice my aim,” as he answered Luna nodded slowly. “Ever since Discord helped out, I haven’t had a single problem,” he finished as Luna growled quietly. She still clearly disapproved of Discord’s ‘solution’ to the problem. Simply putting in a little bit of his chaos magic to keep the dark magic under control… It wouldn’t last forever, but it was giving Soarin a stress free path to learn. “Um, actually I did have a little problem a couple weeks back…” Soarin decided to bring it up.

“Oh?” Luna tipped her head with curiosity.

“We were having a dodgeball match…” Soarin barely got through the first sentence. Luna’s eyes widened for a moment before rolling her eyes and sighing.

“Oh… joyous occasion… it’s wondrous to know you’re being careful with an ancient artifact…” she said sarcastically. Soarin chuckled.

“Hey, if I get in combat, they aren’t gonna be penalized for hitting me in the face,” he joked. “Anyway, it wasn’t actually a problem, it took several hits with no adverse effects… it only happened once, and it was a freak accident. The horn got hit directly on the tip at a point that perfectly transferred the force through my head… or so that’s what it felt like happened, and— Princess?” Soarin paused. Luna was cringing and grimacing.

“We’re sorry… that… that is something only a unicorn or alicorn would understand… The horn is a part of us and it is constantly connected to the flow of magic… having it hit so precisely is a very painful and disorienting experience,” she said and then shivered for a moment.

“Yeah, I learned that the hard way… the magic started acting up right after it happened…” he paused as he saw Luna react alarmed. Soarin shook his head. “Actually, I just focused and forced it back down. I’ve got a lot more control over it now… I’m surprised Discord didn’t come tell you, he confronted me immediately about it.”

“Discord tells us nothing…” Luna scoffed. “And even if he did, we rarely believe it. But you say you kept it under control? This pleases us greatly, you are doing a fine job.”

To any other pony, such a compliment from Princess Luna herself would make their heart swell with accomplishment and delight. However, since all this began, Soarin couldn’t help but feel more and more like he was serving a purpose that was being kept secret from him. He wished the higher powers wouldn’t be so tight lipped about everything.

“Princess Luna… may I ask something?” Soarin addressed her again. Luna looked down at him blankly. It was almost as if she could sense he was going to ask him something she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.

“You may ask,” she granted. Soarin wanted answers about a lot of things… and most of them felt like he’d figure them out himself eventually… but there’s was one thing he just needed to know.

“I apologize for our pressure on the subject a few weeks back... but please… please tell me. What do you know about the Shadowbolt that we encountered?” he asked and sighed quietly as Luna instantly glared at him.

“We know nothing about it,” she quickly replied sternly. Soarin shook his head.

“Luna, PLEASE,” he tried again. “You clearly do… and the Shadowbolts are definitely the Wonderbolts’ business,” he remained calm and collected even as Luna’s glare sharpened. “Why are you keeping it from us? Why did you recognize the goggles? What is going on?”

Luna’s eyes softened, but only a little. She and Soarin stared directly into each other’s eyes… from Princess atop the throne, to Wonderbolt down below. Luna closed her eyes and shook her head.

“If it were the Wonderbolts’ business… we would have told thee,” Luna flatly replied again. Soarin groaned and let his head hang.

“What good does it do if you keep us in the dark?!” Soarin found himself losing ahold of his soft approach. Luna leaned back slightly in surprise as Soarin took a step towards her. “If Celestia saved me from dying a year ago so I could be ready to meet a future threat… then WHY are you keeping secrets from me?!” Soarin instantly flinched as he finished. His eyes locked onto Luna’s face as her pupils disappeared behind a bright glow in her eyes and her horn flared to life, the magic pulsing around it as if it had burst into flames.

“My word! What’s going on in here?”

Luna’s magic stopped its build up and slowly faded. Soarin blinked and turned around quickly. Fancy Pants was standing in the door way, accompanied by a few guards who had ducked for cover upon Luna’s brief rage, and retook their places near the entrance. Fancy had two more ponies with him… Well, they were far from ordinary ponies.

Soarin easily recognized them as they walked through the throne room towards them.

A large, white unicorn with a semi-long blue mane… who walked side by side with… a tall pink alicorn mare with a VERY long colorful mane. Of all the ponies Fancy could have brought in with him… two of the last ponies Soarin expected were…

“Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance of the Crystal Empire?” Soarin blinked as they approached.

“All is well Sir Pants,” Luna quickly addressed him. “We were having a slight disagreement…” Luna shot a sudden, very harsh glare towards Soarin.

Soarin had no idea what happened to Luna recently. For the longest time she was passive and caved rather easily as if ridden by guilt if she were to keep something important from her subjects. Then a couple weeks ago, right after Soarin returned from the show and the Shadowbolt encounter, Luna was suddenly very stern, very hard-nosed, and incredibly secretive. She had the guards force him and Spitfire right out of the throne room for heaven’s sake! Soarin had no idea who slapped her across the face and told her to harden up… but she was definitely taking their advice.

“I hope it was nothing too serious…” Fancy said with a smile as he stepped aside. “Your visitors have arrived m’lady,” Soarin gave a bow.

“Shining and Cadance…” Luna nodded. "We are pleased to see you,” she greeted. The prince and princess gave a bow to Luna before Cadance spoke up.

“Same to you Auntie Luna,” she replied. Soarin remained still. It felt weird feeling this way… but he had never been around so many important ponies at the same time. Considering his status as a celebrity, he didn’t get this feeling very often.

“We shall take our leave of you three…” Luna nodded to Fancy as she stood up and stepped down from the throne.

“Three?” Soarin thought out loud as he watched Cadance reach her neck over and give Shining Armor a quick nuzzle on the neck.

“We won’t be too long,” she said to him before giving him a brief peck on the cheek.

“Noted, from what I’ve heard, this won’t take long,” Shining smiled and nodded in return as Cadance walked over beside Luna and the two made their way around the throne and into the back hallway.

Soarin found himself smiling as he watched the husband and wife interact. It reminded him of Dash… and how he longed to have moments with her where he could show her little bits of affection. It had been so long since the two had had some real quality time together and seeing Shining and Cadance only made him want it more.

Husband and wife…

Bound by love forever… that sounded nice…

“Now then!” Fancy stepped over to Shining as the two faced Soarin.

That’s right… three. That’s what Luna meant. Soarin was well aware that during most of her visits, Princess Cadance traveled alone. Shining Armor, being not only the prince, but also the captain of the guard in the Crystal Empire, seldom left it. Soarin eagerly awaited Fancy’s explanation.

“There is one final magic lesson I believe will be important, especially considering your line of work,” Fancy began. “That is… the Magic Shield.”

“Magic Shield?” Soarin repeated as he tipped his head to the side.

“That’s right my boy!” Fancy nodded. “Our goal is to get you the best teachers available for training in unicorn magic… and while I am proud that Luna considers me to be the best candidate, there is somepony who is far more qualified than I to teach this last technique… the reason we waited so long is because it’s difficult to get Prince Shining Armor out of the Crystal Empire,” Fancy and Shining both chuckled.

“Being a prince and the captain of the guard at the same time is rough work, but I enjoy it…” Shining stepped forward and held his hoof out. “Soarin, first commander, lead squad. It’s a pleasure to meet such an accomplished Wonderbolt.”

Soarin was taken by surprise. For royalty, Shining was very casual. Then again he had heard something about how he and Princess Cadence met when they were very young and became inseparable. Talk about being the right age in the right place at the right time. Their connection had to be very strong… because Soarin knew that Shining was once captain of the guard here in Canterlot… and a royal marrying a knight was not a very frequent occurrence.

Soarin reached forward and shook Shining’s hoof with a smile.

“That means a lot coming from a prince!” Soarin chuckled. Shining shook his head.

“I like to think I break the royalty trend pretty hard… and that’s fine by me,” he said with a wink. “Now before we begin, let me first say that I have been informed of everything happening recently with you… it must be pretty incredible to be able to fly and have the gift of magic… it’s something I’ve always wondered about, being married to an alicorn and all. But considering what you’ve been through, I gotta ask… how have you not gone bat-shit INSANE yet?” he asked while snickering.

Soarin already liked Shining. His casual nature killed any royalty formalities. Soarin felt like he could speak freely.

“A lot of time in the gym and being surrounded by the best kind of idiots,” Soarin replied with smirk. Shining chuckled.

“Not to mention some pretty good looking mare flanks… eh?” Shining joked while nudging Soarin. Soarin looked away while snorting.

“Well—”

Soarin was cut off as Fancy cleared his throat. He and Shining both blinked and looked over.

“Gentlestallions… while I can agree with the quality of mare posteriors around the Wonderbolt compound, I believe we should get started… especially before your wife gets back Shining… I doubt she’ll enjoy hearing you discuss such things,” Fancy lifted an eyebrow, but had a small smile curled on his lips. Shining shrugged.

“She’ll probably just give me one of her famous ‘looks’ before forcing me to the ground and sitting on my back again… that’s generally what I get for misbehaving…” Shining explained with a smirk before turning to Soarin. “But sure… let’s get this going,” he nodded.

“Yes… in fact…” Fancy paused and looked around. Both Soarin and Shining looked towards him quizzically.

“What’s up?” Shining asked. Fancy looked down and shook his head.

“I’m actually quite surprised… that a certain undesirable has yet to show up…” he explained. Soarin instantly knew who he was talking about.

“Discord?” Soarin said with an annoyed tone, catching Shining’s attention. Fancy shook his head again.

“Honestly, let’s not worry about it… if he’s not here, it means he’s busy bothering somepony else. Let’s make use of this time while we can,” he motioned to Shining. “Carry on.”

“I’m all ears,” Soarin nodded. He focused as Shining readied to relay his knowledge.

“So… as I’m sure Fancy has taught you very well…” Shining began. “All magic requires quite a bit of mental focus. A relaxed mind but a powerful spirit… sometimes using emotions to manifest the magic in different ways. While that’s required for the magic shield… that’s about where most of it ends,” Shining smiled.

“Eh?” Soarin blinked, His interest caught. Yet another different approach? First it was recalling magical sensations… then it was splitting thought processes… then adding emotions to it… how else could one manipulate magic? Again, Soarin couldn’t believe how complicated magic use was. It always seemed so easy and natural whenever he saw a unicorn make use of it. Having used it their whole life probably made it look easy, but the learning process was incredibly complicated. Now he knew why magic schools existed.

“There are two things you must do to control a magic shield,” Shining continued. “Once you have the magic built up… you first have to physically tense your body.”

“Tense up?” Soarin tipped his head to the side. “But…” he looked towards Fancy. “I thought staying relaxed was required to keep the magic from dissipating.”

“It is,” Fancy clarified casually.

“Um…” Soarin looked between the two of them. “I couldn’t be more confused right now…” he admitted. Shining looked towards Fancy and motioned both hooves at him.

“Take it away, oh great guru of magic,” Shining joked as Fancy rolled his eyes with a smile.

“Think carefully Soarin…” Fancy winked at him. “Remember our training session where we covered grabbing more than one object at once?”

“Yes… what about it?” Soarin asked.

“The key to doing that… was splitting up thought processes in your brain… isolating them to control two or more different magical actions at once… do get where I’m going with this?” Fancy was adamant at letting Soarin figure it out himself.

Soarin looked down and recalled his previous lessons. Different thought processes… controlling two actions at once…

“Using… the same method, I can control my magic while also tensing my body?” Soarin put together and looked back up. Fancy looked pleased.

“Exactly!” he pointed. “You simply have to think about tensing your body separately from the magic.”

“That’s…” Soarin shook his head. “Easier said than done…” Soarin scratched his head. “Thinking about the magic and tensing every muscle in my body at the same time… That’s two entirely different things… it’s not like I’m trying to split similar thoughts…” Soarin wasn’t sure how this was going to work.

“Give it a go, you may surprise yourself,” Fancy winked. Soarin sighed, not feeling very confident about it. This was by far the most complicated magical process he had attempted. He decided to check before his first attempt.

“Anything else to know?” he asked while turning to Shining. Shining nodded and stepped forward.

“Actually… there is one more thing… the most important thing about the magic shield,” Shining said with a very serious tone. Soarin instantly perked up and listened. “What is a shield?” Shining suddenly asked.

“Pardon?” Soarin asked while tipping his head to the side.

“What is a shield?” Shining repeated. Soarin realized Shining was looking for an answer.

“Uh… something that… offers protection?” Soarin stated the most basic definition of a shield he could come up with.

“True… from a literal viewpoint,” Shining nodded. “But don’t think about it as an object… think of the shield… as yourself.”

“Myself?” Soarin pondered.

“That’s right… picture yourself as the shield,” Shining smiled. “As a shield… what would you do?” he asked. That was an easy question.

“I would protect those around me?” Soarin answered quickly.

“Bingo!” Shining chuckled. “Simply tensing your body won’t work… you have to tense your body as if receiving a blow… but that’s not all…” he patted Soarin on the shoulder. “The strength of the shield your magic generates is only as strong as your resolve. So you must visualize you are protecting something incredibly important to you… something you would protect with your life.”

Something Soarin would protect with his life? Was there any real question as to what that was to him? Soarin could easily see how Shining was well known for magic shields. If this was the method of making it all work… all he had to do was think of his beautiful wife… and what he would to protect her from harm.

“I can do that,” Soarin said with a sudden burst of confidence.

“Show us what you’ve got!” Shining encouraged him as he stepped back.

Soarin went through the motions, relaxing and recalling the magical sensations until he had it all built up. One thing he failed to ask was how long it took for a magic shield to form. He understood he had the difficult task of splitting up his through processes and using one for physically tensing his body… but how long would he have to hold it?

A blue glow surrounded Soarin’s horn as Shining and Fancy watched carefully. Soarin split his thoughts and took a few moments to gather himself before attempting using one for a physical act.

Of course, he also closed his eyes as he prepared his visualization. What would he protect? What would he give his life for? The answer was painfully obvious. He would do absolutely anything to protect Rainbow Da—

The magic EXPLODED outward from the horn, encasing Soarin in a veil of blue light before it fired out and expanded rapidly around him.

“Whoa!” Shining yelped as he and Fancy were throttled by the expanding aura. It wasn’t just a trick of light… the aura was solid, and it slammed right into them. They both tumbled, but quickly stood back up, staring in awe at the large shield dome that surrounded Soarin with at least a ten foot radius. “Holy crap!” Shining remarked as he blinked repeatedly.

“My word…” Fancy was also at a loss.

“Huh?” Soarin opened his eyes and saw the large dome of blue light surrounding him. He was shocked to see it had worked so quickly and easily… however looking up broke his focus and the shield capsized. The aura sucked back into the horn and the magic dissipated.

“Damn!” Shining cantered right up to Soarin. “First try?! After how confused you looked? Were you egging us on?” Shining chuckled as he threw his arm around Soarin’s neck and gave him a noogie.

“Ah!” Soarin ripped free and shrugged. “I… don’t know, I just did everything you told me… and it worked?”

“That was quite intense though!” Fancy remarked as he stepped up as well. “You not only manifested an incredibly solid shield… you also created a dome effect around you! We were going to start you off with simple forward sheets and basic guards… but you pulled off the most advanced kind on your first try!” Fancy sounded very excited.

“Wow… really?” Soarin chuckled, not quite sure how it worked, but it did. Shining nudged Soarin in the side.

“You must have something really worth protecting, eh?” he asked while looking directly as Soarin’s face. Soarin couldn’t hold it back. His cheeks heated up slightly. “HA!” Shining pointed. “Called it! What’s her name?” he instantly asked, but Fancy’s magic surrounded Shining’s tail and pulled him away from the blushing Wonderbolt.

“Let’s not pressure him now…” Fancy chuckled. “He’s got the advanced ones down… now let’s see if we can get him to control the others… ready Soarin?” he asked.

“I guess I’m more ready than I thought,” Soarin said with a smile as he prepared to practice more.

Off to the side behind the throne, and on the other side of the back door… Luna and Cadance had not taken a single step after the doors had closed behind them. Luna’s magic was alight and swirling around the door, allowing them to look through it and observe Soarin’s training session.

“Quite impressive…” Cadance nodded while looking up at her aunt. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“As much as we do… we fail to believe it is wise to put such a heavy weight on his shoulders…” Luna shook her head. Cadance placed a hoof gently on Luna’s arm.

“It was Auntie Tia’s choice… and we should respect it,” Cadance said in a soothing tone.

“I agree…” a deep, male voice sounded from behind them. Luna perked up and glanced behind her before sighing again. Cadance didn’t even look. The voice continued. “He has proven time and time again that he is capable… and with this lesson, his knowledge of magic will be complete… correct?”

Luna looked down and took a deep breath.

“That is correct… although he will still need a little time for some fine tuning… I only hope it works out…” she replied.

“Soarin will make it happen,” the voice said confidently. “I know no other pegasus more worthy of his reputation.”

“I hope you’re right…” Luna said as she looked back up through the door.

“I am,” the voice replied adamantly. “I shall take my leave… I’ll report back in the morning.”

---To Be Continued---

(My short story: That's Not Quite How It Works takes place right after this chapter. If you wish to follow the timeline in the exact order, it starts here :pinkiesmile:)

Author's Note

Dashie workin dat gym body, eh? :moustache: (Blame me and my liking for strong, athletic women :derpytongue2:)

Hey! Look who snuck into the story! Shining Armor! Who else would teach Soarin how to shield others with magic? It's what he does! (When he's not getting sat on for misbehaving) Want to see more of my laid back, fun Shining Armor? Check out my short story: That's Not Quite How He Told It... It takes place right before this story, it's short, sweet, and full of hilarious differences between male and female brains :rainbowlaugh:

But oh look at me... dropping mysterious characters with deep voices in the background... who was that?!

I'm sure you'll find out soon! :rainbowwild:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 63: Comrades, Brothers, Sisters, Family

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 63:

“Hmmm…” Silver pondered as he walked back and forth amongst the lined up recruits. They all wore a set of padded training armor and all stood completely still along the middle line of the battle dome.

Dash kept her eyes forward as Silver paced before them, wondering if she was going to get chosen.

The second day of the cycle had been an interesting one so far… their morning element training session was cut short because Blaze set the whole room on fire by accident. Luckily, Wave was there to fight the inferno until the fire department showed up, keeping the damage to a minimum and isolated to the gym they were using.

Blaze got quite an earful from both Silver and Spitfire, but they were soon all back to business as usual… just down one gymnasium. The day went on… leading to the recruits usual second day combat training session in the afternoon. At the end he lined them up to select two lucky recruits to engage in a practice sparring match, just as Silver had the past few combat sessions. Dash had yet to be picked.

“Squall,” Silver gave a head motion towards the left side of the inner circle.

Squall took a deep breath and stepped out, the usual hardened expression on his face. Dash watched as Squall walked out to his spot, turned around, and suddenly locked his eyes directly on her.

Dash blinked in surprised as their eyes met. She was staring forward as ordered, but for some reason he was giving her a harsh glare. Honestly, Dash didn’t think he had a real reason, for all she knew he was just trying to look tough and direct it at her.

Squall had been better… much better than when they first got acquainted. Dash felt like she was slowly beginning to understand him, but there was still so much mystery surrounding him. At least it now felt like he had a genuine respect for her and her friends, something which was clearly hard earned.

As Silver walked back and forth in front of the recruits again, he paused and glanced at Squall. He noticed immediately that Squall had his eyes harshly fixed on something. Silver stepped back and closer to Squall. He traced Squall’s vision… until his eyes landed on Dash. Silver slowly glanced between Dash and Squall a few times before lifting an eyebrow and smirking ever so slightly.

“Rainbow Dash,” Silver called her out as he motioned his head to the right side of the circle. “The rest of you step out!” Silver ordered, causing the rest of the recruits to start backing away.

“Good luck!” Little Star whispered to Dash before following Matteo and Thunderlane. Dash gulped and stepped into place, Squall’s eyes remaining on her throughout her movement. She stopped in the right starting position and faced Squall, doing her best to return his gaze from twenty yards away. She wasn’t afraid or intimidated, but it was a difficult glare to answer.

“Alright you two… come on in for a moment.” Silver stepped into the middle and beckoned them to come towards him.

Dash and Squall kept their eyes locked as they approached the center. They had a mutual respect going… sure… but if Dash remembered correctly, Squall was more than just a little bitter about not being the top recruit. If the encounter with Storm Front a couple of weeks back was any indication, Squall was EXTREMELY bitter about it.

One thing that stood out about the recruit training as Dash had gone through the past few weeks, was that everything they did had either an individual challenge, or a team challenge to overcome. There was literally no competition amongst the recruits, at least nothing that was meant to be competition. Recruits could compare their performances… but they were never placed in something head to head.

That was, until a week ago when Silver started pitting one recruit against another… only one match… at the end of each combat session. So for a while, any grudges or any unfinished business from the tryouts went unsatisfied.

Dash had a feeling that underneath that scowl and glare… Squall was shivering at the opportunity to finally compete against her in something.

As soon as the two made it to the center, Silver suddenly grabbed the two of them by the neck straps of their armor and yanked them both slightly down and towards each other. They both yelped in surprise as he lowered his head down towards theirs, making sure to remain slightly higher, and looked down at them.

“Now, let’s get one thing crystal clear right now you two…” he began with an extra sharp tone. “I know how you both are. Don’t act like I don’t, because I’ve watched your sorry asses for almost a full month now.” He turned to Squall. “You are both stubborn,” he turned sharply to Dash. “And you both never take a hint. Now at times this is a good thing, but right now,” he exhaled through his nose and shook his head. “I’m letting you two beat on each other for five minutes… and when I say stop, YOU BETTER STOP… Or so help me I will tie you both to a chair and ask Surprise and Savage to explain the mysteries of the universe to you!”

Dash and Squall both flinched and stared up at Silver with wide eyes and ears flopped down. Silver took in their looks of fear and nodded.

“I’m glad we have an understanding…” he chuckled while lightly hitting their foreheads together and letting them go. They stumbled back slightly before standing upright and facing each other again. Silver extended his wings out. “Get in place,” he ordered before refolding his wings and stepping back.

Off to the side in the bleachers surrounding the battle dome’s infield, Soarin and Spitfire sat side by side. It was a relatively quiet day for the elite squads. Not only did the squads that had just returned have the day off, but a good number of other elite squads had taken the day to rest as well.

Soarin and Spitfire had taken the opportunity to view the training of the new recruits. They had very few chances to do so in the past, getting most of the feedback from Silver’s reports. After Soarin relayed Dash’s amazing performance in Silver’s obstacle course to Spitfire, she decided to come see it for herself. The mishap with Blaze nearly setting the whole compound on fire was a minor setback in their day off, but Spitfire was visibly excited and already impressed with what she had seen.

Silver was handling the combat training alone today with the help of pop up punch-dummies that bounced right back up after being knocked over. He gave each recruit a chance to take a few shots at him as well, but obviously none connected. Dash was the only recruit that forced Silver to take a step back as she threw a few attacks at him.

Soarin thought about bringing up Silver’s personal training of Dash… but he figured if there was any reason Silver would do it in private, it would be to keep it from Spitfire to surprise her later… so Soarin kept his mouth shut.

But now… Soarin was sitting on the edge of his seat.

“Lean any further forward and you’re gonna topple over the edge,” Spitfire chuckled as Soarin tipped back away from the railing atop the edge wall of the infield.

“Hey, my mare is about to fight!” Soarin turned and pouted.

“Know anything about how this guy fights?” Spitfire asked, ignoring Soarin’s pouty face. Soarin looked towards Squall and recalled what he had seen in the past.

“This was the guy that used martial arts to blow past the Blast Walls,” he pointed out. Spitfire blinked.

“Oh! Right, I remember him…”

“My guess is he will use the same in combat,” Soarin continued as he leaned slightly forward again.

He had the utmost confidence in Dash… especially since she had been getting private training directly from Combat Master Silver Lining himself. However, he recalled Squall’s movements… and the amount of skill he showed in his martial arts. He was well practiced for one of his age, and combat was clearly not a new concept to him. Dash had copied his movements once, but it was on a whim in desperation. Could she copy a full style of fighting that looked to be refined from years of practice? He was about to find out—

“Whoa!” Soarin yelped as Spitfire lightly pushed a hoof against his back, making him slip off his seat and fall forward. He caught himself on the railing before pushing up, turning and staring flatly at her.

“Sorry, it was too tempting…” she shrugged with a content smile.

Spitfire seemed to be doing better. Soarin was certain she wasn’t out of the frying pan yet with her… heat problems, but she was definitely keeping them under control with him around, which he appreciated. Wave Chill had been showing signs of finally trying to fix things… he wondered if Spitfire had thought about the same.

But that could wait… his Dashie was about to be a badass and required his undivided attention.

Dash took her place and turned, locking her eyes on Squall as he continued his harsh glare. She took a deep breath and exhaled, freeing her mind and focusing on the pony that would be her target in mere seconds.

She hadn’t fought another pony beside Silver in a long time… at first glance she thought this would be an easy fight. Squall was nothing compared to Silver. But then again, it wasn’t like she could do anything against Silver, so for the first time in a while, she was fighting an opponent who was on her level. She wouldn’t know until they started.

She set her hooves and tensed her body for a moment, before relaxing while visualizing how the fight would begin. Again, it was fruitless, she had never fought Squall, but she was more than certain he would charge… and his martial arts… could she counter them? She knew a bit of martial arts herself… but Squall’s was of a style she had never seen, and it was clearly perfected.

She felt… excited? Maybe after how much she tried and failed to land a single clean hit on Silver… she was itching to wallop somepony across the jaw.

“Wonderbolts set?” Silver asked as he reached a safe distance. Dash and Squall didn’t look at him, but both gave a subtle nod. Silver glanced between them one more time before pushing backward into the air. “BEGIN!”

As expected, Squall leapt right at Dash, he pumped his wings twice before spinning in the air and aiming a roundhouse kick right for her head.

Even though it was expected, Dash was caught off-guard by something else. Squall attacked fast. He had closed the distance so quickly that Dash had very little time to make a choice. Silver never approached this quickly… he probably could… but she had to remind herself that this wasn’t a training session… this was a real combat simulation. Squall’s aggressive approach had her at a brief loss… step back to avoid or meet his attack?

Rule number one… Never be afraid of your opponent. It doesn’t matter how big, strong, or fast they are… if you fear them, you lose the battle before it even begins.

Afraid of Squall? Like HELL she was!

Dash jammed her back hooves firmly to the ground and reached up with her hooves, catching his leg and softening its impact against her cheek-guard.

“Huh?!” Squall reacted as Dash clamped down on his leg and turned her body, pulling him around and flinging him around her, tossing him behind her with a slight downward angle. He tumbled through the air, eventually hitting the ground and bouncing once. Before slamming his hooves to the floor and propelling himself upward.

Taking the initiative, Dash sprung up after him.

Upon seeing her approach, Squall stopped mid-ascent, and put up his hooves as if eagerly awaiting Dash to reach him. Dash rushed upward, hoof pulled back and ready to strike. There was a large opening in Squall’s guard. Right in front of his face. Dash didn’t think, she just went right for it, punching forward right towards Squall’s exposed face.

But it was a trap.

Squall simply turned and edged his right elbow up, the small movement tapped against Dash’s arm and caused her attack to bounce up and sail right over his head.

Before Dash could do anything, Squall delivered three rapid jabs into Dash’s chest guard.

“Oo!” Dash grunted as she was forced backwards. She tried to put up a guard, but Squall had already moved up and punched rapidly, hitting her three times in the stomach, the chest, and the chin. Dash was pushed back further, but again, Squall advanced and continued his barrage. “Dammit!” Dash tried to push away from him, but he rushed with her movement and grinded his teeth.

“Hyaah!” he yelled as he delivered an incredibly fast one-two punch to her chest that propelled Dash tumbling backward.

For a brief moment, Dash couldn’t breathe. She forced her lungs to exhale before drawing in a deep breath and panting for a moment as her eyes shot up in time to catch Squall on another aggressive approach.

Squall meant business! He wasn’t holding back at all. How hard he pressed offense was almost terrifying. Dash couldn’t find a single opportunity to attack. He also knew how and where to hit her. The rapid blows against her chest threw off her breathing for a moment, not to mention it sent a shock through her body that she couldn’t absorb. The armor almost didn’t matter against an attack like that.

Squall was truly a fearsome fighter! She fought him once before when he raged after Thunderlane ran into him… but he was like an animal there. Here, Squall was focused, and directing every ounce of his combat prowess right at her. Could she beat him like this?

Squall had a confident grin on his face… he was already in control of the fight and he knew it… Dash panicked as he drew near. She wasn’t ready for another attack.

Doubt?

Squall… better than her?

Rule number two… Intimidation will always win. It doesn’t matter if the intimidation is in the form of your opponent… or taking and returning the threat right back at them. Force your will onto your opponent and let them know you will fight.

Dash glared and locked her eyes on his arms. He repeated the one-two jab motions. Dash quickly crossed her hooves over her body and threw them out while moving them upward. They struck Squall’s hooves as he went in for the attack, forcing him out of his own movements. His eyes widened in surprise, but he quickly tried to throw his hooves back down. Dash reached up and the two locked their front hooves together, pushing against each other with the strength of their arms and wings.

Dash hardened her gaze and pushed against him before he could.

“Grrr!” Squall growled as he was forced to react. He was pushed back a few feet before he managed to match Dash’s push. He snarled into her face as he started to push her back, but he found it difficult to. Dash kept her glare strong as she forced all of her strength into resisting. He was stronger than her, but he would have to work hard if he wanted to move her. She was silently letting him know that she was no push over, and was not afraid to take him head on.

However, she was also smart enough not continue a contest of strength when she was clearly not winning. She got her point across. She suddenly let go and tipped backwards. Squall lost control and fell forward. Dash kicked her back legs into his stomach, sending her towards the ground as he gasped and clutched his stomach.

Feeling a little confident herself now, Dash caught his eyes as she fell. She winked at him and stuck her tongue out before she turned and floated gently to the ground.

Squall’s face turned red with anger as he snorted and dove after her. Dash kept her eyes on him, standing completely still as he approached. She waited patiently, slowly unfolding her wings.

Right before Squall was upon her, she picked up her front hooves and set them one slightly higher than the other. She rapped them hard against the padded floor, executing Storm Front’s Surface Tap, propelling her instantly from the spot and out of Squall’s way, but she didn’t stop there. The instant after she used Storm’s move, she forced her body into a spin, copying Twister’s Spiral Turn, and using the extra force generated by it to recreate Matteo’s Air Burst as she pumped her wings down. The blast of air that followed behind her bounced off the ground and crashed against Squall as he came down. It knocked him out of control and he landed roughly against the floor, face first.

“Argh!” he grunted as he rolled over and got up. Dash was standing a few yards away and waiting for him to attack again.

She had devised a strategy. She had to use Squall’s aggressiveness against him. If he was going to press the attacks, she let him come, using wit and clever defensive and evasive strategies to turn his ruthless offense against him.

As Squall approached, Dash reared back, fluttering her wings to keep her upright as she put up her hooves. It was time to put her skills to use. If she could figure out his fighting style, she could literally turn his offense against him. She focused on him, taking a defensive position as he readied to attack again… and broke down his technique.

Shoulders square…

Upper arms out to the sides…

Elbows bent…

Hooves tucked in close to his chest…

“HYAAAH!” Squall yelled out as he jabbed at her. Dash had seen this attack multiple times now… the one-two punch. She shifted to the side and brought her hooves down to knock his attack away from her.

Quick, rapid punches…

Emphasis on speed over power…

Rarely only lands one hit per attack…

“Rgh!” Squall slammed his front hooves to the floor as he fell, kicking his back hooves up…Dash’s eyes widened in surprise as his legs bent and thrust rapidly at her.

Squall was using the same techniques with his back legs as well? She quickly crossed her hooves in front of her face, bracing herself as his hooves clashed with her arm guards. She was whiplashed backward and started falling back. She didn’t need to look up, she knew Squall would press the attack…

Rule number three… Never go to the ground if you can avoid it. A wall that’s knocked down no longer stands in the way of those it was halting… if you go to the ground, you are giving your opponent a perfect opportunity to knock you out, severely injure you, or worse.

Dash grunted, twisted her body around, and pressed her wings to the ground as soon as she landed stomach first. She pushed herself up, wing-up style, just enough to plant her legs on the ground.

Front hooves, back hooves, front jump, back jump…

“HYAAAH!!!” Squall’s battle cry came from behind her.

FORCE WINGS!

Dash executed the movements… but the slight flinch that came upon hearing Squall’s shout caused her Sonic Blastoff to be shaky. She propelled from the spot, but was struck down by the air cone and instantly tumbled to the ground ten feet away.

“OOF! AH!” Dash grunted as she bounced. It was ugly… but she did it in a pinch and it got her to safety. She found her balance and flattened her wings, riding her broken momentum into a slight liftoff before straightening out and slowing herself down. She hovered up into the air and faced Squall as he matched her height.

“I still can’t get enough of seeing her copy moves… First Shine, now Dash… I don’t feel like I’m— Soarin?” Spitfire glanced at Soarin. He was nearly pressing himself into the railing with his eyes fixed up towards Dash.

“Huh?” he blinked and looked back at her. “Sorry, kind of occupied…” he said with a chuckle, rubbing the back of his head. Spitfire rolled her eyes and smiled.

“I’m praising your lady over here,” she said. “This Squall guy is pretty fierce and clearly a well-practiced martial artist, but she’s using her strengths to create an advantage for herself… not to mention she’s doing it by using multiple other signature techniques. I’m curious to see how far she can take her mirroring ability.”

“She’s quite something…” Soarin replied with a smile as he looked back up. He blinked a few times and smiled even wider. “No way…”

“Hm?” Spitfire caught on Soarin’s sudden awe and looked towards Dash.

“Look!” he pointed. “She’s…”

Dash had shifted her body as she hovered… placing herself in a stance identical to Squall’s. Every part of her body was positioned to match how he held his: square shoulders, upper arms out to the sides, elbows bend, and hooves tucked in.

“You can’t be serious…” Spitfire blinked. “I mean… it’s just a stance, but if she starts throwing all his moves right back at him… roughly a minute after being hit by them…”

“She’s told me herself on several occasions,” Soarin chuckled as he glanced back at Spitfire. “She’s kind of a big deal.”

Squall paused in his advance for a moment and blinked as he looked Dash up and down.

Dash smirked as she saw him recognize his own stance. She had never seen his style of fighting before… but with her basic knowledge of martial arts and analyzing his movements, she felt like she had an idea of how his martial arts worked. It was time to see if she could turn his own moves against him.

“See something familiar?” she taunted. Squall’s eyes shot up to hers. He glared, but didn’t growl, snarl or grunt. He looked… peeved… as if being mocked. Dash could read it in his eyes. He thought she was bluffing. She was to an extent… she had never used his moves before, but she had watched him carefully and was confident she could.

Squall tipped back and fired towards her again. Dash… not wanting to be caught on the defensive again, did the same. Squall reared back his left hoof and fired it forward. Dash ducked right… and unloaded three rapid blows to Squall’s side.

“Ah!” he grunted as he was forced back a little. He snapped back towards her and threw three quick jabs, Dash knocked one down, but the other two caught her in the chest. She exhaled as she edged backward.

A weakness. She found a weakness in Squall’s stance. With her hooves tucked in… it was hard to defend against quick attacks. Normally, she’d have her hooves out in front at the ready, but in Squall’s stance she needed to move further to intercept incoming blows.

That was Squall’s weakness… he was all offense and no defense. She looked up to see Squall moving through the air towards her once more, pressing the offense mercilessly. He turned slightly, readying his one-two combo. Dash locked her eyes on his arms… and mimicked his movements.

“HYAAH!” Squall AND Dash yelled out at the same time, their hooves clashing with a rapid CLACK CLACK as Dash countered his attack with identical strikes. The unexpected shock that traveled through their arms forced the two of them apart. While Squall floated back to shake out his hooves, Dash ignored the shock and charged at him.

Squall didn’t have time to react as Dash began peppering him with his own martial arts techniques. She delivered quick rapid blows, bringing her hooves back into her chest and springing them back out again and again, not allowing him to counter. He tried again and again to block and fight back, but he never had an open opportunity. After about half a minute of punishment from his own moves… Squall was losing his temper. The wildly thrust his hooves forward, shoving Dash away from him before growling and charging recklessly at Dash. Dash remained focused and calm, retaking Squall’s stance as he approached.

Rule number four… Never fight angry. Controlling your emotions is essential to survival. Despite my opponent’s superiority to me, my level head gave me the means to victory.

“RGGH!!!” Squall grunted as he threw an angry punch right towards Dash’s face. The wind up was slow, and the delivery sloppy. Dash simply ducked and…

“HYAAAH!!!” she mimicked his battle cry and delivered the same rapid one-two blow to Squall’s chest… but it wasn’t like his… she changed it slightly so that the one-two blow was rapid in a succession similar to Storm’s Surface Tap… effectively combining Squall’s technique with Storm’s.

Because of the added force from the Surface Tap, Squall was propelled backward by the hits. He lost control of his flight and tumbled down, crashing back-first against the ground and bouncing to a stop.

Keeping true to Squall’s style of fighting, Dash pursued and was on the ground in front of him as soon as he was back on his hooves. Dash turned and drove forward with a rapid elbow and hoof attack… but Squall ducked and twisted his body, turning while slamming his front hooves to the ground. Dash’s eyes widened as his back hooves left the ground.

Rule number five… learn from defeat. You don’t experience defeat the first time you lose to a specific opponent. You are defeated if you lose to them again. You must analyze and adapt to your enemies.

Dash’s eyes locked on Squall’s back hooves as they launched towards her face again.

Victory is not guaranteed through strength, speed, and skill… Awareness and discipline will always be stronger than any punch or kick you can throw.

Dash thrust her wings up, giving her just enough speed to dodge the point blank attack, Squall’s hooves skimmed the top of her faceguard and she felt his legs whisk through her mane. As she dropped, her brain replayed the image of Squall executing the kicking attack. She scrunched her face in determination as she twisted her body, slammed her front hooves to the ground while turning.

If you can master those… even opponents who outclass you physically…

Dash kicked her back hooves out in an uneven one-two motion, again adding the force and speed of the Surface Tap to them.

Can be brought down.

Squall took the kicks directly to the face. Dash’s hooves struck the cheek-guards of Squall’s armor and ripped the whole headpiece clean off as he whipped backward, and flew up into the air, arcing back down and crashing to the ground again.

Dash bounced right up and followed, breaking from Squall’s stance and rearing back a hoof to strike.

Squall rolled over on the ground and frantically propped himself up. Dash was already upon him. He had no time to dodge. He simply threw his arm up over his face, ready to receive the blow…

But it never connected.

Dash stopped herself right before throwing the punch.

Squall was down, disoriented, and unable to fight back in his current position. Squall slowly peeked over his arm and looked up incredulously at Dash.

Dash placed all four hooves on the ground and smile… before reaching out and offering her hoof to him. Squall blinked… frozen in surprise for a few moments. Dash waved her hoof slightly to assure him she wasn’t playing any tricks.

Squall simply stared for another moment or two… before sighing, looking away, and reaching up. He hooked his hoof with Dash’s and she hoisted him up from the ground. The two stood face to face briefly, before Dash gave him a nod and stepped back, retaking Squall’s stance. Squall stepped back and did the same… not quite certain how he felt about what just happened.

The two were set and ready to jump at one another again, but right before they could…

“No, no, no… that’s enough,” Silver stepped between them and stretched out his wingspan. “A head-guard has been knocked off and you only had about fifteen more seconds anyway, so I’m calling it here… pretty impressive fighting though, you two might actually be worth my trouble after all!” Silver joked to himself as Dash and Squall both relaxed. “Alright, everypony lose the armor, we’ve got dinner in an hour, so shower up!” Silver yelled as he turned and walked back towards the recruits.

Dash and Squall remained in place, looking at each other as Silver moved away. Dash reached up and removed her head-guard before stepping towards him… and smiled.

“Nice fight,” she complimented while once again extending a hoof. Squall looked at her carefully, moving his eyes between her hoof and her face.

“How did…” he began quietly, but stopped himself, swallowed and exhaled.

“Hm?” Dash tipped her head slightly. Squall shook his head.

“Nothing…” he reached out and shook hooves with her. “Good fight.” He quickly pulled his hoof back before turning and walking past her. Dash smirked as he walked by before following right behind.

“Damn, I’m hungry!” she remarked casually as the two made their way in the directions of the locker rooms.

“Wow… just… wow…” Spitfire nodded in extreme satisfaction as she and Soarin stood up from the bleachers.

“I know right?!” Soarin bounced up and down. “I can’t believe how much she’s improved!” Soarin sounded like a giddy colt. Spitfire chuckled and reached a hoof over his head, stopping him from bouncing.

“She has, but… I have no words to describe what I just saw,” Spitfire spoke as they walked through the bleachers towards the exit. “Copying single moves is one thing… but Dash just mimicked a whole style of martial arts on the fly… her recreation isn’t as refined, but the turnaround rate from when she sees to when she mirrors a technique is incredibly fast!”

“And even though it’s not refined or perfect…” Soarin took over as they reached the doors and he held it open for Spitfire. “She compensates by adding other techniques she’s copied to them! Did you notice how much stronger her version of the double punch was? She used Storm Front’s Surface Tap in there! I barely saw it!” Soarin smiled wide.

“She’s gonna be special Soarin… I can tell already,” Spitfire nodded as she stepped through the door and they made their way into the hallway. “Is it dinner time yet?” she asked as she looked around for a clock, but the closest one had been taken off the wall recently to be fixed.

“I think we’ve got a little bit of time still,” Soarin clarified, vaguely remembering Silver yelling to the recruits.

“Oh…” Spitfire replied both quietly and weakly, staring off down the hall towards the lobby and not moving. Soarin blinked as he looked her over. She looked like she had something on her mind. Scratch that, she totally had something on her mind. Soarin knew that look of hers well.

In Spitfire’s position, she rarely showed signs of weakness. Even in times where things troubled her, she tried her hardest to look like she was in complete control of herself and the situation around her. There were few ponies she ever showed uncertainty to… and one of them was Soarin.

“Spitfire… what’s on your mind?” Soarin asked as the two began a slow walk down the hallway. Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“Nothing,” she quickly answered. “I’m fine, it’s something personal… I don’t want you to think I wasn’t paying attention to Dash just now, this can wait…” she tried to deflect, but Soarin had none of it.

“I know you’re excited about Dash, you radiate it…” Soarin chuckled before turning serious. “But you’re also making that face you do whenever you want to talk to me about personal things.

“Face?” Spitfire scrunched her brow and looked at him. Soarin snickered.

“Yeah, this one!” he reached over his head and pulled up his nose while puckering his lips. Spitfire snorted and shook her head.

“Alright, dumbass, fine… you’re right… I do have a lot on my mind…” she sighed as they continued to walk slowly.

“Do I even have to ask if it’s about him?” Soarin asked. Spitfire shook her head.

“Am I that transparent?” she sighed again. Soarin shrugged.

“You’re good about hiding lots of your problems Spit… but not him. You might as well shine a light in our face whenever you’re worried or thinking of Chiller. So what happened this time?” Soarin was ready to give her the old verbal slap across the face and point her towards him… but something WAS different this time.

“I’ve noticed he’s been… a bit more forward lately…” she began. “I think he’s trying to fix things… but, I don’t know what to do,” she looked up at Soarin briefly. “I keep avoiding him… before it felt fine because we were both in an awkward rut… but now I feel like I might be hurting him.”

Soarin was caught off guard. Spitfire was talking seriously about how she felt for Wave Chill? What happened to her strict discipline bullshit?

“Spitfire, you absolutely cannot avoid him anymore… especially if he’s trying. Why run? He wants to mend things and stop the awkwardness!” Soarin explained.

“Look Soarin… I’m still…” she blushed and paused mid stride to tap one of her back hooves on the floor. “Dealing with the heat… We’re still in a workplace and we’re still professionals… I don’t want to lose control and do something I’d regret.”

There it was, Soarin knew it was too good to be true. Spitfire shivered slightly.

“Fleetfoot was right… having him here has made the experience much worse… I have a hard enough time controlling myself around all the stallions in the compound… when he's nearby I have to strain myself to not throw myself at him! I don’t trust myself to be in control around him. And now that he’s trying to advance it’s gotten worse… Fleet was right… I don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell…” she released a sigh that was so long it almost sounded like a deflating balloon. “God, I’m pathetic…” she suddenly said.

Soarin’s ears perked up and he stopped walking. He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing her to look at him.

“That was out of left field…” Soarin looked her square in the eyes, but she turned hers away. “Spitfire?”

“Ngh…” she groaned and tried to get away, but Soarin held firm to her shoulder.

“I don’t think so, missy… what was that all about?” he pressed. Was there more on her mind than Wave Chill? This was very unlike Spitfire. Spitfire: the confident, serious, and dutiful captain of the Wonderbolts… who earned her status through more hard work, willpower, and determination than any other pegasus in Wonderbolt history… calling herself pathetic?

“I don’t know…” she suddenly sat down and sighed. “Soarin… I feel like everything is out of my control,” her voice was higher pitched than normal and somewhat squeaky. She sounded like she was about to cry, but true to her nature, she forced the tears back. “I’m throwing together projects and being unsure of them as I go… I have the higher powers keeping things from me… I’ve got paperwork piled up every night… I constantly hear mixed messages about how I’ve changed things around here… I’m in heat… I can’t bring myself to say anything to Wave Chill… I’ve had my own body functions turned against me… we’ve got what we think are Shadowbolts somewhere… my best friend is being plagued by magic that was forced into him and I can do nothing to help him…”

Soarin blinked and watched her struggle to hold back the tears. He had no idea just how much pressure had been on her shoulders… well he did… but it was more than he imagined. Soarin thought she was just having problems with Wave again… but apparently a lot had been on her mind, and talking about Wave made the dam break. All her problems on her mind came forward. And… as usual, she hadn’t shared any of them with him or Fleetfoot. Always keeping herself bottled up… she had to stop doing that.

“I’m being pushed from all sides and I can’t push back… or I won’t push back… I don’t know. I just feel like I’m being crushed… I’m pathetic Soarin… and I’m dragging the Wonderbolts down with me. I’m slowly ruining what they are and what they stand for!”

“Hey!” Soarin placed his other hoof on her other shoulder and got right in her face. “NONE OF THAT!” he said sternly as she continued to look down. “Spitfire, why do you do this to your—”

“COMING THROUGH!!!!!!!!!!”

Soarin and Spitfire looked up just in time.

“Whoa!” Soarin yelped as he jumped aside and pulled Spitfire with him.

Lightning Streak and Air Mach zoomed past them…

On small, red tricycles…

Soarin and Spitfire both blinked, looked at each other in complete bewilderment, and looked back as the two riders made it to the end of the hall, struggled to get the little tricycles to turn, and began zooming back down the hall. They zoomed right past Soarin and Spitfire again.

Soarin couldn’t hold back the sudden amused smile and the confused chuckles as he watched the two ponies who were both way too big for the three wheeled bikes, their legs jutting out to the side, struggling to keep control as they went. Spitfire had her hooves on her head, and her mouth hanging open.

“WHAT. THE. HELL?!” Spitfire freaked out, her serious demeanor instantly returning as if the absurd scenario of two elite Wonderbolts racing on tricycles through the halls completely shocked the depressing thoughts out of her.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

“Uh…” Soarin shrugged as he chuckled.

Suddenly the sound of hooting and hollering came from the lobby as the two idiots pedaled into it.

“Wait a second…” Spitfire furrowed her brow and broke into a trot towards the lobby with Soarin following close behind.

They emerged in the lobby and were met with quite a sight. There was a whole crowd of Wonderbolts in the lobby, laughing, shouting, and cheering as Air Mach and Lightning Streak raced in circles around the lobby. Most of the Wonderbolts present were elites. Fleetfoot, Blaze, High Winds, Macho Savage, Wave Chill… even Misty Fly and Fire Streak. All were having a hard time standing because they were guffawing so hard. Fire was shaking his head with a look of disapproval, but it looked forced as if he was trying really hard to keep from laughing.

As the two riders made their circles around the lobby, Macho Savage pulled out and dumped a bag of dodge balls he snuck out of one of the equipment rooms and dumped them out on the floor. Several male members of the Wonderbolts made their way over to grab them and started chucking them at Air Mach and Lightning as they rode. They took a few glancing blows, but no direct hits before taking off down the west hallway for another long straightaway.

“Okay, this is stopping RIGHT now!” Spitfire growled, but she yelped as Soarin grabbed her tail in his teeth and yanked her back. “OW!” she turned and glared at Soarin as he spat her tail out and shook his head.

“Spitfire, when was the last time this many squads had a day off of training?” he asked. Spitfire narrowed her glare further.

“That doesn’t matter! This is inexcusable and—” she was cut off as Soaring put a hoof over her mouth.

“Let them have fun…” Soarin said to her sternly. “Just watch,” he said as he pointed back towards the action. Spitfire pouted, bit her bottom lip and turned back around.

“Fine… it’s their own damn fault if they get hurt…” she grumbled. Soarin rolled his eyes and smiled as he too looked back at the hilarity.

“The great Animak will emerge victorious!” Air Mach yelled before they even got back to the lobby.

“I heard you the first twelve times, bro!” Lightning yelled back as they re-emerged in the lobby.

“C’mon! Five more laps around the lobby!” Blaze encouraged while swinging her arms.

Dodgeballs came flying at them again as they circled around and around. On their third pass, Macho Savage finally got his hooves on one of the dodgeballs and took aim. He fired it absurdly hard towards the two, but missed completely. The ball seared over the mail counter towards the open door to the back mail room. The orange pony walked out, yelped, and ducked just in time as the ball shot over his head and into the mail room. After a loud PAFF, a cloud of paper and envelopes spewed out of the mail room.

“I JUST GOT DONE ORGANIZING THOSE!!!!!” The orange pony whined as he groaned in annoyance.

Air Mach and Lightning were on their fifth and final lap around the lobby and we coming around to the mock finish line marked by Blaze and High Winds near the doors to the recruit barracks. As they approached, Misty Fly suddenly grabbed a loose dodgeball off the floor, took careful aim and lightly lofted the ball towards them.

All eyes left the racers and landed on the ball floating gently through the air in a high arc.

“Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhh….” The crowd started up as the ball looked to be on a perfect path to intercept the riders.

The ball hit the top of its arc and fell towards the ground…

“Augh!” and bopped right off Lightning’s head.

“OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!” The Wonderbolts all cheered and burst out laughing as Lightning’s tricycle slowly tipped and he fell right into Air Mach. The two tumbled off the tricycles and gently rolled to a stop as the crowd continued to laugh heartily.

The laughter intensified as Lightning and Air Mach got up and both dove and laid out towards the finish line. Air Mach grabbed Lightning by the mane as he fell, propelling him slightly faster, and clearly crossing the finish line first. The two crashed to the ground again as the Wonderbolts started clapping and cheering, hooting, and laughing.

“HA!” Air Mach leapt up and floated up into the air. “The great Animak never loses!” he proclaimed as he began floating around the room. Lightning Streak put his hooves up to his mouth and called up to Air Mach.

“YOU THINK YOU’RE A LEAD SQUAD WONDERBOLT! BUT YOU’RE NOT!” Lightning ducked down and shuffled towards the west hallway as soon as he finished.

“OH, COME HERE YOU!” Air Mach went after him at a nonchalant pace. The Wonderbolts gathered up and followed as Air Mach entered the west hall.

Despite her protesting, Soarin grabbed Spitfire and dragged her along to join the crowd. When they reached the group, they pushed through and emerged near the front to see Lightning and Air Mach lazily grappling each other.

“Do you question my stallionness?” said Air Mach as he casually pushed Lightning and they lazily bumped into the wall opposite of the classrooms.

“I only call it as I see it, bro!” Lightning replied, not making much of an effort to fight back. With how small of an effort the two were putting into their grapple, they looked like they were dancing.

They bounced off the wall and fell over each other, right through one of the classroom doors as the group of Wonderbolts continued to laugh hysterically. Multiple ponies broke off from the group as clattering and crashing noises started coming from the classroom. Every pony that walked over immediately burst out laughing and fell over, clutching their sides. Fleetfoot, Blaze, and High Winds were among the first to look in, and the three fell together, creating a pile of laughing mares. Soarin and Spitfire stepped out as Fire and Misty Fly stepped up to take a look. Misty immediately started shaking while smiling incredibly wide and fell into Fire to hold herself up.

Fire just looked into the room with an incredibly confused look as Spitfire and Soarin peeked in as well. Lightning and Air Mach were on the floor… hugging each other… and rolling around on the floor among a bunch of knocked over chairs and tables.

“I love you, bro…”

“No brother, I love you!” they said back and forth as they continued to run into, and knock over the furniture.

Fire shook his head and pointed his hooves into the room.

“What are you two DOING?!” he rolled his eyes and sighed in frustration as Soarin burst out laughing. Spitfire just blinked, narrowed her eyes, and slowly shook her head as she watched the two harmlessly wrestle each other around the room while overturning everything in the room and constantly proclaiming bro love.

“Still think you’re ruining the Wonderbolts?” Soarin suddenly asked her. Spitfire turned to him and tipped her head in confusion.

“What?” she had no idea what brought Soarin back to that topic. He chuckled and shook his head.

“Spitfire… one of the most important values we hold as Wonderbolts… is being part of a team. You know… being part of something bigger… having a sense of camaraderie… Enjoying those that you work with. Look at this,” Soarin motioned to the comical, carefree scene. To all the silly things happening, to how much fun everypony was having.

Spitfire blinked and carefully looked over everything before looking back to Soarin. Soarin nodded and continued.

“Look at how happy everypony is. One day we’re all practicing and training our hardest… the next we’re enjoying some silly times together. We all share a bond where we can compete one moment…” he pointed again. “And laugh together the next…”

Spitfire followed Soarin’s hoof. Her eyes landed on Blaze and Fleetfoot. The two were laughing hysterically and leaning on each other for support as they watched Lightning emerge from the classroom, holding Air Mach over his head and parading him around like he had just returned from a successful hunt. Fleetfoot and Blaze toppled and the two continued to laugh on the ground with Fleetfoot’s head resting on Blaze’s stomach and both kicking their hooves in the air.

“Bonds like these are much stronger than any contract we sign,” Soarin began again. “You’re having a rough time right now, but you can’t keep it to yourself… we’re all here for you, we all care about you, and we’re all proud to have you as our leader. Before you became captain, the Wonderbolts were just soldiers… now we’re brothers and sisters. I’d say you’re doing a fine job… and don’t you ever forget it,” he tapped his hoof against Spitfire’s chest.

A grin slowly grew on Soarin’s lips as he saw the look in Spitfire’s eyes change. She looked out upon her brothers and sisters… took a deep breath, and smiled weakly as she watched them all have fun.

Soarin was pleased. Talk about good timing. The moment she claimed she was ruining the Wonderbolts, he had never wanted to tell her more that she was wrong. He didn’t even have to, because the Wonderbolts themselves were already busy showing her.

What she had established was the best thing that could happen to the Wonderbolts, at least in Soarin’s opinion. It had changed them, but it made the experience more memorable… and he was glad that soon… Rainbow Dash could experience it as well.

---To be continued---

Author's Note

Every little part of that tricycle race based completely on something i witnessed myself during highschool football. To large guys riding little tricycles through the halls of my school as we cheered on and threw things at them, the tipping over, the diving for the finish line, and the lazy wrestling and knocking everything over in a classroom... it all happened xD And i was the one who said Fire's line: What are you two DOING?! before i fell over laughing as well. Fun times... i miss those idiots...

Also WHOA! Dash is resourceful! And curiously... Squall acknowledged defeat? WHAT IS THIS?!

Spitfire doesnt realize just how much she has done for the Wonderbolts... it sounds like somepony spends way too much time in her office.

Now part 2 has either 2 or 3 chapters left... i say 2 or 3 because i don't know if chapter 65 will be too long or not yet. i want a long part finale again, but if 65 becomes too long, i'm going to break it in two.

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! :eeyup:

Chapter 64: The Most Valuable Lesson of All

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 64:

“Haaaaaaahhhh…” Soarin sat down on the floor of the west elite gymnasium. He had sweat dripping down his face, slipping down over the metal headband of the false horn, and leaving little droplet stains on the ground below.

“Is it really that tiring?” Fleetfoot asked as she floated down and landed beside him, folding her wings and looking him over. Soarin looked up as he lightly panted and nodded.

“It’s a lot different than physical activity,” he explained. “There’s so much mental focus involved, it’s exhausting after a while.”

Fleetfoot listened, but also glanced over at Soarin’s new ‘toy’ he received from Rivet the other day. It looked like a simple contraption on the outside. Three connected gym ball launchers attached to a wide rectangular box. However, on the inside it was a very complex mechanism. When switched on, several gear circuits began turning on a flat metal beam that moved back and forth within the box. The beam had several loose gears on it. Each launcher moved back and forth at a continuous rate with the rest of the mechanism, but the extra gears on the board would interfere or add themselves to the main circuit every couple of seconds to interrupt or speed up the motion of the launcher.

The end result, three gym ball launchers that moved back and forth as they fired balls and the complex gear circuit breaking caused the launchers to move at a random rate that was different every time it was switched on.

Soarin had taken to not asking Rivet exactly how he built such things anymore… because whenever Rivet tried to explain, he lost Soarin in seconds. How Rivet was able to comprehend such complex machinery and put it all together like this was something Soarin would never be able to comprehend.

Soarin had the device pushed up against the back wall of the gym, which was quickly becoming a bit ‘dirty.’ Soarin and Fleetfoot cringed slightly as they looked the wall over. It was covered with blackened spots and cracks from small magical explosions.

“This is awesome and all,” Fleetfoot chuckled. “But we might want to look into reinforcing the wall before next time.”

“Yeah…” Soarin agreed. “That might be a good idea.”

“Ready for more magic!” Air Mach called from behind the device as he closed the latch on the back. He and Fleet had been helping by reloading the balls every time Soarin finished a round.

Soarin held up a hoof and shook his head as Air Mach eagerly awaited to switch on the ‘crazy-awesome-ball device’ as he had deemed it.

“I’m gonna take a break and work on something else,” Soarin explained. “Thanks for the help, guys.”

“Aw…” Air Mach frowned as he stepped away from the machine.

“C’mon stallion of stallions,” Fleetfoot snickered as stepped over to him and hooked his cape with a hoof. “You can play with it later, we need to get some laps in,” she said as she started dragging him along. Air Mach smirked as he let Fleetfoot pull him.

“I typically prefer to walk on my own, but I’m alright with a sexy mare leading me around!” he stated confidently. Fleetfoot immediately yanked down on his cape, pulling Air Mach to the floor. She turned and wrapped his arms and legs together, tying it off at the end in a big bow.

“This sexy mare expects a stallion to carry his own weight!” she bounced her eyebrows at him before turning around, whipping him in the face with her tail, and walking away while exaggerating the sway of her plot. Air Mach managed to tip himself up and flapped his wings to take off.

“I like ‘em brutal!” he said as he floated after her with his arms and legs still tied.

Soarin chuckled as he watched the duo leave. Fleetfoot still wasn’t the biggest fan of the lead squad’s newest addition, but at least now she seemed to be getting used to him. Or in this case, knew how to handle him.

As he rested, Soarin took a look around the rest of the gym. Squads three, seven, and eighteen were also present. Squad eighteen was on the other end of the gym. Soarin couldn’t quite make out what they were doing, but that was mainly because squad three and seven were in the middle doing some joint practicing.

Soarin smiled as he saw Fire Streak, Misty Fly, and Point Dex walking Storm Front through some advanced formation shifting. They were hovering about five feet off the ground, lined up in a row. Fire and Storm were in the middle with Misty and Dex on the edges. Fire was busily explaining maneuvers to Storm.

“Now, you may recall one of our more basic maneuvers in this formation, Edge Shift?” Fire asked Storm. Storm nodded.

“When the inside flyers switch with the outside?” he answered.

“Correct,” Fire continued. “We have a similar, more advanced maneuver that will be good to know on the wings of this formation. It’s called Edge Exchange.” He nodded to Dex and turned to Misty while making a twisting motion with both of his hooves. On that cue, Dex ducked below and shifted beneath them as Misty suddenly whipped upward into a barrel roll over the top. Storm flinched in surprise but looked up in awe as Misty skillfully executed a very difficult maneuver that was usually only possible while flying at high speeds. She did so while floating in place.

Dex lifted into the spot beside Fire and Misty and dropped down beside Storm, giving him a smile and a wink as he continued staring in awe. Fire cleared his throat to re-catch Storm’s attention.

“This move can be done at the same time as our two pony inline twist maneuver with the inside ponies. In fact, it’s one of our most popular show maneuvers because of the effect it generates with the smoke trails. On my mark, inline twist,” he ordered Storm before making the same motions to Dex and Misty again. “Now!” The two on the outside switched in the same manner as Fire and Storm twisted around each other twice.

“Whoa!” Storm hesitated as Misty passed over him again, causing him to bump into Fire. They remained afloat, but Fire had to grab onto Storm to keep steady as the maneuver ended. “Ah! Sorry, sir!” he quickly apologized. Fire shook his head and patted Storm on the back.

“Don’t worry about it, this is new to you. Now this is also an important move to know in combat situations because it can be used to confuse a target as we approach. If you can get this maneuver down…”

As he kept going, Misty smiled as she watched Fire teach Storm. She enjoyed watching Fire help out the rookies because he always got right down to business and very into it. Fire always ‘spoke’ to her about how much he admired Silver Lining. It was only natural that he went the extra mile when it came to passing on veteran knowledge.

However, something had been bothering her as of late. Ever since Fire’s little outburst at Storm… he had barely conversed to her. Well, he had, but it was never anything personal. Simple exchanges, hellos, orders, and the like seemed to be all she got from him. To most, this would just appear as keeping a professional air, but not to Misty Fly. She and Fire Streak had too strong a friendship for this to go on without her being skeptical. He always confided in her… ALWAYS. Fire apologized to her for his behavior and here he was even helping out Storm, but his eyes, his facial expressions, the way he moved and carried himself, they all lacked the usual strength. If he was trying to hide something, he was picked the wrong pony to try and hide it from, because without hearing, Misty relied on those things to read moods and feelings.

Fire was hiding something from her, and she didn’t like it. Their schedule was packed and their opportunities for some time to sit down and converse alone were few and far between. She had a chance the day before, but all the fun ‘activities’ going on during the large day off distracted her. Next chance she got, she was going to pull him aside and demand he tell her what was bothering him, even if he had to be a little… ‘persuaded.’

Fire finished explaining the maneuvers to Storm and turned his eyes towards Misty. He flinched when he saw her looking at him with a confused and distraught expression. Fire tipped his head to the side as he tried to read her face, but—

“Sir?” Dex spoke up. Fire blinked and looked over to Dex. “The next formation?”

“Ah, right, yes, of course,” Fire nervously stammered. Misty scrunched her face and glared. Something was definitely wrong.

Soarin shook his head out to whip the sweat from his brow and mane before slowly getting up and cracking his neck and other tight joints. Soarin was glad Storm had good teachers helping him out, bringing him up to the elite level as quickly and efficiently as they could without skipping over the important aspects.

Half of squad three and seven were taking part in that informative lesson… What were the rest doing?

“WHEEEEEE!!!” Surprise’s happy squeals reached Soarin’s ears. He turned his head to see Macho Savage, Lightning Streak, and Autumn Rain playing catch with Surprise.

“I’m open!” Lightning yelled as he flew away from Autumn.

“GO LONG, BROTHER!” Macho Savage yelled as he wound up, spun around, and launched Surprise through the air.

“HEHEHEHAHA!!!” she giggled cheerfully as she careened through the air. Lightning pushed off of Autumn and lifted up higher to catch Surprise in his hooves.

“Whoa!” he yelped as her momentum carried the two of them out of control towards the ground, lightly crashing in a pile on the floor.

“AGAIN!” Surprise was instantly up, smiling incredibly wide with her tough sticking between her teeth, and bopping her hooves against Lightning’s shoulders as he wobbled up to his hooves.

“Gimme a sec, girl… I think you landed on my kidneys…” he groaned.

Soarin chuckled and shook his head. The difference between the two groups was hilarious, except for one who could have been with either. Soarin sighed as he looked towards Autumn Rain. He found out recently about her and Calm Wind breaking up and still didn’t know how to feel about it. The big guy seemed to be getting himself back on track, but there was clearly a lack of spring in his step now. It was an unfortunate reminder to Soarin what the dangers of a workplace relationship were. Calm and Autumn went their separate ways, but they still were both employed by the Wonderbolts and still saw each other every day. That had to be brutal. It was all the more reason for Soarin to hang onto Rainbow Dash. He was more than certain he had nothing to worry about, but after the brief week they had where things were shaky between them, he couldn’t imagine how bad it would be for that to be indefinite.

He already talked to Calm once about it, but he felt like checking up on the giant again the next time the opportunity presented itself.

Soarin took a deep breath and exhaled as he turned back to Rivet’s device. He felt like he had done enough magic shooting for the time being. Besides, he was wrecking the wall and he didn’t want Spitfire to get even angrier than she was already going to be.

He still had some time left before they had to clear out for other squads though, so Soarin decided to put a little more practice into the shield spell he learned the other night.

It was great getting a chance to work with Shining Armor and Soarin picked up how to use the spell incredibly fast, but as usual, it couldn’t be that simple. As Shining praised Soarin for, he was able to generate the most powerful form of the shield spell despite never attempting it before. It was due to Soarin’s strength, willpower, and resolve to protect something important to him. However, there was one major issue they ran into right after.

Soarin couldn’t seem to keep the shield up for more than a couple of seconds before it completely dissipated. His physical and gritty attributes made him easily activate the spell, but his still mostly novice level of mental control over it all made it difficult to sustain. They eventually sent him off for the night with instructions and a promise that it would get easier with practice.

He was feeling a little mentally fatigued, but maybe having used the magic a bunch already would help him focus. He also had to shift his mindset. The offensive magic required use of anger and negative, destructive emotions, while the shield required positive, protective emotions. How unicorns could control such things so quickly, easily, and often was impressive.

“Rainbow Dash…” Soarin whispered to himself as he squinted and tensed him muscles. The false horn emitted a soft glow followed by a couple of sparks bursting from the tip. An aura encased the horn before expanding and surrounding Soarin with the shield dome again. “URGH!” Soarin suddenly grunted, and the shield collapsed immediately. “Ah!” his eyes widened and he dropped down to the ground while panting. Maybe he was just too tired to do it.

He sat back up and looked around the gym again as something else came to mind. Spitfire’s sudden breakdown was a surprise, but what he found himself thinking about more were some of the things she mentioned.

Being kept out of the loop, the possibility of Shadowbolts gathering, but most of all, Luna constantly turning them away. Since the encounter in Manehatten, Spitfire had sent out daily patrols to majors cities, hoping some sort of evidence would turn up about the pseudo-Shadowbolt, but the weeks had gone by without a single speck of info arising. Either the Shadowbolt was working alone or they were doing an incredible thorough job of remaining out of sight.

Soarin was afraid something was going on behind the scenes. Something was lurking in the shadows and they knew nothing about it. Their last battle against the Shadowbolts far from ended the dangers. So many questions went unanswered and Nightshade was never found. Assuming her own power didn’t blow her to smithereens, she could very well still be out there, and knowing her violent and vengeful nature, she wouldn’t stay down forever.

Whatever was going on, Soarin hoped nothing happened before Dash made it to the end of her training. For once, he wanted her to go through something important without a massive speed bump getting in the way.

Speaking of Dash, today was a ‘free’ day for the recruits, he wondered if Dash was training with Silver.

“Steady… keep your breathing even,” Silver gave directions as he hovered in front of Dash with his arms folded over his chest.

“Rgh…” Dash hovered before him, eyes closed, hooves outstretched, and a small bundle of electricity in each hoof.

“Control the flow of the electrical currents, don’t let them have their way,” Silver continued as he slowly hovered in a circle around her. “Keep them as far apart as possible. The currents can feel each other nearby and want to come together. Don’t let them, but at the same time don’t push them away. Keep them equally spaced.”

“Ah!” Dash’s right arm suddenly twitched. The electricity on that side suddenly jumped and began running up her arm.

“Control it! Hold it! HOLD IT!” Silver shouted as Dash began to lean to one side. The volts on her left began pushing away from her hoof.

Dash grunted and forced her body back upright. The electricity pushed out of her arm and back to her right hoof, but the left fired away from her and dissipated.

“Damn!” Dash cursed as she pulled her left hoof in.

“That’s good enough,” Silver nodded to her. Dash quickly shook her right arm, flinging the electricity away and quickly hugging herself, shivering for a moment before taking a long, deep breath and facing Silver as the two descended to the ground. “Well done,” Silver complimented her. “You didn’t lock up that time and pushed it back out before it could shock you.”

“Uh huh…” Dash replied quietly, her heart beating slightly faster than normal. She had made progress, but she was still very much afraid of lightning. It was hard and definitely something she dreaded every time she came in for personal training. She wondered how long it took Silver to get over his fear of fire. Seeing as how damaged his body was by it, it probably took him quite a while. “Well done?” she suddenly picked up on what Silver said. “I lost a whole hooffull of it, hardly well done if you asked me,” she said with frustration.

“Excuse me?” Silver lifted an eyebrow. It wasn’t often he got praise shoved back in his face. How bold of Dash.

“Um!” Dash perked up when she realized she talked back. “S-sorry, sir!” she quickly tried to save. Silver didn’t show any of it in his expression. But he found it really amusing. Dash was really getting into it despite her fears. That was a good sign.

“That’s it for lightning, combat now,” Silver suddenly shifted gears as he walked over to the wall, picked up, and tossed Dash a bundled together set of training armor. Dash quickly went for it without saying or doing anything else, feeling like she got off easy for her small bit of sass, when in reality Silver had gotten a small kick out of it.

Dash looked around the private gym as she fastened the armor pieces to her body. Still no sign of the rest of squad two. It had been just her and Silver the whole time. Part of her was curious as to why they were alone, but for all she knew they could be busy with something else. She assumed that they were all on a free day the same time she was, but they could easily be carrying out some orders by Silver or helping out with another practice or something. Whatever the reason was, this was the first time she and Silver trained alone… and so far it had been interesting.

It was fine with the others around, but without them it felt much more personal. Like the two of them weren’t just training, but they were also bonding on a deeper master and apprentice level. Maybe that’s why she let slip the frustration just now. She didn’t feel quite so tense.

She eyed Silver dragging a pop-up punching dummy to the center of the gym as she put on and fastened her head-guard. She found herself wondering about the end of the training cycles coming up in a week. So far this cycle, they were currently gone had really sped by. She didn’t know if she was just getting used to things, or if it was in anticipation of something Silver was going to spring on them suddenly. She felt like she was ready for anything, but who knew what kind of crazy courses or tests Silver could have hidden for them?

“Come over here,” Silver ordered as he tapped his hoof against the floor. Dash had just finished adjusting the straps on the armor before trotting up quickly. Speaking of hidden tests, Dash wondered what Silver had for her here. He had never used other equipment before during their combat sessions. What was with the pop-up dummy in the middle of the gym? Silver waited for her to reach him before backing up and putting a hoof up on the dummy.

“We’re going to do something a little different today,” he began as he glanced at the dummy. “This,” he gave it a solid pat. “Is a fellow comrade of yours. They were careless or overpowered, however you’d like to look at it, and are helpless,” he explained before letting go of the dummy and walking up to Dash. “You have back up arriving in ten minutes, but until then,” he leaned forward into Dash’s face and glared. “You have to protect your fallen wingmate from me.”

“From you?!” Dash blinked.

“Did I stutter?” Silver narrowed his eyes further.

“But… I can’t even land a clean punch on you! Let alone an effective one!” she stated in her surprise. She instantly shut her mouth as Silver’s glare intensified.

“Dash, protect the damn dummy. I took them by surprise, I knocked them out of the sky, and I want to finish the damn job,” he pressed his nose against Dash’s. “So unless you do something to stop me… they’re a dead pony. Understand?”

“Y-yes!” Dash gulped as Silver removed his nose and walked around her. She glanced at the dummy and then back at Silver as he turned around and cracked his neck. She had to stop SILVER LINING from getting to the dummy for TEN MINUTES. That was way easier said than done.

“The timer starts when I move, got it? Ten minutes, fend me off, or they die,” Silver pointed to the dummy again. Dash gulped and nodded in response.

She set her hooves and faced Silver as she tried to play out the approaching scenario in her head. How would he try to get past her? Would he use fake outs, would he try to misdirect her? He had to have a lot of quick juke moves. Whatever he was about to throw at her, she’d try her best to react to it.

She tensed her body as Silver leapt forward…

But he moved directly at her with a hoof reared back!

Dash yelped and threw her hooves up just in time to receive the punch, but it was so strong that it pushed the backs of her hooves directly into her face and caused her to stumble back. Silver continued the assault, ramming her in the chest as she stumbled and sending her flying past the dummy and landing a good five feet away.

That didn’t take long. He already pushed her a significant distance away from the dummy. She skidded to a stop on the ground and slowly propped herself up, expecting to see something like Silver sitting on top of the dummy or the sort.

“WHOA!” she couldn’t have been more wrong. Silver was charging at her, hoof pulled back, and ready to slam it down on her. She rolled out of the way but felt Silver’s hoof graze her back before striking the floor. Dash quickly got to her hooves and continued to back up as Silver turned and launched himself towards her again.

He was coming after her and he was going all out!

Dash put up her hooves again to intercept an incoming punch, but Silver followed up by swinging his other arm around and knocking her back down.

“Rgh!” Dash grunted as she pushed her hooves to the ground and spread her wings. She took to the air for increased mobility, glancing between Silver and the dummy. He had a clear path to it, why was he attacking her? She readied herself as Silver pumped his wings and pursued her.

There was no time to question it, he was going all out so she had to fight back! As Silver approached, she turned her body, twisted, and pounded her wings down to execute the Spiral Turn-Air Burst combo. She instantly switched directions, propelling herself down towards Silver. Silver’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he quickly reacted by throwing his punch earlier with less wind up. Dash suddenly used the Spiral Turn again and slipped right by his punch. Silver suddenly found Dash’s hoof inches from his face.

He lurched his head to the side, Dash’s hoof tapping against his cheek as he swung his elbow out and struck her right in a spot between two of the pads on her armor.

“GAH!!!!” Dash cried out as Silver’s attack found an opening in the armor and connected to her diaphragm. She threw her wings out to stop her fall as she passed, but had little time to do much else. Silver turned around and shot down towards her. “Eee!” Dash yelped as she shifted to dodge the hammer strike from above, but Silver stopped himself mid-dive, putting him directly in front of her. Dash tried to shove away from him, but he grabbed her hooves and pulled her forward, landing a headbutt into her forehead padding. She bounced off the hit, slightly disoriented and tried to rebalance herself, but she had no time.

Silver followed and began unloading a flurry of strong blows. Unlike the attack that landed between the pads, each punch he threw struck the padding, but his strength was so fierce that each one sent a powerful shock through Dash’s body. She had no openings and no opportunities as Silver laid the punishment.

After striking Dash roughly twenty times, he spun around and delivered a hard kick to the stomach, sending her straight to the ground, roughly crashing and bouncing with pieces of her armor ripping free from the straps and flying off of her.

As soon as she stopped rolling she flailed around for a moment before scrambling to turn herself upright. She breathed heavily as Silver slammed to the ground a few feet from her. He glared down at her, asserting his will upon her as she stared back with a sudden wave of fear over taking her. He wasn’t stopping.

She was scared.

Very scared.

Silver gave her a task, and suddenly turned on her. There was nopony else in the room. There was nopony else to see this. She doubted that Silver would actually injure her, but why was he not stopping? She was down, she was disoriented, and she could no longer protect the dummy. She could only think of one thing now.

Run.

She had to get away, her own safety suddenly became priority and she quickly turned away from him. She forced herself to her hooves and began sprinting for the doors. She had no idea what was going on, but she had to get away!

“RAINBOW DASH!” Silver’s voice boomed behind her like a fierce roar.

Dash instantly froze in place. Her body shivered as it stiffened and she very slowly turned her head to look back at Silver. He hadn’t moved nor had he made any effort to follow her once she started running.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked in a very stern, somewhat disappointed tone of voice. Dash just stared, extremely confused as to what was going on. Silver snorted and pointed towards the dummy. Again, Dash just blinked. Silver shook his head and sighed. “So you’re running away from a fallen comrade… leaving them to die at the hooves of the enemy? Bad… very bad, Dash.”

Dash’s ears stood up as Silver turned and slowly walked towards her. She had completely disregarded the whole ‘defend the dummy’ part of the exercise as soon as she felt in danger. It completely left her mind and survival became priority.

“Take off the armor,” Silver ordered as he walked right past her and to the doors. Dash obeyed, removing what was left of her armor as Silver patiently waited. She discarded every piece before facing Silver again. “Walk with me,” he opened the door and made a head motion for Dash to follow.

Confused, still slightly disoriented, and curious as to what just happened, she followed after him. Her first steps were hesitant, not sure if he was going to suddenly attack her again, but after thinking about it, his actions clearly had a purpose, Silver always had a purpose. She had a feeling she was about to find out what it was this time.

They slowly walked down the hall from the end of the east hallways towards the lobby. For a about two minutes, no words were exchanged between the two of them. Dash was ordered to follow, and that’s what she was doing. It wasn’t until they neared the lobby that Silver finally spoke up.

“Rainbow Dash,” he began. “One thing all Wonderbolts must be aware of is the importance of the lives they fight to protect. We are a defense force, we are here and we train to respond to abnormal threats to the kingdom that the royal guard and the standard Equestrian defenses are ill prepared to handle. The common citizenry does not know of our military function. We are only praised for little tricks and stunts we pull to get oos and ahs. But when the time comes and we are called upon, they will look up and scream for help, and we will respond and protect them with our lives. That’s a principle that goes for all those who cannot protect themselves, including fellow Wonderbolts. It is up to you to protect them with your life as a shield for the helpless.”

Dash listened carefully as they passed through the lobby and Silver directed them towards the stairs.

“Remember when I told you about the conflicts between the drakes and the griffons?” he suddenly asked while glancing at her. Dash nodded. “Well… after that little encounter we had where I was nearly burned to death, the Wonderbolts were sucked into the conflict, Celestia placing her hopes in us to separate the two warring species. After two months of recovery from my burns, I was quick to get up and rejoin my wingmates. We were on the verge of convincing the griffons to cease their attacks, but things weren’t going so well with the drakes. I was assigned to a large squad of Wonderbolts led by my mentor, Blizzard Strike, to patrol the borders. The whole day was quiet and we patrolled from dawn to sundown. All seemed well and we received word of a squad inbound to our position. Blazetail and Flashwind were on their way with the King Gerardo of the griffons and Princess Celestia in tow along with four squads of Wonderbolts and three teams of Sky Wings.”

Dash listened intently as they climbed the stairs up to the second floor. Dash was curious as to where they were heading and even more curious once they stopped at the second floor and turned down the west hall from Spitfire’s office. Dash had never been in the administrative wings of the second floor before. She had never gone beyond Spitfire’s office in the dead center.

As soon as they turned in, Dash noticed along the left wall, between the windows and opposite of the offices, there were portraits of Wonderbolts... retired Wonderbolts, a wall of honor so to speak. Silver continued.

“They were due to pass our position in ten minutes…”

Dash’s head snapped back towards him. Ten minutes? That’s how long he gave her just now during their test.

“We were ambushed,” Silver gritted his teeth as Dash’s ears flopped down. There was a visible pain in Silver’s eyes as he recalled the event. “We didn’t stand a chance. A group of at least fifteen drakes surprised us… almost all of us. I spotted them incoming and called out a warning right as they were upon us. I managed to duck out of the way, but Blizzard Strike and four others were plucked right out of the sky and driven a hundred feet to the ground. The two remaining and I tried to take the fight to them, but before I could count to five, they were both down and I was being driven to the ground as well. I managed to break free and push off before the knockout blow, but now there I stood, the only thing between them and my seven fallen comrades. The all writhed and groaned in pain behind me as the drakes slowly closed in.” he stopped in the middle of the hallway.

Dash took two steps past him before stopping herself. Silver removed his goggles and let them hang around his neck. He looked away from Dash, wiping his arm across his eyes once before turning and looking at the wall behind Dash. She turned and looked as well. The wall of retired Wonderbolts had ended. They were now in front of a different wall that also had pictures of Wonderbolts on it. Only… this one was different. Dash glanced up above the first pictures on the wall and her eyes widened.

‘In honor of those who fell in battle.’

“I was scared… Dash. I was scared of death. I was staring into the eyes of the same species that had recently nearly burned me to death two months prior. They all approached slowly, with embers and small flames protruding between their teeth. I was terrified and I knew the only thing ahead of me was pain. My fear over took me. The cries and wails of agony from my fellow Wonderbolts failed to reach my ears.”

Dash gasped quietly. She knew what he was going to say and it hurt before she even heard it.

“I ran…” he sniffled as he stepped by Dash and began slowly walking down the rows of pictures on the wall. “I fled the scene…” he reached up and tapped one of the pictures. Dash’s mouth hung open and her ears fell to the sides of her head. “In my fear, I forgot my duties…” he tapped another. “I only thought of my own safety,” and another. “And left them all…” and another, and another, and another, before stopping in front of a specific one. “…to die.”

Dash found her hooves moving on their own. They carried her towards Silver as he stared directly at a particular picture. Dash stopped beside him, and followed his eyes towards a picture nestled in the row of those who had fallen. A deep blue stallion, with and ice blue, spiked mane, wearing a serious expression that rivaled Silver's.

‘Blizzard Strike: Wonderbolt Captain, peerless teacher, and loving father.’

Dash slowly looked up towards Silver, but he had his eyes locked on the picture of Blizzard Strike.

“They were all killed as soon as I left them,” Silver began again, his words choked up. “Six Wonderbolts who were all a part of my recruitment class, and my mentor, who was like a second father to me… all dead because I ran in the face of extreme danger. I ran into the approaching squads, king, and princess less than a minute after running, but by then it was already too late.”

He looked straight down shamefully.

“We were soldiers… but they were also my family. They were my brothers and sisters and Blizzard Strike was my mentor. They are all dead because I ran instead of holding my ground and taking the blows for them. Afterward, I never felt like more of a pathetic failure in my life. If not for Misty Fly adamantly convincing me otherwise, I was prepared to remove myself from the Wonderbolt ranks in shame,” Silver took a deep breath and sighed. “Since then, my life has gone on, I met and married my wife and I have two children. I have a little family of my own. But I will never get my first family back. I’ve lived every day of my life with it weighing heavily on my shoulders, but I have no one to blame but myself.”

He suddenly turned towards Dash, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her to face him as well. He looked her directly in the eyes, faint traces of tears in the corners of his.

“It was on that very day, when Misty dragged my ass back into the compound, that I made a vow. A vow to never again run away from danger, to never again leave a fellow Wonderbolt or anypony else to a terrible fate. To protect each and every one of my brothers and sisters… until my very last breath if need be. This is the most important lesson I can teach you Dash… take good heed of it, and think about it. I’ve been cursed with a terrible shame that weighs on me every day of my life, and I do not wish the same for you.”

Silver looked down, and then back towards the picture of Blizzard Strike, his hooves falling off Dash’s shoulders. She was speechless. What could she say? Silver had just shared with her something so deeply personal to him, and did so just to teach her a very valuable, if not the most valuable lesson he could pass on to her. She simply waited for him to say something else.

“That’s all for today Dash… get some rest tonight, okay?” he suddenly dismissed her.

“Y-yes… sir…” she stuttered as everything she just heard lingered on her mind. Her first two steps backwards were very slow as she kept her eyes on Silver. He stared at the picture of Blizzard Strike and slowly sat down on the floor, clearly with the intention of spending a little more time there. Dash slowly turned and began walking away.

Silver glanced towards Dash as she left him, watching her until she turned towards the stair. She looked back towards him once, but quickly looked away when her eyes met his. He watched her disappear around the corner before turning back to the picture of Blizzard. He looked at it for a long time, lost in his memories.

“Sometimes I wonder…” Silver quietly spoke. “If you could see how far I’ve come…” he shut his eyes tight for a moment and a single tear ran down his right cheek. “Would you be proud of me?”

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

--- To be Continued ---

Author's Note

I think i cried while writing this...

Silver is a very important character in this story, to Dash, to Soarin, to all those around him, and to me. I hate to have such a heavy weight on his shoulders... but Silver has lived a long Wonderbolt life, and seen more combat than most. He's bound to have some painful memories, but few can compare to that.

On the flip side, it looks like Soarin's having more trouble with the shield than first thought eh?

And What's this? Misty is gonna finally put an end to Fire's bumbling around her?! I KNOW ITS WHAT YOU ALL WANT! :pinkiecrazy:

so it looks like we have two quite long chapters ahead of us to wrap up part 2! I hope you enjoy them when they arrive!

Thanks for reading i hope you enjoyed!:eeyup:

Chapter 65: Don't Worry About It

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 65:

“So… here we are,” A male voice echoed.

“So it would seem,” a female voice replied.

Who…?

“What a bother. I’m back in control, but now I can’t get rid of you,” said the male voice.

“In control? Don’t fool yourself,” the female voice scoffed. “As long as I’m here and the horn is in place, you have no power over him.”

These voices again?

“And yet with this chaos wall between us you can no longer fight me,” the male voice replied with a sinister chuckle.

“Then by all means,” the female voice replied. “Go wild.”

A long pause ensued as Soarin tried to find some way to identify the voices, but they were distorted and warped.

“Well?” the female voice taunted.

“You’re a bitch,” the male voice grunted.

“Thought so.”

Soarin’s alarm clock beeped noisily, rousing him from his slumber. He blinked and squinted, stretching out his limbs while groaning. He reached over and shut off his alarm as he sat up in bed. He sat completely still in the dark for a moment before reaching his right arm up to his head and neck.

No sweating.

He reached his hoof up to his chest.

His heartbeat was normal.

He closed his eyes and let the magical sensations flow from the center of his body up into his head and to the horn. The horn emitted a soft blue glow and was surrounded by a gentle magical aura.

No headache.

It was nothing like the nightmares he used to have. However, this was the second time those two exact voices were heard in his head. The first time he heard it, he played it off as a bad dream and a strange side effect of the magic. But now, again with the same voices? A different conversation? Something about being separated and trying to gain control? It was all too eerily similar to challenges he was facing recently magic wise. There had to be a connection.

However, as much as he wanted to confront Luna about it, it would have to wait.

Soarin hopped out of bed and switched the lights on. He stretched out again and scratched his flank as he grabbed and tossed a Wonderbolt uniform from his closet to his bed before walking towards the bathroom.

He had a busy day ahead of him and he had to get moving.

Rainbow Dash emerged from the bathroom after taking a nice morning shower. She sighed contently as she slowly walked through the barracks with her towel draped over her neck.

“Did you steal my soap?” Matteo’s voice caught her ear. She glanced over to see Matteo glaring at Thunderlane. Thunderlane was edging away from Matteo.

“Me?” he pointed at himself. “Why would I?”

“You were complaining about running out yesterday, now I have less than I did yesterday, did you steal it?” Matteo pressed while pushing the bottle of body wash towards Thunderlane. Thunderlane eyed the bottle and looked at it carefully.

“Wait… I borrowed Twister’s soap yesterday,” Thunderlane pointed out. The two blinked at each other as Twister suddenly fell from above and landed face first on the floor between them. They both flinched in surprise, but looked down at him as he reached up and peeled his own face off the floor, grinning at Thunderlane.

“I heard my name!” he exclaimed happily. Matteo reached down and grabbed Twister’s head with his talons and picked him up off the ground. He turned Twister to look directly at him. Twister gave him puppy dog eyes while touching his tongue to his nose. Matteo was not amused.

“Did you steal my soap and lend it to Thunderlane?” He pressed.

“Nooooooo…” Twister swung his body back and forth as it dangled below his head.

“Don’t touch my things,” Matteo growled at him.

“Okay!” Twister agreed cheerfully while holding up Matteo’s towel. Matteo narrowed his eyes and grabbed the towel out of Twister’s hoof. Twister then held up a different bottle of soap. Matteo eyed it curiously.

“Hey!” Squall yelled as he stomped over with a towel over his shoulder and swiped the soap out of Twister’s hoof. “That’s mine!” he snapped before turning and heading back towards the bathrooms.

“So is this?” Twister held up Squall’s towel, despite Squall having just walked in with it. Squall popped his head back out of the bathroom in confusion and his towel hit him in the face. It slowly slid off of him, revealing a miffed expression he aimed towards Twister. Twister blew a kiss towards Squall as Squall snatched his towel up off the floor and gave Twister the middle feather with his wing before going back into the bathroom.

Matteo let go of Twister, who floated in place for five seconds before falling face first to the floor again before pushing himself along the floor with his back legs, dragging his face.

Dash chuckled and shook her head as she approached her bed.

“Oof!” she grunted lightly as something small landed on her back. Dash glanced over her shoulder to see Little Star sleeping on her back.

“But mommy, I’m a big pony!” she whined quietly while shifting forward and biting down softly on a good hunk of Dash’s mane.

Art by: CrystalMelody_Kc (Deviantart: KoolCatCM)

“Star,” Dash shook herself lightly. “Star,” she repeated while shaking herself a little harder.

“Bwuh?” Star groggily replied as her eyelids fluttered open. “Bleh!” she spat out Dash’s mane as she shook her head out, making her own long mane flop around over her head.

“You fell out of bed again,” Dash chuckled as Star stood up and arched her back in a stretch. “You should get moving anyway, breakfast is soon.”

“I overslept?!” Star suddenly remarked, looking at the wall clock. “EEEEE!” She leapt off Dash’s back, somehow grabbing her towel, shampoo, and brush all at once as she passed by them, and rocketed into the bathroom. Dash sighed and smiled as she sat down to preen her wings.

She had made lots of fun new friends. They had a long way to go before they matched the friendship she shared with her friends back in Ponyville, but they had definitely found a place in her heart, even Squall, who had been warming up to them even further lately… in his own way.

She frowned as she displaced the tangled feathers in her wing gently with her teeth. Her friends… her fellow recruits…

Her thoughts trailed back to the night before when Silver led her to the wall of those fallen in combat. She recalled him mentioning all six other ponies besides Blizzard Strike were members of his recruit class.

She thought about the memories she had already made and how connected she already felt with several members of her recruit class as well as other Wonderbolts in the compound. And then she wondered what it would feel like if they were all suddenly gone, and she was to blame.

The mere thought alone almost shattered her heart. She let go of her wing and looked back at Matteo and thought about his determination to prove his worth. She glanced over at Twister standing on his head on his top bunk and thought about… well, whatever reasons Twister had for going through with it all. She looked towards the bathrooms where Little Star and Squall had disappeared and thought about Star’s many attempts to join up, and Squall’s clear desire to be the best. She looked at Thunderlane as he struggled to properly make his bed and thought about how he had come farther than he ever thought he would. She thought about how she had gotten to know Storm Front, and how determined he was to someday see his father again as successful Wonderbolt. She thought about the rest of the Wonderbolts and the impact they had had on her.

‘When the time comes and we are called upon, they will look up and scream for help, and we will respond and protect them with our lives. That’s a principle that goes for all those who cannot protect themselves, including fellow Wonderbolts.’

Silver’s words echoed in her head as her lip quivered. Thinking about what Silver lost and what he had to live with was almost too much to bear through thought alone. But he knew exactly why he told her.

He told her so that when the time came… she would not repeat his mistake. As her mentor, he wanted her to learn from his mistakes as well as her own. To protect those she cares about no matter what danger they face.

“WHAT THE F—” Squall’s voice echoed from the bathroom. Dash looked over to see Squall step out of the bathroom, sopping wet from his shower, but covered in green stringy foam while holding up his soap. “WHO PUT SILLY STRING IN MY SOAP BOTTLE?!”

A loud noise that sounded like a 'WAAAAAAARK WARKWARKWARK WAAAARK WAAAAAAAAAAAAARK' suddenly came from the direction of Twister’s bed. Dash looked up towards the bed to see a jittering mound of sheets bouncing about on Twister’s bed as the noise came from it. Dash looked back to see Squall glaring up towards Twister. He looked at the bottle and reached to completely unscrew the top off of it.

“Seriously!” he fumed. "How did you even get it in—AHHHHH!!!!” Squall yelped in surprise as spring loaded snakes shot out of the bottle into his face.

Dash blinked and went right back to preening as she chuckled at the scene.

To protect those she cared about, even if they were a bunch of weirdos.

She blinked and looked up as the front door of their barracks opened and Wave Chill stepped through. He wore his full uniform with his goggles hanging around his neck. Dash continued to preen her wings with one eye trained on Wave as he walked through the barracks and lifted an eyebrow at some of the strange happenings as he made his way to Silver’s room and knocked at the door.

This was the first time another member of squad two had entered the barracks to speak to Silver. She wondered what it was all about?

“Sir!” Wave Chill greeted Silver with a salute as Silver spun around in his creaky old swivel chair.

“Well?” Silver began. “Are we all set?” he asked. Wave nodded.

“Yes, sir! The outdoor elite flight track is reserved for the morning session and we have everything set up in place!” he answered. Silver looked him over carefully as if examining his fellow squad mate. Wave remained at attention, dutifully awaiting Silver’s response.

“Good,” Silver nodded and paused. He looked over Wave again before waving a hoof. “Dismissed.”

Silver slowly spun back around in his chair as Wave turned to leave, but less than a second went by before Silver scrunched his face and grunted. He spun around in the chair again.

“Wave,” he spoke. Wave Chill stopped in his tracks and turned his head back.

“Sir?” he blinked curiously. Silver twirled his hoof in the air.

“Turn around and face me please,” he requested. Wave hesitated for a moment, but quickly obeyed, turning square to Silver. Silver lifted his brow as he looked Wave up and down before shaking his head. “Honestly, Wave? This has gone on way too long,” he spoke up. Wave blinked and tipped his head to the side.

“Er… what has? Sir?” Wave asked. Silver flattened his brow, giving Wave the most unamused expression he could muster.

“Son, could you do us ALL a favor and just horizontally refresh the captain already?” Silver asked flatly. Wave blinked and his mouth hung open slightly as he processed the words. He picked up on captain. Did Silver mean Spitfire?

“Horizontally… refresh?” Wave repeated, feeling like he was missing a joke of some kind. He flinched as Silver sharply stood up from his chair and stomped over to Wave, grabbing a wad of Wave’s uniform and using it to pull their faces together, pressing noses as Silver glared at him.

“BONE HER, DAMMIT!” he shouted in Wave’s face. Wave had to squint as the force of Silver’s voice rushed against him and blew his mane back. Wave looked back into Silver’s eyes with a mix of embarrassment and extreme confusion.

“B-b-b-b-b-b-b—” he stuttered while trying to repeat what Silver had just exclaimed, but he didn’t get the chance.

“I’m sick of my top commander blush-stumbling around compound like a damn fool and I’m tired of watching Spitfire walk everywhere with her ass lighting up like a goddamn firefly!!!!” he belted.

Art by: Penumbraglow

Wave’s ears flopped down, his pupils shrank, and his face turned bright red.

Captain Silver Lining? The infamous ‘you guys are getting too touchy with the ladies’ old stallion? TELLING HIM TO HAVE SEX WITH SPITFIRE?! This was so uncharacteristic of him, where did it come from?

“The sooner you finally give it to her the sooner we can stop groaning at the two of you being more awkward than an unplanned erection during a slow song at a middle school dance!!!” Silver continued as Wave felt like he was being forced further back with each couple of words.

“Uh...” Wave’s mouth opened, but nothing that could be considered words came out of his mouth. He had been making efforts recently to mend his relationship with Spitfire, but it clearly wasn’t enough. The fact that Silver of all ponies was getting on his ass about it was a clear and present sign that it had gotten WAY out of hoof. Discord pranking them was one thing… but how the two of them acted afterward for such a long time was the true cause for all the awkwardness that floated between them. “UH! UM… YES SIR! I MEAN, NO SIR! Uh, wait… M-maybe… sir?” Wave completely stumbled over his words as he tried to save himself. Silver only rolled his eyes and pushed Wave towards the door.

“Just do it before one of us decides to make you. I guarantee it will be much less pleasant if we do,” he warned… or maybe threatened. Wave couldn’t tell which one it was. Regardless, he was out the door faster than Silver could blink.

Dash looked up from preening her right wing just in time to see Wave Chill scurry through the recruits towards the doors while blushing madly. Dash blinked and looked up, keeping her eyes on Wave as he made it to the door and pushed on it a few times before realizing it was a ‘pull’ door and leaving quickly.

What had him all worked up?

Dash squeaked in surprise as she felt something on her left wing. She quickly looked to her left to see her left wing extended and Twister sitting right beside her, casually preening her left wing as if Dash wouldn’t care. He stopped for a moment, shook his head and pointed towards the door where Wave just left.

“He really needs to chill… Eh? Ehhhhhhh?” Twister said to her, completely ignoring the glare she was giving him for touching her wings. He looked back at her left wing and licked his lips. “Mmmmmmmm… Rainbows…” he bit down on her feathers again. Dash instantly pulled her wing away from him and quickly swatted him in the face with it. Twister was knocked clean off her bed and fell over the edge while uttering a strange sounding, “A-HYUCK HYUCK HYUCK,” as he fell and hit the floor.

“Alright you three, let’s go, let’s go!” Spitfire’s voice caught Dash’s attention as she entered the mess hall with Thunderlane and Little Star in tow.

“WAY AHEAD OF YA, CAPTAIN LADY!” Air Mach yelled, nearly running into Dash he cantered to the door. “Pardon my stallionness!” he proclaimed as he shifted by Thunderlane and Little Star.

“Spitty… can’t we send another squad?” Fleetfoot whined as the rest drew near. Dash kept her eyes on them as she and the others found their way to the back of the breakfast line close by. “I hate patrols, they’re so boring!” she let her wings slump and drag against the floor as they advanced. Spitfire shook her head.

“The sooner you guys get out there, the sooner you can get back and go about your business,” she stated flatly.

“Easy for you to say, you’re not going!” Fleetfoot groaned as Soarin extended his large wing and scooped her up.

“C’mon little miss cheese-with-whine,” Soarin chuckled as he easily hauled the grumbling Fleetfoot along. “Unless you want to stay behind and help Spitfire with her paperwork.”

Spitfire lightly pushed them along until they were moving quickly after Air Mach. Dash snickered as Soarin approached, on course to pass right by them with Fleetfoot still stuck beneath his wing. She smiled at Soarin as he walked by, he replied with a wink and a full stroke of his tail from her cheek all the way down to her flank. It was fairly subtle since they had walked by so close, but she was not expecting it. She released a quiet squeak and blushed, turning her head to follow him as he made his way through the door, sneaking a glance and a smile towards Dash before exiting.

Dash shivered and swayed back and forth slightly in delight as she faced forward again. She wanted some private time with Soarin so bad, he was just so casually sexy all the time, she couldn’t handle it.

Dash blinked as the faint sound of fluttering reached her ears. She turned her head slightly to the left to see Little Star slowly floating into her field of view while smiling incredibly wide on her little face and lightly tapping her front hooves together.

“You two are so cute, I can’t handle it!” she cooed as she slowly floated downward and landed on her back on the floor at Dash’s hooves. Dash blushed and puffed her cheeks out as she looked away from Star. As she did, Thunderlane came into her line of sight. He was simply standing in line, staring into space. Dash smirked. Scapegoat.

“You think I’M cute?” Dash looked back down at Star. “You should see Thunderlane and his special somepony… they are so easily embarrassed, she hides their faces behind her wide brim hat when they kiss!”

“What?!” Thunderlane’s eyes snapped towards Dash upon hearing about something related to him and Applejack, but less than a second later, Star was in his face and grabbing him by the cheeks.

“OH MY GOD!!!! THAT’S ADORABLE!!!!” she squealed with her eyes full of stars.

“DASH!!!!!” Thunderlane whined as Dash slipped away and grabbed a tray for food.

Leaving Thunderlane to deal with Little Star’s gossip squealing, Dash had a full tray of food and was making her way down the aisle. Once again, it wasn’t hard to locate her other friends due to the giant griffon sitting two tables from the start of the aisle on the left. She quickly made her way over, eager to sit down, but was surprised to find Squall was already there.

They usually had to flag him down, but this time he was there before most of them even showed. Matteo wasn’t one to flag anypony down and ask them to sit with him. So either Matteo sat down with Squall, which was unlikely because Matteo was the first one out of the barracks for breakfast, or Squall sat down with Matteo on his own power. Squall was now coming to them. More progress!

Dash greeted them both, earning a nod from Matteo and, as usual, nothing from Squall as she sat down. She only took one bite before another tray was dropped beside hers and Thunderlane plopped down in the seat while glaring at Dash. Dash glanced up at him and snickered.

“Not cool, Dash…” Thunderlane voiced his disapproval. She burst out laughing and shook her head.

“Hey, it was your ass or mine,” she shrugged. “You were just in the wrong place at the right time!”

“I swear I’ve never had more personal information pried from me my entire life!” Thunderlane groaned as he looked over his food. Dash nudged him in the side.

“Yeah, welcome to my bunk mate… so don’t complain,” she lifted an eyebrow at him. Thunderlane blinked and thought it over.

“Touché…” he caved as he reached for his food.

Right before he could grab some eggs, Twister stepped up to the table while holding a large, covered platter in his hoof. He reached down and slid Thunderlane’s tray out of the way.

“HEY!” Thunderlane whined, but suddenly flinched as Twister slammed the platter down in front of Thunderlane. Twister put on a creepy smile as he reached up and pulled the cover off the platter. Little Star was lying on the platter with an apple shoved in her mouth. As soon as she realized where she was, she glared and yanked the apple out of her mouth before sharply standing up and grabbing Twister by the neck.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!” she yelled in his face while shaking him.

“MANY THINGS!” Twister replied cheerfully, going limp in her grip as she continued to shake him angrily.

Thunderlane carefully reached around them to grab his tray and pull it back towards him as the comical scene continued with Twister somehow managing to turn the tables and cradle Star like a foal while singing lullabies… which promptly got him socked in the face.

Dash looked towards the aisle just in time to see Storm Front passing by them in full uniform with his tray of food. Dash smiled and quickly waved to him.

“Storm! We have an open seat!” Dash called. Out of her field of view, Squall was visibly unpleased by Dash flagging Storm down, but luckily for him, Storm shook his head.

“Sorry guys,” he made a head motion down the aisle. “I’ve got a breakfast meeting with my squad, gotta run!” he gave a quick wave before continuing down the aisle at a quick pace.

Dash frowned as Storm carried on. Matteo glanced down, picking up on Dash’s mood as he looked between her and Storm.

“It’s been quite a while since we’ve had any contact with Storm Front,” Matteo humored her. Dash looked up at Matteo before sighing and nodding.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she began as she looked around the table at everypony. Things finally died down and they were all eating. “I’ve really enjoyed training and spending time with you guys, but it was great having Storm with us during the tryouts. He’s always so busy with elite training and meetings now, I can barely ever catch him to talk. I kind of miss him,” Dash admitted. Storm had a level head and was incredibly friendly, two things that made him very nice and fun to be around. It was easy to strike conversation and he always treated everyone with respect. In general, he always made Dash feel like she had someone she could easily confide in, only problem was now they were in different places and had different schedules. It was almost exactly like how things were with her and Soarin. They were both ponies she really liked to be around and they were both slightly out of reach.

Matteo nodded in agreement.

“He has rightfully earned a high honor and my respect as a fellow warrior. It pains me that we are stuck in different ranks, I would enjoy meeting him in combat,” he said. Little Star overheard them and leaned over.

“You two talking about Stormy?” she asked, earning a nod from Matteo and Dash. “He seems like such a nice guy! I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to him yet,” she pouted.

“He’s a bitch,” Squall chimed in out of nowhere. Dash rolled her eyes.

“We all know what you think, Squall,” she said sarcastically. Star turned to him and furrowed her brow.

“Says the pony that egged him into a hallway fight while whining about the tryout results,” she poked him in the side.

“Rgh…” Squall grunted. Normally he’d fight it, but after Silver’s unseen punishment of him, Squall seemed incredibly reluctant to talk about the scuffle he had with Storm in the hall.

Dash turned to Twister, who was busy balancing a banana on his nose.

“What about you Twist?” Dash asked, for reasons she really couldn’t figure out. She just didn’t feel like leaving anypony out. “You’ve never really mentioned Storm.”

“I have the farts…” Twister said as the banana peeled itself and it draped over his face as the banana somehow slid over his nose and directly into his mouth.

“Right…” Dash left it at that as she went back to her food.

“Let’s move out!” Fire Streak’s voice met her ears. She glanced up as she chewed on her eggs. Fire was directing Lightning, Surprise, and Misty away from their table nearby.

“Where we patrolling again?” Lightning asked as he released a loud belch right into Fire’s face. Fire reclined in disgust and angrily pushed Lightning along.

“We’re performing the secondary sweep behind the lead squad. Good lord, what did you eat?” Fire gagged and stuck his tongue out as Misty lightly shook with silent giggles behind him. Surprise was hovering after them upside down.

Patrols. That was the second time Dash had heard it, but it sounded routine so she wasn’t really paying attention.

Matteo and Squall on the other hoof were skeptical.

Squall looked up from his food and glanced around the mess hall.

“Is it just me,” he spoke up. “Or do the Wonderbolts look like they’re hurrying around a bit this morning?” Dash blinked as she looked at Squall before glancing around the room. Matteo nodded as he surveyed the area as well.

“If you are seeing it too, then I am not just imagining it,” Matteo stated as Dash glanced up at him. They were both right. As Dash scanned the mess hall, it looked like all the elite Wonderbolts were rushing around, eating quickly and moving on their way. Was there a reason for the patrols?

“I wonder if something’s going on,” Dash wondered out loud as the three watched the hustling Wonderbolts. They all jumped in surprise as somepony cleared their throat very loudly behind them. They, along with the rest of the table, turned to see Silver Lining standing at the head of the table.

“A bunch of slap-dick unicorns have been causing trouble in the northern mountains recently,” he explained. “The Royal Guard has been shitting their armor trying to snuff them out recently, so we’re sending a few squads out to survey the situation and see if we need to get involved. In short: nothing you need to be worried about, so focus on your damn training. Eat and get your asses to the classroom, I’m moving our schedule up half an hour,” he finished and left before any of them could say anything, much less react to the sudden new deadline on breakfast time.

Dash dug into her food, much more worried now about being late and facing Silver’s consequences than whatever the Wonderbolts were currently looking into. She had to focus on her tasks at hoof, but she couldn’t help but be a tad curious.

Needless to say, breakfast was over fast. Silver made stops to each table of recruits to let them know about the sudden shift in the schedule.

Dash and the rest were up and out of the mess hall in minutes, hurrying to their assigned classroom alongside the rest of the recruits in fear of being late.

They all made it there in time, but once Silver’s new class time came around… Silver did not show up.

“Um…” Dash blinked as she watched the minute hand of the clock tick past five minutes after Silver claimed he was starting their usual formations and technique lecture. She glanced up at Matteo, who was also eyeing the clock. “He said half an hour earlier right?”

“That he did,” Matteo nodded. He looked around at the rest of the recruits. All of them shared the same confusion. Silver was always the first one in the classroom. None of them knew when he got there, but he was always there with full diagrams already drawn on the whiteboard.

The white board was spotless, still washed clean from the night before.

“Have we been duped?” Little Star turned around from the seat in front of Dash. Dash looked back at the clock as it ticked to six minutes past.

“By Silver?” she pondered out loud.

“Oh, great…” Thunderlane sighed, catching their attention from the other side of Matteo. “Wonderbolt surprises always lead to me getting beaten up,” he groaned. Dash rolled her eyes even though Thunderlane had a knack for getting banged up every time a surprise test or drill caught them off guard. It had gotten to a point where Bliss seemed to know exactly when Thunderlane was coming in to get some post training treatment.

While it was a little painful to watch, it was clear that Thunderlane had built up quite a new degree of mental and physical toughness. He still complained every once in a while, like just now, but it had lessened considerably. That toughness was definitely going to be noticed by Applejack. It was something she liked in a pony. In fact, Dash found herself snickering at the thought of Applejack swooning. That would be quite a sight.

“Relax Thunderlane,” Dash waved him off as she continued to snicker. “Maybe he just wanted to see us frantic, I’m sure he gets a kick out of seeing us scramble at his every order.”

“Pfff…” Squall suddenly grunted from behind Dash. She and the others turned to him. He was reclining in his chair with his back hooves up on the table. “Whatever…” he said casually as he propped his head with his arms and leaned his head back while tipping in his chair and looking right up at the ceiling. “I don’t see what you’re all so worried about. I hate these classes,” as he spoke the rest looked up. The door behind Squall quietly opened. Since he was looking up, he didn’t see the door, nor did he see the rest react. Silver and the rest of squad two stood in the doorway. “I’m fine with waiting, it’s much better than sitting here and listening to Silver talk non-stop out of his ass,” Dash and the recruit began cringing as Silver’s eyes narrowed. “I’d rather listen to crying foals for hours than—”

Squall’s mouth slammed shut and his face paled as Silver’s head suddenly appeared directly over him, glaring down while scrunching his face. Silver slowly reached up and lightly tapped the back of Squall’s chair.

“Ah!” Squall yelped and flailed as his chair tipped over and crashed to the floor. Squall rolled to a stop a few feet away, Silver keeping right beside him as he did and forcing his face down into Squall’s the moment Squall opened his eyes.

“GET THE HELL OFF MY CLASSROOM FLOOR, DAMMIT!!!!” he barked so loud it blew Squall’s mane back. Squall scrambled to his hooves and tried to pick up his chair but Silver grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to look into his eyes. Squall blinked as Silver remained silent for about thirty seconds before suddenly turning Squall’s head to the side and putting his mouth right next to Squall’s ear. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” he yelled at the top of his lungs into Squall’s ear. “You like crying foals? WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!” Squall winced heavily, his head shaking with each one. “NOW PICK UP YOUR CHAIR AND SIT THE HELL DOWN!” he pushed Squall back towards his chair.

Squall quickly pulled his chair back up and sit completely straight in it. Despite Squall’s usual UNUSUAL enjoyment of being yelled at, he didn’t seem to like this one very much. Probably because his eardrums were most likely screaming at him right now after Silver forced his voice through Squall’s brain. No other recruit made so much as a peep as Silver walked around the classroom and towards the whiteboard with Wave, Blaze, and Winds lined up against the back wall.

“You all think this is boring?” he suddenly asked in a hushed tone. “You don’t like lectures, huh?” he scanned the room. “Formations aren’t interesting?” He ground his teeth together. “Okay, hold on, you might like these four new ones, complete with the stunts they go with!”

Silver turned and angrily snatched the red marker sitting in the whiteboard tray and yanked the cap off with his teeth. He began drawing circles and lines on the board with very sharp strokes. He moved from each drawing to the next with sharp motions and as soon as he finished the forth, he slammed the cap back on and slapped the marker back into the tray before stepping aside.

Dash held in a laugh. She dared not let it slip as she held her breath. Blaze and High Winds were both snickering behind them all.

The four new ‘formations’ and ‘flight path’ lines all together spelled out ‘shut the fuck up.’ Silver scanned the room again.

“What? Still don’t like them!?” he folded his ears back over his head and glared. “TOO BAD!” he smacked his hoof against the white board so hard that it unhooked from the wall and slid down, the corner of the board crashing against the floor. The board began falling forward, but Silver reached up and stopped it.

“Knowing the basics is just as important as being able to put a hoof between some sorry son of a bitch’s face!” Silver yelled as he casually lifted the board back up and re-hooked it on the wall. “I can’t believe I’m saying this so far into our training cycles! I swear, if any more of you moan and groan about something this important, I will jam my hoof so far up your ass the only way to get it out will be to pull it and the rest of me all the way through and out your MOUTH!” he threatened.

The recruits all froze as Blaze and High Winds burst out laughing behind them. Silver turned and casually erased the message he just drew out before grabbing the marker again. The recruits all took this as a sign the real flight class was starting… all of them completely disregarding the strange fact that the rest of squad two was still present. Silver waited until the rustling of notebooks and binders stopped before turning around and giving them all a surprisingly devilish smile.

“But you know what?” he chucked the marker over his shoulder and waited for it to clatter to the ground. “Screw today’s lesson, I’ve got something much more fun in mind!”

All the recruits perked up. Dash blinked and looked between her friends as they did the same. Thunderlane groaned and let his head fall to the desk.

“Here it comes…” he whined as Silver cleared his throat.

“Instead of a lecture today, I’ve decided it’s time to for a challenge. One that will clearly show me who is ready to be among us,” he slowly paced back and forth as all the recruits stiffly awaited whatever Silver had planned, some still holding their pens in their mouths. “Everypony get the hell up and line up! I’ve got a special TEST for you today!”

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

Sorry for the cliffy... but that's where i cut the chapter in two to give you guys something to read :derpytongue2: Worry not... the next chapter is already in production, about 2K words already down on a word doc, i'm looking to get a quick turn around here.

Not much really happened here, maybe except for the voices in Soarin's head and the Wonderbolts busy in the background, but lots of fun shenanigans with the recruits, and Dash vowing to never repeat the mistakes of the master.

But hey, i told ya THE TEST would be coming! I wonder what Silver has in mind?:ajsmug:

Thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 66: The Test

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 66:

“I called it. I freaking called it,” Dash spoke to herself as she zipped up the front of her recruit flight suit and slipped her goggles over her head and around her neck.

“Called what?” Little Star’s head popped over the edge of the top bunk and looked down at Dash. She was dressed in her flight suit as well with her goggles around her forehead. Dash looked up and nodded.

“After all the ‘be prepared for the unexpected’ stuff they put us through in the tryouts, I knew this was coming,” she explained as Star hopped down and the two joined the group of recruits heading back out into the barracks hallway. “The closer we got to the end of the training, the more skeptical I got… and here it is.”

“Dunno why I didn’t think of that,” Star wondered as they found Matteo and joined him before Silver called for them to line up. Dash lost sight of Thunderlane, Squall, and Twister. Normally, she wouldn’t bat an eye at this, but given the mysterious nature of what was happening Dash had no idea at what moment they might be flung into something outrageous. If that were to happen, she’d rather be close to the ponies she was more familiar with.

“Is that everypony?!” Silver yelled out from the front of the line, four ponies in front of Dash. Wave Chill ducked into their barracks room briefly, emerging seconds later.

“Barracks are empty, sir!” he yelled as High Winds counted up the recruits.

“All twenty,” she yawned and shook her head out. “All twenty accounted for!” she finished.

“ALRIGHT!” Silver pounded his hooves against the ground. “All recruits! Single file! Follow me!” he yelled as he turned and walked at a fast, but steady pace. The recruits all quickly followed behind with Blaze and High Winds surveying the middle of the line and Wave bringing up the rear.

There was something very organized about this. Dash wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad sign.

However, the path Silver led them on upon exiting the barracks was one she had yet to ever tread upon. If one was viewing the lobby upon walking into the compound, the stairs leading to the upper floors were in the center of the back wall. To the left of the stairs were the entry doors to the recruit barracks. However, to the right of the stairs was another large set of doors that Dash had never used. She had seen elite Wonderbolts enter and leave through them, but she never got a good look where they led, and since they were solid doors, she could not see what was beyond them.

Dash felt a wave of curiosity and a small bit of excitement and anticipation as Silver guided them into the lobby, turned them past the stairs and guided them to this set of mystery doors. Dash had no idea what was going to happen, but they were being taken somewhere new.

To Dash’s surprise, she stepped through the doors… and found herself outside. The recruits filed through the doors and followed Silver along a long concrete path that ran between the recruit barracks and mess hall. Wherever they were going, it was behind the compound itself. Dash knew they had some outdoor training facilities, but had yet to set hoof on any of them. She had seen a few during her few times flying in and out of Soarin’s window at night, but never got a clear view of them in the dark.

The recruits followed Silver all the way down the path and turned around the corner…

Dash’s eyes widened, she quietly gasped before slamming her hoof over her mouth to suppress an incredibly strong fan-girl squeal that jumped up into her throat. Her pupils enlarged and she gazed upon the sight before them all.

“Welcome,” Silver turned to them and motioned a hoof out towards a massive outdoor flight track that almost took up the entirety of the backyard behind the west side of the compound building. “To the personal stadium flight track of the elite Wonderbolts!” he announced before making another motion to follow and leading them towards it. Dash almost began bouncing as they moved, earning a confused look from Matteo behind her.

The large open airfield, the mile long racing oval that could be morphed into any track configuration, the rows upon rows of bleacher seats below that wrapped around the perimeter… It was really the elite flight track! Dash had no idea it was right there in the backyard of the compound! She had only ever seen it in pictures and read about it in books and read about how it was even larger than the Canterlot stadium they often performed in! Every time she saw something about it when she was younger it made her so excited! It was also track used for the world famous bi-annual Wonderbolt Squad Derby competitions!

The Wonderbolt Squad Derby was far and away the Wonderbolts’ most popular show. It was held only twice a year and whenever the dates of the Derby’s were announced, tickets sold out mere minutes after.

The rules were simple, be the last squad standing. Maintain a certain speed while trying to knock the other squads out of the course, one member at a time if need be. However, there was a reason the competition was so popular.

The Wonderbolt squads were scrambled before beginning. This created random squads of four that were different every time, preventing certain squads from dominating and preventing any form of preparation. After being selected, the squads were released into the tracks and had to work together on the fly to best the other squads, leading to new and interesting styles of flight and execution, most of which were impromptu. A squad wasn’t considered out until all of their members were knocked out of bounds, creating a need for the unfamiliar squad mates to cooperate and use all of their strengths to keep their squad together.

Because of this scramble rule, there was never a clear champion. The randomized teams made it so the winner could never be truly predetermined. It was a crazy event for gamblers. It was a rush for them to take a look at the random squads as they formed and place bets on who they believed would be successful, some even bet on squads they felt could pull an underdog upset. Why? That was just how unpredictable it was.

Dash recalled hear about the last derby from Soarin. She had VIP tickets and a pass, but those were not valid for the derby, it was too popular to reserve tickets, Spitfire didn’t allow it. The last derby was won by a squad comprised of members from squads six, eight, nine, and ten because they were more or less ignored and managed to work well together once the stronger squads were weakened due to fallen members.

The whole thing had Dash giddy… but what had her even giddier was the fact that they were still moving towards it!

Were they about to use the famous stadium? It was even already set up with padded beams, pendulums, and pistons (much less dense than Silver’s death trap course), the capture nets were hung up over the bleacher seats, and an incredibly large and fluffy crash mat was spread all the way out below on the infield. It was all set up!

Silver led them all right up to the front gate of the track and stopped them all. He turned and gave them all a stern look.

“So you all think everything’s been easy so far?! Well then! I wonder how all of you will fair in a surprise session of Wonderbolt Squad Derby!?” he yelled.

“YYYYYYYYYYES!” Dash cried out triumphantly and pumped her hoof in the air while hovering off the ground. After two seconds she froze in the air and opened her eyes wide. All the recruits, squad two and Silver were looking up at her… Silver was glaring.

Dash quickly dropped to the ground and stood up straight.

“Eheheh…” she blushed and rubbed the back of her head. “Sorry, sir!” she swallowed and stood patiently, but still visibly bouncing. Silver shook his head before leading them in.

“You, you, you, you, and you!” Silver ended by pressing his hoof against Dash’s chest. “You’re a squad!”

Dash gulped as they all stood in the tunnel entryway nestled in between the curve of the bleacher seating on the north end of the stadium. She turned to examine the other four chosen to be in her group. Despite her excitement and her knowledge of the famous Wonderbolt Squad Derby, she failed to assume Silver would scramble the teams at random. She was so ready to match up with flyers she knew well, but that plan was quickly foiled.

She had Thunderlane, and three other recruits she was not quite as familiar with. She knew their names and that they were indeed good flyers, but she was unfamiliar with their specific strengths and weaknesses. Not only that, but she now found herself charged with taking on three other squads of five.

Silver went around the rest and formed the other three squads, isolating Matteo on one squad and Squall on another. Little Star and Twister were stuck together on the fourth squad.

This was going to be interesting indeed. They went from competing only by chance at the end of a combat training session, to a sudden full blown aerial dogfight race with all twenty recruits involved. It was most certainly a surprise test, one that neither she nor the other recruits were expecting.

“The purpose of this test is to see who can adjust and adapt to unfamiliar circumstances! As a Wonderbolt, you never know when you’ll be called upon! We train to be organized and work in familiar squads, but there may be times when you have to improvise! Squad Derby is PERFECT for this because the teams are always randomized! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tried my best to put you into teams with fellow recruits that you’ve worked with the least! You don’t have time to huddle and strategize!” he explained as he began pacing.

“I’m sure some of you know how Squad Derby works, but for those who don’t, here’s a brief rundown,” he pointed up. “This is NOT a race! It is high speed combat! You and your squad have to maintain a wing power speed of at least TWELVE while trying to knock the other squads out of the air!”

Twelve? That was fairly easy for Dash, and she was more than certain by now she and the rest of the recruits could easily generate wing power numbers much higher than that by now due to all the intense training they’d gone through. However, maintaining a wing power speed of twelve while trying to fight and avoid the spread out obstacles all at the same time? That was a different story and definitely easier said than done.

“You are considered knocked out of the match if you are knocked into one of the safety nets, sent to the field mat below, or drop below the designated wing power output! A squad is only completely eliminated once all members have been knocked out. Another way I intend to examine your ability to adjust quickly! We’ve only taught you how to work in groups of five, what will happen when you suddenly only have four? Three? Two? I guess we’ll see who’s ready for the next level!” he turned around and nodded to the rest of squad two. Wave, Blaze, and Winds all took off, spread out, and headed towards the far points of the ovular track.

“Better keep your speed up, there are multiple wing power readers spread out along the track that will be closely monitored by my squad and I. If you drop below twelve, you better bet I’m dragging your ass RIGHT off the track!” he threatened, making the speed factor completely clear. “I’m sure you’ve also noticed that we didn’t issue training armor for this event… TOO BAD! Sooner or later we had to wean you off that pussy padding! This is as REAL and LIVE as it’s going to get during our training,” Silver blinked and put a hoof to his ear. “Huh? Did you hear that? Sounds like another thing I’m taking a closer look at! Who’s ready to take a few hits and keep going! You better believe your every damn move is being watched here! We don’t have much time left before the final decisions on the new recruit squad, so you better treat every wing pump like it’s the most important one of your LIFE!” he yelled as he turned and looked out the entry tunnel. The members of squad two were all waving to him from their spots. Silver turned and stomped his hoof hard on the ground.

“When I give the go ahead, you will fly up into the track in your squads. Once you all reach a wing power of twelve, I will activate the moving obstacles. That will be your signal that the derby has begun and you are clear to beat the crap out of one another! Any questions?” Silver asked. Twister slowly raised his hoof. “Didn’t think so! You have one minute until lift off!” Silver turned and stepped out onto the field, surveying the track.

Dash flinched. Only a minute, they really had no time to discuss or plan. This was all about being able to work quickly and efficiently, with an unfamiliar squad. She knew Thunderlane’s flight skill and abilities well, but not the others. The pink mare, the dark purple mare, and the grey stallion from the barracks, she had watched them fly, but never paid quite as much attention as she did to her friends. Either way, she quickly took command of the situation and turned to them all

“Thunderlane, Sketch, Spectrum, Tenpin,” she addressed them all. They all turned and looked at her quickly, all with anxious expressions. That wouldn’t do. “We’ve only got a minute. Do any of you have a problem with me taking lead?” she looked between them, they all just blinked. “Well?!” she asked with urgency. They all quickly shook their heads. “Good, listen up. Let’s keep this simple. Follow my lead, and unless I call out a formation, stay in ARROW formation, okay?” they all nodded. “Also, if we are in a formation and get separated, when we reconvene, always come back to arrow to keep from getting confused, got it?” they all nodded again. “Okay, let’s ready up!” Dash smiled while pulling up her goggles from around her neck and moving them into place over her eyes.

From just outside the tunnel, Silver was glancing over his shoulder towards Dash. He saw her quickly take command of the situation and smirked before turning back and lifting off.

“Move out! Move out! Let’s go! Get up there!” Silver yelled while swinging his right arm in a circular motion.

“Remember! Default to arrow!” Dash reminded her squad as they ran up and took off towards the track.

Silver blinked in surprise as the randomized squads took off. It looked like each squad had developed a brief strategy all within a minute… and at the head of each was one of the major prospects he’d been keeping an eye on. Dash had taken command of hers, Matteo was the centerpiece of his squad, Squall had clearly quickly named himself the lead, and Little Star somehow managed to get Twister to cooperate. They all took command so quickly, that was something he made sure to make a mental note of. Silver himself was a bit excited. These recruits kept giving him hope for the future, so he was eager to see how they handled one of the most brutal competitions in the Wonderbolt show arsenal.

“Stick with me! Arrow! Arrow!” Dash called back as Thunderlane took the left position behind her. They rose up towards the flight track, pumping their wings in tandem as the other squads followed close behind. In a matter of seconds they were within the boundaries of the track. The track itself was twenty yards wide, marked by thick black ropes that were held up by long, padded, metal poles. The poles had flags on the top, alternating blue and yellow flags every pair of poles.

The large oval path looked so much larger up close. Dash had always wondered how a single lap on a flight track could stretch for a whole mile, but they clearly made it possible here. As much as Dash was in awe of the official elite course she was privileged to use, she had to concentrate. She began picking up speed, glancing back to check up on her squad. Thunderlane was keeping up, but the other three were caught slightly off guard.

Dash gritted her teeth as she realized it wasn’t going to be so easy with these other ponies. Her friends all knew her well, and all knew how to work and move with her even without being given orders, just as she did with all of them. However, these three other recruits weren’t as familiar with her. She would have to use voice commands.

She glanced to her right to see Matteo pull up beside with his squad. They were organized in the X formation, Matteo in the center with his squad mates surrounding him. Dash couldn’t see beyond the two ponies to Matteo’s left. The ice blue pony and the black and white pony with the glasses from the silly trio. Matteo stole a quick glance at Dash before facing forward and pumping his wings harder.

“Speed up! We need more!” Matteo ordered, his squad mates following him.

Dash thought carefully as they continued to increase their speed as well. Matteo had a very sharp mind when it came to combat. His squad was trying to put themselves very far ahead. It made her wonder what he was planning… because she knew it was something.

“Shift to the right side of the track!” Dash suddenly ordered. “Let’s use the wide space to our advantage!” she yelled as she and her squad moved to the right side of the track, using the far edge of the counterclockwise path to extend the length of their travel and allow the other squads to pass. Matteo wanted to start in front, so she would start in back. Better that than take a chance. She was also curious to see if any of the other squads were hatching any plans right before they began.

She almost missed Squall as he suddenly zoomed past them with his squad in tow. They didn’t seem to be in any formation. In fact it looked like Squall was charging ahead after Matteo and the ponies behind him were struggling to keep up. All Dash could see before they were too far ahead was the bat mare and the dark blue pony from the silly trio. It didn’t look like there was much control in that group, but Dash wasn’t about to underestimate Squall.

Dash looked back again to find Twister and Star’s squad, but she didn’t have to look far. They were hugging the inside of the course, slowly passing by. They were flying in the plus formation. Star was in front, with Twister on the right flank… flying backwards, and the light blue, curly green-maned pony from the silly trio... also flying backwards and giggling along with Twister.

Dash was both not as worried and the most worried about that squad. They didn’t present quite as tough a physical adversary as Squall and Matteo, but she couldn’t forget about them, especially after how a weaker squad won the last official Wonderbolt Derby. But honestly, she had to keep one eye on Twister regardless of what they were doing.

Dash was certain they had hit, or were about to hit the wing power requirement, she decided to check on her squad one more time.

But right before she could, a loud whirring and clanking noise echoed throughout the stadium and the obstacles slowly came to life. The pendulums slowly started swinging, the pistons fired, and some of the beams proved to not be stationary as some began moving up and down or side to side.

“Remember! Arrow default!” Dash yelled one more time, “Follow my lead! Shift left! We’re going after the squad at ten o’clock!” she yelled out as she set her eyes on Twister and Star’s squad. She decided taking the initiative would be the best option, not leaving any other squads the opportunity to plan anything. Dash kept her eyes peeled as she and her squad sped up. She could see Squall’s squad further ahead, but she couldn’t see beyond them or if they were engaging with Matteo’s squad or not.

The members of Star and Twister’s squad began making glances at them as Dash navigated her squad around the loose obstacles and slowly towards them. As they began the long turn of the oval track, Star used her hover to turn around while maintaining her speed and made some hoof motions. Dash cursed to herself as she saw the other squad make moves towards them. She was hoping for a quick strike but the obstacles prevented them from closing in before Star and company could react. The two squads closed in on each other, and were on course to meet in the middle where the concentration of obstacles was the densest.

“Quick! X formation, I’ll take middle!” Dash yelled as she shifted. Thunderlane was in place immediately and the other three moved in shortly after. “On my mark, dip down, shift over and surprise them from below!” she yelled. The squads split apart to avoid an incoming pendulum, and in the shadow of the pendulum, Dash gave the signal. “GO!”

They dipped down in the shadow of the pendulum and shifted beneath the plus formation and shot upward.

Dash knocked the pony in the center straight up into the air and into a piston. The pony exhaled loudly, and bounced off, falling straight towards the safety mat. Thunderlane tried to ram Little Star, but she shifted up quickly before trying to slam down on his back. Thunderlane skillfully dodged, but was separated from Dash.

The other ponies in Dash’s squad engaged, but they got locked in a shoving match with each other, eventually they were forced apart and Dash called for them to regroup.

“Pull back! Keep your speed up!” Dash yelled as Thunderlane found his way back over to her. The rest of her squad pulled away, but the instant they did, Squall suddenly plunged down from above and knocked out the pony on the left flank of Star and Twister’s formation. The bat mare shot downward as well, but Twister simply turned aside and poked her in the stomach as she passed, earning an ‘OOF’ from the mare before Twister chuckled heartily.

Only two… where were the other three?

Dash instinctively looked up. The dark blue pony and the other two recruits from Squall’s squad were diving towards them.

Dash blinked and instantly shifted out of the way, swinging her arm around and striking one of the recruits between the shoulder blades. The recruit cried out and shot downward, falling way out of bounds and to the mat. Thunderlane and the pink mare moved out of the way.

“Speed up and regroup!” Dash ordered. She, Thunderlane and her three other squadmates all pushed their wings to gain more speed, reforming the arrow as they finished the long curve into the straightaway. Dash felt like they got out of that one lucky. Star was down to three flyers and Squall down to four. How they managed to stay with five was beyond her since they went on a direct assault then endured a surprise attack.

But where were Matteo and his squad? Why did they go so far ahead? Unless they—

Suddenly something slammed into Dash from behind. An incredible force shot through her body as she felt something grip her and propel her forward. She turned her head just enough as she absorbed the shock to see Matteo holding her and the grey stallion being held in his talons. It took Dash a second to realize… that Matteo and his Squad had sped up considerably to the point where they had made a full lap and were attacking from behind! Matteo angled them downward and closed his grip tighter around them. Dash gasped as she felt the strength of Matteo’s large talons close down on her. This was the first time she and Matteo had been in a competition scenario. This was how strong he was? She felt like she couldn’t breathe! He pulled them both up and wound up, clearly intent on throwing her and the grey stallion towards the ground as they continued to move at high speeds through the track. If Matteo threw her while they were traveling so quickly, she was more than certain she wouldn’t be able to recover.

Dash was not about to be knocked out so soon into the test. She forced her whole body to turn, throwing her hoof across her body and striking Matteo clean on the wrist, right between his nerves. He grunted and released Dash, but flung the grey stallion downward.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

The grey stallion was out and bouncing against the safety mat quickly. Dash spun out of Matteo’s grip, shifted above him and drove her elbow into his back as hard as she could.

He barely budged. And Dash pulled her arm back while holding her arm in pain.

“AHHH!” Dash grunted as her arm jittered. Matteo was a rock solid pile of muscle! She was definitely not getting him out through conventional means. She pushed off and rejoined Thunderlane and the purple mare, but upon looking around found the pink mare engaged with the ice blue stallion. The two had grappled and both were not looking where they were flying. “LOOK OUT!” Dash yelled, but the two ran headlong into a pendulum as it swung by, effectively knocking them both out.

“Come around! Create space!” Dash yelled to Thunderlane and Spectrum. The three reconvened and moved back. They moved far enough to see Matteo’s squad had split up and had attacked all three other squads. And now just after being lucky, Dash was stuck with a squad of only three. Matteo still had four total, Star and Twister still had the green maned mare, but Squall’s squad had taken a hit. The black and white stallion from Matteo’s squad was driving the blue mare from Squall’s down. He was saying sorry over and over again as they fell because they were both from the trio of silly ponies. All that was left was Squall and the bat pony in his squad.

This had gotten hectic fast. Dash had hardly completed a lap and all the squads were already missing members. Matteo’s squad had the advantage with four still flying strong, so Dash decided to take a passive approach. As they ducked and weaved around incoming obstacles and completed their first lap, Dash slowed until she was in between Thunderlane and Spectrum and gave new instructions.

“We are at a disadvantage, let’s set up in a tight triangle formation! I’ll be upfront, you two follow close behind my back hooves! Teamwork will win this for us!” she encouraged as they moved to avoid incoming pistons and beams.

They had fallen slightly behind, but were within range to make a few moves and close in on the squads. Squall, despite him only having one squadmate left, straight up engaged Matteo’s squad. Or at least Matteo. Squall had recklessly approached and Matteo ordered his three squadmates to go after the bat mare.

They were completely ignoring Star and Twister’s squad, something Dash was determined not to do. She made hoof motions towards Spectrum and Thunderlane.

“We can’t let them go unchecked, let’s sneak up!” she ordered, completely taking on the captain role. Neither Thunderlane, nor Spectrum argued and followed closely behind as Dash continued to navigate the obstacles of the straightaway.

Dash kept one eye on Squall and Matteo’s squads as they closed in. Squall’s remaining partner, the bat mare, proved to be quite resourceful. She was fending off three ponies at once AND managed to knock one out, cutting Matteo’s numbers down to three! On the other side of the squad scuffle, Squall and Matteo were really going at it! The two were exchanging punches and kicks while flying side by side, maintaining their speed. Matteo wasn’t landing many attacks, but he was forcing Squall to dodge often. Squall’s attacks were all connecting to Matteo, but as Dash learned very recently, punching Matteo was like punching a brick house. It hurt. The two were caught in an endless loop of trying and failing to hinder each other.

Dash refocused on Star’s and Twister’s group. Lucky, this time they were not aware of Dash’s approach. They were busy focusing on the squad scuffle slightly ahead, trying to avoid it.

“GO!” Dash yelled as they closed in. The three shot forward and pushed their way in between the other squad’s formation. Star yelped in surprise, but ducked down again to elude Thunderlane.

“Dammit!” Thunderlane cursed at his inability to tag the little, heavily mobile mare. Dash grabbed Twister by the shoulders and was about to throw him, but he turned around in her grip and latched onto her arms while sneering. Spectrum got a hold of the green maned pony from behind, but the pony threw her wings out in surprise.

“Spectrum! Speed!” Dash yelled as she watched her squadmate slow down considerably. There was nothing she could do. Dash fought with Twister while glancing at Spectrum. She and the other pony passed one of the wingpower gauges way too slowly. Blaze dropped down from above and grabbed them both, forcing them out of the course.

Dash shed Twister’s grip and backed off. She found and rejoined beside Thunderlane, just in time to see Squall’s wingmate, the bat mare, grab both of the remaining ponies from Matteo’s squad. It looked like she was ready to throw them down, but a piston nearby fired out and struck her in the side. She was sent tumbling out of bounds and into a safety net, while the two she had grabbed flailed out of control and passed a wing power monitor way to slowly. Silver flew in and snatched them both out of the air.

Just like that. Only one and a half laps down (two and a half for Matteo), and it came down to the six of them.

Silver dropped off the two ponies he pulled out of the track before looking back up. He smirked and shook his head as he rose back up to observe.

“These damn kids,” he chuckled as he looked at each of them. Rainbow Dash, Matteo, Squall, Thunderlane, Little Star, and Twister. “They just never stop pushing themselves…”

“Thunderlane! Let’s switch this up! Head for Squall and Matteo!” Dash suggested as they continued to shift and weave around obstacles at high speeds.

“What?!” Thunderlane blinked as he looked towards the two locked in intense combat. “You want to get between THAT?!” Thunderlane voiced his disapproval.

“Little Star is too quick and Twister is turning all our attempts against us! I’ll engage them directly. I want you to follow, but keep an eye on Twister and Star!” Dash suggested as they broke apart briefly to avoid a pendulum. “Star won’t pass up a chance like that, when they move in to attack, let’s break off and surprise them!”

“O-okay…” Thunderlane wasn’t sure if it would work, but then again, he didn’t have any better ideas, Dash had really taken command and he wasn’t going to try and argue with her.

“Go!” Dash yelled as they began moving towards the clashing duo.

“That all you got, fatass!?” Squall yelled as he pumped his wings and made quick shifts to evade Matteo’s powerful swipes and swings. “I still owe you for that coward comment!” he barked.

“That was weeks ago!” Matteo growled as he took a hit, but easily shrugged it off. He reached out and grabbed hold of Squall’s arm, but Squall swung around and landed a kick over the top of Matteo’s head. Squall bounced off, ripping his arm free, but Matteo once again seemed unfazed as he pounded his massive wings against the air, propelling him even faster after Squall.

“I’m surprised you can carry your own weight, tubby!” Squall snarled as he braced himself. Matteo rammed him in the side, but Squall retained control and kept going, trying to ram Matteo right back. “I’m not scared of you!” Squall yelled out as if really trying to get his point across. He turned on his side and punched both arms out at Matteo’s chest. Matteo reached up and grabbed both of Squall’s hooves. Squall had the leverage advantage, but Matteo still managed to slowly push back with his tremendous strength.

“You talk way too much!” Matteo reared his head back and headbutted Squall right in the forehead.

“RGH!” Squall yelled as the two split apart and moved into the large curve of the track.

“NOW!” Dash yelled as she propelled forward, Thunderlane following close behind.

Before Matteo and Squall could clash again, Dash shot up in between them with her hooves, extended. She caught them both right beneath the chins. They both grunted as their heads were forced back, disoriented for the moment. Dash quickly grabbed Squall’s arm and sharply twisted to perform Twister’s Spiral Turn, swinging Squall around her body twice and launching him into Matteo, hoping it would be enough to have some effect on the giant.

Of course it didn’t. Matteo was pushed two feet back, maybe three, before pushing Squall off and launching him towards Dash.

“What’s he made of?!” Dash growled as yet another attempt to hinder Matteo failed. She shifted to avoid Squall’s incoming body, but he was not as disoriented as he let on. He thrust his wings out as he twisted, striking Dash right in the stomach. “OOF!” Dash grunted as she tried to pull away, but Squall was moving in for another attack.

Thunderlane charged in from behind and rammed Squall in the back.

“WHOA!” Thunderlane quickly dipped down as a pendulum swung by. “Dammit!” he cursed when he realized he just saved Squall from being blindsided. He pitched towards Dash and helped her regain flight before she could lose any speed and they made it into the next straight away.

“Again!” Dash yelled, pulling Thunderlane with her. She had the advantage of a partner. Teamwork would be key in this because it was clear she wouldn’t be able to take down Matteo alone. Squall was proving to be quite resilient himself.

Dash charged headlong at the two again, dipping between two beams and barrel rolling to avoid a piston, placing herself above them and diving down as Squall and Matteo exchanged blows.

“DASH! ABOVE!” Thunderlane yelled out.

“Ah!” Dash yelped as she looked skyward. Twister was diving from above while holding Little Star in his hooves. She had her hooves extended and her body flat, waiting to be thrown. Twister did multiple flips before launching Little Star downward. Dash tipped to the side just enough for Star to cleanly pass. Star’s hooves jammed right into Squall’s back between the shoulder and wing joints on the right side. Squall’s right wing instantly retracted, causing him to spin out of control. Little Star bounced off and began fluttering to avoid multiple incoming swipes from Matteo. Dash glanced back at Squall. He was slowly moving back, his right wing clearly stunned by the attack. It seemed like it was over for him, but once again Squall proved his resilience. Before he could fall away from the group, he reached his neck out and grabbed one of Matteo’s back legs with his mouth, biting down rather hard.

“ARGH!” Matteo grunted as he began kicking his leg, but Squall had reached up and hooked his hooves around Matteo’s leg as well. Even with a hurt wing, he was able to remain at the right speed by hitching a ride. Star had flipped around and was latched to Matteo’s head, trying to yank at his neck and force his path into an obstacle, but Matteo remained in control. Dash and Thunderlane took the opportunity to try an knock Squall free, but they were met by Twister, who roped them into a bear hug and sent all three of them into Matteo’s side. Matteo reached out and wrapped his arms around all three of them as Squall held tight to his leg and Star kept yanking at his head.

It had become one complete mess. None were really in control of what was happening. They somehow managed to keep avoiding obstacles mainly due to Matteo still being in control of his flight and all for them being attached to him in some way.

Tempers were beginning to flare. Matteo was getting sick of Squall trying to climb on his leg. Dash was getting tired of Twister getting in her way. Squall was fed up with being dragged along. Thunderlane disliked not being in control of his flight. Little Star was pissed that nothing she tried seemed to work. Twister just smiled.

The six friends… all driven to anger as they bit and clawed at each other, desperate to gain some sort of advantage. Dash was just as angry as the rest of them, but something in her heart felt uneasy. Seeing each of them so enraged just didn’t feel right. This was a competition, but with what was on the line… would this throw barriers in between them? She wanted to win… they all clearly wanted to win, but she didn’t like how this was turning out. Weren’t the Wonderbolts about camaraderie? About working together as a team?

She was glaring headlong into the eyes of Matteo as he and Twister had a grip on her. His eyes were sharply narrowed and he looked enraged, ready to give them all a haymaker if he could. It wasn’t like the look she saw in his eyes when fighting in training. It was almost beast-like and animalistic, the same went for Squall. He was miffed during her fight with him, but here he was growling a snarling like he’d rip their heads off if given the chance.

Dash did not feel innocent either. She felt a huge desire to pound Twister’s face in for how annoying he was being while she was trying to focus on the others. She didn’t like thinking that way, but that’s what the competition was forcing her to think. Was it right? Was THIS right?

None of them had a chance to find out.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!”

Something… none of them knew what, but an incredibly loud, deep, ear piercing roar echoed through the air. It was so loud and strong that Dash and the rest all cringed and yelped as the noise shot through their heads.

They were all so startled that they all let go of each other, the competition completely leaving their minds as they all slowed to a stop and looked around frantically.

“RRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!”

The roar came again. They all covered their ears as the noise was painful to take in. It almost sounded demonic. Nothing normal about it. It was alarming.

Dash looked down to see the rest of the recruits all shielding their ears. Silver was looking up into the sky, one hoof over an ear, looking back and forth to the north. Blaze, Wave, and Winds all landed nearby him as looked towards the north with him. Blaze looked towards Silver.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” she asked frantically.

“I…” Silver blinked as his mouth hung slightly ajar. “I have no idea!”

“RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!”

They all cringed again, Wave Chill looking out over the bleachers.

“It’s coming from the north!!!!” he yelled out.

The moment Wave pointed it out, Soarin, Fleetfoot, Air Mach, Fire Streak, Misty Fly, Surprise, and Lightning Streak all appeared over the top of the bleachers, flying incredibly fast towards the compound. Fleetfoot angled down and shot towards squad two as the rest zoomed by.

Dash and her fellow recruits had to brace themselves as the epic gusts of the passing Wonderbolts nearly knocked them right out of the air. The Wonderbolts shot right towards the back entrance of the compound, save for Soarin who went for Spitfire’s office window on the second floor. Dash was beyond confused and slightly afraid of what this was all about.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!”

“Ah!” Dash curled her body in slightly while covering her ears as the deafening roar pierced the air once more. What was that?! She frantically wanted some idea of what was happening and instinctively looked down towards Silver. Fleetfoot had landed and was conversing with him.

Dash couldn’t make out anything she was saying, but she was clearly explaining something with great haste. As Silver listened, the rest of squad two took interest and packed in to hear.

Then Silver had a visible reaction that looked like a mix of surprise and alarm.

That… was not a good sign.

Fleetfoot suddenly turned and pointed up at the recruits.

“GET THE RECRUITS INSIDE!” she yelled before taking off and firing towards the compound as quickly as she could. Silver turned and took a quick, but sharp and deep breath.

“EVERYPONY GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! THE TEST IS OVER! LINE UP! LET’S GO!” he yelled in a tone and manner that were different, a tone of intense urgency in his voice.

None of the recruits hesitated for a second. Something was wrong, there was no time to stand still and be confused. As they flew down, Dash noticed Squall, Thunderlane, Matteo, and Little Star all shooting quick glares at each other. There was clearly something else to worry about right now, but they had all just been cut off from a competition that was becoming more than a little heated. They would have to live with it for now, because there was something clearly much more important going on.

The moment they were all down, Silver started shouting orders to his squadmates.

“Count them up! Make sure we have everypony!” he yelled as Wave passed by them all, nudging them to line up.

“That’s everypony, sir!” Wave confirmed. Silver gave a quick nod before turning to all of them.

“INTO THE COMPOUND! ON THE DOUBLE! MOVE! MOVE!” he barked at them as he broke into a fast canter. The recruits were caught by surprise, but all quickly followed after them.

Dash glanced behind her towards the north as they moved. She couldn’t see over the high bleachers, but what was causing the sudden alarm?

Speaking of sudden alarms, about ten feet from the back doors, loud alarm claxons began blaring from every speaker around the compound, a sound Dash hadn’t heard since the incident with Rapidfire.

They were alerting the whole compound…

What the hell was happening?!

Silver hurried them all into the lobby, where the sound of the alarm echoed loudly, bouncing off the walls and shooting throughout the hallways. Silver quickly led the recruits around the stairs and towards the doors of the recruit barracks as Dash took in the scene around her. Wonderbolt staff members were galloping to and fro, earth ponies and unicorns were pushing all the furniture in the lobby to the walls, opening up the lobby space as much as possible. Wonderbolts were pouring in from every direction, the east and west halls as well as from down the stairs. Some of them were frantically trying to finish slipping their flight suits on as they entered, and all of them had their goggles pushed up over their foreheads.

They began lining up in the newly open space in the lobby in rows of twelve, three squads in each row. Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach, all in full Wonderbolt gear, were busily weaving between the squads, talking to the squad captains. It looked like they were letting each squad know what the situation was. There was nothing planned or prepared about this situation… it was a scramble.

As the recruits gathered by the barracks, Silver gave the order for them to hold just as Spitfire glided over and landed behind him. Silver quickly turned and stood attention.

“REPORTING, MA’AM!” Silver addressed her. Spitfire barely let him finish as she pointed over his shoulder at the recruits.

“GET THEM LINED UP! SPLIT THEM INTO SQUADS!” Spitfire ordered. Silver looked at her as if she had completely lost her mind.

“The recruits?!” he said incredulously as he looked directly at her but made a hoof motion towards Dash and the others.

“You heard me Silver!” she barked back at him. “We’re going to need everypony we can spare for this!” Silver lightly shook his head back and forth.

“But—”

“THAT’S AN ORDER, SILVER!!!!!!” Spitfire shouted in his face. “I want squad two to bring up the rear of our full formation! Get the recruits into squads of five and have them each follow one member of your squad! Keep them in order and direct them as needed! WE! NEED! EVERYPONY!” she repeated before sharply turning her back on Silver and leaping back into the air to continue organizing the Wonderbolts.

Silver turned and scanned the recruits, they all looked incredibly confused, anxious, and slightly terrified. He growled and ground his teeth together as he turned to them pointed.

“ALL OF YOU! UP AGAINST THE DOORS! RIGHT NOW!” he ordered. The recruits all flinched and quickly moved, spreading out one by one along the doors. “I’m only going to explain this ONCE and BRIEFLY! So listen up! Looks like the group of unicorns up in the northern mountains are a little more resourceful than we thought! They have found a way to release a BLACK DRAGON!” he explained. Dash eyes widened and her jaw dropped as Silver continued. “They seem to have control over it, and are on the verge of pointing it towards Canterlot! The Royal Guard is mobilizing to fortify the city’s defenses. It’s up to us to meet this threat head on and take it down or at least slow it down long enough for the Royal Guard to completely build up its counter measures!” Silver stopped and looked at them all. The looks he was receiving from them were filled with pure terror. All accept for Matteo, who’s eyes were merely slightly wider than usual. He growled and stomped.

“WIPE THOSE PUSSY LOOKS OFF YOUR FACES! YOU’RE WONDERBOLTS! YOU SIGNED UP TO BE THE BEST! WELL, IT’S TIME TO BE THE BEST!” he barked, making them all stiffen. Some of them looked like they were trying to regain their composure but it was clearly difficult. “We need squads of five again!” Silver stepped forward and split the line of recruits at every fifth recruit while shuffling down past them all. “No time to think it over, just group up every five and get lined up behind one of my squad members or me! AND MAKE IT QUICK!”

Dash was still trying to collect her thoughts. A black dragon?! A BLACK DRAGON?! Her brain was screaming at her as she lined up in the center position of her squad, standing in a flat line behind Silver. Thunderlane stood to her right, Little Star stood to her left.

Were they really about to fight a black dragon? That was impossible. Dash had heard about the black dragons from Twilight back home during one of the egghead’s several info dumps that Dash managed not to sleep through during a gathering with her friends. Black dragons were a thing of myths, not having walked in Equestria for over thousands of years. They were said to be the only mortal creatures that could rival the power of the gods and goddesses themselves. In fact, it was said that not even Celestia herself was capable of destroying them, so instead they were captured one by one and sealed away across the land, ending centuries of death and destruction at the claws and fire of the incredible beasts. These were far from typical dragons. A kick to the nose or an angry scolding didn’t seem likely to quell them.

And… ONE OF THEM WAS NOW NORTH OF CANTERLOT?! Broken from its eternal slumber with its eyes set in their direction?! Was this real?!

Even worse… Dash was well aware that Celestia was currently missing, or at least not around. What were they going to be able to do against one?!

Dash gulped as all the elite Wonderbolts and even the other recruit squads of five had all lined up perfectly in front of them and squad two.

What was going to happen?

This was all way too sudden!

Spitfire rose up from the front and looked over the perfectly lined up rows of twelve that extended from near the entrance all the way back to the recruits. All eighty elite Wonderbolts, all the in-compound recruits, and the twenty new recruits all twitching and shivering behind squad two. Spitfire turned and gave a signal to an earth pony that had opened a panel near the corner of the lobby. The earth pony nodded, reached into the panel and forced a large lever down.

A noisy, mechanical sound of machines starting and gears turning filled the room. Dash blinked and looked up in awe as the large twelve foot tall windows above the front doors of the lobby suddenly lurched, heaved, and slowly opened, creating a large opening leading out. The open window mixed with all the furniture quickly pushed aside had rapidly transformed the lobby into a makeshift hanger and takeoff strip. Spitfire landed and turned to face the open window, taking her spot in the front along with Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach. She placed a hoof on her goggles which rested on her forehead.

“ALL SQUADS READY?!” she yelled. Every single Wonderbolt simultaneously reached up and grabbed their goggles.

“AYE!” They all replied in unison, startling Dash and the recruits as they all shifted their goggles down at the same time. Dash and the others frantically did the same, floundering behind as the routine continued.

“ALL PONIES SET?!” Spitfire continued.

“AYE!” All the Wonderbolts replied while sharply opening their wings causing a large single FLAP to sound out. Dash gulped as she and the others also opened their wings shortly after.

“WONDERBOLTS! GO!!!!!” Spitfire yelled as she and the lead squad took off out the window.

“HOO-RAH!” The Wonderbolts all replied as they all broke into a canter, the rows of Wonderbolts talking off one by one as they reached the front, keeping their place in the full force formation as they leapt up and pumped their wings.

Before Dash could think, she and the others were moving with the rest of them. She kept up right behind Silver, launched off her hooves right after he did, and flew out the window with the rest.

This was really happening.

“KEEP STEADY! STAY CLOSE!” Silver barked to them as they emerged outside the compound. Dash and the recruits took heed of his words as the entire Wonderbolt force made a wide turn, curving completely around both the compound and Canterlot Castle before facing north.

As Dash and the recruits rounded past the castle, she glanced down to see the castle completely surrounded by a large blue sphere of magic. Luna was perched on the high balcony with her horn glowing brightly. The Royal Guard was scrambling as well, pouring from both the nearby barracks and the castle, Luna opening small holes in the shield to let them through.

The Wonderbolts rose high up in the air, passing over the guards as they moved about, setting up defenses and sending platoons out towards the northern border. Dash looked down as they reached the northern edge of Canterlot to see the guards gathering into large teams strewn about the border.

Dash took a moment to look at all her fellow recruits. They all looked just as confused as she was, but they were all falling in smoothly, following all the orders without question. One thing she had been wondering about however was Squall. She found him in the group and noticed him grimacing with every flap of the wings. The blow Little Star dealt to him was clearly still hurting, but he kept going.

“Oh my god…” Thunderlane's voice caught Dash’s ears. Dash looked back up and towards him. He was staring straight forward with his eyes wide, his ears flopped and his jaw hanging open. Dash looked forward… and the same expression fell upon her visage.

There it was.

The mountains had come into view as they crossed the Canterlot city boundaries.

Perched on the first tall mountain of the snowy range… or rather covering the entire first mountain of the range. Was an ENORMOUS black dragon. It was there… it was real. And just as Twilight’s recount said. It was of titanic proportions, literally as big, if not bigger than the mountain it was sitting on. Its large black body, long neck, and triple horned head covered in thick, black scales. Its red eyes looking south, its long tale covered with white barbs, whipping around and striking the nearby mountains as it’s four massive legs clutched the mountainside with claws that alone were as large as the Wonderbolt compound itself.

Such an incredible behemoth truly existed… and the Wonderbolts were heading out to engage it. They were called upon to handle abnormal threats? This was about as abnormal as it got!

“STEADY!” Spitfire yelled as the dragon looked towards the approaching Wonderbolts. “STEADY!!!!!!” She repeated. Everything was telling Dash to run. Every inch of her being told her this was suicide and she had to flee. But something about seeing all the Wonderbolts in front of her, especially Soarin diving headlong into danger to protect Canterlot had her hold strong. She couldn’t speak for the other recruits, but despite how scared she was, Dash’s body refused to flee no matter how much her brain told her to.

“CAPTAIN!” Soarin suddenly yelled from up front. “MAGIC VOLLEYS INCOMING!”

Dash blinked as she registered Soarin’s words. Magic volleys?

“CONTROLLED EVASIVE ACTION!” Spitfire yelled back.

Before Dash could figure anything out. The Wonderbolts began making small shifts in their positions…

And multiple streams of magic were shooting towards them from below!

“Ah!” Dash yelped and began moving to avoid. She looked down as the thin magic beams shot, whipped, and whisked by them at such a heavy rate of fire that Dash saw no moment to retain a smooth flight path. Multiple beams hit their targets, striking the elite Wonderbolts closer to the front of the formation, small explosions bursting from any hits, but they shook them off and kept flying.

Chaos was spreading among the recruits. They were falling way out of formation. Silver glanced back at them and growled.

“STAY IN FORMATION! AH!” Silver grunted as a blast of magic struck him in the gut and burst in a small explosion. He shook it off and kept yelling. “STAY CLOSE OR YOU WILL BE SHOT DOWN!”

The recruits frantically obeyed, moving back in. They were in complete disarray, none knowing what to do or how to move, all they had was the comfort of Silver’s orders and squad two watching out for them.

The Wonderbolts were being peppered by the magical attacks from below, but they were proving their reputation as abnormally strong warriors, taking the hits and shrugging them off as they closed in on their objective. Those further back were not being as heavily targeted. It was as if whoever was firing this magic at them knew where the top flyers were.

“RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!”

The dragon suddenly roared again. Being much closer, Dash only managed to get half a yelp away before any noise sounding around her was replaced with a very high pitched ringing and everything else went silent. She felt incredibly disoriented as her hearing slowly returned and she stared towards the dragon. Its large maw was closed, but traces of flames were spewing between its teeth.

“PITCH HARD LEFT! PITCH! HARD! LEFT!” Spitfire yelled out as the Wonderbolts suddenly all lurched and the formation tipped to the left. Dash and the recruits followed just in time as the dragon opened its maw.

An incredibly large, continuous stream of blue fire expelled from the dragon’s mouth. The Wonderbolts had barely cleared away as the enormous blast fired right beside them. The blast had to be at least thirty yards wide and tall as it careened past them.

“STAY IN FORMATION! STAY STRONG!” Spitfire yelled as the Wonderbolts completely reformed their formation after the sudden shift.

Dash’s body felt numb. If that blast of fire had hit them, they would have all been burned to a crisp. She was still moving, her body was still following the Wonderbolts and doing was it was told, but she couldn’t believe what they were trying to fight against!

They had drawn close to the mountain now… and Dash could finally see just how large the dragon was. It looked like it could knock the entire Wonderbolts force, all eighty elites, right out of the sky with a single sweep of its claws if it wanted to!

“Ah!” Dash yelped as the beams of magic began shooting past them again. She looked down and finally saw where they were coming from.

Unicorns. Unicorns dressed in all black wearing white bandanas. Was this the rebellious group that Silver spoke of before? How badly had this group been working underneath the nose of Canterlot authority to summon a beast of such incredible power?

“LOOK OUT! DISPERSE! DISPERSE!!!!!!!” Spitfire suddenly frantically yelled. Dash looked back up. The dragon had kept its eyes locked on them and was already firing a second stream of blue fire…

Only this time the Wonderbolts weren’t so lucky. Several had moved out of the way in time, but others had not.

Dash watched in extreme horror as the flames pierced right through the center of the Wonderbolt elites. Several, at least twenty Wonderbolts were engulfed by the fire. When the stream passed, the Wonderbolts caught in it fell limply towards the ground, their bodies completely charred and blackened, smoke trails rising as they plummeted.

“OH MY GOD!” Little Star reacted beside Dash, throwing her hooves over her mouth and tears welling up in her eyes as she began to breath heavily. She wasn’t the only one freaking out. Thunderlane wore the most terrified expression that Dash had ever seen. She looked over and even saw Squall and Matteo staring in disbelief. The dragon had just taken out a good fourth of the Wonderbolt elite force with a single attack. It was mind boggling, it was terrifying. Dash found herself breathing incredibly heavily and her heart was racing a mile a minute.

“STAY STRONG!” Silver suddenly yelled in front of them as the sixty remaining elites regrouped and reformed the formation perfectly, quickly compensating for the loss of twenty as if they knew exactly how to recover from such a devastating blow.

Seeing the Wonderbolts remain calm in such incredibly horrifying circumstances ignited a flame in Dash’s heart, one that was just strong enough to keep her focused despite how scared she was. As she moved back into place, the rest of the recruits seemed to follow behind her, all retaking their places no matter how scared they were.

Spitfire turned the Wonderbolts as they reconvened.

“SPLIT UP! DUAL STRIKE!” she yelled out. Dash blinked as she watched the formation split perfectly down the middle. The remaining squads breaking into two large forces of thirty elites each with a few recruit squads following behind.

“We’re staying with the captain!” Silver yelled back, directing all the new recruits to stay put as thirty of the elites plus a few recruit squads broke off.

“We’re drawing their fire!” Spitfire yelled back to them as the magic beams began firing at them again. Dash again watched as the magic all but seemed to avoid them. The unicorns clearly knew who the elite of the elite Wonderbolts were. The lead squad and squad three at the front of their group were getting absolutely peppered with magic. Dash could see Storm Front and squad seven among those being targeted with the attacks. Very few beams were reaching back as far as the recruits.

Dash glanced over towards the large group that had broken off and watched as they angled down and began engaging the unicorn rebels.

“Good!” Spitfire yelled out. “While they handle the unicorns, WE’RE going after the dragon! Fall in! GO! GO! GO!” Spitfire yelled as she turned. But—

“FROM THE RIGHT!!!!!!!!” Storm Front suddenly yelled. Dash’s head snapped to the right. The dragon was swinging its tail around and it was heading right for all of them!

Dash could only watch, as the tail drove directly into the front of their formation. The lead Squad, squad three, five, and seven all got swatted right out of the squad.

Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Soarin, Air Mach, Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, Surprise, Point Dex, Autumn Rain, Macho Savage, and Storm Front, along with squad five and a few others were all bludgeoned by the massive tail as it swung around. They all went limp and fell like ragdolls, save for Soarin and Storm who seemed to move just enough to cause glancing blows. Storm flipped upright immediately, but Soarin’s wing got caught in the tail swipe.

“AHHHHHHH!!!!!” Soarin cried out in pain as his wing fell limp at his side and he began slowly falling towards the ground.

“SOARIN!!!!!!!!” Dash yelled and dove towards him. The rest were all in disarray, even Silver seemed to be confused, not quite sure he really saw what just happened. Dash caught up to Soarin and tried to catch him. “OOF!” she grunted as she tried to hold him up, but he was bigger than her and heavy. All she could do was slow his fall.

“I’m fine!” he suddenly yelled at her. Dash looked up and blinked as he grunted and grimaced in pain, his magic began sputtering from his horn as he took harp breaths and reached a hoof up as close to his wing as he could. “Augh!” he grunted again as his hurt wing flailed about.

“Soarin!” Dash yelled his name, not sure what else to say or do. She looked back up and gasped as she saw the dragon looking towards the remaining Wonderbolts and the recruits. Silver turned and saw the dragon looking right at them, blue flames once again squeaking between its teeth.

“Oh Celestia…” Silver said quietly to himself. “SQUAD TWO! THE RECRUITS!” he suddenly yelled. Wave, Blaze, Winds, and Silver all turned to the rest of the new recruits, opened their wings fully and pumped them down, unleashing strong gusts of wind that pounded against the recruits and knocked them downward.

“NO!” Dash yelled out.

Blaze.

High Winds.

Wave Chill.

And Silver Lining…

They were all engulfed by another powerful stream of blue fire that jettisoned from the dragons mouth.

The recruits regained their flight, but all looked up, completely frozen. The one thing that was keeping them calm and steady was Silver Lining… and now they watched as he and his squad fell to the ground, bodies charred to the point where they were unrecognizable.

Thunderlane, Twister, Matteo, Squall, and Little Star along with the rest of the recruits all stiffened up. What do they do? Who do they follow? They were completely lost, stuck in place.

“Ah… ah…” Dash sputtered as she continued to help Soarin slowly lower to the ground.

“DASH!” Soarin reached up, grabbed her face and turned it to him. “LISTEN TO ME!” he ordered. “YOU GUYS HAVE TO STOP THE DRAGON!” he yelled. Dash blinked shook her head and gave him the most uneasy, incredulous look she had ever given.

“W-WHAT?!” she shouted in disbelief.

“I’M—AH!” Soarin cringed and tightly clutched his shoulder on the side of his hurt wing. “I’LL BE FINE! STOP! THE! DRAGON!” Dash’s eyes widened as he pushed her off and resumed falling towards the ground at a normal speed. “GO!!!!!!!” he yelled while pointed towards the dragon and passing out.

Dash remained still for a moment.

She glanced around.

She looked down at the fallen Wonderbolts.

She looked over towards the mountain where the rest of the Wonderbolts were still desperately fighting the unicorns.

She looked towards the dragon… which would soon be free to attack Canterlot, meeting and most likely decimating the Royal Guard.

She squinted her eyes shut, tears welling up briefly before they shot open and she glared towards the mountain. There were still Wonderbolts fighting. They were doing everything they could. She glanced up in time to see Storm Front cry out in rage and dive towards the unicorns with no fear.

Wonderbolts were still fighting… she was certain success was all but lost… but would she run?

I made a vow. A vow to never again run away from danger, to never again leave a fellow Wonderbolt or anypony else to a terrible fate. To protect each and every one of my brothers and sisters… until my very last breath if need be. This is the most important lesson I can teach you Dash…

Silver’s words poured through her head.

She would not run… she would not abandon her fellow Wonderbolts! She would never live with the shame, and she refused to allow any other recruits to do the same!

Dash pumped her wings and fired upward, reluctantly leaving her love, Soarin, behind in favor of what he asked her to do.

Stop the dragon.

“EVERYPONY LISTEN UP!” Dash roared as she made her way back to the frozen recruits. “What the hell are you all floating here for!? We have to fight!” she yelled. They all looked her like she was absolutely crazy. All except for Matteo and Twister. “If we run away,” she pointed to the dragon. “That THING will be given a free ride towards the city! We need to delay it as long as we can!”

“Are you nuts?!” Squall suddenly yelled at her. “That thing just took out most of the Wonderbolt elite force!!” he pointed out. Dash rushed at him, grabbed him by the neck and stuffed her face into his.

“SHUT! UP!” she made completely clear. “We may only be recruits, but we are WONDERBOLTS! We keep the ponies of Equestria safe from threats beyond the power of the Royal Guard! This is who we are training to be… and this is who we are!” she yelled. “We can’t back down! I don’t care what it is, we NEED to face it!” she finished as she looked among the recruits.

She didn’t like what she saw. Many of the recruits seemed to accept Squall’s outlook more than hers. Dash’s heart began to sink as a few recruits turned and fled. Five of them to be exact. Was she in over her head? Did they find her insane?

“I’m with you.”

Dash blinked and her ears stood up. She looked towards Matteo as he hovered up beside her.

“I am a warrior, this has been an unexpected turn of events, but if I am to die today… then it was a good day to die,” Matteo stated while pounding his chest with his balled up talons.

Dash felt the flame in her heart ignite as Matteo hovered to her side. Even if it was a lost cause, he was willing to fight.

“What can I say?” Twister suddenly appeared beside Dash as well. “You’re absolutely insane if you think we can attack that thing and survive… LET’S DO IT,” he snickered as he tiled his head over backwards and looked at Dash upside down.

Dash felt her will grow stronger and she looked back at the recruits.

“Well? Anypony else?” she asked.

“You’re crazy!” one of the recruits suddenly yelled. “I’m out of here! I can’t take this!” they continued as they turned and flew off, eight more recruits following.

Dash felt a tug at her heart. Seeing so many leave the battle was a blow to her morale, but she kept strong. Only Little Star, Squall, and Thunderlane remained.

“Guys… we have to protect Canterlot!” Dash encouraged them, completely disregarding the recruits who retreated.

Little Star looked back at the recruits leaving, and then back towards Dash. She sighed and shook her head.

“You know what? Screw it…” she hovered up towards Dash, both Squall and Thunderlane looking at her in disbelief as she moved. “I’ve been trying for so long to become a Wonderbolt… it’s high time I did something worthy of their name!” Star smirked as she joined Dash, Matteo and Twister.

Dash looked down at Thunderlane and Squall. Both seemed incredibly hesitant to join them.

“Guys…” Dash began. “Stick with me… please.” She requested. Squall suddenly scoffed.

“Why would I give a damn about you guys?” he said out of nowhere. Suddenly grunting and tipping to one side while grabbing his shoulder. His wing was clearly still in pain from the derby. “Sorry, but this isn’t what I signed up for!” he stated as he turned his back to them.

Dash glared in his direction, then smirked.

“Coward,” she said.

As she suspected, Squall froze in place.

“What did you just say?” he slowly turned back around while gritting his teeth and struggling to stay afloat with his bad wing.

“I’m pretty sure you heard me loud and clear, asshole!” Dash snapped back at him. “All that and you’re going to run away?!” she reached a hoof out and tapped Matteo on the shoulder. “Matty was right… you’re a pussy!” she challenged.

The change in Squall’s expression could only be classified as ‘superbly dramatic’ as he glared at Dash so hard it looked like his face was going to capsize on itself.

“Oh yeah!?” he fired back blindly, engulfed in his usual rage and completely disregarding the circumstances. “I’ll show you! Nopony takes me seriously!” he snarled as he rushed forward and forced his way into the ranks. He shoved into Matteo’s side as he moved up.

“Hey!” Matteo growled at him.

“You wanna go, Feathers?” Squall threatened him. Star pouted and hovered up towards them.

“Hey idiots! Save it for later!” she commanded, but the three stared looking at each other with the same glares that were forming during the derby.

“NO!” Dash forced herself in between all three of them. “Leave personal shit out of this!” she looked at all three of them. “Yeah we were at each other’s throats about twenty minutes ago… but forget about it! WE ARE WONDERBOLTS!” she snapped. “WE ARE A TEAM! WE MUST COME TOGETHER AND DO OUR DUTY!”

Dash suddenly felt like Silver, doing her best to rally her comrades. Spending so much time with Silver had definitely rubbed off on her… and she was definitely going to make him proud.

Squall, Matteo and Little Star all looked between each other, the animosity from earlier slowly fading.

Twister popped up in between all of them holding a cake.

“Who wants some pound cake?” he asked with his eyes slowly moving in different directions. Dash failed to hide a smirk, which eventually turned into a smile.

“Twister… you are a magnificent bastard,” she complimented him as she looked between her four loyal comrades.

Then she turned to Thunderlane.

“Thunderlane, let go!” she exclaimed confidently, thinking he’d come right along with her. However, to her surprise, Thunderlane edged backwards.

“N-no…” he blinked. “I… I…”

“Thunderlane?” Dash blinked as Thunderlane continued to back away.

“I…” he continued to stutter. “I can’t…” he was visibly shaking. He was afraid.

“Thunderlane!” Dash sternly called his name out.

“I CAN’T!” Thunderlane squinted his eyes shut, turned, and took off, flying as fast as he could away from them. Dash watched as he flew off, but quickly reached out to stop Matteo from pursuing.

“LET HIM GO!” she yelled out. She didn’t like it. She hated it. But it was clear to her. Thunderlane wasn’t ready to make sacrifices. “Let him go…” Dash repeated. “We… have a dragon to fight.”

The five lined up in a row, all looking towards the dragon as the battle between the unicorns and the Wonderbolts continued to rage below them and before them.

“Well guys… here we are,” Dash spoke up. They all glanced at her. “We are training to be Wonderbolts… and this is what Wonderbolts do,” she chuckled, feeling rather insane for the choices she was making. “We meet and fight what the common soldier can’t… heh… never expected something from mythical textbooks, but whatever… this is what we signed up for,” she glanced at all of them. “Are you all with me?”

“Must I repeat myself?” Matteo grunted, ready to fight.

“It’s now or never!” Little Star winked at Dash.

“I’m NOT a coward!” Squall repeated.

“I still have half a cake here!” Twister pointed out as he stuffed his face with more pound cake.

Dash fixed her eyes on the dragon, a new wave of confidence overtaking her.

“Let’s make this dragon REMEMBER who he had to go through!” she confidently shouted. “ARROW FORMATION! ON ME! LET’S FLY!” she yelled out as she fired upward.

She didn’t even have to look. Matteo and Squall were in the left and right spots beside her. Little Star was on Matteo’s left and Twister was on Squall’s right. They all followed her into the fray as they shot upward.

Dash glanced down at the Wonderbolts fighting. They were all of the lower tier elite squads, except for Storm, who seemed to have taken command. He was shouting orders to the lower tiers, being the only high tier elite left in the air. He didn’t hesitate to fall into his role, so she wasn’t going to hesitate wither.

“Look out! Magic volleys from below!” Little Star yelled. Dash looked down to see a few of the unicorns aiming at them.

“Evade!” Dash yelled as they began shifting and weaving to avoid. They weren’t being attacked quite as heavily as they were before in the full group, so it was much easier to evade. In fact, the unicorns seemed to be lousy shots. The only reason it was so bad before was because all of them were aiming at the Wonderbolts, creating a spread of magic fire from the ground to the air.

They could do this! They could evade and give the dragon hell for as long as possible!

The dragon suddenly turned its head and looked at them.

“The dragon’s eying us!” Matteo yelled as they continued up. Dash looked back and forth.

“Twister! Star! Break off and distract it!” she ordered. Without a word, Twister and Little Star broke off the arrow formation and shot towards the dragon. As they drew near, the dragon’s eyes shifted from Dash to the two of them.

“OVER HERE, UGLY!” Little Star yelled as they zipped by, flailing her hooves. Twister had a red flag in each hooves making silly signals to the dragon as they passed.

Dash, Matteo and Squall finally reached a height high above the dragon. Dash took a deep breath and exhaled as they floated up and angled back down.

“DIVE!” she yelled. The three of them shot downward towards the dragon as it continued to look at Twister and Star. “Aim right between the eyes!” Dash yelled as she Squall and Matteo continued to pick up speed.

They had a clear path. A few beams of magic were still shooting by them, but it looked like Storm and the rest of the Wonderbolts still up had the unicorns completely engaged.

But then halfway through their dive, the dragon suddenly turned and looked up at them.

“Shit!” Squall cursed, but Dash quickly shook her head.

“KEEP GOING!” she ordered, Matteo and Squall following her without question. The dragon’s eyes narrowed as they locked upon the three of them. It bared its teeth and a blue glow began to shine between its sharp teeth.

Without a word from Dash, Matteo suddenly shifted and placed himself behind Squall and Dash. He reached out and grabbed the two of them with his large talons.

“Ah!” Dash yelped in surprise. “Matteo?!” she wondered what he was up to. It soon became clear however as Matteo began spinning with them gripped tightly. He was going to throw them, give them a chance to strike the dragon before it attacked.

“FLY!” he yelled out as he released both Dash and Squall. The two fired towards the Dragon’s eyes at three times the speed, strengthened by Matteo’s powerful throws.

Dash and Squall stuck their front hooves out as the added speed form Matteo propelled them through air cones and caused sonic booms behind them.

They closed in, screaming through the air, and ready to give the dragon something it would never forget.

“They attacked it… I can’t believe they attacked it.”

“Mmhmm…”

“Are they the first to ever—?”

“Mmmmhmmmm…”

“RAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Dash and Squall cried out as they connected with the dragon’s face…

And passed right through it.

“What the—?!” Dash yelped as she and Squall passed right through he dragon and out the bottom of its chin. “Ahhhh!” Dash yelped as they fired towards the ground, unable to regain control.

“Gotcha!” Storm Front suddenly appeared in front of Dash, caught her, and slowed her down.

“WHOA THERE!” Lightning Streak popped up and grabbed Squall, slowing him to a stop.

Dash blinked as she looked at Lightning Streak. She was more than certain she saw him go down!

Dash blinked and looked up at the dragon. The enormous beats suddenly began to flicker. Its roar sounded out one more time, but it was very hushed. The dragon continued to flicker and wobble until it disappeared instantly as if it were a mirage.

As if Dash wasn’t confused enough, a new sound caught her ears… the sound of hooves clapping. The clapping grew louder and louder.

Storm released Dash and Dash frantically looked around. The clapping was coming from all around her. She looked towards the mountains. The Wonderbolts and the unicorns were both looking at them and clapping. She blinked and looked towards the ground. All the Wonderbolts who had fallen stood right up off the ground and started clapping. Those who were blackened by burns stood up, their charred marks completely disappeared, and they began clapping as well.

Dash and Squall looked at each other, completely confused. Dash glanced up at Little Star and Twister. Star was looking all around, bewildered. Even Twister looked surprised. Matteo hovered down beside Dash. The two exchanged looks, but returned to scanning around as everything around them stopped and everypony was clapping and smiling at them. Twister and Star floated down and joined them, wondering what the hell was going on.

“Bravo!” Spitfire’s voice suddenly reached their ears. Dash and the recruits stared in disbelief as Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach all hovered up in front of them, clapping. Silver rose up beside Spitfire as the rest of squad two and squad three shifted up behind the lead squad. Silver was smiling, something the recruits hadn’t seen too much of. He and Spitfire shifted forward.

“Congratulations!” Silver nodded. “You five… are the first Wonderbolts in our long history… to pass the test!” Silver turned and looked behind him. Several elite Wonderbolts came forwards, all holding onto a recruit who fled the battle. Dash blinked as she saw Thunderlane being guided forth by one of them. He looked completely dejected… as if he realized what he had screwed up.

The Wonderbolts brought the deserting recruits forwards and placed them behind the five victors as Silver floated before them and the rest of the Wonderbolt force watched.

“Wonderbolt Squad Derby?” Silver chuckled. “Don’t make me laugh… that’s just a game we like to play. It’s not a test,” he began floating back and forth in front of them. “While it gave you all a nice chance to beat on each other… how does it feel to be suddenly driven into combat? Against something more or less unknown?”

Alarms went off in Dash’s head.

It was all a set up. None of it was real. The test wasn’t the derby. The false fatal attack was the real test! They had been duped so hard she was speechless. But how the hell? The dragon? It looked so real! All the Wonderbolts being burned and beaten… it also looked so real!

“Let’s show them, eh?” Silver winked to Spitfire. Spitfire smiled and whistled sharply.

“The gig is up, fellas!” she yelled.

Dash blinked as she saw several spots on the mountain move? Brown and grey tarps… tarps that camouflaged with the mountains were tossed aside… at least fifty of them. Revealing grey metal platforms strewn about the mountain. Each platform had three Wonderbolt staff members on it, all unicorns. On the platform was a pole that extended a few feet up, and a large clear crystal at the top.

After being revealed, the unicorns put their magic to their horns and forced it on the crystals, images of the battle just fought began springing into the air off the crystals. Magical images… things that weren’t really there. Just like how the unicorns had duped all the cadets into thinking the battle dome was the mess hall during the tryouts. Only here these special platforms seemed to allow them to create enormous images… such as mythical black dragons!

But it wasn’t done there. The unicorns dressed in black and white, the rebels, removed their cloaks and head pieces… revealing more Wonderbolt staff members who all waved up at the recruits.

“The true test…” Silver began again. “Was to see who was truly ready to become a Wonderbolt. We can’t afford to hesitate, no matter what kind of enemy we are staring down. We fight to protect Equestria from threats outside the ordinary… and we cannot give in to fear,” he turned to them. “You all had the honor of being the first to undergo this special test in the past five years. It was discontinued because no pony had ever passed it before. No recruits ever stayed behind to fight… they all ran,” he chuckled. “Good thing I convinced Spitfire to bring it back… you five had made history today.”

“WHAT. THE. HELL?” Dash’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe just how far they had been deceived for the sake of the test. Even the rebels were made up. She did think it was a little weird that Silver suddenly revealed a threat to them. that seemed like something that would be classified.

Come to think of it… As she looked back, there were multiple things that seemed off about the whole scenario that she didn’t question at the time.

First, in the past Silver had voiced his lack of confidence in the Royal Guard. The Wonderbolts were giving the Guard time to set up? It seemed like it should be the other way around.

Second, no matter what the circumstances, bringing along brand new recruits who had yet to dip their hooves in real life and death action seemed to be a bit of a stretch.

Third, squad zero was nowhere to be found. It seemed strange that such specialty ‘super fighters’ would be left out in a situation as dire as this one.

Fourth, Soarin never used his magic. After how much he claimed he had control over it recently, it seemed weird he never thought to call upon it.

Fifth and finally… not a single recruit was hit by the magic fire or flames… not to mention every wound suffered by the elites was suddenly gone as if it were just as fake as the dragon image.

WAS THIS WHOLE THING REHEARSED!?

Even the already existing recruit squads were in on it…

Hell, EVEN LUNA AND THE ROYAL GUARD were in on it, making it look like a crisis was occurring to sell the theme of the situation. Talk about tricky planning and precision to trick only twenty ponies!

Dash couldn’t believe what lengths the Wonderbolts would go in order to initiate and prepare their brethren. There was something very special about it.

Silver continued to speak.

“By the way, sorry to dupe you all again… but today was the last day of training,” he paused as all the recruits gasped and reacted. “Expect the unexpected!” Silver shrugged. “What? Was the pie filled mist or the haunted mansion out of an old cartoon not enough to convince you that we throw curveballs? The unexpected is part of our job description, those of you who make it through will have to learn to live with that!” he nodded as Spitfire came forward and put her hoof on his shoulder. Silver glanced at her and nodded as they exchanged places.

“I’d like to focus on something Silver just mentioned,” she began as she looked at the five of them. “As captain of the Wonderbolts, I’m required to know our history well… and as far as I know, you five are the VERY FIRST recruits to actually pass the test,” she emphasized every word so Dash and her friends could feel the weight of the statement. “It’s a no win scenario. Purposely designed as a hopeless fight to really drive home the importance of never giving up and never buckling under pressure,” Spitfire smirked and failed to hold in a chuckle. “To be honest, I’m speechless… that after how many have failed, we’d find FIVE recruits in one class that would all succeed where everypony else failed. Congratulations recruits. Congratulations,” Spitfire pushed her goggles up and stared clapping again.

As she clapped, the rest of the surrounding Wonderbolts and their staff unicorns all joined in again.

Dash, Matteo, Squall, Twister, and Little Star all looked around as they received praise from every single Wonderbolt.

They had been duped. They had been duped harder than ever before, but in being duped they had proven their will and mettle to the Wonderbolts, as unintentional as it was. The five looked among each other… and smiled. Even Squall.

“Heh…” Matteo smirked.

“Haha…” Dash chuckled.

“Wow…” Little Star shook her head.

“Jerks…” Squall sighed, but was clearly amused.

“Mmm… cake…” Twister stuffed more cake into his mouth.

Perhaps what the five of them shared… was more special than they first throught. Dash was worried after the derby. It seemed like they were all ready to kill each other, but once the situation became urgent they were able to set aside their differences… and thoroughly make their way into the Wonderbolt history books.

Dash blinked and glanced over at Soarin, who was floating besides Silver. Soarin tossed her a wink, but Dash replied with an angry pout. Soarin pulled his neck back slightly in surprise.

Oh, right, Dash was probably angry at the way he faked being severely hurt. She did worry about him a lot.

“You were supposed to go down with the rest of them,” Silver leaned towards Soarin. Soarin chuckled as Silver called out his intentional ‘error’ in the rehearsed actions.

“Dash would have broken down had I appeared ‘dead,’” he explained. Silver grunted.

“That would have been her loss,” Silver voiced his disapproval.

“But did you see what happened because I didn’t? She rallied four other recruits and all FIVE of them made history… I doubt they would have done so without her,” Soarin pointed out. Silver nodded.

“They most certainly wouldn’t have. Dash is special, alright,” Silver approved as they continued to clap. Soarin exhaled and shook his head.

“I still can’t believe they actually attacked it…” he said with a wide smile.

“Mmhmm…” Silver replied simply. “Spitfire wanted strong fighters… and I think I just gave her five fierce warriors.”

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

My brain is so fried... i can't believe i finished hits so fast :derpyderp2::derpyderp1:

The Wonderbolts sure like to troll their recruits huh? :rainbowlaugh: Well, theres a reason they are so great, even as recruits they are exposed to the extremes of combat and scenarios.

Also, quite a few cameo OC's in here!

Unbridled Dolly as the Bat mare
mlplover789 as Sketch Pastel
Ice Blade as the ice blue pony
Noble Savage as Ten Pin
Spectrum Destiny as Spectrum
Derp squad as themselves:
EchoSong as the dark blue pony
Bright0night as the black and White stallion
Majestic Potatoe Pheasant as the light blue mare with the poofy green mane (WHO PUT HER WITH TWISTER'S SQUAD?!:twilightoops:)

But wow... lots of action and such a set up for the sake of training their recruits, the Wonderbolts don't hold back do they?

OKAY! SO!

The next chapter will be the finale of part 2! And the official half way point of the story! :pinkiehappy:

As with the part 1 finale, it will be an extra long chapter, probably the length of 4-5 chapters again. So please be patient with me it will take a little longer than usual.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 67: Secrets Are No Fun

For those of you who did not see my blog... The part 2 finale ended up being too long, so i broke these 15K words off of my plan and made them their own chapter... The finale of part 2 will be chapter 68:eeyup:

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 67:

“OW! Stop it!” Squall yelled as Bliss moved his wing around. He was lying on his side on a trainer table with Bliss standing behind him. She had on hoof placed gently against the swollen spot where Dash struck him during the derby, and was using the other to move his wing around. The magic in her horn was glowing softly and small rings of magic had bound Squall’s arms and legs together, holding him down after he had refused to sit still.

“Trying to pull your wing away from me is only going to make it hurt more, honey,” Bliss calmly explained as she felt around the base of his wing and his shoulder. “I need to make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be.”

“But it hurts!” Squall whined angrily as he winced and flinched.

“Stop being a baby,” she replied quietly as she checked the range of motion before gently putting his wing back down.

“Rgh!” Squall grunted as his wing snapped back to his body and Bliss released her hold on his limbs. He glared at her, but she literally didn’t give a damn as she remained professional.

“Looks like it’s just bruised and swollen. Nothing’s broken and you still have full range of motion,” she turned to an assistant behind her, a young, yellow unicorn mare with a straight red mane that came down to her shoulders. “Mahogany, could you get an ice bag for him, please?” she asked as she stepped away from the table.

“Yes, ma’am!” the unicorn replied with a nod and quickly turned towards the ice-maker in the corner.

“And be careful, he bites!” Bliss added as she moved onto the next table, where Little Star was putting up with Twister hovering behind her with three plastic bags-worth of ice shoved in his mouth. Bliss grabbed Twister by the head with her magic and pulled him away towards the sink, shaking him until he spit all the ice out.

“Um…” Little Star spoke up, lying on the table beside Squall. Squall grumpily looked towards her as he remained on his side. “Sorry about that,” she apologized.

Dash observed from the other side of Squall as Star apologized while balancing an ice pack on her back. It was a bit stiff from Matteo’s vice grip. It was part of the derby, but they had gotten so used to fighting while they were all protected by training armor. It was different to strike a friend with nothing to soften the blow. Star probably felt even worse because the derby was a deception. The Wonderbolts probably intended it to be an ‘on the fly’ or an ‘unprepared’ situation, but she still felt bad.

“About what?” Squall lifted an eyebrow. Star blinked and flattened her brow, pointing directly at his wing as the yellow unicorn returned and placed the ice bag over the base. Squall glanced at his wing and then back at Star. “This?” he pointed to his wing. Star nodded, which only seemed to make Squall confused. “Why the hell would you apologize?” he suddenly asked.

Dash didn’t know how to read the situation. Squall was questioning why Star would apologize for hurting him? He was turning down her sympathy?

“Because I did it to you… and it hurts,” Star explained simply while holding a hoof out. Squall scowled at her.

“What, you think I can’t take a hit?” he suddenly questioned. Star rolled her eyes.

“Squall, that’s not what I’m—”

“You hit me once!” he snapped at her before throwing one of his hooves out towards Matteo. “You all hit Matt about, I dunno, thirty times, and you specifically tried to rip his head off! You’re not asking him if he’s okay! So why me?!” Squall let his hoof fall and just in frustration. “I’m not a push over, dammit.”

Star looked like she was about to get angry, but Dash quickly waved her hoof back and forth in the air, catching Star’s attention. Dash made a swift motion with her hoof across her neck and shook her head. Star blinked, look down at Squall, who was looking away from all of them and angrily pouting. She sighed and turned to lie back down as the yellow unicorn brought her a small ice pack. She set her sore front hooves on it and glanced at Squall one more time.

“Sorry…” she repeated before facing forward. Squall glanced at her before looking back down and sighing in frustration.

Dash looked away from the two of them and faced forward at the empty trainer table across from her. Leave it to Squall to take a feel good situation and kill the mood… at least for somepony. Star was happy as could be moments ago, but as soon as she confronted Squall, that was destined to come crashing down. Dash looked about the training room at the rest of the recruits, they were all in there for post workout treatment, and the general mood was uplifting. Despite the fact that fifteen of them ran away and undoubtedly knew it may have sealed their fates, they seemed happy that it was all in fact, fake. Some were even talking about how cool it was that the Wonderbolts had the means to create such amazing illusions.

“Whooooop!” Twister suddenly flung past Dash’s vision and landed perfectly on the top of his head on the trainer table across from Dash.

“No touching my ring,” Matteo spoke up. Dash glanced over to see Matteo put his arm back down on the double trainer table, specifically the one with his golden ring, most likely after using it to toss Twister. Dash focused on Matteo as Twister began spinning like a top on his head. She was startled briefly as the shadow of one of Matteo’s wings cast over her.

Matteo was being helped out by two unicorns and an earth pony. The two unicorns were working on removing the tape and wrappings around Matteo’s wing bases as he held his wings open for them. The earth pony was hauling two very large bags of ice over to the tables. Matteo’s eyes twitched only for a moment as some of the stray tape pulled a feather or two off as the unicorns removed it, and then he showed absolutely no discomfort as the large bags of ice were heaved up and plopped down rather roughly against his body.

“You’re a real brick house, you know that?” Dash commented as Matteo slowly refolded his wings, retracting the shadow from over her. Matteo glanced towards her. “Seriously, it was like I was punching a wall…” she added as she shook her hooves out.

“Griffon warriors are taught from a young age to never falter. Showing pain or discomfort to an enemy’s blows is dishonorable.”

“I had a feeling I was gonna get some more griffon lingo,” Dash chuckled as she listened.

“Building a strong body is the first and most important part of our training,” Matteo continued. “Our body must be the stone wall that protects our honor and repels our enemies. For if they are to knock us down, our honor is their’s to take.” He finished while reaching his arm up, balling up his talons and tensing his arm. Dash’s eyes widened slightly as she saw his powerful muscles visibly bulge and flex beneath his fur and feathers. “We cannot protect the honor of the Griffon Kingdom if we cannot first protect our own.”

“I swear your arm’s bigger than my body,” Dash chuckled. “Honor… you griffons really hold that in high regard, huh?” she asked. Matteo snorted.

“Not all. Our traditions are more or less honored, but many fail to uphold a proper sense of honor. Delinquents… kind of like my wife,” he said with a slight grunt of frustration. Dash couldn’t help but laugh. That definitely explained Gilda.

“But hey, you love her right?” Dash reached over and nudged him. Matteo nodded.

“She’d be dead if I didn’t,” he added calmly, earning a blank look from Dash. Griffon culture was so much different than theirs. She looked away from Matteo for a moment before hearing another grunt of frustration from him. She turned back and saw him grinding his beak lightly as if in deep thought.

“Something on your mind, big fella?” Dash asked without much thought, feeling talkative. Matteo looked back at her for a moment before giving a single, weak shrug.

“I was just thinking about the test,” he said. Dash waited for him to continued, but then she remembered who she was talking to.

“What about it?” she pressed.

“Deception,” Matteo answered without hesitation. Dash blinked as he continued to not look at her, rubbing the tips of his beak together as if it were a bad habit.

“Deception?” Dash wasn’t sure what that meant. Did he mean the test? She didn’t have to ask, he was on his way explaining.

“I can’t say I approve of the way the Wonderbolts have taught us certain lessons and tested some of our abilities. Specifically the way they seem to enjoy… fooling us,” the rubbing of his beak began making a loud clicking noise each time the flicked the top and bottom points together. Dash scrunched her face for a moment. It wasn’t a very pleasant sound. “That’s the third time they’ve told us one thing and done another. It’s not what I would call a good practice,” he stopped clicking his beak and turned to Dash. “Tell me... If in the next hour or so, something drastic happened, would you believe it were a crisis? Or would you assume it to be another test?” he suddenly asked her. Dash wasn’t expecting the question, but after briefly thinking it over, the answer was clear yet unclear.

“I’m… not sure. I mean, we did just get duped,” she answered while rubbing her chin.

“Precisely,” Matteo grunted. “Fool me once, shame on them, fool me twice, shame on me… but a third time? I feel my trust is wearing thin. I don’t feel like this would be a very good mindset to have. Hesitation can get one killed in battle.”

“And you’d be right,” a new voice came from beyond Matteo. Dash’s ears stood up incredibly fast and almost spun in circles as her brain registered the familiar voice.

Soarin stepped around Matteo’s tables and flashed them both a smile.

“Hey!” Dash cheerfully greeted him.

“First Commander,” Matteo greeted as well. Soarin nodded to them both as he stepped between their tables. Dash’s wings began fluttering lightly against her body and she got goose bumps all over. Soarin’s mere presence had such an effect on her. As soon as she heard his voice she felt her heart pump and her fur stand on end. God, it had been so long since she got to spend real time with him. Maybe it was because she was sure she made it, but she suddenly felt like she was anticipating being with him without restrictions.

“I can understand why you’re skeptical about us always deceiving you… but you’ve gotta understand,” he began while addressing Matteo. “The Wonderbolts are not like the Sky Wings. We aren’t the primary military force, we respond to the abnormal and what the Canterlot Royal Guard can’t handle. Most if not all the times we are called upon, it is last second and unplanned,” he explained.

“But that doesn’t justify the deception, sir,” Matteo kept the formality despite making an argument against him. “How can we be battle ready if we are uncertain of the problem’s validity?” he questioned. Soarin smirked as Dash tried not to swoon behind him.

“How many active members are there in the Sky Wings?” he asked. Matteo blinked.

“One thousand, two hundred and fifty seven. Three hundred of which are of superior rank. Seven hundred of lower rank, and two hundred and fifty seven new recruits as of this year,” Matteo answered without missing a beat. Soarin nodded.

“Now, how many elite Wonderbolts are there?” He asked Matteo. Matteo hesitated, doing the math quickly in his head.

“Eighty?” he answered, earning a nod of approval from Soarin.

“Exactly, only eighty,” he smiled. “We are incredibly selective in terms of who we let into our elite ranks. It’s incredibly difficult just to become an on compound recruit. From there, they have to earn their spot in the elites by proving their skills over time compared to older veterans. The deception during our training is part of what makes us strong.”

“Strong?” Matteo lifted an eyebrow. “It makes me skeptical if anything,” he was adamant to uphold his end of the argument. Soarin glanced at Dash briefly, but she was too busy looking Soarin up and down. Soarin chuckled and turned back to Matteo.

“Look at it this way, big guy,” he said. “The deception is our way of seeing who is truly ready to be in our ranks. We are the best of the best among pegasi. We do not falter, and we do not hold back. No matter what the circumstance, it is our job… it is our calling to protect Equestria from extreme catastrophes. The test you all just so gloriously became the first to beat was meant to test resolve,” he winked. Matteo remained silent as if thinking it over. “Your fellow Wonderbolts went down, some were even killed, but did you stop to mourn? Did you break and run away? Or did you remain firm and complete the mission? Did you save Equestria from further death and destruction?”

Dash found herself out of the Soaringasm zone and actually listening in as Soarin spoke. It was true, during the test, when Soarin appeared injured, she broke all thought of what was going on and thought only of him. If not for him sternly ordering her to attack, she probably would not have passed the test. However, it wasn’t like she suddenly took his word and ran with it, she turned to the dragon with the intention of protecting Canterlot and him.

Dash began to wonder how life would be like this. If the Wonderbolts were truly meant for battle of such scale, how often would one of them die? Was it really that bad, or was the simulation an exaggeration? It had to be, she didn’t see any Wonderbolts use signature moves. However, despite that, she still felt the shock when she saw Wonderbolts ‘die.’

“Things like that can’t be taught in a classroom and gym,” Soarin continued. “Wonderbolts must be unbreakable in spirit, and we purposely expose our recruits to such things in order for them to experience it and feel it for themselves. Give them a taste of what could happen on a battlefield with the odds stacked against them. Catch my drift?” Soarin smiled. Matteo thought it over, the clicking of his beak starting up again for a moment before he nodded.

“Actually… that does make sense… and it is quite effective,” Matteo found himself switching sides on his own argument. Soarin turned to Dash and gave her a grin.

“It’s one way we like to show how much we care about our recruits and selection process. We would not want to bring those who are not ready into our ranks. And those who are ready will know what it feels like to lose a comrade beforehoof, so they may fight their hardest to prevent it from happening,” Soarin ended.

Matteo actually looked impressed. Dash loved every word of Soarin’s explanation. She also liked him sounding so smart and informational. Check off more ways that she found him sexy.

“All done,” Bliss suddenly walked up and removed the ice bag from Dash’s back. Matteo’s focus shifted as the unicorns returned to his side and did the same with his ice.

Soarin turned his attention to Dash, the two smiling happily at each other. Until Dash reached out and gave him a light smack across the face. Soarin didn’t see it coming blinking and shaking his head out.

“What was that for?” He asked with a nervous chuckle.

“For making me think you were critically injured. I was worried sick, you know…” Dash clarified, remembering how terrified she was when she saw Soarin faking a severe injury. Soarin chuckled sheepishly.

“Well… actually, I was supposed to ‘die’ right there,” he admitted.

“What?!” Dash grabbed her mane. “You guys are terrible! As if I didn’t feel traumatized enough at that moment!”

“I wanted to give you a tougher choice,” Soarin shrugged. "Silver thought I helped you, but I disagree. I wanted you to choose between helping me and completing the mission. Part of being a Wonderbolt is also trusting the strength of your fellow flyers. The fall would have hurt a lot, yes, but I would’ve lived. In fact, I forcibly pushed you off to try and drive that point home. I don’t know about you, but I think that led to a rather positive result, eh?” he stepped up and nudged her in the side lightly.

Dash pouted and blushed lightly at the same time. She didn’t like the deceptions either, but Soarin was right, it led to her pulling off something that had never been done before. She and four others took the fight to the dragon at a time where all others had run away.

Dash’s ears suddenly flopped down.

Speaking of those who ran away…

She scanned the room until her eyes landed on Thunderlane. He was lying flat on a trainer table across the aisle and three tables to her left. He had an ice bag on each limb, plus one between his wings, and wore an expression of mixed frustration and depression. An expression he had been wearing since the end of the test.

Soarin followed Dash’s head and also laid eyes on Thunderlane, a small frown replacing his smile.

“He doesn’t look too happy…” Soarin commented quietly. Dash nodded.

“He’s been like that since the test ended,” Dash said as she turned and looked at Soarin.

Soarin kept looking at Thunderlane for a moment before moving away from Dash. And turning around the front of her table towards Thunderlane.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. Soarin turned and patted her on the head.

“Stallion talk,” he winked before continuing on. Dash huffed, blushing, but smiling. She was gonna kick his ass later for the head pat.

“What’s up Thunderlane?” Soarin asked casually as he approached. He clearly knew what was up, but he wanted to establish his intentions immediately. The last thing he wanted Thunderlane to think was that he had come to berate him for running. Some ponies take failure harder than others, as Soarin had witnessed quite recently with Storm Front.

Thunderlane’s ears stood up and he looked towards Soarin upon hearing his voice, but he quickly looked right back down.

“Rgh…” Thunderlane grunted in response. Soarin sighed, keeping his eyes on Thunderlane while walking up beside Thunderlane’s table.

“Alright, I know exactly what’s bothering you. The test, right?” he asked, while keeping his tone casual. In general, Soarin liked to push aside rank when he spoke to others, but here it served a different purpose, being like a friend to Thunderlane after all.

“Rgh…” Thunderlane repeated while stuffing his nose into the crease between the padding of the trainer table. Soarin shrugged.

“Sorry to bother you,” he pushed away from the table.

“I screwed up,” Thunderlane suddenly spoke up, slightly muffled by the table padding. Soarin turned right back and listened. “That’s it isn’t it? I know now what the test was for, but miraculously five ponies solved it… and they only take five ponies to the recruit squad, right? So much for all the crap I put up with this month,” he groaned.

“Thunderlane,” Soarin leaned against the table. “You didn’t screw up. The test isn’t designed to be beaten,” he shook his head. "The fact that you and the rest of the recruits ran away doesn’t take away from what you’ve all already earned by right. The selections will be out soon, and even if you didn’t make it into a recruit squad, you still earned your Wonderbolt wings as a reserve.”

“I know…” Thunderlane groaned in frustration. “I just feel like a coward,” he added. Soarin burst out laughing, earning a disturbed look from Thunderlane. “What?!” he reacted while glaring at Soarin. Soarin quickly waved his hooves out in front of him.

“Nonono… not you,” he managed to say between laughs. “Thunderlane, I was the first to turn and run during the test when I was a recruit!” he winked. “Screaming like a little filly, I might add!”

Thunderlane just stared at Soarin blankly as if trying to comprehend a first commander in the Wonderbolts screaming in fear.

“Oh man… Silver gave me a mouthful for the scream, Fleetfoot didn’t leave me alone about it for months!” Soarin continued while chuckling.

“You still got selected?” Thunderlane cocked an eyebrow. Soarin shrugged.

“We all turned and ran during my test once Silver went down. I was just the first. I guess I earned my place during the rest of our training month because I sure as hell didn’t earn it there,” Soarin smiled, but Thunderlane still looked down. Soarin sighed and pushed off from the table. “Look Thunderlane, keep your chin up, if you think about it, you are one of the top twenty ponies among the THREE HUNDRED that initially showed up for the tryouts. If that’s not earning some respect I don’t know what is.”

Thunderlane lifted his head up and looked up at Soarin. He had a point. Thunderlane still felt bad about how he handled the test, but it was true, he had come so far. Soarin moved away from his table, but he had left Thunderlane with plenty to think about.

“Nicely done,” Dash whispered to Soarin as he returned to her side.

“Thanks!” Soarin smiled before reaching up and scratching his face. “Gah, this thing can be so uncomfortable sometimes…” he complained as he pushed his goggles down from his forehead and let them dangle around his neck.

Dash watched with admittedly a little pleasurable interest as Soarin slowly removed the mask of his flight suit, closed his eyes, and shook his head out, to get his mane out of his face. Dash internally squeed as he sighed contently and looked back at her. He snickered when he saw the look in her eyes. More so her expression. Her eyelids were slightly closed and she was biting her bottom lip.

“See something you like?” Soarin turned his head to the side while bouncing his eyebrows.

“What do you think?” Dash replied while throwing him a smug smirk.

“Oh, for CRYING OUT LOUD!” Squall suddenly yelled out from beside them. Despite his sore back he pushed himself up and turned to face the other direction, the ice packs falling off his back as he shifted.

“Whoopsie!” Little Star hovered down to retrieve the ice bags for him.

Soarin and Dash both blinked in surprise before blushing and chuckling awkwardly.

“I think for once…” Silver’s voice startled them both from behind. They both flinched and sharply looked towards him. “That I’ll have to agree with Happy over here,” said Silver as he pulled his goggles down around his neck and made a head motion towards Squall. “The way you two are eying each other I expected a slow saxophone to be playing,” he added. Before Dash or Soarin could say anything in response, Silver turned away from them and loudly cleared his throat. “Everypony listen up!” he shouted to all the recruits. The young, yellow unicorn flinched and froze in place, but Bliss tapped her on the back as she walked up the aisle.

“Not you, honey,” she said while nudging her assistant along.

“So as I’m sure you’re all aware of by now,” Silver began. However his tone was strange. It was calmer than usual. “We’ve been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to give you all unique experiences. We had to fool you a little bit, but would you have felt fear if you knew the dragon was fake?” he paused. Twister slowly raised his hoof in the air. “Didn’t think so,” he started walking slowly down the aisle. “I feel like I owe a little bit of an explanation for the fake schedule as well. It was part of the test,” Silver continued. “With the end of the training drawing near, it was inevitable that some of you hotshots would think that a final test of some kind was approaching. The final week on the schedule was put in there to throw off your mental preparation, to be surprised and have to react on the fly as we do all the time,” he paused and glanced at Matteo, seeing that he looked displeased and was glaring at him. “Don’t smile too hard, fluffy. Your face might get stuck like that,” he said, not intimidated at all by Matteo’s clear disapproval.

“Oh, the banquet,” Soarin suddenly spoke up. Silver nodded.

“I’m getting there, son,” Silver clarified as he returned to the front of the aisle. “My work as your flight instructor is now officially over. You’ve all rightfully earned a spot in our ranks. Recruit squad, or reserve, you’ve all the right to be proud,” he cracked a small smile. “And I’d like to personally say that it’s been a pleasure, this was a special group.”

Dash felt her heart swell in her chest and she was sure the rest felt the same thing. Hearing Silver address them in such a positive manner was such a turbo boost to the self-confidence. Silver really had become an impactful individual to the recruits. A simple compliment from him could make them feel so accomplished.

“Now, moving forward…” Silver started up again. It was only at this point that Dash suddenly registered what Soarin had asked Silver a moment ago. A banquet? “Tomorrow afternoon at three, we are having a banquet to celebrate and officially welcome you all into the Wonderbolts. It’s in the mess hall, but stop cringing, we are hiring real chefs to make the food. There is no fancy dress code, but you are all required to be in uniform. OFFICIAL uniform. As in, before the end of the night you all have to stop by the equipment cage and get measured for your first personal Wonderbolt flight suit.” He paused as a wave of excitement spread across the recruits. Of course, over the flight suits. The recruit uniforms were similar, but lacked the sleeves and some of the markings. They were also not quite as shiny or tight fitting and sleek.

“Alright, alright, quit wetting yourselves,” Silver chuckled. “Also, we’ve already taken the liberty of contacting your families. They’ve known about the banquet for a week and we hope to see them all there to witness your ascension.”

A sudden high pitched, wimpy squeak came from Dash’s left. She blinked, her thoughts on the subject completely derailing as she turned her head towards Squall. She looked at Little Star beyond him first, thinking the noise came from her. However, Star was looking at Squall with a look of surprise. Dash turned her head slightly to see Squall, his head picked up off the table, looking in no particular direction, but his eyes had widened and his pupils shrank.

Did… Squall make that noise?

Her own thoughts interrupted her as the banquet came back to mind. Her mom and dad were going to be there? That meant…

She glanced at Soarin, who was currently looking at and listening to Silver.

That meant she finally got to prove to her dad that she was dating the Soarin! Dash sneered contently. She had visited her parents twice since her relationship with Soarin started. Her dad was adamant at thinking she was bluffing. That was typical of her dad. He was just like her, not believing those who talked themselves up unless they could convince him otherwise. Now she could throw it in his face with a victorious smirk as the two had done to each other many a time. At least her mom believed her, she was much easier to convince.

She was also excited to get her own, custom fit flight suit! She had worn an official uniform in the past, but it was an extra/emergency replacement that didn’t fit perfectly snug. She was so ready to finally get her own custom made uniform, words couldn’t describe it.

“So make sure you all get that done. That’ll be all… and,” Silver saluted them. “Job well done, all of you. As you were!” he let them know he was finished and turned to leave. Dash was prepared to converse with Soarin again, but before either of them could speak they both looked towards Silver.

Silver had stopped after two steps and turned to look at Thunderlane, who was still looking a bit dejected. Silver sighed, turned around, and moved towards Thunderlane, slowly approaching him. Dash and Soarin glanced at each other before observing.

“Thunderlane,” Silver spoke up. Thunderlane looked up in a similar manner as he did when Soarin approached, only it was much stiffer, showing the effect and the power Silver still had over them.

“S-sir?” Thunderlane tried to sound enthusiastic but it crashed and burned hard. He was still angry, plain and simple. He couldn’t hide it from anypony, definitely not Silver.

“I know why you’re angry,” Silver began without even asking. Silver had learned how to read most of them through simple expressions, which was a little scary, but Silver always covered all the bases. “You’re pissed about your handling of the test and wish you had done it differently. Right?” Silver completely picked the words right out of Thunderlane’s mouth as if he had dealt with this multiple times in the past, and knowing Silver that could be many times.

“It’s true, you made a mistake, but if you think being perfect is what makes a Wonderbolt, then you’ve got it all wrong,” Silver continued. “Pride, dedication, perseverance… those are all things a Wonderbolt needs, and you have given us a fine view of all three,” he suddenly complimented. Dash watched as Thunderlane’s eyes opened and he slowly looked up at Silver. “The first day of training I was more than certain you’d tuck your tail between your legs and run away. Well, you proved me wrong. You proved me wrong and you continued to fight, scratch, and claw your way through each day of the training. It was remarkable to witness,” Silver reached up and placed a hoof on Thunderlane’s shoulder.

“Whether or not you made the recruit squad doesn’t matter. Becoming a member of the reserve is just as much of an accomplishment. You worked hard and you proved to us that you deserved to be called a Wonderbolt,” he gave Thunderlane’s shoulder a gentle pat. “Don’t ever forget that,” he gave Thunderlane a nod before turning and leaving behind what looked like a much different pony than the one who was sulking and mentally berating himself moments ago.

“Damn…” Soarin chuckled as Dash glanced towards him. “Now I look like a chump. I wish I could motivate like that… he just blew my words right out of the water,” Soarin shook his head with a smile as he watched Silver leave. Dash shrugged.

“Soarin, this is Silver Lining we’re talking about here. You couldn’t one-up him if you tried,” said Dash as Soarin turned to her with a lifted brow.

“I see you’ve been fully exposed to the Silver Lining phenomenon,” Soarin joked, hearing words from Dash that all Wonderbolts used when talking about Silver.

“He’s been in my face for the past month. Wasn’t too hard to put together,” she replied confidently while whisking her mane over her other shoulder. Soarin was too busy looking at Thunderlane to notice the smarmy mane flip.

“You know… I was worried when Spitfire assigned Silver to train you guys. It had been a long time since he instructed a group of recruits. But the more I thought about it and saw him working with you guys, the more I realized how lucky you all were,” he looked back at Dash. “You were trained by the best. He may not be a lead squad Wonderbolt… but when it comes to turning a pegasus into a Wonderbolt, nopony comes close.”

Dash listened as Soarin praised Silver. It was very special to hear Soarin speak to highly of a Wonderbolt who ranked below him. Soarin never let rank get in the way of judgment, but at the same time it really spoke for Silver and all he had done throughout his career as a Wonderbolt and was still doing. To have a Wonderbolt of such high importance, motivation, and pure experience last well beyond the typical age of stepping down was a boon to them all. He offered knowledge and important lessons to all around him, making everypony better. Soarin was right, Dash was lucky to have such an incredible pony as an instructor and as a mentor. Silver had become a figure of great influence to Dash, one that she would never hesitate to follow, listen to, fight beside, or defend.

A few of the recruits were beginning to leave. Dash decided to get moving as well, especially because she wanted to get her uniform measurements. She lightly moved her wings around, now having had the ice bag off for a few minutes. Pleased with it feeling better, she hopped down from the table as Matteo and Twister began the process of leaving as well. Dash glanced over at Star and Squall.

Squall was still icing and being checked by Bliss. His expression hadn’t changed since his sudden squeak. He looked terrified. Dash was curious, but with Bliss working on him, she had no real opportunity to ask. She looked towards Star instead. She couldn’t see her over Squall, but Dash knew she was behind him somewhere.

“Star, want to go get our uniforms fitted now?” she asked. Star looked up from behind Squall, but Dash was surprised to see she was sitting on the same table as him. She quickly shook her head.

“Oh, no I’ll do it later, go ahead, I’m gonna stay with Squall until he’s ready to go,” she stated loud and clear. Something that Squall would protest instantly, but he was still in some strange state of shock. It happened at some point during the banquet explanation, but Dash wasn’t paying enough attention to remember exactly what moment caused Squall to react. She also took note of Little Star. She was staying with Squall. She definitely felt bad about hurting him, even if it was minor, and Squall’s little outburst when she tried to apologize probably didn’t make her feel any better. Part of it was probably the motherly way she went about them, but she clearly just wanted to show she was sorry, even if she had to do it without speaking. Dash didn’t mind at all, because it would definitely give Squall another reason to see that they were trying very hard to befriend him.

Dash turned to Soarin, who had been looking at her while her back was turned to him.

“What?” she asked with a small smile. Soarin stared for a moment, making Dash snicker at his goofy expression before he blinked and shook his head out.

“Sorry I was distracted by the heavy concentration of awesome right here,” he made a circular motion towards her with his hoof. She snorted and pushed him lightly.

“You’re such a—”

“Especially around your plot, the awesome glows back there!” he added while looking up and bouncing his eyebrows.

“Hey!” she glared and pouted while blushing. The pout was quickly replaced by a smile as she shook her head. She didn’t ask him at first because she assumed he was busy, but he had been sticking around the training room with her for so long she decided to go ahead. “Okay Mr. Plot-gazer, wanna walk with me?” she asked as she stepped out in the aisle. She held down a giggle as Soarin’s reaction was almost before she finished asking.

“Sure! I’ve got some time,” he quickly agreed, walking side by side with her towards the training room door.

“A-HEM!”

They both froze right before Dash reached the door. They turned to see a clipboard hovering towards them, wrapped in an aura of Bliss’ magic.

“Sign out please,” she asked calmly as she walked by them towards her small desk opposite of the door.

“Oh, right…” Dash grabbed the clipboard and the pen attached to it, glancing up at the clock and writing down the time she left and what treatment she received. She dropped the pen back onto the board and moved to hand it back to Bliss, but Soarin stopped her.

“Wait, wait, give me that,” he whispered with a devilish smirk on his face.

“Huh?” Dash was delightfully curious as he took the board from her. There had to be something silly going on.

“We have a running gag where we randomly sign up Fire Streak for ridiculous or sexual sounding treatments. They usually get caught on the board immediately, but there have been a few glorious moments where they get left on until he sees them,” Soarin explained as he picked up the pen while snickering. Dash stifled a chuckle.

“You guys are terrible, I love it!” she said as giggled to herself. Soarin’s smile seemed to become wider as he wrote. He put the pen down and turned to show Dash. In the sign in column Soarin had written: ‘Fire Streak. Treatment: Intense inner-pelvic massage, double stimulation.’

“PFFFFFFFF!!!” Dash threw her hooves and her wings over her mouth, her cheeks puffing out and her face turning red as she struggled to hold it in.

“Heehee, shhhh!!” Soarin chuckled as he casually and quietly stepped over to Bliss. She had her back turned to them, going through some Wonderbolt medical reports that had been plopped on her desk. Soarin carefully placed the clipboard down on the other edge of her desk before turning and pointing towards the door. He and Dash scampered out in a fit of quiet giggles.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Bliss sighed and grabbed the clipboard with her magic.

“I wonder what it is this time?” she asked herself as she looked over the board. She snorted quietly as she saw it. “That’s a new one,” she as she rolled her eyes and smiled while grabbing the pen and scribbling over it.

“A banquet, huh?” Dash asked as she and Soarin started a slow walk towards the equipment closet. They had to cross the lobby and walk a little ways down the west hall. It wasn’t long, but it had been a while since they could just be in the same place, they wanted it to last. “How long has that been planned?”

“It’s always put together three weeks in advance, invitations and everything,” Soarin chuckled. “Sorry for always fooling you guys, but… well you already heard it all in there,” he explained. “Oh, by the way, I took the liberty of inviting all of your friends too. Bulk Biceps and Derpy as well.”

“What?” Dash blinked and stopped for a moment. “Awesome! Thanks Soarin!” she smiled and gently rubbed up against him. He thought of everything for her.

“Your friends were all a given, but I wanted Derpy to visit for Storm as well, you know about them right?”

“Oh yeah, I do,” Dash nodded. “Storm is always so happy to talk about her.”

“I figured if I was inviting Derpy, I had to include Bulk. Those two and Thunderlane all made the trek to support you, it only seemed fair.”

They kept walking, Dash not removing herself from Soarin’s side. The second she pressed against him and felt his familiar warmth she was stuck to him. The hallways were pretty clear of other ponies, but even if it was full neither of them would care.

“How long’s it been?” Soarin suddenly asked as he opened his wing and draped it over her. Dash suddenly felt all tingly in the best way as his wing gently fell over her body.

“Since what?” she asked as she sighed quietly.

“Since we’ve done… I dunno, anything?” he asked with slight frustration in his voice that was accompanied by his wing closing slightly tighter over her. Dash shrugged.

“Long enough for me not to remember… that or I was too busy being awesome during training,” she snickered. Soarin suddenly fully extended his large wing, wrapped it around her and lifted her up. She yelped quietly in surprise as her hooves left the floor.

“By being awesome, you mean you were getting run ragged by Silver?” he said with an obviously fake dramatic tone. Dash pouted and crossed her hooves.

“I hate you and your big, sexy wings,” she complained with a smile forming on her lips. Soarin chuckled and set her back down. Soarin was glad that they were getting a little quiet time. From the moment they started down the hall he was dreading somepony ruining the moment… most likely Fleetfoot, but for once she seemed to be not where he and Dash were.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow…” Soarin spoke up again as Dash continued to walk while pressed to him.

“Why is that?” she asked while resting her head against his moving shoulder.

“You’ll see, we have something fun planned for after the banquet. We may get a chance for some… private time,” he said with a tone in his voice that Dash recognized. She pushed off of him, giving enough distance to turn her head and give him a devilish grin.

“I like the sound of that!” she said as the grin seemed to grow wider by the second. “I mean… I enjoy any time I get with you but…” she swayed her body back and forth as they crossed the lobby and entered the west hall. “Knowing we may get some of that kind of private time… oooohoohoohoo, you’ve got me excited now!”

“Assuming that’s what I meant,” Soarin rolled his eyes, giving her a serious look. Dash’s expression flattened and froze, wondering if she said something wrong. Soarin did last three seconds before snickering and laughing. “Who the hell am I kidding?! Of course that’s what I mean!” he chuckled as he swung his plot around and bumped his flank against hers.

“You’re an ass,” she pushed back against his flank and pressed herself against him again. “With a perfect ass,” she winked while swinging her tail over and brushing it against his.

As much as the two were enjoying toying with each other, they were approaching the equipment cage and a line of recruits outside of it.

The two reluctantly removed themselves from each other before stopping and facing each other.

“Well…” Dash pouted. “Guess we better part ways here, don’t want to gross out the others.”

“Yeah…” Soarin frowned and glanced at the line of recruits forming outside the doors leading into the equipment room. Matteo was standing outside the door, but Twister was nowhere to be seen, probably getting fitted. Soarin suddenly looked between the line and Dash twice as if contemplating something.

“Soarin?” Dash tipped her head to the side. Soarin suddenly grabbed her arm.

“Come in here for a moment,” he pulled her towards a classroom right beside them before any of the recruits in line could look in their direction.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as Soarin tugged her into the room and quietly closed the door behind them. Dash smirked and lifted an eyebrow before Soarin could turn towards her.

“Couldn’t wait, huh? This is surprisingly bold, are you sure nopony will hear us?” she assumed she knew where this was leading. But to her surprise, Soarin turned to her with a very warm, caring smile on his face as opposed to a lustful one.

“As tempting as that is, that’s not why,” he chuckled. “I wanted to tell you something, preferably in private because it’s very personal,” he explained.

Dash picked up on his words and suddenly felt a different wave rush through her, one that felt similar to the night they shared right before the final day of the tryouts. The night he made her feel… all incredibly tingly unlike anything she had ever felt before. She stepped towards him, keeping her mouth shut to let him do his magic.

“Rainbow Dash…” he placed a hoof on her shoulder. “You are, far and away, the most incredible mare I have ever met in my life.”

What an opening line. Dash’s legs immediately felt wobbly. She wasn’t one to easily get romantic and swoon, but Soarin had this effect on her.

“I just wanted to say,” Soarin slowly slid his hoof from her shoulder to caress her neck. “That it is truly amazing to have watched you come so far. You know how much I value dedication… watching the mare I love take herself to the next level through such hard work and devotion was such an exhilarating and unforgettable experience. You are amazing, you truly are,” he moved his hoof from her neck to her cheek. “I’ve never felt more excited than I do watching you continuously wow us all over and over again. I couldn’t have discovered a better mare in my life than I did the day I first met you. I just wanted you to know how much I admire your progress and I look forward to your future here… and our future together,” he ended with a bright smile as Dash felt like her face was going to explode.

Praise overload. Praise overload. Dash felt like her ego and confidence were going to burst.

“You’ve earned everything you’ve worked for and I couldn’t be happier to call you mine, c’mere,” Soarin lightly tugged her forward.

Dash didn’t fight it. She let him draw her in, closed her eyes, and waited for it.

Soarin softly planted their lips together, sliding from a simple brush of the lips to them gently locking their mouths together. It was so slow and caring. Dash felt like she was melting as they remained connected for a few seconds, pulling away slowly only to repeat the motions for three more soft, slow, deep kisses.

When Soarin pulled away, she was shivering with delight, blushing and smiling. She still didn’t know how Soarin broke through her usual tough exterior with loving, heartfelt acts so easily… but part of her never wanted to know. It was something only he could do and it felt like nothing else she had ever felt in her life. She wanted it to remain a mystery because that was the fun of it… that’s what made it special.

“You look content,” Soarin chuckled when he saw the dreamy look in her eyes.

“And you look hot…” Dash said as she swayed slightly. Soarin snorted and shook his head while laughing quietly.

“I love you so damn much, Dashie,” he said, blinking in surprise as she reached her head forward and landed another kiss, one that she started and held for a good ten seconds before pulling away.

“And I love you too, you big dope,” they smiled, looking into each other’s eyes for another moment before Soarin saw a shadow pass by the blurred window on the door.

“You should get your uniform,” he nodded while patting her on the shoulder. “I’ve got something to take care of right now anyway. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at the banquet if not earlier,” he nodded as he pulled her into a tight hug. Dash immediately returned the hug as tightly as she could.

“Thank you Soarin… for everything,” she added quietly into his ear, something that made his heart swell with joy.

“Anything for an awesome pony like you,” he pulled away and winked.

Dash giggled and tossed her mane over her other shoulder in her typical awesome fashion as the two turned to the door.

Soarin slowly opened the door and peered out to make sure the coast was clear before the two quickly stepped out.

“See ya!” Soarin smiled and waved as he turned and trotted down the hall back towards the lobby.

“Bye…” Dash replied with a content sigh, her wings inadvertently fluttering and causing her to float towards the equipment room despite her legs still moving as if she was still on the ground.

She had Soarin on the brain… so much so she didn’t even notice as Twister walked past her… on the ceiling. She was that distracted.

Soarin had something very important to do.

“I’m sorry Commander Soarin, but the princess is busy,” the guard spoke plainly. Soarin blinked as the two guards barred his way from the back door to the throne room.

“Pardon?” Soarin had heard them loud and clear, but being told Princess Luna was busy was generally accompanied by how long it would be until she was available or at least information on what she was currently doing. This time it was just ‘busy?’ “Uh… do you know when she’ll be available?” Soarin asked to follow up.

“No,” the guard replied simply. Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“What’s she doing?” Soarin dropped his professional tone, slightly annoyed.

“Nothing of your concern,” the other guard quickly replied, the two exchanging glances.

Part of Soarin felt like he deserved a little bit of this after how hard he and the Wonderbolts had fooled and led on their recruits, but this wasn’t training, this was a serious matter that directly affected him.

“Is she really busy? Or did she tell you to say she’s busy?” Soarin snapped slightly. The guards didn’t answer. “Son of a—”

Soarin was cut off as a low humming, but incredibly loud noise that sounded like a BVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV sounded from the opposite end of the hall. It sounded like a boat whistle. Soarin cringed and turned around in time for a large wave of water to crash into him and the guards, filling the hallway with at least five feet of water.

“ALL ABOURD THE RUSE CRUISE!!!!!!” a voice called out as Soarin emerged above the inexplicable water and a yacht that just barely fit in the width of the hallway floated up to them. The voice was all Soarin had to hear for everything that just happened to make sense.

Discord’s head popped over the edge of the boat to look at Soarin and the two frantic guards treading water below the yacht. He was wearing a sailor hat, had a corn cob pipe hanging out the side of his mouth, and one eye heavily squinted. His chin was also huge, about five times larger than it usually was.

“Well, blow me down!” he remarked as he pulled out a telescope, extended it until it reached about a foot above Soarin and the two guards and looked through it at them, his eye appearing on the lens, blinking and glancing at the three of them. “These r’the biggest fishies I ever sawr!” he said in a very quick and quiet tone without moving his mouth at all.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

“Are you even CAPABLE of making a normal entrance?” Soarin asked while grabbing the telescope and yanking it towards him. Discord’s eye on the telescope glared at Soarin before it disappeared and the telescope retracted, picking Soarin up out of the water with it. It pulled him all the way up to be eye level with Discord.

“I yam what I yam! And that’s all what I yam!” Discord yelled in the strange voice again and let go of the telescope. Soarin yelped as he dropped back down into the water. Discord puffed his chest out and pounded his fist against it. “I ain’t no tailor, but I know what suits me!”

“What’s going on?” One of the guards asked as Soarin emerged above the water again and shook his head out. The other guard shrugged.

“You think I know?”

Soarin growled and glared up at Discord.

“Discord, you are the worst at getting to the point! Or are you actually just messing with me this time?” he yelled up. A lot of banging and clattering suddenly came from inside the yacht

“Where’s the entrance to the exit?!” Discord yelled from inside the boat. Suddenly a door appeared on the side of the boat and opened, revealing Discord standing with his arms out at his sides with his forearms pointing down and the pipe was spinning while making a noise similar to a winding crank. The pipe eventually stopped and Discord blew into it twice making a TOOT TOOT noise emerge with small puffs of smoke.

“Yeah, you’re just being an ass,” Soarin sighed.

“Leave us not jump to seclusions!” Discord made no sense as he continued to speak in a tone what was really hard to understand already. Discord glanced up at the back door to the throne room, blinked, looked back down at Soarin and smiled as his chin shrank back to normal size. “Actually, I thought I’d just distract you until she came through the door,” he explained casually in his normal voice.

“What is going on in—!?”

Luna’s voice came from beyond the door. The guards both suddenly became alarmed.

“M’lady, don’t—!” one of them tried to warn her, but Luna opened the doors from the other side and yelped as the water filling the hallway rushed into the throne room, crashing against her, knocking her over as the two guards, Soarin, and the yacht all flowed in.

“Woooo HOOOO!!!!” Discord cheered as he water skied in on the backs of the two guards. The water level fell to about an inch after spreading out to the corners of the throne room. All the guards present were startled, but as soon as they saw Discord, they all simply remained at their posts, knowing nothing they could do would change anything.

Soarin quickly stood up and shook himself out the best he could. He looked towards Luna, expecting her to be livid, but to his surprise, she just laid on the floor, completely soaked, mane slick and pressed down to her body, and let out a simple, exasperated sigh. It was as if nothing surprised her anymore when Discord was involved, just as with the guards about the room.

“Thou art truly intolerable…” Luna said as she stood up, her body and main dripping. “Now could you please clean up this mess?” she snarled at him, yet remained calm.

“Party poopers… party poopers everywhere…” Discord sighed before snapping his fingers. The water disappeared, Soarin and Luna were dry, and Discord reclined as he floated in small circles around them. The two of them simply shook their heads before Luna looked down and realized that Soarin was in the room.

“Ah, Soarin of the Wonderbolts! What brings you here tonight?” She asked, but before he could answer she flinched. “Oh, we hope thou did not have to wait long… there was something we had to attend to,” she looked away from Soarin as she spoke.

“Oh, no… only long enough for this dick to have a good laugh,” Soarin glanced towards Discord only to see a yo-yo being dangled in front of his face. The yo-yo was spinning, but suddenly stopped instantly. The word ‘problem?’ was written on it. Two seconds after, it spun and flew back up to Discord.

“We are pleased, we’d hate to keep you waiting,” Luna sounded very intent on making sure Soarin wasn’t affected by her mystery schedule. Soarin knew if he asked he wouldn’t get an answer, he’d come to expect that from Luna.

“I actually just had a question… regarding the magic. I was hoping you could shed some light on something for me,” as soon as Soarin asked, Luna looked extremely interested. She even took a few steps closer to Soarin.

“How hath thy magic behaved?” she quickly asked before letting him continue.

“More than I have!” Discord chimed in rather triumphantly. Both Soarin and Luna completely ignored him as Soarin answered.

“It’s been very dormant lately and is more or less completely listening to me, I think I might be finally getting the hang of it,” said Soarin confidently.

Discord blinked and glanced down at Soarin as he and Luna conversed. He fixed his eyes on Soarin’s horn, glancing between the horn and Soarin himself. He grunted quietly and shook his head.

“That is splendid to hear!” Luna said enthusiastically. “But pray, tell us, what is it that’s on your mind?” she asked, referring to Soarin’s request.

“Right,” Soarin nodded. “Now, remember when I told you I was having strange dreams? Ones where past events replay differently or something terrible happens and leads to physical pain?” he explained, recalling the other times he brought his dreams up to Luna.

“Yes… have you had more of the same?” Luna asked. Soarin shook his head.

“I haven’t actually,” Soarin quickly pointed out. "But I have had another kind of dream as of late. One that I wouldn’t call recurring, but it’s always the same thing with different words.”

“Words?” Luna lifted an eyebrow and tipped her head slightly. Soarin nodded.

“More specifically, two voices conversing." Soarin paused to see if Luna would respond, but she looked deep in thought. Behind Soarin, Discord suddenly turned over on his invisible recliner and looked down at Soarin in surprise as Soarin continued. “The voices are both distorted and warped, I can’t put them to anypony I know. The only thing I can tell is one is male and one is female…” Discord’s eyes widened slightly as he listened. “And they seem to be fighting for control of something, or somepony. I think it might be me because one time the horn was mentioned,” Discord blinked multiple times and smirked as Soarin kept going. “Sometimes they are arguing, sometimes they are jawing and taunting each other. It’s happened four or five times now, but the strangest part of it is that I don’t feel like I’m dreaming when I hear them. I feel like I’m right there listening, and unlike my previous dreams, I wake up without any of the pain or headaches I did before. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“We…” Luna had a very blank expression on her face. “We have absolutely no clue,” she said with a very disturbed look on her face. Soarin could tell she wasn’t bending the truth, she genuinely looked worried. “Voices? Talking about the horn? Talking about you? This is alarming, what could it mean?” Luna pondered as her eyes darted about the ground. If Luna was worried, Soarin suddenly didn’t feel to secure.

“OOOO! OOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Discord suddenly made annoying noises from above them. Both Soarin and Luna looked up to see Discord floating up right while holding a hand up in the air and supporting his arm with the other hand. “I know! I know! Pick me!”

Soarin and Luna glanced at each other, both very skeptical, but curious nonetheless.

“Thou knows what Soarin speaks of?” Luna questioned Discord. Discord zipped right down beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders.

“You bet I do!” he said while nodding and grinning. He remained nodding and grinning for ten seconds before Luna glared.

“Well?” she snapped. Discord let go of her and backed away while holding his hands up in the air.

“Oh, I’m not telling,” he said with a wink.

“Wha—”

“WHAT?!” Luna stomped, cutting off Soarin and making him flinch as her hoof caused a small tremor and the ground below her cracked. “Discord, we can tolerate your shenanigans, but withholding important information such as this shall not be tolerated!” she exploded. Luna was clearly sensitive to anything regarding the magic and the threat it posed to not just Soarin, but to everypony else. Discord’s beard and eyebrows were blown back as Luna somehow managed to remain one notch below the Royal Canterlot Voice, but her remained still. He crossed his arms and gave her a very serious and stern look.

“I’ll tell you Lulu… but only if you tell Soarin what you’ve been keeping from him first!” he proposed.

Luna’s anger escaped from her face and was replaced by a defeated expression. Her ears flopped down and she opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn’t find the words. Soarin’s eyes widened and he quickly turned to face Luna.

“Ah… and that’s all it takes!” Discord cackled. “Oh, Lulu… you really aren’t prepared to make sacrifices are you?” he paced in a circle around her. “You’ve established your authority quite nicely, but you still can’t seem to make the bigger decisions. “You aren’t going to tell him, are you?” Discord stopped in front of her, leaned his face towards hers and stuck his snake tongue out at her, flipping it up and down in an annoying gesture.

Luna sighed and sat down on the floor.

“No… we’re not,” Luna admitted. Soarin flattened his brow and he quickly stepped up to Luna.

“Princess, seriously?!” he said in disbelief.

“WE SAID WE ARE NOT!” her voice boomed, its power rushing against Soarin and forcing him to take back his steps. Her anger seemed to fade instantly as Soarin fell back on his plot. “We… we can’t,” she admitted. Discord burst out laughing.

“If you choose to snooze, then you lose on the ruse cruise!” he yelled out as he slithered up into the air and perched on top of the throne. “Ah… so much lying, so much deception, so much chaos! You’ve all been making me blush lately!” he draped his back over the throne and hung upside down before both of them. “Sorry Lulu, but if you’re going to keep your little secrets, then I am too,” he snickered. “Maybe sooner or later you’ll understand how everypony you’re lying to feels… and then maybe I’ll share with you what I know,” Discord snapped his fingers… and disappeared.

Soarin frantically looked about the room, but there was no indication of Discord. He was gone, taking what he knew about Soarin’s dreams with him. He groaned in frustration and looked towards Luna. She looked very beaten, something he hadn’t seen in a while. He had no idea what caused Luna’s recent burst of authoritative actions, but clearly Discord had something to do with it. The way she reacted to Discord just now made it seem like she had much on her mind that he could easily dive into and make her think about.

“Leave us,” Luna suddenly ordered. Soarin flinched in surprise.

“What?”

“I said LEAVE us!” Luna ordered slightly louder. Soarin remained still, but after a few seconds sighed and got up.

As he walked towards the door he was swearing to himself internally. His life had become such a jumble of mysteries. Why couldn’t anything be clear? If not for Dash and his friends keeping him happy, he would have easily gone insane by now.

“Soarin,” Luna suddenly spoke his name before he reached the door. Soarin stopped in his tracks and glanced over his shoulder at her. She was still looking down, but she continued. “We have our reasons for remaining tight lipped. It is not to keep things from you, but to protect you. Please understand,” Luna explained.

Soarin wasn’t sure how to reply. Keep things from him for his own good? Was that supposed to make him feel better? Looking back on all of this though, he felt like in a way he deserved it, after all he had just got done deceiving the recruits pretty hard. It was much different and more important circumstances, but thinking of it as karma made it seem worse that it was or could be, so it would have to do for now.

He didn’t reply, he simply turned back and continued until he left.

It was going to be hard to sleep tonight.

Rainbow Dash was still bouncing. Getting measured for her first genuine Wonderbolt uniform made her so excited she could barely contain it. She bounced from the equipment room to dinner, she bounced while eating dinner, and she bounced all the way back to the barracks where she was still slightly bouncing. She had seen herself in a Wonderbolt flight suit already when she visited the compound months ago, but it was an emergency suit, a generic size. This was being made for her, it would fit her and her body perfectly, be sleek and snug, showing off her body as well as giving her the full genuine look of a Wonderbolt. Just thinking about it was enough to make her explode into confetti, Pinkie Pie style.

Obviously, she was also very excited about the banquet and the announcement of the recruit squad. She hadn’t been chosen yet, but unlike the tryouts she felt confident that she knew exactly who was going to be chosen. During the tryouts she overconfidently assumed that her high score performance would land her the open elite slot and straight into her full dream come true. Of course that didn’t go quite as planned.

This time though, she was 300% certain. From what she learned from Silver, from how well she and her friends had performed over the month, and how she rallied them to carry out an action never before seen in Wonderbolt training, it was pretty clear they’d be chosen. They got an ovation from the whole Wonderbolt force for crying out-loud! Dash knew she was in, and she was ready, more ready than she’d ever be. Looking back she almost felt it was better that she was initially rejected. It gave her a chance to learn and grow through the training, from her new friends, and through Silver’s guidance. She wouldn’t trade those for anything.

The mood in the barracks was strange. Strange in the sense that it just felt so relaxed. With the training over, it felt like the first time they could walk around and be at their leisure without worrying about Silver surprising them with something. Silver was still present, currently in his room ‘reviewing our month long training data’ as he claimed before disappearing.

Dash had just finished washing up, but she was so not ready for bed. After putting all of her toiletries and taking a nice long, but subtle look at her framed picture of Soarin and herself, she closed her footlocker and turned around. Lights out was in forty-five minutes and she had enough energy to rival a little filly on a sugar rush. She glanced around the room, looking for something to possibly distract her or help her get rid of some energy.

She caught a glimpse of Thunderlane right before he disappeared into the bathroom. She wanted to talk to him herself, but she didn’t know for the life of her how she was going to top what Soarin or Silver said in terms of positive encouragement.

Squall was apparently still not back, or in the bathroom as well, but Dash didn’t see him walk in. Squall had been acting weird since the training room. His scowl had been replaced by something that could only be described as mortified. It happened during the banquet discussion, but again Dash couldn’t remember when exactly.

A loud noise that sounded like a light whip-crack followed by rustling came from the corner of the room.

“Blast it…”

Dash looked over to see Matteo, once again struggling to get his bed in order. Every time he tried to straighten out his sheets and pillows, he somehow managed to launch the bedspread half-way across the room.

Dash thought about going to help him, but before she could make a move, Little Star was already on her way, hovering while carrying the bead-spread back to him.

Dash still found it incredibly amusing that Matteo was such a klutz when it came to everyday tasks. He could fight off five ponies at once and keep control of his flight while said ponies are dragging him down, he could lift upwards of four hundred pounds and could take hits without flinching… but he couldn’t make his bed, and whenever he tried, it slowly got worse until he gave up in shame. It made her chuckle wondering what else he was pretty much useless at, not to look down on him, it was just funny because he tried regardless. Gilda never struck Dash as a seasoned housekeeper, but if she was married to this big dope she probably had to keep everything in order.

Then it hit Dash. Friends and family were being invited. It was a long trip, but was Gilda going to be at the banquet tomorrow? Bringing along two cubs and being pregnant? After the last time they met that was going to be a very interesting reunion.

As for Little Star, Dash wondered about her parents. Star was thirty, that meant her parents were probably quite past their prime. But she was less curious about the age more curious about the size. Wouldn’t it be ironic if her parents were both huge? She also wondered if Star had any siblings, something she hadn’t really thought about for any of the other recruits besides Thunderlane.

Then… Twister.

Dash glanced around. There was no sign of him in the room. She hadn’t seen Twister or Squall walk in yet. Come to think of it there were only about twelve of the recruits present so it’s not like it was strange they weren’t there.

What was more important on her mind at the moment was… Twister’s family. They invited everypony’s family. Assuming they showed up, what were his parents like? Well that was also assuming he had parents. That was a rather depressing thought, but she didn’t know much about Twister at all. He had learned very little from his random acts of poetic personal space violation and rubber knives.

He once loved a mare that he said she reminds him of, that liked the fact he was nuts.

He spent his life being told he was wrong, didn’t care and did it all anyway, causing him to be cast out and shunned.

Meaning… did he have parents? At least ones he kept in contact with? Being ‘cast out’ gave her the impression that that wasn’t the case.

Dash sat down on her bed.

The bed frame suddenly made a painful creaking sound. It had made many sounds in the past but that was a new one—

“Whoa! OOF!” Dash yelped and grunted as the bottom bunk suddenly tipped and landed on the floor with a loud THUMP. She quickly stood up and turned around. Her mattress was tipped forward, as if it broke off the frame at the head of the bed. “What?!” Dash frowned as she frowned at her now incredibly lopsided bed. The head was touching the floor with the hoof of the bed still attached. She stepped forward and crouched down to look where her bed had broken from.

The screws had popped right out, it seemed unlikely that it would happen on both sides of the bed, but it did, and there was no way she’d be able to sleep on it.

But… it gave her something to do. She was sure a little bed fixing would help her use a little bit of the energy she had all built up. She recalled Silver mentioning a tool box in the large maintenance closet that was beside the entrance to their barracks. It was where all the mops, cleaning supplies, tools, and assorted needs of the janitorial crew were kept.

Without a second thought, Dash turned and walked over to the closet. She turned the door knob and opened the door, flipped the light on, and saw exactly what she expected. The closet was walk-in, about ten feet long with tools, mops, brooms, and the like everywhere. She saw what was definitely a tool box in the middle shelf on the left.

Perfect, she just needed a screw-driver. She walked in and reached for the tool box.

SLAM

Dash’s ears shot up and she looked back to see the door to the closet had shut by itself. She blinked and was about to move, but right before she could the lights went out, leaving her completely in the dark.

She froze. Not sure what was happening, but for some reason… in the back of her mind… she felt like she knew what was going to happen. At least she knew who was going to happen.

The ceiling had three incandescent lights. One by the door, one in the middle, and one in the back. The one in the middle suddenly flickered on, keeping all of the light in the center of the room.

Yep, Dash was completely right. There was suddenly a glass wall in the middle of the room that had little holes in it as if it were some sort of barricade. A stool had appeared in front of Dash and on the other side of the wall… sitting on a stool of his own, was Twister.

He was wearing what looked like a blue prisoner garb that was the same color as Dash’s fur. His mane was no longer wild and out of control, but completely straight and slicked back. He slowly looked up at Dash with a very vacant look on his face, but accompanied by the very faint traces of a smile that seemed like it had been stuck to his face forever. The smile seemed to grow slightly upon seeing her, but by such a small margin that it was almost unnoticeable.

“Hello… Dashie,” he said in a very calm yet unnerving tone. “How nice of you to come see me.”

“No,” Dash said plainly while folding her ears back. “Not this time Twister,” she said as she turned and opened the tool box.

“Oh, that’s so hurtful…” he said without moving from his spot, but simply following Dash with his eyes.

“I don’t give a damn, you’re not messing with me this time,” Dash adamantly stated as she found the screwdriver and turned towards the door. She was reached for the doorknob.

“And here I thought you’d be interested…” Twister suddenly said. Dash stopped as her hoof touched the doorknob. Why did she stop? She couldn’t figure out why she did. “After all, I am a mystery am I not? Some ponies can’t resist mysteries.”

Dash slowly looked over her shoulder towards him. He was still standing in front of his stool, the look on his face had not changed, and each time she looked at him his eyes stared directly into hers. Twister chuckled, but his face barely moved.

“You ARE interested…” he continued. “Don’t deny it, I know you are. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have stopped.”

“Rgh…” Dash groaned and rolled her eyes. He was right. In fact, it was kind of creepy because she was just thinking about him. “Fine,” Dash turned and faced him completely. “I’ve known some crazy ponies in my life, but you’re the first I can’t figure out,” she admitted. “But you could try to talk to me without all…” she glanced around the closet. It was the same, but the glass between the two of them made it seem like a prison, dungeon, or some sort of asylum. “THIS,” she motioned at the glass.

“Oh, come now… this one is pretty tame,” Twister continued to speak without moving a single muscle around his face except to move his mouth. The blankness of the stare and expression was starting to freak Dash out a little, it just looked so wrong. “I didn’t even tie you up this time!” he looked towards the stool on Dash’s side of the glass. “I didn’t think I’d have to this time, so I merely provided the stool.”

Dash scrunched her face and walked directly up to the glass, a little miffed that he was reading her so clearly, and in an attempt to face him and push the small bit of uneasiness from her head. Twister, without missing a beat, moved right up to the glass as well. The two stared at each other through the glass, Dash glaring, Twister’s face once again, remaining exactly how it was from the beginning.

“I don’t like the way you get into my head, Twister… in fact, I hate it.” Dash growled. “But if this is the only way I’m figuring you out, then I’ll bite.”

“Mmmmmmm…” Twister released a very creepy, low sound. “That’s rather slippery of you, Dash… I like that,” he motioned to the stool behind Dash. “Sit. Please.”

Dash took a short, exasperated breath, looked behind her at the stool, and slowly sat down. After she did, Twister backed up and sat down on his own. Again, his blank eyes remaining locked with Dash’s throughout the whole motion.

“It must be nice…” Twister spoke up. “Being normal. You know… how everypony is besides me. Going about your lives every day, bringing you and your strengths out for all to see but frantically hiding your weaknesses.”

Dash didn’t speak. She let him talk, hoping that the less she said, the quicker it would all go.

“Nopony embraces what truly makes them different… do you know what truly makes a pony different, Dash?”

“Humor me,” Dash said flatly.

“It’s not the things they are good at… it’s what they fail at,” Twister said. Dash felt like his eyes were looking deeper into hers with each passing moment. “When a pony is about to fail… what they do in the last seconds before the inevitable is who that pony really is. Do they brace? Do they panic? Do they cry out? Do they… do nothing?”

“Let me guess, you do something entirely different?” Dash tried to call his play for him. She felt a slight shiver as Twister finally moved part of his face, but only moved one of his eyebrows up as the rest of his face remained completely unchanged.

“Of course!” he said with his voice also breaking tone for just a brief moment. “The problem with ponies is that they can be read. There are many basic reactions and feelings you can expect from anypony at different given times that change depending on the pony. You can claim to be as different as you want, but in the end, it’s always one of three or four different responses. But no not me… not me at all. To me, failure just another chance to be myself.”

“What do you do?” Dash asked, startling herself because she had just told herself to keep quiet. It was as if she was denying that she wanted to hear more.

“A question? For me? You’re getting bolder than I thought…” Twister’s expression brightened very slightly, the curl of his lips moving just a little higher. “Let me give you an example. I once got into a fight when I was younger… I’m no physical specimen, Dash… he beat me senseless. But want to know what I decided to do right before he knocked me down?” he paused. “I decided that later I would find him… tie him to a chair… and eat his lunch in front of him. And I did… along with a side of fava beans and a glass of griffon Chianti.”

Dash blinked several times. Twister got back at a bully by eating the bully’s lunch with a glass of fine wine and beans on the side? As weird as that was, this was Twister she was talking to, he had to do something beyond drastic to surprise her.

“Well… I guess even back then you weren’t short of imagination,” Dash said sarcastically while looking around the room.

“Imagination, Dash, is all I have instead of reason,” he said very slowly. Dash shifted uncomfortably in her seat as Twister scooted his stool slightly towards the glass. “The world is unkind to me, it has rejected me time and time again. Imagination is all that keeps me alive. I can’t have the world as it is, so my mind changes it… I make it my world with my rules, and I can do whatever I please. To me… all ponies are transparent. All I have to do is watch them and I can figure everything out. Ab… so…lute…ly… ev…ery…thing…”

Dash swallowed. She wasn’t intimidated. That would be the wrong word… she wasn’t scared. She had no reason to be. She was doing this voluntarily, but even though Twister had kept his hooves off of her this time she felt more vulnerable than she had any of his previous acts. She didn’t like it, and she wasn’t going to let him win.

“Right, sorry Twister, but you don’t scare me,” she lied. “I’ve had enough, I gotta go fix my bed,” she lied again and began turning in her seat to get up.

“No, no, no… You were doing fine,” he spoke up quickly, freezing Dash in place. She turned her head to see the same frozen expression on his face as if he was confident she wouldn’t leave. “You stayed, you listened. You stayed, you showed interest. You let me share a specific story from my past with a place, time, and everything. That’s something I’ve never done with anypony before. You’ve earned that much trust and then you scoff and start to leave… I expect better from you Dash, I really do.”

Dash ground her teeth together lightly as she gave in and turned back around.

“I knew you’d stay,” Twister let a few short, spaced apart laughs escape his mouth. “Because after all, you’re Rainbow Dash, the bravest, toughest pony around… a label you’ve preached and stuck by your whole life… right?”

Dash didn’t answer. Twister suddenly, and without warning, pushed off his chair, stepped quickly up to the glass and pounded a hoof against it while leaning forward and pressing his forehead to it as well. His blank expression changed to a very wide, creepy smile that froze upon his visage the moment it was formed much like his previous expression.

“No… that’s wrong, isn’t it?” He said as his eyes stabbed into Dash. She scooted back on the stool, nearly tipping it over and releasing a quiet yelp. Twister turned his head clockwise until it was perfectly sideways.

“Let me tell you, what you are Dash… and who you’ve been. Cloudsdale born and raised, from a young age you dreamed of being the best… the best at what? You didn’t even know, you just wanted to be the best, at everything. You got into fights and into scuffles. You were bullied for being the little rainbow that thought she was a thunderstorm. You had accomplishments, yes, but they came within the wake of many errors and failures… crashes, and bruises. It made the victories sweet but were they worth the pain? You always talked tough, but when your chances came to prove yourself, you folded, curled up like a little foal and shivered, hoping it would all take care of itself. That’s something you’ve never overcome is it? No, the nerves never truly die do they? But you hid them behind your acts of brashness and bravery, which you actively looked for and sometimes created yourself in hopes that no one would suspect you were actually afraid of many things. Oh, sure, sure, you’ve found your calling… you want to be a Wonderbolt as do we all… but even then you were afraid. Seeing them up close for the first time must’ve been such an eye opening experience. It’s rough to see just how weak you are with your very own eyes. To experience… possibly first hoof what they are capable of and the kind of threats they face… are you really prepared to fight against anything? Could you make the choice on your own without encouragement? Could you face something that truly terrifies you? Given your history… I don’t know if you could.”

Dash stood up sharply, an absolutely terrified look on her face as she shivered and shook uncontrollably.

Twister had just… literally played back her whole life to her. How her life as a filly was, how some experiences with her friends had gone, and how her first meeting with the Wonderbolts went.

How? How did he know? They had only just met, and as he had told her, he had had his own life apart from hers.

HOW.

DID.

HE.

KNOW?!?!

She felt a sharp rush of anger and violation. She was pissed that he somehow knew all of her weaknesses. She felt violated that he was so easily able to look at her, watch her, and know so much about her from it. It just felt wrong. But she couldn’t find the words to express it, it was almost as if she was enraged and stunned at the exact same time.

Twister’s face suddenly reverted back to the vacant stare and the faint smile. His head turned back upright and he stepped back from the glass.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk… ponies… all of them. Hiding from what defines them. Choosing to close themselves to reality and thus… never actually learning or growing…”

Dash flinched as the single light in the room began to flicker.

“How much happier they would be… if they were like me. Accepting your flaws and making them what defines you. The world would be such a happier place if everypony followed my lead, wouldn’t you think?”

The light stopped flickering. Dash blinked in surprise when she saw Twister was no longer wearing the blue prison garb.

“Hiding behind false faces… instead of letting it all go and being happy,” Twister chuckled as he turned and walked towards… a door?

Dash sharply turned around and saw that the door behind her had disappeared. She felt something rub against her as she moved. She looked down to see SHE was now wearing the blue prison garb.

“If you ask me…” Twister spoke up as he turned the door knob. Dash frantically looked back to him. “That makes all of you crazy… not me,” he said with a sneer and opened the door, revealing the light from the barracks.

“Twister!” Dash shrieked as she moved forward and pounded her hoof against the glass. Twister waved to her as he stepped out.

“Goodnight, Dashie… You look so very lovely in blue.”

The instant Twister closed the door, the light went out and Dash felt like something flung her backwards and she shut her eyes.

“GRH!” a male grunt came from behind her as she crashed into something and fell over on top of it. “Dash?! What the hell?!”

Squall’s voice?

Dash opened her eyes and looked around. She was right outside of the janitor’s closet, up against the opposite wall and apparently had been flung right into Squall as he was coming through the door.

Completely disregarding Squall, Dash got off of him, and ripped the door to the janitor’s closet open, boiling with a confused anger. She flipped the lights on to reveal the same old janitor closet. No glass wall, no Twister, no nothing. She shut off the light and slammed the door shut before staring into the barracks right at Twister’s bunk. There was a signpost at the head of his bed that read “TwIsTeR” with an arrow pointing down to a lump in the sheets.

Not even considering that last time this happened he wasn’t actually there, Dash flew straight towards the top bunk and threw the sheets off to reveal a body length pillow with Twister on it striking a sexy pose. Dash blinked and her jaw dropped as she felt incredibly disturbed. She looked back at the sign… it now read “sucker” with an arrow pointing at Dash.

Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

She growled and ripped the sign off the head of the bed. The sign now read “Ow…”

She wanted to give Twister a swift kick to the face, not just for messing with her, but for absolutely playing with her fears and emotions like that. This time he made it about her as well as him and that creeped her out.

“Wait… what?” she looked towards her bed to see it was completely fixed. She dropped the sign and glided down to her bed. The head was completely reattached, she bent down and examined the screws, all in place perfectly.

“You’re weeeeeeeeeeeelcome!” Twister’s voice snaked into her ears. She yelped and her head shot up, turning and glaring at him as he stood beside her, his mane and face back to normal. She was an instant away from grabbing him by the neck in pure rage, but right before she could.

“GLCK!!” Twister sputtered as a large griffon arm extended and grabbed him around the neck. Dash flinched as Matteo hoisted Twister up to eye level and glared at him more harshly than Dash had ever seen Matteo glare. “O hai burd!” Twister greeted him cheerfully.

Matteo held up a body length pillow that had… an image of Gilda on it that was identical to the picture of Gilda that Matteo had stored in his footlocker.

Art by: Noble Savage (Deviant art: thatdamntenpin)

“What… is… THIS?” Matteo sharply hissed at Twister.

“What? You don’t like it? GAH!” Twister grunted as Matteo’s grip on his neck tightened.

Matteo turned and began walking towards his bed space with Twister while giving him a VERY detailed explanation of what he would do if Twister ever tried to go through his things again.

Dash stood completely still, and then flopped down onto her bed.

Forget it, she was going to give Twister a piece of her mind, but now the idiot was lucky if he’d live through the night after the Gilda body pillow stunt. Was she disturbed? Yes. Was Twister a creep? Double yes. But forget it, the whole exchange had just made her incredibly exhausted.

Dash blinked and shifted to look towards Matteo and Twister. Matteo was in the process of holding Twister’s face to the footlocker and asking him over and over again what he wouldn’t touch anymore, but Twister kept giving him random answers so it continued.

Exhausted… she was exhausted now. Right after feeling like she wouldn’t get any sleep.

Twister didn’t… read that she was looking for a reason to get tired… did he? Was this all just to make her tired?

Dash flattened her brow. Twister was crazy. She wouldn’t put such a silly thing past him. But now that she knew how perceptive he was of others, she felt like it was unwise to ever think he couldn’t do something.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

And here it is! The chunk i tore off my finale plan... honestly i kind of like this better. It feels awkward to transition from one day to the next in the middle of a chapter.

So What's up with Squall? What has him all flustered?

A banquet approaches!

Soarin and Dash got some private time!

Dash gets a new uniform soon!

Discord keeping things from luna keeping things from Soarin!

What's planned for after the banquet?

JEEZ TWISTER WHAT THE HELL?!

:pinkiecrazy: fun:pinkiecrazy:

Cookie to anyone who catches the three references. One is obvious, another is subtle, the last is right there, but i wonder who will get it?

Thanks for reading i hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

(The OC Mahogany belongs to the user: MahoganyMlp)

Chapter 68: Twinkle Like a Little Star

For those who didn't see my SECOND blog, i derped again and decided this small portion should not be connected to the finale... the part 2 finale will be chapter 69, i promise :twilightblush:

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 68:

“Come on, Soarin!” Dash yelled back as Soarin burst through the clouds below her.

“Got you!” Soarin yelled happily as he lunged towards Dash.

“Nuh-uh!” Dash taunted as she twisted her body and slid right past him, or so she thought. “Oof!” she grunted as Soarin reached out and grabbed her around the stomach, pulling her into his body as they rose up.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure I’ve got you,” he chuckled as he squeezed her tightly in a bear hug.

“Dammit!” Dash yelled as she giggled and squirmed in his grip. “No fair, you’re too strong…” she whined as Soarin folded his wings. The two flew in a small arc, gravity taking over as they began to fall. Soarin had lined them up perfectly to land on a large cloud no more than three feet after their descent began.

They both yelped slightly as they bounced on the fluffy cloud before finally coming to a soft halt, Dash landing on top of Soarin.

“Heh… I don’t know how you always land on top…” Soarin smirked as he sank slightly into the cushy surface of the cloud, his grip on Dash becoming soft as opposed to tight. Dash let her body lay limply on top of his, resting her head on his chest with a content sigh.

“Duh… cause I’m awesome,” she said casually while nuzzling her cheek against him. Soarin looked at her for a moment before feeling a little silly. He began flexing his chest muscles, making Dash’s head bounce slightly. “Stop it, doofus…” she ordered while snickering.

“Noooooooope,” Soarin replied as he made her head bounce faster. Dash reached down and began rubbing her hooves against his sides. “AAAHHH AHAHA!!!!” Soarin instantly bounced up from the cloud as Dash tickled his sensitive sides. She flopped off of him with a yelp and the two ended up side by side. They turned and glanced at each other, Soarin lifting an eyebrow, Dash sticking her tongue out at him.

“Stop using something I find sexy to annoy me,” Dash pouted as she edged closer to Soarin.

“Can’t make any promises,” Soarin chuckled, slowly wrapping his arm around Dash as she turned, and pushed one of her hooves through the cloud below Soarin so she could completely wrap her arms around his body and hold herself tight to him.

“Promise me you’ll always be this warm though… please?” Dash asked quietly as she clung tightly to him. Soarin turned his head and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

“I promise, Dashie…”

“Huh?” Soarin’s eyes slowly opened to the darkness of his room. It took a moment for him to realize where he was, blinking as he looked back and forth, the thin rays of light poking through his window shades being the only thing he could see.

He slowly sat up in his bed, feeling… strange. Not bad… not in the slightest, because he slowly realized he was just having an incredibly pleasant dream. The thing that confused him… was that it was a dream.

He had many dreams in the past, recently a lot of painful ones, but the thing that stood out about them was that any pain or feelings were all mental, in his head.

Yet now… his skin was tingly, he had goosebumps, his fur was standing on end, he was having small, delightful shivers… all the things he only ever felt when he shared close intimate moments with Dash. He felt all of it, he felt every little pleasure and good feeling that being with Dash brought him as if she was physically right beside him. The dream caused a response as if she was actually in the dream with him. He felt every touch, he felt her hold tightly to him, and he felt her forehead as he kissed it.

He was confused, but it was incredible. How did he get so many bodily reactions from a dream?

He kept thinking about it as he hopped out of bed. If anything, this would be quite something to share with Dash. If she knew she affected him to the point where his own dreams about her caused physical euphoria, she’d get quite a confidence boost, and she never could get enough confidence boosts… he liked that about her.

For now though, he had a lot to take care of. There wasn’t much going on today besides the banquet, but they had to prepare for that and make sure everything was in order. Once all the formal stuff was out of the way, Soarin was looking forward to what came after.

He moved from his bed towards the bathroom, more than certain Dash would be on his mind all day. How could she not be? She was awesome like that.

Dash was distracted. Very distracted. So distracted to the point where half the day went by without her even noticing it.

She had breakfast, spent some time reviewing some of her old formation notes, had lunch, and then decided to go to the gym. Why? Because it was automatic. She felt a little stiff and sore from the past few days, but her body had gotten to a point where it rebelled and forced her to do something if she hadn’t worked out for a few days.

Despite pushing herself to lift heavy metal objects, she could barely focus. Because she had three things on her mind.

The first being the fact that she was getting her Wonderbolt uniform before the banquet. In fact, if asked, she would admit that she purposely went to the gym right before getting her uniform because she would be all pumped up from working out and the first glance in the mirror with her new skin tight flight suit would look even better.

The second reason was the banquet itself. She was excited for the decision of the squad. She was more than certain she made it. Not only that, but whatever the event was afterward Soarin seemed so excited about.

But more than anything… she had been thinking about a dream she had last night. It was such a pleasant dream, her and Soarin chasing each other playfully amongst the clouds, ending in a soft landing and cuddle session on a soft comfortable cloud. She was certain it was the best dream she had ever had, she felt like Soarin was right there with her. It almost felt like it came upon learning she would get some private time with him soon. She was so ready to be intimate with him. So ready, she bounced at the slightest thought.

With all that on her mind, she barely saw the day go by… and before she knew it, she was rushing from the equipment cage, back to the barracks, gliding and bouncing while yelling “omigosh” with her genuine personal Wonderbolt uniform clasped in her hooves against her chest.

“Oh my gosh…” Dash felt like her face was going to break if she smiled any wider. She had just laid her brand new flight suit out on her bed, staring at it with twinkling eyes as if trying to comprehend what she was looking at. It was almost too good to be true.

Her first personal Wonderbolt flight suit. Specially measured and produced overnight to fit her body snugly and comfortably. It even had her name on the inside, inscribed on the stretchy fabric on the inside of the mask.

It was hers. Her very own. She was already a part of the Wonderbolts for making it past the tryouts but this… she would remember this moment forever.

She glanced up from it for a moment, realizing she wasn’t the only one savoring the moment. The banquet guests were arriving in less than an hour, but they were all taking their time, each taking in their accomplishments in their own way.

Matteo was sitting on his bed in the corner, simply staring at his custom designed uniform. Dash was certain the manufacturers had a bit of a surprise when they received an order for a custom design to fit a griffon. Nonetheless, they were still able to make it quickly, Dash was actually quite interested in seeing what it looked like.

Matteo himself didn’t move a muscle besides blinking every few seconds. His eyes were locked on the uniform that he held in his talons. Dash was certain this was a moment of great personal importance to him. He had trained himself endlessly for a chance to be a warrior, only to be turned away by his own kind for factors that were beyond his control. Now he held in his hands proof that his efforts did not go to waste.

She looked over to Squall. Squall’s uniform was hanging off the edge of his bed. He had his back turned to Dash. He kept taking glances at the uniform, but it seemed like his attention was elsewhere, perhaps on something else. Despite that however, Dash could see a certain look in Squall’s eyes each time his head turned to look at the uniform. Squall had fought daily with something to prove and now he had earned a title. Was it enough to prove what he wanted? Dash couldn’t say because she still couldn’t get much out of him.

Thunderlane was holding his uniform up in front of him, looking it over carefully. Despite the positive words he had received and the iconic piece of clothing he was staring at, he still seemed to be depressed. Knowing Thunderlane well, Dash was certain he was thinking something dumb like he didn’t deserve it. If none of them could get through to him, she was certain Applejack would during the banquet.

Twister was wearing his uniform inside out, singing Row Row Row Your Boat while flying backwards in circles around the room.

Dash flattened her ears as she watched him goof off. She still owed him a punch to the face for the disturbing display of knowledge about her he pulled last night. The fact that he could read ponies like that was insane. She never knew him before the tryouts and that was clear because the way he described her was all in general terms. He came dangerously close, but didn’t name any specific events, proving more or less that he did in fact simply deduce all of it from observing her.

Having found the rest, Dash glanced up at the top bunk of her bed. She hopped and floated up to see Little Star, but Star wasn’t there. Dash glanced around the room, but there was no sign of her. She was either in the bathroom or was still getting her uniform because she wasn’t anywhere Dash could see.

A second wave of giddiness suddenly rushed over Dash.

Time to put it on.

She dropped back to the floor and eagerly snatched the uniform up, flipping it over. She shimmied her limbs into them as the back fell down against her body. She didn’t bother with the mask yet, simply sticking her head all the way through as she reached for the zipper near her stomach and zipped it all the way up towards the neck. It felt so perfect and comfortable, much better than the spare she wore before.

She was shivering at the touch and she hadn’t even seen how she looked yet. She decided she wanted to save the moment of putting the mask on for when she could actually see herself, so she slid out into the aisle and trotted with a spring in her step towards the bathroom, quietly giggling to herself while smiling like a goof.

Dash was so excited she almost used her face to open the bathroom door by accident as she eagerly moved along. She entered the bathroom and turned right around the first corner, stopping two paces from the mirror.

“Eeeeeeee…” Dash quietly squealed as she looked herself over.

She thought she looked good in the spare suit… she looked even more awesome in this one! Part of it was because it had been custom made for her, but another major factor was the fact that this was HERS, not a loaner suit. It was HER Wonderbolt flight suit because SHE was now a Wonderbolt.

It was brand new, sleek, and shiny. It fit perfectly to her body, showing off her fit figure and her muscles. The color of her fur mixed well with the color of the suit, her rainbow mane and tail heavily contrasting the suit, really bringing out part of her appearance that was unique.

It just looked so PERFECT and so RIGHT. The suit felt like a reward for absolutely everything she had gone through. It fit tight to her physique, showing off the strong body she had earned through rigorous training. It made her mane really stand out, giving her the chance to be unique among her heroes. Finally, it was a symbol of accomplishment, her rite of passage into her life’s dream.

There was only one thing left to do.

Dash reached up, and stretched the mask over her head, sticking her nose and ears through the holes. She let the mask settle against her face, keeping her eyes closed for a moment as if anticipating the moment she opened them and gazed upon herself for the first time in her own, full, official uniform.

She opened her eyes, and chills ran down her spine. Not the bad kind, the chills that happen when an image or sight wows one to the point where they shiver.

Whether she was named part of the recruit squad, or somehow named a reserve instead… nopony could take this moment from her. She was a Wonderbolt.

Dash couldn’t hold it back. She sniffled and slammed her eyes shut, smiling as she opened her eyes and a single tear ran down her cheek.

It was such a beautiful sight. This was probably the only time Dash would look at herself in the mirror and think of a word like ‘beautiful.’ But to Dash, it was the only word she could use to describe it. She had gone from staring up at a Wonderbolt poster on her ceiling, to wearing one of their uniforms. To her… the image of her dressed in a Wonderbolt uniform she earned… was beautiful.

“Huh?” Dash suddenly blinked as she wiped the tear from her face. She heard sniffling, hiccups, and faint, short wails. In fact, she was certain she heard something the moment she stepped into the bathroom, but she was so excited and giddy that only now her brain decided to register it. Was somepony else in the bathroom? And were they… crying?

Dash’s curiosity overcame her excitement as her ears turned back and forth, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. She realized it was coming from the shower room past the stalls. Dash slowly turned and walked towards the showers, the faint sounds of crying and sniffling grew a little louder as she approached. She placed her hoof against the wall and peered into the shower room, looking around until her eyes moved towards the front left corner and saw—

Little Star?

Star was sitting in the corner of the shower room, dressed in her new flight suit, but had her legs tucked up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, clutching them tightly. She had her eyes slammed shut, but tears were pouring out of them, running down her cheeks and streaming over her limbs and the uniform.

“Star?” Dash instinctively stepped around the wall and approached Star’s corner. Star’s ears stood up and she looked up so fast that tears whipped from her eyes and dropped to the floor. Her eyes looked all red as she stared wide at Dash.

“Oh no!” Star quickly turned away from Dash and frantically tried to rub away the tears.

“Star, what’s wrong?” Dash asked as she approached. Star turned away upon realizing that her tears were not going to stop.

“I… nothing, nothing is wrong,” she stated. Dash didn’t buy it.

“Star, you’re curled up in the corner of the shower room, crying your eyes out, how can I believe nothing’s wrong?” Dash pouted as she reached Star and sat herself down right beside her. Star glanced over her shoulder to see Dash sitting next to her. She turned back quickly, shook her head and released a heavy sigh.

“Yeah, you’re right Dash…” she began. “Something is wrong. It’s the fact that you’re seeing me cry. I was hoping nopony would see it.”

“You’re as tough as they come, huh?” Dash looked at Star curiously.

“No, really Dash. I’m not crying because I’m sad or anything… I just really hate it when others see me cry,” Star suddenly explained.

“Then why?” Dash asked, more curious now than before. Star sighed again, slightly turning towards Dash.

“Fine…” she said sounding slightly exasperated. “I suppose I owe you for prying so much about your life and Soarin.”

As Star gathered her thoughts, Dash took a moment to consider that she really didn’t know much about Star. Of all her ‘sane’ friends, she had learned next to nothing about her besides the fact that she was thirty despite her filly appearance and that she had made multiple attempts to become a Wonderbolt. Matteo and Storm had revealed their life and pasts to her through the subject simply coming up. Squall she could barely get a ‘hello’ out of and Twister she wasn’t even going to try. But Star was somepony she had found she could have fun with and relate to, much like she had with her friends back in Ponyville. Star was also the only other mare in their little group of training friends, giving Dash some fellow mare companionship among the sea of testosterone she felt like she was wading in between with the rest.

“Dash… I’m the oldest of seven,” she started with a bang. Dash’s eyes were already wide. Star had six siblings? “Despite being the oldest, I’ve always been the smallest. And I guess that really got to me, because despite my family all being incredibly nice and caring people, I always found ways to get angry at them. I’ve always seen my size as a curse. Something I have to live with and nopony else can understand. It’s made me bitter about a lot of things and consequently has cost me many friendships. You’ve seen how I lose my cool, even if it is Squall being a dick, I’d do it to you too if you made me angry enough. I’ve never been able to control it.”

That would explain the sudden outbursts. It wasn’t just because she was an angry little ball of fury after all.

“Despite my anger and bitterness, my mother and daddy never let it get to them. Daddy always called me his “Little Miracle” since I was born so small and barely survived the first few weeks in the hospital. And my mother… always told me that no matter where life took me, that I would always be her Little Star that shined brightly in the night sky. To this day, I’m still ashamed of how much overdramatic angst I’ve put them through. They are the best parents in Equestria for putting up with me.”

“Being the little, big sister has always been hard,” Star continued after a loud sniffle and rubbing her eyes. “I could never take things slow or easy, I was always looking before leaping and making mistakes at times I should’ve been setting a good example for my younger siblings,” she paused as if the next part would be hard to deliver. “I was never realistic, and I never listened to the advice of my parents. They just wanted me to be happy, and they tried to help me find what would make me happy over and over again, but I always pushed them away, claiming I wasn’t a little filly and I could do it myself. Well… when I was twenty-two I decided to try out for the Wonderbolts. It was my most outrageous idea yet. My whole family questioned me over and over again, asking me if I was sure, if it was what I really wanted. I hated it, I couldn’t take it. I felt like they didn’t believe in me or felt like I couldn’t because I was tiny.”

Dash had no words to input. Star had opened up the floodgates and was dumping her life on Dash. She didn’t mind, she wanted to help her friend, but it was hard to hear. Star’s voice was not stable, it was shaky as if the challenges she had faced throughout her life had taken a serious emotional toll on her.

“It was the last straw. I had aimed high and came crashing down over and over again. So I decided to aim as high as I could and keep trying until my wings gave out if I had to. So for eight years, Dash… for eight years I trained, and toiled, tried and failed, over and over and over again, determined to prove myself to a family I didn’t need to prove anything to. Every year it got harder, I watched my younger siblings one by one find their calling in life and all become successful. Four of them are married, two of them have children. I’ve let years of my life slip by just for the chance to earn some recognition. To not be seen as a pushover,” she hugged herself tighter. “This was going to be my last attempt. Watching my life go by with no success to show for it was becoming depressing, but now…”

Star paused for a long time, but she kept crying. Dash hesitated, but instinctively reached her wing out and pulled Star in close. Star leaned against Dash the instant she felt her side.

Dash felt strange, comforting somepony that was ten years older than her. But was it age that determined whether or not a pony could or couldn’t comfort another? Young and old ponies alike were all capable of feeling in need of somepony else to share their troubles and Star was no exception.

“Dash… when I put the uniform on... when I wore the icon of the world famous Wonderbolts… I couldn’t control it. I could feel my eyes tearing up and I had to hide,” Star continued, slightly muffled with her face buried in her arms. “I had finally been successful. I earned something… I overcame my size and became a member of the Wonderbolts... something I was sure was impossible, a little miracle,” she sniffled loudly, reaching out to grab Dash’s arm. “Now I can really shine brightly like a little star in the night sky…” Star rubbed her teary eyes against Dash’s arm.

“I’m… so happy Rainbow Dash…” she said in a voice filled with unbearable joy. “I’m old… and being small, I don’t know how long my body will last… but even if it’s just for a few years, I can finally be something…” her tears seemed to be slowing down. She was only sniffling a little now. “I’m so… so happy…”

Dash smiled as she reached an arm around Star as well, rubbing her hoof against her shoulder. All those years and all that pain just to prove herself. Star was such a strong pony to go through all of that. The fact that she was aware of how she mistreated her parents showed even more. Star’s parents loved her and supported her despite Star lashing out and acting like nopony understood her. Dash was both honored and touched that Star would share something so deeply personal with her. It made Dash feel like she had really earned Star's trust over the past month.

“Your family’s all gonna be at the banquet, right?” Dash asked. They had all been given information on who was invited for them. Star nodded.

“They’re all going to be here in an hour, yes,” Star answered, the sniffling mostly ceasing. “And the first thing I’m going to do is apologize to all of them. All they’ve ever done is support me and I never truly acknowledged them for it…”

“Looks like now’s your chance,” Dash gave her a squeeze before releasing her arm and wing from her. “I was about to head down to the banquet, do you want to come with me?” Dash offered. Star blinked and rubbed her eyes once more to erase the last traces of tears before smiling.

“Yes, let’s,” she agreed. Dash flashed Star a smile of her own before turning around and heading for the door. Halfway there, Star suddenly landed on Dash’s back and gave her a really tight hug around Dash’s shoulders.

“Star?” Dash stopped in her tracks by the sinks.

“Thanks Dash… I don’t think I would have made it through without you, all the cool things you did in the tryouts inspired me to try even harder and then during the training, your motivation helped me through the physical pain and stress. I owe you, I really do. I’m so glad to have you as a friend,” Star thanked Dash as she embraced her. Dash’s ears flopped down and she smiled. It was very heartwarming to hear something like that from Star. She definitely had found a good friend in her and planned to take advantage of all the benefits having a good friend presented. Call it a little something she had learned from her good friends back home.

“Thanks Star, but don’t give me all the credit. You’re still awesome for overcoming your disadvantages. And I really respect you for that,” Dash looked towards the mirrors. “Hey Star, check us out!” she tried to shift the mood. Star released Dash and looked over towards the mirrors as she stood up on Dash’s back. “I dunno about you… but I think we look pretty awesome!” she winked.

“Heh…” Star smiled as she looked at both herself and Dash donning their brand new Wonderbolt flight suits. “You’re the best Dash.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Now you see?

I did not... absolutely DID NOT want this special moment for Little Star to be completely eclipsed by the events going forward. I felt it necessary to break this little bit off and share it separately so you could all see just how hard it has been for our little firecracker pony.

And now i PROMISE the next chapter will be the part 2 finale :rainbowlaugh: I physically can't because the next two events are both really long xD so they need the full length of the finale to get through :rainbowdetermined2:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little chapter! :scootangel:

Chapter 70 (Part 2 Finale (Section 2: The Party))

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 70 (Part 2 Finale (Section 2)):

“No.”

“Aw, Spitfire, really?” Fleetfoot whined as Soarin reached past her and stopped Spitfire from closing the door in their face.

“C’mon Captain!” Air Mach yelled while draping a wing over Fleetfoot. “It’s time to party! We can’t go wild without—OOF!” he grunted and staggered backward as Fleetfoot elbowed him in the chest. Soarin stepped through the door as Spitfire stood with her back turned to them.

“Don’t be like that Spitfire, I know you’re having issues, but we can’t let that ruin tradition! What’s a welcome party for the recruits if our captain isn’t there?” Soarin tried to convince her. He felt the gentle approach would work because handling Spitfire in this state was like trying to keep an explosion in a square foot box.

“It’s too much Soarin, I don’t want to be unpleasant, or do something I’ll regret,” she growled as Soarin refused to leave her be. Fleetfoot shuffled up to Spitfire’s other side and leaned against her, pressing their cheeks together.

“You can’t let your bright, blinking ass ruin your fun!” Fleetfoot giggled. “Just aim it at Wave! I bet that’ll CHILL you in an instant!”

“I’m not going!” Spitfire shoved them both off, walked over to her bed and hopped into it, rapidly pulling the sheet over her and turning her back to them.

Soarin glared at Fleetfoot, who only shrugged in response with a weak smile.

“Spitfire,” Soarin walked right up to her bed and yanked the sheet off of her. “You are coming with us.”

“No!” she yelled as she clung to her bed, preventing Soarin from pulling her off.

“Spitfire, relax. You’re the one who always talks about being able to control yourself,” Soarin reminded her as her grip on her bed loosened slightly.

“YEAH! You always—MRPH!” Fleetfoot’s voice was muffled as Soarin jammed his hoof over her mouth.

“Just come to the party, have a good time,” Soarin suggested as she slowly turned over and looked at him. Fleetfoot was trying to rip his hoof free, but he held it firm over her mouth. “If anything gets bad, Fleetfoot’s house has plenty of rooms you can go take a break in. Better that than not show up at all. We want the recruits to feel like part of the family, right?”

Spitfire took a long look at Soarin. He reclined in disgust as Fleetfoot licked his hoof. Spitfire examined them both, as well as Air Mach joining in the silliness as she thought it over. She sighed heavily as she came to a conclusion she didn’t like.

“Fine… I’ll come…” she gave in.

“YEAH SHE WI—MRRRRPHH!!!!” she grunted again as Soarin threw his hoof over her mouth a second time, and smiled at Spitfire.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” Spitfire said as she instantly went for the door after her hooves touched to the floor. Air Mach followed close behind while reiterating how great of a party it would be. As soon as Spitfire cleared the door, Soarin released his hoof from Fleetfoot’s mouth, just as she was trying to lick his hoof again.

“Bleh!” she pouted at him. “You’re no fun!” she whined. He shook his head.

“You weren’t helping…”

“She’s no fun either,” Fleetfoot sighed as they walked towards the door. She smirked at Soarin as they closed Spitfire’s door behind them. “So! Humping a rainbow tonight?”

“Classified,” Soarin replied instantly with a smirk.

“Oh, you’re a riot…” Fleetfoot cracked up.

“Well! Twister! Nice of you to reappear again!” Dash said sarcastically as she, Little Star, Squall, Matteo, and Thunderlane walked down the hall.

“Twister?” Thunderlane blinked. “Where is h—AH!” Thunderlane looked to his left and Twister was standing RIGHT next to him, staring at Thunderlane with his usual smile.

“She knows me!” Twister said as he dipped down and popped back up beside Dash. “I’m so popular!”

“Right…” Dash rolled her eyes.

“So, Twist,” Little Star hovered up beside him. “Did you have any family show up?” Star took the question right out of Dash’s mouth. Dash turned her head slightly towards him to listen in.

“Oh, YES!” Twister suddenly held up a large knife. Star yelped and shifted back, but Dash only shook her head.

“Relax, Star, that’s a rubber knife,” she stated as she saw the word ‘Daddy’ etched on the side instead of ‘dramatic effect’ like last time.

“Rubber knife came to see me!” Twister said while wobbling the rubber ‘blade’ back and forth. Twister spun once, revealing a spoon in his hoof as well. “So did Rubber Spoon!” he exclaimed. The spoon had ‘Mommy’ Written on it. “And let’s not forget…” Twister spun around and a fork appeared with the spoon and knife. “My bro! Rubber Fork!” the fork had the word ‘Spinner’ on it. “Oh, and Uncle Rubber Spork came too,” Twister scoffed as a spork appeared in his hoof with the other three. The spork had the word ‘Dave’ written on it. With so many utensils in one hoof, he lost his hold on them and began flailing about while trying, and failing, to not drop any of them. “WHY CAN’T I… HOLD ALL THIS FAMILY?!” he shouted as he fell to the floor with all the rubber utensils.

Star slowly looked towards Dash with an expression that was confused and disturbed. Dash shook her head.

“I’ve learned that it’s better not to think too hard about it,” Dash explained. She knew that was gonna happen anyway. Twister never gave straight answers about anything. This was no exception.

Twister shifted over to Thunderlane to hassle him. Probably because he didn’t have many more chances before Thunderlane left for reserve duty.

“So!” Star’s voice caught Dash’s attention, but she wasn’t talking to Dash. She had hovered back and was up at eye level with Matteo. “You have… the most ADORABLE children I have ever seen!”

“Thanks… for the fifth time,” Matteo said calmly, earning a chuckle from Dash because Star had, in fact, told Matteo that multiple times. Star had done nothing but gush over little Gianni. As cute as the baby griffon was with his fascination of biting manes and his mother’s feathers, Dash took more of a liking to Teodora. The young griffoness reminded Dash of herself. Small, tough, hard-headed, and picking fights. The way she kept trying to fight Dash? That was cute. In general, Dash was thrilled to see Gilda again. Still couldn’t get over seeing her pregnant though. Gilda never struck Dash as a mother. Now she was about to have another… well either one huge one or twins. She had her talons full, but the paycheck Matteo was going to earn here would definitely keep the family supported and then some. What a nice little family life they had going. She was also glad the cubs had a great father. Matteo may be a klutz at everyday life, but he definitely didn’t lack influence or drive.

As Star continued to coo about Gianni to Matteo, Dash turned her attention to Squall, who had been quiet since the banquet ended. Dash thought for a moment as she looked at him. She wanted to know if he felt better. His parents were… interesting, but they were nice at least. She got a chance to speak with them during the banquet, and while it was rather hard to do so without feeling embarrassed, they were at least good ponies. Dash could see how living with such a pair his whole life could really get to him after a while.

She was also curious how he felt after the little verbal scuffle with Storm. She was sure that didn’t help, but she was at least glad Star stepped in. There was a lot of mixed emotions swirling around among the happiness it seemed, especially the way Storm full out broke down in front of her after the fact.

Family and friends had all departed, but Squall still seemed down despite being free from the embarrassment of his parents. As much as she wanted to bring it up, she felt he didn’t want to talk about it. So… she decided to ask something else she deduced… specifically from Squall’s father singing in front of everypony.

“So Squall…” she spoke up as they neared the doors to the lobby.

“Hm?” Squall answered simply, looking up, but not at her.

“You’re from the Crystal Empire?” she asked.

“Mmhmm…” he answered simply again. Any other pony, Dash would be miffed, but he wasn’t ignoring her and that was a boon with him itself.

“Live there your whole life?” she kept asking.

“No, we’re descendants. We moved back there when the Empire reappeared a few years ago,” he actually graced her with some background. Dash felt honored. She also realized how dumb her question was.

“Oh, right… I forgot it only recently was unsealed…” Dash chuckled, not mentioning at all that she, in fact, had a role in liberating it from King Sombra and putting Princess Cadence in power.

But wait… a descendant…

“So…” Dash scrunched her face. It would be so humorous in its own little way if this were true. “Does that make you… a crystal pony?” she asked. Squall’s ears flopped down and he sighed. Star suddenly hovered down, having overheard.

“Wait!” she looked at him with starry eyes. “Does that mean… when you’re there in the Empire, you turn all sparkly and shimmery?!” Star seemed to be interested. Squall blushed hard.

“Yes…” he admitted while shifting his head to hide his face with his mane.

“THAT’S SO COOL!” Star exclaimed as Dash held in laughter. It wasn’t that she found it funny in a condescending way. It was just funny that of all of them, Squall was last pony she would associate with a shiny fur coat and sparkling mane in the same elegant manner as the crystal ponies she had seen. That had to be quite a sight.

They pushed through the lobby doors to see the other recruits had already gathered and quite a large number of elite Wonderbolts as well. Not all the elites were present. There was a few here and there from each squad, but ALL of the lead squad, squad two, and squad three were present. Dash took a moment to look over the group, this was the first time she had seen all the elite Wonderbolts together in one place where all of them were not wearing their flight suits. It looked so weird. She had gotten so used to them being in uniform every time she saw them as if it were part of their body.

“There they are!” Blaze yelled out as Dash’s group joined them. “Yo! Fleet! I think that’s all of them!”

“If they aren’t here now, it’s their loss!” Fleetfoot exclaimed happily. She floated over to the recruits and cleared her throat. “Hey guys! Now that you’re a part of the Wonderbolts and all the official formal stuff is done, we wanna welcome you in our own way! Follow me!” she turned and started moving towards the doors. Before anypony could follow her though, she stopped beside Spitfire and pointed at her. “Oh, and no titles or authority once we step through these doors. Outside of the compound we’re family! That’s right! Even miss Stiffy Spitty right here!”

“HEY!” Spitfire retorted as Fleetfoot giggled and went for the doors.

“C’mon! While the night’s still young!” Fleetfoot beckoned them to follow. Spitfire was growling and out the door quickly as if trying to catch Fleetfoot. Dash found herself caught in a crowd trying to funnel out of the front doors. There was an awful lot of ponies flying here, were they all going to fit in Fleetfoot’s house? Dash didn’t even know Fleetfoot had a house in Canterlot.

The night was indeed young, the sun barely visible over the horizon and the moon rising up into the sky as the last bits of sunlight lingered. As Dash shuffled out with the rest of the large, talkative group and lifted off towards the city with the rest, Soarin found his way through the cloud of flying pegasi and pulled up beside her.

“Glad you guys made it,” Soarin chuckled as she smiled at him.

“I’m still not sure how to feel here,” Dash snickered. “I don’t want to know what kind of crazy stuff is going down tonight.”

“Oh, lots of stuff,” Soarin said while bouncing his eyebrows.

“I didn’t know Fleetfoot had a house in the city,” Dash thought out loud.

“Mmhmm…” Soarin nodded as they cleared the compound grounds and were flying as a large group over the high class district of Canterlot. The street lights were coming on, giving the area extra illumination. “We all do different things with our paychecks,” he said with a chuckle. “I put my paycheck into three categories. Some I put into workout supplements, some of it gets sent home to help support my family in Manehatten, and then the rest I keep here in the Canterlot Central Bank for whenever I need it. Fleetfoot, on the other hoof…” Soarin smirked. “Saved up a ton of her money over time, first bought her family a very nice house back in Fillydelphia… and then bought herself a house right here in the high class district. We have parties there often because it’s so close to the compound.”

“Oh, that’s pretty cool!” Dash nodded, then her eyes widened in realization. “Wait, she bought a house in the high class district?!”

“Yep,” Soarin nodded.

“That means it must be…” Dash trailed off.

“Pretty big? That’s one way to put it,” Soarin pointed down as the group suddenly started a slow descent. “And we’re already here!” he said with a smile.

“WHOA!!!!!” Dash exclaimed around the same time most of the other recruits did.

They were gliding towards a large, square property below that had to be at least seven or eight acres. There was a larger, contemporary style house in the center. Dash didn’t know if she would call it a mansion because it was designed in an interesting way. Instead of looking like one large piece, it looked like somepony took four normal sized, two-story houses, turned one of them ninety degrees and then stuck the other three houses into it, two on the east side of the property, one on the west. It gave the house a very spread out look as opposed to a huge look.

There was a long path from the road to the entrance with a wide open front yard. Behind the house, in the corner between the spine of the house and the west section was a large patio and a twenty by ten square hoof pool surrounded by pool chairs and recliners. Behind the house entirely was another wide open back yard, which looked perfect for games and such.

The whole building was a mix of stone bricks and white plaster walls with black roofing and multiple drainage platforms to keep rain from building up. There was a very tall window right in the front corner of the west structure, through which one could see the wooden staircase that allowed access to the second floor as well as the stairs into the basement making it one big stairwell.

It was definitely an interesting piece of architecture and looked quite a bit different from most of the buildings in the high class district. That was probably why Fleetfoot went for it. It had a much more welcome look than most of the traditional Canterlot architecture.

Fleetfoot was already at the large, wooden front door when Soarin and Dash landed with the rest.

“Alright my fellow idiots! Time to party!” she yelled out, earning cheers from most of the Wonderbolts, excluding a few ‘stiff ass party poopers’ like Spitfire, Fire Streak, and Silver, who all seemed to be there in some form against their will or better wishes. Fleetfoot grabbed the door handle. “Yeah! Um… RGH!” Fleetfoot grunted as she yanked on the door. She stopped and glanced back at everypony waiting. “Heheh… The door’s kinda heavy…”

A bunch of laughs rang out from the crowd as she continued to tug at the door. Eventually Silver sighed and stepped out, grabbing the door handle from her and giving it a solid yank. There was a painful creak followed by the door forcing open. A collective cheer rang out as the Wonderbolts began piling in.

“Can’t get into your own damn house?” Silver lifted an eyebrow at her.

“No, I just wanted the irony,” she winked. “You of all ponies starting the party? Jeez Silver! You enable us!” she giggled while bounce trotting into the house behind the others. Silver flattened his brow and rolled his eyes as he followed the rest in, Dash and Soarin following behind him, snickering.

It was going to be an interesting night indeed.

“Everypony get comfy! Drinks are coming!” Fleetfoot yelled as she, Lightning Streak, Air Mach, and Blaze went right for the stairs leading into the basement. Soarin smiled as he watched Dash look around in wonder. Soarin always liked Fleetfoot’s house, mostly because of the interior.

The second floor only covered the first east structure and the west structure. Past those, the rest of the house extending back and turning right was all one floor… but was open air, no walls or rooms from the living room all the way back to the kitchen which kept going into the second east structure, making it one giant room. This portion of the house was complete with a fifteen foot tall ceiling that allowed for easy movement even if the place was crowded. Of course, once the drinks started flowing, Soarin hoped most of them here were smart to not fly around so much… especially because there were a lot of windows.

There were lots of comfy chairs and couches around as well as tables at the perfect height for grabbing food or drinks. Fleetfoot clearly had the place set up at all times for parties. It was really all she used the house for, but Soarin didn’t mind. He was sure she felt the same way as he did, sometimes they had to just get away from the compound.

“Pretty neat place, huh?” Soarin asked as he stayed beside Dash.

“This house is so cool…” Dash smiled as they moved between the crowd. “I like how open it is.”

“It helps when we have big gatherings, I don’t feel so bunched together,” Soarin explained as a few hoots and hollers came from back by the stairs.

“WHO WANTS HARD CIDER?!” Lightning Streak yelled as he flew into the living room with two large kegs propped up on his shoulders. Air Mach followed behind with the same as Fleetfoot and Blaze brought up the rear, struggling to carry a huge barrel that sloshed as they staggered. High Winds, Macho Savage, and Surprise all flew over and helped them carry it in.

As soon as Lightning Streak and Air Mach set their kegs down in the kitchen they came out to help as well.

“THE CIDONATOR HAS ARRIVED!” Lightning Streak called out as they managed to get the large barrel all the way into the kitchen and propped it up on the counter. It actually said ‘CIDONATOR’ in big red letters.

“Um…” Dash spoke up. Soarin turned and looked at her, noticing her hesitant look.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I wasn’t planning on drinking… kind of a habit now cause of… you know,” she said as she looked herself over. Soarin smiled and leaned down, touching his cheek to hers.

“Don’t worry, I’m not either, I got a sexy buff bod to keep up too you know,” he said with a wink. “Besides… I want to be 100% aware and in control for later tonight… when we’re alone,” he added while bouncing his eyebrows. He smirked as he saw Dash visibly shiver while smiling mischievously.

“When you put it that way,” they turned their heads towards each other and she stuck her tongue out between her teeth. “I want you at FULL strength!” she shot right back.

“PARTY NOW! SEX LATER!” Fleetfoot yelled suddenly from behind them and pushed the both towards the cider.

“WHA?!” Dash turned red as realized Fleet most likely heard the whole exchange.

“Hey, Fleeting Little Troll,” Soarin reached back and put Fleetfoot in a headlock as they reached the line to get cider. “We ain’t drinking.”

“Whaaaaaaat?” she looked between them quizzically. “I know you’re a dry prune,” she pointed at Soarin before turning to Dash. “But you too?”

“Sorry, Fleet,” Dash said a little sheepishly, still a little flustered that her sexy talking with Soarin was overheard.

“Suit yourself…” Fleetfoot shrugged as Soarin looked around.

“Don’t worry Fleet, it looks like the rest of the recruits are going for it,” Soarin chuckled and pointed to Air Mach handing Thunderlane a mug of cider that was almost overflowing before grabbing him around the shoulder and the two clashed mugs. Blaze was about to hand Little Star a mug, but Fleetfoot zipped towards them.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whooooooaaaaa!!!!” she got between them and looked at Star. “Little lady, could I see some I.D?” she asked. All the Wonderbolts around them burst out laughing as Star glared at her. Fleetfoot keeled over in a fit of giggles at Star’s pouty glare. “WOW! You’ve got a better pout than Blaze!”

“Hey!” Blaze reacted behind her.

“Shut up, Blaze,” Fleetfoot said without even looking. “YO LIGHTNING! GET ME THE TWO LITER MUG!” before she even finished saying it, a giant plastic mug came flying through the air towards her. “WHOA!” Fleetfoot ducked and it bounced right off Blaze’s head with a loud hollow BANG.

“OW! FUCK OFF!” Blaze yelled as she fell over and half the Wonderbolts fell to the floor cracking up.

“Why didn’t you dodge that?” Fleetfoot asked while trying not to crack up.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA CATCH IT!” Blaze yelled from the floor.

“Eh,” Fleetfoot shrugged as Macho Savage picked up the giant mug and tossed if back to Fleetfoot. She placed it under the CIDONATOR and held down the tap until it filled the while two liters. “ALRIGHT EVERYPONY! LITTLE STAR IS GOING BIG TONIGHT!” she yelled as she held the giant, heavy mug full of cider to Star.

“WOOOHOOOO!!!!” The Wonderbolts all yelled as Star eagerly hugged the giant mug to her body, only to fall right to the floor with it and land face first IN the mug full of cider as it hit the floor. “Oooooo…” was the collective response as Star flailed with her head submerged in the cider. She pulled her head out and put her little hooves in the air.

“I GOT THIS!” she yelled as the Wonderbolts all cheered again.

“I’m already having fun!” Dash said as she leaned on Soarin, trying to catch her breath from all the laughter.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a gathering like this,” Soarin smiled and nodded.

“Sure you guys don’t want any drinks?” Fleetfoot came back over to them holding a mug in each hoof, both of which she took small periodic sips from.

“Yep, we’ll just enjoy the view,” Soarin assured her as he put an arm over Dash.

“Do you have anything besides cider?” Silver’s voice suddenly came from behind them. Fleetfoot pouted as Silver stepped up beside them.

“Really, old timer?” she asked.

“You all convinced me to come here, so the least you could do is show me some decent liquor,” Silver said back without hesitation.

“Fair enough…” Fleetfoot sighed. “I’ve got some in the cabinet, any preferences?” she asked.

“Have any Sireberian Trotka?” he answered immediately, knowing exactly what he wanted.

“Yeah, I know I have some of that,” Fleetfoot turned and pushed through the crowd, hovering with her two mugs still in hoof. “Comin’ through!” she yelled as Silver waited patiently. She returned with a bottle of said liquor, which Silver grabbed and quickly turned to a bar-like table that was set up just outside the kitchen. Nopony had claimed it yet, and now that Silver was there no pony was probably going to sit there. He simply grabbed a glass from a nearby cabinet, dug it through a cooler full of ice that had been placed out, and sat down while pouring himself a glass. “Sheesh... You’re welcome—wait!” Fleetfoot’s jaw dropped. “He’s drinking that STRAIGHT?! Holy crap, what a hard ass!” she wasn’t afraid to exclaim as Silver sat hunched over and took sips from his incredibly strong choice of drink.

“Well, at least Silver’s found something—” Soarin turned to look around and his nose nearly smacked right into a large leg covered in black feathers. “GAH!” Soarin flinched in surprise, falling into Dash a little bit as Matteo was suddenly right beside him.

“Yeah, he does that,” Dash snickered as Matteo paid them no mind. Fleetfoot turned and looked up at Matteo, he was staring down at her.

“What’s up, big bird?” she asked, still taking sips from her cider mugs.

“Do you have any Griffon Wines?” he asked, getting straight to the point. Fleetfoot blinked.

“Are you gonna be that guy that drinks wine at a cider party?” she asked with a chuckle. Matteo’s face remained unchanged. “Yikes, tough crowd,” she rolled her eyes.”Kind of demanding, aren’tcha recruit?” she gave him a sassy look.

“I believe you said ranks were disregarded here,” he said flatly. Fleetfoot scoffed into a laugh.

“Got me there! I have some over beneath the second cupboard on the left,” she pointed past the group still crowding around the cider kegs and barrel. “Wine glasses are in the cupboard too.”

“Thank you,” Matteo said flatly as he started moving towards the wine. In fact, he walked directly through the crowd of ponies around the cider, who all either moved aside or were pushed aside.

“WHOA! WIDE LOAD COMIN’ THROUGH!” Surprise yelled as she moved aside with the others.

Matteo grabbed himself a glass from the cupboard as well as a bottle of wine. And then to the surprise of everypony around, joined Silver at the bar-table. The two didn’t speak to each other, but both did the same thing. They poured themselves a drink and slowly sipped it while in deep thought.

“Well then… now that all the special needs have been taken care of, I should put the music on… finally!” Fleetfoot complained as she floated towards her stereo system, of course bringing her cider with her.

Soarin and Dash watched her move away and looked around at all the good times and cheer going on. Soarin glanced down at Dash and saw how happy she looked. It was a very distinct happiness. One that he had seen before, one that usually only came upon her face when she was around her friends back home. A look that meant she felt welcome and secure. She was enjoying herself, and that was exactly what Soarin was hoping she’d feel.

It didn’t matter that the two of them weren’t partaking in the alcohol consumption. She was happy, just as he was, to be part of something amazing. The Wonderbolts were one big family. When one discarded rank and ability, the Wonderbolt to your right and left were like siblings. This was part of the amazing new mindset that Spitfire had created as the lead captain, and Dash was getting the full experience.

Soarin glanced up to see the line to get the first mug of cider had finally dissipated. It was the exact moment he was waiting for.

“Are you thirsty?” Soarin asked her. She looked up to him, confused.

“I thought we weren’t drinking?” she asked.

“I meant water,” Soarin chuckled.

“Oh,” Dash giggled and shook her head. “Sure, why not. At least we won’t look out of place if we have a cup in our hooves,” Dash joked. Soarin shrugged.

“That’s funny cause it’s true,” he said as they walked over to the cabinets and found two glasses to use. “She’s got a water filter on the sink, let’s just use that,” Soarin pointed. They both filled up cups of water before moving back to an open area, trying their best to avoid the cacophony, but at the same time taking in the fun stuff going on around them.

The music finally started. Fleetfoot put on DJ PON3’s most recent album. A collective cheer rose up from the Wonderbolts, some of them putting their mugs up into the air briefly as the music started playing from speakers placed throughout the house. It was set at the perfect volume. Loud enough that one could hear it, but quiet enough that one could still hear the pony talking to them.

At some point a hoof wrestling competition started. When Soarin and Dash looked over they saw Lightning Streak and Macho Savage sitting at the table while multiple other Wonderbolts chanted around them.

“You’ve got nothing on me, bro!” Lightning Streak taunted as he took a sip of his cider while in the middle of hoof wrestling.

“I BEG TO DIFFER, MY FRIIIIIIIIEND!” Macho Savage replied as the two struggled against each other’s strength.

Soarin also noticed Storm Front, with a mug of cider in his hoof, among the ponies watching the hoof wrestling. He looked pretty happy, quite the opposite of how he looked at the banquet. Soarin was glad that Storm looked to be enjoying himself. After what Soarin overheard between Storm and Dash, Storm needed as much a sense of family as they could give him. It would never replace the family he never had at home, but it could give him a new family, one that would stick by him through anything.

Soarin glanced around some more, first looking at Silver and Matteo, but the two hadn’t moved, sitting on opposite ends of the bar table. So Soarin kept looking and his eyes fell on a corner next to the patio doors. Squall was standing in the corner with a mug of cider in his hoof, however, the giant mug of cider that Fleetfoot had given Little Star was on the floor beside him… and it was… empty?!

Soarin looked back up at Squall and saw that Little Star was actually lying on his back, her stomach was bloated, suggesting that she had already downed all two liters of cider that Fleetfoot had poured for her. She was laughing while hiccupping, turning over every few seconds and giving Squall a big hug around the neck.

Squall looked absolutely clueless. He had no idea what to do. Little Star was already drunk and continuously grabbing him. He looked so confused and embarrassed, but he didn’t look uncomfortable, if that was even possible. He just didn’t know what to do about Star. She was far gone already, and she kept reaching for his cider as if she wanted to steal it.

Soarin chuckled, nudging Dash and pointing towards the scene with Squall and Little Star. Dash snickered and failed to hold back a laugh. Soarin was glad to see Dash had built up such a relationship with her fellow recruits. Especially since she was now part of a recruit squad.

“HEY!” Fleetfoot yelled as she trotted past Squall and Little Star, throwing the patio doors open before turning back to her fellow Wonderbolts. “POOL’S OPEN!” she exclaimed.

“WOOHOO!!!!!!” Twister suddenly leapt from the roof of the house and did a cannon ball into the pool, spraying water on everypony that moved out the doors. The pool was soon full of Wonderbolts and recruits. When Twister finally emerged from underwater, he did so on the back of a massive pool toy that looked like a rubber ducky, while wearing a tricorne hat, an eye patch, and wielding a wooden sword. The duck also had an eye patch. “YAR! THERE BE PLENTY OF BOOTY TO PLUNDER!” he yelled while pointing the wooden sword at the mares in the pool. Shortly after his proclamation, the giant ducky was bombarded by stallions as they tried to climb up and bring Twister down, everypony in the pool laughing hysterically as Twister fought them off with his usual crazy smile plastered to his face the whole time.

“Twister is sure having fun,” Dash laughed as Soarin stared at the giant duck.

“Where the hell did he even get that?” he asked with a chuckle.

“I stopped asking questions about Twister a long time ago,” Dash shrugged. “He’s such a troll, he’s incredibly weird, and does the strangest things, but it’s all so controlled and harmless,” Dash explained.

“The worst kind of troll is the one who’s not really doing anything wrong,” Soarin nodded in agreement.

Soarin took a moment to look around and see who actually hadn’t shown up. The parties never had full attendance. This was one of the few parties they had where they could get most of the non-party goer’s to come, but there were still a few missing. Most notably, Point Dex and Autumn Rain. Neither of them were very into parties. Most of the elite squads and the recruit squads were present, but all of them were missing one or two members. The ‘post recruitment party’ was one of the few times they could get Fire Streak out of the compound, and Soarin was still surprised that Silver decided to attend. He never went to their parties. It didn’t take a scientist to deduce why. He was a whole generation ahead of the others. He probably missed his old friends. Misty Fly was the only pony in the Wonderbolts that was still around from his generation, but she was on the younger side of it, Silver was five years older than her. Misty had always gotten along well with the others, but she was a special, ‘how could you not like her’ case, easily approachable because her smile could end wars. Silver was… hard to approach. Some felt he was intimidating, others felt they would have nothing to say that he hadn’t already heard.

Soarin thought about going to sit down with Silver, but before he did, the front door swung open, revealing some unexpected attendees.

“HEY! Now the party can really start!” yelled Playbitz as he and Swift Justice both burst into the house and cheered.

Squad zero was here? Soarin smiled wide as he saw them enter. They had never come to one of their parties before.

“C’mon Rivet!” Shine Struck’s voice came from behind Playbitz and Swift. Soarin leaned over to see Shine pushing a reluctant Rivet into the house.

Now that was a hoot. Soarin began pondering how the hell they got Rivet to come with them. Then again, knowing these jokers, it was highly possible that they dragged him along to get him out of his workshop. Rivet’s eyes were darting around, instantly hiding behind Playbitz and peering out.

“Hey, dude,” Swift leaned down by Rivet and pointed out the window. “Fleetfoot’s outside.”

Rivet looked towards the window and saw Fleetfoot with her back turned, trying her best to blow up beach balls before chucking them at the stallions climbing on Twister’s duck. As soon as Rivet saw Fleetfoot distracted, he emerged from behind Playbitz and seemed to be relieved, at least until she came back in.

Shine, Swift, and Playbitz were about to advance towards rest of the party, but they suddenly stopped, all looked at each other, then turned and looked at the front door.

“Really?” Playbitz sighed. “I thought he said he’d be okay…”

Soarin looked past them to see Calm Wind hovering in the doorway, looking nervous or embarrassed.

“The party’s in here, bro!” Swift yelled while waving to Calm. Calm just shook his head and sat down in the doorway.

“C’mon, you big dope!” Shine Struck glided over to Calm as Playbitz approached. Swift let them handle it as he grabbed Rivet and pulled him along to join the party. “Get in there!” Shine ordered while moving around Calm and pushing him in the back.

“I… don’t want to…” Calm said nervously.

“Dude,” Playbitz walked up and placed a hoof up on Calm’s shoulder. “You suggested we attend, right?”

“Yeah… dunno if that was the best idea,” Calm sighed.

“You said ‘it’ll be fun,’” Playbitz began as Shine continued to push Calm in the back to no avail. “And honestly, fun is something you need a little bit more of. So come on, let’s join the party!” Playbitz encouraged him.

“Okay, I’ll try…” Calm stood up, surprising Shine. His back bumped into her chest, she yelped, and tumbled to the floor.

“YES! He lives!” she joked as Calm nervously followed behind Playbitz.

Soarin was having a hard time not laughing, because it almost looked like they had a harder time getting Calm into the party than Rivet. The big blue lug was shy? That was hilarious. Come to think of it, Soarin hadn’t seen Calm interact much with others outside of squad zero. The only reason he talked to Matteo before was to challenge him to a fight and compare how much weight they could lift… two things Calm could easily get into. Mass social situations didn’t seem to be his cup of tea.

Shine gave Dash a smile and a wave as they passed. She stole a glance at Soarin, but only smiled weakly at him as she and the rest of squad zero joined the party.

“I’ve got your hoof wrestling champ right here!” Playbitz yelled as he pulled Calm towards the competition that was still going on.

“Gimme the big guy!” Macho Savage yelled as Calm tried to turn and walk away. After some convincing, they managed to get Calm to join in.

“They’re all toast,” Dash joked as they turned away from the hoof wrestling just in time to see Lightning Streak, Air Mach, Blaze, and High Winds head down to the basement.

“That’s a group of troublemakers,” Soarin chuckled. “I wonder what they’re doing down th—OH! I know what they’re doing,” Soarin laughed and shook his head.

“Do I want to know?” Dash asked.

“You’ll know soon enough,” he smirked. As a loud SLAM came from the hoof wrestling table, followed by multiple varying grunts of pain from Macho Savage.

Soarin realized that he had forgotten all about Spitfire. He saw her when they came in and hadn’t seen her since. After looking around the room he saw her sitting alone on one of the couches with a mug of cider in her hoof and looking straight down at the floor. As much as they wanted their lead captain to attend the party, Soarin felt bad knowing how hard of a time her body was giving her. She was at a celebration, but she had to avoid all eye contact with stallions to avoid things acting up. He had a feeling doing so might make things worse, but he wasn’t going to let her sit alone like that without being the good friend he was and checking up on her.

“I’m gonna go check on Spitfire, I’ll be right back,” Soarin patted Dash on the shoulder.

“Spitfire?” Dash looked over and saw her on the couch. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Heat,” Soarin said while wincing comically.

Dash’s eyes widened slightly. That explained why Spitfire was stiff and sweating earlier at the banquet. And now she was among all these stallions? That had to be rough. Dash kept her eyes on Soarin, catching a glimpse of Wave Chill nearby. He was sipping a mug of cider, making periodic glances at Spitfire. Dash hadn’t heard about anything between the two of them for a long time, she wondered how that was going.

As she looked around for something to occupy herself with, she eventually saw Misty Fly walk by. Dash smiled, and was about to go greet her silent friend, but her focus was completely overtaken by the hoof wrestling as Calm quietly downed another opponent. Misty trotted up to Fire Streak and pressed into his side while smiling up at him. Fire flinched in surprise and quickly returned the smile, but did so in a very quick, somewhat awkward way.

Misty was occupied, and Fire was going to be her next choice. Dash looked over to the bar where Matteo and Silver were sitting and nursing their drinks of choice quietly. She decided to talk to Matteo, but she only got halfway to him before a bunch of stallions came up to him.

“Hey! Big fella! We need you!” one of them said as Matteo turned and looked at them. “Calm is destroying us in hoof wrestling! You gotta come take him on!”

Matteo looked up and saw Calm not only put another hoof down, but the stallion’s whole body fell sideways with it. It amused Matteo.

“Very well,” Matteo smirked as he set his glass down and rose from his seat. The stallions cheered as Matteo moved towards the table, Calm smiling as well as the griffon approached.

Dash sighed. That match was going to go on for a while. The only pony left that she could talk to… was sitting right in front of her.

Silver.

Part of her was worried. He looked deep in thought as he took small sips from his glass of trotka. She didn’t want to interrupt any reminiscing, if that’s what he was doing. The other part of her though, felt like she’d be welcome. Silver had willing spent so much time with her already, why would the old veteran deny her company now? She decided to take the chance, slowly walking up towards the chair beside him.

“Sir?” Dash addressed him as she walked up behind him. Silver’s ears picked up as her voice reached him. He turned slightly and glanced at her.

“No need to call me that here, Dash,” he said calmly before turning right back to his drink. Don’t address him formally? After how hard Silver had drilled it into her head, she wondered if she could even say his name.

“S-Silver?” as expected, it was difficult.

“Mmhmm?” Silver responded.

“Mind if I sit with you?” she asked shakily as Silver was moving the glass back towards his lips. He stopped halfway through the motion, put the glass down, turned, and looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Why the hell would I want to sit with you?” he put very harshly. Dash flinched incredibly hard and her ears flopped down. Silver smirked and snorted while shaking his head before pulling the chair beside him out slightly. “Wow, that look on your face,” he chuckled. “I’m kidding, Dash, hop on up. Better you than the rest of the idiots fartin’ around the house,” he offered as he patted the open seat with a hoof.

It took Dash a moment to register he just played her pretty good. When she finally came back down to earth, she smiled and sighed while climbing up onto the seat beside him. Dash set her water cup down and glanced at Silver’s glass. There was a distinct strong aroma that rose from the clear liquid. It stung Dash’s nose, causing her to cringe slightly and blink.

“Heh,” Silver chuckled as he saw Dash react. “If you can’t take the smell from two feet away, it’ll probably kill you if you drink it.”

“Trotka?” Dash read off the bottle sitting on the other side of Silver.

“Very strong liquor, usually mixed with other drinks. By itself it feels like you’re drinking from a tar pit,” Silver explained as he took another small sip.

“Then why?” Dash asked with a giggle.

“I tend to drink tasty things too fast. So I force myself to drink it slow…” he held up and shook the glass, making a small clinking noise with the ice on the inside as he picked up the bottle and poured himself another. “By drinking something that could melt through metal.”

“I never took you for a drinker,” Dash pondered as Silver put the bottle back down and took a sip.

“I’m not,” he said as he set the glass down. “This is the first drink I’ve had in… I’d say four months. I don’t do it very often. It makes me… remember things.”

Dash noticed a visible change in his face as he explained.

Memories… he was reminiscing. Dash had a feeling he was, but she wondered what about? Silver had revealed lots of painful memories to her. Could it be old friends, like his late mentor? Maybe it was old wounds. Dash thought that could be possible as she looked down at his body, his large, body length burn scars completely visible without his flight suit. Maybe they were good memories. That was always a possibility. The party setting could be stirring thoughts of old friends.

“Sorry if I… interrupted,” Dash looked down and scratched the back of her head.

“Pff… no,” Silver shook his head and took another sip.

“You’ve been through a lot though,” Dash pointed out as she nervously sipped some of her water. Silver was the only pony where she felt this kind of nervous around. The kind of nervous that made one hesitate out of fear of interrupting one whom they highly respected and wanted to constantly impress. “You deserve some time to yourself to think,” Dash added.

“Not all the memories are bad, Dash,” Silver smiled as he stared down at his glass. “Forcing myself to this party and seeing all these dumbasses running around like chickens with their head’s cut off made me think about… all my old friends and squadmates…”

Dash remained silent, allowing Silver to collect his thoughts without interruption.

“Misty Fly and I are the last two Wonderbolts left from the Blazetail and Flashwind era. Since Spitfire took over, one by one, I’ve watched my oldest friends retire… those who were still alive from years of combat and conflict that is. The Wonderbolts will always be my second family, but nopony could ever replace those who I once flew beside.”

He was interrupted by a loud SNAP and CRASH noise. They turned to see Fleetfoot galloping towards the table where the hoof wrestling competition was happening.

“GUYS!!! REALLY?!” Fleetfoot yelled as she ran. Dash and Silver looked further to see the crowd surrounding the table had dispersed and was laughing hysterically. Calm and Matteo’s match was so heavy that they broke the table in half while struggling against each other’s’ strength and the two fell down with it.

“Yikes…” Dash cringed as she saw the mess.

“Ha! This party is nothing…” Silver continued again, smiling and shaking his head. “We were lucky if we got to party more than twice a year back in my day. And let me tell you Dash, you think these idiots are crazy? A broken table or two was a normal thing at our parties. We were stern, stoic and dutiful on the job, but the very few times we got off duty? We were as wild and crazy as they come. Heh… haha, I remember…” he paused to put his glass down and chuckled to himself. “Misty and I had to pull Steady Wing’s head out of a flower bed… because he tried to stop a fight that broke out between Bomber and Cannon Ball… As soon as Bomber grabbed Steady… Steady didn’t even try. He had this look on his face that screamed ‘I’m screwed’ before he got his head shoved into the dirt. Misty had to drag my ass over to help him because I was rolling on the ground, laughing.”

Dash found herself chuckling along with Silver. She didn’t dare speak, she wanted to hear more. She knew Steady Wing, Bomber, and Cannon Ball! She had seen a few shows with them. Bomber always scared her… he was just huge. Probably bigger than Soarin. Steady Wing had recently retired from squad three, but Dash hadn’t seen much of him. She DID, however, have a poster autographed by Cannon Ball. Dash listened eagerly. It was so much fun getting to know the current Wonderbolts. She wanted to hear what some of the older ones from her fillyhood were like.

“Ah, no, that was nothing compared to when Comet got drunk and tried hitting on Valkyrie! She flipped his whole body up and slammed him to the bar with one arm before I could blink. Pixie and Fairy had to hold her back, I was sure she was going to kill him. I was sitting two seats from Comet, and Blizzard…” Silver paused to laugh. “Blizzard turned to Comet as the two sisters held Valkyrie back and casually pointed to a spot on Comet’s neck. With the straightest face, he told Valkyrie it was the best place to hit if she wanted to kill him quickly!” Silver laughed as he swirled his glass around. “I miss them… I miss all of them…All those bastards... every single one of them.”

Dash chuckled as she listened to Silver’s stories of his younger days. That story probably took place before she was born. At least that’s what she deduced with the mention of Blizzard Strike. She knew about the rest he mentioned. Fairy and Pixie were twin sisters. they specialized in synchronized flying… no doubt they were the ones who passed on the skill to the Streak twins. Comet retired about a year after Dash was first interested in the Wonderbolts. She didn’t get to see much of him first hoof, but he had a long standing reputation of being the incredibly sexy… and knowing it too. Everything she read about him in Wonderbolt history ended with him having mares lined up to get pictures taken with him or autographs. Valkyrie was actually one of Dash’s favorite Wonderbolts alongside Misty Fly when she was younger. Valkyrie was a large, muscular mare who was known well for skills similar to Soarin’s like catching and throwing her squadmates. She wasn’t quite as huge or as imposing as Bomber, but she was an icon of female strength, one that inspired Dash for years to come.

Dash suddenly had a question on her mind…

However, she felt incredibly unsure if it was a good idea to ask, especially after the important lesson Silver taught her a few days back.

Silver was smiling. He had his drink in hoof, he was swirling it around, and taking small sips as he remembered all the great times he used to have. Dash wasn’t sure if she wanted to ruin the moment.

Despite her worries, she found her curiosity overtaking her worry.

She asked.

“Silver?” she spoke. Silver turned his eyes towards her.

“Mmhmm?”

Dash hesitated again, but being Silver’s disciple, she felt her interest would be well met.

“What was… Blizzard Strike like?” she asked, subtly holding her breath right after.

Silver’s eyes widened slightly, but only for a brief moment as he turned back forward and took another sip from his drink. Dash watched him as his expression remained unchanged for half a minute. But then a sudden wave of relief washed over her as a smile slowly curled its way onto his lips.

“I don’t even know where to start…” Silver began as he finished his glass and slowly poured himself another. “How does one describe the indescribable?” he said in a joking manner.

Dash felt a sudden warmth radiate through her. Silver so easily accepted speaking to her about himself. She disregarded the fact that the alcohol could have been part of it. Silver didn’t even seemed buzzed. The fact that he looked so relaxed speaking with her, that’s what really stuck home for Dash. She was glad too. Since she first heard about him, Blizzard Strike had been a topic of great interest on her mind. She had witnessed and experienced first hoof , the hilarious, yet incredibly intimidating air that was Silver Lining and his grueling training program.

The thought that somepony once had such power over Silver was mind boggling. Dash had to know more. She had to know about the pony who forged such an legendary pony that sat beside her.

“Blizzard was…” Silver paused as he collected his thoughts, swirling his drink around as he pondered the best way to put it. “The most glorious bastard to ever walk Equestria,” he said while slamming his hoof on the table, but doing so with a humorous gusto. Dash didn’t even react to the hoof slam, she had her eyes and ears locked on Silver, eager to learn about Blizzard.

“He was the most unpredictable son of a bitch… Surprise and Twister? Blizzard would’ve eaten them alive,” Silver laughed as he took a sip of his drink. “Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t like them, but damn, if you let your guard down around him, you paid the price HARD. He was always a good ten steps ahead of everypony else. I can remember…” Silver trailed off while looking straight up.

Dash didn’t dare speak. She had heard legends of the fabled ‘Silver Lining stories.’ Stories told by current Wonderbolts about hilarious and incredibly over the top things that Silver had done to them or their wingmates over the years… was she about to hear… Blizzard stories? She couldn’t even comprehend the concept.

“Blizzard was leading a squad including me, Misty, and three others. We were sent out to stop a smuggling ring that had formed between Saddle Arabia and Iraquine that was transporting stolen goods beneath the noses of their leaders. We set up camp along their route and after two days we were ready to spring the trap on them. As they were approaching, I decided, like a rookie, to try and finish my lunch right before we attacked them. Blizzard pointed at me before I could take a bite out of my sandwich. ‘Don’t eat that, I rigged it to explode in ten seconds,’ he said. Of course, I freaked out and dropped the sandwich, while demanding to know why he would do something like that. All he said was ‘he was bored’ before he scooped it up and hurled it out onto the path where the smugglers were moving. One of them said ‘is that a turkey sandwich?’ before it exploded in their face and we got the drop on them!” Silver slammed his hoof against the table and laughed to his heart’s content.

Dash laughed along with her teacher, but half out of humor and half out of simply enjoying herself. What a hoot! Then again, what was she to expect from a pony that could mentor her mentor?

“He was 500% aware of his surroundings at all times,” Silver continued. “In the middle of dinner one night, Comet thought it would be funny to put a pie in Blizzard’s face. Comet planned it out perfectly. He waited until Blizzard was distracted by his favorite dinner in the mess hall, approached from behind with a cherry pie in hoof, and from my view across from Blizzard, it looked like Comet had a clear line to complete his prank. The moment Comet was within his reach, Blizzard reached down, pulled up and put a pie on the table, reached back without looking, grabbed Comet by the neck and slammed his face down into the pie on the table. Blizzard didn’t even look at him. I wanted to burst out laughing, but honestly, I was terrified by the fact that Blizzard just seemed to know the exact time place and positioning of Comet. To this day, I have no idea how he pulled off so many ridiculous feats. He was a pony to be feared for sure, and I was honored to be his student,” Silver finished as he sipped his drink.

Again, Dash didn’t laugh. She just stared wide eyed at Silver. The thought of a pony who was more outrageous than Silver was… well… outrageous. But Silver’s little recounts? It was clear Blizzard was a legend. A pony who could wow a pony such as Silver lining, was by default worth writing a book about. It was too bad she never really heard much about him. Then again, before she tried out for the Wonderbolts, she scarcely heard about Silver. She remembered from Silver’s recollection of Blizzard that he was the captain of squad two under Blazetail and Flashwind. Much like how Silver was the captain of squad two beneath Spitfire.

There was weight held in name and rank, but perhaps the most significant Wonderbolts were not those of fame, but those of practice and teachings. Dash looked towards Silver as he suddenly sighed.

“Dash, thanks,” he said. Dash’s ears stood up in surprise.

“What for?” Dash asked curiously. Silver poured himself another drink.

“For listening,” Silver smiled as he took a sip. “I want to tell you something truthfully,” he said as he turned and looked at her. “I have greatly enjoyed mentoring you.”

It took mere seconds for Dash’s body to be covered in goosebumps. Seeing her idols applaud her at the banquet was one thing… but hearing approval and satisfaction from the pony who took her under her wing was… incredible. Dash was speechless. Not a word found its way to her lips before Silver continued.

“I don’t connect too much with a lot of the current Wonderbolts, I’m sure you’ve seen that. I’m a veteran to them, somepony to learn from and look to for sage advice more than I am a friend. Soarin tries his hardest, but to me, he is a superior and my moral code suggests I always look at him as such,” he paused and held his glass out to Dash. She resisted the urge to recline at the strong aroma rising from the alcohol as he made the motion. “But you… I’ve shared a lot with you. Including some things I haven’t shared with anypony else. Why? I trust you, trust that has grown between us as I’ve passed my knowledge to you,” he set the glass down and place a hoof on Dash’s shoulder with a smile. “You have no idea how much of a release it is. It’s hard when the only pony left who truly understands you is deaf,” Silver added with a chuckle, referring to Misty Fly.

As soon as the initial euphoria of her mentor speaking to her like a daughter faded, she took a moment to think over his words. That was true. He and Misty were the only two left from the previous generation. Misty would surely understand him if he wanted to talk to somepony, but despite his ability to communicate with her, he couldn’t do it as freely as Fire Streak. Dash didn’t feel like she could relate to Silver in this manner, but if he trusted her enough to talk to her, she wouldn’t shy away. Earning the trust of such a hardened veteran did not seem like such an easy feat. She would be sure to cherish it.

“OW! OW! OKAY!” Soarin’s voice suddenly echoed from nearby. Silver and Dash both turned to see Soarin limp towards them. He stopped occasionally to rub his left arm. “Sheesh…” he pouted as he approached Silver and Dash, taking the open seat on the other side of Dash. Silver smirked as he took another sip.

“Touching an active volcano can get you burned, son,” Silver joked as Soarin sighed.

“Spitfire’s got some major—”

“Issues, I know,” Silver finished for him as he set his drink down and looked past the two of them. His eyes spotted Spitfire sulking on a couch by herself. “All I know is, Wave better make a damn move before I—”

“WHO WANTS TO PLAY MURDERBALL?!” Lightning Streak’s voice completely cut off Silver.

Dash flinched as she turned and looked over to Lightning. He and Air Mach were standing in the hallway near the stairs, both holding tennis balls in their hooves. Dash tipped her head curiously, but Soarin was laughing.

“Murder…ball?” Dash asked curiously while turning to Silver. To her surprise, Silver looked just as confused as her. Then again, he did mention that he didn’t come out with the rest of them very often. It seemed the best answered lied with Soarin as he laughed before them. “Soarin, what’s Murderball?”

“Oh man,” Soarin shook his head as some ponies began following Lightning and Air Mach towards the stairs. He turned to Dash, but Silver spoke up first.

“Do I want to know what kind of stupidity this is?” Silver asked. Soarin smirked at him.

“It’s only the best kind of stupidity!” Soarin chuckled as he grabbed Dash by the arm. “I think it would be better if you saw it yourself. Come on,” he nodded as he and Dash stood up from their seats.

“Hold on!” Silver downed the last bits of trotka in his glass and placed it on the table. “I need to see this too,” he said as he got up.

“This way,” Soarin smirked as he led the two of them into the main path of the hall and towards the stairs.

Soarin shifted as they approached the stairs, and led Dash and Silver down the stairs to the basement instead. The change in environment as they made their way down the stairs was drastic. Dash almost found herself laughing as the well kept, contemporary air of the ground floor absolutely disappeared as they reached the basement. The ground floor was clearly meant for hosting guests. The basement was a hangout… and a messy one.

Beat up, old couches. A low ceiling and walls with multiple scuff marks. A few old pizza boxes stacked on the counter of a kitchen that had plastic cups and plates strewn about. There were also random things lying everywhere. Random sports equipment like a pair of boxing gloves, miniature soccer goals, a hockey helmet, a basketball, a random pair of Wonderbolt themed swimming trunks, but most notably, tennis balls strewn about everywhere. It looked like a stallion cave of a high school colt. Somehow though, Dash wasn’t surprised to see something of the like in a house owned by Fleetfoot.

Silver stopped halfway down the stairs and planted himself there as Dash and Soarin reached the bottom.

“I think I’ll just watch,” Silver said to nopony in particular as he watched Blaze and High Winds set up another keg of cider on the counter, knocking over a few of the stray cups and plates as they did.

Dash and Soarin surveyed the Wonderbolts walking about as they entered the fray. It looked like ponies were starting to get a little buzzed. Nopony was stumbling yet, but silly things were happening.

“You guys playin’?” Lightning asked as he shifted up and put his arm over Dash.

“Wouldn’t miss it!” Soarin answered while grabbing Lightning’s arm and lifting it off Dash while shooting Lightning a subtle look of ‘hooves off.’

“Uh… how do you play Murderball?” Dash asked, still wondering as she watched the stallions and the mares split up and gather the stray tennis balls.

“It’s simple,” Lightning Streak explained as he picked up a tennis ball in his hoof. “You just throw tennis balls at each other as hard as you can,” he said as he tossed the ball up and down.

“What?!” Dash reacted with confusion and amusement. Before anything else could be said, Blaze and High Winds rushed over and grabbed Dash by the shoulders.

“And it’s mares against stallions! Get over here!” Blaze yelled in her face as she and High Winds yanked her towards the rest of the mares.

“Wait, WHAT?!” Dash was so confused, but already having fun as Blaze and Winds pulled her behind one of the old couches on the opposite side of the basement.

“Taking prisoners is fair game!” Lightning yelled from the stallion side as Dash propped her back up against the back of the old couch. Winds dumped an armful of tennis balls by Dash as they crouched. The balls spilled everywhere among Dash, Blaze, High Winds, and the eight other Wonderbolt mares that piled behind the couch. There was also a stash of cider filled mugs behind the couch, one of which Blaze grabbed and chugged the entire contents of as they waited. Among the mares, Dash also spotted Surprise, Fleetfoot, and… Misty?! Dash locked her eyes on Misty Fly as she started scooping up some of the tennis balls with a devilish grin on her face.

This was the biggest difference between Silver and Misty. Silver tended to scoff at half the silly things the younger Wonderbolts did. Misty, on the other hoof, joined in.

Dash peeked over the top of the couch. They were a little outnumbered by the stallions. Soarin, of course, was with them. She already saw Lightning and Air Mach before. Macho Savage had joined at some point. Silver remained on the stairs, observing.

“Whoa!” Dash ducked down as a tennis ball flew right at her face. As soon as the ball hit the wall behind them, Blaze grabbed a tennis ball.

“THERE’S THE FIRST SHOT! GIVE ‘EM HELL!” She yelled out.

All the mares sprang up and began firing tennis balls across the room. The stallions dispersed from behind their cover and returned fire. Dash peeked over the top of the couch again to see absolute chaos ensue. There was no rhyme, reason, or purpose to the game… was there? It turned into a mass game of dodgeball with no barriers or restrictions as tennis balls were whipped around the room, bouncing off ponies and the walls alike, explaining the scuff marks. It was definitely helpful to be drunk or at least buzzed for this game because Dash couldn’t bring herself to come out of cover. At least that’s how she felt until she saw Soarin out in the fray, taking a few body shots while delivering some of his own, laughing along with the rest.

Dash smiled, scooping up a tennis ball and leaping over the couch, she instantly took a hit to the shoulder from Macho Savage, but quickly returned fire, hitting him in the chest as she dove for a nearby ball that rolled towards her.

For the next ten minutes, absolutely nothing got accomplished. They simply continued to chuck the tennis balls at each other. Was there even a way to win this game? There was more than one room in the basement, two more to be precise. A laundry room and a storage room, both equally messy in a similar manner as the main room. A few of the mares and stallions were extending the game into those rooms, turning the entire basement into a battleground.

Dash found herself in the middle of the madness, laughing with the rest as Soarin was. And it felt good. No… it felt great. This was a side of the Wonderbolts she had never given any thought to.

The camaraderie.

The Wonderbolts were known far and wide for their showponyship and were counted on by the royalty to answer the call against abnormal threats. But they were a team. They were a group. They were friends. Incredibly close friends that were forged through hardships, blood, sweat, and tears. There were groups and cliques among them… there were some who stood out or stood alone. But in the end, they were a team. And good teams knew how to enjoy their close bonds.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as Soarin and Lightning Streak suddenly grabbed her and yanked her behind their couch. She got too close to their ‘base’ and apparently was paying the price for it. “HEY!” she yelled as they pinned her down and held her hostage.

“We got a prisoner!” Soarin yelled as the rest of the stallions cheered triumphantly. Dash laughed and struggled as Air Mach dragged one of the small soccer goals over and tipped it over to cover her as they held her down.

“DAMMIT, ROOKIE!” Fleetfoot yelled from nearby as she and Surprise tried to advance towards them, but Macho Savage repelled them with the help of the other stallions.

“We gotta get her back!” Blaze yelled out as she returned fire. “Windy! Ya with me?!” Blaze hopped up over their couch, but paused and looked down to see High Winds asleep on the floor while holding a cider mug in each hoof. “HEY!” Blaze yelled down to her while pointing at the mug in Winds’ left hoof. “That’s MY cide—OOF!” Blaze grunted as a well-aimed tennis ball from Air Mach landed right in her lower stomach and knocked her off the couch.

“BULLSEYE, OOOOH YEEEAAAAH!” Macho Savage cheered while turning and groveling at Air Mach’s hooves. Air Mach hopped up on the couch and struck a pose while pointing out.

“I call it, the burning soul shot to the ovaries attack!” Air Mach called out triumphantly. Behind him, still on the stairs, Silver just shook his head.

“I’m not buzzed enough for this shit…” he said as he turned and left to retrieve his trotka.

“RGH! RAH!” Dash exaggerated growls as she tried to break free from Soarin and Lightning, but the two together were way too strong for her to move.

“Quit trying Dashie, you’re not getting up,” Soarin taunted while rubbing his nose against the tip of her ear.

“Dammit, Soarin!” Dash laughed as she growled and tried to shake herself free some more.

“Ya got nothing, babe. Stay down,” Lightning added while turning and letting his mane get in her face while whisking it back and forth.

“Bleh!” Dash spat and sputtered as Lightning’s frizzy mane got in her mouth and eyes.

“I SAY WE GET ANOTHER PRISONER, SAVAGE!” Air Mach proclaimed.

“EQUESTRIA ISN’T READY FOR THE MADNESS TEAMING UP WITH THE ANIMAK!” Savage added as the two stood up on the couch trying to rally the rest of the stallions.

Soarin looked up, eager to see the two do something ridiculous, but—

“OH SHIT!!!!” Air Mach and Savage both yelled out as they suddenly got peppered by tennis balls and knocked off the couch. Air Mach fell besides Soarin, but Savage landed on top of Lightning, forcing him down roughly on top of Dash, earning a collective grunt from all three of them. Lightning quickly got back up as Savage rolled off of him and looked up at the top of the couch. Suddenly similar screams of terror from the rest of the stallions rang out as they began ducking behind the couch or other pieces of cover. Some even retreated into the laundry room and shut the door behind them.

Soarin and Lightning looked at each other quizzically as the rest of their team cowered and ducked for cover. Soarin took the chance and slowly leaned up to look over the couch. He blinked as he saw all of the mares peeking out from behind their couch as well, only they were all looking up towards the ceiling with wide eyes.

Silver came back down the stairs, bottle of trotka and his glass in hoof. He was about to take a sip, but he stopped and looked up.

“What the hell?!” he exclaimed. Soarin and lightning both looked up.

Directly above them… Was Misty Fly… wearing the hockey helmet and the pair of swim trunks. She had one of the boxing gloves shoved into the crotch of the swim trunks and was holding the basketball between her back hooves. She held a bag full of tennis balls that she was swinging around like a chain flail as she suddenly dropped from above towards them.

“AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” Soarin, Lightning, and the rest of the stallions behind the couch all screamed and dispersed as Misty came crashing down. She tackled Air Mach while letting go of the bag, spilling tennis balls everywhere and putting Air Mach into a headlock. As soon as Dash was free from Soarin and Lightning, she sprang over the couch and glided back over to the rest of the mares as they all watched Misty Fly. Dash got behind the couch next to Fleetfoot and peered out alongside her.

Misty was going wild, galloping around, chasing the stallions while wearing her crazy outfit, and pretty much disrespecting her surroundings as she flailed her hooves, frequently picking up stray tennis balls and chucking them at the stallions point blank. She had all the stallions in complete disarray, they looked like they were fleeing for their life. Dash was trying so hard not to crack up, but at the same time couldn’t believe Misty was being so weird. Yeah… Misty had definitely absorbed into the new generation better than Silver. That or she had an extremely goofy side that, until now, Dash didn’t know much about.

“Whoa…” High Winds said sleepily. “Misty’s really getting into it!”

“What tipped you off?” Fleetfoot chuckled. “The boxing glove shoved in the pants?” they all cracked up as Fleetfoot and the rest grabbed their mugs. “Let’s drink to victory, then get out there and help her harass them!” she suggested. They all clashed mugs (except for Dash) and all took long drinks.

“Hooooo yeah! I’m starting to feel it!” Surprise giggled as she hiccupped loud. “Eep! S’cuse me!”

“I hear ya!” Blaze yelled as she blinked and shook her head out. "But the night’s still young! Let’s get crazy!” she yelled as Fleetfoot rallied the other mares.

Blaze and High Winds stayed behind the couch, firing tennis balls from afar as Surprise, Fleetfoot, Dash and the rest hopped out and began backing Misty up. The stallions looked to be up the creek in this Murderball match.

“SURRENDER OR BE BALL’D TO DEATH!” Fleetfoot yelled as they attacked.

“Are you coming onto me again?!” Lightning yelled from behind a folding table he had turned on its side for cover.

“LIGHTNING STREAK IS THE PRIORITY TARGET!” Fleetfoot yelled in response.

Silver continued to watch from the stairs while sipping his drink, trying very hard to hide the fact that he was incredibly amused, especially with Misty’s ridiculous stunt. He also found it amusing that the stallions were losing horribly to the mares. During the madness, Air Mach snuck towards the stairs, crawled up and grabbed Silver’s hoof.

“Old Timer! Ya gotta help us!” he pleaded. Silver blinked and looked down at Air Mach.

“Help?” Silver chuckled. “What happened to your ‘stallionly burning soul?’”

“It’s being fought back by an uncontrollable wave of estrogen!” Air Mach yelled. Silver blinked and stopped mid sip.

“Are we talking about the mares, or you?” he said with a completely straight face. “Sorry son, you colts got yourselves into this mess, I can’t save you every t—”

A tennis ball came flying towards Silver. It struck the glass in his hoof, forcing it up and splashing the entire contents and all the ice up into Silver’s face.

“DIRECT HIT!” Blaze yelled from behind the couch on the opposite side of the basement as she and High Winds bumped hooves. Dash, Surprise, and Fleetfoot stopped and stared wide eyed at Silver. He squinted his eyes shut and scrunched his face as the trotka and ice cubes slowly dropped and trickled down his face.

“Dash,” Fleetfoot grabbed her by the shoulder as Surprise ducked under a table. “Get to cover… now…” she quietly suggested as the rest of the mares did the same thing, save for Misty who was still harassing the stallions up close.

Silver whipped his face back and forth before opening his eyes and glaring sharply at the two mares from his squad. Air Mach went silent below Silver as he slowly pushed himself down two steps.

“Get him again while he’s confused!” High Winds yelled as she and Blaze both grabbed another tennis ball. They both whipped the balls at Silver hard… but Silver reached up his hooves and caught them both right out of the air. “Oh shit…” High Winds immediately ducked behind the couch, but Blaze stayed up and shot a cocky expression towards Silver.

“OH! Look at YOU, tough guy! Whatcha gonna do, huh?” Blaze reached her hooves out in a taunting manner. “I bet you ain’t got the balls too—WHOA!” Blaze ducked as one of the balls came at her so fast she barely saw it in time. The tennis ball seared over her head and LODGED in the wall behind her. Blaze stood right back up and stared at the tennis ball stuck firmly in the wall before whipping around and giving Silver a disturbed look. “What the hell?! Dude!” she pointed at the tennis ball lodged in the wall. “That was THIS close to being my face! AH!” She ducked again as the second tennis ball shot over her head and also got stuck in the wall.

“Damn, that target keeps moving,” Silver said as he cracked his neck and vaulted over the railing and dropped down among the stallions.

“YEAH! NOW WE’RE TALKIN!” Lightning Streak yelled as he saw Silver join the fray.

“Give ‘em hell, Silver!” Soarin added as he and Lightning started rolling tennis balls towards Silver.

“Oh, horseshit…” Fleetfoot didn’t budge from beneath the table with Dash. “I’m staying RIGHT here,” she stated as Silver began whipping tennis balls everywhere. The mares started shrieking and scurrying about as Silver alone managed to easily repel them from the stallion’s side of the room and force them all behind cover. Dash and Fleetfoot tried to get up and move, but each time they tried another tennis ball zipping overhead would convince them to get back down.

“You can all dish it, but you can’t take it, huh?” Silver called out as he continued his barrage.

Then suddenly, a tennis ball came shooting through his cloud of projectiles… and struck him right between the legs.

“OH, SWEET MERCY OF LUNA’S FULL MOON!” Silver yelled as he exhaled and crumpled to the ground, holding his hooves between his legs. All the stallions froze and stared at Silver in disbelief. Who could have counter attacked? “RGH!” Silver proved his sturdiness as he quickly forced himself back up despite taking a shot right to the family jewels.

He looked up to see Misty Fly hovering above the couch on the mares’ side of the basement, grinning behind the facemask of the hockey helmet while tossing a tennis ball up and down in her hoof. Silver glared up at Misty.

“Oh, you sneaky bitch…” Silver smirked as he took a deep breath and picked up more tennis balls. “The game is ahoof!” he yelled as he returned fire.

The game got dangerous fast. Suddenly, both the mares and the stallions were ducking for cover as Silver and Misty whipped the tennis balls back and forth at speeds that would take any other pony out in one shot besides them.

Soarin and Lightning ended up under the same table as Fleetfoot, Surprise, and Dash. They all glanced at each other before peeking back out at the dangerous warzone that they had gotten stuck in.

“I dunno about you guys,” Surprise spoke up. “But I’m getting the hell outta here!” she exclaimed as she skittered along the ground as quickly as she could, following behind a bunch of other mares and stallions that had the same idea.

“I guess we can call this a draw?” Soarin chuckled as he turned to Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot sighed.

“I suppose…” she sighed. “My basement is going to be completely wrecked after this,” she whined as the four began crawling along the ground below the line of fire as well. They were forced to stop at one point as a few low flying tennis balls nearly took Fleetfoot’s nose off in front.

“Great, we’re stuck,” Dash chuckled as they remained in place.

“I ain’t complaining!” Lightning said from directly behind her. “I’ve got a nice view!” he chuckled as he stared at Dash’s plot.

“Lightning!” Soarin suddenly said in a very happy tone behind Lightning. “How generous of you to volunteer as the meat shield!” he continued as he pushed himself forward, grabbed Lightning Streak around the body and forced him up.

“WHOA! AHHH!” Lightning yelped and covered his face with his hooves as he got peppered by the tennis balls.

“Move!” Fleetfoot ordered while laughing. Soarin, Dash, and Fleetfoot scurried along the ground and made it to the stairs, leaving Lightning behind, stuck in the middle of the floor as Silver and Misty continued to go at it.

“Damn, brutal…” Lightning scratched his head.

“You just had to throw one at Silver, didn’t you?” High Winds said to Blaze as the rest of them finally made it out of the basement and rejoined the party.

“HEY! You dared me to!” Blaze fired back as Soarin, Dash, and Fleetfoot moved back into the party.

“Well! We barely got out of that one alive,” Soarin joked to Fleetfoot.

“Take note,” Fleetfoot jabbed him in the shoulder. “Silver isn’t allowed to play Murderball anymore.”

“What about Misty?” Soarin asked. Fleetfoot shook her head.

“She was fine.”

“Why, cause she was on your side?!” Soarin burst out laughing as Fleetfoot shrugged.

“I NEED MORE CIDER!” she announced as she trotted through the party towards the alcohol.

Soarin smiled and looked towards Dash, who looked like she was stuck in a quiet fit of giggles.

“What are you so happy about?” Soarin smirked as he gently leaned into her. Dash lost it and cracked up for a few moments before shaking her head and looking up at Soarin.

“That… was so much fun! And awesome! How did you even come UP with that game?” she asked.

“Lightning and Blaze started throwing tennis balls at each other one night when we were hanging out in Fleet’s basement. They found them in the back room where Fleet kept sports stuff. They only had six, but others joined in… and it was so hilariously fun that Fleetfoot went out and bought about thirty more packs of tennis balls and voila, Murderball.”

“Who named it that?” Dash chuckled.

“Air Mach,” Soarin immediately replied.

“Why am I not surprised?” Dash rolled her eyes as Soarin put his arm over her shoulder.

“Dash, welcome to the Wonderbolts! On our free time, things get weird!” he proudly patted his chest.

“Only on your free time?” she asked sarcastically.

“No, I have you too,” he skillfully fired back.

“Oh, you dick…” Dash pushed back against him as they both shared a laugh. Soarin looked up to see what else was going on, but he didn’t have to look for long before something caught everypony's attention.

“Captain, I just—”

“I SAID NO!”

“AH!”

Soarin and Dash both looked to their right towards the couch Spitfire was sitting alone on. More precisely, they looked just in time to see Fire Streak fall over the coffee table as if he had been shoved.

Spitfire was standing up, a mostly empty mug of Cider in her hoof, shaking while holding it so tightly it looked like she was going to crush it in her grip. She was gritting her teeth and taking sharp breaths. Fire was on his back on the other side of the coffee table, looking up at Spitfire with a mix of terror and confusion.

Judging by the circumstances, Soarin figured that Fire Streak saw Spitfire looking uncomfortable and innocently approached to find out what was wrong. Clearly… it wasn’t a smart move. The party didn’t stop, but a lot of the surrounding Wonderbolts were staring.

“RRGGGHHH!!!!!” Spitfire suddenly growled, turning and throwing her mug down, splashing the remaining contents all over the floor before heavily stomping across the room, past Fire Streak, past Soarin and Dash, pushed her way through Blaze and High Winds, and stormed up the stairs to the second floor. Soon after she disappeared, a loud slam of a door came from upstairs, followed by a distinct THUMP THUMP THUMP of hooves stomping around on the floor above.

“Uh… wow…” Dash said as she blinked. “She’s in super heat…” she pointed out as Soarin nodded his head.

“More or less,” Soarin agreed simply as something else caught his eye. Wave Chill had walked towards the stairs as well. Soarin’s eyes widened for a moment, but Wave placed a hoof on the first step before freezing in place. Soarin rolled his eyes as he saw Wave remove his hoof from the step and hang his head.

“Alright!” Fleetfoot appeared between Soarin and Dash, draping her wings over both of them. “THIS… has to end. Tonight. Right here, right now!” she said while taking a long swig from her mug. Fire Streak got up and moved towards them as Soarin waited for Fleetfoot to finish chugging.

“Who somepony tell me what the devil is wrong with the captain?” he asked. Soarin leaned over to Fire’s ear and whispered into it. Fire’s ears flopped down upon hearing. “Oh…”

“Yeah, you kind of stuck your hoof in a frying pan,” Soarin chuckled as Fleetfoot finally finished her mug and belched.

“WHOA! Sorry, ‘bout that, the cider’s just too good!” she giggled as she turned to Fire. “Don’t worry, lover colt, we’re gonna fix Spitfire right up!” she said while seemingly unable to stop giggling.

“Lover… colt?” Fire tipped his head as Soarin sighed.

“Fleet, are you going to play drunk-cupid?” he asked as he looked towards Wave, who was still looking depressed by the stairs.

“Hey I’m not that drunk… yet!” she turned and went back to get even more cider while giggling.

“We’ll handle it,” Soarin winked to Fire as he turned to Dash. “Yeah, we better get to him first and give him a little bit of warning. Fleet’s starting to get a little drunk, she won’t hold back on him.”

“I dunno, she seems pretty normal still to me,” Dash joked.

“It’s the giggling,” Soarin chuckled as they moved towards Wave. “Once Fleetfoot gets drunk, she literally can’t stop giggling. It’s like she’s being tickled or something,” he explained as they approached the bottom of the stairs. “Let me handle this, I’ve already talked to him before on this… a lot.”

“Oh boy, I can’t wait to see this,” Dash smirked as she let Soarin walk in front and give him a lead towards Wave.

“Yo! Chiller!” Soarin called his name. Wave flinched in surprised, turning to Soarin quickly.

“Uh, Commander!” he answered nervously, caught off guard.

“Really Wave, calm down,” Soarin quickly addressed him. “I want you to tell me right now, why you didn’t go after Spitfire just now,” he asked while pointing at the stairs.

“What? I wasn’t—” Wave quickly tried to deflect.

“Wave, what the hell happened?” Soarin cut in.

“Wh-what do you mean?” he asked. Soarin shook his head.

“You had a good thing going, you were building up your confidence, hell you almost talked to her in the mess hall before Fire interrupted you. I was sure you’d finally fix things with her, why are you suddenly chickening out?” he asked very seriously as Dash watched from behind.

She was curious as well. She didn’t know the finer details, but she at one point recalled seeing Spitfire and Wave Chill interacting like good friends would. They definitely seemed to be into each other. What could have caused such a sudden shift? Wave didn’t even reply as Soarin asked him about where his confidence had escaped to.

“Wave, look at me,” Soarin asked. Wave obeyed, looking into Soarin’s eyes with very little gusto. “Are you really going to let some stupid prank ruin the relationship you guys shared?”

“It kind of already did…” Wave grunted in frustration.

“No, you’re letting it ruin it. And you’re letting it ruin her right now because she really needs you!” Soarin stressed.

“Are you kidding? Did you see what she just did to Fire? Why the hell would she want to see me? Especially if I’m part of the problem?!” Wave really sounded like he was trying to avoid his feelings. That wasn’t healthy and Dash was trying really hard not say something, honoring Soarin’s request to stallion talk Wave through it.

“She threw Fire over the coffee table because he's not the stallion that can fix this… you are. Now trust me, walk up those stairs, and go talk to her, because if you don’t, a drunken Fleetfoot is about to—”

“WAVE!” Fleetfoot yelled out, making them all jump in surprise. Fleetfoot pushed Dash and Soarin aside, grabbing Wave by the face in one hoof and she drank from another mug of cider in the other. “You’ve got a mare to chill!” she yelled into his face.

“I… WHAT?!” Wave’s ears flopped down.

“You heard me, chuckle nuts!” Fleetfoot grabbed him around the neck, forced him to turn around and tried pulling him up the stairs.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on here!” he yelped as he resisted. “Talk to her maybe… but… but…”

“Talk is cheap! Poon is golden! In her case, literally! Hee hee hee!” Fleetfoot giggled, a drunken blush starting to form on her face as she pulled him along.

“Do I have a say in this?!” Wave fought for control, but Soarin joined Fleetfoot, pushing him up the stairs.

“Sorry, Wave… but I’m gonna have to agree with Fleet here,” he said with a chuckle as Dash joined in.

Wave whined and complained the whole way as they slowly forced him up the stairs. As they did, Silver and Misty finally came up from the basement, the result of their Murderball match forever unknown because the rest ran away. Misty made her way into the living room and jump hugged Fire Streak, feeling all riled up and having fun. Silver on the other hoof, stopped and observed Fleetfoot, Soarin, and Dash pushing Wave up the stairs. Silver blinked and leaned into the living room to see Spitfire was gone from her spot. He also took note of the stomping coming from the second floor. It didn’t take long for him to put it together. He sighed and shook his head before turning towards the stairs and following after them.

“No! Absolutely not! I can’t!” Wave denied in a hushed tone as the three of them pushed him towards the first door to the left after the top of the stairs.

“Wave, I’m done playing nice,” Soarin said with a chuckle. “Sorry, but… this really has gone on for WAY too long. Everypony, frankly, is sick of it. You two are painful to watch and are torturing yourselves.”

“Yeah!” Fleetfoot cut in while giggling. “Spitfire needs a good throttling, and YOU desperately need to get laid! Two stones with one bird… I mean… three stones… and… two cows? Er… YEAH!” she said as she hiccupped and giggled some more. “Hey, I’m not that drunk!” she snapped at Soarin.

“Fleet, I didn’t say anything…” Soarin chuckled as the two basically ignored Wave’s pleas to be released. Wave turned his head to Dash as she helped the other two push him.

“And Dash, why are you helping them?!” he asked desperately. Dash looked up and him and shrugged.

“Matchmaking with my idols? What fangirl doesn't do that?” Dash stated sarcastically. She really just wanted to help the two of them, but Wave’s flustered state was too much fun.

“You’re all insane!” Wave exclaimed as he put his hooves out and propped them against the frame of the closed door. “I’m not going in there!”

“Come on, you!” Fleetfoot giggled as she pushed her shoulder into his plot. “Get in there! And then get in HER! Hee hee!”

“No!” Wave shook his head as he held strong against the door frame.

“Come on, Wave!” Soarin joined Fleetfoot in pushing against him. “The sooner you get this over with the better off we’re all be!”

“Is anypony thinking about ME in this?!” Wave whined.

“No, we aren’t,” Silver’s voice suddenly came from behind them. He pushed Dash, Soarin, and Fleetfoot aside, while walking up beside Wave and yanking him off the door with his arm wrapped around Wave’s neck. Silver reached forward and opened the door. “Go in there and do her,” Silver said calmly as he tossed Wave into the room. “And don’t come out until you do,” Silver added as Wave tumbled to the floor.

Silver closed the door behind him and hooked his hoof in the door handle so it wouldn’t budge even if Wave tried to open it. He turned his head and looked to the other three, who all looked at him in disbelief.

“What? I was tired of it too.”

Wave frantically stood up and tried to open the door, but the handle didn’t budge, he was stuck in the room. Thankfully, the room wasn’t just one open space. It was a guest room that consisted of a short hallway that ran alongside a personal bathroom before one emerged in the main area with the bed and other furniture. So he couldn’t see Spitfire yet. He had a moment to collect his thoughts and figure out what to do.

There was no way he was getting out of the room, especially if Silver was the one holding the door shut. It would also be awkward as hell if he waited and she walked into the hall to suddenly find him just standing there like an idiot. What could he do?

Wave Chill took a quiet, deep breath.

No.

He didn’t have to do anything they suggested.

He cared about Spitfire. He cared about her more than he had anypony else in his life. Holding her in such high regard as his captain and his friend made him feel so embarrassed when all the awkward things began happening. He had to fix that first and foremost. It would be inappropriate anyway for her, as the captain, to partake in such activities with a fellow member of the team. It just wasn’t right.

So Wave decided that for her sake and his, that he would suck it up, walk in while giving her fair warning somepony was there, sit down with her, and straight up apologize. That was the best thing he could do, he needed to re-establish the relationship.

Of course, she was in heat… but she had already shown spectacular restraint. She would follow her moral code as much as he was. He just needed to clear things up before it got even more worse than it already was.

Wave took a moment to build up his courage before walking towards the main area of the room. The faint clip-clop clip-clop of his hooves could clearly be heard, but Spitfire made no contact. In fact, she had gone silent, no more stomping or anything.

Wave peeked around the corner of the short hall. One by one the contents of the room poured into his vision. It was in a bit of a mess. Spitfire had knocked over a lamp, the bed sheets and pillows had been thrown off the queen-sized bed. And sitting on the bed with her back turned to the hall… was Spitfire.

Wave felt a lump in his throat as his eyes landed on her. His confidence buckled but he held firm, forcing himself to swallow his anxiety as he raised a hoof and gently knocked on the wall.

Spitfire didn’t move or reply.

Wave tipped his head curiously, knocking his hoof on the wall a little harder.

Still no response.

Wave blinked and took a short breath before clearing his throat quietly.

“C-captain?” he said quietly.

Once again, he got nothing in return.

“Spitfire?” he said a little louder.

As she remained still and unresponsive, Wave gave up and stepped out into the room, slowly approaching her. He observed her body posture. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, but she was hunched over, her arms were wrapped around her stomach, and she was… shaking? Shivering? He couldn’t tell, but it looked like she needed some comfort and Wave’s instincts took over. He found himself moving towards her and coming around the bed, getting a view of her face. She was squinting hard, and grimacing, nearly grinding her teeth together as she shook lightly.

“Spitfire are you alr—”

“RrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRGHHHHAAAAAAAA!” Spitfire suddenly growled loudly, standing up from the bed quickly and stomping one hoof against the floor while clutching her abdomen with the other. Wave flinched hard and froze in place, not sure if he had done something he shouldn’t have.

He flinched again as Spitfire turned her head towards him, glaring fiercely while breathing heavily in through her teeth and out through her nose, making a loud hissing noise with each breath.

“Sp-Sp-C-Captain?” Wave had no idea what was going to happen.

“RRRRGGGHHH!” Spitfire suddenly lunged at him. Wave yelped as she pressed a hoof hard against his chest, pushing him all the way to the wall behind him. He fell onto his plot right before the wall, allowing her to push him up and force his back flat against the wall. She was only holding him with one hoof against his chest, but it was so heavy and strong, her whole body tensed as she glared at him.

She looked directly in his eyes as he stared back, terrified. She reached her other hoof up and pointed it at him.

“YOU!” she roared into his face. “MAKE… LOVE… TO ME!”

Art by: Foxenawolf

Wave’s eyes grew wider than softballs and his pupils shrank to the size of a breadcrumb, his ears folding backwards as he stared at her dumbly.

“Uh…” he said as he struggled to find any words. “Okay…?”

Spitfire grabbed him by the shoulders, and in a tremendous show of strength, picked him up without the help of leverage, spun around and threw Wave back first onto the bed.

“OOF!” he grunted as he bounced to a halt on the mattress. He opened his eyes in time to see Spitfire leap through the air and dive towards him. “OH GOD!”

Outside the room, Fleetfoot, Dash, and Soarin all had their ears to the door.

“WHOA! WHOAWHOAWHOAWWOOOOOWAAAAAAA!!!!!” Wave’s voice came from within.

The three glanced at each other and then glanced up at Silver as he casually removed his hoof from the door handle.

“AH! YIKES! SPITFIRE! HOLD ON! AIEEEEE! NIIIIIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIIHIHIHI!” Wave’s voice turned into a high pitched whinny and nicker.

The three all stepped away from the door at the exact same time and looked at each other with wide eyes and amused looks.

“About damn time,” Silver said as he made his way back over to the stairs.

“Damn!” Fleetfoot giggled as she put her ear back to the door. “Holy shit! Spitfire is WRECKING him in there!”

“Okay, we’ve done our part, time to leave them alone,” Soarin chuckled as he grabbed Fleetfoot’s shoulder and pulled her away from the door.

“But I wanna hear the schmoodlypooping!” Fleetfoot whined as she hiccupped and giggled.

“I think you need more cider,” Dash suggested as she reached up to help pull Fleetfoot away. Fleetfoot stopped resisting and turned to Dash while blinking continuously.

“That’s a great idea! I like you kid! We should totally hang out sometime!” Fleetfoot giggled and leaned into Dash.

Soarin and Dash glanced at each other, exchanging winks and chuckling to themselves as they more or less carried Fleetfoot back down to the party.

Soarin and Dash passed by Fire Streak as they walked back into the living room. He gave them a brief glance, since they were carrying Fleetfoot on their shoulders. Soarin shrugged at him as they past, earning a shrug in return from Fire as the two carried Fleetfoot into the center of the party.

“WOOHOO!!!!!” Fleetfoot yelled as she giggled, earning several responses of a similar manner from around the party. The two set her down and she immediately went to refill her mug. Soarin and Dash both stepped back and sighed in relief, looking around the party again.

It hadn’t died down one bit, in fact, more fun stuff was happening. Air Mach was on top of the CIDONATOR, striking poses with a cider mug in hoof and proclaiming many great feats of stallionness. Lightning Streak was walking around with a keg, refilling anypony’s cider mugs whether they asked him to or not. Thunderlane and Storm Front were over in a corner, exchanging stories about Ponyville mares. Both looked a little drunk, but they were laughing and jabbing each other as they spoke.

Dash poked Soarin and pointed towards the opposite corner. Soarin followed her arm to see Squall, still standing in the same corner, with Little Star on the top of his head, latched to him and nibbling on one of his ears while giggling, her face covered with a deep drunken blush as she occasionally let go and slid down his neck while yelling ‘wheeeee!’ before climbing back up and nomming on his ear again. Squall remained completely still as Star harassed him, looking mortified and feeling embarrassed as hell, but not doing anything to actually stop her.

Art by: Noble Savage

Matteo and Silver had returned to their bar seats, nursing their requested drinks. Blaze and High Winds were arguing about… something, and looking very drunk as they did so. They shouted back and forth over on a couch as a bunch of Wonderbolts surrounded them as if eager to see what would happen. Surprise had started a game of catch in the pool… only at some point Twister replaced the beach ball being used. He barely changed his expression as Surprise and a bunch of other Wonderbolts tossed Twister around the pool.

“WHOOOOAAAAAAA! WOOHOO!” a bunch of stallion voices came from back where Blaze and High Winds were. Soarin looked back to see Blaze and High Winds started angrily making out with each other. Of course all the stallions started cheering and all the mares rolled their eyes and quit the area.

“Squad Zero!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled as she picked up her new mug of cider and wobbly trotted over to them.

“This should be good,” Soarin whispered to Dash as they watched Fleetfoot approach them.

Rivet instantly hid behind Playbitz as while he was speaking to his just arrived wife. Rivet did his best to duck behind Playbitz and Bliss, but Fleetfoot saw him moving. Swift and Shine were both off to the side with Calm as he stood in the corner, looking too nervous to do anything besides stand like a giant statue. Both turned upon hearing Fleetfoot, but she was already ducking down and looking between Playbitz’s legs.

“Rivvvvvvvvvet! I see you!” she cooed as Rivet kept Playbitz and Bliss between him and Fleetfoot. The married couple chuckled as they saw watched Rivet easily elude the drunken Wonderbolt by simply moving as she did.

Eventually Fleetfoot stumbled and ended up going in the opposite direction. Rivet yelped as he predicted her movement wrong and slid directly beneath her… however, Fleetfoot seemed to miss him do so.

“Huh? Hey! Where’d he go?!” Fleetfoot said as she began to look around. Rivet remained still, looking directly up at her, realizing that she had no idea he was beneath her. He moved in sync with her as she turned, keeping his eyes trained on her chest as he matched her move for move. Squad Zero was trying their hardest not to burst out laughing and give Rivet away as he continued to successfully avoid her.

Eventually, when Fleet had her back turned, Shine Struck reached forward and yanked Rivet free from beneath Fleetfoot and passed him up to Swift’s back. Swift folded his wings over Rivet.

“Wow, little guy’s a ninja!” Fleetfoot giggled as she took another swig of her cider. She turned to Bliss. “Lady trainerrrrrrrr! Did you see where little Rivey went?” she asked, turning her back on Swift. Rivet popped his head out from beneath Swift’s wing, catching a glimpse of the orange pegasus that worked the mail room walking by. Rivet hopped from Swift onto the mail pony’s back.

“What the—?” The mail pony flinched.

“Shh! Just keep walking!” Rivet requested as the mail pony glanced back and saw Fleetfoot looking around.

“Ah, heh,” the mail pony shook his head as he gave Rivet safe passage to another side of the party away from Fleet.

“Well, if I can’t have the small pony…” Fleetfoot leaned against Playbitz. “Are you here alone?” she asked while giggling and letting a hiccup go. Bliss gave Fleetfoot a flat look and Playbitz awkwardly looked at his wife. Fleetfoot glanced at her and blinked. “Oh, right… you’re hitched, silly me! Hee hee!” she giggled as she took another swig, the drunken blush pretty clear on her face now as she wobbled around, smiling continuously. Her eyes landed on Calm in the corner. “Heeeeeeey!” she called out as she stumbled towards him.

“Oh no…” Calm blushed as Fleetfoot approached him, bumping into Swift and Shine as she stared up at him, batting her eyelashes.

“I remember yooouuuuuuuuu…” she said seductively as she poked Calm in the chest. He didn’t say anything, or move for that matter. “You’re that big, hunky pony I found! I know you’re available!”

“Uh…” Calm blushed while taking a step back, but there was already barely any space between him and the wall. Calm looked up at Swift and Shine desperately. Swift grinned, pointed at Fleetfoot, and made hip thrusting motions. Shine reached up and smacked Swift lightly upside the head as he chuckled.

Fleetfoot wobbled as she spread her wings and floated up, pressing her head roughly into Calm’s neck.

“C’mon, big guy! HIC I just wanna have some fun! Hee hee!” she giggled, and then yelped as she lost her balance and fell flat. Calm just stared at her before speaking.

“I think you’re a bit drunk…” he said nervously as she got up and leaned in against his leg.

“I’m only a little drunk drunk drunk drunk drunk…drunk… I think?” Fleetfoot giggled as her ears flopped up and down. She suddenly pulled herself around to Calm’s left side. He froze again as Fleetfoot suddenly started trying and failing to hop up on his back, close to his plot.

“What are you doing?!” he asked, remaining stiff as a statue.

“I WANNA RIDE THE BIG PONY!” she yelled as she gave one final effort, getting herself as far as resting across his back, holding onto his flank with one arm while raising her cider mug up with the other. “WOOO!!!!! I’M RIDING THE BIG PARTY PONY!”

Art by: Foxenawolf

Calm looked back forward, blushing in complete embarrassment as he looked towards his fellow squadmates.

“Can somepony please get her off of me?” he asked in a very sheepish tone.

Dash and Soarin were falling over each other laughing as Fleetfoot continued to harass the pony that was literally twice her size.

Calm Wind really was nervous! She didn’t expect it from a large pony like him. Either he wasn’t good with mares or in general didn’t do well at social gatherings.

As Soarin and Dash both stood up and smiled at each other again, Misty Fly suddenly trotted in front of them, looking in every direction with a confused expression. Dash and Soarin both noticed this and watched her as she moved around, looking through every group of ponies in the immediate area. She suddenly turned and saw Soarin and Dash looking at her. She trotted towards them immediately.

She stopped and focused on Soarin as she sat down and put both her hooves up. She held them about six inches from her chest and started moving them up and down in front of her in an alternating pattern while slightly shaking her hooves. She continued the motion while tipping her head to the side and looking distraught.

Dash watched the motions curiously before looking at Soarin. Soarin blinked, registering her motions before coming to a realization.

“Oh! Fire! She’s looking for Fire Streak!” Soarin exclaimed while turning to Dash. They both started glancing around, trying to help Misty with their search. Soarin tried to recall where he had seen Fire Streak last… and after a moment of pondering, he remembered that they passed Fire Streak in the hall while carrying Fleetfoot back into the party a few minutes prior. Soarin glanced towards the stairs, trying to figure out how to convey that to Misty through the sign language, but as his eyes moved away from the hall, they fixed on one of the windows outside, one that looked out the other side of the house opposite of the pool. There was a balcony on the second floor… and Fire Streak was standing on it, alone.

Soarin tapped Misty on the shoulder while smiling and nodding, before he pointed towards the window. Misty looked out… and the brightness that filled her eyes when she saw Fire was nothing short of adorable. She nodded to Soarin and quickly headed towards the stairs.

“I feel like we’ll be peeping…” Soarin explained to Dash as Misty left. “But… I kind of want to see this happen,” he said as he motioned towards the window. Dash looked up towards Fire Streak and realized what they were going to see.

“Ohmigosh… yes!” Dash flapped her wings eagerly. She had always liked Misty and Fire very much… and when she recently put together that the two of them possibly had feelings for each other? It made Dash squeal in a way that she’d have to kill anypony that heard… because that was too girly for her to do in public.

Soarin and Dash fixed their eyes on the balcony… wishing, and hoping, that Misty would finally get Fire to relax and see things how they were.

Fire sighed… for the millionth time. He felt like that’s all he had been doing on alone time for the past… month? Two months? He couldn’t even remember when it was things suddenly changed for him. He didn’t know when, but he certainly knew why.

This was nothing new. It was the same thoughts that had been occupying his head since Storm Front arrived. The way he saw somepony else do something he thought only he alone was capable of…

Communicate with Misty Fly.

How silly, how foolish, how daft… to get worked up over something so small. Something that made Misty happy. He was so shocked when he saw Storm ‘talk’ to Misty. Not because Storm knew the sign language, but because somepony could communicate with her just as well as he could… if not a little better! There was such an intense wave of emotion that ran through him at that moment. It was as if he suddenly felt challenged. Something that he felt made him unique was being tarnished, as ridiculous as it sounded.

And it was ridiculous! Storm Front wasn’t trying to steal his purpose or the trust he had earned with Misty! First off, Misty would never leave him behind. Second, Storm Front hadn’t done a fraction of what he had done for Misty.

And then when he snapped and exploded at Storm. It became completely clear.

It was pure frustration and greed. Misty was special, and the fact that only Fire could fully communicate with her made HIM feel special. He had lived so long as the only one with that honor and he didn’t want to share it.

Misty had given him many hints to how she felt about him. The way she always hugged him, the pure appreciation in her eyes every time he assisted her, and the peck on the cheek after he helped her recover from the pulse of dark magic that was forced through her. Misty had done nothing but show him that she cared about him as well, but he could only think of how another could possibly be his equal when it came to her. It was disrupting his morals and he was acting irrational… something that he felt ashamed of.

He could tell himself over and over again that it was improper, or that they were of different generations. He had come to a conclusion that had made it harder and harder for him to face her in the wake of his own morals.

He… cared about her. What? NO! He couldn’t even think about it without trying to change it! Why couldn’t he just accept it for what it was? Why all the shame? Why all the disappointment in himself? Why all of this over a mare? Well not just any mare, a mare he lo…

“Rrrrr…” Fire rested his arms on the railing of the balcony and let his head bump lightly against them. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with feeling that way or even THINKING it? Misty had always been an icon to him, all the way back to when he was a fresh new recruit who followed her around like a lost puppy. Sure, he was older now, but there would always be a bit of that lost puppy in him that remembered how much he respected and owed Misty. It was one of the reasons he helped her out so much. She deserved it for all she did for him.

There seemed to be more to it now. Or was it just now? Was it always like this but he didn’t have a reason to think about it until Storm showed up?

He had to stop thinking about Storm Front. The kid had nothing to do with this. All he did was talk to Misty because he could, nothing more.

Fire looked up into the night sky. It was a beautiful night, clear of clouds and the moon and stars shining brightly in the sky. It looked like a perfect night to go flying. He wouldn’t mind a nice long flight to clear his mind, but he didn’t just want to up and leave the party alone. He already more or less ditched the party by coming up to the balcony. There was some noise coming from one of the rooms he passed by, but other than that he was up there all alone.

Fire sighed… again and started looking back and forth, taking in the beauty of the starry night.

It was only a matter of time before somepony came looking for—

“AH!” Fire jumped as he turned his head to the left and saw somepony standing RIGHT beside him. He was startled, but looked directly into a pair of eyes that he had learned to read well over the years. “M-Misty!?” Fire said her name as he looked at her. Obviously she couldn’t hear him, but it was a knee-jerk response.

She didn’t even need to make signs. The look in her eyes, the slight tip in her head, her ears flopped a little, and the pout on her lips. She wanted to know what he was doing up here all by himself. He didn’t blame her. He did disappear from the party… while she was trying to stick with him. He didn’t know what to say to her. He was thinking the same things down in the party that he was up in the balcony. Only in the party, she was hugging him and leaning against him non-stop.

He didn’t make any signs. He just looked back out to the stars.

She even sought him out… no doubt she searched for him and maybe even asked other where he was. She really did care about him a lot.

Care, care, care, care, CARE. Why did he refuse to look beyond that word? There was a stronger word for it, but he was being stubborn within his own conscious. It was obvious and right in front of him, but he just couldn’t…

Misty released a long, heavy sigh beside him. Fire flinched. He knew that sigh, that was her ‘I’m annoyed’ sigh. If there was one thing he hated doing more than anything else, it was causing Misty any form of anger or frustration. Normally, he’d immediately turn to her and try to figure out what was wrong, but here, with how he was feeling, he found he couldn’t even face her to do that. And that stung… it really put a knot in his chest.

“Huh?” Fire flinched as Misty suddenly reached up and grabbed his arm. “WHOA!” he yelped as she roughly forced him to turn and look at her. She was glaring at him. She didn’t do it very often, but when she did, it always made him freeze. He did just that as he stared into her eyes.

She sat down while holding onto his arm, and pointed to the floor, instructing him to do the same. Fire gulped and without a moment’s hesitation, sat down. The two were very close. Only a few inches between them as they sat and faced each other.

Misty let go of his arm and looked into his eyes harshly. Normally, right now she would quickly make signs, but once again, something about this situation was much different… and seemed to become more and more different every moment. After the two looked at each other for a minute, Fire with his wide, worried eyes and Misty with her stern glare…

Misty slowly put up her hooves and extended her wings. Fire paid close attention as she began.

Misty tapped her right hoof to her chest. She followed the simple motion by clasping her hooves together over her heart while wrapping her wings around her waist. Then she reached her right hoof forward and lightly pressed her hoof against Fire’s chest.

Fire’s eyes went wide. His jaw hung down and shivers ran through his body.

He couldn’t say it to himself… or even think it…

So she said it first. Well… showed it first.

Fire’s mind raced in circles, caught completely off guard as Misty looked up into his eyes. The stern glare was gone from her eyes, replaced by a gentle, calm gaze filled with hope as she waited for an answer.

Fire jittered as he opened his wings slightly, his right hoof up and shaking as he tried to come up with something to say back. There was only ONE thing to say back, why was his body so confused? He felt like he wasn’t in control.

Misty smiled at him as she watched him struggle to begin his response, but the look in his eyes was one SHE knew well. Nervous and anxious… in Fire’s typical adorable way of bumbling over himself when something he wasn’t expecting hit him in the face. That’s all she needed to see.

She reached up and lightly put her hoof atop his shaking hoof. As soon as he felt her gentle touch, his hoof relaxed.

Misty flashed him a cute smile… before leaning in slowly and closing her eyes.

Before Fire could comprehend what was happening… there under the light of the moon and the shimmer of the stars… Misty’s lips were softly upon his.

Strangely, the exact opposite of what he expected happened. His body completely relaxed as if Misty’s gesture was the answer… the key to stopping all the ridiculous, idiotic thoughts that were constantly plaguing him over the past months.

Fire slowly closed his eyes and returned the kiss with equal softness.

Art by: Foxenawolf

It felt so good and so right. Fire went from wondering what was wrong with him to wondering why he hadn’t done it all sooner.

His idiotic brother was right… as much as he didn’t want to admit it, Lightning Streak was damn right.

Fire and Misty slowly pulled apart from each other, both lightly blushing after thoroughly enjoying their first kiss together. All doubt and nerve had disappeared from Fire’s face as he stared down into Misty’s eyes. Misty had one of the biggest smiles on her face that Fire had ever seen. If there was one thing that made him happier than anything else, it was seeing Misty happy. And she looked happier than ever before, making his heart swell with delight.

Fire’s body moved smoothly, free from the stiffness and the shaking as he proceeded to return the same motions Misty gave him. He spoke each word out loud as he did. She couldn’t hear him, but he wanted to hear himself say it.

He tapped his hoof against his chest.

“I.”

He clasped his hooves together over his heart, wrapping his wings around his waist.

“Love.”

He reached forward and lightly pressed his hoof to her chest.

“You.”

He smiled.

“Misty Fly.”

Misty’s smile grew even brighter, if it was even possible. She instantly leaned forward and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly around the neck as she rested her chin on his shoulder, tipping her head towards him to firmly nuzzle him lovingly.

This was the closest and the most intimate Fire had ever been with another pony… and the only pony he would ever want to feel against him in such a way was the mare hugging him right now. He wrapped an arm around her back, bringing the other one up to the back of her head and lightly pressing it into her mane.

Leave it to Misty Fly… leave it to her, once again, to help him find his way when he was lost.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that has made me feel better…” Soarin said as he and Dash subtly watched from the window below. Dash leaned into Soarin and he put his arm around her. She nestled herself comfortably against him.

“Anything related to Misty Fly makes me feel good,” Dash explained. “Forget becoming a recruit squad Wonderbolt… THIS just made my night,” she chuckled as Soarin rubbed her opposite shoulder.

Soarin smirked as he looked around the party. Things were still going nuts, but it looked like a few ponies had had their fill and were settling down. The pool had cleared out, cider becoming the new priority as the party became exclusively in the living room and kitchen. Everypony was still in the area merging with the crowd that came from the pool outside. Water was being tracked into the house, but Soarin had a feeling that Fleetfoot didn’t care since there was already cider spilled on the floor in more than one place.

Blaze and Winds were still eating each other’s faces on the couch. Silver and Matteo were both done drinking but still at the bar. Storm and Thunderlane were still laughing about mares. Squall had sat down on a couch with Little Star still clinging to him. Lightning Streak and Air Mach were still drinking. Surprise was walking around covered in towels to dry off from the pool. Soarin couldn’t see Twister anywhere, but, as Dash had told him, Twister was known for that and was most likely up to some mischief.

Soarin held in a laugh as Calm hovered by, cradling a passed out Fleetfoot in his arms. She was sound asleep, but had her arms wrapped around his neck. Calm’s face was bright red with embarrassment as multiple stallions whistled and cheered as he glided by with her, looking for a place to lay her down and let her sleep. Swift and Shine were following close behind him, snickering and getting quite a kick out of the flustered state of their large wingmate.

“Well, the hostess is down for the count,” Soarin chuckled as he saw Calm turn past the stairs with Fleetfoot towards a guest room on the ground floor. He leaned towards Dash’s ear. “I dunno about you… but I’m thinking of getting to bed too…” he waited as Dash caught on and looked up at him while lifting an eyebrow. “If you know what I mean…” Soarin added while bouncing his eyebrows.

“Oh, do I ever…” Dash cooed seductively as she wiggled from his grip and took two steps towards the hall while putting an extra swing in her plot. “By the way, you should feel honored… this plot is officially high quality Wonderbolt plot,” Dash said as she stopped and gave him a little wiggle. Soarin snorted, a puff of smoke shooting from his nostrils.

“Gimme!” he said in a very low tone as he started moving after her. Dash turned and poked him in the chest as he advanced towards her.

“Let’s get upstairs first, big shot!” she chuckled as the two made their way towards the stairs.

Together the two managed to craftily sneak up the stairs without drawing any attention to themselves. They reached the top, both giving each other multiple looks of pleasure as they moved. Then, Soarin suddenly stopped as he looked towards the room Spitfire and Wave Chill were in. Only… there wasn’t a peep coming from it. Complete silence.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up,” Soarin snickered as he tip-hoofed towards the door.

“What are you doing?” Dash whispered while chuckling. She flinched, but couldn’t stop giggling when Soarin reached for the door handle. “Soarin!” she held back a laugh.

“It’s quiet in there! I gotta see this!” he held in his snickers as he quietly entered the room. Against her better judgment and for the sake of curiosity, Dash followed close behind him.

Only some of the lights were on in the room, making it dimmer, but still bright enough to see. The two advanced around the corner and peered over at the bed. Soarin held his hoof out to stop Dash as his eyes landed on Spitfire, asleep on the bed… but where was Wave?

Soarin and Dash moved as quietly as they could as they inched their way towards the bed.

“Hmmmm…” Spitfire released a happy sigh. Soarin and Dash froze as Spitfire suddenly turned over, but remained asleep. There was an incredibly content smile on her lips as she slept. Soarin blinked as he noticed something odd about the mattress. He leaned up to see… and instantly threw a hoof over his mouth and held his breath, forcing down the urge to burst out laughing.

Dash looked at Soarin, confused. Soarin pointed at the mattress beside Spitfire. She followed his motions, leaning up to get a better look at the mattress.

Wave was there alright… but his body had been ENTIRELY physically pressed into the mattress as if he were a part of it. Stuck so deep it looked like they would need a crowbar to pry him out. He was belly up and asleep as well, with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Thankfully, his chest was moving, confirming Spitfire didn’t actually kill him.

Art by: PhonicBoom

Dash, like Soarin, found herself nearly brought to tears as she tried as hard as she could to stifle her laughter.

Soarin quickly pointed towards the door and the two scampered out of the room as fast and as quietly as possible. As soon as they were out the door, Soarin closed it behind them and the two dove into the room across from it, absolutely cracking up as they dove through the door and rolled on the floor.

“DUDE!” Dash spoke up as they laughed. “SHE LIKE… STEAMROLLED HIM!” she said as she clutched her stomach.

“Wave felt her wrath in the best way possible!” Soarin added, his face hurting from how hard he had to hold his breath.

The two laughed to their hearts’ content before eventually rolling over and smiling at each other. This had been one hell of a fun night.

“Oh, look!” Dash pointed out the window behind Soarin. He turned and looked just in time to see Misty Fly and Fire Streak fly by, side by side, leaving the party behind to go flying together.

“Aw…” Soarin cooed as he watched the new couple fly away. “You know what that reminds me of?” Soarin asked Dash as he stood up.

“What?” Dash rose up with him. Soarin got really close to her face.

“When the two of us escaped from the Royal Ball a number of months ago,” Soarin reminded her while bouncing his eyebrows. He watched as Dash thought it over, shooting smug smile back at him.

“Oh yeah, the night where I stole the show on the dance floor,” she said while rubbing a hoof against her chest before blowing on it.

“Says the pony I was leading,” Soarin shot back lightly pressing his nose against her cheek.

“Haha!” Dash chuckled as she pushed him away. “Are you implying you’re more awesome than me?” she challenged as she wiggled her body like a cat waiting to pounce.

“Why imply the truth? I tell it as it is!” he taunted while learning his head down sideways.

“Then you face my wrath!” Dash yelled playfully as she leapt up, pouncing on Soarin’s back and biting one of his ears.

“Now that we agree I’m awesome, let’s get to the bed over here…” Soarin said casually as Dash clung to his back and gnawed on his head. Dash looked up, realizing the room they were in was much… fancier than the room Spitfire and Wave Chill were in. It definitely didn’t look like a guest room. From the hallway, one walked directly into a resort-esque bathroom what had a large mirror and two sinks in the center, a nice walk-in shower, and a whirlpool tub. Then there were two hallways extending from it. One was a simple hallway, the other turned into a large walk-in closet that had lots of dresses and other very fashion heavy outfits. So many that it would make Rarity blush. On the other side of the halls was a very large bed, flanked by two night stands, each with a fancy digital clock and the patio doors that led out to the balcony Fire and Misty were standing on moments prior. Dash eventually put it all together.

“Soarin, is this… Fleetfoot’s room?” she asked as she looked around. It seemed obvious, and the thought was amusing.

“Yep!” Soarin joked as he bounced, pushing Dash off his back and into the air as she yelped in surprise. Soarin turned, caught her, and tossed her onto the big cushy bed. Dash landed softly on the lavender comforter. Looking up at Soarin as he made his way around the bed.

“We’re gonna have some fun… on Fleetfoot’s bed?” she said trying to hold in snickers.

“That’s the plan!” Soarin said as he hopped up on the bed and slowly made his way towards Dash.

“You know…” she said as she turned and reclined in a seductive pose. “That’s a real asshole move… but I’m all for it!” Dash smiled as Soarin reached for her. “But I don’t think so!” Dash grabbed his arm and yanked him towards her as she rolled up.

“Whoa! OOF!” Soarin grunted as he lost control and crashed into the mattress, rolling to a stop on his back. The next thing her knew, Dash was on top of him and grinning triumphantly.

“Haven’t I told you a thousand times by now? I’m on top!” Dash sneered down at him. Soarin blinked before returning her smarmy expression back at her.

“Oh, of course…” his expression faded, reverting to a simple, yet romantic grin. “Actually… it’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to do… this,” Soarin said while looking up at her, his eyes full of love as opposed to lust. Dash immediately saw the look in his eyes, the warm feeling only he could conjure slowly flowing into her body.

“Yeah, it has been a long time…” her smile resembled his: Confident, yet calm, and loving. The two remained still for a few moments as they simply took in each other’s eyes, enjoying a kind of moment they hadn’t shared in a very long time.

“It’s been quite a wild ride, hasn’t it?” Soarin broke the silence. “I… or rather… we’ve been dealing with all this stupid magic business,” Soarin glanced up at his horn. “And you’ve been busy training your ass off… which it definitely shows by the way,” he said while lightly rubbing his hoof against her arm to her chest. He smiled as he saw Dash grin at his words. To any other mare, a comment about her musculature would seem weird. Dash was definitely not like other mares, and Soarin knew exactly the type of compliments that made her happy.

“It has,” she agreed as she kept staring into his eyes. “You’re a real pain in the ass… but, you’re the best kind of ass pain,” she said while tapping her hoof against his chest.

“Better get used to that pain,” Soarin winked, earning a chuckle from Dash.

“Oh, I know it’s there to stay. Bring it on, I ain’t no sissy,” Dash proclaimed while whipping her mane around.

“Nope… you most certainly aren’t,” Soarin agreed as the two locked eyes once again. As much as both of them wanted to get to the fun part, they both missed this as well… Simply enjoying the presence of the other, completely free of distraction or deadline. It was their own little paradise.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“You know,” Soarin spoke up again. “For a mare that doesn’t care too much about beauty… you are damn beautiful.”

“Eh…?” Dash felt the blood rush to her face, blushing a little as Soarin sweet talked her. “Oh… shut up… no I’m not,” she tried to deflect, but it only made Soarin chuckle.

“Don’t play dumb, Dashie,” he teased. “I think you secretly like compliments like that,” he continued as he smirked sinisterly at her. Her face turned redder.

“Quit it! I’m not beautiful!” Dash pouted and glared at him.

“Are you gonna argue with the stallion that loves you on this subject?” Soarin posed to her. Dash blinked and furrowed her brow.

“No, I’m gonna question the dumbass who’s talking to me like some… I mean… you… but…” Dash gritted her teeth as she failed to reply smoothly. “Oh… screw it! Come here, you sexy piece of stallion!”

Soarin was ready and waiting as Dash slid up on his body and plunged her lips down against his. Her arms found their way around his neck as he instantly wrapped his around her body, pulling her in tight to his.

It wasn’t soft or gentle. It was an attack, one that Soarin welcomed as Dash unleashed what was clearly a lot of pent up passion for him. Not wanting to miss out on Dash’s heightened state of aggression, Soarin quickly slid a hoof up to the back of Dash’s head, pushing her head down. Soarin kissed her back as his extra push forced their mouths to overlap, their tongues quickly joining the fun as they rubbed and slid them around each other’s mouth.

“Ahh!” Dash released Soarin for a moment, taking in a sharp breath before attacking him passionately again. Soarin chuckled beneath Dash lips at her incredible drive. He thought he was having a hard time not being able to interact with her. Dash was coming at him like she hadn’t seen him in years! She was kissing him roughly and sloppily with a hunger for him unlike any other. Soarin gladly let her have her fill of him, but soon he decided to take over.

As Dash came up for air for a fifth time, Soarin reached up and grabbed her by the shoulders before forcing the two of them to roll to his left, stopping when Dash was pinned beneath him.

“Hey! I wasn’t finished with you!” she whined as she pouted at him.

“Too bad,” Soarin said while bouncing his eyebrows. Dash smirked and tried to move, but she couldn’t overcome Soarin’s strength. She bit her lip as his arm, chest, and shoulder muscles flexed and tensed while preventing her from moving.

“Only you can piss me off with something I find incredibly sexy,” she batted her eyelashes at him seductively. Soarin lowered himself down on top of her gently, his eyes remaining locked on hers.

“Trust me, I know all the tricks,” Soarin said as he reached beneath her head and propped her head up with his hooves.

“Show me all of them, Stud Muffin!” Dash encouraged.

“All in due time,” Soarin chuckled as he brought his lips down onto hers while pushing on the back of her head again. They were once again lip locked, this time with Soarin on top. They kissed with incredible passion and vigor, tipping their heads back and forth to kiss from every possible angle as they shared the taste of each other’s mouths again, again, and again.

During a moment they parted to take a breath, Soarin forced her body up and slid the two of them back, forcing Dash’s back up against the headboard. She grunted as she was put roughly against the head of the bed, but licked her lips as Soarin heavily pressed himself into her, releasing a slow, low vibration from the back of his throat that resembled a growl as he their heated breath crashed against each other’s face.

Soarin was nearing beast mode and that’s exactly what Dash wanted.

The kissing ceased for a moment as the focus turned to each other’s bodies. Dash gasped as Soarin leaned down and licked her stomach, planting kisses from her abdomen all the way up her body to her chest, to her neck, up the side of her face and ending with a rough, but playful bite on her ear.

“Nnnngggg…” Dash moaned while shivering and rubbing her hooves around and over his back muscles, arching her back so her body pushed against his. With her back arched, it gave her wings room to breathe as they twitched and jittered with every move Soarin made up and down her body.

Soarin’s eyes caught the movement of Dash’s wings and he knew exactly what to do. He slid his hooves around her back until he found the spot sensitive spots right beside her shoulders and wing joints. Usually, he approached them softly, but not this time. He pressed and rubbed them hard.

“AHH! AH! AH! AH!” Dash cried out as her wings flared out from beneath her. “Oooohhhh, SOARIN!” she squeaked and exhaled loudly while blushing brightly and thrusting her body up into his so hard that he grunted from the impact. Her hooves stopped rubbing his body and instead clutched tightly to him digging hard into his fur as she tried squeezed him as hard as she could. He knew all her weaknesses and not only did he love exploiting them, she loved it when he exploited them. Her eyes squeaked open as she tried to contain the shocks of pleasure that ran through her as Soarin absolutely destroyed the sweet spots on her back. The incredibly confident sneer on his face mixed with exploiting her soft spots and the uncontested dominant position he had on her all just drove her completely wild.

Soarin was a force. A force like a hurricane that she couldn’t stop once she provoked him. It was almost too much, she adored it. She loved being in control of things, but with Soarin… the way he took control after she egged him on was so strong and fast. She always put up a fight, but once overpowered she couldn’t get enough of it.

The best part was she knew the passion and desire went both ways.

Soarin was driven wild by Dash in general. Her confidence, her strength, her sassiness… her passion to improve, her radiant rainbow mane, her fit, buff body. There was no other mare like her in all of Equestria and she was his.

He adored the fact that he had to fight her and overpower her before he could really dive in and appreciate her. It was one thing for a mare to go limp and let a stallion have his way, but to Soarin it was much sexier when the mare put up a fight for dominance. It made it so much more satisfying when he finally had Dash pinned and she smirked up at him in a way that was just inviting him to claim his reward for the struggle. Dash was a fighter. The kind of fighter that wouldn’t back down until she had done everything she could to emerge victorious. He got an edge early this time, but most of the time it took a while before he had her thoroughly pinned. She made him work for the chance to do as he pleased with her, but he loved that. Dash was worth the struggle. Soarin had a thing for strong, tough mares, and Dash was as strong and tough as they came.

“AH!” Dash yelped, removing her hooves from Soarin and pushing her arms out to force his hooves off her back. She slid down off the headboard and back onto the mattress while panting short, quick breaths and blushing madly. Soarin eased up as she let her hooves fall to her sides limply and caught her breath. “Sorry, I… needed a break… it was too much…” she said between breaths as her body shivered with absolute glee.

“Take your time, babe. We’ve got all night,” Soarin assured her as he removed himself from her for a moment.

“Hey! Get back down here!” Dash ordered as she remained sprawled out. Soarin lifted his brow, the confident eyes and expression remaining strong as he backed away.

“I’ll be right back, just gotta make sure the door is locked,” he winked as he got up, cracked his neck and walked with a strut and his chest puffed out. He felt pretty damn good, that was for sure. Feeling like a real alpha male as he approached the door to Fleet’s room, checked to make sure it was closed all the way before turning the lock, assuring their privacy.

He turned right back around, walking in the same manner back towards the bed, but doing so with a slightly quicker pace. He was away from Dash for only a few seconds and he wanted so badly to get right back to her.

She was right where he left her, on her back and looking towards him. She bit her lip and released a low moan of pleasure as she watched him walk towards her with so much strength and confidence in his movements.

Soarin got back up on the bed and slowly slid himself towards her, putting himself right back into position above her.

“I love you, Dashie,” he said instinctively as he slowly leaned in. She clearly saw what was coming because her eyes fluttered closed and she lightly puckered her lips. Soarin softly pressed his lips to hers, giving her a dose of the gentle, yet passionate love she had grown very fond of, a double dose of satisfaction after having just gone through the rougher side of the fun. She sighed and cooed while shaking her body lightly all over as their lips released. Soarin smirked as he saw her full body reaction. Damn, Dash really liked it when he did that.

“I love you too, Soarin,” she said while reaching up and wrapping her arms around his neck.

The two stared at each other once again, this time with quite a bit more passion and desire than when they started. After a few moments, Dash inhaled sharply before exhaling and giving Soarin a very seductive gaze, lightly blushing.

Soarin knew that look. Oh, he knew that look well and seeing it made his wings twitch madly.

“I think,” Dash said while reaching a hoof up and lightly biting it while keeping her eyes on him. “It’s about time,” she said with a quiet growl. She turned over on her stomach and wiggled her plot at him. “I’m all yours.”

“YES,” Soarin said as his nostrils flared and his wing flapped twice. But he stopped for a moment and blinked. “I’m surprised, Dashie. No fight for who’s on top?”

“Shut up and get to it!” she ordered while whipping him in the face with her tail. Soarin winced as her tail snapped against his nose before he smiled and licked his lips.

“Yes ma’am!”

The party went on through the night and the Wonderbolts celebrated to their hearts’ content. If only it were a time to celebrate for all those in Canterlot, because it most certainly was not that time in Canterlot Castle.

Princess Luna stood on the tower balcony of the castle, looking out over Canterlot. She could hear the sounds of celebration and music coming from Fleetfoot’s house, even see it from where she stood. Her eyes remained locked on the party house in the distance as she remained in deep thought, thinking over many things that she carried on her shoulders, and despite her push to be more confident, wondering if she was doing the right things. She told herself again and again not to second guess her decisions, but it seemed impossible for her to make a single choice without wondering if it was what her sister would do.

The sound of flapping wings and four hooves landing came from behind her, catching her attention. Luna glanced over her shoulder at the pony, but he was hidden from the moonlight in the shadow of the awning over the balcony door. Luna looked back out towards Fleetfoot’s house.

“So,” she began. “How did thou fair tonight?” she asked.

“They gave us quite a fight tonight,” the pony in the shadow spoke in a deep voice. “But as usual, we were able to repel them before they even got close to the city,” the pony explained.

“Splendid,” Luna acknowledged him in a rather unenthusiastic tone. The pony remained silently in the shadow for a moment.

“Luna, how much longer are we going to wait?” he suddenly asked Luna shook her head.

“As long as possible,” she replied simply.

“For?”

Luna remained quiet. Why? Because she didn’t have an answer. At least not yet. The pony growled in frustration.

“Not even we can hold them back forever,” he stated harshly. “Sooner or later, the Wonderbolts will have to get involved. It’s only a matter of time before he grows tired of the failures and launches an all-out attack.”

“We…” Luna tried to speak up, but again she had nothing to say.

“This is a warning, Luna,” the pony snapped at her. “If we wait too long, the Wonderbolts will find out the hard way,” the pony turned and spread his wings. “Our contract states that we follow your orders. But it doesn’t mean we have to like them. Consider your options well, Luna,” the pony said as he lifted off and disappeared into the night.

Luna said nothing else as the pony left as suddenly as he came. She stared back out towards Fleetfoot’s house again, taking in the pony’s words, but torn on what the right choice going forward would be.

“He’s right you know…”

Luna flinched, but quickly calmed down as Discord floated up in front of her from below the balcony. Luna sighed and looked away from Discord.

“We know,” she admitted. Discord crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow.

“Then what’s stopping you?” he asked. Luna looked down, then straight up into the night sky.

“If the situation can still be salvaged through our current efforts, then a lot of fighting will be avoided. Should I make choice now… it may affect the lives of hundreds of thousands here in Canterlot. We just don’t know if we…” Luna trailed off, turning and looking back into the observatory from the balcony. Specifically, she looked towards a large tapestry of Celestia and herself, a painting they received thousands of years ago, long before Celestia was forced to make the very difficult choice of banishing her possessed little sister to the moon. “If… I am prepared to make such a choice.”

“If I were you,” Discord cut in, hiding his surprise that Luna dropped the old Canterlot speech if only for a moment. “I’d act soon,” he said as he began floating away. “The barrier I put in Soarin’s head won’t last forever. Do you want to risk his dark power running wild in the middle of a conflict?” Discord smirked as he saw Luna blink and her ears stand up. “Forgotten all about that, have you?” he chuckled. “Keep your head on a swivel Lulu…” he said as his head made a full 360 degree turn. “We have more than a few problems on our plate!”

He disappeared.

---END OF PART 2---

Rainbow Dash has survived recruit training, learned many valuable lessons under the wing of Silver Lining, and taken her next step towards fulfilling her lifelong dream.

She has made many new friends, all of whom she has learned much about and is excited to work with.

She now also has direct access to Soarin, something both of them have been longing for since their love for each other began.

Soarin’s magic has been a cause for great concern. Discord has given him a temporary fix, but how much longer will it last? When the barrier comes down, will Soarin be in control?

How will events unfold from here?

What’s with all the secrets the gods are keeping from the ponies… as well as themselves?

What happened to Celestia?

What is going on in the shadows where no other pony can see?

Are Soarin, Rainbow Dash, and the Wonderbolts prepared for what the future holds?

We shall all see…

As the story continues in:

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

Piercing the Heavens Part 3: Shadows of Fading Wonder

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

It... is... done... *collapses in a heap on the floor*

Oy... so much writing... but so worth it.

Lets give a big round of applause to three people...

Foxenawolf for the in chapter art.

Scootafail for the awesome teaser image for the next part.

And Kestrel for editing both these behemoth chapters THE SAME DAY i sent them to him.

And now i can officially say...

WE ARE HALFWAY THROUGH THE STORY.

And what a long adventure it has been...

So Wave finally got in bed with Spitfire... or rather... Spitfire more or less destroyed him xD

Misty Fly and Fire Streak finally got together, dispelling Fire's doubt.

What a fun party! Yes, i'm actually capable of NOT derailing happy times! i bet you all thought something catastrophic was gonna happen ;D

But it looks like Dash, Soarin, and the Wonderbolts are NOT out of the fire yet... what was that last scene all about? hmmmmmmm?

Oh i WONDER :trollestia:

Unfortunately... you're all gonna be waiting for a bit.

I DESPERATELY need a break. i've been writing non stop for the past month and beyond.

I'm going to take a 2-3 week break. before i start on part 3. I really need it, please understand. the last thing i want to happen is me become sick of writing this story. i must let my brain rest so i can come back fresh and ready to bring the story :rainbowdetermined2:

That being said, i also want to thank EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU. Reader, lurker, commenter, friend, whatever, it doesn't matter... you have all been such wonderful people and i couldn't ask for better support. i look forward to writing for you all once again when my little vacation here is over.

I'll still be around the site though, so don't worry about me disappearing :scootangel:

Thanks for reading!

I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 71 (Part 3: Shadows of Fading Wonder)

“The barrier weakens,” a male voice echoed in Soarin’s head.

“You cannot win,” a female voice replied.

Soarin stirred in his sleep.

“You already tried once… it almost destroyed him,” the male voice said smugly.

“I did what I had to do to stop you,” the female voice replied.

Soarin winced and shifted. These voices… in his head, again.

“And are you willing to take that risk again?” the male voice asked. “What can you possibly hope to accomplish? You only have a fraction of your power here.”

“If I had all of it, it would rip him apart,” the female voice explained without wavering.

Soarin was getting tired of these conversations… who were these voices and why were they in his head?

“Then you have lost,” the male voice proclaimed. “In your current state, you can’t hold me forever.”

“Your full power unleashed would do the same to him,” the female voice remained calm.

“His life is insignificant,” the male voice retorted.

Who’s life? His? Soarin’s? He didn’t like this.

“Is it now?” The female voice took over with a confident scoff. “You are a fool.”

“I insist that you give me more reasons to hate you,” the male voice jeered.

“He only lives because of your power…” the female voice explained. “And you only continue to exist because he is a vessel. Without him, you are just as dead as he is without you.”

A long silence began, neither of the voices speaking for a minute.

“The ruffian learns his place,” the female voice said, claiming the smug tone for herself.

“Bite your tongue, witch!” the male voice snapped back. “I will find a way! Just like I found a way to challenge you! Don’t underestimate me!”

“My, my… always so hostile. You will never change… and you will never win,” the female voice added snidely.

“Rggggh!” the male voice growled.

Soarin suddenly felt a pang of discomfort in his head. That was the last straw.

“Who the hell are you two?!” Soarin yelled out.

“He… can hear us?” the male voice spoke as if surprised.

“Soarin?” Came a new voice. “Soarin are you alright?” It was Rainbow Dash’s voice.

“Ah!” Soarin shot up in bed.

“Soarin?! What’s wrong?” Dash reached up and grabbed his arm as he grunted uncomfortably.

Soarin’s head was throbbing, he was sweating, and as soon as he felt Dash’s grip he reached his opposite hoof over and clasped it.

“RGH!” he gritted his teeth and strained his thoughts. Two small, blue sparks fired from fake horn with loud CRACKLES before the energy released was pulled back into the horn and Soarin’s eyes flashed blue briefly. “Haaaa, ow…” Soarin panted as he released his grip on Dash’s hoof and pressed it lightly against his head beside the horn.

“That… didn’t look very fun…” Dash commented as she bit her lip and looked Soarin over.

Soarin opened his eyes as he caught his breath and looked about the room. He was still in Fleetfoot’s house, specifically in her room (and bed) with Dash. Light was barely poking through the windows, signaling the sun had just barely risen. It was the morning after the party and… based on what happened the night before Soarin had gotten a very good night’s sleep up until the last moments.

“No… it definitely wasn’t…” Soarin said as he blinked and shook his head out, feeling slightly dizzy after getting the magic under control.

The small, brief display of instability in Soarin’s magic was obviously concerning to Dash. She recalled Soarin saying something about a ward being placed to keep it at bay.

“I thought you said the magic was under control?” Dash said, while pondering what she saw. Soarin nodded.

“It has been… that’s the first little twinge of discomfort I’ve had in a while,” Soarin explained. “Discord said something about the ward being only temporary. I guess it might be weakening…” Soarin glanced down at Dash and saw the concern in her eyes, to be perfectly honest, he hated that look on her. He much preferred her usual look of confidence. “By the way, good morning,” he tried changing the subject while pulling her face into his chest.

“MRPH!” Dash squeaked in surprise before pushing herself off and glaring at him “Nice try, wise guy… You’re not telling me something,” she said while looking at him skeptically.

Soarin could tell that he wasn’t going to lead her away from the subject. Classic stubborn Dashie. But the last thing he wanted to do was only give her the strange news… so he figured he’d give her the full rundown of her recent dreams.

“Well…” he began as he backed up against the head board.

“Yes?” she prodded as she grabbed the sheet of the bed, wrapped it around herself tightly, and leaned into his chest while listening carefully.

“Been having odd dreams lately,” he started.

“This seems awfully familiar,” she added before he could go further. Soarin shook his head.

“The situation here maybe, but not with what’s been happening,” he clarified. In the past the two of them had discussed dreams the magic was causing, specifically the morning after the Royal Ball about half a year ago, but thankfully the dreams now were much less terrifying, much more strange… or heartwarming. “I don’t quite know how to describe it. I’m having reoccurring dreams again, but this time they’re either strange or… amazing,” he explained.

“Strange first,” Dash demanded while pouting at him from his chest. Soarin chuckled at how she didn’t even ask if he wanted to talk about it. He couldn’t say no to Miss Sassy Pants here anyway.

“Voices in my head,” Soarin said while tapping his hoof against her forehead.

“What?” Dash blinked, not expecting that answer. “Voices?”

“Voices,” Soarin repeated. “And to be honest, they are starting to get on my nerves… I’ve had five dreams now where two voices are bickering in my head and it’s annoying.”

“That’s… weird… and a bit scary,” Dash cringed at the thought. Soarin chuckled as he wrapped his arms around her.

“You wanted the strange first, didn’t you? Want to hear the even weirder part?” he asked.

“It gets better?” Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“The argument is always different… as if it’s ongoing. It’s not a recurring dream. It feels like I’m hearing two voices that decided to take up space in my head…”

“Think it’s related to the magic?” asked Dash.

“I’m positive,” Soarin nodded. “And… this last dream I yelled at them…”

“No shit,” Dash giggled. “You yelled right into my ear,” she said while bopping her head lightly against him.

“I did? Heh, whoops…” he shrugged. “But…” he paused. “One of them reacted when I did.”

Dash shifted all the way around so she could look up at him with plenty of space to see his whole face.

“Please tell me you’ve talked to Luna about this?” she asked more than a bit worried after hearing that. Soarin rolled his eyes.

“You have one guess as to what I got out of her when I did,” he said sarcastically. Dash thought for a moment before flattening her brow.

“Absolutely nothing?” she asked. Soarin nodded reluctantly. Dash released a long, drawn-out sigh as she slowly leaned back against Soarin’s chest. “You’d think with how much we’re involved, Luna would give us some more… I dunno… insight into the whole damn thing?!” she said with frustration while angrily, lightly bopping her head against his chest again. Soarin grunted and held his arms down tight against her to make her stop.

“Believe me, I’m just as tired of it. What’s worse is that even Luna is having things kept from her by Discord. He’s trying to teach her a lesson about being secretive and I’m the one dealing with it all,” Soarin grumbled.

“Okay, enough strange, it’s only making me grumpy. Tell me the amazing dreams now,” she demanded, trying to get her mind off some of the stuff regarding Soarin’s troubles that really put her off. He was important to her, more than anything in the world… and the gods were doing a shitty job at helping him overcome something that was very life-altering. She had every reason to be miffed. This was her stallion, her Soarin that was in the mix of all their crap.

“I will gladly tell you about those…” Soarin’s voice suddenly showed a hint of caring as Dash felt his grip on her tighten slightly in a gentle loving squeeze.

She blushed and puffed her cheeks out. She was a little put off from the first topic, the sudden shift to lovey-dovey was a bit too sudden for her, but she wasn’t going to complain. It felt good, it always did with him.

“I’ve had multiple dreams involving the two of us lately as well,” Soarin began. Dash’s ears perked up. Coincidently, she had been having dreams about him, but she let him continue. “Quite a lot of them actually… some have been very heartwarming,” he said with a content sigh.

Dash nestled herself into his body, getting comfortable. She had a feeling she was going to like these. It was smart of Soarin to talk about these second because she needed a good mood lifter after finding more reasons to be miffed at how the handling of Soarin’s magic was going.

“Heh, I can remember them all clearly… I think my favorite was the night before last… the two of us were chasing each other through the clouds of the night sky… we were laughing and having all sorts of fun...”

Dash blinked and her ears pointed upward as Soarin kept going.

“After lots of roughhousing, and tickling we ended up having a very nice cuddling session on a soft cloud… I’ve had lots like that, but that one was my favorite so f—”

“When did you say you had that dream?” Dash cut him off, startling Soarin as she quickly removed her head from his chest to look at him.

“Uh… the night before… why?” he asked. She just stared at him blankly for a moment with her eyes wide. “Dash…?”

“Soarin… I had that exact same dream that night…”

Neither said another word for a few moments, remaining silent as the sudden bit of peculiar info sunk in. They had the exact same dream on the exact same night? That sounded like something cliché out of a romance novel. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it? That was impossible.

“Have you had any other dreams?” Dash suddenly asked as she thought about some of the dreams she had had over the course of her time at the compound with Soarin. “Ones that you remember vividly? That included me?”

Soarin was actually thinking about it before she even asked. There was one specific dream that instantly came to mind. It was one that scared him, but it did include her.

“I had one dream back during our little stretch of not talking to each other,” Soarin winced, not too happy to bring up their short period of disagreement, but he had to know. “It was a complete recreation of the moment you, Spitfire, and Celestia saved me in the hospital… only…”

“We lost you,” Dash cut in as he paused. “I had the exact same dream back then. I woke up terrified, sweating, and my heart beating like crazy!” Dash shivered against him as she remembered. “Watching you be consumed by the dark, it… was horrible,” her voice squeaked slightly as it struggled to stay strong. She waited for Soarin to answer, but he didn’t. “Soarin?” she looked up at him.

He looked incredibly confused.

“That’s interesting… in my dream… you were the one who got consumed,” Soarin revealed.

The two went silent again. Trying to figure out what was going on between them, but also heavily focused on what the slight difference in their similar dream could mean. It happened when they were apart… and when Soarin was having problems with the magic. Could it be their dream was trying to tell them something?

“This is not incredibly strange or anything…” Dash commented as she pouted and snuggled herself harder into Soarin’s chest.

“I wonder if this has to do with our connection… you know, like how you being around makes the magic easier to control,” he pondered out loud. Indeed the whole, confusing magical imprint explanation they were given a while back. “Actually,” Soarin began. “Now that I think about it, I haven’t had a bad dream like that since we came back together…”

“So your magic was trying to remind me that I’m stuck with you?” Dash suddenly gave a fake scoff. “Great, I’m tied to you for life,” she added as Soarin picked up on her tone and smirked. She grabbed her extra tight to his body and swayed back and forth.

“Gee wiz!” he began in a very high voice. “I keep getting more reasons to love you!” he joked in the comical voice. Dash started squirming and giggling.

“Stop that!” she demanded while struggling to break free, but she really didn’t want to. Eventually she gave in and let him be a doofus. “Is it bad…” she spoke up. “That we’ve gotten to a point where incredibly weird things happen and we can only stay serious about it for a minute at most?”

“Dash, I’m wearing an ancient fake unicorn horn on my head that shares the same name as a sex toy. I’m not gonna lie, it’s been hard to find things weird since,” he stated seriously.

“Can’t argue with that,” Dash chuckled at how bluntly Soarin put it… but really, he was right. They had encountered a great manner of strange things. It was almost an everyday occurrence now.

“Well… we’re connected at the hip, the brain and… elsewhere it seems,” Soarin joked again, earning a nudge.

“Easy boy, or should I say boys?” she smirked as Soarin looked up and back and forth.

“I’m hungry, are you hungry?” Soarin suddenly asked as he felt his stomach gently growl.

“I’m very hungry, should we see what everypony else is doing?” Dash agreed without a single moment of hesitation.

“We’re probably heading back to the compound soon, let’s go,” he said while leaning forward slightly, but he stopped when Dash didn’t move.

“Actually…” she spoke up as she wrapped her arms firmly around Soarin’s torso. “Five more minutes,” she demanded while nestling her head into his chest again. Soarin blinked and flashed a grin.

“I think I can open up some time on my schedule to cuddle you back…”

“Shut up and hug me,” Dash ordered.

“No,” Soarin quickly replied.

“WHAT?!” Dash tilted her head up at him.

“I mean yes,” Soarin ‘corrected’ himself before squeezing her tightly to the point where she squeaked in surprise.

“You bastard…” she said muffled against his fur.

“Love you too,” Soarin chuckled as the two took a little more time for each other.

Were they confused? Yes. Were the connecting dreams strange? Yes. But to them it was just another piece to add to the puzzle of figuring out everything that came with Soarin’s magic.

They certainly didn’t mind sharing dreams, as long as they kept being the good dreams. If anything, it was just another reason for them to cherish each other and observe the connection they shared that extended even further than love. Dash’s major role in saving his life had connected them in spirit as well… it was an incredible feeling. Neither of them would trade it for anything.

Spitfire’s eyes fluttered open as she awoke naturally for the first time in months. She blinked, yawned, and rolled onto her back while stretching her limbs out and sighing contently. She lay sprawled out for a few moments before her eyes widened. She suddenly rolled back on her stomach and looked around, her eyes immediately finding a certain dark blue stallion wedged firmly into the mattress, fast asleep.

The satisfaction of the night before was so intense that she fell asleep instantly. A feeling of complete dread washed over her as she stared at the stallion that was pressed into the bed like he was part of it.

“Oh god… what have I done?” she said much louder than she intended in her state of disbelief.

“Hamburger time…?” Wave mumbled as his eyes opened groggily. Spitfire completely froze with a blank look and her face completely red as Wave glanced around and his eyes fell on her. “Oh… hey Captain,” he said sleepily as he yawned. Spitfire was so ashamed of herself that she started shaking. The night before, she forgot herself completely and acted like a wild animal. How could she forget her discipline and rank like that? It was disgraceful.

“Wave! I’m… I’m so sorry, I…” she stuttered and stumbled over her words as she fought to find a phrase that could truly apologize for such a terrible blunder. “I’m…” but there was nothing. “Oh, Celestia…” she turned around and looked away. “I’m so sorry Wave…” she repeated, waiting for him to voice his discontent.

“Captain…” Wave spoke from behind her. “Do I look like I didn’t enjoy it?” he lightly chuckled. Spitfire immediately sat up straight and her ears stood up. She looked over her shoulder at him. He was smiling sheepishly as he looked up at her. “It was so intense I ended up as a hieroglyphic on the bed… really… I’m not gonna complain,” he said.

His tone… Spitfire recognized it. It had been a very long time since she had heard him speak to her in that tone. The relaxed, lighthearted tone he used to use back before all the awkwardness began… when they were friends and spent a lot of quality time together. Simply hearing him speak to her in such a way again made her feel so much better… but it didn’t change the fact that she felt a bit… embarrassed about how fiercely she thrust herself upon him the night before. She needed it badly, but it was just so unlike her.

“At least we’re in the same room without one of us running away, eh?” Wave chuckled again as Spitfire failed to hold back a snort of amusement. She slowly turned and looked down at him in the bed.

“I just wish it could have been a little more graceful…” Spitfire sighed, failing to hold back a few rough giggles as she took in the sight of Wave still pressed into the mattress.

“So, uh… could you help me get up? I’m actually really stuck in here…” he asked with a weak smile.

Spitfire couldn’t help it, she let the laughter go, trying and failing to stifle it with a hoof.

“I guess I don’t know my own strength…” Spitfire shrugged while blushing lightly.

“I sure do now,” Wave teased as Spitfire reached down and grabbed him by the shoulders. She gave a few light tugs, but he barely budged.

“Wow… you are really stuck in here,” she blinked as she stared in awe.

“I wasn’t kidding, I really can’t move,” Wave repeated as Spitfire tightened her grip.

“Alright… just… let… me…” Spitfire grunted as she gave a few harder pulls. “Whoa!” With a solid yank, Spitfire pulled Wave free from the mattress, but the force of the pull caused Wave to fly up at her. He crashed into her, knocked her over, and fell on top of her. “URF!” Spitfire grunted as Wave’s body pressed against hers. Wave quickly pushed his hooves to the mattress and propped himself up. The two stared into each other’s eyes, both surprised. However, they remained silent. The fact that neither of them frantically tried to escape the situation served to affirm that both of them wanted to be in the position they were in.

“Look, Wave… I owe you an apology…” Spitfire said as they remained in their position. Wave looked down at her curiously.

“Captain I already said—”

“Not about last night,” Spitfire cut him off, catching his interest. “About… the past month,” she clarified. Wave listened carefully as she averted her eyes from him. Spitfire showed no sign of being uncomfortable in her position beneath him… so he remained. “I’m sorry about avoiding you for so long… sorry about running away every time we encountered each other, and I’m sorry I didn’t come to you when I was troubled,” she apologized multiple times.

“Captain…” Wave said quietly as she went on. She didn’t have to apologize for all of it, he was just as guilty as she was if not a little more because it all started with him when Discord tricked him with the fake sexual image of her.

“Before all this crap happened,” Spitfire continued. “You were the first stallion I ever knew who showed he cared on such a deep level… well, not counting Soarin at least, but he’s more like a sibling to me who I’ve never been without. You… you have been the first from outside all of my close friends who has… made me feel warm and comfortable. The way I pushed you away so quickly in my confusion was… despicable,”

“Captain, I’m just as guilty,” Wave took over. “I have an obligation to you as my superior officer, but it’s something I’ve tried to forget often in favor of my feelings. When things got… weird, my instincts kicked in and I instantly felt ashamed whenever I faced you… Sorry about that,” he tried to hold some of the blame.

“At least you eventually tried to fix it,” Spitfire sighed.

“You were having issues that I will, thankfully, never experience,” Wave chuckled as she gave him a pout. “And… I guess all of it is behind us now.”

“I still feel bad. You’re a great stallion Wave, you didn’t deserve the treatment I gave you. Especially after how much time we spent together before,” she sighed as she looked away from him again. “I mean that…” she blushed lightly. “You really are great… I really like you…”

“Captain, I—” he stopped abruptly as she glared at him while blushing.

“Wave… please, call me by my name. I know Silver stuck formality drills into your ears and dug them into your brain until they met in the middle… but CALL ME SPITFIRE,” she said sternly. Wave just stared at her dumbly.

He knew he had let her name slip a few times, but he liked to keep up his practice and refer to her as ‘Captain.’ Like she said, Silver had… quite harshly… forced formality towards superiors into his head a long time ago. Spitfire sharpened her gaze as Wave remained silent.

“Fine… if you’re going to be that way,” she huffed. “Then I order you… to call me by my name from now on, is that clear, Wave?” she said with a slight smirk forming on her face.

“Uh… yes? Ma’am? Er… S-Spitfire?” he replied shakily, but somewhat amused that she used his own moral code against him to get what she wanted.

“Good…” Spitfire nodded contently. “Now…” she blushed again. “I order you to…” she was using Wave’s sense of duty to get her way. She paused for a moment, her face turning a little red, but she wanted to get rid of all the gaps between them. She felt like she needed to so that the events of the past month would never repeat themselves again. “I order you to kiss me.”

“WHAT?! I… um… well…” Wave initially freaked out but… then he instantly remembered that the night before Spitfire had already… thoroughly gone beyond a simple kiss, but… the night before wasn’t as intimate as it was intense. Spitfire was being controlled by urges and Wave was, for lack of a better word, dominated all night… not that he didn’t enjoy it. But this was very different.

“Pffffff…”

Both of them flinched and froze as their ears picked up the sound of somepony else in the room. They both looked up to catch two colors peeking around the corner. Turquois and white.

“Oh, don’t mind me! This is the best show I’ve ever seen! Please, keep going!” Fleetfoot waved a hoof around the corner before bursting out laughing.

Wave looked mortified, but Spitfire…

No, not this time. Fleetfoot liked to troll her, but this time, Spitfire wasn’t gonna let it ruin a moment she was working so hard to get.

Before Wave could push himself off of her, she grabbed him around the neck, and pulled him in, kissing him hard.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot stuck her head out around the corner, her eyes widening. She was only there for a moment though, because a yellow hoof reached out, grabbed her shoulder, and yanked her out with a yelp.

Wave didn’t see Fleetfoot leave, in fact, all he could see was Spitfire’s face less than an inch from his. The situation was beyond changing direction… so… he followed his orders, wrapping his arms around her back and returning the kiss.

It only lasted a few more seconds, but when the two parted, they did it slowly, savoring the feeling as they opened their eyes and looked at each other. A little bit of blushing ensued between them, but accompanied by smiles… and looks of relief. It seemed like nothing about their relationship would be normal, but Spitfire was far from a ‘normal’ mare.

Wave rolled off of her and the two lay side by side. They turned their heads and looked at each other, saying nothing… but both thinking the same thing.

About damn time things between them got back to normal. In fact, things were even better now.

It would take Wave a while to get used to treating Spitfire like she wanted him to, but he would try… and she would be patient with him. She liked him after all… and how many stallions had the honor of being intimate with the great Captain Spitfire? Not many.

“Aw, c’mon! It was just getting good!” Fleetfoot whined as Misty Fly dragged her out into the hallway towards a chuckling Fire Streak.

“Misty didn’t want you to ruin the moment,” Fire shrugged. “Really Commander, those two have been through enough,” Fire scolded her, knowing Fleetfoot didn’t give a damn about formality toward rank. Fleetfoot pouted at them as Misty continued to hold her back.

“Hey, they started making out anyway! And—” Fleetfoot paused as she looked between the two of them. “Wait a minute… I saw you two leave together last night!” she exclaimed. Misty, of course, didn’t hear her, but Fire Streak suddenly found the situation turned around as he flinched and his face became a little red around the cheeks. Misty glanced at Fire curiously.

“Y-yes… we did…” Fire admitted, not feeling the need to hide it, but he was still a little embarrassed to be pressed on the subject. Luckily for him, the door across from them opened, revealing Soarin and Dash, who both paused as Misty, Fire, and Fleet all looked towards them. There was a brief silence.

“Sheesh,” Fleetfoot flattened her ears. “Blaze and High Winds are in the room down the hall too, am I the only one who didn't get laid last night?!” she said while both rolling her eyes and giggling.

Dash glared and blushed while averting her eyes, but Soarin only scoffed.

“You mean Calm actually made it out of the room he took you to sleep in last night? I was certain he was screwed…” Soarin said completely intending the pun. Fleetfoot huffed.

“No, he got away. You’d be surprised how fast the big guy can move—WAIT!” she cut herself off and pointed as her eyes widened. “THAT’S MY ROOM!” she exclaimed while looking at Soarin and Dash. The two looked at each other and snorted while holding back laughs. Fleetfoot looked at Soarin with a mix of anger and disbelief. “Did you SCREWNICORN her on MY BED?!?!”

Soarin and Dash just glanced each other while still holding in the laughter. Fleetfoot rushed past them into her room as Spitfire and Wave emerged from the room across from it.

“Oh… hey guys…” Wave said as he looked between them.

“Uhuuugh…” they all looked down the hall to see Blaze emerging from the far door while holding a hoof against her back. High Winds appeared behind her, wearing a bathrobe, and yawning. “Sheesh, Windy… take it easy on the foreplay next tiiiiiiiHELLO!” she straightened up and waved as she saw everypony else. The situation had become heavily awkward with four different couples who all had a little bit of personal fun were gathered at the top of the stairs.

They all turned to the stairs as the sound of heavy hooves clip-clopped up from the first floor.

“Captain, I have the rest up and heading back, we need to—” Silver lining stopped on the top step and blinked as he looked between the four couples all averting their eyes from him.

“OH MY GOD!” Fleetfoot’s voice echoed from her room. “MY SHEETS ARE WET!”

Silver flattened his brow as they all continued to awkwardly fidget.

“Horny kids…” Silver grumbled.

After the conclusion of the party, the Wonderbolts returned to the compound, setting a new process in motion. The new reserve Wonderbolts were given their credentials and sent home, Thunderlane reluctantly bidding farewell to his new friends, but returning to Ponyville as one of two pegasi in the town’s long history to become a Wonderbolt. The new recruit squad was given a warm welcome into the ranks, but also sent home for a three week rest period in order to fully recover from the harsh training they had struggled through.

It gave Dash time to return home and spend some quality time with her friends before taking up permanent residence in the Wonderbolt compound. She ended up giving Thunderlane, Bulk, and Derpy full access to her house and the home gym attached that she wouldn’t be using much anymore, as well as requesting that the three of them keep an eye on Scootaloo for her as well.

It was hard saying goodbye to her little apprentice, but Scootaloo promised to never stop training and to someday join Dash in the Wonderbolt ranks. Dash would hold her to that… and was confident that the little filly would be flying beside her in no time.

Finally, it was even harder for Dash to say goodbye to her best friends, but she knew she’d see them as often as she could. Twilight, as a princess, had easy access to Wonderbolt tickets. Twilight assured Dash that she would see them at any show she performed in.

With all the loose ends tied up and a giddy urge to officially start her career as a Wonderbolt… The three weeks came to an end… and Dash was on her way to report along with the rest of her new squad.

If only she knew… of the adventure that laid ahead.

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

Part 3: Shadows of Fading Wonder

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 71:

Unlike her last rush to report, Dash made sure that she was early this time. However, it seemed her timing was still a bit shaky because she found herself pacing around the lobby after arriving half an hour early. It was an awkward amount of time. She had a comfortable window before she had to report to Spitfire’s office, but it wasn’t enough time to go find Soarin.

“I just can’t get this arrival time thing right… even when I do show up early…” Dash grumbled to herself as she continuously paced around, her duffle bag bouncing at her side, constantly sitting down on the couches and comfy chairs in the lobby only to stand back up seconds later. She was too wound up and ready for her first official meeting. It was probably going to be a routine welcome and brief explanation of things going forward, but she was excited regardless. She was finally part of the Wonderbolts, effectively achieving and ending one dream. Now it was time to focus on a new one, and build a legacy that would be talked about in the history books.

That would take a while… but she was willing to put in the work. Besides, she had one hell of a stallion to motivate her after all.

“Are you okay, miss?” a voice from nearby suddenly asked Dash as she got up again. She flinched and turned to look towards the mail counter. The orange pegasus standing behind the counter was looking at her with concern. Dash let her ears flop down and bit her lip awkwardly. She had been moving around quickly like a filly on a sugar rush.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine…” she confirmed while internally raging that she was unable to contain herself. She probably looked silly walking in circles and bouncing on the couches. The pony nodded before returning to the back room with a bag of mail slung over his back.

Dash took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She had to calm down. She was within the professional ranks for the Wonderbolts now. The recruit squad was the lowest rank, but it was official. She had to show some composure and control. Well… not that all the elites were always professional… in fact it was balanced fifty-fifty between all of them who was carefree and who was serious, but they had all earned their keep and had reputations. Dash would have to earn that before she could be casual.

For now she had to relax. Relax, relax, relax… calm, and cool… ready to listen and reply. Nice and—

“You’re here early,” a voice came from behind her followed by a loud THUMP of a large bag hitting the floor.

Dash’s wings flared out and she slammed her mouth shut to muffle a yelp as her cheeks puffed up and her face turned red. She released a sharp breath of air and breathed heavily for a moment as she turned around and glared up at Matteo standing behind her. She had gotten used to the big guy inadvertently approaching her silently due to the lack of clip-clopping hooves, but the way his deep, accented voice suddenly crashed down from above would even startle Silver Lining.

“You need to wear a bell,” Dash commented as she turned around and looked up at Matteo standing only a yard behind her.

“Nice to see you too,” he said with an eye-roll. Dash released a light chuckle, having admittedly missed the stoic Griffon’s straightforward and overly-serious tone over the past three weeks.

“So you went all the way back to the Griffon Kingdom?” Dash asked as she finally found the means of killing time through conversation. Matteo nodded as he sat beside one of the couches. It seemed like a smart move once Dash thought about it. He’d probably break most of the furniture designed for ponies.

“I did, and my welcome was… mixed,” he explained.

“Mixed?” Dash instinctively asked once Matteo went no further.

“My family and most of my fellow warriors welcomed me with open arms… but others, mostly those in the Sky Wings, were not so welcoming.”

“What?” Dash lifted an eyebrow. “Why?” she asked. She had a feeling this had something to do with the Griffon culture. It seemed stupid to her, the Wonderbolts in practice were much more skilled and powerful than the Sky Wings on an individual level, being a very selective organization. How could they see Matteo’s achievements in a bad light?

“I was rejected by the Sky Wings… and responded by joining a force within pony culture. To them, I am a disgrace to my race, quick to forsake my culture in favor of another,” he explained. Dash blinked several times, trying to wrap her head around it.

“That’s… WOW that’s just—”

“Incredibly stupid, I know,” Matteo cut her off, catching her attention. “Half of the Sky Wings could never survive the Wonderbolt training. They couldn’t take knowing a rejected Sky Wing had achieved something that was much harder to earn,” a smirk formed on his beak. “I never said I had a problem with it, did I? Their glares only fueled my pride. Being accepted into the Wonderbolts is an honor on par with being a high ranking captain in the Sky Wings. It’s their loss for rejecting me. I slept peacefully every night knowing their jealousy of what I’ve earned. Only cowards glare and spite others behind their back. If they really felt so above me, then they would have challenged me to battle instead of throw me their pitiful disapproving stare,” Matteo grunted with amusement. “I didn’t even have to say anything… but it didn’t stop Gilda from punching one of them out. You don’t mess with a griffon warrior if his pregnant wife can knock you unconscious before you even get to him.”

Dash burst out laughing and fell back onto one of the couches.

“She was holding Gianni when she did it too,” Matteo added while chuckling to himself.

“Wow, you two have to be the most feared couple in the whole kingdom,” Dash snickered as she sat up and shook her head.

“Gilda is well known for defending herself with a punch to the face before words,” Matteo said with pride.

“Trust me, I know that all too well,” Dash nodded. The more she learned about Griffon culture the more interesting it sounded. Authority through strength… Physical force talking louder than words or insults… Dash felt like she’d fit in pretty well, at least in the short run. She was sure if she’d hate it after a while, being brought up in a much different world. But she could tell it’s exactly where Gilda and Matteo belonged.

“Hey!” a happy, high pitched voice got them to turn and look towards the entrance. Little Star was happily buzzing through the air towards them. Dash smiled and waved as Star approached, but ended up bracing herself as Star dove into her and latched to Dash’s body in a big hug, her little bag flying off onto one of the couches.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as Star almost knocked her over. “Easy Star!” Dash chuckled as the little mare hugged her tightly. Star pulled away fairly quickly, bouncing up and down while hovering.

“I’m so excited!” she turned to Matteo. “And I missed you guys—mrph!” she tried to give Matteo a hug, but he reached out and stopped her before she could dive into his feathers.

“Likewise…” he said as Dash tried not to laugh.

“Had a nice few weeks Star?” Dash asked as something behind Matteo caught her eye. The doors to the compound opened slowly and Squall stepped through carefully as if trying to not draw attention to himself.

“I had a GREAT time!” Star started explaining. Dash listened as Star talked about her family welcoming her home and all her brothers and sisters throwing her multiple parties, but Squall shuffling up slowly behind had caught her interest as well.

Matteo noticed Dash glancing past him as they listened to Star’s long repetitive story and looked over his shoulder. Squall froze mid-step when he saw Matteo looking at him, noticing Dash staring at him as well. Was he nervous to approach them? After all they had been through?

“Hey! Are you guys even listening to—” Star paused as she hopped up on top of Matteo’s head and spotted Squall. “Hey! Squall!” she waved at him as Squall flinched again.

Dash couldn’t get enough of it. Little Star was absolutely giddy. She could understand it though, Star had been trying to become a Wonderbolt for years, now she was finally in. If Dash had gone through such a long painful process, she would be acting just the same.

“Squall?” Star looked at him quizzically as he took another shaky step, but just one.

“Er… Hi…” Squall said very quietly, before continuing his very slow walk towards them.

“Huh?” Star turned her ears towards him, having not heard him very clearly. Squall growled lightly and gritted his teeth.

“I said HI!” he snapped before grunting and looking away.

“Sheesh, missed you too…” Star furrowed her brow as she lifted an eyebrow. As soon as she retorted, Squall quickly looked back and looked alarmed.

“NO! I mean… um…” he cringed as Star stared blankly at him. “Uh…” Squall’s face turned completely red. “Never mind…” he mumbled as he looked down, shifting his mane to cover his face as he walked towards the couches nearby, dropping his bag beside it as he sat down next to Star’s bag.

Dash and Matteo instinctively glanced at each other, both flashing smirks as Little Star pouted… in confusion, not anger. She wasn’t as aware of it, but Dash and Matteo both saw it. Squall TRIED to be friendly. He was a bumbling klutz at it, but he just gave his best attempt at acknowledging them. That meant that he trusted them to a point, and Dash and Matteo’s efforts to befriend him had in fact bore fruit, if he managed to greet them after being apart for three weeks.

“So…” Dash broke away from Matteo and moved towards the embarrassed Squall.

“Ngh…” Squall groaned quietly in response.

“You went home?”

“Ngh…”

“See the parents?”

“Ngh…”

“Had any fun?”

“Ngggghhhhhh…” Squall held the last groan a little longer. Dash was more than certain he didn’t have fun after seeing how much he disliked being around his… ‘happy’ parents, but she wanted to at least ask and show curiosity. Acknowledgement was something they needed to keep up with Squall.

“It was that good, huh?” she said sarcastically as Squall remained silent. Dash looked up at the clock as she suddenly wondered how much time they had until Spitfire wanted them in her office. They had ten minutes. Reuniting with the others definitely helped fill the gap empty gap of time she created by arriving early. “Ten minutes…” she said to herself as she looked at Squall, and then back at Star and Matteo. They were short one…

But… knowing who was missing, Dash was certain he’d show up when they least expected it.

“GAH!” Squall suddenly yelped in surprise and pumped his wings to launch himself off the couch. Dash glanced down at the couch and saw Twister’s head slicking out from between the couch cushions, beneath Star’s bag. His eyes were turning in circles as he wore his typical grin.

“Took you long enough, did you spend all three weeks in there?” Dash asked Twister casually as she bent down towards his face.

“Did you know the pony body turns into a liquid when it tries to fit into a small space?” he asked while continuously blowing raspberries after talking. Dash grabbed him by the mane.

“That’s cats, not ponies,” she clarified as she yanked Twister completely out of the couch and set him on his hooves. He stiffened and fell over on his side while making a fainting goat noise as Dash turned to the other three. “That’s everypony, let’s all get to Spitfire’s office,” Dash suggested. They all nodded in agreement as Matteo scooped Twister off the ground and balanced the stiffened pony on his back as they gathered up their things and walked towards the stairs.

Dash was only gone for three weeks, but damn, she missed these idiots. She was looking forward to getting to know them even further.

They made it to the second floor and approached Spitfire’s office, but Dash was surprised to see the door to the office was slightly ajar. Dash wasn’t sure if that meant walk in or if they should still knock. Of course, knowing she was the captain and they were just a new recruit squad, she felt it best to still knock.

They reached the door, but before she could rap her hoof against the open door—

“Are you certain?” Spitfire’s voice caused Dash to stop. The others behind her came to halt as well.

“I’m sure of it,” Storm Front’s voice came through the door. “Black and purple uniform, no mask, red headband and red goggles. He was also very large, hard to miss.”

Dash glanced back at the others, who all were looking curiously towards the door as the conversation met their ears.

“Sounds just like the Shadowbolt we encountered,” Soarin’s voice. Normally, Dash would feel giddy at the sound of his voice, but one obvious word stuck out: Shadowbolt. Again? She recalled when something was brought up about them during her training… and now a second one had been sighted? With her curiosity completely locked in, Dash turned an ear towards the door to listen carefully.

“You said he was large?” Spitfire asked, her elbows propped on her desk with her hooves clasped beneath her chin. She was looking towards Storm Front and Point Dex, both in full uniform. Soarin and Air Mach were standing against the wall to her right and Fleetfoot was sitting up on the couch to her left.

“Correct,” Point Dex nodded. “Very large, bigger than Macho Savage and Autumn Rain put together. Heavy set, stocky, round face, but VERY strong. Not only did he throw off both Savage and Autumn with a single arm, but he kept us from catching him by causing rock slides.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Storm took over. "He was elbow dropping and punching solid walls of rock, chipping away whole chunks of rock to fall towards us. He slipped away while we were digging Savage and Autumn out of a fallen rock pile.”

Air Mach and Soarin glanced at each other before both looking towards Spitfire, who seemed to be trying and process the information herself.

“Yikes…” Fleetfoot chimed in. “That doesn’t sound like the string bean we ran into…”

“Thank you for reporting this to me,” Spitfire quickly took over, causing Fleetfoot to quickly go quiet and pout while letting her ears flop down. “How are Savage and Autumn?” she asked. Point Dex nodded.

“Autumn took the brunt of the falling rocks, she might be out of commission for a little while, but Macho got away with only a few bruises,” he explained.

“That’s a shame…” Spitfire said sarcastically, referring to Macho Savage as she rolled her eyes. “Any other details on the Shadowbolt you can give me? Color scheme? Did he say anything?”

Soarin perked up as Spitfire asked. A smart question, he recalled the Shadowbolt they encountered in Manehatten saying a few words to them. Storm spoke up.

“He was dark green, messy black mane. And yea, he did say something,” Storm paused. “About us being weaklings and a waste of our rank,” Storm gritted his teeth, the recent memory bringing a quiet growl with it. Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach all looked towards Spitfire. Like a good professional, Spitfire showed no emotional response. She simply nodded.

“I see. I will check the rosters and issue a stand-in for Autumn Rain until she recovers. You are dismissed,” Spitfire ordered, glancing at her door at the same time. She blinked as she saw a rainbow mane quickly shift away from the door. Spitfire grunted quietly as Storm and Dex turned towards the door, realizing that she left it ajar, and one, new, rainbow maned recruit possibly just heard the whole conversation.

Storm opened the door and came face to face with Dash.

“Whoa! Hey!” he quickly brightened his expression, hiding the slight anger quickly. “Good to see you guys again!” he greeted as Point Dex stepped around him.

“We have off until we get a replacement for Autumn,” Dex said as he passed. “Make sure to get a few training sessions in on your own.”

“Yes sir,” Storm nodded before turning back to Dash. “So…”

“Talk to them later Storm,” Spitfire called from inside her office. “We need to speak with them now.”

Storm turned and saw Spitfire, still in the same position at her desk and staring out towards Dash and the rest of the new recruits.

“Yes, ma’am,” Storm acknowledged the order before turning back to the recruits. “I’ll catch up with you guys after,” he smiled before turning and moving towards the stairs.

“Come on in,” Spitfire called them in right after. Dash and the others glanced between each other before making their way into the room.

Dash smiled upon seeing Soarin, but after he flashed her a brief grin, his face took a serious turn. Obviously, it was because of the Shadowbolt, Dash was displeased that her reunion with Soarin had to be bogged down with something serious, but it would be foolish for them to ignore it.

Squall and Little Star moved in beside Dash. Matteo stepped up behind, grabbing Twister off his back and placing him down behind Star. He balled up a fist and lightly rapped it atop Twisters head, causing him to unstiffen and move on his own again. Matteo didn’t know if it would work, but he had a hunch and it did.

“Under normal circumstances,” Spitfire began with a harsh tone that made them all stiffen slightly. “There would be punishment for eavesdropping on a meeting not related to you, but I will let this slide because not only did I stupidly leave my door open, but you were also ordered to be here at this time. I have no reason to punish you for following orders.”

Fleetfoot chuckled at the recruits standing like statues as she laid down on her back on the couch. Air Mach nudged Soarin and made a head motion towards Squall and Star, who were both slightly jittery as they tried to remain still.

“Whatever you all heard while waiting out there, please keep it to yourselves,” Spitfire continued. “It’s not classified or confidential information, but we don’t need to cause a panic around the compound. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am!” they all replied instantly, even Twister. So quickly and in unison that Spitfire perked up in surprise.

“You were definitely trained by Silver…” Spitfire smirked as Fleetfoot giggled behind them. “At ease.”

All the recruits exhaled and relaxed as they found the means to settle down in front of their new voice of complete and total authority.

“Did you see the grey one?” Air Mach whispered to Soarin while motioning to Squall. “He was holding it so tight I thought he was gonna get sucked into his own ass.”

Soarin snorted as he tried to hold in laughter, jabbing Air Mach with his elbow as Spitfire glanced at them and shook her head.

“Now, sorry for the harsh intro,” Spitfire apologized. “Let me formally welcome you to the Wonderbolts as our newest five pony recruit squad. Recruit Squad Foxtrot.”

“Foxtrot?” Dash asked instinctively, quickly putting a hoof over her mouth in case she spoke out of turn. Spitfire chuckled.

“I said ‘at ease’ Dash. You’re fine,” she nodded before looking to Soarin. Soarin took the cue, stepping away from the wall with a smirk, still trying to recover from Air Mach’s comment about Squall. He cleared his throat before speaking.

“In order to prevent confusion, the recruit squads are identified by military letter designation as opposed to numbers. As you know, we hold up to ten recruit squads at a time. Right now you are in the sixth slot of those squads, making you F, or Foxtrot. The other five squads, A through E are Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo,” he finished with a nod.

“Thank you Soarin,” Spitfire nodded as Soarin stepped back against the wall. Fleetfoot eyed him across the room, kissed her hoof and tapped it against her flank. Soarin lifted an eyebrow at her and subtly stuck his tongue out at her. Spitfire cleared her throat loudly, making the recruits flinch, but making Soarin and Fleetfoot cut it out as she shot them both quick, serious glances.

Dash was admittedly nervous, but she was loving every second of it. Especially Spitfire trying to keep the room incredibly serious while Fleetfoot, Soarin, and Air Mach kept throwing it off. Dash was sure the three of them were going to get scolded right after, but she also knew Spitfire. Spitfire probably wouldn’t have it any other way. They were her best friends after all, as well as her squadmates. It reminded Dash of her new friends all standing there with her. If they could be just as equally serious and fun, then she was going to have a blast as a Wonderbolt.

“Now then,” Spitfire spoke up once more. “There is one last thing we have to take care of before I send you on your way. You are a squad. And a squad… needs a captain,” Spitfire paused as all the recruits stared at her. She could see the instant curiosity in their eyes. “The Wonderbolts are a fair organization. We have a military hierarchy, but we also prefer that our members speak out and give their opinions. We have chosen who we believe is best suited of the five of you to lead your squad. After we tell you, if any of you have an issue with it, speak up so you don’t have to bother me later… alright?” she glanced at each recruit, Dash, to Matteo, to Squall, to Star, and to Twister. Each one of them received a look for a few seconds before she returned her focus to between all of them. “Based on Silver’s analysis of each recruit and your performances since we first saw you in the tryouts… we have decided that the captain of squad Foxtrot will be… Rainbow Dash.”

Dash’s wing feathers ruffled and her eyes widened as her tail gave a single flick that smacked Twister in the face, causing a very faint high pitched ‘whew’ noise from him.

Her? The captain? Just like that? This was a bit sudden.

Then again, she had taken on a leadership role more than once during their training, directing them within Silver’s obstacle courses and in the false dragon test. She liked to take control of situations… it was part of her personality, but having it be part of her responsibility was different. That added new pressure to her. While she felt she could handle pressure much better than she used to… could she handle it here?

“Any objections?” Spitfire asked while looking at the other four.

Dash turned her head slightly, looking at Star. Star turned and met Dash’s gaze, flashing a smile. Dash looked behind Star at Twister. Twister only turned his head sideways and smirked at her. Dash looked over her shoulder at Matteo. He looked down at her and nodded. Dash looked back around and towards Squall, and surprisingly… he remained silent. He glanced at Dash twice, both times averting his eyes quickly after before fidgeting and locking his eyes back forward on Spitfire.

They all agreed? Even Squall?

Dash felt a warmth in her chest. Not a single objection from her fellow recruits… they all liked her enough and all trusted her abilities to lead them. Knowing she had earned their approval on a level this important made it impossible for her to not start smiling like an idiot… which she was totally doing and couldn’t stop.

Soarin was snickering off to the side, adoring the giddy look that Dash was clearly fighting a losing battle against. She had definitely earned the spot and he was more than confident that Dash would live up to any and all expectations set upon her.

“Very well!” Spitfire smiled as she too picked up on Dash’s excited expression. “Dash, I want you to report to me in two hours for a private meeting. We’ll discuss your responsibilities as a recruit captain. For now, all of you go get situated in your room. It’s the same one you guys had during your initial recruit training… just might look a little more spacious than you last left it,” Spitfire said with a smile before focusing on Dash again. “Two hours Dash,” she repeated. “Dismissed.”

It took Dash a moment to regain control of her limbs. She eagerly turned to her new squadmates and gave each of them a smile before the group gathered up their belongings. Dash glanced at Soarin, who shot her a wink before the recruits moved towards the door.

Dash was so excited that not only did she suddenly trump Little Star’s excitement levels, but she also forgot all about the mention of the Shadowbolt.

As soon as the recruits left, Spitfire leaned down and smacked her head lightly against her desk, releasing a low growl and pointing towards the door.

“Somepony close that door… and make sure it’s actually closed this time please!” she ordered. Fleetfoot sat up and stood, being closest to the door. However, the moment she reached for it, a small, blue magic aura encircled the door knob and pushed the door closed. Fleetfoot flattened her brow and turned towards Soarin in time to see the blue glow disappear around his horn as he acted like nothing happened.

“Princess Jerk-face,” she grumbled as Air Mach snickered. He reached up and adjusted his ridiculous glasses before turning to Spitfire as she finally removed her head from her desk.

“So, lady-captain. Shadowbolt,” Air Mach said plainly, showing a strange amount of seriousness.

“Yes, the Shadowbolt… thoughts?” Spitfire asked as she sat back up. She had a few theories herself, but she wanted to hear the others’ take on it first.

Soarin, having barely managed to not think about it while the recruits were present, stepped off the wall to give his view.

“We know one thing for sure,” Soarin began. “A large, stocky Shadowbolt, bigger than Macho Savage and Autumn Rain put together? Doesn’t sound like the stallion Mach punched in the face. I think we can safely conclude… that the Shadowbolt we encountered in Manehatten was not a standalone mercenary.”

“Which begs the question,” Spitfire opened her desk drawer and pulled out the red headband and matching goggles they recovered from the Manehatten encounter. “What are we dealing with here?” she asked as she set the two things on the table.

Fleetfoot and Air Mach approached the desk beside Soarin and all four of them looked upon the captured articles.

“It can’t just be the Shadowbolts… can it?” Fleetfoot chimed in. “I mean… why the snazzy fashion statement? I doubt they would ditch their uniform just like that.”

“Maybe they’re separate?” Soarin cut in, catching their attention. “If you remember from my report, Descent mentioned how the Shadowbolt order was collapsing due to Nightshade being used. He even said ‘Until this blows over, I will no longer be a part.’ Do you think… others shared his view? Maybe some of them followed him. Their airship base was destroyed after all, where else would they go besides to their captains?”

“The Shadowbolt in Manehatten didn’t use a crystal either,” Fleetfoot added from the couch. “And from Storm’s and Dex’s report, it doesn’t sound like the chucky guy they ran into used one either.”

“All true… but we can’t ignore any possibilities,” Spitfire pondered aloud. “They could be separate, they could still be linked to the crystal provider. The crystals and the magic are addictive, it’s also possible they all stayed and are working for their fix.

“Then why just watch us?” Soarin threw his arms out. This was all becoming incredibly complicated without any clear evidence to guide them.

“Hey!” Air Mach pounded his hooves together. “You guys are thinking too hard about this!” he stated with a confident smirk. “All we gotta do is get our hooves on one of these guys and beat it out of him!”

“Easier said than done,” Spitfire sighed. “They are clearly very skilled. I’ve never seen ponies that were able to elude elite Wonderbolts so easily. With ability like that, who knows what they might be capable of if driven to combat… would you take a stallion that can rip apart cliff-sides head on?”

The room went quiet as they all tried to put together something to give them some answers, but right now there were so many possibilities. Still with the Shadowbolts, separate from the Shadowbolts, being watched instead of attacked, were the crystals involved?

There were way too many paths to follow, and nopony was willing to step down one only to find it be wrong and put lives at risk.

“We need more evidence before we do anything,” Spitfire determined. “All of this mixed with Luna’s reluctance to let me know what’s happening makes me believe there is a lot going on in the background. I have a feeling we’ll be encountering more of these supposed Shadowbolts, but until we do we have no choice by to keep going,” she looked up at all of them. “I have to get things together for my meeting with Dash, dismissed.”

Without a word and only nods, the rest of the lead squad turned and headed for the door. Soarin stopped before leaving, looking back at Spitfire. As the Wonderbolt who had had by far the most exposure to the Shadowbolts, he felt like he was failing to pull some of the pressure off Spitfire’s shoulders. He wasn’t going to let her deal with the burden of solving this mystery alone.

“We never get a break, do we?” Fleetfoot said as Soarin turned and left the room beside her.

“Seems to be the norm these days…” Soarin agreed.

---To Be Continued---

Let's all welcome recruit squad Foxtrot!

Art by: PhonicBoom

Author's Note

AND HERE... WE... GO!

PTH is back and ready to dive into part 3!

I had a nice long break from this story, giving me time to pursue some other ideas i had floating around, but now its time to continue the monster that i am completely responsible for creating :pinkiecrazy:

One chapter in and we already have something ahoof! I wonder what it could mean?!

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! :eeyup:

Chapter 72: Feeling Kinda Fleety

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 72:

“You guys really trust me that much?” Dash asked as they stepped through the familiar doors leading into the recruit barracks hallway. Little Star hopped up and floated up in front of Dash’s face, grabbing her cheeks and pressing her forehead to Dash’s.

“Sweetie, for the fifteenth time… YES. We would’ve said something if we disagreed,” Star said sternly because it was, indeed, the fifteenth time Dash had expressed her disbelief that they had no problem with her being their captain.

“Heh… Sorry, just having a hard time wrapping my head around it I guess,” Dash admitted whith a sheepish chuckle.

“I fail to see how you haven’t considered it,” Matteo spoke up from the back of the group. “You have taken control more than once throughout the course of our training.”

“I know,” Dash shrugged. “I guess I just never really considered myself captain material.

“The best leaders are the ones who lead naturally,” said Matteo. “You act when necessary, not because you think you should be in control. I’d rather not be in command anyway. I prefer to focus on executing orders, not giving them.”

“Gee, thanks for letting me take all the pressure,” Dash said sarcastically as Twister appeared next to her, holding an orange up in front of his face.

“I prefer eating apples because pear juice reminds me of banana peels,” he explained in a very serious tone while biting into the orange without peeling it.

“Why did you not speak up, huh Twister?” Dash asked, not even flinching at the randomness that just came out of his mouth. Twister shifted his mouth, the whole orange peel coming off the orange in one motion. He swallowed the orange peel and tossed the rest of the orange behind him at Matteo. Matteo flinched, but caught the peeled orange out of the air in his beak. Twister bounced his eyebrows at Dash.

“I’d rather be behiiiiiiiiind you in the formation. Much better view,” he said while snickering. Dash flattened her brow and glared at him.

“You’re in the front spots in the Plus and X formations,” she immediately decided.

“MY PERSONAL DESIRES ARE BEING ABUSED! ABUSED I SAY!” Twister said as he dramatically fainted over Squall’s back.

“Get off,” Squall ordered with an annoyed grunt.

“YOU AREN’T MY CAPTAIN!” Twister wailed while flailing his hooves about.

“Twister, get off of Squall,” Dash quickly said.

“Yes, ma’am!” Twister was back on his hooves walking normally again the instant Dash told him to stop.

“We’re having fun already!” Star joked as Dash rolled her eyes with a smirk. Dash glanced back at Matteo, blinking in confusion after looking at him for a moment.

“Where did the orange go?” she asked as they stopped in front of the door to their squad barracks.

“What orange?” Matteo asked while his eyes slowly looked back and forth. Dash tipped her head.

“The one Twister just threw at you,” Dash explained. Matteo shook his head.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he quickly denied.

“Did you eat it?” Dash asked, a small grin forming on her face.

“No!” Matteo snapped while glaring at her. “I mean…”

“I thought you said there was no orange?” Dash pushed while snickering.

“I’m not bitter about the mess hall not having oranges among the fruit selection,” Matteo added quickly.

“You must really like oranges,” Dash chuckled as she shook her head.

“So what if I do?” Matteo snorted.

“Nothing’s wrong with that,” Dash rolled her eyes. Twister leapt over her and over Matteo.

“IN FACT, HAVE MORE!!!!” Twister dumped a large box full or oranges out over Matteo’s head. Squall, Star, and Dash all quickly stepped away towards the door as the oranges spilled out. Matteo’s head popped out of the pile of oranges and he glared at Twister.

“Now I just feel humiliated…” he grumbled as Twister rolled over on his back, laughing hysterically.

Dash glanced over at Star, who had fallen against Squall’s leg while giggling herself. Squall looked uncomfortable with somepony touching him, but he didn’t shake Star off or tell her to stop. Matteo already had Twister by the neck in his talons and was shoving an orange into his mouth as Dash simply… smiled.

She had only been gone for three weeks, but she had missed them all dearly. She was hoping she’d get a chance to reconnect with Storm as well. That would complete the ring of all the new ponies… and griffon she had come to enjoy being around throughout her time so far. She had a feeling they would make a nice group of friends she could lean on while fulfilling her Wonderbolt dreams. Not to forget Soarin, Spitfire and Fleetfoot of course, but it was great to have individuals on the same level as her that she could trust.

“Alright all of you jokers, let’s check out our new digs,” said Dash as she turned and opened the door to their old barracks. “WHOA!”

Dash’s immediate reaction made all the hilarity stop. Star and Squall looked over Dash’s shoulder. The orange pile disappeared as Matteo looked over the top of Dash, still holding Twister by the neck.

“Check this out!” Star exclaimed as she hovered over Dash and into the room eagerly. The rest followed in behind, taking in the new setup of the room as they moved.

It was the same room they spent the whole month of recruit training in… but it had been heavily rearranged and was much more… spacious than they remember. The bunks had been completely removed and the room had been carved into five personal areas. There was a lane down the center like there was before with the bunks, but now there were only three beds on the left and two beds on the right. The beds were a little wider than the bunks and looked much more comfortable. Each bed had a piece of paper with a name taped to it, labeling which area belonged to whom. On the left side from front of the room to the back, Little Star, Squall, and Twister. Each space was of equal size and marked by lines painted on the floor. The lines were there during the recruit training as well, but none of them knew what they were for until now. All three spaces were complete with the bed, two dressers, a night stand with two large drawers, and a rack for towels.

On the right, Matteo had a slightly larger space due to his bed being twice the size of the others, but everything else was the same. What was different was Dash’s area closest to the door on the right. Her space was twice as large as the others, because beside her bed and essentials in the center, the space to the right of her bed looked like a makeshift office. It had a desk against the wall with filing cabinets to the right of it, a table with chairs in the center, and couch against the wall beside the desk. The couch looked a lot less comfortable than the one in Spitfire’s office, but the whole spot had the look and feel of a makeshift Wonderbolt office.

“Are we in the right room?” Squall asked as he looked around. “There’s no way this is the same shitty barracks,” he said as he stepped towards his personal space.

“This is SO MUCH!” Star bounced up and down in mid-air.

“To think I’ve gotten so used to being shoved in a corner…” Matteo chuckled as he approached his space. “I feel like a prince now.”

“I LIKE MY BED,” Twister snickered as he laid down on the desk in Dash’s ‘office’ space, as she was looking it over. Dash lifted an eyebrow at him before reaching for the desk and tipping it up until Twister slowly slid off and landed on the floor. The instant after he landed he was over in his space. “But this one is nice too, I guess!”

“Wow, Captain,” Star addressed Dash, causing her to flinch slightly. “You get a bunch of space to yourself, huh?”

“Okay, no…” Dash turned around and held her hooves up towards Star while smiling sheepishly. “Don’t go calling me Captain. We’ve all been through too much for that formal stuff.”

“Why not?” Star giggled. “I’d be milking that for all it’s worth!” Star smiled wide while pressing her hooves to her cheeks.

“Maybe that’s why you weren’t named captain,” Matteo spoke up from behind her. Star sharply turned to him and pouted.

“Now listen here you big ol’ bag of feathers…” Star started hovering towards him as Matteo chuckled.

Dash watched as Star landed on Matteo’s head and yanked at his crest feathers as he paid absolutely no mind to her. Dash looked over to see Squall pointing angrily at Twister’s space as Twister constantly touched his hoof over the line into Squall’s space while bouncing his eyebrows.

This… was so awesome. It would take some getting used to, but she was captain of her very own squad. She didn’t care that it was just a recruit squad, she had been given the opportunity to lead her new friends as Wonderbolts. Four new friends that she had come to love and trust just as much as her friends back home. She wished it could be five… they were going to miss Thunderlane dearly… but Dash was hoping to reconnect with Storm. Storm was in need of friends of similar experience and time in the Wonderbolts, and that was something they could provide him.

Dash took a moment to observe and think about each of her new friends.

Little Star was still latched to Matteo’s head. She had been very influential to Dash. Not only was she small and not built for such strenuous work, but she succeeded anyway through hard work and unbreakable determination. It was weird having a filly-sized mare act motherly at times, but she brought comfort to the team and a sharp tongue that would defend herself or any of them should the need arise.

Matteo, who was calmly unpacking his things despite the tiny pony biting his head. Matteo brought a very unique feeling to their group. Not only the first griffon to become a Wonderbolt, but also quite a monster among his own kind. Large, stoic, soft spoken, and very proud of his upbringing and culture, despite being cast out by his own kingdom’s military force. Dash had learned a lot about griffons and their culture from him. A warrior through and through, he would be a valuable addition to the Wonderbolts.

“QUIT IT!” Squall snapped at Twister.

“Don’t you love me?” Twister replied with fake teary eyes.

Then there were these two.

Squall. It had been quite an adventure getting to know him. He was bitter and angry, quick to snap and always scoffing, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he enjoyed the trust Dash and the others had placed in him. He was also a crystal pony… Dash really wanted to see him in crystal form someday. Something pretty and shiny just did not fit his personality at all. Squall would never admit it, but they were his friends, and it was clear he was trying hard to treat them as such… but it would take him a while before he really opened up to them. Especially if a certain instigator kept bothering him.

“Twister, leave Squall alone,” Dash chuckled as she called across the room. Twister pouted and pulled his hoof back.

“And stay on your side!” Squall hissed at him as Twister crouched down and sat as close to the line as possible, sneering over at Squall.

Twister…

Where to even begin about him?

He was weird, strange, silly, crazy, and any word that could be used to describe ‘insane’ either specifically or loosely. What happens if one took Pinkie Pie, gender-swapped her, gave her a different color scheme, ten gallons of sugar, and the power of randomness that would make Discord blush? You get Twister. But… aside from his plain weird and psychotic way of doing things… Dash really didn’t know much about him. She had no idea where he had come from, what he had done before this, or even how old he was. She had gotten clues about his life… He once loved a mare that she reminded him of save for some color differences. He was constantly told to act normal despite his desire to be whatever he wanted to be. He had been pushed around at some point by those stronger than him. Not to mention each of these things were relayed to her in the most ridiculously weird ways possible.

Although she considered him a friend through their training… one thing about him still bothered her quite a bit. She didn’t show it, but she was still very unnerved at how he was able to literally describe her life growing up almost word for word as if he had been there or had known her throughout. It creeped her out more than anything and there was no plausible explanation for it, save for him having stalked her. Which seemed unlikely due to him apparently knowing and loving another mare for so long. He even mentioned that she would ‘never compare’ to the mare he loved.

Twister was a friend, but he was still a mystery. Based on his behavior, Dash was certain that she would know more about him in due time. She didn’t have any idea when, but Twister seemed to trust her to a certain extent over the others. He’d tell her more later… in his own way. At least she hoped, because he had made her far too curious for it to just stop.

Storm Front had mentioned he’d be stopping by, Dash wondered if he was—

“Hello?” a voice came from the open door. Speak of the devil.

“Come on in, Storm!” Dash called to him as she turned back to her bag and began unpacking her things. Dash was sure to bring back the ‘essentials’ to the barracks. Those being her old flight goggles, her copy of the first Daring Do book, the framed picture of her and Soarin, and of course, the sexy poster of Soarin she obtained from Artic Blast after she left. She quickly stuffed the rolled up poster into her dresser before turning to see Storm enter. He was wearing his uniform with the mask off and the goggles around his neck. He gave a smile as Star and Matteo approached him quickly, greeting him as Twister slithered along the ground towards them and Squall just kept going about his business.

Storm had been another interesting case… but a very different one. He was the polar opposite of Squall, hiding the pain and sorrows of his life hidden behind smiles and friendliness. He was trying to be the best pony he can be to avoid becoming a negative product of his own harsh past. He was also a great first pony to meet amongst all of them. She had never had a better first impression of a pony before in her life. The way he so selflessly decided to help out Derpy in the short time she had at the compound during the tryouts.

Storm had also become a great source of motivation for Dash. When he was selected as the new elite, it became her goal to prove that they made the wrong choice. She had nothing against Storm at all, in fact, it was impossible to get angry at him, but she still felt like she had something to prove. She was glad Soarin had been trying to befriend him, Storm needed the support and camaraderie. As Dash herself got to know Storm a little better, it became clear just how far from perfect he was. The way he feared failure and how easily Squall made him blow his top. Dash couldn’t believe it when Storm snapped at Squall during the banquet. It was like she was looking at a different pony… far from the image of kindness that was Storm Front, however it only proved that Storm was much weaker and more fragile than he appeared. He had achieved much, but it couldn’t mend the damage his rough life had caused. The more Dash thought about it, the more it seemed Storm needed friends more than Squall, especially after Storm broke down crying at the sight of all the family and friends gathering at the banquet.

Now if only she could get the two of them to get along…

“I still don’t like you,” Squall hissed as Storm walked around to look at the barracks. Storm stopped, folded his ears back and lifted an eyebrow.

“Good, I still don’t like you either,” Storm said back as he shrugged and kept moving.

“Alright,” Star hovered up between them. “I’m gonna stop you two now before you’re slap fighting again,” she said while giving both of them her signature look of disapproval. Dash grabbed Storm by the arm pulled him away towards her space.

“I’m gonna have to agree with Star here. I want to actually sit and talk to you,” she rolled her eyes and smirked at him. “You know, before you and Squall get lost in a dust cloud… or before you punch me in the face,” she joked. Storm didn’t find it very funny, in fact his ears pointed back up before flopping down sideways as he frowned.

“Aw, c’mon Dash, I still feel terrible about that…” he said with discontent. Dash chuckled at how quickly he went from miffed to sad.

“Oh stop, the hell do you think I am? Some kind of fragile flower? I’ve had more bloody noses than I can count throughout my life, big deal,” she waved a hoof at him while grinning smugly.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he said while raising an eyebrow.

“Shut it, or I’ll repay the favor,” she threatened with a pout. Storm blinked, then smirked.

“Fair enough,” Storm chuckled as Dash motioned to the table.

“Well, come on over here, sit down, talk to me. What’s up?” Dash asked as they moved to the table. “What’s been going on these past three weeks? We don’t talk enough.”

“I appreciate the interest,” Storm smiled as he sat down across from her.

“Well,” Dash tipped her head back and forth as she sat down. She glanced back at the others. Star was trying to get Squall to look her in the eyes as she scolded him for being unfriendly to Storm. Twister was trying to grab everything that Matteo unpacked from his back, each attempt was met with balled up talons to the face. She looked back at Storm, this being a perfect chance to start. “I wanna have you as part of the group again, now that we’re not recruit training anymore. We all got here at the same time, I don’t wanna leave you out,” she explained. Storm looked slightly surprised.

“I’m… flattered you think that way,” he smiled while looking down sheepishly. “That’s not gonna be very easy. Squad seven’s schedule is pretty busy.”

“A couple of scheduling conflicts arn’t gonna stop me from trying,” Dash tapped a hoof on the table. “Like I’m gonna let an awesome guy like you go without having some familiar faces to support you,” she paused as he looked at her blankly. “Don’t look at me like that!” she chuckled and smirked. “You were the first new pony I met here… and we worked together and competed in the tryouts… I had a great time with you. To top it off, you were unbelievably awesome and kind to a great friend of mine who really deserves it,” she bounced her eyebrows once.

“Derpy?” Storm asked. Dash gave a nod.

“Mmhmm. You bet your ass you’re worth the effort, buddy. So don’t try to say no.”

“Doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice here, but…” Storm shrugged while struggling to hide a grin. “Why would I say no?”

“That’s right,” Dash said while pointing and winking.

“Thanks Dash, really I appreciate it,” Storm suddenly said seriously. “It’s been rough, I would definitely love hanging with you guys again, when I can of course.”

“Even Squall?” Dash said jokingly. Storm rolled his eyes and snickered.

“I might even come to endure Squall,” he replied.

“Nice choice of words,” Dash chuckled. “So! Back to where we started!” she tapped both her hooves on the table. “Tell me! What have you been up to these three weeks?” she asked again. Storm shrugged.

“Well… I was here,” he replied.

“Duh! I know that,” Dash chuckled. “But I wasn’t! Anything fun happen?”

“I can’t speak for everypony, but I spent a lot of time with Soarin when I was off duty. He took me to a diner in town for breakfast one morning with Captain Spitfire and Commander Fleetfoot.”

“Rusty’s?” Dash asked, remembering the place well.

“You’ve been there?” Storm asked. Dash nodded

“Soarin took me there once. Rusty’s a hoot, isn’t he?” Dash chuckled, remembering the strange earth pony that nearly ran the whole diner by himself while riding on a skateboard. She had been itching to go again for a while. Maybe she’d take her new squad there at some point. She was sure Rusty and Twister would get along.

“He is. It was particularly fun to watch him handle Commander Fleetfoot,” Storm cracked a smile as he recalled it all. “She was harassing me throughout most of the breakfast, but Rusty ended up saving me by playing little pranks on her. He even caught her in a prank that ended with her nose stuck in a pancake on the table next to ours.”

“Fleet’s a sly one, but I would put my bits on Rusty over her any day,” Dash said while laughing at Fleetfoot’s expense. She was one of the biggest pranksters Dash had ever met, so it was fun to see her get a taste of her own medicine every once in a while.

“He’s crazy, but he’s got a heart of gold,” Storm continued. “I couldn’t stop watching him as he went around to families, making the colts and fillies giggle with little tricks and jokes, all while working his heart out. He looked so happy to be doing what he does and was constantly putting smiles on faces. I admire a pony who can do that.”

Dash listened as Storm went on about Rusty, bringing forth some things Dash had never really considered despite having seen Rusty herself. The things that Storm picked out in ponies… it was first evident with Derpy, the way Storm was drawn to her through her carefree and endlessly cheerful attitude. Most ponies new Derpy as a silly, lovable pony at first glance, but Storm quickly found a certain joy to the way she went about life and was quick to acknowledge it.

Now with Rusty, admiring the way the old cook took it upon himself to make the little colts and fillies laugh and cheer, bringing smiles to the faces to families that live in a less than well off part of town. The way he simply did things to help out in his own way and cook nice meals while he was at it too. Storm had a keen eye for the motivations of others, which is why he seemed to fit in so well with Star, Matteo, and herself. He could see what drove them, what made them all tick and take firm steps forward. That may also explain why he detested Squall, because while Squall was indeed skilled, his motivations were a bit… different. As for Twister, Dash was certain Storm was just as confused as she was.

“I never thought of it that way…” Dash thought out loud as Storm nodded again.

“Soarin ended up inviting me to a lot of things Wonderbolt related. We went with a bunch of the stallions to a sports bar near the edge of the upper Canterlot district dinner and drinks. Neither of us had anything to drink, but it was great to get out and have some stallion time with the elites. I even pitched in helping Soarin, Fire, and Wave get the rest of them back to the compound. Let me tell you, Lightning Streak is REALLY hard to catch when he’s drunk.”

“Ha! I can believe it,” Dash snickered as she looked up to the clock. “Hey, dude, it’s great to be back and talk to you again,” she said as she stood up. “I still have to unpack before meeting with Spitfire about my recruit captain duties.”

“You were named captain?” Storm asked eagerly as he stood up as well. Dash nodded and lightly pounded her hoof against her chest.

“And proud to be, especially since none of them objected,” Dash made a head motion towards the others. “I admit, I’m a little nervous, but I’m gonna give it my best shot.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Storm said with a wink as he got up and gave her a light pat on the shoulder. “Congrats! Don’t let me hold you up here, I’ve gotta catch up with the feather giant anyway,” Storm said while pointing at Matteo. Dash glanced over to see Matteo still casually going about unpacking, with Twister on the floor beside him, stuffed into a pillowcase and tied off so only his head stuck out the top. “Before he kills Twister,” Storm added with a chuckle as he started walking.

Dash smiled as Storm went on to talk to the others, turning to unpack her things. It had been a very long time since she had really connected with Storm, at least it felt like it was. It was awesome competing beside him and learning about him during the tryouts and then they were suddenly pushed in different directions. Dash really did feel bad for him. Obviously for his hardships in life, but more specifically and Wonderbolt related, she felt bad that he didn’t get the chance to experience the recruit training with the rest of them. To learn and grow under the guidance of Silver Lining. Dash wouldn’t trade that experience for anything… and the fact that Storm missed out, to her, felt like another great thing in life that Storm couldn’t experience.

She was sure she could fix that now though. Plus, Soarin was trying to befriend him as well. They could both help him, and the rest of Dash’s new friends could help him as well. She laughed as she saw Storm reach for Twister, only for him to duck all the way into the pillowcase and then the pillow case went flat. Storm picked it up and looked around, but Twister was nowhere to be seen, long gone.

“He does that,” Matteo said without batting an eye. “Give him a little while, he’ll turn up again eventually.”

Yeah, Dash was absolutely certain they could help Storm feel more at home.

“Oh!” Dash perked up before she could get back to unpacking. She turned and looked at Storm again, ready to shout to him, but quickly stopped. She had been so pre-occupied, she had nearly forgotten all about the fact that Storm had just had an encounter with a Shadowbolt. She had an intense urge to ask him about it, but she also quickly remembered that Spitfire said not to talk about it.

As she steeled herself and forced herself to just get her things together, Dash decided that it would be a question better suited for Spitfire herself when she met with her soon, captain to captain. Spitfire wouldn’t keep anything like that from her… Anything about the Shadowbolts was Dash’s business just as much as it was theirs.

“BURNING SOUL OF FLYING CLOUDS COMBUSTION LAUNCH!”

Fleetfoot rolled her eyes as clouds engulfed in fire flew towards her. Dangerous? Yes. Dodgable? More than yes. Fleetfoot made small side to side shifts while hovering in place, the clouds shooting past her and quickly collapsing in on themselves due to water and fire having a history of not getting along very well.

“Well dodged! You are a worthy opponent!” Air Mach yelled towards her from across their private gym.

“This is a reflex agility drill,” Fleetfoot sighed. “You can throw clouds at me without lighting them on fire first, you know. That would save a lot of time and effort!”

“A true stallion makes everything awesome!” Air Mach yelled while pounding his chest.

“A true stallion is also, apparently, an idiot…” Fleetfoot sighed as more clouds engulfed in flames flew at her. “And a terrible shot,” she added as she dodged the clouds without much movement again. “Why does everything have to be the final battle with your arch nemesis?” Fleetfoot asked as she continued to shift and duck with ease.

“The great Animak only has enemies! Friends that are enemies, and enemies that are enemies! They all stand in my way to greatness, and I shall defeat them all to be the greatest!”

“THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE!” Fleetfoot groaned, feeling like her I.Q. was falling as Air Mach continued to banter nonsensically.

Down below, Soarin was sitting on a stretching mat, watching the silly exchange as Air Mach made the simple drill much more complicated and extravagant than it needed to be. He wouldn’t deny that Air Mach was weird… and a bit over the top with everything, but if it made him happy, who was Soarin to question it? It was also fun to watch Fleetfoot fail to handle somepony. It was hard to combat Fleetfoot and her shenanigans, but they were ineffective against Air Mach.

Soarin took a deep breath and relaxed his muscles as he focused. He had taken to practicing his magic much more often over the past few weeks. It had become clear that he was going to be stuck with the magic for a while, so he decided to give it more attention, using some of his personal training time to practice.

A soft glow surrounded the horn as he recalled the magical sensations and let it flow smoothly. He didn’t try to split the thought processes like he had to for picking up multiple objects or creating different images or streams at once. He simply let the magic move all together and swirl throughout and around his body, the soft glow from the horn expanding and surrounding his body, moving about win a waving pattern that made it look like he was surrounded by a gentle, blue flame. This was something he did often now, just getting used to the feeling of the magic flowing in attempt to make it second nature. He wanted to be just as familiar with the magic as a unicorn would be. Especially with Shadowbolts now lurking around, he wanted to be able to call upon it without trouble or strain.

“I’ve seen you do this at least eight times now and it still scares me,” Fleetfoot’s voice broke his focus. He opened his eyes as the blue aura faded, lifting an eyebrow at her as she stood about two yards away. While Spitfire had more or less left him alone to pursue the practice, Fleetfoot seemed to constantly express her curiosity.

Soarin glanced behind her to see Air Mach trying to douse a fire that had started on his cape. He looked back down at Fleetfoot, curious if she had any part in setting one of Air Mach’s hundreds of identical capes on fire.

“I think you just like looking at me,” Soarin said with a smirk.

“HA!” Fleetfoot reacted instantly. “You wish, Princess Campfire. It’s just kind of weird to watch a pegasus I’ve known for years suddenly do unicorn things.”

“Do I scare you now? I knew it was only a matter of time,” Soarin added snarkily as Fleetfoot flattened her brow.

“I oughtta break your horn off for that comment, and you know the one I’m talking about,” she threatened before sitting down. “But I have been wondering…” she spoke seriously. “What does it… I dunno, feel like?” she asked. “I mean, I’d ask a unicorn, but it’s a part of them. It’s natural. How does it feel for you?”

A serious question from Fleetfoot, Soarin was sure that pigs were flying in a snow covered Tartarus. But her reasoning made sense. To unicorns, magic was part of their body. Soarin was in a unique position, being forced to learn control of magic as a grown stallion. He wasn’t quite sure how to explain it, but he’d do the best he could.

“Well, whenever the magic starts flowing, I get little tingles starting from the center of my body moving outward, but it eventually all flows to my head, and through the horn,” he paused and blinked. “And before you say anything, I know how that can be taken sexually, so spare me,” he added. Fleetfoot snickered.

“It’s like you think my mind is always in the gutter or something,” she shrugged. Soarin gave her a flat look. She giggled. “Okay, maybe it usually is but…” she suddenly winced and shivered. "You can feel the magic moving inside of you? That’s eeeeehhhhhh…” she shook her head out. “That’s weird. I don’t think I could take it.”

Soarin couldn’t stop himself.

“You seem to not have any problems with anything else inside you when you take—” he was cut off by a wide eyed, angry stare from Fleetfoot.

“WOW! Low blow, Soarin!” she threw her hooves up. Soarin burst out laughing and fell over, but Fleetfoot didn’t seem too amused. “Yikes, both you and Spitty… just because I like to have a little fun with stallions doesn’t mean I’m a whore…”

“Fleet, it was a joke,” Soarin said as he rolled back up, feeling the sudden shift in mood. “How often to you poke fun at Dash and I?”

“Fine, fine,” Fleetfoot turned away and pouted. “Sorry, I’ve just been getting that a lot lately and it’s starting to bother me,” she huffed and puffed her cheeks out. “I’m sorry that I’m one of the most attractive Wonderbolts, voted sexiest athlete five times in a row by sports media and featured in many magazines! And because I’m single and living it up a little like a good 50% of mares my age do, it makes me a SLUT?!”

Soarin just sat still and stared. The conversation had completely shifted and Fleetfoot was spilling a lot of personal problems to him.

“Uh…” he opened his mouth, but no words came besides, “what?” Fleetfoot looked up at him and blushed, hiding her face with her wing.

“Oh… dammit…” she cursed. “This is awkward.”

“Yeah, a little bit…” Soarin rubbed the back of his head. “Yikes Fleet, I never… uh… knew you were under fire like that?”

“Of course you don’t, I don’t talk about it,” she clarified.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Soarin asked, not sure what else to say or offer. If that’s how she felt… why did she always act the way she did? He knew Fleetfoot well… very well for that matter. So he felt obliged to at least try and help upon learning something about her she had been more or less silent about.

“Just… please don’t treat me any differently than you do now,” she suddenly asked. Soarin looked at her quizzically.

“Why would I do that?” he asked, but instead of answering him, she kept going.

“The compound is the only place I feel like I can be myself in. Anywhere else I get treated like a sex symbol. I know I’m snarky and I like to tease but’s not what defines me…” she trailed off. Soarin thought over her words, but tipped his head to the side.

“I… uh…” he was trying to find the best way to put it without her taking it the wrong way. “Hate to say it Fleet, but your behavior doesn’t really… help that…” he slammed his mouth shut as she glared at him, but she turned back around and sighed.

“I know… but it’s for fun, not to sleep around or lead on stallions. Nopony outside the compound seems to see it that way…” before Soarin could reply, she stood up quickly. “Sorry, you’ve got crazy-ass dark magic trying to tear apart your insides and I’m complaining about stupid rumors that are getting under my skin.”

“Wait—” Soarin tried to stand up, but right before he did, a sudden weight pressed down on his head and forced him to stay sitting.

“My dear, dear Fleetfoot… I don’t think I’ve ever heard anypony whine about how attractive they are…”

Soarin growled when he heard the voice, flattening his brow and folding his ears back. Fleetfoot yelped and jumped slightly in surprise, but quickly glared and blushed.

“Honestly,” the voice continued. “You Wonderbolts are the most hilariously interesting ponies I’ve ever had the opportunity to observe. Someone should really write a book about all this. Please keep going, I can barely contain my excitement!”

“Discord…” Soarin grumbled. “I was actually enjoying not having you around.”

“Your bluntness is flattering,” Discord’s head curled down and hung upside down and in front of him. “How’s my favorite ticking time bomb doing, hmmm?”

“I wasn’t complaining about being hot!” Fleetfoot shot back, causing both Soarin and Discord to look towards her. Discord snickered and released his elbow from Soarin’s head.

“I dunno, Feetfloot,” Discord casually sauntered over to her. “It sure sounded like it, or did I misunderstand you… did you mean hot AND bothered?”

“What?!” Fleetfoot held her ground and took a defensive position while flaring her wings out.

“Fleet… you’re not gonna win with him… stop before it gets worse…” Soarin mumbled quietly, knowing she wouldn’t listen if he tried.

“Let’s see…” Discord walked circles around her while swaying his hips back and forth in a mocking manner. He stopped after making one full circle around her, turning his head sharply towards her and his eyes glowing brightly with distorted chaos magic. She flinched, and remained still, but nothing happened… at least she thought. “Rivet… Calm Wind…” he began. “Lightning Streak… Fire Streak… Wave Chill…” Fleetfoot’s eyes went wide as he continued. “Oh my! Soarin? Who else… quite a few stallions…”

“Stop!” Fleetfoot shouted as she backed away and threw her hooves over her head.

“You’ve taken some desirable looks at a good eighty percent of the male population in this compound haven’t you? Aren’t you living it up?” he snickered.

Soarin blinked as the names were read off. It was no surprise about his name being there. Fleetfoot had made passes at him in the past, but he wasn’t interested. Not because he wasn’t attracted to her, she WAS very good looking. He just didn’t want it to ruin their long friendship. To be honest, the rest of the names didn’t surprise him either. Fleetfoot was one of the biggest flirts alive, but as she said, it was just what she liked to do.

“Wait… oh, ho?! What’s this?” Discord suddenly chuckled.

“NO! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!” Fleetfoot leapt at him but he ducked and she flew over the top, falling directly into Soarin, knocking them both over with a grunt.

“Spitfire?!” Discord burst out laughing. “Blaze and High Winds?!”

Fleetfoot immediately rolled off Soarin, turning over, laying her body down on the floor and covering her entire head with her wings as her face began to glow so red that it nearly cast light. Soarin’s ears perked up and his pupils shrank as he glanced at Fleetfoot. Discord was laughing so hard he could barely stand up straight.

“Somepony is bi-curious! I guess when you’re this hot,” Discord’s head spun around and turned into Fleetfoot’s face for a moment, sticking out his tongue and batting his eyelashes like she always did before his face reverted to normal. “You just have to get EVERYPONY involved, eh?”

“Y-you’re bi?” Soarin asked, surprised. Didn’t make a difference to him, but he never knew that about her… did anypony? Fleetfoot only replied with a quiet, helpless wail from beneath her wings.

“Oh, I love throwing wrenches into things,” Discord pulled out a wrench and tossed it over his shoulder. “It really spices things up when you learn dirty little secre—”

“PAH!!!!!!” Air Mach came flying in out of nowhere and landed a clean diving punch directly into Discord’s face, sending both of them careening away from Soarin and Fleetfoot and tumbling to the ground a good distance from where the blow was struck.

“WHAT THE—?” Discord frantically floated up and back onto his feet while angrily facing his attacker. Air Mach rolled onto his hooves, stood up on his hind legs and pointed at Discord, smirking as a glare of light shone off the edge of his pointy sunglasses.

“Barging in and teasing my mare! You must have balls to match that big ugly face!” he shouted while holding the pose and the smirk.

“Your mare?” Discord lifted an eyebrow. “Last time I checked… a few seconds ago, she seems to be EVERYPONY’s mare…” Discord blinked, cracked his jaw and shook his head. “Wait a second, who are you? And who the hell do you think you are? Trying to attack the god of chaos?” Discord hissed at him.

“Who the hell do I think I am?!” Air Mach stamped one of his back hooves hard, shifting his body to point his other hoof forward instead. “Dig the wax out of your ears because I've got something to say! He takes the blazing sun in his bare hooves and endures the searing heat! A stallion’s stallion sustained by strength of will! When you hear of the great Animak, they're talking about me! You'd best remember that!”

Discord just stared, one eye twitching slightly.

“So you’re a dumbass, is what you’re saying,” Discord answered while trying to comprehend what he was hearing.

“The Great Animak fears no gods! Taste my combusting hooves of fury!” Air Mach yelled as he leapt at Discord.

“You sorry fool!” Discord sneered as Air Mach flew towards him.

Off to the side, Soarin shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“He’s actually going to get himself killed one of these days,” Soarin sighed as Air Mach and Discord clashed. As Air Mach got put in a chokehold, Soarin glanced at Fleetfoot, who was still on the floor, covering her face and quivering. “Fleet…” she stood up and stepped over to her, sitting down beside her and draping a wing over her. “It’s okay.”

“No… it’s not,” she whined.

“You know I don’t care what you prefer right?” he clarified for her. As surprised as he was, it wasn’t going to suddenly change his opinion of her.

“It’s still not okay…” she stated firmly.

“Dammit, Fleet, look at me,” Soarin reached down and forced her to sit up. She yelped, and turned herself away. Soarin grabbed her and forced her to turn around. She slammed her eyes shut as she faced him, blushing in complete embarrassment. “It’s FINE!” he said loudly. He grunted in frustration when she kept her eyes closed. “Fleet, we have an extremely openly lesbian couple in the elite ranks who are an accepted part of the Wonderbolt family. Do you honestly think being bisexual is going to make anypony here think differently of you?” he pointed out. She opened her eyes and blinked, but puffed her cheeks out, looking away a moment after. “Besides,” Soarin continued. “I doubt Air Mach heard a word Discord said… so only I heard. I’m not gonna go around parading the fact if you want to keep it a secret.”

Fleetfoot slumped down, defeated. Soarin waited patiently for her to gather herself.

“I just…” she blushed again. “I enjoy ponies, okay?” she paused. “Ponies are fun. I love having fun with them, being silly and flirty, teasing and laughing… it’s not because I’m desperate for sex or to specifically harass them. I love being up close and personal, I love being intimate. I don’t care if it’s a mare or a stallion. I mean… I DO have a stallion or two I currently have a little thing for, but in general, I just love ponies. Is that so wrong?” she struggled to say it all. She instantly looked away and pouted as her face continued to blush.

“Fleet,” Soarin chuckled. “What did I just say?” her placed a hoof on her shoulder. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

“You’re just saying that,” Fleetfoot snorted while she continued to look away.

“Shut up Fleetfoot, listen to your princess,” Soarin said with a smirk. He knew she wouldn’t be able to hold it in.

“SNRK…” a smile cracked on Fleetfoot’s mouth. “Stop it,” she demanded as she snickered.

“Deal with it Fleet, you’ll never be half the mare I am,” Soarin continued to poke fun at himself. Fleetfoot burst out laughing and fell over on her back.

“Dammit, Soarin!” she exclaimed as she sat back up and jabbed him in the arm. “You’re awful.”

“And I always will be,” he chuckled. “I don’t care if you’re straight, bi, lesbo, asexual, or self-sexual. I couldn’t care less. You’re still our Fleetfoot.” He winked.

“Thanks Soarin…” Fleetfoot sighed. “Still a little embarrassed… but thanks. Just… this stays between us, got it?”

“My lips are sealed, I promise,” Soarin nodded. “But…”

“What?” Fleetfoot quickly asked with her eyes widening slightly.

“Oh, just curious, you said you had a bit of a thing for a few stallions…” Soarin snickered.

“You’ve heard enough of my secrets today,” she angrily pouted at him.

“Well I have a guess…” Soarin smiled smugly. “There are a few stallions you bother more than others… you also got all over a certain one at the party. All I can say is you seem to like your stallions really big or really small,” he stopped when he saw a blush appeared on her glaring face. “Okay, I’ll stop,” Soarin laughed as she huffed.

“Hey, I just like hugging Rivet, he’s small and cuddlable. Calm… he’s really big, and strong… I REALLY like that, but he’s so shy, I wish he’d be a little more responsive. Fire’s taken, you said no years ago, I already screwed up with Lightning, Wave has Spitfire now…”

“Whoa, whoa…” Soarin chuckled and held his hooves out to her. “You don’t need to spill it all to me, I was just wondering.”

“Er…” Fleetfoot covered her mouth with a hoof. “Sorry, I’m just a little flustered still…”

“BLAZING SOUL OF NOT KNOWING WHO THE HELL I AM ATTACK!” Air Mach’s yelling caught their attention as he swan dove towards Discord.

“You never shut up do you?!” Discord yelled as he flew up towards them. The two clashed in mid-air, blowing each other apart before charging again.

“They’re still going at it?” Soarin blinked as he watched the two clash again and again. “I’m actually surprised, I thought by now Discord would have used chaos magic on him.”

“I know, that’s quite unlike me isn’t it?” said Discord from beside Soarin.

“Yeah… WHOA, WHAT?!” Soarin jumped up and backed away from Discord, who was sitting beside him in an inflatable chair with a bucket of popcorn.

“I wonder how long it will take him to figure out he’s punching a fake?” Discord chuckled as he shoveled handfuls of popcorn into his mouth.

“Could you just stop before he gets hurt? We need him for a show soon,” Soarin asked. Discord lifted an eyebrow.

“Finally, somepony asks me instead of demanding something… I never thought I’d see the day,” Discord chuckled as he snapped his fingers.

“WHOA!” Air Mach yelped as the fake Discord disappeared and Air Mach ran headlong into the wall.

“Oooo…” Discord cringed. “That’s going to leave a mark,” he snickered as Air Mach fell to the floor a few feet below, struggling to stand as if his head was spinning.

“Oh, jeez…” Fleetfoot sighed as she got up and trotted towards him. She was definitely in a humbled mood if she was willing to help Air Mach.

“Now then!” Discord turned completely to Soarin, “Before I was so rudely interrupted twice… I believe we were discussing your magic.”

“And I believe I was relishing the feeling of not having you around,” Soarin asked with a hint of frustration in his voice.

“Always so cold, it’s touching, really,” Discord snickered as he floated up into the air and swirled his body around Soarin, not touching him, but getting close enough to be annoying. “I haven’t been gone, I’ve been watching the whole time, more or less. I admit, you are quite resourceful, doing everything in your power to get used to it.”

“You sound surprised that I’m trying not to die,” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “Those are my choices, aren’t they? Control the magic or let it destroy me?”

“Am I allowed to show a small bit of admiration for mortals who prove more resilient than most of their kind?” Discord’s arms detached at the shoulders and shrugged way over his head, falling back down and popping back on right after. “I thought it was about time I acknowledged your efforts. Frankly, I thought you’d give up by now.”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked. Was Discord… complimenting him?

“You’ve got quite a sturdy will… but as impressive as this all is to see, I wonder if you can keep it up when it’s all on the line? After all, my ‘assistance’ won’t be up much longer,” he sneered while poking the side of Soarin’s head. “You better hope you’re ready for it when the barrier is gone.”

“You think I can’t handle it?!” Soarin snapped while pulling his head away and angrily glaring. Discord cackled to himself for a moment before shaking his head.

“If only you really knew what you were up against…” he floated up into the air. “You better keep up your confidence, believing in yourself may be the only advantage you have. And I hope you haven’t forgotten what I’ll have to do if you CAN’T handle it.”

“What I’m up against?” Soarin looked up at the horn, then back towards Discord, but the god of chaos was already gone.

“Don’t forget…” Discord’s voice echoed slyly in Soarin’s head. “There’s more than one life on the line…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Yay new chapter!

Dash reconnecting with all her friends... Storm is getting back involved!

and WOW Discord... revealing the secrets of our favorite characters all the time eh? See Fleetfoot just likes to have fun! In her own little way of course.

And what did Discord mean? Oh he meant lots of things :trollestia:

Thanks for reading i hope you enjoyed it! :eeyup:

Chapter 73: Reconnecting Bonds

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 73:

With more than a few complicated questions on her mind, Dash trotted down the hall towards Spitfire’s office. She wasn’t late, in fact, she still had ten minutes, but punctuality was a good thing to have. She wanted to make sure her first meeting had every high point possible.

She made it up the stairs to the second floor and moved towards Spitfire’s office. It was time for her first act as captain of recruit squad Foxtrot. She lifted her hoof to knock, but held it as she looked around and found the wall mounted clock suspended above the stairs behind her. She was fifteen minutes early. Maybe it would be better to wait five more minutes, just in case Spitfire was busy with something else. She wanted to be punctual for a good first impression, but she also didn’t want to barge in and interrupt. So her safest bet was to—

“He was gone before I could get a good visual of him, but I was able to at least make out the Shadowbolt uniform.”

Dash froze as she heard Silver Lining’s voice come from inside.

“Was he wearing a red headband and goggles?” Soarin’s voice came through the door as Dash put her ear to the door just below the foggy glass to avoid her silhouette showing through.

“Yes, sir,” Silver replied. “He had red fur and a slicked white mane, but I was not close enough to make out any features. The uniform, the headband, the goggles, and the colors… and they looked to be about the size of Wave Chill. Aside from that, he was gone before I could even close half the distance between us,” Silver explained

“Did any of your squadmates see him or her?” Spitfire asked.

“No, they were all on the train already,” Silver spoke again. “I saw it right as I was getting on the train and tried to pursue, but, as I said, they were gone quickly.”

“I see,” Spitfire replied. “Thanks for reporting this Silver… this is becoming a little disturbing. Keep an eye out during any training away from the compound. I need to know what the hell these Shadowbolts are doing.”

“Yes ma’am,” Silver acknowledged.

Dash pulled her ear away from the door. More Shadowbolts? This was beginning to worry her. Not so much the fact that they were around… more that it seemed like they were planning something. In the past, the Shadowbolts had met her and the Wonderbolts head on, holding nothing back. Why were they suddenly hiding and lurking as if simply observing the Wonderbolts? Something was up, and Dash wanted to know what just as much as Spitfire and the rest did.

“Thank you Silver. Everypony, dismissed. I have a meeting with our new recruit captain in a few minutes,” said Spitfire.

Dash blinked before instantly deciding to take a few dozen paces backwards. She remembered the frustration Spitfire expressed when Dash heard news of the Shadowbolts last time. She didn’t want to be caught ‘accidentally’ eavesdropping again. She waited for the door to open to start walking, making it look like she just made it up the stairs and hadn’t heard any of the conversation.

Dash faked a look of pleasant surprise as Soarin, Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and Silver all emerged from her office. She received greetings from Fleetfoot and Air Mach as they passed. She bounced an eyebrow at Soarin, who winked in return… and then…

“Captain Silver,” Dash nodded and acknowledged Silver. She had, quite honestly, missed her mentor. She had formed quite a bond with him, and his teachings had helped her grow as a pegasus and a Wonderbolt. She owed him a lot… and was looking forward to working more with him.

However, Silver didn’t even look at her. In fact, he walked right on by as if he didn’t even hear her.

Dash felt crushed for only a moment before a thought crossed her mind. Silver was not a pony to be taken lightly. She instantly wondered if his lack of response had a meaning to it. This was something about him that had been drilled into her head. Silver never did anything without a good reason. She was sure it wouldn’t be long until he gave her some sort of a sign.

“Rainbow Dash?” Spitfire’s voice came from inside the office. “You’re early… good, punctuality is a quality I prefer,” she complimented as Dash forced Silver from her mind in order to ready herself.

“Thank you Captain!” Dash said with a nod as she entered the office and stood attention, waiting for Spitfire to speak. Spitfire reached into her desk drawer to her right and pulled out a thick, white binder with the Wonderbolt logo on the front and back. At first glance it looked like the binder was empty, but as Spitfire set it on the desk Dash could see multiple divider pages with plastic labels. Dash looked up from the binder to see Spitfire reach into the drawer again. She pulled out three, half-inch thick pads of loose leaf paper, and then finally a large textbook that was thicker than all the pads of paper put together. It read ‘The Wonderbolt Prime Code’ on the cover.

Dash eyes went wide and her ears flopped down when she saw the size of the book. Spitfire smirked when she saw Dash’s reaction.

“If I had a bit for every new captain that made that face…” she chuckled and shook her head. “Don’t let this hunk of wasted paper intimidate you. The prime rules and code of conduct take up, maybe the last twenty-five pages. Most of this thing is just an over-extravagant history of the Wonderbolts, and biographies of some of our most famous flyers. More than anything, it’s a desk decoration.”

Dash breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She didn’t have any problems reading about the Wonderbolts, but for a moment she thought the whole book was nothing but rules.

“Now Dash…” Spitfire began again. “As a captain… I’m sure it goes without saying that you have a great deal of responsibility. It is your duty… your job to know and understand the prime rules and to make sure your squad obeys and follows them,” she paused as Dash looked down at the book again. “Know and understand, not memorize,” Spitfire added, reading Dash’s mind. “I couldn’t read these off word for word if I tried, but I know the context. It’s a captain’s job to represent their squad and the rest of the Wonderbolts, understand?”

“Yes ma’am!” Dash replied quickly.

“Now for the rest of this…” Spitfire pushed the book aside and pointed to the binder and pads of paper. “Recruit squads are often not included in our military scouting and operations. However, there may be some circumstances where we call upon a recruit squad to help, whether it be due to lack of availability among the elite squads, or because a member of a recruit squad has a skill that we need. Therefore, you are required to create, run, and maintain a daily training program for you and your wingmates. Don’t worry about the details yet, an elite captain will be assigned to you to help you get started with examples as well as help you figure out the scheduling hours for the gyms and other facilities.”

Dash was trying her best to keep up with all of it, but it was an awful lot of info to take in all at once. A wave of relief washed over her when she heard the bit about an elite captain helping her figure it all out because she was pretty much lost.

“The main function of the recruit squads… is to partake in the shows,” Spitfire continued. “Whenever we go to shows we usually take one or two recruit squads with us. They fly as an opener before the elite squads take to the sky. We haven’t done this in our past few shows, but it’s something I’m hoping to start up again… meaning you’ll have to come up with a performance routine,” she said with a smile.

“Yes, ma’am!” Dash replied while feeling all tingly. She had to create and coordinate a flight show for her squad? She had come to learn the Wonderbolts were much more than just performers, but the thought made her giddy. As a filly and through most of her life, she had known them as performers… so finally getting a chance to do it herself made her giddy. She had to restrain herself from bouncing in place.

“So we have a show in Cloudsdale in three days and—”

“WHAT?!” Dash flinched and wings flared out. Her eyes went wide and she quickly folded her wings back up. “I, er, um…” she blushed as Spitfire blinked. “Sorry, ma’am!” she frantically tried to regain herself. THREE DAYS?!

“No, Dash… don’t worry,” Spitfire chuckled. “We only want you and your squad to come along, not perform. Whenever we have a new recruit squad we have them tag along to get a close up view of how the show process works. We feel it’s better to see than to explain.”

Dash breathed a quiet sigh of relief. For a moment she thought she was going to be crushed by the sudden need to create and train for a show on super short notice.

“So… I know that was all a bit much to take in, but that covers anything. I’m sure you have lots of questions about it, but save them for the captain we assign to help you,” Spitfire finished.

“Yes ma’am!” Dash replied. That seemed to be everything, but obviously Dash had some questions of a different nature. However, she didn’t feel like it was her place to ask.

But it looked like she wouldn’t have to.

Spitfire turned away for a moment as Dash awaited her dismissal. But instead, Spitfire turned back to her with a serious expression and took a deep breath.

“Alright Dash, at ease and drop ranks… I have something personal I’d like to discuss,” she ordered.

As usual, it took Dash a moment for her brain to acknowledge being told to act natural around a captain. Silver’s lessons of authority were hard to shed at any time. She eventually relaxed and tried her best.

“What’s up?” Dash asked, feeling awkward as hell saying something like that to the lead captain, but she did know Spitfire as a friend as well.

Spitfire remained silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts before turning back to Dash.

“How has… Soarin been?” she asked, catching Dash off-guard. “I only ask because of how close you two are. I mean, we’re close too, we have been for our whole lives, but sometimes I feel like he keeps things from me. I know how he is, he doesn’t want me to worry about him, but as his captain and life-long friend I can’t ignore it. Whenever I bring up the magic to him, he tries to dodge the subject.”

Dash listened carefully. Soarin was keeping things from the others? Dash understood why Soarin might reveal everything going on to her… but he was more or less keeping quiet around his wingmates? Even Spitfire?

“Well… I don’t know how much he’s told you. I haven’t had a chance to ask him how the past few weeks have been either,” Dash began. “But the last time I was with him, he talked about the barrier Discord put in him getting weaker,” Dash spilled everything she knew. Spitfire’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t look too surprised.

“That explains why he’s been taking extra time to practice it lately,” Spitfire thought out loud before sighing. “I don’t understand why he’s being so stubborn about it… I want to help him just as much as you do.”

There was another brief pause as Dash felt she was at a loss for words. She was busy wondering why Soarin would leave Spitfire out of the loop, especially since Spitfire was just as responsible for him being alive as she was.

“You know…” Spitfire began again. “I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about it…”

“About what?” Dash asked as Spitfire paused. Spitfire turned and faced Dash.

“About the ritual.”

There was a long pause between the two of them as they stared at each other.

Spitfire was right. They never did have the chance to talk about the revival of Soarin and the dark magic ritual they partook in alongside Celestia. Everything happened so quickly afterward. The Wonderbolts had a new show to prepare for and Dash had spent all the time she had before departing with Soarin.

“I guess we haven’t…” Dash added as Spitfire nodded.

“Despite our first meeting with the Shadowbolts and the tornado… I really feel like the ritual was what set all of this into motion. Since then… it’s been nothing but a constant worry about Soarin… secrets kept by the gods, and us left to flail about, never ready for anything thrown our way. Though I’m glad you managed to make it this far, now I don’t have to fly to Ponyville if I want to get info out of you,” she said with a grin.

“I can remember it vividly…” Dash spoke up. "The two of us working together in the pitch black void. Celestia behind us…” Dash smirked. “I can’t take too much credit though. We probably would have failed if you didn’t tear Soarin a new one as he was being pulled down.”

“Oh, that…” Spitfire snickered. “Call me crazy, but I had a feeling being scolded was the best way to wake him up. I had been doing that to him since we were young,” Spitfire said while rolling her eyes comically. “Well, it was an interesting experience for sure… and I’m glad we finally got to talk about it,” Spitfire’s face turned serious again. “Dash… the two of us really need to keep an eye on Soarin. Together we saved his life, so together we need to make sure he stays alive. He’s very capable and able to take care of himself… but, as I’m sure you know, his pride overpowers his reason at times.”

“Do tell…” Dash rolled her eyes.

“He is a very important pony…” Spitfire continued. “To you, to me, and to many others. So from this point forward… I’d like for us to stay in close touch. If anything happens to him, whether he tells you about it or not, I’d like you to inform me. This isn’t a matter of privacy… this is a matter of his life. I’m sure you understand.”

“Completely,” Dash nodded. “In fact, I’m a little surprised he hasn’t said much to you… I feel like smacking him upside the head for that,” Dash said while rapping her front hooves together, earning a smile from Spitfire.

“You are exactly the kind of mare Soarin has always needed,” Spitfire said with a smug look. “He has a hard time being reasonable about things.”

The two shared a quiet laugh. It was very true. Soarin was strong, confident, and good hearted… but he had a bad habit of causing himself lots of avoidable pain and frustration.

“Oh… um…” Dash spoke up, seeing this as a perfect chance to ask. “Spitfire, I wanna know… what’s going with—”

“The Shadowbolts?” Spitfire finished for her. Dash blinked and nodded. “I had a feeling you were going to ask…” Spitfire sighed. “I’m assuming Soarin told you about the encounter in Manehatten a while back?”

“Yeah, he did,” Dash nodded. “And then what I accidentally heard earlier.”

“To be honest Dash…” Spitfire shrugged. “I wish I knew. We just got another report from Silver right before this meeting.”

Dash already knew that, but she played along, not wanting Spitfire to know she was eavesdropping again.

“Squad two was boarding a train back to Canterlot after a show in Fillydelphia when Silver spotted a pony wearing the same uniform… the half Shadowbolt suit with a red headband and red-tinted goggles. The color description was different than the one we encountered, and different from the one described by squad seven,” Spitfire explained. “We have no idea what their motives are. It’s strange because they seem to be observing us. And whenever we try to catch them, they run instead of fight. I understand from Soarin’s report on the Shadowbolts that their code states they don’t allow anything to stand in the way of their objective. The fact that they’ve run from us and done anything necessary to get away each time brings forth the assumption that we are their objective… otherwise they would have fought us. This brings forth even more questions.”

“So we know nothing?” Dash blinked. That was hardly what she was hoping for. The Wonderbolts were apparently just as much in the dark about all of it as she was.

“Well…” Spitfire grunted in frustration. “When we chased the Shadowbolt in Manehatten, a well-placed punch from Air Mach knocked the Shadowbolt’s goggles and headband off. We brought them back and presented them to Luna. Her initial reaction suggested that she knew something, but she quickly denied it and forcefully removed us from the throne room.”

“What?!” Dash reacted. Spitfire sighed.

“I hear you there, Dash. This is just another thing on the list of information that Luna seems to be keeping from us. What’s worse, it seems like not even the gods are all on the same page. Celestia is still missing, and Luna herself is having stuff kept from her by Discord. To be completely honest, I’ve given up on trying to seek guidance from the gods because they have their own problems to sort out.”

“Great…” Dash sighed. “Soarin mentioned that too. You’d think they’d be more willing to help us… seeing as how they are responsible for Soarin being the way he is right now.”

“We clearly can’t rely on them, so I’ve decided to stop trying,” Spitfire stated. “We have to figure this out ourselves…” Spitfire looked up at her clock. “Alright Dash, I have some things to do. Dismissed.”

Dash’s ears flopped down. She wasn’t done talking about it, but what else could they talk about? The topic of these new Shadowbolts seemed to be one shrouded in a veil of mystery that not even the Wonderbolts could see through at the moment. For now, Dash would just have to go about her current task at hand… managing her new squad.

“Dash,” Spitfire spoke up again as Dash finished scooping up all of her captain materials from the desk. Dash looked up and met Spitfire’s eyes. “I will keep you up to date on anything related to the Shadowbolts. Your past experience fighting the Shadowbolts with us makes you a large part of the investigation.”

Dash smiled. She was glad Spitfire thought so. Her history with the Shadowbolts was even longer than theirs, even if her first encounter with them was quite… silly. If anything, this was something good that came from asking, even if she didn’t have any clear answers for now.

“Thanks Spitfire,” Dash nodded, receiving a nod in return as she tucked her captain materials under her wing and turned, leaving the office.

Dash closed the door behind her, walking only a few paces before almost losing her grip on everything.

“Ah…” she shifted and reached a hoof over to stop everything from spilling all over the floor. “Huh…?” Dash blinked as a small index card fell out of her binder. She watched the card flutter to the floor, noticing some writing on it. It was a note?

She reached down and scooped up the note, turning it over to read it. The handwriting was very fine and written in cursive. She didn’t think anypony still wrote in cursive… it was considered an old practice that actually wasn’t taught in school anymore. It was a little tough to read, but Dash could still make out what it said.

The card read:

Come to the squad two private gym in half an hour.

Sincerely,

Like I need to tell you who the hell this is.

Dash blinked as she read the note over again. Then smiled. The old writing style… the bluntness… she knew EXACTLY who the note was from.

“That seemed a little cold,” Soarin chuckled while nudging Silver. “Not even a look?” he asked as they followed Fleetfoot and Air Mach down the stairs.

“You got a problem with how I treat my student?” Silver asked seriously as Soarin kept laughing lightly.

“You can’t fool me, Silver, I know you’re planning something,” Soarin grinned smugly at him. Silver failed to hold back a very light smile. “Ha! I knew it!” Soarin pointed as Silver rolled his eyes.

“You’re a tough one to play, son,” Silver chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna beat her up.”

“Good,” Soarin nodded.

“Too much…” Silver added.

“Wait, what?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow at him. “Should I be worried?” Soarin asked, knowing full well Silver wouldn’t actually hurt Dash.

“If your lady friend was a dainty, breakable flower… she wouldn’t be a recruit squad captain,” Silver explained with a wink. “She’s got a lot to learn still, but she’ll be flying circles around all of you when I’m done with her.”

“Trying to stick it to all of us youngsters before your time is up, eh old stallion?” Soarin jeered. Silver shot him a brief glare, which Soarin fully acknowledged. He knew Silver didn’t take too kindly to being reminded of how close he was to retirement, but Soarin also knew Silver hated it when ponies pulled punches with him. If there was anything Silver appreciated, it was a pony that didn’t give an inch in anything.

“Maybe…” Silver smirked. “I don’t like the thought of everything I’ve ever learned being gone once I am. I’m looking for a legacy… and I’ve never seen a more worthy candidate than Rainbow Dash. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

Soarin paused and thought about it as they reached the bottom of the stairs. The point in his career where he’d have to think about such things was more than a ways off, but he could understand it. Silver had watched over the years as his beloved comrades and wingmates retired while he himself struggled to stay alive in his chosen line of work. It made sense that he wanted to leave his teachings behind so he could be remembered, much like how Blizzard Strike had done with Silver before his untimely passing. The other Wonderbolts had faded out of the loop, now simply pictures on the wall to remind the others who came before them, but Blizzard lived on through Silver… and Silver wanted to make sure he lived on as well.

“You may have almost twenty years on me, but I can understand it. Just don’t go telling Dash how highly you think of her, I don’t think her ego could take the extra psi,” Soarin joked.

“Absolutely not,” Silver agreed. “That girl absorbs praise like a sponge you can’t squeeze out.”

“HEY!” Fleetfoot’s voice caught both of their attention.

“Rgh…” Silver instantly grunted when they looked forward. Squad Zero and Rivet were turning towards the stairs at the same time Soarin and the rest had touched to the ground floor.

Unlike Silver’s usual response, Soarin smiled upon seeing the special force squad. He was glad to see them above ground because the they had been stuck with Rivet’s workshop nearly twenty-four seven the past couple of weeks, testing out numerous new types protective equipment that Spitfire had ordered for the Zero Project. Either they finally finished the testing or they actually managed to convince Rivet to take a break. The little guy was a machine when it came to carrying out his orders, assembling equipment, and running experiments. Of course Soarin knew it was only a matter of seconds before…

“Riiiiivet!” Fleetfoot dove towards the little engineer.

“Eee!” Rivet yelped as he quickly stepped behind Playbitz.

“Aw, come on…” Fleetfoot cooed as she missed and looked at Rivet through Playbitz’s legs. “It’s been so long since you’ve gotten a good snuggle! Don’t you want one?” she teased as Rivet shook his head back and forth vigorously.

Soarin was trying very hard not to lose it. Why? Fleetfoot.

Her turnaround from their little encounter with Discord was insanely quick. Soarin found he had more reason to understand her antics now, but it always amazed him at how hard it was to keep Fleetfoot from being cheerful for long. She sounded absolutely crushed a couple of hours ago and here she was, as happy as can be all over again.

Rivet tried keeping space between him and Fleetfoot, running circles around Playbitz, but it wasn’t long before she faked him out and caught him in a full out hug. Rivet’s face turned bright red as she pressed her cheek against his and rubbed it back and forth.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“Why are you so adorable?” she asked as Swift, Shine, and Playbitz laughed behind them. Calm, however, was not quite as amused. He reluctantly stepped towards Fleetfoot.

“Come on, put him down…” Calm asked. Fleetfoot held Rivet away while sticking her tongue out at Calm.

“No! Mine!” she stated adamantly as Rivet constantly tried to pull himself free.

“Please?” Calm added as he remained an obvious fixed distance from her. Fleetfoot noticed him being cautious and a sly grin appeared on her face.

“Well… when you put it that way then—AH! Behind you!” Fleetfoot exclaimed while dropping Rivet and pointing behind Calm with a terrified look on her face.

“Huh?!” Calm did a quick, full turn and saw… nothing?

“HA!” Fleetfoot leapt up onto his back. “Gotcha!” she giggled as Calm’s body completely stiffened and his face immediately turned bright red. “Wow, I can’t believe you fell for that!”

The only response the large pony could muster was a quite yelp before he started to slowly lay down on the ground.

“Aw, c’mon, ya big sissy!” Fleetfoot laughed as Calm took a complete ‘fate accepted’ position, lying on the floor on his stomach with Fleetfoot on his back. “Get up! You’re no fun!” Fleetfoot smirked before playfully biting his ear and giving it a light yank.

“Help…” Calm’s voice cracked as he lay powerless on the floor.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“Calm, really?” Playbitz couldn’t stop chuckling as he stepped up beside his totally defeated squadmate. “Fight back! She’s like, half your size and has an eighth the testosterone,” he encouraged while smirking.

“You’re not helping,” Calm’s voice squeaked again.

“My Zero Bros!” Air Mach yelled as he grabbed Rivet, placed him on his back, and then put his arms around Shine and somehow around Swift, able to see the dark pony clearly despite being mostly hidden by the blue of the halls… AND while wearing sunglasses. “You’re alive! I thought Captain Spitfire locked y’all up down there!” he pointed forward. “Too busy testing out some amazing new stuff down there no doubt!” He let go of Shine and shifted his weight towards Swift, Rivet falling off his back as he moved. “And how’s my faithful apprentice doing?!” he asked heartily.

“Channeling my stallionly spirit, sir!” Swift replied while saluting.

“You’re his apprentice?” Shine asked Swift while raising an eyebrow.

“Of course!” Swift pointed at her and winked. “Master Animak is the greatest!”

“I think I’m going blind from stupidity…” Silver grumbled as the group shenanigans stood in the way, preventing him and Soarin from going any further into the lobby. Soarin chuckled.

“Sooner or later you’re gonna have to enjoy yourself Silver,” said Soarin as Silver shook his head.

“I can enjoy myself without being surrounded by idiots, thank you very much,” he stated firmly. Soarin shrugged and let it be.

Silver was capable of enjoying himself. Soarin knew that well… but he also knew that Silver was very, VERY against Project Zero. He didn’t believe in the concept of bringing in random ponies that had a certain degree of naturally unique abilities and putting them in the same rank and file of some of the most honored and elite Wonderbolts. It was a stretch, Soarin wasn’t going to argue with that, but they were an experiment. An anti-Shadowbolt experiment. And based on what had been going on recently, they would possibly get a chance to prove themselves soon.

Soarin just felt like Silver wasn’t giving them a chance at all. Soarin had a feeling that Silver was just a little bitter about it. Which made sense, since he had earned his keep over the course of twenty plus years. It wasn’t easy to earn the respect of a veteran like him. Soarin was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt though. Silver was certain they would fail, but Soarin wanted to see them in real action himself before passing a judgment.

“That’s right! There are few who can stand up to the might and stallionness of the great Animak!” Air Mach chanted as he let go of Swift and shifted over to Silver’s side, draping his arm over Silver’s shoulder. “One being this hard ass right here! There are none who can match the epic level of Silver Lining! He’s worthy to be part of our ring of stallionness!”

Silver flattened his ears and gave Air Mach the most unamused look that Soarin had ever seen in his life.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“May we always fight side by side as true stallions as brothers! Will you join Swift and I and show us the ways of an old veteran badass?!” Air Mach asked as Silver continued to maintain the flat look.

“I would get similar satisfaction from smelling my own farts,” Silver replied in an annoyed tone.

“Ooo… ouch… right in the stallionhood…” Air Mach cringed as he slid off and back over towards Swift.

Soarin was getting a kick out the whole scene, even Silver’s dissatisfaction. He seldom saw the old pony so grumpy, it actually was pretty humorous.

“Um…” a quiet voice came from beside Soarin. “Hi, Soarin…” Soarin turned his head to see Shine hovering nearby and fidgeting. He smiled.

“What’s up Shine?” he asked with a friendly tone.

“How… are you?” she asked nervously. Soarin subtly gritted his teeth. He knew what was going on here and hated it whenever it happened. Shine had a crush on him. He was well aware of it… but it was awkward because she also knew he was with Dash. Shine was younger than Dash, and the crush was more youthful than it was solid, but that didn’t stop it from being awkward.

“I’m doing fine, how have you been?” Soarin kept up the smiles, hoping it would help her relax, but she didn’t say anything else. In fact, she froze right there. Thankfully, somepony else was watching.

“Hey, Shine, can you lend me a hoof with the big dope over here?” Playbitz stepped up and pointed at Calm, who was still on the ground being ear nommed by Fleetfoot.

“Oh, uh… yeah…” Shine turned away towards Calm, her face turning bright red. Playbitz looked up at Soarin and shrugged. Soarin tipped his head to the side awkwardly.

“Up to your ears in mares, aren’t you?” Silver said from beside Soarin. Soarin glanced over at Silver and smirked.

“Well… I can’t blame them for having good taste,” Soarin snickered as he joked.

“Heh,” Silver cracked a smile. “How’s the weather up your own ass?”

“Delightful,” Soarin quickly replied as the two finally had an avenue to walk by the silly things happening. As they made their way to the center of the lobby, Soarin decided to ask.

“So when exactly did you see the Shadowbolt? You said it was right before you got on the train?”

“That’s right,” Silver nodded. “I had one hoof in the car and saw somepony peeking around the back of the train. It took me a moment to register the red headband and goggles. As soon as I remembered your report from Manehatten, I stepped off and glided over, but he or she was already long gone. All I could see from that distance was the black and purple uniform.”

“I wonder what they’re after… first I thought it might have to do with this,” Soarin tapped the fake horn. “But then squad seven and now you reported seeing them too. They are watching all of us it seems.”

“Whatever they want, I don’t like it. And to be honest, I’m not looking forward to if or when they strike,” Silver scoffed.

“Why is that?” Soarin asked as they stopped in the center of the lobby. Silver glanced back at squad zero, still mingling with Fleetfoot and Air Mach. Air Mach and Swift Justice were chanting random things as Rivet looked stuck between the two. Playbitz and Shine were trying to pull Calm wind along the ground as Fleetfoot continued to tease him from upon his back.

“Because that’s when Spitfire expects these… amateurs… to step up and be the key to victory,” he sighed. Soarin looked back at squad zero and decided to speak up.

“Look Silver, I wholly understand why you don’t believe in them. As a fellow Wonderbolt who has earned his place, I get how you dislike how they were simply handed their status… but I don’t think you should be so quick to judge them,” Soarin appealed.

“That’s a soft way of looking at it, son,” Silver snorted. “They are wild fighters, they aren’t disciplined or hardened like we are.”

“You’re gonna call Lightning Streak and Macho Savage hardened?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. Silver shook his head.

“Even those idiots earned their rank. These ponies have not,” Silver stated firmly.

“Well,” Soarin shrugged. “What if they do end up helping?”

“Then they are lucky,” Silver turned and took a step, but Soarin reached out and caught him by the shoulder.

“That’s a bit harsh, Silver.”

“It’s not harsh, son. It’s critical. I’m only calling it as I see it. If they help, fine. But they have a lot to prove before I can call them Wonderbolts,” said Silver as Soarin released him. Soarin knew he wasn’t going to change Silver’s mind, but he wanted to at least put his two bits in. “Now… if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to meet with somepony,” Silver nodded before walking down the east hallway.

Silver was hard to argue with. He never took a position without solid thought that he could back up with his reasoning. Soarin understood his lack of confidence in squad zero, but that was the nature of Project Zero. It was an experiment. And there would be no answers until they actually saw action on a battlefield.

Soarin also wondered… who did Silver have to see? He just returned from a show… unless…

Soarin smirked.

He knew who Silver was going to see.

Dash stopped in front of the squad two private gym. She was right on time, but she took a moment to stop and think about all the hours she had spent in this very gym... having harsh training and lessons both taught to her and beaten into her. She owed Silver a lot… that would never be a question, but she wondered what he had in mind now. Would they continue the training? Would he keep being her mentor? She hoped so.

She felt a certain connection with Silver, like he was a second father, passing his knowledge onto her like the Wonderbolt child he never had. She knew Silver had family, but due to their absence she assumed none of them became Wonderbolts. Silver was like a father figure in the current generation, so it was both awesome and touching that he chose her of all ponies to carry on his legacy.

Most of all, why did he call her to the gym? There was only one way to find out.

She took a deep breath and pulled the door open, stepping through and seeing… nothing in the gym. She paused and blinked wondering if she possibly made it before Silver as she started walking.

Suddenly she felt something crash against her hooves. She looked down just in time to see a grey arm hooking her hooves and knocking them out from beneath her before she fell flat on her face and tumbled forward.

“Gah!” she yelped as she rolled to a stop.

“Get on your damn hooves!” Silver’s voice boomed down from above.

Dash pulled her face up from the ground and looked up to see Silver walking away from her towards the center of the gym.

It took her a moment, but as Silver reached the center, turned and set his hooves firmly on the floor… she smirked. Not even a hello… that old bastard. Dash pushed herself up and stepped forward as Silver loudly cracked his neck and his joints. Dash knew exactly what he wanted her to do.

“Well?!” he called across the gym.

Dash leaned back and pushed off, breaking into a gallop towards Silver. Silver narrowed his eyes and focused on Dash as she approached. Dash lead with a right punch, which she purposely threw five inches short as a fake, using the spinning momentum to turn and swing a roundhouse kick towards Silver’s face. Silver merely leaned his head back slightly to let the kick whisk right over his head. Dash followed up the motion by kicking her other hoof twice rapidly at Silver, both of which he blocked with his right hoof only.

Dash spun all the way back around, continuing the attack with a rapid flurry of punches. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, all of which Silver blocked with the same hoof with swiping motions to the left and right. Silver pushed roughly against Dash’s arm with the seventh punch, leaving her wide open. Silver pulled back and threw a heavy punch with his left towards Dash’s chest, but right before it connected, Dash swung brought both of her hooves up and grabbed Silver’s arm. She grunted as the force of the punch and Silver’s strength caused her to slide an inch backwards on her back hooves, but she effectively stopped the blow.

“Hm… not bad,” Silver commented.

Silver thrust his other hoof forward, pushing Dash off of his arm. He spread his wings and hopped up, ready to take to the air. Dash steadied herself, thrust her wings out and leapt up, gliding towards Silver to stop him before he gained air. She aimed a hoof right for his face, but Silver caught her arm, pulled her forward, slung her around and tossed her upward.

“Rgh!” Dash grunted as she tumbled upward. She leveled herself out and did a quick U-turn, speeding back through the air towards Silver as he rose up to her height. Dash turned sideways as she shot towards Silver, extending her wings to slow down and stop in front of his as she threw her right arm out. Silver leaned aside, the punch passing by his chest. Dash forced her wings in opposite directions, causing her to spin as she held her opposite arm out. Silver ducked as Dash spun, her arms swinging over his head. She followed up with two arm chops, both of which Silver shifted side to side to dodge. Dash pulled back and punched forward, but Silver ducked backwards and did a graceful midair backflip, creating a small space between them.

“Dammit!” Dash cursed to herself as she immediately pursued. Silver kept his eyes on her as he pumped his wings and flew away from Dash. Dash locked onto Silver as they began flying in circles around the gym. Dash stayed right with him, matching and following every sudden shift and turn he made. Silver suddenly thrust his wings outward, coming to a complete stop. “Whoa!” Dash yelped as she tried to do the same, but Silver held out his arm, completely clotheslining Dash. She ended up flipping uncontrollably as she continued moving forward, crashing into the padding high up on the wall.

Dash gritted her teeth and managed to turn her body around as she fell, landing very roughly on her hooves. When she looked up, Silver was directly in front of her. Acting on instinct and reflex, Dash threw two wide hooks, one with each arm, but Silver batted them both aside with one hoof before turning and kicking her in the chest.

“OOF!” Dash grunted as she was forced backward, her back slamming against the padded wall and falling onto her plot. She looked up just in time to see Silver throw a hard punch towards her head. “Ah!” she slammed her eyes shut.

“Good,” Silver suddenly said as Dash felt a hoof lightly rest against her forehead. She opened her eyes to see Silver standing in front of her, holding his hoof against her head. “Get up,” he ordered as he removed his hoof and placed it back on the ground.

Dash remained sitting for a moment, panting from the brief workout. She shook her head as she stood up.

“You have a hell of a way of saying hello,” Dash commented as she stood up. Silver lifted an eyebrow as she brushed herself off.

“I wanted to make sure you didn’t just sit on your ass these past three weeks,” he explained himself as Dash gave him a flat look.

“Of course I didn’t,” she scoffed. “I mean, you could’ve just asked you know.”

“I prefer proof over sass…” Silver paused and smirked. “Not that I didn’t expect to get both anyway,” he turned away as if trying to hide the fact that he was smiling and chuckling.

Dash couldn’t help but smile as well. She really, truly had missed Silver over her time off.

“It’s good to see you again, sir,” Dash said. Silver remained facing away for a moment, not saying anything. He tipped his head down slightly before bringing it back up and looking over his shoulder.

“I’ve been assigned to help you put together everything you need to run squad Foxtrot,” Silver suddenly said. “I’ve also been assigned as your personal advisor. Every recruit captain has one. After everything is established, you will report to me if you ever have any questions or dilemmas you need advice on.”

Dash’s eyes lit up as she heard everything. She was wondering who would be assigned to help her. Learning that it was Silver was the best she could hope for.

“Really? That’s awesome!” Dash reacted to the news.

“We will also continue our usual training,” Silver continued in a business fashion. “When we put together your squad schedule, we’ll determine when the best times are.”

Dash was excited. The most memorable part of her time as a Wonderbolt so far… were her training sessions with Silver and all the important lessons he had taught her. And now it was starting up again, she was beyond ecstatic. Silver started walking towards the doors without another word. Dash instinctively started walking at a slightly quickened pace to catch up with him. As soon as she caught up to him though…

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as Silver hooked her hoof and caused her to fall face first… again. She tumbled to a halt and looked up at Silver angrily.

“Awareness, Dash… we’ll work on that,” Silver said sternly. Dash grumbled and pouted as she got back on her hooves.

“Does that mean you’re going to hook-trip me every time we pass in the hallway now?” she asked sarcastically.

“Yes,” Silver replied, completely serious.

“Joy…” Dash sighed, but ended with a chuckle as they started walking back towards the door. Dash immediately started keeping an eye on Silver as they walked side by side. She’d be damned if she’d let him pull that trick on her three times. However as she watched, she looked up and noticed Silver was fighting back a smile. It kept slowly curling on his lips, but each time he scrunched his face and forced it back down. Dash smirked and looked at him smugly. “I knew you missed me,” she teased.

“Don’t you start,” Silver grunted.

Dash yelped as he hook-tripped her again.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Yessss it felt good to write Silver again :)

Lots of art in this chapter! I was hoping to have art at the start of part three but kind of forgot, so Foxenawolf helped me with this chapter instead. God i love that pic of Air Mach and Silver! :rainbowlaugh: (I'm totally not baiting Fleetwind... really i'm not... :pinkiecrazy:)

WHAT?! MORE shadowbolts?! How many of them are there? Oh i wonder :pinkiecrazy:

And Silver finds ways to remain helping Dash and the recruits, what a big softy, he'll never admit it though :derpytongue2:

What am i building up? No one will be ready for it! :pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! :scootangel:

Chapter 74: Mentors

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 74:

“Come on Storm! Pick it up!” Soarin yelled behind him as he pitched upward and did a barrel roll corkscrew through a suspended ring.

“Rgh!” Storm grunted as he did his best to follow the maneuver. It was sloppy and his leg nicked the edge of the padded ring, but he kept pace with Soarin.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Spitfire called as the two zipped by her, swinging her arm around. “Keep that pace! One more lap through the course!”

“Catch him, Storm!” Fleetfoot called from beside Spitfire as Storm struggled to keep up.

Storm was chasing Soarin through an obstacle course suspended in the elite flight gym. The course was a collection of padded rings, beams, and platforms that were suspended in midair. They made a sharp turn near the far wall and began through the course once more. Soarin angled towards the first piece, a platform at the start of the long straightaway. As soon as his hooves touched the platform, he smoothly executed the sequence for the Sonic Blastoff.

Soarin thought through every part as his body moved. Strong, but relaxed. Front hooves, back hooves, front jump, back jump, and force wings!

A loud BOOM echoed throughout the gym as Soarin fired from the platform and broke through an air cone, shooting ahead at three times the speed. Soarin spun and turned his body fiercely, barely fractions of a second to fit his body through the arrangement of obstacles. Storm was battered by the shockwave, but held his wings firm and pumped his wings hard… but there was no way he’d catch up at his pace.

“Storm!” Point Dex yelled from opposite of Spitfire and Fleetfoot. “Utilize everything at your disposal!” he yelled. Storm blinked and locked his eyes on two vertical beams approaching. He angled towards the first, turning his body right before passing and rapidly punching his front hooves against it. His Surface Tap technique propelled him towards the second, back hooves first. He turned his body back forward, repeating the technique with his back hooves on the second beam to shoot himself down the course.

“Damn!” Storm yelled as he struggled to remain in the course boundaries and avoid the obstacles. He was barely making it by each one… and to top it off, while his Surface Tap had given him extra speed, it was nowhere near as powerful as the Sonic Blastoff. He could only keep going as Soarin pulled further and further away.

Soarin shot through the finish line and instantly pulled up, throwing his wings outward to catch the air as he slowed down and glided around back towards the rest gathered. He looked back towards the course to see Storm finish the remaining obstacles and grunt as he pushed himself all the way through the finish line.

Soarin stopped and waited as Storm put on the breaks, slowed down, and glided around before the two started back towards the others.

“Not bad Storm,” Soarin complimented as he caught his breath. “That was a pretty good pace.”

“It wasn’t… good… enough…” Storm panted and wheezed, teetering slightly as he glided along with Soarin. “You left me… in… the dust…”

Soarin thought about saying something, but he knew how Storm was. Storm disliked failing, and even though it was unrealistic for him to beat Soarin in an obstacle course, much less a race, competition was Storm’s way of pushing himself. He heavily disliked failure and would push himself harder and harder towards success.

The two glided down as the rest hovered back to the floor of the gym. Soarin landed first, and quickly reached out with a wing as Storm stumbled upon placing his hooves back on the ground. Soarin ended up supporting him slightly as they approached the rest of the lead squad and squad seven.

“That was a good run, Storm,” Spitfire complimented as Soarin helped him stand up straight. Storm simply nodded instead of replying verbally. Soarin could tell Storm was frustrated with himself. “Alright everypony, that’s all the training we have today. From now until lunch we should go over our show routines and then get off your hooves and rest your wings.”

“Excuse me captain…” Point Dex stepped around Macho Savage. “But who is replacing Autumn? And… isn’t it kind of reckless to use a stand in that’s been with us for a day?” His argument made sense, but Spitfire smiled.

“Funny you should ask…” Spitfire pointed towards the gym doors as they closed and a pegasus walked towards them.

It was a cream colored sta…er…mare? Stallion? It was… actually hard to tell from the distance. A cream colored… pony with an incredibly short turquois mane. The lack of ability to tell the pony’s gender actually helped Soarin recognize him.

“Oh…” Soarin said with an eye roll and a smirk. Fleetfoot hopped up and down.

“Hey!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as the pony approached. The pony was indeed a stallion, but looked very effeminate and wore lavender eye shadow.

“Heyyyyyyyy everypony!” he greeted as Fleetfoot rushed up and gave him a hug. “How are you doing sweetie?” he asked her, his voice incredibly flamboyant.

“Lead Runner will be replacing Autumn until further notice,” Spitfire explained as she walked over to him. “Squad thirteen has been practicing the exact same synchronized flying routine you guys have and was in Autumn’s position in the formation. He’ll fill in perfectly.”

“Actually, I was in the spot Storm Front flies in, but I’ve memorized all the positions and flight paths, I could fly all four if you needed me to,” the stallion winked as he explained his skills proudly. Fleetfoot smiled happily beside Lead Runner.

“He’s really smart! Trust me, he’s perfect!” she clapped her hooves together.

“You’re not just saying that because you two are shopping buddies?” Soarin snickered. Lead Runner slinked over towards Soarin and Storm. Storm blinked and leaned away as Lead Runner brushed his head against Soarin’s shoulder.

“You know my invitation to our next shopping spree still staaaaands!” he said while slowly rising along Soarin’s shoulder.

“Yeah, no… nice try,” Soarin chuckled as her reached up and gently pushed Lead Runner away. “My lack of shopping interest hasn’t changed.”

“You play hard to please,” Lead Runner bounced his eyebrows at Soarin before glancing over and locking his eyes on Air Mach, who was pushing up his sunglasses and giving him a confused look. “What’s on your mind, handsome?”

“You confuse me,” Air Mach huffed. “You’re definitely a stallion, but you act more like a mare than any stallion I’ve ever seen!”

“Oh boy…” Soarin chuckled. This was going to be quite an exchange. Two Wonderbolts well known for being strange in their own enjoyable way were about to clash. Point Dex and even Macho Savage backed away as Lead Runner sauntered towards Air Mach.

“Well,” Lead Runner leaned changed course and draped an arm over an uncomfortable Point Dex. “I’m neither a stallion, nor a mare,” he said jokingly.

“If you’re neither, than what the hell are you?!” Air Mach demanded. Lead Runner suddenly zipped up really close to Air Mach’s face. Air Mach leaned his head back while gritting his teeth and glaring.

“The name’s Lead Runner… but you can call me Learun for short.” he bounced his eyebrows. “Beautiful Princess works fine too!”

“WHY THE HELL WOULD I CALL YOU THAT?!” Air Mach barked back desperately as Learun kept leaning into him.

Soarin and Fleetfoot were trying their hardest not to burst out laughing. Even Spitfire was cracking a smile. Storm, Dex, and Savage just looked confused as they watched a pony single-hoofedly fluster ‘The Great Animak.’

“You think you’re real smart, huh?!” Air Mach grimaced even harder as Learun continued to lean into him.

“Play you’re cards right and I can show you just how much I know,” Learun continued teasing him as he brought up a hoof in front of their faces. “I can show off my… dexterous hooves!” he offered, his hoof wobbling smoothly in front of them. Air Mac stopped grinding his teeth together and groaned in frustration while rolling his eyes, but Learun just held the wavy hoof closer.

Art by: Noble Savage

“Doesn’t the poor thing look starved?” His eyes narrowed and a sneer grew on his face. “Tell me, how does this feel?” he started reaching his other hoof towards Air Mach’s legs.

Air Mach instantly stepped back, pushed his glasses back down on his face, and put up his hooves to fight, but Spitfire casually stepped up and pushed his hooves back down to the floor as Learun’s hoof continued to wobble in front of Air Mach.

“Lead Runner will be joining us tomorrow and I’m confident he will do his job well. We should go over our routines now, Point Dex?”

“Ma’am?” Dex pushed his glasses up and saluted.

“Lead Runner’s smart, but make sure he’s up to speed with how squad seven likes to fly the routine,” Spitfire ordered.

“Easy,” Dex nodded. Spitfire turned to Soarin and Fleetfoot.

“Let’s run through ours as well, from the top. No mistakes, let’s go!” Spitfire clapped her hooves together. Soarin glanced back at Storm as he shuffled along, following his squad.

Poor body posture, lacking confidence or… was it filled with frustration? Storm wasn’t short of confidence, he knew he was capable, but was he capable enough for himself? Soarin had been trying really hard to get Storm to open up and relax, but he was hell bent on being better than he could be. That wasn’t a bad thing, not in the slightest, but Storm seemed to lack the patience to take a couple spills along the way. He wanted to be better and he wanted to be better now.

As the squads parted to opposite ends of the gym to practice, Soarin wondered if there was anything else he could possibly do to help.

“You sure you don’t want it?” Twister endlessly snickered as he held a small circular pillow out towards Squall.

“I said no!” Squall glared as Twister held the pillow across the ‘border’ that Squall had tried to add to in order to keep Twister out of his space. The pillow had an image of Squall’s head glaring forward with the words ‘Super Grump Chump’ written beneath the image.

Dash walked by the two of them, snorting when she saw the pillow. She kept moving towards the back wall of the barracks where the bathrooms were as Little Star floated out of the bathroom and took notice of the commotion. She floated over to Twister and Squall, saw the pillow, and burst out laughing.

“Can I have it?!” she asked while giggling her little wings off. Twister cleared his through and put on a very serious expression.

“To avoid copyright infringement, I first must consult the owner of the visage before handing over crucial materials to the desiring party,” he turned to Squall. “Sir, have you any personal attachment to this pillow?”

“FOR THE LAST TIME, NO!” Squall snapped. Twister’s face instantly reverted to his crazy stare.

“KAY!” he said as he tossed the pillow towards Star. Star caught the pillow and held it out in front of her while giggling.

“Hehehe! This is so perfect!” she beamed as she turned and took the pillow to her space. Squall perked up and his jaw dropped as she took the pillow.

“Wait! Why are you keeping that thing?!” he whined as he trotted towards her. She turned and held it towards him.

“Could you say no to this face?” Star joked while pointing to the glaring image on the pillow.

“Give me that!” he demanded, but she held it away from him in one hoof, holding her other little hoof against his forehead while sticking her tongue out.

“Too bad. You turned it down, it’s mine now!” she teased as Squall growled. Twister appeared beside Squall.

“Psst, hey buddy, I’ve got another one right here if ya want it!” he held up another small pillow, but this one had the image of Squall’s plot on it instead and read ‘Super Grump Rump’ beneath it. “This one’s half price!”

“PFFFHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” Little Star fell to the ground, landing on the face pillow as she laughed. Squall just folded his ears back and gave Twister a flat look as Twister dangled the butt pillow in front of them. Without saying anything, Squall tried reaching for the pillow, but Twister held it away. The two scuffled and fought over it until the pillow flung from Twister’s grip and hit Matteo right between the eyes as the Griffon was turning away from his bed.

“What in the—” Matteo reached up and pulled the pillow off his face, his eyes widening when he saw what was on it. Twister somehow popped up from behind Matteo’s arm like he was peeking over a wall, wearing a fake, stylish moustache.

“Tis a work of art to rival ze Pona Lisa, is it not? Hon hon hon?!” he said in a strange accent.

Art by: Scootafail

Matteo flattened his brow and looked towards Twister before reaching up his free talons and grabbing Twister by the face, causing a very loud HONK followed by a WHOOP WHOOP WHOOOOOOOOP from Twister. As Twister flailed about in Matteo’s grip Squall moved towards them while swearing continuously, going after the pillow of his plot.

Dash saw the whole sequence play out from near the bathrooms and rolled her eyes comically. What a bunch of awesome morons she had to work with. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Hmmm…” she went back to thinking about the real reason she had walked over. She was wondering about the door beside the bathrooms, the one that led to the personal room that Silver used while they were recruit training. She was, in fact, standing right in front of the door now, curious if the room was being used for anything.

She reached up and opened the door after finding it to be unlocked. There was nothing in the room. It was stripped bare, even the bed was gone. It appeared that once Silver moved back into his room on the third floor, the instructor room was just left there.

She looked back over towards her space, specifically at the ‘office’ area with the desk, tables, filing cabinets and couch. The small open office was about the same size as the empty room. She glanced to the right, taking a look at her squadmates and then looking between the office and her friends. She had a thought concerning the small, but silly dispute Squall had with Twister stepping into his space. She knew Twister was just being a troll and Squall was just overreacting, but maybe… it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have a neutral space where they could all relax or talk without invading personal space.

As a captain, Dash felt the need to maintain an environment to nurture camaraderie. While she felt there wouldn’t be much of a problem with it after all they’ve been through, she wanted to do absolutely everything she could.

“Heh…” Dash chuckled quietly to herself. Listening to herself being all responsible and thinking things over. She had changed a lot. Making it into her dream and being given a position of responsibility… she really wanted to get this right. She wouldn’t stop being a bit brash, a little quick to jump the gun, and a tad sassy, but she knew what was important and she was willing to take steps to assure success.

“Hey guys,” Dash turned and walked towards them. “Matt, put him down,” Dash casually ordered as she saw Matteo still holding onto Twister by the face.

“I’ve… been trying…” Matteo grunted as he shook his arm but Twister’s face appeared to be stuck to his shanks. Dash flattened her brow.

“Twister,” she said only his name and he detached form Matteo, falling flat on his back and staring up towards the ceiling with the sneer plastered to his face. Dash looked over at Squall and Star. Squall had looked up and was waiting for Dash to continue, Little Star had the pillow of Squall’s grumpy face up in front of her face. Damn, Dash loved these guys.

“It looks like Silver’s room from the recruit training is completely vacant, I’m thinking of moving my desk and office stuff in there so we can have a little recreation space. Anypony have a problem with that or want to use the room for something else?” she looked around. They all glanced at each other briefly before they all shrugged. Star smiled and nodded.

“That sounds like a good idea,” she smiled while holding the pillow away from Squall, who was still trying to get it.

“I’ve no qualms,” Matteo agreed.

“As long as I can still put bacon in my coffee,” Twister snickered as Matteo glared down at him.

“You don’t NEED coffee,” he snorted at Twister down by his talons. Dash grinned and shook her head as she looked towards Squall.

“Squall, any issues?” she asked. Squall stopped reaching towards Star and looked towards Dash. Dash knew exactly what he was going to say,

“What—”

“—ever,” Dash finished for him. Squall’s eyes widened and his ears flopped down as Little Star broke into a giggle fit. Dash shrugged towards Squall. “Hey, that’s your answer for almost everything I ask you, don’t look so surprised!” she stuck her tongue out at him as he huffed and scrunched his face. “Anyway, it’s settled, Matt, could you help me move the stuff?” Dash asked Matteo. Matteo looked towards Dash’s office area and nodded.

“Very well,” he said as Dash moved past, following right behind her. Dash yanked at her desk a few times to drag it out from between the filing cabinets before the two of them flanked it, grabbed the sides, and lifted it up, moving in synch towards the empty room. Dash glanced over at Matteo’s space as they passed by.

It was a little… messy. At least that was the best way to describe it. It wasn’t a disaster like Twister and Squall’s spaces… it looked more like Matteo was trying to be neat, but lacked the housekeeping skills to be effective, which Dash already knew after watching him launch his bed sheets across the room while trying to make his bed during recruit training. In comparison, Twister’s space was likely purposely messy, and Squall probably just didn’t give a damn.

However Dash did notice that among the balled up bed sheets and blankets spilling on the floor, Matteo had pushed his nightstand over beside the wall next to his dresser. There was a large collection of wooden carved statues sitting on them. In the center there were five wooden figurines, each depicting a griffon sitting down, and all different sizes. These five carvings were all very detailed and impressive, but the rest of them? They looked… strangely sloppy in comparison the five in the center. They weren’t there the night before. He must’ve just put them up.

Dash couldn’t help but be incredibly curious. She had never seen wood carved art of that style, much less wood carved art in general. It wasn’t a pony practice that was for sure. She instantly felt like asking him about it as they set her desk down in the room and went back to get the filing cabinets.

“Say, Matt…” Dash asked as they picked up the small filing cabinet and started moving it.

“The wooden carvings?” he asked before she could even bring it up. She looked up at him, surprised, but he made a head motion towards them. “I saw you looking,” he confirmed.

“Ah,” Dash smirked. “You know me, always interested in the crazy Griffon Kingdom,” she said with a little bit of sarcasm. Matteo scoffed and cracked a grin.

“They are talon carved, wood-life statues,” he explained as they passed by them and moved into the office.

“Wood-life statues? Talon carved?” Dash asked both at once.

“Indeed,” Matteo nodded as they set down the filing cabinet against the wall and pushed the desk forward towards the middle of the small room, trying to organize it like Spitfire’s office despite the smaller size of the room. “Statues that depict loved ones or wildlife… it’s one of the most practiced arts in the Griffon Kingdom.”

“Besides beating the crap out of each other?” Dash joked as they walked back out and moved to grab a couple of chairs.

“We’re a militaristic society, but we have our artists and our craftsmen,” Matteo explained as they picked up two chairs each. “It’s also one way to use our talons in a pure way,” he added.

“Pure?” Dash was full of questions.

“That’s right,” Matteo nodded as they shuffled into the office with the chairs. “You recall what I told you about our talons?”

“Yeah, if you draw blood, you have to kill whoever you drew blood from… er, what was the rest?” Dash grinned sheepishly, trying to remember.

“Or else we live with the blood of a living creature on us. It stains our talons, thus stains us… because our talons are very important to us,” he explained.

“Oh, that’s right, but I don’t remember you going further about the talons,” Dash tipped her head curiously as they set the chairs down and left the office.

“I didn’t before, but I can now,” Matteo began. “Our talons are used for many things in our lives. The only tools griffons use are hammers for making spears and then using those spears for combat. Everything else is done using beak and talon. Farmers, crafters, weavers, etcetera. Our talons are considered our life tool, an extension of ourselves that allows us to create. Hence why using it to harm is considered barbaric.”

“So… killing what you harm is not barbaric?” Dash asked curiously. That seemed to contradict. Matteo shook his head as they left the office.

“We are a society of honor and strength. We stain our honor by using our talons as weapons. It’s considered a lack of discipline and emotional control. It is our punishment that we must finish the job should we misuse our talons,” he said as they stopped in front of his space.

“But you didn’t kill Gilda…” Dash thought out loud. Matteo looked away and sighed.

“Yeah, no griffon knows about that… but would you kill the one you’d fallen in love with for the sake of preserving an old cultural practice? I respect the code of honor and the history of griffon culture, but I’m not so blind to ignore what’s in my heart,” he said as he moved towards the carvings.

“Heh…” Dash smiled as she joined him by the carvings. That was a very good way to look at it all. Matteo respected the practices of his species, but he didn’t let it cloud his judgment. That much was evident when he decided to become a Wonderbolt, but hearing it directly from him as well was even better.

“But these carvings…” Matteo picked up one of the shoddy ones. “Well, let’s just say I was never very good at it. I tried, but my talons lack the steady softness required to create masterpieces… like these,” he reached down and picked up one of the five statues in the middle. “These were made by my mother,” Matteo explained as Dash took a closer look.

“Wait a sec… are these…” she looked at the four that were remaining on the table. Two of them were of adult griffons. One was a very large male, the other a female about half the size. The other two were much smaller, both young. One was a small female, the other a very small male. “Is this you?” Dash asked while pointing at the large male griffon figure.

“Yes, that’s me,” he pointed at the others one by one. “And Gilda, Teodora, and Gianni.”

“Wow, your mom is really good with these, the resemblance is almost perfect!” Dash said with awe as she looked between Matteo and his figurine counterpart. Even without the colors, the features, especially the glare were all almost perfectly identical. Then she looked at the figurine Matteo was holding… and had been looking at since he picked it up. “Who is that one of…?” Dash asked instinctively.

“My…” Matteo paused, hesitating slightly. “Father…” he said quietly.

Dash instantly winced. She was only asking since they were on the subject, but she instantly felt like she overstepped her boundaries. She didn’t say anything else… but she took a moment to observe the figurine of Matteo’s late father. With how accurate the carving of Matteo, Gilda, and their children were, Dash assumed that the figurine of his father was just as accurate.

It wasn’t quite as big as the figurine of Matteo himself, but it was close, only about a head shorter. His father must’ve been just below the size limit to be in the Sky Wings, especially because he was the former Master of the Sky. The features though… were very similar to Matteo. The glare, the beak, and the way his chest puffed out in the sitting position. Matteo was every bit his father’s son, even in appearance it seemed. Dash could suddenly imagine how hard it was to be rejected from Sky Wings… to be denied following in the footsteps of a father who Matteo himself embodied nearly every quality of, down to appearance. Yet it also made her glad that he was able to find his way into the Wonderbolts and put his abilities to use. Not only was his family stripped of his father, but also of a chance for him to gain and match the honor his father had earned. The Wonderbolts gave Matteo a chance to gain his own honor and make the spirit of his father proud.

They were both interrupted as the sound of the front door opening roughly and slamming against the wall echoed throughout the barracks.

“My god, what the hell did they do to this place?” a very familiar voice to them all came through the door. All the recruits looked up from what they were doing to see Silver Lining standing in the doorway. He took a few steps in, looking back and forth at the five of them while lifting an eyebrow. “What? Something on my handsome face?” he asked bluntly.

“DADDY!” Twister suddenly appeared and clung to Silver’s neck with fake river of tears running down his eyes. “YOU CAME BACK FROM THE STORE!” he joked.

Silver narrowed his eyes at Twister, grabbed him by the hooves, spun around and threw Twister onto Squall’s bed. Twister bounced upon landing on Squall’s mattress… and kept bouncing to the point where all the sheets and pillows were thrown in different directions.

“HEY!” Squall yelled as he tried to catch his bed items that were flying about.

“If I were your dad…” Silver began as he watched Twister bounce, “I’d lop my own balls off to ensure tragedy never strikes again!” he snapped.

“Pffffffff…” Dash threw a hoof over her mouth to stifle a laugh as Squall reached up and shoved Twister off his mattress, sending him over to his own mattress to continue bouncing, only everything remained neatly on Twister’s bed as he bounced.

“Anyway…” Silver took another step in as Dash, Star, and Matteo all approached in a much more NORMAL manner and stood attention.

“Captain Silver,” Matteo nodded.

“How are you doing, sir?” Star greeted politely.

“Oh, I’m fine… just thought I’d go on a little walk and see how they set you five up… to be honest, I preferred the bunks,” he walked by Star and Matteo, who both stood still. Silver paused and glanced at them. “Oh for the love of Celestia’s divine ass cheeks, at ease. We’re in your damn living space,” he grunted as Star and Matteo glanced at each other briefly before looking at Dash, who had not once stood attention since.

“C’mon guys, we’re Wonderbolts now too. Just be casual,” she waved a hoof at them. Silver huffed.

“I’d prefer a degree of respect in the rest of the compound, but we generally let it go in living quarters,” Silver explained as he stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. “But some of us still do it. Hell, I room with Wave Chill and he salutes me every damn morning when we get up, like he needs my permission to go use the bathroom or something…” Silver trailed off as he looked around. Behind him, Dash snickered as Matteo and Star were clearly struggling to relax after how heavily Silver drilled the lessons on authority into them.

Squall was still frantically picking up everything that Twister had tossed from his bed. Silver watched Squall scurry around. Squall had his head down as he moved about. Twister not only caused everything to fall off the bed, but romping on the bed somehow also made the pillow cases and protectors unzip and come off, the comforter as well. Twister had effectively removed everything from Squall’s bed by bouncing uncontrollably on it.

Because he was busy scanning the floor for every loose article, he carelessly moved towards Silver, who simply stood still with his eyes locked on Squall until fate struck and Squall walked face first into Silver’s chest.

“What the—?!” Squall looked up and his eyes widened.

“Hate to break it to you, son…” Silver said as he lifted his brow. “But I’m not the hugging type.”

Squall stared for another moment before folding his ears back and slowly backing away. Silver glanced over at Dash, who shrugged before Silver approached her.

“So,” Silver said as he stood before her. “Time to get you squared away…” he stopped and looked over his shoulder, catching all the others looking at him. As soon as he looked they all looked away and acted like they were doing something else. Silver snorted and leaned towards Dashes ear. “By the way…” he whispered. “Your squad is the only recruit squad still in the barracks… you better get their asses in gear.”

“Huh?” Dash blinked as she registered what he said. “Oh, um…” she grimaced. Way to start out as a captain. She hadn’t realized how long they had been in the barracks since breakfast. “Uh… squad!” Dash yelled as she stepped around Silver. “Look alive! We need to get some training in! Um…” she awkwardly tried to rally them. “I guess, uh…” she blushed lightly. “I MEAN… HIT THE WEIGHTS! Let’s break a sweat before lunch!”

Dash felt so stupid, that couldn’t have been more cheesy or over the top at the same time. Her friends all heard her, but were both caught off guard and confused. Behind her, Silver rolled his eyes before shooting a heavy glare over her shoulder at all of them. They instantly flinched and saluted.

“Yes, ma’am!” Star yelled. As she, Matteo, Twister, and Squall all quickly shuffled out the door. Dash exhaled and looked back at Silver, but he looked away quickly as if examining the room again.

“I guess I’ll go too then,” Dash started moving, but Silver reached out and caught her shoulder.

“Hold it right there, missy… didn’t you hear what I said? We need to put together your schedule,” he reminded her.

“Oh… right,” Dash exhaled as she relaxed. Silver noticed her slightly slumped posture.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “You’re a brand new captain. In general, unless you have scheduled down time, make sure your squad is doing something. It’s your job to keep them active and training. It will be second nature after a few weeks.”

“Alright… I just felt so silly giving orders,” Dash admitted as she winced.

“You’ll get used to that too,” Silver nodded. “Now, where are all your captain materials?” he asked while looking around.

“Oh, we turned your instructor room into my office,” Dash grinned sheepishly. “Actually we just did that.”

Silver blinked and smirked.

“You turned MY room… into YOUR office?” he lifted an eyebrow.

“Er… yes?” Dash forced a wide smile nervously. Silver kept an eye on her for a few moments before cracking a smile and snickering.

“You’re a riot,” he shook his head. “Well, captain… Show me to your office,” he said with sarcasm.

Dash scrunched her face and blushed in embarrassment. She found a use for the room, but wasn’t expecting the previous occupant of said room to visit immediately afterward, especially since it was Silver. She quietly motioned a hoof towards the door and two started walking towards it. Dash’s eyes suddenly widened and she hopped away from Silver, locking her eyes on him from about a yard away. Silver stopped and blinked.

“What?” he asked. Dash glanced down at his hooves, then back up at him. She narrowed her eyes and exhaled through her nose.

“Nothing…” she said as the two started walking again. Dash walked very stiffly while keeping an eye on his hooves to avoid any… ‘surprises.’

“Alright Storm, spill it,” Soarin asked as the two emerged from the showers and grabbed their towels.

“What?” Storm asked as Soarin threw his towel over his head and rubbed the water from his mane roughly.

“You heard me, you’ve been moping since the end of the agility course,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by the towel. “Ah,” Soarin grunted as the towel got caught on the fake horn. He carefully pulled it around and draped the towel over his back. “You can’t just stay silent, dude. You’ve gotta tell me if something’s bothering you.

“Urgh…” Storm groaned as he draped his towel over his head. “But I feel stupid about it…”

“Why?” Soarin asked as the two moved towards the lockers to dry off away from the steam rising from the showers.

“One side, gentlestallions!” Lead Runner sauntered by them while twirling his towel over his head. The two stood very far aside as Lead Runner passed them before sitting down by the lockers.

“It’s just… I don’t know…” Storm sighed as he dried off his arms. “I don’t like failing… but that usually pertains to screwing something up or doing something wrong. It’s different this time…”

“How so?” Soarin asked as he whipped his towel over his shoulders to dry off his back. Storm shook his head and turned away.

“It’s stupid, forget about—”

“Storm,” Soarin rolled up his towel and whipped Storm with it, making a loud WHA-PISH noise as it struck Storm’s shoulder.

“OW!” he yelped. “What was that for?!” he glared at Soarin as he rubbed his shoulder.

“Tell me or I’ll do it again,” Soarin threatened as he spun the towel up again between his hooves. Storm reclined as he saw the second rat-tail at the ready, giving in.

“Fine… all I did this time was fall short compared to you in the training.” Storm explained. “But for some reason I’m getting pissed off as if I failed at something important. See? Stupid…” Storm grumbled as he balled up his towel and rubbed it against his chest with frustration.

“Storm, that’s not stupid at all…” Soarin began as he let go of the rat-tail and let the towel unwind.

“BACK OFF HE/SHE/IT DEVIL!” Air Mach’s voice belted from the showers.

“Oh dear, my shower handle is stuck!” Lead Runner’s voice followed. “Come over here and give it hard stallionly TWIST!”

“I’M OUT!” Air Mach trotted out of the shower (wearing his sunglasses), grabbed his towel and cape and went straight out the door even though he was soaking wet.

“Wet pony! Extra wet pony!” Blaze’s voice came from outside the locker room as the door closed.

“THAT… is stupid,” Soarin chuckled while pointing towards the door. Storm rolled his eyes and went back to drying himself off. “But really Storm, there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact I think that’s good.”

“How is that good?” Storm stopped and looked towards Soarin. “It’s bad enough that I do it when something actually goes wrong. I’d rather be more realistic and learn from my mistakes and shortcomings instead of beat myself up about them.”

“Nonono…” Soarin waved a hoof at him. “In this case, it’s helpful… you don’t like that you fell short of somepony else in training, and you want to do better, right?”

“Right…” Storm nodded.

“Storm, competition breeds success,” Soarin smiled. “If you want to beat me, cling to that feeling.”

“Why? There’s no way in hell I’m catching up to you any time soon,” Storm flattened his ears.

“But try,” Soarin emphasized. “Make that your goal. You already became an elite through special circumstances, that takes care of one goal… now it’s time for you to make new goals, and chase them with everything you’ve got, just like you did before.” Soarin tossed his towel aside and gathered up his dirty flight suit to drop off at the laundry. “If you can do that, you’ll only keep getting better.”

“Huh…” Storm blinked as he though it over. Storm looked at Soarin and hesitated. Soarin noticed, and waited patiently. Storm though, remained silent again.

“C’mon Storm, I know that look, what else?” Soarin knowingly pried.

“Can you teach me the Sonic Blastoff?” Storm forced out.

Soarin’s eyes widened. He wasn’t expecting that. The two just stared at each other for a moment until Soarin came to his senses.

“Er… the Sonic Blastoff?” Soarin repeated to make sure he heard him correctly.

“Yes,” Storm asked, looking a little embarrassed.

“Um…” Soarin wasn’t quite sure how to put it. It wasn’t that simple. “I… not that I wouldn’t mind teaching it to you…” Soarin tipped his head back and forth. “It took me quite a long time and personal skill and twists to get it to work… years of work,” Soarin saw Storm’s expression harden immediately.

“That didn’t stop you from teaching it to Rainbow Dash,” he said with slight annoyance. Soarin was waiting for that. That’s exactly why this was difficult to explain. How do you tell a determined pony that they don’t have a certain talent for something? Storm had plenty of talent for the skills he possessed, but Dash… Soarin decided to be as straightforward as possible, the more he hesitated to answer, the less sincere he would sound.

“Listen, Storm…” Soarin began as the two gathered up their dirty laundry. “Rainbow Dash is a different case. It has nothing to do with her being my marefriend. You know full well she has an incredibly unique ability to copy the moves of others to a certain degree. When I first showed her how I do the Sonic Blast-off… she copied it perfectly on her second try… a technique that took me years to develop. She’s different, it’s not because I favor her or anypony else over you,” he paused as he say Storm’s expression did not give an inch.

This was why Soarin liked working with Storm. Storm’s greatest quality? Determination. A product of his life being rough, causing him to only look up and never back.

“You’re not going to back down though… are you?” Soarin asked. Storm instantly shook his head.

“Even if I can’t learn it fully… I can at least take something away from trying,” Storm nodded.

“Good answer,” Soarin smiled. “No, perfect answer. You remind me a lot of myself, Storm. Never backing down, even when the goal seems out of reach,” Soarin said as they left the locker room. “Alright then, when we get back from our show, I’ll see if I can set aside some time to get you started on the basics. A lot of it is going to be your own practice, but I’ll show you everything I do to train and refine my signature move. It’s not gonna be easy, but if you’re willing, I’ll help.

“Thanks…” said Storm with a nod. “And… thanks for helping me out period. I appreciate it,” Storm added.

They both come to an abrupt halt outside of the locker room as Spitfire was standing outside. She saw Soarin and immediately pointed to him.

“Soarin, find Air Mach, and get him to my office immediately. Squad three just reported seeing a Shadowbolt while doing a routine fly around Canterlot."

Soarin’s ears shot up and his eyes widened.

“HERE?! In Canterlot?!” he exclaimed. Spitfire nodded with a very serious glare on her face.

“This is the closest they’ve appeared to the compound and that worries me…” she paused and looked at Storm. “Actually, Storm,” she addressed Storm Front, who instantly stood attention.

“Yes ma’am?”

“Round up Lead Runner, Point Dex, and Macho Savage. Have them meet in my office on the double. If they’re at lunch, tell them it’s a priority one meeting and to get their asses up to the second floor. I have an idea regarding our trip to Cloudsdale tomorrow and I need squad seven to hear it too,” she looked between them. “Get to it!” she ordered harshly, before turning and trotting towards the lobby.

Soarin and Storm glanced at each other before quickly dropping their uniforms off at a nearby laundry cage and going to find the rest of their squads as quickly as possible.

“Look at this…” Silver chuckled as he looked at Dash’s makeshift office. It was nothing more than a bare room with a desk, a few chairs, and a filing cabinet, but it wasn’t like Dash had had any time to decorate beyond moving everything in less than ten minutes ago. Dash walked over to the file cabinet, opened the middle drawer, and pulled out everything: the binder, the paper, and the Wonderbolt textbook. She set them down on the desk before sitting in one of the chairs facing the desk.

“What are you doing?” Silver suddenly asked. Dash turned and looked over her shoulder at him.

“Uh… sitting?” she replied quickly, because that’s what she was doing. Silver chuckled.

“Dash, this is your office… sit behind your damn desk,” he pointed. Dash blinked and looked at the desk. Of course… that seemed given, but she assumed that Silver would take the seat as the superior officer. How many more times could she feel embarrassed over and over again?

“Right…” Dash sighed as she stood up. She took one step and suddenly hopped and rapidly stepped away while looking at Silver’s hooves. She looked up at him again, carefully.

“Something on my face?” Silver asked while lifting an eyebrow.

“No…” Dash scrunched her face as she glanced at his hooves again before walking around and sitting behind her desk.

“Alright, let me see your binder,” Silver asked as he sat down across from her. Dash spun the binder around and slid it across the desk. Silver reached back and opened one of his wings, dropping a folded up piece of paper into his hoof before dropping it on the table and opening Dash’s binder. He blinked for a second when he looked at it. “One second, they’ve changed these things a lot since I last saw them…” he said as he started flipping through the dividers. Dash tipped her head curiously.

“But you’re a captain, don’t you have a binder too?” she asked. Silver paused looked up and smirked.

“Haven’t used it in fifteen years,” he chuckled. “When you’ve been at it as long as I have, you just know when and where your time slots are,” he said as he flipped two more pages and found a page that was an empty spreadsheet. “Ah, here it is,” he unfolded the piece of paper he was holding in his wing and placed it next to it. “Look at this,” he said as he turned them both around.

Dash looked carefully at them both. The empty sheet from her binder, and then the sheet Silver had brought along. Silver’s page was the same thing, only filled out.

“I took the liberty of filling out an example. This is squad two’s schedule for this week,” he explained. Dash noticed that the spreadsheet was organized with times marked on the left beside the first column. She looked to the right and saw that each column was for a day of the week, making seven columns. In the columns were squares, some that were empty and some that had a location and training exercise written within it. Meal times were also written in as well as certain spaces that were marked as ‘off time.’ Along with all of these though, there were also gaps in between some of the times. Dash was curious what the difference was between the ‘off time’ and the blank spaces.

“Every week, you will be responsible for putting together and knowing where and when your squad has use of the facilities. You have to sign up for time slots for the gyms and facilities. There are plenty of time slots available so don’t worry about being butted out of using something, but there are times that are more favorable than others depending on what you and your squad has to work on. The early bird gets the worm, so if you want a convenient schedule, you want to sign up your squad the first chance you get…” Silver paused and reached back to his other wing, dropping another folded piece of paper out of it and placing it on the table. This one unfolded into a much longer sheet.

“This is this week’s full printed schedule. It is printed every Monday based on sign up and facility selections made by all captains over the weekend,” he explained as he slid it towards Dash. "By Sunday night every week, you must have your week schedule submitted and any scheduling conflicts with other squads resolved. All schedules are submitted directly to Spitfire during her office hours on the weekends, she will let you know right there if there are schedule conflicts and help you figure out when you can use the desired facilities. Again, first come, first served, so it’s best to get your schedule to her as early as you can for the next week. Oh, and don’t worry about elite squad priorities, the recruit squads, low tier elites, and high tier elites all use a different set of gyms.”

“Uh…” Dash blinked.

“As you can see…” Silver continued. “You also have to schedule down time. All squads are given two slots for down time per week. Use these wisely… I’ve found it’s best to use them on days that are extra strenuous to ensure your squad gets plenty of rest and recovery. These are different than…” he pointed at one of the blank spots. “These. Scheduling is only required for the private gyms and some of the more specific use gyms. The auxiliary gym, the weight room, and the main indoor flight track are always open for use at any time. If you are unable to schedule something or it doesn’t work well with what you have planned for the week, leave it blank and use the time to stay active or do something productive. Of course it’s always a good idea to plan ahead and use some of these extra time slots for strength training or endurance training. Any questions?”

“Um…” Dash slowly let her chin fall down onto the table. “I think my brain just exploded…”

“Pff…” Silver held in a laugh. “Why do you think they assign an advisor?” he chuckled. “For your first couple of months, I’ll be helping you directly with this. It took half a year before I didn’t need Blizzard’s help anymore. This is complicated, but after a while you’ll get it.”

“Yikes…” Dash shook her head. “Yeah, I think it’s safe to say I didn’t catch half of that,” she admitted.

“Nor did I expect you to,” Silver nodded. “We’re back at square one, Dash. Until you’ve got your shit together, you’re under my wing.”

Dash cracked a smile as she heard that. Once again, she had the privilege of learning from a great Wonderbolt. Everything she just heard was incredibly confusing, but after how much she had changed for the better under Silver’s watchful eye so far, she was confident she’d be a whiz at this stuff eventually too.

“So let’s start…” Silver said as he turned over the printed schedule. On the back was a top-down map of the first floor of the compound with each gym and facility marked. “First we need to…

“Good LORD!” a voice rang out into the room. Both Silver and Dash flinched and looked around. “Seriously… living by schedules and rules… I honestly don’t know how anypony can ever have fun with such a lifestyle.”

Dash identified the voice immediately and furrowed her brow. As if the fact that it was coming from all around them wasn’t bad enough, the sly tone was also a dead giveaway.

“That voice…” Silver suddenly said. Dash blinked and looked down at Silver. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Silver sighed heavily. Dash tipped her head curiously.

Did… Silver know Discord? Well, everypony knew who Discord was, but Silver’s reaction suggested he knew him a little better than most.

“Really…” Discord floated down through the ceiling and landed on the desk in a reclined position, facing Dash. “This was your dream? To be a part of something so boring that you have to follow a weekly plan? I could think of many much more interesting things to do, but I doubt your little pony brain could fathom half of them,” he said with a snicker as he poked Dash in the forehead. She reclined while giving him a look of disgust.

“If you have so many bright ideas, why are you wasting your time bothering me?” Dash snapped at him. Discord burst out laughing, lifting back up into the air, but taking the desk with him.

“Because I live for ponies giving me sass like they don’t even care who I am…” he floated back down with the desk. “Honestly, it amuses me to no end how easily some of you talk to me when I could erase you from existence with a snap of my fingers if I really wanted to,” he taunted. “Oh, but don’t worry, I have no intention of doing such a thing, my eternal life would be so boring if I got rid of all the mortals who I find interesting.”

“Could you come back later, you sorry mix up of the food chain?” Silver suddenly growled from behind Discord. “We’re busy, and frankly we do have better things to do than listen to your dumb ass.”

Dash watched as a blank look made its way onto Discord’s face. He slowly turned over on the desk and looked at Silver.

“Sorry, but… do I know you? That was an awfully personal insult…” Discord asked while looking over Silver carefully.

“Damn right, you know who I am,” Silver said sternly. “Come on, you bad excuse for a god, don’t tell me you forgot a face,” Silver smirked.

Dash was confused, what the hell was going on here? She backed up slightly, unsure of what was going to happen. Apparently Silver had experience dealing with Discord… but when and where?

“Actually…” Discord looked Silver over carefully. “You do look familiar… but…” Discord twirled the end of his beard. “I can’t quite put my finger on it…” he said as he hovered a finger over a ceramic sculpture of the word ‘it’ that appeared next to him.

“Heh…” Silver scoffed. “I guess I’m not surprised… I was only watching most of the time…” Silver’s smirk grew into a confident, smug grin. “But I’m sure you haven’t forgotten my mentor… Blizzard Strike?”

Dash yelped quietly as Discord flinched incredibly hard and froze. The statue of ‘it’ shattered to pieces and before Dash knew it, Discord was up off the table and had backed away to the wall behind Dash while pointing a finger at Silver, his eyes wide and gritting his teeth and hissing with his snake tongue flapping between them.

“Eegad! Blizzard Strike?! That insufferable… intolerable… uncanny… unpredictable…” Discord trailed off as he kept pointing at Silver. “That… that…”

Dash had never seen Discord act like this before. The mere mention of Blizzard Strike sent Discord into a state of anger.

“That… magnificent bastard…” Discord hissed louder. “I do NOT miss him.”

“Oh, I think you do,” Silver chuckled. “In fact, I don’t think you’ve ever kept such a close eye on another pony. How many times did he blow your mind? How many times did he turn your tricks on you? How many times did he take your assumptions of ponies and the weakness of morality and throw it directly back into your face?”

“Grgh…” Discord grunted as if in denial.

Dash was beyond confused… not only because Discord apparently had a history dealing with Silver and his mentor… but… that meant it had to have happened around twenty to thirty years ago.

Wasn’t Discord trapped in stone then?

“Wait… that would make you…” Discord’s eyes widened and he suddenly broke into a fit of laughter. “Silver Lining?!” he came off the wall and floated down. “Dear me, you have NOT aged gracefully…” he snickered in Silver’s face.

“If you think I’m any more afraid of you than Blizzard was, you’ve got another thing coming,” Silver snorted as he remained firm despite the invasion of personal space. Discord scoffed and pulled away.

“Oh, I don’t doubt you have… Blizzard’s will of steel,” Discord clearly hesitated in mentioning Blizzard’s name. “I SEVERLY doubt you have his peerless wit or skill. Believe me, there is no pony in this compound who will ever be like him,” he poked Silver in the chest, right on the burn scar. “Not even you.”

Art by: Foxenawolf

The two stared each other down for a moment before Silver lifted his brow and smiled.

“A god is only a big headed being with too much power and inflated ego…” Silver began.

“Oh no you don’t!” Discord pulled away and glared.

“I will look you in the eye and show you that I’m not afraid…” Silver kept going.

“Stop!” Discord covered his ears.

“You can strike me down, you can force me to my knees, you can wipe me from existence…” Silver continued as Discord gritted his teeth. “But it will be a shallow hopeless victory, and you will never forget for your endless life that I didn’t give an inch even in the face of your omnipotence.”

Discord grumbled and removed his hands from his ears, giving Silver a flat look.

“You just couldn’t resist… could you?” Discord hissed at him.

“How could I forget it?” Silver scoffed. “The day my mentor told off a god that was inches away from blowing him to pieces… the words that caused that god to swear and curse at his own weakness in front of us despite his power and immortality… and then bother us about once a week after that,” Silver rolled his eyes. “It’s hard to forget something like that.”

“I couldn’t agree more…” Discord growled. He turned to Dash. “Be wary of this one, Rainbow Dash. If he’s anything like his mentor, he’s a shifty one.”

Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“If you’d been paying any attention,” she began. “He’s already made that very cl—WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!” Dash threw her hooves out. “Hold on for a second! Weren’t you like… trapped in a statue back then?!” she asked straight out. Discord rolled his eyes.

“It’s a long story,” he said. “And frankly…” he glanced at Silver. “I don’t think I’m in the mood right now. Have fun with your silly little schedules and mortal lives…” Discord hissed before raising his hand to snap his fingers.

“Chaos is only what you make of it,” Silver said quickly. Discord flinched hard again and glared harshly towards Silver, suggesting that it was something else Blizzard had once said.

“I REALLY dislike you…” Discord snarled before snapping his fingers and disappearing.

Dash stared at Discord’s last spot for a few moments before staring wide-eyed at Silver. It was one thing when Bliss shocked Discord with the electro-stim machine, but that was a sneak attack. Silver just stood up to Discord face to face. She had never seen somepony do that before. Then there was all the talk of Blizzard once doing the same… and apparently Discord was not imprisoned at one point? She had never known about that.

“Why don’t we call it for now,” Silver said as he stood up with a smile. “Lunch is in fifteen minutes anyway, we’ll pick this up later…” he stopped and looked at her as she stared. “Dash?”

“Huh?” she blinked. “Oh… um…” she got up. “Alright.”

“You know Discord, huh?” Silver asked. She stopped and looked up at him. “Ironic… seeing as how he used to bother me all the time…” Silver trailed off. Dash looked at Silver in silence for a moment.

“He didn’t like Blizzard Strike, huh?” Dash asked as she stepped around the desk.

“No, not one bit,” Silver chuckled. “Blizzard was a different breed of pony, Dash… if there was ever a pony in history that successfully measured up to the gods themselves, it was him… and the best part was? He didn’t even try, he was just that much of a stallion.”

Dash said nothing, simply trying to fathom the pony that was Blizzard Strike, the pony capable of earning such high regards from a pony like Silver. The more she heard about him, the more he sounded like something of a folktale, something that simply couldn’t have existed, but he had all the same.

“Anyway, reminiscing has built up my appetite, lunch time,” Silver said as he turned towards the door.

Dash smiled as she walked out with him.

“WHOA!” Dash yelped as Silver hook tripped her and she fell flat.

“Awareness,” Silver said simply as he walked ahead.

Dash looked up and pouted for a moment, before smiling. Discord was definitely right, Silver was a shifty one.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh i TOTALLY just put Leeron in PTH (he's from the same anime the character Air Mach is based on is from):

Shall be a side character for funzies.

Who else wants a Squall Butt pillow? xD (i know you do caramba)

Storm wants to learn the Sonic Blast-off? :rainbowderp:

And whats this? Discord once had run ins with Blizzard Strike and Silver? HOW? welll... thats a whole other story isn't it? :ajsmug:

Thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed!:eeyup:

Chapter 75: Downtime

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 75:

“Come on in Storm,” Dash smiled as she motioned into the barracks. “We’re just setting up,” she added as Storm walked in and saw Matteo pushing some extra chairs towards the space that was now clear of anything office related.

“Wasn’t this your office?” Storm asked curiously.

“Moved it to the instructor room, felt like we needed more space,” she answered as Star placed a few books on her chair for a booster seat and sat down on them. Dash looked around as Storm approached the table and was greeted by Matteo. Twister was already at the head of the table, wearing a card dealer visor and holding a huge, fake cigar in his mouth.

Dash looked over to see Squall sitting alone on his bed, looking away from them all as he pretended to dig through his nightstand beside his bed. Dash was about to go ask him to play too, but before she could, Storm approached her again.

“So… what are we playing?” he asked her. Dash glanced over at Twister as he started shuffling a deck of cards in as many different ways as possible, doing most of them while staring directly at Little Star and making funny faces, making her laugh as the cards flew about in his hooves.

“We’re playing—”

“—Nine-ball? Or traditional?” Fire Streak asked as he tapped the pool cue against the table. Soarin looked towards the table and tipped his head as he thought about it.

“Nine-ball sounds fun. Haven’t played that in a while,” Soarin nodded as Fire reached down and pulled out the wooden diamond instead of the triangle.

It had been a while since Soarin found time to go to the recreation/break room on the third floor. It was located right behind the top of the stairs if one followed the path that wrapped around it instead of going left or right to the Wonderbolt Quarters. It was a large, wide open room directly above a large complex of offices on the floor below. It was filled with multiple forms of group entertainment, such as a pool table, a ping pong table, an air hockey table, a card game table, multiple comfortable couches and chairs as well as a kitchen area that was kept stocked by whatever ponies brought in.

Most of the time it was hard to see more than three or four ponies in there at once during normal training hours, but after dinner it was common to have the room packed with at least fifteen to twenty at a time. A lot of elite squad members were currently present. Enough to make the place feel full, but not crowded. Soarin and Fire Streak had just claimed the pool table after squad nine finished with it.

As they organized the pool balls and chalked up the cues, Misty Fly walked up and tapped Fire on the shoulder. She pointed at both of them, then at herself and a cue before winking. That was Misty’s well-known way of saying ‘I’ve got next.’

Fire glanced at Soarin and both of them chuckled.

“Well,” Soarin shrugged. “Whoever wins this game is losing to Misty next,” he joked.

“My strategy for playing pool against Misty…” Fire began as he removed the diamond around the pool balls. “Is to go first, and pray to Celestia I sink a ball every shot,” he laughed as he set the diamond down and placed the cue ball on the opposite end of the table. Soarin nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, as soon as she gets a turn, it’s all over,” he said as he watched Fire take the first shot. The cue struck the one ball in front and scattered the balls all about the table, but none of them went in.

“See?” Fire sighed. “If I were playing Misty, I might as well put down the cue right now.”

“Somepony has to beat her someday,” Soarin chuckled as he moved to line up his first shot, but right before he leaned over the table he stopped and blinked. “Wait,” he smirked as he saw Fire looking away and grinning. “But you aren’t worried about me? You sly bastard, what are you—”

“—Doing over here Squall?” Dash asked as she approached his bed. Squall didn’t look at her. “You’ve been rummaging through your nightstand for the past five minutes. I know you’re just trying to ignore us.

“Hmph,” Squall huffed as he shut the drawer but remained facing away.

“C’mon, grump rump,” Dash grabbed his tail in her mouth and started pulling on it. “Don’t be a party pooper!” she said, her voice muffled with his tail in her mouth. As soon as Squall felt the tug and started moving, he grasped his mattress and anchored himself down. Dash let go of his tail and scrunched her face. “Squall, really?” she motioned over to the table where Storm, Matteo, Star, and Twister were all sitting and conversing. “We’re not gonna play with you brooding over here the whole time.”

“I don’t…” Squall started, but the rest came out as quiet gibberish.

“What?” Dash blinked, tipping her head to the side and adjusting her ears to listen.

“I…dunnohowtoplay…” Squall repeated. It was slightly clearer, but she still couldn’t make it out.

“Dude, enunciate,” Dash flattened her brow. Squall sighed and took a deep breath.

“I don’t know how to play poker,” he finally said clearly. Dash blinked as registered what he said. “I don’t want to get laughed at,” he added with a grunt. Dash just stared at him for a moment before letting a snort escape. She quickly put a hoof over her mouth, realizing Squall had JUST said he didn’t want to be laughed at. Squall shot her a glare, but she quickly swallowed the laugh and shook her head.

“Neither does Star,” she said as she pointed. Storm is teaching her right now. Squall glanced over to see Storm showing Star different card combinations. “Plus, we’re playing Badlands Hold ‘em. It’s the easiest version of poker. C’mon, Storm can show you too,” Dash encouraged.

“Oh great…” Squall rolled his eyes at the thought. Dash flattened her ears.

“Or… if you insist on continuing your grudge with him… I can show you,” she suggested.

“Hey! He does it too!” Squall made sure to point out. Dash shook her head.

“You’re both idiots. I didn’t single you out there, now get your ass over here already, we’re waiting for—”

“—The right shot, but I’m just not getting any favors here…” Soarin groaned as he looked at the current configuration of the pool balls. In nine-ball, the first rule was that you had to hit the lowest number ball on the table first with the cue ball. He could knock any of the balls into the holes as long as he hit the current lowest ball first. Soarin was having bad luck though. Every time his turn came up he did not have a clear shot at the lowest ball.

He walked in a circle around the table, tapping the rubber butt of the cue lightly against the floor as he contemplated what to do. The four-ball was the lowest on the table, but the eight and nine-balls were side by side, effectively creating a wall between the cue ball and four-ball.

Soarin felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and saw Misty behind him, who had been watching them play. She pointed at the cue ball with her wing, and then took one of her hooves and made an arcing motion over the other. Soarin blinked and glanced at Fire.

“She says to jump it over the two balls in the way,” Fire chuckled. Soarin looked back at Misty and let his ear flop down.

“What’s the best way to say I’m a failure at this compared to her?” Soarin sighed as he looked at the cue ball. “Well, it’s not like I can do anything else…” he said as he lined up behind the cue ball and thought about how he would do it. Misty suggested he skip the ball over the barrier. He would have to strike the cue ball low to cause it to jump. It was an advanced pool technique and he wasn’t sure he could do it. It took just the right amount of control. If he hit it too softly, it was stay on the ground and run right into the barrier… if he hit it too hard he might knock somepony’s teeth out with a sudden projectile in the form of a cue ball.

Soarin lined up his cue and took aim, pointing it low as he tried to measure how hard to hit it. He took a deep breath and struck the ball.

“Whoa!” Fire yelped and ducked as the cue ball shot off the table and flew right over his head. About five yards from the table, Lightning Streak had picked a horrible time to turn over on the couch he was laying down on. The cue ball hit him square in the gut as he was taking a deep breath.

Art by: PhonicBoom

“HOOOO DAMN!” he yelled as he exhaled and grabbed his stomach, curling up and rolling off the couch onto the floor.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!” Blaze burst out laughing from the ping pong table as she saw Lightning roll off the couch. The ping pong ball bounced off her chest and rolled against the net as High Winds looked over from the other side.

“Sorry!” Soarin cringed as he walked over to retrieve the cue ball rolling across the floor.

“If I could stand up right now…” Lightning’s voice was all raspy. “I would kick you in the face, bro.”

“Oh, come on,” Soarin rolled his eyes. “You’ve taken harder hits from half the mares in the compound," he said while reaching down and patting Lightning on the head.

“Lowest of blows, bro…” Lightning wheezed as he rolled over again.

“Let him writhe,” Fire snorted. “It will do him some good.”

“Heh,” Soarin snickered as Fire showed so much brotherly love. “Well, you get to set the cue ball now,” he handed the ball to Fire. “And you have a straight shot from the four to the nine… at least I—”

“—Don’t care, just sit down,” Dash motioned to the chair between her and Storm. Squall glared at Storm, who gave him a flat look in return before Squall swallowed his pride and sat down in between them. Squall and Storm continued to glare at each other for a moment before Star tapped her hooves on the table.

“Colts,” she said sternly, getting both of them to look at her. “Behave and play nice.”

“You,” Dash said to Squall as she grabbed his chin and force him to look at her instead of scowling at Star. “Pay attention,” she ordered as she pulled the deck of cards over from Twister. “It’s easy. Two cards are dealt face down to each player and then five cards are placed face-up by the dealer. You have to make card combinations with your two cards and the cards on the table. You can check, bet, raise or fold after each deal. If you want to stay in, you have to match whatever the current bet is. If you don’t like it, fold.”

Squall stared at her blankly. Star spoke up from across the table.

“Just watch a couple of rounds, that’s what I’m doing too,” she suggested as Twister leaned over to Squall.

“Have a cheat sheet!” he said cheerfully as he slipped a piece of paper with all the card combinations on it towards Squall before reaching to the center of the table and dividing up the stacks of chips between him, Dash, Storm, and Matteo. “White are ten, blue are fifty, red are a hundred!” he said as he gave them all twenty of each chip. “Big bird is big blind!” Twister motioned to Matteo. “Twenty.”

Matteo grabbed two white chips and tossed them in the center. Storm, being to the right of Matteo, tossed in ten for the small blind. Dash leaned over to Squall.

“Every round, there are two forced bets, big and small. It’s to keep players from never playing and holding onto their chips.”

Twister passed the fake cigar from one side of his mouth to the other before flipping two cards to each of them. Dash picked reached down and tipped her cards up subtly to see what she had. The ace of clubs and the six of diamonds. Squall watched her carefully as Dash grabbed two white chips and pitched them in.

“I’m in,” she said as Twister, and Storm pitched in as well to match the blind. Twister put three cards out on the table. Six of hearts, eight of clubs, and jack of spades. Luck was smiling on her. The first play and she had a pair of sixes. She could work with this.

“Check,” said Matteo, tapping his talons on the table.

“Check,” Storm tossed a white chip into the center to meet Matteo’s blind.

“Raise fifty,” Dash said calmly as she tossed a blue chip into the center.

“Playing rough already?” Storm chuckled.

“I LIKE it rough!” Twister snickered as all three of them matched her bet. Twister put a fourth card down.

The six of spades! Dash had three of a kind. Definitely luck right out of the gate.

“Raise a hundred,” Matteo bet instantly, throwing a red chip in. Dash blinked as eyes went to Storm.

“Bah… fold,” he sighed as he pushed his cards away from him. Dash looked towards Matteo curiously. Was he Bluffing? It was hard to tell, Matteo was pretty good at keeping a straight face 90% of the time she was around him. A natural poker face. She wasn’t going to back down though, she had a good hand.

“I’m not scared of you, Feathers,” Dash taunted as she tossed in a red chip.

“You should be,” he fired back, keeping his face perfectly still.

“I scare myself sometimes!” Twister snickered as he tossed in a red chip. “Last card!” he called out as he suddenly had two fake cigars in his mouth. He turned over the last card. Nine of spades. It did nothing for Dash, but she still had three of a kind.

“Two hundred,” Matteo tossed two red chips into the center.

“The game is ahoof!” Twister said, now with three fake cigars as he matched the bet. Dash glanced at Matteo again. He was being awfully confident.

“I see your bet,” she smirked. “And raise you a hundred more.”

“Child’s play,” Matteo scoffed. “Make it five hundred,” he raised as he tossed in three red chips. Dash gulped, but kept her straight face up.

“Living a little dangerously, eh? I like it,” she added two red chips of her own.

“When in the Griffon Kingdom!” Twister shrugged and matched the bet, four cigars in his mouth.

Dash and Matteo stared each other down, but neither gave an inch.

“Turn ‘em over!” Twister said as he turned over his cars to show he had a pair of aces, pocket rockets. “Two pair!” he smiled as a fifth cigar extended out of his mouth. Dash scoffed.

“Better luck next time weirdo,” she turned her cards over. “Three of a kind! How do you like that, Matty?” Dash taunted as Matteo casually reached for his first card, flipping it over to reveal… the six of clubs. Dash’s eyes widened. Matteo had the last six, making his hand a three of a kind as well? Matteo reached for the other card and flipped it over… nine of clubs.

“Oh, look at that,” Matteo smirked.

“WHAT?!” Dash stood up and slammed her hooves on the table.

“Full house, sixes full of nines,” Matteo said as he chuckled quietly. He had won on the river, the last card turned over.

“You lucky bastard…” Dash shook her hoof at him while smirking.

“The cards don’t lie,” Matteo nodded as he reached forward and scooped all the chips towards him. Dash sat back down in her chair and shook her head.

“I oughtta punch you right across the beak for playing me like—”

“—I’m not even playing…” Fire sighed.

Art by: Ice Blade

Misty walked by, smirked, and swiped her tail underneath his chin. Soarin laughed as Fire flinched and blushed. “And she’s taunting me now too!” Fire let his ears flop down as Misty casually leaned against the table, and took a shot that caused the cue ball to bounce off one ball and strike two others, sinking all three in different pockets.

“Misty plays a serious game of pool,” Soarin shook his head. “She’s pulling no punches, not even for you, eh?”

“Definitely not…” Fire agreed as Misty chipped the cue ball over the eight ball and knocking the three into the pocket behind it.

“I’ll leave you to your misery,” Soarin chuckled as he broke away to see what else was going on.

Blaze and High Winds were still hogging the ping pong table. They had been playing for the past half hour and chased away any who asked if they could play. Lightning Streak was back on the couch, but had shamelessly fallen asleep on his back with the latest Wonderbolt beach magazine draped over his face. On the other side of the room, Surprise was taking all challengers at the air hockey table.

“HA! VICTORY!” Surprise yelled and pointed at Fleetfoot.

“How did you even do that?!” Fleetfoot held her hooves out. “Seven scores in less than two minutes?”

“Trade secret,” Surprise said slyly as she ducked down, leaving only her eyes peeking above the table and looking back and forth with a shifty gaze.

“Why not?” Soarin chuckled as he walked over to the table. “Having trouble, Fleetybuns?”

“It’s like playing against a— what the hell did you just call me?!” Fleetfoot blinked as she pressed her nose to Soarin’s.

“Surprise! I’ll take you on!” Soarin instantly dodged question as he took Fleetfoot’s spot. The instant Soarin touched his hoof to the mallet the puck fired past him and landed in his goal with a loud PA-CHUNK. Soarin looked down and stared wide-eyed at his goal as Surprise blew on her hoof and slid her score counter from zero to one. “Uh…”

“Good luck, Princess McButtface,” Fleetfoot said while sticking her tongue out at Soarin.

“I can still do this!” Soarin pounded his chest confidently as he put the puck back on the table and hit it towards Surprise’s goal… only to have it fire directly back at him and land in his goal with another loud PA-CHUNK. “Oh, that’s just not right…” Soarin shook his head as Surprise bounced her eyebrows at him from across the table.

“One does not SIMPLY, out air hockey Surprise!” she taunted as she picked up her mallet and spun it on her hoof.

“I can do this! I swear!” Soarin snorted as Fleetfoot was struggling to stay standing while laughing. Soarin put the puck on the table and took a moment to focus on Surprise, he’d figure out her secret.

He hit the puck towards her slower this time. She instantly shifted, wound up and smacked it back towards Soarin. He anticipated it and swung his mallet out to the side to divert the puck, but he accidentally swiped too far, slamming the puck between the mallet and the edge of the table. The puck flew off the table and soared across the room, flying like a frisbee over the ping pong table, towards the couches… and hitting Lightning Streak in the forehead THE EXACT MOMENT the magazine slid off his face.

“AUGH! MOTHER FFFFFFFFFFF…” he shouted as he grabbed his face and rolled off the couch and onto the floor again.

“PAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Blaze lost it again as Lightning rolled back and forth on the floor.

“Talk about a bad night…” High Winds yawned as the ping pong ball lightly tapped against her nose.

“Wow, again…” Soarin cringed. “Sorry Lightning! You okay?” Soarin called from across the room.

“THIS IS MY NIGHTMARE!” Lightning yelled from the floor.

“Oh, suck it up…” Fire sighed from the chair beside the couch, from which he sat with his pool cue, watching Misty win again.

“I got a spare puck right here! OOPS!” Surprise yelped as multiple pucks fell out of her wings and clattered to the floor. Soarin looked over to her and blinked.

“You carry air hockey pucks around?” he asked her quizzically. She shrugged.

“You never know when you’re gonna find an air hockey table!” she said as she put down a puck. Soarin got ready to block but…

PA-CHUNK

“God—”

“—Dammit…” Dash pushed her cards in. “Got nothing again.”

She had had no luck with the cards after her first hoof. Which sucked, considering she was beaten by Matteo’s luck with that hoof. She glanced over at Squall as he kept looking between the cards and the cheat sheet Twister had given him. He was struggling, but at least he was trying. This was why Dash dragged him over to play, she wanted some squad bonding, inviting Storm as well because he was one of them, even if he had earned a high rank quickly.

Had she left Squall over in his space, it would have singled him out. She didn’t want any loners on her squad. Because hey, friendship is magic after all. As for the other newcomer to the game… Star seemed to be little lady luck. She wasn’t being very ambitious with the betting, but she seemed to continuously get good cards.

“Turn ‘em over!” Twister said as they all showed their cards, except for Matteo who had also folded.

“Two pair,” Storm showed.

“Three of a kind!” Twister put down his pair of aces beside the ace in the middle. Storm blinked and looked towards Twister.

“How have you been getting pocket rockets every single time?” he asked.

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT,” Twister said as a sixth cigar appeared in his mouth and two popped out of his ears.

“Full house!” Star exclaimed happily as she showed her cards and Matteo rolled his eyes.

“That’s exactly why I folded,” he said as Star suddenly pulled her cards towards her and glared up at Matteo.

“Hey! Are you peeking?!” she accused him. Matteo shook his head.

“You bounce in your seat when you have good cards,” he explained. Star blinked and hid her face behind the cards sheepishly.

“Oh… hehe, I didn’t realize that.”

Dash found it amusing that they had Star, who lacked a poker face, sitting next to the big, living poker face.

“What do you have, Squall?” Star asked across the table.

“Uh… nothing I think,” he put his cards down. Dash flattened her ears.

“If you had nothing you shouldn’t have…” Dash trailed off as she looked at his cards, then at the cards in the center, her eyes growing wider. “Squall, you have a straight,” Dash said while chuckling.

“Is that good?” Squall asked as he looked at the cheat sheet. “Oh… it is.”

“Awwwww…” Star whined as she pushed her cards back over to Twister, now with seven cigars.

“I don’t think you can fit any more cigars in your mouth,” Dash said to him as she rolled her eyes.

“I’ll be the judge of that!” Twister said with a muffled voice as he added an eighth.

“Those are some good cards,” Storm spoke up. Dash looked towards him and subtly bit her lip when she saw Storm was talking to Squall.

“Hmm…” he quietly hummed in response. Squall had not said a word to Storm all night so far.

“You claimed Star was cheating two rounds ago,” Storm continued.

“Stop talking to me, dickwad,” Squall suddenly hissed at Storm. Storm flinched as all eyes turned to the two of them.

“Sheesh, are you capable of casual conversation?” Storm retorted.

“Guys…” Dash hovered a hoof towards Squall.

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk to YOU!” Squall growled. Storm threw his hooves out at his sides and looked at the rest of them.

“Are you all seeing this? What the hell did I do?” he appealed to them.

“Guys, stop!” Dash reached for Squall, but he pushed her hoof away. Squall pulled a hoof back to strike Storm. Storm saw him wind up and readied to fight back… but then Twister appeared between them with fifteen fake cigars shoved in his mouth.

Art by: Scootafail

“GENTLESTALLIONS?” he said before pulling the cigars out of his ears and shoving one in Storm’s mouth, the other in Squall’s. They both spat them out in disgust immediately since they tasted like earwax. By the time they looked back up, Star was hovering between them instead.

“That’s it. We’re separating you two,” she said sternly. “You,” she pointed at Storm. “Over there,” she pointed to her seat as Matteo removed the book booster seat and slid them across the table to Star.

“What did I do?” Storm tried defending himself.

“It takes two to tango, Storm,” Star said as she kept pointing. Storm looked at Dash, but Dash only shrugged.

“Fine…” Storm grunted, getting up and moving to sit next to Matteo as Star placed her books down on his seat and sat down beside Squall.

“Damn guys,” Dash shook her head as she looked between the two of them, glaring at each other from across the table. “Just can’t get along, can you—”

“—Gotta be kidding me! How do you do this?!” Soarin rested his chin on the air hockey table in defeat as Surprise bounced up and down happily.

“What can I say?!” Surprise reached behind and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “I take all of my opponents…” she put the glasses on. “By surprise!”

“Yeeeeeeeahnoooooo…” Soarin put the mallet down. “I think five loses is where I’ll cut it off,” he admitted defeat as he stepped away from the table.

“Anypony else wanna piece o’ Surprise?!” Surprise beckoned the other ponies around her.

Soarin was having a rotten night in terms of winning. Losing to Fire Streak twice in pool, then getting his plot whooped in air hockey over and over again. Water sounded good.

Speaking of water, Wave Chill was… well… chilling in the kitchen area. The kitchen area was out in the open, with a bar that faced out towards everything else with a fridge and a few cabinets and a microwave oven behind it. Wave was sitting at the bar, taking a load off as he sipped a glass of cranberry juice.

“Not your night, sir?” Wave asked as Soarin approached and went for the fridge.

“Oh, you’ve been watching?” Soarin asked as he grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and sat down in the seat next to Wave, looking out at everything else.

“Besides Lightning, you’ve had the worst luck tonight, I could’ve told you that you would lose to Surprise though, sir,” he chuckled.

“Chiller, you’re calling me ‘sir’ again,” Soarin pointed out.

“Uh, sorry sir, I mean…” Wave let his head fall down against the table. “Sorry… the capt—, Spitfire is being very strict about me calling her by name. I guess I feel the urge to do it everywhere else because of that.”

“How have things been with you and Spitfire lately?” Soarin asked as he cracked open the water bottle and took a long, satisfying drink from it.

“Well, heh…” Wave paused. Soarin glanced at him to see Wave blushing. “Since the party everything’s been just like it used to be. With a little more…”

“Little more?” Soarin prodded while lifting an eyebrow snidely.

“Let’s just say… um… she still had a week of… mare times left after the party. I’ve had a bit of a sore back at the end of that week.”

“HEHEY!” Soarin reached over and gave Wave a hard jab to the shoulder. “Dayum Chiller! You dog! A whole week? I bet that was fun,” Soarin couldn’t stop laughing as Wave kept smiling like a dope.

“Don’t tell her I told you that, she’ll kill me,” Wave added with a chuckle.

“Oh man… how things change. No offense Chiller, but you were one of the last ponies here I expected to get so much flank… from the one and only Spitfire no less… I bet your stern soldier thing is all an act,” Soarin nudged him. “You wooed a spectacular mare, I bet you’re really an undercover player.”

“Stop,” Wave pushed him jokingly. “I’m just… lucky I guess.”

“Damn right, dude,” Soarin shook his head as he looked back out towards the rest of the break room.

His eyes landed on the couch area. Lightning Streak was back up and napping again, but on the couch across from him, Fire Streak was sitting in the corner of the couch, reading a magazine that he found on the table beside it. Soarin looked to the left and saw Misty putting away the pool cues after beating another opponent. When she finished, she looked around, her eyes landing on Fire on the couch. She smiled and walked around the pool table, approaching the couch from behind. She walked around and took the spot right beside Fire. He didn’t seem to notice her approach.

She shifted over to him and ducked underneath the magazine, popping up in between his arms and nestling herself into his chest. Fire flinched as first, but when he realized it was Misty he smiled and set the magazine down. She shifted slightly and yawned as Fire put an arm around her and rested his chin on her head.

Soarin looked to their left and saw Fleetfoot peeking over the other end of the couch, resting her arms on the arm of the couch, balancing her chin on her hooves, and smiling while she spied on the snuggling couple. Soarin rolled his eyes and shook his head at Fleetfoot, but then looked back towards Fire and Misty, finding he couldn’t take his eyes off of them as they rested comfortably together on the couch.

“Soarin?”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked and looked towards Wave.

“Did you hear me?” Wave asked while tipping his head slightly.

“Uh, no, sorry, was thinking about stuff. What did you say?” he asked.

“How have things been with you and Dash? Must be awesome to finally have her here, huh?” Wave repeated.

“Rainbow Dash—?”

“—I’ve had some chances to see him,” Dash said to Storm as they helped clean up the poker area. Twister decided to call for fifty-two card pickup after the last round.

“Some chances?” Storm repeated. “That sounded a little less than enthusiastic.”

“Well,” Dash tipped her head. “I dunno, it’s awesome and all—”

“—But I feel like we still barely see each other…” Soarin leaned back in his chair. “I mean we’ve had chances to be intimate… but besides the party—”

“—We haven’t had much of a chance to just… I guess… be a couple,” Dash sighed as she thought over her time in the compound. “So far I’ve been busy and there have been problems that we’ve—”

“—Overcome together,” Soarin explained as Wave listened. “But even now. I have my schedule and she has hers. I just wish I had more time—”

“—With him, you know?” Dash appealed to Storm. “Hell, you see him more than I do. All I want—”

“—Is for the two of us to have time for each other just as much as we have time to follow our dreams,” Soarin sighed. “You’re lucky Wave. You have Spitfire and—”

“—Misty has Fire Streak right there in her squad… but Soarin and I—”

“—We’re separated by rank. She’s a recruit and has a much different schedule. I was looking so forward to this but—”

“—He’s still out of my reach. At least that’s what it feels like…” Dash finished and looked at Storm.

“Well…” Storm said. “I guess I can feel you, because I’m disconnected from Derpy too, but we try. We make use of every moment we can get.

“Spitfire and I…” Wave shrugged. “We get our private time, but it’s a lot less than you’d think. She’s busy and we’re on separate Squads. We do what we can with what we get.”

“Making use of every moment…” Dash thought out loud.

“Do what you can with what you get…” Soarin repeated the words.

“Maybe…” Dash sighed.

“Maybe…” Soarin looked back towards Misty and Fire.

Art by: eveyannie

“We have to try a little harder for each other…”

“We have to try a little harder for each other…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

This chapter was an experiment in side by side scene transitions. I doubt i'll do it again, but it was something i felt like trying and thought i'd share as i did it.

Ponies (and griffon) Playing cards! Storm and Squall... dammit, you two just don't want to get along do you? And Twister spouting memes left and right...

So much fun times with the elites. Misty is quite the pool master... and you don't win against Surprise in air hockey... i guess Lightning is going to think twice about napping in the rec room now at peak hours.

(You are now imaging what it would be like to be reading a magazine and then suddenly have Misty Fly poke her head out from beneath it and climb into you lap like a kitty, smile at you, and snuggle into your chest.)

Anyway... chapter 76 is actually already done :pinkiecrazy: it's going through the editing process right now so it shouldn't be a long wait...

Yes, not word of Spitfire's plan was uttered here, but this was an experimental chapter that focused on Soarin and Dash realizing they needed more time together... so i hope you're ready in the next chapter... for...

some super fluff :rainbowwild:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!:eeyup:

Chapter 76: I Need You

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 76:

“Waiting on you Matty!” Dash yelled into the barracks as Squall, Star and Twister all waited outside the door with her, each with a small, issued Wonderbolt duffle bag slung over their shoulder. All except for Little Star, who was the same size as her bag. Squall was carrying hers as well. Surprisingly, he didn’t complain or say a word when she asked him to. “What are you even DOING?” Dash asked as she peeked into the room.

Matteo was over by his bed and looked like he was struggling with something. Curiosity caught Dash and she entered the room, moving towards Matteo.

“Matt?” she said his named. He flinched and turned around, saluting.

“Yes, Captain!” he replied vigorously. Dash’s eyes widened slightly.

“Er… are you all alright?” she asked as he nodded.

“Yes! Perfectly fine! Thank you, captain. How are you?” it was like he was trying to hide something.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Dash chuckled.

“Er, nothing. Nothing at…” Matteo closed his eyes and sighed as Dash faked him out, juking one way before moving the other to see what was going on. Matteo’s bag laid on his bed, with his uniform sticking out of it and the rest of his travel items sitting beside it. Dash glanced up at him. He answered before she could even ask. “My bag is too small… my uniform doesn’t even fit.”

“Oh,” Dash smiled, snickering as she shook her head. Matteo was such a klutz at normal, everyday tasks. They were only coming along to observe the process of a Wonderbolt show, but they were told to bring along their uniforms for a short reception afterwards. Apparently they were going to get a little bit of media attention. However, it seemed Matteo’s custom, massive uniform was a bit too big for the standard issue bags… at least in the way he was trying to pack it. He literally tried to just stuff it in in a ball. “Looks like you’ll have to fold it,” Dash pointed.

Matteo just looked away from her, his eyes looking back and forth across the room.

“But you don’t know how, do you?” she asked quickly. Matteo just shook his head. “Okay let’s see this…” Dash pulled the uniform out of the bag. Dash wasn’t really one known for folding her clothes either, but even with her little experience, she was sure she could…

Dash stared at Matteo’s uniform as she finally managed to unfold it all and lay the whole, oversized, custom shaped uniform out on the bed. Honestly? She didn’t know where to start when folding something like this.

“Um…”

“One side!” Little Star suddenly appeared beside Dash and pushed her aside. “I heard one of you say something about folding clothes and I knew neither of you would be able to, let me do this.”

Dash immediately backed off as Star went to work folding the uniform. Dash and Matteo glanced at each other and shrugged.

“This problem took care of itself,” Dash chuckled as they watched Star masterfully fold the uniform into a shape that fit perfectly in the bag. “Wait…” Dash blinked. “If Star is in here… that means she left Squall outside with…”

Dash turned without another word and trotted towards the door. She looked outside and immediately let her ears flop down.

Squall was laying down on a psychiatrist bed, scowling as he looked to be on it against his will. Twister was sitting in a chair beside him, holding a clip board. Twister looked up at Dash and pointed the clipboard.

“This patient is most uncooperative,” Twister said in a professional voice.

Fan Art by SilverWolfFTW

“You can continue later, Doc, we’ve gotta go,” Dash ordered as Matteo and Star emerged behind her.

Dash was both looking forward to, and worrying about having this interesting group of hers isolated on a train to Cloudsdale for a few hours.

“Rgh…” Soarin groaned as he sat on one of the lobby couches beside Spitfire. She glanced at him as he rubbed his hoof against his forehead. Spitfire glanced at him, looking at him carefully.

“Are you having problems again? Bad timing, Soarin,” she said very bluntly and in a bit of a snippy tone. Soarin looked up towards her, lifting his brow.

“Did you fall out of bed this morning?” he huffed. “You’ve been a bit…” Soarin paused.

“Bitchy,” Fleetfoot finished for him on the chair beside the couch, scrunching her face. Soarin looked blankly at Fleetfoot. “I know you’re thinking it, ‘cause I was too. I just have the nuts to say it.”

“Do you have a problem with me, Fleetfoot?” Spitfire furrowed her brow. “Because I would LOVE to hear it.”

“Alright, stop it,” Soarin placed a hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder. “Let’s talk about it instead of hissing at each other,” Soarin swallowed his pride… something he only did for a select few. “We don’t need this on the train, what’s up Spitfire? Did you skip breakfast?” Soarin knew she got grumpy when hungry.

“Oh, believe me she DIDN’T,” Fleetfoot huffed.

“Pardon me for being under a lot of stress,” Spitfire said quickly. “And I feel like I’m the only one taking this Shadowbolt mystery seriously,” she said while glaring at Fleetfoot.

“It was a JOKE, Spitty!” Fleetfoot fired back. “You didn’t have to chew me out in the middle of the mess hall!”

“Did I miss something?” Soarin asked as Fleetfoot immediately pointed at Spitfire.

“I made a lighthearted joke about the Shadowbolts just wanting to party with us and she blew her top! In front of EVERYPONY!” she pouted.

“This isn’t a joke, Fleetfoot!” Spitfire stood up. “The Shadowbolts are ruthless and cruel! Whatever they are planning, it could cost us LIVES if we are not prepared, that falls on my shoulders and you’re making light of it!”

“Hey!” Soarin stood up and faced Spitfire. “Spitfire, sit down and relax,” he said while forcing her back down. Spitfire grunted and looked away.

“See? She just did it again,” Fleetfoot complained.

“Stop,” Soarin glared at her. Fleetfoot blinked and stared at him incredulously. “Fleetfoot, I appreciate your more laid back manner, I really do, but…” he looked at Spitfire. “This IS a serious manner. Spitfire, more than anypony knows the horrors they are capable of.”

Soarin would never forget it either. While he didn’t quite agree with Spitfire’s view of the Shadowbolts due to Descent and Starry Skies, he could understand why she felt that way. They caused her so much pain during their last confrontation. Spitfire’s own negative emotions were amplified and used to control her, possess her and turn her against her allies. It was traumatizing for Soarin as well, seeing his best friend in so much pain. It nearly destroyed him when he saw her shaking and crying as her body moved against her will, when she begged him to kill her. Spitfire had very good reasons to despise the Shadowbolts, something that Fleetfoot should have been more sensitive to.

“Fine…” Fleetfoot crossed her arms and leaned back, puffing her cheeks out. Soarin sat back down beside Spitfire and sighed. He winced again as another small pang of discomfort shot through his head. He reached up and rubbed his forehead beside the horn. Spitfire looked towards him again.

“Thanks for understanding, Soarin,” she thanked him. Soarin stopped rubbing his forehead and smiled.

“No worries, but… don’t take your anger out on Fleet,” he suggested. “You know she’s just trying to keep the mood up.”

“Time, place, and circumstance,” Spitfire grunted and shook her head.

“I’m right over here, you know,” Fleetfoot huffed.

“Fleet, shush,” Soarin ordered. “Yes, but it wasn’t good to do it in the middle of the mess hall. You’re trying to keep this all as quiet as possible until we know more right? Well, I bet a lot of Wonderbolts are wondering what that was all about. Just… don’t overexert yourself. You’ve got us to help.”

“I know, I know…” Spitfire grumbled. She glanced at Soarin again as he rested his head against the back of the couch. “Okay, now you’re worrying me, is your head okay?” Spitfire asked, changing the subject to show equal concern.

“I’ve… been having headaches lately,” Soarin admitted. Spitfire instantly sat up.

“Lately? How lately?” she asked, ready to scold him. Soarin shook his head.

“A couple of days, I’m keeping track of it Spitfire, don’t worry,” Soarin chuckled, knowing exactly what she wanted to hear. “I’ve been using the magic a lot more lately, and I’m starting to really get the hang of it. It’s been helping keep the headaches down, but it’s starting to feel like it used to again. You know, before Discord stepped in.

“It’s not going to be a problem in the show, is it?” Spitfire asked with concern. Soarin shook his head.

“No, it’s only been bad in the morning. Plus…” he smiled. “You know who we’re bringing along right? My personal head-pain reliever,” he joked. Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, just don’t be too lovey-dovey with her, okay? This is a professional event,” Spitfire clarified. Soarin shook his head.

“That’s not her style anyway, we’ll keep it in private,” Soarin assured her. Spitfire nodded before turning back and relaxing back on the couch again.

Soarin looked up to see squad seven gathering in another part of the lobby. Storm Front had just arrived, joining Point Dex, Macho Savage, and Lead Runner to complete the squad. They still had ten minutes before they had to leave for Canterlot Central Station. The recruits were probably on their way. Soarin checked around the lobby again. Where was…?

“Okay, has ANYPONY seen Air Mach?” Spitfire said with a grunt of frustration. “I swear, if I have to talk to him about punctuality again…” she trailed off as she looked about the lobby. Soarin stood up to get a better look, but it didn’t take him long. Air Mach was coming down the stairs beside Silver Lining.

“For the last time, son. I don’t want a pair of ‘stallionly shades,’” Silver said, his ears and brow flat.

“But they would look amazing on you!” Air Mach appealed to Silver while holding a pair out to him. By the look on Silver’s face, Soarin could tell this had been going on for a couple of minutes at least. Silver looked like he was trying his hardest not to punch Air Mach in the face. The two kept walking into the lobby as Air Mach tried to convince Silver to put on the sunglasses.

“C’mon old timer! I can’t stand seeing the stallionliest stallion not make use of this stallionly opportunity!” Air Mach said while striking a pose and pointing directly upward, his cape flowing despite there not being any wind indoors. Silver’s left eye twitched and he gritted his teeth. He stopped in his tracks and turned his head to Air Mach sharply.

“I don’t want your damn shades, you chuckling fuck-biscuit!” Silver yelled as he turned and walked towards the mail counter, leaving Air Mach behind.

“That’s a new one!” Fleetfoot slumped down into her chair while giggling.

“WHO WANTS STALLION SHADES?!” Air Mach zipped over to them, completely unaffected by Silver’s insult. Fleetfoot immediately glared, scrunched her face and tried to push herself further into the couch as he held the shades towards her.

Soarin burst out laughing. Air Mach got so much backlash, but he never gave a damn. Before anything else could happen though, Soarin was quickly distracted. The recruits had just emerged from the barracks.

Dash waved at Spitfire as they came into view. She glanced back at the others, they all looked excited and anxious, even Squall.

“Alright, everypony!” Spitfire said as she stood up. “To the station!” she ordered as she grabbed her duffle bag.

“I know we’re only along for the ride…” Dash said as she glanced back at the others. “But this is where we start, guys!” she said eagerly. Call it her inner captain emerging, but she felt like giving a little pep talk and the rest all nodded in agreement. “WHOA!” Dash suddenly tripped and fell flat on her face, the other four all stopped as she did. “What the…?!” Dash looked up just in time to hear.

“Awareness!” Silver’s voice came from behind her. Dash looked up to see her squad looking back and Silver’s tail disappearing down the west hallway. She grumbled as she stood up.

“That sneaky, old…”

Something was up, Dash didn’t know what, but something was amiss. From the moment they left the compound to when they arrived in the station, squad one and squad seven seemed a little tense. She knew they were going to a professional event, but it wasn’t like this was new to any of them. She could understand if Storm was acting anxiously, but all of them? Even Spitfire? They all looked tense.

Dash wondered if there was something they weren’t told. It wouldn’t be the first time something had been sprung on her by the elites. In fact, she was used to that happening by now. If it really was something, Storm had a better poker face than she gave him credit for. They all went right to bed after they finished playing last night and they’d only been up for about two hours. Storm hadn’t mentioned anything special about this trip… he may have been told not to or…

Maybe she was thinking too hard. Or perhaps her awareness had already increased from Silver’s training. If there was something going on, she’d know soon enough.

For now they were just waiting for the train to be ready. It had arrived at the station a few minutes ago and had unloaded all its passengers. They just had to wait for the station crew to finish cleaning out the cars before they boarded. The three back coaches seemed to be reserved for them. Each was marked with a sign that had a big ‘W’ on it. Two for the three squads traveling, and one for the team of ten earth pony security guards and five unicorns from their office staff Spitfire had grabbed from the compound before they left.

Dash was waiting with her friends, but perked up when she saw Soarin break away from the elites as they all waited. She kept her eyes on him as he went and sat down on a bench nearby. He looked around after sitting, realizing he forgot to pick up his duffle bag. He spotted it, and used his magic to hover it over to him, setting it down beside the bench. Dash chuckled, finding it amusing that Soarin had seemed to become so accustomed to having magic that he almost used it like a unicorn now.

Then she thought about the night before. Specifically when Storm asked her how they were doing. She thought about her answer and how Storm made her think about… her and Soarin. She had it much easier than Storm did, who was stuck in a long distance relationship with Derpy. But while Dash was in the same place as Soarin… she felt like they were still being held apart. In some ways she felt she had it WORSE than Storm… because her love was right there, but she could seldom touch him. They were in the same place, but separated by schedule and rank. It… really sucked.

But… he was beyond important to her. So what would she do? Exactly what she said she would do. She would have to try harder for him…. And make use of every possible moment she got.

Such as…

Right now.

Without a word, Dash broke away from her squad and walked towards the bench.

Soarin sighed as he leaned back on the bench and looked towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot. Thankfully Air Mach had them both occupied with his usual silliness because it was REALLY hard to get Spitfire and Fleetfoot to back off of each other. The two were great friends, but when they had disputes… it wasn’t a cat fight, it was a saber-toothed tiger fight. It would be less painful to get caught between two freight trains in a head-on collision.

But Soarin understood where both of them were coming from. Spitfire was beyond tense about anything Shadowbolt related. As the lead captain, the safety and wellbeing of all the Wonderbolts was her top priority. She knew from firsthoof experience what the Shadowbolts were capable of. The amount of pain they caused her with the use of their magic crystals was something she wanted no other Wonderbolt to experience. Fleetfoot should have considered that, but at the same time, it was Fleetfoot’s thing to try and keep the mood positive even in situations of stress. Spitfire shouldn’t have yelled at her.

Since they left the compound and arrived at the station, Soarin had been standing between them to prevent any further arguing. Luckily, Air Mach had kept Fleetfoot distracted for most of it, allowing Soarin to concentrate on trying to get Spitfire to RELAX. Something she really had trouble doing when she felt burdened. He did his best to hide the fact that his head was still aching a little. It worried him that the discomfort around the horn was returning, but he was confident he could handle it. Screw Discord and his verbal riddles and lack of clear points. He could do this.

Barely three hours into his day and he already felt a bit exhausted. The train ride to Cloudsdale was three hours, so hopefully he could relax, maybe take a nap… as long as Spitfire and Fleetfoot didn’t try to kill each other.

Comfort… that’s what he wanted right now. Not for any personal or emotional reason, he just felt more stressed than he needed to be. Of course, that made him think of one certain colorful mare of his.

“Soarin?”

He even thought he just heard her voice. Oh, wait… that was her voice.

Soarin turned his head to see Dash standing beside the bench, smiling at him. The smile alone was enough to make his day better already.

“Hey Dashie,” he greeted her with a smile.

“Tired already?” she smirked. “The day has hardly started,” she chuckled as she sat down on the bench besides Soarin.

“It’s been an interesting morning,” Soarin said with a sigh. “Had to stop the ladies from tearing each other’s throats out,” he said sarcastically as he lazily waved a hoof towards them. “Air Mach’s got them occupied though.”

“So is something going on? Everypony seems a little… tense,” Dash suddenly asked. Soarin blinked. Dash was too perceptive, but… she would know shortly.

“Well, yeah… you’re going to be a little more involved than first planned,” he revealed. It wasn’t like it was going to be a secret. He glanced at Dash and saw that her eyes had widened. “No, you aren’t performing, don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle. Dash instantly exhaled.

“Sheesh, don’t scare me like that…”

“You’ll know soon,” Soarin assured her. “I think Spitfire is going to talk about it on the train so just sit tight.”

“You can’t tell me now?” Dash asked. Soarin shook his head.

“It’s her plan, I’d rather she give all the details, plus I just want to relax right now I’ve…rgh…” Soarin winced and put a hoof to his head.

Great, he didn’t want Dash to see that.

“Soarin?” her voice was instantly wrought with concern. He felt a hoof touch his shoulder. “Is it the magic?”

Soarin rubbed his forehead gently until the discomfort went away and sighed.

“It’s been a little irritating, but nothing bad… just a reminder, I guess. I’m confident I can keep it under control… I’ve been using it a lot lately. It could be that too,” he explained.

“Yeah, I saw you unicorn your bag over to you a moment ago,” Dash giggled. Soarin blinked and looked at her while smirking. ‘Unicorn’ his bag over to him? That was a fun way of putting it.

He kept his eyes on Dash as she smiled at him. His thoughts trailing back to the night before when he talked to Wave in the break room. Even with Dash now living in the compound… it still felt like they didn’t get enough time together. Their schedules weren’t lining up, making it almost no different than it had been. Talking to Wave and watching Fire and Misty the night before made him think long and hard about it… and he realized that he needed to start doing everything he possibly could to make time for the two of them… and most importantly, take advantage of every opportunity. Like right now.

He readied to reach his arm around her, but before he could, she leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. It took him by surprise, but it was exactly what he wanted.

“I don’t see you enough, I don’t like that,” Dash said with a pout as she sighed. Soarin reached his arm around her and gave her a light squeeze.

“You read my mind… I was about to say that,” Soarin said as he gently rubbed her hoof against her opposite shoulder.

“Do you think we could—”

“Alright everypony! On the train! Let’s go!” Spitfire called out, cutting off Dash.

Soarin’s heart sank. He was enjoying the brief moment immensely, and it was cut incredibly short.

“Dammit…” Dash groaned as she lifted her head off his shoulder, but Soarin held onto her tightly. His eyes filled with determination as she looked up at him.

“We have three hours on the train,” he said adamantly. “Once Spitfire gives us leave, I’m spending the whole time with you.” Soarin could not describe how good it felt to watch her face light up as he said it. He smiled in return, leaned forward, and planted a light kiss on her cheek. “C’mon, let’s get on the train,” he said as he stood up and she followed right behind.

Spitfire said not to be too lovey-dovey, but whatever, it was just a kiss on the cheek, and as much as Dash felt uncomfortable with public affection, he could almost feel the longing radiating off of her. It felt necessary. Soarin could also feel how much she wanted to spend time with him. They both wanted the same thing and it all started with this train ride. They had the time, so they were going to use it.

But first, Dash had to listen up… because Spitfire had a special job for her and her squad.

Upon Spitfire’s orders they all piled into the back train car, which was a typical first-class passenger seating style car. Dash had ridden in one more than once in her life, having been friends with multiple princesses. They also had access to the next car up, but Dash didn’t get to see what it was. The next car after that was occupied by the Wonderbolt security team and staff.

“I saw that,” Little Star teased Dash as they made their way into the car and set their bags down.

“You know, I’d be angry,” Dash began. “But you’d be surprised how used to being spied on Soarin and I are. Fleetfoot is terrible.”

“I don’t blame her!” Star hovered up and gave Dash a big hug around the neck. “You two are just TOO adorable!”

“Okay, okay,” Dash chuckled as she leaned away from Star. She suddenly flinched as she felt herself being hugged from the other side. She looked to see Twister hugging her too.

“Can I kiss you too?” he asked while snickering uncontrollably. Dash flattened her brow.

“Absolutely not,” she answered instantly, and then sneered. “But you can kiss Matteo,” she said jokingly.

“OKAY!” Twister let go and hovered towards Matteo while puckering his lips. Matteo instantly reclined.

“You do and I’m stuffing you in your bag!” Matteo threatened as Twister kept moving towards him.

“Captain’s orders!” Twister shrugged.

Matteo grabbed Twister out of the air and did exactly what he said he would do, stuffing Twister into his own duffle bag and zipping it up around the neck. Dash was actually surprised that Twister fit in his own bag. Then again, Twister did a lot of things that seemed physically impossible.

“Alright, everypony listen up!” Spitfire caught their attention. They all turned and stood attention instantly. Matteo ended up doing so while still holding onto Twister’s bag. Spitfire blinked when she saw Twister, in his own bag, head sticking out, and dangling from Matteo’s shoulder, but she disregarded the shenanigans and looked at all the recruits.

Dash gulped as she watched Spitfire take a few paces back and forth, the lead squad and squad seven standing behind her. What sort of task did she have for them?

“So… I know you were all outside my office when you heard us talking about Shadowbolts… besides Dash… I’m sure none of you have heard of them and it would take a LONG time to explain, so I’m not going to bother with the details right now,” she said while glancing at Dash. “I’ll let Dash explain it to you later, anyway…” she paused and looked back at the elites. “In short… they are an organization of highly skilled flyers such as ourselves… but they engage in much less respectable work. We’ve confronted them more than once in the past, and in our last encounter, they were forced to disperse. However, we have reason to believe they have not fully disbanded… and are planning something. We’re encountered multiple Shadowbolts in the recent past, all watching from afar as if spying on us. Why? We haven’t a clue, but I’m determined to find out. Yesterday, squad three encountered a Shadowbolt right here in Canterlot, one that my squad and squad seven encountered in Manehatten a little while ago. This is the first repeat appearance, leading me to believe they are not working separately and all have a similar agenda.”

She turned sharply to the recruit squad while looking specifically at Dash.

“With the current trend of sightings, I’m more than confident that one might show up during our trip… but the elites have to focus on the show and the media. So, while I DO want you all to become familiar with the show process, I have a special assignment for you,” she nodded, addressing Dash as the captain of her squad. “You five are going to be our hidden eyes. By now, the Shadowbolts are aware that we’ve seen them… and they will probably be keeping their distance from the elites… however, they may not be as aware of the recruits. So I’m assigning you all to keep a sharp eye out for suspicious activity… and if you see a Shadowbolt… give us a sign and pursue them until we can catch up. I’ll let Rainbow Dash brief you all on the details, such as what to look for and what they look like since she has been informed of these activities already. We’ll arrive at the ground station below Cloudsdale in three hours. That will be all.”

Dash took in her orders as she watched Spitfire turn away. She knew Spitfire wanted her to get involved… but…

She turned to her squad. Squall, Star, and Matteo all looked incredibly confused. Twister was just sneering… as usual.

“Uh…” Dash gritted her teeth. “Yeah, give me a second…” she left the recruits behind and approached Spitfire. “Captain!” she called out. Spitfire turned away from Soarin and lifted an eyebrow. Dash looked back and forth before leaning in and whispering. “Spitfire… this is a bit SUDDEN don’t you think? I mean…” Dash looked back at her squad as they all glanced between each other in bewilderment. “None of them know a THING about the Shadowbolts!”

“This has all been very sudden, Dash…” Spitfire spoke in a normal volume. “And due to the circumstances, I decided to let them in on it. With you as their captain, they will be much safer than anypony else we could have on the job. You know the Shadowbolts well, so it’s up to you to make sure they are informed,” she explained. “I’m counting on you here, Dash,” she continued. “The Shadowbolts aren’t stupid, they are wary of the elites, they won’t suspect a recruit squad looking out for them.”

Without another word, Spitfire turned and went to speak to Point Dex.

“But… I… we…” Dash stuttered. This was one hell of a task… and right out of the gate too. She sighed as she looked back at her squad again. Would they be ready for it?

“Sorry about not saying anything last night,” Storm’s voice came from beside Dash. “Spitfire wanted us to withhold information until we got on the train to avoid it spreading.”

“Hmph…” Dash pouted at Storm. “I guess I don’t have to kick your ass then. You’re really good at keeping a secret.”

“Captain’s orders,” Storm shrugged. “I mean, Soarin argued against the whole idea, but Captain Spitfire is not backing down from anything. She seems really determined to figure this all out.”

“I don’t blame her…” Dash nodded as she thought about it and looked towards Spitfire. She remembered what Spitfire went through. If Dash were in her position, she’d take all the precautions she could as well. “Well… I’ve got a lot of explaining to do… I better get started,” Dash sighed as she turned to the recruits.

She glanced over her shoulder, looking for Soarin. He was actually looking at her too, but he was also caught up in a discussion. The two exchanged sad looks. It seemed their time on the train would be all taken up. Dash sighed as she looked back and started moving towards the recruits.

Storm looked between Soarin and Dash as the two exchanged eye contact. After a moment of thought, he followed behind Dash.

“Well guys…” Dash began as she made it back to her squad. They all looked at her intently, ready for an explanation. “I’ve got a lot to tell you so—”

“Dash, hold on,” Storm cut her off as he approached.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and looked at Storm as he walked up beside her. Storm looked back at Soarin before looking at her.

“I’ll get them up to speed on the more recent stuff,” he made a head motion towards Soarin. “Go spend time with Soarin.”

“What? But… I need to…” Dash looked between Storm, Soarin, and the recruits.

“You can tell them all about it at the hotel tonight after we split to our assigned rooms,” Storm cut her off. “Go,” he repeated the head motion.

“Um…” Dash bit her lip as she looked back towards the recruits. She wanted to do exactly what Storm was saying, but she had an obligation here… a job to do.

“Hey,” Star hovered up and poked Dash in the chest. “I’m confused as hell, but we want our captain to be happy too, you know?” she smiled. "We can wait a little while, go on…” she encouraged. Dash glanced at Matteo and Squall. Matteo nodded in agreement. Squall just grunted, but gave no protest. Twister had disappeared into his own bag and was rolling around in it. Dash smiled… her squad, no… her friends all understood her… and cared.

“Okay, I promise you’ll all get a full explanation tonight,” she said as she looked over her shoulder. Soarin was no longer mingling with the squads and was sitting alone on a seat. The train whistle blew and lurched as the cars began to move. Dash looked back to her friends and nodded. “Thanks guys,” she said with a smile as she turned and moved towards Soarin.

She nearly broke into a trot as she approached the seat from behind. Her heart filled with so much excitement and anticipation as it all came rushing back so quickly after being depleted moments ago.

“Soarin?” she said quietly. His ears stood up and he turned and looked at her. “About those three hours,” she said with a wide smile.

“Huh? Don’t you have to explain the situation?” he asked as he glanced back and saw the recruits looking towards both of them. Dash shook her head.

“They said they’ll wait till tonight,” Dash blushed lightly. “For us.”

Soarin blinked, looking back at the recruits again before smirking at Dash.

“We are quite the famous couple, aren’t we?” he joked as Dash rolled her eyes.

“It’s all me,” she said smugly as Soarin stood up and gave her an amused look. He looked around before putting a hoof on her shoulder.

“We have some private cabins in the second car, let’s go there,” he suggested.

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week,” Dash said giddily as the two of them made their way towards the front of the car, but not before Fleetfoot whistled and hooted at the two of them leaving. Spitfire looked at them curiously as they left and was about to question Dash, but Fleetfoot held her back.

Soarin led Dash into the second car as the train clattered and clacked along the rails, the car swaying ever so slightly as it was pulled along. As Dash closed the door behind them and they noticed nopony was present, not even in the hallway, the two smiled at each other and it was less than a second before Dash launched herself at Soarin and hugged him tightly.

“Whoa!” Soarin chuckled as she almost knocked him over. He returned Dash’s hug and gave her a tight squeeze. “Easy Dash, let’s get to one of the cabins first.”

“Well, you have to do it with me hanging off of you… tough shit,” she stated firmly.

“The things I do for love,” Soarin said sarcastically as he tried moving. The hallway bent to the right and moved along the right side of the car. There were five private cabins lined up on the left of the hallway, each big enough for two to three ponies to comfortably occupy and still have enough space to move around.

Soarin, however, found it hard to reach the first with the way he was being ‘restrained.’ He knew Dash wasn’t going to let go of him, so he tried to pick her up with his wing like he had done more than once in the past. However, she was clinging to his neck, making her in an unfavorable position to perform the usual ‘sexy large wings’ maneuver. So… he decided to use option two.

“What the—?” Dash yelped as a blue aura surrounded her. She looked up at Soarin to see his eyes focused on her and a soft blue light surrounding the horn. Before she knew it, she was hoisted up and off of him, floated up above and placed on his back. As soon as she landed the magic released and she quickly latched to him to prevent herself from falling.

“Much better,” Soarin said with a smirk.

“You and your strap-on princess magic,” Dash giggled as she sneered and pulled herself further up. She wrapped her arms under his chin as she propped herself up on his head. “GRRR!” she growled playfully as she lightly bit down and tugged on his right ear.

“Oh no! Not my ear! Whatever will I do?” Soarin joked as he continued down the hall and stopped in front of the first private cabin. He let Dash continue to cutely assault him as he slid the door open and ducked to get them both through the door. The cabin was small, with a large, cushy, green bench on one side and a set of four, comfortable looking bunks on the left. There wasn’t much vertical space in these bunks so the bench looked much more suitable to relax on. It looked so comfortable it could almost be a couch. There was a small window on the other side of the cabin, letting in light from outside. Soarin closed the door behind them and pulled the shade down over the door window. He chuckled as he felt the tugging shift from his right ear to his left. “Well, we have a cabin to ourselves now… or are you going to eat my ears the whole way?”

“I don’t take prisoners,” Dash said between ear noms.

“If you say so,” Soarin smirked before turning and moving to sit down. It took Dash a moment to realize that if he sat down… with her on his back…

“Whoa! Wait! HURK!” Dash grunted as Soarin sat down and sandwiched her between the cushion and Soarin’s back.

“Whoops!” Soarin acted the fool as Dash flailed behind him.

“Soarin, can’t breathe…” Dash sputtered before Soarin leaned forward to let her out. She shifted beside him while catching her breath, Soarin smiling mischievously at her as she took deep breaths. She eventually stopped and shot a playful glare at him.

The two broke out of the fun the moment their eyes met. No words were said and no faces or silly expressions were made. They just stared, taking in each other’s eyes as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. Because that’s how long it felt. They were so important to each other that mere weeks without a moment like this one felt like ages.

They both slowly leaned in, closing their eyes, Dash hooking her hoof with Soarin’s as they closed the gap and their lips met softly. Their mouths locked together and held position as they shared a long, gentle moment of love that both of them desired greatly. Soarin reached his other hoof over and held it gingerly against her cheek as they slowly parted, caressing her face as they moved just far enough not to be kissing, moving no farther to look into each other’s eyes again as closely as possible.

Then Soarin felt slight vibrations pass through his hooves. He looked curiously at Dash and noticed she was shaking… shivering. Soarin pulled back and examined her. Her ears were flopped down, her eyes squinting slightly and her lips parted just enough to see her lightly pressing her teeth together.

“Dash?” Soarin said her name with concern. She didn’t show any signs of crying or sadness, it was almost as if something external was causing her to move in such a way.

What he didn’t consider, was that it was him.

Dash suddenly leaned heavily into him, digging her cheek into his neck.

Art by: Foxenawolf

She inhaled sharply as she felt their bodies touch, as she felt her fur brush with his. She continued to shiver and hold him tightly, but it was because she wanted him… she NEEDED him. He had an intoxicating effect on her.

Soarin himself felt shivers run through him as she expressed her need for the intense physical contact from him, his body responding without a moment’s thought. He brought his arms around her and pulled them tightly to her body, helping her press herself into him as he rested his chin atop her head. It felt so good… knowing, seeing, and feeling how much the mare he loved needed him. It only acted in boosting his desire to make more time for her. In fact, seeing her respond to him like this made him feel terrible about not realizing their place and making the effort sooner.

Soarin reached up and lightly ran his hoof over her mane. The soft motion earned a content, squeaky sigh from Dash as she shifted in attempt to snuggle herself even further into him, her wings twitching as the satisfaction of feeling him against her reverberated throughout her body. She twitched as Soarin moved his nose and gently nuzzled it against her ear near the base of it. Soarin normally attacked her sweet spots quickly, but this time he touched her ear as lightly as possible to create a good feeling instead of an intense one. The tingling sensation was light and comfortable.

Soarin took it one notch further, exhaling, breathing warm breath down on her sensitive ear.

“Hgn…” Dash tensed under the sensation, accidentally biting down on Soarin’s shoulder.

“Ow…” Soarin winced lightly, but smiled, knowing it was his own fault.

“Sorry…” Dash apologized as she blushed and sighed heavily. “This just feels way too good,” she said as continued to nuzzle her head into his neck.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Soarin replied as he rested his chin on her head again and gave her another tight squeeze.

“I really…” Dash paused to squeeze Soarin back. “REALLY wish we could do this more…” she said as continued to enjoy the touch of his body and the scent of his fur in such close proximity.

“Rainbow Dash has the cuddle bug?” Soarin chuckled. “Who’d have thought…”

“I’m serious Soarin,” Dash huffed as she held tight to him.

“I know,” Soarin reached up and stroked her mane again. “You DO know that I love your toughness though. It makes it even more charming when you soften up for me,” he said with sincerity.

“Good recovery,” she snickered as she leaned her head back, pressing the crown of her head into his neck and brushing the tip of her nose against his chin.

“I’ve learned from rough landings,” Soarin said as he answered her gesture by tipping his nose down and nuzzling it with hers. “But you are right. I DO want to do this more, and Dash…” he paused as he bent his neck down and rested his chin on her shoulder while rubbing his cheek against hers. “And I’ve decided I’m going to make that happen.”

Dash was so busy taking in the feeling of Soarin snuggling his cheek to hers that it took her a second to register what he had said.

“What? But…” Dash wanted that. Sweet Celestia she wanted that. In fact, she was going to try and do that herself, but she wanted to make time for HIM. She didn’t want him to interrupt his MUCH more important schedule for her. It was important for both sides of the relationship to give to each other equally, but she felt Soarin’s sacrifices would be much heavier than hers. “I don’t want to make your schedule any harder than it is…” she reluctantly said as they remained with their heads side by side. “My schedule is much less important, I should be the one making time for you,” she tried to reason, but she felt Soarin shake his head lightly on her shoulder.

“Dash, I’m already as high as I can possibly be in my job. You have a mountain to climb. You do what you have to do and schedule what you need in order to advance your career, and I will figure out when I can fit myself into that,” he pulled away slightly so the two could turn and look each other in the eye. “Shifting around my personal schedule is easy… one of the perks that comes with being part of the lead squad,” Soarin said with a wink. Dash blinked and grinned smugly.

“I suppose I can work you into my schedule, I’m a very busy captain you know,” she said sarcastically.

“That’s the smarm I love to hear,” Soarin said while hugging her tightly and rubbing his nose into her neck, making her giggle and kick her legs out as she clamped her hooves over his arms.

“Ow, hey!” Dash giggled as the horn poked her in the cheek. “Watch the forehead extension!” she exclaimed as she tried to gain the upper hoof. As she attempted to shift and fight back, they suddenly tipped to the side slightly and both froze.

“Uh oh…” Soarin said as they tipped a little more.

“We’re going down, aren’t we…?” Dash said calmly as they started tipping further.

“I believe we are,” Soarin chuckled. They both yelped quietly as they tipped over and bounced down onto the cushion. They landed side by side, still holding onto each other and laughing. The fit of giggling died down and the two looked into each other eyes again as they rested beside one another on the absurdly comfortable bench. Dash’s body was half off the edge, the only thing keeping her on were Soarin’s arms holding onto her. Dash pulled herself forward and once again snuggled herself as tightly as she could into Soarin’s body, making them both fit on the bench as well as reveling in the feeling of their close proximity again.

“I love you, Dashie,” Soarin said as he placed a hoof behind her head.

“Love you too,” Dash replied, muffled against his chest. Soarin stroked her mane once before she pulled her head back, reached up and grabbed his face. “Quit petting me and kiss me,” she demanded before pressing her mouth to his. After one kiss with a little more oomph behind it, Soarin pulled back.

“Okay,” he said jokingly as Dash pouted and yanked him back forward. They didn’t attack each other, it was still softer than it was rough, but they both put a little more passion into it as they kissed, softly sliding their hooves up and down each other’s backs as they did. It was an interesting mix causing a gentle moment that was still filled with strong desire. Soarin chuckled as he felt his body get pressed against the seat cushion. Dash was pushing so hard against him that he was almost being wedged between the seat and back rest.

Dash released Soarin’s mouth and nestled her head into the crook of Soarin’s neck again, shivering and breathing sharply as she did. Soarin was loving every moment of it. The amount of passion Dash was showing for him and just being close to him… the way she shivered at the feeling of them being so close together… knowing he had such an astounding effect on her, it created such a warm feeling in his heart.

Soarin rubbed his chin gently against the top of her head as she continued to cling to him tightly, her body calming down at the soft touch. She sighed contently again before nuzzling her head against his chest and shoulders again. She just simply, could not get enough of him. They remained still for a moment, cuddling and perfectly comfortable. Now feeling relaxed, the two parted slightly to look at each other again.

They smiled at each other before leaning in and sharing a brief kiss before snuggling up as tightly as they could, enjoying the feeling of each other’s bodies nestled tightly together.

Simply being in each other’s presence and openly allowing other into their personal space. Feeling their fur touch and fitting their bodies together like a two piece puzzle. There was no other pony they could ever feel this right with, who they could ever be this intimate with. It was something incredibly special and they wanted to feel it as often as possible.

That would come in time as Soarin figured out how to work their schedules together, but they were both happy to hear that they would have more of a means to see each other soon.

For now they just had to enjoy what they could get…

Because who knew when they would get another chance?

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Before anyone says anything... yes Cloudsdale is a sky city... the reason the unicorns were brought along was for enchanting the earth pony security guards with cloud walking like in the episode of the show. It will all be shown in the next chapter.

AND OMG SO MUCH FLUUUUUFFFFF AND LOOOOOOVE!

Soarin and Dash realize they aren't getting what they thought they would out of their new lives... its time they made time for each other.

Onward to a show! I wonder what will happen? :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed!:eeyup:

Chapter 77: "Innocent" Bystanders

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 77:

“Everypony ready? Squad captains, all members accounted for?” Spitfire asked as the train pulled into the station down below about a quarter-mile outside Cloudsdale. Obviously, it was hard to have a train stop in a city in the sky, much less one made of clouds. They had a blimp waiting for them to take them and their staff the last bit of distance and up to the city.

Dash made one last check to make sure her squad was ready to go, specifically to make sure Twister didn’t vanish on her like he had a tendency to do. All four of them were there and waiting as the elites gathered up as well. Dash turned her attention to Soarin, thinking about the past few hours that ranked up pretty high among some of the best hours of her life. Soarin glanced over at her and flashed a smile, which she returned before a loud SLAM drew their attention. They, along with the rest of the Wonderbolts looked towards the exit door of the train car and saw Fleetfoot with her back to the door and an expression of dread on her face.

Dash was confused but Soarin and Spitfire both sighed heavily.

“Who tipped them off this time?” Soarin said sarcastically as he and Spitfire moved towards the windows and looked outside.

“I don’t know why I bother trying…” Spitfire shook her head. “Even when I keep the arrival time secret, they always find out.”

Dash’s curiosity got the better of her and she walked up beside Soarin to look out the window. Her eyes widened when she looked out… and saw hundreds of ponies gathered on the station platform.

Of course… the press.

Dash wasn’t so surprised after a moment. The lead squad of the Wonderbolts was here after all. From their reactions, this was a normal occurrence. Soarin glanced down at Dash as the rest of the recruits gathered by the windows and stared in awe.

“Welcome to the Wonderbolts,” Soarin said with a chuckle and pointed out the window. “Let me introduce you to the love of our lives, the overzealous media.”

Dash looked outside and saw the reporters and photographers battling for positioning near the door of their train car.

“I think that’s putting it lightly…” Dash said with a snicker. This wasn’t the first time she had been bombarded by media. It happened to her at the royal ball when she arrived with Twilight. She knew what was coming, but how were the rest going to take it? She looked over and examined her squadmates. Matteo looked unaffected, but he’d sooner pluck out all of his own feathers than show emotion under stress. Star’s jaw looked like it was about to unhinge as she stared out at all the ponies gathered. Squall looked uncomfortable, as he should. He didn’t like his personal space being violated and it was likely about to be… a lot. Twister looked excited. In fact, Dash felt sorry for any reporters that tried to approach him.

Dash looked beyond them and saw Storm looking out as well. He didn’t look too pleased. This was definitely not the first time he had experienced this, having been an elite for a little while now. Knowing Storm’s modesty though, he probably didn’t like the extreme amount of attention.

“What are we waiting for?!” Air Mach suddenly yelled out as he burst out of the bathroom at the back end of the car. “Time to take Cloudsdale by storm!” he shouted with vigor as he trotted towards the door without looking outside.

“WAIT!!!!!” Fleetfoot yelled as Air Mach reached for the door, but it was too late. Air Mach ripped the door open, took one step out, and was immediately pushed back into the car as the reporters rushed against the car and camera flashes flickered like strobe lights.

“You… dumbass…” Spitfire growled as she quickly turned to Soarin. “Soarin, keep them out,” she pointed towards Air Mach as the reporters began pushing themselves into the car while bombarding Air Mach with questions that sounded like gibberish with how many voices were going.

“THE GREAT… ANIMACK… SHALL HOLD FIRM!” he yelled as he struggled to hold his ground.

“Son of a…” Soarin flattened his ears before turning. “Savage! Matteo!” Soarin called out. “You’re with me!” he ordered before moving towards Air Mach. Macho Savage immediately followed. Matteo glanced at Dash, who gave him a head motion towards Soarin before he too followed. Dash watched as the three of them got behind Air Mach, and on Soarin’s word, started pushing them back out.

“Dex,” Spitfire spoke up again.

“Ma’am?” Point Dex saluted.

“Suggestions? There’s way too many for the security team to keep them off of us,” Spitfire consulted him. Point Dex looked out the window, and then back towards the group trying to keep the reporters out. They had pushed them out and placed Matteo’s back to the doorway, his large bulk preventing them from getting in.

“Perhaps we can make use of the unicorns,” he began. “If our security team can keep the reporters at bay long enough for the five unicorns to create a shield around us then we will have an easy trip to the blimp,” he explained his thoughts as he looked out the window towards the blimp waiting for them. “A shield generated by five unicorns will be more than enough to keep them all at bay,” he adjusted his glasses. “I suggest rerouting the blimp directly to the hotel as well if possible. It’s safe to suggest more of this will be waiting for us in the city.”

“Good idea,” Spitfire nodded in agreement. “We’ll use the door in the second car to leave as well, that will catch them off guard. Go to the third car and explain the plan to the security team,” she ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” Dex nodded before turning and heading for the third car. Spitfire turned to the rest.

“Everypony gather your things and head for the second car! We’re leaving through there! Soarin, can you guys get that door shut?” she asked.

“Way ahead of ya!” Soarin yelled back as he and Savage finished closing the door and locking it.

“Alright, let’s get in position!” Spitfire ordered as they all began moving to the second car.

Dash chuckled as she gathered up her bag and followed the rest. This was a little more intense than when she was with Twilight. It made sense though. Cloudsdale wasn’t as quite a high end location, effectively tripling the amount of reporters that could possibly show up. Dash ended up walking beside Storm as they moved and smirked at his less than amused expression with his ears folded back.

“Not a fan of this part, huh?” she asked as Storm grunted and nodded.

“I’m not knocking my job, but I can’t stand this part. This is the fourth time and I’m still not used to it. I don’t know how Soarin and the lead squad have handled this for so long, it drives me insane,” he explained as he growled quietly. Dash was honestly not expecting that much of a response. It seemed like Storm was just about as protective of his personal life and space as Squall was. The two had more in common than they’d like to admit. “You seem to be taking this alright,” Storm suddenly added. Dash shrugged.

“Been through this once already… I don’t think it’s because I’m okay with it, I just know what to expect,” she explained. Storm looked at her curiously.

“You’ve been attacked by the media before?” he asked as they gathered and waited with the rest in the second car.

“Yeah, I attended the Canterlot Royal Ball about half a year ago or so,” she said casually. Storm blinked.

“And… the media bombarded you? Why?” he said while lifting an eyebrow.

“Oh… it wasn’t because of me,” Dash laughed. “I was riding with my friend Twilight, she was the reason that—”

“Wait, Twilight? As in Princess Twilight Sparkle? You know her?” Storm asked in surprise. Dash blinked and looked at him in confusion.

“Storm… she was at the banquet… she’s one of my best friends,” Dash said as if Storm was crazy. Storm just stared and blinked a couple of times. Dash tipped her head. He was serious? “Didn’t you see the purple alicorn I was talking to?” Dash added. Storm blinked again and shook his head.

“I… don’t think I saw her…” Storm chuckled sheepishly. “How are you on a first name basis with Princess Twilight?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s a long story…” Dash scratched the back of her head. “It would probably take a few years to tell it. I can’t believe you didn’t see her at the banquet. Heck, you ran right past her at one point. Although…you were passing by us to get to Derpy. Guess she had you really distracted, huh?” Dash smirked at him.

“I had more than a few things distracting me at the banquet…” Storm sighed and let his ears droop.

Dash frowned, feeling bad that she may have brought up something that was rough for him. Storm did end up breaking down in the middle of the banquet after all… Dash comforted him after he voiced his longing for friends and family like she had.

Luckily, they were cut off before anything else could be said.

“Wonderbolts, ready up!” Spitfire called from beside the door. “The security team is moving towards this car while making it look like they’re going for the first… when they pass in front of this door we are jumping out and getting between them, alright? If any reporters get to you, DON’T answer any questions. In fact, you have my permission to defend yourself... just DON’T punch anypony out okay? Keep it gentle!”

“Here comes the fun part,” Storm said sarcastically.

“Line up! Single file! I don’t want any idiots trying to get through the door at the same time!” Spitfire ordered as they all shifted into a line.

“They’re almost here,” Soarin let her know from the door. Spitfire nodded and approached him.

“Open the door on my mark and bring up the rear,” she instructed Soarin. Soarin nodded.

“Got it,” he acknowledged as he gripped the handle.

Dash found this whole scenario… amusing. The way Spitfire was giving out orders and how everything was being organized… it felt like a military operation. Dash’s first mission as a Wonderbolt! An impromptu maneuver to evade the media… with how strange everything had been throughout the process she couldn’t think of a more fitting way to begin her career.

“On my mark!” Spitfire yelled as all of them got ready to pour out as quickly as they could. Dash glanced to the window beside the door catching a glimpse of the earth pony security team making their way through the reporters that had poor positioning and not even close to the first car. Behind them, the unicorns were keeping pace. Dash focused forward as Spitfire put her hoof in the air. “GO! GO! GO!” she yelled while bringing her hoof down.

Soarin ripped the door open and Spitfire jumped out, followed close behind by Fleetfoot, Air Mach and then one by one, everypony else. Dash leapt out right behind Storm, instantly seeing the earth ponies who had stopped and were trying to push the confused reporters out of the way to form a comfortable barrier around them. They all landed within the pseudo-circle and Soarin leapt out, bringing up the rear.

Unfortunately… the unicorns got held up in the confusion. By the time all the Wonderbolts made it down, the reporters crowding the wrong car had all turned and were moving towards them.

“Ah, feathers…” Dash winced as the earth pony guards on their right tried, but failed to hold them all back as they poured towards them.

Before they knew it, they were all surrounded by the reporters that managed to elude the guards. The reporters were talking so fast and all at once to the point where Dash couldn’t make out a single word. It didn’t matter though because they were ordered not to answer any questions. It was quite a bit more hectic than her first experience with the media. Everywhere she looked, it was just a sea of ponies trying to get to them. There were even pegasi above them, mostly photographers snapping pictures endlessly.

Dash lightly pushed any that got too close to her away as the security team reached in and pulled ponies out. Dash found she wasn’t being swarmed quite as much as some of the others, mainly Soarin and Matteo. It was understandable. Soarin was wearing a unicorn horn artifact, and Matteo was a griffon.

Dash yelped as the group suddenly stopped and she ran smack into Storm’s plot. She gritted her teeth as a new wave of reporters got past the guards and surrounded her.

Storm was right… this was… awful.

She didn’t mind attention, but this was just ridiculous. She had gotten completely surrounded, unable to even move….

But then she blinked in surprise. A thin blue veil of light suddenly surrounded her. She turned and looked towards Soarin.

Soarin had had enough. He never liked the media to begin with and since he gotten the horn fastened to his head, it had only gotten worse. They already pissed him off a little by running the ‘Princess Soarin’ headline, so he felt why not give them a taste of WHY he was wearing it?

Nothing harmful obviously, but he saw this as a great opportunity to use his shield spell. He didn’t want to push away the other Wonderbolts with the shield dome that could expand outward from him, but utilizing the split mind, the projection and the simple shield, he felt he could give the security team and the unicorns the chance they needed to get in place.

He had his eyes closed and was concentrating despite the cacophony around him. The reporters nearby all instantly shut up and backed away when Soarin’s horn began to glow. Soarin opened his eyes and focused, a light blue glow rising from his eyes, tensing his body and thinking about protecting all of his fellow Wonderbolts. A single, thick beam of blue light extended from the horn before it splintered and split into eight smaller threads, each traveling towards a Wonderbolt. As the light touched each one of them, they were encircled by a gentle blue aura and eventually a thin spherical veil encompassed each of them. Any reporters that got near them were pushed away. The Wonderbolts all turned and looked at Soarin, not even them expecting him to call upon his magic. Each one of them looked in awe, except for Spitfire, who instead looked at Soarin with disapproval.

The reporters began backing away as Soarin suddenly brought his magic to life, definitely not sure what they were looking at. The photographers however, went nuts, snapping photos continuously. With the reporters backing away, the security team found themselves able to position themselves.

“Move in now!” Soarin called out. The unicorns broke free from the retreating crowd and stepped up in between them all. All five of them stood in the center and lifted their horns skyward, all activating their magic at the same time. Five beams shot up and connected overhead, forming a shield dome that slowly encompassed all of them.

Soarin exhaled and released his magic, the blue light returning to his horn and disappearing from his eyes. Spitfire glared at Soarin, but wasted no time in giving orders.

“To the blimp! Let’s go!” she ordered, pointing to the large blimp parked outside the station, waiting to transport them and their staff up to Cloudsdale. They all moved with the unicorns through the sea of reporters as they were pushed aside by the barrier, making their way down the path to the blimp pad outside the station. The reporters followed them down the winding path, but they were denied getting close to the blimp. The pad was encompassed by a large, tall wire fence and once the Wonderbolts were inside, they dropped the shield and the security guards closed the gate shut. Pegasus staff members from the station flew up to block any of the pegasi photographers from getting in.

They all trotted towards the large, red blimp, heading towards the two-story cabin below the balloon that was about the same size as the train cars. One by one they hopped in, Spitfire staying outside to make sure everypony was in before jumping in herself.

“Phew!” Soarin sighed as they all got in. He stopped before he could go any further, realizing that everypony was staring at him. “Oh… sorry if I startled anypony… I was getting tired of all that…” he chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Soarin… you… are an idiot…” Spitfire said with an exasperated sigh as she latched the door shut and turned to him.

“Uh… you’re welcome?” Soarin scrunched his face at her, but she shook her head.

“Yeah, you got us through, but I hope you’re ready for the news tomorrow. Not to mention all the questions you’re gonna get at the press conference and reception tomorrow…” she said as she shrugged. Soarin’s ears flopped down and his pupils shrank.

“Oh…” he said, having not thought about that at all. He just used his magic in public for the first time right in front of hundreds of crazy reporters. Son of a—

“That… was pretty terrible…” Matteo grumbled as Dash relaxed and sat down on a bench against the side of the cabin. They all sighed in relief as the blimp jostled lightly and lifted off.

The blimp was not quite as luxurious as the train, but how many luxury blimps were there anyway? It was a simple passenger cabin with a long bench on both sides with windows over them. There was also a large window at the front of the cabin to look out forward that extended from the floor to the ceiling. In the back was a small set of stairs that led up to the cockpit where the blimp crew worked and maintained the blimp. It felt weird taking a blimp up to Cloudsdale. Under normal circumstances, Dash would just fly up, but she honestly preferred this over being bombarded by the media.

“Yeah, I’ll say…” Dash agreed with Matteo as she watched the unicorn staff go to work on the earth ponies and themselves, casting long term cloud-walking enchantments on themselves.

“Anypony want gum?” Twister suddenly held out a hoof full of gum packets, so many that he couldn’t hold them all. Dash blinked, reached down and picked up one of the packets he dropped.

“Twister, where did you get all of these?” she asked with a chuckle.

“Frisked every reporter that touched me,” he said with a snicker.

“You troll…” Dash shook her head as Twister turned and dumped all of the gum packets into Squall’s bag when he wasn’t looking. “So Matty,” Dash glanced up at Matteo beside her, who was preening all the ruffled feathers in his wings. “How hard was it not to punch any of them out?”

“Excruciatingly…” Matteo said with a grunt before stuffing his beak back into his wing. Dash felt sorry for the big guy, being absolutely blasted with more questions than the rest of them combined. They didn’t care that he was only a recruit. He was a griffon, and therefore was singled out by the reporters. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, which was a rare site from the stone-faced Matteo.

“You should’ve punched them,” Squall mumbled from one space over. Dash leaned forward to see Squall grinding his teeth and grumbling to himself on the other side of Matteo. “They wouldn’t stop… touching me…” Squall hissed as he scowled so hard it looked like his face was going to break.

“Well you guys better get used to it, we are only part of a famous organization now,” Dash said as she leaned back. “By default we’re awesome and everypony wants a piece of the awesome.”

Dash suddenly looked back and forth before sitting up sharply.

“Whoa! Hold on! Where’s Little Star?” she asked in a panic. They all looked around them, even back towards the elites. Star was nowhere to be seen. Squall sprang up from his seat and looked around all of them.

“She’s not still out there is she?!” Squall exclaimed as he stepped up on the bench and looked out the window at all the reporters gathered and all the pegasus photographers following the blimp.

Art by: mlplover789

Dash gave Squall a surprised look before she felt something moving against her side. She looked down at her duffle bag beside her and saw it moving. Dash instantly felt relieved, putting two and two together quickly.

Her bag unzipped slightly before Little Star poked her head out from inside it.

“We’re safe?” she asked as she looked back and forth like a little meerkat poking its head out of a burrow. Dash chuckled as she looked down at Star.

“Safe and sound… when did you climb into my bag?” Dash asked as Star pulled herself out and hovered up into the air.

“As soon as they got past security… the media scares me…” Star said slight a slight shiver. Dash blinked and looked Star over.

“Where’s your bag?” Dash asked. Star pointed at Matteo.

“Hung it off his,” Star grinned as she hovered over and pulled her bag off Matteo’s. Matteo lifted an eyebrow and released his wing from his beak.

“I thought my bag felt heavier…” he said to himself as Star hovered back over to Dash.

“How did I not feel it?” Dash smirked and glanced at Squall. He had moved further down the bench and was hiding his face with his mane. “Heh, Star… I don’t think you had anything to worry about,” Dash said to Star. “Somepony here freaked out when we thought you didn’t make it,” Dash said while cheekily looking towards Squall. Star blinked and looked past Dash towards Squall, who, upon hearing Dash, shifted so his back was turned to them as well.

“Wow, seriously?” Star said as if she couldn’t fathom it. Dash hopped off the seat and looked around frantically.

“She’s not still out there is she?!” Dash said with a deepened voice, reenacting Squall from a moment ago. She hopped up on the seat and pressed her face to the window looking outside. Matteo let slip an amused snort as he watched Dash mock Squall.

“Ngh…” Squall grunted as he scooted himself further down the bench. Star giggled at Dash’s acting before moving towards Squall.

“Wow, worried about me? I didn’t think you had it in you!” she said sarcastically.

“Ngggghhhhh…” Squall grumbled and scooted himself all the way to the end of the bench, facing the corner.

“Hey! Get back here!” Star hovered after him.

Dash chuckled as she watched Star pursue Squall. Indeed it was a bit of surprise when Squall reacted out of nowhere. Maybe he cared about them more than he was willing to admit. Heaven forbid he lost his image of ‘toughness.’

Dash looked between her squad mates as they all got settled and started thinking about how she was going to explain everything to them. Where would she even start? Everything she knew about the Shadowbolts reached back a whole year. Actually, even more than that if she included when Nightmare Moon hired them to try and sway her away from her friends.

To start though… she wanted just a little more information for herself. Spitfire gave her a rundown before and Soarin had mentioned them a few times, but she wanted some specifics. Red headband and red goggles… but physical features could help them. Spitfire said that one of them had shown up twice, so knowing what to possibly look for would be a plus.

Dash hopped off her seat and started moving towards the elites. She moved towards Spitfire first, but hesitated when she saw Spitfire busy chewing out Air Mach. Instead, she turned towards Soarin, who was standing at the head of the cabin with Storm Front, looking out the front window.

“Yikes, they are not giving up are they?” Storm said as he and Soarin looked out the window towards all the pegasus photographers trying to get close to the blimp. There was a cloud of them below, busily taking photos. Members of the station staff were doing their best to keep them away, but every few moments, one or two got through and took a few photos before being yanked back down.

“The life of the media, shamelessly throwing yourself at celebrities to try and get the drop on all your other fellow reporters…” Soarin chuckled. “What a line of work…”

“Coming from a Wonderbolt that can use magic with a fake horn strapped to his head,” Storm joked with him. Soarin shrugged.

“I guess I like to make life interesting,” Soarin said while activating his magic gently to make the horn blink.

“That was a fun little surprise you pulled on us by the way,” Storm nudged Soarin. Soarin frowned and sighed.

“I wish I thought about it before I did it. Spitfire is right, I fended them off, but now I’ve given them more reason to breathe down my neck,” he said reluctantly before smirking. “But I guess I could scare them off with it too.”

“Sorry to interrupt the bro-love over here…” Dash’s voice caught Soarin’s attention. He and Storm both turned to see her approach with a smirk on her face. “But can I ask you guys something?”

Soarin glanced at Storm before smirking right back.

“As long as it doesn’t have to do with bromance,” he said while leaning into Storm jokingly. Storm flinched.

“Hey!” he chuckled as he hopped away. “I dare not stand between you and this firecracker!” Storm laughed while pointing towards Dash.

“Damn right you won’t,” Dash giggled as Soarin smiled and stepped towards her. He was glad Storm seemed to be finally loosening up a little. He was still tense, but Soarin could tell his efforts were having an effect. That… or Dash was helping him settle in as well. He knew she had invited him to play cards the night before and he felt it was good for Storm to reconnect with those just as new as him to the Wonderbolts.

Storm aside though, Dash had a question on her mind. Soarin could see it in her eyes.

“So what’s up?” Soarin asked her. Dash looked back at her squad for a moment before looking back up at Soarin.

“Well…” her expression turned serious. “Spitfire wants me to explain the Shadowbolts to my squad… which I can do, but…” she looked between Soarin and Storm. “You guys have actually seen what some of them look like. Can you give me some specifics? Like size and colors? You know, besides the new headwear,” she asked, referring to the headband and goggles.

Soarin thought over her request. It was true. Dash had not been given that particular information. Soarin felt it would be better for Spitfire to explain, but Dash clearly came to him because Spitfire was still busy berating Air Mach. In general, Spitfire was in a very tense and stressed mood. It was almost better Dash came to him to spare her Spitfire’s current state.

“You came to the right ponies,” Soarin said while cracking a smile. “Because of the three Shadowbolts sighted, I’ve seen one and Storm has seen one,” Soarin mentioned while motioning to Storm. “The one I encountered was in Manehatten back while you were still in recruit training with Silver. He was…” Soarin paused as he recalled the encounter. “White with a grey mane if I remember correctly. Probably around the same size as Fire Streak,” Soarin nodded before turning to Storm. Storm took the cue and cleared his throat.

“I saw mine just the other day,” Storm began. “Dark green with a short, black mane, but honestly, it wasn’t his colors that set him apart… he was massive, I’d say almost Matteo’s size. Heavy set, a bit on the chunky side. He’d be hard to miss,” Storm nodded, looking back to Soarin.

“If I remember Silver’s report correctly,” Soarin took over. “The Shadowbolt he saw was bright red with a slicked back, white mane. Pretty swift though, he was out of sight before Silver could even get close.”

“I see…” Dash looked down to contemplate for a moment. “White with a grey mane, Fire Streak’s size… Giant fatty, dark green, short black mane… Red with slicked white mane…” she looked up. “None of the Shadowbolts we know, huh?”

“Yeah,” Soarin scratched his head. “Trust me, I’ve been listening carefully, but no report we’ve gotten so far matches Descent, Starry Skies, or Lightning Dust,” Soarin added. He turned and saw Storm looking at him quizzically. “Oh…” he chuckled as Storm looked between the two of them. “Right, you have no idea who they are.”

“Or Nightshade or Rapidfire,” Dash added. Soarin flinched hard and growled.

“Well… I haven’t ruled them out either…” Soarin grunted. “Nightshade… I hope she’s dead. Rapidfire? I hope he went down in the burning wreck of their compound and…” he stopped, looking up at Storm, who now looked even more confused. “You know what Storm?” Soarin grinned sheepishly. “You should probably join Dash when she explains all this to her squad…”

“Yeah, I think I will… I have no idea who or what you guys are talking about,” Storm said while shaking his head.

“Yeah, I think that would be a good idea,” Dash agreed with Soarin as she watched Storm’s bewilderment. Soarin turned back to Dash and nodded.

“So yeah, that’s what we got… just remember the most defining feature is the Shadowbolt uniform missing the mask… then the red goggles and headband. I have no idea what the change in the uniform is for, but…” Soarin trailed off and blinked as he looked at Dash. “Dash?”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes had widened and she was staring at something… behind Soarin?

“Soarin…?” Dash spoke up as she pointed. “Do you mean… like that?”

Soarin’s ears stood up as he heard a tapping sound against the window behind him. He spun around and his eyes widened.

“Yoohoo! Wonderfoals!”

Right outside the window…

A dark grey stallion with a messy, wild, light brown mane. He wore the Shadowbolt uniform without the mask and donned the red headband and tinted goggles.

He was tapping on the glass with his hoof while laughing… as if taunting them.

“Nice weather for a blimp ride! Isn’t it?” he added in a cheeky, snide, middle-toned voice before bursting out laughing.

“Spitfire!” Soarin yelled as he turned around, but he turned around just in time to see Spitfire airborne and shooting past him. Before Soarin could register anything else, a loud CRASH echoed out from behind him and the blimp cabin shook.

Spitfire had rammed her body right through the glass and tackled the Shadowbolt. The two were falling towards the pursuing photographers. Fleetfoot stepped up besides Soarin and the two stared out the broken window.

“HAS SHE LOST HER MIND?!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she looked between Soarin and out towards Spitfire.

“You can ask her after we stop her!” Soarin said as he leapt out the window and dove after Spitfire. Fleetfoot looked back at the rest of the elites and recruits before grinding her teeth together.

“Air Mach, let’s go! Everypony else, stay in the blimp!” she ordered. “SHIT!” she cursed as she leapt out and flattened her body out to dive after Soarin. Air Mach following close behind.

Soarin was in hot pursuit, slowly closing in on Spitfire as she and the Shadowbolt tumbled downward while struggling against each other.

“Hey! You can’t take a joke?!” the Shadowbolt sneered and laughed as Spitfire growled and tried to get him in a choke hold. But every time she made a move, he shifted, preventing her from gaining the advantage.

“Damn!” Soarin cursed as he saw them nearing the confused photographers. The last thing he wanted to happen was to get innocent bystanders involved. He knew Spitfire didn’t want that either, but she was clearly not thinking straight. He pumped his wings hard, adding to his falling speed and quickly caught up. He had to pull Spitfire away before they hit the photographers!

Spitfire got an arm free and pulled it back, determined to give this new Shadowbolt a face full of hoof, but Soarin reached out and grabbed her hoof as he thrust his wings out, putting on the brakes.

“Ah!” Spitfire yelped as she was pulled free of the Shadowbolt.

“Toodles!” the Shadowbolt taunted as he was freed from Spitfire. He tucked his arms and legs into his body, contorting himself to be as small as possible… and fitting through a very small space in between the cloud of photographers who all yelped and flinched as the Shadowbolt shot between them.

“NO!” Spitfire yelled as she tried to rip free of Soarin. She had her eyes locked on the Shadowbolt below the photographers, but then… camera flashes. With Spitfire and Soarin so close, the cameras started going off rapidly, nearly blinding them. Spitfire shielded her eyes and squinted, looking down, but seeing… no sign of the Shadowbolt. “RRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Spitfire roared out, causing all the photographers to back off.

“Spitfire! We have to get back to the blimp!” Soarin reluctantly shouted. He wanted to pursue the Shadowbolt as much as Spitfire did, but he was wary of the conditions. The last time Soarin recklessly chased a Shadowbolt, he ended up breaking a whole chunk of a building off with his magic and could’ve hurt somepony if Fleetfoot had not been there to manage the situation. With all the photographers around, it was unlikely they could chase without risking collateral injuries.

“NO, DAMMIT! NO!” Spitfire kept trying to rip free. Fleetfoot and Air Mach dropped down and grabbed hold of her as well, restraining her.

“Spitty! Calm down! Soarin’s right, there are too many ponies here, it’s too dangerous!” she tried to reason with her while glancing at Soarin. Spitfire stopped struggling and looked all around at the photographers, still looking for signs of the Shadowbolt, but he was long gone, nowhere to be seen.

“Uh… Guys?” Air Mach suddenly spoke up. “I think we should be more worried about…” he pointed away from them. “That…”

Soarin and Fleetfoot both looked in the direction he pointed.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”

A cyclone…

There was a cyclone approaching at an alarming speed.

And it just hit the blimp.

“WHOA!” Dash yelped as the blimp cabin suddenly lurched and everypony inside was thrown to the floor.

“What the hell is going on?!” Storm yelled out as the blimp kept tipping forward.

All those capable of it spread their wings and took flight… but the security guards and the unicorn staff weren’t so lucky. They yelped and grunted as they began skidding across the floor towards the front. A few of them were sliding right towards the shattered window.

“Catch them!” Point Dex yelled out to squad seven. Storm and Macho Savage both dove towards the window. Storm got there faster, knocking two of the unicorns aside before reaching his hoof out and grabbing one of the security guards before he could fall out. Savage dropped down and hooked his huge arms around two of the security guards.

“I got ya, brothers!” he yelled out as he kicked off the tipping floor and took them safely aside before they could fall out the window. The earth ponies and unicorns all grabbed hold of something on the side. Lead Runner and Point Dex zipped about, catching the duffle bags before they could fall out as well. They passed them off the earth ponies and unicorns before Dex turned to the rest of them.

“Squad!” he addressed squad seven. “We need to get this blimp back upright and stable!” he exclaimed before turning to Dash. “Recruits! Get out there and make sure the lead squad is alright!” he ordered.

Dash blinked, hesitating for a moment before taking a deep breath and turning to her friends. All of them except for Matteo looked flustered and confused.

“HEY!” Dash yelled at them. “You heard Captain Point Dex!” she got in each of their faces. “We gotta get out there and help! This is what we’ve trained for! Let’s go! NOW!” Squall, Twister, Matteo, and Star all took a moment, but gathered themselves and nodded. “GO!” Dash turned and dove out the open window, all four of her squadmates following close behind. “Arrow formation! On me!” Dash yelled as they cleared the window, all of them lining up in the appropriate spots, Star and Twister beside dash and Matteo and Squall on the edges.

Now free of the blimp, Dash surveyed the situation.

The blimp was still afloat, just spinning slowly and pointing downward. Squad seven would take care of that. But what caused it?

“There!” Dash pointed. “A cyclone?!” Dash exclaimed as she laid her eyes on it. Indeed a cyclone was tearing its way through the photographers. It was small, nowhere near big enough to be classified a tornado, but there was little to no wind today, so it had to be artificially created. Did the Shadowbolt create it? If he did, it wasn’t magic induced by the magic crystals, if he even had any. There was no pink hue in the spiraling winds.

There was no way a single pegasus could have created a cyclone strong enough to push around a flyer worth his or her wings without a long, steady build up… did the Shadowbolt have backup? He couldn’t have created it so fast, or on his own.

All those thoughts aside, Dash could see the lead squad Wonderbolts frantically flying around, being battered by the cyclone as they flew around, assisting the flailing photographers. Of course… the lead squad could easily counter the cyclone, but they were also obligated to make sure nopony got hurt.

The Shadowbolts were smart. They knew the priorities of the Wonderbolts. The cyclone was just strong enough to knock the ponies around and keep the Wonderbolts occupied, chances were, they were long gone by now. Since the lead squad was occupied, Dash saw what they had to do.

“Guys! We’ve gotta counter that cyclone!” she called back to them. “Let’s close in!”

They stayed in formation as Dash led them towards the small funnel. The wind became intense as they closed in.

“Circle up! We’ve gotta counter spin!” Dash ordered. They all complied, breaking out of the formation and circling up. “Go!” Dash yelled as soon as they were ready. The five of them began pumping their wings, turning together as they picked up speed. They slowly moved themselves towards the cyclone as they began to speed up faster and faster. “Keep it up!” Dash yelled, bracing herself against the heavy winds.

She checked each member as they worked against the gusts. Squall and Matteo were holding firm. Twister looked like he wasn’t even affected. Star, directly in front of Dash, was struggling to stay in place.

“Hang in there Star! Keep going!” Dash encouraged her as Star refused to let her small body be her downfall. Dash believed in her.

With five of them, not to mention three flyers with more than enough strength in their wings, they easily created a counter cyclone and moved it into the other.

As soon as the two funnels were upon each other, lots of loud POPS rang out as the gusts collided and began canceling each other out. The winds slowly died down, and eventually with a loud WHOOSH, the wind came to a dead stop.

“WHOA!” Soarin lurched as he felt the burst of wind. He held tight to two photographers, but relaxed his body when he realized the wind had stopped.

“It’s gone?” Fleetfoot spoke up as she looked around. Soarin looked about as well. The cyclone was gone.

“Hey! Look up there!” Air Mach yelled out triumphantly. Soarin and Fleetfoot looked up to see the recruit squad flying overhead.

“Hey guys! Cyclone down!” Dash yelled down to them. Soarin blinked in surprise and then smiled.

“Wow, quick thinking,” he said to himself in awe, and proud that Dash took control of the situation. She helped them out quite a bit. The cyclone was pretty weak, but they were in a sticky situation with the reporters being vulnerable to it. Soarin glanced over towards the blimp to see squad seven assisting the blimp as it turned back upright. He looked around at the photographers and not a single one had fallen to the ground. In fact, most of them held their own pretty well. Soarin and the rest of his squad only had to catch a few falling stragglers.

“That was weird…” Fleetfoot said as she hovered over to Soarin. “Is it just me… or was that the weakest cyclone I have ever felt?” she asked. Soarin looked around, seeing no sign of the Shadowbolt.

“It was strong enough to knock around the reporters…” Soarin pondered out loud. “I think it was a distraction,” he said as his eyes landed on Spitfire.

Spitfire was floating in the air a few meters away from them. She was staring straight down and her hooves were shaking. Soarin frowned as he examined her. Based on everything that had happened today and how irrationally Spitfire had just acted… she was not as mentally sound as she appeared to be.

“You guys okay?” Dash asked as she floated down to Soarin. “And… what the hell just happened?” she added.

“Wish I could tell you,” Soarin shook his head. “So many things just happened at once… most of which don’t make much sense at first glance… and…” Soarin sighed. “And it all happened in front of hundreds of photographers. Now this is all going to go public and—”

“I think we’re a-ok actually!” Air Mach suddenly dropped down besides Soarin. Soarin blinked and lifted an eyebrow at him.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“MY CAMERA!!!!!” one of the photographers suddenly wailed in despair. Soarin and Dash both looked to see one of the photographers looking at his camera in disbelief. It was completely smashed.

“WHAT?!”

“NO!!”

“THIS COST ME SO MANY BITS!”

The yelling came from all directions.

Every single camera… was broken.

“What?!” Soarin’s eyes widened.

“You can’t be serious…” Fleetfoot floated over to them. “So he didn’t hurt a single pony… but he broke every single camera?” Fleetfoot exclaimed, referring to the Shadowbolt. “I’m sorry but that’s a bit of a stretch!”

“I agree…” Soarin nodded. “Plus start a cyclone? Even a weak one all by himself? I don’t think he was here alone…” Soarin turned to Dash. The two just looked at each other in confusion. Nothing they knew seemed to match up.

Why were the Shadowbolts being so clean and precise? This one caused a ruckus, but prevented any means of being traced or identified, knocking out all the cameras and throw them into disarray. There had to be more than one, there was no way one pony could do all of that at once. Especially smashing every camera while leaving the photographers unscathed. They didn’t seem like the type to be so…discreet. At least not the Shadowbolts they knew. Soarin did recall Descent talking about how the Shadowbolts were before Nightshade was corrupted, how they stayed out of sight and rarely left a trace of their work. Perhaps they were engaging in these practices again… but the question remained…

Why?

“Let’s get back to the blimp while the media is in disarray here…” Soarin suggested as all the pegasi around them continued to mourn their broken cameras. “We’ll talk about it at the hotel later,” he added. Fleetfoot and Air Mach nodded before turning back and flying up towards the blimp. Dash and Soarin turned to Spitfire, who hadn’t moved from her spot.

“She’s… not okay, is she?” Dash said with a frown before turning to Soarin. Soarin shook his head.

“Go on up, I’ll be right behind you,” he said. Dash sighed and pumped her wings, heading back up while glancing back a few times.

Soarin hovered towards Spitfire.

“Spitfire?” he called her name as he approached. “Spitfire we should—”

“Why did you stop me?” she hissed as Soarin came close. He stopped in his path as her cold words hit him. “I almost had him!” she snapped while looking up at Soarin, glaring daggers towards him. Soarin wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He simply did what she would have done to him if he made a rash decision like that. He wanted to argue that, but arguing did not seem like the best idea with both where they were and with what her current state of mind was like.

“Spitfire, I did what I had to do to make sure nopony got hurt,” Spitfire pointed at him and opened her mouth to fire back, but Soarin cut her off. “You can yell at me later, let’s get to the hotel first,” he said. Spitfire kept glaring at him, but Soarin remained calm and firm, meeting her gaze without faltering.

“Fine…” she said harshly before pushing past him and flying up towards the blimp.

Soarin sighed as he followed behind her.

Things just went from complicated, to incomprehensible. At first the Shadowbolts were trying to sneak around. After being discovered a few times, one would think they’d take extra precautions to remain unseen. However, a Shadowbolt just flew right up to them and spit in their face before disappearing. The secretive assumption just got thrown out the window. Either the Shadowbolts were like them and had a few less than intelligent members, or his purpose was to blatantly make them paranoid… why would they do that? What was their motive?

To top it all off, the Wonderbolts had a show tomorrow. Soarin couldn’t begin to wonder how he’d be able to focus after this little run in.

Only one thing was for certain… Trying to get Spitfire to calm down was going to be fun tonight…

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh dear... Quiet a brash move by the Shadowbolt, eh? But WHOA SPITFIRE!!!!!! Has she gone nuts? that was quite a crazy move there!

So where are they going to go from here? How does this change whats happening in the upcoming show? Is Spitfire keeping things from the rest now too? Dammit Spitfire we've got enough of that already!

I'm so bad :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

(With this chapter i have passed 600K words! :pinkiegasp:)

Chapter 78: The Past Builds the Future

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 78

Needless to say, the blimp ride was quiet, tense, and awkward. And that’s not because the front window was shattered and the Wonderbolts would be receiving a bill to fix it.

Spitfire was unapproachable from the moment she landed. The recruits and squad seven took heed of Soarin’s simple head shakes if any of them tried to approach her. It turned into a silent trip where none dared speak a word as if it would mean certain death from the lead captain.

The quiet ride lasted all the way to the hotel, where upon Point Dex’s request, the blimp driver took them instead of the blimp pad. The last thing Spitfire needed in her current state was the press crowding her again.

Soarin flew ahead as soon as they landed to make sure the rooms were ready because he needed to get Spitfire somewhere where she could let loose… on him if needed. The amount of pent up aggression she had at the moment was visibly immeasurable. Luckily… the rooms were ready and they got settled in.

“Connecting rooms?” Fleetfoot commented as she, Spitfire and Soarin entered their room.

As celebrities, they could easily nab a high end penthouse or suite, but Spitfire was always conscious of their budget, and tended to sway towards comfortable standard rooms instead of intense luxury. They were used to living in barracks and dorm style rooms anyway, so it helped save a few bits to spend on more important things. They had two rooms per squad, each spacious with two queen sized beds, plenty of walking space, a couch, desk, and bathroom.

“That makes it easier to wake up you lazy asses,” Fleetfoot tried to joke with Soarin as he walked through the doorway that joined the two rooms. Unfortunately, it had no effect whatsoever. Soarin was locked on Spitfire and Spitfire was still grumpy as hell. Fleetfoot sighed and threw her arms up in the air once before shaking her head and claiming the bed beside the patio.

Soarin watched Fleetfoot give up and go about her business. Honestly, he was surprised she tried. In fact, it was the fourth time she tried to lighten the mood and each time Soarin was scared Spitfire was going to put her hoof through Fleetfoot’s skull. He was glad Lead Runner chased Air Mach down to the lobby, because Air Mach’s ridiculous banter would not be helpful at all right now.

Soarin stood in the doorway connecting the rooms and stared at Spitfire as she set her bag down. He knew she wanted to let him have it. Soarin knew he did the right thing. The moment Spitfire rammed her body through a sheet of glass to go after the Shadowbolt, he knew something was up. Spitfire was a reasonable pony. She always had been. If something wasn’t right, it was easy to spot because she started doing irrational things. It helped that her position as the lead captain made abnormal activity very few and far between, making anything that seemed off a blinking beacon that singled her out.

“Spitfire,” Soarin spoke up. “Are you alright? What was up with—?”

“Why did you stop me?!” Spitfire suddenly yelled at him. Soarin shut his mouth and gritted his teeth as Fleetfoot spun around on her bed and looked between the two of them. Soarin fought back the urge to yell back. He had to remain calm or else it would become pointless bickering. Spitfire wasn’t one to back down from what she believed, but there was only so much Soarin could take before he had to raise his voice as well.

“Spitfire,” Soarin began while keeping his voice down. “You put multiple civilians at risk. It was not a favorable circumstance. That’s something you should be aware of—” he stopped abruptly as Spitfire stepped towards him and roughly pressed a hoof against his chest.

“I was aware of the circumstances Soarin. Don’t question my judgment! Last time I checked, part of your job is to respect the actions and decisions of the lead captain and act accordingly!” she yelled. Soarin growled, reached his hoof up and forced hers off of him.

“Part of my JOB… is also to act ACCORDINGLY… if I find the actions of the lead captain to be irrational or to be of a nature that may carelessly endanger lives,” he said sternly as they glared into each other’s eyes. “You dove through a damn window to go after that Shadowbolt and drove him towards hundreds of innocent bystanders!” Soarin started to raise his voice. “I want to know what these Shadowbolts are up to just as much as you do, but I will NOT endanger civilians to do so!”

“If you wanted to know so badly, you’d be willing to bend the rules a little bit!” Spitfire hissed. Soarin drew his head back slightly in alarm as she continued. “I could care less about a few annoying reporters. If I had gotten him, we could be questioning him right now, figuring out what their plans are, and planning out how to prevent a possible future conflict that could put more than just a couple of lives at risk!”

“Are you even listening to yourself?!” Soarin held a hoof out towards her. “Spitfire, one of our most important prime rules is to put the lives of Equestrian citizens above our own! Are you going to abandon the rules we respect and represent just to expose a group whose intentions we don’t even know?!”

“EQUESTRIA TO SOARIN!” Spitfire smacked her hoof against the side of her head. “THESE. ARE. SHADOWBOLTS.” she overemphasized each word. “You’d think after all the hell they’ve put you through you’d be a little more worried! I’m not going to blindly follow the damn prime rules if it means I might prevent similar suffering! Do you have any idea how much pressure I’m under?!”

“And I think that pressure is leading you astray!” Soarin didn’t back down. “You’re acting purely on the fact that one of them caused you an incredible amount of pain in the—”

“DON’T TALK TO ME LIKE I’M SOME REVENGE SEEKING, EMOTIONALLY DRIVEN LUNATIC!” Spitfire yelled at the top of her lungs.

Fleetfoot jumped down and pushed the two of them apart.

“SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU, SHUT. THE HELL. UP!!!!” She shouted so loud her voice almost cracked. “STOP! JUST STOP! This is going absolutely nowhere!” she yelled while breathing heavily.

“Woo! Finally got away from him!” Air Mach suddenly entered the room. “Man, I could hear you guys from outside!” he walked towards them while examining the situation. “Whoa, did I miss a fight?”

“Air Mach…” Soarin growled at him. Now was not the time for his idiocy.

“You can’t have a shouting match without the great Animak!” Air Mach exclaimed while putting his arm over Spitfire’s shoulder, causing both Soarin and Fleetfoot to stare in alarm as Spitfire scowled and shook with anger. “I can outshout anypony and fight off their passion with my own! I will take on—”

Both Soarin and Fleetfoot gasped… as Spitfire turned, reared back her hoof and punched Air Mach in the face so hard that he flew backwards onto her bed, his seemingly indestructible sunglasses shattering to pieces as he slid across her mattress, hit the wall on the other side of the bed, and fell down beside the bed.

“SPITFIRE!” Soarin shouted her name in disbelief.

Spitfire was glaring in the direction of Air Mach, her hoof and body shaking as she scowled and breathed so heavily through her nose that it made continuous hissing noises.

Fleetfoot backed away and stepped behind Soarin as if hiding from the rage of their captain. Soarin just stared, not sure if the pony he was looking at was really his best friend. Spitfire slammed her eyes shut and winced heavily, before opening her eyes, the expression on her face changing drastically from anger to worry. She looked towards where Air Mach had fallen. He had yet to get up or give any sign that he was alright. She looked towards Soarin and the way Fleetfoot was hiding behind him.

“I…” she scrunched her face and looked away from them. “I need some fresh air…” she said while walking past them, sliding the patio door open and stepping out, closing it quickly behind her.

Soarin and Fleetfoot said nothing for a few moments, simply staring at Spitfire as she stood still and looked out over Cloudsdale from the seventh floor balcony of the hotel.

“HA!” Air Mach’s voice caught their attention. As they turned and looked he stood up from behind the bed, pointing upward triumphantly. “The great Animack didn’t feel a thing!” he claimed despite having a bloody nose. He reached behind his wing and pulled out a new pair of identical shades and placed them over his eyes.

Both Soarin and Fleetfoot rolled their eyes as Air Mach wobbled, clearly a little more affected by the punch than he let on. Spitfire was no flower. She was very strong, not as strong as Soarin, but she knew how to maximize the effectiveness of attacks. From Soarin’s view it looked like she punched him as hard as she could. He was surprised Air Mach wasn’t punched into next week. Good thing too, because they needed him for the show tomorrow. Hopefully he wasn’t concussed, but he had a hard head so it was doubtful.

“Fleet… tend to Air Mach,” he said as he turned towards the patio door.

“You’re going out there?” Fleetfoot asked with disbelief.

“Do you want to talk to her?” he asked as he glanced back at Fleetfoot. She quickly shook her head in response. “Didn’t think so.”

“Soarin, just…” Fleetfoot spoke up before he could open the door. He turned his ears to listen. “Just make sure she’s okay…” Fleetfoot pleaded, showing she was just as worried about Spitfire as Soarin was.

Soarin nodded without looking before he opened the patio door and walked out.

“I’m surprised you followed me so fast…” Spitfire spoke up the moment she heard the door open. Soarin halted for a brief moment and sighed before closing the door behind him.

“Somepony had to take the risk,” he said as he stepped out beside her and looked out on the busy afternoon in the city below. “Air Mach is up and faking no pain, and you scared Fleet shitless… it was me or nopony.”

“Don’t give me that, it’s always you,” Spitfire said with a snort. “And I don’t blame Fleet… I’m scaring myself too.”

Soarin listened to that and remained quiet. He didn’t feel the need to say anything to that because it was true. Spitfire was scaring them, something wasn’t right and as usual, she was keeping it to herself. From the beginning of their history with the Shadowbolts, Spitfire had developed a tendency to keep her thoughts to herself. The lack of information being given to her by the figures of authority probably had something to do with that. Without guidance, she started making her own agenda… but for some reason, she was leaving her most trusted friends and colleagues out of it.

“Look, Soarin,” Spitfire began. Soarin turned his head to look at her and saw her turning towards him. She had a stern look in her eyes. “I don’t like the Shadowbolts, not one bit. I was caught off-guard and humiliated by Nightshade in the tornado… and then a little shit-faced recruit of theirs played with my emotions using their artificial magic. I hate them. I despise them… so forgive me if a few of my choices surrounding them come off as a bit quick or rash. They’ve done nothing but make my life hell and now they’ve appeared again. I just don’t want anypony else to go through what I’ve been through.”

Soarin listened carefully as she talked to him. Spitfire was adamant and strong with her words. There was no shakiness in her voice and no sigh of self-doubt. The qualities a good leader should have. Soarin sighed and shook his head.

“Then we have different views,” Soarin spoke up. “Two of those Shadowbolts saved mine and Dash’s life… and the recruit who turned you on us ended up inside Nightshade’s punching bag for misusing her powers. I wish you could’ve seen how scared Lightning Dust was in that compound… how Starry and Descent cared for her… how she clung to them. Not all the Shadowbolts are bad Spitfire.”

“Fine, but I don’t care Soarin,” Spitfire quickly replied, earning a look of disapproval from Soarin that she shrugged right off. “I’ve experienced what they are capable of, as have you… and until we know what these Shadowbolts are up to, it’s my obligation to do anything and everything I can to prevent anypony else for experiencing the extremes I’ve suffered through,” she explained. “You have to understand how much pressure I’m under, Soarin. Every decision I make could affect hundreds, even thousands of lives. I’m sorry if a few of my choices going forward seem a little unethical, but believe me when I say that it’s for the good of everypony.”

“Then you can’t keep leaving us out of it,” Soarin huffed. “Spitfire, you can’t keep things from us, we’re your squadmates and your friends.”

“Soarin, how many times are you going to say that to me?” Spitfire said as she rolled her eyes.

“I’m going to keep saying it until you actually listen to me,” Soarin quickly shot back. A brief silence grew between them as they stared at each other. “How do you think we’re supposed to react when one moment our captain is going about everything as usual and the next she’s jumping through a pane of glass to pursue another pony? We understand the need to find out more about the Shadowbolts, but as soon as you jumped through that window, none of us were thinking about the Shadowbolt. We were all worried about you. Did you even consider that?”

Spitfire remained completely silent. Soarin exhaled quietly through his nose and looked back out into the city. He understood her reasoning behind her actions, but he couldn’t stand it when she tried to take everything into her own hooves. Spitfire couldn’t keep doing things this way. He wouldn’t let her.

“Alright Soarin…” Spitfire shook her head. “I appreciate the concern… but I want you to listen to me carefully,” she said without looking at him. “Our top priority on this trip… is now to find and subdue this Shadowbolt or any other that might show up… even if it means breaking away in the middle of the show,” she explained. Soarin looked at her in disbelief. They had never done such a thing before. Of course, this was important, but they still had a reputation to keep up for funding purposes. “If it comes down to a fight, I want you to disregard anything you think or know about the Shadowbolts. Until determined otherwise, they are criminals and we must bring them down for questioning.”

“Spitfire, have you forgotten our reports? Every instance they have not fought us, any injuries or collateral damage were caused by us or by them trying to evade capture… I don’t see…” he paused as his eyes met hers. She was glaring at him sternly. He sighed and nodded. “Yes, ma’am…” he said reluctantly, before looking at her curiously. “Now you listen to me,” Soarin spoke up, thinking on the fact that they did indeed have the show tomorrow. “Don’t let this distract you during the show tomorrow, alright? We are still here to entertain one of the largest fan bases we have… I’m sure you haven’t forgotten what that means to the Wonderbolts as well…” he trailed off. Spitfire looked away from him and down towards the city streets.

“No… I haven’t forgotten,” Spitfire said as her ears folded back and she grunted. “But it’s going to be hard to concentrate. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m asking too much of Rainbow Dash.”

“Have faith in her… and before you say anything about her being my marefriend, she coordinated her squad well to counter the surprise cyclone. I have a feeling she’ll come through here.”

“I wish I shared that confidence,” Spitfire spoke up again. “She did well, but she and her squadmates are still recruits. They’ve got unique and diverse abilities, but will it be enough? We won’t know until tomorrow, I guess.”

“Just focus on the show,” Soarin repeated. He wanted to give more reassurance, but Spitfire was right. The recruit squad lacked experience, but Spitfire herself chose them because they’d be harder for the Shadowbolts to spot. Despite what she had just said, Soarin believed Spitfire had more faith in them than she let on, especially in Dash.

Soarin heard a light tapping on the glass door behind them. He turned and saw Fleetfoot waving at them and then pointing towards the front door. Point Dex was standing in the doorway. Soarin looked up at the wall clock and saw it was the time they decided to go out for dinner.

“Hey, it’s food time,” Soarin said as he turned to the patio door. “Let’s forget about this for now and get our minds focused on the show,” he suggested.

“Soarin,” Spitfire called his name before he could open the door. He turned and looked at her.

“Yeah?” he asked as she walked towards him.

“Thanks…” she said as she sighed. “This has been hard for me. I’m glad I can count on you,” she said with a serious tone.

“It’s what I’m here for,” Soarin said with a smile as he opened the door. “Now I think you owe Air Mach an apology,” he said with a chuckle as the two moved back into the room.

“Man I’m stuffed!” Dash said to herself as she and Star entered their half of the joined rooms their squad was issued. “The Wonderbolts sure eat well on these trips!” she chuckled as she flopped down on her bed.

They had had dinner at a high end restaurant in town that Dash used to only just look at from the outside. It was a restaurant that specialized in fine seafood shipped in from seaside towns around Equestria. Despite her desire to stay on a healthy diet, Dash treated herself with a fish burrito, complete with black beans, cheese, salsa, and lettuce.

Even though she was a Wonderbolt now, she knew opportunities like this would be few and far between. Their current luxuries were really only because they were traveling with the lead squad and another high tier elite squad. The only thing that had disappointed her so far was that she probably wouldn’t have a chance to visit her parents. They were on a tight schedule and Spitfire didn’t want them to stray far from the group after the appearance of the Shadowbolt.

Speaking of… she stilled owed her squad an explanation. With nothing to do before bed for an hour or so, it was the perfect time to talk about it with all of them relaxed. She wanted to wait for Storm though. He was on his way, just wanted to stop back at his room first.

“HEY!” a muffled voice came through the wall. Dash and Star both looked up at the wall that separated their room from the guys. They had closed the door between the rooms before they left so all they heard was the faint sound of scuffling.

“That was Squall…” Star said with a sigh. Dash was instantly up and walking towards the door between the rooms. The connecting doorway actually had two doors on it. One on each side that opened into the room it was attached to with a doorknob only on the side facing into the room. This prevented anyone from the other room getting in if the ponies staying in the rooms were not acquainted or if the occupants of the room desired privacy… such as keeping the guys on one side and the ladies on the other.

This was something Dash wished she had in the barracks sometimes, because Matteo, Squall, and Twister, for how different they all were from each other, seemed to get into many scuffles. Not always bad, usually something Twister started to be silly, but it made Dash and Star roll their eyes a lot. Dash didn’t mind a good bout of shenanigans, but this was the first time she had lived with males and it seemed to happen every few minutes.

“Alright, what’s going on in—” she winced and shut her eyes as a pillow flew right into her face. She stood still as the pillow slid off, flattening her ears and opening her eyes. She was about to tell them to stop being childish, but she ended up holding her breath for a moment to stop herself from cracking up.

All three of them were on Matteo’s bed. Matteo was sitting upright. He was gripping the back of Twister’s head and was holding Twister’s head down, face first, a few inches into the mattress. Twister’s body was limp, but his tail was spinning in circles. Squall was up on Matteo’s back and had him in a choke hold, one that Matteo wasn’t even feeling because Squall was having trouble getting his arm far enough around Matteo’s thick neck to make be any effective.

Matteo and Squall both stopped and looked up at Dash as the pillow Matteo had deflected from Squall hit her in the face. Twister’s plot turned towards her, revealing two eyes that had been drawn on it with black marker.

“I have no idea what I’m looking at…” Dash said while snickering. Little Star hopped up on Dash’s back and looked over her shoulder. The instant she saw the situation, she burst out laughing and keeled over, tumbling off of Dash. Matteo cleared his throat as Squall let go and slid off Matteo’s back.

“Twister threw a pillow at me, I fired back, hit Squall instead, and…” Matteo looked at Twister. He let go of his head and Twister fired upward, landing flat against the ceiling before falling down the floor.

“Then I walked into all three of you cuddling,” Dash finished for him with a joking snicker, which Matteo and Squall glared at her for. “I’m kidding,” Dash quickly added with a chuckle. She took a quick look around the room. She had been curious since they arrived. The three guys had been put in the room next to them, but there were only two beds. Her eyes landed on Twister as he slithered like a snake along the floor and up onto the easy chair with his duffle bag beside it. There was a couch right next to the chair… but Twister was sleeping on the chair? Typical. “Well, quit play wrestling, as soon as Storm gets here. I’m gonna tell you all about the Shadowbolts,” Dash explained, catching all of their attention. “So—”

Dash was cut off by a knocking at the door from her room.

“Speak of the devil…” she turned and walked to her door. She opened it and smiled at Storm standing outside.

“I have a pizza delivery for… Ranbaw Dosh…” Storm joked as Dash snickered.

“Oh, just get in here, asshole…” she chuckled as she reached out and pulled him in. “Nice of you to join us, what did captain Dex need to talk about beforehoof?” she asked as Storm walked in.

“Nothing much, just wanted to make sure we all knew the schedule tomorrow. Did I miss anything fun in here?” he asked. Dash smirked.

“Besides a male only wrestling match in the next room, nothing much,” she said while glancing at Storm. Storm stopped and blinked.

“What?” he said with an amused look.

“Twister tried starting a pillow fight and I walked in at an awkward time,” Dash explained as Storm snorted and tried not to crack up.

“Well now that you’re here, I can finally explain everything…” Dash sat down on her bed and looked towards the divider door. “Guys! Get your asses in here!” she yelled to the door.

Storm, Star, and Dash all flinched as a painful, ripping noise came from the wall near the middle of their room about five yards from the dividing door. A saw suddenly punched through the wall and started moving back and forth, cutting a perfect circle in the wall. Dash’s ears instantly flattened as they waited the saw slowly work around. After cutting a perfect circle about ten inches in diameter, the saw pulled back and the circle was pulled out of the wall. Twister stuck his head through and sneered.

“HEEEEEEEEEEERE’S TWISTER!” he exclaimed as Squall and Matteo walked through the divider door.

“Twister, SERIOUSLY?!” Dash groaned as Twister managed to fit his entire body through the door. “There’s a door right over there! We’re gonna have to pay for that, you know...” she sighed as Twister simply kept staring at her with his signature sneer. Dash’s ears flopped back up and folded backwards as she glared at him. “Something tells me you don’t care. Well fine, I’ll make sure it comes out of your paycheck,” she added. Twister didn’t budge. “You don’t care about that either, do you?”

“NOPE!” Twister instantly replied as he hopped up on the comfy chair and draped his body backwards over the arm rest. “Can’t put a price on fun!”

“Right, right,” Dash decided to stop trying and turned to everypony else. “Okay everypony… get comfortable, because this is a long story,” she began as she hopped up on her bed and lied down. Storm, Squall, Star, and Matteo all gathered and sat down as Dash began her story.

“It all started back in Ponyville,” she began. “The Wonderbolts debuted a new show right in the skies overhead. It was a rare opportunity. No tickets or admission needed, they wanted to put on a show for us to see how their new routine was received. I met Soarin for the first time beforehoof when he saved a pegasus foal falling out of the sky that I was trying to catch. That was the first time I saw him use his Sonic Blastoff. After the show, we were surprised by the lead squad appearing in a local bakery. They had stayed behind after the rest had left, looking for some quiet time away from their work. That’s where I met Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and…” Dash cringed. “Rapidfire.”

Dash watched as they all perked up.

“Who’s Rapidfire?” Squall asked. Star quickly turned to him.

“Rapidfire, ‘The Artist?’ He was a member of the lead squad for a long time, you never heard of him?” she asked in disbelief. Squall just stared at her blankly. “Did you even follow the Wonderbolts before deciding to join them?”

“Uh… not… really…” Squall admitted.

“Actually,” Storm spoke up. “I had heard of him, but never saw him. Soarin mentioned him once to me, but I never really had a chance to see the Wonderbolts before I tried out, I only read about them.”

“Well, you didn’t miss much,” Dash rolled her eyes. “Rapidfire was… a very unpleasant stallion,” she winced as she recalled her past experience with him. “He was a tail-chaser… a mareizer. He’d flirt with the intention of getting a mare to bed and leave them the next morning.”

“That is deplorable…” Matteo commented with a scowl.

“WHAT A DOUCHE!” Star yelled out as she sprung up and hovered, causing Squall and Storm to lean away at her little explosion. “WOW! I never knew that! I used to think he was a hotty too!” Star growled while crossing her hooves.

“Anyway,” Dash continued. “He and Soarin got in many scuffles that ended up getting them both in trouble…” she stopped and looked at Squall and Storm for a moment. They both blinked in curiosity, but she turned back. Matteo stifled a snort as he knew exactly why she looked at them.

“Soarin told me about that, actually,” Storm spoke up. “He really hated him.”

“Yep,” Dash nodded. “Although to be fair, Soarin was drawn into it every time. He was always trying to stop Rapidfire’s antics and Rapidfire knew exactly how to get under his skin. I witnessed Spitfire chew them both out myself, it seemed like a very frequent occurrence. Anyway, this DOES have to do with the Shadowbolts, just remember Rapidfire.”

She paused as she recalled what happened next. A battle she would never forget.

“Then… a tornado appeared in Ponyville,” she continued. “Not just a small cyclone like the one we encountered today, it was HUGE. It was impossible, as if it appeared out of nowhere. Whatever had caused it, its timing couldn’t have been worse. The captain of our town weather team was on vacation. I was forced to take command and led our full team into the storm. Using every pony on the team, we worked together to create a counter tornado and moved it into the other. The winds were more powerful than anything I had ever experienced, but we all held firm. But something wasn’t right. The tornado was not cancelling. We had done everything we had been taught and trained to do in order to counter such a catastrophe, but it had no effect.”

She looked between all of them.

“Thunderlane was flying in the position ahead of me. While I was trying to figure out why it wasn’t working, Thunderlane inexplicably dropped from formation as if something had hit him from above. I looked around frantically and watched as something similar happened to many other ponies. Without the required force to maintain our counter tornado, we were thrown from the funnel, sent flying in different directions. I was beyond determined to save my home though… I got to my hooves after the crash landing and charged at the tornado again and again, trying desperately to pierce through the heavy winds, but I was tossed aside each time. Right before I took a fall that knocked me out for a little bit, I saw the Wonderbolts heading for the tornado.”

“You charged a tornado by yourself?” Matteo asked while taking in the story.

“Had to,” Dash shrugged. “It was heading right for my home. I’d sure you’d do the same for the Griffon Kingdom, wouldn’t you?” she asked. Matteo smiled and simply nodded.

“When I saw the Wonderbolts heading towards the tornado, I was relieved,” Dash continued. “I mean, it sucked that I was about to land right on my head, but I was certain they’d eat up the tornado for breakfast. But… when I came to, the first thing I saw was Fleetfoot getting driven through the air, out of the tornado and stuffed to the ground so hard that it created a trench behind her. When I scrambled up to look… I saw it. There was a pegasus mare standing over her wearing a uniform like the one you saw at the blimp, only instead of the red goggles and headband they had a full mask like our uniforms and yellow, angular goggles. She smirked, spat on Fleetfoot and flew back towards the tornado, passing through it with ease as if it simply let her in. I knew something was wrong, and I scrambled to Fleetfoot. All she said to me before she passed out was to help Soarin and Spitfire,” Dash shook her head. “I was very confused, because I had seen the pony before. At one point earlier in my life, a group that called themselves ‘Shadowbolts’ appeared in what I thought was an illusion… but I just saw one take down Fleetfoot. I had little time to think about it because I knew Soarin and Spitfire were in danger.”

“So you tried getting in again?” Storm asked. Dash nodded.

“During the stay, Soarin taught me how to use the Sonic Blastoff…” she paused as she saw Storm shift uncomfortably. He just blinked and shrugged. She lifted an eyebrow and continued. “I found a way to activate it twice, and it gave me enough speed to penetrate the tornado… all I saw before i collided with the same mare that knocked out Fleetfoot. I drove my hooves into her and repaid the favor, knocking her out. When I turned, I saw Soarin, horribly beaten and badly bruised. His head and nose were bleeding and he was having trouble standing. Before I could do anything else, he told me to keep them busy so he could stop the tornado. I ended up meeting the leader of this group as Soarin left… she was… terrifying. Sadistic and pure evil. Her name, Nightshade.”

Dash looked around at all of them.

“She held nothing back, she beat me absolutely senseless while taunting me. I had to do something because a third Shadowbolt, a stallion larger than Soarin, had fired after him. It seemed hopeless though because I couldn’t do a thing against Nightshade. I managed to catch her in a moment of carelessness and dislocate her elbow joint, but that only made her angry. Thankfully, before she could kill me, Spitfire stopped her, beaten up and bruised herself, and beat the crap out of the surprised Nightshade. With that taken care of, I quickly went after Soarin. He was locked in combat with the large stallion, and was trying to repel him with a lightning attack. However, the stallion was enraged and attacking like a wild beast, if Soarin didn’t get him off soon, the lightning would severely hurt them both. So I built up my speed and rammed the stallion, sending us both into a collection of thunderclouds they had been building up…” Dash shivered as she paused.

“Dash? You okay?” Star asked her out of concern.

“Yeah… just… I’m a little afraid of lightning… Because of what happened next. The energy of the thunderclouds were drawn towards the stallion. I tried to get away, but I got caught in the energy surge. It hurt. More than anything else in my life. I was knocked unconscious again. When I came to, the tornado was gone, and so were the Shadowbolts. Soarin had caught me, but he was in terrible shape. I barely recognized him, he was so beaten and bruised… and… he collapsed in front of Spitfire and I and wasn’t breathing.”

Star gasped as Storm and Matteo’s eyes went wide. Squall showed little reaction, but was clearly a little surprised. The next part didn’t have much to do with the Shadowbolts, but Dash felt the need to explain it.

“We rushed Soarin to the hospital and… if he didn’t die, his wings were so damaged that he probably would never fly again. It was horrible. But,” she sighed. “Celestia showed up,” she paused as she saw the reaction from all of them.

“Princess Celestia?!” Star exclaimed. “In the flesh?” Dash nodded in response. She didn’t have time to explain how she knew the princess or all about the Elements of Harmony, so for now she let it ride on the fact that the Wonderbolts often dealt with the princesses.

“Her visit was a surprise, but she claimed she had a way to save Soarin. She claimed that normally it was not right for her to interfere in the lives of ponies, but she had a premonition of a conflict to come, a premonition that included Soarin alive, well, and flying. She was determined to see fit that everything was as it should be for whatever happened in this vision of the future… so she suggested using a forbidden necromancy devised by the Mad King Sombra to restore Soarin’s body.”

“The Mad King Sombra?” Matteo spoke up. “I thought he was only a legend.”

“He’s as real as they come,” Dash nodded. “Don’t ask, it’s a longer story,” she said before collecting her thoughts. “Well… Luna, who had shown up as well, spoke out against it, saying that it was too dangerous. It had apparently almost killed Sombra when he used it. And while Celestia is immortal, she risked destroying herself. I’ll spare the details because it was weird, but with the help of Spitfire and I, she was able to use the magic successfully. Unfortunately… after that, Celestia disappeared, and Soarin was left with an incredibly powerful magic resonating through his body. That’s why he has the fake horn, he needs to keep it under control.”

“You know, I was wondering about that…” Star scratched her head. “The weird burst during the tryouts and… you know… earlier today when he suddenly went all magician on us. I’m not gonna say it makes sense, but at least we know why he’s wearing that thing.”

“Anyway… back to the Shadowbolts,” Dash continued. “Six months later, I attended the Canterlot Royal Ball… again, long story how I got in. But while I was there, I spent the night with…” she paused and held her breath.

“Oooooooo…” Star cooed at her. “Don’t even try Dash, we know who,” she giggled. Dash sighed and continued.

“I spent the night with Soarin and the next day was granted a guest training day with the Wonderbolts. I was given the pleasure of spending the day working out with squad three, which was fun, but that’s beside the point. We were interrupted when everypony in the compound suddenly rushed to the battle dome to watch Soarin and Rapidfire fight. They had gotten chosen in the random selection. During the fight… Rapidfire deliberately did something that would have killed Soarin if he didn’t know how to counter it. Of course, Spitfire was livid… and placed him under house arrest so the police could come get him and take him away for attempted murder. Spitfire finally had a reason to get rid of him. I forgot to mention this sooner, but Rapidfire is the son of Blazetail and Flashwind… the old lead captains of the Wonderbolts.”

“I was gonna say…” Storm spoke up. “I was wondering how such an asshat could stay in the high ranks for so long without being kicked out.”

“Yeah,” Dash nodded. “He had a shield protecting him and Spitfire hated it. However, by trying to kill Soarin, Rapidfire not only violated prime rule number one, but it was also grounds to be labeled attempted murder, so it gave Spitfire an easy reason to discharge him. And… that’s when things got hectic. An explosion came from Rapidfire’s room. I followed Soarin and Spitfire to his room to find… all the security guards knocked out and Fleetfoot being held against the wall. After he released her, a pink crystal floated out beside him. I had no idea what it was, but Soarin claimed it was the same kind of crystal he saw in the center of the tornado back in Ponyville. Rapidfire absorbed the magic… and emerged wearing a Shadowbolt uniform.”

“A long chain of conflicts ensued. I followed after the lead squad, despite them telling me to stay put. When I got there, I saved them from an old… enemy of mine. A pegasus mare by the name of Lightning Dust, who I flew with at a Wonderbolt Flight Camp. She was expelled from the camp for being too reckless and putting others in danger. It was ironic to see her wearing a Shadowbolt uniform. Anyway, it was four against two… that is, until she did something to Spitfire. She used the crystal to draw out and amplify negative emotions within Spitfire, taking control of her and forcing her to fight us against her will. I was busy fighting Lightning Dust, but I can only imagine how hard it was for Soarin to fight and subdue Spitfire.”

“Despite how difficult the battle was, we emerged victorious and I broke the crystal controlling Spitfire… but then, they appeared again. The three Shadowbolts we encountered in Ponyville. Squad three arrived to help, but we fought another hard battle against him. Even with Misty Fly by my side, Nightshade was nearly unbeatable… and frightening. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable around another pony. She teased out fear and anguish, played with emotions both physically and mentally. Needless to say, she still scares me when I think about her.”

“The battle raged on… and… when Luna arrived on the scene, they grabbed Soarin and used one of the crystals to escape. Before the magic could envelope them however, I used the Sonic Blastoff to reach them, getting caught in the magic with them. I was punched out by Descent when I reached them, that’s the name of the stallion, so I was out. When I woke up… Soarin and I were in a cell. We had no idea where. It looked like the Wonderbolt compound, but it wasn’t all blue and looked much less well kept.”

All of them were listening intently. Star was leaning forward so much she looked like she would fall over. Storm simply stared in awe. Matteo’s expression remained unchanged, but there was interest in his eyes. Squall started out looking uninterested, but that changed as she talked. Twister had moved since the beginning, still draped over the armrest of the chair and sneering.

“We were taken to see Nightshade, and on the way got to observe the Shadowbolts. They were very laid back and not disciplined. We had to stop twice on the way so Starry Skies, the Shadowbolt who knocked out Fleetfoot back in Ponyville, could break them up. When we got to Nightshade, she was using Lightning Dust as a punching bag to ‘punish her’ for misusing the crystal magic,” Dash said very uncomfortably. “She revealed to us that they were to deliver Soarin to a ‘client’ and that she was going to keep me… for her own amusement. It was at that point we heard something about sompony or something named Kayn Ost… don’t ask because I don’t know, all I know is that Nightshade seemed paralyzed at the name. We were sent back to our cell and Lightning Dust was thrown in the cell next to us to ‘let her punishment sink in.’”

“This is where something started to seem off because while we were with Nightshade, Descent and Starry Skies looked disturbed by what Nightshade was doing. When we returned to our cell, Descent and Starry showed up with food and medical supplies and cared for Lightning Dust. As they worked, Descent revealed everything to us about them.”

“The Shadowbolts are a mercenary group that have been around and working in the shadows for almost as long as the Wonderbolts had existed. They were formed by a Wonderbolt who was discharged for partaking in mercenary work. They had never taken on anything that exposed them until recently when Nightshade had been taking jobs in exchange for magic crystals instead of bits. The crystals allow non-unicorns to artificially use magic, but at the cost of becoming addicted to it. Nightshade had obviously become addicted and despite her being the strongest Shadowbolt and leading by the right, Descent stated that he had had enough and was leaving. He let us out of our cell before taking Lightning Dust and Starry Skies with him.”

“Soarin and I didn’t make a clean escape. In fact, we ran directly into Rapidfire and ended up running. When we found our way to the exit, we learned how they had kept such a large compound a secret. It was an airborne base. Built like the Wonderbolt compound, but capable of flight using enormous propellers. We were surrounded by Shadowbolts… but before we were captured, Fleetfoot showed up with the entire Wonderbolt force, and a massive dogfight began. Soarin and I battled Nightshade together as she carelessly pumped herself full of more and more of the magic energy from the crystals. Her body eventually could not contain it all, ending in a massive explosion of energy that tore the flying compound apart and sent the Shadowbolts scattering in all directions. Soarin and I were saved from a fatal fall by Descent and Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust apologized to me before they made their exit. We were alive, we were happy, but there was no sign of Nightshade. She literally exploded, but we never confirmed if it killed her or not.”

“So…” Dash took a deep breath and exhaled. “That’s what all this is about. Recently these ‘new’ Shadowbolts have been appearing. We don’t know who they are, what they are doing, or who they are working for, but you can see why Spitfire is taking precautions. We’ve had a long history with them, and we’re not about to let them get the drop on us again,” she finished with a nod and looked around.

“Wow…” was all Star could say as she took in all the information.

“You’ve fought many battles,” Matteo acknowledged her. “You’ve more honor than you’ve let on.”

“Sheesh, I thought I’ve had it rough,” Storm chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head. “That’s quite a lot you’ve been through.”

“Hmph…” Squall grunted. It didn’t sound annoyed or sharp though. It was probably his way of acknowledging something.

Twister still hadn’t moved. Dash flattened her brow.

“Twister…” she reached over and poked him. A loud POP sounded from his body followed by a PTHBTHBTHBTHBTHBTHBTH as Twister’s body deflated and went flat. “What the…?!” Dash blinked followed by her ears catching what sounded like the shower running in her and Star’s bathroom. She growled and glared towards the bathroom as the rest turned and looked as well. Dash sharply stood up, hopped off the bed and stomped towards the bathroom. As she got near…

“SWING LOW! SWEET CHAAAAAAARIOT! COMING FORTH TO CARRY ME HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!” Twister’s voice sang out, completely off key.

“TWISTER!” Dash yelled as she banged her hoof against the door. Less than a second later the door opened and a hot cloud of steam blasted Dash in the face. Twister leaned out the door, wearing a shower cap, holding a loofa, and dripping wet.

“Do you mind?” he said while tipping his head all the way to the right.

“Did you hear anything I just said?” Dash asked while throwing her hoof out to her side. Twister blinked and his smile grew wider before he cleared his throat.

“It all started back in Ponyville,” he began, imitating Dash’s voice. “The Wonderbolts debuted a new show right in the skies overhead. It was a rare opportunity. No tickets or admission needed, they wanted to put on a show for us to see how their new routine was received. I met Soarin for the first time beforehoof when he saved a pegasus foal falling out of the sky that I was trying to catch. That was the first time I saw him use his Sonic Blastoff. After the show, we—”

“Okay, okay…” Dash sighed and pulled him out of the bathroom. “Use your own damn shower,” she ordered as she picked him up and tossed him into the other room as Twister guffawed and caused a crashing noise much louder than he could have with little to run into. Dash turned back to the rest, who were all chuckling in amusement (except for Squall) and yawned. “Well… that’s the deal guys. And tomorrow it is up to us to keep a lookout for any Shadowbolts like the one we saw today. So get some rest, we have to be up tomorrow morning bright and early.

“HEEEEEEEEEEERE’S—” Twister stuck his head through the hole he cut in the wall again, but Dash reached her hoof out and shoved him back through before moving the easy chair over to cover the hole.

They all headed to bed soon after, Storm returning to his squad’s room. Dash and Star closed the door dividing them from the guys since Matteo insisted on staying up a little later, but soon they were all asleep.

Dash sighed contently as she slept, enjoying the comfortable hotel bed. It was much softer than her bed back at the compound after all, allowing her to sleep like a foal.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaash…” a voice reached her ears. “Oh Daaaaaaaaaashie…” the voice came again.

“Bwuh…?” Dash stirred awake. “Who? What…?” Dash couldn’t see anything in the pitch darkness of the room. She looked around groggily and her eyes landed on a pony. As her eyes adjusted she noticed it was Twister. She was too tired and woozy to think about the fact that he had somehow gotten through the door. “Twister…?” she yawned. “What time is it…?” she asked as she groaned and turned over.

“It’s always time…” Twister said quietly.

Dash suddenly yelped as she felt herself catapulted from the bed.

“AHHH!” She shrieked as she landed roughly on something, now wide awake, an opened her eyes to see herself on a wood floor? But the hotel was carpeted!

“…FOR ADVENTURE!” Twister yelled out as Dash looked up.

She was on… a pirate ship, looking directly at Twister who wore a tricorne, a large gold earring on his right ear, and an eye patch. Dash reached up and touched her mane, realizing she was wearing a handkerchief.

“Twister?! WHAT THE HELL IS—?!”

“WELCOME ABOARD THE EQS SOARINDASH!” Twister hoisted her up. “She’s an unsinkable ship, with the finest crew in the land!” Twister pointed towards Matteo, Little Star, Storm Front, and Squall as they hoisted a flag with Soarin and Dash’s face up to the top of the mast. Dash blinked and looked at her friends curiously… they all looked… off. Squall and Matteo were smiling like idiots, Storm Front looked completely drunk, and Little Star was… Twice the size of Matteo, covered in battle scars, and wore a coat that said 'BIG PONY' on the back of it.

“I’m never eating fish burritos before bed ever again…” Dash sighed, thoroughly convinced that she was dreaming. Twister draped his arm over her shoulder.

“Deck Swabby Dash! You’ve been promoted to upper decks! Behold the vast sea that we sail!” Twister pointed out towards the ocean. “Ripe with new waters to explore and plenty of booty plunderin’ to be had!” Twister paused and leaned his cheek so far into Dash’s that he almost pushed them both over. “If ya know what I mean…” he added while bouncing his eyebrows. Dash flattened her brow as Twister bounced off of her and stood up by the wheel. “Loose those sails!” he yelled down to the others.

“Hi ho, aye yo, Captain!” they all yelled in silly voices, Little…er… Big Star’s voice lower than Matteo’s. The sails dropped and the ship lurched as it began to move forward at a pretty high speed despite there not being any wind to speak of.

“THIS SHIP SAILS ITSELF!” Twister guffawed as he ripped the wheel off and spun it around over his head.

“CAPTAIN!” Storm stumbled up towards Twister and flopped on the floor with a drunken chuckle. “Enemy ships sighted off starboard!” he yelled while twirling a hoof up in the air.

“AVAST!” Twister yelled while dragging Dash along with him. To the right side of the ship. “QUICK SWABBY!” he pulled out a telescope and extended it until it was five feet long and jammed it against Dash’s eye.

“OW!” Dash yelped as the grabbed the telescope and blinked to refocus her vision.

“WHAT SHIPS DO YE SEE OUT THERE!?” he yelled. Dash rolled her eyes and played along, looking through the telescope.

“Uh… three ships?” she said as three ships were approaching. One of them had a flag of Soarin and Spitfire on it. Another had Soarin and… Applejack on it? The third had Soarin and… Braeburn on it? “The hell am I—?”

“THREE YE SAY?!” Twister grabbed the telescope away from her, pulled out a second telescope and put on in each of his eyes, looking out towards the ships. “ARRRRR! T’is the Soarinfire, the Soarinjack, and the Soarburn! The scallywags have come back for more, have they?!” Twister snapped both of the telescopes in half and tossed them over his back shoulder before he turned and pointed towards Squall and Matteo. “Ready the head cannons!” he yelled while standing up on his back hooves and throwing his hooves out. “We’ll bring the fight to them!”

“Three against one?” Dash asked, while in disbelief that she was playing along with the ridiculous scenario.

“Odds any great captain will gladly take on!” Twister yelled out while turning to Dash. He suddenly had the wheel he ripped off somehow fastened to his waist as he remained standing upright. Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“Why do you have the ships wheel on your crotch?” Dash asked.

“BECAUSE IT’S DRIVING ME NUTS!” Twister yelled as the wheel started spinning.

Art by: PhonicBoom

Dash felt like slamming her face down to the deck, but Twister suddenly appeared beside her and leaned into her again.

“Story of my life, hmm? I try to lead things my own way… but others come after me. I go one direction, but they tell me I’m wrong… oh, you’ve heard this one from me already, but what if I told you I was hunted? Some saw me as an abomination and wanted to contain me… they saw my behavior as blight and wanted me locked away… oh, they never understood me.”

“What?” Dash blinked as she turned to Twister, but yelped as she realized both of them were suddenly in the crow’s nest.

“READY AS THEY COME AROUND!” Twister yelled out. “We’ll hit them hard!” Twister blinked and looked forward. “Ahem…” he cleared his throat. “I would like to take a moment to clarify that this battle is merely for comical purposes. It does not reflect on the author’s views of shipping or other ships. All ships are capable of being cute and fun and should all be supported equally. Shipping wars only lead to unnecessary drama. People should ship certain ships because they like how certain characters go together, not in an effort to tell others that their ships are wrong.”

“Who are you talking to?” Dash asked curiously as she looked in the direction Twister was looking but saw nothing.

“FIRE THE DRAMA!!!!!!” Twister yelled.

“WHOA!” Dash held on tight as the ships cannons fired. She looked up to see the three ships sailing around them, returning fire. The ship jostled as it was hit, the crow’s nest shaking and throwing Twister off. He laughed maniacally as he hit the deck below, but got right back up on his hooves.

“Keep an eye out up there, Swabby Dash!” he yelled up as the ships continued to fire on each other.

“Definitely not eating fish burritos ever again…” Dash sighed as she held on tight to the railing of the crow’s nest.

“Captain!” Big Star called out. “Multiple ships approaching from the port side!” she opened a tiny telescope and squinted to peer through it. “It’s the FireFly, the Wavefire, and the BlazeWinds!”

“ARRRR!” Twister hopped up on the port railing. “Our allies arrive! This tips the scales in our favor!”

“The who-what now?” Dash said to herself as she touched down to the deck and looked out to see three more ships approaching. One flag had Fire and Misty on it. Another, Spitfire and Wave Chill. The last, Blaze and High Winds. Dash was beginning to see a trend here. Before she could do anything Twister was down by her again.

“Friends are good, yes…. Friendship is great, yes… but can you rely on friends? One would think so, but everypony I called a friend turned me away. I had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. I tried for them… I really did… but no matter what I attempted, I was scowled at… scorned… and eventually, nopony could take it anymore. The only true friend I had was the love of my life who had long left me behind. With nowhere else to go, I frantically looked for her, she would know, she would understand… she had to she must. She could talk sense into the others right? I was only being myself after all…”

“Huh…?” Dash blinked and Twister was suddenly at the ship’s bow with the rest of the crew.

“With our combined might, we shall prevail!” Twister yelled while the three other ships pulled up alongside. The cannon fire continued, but no matter how much punishment the ships dished out, none of the ships showed any sign of sinking. Still, with the help of the three new ships, the EQS Soarindash’s victory seemed secured.

“Captain! New ship approaching on starboard!” Matteo yelled out in a joyful voice.

“Eh? A newcomer?!” Twister hopped up on Matteo’s back and peered out. “What do your eagle eyes see?” Twister asked as Matteo squinted.

“Aye! I see a flag with two ponies on it! One be a purple alicorn… the other… an orange pegasus with a blue mane! The name on the side says the EQS Flashli—”

Before Matteo could finish every single ship turned and fired on the new ship. In seconds, the ship capsized and sank. The whole crew stared and blinked. Twister just shrugged.

“Wow! That was unnecessarily brutal… they ganged up on it before I could even say hello! That’s just not fair…” Twister looked forward. “Remember kiddies! Shipping drama is stupid!”

“Can I wake up now?” Dash pleaded as she groaned. Twister leaned into her again.

“Ah drama… and waking up… you can say that’s how things went when I finally found her again. Oh yes, I did find her… the love of my life. After so long, I found the only mare who I had ever loved… and the only pony whoever liked me for who I was… but…” Twister’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “But she was in love with somepony else… another stallion. And I guess you can say…. That was when I truly… snapped.”

Dash froze as Twister’s voice became filled with a mixture of pain, anger, and hatred. She had never heard that tone from him before.

“But, that’s all the time we have for now… wakey-wakey Dash!”

“Ugh…” Dash’s eyes fluttered open. There was a soft glow in the room caused by the morning sunlight beating against the closed shades over the patio doors. She blinked as she recognized the room and sighed heavily. That was a crazy dream… at least she hoped and thought it was a dream. She slowly rolled over in bed, but as she finished the motion she came literally nose to nose with Twister, sneering at her while lying beside her.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Dash screamed, catapulting out of her bed and landing on Star’s bed, right on top of her.

“YEEEEEP!” Star squeaked as Dash bounced off of her and landed on the floor beside the bed. Dash was up on her hooves quickly and glaring over Star’s bed at Twister. She growled as she stomped back towards her bed

“TWISTER! HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET—” Dash paused and stared with wide eyes at the divider door that was now lying flat on the floor. “YOU KICKED THE DOOR IN?!?!” she pointed both her hooves at the door on the floor in disbelief. She turned and was about to grab Twister but—

“You set your alarm for seven PM… not AM,” Twister pointed to the clock with a sneer. The clock read seven forty-five. “We’ve only got fifteen minutes to report to breakfast, better hurry it up!” he bounced off the bed and snickered the whole way back into his side as Matteo and Squall both peered in, wondering why the mares hadn’t gotten up yet.

“Oh jeez!” Dash yelped as she and Star frantically got moving.

Dash grumbled to herself as she got ready. It was definitely a dream… but all the stuff Twister said in it? She wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled something to make her hear all the personal stuff. It’s not like he hadn’t done crazy and impossible crap to her before, and considering he was right there in her bed when she woke up, it was likely that’s what happened. But nothing made her grind her teeth more than the fact that Twister continued to pull all this incredibly ridiculous stunts… without actually causing any harm besides getting on her nerves. This time he even got them up when the alarm was set wrong.

She pushed the thoughts aside… because the last thing she wanted to do was be late on top of explaining to Spitfire why they had to pay for a hole in the wall and a broken door in their room.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

This was such a nostalgic chapter for me... i've really written a long story haven't i? :eeyup:

And Twister... that pony makes me brain come up with silly things... REEEEEALLY silly things. But honestly, shipping drama is stupid. Sail your ship, but no need to aim the head cannons at other ships, it only leads to avoidable drama.

But oh? Twister gave us some more info? He was hunted? He found his mare again, but... she was in love with another? And thats when he... snapped? oh dear, what else could be hidden away in the memory of this strange pony?

Hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading! :eeyup: (Also, the story hit 300 likes today! WOO!)

Chapter 79: The Other Side of the Wonder

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 79

“I’m so glad we pay these guys,” Fleetfoot sighed in relief as the earth pony security team barred any reporters from following them into the back entrance of Cloudsdale’s flight arena. “And thank Celestia for the cloud-walking spell that let them come up here with us,” she added.

The Wonderbolts had arrived at the Cloudsdale flight arena in the center of the city an hour after they had finished breakfast. Spitfire redrew their arrival route on the spot after the cacophony at the ground station. Thanks to the new arrival plan and location, they were able to slip into the back entrance of the arena with only a few reporters and photographers trying to get to them.

“Alright, listen up recruits,” Spitfire spoke up, slowing down until she was walking beside the recruit squad bringing up the rear. “I’m sure you’ve noticed we are here two hours in advance. There’s a reason for that,” she began explaining. Dash listened carefully. They were on the lookout for Shadowbolts, but they were also there to observe the Wonderbolt show routine. “The shows are a big publicity stunt and bit maker for us. So a lot of stuff happens beforehoof. The two hours gives us time to get ready at our own pace and take care of anything we need to do. It’s also, however, one of two times we let special visitors and VIPs in to meet us. Since this is our prep time, it’s just a short hello and an introduction. The real time we spend with them is afterward at the reception.”

Getting ready and meeting VIPs or lucky fans who won a contest or a raffle to meet them… Dash couldn’t believe she would be on the other side of it. She remembered trying endlessly when she was younger, entering every single raffle and contest or whatever to win a Wonderbolt visit. She never won it, but she tried endlessly. Going from being a desperate fan to BEING one of the celebrities being visited was… she couldn’t even describe it.

They continued on through the back hallways of the arena. Arena security guards were posted around in case any fans were brave enough to try and sneak in. With their own security guards, plus the arena security, they had a nice blanket of protection. Not that the Wonderbolts were incapable of handling themselves, but after seeing how eagerly the media bombarded them, Dash was glad they had them. They eventually made it to a room labeled ‘lockers’ and entered.

It wasn’t a locker room like Dash expected it to be. It was a wide open, square room about twenty-five yards wide and long with a low ceiling. One long bench wrapped around the entire wall, with two openings on the other side of the room that contained doors. One door was labeled ‘stallion’s locker room’ and the other ‘mare’s locker room.’ Dash figured these locker rooms were for changing into their suits and storing their bags, as well as bathroom facilities and showers.

As soon as they entered, Dash and her squad observed as the elites simply tossed their bags down and went about their business casually. Fleetfoot flopped down, back first, on a part of the bench and rested her head against her bag.

“Somepony wake me up in half an hour,” she said with a yawn before turning over on her side facing away. Soarin walked by as Dash stared at Fleetfoot.

“Fleet always takes a half hour nap right after we arrive,” he said with a wink as he made his way towards the stallion’s locker room. The recruits just stood still, a little awkwardly as the elites moved about. Dash wasn’t sure what to do, and upon glancing at them, Squall, Little Star, Matteo, and Twister didn’t know what to do either.

“Guys… what are you doing?” Storm suddenly asked as he approached them. Dash gave him a blank look, her ears flopping to the side.

“What are we supposed to do?” Dash asked. Not because she wasn’t sure, the situation was just foreign to them all. Storm looked over his shoulder as the rest of the Wonderbolts went about their preferred pre-show routine.

“Well, relax, take a load off, watch what some of us do… I guess,” he chuckled. “I mean, anything besides stiffly standing by the door, sorry, it just looks funny.”

“Nice to know our confusion is amusing,” Dash playfully stuck her tongue out at him before turning to the rest of the recruits. “You heard Storm, mingle, relax, sit down, we’ve got two hours,” Dash said with a shrug.

They all looked between each other for a moment before Squall, without a word, cracked his neck to one side before walking to one of the bench corners and sitting down. Matteo looked back and forth, settling for a spot on the bench nearby. Little Star broke away and headed to the mare’s locker room. And Twister… was standing on his head next to Point Dex. The captain of squad seven readily ignoring Twister as he dug through his duffle bag. Dash turned back to Storm.

“So… what’s YOUR pre-show routine?” She asked, not really knowing what else to do, especially since Soarin was still in the locker room.

“Me?” Storm pointed at himself. “Besides my nerves slowly turning my body into an earthquake of jitters as show time approaches?” he shrugged. “I get really nervous, but it’s been getting better. Soarin has been a big help. I’m still new to all this, but I’ve been trying out some methods that Soarin suggested. Like putting the flight suit on right when we arrive and look in a mirror for a while. That’s what he does before shows. I bet that’s what he’s doing in the locker room right now. He says it helps him get his mind focused on performing.”

“I can see that…” Dash nodded. Obviously she couldn’t go observe because Soarin was in the stallion’s locker room, but she could image how cool it would be to see him go through his motions. Staring at oneself in the mirror may appear goofy or weird to some, but Dash knew certain methods to psyche herself up, and one that always stuck out was looking yourself in the eye. The pony in the mirror was the only pony you had to best. If you could beat yourself, you’ve won the day. Dash blinked and looked towards Fleetfoot. “Have you tried napping like Fleet?” Dash chuckled as she watched the famous Wonderbolt treat the bench like a makeshift bed.

“I wish I could be that relaxed…” Storm chuckled. “You have no idea Dash, I’ve been so nervous I’ve had a hard time sleeping the past three nights.”

“Whoa…” Dash stared in disbelief at Storm. “I mean… I have a bit of stage fright myself, but that’s pretty bad.”

“You’re telling me,” Storm chuckled. “Being a sudden member of the high tier elites doesn’t help, I feel pressured to perform my absolute best. My first show was a bit of a disaster.”

Dash felt like asking him about it, but she figured it wasn’t a pleasant memory, so she let it be.

“Here you go, ma’am.”

Dash and Storm turned to see Spitfire taking a clipboard from one of the security guards. She started looking it over before sitting down, grabbing a pen and writing on it.

“Although I can only imagine…” Storm began as they watched Spitfire. “How much pressure she’s under all the time. I can’t believe how much she does, I’d be crushed.”

“She’s the lead captain for a reason,” Dash smiled. “But I agree. I dunno if I could handle all that work.”

“Hmmmm…” Spitfire suddenly hummed and her ears folded back. Storm and Dash both perked up. Spitfire looked up from the clipboard and glanced around the locker room. “Air Mach!” she called across the room. Air Mach was striking poses with Twister, who was wearing an identical pair of shades. “Is Soarin still doing his thing?”

“Lemme check!” Air Mach said while giving Twister a hard pat on the back that knocked the silly pony over. Air Mach pushed open the door of the stallion’s locker room and peered in for a moment before turning back to Spitfire. “Yep!” he confirmed.

Spitfire sighed and shook her head, glancing at Fleetfoot before looking towards Point Dex.

“Dex, come here for a second…” she said as she stood up and approached him.

“Oh, that must be the visitor list,” Storm spoke up before snickering. “Looks like she isn’t too pleased by a name on there, I wonder who it could be?”

“Ah, Storm,” Dash suddenly realized upon remembering a certain friend of hers that now had VIP access to all the shows. “Is Derpy going to be here?”

As soon as the name left her lips, Storm frowned and his ears flopped down.

“No,” he said with a sigh. “She couldn’t make it to this one. She had to work overtime to pay off some bills she had misplaced.”

“Again?” Dash lifted her brow. Storm looked at her and tipped his head curiously. “Oh, this isn’t the first time she’s done that,” Dash added with a chuckle. “She’s a tad forgetful at times, I’m sure that’s not surprising.”

Storm smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, she can be a bit ditzy at times, but she’s such a cutie and a joy to spend time with. I can forgive a few mishaps, mostly because they just make her more charming,” Storm’s wings began ruffling slightly as he smiled and blushed lightly. Dash held in a snort, not sure if Storm even knew his wings did that when he thought about Derpy. “But to be honest, I’m actually kind of glad she’s not here right now. I don’t know if I want her around when we have a Shadowbolt lurking. From what I’ve heard about them, I’d hate to see Derpy get caught in a conflict,” he added. Dash couldn’t help but fully agree.

“I see what you mean there…” she thought out loud as the sound of a locker room door opening caught her attention. Soarin walked out, already wearing his full uniform including the mask and the goggles. Upon exiting, he removed the goggles, letting them dangle from his neck and removed the mask as well.

Dash glanced back at Storm, who seemed to be thinking about Derpy again because the goofy look was back on his face and his wings were ruffling again. Maybe he found his way to relax. Dash decided to leave him be and head towards Soarin.

“Already set to go, huh?” she asked as she approached. Soarin looked towards her the instant he heard her voice and greeted her with a smile. It wasn’t the usual cheerful smile. He looked incredibly serious and focused… which Dash, admittedly, thought looked sexy.

“I like to get in the mood early,” Soarin nodded. “The longer I’m focused before a show, the more natural it feels when we start.”

“Get in the mood, eh?” Dash nudged him as they walked over to part of the bench nearby.

“Saw that coming,” Soarin said with a chuckle as he sat down and took a deep breath. Dash took the seat beside him and watched him carefully. Normally at this point, the two of them would joke or maybe she’d consider leaning into him. She didn’t because it would be too much public affection, but even if they were alone, she probably wouldn’t have. She decided to observe instead, curious to see Soarin’s pre-show routine in full.

It had also been a while since she had seen him in a show. If there was one thing she observed whenever she saw Soarin perform, he was HEAVILY in the zone. His soft expression turned hard, sometimes glaring a little. It wasn’t frightening at all, but it just looked different, as if he had a separate mindset altogether. It reminded her of how he looked while in combat, suggesting he got just as serious about entertaining their loyal fans as he was about protecting the lives of Equestrians. Passion for his job, and passion to protect the lives of others, it was things like this that made Dash swoon like she were Rarity… but she’d never admit it.

Soarin knew Dash was observing him. But he remained focused as he closed his eyes and took slow, deep breaths. He wanted Dash to see his routine, to give her a full example of Wonderbolt show prep. He pictured their routine, ran through all of the motions in his head, and reviewed all of his cues. He had to do a lot of throwing in this show. Luckily it was mostly of Spitfire and Fleetfoot. He only had to throw Air Mach once, but it went without saying, he was a lot heavier than the two mares. He had gotten plenty of rest and forced himself to not hit the gym for three days so his muscles wouldn’t be sore and he’d be able to fully utilize his moves without discomfort.

His confidence in general had been higher lately in terms of his natural abilities. He used to only manage about three Sonic Blastoffs before his body would give out. Now he could manage ten, maybe even more before he started to feel the wear and tear. It was a significant increase, one that followed with his increase in working out. It wasn’t like he was a slouch before, but after the first encounter with the Shadowbolts and how he almost died, he felt the need to really kick himself in the ass and hit the gym hard. The magic may have helped a bit in this increase in strength and endurance, but he had been working out a lot more and a lot harder, and the mirror didn’t lie. He could say the same for a lot of the Wonderbolts lately. Since the Shadowbolt attack and Spitfire’s increase in the training load, a lot of them were looking much more fit than ever before. The Shadowbolts gave them quite a beating during their last encounter. Spitfire was clearly determined to make sure they were ready.

“Soarin.”

Speaking of Spitfire… Soarin opened his eyes, both he and Dash looking towards Spitfire as she walked up to them.

“What’s up?” Soarin asked as they looked her over. Spitfire looked a little uncomfortable. Soarin and Dash glanced at each other briefly. “Or rather… what’s wrong?” Soarin rephrased the question as Spitfire held up the clipboard she had been walking around with.

“It’s our guests for today… Um…” Spitfire bit her lip. “They…”

“Kids?” Soarin finished for her. Dash perked up, blinked, and glanced between Soarin and Spitfire. Spitfire sighed and nodded.

“Yeah, the winners of the Canterlot Junior Flyer Meet three weeks ago are going to be here,” she said as her ears flopped down. Soarin glanced at Dash, taking note of her curiosity.

“There’s an annual Junior Flyer Competition in Canterlot’s middle district. We sponsor it every year and send a few Wonderbolts to help run it. It was two days after we sent you guys home for your rest weeks. It’s eight events and the winners of each are given VIP access to our next big show…” Soarin paused and looked at Spitfire with disappointment. “But they gave them THIS show? It would have been awesome if we had more than just two squads.

“Sure, whatever…” Spitfire looked away from them.

Dash found Spitfire’s sudden behavior to be uncharacteristic. Why did Spitfire seem so unenthusiastic about it?

“Spitfire…” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “You can’t hide from them, you’re the biggest role model of all of us.”

“I know… I just, never know what to say or do,” Spitfire groaned uncomfortably.

This was a hoot. Spitfire? The fearless lead captain of the Wonderbolts who every day directed and controlled hundreds of skilled flyers… didn’t know how to handle kids?

“You don’t have to do anything Spitfire, we’ve been over this,” Soarin continued. “Have you seen how Fleetfoot and I handle it? Just smile, be friendly and encouraging, ruffle a few manes, get your picture taken… you don’t need to do anything specific.”

“Alright, alright… They’re going to be here in fifteen minutes, so be ready, and round up any others that are willing, at least two more. They’re going to meet all of us later, but for now let’s keep it simple, and find a way to distract Savage and Air Mach, I don’t want their dumbasses making this go on for too long, we need to stay on schedule,” she looked around, her eyes landing on Fleetfoot, still napping. “Fleet, get up,” she said as she walked over.

Dash looked up at Soarin, who squinted and released a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, his soft expression was back.

“Looks like I’ll have to refocus later, don’t want to scare our little fans,” he smiled. Dash shook her head as she looked towards Spitfire.

“I never would have guessed… Spitfire isn’t good with kids?” she asked. Soarin nodded.

“Well, to be honest, it’s not surprising if you think about it. She’s used to being hard and strict. Hell, she’s like that nearly twenty-four seven. Whenever we have young fans visit, it’s important to shed that image to give them an experience they’ll never forget… I guess it’s just hard for Spitfire to turn off.”

“WHAT?! KIDDIES?! YAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot yelled as she sprung up from the bench over Spitfire, grabbed her uniform from her bag, and cantered into the locker room to put it on. Dash stared wide eyed at Fleetfoot’s display of eagerness.

“Fleetfoot, on the other hoof,” Soarin chuckled. “Is completely the opposite. She loves our colt and filly fans. In fact, she’s incredibly popular with our young fans, especially the fillies. She knows exactly how to make them smile… we always get lots of positive compliments about her from the parents. I’d say about eighty percent of the fan mail we get from young fans are addressed to Fleet.”

“You know,” Dash smiled. “I’m not surprised about that. I can see how her cheerfulness resonates well with the kids,” Dash paused as she thought further. “Actually, I’ve seen a trend here.”

“Trend?” Soarin blinked and glanced towards Dash.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Fleetfoot seems to be the biggest public figure of the Wonderbolts.”

“Ha!” Soarin let a laugh go. “You’d be absolutely right. Spitfire is the most well known in terms of being our leader and being professional… but Fleetfoot is definitely the most outgoing. She goes to more events than the rest of us, has the most endorsements, and hasn’t missed a photo-shoot since she became a member of the lead squad. ‘Sexiest athlete’ three years running in Pony Magazine and cover mare for Pony Sports’ tri-annual beach issue ten times in a row. She really eats up the attention, but she makes a lot of bits for us through it,” Soarin blinked and looked towards Dash as she held a hoof over her mouth, snickering loudly. “What’s so funny?” Soarin ask with an amused grin.

“I just find it heavily ironic… that she’s such a sex symbol AND complimented by parents…” Dash shook her head as she started giggling. “How does that even work?!”

“That’s the glory of being great with kids,” Soarin chuckled. “She gets let off the hook for putting bright smiles on little faces. Though I’ve seen quite a few father’s get jabbed in the side by their wives when she’s around!”

“HAHAHA!” Dash burst out laughing, leaning into Soarin. “Oh, that’s rich…”

“Say…” Soarin smiled down at her. “Want to meet them too? I need two more for this short encounter.”

“Me?” Dash removed herself from him and looked up in surprise. “Not the other elites?”

“You’re good with kids,” Soarin said while winking. “As I have witnessed, and like Spitfire said… there are a few ponies here we’d rather not get involved until later for the sake of time. Speaking of which…” Soarin glanced over and looked between Air Mach and Macho Savage. “One second,” he said as he stepped away from Dash.

He approached Point Dex first.

“Yo, Dex,” he said casually as he approached. Point Dex looked up from a stack of personal notes he was looking over and adjusted his glasses.

“Commander?” he replied with a salute.

“We’ve got some kids we’re gonna meet outside, but this is a short and timely part of our schedule, can you distract Savage for me so he doesn’t come out and start rambling?” he asked. Dex scoffed.

“Give me twenty point five seconds and I’ll have that low-watt bulb confused for an hour,” Dex plainly stated.

“Make it happen,” Soarin gave Dex a pat on the back. Point Dex stood up, neatly placed his notes in his bag, and walked up to Macho Savage, who was in the process of continuously flexing and kissing his arms.

“Savage,” Dex said his name as he approached him from behind. Savage did a full spin.

“THREE-SIXTY!” he yelled as he stopped, facing away from Dex again.

“Try one-eighty,” Dex said with an exasperated sigh.

“ONE-EIGHTY!” Savage yelled. Stopping and looking Dex directly in the eyes, face to face. “WHAT UP, LITTLE NERD CAPTAIN DUDE?!”

“I have a question for you,” Dex said, ignoring what Savage called him. “If the madness is truly unstoppable… than could the madness possibly stop itself? Under the laws of physics and an equation of motion that describes an unstoppable force, meeting an immovable object, could you stop your own madness? Or would the madness stop you?”

Macho savage stared blankly at Dex for several seconds.

“The Madness is confused…” he mumbled while scratching his head. Dex turned and gave a wave to Soarin, who pointed and winked in response.

“That takes care of him,” Soarin chuckled as he returned to Dash. "Now to take care of Air Mach… Learun!” Soarin called over to Lead Runner. He was up and sauntering towards Soarin in seconds.

“What’s up, handsome?” he asked while leaning into Soarin. Dash backed away and blinked, surprised at the motion.

“Could you help a guy out and keep Air Mach busy for a while?” Soarin asked with a smirk.

“Oh, that’s easy! Sure thing, darling!” Lead Runner grinned devilishly as he let go of Soarin and moved towards Air Mach.

“Uh…” Dash blinked as she watched Lead Runner swung his plot back and forth as he moved towards Air Mach.

“Lead Runner is gay,” Soarin said quickly. “And is our one weapon against Air Mach’s… grandstanding,” Soarin chuckled.

“Oh,” Dash smirked and looked towards Lead Runner as he snuck up on Air Mach and leaned into his side.

“HEY SEXY!” Lead Runner yelled as he pressed himself into Air Mach’s side.

“GAH! BACK! BACK I SAY!” Air Mach flipped out as Lead Runner forced him towards the locker rooms. “THE GREAT ANIMAK REFUSES TO BE CORNERED!”

“Does he now?” Lead Runner kept teasing him as he backed Air Mach all the way into the locker rooms where more over the top yelling was heard.

“And that takes care of that,” Soarin whipped his hooves together and nodded.

“You’re so bad, I love it,” Dash chuckled as Spitfire approached them again.

“Five minutes,” Spitfire reminded Soarin flatly as she passed. Soarin nodded and glanced over to the mare’s locker room. Fleetfoot emerged, wearing her flight suit the same way Soarin was, with the mask and goggles down. She was smiling brightly, looking incredibly excited to meet the kids.

“Go get your suit on,” Soarin nudged Dash.

“You sure?” Dash asked just to be certain. Soarin smiled and nodded.

“Trust me,” Soarin winked.

“Alright,” Dash turned and unzipped her bag. She felt a little nervous, making her first ‘public’ action as a Wonderbolt, but just as with everything else, it was something she’d get used to. Besides, there was nothing to be afraid of. It was going to be no different than it always was with Scootaloo. In fact, she thought about how great it felt whenever Scootaloo revered her as a role model. Now she could be a role model for so many more… it almost made her giddy to get out there.

“Kids?” Storm’s voice caught Dash’s attention. She looked over to see Soarin talking to him.

“Yeah, our VIP’s today are the winners of the Junior Flyer Meet you worked at,” Soarin explained.

“Oh!” Storm smiled and his ears stood up. “Sure! Let me get my suit on!” he nodded as he too went for his flight suit.

Dash wasn’t surprised to see Storm like kids. After how nice and caring he was to Derpy moments after meeting her, she was more than certain he was good with them. He seemed eager enough at least.

Dash turned her suit over until she found the open end and shimmied her limbs and body into it. It was the first time she had worn it since the banquet and it still felt amazing to put on her own Wonderbolt flight suit. She wanted to look at herself in the mirror once she had it on, but judging from how Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot were gathering by the door, she and Storm had to hurry up. So she made sure she had her goggles around her neck and her mask removed. She adjusted the suit slightly to make sure the lightning bolt was centered on her chest before turning and approaching the group. Storm caught up with them moments after she did.

“Alright…” Spitfire said as she saw Dash and Storm join them. “They’ll be here any second. As always, this is something they earned, so be nice, let them take pictures, and of course, watch your language,” she explained.

“And have a good time,” Soarin added while nudging Spitfire, earning a giggle from Fleetfoot.

“I’ll do my best…” Spitfire sighed as a knock came from the door. “Yes?” she asked through the door.

“They’re here, ma’am,” one of the security ponies called through the door. Spitfire turned and looked at them.

“Alright guys, we have fifteen minutes with them, be brief and let them know we’ll be seeing them again after the show,” she explained before she took a deep breath and pulled the door open.

Dash couldn’t see past Soarin as they walked out, but heard a bunch of little gasps as they started filing out of the door.

“Hey there!” Fleetfoot greeted cheerfully as Dash stepped around and thought she was going to have a heart attack. There were eight little ponies, five colts and three fillies, standing in the hallway with one or both parents. They all looked to be between the ages of six to ten and were all staring up at them with wide eyes that were getting wider. They were all wearing miscellaneous Wonderbolt merchandise. All but two of them had Wonderbolt-brand flight goggles either dangling around their neck or propped up on their head, one of the fillies wore a Fleetfoot shirt, three of them had Wonderbolt hats, and one of the colts was wearing a small replica of a Wonderbolt flight suit.

Dash was not surprised that the kids were entirely focused on Soarin, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot. Mostly Soarin initially, probably because he was a really big pegasus, but once they started looking around, Spitfire and Fleetfoot were getting their own share of the awe.

“How’s everypony doing?” Fleetfoot crouched down. A few of the faces turned to VERY wide smiles as Fleetfoot’s friendliness sunk in.

Art by: natis120

“I heard you guys really tore it up at the competition! Wish I could’ve seen it,” as she spoke the kids all seemed to loosen up and had gathered close to Fleetfoot. It was very charming to see how well Fleetfoot instantly handled the situation. Soarin was letting Fleetfoot do her thing before he said anything and Spitfire looked nervous. “So what events did you guys win?” Fleetfoot asked as she sat down and all the colts and fillies began talking at once, all eager to tell Fleetfoot about their victories. “Hehe, one at a time!” she giggled as tried to listen to each.

Dash smiled as she watched the kids flock to the lead squad, then smiled even wider when she saw how happy the parents looked as well. Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot were living legends and role models, heroes to the children as much as they were heroes to all of Equestria. Eventually, the kids broke away from Fleetfoot and were walking up to Soarin and Spitfire as well. Soarin, of course, smiled and gave words of encouragement, taking pictures and congratulating the kids. With the help of Fleetfoot, Spitfire was able to loosen up a little and interacted a little. It was good she did, she was the lead captain after all, the professional symbol of the current Wonderbolts.

There was one colt who was standing behind the rest nervously, a small grey colt with a yellow mane and a blue Wonderbolt hat turned backwards on his head. He looked younger than the rest and despite his mother nudging him gently he remained back and just stared directly at Soarin.

“We’re just the side show, huh?” Storm chuckled. Dash’s attention broke from the nervous colt to Storm and smirked.

“Did you really think we’d get any attention after those three stepped through the door?” she joked. They were sitting right beside them, but the kids were all gathered around the lead squad.

“Of course not, but…” Storm smiled. “I love seeing this. Look at how happy these kids are,” he pointed to the young ponies giddily gathered around the three. They were all smiling with excitement. A few of them were even bouncing as they interacted with the three celebrities. “This is probably the happiest moment of their lives and they all deserve it. The lead squad sets such a great example and showcases such positive influences… it’s the kind of pony I want to be. It was something my father always said to me when he snuck back into the house…” Storm paused and smiled.

“‘Be a pony that leaves an impact,’ he would always say. ‘One that can be looked up to, one that can inspire… and does it all through constant hard work and dedication,’” Storm glanced at Dash. “I’ve been living by that for years… and I joined the Wonderbolts in hopes of surrounding myself with great ponies like these three and many others. They radiate the meaning of those words my dad drilled into my head. I can only hope to someday be looked upon like this,” Storm suddenly paused and blinked, looking down in front of Dash.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and followed Storms eyes, stopping when her eyes fell upon the nervous little colt… who was now standing right before her.

“Looks like you have a little fan,” Storm smiled at Dash, but Dash looked at the colt curiously. It was as if… she had seen him somewhere before. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw Soarin’s signature on the back part of the hat, facing forward with the way the colt was wearing it.

“H…hewwo…” the colt said nervously. The voice. Dash recognized the voice. And the cute way he couldn’t pronounce L’s.

“Oh my gosh…” Dash’s jaw dropped. “I remember you!” she said as a smile grew on her lips. “Soarin!” Dash suddenly called over. Soarin blinked and looked towards her. “Soarin come here!” she waved him over. Soarin glanced down at the little grey colt in front of her and his eyes widened. He quickly turned and moved towards them.

“Is that who I think it is?” Soarin smiled with excitement as he approached. As Soarin approached, the little colt’s eyes and smile grew three sizes, his tail started swishing back and forth and his wing started flapping uncontrollably. “No way! What a small world!” Soarin chuckled as he stood before the little guy and smiled down at him. “How are you doing, little dude? Good to see you again!”

Dash glanced at Storm, who was watching the scene curiously. She leaned back to fill him in.

“Soarin and I met this colt in a breakfast diner in Canterlot… that’s where Soarin signed the hat,” she pointed at the hat and winked.

The little colt didn’t say anything, he just kept smiling and bouncing as Soarin stood directly before him. The colt showed no interest in Fleetfoot and Spitfire, only Soarin. Recognizing the colt was too excited to speak, Soarin decided to ask.

“So what event did you win?” he asked the colt.

“Um… um… um… the… um…” the colt stuttered and looked back at him mother standing nearby.

“The two hundred straightaway,” she said with a smile and a nod.

“Dat one…” the colt said while pointing at his mom. Soarin lifted his brow in surprise.

“The two hundred? The speed race? How old are you?” Soarin asked quickly.

“Um… um…” the colt looked down and bobbed his head as if counting. After three attempts he looked back at his mother again.

“Six years old,” she said with a light laugh.

“Dat many…” the colt said while pointing at him mom again. Soarin and Dash looked at each other with their jaws dropping.

“Wow!” Soarin exclaimed while smiling down at the colt. “That’s incredible! Hey Spitfire!” Soarin called over as he turned and hooked his hoof around the colt’s shoulder. The colt looked like he was about to burst with his idol’s hoof draped over him like a buddy. Spitfire turned broke away, letting Fleetfoot handle the rest of the kids as she had already been doing.

“What’s up?” she asked as she eyed the giddy little colt.

“Did you hear about this?” he pointed at the colt. “Only six years old and he won the 200 meter straight!”

“Oh?” Spitfire blinked and looked at the colt who lost his strength in his back legs and plopped down on his plot, almost overwhelmed with excitement as Wonderbolts stood all around him. “The youngest age allowed to compete and he won the most competitive event… that is very impressive,” Spitfire smiled and nodded. Spitfire wasn’t good at being casual in public events, but when it came to discussing flight skills, she’d tackle it easily.

“I think we’ve got ourselves a future Wonderbolt sitting right here!” he looked down. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Swift ga… gaaaaaawe…” he tried to pronounce his name. This time Soarin looked up at the colt’s mother.

“Swift Gale,” his mother confirmed while clearly loving how happy her son looked.

“Swift Gale, huh? Whaddya think Gale? Wanna fly with us someday?” Soarin asked the colt as he gave his shoulder a light pat.

“YA!” the colt squealed with delight as he received compliments from the best flyers in Equestria.

“Watch out, Spitfire!” Soarin looked up at her. “Someday Swift Gale here’s gonna be giving us a run for our bits!”

Soarin looked over at Dash and smiled before looking back down and talking to the colt some more, who, as Storm had said, looked like he was having the best day of his life.

Art by: Foxenawolf

Dash glanced up at Spitfire, who had just been approached by one of the security guards and whispered to. Spitfire nodded as the security guard turned away and looked toward Soarin.

“Let’s wrap this up, they’ve got to get them settled in the VIP boxes before the rest of the spectators start rolling in,” she said simply before turning to Fleetfoot. “Fleetfoot, they’ve gotta get moving,” she said while twirling her hoof in the air.

“Aww…” Fleetfoot frowned briefly before replacing it with a smile and turning to the kids again. “Hey guys! We have to get ready for the show now, but don’t worry! You’re gonna see us all again after!” Fleetfoot said to dispel and sad faces amongst the young ponies. “Bye!” Fleetfoot waved as she stepped away from them.

“That’s me too, little buddy,” Soarin patted the colt on the head. “I’ll see you again after the show, alright?” Soarin was taken by surprise as the colt turned and hugged Soarin’s arm.

“You’re da best Soawin!” the colt exclaimed as he squeezed Soarin's arm.

“God, that’s adorable…” Dash put a hoof over her mouth to conceal the goofy smile on her face.

“Aw, thanks, little dude!” Soarin chuckled. “Now before you go,” Soarin lightly separated the colt from his arm and held his hoof out. “Gimme your best hoof bump for good luck!” Soarin challenged him. The colt smiled and bumped hooves with Soarin while throwing his little wings outward. “Yeah! There we go! Alright Gale, I’ll see you after the show,” Soarin said with a wink before Swift Gale happily bounced back to his mother.

“That is one cute kid,” Storm commented as Soarin turned back to him and Dash.

“Second time I’ve seen that one… but damn… winning the junior 200 at age six, that’s REALLY impressive,” Soarin nodded contently.

“Yeah, I saw him do it when I worked the meet,” Storm explained. “Had no idea you knew the kid, maybe that’s why he’s so good, he has a hell of an idol to look up to.”

“Oh stop,” Soarin comically waved a hoof out at Storm before turning to Dash curiously. She was staring at the colt as he hugged his mother happily. “Equestria to Dashie, still with us?” Soarin chuckled.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and turned to Soarin. “Oh, was just thinking about how awesome and cute that just was… I mean did you SEE how happy he was when you put your arm on his shoulder? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony that happy before in my life,” Dash nudged Soarin. “I believe the first time we saw him you were saying something about being nothing special,” Dash snickered.

“Oh, don’t start that again,” Soarin playfully swiped his wing against her.

“It WAS cute though…” Dash winked. “He was so excited he didn’t even ask you when or why you became a princess,” Dash said while shooting a glance at the horn. Soarin looked up at the horn and shrugged.

“Well,” he grinned. “Maybe that kid could set an example. All the publicity I’ve been getting over this thing has been so annoying. It’s like they care about the horn, not about me. I wish more ponies were like him,” Soarin turned and smiled at Dash. “Nothing is more sincere than an innocent child.”

“Dash,” Spitfire’s voice drew their attention.

“Yes, ma’am?” Dash quickly answered, sensing a serious tone from Spitfire as the security led the kids and their parents away.

“Round up your squad,” she nodded. “I want to explain how this will work to you guys now.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Dash saluted before shooting a brief glance at Soarin and Storm as she turned and walked back to the waiting room. Soarin watched her enter the room before turning back to Spitfire.

“How much time do we have?” he asked.

“Roughly an hour, maybe a little more, plenty of time for them to figure out their portion of the plan,” Spitfire explained as Soarin and Storm followed her back into the waiting room. "You guys are free until show time,” she stated before breaking away from them.

Soarin glanced at Storm and the two of them shrugged before parting and going to opposite sides of the waiting room. Soarin sat down on the bench and closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths and started to focus again. It wasn’t long before picturing the show and his moves brought back the focus he had before the visit. He opened his eyes, glaring down at the floor, breathing in through the nose and breathing out through his mouth.

“Alright, listen up,” Spitfire’s voice caught his ears. Soarin glanced up and saw Dash standing attention with her squad behind her. Spitfire was pacing back and forth in front of them. Curious as to what Spitfire actually wanted them to do, Soarin listened in. “As much as the Shadowbolt matter is important, you ARE still on this trip to observe us at work,” she began. "This show has three parts. The first two are our routines, and the third, an organized wing-ball game for the crowd’s enjoyment. You are to observe us during the routines, but when the wing-ball match starts, I want you to take up high altitude positions around the arena and keep an eye out for anything suspicious. If you see anything and can CONFIRM… let me repeat that, CONFIRM that it is a Shadowbolt, give us a signal and chase until we can catch up.”

“What sort of signal?” Dash asked. Spitfire opened her mouth to speak but stopped, not quite sure herself.

“I could do an Aquila Grido,” Matteo suddenly spoke up. Everypony turned and looked at him blankly.

“Uh…” Dash blinked. “Who are you doing? And should I tell Gilda?” she asked. Matteo snorted and rolled his eyes.

“An eagle cry,” Matteo specified. “It’s a traditional battle cry to signal a forward charge. It’s a very loud, long screech. Believe me, you will hear it.”

“Sounds good to me, as long as you don’t deafen us in the process,” Spitfire accepted the idea.

“SCREAMING EAGLES!” Twister yelled into Matteo’s ear while wearing a black bowl on his head that formerly sat by the door and had mints in it. Matteo reached up and pushed down on the bowl until Twister was forced all the way to the ground, and then sat down on Twister. Twister made a loud whoopee cushion noise as he was nearly flattened beneath Matteo’s weight. Dash sighed and slapped her hoof over her face as Spitfire just lifted an eyebrow.

“Sorry ma’am…” Dash apologized, but Spitfire shook her head.

“I knew what I was getting into when we selected him, don’t worry about it,” said Spitfire with a swish of her tail.

“Oh, uh… speaking of… Twister, there may have been some damage caused to our hotel room last night…” Dash confessed awkwardly. Spitfire rolled her eyes and turned away.

“Later Dash, just make sure they’re all ready, we need all five of you for this to work. I’m counting on you… CAPTAIN,” Spitfire emphasized before walking over to a part of the bench and sitting down.

Soarin saw the whole scene and watched as Dash stood still and thought to herself, clearly thinking over everything Spitfire had just told her. She looked a little nervous. Soarin glanced at her squad. Little Star was trying to pull Twister out from under Matteo and Squall was slowly shifting away from them.

Could they handle this? Soarin believed in their abilities, but this WAS a bit to put on their shoulders so soon. He couldn’t dwell on it for too long. He had to focus on the show as it was not only part of his job, but also instrumental in Spitfire’s plan working. They had to be natural and go along with things if it were to have the desired effect and convince the Shadowbolt they were unaware… if he was even still around. It was a plan based on speculation and prediction. Which… felt like a horrible plan, but it was all they had.

How do you catch something you know little to nothing about? It was almost like they were chasing ghosts.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

d'aww Fleetfoot is really good with kids!

But like Dash said, it's ironic, since she's a sex symbol and also a we;; rounded citizen with the kids.

A brief chapter, meant to show more of the world the Wonderbolts live in.

Hoping for some action? Oh just you wait :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 80: The View From Behind the Goggles

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 80:

“Ladies and gentlestallions! Please take your seats! The Wonderbolts are ready to go and will begin the show shortly!”

The stallion over the speaker system called out as thousands of pegasi filed into the arena and took their seats. Cloudsdale’s flight stadium was enormous, not quite as large as Canterlot’s or Manehatten’s, but since Cloudsdale was populated entirely by pegasi, it was normal for ninety-nine percent of the city to show up, as well as any other pegasi that would travel to see them. It was needless to say that the vast majority of their fans were pegasi, so shows in Cloudsdale were always one of their most profitable events.

The arena infield was a large, circular area seventy-five yards in diameter with five decks of spectator seating that wrapped around the circumference and had thirty rows per deck. Above the fifth deck were multiple spectator boxes as well as a large penthouse box where the Wonderbolts would be holding a reception later for VIP’s along with seeing the kids again. It was definitely an impressive piece of architecture, but granted, it was much easier to form and build with enchanted clouds than it was to build with traditional brick, mortar, and carpentry.

Despite the incredibly large amount of seats available, the arena was SOLD OUT… which only testified to how important shows in Cloudsdale were towards making bits. It wasn’t even a full show. They only had two squads performing followed by a game between them. The show would last roughly an hour, maybe a little more. This was something that had Rainbow Dash in complete awe as she poked her head out to see the crowd.

“This is insane…” Dash said as she looked back and forth at the thousands of pegasi that were present and taking their seats. A few spotted Dash in the tunnel and began cheering. When Dash realized they were cheering at her, she yelped and stepped back in. She put a hoof over her heart and took a deep breath.

“This is why I love performing in Cloudsdale,” Soarin suddenly spoke from behind her, causing Dash to jump straight up in the air and almost hit the ceiling. “Somepony’s a little high strung!” he said with a chuckle.

“Well, duh, you snuck up on me!” Dash pouted as she floated back down. Soarin chuckled as he glanced out into the crowd. Dash looked him over, taking in what she saw. He was acting casual and relaxed, but his eyes were focused like she had seen earlier. It looked like he had found his balance and was ready to get out there and give everypony a show.

Soarin stepped past Dash and took two steps out. The crowd roared when they spotted him standing in the doorway of the tunnel. Soarin gave a few waves before turning and walking back. Dash lifted an eyebrow as he approached her again. “Show off,” she giggled while jabbing him in the chest.

“Like I said, I love performing in Cloudsdale,” he nodded. “This is a very small show, only two squad performances and a pick-up game of wing-ball, but we still sold out. Cloudsdale has the largest concentration of our fans by far,” Soarin looked down and hopped up and down on the cushy cloud floor. “And it’s the safest arena too, the ground of the arena is only partially enchanted, making it like one, big, natural safety mat.” he added with a smile.

“I don’t know how you seem so relaxed,” Dash said as she glanced out at the crowd. “I felt nervous looking at them, and I’m not even performing today.”

“You sound a lot like Storm, there,” Soarin said while poking her shoulder. “I’ve been doing this for a while, I’ve gotten used to it. Lemme tell you, the first time I performed, I was shaking so hard I was surprised I got my wings to work.”

“Worried about the Shadowbolt at all?” Dash suddenly asked. Soarin blinked, not expecting it, but patted her on the back.

“A little, but that’s why we have you guys here,” he said with encouragement. “We’ve got a job to do right now… to entertain all of our loyal fans. We’ll let you worry about it.”

“What if it interrupts the show?” Dash thought out loud. It would definitely be strange and cause a bit of an uproar if the Wonderbolts abandoned a crowd mid-show. She was also thinking about the kids who earned the opportunity to see a show in comfort and meet the Wonderbolts themselves. Soarin sighed as he thought over Dash’s question as he turned and started walking back through the tunnel, quickly stepping onto the hardened, enchanted cloud floor. He made a head motion, indicating for her to follow. Dash followed close behind. Soarin remained silent for a moment, their hooves against the floor being the only sound that echoed about the tunnel.

“I’m going to be completely honest with you,” he suddenly began. “I don’t think the Shadowbolt, if he’s even still around, will show up during the show itself. And if he is there, you will not see him.”

“What makes you say that?” Dash asked. “Anything will help Soarin, I need to know more about them,” she added. She had gotten the basic information, but based on their reactions to the Shadowbolt in the blimp, that didn’t seem like the typical behavior.

“Up until the encounter yesterday, the Shadowbolts have been very discreet. All of our reports and the one I chased in Manehatten were spotted sneaking around before they were pursued. There are thousands of ponies in the stands. Who knows? All of the Shadowbolts we’ve seen could be in this crowd, but there’s no way in hell we’re going to find them.”

“But what about this guy that flew right up to our window and taunted us?” Dash recalled the blimp incident. It didn’t seem to line up. Soarin shook his head.

“That’s what made me change my mind,” he said with a nod as they made it halfway back to the waiting area. “I thought Spitfire’s plan was… for lack of a better word, stupid. No offense to you guys, but the situation here was unfavorable in spotting one pony amongst the thousands that would attend, especially with how subtle they have been. Yesterday made me think a little differently. I have no idea what the Shadowbolt’s thought process was, or if he was being a complete dumbass and not doing what he was supposed to, but if he’s willing to be brash and more forward than his comrades then the plan is reasonable. Better safe than sorry, I guess. And if it does interrupt our show, I will personally pay for the kids to come to another show. I’m not gonna let them miss out.”

“You sure you can focus on the show?” Dash’s ears flopped down as Soarin unloaded everything on his mind.

“Dash,” Soarin stopped her before they moved into the waiting room. “I used to fly entire shows while fighting back the urge to punch Rapidfire in the face for whatever mare he used the night before. I can handle this,” he said with a wink. “I’ll be fine, worry about how you are going to direct your part of Spitfire’s plan, and the fly-by before the show starts.”

Dash froze and her pupils shrank.

“Fly… by…?” she repeated slowly. Soarin stopped and looked at her curiously.

“Spitfire hasn’t…?” Soarin paused and rolled his eyes. “I guess you’ll know soon enough…” he said sarcastically as they entered the waiting room.

“There you two are,” Spitfire said as they returned. “Get lined up, let’s go,” she said as she pointed to the rest of the Wonderbolts and the recruits getting their things together.

Dash felt a wave of dread rush over her as she approached her squad. They were all wearing their Wonderbolt flight suits and looking confused. As they should have been, Dash only had hers on because she met with the kids. She thought they were only going to wear them later at the reception. Had they been ordered to suit up? Soarin said a fly-by… did that mean…

“Recruits, listen up!” Spitfire’s voice caused Dash to instantly turn around and stand attention so fast that she almost smashed her head against Spitfire’s. Spitfire pulled her head back slightly and blinked. “Whoa there, Captain,” she said as Dash swallowed and nodded.

“Sorry, ma’am!” she yelled. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow before looking at all the recruits.

“Listen carefully, before the show begins, I will go out and address the crowd. When I do, I will be announcing that we have acquired new recruits. When I do, I want you five to fly out in an arrow formation and fly three laps around the arena level with the third deck. I will announce each of your names and where you are from.”

Dash could almost hear the nerves behind her as Spitfire spoke. This was sudden… they had to actually go out in the arena in a formation and fly around? That wasn’t too hard, but there were so many spectators watching!

“This is a Wonderbolt tradition,” Spitfire continued. “We like to keep our fans connected with us and what they can expect from us. Part of this is showing them our new recruits, those who will perform for them in the future. Normally, we wouldn’t do this in a small show, but we’re in Cloudsdale, and there’s no such thing as a small show in Cloudsdale, so I decided to go ahead and do it now. Are we all clear?” she asked, looking at all of them. Dash stole a glance back.

Matteo was completely unaffected. Dash began to wonder if he even had nerves.

Little Star’s eyes were wide. She didn’t look as nervous as she looked surprised.

Twister was being Twister.

Squall looked absolutely terrified, which came as a relief for Dash, as bad as that sounded. She was relieved that she wasn’t the only one who felt anxious about it, but it also didn’t surprise her. Squall wasn’t the social type, so being seen and talked about by so many seemed like something he wasn’t too fond of. But really, he had to see it coming eventually. He was a Wonderbolt for crying out loud. Perhaps he was just nervous like Dash was, taken by surprise by this and not feeling ready to go out in front of a crowd. It’s not like they had a choice. Spitfire’s word was law.

“Yes, ma’am!” they all replied with varying pitches and tones.

“Good, now…” Spitfire flattened her brow and stepped around Dash, getting into Twister’s face. “Twister, it would be nice if you told me where you are actually from so I can properly announce you,” she demanded, not flinching as she stood face to face with his usual creepy sneer.

“Somewhere between the chicken and the egg… BUT WHICH ONE CAME FIRST?!” Twister reared back, tipped over, and fell on his back.

“Hmph…” Spitfire grunted. “Fine, I’ll just say your name…” Spitfire didn’t even try to fight him. She just turned moved back to the front of the line, knowing full well she wouldn’t get any straight answers from him.

Dash glanced at Twister as he began log rolling in a circle around all of them. She remembered the forms they had to fill out before each phase of their recruitment. Twister most likely didn’t answer any of them seriously and Spitfire didn’t have a problem with it?

“Get in line, you silly goose…” Little Star grabbed Twister and pumped her little wings to pick up his limp body and place him between her and Matteo.

Apparently not. Of course it only made Dash wonder where Twister was actually from. His little stories he kept pulling her into did little to actually tell her any specifics about his past. It was all about his experiences and how he came to be who he was.

“Ready up!” Spitfire yelled to the Wonderbolts as she pulled the mask portion of her flight suit up and over her head. Dash gulped as she looked at the rest of the elites, her eyes stopped on Soarin as he forced his suit mask further forward to fit the horn through the extra hole cut in it and then fitted his goggles into place.

“Oh gosh…” Dash’s body felt all tingly as she looked back at her squad. They were following the elites, putting on their masks and goggles.

Dash quickly forgot about anything else and frantically put on her mask and goggles, focusing on the fact that she would soon be out in front of thousands of pegasi, flying in formation as Spitfire talked about them. She hoped nothing would go wrong… which was a ridiculous thought because they were just FLYING IN A LARGE CIRCLE, but again… so many ponies.

“Okay, let’s get out there!” Spitfire called out as she pushed the door open and started trotting. The elites followed right behind. Dash started up with jittery steps, following right behind Storm, who brought up the rear of the elites.

They were moving through the tunnel much faster than Dash wanted to, but as she did, she found herself putting many things into perspective. She didn’t know what exactly sparked the thought. Maybe it was become no words were spoken as they moved. The line turned into two lines side by side, the squads walking two by two. Dash was walking beside Squall, with Star and Twister behind her and Matteo bringing up the rear.

It was something about the silent march towards the end of the tunnel. Something that felt… really cool. It made her think about the brighter side of what was about to happen as opposed to how nervous she was.

They were in Cloudsdale, the city she was born in. There was bound to be more than a few hundred ponies she had met and known at different times throughout her life ranging from classmates to teachers, sports teammates to coaches. For all she knew, her family, both close and extended might be here! It was short notice for her and her squad. She didn’t have time to let them know. But attending Wonderbolt shows was almost a routine in Cloudsdale… even the nosebleed seats were fought over at times. Just to be there and being a part of a great piece of pegasus culture meant something.

The thought of hundreds of ponies from her past suddenly witnessing her achievement made her feel giddy as opposed to nervous, but there was even more to it.

Walking in line with Wonderbolts through a tunnel leading to the arena, wearing the flight suit with the rest of them… The steady, even, synchronous clip-clopping of their hooves against the floor as they moved… It sent shivers down her spine. She was really a part of it now. She was really a Wonderbolt. This was why Spitfire wanted them to experience it. This is what they did. This was how it all worked from their perspective. Dash almost felt like crying, because all of her hard work and effort had paid off.

She had been named a Wonderbolt, but now she felt like a Wonderbolt. She was one of them. It was an incredible feeling that nopony would ever be able to take away from her.

They stepped off the hard floor onto the softer cloud surface and came to a halt right before the end of the tunnel, the sound of the crowd pouring in as Spitfire stepped in front and turned to them.

“Recruits, get up here!” Spitfire ordered. The elites all stood aside, allowing Dash, Squall, Star, Twister, and Matteo to step forward and stand before Spitfire. “I’m heading out to address the crowd. When I say ‘let’s hear it for recruit squad Foxtrot,’ that’s your cue to take off. I’ll be hovering level with the second spectator deck, make sure you are lined up with the third before you start flying around. Alright?”

“Yes, ma’am!” only four of them replied, but Spitfire didn’t notice.

“Let’s do this!” Spitfire clapped her hooves together. The rest of the elites gave out short whoops and cheers as Spitfire turned and walked towards the tunnel opening.

Spitfire hadn’t noticed, but Dash sure did. One voice was absent from acknowledging Spitfire’s orders. She turned around and noticed Squall sitting slightly further back than the rest of them. Star blinked as she saw Dash looking back and turned as well. Squall was looking down at the floor, he was gritting his teeth, taking sharp breaths, shivering, and sweating.

“Squall?” Dash asked as she stepped past Matteo. Matteo watched her go by and turned to look at Squall as well. “Squall, relax,” Dash quickly said as she quickly said. She was going to ask if something was wrong, but honestly, that was given with his body language. She stepped towards him and placed a hoof on his shoulder. “Squall, look at me…” Dash ordered, but Squall didn’t look. She sighed and contemplated what to do.

Before Dash could say anything else, Spitfire took off from the tunnel and flew out into the arena. The roar that erupted from the crowd was so loud that the whole building shook.

“Whoa…” Star commented as she stared out towards the crowd. They could see Spitfire from the tunnel, she flew up, waving around at the crowd as she made her way up and eventually disappeared from their site.

“W-w-w-we’re… about to g-go out th-there…” Squall suddenly stuttered, drawing Dash and Star’s attention back. “S-so… so many ponies…” he added as he continued to shiver and look down. Dash glanced back to the elites. They were all focused on watching Spitfire, who was still waving and waiting for the crowd to die down. All except for Storm, who was staring towards Squall, watching as he suddenly broke down into his anxious state.

“Squall,” Dash turned back. “Get a hold of yourself…” she said, trying to sound soft and stern. “We’ve gotta fly out there soon, we need you with us.”

Squall just shook his head. Star hovered up and grabbed his shoulder with her little hooves.

“Squall, you’re not going out there alone! You’re going with us! I’m nervous too, but please, I don’t want to go out there without you!” she pleaded.

Again, Squall just shook his head.

“Squall, she’s right, we need all of us here,” Dash tried to encourage him. “We made it through training together, so we can make it through this together too.”

“That’s right!” Star exclaimed as she hovered around and rested her hooves on his other shoulder. “We’re all friends now! We have to—”

“STOP CODDLING HIM!” Dash and Star flinched and froze. They turned their heads towards Matteo who was looking over his shoulder and glaring at them. Matteo’s eyes shifted to Squall, who was still looking down. He snorted and moved his eyes back to Dash and Star. “If he wants to be a coward, let him be a coward! Softening him up won’t do a thing. He has to face his fears himself or not face them at all. If he wants to forget everything he’s gone through in the past months and disregard the honor he’s earned… let him. It’s his loss. I’m flying out there with or without him.”

Dash and Star stared at Matteo as he turned back and shook his body out, cracking his neck as if eagerly awaiting the chance to fly out in front of the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlestallions!” Spitfire’s voice echoed throughout the stadium. “Welcome to Cloudsdale Arena!” she called out, earning another roar of cheers from the crowd.

Dash and Star looked back at Squall.

“We have a fun show for everypony today!” Spitfire continued.

Dash thought over everything Matteo had just said. She didn’t want to agree with him. But… he was right. They couldn’t baby Squall or sweet talk him into following them. After all… Squall wanted to be taken seriously, right? That was something he had to earn just as much as he wanted it.

“Star, leave him…” Dash said while turning her back to Squall.

“What?!” Star’s jaw dropped as she looked from Squall to Dash.

“We have two crowd favorite routines being performed by the lead squad and squad seven!” Spitfire continued outside.

“You heard me, leave him,” Dash repeated.

“But…” Star looked back at Squall.

“That’s an order!” Dash snapped at Star, causing her to flinch. Star bit her lip, looking back and forth between them before squeezing Squall’s shoulder once.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered to him before letting go and hovering after Dash.

Squall’s ears turned up as Star apologized and he looked up at Dash, Star, and Matteo moved away from him. They approached Twister, who had been doing ridiculous, ineffective pre-flight stretches by the tunnel exit since they arrived.

“After the routines, we will split into two teams and play a high speed game of wing-ball for your enjoyment! You haven’t seen sports until you’ve seen them played by Wonderbolts!” Spitfire rallied the crowd as more cheers erupted.

Squall flinched as another pony came into view. He looked up and stared directly into the eyes of Storm Front. Storm said nothing, he only glared at Squall. Squall looked right back into his eyes, at first doing nothing but staring. But the more he looked at Storm glaring at him the more he felt… angry. His expression changed from mortified to a scrunched-faced glare. Squall looked back towards his squad, then back at Storm.

“Well?” Storm spoke up. “Are you going to let them go without you?”

“Shut the hell up!” Squall hissed at Storm before standing up, fixing his eyes towards the end of the tunnel and slowly walking towards the recruits. Storm waited until Squall could no longer see him, before he exhaled and chuckled. He turned and walked back towards the elites, stepping up next to Soarin. Soarin glanced at Storm as he came back.

“Well done,” Soarin said, making Storm flinch. Storm looked towards Soarin, blinking.

“You saw?” Storm huffed. “Don’t get me wrong, I did it for them,” Storm pointed towards the recruit squad.

When Squall joined up with the rest of the recruits, Dash and Star both turned and greeted him energetically. Twister hopped up on his back and ruffled Squall’s mane roughly, but Squall didn’t do anything to retaliate. He acknowledged Dash and Star with nods and glanced up at Matteo. He locked eyes with the griffon briefly before the two focused on the tunnel exit.

“In addition we have a treat for you all today!” Spitfire continued.

“Yeah, I know you hate his guts,” Soarin smirked. “But don’t lie to me, I know you wanted to help him too,” Soarin nudged him. Storm remained silent. “A month ago… that was you,” Soarin added while pointing at Squall. "Nevrous and afraid. Now here you are, doing whatever you can to help and encourage others to be their best… you’re definitely a Wonderbolt, Storm,” Soarin finished as he focused on the recruit Squad again. Storm just smiled.

“We have brought along with us... the newest squad of our recruits! Fresh out of our training and ready for all of Equestria to see!” Spitfire called out.

“Ready guys?” Dash looked between all of them.

“Always,” Matteo replied simply.

“You betcha!” Star smiled while glancing up at Squall, clearly happy he joined them.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted, glancing down at Star as she smiled up at him.

“My body has been ready for longer than you can imagine!” Twister said as he bounced his eyebrows, his goggles shifted on and off of his eyes as he did.

“Music to my ears, guys!” Dash acknowledged them, feeling very revved up with everything falling into place. “We’ll take off side by side and shift right into the arrow formation!”

“I am proud to introduce these new additions to our ranks!” Spitfire called out while turning and looking down at the tunnel.

Dash glanced back at Soarin as her squad readied to fly. Soarin nodded and mouthed, ‘be proud.’

Dash flashed him a confident smile before looking back forward and setting her hooves firmly. She was about to go out there, and the whole crowd was going to see her.

“Let’s hear it for…” Spitfire began.

The only regret that Dash had at that moment…

Was that Silver Lining wasn’t there to see it.

“Recruit squad Foxtrot!” Spitfire called out.

“Go!” Dash yelled.

She pushed off and took to the air, Squall and Star on her right, Twister and Matteo to her left. They emerged from the tunnel and within seconds were nearly deafened by the roar of the crowd. It was a mixed noise of cheers, and a few sounds of awe, probably because of Matteo.

They rose up and as they did, Dash took in the view of thousands of spectators looking towards them from all directions. Her heart began to beat like crazy in her chest, but it was from an incredible rush of excitement that filled her chest as they rose up higher than Spitfire and ceased their ascent once they reached the third deck level.

Spitfire continued as they shifted into the arrow formation seamlessly and began a slow circle around the stadium.

“Check them out, Cloudsdale!” Spitfire yelled while motioning to the recruits. “First we have… the tiny pony with a big heart! Little Star from Whinneyapolis!”

Star squealed delightfully as she fluttered her wings, allowing her to turn around and wave giddily while keeping pace with the rest.

“An impressive martial artist you’ll never want to cross! Hailing from the Crystal Empire… Squall!” Spitfire called next.

Squall just grunted. Dash glanced back at him without breaking formation.

“Squall, wave at the fans,” she said.

“Ngh…” Squall groaned.

“Squall, that’s an order,” Dash said with a chuckle.

“Nnnnnngggghhhhhh…” Squall groaned louder before giving a few waves and going right back to just flying.

“A silly pony who doesn’t give me straight answers when I ask him where he’s from! But he’s got some random, awesome moves! Twister!”

Twister laughed maniacally, breaking formation briefly to twist about in the air and blow kisses to the fans. Dash rose up and tugged him back into place by the tail.

“I’m sure you’re all looking at him, and hey, it’s hard not to cause he’s massive and just as strong as he looks! A unique recruit and our very first griffon Wonderbolt, all the way from the Griffon Kingdom, Matteo!” Spitfire announced.

Lots of oo’s and ah’s came amongst the cheers as Matteo looked left and right while waving to the fans, of course not breaking his serious glare even though he was enjoying himself.

“Last but not least!” Spitfire began. “A spunky mare with a colorful rainbow mane… a tough talking, rough playing mare… from Ponyville, but born and raised here in the city of Cloudsdale… Captain of recruit squad Foxtrot… Rainbow Dash!”

The crowd roared even louder than it had for the rest as Dash waved her arms happily at all the spectators. The reception she received was amazing! Hearing that one of Cloudsdale’s very own daughters had recently become a Wonderbolt electrified the crowd, it seemed.

“Let’s hear it for our newest Wonderbolts!” Spitfire rallied the crowd as squad Foxtrot began their third and final pass around the arena. They smiled and waved as the crowd cheered for them, soaking up the attention and newfound fame that came with being a part of the Wonderbolts. It was a bit overwhelming, but in a very positive way.

Dash glanced towards Spitfire after they finished their third round and saw her wave. Dash kept her eyes on Spitfire as she motioned back down to the tunnel. Dash nodded and saluted.

“Alright guys, time to let the elites do their thing. Full pitch left, head for the tunnel!” Dash ordered as they turned and descended.

Dash’s heart continued to beat furiously as they approached the tunnel, the goofiest of goofy smiles stuck to her face and showed no sign of leaving.

“Squad seven will be performing first!” Spitfire continued addressing the crowd. “Sit tight, Cloudsdale! They will be out shortly!”

Dash landed in the tunnel and immediately turned to look at her squad.

“THAT WAS SO COOL!” she exclaimed while bouncing up and down. Little Star quickly trotted up to Dash after landing and matched Dash’s bouncing.

“I KNOW!” she agreed happily as the two mares smiled like idiots at each other. Dash glanced at Matteo, who walked in casually as if completely unfazed, before looking at Squall, who exhaled sharply, as if relieved. She didn’t even bother looking at Twister. She knew what he would be doing.

“How did that feel?” Soarin asked as he stepped forward. There was an eager smirk on his face as if he wanted to hear Dash go crazy. Dash saw that very look, and shot him a snide grin.

“Eh, I’ve had bigger receptions,” she joked while waving her hoof at him. Her composure broke in an instant though. She set her hooves on the floor, bent down slightly, and her pupils grew two sizes. “Who the hell am I kidding?! That… was… SO… AWESOME!” she almost squeaked.

Soarin couldn’t help but laugh as Dash’s smugness broke faster than he could reply. He could see just how giddy she was and he was loving it. He could remember his first dose of crowd applause and it was a moment he would never forget.

“Hey! Way to knock the crowd dead!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she walked up and jabbed Dash in the shoulder. “I heard that cheer! Cloudsdale loves their home grown Wonderbolts, but damn! They really gave it up for you!” she complimented as Air Mach suddenly rushed up and leaned so heavily against her that she fell over.

“The great Animack acknowledges the crowd pleasing ability of the Rainbow Dash!” he said, and that was all he got to say before Fleetfoot got up and started yelling at him to no avail.

“I will admit,” Soarin began as he ignored the scuffle between Fleetfoot and Air Mach behind him. “That was quite a cheer, sounds like the fans are really proud of you, as are all of us,” Soarin said with a smile as Dash felt her cheeks heat up.

It was Soarin, she was so used to him by now that blushing wasn’t as frequent, but that didn’t stop him from being one of the top Wonderbolts and compliments like that from ponies like HIM made her blush regardless. She looked up at him but quickly saw that he wasn’t looking at her. She blinked and followed his eyes to Squall.

Dash locked onto Squall and noticed that he was walking directly at Storm. Dash’s instincts told her to move in and intercept before anything stupid could happen, but the look on Squall’s face was different. Storm was getting ready to take off and didn’t see Squall approach. Squall suddenly bumped into him deliberately. Actually, he nearly dropped his shoulder into Storm. Storm grunted in surprise and was forced to step back, but when he turned to look at Squall, Squall was already walking away.

“Huh?” Storm blinked in confusion, unsure what to make of what Squall just did, but Dash tipped her head and thought about it. Squall had weird ways of showing how he felt about things. He just went up and slightly rammed Storm without saying a word… perhaps that was his ‘unique’ way of showing thanks? Dash saw no other explanation, but it was hard to ‘explain’ Squall at all.

“Ready up guys, we’re on!” Point Dex shouted to squad seven, as Spitfire landed in the tunnel.

Dash watched as squad seven gathered near the entrance. She specifically watched Storm. He looked a little nervous, but more controlled than anything. He mentioned this was his fourth or fifth show, Dash couldn’t remember, but it looked like he was falling into place. He listened carefully to Dex and lined up without any sign of jitters or nerves before he and squad seven took off into the arena.

Dash stepped up beside Soarin to watch near the edge of the tunnel. She wanted to see everything for herself. She got a taste of the crowd, now she wanted to watch a show in progress right from the very tunnel they entered from.

Squad seven’s performance was amazing. A synchronized flight show that included many intense maneuvers that created some cool effects with smoke trails. As Spitfire had said, they were performing old ‘crowd favorite’ shows. Dash had never seen squad seven’s routine before, but it was definitely understandable why the crowd loved it.

What she wasn’t expecting was when the lead squad took the stage…

“Dash?” Little Star spoke up as Dash took a step forward and stared with wide eyes out into the arena. “What’s up?” Star tried asking again, but Dash was too focused.

“I… I know what they’re doing!” Dash exclaimed, not to answer Star, but just because the way the lead squad lined up on a cloud above the arena was familiar… very familiar.

All the spectators went silent as all the members of the lead squad except for Soarin tipped backwards and let themselves freefall. All watched in anticipation as they grew closer and closer to the cloud floor of the arena, their wings still pinned to their body. With a loud bang that resembled a thunderclap, all eyes looked back up to see Soarin fire from his spot using the Sonic Blastoff, causing the cloud to explode. Mere yards from the cloud, an air pocket built up and shattered around him in seconds and Soarin’s image became a blur. He began twisting as he approached his squadmates. The spinning and the speed created a small cyclone that expanded around him. The winds were fierce, forcing all the spectators to shield themselves as the winds whipped and whirled around the arena.

The cyclone expanded and engulfed Spitfire, Fleetfoot and Air Mach. The instant the cone overtook them, they all spread their wings and forced themselves opposite of the cyclonic winds. It made them appear to be flying in place. The reverse in the force caused the cyclone to implode on itself and the three other members were thrown in three different directions, streaking through the air. The reverse of the winds cushioned Soarin enough for him to land roughly, but safely on all four hooves on the clouds below. He fixed his eyes on Spitfire, who angled down as Air Mach and Fleetfoot angled up. His nostrils flared, his wings spread out sharply and he dug his hooves into the clouds.

Soarin bent his wings forward while leaning back. His muscles flexed and tensed as he gritted his teeth. In one fluid motion, he reached his front legs forward, planting them firmly in the ground. Then he brought his back legs up, as he drove them down, he pushed off his front legs, extending his body, and swinging his wings back. With this motion complete, he pushed hard off his back legs before the previous motions could carry him forward, executing a perfect Sonic Blastoff.

Soarin fired from his spot and careened along the cloud floor, the clouds flattening and splitting as he shot over them. He reached Spitfire as she flattened out right above the cloud floor. She reached her front legs up. Soarin hooked his hooves with hers as he passed by and pulled up fiercely into a loop. Halfway through the loop, he released her, the added speed pushing her to his speed. Spitfire smirked as she sharply struck two flint pads together on her back hooves, sparking a flame that erupted behind her and streaked from her body as a blazing trail of fire. Fleetfoot and Air Mach had been flying in loops, creating a tunnel with their smoke trails. Spitfire careened through the center, leaving a trail of flames in the middle of it.

Soarin put on the brakes, and slammed to the clouds once more. He executed the Sonic Blastoff again, rocketing like a loosed arrow towards Spitfire, directly into the trail of fire. The crowd gasped as he pulled off the daredevil tactic, but the flames blew aside, expanding into rings every few feet as he pulsed through the trail. He reached the tunnel and his speed caused the smoke to collapse inward as the fire expanded outward. The heat of the fire collided with the clouds of smoke, causing a chain reaction of a lightning bolt that traveled along the length behind Soarin. There was an immense crack of thunder behind him and he emerged from the smoke with a trail of lightning rising from and surrounding his body. Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and Spitfire all pushed dark clouds together to create a single, large dark cloud and together tossed it higher into the sky. Soarin went after it as it raised higher and higher, the lightning sparking and crackling as it trailed from him.

He collided head on into the cloud. The electricity spread throughout it and a lightning bolt jutted out, followed by a crack of thunder, and a light drizzle began to fall. A light, pleasant rain touched the faces of all the spectators gently as they stared in awe at the lead squad.

Soarin exploded from the back of the cloud and turned about, stopping beneath the rain. There was still some electricity coursing around him. He threw his wings and legs outward, forcing the energy out of his body with a few crackles and pops around him. The four Wonderbolts all slowly glided down and congregated on the ground.

They all removed their goggles and took a bow.

“Oh my gosh…” Dash said as she held a hoof to her heart.

That show… a crowd favorite? She was glad it was, because that show was special to her.

It was the show the lead squad performed in Ponyville a year ago. The first Wonderbolt show she saw up close and showed her just how hard she would have to work to match them… The show after which she and Soarin officially met and became friends.

Seeing the show again from the view of a Wonderbolt waiting for their turn was… well, Dash never thought she’d experience that feeling. Her smile grew even wider as the crowd erupted in enormous applause that shook the whole stadium, and the lead squad headed back toward the tunnel.

Soarin smiled as he flew beside his squadmates and came in for a landing. Dash’s face was beaming so much it was almost like she was guiding them in like a landing strip. Soarin landed and whipped his head back and forth, shaking droplets of rain from his mane.

“Look familiar?” Soarin asked Dash as he approached her. Her eyes were wide and she was bouncing. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Soarin chuckled as Dash’s squadmates kept looking at her quizzically.

“Look alive, Wonderbolts,” Spitfire chimed in before Dash could say anything. Spitfire walked in, shaking her mane dry as well. “We have a fifteen minute intermission, then the wing ball game. Use the bathroom, do whatever you’ve got to do now, because we’re going to be out there for an hour or so,” she explained and the rest of the elites nodded. Soarin turned back to Dash, but Spitfire stepped up.

“Dash,” Spitfire spoke first. Soarin shut his mouth and backed up, slightly frustrated. He knew Dash was giddy about seeing the old show and he wanted to talk to her about it, but Dash DID have an important job approaching. In effect, it was her first mission, so Soarin let Spitfire go in without protest or interruption. Dash herself quickly swallowed her excitement and cleared her throat.

“Ma’am?” Dash acknowledged her.

“We need eyes peeled in all directions at all times during this game. We will be completely distracted, so I hope I don’t have to remind you that we are relying on you and your squad to keep an eye out. Figure out and do what you must to keep surveillance efficient, but…” Spitfire sternly held her hoof up towards Dash. “Remember who we are dealing with. Take precautions to consider your squad’s safety as well. If the Shadowbolt appears, pursue, DON’T engage. If he fights, then fight back, but don’t instigate it. Just keep him busy until we can catch up and we’ll do the fighting, understand?”

Dash was about to reply robotically, but she stopped and tipped her head at Spitfire. She didn’t want her and the rest of squad Foxtrot to engage the Shadowbolt in combat? Did Spitfire forget that Dash fought Nightshade alongside Soarin? She was more capable than Spitfire was giving her credit for.

“But, Captain I—”

“UNDERSTAND?!” Spitfire repeated while leaning forward and glaring into Dash’s face. Dash gritted her teeth and nodded.

“Loud and clear, ma’am,” Dash said while holding attention.

“Good, we’re counting on you guys,” Spitfire added as she turned and walked down the tunnel towards the waiting room. Soarin remained near Dash as the two watched Spitfire walk away. Fleetfoot stepped up in between them and glanced between Spitfire and Dash before shaking her head and glancing at Soarin.

“Something tells me you only partially removed the twenty yard metal pole stuck up her ass,” she said with a sigh. Soarin looked down and nodded.

“She calmed down, but Spitfire is Spitfire, you know that as well as I do,” he grunted in frustration. Fleetfoot started giggling, drawing Soarin’s attention.

“Where’s Wave Chill when you need him?” Fleetfoot said while forcing the giggles down. “I bet a chilled quickie would loosen her up a bit!”

“Fleet!” Soarin snorted loudly while bending down slightly. “Well, not like I don’t agree…”

“Exactly!” Fleet said with a wink before looking at Dash. She blinked as she looked Dash over. “Speaking of loosening up, you feeling alright?” she asked. Dash was looking straight down, looked very stiff, and didn’t seem very aware of what was going on directly around her at the moment. She was clearly in deep thought, she didn’t even snicker at Fleetfoot’s joke. “Dash?” Fleetfoot waved a hoof in front of Dash’s face.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and looked up into the eyes of Soarin and Fleetfoot, staring at her with concern. Soarin tipped his head slightly as he examined his mare.

“Thinking about your mission?” Soarin asked, hitting a bull’s-eye immediately.

“Yes,” Dash huffed as her tail whipped to the side once. “You know, just worried about screwing up… and the other things Spitfire just dropped on me as well,” she groaned as she rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “I thought I shook the nerves and now they’re all back.”

Indeed, she had a lot going through her head. She was a new recruit being trusted with an important mission. She had to keep her squadmates safe while also using an effective surveillance pattern. Everything by itself didn’t feel like much, but with them all stacked together, she felt a little overwhelmed. Soarin was about to comfort her, but Fleetfoot stepped up before he could. He scrunched his face and puffed his cheeks out because he got denied again, but perhaps outside encouragement would be more effective here. Dash had heard his encouragement hundreds of times by now, maybe even thousands.

“Hey,” Fleetfoot stepped up to Dash. “Hey,” she placed her hooves on Dash’s shoulders. “Hey, look at me,” Fleetfoot ordered as Dash blinked and looked directly at Fleetfoot. “Take a deep breath, relax, and focus. You will do FINE,” she stated strongly. “You’ve been through a lot of shit with us Dash, even though you’ve only just become a Wonderbolt, I don’t think I’d trust anypony else with this. You know the Shadowbolts well, so you’ve got my vote of confidence, ‘kay?” Fleetfoot winked. “I’m gonna have fun in this wing-ball game cause I know you’ve got our backs.”

Dash just stared for a moment before smiling. Leave it to Fleetfoot to brighten her mood.

“Thanks Fleet, I won’t let you down,” Dash said while nodding with confident eyes.

“Good!” Fleetfoot suddenly pulled her over towards Soarin. “Now you’ve got ten minutes to rub yourself all over the best princess here before we’re out there for an hour, don’t let me stop you! Spandex on spandex gives for nice, smooth encounters you know!” she giggled as she forced Dash’s face into Soarin’s chest and started shifting her up and down.

“Hey!” Soarin chuckled as Dash uttered muffled words of confusion against his flight suit. He grabbed Dash with his right arm and pulled her away. “Alright you, scram!” Soarin playfully shouted at Fleetfoot as his magic came to life. Fleetfoot turned and tried to escape, but Soarin shot a low powered beam of magic from the horn towards her that struck her right in the plot.

“YEEAI!” Fleetfoot yelped as she jumped and started galloping away while giggling.

“Blah!” Dash finally removed her mouth from Soarin’s chest. “Your suit tastes like rainwater and sweat…” she said as she let her tongue hang out in disgust.

“I don’t doubt that,” Soarin smirked as the two looked up and locked eyes. Fleet had just given Dash a great pep-talk, but Soarin refused to go without at least one word. “Fleet’s right, Dash. Spitfire’s just doing her job as our lead captain. If she wasn’t hard and stern, we wouldn’t be as great as we are,” he placed a hoof on her shoulder and gave it a gentle rub. “Just get out there and keep an eye out. I know you’ll do well.”

“You bet your ass, I will,” Dash smirked confidently at him. Soarin grinned.

“That’s what I wanna hear!” Soarin gave her a light jab. He glanced up and saw squad Foxtrot conversing with squad seven as they all headed towards the waiting rooms. “Come on,” he gave a head motion. “We’ve got to get ready.”

Dash nodded and followed beside Soarin as they moved back towards the waiting room for the brief break in between the show and the game. Dash began to focus as they moved. She had to think carefully and consider everything Spitfire had said. After all, she was in charge of this operation and responsible for the well-being of squad Foxtrot. She had to approach it carefully.

“Let’s go, Wonderbolts!” Spitfire called behind her as she approached the end of the tunnel. She gave one look at Dash in the back of the group and gave a nod before taking off. The crowd roared to life as Spitfire made her way out again. Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach stepped up, putting their goggles on as they readied their wings. Soarin looked back and flashed a smile at Dash before the three of them took off as well.

“Good luck,” Storm said to Dash with a smile before he walked up beside squad seven and they took off as well.

Dash barely heard or saw any of it, because she was as ready as she was going to be, and raring to brief her squad. She turned to Matteo, Squall, Star, and Twister. All of them were already looking at her as if anticipating it. They were all aware of what was being asked of them, and it seemed the little fly-by before the show had given them a much needed, all around confidence boost.

Perhaps… that’s exactly why Spitfire had them do it.

“Okay, listen up,” Dash began. “You all know what we’ve been asked to do, we’re to get out there and survey the arena as the elite squads appear to be distracted by their game. Our main target, should he show himself, is the Shadowbolt we saw in the blimp yesterday. However, if we happen to see another pony wearing the headband and goggles, the same rules apply, Matteo gives the eagle cry and we pursue until the elites catch up. Now, as for how we’re going to survey the area, this is my plan,” she paused, looking specifically at Matteo.

“The Shadowbolts are dangerous, so I’m worried about us flying around alone. Because of this we will break into two pairs,” she said as she kept looking at Matteo. Squall blinked and looked around.

“But there are—”

“Five of us, I know,” Dash finished for him. "This is not an insult to anypony here, but the only one I have absolutely no worries about being ambushed is Matteo,” she said while turning and facing Matteo directly. “As a griffon, he already has sharper sight and hearing than we do, so I trust he’ll be able to warn us before anything bad happens to him, should he come under attack,” Dash glanced at Squall who looked peeved. “Swallow your pride, Squall,” Dash quickly remarked. “You do realize I’m including MYSELF in the vulnerable category?”

“Hmph,” Squall grunted as Dash continued.

“Plus, I want Matteo up as high as he possibly can be. Either perched or circling, I don’t care. I just need you at a high altitude vantage point where you can use your eagle eyes. Sound good?” Dash asked Matteo, who nodded in response.

“A fine plan,” he agreed.

“Good,” Dash nodded, the rest of us will be split into pairs. Two of us will fly circles around the upper decks. The other two will fly around the lower decks. “Twister and Little Star? You two will have the lower decks. Squall and I will circle around the upper.”

“What? But…” Squall suddenly chimed in. All eyes landed on him. He slammed his mouth shut and blinked with wide eyes. His pupils darted around, catching all four other sets of eyes.

“Got an objection, Squall?” Dash asked curiously.

“Um…” he glanced at all of them again, glancing at Little Star twice. “No…” he finished with a huff. Dash lifted an eyebrow before shrugging and looking back at all of them. They all refocused on her, except for Squall who stole a glance at Little Star. Something that Dash noticed clearly, but let it be. They had a job to do.

“Sounds like we have everything squared away then,” she nodded. “Oh, and,” Dash spoke up once more and pointed at all of them. “If anypony besides Matteo sees a Shadowbolt, look up at him and…” Dash blinked. “And… uh…” she looked at Matteo. “What signal should we give you?”

“Signal?” Matteo reached a talon up and brushed it under the tip of his beak. “Hmm…”

“Flail our arms legs and hooves like a maniac?” Twister suddenly broke his silence and suggested. Dash and Matteo glanced at each other. Dash shrugged.

“Would that work? I mean, what else would stand out?” she chuckled.

“That would be fine…” Matteo nodded before glaring at Twister. “As long as you don’t do it to mess with me,” he snorted at Twister.

“WOULDN’T DREAM OF IT!” Twister snickered, but Dash quickly pressed her hoof hard against him.

“Please be serious about this, Twister,” she said sternly. “Go wild later, right now we need to buckle down and do this right,” she demanded. Twister was nodding excessively with a strange smile before she even got halfway through her sentence. “Alright everypony, last thing… if we end up chasing a Shadowbolt, DON’T engage them, just chase. Only fight if they attack us first. This is a direct order from Spitfire, we are to buy time for the elites to come in and take control of the situation. Understand?” Dash said in a similar manner to Spitfire’s. They all nodded in response, so Dash had no need to repeat.

“Good,” Dash turned and pushed her flight goggles down. “Looks like they are about to start… squad Foxtrot, let’s fly!” Dash gave the order. The rest put down their goggles, they all spread their wings, and they took off into the arena, quickly pitching upward to stay out of the crowd’s focus.

Art by: eveyannie

Their first mission was underway.

“I’m open! I’m open!” Fleetfoot yelled while dodging Lead Runner and waving her hooves. Storm looked towards her while cradling a volley ball in his right wing. He was floating upward and about to start falling. He whipped his body around, ready to fire the ball off his wing, but as soon as he let it go, Air Mach shot upward while twisting his body.

“PAH!” Air Mach yelled out as his wing whipped around and swatted the ball downward. Spitfire zipped along below and pumped her wing hard to propel herself upward as she snatched the ball from its fall in her left wing.

“Shoot!” Fleetfoot growled as she came around and went after Spitfire. Using her superior speed, Fleetfoot slowly caught up to Spitfire, who floated with a little difficulty towards the floating, circular, seven foot wide goal. “Gotcha!” Fleetfoot yelled triumphantly as she reached for Spitfire’s leg, but right before she could grab, Lead Runner propelled from below and rammed his body into Fleet, knocking her off course.

“Sorry, hun!” he joked as he disrupted her balance.

Spitfire fixed her eyes on the goal and the goalkeeper. She spun around six times before launching the ball as hard as she could and re-catching the air with her wings. The ball zipped through the air at blinding speeds, but as it neared the upper right corner of the goal…

“NOPE!” Soarin shot up, reached out one of his large wings, and snatched the ball right out of the air, turning with it and firing it back down the playing field towards Fleetfoot, who was already going long. A loud roar of excitement erupted from the crowd as Soarin pulled off the skilled maneuver followed by clapping and cheering.

“RGH!” Spitfire snorted in frustration as Soarin bounced his eyebrows at her. “One of these days, I’m scoring on your ass!” Spitfire hissed at him before she turned and rejoined the game before Fleetfoot could score on Macho Savage… again.

“In your dreams, Spitster!” Soarin yelled towards her as she flew off.

“Hmmm…” Dash mumbled to herself as she stole a brief glance at the game below. She loved wing-ball, it was one of her favorite sports.

Wing-ball was played with two team of four to eight players a time. It was kind of like airborne version of soccer, played using the wings and a volley ball. The point of the game was to score on the floating circular goals that were about seven feet wide that was guarded by a goalkeeper. One was only allowed to use their wings to hold onto the ball, which made it difficult to fly or glide when in possession of it. This forced teams to work together and pass the ball frequently if they wanted to advance it towards the other goal quickly and efficiently.

Just as with dodge ball, wing-ball looked so much more intense and fast paced when played by the Wonderbolts. Dash almost couldn’t see the ball when Spitfire whipped it at Soarin, but it looked like Soarin was well known for being an impenetrable goalkeeper. Fleetfoot could get down the field for long passes quickly due to her speed, and Air Mach was good at getting in your face and deflecting passes.

Due to Soarin’s masterful goalkeeping, the team of Soarin, Fleetfoot, Storm Front, and Point Dex was ahead two to… three to nothing since Fleetfoot just scored on Macho Savage again. They probably would be up by more, but Point Dex was a bit of dead weight. He didn’t seem like the sporting type, and spent more time camping the defensive end of the field instead of pressing forward with Fleetfoot and Storm. Yet even there, he completely whiffed when trying to stop Spitfire more than once.

Dash shook her head out and tapped her hooves against her head as she refocused on the crowd and scanning every inch of the upper decks. As much as she wanted to play wing-ball, she had to remain focused on their task.

She glanced up towards the top of the stadium. Matteo had perched up on one of the beams that held the light fixtures, which was definitely the highest point possible. He was looking back and forth, keeping an eye on everything with his eagle vision.

Dash looked down to see Little Star and Twister flying around the lower decks in the opposite direction that she and Squall were flying.

Dash nodded contently. With Matteo keeping a literal bird’s-eye view and a general outlook from above, and with the rest of them combing specific areas… if there was a Shadowbolt hiding somewhere here, they’d find it. Dash had a knack for spotting specific things down below, and she was sure the rest of the ponies in her squad were the same.

“Come at me, bro!” Fleetfoot yelled as she shot up past Dash and Squall, the ball tucked in her wing as she blew raspberries at Air Mach giving chase.

“THE BRO IS COMING AT YA!” Air Mach yelled as Fleetfoot arced and dropped back down, Air Mach pursuing.

Dash and Squall both blinked and watched them fall. It was really hard not to watch the wing-ball game though because the Wonderbolts made EVERYTHING ten times as awesome.

Dash sighed and went back to scanning their area. As they made another pass and Twister and Star passed beneath them, Dash noticed Squall watch the lower group pass before resuming his surveillance. Dash smirked as she kept looking around. She hadn’t forgotten his reaction after she decided on who was flying with who.

“I haven’t seen anything yet…” Dash began casually. “What about you, Squall?” she asked as they continued to glide side by side.

“Ngh…” Squall grunted. Dash lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Is that a yes or a—?” she asked.

“No,” Squall said quickly and flatly. Dash folded her ears back and huffed as Squall continued to look around, but not at her. But she’d get him back in a moment. She just wanted a brief silence to sink in before…

“So you wanted to fly with Star, huh? What’s wrong with me?” she smirked slightly as she looked back and forth. She glanced at Squall as he stiffened and lost his flight balance for a moment. He quickly caught the air with his wings again and looked towards Dash sharply.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” he growled at her. Dash blinked at the sharp response. That was one of the most passionate responses he had gotten out of her in a long time.

“Whoa!” Dash chuckled. “Never mind… never mind…” she kept giggling to herself with a sneer.

“Answer me,” Squall suddenly demanded.

“Excuse me?” Dash blinked and looked back towards him.

“You heard me…” Squall growled at her. Dash rolled her eyes.

“Squall, I was just teasing you,” she said calmly. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just wanted to see how you’d react.”

“But…” Squall suddenly blushed and gritted his teeth.

“Having a preference of one pony over another is perfectly fine Squall, there’s nothing wrong with that. Star’s a little sweetheart, I can see how you might like being around her,” Dash said as she continued to survey the area.

“Mrrrrggggnnhgghhghghgggggrrrrrrrr…” Squall released a long, loud grumble. Dash snickered, holding in a laugh the best she could. Squall couldn’t hide it forever. He cared about them, he really did. He was finally beginning to return some of the friendliness they had shown him despite his lack of positive response. Dash was getting a little bit of a guilty pleasure watching Squall flail to understand why he cared, but it was new to him. He’d warm up to it more and more over time. They just had to keep treating him with respect. That was what he sought after all.

“Just keep up the surveillance,” Dash chuckled as she noticed Squall looking down and blushing in embarrassment. “I promise I won’t tell anypony you have a heart,” she said with a chuckle. Squall’s head shot up and he glared at her. She looked back with a smile. His ears flopped down, realizing she was just teasing again, grumbled and went back to looking around.

It was a good thing that they had done so many endurance drills with Silver… because the game went on for an hour. Spitfire’s team managed to rework their defense and stopped Fleetfoot from scoring after her fifth goal. But they never got a ball past Soarin, he was too good in the goal.

Both during the halfway break and right as the game ended, Spitfire looked up towards Dash… and alas, Dash could only shrug.

Because despite their elaborate plan to keep the crowd and all edges of the arena under constant watch, there was absolutely no sign of the Shadowbolt.

Dash and the rest of squad Foxtrot saw nothing out of the ordinary. Something that was a possible outcome, but with how much trust Spitfire had placed in her, Dash began to worry she may have slipped up. It didn’t help that Spitfire sounded frustrated upon Dash reporting to her in the tunnel, and the fact that she turned Dash away and said she would get her report after they made their way up to the VIP penthouse and made their appearance.

Dash began to worry that she had screwed up.

“Hey kids! Told ya we’d be back!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she was the first through the door into the penthouse spectator box, her goggles and mask removed. The kids all cheered as Fleetfoot hopped in and instantly gathered around her, smiling. Soarin was behind her, but nearly run over by Spitfire as he tried to enter. Spitfire quickly stepped around Soarin and made a quick right and moved towards some of the other important VIP guests that had been invited to the penthouse post-show.

Soarin chuckled and shook his head at how quickly Spitfire avoided the kids, using the guise of having more important guests to attend to. Sure, the mayor of Cloudsdale was there, a few high ups from some of their sponsors, and some upper class Cloudsdale citizens… but she was using it as an excuse to avoid the kids, she couldn’t fool Soarin.

More power to her, Soarin was much more interested in inspiring youth than he was in answering generally stupid questions. It was like a miniature version of the Grand Galloping Gala with most of their VIPs. Plus, he wanted to avoid talking about the fake horn, and after Swift Gale didn’t say a word about it, Soarin was much more interested in mingling with the children like Fleet, although he didn’t know if he was going to get a chance. The Wonderbolts were still slowly filing into the room and Fleetfoot already had the kids smiling, giggling, and even climbing on her back.

Soarin simply removed his goggles and mask and stood nearby with a friendly smile on his face. A couple of the kids approached him and said hi, but were quickly drawn back in by Fleetfoot.

With a brief moment, Soarin looked around the penthouse box. It wasn’t the first time he had been in it, having had many shows in Cloudsdale. It was a wide open room with a ten foot ceiling that had a few cloud pillars placed about to give it a ‘fancy’ look. There were tables and comfortable chairs along the walls and a large balcony with a few cushioned bleacher seats that looked out into the arena. They had some food set out for them in the center of the room this time, but it wasn’t anything Soarin would call a meal. Little snacks for the kids on one table and on another a buffet set up with some fruit, veggies, and little sandwiches that looked like fish or chicken. Soarin felt like just waiting for dinner later instead of loading up on catered food.

“FOOD!” Air Mach shouted as he galloped past Soarin with Macho Savage close behind.

“THE MADNESS IS ALWAYS HUNGRY!” Savage yelled as they ran past and started scarfing down the little sandwiches.

“Hey, hey, kids, don’t look at them,” Fleetfoot spoke up. Soarin glanced over and saw Fleetfoot diverting their attention away from Air Mach and Macho Savage being slobs. “Those ponies are dummies,” she said while rolling her eyes. Soarin smiled as he watched Fleetfoot effortlessly handle the kids, and then turned to see Point Dex and Lead Runner enter as well. Both were quickly approached by the VIPs, drawing them away. Storm was right behind them, but left alone upon entry. He looked around, removed, his headgear, and started lingering. Soarin was about to go to him, but was interrupted.

“Soawin?”

Soarin’s ears perked up. He happily looked down at Swift Gale, standing before him while bouncing again. Soarin gave him a big smile and a pat on the shoulder.

“Hey Gale!” Soarin nodded, his casual use of Gale’s name making the colt smile so wide it looked like his face might break. Soarin noticed that once again, Gale was the only one that broke away to talk to him. There was nothing wrong with Fleetfoot being the center of attention with the kids, but Soarin envied her ability to instantly be the favorite and draw all the attention. He liked kids as much as she did, but she had an edge on him on the instantaneous charisma. “Did you like the show?” Soarin asked, Gale’s bubbly demeanor making Soarin melt by the second.

“Ya! It was so awesome!” he cheered happily while hopping up and down.

“What was your favorite part?” Soarin asked while sitting down and giving Gale his full attention.

“Wing-ball!” he replied with gusto as he crouched down and flapped his wings twice. “I wish I could pway that good!” he said with admiration. “You were da best goawkeeper ever!”

“Haha, thanks buddy! Playing goalkeeper is my favorite!” Soarin kept talking casually. He glanced up at Gale’s mother standing nearby. She looked so happy to see Gale having the time of his life. Soarin smiled and waved at her while pointing down at Gale and mouthing the words ‘cute kid’ as Gale kept hopping up and down while telling Soarin all about how much he loved wing-ball.

Soarin looked up in a brief break in the moment to spot Storm still lingering. He decided to do something about it.

“Hey, Storm!” Soarin called over, getting Storm’s attention. “Come meet my little buddy here!” he waved. Storm looked down at Gale and smiled, remembering the scene he saw before the show started. He didn’t want to interrupt the little reunion Dash and Soarin had with Gale earlier, but now looked like a great time to get involved. It was probably the only way he’d get involved too, since Gale was the only kid not attached to Fleetfoot.

“What’s up?” Storm said as he removed his mask and goggles, smiling down at Gale. Gale’s eyes shifted to Storm and widened as if he didn’t expect to have two Wonderbolts giving him attention. Soarin draped an arm over Storm’s shoulder and pointed to him with the opposite hoof.

“Gale, this is my buddy, Storm Front,” Soarin began with a slight smirk, planning to blatantly embarrass Storm in a harmless way. “They didn’t announce him with the others, but he’s actually a new Wonderbolt too! He worked so hard that he was let right into one of the best squads! Isn’t that awesome?” Soarin was clearly hamming it up for Gale.

“WHOA!” Gale’s jaw dropped and he took a step towards Storm. “That’s so cool! Awmost as cool as Soawin!” he exclaimed. Soarin had to hold in the laughter as Storm snickered, blushed and let his ears flop down, looking at Soarin and clearly noticing how hard Soarin was holding it in. Kids say the best things so innocently.

“I doubt I’ll ever be as cool as Soarin here,” Storm said while gigving Soarin a nudge before focusing on Gale again. “But I’ll try! Always try your hardest, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, give it your all,” Storm said as he bent down and winked at Gale.

“Yes Siwr!” Gale did a sloppy salute and almost lost his balance as he did it.

Soarin observed Storm as being pretty good with kids as well. It didn’t surprise him, since Storm always talked about his father and how hard his father tried for him. He was sure Storm tried to emulate that every day of his life.

Soarin looked up as he heard a bunch of tiny gasps followed by scampering. Squad Foxtrot had arrived and were making their way into the penthouse box, looking around and taking in the surroundings. Soarin looked over by Fleetfoot to see them all hiding behind her and peeking out around and beneath her legs, staring directly at Matteo as he trudged by. He paid no mind to the kids being afraid to him as if he expected it to happen. Some of the kids were staring wide eyed at him, others looked scared.

Squall quickly found a corner to brood in, looking like something was on his mind. Star and Twister went for the food, but Dash walked right by Soarin and out to the balcony overlooking the arena. Something looked wrong, Dash looked worried. Soarin’s instincts kicked in, seeing his mare in distress so he looked down and patted Gale on the shoulder.

“Hey Gale, I’ll be right back, I gotta check up on my other friend,” he said with a smile before tapping Storm on the shoulder. “Ask Storm about when he tried out for the Wonderbolts,” Soarin suggested, looking for a way to keep Gale occupied while he went to check on Dash.

“Oh, that’s an interesting story…” Storm began, Gale’s eyes locked on him, eagerly awaiting story time with a Wonderbolt.

With the situation secure, Soarin quickly stepped away and trotted towards the balcony. His eyes locked on Dash as she sat down on one of the seats and released a heavy sigh as Soarin approached.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you look like something’s bothering you,” Soarin began as he reached her. She flinched, but kept looking away. “And I hate when something’s bothering you, what’s up Dashie?” he asked as he came around in front and sat down in the seat beside her.

Dash shook her head before knocking her hooves twice against her forehead.

“I totally messed up…” she sighed.

“Messed up what?” Soarin blinked in confusion. Dash pointed out to the now empty arena, only a few janitors were walking around and picking up trash left behind by the spectators.

“Spitfire put me on surveillance duty… and if the Shadowbolt was there, we missed him…” Dash explained.

“Uh…” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “How exactly is that screwing up? Dash, we told you to look out for anything, and five pairs of eyes saw nothing out of the ordinary. That hardly sounds like messing up,” Soarin chuckled.

“I know,” Dash pouted. “Still feels like it though… stupid Shadowbolts…” she growled.

“Pfff…” Soarin couldn’t hold it in. He thought something was wrong when he followed her out, he really did, but Dash was just being Dash. Always aiming higher even when performing at her best. They weren’t even sure they’d find a Shadowbolt hiding in the crowd, but since Dash didn’t find one, she felt like she screwed up. “C’mon Miss Colorful Grump,” Soarin got up and pulled her up.

“No,” she demanded as she tried to sit back down.

“Yes,” Soarin said casually as he prevented her from sitting and dragged her along. “We have guests, we have to smile at the kids, and give bullshit answers to the other VIPs and their questions. C’mon, Wonderbolt, this is part of your job too,” he joked as Dash sighed and gave in.

They walked back in together just as Fleetfoot gathered up the kids and began walking them around the penthouse. Gale had finally joined with the rest as well.

“Let’s all go meet our new Wonderbolts!” Fleetfoot said while smiling at them, carrying two of them on her back and one on each extended wing as the rest followed beside her. She turned towards Dash first. “I see a rainbow! Look!” Fleetfoot said as she guided the kids towards Dash. “This is Rainbow Dash! The captain of the recruit squad Foxtrot!” Fleetfoot kept her voice full of energy, resonating with the excitement of the kids both on the floor and riding on her.

Dash quickly smiled, forgetting her ‘troubles’ as Fleetfoot led the kids to her.

“Hiya!” Dash waved to the kids. A few of them said ‘hi’ back in unison, but the rest stared nervously or in awe.

“Dashie here is awesome because she can copy moves on sight!” Fleetfoot explained to the kids. “You’ve all seen Soarin’s super duper fast start, right?” she asked, earning fast, little nods. “Rainbow Dash here can do it too! She can also do everything the rest of her squad does and probably more. Pretty cool, huh?”

Lots of ‘ooos’ and ‘whoas’ came from the colts and fillies.

“I really like your mane!” one of the fillies exclaimed in a high squeaky voice out of nowhere. Dash didn’t even see which one of them said it.

“Thank you!” Dash smiled. She felt inclined to say something else, especially since Fleetfoot had just hyped her up. “You kids are all winners from the Canterlot Junior Flyers Meet right? You’re all pretty awesome too!” she said with a wink and a nod. It had a clear positive effect, the little faces lighting up at the compliment. Soarin smiled as well, glad that Dash had loosened up quickly and positively encouraging little pegasi that could very well be Wonderbolts someday.

“Oh my gosh!” Little Star suddenly floated over to the kids. “They are all so cute!” she exclaimed as the kids all looked towards her with curiosity. Fleetfoot giggled and crouched down so the kids on her back could get a better view of Star as she fawned over them.

“This is Little Star! Don’t let her size fool you, she’s older than me!” Fleetfoot explained, earning a brief pout from Star. “She made the Wonderbolts through hard work and dedication! She didn’t care that she was small, in fact, she tried out eight times and finally made it!”

Dash watched with a smile as Star was surrounded by colts and fillies that were not that much smaller than her. Two of them actually were her size. The kids were definitely fascinated with her.

“EEK!” one of the fillies suddenly squeaked and the rest backed away, save for one brown colt as Twister appeared behind Star with his usual sneer. Star glared at Twister, but the brown colt just stared at him wide eyed. Twister looked down at the colt, flattening himself to the floor and inching himself towards him.

“Hey kid, quick! Who’s you’re favorite Wonderbolt?” Twister asked the colt. The colt blinked and looked down.

“Uhhhhhhhhh…” the colt pondered. “Spitfire,” he decided.

Twister suddenly reached behind his back and pulled out four, deflated, long balloons. One blue, one yellow, one light orange, and one dark orange. He bounced his eyebrows before bringing all four to his mouth and inflating them all in a single breath. He reached down and moved his hooves so fast that it looked like a blurry mess.

“HA—oops!” Twister looked down and saw that his hooves were bound in blue, yellow, and orange balloon hoofcuffs. “Whoopsie!” he snickered before his hooves became a blur again. “TADAH!” he held out a balloon pony that had the colors of Spitfire wearing her Wonderbolt uniform and gave it to the colt. The colt’s eyes brightened as he held the balloon Spitfire in his hoof, followed by happy laughter and a big smile.

“This is Twister,” Fleetfoot giggled. “He is a very, VERY silly pony.”

“Anypony else want a balloon Wonderbolt?” Twister asked with a crazy face, as he pulled out a bag of long balloons and dumped them out on the floor.

“Me! Me! Me!” all the kids flocked from Fleetfoot and gathered around Twister as they began naming off their favorite Wonderbolts. Twister got started immediately, filling each request quickly with his apparent skill in balloon animal crafting.

As Twister occupied the kids, Fleetfoot looked around before trotting up to Dash.

“Hey, where’s Squall?” Fleetfoot asked. Dash snorted and held back a snicker.

“I doubt introducing Squall to the kids is a good idea…” Dash commented as she looked up and around. “He’s way over there… being Squall,” Dash pointed to the far corner of the penthouse box. Fleetfoot looked up to see Squall sitting along and looking like he was grumbling to himself.

“Ehh…” Fleetfoot lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, I don’t think the kids need that. That just leaves the big fella!” she beamed as she looked towards Matteo, who sitting by the food table, eating one of the turkey sandwiches.

“You sure that’s a good idea either?” Dash said with some sarcasm as she looked up towards Matteo. “He’s pretty intimidating.”

“Watch me work, Dashie!” Fleetfoot winked as she turned and gather up the kids again, who now each had a balloon figure of their favorite Wonderbolt, holding it either in their wings or balancing it on their back. “Wasn’t that nice of Twister?” Fleetfoot smiled at the kids. “What do we say to him now?” Fleetfoot turned them towards Twister.

“Thank you, Twister!” they all said in different pitches and paces. Twister gave a few bows before turning to Little Star and making a balloon animal of Squall, making her giggle.

“She’s going to take them to Matteo?” Soarin spoke up as he and Dash watched Fleetfoot.

“I don’t think that’s gonna end well,” Dash chuckled.

“I dunno…” Soarin smirked. “Fleet’s a clever one, I bet she’ll have them climbing on him in seconds!”

“And this…” Fleetfoot began as they passed into the shadow of Matteo. The kids all slowly came to a stop and looked up with wide eyes as Matteo turned and looked at them. “This is Matteo!” Fleetfoot exclaimed happily, but then frowned when the kids began huddling up to her or hiding behind her. She quickly looked down at them. “Aw, don’t be scared! He’s just a really big teddy bear!” Fleetfoot moved towards Matteo and floated up to him. Matteo watched her careful as she stopped at chest level.

“URFM!” Matteo grunted as Fleetfoot nestled her face into his chest and hugged him as far around as she could while smiling at the kids.

“See?” Fleetfoot lifted her brow as she continued to rub her cheek into Matteo’s thick fur and feathers.

“Commander…” Matteo whispered quietly while his eyes darted back and forth.

“This ain’t the Sky Wings, big boy. You’ve gotta have a public image for the fans,” she whispered back. Matteo glanced down and saw that the kids looked a little more relaxed after Fleetfoot’s random act of friendliness. Fleetfoot let go of him and hovered back down towards the kids as Matteo turned his body to face the kids.

“He’s came to join us all the way from the Griffon Kingdom! It’s a faraway place that’s much different than any pony city!” she smiled as the kids began looking way up at Matteo with curiosity. “Matty! You should tell them about the Griffon Kingdom!” she suggested. “Do you want to hear about the Griffon Kingdom?” Fleetfoot asked as she turned to the kids. They were all still fixed on Matteo, so the reaction was quiet, but they all slowly approached Matteo and sat down near him, some of them clutching their balloon Wonderbolts as if still unsure.

If there was one thing Matteo had, it was pride for his culture and homeland, so he didn’t waste a second once the kids showed interest.

“Where to begin…” Matteo thought. He obviously had to omit certain things to make it kid friendly. “Indeed the Griffon Kingdom is very far from here. It is a vast and wondrous kingdom of fierce warriors. The buildings and architecture are of an ancient and traditional style that has existed for thousands of years…”

Dash and Soarin watched as the colts and fillies sat gathered around Matteo and listened with great interest as he told them of his homeland. Fleetfoot even joined them, sitting down with the kids to listen with them.

“That is so adorable… Story time with Uncle Matty,” Dash smiled and snickered. Matteo was a father, so it was no surprise he knew how to entertain children, even if it was just a story. It was just really funny to watch Fleetfoot snuggle up to him to make him seem harmless.

“What did I tell ya?” Soarin grinned. “Fleet’s a clever one.”

“Rainbow Dash,” a voice suddenly caught their attention. Dash flinched as she heard the stern tone, knowing exactly who she was going to see as she turned.

“Yes, ma’am?” Dash replied as she turned and faced Spitfire. Soarin backed away, giving Dash space as Spitfire approached them. She had finally gotten away from the high end visitors and Soarin knew she was eager for Dash’s report… and that Dash was not feeling good about it.

“Report,” Spitfire said simply. Dash took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose.

“I have nothing to report, ma’am. We kept the entire arena surveyed, but there was no sign of the Shadowbolt or anything out of the ordinary,” Dash explained while standing firm. Spitfire nodded as Dash spoke, a look of deep thought on her face as she began turning away. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Dash quickly added instinctively.

Spitfire stopped in her tracks and looked back at Dash with an eyebrow raised.

“What are you apologizing for?” Spitfire asked.

“For not spotting the Shadowbolt,” Dash added with a completely straight face. Behind her, Soarin smacked his hoof against his face and shook his head, something Spitfire took note of as she replied.

“Dash, you followed my exact orders. I wanted you guys to keep a lookout, and you did so with an efficient method of two pairs watching different levels and a griffon with eagle vision up top. If you saw nothing, then there was nothing any of us would have seen,” Spitfire shook her head. “I guess we just scared him off beforehoof…” she paused and released a frustrated sigh. “If anything, it’s my fault for attacking him so fiercely. Anyway, good work, this will be a positive mark on your record.”

Dash blinked and stared blankly as Spitfire turned and walked back over to the VIPs to save their visitors from Air Mach and Macho Savage.

“See?” Soarin stepped up beside Dash and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You’re being sourpuss,” he said with a goofy tone. “Did I hear positive marks?” he released an over dramatic gasp. “OH NO! You’re such a failure! OOF!” he grunted as Dash elbowed him in the gut, leaving him wheezing and chuckling.

“Be happy I didn’t aim lower,” Dash said with an angry pout that quickly turned into a smirk. “I guess I’m just awesome even when things don’t work right!” she said while brushing her hoof against her chest.

“The smug is so thick I can taste it,” Soarin commented as he rubbed his stomach where Dash hit. “Oh, look at that…” Soarin pointed towards Matteo. Dash looked up and held her breath to keep a super girly noise from escaping her throat.

Matteo was still telling stories of the Griffon Kingdom and most of the kids had moved very close to listen. Some of them were lounging on their stomachs and Fleetfoot had two that were leaning against her as the stories continued.

“The big guy has more charisma than we give him credit for…” Dash cracked a smile as she spotted the parent of the children watching with smiles as Matteo told his stories.

“Forget about the Shadowbolt,” Soarin said as he watched as well. “We had our chance earlier and it was mishandled. You did your job and got to experience pre and post show activities. Just let it all sink in and enjoy it… we’ll worry about the Shadowbolts when we get back home.”

“I guess…” Dash looked around the penthouse, taking in her surroundings and thinking on the experiences she had had in the past few hours. Shadowbolt aside… it had been a really good day. Nothing could take that away. “No, you’re right,” she smiled up at Soarin. “This has been an AWESOME day.”

“Time to wrap it up Fleet,” Spitfire said as she passed by.

“Aw… already?” Fleetfoot pouted as she turned away from the colts and fillies. Spitfire stopped and looked back.

“The press is going to be here soon, and I don’t want the kids being caught up in all that,” Spitfire explained her reasoning. Fleetfoot’s pout disappeared and she blinked.

“Oh, right… that’s a good idea…” she quickly agreed before turning back to the kids. “Hey guys, I hate to say it, but it’s time to go,” she said with a frown. Just like the first meeting, a large collection of sad ‘awwwwwwwws’ came from the kids, but Fleetfoot quickly smiled at them. “But we have time for some pictures before you go!” she said as she spotted most of the parents carrying cameras.

“Fleet!” Spitfire growled at her, but Fleetfoot quickly turned and put a hoof to Spitfire’s mouth.

“Uhp, uhp, uhp!” she shook her head. “I don’t want to hear it, we are sending these kids off right. That means you too, so get over here,” Fleetfoot pulled Spitfire over.

“Fine…” Spitfire gave in as she was dragged along. Soarin and Dash chuckled as they followed behind.

Dash mainly sat on the side and watched as the lead squad took pictures with the kids. Spitfire eventually forced Air Mach over to join them. Dash even overheard Spitfire saying something around the lines of ‘if I have to do this, then so do you,’ but it quickly turned into Spitfire roughly nudging him whenever he struck a ridiculous pose.

It was just so cool to see the colts and fillies interact with the Wonderbolts. The way their eyes widened and filled with delight just by looking at their heroes. The way Fleetfoot made them laugh and smile so easily, the way Soarin gave words of wisdom, and the way Spitfire, even though she was uncomfortable, seemed to radiate influence through her status alone. Even Air Mach ended up having a positive effect, his silly mannerisms making the kids giggle.

But nothing made Dash smile as much as when she saw Gale get a picture alone with Soarin. Seeing Gale again had stirred many great memories. Watching Soarin be so kind to Gale in the diner half a year ago was one of the most charming things she had ever seen, and only made her fall even harder for him than she already had. Good times… good times indeed.

Eventually, the pictures were done and the kids had to leave, but before the security guard arrived, Gale made his way back over to Soarin. Soarin hated seeing the frown on Gale’s little face, but he kept his smile on.

“Looks like we’ve gotta say goodbye for now Gale,” Soarin said as he patted Gale on the shoulder. “I hope I get to see you again!” he said cheerfully, but Gale continued to look VERY sad.

Before Soarin could say anything else, Gale reached forward and hugged Soarin. His little arms couldn’t reach around Soarin’s midsection, but he tried. Soarin was startled for a moment, but quickly bent down and hugged Gale back.

“You’re da best, Soawin…” Gale said shakily before letting go and backing towards his mother while keeping his eyes on Soarin, tears dripping down his face. Soarin wanted to smile, but he couldn’t muster it. Gale clearly wanted to spend more time with him. Dash almost felt herself choking up. Gale really loved Soarin, it was almost like watching a little brother being forced to leave a big brother behind that he had looked up to all his life.

Fleetfoot walked over and casually passed by Soarin, leaning in as she moved.

“I talked to his mom,” Fleetfoot whispered, catching Soarin’s attention. “The kid knew he’d get to see you if he won something in the Flyers Meet. Practically spent every day working hard so he could win and be here.”

Soarin blinked and looked at Fleetfoot. She made a sharp head motion back towards Gale.

“Well? C’mon Mr. Pep-talk Extraordinaire! Say something!” she encouraged.

Soarin looked back towards Gale, who was clutching his mother’s arm tightly as they started moving towards the rest of the kids. Gale wanted to see him THAT much? Soarin wasn’t one who absorbed praise and attention the way Fleetfoot did, but… that was really touching. To know that a kid saw him as that much of a hero… held him in that high regard.

Soarin quickly looked down and thought about what else he could say… and as he looked down, his eyes landed on his goggles dangling around his neck. Soarin looked at his goggles for a moment before a wide smile made its way onto his face. He reached a hoof up to his goggles as he looked towards Gale.

“Gale!” Soarin called after them. Gale and his mother stopped and Gale turned to look at Soarin. Soarin pulled the goggles up from around his neck and all the way off his head. He shook his mane out and tossed the goggles towards Gale.

Gale’s eyes widened before he even caught the goggles in his hooves. His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head when he looked down at Soarin’s goggles in his hooves. His tears immediately stopped and he looked up at Soarin with one of the strongest expressions of awe that Dash and Soarin had ever seen.

Soarin winked and pointed at Gale.

“Never stop working hard, little guy! I’ll see you next year when you win again!” Soarin exclaimed.

Gale looked between Soarin and the goggles multiple times before bouncing uncontrollably and quickly putting the goggles on. As soon as he let go of them, they dropped off his eyes and dangled around his neck. The strap was too big and the goggles themselves were almost bigger than his face but he laughed happily as Soarin’s goggles hung from his neck, nearly touching the floor below him. His little wings buzzed and he floated up in the air as he smiled delightfully.

“Tank you! Tank you! I wiwl win again next year!” Gale exclaimed as he clutched Soarin’s goggles against his chest. To Soarin, those goggles were one of many pairs he had back at the compound. He even had an extra pair in his bag back in the waiting room. But to an aspiring, young, hardcore fan… a pair of goggles that belonged to a lead squad Wonderbolt was an invaluable treasure.

Soarin waved as Gale walked backwards, refusing to look away from Soarin or stop waving until he and his mother were out the door with the others and out of sight.

Soarin felt so good. He was glad Fleetfoot revealed that last little bit to him, because Soarin and his new little friend were about to part with frowns. Now he was sure Gale wouldn’t stop smiling for months.

“Wha?” Soarin perked up as Dash bumped into him from his right.

“Excuse me, Commander ‘I’m not special,’ I didn’t see you there!” Dash joked with a giggle.

“Oh, cut that out…” Soarin chuckled as he opened his right wing and pushed Dash’s head down with it.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Dashie getting a taste of the Wonderbolt show life... and she'll never forget it.

Got some nostalgia here... replace cloud floor with ground and Air Mach with Rapidfire and you've got a scene i (shamelessly) pulled right from Head in the Clouds! :pinkiecrazy:

Isn't gale just adorable? the rest of the kids too! Twister sure was popular wit them!

But... Dash's patrol mission turned up nothing... did Spitfire's vicious pursuit really scare him off? I wonder... :ajsmug:

Wont be long before chapter 81 is out. it's literally 95% done :rainbowlaugh: Still has to go through the editing process and everything though. I will try to get it to Kestrel as soon as possible so we have the weekend to work on it.

Also i will be posting an art blog tomorrow, i apologize to all those who have given me art recently, i've been slacking on my art blogs and i hope to fix that >_<

Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

I wanna play wing-ball.........

Chapter 81: One Step Ahead

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 81:

“Wow… they’re still out there… how long have we been in here?” Storm asked as he looked back towards squad Foxtrot.

“Exactly forty-one minutes…” Matteo grumbled as he laid on his stomach in the center of the penthouse and repeatedly tapped a talon on the floor.

“Better in here than out there…” Dash sighed as she stepped away from the door and walked past Storm. “You should’ve left with squad seven, they headed back ten minutes before the reporters showed up,” Dash nudged him as she passed.

“I prefer being stuck with you guys… Dex, Savage, and Lead Runner are an odd mix. Without Autumn Rain there anymore, the balance of reason to weird has gone right out the window,” Storm chuckled. “For all I know, they were caught by reporters on their way back, so I might be lucky, who knows?”

Squad Foxtrot and Storm were stuck in the penthouse box. The lead squad was right outside, being swarmed by reporters. Dash, Storm, and the rest had all quickly backed up and closed the door behind them in the penthouse in order to avoid it all. Dash felt bad that Soarin was stuck out there, but it was part of his job, he was probably handling it much better than she would. They would have been able to leave through the balcony and just glide down to the tunnel at the bottom of the arena, but the custodians had already shut and locked the glass doors. So they were all stuck in the box with the cleaning crew, picking up all the uneaten food. They all just had to get comfy until the coast was clear.

“Why are you still sitting over here?” Star’s voice caught Dash’s attention. Dash looked over and saw Star approaching Squall in his corner.

“Ngh…” Squall replied the usual way.

“You’re not fooling me when you do that you know…” Star pouted and put her hooves on her hips as she floated up in the air a couple of yards away.

“Nnnnnnnnnnnggggghhhhhhhh…” Squall held the grunt longer while averting his eyes.

“Squall!” Star grumpily huffed as she closed the distance between them and hovered less than a yard away. “Say something besides that!”

“NNNNNYYYAAAAAHHHHHHHHH…” Squall changed up the groan slightly to add a different tone to it as he shifted all the way around to face the wall.

“Oh, come on!” Little Star threw her hooves up as Squall stared directly into the corner of the wall. “Stop being so weird!”

“Nyah…” Squall answered simply, earning a frustrated grunt from Star.

“Uh…” Storm lifted an eyebrow as he watched them. “What’s up with the barrel of sunshine over there?” he asked Dash. Dash turned and glanced over at Squall as Star latched to his back and tried to pull him away from the wall.

“Oh,” Dash snickered. She said she wouldn’t tell anypony but… she beckoned for Storm to lean in and listen as she whispered into his ear. “He’s totally into Star,” she whispered. Storm instantly pulled his head back and blinked with wide eyes.

“Excuse me, WHAT?!” he said with an expression of amused disbelief. Dash chuckled and shook her head.

“At least I think. You saw him react on the blimp when he thought she was lost. Then earlier, he almost protested when I didn’t put him and Star on the same patrol team. Then, while we were flying I asked a question about Star, and he flipped out before I could even get to the point! So… he either holds her in very high regard and trust… or…” Dash bounced her eyebrows. “He has a thing for little mares.”

“I’m sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you over how hard I’m laughing on the inside,” Storm snickered.

“Hey!” Dash gave him a light push. “Don’t go making fun of him, okay? He’s in a vulnerable spot right now. He’s never had friends before, or at least I’m sure he hasn’t. He didn’t take my light teasing too well either… even after I explained it. As his captain and his friend, I want him to feel comfortable around us,” she paused and glared at him. “Knowing your record with him, I’d say it would just end with hooves flying anyway.”

“Can’t deny that…” Storm admitted with a shrug. Dash didn’t like how the two kept getting into fights, but at least Storm acknowledged that they had that habit. “So…” Storm spoke up. “How was your first day as a Wonderbolt?” he asked curiously.

Dash looked up as she thought about how to answer… where did she even start?

“Gosh…” Dash said with a grin. “I didn’t even do anything and it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of. Walking down the tunnel, getting announced, flying as a squad with the crowd cheering… I can’t even begin to describe how awesome it was,” she smiled down at Storm.

“Heh,” Storm closed his eyes and nodded once. “I wish my first experience was like that,” he said as he opened his eyes and looked towards the balcony that overlooked the arena. “You’re getting eased into the experience. I was taken out of the freezer and shoved directly into the oven.”

“Hey,” Dash placed a hoof on his shoulder. “I better not hear you bash your success again. I swear I’ll knock you senseless,” Dash threatened comically, earning a chuckle from Storm.

“I’m not,” he said with a sigh. “It’s just a difficult position. I can’t afford to take lumps and learn from mistakes like you guys can. I’m part of elite squad seven and I was put there by Spitfire herself. You’ve gotta understand my pressure to perform,” he shook his head. “But that’s enough about me, I want to hear more. My first show ended with me throwing my goggles and trudging away. How did it feel after your fly-by?” he asked Dash.

“I felt like I had been sniffing the vats at a rainbow factory for a whole day,” Dash said while snickering.

“Smelling rainbows or seeing rainbows?” Storm chuckled along with her. “Or both?”

“Definitely both,” Dash said as she let loose some laughter. “I had so much adrenaline pumping I thought my head was gonna explode,” Dash poked her head. “And I probably wouldn’t have cared because it felt so damn awesome.”

“That sounds gruesome, yet believable,” Storm shook his head while grinning. “And… I wish I could’ve flown out there with you guys…” Storm suddenly said with a sigh as he looked towards the balcony again.

Dash kept her eyes on Storm as he stared out. The more and more time she spent with him, the less and less she felt envious of him. He had earned in days what took most Wonderbolts years. Up front it seemed like the greatest honor and pleasure an aspiring Wonderbolt could achieve. But as Dash went through the training and all the other slow processes, she kept seeing exactly what Storm was missing. He went from the bottom, to nearly the top, but he missed all the experiences in between. He had spilled tears to her during the recruit banquet over it, adding to the many important things in his life that he felt he was being denied. Dash was beginning to really feel bad for him the more she experienced these amazing things that he never would.

She reached towards him again, but her view was suddenly blocked by green and blue.

“Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst…” Twister had leapt in front of Dash and leaned into Storm while narrowing his eyes and shifting his gaze back and forth. Storm snickered and lifted an eyebrow.

“Yes, Twister?”

“SHHH!” Twister shushed Storm and put a hoof on his mouth. He slowly reached behind him, pulled out one of the turkey sandwiches from the tables being cleaned up, stuck it in Storm’s mouth, and then lowered himself to the ground.

Storm snorted, removed the sandwich from his mouth, and sat his plot down on Twister’s back before her could slither away.

“Gotcha!” Storm chuckled as he played along with Twister’s antics. Twister tried to pull himself free, but was stuck. He looked up at Dash from beneath Storm and sneered.

“Apparently I’ve been on a butt trend lately!” Twister said while bouncing his eyebrows. Dash let her ears flop down and gave Twister a flat look.

“How long have you been saving up that one?” Dash said as she shook her head.

“A few chapters,” Twister said as his pupils began spinning around his eyes.

Dash didn’t even bother asking about whatever kind of nonsense he was getting at. But… as usual, Twister managed to take a less than happy situation and turn it around with something ridiculous. Storm was laughing as Twister tried to negotiate his way out from beneath Storm’s plot. Twister could easily get out doing something that was physically impossible, as Storm was well aware, but he was enjoying hearing Twister’s ‘terms of release.’ One of which included a rubber chicken catapult latched to a bear wearing flippers.

Dash smiled and shook her head, glad that Storm was getting involved with them again. She looked around, her eyes first landing on Star and Squall. Squall was still in the corner, facing the wall. Star was on the floor, Squall’s tail in her mouth and her little hooves slipping and sliding on the floor as she tugged on it.

Art by: Scootafail

Then she turned her head further and saw Matteo, still resting on the floor, sphinx style, and clearly pondering something. He always had a serious look on his face, but Dash couldn’t help but wonder if Matteo had a similar feeling she had when their searching turned up dry. He had a tremendous sense of duty after all. With her curiosity piqued and the others all occupied, Dash turned and approached Matteo.

“You’ve always got a pleasant look on your face,” Dash joked as she approached. Matteo glanced at her and lifted his brow. “But for some reason it looks extra pleasant… whatcha thinking about over here, big guy?”

“Our mission,” Matteo replied. Dash nodded and pointed up at him as she stopped in front of him.

“Bingo,” she said, earning a curious look from Matteo. “I had a hunch that’s what it was,” she said as she sat down. Matteo grunted as he looked towards the balcony.

“Does something seem… off to you?” Matteo suddenly spoke up. Dash tipped her head.

“How… so?” she quickly asked. Matteo shook his head and looked back at Dash.

“Why would they trust us with such an assignment?” he said while looking directly at Dash. Dash thought it over, remembering what Spitfire had said.

“She told us why,” Dash put a hoof to her chest. “The Shadowbolt would be wary of the elites, but disregard us. She also just told me she thought my surveillance plan was well put together,” Dash spilled what she knew.

“Think about that carefully,” Matteo cut in. “Why us? This is a very low key show. There are only two elite squads here. There are plenty of squads available to perform covert surveillance. That’s another thing, why ask us to fly in circles in an area where we can be seen? It’s a terrible plan and I’m not surprised we found nothing, do you follow me?” Matteo looked her in the eyes.

“Uh…” Dash looked down and thought it over. “Actually…” Dash blinked. “That… does sound pretty stupid.”

“I swear, if we are being deceived again…” Matteo growled. “I thought they said the deception was over and done with after the fake dragon attack,” Matteo growled while grinding his beak.

He had a point… a very good point. Dash found no grounds to argue or ignore it. She knew Matteo was paranoid about deception, but he was right. Why them when other, more experienced squads could perform a covert operation? Why have them ‘keep a look out’ in broad daylight where everypony can see them?

“They also ask a lot of us,” Matteo continued. “A single Shadowbolt eluded the lead squad in Manehatten after hiding from view for their whole trip up until the end. If the lead squad was unsuccessful, how did they expect us to do it? Even with my sharp eyes, there was no way I could spot a pony so heavily skilled in stealth.”

“Mmhmm…” Dash agreed as she sat up and crossed her arms. Matteo was making her wonder here… if what Spitfire wanted them to do was truly their purpose for being there. “Seriously,” Dash spoke up while shaking her head. “I mean, the Shadowbolt flew right up to the blimp without being seen! That’s just insane and…”

Dash trialed off as her peripheral vision picked up something grey and brown pass right beside her. Matteo’s eyes widened, as did hers as they both slowly turned and looked towards one of the catering tables that had left to be cleared.

“Mmm! Man, you guys get great food service!”

Dash and Matteo, as well as the other four, all stared in disbelief at the very same grey, brown maned Shadowbolt stallion that they encountered at the blimp. He was leaning against the table and stuffing his face with the little sandwiches as two of the cleaning crew members eyed him curiously. The Shadowbolt glanced at them occasionally to bounce his eyebrows from beneath his red goggles.

Dash was so taken by surprise that it took her a moment to gather her thoughts.

The Shadowbolt just appeared in the penthouse box. The lead squad was outside being hassled by reporters and the rest of squad seven was probably gathering their things all the way back in the waiting room right now. The only possible assistance they had was the lead squad… but it would not be easy to pull them away from the reporters. They risked losing the Shadowbolt immediately if they tried to inform the lead squad directly… so…

Stick to the original plan.

“FOXTROT! GET HIM!” Dash yelled as she reached up and fastened her goggles into place. Star, Squall, Twister, and Matteo all followed, placing their goggles and reading to charge. Storm was the closest to the table, and the moment his goggles were on, he dove across the table, knocking over two pitchers of water and a fruit tray, causing them to crash and clatter on the floor as the Shadowbolt stepped away.

“Whoa! Watch it buddy!” the Shadowbolt chuckled as Storm missed and tumbled to the floor. The Shadowbolt looked up and saw the rest readying to charge and dropped his sandwich. “Welp, time to go!” he shrugged as he began turning back towards the glass doors of the patio, that looked forced open. How he managed to break the lock without making a noise was inconceivable.

“MATTEO!” Dash yelled. “Do the eagle cry!” she ordered. Matteo glanced down at her and nodded. “As loud as you can so the lead squad can hear above the reporters!” she added.

Matteo blinked, and then nodding again.

“COVER YOUR EARS!” Matteo yelled to all of them. They looked up at him in confusion. “NOW!” he repeated. Dash, Squall, Star, and Twister all threw their hooves up and pressed their ears down. Storm quickly did the same from the floor before he had a chance to stand.

Matteo pulled his head back and took a very deep breath, opening his lungs and puffing his chest out. He thrust his head forward, opening his beak and releasing an eagle scream that was INCREDIBLY LOUD.

“AHHH!” The Shadowbolt put his hooves to his ears as he stumbled and fell flat on the floor as the screech resonated across and off every surface in the room.

Dash and the rest all cringed as the noise sent vibrations through them despite them protecting their ears. The cleaning crew all dropped while howling in pain and the glass between the room and the balcony began crackling and splitting… the whole pane the length of the room shattering before Matteo ran out of breath and was forced to stop. He put his arms forward, supporting himself as he leaned forward and caught his breath.

Dash slowly removed her hooves from her ears and turned to look at Matteo, a little terrified. The rest did the same, even Twister looked surprised.

“Rgh!” the Shadowbolt stumbled to his hooves and began wobbling towards the broken glass doors. Dash quickly refocused on the task at hoof, pointing at the Shadowbolt.

“We can talk about how freaky that was later!” she exclaimed as the Shadowbolt made it to the window and spread his wings. Dash glanced over at the door as she heard a scuffle outside along with the reporters. She assumed that meant the lead squad heard it and were trying to get free from the reporters. “After him!” Dash yelled, following her previous orders to the last detail… Pursue until the lead squad could catch up.

Leaving the dazed and confused cleaning crew behind, Dash, Squall, Storm, Twister, Matteo, and Star all sprinted to the balcony and took off, following behind the Shadowbolt as he tried to get away. He was picking up speed and had already cleared the arena, gliding over the Cloudsdale skyline.

“Dash!” Storm yelled from beside her. “With me!” he yelled as he veered towards Matteo. Dash obeyed without question as the two shifted. “Throw us, big guy!” Storm ordered. Matteo looked tired from straining his vocal cords, but he grunted and grabbed the two of them out of the air. He turned up as Star, Twister, and Squall kept in hot pursuit and reared back, locking onto the Shadowbolt in the distance.

“FLY!” Matteo yelled as he spun and launched Dash and Storm. The two shot past their fellow flyers and approached the Shadowbolt, but he was still picking up speed. As strong as Matteo’s throwing arms were, they didn’t have enough speed to catch the Shadowbolt before he was out of their reach for sure.

“Dash!” Storm yelled as they grimaced against the wind battering against them. “Lend me your hooves!” he yelled.

It only took Dash a moment to realize what he wanted. The Surface Tap from this distance would definitely give Storm the boost he needed to catch him.

“You’ve got them!” Dash yelled back as she bent her wings slightly to decrease her speed just enough for Storm to shift in front of her. She reached her arms forward and stuck her hooves out in front. “Go get him, Storm!” Dash encouraged as Storm placed his back hooves on Dash’s.

Dash felt a shock pulse through her that nearly knocked her out of the air as Storm rapidly tapped his hooves against hers and propelled himself forward. He shot towards the Shadowbolt while grinding his teeth and rearing his right hoof back, ready to strike. The added speed was intense, and it felt like the wind was going to press his goggles completely into his face, but if he was going to eventually learn Soarin’s signature move, he’d have to get used to the pressure.

“Huh?” the Shadowbolt looked behind him just in time as Storm’s shadow cast over him from above. “Whoa!” he turned and put up his hooves to block as Storm unloaded a heavy, downward punch. The force of the blow turned them downwards and towards the city below. The Shadowbolt tried knocking Storm away, but Storm latched onto his arm and two began wrestling for control as they slowly decreased speed and descended.

“Damn!” Dash cursed as she regained herself and started up again. “STORM! PULL UP!” she yelled. She didn’t want the chase to fall into the city. As she picked up speed to follow, Squall, Star, and Twister pulled up beside her. Dash looked behind to see Matteo lagging behind, but his eagle cry at full volume clearly had a drawback. “Guys!” Dash yelled to who she had at the ready. “We need to assist Storm, but top priority is making sure this stays out of the city!” Dash glanced around and saw that they were approaching the western district. “We’ve got to keep this up until we’re out of the city boundaries! Then we need to get him on the ground!” she explained. They all nodded in agreement and began their descent towards Storm and the Shadowbolt as they continued to grapple with each other. It was imperative that they keep the confrontation at high altitude until outside Cloudsdale, because as a city of pegasi, 80% of the population was airborne at any time. It would be dangerous for civilians if they fell too far in.

“Hey! I love you too, now LET GO!” the Shadowbolt demanded as he and Storm kept falling.

“RGH!” Storm yelled as the Shadowbolt kept trying to shake him off. He suddenly looked up and saw that they were heading directly for a cloud building. They couldn’t ‘break’ cloud structures, but there were other dangers, such as innocent bystanders within.

It didn’t matter anyway though, because the instant Storm’s focus was elsewhere, the Shadowbolt got leverage on Storm and tossed him upward.

“Ha!” the Shadowbolt yelled triumphantly as he turned to fly deeper into the city, clearly with the intention of losing them among the pegasi flying around below. But right as he turned…

“HEYA BUDDY!” Twister appeared right below the Shadowbolt and pressed his nose against one of his red goggle lenses.

“AHHH!” The Shadowbolt shrieked as he tried to pull his head away, but Twister’s nose remained attached to the goggles. Below, Dash shot forward and caught Storm the best she could, at least to stop his tumbling. She glanced up to see the Shadowbolt whipping his head around with Twisters body limply flailing about because his nose was stuck to the goggles.

“WOOOO!!!!” Twister yelled as the Shadowbolt finally threw him off. Twister began tumbling through the air, but arced around like a boomerang and flew back towards the Shadowbolt while flailing like a ragdoll. The Shadowbolt ducked and Twister flew right over his head. He turned to move down again, but Little Star had gotten in his path and was hovering in place. The Shadowbolt lifted an eyebrow and scoffed.

“Oh, get real, little filly…” he snickered as he reached forward to grab Star. She shifted quickly to avoid his grasp and lurched forward, headbutting him in the chest.

“DON’T YOU PATRONIZE ME, DICKWAD!” Star exploded at him while going in for another headbutt. The Shadowbolt growled and reached for her again. She used her skillful hovering to shift again and aimed all four hooves at his face, but right before she landed the blow, the Shadowbolt reached up his other hoof and grabbed her by the neck of her suit. “AH!” Star gasped as her suit tightened around her neck.

“You little piece of shit!” the Shadowbolt growled. He pulled back and readied to throw her straight down as hard as he could. “Get out of my—”

“HOOOORYAAAAA!!!!!!” Squall shot up from below and delivered a rapid, double uppercut with both hooves to the Shadowbolt’s chin. The Shadowbolt’s head whipped back and he flung upward. His grip on Star loosened, dropping her. Squall shifted and caught Star before she could hit the cloud structure of the tower beside them. Star blinked and looked up at Squall.

“Thanks,” she said with a wink before taking flight from his arm. Squall snorted, but said nothing as Dash and Storm shot upward after the Shadowbolt. Star followed them and Squall shortly after.

“You guys SUCK!” the Shadowbolt whined as he leveled out and rubbed his chin. He looked up to see Dash and Storm floating in his way with Twister, Squall, and Star approaching from below. He looked behind him and saw Matteo approaching. “Heh… Not bad… for a bunch of third rate recruits of a third rate force…” he sneered. “Toodles!” He yelled while firing towards Storm and Dash.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Dash yelled as she and Storm readied to stop him. The Shadowbolt was heading right for the gap between them. The two closed the space up, but kept just enough space so that he wouldn’t be able to get around them easily either. There was no way he was getting through.

“Hmmmmm, oh, yes I do!” the Shadowbolt taunted as he tucked his arms and legs in tight to his body, shifted, and passed right through the small space between Dash and Storm, even as they reacted and tried to close it, running into each other.

“No way!” Storm blinked as he and Dash looked behind them and watched the Shadowbolt unfold and keep going. It was the same thing he did to elude Spitfire during the blimp incident to fit between the reporters.

“SO LONG! SUCKE—”

Suddenly four blurry streaks shot right past Dash and Storm. The wake left behind them was so strong they were almost knocked out of the air.

“HURK!” the Shadowbolt grunted as Dash and Storm looked back up. Soarin, Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach had arrived, goggles down and ready for action, except for Soarin who had given his goggles to Gale not long ago. They floated side by side with Soarin holding the Shadowbolt by the neck.

“Not this time,” Spitfire said with a growl as she floated beside Soarin. Fleetfoot and Air Mach flanked them, all looking in at the Shadowbolt.

“Aw… shoot…” the Shadowbolt sighed. “Ladies! Some help please!” he yelled.

“What?” Spitfire blinked.

Fleetfoot and Air Mach suddenly grunted in surprise as they got shoved roughly. Fleetfoot from the right, Air Mach from the left. They were forced inward, sandwiching Soarin and Spitfire between them.

“GRH!” Soarin grunted as Spitfire’s head awkwardly struck his arm, causing him to lose his grip on the Shadowbolt. The four members of the lead squad found themselves tangled and tumbling downward.

After falling a few yards, Soarin managed to rip free and catch Fleetfoot’s hoof, pulling her free as well. Spitfire was able to detach herself from Air Mach easily after that and all four of them looked up.

“I knew it…” Spitfire hissed. Two Shadowbolt mares were floating while holding up the stallion. One was pink with a smooth, yellow mane. The other was yellow with a pink, frizzy mane. They wore the same red headband and goggles, but they were also both wearing small saddlebags.

“YOU IDIOT!” the pink one yelled at the stallion. “Do you EVER follow orders?”

“Aw, give it a rest…” the stallion scoffed. The yellow mare shook her head

“We’ll let the captain punch him later, let’s get out of here!” she exclaimed.

“You’re not going anywhere!” Spitfire yelled as she, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach surrounded them.

“There’s ten of us and three of you. Give it up,” Soarin pointed at them as squad Foxtrot and Storm hovered up to join them. Dash set up beside Soarin, the two exchanging a brief glance before focusing on the Shadowbolts. Squall, Storm, and Star fixed themselves up above and Twister and Matteo were below. The Wonderbolts had effectively cut off all avenues of escape. The three Shadowbolts glanced around. After a moment, the two mares looked at each other.

“Cloud bombs?” the yellow one asked.

“Cloud bombs,” the pink one replied as they reached into their saddle bags and both pulled out a small white sphere that looked similar to ping pong balls. The Wonderbolts had no time to realize what was happening. The mares reached towards each other and bumped hooves, smashing the spheres between them. There was a loud POP followed by a cloud exploding outward from the spheres. It grew rapidly engulfing all of them in less than a second.

Dash flinched as the cloud passed over them, but readied to navigate out before the Shadowbolts could escape. But then something rushed against her… a blast of water had splashed against the lenses of her goggles and all over her body and wings, thoroughly drenching her.

“Uh oh…” Dash mumbled as her wings suddenly felt very heavy. Her feathers were completely soaked. “Argh!” she grunted as she struggled to maintain flight. She started to fall slowly and eventually fell out the bottom of the cloud. As she did, she looked left and right. She, the rest of squad Foxtrot, and Storm were all slowly losing altitude as they desperately flapped their drenched wings, whipping droplets of water everywhere as they grunted and struggled.

There was a method to shed water instantly from the wings that Wave Chill had shown them… but none of them had mastered it. Fortunately, the lead squad had.

“Where are they?!” Spitfire yelled as she, Soarin, Fleetfoot and Air Mach all burst out of the top of the cloud.

Soarin quickly threw his wings out and shimmied them while giving one hard flap, tossing all the water droplets clean before shifting back. He glanced around as the other three did the same.

They were in the open air, Cloudsdale was below, but the Shadowbolts would have hit the recruits and Storm had they gone down. Soarin quickly turned towards the western edge of the city and saw the Shadowbolts flying away at high speeds, passing the border of Cloudsdale before dipping down towards the ground.

“There!” Soarin yelled while pointing. Spitfire followed his hoof and spotted them as well.

“Get after them! Cloud-Blastoff maneuver! Air Mach, NOW!”

“Yes ma’am!” Air Mach whipped around, gathering up the mist shredded from their wings and packing it into a cloud.

“Fleetfoot! Start chasing! If we slow them down, you’ll catch up in no time!” Spitfire ordered.

“Got it!” Fleetfoot turned and started pumping her wings as hard as she could, quickly picking up speed.

“Air Mach, you better be right behind us!” Spitfire ordered as she hovered over, landed on Soarin’s back and held onto his neck. “Where’s that packed cloud?!” she yelled from Soarin’s back.

“Fresh out of the oven!” Air Mach tossed a densely packed cloud over to them, just big enough for Soarin to stand on.

“Ready?” Soarin asked.

“GO! GO! GO!” Spitfire yelled while clutching Soarin’s shoulders.

With Spitfire on his back, Soarin quickly stepped through the motions of the Sonic Blastoff, firing from the cloud and shooting right through an air cone with a loud BANG. Spitfire held on as tight as she could as she and Soarin shot through the air at tremendous speeds, passing Fleetfoot quickly despite how much natural speed she had built up. Soarin had to squint heavily since he didn’t have his goggles, but he could still see the Shadowbolts up ahead. They were moving incredibly fast, themselves. But as Soarin felt his speed from the Sonic Blastoff begin to fade, he realized the Shadowbolts would outrun them for sure. He had to do something.

“Spitfire! Brace yourself!” Soarin suddenly ordered. Spitfire didn’t ask. She knew what was coming as she felt Soarin reach up and turn to grab her around the waist. She put her hooves forward as she felt Soarin grip her. “GO!” Soarin yelled as he turned and flung Spitfire forward, adding to her speed and giving her just enough to catch up to the Shadowbolts.

Spitfire grabbed one of the mares by the back hoof, causing them to slow down.

“HEY!” the pink mare yelled as Spitfire held tight to her. The other two turned about to help rip the pink mare free, but they were in for a surprise.

Soarin kept his eyes locked on target, a soft glow rising from the horn. He had his sights on the male Shadowbolt who was about to reach for Spitfire. He was the biggest target of the three and his angle posed the least possibility of him hitting Spitfire by accident. He had come a long way since the Manehatten chase. He had learned much better control over his magic and wasn’t afraid to use it. Discord wanted proof he could handle it? He’d prove it right here! Soarin gritted his teeth and channeled his intense emotions as the magic gathered harshly into the horn, making it shine incredibly bright.

“HrrrrRRRAAAAH!” Soarin whipped his head forward and a thick beam of blue light jettisoned from the horn. It shot through the air, sparking and crackling as it approached the target… and was right on target.

“ARGH!” the Shadowbolt stallion cried out as the magic beam struck him in the chest and exploded, knocking him right out of the air and into a tumble as he struggled to regain control.

“YES!” Soarin smirked as his attack hit home. Although it managed to stall the Shadowbolts, it didn’t prevent Spitfire from being shaken off by both of the mares.

Without hesitating, Soarin channeled his magic again. Fleetfoot and Air Mach were still catching up and he could buy them plenty of time. Recalling all of his teachings and putting the pieces together, Soarin repeated the process, but also took a sharp breath and puffed out his cheeks with each magic beam he fired. Every time he did, the magic beam split into a spread of several, much smaller beams that shot outwards and peppered the Shadowbolts. The small beams were not strong enough to knock them around, but they forced the Shadowbolts to stop and shield themselves as if being attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. The stallion lost control of his flight during the barrage after already being off balance from the initial attack.

Soarin’s efforts gave Spitfire plenty of time to recover. She was already heading back towards them and Soarin knew Fleetfoot would be passing by very shortly. But as he let fly his sixth volley spread of magic…

“Ow!” Soarin grunted, the magic ceasing and flowing back into the horn gently. He reached a hoof up to his forehead as a light throbbing sensation began to pulse through his head right around the horn. Fleetfoot shot past him, failing to notice that Soarin was grimacing. Air Mach pulled up when he saw Soarin stationary and hovered beside him.

“You alright, bro?” he asked, clearly eager to keep flying. Soarin shook his head out and nodded.

“I’m fine!” he lied. “Let’s go!” he yelled as he pumped his wings and took off towards Fleetfoot and Spitfire with Air Mach in tow.

The yellow mare turned and faced Fleetfoot as the pink mare assisted the stallion. Fleetfoot was determined to go through her if she had to. She wanted to make sure the stallion stayed disoriented so the rest could catch up, but… as she reached the yellow mare and swung her hoof around to strike, the mare reached up and grabbed Fleetfoot’s arm.

“AIE!” Fleetfoot yelped as the mare swung Fleetfoot all the way around and launched her back in the direction she came, keeping most of her momentum going through the motion.

Soarin stopped his approach and caught Fleetfoot as Air Mach and Spitfire shot by.

“Drop that dolt, I need help here!” the yellow mare yelled back to the pink. The pink mare let go, leaving the stallion to whine as he barely regained flight.

“Double-deck!” Spitfire yelled to Air Mach. Without another word the two broke off and flanked the Shadowbolt mares, charging at them from both sides. The mares went back to back and reached their hooves out. The pink grabbed Spitfire’s outstretched hooves, pushing them down. The yellow grabbed Air Mach’s hooves, pushing them up. The mares remained back to back while smoothly flipping and using the combined motion to divert Spitfire downward and Air Mach upward.

“Whoa!” Air Mach yelled as he thrust his wings out and looked town towards the mares. Spitfire grunted as she rounded out and fired back up. Air Mach sneered and rubbed his right elbow. “Manly Burning Soul Citizen’s Elbow Attack!” he exclaimed as he dropped down, aiming his elbow towards the mares.

The pink mare turned up and shifted, gently grabbing Air Mach by the neck and back. She nudged him slightly and passed him down to the yellow, who turned and tossed him directly into Spitfire.

“OOF!” Spitfire yelled as Air Mach’s body collided with hers and the two were sent right back down.

Fleetfoot tried to get the drop on the mares as their backs were turned, but the stallion shot up, and rammed her in the side, knocking her off course and into the mares’ line of sight.

“Shoot!” Fleetfoot yelled as the mares grabbed her by the arms and began spinning her around.

“Let her go!” Soarin shot into the group. The mares let Fleetfoot go right into Soarin, but unlike Spitfire and Air Mach, Fleetfoot was not large enough to impede Soarin. He caught her, but remained in control, focusing on the Shadowbolts.

Soarin tossed Fleetfoot aside and quickly channeled his magic again.

“I’m NOT letting you get away!” Soarin yelled as the magic poured fiercely into the horn and fired another strong beam of magic. The Shadowbolts were forced to scatter as the beam shot by, now wary of the effects after it nearly knocked one of them right out of the air, but that didn’t discourage Soarin. He channeled the magic fast and hard, feeling the flow through his body and channeling it all to the horn as he began firing rapid bursts of five shots at a time. The Shadowbolts had no avenue to pick up speed, forced to dodge and weave as the bolts of magic shot at them. Fleetfoot and Air Mach had no trouble catching up to them with Soarin’s magic barrage.

“AH!” Soarin grunted in pain, grabbing his head with a hoof again as the throbbing in his head turned into a sharp, brief jolt of pain, but he only let it bother him for a moment. He REFUSED to let the pain hinder him. His magic had made a major difference in this chase so far and he was going to use everything at his disposal. What was a little pain anyway? He had had worse with the horn, and he was still determined to make as much use of it as he could.

Soarin shook his head out and forced his body to move. Soarin’s stubbornness was getting the better of him. Magic had gotten a little harder recently due to Discord’s mental barrier fading… and after Discord taunted him about the magic… no. It was a part of him and he’d use it, especially if it meant they could stop these Shadowbolts and find out what they were planning.

Soarin pitched left as Air Mach fell past him, thrown by the mares again. The mares were now back to back, holding Spitfire and Fleetfoot at bay as the stallion headed for Soarin to stop his advance. Soarin locked onto the stallion and called forth his magic again. If this stallion wanted to charge him, he’d give him a little surprise.

Soarin shifted his mindset from attack, to protect. He thought of defending those close to him as he let the magic flow forth, and with a bright glow from the horn, Soarin was encased in a personal, spherical shield.

“What the?!” The stallion was clearly expecting another shot, but instead bounced off Soarin’s shield and was tossed aside. Soarin quickly released the shield and shifted right back to offensive, powering up his horn and aiming it at the stallion as he tumbled and tried to regain his balance. Soarin fired the beam, holding his breath as it jettisoned to create the energy spread, hoping to smack the stallion downward.

“Heh…” the stallion smirked and suddenly rounded out in an instant, firing up out of the range of the spread and shooting back towards Soarin. Before Soarin could realize he had been duped, the stallion had him by the arm, spun him around, and threw him downward.

Why? Soarin couldn’t figure it out. It didn’t help that his head started pulsating again, but he simply could not put his hoof on it.

Why were the Shadowbolts not fighting back? It made sense back in Manehatten because it was one Shadowbolt running from all of them, but here it was three against four. Much more favorable odds, but they were still were avoiding combat. Every time the Wonderbolts engaged them, the Shadowbolts would either just defend or divert them.

Soarin shook his head as he saw Spitfire and Fleetfoot get thrown… again. What the hell was going on?

“Damn!” Soarin heard Spitfire yell as she tumbled towards him and rounded out beside him, glaring at the Shadowbolts. They were tightly packed together and all focused on Fleetfoot and Air Mach, seemingly ready for anything the Wonderbolts could throw at them.

Soarin was tired of it, and with their backs turned to him, he had time to conjure up something stronger. Soarin closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate again, uncorking negative emotions to inject as much destructive magical power as possible to his building attack. He hated being toyed with… he hated being left in the dark… hell, he just hated the Shadowbolts, generally speaking. Without going into detail with who was who and who had proven to be good… they were the reason everything had gone from normal to crazy… and he always had a bit of anger towards that. He ground his teeth and began to growl as the magic flowed hard through his body, all the way from the tips of his hooves, the tiny ends of his fur, and the tip of his tail into the center of his body and began rushing like a hurricane towards his head and into the horn. Crackles and pops began to jut and spark around his body, his muscles tensing and flexing as he concentrated.

“SOARIN!” Spitfire yelled in alarm as she turned to him. “Be careful!!” she demanded. As much as she wanted to catch the Shadowbolts, she was well aware of the danger the magic posed to Soarin. She proved earlier that she was willing to risk a few lives to stop and question the Shadowbolts, but she wasn’t going to let Soarin destroy himself in the process.

“SHUT UP!” Soarin suddenly lashed out. Spitfire backed away in surprise as Soarin forced the magic to flow. He was channeling the negative emotions to strengthen the beam. He didn’t mean to yell at her, but it was a side effect of using them to manifest energy. He focused all of it towards the Shadowbolts. “RRRRAAAAAAH!” Soarin roared as he whipped his head forward. The horn sucked all of the light pulsing from it in, sparked and sputtered for a moment, and then then fired a beam that was many times larger than the others, a large BOOM echoing as it fired. Embers of blue light shot and jumped from the base of the horn as the beam flowed and careened towards the Shadowbolts.

Both of the mares turned around at the sound, and one of them tried to get away, the other ran directly into the stallion, causing the other mare to stop and try to assist… but the whole cacophony of reactions ended up making them all tangled. They managed to move slightly off, the beam nicking them instead of hitting them head on. Soarin was ready for that though, and tensed his whole body at once while inhaling sharply and thrusting his head down while grunting loudly. It caused the end of the beam to halt and explode two yards from the Shadowbolts as if it had collided with something behind them. It sent them all flying upward with trails of smoke streaming from them.

Air Mach was already heading towards them as the Shadowbolts shakily recovered. Groaning, coughing, and incredibly disoriented by the strong shock they had just absorbed from the near point-blank explosion. Fleetfoot stopped and looked towards Soarin for a moment.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaagrrrraaaaaaa!” Soarin dropped a few yards down before forcing his wings out and maintaining flight. He clutched and rubbed his forehead with his left hoof as the horn flickered and sparked. He started panting and grabbed his chest with his right hoof as his heart pounded in his chest.

Spitfire dropped down beside him, looking him over with extreme concern. She turned and pointed at Fleetfoot, making a head motion towards the Shadowbolts. Fleetfoot reluctantly nodded before turning and going after them to prevent Air Mach from being ganged up on.

“Soarin! THAT’S ENOUGH!” Spitfire demanded as she grabbed him by the shoulder. Soarin shook her arm off.

“What are you fussing over me for!?” he snapped at her. “Go… AH!” he squinted harder and shivered as the pain erupted in his head. “GO! I’m trying to give you guys openings!”

Spitfire gritted her teeth as she looked between Soarin and the Shadowbolts as Fleetfoot and Air Mach engaged them again. Soarin felt like smacking her across the face. All that talk about doing whatever it takes to catch the Shadowbolts and NOW she was hesitating? He was trying to help her!

Thankfully, Spitfire turned and did as she was told, leaving Soarin to handle his magic as she pursued their goal. Soarin forced his eyes open and saw Spitfire heading towards the scuffle, glancing back at him once.

Soarin had to focus. He had to control it! His magic could be the key to victory here… and after such a long time of having nearly complete control over it, the barrier just had to weaken now. Or was it because he was using offensive magic? It was more intense than any magic he used and the mental drain was extreme. Even with the barrier active he had trouble with it… so now…

“RGH!” Soarin grunted and forced his eyes open. If he was good enough to maintain flight through this pain, then dammit, he could help! He forged forward, pumping his wings despite each beat sending a shock of pain through his head. He was determined to catch the Shadowbolts and he was determined to make use of everything at his disposal. He wouldn’t let the magic hold him down. It was a blessing and a curse, but right now, he needed it to only be a blessing.

But what he couldn’t see as he forced himself towards the others… was that small, blue streams of light were starting to spill from his eyes.

“Will you guys just give it up already?!” the pink mare yelled. “You can’t stop us! You’re just being annoying!” she growled as she grabbed Fleetfoot by the arms and swung her into Air Mach.

“Surrender and land… then we’ll stop!” Spitfire demanded as she grappled with the yellow mare. The mare only sighed and shook her head as the stallion grabbed Spitfire by the shoulders and yanked her back, throwing her over his back and into Fleetfoot and Air Mach before they could recover.

“I’ve gotta…” Soarin pumped his wings. “Gotta catch them!” he encouraged himself as he approached. He had to put an end to the chase. The Shadowbolts weren’t even fighting, they were skillfully eluding. Based on how much his head hurt after the large blast he fired, using his offensive magic seemed like a bad idea… but what about his defensive? Could he use it to stop them? If he could trap them in a shield, they wouldn’t be able to run! But could he do it? If he had thought of it earlier, he would have been fine, but he had already used a great deal of magic, most of it straining, offensive magic. Without the mental barrier, it had caused a tremendous amount of pain, and the best way to describe how he felt in conjunction with the magic right now was completely unstable.

But it was their best bet. If anything he could corral them and hold it long enough for squad Foxtrot and Storm to recover. He wasn’t going to bet on the rest of squad seven making it, since they had yet to show, but with ten of them surrounding the Shadowbolts, now wary of their tricks, it would be easy to subdue them.

Tricks… that was another thing. Cloud bombs? Saddle bags full of possibly similar little baubles and gizmos? Where were the crystals? It would be easy to say that these Shadowbolts were apart from Nightshade, but Soarin remembered that Nightshade was very protective of the crystals and punished those who misused them. Perhaps the system had changed and they would only be given crystals based on their performance? The crystals were addictive after all. It could’ve been a control method. This was all… of course… assuming that Nightshade was somehow still alive.

Whatever the case was, they would never know if they didn’t capture and question these three Shadowbolts. So Soarin focused on the task at hoof, or at least as much as he could with his head throbbing as if it was being repeatedly struck with a sledgehammer.

Soarin flew low underneath as Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach continued to struggle against them. In terms of abilities, these Shadowbolts didn’t seem any better, faster, or stronger than them. If it was actually a battle, they would probably be evenly matched, maybe even better than these Shadowbolts. But all they did was toss them aside or divert their movement. It was hard to fight when the opponent was doing nothing but parrying, diverting, and throwing. In fact, it was incredibly annoying and frustrating. Soarin was sure that it was really pissing off Spitfire. She could have easily beaten down these idiots, but she was being careful with the intention of capturing and subduing as opposed to beating them senseless. That small margin of difference though caused her to be eluded just like the rest of them.

Soarin stayed low, and successfully made it to the other side of the struggle, popping up behind the Shadowbolts as they kept pushing the other Wonderbolts away.

“One more time!” Soarin whispered to himself as he focused on the Shadowbolts and relaxed despite the continuous pain in his head. He grimaced and grunted as the magic began flowing again… however it felt much less like a calm river and more like an uneven torrent. It felt like the magic was jumping and thrashing around inside of him. He remained strong though, and as he focused, the magic eventually made its way to his head, despite the flow being sloppy. He channeled thoughts of protection, gritting his teeth and opening his eyes. The horn crackled and popped with blue energy, but glowed to life.

He waited patiently, looking an opportunity to trap the Shadowbolts without locking in his squadmates as well. Air Mach and Fleetfoot were repelled once again, and the moment Spitfire was shoved away, Soarin tipped his head forward and the glow brightened. His head burned as the magic channeled, but he held on, staying focused through sheer force of will.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot yelped as a large blue sphere suddenly appeared in front of them, encasing the Shadowbolts.

“What the?!” the stallion exclaimed as the three Shadowbolts looked in all directions, trapped.

Fleetfoot looked through the sphere, spotting Soarin as he strained himself. She quickly glided around the sphere and up besides Soarin. She wanted to ask if he was alright, but first, it was obvious he wasn’t. He was clearly in pain. Secondly, she didn’t want to break his concentration. Third? His eyes were glowing blue… and the light was rising from his eyes like flames. He was also grunting, growling, and breathing sharply through his nose. She didn’t know if approaching him was a good idea, so she remained a couple of yards away.

“Shadowbolts!” Spitfire jumped at the opportunity. She was worried about Soarin, but he had made it clear to her he was doing all of it for her benefit. She didn’t want to waste it. “What are you scheming?!” she yelled as she approached the sphere. The three Shadowbolts looked at her and blinked. The pink mare snickered and shortly after they all burst out laughing within the sphere.

Spitfire and Air Mach glanced at each other, both equally confused.

“I’m warning you three…” Spitfire snarled.

“Oh, so scary…” the yellow mare waved a hoof at Spitfire. “Look, you don’t know a damn thing… and honestly, you’re really wasting your time with us.” The pink mare floated up beside her.

“Yeah, seriously,” the pink mare spoke up. It was here for the first time that Spitfire realized they had very similar voices. “So why don’t you let us go? I mean, how long do you think Soarin can hold this? He’s already used his magic much more than he should have,” she pointed back. “Without Discord’s barrier and how hard he’s pushed it… it’s bound to go nuts in a few seconds.”

“What…?” Spitfire’s eyes widened. Not only did the pink mare just casually call Soarin by name, but also mentioned the magic, the barrier that Discord put into his head, and the fact that the barrier had been weakening…

How did they know about all of that?!

“Rgh!!” Soarin suddenly grunted. “Who… Who are you?!” he suddenly yelled.

“Soarin?” Fleetfoot tipped her head in confusion as Soarin slammed his eyes shut and shook his head as the horn flickered brightly.

“What are you doing in my head?!” Soarin yelled as his neck lurched back and forth.

“See?” the pink mare shrugged.

“SOARIN! STOP!” Spitfire yelled from the other side of the barrier.

But Soarin couldn’t hear anything. Because he wasn’t just talking to himself… he was hearing a voice in his head, a voice he had heard in his dreams, specifically the male voice.

Give in… you know it will happen eventually, just let it go…

“No!” Soarin yelled. “NO! I… I won’t! I won’t let go!”

Don’t be a fool… the power… can’t you feel it? Can’t you see its might?

“Ah! AAAH!” Soarin bent his neck down and grabbed his head as the horn began to blink repeatedly like a beacon. “I… I…”

Worry not, Soarin…

Soarin’s eyes opened as he heard the female voice.

Allow me to handle this… and… I’m sorry…

NO! YOU WILL NOT HOLD ME DOWN! The male voice roared.

Soarin felt a massive, painful shock shoot through his body as if every one single one of his nerve endings had been stabbed with several needles at once. The light retracted violently, shooting back into the horn and disappearing completely for a moment. Soarin stood completely still as his brain registered so much pain at once that took him a moment to feel anything… but then… he did…

“AAAAARRHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Soarin suddenly screamed in pain, his head reared back, and squinted his shut as an erratic blast of blue light exploded from the horn. The blue light squeaked out between his squinted eyes and fired out of his mouth. The pressure of the blast from the horn itself tore his mask apart, exposing his face as he roared in pain. Sparks and streams of blue light jumped off the horn in all directions as it emitted a light so bright that the rest had to cover their eyes. Fleetfoot shrieked and shielded herself as the chain reaction of Soarin’s magic lit up right beside her.

Art by: Foxenawolf

The sphere disappeared and the rest of the lead squad watched in horror as Soarin’s wings gave out and he fell limply towards the ground, the horn leaving behind a streaking trail of blue light as he dropped.

“SOARIN!” Fleetfoot dove after him, getting below him and doing what she could to slow his fall before the two went in for a soft landing.

Spitfire just stared down at Soarin, frozen save for her wings keeping her afloat.

“What did I tell ya?” the pink mare shrugged. “Figures… I WONDER if you WONDERbolts even know what you’re doing…” she jeered. Spitfire averted her eyes from Soarin, calling upon all her restraint to not go to his side as he and Fleetfoot fell into a tree below.

The yellow mare rolled her eyes.

“This is the part where you let us go before you amateurs do more stupid shit,” she spoke up as the Shadowbolts turned and started to leave. But then they all stopped as they ran face first into a large chest of black and white fur and feathers.

“I think not,” Matteo’s deep voice caused them to look up at the griffon as he glared down at them. Dash, Squall, Twister, Storm, and Little Star all flew in.

“Really?” the male Shadowbolt sighed in frustration as Air Mach and Spitfire joined the recruits and Storm. Dash glanced around, but didn’t see Soarin or Fleetfoot. She wanted to ask if they were okay, but since they literally just arrived on the scene and had the Shadowbolts surrounded, it would have to wait.

“Yes, really…” Spitfire growled. “And now that my best friend just got hurt in the process, I’m not stopping until we bring you down and you TALK!” Spitfire snapped, causing Star to edge away slightly in the wake of Spitfire’s anger. Dash’s eyes widened slightly as she heard that. Best friend? Both Soarin and Fleetfoot were not present… that meant one of them…

“That was his own damn fault for being careless,” the male Shadowbolt shook his head before looking between the mares. “What do you guys think? Crazy Spin?” the male Shadowbolt asked.

“Crazy Spin,” they both agreed and nodded casually.

“Crazy wha—?” Air Mach blinked but the Shadowbolts were already up to something.

The mares reached in and grabbed the stallion by the arms. And… he began spinning. Spinning so hard that they quickly turned into a blur.

“Whoa!” Squall and Storm backed away as it edged towards them. The spinning trio shifted around, all the Wonderbolts afraid to touch it, knowing it could easily knock them out.

“NOW!” The stallion yelled, throwing the two mares straight down before diving after them. He clicked his hooves together crushing two small, black spheres he must have grabbed form the mares’ saddle bags as they spun. A large cloud of black smoke exploded behind them, smoke screening all of the Wonderbolts.

“NO!” Spitfire yelled as she coughed. All of them were off balance and disoriented… but Dash had kept her bearings.

She dropped down and fired out from the cloud of smoke, using Twister’s Spiral Turn, followed by Matteo’s Air Burst to gain a boost of speed and shoot after the Shadowbolts. The three evened out, zooming about twenty yards above the grassy plains that extended out below and beyond the Cloudsdale boundaries. The stallion glanced behind him as they moved, confident they had left the Wonderbolts in the dust, but,

“WHAT?!” he exclaimed as he spotted Dash following behind and catching up to them. “GAH! FORGET IT!” he pumped his wings until he was alongside the pink mare and reached into her saddle bag. “I’m tired of this! Screw our orders!” he yelled as he pulled a yellow sphere out of the bag and slowed down.

“HEY!” The pink mare yelled as she and the yellow both looked back in alarm.

“STOP!!!!” They both yelled as they tried to reach the stallion, but it was too late. He crushed the yellow sphere between his hooves and volts of intense electricity began running over them. He pulled his hooves apart to reveal ribbons of lightning fluctuating between them.

Dash’s eyes widened as she saw the lightning in the stallion’s hooves and she immediately put on the breaks. It wasn’t enough though, she couldn’t stop her forward motion. Her pupils shrank, her heartbeat quickened and her breathing became erratic as the stallion pulled back and fired a large stream of lightning towards her. Dash’s body was frozen in fear. Her brain replaying the traumatic painful shock she lived through a year ago. She had been training to control the fear and the lightning… but she wasn’t expecting to deal with it so soon. She was unprepared. She could do nothing.

She was going to get hit.

“MOVE IT, DAMMIT!” A voice yelled out from beside her as something suddenly rammed her in the side. Her head turned from the force towards whoever had hit her and she could made out out dark grey fur, a curly silver-white mane, and a Wonderbolt uniform.

Silver Lining.

“AH!” Dash yelped as she was shoved aside. She watched with wide eyes as the large stream of lightning struck Silver.

“RGH!” He grunted as he was forced backwards by the force of the electricity. But, he was the best lightning handler in the Wonderbolts. “HM!” Silver threw his arms and legs out, forcing the electricity outwards from his body and spinning to collect it out of the air as is shot away from his body.

Art by: Ice Blade

With all of the lightning now caught and concentrated in his hooves, he spun around and fired it right back at the Shadowbolt… who clearly did not see it coming.

“AAAAAAYAIYAIYAI!!!” The Shadowbolt stallion cried out as he was shocked by his own lightning attack. He fell towards the ground, the two mares diving after him.

“Silver?” Dash blinked. “What…? What are you…?”

“No fear, Dash,” Silver said without looking at her. “No fear,” he repeated with a stern tone in his voice that cut deep. Dash shivered as he said it, but then looked up in surprise as Silver whistled loudly and dropped towards the Shadowbolts.

He slammed to the ground a few yards away and glared at the Shadowbolts as the two mares struggled to get the stallion on his hooves. They all looked up at Silver, but before they could do anything, Blaze, High Winds, and Wave Chill all slammed to the ground around them, surrounding them on all four sides. Dash looked up and saw Misty Fly, Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, and Surprise fly in from above and hover over them.

“SILVER!” Spitfire’s voice came from behind Dash as she and Air Mach flew by her and landed beside Silver Air Mach looked just as confused as she was. Dash looked behind her and saw her squad and Storm approach from behind. Dash shook her head out as she saw the rest looking at the gathering of the highest elites curiously. There was no time to think about it.

“Spread out among squad three! Cut off all possible avenues of escape!” she ordered. Squall, Twister, Matteo, and Star all obeyed as Storm shifted over beside her.

“Like to tell me what’s going on, Storm?” Dash asked. Storm shook his head.

“I have absolutely no idea…” he replied as they both looked down at Spitfire standing beside Silver.

“You were supposed to wait for my signal!” Spitfire growled at Silver, who only shook his head.

“My signal was when my student was put at risk,” he snorted while glancing back at Dash. “Put a reprimand on my record if you must, I wasn’t letting that happen.”

“You’re lucky it still worked out then…” Spitfire huffed as she stepped forward.

The Shadowbolts looked around, completely trapped by the sixteen Wonderbolts surrounding them. From the looks of things, the stallion was having issues with one of his wings. He kept swinging it and shivering in discomfort. They were grounded.

Spitfire smirked, ready to dish back some of the strange verbal abuse they had received.

“Amateurs, huh?” Spitfire said with a hint of a snide tone in her voice. “I was getting tired of hearing you and all your friends say that stuff. “But it looks like these amateurs have outwitted you. I’ve been one step ahead the whole time,” Spitfire glared. “Now… TALK… and if you don’t talk here, we’ll drag you back to the Wonderbolt compound and make you talk there,” she demanded.

But…

To her dismay, the two mares only chuckled and shook their heads as the stallion rose to his hooves.

“Spitfire, Spitfire, Spitfire…” the pink mare spoke up as the Wonderbolts all looked down in confusion. They were trapped and their tricks had been seen. There was no way three of them could elude sixteen Wonderbolts. “One step ahead of us? Please… if you want to be the best… you can’t just be one step ahead…” the pink mare looked directly up. “You have to be two!”

“LOOKOUT!!!!!!” Surprise suddenly yelled out. All the Wonderbolts looked up and a VERY large pegasus was dropping towards the Wonderbolts at an insane speed.

Squad three and Foxtrot shifted aside in the air and squad two, Spitfire, and Air Mach leapt back. The three Shadowbolts shifted back, turned and shielded themselves as the huge pony crashed to the ground, driving his body into the grass.

A loud BOOM sounded out at impact and a large eruption of dirt, rocks, and grass kicked up in a shockwave that sent all the Wonderbolts flying in different directions.

“WHOA!” Dash yelped as she was blown backward by the heavy impact. She threw her wings out to stop in midair, but threw her arms up to shield herself from all the debris kicked up. Storm flew back and crashed into her, knocking them both a little further before they split apart and faced the newcomer with the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“That’s…!!!” Storm exclaimed as the dust cleared.

The new pegasus was another Shadowbolt, green with a short, messy black mane. He was incredibly large… bigger than Soarin, maybe even Matteo! Unlike the two of them though, this Shadowbolt was incredibly thick and had lots of body bulk, was very heavy set, and had a very ‘roundish’ face. He looked impossible to move if one were to try, and it wasn’t hard to tell he was incredibly strong and incredibly sturdy. He looked around at all the Wonderbolts and scoffed.

“Weaklings…” he said with a low raspy voice followed by a snort.

“That’s the Shadowbolt we chased in the canyon!” Storm exclaimed as Dash looked at the giant. He did fit the description she overheard when Storm and Dex reported.

“Coming in hot!” another voice came from above. Dash and Storm looked up to see three more Shadowbolts diving in from above. One of them was red stallion with a slicked back, white mane, matching the description that Silver reported. Beside him, the white stallion with the grey mane that Soarin had told her about from Manehatten. She couldn’t make out the Shadowbolt behind them, but she didn’t have time to think.

“SCRAMBLE AND ATTACK!” Spitfire yelled as the Shadowbolts dove in. The Wonderbolts scattered and picked targets.

“AW YEAH!” the red stallion cheered as he suddenly angled his wings backward and started shifting and turning in erratic patterns before shooting down towards squad two at such a sudden incredible speed that the color of his mane left a white streak behind him.

The white stallion smirked, straightening his wings out and holding them steady as he dove into a high speed glide towards squad three.

Storm flew down and joined Air Mach as they dove at the giant green stallion as Spitfire tried to get around him to the two mares, who were tending to the stallion with the hurt wing.

“Foxtrot! Let’s—” Dash was about to give an order to go help with the huge pony, but before she could, the final Shadowbolt dropped down in front of her. Dash’s ears folded back as she looked up.

The last Shadowbolt was a pure white mare… a very large, pure white mare with a long, blonde, wavy mane. She wasn’t the massive size that the green stallion was… but she was definitely bigger than Soarin. She looked incredibly powerful too, very muscular, her chest, shoulders, arms, and legs all about twice the mass of Dash’s… and Dash had been working out quite a bit.

Dash couldn’t see her eyes behind the goggles, but the mare had hard features, mixed with three battle scars, on that went down between her eyes over her nose, and two that crossed on her right cheek.

With little time to think, and more worried about the fact that they were now being swarmed… Dash took the initiative, pulling her hoof back and delivering a hard punch to the mare’s chest.

And immediately regretted it.

“AAAH!!!” Dash yelped as cracking and popping noises came from around her hoof. She pulled it back and clutched it as it throbbed in pain. Dash was pretty much certain she had just punched a brick wall.

“Feh…” the mare scoffed before charging forward. Dash gagged as the mare wrapped one of her powerful arms around her neck and began dragging her along through the air. Dash struggled and shifted, trying to get free, but she couldn’t break the mare’s grip. Two more yelps met Dash’s ears, one of which was followed by Little Star pressing against her. Dash’s eyes squeaked open to see Star gripped in the same arm with her, and Twister caught in the mare’s other arm.

Squall flew up in front and charged at the mare as she dragged his squadmates along, rose upright and put his hooves up. He snarled as they drew close and let out his battle cry.

“HOOOOORYAAAA!!!!” he yelled as he delivered his strongest , rapid strike to the mare… but she didn’t even flinch nor lose any speed. She barreled right into him, and grabbed him in the same arm she was holding Twister in.

She threw her large wings out and came to a halt before spinning around and launching Twister and Squall into the air, followed by a second turn and doing the same with Star and Dash.

“WHOA!!!!” Dash yelped as the four of them careened through the air, struggling to the regain their balance.

Dash managed to find her equilibrium first and rounded out just in time to see Matteo charge the mare. The two clashed, Matteo locking his talons around the mare’s hooves. They lowered to the ground and slammed down, pushing against each other as hard as they could. However, Matteo looked like he was struggling, and the mare was barely breaking a sweat.

“Argh!” Matteo grunted as the Mare threw her hooves up, forcing Matteo to rear back on his lion paws. The mare rushed forward, and grabbed Matteo by the waist.

“No way…” Dash rubbed her eyes and blinked.

“HHHHHHHNNNNNRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!!” the mare growled, her muscles tensing as she anchored her back hooves into the ground… and LIFTED Matteo up over her head.

“WHAT THE DEVIL?!” Matteo exclaimed as he began flailing in her grip.

“MATT!” Dash yelled as she dove towards them to assist, but as she did, the mare tipped backward.

“HRRRRRRRAAAAA!” she roared as she THREW Matteo at Dash.

“AH!” Dash yelled as she tried to pull up, but Matteo’s massive body struck her and carried her with his momentum.

“Hmph… pathetic…” the mare snorted before turning and flying back towards the Shadowbolts.

“Dammit!” Silver yelled as he shifted. The red and white stallion chuckled as he shot past Silver, made several sharp turns before launching back at the rest of his squad.

Something was weird. Silver had seen moves like these before. But he wasn’t quite sure where. He had fought many ponies with interesting abilities in the past, but he had fought so many opponents throughout his life that it was all a blur… could the Shadowbolts have gone on a huge recruitment drive? There were lots of undesirables that would fit their description.

Whatever it was, Silver felt like things were going nowhere. The Shadowbolts were not attacking them, just disorienting them. All this stallion had done was knock them around and prevent them from focusing.

Silver glanced around as he found a brief moment. Squad three was in the same bind. The white stallion gliding around them and staying out of reach while knocking them around. He just saw the large mare completely humiliate Dash’s squad and Storm, Air Mach, and Spitfire were having no luck getting around the giant green stallion as he shielded the two mares and the stallion Silver had knocked down with lightning.

They were buying time. Silver could see it. He was doing nothing useful trying to stop this stallion that was pushing his squad around… so he decided to switch things up.

He dove towards the giant pony below as Air Mach bounced off of him and yelled towards Spitfire.

“Captain! Move it!” he ordered.

Spitfire looked up as she saw Silver diving and pushed off, creating space between her and the giant stallion. Silver slammed down right in front of the stallion, clearly taking him by surprise as he grunted and tried to shift his weight and focus on Silver.

Silver reared his hoof back, twisting his body around. As he launched his attack, he made every subtle shift possible in his punching form to maximize the power as he threw the blow.

“HRRRK!!!!” The giant stallion grunted in pain as Silver’s punch landed directly in his chest and sent a vibration through him that forced him back a few steps.

“Captain! Now!” Silver yelled while pointing towards the two mares and stallion struggling behind the giant.

“Capture those three!” Spitfire yelled as she leapt towards them. Silver, Storm, and Air Mach all followed right behind.

“HHRRGGG!!!” The giant stallion drove his left back hoof hard into the ground and pushed forward while swinging his arms out.

“OOF!”

“ARGH!”

Air Mach and Storm grunted as the stallion’s arms struck them and forced them back in the other direction, but Silver and Spitfire managed to slip by and were heading right for the trio of downed Shadowbolts.

But then…

“Silver! Above!” Spitfire yelled as she looked up. Silver glanced up as well and the two touched down, skidding to a halt as two new Shadowbolts landed in front of them. They put themselves in between Spitfire and Silver and the three trying to gather themselves. “HOW MANY OF YOU ARE THERE?!” Spitfire yelled as she and Silver stared down the two newcomers.

But something was different about these two.

They didn’t say anything, nor did they make a move at them. They stood completely still, staring straight forward with eyes behind the red tinted goggles. It was a mare, and a stallion. The mare was yellow with a very long, straight white mane that flowed down past her shoulders and over her chest. She faced Spitfire. The stallion was red with a heavily blown back orange and yellowish mane. He was staring down Silver.

Neither Spitfire nor Silver bothered to say anything else. They both launched themselves at the newcomers with the intention of going through them to get to their target.

Spitfire reached the mare first made a feint to the left and punched hard with her right hoof. The mare didn’t move as the punch careened right at her face.

At the last possible moment, the mare dipped back and curled her neck down, letting Spitfire’s arm pass right over and brush against the back of her neck. She reached up and grabbed Spitfire’s arm with her opposite hoof and pulled Spitfire up onto her back. With a powerful, yet gentle turn, swing of her arm, and light hop, the mare launched Spitfire upward.

“HUH?!?!” Spitfire blinked in disbelief as she careened upward passing right by squad two and three.

Silver slammed his hooves down as he approached the stallion, turned his body and made the same subtle motions he used to create the mega punch he delivered to the giant pony a moment ago… only the stallion, from a stationary position, reared back, wound up a punch and met Silver’s attack with his own. Their hooves clashed with a loud CLAK and Silver’s momentum made the stallion’s back hooves skid a little across the ground, but only about a yard before they came to a halt.

Silver threw his other hoof around to follow up, but the stallion met that blow as well.

The two stood on their hind legs, their front hooves locked together and pushing against one another. They growled and grunted as they struggled, but the stallion smirked.

“Not bad… youngster…” the stallion said.

Silver’s eyes widened, but before he could blink, the stallion let up, causing Silver to fly forward. The stallion turned him around and put him in a full nelson.

“Agh!” Silver grunted as he found himself in an unfavorable position. “Shit!” he cursed as he looked up and saw the mare coming towards him.

She grabbed Silver from the stallion and pulled his arm over her body, repeating the same motions she just did to Spitfire, and gently launching Silver skyward. In fact, he flew directly into Spitfire, knocking them both off balance.

“Is he good to go?” the mare asked as she turned to the two mares and the hurt stallion.

“As good as he’s gonna get,” the pink mare nodded. As she poked the hurt stallion roughly in the arm.

“Then it’s time to go,” said the red and white stallion as he looked around at the rest of the Shadowbolts. He took a deep breath and whistled in three different tones. “LET’S MOVE! EXIT MANUEVER ALPHA TWO ONE THREE TWO!” he called out.

“What did he just say?” Dash blinked as she and her squad had finally gotten up and were flying as fast as they could towards the fighting.

Whatever he had said, the Shadowbolts were moving. They all gathered down by the giant stallion and lined up in a strange, circular spiral pattern. They all lifted off and began flying at different speeds, but all in the same circle.

Dash watched in awe as they moved… either it was their numbers, combined skill of the Shadowbolts, or the strange formation… but in seconds the winds around them became intense, spiraling gusts began blowing and less than twenty seconds later they had a small, powerful tornado going.

All the Wonderbolts were being sucked in, and even though Dash and squad Foxtrot had put on the brakes, they had already gotten too close. They were drawn into the tornado as well.

“ARGH!” Dash grunted as she flailed and whipped about. She looked in every direction, her flight goggles allowing her to see inside the tornado. The Wonderbolts were all struggling to regain control, but none of them were being tossed violently about. It was as if the tornado was… gentle? If that was even possible?

Dash forced her body upright and was about to spread out her wings and try to counter fly… but…

The tornado died down very suddenly and completely stopped.

Dash and the rest of the Wonderbolts all regained their balance and floated in place, looking in all directions, dizzy and confused.

“What…just…?” Dash blinked looked all around her… but…

“No… NO!” Spitfire yelled out from nearby. “NO, NO, NO!” she repeated as Dash and the others looked towards her. “DAMMIT! DAMMIT ALL!” Spitfire kept yelling as she hit her hooves together in frustration.

The Shadowbolts were gone. Every single one of them… gone. They were all stuck in the small tornado for at least thirty seconds. That was more than enough time for a group of highly skilled flyers to get out of site. There was no trace and no path to follow, for all they knew, the Shadowbolts had scattered in all directions.

Spitfire lowered to the ground, the rest of the Wonderbolts following while keeping an eye on their captain. Dash looked at squad two and three. Were they there the whole time? Was Matteo right? Were they used as a distraction or a diversion while other operations went on in the background? Did Storm know about it?

“Captain lady…” Air Mach suddenly spoke up as he approached. “What are the other top elites doing here?” he asked while tipping his glasses down and looking about.

That answered her question. In fact, she looked up at Storm and saw that he looked just as confused.

Spitfire briefly examined all of the Wonderbolts and growled.

“Again… they didn’t hurt a single one of us…” she thought out loud, noticing that aside from small scratches or bruises, none of the Wonderbolts had battle damage. Any damage sustained was collateral or through themselves. None of them were physically attacked, just tossed and thrown. “Why? Why are they not fighting us?!” she slammed her hooves down. “What do they want?! Who are they working for?!” she slammed her hooves down too more times.

Storm, squad Foxtrot, and Air Mach all looked at Spitfire. She looked down and remained silent as Silver approached her. He was about to speak, but Spitfire suddenly looked up in alarm and gasped.

“SOARIN!” she exclaimed before looking back and her eyes locking on a collection of trees nearby. Dash’s ears perked up when she heard his name. In the wake of all the confusion she had almost completely forgotten. Soarin and Fleetfoot were not present when she and her squad arrived and Spitfire mentioned ‘one of her friends getting hurt.’ Dash would have been worried if it was Fleetfoot too, but part of her was hoping it wasn’t Soarin… because unlike Fleetfoot, Soarin had more than a few things that could have gone wrong.

Spitfire pushed past Silver and took off, zooming towards the nearby trees. Without a word, Dash lifted off and followed right behind. Silver snorted before looking towards the rest of the Wonderbolts and made a head motion for them to follow before he lifted up and glided towards the trees with the rest in tow.

Dash gasped as they approached.

Soarin was down beneath the trees, his mask was torn, his suit was mangled, and he lay flat with the horn sputtering and flashing brightly. He was groaning in pain, his body twitching each time the horn started glowing. Small blue streams of light were rising from his eyes, squeaking between his closed eyelids. Fleetfoot sat beside him, gently rubbing her hoof on his back and flinching each time the horn flashed, worried that it might lash out at her.

“SOARIN!” Dash exclaimed and shot right past Spitfire, landing in front of him and quickly shielding her eyes as Soarin groaned in pain and a bright flash shone from the horn. Spitfire landed beside her, but remained silent as she looked upon her fallen friend. She removed her goggles, gritted her teeth, and looked away as Dash crouched down beside Soarin draping her wing over him.

Fleetfoot got up and backed away as Dash took over, walking back towards Spitfire. Her ears stood up and she blinked when she saw the rest of the Wonderbolts approaching slowly, complete with squad two and three. She looked at Spitfire and lifted an eyebrow.

“Spitty… why are squad two and three here?” she asked with a little bit of confusion and a hint of frustration, more than certain that Spitfire may have gone ahead and taken things into her own hooves again.

“I’ll explain later…” Spitfire sighed as she looked back at Soarin. “Right now… I’m more worried about him… and if I’m really making the right choices,” she said as she lightly shook her head.

“Soarin?” Dash spoke softly to him. “Soarin, I’m here, it’s alright…” Dash rubbed her wing gently on his back as his labored breathing slightly slowed.

“No…” Soarin mumbled. “No… I won’t give in… no…” he groaned.

“Soarin?” Dash leaned her head towards his.

“I… I… won’t… I… AH!” Soarin suddenly cried out and his head lurched up. A blue light flashed from the horn again, but this time…

A few yellow sparks jumped and cracked from the horn shooting in different directions before dissipating, and for a brief moment, the blue stream rising from his left eye turned yellow… before going back to blue.

“Ah… ahhhhhh…” Soarin cringed as Dash’s eyes widened. She reached down and clutched one of his hooves.

The yellow magic… seeing it again filled her with intense worry.

“We have to get him back to the compound,” Spitfire said as she turned to Fleetfoot. “Wave, Lightning, Blaze, Surprise, High Winds,” she called out as she turned around and faced the approaching group. “We’re going home, I need you five to fly to the Cloudsdale arena and gather up any bags we left in the waiting room while we move Soarin to the station… and while you’re there, find out where the hell the rest of squad seven is,” she ordered. The five Wonderbolts nodded and took off towards Cloudsdale. “Silver! Fire!” she turned and called to the two captains. Silver Lining and Fire Streak approached and stood attention. “When we get back, I’m calling a compound wide captain meeting in the second floor meeting room. As soon as we return, I want you two to inform all the other captains as quickly as possible. I’ll give you the details as we head back.”

“Yes, ma’am!” the two replied. Spitfire sighed and looked towards Soarin.

“Air Mach, help Dash get Soarin to the train station,” she ordered. Air Mach gave a quick salute before trotting over to help.

“Well… now what?” Fleetfoot asked as she stepped up beside Spitfire. “Nothing makes sense… not like it did before…” she huffed. Spitfire shook her head.

“I have no idea Fleet… I really don’t. Once again, they completely eluded us, and in a full blown dogfight got away without hurting any of us…” she turned and looked at Soarin. “All of our damage was our own doing… as if…” Spitfire blinked. “It’s as if that’s what they’re trying to show us… god dammit, I don’t know,” she grunted. “I feel like a child battling a parent. An overzealous child that thinks they have an edge, but never actually does. I thought I was one step ahead of them this time… but they were two steps ahead of me…”

Spitfire turned and started walking away to check on the rest of the Wonderbolts. Fleetfoot watched her leave and then glanced back at Soarin as Dash and Air Mach carefully propped him up on their shoulders and carried him along.

At least now they knew what they were up against… or… did they?

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh dear oh dear oh dear... what have we here?

Just what the hell is going on with the Shadowbolts... and uh oh... the yellow magic is back?

Oh my yes, things are about to get... interesting. :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 82: Train of Thoughts

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 82:

“Come on, come on, while we have the opening, let’s go!” Spitfire waved from beside the train car as Air Mach and Dash carried Soarin towards her.

They were at the Cloudsdale ground station, but aside from the platform conductors and a few other members of the station staff, the place was completely empty. Not a single reporter in sight. The earth pony security guards were posted around the station until all Wonderbolts were on board.

Fleetfoot looked all about the station as the five Wonderbolts Spitfire dispatched to gather their belongings returned with the rest of squad seven, who all looked incredibly confused.

“How did we get such a clean path to the station? This never happens…” she thought out loud as she removed her goggles and mask. Fire Streak trotted up beside her.

“We fed the media false information about our departure,” he explained. “They think we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Grr…” Fleetfoot gritted her teeth and growled while glaring towards Spitfire. Fire blinked and backed away slightly as Fleetfoot grumbled.

Leaving the recruits out of the loops was one thing. Hell, she could understand if squad seven was kept in the dark as well… but the lead squad?! Spitfire had blatantly deceived her, Soarin, and Air Mach, putting faith in the second and third squad to carry out a mission that three Wonderbolts with the HIGHEST clearance to information knew nothing about. Forget Air Mach, Spitfire just led on two of her best friends in favor of capturing some ponies they knew very little about. Fleetfoot understood Spitfire’s duties and obligations, but lying to her closest friends was not a good sign. Spitfire had tried keeping a lot of things from them recently and Fleetfoot had had enough of it. This wasn’t the Spitfire she knew. Had the captainship really changed her so much?

“All aboard!” the conductor’s voice called from outside.

Fleetfoot glanced out the window of the rear train car, catching a glimpse of the last few security guards before they disappeared from view towards the third car from the last.

The train cars lurched and creaked as the train began to move as Fleetfoot turned her head to see Dash and Air Mach moving towards the car ahead, most likely to lay Soarin down on one of the foldout beds in the private cabins.

The rear car was a lot more crowded than their first trip. With squads two and three present, they were nearly at full capacity. Normally a situation like this would be loud and possibly rambunctious, but most of them were just sitting and thinking about what they had just encountered and how easily the best of the best had just been pushed aside without a real fight.

But Fleetfoot didn’t care about how crowded the car was or who was now there… she only wanted to confront one pony.

Spitfire was sitting alone near the front of the car, staring out the window as the train picked up speed. The rest were visibly avoiding her, which wasn’t surprising after her outburst following the escape of the Shadowbolts. Even Wave didn’t approach her.

Soarin was usually the one that handled Spitfire. The two of them were like family to her, but she never felt quite as attached to the two of them as Spitfire and Soarin seemed. It wasn’t surprising. The two had known each other practically since birth. But Soarin was down, and in pain… so Fleetfoot felt it was up to her.

She got up from her seat, and slowly made her way through the mingling Wonderbolts and towards Spitfire.

Fleetfoot shared a strong bond with Spitfire, and strong bonds are built on respect and trust. With this deception, Fleetfoot felt like Spitfire was forgetting that. She didn’t care what Spitfire’s plan was for, she felt insulted.

Fleetfoot didn’t say anything upon approaching. She stopped, turned, and looked directly at Spitfire who was still looking out the window.

Spitfire’s ears perked up when she saw the faint reflection of Fleetfoot in the window. She glanced behind her just enough to see Fleetfoot’s mane before turning back around and staring out again. It was a surprising move, like Spitfire didn’t want to say anything on top of looking unapproachable.

Fleetfoot sighed when Spitfire didn’t acknowledge her. She stepped into the space, and sat right down on the seat right next to Spitfire.

Nothing was said for a few minutes. Spitfire kept looking out the window, and Fleetfoot stared straight forward at the wall beside the connecting doors. The silence was going to last if Fleetfoot didn’t speak up, and she was well aware of that. Fleetfoot was known for being super talkative and bringing the conversations forward, so in the event that she said nothing, it was easy to tell she was angry or bothered.

She let the moment marinate for a few minutes before taking a deep breath and breathing out slowly through her nose.

“So…” Fleetfoot spoke up, earning a sudden flinch from Spitfire. “Are you gonna tell me why you don’t trust me anymore? What about Soarin? You don’t trust him either?” she didn’t hold back at all. She felt somewhat betrayed and she was going to make sure Spitfire felt it.

“Fleet…” Spitfire quickly spoke up. “That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” Fleetfoot pressed. “Tell me what tiny corner of your brain told you it was okay to deceive your two best friends. I’d like to meet it and promptly punch it.”

“Fleet!” Spitfire suddenly turned to Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot turned as well, keeping her demeanor stern all the way to the point that Spitfire’s face came into view. Her eyes widened slightly and she blinked. “It’s not that… please… don’t say that.”

Talk about a sudden drastic change. Spitfire had been sitting alone since they had gotten on the train, but that time alone looked like it took a toll on her.

Her mask was off, goggles around the neck. Her eyes looked bloodshot and heavy, her posture was incredibly slouched and her voice had an uncharacteristic, slight slur to it as if her voice was barely even trying. Not only that, but this was usually the point where she would belt at Soarin as she had in the past when they had gotten into arguments… but right now Spitfire not only seemed docile… but… very tired? Exhausted?

“Then… what was that all about?” Fleetfoot asked, quickly easing the harshness in her voice. Seeing the usually hard and serious Spitfire in such a… weakened state was unnerving. She had seen Spitfire emotional, she had seen Spitfire lose her cool, but even in those moments Spitfire was still strong. Here, she looked anything but.

“I took a chance Fleet,” Spitfire began as she let her head droop down. “I thought that if I layered my plan with deception on both sides, I would catch the Shadowbolts off-guard, and we’d be bringing one of them home for questioning right now. I planned this for months, letting only squads two and three completely behind closed doors. I wanted us to appear to be aware of them as we went on our trip and take ‘precautions’ with a squad of ‘unknown’ recruits to keep an eye out. The Shadowbolts kept talking about us being amateurs or weaklings… so I thought I’d play into that, but they saw right through it or they were prepared all along…” she leaned back and let the back of her head rest against the top of the seat cushion with a heavy sigh.

“And…” she continued. “It didn’t work. I was aware of the risks, but I was determined to succeed through any means necessary… and what came of it? You’re angry at me and Soarin could be in serious danger,” she sat back upright and looked towards Fleetfoot. “I’m sorry Fleet…”

An apology. That was the icing on the cake. Spitfire was apologizing. The same Spitfire who stood by all of her choices to death and always spoke of making decisions for the good of Equestria, the Wonderbolts and everypony… just acknowledged a blunder and apologized in a manner that sounded so incredibly defeated, it almost hurt Fleetfoot’s ears to hear Spitfire say such a thing.

“I…” Fleetfoot spoke, but instantly paused. Nothing came to mind, absolutely nothing or at least not immediately. She sighed and rested her back firmly against the seat, pondering what to do. She came forward with the intention of berating Spitfire and it seemed like Spitfire had done plenty of that to herself already. The sudden shift had put Fleetfoot at a disadvantage.

But eventually something came to mind and it was really the only thing that had to be said.

“Spitfire…” Fleetfoot used her full name, something she didn’t do very often. “This is just another choice you’ve made as our captain. Not all of them are gonna go your way…” she paused, glancing at Spitfire but there was no reaction. “Just, please stop trying to do everything yourself,” she continued. “The lead squad has four ponies for a reason. We could have been very on board with the plan.”

“Do you think Air Mach could’ve kept in character that long?” Spitfire suddenly asked. Fleetfoot looked at her blankly and blinked a few times.

“Okay, I can understand it with him, but you could have told Soarin and I,” Fleetfoot nodded in agreement. “Because… if we had known we had backup, I don’t think Soarin—”

“—Would be hurt. I know Fleet… that was the first stab in the heart that made me realize it was a bad decision,” Spitfire finished for her. Fleetfoot frowned as Spitfire shook her head. “It was stupid… and that’s all I’ve felt like recently while trying to find out what the hell these Shadowbolts are after. Absolutely stupid.”

Fleetfoot remained silent, not sure if there was anything she should or could say. Spitfire herself said she was aware of the risks and now she was paying for them.

Fleetfoot suddenly perked up as Spitfire’s eyes slowly fluttered close and she tipped forward.

“Whoa!” Fleetfoot reached out and grabbed her before she could fall off the seat.

“Uh?” Spitfire blinked and clutched Fleetfoot’s arm as she tipped back up. “Sorry,” she said with a long yawn after. Fleetfoot looked her over curiously. A thought crossed her mind.

Spitfire had been incredibly stressed lately and so on edge with the Shadowbolt mystery that it was a wonder she hadn’t gone insane with such intense pressure and worry riding on her shoulders…

“Have you, by chance, slept recently?” Fleetfoot asked her. Spitfire glanced up, he face almost ghostly with how ragged she looked. She sighed, realizing she wasn’t getting out of it.

“I haven’t slept in four days,” she outright admitted.

“WHAT?!” Fleetfoot’s jaw dropped.

“And the last few times I have slept it’s been for about an hour or two before I woke up,” Spitfire admitted further.

“Excuse me, but…” Fleetfoot looked at Spitfire with extreme worry. “How are you even operating like that? You’ve been training with us, did the show, the wing-ball game and chased Shadowbolts on top of that? I bet your body is screaming at you!”

“It is… but can you blame me, Fleet?” she sighed as she tipped and leaned against Fleetfoot. “My anxiety has kept me awake…” she started to shiver slightly. “We don’t know what the Shadowbolts are doing… but based on the past, they could show up any moment. I’m responsible for keeping every Wonderbolt alive and well. I know first-hoof what kind of torturous acts the Shadowbolts are capable of and I can’t sleep at night knowing one of my own may be caught off guard and subjected to similar pain. It’s overwhelming. I’ve taken steps and precautions. I’ve doubled patrol runs, we have the experimental squad zero… but I still can’t—”

“Hold it,” Fleetfoot suddenly grabbed Spitfire and put her back upright. “Stop right there.”

“What?” Spitfire blinked, too tired to protest.

Fleetfoot smiled at her. Of course, something like that was exactly what Fleetfoot wanted to hear. Spitfire was taking risks and doing unconventional things. But Fleetfoot heard it straight from Spitfire’s mouth. She couldn’t sleep at night knowing that any single Wonderbolt could fall prey to the Shadowbolts like she did. That was the loving and caring captain Fleetfoot knew and she was still there, even if Spitfire was a bit disgruntled and exhausted.

“You need to continue this… but not with me,” she looked up over the back of the seat. “You need your hubby,” she giggled as she scanned the car.

“My wha—?” Spitfire blinked sleepily as she tried to register what Fleetfoot meant.

“CHILLY!” Fleetfoot through the train car. Spitfire’s eyes widened and she turned around just in time to see Wave Chill’s head pop up over the top of another seat in the middle of the car. “Come here!”

“Fleeeeeeeet…” Spitfire groaned as she slouched into her seat. “Nooooo, I don’t want him to see me like this,” Spitfire groaned and covered her face with her hooves.

“Too late, soldier colt is already eagerly making his way over!” Fleetfoot grinned as Wave was indeed trotting over with his body practically already in the attention position. Spitfire sunk into the seat in an attempt to hide as Wave stopped just behind the seat and saluted as Fleetfoot remained leaning against the seat back.

“Yes, ma’am?” he asked dutifully.

“I’ve got two jobs for you, Chills,” Fleetfoot began while glancing down at Spitfire. She had forced the mask portion of her uniform up and had dug her face completely into it. “One,” Fleetfoot pointed at him. “Pull the other half of your suit out of your ass and relax,” she said while rolling her eyes. It took Wave a moment, but he realized that was Fleetfoot’s special way of telling him to be at ease. He released his salute and tried to relax his body.

“Secondly…” Fleetfoot continued while turning to Spitfire. She sighed and shook her head when she saw Spitfire literally curled up with almost her whole head stuffed into her flight suit. She reached down and forced Spitfire’s head out of her suit, earning a squeak of discontent from her as she threw her hooves back up over her face. “I want you to take your lady here to one of the private cabins, help her relax, and make her take a nap or something,” she asked in a quieter, serious tone.

“My la—?” Wave leaned over and instantly stopped talking when he saw Spitfire all curled up and facing away, holding her hooves over her face like she was ashamed. “Captain—er, Spitfire?” Wave corrected himself as he blinked and looked at Spitfire with a combination of curiosity and worry.

Fleetfoot watched as Wave took multiple hesitant steps around Fleetfoot and towards Spitfire. Fleetfoot tapped her hoof impatiently as Wave took his sweet time.

“Oh, for Celestia’s sake…” she stood up and grabbed Spitfire, hoisting her up. Wave flinched as Fleetfoot suddenly got between them, and then grunted as Fleetfoot hooked her arm with his. “We’ll be in Canterlot by the time you two actually get there, come on!” she ordered.

Spitfire gave no resistance, being too tired and too embarrassed to fight Fleetfoot. Wave’s eyes darted around at all the other Wonderbolts looking towards them as Fleetfoot dragged them along.

“Uh… um… sure…” Wave fumbled as Fleetfoot turned them and squeezed all three of them through the connecting doors and into the car with the private cabins. Spitfire kept looking down and Wave was too busy looking at Spitfire in concern, it made Fleetfoot’s job of moving them much easier with little to no resistance.

She pulled them two doors past the cabin occupied by Soarin and Dash and stopped in front of the door.

“Alright, you two,” she let go of Wave and yanked the door open. “In you go!” she said cheerfully, nudging Spitfire until she moved in on her own accord. Wave walked around Fleetfoot towards the door, but before he could make it in, Fleetfoot grabbed him by the arm. He turned and looked at her, meeting a stern look that didn’t often come to Fleetfoot.

“Please,” Fleetfoot spoke with sincerity. “Help her relax… and when we get back, make an extra effort to help her at home too. We have a lot of things to address and if our captain isn’t taking care of herself, we will struggle. So please…” Fleetfoot made a hoof motion towards Spitfire. “Go help her.”

Wave looked towards Spitfire as she slumped against the cushioned seat in the private cabin. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and nodded.

Fleetfoot stepped back and let Wave close the door behind them.

She stared at the door for a few moments… and frowned. Then she looked to her left, staring at the cabin door leading to Dash and Soarin. She sighed and shook her head.

Her two best friends were in distress… but in both cases it felt like she couldn’t help them as much as somepony else. But her feelings aside, they had a mystery to solve, and without Soarin and Spitfire, Fleetfoot was lost. She wondered if the rest of the Wonderbolts felt the same.

Because one of her duties as a commander within the lead squad was to take over should the lead captain be compromised, physically or emotionally. She always assumed Soarin would be that pony, but if both of them were out? Then it fell on her… or Air Mach, and she was not letting that happen.

She could only hope that Soarin would be alright, and Wave could help Spitfire relax, because she wasn’t sure if she was ready to act without them. In fact, there had never been a ‘without them.’

“Feel better guys… please…” she said to herself as she walked back towards the rear car.

Wave approached Spitfire from behind and reached towards her, hoping to get her to look at him. He wanted to look into her eyes and see what he could do from there.

Before he touched her though, she turned around and stepped towards him, still looking down. She leaned into him, pressing her face into his chest while groaning. Wave flinched at her sudden move, but quickly brought his arm back and gently wrapped it around her neck and over her shoulders.

“Hey…” Wave ran his hoof up to the back of her head and lightly scratched behind her mane. “Look at me.”

“No,” Spitfire replied adamantly.

“Why not?” Wave asked as he ran his hoof through her mane and back down to her back.

“Because I look like a friggen wreck…” Spitfire growled while pressing her head harder into Wave’s chest.

“Fair enough…” Wave sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to win. Fleetfoot said Spitfire needed to relax. Crushing his sternum with her face seemed like a good start. They remained silent for a few moments. Wave didn’t think of anything else to say, but he felt his presence would at least help.

“It’s too much…” Spitfire suddenly broke the silence with a mumble, her voice muffled against Wave’s chest. Wave frowned down at her as he reached up and removed the mask portion of his flight suit. He shook his mane out and held her even tighter as she sighed. “It’s too damn much…” she repeated. “I can’t handle it… it’s killing me.”

“Captain, ah—Spitfire…” Wave mentally punched himself. Call her by name dammit, CALL HER BY NAME. “You’re doing the best you can…” he tried comforting her as he rubbed his hoof around her upper back.

“But it’s not good enough,” Spitfire pounded a hoof against his chest.

“Oof!” Wave grunted, but remaining in place.

“Sorry…” she quickly apologized. “It’s just… I’m making decisions and doing what I feel is best, but I feel like I just keep making mistakes, and now Soarin got hurt in the process. Nothing is going right, and I can see it happening right in front of me, but the more I try to fix it, the more things go wrong, what the hell!?” Spitfire pounded her hoof on his chest again.

“Ah!” Wave grunted as he buckled again. “Okay, please stop hitting me…” he said with a light chuckle.

“Sorry…” she said again. “There are just too many unknowns…” she continued. “I don’t have enough evidence to issue large, high-scale orders, dispatch ponies in numbers, or risk revealing any trump cards. The only option I saw… and took… ended up being a terrible option,” she reached her arms around Wave and clutched him tightly. “What do I do, Wave? It’s my job to make sure everything works out… and that nopony gets hurt in the process. Well, I’m doing a damn fine job of that right now, aren’t I?!” she pulled back her hoof again, but this time Wave caught her arm.

She looked up at him and he visibly cringed as he took in how disheveled she looked. Spitfire quickly looked right back down.

“And crap, you saw me…” she said, the irritation in her voice as clear as the disappointment. Disappointment in herself. Wave could see it clearly. Spitfire wasn’t as broken as she looked. She was just incredibly stressed and didn’t know where to turn. She hit him twice, almost three times as she berated herself, so she wasn’t devoid of her strength, just tired, and unable to put the pieces together… but it wasn’t like anypony else had.

“Whoa!” Wave yelped as Spitfire suddenly tipped sideways and stumbled, nearly dragging her down with him.

“Ah!” her eyes snapped open and she shook her head out. “I… sorry, I’m… ugh…” she groaned as she pounded her head continuously against Wave’s chest.

“Ow, ow, ow… Captain, stop, I MEAN…ARGH!” Wave suddenly growled. Spitfire looked up as Wave let go of her, walked over to the cabin door and knocked his forehead against it twice before turning around, walking back up to her and quickly hugging her again. “SPIT…FIRE…” he said harshly, trying to physically drill her name into his head. “You need rest…”

“No, I can’t rest… I need to—” she tried to fight him and push away, but he had her locked against him.

“No,” he denied her as he reached over to the wall opposite of the cushioned seat, opened a large hatch, revealing a fold-out bed. He lowered the hatch and grabbed the bed, slowly pulling it out. “You need rest.”

“Wave, I…” Spitfire growled, but Wave picked her up. “Ah!” she yelped. And quickly latched to his neck. “Put me down!” she demanded. Wave looked at her curiously.

“Don’t like being picked up?” he asked with a surprised smirk. Spitfire was holding onto him very tightly and looking at the ground.

“Just don’t drop me!” she squeaked. Wave had to fight back a chuckle. Their strong and fearless leader, who soared through the skies at high speeds with great skill… was afraid of being picked up and carried? Soarin threw her in shows all the time, it made no sense… but it was kind of cute. Maybe she didn’t like not being in control? If anything, Wave didn’t want her to think about the Shadowbolts, he was going to do as Fleetfoot told, and help Spitfire relax.

He let a chuckle slip as he set her down on the bed. As soon as her plot hit the mattress and he let go, Spitfire crossed her arms and looked straight down.

“Lie down,” Wave ordered her.

“No,” she instantly replied, but her words couldn’t combat her fatigue. As soon as she retorted, her eyes fluttered shut for a moment and she tipped over. “Wah!” she yelped as she fell over and lightly fell onto the mattress. “I didn’t do this because I wanted…” Spitfire blushed and turned over to face away from Wave.

Definitely no lack of strength or drive. She just needed to rest, but not before Wave could say what was on his mind.

“Spitfire,” he got it right finally. “Listen to me,” he began. She didn’t turn over to look at him, but one of her ears turned sideways towards him and that was good enough for him. “Like I said earlier, you’re doing fine. A couple of mistakes here and there don’t make us lose any faith in you,” he rested his arms on the bed and leaned towards her. “You’re the strongest of all of us. Anypony else under this pressure would have caved by now. We believe in you, that’s why we follow you.”

“Easy for you to say…” she sighed as she remained. “Silver and Soarin seem to question me an awful lot… and now Fleet is skeptical of me too.”

“Have they tried relieving you of command yet?” Wave cut in.

Spitfire remained silent, not saying a single word because there was, in fact, nothing she could say to counter that. Wave smiled, pulling himself up onto the bed and resting his chin on her side.

“We wouldn’t be that unique of a force if all of us were like me and followed orders without a single breath of hesitation,” Wave chuckled, purposely making fun of himself. “They only fight you at times because they want to make sure you’re making the right choices… you are our captain after all, and what you do represents us. If they didn’t care about you and what you mean to us, they wouldn’t bother,” Wave slid his chin up to her head and nuzzled his nose lightly against her ear. “So please just rest… it’s been hard to see you all worked up. We want you to be as healthy as you can be, physically and mentally… so you can lead us.”

There was a very brief pause, followed by Spitfire suddenly turning over, grabbing Wave by the face and pulling him into a sudden kiss.

“Mrph!” Wave’s yelp was muffled by the pressure of Spitfire’s lips against his. When she released him, she inadvertently pushed him a little, causing him to slide off her, and right off the bed, landing with a loud thump on the floor. “Ow…” he chuckled as he pulled himself up and peeked over the edge of the bed. Spitfire was already turned back over and facing away.

“Sorry…” she apologized once again. Wave shook his head with a smile.

“Give me a little more warning when you do that,” he said as he climbed back up on the bed and sat beside her.

“I’m glad I have you, Wave,” she said out of nowhere. Wave blinked, staring at her as her back remained turned to him. Before he could reply, she looked straight upward and released a long, high pitched yawn. “I’m… so… tired…” she sighed as she let her head plop back down.

“Here…” Wave said as he scooted towards her and nestled his body against hers. “And Spitfire? I’m glad I have you too.”

As soon as his side pressed to her back, Spitfire turned over again, but this time snuggled herself into him the best she could. Wave remained still, letting her find a comfortable position. She settled with her head resting on his arm and her nose just brushing against his chest, she released a content sigh and completely relaxed.

“I love you…”

Wave’s ears pointed up. He looked towards Spitfire.

“Did you just say something?” he whispered.

“No, nothing…” she replied quickly before digging her face into his chest and sighing again. Wave smiled and nuzzled her forehead.

“Sleep,” he said with a caring tone.

And Spitfire fell asleep within seconds.

“Hrmph…” Silver grunted as he stood up from his seat and stretched his arms and legs out. Multiple cracks and pops from his old, overworked joints sounded out from his body as he stretched. Thankfully, the clickety-clack and constant, quiet hum of the train car’s wheels against the track concealed most of the noise.

He wasn’t in the mood to have Blaze get in his face and yell ‘HAHA, YOU’RE OLD!’ like she did every time he decided to stand since his body made enough noise to make a sheet of bubble wrap blush. He looked around at the train car. It has been almost an hour since they left and it looked like the Wonderbolts had begun to relax.

It was something that Silver found he simply couldn’t do. In fact, he was a little displeased that a few were being so carefree. Close by, High Winds was seeing how far she could dip the end of her tail into Lightning Streak’s mouth without waking him as he snored loudly with his neck arched backward over the seat and his mouth wide open.

They just encountered a force of pegasi that managed to elude them without throwing a punch. It didn’t speak for the combat capabilities of the Shadowbolts but it took a lot of skill to fend off and escape Wonderbolts in the manner they accomplished. Silver was a little angry, being tossed aside instead of faced straight up was cowardice, at least to him, but he was more puzzled than anything.

Youngster.

One of the Shadowbolts called him ‘youngster.’ Not to mention it was in a voice that Silver had sworn he had heard in the past. It was impossible to make out facial features with the large red goggles they wore and the headbands obscuring their manes. The only thing he was able to recognize was the voice… but where? Silver had had a long career. Not only had he known three different generations of Wonderbolts, but he had encountered many adversaries as well under the wing of Blizzard Strike. There were more than a few ponies he had known in his life, friend and enemy alike who had referred to him as ‘kid’, ‘colt’, ‘youngster’, etc. There were way too many to pinpoint it and he had taken quite a few blows to the head throughout his long service of combat, which didn’t help when looking through his long-term memory, but this Shadowbolt knew who he was. He even countered Silver’s signature combat moves.

Silver could clearly see where Spitfire’s frustration was coming from. Silver’s only confrontation with these Shadowbolts prior to now was spotting one of them in the distance, the red, white maned stallion. After getting tossed around by them, he wanted to know about them just as much, if not more because of the youngster comment. It had to be a pony he knew, but who? And was it an old friend or an old foe?

“Dammit…” Silver leaned up against the side of his seat and reached a hoof up to remove his mask and rub his forehead. It was making his head hurt. He decided to try and focus on something else. It was no use deliberating with himself before returning to the compound. He’d save it for the all captain meeting.

He started thinking about something else… that prompted him to look around the car again, this time for a specific pony. However, they seemed to be absent. Silver scanned the car two more times before blinking and furrowing his brow. Silver’s eyes shifted towards Matteo, then he pushed off the seat and started moving towards him.

“Wide-Load!” Silver called to him as he approached. Matteo, hearing his old recruit training name, looked up towards Silver without hesitation. Silver found it amusing that he still replied to it.

“Sir?” Matteo addressed as Silver approached.

“Where’s Rainbow Dash?” he asked. The moment after he spoke, Twister sprang up from behind the seat to Silver’s left and dove at Silver with his lips puckered and making a continuous sucking noise. Without looking, Silver thrust out his left arm and grabbed Twister around the neck, hooking him down and putting him in an unbreakable headlock.

“She’s with Soarin in the private cabins,” Matteo answered, not even batting an eye at Twister, who was still making kissing sounds.

“Of course she is…” Silver rolled his eyes, wondering how he hadn’t thought of that one to begin with. He turned, dragging Twister with him as he walked around Matteo. Squall was sitting in the seat in front of Matteo, dozing off. “Hold this,” Silver said as he picked up and dropped Twister in Squall’s lap.

“What the—” Squall’s eyes opened upon impact and then widened when he looked down and saw Twister reaching up for his face with his lips puckered.

“KISS ME!” Twister said followed with maniacal giggling.

“GAH!” Squall reclined in disgust, grabbing Twister and tossing him off towards the aisle, only Twister sailed over the aisle and landed in Storm’s lap in the seat across.

“Oof!” Storm grunted as Twister’s back landed directly in his stomach. He looked down and blinked.

“Do you consider yourself a generous lover?” Twister asked while bouncing his eyebrows. Storm chuckled, lifting Twister up and looking him in the eye.

“I like to think I am,” Storm replied, playing along with the shenanigans. Twister reached forward and pressed his forehead against Storm’s while sneering with his eyes nearly bulging out of his head.

“THEN… YOU ARE…” Twister said before launching from Storm’s grip and landing back in Squall’s lap.

“WHAT THE F—” Squall freaked out.

Silver just kept walking away as everything happened behind him, his expression flat and shaking his head.

“And I let these jokers into the Wonderbolts…” he said to himself as he reached the door connecting the train cars and stepped through.

“Ngh… ahh…” Soarin groaned as he shifted and winced uncomfortably on the fold-out bed. He was laying on his back, but his wings were unfolded, sprawled out and reaching off the edge of the bed. One of his arms flopped over to the edge as he moved, and a blue hoof reached out and hooked with his.

“I’m here…” Dash said as she looked over Soarin with never ending worry. “I’m always here…” she whispered to him, not even sure if he could hear her through the pain. He was in a strange state, it was like he was unconscious, but continuously in pain, moaning and groaning as he flinched and budged. The horn was glowing brighter and fading in an uneven pattern that kept changing. The color of the glow shifted from blue, to yellow, to blue in a similar, erratic way. Small streams of light squeezed through Soarin’s shut eyelids, sometimes the lights were blue, sometimes yellow. It was as if the magic was fighting over him.

“D…Dash…” Soarin suddenly said, but remained in his unconscious state. “It… hurts…” he kept mumbling. Dash reached her other hoof around and clasped both of them around his hoof, squeezing it as hard as he could.

What was she supposed to do? Normally her presence calmed the blue magic down, but whenever the yellow magic got involved she had no effect on it. There had to be an explanation, there had to be a reason, but nothing came to mind. She knew what the blue magic was, it was the dark magic used to revive Soarin and, according to Discord, that magic was afraid of her. Then what was with the yellow? Where did it even come from?

Dash looked up and towards the door to the cabin in surprise as the knob turned and it slowly opened. She didn’t want anypony to disturb Soarin, something she made blatantly clear to Air Mach after he helped her move Soarin in. Being demanding to a lead squad Wonderbolt probably wouldn’t look good on her record, but it was also Air Mach, he probably thought it was beautiful passion or something like that. Dash was prepared to tell whoever was at the door to leave, but she stopped completely short of doing so when she saw…

“Silver?” Dash blinked as she saw her mentor step through the door.

Silver paused for a moment, looking between Dash and Soarin before walking in and quietly closing the door behind him. She wasn’t expecting Silver. Any other pony she would have turned around and forced out, but him… Silver seemed to be the exception. In fact, his presence had a comforting effect she wasn’t expecting.

Dash looked away from Silver and back at Soarin, sighing as Silver walked up and sat beside her.

“How is he doing?” Silver asked as he looked over Soarin. It was pretty obvious he wasn’t doing great, but Dash could tell Silver was asking to help her.

“He’s calmed down a little…” Dash said as she gave Soarin’s hoof another strong squeeze. “But he looks like he’s still in pain,” she looked down at Soarin’s hoof then back to Soarin. She moved his arm over to place it back at his side, but when she tried to let go, he groaned and his hoof clamped to hers, refusing to be released. She pulled his hoof back over, willing to hold onto it for the whole train ride back if that would help him. “He…” Dash began but hesitated.

“Yes?” Silver glanced at her, encouraging her to speak. The more she said, the easier it would be for her to take it all.

“He doesn’t deserve this… any of this,” Dash’s ears flopped down. “Why do the worst things have to happen to the best ponies?” she said with a hint of frustration among her worry. She focused her eyes on the horn and narrowed her eyes, glaring at the magic as if sputtered, pulsed, and changed from blue to yellow. “It couldn’t happen to somepony else? It had to be Soarin? I don’t care how bad that sounds, he doesn’t deserve it,” she ranted, Silver’s presence allowing her to let it out.

“Any other pony would’ve given up by now,” Silver broke his silence. Dash didn’t look at him, but she listened. She always listened to Silver. “Soarin is one of the toughest stallions I’ve ever had the honor of working beside. A mountain could fall on him and he wouldn’t break.”

“Still…” Dash sighed. “It’s still not right.”

Silver remained silent as the two continued to observe Soarin for a few moments.

“So it’s happening again…” Dash broke the silence quickly.

“What is?” Silver glanced at her.

“The Shadowbolts,” Dash clarified while gritting her teeth.

“Ah,” Silver grunted, sharing Dash’s lack of enthusiasm.

“I heard the reports, but I didn’t want to think it was true,” Dash gave Soarin’s hoof another squeeze as she locked her eyes on his wincing face. Silver looked down at Dash, looking at her closely, examining her expression as she continued. “They always show up… since the first time I’ve met Soarin and every time I’ve been with him since except once, the Shadowbolts have pushed their way into our lives and made it hell. I’m so sick of them, why can’t they just leave us alone?!” she raised her voice in anger.

“There’s more to this than we know,” Silver spoke up, recalling his thoughts before coming to see Dash. “Something is different about them. We don’t know who they are. I didn’t recognize any of them from when we fought the Shadowbolts and Nightshade over their flying compound.”

“I’m not so much worried about the ponies,” Dash sighed. “I know three of them personally. Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust were all good ponies who willingly left when the Shadowbolts were deteriorating. What I’m worried about is what they want, what they’re after,” she bent down, bringing Soarin’s hoof up to her face, nuzzling it with the tip of her nose. “The last time they attacked… they were after Soarin. I… I don’t want them to take Soarin away from me,” her voice sounded a little choked. She slammed her eyes shut and shook her head. Her mentor was sitting right next to her, she refused to show weakness, but she couldn’t hold it back. “I don’t want them to take my Soarin from me!” she raised her voice a little while leaning forward and pressing Soarin’s hoof to her chest. “Dammit…” she cursed. “Dammit, dammit, dammit…” she shook her head. “I hate this…”

Dash flinched as something happened that she never expected to happen. She felt something drape over her back and over her opposite shoulder. She looked to her left, seeing a grey wing over it, before looking back to the right at Silver. He had his wing draped over her.

“It’ll be alright, Dash,” Silver sighed, still looking at Soarin. “I have faith in Soarin and faith in the Wonderbolts... well, most of them," he said with a quick eye roll that forced a small smile onto Dash's face. "The Shadowbolts don’t have the element of surprise this time. We know they are here, and we WILL act against them. You know, assuming they actually fight us instead of turning it into a bullfight,” he said with a hint of a growl in the back of his voice. “If these new Shadowbolts think they can keep messing with us so easily, they are sadly mistaken. We learn and adapt, and if they try anything drastic, we will meet them head-on in combat,” he nodded. “You can bet counter measures will be put into motion as soon as we get back to the compound.

Dash felt her body relax in the warmth of Silver’s wing, his words of wisdom giving her peace. She was glad he came to check up on Soarin… and most likely her too. From the moment he had entered the room, she felt more at ease.

Dash’s ears stood up as she realized something.

“So…” she spoke up, her lips forming into a small smile.

“Yes?” Silver blinked and glanced down at her.

“Were you guys hiding nearby the whole time?” she asked, looking up at him.

“We arrived early this morning in secret to keep watch, yes,” Silver answered. Dash’s smile grew slightly.

“At the arena too?” she asked. Silver nodded.

“At the arena too,” he clarified. Dash’s smile widened further.

“So did you… see me fly out in front of the crowd for the first time?”

Dash watched Silver’s face, he stared at her for a moment, before looking back up and towards Soarin as the magic seemed to be calming down. The lack of moans and groans left the cabin at peace. Silver looked down and closed his eyes, a small smile forming on his lips.

“Yes… I saw it,” he said while giving her a brief glance. The smile on his face and the tone of his voice failed to hide something that Dash could clearly see and hear as he smiled at her.

Pride.

It made Dash feel so good.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

What, you guys though wavefire was gone? :pinkiecrazy:

I'm sure you've noticed but there have been a few different points of view in some of the recent chapters. Fleetfoot, Silver, and Spitfire have been given chances in the POV light. I've done this before, but this is probably the largest concentration of them ive had yet. Dash and/or soarin have the POV for about 98% of the time.

Just a small feel good transitional chapter. You all know me, i don't like to jump from event to event. It feels more real to me, and im sure the readers get more immersed in the world and what the characters are experiencing when they see and read the little things that happen in between the defining moments. :eeyup:

Things are going to slow down and we're going to have some fun and quiet times before things pick up again... but you know me, it's not gonna happen without significant story elements addressed :moustache: Such as here, Spitfire revealing her anxieties (and getting snuggles from Wave) And Dash having a master and student moment with Silver. Dash regretted that Silver couldn't see her fly out in front of the crowd... but looks like Spitfire's reckless plan allowed it to happen anyway :twilightsmile:

Anyway, sorry for the wait on this chapter and yeah its a bit short, but as ive said in my blogs, Kestrel has been busy with school and his work on my edits has been limited. I have a back-up editor (Lucky424, or some of you may know him as... the orange mail counter pony in the compound :rainbowwild: He edited two of my recent side stories.) but i'm holding out Kestrel as much as i can because we've worked together for this long, i hate dismissing him quickly. But i can rest easy knowing that if Kestrel ever gets busy to a point where he can't edit for a while, Lucky is just a PM away.

Anyway, Chapter 83 is actually already done :pinkiecrazy: I'm in the process of reading through it myself before sending it to Kestrel, but i will say again, be patient. Kestrel has work and even if the chapters are delayed i do keep writing. In fact i might start chapter 84 tonight after i send 83 off to Kestrel :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 83: The Prices We Pay

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was edited by Lucky424)

Chapter 83: The Prices We Pay

“You amuse me… you really do…”

Soarin grimaced and stirred as the male voice in his head spoke.

Great… the bickering voices again.

“It pleases me EVER so greatly that you find me entertaining,” the female voice shot back sarcastically.

“Honestly, I can’t stop sneering over here. You’re causing Soarin pain to further your own motive.” The male voice said followed by a chuckle. “I didn’t think you had it in you to be so cruel, it makes me blush.”

“Save it,” the female voice snorted. “You know exactly why I’m doing it.”

“Rgh…” Soarin growled in his sleep. He knew these voices were connected with the magic. He had been skeptical about it for a while, but after the skirmish with the Shadowbolts… it was clear. The male voice tried to convince him to let it all go and the female voice spoke before the magic went haywire. Now if only he KNEW who the voices belonged to. They were too warped and distorted to pinpoint clearly.

“You prevented me from taking control again…” the male voice stated. “And I was so close this time, if only you’d take a break. It’s not good to stress yourself you know.”

“You know me,” the female voice replied with a slightly sassy tone. “Stubborn to the bone, or have you already forgotten?”

“Of course not, forever a thorn in my side, stopping me from doing as I please,” the male voice said in frustration.

“And it just burns your ass, doesn’t it?” the female voice suddenly taunted.

Soarin turned over, wishing the two would just shut up. For a moment he thought that was it, because the male voice didn’t reply.

“I win again, and forever,” the female voice added with a snide giggle.

“Such language…” the male voice tried to retort.

“Such lack of low hanging fruit,” the female voice fired right back.

“I really hate you…” the male voice snarled as the female voice continued to giggle.

That tore it.

“Will you two PLEASE get out of my head and get a room?!” Soarin yelled as he sat up and opened his eyes.

But… he wasn’t in a bed, or anywhere he recognized for that matter. It was an empty, pitch black void. Soarin’s eyes widened.

“What? Where am I?”

“What’s this?” the male voice suddenly spoke up as if surprised. A bright blue flash of light shone from Soarin’s left. Soarin turned and shielded his eyes as he looked up at the light. It was so bright that he could barely see anything, but as his eyes adjusted he could make out the outline of a stallion that was roughly two times the size of him. Soarin couldn’t see any features, just the outline, but the stallion towered over him. “I don’t believe it…”

“Now seeing where you stand, hmmm?” the female voice echoed throughout the void. Soarin yelped as another bright flash of light came from his right, this one yellow. Soarin found himself squeezing his eyes shut with two lights nearly as bright as the sun itself flanking him on both sides.

He forced his head up and looked upon the yellow light, his eyes nearly watering from the intense brightness. The outline of a mare stood within the light. She was even larger! Easily three times his size.

“He is much more than you are giving him credit for,” the mare continued.

“Rgh…” the stallion grunted.

“Is that jealousy I sense?” the mare giggled. “You spent so much time cursing and bewitching yourself carelessly in hopes of catching a mere glimpse. You toiled endlessly to see higher realms of thought and power… and Soarin here just did it on a whim to yell at us for waking him up.”

Soarin looked between the two large silhouettes in the lights, incredibly confused.

“It was that… or die. You know I had no choice,” the stallion snapped.

“You had a choice and you made the wrong one. Tragic as it would have been… it is the natural order,” the mare said with a little bit of sadness in her voice. “I had accepted it, you should have too, instead here we are, and nothing is for the better.”

“Think whatever you like, I did what I felt was right. And don’t act like you wanted me to fail. I refuse to fade from existence,” the male voice said sternly. “Soarin will be mine to control, I will not back down.”

Soarin flinched as a bright, yellow, glowing, large hoof reached out and touched his shoulder. It radiated a gentle warmth.

“Do not listen to this undesirable, Soarin…” the mare said with comfort.

“Undesirable… I still makes me laugh to hear you call me that…” the stallion grumbled.

“Who are you two?!” Soarin threw his hooves out as he demanded answers.

“In time… you will know everything. Let’s just hope I can keep him at bay until you do,” the mare said as the stallion scoffed. “But for now… you must wake up, Soarin.”

The train whistle blew loudly as it approached Canterlot Central Station. Soarin’s eyes shot open at the noise, but instantly squinted as he groaned and lightly pressed a hoof to his forehead beside the horn. After a brief moment discomfort, he opened his eyes and glanced up. The horn was emitting a very dim glow that could barely be seen, even with how close his eyes were to it. The glow was primarily blue, but it shifted to yellow briefly every few seconds.

The yellow magic…

Soarin was alarmed at the sight, but too confused and too disoriented to react. He remembered well what happened last time the horn began emitting yellow light. He didn’t feel any strange euphoria like he did last time, perhaps because the magic was shifting, but it was still something to be wary of.

Yellow… he wondered if it had to do with the large, glowing mare and stallion he just witnessed in what he thought was a dream. He couldn’t begin to understand who they were or what they were talking about. But one was blue… and the other yellow… there had to be a connection, but what?

He let his left hoof fall back to his side and tried to bring his right up to rub the other side of his head, but something had it anchored down. He gently turned his head to his right to see Rainbow Dash, sitting on the floor beside his bed, resting her chin flat on the mattress, and fast asleep while clutching his right hoof with both of hers.

The sight warmed his heart. He was confused after all, and nothing brought him peace more than the mare asleep beside him. But it also brought him regret. Here he was again, bed ridden and in pain because of the stupid magic. He felt like all he ever did was worry Dash and she didn’t deserve all the heart attacks he probably gave her with all this.

Soarin sighed and tried to take in his surroundings, it proved difficult to move his head and neck without weak headache pains jabbing at his brain, but he didn’t even know where he was or what was going on.

He soon realized he was on a foldout bed in one of the private train cabins. That would explain the loud train whistle that woke him up. But was the whistle for arrival or departure? Seeing as how Dash was asleep he had to assume arrival.

WAIT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SHADOWBOLTS?!

Soarin shot upright in bed and immediately regretted it.

“Ack! Ahhhhhh…” his head throbbed with pain and he reached both of his arms up quickly, accidentally ripping his right hoof free from Dash’s grip, and waking her.

“Huh…?” Dash blinked as Soarin’s motion caused her to lift up and lightly plop back down on the bed. She blinked and yawned, stretching out with her eyes shut for the first moment, not even realizing Soarin was sitting up until she finished the stretch. She gasped lightly when she saw Soarin sitting up, but slowly bending over as he pressed his hooves to his forehead, the magic flickering and popping blue and yellow. “Soarin!” she exclaimed with a mix of excitement and worry, both for obvious reasons.

“Rgh… oooh…. Ahhh…” Soarin groaned as he forced his right eye open to give Dash a painful smile.

“Are you okay? How’s the magic? Don’t force anything!” Dash rapidly fired questions and worry at him. Soarin shook his head and chuckled despite how much his head felt like it was in a vice.

“It’s alright, I’m okay just… you know when you sit up in bed too fast? Try doing that with a dark magic induced headache… the mix isn’t pretty…” Soarin said as he groaned and bent his neck back and forth to crack it. The magic calmed down, reverting to small glows instead of lighting up like a small sparkler. He looked up at Dash and saw her giving him an angry pout, probably because of how carefree he had just sounded with that response. He had definitely worried her. That much was clear from what had happened to him and from how quickly she checked on him just now. Dash was probably going to give him a rough jab for that one later… if not right now.

“Sorry,” he apologized while giving her a more serious smile. “I’m a little disoriented… but…” Soarin slowly turned his body to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ve felt much worse… rgh…” he cringed and put a hoof to his head again as another rush of pain shot through it and a brief spark of dim light shot outward.

“Are you sure?” Dash said with concern. “You sure don’t look okay. Don’t be a stubborn dick either, if it hurts, tell me,” Dash put sternly. Soarin blinked as he looked up in surprise. Yeah, that was for his sarcastic comment. He deserved it.

“I’m mostly sure,” Soarin said honestly. “That was one of the most painful magic shocks I ever experienced…” he suddenly looked up. “The Shadowbolts! ARGH!” Soarin winced and grabbed his head again.

“Soarin!” Dash growled. “Take it easy! Don’t move around so much!” she scolded him. Which again, he deserved, because it hurt to move so fast but he kept doing it. Soarin took a moment to relax. It hurt to concentrate, but he had to get the magic under control. He reached out and clasped his hoof with hers as he took slow deep breaths. The magic auras slowly settled down and disappeared into the horn. It remained glowing, but nothing beyond that. Soarin released a sigh of discomfort as he reached his free hoof up and rubbed the spots around the horn again. “The Shadowbolts got away…” Dash spoke up once he was calm. Soarin’s ears flopped down as he looked towards her.

“Even with ten of us, we couldn’t catch three of them…” Soarin sighed.

“Try nine of them,” Dash sighed.

“Nine?!” Soarin blinked.

“Better believe it. We had them cornered… and then six more appeared to bail them out,” Dash started explaining. “Even with—” she was cut off as the door to the cabin swung open and Fleetfoot looked in. They both turned towards her in surprise.

Fleetfoot glanced at Soarin for a moment and smiled, relieved that he was up, but then her usual nature took over.

“Magical sexy fun times are over. We’ve arrived, let’s go,” she said with a flat tone, but couldn’t conceal the giggles. Soarin and Dash stared grumpily at the door as Fleetfoot teased them. Then Blaze and High Winds walked by behind her.

“I bet sis pinned him to the bed and destroyed him again,” Blaze guffawed as they walked by.

“Wouldn’t…” High Winds yawned. “Surprise me…” the two continued past as Fleetfoot left.

“What?” Soarin tipped his head. “Squad two?”

“And squad three,” Dash shook her head. “Don’t worry, Spitfire didn’t tell Fleet or Air Mach either.”

Soarin took note of the frustration in Dash’s voice. It didn’t surprise him at all. He was being a doof despite something dangerous happening to him, the Shadowbolts were around again, and to top it off Spitfire kept something else from them? That last one made him a bit frustrated as well.

“Looks like I’ve got a lot to hear…” Soarin sighed as he stepped off the bed and shakily stood on the floor. He stumbled slightly, but caught himself, his whole body felt exhausted and weak.

“Yeah… but here,” Dash stepped up beside him and leaned into him. “Let me help,” she offered. Soarin was about to protest, but he swallowed the words as soon as he met Dash’s stern eyes. She wasn’t one to take no for an answer after all and she sure as hell wouldn’t listen to it now.

“Why the hell do I fall asleep at the worst times?” Soarin joked, earning a chuckle from Dash as the two slowly made their way out of the cabin.

Asleep…

Soarin found his thoughts going back to the figures in his dream again. He looked down at Dash as the two walked through the hallway towards the exit, but decided not to mention it now. He had lots to hear about first, and she was concentrating on helping him. He also noticed that she hadn’t mentioned the yellow magic appearing. Seeing as how she was with him when he awoke, she most likely already had seen it, but he knew she was just as worried about it as he was. They needed some private time later to talk about all of it.

“Come on Wave! Pull out already! We’re at the station!” Blaze’s voice caught Soarin and Dash’s attention. They both turned and saw High Winds cracking up as Blaze continued to pound on the private cabin three down from theirs. “Or is she on top again? Spitty! Time to dismount! Don’t forget to stick the landing!”

The door flung open and Wave and Spitfire both stuck their heads out, glaring angrily at Blaze. Blaze backed away, but burst out laughing as she ran into High Winds and the two fell over each other while guffawing at Wave and Spitfire’s expense.

Soarin and Dash glanced at each other and both snickered as they made their way out of the train car. They definitely got off easy with the arrival call.

The Wonderbolts all disembarked from the train and gathered on the platform as the security team branched out to keep any eager fans from approaching.

The mood was mixed as Dash helped Soarin out of the train and over to the group. Those with a more serious demeanor, such as Silver, Fire, Misty, and Wave, looked to be deep in thought as if wondering where things would go. While others, such as Fleetfoot, Surprise, and Lightning Streak, seemed to be disregarding the event until further notice.

Dash stole a glance towards her squad, having nearly forgotten about them after the trouble with Soarin arose. Matteo, Squall, Star, and… well, in his own way Twister, all looked confused. As they should… they, just like her, had all just been used as part of a plot to capture an enemy they didn’t even know about until a day ago save for her. Despite the rest of the elites involved being tricked as well, they had a much larger reason to be befuddled, and possibly afraid of what was to come. They had just been named Wonderbolts and suddenly this happened.

At least most of them seemed confused. Twister was riding on top of Matteo’s head while making train whistle noises with his nose. Matteo was glaring up at him and took a swing at Twister. Twister slid down Matteo’s back, launched off, and landed on Squall’s back, making the same noises. Squall growled and tried to rear back to knock him off. Twister fell off, and landed behind Matteo, but when the two turned around, Twister was gone and nowhere to be seen.

Dash sighed and shook her head. At least Twister was up to his usual shenanigans and disappearing acts in the face of strange times. Maybe they could all learn from him, after all, keeping a cool relaxed demeanor can be helpful in stressful situations.

“Commander Soarin, there you are,” Silver’s voice caught both Dash and Soarin’s attention.

“Silver…” Soarin addressed him simply, still confused as to why the other two top elite squads were present.

“Spitfire is holding an all captain meeting when we return, just passing it on,” he nodded. As a member of the lead Squad, Soarin had to be present at the meeting.

Spitfire was calling an all captain meeting, huh? She didn’t do that very often. In fact, this was the first time she had since after the first Shadowbolt incursion on the Wonderbolt compound with Rapidfire half a year back.

“That means you too, by the way,” Silver suddenly added while pointing at Dash. Dash’s ears stood up and she blinked in surprise.

“Me?!” Dash exclaimed as her mouth hung open.

“You ARE a captain you know,” Silver added with a straight face, but Dash knew underneath he was chuckling to himself. “You’re already helping Commander Soarin get around so that makes it easier.”

Without another word, Silver turned and walked away, heading back towards Spitfire who was pointing about and giving orders.

Dash was indeed a captain, and it was an all captain meeting. She just didn’t expect something so important to arise so quickly.

With the Wonderbolts dispersing, Dash and Soarin began moving through the station with the rest, anticipation weighing on their shoulders with each step as they wondered what would happen now.

The Wonderbolts made their way back to the compound with haste. And the whole way back, Dash could only think about the fact that she was suddenly expected to be present in a meeting between all the Wonderbolt captains. Just like how her squad probably felt unprepared for a conflict, Dash certainly wasn’t prepared for this kind of representation.

She was certain Soarin knew she was nervous too, because the closer they got to the compound, the more she shook nervously.

“Are you going to be okay?” Soarin chuckled as he and Dash made it up the stairs to the second floor of the compound, captains from the other squads passing by them on the stairs as they moved slowly.

“It’s funny to hear you say that…” Dash gulped and gritted her teeth nervously. “I’ll… manage, I think.”

“Just relax. The other recruit captains are going to be there too you know,” Soarin comforted her as they turned into the east wing of the second floor, a part of the compound Dash had yet to step foot in. It was an administrative wing after all, mostly populated by staff members and other offices. The captains passing by them were making a quick left into a room that was only two doors down from Spitfire’s office. Every step Dash took towards the room felt much faster than she wanted it to be. Before she knew it, they were turning towards the door.

“Whoa…” Dash stopped in the doorway and stared with awe. She had no idea this room was even here!

From the doorway, Dash looked into a long room that definitely extended to across the girth of the second floor as suggested by the large wall length window on the opposite side. The room itself was very wide, the two walls on the sides covered with full length white boards, likely to draw up plans on or something of the like. In the center of the room… and almost as large of the room itself, was an enormous ovular table with multiple chairs all around. They were wooden chairs with blue felt cushions and arm rests. They looked comfortable to sit on, but not so comfortable to lean against, a good combination in a meeting room in order to keep the occupants comfortable and awake. The room wasn’t very tall. The ceiling the same height as the rest of the second floor, but the room more than made up for it with its length and width, easily making it the largest room on the second floor. At the far end of the table, Spitfire was conversing with Fleetfoot, with Air Mach practicing poses behind them.

“Are you gonna stand in the door and gawk or walk in?” Silver’s voice suddenly came from behind them. Dash yelped and looked over her shoulder. Both Silver and Fire Streak were standing behind her, Silver with a flat expression and Fire grinning slightly… with five other captains behind them looking up to see what the holdup was.

“OH! Sorry…” Dash blushed heavily, helped Soarin through the door. They stepped off to the side to let the others in.

Soarin tapped her on the shoulder as the last captains began filing into the room.

“Thanks for helping me Dash. I can make it to my seat from here. I believe your seat is one of those,” Soarin pointed to an empty seat near the other end of the table, opposite of where Spitfire and Fleetfoot were conversing. The other five recruit captains from squad Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo were taking their seats.

“You sure?” Dash asked as she looked back at Soarin.

“I might need your help after, but I think I can make it across the room,” Soarin smiled. Dash gently released him and watched as Soarin as he hobbled down the right side of the room towards the rest of the lead squad. Dash gulped and turned towards the last open seat among the recruits, but as she turned…

“Oof!” Dash grunted as a pony ran nose-first into her chest. She stumbled back and looked up, meeting the eyes of a familiar, small mare.

“Dash?”

“Shine?” Dash blinked as she locked eyes with Shine Struck from squad zero.

“Everypony take their seats! Let’s get this meeting started!” Spitfire called from up front. Both Shine and Dash looked towards Spitfire to see her spinning her hoof in the air. Air Mach, behind her, was repeating the motion, but in a much more exaggerated manner.

Dash and Shine glanced at each other again. Shine gave Dash a quick nod and a smile before hastily moving towards Spitfire. Dash refocused and found a seat between two recruit captains, a pink mare with a turquoise, braided mane and a light blue mare with a long mane that had alternating streaks of royal blue and cerulean. She had seen them before in the mess hall back during recruit training.

Soarin was right, she wasn’t the only recruit captain there, and… it looked like they and the other two recruit captains were just as nervous and confused. She looked down the table past the other nineteen captains, organized by squad number, from the captain of squad twenty and nineteen closest to the recruit captains and extending all the way down the table to Fire Streak and Silver Lining flanking the other end of the table. Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach all sat on the other end opposite of Dash.

As everypony got settled, Dash noticed Shine Struck awkwardly lingering around the lead squad. Fleetfoot noticed her and tapped Spitfire on the shoulder, before pointing at Shine. Spitfire turned and blinked, realizing that they were short one seat. She looked around, but before she could come to a conclusion, Air Mach hopped up, pounded his chest, claimed he had no need to ever sit down, and offered Shine his chair. Spitfire shrugged and motioned for Shine to sit down.

Dash suddenly didn’t feel quite so anxious. Shine looked incredibly nervous and a little embarrassed as she sat down in a seat meant for a lead squad Wonderbolt. Dash probably would have felt the same.

“Everypony listen up, we have a lot to cover,” Spitfire began. “First I want to talk about what just happened to squad one, two, three, and seven in Cloudsdale.”

Dash’s ears flopped down. A recap… she was so nervous about the meeting and admittedly interested in what was going to happen, but it was just a review. She was glad the rest of the Wonderbolts were being informed, but Dash wasn’t the most… patient individual when it came to sitting still for long periods of time. This wasn’t a short explanation Spitfire was giving. She had to find something to distract herself.

Her eyes fell on Shine Struck, who was still sitting uncomfortably in between Fleetfoot and Silver. It had been a long time since Dash had seen or heard anything about squad zero. In fact, she was surprised she hadn’t. Spitfire said they were a trump card against the Shadowbolts, but then why had they not been dispatched? Granted, these Shadowbolts they encountered were not using magic of any kind and there were no signs of any pink crystals. Spitfire had mentioned squad zero was trained in anti-magic combat.

Could it be Spitfire wanted to know more before revealing an ace up her sleeve? That had to be it. Dash knew that Silver didn’t have much faith in squad zero, but Spitfire did. It was her project after all. Speaking of squad zero… Dash had been wondering since their encounter with them. The three stallions all stopped when Shine yelled at them. Dash was uncertain at the time since Silver and Misty had also stepped in, but now that Shine was here, that definitely meant that she was the captain of squad zero.

It was funny to think about at first, the little mare trying to handle an invisible flirt, a goober with oversized wings, and a giant wall of muscle that turned to mush in social situations. Then again, it could have been more of a representation role, much like how Fire Streak was the captain of squad three, but he willingly admitted that Misty Fly was their leader. Shine was, however, the member of squad zero that was recruited by Silver Lining. Perhaps that was the best explanation. Silver had a knack for seeing potential in ponies that they themselves were unaware of.

Dash snickered to herself, recalling that squad zero often helped Rivet test out his equipment.

She could only imagine how amusing it was to see Shine and Rivet, two rather small ponies, handle the other three. She was sure it would be fun to watch sometime.

Then something else struck Dash’s attention. Spitfire and Silver had mentioned that the squad zero was more or less detached from the main squads. They were allowed full use of training facilities, but were excluded from administrative motions, meetings, or events. If Shine was here now, did that mean Spitfire was preparing to use them?

“Anything to add, Captain Rainbow Dash?” Spitfire’s voice caught Dash’s ears and made them stand up to sharply they almost leapt off the top of her head.

Dash flinched and looked up, her wings flaring out and lightly whapping against the mares sitting to her left and right. He pupils shrank as she stared out across the table. All twenty elite captains, low-tier and high-tier alike were all staring directly at her.

Now Dash wished she had paid attention. She was thinking about squad zero the whole time that she didn’t hear a single word Spitfire had said. Why was Spitfire asking her?! Oh, right… she was with them in Cloudsdale, assuming that’s why she was called on of course. In an attempt to not sound like a complete idiot, she decided to treat it like a yes or no question… and just say no.

“N-no! No, ma’am!” Dash stuttered and replied in a voice nearly an octave higher. The captains all turned and looked back towards Spitfire, who was lifting an eyebrow. Soarin was smirking and Fleetfoot was holding back laughter.

“Very well,” Spitfire acknowledged Dash before looking around at all of the captains. “We can’t simply be aware of them anymore. It’s time we took actions and precautions to ensure we are prepared. I tried the covert approach, and it blew up in my face… so, we’re going to make a couple of routine changes around here until further notice,” Spitfire explained as the captains looked around at each other. “We will remain on our training schedules, but I want everypony to lighten up a little on their squad. Keep them in shape, but don’t work them too hard. I don’t want sore muscles weighing us down should we fall under a surprise attack or have an opportunity to capture a Shadowbolt. That being said, I am increasing the amount of patrols and adding lookout hours to fill in the gaps with the ease up of training. Should anypony come into contact with a Shadowbolt either here, or outside the compound, you have full authorization to use absolutely any means necessary to subdue them.”

“Any means…?” Dash mumbled to herself as a collective stir passed around the table.

“I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t be soft with these pegasi,” Spitfire continued. “The Shadowbolts are not your everyday ponies. Go after them with everything you’ve got, believe me, you won’t kill them… and I worry more about them killing you if you hold back,” as she explained, the stir died down, the captains seeming to agree with that logic. “As for shows…” Spitfire spoke up again. “We will continue with the shows we have scheduled through the end of this month, but after that we are putting them on hold until further notice. If the press bothers you anywhere, tell them we have some private business to attend to, we don’t need this getting any more public than it already has.”

Dash swallowed and blinked as she listened. This was… serious and official business! She had taken on threats before, but it was never so organized or professional. It was quite a bit different and a little intimidating. Could she fight? Could she stand up to Shadowbolts? Duh! Of course she could! This was just a serious approach she wasn’t used to. All the precautions and plans and the quick administrative decisions Spitfire had to make… It was all very impressive.

“Also, I’m issuing an official state of alert around the compound,” Spitfire added. “So don’t be surprised if our security staff doubles and has much more of a presence for a while. That will be all, dismissed!” Spitfire ended suddenly. Or at least it seemed suddenly to Dash. The captains all rose almost instantly after Spitfire had finished. Dash yelped quietly at the commotion and quickly stood up, but found herself stuck where she stood as the captains wrapped around the table and began funneling out. She’d have to wait a moment before she had a chance to move anywhere.

Dash took that moment to turn and look back towards the lead squad. Fleetfoot was talking to Shine Struck while patting the top of her head. Shine did not look the slightest bit amused that Fleet was petting her, her cheeks puffed out grumpily, but Fleetfoot was getting lots of giggles out of it. Spitfire was conversing with Air Mach and Soarin, or maybe just Soarin. It looked like Spitfire was trying to get Air Mach to listen, but had little luck.

With a path clearing towards the lead squad, but the exit still blocked, Dash decided to make her way towards them. Soarin did say he would probably need help back to his room after all. Fleet let Shine go as Dash approached and Shine began moving towards the exit. The two walked in opposite directions on opposite sides of the table. The two glanced at each other as they past. Shine smiled and gave Dash a wave before literally disappearing into the cloud of stallions and mares trying to funnel out the door.

Dash strode up behind the lead squad, catching some brief conversation.

“Are we going to report to Luna?” Fleetfoot asked Spitfire. Spitfire scowled and grunted.

“No, I’m done trying to get anything out of her,” Spitfire replied harshly.

“We don’t need princesses to solve our problems!” Air Mach yelled out as he started towards the exit. “A true stallion faces everything head on! With or without gods at his side!”

Fleetfoot was following directly behind him, but as soon as he started preaching she stopped and turned to walk back towards Spitfire and Soarin.

“Dash,” Spitfire spoke up as soon as Dash came into view. Dash froze and blinked as Spitfire addressed her. However, Spitfire walked towards her and slowly passed to her right. “You did well with the Shadowbolts. We didn’t catch them, but those were some impressive pursuit skills. I have taken note,” she said as she kept walking towards the exit.

Dash blinked, taking a few moments to realize Spitfire had given her praise. She breathed a sigh of relief, glad that it had nothing to do with her less than attentive focus during the meeting. With that little shock out of her system, she continued towards Soarin.

Soarin smiled as Dash approached him, but Fleetfoot stepped up in between them with a devilish grin.

“Meeting’s over, it’s time for…”

“No,” Soarin cut her off and lightly smacked her upside the head.

“Hey!” she turned and pouted at Soarin.

“No raunchy punch line for you,” Soarin stuck his tongue out at her. Fleetfoot got in his face, pressing her nose to his comically with an exaggerated, scrunched face.

Dash cleared her throat behind Fleetfoot, causing her to smirk and turn towards Dash.

“Watch out for his hooves!” she whispered to Dash loud enough that Soarin could hear it too. “They’re dangerous!” she giggled. Dash blinked, and then let a wide smirk crawl onto her face.

“Trust me Fleet, I know,” Dash said with a wink. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened and she blinked a few times.

“Wooooohoohooo!” Fleetfoot hollered as she stepped around Dash and began walking towards the exit. “I’ll leave you with Danger Hooves here, and his magical, head-mounted, porcelain dong!” she added while giggling uncontrollably.

Dash shook her head and snickered as Soarin rolled his eyes.

“It’s like we didn’t just have a super serious meeting or something,” Dash chuckled as she turned to Soarin. She quickly stepped towards him when she noticed he was leaning most of his weight on one of the chairs.

“She’s a welcome contrast to Spitfire,” Soarin said with a smile as Dash leaned against him to help support again. “Fleet’s silliness balances out Spitfire’s seriousness and vice versa. I’d probably go nuts if I only had one of them.”

Dash glanced back towards the door as the crowd of captains finally thinned out. She looked back at Soarin and looked him over as she leaned against him.

“Feeling any better?” she asked as Soarin used her support to stand up straight. Soarin nodded and flashed her a weak smile.

“My head doesn’t hurt quite as much, but my body still feels… ugh… completely exhausted…” he grunted as he wobbled. Dash quickly pressed gently to his side to stabilize him. “Yeah… I don’t think I’m making it up the stairs to my room…”

“Then I’m taking you there,” Dash quickly decided.

“You should check in with your squad,” Soarin suggested reluctantly. “I can rest here for now.”

“Nope,” Dash quickly denied while poking him in the side. “Believe me. My squad is more than capable of entertaining themselves for a bit. I’m getting you back to your room. Say no again and I’ll give you another headache,” she stated sternly. “The minute you said, ‘I might need help later,’ sealed your fate anyway.”

Soarin opened his mouth to reply, but quickly decided against it. He was lucky to have a mare that cared so much, so who was he to deny her?

“Fair enough,” Soarin said with a chuckle as Dash led him out.

The two walked in silence for a few moments. Since they were going to Soarin’s room it was inevitable that they would spend some time there. Their schedules were clear until dinner due to returning from a show and both had things on their mind. Soarin wanted to tell Dash about the two figures he saw in his dream as well as the yellow magic. Dash was just plain worried about Soarin. There were specific reasons, such as the magic becoming unstable again and the yellow aura as well, but the bulk of her worry was for Soarin’s health and well-being. Something that seemed to be completely beyond his control.

“I thought you were going to explode when Spitfire asked for your input,” Soarin suddenly spoke up. Dash blushed uncomfortably, looking up at him while puffing her cheeks out, only to meet a smirk on his face.

“I wasn’t really… paying attention,” Dash admitted with a huff. “Did she talk about anything I already didn’t know?” she decided to ask since she spent the whole meeting thinking about squad zero. Soarin shook his head.

“No, it was just a recap. I guess Spitfire is done being all secretive about things… like she should have done in the first place…” Soarin grumbled the last part. “She still owes me an explanation for that.”

“You and me both,” Dash agreed. “Well, me I can understand, but why would she keep things from you and Fleetfoot?” Dash asked in disbelief.

“Spitfire likes to be in complete control of things,” Soarin began as they made it to the top of the stairs to the third floor. “When everything is going well, she’s a peerless leader. Flawless, strong, and dignified. When things start to get way out of control though, like now, she panics. Well, not initially. Like a good captain, she remains calm under unfavorable circumstances, but if they are prolonged, things start to break down. She still handles herself well and executes her duties, but the lack of control can lead to her making a few rash decisions in a desperate attempt to make it right again. And sometimes… rgh…” Soarin stopped, causing Dash to stop as well. He rubbed his hoof against his head for a moment before shaking it out and shrugging. “Sometimes it can lead to a few mishaps. Thankfully it takes a lot for Spitfire to feel out of control. I don’t blame her for feeling that way here. We’re clueless about these new Shadowbolts,” Soarin shook his head. “The hard part is catching her. When Fleetfoot and I support her during rough times, she remains calm, but as you just saw… she’s pretty good at keeping it secret.”

“I was gonna say… Spitfire seems like she’s always in control, at least when I see her,” Dash sighed as they approached Soarin’s room. “I admire Spitfire. I don’t know if I’d be able to keep my cool or make any decisions at all with all of this.”

“That’s why she’s our captain,” Soarin cut in. “She’s not perfect, but none of us are, but she’s by far the most qualified pony to lead us. She can tell me she’s not doing a good enough job all she wants, any other pony, including myself, would have caved by now in her position under this much pressure.”

“You? Cave?” Dash giggled. “The day I see you give up at something is the day Fire Streak hits on a mare like his brother does.”

“Physically, no, I’m never backing down,” Soarin winked at her, his confidence unaffected by his fatigue. “Mentally? I don’t know if I could take it.”

They stopped in front of Soarin’s door. Dash had a question on her mind, and wondered if Soarin was thinking the same thing.

“What do you make of these Shadowbolts?” Dash asked before they could enter. Soarin looked at her, interested. “I mean, do they seem… different? Why didn’t they flat out attack us? Even after we attacked them?”

“So you noticed too, huh?” Soarin sighed. “That’s been the question on everypony’s mind since our first encounter with the white stallion in Manehatten. They don’t attack, they run, and if we catch them, they toss us around before trying to run again.”

“You didn’t see this,” Dash cut in. “But when we were chasing the three initial Shadowbolts outside of Cloudsdale, the stallion attacked me with lightning,” she explained with a shiver. Soarin’s ears pointed up as he listened. “Thankfully Silver flew in and stopped it, but before the attack, the two mares yelled at the stallion to stop while flying towards him.”

“Did you report that to Spitfire?” Soarin asked her. Dash blinked and shook her head. “Probably should have said that when she asked,” Soarin chuckled. “Actually I’m sure Silver already reported it if he was close enough to save you. I’d go report anyway later on just in case.”

“But then she’ll know I wasn’t paying attention!” Dash’s ears flopped down with dread. Soarin laughed and shook his head.

“You’ve gotta learn the lingo! Just say you were reviewing what happened and recalled that exact moment,” he said with a wink. “You mask the fact that you forgot and you make it look like you were reviewing a conflict for clues. Win-win, I do stuff like that all the time.”

“You sneaky bastard,” Dash smirked while leaning into him a little harder. “Now c’mon, I prefer being IN your room instead of standing outside,” she suggested as she opened Soarin’s door.

“Indeed,” Soarin agreed as they walked in.

Soarin reached over and flipped a light switch on the wall. Both lamps turned on, but one of them flickered brightly and burnt out.

“My life is a joke…” Soarin said comically as his ears flopped down and he stared flatly at the lamp. Dash giggled at him as she helped him in and closed the door behind them. The room quite a bit dimmer than usual due to one of the main sources of light being out. The sun was starting to go down as well, so it was pretty dark in the room, but not so much that they couldn’t see each other clearly. “I need to get this ruined suit off…” Soarin thought out loud as he fiddled with the shredded ends of what used to be his flight mask as they dangled down around his neck and chest.

Dash watched as Soarin figured out how to remove his torn up suit for a moment before looking down at hers. She had been so caught up in the moment that she nearly forgot she was wearing it. It was a testament to the superior design of the real Wonderbolt suits. The recruit flight uniform used to really start to bother her after a few hours, but with these it felt like she wasn’t wearing anything at all. They were custom made to fit perfectly to the body of the wearer after all.

She decided to take hers off too. It wasn’t bothering her, but they were back, and it admittedly smelled a little bit like her sweat. So she unzipped it and slid it off, tossing it near the door along with her goggles so she wouldn’t forget it before leaving.

“So, Dash…” Soarin caught her attention as she turned back around. He had finally found the right hole of the many that were torn in his suit to slide his head out of. “It’s back, huh?” he said with a sigh.

“The yellow aura?” she asked, her ears flopping down with a nervous look. Soarin nodded as he looked up at the horn.

“I don’t feel like I did last time it was here, but… I don’t know. The blue is mixing with the yellow. Last time they were TOGETHER it caused headaches like it is now,” he said with a grunt as he rubbed his forehead.

“You don’t feel like pinning me down against my will or anything?” Dash said while rubbing her arm nervously. Soarin scrunched his face and looked towards her with a little discomfort. “Well, that IS what you tried to do, remember? It was like you weren’t in control of anything, urges, magic, strength, thoughts. You weren’t you.”

“I know,” Soarin sighed as he leaned against his bed. “It’s just something I wish I could forget. I was in control but it felt so good that I couldn’t stop myself from doing anything,” he said while looking towards Dash.

Her eyes met his, and Dash felt like her heart was going to rip in two. Soarin was looking towards her with a face wrought with worry. He didn’t even have to speak for her to understand why. Now she wished she hadn’t brought up how he acted while the yellow magic was flowing. He loved her so much that he even feared what he could do to harm her. Considering the breakdown he had after it happened before, he feared that more than anything an Shadowbolt might do to her.

Dash quickly stepped towards him, reached up, wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him in. Soarin’s eyes widened in surprise as she lightly pressed her lips into his, giving him a deep, but soft and long kiss. The surprise faded quickly, his eyes slowly closing as he reached up and brushed his hoof lightly against her cheek as he returned the affection.

Not surprisingly, his headache seemed to lessen. He learned a long time ago that Dash had a calming effect on the magic, one that made it relax and comply with him. It was something he learned long before he even got the horn. Hell, she was the only reason the magic roared to life when he fought Nightshade. It was incredibly unstable and painful without the horn, but it gave him a means to defeat Nightshade despite her being pumped full of the crystal’s power to the point of bursting.

It was all the more reason to protect her from anything. She had fully become part of his life on more levels than just a love interest.

They pulled away and Dash roughly poked him in the chest while glaring.

“Don’t EVER look at me like that again,” she demanded with a pout. “I can’t stand seeing you sad. I like your stupid smile too much.”

Soarin snorted while holding in a laugh.

“You have the sweetest way with words, Dashie,” he joked, then made a fake frowny face. “I dunno… if it helps me score I might keep doing it.”

“Stop that, don’t make me tickle you,” she threatened, causing Soarin to flinch and back away slightly. “Don’t test me, I will.”

“Dear Celestia, no!” he said while chuckling and backing away as she took a step forward.

Dash got right in his face, pressing their noses together as Soarin gave her an exaggerated smile. Eventually they both lost composure and ended up in giggles and chuckles as they leaned in and hugged.

“I’m glad, Soarin,” Dash began. “Glad that we can still be… you know… ourselves, even when things are going on. I’m really on edge with all this Shadowbolt stuff, but being with you helps me deal with it.”

“And I can’t get enough of you,” Soarin said as he gave her a squeeze. “I’d be a grump right now with all this stuff without you making me smile all the time. Not to mention my magic calms down completely with you around. I call that a welcome bonus.”

The two pulled away and looked into each other’s eyes, just enjoying the sight for a moment. Dash had the kind of face that made him never want to keep secrets. And why would he? She was as much of a part of all this as he was.

Which reminded him.

“Oh… Dash, there’s something I want to tell you about,” he said. Her ears perked up in interest.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Remember when I told you about the voices I’ve been hearing as I dream?” he asked.

“Oh,” Dash blinked and nodded. “Yes, I do. The male and female voices right?”

“Yeah,” Soarin confirmed. “I… had another dream with them just now on the train,” he paused and kept his eyes locked on her, ready to defend his reasoning if she questioned why he didn’t mention it earlier. However, she seemed much more interested to know more than to complain about a slight delay. So he continued. “Well,” Soarin turned and hopped up on his bed, sitting down on the cushy mattress to get off his hooves. “It was different this time.”

“How so?” Dash leaned into the bed, resting her arms on the mattress. Soarin looked down and examined his bed as he gathered his thoughts together. How could he even explain it if it didn’t make sense to him? All he could really give her was what he heard and saw.

“Two figures,” Soarin began, Dash’s eyes instantly widening slightly. “Both of them ponies and both of them much larger than I. One of them was a stallion encased in blue light. The other, a mare encased in yellow light. I couldn’t make out what either of them looked like. It was way too bright to see them clearly. The stallion seemed surprised that I could see them and the mare said something to him about me succeeding by accident where the stallion failed after trying endlessly. I have no idea what they were talking about, but I think it’s safe to say that the voices in my head are not my imagination. They are directly linked to the magic, the stallion to the blue, and the mare to the yellow.”

“Uh…” Dash tipped her head to the side.

“My thoughts exactly,” Soarin shrugged as Dash stared blankly at him. “I’d like to report this to Luna, but…” he shook his head and grunted. “Luna hasn’t been very helpful lately. Every time Spitfire and I go to her for answers we only get more questions. She’s a terrible liar and clearly knows something, but never enlightens us and forces us out.”

“Luna’s been—?”

Dash was cut off and the two flinched as a rope suddenly dropped down from the ceiling, landing on the floor at the hoof of the bed. The two of them blinked, staring at the rope. They glanced at each other in confusion before looking up and seeing what could only be described as a hole in the ceiling surrounded by a distorted, purple glow.

Both of them flattened their ears, recognizing the type of magic quickly. They stared at the hole in the ceiling, waiting for the very unwelcome guest and eavesdropper who had clearly been waiting for a ‘moment’ to enter.

But then suddenly the door to Soarin’s room swung open.

“WHY HELLO MY FRIENDS!” Discord yelled as he stepped through the door. Both Soarin and Dash yelped in surprise as Discord came right through the door instead. “Hm?” Discord looked up at the rope as he walked in, and towards the hole in the ceiling. He shrugged and tugged on the rope. A loud train whistle blared throughout the room, Soarin and Dash covering their ears as Discord cringed. “Oh! That’s where I put that!” he said with a chuckle. “Silly me!” he gave the rope a hard yank and let go, the rope shot back up and disappearing into the hole before it closed up.

“You’ve been here for ten seconds and I already want to tear my mane out,” Soarin growled as he and Dash glared at Discord.

“Really? That’s a new record!” Discord joked as he pulled out a massive book that was bigger than his head, put on a pair of fake reading glasses, and started writing in it with a feather quill. Dash and Soarin glanced at each other, both sighing in discontent.

“What do you want?” Dash asked, knowing that it was impossible for Discord to just go away.

“What do I want?” Discord’s pushed his head through the book. “Come now, my little Dashie, we all know that I can have anything I want at the snap of my fingers,” he held up a hand and primed it to snap. Dash and Soarin both braced themselves, but Discord’s fingers didn’t move. “Though I do love how easy it is to scare you,” he chuckled as he put his hand back down without snapping. He turned and began pacing around the room.

“So now I’ve heard two of you ponies say that you’ve lost faith in Luna,” Discord began while twirling his scraggily beard with a claw on his paw hand. “What a sad, sad day and age this is. I can remember a time when questioning a god was punishable by death. Your ancestors were harsh, but at least they respected us.”

“I find it hard to believe anypony ever respected you,” Soarin said while rolling his eyes.

Discord suddenly appeared beside Soarin, shrunk down to the same size as Soarin while wearing boxing gloves.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY COLT?! SAY THAT TO MAH FACE AND FIGHT ME IN REAL LIFE! I WRECK YOU, SWEAR ON ME MUM!” Discord said in a ridiculously silly, low pitched voice while bouncing back and forth and putting up his dukes. He was gone the instant after and back where he stood before.

“Believe it or not, there were ponies who respected and followed me, but that’s beside the point,” he stepped towards the bed and extended his neck towards Soarin. “So you saw them…” he said with a smirk. Soarin’s eyes widened. “To be honest, I’m incredibly impressed that you did. It’s not easy for mortal ponies to recognize entities that are beyond the scope of their belief, perception, and understanding,” he pulled back and placed a hand proudly on his chest. “We gods can do it with ease, but mortals? I’ve seen very few in my endless existence who could pull it off.”

“Pull what off? Who are they?! Why are they in my head?” Soarin started firing questions. “What did Celestia really do to me?” he emphasized this one more than the others as Dash just kept looking back and forth between the two. Discord shook his head.

“If you’re apparently keen enough to perceive realms of existence beyond yours… then why would I spoil you the fun of figuring it out yourself?” Discord shrugged while sneering.

“CUT THE CRAP!” Soarin yelled. “Rgh!” he suddenly cringed and grabbed his forehead, a headache pang traveling through it as he yelled. “Enough with the secrets! Tell—ah!” Soarin bent down again, the horn glowing dimly.

“Soarin! Be careful!” Dash looked over him with worry, Soarin’s pain suddenly completely distracting her from Discord for the moment.

“And there’s the rub,” Discord twirled his hand in the air. “Luna is keeping a tight lip, as she should, but I still laugh at the thought of you believing you can handle this magic without our help.”

“I thought you were an all seeing god,” Soarin said as he slowly looked back up. “Don’t tell me you missed how much I used it in Cloudsdale,” Soarin said with a forced smirk, trying to fight back the pain. Discord shook his head.

“I was watching in Cloudsdale, but I didn’t see everything. You aren’t the only pony I’m keeping an eye on you know,” Discord stuck his snake tongue out at Soarin, making it whip up and down as a light hiss escaped his lips. “You used your magic, eh? Well, I already knew that because of the sorry state that you’re in right now but… you claim you have control of it? Even without the barrier?” Discord sounded both amused and interested. “Enlighten me,” he held his hands out and made beckoning motions.

“Challenge accepted,” Soarin replied confidently.

“Wait!” Dash grabbed Soarin’s arm. “You should rest it!” she demanded but Soarin shook his head.

“I’m not letting this bastard and his smarm get the better of me,” Soarin said as he glared at Discord. “Just sit back and watch Dash, I think you’ll like this too,” he said, giving her a wink. Dash was not convinced, but she knew it was impossible to stop Soarin once his mind was set.

“Fine…” she said with an exasperated sigh. “Just don’t blow your face up again,” she said while taking her arms off the bed and sitting beside it.

“Watch and take notes,” Soarin jeered at Discord, who only scoffed loudly as he stepped back, leaned his back against the wall, and crossed his arms.

Dash was a little miffed that Soarin ignored her concern in favor of appeasing the interest of a troll, but that mood didn’t last.

As soon as Soarin faced forward, and a serious, concentrated look formed on his face, her interest was piqued. She hadn’t seen Soarin practice his magic too much. Except for a few brief moment where she had seen him use it recently, she had yet to see him ‘practice’ it, at least not since he first got the horn and was struggling to make it work at all. She sat quietly and fixed her eyes on Soarin as he began.

With his mind and body relaxed and complete silence surrounding him, Soarin closed his eyes and started concentrating. He called upon the memories of the magical sensations, letting them flow slowly instead of quickly. He wasn’t chasing a Shadowbolt or trying to knock one down, so he was letting the magic resonate with his mind and body, relaxed, quiet, and calm.

The horn slowly began to glow a dim, blue light that slowly grew brighter as Soarin continued to concentrate. He made no effort to give the magic any form, focus, or task. He just let it flow naturally.

Discord lifted an eyebrow as Soarin went through the process. He was expecting some sort of simple show or prowess, but Soarin was simply letting the magic flow… and keeping it controlled.

The glow reached the pinnacle of its intensity, shining brightly, but gently. Dash gasped quietly and looked around as the whole room suddenly dimmed and everything was covered with a blue hue. Dash looked at her arm, then the bed, then around at the desk, the shelves, the door. Everything was covered in a veil of blue.

She looked back at Soarin as he continued to breathe steadily. Small blips of light blue light began appearing around him. The tiny lights gathered into three packed clusters of light that began orbiting around Soarin, leaving streams of blue energy behind them as they moved.

Dash flinched as the burnt out lamp sitting on the nightstand beside the bed began to rattle quietly. She looked towards it and saw a blue glow surrounding it. The lamp slowly lifted up and was drawn towards one of the orbiting magic clusters. The lamp was snatched up by the cluster and began orbiting around Soarin with the magic. Soon a cup on Soarin’s desk was exposed to the same treatment, lifting up and moving with another cluster, and finally his alarm clock was picked up by the third.

Dash’s mouth opened, hanging slightly ajar. She stared with awe and amazement as she watched Soarin handle his magic so freely and naturally, the three objects floating around him within the clusters of magic, flowing freely and calmly around his body in the dim blue glow that filled the room.

Art by: Foxenawolf

Dash had never seen anything like it. She had never watched Rarity or Twilight practice magic like this before. They probably didn’t need to, being unicorns their whole lives, but Soarin was a pegasus. Such a display of control over magic was unbelievable, not to mention it was a magic more powerful than any unicorn had ever handled. Had Soarin truly conquered it? Was he proving to Discord that he was indeed capable of handling the recent problems that had arisen?

“Hrng…” Soarin suddenly winced as the horn grew brighter and the objects held in the magic clusters ceased their orbit. “Rghh… ah… AH!” he grunted as he twitched and grimaced.

“Soarin?” Dash reached a hoof up, but she was afraid to touch him, in case the magic would lash out. The magic calmed when she was around, but with the amount that was swirling around Soarin, she wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

“Ow!” Soarin’s eyes opened, blue streams of light suddenly forming and rising from them. “AH!!!” Soaring shouted as his head twitched. Dash was ready to forget possible consequences and reach for him, but stopped when a large pulse of yellow light suddenly fired from the horn. Soarin reared his head back, falling backwards onto his bed. The lamp, the cup, and the clock all fell and landed softly on the mattress, but Soarin was down and clutching a hoof over his heart as the glow faded from the horn and the room colors returned to normal.

“Soarin—AH!” Dash reached for him, but as she did, she felt her heart literally jump in her chest. “OOF!” she bent down and place her hoof on her chest, blinking with wide eyes as the sudden shock from her heart faded. “What the…” she looked down at her chest, her heart beating quickly, but steadily. “What was that?” she questioned as Soarin groaned, forced his head up, and looked towards Dash as he panted and held his heart.

Seeing Dash hold her heart as his beat furiously was alarming. He was recovering from the mental shock he just received, but why…? Why was Dash feeling something in the same place he was?

“Bravo! Bravo, indeed!” Discord stepped towards them amidst their confusion. “That was quite an impressive display. I will admit, you have a lot more control than I gave you credit for,” he complimented as he leaned over and above Soarin. “But you’re drastically short of having any chance… you can talk yourself up all you want mon comandante… you’re a mortal imbued with a power that gods are fretting over. Did you honestly think things would be easy?”

“Why?” Soarin suddenly asked, causing Discord to blink. Soarin wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at Dash, who was staring directly back at him with concern while still holding her hoof over her heart. “What’s going on?” he asked while looking up at Discord.

“Hmph… everypony is so dense around here…” Discord complained as he stood back up and crossed his arms while looking towards Dash. “You never told him?”

Soarin glanced at Dash, who looked towards Discord.

“What are you talking about?” she questioned.

“Not even after the one that happened JUST NOW? Or did you seriously not make the connection in Cloudsdale? It was right in front of you afterward. You mean to tell me you never questioned WHY you two are sharing dreams as well?” Discord sighed as Soarin and Dash both stared at him in alarm. “Mortals…” he shook his head before focusing on Dash. “How many times have you woken up at night because of your heart jumping in your chest?” he asked.

Realization hit Dash like a ton of bricks.

It was true. There had been more than one occasion in the recent past where she had experienced a sudden increase in heart rate after a sudden jolt through her chest. She felt it once during the tryouts, a few times when she was trying to sleep… It was very infrequent and it seemed to happen at random. She had speculated that it may have been linked to Soarin, but there was no evidence towards it.

But in Cloudsdale…

“You want to know why I didn’t see you use your ‘magic skills’ in Cloudsdale?” Discord said as he turned to Soarin. “Because I was keeping an eye on her,” Discord made a head motion towards Dash before turning and looking at her. “But even though I wasn’t there to watch your face blow up like a firecracker,” Discord chuckled. “I knew exactly when it happened because Dashie here… fell right out of the sky like a rock a few moments after she and her squad recovered from getting their wings soaked.”

Soarin looked towards Dash.

“That?” Dash blinked.

“Dash, is that true?” Soarin asked with concern. Dash shook her head and shrugged, her face wrought with worry.

“I… I don’t know! I thought I was just sore from the fall we took!” she explained, she turned to Discord as both of them slowly became incredibly worried. “What does it mean?” Dash asked Discord as he reclined in midair and floated up above the bed.

“What? Do you think your magical imprint on Soarin was free of charge?” he said with a smirk. “You can’t make something out of nothing, at least something that’s real and has pure form. I can pass around my chaos magic all I want, but it breaks and bends the rules of reality, in a sense nothing I do takes pure physical form, which is why Celestia and Luna rather I didn’t step in to change things. I literally break the rules of life,” he said as his arms and legs swapped positions for a moment before going back. “So… you better believe me when I say we needed more than just a magical ceremony to ensure Soarin’s survival,” he pointed towards Dash.

“A piece of Rainbow Dash’s spirit. Part of her own physical existence had to be imprinted into Soarin in order for the magic to be sustained within him. His spirit was broken after he got beaten to a pulp by Descent and Nightshade. It wasn’t strong enough for him to survive the transfer process. So we patched it up with a piece of hers!” Discord said as his eyelashes spontaneously grew long and he batted them at the two confused ponies. “Isn’t that just precious and romantic… you two are connected, conjoined in a way that’s beyond your understanding…. Now any time the magic causes him extreme pain… Dash is likely to feel it too,” Discord explained. “You will now know whenever Soarin is in distress, oh my this could be a super-natural romance novel!”

Soarin and Dash stared at him blankly.

“Oh, why do I even bother? This is all much too complicated for your little brains to handle, isn’t it? Us gods live on a different plane of existence and understanding of life… I don’t expect you to process any of this really… so let me put it in much simpler terms…” he hovered down between them. “To save your life, Celestia used a piece of Dash’s spirit to anchor the magic in place. That’s why it’s so afraid of her. She’s literally part of what keeps it from running wild without resistance. She did more than that too but—”

“What about Spitfire?” Soarin asked cutting off Discord even though he was talking about the ever-so-missing Celestia. “She was involved too wasn’t she?”

“Spitfire played a different role in the process,” Discord chuckled. “She offered her life force to Celestia just like Dash, but her main role was encouragement. Soarin needed a familiar voice of authority to snap him from his trance during the magic transfer, and she did just that. Celestia was the one who chose Dash to be the imprint, why? Because Celestia knew you two would become lovers and share a strong bond, she has premonitions you know,” Discord said with a fake dreamy sigh. “Which would also explain why Soarin had such a hard time with his magic while the two of you were being silly and not talking to one another. By the way, don’t do that again, that was annoying.”

“Any reason why you’re telling me this now? And not say… back when it would have been really nice to know?” Soarin said as he fell back onto the bed. Discord burst out laughing while slapping a hand over his eyes.

“And ruin the fun of watching you discover it all yourselves? A good story never reveals its secrets all at once, that would be like reading a textbook. You both finally experienced your connection right in front of each other, together… I felt like that was a good time to explain juuuuuuuust a little bit of it,” Discord shrugged while grinning very wide. “So take heed of all of this because things are not getting easier for you anytime soon,” he appeared between Soarin and Dash and pulled them towards him in headlocks.

“Now do you understand? Please tell me at least a little, I can’t make it any simpler,” Discord said as he focused on Soarin with a smug grin. “I wasn’t kidding when I said… that there is more than one life on the line. The link between you two stabilized once you put this on,” he tapped the tip of the horn. “And it has fully developed. When something happens to you, she will feel it… and the more it hurts for you, the more it will hurt for her too. So you better hope you can get that magic under control, or else I might have to do something drastic… and I don’t think EITHER of you want it to happen, if you catch my drift. Still think it’s a bad idea to seek out Luna? You may want to rethink that. That is… assuming she’s even willing to help. I don’t know if anyone besides me is really willing to do what it takes to get things done around here. No pressure now!”

Both of them felt Discords grip loosen, but when they looked up and around, Discord was gone, vanished.

“Don’t forget…” Discords voiced suddenly echoed through the air of the room. “I’ll always be watching one of you.”

The room was left in silence.

Soarin sat up in bed and looked towards the ceiling as if looking for Discord. That… troll, that scoundrel, that… he completely avoided Soarin’s questions about the two figures in his head by making him focus on something he would clearly be more worried about.

He turned at looked at Dash, who was hugging herself and shaking slightly as if afraid of what she had just heard.

Soarin didn’t say anything. He ignored the new headache, reaching out to Dash. She quickly leaned towards him, climbing up into the bed and pressing herself into him, wrapping her arms around Soarin and squeezing him tightly around the chest as he held her tightly over her shoulders.

It was a rather disturbing piece of news for both of them to swallow… knowing that if Soarin couldn’t handle the magic it would have terrible consequences for Dash as well. It only strengthened their resolve to preserve their unbreakable connection, but also added new worries.

They lay on the bed in silence, attached to one another. They would find their voices soon, they would find their strength, and the shock would fade… they weren’t so weak minded to be broken by this. But for the moment… they just wanted to be in the comfort of the other as the true danger sunk in. Shadowbolts? Yeah, they were an issue at hoof… but, was it the real threat?

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh dear... looks like Dash and Soarin are a bit more connected than we thought.

Discord... that troll... But he has an agenda. He also claims to be the only one willing to do what must be done. I wonder what he could mean by that? A little confused? You know that just means it's gonna make sense later :pinkiecrazy:

Who were those two large figures in the lights at the beginning? Well... heh... thats not being confirmed any time soon, but hey... i had a shadowbolt appear in part 2 and we didn't get more of them until part 3. You better believe that im following the same formula... teasing things to come in part four in the midst of part 3 :moustache:

Anyway, let's all stare at that amazing Pic by Foxenawolf shall we? i think it's the best piece she's ever done for me :rainbowderp:

I'm actually going to be introducing a new regular artist here soon along with Fox and scootafail. I like to use Fox for serious scenes, Chiwee for cute or fun scenes, and this third artist will be used mainly for humorous scenes. This artists style has a very fun cartoonish charm to it that i LOVE and i'll be introducing his first piece for me soon in an approaching chapter. :eeyup:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 84: Unbreakable

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was edited by Lucky424)

Chapter 84:

Soarin flinched as his alarm clock blared out from the nightstand beside his bed. After blinking a few times he groaned and rubbed his eyes as he felt a grip tighten around his torso followed by a higher pitch groan and a nose digging into his chest. Soarin’s eyelids were heavy, but he reached down and stroked Rainbow Dash’s mane as he moved his other hoof towards the alarm and shut it off with a solid strike over the top of it.

He sighed and yawned as he continued to move his outstretched hoof out and over his head, stretching it out before bringing it back around and placing it over Dash just like his other arm was.

“You awake Dash?” Soarin asked as he yawned again.

“Mmhmm…” she hummed into his chest with her nose still firmly pressed into it. “Five more minutes…” she mumbled while turning slightly, shifting forward and rubbing her cheek into his neck. She took a long, deep breath, and sighed.

“That’s gonna turn into thirty minutes you know,” Soarin said as he forced his eyes to open.

“Shut it, you’re comfy,” Dash demanded while clutching him even tighter.

Soarin decided to leave her be. She was being her usual self again and he didn’t want to ruin her comfort.

After receiving the startling news from Discord about the dangerous connection they shared, it took them a while to break from their funk and head to the mess hall for dinner. Even there, they didn’t say much, nor speak to anypony, eating in silence before deciding there was no way in hell they’d be able to sleep apart that night. They got back to Soarin’s room and turned in immediately, holding onto each other… not in fear, but in comfort.

Sure, it was shocking to know that they were connected spiritually and anything Soarin felt through the magic would likely be felt by Dash too, but after all they had been through, it slowly turned into just another thing they had to be aware of, another challenge they’d face together. Being connected by spirit didn’t sound nearly as bad as taking on freak magical tornados or sadistic mercenary leaders bursting with false magic. It just meant that Dash would be able to feel Soarin’s pain when the magic acted up. It was unpleasant to know that if one of them died, the other would too, but… was it really that different?

After all, if you asked either of them, if one of them were to tragically die, the other would surely have no will to live without them.

So really, nothing had changed at all. It was just a reminder.

They still didn’t want to spend the night apart though, and after a long, full night’s sleep in each other’s arms they now lay awake, a little groggy, but well rested.

“Are you feeling better? Soarin asked.

“Mmhmm…” Dash mumbled into his chest again. She turned her body slightly to free her nose from his chest and rest her cheek against it instead. “How about you?” she asked.

“When I’m holding onto you, there’s no better feeling,” he said with a goofy smirk.

“You’re sappy as hell,” Dash giggled while shifting and sighing happily.

“I know,” Soarin replied with a chuckle as he checked his clock again. It was now 6:45am. “We should go grab food now before the mess hall gets packed.

“You don’t know how to sleep in, do you?” Dash groaned as Soarin began to move, clutching him tighter to try and anchor him down. She released an exaggerated, muffled wail of despair as Soarin sat up despite her being attached to him. He sat on his bed and smiled at her as she clung to him and gave him puppy dog eyes with a pout.

“Never willingly… and stop trying to be cute, you’re not fooling me, Little Miss Badass,” he said with a chuckle as Dash’s pout turned into a frown, followed by a smile.

“Fiiiiiiiiine…” she said as she loosened her grip and slid down his body until her plot touched down to the mattress.

Soarin hopped down onto his hooves, letting Dash take her time as she yawned and stretched out.

They both jumped in surprise as a knock suddenly came from his door. It was incredibly early for anypony to go around to rooms. Whoever it was, they were lucky Soarin was an early riser.

Soarin walked over to the door and opened it right as the visitor knocked again.

“Whoa!” Storm Front leaned forward as his hoof missed the opening door and swung downward. Soarin leaned back slightly and blinked as Storm’s hoof almost hit him in the nose.

“Storm?” Soarin tipped his head to the side, wondering why Storm was up so early. Soarin usually didn’t see Storm in the morning until he was leaving the mess hall and Storm was entering for breakfast. “What’s up?” Soarin asked, more curious about why Storm was there than why he was already up.

“Hey Soarin!” Storm greeted him with a very strange, overly cheerful voice and a smile that looked incredibly forced. “I was wondering if this morning we could—” Storm’s eyes widened as he looked over Soarin’s shoulder. “Oh…” his expression turned from happy to embarrassed immediately. “Is this not a good time? Sorry, I’ll just…”

“STORM,” Soarin chuckled, reaching out and grabbing him by the shoulder before he could turn and leave. “It’s fine, we were about to get breakfast, what’s up?” he asked.

“Uh…” Storm looked between him and Dash. “Nothing…” he tried getting away again, but Soarin held firm.

“Storm, what is it?” Soarin asked. Dash looked towards Storm curiously as he peaked over Soarin’s shoulder towards her. Storm leaned towards Soarin and began whispering.

“I was wondering if you could help me today with… you know…”

“Oh, the Sonic B—”

“YES! That! You were gonna show me that flight maneuver today, right?” Storm cut him off in a very loud, distracting tone. Soarin lifted an eyebrow, amused and confused.

“Storm, what’s gotten into you?” Soarin asked as Storm leaned towards him again.

“I don’t want her to know I’m doing this,” he said in a very hushed tone. Soarin stared at him blankly.

“Why?” Soarin asked, finally bringing his tone down to match Storm’s.

“Just… please?” Storm begged. Soarin blinked and glanced back at Dash, who looked incredibly confused. He looked back at Storm with a shrug.

“Sure! The swing spacing maneuvers!” Soarin spoke up, making something up on the spot. “But, Storm, why now?” he kept up the charade while asking a serious question. “We just got back from a show, don’t you want to rest?”

“I would but…” Storm began. “I have meetings with squad seven the rest of the day and then after today we have a full schedule with Spitfire’s new orders and all. I was hoping you could show me the basics so I could work on them on my own.”

“Ah, okay,” Soarin didn’t like that he was technically lying to Dash, but for some reason, Storm didn’t want her to know he was learning the Sonic Blastoff. He wondered why… it was probably pride related. After all, Storm felt like he was falling very short of the elites and their expectations while Dash was busy copying their moves left and right. “I’ll meet you after breakfast… at…” Soarin looked at his clock. It read 6:50. “Let’s say… 8:30,” he suggested. “I have to make a stop after I eat… hopefully it won’t be too long.”

“Sounds good, thanks Soarin!” Storm nodded before smiling and waving at Dash. He turned and left, Soarin closing the door behind him.

“What was that all about?” Dash chuckled.

“Don’t look at me,” Soarin chuckled, forcing himself to stay quiet about the Sonic Blastoff. “Storm’s usually not so... jumpy. That was a new one for me too.”

“So,” Dash hopped off the bed, accepting the explanation quickly. “What are you taking care of after breakfast?” she asked as she walked up and leaned against him.

“I’m going to swallow my pride and go see Luna,” Soarin replied with a huff. Dash’s ears perked up.

“Gonna try getting something out of her, huh?” she asked in a serious tone. Soarin nodded.

“As much as I hate Discord…” Soarin paused and looked around the room, remembering that Discord said something about always watching at least one of them. After a moment Soarin shook his head and looked back at Dash. “He has been more straightforward to us than Luna. Maybe if I tell her Discord sent me personally she’ll tell me more, but I seriously doubt it.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Dash sighed. She was confused as to why Luna was being so secretive. She hadn’t been dealing with her as much as the Wonderbolts had been, but whenever Dash or her friends back home ever had problems that required some wisdom, Celestia never failed to bring them peace on the matter. Obviously Celestia wasn’t available, but Dash didn’t know what Luna was up to, or why she was being so tight lipped… but it had to be for a reason. The divine sisters had never once led the ponies of Equestria astray. Luna had to have her reasons. Dash was certain that Celestia were in Luna’s place with whatever was going on, she’d be doing the same thing.

“Food time?” Soarin asked with a smile, breaking Dash from her thoughts. She smiled back at him and nodded.

“Food time,” she agreed as the two turned towards the door and left his room.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!” Little Star yelled as she grabbed Dash by the cheeks and pressed their faces together. “YOU NEVER CAME BACK!” Star shook her lightly as Dash just stared wide eyed.

“Whoa! Star! Calm down!” Dash reached up and grabbed her, pulling her off her face and staring at the little mare as her wings continued to flutter like mad. “Can I come in first?” she chuckled as she stood in the doorway. Little Star continued waving her hooves in attempt to reach Dash’s face again with a face that was both worried and frustrated.

When she realized she wasn’t getting a response, Dash reached back and placed Star on her back. Star latched to the back of Dash’s neck as she continued to scold her for disappearing the night before. Dash answered every word with a nod and a ‘mmhmm’ as she walked in.

“So where were you?” Matteo asked in a much more serious tone than Star from beside his bed as Dash walked in. She looked around quickly to see what was going on before replying. Matteo and Star were right with her. Squall was sitting on his bed, staring over at Dash, and Twister was nowhere to be seen. Probably waiting to spring a prank.

“I was…” Dash paused. She almost said everything without hesitation. She found herself wondering if it was a good idea to tell the others about her connection with Soarin. The last thing she wanted to do was give them something else to worry about. So for the moment, she felt it would be better to keep that bit to herself. It was, after all, a bit personal as well. “Soarin and I were up late discussing what happened with the Shadowbolts… so I just spent the night with him,” she explained. “I also just got breakfast early,” it wasn’t the full truth, but it wasn’t a lie. “How are you guys doing by the way? I’ve…Huh?” Dash looked at all of the beds. She didn’t know how she missed it before, but all the pillows were gone, all three from each bed. “Where are the pillows?” she asked. Her expression flattened as realization hit her.

“You have one guess,” Little Star said with a giggle.

“Where is he?” Dash asked with an exasperated sigh.

“He took all the pillows into your office as soon as we woke up,” Star said as she continued to giggle.

“And you guys didn’t fight it? By that little laugh of yours, I’d almost think you encouraged him,” Dash chuckled at Star as she shrugged.

“Hey, the silly pony makes me laugh, and I didn’t fight it, but Squall tried,” she pointed over to Squall’s bed. Dash glanced over, but Squall had turned around on his bed to face the wall. Dash snickered at Squall’s blatant attempt to not bring attention to himself.

“I’m sorry I missed that,” she joked as she started moving towards her office. She paused as a the noise of a bugle began blaring from her office, playing ‘Reveille.’ Dash paused, startled by the sudden bugle and waited for it to finish before shaking her head and continuing towards her room.

Now begged a much less serious question. Why did Twister take all the pillows and why into her office? Dash braced herself for something weird or slightly unnerving since he had a record of doing that whenever he got her somewhere alone.

She slowly opened the door… but was surprised to see that her office had been left alone. The only difference was a small fort made of the fifteen pillows in the center, in front of her desk. There was a small sign sticking out of the top of the fort that read ‘F.B.A.’ on it.

“Twister…” Dash said his name flatly. Twister’s head instantly popped up in the ‘window’ of the pillow fort.

“ENEMY SPOTTED! FIRE!” Twister yelled in a low, overly serious voice as a pillow launched from behind the fort over the top and careened towards Dash. Having anticipated shenanigans, Dash reached up and caught the pillow, dropping it at her side while lifting an eyebrow at Twister. “Curses! No effect!”

“Twister, put all the pillows back,” Dash ordered. Twister quickly replied by blowing raspberries at her.

“Sorry! But your authority is not recognized inside FORT BAD ASS!” he claimed, still in the very deep tone. Dash lifted her brow, glancing at the sign again. F.B.A. indeed.

Dash stepped forward and glared into the window of the pillow fort, Twister looking back at her with a very silly smile, his cheeks puffed out, and his pupils incredibly wide.

Art by: Scootafail

Dash reached forward and grabbed a pillow out from the bottom of the fort, causing the whole thing to collapse into a pile of pillows, but Twister remained standing. He looked around at the pillows frantically before releasing an incredibly high pitched scream and diving into the pillow pile.

“Pffft…” Dash held back an amused laugh. Only Twister could turn an annoying situation into something funny. “Come on you!” Dash said as she started throwing pillows off the pile and back out the door into the barracks. She removed all of the pillows from the pile, eventually coming upon…

“Ooooooh Soarin…” Twister mimicked Dash’s voice nearly perfectly.

Dash’s eyes widened as she saw Twister, his mane style identical to hers, hugging a body pillow with Soarin on it, stroking the top of the pillow with a hoof with his legs clamped around it as well.

“My rainbow awesomeness is yours to plunder!” he said while trying not to snicker. “Your blown-back mane excites me so!”

“ALRIGHT!” Dash reached down and ripped the Soarin pillow free from Twister. She stopped and looked at the pillow, blushing lightly since it had a picture from one of the Wonderbolt beach photo shoot issues in it… a picture of Soarin that she had always really liked. “I’m keeping this,” she said while tossing the pillow into the corner of her office. “Now you…” she grabbed Twister’s back legs, lifted off and began flapping her wings to pull Twister out of the office, back into the barracks. He slammed his front hooves down on the floor while yelping and grunting in a ridiculously over the top manner as his hooves made loud squeaking noises as they dragged on the floor.

Squall and Star turned and looked as Dash hoisted Twister up, swung him around, and flung him towards his bed. Twister flew from her grip, but immediately twisted and turned in a sharp arc towards Matteo as he was opening his dresser.

“What the?!” Matteo flinched as Twister landed in the bottom drawer and it slammed shut with him inside. Matteo grumbled, reached down and pulled the drawer open, but it was empty. The top drawer suddenly opened, nearly hitting Matteo in the beak. Twister’s head popped up out of the drawer and sneered as he looked directly into the glaring face of Matteo.

“Do griffons wear socks?” he asked as all four of his hooves poked up beside his head, each wearing a hoof sock that was a different color and design.

“No,” Matteo answered flatly before stuffing Twister’s head back into the drawer, slamming it shut, turning around, and sitting with his back against the dresser to trap Twister in.

“THAT WAS A CLOSE ONE AAAAHAHA!” Twister suddenly popped out of Squall’s dresser from all the way across the room.

“GAAAHH!!!” Squall yelped, launching from his spot on his bed in surprise. As he came back down, he landed on the edge of his bed. Squall slammed his hooves to his mattress, but it was too late, he slid off the edge of the bed and landed with a thud on the floor, followed by multiple obscenities.

Dash just blinked as the chain reaction finally ceased.

“Note to self…” Little Star spoke up as she passed by Dash towards the mare’s bathroom. “Don’t throw Twister, who knows what will happen,” she giggled as she entered the bathroom.

“That’s for sure,” Dash chuckled as she went back into her office and chucked the rest of the pillows back out into the barracks. She peeked out once after doing so. Star was in the bathroom, Matteo had already grabbed his pillows, and Squall was trying to grab Twister as he planted a sign in Squall’s bed that read ‘F.G.A’ with a smaller sign hanging off of it that read ‘Fort Grump Ass’. Dash rolled her eyes and tossed three pillows to both Squall and Twister’s bed before taking another look at her squadmates.

They were all distracted.

Dash ducked back into her office, grabbed the Soarin pillow, and snuck back out quickly. She turned the corner, passed Matteo’s area, and placed the pillow on her bed before turning it over and covering it up with the sheet.

“Heh, heh, heh…” Dash chuckled to herself before turning around and freezing. Matteo was staring directly at her with an eyebrow raised. “Uh…!” Dash looked back and forth frantically. “UM…!”

“Dash… It’s fine…” Matteo said calmly as he turned and moved back towards his bed. Dash blinked and her expression went blank as her ears flopped to the sides of her head. It wasn’t the reaction she was expecting. If anything she thought she’d get an eye-roll. Matteo turned and looked back at her as he grabbed the sheet on his bed. He looked over towards Squall and Twister, who were now wrestling for control of the ‘territory’ and Star was still in the bathroom.

He made a head motion towards his sheet. Dash blinked and looked at Matteo’s bed. He lifted up the sheet, reached under and pulled out… the body pillow of Gilda that Twister had pranked him with a while back.

Dash’s pupils shrank and she instantly threw a hoof over her mouth to prevent a burst of laughter. Her cheeks puffed up as the snorts and snickers escaped her nose and her face turned red from all the holding back.

“What? I wasn’t going to get rid of it…” Matteo said with a serious tone despite the humor of the situation. “I’m a long way from home, you know…” Matteo said, turning away and lucky that all the feathers on his face concealed any color changes.

“Oh my god…” Dash said as she took a few deep breaths, fell backwards on her bed and held a hoof to her stomach as she kept laughing little bits at a time. “You crack me up, Matty…” she said while shaking her head back and forth.

“Hmph…” Matteo grunted, but clearly with a smile at the edge of his beak as Dash sat up and kept shaking her head at the big dope.

Matteo seemed to be in high spirits… well, at least as high spirited as the stoned face lug could get. It was an unusual air for him. She slipped off her bed and walked over to him.

“So how are you feeling big guy?” Dash asked. Matteo looked down at her briefly before looking back at his bed and reorganizing his pillows.

“I’m feeling alright, you?” he replied quickly.

“You are acting strange!” Dash pointed out, making Matteo freeze and turn towards her.

“Meaning?” he asked, looking a little put off. Dash shook off his glare and chuckled.

“I dunno, you look… hmm… you look…” Dash was trying to find the right word. “Energized,” she pointed at him.

“Heh…” Matteo smirked. “That is a rather fitting word for it,” he began while lifting up an arm clenching his talons. “Despite our lack of success… and me somehow being thrown by a mare... it was my first taste of real action as a member of the Wonderbolts. It was a special moment for me, and very exhilarating regardless of the outcome.”

Dash smiled as she listened to his explanation. She was glad Matteo was around. Having a massive griffon with a thirst for combat by her side gave a strange sense of security. Like a personal bodyguard for the rest of them. If they ever went out on the town as a squad, they would have hassle free nights guaranteed. Because honestly, who would mess with Matteo?

“Oh um…” Dash remembered something she wanted to ask. “By the way… Matty…”

“Yes?” Matteo cocked his head to the side.

“What the hell was with the eagle cry?!” Dash asked throwing her hooves out. “I wasn’t expecting you to… you know… shatter the windows,” she recalled the moment in disbelief.

“Hah!” Matteo suddenly puffed out his chest with pride. “I’m very proud of my Aquila Grido. I challenge you to find a griffon with stronger lungs,” he said while pounding his chest.

“I’m not gonna take that bet, you made your point loud and clear,” Dash joked with a chuckle before moving back towards her bed. She hopped back up and leaned back.

“Hmm?” Dash suddenly felt something that was definitely not part of her bed. It felt like a piece of paper. She looked down to see a note sitting on the bed. She scooped up the folded piece of paper and looked back down towards her bed, it must’ve moved as she was putting the pillows back and as she flopped down because she didn’t notice it initially.

“Silver dropped by last night,” Star’s voice caused Dash to look up, and then down at star as she walked by Dash’s bed. “Left that note on your bed and dared one of us to read it before you got back. None of us did, obviously…” Star said with a shiver.

“Heh…” Dash chuckled as she looked back at the note.

“What are you two doing?!” Star yelled towards Squall and Twister.

Dash looked up again and saw Squall holding Twister by the neck and shaking him, but Twister looked completely unaffected, staring at Squall with a smug look despite the unfavorable position he was in. Star hopped up on the bed, grabbed Squall’s tail in her mouth and began tugging on it in attempt to get him to put Twister down, despite the fact that the choke hold wasn’t doing a thing to him.

“Okay, let’s see…” Dash disregarded the scuffle and focused on the note since… honestly… everything going on around her was nothing out of the ordinary. She unfolded the note.

Meet me in the squad two private gym at 8:59 AM for some training.

With no love whatsoever,

Silver Lining

P.S. I swear to Celestia, if you show up at 9:00 AM I will punt your ass so far, you’ll land on a pot of gold.

“Snrk…” Dash scrunched her face and snickered as a smile formed on her lips. “That old bastard…” she said to herself as she looked at her clock on her nightstand. It read 8:15AM. It was a good thing she decided to come back and check in despite it being a free day, post show travel for them. She didn’t want to give Silver the honor of kicking her ass, not that he wouldn’t do it anyway once they got started. She didn’t mind some training anyway. Squad Foxtrot was only at the show to observe, they didn’t actually perform. The Shadowbolt chase had her a tad stiff, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. Something told her this also had to do with Silver disagreeing with Spitfire’s order to ‘ease up’ on the training. That would be so typical of him.

She decided to beat him there and get going right away even though she still had forty-four minutes. She could get warm-ups in beforehand to maximize their time, and it wouldn’t give him a chance to trip her as she came through the door.

But first… she wanted to check on the rest of her squad.

“Alright, you two…” Dash got up from her bed and trotted over to where Squall was still trying to strangle Twister to no avail. She hopped up on the bed and put a hoof on Squall’s arm. “Time to put him down Squall, you know it’s pointless,” she said with a chuckle.

“Nrrgh…” Squall grunted at Twister who started cracking up and swinging his head back and forth.

“Well, stop trying to kill your squadmate,” Dash ordered calmly. Squall didn’t comply at first. “That’s an order Squall,” she added without raising her voice in the slightest.

“Hmph…” Squall released his grip, and Twister fell up, crashing against the ceiling before shooting down towards the bed. Dash extended her wing as Twister fell. He ran into it, and the angle diverted him off the edge of the bed and to the floor. He made a noise similar to multiple glass windows breaking as he crashed, making the rest of them cringe.

“So Squall…” Dash turned to him as she folded her wing back to her body casually. Squall visibly flinched when Dash addressed him and looked away. “Hey c’mon, look at me. I’m just checking in,” she rolled her eyes, but he didn’t look. She kept going anyway. “I know this was all quite sudden, anti-Wonderbolts and all sorts of fun stuff you guys were just thrown into. You handled yourself well out there against them, at least until the rest of the Shadowbolts showed up, but they took all of us out at that point,” she kept her eyes on him, watching his mannerisms. He looked like he was forcing down a smile when she complimented him “So are you feeling alright? Any doubts, curiosity, or injuries?”

“N…no. I’m fine,” Squall replied.

SQUALL REPLIED.

It wasn’t him lashing out either. He replied to her question in a normal manner, a normal tone with no harshness or bitterness. It was good to see him comfortable enough to do so.

Dash looked above Squall to see Twister pop up behind him while holding a sign that said: ‘babby’s first small talk’ on it. Squall noticed Dash looking over him and quickly turned, but Twister was already gone. Dash held in a laugh as she turned to Star.

“What about you, Star?” she asked as Star finally dropped Squall’s tail from her mouth.

“Oh, about yesterday?” Star replied. Dash nodded, amused that she was so occupied with yanking on Squall’s tail that she hadn’t been listening. “Definitely not what I expected when I signed up… you know, all eight times I signed up, but hey, Wonderbolts fight, right?” she said with a shrug. “So we ran into some crazy fighters who had an edge on us. It’s not like they tried to kill us,” she said in a very casual manner that surprised Dash.

“Even after I told you about them? Not a single worry?” Dash blinked. Star nodded.

“They didn’t act like the ones you told us about, I was more concerned with catching them than fighting for my life. So I’m okay!” she ended with a smile.

It certainly wasn’t what Dash was expecting. She thought the experience was going to frighten them for sure. Well, not Matteo, but the rest? Possibly. It seemed they were all fine though, putting it into a similar perspective as the rest. More curious about why the Shadowbolts ran as opposed to being afraid of an attack. She hadn’t asked Twister, but honestly, she knew his response was going to be something completely unrelated. One could ask Twister to count to three and he’d make them breakfast instead.

If only she could be so relaxed about it. Dash, like Spitfire, knew what the Shadowbolts were capable of and while she was equally curious about the Shadowbolts running from them, she couldn’t disregard what they had done in the past. In a way, she envied the rest of her squad. They could approach this with level heads and without worry. At least until they themselves learned what the Shadowbolts could do. Hopefully they’d never be subjected to the worst of it

“Um…”

Both Star and Dash looked towards Squall. He was looking away from them and almost had his back fully turned. He looked over his shoulder at the two of them, his face mostly hidden by his mane, but clearly a small blush on his face.

“Squall?” Dash blinked while tipping her head slightly.

“C-could y-you two… um… get off… my bed?” he asked very shakily, clearly really uncomfortable.

Dash and Star both looked down. They were, indeed, still on Squall’s bed while carrying on their conversation. And from the looks of things, having two mares sitting on his bed with him seemed to make him a little nervous and embarrassed. Star’s pupils widened as she put her hooves to her cheeks.

“Aw, is Squally-wally a wittle shy?” She teased as she hovered up behind him.

“Nnnnnngh…” Squall grunted, turned, and laid flat on the mattress grabbing one of his newly returned pillows and hiding his head beneath it.

“He’s so embarrassed!” Star giggled as she started hovering towards him, but Dash reached out and grabbed her tail.

“Alright, that’s enough, Star. Let’s give Squall his personal space… Celestia knows Twister already violates it enough,” Dash chuckled as she pulled Star through the air.

“Aw… but he’s so cute when he’s blushing!” she added, clearly trying to make him more embarrassed.

“Nnnnnnnnnnnngh…” Squall’s muffled groan came from beneath the pillow. Once Dash was off the bed with Star in tow, she checked the nearest clock. It read 8:30.

“Anyway,” Dash began as she hopped down. “Today is a free day for us. No scheduled training in any of the gyms, but I want each of you to get down to the facilities and do something, workout, treatment, whatever you want, just don’t be lazy. I have some stuff to do to now, so I’ll see you guys around the compound,” Dash nodded, all of them nodding to her in return, except for Squall who was still hiding beneath his pillow.

“Cards tonight?” Twister suddenly popped up in front of her, wearing his poker visor and had a fake cigar in his mouth. Dash blinked and looked back at the others. They all shrugged and nodded. Even Squall looked up from the pillow upon hearing about another poker game.

“Card’s tonight,” Dash nodded to Twister. “I’ll try to find Storm too!”

“YEE-HAW!” Twister yelled as the fake cigar somehow lit and burned all the way down before he dipped down and reappeared beside Little Star and shoving a fake cigar in her mouth.

“I love these guys…” Dash said to herself, shaking her head, but smiling as she walked towards the door and headed out.

“Wait… I’m confused…” Storm scratched his head. “Is it all at once or motion by motion? He asked Soarin.

Soarin was looking away from him.

“Soarin?” Storm blinked, waving a hoof in front of his eyes. Soarin snapped from his thoughts, shook his head and looked towards Storm.

“Ah, sorry…” he said with a sigh.

“You’ve been a little out there since you came in, everything okay?” Storm asked him, both concerned and a little discouraged that Soarin seemed to be paying attention to something else.

“No, it’s nothing. The pony I wanted to meet with this morning was unavailable,” Soarin tried his hardest not to give Storm an odd look. Was everything okay? That was Soarin’s line. Storm had been acting strange since he saw him this morning. But… Storm wasn’t wrong, something was bothering Soarin at the moment. “I didn’t mean to ignore you, what were you asking again?”

Indeed, Soarin had gone all the way through the underground connecting tunnel to the castle, but was immediately turned away by the guards. He wasn’t surprised, not in the slightest. However, there was something strange this time.

Three guards pushed him away from the doors, but as they did, one of them mentioned Luna was in a ‘strategic meeting,’ after which the other two guards glared at him and he promptly shut up.

Strategic meeting? With Luna in charge? They already had a few clues that pointed to Luna knowing about the Shadowbolts. With this, it was certain. She had probably gotten a hold of their reports and was once again doing something without telling them… but what? Why would she leave them out?

With this taking full control of his thoughts, he had eventually found his way to an open gym in the west wing. It was where he and Storm had decided to meet, claiming a space in the gym as other Wonderbolts did their own thing around them. For the first few minutes of helping, Soarin had been paying very little attention. He promised Storm he would help him though… so he had to focus on what he was doing. Wondering about Luna would have to wait.

“It’s a single fluid motion with separate motions,” Soarin focused and started explaining. “Not one or the other. I know your surface tap is—”

“INCOMING! WHOOOAAAAA!!!” Lightning Streak’s voice suddenly blared from nearby. Soarin and Storm both instinctively stepped aside as Lightning Streak crashed to the floor and bounced several times before skidding to a halt on his face. They both looked towards him before turning and looking up to see Surprise back flipping in midair while giggling uncontrollably as Misty brushed her hooves together.

“Yikes…” Soarin chuckled as he looked towards Lightning, who was slowly rising and shaking his head out. “Misty really takes advantage of the padded floors in this gym…” he said as he lightly bounced up and down at the hard, yet cushioned gym surface. This gym in particular had a layer of crash padding beneath the floor mat, allowing for softer landings even when they look rather hard.

“Damn, how does my bro handle this chick?” Lightning wobbled as he stood up and flew back towards Misty.

“Never a dull moment with Squad three, is there?” Storm smirked as he and Storm came back together.

“Never,” Soarin agreed as he went back to his explanation. “Now as I was saying, your Surface Tap move requires two separate rapid motions. I know you’ve perfected that move, it being your personal signature technique and all, but you’re going to have to turn that off if you want the Sonic Blast-off to work. It has specific separate motions that have to be executed in a certain order, but it MUST be done fluidly, without a moment of pause in between each one. So it’s both many motions and one motion.”

“That’s confusing…” Storm blinked and his ears flopped down.

“Why do you think nopony else knows it?” Soarin asked, completely disregarding something obvious.

“Dash knows it,” Storm sighed in frustration. Soarin’s eyes widened and he bit his lip awkwardly. Yeah, he totally forgot to acknowledge the obvious..

“Look,” Soarin quickly placed a hoof on Storm’s shoulder. “I told you already, Dash is a different story. She mimics moves, it’s what she does. Focus on yourself Storm, not her.”

This was admittedly, a little awkward for Soarin. He knew Storm didn’t have the same talents as Dash, but he didn’t factor in the learning process. Dash picked up how to use the Sonic Blast-off after seeing it only once and getting it to almost work on her second try. Storm was physically bigger and stronger than Dash, but he lacked the ability to copy the finesse of the movements. It was going to be a while before Storm even got the maneuver partway down… at least that’s what it looked like.

“I wish it were that easy,” Storm spoke up. “This is—”

“WHOOOOAAAAAHOHOHOHOHOOOO!!!!” Lightning Streak’s voice came from near them again, cutting off Storm.

The two stepped aside again as Lightning Streak flew down in a much smoother arc, crashing to the floor and bouncing much further with his lower trajectory towards the doors of the gym. Fire Streak, with the worst timing possible, stepped through the doors just in time to be body slammed by his twin brother and the two flew right out of the gym with the door closing behind them.

“Ouch…” Soarin looked up and saw Misty Fly cringing as Surprise lost control of her flight and started softly tumbling towards the ground as she clutched her stomach and laughed incredibly hard. The gym door swung back open and Fire Streak stepped through with Lightning Streak right behind him.

“Nice catch bro!” Lightning saluted him.

“Nice crash… idiot…” Fire grumbled as he walked in.

“Harsh bro, extra harsh sauce…” Lightning replied as they flew up towards Misty and the recovering Surprise.

“What were you saying?” Soarin asked Storm with a chuckle as they came back together.

“Nothing,” Storm quickly replied. Soarin could tell he was avoiding something, but Storm was trying to learn, it wasn’t time to discuss personal issues. “So what was that first motion again?!” Storm suddenly asked with an eager tone that was quite a sudden shift. Soarin blinked.

“Locking your hooves down, being—”

“Strong, but relaxed! Yes, now the second?” Storm cut him off.

“The second is…” Soarin looked at Storm curiously. Something was off. Something had been off since earlier. He knew Storm didn’t want Dash to know he was also trying to learn the Sonic Blast-off… but something was strange. This was the second time since he arrived in the gym that Storm’s mood shifted drastically. He kept switching between sounding depressed and sounding overly excited. “Storm, what’s wrong?” Soarin shifted subjects looking at him sternly.

“What?” Storm cocked his head to the side. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing! What’s the second motion?” he tried to avoid but Soarin wasn’t having it.

“Is it about Dash?” Soarin pressed. Storm’s expression lost its forced smile and turned into a frown.

“No…” he sighed. “It’s not,” he admitted as he sat down. “Can we please just continue the training? I bother you with my problems way too much, you don’t need to hear them,” Storm looked away from Soarin shamefully.

“Cut that shit out right now, Storm… The training won’t be effective if your head is elsewhere,” Soarin walked up to him, standing over him, but in a way that was encouraging, letting Storm look up to him. “You’ve gotta know by now that I’m here to help you, I don’t care how many times you need it.”

Storm looked down shook his head.

“I’m worried about my dad,” Storm revealed. Soarin blinked as his eyes slightly widened.

“Your dad? Is something wrong? Did you hear from him again?” Soarin quickly asked, knowing just how tied Storm was to his elusive, but loving father.

“No, but that’s the problem. I’ve heard from him once in the past few months. Besides the letter I got from him about a month ago, which was very brief and looked rushed, I haven’t heard from him. I’m beginning to worry that either something happened to him, or my mom’s starting to snatch up the letters that appear in our mailbox back home… I wouldn’t put it past her,” Storm grunted and lightly gritted his teeth.

Soarin took a long look at Storm for a few moments. He felt for Storm, he really did. Soarin didn’t have a similar experience, but Soarin knew the importance of family, and what his had done for him. Storm had merely a fraction of what Soarin had, but Storm clung to it desperately, his father being the one thing that drove him this far.

“When all this stuff with the Shadowbolts is over…” Soarin suddenly spoke up. “I’m going to get a few of our staff together and we’ll see if we can locate your dad,” Soarin offered.

“What?!” Storm’s ears shot up. “But…”

“No buts,” Soarin shook his head. “We’re Wonderbolts, we have resources. I’m sure with some digging in our intelligence department we can find out where he is,” he said with a smile.

“All for one pony?” Storm shook his head. “No, you don’t have to do that…” he sighed.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Storm,” Soarin chuckled. “And I’m willing to bet you wanted to train right now in attempt to ignore what was bothering you. They day after a show? You’re the only Wonderbolt I’ve ever seen do that.”

“Er…” Storm scratched the back of his head, indicating that Soarin hit a bull’s-eye. “Okay that’s part of it… but it also wasn’t helping my other worries…”

“Which are?” Soarin leaned closer.

“Commander, please, you don’t need—”

“Call me Soarin, dammit…” Soarin chuckled as Storm put a hoof over his face.

“Sorry… I just can’t afford to take any days without training… I’m already way behind the rest of the elites at my supposed rank. I mean, come on, what did I even do in Cloudsdale? I just got punted around. Dash was the one who made a difference, she even gave chase and forced one of the Shadowbolts to actually attack! She deserves this elite spot so much more than I do, I don’t know why you guys haven’t switched us ye—”

Storm got no farther as Soarin smacked him upside the head… REALLY hard. Storm nearly fell forward.

“OW!” he yelped as he turned and glared at Soarin, only to be grabbed by the shoulders and see Soarin giving him an incredibly stern glare.

“I swear to Celestia, Storm…” Soarin poked a hoof roughly against Storm’s chest. “Why do you talk yourself down constantly?!”

Storm stared wide eyed at Soarin, completely dominated as Soarin both loomed over him and glared at him.

“You earned your spot… hell, I voted for you to be in this spot, and so did Spitfire! We didn’t pick names from a hat. You convinced two members of the lead Squad that you were fit for the job! Now quit the pity talk and start being proud of yourself! I mean it, you have lots to be proud of, but you barely acknowledge it!”

Soarin backed away for a moment, letting go of Storm as he took a deep breath and put his hooves to his head. Thankfully, his escalated emotional response didn’t activate the magic at all, but he calmed down regardless just in case.

“Sorry…” Soarin shook his head. “That was a little harsh, I just…” he glanced at Storm, who was still staring wide eyed. “Storm, I wouldn’t vouch for you so much if you were inadequate, you have to understand just how selective the Wonderbolts are. I know it’s easy for me to say as a lead squad elite, but I earned my spot just as much as you earned yours, through being selected by those above me. You need to be proud of that. Besides…” Soarin went for the killer blow. “You’ve earned such a high honor that most pegasi can only dream of… I’ve no doubt your father would be incredibly proud to learn of it. What would he say if he saw you acting this way?”

Storm’s ears shot up as Soarin’s last few words really sunk in and Soarin could tell that they sunk deep.

“I…” Storm looked back down. “You’re right… I’m… I’m being stupid. I talk about how much my father inspired me, yet here I am saying I don’t deserve what I earn…” he looked up. “I guess I’m not used to more than one pony believing in me. Thanks Soarin…” Storm nodded with a smile before rubbing the back of his head. “If I do this again, could you hit me a little lighter? Damn, that hurt!” he said with a chuckle, earning a smile from Soarin. “So, could you show me the motion again?” Storm asked with a much more relaxed, normal tone.

“That’s the spirit,” Soarin walked up beside him. “It’s not gonna be easy to get this down, but like I said, Storm,” Soarin winked. “If you’re willing to do the work, I’m willing to teach it to you. So let’s at least get all the motions down so you can start practicing them on your own too.”

“Right!” Storm nodded eagerly.

“HOOOOOCHEEEEMAMA!!!!”

Soarin and Storm both stepped aside as Lightning Streak crashed in between them, this time from directly above, bouncing once before landing flat. They looked up to see Misty Fly shrugging while Surprise fell against Fire Streak, laughing her lungs out as Fire snickered to himself as well.

“I don’t know about you…” Soarin began as he rested his arm on Lightning Streak, who was struggling to stand. “But I wouldn’t pass up a chance to be around a bunch of amazing lunatics like us. It makes for some great times.”

“I completely agree,” Storm smiled as he looked up at squad three.

“Hmmm…” Dash looked up at the clock in the squad two private gym as she started another set of wing-ups.

It was 9:02… but Silver had yet to show. Sure it was only three minutes after, but Silver was never late. In fact, he usually showed up to everything fifteen minutes early. She was there by herself, alone with the echo of her hooves against the floor whenever she walked around.

“Probably got caught up in something important…” Dash spoke to herself as she got through the wing-ups and switched to her arms for pushups.

Or something could be wrong.

“Pfft…” Dash shook her head. This was Silver Lining she was thinking about here, of course nothing was wrong. Knowing him, he probably got drawn into some business with Spitfire… or maybe was being held up by Air Mach.

But for fifteen minutes? Dash looked up at the clock. Make that twenty minutes.

It was now 9:05… and Silver was twenty minutes late, that is, going off of how he was usually fifteen minutes early.

“Nah, it’s probably nothing,” Dash said to herself as she stood back up and began stretching her limbs and wings. If there was a real problem, like a Shadowbolt being in the compound or something, alarms would be blaring right now. It could be…

Dash froze.

What if Silver was trying to test her with something again? After all, he was a crafty bastard when it came to teaching her lessons. However… nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She hadn’t strayed very far from the door since she entered, so she would have heard the distinct creak of the gym doors had somepony tried to come in.

Was he… right outside waiting for her to check?

Dash stopped stretching and stepped towards the doors. She gulped as she gently pushed it. A slow, light creak sounding from it as it opened. She glanced left… then right. She even looked up towards the ceiling.

No sign of Silver at all.

“Huh…” Dash blinked before stepping back into the gym and letting the door close. She stopped dead in her tracks before taking any more steps backwards. Maybe he had been there the whole time and was waiting for her to check the door, then he’d spring out and…!

Dash spun around, but there was nopony there.

“Hm…” she hummed in confusion. She turned and began pacing back and forth.

This was Silver Lining. She had nothing to worry about. He was either caught up in something important, or this was another one of his tests. There was no way anything could be wrong. He was like, the opposite of wrong. Silver knew how to do everything right and stuck by it. He…

Dash glanced up at the clock and bit her lip, a look of worry crawling onto her face.

9:15… Silver was half an hour late.

Dash couldn’t take it anymore, something was wrong.

Dash turned right towards the doors and left the gym, turning into the long hall that led towards the lobby. He wasn’t even in sight in the long hallway. Not a single trace of him, just other Wonderbolts and the newly stationed security guards.

As she walked, Dash began asking passing Wonderbolts.

“Have you seen Captain Silver?”

“No.”

“Seen Silver Lining around?”

“Nope.”

“Where’s captain Silver?”

“Couldn’t tell ya.”

“This isn’t right…” Dash shook her head. Where was Silver? Part of her felt like she was overreacting, that even if Silver was in some kind of predicament, it wasn’t like he was incapable of handling himself. Her worry pressed on however, she just couldn’t push it out of her head.

As she entered the lobby and looked around, Blaze and High Winds came walking out from the west wing.

“Blaze! Winds!” Dash asked as she trotted up to them. “Where’s Silver? Have you seen him?”

“The hell would I know what the old fart is doing?” Blaze lifted an eyebrow and scoffed.

“Haven’t…” High Winds Yawned and scratched her flank. “Seen him…”

“Rgh…” Dash grunted as she looked around. She spotted Wave Chill waiting in line at the mail counter behind Rivet, who was hovering up to receive a package from the orange pony behind the counter. Dash galloped up to him. “WAVE!” she yelled as she drew close, so loudly that Rivet yelped, and leaned forward as the mail pony was handing him the package. He tumbled into the orange pony with the box and the two fell back behind the counter, landing with a POOF on a bag of mail as envelopes flew up into the air. “Ah, sorry!” Dash apologized for startling them before turning back to Wave.

“Whoa, Dash… what’s—”

“Where is Silver?!” Dash cut off Wave while grabbing his shoulders. She blinked, realizing she was becoming frantic without even knowing if there was actually something wrong. She let go of Wave, stepped back, held her hooves out as she took a deep breath, and calmed down. “Sorry… I’m looking for Silver,” she repeated in a much calmer voice, but still with hints of worry poking through.

“Captain Silver? I haven’t seen him since this morning when I left our room, he was still sleeping when I left for breakfast,” Wave explained.

Silver and Wave’s room.

“Okay, thanks!” Dash nodded, turned, and broke into a gallop towards the stairs leading up.

Wave blinked as Rivet and the orange pony peeked over the top of the counter, confused.

“What was that all about?” Wave scratched his head.

Dash made it to the top of the stairs and looked back and forth. She had only ever been to Soarin’s room, the Streak twins’ room, and down the opposite direction towards where Rapidfire used to live. She had never seen which direction Silver’s room was in, but he shared a room with Wave… and she had seen Wave go past Soarin’s room so… to the left she went.

She slowed to a trot as she started reading the nameplates of the doors, passing the squad three rooms and a few more rooms belonging to the high tier elites until she finally came across a door labeled ‘Wave Chill & Silver Lining.’ Beneath Silver’s name was a doodle of a pony stabbing the S of Silver’s name with a… spear? It was hard to tell because it was incredibly poorly drawn, like a preschool crayon doodle with red marker. Based on the style of the mane on the doodle and the chosen color… Dash had to guess it was drawn by Blaze.

She lifted her hoof to knock, but hesitated. She would have probably broken the door down with how heavy her initial wind up was to knock. She took a deep breath and calmed down. Silver probably wasn’t even in his room. It didn’t hurt to check though.

Dash knocked gently, three times on the door.

No response.

She looked back and forth at the empty halls of the third floor before trying again.

“Silver?” she said his name as she knocked a little harder.

Still no response.

She could see it now, Silver was probably down in the gym, just having finished up some sudden business he had to attend to, and was wondering with of her which side of her plot to punt to give her the best arc towards that pot of gold.

One more time wouldn’t hurt.

“Silver are you in th—” as she knocked three more times, a little harder again… the door opened slightly, but not because somepony had opened it, because the door wasn’t locked, and apparently not even closed far enough to latch it.

Dash froze as she saw it happen. If the door wasn’t locked that meant somepony was inside. Silver didn’t strike her as one to forget about locking his door.

Then her ears stood up.

She heard something inside.

It sounded like… grunting… groaning… and…

Pain…

Dash pushed the door open as quickly as she could. She took one step inside, looked down at the floor… and gasped.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“SILVER?!?!” she yelled out in horror.

Silver was sprawled out on his stomach, on the floor beside his bed. The sheets and blanket from the bed were tangled with his lower body. He was unscathed with absolutely no sign that he had come to harm… but his face was wrought with pain and he was reaching his arm out towards two bottles of pills that lay on the floor, one of which was open and its contents spilled out of his reach.

“Rgh… ah…” Silver cringed and his body shook as he kept grabbing for the pills, but they a were good half an arm’s length out of his reach.

Dash galloped towards him, skidding to a stop and crouching down.

“Silver?! SILVER!” she called his name. Silver looked up and forced on of his eyes open.

“D…Dash? Ergh…” he groaned, cringed and slammed his eye shut as his hoof kept reaching and grasping for the pills. Dash quickly realized what he was trying to do, reached over and picked up the bottle that hadn’t spilled. She looked at the label, but all she saw was medical jargon she couldn’t make heads or tails of. All she knew was that Silver was in pain, and apparently this was supposed to help. She reached the pills towards him.

“Here!” she exclaimed as Silver forced his eye open again.

“N…no!” he swiped his hoof out and knocked the bottle out of Dash’s hoof before his arm fell back down and he groaned while panting. “The other… first!” he said as he flopped over on his back, revealing that his other hoof was pressed over his heart.

Dash frantically looked towards the pills spilled out on the floor. She had no time to gather them all back up into the bottle.

“How many?!” she turned and asked.

“Th…three!” Silver choked as his heavy breathing barely left enough air in his lungs to speak.

Without a word, Dash scooped up three of the pills and crouched down beside Silver.

“Help me… sit up…” his voice rasped. Dash obeyed quickly, holding the three pills in her right hoof as she used her left hoof to untangle his legs from his bed sheets and then slipped the arm under his back. Slowly, they worked together until he was sitting up, and as soon as he was up, Silver snatched the pills from Dash’s hoof, shoved them in his mouth, and forcefully swallowed them dry.

Dash shifted so she could keep him propped up, staring at the hoof that Silver had covering his heart as he shook and panted. Dash didn’t know what to say or do, both confused and absolutely terrified.

What… did she just see?

She sat there, supporting Silver for a few more minutes, and watched as he slowly stopped shaking, his breathing slowed to normal, and he removed his hoof from over his chest.

“Ugh…” Silver groaned lightly. He winced and inhaled sharply as he moved his arm back down, his arm moving in a very static, painful way. “Great…” Silver sighed as he glanced at Dash, meeting her concerned eyes. “I didn’t want… anypony to see that…” he grunted in frustration followed by another groan and forcing his arm around his stomach.

“Silver… what…” Dash looked at the pills that were still spilled on the floor. “What is all this?”

“Other pills first, so I can actually move, dammit…” Silver shakily pointed to the bottle he had swatted out of Dash’s hoof. It had rolled all the way towards the open door.

Dash was ready to obey without question, but she was holding him up. Silver quickly realized that.

“The bed, just prop me up there…” he said with a strange tone. Dash wasn’t sure how to describe it, but then again, Silver had his own way of expressing many different emotions. The closest one she could think of as she helped move him over was…

Shame…

“Rgh… ow, ow, argh…” Silver kept flinching as Dash helped him move and prop him up against the bed. He clearly wouldn’t have been able to move at all without Dash’s help… and perhaps that’s where the shame was coming from. He was unable to move on his own, at least in this moment. Dash had never experienced such a thing before, and for one with as much pride and resolve as Silver, it had to be a crippling feeling.

With Silver propped up comfortably, Dash stood up, keeping her eyes on Silver for the first few steps as she walked over and grabbed the other bottle of pills.

“Close that goddamn door while you’re at it too…” he ordered. Dash paused and glanced at him. He didn’t say it again. He was tipping his head back, breathing steadily and covered in sweat, but he had one eye opened part-way and was looking towards her with it. Dash nodded and gently closed the door, making sure it clicked before turning and walking back towards Silver with the other bottle.

Without a word, Silver forced his arm up and grabbed the bottle from Dash before she could ask anything. He groaned in pain as he reached his other hoof around and tried to open the pills, but his hoof kept slipping.

“Rgh…” he grunted as he tried and failed to open the bottle again and again. Dash wanted to reach and grab it from him, but after how hurt he sounded about being assisted, she wanted him to at least try. “Damn!” he cursed as the pill bottle slipped from both of his hooves and clattered on the floor.

“Here…” Dash reached down and grabbed the bottle. Silver’s hoof shot out and tried to stop her arm, but he winced heavily as it touched her arm. “Silver… relax,” she said while gently placing a hoof on his shoulder. “Let me help you… please,” she asked, feeling that getting his permission would help him feel like he was at least a little bit in control.

Silver let his arm fall back down as he stared at Dash with half open eyes. His body was still jittering… but was it from pain or more shame?

“Two pills… with some water…” he instructed her.

“Water…?” Dash looked around the room and spotted a half full bottle of water sitting on Silver’s dresser.

She stood up and made her way towards it, picking up the water… but as she did her eyes landed on a picture frame.

There were three ponies in the photo… a white earth pony mare with a long brown mane that looked about as old as Silver and two younger ponies, a light grey earth stallion with a short silver mane and a white unicorn mare with a curly mane that had silver and brown streaks in it, both looked to be about Dash’s age, probably a year or two younger.

“Any… damn… day now… sweetheart…” Silver suddenly spoke up painfully. Dash snapped from her thoughts and looked towards Silver, cracking a small smile as she moved back towards him. Even in such a state, Silver still had his usual sarcastic mannerisms.

“Sorry…” Dash apologized as she walked back over and sat down beside Silver. She placed the water bottle on the floor as she opened the pill bottle and took out two pills. They were much larger than the first. She could see why he wanted water with them. She handed him the pills before unscrewing the cap from the water bottle and handing it to him too.

Silver popped the pills into his mouth and started bringing the bottle to his lips, but he grunted in pain halfway. Dash quickly reached up and helped him tip the bottle up. The water poured into Silver’s mouth, a few stray trickles of water escaping down his jaw, to his chin, and dripping down his neck.

“Ahhhhh!” Silver exhaled as he downed the whole bottle and let it fall beside him, the plastic bottle clattering to the floor as he took several deep breaths.

Silver breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he slowly turned his head towards Dash. She was staring directly at him with an expression he knew well… and she knew he knew well.

“I’m not getting out this one without an explanation, am I?” he said with an annoyed huff.

“No… you aren’t,” Dash said, adding a slightly stern tone to her voice. She wanted it to be abundantly clear to Silver that what she just saw was incredibly worrying.

“Fine…” Silver sighed. “It’s gonna take a good twenty minutes or so for the second pills to kick in anyway… rgh…” he grunted in discomfort as he tried to shift himself to be slightly more upright. Dash let him handle it himself, waiting eagerly to hear about the well-being of her teacher. “Dash… My body is broken,” he began, followed by a very long pause. “In all honesty I should have retired at least five years ago… maybe even more. At least if I wanted to avoid…this,” he glanced at Dash, then down at the pill bottles sitting on the floor. “I’m being kept together with painkillers, joint relievers, heart medication, and god knows what, I think duct tape is on the list somewhere. There’s a reason my body cracks and pops so much, I’m not doing it on purpose,” he said while shaking his head.

“Painkillers…” Dash repeated out loud. “Heart medication? S…Silver?” Dash felt the air leave her lungs. She looked around, her eyes landing on an open cabinet with multiple bottles of pills of many different sizes.

“Most pegasi start to lose their flight speed and finesse around the age of thirty five,” Silver continued. “And if they keep it up after that, it doesn’t last very long. Misty has been holding up quite well, I’m gonna guess she still has a few years left in her. Me? My body might as well be eighty years old,” he shook his head. “I’m dedicated to the Wonderbolts. Always have, always will be. But there’s one thing about them I have never liked, and that’s the fact that they value flight ability over experience. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in service… once you start falling behind the younger bolts… you have to retire. It’s been a rule upheld since the Wonderbolts were conceived. It’s upheld with the intention of keeping the most youthful and quick flyers at all times. I’m willing to respect all of our traditions, but I refuse to go down without fighting it,” he said with a frustrated grunt.

Dash didn’t know what to say, she just stared at her mentor as he continued.

“Every morning it gets harder and harder to get out of bed, and if I don’t take my medications before eight o’clock, bad things start to happen. If the pain and soreness is bad enough, my body can’t handle it. My heart is already wrecked from years upon years of pushing myself to the limit, so the panic of not being able to move sometimes gives me minor… heart attacks,” he said while looking away from Dash. “But… I have no choice,” he turned and fixed his eyes on Dash. “The only reason I’m still flying with all you kids is because I push myself to the limits of pain and beyond every single day. Hell, that’s the only reason I’ve ever been a Wonderbolt at all… I’ve never had talent… I was never gifted or special. All I ever had was my unwavering will and desire to succeed, pushing myself as hard as I could every day to be the best I could be. I earned my rank though blood, sweat, tears, and backbreaking hard work. Anything less was not good enough… and even though that has caused my body to physically deteriorate I press onward… because if I give anything less on any given day… It won’t be long before Spitfire calls me to her office to discuss retirement. I’m not letting that happen.”

“You…” Dash spoke up, catching Silver’s attention. “You’ve been willingly harming yourself?”

“Heh!” Silver snickered and shook his head, his body twitching lightly in pain as he laughed. “Willingly? You bet your ass. That and… taking measures to make sure nopony knows what I go through,” he took a deep breath. “You’re the first pony to see me… well, slip up. I purposely stay in bed until Wave leaves every morning so he doesn’t see how many of these pills I take, and should I not make it to the cabinet… well, it takes me a while but I get there eventually. The pain never bothered me, all that matters is I cheat my fate as a Wonderbolt.”

“Silver!” Dash exclaimed as she stood up. “That’s reckless! What if I didn’t show up just now?” she said, visibly angry and concerned.

“I’ve gone for longer like that,” he said with a light scoff. “Same thing happened the morning after Soarin beat me senseless during your recruit training. It took me two hours after I rolled out of bed to reach my medicine cabinet from my bed that morning. I even woke up two hours earlier and ordered Wave to do some early morning surprise training to get him out of the room. I was really sucking it up for the next few days. I manage,” he said in a manner that was disgustingly casual to Dash. “And that’s not all I do,” he smirked. “I’ve lied to Bliss about how I feel. I’ve even snuck into her office after physicals to change what’s on my medical reports. Went to doctors out in Canterlot to get medications and paid them extra to keep quiet,” he watched as Dash’s expression became more and more alarmed as he went on. “I do what I must, Dash. Not even the post workout treatments and Bliss’ famous deep tissue torture massages help me. I have to seek my own means to staying in one piece.”

“That’s… that’s…” Dash found herself nearly overrun with worry. Silver… the invincible old veteran… was really just the opposite? He really just sucked it up? Sure his body creaked and popped often, but it was for a horrible, HORRIBLE reason! Silver was willing to put himself through so much pain? “Why? Silver, you could die…” she said loosely. Not quite sure where to go after that, the only thing on her mind was the fact that Silver put his life at such heavy risk.

“Dash…” Silver looked at her seriously. “Sit down for a moment and listen to me,” he ordered. His tone made her freeze. The current nature of his voice mixed with the stern glare was something she had learned never to fight or question. She said nothing else and gave no more protest. She sat right down and listened like he asked.

“Becoming a Wonderbolt is one of the most difficult achievements for a pegasus… no… a pony to achieve in all of Equestria. The selection process is harsher than any school or organization. It’s an achievement that defines a lifetime, and when it ends… it’s heartbreaking. Ponies sacrifice everything to train themselves beyond perfection for a chance at unimaginable greatness for a few years of their life. Some try so hard and never make it, but those that do have only do because they devote their lives to the effort. Once retired… they have nothing left, nowhere to go, and nothing to turn to. They are always welcome, and have their legacies… but nothing can measure up to the honor and glory that comes with being a part of these ranks,” Silver looked down at the floor.

“I watched… every single one of my friends get forced out as they could no longer keep up with the younger bolts… and I was there after each farewell party, as the Wonderbolt retiring sat... surrounded by friends as they collapsed in despair. Even the hardened ponies that I had never seen shed a tear. ‘Where do I go?’ ‘What do I do?’ hearing these words from ponies I loved, trusted, and looked up to as they cried was like a dagger to the chest each time. They had everything they could ever need, Wonderbolt retirement benefits, cash stored up from years of great paychecks… but it never mattered because they could no longer be what they worked so hard for… what they trained for, what they LIVED for.”

Dash’s ears flopped down as Silver told the story with a hardened, unwavering expression. Silver had had to watch his friends be run out one by one… she could only imagine what it would feel like if she were to see it happen to her new friends. One of which she might be saying goodbye to in five years with this system… What would happen to Little Star after that? What about the rest of them?

“Seeing it so many times slowly crushed me on the inside… and… I refused to let the system take me down as it had to the others…If anything to remain and honor them as one of only two left in their generation,” Silver explained as he kept his eyes locked on Dash. “Have I gone to extremes? Maybe… but every night I climb into bed with only one desire. That I can wake up and be a Wonderbolt again for just one more day,” he took his eyes off of Dash and looked straight up. “Some dreams are worth risking everything for, Dash… but I’m sure that’s something you already understand well.”

Dash looked down at her hooves.

Some dreams are worth risking everything for…

She couldn’t agree more. That was basically a the philosophy that had gotten her this far.

But…

Dash glanced up towards his dresser. Her eyes landed on the framed photo she saw earlier.

Dash found herself in a rare spot. That is… possibly disagreeing with Silver.

“Risking everything…” Dash stood up and walked over to the dresser. Silver watched her as she moved, his ears flopping down as Dash grabbed the picture frame. “I know what you mean, sir… but…” she sat back down next to him and held out the picture frame. “Is this your family?” she asked as she looked between him and the picture. The two younger ponies, the earth pony and the unicorn looked like a mix of Silver’s and the older mare’s traits. Silver sighed as he reached up and took the picture from Dash, holding it down in front of him and looking it over.

“My wife, Serenity,” he pointed to the older earth mare before moving his hoof towards the younger unicorn mare. “My daughter, Magic Touch,” and then he pointed at the earth stallion. “My son, Piston,” he named them all off, staring at the picture for another moment before handing it back to Dash. “You don’t even have to say it, I know exactly what you’re thinking,” he said.

Dash looked up from the picture and blinked.

“What an old selfish bastard…” Silver chuckled “Still pursuing his dreams and pushing himself to the brink of falling apart when he has a family that loves and cares about him, who is just as unaware as everypony else about the condition I’m in,” he looked into Dash’s eyes.

Dash bit her bottom lip. She didn’t want to admit that Silver read her mind. That was the first thing she thought, as much as she felt ashamed for it.

“I’d agree with you if I didn’t know my family well…” Silver said with a light chuckle. “They may not know how badly beaten up I am, but they do know that I do what I do with pride… and that it’s my passion. I represent them as much as I represent the Wonderbolts… I would never let them down. Even if I were to fall apart or die in the line of duty, they would know that I went down doing what I love… and with them always on my mind. I’ve been married to my wife for a long time, Dash… and I’ve raised two children who are now as old as you, both making their own way in the world now. I’ve been their father. I’ve given them everything I could, and I’m proud of what they’ve both done with it. All I have left is my duty to the Wonderbolts, and the support my wife and children give me. It’s not something I’m going to let go of easily… and believe me, they know that well.”

Dash wanted to protest. She wanted to tell him that was wrong and his family was more important than being a Wonderbolt… but for some reason she couldn’t. She had a hard time disagreeing with Silver ever… and if he claimed his family was supportive of him, she’d believe it. Even if he was going to extremes without them knowing.

“Dash, I want you to promise me not to tell anypony what you saw here,” Silver suddenly requested. Dash’s eyes snapped to his.

“But—” she got no farther as she met Silver’s stern glare again.

“Dash… PROMISE me,” he repeated harshly, but Dash didn’t want to.

“Silver, I… can’t. I understand everything you are saying, but this more than just the Wonderbolts, it’s your life—”

“My life is the Wonderbolts,” Silver huffed.

“NO IT ISN’T!” Dash pounded a hoof on the ground, making Silver’s eyes widen a little. “You said it yourself! You’re broken, and you’re only causing yourself pain! You’re killing yourself, and you expect me to just let it go? I… just…” Dash lost where she was going. She know it sounded selfish, she was trying to decide for him what was best, but she had no control over that. The thought of Silver putting himself through so much pain was almost too much to bear.

What was the big deal anyway? Why was she getting so passionate about this? She pushed herself to the limit and passed all the time, Soarin did the same. For some reason the thought of Silver doing so was different. As if she were a daughter fretting over a reckless father.

She looked down and squinted her eyes shut. Nothing she could say would change his mind. Silver was too stubborn. He had already pushed himself this far through the pain, there was no way he was going to stop now. And despite how worried she was for him… it’s not like she wanted him to retire, she was just worried for his well-being.

“Rainbow Dash…” Silver said her name, getting her to look up. “I appreciate your concern for me, but I’ve made my choice… I made it a long time ago. I will keep going,” Silver suddenly grunted as he tipped forward, removing his back from the bedside, and putting his front hooves on the ground. “I will… always stand back up,” Silver cringed as he slowly stood on all four hooves and rose up from the ground. He took a few deep breaths as Dash got up and looked him over to make sure he wasn’t going to fall. “If there was one thing I learned from Blizzard Strike, it was how to never quit... to never lie down and accept fate… even if everything weighed against me. If they want me out of the Wonderbolts they’ll have to drag me out by the limp limbs of my dead corpse,” Silver chuckled. “My body might be broken, Dash…” he exhaled through his nose as he forced his arm up and patted his hoof against his chest. “But Silver Lining… is unbreakable. Don't you ever forget that.”

Dash looked upon her mentor as he stood firmly in place despite how he struggled to remain upright. The pain was definitely still searing through his body, but he ignored it, pushed it aside as an afterthought. Dash had never found such a weak and worn image more… inspiring. Silver was willing to do so much… and put himself in the way of physical pain and harm… if he could but be a Wonderbolt for a little longer. It was something he willingly struggled for day, after day, after day.

What a crazy, old… magnificent stallion.

“You should rest, don’t worry about training,” Dash suddenly tried to convince him as she stepped towards him. She stopped and her eyes widened as Silver glared at her harshly.

“Excuse me?” Silver growled at her. “Did I just hear you say ‘don’t worry about training?’” he asked. Dash blinked.

“Uh…” she looked back and forth, yelping as Silver pressed his nose against hers.

“If you think this is getting you out of today’s training session, I oughtta break my hoof off in your ass and call it a howdy-do! Get your ass to the gym! AH!” Silver stumbled after one step. Luckily, Dash reached out and caught him before he could faceplant.

Silver looked to Dash with a scrunched, frustrated face with his ears folded back as Dash smirked and lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Maybe we should wait a few more minutes,” Silver grumbled as Dash helped him stand back up straight.

A thought suddenly occurred to Dash as she helped him and stole another glance at the photo of Silver’s family.

He had no pegasus children.

He expressed his pride in his family, and how he raised them like a good father would, but Dash knew well from her own dad, that nothing fulfilled a father more than passing on their skills and knowledge to their children. Dash didn’t doubt for a second that Silver gave his children everything he could… but at the same time he was never able to pass on his true legacy to any of them.

“Now hear me out… Forget our rank and designation… and forget the Wonderbolts. I’m going to level with you as one pegasus to another. You have more potential than any recruit I’ve seen in my twenty-four years of service… I feel it is my duty… to leave something behind before I’m forced from rank. Therefore, I’m going to teach you everything I know.”

Silver said it himself right before their very first training session began. He wanted to pass on his knowledge to her.

Just like how she seemed to look upon him as a daughter would a father, he looked upon her as a father would a daughter.

Something about that made her feel very… incredibly happy.

“Alright…” Silver stood up and looked like he was managing a little better. “Pain pills are finally kicking in, let’s go,” he said very flatly and started towards the door. He was holding himself better, but his steps were still a little shaky. Dash trotted towards him and leaned into his side, helping him balance out. He turned, clearly ready to shoo her off, but he stopped and looked back forward.

Dash was glad he remembered. He tried fighting her on helping him once before and it didn’t work. He knew it wasn’t going to work now either.

“We should get you some breakfast first, the mess hall is still open,” Dash suggested since Silver had been struggling in his room all morning. Silver blinked and flattened his brow.

“We don’t have time for that,” Silver grunted.

“I’m not letting you start your day busted AND on an empty stomach,” Dash poked him in the ribs. He held his breath for a moment. It was a gentle poke, but his nerves were still tender from the pain. “We’re getting you food,” Dash repeated.

“No, we’re no—”

“Yes we are,” Dash cut him off while looking at him sternly. Silver scrunched his face and released a low pitched, frustrated nicker from the back of his throat.

“Fine, I’m hungry anyway…” he huffed.

Dash grinned from ear to ear, shaking her head lightly as she led Silver out the door.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh man... Silver... Just how far will you go to keep doing what you love? :fluttershysad:

You reckless, reckless old stallion... but who are we to deny a pony with such unbreakable ambition?

Looks like Soarin and Dash have taken one look at this new connection between them and said: "Give us your best shot" It's not like they haven't been through worse already :rainbowdetermined2:

Oh Squad Foxtrot... y u so much fun to write? :rainbowlaugh:

Storm, what's with the secrets? And why won't you accept that you've done something amazing? How many times are you gonna ask Soarin if you're worthy? Hopefully no more after this, Soarin laid it pretty thick to him here :moustache:

Silver's turning more and more into Dash's Wonderbolt Daddy, isn't he? :rainbowlaugh: Now she knows his secret to remaining in the Wonderbolt's for so long... she's willing to keep his secret, but it doesn't mean she's going to like it. Wonder if she'll be able to keep it down? Even from Soarin?

A chapter stepping away from the current conflict for more very important character development... Are things slowing down a bit?

The Wonderbolts better hope they don't get TOO relaxed in the current calm after their little conflict... who knows what could happen if they let their guard down :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

(The next chapter will be featuring the first piece of art from my third artist, look forward to some silly, fun, cartoony art! :rainbowwild:)

Chapter 85: On High Alert… Fleetfoot Style

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was edited by Lucky424)

Chapter 85:

Shadowbolts.

High Alert.

Extra security.

One would think that such an environment with the possibility of danger would change the mood of the compound, but as Dash and the rest of the recruits soon learned, the Wonderbolts were very good at keeping their cool.

Two days went by without anything happening, and while Dash felt uneasy, it seemed like the whole compound had simmered down, and life was moving on with more security and less training hours. Of course Dash knew that everything was far from normal… it was probably just her past experiences making her tense again.

Staying true to her word and keeping loyal to her mentor, Dash kept her mouth shut about Silver. She found herself worrying about him often now… at least, when she wasn’t training with him. During their training session after she discovered him in his room, she went soft on him at first and he promptly gave her a few bruises for doing so.

If anything, discovering Silver’s secret made her respect him even more. She had seen him do so many things that required an insane amount of will power and toughness. He took a punch to the face from Squall without flinching, got beaten up by Soarin and walked out of the battle dome on his own, later fought Soarin again and subdued him, chased after the Shadowbolts, and finally… had been constantly having these intense training sessions with her, all with a body that was falling apart. He had hit a whole new level of hardass in her book. Silver Lining was an iron pony for sure, worthy of being looked up to by so many.

As for Soarin, the frustration was endless. He tried to reach Luna three more times over the past two days. Every time, the guards gave him a different story. The first time she was out of the castle, the second she was apparently taking a bath, and the third time she was busy with diplomats. When Soarin asked where the diplomats were from, he got no answer and was turned away.

It was ironic, Spitfire didn’t want to bother going to Luna anymore… but now, even if they wanted to, it seemed like Luna was completely locking them out. This worried Soarin, because if there was one thing that gave the Wonderbolts an edge in many larger issues, it was having their connections with the royalty and the castle. What would happen now that the two sides were locking each other out?

Aside from that though, things went on as usual for Soarin, only with a slightly altered schedule and tightened security. Getting in and out of the compound at all was a hassle now. He was assigned to a patrol around the city with Fleetfoot and Air Mach one morning, but security gave them such a hard time just walking in and out the front doors. Soarin ended up sticking his I.D. card right into the face of one of the security guards while pulling his flight mask off, stating that he was quite sure he was Commander Soarin. The security was necessary, but it seemed a little paranoid, which was no doubt a little bit of Spitfire’s doing.

Speaking of Spitfire, Soarin was keeping a close eye on her. Even with the heightened security measures, Spitfire didn’t seem satisfied. Soarin had gotten the ‘we’re all too relaxed’ speech from her more than six times in the past two days.

While he agreed with her a little bit, Soarin had more than that to worry about. His magic had calmed down, but it was clearly more difficult to use, and he wasn’t sure if he could trust it should a conflict arise.

Forget the Wonderbolts being ready or not… was he ready? Because if one of the lead commanders was out of commission… that would have an intense negative effect on morale. He had to be careful, but could he afford to be?

Then again… knowing it could possibly bring pain to Dash… maybe this was why Discord warned them of the connection. It added a whole new factor Soarin had to be aware of… not only keeping Dash alive, but also making sure he didn’t cause her pain through mishandling his magic.

Too much to think about… as usual.

For Soarin, there was only one place to go when he felt that way, and luckily Spitfire was along with him, maybe he could take this time to help her loosen up.

Soarin reached forward and grabbed the barbell, helping Spitfire re-rack it into the bench with a loud CLANG. Soarin smirked and lifted an eyebrow at her as she sat up, exhaled, and grabbed her towel to wipe her face off.

“Bench pressing one hundred eighty-five pounds, five times? That’s an academy record!” Soarin mocked her voice with a chuckle.

“Oh, shut up…” Spitfire said in a rather sharp tone. Soarin flattened his brow as he watched her reach down and grab her water bottle, taking a long drink that emptied the bottle before throwing it aside and resting her front hooves on the bench padding in front of her.

Still no sense of humor… Soarin understood the situation they were in, but once again Spitfire was in full, ‘no-fun-allowed’ mode. And without Fleetfoot in the gym Soarin had no way of countering it. Air Mach was there, but the last time he tried to lighten the mood he got launched across a hotel room from a hoof to the face.

Soarin knew that Spitfire was never one to really relax. He heard all about the train ride back from Cloudsdale from Fleetfoot. He was glad Wave had gotten Spitfire to actually take a nap, it was something she needed. But from the looks of things… Spitfire went right back to overexerting herself, at least in this moment it seemed that way.

She had given the order to lighten up on training, but it hardly looked like she was upholding that here. It was clear as day, just now as he was spotting her. She was drenched in sweat, her muscles were all pumped and tight from heavy lifting, she was breathing hard, and Soarin was sure he could see her body twitching a little from the work. All in all, it looked like she was far from ‘taking it easy’ on herself.

Though he had to admit, it was always impressive to watch Spitfire weight lift. She was larger, more muscular, and taller than the rest of the mares in the force and could push the weight to prove it wasn't just for show. She could even keep up with most of the stallions, only the strongest among them putting up higher numbers than her.

“So what ever happened to ‘lighten up a bit’?” Soarin finally asked as Spitfire rested. For a moment, the only response he got from her was a low grunt of disapproval, but eventually she shifted to look towards him.

“I’m just… venting a little frustration…” Spitfire admitted. Soarin wasn’t surprised. In fact, he was sure he knew what it was about too. “Look around you Soarin…” Spitfire pointed around the gym. Soarin did as he was told, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.

“What am I looking at exactly?” Soarin blinked. “All looks the same as usual to me.”

“That’s the problem,” Spitfire quickly added as Soarin quickly looked back to her. “I don’t think anypony is taking our situation seriously. These are the Shadowbolts we are talking about! I’ve tried to stress the importance of all this, but most of them haven’t a damn clue what the Shadowbolts are capable of!” she threw her hooves out in anger. “I know I wasn’t there, but Fleetfoot said we almost got beaten by them in a dogfight. Remember? When they came to rescue you and Dash all those months ago? You’d think they’d be more worried after that… have we become so comfortable or full of ourselves? Is this what the Wonderbolts have become under me? I won’t have it,” Spitfire growled.

“Whoa there,” Soarin stepped around and put his hooves on her shoulders before she could stand up. “Easy now, relax Spitfire,” he said while rubbing her shoulders.

“Soarin what did I just say?” she said while rolling her eyes.

“Heard you loud and clear Spitfire, but I think you’re not looking at it the right way,” he said firmly. Spitfire turned her head around and lifted her brow.

“Oh? Enlighten me,” she said with a snappy tone that Soarin brushed off. She was clearly irritated, it wasn’t like she had never been sharp with him.

“You told them to lighten up on the training… right?” he asked first.

“Yes,” Spitfire nodded.

“And now you’re getting angry because everypony looks too relaxed?”

“That’s—” Spitfire bit her bottom lip and growled.

“They’re doing what you told them to do, Spitfire.” Soarin chuckled. “The more they relax now, the more rested and ready they will be when the time comes for action. Didn’t we have this discussion once before? Your system has made the Wonderbolts more connected than ever.”

“I know that,” Spitfire shook her head. “I just wish I could look at all this and feel like it’s under control. I swear… no approach to this situation feels right!” She threw her front hooves up into the air and let them fall back down to her sides. “First I tried sneaking under everypony’s nose out in the field and it failed. Now I have everypony onboard, but we’re all stuck here waiting to hear from our extra patrols and increased security. I can’t help but feel like this won’t work either!” she groaned as Soarin stood and blinked behind her. He wasn’t sure what to say. “There’s gotta be something,” Spitfire continued. “There’s something we’re not considering… something we’re missing,” she turned to Soarin “They know where we are or where we’re going, they have planned escape routes, and backup at the ready… How are they always two to three steps ahead of us?”

Soarin’s ears perked up as he listened to Spitfire’s thoughts on the situation. Unfortunately, his mouth moved before thinking about what he was about to say.

“You don’t think…” Soarin spoke up while rubbing his chin. “That they have eyes on the inside… do they? How else would they be able to follow us so closely and discreetly? I mean—” Soarin quickly shut his mouth as Spitfire’s eyes grew three sizes.

Spitfire quickly turned back around as Soarin realized what he had done. He quickly stepped around in front of her as she sharply rose up from the bench.

“Whoa!” Soarin put a hoof firmly on her shoulder, preventing her from moving any further. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa…” he said as he slowly pushed her back down onto the bench. “Hold up, don’t jump to conclusions,” he tried to salvage the situation.

“Thanks Soarin…” Spitfire said with sarcasm followed by an exasperated sigh. “Thanks… as if I wasn't paranoid enough already!” she bent over, put her hooves to her temples and rubbed them as she groaned in frustration. Soarin’s ears flopped down. That definitely wasn’t his smartest move.

“Sorry, that’s not what I was trying to do,” Soarin quickly apologized. “It was just a theory, Spitfire. And… to be honest you’ve already taken precautions towards that. If there is somepony sneaking around the compound or eavesdropping on all of our plans, then the extra security will put a damper on their movements and maybe even expose them. That’s all, of course, assuming that’s the case. We’ve encountered them outside the compound and in the outskirts of the city… maybe they’re misdirecting us. They could be closer than we think, where we’d never think to look for them, you know? It’s just a thought,” he ended, keeping his eyes on Spitfire as she removed her hooves from her head and took a long, deep breath.

“You’ve got a good point,” she spoke in a much more relaxed and controlled manner. “Sorry for the little outburst, I’ve been a little on edge,” she admitted. Soarin looked away briefly, trying hard not to roll his eyes because really, it had been obvious she was on edge. “I’m not even following my own damn rules,” Spitfire continued as she rotated one of her arms to try and loosen up her muscles. “I’m lifting heavy weights when I should be taking it easy,” she stood up from the bench.

“Worry not, Captain! We’ve got this in the bag!” Air Mach suddenly rushed up between the two of them and hooked his arms around them. “These Shadowbolts think they’re tough! We’ll show them who the REAL tough pegasi are when they decide to fight us straight up! We—whoa!” Air Mach yelped as Soarin yanked him away from Spitfire.

“Dude, you’ve really gotta work on your timing,” Soarin shook his head as he held Air Mach in a head lock.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about bro!” Air Mach smirked. “There’s always time to know you’re the best!”

“Yeah, and it got you punched in the face last time,” Soarin said with a chuckle as he held Air Mach firmly in place.

“Let him go, Soarin,” Spitfire ordered as a smile formed on her lips. Soarin blinked in surprise and released Air Mach, who fell to the ground, but planted all four hooves firmly before he could crash.

“Ha! Stuck the landing!” Air Mach called out triumphantly as he quickly stood up.

“Air Mach, you’re an idiot,” Spitfire began as she turned to them. “But dammit, sometimes you’re a magnificent bastard. Right now, it’s better not to think too hard about it and just believe. I told the Wonderbolts to take it easy so they could be ready, and that’s what they are doing. They are keeping themselves active and ready for anything. I’m confident this will work, we’ve just got to bide our time.”

“Dunno about you Soarin,” Air Mach leaned his arm into Soarin’s shoulder. “But I think my timing was perfect this time! Don’t underestimate me! Who the hell do you—” he was cut off as Soarin put his hoof over Air Mach’s mouth.

“—Think I am? I’m the great Animak, and don’t you forget it!” Soarin finished for him before removing his hoof.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were challenging me to a fight!” Air Mach said with a large grin.

“No, I’ve only heard you say it a few dozen times,” Soarin said while jabbing Air Mach in the shoulder. He stepped away from Air Mach and walked back up to Spitfire as she swung her towel over her neck and began removing the plates from the barbell. Soarin broke off his path and started taking off the weights from the other side.

“Let me know if you want any help with investigations or anything,” he offered as he and Spitfire removed all the plates.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Spitfire smiled. “Look Soarin, I’m gonna apologize… again ahead of time. As I said, I’ve been a bit jumpy and harsh the past couple of weeks, and I think it was due to pressure and lack of sleep. It’s probably not over either, but I want you to know I trust you and everypony else. The secret plan in Cloudsdale was a blunder I don’t intend to make again.”

“Yeah, please don’t do that again,” Soarin agreed flatly. Spitfire looked up with an eyebrow raised after racking the plates on her side of the bench. “What? You led on your best friends, it was kind of a bitch move,” he said with a chuckle. “Don’t look at me like that. You know I say that with love.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Spitfire rolled her eyes and chuckled. “You sounded like my half-sister there,” she joked as they walked back around the front of the bench. Soarin shook his head.

“Naw, if it were Blaze, there would have been lots more swearing, probably a fight breaking out, and High Winds sleeping through the whole thing,” he joked. Spitfire snorted while trying to hold in a laugh.

“You know…” Spitfire spoke up as she looked around the gym. Air Mach had broken away and was trying to rally the rest of the Wonderbolts in the gym, but most of them tried to get away. Spitfire smiled, looking around more, and seeing the present Wonderbolts going about their workouts, but taking it a little easier on themselves. Helping each other out and keeping things calm. “I don’t know why I keep questioning my way of handling things… you remember what it used to be like, right?” she asked Soarin. “Back when we first got here and Blazetail and Flashwind were in command?”

“I do,” Soarin nodded. “This place was loud, nothing but yelling and ‘yes, sirs or ma’ams’. I was scared stiff of everypony I passed. It sure has changed,” he smiled at Spitfire. “But it has changed for the better. And honestly,” he pointed to the horn. “I don’t know if I could have handled this back then. The tough, yet caring family environment we have now has made this bearable.”

Spitfire nodded in agreement as she looked out at the Wonderbolts once more.

“I don’t know what I’m thinking, we’ll figure it out and we’ll fight, plain and simple. You’re right, I’m not thinking about it the right way. They’re all relaxed, but they’re all serious at the same time. And I’m sure it will—” she suddenly stopped.

“Will what?” Soarin blinked as he turned and looked at her, only… she wasn’t looking at him, she was staring towards the doors that led out to the hallway. Soarin looked as well and saw…

“Are those…?” Spitfire furrowed her brow. Soarin looked closely and saw multiple ponies entering. Earth ponies and unicorns that were carrying cameras and large boxes.

“Those look like professional photographers…” Soarin said as he examined them. The Wonderbolts in the gym stood aside and gave the ponies odd looks as the crew pushed their way in and started setting up cameras and other high-end photography equipment near the dumbbell racks.

“What’s going on?” Spitfire took a few steps forward and examined the commotion in confusion.

“Move! Move! And somepony go find me my prize Wünderbolt mare! Vere is she?!” a voice came from right outside the doors.

“I know that voice,” Soarin rolled his eyes. “Photo Finish.”

The moment Soarin said the name, Photo Finish burst through the doors while yelling orders to all the ponies bringing in her equipment. Spitfire folded her ears back and held her hooves out in front of her.

“JUST after I agree that we are ready and in the right mindset…” she growled. “Who in their right mind scheduled a photo shoot in the compound during a high aler—” she paused and flattened her brow. “Fleetfoot…”

“Got it?” Matteo asked as he peered over the flames sitting between him and Dash.

“I’ve got it,” Dash nodded as she concentrated on the ball of fire.

Matteo slowly pulled his talons away and the fireball moved in between Dash’s hooves as she hovered a few feet off the ground. She carefully moved her hooves up and down to prevent any of the fire from escaping as she looked up. Matteo had backed away and taken a spot a little ways away to Dash’s left, Little Star was across from her, and Squall was a little to her right. They were arranged in a diamond pattern, set up in a corner of an open gymnasium in the west wing for some training, each hovering a good ten yards from their squadmates to their right and left.

“Are you ready Twister?” Dash asked as she looked up. Twister was floating upside down with streams of water swirling around him. He brought his hooves together and the water collected in a ball in front of him. He began moving his hooves around it quickly, manipulating the water until it morphed into the shape of a bucket. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Dash chuckled before looking down at Matteo. “Ready guys? Be careful, we’re not the only ones in this gym, so take the hit if you don’t think you’ll catch it, we’ve got Twister on dowsing duty! Here comes the hot potato!”

Dash spun around with the flames still hovering between her hooves. She pulled the fire into one hoof, engulfing her arm in flames for a mere moment before she thrust it forwards and the fireball launched from her arm. It careened towards Matteo, who extended both of his arms and opened his shanks. The fireball struck his arms.

“HRM!” Matteo grunted and took a step backwards as the fire jumped and began swirling around his body.

“Grip it! Control it!” Dash encouraged as Matteo struggled, but only for another moment. He spun, forcing the flames off his body before whipping his arms through the air to gather and control it until it was a stable fireball between his talons.

“Star!” Matteo yelled as he turned, let the flames travel onto his arm, and swung it towards Star. The fire to shot from his arms towards her.

Little Star curled up into a ball, her hooves tucked in front of her face. The fireball collided with her and engulfed her entire body. Without waiting a single moment, she did two very quick front flips to shake the fire off, before extending her arms, collecting the fire and instantly having it in front of her.

“Star, you know that’s a dangerous way to do it,” Dash commented as Star held the fireball.

“Hey, can you blame me? I have little arms!” she said while waving one her small hooves away from the fireball. “If I did it like you guys, the darn thing would smack me in the face!” she turned and put all four of her hooves into the fireball. “Squall, catch!” she yelled as she kicked the fireball towards Squall.

Squall didn’t even look at the fireball as he reached his right hoof out. It struck Squall’s hoof and the flames curled around his arm, traveled over his chest, and rushed out into his other arm as he reached it upward. The fire jumped off his left arm and collected back into a fireball that he controlled with only his left hoof. He held it steady, with little effort as a small smirk crawled on his lips.

“We get it Squall,” Dash rolled her eyes and smiled. “You’re good with fire.”

“EVERYPONY WATCH OUT!” a loud voice behind Squall made him yelp in surprise. They all turned to look, including Squall as he fumbled to regain control of the fire before it spilled over the side of his hoof. “WE’VE GOT A BADASS OVER HERE!” Blaze popped up behind him, wearing her special fire starting hoof gloves.

“C-Commander Blaze?!” Squall blinked in surprise.

“I saw that little move you just pulled! You think you’re pretty HOT STUFF, huh? Eh? Get it?” she wiggled her eyebrows while looking at the other members of squad Foxtrot. “Cause he thought he was awesome, with fire, and fire is hot, and… wow tough crowd… ANYWAY!” she swiped her hoof out and snatched the fireball away.

“Hey!” Squall tried to grab it back, but Blaze tossed it over her head to the other hoof.

“What were you trying to do with this? Light a candle?” she looked at the fireball and gently blew on it. The fireball dissipated instantly. “Here you should try something a little more intense!”

Blaze smacked her front hooves together, knocking the flint pads on her hoof gloves against each other. Multiple sparks flew out from between them and all expanded into large flames, quickly surrounding Blaze’s entire body with fire.

“AW YEAH!” Blaze yelled as the flames grew around her, expanding to about ten times the size of the fireball they had been tossing around and controlling it around her whole body instead of just in her hooves.

Dash furrowed her brow. Blaze said Squall was showing off?

“Whaddya say recruit?” Blaze looked Squall in the eyes. “Wanna try controlling THIS inferno on for—”

She was cut off as a large deluge of water splashed over her.

“AUGH!” she yelped as the water completely doused the flame and left her drenched. “Who did that?!” she growled as she looked up in between the dripping strands of her wet mane and saw Twister cracking up over head . “Oh, that little…”

“BLAZE!” Silver Lining’s voice suddenly belted from across the gym. They all turned to see the rest of squad two and squad seven walking into the gym. “I don’t think High Winds approves of you getting wet when she’s not grinding against you! Get your ass over here!” he yelled as Wave and squad seven all snickered behind him.

“Old box of farts…” High Winds said from behind Silver while scrunching her face.

“Mrrrrgh…” Blaze grumbled as she turned away from squad Foxtrot, landed, and followed behind her squad as they passed. Dash and Star burst out laughing with Twister, Matteo smirked, but Squall just grunted as he lowered himself to the ground and sat.

“Aw, c’mon Squall,” Dash hovered down beside him. “She’s part of squad two: The Elements, remember? She’s best fire handler in the Wonderbolts.”

“She didn’t have to single me out…” Squall huffed.

“Squall, she does it to everypony. She’s a show off,” Dash chuckled. “Relax, you’re still the best fire handler in our group.”

“Indeed,” Matteo landed beside them. “You are much better than I. Griffons are not known for handling the elements.”

“Uh, yeah Matty?” Star hovered down beside him. “About that… You’ve got a little flame going on your crest,” Star pointed to his head. Dash and Squall looked up as Matteo’s eyes widened. He did, indeed, have a tiny candle like flame rising from one of his head feathers.

“Argh! Put it out!” He yelled as he reached up and started swiping his talons through his head feathers, but he kept completely missing it.

“Uh oh!” Dash grabbed Squall and Star, pulling them both backwards with her.

Another large splash of water fell from above, this one much larger than the first. Dash, Squall, and Star all shielded themselves as little bits of water flew at them, but when they recovered and peered out from between their arms, they all held their breath, trying not to laugh, even Squall.

Matteo was completely soaked. His feathers all slicked and pressed down against his body with his black fur on his lower half all sopping wet as well. He looked up to see Twister directly above him, mere inches away, sneering down at him.

“I THINK I GOT IT!” Twister yelled out as he laughed hysterically and tumbled to the floor before log rolling in circles around Matteo in the process.

“Gee, thanks…” Matteo sighed.

“Well, I told him to put any fires out that we couldn’t control!” Dash joked as Star giggled and Squall looked like he might actually laugh. “Now we just… OH GOD! MATTEO! WAIT!!!!” Dash held her hooves out, but it was too late, Matteo had already spread out his talons and back paws to firmly stabilize himself, and then shook his head and body, twisting them from side to side vigorously and spraying water in all directions.

“ARGH!!!!!” the four ponies all yelped as Matteo shook himself dry, splattering heavy droplets of loose water all over them.

He eventually stopped and sighed as he looked himself over. He smirked when he saw the rest of the squad covered in droplets of water.

“Well, I’d say I feel nice and dry now—” he was cut off by a loud POOF noise as all of his fur and feathers suddenly puffed up. “Damn it…” he sighed as Dash, Star, and Twister all lost it on the spot, the three falling into a pile in front of Squall as they laughed. Squall was snickering as he looked at Matteo all floofed. “Not you too…” Matteo flattened his brow.

Squall couldn’t hold it in. He put his hooves to his stomach and started laughing. Only a little and not very loudly, but he was laughing. Dash and Star both clearly noticed, but they were too busy cracking up as Matteo sighed at his own fluffy misfortune.

Off to the side, squad two and seven were setting up for some training of their own.

Storm Front was looking towards squad Foxtrot. He released a quiet sigh as he watched them having fun.

Silver was passing by after giving a few orders to Wave. He stopped in his tracks and looked towards Storm. It didn’t take him very long to read Storm’s mannerisms.

“Hey kid,” Silver spoke up as he walked up beside Storm.

“Ah!” Storm blinked. “Captain Silver, sir?” he addressed Silver.

“Tell me,” Silver wasted no time. “How do you feel about being an elite?”

“Sir?” Storm tipped his head in confusion.

“Answer the question, and don’t give me any bullshit. I’ve been talking to Commander Soarin, I just want to hear it from you,” Silver ordered. Storm stiffened for a moment, but as soon as Silver mentioned Soarin, Storm knew what he had to say.

“I’m… honored to be an elite. I feel like I’ve earned it, which is actually something Soarin drilled into my head the other day, but…” Storm paused.

“But?” Silver pressed.

“But… I…” Storm hesitated, glancing at Silver, who only looked back sternly. Silver had just said that Soarin talked to him, so there was no hiding it. “Feel like I’m out of place. Not that I’m not worthy, I just…”

“Feel like you are disconnected from your friends. With them you felt like comrades, with us you feel like you’re with a bunch of new faces that don’t understand you well. Correct?” Silver finished for him.

“Uh… yeah, spot on,” Storm blinked, impressed that Silver read him so easily.

Silver suddenly inhaled and released a high pitched whistle.

“Foxtrot!” Silver yelled. Dash and the rest of squad Foxtrot all looked towards Silver. “Come over here! We’re gonna do some group element training!” he yelled. Storm blinked and looked towards Silver in surprise.

“S-sir?”

“I know the feeling all too well, kid,” Silver nodded without looking towards Storm. Silver cracked his neck to one side before turning to address his squad.

Storm watched as Dash and the others approached… and smiled. He envied squad Foxtrot… he wished he had had some guidance under Silver. Storm had had little exposure to Silver, but it was clear he was a pony to learn from. Storm felt there were few ponies that understood how he felt about many things. The fact that Silver picked apart his thoughts so easily through a simple look was… inspiring.

“Alright,” Silver began as he turned to all of them. “Let’s start with—”

“DAAAAAAAASHIEEEEE!!!!! ARE YOU IN HERE?!” a familiar, giggly voice rushed into the gym from the doors. All of them turned and looked towards the doors as Fleetfoot stepped in and glanced around. It didn’t take her long to spot Dash. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over!” Fleetfoot exclaimed with a very wide smile… which worried Dash as Fleetfoot approached.

“Uh…” Dash backed away slightly as Fleetfoot closed in. “Why are you looking for me? Do I wanna know?”

“Of course you wanna know!” Fleetfoot smiled as she grabbed Dash by the shoulders. “You gotta come with me! Photo Finish just got here!”

“Photo Fin—” Dash’s ears stood up and her eyes widened. “Oh sweet Celestia no, Fleetfoot!” Dash tried to back away but Fleetfoot grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back forward.

“Come on you! I told her I’d bring some new faces!” Fleetfoot whined while giving Dash puppy dog eyes, followed by a sassy smirk. “Plus, it’s a gym photo shoot for an athletic magazine, Photo’s going to squeal like a little filly when she sees your buff bod!”

“FLEET!” Dash tried to resist while blushing madly. Silver walked up beside the struggling mares, focusing mainly on Fleetfoot with a flat look.

“Commander, you scheduled a photo shoot with a high alert status in effect?” Silver asked with clear disapproval. Fleetfoot rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at Silver.

“Thank you SPITFIRE,” she replied sarcastically. “I set it up a month ago ya old rhino… what, do you wanna come pose with us?” Fleetfoot giggled as Silver scowled at her. “Hey, don’t act like you didn’t used to be hot stuff around the compound! That’s what I heard from Fire Streak, who heard from Misty Fly!” Fleetfoot inched closer to Silver, who only rolled his eyes. “Just cause she can’t talk doesn’t mean your secrets are safe! Shake off that dust let’s see the sexy beast of the past!” Fleet kept teasing him with no fear whatsoever. It was impressive.

“I’d rather cheat on my wife with Blaze,” Silver replied flatly.

“HA! You wish ya sleepy codger!” Blaze scoffed and nodded contently. High Winds yawned and turned to Blaze slowly.

“Blazey, I think that was an insult,” she said monotonously.

“Wait… WHAT?!” Blaze fumed as she figured it out and jumped at Silver.

An instant later, Silver had her on the ground, on her stomach, with a hoof pressed over her back. He had barely budged from his spot to subdued her. Blaze began yelling obscenities and threatened to strangle him multiple times as Silver kept his attention on Fleetfoot.

“Just go get it over with and don’t blame me if Captain Spitfire breathes down your neck,” Silver said as he held Blaze down.

“Oh, believe me, I’m expecting that. And… I’m ready for it!” Fleetfoot giggled as she started pulling Dash again.

“Don’t I have a say in this? Silver! Help!” Dash yelled back at her mentor, but he shook his head.

“It’s part of the business Dash!” Silver yelled with a sarcastic tone to her as the rest of the Wonderbolts all chuckled. Fleetfoot suddenly stopped and looked back, specifically at the newer Wonderbolts.

“Hmmm…” she sneered. “Actually… Photo said she wanted to see some new faces, not just one new face… and I see two good looking new stallions!”

“Do I really have to do this?” Storm sighed in frustration as Twister and Little Star nudged him along through the hallway. Fleetfoot, who was dragging an unwilling Rainbow Dash along with her, looked over her shoulder and smiled.

“You betcha! Part of being a Wonderbolt! If ya look sexy, you’re face is gonna be in magazines!” she looked past Storm. “At least you’re taking it better than your friend,” Fleetfoot giggled.

“NO!” Squall yelled from behind Storm. Storm glanced over his shoulder to see Squall pushed along by Matteo. “WHY ARE YOU HELPING HER?!” Squall demanded while looking at Matteo with disbelief.

“She’s a lead commander,” Matteo said nonchalantly. “I’m just following her orders.”

“That’s right big guy!” Fleetfoot pointed back at Matteo. “The world needs to see Squall’s handsome face! Keep bringing him along!”

“Oh for the love of…” Squall trailed off as he failed to struggle against Matteo.

“Fleet… do we really have to do this?” Dash tried asking in a much less rebellious manner. “We’re new! I don’t know if I’m ready to have my face in a magazine,” Dash said while blushing nervously at the thought of thousands of ponies all over Equestria drooling over an image of her body. Fleetfoot, of course, was unaffected by the change in tone. She simply looked towards Dash and grinned.

“Dash, it would be a CRIME if we kept an impressive mare like yourself out of a photo shoot, especially since it’s athlete themed! You gotta show off the bod! Be proud of it!”

“Are you even listening to me, Fleet?” Dash asked as her ears flopped down.

“Nope!” Fleetfoot shamelessly admitted as she continued to drag Dash along. “Look on the bright side! We can have Photo Finish take some exclusive saucy pictures for your stallion! With all he’s going through, he could use some stress relief fuel, if you know what I mean,” Fleetfoot said slyly as Dash scrunched her face and looked away.

“Shouldn’t we be more worried about the Shadowbolts instead of taking pictures?” Dash asked in a last desperate attempt.

“Nice try,” Fleetfoot giggled. “I’m ready to fend off Spitfire with a chair if I have to, I scheduled this photo shoot a while ago, I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“Ugh…” Dash groaned as she started to walk along with Fleetfoot.

“Hey! Finally, I don’t have to drag you anymore. I’m glad you’re seeing things my way!” Fleetfoot said happily and sarcastically.

“Yeah, sure…” Dash rolled her eyes. She wasn’t really annoyed as much as she was nervous. She was also more worried about training and the Shadowbolts, but Fleetfoot wasn’t taking no for an answer. It was going to be awkward as hell. She hoped that the gym would be cleared out for them at least. The last thing she wanted was all the Wonderbolts looking at them too.

“Okay, what’s the hold up?” Fleetfoot spoke up as she turned around. Dash looked behind them as well. Storm had accepted his fate and was following without much ‘encouragement’ from Twister and Star, but Matteo was having trouble keeping Squall from escaping.

“I don’t wanna get my picture taken!” Squall whined and swiped at Matteo as he tried to hold him.

“Hey,” Fleetfoot said calmly as she approached them. Squall froze and looked towards her. “Hey,” she repeated as she closed in. “Hey,” she walked right up to him. “Hey,” she leaned in towards his face. “Hey,” she pressed her nose against his. “Hey, am I gonna have to motivate you here?” she said in an eerily flat tone.

“Motivate me? I don’t want to do it! Period!” Squall growled as he regained his focus, despite Fleetfoot being much closer than he was comfortable with.

“I’m gonna go with yes,” Fleetfoot giggled as she gave Squall a sly look. “Tell ya what, Sunshine… if you don’t calm down and come along with me… I’ll…” she tapped her hoof on her chin for a moment before she leaned in and began whispering something to Squall. Squall’s eyes grew wider and wider in short intervals until they nearly covered his whole face. “So, are ya gonna come along now?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Squall said with his voice slightly higher.

“That’s the spirit! All aboard the sexy train to aestheticsville! Woo! Woo!” Fleetfoot cheered and pumped her hoof in the air as Squall started following without the need for Matteo to ‘assist.’

Unfortunately for Dash… Star, Twister, and Matteo kept following. She was hoping they’d go back to training once Storm and Squall were coming along quietly, but alas, it seemed as though Star and Twister were too interested in watching and snickering. Why was Matteo coming along though?

“Ah, it’s so much better when everypony agrees with me!” Fleetfoot giggled as they neared the weight room. Dash shook her head and looked back at Storm briefly. Storm shrugged and smiled at Dash. He was just as unwilling, but had accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to change Fleetfoot’s mind. Then Dash looked at Squall, taking note of how terrified he looked. Her curiosity got the better of her quickly.

“Fleet, what did you say to Squall?” Dash asked quietly. Fleetfoot instantly started snickering and leaned into Dash to whisper.

“I told him that if he didn’t do the photo shoot, I’d force him along with us on our next Wonderbolt ladies night out… and I made it clear what happens to a guy in a room full of twenty plus ladies when a little alcohol is involved,” she winked. “He doesn’t seem the type to enjoy that thought. He’s not quite like… say… Lightning Streak, who would take that as a dream come true.”

“That’s cruel, Fleet…” Dash said, trying not to admit she found it a little amusing. Fleetfoot snickered again and shook her head.

“Oh, I’m not actually gonna do that to him,” she whispered with a wink. “But he doesn’t know that!” she finished with a few giggles.

“That’s twice as cruel but kind of brilliant too,” Dash admitted as she shook her head and smiled.

However, the smile was soon replaced with a look of dread as they approached the doors to the weight room.

“Please let it be empty…” Dash mumbled to herself as she bit her lip.

“Photo, I’m not gonna say this again,” Spitfire growled. “I don’t know how or why our security let you in, but we are not… ARE YOU EVEN LISTENTING TO ME?!” Spitfire yelled as Photo Finish kept yelling orders to her camera crews instead of listening to Spitfire. Soarin chuckled as he walked up behind Spitfire.

“You know how she is, Spitfire… Once she’s in business mode, there’s no stopping her,” Soarin patted Spitfire on the back as she groaned. Photo Finish suddenly turned to them.

“Vhere is Fräulein Fleetfoot?!” she demanded. “Ve are ready for her!”

“She’s…” Spitfire tried to respond, but Photo went back to ordering her crew around instead of waiting for an answer. Spitfire flattened her brow as she glanced around at Wonderbolts being shooed out of the area as they tried to get to the dumbbells. “Oh, I think I’m gonna have a few words for ‘Fräulein’ Fleetfoot when she gets here!” Spitfire grinded her teeth together.

“Photo!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from the doors on cue.

“Oh god…” Dash’s ears flopped down and her pupils grew when she saw just how packed the gym was. Seeing the dumbbell area all set up with cameras and equipment didn’t help.

“Well…” Storm stepped up beside her. “It was nice knowing my dignity.”

“Fräulein Fleetfoot!” Photo Finish rushed up to them, making Dash and Storm flinch in surprise.

“Sorry I took so long!” Fleetfoot slide on her hooves over to Photo’s side and draped an arm over her shoulder. She winked and pointed towards Dash, Storm, and Squall. “I was looking for some new pals to pose with! Quite the lookers aren’t they?”

Dash yelped as Photo Finish dipped down and popped up directly in front of her.

“Hmmm…” Photo rubbed her chin. Dash froze as she reached up and touched Dash’s cheek, gently pushing her face from side to side. “Gut… gut…” she said slowly in her thick accent. She stepped to Dash’s side. “Oh my! You have a perfect body for zis theme!” she said while running a hoof over Dash’s shoulder and slightly down her side. “Yes, yessssss… in you go!” she pushed Dash towards Fleetfoot and moved to Storm.

“Quite ze looker, zis one…” she said as Storm looked back and forth instead of directly at Photo. “I like him, attractive AND charismatic, a good mix! An instant hit!”

“WHOA!” Storm yelped as Photo pulled him over towards Fleetfoot.

“IN! IN YOU GO!” she said as she let go and turned to Squall.

As she approached Squall, he turned his head roughly, forcing his mane to fall over and conceal his face.

“You! Look at me!” Photo Finish demanded as she tried to look around his mane, but Squall kept averting his face. “Verdammt it!” she cursed as she reached up and grabbed his head. “LOOK AT ME!” she demanded, while turning his face towards her with enough force to move his mane completely out of the way too. Photo Finish backed away from Squall instantly while releasing a gasp so loud her voice almost cracked. She reached up and threw off her magenta sunglasses with one hoof, reaching the other up to grab hold of her mane and yank it as she stared wide eyed at Squall. Squall just blinked and tipped his head slightly.

“What?” he asked, actually curious what the reaction was about. He flinched as Photo Finish rushed up to him and firmly placed her hooves on the sides of his head.

“YOU!” her eyes began sparkling. “ARE!” she pressed her nose against his. “BEAUTIFUL!”

“Uh…” Squall had literally nothing to say in response as Little Star and Twister burst out laughing behind him.

Art by: Noble savage

“Perfekt! Yes, yes, yes!” she eager pushed Squall over to Fleetfoot. “I heavily approve of your selection, Fräulein Fleetfoot!” Photo complimented Fleetfoot as she pulled out another pair of magenta tinted glasses and slammed them on her face. “Escpecially zis one!” She said while getting incredibly close to Squall’s face again. Squall was pushing the natural limits of how far one could recline their neck backward. Photo stepped up in front of Fleetfoot and clapped her front hooves together excitedly. “Let us get started! Schnell!”

“FLEETFOOT!” Spitfire suddenly stepped in and pushed Photo roughly aside. Fleetfoot jumped in surprise, but quickly smiled.

“Heya Spitty!”

“Don’t you ‘heya’ me!” Spitfire poked her in the chest. “Are you for real? We’re on high alert and—”

“I scheduled this a month ago, silly,” Fleetfoot cut her off while reaching up and patting Spitfire’s mane. Spitfire completely flattened her brow.

“And you didn’t cancel it?! OOF!” Spitfire grunted as Photo Finish tried pushing her way back into Fleetfoot’s view.

“NEIN!” she yelled as she struggled to hold her spot. “Zis photoshoot is happening! I demand it!” she managed to say before Spitfire shoved her aside again and got back in Fleetfoot’s face.

“This is unacceptable Fleetfoot, even for you,” Spitfire added.

“Even for me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Fleetfoot pouted. “Look, I wasn’t gonna cancel this three days before it happened after how much I paid Photo. Tell ya what,” Fleetfoot scooted over to Spitfire’s side and draped an arm over her shoulder. “I knew you were gonna get your wings all ruffled over this, so I also scheduled…”

“You did WHAT?!” Spitfire threw her head back and groaned.

“Lemme finish,” Fleetfoot jabbed her in the side. “I scheduled a massage session for tomorrow. The masseuse mares from the Smooth Hoof Spa are coming in tomorrow to make it up to you… and treat the rest of the top elite ladies as well,” Fleetfoot paused and grinned as she saw Spitfire’s expression flip from anger to surprise. “You’re not gonna make me cancel that, are you?”

“Fleet, that’s not fair…” Spitfire bit her bottom lip. “No, we really shouldn’t...”

Soarin’s curiosity was piqued as he saw the drastic shift in Spitfire’s demeanor. What were they talking about?

“Oh, I know you don’t want me to do that… but if you make me cancel the photo shoot… I might have to cancel the massages too…” Fleetfoot pouted and gave Spitfire puppy dog eyes. “I even reserved Gentle Press specifically for you, I’d hate to tell her you said no.”

Spitfire scrunched her face and puffed her cheeks out.

“Fine… and I hate you,” Spitfire huffed.

“Love you too!” Fleetfoot giggled while turning and giving Spitfire a big hug. “Come on you three!” she said cheerfully as she let go of Spitfire and approached Dash, Squall, and Storm. “Time to be sexy!”

Soarin walked up beside Spitfire and lifted an eyebrow while grinning.

“Did I really just see that?” Soarin said with a chuckle.

“See what?” Spitfire replied with a frustrated tone.

“Did Fleetfoot just bend the will of the unbreakable Spitfire?” he joked.

“No!” Spitfire quickly spat. The after a moment, she sighed. “Okay, maybe she did.”

“And how exactly did she do that?” Soarin pressed with a smirk.

“As if I’d share a weakness with you,” Spitfire rolled her eyes. “Dammit Fleetfoot,” she grumbled. “Making me cave… when I’m supposed to be worrying about the Shadowbolts… that… freaking lewd… salacious…” she trailed off as Soarin snickered, amused at Spitfire in such a state of defeat.

Soarin looked up and watched as Fleetfoot led the three new Wonderbolts towards Photo Finish’s crew. He felt a little bad… Dash looked incredibly nervous, but at the same time, he wasn’t gonna complain about having some professional photos of his sexy Dashie. After all, she already had multiple pictures of him. It was time he got his fix. It was sure to be an amusing photo shoot, especially with the gym already packed full of Wonderbolts.

Soarin was giving it a seventy-five percent chance that silly things would start happening. Should some of the other squads show up, that percent was sure to increase.

Soarin glanced over at the doors as he heard them open.

Speak of the devil.

Squad two, three, and seven all walked into the gym. Lightning Streak was already pointing at the area set up for the photo shoot.

The percent chance of shenanigans just rose to one hundred five percent. He smirked and started moving towards the photographers, following behind Fleetfoot and her ‘captives’. He didn’t want to miss a single moment of this.

“You surprise me Dashie,” Fleetfoot spoke up as she nudged her along. “I thought you’d be excited to do this!”

“Was I excited when you suggested it a month ago?” Dash sighed.

“Well, no, but I mean come on!” Fleetfoot stopped her and stood in front. Dash blinked and looked over Fleetfoot’s shoulder. Photo Finish was still dragging Storm and Squall along. “You’re sassy, and confident all the time, you get a kick out of showing off and you’re always talking about how awesome you are… and then you get all shy on me when I suggest a photo shoot?” Fleetfoot pouted. “You’ve gotta work that confidence! It’s a talent! I know you love the attention!”

“Uh… well…” Dash blushed. “I mean… yeah, that’s all right but, I dunno, I get nervous when I put myself on display. This is going to be for a magazine? There’s gonna be lots of sex appeal involved? So many ponies are gonna see it!”

“Heh…” Fleetfoot smirked. “Rough and tough at all times but you get soft and squishy in front of the camera? Dashie, I never took you for the type,” she turned and hooked her arm with Dash’s. “Tell ya what, I won’t let Photo take a picture of you without me until you start feeling more comfortable with the camera, okay?”

Dash blinked, thought it over, and smiled. Fleetfoot had a way of making things more fun, and who knows, maybe after the initial embarrassment faded it would be a lot of fun.

“Alright, if it were anypony else I would’ve said no…” Dash nodded. “Let’s do this,” she added with a wink.

“Yay!” Fleetfoot cheered as they began moving towards the photographers.

But they only took two steps before Fleetfoot suddenly came to an abrupt halt and nearly whiplashed Dash as she stumbled. Dash looked up as Fleetfoot suddenly let go of her arm. She was staring away from the photographers towards a nearby area where three familiar ponies were working out despite the commotion.

Calm Wind, Playbitz, and Swift Justice of squad zero had claimed a little spot and were going through a workout routine. Playbitz and Swift hat their backs turned, but Calm was facing them. As soon as he saw Fleetfoot, he froze in place and his eyes widened.

“Heeeeeyyyyyy!!!!!” Fleetfoot called over while waving. Calm immediately turned around, facing away at the exact same time that both Playbitz and Swift turned to see who yelled in their direction. “Perfect timing Calm!” she yelled, making Calm flinch as he acted like he wasn’t listening. Both Swift and Playbitz glanced at Calm and started snickering. “We’re doing a gym theme photo shoot! Get your muscles over here and pose with me!” she yelled cheerfully.

It didn’t take a genius to know that Calm was blushing like mad even though he had his back turned to them. Dash chuckled as Fleetfoot continued to wave and holler at Calm, but she decided to end the big guy’s embarrassment.

“Alright you… leave the giant pony alone,” Dash said as she bent down, grabbed Fleetfoot’s tail in her mouth, and started dragging her along.

“Come on big guy! Give us a flex for the cameras!” Fleetfoot continued, whooping right after as she slid along the floor and waved. Playbitz turned to Calm and started nudging him in the arm as if encouraging him to go along with it, but Calm shook his head vigorously and nervously rubbed his arm with a hoof.

Art by: Ruckforderungreich

As Fleetfoot giggled and finally took control of her own walking again, Swift popped up beside them.

“Can I pose?” he asked while bouncing his eyebrows. Fleetfoot smirked.

“I dunno Swifter, can cameras even pick you up? Eh, Mr. Stealth Pony?” she giggled as Playbitz suddenly slid across the gym floor towards Fleetfoot.

“Think I cooouuwhoooa!” Playbitz lost control of his slide and tumbled to the ground. He stood right back up, while smiling. “Think I could get some photos in? Maybe some special exclusive shots for the wife-horse?” he asked with a toothy grin as if Bliss didn’t see him enough already with how he floated towards her on a regular basis. Fleetfoot looked between the two of them and glanced back at Calm.

“Tell ya what,” she said for what Dash felt was at least the fifth or sixth time… she had lost count. “If you guys can get the Big Blue Stud-muffin over there to join us, I’ll let you in too!” she winked at them.

“YES MA’AM!” they said in unison as they shuffled back over to Calm.

Dash watched with a smirk as Swift and Playbitz began trying to move Calm, but just like at the party, the two of them couldn’t get him to budge.

“Come on ya big lug!” said Playbitz as he tried pushing calm from the front.

“Think of the mares!” Swift yelled as he grabbed Calm’s tail and started pulling. “Think of the swooning!” he added, muffled by Calm’s tail in his mouth. Calm just kept shaking his head frantically, refusing to give way.

“I love those guys!” Fleetfoot giggled as the two failed to make Calm move an inch. She hooked her arm with Dash’s again and pulled her towards Photo Finish. “Sorry, Photo!” Fleetfoot called out as they approached the fuming photographer.

“WE DO ZIS NOW!” she demanded as Storm and Squall slowly leaned away from her.

“Damn right we are!” Fleetfoot grinned. “Ladies first! Dashie and I will start off,” she pulled Dash over.

“Eee…” Dash squeaked as Photo Finish and her crew hoisted up cameras before they even got into the set up, which consisted of two weight benches and a few light weight dumbbells sitting around. Fleetfoot let go of Dash and casually lied down, reclining in a rather sultry pose and winked towards them.

The cameras started flashing immediately. Dash stopped in her tracks, backing away slightly as Fleetfoot was peppered with flashes.

“Hey!” she turned and pouted at Dash. “Get in here Dashie! I said we’d do this together!” she stood up and pulled Dash into the range of the cameras. Dash felt her whole body stiffen as the cameras pointed at her. They were taking pictures before Fleetfoot even got her into the ‘scene’ they had set up. She pulled Dash towards her and draped an arm over Dash’s shoulder as they sat down on the bench. A couple more dozen flashes went off and the photographers paused to check their cameras.

Fleetfoot glanced at Dash and saw she looked very static, so she held out a hoof before the cameras could go again.

“One moment, fellas!” Fleetfoot winked at them. “Hey, Dashie, look at me,” she requested. Dash swallowed and shakily turned her head to her. “Take a couple of slow, deep breaths.”

Dash did as she was told, inhaling and exhaling slowly a few times before looking back at Fleetfoot and feeling a little better… but only a little, she was still nervous with all the cameras.

“Now… don’t think about the publicity. Think about relaxing, and having fun. Kay?” she smiled.

“O…okay… I dunno, this just feels unnatural,” Dash admitted. She was okay with showing off, but rather it be on her own accord. It was something that came with a moment of confidence, not really something she could do on the fly, especially when she was nervous.

“See? You’re thinking too hard! Look at it this way,” Fleetfoot pointed at the gym. “Don’t think about the fact that you’re putting yourself on display. Hell, that even makes ME feel uncomfortable. Instead, show them how awesome it is to be a Wonderbolt! Show off what you’ve got from training with us. Better yet, show how much fun you have here! That’s how I like to look at it. Trust me… the most popular photos we’ve got of any Wonderbolts in these shoots are the ones where we look like we’re enjoying ourselves. You like doing stuff with us, right?”

“Yeah…” Dash nodded. “I guess… when you put it that way,” Dash smiled. “It doesn’t sound half as bad.”

“That’s the spirit! Now strike some poses! Show off the guns! You know… these!” Fleetfoot grabbed and held up one of Dash’s well-toned arms. “This is a gym shoot, grab some dumbbells and pump a few reps! Give a few sexy looks from the benches. Oo! I know! Act like you’re posing for Soarin! That should make it a breeze!” Fleetfoot gave multiple suggestions delightfully as if she had been waiting to do this with Dash her whole life.

Dash chuckled as Fleetfoot got all bouncy and excited. Apparently she was really looking forward to doing this with Dash. Everything Fleetfoot said had helped and her eagerness had made it even better. In fact, Dash felt a little sassiness surfacing that she couldn’t pass up, especially after Fleetfoot mentioned Soarin.

“I dunno Fleet, if I was posing for Soarin I don’t think it would be allowed in the magazine,” she said with a smarmy grin.

“YES!” Fleetfoot beamed. “That’s the Dash we need here!” Fleetfoot turned and waved at the photographers and Photo Finish, who looked like she was going to blow her top if she had to hold her hoof off the capture button any longer. “We’re ready! Fire away!”

Dash felt much more comfortable now, just like Fleetfoot said she would, but there was still one problem. Fleetfoot was encouraging her to smile, but fake smiling was hard. She was supposed to be having fun, and it was starting to be a little more fun, but how was she supposed to smile? Everything she tried felt forced.

Dash looked up as she shifted to lie on her side on the bench as Fleetfoot lay on her back on the floor in front. She looked right over the shoulder of Photo Finish and saw Twister, standing RIGHT behind her, with his mane styled exactly like Photo’s. Behind him, Little Star was rolling back and forth on her back while laughing at him and Matteo had a very faint smirk on the corner of his beak.

“YES! YES! VORK IT! VORK IT!” Photo Finish encouraged while making extravagant hoof motions, all of which Twister copied and mirrored perfectly, even the lip movements. Dash snickered and soon had a natural smile on her face from amusement towards Twister’s antics. It looked like her squad was there to help!

As Dash sat up, Fleetfoot stood, walked around her, and hugged her from behind. Dash flinched a little, not expecting Fleetfoot to get so touchy, but Dash kept up the smiles and played along. This was for an athletic magazine after all, and she had gotten the idea from Fleetfoot that the session was stressing sex appeal. So she let Fleetfoot dictate most of the poses, especially if was the two of them getting a little close. Dash felt much more comfortable with Fleetfoot instigated the closer shots.

“Okay, now you!” Fleetfoot giggled as she stepped out of the camera view, leaving Dash alone.

“Uh…!” Dash was caught off guard, but as Fleetfoot said, she felt much more comfortable. So she swallowed, let the confidence soak through again, and went through a few more motions and poses. She glanced at Fleetfoot briefly, who was smiling happily and bouncing up and down as she went for it. Dash gave them a show, she even flexed her muscles a little for them. It was actually pretty fun now that the nerves had calmed!

She gave it her all, letting the photographers get a good cameraful of her before Photo Finish threw her arms outward.

“Enough! Bring me ze beautiful one!” she demanded while pointing towards Squall.

Dash breathed a sigh of relief… but it was a content sigh. That was actually a lot more fun that she thought it would be. The rush was intimidating at first, but now she almost wanted to do it some more.

“You heard the lady!” Fleetfoot zipped over to Squall and hooked her arm with his. He flinched and blushed incredibly hard while gritting his teeth. “Come on… you saw how much fun Dashie had! Get in here!” she encouraged as she pulled Squall towards the cameras.

As they passed by Dash, Squall turned to her and released a high pitched ‘help!’.

“Sorry Squall,” Dash chuckled, “the world has to know how cute you are,” Dash said, earning a scrunched face from Squall, but no hostile response before he turned and saw the cameras all pointing at him. He instantly dropped down, hiding behind one of the benches.

“Oh jeez, come on you, the cameras aren’t gonna bite,” Fleetfoot bent down and hoisted Squall up.

“Nnnnghhh…” he groaned as Fleetfoot dragged him in front of the bench.

“Give us a smile!” Fleetfoot encouraged cheerfully, clearly not as in tune with Squall’s nature as Dash was.

“NEIN!” Photo Finish popped up and pushed Fleetfoot away from Squall. Squall’s eyes widened as Photo Finish got in his face again. “No smile for zis one! Ze deep, serious stare, ze scowel of a hardened jaw line… It is sexy, is it not? THIS IS VHAT I VANT!”

“What?” Squall looked so confused that Dash had to shove her hoof in her mouth to prevent herself from bursting out with laughter and causing a scene.

“Don’t even look at ze camera!” Photo demanded. “Look off into ze distance profoundly so we can see all ze sides of your beautiful visage!”

“Could you please stop calling me beautiful?” Squall asked flatly.

“NEIN! IT WOULD BE A SIN!” Photo wailed dramatically as she rushed back and stood behind her camera, the rest of the camera crew readying themselves as well. “Get in zere Fleetfoot! Show me some contrast!”

“Well, looks like you get what you want!” Fleetfoot giggled as she sat down on the bench with Squall and leaned into his back. “You don’t even have to look at the cameras!”

“Ngh…” Squall grunted, keeping his head turned and focused on anything other than the cameras.

“Wow,” Dash chuckled as she stepped back towards Storm. “Who would have thought Squall would turn into a hit model?” she joked as Storm snickered along with her.

“I dunno if ‘beautiful’ is the word I use,” Storm laughed as he watched Squall get so much praise and attention from Photo Finish. “Every time he looks at me he glares and scowls so hard it’s a wonder his face doesn’t get sucked into itself.”

“Hey, I’m not surprised, Squall’s a good looking stallion,” Dash nudged Storm in the side. He blinked and looked at her.

“Squall?” Storm pointed.

“Yes, Squall,” Dash nodded.

“I can’t see it,” Storm shrugged.

“That’s because you’re a stallion,” Dash scoffed. “Yeah, Squall ruins it with how often he glares and looks like he wants to murder somepony, but when he’s not… yeah, he’s pretty damn attractive,” Dash stated clearly.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Storm said with a chuckle. “Just hope Soarin doesn’t hear you say that,” Storm leaned into her comically.

“Hey!” Dash chuckled while stumbling a little. “I never said that. No stallion is sexier than Soarin and I’ll fight anypony who disagrees with me,” Dash pounded a hoof proudly against her chest and glanced at Storm, but he was looking over Dash’s shoulder and trying not to crack up.

“I think I’m sexier than myself, are you gonna fight me?” Soarin’s voice came from behind Dash and made her freeze. “I wonder who would win in a sexy-off, me or myself?” Soarin continued as Storm lost himself in laughter and Dash turned around. She gave Soarin a light push followed by a smirk.

“You sneaky bastard,” Dash giggled as she reached forward and gave Soarin a hug. “So… enjoying the view here, huh?” she wiggled an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, it was fun Watching Fleetfoot molest you in front of professional photographers,” Soarin said goofily. “I’m surprised she didn’t start kissing you. That definitely would have popped a few surprise chubs for any stallions developing these photos.”

“And I could see you putting a poster of it up in your room,” Dash sneered back.

“BRING ME ZE CHARISMATIC ONE!” Photo yelled out, catching their attention. Storm looked at Soarin and Dash while pointing to himself.

“Does she mean me?” he said right before Fleetfoot zipped up to him, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him in. “Whoa! Oh man…” Storm reacted as he was tugged into the fray. Squall stepped back towards Soarin and Dash, but turned and faced the wall the moment he was free.

“All joking aside,” Soarin spoke up as soon as the switch was made. “You did look pretty sexy in there posing with Fleet,” Soarin gave her a wink. “Especially when you started flexing. I think I’m gonna need a framed copy of all the pictures of you in this album!”

“Heh, I guess I don’t mind cause it’s you,” Dash blushed but grinned at him. “You better feel lucky.”

Dash looked over at the photographers as Storm bumbled around with Fleetfoot. She then looked over to see Star, Twister, and Matteo still watching from close by, and still laughing to their hearts content. Well, at least Star and Twister were laughing. Matteo was still smirking, he couldn’t hide it, even behind that huge beak of his. Dash kept looking around and noticed Squad two, three, and seven floating around the area as well at other elites. They were watching from a little further back to avoid interfering, but they were all smiling and laughing. The stallions were more present than the mares, probably because Fleetfoot was involved.

“So much for me hoping for an empty gym…” Dash chuckled. “I feel okay about it now, but damn, did the whole compound get the memo?”

“I was here with Spitfire before Photo Finish came in,” Soarin explained.

“With Spitfire?” Dash glanced at Soarin. “I can only imagine what she said when the photographers showed up.”

“Actually it was funny, she started raging, then a second later assumed it was Fleetfoot,” Soarin chuckled.

“Where is she now?” Dash asked while giggling.

“Over there,” Soarin pointed casually. Dash followed his hoof towards an area in the far corner of the gym. Spitfire was sitting backwards on an upright bench, her arms resting on the top of the back rest and her nose resting on her arms. She looked defeated, as if she knew there was nothing she could do to stop this.

“Looks like she’s enjoying herself,” Dash said sarcastically as she turned back to Soarin.

“I think she knows things are about to go to hell too,” Soarin chuckled.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and turned to him. Soarin made a quick head motion to their left. Dash turned and saw Lightning Streak, Surprise, Blaze, Misty Fly, and Air Mach huddled up and making glances towards the camera crew. “Oh… that looks like trouble,” Dash snickered as the group continued to look like it was up to no good.

“In fact, I’m gonna go join them,” Soarin suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. “I think Fleet wants you,” he said with a wink.

“DASHIE! Grab sexy face and bring him in here for some group stuff!” Fleetfoot yelled. Dash smirked and hooked her hoof with Soarin’s pulling him for a few steps. “Very funny Dash!" Fleetfoot yelled while pointing at Squall. “I meant the other sexy face!”

“Couldn’t resist,” Dash winked at Soarin.

“I know,” Soarin joked back while gently brushing a hoof over his face dreamily. Dash giggled and gave him a light shove.

“Oh, go make your secret plans,” she chuckled as she headed back towards Fleetfoot, grabbing Squall by the arm as she moved.

“Nyah…” Squall quickly grunted as Dash tried to pull him.

“Use words, Squall,” Dash turned and smirked as she pulled a little harder, causing him to slide along the floor.

“I thought I was done,” he whined.

“Nope, we’ve got all four of us now! Come on!” she got behind him and pushed.

“Nnnnnnghhhhhh…” he grunted again.

“I’m glad you agree,” Dash played along as she finally got him over to the set up.

“Ladies in front! Guys being sexy from behind!” Fleetfoot called out loudly, getting a weird look from Dash, Squall and Storm. “Woo! That sounded just as dirty as I wanted it to!” she giggled as she flopped down in front of one of the benches, whipped her mane around and blew a kiss towards the cameras as they began flashing throughout her movements.

“Come on guys, let’s have some fun with this,” Dash suggested as she pulled Storm and Squall in. “Just… not how she said it exactly,” she added with a chuckle before hopping over the other bench and leaning down on the floor as well. She had completely gotten in the mood of the moment, all her nervousness disappearing as soon as a little confidence had hit. It was like Fleetfoot knew that’s all Dash needed to have fun.

Storm and Squall glanced at each other for a moment. Storm smirked and shrugged before sitting down behind Fleetfoot on the bench. Squall scoffed and rolled his eyes, but sat on the bench behind Dash. Storm started feeding off of Dash and Fleet’s enthusiasm, hamming it up a little bit for the cameras. Squall, again, just sat turned away, but with enough of his face turned so Photo Finish could continuously swoon. He knew he’d be touched if he looked any further away, so he did what he had to do to avoid it.

“Yeah! Now this is good stuff!” Fleetfoot cheered as she scooted over and leaned into Dash, all the cameras pointing at them as she put Dash in a light headlock and winked at the cameras.

“Do you just do whatever in these photo shoots?” Dash asked, as she grabbed onto Fleetfoot’s arm around her neck and smiled. “Cause this seems like nothing but candid stuff,” she pointed out as she turned it around and got Fleetfoot in a lock.

“We tried doing it static, I hated it. I look my best when I’m just having fun!” Fleetfoot giggled as she reached up and pulled Storm off the bench by accident.

“Whoa!” Storm yelped and reached out, grabbing Squall.

“Ah!” Squall flailed, but shortly all four of them were in a heap on the floor. They quickly pulled themselves apart and Fleetfoot stuck her tongue out, giggling as she scratched the back of her head.

“Oops!” she grinned as Squall glared at her and Storm sighed, still stuck beneath Squall.

“Quick,” Dash rotated her hooves at them. “Get up before they take a picture of that and rumors start,” Dash joked. But when Squall heard her say it, he got off Storm so fast that he nearly tripped and fell over the back of the bench.

“Im glad we agree on that!” Storm chuckled as he stood.

“MORE!” Photo Finish yelled. “I AM LIKING ZIS! GIVE ME MORE!”

“You heard the crazy picture lady!” Fleetfoot bounced up and down, clearly having the time of her life. “The more sexy the better!”

Dash followed along with Fleetfoot as they set up some more poses, but as they settled into a new position, Dash glanced over and saw Lightning Streak, Blaze, and Soarin sneaking up behind one of the camera ponies.

“Here comes trouble,” Dash said quietly to Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot glanced at her, and then spotted the three Wonderbolts sneaking up. However, she smiled wide.

“Trouble? I beg to differ, Dashie, this is my favorite part!” she exclaimed while giving Dash a nudge.

“Huh?” Dash tipped her head curiously.

“GOT HIM!” Soarin yelled out as he lowered himself to the ground and wrapped his arms around the lower back legs of one of the photographers.

“What the—?” the stallion flinched in surprise.

“YOINK!” Lightning Streak called out as he swiped the camera right out of the stallion’s hooves. “Surprise! Catch!” he yelled as he tossed the camera behind him.

“WHEEE!” Surprise bounced up into the air and grabbed the camera. The rest of the photographers all turned and looked at the commotion, but as they did, Blaze popped up behind two of them and swiped their cameras as well.

“NOW WE RUN THIS SHIT!” Blaze yelled as she tossed one of the cameras to Soarin.

“EVERYPONY SMILE!” Surprise yelled as she started flying circles around the gym, taking photos of every Wonderbolt who looked up and struck a fun or silly pose while cheering.

“Gather up Serious Squad!” Soarin laughed as he and Blaze readied their cameras side by side.

“No,” Silver Lining held his ground as High Winds tried to pull him towards Soarin and Blaze.

“Pull the…” Winds yawned. “Thirty-foot, tangled pole out of your ass so I can…” she yawned again. “Beat you over the head with it before I drag you over.”

“Serious Squad number two is immobile! Repeat! Immobile!” Blaze yelled.

“Then let’s bring the fight to him!” Soarin called out. “All converge on Serious Squad number two! Where are the others?!”

“I’ve got number three!” Air Mach yelled as he pulled Wave Chill towards Silver.

“Number four, incoming! HAHAAAA!” Lightning Streak guffawed as he and Misty Fly pushed a sighing Fire Streak towards them.

“Where is number one?!” Soarin yelled out as he scanned the room. He blinked as he spotted Spitfire trying to sneak out of the gym. “NUMBER ONE IS ESCAPING! REPEAT, WE’VE GOT A RUNNER! I NEED BACK UP!” Soarin gave his camera to Blaze before he took to the air and pursued Spitfire. “SAVAGE! LEARUN! ON ME!”

“OH, YEAH!” Savage followed right behind.

“Say please!” Lead Runner followed as well.

“AH!” Spitfire yelped as she turned around and was tackled by Soarin. “Dammit! Let me go!” Spitfire demanded.

“Sorry, hun!” Lead Runner winked at her. “We can’t have a Serious Squad photo without its captain!” he giggled as Spitfire sighed.

“I don't want to,” she grumbled.

“You like it and you know it,” Soarin poked her between where her torso met her flank and she squeaked loudly. Lead Runner and Savage both turned and looked at her as she glared daggers at Soarin. Spitfire quickly bit her lip and glanced at the other two. “You both saw nothing,” she stated firmly as they carried her over.

“Where’s Dex at?” Air Mach yelled out as he scanned the gym. Surprise floated down and shrugged.

“I just made a bajillion passes around the gym, I think he got away!” she said while giggling. Lightning Streak stepped up and looked around the gym.

“We need a new honorary member? I think I got the perfect one!” he said while looking towards Matteo.

“Wait, what?” Matteo’s eyes widened as Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, and Air Mach approached him. Before he could stand up and get away, the three elites had hold of both his arms and his neck.

“Come on, Turbo Griffbro!” Air Mach shouted. “You’re too serious not to be in a Serious Squad photo!”

“I have…” Dash spoke up as she, Storm, and Squall watched the scene unfold. “Absolutely no idea what’s happening.”

Both Storm and Squall nodded in agreement as Fleetfoot writhed on the floor in front of them, holding her sides while laughing uncontrollably. Photo Finish was FUMING and demanding her cameras back, but the Wonderbolts were too busy goofing around.

“I gotta see this!” Fleetfoot lifted off and glided towards the fun.

“Got them all lined up?” Soarin asked as he retrieved his camera from Blaze and Surprise landed beside them with hers.

“Lined up and ready!” Lightning Streak called out as Dash, Storm, and Squall finally stepped over to see what was going on.

The Wonderbolts were all cheering towards Silver Lining, Wave Chill, Fire Streak, and Matteo as they all stood together in a group, all with similar looks of disapproval on their faces. Fleetfoot had gotten leverage on Spitfire and was dragging her against her will right into the middle of the ponies.

By: ThunderspeedYT

“Serious Squad! Say cheese!” Soarin yelled as he, Blaze, and Surprise all started snapping photos of them. Matteo tried to get away after the first few, but High Winds and Misty Fly kept pushing him back in.

Dash had her eyes fixed on Silver in the center of the group as he stood with, by far, the most prominent ‘kill me now’ face out of all of them. He even had Matteo beat. Storm was laughing behind her and threw a light jab into Squall’s shoulder as he rocked back and forth.

“I can’t believe they didn’t pick you too!” Storm chuckled and smiled as Squall looked at him quizzically and just rolled his eyes, ignoring the casual joking gesture.

Dash wished the two would finally just meld a little better, but at least they weren’t trying to kill each other this time.

After dozens of pictures were taken of Serious Squad, Photo Finish finally snapped and rushed out along with her camera ponies to try and take back the cameras. Soarin passed his camera to Misty Fly before lifting off and avoiding the rush. Surprise and Blaze avoided the crowd as well, but Blaze taunted them, dangling the camera just above their reach while blowing raspberries at them.

“Let’s get some air shots!” Lighting called as the Wonderbolts all took flight to avoid the unicorns and earth ponies among Photo’s staff. “Flex-off?” Lighting called to Air Mach.

“FLEX-OFF!” Air Mach agreed as Macho Savage flew up right behind him.

“Time for the Macho Madness to blow everypony away with his twenty-four inch guns!” he yelled as he floated up between Lightning Streak and Air Mach as the three flexed their muscles.

“And his tiny little hind legs!” Blaze added as she continued to tease the camera ponies.

Surprise giggled alongside a smiling Misty Fly as the two took several pictures of Savage, Air Mach, and Lighting hamming it up and trying to show off. High Winds was trying to pull Silver up to join the flexing, but obviously she had little luck against his stubbornness. Fire and Wave were trying to escape, but they were quickly cut off by Soarin, who dragged them back over from the doors.

Twister and Little Star had made their way over to Squall. Twister was rubbing Squall’s face with a hoof and repeating over and over in a dreamy voice how ‘beautiful’ he was. Star and Storm were falling over each other laughing at Twister. Squall didn’t fight Twister on it, just waited patiently for him to stop as he grunted in annoyance.

Art by: Noble Savage

It was crazy, it was madness, and it was SO MUCH FUN. Dash was nearly bouncing with all the silly Wonderbolt shenanigans going on around them. It had turned into pure cacophony, but it was awesome cacophony.

“Hey, Dashie!” Fleetfoot grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the trio of flexing dolts. “Let’s show these chumps who has the real muscles around here!”

Dash smirked and nodded in agreement.

“These guys have got nothing on me!” she yelled as the two of them placed themselves in front of Air Mach, Savage, and Lightning and began flexing their arms while making silly growling noises.

“WOO! YEAH!” Surprise cheered as she kept snapping photos. “YOU SHOW ‘EM, LADIES!”

Off to the side, Spitfire returned to the upright bench and plopped her plot down in it while staring up at the all the silly posing, the angry camera crew, and all the other Wonderbolts in the gym slowly coming in to partake in the madness. She released a heavy sigh as she once again leaned on the backrest, her arms on the top of it, and her nose atop her arms as she watched.

“Man, I love doing this!” Soarin’s voice made her ears stand up as he landed softly to the ground behind her. “Isn’t it great Spitfire?” he asked while walking up beside her. Spitfire sighed and shook her head.

“We really, really, REALLY… should be more serious right now. We should be preparing ourselves physically and mentally for the Shadowbolts.”

“Spitfire…” Soarin groaned and rolled his eyes. Had they gone all the way back to square one?

“BUT…” Spitfire cut him off. Soarin looked back towards her and blinked. “I agree this is great…” she said while smiling up at all of the Wonderbolts having a great time, laughing and being silly together, even the more serious one’s couldn’t hide it.

Wave was laughing along with everypony, Silver had accepted his fate and was being pulled through the air by High Winds, and Fire was grinning happily as Misty Fly latched onto him and nuzzled her cheek into his neck while silently giggling.

“Having a good time… getting along with each other like a family. Trust me, Soarin, I love seeing it happen. If anything it makes my desire to protect them all even stronger,” she shook her head. “We have lots of things to worry about but… I don’t mind this right now.” She turned and looked at Soarin. “After all… with a threat we might be facing, who knows when we’ll get another chance to have fun like this. We should enjoy it while we can.”

Soarin smiled at Spitfire, overjoyed to hear her say such a thing. Either it was the fact she was getting sleep again, or she had actually listened to him for once… either way, she was starting to sound like herself again. Sure, she had stress on her shoulders, but now she was holding it up like the strong mare she was.

“Come on, let’s go join them,” Soarin said as he grabbed her arm.

“No, I’ll just stay down here,” she tried to lean away from him, but he shook his head.

“Nice try, Spitfire. You’re going to have fun, and you’re going to like it,” he said sternly.

“Fiiiiiiine,” she said with a sigh, but smiled as Soarin pulled her up to join the crowd.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Why is the mental image of Misty Fly giggling silently one of the most adorable things i've ever thought about?

OH FLEETFOOT! YOU ARE THE BEST.

Seriously, it had been a long time since i really let her loose in a chapter and it felt great to do it again:rainbowlaugh: I adore writing her, it's like having a character that's a tease, a flirt, and a troll, but manages to be cute while doing it :rainbowwild:

Well, Photofinish wanted the Wonderbolts and she got much more than she bargained for! (Apparently it's a regular thing with them xD)

And we get to see my new artist buddy! :scootangel: His pony style is incredibly fun and i hope to get some more from him soon. :eeyup: I'm posting the link to his page down here with a warning... his gallery is VERY nsfw and he actually doesn't have much pony stuff posted in it. :twilightblush: But he's a really great guy, i've enjoyed getting to know him. His page is here: ruckforderungreich

But Spitfire couldn't have put it better... They better enjoy the fun while it lasts... because who knows when they'll be able to kick back and have fun again?

Thanks for reading! Hope you had some good laughs! :eeyup:

Chapter 86: Insecured

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was edited by Lucky424)

Chapter 86: Insecured

“Thanks for letting me in on this, Fleet,” Dash smiled as Fleetfoot led her into Bliss’ training room.

“You were such a good sport yesterday!” Fleetfoot grinned. “So you deserve it. Besides, with how weird things have been getting lately, I bet you could use a good massage.”

“You’ve got that right…” Dash nodded as she and Fleetfoot walked towards the trainer tables.

Bliss’ training room was being ‘refitted’ as they moved in. Multiple mares from the Smooth Hoof Spa in Canterlot’s high class district were moving about, setting up special head rests and cushions on the tables to make them more comfortable.

Spitfire, Blaze, High Winds, Surprise, and Misty Fly were all already there and waiting eagerly for the spa mares to be ready for them.

Bliss herself was kicked back in her chair at her desk near the entrance. It looked like she was enjoying the lighter training hours. It definitely made her job a lot easier for the time being… unless of course some of the Wonderbolts were using the free time for something stupid or over the top…

“Is that all of us?” Soarin looked around the infield of the outdoor flight arena as he fastened the head-piece of his training armor. Wave Chill looked around beside him, also wearing a set of training armor.

“Storm, Silver, Lightning, Air Mach…” he named them off as he saw them, all close by and checking their armor. “Wait, where’s Fire Streak?”

“Oh, he’ll be here,” Soarin chuckled as he picked up a volley ball. “I know he wouldn’t miss this.”

“Just hop up here, please,” a white unicorn mare with a long blonde mane tied back in a ponytail pointed to the table in front of Dash.

Dash did as she was told and climbed up onto the table, lying flat on her stomach and resting her chin on her forearms. For a moment she didn’t recognize the trainer table. It felt much more comfortable with whatever surface the spa mares had draped over it.

She watched as the spa pony went around and got everything ready. If it were a year or so ago, Dash would’ve felt nervous. She had gotten less afraid of spa treatment over time, and after experiencing some amazing massages from Soarin, it was hard to ever turn one down.

Not to mention it also felt great to be included in a relaxing activity with the top elite mares from squad one, two, and three. Dash would have been outside her mind to turn down something like this, even if it was something other than massages.

They were set up on the first seven tables in the training room. Blaze, High Winds, Fleetfoot, and Dash were on the right side and Misty Fly, Surprise, and Spitfire were on the left.

“I can’t wait to see those pictures!” Fleetfoot spoke up from the table beside Dash.

“Oo!” Surprise cut in across from them. “Didja get the silly ones too?” she asked eagerly.

“We’re actually gonna get those?” Dash chuckled while glancing at Fleetfoot.

“Yep!” Fleetfoot winked. “I slipped Photo Finish two hundred extra bits to get those sent to us. There was no way I was letting those get erased!”

“Yay!” Surprise cheered while bouncing and throwing her hooves out.

“Please lay flat,” Surprise’s masseuse asked her quietly.

“Oopsie! Sorry!” Surprise giggled and plopped back down.

“Let’s begin,” A tall, yellow unicorn mare with a poofy red mane said to all of them as she walked up to Spitfire’s bed. The mare really stood out among them. Dash watched as all of the mares moved into position immediately. The tall mare had to be the head masseuse from the spa.

“Oh…” Dash was expecting it… but it felt so good immediately as her designated masseuse began gently applying pressure on her back at all the right places. It was only the initial compressions, barely pressing down, but it felt good. “Oooooohh…” Dash moaned contently as she felt her body relax at the gentle touch. “Wow… thirty seconds and you’ve got me melting… you’re good…” Dash complimented as the mare giggled.

“Why thank you,” she said as she continued to make the soft back and forth motions across all the stiff spots between the muscles on Dash’s back and near her wings. “I’ve always enjoyed working with athletes,” said the mare as she reached the base of Dash’s tail and began moving back up. “It’s a lot easier to find the muscles and knots,” she said while leaning down and smiling at Dash. “You have a very impressive body, by the way.”

“Heh, thanks…” Dash blushed lightly, still a little bashful about getting praise about her body.

“Hey… Dash,” Fleetfoot whispered.

“Huuuuh?” Dash slowly turned her head towards Fleetfoot, slurring a little as the spa mare continued to work magic on her stiff back muscles. Fleetfoot pointed at Spitfire across from them.

“Watch this, it’s about to start,” she said with a quiet giggle. Dash glanced across at Spitfire as the tall mare began working her hooves around Spitfire’s back.

“What’s about to—?”

“Hrrrmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnn…” Spitfire suddenly released a low, long hum.

“What the?” Dash blinked as Fleetfoot and the rest of the mares began giggling.

“Ooooohhhh… aaaarrrrr… aaaahhhhhh ... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooowwooooowowww…” Spitfire moaned, groaned, squeaked, and made all sorts of interesting noises while face down in the head pillow.

“Holy…” Dash snickered. “Wow…”

“That’s Gentle Press working her magic!” Fleetfoot giggled. “Spitfire already has a pretty sensitive body. Mixed with the best masseuse in Equestria… we get quite a show.”

“Aaaiieeeee oooooohhh aaaaaaaaayiayiayiayia…” Spitfire continued to make the strange noises as Gentle Press moved up and down. “WHOO!” Spitfire suddenly flinched and her wings flared outward. But Gentle Press’ magic came to life the instant they did and forced them back down to Spitfire’s body as if Press was ready for it.

“Relax and be still,” Press said to Spitfire as she continued to work.

“Whoa!” Dash’s attention was drawn back to her own body as her masseuse began giving her a little more pressure and really beginning the massage. “Oh damn… yesssss, thanks for inviting me Fleeeet…” Dash began slurring her words again as she lay her head down and sighed contently.

“Don’t mention—oo!” Fleetfoot’s ears stood up and she glanced back at her masseuse. “Careful there, I don’t want them all knowing my sensitive spots!” Fleetfoot joked as she looked back at Dash. Dash slowly shook her head back and forth.

“These ponies are just as good as Aloe and Lotus, maybe even better…” she commented in her dazed state.

“Who and who now?” Blaze asked from a few beds down. Dash looked up, past Fleetfoot and High Winds, who was already fast asleep under the comfort of the massage.

“Oh!” Fleetfoot blinked as she turned her head around towards Blaze. “She’s talking about these two ponies that run a whole spa in Ponyville!” Fleetfoot recalled with excitement.

“There’s a SPA in a small town like Ponyville? Ooo…” Blaze asked while visibly enjoying her massage.

“Yeah, and those ponies had me begging for full service the moment they started. They did everything themselves and made it all so comfortable. It was like heaven on earth. Their massages were almost as good as these too. It was a pleasant surprise in such a little town. Oh yeah… right there… yeeeeah…” Fleetfoot trailed off, shivering with delight as her masseuse worked around her shoulders.

Dash was having a hard time concentrating on anything with how relaxed she felt, but it didn’t stop her from enjoying the fun sight of all the top elite mares and their different reactions to the massages. Fleetfoot looked incredibly content and was biting her bottom lip. High Winds was still fast asleep. Blaze was twitching and saying things that made it a little awkward for her masseuse, but that was Blaze for you. Misty Fly was smiling and lying still, completely enjoying herself. Surprise…

“Hehehehe!” Surprise bounced up and down on her stomach as her masseuse sighed.

“Miss Surprise… please… you must lay still,” she asked.

“Sorry!” Surprise chimed in. “It just tickles a little! Hehe!”

Far and away though, the most amusing sight was…

“Graaaawwwwwwddddddd ooooooooaaaaahhhhh oooohhhhhhh yeeessssss…” Spitfire continued to moan and groan with so many different tones and pitches it was like Gentle Press had turned her into a musical instrument.

“Hah!” Blaze suddenly scoffed, grabbing their attention. “I think we need to sign up Wave for some massage lessons from Press. It would totally get him sex for all eternity,” she smirked, causing giggles from around the room, both the Wonderbolts (who were awake and could hear) and from the massage mares. The mention of Wave Chill got Dash thinking.

“Hey… Fleet…” her words were drawn out for a moment until she found the means to focus. “Ever invite the stallions to these?” she asked out of curiosity. It took a moment for Fleetfoot to register the question.

“Oh, yeah, sometimes. At least I invite the ones who will behave themselves. I’m not letting Lightning Streak near any mares that will touch him,” she flattened her brow. “Trust me, it would end poorly.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Dash chuckled.

“I asked Soarin if he wanted to join us today,” Fleetfoot continued. “But…” she paused and rolled her eyes. “They were already planning on playing their favorite testosterone game today.”

“Game…?” Dash tipped her head slightly.

“There he is!” Lightning Streak called out as Fire flew towards them and landed. “I thought Misty was busy, you mean you actually have a life outside of her?” Lightning joked as he tossed a set of training armor towards Fire. Fire caught it and stopped dead in his tracks as he put his brother’s words together.

“Oh, I see what you did there… and yes, as a matter a fact I am the captain of our squad, dear brother,” Fire reminded him as he began fastening his armor. “I was actually cleaning up a few loose ends from our squad budget… you know… that you caused, so I wouldn’t complain.”

“I’m not complaining at all bro, it’s great to have a personal maid-brother to clean up for me, hah!” Lightning Streak guffawed as Fire lifted an eyebrow.

“Oh, I am most DEFINITELY going to enjoy this right now…” he said as he tightened the buckles on the headgear.

“YO!” Lightning yelled past Wave and Silver to Soarin. “My bro’s here! Let’s get started!”

“Awesome!” Soarin yelled as he checked his armor one more time and picked up the volley ball again.

“So… um…”

Soarin looked up to see Storm approach.

“What’s up?” Soarin smiled as he tossed the ball to Storm.

“Thanks for letting me play a game with you guys, what are we playing though? Wing-Ball?” Storm asked as he glanced at the ball in his hooves and then his armor. “Do you guys usually wear armor when you play it outside of shows?”

“Oh,” Soarin chuckled, stepped over, and draped an arm over Storm’s shoulder. “We’re not playing Wing-ball… in fact, I wouldn’t recommend being the one that starts with the ball,” Soarin winked at him. Storm blinked and quickly dropped the ball, not quite sure what Soarin meant. “We’re playing a much simpler game…” Soarin smirked.

“Kill-the-stallion-with-the-ball?” Dash repeated back to Fleetfoot while flattening her brow and staring with amused disbelief.

“Mmhmm…” Fleetfoot nodded.

“That… sounds…” Dash was trying to put words to it. Fleetfoot did it for her.

“Like something a bunch of stallions would come up with. I’ve heard it’s been a once-a-month tradition among the top elite Wonderbolt stallions since back even before Blazetail,” Fleetfoot giggled. “Yeah… it’s dumb… but it’s also funny because it’s the one game they can get Silver Lining and Fire Streak to play with them.”

“I can only imagine the rules…” Dash rolled her eyes as she and the rest of the Wonderbolt mares turned over on their backs per the request of the spa mares.

“It’s pretty simple actually,” Blaze spoke up. “They put on training armor, grab a ball of any kind, go outside to the flight arena and beat the shit out of each other,” she put bluntly.

“There’s more to it than that,” Fleetfoot smirked. “As the name implies, whoever has the ball is the target, and the rest of the stallions playing have to go and basically hit or tackle him as hard as they can. The stallion with the ball has to hold it for as long as he can, but if he feels pressured or can’t get away, he tosses it to somepony else.”

“Uh…” Dash blinked. “How do you win?” she asked as she watched her masseuse come around the table and readied to start again.

“You don’t!” Surprise giggled. “It’s literally just a bunch of pointless roughhousing, but it’s tons of fun to watch!”

“Yeah,” Fleetfoot agreed. “I mean, think about it…”

Lightning streak dove down and caught the ball as it fell, before pulling up into a glide.

“Woo! Catch me if you can bros—OOOF!!!!” he was intercepted and lucky that he wasn’t broken in half as Fire Streak came screaming in from the opposite direction and tackled him as hard as he could. Lighting coughed up the ball, but instead of going after it Fire drove his brother all the way to the ground.

“Fire’s not gonna pass up a chance to hit Lightning as hard as he can,” Fleetfoot giggled. Dash lifted an eyebrow and smirked.

“That actually does sound pretty fun to watch… hopefully he doesn’t kill him by accident,” Dash chuckled.

“Well, they’re wearing Rivet’s training armor,” Blaze spoke up as she leaned her head way back on her pillow. “I doubt any of them will even bruise.”

“Ready?” Dash’s masseuse suddenly asked. Dash looked up and saw her waiting to begin on Dash’s front.

“Oh, by all means, don’t even have to ask,” Dash nodded to her.

She took a deep breath and relaxed as her masseuse began on her arms first. As the soothing compressions made their way up and down her arm, her thoughts turned towards the stallions again. Fire enjoyed it because he could clock Lightning? She bet Silver felt the same way. She could almost picture him giving Air Mach a few hits he wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

“Whoa!” Soarin pitched up and did a barrel roll to just barely dodge an incoming strike from Wave Chill.

He thought he was in the clear for a moment, but he yelped as Storm, Fire, and Lightning came at him from different directions. His only avenue of escape was back towards Wave Chill, so instead, he tossed the ball away from him, and dove down, barely avoiding the hits and shifting the attention of the three towards the ball as it fell towards the ground.

Air Mach shot past all three of them and snatched the ball out of the air.

“Ha! Victory for the stallionliest stallion of all stallions! And—”

Silver shot up from below and swung his arm upward, completely clothes lining him. Air Mach flipped backwards uncontrollably as he kept moving forward, the ball flying upward from his hooves. Silver grabbed Air Mach by the arm, swung him around and tossed him into Lightning Streak as he tried to make a move for the ball. The two tumbled to the ground as Silver reached up and snatched the ball out of the air.

Soarin had regained flight and was shooting towards Silver, but Silver didn’t budge.

“Getting a little cocky, Silver?” Soarin jeered as he approached

“Nope,” Silver replied as he casually tossed the ball towards Soarin.

“Huh?” Soarin put on the breaks and caught the ball, but as soon as he had his hooves on it... “GAH!” Soarin grunted as Silver shot forward and tackled him HARD.

Dash couldn’t help but worry a little about Silver and the state of his body, but he had more than proven to be able to hold his own regardless. If she had never found him on the floor of his room a couple days ago, she would have never known or guessed that his body was so broken down. He did a great job of showing and possibly feeling no pain.

“Ooooh, maaaaan…” Dash sighed as her masseuse worked her magic. She had never had a full body massage before. Rarity usually ordered the short, back-only massages for them back in Ponyville, and at this point when she was with Soarin, she’d be trying to pin him down.

The mare moved her hooves up and around Dash’s chest, hitting all the edges around it to loosen up the joints and untie the knots. Dash did her best to hold in a moan as the mare worked over the front of her shoulders, before coming around and repeating the motions on the other side of her chest. All the training, weight lifting and constantly flying had done more of a number on her body than she thought, but the perfect time to learn about where her muscles were knotted was when they were being relieved. The problem solved itself.

She owed Fleetfoot for this, big time. She felt like she needed this more than anypony, especially with the extra training she had been doing with Silver.

“Ahhhhhhh, ooooooh, mmmmmm….”

Dash snorted quietly. She also had to thank Fleetfoot for the comedy show across from them. Who knew that Spitfire had such a sensitive body? Well… she bet Wave knew.

“So Dash,” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up. “What’s Soarin like in bed?”

Dash’s eyes widened and her wings shot out from beneath her, completely slipping free from being compressed between her back and the table. Her right wing jabbed her masseuse in the gut and knocked her over with a yelp.

All the mares, spa and Wonderbolt, all turned and looked towards Dash as the mare slowly pulled herself back up.

“My goodness…” the mare giggled as she stood up.

“Uh… sorry,” Dash grinned sheepishly before turning her head back towards the Wonderbolts. Fleetfoot, Blaze, and Surprise were all staring at her eagerly. “UM!” Dash bit her lip.

“Yeah! Tell us!” Blaze encouraged. “Is he good?” she asked as Fleetfoot gave her a confused look. “Is he a marathon runner or is he a two pump chump? He’s gotta be good… you’ve been with him long enough. I bet he ruts you ha—”

“Blazey,” Fleetfoot snickered. “Why the hell do you care?”

“Hey, a mare can be curious,” Blaze did her best to shrug from her back with one arm being worked on by her masseuse. “Plus, Windy is OUT,” she pointed to High Winds. She was still asleep, and her masseuse had just finally managed to get her to flip over on her back.

“Flip over again please,” Dash’s masseuse asked as the rest did the same with their Wonderbolts, except for High Winds, who had just been flipped on her back and Spitfire, who seemed to be getting some extra treatment from Gentle Press. For some reason, Dash hoped that while they were all turning back onto their stomachs, the others would forget about the question, but as soon as they were all on their stomachs again, they were still staring at her.

“Uh…” Dash stalled again.

“C’mon Dashie!” Surprise giggled. “Give us the info!”

Misty Fly looked up and saw Dash looking nervous along with the rest looking interested while staring at her. She reached over and poked Surprise. Surprise turned to Misty and blinked as Misty gave a few simple hoof motions.

“Oh! Hehe!” Surprise giggled as she made a few back. Misty’s eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly in surprise before she turned towards Dash, looking just as interested.

“Oh, come on…” Dash’s ears flopped down. Even Misty Fly? She wasn’t getting out of this one. If not for getting a second helping of a relaxing back massage, Dash would have been completely stiff under the sudden pressure to answer such a personal question. But then again… they were all mares in the room… and it was pretty cool to have some casual ‘mare talk’ with the top elites, so she went for it, even though it felt a little awkward.

“Um… he’s…”

“Ha!” Soarin slipped by Storm and ducked under Fire Streak. “Come on guys! I’ve had the ball for almost five minutes here!” he taunted as Lightning and Air Mach panted, trying to keep up. “Whoa!” Soarin pitched up to avoid Silver.

“Damn, slippery, bastard…” Silver growled as he gave chase.

“He’s good,” Dash answered with a blank look on her face.

“Just good?” Fleetfoot reached over and poked Dash in the arm. “I see that blush! He’s an animal, isn’t he? You lucky mare!”

“Uh… yeah,” Dash bit her lip but smiled, feeling a bit of confidence surface. Fleetfoot’s casual demeanor seemed to have that effect on her. “Heh, who am I kidding,” Dash chuckled. “He is the ‘Power Flyer’ after all,” Dash shrugged. “Let’s just say that’s not the only thing he’s ‘powerful’ at,” she said with a wink. “He likes to pin me…” Dash added as the mares listened intently. “And that’s against any surface. Sometimes he gets me way up high on the wall, while in floating in the air.”

“Whoooooooaaaaaahohoooo!” Fleetfoot hollered while giggling. Surprise got lost in laughter and Blaze’s eyes just widened.

“Holy DAMN!” Blaze chuckled. “I’m gonna have to give our very own princess a little more credit!” she chuckled.

Surprise quickly relayed the info to Misty, who blushed and covered her mouth before looking at Dash with a sassy expression.

Once she got it out she didn’t feel so awkward. Soarin would probably be mortified if he knew she was talking about his sexual performance, but mare talk stayed with the mares. Even the spa mares and Bliss had been paying attention and were joining in the amusement and interest.

“Well!” Fleetfoot giggled. “After how long he didn’t go near a mare for the ‘sake of his career’ I bet he has tons of pent up sexual aggression!” she joked, earning a round of laughter from all the mares. “Say… speaking of stallions I never would expect it from…” Fleetfoot glanced towards Misty Fly. “I’ve always wondered what kind of stallion Fire Streak really was, if you catch my drift,” Fleetfoot wiggled her eyebrows towards Surprise.

“Oo! I’ll ask!” she quickly looked towards Misty, who realized they were talking about her. Surprise made a few gestures. Misty Fly blinked and then smirked in a way few of them had ever seen. It almost looked… devilish, which was a strange thing to see upon Misty’s usually innocent face. She made a few motions in response to Surprise, followed by some rather rough motions, a few of which caused her hooves to clap together, ending by lifting her brow and grinning. “Whoa!” Surprise blinked.

Fire Streak dove from above and grabbed hold of Air Mach as he tried to get away.

“Whoa! Nice catch!” Air Mach said as he tried to shake free, but instead tossed the ball to Storm.

“Yikes!” Storm yelped as he caught the ball. Fire was already shooting towards him. Storm looked around and quickly passed the ball to Lightning. Fire changing directions to chase and as soon as Lightning had the ball, Fire rammed him in the chest.

“OOF!” Lightning grunted, the ball popping out of his hooves as he flew backwards. The ball landed in Fire’s hooves as Lightning quickly regained control of his flight a few yards away. “Damn bro! You’re going a little too serious don’t you—”

He was cut off as Fire streak chucked the ball at him and ricocheted it right off Lightning’s face.

“What did she say?” Blaze asked, just as curious as the rest.

“Well, I’m never looking at him the same way again! Hee hee!” Surprise giggled. “According to Misty… Fire gets very, very timid when she starts coming onto him… but she knows what he likes… and after a few minutes of teasing him in certain ways…” Surprise put her hooves to her face. “He turns into a RAVING lunatic! And Misty can’t stop him!”

All the mares stared towards Surprise in shock.

“Oh, and she does it on purpose,” Surprise added. They all looked at Misty Fly, who upon seeing all eyes on her, just winked and stuck her tongue out. The mares all burst into giggles fits.

“Dang, Surprise is right,” Dash said out loud. “I can’t picture Fire… you know… turning into a feral sex beast.”

“Join the club,” Blaze said as she let her forehead hit the pillow. “I’m never going to get that image out of my head…” she looked back up and turned her head towards Spitfire as she continued to make weird noises. “You know who I really wanna know about?” Blaze chuckled. “How hard Spitfire breaks Wave every time they get alone. HEY! SIS! Pay attention!” she yelled.

“Mmmmmmmmmnnnngggghhrrrrrr…” Spitfire replied while moving one of her hooves, but got nowhere further as her tongue hung out of the side of her mouth.

“Yes! Got it!” Wave cheered as he got a hold of the ball, only to be completely blindsided by Silver a moment after and sent tumbling to the ground.

“Forget it Blazey,” Fleetfoot giggled. “We’re not gonna get anything out of Spitty while she’s being fondled,” Fleetfoot paused and glanced at Dash, but before she could say anything, her ears stood up and she smirked. “Say Blazey…” Fleetfoot spoke up again, earning a growl from Blaze for how much she was using the nickname. Her smirk grew as she glanced at High Winds.

Winds’ masseuse was busy pushing her over onto her stomach again. She was still completely out cold. Give a narcoleptic pony a relaxing atmosphere and it was checkmate. Fleetfoot pointed at her.

“Tell me,” she said while bouncing an eyebrow at Blaze. “How’s WINDY in bed? Eh?” the spa mares all stopped and looked towards Blaze. Blaze growled and gritted her teeth at Fleetfoot.

“That’s none of your FUCKING business, bitch!” Blaze lashed out suddenly.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot reclined her neck slightly while scrunching her face for a moment. “Talk about a whip crack! That was some serious defense you put up there!” she teased while smirking.

“Yeah? Well, tough shit!” Blaze snapped. “That’s nopony’s business!”

They all flinched as High Winds suddenly released a long, loud yawn and looked up with sleepy eyes.

“Blaze prefers to be on the bottom,” High Winds began in a monotone. “She has five different sweet spots: Between her right shoulder joints, the base of her tail, where her mane ends on her neck, the spot right behind her left ear, and where the right side of her jaw meets her neck. She makes really cute noises, especially when I go for the sweet spots in that order. She’s got a low tolerance for foreplay and gets riled up very fast. She loves it when I’m extra rough with her and the way she shivers makes the tips of my ears all tingly.”

Everypony just stared wide-eyed in silence at High Winds as she yawned loudly and set her head back down. Blaze had her head face down on her pillow. Her hooves were pressed over her head, and she was making several muffled groaning noises into the pillow.

“Well…” Dash spoke up. “That was educational.”

“That sounded kind of hot actually,” Fleetfoot giggled. Dash blinked and lifted an eyebrow at Fleetfoot.

“Wha—EEEEYAI!!!” Dash’s wings suddenly flared out and she knocked over her masseuse again, drawing all eyes once more. The masseuse had been working around her wings… and Dash had quite a soft spot there that Soarin was a fan of using against her.

“That’s quite a wing reflex you’ve got there,” her masseuse giggled as she pulled herself up again.

“Speaking of sweet spots…” Fleetfoot giggled as Dash blushed lightly. Blaze suddenly growled and looked up from her pillow towards Fleetfoot.

“Hey FLEETEY,” she sharply called to her. Fleetfoot sighed sarcastically.

“Yes?” she said while turning her head towards Blaze and giving her a smarmy look. However, Blaze shot a similar look right back.

“How about you tell us how LIGHTNING STREAK is in bed, huh?” she sneered.

Fleetfoot’s confident expression instantly faded to one of shock for a moment before turning into a glare. Surprise gasped and covered her mouth and Dash’s eyes widened.

“How the hell should I know?!” Fleetfoot grumbled in response as she looked straight down at the table. “I was blackout drunk…” she added with a huff.

“He was so good you don’t remember? Pound you so hard you have memory loss?” Blaze guffawed and smacked her hoof against her table. Surprise held a hoof towards Blaze.

“Um… Blaze… that’s enough…” Surprise tried to stop her. Fleetfoot scoffed.

“HA! Yeah right! I don’t remember, but I doubt he was HALF as good as some of the guys around here I’d much rather spend a night of fun with!”

“HUUUAAAAAAACHOOOO!!!!” Lightning Streak sneezed as he and shook his head out before catching the ball out of the air and putting a hoof up to his nose. “Who… sinuses are actin’ up…”

He turned around and was immediately triple tackled by Soarin, Storm, and Wave all at once.

“Oh? Like who?” Blaze’s smirk grew wider by the second.

“A few…” Fleetfoot looked away from her and pouted.

“Names?” Blaze prodded. “Come one Fleet we’re all sharing stuff here!”

“It’s hard to decide! Alright?” Fleetfoot said with an audible change in her tone of voice. “I don’t wanna start naming them off… I don’t want to sound like a whore…” she said with her voice nearly cascading to a wail.

“HA! I thought—ACK!” Blaze suddenly had her head forced down to the table by a green magic aura. Dash looked over and saw Bliss at her desk with her magic alight, shaking her head as Blaze as she prevented her from saying more.

“I just…” Fleetfoot mumble quietly in Dash’s direction. “I don’t know what I want sometimes…”

All eyes had turned to Fleetfoot and almost everything had stopped except for Gentle Press and Spitfire’s strange moaning and groaning. Dash looked up and quickly waved her hooves out in a ‘carry on’ sort of motion.

The rest of the session was devoid of any talking, the mood having been effectively killed. But at least they still got to enjoy their massages.

“You need a shower,” Dash joked as she walked side by side with Soarin. Soarin looked himself over.

“It got a little muddy out there, but I’m hungry. Food first,” he chuckled.

The mares had all gone to watch the end of the ‘kill-the-stallion-with-the-ball’ game after the spa mares finished with them. They only got to see the last five minutes but it was hilarious to watch Silver purposely throw the ball to Lightning and clock him right after five times in a row without him catching on.

Dash was now walking towards the back entrance to the lobby with Soarin and Storm, following close behind Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach. Spitfire was staying quiet, embarrassed that Dash had heard all her weird massage noises, and Fleetfoot… needless to say she wasn’t in a very good mood. Soarin had asked about Fleetfoot, but Dash, respecting a fellow mare’s privacy, told him not to worry about it.

With information closed off about Fleetfoot, Soarin broke away to talk to Spitfire instead, giving Dash an opportunity to talk to Storm.

“So did you enjoy killing your fellow elites?” she joked as she shifted beside him.

“I didn’t know that was the game until we started,” Storm chuckled. “I thought I was gonna die for sure. Captain Silver and Commander Soarin diving at me at the same time? No thanks! Passing the ball to Commander Wave!” Storm said in a gung ho voice that made Dash giggle.

“Yeah, I probably would have just curled up if I saw that,” she joked back. She took note that Storm looked very thrilled, at least that was the word she could use to describe it. He always looked so depressed when talking about his times trying to fit in with the Wonderbolt elites, but some casual bro-tackling it looked like he was starting to feel like part of the team. That was good, he deserved it.

“How was the intense massage?” Storm joked, having heard about it from Soarin. Dash chuckled and shook her head.

“I’m surprised I’m not a liquid right now,” she stuck out an arm and wiggled it about.

“That good, huh?”

“Good and more,” Dash nodded.

“Where’s the rest of Foxtrot?” Storm asked. Dash smiled while pointing across the yard at the outer wall of the weight room.

“I sent them to Pec Bounce a while back, who knows if they’re still in there,” she said as she smiled wider. Storm picked up on it.

“Something tells me that was a fun conversation,” he smirked.

“Yeah, Squall doesn’t like Pec Bounce very much, thinks he yells too much.”

“That’s all Pec Bounce does,” Storm snickered at the thought of Squall getting all grumpy in the gym.

“NO! I mean, no sorry, I’m fine…” Spitfire suddenly blurted out ahead of them.

“Wonder what they’re talking about?” Storm thought out loud. Dash looked ahead and saw Soarin smirking. She instantly guessed it had something to do with her massage.

“What, you’re not gonna tell me anything about it?” Soarin chuckled as Spitfire puffed her cheeks out.

“It was good, okay? Relaxing and all that… stuff, okay? Stop asking,” Spitfire tried to dodge the question as Soarin laughed.

“You have me way too curious Spitfire!” he joked as he glanced forward at Fleetfoot, who had gone a little ways ahead of them. Air Mach had tried to catch up to her, but nothing he said seemed to get any of her attention. “By the way, what’s up with Fleet?” he asked quietly as he glanced back at Dash briefly. “Dash wouldn’t tell me why she’s being so… mopey.”

“I actually don’t know,” Spitfire admitted. Soarin blinked and tipped his head. “What?” she scrunched her face.

“How could you not know? You were in the same room,” Soarin asked in confusion.

“I was…” Spitfire blushed. “Heavily preoccupied by my massage…”

“Hmm…” Soarin looked up to see Fleetfoot and Air Mach step through the back doors into the lobby.

“Soarin, just forget about it, and whatever she’s thinking about, I’d rather she forget about it too,” Spitfire suddenly said sternly, re-catching his attention. “The massage was my last little treat. It’s time to get serious about things again.”

“Oh boy…” Soarin rolled his eyes.

“Soarin, just humor me alright?” she continued. “I don’t mind some of the relaxation we’ve had here over the past couple of days. Even though there have been no sightings and incidents, I still have a lot of reports to file and other things to look into in hopes of uncovering this whole new Shadowbolt dilemma,” they stepped through the doors, holding them open for Dash and Storm as the two caught up. “I’ve made changes and preparations already with the patrols and the extra security postings, but there are some things I want to go through before—” she ran directly into Air Mach’s plot. “What the—?!”

“Whoa!” Soarin hopped to the side to avoid crashing into Fleetfoot. The two were standing still, only a few paces into the lobby. Dash and Storm both flinched before coming to an abrupt halt as well.

“Guys?” Spitfire stepped around to Air Mach’s side. “Why did you…” she trailed off and paused, realizing they were staring wide eyed with their jaws dropped at something. Not even Air Mach’s glasses could conceal the shock in his expression.

Spitfire quickly turned and looked as Soarin, Dash, and Storm did the same from behind. They too, all gasped as they stared towards the mail counter, where the masseuse ponies were leaving with all of their equipment… however…

“Man, check out all these HOT mares!”

The orange mail pony behind the counter just stared blankly at the pony leaning against the counter, slowly backing away. He flinched when the pony turned and looked at him.

“I tell ya, I know exactly how to make a mare get weak in the knees. There are few who can withstand my endless charisma and…”

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Spitfire exclaimed from across the lobby.

The pony leaning against the counter who was talking to the mail pony and flirting with the spa mares… was the red stallion with a slicked back, white mane that fended off squad two during the Cloudsdale encounter, complete with the new Shadowbolt flight suit missing the mask, and wearing the red goggles and headband with tassels. The mail counter was roughly ten yards away from the closest security posting, leaving absolutely no idea how he could have possibly gotten in.

The stallion turned and looked towards the lead squad as he heard Spitfire shout. He smirked and waved a hoof in the air.

“HEYA GUYS!” he yelled out in a cocky tone while chuckling. “Your security REALLY sucks!”

Dash and Storm both yelped as Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach all leapt into the air without a word and pumped their wings hard. The four sped towards the mail counter as the mail pony ducked for cover. Soarin clearly didn’t want to risk using the Sonic Blastoff inside the lobby, so the first to draw near was Fleetfoot with her incredible speed.

“Heh!” the stallion scoffed as Fleetfoot drew back her arm to deliver a punch. He reached his arm up to block it, but…

“Fleetfoot! Look out!” Spitfire yelled as she spotted a small, grey sphere in the stallion’s hoof. But it was too late.

Fleetfoot threw the punch, and as the stallion blocked it, the sphere got crushed between their hooves and a giant puff of smoke exploded outward, engulfing all of them. The four Wonderbolts grunted and yelped as they got tangled in the smoke and lost track of where they were.

Dash and Storm were still standing back, watching the scene unfold. As soon as the cloud of smoke erupted, Storm leapt forward, spreading his wings and taking flight. Dash glanced around for a moment before shaking her head out and following right behind him.

The stallion emerged from the cloud and shot towards the windows above the front doors, way out of the reach of the earth pony security guards that were charging towards the commotion.

“Oh no you don’t!” Storm yelled as he angled towards the wall extending over the entrance to east hallway and executed his Surface Tap technique, propelling him from the wall towards the stallion and closing the distance fast.

“Try me, kid!” the stallion sneered as Storm shot towards him. Right as Storm was within striking distance, the stallion did an impossibly quick change of direction, causing Storm to fly right over his head and crash into the windows, thankfully without enough force to shatter it, instead just bouncing off.

The stallion glanced to his left to see Dash approaching.

“Gah, gotta get moving!” the stallion stated as Dash drew in.

“You’re not going anywhere!” Dash yelled as she reached for him.

“You think so, huh?” the stallion jeered as he began making many small turns and shifts. “Seeya!” he yelled as he made a sharp shift, and suddenly fired towards the windows at an alarming speed from a dead stop. He moved so fast that his mane left a blurred white streak behind him as he smashed into the large windows over the entrance and went right through them, shattering a large portion of it.

“Rgh!” Dash shielded herself as the shards of glass began to fall, but a gust of wind battered her from the side, forcing all the glass flying towards her to change direction and fall safely to the floor.

“After him!” Storm yelled to Dash as he appeared at her side.

“Right!” she nodded as the two shot out the window towards the escaping stallion.

“WOOHOO!” the stallion yelled, before making another nearly impossible shift, angling straight upward and out of their sight.

“Whoa!” Dash and Storm both threw out their wings to stop their momentum before turning around and looking in every direction above them. “Wh…what?” Dash blinked as she and Storm looked down, around, and then back up again.

The stallion was gone… just like that. Even if they figured out which way he went, with the sporadic speeds he was moving at, it would be impossible to catch him now.

Dash and Storm glanced at each other for a moment, both speechless about what just happened even though they both wondered very much what it meant. They descended back through the broken window into the lobby in silence, arriving just in time for the smoke to clear and for the lead squad to recover.

“WHERE IS HE?!” Spitfire demanded, yelling towards Dash and Storm. They both froze as they landed, backing away slightly as Spitfire directed her anger towards them.

“Hey!” Soarin stepped over and gripped Spitfire’s shoulder. “Cool it Spitfire,” he tried to calm her down, but she shook his hoof off. She looked towards Storm and Dash with a glare.

“Well?” she questioned. Dash and Storm glanced at each other, before looking back at Spitfire and both shaking their heads gently. Spitfire’s eyes widened as she looked up at the broken window, and then down at the security team that was surveying the damage and trying to figure out what happened. She turned around and saw multiple Wonderbolts entering the lobby from both hallways, including squad two and three, running in after hearing the loud crash of the window being shattered.

“That…” Spitfire gritted her teeth. “Tears it!” she turned sharply to the approaching squads. “SILVER! FIRE! Get over here NOW!” Spitfire commanded, causing the two captains to pick up their pace from a trot to a gallop.

“What…” Dash walked up behind Soarin. “What just happened here?”

“I wish I could begin to say…” Soarin shook his head as he watched Fire and Silver approach Spitfire.

It made absolutely no sense. Soarin couldn’t make heads or tails of it. There was absolutely no point to what he just saw. In all the other encounters, it seemed like they were being observed from afar. Even in Cloudsdale it felt like a botched surveillance mission by the Shadowbolts… this time…

“The Shadowbolt came right in… as if he wanted us to see him…” Soarin said to himself.

“Huh?” Dash glanced up at Soarin. He shook his head.

“Sorry… just thinking aloud…”

But why… why would a Shadowbolt suddenly show up like that with no regard to secrecy? Was it a taunt? A test? Some kind of game they were playing?

‘Your security really sucks…’ the stallion said before the brief chase. Why would they expose such a weakness and then do nothing? They weren’t under attack right now. The Shadowbolt was clearly there alone. The way Soarin knew the Shadowbolts, they would have exploited a weakness like that. Maybe not Descent, but he saw plenty of types that would do such a thing when he was a prisoner in the Shadowbolt mobile compound.

It was almost as if… it was… a warning? But for what and why? Were the Shadowbolts so confident that they wanted the Wonderbolt compound to be under total lockdown before making their move?

Whatever it was, Soarin definitely agreed with Spitfire. The time for relaxing was over. They had doubled security and patrols and a Shadowbolt walked right in, unseen.

The proof was in the pudding… they were too relaxed. It was time to buckle down.

“Listen up and help me out here!” Spitfire addressed Silver and Fire as they stood attention. “Fire,” she pointed at him first. “Go to the offices and tell them to cancel all shows until further notice, start sending out refunds and waivers for free tickets to our first show whenever we start them up again.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Fire immediately saluted without question and turned to head for the second floor.

“Whoa, hold on a second…” Soarin started moving towards Spitfire.

“Silver!” Spitfire pointed to him. “I need you to…” she trailed off as she saw Soarin approaching her. “Ah, wait,” she held her hoof out and turned to Soarin.

“Spitfire I don’t think we need to—”

“Shut up and listen to me, Soarin,” she said sternly. Soarin shut his mouth and forced himself to listen. Why? Because there wasn’t an ounce of force or paranoia in Spitfire’s voice. Whenever Spitfire was giving orders calmly, he knew she meant business. He would swallow his pride, and listen. Spitfire looked him dead in the eye and took a deep breath.

“Go to Rivet’s workshop… and inform squad zero that, until further notice, I want them prepped and ready at all times for combat.”

A silence brewed between the two of them for a moment as Soarin’s eyes widened slightly.

So she was finally pulling out the stop.

Spitfire turned away from Soarin and faced Silver, lifting an eyebrow as she saw Silver giving her a look that screamed of disapproval. It was hard to miss and it wasn’t the first time Spitfire had seen it. In fact, it was a face he made often whenever the subject of squad zero came up.

“Have something to say to me Silver?” Spitfire asked while holding herself strong in front of Silver.

“No, ma’am,” Silver said immediately, but the look on his face remained. “What are your orders?” he asked.

“I want you to get a hold of our security shift roster and triple the security staff, tell them we’ll pay lots of overtime, just get all available security guards on site NOW! And hire several more if you have the chance!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Silver turned and headed for the second floor as well.

Spitfire took one glance at Soarin before she followed behind Silver, most likely heading to her office to make the emergency announcement over the P.A. system. Soarin glanced back at Fleetfoot, Air Mach, Dash, and Storm. They all looked confused. For different reasons, perhaps, but the sight of Air Mach not goofing off and actually looking genuinely worried was not a pleasant thing. As if even he of all ponies realized just how vulnerable they might be.

Soarin turned to walk towards the west wing, but he stopped when he heard a galloping noise behind him.

“Soarin!” Dash’s voice caught his ears. He turned and looked back at her as she approached from behind. “Um… What should I do?” she asked. Soarin blinked, curious as to why she asked, but then he thought about the situation. A lot of things just happened all at once. Spitfire gave out orders to the top elite captains and just ran off without giving a word to the rest of them. Dash looked confused, and a confused recruit sought direction, so he gladly gave her some.

“Dash,” he turned and placed a hoof gently on her shoulder. “Let us handle some things and you’ll get orders soon. For now, just go get some food in the mess hall, gather up your squad, and return to the barracks. You’ll know what to do next soon,” he looked up as he finished. “Perfect timing, there they are,” he pointed. Dash looked up to see Squall, Little Star, and Matteo entering the lobby and looking in from the east hallway. “Go on, I have a job to do,” Soarin smiled at her. “They need their captain.”

“O-okay…” Dash nodded before breaking off and heading for her Squad. Soarin watched her as she joined up. “Where’s Twister?” Dash asked. The three present members looked around.

“What? He was here a moment ago…” Matteo scratched his head as Dash groaned.

"Whatever, he'll show up eventually, just listen up for a moment..." Dash grunted in frustration as she began explaining what happened.

Soarin turned back and focused on the west hallway as he started walking.

So Spitfire was finally planning on unleashing squad zero… well, it was as good a time as any. They were trained specifically to fight the Shadowbolts and that’s what it looked like Spitfire wanted them to do. These Shadowbolts had been fighting differently, but it was clear the Wonderbolts couldn’t afford to pull any punches, especially with just how far ahead it always seemed they were. They knew everything and expected everything.

A Shadowbolt just slipped by their security no problem. Could he have been a spy? Could he have been the one tipping off all the information? It seemed unlikely. He just exposed himself in the middle of the lobby. If he were trying to snoop around, he wouldn’t have just deliberately made it harder for himself to do so. That’s why Soarin couldn’t shake the thought that it had to be for something else. Why would they make such a brash move? There had to be a reason.

Soarin soon found himself in front of the basement stairs leading down to the research and development sector. He nodded to the security officers as he passed and right as he hit the first step the P.A. came to life.

“Attention, all Wonderbolt personnel,” Spitfire’s voice came over the loud speakers. “This is an emergency announcement. For anypony who was not just in the lobby, a Shadowbolt managed to infiltrate his way into the compound and casually make his way out without much resistance. Due to the ease of the security breach, the following measures will be taking effect.”

Soarin nodded and listened as he made his way down the flight of stairs.

“Until further notice, all shows are cancelled. The security staff will be tripling, don’t expect much privacy. All training facilities are going to be locked down until further notice. The medical facilities, recreational facilities, and of course, the mess hall will remain open. Effective immediately, all Wonderbolts are required to be wearing their flight suit and goggles at all times during the day, or to have them close by to quickly put it on should a need for combat or other organized actions arise.”

Soarin nodded again in agreement as he emerged in the basement hallway and made his way towards Rivet’s workshop as Spitfire continued.

“We are officially on full alert. Nopony gets in or out of the compound until further notice. That means all visitors will be turned away and all social events are postponed. Until we know the nature of what we face, expect these rules to be in effect twenty-four seven. That will be all.”

Soarin pushed open the door to Rivet’s workshop as the P.A. system shut off. He emerged in the large testing area and the first thing he saw was Calm Wind, Playbitz, Swift Justice, and Shine Struck all looking up at the speaker in the corner of the room. Rivet had just emerged from behind the reinforced glass of his workshop and pulled off his welding goggles.

“Did I just hear that correctly?” Rivet asked them as he stepped out. Soarin cleared his throat.

“Yes,” he spoke up. They all turned and looked at him. “Yes you did,” he repeated as he stepped towards them.

Soarin examined each of them closely as he approached. There was a look of uncertainty on their faces and… Soarin didn’t blame them. This was a scenario they were unfamiliar with. They had trained freely and without worry for so long. It looked like they weren’t expecting something like this to ever happen.

Well… if something did happen, then this would be their test. This would be their chance to show if they could live up to the expectations of The Zero Project… if the experimental squad was truly a success or a failure… and the whole compound will finally see who was right. Spitfire… or Silver Lining.

“I don’t think I have to explain to you that we are in a situation right now,” Soarin began as they all listened. “There is a possibility of a conflict between us… and an enemy we know little about. I’m here right now…” he paused hoping that it wouldn’t shock them too much. “Because Spitfire wants all of you activated, ready, and able to engage in combat when the time comes. Understand?”

They all stared for a moment, clearly not sure what to say, but eventually Calm Wind cleared his throat.

“Yes sir,” he nodded. “Guys, this is what we’ve been waiting for!” he tried to encourage them. “Right?” he looked down at Shine. Shine took a deep breath and nodded.

“Right, we’re ready,” she nodded, looking up at Playbitz and Swift. The two glanced at each other, then at Calm and Shine, and finally back to Soarin.

“Yes, sir!” The two said in unison.

“Good,” Soarin nodded as he glanced at Rivet’s lab, a few of his assistants peering out to see what was going on. “Rivet, is everything in your lab secured? No secrets or gear exposed?” he looked down at Rivet.

“Y-yes,” Rivet stepped out from behind Playbitz. “If anything happens, I’m locking me and my staff in until it’s safe. Nothing can get through the reinforced glass… trust me, Calm has crashed into it multiple times and there’s not even a crack.”

“Good to know,” Soarin chuckled. “Okay guys, remember to be—AH!” Soarin suddenly winced and put a hoof to his forehead. The horn suddenly flickered with a combination of blue and yellow light.

“S-Soarin? Sir?” Shine stepped towards him quickly as the rest stared at the horn, wide eyed. Soarin quickly put a hoof out and stopped Shine from getting any closer.

“No! Don’t… worry, this is a normal thing. Just be ready! I’ve gotta go…” Soarin turned sharply and nearly stumbled as he made his way to the door.

“Soarin?!” Shine called again, but Soarin closed the door quickly behind him.

“Rgh… dammit!” Soarin looked up and saw the faint lights dancing around the horn. “Not now! I don’t need this now!” he fumed to himself. It was nothing painful, the two magic auras just randomly decided to act up it seemed and it was causing him a headache, messing with his equilibrium. He stumbled past a few door in the basement hallway before realizing there was no way he was walking straight until he got it under control.

Thankfully, most of the research staff was at the mess hall, so Soarin quickly ducked into a nearby office that was currently without its owner. He stumbled in and closed the door behind him, looking around and finding a comfortable chair that was in the corner. He plopped down in it and put both of his hooves to his forehead beside the horn.

“Calm down… Calm… Down…” Soarin spoke to the horn as he took deep breaths and tried to regain control. It was difficult, but he slowly got a hold of it and started a long process of concentration in order to force it all back into his head.

What Soarin was unaware of… was that a head was sticking out of the ceiling above him. The only head that was capable of doing do… Discord’s head. He watched Soarin from above until Soarin managed to calm the magic down before pulling his head back and appearing in the hallway outside the door.

“You better figure out how to keep that under control…” he grumbled to himself as he began floating down the empty hallway. “Because it’s up to ME to make sure everything works as it should,” he continued as he growled and shook his head. “Dammit Celestia… The things I do for you… you’re always finding ways to put me in a rough position…” he glanced back at the door. “Turn me back to stone for disobeying you if you must… but our plan B is NOT an option I’m willing to consider if I can help it.”

Discord snapped his fingers and disappeared.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

And i have hit 700K words :pinkiegasp:

Oh damn... what just happened? How did a shadowbolt waltz right in without being seen?

Security is tightening even more, but will it be enough?

Will Soarin be able to control himself in a conflict?

Will squad zero make a difference in battle?

Also... looks like Fleetfoot has some personal baggage she rarely lets on about. :fluttershysad:

(For those curious, the reason Fleetfoot knows about the ponyville spa is because of my Fluttermac story: Falling in Love Quietly. It takes place at the EXACT same time as Head in the Clouds and there's a scene where Rarity takes Fluttershy and Fleetfoot to the spa. :rainbowwild:)

lastly... what did Discord mean by 'plan B?' :rainbowhuh:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 87: Lurking in the Shadows

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was edited by Lucky424)

Chapter 87: Lurking in the Shadows

“Twister, give Matteo his feathers back,” Dash said as she yawned and walked towards the door leaving the barracks. She passed right beside a small altercation where Matteo was holding Twister by the neck and glaring at Twister. He wore a plume of feathers on his head made from several black feathers that he plucked off Matteo when he wasn’t looking. “And Matteo, stop trying to snap Twister’s head off, we both know it’s not going to work. Come on, let’s get some breakfast.”

“Hmph…” Matteo grunted as Twister handed the plume to him while wiggling his eyebrows. Matteo dropped Twister, who landed with a loud THUD which was much louder than being dropped from his height should have made, before making a loud SPROING noise, launching from the floor, and landing in Little Star’s bed. Little Star turned and stared flatly at Twister as he began rolling in place on her bed until he was completely wrapped in her sheets like a burrito.

“Really? I just made that bed…” Star sighed. Dash was about to go yank Twister from the bed, but Squall walked by her before she could.

“Cut out the shit, I’m hungry,” Squall said grumpily as he picked up the burrito Twister, slung him over his back, and started moving back towards Dash and Star.

“Heh…” Dash smirked as Squall handled the situation. It looked like he was beginning to be more casual with them. It was nice to see, even if he still got angry at random things and scowled more than ninety percent of the time they were around. Matteo and Squall joined up with Dash and Star as they all made their way out of their barracks and into the hallway leading towards the lobby.

It felt like just another morning… only with security guards standing everywhere in the halls. Dash was walking in front with her squad following behind, small talk and little bits of silliness going on between them all. Dash was carrying a casual conversation with Matteo. Twister, still wrapped up in the sheet, was blowing quiet raspberries at Star from Squall’s back as Squall just sighed and shook his head.

“Hold it!” a low voice suddenly called out to them, causing the whole squad to freeze in place.

A large, earth stallion security guard wearing a white Wonderbolt officer uniform stepped forward and barred their path. Dash stared wide eyed at the security guard, wondering if she… or they had done something wrong.

“All Wonderbolts are required to wear their flight suits while the compound is on a full alert lockdown. Please return to you living quarters and get properly dressed,” the security guard pointed back in the direction they came from before turning and meeting up with two more of the many security guards that were posted in the barracks hallway.

“Oh…” Dash groaned before turning around and looking at the rest of her squad. “That’s right, I forgot about that, let’s go put our flight suits on…” Dash said with slight annoyance. Not that she minded wearing real, genuine Wonderbolt spandex… it just didn’t sound very fun or comfortable to wear it for a whole day.

She could tell she wasn’t the only one. The rest of her squad showed little interest in wearing their suit all day… but that’s how it was going to be. As much as the full alert lockdown sucked, Dash was well aware of why it was happening.

They returned to the barracks and all put on their flight suits, at least they did once they got Twister out of Star’s bed sheet. With another yawn, Dash was waiting by the door again, this time with her suit on and her goggles around her neck.

“Okay, are we ready for ‘let’s go to breakfast’ take two?” she asked with a monotone. She understood the severity of the situation, but who wouldn’t be grumpy if they were dealing with morning grog, were hungry, and were forced back to square one?

They stepped back out into the barracks and began walking again.

“If one of them stops us again, I swear I’m knocking them out,” Matteo grumbled as they passed by the security guards moving up and down the hallway.

“As tempting as that is…” Dash chuckled. “Please don’t do that, I think Spitfire is still miffed at us for breaking the hotel room in Cloudsdale. We don’t need ‘beat up a security guard’ on our record too.”

“Why do they even have security here?” Little Star asked as she looked around. “The recruit barracks is like… the emptiest part of the compound.”

“After what happened yesterday, I guess Spitfire isn’t taking any chances,” Dash answered as she reached to push open the doors to the lobby.

“WAIT!” Twister suddenly zipped in front and stopped Dash’s arm.

“Twister… what are you…” Dash flattened her brow at him.

“We’re on full alert, soldiers! I’ll scout ahead!” he let go of her arm and pushed the middle of the three doors open slightly and stuck his head through it.

“For Celestia’s sake!” Squall growled. “I’m hungry, dammit!” he stepped forward to go through the door to Twister’s left. As soon as he touched the door, it opened and Twister’s head poked through. “WHAT THE—?!”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Twister placed a hoof over Squall’s mouth. “No tears…” he pulled out an apple and gently pushed it into Squall’s mouth. “Only dreams now…”

Squall glared as Twister as he grabbed the apple and took a huge bite out of it.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted as he began wolfing down the apple.

“Enough joking around, we’re all hungry,” Matteo stated as he stepped forward and reached to pull Twister out of the door. Before he could touch him, an orange launched over Twister’s back. Matteo’s eyes widened and he caught it in his talons. He stared at the orange for a moment before sighing. “Carry on,” he said as he stepped back.

“COAST IS CLEAR!” Twister yelled before finally opening the door.

“Great, now MOVE IT!” Dash pushed Twister through the door, the rest of her squad following behind as Star tried giving Squall puppy dog eyes to share his apple, and Matteo’s orange had somehow already completely disappeared, save for the peel.

Even on full alert, Dash’s squad found ways to make her enjoy them. She was glad they weren’t all stiff, but she hoped that was because they were keeping calm and not because they weren’t taking the threat seriously. She had no way of knowing until any sort of conflict actually arose.

The barracks had security guards moving up and down everywhere, but it was nothing compared to the lobby. Squad Foxtrot stared in awe as they moved in. There were security guards everywhere. Dash was sure there was at least two posted side by side every five yards along the wall as well as many moving about in the open areas of the lobby on patrols.

There were also many Wonderbolts moving about. Spitfire had mentioned patrols both inside and around outside of the base in one of the many P.A. announcements she made after the security breach the day before. Dash could only imagine how unpleasant it must’ve been for Wonderbolts assigned to patrols before breakfast.

As they turned towards the east hall, Dash glanced towards the west, something catching her eye.

Soarin was walking past the reception desk and heading towards the stairs. Her instincts told her to wave and say good morning, but Soarin, along with the rest of the Wonderbolts moving about, looked very serious and focused. He was probably busy moving around and helping Spitfire keep everything organized. There was lots of shouting, pointing, and orders being issued all over. It was like the whole compound had changed.

Now things seemed a lot different, and Dash could tell her squad was aware of it too. They were on a full alert lock down, and it was serious business.

With the gravity of the situation becoming much clearer, they made their way into the east hallway and moved towards the mess hall for a breakfast that was probably going to be quick and silent.

“The high tier elites?” Soarin repeated back to Spitfire as the two of them and Fleetfoot walked down the stairs from the third floor, all fully dressed in their flight suits.

“That’s right,” Spitfire nodded as she glanced at a rolled up piece of paper tucked under her left wing. “We’re on lock down, but we can’t neglect watching right outside the base either.”

“We know,” Fleetfoot yawned and rubbed her eyes. “You announced it about three times yesterday,” she said, clearly still trying to wake up. “Squad one through ten on a rolling patrol schedule. I don’t mind that Spitty, I just hate our security guards.”

“They are a bit overly-paranoid,” Soarin added with a slightly grumpy tone as they moved towards a large bulletin board at the start of the east wing of the second floor. It was mounted opposite of Spitfire’s office, right where the hallway began. “When we were just on high alert, one of them didn’t believe I was Soarin until I shoved my I.D. card in his face and rubbed it around,” he threw a hoof out to his side. He didn’t sleep very well due to the magic issues he had the day before and all he wanted to do was get some food.

“It’s their job to be paranoid, Soarin,” Spitfire said sternly as she dropped the patrol schedule from her wing into her hoof and reached it towards the board. “That’s exactly why I hired them, to be paranoid. I don’t want them to let anything go unchecked. These Shadowbolts have proven to be as discreet as they come.”

“I dunno if I’d call exposing themselves in the middle of our lobby discreet,” Fleetfoot rolled her eyes.

“At that point it wouldn’t have mattered,” Spitfire shook her head as she pushed the thumbtack through the schedule and into the board. “If one can do it, we have to assume most of them can. Otherwise we’re being foolish.”

“But why would they?” Soarin asked, still curious about the whole thing. “He walked in and walked out without causing us any harm. All he did was break a window… why?”

“Hell if I know,” Spitfire shook her head. “All I know is that we are very vulnerable, and with the ease of their movement around us, I only trust the high tier elites to leave and patrol. The last thing we need is squads going missing due to surprise or silent attacks,” she explained as several other Wonderbolts in the area began gathering and looking at the schedule. “Just know when we’re supposed to be out there, we have no room to any hiccups in the schedules. Any extra time it takes for us to shift, the bigger window of opportunity it gives them to slip by,” Spitfire finished as she turned and walked towards her office, entering and closing the door behind her quickly.

“What a nice way to start a week,” Fleetfoot sighed as she and Soarin looked over the schedule with the other curious Wonderbolts.

“Full alert, ready at all times in full uniform… I feel like I’m living out one of Silver’s Griffon-Drake war stories,” Soarin said with a light chuckle.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Fleetfoot said with a sigh.

“Believe me, I’m not,” Soarin grumbled. "Had a magic headache all last night, Spitfire cuts me off from breakfast, Shadowbolts possibly sneaking around… this has been a crappy morning.

“Do tell,” Fleetfoot snickered as Soarin groaned and rubbed his forehead. “You look like hell, have you even seen what your mane looks like?”

“Hey, I’m wearing the uniform, don’t give me any more shit,” Soarin snapped, then blinked. “Sorry…” he added with a sigh.

“Yikes, touchy there, princess…” Fleetfoot pouted.

“Wouldn’t be half as bad if I knew what was going on,” Soarin complained. “My head hurts enough from the magic.”

“I hear ya there,” Fleetfoot nodded. “There’s so much happening and so many things contradicting, I think my head is going to burst,” she paused and looked towards Soarin. “Speaking of being ready at all times…” she nudged Soarin, reached up, and shook the goggles that were dangling around her neck. “Forget something?”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked as he reached up and touched his chest before looking down. “Ah… dang it… I left my goggles in my room, I’ll be right back,” he said with an exasperated, grumpy sigh. He broke away from the group and walked back up the stairs to the third floor.

Fleetfoot went back to reading the schedule, and was relieved to see that the lead squad didn’t have a patrol until the afternoon. She perked up and looked back towards the stairs as Soarin came walking back down with his goggles on over his eyes.

“That was fast, did you drop them right outside your—” Fleetfoot stopped and blinked as Soarin completely ignored her and kept walking down the stairs towards the first floor. “Wow, what a grouch…”

Fleetfoot shook her head and looked up at the schedule again briefly before heading towards the stairs herself.

“Move it ponies, move it!” Spitfire ordered as she emerged from her office with more papers tucked under her wing. She worked her way around the ponies observing the patrol schedule and started removing old administrative schedules from the board beside it.

Soarin came down the stairs from the third floor as he stretched the goggles over his horn and let them fall down around his neck. He stopped on the second floor and looked towards the group and Spitfire. He shook his head when he noticed Fleetfoot was gone.

“Sheesh, Fleet… Talk about a short attention span…” he said to himself as he walked towards Spitfire. “What are you putting up now? Anything that’s going to make my day even worse?”

“Careful what you wish for, Soarin,” Spitfire shot back as she finished putting up the other items. “Just an altered schedule for our office workers…” she pointed to the other one. “Also, instructions on where to go for their bed and facility needs. We kind of sprung this lockdown on them last night. It was hell trying to explain to all of them they couldn’t go home and find them a place to sleep on top of it. They’re caught in this dilemma with us. I want to make sure they are as comfortable as we can make them.”

“Oh, right…” Soarin nodded as he looked over the schedule.

“Yeah, don’t give me those grumpy looks, mister. I had one hell of a night last night with all the administrative stuff,” she said sternly as Soarin held up a hoof.

“Alright Spitfire, I get it…” he groaned and put his hoof to his forehead. “I just have a headache…” Soarin froze for a moment as he mentioned his head hurting and sighed, knowing exactly what he was going to get next.

“Are you having problems with the magic again?” Spitfire asked, just as he expected.

“It was just a minor blip last night,” Soarin replied so fast that he nearly cut her off. “Don’t even try to take me off duty, I can handle it.”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” Spitfire shook her head. “I’m just looking out for you, did you see Luna?”

“I tried,” Soarin growled. “I was turned away by the guards every time.”

“What?” Spitfire blinked and furrowed her brow. “When all of this is over I hope I can have a nice long talk with her.”

“Good luck just getting in,” Soarin rolled his eyes. “With the way her guards are acting I’m almost afraid to walk in there and have a blast of divine alicorn magic blow me to pieces.”

“Yo, Captain-lady!” Air Mach’s voice came from the stairs as he reached the top step and turned towards them. He was wearing his full uniform, but still had the cape on with a pair of custom made goggles that looked just like his absurd orange sunglasses “What’s going on over…” Air Mach stopped right in his tracks and looked directly at Soarin.

“What?” Soarin blinked and tipped his head to the side. Air Mach pushed his goggles up and stared at Soarin with a quizzical expression. He eventually shrugged and put his goggled back down.

“Nah, nothing. Thought I just saw you downstairs, must have been Wave,” he said as he approached the board and tried to see over the rest of the ponies.

“Speaking of downstairs… do you need me anymore right now, Spitfire?” Soarin asked. Spitfire looked towards the board and then back at him.

“At the moment no,” she replied.

“Good, cause I’m really hungry,” Soarin complained as he quickly turned to the stairs and made his way down. He had missed his usual breakfast time and was certain he’d do something drastic if he didn’t get something in his stomach.

“OOF!” Dash grunted as she ran directly into sompony’s chest. The rest of squad Foxtrot came to a halt behind her as she bounced off and looked directly at… “Soarin?”

“Oh, hey Dash,” Soarin said greeted with a smile. “Sorry about that, haven’t had breakfast yet, a little eager,” he said with a strange look on his face that Dash could only read as ‘feed me.’

“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Dash chuckled and nudged him. “I know how you are when you’re hungry, get in there!” she stepped aside and let him by.

“Sorry about running into you. Gotta eat!” Soarin stated eagerly, but seriously and gave her a light tap on the shoulder before rushing into the mess hall.

“You run into others a lot,” Matteo immediately stated as they continued into the east hallway and moved back towards the lobby.

“Oh, shut it,” Dash blushed in embarrassment, recalling how often she had run nose-first, directly into Matteo. But that was mostly his fault for being so quiet.

She glanced back at the door to the mess hall as it shut behind them. Soarin was definitely in a different kind of mood. All the running around he was doing, plus he hadn’t had breakfast yet? That was more than enough for him to be a little off. She knew not to get between him and his diet routine. But that was the nature of everything in the compound right now. Everything was different, schedules were completely obliterated, and almost anything and everything they could do was closed down.

They all stopped as they moved no more than ten paces into the lobby before turning in and all looking at each other.

“So…” Star spoke up. “Now what? I don’t feel like sitting in the barracks all day, is there anything we can do?”

They all glanced around at each other. Indeed, with all the facilities closed they had nowhere else to go and nothing to do.

“Me neither,” Matteo agreed with Star as he sat down on the floor. “Why don’t we look around… or something?”

“Where?” Dash shrugged as she shook her head. “We’ve seen the whole compound and walking around randomly might make the security guards question what we’re doing. I’d rather not deal with them. They’re already staring at everypony with a death glare…”

Dash trailed off and began looking around as Star and Matteo continued to converse about what they should do. Twister was standing stiffly with his usual sneer, but vibrating in place. Squall was taking more interest in what was going on around them. Dash followed Squall’s example, examining the never ending commotion of security guards and Wonderbolts moving about. There were even three security ponies standing behind the mail counter with the orange pony. There was no mail being allowed in, but the pony was finding ways to keep himself busy… that is, while being glared at by the security guards.

She looked down the west hallway that she saw Soarin walking down before. The west wing was mostly classrooms and training facilities, nothing recreational. However, security seemed incredibly tight in the west wing, even more so than the lobby itself. Dash knew that Rivet’s workshop was in that direction, along with the research and development labs. There had to be a lot of information stowed away down there, so it made sense that the security detail leading towards it was incredibly high. There were at least three security guards beside every door leading down the west hall way.

“Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Dash blinked and looked towards Twister. He was right beside her, staring at her face from the left.

“Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiii…” he completed the slur followed by his sinister snicker. Dash rolled her eyes and looked back at the hallway…

“Huh?” she blinked as she stared. Something… had changed as she looked away. It took her a moment to realize it, but the first three security guards posted outside the west hall classroom closest to the lobby… had vanished. “Uh…” she looked to her right and her eyes widened when she saw Squall staring towards the west hall as well. He turned and looked at her.

“Did…” he blinked. “Did anypony else just see that?” he pointed. Dash quickly turned to him as Star and Matteo turned their attention to him as well.

“What? What did you see?” Dash demanded. “I was just looking and the first group of security guards was gone when I looked back, did you see what happened?”

“They…” Squall blinked, “I don’t know! The same thing happened to me! I looked away, and then back and they were gone!”

“Foxtrot! Let’s go!” Dash suddenly stepped forward, and then looked back towards them. “Come on! We’re Wonderbolts! We can investigate too! I want to make sure I’m not going crazy!” she ordered while beckoning them to follow. They all nodded and obeyed, following Dash across the lobby until they stood at the beginning of the west hallway.

It didn’t take long for any of them to see it. The classroom door that the security guards were posted outside of was slightly ajar.

“I thought all the doors were locked…” Star said quietly as they approached. Dash picked up her pace towards the door, but Matteo reached out and stopped her.

“Dash, be careful… we should stay together,” he suggested. Dash puffed her cheeks out and exhaled.

“Right… that’s probably a good idea,” she agreed. She had to keep herself in check. She couldn’t have her desire to protect everypony from the Shadowbolts get in the way of her common sense. They had no idea what had happened or if it was even related, but they couldn’t take chances.

They all approached the door together. Dash grabbed the side of the door and slowly pulled it open.

Dash and Star gasped as Matteo, and Squall’s eyes widened. Twister popped over the top of Matteo’s head and blinked.

“Oh, that looks… bad,” Twister said as he too stared into the room.

“HEY!” Two security guards, a mare and a stallion, came running towards them. “What are you five doing?! How did you unlock that door?!” one of the earth ponies barked questions at them as they rushed towards them. “Where are the security guards that are supposed to be—,”

“Security! Quick!” Dash jumped away from the door and nearly ran directly into the two approaching guards. “Guys! We have a problem!” she yelled frantically as she pulled the mare over and pointed into the room. The security guard’s eyes widened.

Three security stallions were sprawled out on the floor in the classroom, moaning and groaning in pain. Their officer uniforms were ripped and torn and they were covered from head to toe in nasty looking bruises. They all writhed and wailed on the floor, one of them curled up into a ball with tears rolling down his face.

“We…we…” Dash stuttered and gulped. “Saw them disappear and… the door was open… and we… found them like…”

“WE’VE GOT A SITUATION OVER HERE!” the security mare wasted no time in yelling out, causing multiple Wonderbolts and security guards to turn and look towards her. “Somepony get Captain Spitfire down here! NOW!”

“What is this…?” Fleetfoot shook her head as she held a hoof to her mouth and looked over the three security guards lying on the floor in the hallway. She, Soarin, Spitfire, and Air Mach all surveyed the situation as Bliss worked. She and multiple unicorns from her medical team were crouched around the injured security guards as they carefully moved them onto the stretchers. A crowd had formed around the scene, Wonderbolts and security guards alike, all wondering what was going on and how three guards were suddenly found in such a damaged state. The members of squads one, two, and three, except for Silver Lining, were up front, getting a full view of the dilemma.

“Multiple body blows…” Bliss spoke as she examined one of the stallions. “Heavy bruising all over… not too many hits taken to the neck or head… it’s almost as if whoever attacked them just wanted to beat them senseless… and that’s more or less what they did,” she sighed and stood up, facing Spitfire, Soarin and Fleetfoot. “I didn’t feel any breakages or fractures on any of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two more hits would’ve have caused such injuries, they’ve been beaten to the point of breaking and left to feel the extreme pain. I’m not surprised they didn’t call for help, I doubt they could utter a word with how much they’ve been—”

“Okay, okay… sorry, Bliss,” Spitfire held a hoof up. “Please continue helping them. I’d just… rather not hear about how my security guards have been tortured,” Spitfire requested. Bliss sighed and nodded.

“I’ll move this one to the training room… Mahogany!” Bliss called to her yellow, dark-red maned assistant. “Help me out here,” she asked. The two used their magic to grab the ends of the stretcher, hoist it up and began moving through the crowd. “Move it! I have an injured pony here!” Bliss called out as the crowd parted for her.

“One of them has to be in the base,” Fleetfoot spoke up from between Spitfire and Soarin. “They have to be. Are they really so good that we can’t even keep them out during a full alert lock-down?”

“Something isn’t right here,” Soarin spoke up, catching both of their attention as he crouched down and looked over one of the two injured stallions. He looked him over carefully and shook his head. “Every single time we’ve encountered these Shadowbolts…” Soarin stood back up and faced the rest of his squad. “They’ve avoided us and haven’t causes us a single injury,” he looked down at the two stallions. “Then out of nowhere, they beat the tar out of three of our guards? Why?”

“I don’t think ‘why’ is a question we’ve had the luxury of being answered lately,” Spitfire shook her head. “They taunt us multiple times, get us to increase our security, and then this,” Spitfire growled. “All I see, is them once again trying to show us how much further along they are than us and I’ve had it…” She turned and looked back through the crowd. “Silver?” she called.

“Over here, Captain.” Silver called back.

“Come on,” Spitfire made a head motion to her squad. They all followed behind her as they made their way through the crowd and towards the wall of the hallway where Silver Lining stood beside squad Foxtrot. They were all sitting on the floor away from the crowd, all looking a little surprised and confused. Silver himself was standing beside Dash with his hoof on her shoulder as he turned and looked at Spitfire approaching.

“How are they doing?” Fleetfoot asked before Spitfire could speak up.

“A little shaken,” Silver stepped away from Dash. “But they’re fine.”

“Good,” Spitfire started stepping past Silver, but he reached out and caught her. “Silver?” she looked at him flatly.

“Go easy on them,” Silver said as he looked directly into her eyes. The two said nothing else for a moment before Spitfire turned to Dash and slowly approached.

“Rainbow Dash,” she said in a tone that she was forcing to be a little less stern. Dash looked up at her, her eyes filled with worry. “I want you tell me everything you saw,” she asked slowly.

Dash swallowed and looked towards Squall.

“Squall and I were looking down the west hallway from the lobby,” her voice was surprisingly not very shaken despite the slight look of shock that she wore. She, Squall, and Star all had a similar look of surprise on their face. Twister was being Twister, and Spitfire was more than certain Matteo had seen his share of brutal sights in the Griffon Kingdom. “We both looked away for all of two seconds, and when we looked back… these three security guards were gone and the door over here was slightly open, when we went to check what happened, we opened the door and found them on the floor…” she fully explained.

“Two seconds?” Fleetfoot’s eyes widened.

“AND…” Air Mach cut in. “They took out three guards without causing any noise? What manner of foe are we dealing with here?”

“CAPTAIN!” a voice suddenly yelled from the lobby.

All eyes turned to a Wonderbolt as she galloped into the west hall.

“Captain! Up on the second floor! Two security guards were found brutally beaten in the board room!”

“WHAT?!” Spitfire reacted instantly as a collective gasp sounded throughout the crowd.

Dash’s eyes widened, but the shock was quickly calmed as Soarin stepped over and placed a hoof on her shoulder.

“THAT… RGH! I’m sick of this!” Spitfire yelled out before hovering up so everypony around could see her. “EVERYPONY LISTEN UP!” she yelled. “I want all the security guards here to get back to your posts NOW and for Celestia’s sake WATCH YOUR BACKS! MOVE! ON THE DOUBLE!” she pointed. The security ponies instantly began moving. “Wonderbolts!” Spitfire continued. “Starting right now, EVERYTHING is locked down, I want every single one of you to gather up your squads and start a compound-wide search for whoever is responsible for this! Leave no stone unturned, no nook or cranny unchecked! If you find anything, report immediately, if you find a Shadowbolt, I don’t care what you do to get our attention, pull a fire alarm if you have to, just WARN US! GO! GO! GO!”

As soon as she gave her orders, the Wonderbolts dispersed, finding their squadmates and moving off in multiple different directions. Some of them lifted off and glided to cover ground faster, breaking away to check up the stairs, into the east hallway and any other place they could.

“Silver,” Soarin spoke up as he readied to start searching with the lead squad.

“Sir?” Silver saluted as Wave Chill, Blaze, and High Winds gathered behind them.

“Do me a favor and watch over Foxtrot,” Soarin pointed towards Dash and her squad. “I don’t know if I trust them being alone in the recruit barracks, not with some lunatic running around hurting our ponies.”

Silver looked towards squad Foxtrot and nodded.

“Yes, sir, I will take them along with us on our search,” he agreed.

“Thanks,” Soarin smiled as he reached down and pulled his goggled up over his eyes.

Dash watched as Soarin and the lead squad took off down the halls before turning her head towards her squad. They were all looking towards her, and as their captain, she felt inclined to guide them, but what was she supposed to say?

She actually didn’t need to say anything.

“On your hooves, Foxtrot!” Silver ordered as he stepped towards them. They all blinked and looked at him. “Don’t make me say it again! Commander Soarin has entrusted you five to me! And dammit, if that’s gonna be the case then you’re all gonna help squad two search for this asshole that thinks he can run around our compound and knock around our security guards! DO YOU READ ME LOUD AND CLEAR?! OR ARE YOUR EARS HARDER OF HEARING THAN MINE?!”

Squall, Matteo, Twister, and Star all looked towards Dash as she set her hooves on the floor firmly and rose up.

“Sir! Yes, Sir!” Dash called out. As soon as their captain was up, the rest of squad Foxtrot rose up as well.

“Sir! Yes, Sir!” they all said in unison.

“Good! Now let’s move!” Silver made a sharp head motion as he spread his wings and cracked his neck before lifting off. Wave, Blaze, and Winds all followed with squad Foxtrot close behind.

The search had begun… but would they even find anything?

“Nope!” said Surprise as she closed a door in the east hallway behind her. She went to the next door and looked in. “Nope!” she closed that one too, continuing the process as they went down the hall.

“This locker room is clean,” Lightning streak emerged from the locker room behind Fire and Misty as they surveyed the area to make sure the security teams were in place. Fire turned around and blinked, glaring at his brother.

“Did you just go into a mare’s locker room?!” Fire smacked a hoof over his face.

“Hey, the captain said to leave no stone unturned!” Lightning chuckled. Fire reached forward and grabbed him by the neck of his suit.

“GET SERIOUS, FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE!” he belted into Lightning’s face while shaking him.

“Sheesh, bro…” Lightning gritted his teeth as Misty pulled fire off of his brother.

“Just…” Fire calmed down as Misty got between them and pushed Fire away while giving him an angry pout. “Just keep searching…” Fire sighed as he turned away from Misty and looked back towards the lobby. “Oh!” Fire blinked as he saw Soarin making his way towards the lobby. “Commander Soarin!” Fire called, eager to report what they had checked so far.

“WHOA!” Surprise suddenly yelped. Fire turned around to see her shaking her hooves off near a heating vent. “I didn’t think these things got so hot!”

“I don’t think you need to check the super-hot vents, babe…” Lightning said casually from below her. Fire shook his head and looked back.

“Commander Soar…in?” he stopped and blinked. Soarin had disappeared. “Must’ve been in a hurry…”

“Captain Fire!” Storm Front’s voice suddenly caught Fire’s attention. He turned to see squad seven emerge from the mess hall.

“Storm? What is it?” he asked as squad seven caught their breath.

“Six security guards! All badly beaten! In the mess hall!” Storm frantically pointed. Fire’s ears stood up.

“Blast it! Go get Bliss, now!” he ordered.

“This is crazy…” Fleetfoot commented as she, Soarin, and Air Mach opened the doors to the second floor offices, moving in and checking around inside them. “He or she could be anywhere!” she exclaimed as she shut an office door behind her. “We don’t even know what we’re looking for!”

“We’re looking for a Shadowbolt!” Spitfire called from another office before stepping out and pulling the door shut behind her.

“Well, duh!” Fleetfoot fired back, “But for all we know, they could be long gone now! What if this was what they wanted us to do?” Fleetfoot threw her arms out. “They’ve been messing with us after all! They could be getting laughs out of us running around like this!”

“Fleetfoot, shut up, and keep looking!” Spitfire ordered before turning her back on her.

“Hey!” Fleetfoot hovered over to her before she could open another door. “Don’t start taking your anger out on us again!” she yelled. Spitfire glared at Fleetfoot and growled.

“LADIES!” Air Mach flew up and put himself between them. “This isn’t working, I’m all for rivalries, but now’s not the time!” he managed to keep the hero tone in his voice despite trying to be serious. “Cool it until we find this bastard!” he said while pointing at both of them.

“Sorry…” Spitfire said as she took a few deep breaths. “Come on,” she made a head motion to Fleetfoot. “Let’s keep look—” she opened up the office door in front of her and two bodies fell out onto her. “AH!” she yelped as Fleetfoot shrieked and clung to Air Mach.

Two security mares flopped off of Spitfire and fell to the floor, both wailing and writhing in pain.

Fleetfoot let go of Air Mach and put her hooves to her mouth. Air Mach growled and gritted his teeth.

“I swear…” he growled. “When I find out who’s doing this to my comrades…” he stomped a hoof hard on the floor. “I’m going to give them a beating equal to all the pain they’ve caused!” he exclaimed.

“Hey!” Spitfire called down the hall to another Wonderbolt squad. “Come over here and help us out!” she ordered. She looked back at Air Mach and Fleetfoot before looking down at the floor and gritted her teeth. “How many more…? Haven’t they made their point?!” she yelled out while arching her neck back and shouting in frustration towards the ceiling.

Spitfire took a few deep breaths as two Wonderbolt squads arrived on scene to help with the two new wounded security guards.

“And why…” she shook her head. “It’s only the security team… we’re all frantically running around here and…” Spitfire blinked and looked up. Soarin was walking away from them towards the stairs. “Soarin?” she tipped her head to the side. “HEY! SOARIN!” she called, but Soarin kept walking. “Where do you think you’re going?! HEY!” she called again, but Soarin turned and walked up the stairs. “What the hell is he—” Spitfire turned, ready to go pursue Soarin but,

“Nothing in here,” Soarin’s voice suddenly came from a nearby office. He stepped out and closed the door behind him. His eyes widened as he saw the two earth mares on the floor. “Dammit… more of them?!” he walked up, but stopped in his tracks when he saw Spitfire, Fleetfoot and Air Mach all looking at him strangely. “What?” he blinked as he looked between them all. Spitfire glanced between him and the stairs.

“Soarin…” Spitfire looked at him with one of the most perplexed expressions he had ever seen. “I swear I just saw you go up the stairs,” she pointed.

“Huh?” Soarin tipped his head and turned to look at the stairs. “I’ve been here with you guys the whole time.”

“Actually…” Fleetfoot spoke up. “Earlier today Soarin walked by me and ignored me when I tried talking to him,” she looked at Spitfire.

“And…” Air Mach also looked towards Spitfire. “I was sure before that I saw Soarin in the west wing downstairs… then I saw him up here… just like… now…”

All four of them stared at each other in silence… and then all at once their ears shot up, their jaws dropped, and eyes widened. Soarin, Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach all turned and fired towards the stairs.

“Stay together and leave nothing unturned!” Silver ordered. As he, squad two and squad Foxtrot moved towards the recreation room on the third floor. “Tear apart the place if you have to. I never liked this room anyway,” he grumbled under his breath. Squad Foxtrot was staring in awe at the social area as they moved in.

“Wow…” Star blinked. “I had no idea this room even existed!”

“Sorry, elites only,” Blaze chuckled as she passed by them. Following close behind her was Wave.

“It’s open to everypony, don’t listen to her,” Wave whispered to them as Foxtrot began to move with them.

“Huh?” Dash’s ears stood up as she heard another set of hooves make its way up the stairs behind them. There were other security guards up on the third floor, but arguably the least of any floor because it was nothing but living quarters. Nevertheless, her curiosity got the better of her, and Dash found herself turning around to see who was coming up the stairs behind them. They were the only Wonderbolt squads up there so far, after all.

“Soarin?” Dash said to herself as she saw Soarin reach the top of the stairs, look back and look back and forth down the halls before turning and looking directly at Dash.

Dash stared at Soarin as his eyes widened slightly. He blinked, and quickly turned away before heading down the west side of the third floor.

“Whoa, hold on a second!” Dash called to him, but he was already around the corner. She disregarded staying with her squad and began following. Spitfire said that no Wonderbolts should be without their squad. Obviously this was for protection purposes. She wasn’t going to let Soarin go on without somepony backing him up.

She turned the corner and flinched in surprise. Soarin was already halfway down the hall, trotting incredibly fast. The security guards all nodded at him as he passed, but Soarin didn’t nod in response.

Dash didn’t like him moving by himself, so she quickly broke into a canter after him. Where was he going anyway? He had walked way past his own room. He was heading towards the low tier elite rooms now. Plus, he wasn’t stopping to check any of the rooms… so… why?

Dash stopped cold in her tracks and her eyes widened.

The moment Soarin reached the end of the hallway…

He turned…

And threw himself at the last security guard posted, punching him across the face and knocking him to the ground.

Dash gasped as the security guards in the immediate area all turned and started charging towards Soarin.

Dash watched in horror as each one tried to subdue Soarin, but every attempt was met with a brutal beating. One by one the guards fell, crying in pain and cringing, covered in bruises.

“SOARIN! STOP!” Dash yelled as she broke into a gallop. She had no idea what she was seeing, but something was incredibly wrong. Why was Soarin attacking the security guards? Was the magic going haywire under stress? Whatever it was, she had to stop it!

She leapt up and took off, pumping her wings in hopes of getting there before any more security guards could be hurt, but by the time she landed, Soarin had just knocked down the twelfth and final security guard posted in the area.

“Soarin!” she yelled his name as Soarin turned and glared at her. “Soarin what are you doing?!” she cried out, a look of utter dread on her face at all the security guards crying out painfully at his hooves. “Stop! Please st—” she gasped as Soarin pulled back and punched towards her face. She had no time to wonder why, or react.

“I DON’T THINK SO!” A voice called out from behind Dash.

Silver rushed forward, shifted in front of her, threw up his left arm, and caught Soarin’s punch. The force of the attack pushed Silver’s back into Dash and knocked her backwards, causing her to trip and fall over one of the wounded security guards. The guard yelped in pain as Dash fell on top of him. She quickly scrambled off the guard and turned over, propping herself up on her elbows and back, staring up in horror as Silver and Soarin fiercely grappled each other. They growled and snarled in each other’s faces as they struggled, tipping left and right as they tried to gain the advantage. The stepped and stumbled around, stepping on the fallen earth ponies, causing screams and wails of pain as they moved around. The whole sight was horrific… Dash didn’t know what was happening in any shape or form.

“RGGH!!!!!” Silver growled as he began forcing Soarin backwards towards the end wall of the hallway. “You!” he growled. YOU… RGH… AREN’T… SOARIN!!!!” he yelled into Soarin’s face. He pulled his head back to deliver a heavy headbutt to Soarin’s face, but Soarin ducked way down at the last moment. Silver’s head to flew over him and put him in a vulnerable position.

“NO!” Dash yelled out as Soarin began unloading multiple heavy blows to Silver’s body.

“AH! ARGH! AUGH!” Silver grunted and coughed as Soarin delivered at least twelve punches to his chest and stomach. But Silver growled, reached down, and caught both of Soarin’s arms while shivering. “Heh… Sorry kid… But I don’t… feel… PAIN!” he tried forcing Soarin’s arms back, but as soon as he applied the force, Soarin let up, causing Silver to fall forward into him. Using leverage, Soarin turned, grabbed Silver’s arm, and hurled him over his back, slamming him directly into the wall behind them. “AAAAARRRGHH!” Silver yelled as Soarin let go and Silver slid down the wall, landing head first with a cringe worthy THUMP.

Silver collapsed in a heap, but turned over and tried to stand immediately. He toppled over as soon as he managed to push himself up at all, completely dizzy.

“STOP IT!” Dash yelled. “STOP HURTING HIM!” she yelled while glaring at Soarin, still propped up on her elbows on the floor. Soarin turned away from Silver and glared at her. As soon as his eyes met hers, Dash froze.

It… didn’t look like Soarin’s eyes. She had never seen Soarin give anypony a glare like it, friend or foe. It was paralyzing, full of hatred and malice.

He turned and started walking towards her.

Dash’s pupils shrank, hear heart raced, and her breath quickened as she tried shimmying her way backwards, but she quickly ran into one of the security guards down on the floor. Soarin reached down and grabbed her by the neck.

“AH!” Dash yelped as she reached over and clamped her hooves over Soarin’s arm as he hoisted her up into the air. She kicked her legs and flapped her wings, but she couldn’t loosen Soarin’s grip. Soarin turned and slammed her against the wall. Her mouth opened to yelp, but she couldn’t. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. Soarin’s hoof was pressing against her neck… her vocal cords. She couldn’t make a sound and even if she tried, they were at the end of the hall way, so far from the rec room that she doubted squad two or Foxtrot could hear her. Silver was struggling to stand, disoriented from the blow to his head. He was clearly trying to save Dash. He kept getting up, taking a step, and stumbling over the multiple bodies on the floor, his equilibrium off-kilter.

Dash looked back at Soarin as she struggled to breathe. Her eyes widened as Soarin’s horn suddenly began to glow…

But…

It glowed… pink?

What was going on?

Suddenly a loud BOOM sounded out from down the hallway, the building shaking slightly.

“RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” A battle cry sounded out. Soarin turned to look…

A light blue hoof struck Soarin in the face so suddenly and so hard that it knocked his goggles halfway up onto his forehead. Soarin’s grip instantly loosened from Dash and he launched from his spot, flying past Silver, and slamming against the end wall.

Dash fell to the ground, reaching her hoof over to rub her neck while gasping for air. She looked up to see who her savior was.

“What…? Soarin?” she blinked as she looked up at... another Soarin floating in front of her? She looked over at the wall behind Silver. The pony on the wall… was ALSO Soarin? She looked between the two of them as the Soarin in front of her growled and glared at the other.

“Looks like we were right…” Spitfire said as she flew up besides Soarin. Fleetfoot and Air Mach flew over and helped Silver get to his hooves.

“WHO ARE YOU?!” Soarin demanded as he placed himself between Dash and the other Soarin. As the other Soarin fell off the wall and landed roughly on all four hooves, the horn on his head fell off and floated above him, surrounded in a pink light.

“Rgghh…” the other Soarin growled as he began to flicker, his appearance becoming distorted and pulsing.

“What the hell?” Fleetfoot backed away as Air Mach helped Silver move away as well. The other Soarin was making scratching and fuzzy noises as his image continued to warp, distort, and wobble. The detached horn floated above him, glowing brighter and brighter with a pink aura.

“Pink…” Soarin blinked as he watched. “I’ve seen that kind of magic aura before!”

The horn suddenly flickered intensely, and then stopped. As it remained stationary, pink light started from the tip of the horn and ran down it… as it did, it revealed…

A pink crystal.

Soarin, Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all stared at it, alarmed. None of them were as alarmed as Spitfire. She shivered at the site, remembering well what happened the last time she saw one.

“They finally pull out the crystals…” Soarin gritted his teeth. “It was only a matter of time.”

“Spitfire…” Fleetfoot leaned against her. “Spitfire, stay cool,” she tried to comfort Spitfire, who was clearly terrified of the crystal, despite trying hard not to show it.

The image of the other Soarin started flickering more, just like the crystal did, the image eventually became in credibly fuzzy… and then stopped moving all together. A pink glow appeared at the top of his head, and started moving down the other Soarin’s face and towards his body.

“I wonder which one of our friends this is…” Air Mach growled as let Silver back onto his hooves.

The light began traveling down… but…

“Huh?” Spitfire blinked.

As the pony was revealed… something was different. The colors were light orange with a bright red mane. A combination they hadn’t seen yet with the new Shadowbolts.

“What?!” Fleetfoot gasped.

The stallion was wearing a Shadowbolt flight mask… AND a pair of the tilted yellow goggles. No red goggles or matching red headband with tassels… It was the old Shadowbolt uniform.

The stallion growled and gritted his teeth.

“Dammit…” the stallion uttered as he turned and scowled at them.

Soarin’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened as he took a step backwards.

That voice...

He knew that voice!

Art by: Foxenawolf

“RAPIDFIRE?!?!?!”

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

Chapter 88: Surrounded by Shadows

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was edited by Lucky424)

Chapter 88: Surrounded by Shadows

Old wounds, emotions, and grudges danced about in the minds of the lead squad Wonderbolts as they stared into the familiar, sharp glare of their former wingmate. Rapidfire’s nostrils flared as his gaze darted between six pairs of eyes staring at him.

Instinctively, Soarin immediately shifted to make sure he was between Rapidfire and Dash, wanting to keep him as far away from her as possible.

Spitfire was gritting her teeth and visibly shivering at the sight of the crystal. She was not scared, she had full control of herself, but her body was reacting to the sight of something that had traumatized her in the past.

Fleetfoot was filled with conflicting thoughts. It had been a long time since she had to worry about him. She had gotten so used to the peace of mind without him that his sudden appearance had her brain going in circles.

Dash quickly stepped forward as Soarin put himself in front of her. Seeing Rapidfire was both shocking and unnerving. She was there when he became a Shadowbolt and went berserk in the skies of Canterlot… and how could she forget when he tried to kill Soarin in a sparring match? He didn’t scare her like Nightshade used to, but knowing what he was capable of made him dangerous.

Silver, while just as surprised as the rest, held firm and composed regardless. He had disliked Rapidfire from the very start, never truly approving of how quickly he moved up in the ranks. Silver felt nopony had ever been harsh enough with him. He made it through Silver’s recruit training, but after that was doted upon as the son of the Wonderbolt captains. Careless, reckless, and rebellious. When Rapidfire defected to the Shadowbolts several months back, Silver wasn’t very surprised.

“Grrr…” Air Mach began growling as he glanced down at all the brutally beaten security guards, covered in bruises, some of them bleeding. They were groaning and wailing in pain, a few of them crying as they twitched and clutched their bodies tightly, all beaten to the brink of breaking. Air Mach couldn’t stand the sight, and his breathing had become intense, hissing through his nose as he glared at Rapidfire. Silver quickly noticed Air Mach’s demeanor.

“Easy, Air Mach,” Silver said quietly to him. “Nothing rash,” he added. Silver wasn’t as familiar with Rapidfire as the lead squad, but the last thing they needed was for one of them to jump the gun.

Soarin suddenly stomped a hoof.

“You!” he spat towards his old rival. “What the hell are you doing here?!” he demanded as he looked Rapidfire over, taking note of the full, old Shadowbolt uniform with the mask and the slanted yellow goggles. “And what the hell is going on?!”

“I have nothing to say to any of you,” Rapidfire said as he reached up and pushed his goggles back down on his face.

“Air Mach!” Silver suddenly yelled. Soarin glanced just in time to see Air Mach leap at Rapidfire.

“Air Mach! Stop!” Spitfire ordered, but he didn’t listen. He threw both of his hooves forward, aiming right for Rapidfire’s face.

“Hmph…” Rapidfire grunted as he reached up and caught Air Mach’s hooves. Rapidfire was pushed backwards by the force and up against the wall as Air Mach shoved him back.

“How dare you hurt our guards! You must have quite a death wish!” Air Mach yelled in Rapidfire’s face as they pushed against each other. Rapidfire lifted an eyebrow and scoffed.

“Really?” he shook his head. “You replaced me with this idiotic twit?” The crystal began to glow and a thin pink aura surrounded Rapidfire. “Laughable.”

“AIR MACH!” Spitfire yelled at the top of her lungs. “GET AWAY FROM HIM! NOW!”

“What the—?” Air Mach blinked as the pink light around Rapidfire grew brighter. Rapidfire forced himself forward, a pulse of pink energy exploding outward from his body. Air Mach was thrown backward, crashing into Soarin and Fleetfoot, catching Dash as well as they all fell into a pile. Spitfire and Silver both shielded themselves as the pulse forced them to skid an inch or two backwards, the wounded security guards all crying out as they were forced along the floor by the powerful force.

Soarin pushed Air Mach off of him and quickly got to his hooves as Fleetfoot and Dash both propped themselves up on the floor and stared.

Rapidfire was surrounded by a pink aura, small sparks and pops emerging around him as small ribbons of the energy bounced from his body.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OVER HERE?!” Blaze’s voice came from down the hall. Dash turned her head to see squads two and Foxtrot approaching quickly.

“STAY BACK!” Soarin yelled, halting all of them in their tracks, skidding to a stop twenty yards away. All eyes were fixed on Rapidfire… Blaze, High Winds, and Wave Chill all recognizing him in an instant. Squall, Twister, Little Star, and Matteo all looked on in confusion, wondering who this new enemy was. They had all heard about Rapidfire from Dash, but had never seen him before.

Soarin stepped over to face Rapidfire straight on, putting himself in front of all of them, even Spitfire. Spitfire was about to protest, but she stopped herself as Soarin set his hooves and a blue glow began to surround his horn.

Rapidfire lifted an eyebrow as Soarin’s magic came to life and the aura surrounding the horn intensified until a blue glow encased his body. It wasn’t as intense as the pink energy around Rapidfire, but the concentration of the magic around Soarin’s horn was glowing brighter than Rapidfire’s entire body.

Spitfire and Silver stepped backwards, helping up Fleetfoot, Dash, and Air Mach as they stayed clear of the display of magic between the two. Dash and Spitfire both wanted to tell Soarin to be careful, but they were too worried about distracting him. If there was one thing that used to drive Soarin, it was protecting others from Rapidfire’s self-serving, shameless actions. Who knew that one day he’d do the same, but with much more on the line?

Rapidfire suddenly glanced towards the window to his right.

“Hmph…” he grunted before looking back at the Wonderbolts. “They’re here…” the glow around him faded. “Too bad, I really wanted to rough you up…” he smirked. “It’s a pity… now I’ll never have the chance.”

The crystal began to glow again, but the buildup was much quicker, the whole thing shining brightly in seconds. The Wonderbolts all shielded their eyes as a bright flash erupted from Rapidfire’s body… and a moment later, when they all looked back up, Rapidfire was gone.

They all frantically looked around. The glow around Soarin’s body faded and the aura surrounding the horn dissipated as he ran forward and stood directly where Rapidfire was a moment ago.

“What…?” Dash spoke up as she took a few steps forward. “What just happened?” she asked as the rest of squad two and her own squad trotted towards them.

“Was that…?!” Blaze ripped her goggles off as the others approached. “RapidMcDoucheface?” she yelled out while pointing towards where Soarin was standing and looking around at the rest of them in disbelief. Fleetfoot nodded slowly.

“And…” Fleetfoot’s ears stood up. “What did he mean by, they’re here?”

They all flinched and yelped in surprise as the familiar, incredibly loud alarm claxons blared out in the hallway. All the Wonderbolts looked up and around.

“An emergency alarm?!” Spitfire blinked as she looked up at one of the indoor sirens mounted on the wall near the ceiling.

“CAPTAIN!” Silver yelled out from beside the window. Spitfire and the rest all turned and looked towards him. Silver was staring out the window with his jaw dropped. “We have… a situation here!” he added as he stepped back and pointed outside. Spitfire pushed past Soarin and galloped up to the window. He eyes widened.

“Oh… my… god…”

The rest of them turned to the windows and eagerly piled up against them to see what had Spitfire in such a shock. It didn’t take long for the rest of them to share her reaction.

Up in the sky, approaching rapidly in the distance…

Shadowbolts…

MULTIPLE Shadowbolts.

They were still a good distance away, so their full numbers could not be discerned. But there were a lot of them, and they were heading directly for the compound. It looked like a cloud of black, purple and yellow. No sign of red. No red goggles or headband, they were all wearing the old Shadowbolt uniforms.

For a moment, nopony could move, all frozen at the sight of their old enemies approaching, seemingly out of nowhere. Where did they come from? Where had they been? Why were these Shadowbolts wearing the old uniform? What did that make the ones wearing the red apparel? As clear and present as these questions were, they didn’t have the luxury of time to think about it. A large force of hostiles were approaching the compound, they had to act.

Spitfire pushed away from the window and took two steps away before looking down at the floor, her eyes darting back and forth as her thoughts raced. Soarin turned towards her and quickly followed.

“It was a set up…” Spitfire blinked as she started talking to herself.

“Spitfire!” Soarin yelled to her as he trotted up beside her. He looked over his shoulder to see Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and squad two all staring at them. All the members of Foxtrot still had their faces pressed to the windows.

“We’re all spread out through the base, looking for a single Shadowbolt,” Spitfire continued as she picked apart the situation out loud. “We’re disorganized, not ready to defend ourselves… Rapidfire was a distraction!”

“Spitfire, we need to get out there!” Soarin stomped a hoof and unfolded his wings. Silver cantered up to Spitfire’s other side.

“Captain! What are your orders!?” Silver asked. Spitfire looked up with a determined expression and sharply turned to the two of them.

“We don’t have time to wonder what the hell is happening!” she stated firmly. Matteo and Twister had turned to look towards her as well, but Dash, Squall, and Star were still staring out the window. “We have bogeys seconds away from our doorstep! We have to act! Silver!” Spitfire pointed at him. “Take squad two and comb the main hallways of the base, rally every Wonderbolt you can find and get them outside!”

“Yes ma’am!” Silver saluted and turned to his squad. “Wave!” he pointed. “Take a flight back and forth through the second floor, get all the Wonderbolts you can find to the front courtyard, NOW!”

“YES, SIR!” Wave yelled as he took off towards the stairs.

“Blaze! High Winds!” Silver turned to the two mares. “I want you two to do the same on the first floor! Blaze, take the east wing. High Winds, the west. Find everypony you can and then GET OUTSIDE!”

“Yes, sir!” they replied in unison before taking off towards the stairs as well. Silver spread his wings, but before he could take off, he looked sharply towards squad Foxtrot, specifically, Dash. He turned and moved towards them.

Soarin stole a brief glance at Silver before looking back to Spitfire.

“What should we do?” Soarin asked. He knew what he had to do and what he wanted to do… go out there and bring the fight to the Shadowbolts, but now wasn’t the time to leap before looking. The Shadowbolts were no ordinary enemies and recklessness would get them hurt, or worse.

“Soarin!” Spitfire put a hoof to his chest. “I’m putting you in command of the lead squad!” she suddenly ordered. Soarin’s eyes widened.

“What?!” he blinked.

“Listen to me dammit!” Spitfire grabbed him by the suit and pulled his face into hers. “I’m going to my office to warn the entire compound through the P.A. system! My top priority is the protection of all Wonderbolts, which includes employees! I need to make sure everypony in here is safe and secure! It will direct any Wonderbolt stragglers outside to join the fight as well. Now GO! You’re in charge out there!” she yelled before releasing his uniform and looking between him, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach. “Get going, grab anypony you find along the way in case squad two misses them… and good luck, I’ll join you once everypony in here is safe!” Spitfire instantly turned, broke into a gallop. After a few steps, she spread her wings and took flight towards the stairs.

Soarin took a deep breath and turned to Fleetfoot and Air Mach.

“You heard Spitfire! Let’s…” Soarin paused and glanced at Dash, who continued to stare out the window along with Squall and Little Star. For a moment he felt the need to help Dash, but when he saw Silver ready to do just that, he felt at ease. He had a job to do. The recruits knew and trusted Silver, whatever orders he was about to give them, they’d follow them. “Let’s go!” Soarin yelled out. He turned and took off towards the stairs with Fleetfoot and Air Mach close behind.

It was far from the first time Dash had seen these Shadowbolts… but the sight was still unnerving. Beyond the shock of seeing them again, she wasn’t scared, nor was she afraid of them. One particular thing was absent when they encountered the new Shadowbolts recently, was the small feeling of dread that came every time she had encountered them since the tornado incident in Ponyville.

The change in the uniform and the strange behavior that left the Wonderbolts unscathed in all the recent encounters has put her heart at ease, freeing it from the terrifying thought… that one of them… could be a certain mare. Seeing Rapidfire… seeing a crystal… seeing the old Shadowbolt uniform… and watching Rapidfire brutally beat down multiple ponies with seemingly no remorse… all of these things rekindled a one of the few, true fears Dash had.

The fear that one of the many Shadowbolts approaching right now… could be Nightshade.

It seemed crazy, Dash saw Nightshade literally explode. They found no sign of her after that, but the Shadowbolt hierarchy was determined through pure strength and fighting prowess. If a pony like Descent was beneath her, then Nightshade’s near sublime toughness spoke for itself.

Dash turned and looked at Star and Squall as the two looked out the window with her. The Shadowbolts were drawing closer and closer, and they couldn’t have looked more confused. Star mentioned before that she was ready for anything… but it looked like she wasn’t so sure about that here. Squall looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes. He always acted as if he could handle anything, but was a scenario like this ever something he was prepared for? Matteo and Twister had already broken away from the windows, having seen what approached. Dash turned to look at them, but instead, she turned to meet the eyes of Silver looking down at her.

“Squad Foxtrot…” Silver said in a very serious tone while pushing his goggles onto his forehead. “Listen carefully.”

Squall and Little Star both slowly turned to face him, Matteo and Twister shifting as well to listen beside Dash.

“We are facing a hostile situation with a large enemy force incoming. The elites are mobilizing to meet them head on,” Silver explained quickly, but calmly. “We need every single Wonderbolt we can get, HOWEVER…” he put a hoof up towards them. “Know what you are getting into. This is not a training exercise, if you have any doubts or anxieties, you will fly into your death,” Silver turned his back to them. “Trust in your wingmates, and remember everything you learned in your training. Your survival depends on it,” he looked at them over his shoulder as he reached up and pushed his goggles down. “I’ll see you all out there.”

He said nothing more. He turned, spread his wings and took flight.

Dash stared wide eyed at him as he left and eventually turned towards the stairs.

Dash’s squad all looked towards her. With all of the authority gone… it left her, their captain. The alarm was still blaring loudly and the anticipation of a coming conflict was weighing heavily around them. Dash turned away from her squad and looked out the window again. The Shadowbolts were closing in. They had to be less than four hundred meters away and closing fast.

“ATTENTION ALL WONDERBOLTS!” Spitfire’s voice blared over the P.A. “THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ANY AND ALL WONDERBOLTS, REPORT TO THE LOBBY FOR IMMEDIATE DISPATCH TO INTERCEPT INCOMING HOSTILES! REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! ALL WONDERBOLT STAFF ASIDE FROM SECURITY ARE TO REPORT TO THE BASEMENT FOR SHELTER! I WANT SQUADS NINETEEN AND TWENTY TO REMAIN IN THE COMPOUND AND HELP ME DIRECT THE STAFF IN AN ORDERLY MANNER! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”

“Well?” Matteo’s voice came from beside Dash. “Are we fighting or are we not?” Dash blinked and looked towards him. The calmness of his voice was soothing in the wake of everything happening.

“If I said no…” Dash smirked. “You’d go out there anyway.”

“Correct,” Matteo nodded.

“Can I go punch things?” Twister appeared on her other side with his usual sneer. “For some reason I really feel like punching things.”

Dash chuckled as she turned to Squall and Star, giving them a nod.

“Guys… I’m not gonna lie… I’m nervous. But you know what? I bet all of the Wonderbolts are nervous. So I don’t plan on hiding,” Dash’s fear of Nightshade was still lingering, but the Wonderbolts springing into action so quickly mixed with Silver’s speech had lit a fire in her heart. The Wonderbolts were getting ready to meet an attack head on. She wasn’t going to let them go out without her. After all… she was a Wonderbolt now too. All five of them were Wonderbolts. “I’m flying out there, and from the looks of things,” Dash looked between Twister and Matteo. “I’m not going out there alone. Star? Squall? Are you guys coming too?”

Star and Squall glanced at each other for a moment, both staring as if trying to read the other. Eventually, Star closed her eyes, smiled and nodded. Squall’s ears pointed upward and his eyes widened as he watched Star turn back towards Dash.

“Yeah,” Star nodded. “You can bet I’m going with you, we…”

“Wait!” Squall reached forward and grabbed Star by the arm. All four of them blinked and looked towards Squall. Star blinked at him before staring down at his hoof holding her arm, and then back at him. He had a worried expression on his face, something they had only seen once before, in the blimp when he thought Star didn’t make it with them.

“Squall?” Dash asked as she took a step towards them.

Squall blinked, shook his head and quickly whisked his mane over to cover his face as he let go of Star’s arm.

“I…” Squall gritted his teeth and growled. “I… if you’re all going out there… then so am I!” he exclaimed while keeping his eyes averted. His voice sounded shaky, but was also filled with resolve. It brought a smile to Dash’s face. Squall was scared, just like she was, but he refused to let them put themselves in danger without him.

He cared.

“Well, what are we waiting for then?” Dash put a hoof forward. “Let’s get moving!” Dash turned, spread her wings, and took off down the hall. A moment later, Twister was flying right behind her with Matteo close behind.

Squall remained stationary for a moment. Little Star had spread her wings but paused to look back at Squall.

“Well, come on tough guy,” she smiled. “Or are you gonna let me go one all by my lonesome?” she gave him fake puppy dog eyes and a pout.”

“Hmph…” Squall grunted before spreading his wings and galloping into a takeoff. Star smiled as she quickly gave chase.

Foxtrot was lagging a little behind, but they would join the battle and help their fellow Wonderbolts.

“ALL SQUADS READY?!” Soarin yelled from up front as all the present Wonderbolts grabbed their goggles.

“AYE!” they replied while pushing their goggles down. The large window above the doors leading into the courtyard slowly opened. Small bits of glass chipped and fell as it moved, having been broken in one place from the new Shadowbolt that snuck in a day before.

“ALL PONIES SET?!” Soarin continued.

“AYE!” The Wonderbolts all opened their wings.

“WONDERBOLTS! GO! GO! GO!” Soarin yelled out as he, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach all sprang up and flew through the hangar window.

“HOO-RAH!” one by one, the rows of Wonderbolts stepped forward and leapt up, taking flight in the full formation and emerging out over the large courtyard of the compound approach. Soarin gave a quick glance back to confirm that all the Wonderbolts had cleared the lobby window before facing forward and fixing his eyes on the Shadowbolts.

The approaching Shadowbolts were less than a hundred meters away and a clash with them was imminent. Unlike the Wonderbolts, the Shadowbolts were not organized, no formations and no order. It was like the Wonderbolts were flying directly into a cloud of ponies. Upon further inspection it seemed like the Shadowbolts had roughly fifty… maybe sixty among their ranks. The Wonderbolts were flying with seventy-one of their eighty elites and a few recruits that had joined in. The Shadowbolts had less numbers than the Wonderbolts, but they couldn’t forget about the crystals. They could turn average ponies into war machines, so in the hooves of Shadowbolts it made each and every one of them incredibly dangerous. Soarin as not worried, however. With their discipline and organized approach, the Wonderbolts were very capable of—

“What…?” Soarin blinked to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

They were seconds from a head on collision… and in those seconds, the Shadowbolts shifted...

And their numbers multiplied. There were easily two hundred of them now!

Then they shifted again… five hundred… six hundred… more and more…

An intense wave of shock and worry passed through the Wonderbolts as they kept flying on course.

How? What just happened? Soarin had no explanation for it. It had to be a trick. There were only fifty Shadowbolts a moment ago and now they were insanely outnumbered in the blink of an eye? There were at least eight hundred Shadowbolts heading directly at them, outnumbering the Wonderbolts nearly ten to one!

Soarin shook his head and glanced back at the Wonderbolts. They were all still flying strong, but behind the goggles he could see wide eyes. Several were looking towards the sudden anomaly with their mouths ajar. They needed encouragement. Spitfire was ensuring the safety of everypony in the compound. It was up to him.

“STEADY!” Soarin yelled. “DON’T BACK DOWN! STAY STRONG!” he encouraged. “FULL FORMATION BURST! ON MY MARK!” he yelled out. He didn’t bother to check if he was acknowledged, but he trusted the will and the resolve of the Wonderbolts.

They closed in with the enormous cloud of Shadowbolts.

Closer…

Closer…

Closer…

“BURST!” Soarin yelled out less than ten yards from colliding.

The entirety of the Wonderbolt formation suddenly dispersed, the ponies all pushing their speed up a notch and firing forward from the formation in a random pattern. Fleetfoot and Air Mach veered off and did the same with a little extra boost from Soarin as they passed by him. The scatter blast of Wonderbolts surprised the Shadowbolts, and the poor sap right up front received a full on, double hoof blow to the face from Soarin.

Soarin growled as he pumped his wings and continued to drive the Shadowbolt backwards, pushing him into another Shadowbolt, and another, and another until he had a pile of five Shadowbolts stacked up in front of him.

“HRRRGHHH!!!!” Soarin growled as he veered down, pushing the Shadowbolts towards the ground. They offered no resistance as they fell, getting closer and closer to the grassy courtyard.

Without hesitation, Soarin slammed all five of them into the ground as hard as he could. The Shadowbolts all grunted and yelped as they struck the ground, their flight suits tearing and their goggles flying off. Soarin pulled up and glided around, looking down at all of them, but stopped and hovered as he stared down at them.

None of them had eyes.

With their goggles removed, all that lay beneath was a glowing pink light in their eye sockets. Moments later they all began writhing painfully, the glow in their eyes brightening as beams of pink light started shining from their bodies.

And then they all exploded.

Soarin shielded himself from the bright light, but there was no shockwave or physical blast. Soarin removed his arm from in front of his eyes… and the five Shadowbolts were gone, as if they had just burst and ceased to exist.

What the hell did he just see?

“WHOA!” Soarin ducked as Air Mach shot by him with two Shadowbolts perusing him. Air Mach let up a little bit of his speed and spun, placing a hoof on the back of the first Shadowbolt’s head and shoved him down, forcing the Shadowbolt face first into the concrete path leading to the front doors. The impact was incredibly cringe-worthy, the goggles shattering off his face and bouncing along the hard pathway. The Shadowbolt lay in a broken heap, his limbs broken and bent in painful directions.

Air Mach pitched back up with the other Shadowbolt still perusing him.

Soarin watched as the exact same process happened, the Shadowbolt bursting into a bright pink light before disappearing completely.

Something was definitely not right.

Soarin looked up at the incredibly uneven dogfight going on above and was seeing the same thing. Shadowbolts were fighting like a swarm, easily ten to fifteen each going after one Wonderbolt at a time. They were taking two or three heavy hits… before they burst. Flashes of pink light were erupting all around the sky above.

Soarin set his hooves and tensed his muscles as he readied to use the Sonic Blastoff.

Were these really ponies? Or were they fighting magic doppelgangers? That would explain how the numbers multiplied out of nowhere, but at the same time, these… clones were physical beings, able to attack. It was no illusion. They were weak, their attacks barely fazing the Wonderbolts and they were going down in a mere few blows. Perhaps that was the strategy, to tire the Wonderbolts out before the real ones revealed themselves?

“HRM!” Soarin grunted as he executed the Sonic Blastoff, an air cone exploding around him as he angled upward and aimed himself directly into the battle above.

If that was really the Shadowbolts’ plan… then they would gladly break all of their little puppets before taking them down too!

“Group up! Squad tactics!” Soarin yelled at the top of his lungs. “Group up! Squad Tactics!” he repeated as his speed took him around the dogfight, alerting all the Wonderbolts to his plan.

If they remained in formations and fought together with their squads, it would lessen the strain of fighting alone. It would also give them the advantage of using all of their strengths, including personal squad maneuvers and abilities that required teamwork to use. When the real Shadowbolts revealed themselves, they would have plenty left in the tank to take them all out.

Now they just had to last that long.

“GO! GO!” Dash yelled to her squad as they, along with a few Wonderbolt stragglers took off in the lobby towards the window, flying above a large crowd of Wonderbolt staff and none combat personnel being moved into the east hall towards the basement.

They were late to the main launch, but they had made it down and were ready to join the fray. At least they were for the first few yards.

“WHAT THE—?!” Dash yelled out as she and her squad came to an abrupt halt.

“Um… there weren’t that many when we looked out the window…” Little Star pointed out the obvious as they all stared in awe. Dash shook her head and glared towards the dogfight. She didn’t get it, but she could see it. The Shadowbolts exploding as they got hit. It was only an assumption, but after seeing Rapidfire nearly mimic a changeling, she was not beyond wondering if the Shadowbolts could multiply themselves too. They had no idea what the full extent of the abilities the crystal granted was, so she wasn’t beyond entertaining the thought.

“What do you think? Magic? Illusions?” Matteo asked in a calm, focused tone as he looked towards Dash. Once again Dash found herself glad to have a wingmate with such a cool head in combat. After the initial sight of the strange scenario before them, Matteo was already trying to break it down.

Dash glanced to her left and right as she watched the Wonderbolts who were late to the party fly by and take only a moment to stare at the scene before diving into the fray.

They weren’t hesitating, so they had no reason to either.

“I guess we’ll just have to punch them and find out!” Dash exclaimed before facing forward. “FOXTROT! LET’S GO!” she yelled as she turned and pumped her wings. All four of them followed behind. Nervous? Yes. Confused? Definitely. Scared? HELL NO! It was time to prove that they earned their spot in the Wonderbolts!

“Well! This certainly was unexpected!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she, Air Mach and Soarin floated with their backs turned to each other. Shadowbolts were charging at them from all directions amidst all the Wonderbolts flying to and fro, being pursued. It had turned into a game of squad tag, the Wonderbolts managing the bizarre situation by running away while packed in their squad formations and letting the Shadowbolts catch up to them one by one before knocking them out of the air. A few squads, like the lead squad, had taken up a position with their backs to each other and taking the attackers together.

“Considering…” Soarin paused as he shifted out and punched an approaching Shadowbolt in the stomach. The Shadowbolt exhaled harshly and fell towards the ground before bursting. “All that we’ve seen…” he grabbed another incoming and passed the Shadowbolt mare to his right, allowing Fleetfoot to slam her hooves down over her head and send her falling as well, before exploding. “In the past hour, that’s a VERY general statement!”

“Duck!” Air Mach yelled. Soarin and Fleetfoot both ducked as Air Mach tossed a Shadowbolt right over his head and into another incoming enemy.

“I’m talking about this!” Fleetfoot yelled at Soarin while throwing her hooves out.

“Also general,” Soarin threw his hooves up to catch a punch from a Shadowbolt mare. He pulled back and punched her in the face, sending her into two Shadowbolt stallions behind her. “We’ve got upwards of eight hundredish Shadowbolts coming at us and when we punch them hard enough they explode into pink light.”

“Fine! Let’s go with both of those!” Fleetfoot clarified as she grabbed an incoming Shadowbolt at the same time as Air Mach and the two swung them into each other before letting them fall. “Both equally worthy of not making ANY sense!”

“In that case, yes!” Soarin agreed as the two glanced at each other. “Hundreds of Shadowbolts, all very weak and easily downed, have no eyes, and explode after a certain amount of punishment… and WHOA!” Soarin looked back forward and braced himself with a backward pump of his wings as he caught a Shadowbolt trying to body slam him. He looked the mare over as he held her back and growled. “And I swear I just destroyed this one!” Soarin complained as he smashed his elbow down over the Shadowbolt mare’s head and sent her flailing downward before she burst into light.

“There’s gotta be somepony controlling them, or multiple ponies controlling them!” Fleetfoot called out as she kept her eyes peeled for any more incoming. “I swear I’ve punched more than one of the same stallion in the face five times! Sheesh! I prefer it when they get the hint the first time!”

“AH!” Soarin yelped as he glanced up. “LOOKOUT! He yelled while reaching over and grabbing Fleetfoot by the arm, yanking her down into a nose dive with him.

“YEEEK!” Fleetfoot shrieked at the sudden descent, but she glanced back just in time to see a whole pack of at least twenty Shadowbolts raining down towards them.

“Gah!” Air Mach yelled as he took the brunt of their charge. He was forced down with them, but quickly extended his wings outward and gave them a powerful flap, pushing himself free and dragging four Shadowbolts out with him.

The rest of them plummeted towards Soarin and Fleetfoot as they dove towards the ground.

“Stay together!” Soarin ordered as he let her go and she took control of her flight beside them. Soarin narrowed his eyes and concentrated, calling forth his magic. He was unsure how often he’d be able to use it after how much of a mess it caused in Cloudsdale, but if they were going to send magic after him, he’d counter it with some of his own! Soarin twisted himself around as the blue magic swirled around his horn and concentrated on the swarm of Shadowbolts following them. Making sure to use just enough to get the job done, Soarin fixed his eyes in the middle of the gathered Shadowbolts and tilted the horn towards them.

A thin beam of magic jettisoned from the horn and as it traveled towards the Shadowbolts. Soarin took a long deep breath and exhaled hard, causing the beam to expand into a cone shape and rush against the Shadowbolts. A few broke off from the cluster as the majority of them were struck by the blast and instantly burst into bright pink lights.

“RGH!” Soarin grunted as the beam dissipated. He put a hoof to his head as he turned back around and leveled out right before striking the ground, grass kicking up in his wake behind him as he zoomed at low altitude across the courtyard.

It was so frustrating! He had more or less mastered how to use the magic with the help of Discord’s mind barrier, and now with it gone, he could barely use it without tearing his brain apart. It was taunting him! “Huh? Fleetfoot?” Soarin blinked and looked back and forth. She was gone.

After a brief moment of worry, he remembered that Fleetfoot was one of the fastest Wonderbolts in the history of the organization. He glanced behind him at the remaining Shadowbolts giving chase. Fleetfoot had looped around and was searing through the air so fast that she appeared to be a blur. Soarin didn’t even know if blur was the right word. She was going so fast, his eyes almost couldn’t follow her.

She angled down and stuck her arms out, striking the back two Shadowbolts in the back of the head. She kept flying forward, catching the remaining four with them and pushing them towards the ground, causing them to crash violently before she put on the breaks and tried to stop beside Soarin. He smirked and shook his head as he reached out and caught her arm to help her slow down. She shrugged as he let go of her.

“What? You were taking too long!” She stuck her tongue out at him before they both looked back forward.

“YIKES!” Soarin thrust his wings out and came to a halt, Fleetfoot doing the same as they reacted to the sight in front of them. There was another large collection of Shadowbolts heading directly towards them. This group was even larger than the previous, and had caught them completely off guard.

“HOO-HAA!” a silly battle cry came from above as large surge of flames rushed down upon the Shadowbolts from above. They all yelped, tumbled, and crashed to the ground as the flames burned around them. A few tried to get up and fly upwards, out of the fire, but a loud POW sounded out, followed by a very strong gust of wind that forced them down and nearly flattened them against the ground. It blew away all the flames, but the damage had been done. The Shadowbolts burst into light upon the scorched ground.

“HEY!” Blaze yelled from above. Soarin and Fleetfoot looked up to see Blaze and High Winds hovering above them. Blaze was rotating her arm while holding a small, sputtering fireball in her hoof. “We don’t have time to watch your sorry plots!” she said with a sneer.

Soarin’s eyes widened. He quickly collected magic in his horn, concentrated, and fired a small focused beam towards Blaze. It shot past her head and exploded in the face of a Shadowbolt trying to get her while her back was turned.

“Whoa!” High Winds pulled back as Blaze shrieked. They both watched the Shadowbolt fall before turning back to Soarin.

Soarin shook his head and blinked a few times from slight dizziness, but then looked up at them and smirked.

“Likewise!” Soarin yelled back.

“INCOMING!” Fleetfoot yelled while pointing up towards Blaze and High Winds. The two turned, yelped and moved aside as Wave Chill shot by between them while grappling with a Shadowbolt stallion. As they neared the ground, Wave managed to turn them around to put the stallion below them. He veered off and aimed right for the fountain in the center of the courtyard.

“Damn!” Soarin cursed as he spread his wings and took off towards them. They were going to hit the fountain!

“WAIT!” Fleetfoot suddenly caught up to Soarin and grabbed his back hoof.

“Fleet?! What are you doing?!” Soarin questioned as Fleetfoot forced him to slow down. She pulled him to a stop and shook her head.

“What are they heading towards?” she pointed.

“The fountain and… oh… right…” Soarin blinked as he looked again.

Wave drove the Shadowbolt directly into the fountain with a loud SPLASH that sent water flying everywhere. An instant later, Wave sprang up out of the water while twisting and shedding the water from his wing feathers. Large streams of water swirled around him and collected over his head. The Shadowbolt grunted and struggled as he reached the edge of the fountain and tried to climb out.

Wave compressed the water as tightly as he could before spinning around and launching the water like a bullet towards the Shadowbolt. It smacked it right in the back of the head, pushing it down with so much force that it catapulted the Shadowbolt’s body out of the fountain and it exploded into light before it even hit the ground.

Wave exhaled as Soarin, Fleetfoot, Blaze and High winds all came together and looked up.

The sky above was still a swarm of Shadowbolts with Wonderbolts stuck within. The Wonderbolts were holding their own against the weak Shadowbolts, but were they actually gaining any ground?

“What is this?” Wave pointed towards the sky, looking towards Soarin and Fleetfoot as Blaze and High Winds took to the air to rejoin the battle. “These are not the same Shadowbolts we fought several months ago, they’re all… faceless, generic copies… weak and exploding after a few hits."

“Believe me, I’ve been trying to figure it out too,” Soarin gritted his teeth as he scanned the dogfight above.

“Less talky-talky, more punchy-in-the-mouthy!” Fleetfoot waved to the two of them as she lifted off and beckoned them to follow.

Soarin and Wave glance at each other before spreading their wings and following behind.

Soarin was beginning to worry. He had seen multiple Shadowbolts go down, several of which he took down himself…

But their numbers appeared to be unchanged or at least dwindling much slower than they should be. In total it looked like they had barely made a dent in their numbers, as if they weren’t actually taking down that many at all. He hoped they weren’t fighting a hopeless battle.

“HORRRYAAA!!!”

Dash turned and ducked as a Shadowbolt flew over her head.

“Watch it Squall! Nice hit, but try to direct them away from us!” she ordered as Squall rolled his eyes without breaking his stance and turned back around to find another target.

They were on the ground on the far side of the courtyard, opposite from Soarin. Matteo had taken a heavy hit from above that had forced him to land. He was still getting up and trying shake off the dizziness with Star trying to help him as Dash, Squall, and Twister took up defensive positions around him.

Dash kept her eyes peeled as the dogfight above them seemed to have lowered. It started way up high in the sky, but soon after they joined the battle, the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts had moved down and were now zipping and shooting by at low altitudes.

“How’s the big guy?!” Dash yelled behind to Star.

“He’s—”

“I’M FINE!” Matteo cut her off as he grunted. “Just give me a moment!”

“Make it quick! We’ve got more incoming!” Dash yelled as four more Shadowbolts, two mares and two stallions. Dash, Squall, and Twister all shifted to face the four of them. As they approached, Dash took note that the two mares were identical… and the two stallions were identical, not to mention that the stallions looked exactly like the one Squall just sent flying over her head before exploding. There were so many strange things happening it almost made her head physically hurt, but they would never know what was going on if they didn’t survive, so it was time to focus on fighting!

“HOORYAA!!” Squall let out his battle cry again as he delivered his signature rapid strikes to one of the stallions, hitting him in the face, chest and stomach before hopping up, and delivering a roundhouse kick to the side of the stallion’s face, knocking his goggles off.

Squall flinched and cringed as the eyeless stallion growled and thrust at him again, Squall pulled back and punched the stallion directly between the eyes. The stallion exploded on the spot, blinding them all a little with the light, but it wasn’t enough to hinder them.

Dash recalled Silver’s movements, rearing back and turning her body to begin the full motion strike. She growled as she snapped her body back forward, putting subtle shifts into every turn and activating every rotator muscle as she thrust her hoof forward. She copied Silver perfectly, landing the blow directly into the cheek of one of the mares. The combined force of the punch and the motions tore a hole in the mare’s flight mask as she completely changed direction and arced through the air away from Dash.

The other mare did a barrel roll to avoid her flailing comrade and headed for Twister.

An instant later, Twister had vanished and appeared on her back. He leaned his head down to her ear.

“I lowered my cholesterol…” he whispered into her ear before jamming his hooves against her back and forcing her into the grass, digging her face through it until she began to glow and exploded.

“AH! SHOOT!” Dash yelped as the second stallion got passed her and flew straight for Little Star. He pulled back his hoof to strike. Star turned just in time to see the Shadowbolt’s hoof, and shut her eyes.

“HURK!” the Shadowbolt suddenly sputtered as Matteo’s arm shot forward and he grabbed the Shadowbolt around the neck. He immediately thrust the Shadowbolt’s head down, slamming it so hard that his whole upper body got pushed into the ground, his back hooves flailing with only his back legs and plot above the grass.

Matteo shielded his eyes as the Shadowbolt burst before standing up.

“I’m up!” Matteo exclaimed while shaking his head out and glaring.

“Good!” Dash nodded as she looked back towards the dogfight that was now less than a few yards overhead. She was ready to give orders and join the rest, but something caught her eye. She gasped. “SILVER!”

Not too far into the swarm, she could see Silver surrounded and fighting off multiple Shadowbolts that were coming at him from all directions. They were charging at him three at a time, making it hard for him to counter the all. He was taking hits, likely weak ones based on what Dash had felt from these Shadowbolts so far, but Silver had clearly been separated from squad two. Dash didn’t like him fighting alone.

Without a word to squad Foxtrot, she spread her wings and shot up into the air, aiming towards Silver.

“Dash?!” Star yelled after her, but she, Matteo, Twister, and Squall were quickly forced to defend themselves again as more Shadowbolts approached them.

Dash pitched and turned as she did her best to avoid the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts zipping by.

“Oof!” Dash grunted as a nearby scuffle took a sharp turn and ran into her side. A dark blue Wonderbolt mare with a yellow mane fighting a Shadowbolt stallion.

“Ah!” the Wonderbolt yelped as she ran into Dash. The impact caused her to lurch forward and into the grip of the Shadowbolt. It took Dash a moment to recover, but by the time she looked back at them, the Shadowbolt had turned them down and the two plummeted towards the ground. Dash’s eyes widened as she saw the situation her fellow Wonderbolt was caught in and readied to give chase, but she was accidentally struck in the side of the head by a passing Wonderbolt, trying to regain control of his flight after breaking free from a Shadowbolt.

Dash found herself tumbling through the air, her ears ringing and her eyes blurry after taking the hit to the head. It took her a few moments before she stabilized herself, her eyes thankfully landing on Silver as they tried to focus. She had been pushed a little ways from her previous spot, but she locked onto Silver again, forgetting about the Wonderbolt she ran into and got caught, she could handle it. Silver was the one surrounded.

Dash used Twister’s Spiral Turn to build up enough motion for Matteo’s Air Burst, using the combination of the torque and strong wing pump for a quick, midair acceleration.

She had to get to him, it was just hard with all of the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts flying everywhere, streaking through the air at such high speeds that she wouldn’t see them coming until they already hit her.

But how were they flying so freely without striking each other?

Awareness, Dash…

Dash perked up as she neared the congested dogfight again.

Awareness… Knowing what’s going on around at all times. Silver hadn’t had many opportunities to trip her recently, but she remembered the first few very well. He couldn’t have stressed it harder, and knew first-hoof how much of a difference awareness could make. She hadn’t forgotten the table pie story about Blizzard Strike counter pranking Comet without looking at him. Heightened awareness turned a skilled pony into a very dangerous one.

All the Wonderbolts seemed to be deducing the best flight paths and reacting to changes and obstacles quickly. If they could, she could too!

She focused her eyes on Silver, but as soon as her flight path was locked into her brain, she shifted her attention to her peripheral vision and anything else that was going on that wasn't Silver.

“WHOA! YIKES!” Dash yelped as she twisted back and forth to avoid a Wonderbolt and a Shadowbolt that shot by her like arrows freshly loosed from a bow. She blinked after dodging them, not quite sure how she did, but she just barely saw them before impact and was able to react. She smiled and kept pressing towards Silver, making small adjustments to her path as she dodged and evaded other pegasi shooting by.

As she finally neared Silver, she got a better look at his situation. He almost had a sphere of Shadowbolts surrounding him. Many were charging at once, but after he took down three or four at a time they would back off, as if afraid to approach him without at least six others at the same time. It was strange that so many Shadowbolts were focusing on Silver alone. Maybe they were aware of how dangerous he was.

He was showcasing a whole new level of awareness himself, taking down Shadowbolts charging from behind him just as easily as those attacking from the front. There was a steady flow of falling, exploding Shadowbolts below him.

What Dash was worried about though, was how it seemed never ending. Not just with the Shadowbolts around Silver, but the Shadowbolts in general. Everywhere she looked, Wonderbolts were taking down Shadowbolts, the pink bursts shining all over the dogfight and through the courtyard, but not once did it look like the Shadowbolts numbers were dwindling at all.

But she’d worry about the Shadowbolts as a whole as soon as she helped her mentor.

Assessing the situation, she noticed that the Shadowbolts around Silver were perfectly packed in an area that left them vulnerable to a burst of wind. Dash was still learning how to strengthen her wind generating techniques… and she didn’t have half the wing muscle that High Winds did, but there was no success without confidence.

She shifted herself upright, using some of her momentum to add to the buildup as she fully opened her wings and reached them back. She tensed her back muscles as she curved her wings and thrust them forward as hard as she could. She felt the air build up in her cupped wings and gave an extra push of strength as they fully reached forward. The collected air burst forward from her wings with a BANG that was not quite as loud as the blasts generated by High Winds, but Dash was sure it would do the job. She wasn’t worried about Silver being affected by the wind, because High Winds said it herself, ‘Only Silver can hold against my wing power.’

The moment Silver heard the wind launch, he thrust his wings out and angled them down. He tensed his whole body while bending his back forward slightly. The rush of wind crashed against him and the Shadowbolts. Silver barely moved an inch from his spot as the Shadowbolts were all blown back and thrown into disarray for a moment. One unlucky Shadowbolt was tossed into Silver, who was quickly grabbed and thrown roughly into a few of his comrades.

Silver turned, expecting to see High Winds at his back as the Shadowbolts began reorganizing around him, but he blinked when he saw Dash instead.

“What’s up?” Dash chuckled as she saw the look on Silver’s face. She cringed lightly when Silver glared at her in response. “Ehh… you’re welcome?”

“You strayed from your squad?” he asked sternly. Dash blinked for a moment, glancing down to see the rest of squad Foxtrot back where she took off from. They were still grounded, but they were more than holding their own. Matteo even looked like he was enjoying himself. Dash looked back at Silver and lifted an eyebrow.

“I don’t see yours,” she said back. Silver furrowed his brow and turned around so they were back to back.

“Fair enough,” he said simply as the Shadowbolts surrounded them. “Since you’re here, I don’t mind the help. Oh and… very impressive, copying High Winds’ exact wind rush motions. You had me fooled, I thought it was her,” he complimented.

Dash didn’t have that much time to absorb the compliment. The Shadowbolts were already coming at them again, many at a time. She wasn’t worried though, and it wasn’t because these ‘energy’ Shadowbolts were weaker. It was because she had Silver covering her back. Likewise, he had her covering his. It made it much easier, only having to focus on the enemies they could see in front of them.

Together, the mentor-student combo held their ground, batting away and dropping Shadowbolt after Shadowbolt that flew at them.

“I just don’t get it!” Dash yelled as she tossed a Shadowbolt downward. “Why do they just keep coming? Why do so many of them look identical?” Dash spun around and swung her arm out, catching a Shadowbolt mare in the side of the head with the back of her hoof.

“There are five different variations,” Silver spoke up as he headbutted a Shadowbolt stallion right between the eyes. “Two mares and three stallions, I haven’t seen any more beyond that.”

Dash blinked and took a closer look. Silver was right. There were three stallion color schemes. Light grey with a purple mane and slightly larger than the others, yellow with a grey mane, and dark blue with a turquoise mane. There were only two mare variations. Cream colored with a red mane and Red with a pink mane. Beyond those colors there were no other variations. None of them however… were the colors of the new Shadowbolts they had encountered recently. Dash was starting to question if there was any connection at all, because so far they couldn’t have seemed more different.

“They each have distinct fighting styles too,” Silver pointed out as he grabbed a Shadowbolt mare and threw her directly downward. “The bigger stallion is fighting more aggressively, the other two seem to be hanging back and waiting for opportunities to strike. One of the mare types is building up speed and trying to launch straight shot attacks while the other is getting up close with smaller attacks.

“How did you find the time to put all that together?” Dash asked in disbelief as she began noticing all the things Silver was pointing out. Dash’s eyes widened as she saw something fly at her head in her peripheral vision. She reached up her right hoof and blocked it just before it hit her face. She glanced over to see it was Silver’s hoof.

“Awareness!” he said with a wink before pulling his hoof free and giving an incoming Shadowbolt stallion a hoof-full of hurt to the face.

“You jerk…” Dash shook her head as she focused forward again. “So then, Mr. Smart Guy, any idea what’s going on here?”

“Hell if I know!” Silver yelled out while grabbing a Shadowbolt stallion by the neck. He turned to his left and reached his other hoof out to grab a Shadowbolt mare that was charging at Dash. “And hell if I care!” he said while holding the two pegasi by the neck. “If they want to throw this light vomiting cannon fodder at us, by all means!” Dash leaned back as Silver smashed the faces of the two Shadowbolts together and they both burst on the spot. Dash shielded her eyes as the bright light erupted between them, but as soon as it faded, the first thing she saw was Silver cracking his neck back and forth. “This is great stress relief!”

Dash had a moment to let loose an amused snort before something caught her eye above them. Squad three and squad seven were flying overhead while being chased by a group of Shadowbolts. Dash’s eyes widened as she saw a cluster of Shadowbolts diving down to intercept the two squads, unbeknownst to them.

“LOOK OUT!” Dash tried yelling up to them, causing Silver to look up and see them as well.

The squads collided with the diving Shadowbolts and were forced to disperse, flying in different directions.

“STORM!” Dash yelled out as she saw Storm Front take a hit to the back and start tumbling towards them.

“Rgh!” Storm grunted as he tried to regain control of his flight. Dash wanted to fly up and help, but she and Silver were both forced to defend themselves as the duplicated Shadowbolts began charging at them again. As she and Silver blocked and countered, Dash kept glancing towards Storm, looking for an opening to help, but no chances arose. Storm was a capable Wonderbolt, and something like recovering from a fall was easy, but the whole area was hazardous. Storm was bouncing off passing Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts, turning all of his efforts to even out into more tumbles.

If Dash didn’t find an opening soon, Storm would fall right past them, and they were only hovering a ten to fifteen yards above the concrete front walk. With the speed Storm was falling at… it would likely end with something broken.

Right before Dash could panic, a streak of light yellow and turquoise came screaming down from above, shooting right towards Storm. It caught up to him as it approached and grabbed hold of his arm. Silver glanced up and chuckled.

“Haven’t seen her fly like that in years… I think she’s enjoying this as much as I am,” Silver said as he shifted and waved his hooves.

“WHOA!” Storm yelped as the blur tossed him towards Silver.

“Gotcha kid!” Silver yelled as he caught Storm and put him upright.

“You okay?” Dash asked while glancing back at Storm. Storm shook his head out and blinked.

“Watch out!” Storm shoved Dash aside and threw a punch into an incoming Shadowbolt stallion’s face. The stallion staggered backwards while trying to maintain flight, but Dash cupped her hooves together and smashed them down over his head, sending him downward as he burst. “I’ll manage!” Storm nodded as he turned his back to Dash and Silver, taking a position with them.

“Heh… and now she’s showing off,” Silver suddenly chuckled again. Dash and Storm looked down to the blur level out and zip around the courtyard, kicking up grass in its wake as is surged along, knocking out multiple Shadowbolts in its path. The blur turned towards them and slowed down as it approached. Dash was forced to turn back and defend herself from an incoming attack, but when she turned and looked again, a fourth pony had joined their little group.

Misty Fly.

She immediately put her back to them and brought her hooves up in a defensive stance. She and Silver turned and glanced at each other briefly. Silver smiled as he reached a hoof up towards her. Misty smirked and bumped a hoof with his before they both turned their backs, ready to fight.

Dash’s and Storm’s eyes brightened when the other, older veteran joined them. Having the two most experienced Wonderbolts backing them up really gave a confidence boost.

Suddenly the odds seemed in their favor, at least in the position that the four of them floated. Dash and Storm had each other’s backs and Misty and Silver had the same. Two rookies and two old veterans.

Dash kept stealing glances at the two as she and Storm worked together. Misty had her eyes closed, her wings twitching as she sensed the movements in the air patterns and reacted to her targets. Misty’s Blind Fighting was still as impressive as ever. Seeing that mixed with Silver’s full motion attacks was like watching two peerless warriors in motion. They weren’t as strong or as fast as the lead squad, but they were experienced… and it looked like they were having fun?

Both Misty and Silver were smiling… grinning rather goofily actually as they fought. It made Dash think back to when she found Silver in his room and how he talked about how there was nothing like being a Wonderbolt and how much he put himself through just to keep going.

This was his life. It was their life, and the day it’s stripped from them… was surely worse than death itself.

“Looks like we’re finally gaining some ground,” Silver spoke up as the Shadowbolts around them suddenly ceased attacking and backed away a little. Misty opened her eyes when she no longer picked up incoming enemies.

“Did they finally get the point with us?” Dash chuckled as she looked around. For the first time, it looked like the Shadowbolt numbers were falling. It took much longer than it should have, but it was proof that they were doing something right. Storm was looking off towards the compound. A large group of Wonderbolts had gathered to prevent any Shadowbolts from getting inside. The Shadowbolts around them were backing away as well.

“They giving up?” Storm thought out loud as it seemed all around the Shadowbolts were backing away. The Wonderbolts flying around came to a halt, and the action died down. They all looked on with bewilderment as the Shadowbolts suddenly stopped moving and fighting all together.

“I don’t like this…” Silver growled.

“What should we do?” Dash asked while glancing at him, but keeping an eye on the Shadowbolts as they hovered around.

Silver never got to answer her.

Suddenly there were multiple pink flashes. In the aftermath of each flash, another Shadowbolt appeared.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me…” Storm whined as the Shadowbolts multiplied right before their very eyes.

The confusion faded amongst the Wonderbolts as they all readied for combat, once more, but even with the Shadowbolt numbers restored, they still remained at a distance from every Wonderbolt.

Dash’s ears stood up as something began to happen with the Shadowbolts… they were floating in place, but… was there pink light glowing from their goggles? It looked so faint at first, but after a few moments, she could see it. They all could see it. The light intensified, their goggles all glowing brightly as if their eyes were like the crystals themselves.

The Wonderbolts didn’t have time to figure out what was going on…

Sharp, fast, pink beams of magic began firing from the eyes of the Shadowbolts all at once. All Dash, Storm, Silver, and Misty could do was shield themselves as they got peppered by the incoming magic.

The Wonderbolts all began grunting and crying out in pain as the sudden barrage of magic shot forth from all directions. It wasn’t long before the every single Wonderbolt in the air was forced to land, no longer able to maintain flight as they were constantly battered by the magic blasts. Dash, Storm, Silver, and Misty all landed roughly, all holding their hooves up in front of them as pink beams shot towards them and all around them with little to no windows for countering to speak of.

Things didn’t look good… They were grounded, and trapped…

The Shadowbolts began to close in, creating a large, dome like perimeter around them, forcing the Wonderbolts to move closer together as if they were being herded. Dash eventually spotted Soarin and Fleetfoot as they were all forced together by the rain of pink magic energy. It kicked up the earth around them, the small explosions upon impact not only kicking up chunks of the front walk, but also ripping apart the Wonderbolt flight suits, causing tears in the fabric, exposing small, stinging burns from the magical energy.

What were they going to do?

Dash couldn’t counter. Silver, Storm, and Misty were all just as stuck, and from the looks of things, Soarin couldn’t concentrate to use his magic. In fact, he was using a hoof to shield the horn from any direct hits.

They had no answer to the magic…

Dash’s ears perked up.

Wait... Actually…

They did…

A sudden yelp came from above and the magic barrage ceased. All the Wonderbolts and the Shadowbolts looked towards a single Shadowbolt that suddenly fell to the ground and burst into light.

Shadowbolts began crying out and falling randomly, as if they were being attacked by something invisible. Dash looked up as the Wonderbolts watched in confusion. With the Shadowbolts in disarray, none of them noticed something large and light blue soaring high above them. It was way too high for Dash to figure out who or what it was. It stopped right over the top of the Shadowbolt perimeter and something tan separated from it before they both began to spin.

The tan object suddenly launched downward, freefalling at a tremendous speed as if it were thrown.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” a voice yelled out as the tan object grew closer and closer.

It was a Wonderbolt.

The packed together Shadowbolts looked up just in time before a pair of enormous wings with black feather tips reached out and swatted down at least twelve of them all at once, cutting a large hole in the top of their perimeter around the Wonderbolts. The new Wonderbolt pulled up, and whisked towards where the rest of the Shadowbolts were dealing with their new invisible foes. A very dark blue pony wearing a Wonderbolt uniform, camouflaged amongst the dark uniforms of the Shadowbolts, reached out and latched onto the passing tan Wonderbolt. The Shadowbolts were now all focused on the two newcomers, but a very large light blue Wonderbolt dropped in through the opening above, leveled out and aimed for the ground. He touched down near the rest of the Wonderbolts and began galloping over the concrete walk, his hooves thundering against the pavement as his speed from flight remained and he thrust his body through the picket of Shadowbolts, opening an avenue of escape along the ground.

“GUYS! Quick!” a female voice caught their attention.

All the Wonderbolts looked towards the new opening to see Shine Struck waving to them. The large, light blue pony slammed his hooves to the ground and skidded to a halt. He turned, his nose flaring and his muscles tensed as he glared towards the Shadowbolts. It was Calm Wind. The two other ponies landed nearby, the tan pony, Playbitz, the dark blue, Swift Justice. All of them in full Wonderbolt flight suits.

“You heard the lady!” Soarin yelled as he broke into a gallop towards the opening.

Without a word, the Wonderbolts followed behind Soarin, escaping the Shadowbolt perimeter before springing back up into the air to get into a favorable position.

The Wonderbolts were airborne once more, floating in front of the compound as the Shadowbolts regrouped and faced them.

The numbers were still hilariously uneven, the Shadowbolts still outnumbering them by maybe as many as twelve for every one of them. The Shadowbolts had revealed their little magic eye beam trick. Simple, long-ranged attacks gave them another advantage, but they revealed their trump card… only for the Wonderbolts to counter it with their own.

Squad zero stood at the ready on the ground as the rest of the Wonderbolts shook off the pain and readied to fight once again.

“SQUAD ZERO! GO!” Shine Struck yelled out.

The four of them sprang into action, taking off and charging up towards the Shadowbolts.

“WONDERBOLTS!” Soarin yelled out. Dash glanced towards him from nearby. “BACK THEM UP!” Soarin yelled as the Wonderbolts began to rejoin the fight right behind squad zero.

The Shadowbolts immediately began firing magic from their eyes again, but it was no longer a surprise. The Wonderbolts shifted and pitched to avoid the barrage as they closed in and another dogfight broke out.

It was time for round two…

And this time the Wonderbolts had squad zero in their corner.

But would they be enough to tip the scales?

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

(Abrupt cut off yay! This was the only place i could cut it off for now :derpytongue2:)

Oh my gursh... wat is going on? :derpyderp2::derpyderp1: Multiplying Shadowbolts that explode when you hit them enough? Seemingly endless numbers? Only five different variants?

SQUAD ZERO FINALLY SHOWS UP! They gave the Wonderbolts an opportunity to escape from a trap... but they are still all outnumbered... can squad Zero tip the scales?

You'll all find out soon :pinkiecrazy: Chapter 89 is already in production.:rainbowdetermined2:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

(For those of you who have given me art recently, i will be posting a new art blog either tomorrow or thursday :pinkiehappy:)

Chapter 90: Fate

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 90: Fate

“There! I see him!” Matteo called out while pointing towards the ground. Dash followed his talon, scanning the ground below until her eyes landed on something moving, or rather twitching a few yards from the courtyard wall amidst the many torn up patches of grass and small craters.

“Squall!” Dash called out as she and the rest of her squad dipped down towards him.

Silver and a few of the Wonderbolts were still caught in the moment of meeting their old comrades again, but as soon as Princess Luna mentioned finding and treating the wounded, Dash pushed aside her awe in the presence of legendary Wonderbolts. She had to make sure her squad was still alive. She spotted Matteo quickly. He was already up and flying around despite the endless beating he took from the pin sized magic bolts. Little Star and Twister both joined them shortly after. Star was bruised up from being pounded around by exploding spheres, but Twister’s injuries were minimal, despite having experienced the rush of the burning energy wave.

Dash had also suffered a bit of a beating from the magic bolts, having been with Matteo as he received similar punishment, but all four of them were up and moving, sucking it up and still able to fly.

What worried them though was when Squall didn’t show. It took them less than a minute of waiting to start fretting, and they immediately began frantically searching the battlefield for him as other Wonderbolts and Renegades flew among them, helping and carrying others who were hurt.

It wasn’t until they moved a good ways away from most of the fallen, that Matteo’s eagle eyes picked up Squall’s colors further away.

And from the looks of things, Squall had had it worse than all of them combined.

“Oh my gosh!” Star gasped as they all landed and ran towards Squall.

He was curled up on the grass with his back turned to them, his body twitching as faint groans and quiet wails uttered forth, muffled with his nose stuffed between his hooves. His suit was also ripped and torn, but damaged differently than theirs. It was sliced with thin cuts that revealed painful looking scratches, a few bleeding lightly.

“Squall!” Matteo called out his name as he and Dash reached down to move him.

“AH!” Squall yelped the moment Dash and Matteo touched him. Dash reclined quickly, but Matteo remained firm.

“What happened to you?” Matteo asked as he examined the cut wounds on Squall’s body. “Where else were you…” Matteo stopped cold and his eyes widened as Squall turned over slightly. There was blood all over the arms of Squall’s flight suit. It was fresh blood, and it was clear where it was streaming from.

Little Star threw her hooves over her mouth and Dash’s jaw dropped as they too saw the blood.

“TWISTER!” Dash turned to him frantically. “GO GET—”

“WAY AHEAD OF YA!” Twister yelled out as he was already a good twenty meters back towards the compound as the medical teams began pouring out.

Dash quickly turned and cantered back up to Squall with Star slowly hovering closer as she cringed at the sight.

“Show me,” Matteo ordered as Squall continued to hold his arms up over his face.

“NGH!!” Squall grunted as Matteo tried to move him again. Matteo glared down at Squall and grabbed his arm despite it being covered in Squall’s own blood.

“Squall, SHOW ME the wound!” Matteo said more sternly, causing Squall to flinch.

“Hey!” Dash reached up and grabbed Matteo’s arm. “He’s hurt! Don’t force anything!” she said, but Matteo didn’t even look at her.

“We need to stop or slow down the bleeding until the medical team gets here and I can’t do that if I can’t see the wound!” Matteo yelled more towards Squall then towards Dash.

“Squall, please…” Star hovered up between Dash and Matteo. “Let us help you!” she said as she tried her best to look at him. She could barely stand the sight.

Squall suddenly stopped resisting. Dash let go of Matteo as she saw him move Squall’s arm gently without any trouble.

“Oh… god!” Star turned and pressed her face against Dash’s shoulder. Dash herself was at a loss for words. It wasn’t an easy sight to look at.

Squall looked up at them with only one eye barely open, the other slammed shut as a stream of blood from the center of his face flowed over it and down his cheek. The whole right side of his face was covered in blood from the wound between his eyes. The wound itself was deep, at least as deep as it could possibly get on one’s face. And being a very sensitive part of the body, it was no wonder to any of them just how much pain Squall had to be in.

“Damn, it looks worse than I expected…” Matteo cursed, completely unaffected by the gruesome sight. He brought his arm up and hooked his beak into his flight suit before tearing a large portion of the sleeve off. “The suit material isn’t the most absorbent… but it’s better than nothing…” he folded up the torn piece of his suit and looked back down at Squall. “This is going to hurt a lot,” he said without hesitation.

Squall didn’t respond. He just stared up at Matteo while continuing to groan and wheeze painfully. Dash and Star quickly moved over to Squall’s other side, and both grabbed his hoof as Matteo reached the cloth towards Squall’s face.

“Nnnngggggrrrraaaaahhhhggg…” Squall’s whole body tensed and he nearly pulled both Dash and Star flat to the ground as Matteo gently pressed the fabric over the wound. “Ahhh… gaaahhh….rrrghhhh…” he continued to grunt.

“We’re here, Squall!” Dash called to him as he nearly crushed her and Star’s hooves with his.

“Good, we’re at least slowing it down,” Matteo commented as he applied pressure as gently as he could without causing more pain. He looked up to check if Twister was on his way back yet, but there was no sign.

“Hang in there Squall!” Star squeezed Squall’s hoof back just as hard as he was squeezing theirs. She was biting her bottom lip as she looked directly at Squall, forcing herself to look as she and Dash held on.

Squall’s open eye moved and looked at the two of them. Dash smiled as he looked at them and nodded, glad that he could see them all there for him. Squall’s eye moved again, staring at Dash and Star’s hooves locked with his. He moved his eye to look up at Matteo as he continued to try and control the bleeding on Squall’s face.

“Twister!” Dash yelled out while waving up into the air.

Squall’s eye moved again and looked up as Twister flew in while holding onto Bliss’ apprentice. The yellow unicorn mare with the straight, dark red mane: Mahogany. She was frantically clutching a bag of medical supplies and visibly a little freaked out about being carried through the air so fast.

Squall released a sigh mixed with discomfort as he closed his eye.

“One M.D. incoming!” Twister yelled out as he dove in for a landing. Mahogany squeaked, and shut her eyes, but Twister came to an abrupt halt just before touching the ground and gently set her down on the grass. Mahogany opened her eyes and blinked as Matteo, Dash, and Star all looked towards her eagerly. She shook her head out, hoisted her medical bag up in her magic and quickly approached Squall while taking note of the situation, specifically Matteo holding a now very bloody piece of his flight suit over Squall’s forehead.

“Let me see it,” Mahogany ordered as Matteo slowly removed the rag. She didn’t even flinch as she saw the nasty cut down Squall’s face. She immediately opened the bag and began pulling out the items she needed. “That’s going to need stitches for sure, I’ll do what I can here, but we have to get him to the training room, Bliss is already sending for doctors from Canterlot Hospital,” she said professionally, proving that she was well trained under Bliss.

“What can we do to help?” Matteo asked as Mahogany stepped around Squall with several sterile rags, a bottle of disinfectant and rolls of bandages floating in her magic.

“Please hold him still,” she asked as she took one of the rags and began wiping the blood off of his face around the cut. “I’ll have to clean off the cut itself too, and it’s not going to be pleasant for him,” she asked as she finished cleaning the excess blood before rubbing some of the disinfectant on the rag and moving it towards the cut. “Now please, hold his head steady especially.”

With Squall still mostly on his side, Matteo shifted over and pressed his talons over Squall’s front and back hooves, holding two hooves in each. Twister and Star moved around and held his body down as Dash held his head steady. Squall’s eye slowly opened as he felt the pressure all around, followed by his eye widening and the other almost opening as well despite all the irritation from the blood getting into it.

“GRRRRAAAAHH!!!” Squall yelled out in pain as Mahogany worked around the cut and along the edges.

“Hold him! Hold him!” she repeated as she finished cleaning it and quickly grabbed a large gauze pad with her magic, placing it over the wound before it could start bleeding again. She followed it up by hovering the bandages over and with Dash’s help, wrapped it around Squall’s head diagonally until it was snuggly pressing the pad down onto the wound.

“Guuuhhh… aaaaah…” Squall quieted down as the worst was over. He couldn’t see at all now with his good eye covered by the gauze pad over his face, but the sharp stinging had stopped.

“Okay, that should keep it under control until the doctors gets here,” Mahogany sighed in relief as she looked towards the rest of them. “Now we need to move him, but slowly. I recommend against flying, I don’t want any fast movements to irritate the wound.”

“I’ll carry him,” Matteo offered. “Get him on my back.”

“Twister,” Dash made a head motion towards Squall. The two moved over and figured out how to gently lift up Squall without moving him too much from his current position. Star helped keep him that way as they moved Squall from the ground and onto Matteo’s back. “Still with us?” Dash asked Squall as they gently placed him down, positioning him so his side was on Matteo’s back and his head was still upright.

“Ngh…” Squall replied, hearing and acknowledging Dash’s voice.

“Good,” Dash gave him a light pat on the back before something caught her eye.

She blinked as she saw Soarin, Fleetfoot, Air Mach, Silver, and Rivet flying overhead with a few Renegades following close behind including Bomber, Valkyrie, and the twins Pixie and Fairy. Bliss was riding on Bomber’s back as they passed overhead.

“Over there!” Bliss suddenly yelled out in a frantic voice.

“Oh! That’s where we were fighting!” Pixie pointed out as she and Fairy shifted up.

“Hang on, we’ve got ya,” Fairy continued as the two of them shifted above and grabbed Bliss off of Bomber’s back before turning towards where Bliss pointed.

“I was right over there…” Fleetfoot pointed. “Swift should be over there somewhere.”

“I’ll take a look,” Soarin offered. “Calm and I landed beyond the wall over there by the coffee shop, hopefully he got out from those rocks,” Soarin directed them in the right direction. “Air Mach, come with me,” he and Air Mach veered off to find Swift Justice. Valkyrie turned and made a head motion after them, a few of the Renegades nodded and followed Soarin and Air Mach to assist.

Dash blinked as she watched Fleetfoot, Rivet, Silver, Bomber, and Valkyrie continue onward.

That was right, squad zero… they took quite a beating. Dash suddenly felt worried for them, and having fought beside them, wanted to help if she could. She looked back at Squall for a moment before addressing her squad.

“Guys, I’m gonna go help the elites, stay with Squall until we get him to the compound okay?” she asked them.

“Will do,” Matteo answered quickly, being Squall’s transport after all.

“You’ve got it, go help ‘em out,” Star smiled as she and Twister hovered to Matteo’s sides, holding Squall steady as they began to move back towards the compound with Mahogany. Dash blinked and held in a snort as Twister hung a sign from the base of Matteo’s tail that read ‘we brake for oranges.’ She shook her head, but was happy they found and were taking care of Squall. Without wasting another moment, Dash spread her wings and lifted off to follow behind the group of Wonderbolts and Renegades.

“Silver!” Dash called out as she approached the group. Silver glanced back at her as she slowly passed beside Valkyrie and Bomber, looking them both over with awe. They were both famous retired Wonderbolts, but they were also just very impressive ponies, Bomber being larger than Matteo and Valkyrie having twice the muscle mass of her, maybe even more. She continued onward until she was side by side with her mentor. “Can I do anything to help?” she asked. Silver looked over all the pegasi that were already flying with him, but nodded.

“Not gonna say no,” Silver replied as he faced back forward. “Might need some help scraping these slapdicks off the courtyard…” he said with a quiet growl in the back of his throat.

“Silver! Enough of that!” Fleetfoot suddenly looked back and glared at him. “You don’t like them, we get it!” she snapped. “But they just fought for us, and we’d probably be a lot more banged up than we are now without them, not to mention some of us consider them friends, so SHUT IT!”

Dash shifted away slightly in surprise as Fleetfoot berated Silver, Valkyrie and Bomber both looking over at the two of them as well. Silver snorted as he looked towards Fleetfoot with disapproval, but did as he was told, keeping his mouth shut as he kept following. Something that Dash rarely thought about was the fact that Silver was the captain of squad TWO. Meaning that Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and at this point and time even Air Mach had authority over him. She was so used to seeing Silver only as her mentor, and somepony she answered to through her own choice. She would never get used to seeing him take orders.

It was also strange to see Fleetfoot exercising her authority. With Spitfire it was a natural occurrence. Soarin didn’t do it very often, and usually preferred not using it, but if he had to give orders he would. Dash had never seen Fleetfoot give orders. She just wasn’t the type. She went along with whatever decisions Spitfire or Soarin made and let them do the talking while she remained carefree and silly more often than not.

However in this case, Dash could see why Fleetfoot was being serious. First off, Fleetfoot liked squad zero a lot. Dash had seen her mess with them and express how much she enjoyed them, particularly how she always purposely flirted with Calm to cause a sensory overload. She had expressed her fondness for the rest of them as well. Playbitz made her laugh with his goober antics, she found Swift’s shameless flirtation techniques to be more amusing and less disgusting than Lightning Streak’s, and she thought Shine was adorable, despite how much Shine got grumpy every time Fleetfoot mentioned it.

The second indication that Fleetfoot was being serious was that she was flying side by side with Rivet and not squeezing the life out of him with affectionate hugs.

Dash was surprised to see Rivet out helping with the injured. Then again, he was wearing an interesting pair of goggles, so there must have been a reason Fleetfoot recruited him into her little search party.

“If you’re wondering,” Silver spoke up beside Dash. “We’re searching along the outer edges of the compound. We can’t neglect the possibility that some Wonderbolts may have gone down further out,” he made a head motion towards Rivet. “He’s got some heat… detector… goggles doo-dad to help us find any.”

Dash looked over and watched as Rivet kept reaching up and turning a small dial on the side of the left goggle frame. Whatever it was, if Rivet made it, it was bound to do whatever he said it does.

“We already know Calm went through a building somewhere outside the compound,” Silver continued. “At least that’s what Soarin said.”

Dash took a moment to look towards where Soarin flew off with Air Mach and a few Renegades. She thought about going to help them, but the thought was spawned merely from the desire to be beside Soarin, so she struck the thought from her head. She was more likely to come across Wonderbolts in need with the larger group. And like Silver said they already knew Calm was out here somewhere. Dash blinked and glanced at Bomber and Valkyrie.

“Oh, I take it Calm is the reason you brought those two along?” Dash chuckled as she made a head motion towards the two powerful Renegades. Silver looked back and smirked.

“I’m not gonna try lifting that tub up off the ground, not to mention we might have to pull him out of some rocks. So I hired some muscle,” Silver said with a light chuckle while staring at his two old comrades for a moment.

Dash was at least glad to see Silver happy about his old wingmates. Obviously they were in a bit of a situation right now, but once they got a chance to rest, she really wanted to personally meet all the former Wonderbolt Renegades. Maybe Silver could introduce them all to her. The thought made her giddy.

“There!” Rivet suddenly yelled out. “There he is!” he said as he pointed just beyond the wall at a coffee shop beyond the walls of the compound perimeter. Half the outer wall of the shop had collapsed, and after another second of flying, they spotted a Wonderbolt uniform over a large light blue body and a brown mane.

“CALM!” Fleetfoot cried out as she flew down. Rivet ripped his goggles down from his face and quickly followed right behind.

“Oh damn…” Dash cringed as she saw Calm half buried beneath a pile of large, jagged stones freshly ripped from the coffee shop wall. The rest of them followed behind, landing as Fleetfoot and Rivet rushed up to Calm and began looking him over.

“It’s about… time…” a voice called out from behind the rocks. It wasn’t Calm. Dash’s ears perked up as Fleetfoot and Rivet looked at the pile. That was Shine Struck’s voice! Shine stepped out from behind the pile, sitting down and leaning her back against pile of rocks as she winced in pain. “Can’t… move the rocks… by myself…” she panted, as she slumped down. Her hooves were dirty, covered in flakes of the red stones. Dash and Silver quickly stepped over and helped her up.

“You tried freeing him all by yourself?” Dash asked in disbelief. “You should’ve flown for help!”

“Hey…” Shine pouted before trying to lift her left wing and cringing as it moved. “I didn’t get as lucky as you,” she exhaled and let her wing fall back down. “Crash landed right on it…” she sighed as she cringed again. Silver shook his head.

“Come on. Let’s get you out of the way,” he said as he and Dash helped her up and walked her over towards the outer wall of the compound. Dash sat down with Shine as Silver walked back towards Calm. Rivet was trying to get a response out of him and Fleetfoot was already on top of the pile of rocks, throwing aside any she could lift.

“Calm!” Rivet called his name as he lightly pushed his hoof against Calm’s cheek. “Give me a sign bro!” Rivet continued as he pushed a little harder.

“Rgh…” Calm gritted his teeth and groaned.

“Was that him?!” Fleetfoot hopped off the rocks and quickly trotted around. Rivet nodded as a he breathed a sigh of relief. Fleetfoot looked towards Calm as he grunted in discomfort again. “Oh thank goodness…” she fell back on her plot and exhaled. “AH! What am I sitting around for?!” Fleetfoot sprang back up. "We gotta get him out!” Fleetfoot jumped up on the pile of rocks again and latched onto a large rock near the top of the pile. She tried to pull it off. It was heavy… she planted her hooves firmly and began tugging at it. The rock slowly began to rise up, but before she could move it any further—

“OW!” she yelped, her body twitching as she dropped the rock and nearly fell backwards off the pile. She wrapped her arms around her body, remembering now the current state it was in. The burning energy wave from the cream colored Shadowbolt mare had left her body in a painful sensitive state. She had adjusted to her tattered suit rubbing against it, but as soon as she tensed her muscles to lift the heavy rock, a fresh wave of pain shot over her body. “Eek!” she slipped and fell backwards as tried to back off from the rock, but Rivet reached out and caught her by the arm just before she could fall backwards. He was almost yanked forward with her, but Silver reached up and stopped them both from falling, helping them both gently land on the ground.

“Commander…” Silver began sternly, but Fleetfoot glared harshly at him before she could go further.

“BUZZ OFF!” she hissed at him. “I’m helping him! I don’t give a damn what you think about—”

“Commander, shut up, and go sit down,” Silver said as he leaned in close so the look in his eyes would be completely clear to her. “You’re still hurt,” he grabbed her by the arm and started pulling her over to the wall. She had latched onto Rivet’s arm when she snapped at Silver, so he got pulled along too. “We’ll get him out, stop overstraining yourself,” Silver said as he forced her over to the wall near Shine and Dash and pointed at the ground. Fleetfoot scrunched her face at him before sitting down and pouting. “Rivet, make sure she doesn’t get up,” Silver added as he turned. Rivet blinked at him.

“How am I supposed to—ERK!” Rivet was cut off as Fleetfoot grabbed him and clutched him grumpily like a child holding a stuffed animal. Rivet stared forward blankly for a moment as his arms dangled over the top of Fleetfoot’s before releasing an exasperated sigh.

So much for the authority. One moment Dash saw Fleetfoot completely handle Silver as their ranks dictate, but the moment Fleetfoot started acting irrational, Silver turned it right around and put her in a time out so she wouldn’t hurt herself. Fleetfoot clearly wanted to help Calm, but straining herself in her current state wasn’t going to help anypony.

“Val, Big Green,” Silver called to Valkyrie and Bomber. “Help me get these rocks off this lug,” he pointed towards Calm. Valkyrie stepped forward and the first thing she did was lift up and toss aside the rock that Fleetfoot struggled to budge.

“Definitely need to find out her gym routine…” Fleetfoot muttered to herself as she puffed her cheeks out and continued to pout beside Dash.

Silver took a step towards the pile, but stopped and turned to look at Bomber, who hadn’t moved.

“You hear me big fella?” Silver waved his hoof up at him. Bomber was frowning at the collapsed wall of the coffee shop.

“Bomber liked this coffee shop…” he said with a sad tone mixed into his raspy voice. Silver blinked and glanced between the shop and Bomber.

“Aw damn, that’s right. I forgot you used to go there every morning…” Silver sighed as he hovered up and placed a hoof on Bomber’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure it gets fixed up afterward big guy, now come lift some rocks, our wingmate needs your help.”

“Okay, Bomber help…” the massive pony lumbered forward, joining Valkyrie as the two heaved heavy rocks off the pile while Silver tried to clear any rocks he could down around Calm.

Dash glanced over at Fleetfoot, noticing no visible change with Rivet not even trying to break free. She chuckled at the site, wondering if Rivet finally got used to it and just let it happen now. With a slight smirk on her face, she turned and looked at Shine sitting next to her. Her smirk faded quickly.

Shine was looking straight down at the ground with a rather depressed expression. Dash immediately began wondering what was wrong as she contemplated what had Shine in such a state. But with the two being so similar Dash had a feeling it had something to do with squad zero’s lack of success in the battle. It’s not like it was their fault, none of them knew how to fight the new Shadowbolts. But with how much faith Spitfire had put in them, it was easy to see how much pressure was on them to succeed, not to mention with the criticism from Silver as well.

“That should do it,” Silver spoke up, drawing Dash’s attention back to the pile of rocks… or lack thereof now. Valkyrie and Bomber had cleared off most of the larger rocks quickly. “Let’s get him out of there,” Silver pointed as he tried to push any more excess rocks he could off of Calm. Valkyrie and Bomber grabbed Calm’s arms and began gently tugging until it was clear he would move.

“RRGHH!!!!” Calm grunted in pain as they began sliding him out from under the rocks. Both of them stopped and looked up, but Silver shook his head.

“He can take it, just get him free,” Silver ordered sternly. The two continued without hesitation. Dash cringed as Calm continued to yelp and groan painfully until they finally freed him from the rocks. “Ouch… that doesn’t look pleasant…” Silver commented. Dash gritted her teeth and winced as she saw Calm’s back. There was a shallow cut that ran diagonally down his back that was surrounded by nasty bruising, exposed due to most of his suit being split open in the back.

“Blade did this,” Valkyrie stated as she shook her head.

“We need to get him back,” Silver nodded as he stepped up to Bomber. “Let’s get him up on Bomber, can you pick him up, Val?” Silver asked Valkyrie very casually. Dash and Fleetfoot both stared wide eyed as Valkyrie simply nodded and stepped up to Calm. Valkyrie was about Descent’s size, almost as muscular too, but Calm was still larger. Bomber made them all look small, but being the transport, it fell on Valkyrie to the loading. She bent down and shimmied her hooved under Calm’s bulk, setting her back hooves firmly on the ground and locking her back while spreading her wings.

“HHRRMMPH!” Valkyrie grunted as she slowly lifted Calm up off the ground.

“No way…” Fleetfoot’s jaw dropped and bopped Rivet on the head. Valkyrie flapped her wings to lift off as she straightened upright and hovered, carrying Calm in her arms over to Bomber while making sure to keep his wound facing away from her. As she drew near Bomber, Silver got on the other side of the juggernaut and helped balance Calm on his back as Valkyrie set him down and exhaled.

“Ugghhh…” Calm groaned and cringed as his eyes slowly opened. “S-Silver?” he said through the pain.

“Rest, we’re taking you to the medical staff,” Silver gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Did… somepony just… lift me up?” Calm asked in his half-conscious state. Silver smirked.

“You’re a heavy son of a bitch, but Val did. She got you up here no problem.”

“SHE?!” Calm’s eyes widened and he suddenly shot upright. “AH! AARRGHH!!!!” he winced before flopping back down on Bomber’s back.

“Nice one,” Silver sighed and shook his head. “Val, Big Green, get him back to the compound.”

“Big… Green?” Calm managed to say as he opened his eyes again to see Bomber’s head turned to look at him.

“Hello, little pony…” Bomber said with a chuckle as he began to move, Valkyrie following behind to make sure Calm didn’t fall off.

Bomber even made Calm look small. Dash wondered how Silver could have possibly not recognized such an enormous fellow flyer back when they encountered them in Cloudsdale.

“That’s just not fair…” Fleetfoot spoke up while shaking her head and looking towards Valkyrie. “I wish I was that strong.”

Dash chuckled and shook her head.

“I don’t think you’d be as fast as you are if you had all that muscle,” she joked. Fleetfoot shrugged.

“Maybe, the extra wing power might make up for it, but it would definitely help in combat… oh, sorry,” Fleetfoot grinned sheepishly as she let go of Rivet.

“Next time, hug Shine…” Rivet pointed at Shine Struck with a miffed pout as he re-fixed his special goggles on his face. “She’s just as small and actually likes it,” he said with a clearly sarcastic tone.

“Mmph…” Shine made a noise that didn’t really sound like anything. Rivet turned to Shine and blinked, only now noticing how sad she looked.

“Shine?” Rivet tipped his head to the side, unaware that Silver approached right behind him.

“Rivet.”

“WAUGH!” Rivet leapt three yards into the air, spreading his wings and floating back down with his face scrunched and eyes wide, facing Silver. Silver didn’t react at all. He just waited patiently for Rivet to touch back down.

“I want you to make a full pass around the courtyard perimeter with your goggles. Commander,” he looked towards Fleetfoot. “Can you accompany him?”

Fleetfoot released a sigh as she got up, clearly with her mind elsewhere.

“Alright,” she said as she stood up. “Come on Rivvey, let’s go,” she said as she spread her wings and hovered up, visibly in discomfort from her own injuries.

“Commander, are you—” Silver tried to ask out of courtesy but he didn’t get very far.

“Silver, I’m fine,” she quickly cut him off before she started flying away. Rivet spread his wings and followed.

“Rivvey?” he said to himself as he caught up behind her.

That left Silver, Dash, and Shine behind. Silver approached Shine, looking down at her carefully.

“A bad wing right?” he asked her. She didn’t reply, she just nodded. Without hesitation, Silver turned to Dash. “Help me put her on my back, we’re taking her to—”

“Don’t bother, I’ll just walk,” Shine said sharply as she stood and started walking, but Silver held out his arm and stopped her.

“Shine, get on my back,” he said sternly. Shine kept staring forward, focusing her eyes where the two couldn’t see them.

“Fine…” she gave up and turned to Silver. Silver bent down, but even then, Shine was quite small and had a hard time climbing up without the use of her wings. Dash reached forward and supported her as she slid up onto Silver’s back. “I’m sorry Silver,” Shine suddenly said right before Silver and Dash could take off. Dash nearly tripped over her front hooves as she stopped the forward motion. She stumbled slightly before looking back at Silver, who hadn’t budged, but also hadn’t so much as turned his head an inch towards Shine.

“About?” Silver asked, again without looking at her.

“You were right about us,” Shine sighed while letting the side of her head plop down on his shoulders in defeat. “We didn’t do anything.”

Silver glanced down, then at Dash. He didn’t approve of squad zero, but his bias towards the traditions of the Wonderbolts didn’t change the fact that squad zero had an impact on the battle.

“I was right and wrong,” Silver spoke up. Shine picked her head up and blinked as Dash listened intently. “I was right that you would be wild and unorganized. I commend you for trying to keep them in line, but Calm, Playbitz, and Swift were too eager to scrap. However,” he exhaled through his nose. “I was wrong too. I assumed you would all cower in the face of real danger and in the end not make much of a difference. You all held you ground, fought like Wonderbolts worthy of high tier elite status. Not to mention you got us all out of a bind early on in the battle,” Silver finally turned and looked at her. “Blazetail and Flashwind did a fine job training you guys, but you weren’t prepared for the enemy we faced, just like we weren’t. Your wingmates need to work on discipline, but… you all did well otherwise. Be proud of that, you sure as hell blew my expectations out of the water.”

“I…” Shine tried speaking, but nothing came to her.

“Relax, let’s fly you to the trainers and get you patched up,” Silver concluded as he spread his wings and took off.

Dash smiled wide as she took flight and followed right behind, quickly catching up and shifting beside them as Silver glided.

So was that how it looked from outside? Was that how amazing it was to see Silver be himself and influence others? He wasn’t a mentor to Shine like he was a mentor to her, but it didn’t stop him from giving wise words of encouragement. He even admitted that squad zero performed better than he expected. How much humility did it take to admit something like that after how much he had apparently opposed the whole thing? Silver was a crowning example of a complete pony. He may have been physically weakened in his age along with the wear and tear on his body for sticking with the Wonderbolt regiment for so long, but when it came to maturity and influence, Silver was without equal.

And Dash was beyond glad that she had several ponies she felt she could look to for guidance, because in the current situation, she didn’t know what she would do without them. There were a few, but specifically it was Silver and Soarin that primarily helped her feel at ease no matter what the scenario. If not for them here, she’d probably be having trouble.

Just… helping the injured. Seeing so many Wonderbolts beat up or grounded by their own pain was a tough site to take. Thankfully there had been no word of fatalities yet. The Wonderbolts were very tough ponies, and she was sure the Renegades made it in time before any could be killed. Dash shivered at the mere thought, forcefully pushing it from her head and let her mind go elsewhere as she surveyed the courtyard below them, examining the commotion below as several medical ponies, Wonderbolts and renegades flew about assisting the injured.

They passed by Bomber and Valkyrie soon after taking off as they carefully moved Calm back towards the compound.

Dash glanced to her left as they continued on and saw Bliss and the Renegade twins helping Playbitz get off the ground. He was in rough shape, movement clearly painful, and his suit was nearly torn to shreds having taken multiple magical explosions almost at point blank. Dash frowned as she saw Bliss lunge at him and hug him tightly after he got up. It looked painful, but after the hit Playbitz took, his wife had every reason to be incredibly relieved that he was okay.

Dash turned her head and looked past Silver to see Soarin and Air Mach gliding through the air while carrying Swift. It was hard to tell if he was hurt due to his super dark blue fur and his darkened Wonderbolt stealth suit more or less hiding them all, but Dash was sure he had multiple bruises. He had taken several eyebeams to the body as the blue Shadowbolt held him and a few others in his powerful telekinesis.

Dash also spotted Rivet and Fleetfoot as they continued their scan of the outer edges of the courtyard, stopping once or twice as they came across those in need of medical attention. Rivet would stay behind as Fleetfoot glided to find help.

In all, it just wasn’t a pretty sight. It didn’t help seeing her own squad hurt too, especially Squall. She had to check up on him later.

Dash had to get her mind elsewhere, again. She was already trying to not think about bad things and all she did was think about more bad things. Her instincts made her look towards Silver. And… despite the situation, Silver was smiling.

She didn’t blame him to be honest, his old, long lost friends showing up to save him and everything he cares about. That had to be quite a rush. Hell, it made him cry! She wanted to hear from him, just exactly how it felt and what he was currently thinking.

“So…” Dash spoke up, the out of place, jovial look upon her mentor’s face forcing a smirk onto hers.

“I don’t like it when you start like that…” Silver shook his head.

“Deal with it, I’m curious,” Dash chuckled.

“If I must…” Silver gave in.

“Tell me, what was it like seeing your old friends again after so long?” Dash went right for the kill. Silver remained quiet for a moment, his smile steadily and noticeably growing wider as Dash waited.

“It was quite possibly one of the most joyful moments of my life, right up there with the day I got married,” Silver described it.

“I have a hard time picturing you as joyful,” Dash snickered.

“Good, let’s keep it that way,” Silver added as he chuckled along with her. He looked back forward and released a long, content sigh. “Wonderbolts tend to up and disappear after they retire, becoming a shadow of their former glory, fading away as the newer and younger rise up to take their place. Having stuck it out as long as I have, I didn’t know where any of them went, much less how I could find them after my time’s finally up. I was more than certain that I would never see most of them ever again and I had come to terms with that. Suddenly being with them all again… all of their faces, all of their smiles, the way they instantly greeted me as if they never left, the memories of the best times of my life rushing back to me…” Silver looked down and nodded as his smile remained strong. “Let’s just say… I can’t remember the last time I cried like that. I was too happy to give a damn about you and the rest of the Wonderbolts watching me bawl my eyes out.”

Silver’s words made Dash’s skin tingle beneath her fur. If anypony deserved feeling on top of the world it was Silver. After all he’d experienced and all he had been through, seeing him in such a happy state made Dash feel so good.

“I guess you have a heart after all, you big softie,” she teased.

“Hey, what’s that?” Silver pointed behind her.

“Huh?” Dash turned her head, but saw nothing. “What are—,”

“It’s a distraction,” Silver interrupted her as he shoved his wing over her head and pushed her down.

“AH! Hey!” Dash quickly regained control of her flight and glared up towards Silver, but he was gone.

“Awareness.”

“WAHH!” Dash yelped and flinched as Silver’s voice came from the other side of her.

“You’re an ass,” Dash pouted at Silver while lifting an eyebrow at him. Silver only smirked as the two looked towards Shine on Silver’s back as she suddenly giggled.

“You two crack me up…” she said weakly, still dealing with the pain in her wing.

“Alright, enough shenanigans before I drop her by accident,” Silver chuckled as the two drew near the compound, spotting Spitfire right outside the doors to the lobby, helping direct the medical teams in and out of the compound as the wounded arrived.

There were a good number of Wonderbolts gathering nearby as well, organized in their squads. A few were missing members due to injuries. Most notably, squads three and seven were standing closest to Spitfire. Surprise was missing from squad three. The Streak twins and Misty were all a little battle damaged, but they were capable of flight. From what Dash heard, Surprise had taken a hit similar to Calm from the magic sword. It was just a little terrifying to know that Surprise wasn’t able to elude injury with her antics. Then again, Twister hadn’t escaped completely unscathed either, despite looking less hurt than most. It seemed that not even a silly pony could evade the unknown nature of the new Shadowbolts’ abilities.

Squad seven was missing Point Dex. Storm, Macho Savage, and Lead Runner were standing right behind squad three. Dash didn’t quite know the specifics of the other squads present, but it looked like very few of them had all of their members present.

As Dash and Silver landed and passed Shine Struck off to the medical staff, Spitfire turned towards the gathered Wonderbolts.

“Listen up!” she called them to attention, all of them turning and facing her quickly, squads three and seven standing front and center as Fire prepared to translate for Misty. “We’re all just scattered out there right now,” she pointed out into the courtyard where any Wonderbolts not present before her were flying about and helping the medical staff with the Renegades. “We need a more efficient search. I can’t shake the possibility that we might miss somepony. I don’t want any MIA Wonderbolts after a fight that took place right in our own courtyard. How many squads do we have here?” she paused as she hovered up and looked over the top of Fire as he made his wing and hoof signals to Misty, who was nodding in response. “One, two, three, four, five, six…” Spitfire counted off the squads present. “Nine squads? We don’t have every member, but it should still work,” she mumbled to herself before floating back down and continuing. “I want a spread out, aerial sweep of the entire courtyard. Organize yourselves by squad number and comb your sections up and down at least five times. The whole front lawn is pretty torn up and damaged so if you see anything and I mean ANYTHING that looks out of place or may have somepony hurt out of sight, CHECK IT!” she emphasized it sternly. “When you finish your patrol run, report to me, Soarin, or Fleetfoot, even if you found nothing. We have to know we’ve thoroughly searched everywhere. Understood?!”

“YES MA’AM!” the squads all saluted and began taking off. Storm glanced towards Dash and Silver briefly before taking flight with Lead Runner and Savage. Squad three followed close behind the rest once Fire finished relaying everything to Misty.

“No stone unturned, eh?” Soarin’s voice came from above Dash as he and Air Mach slowly hovered in with Swift Justice in tow. Spitfire nodded, watching the squads reach a high point above the courtyard to begin their sweeps.

“I can’t take any chances,” Spitfire replied as Soarin and Air Mach passed off Swift to Bliss’ staff. “I’m responsible for all of them, even if…” she trailed off.

“Let’s not think about that unless it happens,” Soarin quickly cut her off as he and Air Mach approached her.

“The Wonderbolts aren’t so fragile!” Air Mach pounded his chest as Fleetfoot and Rivet landed nearby. Fleetfoot turned towards the rest of the lead squad as Rivet followed after Swift and Shine as the medical staff moved them into the compound. “You can bet on that!” Air Mach continued. “A couple of magic pumped freak shows ain’t enough to take us down!”

“One of them almost killed SOARIN in the past,” Fleetfoot said as she approached and huffed at Air Mach, not too amused by his usual nature still active in a rather serious scenario. “I don’t doubt we’re tough, but it’s stupid to take them lightly,” she said sternly to Air Mach, who tipped his glasses down and looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Anything to report?” Spitfire asked Fleetfoot, nearly pushing Soarin aside to get to her. Soarin didn’t fight back, he understood the situation they were in and Spitfire had every right to be a little frantic and concerned. It was the safety and wellbeing of the Wonderbolts they were talking about. Spitfire was responsible for all of them, and it was something she approached with the same passion as a mother looking after her children.

“Nope,” Fleetfoot shook her head. “Rivet and I scanned the whole outer wall. If anypony else was thrown past it they’re definitely not close by.”

“Rgh…” Spitfire turned around and began slowly pacing back and forth. “We’re going to need a full roll call after we get everypony in here and finish our sweeps. If there are any missing, we’ll have to get the royal guard to search the surrounding area, we can’t afford to have anypony off-site right now.”

“That would be wise,” Descent’s low voice suddenly came from above. The lead squad all looked up to see Descent floating down towards them with Starry Skies, Lightning Dust, Blazetail, Flashwind, and Princess Luna all in tow. “We must prepare for what’s to come and believe me, you can’t afford to focus on anything else,” he said as Luna stepped forward.

“Indeed,” she nodded. “With what’s sure to happen now, we must be ready.”

Off to the side, Silver and Dash glanced at each other.

“Looks like we’re about to get the full rundown,” Dash said as the two started walking towards them to join.

“It’s about DAMN time…” Silver scoffed as they approached.

Dash walked up beside Soarin, gently leaning into him as Luna prepared to explain. He stole a brief glance at her, smiled, and gently returned the lean to acknowledge her before they all turned their attention to Luna and the Renegades.

“So how about you start from the top?” Spitfire suggested while narrowing her eyes at Luna. “And don’t leave a single detail out because you’re gonna need everything you can get to convince me I should trust you after this.”

Luna stared down at Spitfire, but did not glare, nor scowl. She understood Spitfire’s frustration well.

“This all began much further back than you may realize…” Luna began as the Wonderbolts all listened with anticipation. “About a year ago to be precise. On a day that most of you here are very familiar with… the tornado crisis in Ponyville.”

“I had a feeling that’s what you meant,” Soarin nodded as he and Descent glanced at each other. Dash watched as the two exchanged looks, remembering it like it was yesterday. She could clearly recall the sight of Descent and Soarin grappling as the strong winds from the tornado surrounding them battered against them. Descent snarling and roaring in Soarin’s face as Soarin growled and pushed back against him before Dash flew in… intercepted Descent… pushed him into the dense thundercloud and…

Soarin blinked and glanced over as Dash suddenly shivered sharply. Without even asking, he draped a wing over her, knowing full well that the tornado incident was a very unpleasant memory for all of them.

“Specifically, it was right after,” Luna confirmed. “When we arrived with our sister in the hospital to save Soarin. Dost thou remember what our sister said before we began?” Luna looked at Fleetfoot, Spitfire, and Dash. The three of them glanced between each other before Fleetfoot shook her head.

“I remember you yelling in Celestia’s face about using the dark magic on Soarin, followed by a freaky light show, but…” Fleetfoot looked between Spitfire and Dash, they both shook their heads as well. “What exactly did she say again?”

Luna nodded and looked down, taking a long deep breath and exhaling. She completely understood why they had forgotten. The whole situation a year ago in the hospital was focused around saving Soarin’s life. All the explaining Celestia did beforehoof was easily pushed aside by everypony’s desire to know one thing: if she could restore him.

“The very reason that our sister decided to use the magic, and put Soarin’s life back into motion…” she looked back up at them. “Her premonition.”

Spitfire and Dash blinked for a moment before Dash’s ears perked up.

“Oh! Wait… I think I remember her talking about it… about making sure Soarin was alive because… she saw the future and he was in it? I remember it being something strange like that.” Dash relayed to the rest of them.

“Strange indeed,” Luna agreed. “Because Soarin would have died that day… yet he was seen in a vision of things to come. Hence why my sister felt inclined to break many of our rules… but this is all beside the point,” Luna pushed aside her discontent for her sister’s decisions. “What truly frightened us… was the conflict she described in her vision.” Luna turned away from them and began pacing back and forth. The Wonderbolts watched her as she moved, gathering her words to make sure she left absolutely nothing out.

“We were able to pry more from her before she began her long rest. What we were told was quite troubling,” she stopped pacing and faced them again. “The Wonderbolts locked in a large scale conflict with shadowy counterparts… fighting erupting across the land, plunging Equestria into the heart of a war waged by an enemy none can even see or identify. The citizens of Equestria are driven into mass panic, their peaceful lives broken as a war rages in the skies above. Celestia saw more than just the Wonderbolts, other military factions getting involved: the Royal Guard, the Crystal Army, mercenaries, other species… all fighting against something that even we the divine alicorn sisters could not hope to stop due to the unknown nature of the true villain. It was something we couldn’t stand to hear and couldn’t bear to imagine…” Luna bit her lip and squinted. “And then before we could ask further, our sister began her rest… her power manifesting in the castle as her physical form disappeared. She left us alone to dread the future conflict without her to comfort us.”

Luna paused for a long time to let it all sink in. Silver, Dash, Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach were all at a loss for words, their mouths agape as they took in all the information. This was another case where it was hard to comprehend the inner workings of the divine alicorns and how they could see what they saw and do what they do, but once those thoughts were aside, Soarin found himself curious.

“Hold on, I heard everything about the premonition loud and clear, but what was that you said at the end? About Celestia’ physical form disappearing? Is that why we haven’t seen her? Where is she?” he asked all at once. Luna nodded.

“She shed her physical form in order for her power to fully re-manifest itself,” Luna explained. “She used enough of her divine life force to kill a normal pony twelve times over when she cast the spell to restore you. To be quite honest, even with the help from Captain Spitfire and Rainbow Dash, we’re surprised she didn’t destroy herself. Her power is within the castle itself, waiting for her return,” Luna paused and sighed. “However, something was wrong. Before casting the spell, my sister assured us all that she’d only be out of commission for two months at most, and we rested easy knowing that she’d be back and we could focus on what was to come. But then two months passed… and now a whole year… and she has yet to return,” Luna shook her head.

“We began to panic after three months went by. Something felt wrong, as if there was something very important that we failed to ask or our sister failed to… or maybe purposely didn’t tell us. Another risk to her? Something that would cause her to be longer than expected? We did not know, and with the premonition fresh in our head, we began frantically searching for answers,” she turned her head towards Descent. “Then the encounter in Canterlot happened half a year ago. Chaos in the streets as a lone Shadowbolt ran rampant through the city, enhanced by the power of magic unknown to us. When Silver Lining came to warn us, we feared that the conflict had begun and rushed out to meet them, only to lose Commander Soarin and Rainbow Dash. We rescued you later with the help of Discord and things continued without fighting… but the sudden nature of the attack made us worry even further…” she turned back to Spitfire. “And that is where our plans were set into motion…”

“Yes, please go on…” Spitfire said sharply while tapping her hoof impatiently. The reasoning was all fine and dandy, but Spitfire had yet to hear why Luna kept them out of it and she was growing impatient. Luna could tell it’s what Spitfire wanted, and she wasted no time in continuing.

“The attack on the Wonderbolt compound… and the attempt to capture Soarin while he was imbued with the powerful dark magic. It put us in a state of panic. Something was happening, and something was going to happen. Celestia’s premonition would come to pass and we didn’t know how to handle it… so we made a decision… a decision I now fear was ultimately unsuccessful…” she paused. “To prevent the conflict from ever happening.”

“Hmph…” Silver grunted, catching Dash’s attention. “Playing with fate… I never liked the gods…” he mumbled.

“But how to do it?” Luna continued. “This was our dilemma. Naturally, in order to stop an enemy we needed a strong force… but there was a problem with the Wonderbolts that we could not ignore.”

“I’m listening,” Spitfire continued to tap her hoof.

“The public eye,” Luna stated followed by a short pause. “The Wonderbolts are an icon, quite possibly the most symbolic and famous group of ponies. They are both inspirations and role models, rarely ever out of the eyes of the media… and this is where we saw a potential disaster.” Luna stepped away from them and stared out at Canterlot. “As our sister said… Equestria is a safe haven. The only kingdom ruled by divine entities. The ponies live without worry, in a dream land that’s safe from all the political clashes and wars that go on outside the borders. We have had a crisis or two, our own attack while possessed, Discord’s second coming, the changelings… all were handled and taken down, but not without mass panic and paranoia from the public both during and for a while afterward. Many were hurt when it could have been avoided simply because of the mass chaos these events caused in the general public of the area attacked. If the Wonderbolts were suddenly drawn into a conflict, surely it wouldn’t just be Canterlot… all of Equestria would be tipped off within days. I couldn’t stand to think of how many innocents could be sucked into the confusion purely by accident.”

Luna paused to look them all over. They were all listening, but Spitfire looked like she already disapproved. Luna wasn’t expecting Spitfire to be happy with her, but she continued regardless.

“So what were our options? We examined the report of the Shadowbolt encounters carefully and something caught our eye… the second and third in command of the Shadowbolts deserting. After digging for some information we found that several Shadowbolts had deserted Nightshade, not just after their flying compound was destroyed either. It had been occurring for months, most likely due to Nightshade being controlled by who we believe may be the unknown enemy that was in Celestia’s premonition.

“Kayn Ost,” Soarin repeated the name he hadn’t heard in a while. Luna nodded.

“Correct. The one pulling Nightshade’s strings. We regret to say that we still know nothing of him. Anyway, we saw an opportunity with Descent. We kept a close eye on him and watched how he pulled together the Shadowbolts who had left their old, corrupt captain behind. The Shadowbolts had worked under the noses of the media, the Wonderbolts, and the Canterlot royals for almost a century. They expressed qualities of those who lived outside of Equestria, outside of the perfect world, we felt that with their help, we could quell the threat before it ever began… nopony would ever know about it… no Equestrian citizens would come to harm… and the Wonderbolts could go on with their daily routines, allowing Soarin to focus on controlling the power that caused Celestia’s absence.”

“I was quick to accept,” Descent stepped forward, taking over. “My goal was to restore the Shadowbolts to their former glory, to take back my family and all those who are still under the grip of that faceless Kayn Ost coward who hides in the shadows that we used to be the masters of. My brothers and sisters share my desire to restore our greatness… but even with our superior numbers, those we tracked down and those we were able to convince away from the crystals… Kayn Ost has made the Shadowbolts under his control stronger, and has given them access to great magical prowess as you witnessed. We needed help… and I knew exactly where to look,” Descent turned to Blazetail and Flashwind for a moment before turning back.

“It is important to know your enemies well… and back before we left the Shadowbolts, I had done a great deal of research on the Wonderbolts. The one thing that stood out to me more than anything else was the Wonderbolts’… incredibly idiotic practice of ejecting the old from their ranks in favor of the new,” he put heavy emphasis on ‘idiotic’ making all the Wonderbolts wince uncomfortably, save for Silver, who couldn’t have agreed with him more. “The perfect mix of strength, speed, and youth seems to be what the Wonderbolts believe is required to be the best… but that’s far from wise. I couldn’t believe some of the names I saw on the list of recently retired Wonderbolts. The very same Wonderbolts I read about in records of being peerless fighters or incredibly talented. They were all thrown out far before their time was up… so I took a chance and met with these two,” he made a head motion towards Blazetail and Flashwind.

“Took a chance is right,” Blazetail chuckled. “I’d call it damn ballsy, walking up to us in the middle of Canterlot during the day, wearing the uniform and everything with that scarred up face of yours for good measure. I liked you the moment you looked me in the eye.”

“I admit,” Flashwind took over. “If any of the retired Wonderbolts should be retired, it’s the two of us… but when we mentioned flying and fighting again… well…” she giggled.

“I was asking for a uniform before he even finished!” Blazetail chuckled.

“With their help,” Descent continued. “I was able to contact and recruit several old Wonderbolts, all who were beyond eager to suit up and fly like they used to…” Descent glared at Spitfire. “I implore you to rethink your moronic code… do you want to know where I found half of your retired wingmates? Drinking themselves under the table or isolating themselves from all contact, ashamed and bitter about what was taken from them long before their time.”

“We’ll talk about who’s right and wrong later,” Spitfire said sternly as she glared back at Descent. "I’m still waiting to be convinced that this was all for the best,” she hissed.

“We’ll get to that,” Descent fearlessly snapped back at her before continuing. “Luna’s plan was a stretch, and one that I didn’t fully agree with, but she was helping us as much as we were helping her. We had the old Wonderbolts joined into our ranks, but having Blazetail and Flashwind was by far the largest boon. Unlike the others, they were still frequent visitors of the compound. With them always walking about, we had easy access to all of your whereabouts and inner workings. More specifically, we would know if you were doing anything that may conflict with our plans. With the Wonderbolts thoroughly left in the dark… we were able to engage the enemy. However, the more we fought the Shadowbolts, the more it seemed they were less interested in dealing with us, and more interested in another goal. So we left them alone for a short period and watched them carefully… and they eventually led us directly to Canterlot, right to the Wonderbolt compound…”

Descent paused and looked towards Soarin, specifically at the horn. Soarin growled and shook his head.

“It’s me again isn’t it?” Soarin spoke up. “Just like before, they want me and the magic in me…”

“That is the best assumption we have,” Descent nodded. “Those are orders I carried out myself before I decided I had had enough. However, this was another boon for us. We now knew their target… so that made it easier to both find them and fight them off. With the flying compound destroyed, they rely on the crystals to teleport. The teleport magic is loud, bright, and takes a moment to charge, making it impossible for them to simply appear in the compound without risking capture. They were forced to teleport to areas outside of Canterlot and make their way in. It made our job easy, surrounding the compound every night and easily picking them off as they tried to approach,” he sighed and looked towards Soarin. Blazetail suddenly grunted as he too looked towards Soarin and Dash.

“You almost gave us a heart attack the night you and your mare decided to sit on a cloud for an hour. Son, you’re lucky they didn’t try to attack that night.”

“Not to mention the party after the recruitment ceremony,” Flashwind spoke up. “That was a stressful night for us.”

Soarin and Dash blinked, staring at each other in disbelief.

“Wait…” Dash pointed at Descent. “Are you saying that every single night I’ve been here… the Renegades have been outside keeping watch and none of us ever knew?!”

“That is correct,” Descent nodded. “Specifically, the old Wonderbolts have been in charge of watching over the compound. Starry Skies, Lightning Dust, and I have been patrolling outside of Canterlot with our fellow deserters, taking the fight to them whenever we could. We felt the older Wonderbolts were better suited for the guard duty around the compound. After all, should something happen, they are much more familiar with the inner workings of the compound than we and the former Shadowbolts are.”

“So is it safe for me to assume…” Soarin spoke up. “That every single time I’ve been away from the compound, you guys have been stalking me?” he paused as Descent simply nodded. “That’s great… that explains the encounters with the Renegades at shows and outside of the compound.”

“That doesn’t explain why other squads encountered them though,” Fleetfoot added. “We had multiple squads report you guys sneaking around near them. What gives?” she asked.

“You should be glad we did,” Starry suddenly scoffed. “Faulty information is the only reason some of you are still alive,” she said sharply before going back to more or less ignoring everything that was being said. Flashwind nodded and laughed sheepishly.

“We misread the schedule one day… and I ended up leading a group out with the intention of watching over Soarin, but it ended up being squad four and five going to a charity event, not the lead squad heading for a show. But… the Shadowbolts began appearing anyway, and if we weren’t there to stop them, they would have attacked. In short, we were lucky to be there… it was the first time they had made moves to attack other Wonderbolts, and after I reported this to Descent, we decided to watch the other squads as they left.”

“The Shadowbolts’ second goal became clear,” Descent took over. “They want Soarin, but they also want to take out the Wonderbolts. We are not yet sure of the reasons, and we’re still contemplating if it was meant to lessen our numbers against them by distracting us… but either way, it was more than just Soarin in danger.”

“And THAT…” Luna sighed. “Was when they began to step outside of my orders,” she said with a grunt of disapproval.

“We risked being exposed with our extra actions, yes,” Descent said while looking towards Luna. “But I felt it was necessary, and part of our contract with Luna was that we would not hesitate to take extra measures if needed,” he turned and looked at Blazetail and Flashwind. “We were faced with an interesting case. We believed the Shadowbolts were keeping up their covert attempts because the Wonderbolts were completely unaware of them. So if we could keep it that way, it would be easy to keep repelling them, however…” he emphasized while glancing back at the Wonderbolts briefly before returning his eyes to the old captains. “The Wonderbolts are perceptive. We knew it was only a matter of time before one of them discovered what was going on… so…” Descent made a hoof motion to Blazetail. He nodded as he smirked.

“Heh… well, from the beginning the two of us had extra plans,” Blazetail chuckled while glancing at his wife. “We coordinated a few planned encounters where we would purposely reveal ourselves to the Wonderbolts. We wanted them to focus on us and believe we were Shadowbolts while we worked to keep the real Shadowbolts at bay. Luna didn’t like it, and even Descent thought it was a bit risky, but hey…” Blazetail shrugged. “It worked. You were so worried about us that the Shadowbolts continued to attempt their covert operations.”

“I’ve had a hell of a time keeping track of these two,” Descent huffed as he looked between Blazetail and Flashwind. “I didn’t even know about this… ‘squad zero’ they were putting together for you until a few days ago,” Descent rolled his eyes.

“That’s why you funded it…” Silver shook his head as he looked between Blazetail and Flashwind. “I thought for sure you would oppose it.”

“We thought it would be a good emergency valve,” Flashwind took over. “A small force that could repel magic as we eventually learned to. We masked it as an experimental combat squad to gain support from other current Wonderbolts. Unfortunately, we were only able to train with them twice a week… so their progress in learning the magic deflecting techniques was slow… and…”

She paused as they all looked off to the side. Bomber and Valkyrie had finally made it back from across the courtyard with Calm and Pixie, Fairy, and Bliss were close behind with Playbitz. Flashwind sighed.

“Ultimately, they were not ready,” she finished with a frown. Blazetail put a hoof on her shoulder before taking over.

“Anyway… everything seemed fine. We were keeping them out, keeping you unaware, and slowly working towards a solution of how to find them and defeat them… but…” Blazetail suddenly growled, he removed his hoof from his wife’s shoulder and sharply turned around. Flashwind frowned and turned towards him, rubbing his back softly as if trying to calm him down. Lightning Dust stepped forward, glancing at Descent as he nodded to her, giving her the go ahead to explain.

“About a week or two ago…” she began. “A certain Shadowbolt developed his magic, creating a technique that made him nearly impossible to detect.”

She didn’t even have to say it. All of them knew exactly who she was talking about.

“Rapidfire…” Dash said his name, flinching when another loud grunt came from Blazetail.

“Yep,” Dust nodded. “He figured out a way to manipulate the magic of the crystals in a way that completely alters his physical appearance down to the finest details, which allowed him to take the form of any pony he wished. It’s not just a simple image. It’s solid and sturdy, holding up until given a few good whacks. It’s a perfect image. He could disguise himself as Bomber and would appear just as large. Thankfully he only copies the appearance, not the abilities. He infiltrated a group of our ranks not too long ago and threw them into a panic, leaving them open to attack and allowing one of the Shadowbolt captains to surprise them… and kill them.”

She paused as it sunk in.

“That… despicable…” Blazetail ground his teeth together.

“Honey…” Flashwind clutched his shoulder. Soarin shook his head.

“Completely undetected and a perfect image to sneak around in…” Soarin growled. “’The Artist’ indeed…” Soarin sighted Rapidfire’s old nickname as a member of the lead squad. “Figures he’d find out the most complicated ways to manipulate the magic.”

“DON’T call him that!” Blazetail suddenly turned, glared at Soarin, and stomped, forcing Flashwind to let go of him. “Any names or honors he earned as a Wonderbolt no longer exist!” he snarled. “That ungrateful son of mine had incredible talent and a clear road to an opportunity most can only dream of… AND WHAT DID HE DO?!” Blazetail was enraged. Flashwind tried to hold him back.

“Blazetail, calm down! He’s been led astray, but he’s still our son…” she tried to ease him. Blazetail shot her a nasty glare before scoffing sharply, his tail whipping once before he turned around and started walking away.

“I don’t have a son…” he said in a tone that was filled with anger, but it failed to hide a faint choked up tone that was barely audible in the back of his voice. Before Flashwind could stop him, he took off and flew out towards the courtyard. She sighed and shook her head before turning back to the rest of them.

Soarin and Dash glanced at each other after witnessing the little scene that erupted alongside the long explanation. Blazetail and Flashwind were Rapidfire’s parents. They knew this, but they had yet to ever see how they felt about the situation with their son. Blazetail’s harsh reaction to the mere mention of his son was understandable, but the way Flashwind tried to defend Rapidfire and the very slight evidence of regret in Blazetail’s voice made them look at it a little differently. Perhaps there was more than one motivation for them joining up with the Renegades. Descent was trying to get the Shadowbolts back… perhaps Blazetail and Flashwind were trying to get their son back?

“Rapidfire added a whole new danger to the formula,” Descent took over, bringing the focus back to him. “With this new development in his magic, there was nothing to stop him from walking right into the compound. So… against Luna’s concerns, we decided to let the old Wonderbolts have a little fun with their old friends,” Descent chuckled. “We had them all expose themselves in a large group, and play a game of tag. I had faith in them not being caught because they knew all of your moves, tactics, and maneuvers. Cannon Ball almost got himself caught, not to mention he almost hurt one of you two which was strictly against my orders, but they still performed admirably… and proved that they can still handle themselves,” Descent looked directly at Spitfire as if trying to drive home his point about changing the Wonderbolt code. “It had the exact effect that we wanted. You became paranoid… but not paranoid enough, which is why we had Comet walk right in through the front door.”

“And then Rapidfire appeared the next day,” Fleetfoot added on the end. “Wow, we’ve been played HARD.”

“We knew the Shadowbolts were planning an attack, but we didn’t want to break the advantage we had. They were still under the impression that the Wonderbolts and the Renegades were not in contact, so they sent a small force…”

“SMALL?!” Dash blurted out. All eyes went to her. She blinked and quickly stepped back. “Sorry, right… the magic clones… but… how many of them are there in full?”

“I’ll get to that after,” Descent nodded. “They didn’t feel the need to send their full force out, probably because they didn’t know where we were or if we knew their whereabouts. They aren’t mindless, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, they were right. The small force was all they needed because the Wonderbolts did not know how to fight against them, which forced us to act. And that I fear, has called off all the bets and tricks. The next time they strike, with us in the picture beside you, will be without any holding back. We have yet to see their full force, so we can’t tell you what to expect. But they will be sending everything they have at us for sure.”

“So here we are! Woo!” Starry Skies added sarcastically.

The Wonderbolts remained silent as they stared between Descent and Luna. Dash fell onto her plot and groaned as she rubbed her forehead.

“You alright?” Soarin asked her as she shook her head.

“That was A LOT to absorb all at once, and we haven’t even gotten to who we’re fighting or the ‘what comes next’ part,” Dash complained as she sighed.

“Leave it to me!” Air Mach suddenly pounded his chest, drawing Dash’s attention. “Animak’s short version! Luna wanted to avoid drawing Equestria into a mass conflict! She hired the Renegades to solve it before it happened! They’ve worked behind the scenes and kept us from being hurt! Rapidfire ruined it! Everything happened like Celestia said anyway! How was that?” he hovered up and crossed his arms while bopping his head up and down.

A quiet growl from Spitfire drew their attention to her. She began walking towards Luna, pushing right past Descent as she did.

“Air Mach… all I needed to hear from you was… ‘IT DIDN’T WORK.’” she said very sternly as she stopped in front of Luna. “Princess, keeping all of this from us was the dumbest thing you could have done. You can’t solve problems by dancing around them. You should have joined the Renegades with us and together we would take on the Shadowbolts. All you’ve done here is cause mass confusion, panic. Several of my Wonderbolts are now heavily injured and everything ended up coming to pass anyway!” Spitfire was yelling as she rose up and got directly into Luna’s face.

Luna glared back at her, not giving an inch despite Spitfire’s fury.

“We did what we felt was right. Celestia’s premonitions have always come to pass, but she has never told us about them until this one. We felt that with the knowledge, we’d be able to effectively stop it from occurring. Changing the future we saw for the better…”

“Fat load of good it did!” Spitfire threw her arms out.

“We are AWARE, Captain Spitfire,” Luna hissed, pushing her face forward towards Spitfire’s. “You don’t need to remind us of our failures as we acknowledge them!”

“Sorry if I’m not sympathetic towards you LUNA…” Spitfire growled, dropping the title from Luna’s name. “I’m angry at your poor choice of how to handle this! Nearly half of our elites are down because we didn’t know what we were up against… Something you could have prevented and…”

“YOU WILL BE SILENT!” Luna suddenly floored everypony with the Royal Canterlot Voice. Spitfire was blown a few yards back by the voice as Soarin, Air Mach, Dash, and Fleetfoot all fell backwards, Silver holding his ground as usual. “I did what I felt was right! I made a judgment call!” Luna belted while dropping her usual royal speech and speaking about herself in the first person. “I decided to do things this way, thinking that it was for the best, and that we could avert a WAR. And you know what? It was the WRONG choice! I was wrong to try and change Celestia’s vision of the future!”

Luna pulled back and took a deep breath, exhaling for a long time before looking Spitfire directly in the eyes. The rest of the ponies as well as several of those moving about were all staring in at Luna.

“I was wrong to keep you all in the dark… I went ahead and took things into my own hooves… and in the end, nothing changed and ponies got hurt because of it…” she narrowed her eyes into a stern glare. “And… I’m not the only leader here… who’s guilty of doing that.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened and her wings stopped flapping. Everything went completely silent as Spitfire gently plopped back down on the ground and stared up at Luna with her ears folded back and her expression completely flipping from anger to dread as Luna dropped a painful reminder on her.

“Ouch…” Soarin said quietly as he watched Spitfire become completely subdued. Luna was right. She made a choice to keep them in the dark as she took things into her own hooves… and it failed. It was no different than what Spitfire had done in Cloudsdale. Spitfire could have easily argued that it would have never happened had Luna not done it first, but at that point she would just be pointing hooves.

She was just as guilty of it as Luna… only Luna openly admitted it was wrong without hesitation or contemplation right after. So Spitfire found her urge to fight the subject slowly fading.

Perhaps Luna’s decision was the wrong decision, but her reasons for doing so were in the interest of everypony involved. It wasn’t the time to argue, and it wasn’t the time to blame. If everything that was said was true… then they had more important things to attend to.

“Princess Luna…” Spitfire looked up at her. Her resolve and hardened expression had returned. “I appreciate your attempt to prevent what’s to come. It gave me a few dozen grey hairs, but I can see what you were trying to do,” she turned to Descent. “But now that we’re all here together it’s time to take action…”

Dash and Soarin watched as Spitfire approached Descent and the two leaders looked themselves in the eyes. Wonderbolt and Shadowbolt. Former Shadowbolt to be precise, but it was a symbolic moment nonetheless. Spitfire reached her hoof forward.

“We’re going to need everypony we can get,” she nodded. “Never thought I’d be doing this… but, I officially ask for your cooperation as an ally. What say you?”

Descent looked at her hoof for a moment… and then chuckled.

“What a strange world we live in. We try to kill you and a year later we become allies,” he reached up and clasped his hoof with Spitfire’s the two shaking hooves. “The Renegades will fight beside you.”

Rainbow Dash gulped. It was beyond incredible to watch Spitfire and Descent agree to help each other… but at the same time, what manner of enemy were they facing if it meant two forces of incredibly skilled warriors had to band together to stand a chance? Dash had a feeling she’d know very soon, because no sooner did the two finish their hoof shake did they begin discussing the new enemy…

The new Shadowbolts.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oooh ouch... Luna bringing the boom on that one. So looks like she was trying to prevent the future that Celestia saw way back in Head in the Clouds... and tried to do so behind the scenes, in the end it didn't work and caused problems... but hey... like she said, she's not the only leading figure guilty of that... eh spitfire?

We finally get to see how Blazetail and Flashwind feel about their son... it seems that Blazetail is in denial and Flashwind just wants her little colt back. it seems the renegades have many reasons for fighting, some joint, some personal.

Sorry if this was a bit of an apbrupt cut off, there was no way i was going to fit the rest of my originally planned chapter in here, so chapter 91 (which im already working on) will kick off immediately from where this one left off after the hoof shake.

Also ouch... Squall... that's gonna leave a scar...

And good lord, Valkyrie is strong :rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh:

Thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed!

(Also Kestrel is back to editing! :scootangel:)

Chapter 91: Never Letting Go

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 91: Never Letting Go

Descent and Spitfire kept their eyes locked as they gave their hooves one more strong shake before letting go and facing each other seriously. Flashwind had taken off to go after her husband, but the rest remained, taking in the sight of the two leaders agreeing to an alliance.

They had been on the same side from the start, but Spitfire wanted to formally recognize them. And no sooner did she do so, did she get down to business.

“So tell me about what we’re up against. You seem to know them well. Friends? Old comrades?” Spitfire inquired having witnessed Descent and Blade converse. Descent sighed and nodded.

“Indeed… I have gathered with me about… two hundred and fifty of the Shadowbolts who used to be under Nightshade’s command, the other fifty or so of the Renegade ranks being former Wonderbolts. However, Kayn Ost still has a large portion of the remaining Shadowbolts. I’d say at least a hundred and fifty.”

“Wait!” Rainbow Dash suddenly spoke up. Spitfire and Descent both blinked in surprise and turned to look at Dash, as did the rest.

“Dash? What’s up?” Soarin asked as Dash stepped in front of him and walked towards Descent. Spitfire scrunched her face.

“Rainbow Dash, stand down, I’m trying to—” she was cut off as Dash stepped up to Descent and looked up at his scarred face.

“Descent…” she gulped. “Is…” she hesitated. “Is… Nightshade… still alive?” she asked shakily.

Spitfire found her irritation fading and the rest of the Wonderbolts perked up as Dash asked a question that had been lingering on their minds ever since the conflict about half a year prior. Starry Skies and Lightning Dust, who were busy conversing with Luna, both stopped and looked towards Descent as he stared down at Rainbow Dash.

After a long pause of silence. Descent closed his eyes, tipped his head down and sighed.

“I… haven’t seen her yet… but…” he opened his eyes and nodded. “The Shadowbolts have mentioned her more than once in speeches to me about ‘betraying the captain.’ I do not know if she truly lives, or if they are just being led astray by Kayn Ost… but we cannot set aside the possibility,” he glared sternly at Dash. “You know just as well as I do that Nightshade is an incredibly dangerous pony. I have never known a pony stronger, faster, keener, or more ambitious than her. So far there has been no sign of her aside from verbal mention, but I shudder to think what would happen if she were to appear among the Shadowbolts’ already powerful lineup. Not to mention with how far their development of the crystal magic has come.”

Dash gritted her teeth. She was hoping for a solid answer, but it seemed that even Descent was unaware of whether or not the terrifying mare was truly gone. She turned away from him, looking at Spitfire as she started walking back towards Soarin.

“Sorry…” she apologized to Spitfire. “I just… wanted to know.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Spitfire nodded with a huff. “I was curious too, to be honest.”

Dash returned to Soarin’s side, leaning into him as he looked down at her. Nightshade made him just as uneasy as it did Dash. She had only rubbed herself all over him while taking pleasure in his struggle to stay alive back during the tornado incident. She was a disturbing pony, and it would have been nice to know if they were truly rid of her or not, alas they did not have that luxury.

“So…” Spitfire turned back to Descent as she tried to get the discussion back on track. “one hundred and fifty… we clearly have a numbers advantage, but due to the magic and possible other factors I’m assuming that there’s more that makes them formidable.”

“Indeed,” Descent nodded. “The magic makes each and every one of them dangerous. We have figured out ways to counter the magic, as you have seen, but it still enhances their natural strength, speed, and skill. Each of the Shadowbolts carries a single crystal, giving them access to simple magic and enhanced abilities… but the real danger is the ten captains who wield three crystals each.”

“Ten?” Spitfire spoke up. “The one I saw you talking to… was he one of them?”

“Yes,” Descent nodded. “That was Blade. He is an old friend of mine. Been in the Shadowbolts as long as I have. The captains are the most dangerous of them all because they have all mastered the duplication magic.”

“Duplication, as in the clones?” Spitfire asked.

“Correct,” Descent clarified. “Only ten ponies among the Shadowbolts have developed the ability that allows them to create the magical clones. You fought them yourselves, they are easy to dispatch and weak, but they come in swarms, and can easily overwhelm their opponents. The first of the captains is Blade. You saw him yourself. He has learned how to manifest his magic into a sword of energy that is quite dangerous. The second, the yellow stallion with a grey mane is Devil. He can create giant, exploding spheres of magic that follow his targets. He is very full of himself and tends to stand still when he launches his attacks. The third, the cream colored mare with a red mane is Shadow. She can create powerful waves of pure magical energy that burn as they rush against her opponents. She can also create dark auras around her that she uses to hide from view. The fourth, the dark blue stallion with a turquoise mane is Moon. He uses incredibly powerful telekinesis, many times more powerful than a typical unicorn. He can move anything with great ease or hold his opponents in place while his clones attack. The last captain that showed up, the red mare with a pink mane is Witch. She uses the magic in tiny bursts, creating the pin like missiles that she fires in streams to batter her opponents.”

“And those are just five of them…” Spitfire shook her head. “Well, I already feel the pressure… might as well lay it on me. What are the rest like?” Spitfire asked. Descent nodded.

“We were lucky that they only sent five. I’m certain we wouldn’t be talking right now if they the other five decided to come along,” he looked out at the battlefield, taking a moment to take in all the damage that had been done. “Void, Ruin, Angel, Trance, and Sin,” he said their names quickly. “Along with the other five… they are all very powerful with their magic, and every time we’ve encountered them we haven’t escaped without a few bruises or injuries. Just like with the first five, I know all of them well. Void is a very stoic stallion, he cares only for his own ambitions and his magic draws his opponents towards him against their will to strike them as they struggle. Ruin… is a very strange stallion. He has a civilized demeanor, but beneath it lies a crazy thirst for death and destruction that he can’t control. He manifests his magic into small orbs that dance about him erratically. They are fast and unpredictable… just like him…” Descent looked skyward.

“Then there’s Angel. He’s an interesting stallion because he tends to talk more than he fights… but his attacks are lethal. He is both the least dangerous and the most dangerous of the bunch. He rarely uses his magic, but when he does he manifests it into wide blades that fire from his hooves and cut through the air. Trance… while not as dangerous as the others is very sly, sneaky, and deceptive. His magic is similar to Ruin’s but the orbs of magical energy stay with him, orbiting around him until he unleashes them on a target all at once. Finally… there is Sin. Don’t let his name fool you…” Descent scoffed. “He’s a complete idiot. BUT… he’s a damn strong idiot. Like Blade, his magic is focused in his hooves, but unlike Blade, his magic stays within his hooves, enhancing the strength of his blows and pouring all of his magic into every strike. He’s also very sturdy and poised. If you punch him in the face as hard as you can, I guarantee he won’t flinch.”

Spitfire listened carefully as Descent explained. Soarin, Dash, Fleetfoot, and Silver all stared in a state of disbelief, listening to all the ridiculous abilities of those they were bound to face in the future, but Spitfire remained vigilant.

After all… the Wonderbolts’ primary objective was to meet and take on threats that the royal guard couldn’t handle. All of these strange magical abilities fell into this category.

Fleetfoot shook her head amidst the silence.

“Blade, Devil, Shadow, Moon, Void, Ruin, Angel, Witch, Trance, and Sin…” she chuckled, as out of place as it sounded. “I dunno if it’s irony or just pure luck, but jeeze… what kind of parents name their foals things like that? Most of those names are rather cryptic,” she shrugged. Descent scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“When a pony joins the Shadowbolts, it is a contract that erases all previous identity,” he explained. “Whoever they were before is moot, and they are given a new name. All ten of these ponies once had other names, but they threw them away in order to become who they are. The names tend to have an air of intimidation about them.”

Fleetfoot looked past Descent towards Starry Skies. She lifted an eyebrow before looking back at Descent.

“I dunno…” she began. “‘Starry Skies’ isn’t a very intimidating name…”

Starry perked up and looked towards Fleetfoot with a blank expression before scoffing and shaking her head.

“I don’t give a damn about traditions or code,” she spoke with a flat tone. “My name has always been Starry Skies. And if they don’t like it, tough shit.”

“As you can see…” Descent began with an exasperated tone. “Not everypony was willing to follow the Shadowbolt code completely. There are quite a few who refuse the titles we give them in favor of their true names. Lightning Dust and Rapidfire both kept their names as well.”

“Wait…” Soarin spoke up, stepping up past Dash. “Does that mean that Descent isn’t your real name?” he asked. All eyes went to Descent as he immediately shook his head.

“I was abandoned long before I ever learned my true name. I had no name when Nightshade and Starry found me on the streets of Canterlot, and I didn’t have a name until after the Shadowbolt we saved brought us to the flying compound. It was there that I was given the name Descent by our former leader, Dante. It’s the only name I’ve ever known.”

“Speaking of Rapidfire,” Soarin spoke up again. “I didn’t hear his name up there, he’s not a captain?”

“Not even close,” Descent shook his head. “He is sly and deceptive, but is not quite as much of a combat master as the ten captains. His game is deception, not power.”

“That sounds familiar,” Fleetfoot scoffed as Spitfire stepped forward.

“Alright enough with the soul searching, tragic pasts, and ponies I’d rather forget…” She spoke up. “We can talk about those after we’ve been victorious.”

“That’s exactly what I want to hear,” Descent smiled as he turned to Spitfire. “In fact, this brings me to a much more important matter at hoof,” he said as he turned and looked at them. “We have to strengthen the defenses of the Wonderbolt compound,” he stated sternly.

“I get that…” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “But something tells me there’s more to it…”

Descent blinked in surprise as Luna stepped up from behind him. She looked down at Spitfire and the Wonderbolts seriously as she nodded.

“The Shadowbolts are resilient and persistent,” she voiced. “Descent speaks the truth, the Wonderbolt compound must be prepared because…” Luna took a deep breath. “Their next attack… will most likely be tomorrow.”

“TOMORROW?!” Spitfire’s exclaimed, her demeanor breaking as the rest of the Wonderbolts present gasped. Luna nodded in a manner that was clearly casual based on past experience.

“The Shadowbolts mounted attempts to attack night after night. The Renegades have been working night shifts within our plans. The only reasons you’ve slept peacefully the past few months is because of them,” she stated as Descent stepped back up beside her.

“As Luna says, the Shadowbolts have never once shown an opening for us to take the fight to them. We beat them down, and the next day they come right back, suggesting they have ways to quickly heal themselves… we can’t say for sure. We don’t even know where they reside. The flying compound was destroyed, but they fight and move about as if they have a base of operations. It’s a mystery we have yet to solve.”

“Great,” Spitfire sighed. “Let’s think about all of that later. If what you say is true, we’ve gotta hurry up and get ready. I hate to ask so soon into our partnership, but a good third of our force is down for the count for a day or so and most of us will probably be tired… can you guys mount a defensive for us? We’ll offer all the help we can, but I’m afraid that help will be limited,” Spitfire admitted reluctantly while glancing towards Luna and narrowing her eyes. “We may have had more to offer but—”

“Stop,” Descent reached forward and placed a hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder, causing her to turn and look at him curiously as Luna herself looked away from them. “I can understand your disapproval of Luna’s decisions, but if you’re going to direct any of it about the battle that just occurred, direct it at me,” Descent stated very seriously as Spitfire listened. “Luna wanted to send us out to help the moment the battle started, but I was the one that suggested we wait in attempt to preserve the ruse. After some debate, we both agreed... but it was an error on my part for convincing her. Luna made a mistake by trying to avoid fate, but she’s not the only one among us at fault.”

Spitfire looked carefully at Descent, glancing between him and Luna before nodding.

“I guess all of the leaders here are guilty of blundering,” she sighed and shook her head. “Look, my trust isn’t easy to earn and the two of you are really trying it… but… right now it’s all I have to work with. Luna…” Spitfire turned to her. “It’s going to be a while before we can be on the same page without doubts, but as Descent has made clear we don’t have the luxury of time to argue on who has done what… can I ask a favor of you?”

Luna stared down at Spitfire, but quickly nodded.

“Speak,” she nodded. “We do not take making mistakes lightly. Tell us what you desire, and we shall see fit to do what we can,” Luna assured her. Spitfire smiled briefly, happy that things were finally being organized. Spitfire liked being in control of things, and it had been a long time since she felt even remotely in control.

“I know the royal guard isn’t trained for this kind of combat, but could we…” she began conversing with Luna.

Off to the side, Soarin blinked as Dash suddenly leaned heavily against him.

“What’s up? You okay?” Soarin asked. Dash grunted, shaking her head before turning herself around and looking Soarin in the eyes.

“Too much information…” Dash groaned as she turned and pushed her cheek into his chest. “I’m tired from the fighting and I’m trying to keep up with everything they’re talking about…” she turned and pushed her face square into his chest. “I need a nap…”

“You and me both,” Soarin agreed as he reached an arm over Dash and pulled her into a light hug.

“Ah! Ow!” Dash yelped quietly, causing Soarin to immediately release the pressure. “Careful, covered in bruises,” she reminded him.

“I’m not complaining about the scratch on my chest your ear is brushing against,” Soarin joked. Dash pulled her head back for a moment, seeing that he had a few minor cuts on his chest that split the suit and exposed some of his fur. Her ears flopped down as she shifted and rested her head in a spot that wasn’t hurt.

“Is that better?” Dash asked simply, surprising Soarin. He gave her a bit of smarm and she didn’t fire back. She had to have a lot on her mind. Well, of course she did. A giant, dangerous battle with wacky magic Shadowbolts followed by enough information to span three or four novels… not to mention this was a hell of a way for her Wonderbolt career to start. He had had a few years to become situated before everything went nuts. This was right out of the gate for her. She was also probably wondering about…

“OH!” Soarin suddenly looked down at her as he replaced his arm around her, very lightly this time. “Your squad… how are they doing? How’s Squall?” he asked her, singling Squall out because of the sword he took to the face. Soarin had nearly forgotten about him among all the information being dumped on his head.

“Matteo, and Star took a beating, but they’re up and moving. Twister got away without much damage, don’t ask me how, you know how that always turns out,” Dash frowned. “Squall had it the worst by far, I don’t know how it happened, but he had a horrible cut down the middle of his face between his eyes…” she said as she shivered.

“I saw it happen…” Soarin gritted his teeth. Dash blinked and looked up at him as he recalled it. “I wasn’t fast enough to help him. Calm and I were too worried about dodging the magic sword, especially after Blaze and Surprise were taken down by it. He charged in recklessly, but fearlessly, getting a solid attack in before he received the wound. What a lion heart, risking himself like that… he ended up taking the tip of the blade right down the face.”

Dash thought over Soarin’s recollection of the event. Squall… fearless… it was something Squall had always preached, but at times didn’t practice. She remembered when Matteo exposed his false bravery in the mess hall, stepping up and taking the blame for the fight that broke out and willingly accepting Silver’s punishment for the two of them. After that, Squall started his strange trend of looking like he enjoyed being yelled at. Perhaps Matteo’s little ‘lesson’ to Squall about biting as hard as you bark paid off. It took a while for Squall to put it right, but he went from shivering in the face of punishment to rushing headlong at an enemy that could have easily done worse than the wound on his face. Dash was certain this would earn Squall a lot of warrior respect from Matteo once she told the story to all of them.

“Are they still talking?” Dash blinked, turning her head against his chest towards Spitfire as she continued to converse between Descent and Luna.

“Heh…” Soarin smirked as he lightly rubbed her shoulder, taking care to be as gentle as possible with how banged up she was. “I lost track of what they were saying a few minutes ago…” he paused and glanced at Fleetfoot as she examined her light burn wounds. She wasn’t paying attention either. “I’m not even going to bother at this point. I’ll let Spitfire break it all down into simple orders,” he chuckled as he looked around to see Silver and Air Mach also waiting patiently. At the moment, Spitfire and Descent were locked in an intense discussion. Captain to captain… leader to leader… conversing with Luna as well to collaborate efforts from all possible resources. Once they sorted things out the rest would know.

The details would come, but one thing weighed heavy on all who were within earshot…

Another attack… TOMORROW?!

They just took a serious beating and from what Descent described, the next attack could happen the very next day? With an even larger force to boot? They had the Renegades with them now, and from the looks of things, possibly some assistance from the Royal Guard…

Soarin picked out Luna saying something about the Guard evacuating the surrounding areas of Canterlot before offering whatever assistance they could… something about leaving the compound behind, Descent and Spitfire immediately disagreeing with that idea… keeping the attack focused on them, moving away risked losing track of the Shadowbolts, blahbidieblibbidieblargh… there was too much discussion going and Soarin wasn’t catching enough of it to make sense of it.

“Oh?” Soarin perked up as he looked around and his eyes landed on the front doors of the compound. “Dash,” he pointed as he said her name. She looked up and followed his hoof, her eyes landing on Twister, Little Star, and Matteo as they emerged and began moving towards them.

“Dash!” Star waved as they approached. They all had their flight masks removed and by the looks of things had received some minimal medical attention, probably when they brought Squall to the training room. Just a few bandages, a lot of bruises, cuts, and minor burns still exposed. Dash looked back up at Soarin.

“Your chest is comfy, but I gotta ask about Squall,” she said as Soarin removed his arm from around her.

“I’m just as curious actually…” Soarin said as he and Dash turned to her approaching squadmates.

“How are you guys holding up?” Dash asked first to be courteous.

“I’m fine,” Matteo huffed as he reached up and scratched at a strip of medical tape that was holding a sterile pad over a spot on his shoulder that had taken enough of the magic bolts to start bleeding.

“Don’t scratch,” Star shook her head at him while hovering up and pushing his talons away from it. “He was whining about getting treatment,” she said with a giggle.

“I wear my minor wounds with pride… it was barely bleeding, I didn’t see the point…” Matteo grumpily snorted.

“Twister on the other hoof…” Star looked towards Twister along with the rest. While they weren’t looking he had somehow become completely wrapped up in bandages like a mummy.

“They wouldn’t give me more tape… I just wanted more tape!” Twister whined with a muffled voice.

“They had to kick Twister out,” Star finished while motioning towards him.

“I didn’t need treatment,” Matteo repeated. Star rolled her eyes.

“I’m sure they heard you the first time, and I definitely heard the first seven times after we left. We know you’re a big tough griffon, Matty… you don’t need to remind us.”

“No,” Matteo shook his head. “They should have been focusing on Squall. I wasn’t the one with my face sliced open and covered in my own blood.”

“How is Squall?” Dash quickly interrupted, stepping forward with concerned eyes. Star frowned and sighed.

“They took him towards the back as soon as we delivered him there. They had some medical beds going up in the back of the training room, didn’t really get to see him after that,” she said sadly. Dash looked down, thinking about what they could do to help Squall. For the time being, it seemed out of their hooves, but perhaps…

“Maybe we can check on him later, do you think Bliss will let us do that?” Dash asked, turning to Soarin. Soarin tipped his head back and forth.

“I dunno… but I could always ask her for you,” he offered with a smile.

“Yeah let’s try that,” Dash finished as she turned back to Star and Matteo. They quickly nodded in agreement as Twister suddenly popped up beside her, his eyes and eyebrows somehow outside of the bandages as he bounced them at her. “And no Twister, you can’t get more tape when we go.”

“Aww…” Twister whined as he slowly dipped back down.

As Foxtrot and Soarin conversed only a few yards away, Descent glanced towards them during a moment of respite due to Spitfire and Luna discussing the royal guard. After a moment, he turned his head away from Foxtrot and back towards his task at hoof…

But then his eyes widened and his head snapped back towards Soarin and Dash, his eyes being drawn specifically…

To Matteo.

“MASSIMO?!” Descent turned and set his hooves firmly on the ground, the turn was so sudden that he bumped Spitfire aside and the tassels of his headband whipped Luna in the face. He locked his eyes on Matteo, with a battle glare.

All eyes were up and turned to Descent… but none of the eyes were as surprised as Matteo’s.

Dash looked between the two of them amidst her confusion of Descent’s sudden outburst.

“Massimo…?” Dash tipped her head curiously as she glanced up at Matteo. Unlike the rest, who looked purely confused, Matteo’s face was wrought with a mix of curiosity and alarm.

Descent suddenly lifted the death glare from his face and blinked as he took a step forward and took a long, careful look at Matteo.

“Hm…” Descent stood up straight out of his battle ready stance and shook his head. “Forgive me…” he said as he began to turn. “You… resemble a griffon I once—”

“WHOA!” Dash and Soarin both yelped as Matteo suddenly moved forward, roughly pushing the two of them aside as he quickly made his way up to Descent. Descent stopped turning and kept his eyes locked on Matteo, not budging an inch as the enormous griffon trudged up to him with heavy steps. Matteo stopped right in front of him and stared directly into his eyes.

“My father! You knew my father?!” Matteo blurted out. Dash and Star gasped.

“Descent knew… Matteo’s father?” Dash said out loud to herself, remembering Matteo’s situation well. Matteo’s father was the previous Master of the Sky, the greatest warrior of the Sky Wings before he was killed. And Matteo’s father was killed by a pony… “Oh… no…” Dash’s pupils shrank.

“Your father?” Descent blinked, visibly startled.

“Yes! Massimo was my father! The former Master of the Sky! You knew of him?! How?! Tell me!” Matteo yelled.

The startled look on Descent’s face quickly faded replaced with a serious expression. He turned away from Matteo and started walking away from Luna and Spitfire.

“ANSWER ME!” Matteo yelled as Descent put some space in between himself and the other two leaders before turning and facing Matteo.

“I killed him.”

“W…what…?” Matteo’s beak hung open and his eyes grew wide.

“Oh jeez…” Starry Skies stepped up past Spitfire with Lightning Dust close behind. “I know where this is going…” she sighed, remaining casual amidst the shock that spread across the rest of those present.

It didn’t take long for Matteo to slam his beak shut and glare towards Descent crackling noises coming from the concrete path as Matteo’s talons ground against it.

“You…” Matteo growled as he set his back paws. Dash gasped as she saw Matteo take a battle stance.

“Hey! Matty, WAIT!” Dash yelled, but it was too late.

“YOOOUUUU!!!!!!!” Matteo roared out as he launched himself forward, ignoring all the pain as he spread his large wings and lifted off, gliding fiercely along the ground with his talons clearly out and ready to attack.

Matteo was going to use his talons… he was attacking with intent to kill.

“MATTY! STOP!” Dash yelled again, but her voice fell on deaf ears.

“HMM!” Descent grunted as he sprung up into the air, shooting upward and moving backwards as Matteo slammed his talons and paws to the ground, pushing himself skyward to give chase.

“Dammit! STOP HIM!” Spitfire yelled as she spread her wings. Silver, Air Mach, and Soarin forced themselves into flight right behind her. Starry Skies and Lightning Dust took flight as well.

Descent kept his eyes on Matteo as he slowly reduced his speed, allowing Matteo to catch up. He looked away for a brief moment, seeing the multiple Wonderbolts and Renegades approaching them. He furrowed his brow and growled.

“EVERYPONY STAY BACK!” Descent shouted, causing all those rushing to stop Matteo to halt in their paths.

“What?” Soarin blinked and looked around, even Spitfire and Silver had stopped per Descent’s request. Everypony watched with worry as Matteo reached Descent.

“RRRRRRRAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!” Matteo roared as he began throwing jabs and swipes at Descent with his talons. Descent moved with him, dodging every attack with as little movement as possible as he remained perfectly calm under the assault. Swipe after swipe, jab after jab, Matteo hit nothing but air as Descent eluded every attempt with ease. Matteo was hurt and tired from the battle before, but even if he wasn’t, the difference in experience and ability was clear.

Descent kept stealing glances around as Matteo continued his fruitless assault. It took Dash a moment to notice, but Descent was making shifts in his backwards flight path, turning the course of Matteo’s assault and keeping them away from any areas where ponies were gathered, or where the injured were being tended to. All eyes were looking up at the sudden fight that had broken out, but Descent was literally controlling the movement of their battle while dodging each attack.

As much as she was worried, Dash’s eyes ended up locking onto Descent, analyzing his movements. Whenever he wasn’t trying to shift the path, he had his eyes fixed directly on Matteo’s chest. Each attack came within an inch of him before he made a small shift and the attack passed right by him.

No matter what movement he made… Descent never took his eyes off Matteo’s chest… Focusing on the chest… somehow deducing movement from doing so?

“DASH! LOOK OUT!” Star yelled, breaking Dash from her brief daydream.

“WHOA!” Dash yelped and leapt backwards as Descent and Matteo slammed down to the ground less than a yard away. Matteo reared back, holding his arms out before swinging them back in towards Descent, his razor sharp talons aiming right for his face. Descent reared back as well, flapping his wings to steady himself as he held both of his arms up and outward. They slammed into Matteo’s arms just below the talons, stopping them inches from his face on both sides. Matteo growled and struggled, trying to push his arms inward as he glared directly into Descent’s calm eyes.

“STOP RUNNING AWAY!” Matteo belted into Descent’s face. “FIGHT ME, YOU COWARD!” he yelled so loud that tiny, stray bits of saliva shot from his beak onto Descent.

Descent remained strong and steady, staring down the enraged griffon. Matteo continued to press against him and was trying to move his talons, but Descent was applying enough pressure to ensure Matteo’s arms remained in place. Descent suddenly shook his head and huffed in disapproval before his calm eyes turned into a fierce glare.

“Very well,” he said simply.

“ARGH!” Matteo grunted as he felt his arms begin to move.

“HRGH!” Descent gritted his teeth, the muscles in his powerful arms and chest flexing and bulging, stretching the material of his flight suit taught around them as he used his great strength to push against Matteo’s arms and move them away from his head.

All of the Wonderbolts’ mouths hung agape. Matteo’s strength was well known across the compound, especially with him being a griffon AND a large one at that. They had seen him bench press 400 pounds several times for crying out loud! Yet here, they watched as he was overpowered by a pony who he had the advantage of size, positioning, and leverage over. Every part of the deadlock was in Matteo’s favor, but Descent turned it around regardless.

“HHRRRGHAAA!” Descent roared as he threw his arms outward, pushing Matteo’s arms off of him and forcing him to rear further back on his paws. Descent immediately leapt up and pulled back his hooves.

“NO! DON’T!” Dash yelled, but Descent completely ignored her.

Descent began unloading several heavy punches and kicks into Matteo, hitting him primarily in the stomach, chest, and face.

“AH! ARGH! AH! URGH! AH!” Matteo grunted and gasped as he received every attack full force, pushing him backwards after every strike.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!!!!!” Spitfire yelled out as she and Soarin pushed aside Descent’s request for them to stay back and rushed towards the two of them.

Descent saw them coming, and before they could get in front, he wound up and delivered and incredibly strong uppercut to Matteo’s chin. The force of the blow lifted Matteo up off his back paws and sent him in a small arc backwards, landing on the concrete with a few painful bounces. Descent came back down on all four hooves and made no more signs of advancing as Spitfire and Soarin angrily put themselves between them. Soarin growled as he watched Dash, Star, and Twister rush past them towards Descent.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Soarin questioned. “You could have subdued him, you didn’t have to punch the crap out of him!” he added furiously. He trusted Descent, but that didn’t give him leave to beat up his fellow Wonderbolts.

“You’re glaring at me like I started that fight,” Descent said casually as Spitfire shook her head and snorted.

“You didn’t start it, but you sure as hell ended it… I won’t tolerate physical harm of my Wonderbolts!” she demanded. Matteo was clearly at fault for starting it, but in hers and Soarin’s mind, there were many other ways to handle it than how Descent did.

“I severely doubt he would have wanted that,” Descent suddenly said as he took a step forward. Soarin instantly reach up a hoof and pressed it against Descent’s chest. Descent stopped and narrowed his eyes at Soarin.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” Soarin pressed. “If you think I’m letting you near him after—”

“Soarin, how much do you know about griffon culture?” Descent asked. Soarin and Spitfire both blinked, their glares fading to looks of confusion. “Well?” Decent encouraged while looking at Soarin for a moment longer before turning to Spitfire. “What about you?” he asked her. Spitfire and Soarin turned and stared at each other before looking back at Descent with nothing to say. Descent reached up and gently removed Soarin’s hoof from his chest before continuing on right between the two of them. They both just turned and watched carefully as Descent continued on towards Matteo. He was still on the ground, turned over on his side while grunting and wheezing as his body twitched and winced in pain. Dash, Star and Twister were all crowded around him.

Dash spotted Descent as he approached, and quickly got up, placing herself in between him and Matteo, thrusting her wings out in a defensive manner while glaring at him and gritting her teeth.

Descent stopped, staring calmly into Dash’s glare, not moving any further forward nor making any moves to remove her from his path.

“Dash…” Silver’s voice suddenly met her ears. Dash blinked and turned to see Silver walk up beside her.

“S…Silver?” she blinked as he reached out and grabbed her shoulder.

“Let him by,” he said while gently pulling her aside. The ease at which he moved Dash proved that while she was holding her ground, her legs were barely set. She knew for a fact that she wouldn’t be able to stop Descent, but she wanted to protect Matteo anyway.

As Silver moved her aside, he and Descent locked eyes, the two stared at each other in silence for a moment before Silver snorted.

“What, waiting for me to give you a little nudge in the plot or something? Sorry, my wife probably wouldn’t approve.”

“Pfffheh…” Descent smirked and chuckled as he kept walking forward.

Dash didn’t know what impressed her more, the way Silver simply stared down one of the most intimidating ponies in the history of Equestria, or the fact that he made Descent loose a chuckle. She never thought she’d see Descent of all ponies have a sense of humor.

“Away with you,” Descent said down to Star, who immediately scampered away towards Dash. Twister appeared behind Descent and started edging towards the back of his head. “You too,” Descent said without turning around. Twister froze in place before making strange clanking noises and moving back in the direction he came while making slow, steady beeping noises.

Descent walked around Matteo’s side so he could see his face. He approached, and sat down in front of him. Matteo’s eyes squeaked open in between groans and he glared at Descent.

“Y…you… I’ll… ugh…” Matteo grunted, unable to finish the threat.

“Kill me?” Descent finished for him. “Why?” Descent asked a question that was absurdly obvious, but Matteo answered anyway.

“Because… you killed… my… father…” Matteo forced every word out.

“Seeking revenge is forbidden in the griffon warrior’s code,” Descent stated flatly as Matteo continued to stare at him. “You would forsake your laws? Your traditions?”

“To hell… with griffon law!” Matteo snapped. “You stole… my family honor… you stole… my father from me… the griffons… themselves… reject me…” Matteo droned on, but Descent listened to every word carefully. “I seek revenge… not as a griffon… but as…a warrior!”

Descent cracked a small smile.

“Magnificent…” he said quietly as he bent down and pushed Matteo’s face up to see his. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Matteo…” he replied.

“Look at me, Matteo,” Descent encouraged while holding his face up. Matteo’s eyes moved and looked upon his scarred face. “Your father… was by far the fiercest warrior I had ever faced in combat, and to this day I have yet to face another so powerful within their natural abilities alone. It is unfortunate when two seasoned warriors find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict. Fate had it that he stood between me and my objective, and the Shadowbolt code dictates that all opposition be removed, lethally if necessary. Your father refused to go down no matter how many blows we exchanged. The punches and kicks that you received just now were the very same strength and vigor I used against you father… only it took several hundred of those blows before I finally felled him and I did not escaped unscathed… in fact I barely made it out alive…”

Descent reached his other hoof up and stroked it over his own face.

“Do you see all these scars on my face?” Descent asked as Matteo looked them over. “I have a lot all over my body as well… ALL of them given to me by Massimo,” Descent explained as Matteo’s eyes widened slightly. “I will never look in a mirror without remembering the kind of warrior he was… nor will I forget how close he brought me to death… he taught me a lot about myself.”

Matteo looked away as Descent set Matteo’s head back down.

“However… this doesn’t change the truth. I killed your father, and as a warrior, you seek to avenge him,” he glared down at him. “And while your words are strong… you can’t fool me. The griffon laws and traditions are important to you… even if they don’t allow you seek revenge…” Descent reached his right hoof over to his left arm and began pulling the sleeve of his flight suit up. “So…” he reached down, grabbed Matteo’s left arm, and lifted it up. “Let’s give you a reason to kill me,” he clutched Matteo’s arm hard, forcing one of his talons to fully extend.

Soarin perked up as Dash gasped to his left.

“He’s…” Dash’s jaw dropped. “He’s going to…”

She didn’t finish in time. All the ponies watching reacted in several ways as Descent took Matteo’s talon and willingly pierced through the fur and into the skin of his left arm. Everypony cringed as Descent slowly moved the talon, dragging it over his arm, creating a cut… that began to bleed onto the talon. Descent didn’t as much as flinch as he moved the razor sharp point over his arm.

Matteo’s eyes widened considerably, watching as Descent’s blood began to run over his talon and onto his shanks. Descent removed the talon from his arm and held it down in front of Matteo so he could see it clearly. Descent’s blood… on his talons.

“My blood now rests on your talons. Griffon code states that they will be forever stained until you kill me.”

Matteo kept staring at his talons as Descent spoke.

“Now you can seek your personal revenge while upholding the code you hold dear. This is my promise to you that I will be waiting for that day you find the strength to kill me. I can think of no better warrior to be my end than the son of Massimo the Great.”

As Descent finished, he let go of Matteo’s talons. Matteo immediately balled his talons up and brought them up to his forehead while squinting his eyes shut. Descent had just done a great thing for him… giving him a way to pursue and important goal in life without betraying the culture he held dear.

“Oh man…” Soarin blinked as Dash finished explaining what Descent had just done to all the surrounding Wonderbolts.

“Sheesh, griffon culture is messed up…” Fleetfoot said quickly, earning a wince from the rest of them because Matteo was clearly within earshot, but he wasn’t listening to anything at the moment, lost in his own moment.

Soarin looked over towards Descent as he pulled his left sleeve down over the fresh wound and began walking back towards Starry Skies and Lightning Dust. Soarin, curious, turned and started walking towards him. Dash was about to follow Star and Twister back towards Matteo, but watched Soarin head for Descent and decided to follow him instead. Why? Descent just guaranteed that he’d have a griffon coming to kill him later in life. Why would anypony do that? Descent was always an interesting pony with strong motivations and an air of experience. If Soarin was going to ask about what just happened, she wanted to hear too.

She passed by Spitfire and the rest, and caught up to Soarin right as he called out to Descent.

“Descent… why?” Soarin asked as Dash stepped up beside him. Descent stopped and turned to them.

“Why what?” he asked as if he hadn’t just wowed all of them.

“Why would you put that burden on yourself?” Soarin asked. “You’re going to let him kill you someday?”

“Pfft…” Descent quietly scoffed. “The hell I am…” he said while smirking and shaking his head. Soarin and Dash both blinked.

“But didn’t you…” Dash blinked in confusion.

“He will be a valuable warrior in our fights to come. We all have things that motivate us and I wanted to make sure he had his. I took something from him, something that he couldn’t act on because of how important his traditions are to him. As a pony who follows a code myself, I know how painful it is to break it. He was conflicted, but I used a loophole in his own culture to give him the means… to motivate him,” Descent shook his head. “I don’t have any plans to die before my time’s up, but this is what’s important to him.”

Descent looked up as a few of the Wonderbolts sent on the sweep patrols approached.

“We all have things in our lives that we go above and beyond for. We make sacrifices and put forth the effort even if it’s difficult. Some have little joy to hang onto…But it’s that personal joy that makes life worth living. It’s important that we never let such things go.” Descent nodded as he turned and continued walking.

“Commander Soarin!” Storm Front yelled as he came in for a landing with Macho Savage and Lead Runner right behind him. Soarin looked up and spotted Storm. He looked behind him to see Spitfire occupied, so it looked like he was getting a sweep report. Storm touched down and trotted up to Soarin. “We covered the far western edge in our sweep…” As Storm began, Soarin’s attention was drawn away as Descent froze mid step and sharply turned his head towards them. “There was nothing out of the ordin—” Storm paused and blinked as he saw Soarin looking away from him.

Storm turned his head and his eye landed on Descent. The two stared at each other for a moment before Storm suddenly ripped away from Soarin and frantically stepped towards Descent, stopping about five yards away and pushing his goggles up roughly. Storm’s eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped. Descent blinked, his face covered with a look of shock.

“Storm Front?”

Art by: Foxenawolf

“DAD?!?!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh dear...

Chapter 92: Part of the Job

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 92: Part of the Job

Everypony stared towards Descent and Storm in shock as the two remained frozen in place, staring at each other. Fleetfoot blinked.

“Dad?” she looked towards Soarin and Dash.

“Dad?!” Dash looked at Soarin.

“DAD?!” Soarin jaw dropped. Starry Skies tipped her head to the side in disbelief.

“DAD?!?!?!” Not even Starry knew?

“MOM?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”

All eyes shifted to look at Twister as he stared in disbelief at an egg resting in his hoof. Twister looked around as everypony, save for Storm and Descent had all turned to look at him quizzically. Twister sneered and his pupils went in different directions.

“Oh… my mistake…” he snickered. “But hey…” he suddenly smashed the egg directly into his face, the yolk and egg white oozing out onto his face and down his nose. “I’ve got egg on my face!” he kept snickering as multiple sighs and groans sounded out before all attention went back to the apparent reunion before them.

Descent looked absolutely petrified as Storm continued to slowly approach him, his body language unlike anything Soarin had ever seen from him, and apparently even Starry had never seen. Descent always looked so strong, determined, and powerful. His mere presence dominated almost any situation he got into… but here…

“Dad…? It’s… really you?” Storm blinked several times as he approached, removing his flight mask, which allowed Descent to look directly into Storm’s eyes. Descent shifted backwards slightly as their eyes met his bottom lip… quivering? “Dad, say something! Please…” Storm was starting to smile, but the smile waivered a Descent continued to shift backwards.

“Uh…” Descent’s eyes widened further as he looked at Storm smiling. The eyes, the face, the smile… Descent suddenly gritted his teeth, looking frantically around at all the Wonderbolts and Renegades around them that were staring in disbelief. “N…NO!” Descent shook his head roughly, startling Storm and the rest as he turned and faced away from Storm. “No… I…” Descent looked down. “Not now… begone…”

“What?!” Storm stepped towards him and reached out. “But… Dad… where have you been? What have you been doing…?” Storm took in the sight of the Shadowbolt uniform as he moved to put his hoof on Descent’s shoulder. “You’re… a Shadowbolt? But…” his hoof touched Descent.

“I SAID,” Descent roughly turned around and swiped his hoof out, knowing Storm’s arm aside. “BEGONE!” he yelled angrily, his face immediately shifting back to dread, his ears flopping down and his eyes growing wide as he looked into Storm’s eyes. Storm looked at him with horror, his father having more or less struck him, lashing out in a way he had never seen before. “No… I didn’t mean…" Descent slammed his eyes shut and turned away. “We are busy… leave us.”

“After all this time… and how much I’ve worried… that’s all you have to say to me?!” Storm suddenly raised his voice. Descent growled, spread his wings, and took off. “DAD!” Storm called out and spread his wings to give chase.

“STORM!” Spitfire’s voice boomed out, freezing him in place. Soarin and Dash turned to see Spitfire approaching. She had clearly seen all of it and was just as confused as the rest, but she agreed with something that Descent had said before leaving. “Leave him alone,” Spitfire said sternly as she walked up to him. “Anything personal right now will have to wait,” she motioned out towards the commotion still going on around them. The medical teams were all still scrambling around and Wonderbolts were still making sweeps above. “That was a rather… disheartening little reunion you just had and I’m wondering how the hell that came to pass, but… Storm, look at me,” she said sternly as she reached up and pushed Storm’s chin so he’d look at her instead of in the direction Descent flew. “We’ll get answers later, right now I need the sweep patrol reports so we can continue or preparations. Time is short.”

It was unbelievable to Soarin how Spitfire managed to stay on task after such a shocking revelation.

Descent… Soarin’s Shadowbolt rival… the pony who was more or less responsible for Soarin nearly dying back in Ponyville… the pony who helped save him and Dash from the clutches of Nightshade… the pony who now lead a powerful force of renegade Shadowbolts and old Wonderbolts… was the same pony that Storm spoke endlessly of?

The stallion that influence Storm to always try his hardest… who always showed him love and care his mother never bothered to give… who taught him to always be nice and kind… and as Storm liked to say ‘made him the stallion he is today...”

DESCENT?! The strongest, ruthless, brutal, fearless warrior of the Shadowbolts second only to Nightshade?! Storm’s… father…?

Soarin’s head felt like it was spinning. That didn’t make any sense… not even a tiny bit of sense! And it clearly wasn’t an understanding because of Descent’s reaction. What…? Just what…?!

Soarin looked down at Dash, who was staring towards Matteo. Soarin followed her eyes to the griffon to see that he was looking up… but unlike the others, he was glaring. Glaring directly at Storm.

“Oh jeeze…” Soarin mumbled to himself, as amidst the shock he realized something.

This REALLY complicated some things.

The only shock to Soarin was Descent was apparently a perfect father figure to Storm. Descent had long made up for what he did to Soarin by showing his honorable taste for combat, his morals, his loyalty, and from the fact that he ended up saving Soarin’s life. He just had no idea that all this time, a pony he was trying to befriend and help fit in… happened to be the son of his rival.

The real complications were going to hit Dash harder. Matteo had often spoken of his father and how he hoped to someday restore his honor… he also had a lot of respect for Storm and what he had achieved… Now he learned that the father of a pony he heavily respected was the killer of his own father. Descent had given him the opportunity to pursue revenge, but that didn’t change the fact that he had extreme animosity towards Descent for taking his father away from him. How would that affect his respect for Storm? Especially considering how griffons view family ties and the culture of honor through bloodlines? Knowing Matteo, because Descent killed his father… that made Storm just as much a part of his father’s death.

But then there was the subject of Storm himself. He wasn’t around to hear it, but he would find out that Descent killed Matteo’s father. Storm was a pony of compassion and kindness. As if his own father turning away from him wasn’t enough to stab him in the heart, he’d probably feel even worse because of what happened with Matteo’s father. It was something Storm didn’t need on top of how he already got down on himself at times.

Complications indeed.

“WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!” Both Fleetfoot and Starry Skies yelled out in unison, drawing Soarin’s attention towards them as the two blinked and lifted an eyebrow at each other.

“How do you not know?” Fleetfoot asked quizzically. Starry Skies rolled her eyes.

“Just because I’ve known him forever doesn’t mean he tells me everything,” she snorted as she looked back towards Descent. “Big, bad Descent, a dad?” she shook her head. “If you knew him like I do, that just doesn’t line up!”

“What, you never go out and have a little fun?” Fleetfoot asked while tipping her head comically towards Starry. “Sounds like the big guy did!”

“Want me to make it so your neck bends further?” Starry hissed, folded her ears back, and backed away as Fleetfoot giggled.

“Fleetfoot…” Soarin cringed as he spoke with a hushed tone through his teeth.

“What?” she blinked and looked to see Soarin pointing towards Storm as he finished giving Spitfire his report. He was clearly in earshot. “Oh… whoops…” she winced and put a hoof over her mouth, biting her bottom lip in regret as she saw how absolutely dejected Storm looked.

“I see,” Spitfire nodded after hearing his report. “Storm, I want you to go to the training room and get me the registry,” she asked as she saw the last few medical teams heading into the compound with the injured. “I need to take roll call and Bliss is keeping track of who’s in the training room, which I’m sure is being turned into more of an infirmary right now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Storm said quietly.

“Storm…” Spitfire looked at him sternly. “You can confront him later. In fact, I encourage it… but right now I need your help and focus… okay?” Spitfire placed a hoof on his shoulder.

“Okay…” Storm nodded while swallowing before turning towards the compound doors.

Soarin thought about going to confront him, but as startling as the situation was and how eagerly he wanted answers… he decided not to press the subject. Besides, Storm was already looking down, and Spitfire had him on a task. There was no way this was going to disappear into the wind, he’d find out more about it soon enough.

Soarin looked towards Dash, but she had broken away, heading towards Matteo. He readied to follow, but Spitfire caught him before he could.

Dash trotted up to Matteo as Star continued to look him over. Twister was sitting slightly off to the side with half an eggshell over each ear.

“Twister,” Dash narrowed her eyes and stomped up to him. She pressed her nose roughly into his and glared. “TIME. AND. PLACE.” She said sternly. Twister blinked without changing his sneer, flattening his ears to make the eggshells off before pointing them back up straight. “Thank you,” Dash nodded, happy he caught wind of her tone. She appreciated the way he tried to keep the mood light in any and all circumstances, but even Twister had to understand that it was not acceptable at times. “How are you doing?” Dash asked Matteo as she turned to him. He didn’t say a word. He was staring down at his talons stained with Descent’s blood. “Matty?” Dash tried to get his attention again, but still nothing. She turned and looked at Little Star as she shook her head.

“He hasn’t said a word since…” she looked out towards where Descent and Storm were standing a moment ago. “That,” she made a half-hearted hoof motion. “I…” Star looked between Matteo and towards the doors of the compound where she last saw Storm. “I don’t know how to feel about this…”

“You and me both…” Dash sat down and shook her head. If things weren’t confusing enough… so much felt out of place. If Descent really was Storm’s father, how much deception was there here? Dash had mentioned Descent by name when she explained everything about the Shadowbolts to Storm and the rest of Foxtrot… yet Storm didn’t seem to know it. This had gotten very complicated… and definitely not something they needed in their current situation. “I’m so confused… and now we have extra complications. This has been one hell of a morning…” she turned and looked at Matteo. “Matty, we have to get you medical attention…” she tried, but once again got no response. “Ugh…” she reached up and rubbed her forehead.

She looked out towards Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot as the Wonderbolts from the sweep patrols began landing and giving them their reports. Starry Skies was flagging down Lightning Dust and other Renegades as they came in from their own patrols, releasing the burden from Descent, who had up and left for the moment for obvious personal reasons. Among them were all the retired Wonderbolts as well. She looked towards the compound as Storm walked out with a clipboard tucked under his wing and weaved through the gathering Wonderbolts to pass the clipboard to Spitfire.

“Thanks, Storm,” Spitfire nodded before glancing down at the board. She only did so for a moment before hovering up in the air and facing the ripped up courtyard. “ROLL CALL!” she yelled out, catching the attention of nearby Wonderbolts. “EVERYPONY, GET IN HERE! LET’S GO!” she yelled out, causing the Wonderbolts still scattered about the courtyard to gather up any stragglers and head towards her.

“Stay with him,” Dash nodded to Star, pointing to Matteo as she started walking towards Spitfire. Her squad was a tad scattered, but they were all accounted for, so she had to speak for them. Dash pushed up through the crowd until she found Soarin, leaning gently against him, which had become her usual silent greeting. Spitfire looked around as the remaining Wonderbolts gathered around. A few not on the medical list were still on their way, but Spitfire began regardless.

“Okay! I’m going to name off the Squad captains and as I do, let me know you and your squad are accounted for! If your captain is in the infirmary, you guys are smart, one of you speak for them! I know this is a tedious process, but this is to make sure that none of us are de—” Spitfire froze and her eyes widened as she looked up into the sky. “Oh no…”

All eyes followed hers… landing on the last three Wonderbolts flying down to join. It was squad three, just the Streak twins and Misty Fly with Surprise being tended to in the compound… but…

Misty Fly had tears in her eyes. Fire Streak was flying above her, resting a hoof on her shoulder as they came in for a landing…

Lightning Streak… had a limp body of a Wonderbolt in his arms.

Gasps of shock rung out as the three approached, the Wonderbolts near Spitfire backing away, giving them room to land.

“Oh my god…” Dash’s ears drooped and her heart sank as she watched Lightning Streak land, not a single trace of the usual smarm or shamelessness around him. Misty and Fire walked up beside him, Misty clinging to Fire tightly as Lightning slowly and gently place the Wonderbolt on the ground before Spitfire.

“Midnight… is she…?” Spitfire looked towards Lightning Streak. Lightning simply nodded somberly as he stepped back. The Wonderbolt was a mare, dark blue fur with a yellow mane. Her neck was turned awkwardly, her wings bent out of shape, her flight suit torn up completely on one side, exposing bruising and several brutal scrap burns.

“Broken neck…” Fire Streak spoke up. “From where and how we found her… she was driven into the ground head first… right into one of the concrete pathways,” Fire shook his head as he reached his arm around Misty Fly and hugged her as tightly as he could.

Dash stared in disbelief, frozen in a mixture of shock and intense sadness as Spitfire put her head down and backed away slightly. Lightning, Fire, and Misty all did the same followed by the entire Wonderbolt force moving as well. Several Renegades that were retired Wonderbolts landed among them as they made space around the fallen Wonderbolt.

In complete silence, the Wonderbolts and Renegades all removed their goggles and their masks if they wore one. They reached the goggles out in front of them and slowly let them drop out of their hoof. Several CLACK CLACK CLACK noises sounded out as the goggles all hit the concrete out front of the compound, the noise echoing off the surrounding surfaces as no words or noises were uttered from a single pony. They all sat down on the ground, slowly opened their wings, and looked skyward with their wings fully outstretched. They all remained in that position, Wonderbolts and retired Wonderbolt Renegades alike in complete silence for several moments as the non-Wonderbolt Renegades all watched and waited respectfully.

Dash saw all the movements, but she herself remained still, even with Soarin completing the same motions right beside her. She was frozen in place as she stared at the dead Wonderbolt alone in the center with all of her Wingmates honoring her.

Why couldn’t she move a muscle? This was something Dash was hoping she would never have to see, but here she was, looking at it. However, it wasn’t having the effect she thought it would. She wasn’t paralyzed in fear, she wasn’t broken, she wasn’t shaking… at least… not yet, and as she wondered why she didn’t feel that way… she soon found out that she was slowly coming to harsh realization.

Her pupils shrank as her eyes grew, looking over the lifeless body. As she continued to look, an image began making its way into her head… something… familiar… Something… that had just happened…

Dash felt all the air leave her lungs as she realized…

This Wonderbolt mare…

It was the mare she ran into while trying to get to Silver… who was grabbed by a Shadowbolt clone right after… and then driven towards the ground. Dash’s thought process after the fact began replaying in her head as well: The Wonderbolt could handle herself… she would be fine… she had to help Silver…

“Ah…” Dash suddenly squeaked, drawing the attention of a few Wonderbolts nearby. “Ah… ah…” her body began to shiver uncontrollably, her arms and legs shaking as she began taking steps backwards.

“Dash…?” Soarin asked in confusion as Dash’s body continued to shake and stagger.

“N…no…” Dash shook her head as she stared at the dead Wonderbolt. She ran into her and threw her off during battle… and then she abandoned her afterward… and now…

She was dead…

It was her fault…

“No… no, no, no, no!” Dash said louder as she began to feel dizzy and stumbled. “NO!” she yelled as she turned and sprinted towards the compound, her body moving on its own, and taking her away from the scene to anywhere she would find comfort. Where that was, she wasn’t even thinking about it… it just had to be away from the courtyard.

“Dash?!” Soarin called after her as several other Wonderbolts turned towards Dash. “Dash!” Soarin called after her again as he turned and ran after her, following her into the compound.

“Why…?” Fleetfoot blinked as she watched the two run off. She glanced towards Spitfire, but Spitfire didn’t even look, she was staring skyward, clearly only thinking about the loss of one of their numbers. It was something neither she nor any of them would ever get used to, but it was part of the job unfortunately. Fleetfoot glanced back at the doors as they closed behind Soarin, but she struck the thought from her mind, looking skyward with the rest to honor Midnight.

Fleetfoot didn’t get an answers about Dash, but Silver sat behind her, staring at the compound for a moment before looking back at his fallen comrade. He glanced between the lifeless body and the compound before calmly standing up and moving towards the doors, quietly weaving through the Wonderbolts and their outstretched wings. The rest of the Wonderbolts continued the prolonged moments of silence, their goggles on the ground as they held their wings out and looked skyward… honoring a fallen friend.

Run…

Just run…

Run where…?

Where to run…?

Anywhere…?

Just away from there…

Couldn’t stay there…

Because… it was you…

You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you.

Your fault… your fault… your fault…

She died because of YOU.

Rainbow Dash ran through the lobby of the compound, stumbling and bumping into nearly every piece of furniture as her body seemed to aim her towards the recruit barracks. Security staff, medical staff, and general staff all watched her curiously, not knowing why she was moving so erratically, much less why she was shaking and whimpering.

Somepony was calling her name. Somepony behind her, but she couldn’t focus. She had no idea who the voice belonged to. It was warped and distorted by all the sudden churning feelings of guilt and regret that poured over the top of her head like a giant, bottomless bucket of ice water.

She crashed face first into the doors to the barracks, her arm bending down as she tried to push them open, but they were pull from the lobby side. Without caring how disoriented and an jumbled her thoughts were, she shifted to pull the door open and stumbled through. She looked into the barracks hallway. It appeared to be endless and she started cantering down it. Her pace had slowed as she looked back and forth, trying to remember which door was hers. She veered to the left and began dragging her body across the wall as the voice calling her name came from behind her again.

“NO!” she yelled as she pushed off the wall, stumbled and fell flat. She pushed herself up and stared at the door before her. It had the ‘Foxtrot’ nameplate. She forced herself up and charged into the room.

“DASH! WAIT!” the voice was much closer. She didn’t care who or what it was, she slammed the door behind her, a loud THUMP sounding out, followed by a yelp before the door closed. Her stomach began to churn and her throat tensed as her eyes darted all about the room, walking through towards the opposite wall while stumbling. Her ears perked up as she heard the door to the barracks open behind her. She quickly dove towards the mare’s bathroom, trying to get as far away from these voices calling to her as possible.

She suddenly didn’t care about the compound, she didn’t care bout the Renegades… or the Shadowbolts. She didn’t care about the battle, or her injuries. She had forgotten all about the reveal of Descent being the killer of Matteo’s father or the fact that Descent was apparently Storm’s dad… Everything disappeared when she realized… what she had done…

She couldn’t face anypony… she was still trying to figure out what had happened, how it happened, and why it happened. But…

She was responsible for the death of a Wonderbolt.

She couldn’t look at anypony not even herse—

Dash turned and stared into the mirror above the sinks. Her eyes locked with her own as she began to breathe heavily. Suddenly she felt something incredibly wrong in her stomach, like something rushing forth. Her ears flopped down, she threw a hoof to her mouth, and her cheeks puffed up as she turned and ran to one of the toilets…

Soarin gritted his teeth and cringed outside the mare’s bathroom door as he heard the sounds of gagging and vomiting coming from inside. It was so painful to listen to that he forgot all about how tender his nose felt from Dash slamming her barracks door against it.

Something was definitely wrong. This wasn’t first time Dash had been exposed to a ‘death’ circumstance. During the fake dragon attack test the Wonderbolts feigned being lethally injured, falling to the ground while covered in illusory burns, but Dash remained strong and ended up leading her squad to be the first to ever pass. Of course that was in the heat of battle and not in the aftermath, but something else had to be eating at her. Why else would she suddenly break down, run away, and throw up? Especially during the traditional Wonderbolt ‘Honor the Fallen’ salute?

Naturally he wanted to help her. She meant everything to him, and seeing her in such a sudden state of distress was killing him, but how was he supposed to handle it? This clearly had something to do with her experiences, something he had been a little disconnected from as of late. The last thing he wanted to do was barge in and force comfort if he didn’t even know what was wrong.

Soarin shook his head and glared at the door.

Forget it. She needed him. He didn’t care if it was reckless, he was going to help her. He reached a hoof out towards the door…

“Hold it,” a voice came from behind Soarin. Soarin’s ears stood up and he turned around.

It was Silver.

Soarin blinked as Silver hobbled towards him with a clear limp in his back, left leg. He was staring directly past Soarin at the door.

“Is she in there?” Silver asked as he stopped beside Soarin. Before Soarin could reply, the sounds of gagging, coughing, and vomiting came from inside the bathroom again. Soarin cringed, shivering at the painful sounds coming from Dash as Silver simply looked towards the bathroom door and raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm…” Silver reached for the door.

“Whoa, whoa! Wait!” Soarin grabbed Silver by the shoulder. Silver halted in his tracks, but he didn’t even look at Soarin.

“I know it’s a mare’s bathroom Soarin,” Silver said flatly.

“No shit, Grey Mane,” Soarin scrunched his face. “We don’t even know what’s wrong! If she’s running away from ME of all ponies do you think it’s wise to corner her?” Soarin was forcing himself. He wanted nothing more than to kick the door down and hug Dash until everything was okay, but that wasn’t always the solution, especially if whatever was bothering her was something personal that he didn’t know about.

“No, it’s not,” Silver shook his head, still looking towards the door, but not at Soarin. “And that’s exactly why I’m going in.”

“What?!” Soarin blinked.

“You heard me…” Silver finally looked at him. “You should know better than I do, that Dash isn’t the kind of pony that you take a gentle approach with…” Silver paused as Soarin’s eyes widened for a brief moment before returning to normal. “Get your goddamn mind out of the gutter, you know what I mean.”

“I wasn’t thinking—”

“Yes you were,” Silver cut him off. “You can’t walk in, sit down, and rub her shoulder when she’s troubled,” he lifted both eyebrows. “Tell me, when’s the last time she’s revealed something that’s bothering her without you either prying… or it being something about you?”

Soarin paused and blinked, glancing down, and then up.

“Uh…”

“Exactly,” Silver nodded again. “Trust me, she’s done it to me too, the only time she softens up is when you press her for what’s wrong, or if somepony she cares about is hurt or in danger.”

“Yeah…” Soarin nodded, thinking back to the very specific times Dash was willing to open up. “You’re right…” Soarin said as he began moving towards the door.

“Nope,” Silver pressed a hoof to Soarin’s shoulder. “I’m going in alone,” he said sternly as Soarin instantly glared at him.

“So you give me a pep-talk on how to handle my own mare-friend and now you’re telling me I can’t help?” Soarin thrust his wings out angrily.

“Give it a rest. I’m not stealing your wife. I already have one,” Silver said casually.

“My wi—?!”

“Stay right here,” Silver cut him off again and pointed to the floor. “I’ll get to the bottom of this and bring her out here when she’s calmed down… then I need YOU to do the comforting part,” he stated as he turned and reached for the door.

Defeated, and unable to argue with the old veteran, Soarin sat down on the floor. He knew Silver and Dash’s relationship well. Dash had talked to him about Silver often, talking about how much she was learning from him and how great of a mentor he was in both practice and wisdom. Soarin didn’t want to admit that somepony other than him was suited for the job of helping Dash in this scenario, but Silver was a smart pony. He wouldn’t have intervened if he didn’t feel it was absolutely necessary.

“Wait…” Soarin blinked as Silver opened the door. “When was she worried about you being hurt?” he asked, but Silver purposely didn’t answer as he stepped through and the door closed, leaving Soarin alone in the barracks to sit and wait.

The bathroom door slowly closed behind Silver as he looked into the bathroom. There was no sign of Dash in his immediate eyesight, but he saw a few floor tiles near the stalls that were stained with small, dirty drop-like splotches that led into the showers. Aside from the trail, he could also hear slow, deep breaths echoing around the corner of the doorway to the showers.

Not wanting to spook her, Silver called her name.

“Rainbow Dash.”

“Ah!” Dash yelped, confirming that she was right around the corner in the showers. Silver started walking, the clip-clop of his hooves on the floor tiles echoing in the silence of the bathroom as he approached the wall. He stuck his head through the doorway, immediately looking to his left.

Rainbow Dash was right there, wheezing, shaking, her eyes wide, and reaching for the knob below the first shower head. She turned it on, cold water squeaking through the showerhead and splashing down on her for all of three seconds before Silver reached out, placed his hoof over hers and turned the knob back off.

Dash shivered as the droplets of cold water dripped from her mane and down her body, getting into her suit and making her cringe as it ran over her cuts and bruises. She turned and looked at Silver with empty eyes, her ears flopped down, and her mouth hanging open. She slumped to the floor, the material of her torn up Wonderbolt suit squeaking against the tiles as she slowly lowered to the floor, turned around, and sat down with her back against the wall. She placed her hooves over her eyes and began to cry.

Silver sighed as he looked down at her. Without taking any steps into the shower room, he turned and sat down. There was some discomfort in his leg as he sat, but eventually he got down and simply waited. The only part of him visible to Dash around the corner was his left shoulder, but all he wanted him to know was that he was there. He sat for two more minutes as she cried. There wasn’t any wailing… just quiet tears and sniffles. After a third minute went by, she finally stopped, leaving the two of them in silence.

“So…” Silver spoke up as Dash sniffled quietly “The longer we spend in here… the longer you are going to make a stallion that loves you more than the world wait outside…” the sniffling stopped suddenly. “But I’m not letting you out there to see him… until you tell me what happened.” Silver finished. His voice filled with a perfect mix of softness and sternness. “What happened with Midnight?” he immediately went straight to the point.

But he let the question go. He wasn’t looking for an immediate answer. He simply posed it to her. It nearly took Dash a full minute before she even made a sound. It was a simple mid-pitched squeak, but Silver turned his head to listen.

“M…Midnight… that was her name?” Dash sputtered, her voice was hoarse and weak, most likely from throwing up twice.

“Yes…” Silver replied, listening carefully for more.

“Midnight, huh?” Dash began to sniffle again. “I killed… Midnight…”

Silver’s eyes widened as his ears stood straight up. He didn’t move from his spot, holding himself back until he heard more.

“Killed?” Silver pressed calmly.

“Yeah… it’s…all my fault…” Dash continued. Silver released a quiet sigh of relief.

That explained it. He was just as curious as Soarin as to what was causing Dash to act this way, especially after how she handled The Test back during her recruit training. Apparently Dash felt like she was responsible for Midnight’s death. Dash was already nervous about her responsibilities as a recruit captain, so Silver could understand how something like this could have a drastic effect on her… but her thought process… was that of a rookie.

“Hmm…” Silver stood up. “Rgh…” he grunted as his back leg throbbed, but he managed. He turned and entered the shower room, keeping his eyes on Dash as she sat hunched over, her front hooves wrapped around her hind legs as she rocked back and forth lightly. He didn’t sit beside her, he sat directly in front of her and stared down at her. “Dash…” he reached down and tipped her chin up. “I want you to tell me… EXACTLY what happened.”

Dash stared up at him for a few moments, her eyes red from crying and her ears still pinned to the sides of her head. She sniffled and looked back down.

“I…” she began shakily. “I broke away from my squad… because I saw you surrounded…” she choked out as Silver nodded. “I was trying to get to you… to help. I flew directly into the swarm of the dogfight…” she sniffled. Her sentences were broken, taking random pauses as she spoke. “And Midnight ran into me… she had her back turned, trying to focus on a Shadowbolt clone. I knocked her right into the clone, and it latched to her… they turned down… and the clone started driving her towards… the ground…”

Silver continued to nod, taking in every detail.

“I saw them plunge head first…” she kept on. “And I turned to help, but I was hit by another passing Wonderbolt… I tumbled, but eventually got control… and the first thing I saw was you taking hits. I…” Dash began to tear up again. “I… pushed the thought of Midnight aside… assuming she’d be fine and then… went to join you…”

“Hmmmmm…” Silver released a low hum as she finished.

“She’s dead… I could have helped her, but I didn’t… and she died… it’s my fault!” Dash shouted as small tears squeaked down her face again. “I… I don’t know what to do…” she hugged her legs tighter. “She’s dead, I killed her… I can’t… can’t…”

“Rainbow Dash… that’s enough of that,” Silver said sternly. She blinked and looked up at him. “Killed her? You… killed her?” he shook his head. “I want you to look me in the eye and explain to me how you killed her.”

“I…” Dash looked back down. “I ran into her… and didn’t help her… and…”

“Did you kill her?” Silver repeated.

“She’s dead because of…”

“DID. YOU. KILL. HER?” Silver emphasized every word, leaning towards Dash. She stared up at him, tipping backwards as he got in her face. He was repeating himself… which meant she was clearly saying the wrong thing.

“No?” Dash sniffled and blinked. Silver pulled back and nodded.

“That’s right. You didn’t kill her, a Shadowbolt clone did. She got caught in a bad situation and unfortunately, it ended with her hitting the concrete path in a way that killed her. Telling yourself over and over again that you are the reason she’s dead is not just misguided… it’s wrong.”

“But…” Dash looked away again. “But then I abandoned her… I should have gone after her… I assumed she’d be fine… I thought… because she’s a Wonderbolt… that… that…” she stared up at Silver. “She was the only one that died!” she suddenly blurted out. “If I had saved her she’d…”

She stopped as Silver shook his head at her.

“Rainbow Dash… you would not have been the only one to assume that she could handle it. I knew Midnight, she was a very capable Wonderbolt, if I saw her get stuck in a situation while I was trying to focus on something else… I probably would have done the same thing. She’s a Wonderbolt, she earned her title, so she could handle it.” he reached forward and tapped his hoof against Dash’s forehead. “YOU did not kill her, nor were you part of the reason she got killed. It was a freak case of bad luck, hitting an isolated concrete path in the courtyard at just the right angle…” he sighed and pulled his hoof back, looking into her eyes harshly.

“We are strong…” he kept going. “We are sturdy… we are the best Equestria has to offer. But we are not invincible. And considering our chosen line of work, it’s very possible to get killed. You could die, one of your squadmates could die,” he leaned closer. “Spitfire could die, Soarin could die,” he stopped less than an inch from her face. “I… could die,” he pulled back and continued to give her the serious stare. “You joined us knowing full well what you were getting into. You became a Wonderbolt to be one of the best, and now you are. We enjoy times of peace, we live, learn, and love as a large family would, but the peace has been broken and now it’s time for you to accept that we are needed… as the best.”

Silver got up and started pacing back and forth, the limp in his back leg very visible to Dash as she continued to listen.

“Believe me… I am stricken by the loss of Midnight… everypony is. And I’m sure they will be for a while, but we will keep going strong. While the bonds that we share as a family make death incredibly hard to accept, it also drives us to be victorious for them. The harder and stronger we fight, the less likely we will lose any more of our brothers and sisters. Nothing is more powerful than a sense of family… as a family we fight… and unfortunately, sometimes we lose a member or two… but they die fighting to protect everything they hold dear, including those they died beside… Now you can sit here and blame yourself for what happened, or you can stand up and look at it from a realistic perspective.”

“Think about this for me,” Silver turned towards her and pointed his hoof at her. “You say that bumping into her is the reason she died… but did you die when the other Wonderbolt collided with you right after?” Dash visibly reacted, her eyes widening slightly as he continued. “Did you die when I ran into your back? No. You didn’t. And who’s to say she wouldn’t have been caught anyway? What if I bumped into her shortly after had you not? Not to mention several Wonderbolts collided in that cacophony of a dogfight… yet we only had one fatality. Look at me Dash…” Silver reached down and tapped her chin as he moved closer. “In a battle as wild and massive as the one we just experienced along with all of us having no knowledge of how to even fight the enemy… it is a miracle that we only lost one Wonderbolt. We could have easily lost several… don’t act like your case here is so special, it was simply unlucky.”

“But I still could have saved her!” Dash suddenly yelled out. She pushed away from Silver and stood up, walking past the doorway to the other side of the showers before whipping around and glaring at him as if he wasn’t fully getting why she felt so horrible. “I didn’t even try! I neglected her! Soarin would have tried! Storm Front would have tried! I didn’t even think of it!” she started comparing herself to others. Silver calmly turned and walked towards her.

“If you had stopped to save her instead of flying to my side… how do you know I would have survived?” he suddenly asked. Dash tipped her head and blinked before throwing her wings out and shaking her head.

“But you’re goddamn Silver Lining!” she shouted.

“THAT DOESN’T MATTER!” Silver Lining belted back at her, his voice almost physically forcing Dash backwards as she took shaky steps backwards. He walked towards her, each step pressing her closer and closer to the wall behind her until her plot pressed against it. Silver stopped right in front of her and pointed. “You’re drawing conclusions based on ‘what if’s’! What if I hesitated in my start, what if I tried to save her, what if I had stayed with my squad…? There is no way to control a large scale battle. Especially with all the confusion about what we were facing… you are beating yourself up for no reason!”

“SHUT UP!” Dash yelled back at him. Something she never thought she would do to Silver, but she was clearly not thinking straight. It was Something Silver was clearly aware of because the sudden lash out did absolutely nothing to change his expression. He just continued to look at her sternly as she let more out at him. “Are you even listening to me?! You don’t understand what I’m feeling at all! I left her behind! I could have stayed and helped but instead I…”

Dash’s eyes suddenly grew so wide that it was a wonder the sound of glass breaking didn’t emanate from them.

“Oh…” she looked down. “Oh my god…” she shook lightly as she glanced up towards Silver. His expression hadn’t changed, but because of what she just said, how it made her feel had completely changed. Did she seriously just accuse Silver of not knowing what it was like to leave somepony behind? “Silver… I’m…” how could she do that? How could she be so stupid? Silver understood it better than anyone… but even then, the circumstances were so much different… Silver fled his comrades in fear of drake fire while she left Midnight in attempt to help somepony else in need… how could she possibly compare those? Not to mention the way she was acting almost sounded worse than how Silver beat himself up after he lost all of his squadmates. She felt absolutely terrible. “I’m so sorry…” she fell down on her plot and looked down at the floor in shame, refusing to look at her mentor after saying something so heartless.

“That’s enough,” Silver said as he stepped up right in front of her and sat down. “Dash, we all live and learn… With the way things are starting to take shape, I guarantee you that this won’t be the only Wonderbolt who dies. The Renegades have already lost several. No pony is ever going to be prepared for it, but don’t start getting it into your head that it’s something you can completely prevent… almost got myself killed multiple times with that mindset after I lost Blizzard. We—”

Silver was cut off as Dash leaned into him, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, sniffling once or twice into his chest. Silver blinked, remaining still as he stared down at her with surprised eyes.

“Don’t die, Silver…” she pleaded. Silver’s ears flopped down. And he huffed.

“Dash, I just said—”

“Promise me you won’t die,” she cut him off. Silver lifted an eyebrow. She just heard everything he just said… but this wasn’t about his lecture. This was for her peace of mind. Silver wasn’t one for affection, and from what he understood, it took a lot for Dash to show it, so if she was hugging him right now, it was because she really cared. It reminded him of how he used to view Blizzard Strike. If he had tried to hug Blizzard, he probably would have been diverted and gotten his head put through a window during the attempt, but the care… how important Blizzard was to him as a mentor, friend, and father-like figure in the Wonderbolts… that’s what mattered. And… it was unfortunate that Blizzard died before Silver could ever really admit how important he was to him.

Silver slowly reached his left arm up and draped it over Dash’s back.

“I promise I won’t die. I’ll be damned if I die before I feel like it,” he stated firmly.

They remained that way for a moment before Silver glanced over at the doorway leading back into the rest of the bathroom.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“No…” Dash quickly replied.

“Feeling less guilty at least?” he said while rolling his eyes.

“Yes…” she replied simply again. Silver gently rubbed her shoulder.

“Good… my job is done. You need to stop hug me and go hug a stallion that’s worried sick about you right outside,” he encouraged. Dash suddenly let go of Silver and blinked.

“Oh no… he’s been waiting this whole time?” she frowned.

“I made him wait, reasoning first, love second… believe me, it’s strange the other way around,” Silver said seriously as he turned and nudged her along. “Come on, your husband needs you.”

“My hus—?!”

“Now,” Silver pushed her a little harder towards the door.

Soarin perked up, getting to his hooves immediately when the door to the mare’s bathroom opened and Silver appeared with Dash in tow.

Dash’s eyes widened slightly when she saw Soarin and the look of worry on his face.

Without a word, Dash left Silver’s side and rushed up to Soarin, nearly throwing herself into him as the two both reached for each other and embraced in a tight hug. They didn’t say anything… all Soarin wanted was to see her and know she was fine, and all Dash wanted was comfort that only he could give her. Silver had brought Dash back to her senses, but the shock she felt upon feeling it was her fault frightened her. She wanted to be in the one place where she could melt and let everything else go, in Soarin’s arms.

Silver smiled as the two shared their affection, walking right by them and heading for the door to leave them alone.

Dash glanced up towards Silver as he left, but only looked in time to see the end of Silver’s tail disappear before the door closed behind him.

“So…” Soarin began as he planted a light kiss on her forehead. “What exactly was that all about?” he bit his lower lip as she frowned and her ears flopped down. “Dammit, sorry… you probably don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s fine,” Dash shook her head. “I already poured out all my stupid angst on Silver. I…” she sighed. “I bumped into Midnight while flying through the dogfight. I was trying to get to Silver… right after that a Shadowbolt Clone got a hold of her and took her down. I got hit after I saw her falling, throwing me off balance, but when I got back upright, I decided to go help Silver instead.”

“Oh…” Soarin’s ears drooped.

“It’s stupid though... Like Silver said, there were multiple collisions during the battle including some that happened to me. And I didn’t abandon her, I was set on an objective and trusted her ability. It just didn’t end well. Still…” she sighed. “It’s just… hard to think about.”

“To this day,” Soarin took over as he held her tighter. “I’ve only lost three fellow Wonderbolts including Midnight. The other two were Scarlet Flame and Turbo Rush… lost them both taking down a dragon that was rampaging towards Fillydelphia… Both of them were part of squad fifteen…” Soarin shivered, Dash feeling it as she pressed her cheek to his chest. “Not even a fraction of the ponies that Silver has seen fall in his lifetime… especially with the Wonderbolt involvement of the last Griffon-Drake war, but it never leaves you. I saw them die… and their names will always be burned into my head because of it. Now Midnight too…. it’s not an easy thing to take. I’m going to have to get Fleet to come with me when Spitfire writes the letter to Midnight’s family… because she can never do it without tears,” Soarin shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder how Spitfire handles the burden of being responsible for all of us… that on top of things not going her way much lately aside from Wave Chill. The fact that she stands right back up after everything knocks her down again and again is nothing short of amazing and inspiring.”

“That’s what worries me…” Dash shook her head as she held it against Soarin’s chest. “I don’t know if I’m ready for a leader role… even if I’m just a recruit captain,” she pulled away from Soarin and walked over to her bed. “During The Test, I was terrified when I saw you guys all go down, but there was no real evidence that you guys were killed. It was also so spur of the moment and I was driven by your encouragement and my desire to save Canterlot. Here… it was after everything died down, mixed with how I felt about ‘causing’ it, seeing her lifeless, mangled body, and watching the Wonderbolts pay their respects…” she shivered and hugged herself as Soarin quickly moved towards her as she sat down on her bed. “It just really broke my mind. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t even know how my squad handled it. I’m sure Matteo and Twister are fine, but Star…”

Soarin sat down beside her and quickly wrapped one of his large wings completely around her as he leaned in, resting his side against hers as he tipped his head over to lean it on hers. She sighed as she nestled herself into his body.

“I guess I’m just scared… scared of being responsible for my squad. What if one of them dies? It falls on my shoulders. I’m lucky that Squall got away with just a cut to his face… I should have been there to help him, it could have been worse… If he had gotten killed I…” Dash paused shivering at the thought. “You’re right, I don’t know how Spitfire handles so much… I can barely handle keeping an eye on just four others,” she stopped as Soarin released her from his wing, turned her towards him with his arm, and gently stroked a hoof against her face.

“Dash… I’m just as scared as you. I have so many great friends here in the Wonderbolts… no, not friends, brothers… and sisters. They are like a family to me. I dread every moment of combat we engage in because I never know if one or two of them will suddenly be taken from me… but…” he tipped his head down, lightly nuzzling the side of his nose with hers. “It’s because I love them all so much that I fight so hard… in hopes to protect them from harm. I may not be able to save them all, but I can sure as hell fight my hardest to help them…” he paused and blinked as Dash suddenly smiled very wide. “What?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Nothing… just… Silver literally just said something like that to me,” Dash grinned as she looked into Soarin’s eyes.

“Well, wouldn’t you know it… he’s the one who taught me to approach it that way,” Soarin smiled back as he too looked into her eyes.

The two remained still, simply taking in the eyes they had grown so accustomed into getting lost in. They were both a little banged up, bruised, and cut… but that was alright. Nothing helped the pain take a back seat like being intimate with the one they loved. It didn’t take long for the two of them to lean in and share a kiss, perfectly synchronized on the approach having shared their lips so many times in the past. It was second nature to them now, but even after so many times, it still felt so perfect and so right.

The two broke away very slowly… enjoying the feeling of each other’s hot breath upon their noses for as long as possible until they were far enough away to see each other fully.

“Soarin… we’ve got a hell of a time ahead of us… don’t we?” Dash asked.

“Mmhmm…” Soarin nodded. “I’m feeling pretty good about it though,” he said with a smirk. Dash took one look at his smirk and quickly shook her head.

“Oh no… incoming cheesy… incoming cheesy!” she giggled as Soarin frowned.

“You’re no fun… what’s wrong with cheesy?” he snickered as Dash lifted an eyebrow and him and puckered her lips at him teasingly.

“I never said there was anything wrong with it… you’re just the master of cheesy,” she said with a giggle.

Soarin took a moment to look her over. At first he was a little jealous that he couldn’t help Dash in a way Silver could… but when Silver led her out, she was still sad. He may have helped break her from her self-inflicted scrutiny… but it was he, Soarin, who made her smile and laugh again. Even when times were sad or on the grim side. Descent said it himself, it’s important to never let go of what brings you joy. It’s what makes life worth living.

“Well,” Soarin grinned. “As long as I have you here, I feel like I can take on a whole army by myself…” Soarin began. Dash’s eyes widened slightly and her smile disappeared, replaced with a look of curiosity and awe. “You really do drive me, Dash. I swear I’ll never die as long as I have you at my side,” he finished with a very sincere smile. A raging blush covered Dash’s face as Soarin blinked. “Something I said?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Uh… yeah!” Dash grinned sheepishly as her blush persisted. “That wasn’t cheesy… that was… very sweet… and kind of very sexy…” Dash admitted as bit her lower lip and looked up at him with slightly dreamy eyes. A sly grin made it’s way onto Soarin’s face.

“I dunno if sex is a good idea right now, with how rough we usually are it will probably make our injuries worse,” Soarin said bluntly. Dash burst out laughing and fell backwards onto the bed.

“WOW! Way to crash and burn the moment!” she said while giggling uncontrollably, letting loose an ‘ow’ or two as the laughing made her injuries sting a little.

“Hey, don’t look at me! Silver’s the one that put the thought in my head!” Soarin chuckled while trying to defend himself… which only made Dash laugh harder.

Outside the door… Silver sat with his ear up against it. He smiled as he heard Dash laughing before slowly standing up.

“Well done, son… well done…” he said as he began limping down the hallway. “Ah… ow… dammit…” he cursed as he approached the doors leading into the lobby. “This is going to hurt like hell tomorrow morning…” he sighed as he painfully limped down the hall, his back legs clearly aching much more than he showed when with Soarin and Dash.

Suddenly, the doors to the lobby opened. Before anypony could step through, Silver took a deep breath and stood completely upright, walking normally despite how painful it currently was to walk normally.

Little Star hopped into the hallway and began trotting towards the Foxtrot barracks until she saw Silver.

“Oh! Sir!” she stopped and saluted. “Have you seen Dash? Did she come through here?” Star asked with concern. She was clearly a little shaken by the scene outside the compound, but definitely concerned for Dash as well. However, Silver didn’t want Soarin and Dash to be interrupted.

“She’s fine… she’s in the barracks,” Silver nodded. “She’s just a little shaken she’ll be—”

“Oh! Thanks! I gotta check up on her!” Star cut him off and started walking. Silver’s eyes widened and he quickly reached out to stop her before she could get by. “Huh?” she blinked as Silver held a hoof to her chest.

“She’s fine,” Silver repeated. “Leave her be, she’ll be out.”

“I’m just gonna go make sure,” Star said adamantly as she shifted around Silver’s hoof. Silver scrunched his face, turning around and scooping Little Star up with his wing and completely wrapping her in it like a burrito to the point where she couldn’t move… and was upside down. “What the…?! HEY!”

“I said she’s fine, you look hurt, we should go to Bliss,” Silver said flatly as he started walking towards the door.

“BUT—” Little Star didn’t get any further, squirming in Silver’s wing as he carried her right out of the barracks to protect Soarin and Dash’s privacy.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh man... that's... oooo... Dash is finally exposed to the dangers of the job... and how devastating it is to all the Wonderbolts to lose a friend... With how close they all are as one big family, even the loss of just one is felt all around the compound.

Dash has to learn that she can't simply protect everypony. In a perfect world maybe she could, but in a dangerous line of work, it's always possible that tragedy can strike.

For those of you wondering if you were going to get an explaination about Storm and Descent this chapter, you may rest easy, thats coming in the next chapter :raritywink:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 93: It's Raining...

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was duo edited by both Kestrel and Lucky424)

Chapter 93: It’s Raining…

“It’s raining?” Soarin blinked as he walked side by side with Spitfire through the west hallway towards the lobby. A pall of dark clouds had spread over Canterlot and the light pitter patter of a gentle rainfall sounded against the windows beside them.

“Looks like it,” Spitfire noticed as well. “With all the commotion and evacuation going on in town, I bet the Canterlot weather team is a bit scattered…” she scrunched her face as she looked out at the courtyard. “The front yard is all torn up too… it’s going to be all muddy and nasty after this…”

The two of them entered the lobby as they guided the last members of the staff back up from taking shelter in the basement.

“Now YOU…” Spitfire glared at Soarin. “Need to finally go get looked at… really, I could have taken care of the staff myself,” she suggested. Soarin shook his head.

“I’ve just got some scratches, I’ll live.” He reached over and poked her in the shoulder. “I didn’t want you to shoulder anymore burden. You’ve had enough today to last you a few years,” Soarin explained himself. He had dropped Dash off at Bliss before going to find Spitfire. He still had yet to go get himself treated, but he wanted to go make sure Spitfire wasn’t pulling her mane out. Plus, he knew Bliss and the medical team were busy with Wonderbolts who were much more injured than him.

“And… I appreciate that Soarin,” Spitfire sighed as she reached one of her wings around and rubbed it against her forehead. “This has been the most chaotic day of my life… morning espionage, dogfight in our front yard, Renegades, Luna, info piled on my head… then we lose a Wonderbolt on top of it. I wish it were easy to just buckle down and focus, but there are so many things I have to address before the end of the day… I don’t even know what time it is,” Spitfire looked around for a clock in the lobby.

“It’s five thirty,” Soarin clarified as he pointed to the clock above the now very broken hangar window.

“It took us that long to clean up the aftermath… thank Celestia we got them all inside before it started raining,” Spitfire said as she shook her head.

“What else do you have to do?” Soarin asked as they moved into the east hallway towards Bliss’ infirmary. It had now been officially renamed since they had to break out the actual medical beds. The trainer tables weren’t going to cut it with some of the injuries that had been received.

“We still have to finalize our defense plan. Then I have to figure out how we’re going to house the Renegades. Apparently they have outposts scattered around, but they want to be on site. I need to talk to Rivet about possible fortifications to the compound that can be done quickly… in less than a day if possible. Then I have to come up with something to tell the media so they stay the hell away... Figure out what I’m going to say to Midnight’s family…” she paused as Soarin cringed. He still had to talk to Fleetfoot about helping her with that. “And a few other things.” She didn’t sound very enthused.

“Sounds rough… to state the obvious,” Soarin cringed as they stopped in front of the infirmary.

“I’ll manage,” Spitfire nodded. “If I’m not used to being under pressure by now… don’t think I’d still be the lead captain.” She stepped behind Soarin and pushed him into the door. “Now go get treatment, dammit!” She forced him in.

“Alright! I’m going!” he chuckled as he stepped through the door into the busy infirmary.

Busy was an understatement. The place was a mess. The first thing Soarin did upon entering was dodge Bliss as she ran by to grab something from her desk. Soarin couldn’t see them all well enough to get a good count, but it looked like at least fifty Wonderbolts were receiving medical attention, thirty of which were in the new medical beds that had been rolled in. As if the pushed aside trainer tables didn’t congest the room enough, the medical staff was also dodging other Wonderbolts who had come in to check in or be beside their squadmates as they were tended to. There was a little bit of yelling going on, but the Wonderbolts tried their best to stay out of the way so the medical teams could do their jobs. Soarin also noticed a few familiar doctors from the Canterlot Central Hospital who had arrived earlier to help with a few who had suffered more drastic injuries. Among them was Doctor Red Cross, who treated Soarin a year ago before Celestia performed the magic transfer.

“You need help?” Bliss asked him frantically as she stopped right beside him. Soarin shook his head.

“Nothing too serious, I can wait if you’re busy,” he clarified. Bliss pointed to the most immediate area in the long aisle of the training room. Most of the trainer tables had been pushed there to make room for all the medical beds further back. There were a few Wonderbolts already up on them and few members of Bliss’ staff were helping them out. They were being directed by Mahogany so Bliss could focus on helping the doctors. Among the Wonderbolts on the tables were Fleetfoot and Storm Front, who had an open table right beside them.

“Hop up on one of those and Mahogany will get around to you. Sorry, it’s a bit nuts in here right now!” Bliss said before instantly breaking away. “One side! Coming through!” she shouted out to warn anypony in the aisle as she cantered back towards the doctors.

Soarin walked towards Fleetfoot and Storm, smiling and nodding at them both as he approached, but he got little response. He heard Fleetfoot explaining everything that happened with Descent before Storm showed up and it didn’t look like Storm was taking it very well, not to mention he looked quite shocked. Soarin decided to let Fleetfoot finish explaining before he tried to say anything else. So he hopped up on the trainer table, told Mahogany what he needed, and started looking towards the injured, now that he had a better view.

The first thing that he saw was on the medical bed closest to his position. Blaze occupied it. She was cringing, grinding her teeth together, muttering curses, and slightly arching her back off the bed as one of the doctors carefully cleaned off the energy sword wound that extended from her left shoulder, down diagonally across her chest and to the right side of her abdomen. She had taken the sword’s full length to the body. It didn’t leave quite a deep slash as it had to Squall with the tip of Blade’s weapon, but it left a big enough cut to be pretty painful. Not to mention treating it looked very painful too. To Blaze’s left was High Winds, who had already had her light burn wounds treated. She was holding onto Blaze’s left hoof, clutching it as hard as she could as Blaze squeezed back with equal intensity. High Winds looked completely awake, which was rare, but Blaze was hurt so she would there for her. Winds had a look of complete worry on her face as Blaze tried to hold herself back from writhing in pain.

Soarin looked past them and immediately to their left. The four members of squad zero were all in a line on the next four beds. Playbitz being treated for the explosion wounds, Swift for his burn wounds, Shine for the bruises from the tiny magic bolts, and Calm… who seemed to have it the worst, being treated for the sword blow to his back. He was clutching the sheets of his bed and twitching as Bliss cleaned the cut across his back while six of her assistants helped hold him down. Rivet was walking up and down between their beds, checking on all of them constantly.

Squad zero looked a little down, and it was definitely not because they were hurt. A lot was expected of them and even though the situation was impossible before the Renegades showed up, it was still the first time they were called upon, and it certainly didn’t go well. They were skilled and talented, but if there was one thing Soarin had always agreed on with Silver about them, it was their overconfidence. It’s not often that one suddenly gets selected to be part of an elite special force among the best flyers in Equestria. Even the most timid of egos would swell in such a case. It didn’t make Soarin grunt and glare at them like Silver did, but it definitely concerned him. Perhaps this would be a humbling experience for them. Spitfire wasn’t just going to give up on them after one battle, and the more they were exposed to the reality of their work, the closer they would get to being like the rest of them.

Soarin could barely see past them, but he caught a glimpse of a rainbow mane. Once he spotted Dash, he figured the green and yellow colors were Twister and Star, and the big thing near them was Matteo. He had to guess that they were in to see Squall. Soarin had gotten no updates on how Squall was doing aside from knowing he was nearly in the back corner of the training room with more than one doctor nearby. They probably had him way in the back of the training room so the amount of commotion around him wouldn’t get in the way.

Soarin was deeply concerned about Squall and if he was doing alright. Squall had received his serious injury while fighting beside him after all, not to mention Squall had earned quite a bit of respect from Soarin for the insanely gutsy move that earned him the first and only clean hit any of them got on Blade. It may have come at a cost, but in dire situations, risks have to be taken in order to achieve any sort of success. He almost felt a little responsible for it too. He was within range to assist Squall, but his wariness of the sword caused him to hesitate. He may not have saved Squall from a wound, but he may have been able to pull him back a little and made it less painful. As Silver always told him, it wasn’t good to dwell on what ifs, but when it was his friends and comrades in question, Soarin couldn’t always stop himself from wondering if he could have done things better.

Soarin shook his head as he started scanning the rest of the beds against the wall opposite of him. Several Wonderbolts occupied these beds as well, but his eyes landed specifically on the bed directly across from Blaze and High Winds.

The Streak twins and Misty Fly were all gathered around it as Surprise lay back with her freshly applied bandages. She had gotten luckier than Blaze, taking a lighter blow across the chest instead of down half her body. From what Soarin had seen during the battle, the cut wasn’t as serious either, but still didn’t look too pleasant. The other three were all patched up, having received their own punishment from the new Shadowbolts, but Surprise had had it far worse than the rest of them.

Lighting Streak was on one side of the bed, patting Surprise on the shoulder. Fire Streak was gently rubbing Misty Fly’s back as Misty herself was literally sprawled out, reaching her body onto Surprise’s bed while hugging her as tightly as she could without hurting her.

Soarin frowned as he looked upon the scene. Misty was clutching Surprise with a purpose. She was crying too. The tears dripped down her face steadily as she held onto her squadmate for dear life. Soarin could see the sad look in Fire’s eyes as he gently stroked his hoof up and down her back to comfort her as she held on.

The Wonderbolts held each other dear, like family… however, he was aware that to Misty, the Wonderbolts were much more. Misty’s disability had denied her many things in life, but becoming a Wonderbolt had given her all of those opportunities and more. Friends, family, and in general, ponies who respected her and didn’t see her as a chore or just as somepony that was hard to communicate with. She would have had help and guidance outside of the Wonderbolts, but each and every one of them had made some effort for her and that meant so much to her.

What made Soarin particularly sad… was that Misty and Midnight were actually good friends. Misty had always been a real social bunny around the compound and one thing that made her happy was the fact that so many of the Wonderbolts, even if they had trouble talking to her, were friendly to her regardless. Midnight was one of a few who had made the extra effort to learn a little bit of her sign language, although she had never gotten very far past ‘hello’ and ‘how are you.’ She never quite understood Misty’s responses either, but the fact that she knew how to ask was more than enough and Misty loved her dearly for trying.

It was hard for all of them to lose even just one Wonderbolt with how connected they all were, but it had to be especially hard for Misty. As with Rainbow Dash, it made her overjoyed whenever somepony made the extra effort. Not many did… and now one of them was taken from her.

Soarin perked up as a very recognizable figure appeared in his peripheral vision. He looked to his right as Princess Luna suddenly slowly walked by. He looked directly at her, but she avoided all eye contact.

As she passed, Soarin narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow. Luna looked rather unhappy…but Soarin found it hard to feel much sympathy towards her. He understood her motives, and Descent’s involvement in some of the decisions made, but as he looked around at all of the injured Wonderbolts he couldn’t help but feel it all could have been avoided. Had they come forward quickly, they could have been ready for the new Shadowbolts. All the information on how to deflect the pink magic and how to easily dispatch the clones would have been REALLY NICE TO KNOW. Not to mention it would have saved them a lot of pain... and possibly saved a life.

It seemed that Soarin was not the only one either. Several Wonderbolts who saw Luna walk in gave her similar looks of distrust and disappointment. Luna was clearly aware of it, and she’d have to live with knowing her error cost them a lot. At least she seemed to be checking on them… not that doing so would breed any immediate forgiveness.

Soarin blinked in surprise as Lightning Dust suddenly trotted by. She moved right past Luna and towards Dash. Upon seeing her pass, Luna turned and looked back, once again avoiding eye contact with everypony.

“Luna!” Starry’s voice came from the entrance, turning Soarin’s attention towards her. Descent was with her as well. Soarin instantly looked towards Storm as he perked up and saw Descent. Storm’s ears quickly drooped down upon seeing that Descent wasn’t looking in his direction, nor did he once break eye contact with Luna to do so. Fleetfoot paused in her explanation as she watched Luna go by, taking note of the Renegades as well.

He had to ask Descent about Storm. There was definitely something about the whole situation that only Descent knew, and if he wasn’t willing to talk about it with Storm, somepony had to get the info out of him.

They were clearly occupied with Luna at the moment, discussing something out of earshot, but it no doubt had to do with the defense plans. In curiosity, Soarin turned his head back towards Lightning Dust as she approached Dash.

“I haven’t decided,” Matteo shook his head as he and Dash stood slightly further away from Squall’s bed than Star and Twister.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Dash threw her arms out while looking up at Matteo in disbelief. “How can it even cross your mind?! He’s our friend!” she glared at him sternly.

“I do indeed respect Storm Front,” Matteo shook his head. “But his father is the killer of mine. That makes him my sworn enemy.”

“ABSOLUTELY not,” Dash reached forwards and roughly poked his arm. “I’m not going to let your traditions affect a pony that the rest of us… and you consider to be a good friend. Besides, he has done absolutely NOTHING to deserve a title like that,” she narrowed her eyes at him as he snorted down at her.

“Griffon code states—”

“Is Storm a goddamn griffon?!” Dash cut him off while rolling her eyes. “Matteo, I respect the griffon code and your way of life. Hell, I find it fascinating, especially the part where you almost killed your future wife before putting a baby in her, but we’re not in the Griffon Kingdom!” she hovered up and got in his face. He held firm, but she was not intimidated by his glare. “I don’t give a damn about you pursuing your prideful revenge on Descent… but when your cultural practices start to directly involve and affect Wonderbolts, I’m drawing a line there,” she reached up and tapped her hoof against his beak. “Storm is a Wonderbolt elite, a comrade, and a friend. I won’t allow your personal views to make him your enemy. Not under the Wonderbolt code.”

“You’re a pony,” Matteo sharply said back. “I don’t expect you to even begin to understand.”

“I understand that you’re being irrational and not thinking straight because of what you just found out,” Dash pulled away and hovered back to the ground. “You better cool the jets, Matty. Come back to me when you’re not blowing smoke out of your ears and we’ll see if you still think the same thing.”

She turned away from Matteo before he could say anything else. He sat back with a huff as Dash moved forward to examine Squall.

“That was pretty impressive.”

Dash’s ears stood up as a familiar, snarky voice met her ears.

“Heh,” Dash turned around, looking directly into the eyes of Lightning Dust as she walked towards her. “Look who finally says hello…” Dash said with a smirk.

“Looks like somepony’s become a captain,” Dust said as she glanced at Matteo.

“Oh, that?” Dash chuckled. “That was nothing, I’ve had a few great examples to go by,” Dash passed off the compliment, wishing she could be as hard and influential as Spitfire or Silver.

“Is that… humbleness?” Lightning Dust blinked. “Rainbow Dash? Humble? Those words don’t really match,” she joked as she walked up and gave Dash a playful nudge. Dash shrugged.

“Humble? I ain’t no sissy, Dust…” Dash nudged her back. “If you knew some of the ponies I’ve been taking orders from, you’d agree.”

“Still,” Dust nodded with a look that suggested she was impressed. “I’ve dealt with griffons and believe me, male Griffon warriors listen to two things: the voice of authority, and their wife,” she said clearly in earshot of Matteo as he let out a grunt. “And I know you and Soarin are banging, so that narrows it down. It’s hard to earn a respect of a griffon warrior, they’re stubborn as hell.”

Dash kept glancing between her and Matteo sitting right by them, only pausing in between once to wince slightly when she mentioned her and Soarin in a sexual way.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Dust giggled while making a hoof motion towards Matteo. “He knows it’s true.”

Dash chuckled as Matteo grunted again before getting up and joining Star and Twister as they watched the doctors help Squall.

Dash and Dust shared a good laugh as Matteo left before the two of them just stared at each other for a moment. Dash shook her head.

“Funny how life works out. My rival and reckless flying partner ends up becoming a member of a rival flight group. Now here we are laughing at each other like we did in flight camp like nothing has changed.”

“Oh, believe me,” Dust sighed. “Plenty has changed, I’m just glad we’re still our usual selves through it all. The past year has been very difficult and eye opening.”

Dash nodded, agreeing with Dust that the past year had really changed her as well. However, they had truly experienced it in different ways. Dash had pushed through the hard times with friends and wingmates at her side, while Dust had mostly gone solo and become the victim of quite a lot of physical and mental pain at the hooves of Nightshade. She really had no one by her side until Descent and Starry sympathized with her. She had also caused quite a bit of trouble and pain herself, specifically to Spitfire.

“So how has life been with the Renegades?” Dash asked her. Dust blinked when she was posed the question and looked away from Dash, but after a moment, a small smile crept on her lips.

“It’s been… fun,” she said as the smile slowly grew wider.

“Fun?” Dash smirked. “I dunno, with a leaders like Descent and Starry Skies I have a hard time picturing that.”

“Ha! That’s so true…” Dust chuckled. “Descent’s pretty awesome, but he’s a bit stone-faced. But I swear, Starry doesn’t know how to be happy. It feels like she’s pissed twenty-four seven, but after a while it stopped being intimidating. Apparently that’s just how she is, the others have convinced me that she cares regardless, and it’s just rare to see it slip through,” Dust nodded. “But the rest of the Shadowbolts? Let me tell you, not all of them are gruff and stiff. There are quite a few characters, lovable idiots, stylish mares and gentlestallions… they’re a fun bunch and they’ve made me feel at home. The Renegades are not quite as strict as the Wonderbolts, the atmosphere is based less on established rules, more on just not being a prick and respecting each other. Of course this means less discipline and it’s not uncommon for scuffles to end in fights, but it also means less is expected of us. There’s enough camaraderie that if things get out of hoof, other will step in to break it up. And oh man… it’s been even better since the old Wonderbolts showed, those ponies know how to have a good time.”

“So I’ve heard,” Dash chuckled, recalling the stories Silver had told her about his old friends. She was really hoping she’d get a chance to meet all of them once they got a break in the action or when things calmed down.

“It’s been very… welcoming,” Dust turned and looked towards Descent and Starry Skies. “Everything was weird under Nightshade. When I arrived in the Shadowbolts, everypony was mean, bitter, and nasty. It was everypony for themselves and Nightshade clearly didn’t give a damn about any of us. Once Descent got me away and managed to break many of the Shadowbolts free as well as gathering up others who had fled… I got to see how they really were…” she reached a hoof over and rubbed her opposite arm. “I had done… a lot of terrible things. I had given up on having anypony being nice to me or considering me a friend, but when I met the real Shadowbolts… they were all just like me. Pegasi who joined up while looking for direction and reason… all misfits in their own way. They chose the mercenary life to break free from the struggles of the lives they once had. Becoming a Shadowbolt has nothing to do with how good or how strong you are. The only rule is that the strongest leads. Otherwise, they are a tight knit group who watch each other’s backs while taking on jobs for money. We have a code about how we handle jobs and such, but during downtime, it almost feels like a family… one that didn’t care about who I was before.”

Dash listened with great interest as Dust described the Shadowbolts. She had never heard about them this way. It was hard to imagine them as friendly and welcoming, but that’s what happened when Dash associated them with Nightshade. Dash had heard about how the Shadowbolts were formed from Descent, a pony that was discharged from the Wonderbolts because he wanted more out of the profession than he was allowed. While the main lure was probably from the power of the crystal, perhaps that’s what really inspired Rapidfire to desert as well. Not to mention the former Wonderbolts, who were all forced to retire before their time was truly up, found a place among the Renegades, who followed the true Shadowbolt code, not Nightshade’s brutal version.

Upon thinking over them both… Dash found herself pondering…

All this time she felt like the Shadowbolts were wrong in their practice… and to a point she still felt that way. They were mercenaries. They would kill if the job called for it or if anypony got in their way. To her, that would always be morally wrong unless the reasons were truly justified. However after hearing about the atmosphere in their ranks, seeing how happy Lightning Dust was for being accepted by them, and knowing how sad the former Wonderbolts were with their forced retirement…

Maybe the Wonderbolts as an organization had a few things to think about?

The name ‘Renegade’ seemed to hold meaning for both Shadowbolt and Wonderbolt alike. The Shadowbolts had abandoned their former captain to rebel against her corrupted reign. The old Wonderbolts had refused to accept being retired, and joined up with the Renegades, perhaps in defiance of the retirement policy Silver spoke so sourly of.

Descent’s jab at the Wonderbolt code now seemed very justified. Dash wondered how these events would affect Spitfire… she had already changed the demeanor of the Wonderbolts from stiff soldiers to warriors held together by camaraderie… would she have the guts to suggest they fully reform the code? Only time would tell… and they had to live long enough to find out first.

“I felt like I had a chance…” Lightning Dust continued, re-catching Dash’s attention. “A chance to start over and make up for all the horrible things I had done. Some of the mercenary work can still be a bit brutal, but still… A second chance was something I had never considered before, but after how great all the Shadowbolt Renegades have been to me, I began to feel guilt pushing back against the good feelings. So that’s what’s driving me now. Only…” she sighed. “Seeing Spitfire again was a harsh reminder of how much of a bitch I used to be. I don’t blame her if she never forgives me.”

“She’ll come around,” Dash reached forward and patted her on the shoulder. “You’ve gotta try again when we’re not in a crisis situation… trust me, Spitfire turns into an emotionless statue when talking business and managing the whole force. You’ll have your chance.”

“I hope so…” Dust looked up and smiled. Dash smiled right back.

“Hey, it’s good to see you again,” Dash reached forward and gave Dust a friendly hug. Dust looked surprised, but returned it.

Things between the two of them had been rocky, but they never forgot how much fun they had together at flight camp before things went sour. Not to mention she was partly responsible for her and Soarin still being alive. It was she who convinced Starry and Descent to fly back and catch them after the explosion that tore apart the Shadowbolt compound.

“You too, Dash,” Dust replied as they let go.

“Lightning Dust!” Starry’s voice called out from across the infirmary. Dust and Dash both turned to see Starry flagging her down and beckoning her over as Descent and Luna looked in her direction as well.

“Looks like they need me,” Dust winked at Dash. “Catch ya round!” she quickly turned and walked back down the aisle.

Dash smiled as she watched Dust leave, but a sudden raspy groan from the bed behind her drew her attention.

She turned and shifted between Star and Twister so she could see Squall.

It was the third time she looked at him, but the sight made her heart sink each time. They had the wound covered, but it was still seeping blood, drenching the cloths and pads they used to control it as the doctors prepared. Squall was clearly still in pain, clutching the sheets of the bed with his hooves as he groaned and grunted.

“Alright,” Bliss’ voice caught their attention as she turned away from Dr. Red Cross and his assistants.

“Bliss!” Dash quickly walked around the bed and up to her as she checked over Squall. “So what’s going on? Is he going to be fine? What about his face?” she asked a bit frantically. Bliss gently placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder.

“Deep breath honey, we’ve just discussed what to do… he’s going to be fine,” she said first to get Dash to calm down a little. “He’s lucky, to be honest. If he had gotten cut on the chin or the cheek, the scarring may have had a slight altering effect on the shape of his face, but the skin isn’t as thickly layered down the forehead and over the top of the nose. It’s going to be difficult for us to stitch it up, but his face won’t suffer any visible changes in shape or form. He’ll look just as he always has, only with a scar down the middle of his face.”

“Won’t there be marks from the stitches?” Star suddenly hovered up beside Dash, just as curious about the aftermath as Dash. Bliss smiled and shook her head.

“We have the best materials straight from the Canterlot Central Hospital. From what Dr. Red Cross told me, we are going to use dissolving stitches. They’ll disappear within a week and then we can use simple skin soothing magic to relieve and stress marks caused by them. The scar will remain though.”

“That’s good to hear at least…” Dash sighed in relief as she and Star moved back around to get out of the way as the doctors started approaching with tools and rolling tables. “Doing alright?” Dash looked down at Star, realizing she didn’t respond after Bliss’ explanation.

“No,” she said quickly with a sniffle. Dash frowned as she examined Star. She was really taking it hard. They all were, but it wasn’t a mystery that Star really enjoyed Squall and cared about him after all the times she had stepped up to comfort or defend him.

The two of them took their places beside the bed again, Star hovering up to get another look, but put her hooves up to her chin and whimpered when she saw Squall again.

She sharply turned and latched onto Twister’s shoulder, digging her face into it as she shivered. Twister blinked several times before turning his head to look at her. His eyebrows alternated moving up and down as he examined her before he glanced up at Dash. Dash just smiled weakly at Twister before turning back to Squall… but the moment she looked, she was yanked towards Twister. Twister now had both her and Star in a bear hug, looking towards Squall with a face that was silly, but clearly not at ease. Once Dash realized what had happened, she initially looked up with frustration towards Twister, but the way he looked towards Squall was one with just as much concern as the others, even if it was a tad on the goofy side. It was Twister after all, that was to be expected.

Dash shifted so Star’s wing wasn’t jammed into her cheek, but as she turned, she caught a glimpse of Matteo right before he looked away from Storm’s direction and back towards Squall.

Dash flattened her brow. Matteo had better leave Storm alone or else she wasn’t going to be a happy rainbow.

Speaking of Storm… Dash wondered how he was doing.

“And that’s everything we know… right up to just now,” Fleetfoot finished explaining everything about Descent up to the moment he and Storm met outside.

Storm sat in silence, his eyes wide and empty with his mouth slightly ajar. He and Fleetfoot were both fully tended to, covered with patches and a few bandages to cover any wounds that were a little more than minor. Soarin frowned as Mahogany gave him similar attention, clearly seeing the look of calm shock on Storm’s face even though he only had a view from the side.

“I… don’t get it… Why?” Storm shook his head slowly. “Why did he keep so many things from me? Why did he tell me so many lies? Descent? I’ve never even heard that name before… he told me his name was Charger…”

“I have no doubt Descent had a reason for all of it,” Soarin spoke up as Storm paused. “He’s not the type to play tricks.”

“But how do I know that?” Storm tipped his head down. “Is he really my father? If he kept so many things from me could that have been a lie too?” He looked towards Soarin. “And to top it all off he’s a Shadowbolt? A mercenary? He’s killed for money! Was that… Oh god…” Storm quivered. “Were some of the bits he left with me at the expense of somepony else’s life?!”

“Storm…” Soarin reached for him, but stopped as Storm slammed his head to the trainer table pad and put his hooves over the back of his head.

“And then he not only almost killed you… but he’s hurt the Streak twins in the past and killed Matteo’s father?!” he groaned into the table padding as Soarin pulled his own hoof back. “That doesn’t line up at all! He was always so kind… so caring… so helpful… Always there for me with a smile and a hug… he’s not a killer… he’s not…”

“You never asked what he did for a living?” Fleetfoot cut in. Storm shook his head.

“He always dodged the subject or got sad when I pressed him about it. I decided to stop asking eventually because I barely got to see him… and I wanted him to be happy when we were spending the short times we had together. Of course I wondered what happened when the scars appeared all over him, but he just said it was an accident at work. Now I know he got them from Matteo’s father before killing him… I just assumed he had a rough job and…” Storm began going in circles and trailed off as Soarin and Fleetfoot just sat speechless.

“All finished,” Mahogany informed Soarin as she lightly patted the last small patch she stuck over a small wound on his side.

“Thanks,” Soarin nodded as Mahogany went to attend to other less injured Wonderbolts.

Soarin flinched as Luna suddenly passed by him again, but instead of looking at her, he immediately looked towards Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust. Dust had already left, but Descent and Starry were still conversing at the front of the training room. Soarin had not been watching, but he safely assumed that Descent still hadn’t stolen a single glance towards Storm Front.

And then they both turned and started leaving… without Descent taking one look at Storm.

“That’s it…” Soarin growled as he stood up and hopped down from the bed. The freshly applied patches and bandages tugged at his skin and fur a little, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to get to the bottom of it. He was tired of seeing Storm in such a dejected state. He wanted answers.

“Soarin?” Fleetfoot blinked and looked towards the door as Descent and Starry opened it to leave. The next thing she knew, Soarin was moving past her towards the door. “Where are you going?” she asked as she blinked.

“To get the truth,” Soarin stated adamantly as he gave chase.

“Huh?” Fleetfoot looked at Storm, who was more or less frozen in place by his own thoughts. “But…” It was too late. Soarin was already out the door. Fleetfoot looked back and forth between Storm and the door before rolling her eyes and sighing. “Hey, Storm,” she hopped down, cringing from the fresh bandages shifting on her body as she did. “Let’s go.”

“Wha?” Storm blinked and glanced at her.

“You heard me.”

Soarin stopped for a moment as the door to the training room closed behind him. He stared directly forward at the window across from the door. The rain had picked up while he was in the training room, going from a light drizzle to a stronger, constant rainfall. Not a downpour, but strong enough that he could hear the quiet pattering of rain on the roof, even from two floors down as well as the rain falling on the roof of the lobby.

Pushing the thought aside, he looked right, then left, spotting Descent and Starry Skies to his left, moving further into the east hallway. Soarin wasted no time in calling out his target.

“DESCENT!” Soarin yelled down the hallway as he began trotting towards them. Descent and Starry both stopped in their tracks and turned to look at him. “Hold it RIGHT there!” he demanded as he approached.

The two watched in silence as Soarin approached, the only noises echoing through the hallway the CLIP-CLOP of Soarin’s hooves and the faint distant sound of the rain from three floors above accompanied by an uneven PIT-PAT against the glass of the windows beside them.

Soarin walked straight up to Descent, not once looking at Starry as he passed by three windows and a nearby classroom to reach them.

“Yes?” Descent asked as if oblivious to any current issue at present. Soarin did not take a reserved approach. He reached right out, and roughly pressed a hoof to Descent’s chest as he glared up at his scarred face.

“Why are you avoiding Storm Front?”

It went dead quiet between the two of them. Starry Skies glanced between the two, but neither moved nor changed their expression for several seconds. Eventually Descent exhaled through his nose and shook his head.

“Because now isn’t the time,” he said as he turned away from Soarin.

“Isn’t the time?!” Soarin quickly stepped forward and put himself back in front of Descent. “Look Descent, I know what we’re facing right now, but do you expect me to believe you’re currently mentally sound? I saw the look on your face when Storm approached you!” Soarin paused as Descent’s eyes widened slightly. “Don’t go telling me he isn’t on your mind right now… you owe him and a lot of us an explanation. The way you pushed him aside is making us question a lot of things… Storm knows everything, Descent. We told him all about you…” as Soarin kept going, Descents eyes continued to slowly grow wider. “He isn’t even sure if you are really his father—”

Starry flinched and stepped back as Descent suddenly jammed his hoof forward, striking Soarin in the chest and pushing him back. Soarin grunted in surprise, but quickly anchored his back hooves to the floor and skidded to a halt, stopping Descent’s strength with his own as he pushed against him. Descent was growling at him while glaring so sharply it was surprising his gaze hadn’t cut Soarin in half.

“I AM HIS FATHER!” Descent roared into Soarin’s face. “AND HE IS MY SON! IF YOU OR ANYPONY ELSE DARES QUESTION THAT AGAIN, I WILL TEAR YOUR THROATS OUT!”

Soarin didn’t waver under the pressure of Descent’s voice, but Starry was staring at Descent like she didn’t even recognize him.

“Then why are you avoiding him?” Soarin spoke calmly as he held himself firmly against Descent’s strength. “Why are you leaving him alone to question everything he knows?” Soarin felt the strength behind Descent hoof fade from against his chest. “If you’re not going to tell him… or don’t wish to face him… tell me. He deserves to know through somepony. He talks non-stop about you… I want to know the truth.”

“Tell me too, dammit,” Starry stepped up beside them, reached up and pushed Descent’s hoof off of Soarin. Descent gave her a confused look.

“Why do you care?” Descent asked her sharply.

“Gee, I dunno…” Starry began sarcastically. “I’ve only known you for almost thirty years and you never told me about a son! When the hell did you have time for a family?!”

“I…” Descent sighed, looking defeated. It was a rare look for him. “I didn’t.” He turned his back to them and started walking towards one of the windows as droplets of rain slowly fell down the glass on the outside. “He was an accident…”

“But you always went back to be a father for him…” Soarin spoke up, recalling Storm’s stories. Descent remained quiet as he looked down at the floor. “You wouldn’t have made the effort if you didn’t care… and I know for a fact that you do. Storm has told me all about what you’ve done for him, and how despite how awful his mother has spoken of you and how poorly she treats him, you balanced it out…” Soarin trailed off, waiting for Descent to speak.

“Do you remember what I said after confronted by Massimo’s son?” Descent finally spoke up as he slowly looked out the window at the rain. “About how some have little joy in their lives to hold onto?” Descent shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t matter how it happened… he’s my son, my flesh, and my blood. I refuse to leave something like that behind… not after how my parents did so with me. Storm is my joy… the only little bit I have.”

“Pfff…” Starry scoffed. “Who are you, and what have you done with Descent? You’re going super soft on me out of nowhere. I’ve left so many things in my life behind without a second thought, how hard could it be to leave behind something I don’t have time for?”

“Starry…” Descent turned and glanced at Starry while furrowing his brow. “If one day Tartarus froze over and you became a mother… I wonder if you’d be so willing to say that?”

“From what I just heard, your partner in crime doesn’t seem to care too much…” she shot back. Soarin stepped up and pushed Starry aside. “Hey!” Starry growled, but Soarin ignored her and focused on Descent.

“Descent… how did it happen?” Soarin asked.

“It’s a long story,” Descent said reluctantly.

“We’re all ears then,” Soarin encouraged.

Descent sighed as he looked back out the window and remained silent for a few moments as he watched the rain fall against the glass.

“It was roughly twenty-one years ago…”

I was only eighteen years old at the time, and had been a full-fledged Shadowbolt for a while, the youngest to ever be allowed to wear the uniform at age twelve. I even earned it before Nightshade. My teenage years were full of ego-inflating success. I was fierce, I was strong, and I was a phenomenon to the rest of the Shadowbolts. Dante, our former leader, had told me himself that he had never seen a colt as strong as I. I had a bright future in the Shadowbolts and a lot going for me among the ranks… needless to say I was full of myself… VERY full of myself.

On the day I turned eighteen, a few of the stallions among the Shadowbolts decided to take me to a bar to celebrate. If I remember correctly the Shadowbolts were T-Bone, Razor, Falcon, and Blade, who was only a year older than me and had been my best friend outside of Nightshade and Starry. We went to a bar in Cloudsdale… and as soon as they told me I couldn’t handle alcohol, I was downing shots of trotka like no tomorrow.

And after eight or nine shots… I started not acting like myself. And that’s when I saw her…

Radiant Shine…

She was a professional dancer, known pretty far and wide, even performed on Bridleway many times with a bright career ahead of her. She was quite an attractive young mare at the age of nineteen. I had heard about her and seen her in a couple of magazines… and at my age, all I knew was that she was sexy… and I was being controlled by liquid confidence. The guys all cheered as I pushed away from my seat and approached her. They all knew full well who she was, and what a way to celebrate my eighteenth birthday! Score with a young, attractive celebrity!

Fortune would have it that she had already had her share of alcohol as well… and what did she see when she looked at me? A big, rugged, muscular, and confident pegasus. We were both drunk… and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what eventually happened.

There is a very good reason why I haven’t touched alcohol since that night. Because even though our actions gave me Storm… it completely destroyed her life and career as I’m sure she told him countless times. I got her pregnant… and with her fame, it wasn’t long before the media tore her apart, labeling her as reckless, loose, slutty… sleeping around while drunk. It ruined her reputation, forced her to quit her career, and she was left to fend for herself with a foal on the way.

After the night I spent with her, I didn’t hear a word about it until almost a year later. A few of my buddies and I were reading a news story about celebrities that had hit rock bottom while laughing and joking at their expense. I was enjoying it just as much as them until Radiant Shine’s picture showed up. It was a picture of her yelling at whoever took the picture, and she looked completely ragged and disheveled. I had not once thought about that night I spent with her. I simply went about my work as usual. But as my friends read on and laughed, I found myself completely silent. What stood out the most… was reading that she had had a foal recently, and the father was unknown. My friends turned to me and asked me what had me so quiet all of a sudden. I quickly played it off and said I forgot about something important I had to do.

I can still remember standing on the courtyard deck of the flying compound. We had landed for the night in a densely forested area and just happened to be near Cloudsdale. I was contemplating whether or not to go see Radiant. The evening was murky, the sky was completely covered with clouds, and it smelled of rain possibly later in the night.

Should I go confront her? Should I leave it be? Was the foal my doing? Or was I mistaken? Something in my heart needed to know. I didn’t know why I cared, but something was pushing me to find out. I removed my goggles and shed my uniform, simply dropping them on the deck before spreading my wings and heading for Cloudsdale.

After a brief stop at the local library to page through a directory, I found out where she lived and made my way to the suburbs near the edge of town. I felt a knot in my throat as I landed on her front lawn. What was I going to say to her? I didn’t even think about that. There was only one thing I wanted to know… and I still didn’t even know why I wanted that. I was blindly moving without understanding my own purpose.

The moment she opened her door and saw me… she lashed out, pointing at me in rage as she blamed me for everything that had happened to her. I was speechless. She looked absolutely horrible… far from the flawless beautiful mare I remembered her being. There was a nasty smell of alcohol on her breath that splashed against my face with each shout, threat, and obscenity she threw at me. After taking the verbal beating, she slammed the door in my face. I reached up to open the door, but stopped, shook my head, and turned to leave.

What a waste of my time. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but I more or less got the answer I wanted. She claimed I was responsible for her terrible life, so the foal had to be mine. That was it, I knew. Now I would just forget about it and go about my life. I spread my wings to fly…

But I found I couldn’t move them.

Why couldn’t I leave? What more did I want from this little adventure? I knew the foal was mine, or… at least I assumed. The scent of booze on her breath and the way she slurred her words suggested she was drunk. She could have just unloaded her frustration for all I knew.

I wanted to see it.

I wanted to see the foal for myself.

I had never been so confused about my actions before in my life. I had spent all of my days fighting and killing without a care in the world aside from my own personal gain and satisfaction, and here I was unable to tear myself away from a petty personal matter that had no significance to my lifestyle. How I was acting was bothering me almost as much as the situation. I wouldn’t be able to leave until I had it all figured out.

So I waited outside. I waited until it got dark and kept an eye on the house until I was certain Radiant was asleep. I climbed through a window she left open and froze for a moment when I saw her on the couch, but she was passed out drunk, surrounded with empty bottles of liquor.

The whole house was in very sad shape. All the furniture was old and worn. The kitchen was a mess and had an unpleasant scent of rotten food coming from it. There were used, dirty dishes stacked in random places both in and out of the kitchen. The walls were stained with what I assumed either had to be liquor or vomit from drinking too much. Everywhere I looked there was a bottle of some sort of alcoholic beverage in my field of view, stacked on shelves, on countertops, on tables. On the coffee table in front of the couch, stacks of bills and bank statements were piled up, some strewn about on the floor among the empty bottles. Half of the lights were burnt out, leaving the house in a dim state, only adding to the effect that made the house seem less like a home and more like an abandoned prison ward.

I took a step towards her and flinched as my hoof crunched against a pile of broken glass on the floor, luckily the flat side of a bottle piece. I looked down and examined all bottles on the floor, shaking my head at what a sorry state everything was in before carefully making my way around and approaching Radiant on the couch.

I looked her over, pausing for a moment as a soft pitter-patter of rain began tapping against the roof. I had made it inside, and luckily just beat the rain. I looked around the living room as the rain outside turned from a soft drizzle to a heavy downpour.

I didn’t have a chance to really look at her when she was yelling at me, but now I could really see just how far gone she was. Her mane used to be silky smooth. It now looked dirty and knotted. As a dancer she once had a svelte, toned body. She had gained a lot of weight, most likely due to excessive drinking and poor eating habits. Her face was flawless the last time I saw her, now it looked ragged, the skin under her eyes wrinkled from either lack of sleep or lack of good sleep from the alcohol. She was a pale, murky reflection of what she used to be

Had I really done this to her? It felt so odd that the image of her struck me so negatively. I had killed ponies for money, why was this making me question my actions? She had already made it clear that she’d never give me the light of day. And why should she? I knocked her up and it destroyed her bright future. She would never care if I felt bad, so I wouldn’t bother trying to apologize. She was a lost cause… but what of the foal? I still wanted to see the foal.

I took a single step away from her, ready to search the house, assuming that the foal was even alive with how well Radiant was handling herself. But then… a new noise caught my ears.

A cry…

A wail…

The sound of a foal coming from another room.

Something lit up in the pit of my stomach and before I could even think about it, I was moving towards the source of the cry. In seconds I found the room. It was a makeshift nursery or at least a very low effort nursery. The room was stuffed full of random paraphernalia, making it look more like a room Radiant simply threw things into, and in the corner was a crib beside a table. I quickly felt around the wall beside the doorway for the light switch and flipped it on, but only one of the five lights in the room flickered on, a stand up lamp next to the crib. The light was very dim and barely illuminated the room save for the corner with the crib.

Every step I took felt like a mile as I made my way towards the crib and source of the wailing. I was walking so softly that my hooves made little to no sound at all, making the only other noise the constant rush of the rainfall pelting the rooftop.

I stopped one pace away from the crib and held my breath as I took the final step… and peered over the top.

A little brown foal… with a bright yellow mane. Its eyes were slammed shut as it wailed and kicked its little arms and legs around.

Now… I had never had parents. They had abandoned me long before I could remember them. I knew nothing of love or care. There was nothing in my past that gave me a reason to have any emotional response to what I saw.

But then the foal opened its eyes… and stared up at me with the very same eyes I see when I look in a mirror.

The foal had my eyes.

Art by: Colorstirke

Something happened to me. I didn’t know what at the time, but I went from giving less of a damn to a small state of panic. However, it wasn’t a panic that made me want to flee, it was a panic that… I had to do something?

I reclined slightly when the foal saw me and extended its little arms towards me, crying and crying as if it was reaching out to me for help.

I knew absolutely nothing about taking care of foals, but in my travels, I had seen plenty of mothers handling foals. If there was one thing that I took away from every brief moment, it was that a foal cried when it wanted something or needed something. Once again feeling the need to act, I looked around, my eyes spotting a foal bottle that lay tipped over on the table beside the crib. It was full, the cap still tightly on, but it was steadily dripping onto the table.

Without a second thought, I reached into the crib and scooped the little foal out as quickly and gently as I could, continuously asking myself the same question I had been from the start. Why? Why was I doing all this?

I held him a little awkwardly, but I managed to get him to the table and sat down in a folding chair beside it. Resting the foal on my arm and shoulder, I grabbed the bottle and slowly tipped it towards him. His eyes widened when he saw the bottle and he immediately stopped crying. He reached out and grasped the sides of the bottle eagerly as he closed his mouth around the end and drank.

The little guy was clearly beyond hungry. He slowly, but surely drank down the entire contents of the bottle, not leaving a single drop behind. He released the bottle from his mouth and let out a little sigh… but then began shivering. Again, I found myself acting as I looked around for something to help keep him warm. There was a foal blanket on the floor beneath the table. I quickly reached for it and did my best to wrap it around the foal snugly, leaving only his head and front arms exposed.

Once he was warm and comfortable, the foal settled down… and stared up at me curiously. I looked right down into his eyes, still not sure what I was feeling. But with the foal finally taken care of, and the two of us sitting with nothing but each other, and the constant sound of the rain on the roof, I took a moment to think over everything that had just happened and why I felt like I did.

Every motion, every move, everything I had done to find and help the foal… was done without a thought… without hesitation. Was it an instinct? Something I couldn’t stop myself from doing because of a past experience or something I simply felt was right despite my lack of experience?

It gave me an interesting thought. The foal was clearly mine, the eyes said it all. The life that I currently lived was a result of an excruciatingly painful colthood. I had no parents to protect me, and I lived on the streets of Canterlot’s slums, scratching and clawing every day to just survive, beaten up and left to die at one point. Perhaps it was that life… that experience… that was causing me to act like such a… parent.

The hell I lived through as a colt was something I would never wish upon anypony even though I had grown into a violent mercenary who would kill if the job called for it. The pain, the suffering, and the trauma I experienced before becoming a Shadowbolt were all unbearable. After seeing the sorry state of the house and Radiant… if somepony didn’t do something, the foal’s life would be incredibly unpleasant, and it might not even survive with so much neglect in its care. The mere thought of such terrible things happening to the foal was causing me to act in ways I never had before. I felt a strange warmth in my body as I held him close.

I was a fierce warrior, well known in the Shadowbolts for being a relentless killer, wild, untamed, ruthless, at times compared to a wild beast… But when I looked into the foal’s eyes and saw my own eyes looking back up at me… all that I was and everything that I knew just… vanished.

My mind was at peace… my body relaxed… I had never felt so calm and comfortable. I was just as curious about the little foal as he was about me.

And then…

The foal smiled happily, reached his tiny hooves towards my face and released a tiny noise.

“Da!”

It was just foal gibberish… a sound you would hear any foal make. But with the situation, what I had learned, and what I had felt…

The only word I could think of when I heard it was…

Dad.

Suddenly, my face felt wet. I quickly pulled the foal closer to my chest and looked up, searching for a leak in the roof. The house was pretty run down after all, and with the hard rainfall outside I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a leak. But the ceiling was completely dry…

The water was coming from my eyes?

Tears?

I was crying?

I had never cried before in my life, not even when I was abandoned and beaten as a colt.

I didn’t know what I was feeling nor what was happening. My heart felt light, my body was tingling, there was water falling out of my eyes, and it was all happening because of this foal?

Maybe it was because I had never known the caring touch of my parents… never known the feeling of the hug… never known the comfort of security…

When I looked at the foal in my arms, new instincts were surfacing, just as I had thought. I wanted the foal to never feel alone… I wanted him to never be abandoned… I wanted him to NEVER experience the hell I did.

The foal kept reaching towards my face, cooing happily while smiling wide. I was filled with something I had never felt before.

Joy.

And as I continued to look into the happy eyes of the foal, the feeling of joy refused to fade.

I pulled the foal closer to me while hugging him gently. The tears were still running from my eyes and I smiled as the foal touched his little hooves to my face, uttering happy little noises and giggles.

For the first time in my life… I cared about something other than myself. It was only one thing… but it now meant more to me than anything else because it brought me such uncontrollable happiness that I had never had the privilege of knowing until now… and I loved it.

I was a father…

And this… was my son.

Art by: Foxenawolf

Descent continued to stare out the window into the rain falling over the courtyard as he paused for a long time.

Soarin and Starry both stood, speechless as Descent poured more emotion into the story than anything the two ever expected from him. It was even more of a shock to Starry, watching a stallion she knew to be endlessly hard and serious barely hold back tears as he recalled his story. Neither Soarin nor Starry knew how to feel, their faces wrought with blank looks with their mouths slightly ajar.

“Eventually…” Descent began again. “My son fell asleep, peacefully stirring in my arms as I moved him back to his crib and made sure he was comfortable, covered up, nice and warm. It was at that point that I finally noticed a small nameplate on the floor. It looked like it had fallen off the crib. I reached down, and turned it over. It read ‘Storm Front.’” Descent turned and looked at the two of them. “Storm Front, my son. I wanted so badly to take him with me, to free him from his life with a mother that clearly didn’t care about him. He had made me feel things I never knew I could feel… things that were completely foreign to me, but they were so pleasant I couldn’t even describe it. But…” he reached up tapped his hoof against his uniform on his chest. “I was a Shadowbolt… and I wasn’t about to abandon what I had done all my life… what had defined me. There was no way I could take a foal back with me to the compound… besides, I didn’t want his life to be anything like mine. Including my time with the Shadowbolts. There was no doubt that if I suddenly quit the Shadowbolts it would have raised questions and brought them out looking for me. I wanted Storm to know nothing of it or ever be exposed to it.”

“You kept this under wraps for twenty-one years?” Starry spoke up in disbelief.

“I did,” Descent nodded. “I made a vow to myself to never speak of him to my peers and to never reveal what I was to Storm. I started making as many trips as I could to visit him. After what I saw the very first night I would fly miles and miles if I had to, just to check up and make sure he was fed and shown some love. I also tried to clean up the house and pick up the messes left by Radiant. Even though I didn’t live there, I wanted to make sure the place was as sanitary, clean, and safe for Storm. I washed the dishes, cleaned up the bottles, replaced the burnt out lights, even tried to reorganize the nursery so it was less of storage room and more a place for Storm to be comfortable. I did all of these things on my short visits, going as many nights as I could, making sure to also spend time with Storm too, so I could see that smile and he could know, even at that age, that he had a father to take care of him.”

“Wait a minute…” Starry’s eyes widened. “I remember you suddenly up and disappearing a bunch every night for a while! THAT’S what you were doing?”

“I’m surprised you remember that specifically from so long ago,” Descent turned and looked at her curiously. Starry scoffed.

“It’s kind of hard to forget, you dope,” she shook her head. “You have no idea how many Shadowbolts continuously asked Nightshade and I where you kept going at night. Hell if we knew, it was your business… but to see your son? To be a housekeeper? That was the LAST thing I would’ve expected.”

“Indeed,” Descent nodded. “I made sure to split my life up. When I was with the Shadowbolts, I let my usual violent and warrior nature run free, going on about our jobs and hires as I always had. But whenever I was with Storm, I was at peace, free from the beast within. I had changed… completely changed with the discovery of my son. I was still the same stallion in my line of work, but now I had a release from it all, a way I could escape it every now and then. And a new reason to survive in my line of work.”

Descent turned back away from them and stared out the window again as if the rain reminded him of the very night he first spoke of.

“Radiant became a low pay cloudscaper eventually… but even then she spent a majority of her bits on alcohol and very little towards Storm. I tried approaching her once or twice again, but it was always the same outcome, her yelling and screaming at me until I left. So I continued to sneak back as many nights as I could. As time went on I got to watch him grow up into fine young stallion. He became attached to me, always greeting me with the same joyful smile that has barely changed since he was a foal. Once he was old enough, I didn’t visit quite as often, setting aside bits from my completed contracts to take to him and help provide what I could. I knew Radiant wouldn’t try very hard for him, so it was up to me to be the parent he could rely on.”

Descent paused for a few moments again before taking a deep breath and sighed heavily.

“Of course he questioned me often on what I do and how I got the money, especially as he got older and more aware that I didn’t just find bits and bring them to him… but as I said, I never wanted him to know the life his father had lived, I wanted him to be happy and forge his own path. I had a hell of a time deflecting his questions when I showed up with all these…” he motioned to his scars. “But in the end, he understood that I was doing whatever I did for him, and that was enough to make him understand how much I cared,” he shook his head. “It pained me to suddenly not be able to visit him with the crisis and the corruption of the Shadowbolts… but I knew he was all grown up and he’d be able to handle himself until I could see him again…”

“And then you saw him here…” Soarin cut in.

“Something I never expected would happen,” Descent nodded. “When I saw Storm standing there in his Wonderbolt uniform… I panicked. With the Renegades, I have taken up the position of the leader in a similar manner to the Shadowbolt code, a leader who is the strongest, fearless, and never shows weakness. Storm Front had always put me at ease, relieving me of the strict image and mindset I swore to uphold at all times around my peers. When I saw Storm and looked into his eyes… I began to feel relaxed, my demeanor calming. It terrified me… I was among my fellow warriors, a place where I never wanted Storm to be… and a place I never wanted to show softness. My two worlds that had remained perfectly separate for so long… had suddenly collided. So… I turned my back on him and ran away because I was completely unprepared for it… I was scared.”

“That explains it then…” Starry said while looking Descent up and down carefully. “Any other deep dark secrets you wanna share while we’re at it?” she said sarcastically, but Descent completely ignored her and turned towards Soarin.

“Storm means more to me than anything in the world. He’s the one thing, the one joy that I truly have. My motivation to fight… is the Shadowbolts. They have been my life and my pride is driving me to restore them to their true glory. To make them what they once were and to save all of those who have fallen into the clutches of Kayn Ost. But Storm brings me peace that I can find nowhere else… the only true family I have. And I would do anything for him.”

A sniffle sounded out from behind them.

All three of them turned sharply towards the noise, tracing it to a door to a nearby classroom that was slightly ajar. Descent just stared silently as Soarin looked between him and the door. He sighed and shook his head.

“Come out you two…” Soarin called towards the door.

For a moment, nothing emerged, but then the door opened a little further and Fleetfoot stepped out, grinning sheepishly. Behind her though, Storm Front stepped out, with droplets in the corners of his eyes. Storm and Descent stared directly at each other, neither moving nor saying a word. Fleetfoot glanced at Storm before smiling weakly and reaching over to nudge Storm forward.

“Well? Go on…” she encouraged. “Go say hello to your amazing daddy.”

Storm looked towards Descent, swallowed, and slowly started walking forward.

Soarin smiled and looked back at Descent.

“Looks like he heard it all anyway,” Soarin nodded. “Saves you the trouble,” Soarin said as he turned and grabbed Starry Skies by the arm.

“What the—?” she flinched and glared at Soarin. “What?”

“You are a riot,” Soarin shook his head. “Come on…let’s give them some privacy.”

“Sheesh…” Starry ripped her arm free. “Fine. Whatever, just don’t touch me,” she demanded and followed as she and Soarin started walking. As they passed Storm, Soarin reached up and patted Storm on the shoulder, giving him a smile.

Fleetfoot sighed with a warm smile on her face and put a hoof to her mouth with slightly misty eyes as Soarin and Starry reached her.

“Look…” she said quietly and pointed as Storm stopped in front of Descent. Soarin and Starry both turned to watch. Storm looked up into his father’s eyes as Descent looked down into his son’s.

“Dad?” Storm spoke first as the tears in his eyes began to slowly drip down. Descent’s eyes widened and he suddenly slammed his eyes shut while looking away.

“Dammit…” Descent cursed and tipped his head down. “Ceiling’s leaking again…” he said as he looked back towards Storm, trying to wear a serious expression, but it didn’t prevent a tear running down his face as well.

“Dad…” Storm’s lips quivered as Descent shook his head.

“Come here…” Descent reached an arm around Storm and pulled him into a tight hug. Both of the dams broke, and within seconds the two of them were crying, rivers rushing down their faces as father and son embraced for the first time without any secrets stuck in between them.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“Awww…” Fleetfoot quietly cooed as she leaned sideways and fell right into Starry Skies.

“You have three seconds to get the hell off of me,” Starry hissed at her.

“And ruin the moment? Naw, you can deal with it,” Fleetfoot waved her hoof at Starry as she continued to watch Storm and Descent.

“Alright, we should leave them be,” Soarin suggested as he started pulling them away. His hoof was quickly swatted aside by Starry.

“Son of a bitch, what did I just say about touching me?” Starry growled as they began walking away from Storm and Descent.

“Yikes, sorry,” Soarin folded his ears back and lifted an eyebrow as he walked between the two of them. Fleetfoot suddenly stepped up so Starry could see her behind Soarin.

“Hate to break it to ya Toots, but if you don’t like being touched you came to the wrong neighborhood!” she said while jabbing Soarin in the side with her elbow.

“Ow, ow, stop,” Soarin chuckled.

“That’s just dandy,” Starry rolled her eyes. “Just keep your damn hooves off of me.”

“Oooo… I know your type,” Fleetfoot winked towards Starry. “Playing hard to get and then when they get you… WOW they get you hard!” Fleetfoot giggled as Starry looked at her in utter confusion.

“What the hell are you even talking about?” she tipped her head to the side as Fleetfoot waved her hoof in front of her face.

“Oh, don’t play so innocent!” she continued to giggle. “The Shadowbolts had like, three hundredish members right? So much more to choose from than here and if you’ve got more than a few stallions as big and buff as Descent…”

“You’re crazy,” Starry said flatly while scoffing.

“And YOU are in denial!” Fleetfoot beamed as Soarin continued to look between the two of them. “Come on, you can tell me! Are you built for smooth or rough riding?” she continued to press.

“I’m built to kick your ass if you don’t shut up,” Starry’s glare sharpened but Fleetfoot kept being silly.

“Mmmmm…” Fleetfoot bit her lip and rolled her eyes back while reaching her opposite wing up into the air behind her head and shaking it back and forth. “Shadowbolt brand sausage… as mysterious as it is satisfying! Especially when you pay in advance! Always gets the job done and kills anything in its way into you!”

Soarin snorted and held his teeth closed as he snickered loudly. Starry just stared grumpily at Fleetfoot as she continued to make weird faces.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“You need help,” Starry stated flatly.

“Apparently you do too!” Fleetfoot teased as she stepped around Soarin. Starry immediately reclined away as Fleetfoot drew close. “If you’re that nervous we can make it a threesome! Trust me, Wonderbolts are trained to stay in formations, you’ll just have to follow my lead!” Fleetfoot said while bouncing her eyebrows. Starry growled, but Soarin stepped between them while laughing.

“Wow… I can tell you two are going to be a hooffull,” he chuckled, pushing them apart as Fleetfoot quietly whispered the words ‘thick… juicy… sausage…’ towards Starry.

It was… both interesting and refreshing to Soarin, seeing Fleetfoot and Starry Skies, Wonderbolt and Shadowbolt interact casually. Starry clearly wasn’t enjoying it, but there was a time when these two would keep their distance on sight and end up locked in battle shortly after. It was the same with having Descent just around instead of facing him down as an enemy… It was too bad that Nightshade, if she was really still alive as the corrupted Shadowbolts claimed, would probably never be in a spot to look eye to eye with Spitfire as an ally. As much as Nightshade creeped out Soarin, she was an unbelievable fighter, and would be a very valuable addition against the threats they faced.

Soarin grunted as Starry made an aggressive move towards Fleetfoot while bumping into him, Soarin pushed his wings out to force them both as far away from each other as he could as Starry growled and Fleetfoot giggled uncontrollably. With the two of them separated again, they continued on down the hall, Soarin caught between the two of them and the shenanigans as they moved towards the lobby.

“Bliss…” Luna spoke up as she approached Bliss at her desk in the training room.

“Yes?” Bliss asked while looking up from more than a dozen medical reports lying on her desk. She got up and started moving back down the aisle.

“Pray tell us,” Luna asked nervously as she walked behind her. “How fare your patients? Most will be fine with a little rest we hope?”

Bliss stopped in her tracks, causing Luna to almost bump into her. She sighed and shook her head.

“I wish I could give you better news, Luna,” she looked over her shoulder. “About half of them will be fine with a few days of rest, I’m afraid the other half may be out for a few weeks. Some have sustained injuries that may directly impact their capabilities in the future and quite a few will be left with scars.”

Luna cringed and looked down. Bliss frowned as she looked upon the princess, she had made a critical blunder in her judgment and many paid the price for it, she was no doubt feeling down. Not too many knew of it, but Luna and Bliss were actually good friends. Back before Celestia disappeared, Luna made frequent visits to the sick and injured in hospitals. They had met and conversed many times during Bliss’ apprenticeship at Canterlot Central Hospital. Over time, they became friends and frequently met to have tea.

As a friend, Bliss could read Luna and she could tell she felt terrible about what her actions had led to, but there wasn’t much she could do for her right now… because somepony else needed her help.

“I wish we could talk more right now, Luna,” Bliss began as she reached up and gently placed a hoof on the side of Luna’s arm. “But I need to help Dr. Red Cross stitch up Squall right now. We’ll talk later if we can, I promise.”

Before Luna could respond, Bliss gave her a smile and hurried down the aisle towards Squall’s bed, where multiple doctors had gathered. Luna stared towards the commotion, and perked up when she saw the rest of squad Foxtrot reluctantly moving away per the request of the doctors. Matteo, Rainbow Dash, and Twister, who was holding Little Star like a teddy bear, all stepped back and sat down on a vacant bed nearby. Luna’s eyes fixed on Dash and she decided to go check up on her, knowing her a little better than the rest for obvious reasons.

Luna kept her eyes angled down towards the floor. While the infirmary had cleared out a bit, a few had to stay a little longer and possibly overnight due to the nature of their injuries. Luna could not bring herself to look at any of them. She passed by Blaze, almost feeling the harsh glare being shot at her as she walked by. Surprise was asleep, but no doubt even the bubbly, party Wonderbolt would not be too happy with her. Not every bed was occupied, so there was less disappointment to feel, but every pair of eyes on her still hurt.

The walk felt like it took forever, but eventually Luna stopped behind Squad Foxtrot as they all kept their eyes on the doctors. Luna looked past them at the doctors and Bliss as they prepared the anesthetic. No doubt it would be greatly required, working with such a sensitive part of the body. The last thing any of them saw was Squall looking around at all the doctors with a nervous look on his face before he disappeared behind them, cutting both Luna and Foxtrot off from seeing them work on him.

Taking the opportunity, Luna approached from behind and tapped Rainbow Dash on the shoulder.

“Rainbow Dash,” she said her name quietly, but they all turned and looked at her. She winced as their eyes landed on her. Matteo and Twister didn’t change their expressions, but Dash was clearly trying not to show how she felt… and Little Star was glaring at her.

“Princess? What’s up?” Dash asked being both formal and informal, which didn’t go unnoticed by her squadmates.

“We…” Luna hesitated. She didn’t really think about what to say beforehand. “Are you, alright?” Luna asked awkwardly. Dash tipped her head slightly, but Luna asked, so she’d answer.

“Well, physically, I’m fine. I can take a few bumps and bruises… a little shaken up here though…” Dash tapped a hoof to her head.

“Ah,” Luna nodded, and then stared for a moment before looking away and scrunching her face. “We’re sorry…” Luna quickly turned around and prepared to leave, but Dash stopped her.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on…” Dash stood up on the bed, putting her at eye level with Luna. “Are you okay?”

The question took Luna by surprise as she turned back around and stared at Dash quizzically. She didn’t expect anypony to care, at least not for a little while after how much she messed up the Wonderbolts’ situation. When she didn’t respond, Dash rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, Luna, I asked. I’m not okay with what you did,” she paused and looked back at Little Star, who was still glaring daggers at Luna. “And neither are… pretty much everypony else, but we still need you… you’re Princess Freaking Luna.”

Luna blinked, unsure what to say in response.

“In fact I wanted to ask you two things I’ve been thinking about since the battle ended and we got the full story,” Dash pressed. Wanting to make it up to them all in any way she could, Luna quickly nodded.

“Ask away,” she complied with Dash’s request.

“So Princess Celestia really is… ‘missing?’” Dash asked right off the bat. Luna frowned and nodded.

“All we told of Celestia was the full truth…” she looked up and her eyes narrowed. “At least what we know…” she said sharply.

“Huh?” Dash blinked. “What do you…?”

“ACK TWISTER! CAN’T BREATHE!” Star suddenly spoke up. Dash and Luna looked up to see Twister staring at Luna with creepily wide eyes as he listened, squeezing Star tightly. Before Dash could say anything, Matteo balled up his talons and bopped Twister over the head, making him fall down and drop Little Star.

“Welcome to my band of idiots,” Dash shrugged as she turned back to Luna. “You were saying?”

“Well…” Luna narrowed her eyes again. “Discord… has hinted that he knows something about our sister… but,” Luna sighed. “You know how it is with that ignoramus… we can never tell if he’s telling the truth or leading us on.”

“I had a feeling you were gonna say him,” Dash sighed. “It was written all over your face.”

“You said you had two questions for us?” Luna asked, eager to help in any way she could.

Without thinking about the fact that she had never brought it up before… Dash asked away.

“Do you think I should write to Twilight? I wasn’t sure if we needed them at first, but after all of this… do you think we should have the Elements of Harmony here just in case?” Dash realized what she had done less than a second later. She turned and looked at her squadmates. Matteo, Star, and Twister were all staring directly at her. Luna was just as aware as Dash that the identities of the Elements of Harmony were unknown by the general public, but due to the situation, she answered without hesitation.

“We have considered that option…” Luna began, causing Dash to look back towards her. “While the Elements of Harmony are indeed the mightiest weapon at our disposal, getting them involved is risky,” Luna explained. “The elements are cumbersome… you know well that in order to unleash their full power, the six elements must be within close proximity of each other, and the target must be no further than twenty yards away to ensure accuracy. They also have a charge time, leaving the users very vulnerable. With the unpredictable and swift nature of our enemies… not only would we put the elements in a risky situation… but if an attempt were to fail, and the enemy were to learn the true identities of the Elements of Harmony, it would put them in grave danger, and possibly hand the elements right to them… which would be catastrophic, believe me.”

“Hold on,” Dash stopped her. “Back when he saved Soarin and I, Descent mentioned that Kayn Ost hired the Shadowbolts to scatter the Elements of Harmony by destroying Ponyville! Doesn’t he already know who they are?” Dash questioned.

“That is something we cannot explain,” Luna shook her head. “Our best guess is that he knew the general location of the elements, not their specific identities. And the fact that he has not tried again… suggests that the failure to snuff them out convinced him they were elsewhere, the orders were meant to keep something from the Shadowbolts, or his interest was drawn by a new target.”

“Soarin…” Dash put together.

“Indeed, that may be so,” Luna agreed. “Also, we have to consider the fact that they may not work on the Shadowbolts. The elements are a weapon against pure evil… and the Shadowbolts are being controlled. They are not the source of the evil itself. Until we can fully see and identify the true source of it all, we fear they will just be in danger. We feel it is in our best interest to not risk the elements until we know we can effectively and safely use them… and we believe you don’t wish to put your friends in that danger either.”

“You’re completely right about that,” Dash sighed, thinking over all the different variables in play with the situation. This was the first time her enemy was not right out in front of them. “Applejack, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie might be able to handle this, but I doubt Rarity and Fluttershy would stay calm in this situation,” Dash smiled. “Well, thanks for being completely honest with me, Luna.”

“It is something we should have done from the start,” Luna sighed as she looked up at the doctors working. “We shall take our leave now, we pray your friend is alright,” she said while motioning to Squall.

Luna turned before Dash could say anything else and began walking back down the aisle towards the exit. She glanced behind her back at Dash and her squadmates as she moved.

“OH MY GAWD!” Twister zipped up to Dash, his voice high and squeaky like a fanfilly. “You’re an Element of Harmony?!” he held Star upside down towards Dash. “CAN YOU SIGN MY MIDGET?!”

“HEY!” Star glared at him as he bounced eagerly.

Luna chuckled as she turned and kept walking. She wished she had a friend or two that could help her out right now. She could really use the comfort. But talking to Dash had put a thought in her mind, and she was already contemplating it as she approached the door.

She flinched as Twister suddenly appeared in front of her face and squished her royal cheeks.

“Hey! I know an Element of Harmony!” he said directly into Luna’s face before backing away and cheering while tipping his head back and flailing about enthusiastically like puppet before turning and heading right out the door, pushing it open even though it was a pull door.

“What a strange pony, that one…” Luna blinked and shook her head as she pulled the door open with her magic and stepped out. She first turned towards the lobby with the intention of finding Spitfire, but she stopped after taking two steps.

The words she exchanged with Rainbow Dash were still flowing in her mind… specifically a few things right before she was questioned.

She blinked as she looked to her left and out the window. It was still raining. In fact, it had picked up a bit, showing no sign of letting up anytime soon. She stepped towards the window and looked out into the downpour, her eyes moving across the droplet covered pane until her eyes landed on the Canterlot Castle. She could only see the front of the castle, the two buildings being side by side, but she kept her eyes on it for a moment, the view slightly distorted as the droplets of rain slowly made their way down the glass.

She looked back towards the lobby.

Then back out the window towards the castle again.

She looked down.

I’m not okay with what you did…

Luna looked back up with a new wave of determination in her eyes. She quickly turned back down the east hallway and started trotting towards the underground passage that led back to the castle. To any she passed, it looked much faster than a trot, but with Luna’s size and longer limbs, it was just naturally that way.

She passed by Descent and Storm as she moved. The two looked up from their conversation, but she didn’t even glance at them. She was on a path, and she wasn’t going to stop until she reached her destination.

She roughly pushed the doors of the passage aside and spread her wings to float down the set of stairs into the connecting tunnel between the premises.

And neither are… pretty much everypony else…

Luna’s trot accelerated into a canter, going the distance of the tunnel much faster than most ponies could. She threw the doors at the end open, almost knocking the royal guards guarding it aside.

“We apologize,” Luna said simply as she turned the opposite direction of the throne room and cantered towards a long staircase. She skipped steps as she scaled the stairs, turning down the first hallway on the left, and stopping in front of a large door with a moon on it. A batpony guard stood outside and bowed as she approached. Without even looking at the guard, Luna gently shifted him aside with her magic. He yelped in surprise and looked on with confusion as Luna opened the door and entered her bedroom.

She slowed down as she entered the spacious room, walking right past her wardrobe, a large mirror, and a dresser before coming up to a closet door that was firmly locked. She stared at the door in the silence of her room, the pitter patter of rain on the roof above filling the quiet void of the moment. Her magic came to life, opening the top drawer of her dresser without looking at it and shifting the contents around until a small key lifted out of it. She hovered the key over to the door and inserted it into the lock, slowly turning it and opening the closet.

But we still need you…

Shivers went down Luna’s spine as she stared into the closet.

There was only one thing behind the secured door.

A large armor stand… that held all the pieces of her blue, magically enchanted battle armor.

The sight made her cringe at first. She had purposely locked the armor away and not even looked at it for quite some time. For the last time she donned it was when she was possessed by the fiendish Nightmare Miasma that transformed her into Nightmare Moon.

“After all…” A snide voice met her ears, startling her so much that she squeaked and nearly leapt to the ceiling. She turned around sharply and glared at the familiar owner of the voice. Discord was reclined on her bed in a sultry pose. “You’re ‘Princess Freaking Luna,’” he chuckled as he stood up on the bed, a foam tiara similar to Luna’s appearing on his head as he started waving a big flag that said ‘#1 princess’ with Luna’s face on one side and on the other, the words ‘Like the sun? Check out my MOON’ with Luna’s plot beside it.

He stopped and stared in surprise as Luna said nothing and simply turned back around to face the set of armor. His props disappeared and he flopped onto her bed like a penguin before slithering off the side like a snake towards her, popping back up when she was right beside her.

“You know there are much better things to call me than an ignoramus…” he chuckled, hoping she’d turn and question him sneaking around the compound and listening in on private conversations, but she still kept staring at the armor and ignoring him. He huffed and crossed his arms. “Fine, you’ve got my attention.” He turned and faced the armor with her. “Tell me Luna, what exactly are you planning to do with… this…” He waved his hand towards it.

“We plan to fight alongside them,” Luna stated adamantly. Discord burst out laughing falling over on his back as Luna remained unfazed by his response. She waited patiently as he stood back up, still chuckling.

“Good one Lulu! Very good one and—” Discord paused and stared at her. “Oh my, you really are being serious, aren’t you?” Discord sneered as he twirled his scraggly beard with a finger. He slithered around Luna and appeared on her other side. “Pretty little Lulu is going to fight?”

“We are no dainty flower, Discord. Lest you forget it was our sister and I that battled against the black dragons before sealing them away.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” Discord snickered. “How could I not? You and Celestia weren’t quite so skinny back then,” he joked as he reached out and squeezed Luna’s arm. She yanked it away and finally turned to glare at him. “I recall the two of you being quite the warriors back then… your appearances true to the term ‘battle goddesses’ for sure… oooo hoo hoo, I’m shivering remembering it. But alas, I guess when countless years of peace come into play it’s easy for one to lose a bit of tone, even for goddesses…” Luna stared at him awkwardly as Discord continued to make comments about her and her sister’s bodies. He chuckled when he saw her looking slightly disturbed. “Hey, a guy can look, you should be flattered! But enough about how I may or may not have always been carefully watching you two back then,” Discord purposely joked to make her feel more awkward. “You really believe this is a good idea?” he asked as Luna struck the previous conversation from her mind.

“Of course it is, we’ve already made enough of a mess, we have to make up for it and this is how we choose to do so,” Luna stared back at the armor as her magic came to life and she hovered the pieces of the armor towards her. Discord stepped back as Luna moved the pieces one by one into place on her body, finishing with the armored helmet as she stepped over to the mirror and looked herself over. Her image suddenly became distorted and was replaced with Discord in the mirror.

“Looking lovely, Lulu… but aren’t you forgetting something?” he slowly pulled himself out of the mirror and stood directly in front of her. He reached a finger forward and teasingly tapped it against the tip of her horn. “You were not among the fighting in Celestia’s vision… are you risking fate again?”

Luna’s eyes narrowed into a sharp glare as her horn came to life and forced Discord’s hand off of it.

“TO HELL with my sister’s vision!” she snapped at Discord, who blinked as Luna yelled. “No more games… No more deception… and no more avoiding… It’s time for ME to repay all the debts I now owe!” she yelled as she dropped the formal royal speech. “I don’t care about a vision of the future! I care about stopping the threat to Equestria, and I’ll gladly defy fate to save its citizens from harm!”

Discords lips curled into a devilish smile as he stepped around Luna, allowing her to look at herself in the mirror.

“Lulu, I’m proud of you,” Discord began as he sauntered across the room towards the window and looked outside at the rain. He chuckled and spun around. “You’re finally starting to sound and ACT like your dear, dear sister… it’s reminding me of how much I miss her, really…”

Luna watched him curiously as he continued to snicker and chuckle. She blinked as she picked out a specific thing he just said.

“What dost thou mean… ‘act’ like her?” she asked. Discord disappeared in a puff of smoke and reappeared beside her, draping his arm over her shoulders while poking her in the chest.

“Oh Lulu… must I always be a plot device in such a crazy story full of unexpected twists and turns?” he joked as Luna blinked and the two of them were suddenly standing right in front of the window, looking out through the rain towards the Wonderbolt compound. “You weren’t in Celestia’s premonition…”

Discord slowly leaned in towards Luna’s ear.

“But guess what she didn’t tell you?”

His sneer grew incredibly wide.

“Neither was Soarin.”

Luna’s eyes shot open, her jaw dropped, and she gasped as she turned and looked at Discord, but he was gone.

“Well, well, well…” Discord’s voice came from behind her. She turned and looked over her shoulder, but he wasn’t there either. She looked in all directions until she faced the window again and Discord was leaning with his back up against it. “It looks like you aren’t the only one who’s trying to alter the vision!”

A bright flash of lightning suddenly lit up the room. Luna closed her eyes to shield them from the brightness, but when she opened them up…

Discord was gone…

“Wow, it’s storming now too,” Soarin commented, looking out the window as he and Dash carried one side of Matteo’s mattress down the east hallway. Matteo was carrying the other end by himself. “As silly as it sounds, I’m glad the Shadowbolts attacked this morning instead of waiting.”

“I guess we scared off the weather team…” Dash pondered. “I dunno, I haven’t been reading the scheduled weather reports.”

“We could easily go clean away the clouds, but like you said, we don’t know the weather schedule,” Soarin agreed as they stopped in front of the infirmary and set the mattress down. “Can you take it from here, big fella?” Soarin asked as Matteo cracked his wrists.

“I should be fine once I get it on its side, just didn’t want to drag it all the way from the barracks, thank you,” Matteo nodded. He reached down to tilt it up, but right before he did, Twister dropped from above and landed face first, spread eagle into the mattress. He didn’t bounce, just flat out slammed to it.

“Oh sure,” Dash began, not even slightly surprised like Soarin was. “You would show up after we’re done moving something heavy,” she pouted at Twister, but he only released muffled guffaws into the mattress.

Matteo reached down and tipped up the mattress on its side. Not surprisingly, Twister remained glued to it as Matteo began sliding the mattress along the floor and into the infirmary.

“Where’s your fifth?” Soarin asked while chuckling at the scene.

“Oh, Star? She’s already in there. We’ve had a hard time getting her away from Squall’s side since they finished stitching him up,” Dash explained with a weak smile.

“Really cares about him, huh?” Soarin smiled back.

“Yeah… the two of them have been an interesting mix from the start. She’s stood up for him more than once and he always seems to want to be where she is. It’s pretty cute, actually,” Dash said as she looked towards the infirmary door.

“Are they a thing?” Soarin asked while lifting an eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t say that, at least not yet,” Dash chuckled and nudged him. “If anything… I think she’s helping Squall a lot. From what I understand, he hasn’t had many ponies who’ve genuinely cared about him… with how easily he pushes others away and all. Star is definitely already breaking through to him… I’m hoping all of us can be on the same wavelength eventually…”

She paused for a moment, she and Soarin locking eyes before she remembered something else.

“Oh! How’s Storm doing? I saw Fleetfoot drag him out of the infirmary earlier, what was that about?”

“Heh…” Soarin smiled. “Bit of a long story, but the short version? Descent is definitely his father, and the two finally got a chance to speak in private. It was a touching thing to see. I’m sure he’s still a little shocked about who his father really is, but I have no doubt Storm is going to be in very high spirits tomorrow.”

“That’s good to hear,” Dash breathed a sigh of relief. As worried as she was about Squall, she had been just as curious to the mental state of Storm. He looked completely dejected after the run-in with Descent… it was good to know it got cleared up and he would be happy. And Descent really WAS his father… Imagine that. She’d have to get the full story at some point.

The two of them jumped and looked towards the window as a rumble of thunder rolled by outside.

“So you’re sure about this? I dunno if Bliss is going to like you guys spending the night in the infirmary if you’re not hurt,” Soarin chuckled. Dash nodded.

“I’ll make sure all my fellow dopes keep quiet,” Dash said with a wink. “Besides, I’ll be damned if I let Squall wake up alone after all this. I want him to see his whole squad there for him.”

“And that, is one of the many reasons you’re awesome,” Soarin smiled at her and reached a hoof towards her face. “I’ll leave you to it then, and I’ll see you in the morning, alright?”

“You got it,” Dash smiled back at him as the two leaned in and shared a soft, brief, goodnight kiss.

“Goodnight!” they said to each other in unison as Dash entered the infirmary and Soarin turned back towards the lobby, taking a moment to stop and look out at the thunderstorm before continuing on.

A loud, strong boom of thunder echoed outside, causing the compound to shake a little as it rolled through the air and slowly died down.

The noise woke Squall. He opened both of his eyes, but he only saw through one of them. He was angled up in his bed, his left eye seeing the tops of the elevated cabinets that lined the opposite wall of the training room/infirmary.

His face was still a little tingly from the anesthetic, but he could feel something covering his face on one side, which explained why he could see out of his right eye.

“Ugh…” he groaned quietly as he reached his left hoof up and touched his forehead, but as soon as he touched the bandages covering the stitches, he winced and pulled his hoof away while hissing quietly in pain, grinding his teeth together and squeezing his left eyelids hard.

The pain subsided as another, less intense roll of thunder echoed outside. There were no windows in the infirmary, but Squall could hear the rain falling hard against the compound. It was relaxing. At least he had that to soothe him as he sat there… in the infirmary… in pain… alone…

He let his left hoof drop back down to the bed, but his eye opened in surprise as his arm brushed up against something upon landing on the mattress.

It felt like fur and it wasn’t his. It was a little dark in the room, but his eye was already beginning to adjust. He tipped up slightly…

And looked around him…

Art by: Scootafail

His whole squad…

They were all there with him?

In the infirmary?

Dash had pushed one of the trainer tables up to the left side of his bed and was sleeping soundly on it. To his right, Matteo had his mattress all the way from the barracks on the floor and was fast asleep with Twister comically draped over his back, a snot bubble rising and falling from his nose. Squall looked right down to his left and saw Little Star completely curled up in a little ball right there on his bed beside him. She stirred and shifted, inadvertently resting her little head right on Squall’s arm.

Squall stared… utterly perplexed, bewildered, and confused.

Why?

Why were they there? The barracks had much more comfortable beds, not to mention much more space. It didn’t make any sense. Why would they be packed and crammed around him like this?

But…

Squall blinked as he continued to look at each and every one of them…

But at least…

Squall looked down at Little Star. She shifted again and her head began to roll off his arm. He quickly moved his arm slightly, stopping her head from falling off. He took one more, long look at each of them.

But at least he wasn’t alone now?

They could have easily left him there and gone back to their comfortable beds in the barracks… They could have easily left him to the doctors and but they were there earlier too…

But they didn’t… they sacrificed their free time and comfort to stay by his side…

They were there for him… and now he wasn’t alone.

Nopony had ever done something like that for him before and here…

“So stupid…” Squall quietly uttered in denial as he leaned his head back against his pillow and stared directly up at the ceiling. “Such a waste…” he sniffled. “Of time…” he slammed his left eye shut and a tear ran down the side of his face. “Wh…Whatever…”

It was definitely raining...

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

I promise i'm not crying... :fluttercry:

Wowee that was a long one huh? Full of emotion and Both Fleetfoot and Twister casually derailing the feels in magnificent ways :rainbowlaugh:

Luna's done playing around! :pinkiegasp:

BUT HUH?!

WHA?!

Celestia... LIED about Soarin being in her vision?! Meaning that he was SUPPOSED to die back in head in the clouds?! BWUH?! Oh me oh my just WHAT am i up to? :pinkiecrazy: (You thought i was done throwing you mysteries eh Jimmy Hox? :rainbowlaugh:)

I really, REALLY feel like this was one of my best chapters, and i hope you all feel the same! :rainbowkiss:

Now i want to take a moment to acknowledge how well Foxena did something...

Lining these up to look the same past and present nearly perfectly.

Also this face :rainbowlaugh::

Of course i also have to acknowledge Scootafail, i really love the way she draws Foxtrot. The image is actually darkened to make it look like it's at night. I will be posting the original pic in my next art blog so you can see it fully. (Little Star curled up on the bed = so adorable.)

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :scootangel::eeyup::pinkiehappy:

LOOK AT BABY STORM:

LOOK AT HIM GAAAAAAAHHHHGLISUGF:ISFG:SAFGHB *DED*

Chapter 94: The Calm Within the Storm

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was duo edited by both Kestrel and Lucky424)

Chapter 94: The Calm Within the Storm

“The barrier is gone.”

Soarin sighed to himself, surrounded by darkness as the deep male voice in his head spoke.

“And?” the female voice replied.

“And it’s only a matter of time until I’m in control,” the male voice said with a scoff. “You’re finished.”

“Do you enjoy repeating yourself?” the female voice chuckled. “This is nothing I haven’t heard you say several times now. Change the record please.”

“You are as lackadaisical as you are careless,” the male voice said with an annoyed snort. “Nopony can contain me. Not even you could, yet you expect Soarin to?"

“Yes.”

“Foolish!” the male voice let out a single laugh. “Such misplaced faith! I’ve been slowly building up my power while stuck in this infernal prison. Had the horn not been put in place, I’d have had full control by now… and… Should the horn become even slightly damaged, I will be free to consume him. With all the fighting going on, I can see that being a VERY high possibility, wouldn’t you say?”

“You are as overconfident as you are short-sighted,” the female voice shot back smoothly. There was a slight pause, proving once again to Soarin as he listened, that no matter what the male voice seemed to claim, the female voice always had the drop on him. He just wished he knew WHO they were and why they were in his head. The obvious answer for why was the magic transfer… but from what he heard, it was meant to simply revive him and keep him alive, not to rent out space for a never ending argument in his brain.

“Again with the insults…” the male voice growled, followed by the female voice laughing.

“If you had any brains left in that thickened skull of yours…” she began. “You would have realized by now just how strong Soarin’s willpower is. He is not a pony that would easily succumb to anything, much less your misguided influence. Hate to break it to you, but the only way you’re getting out of here is if the horn is completely destroyed… and seeing as how it was crafted with ancient, enchanted materials from a forgotten age… there are few things in this world that can destroy it. It may chip and crack, but as long as it’s holding firm, you are trapped… whether you like it or not. So I suggest you get used to it.”

“You act as if he’s the only pony that has an unbreakable will to succeed. I am insulted that you continued to underestimate my resolve!” the male voice shouted. “You speak of my ignorance, but what of you? By now YOU should understand just how hard I’m willing to push to get what I desire!”

“In more ways than one…” the female voice replied in a sudden, snide tone.

There was a LONG pause. Soarin hoped that whatever the comment implied, it was enough to shut up the male voice because he wanted to get back to sleeping peacefully.

“Sometimes… I question how you keep up your image with such a foul mouth and perverted thoughts…” the male voice replied awkwardly, much to Soarin’s dismay.

“Don’t act like you didn’t like it at the time… or still do,” the female voice continued to tease.

“Okay…” Soarin spoke up in annoyance as he turned over and sat up. “That’s enough, seriously!” the two bright figures, the blue and the yellow appeared in his vision, the silhouettes turning their heads towards him. “If you’re going to bang, just do it and let me sleep!”

The image of the mare in the yellow light BURST out laughing as the stallion within the blue released a slow growl.

“Blast it!” The stallion turned and faced away from Soarin as he continued to growl.

“Still gets your walnuts in a bundle, doesn’t it?” the mare teased.

“He’s doing it by accident!” the stallion turned sharply to the mare. “There’s no way he’s viewing this plain of existence by his own will! I refuse to believe it!”

“Even if he is, he’s had more success than you ever did,” the mare continued to tease.

“SILENCE!” the stallion hissed.

Soarin groaned and rubbed his temples.

The more and more he heard these two figures speak, the less ominous they sounded, and the more they shared the likeness of a bickering married couple.

It was so annoying, he just wanted to know who or what they were and then for them to GET OUT…

“Equestria to best dong toting princess! You alive?”

Soarin blinked and looked up to see Fleetfoot waving her hoof in front of his face. Soarin squinted as a flash came from the window followed by a long roll of thunder. He glanced towards the window as the rain pelted against it. The storm from the night before hadn’t subsided, which seemed strange. If the weather wasn’t planned, it should have passed by now, and if it was planned, the weather team would have cleaned it up by now.

“You pounding Dashie in your head or something? I mean really, what else can keep you so occupied?” Fleetfoot giggled as Soarin broke from his thoughts on the storm raging outside and finally looked at her.

He sighed and reached a hoof up to rub his head. The voices in his head had been on his mind since he woke up. He thought about them through breakfast, on his way to, and while he waited in Spitfire’s office. He was the only one there for a while, having shown up half an hour before they decided to meet, but apparently Fleetfoot had shown up while he was daydreaming. They were both already dressed in their flight suits, despite most of the Wonderbolts and Renegades going au natural around the base currently. He and Fleetfoot knew they would have to suit up anyway once Spitfire announced their plans, so they had already taken the initiative.

“Sorry,” Soarin shook his head out, ignoring Fleetfoot’s comments as he walked over to the couch against the left wall and sat down. “I’m alright. Just have stuff on my mind.”

“Stuff on your mind…?” Fleetfoot fluttered her wings just enough to allow her to comically slide across the floor towards him while bouncing her eyebrows. “Or are you ON stuff IN your mind?” she asked with a giggle. Soarin flattened his brow at her. He smirked for a moment, but suddenly held his breath, and looked away as his expression returned to normal.

“I could say something bad here… but I won’t.”

“Oh?” Fleetfoot turned and faced him straight on. “Say it.”

“No.”

“SAY IIIIIIIT…” Fleetfoot scooted her hooves forward, closing the distance between their heads.

“No.”

“Is it about sex?” Fleetfoot guessed.

“Yes.”

“Psh! You know I’m an expert! SAY IT!” she encouraged while smirking.

“That’s actually part of it,” Soarin chuckled as the smirk formed on his face again.

“Ah-HA! I knew—, Wait a minute… heyyyyyyyy…” Fleetfoot scrunched her face and glared as Soarin continued to chuckle.

“I wasn’t going to say it. It’s your own fault for prying,” Soarin joked as he turned and lied down on his stomach across the couch.

The door to Spitfire’s office suddenly opened as another roll of thunder came from outside, a heavy one that made the compound shake lightly as it passed. Descent and Starry Skies appeared through the door, already in uniform as well.

“I wonder why this storm is still—” Descent stopped as they both halted in their tracks, staring at the couch and blinking. Fleetfoot was standing on Soarin’s back while angrily pulling at his mane with her mouth as Soarin paid no mind to her. “Right…” Descent ignored it as they walked in, but Starry shook her head.

“Remind me again how you guys are some super elite military force?” Starry asked sarcastically. She immediately regretted it as Fleetfoot released Soarin’s mane, hopped down and approached her while sneering.

“Might have something to do with us not having a quarter of our flight suits sucked into our ass like you, Stars…” Fleetfoot giggled as Starry rolled her eyes. “Hey!” Fleetfoot took another step forward, causing Starry to step back and glare. “I was wondering where the mask of your suit went! It’s right here!” she poked Starry in the chest. Starry quickly swiped it away and glared harder. “Your suit just got pulled back! You gotta unclench it, babe! Your suit must be suffocating!”

“I can arrange for your WHOLE suit to be stuffed up your ass if you touch me again!” Starry snarled. Fleetfoot instantly reached towards Starry, but before she could keep teasing her, Soarin and Descent stepped forward and grabbed them, pulling them away.

“That’s enough,” Descent said simply as they pulled the mares towards opposite corners of the room. Starry huffed and gave no resistance as Descent moved her.

“Ooooo!” Fleetfoot cooed while putting her arms up on Soarin’s shoulders to peer over his head towards Starry. “You get all pissy when anypony touches you, but not Descent, ehhhhhh?” she teased.

“I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU!” Starry yelled while trying to charge, but she couldn’t rip free from Descent’s grip.

“Starry,” Descent used his wing to pull one of the chairs in front of Spitfire’s desk over to the corner and forced Starry to sit in it. “Cool it.”

“Rghhh…” Starry grunted as she did as she was told, looking at the ficus that occupied the corner with her as if it was much more interesting than anypony in the room.

“You really need to control that temper,” Descent added while looking sternly at her.

“Oh, stuff it, ‘DADDY,’” Starry shot back sarcastically, earning an eyebrow raise from Descent before he turned away from her and watched Soarin finally get Fleetfoot in the other corner.

“You are such an instigator,” Soarin shook his head as Fleetfoot continued to giggle in the corner.

“I can’t help it!” Fleetfoot held her stomach as she continued to shake with laughter. “SHE GETS SO MAD!” Fleetfoot added as she began to laugh followed but a sudden, very loud hiccup. Her eyes went wide as she covered her mouth with a hoof and blushed. She continued to giggle, but twitched ever few seconds as she continued to hiccup.

“And that’s what you get for being naughty,” Soarin shook his head and chuckled as Fleetfoot hiccupped. Soarin looked up at the clock. They still had fifteen minutes of this. He hoped Spitfire showed up before Air Mach, because he and Descent already had their hooves full with Fleetfoot and Starry. Air Mach would only make it worse.

Soarin squinted as a flash of lightning shone through the window of the office and a slow, low rumble of thunder passed by.

They would probably have to do something about the storm soon if it didn’t die down, it was looking more and more like the Canterlot weather team was absent.

“Alright… I should get to my office,” Spitfire said as she picked her head up off Wave Chill’s shoulder and stood up from the corner couch of the rec room. She stared curiously at the window looking out over the courtyard, wondering why it was still going. The Canterlot weather teams had to have been evacuated if it was still raging, but was this storm even on the schedule? They didn’t have strong storms often.

“What time is the meeting?” Wave looked up at the clock, drawing Spitfire’s attention away from the window.

“Fifteen minutes,” she replied as she looked around. She stopped, her eyes landing on a group sitting on the large ring of couches in the center of the rec room, on which Silver, the Streak twins, and a collection of retired Wonderbolt, Renegade stallions sat. She caught them all staring and they quickly turned around as soon as her eyes landed on them, followed by lots of snickering. Spitfire rolled her eyes, only imagining what sort of things they were snickering about, especially since they were looking at her and Wave. Even now, after years of not seeing them, the old Wonderbolt stallions were still just as snarky as she remembered.

There were quite a few Wonderbolts and Renegades present in the rec room on the third floor. With a lot of action most likely on the horizon, it seemed like many were taking the time now to relax and reconnect. Spitfire and Wave Chill had chosen the couch furthest away from the rest of the activity in the room. It shielded them a little, but they weren’t invisible.

Wave suddenly flopped down on the couch on his back with his hooves up in the air and grabbed her tail in his mouth, giving it a small tug before she could walk away. Spitfire blinked and smiled, lifting her brow as she looked over her shoulder at him.

“Since when do you get into playful moods in public?” she asked as she backed up. Wave released her tail and reached his hooves out towards her.

“I dunno, you’ve been looking happier. I guess that’s having an effect of me,” Wave explained with a smile.

Happier? Even in this situation? Even after the death of one of their own? At first, she wondered how Wave could think of such a thing, but then again. She was feeling better overall. It probably had something to do with her being in control of things. The loss of Midnight was a shock as well as a brutal reminder of what was on the line for all of them, but the reveal of all the secrets and things being kept from her was relief beyond relief. It felt good to know what was happening instead of making guesses. She felt much more like she could thoroughly do her job… so yeah, she could see how that made her appear a bit more upbeat than she had been. She leaned down and rubbed her cheek against Wave’s, out of sight behind the backrest of the couch.

“Looks weird coming from you, Mr. Soldier, but I like it,” she planted a light kiss on his cheek. “But I have to get going,” the lead squad and the top Renegades are waiting. “I’ll find you later after everything is set up, alright?” she smiled at him.

“Okay…” Wave pouted.

“Oh, stop. I’m not buying that,” Spitfire shook her head as she stared walking.

A very bright flash of lightning followed by a crashing boom of thunder rocked the whole compound. Everypony present, including Spitfire all turned towards the large window, looking out at the storm as the rain poured down, illuminated by smaller flashes of lightning. It was a very intense storm. In fact, it was even stronger than it was the night before.

Spitfire looked out at the storm carefully for a moment before moving along, the rest of the rec room occupants doing the same, all wondering what the weather teams were doing, or if they were even still around.

Silver, along with the Streak twins and the male Renegades all watched as Spitfire left the rec room before they all turned and looked at Wave. Silver chuckled and looked around as he sat on the right side of the middle couch. In the chair to his right was Comet, Bomber sitting on the floor between them, but slightly behind. The giant was sitting on the floor but was still about two heads taller than those sitting on the furniture. To Silver’s left on the couch were Steady Wing, and then the Streak twins, with Cannon Ball in the chair opposite of Comet. It had been a long time since he had gotten a chance to sit down with his old buddies, and he couldn’t stop smiling. The Streak twins were young when these stallions were around, but they knew them well enough.

“Did I see all of that correctly?” Comet asked in his usual suave tone as he leaned forward to look past Bomber towards Silver.

“Wave and Spitfire?” Silver chuckled while asking.

“You’re telling me…” Comet slowly shook his head. “That meek little colt you took under your wing managed to tame that fireball of a mare?!” Comet was chuckling as he stared towards the corner couch with awe as Wave sat up and stretched. Silver released a long sigh.

“It was the most awkward start of a relationship I have ever seen in my life, but yes,” Silver confirmed.

“I’ve gotta hear all about that at some point,” Comet sat back in his chair while shrugging. “Heh, I remember back… Spitfire almost crushed my nuts when I made a pass at her…”

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber suddenly giggled in his deep raspy voice. Comet looked way up at him with his brow flattened.

“Oh, laugh it up you ocean liner…” Comet rolled his eyes as Bomber continued to chuckle.

“That’s because she was young and you were… what, thirty-two at the time? Knowing Spitfire, I’m not surprised,” Silver smirked as Comet sat back up while rubbing his chin.

“So Little Chiller’s got some big moves, huh?” he pondered.

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber chuckled again. “Little colt now bigger stallion than you,” Bomber said down to Comet.

“If it wasn’t a death wish, I’d totally be fighting you right now,” Comet huffed as he glared up at Bomber again.

“Oh, I’ve missed this…” Silver said to himself as he sat back and looked to his left. Cannon Ball and Lightning Streak were hoof wrestling on the coffee table and Fire had started conversation with Steady Wing.

“YA GOT NOTHING ON ME, KID!” Cannon jeered into Lightning’s face as the two held strong against the force of the other’s hooves.

“Dude, you know I’m like, twenty-eight now, right?” Lightning pointed out casually as he tried to force his strength against Cannon Ball.

“Thanks for reminding me that I’m old…” Cannon growled as their match continued.

“So…” Steady Wing drew Fire Streak’s attention away from the grunt-fest going on beside them. “How have things been holding up? How’s the new member treating you?” he asked curiously. Fire took a moment and smiled before answering, just enjoying seeing an old friend again. Steady hadn’t been gone very long, barely over a year, but squad three had always been a very tight knit group. Surprise fit in just as well, but he, Lightning, and Misty definitely missed good ol’ Steady.

“Surprise? She’s definitely a hooffull at times…” Fire chuckled. “But she’s the good kind of hooffull. One is never far from a smile with her around. Definitely the life of any party.”

“What?” Steady frowned. “Was I really that boring?” he asked in a somber tone.

“No!” Fire quickly replied while putting a hoof on Steady’s shoulder. That’s… that’s not what I…” he stumbled over his words.

“I’m yanking yer chain, kid!” Steady chuckled as he reached forward and jabbed Fire in the shoulder, smiling wide.

“Steady…” Fire furrowed his brow after realizing he’d been played. “I’m twenty-eight…”

“How’s Misty?” he quickly asked, but then smirked. “Or should I ask… how have things been between you two, eh? Eh?” he nudged fire while bouncing his eyebrows.

“US?! I mean…” Fire blushed, unprepared for the question. “We’ve been… How did you?”

“I can talk to her too, you know,” Steady chuckled. “She was quick to bring up your relationship.”

“Wait, WHAT?!” Cannon looked up as he heard the conversation, but lost his concentration and nearly got pulled all the way down to the floor as Lightning Streak slammed his hoof to the coffee table.

“HA! Bite me, geezer!” Lightning threw his arms up and flexed. Cannon growled at him.

“Geezer? I’m thirty-eight, asswipe!” Cannon snapped at Lightning before shifting all of his focus to Fire. “So wait, wait, wait, back up, rewind, hold the bus, you’re doing the deaf mare?!” Cannon asked bluntly. “She never makes any noise… does she find her voice when you’re in her, or is she the one that makes you scream?”

“Ex-CUSE me?!” Fire asked with a look of disgust as Steady chuckled and pushed Cannon away.

“Easy there, Loose Cannon… turn down the blunt dial,” he said as Comet suddenly cleared his throat across from them.

“Pardon me, but did I just hear our quiet, beautiful flower has found herself a stallion?” he asked while smiling at Fire.

“Uh…” Fire had lost all words, never expecting to be bombarded from all directions about Misty. He tried to speak again, but was cut off as Lightning leaned over and draped his arm over Fire’s shoulder.

“Yeah dudes! They’ve been going at it A LOT!” Lightning hammed it up as Fire’s head nearly began to emit smoke. “I’ve been sexiled like, every other night!” he looked at Fire. “Sock on the doorknob bro, you gotta give me more warning!”

“NO!” Fire pushed Lightning off as the rest of them all cracked up.

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber giggled along with them. “Misty Fly pretty pony… Fire Streak have good taste…” he said raspily as he smirked.

“Rghh…” Fire leaned down and put his head in his hooves as Lightning and Cannon Ball began to roughly pat him on the back. Comet leaned forward again while sneering.

“Oh, do tell me, Fire… How did you woo such a loveable mare that some us could never touch?” he asked, but he lifted his eyebrows quickly after. “Ooooh wait! I remember you studying her sign language, no doubt you used it to your advantage!”

“Dude!” Cannon stuffed himself on the couch between Steady and Fire, nudging Fire in the side. “Do you guys like, have signs to decide what positions you wanna use?” he pressed Fire. Fire turned to glare at him, but Cannon was looking over the back of the couch. “Heyyyy! We can ask her!” he suddenly suggested as he waved his arm in the air. Fire opened his eyes wide in horror as he looked behind him. Misty was looking towards the couches, clearly seeing Cannon as he beckoned her over to them.

Misty trotted over, confused as to why every stallion, Silver included, was laughing hysterically except for Fire, who looked mortified and was leaning forward to hide his face. As she moved towards them, Steady waved a wing to get her attention and divert her to him.

She opened her wings, curving them forward in front of her chest while bending a few of the feathers before moving them in a way that pointed the feathers upward as she stared curiously.

Steady chuckled and brought up his hooves and wings, making motions to explain what was going on. He let her know why they were laughing and why Fire looked so embarrassed.

As soon as Misty got the full rundown, she pouted and huffed while looking over all the stallions giving Fire a hard time. Her pout slowly turned into a smirk as she walked around the couch.

“Oh? Look out! Coming through!” Comet joked as Misty pushed past Bomber and pulled Cannon away from fire.

“Oh?” all the stallions said together as they watched Misty.

Misty whipped her head around to shake her mane out before she stepped up to Fire and cupped her hooves around the back of his neck, causing Fire to look up suddenly and stare directly into the rather seductive stare of his mare.

“Ooooooooooooooooh?!” All the stallions reacted again, Cannon, Lightning, and Comet throwing their hooves out in a ‘holding back the crowd’ type manner.

Misty winked at Fire before pulling him towards her and kissing him HARD. His eyes went as wide as physically possible as Misty locked her lips with his as intensely as she could.

“OOOOOOOOOOHHHHOHOHOHOOOO!!!!!” The stallions all hollered. Lightning and Comet stood up while comically holding each other back. Steady and Silver burst out laughing while leaning forward. Comet rolled his eyes up threw himself backward, causing his whole chair to lean back too far and fall over to feign fainting. All of them were laughing uncontrollably, half at Misty claiming her stallion right in front of them in her own way and half at the plain look of ‘what’s going on’ on Fire’s face.

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber chuckled in the same manner he had all the times before.

As they laughed and Comet picked himself and his chair up off the ground, Misty finally released her lips from Fire’s, leaving him wide eyed with tiny pupils as she pulled him up off the couch and started dragging him away with her. As she did, she turned around and backed away from the couches, holding up a wing and giving all the stallions the middle feather while smirking, silently giggling, and sticking her tongue out at them.

“There’s some quality sign language right there!” Silver joked as Misty gave them the gesture, causing another round of guffaws.

Lightning got up and followed his brother as the laughter died down, leaving Silver alone with his old buddies.

It felt so good for him. It had been such a long time since he had sat down and acted completely casual. It was something that he missed dearly, and was quite bitter about it when the Wonderbolt code forced all of his best friends away. He had watched the younger Wonderbolts from off to the side for years, and scoffed at any attempts to be involved in shenanigans… knowing it wouldn’t quite feel the same because they were not his true wingmates. He didn’t hate the new Wonderbolts by any means. He respected them just as much as the others… to a point with some. They were his wingmates and he would fight and die for them, but the stallions sitting with him right now? THESE were his TRUE wingmates. The ones who shed blood, sweat, and tears with him throughout his career. Having them all back suddenly was like a dream come true. He couldn’t remember the last time he laughed and smiled so much.

As their laughter died down, they all took a moment to turn and look as another loud boom of thunder sounded out, followed by the wind directing the rain at the window pane, causing a loud PITTER-PATTER noise in the back of the room.

They turned back, more or less accepting that the storm was a weather team screw up as they sunk into their seats and took in the feeling of just all being together in familiar territory again. Silver looked up at Comet suddenly as something came to mind.

“So, Comet…” he sat up. “I looked around before, but I couldn’t find them… are Hurricane and Jet Stream here?” he asked. Comet looked towards Silver for a moment, blinked, and sighed.

“Blazetail and Flashwind’s squadmates?” he confirmed. Silver nodded.

“Yeah, Gold Squad… it would be a hell of a thing to have the legendary squad here, but… haven’t seen the other two,” Silver had a feeling the answer wasn’t going to be good. Comet frowned and shook his head.

“Hurricane…” he began. “Refused to help when Blazetail went to him. He’s incredibly bitter about the two former captains throwing in the towel so easily. He feels like they took him down from the honor of being the lead squad way before they needed to. He slammed his front door right in Blazetail’s face, I heard… Claiming the Wonderbolts deserved whatever they had coming for being so arrogant and one-track minded.”

“Can’t say I blame him…” Silver sighed.

“And Jet? We have no idea where she is. She disappeared after retirement and hasn’t been seen since,” Comet continued. “I heard a rumor someone saw her doing mercenary work near the far borders of Equestria, but nothing else. If you ask me, I bet she’s just as bitter.”

“What I wanna know…” Cannon Ball suddenly shifted over to the space left vacant by Fire Streak and leaned over Steady. “How you are still trucking here with all the stupid-ass retirement rules!” he poked Silver in the arm. “You’re the oldest one here! How old are you now? Sixty?!”

“Forty-two,” Silver replied casually. “And that’s a trade secret, Cannon…” Silver smirked. “Or maybe I’m just better than you.”

“Oh, you wanna fight?!” Cannon stood up on the couch and bobbed back and forth with a hoof up in the air, but Steady shook his head at him.

“Cannon,” Steady chuckled. “I’d bet fifty bits you still can’t beat Silver in a fight. Sit down before you hurt yourself, again.”

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber chuckled, causing Cannon to glare at him instead.

“That’s even a worse idea,” Steady said to Cannon as he switched targets, but the headstrong Renegade leapt at Bomber, only to end up being sat on less than ten seconds later with Bomber casually chuckling as Cannon writhed beneath him. Silver snickered at Cannon’s futile attempts to fight Bomber before he turned back to Comet.

“So where are the ladies? I haven’t gotten a chance to speak with them yet,” he asked. Comet turned and looked behind them for a moment before blinking and shrugging.

“You just missed Pixie and Fairy, they were in here a moment ago…” he said as Silver turned to look with him. “Though you aren’t missing much. They are still just as sassy and controlling as you remember.”

“Still get miffed if you question anything they say?” Silver chuckled.

“More or less,” Comet nodded. “They have yet to convince me they are two separate ponies. They still complete each other’s sentences sometimes too, though they’ve gotten better at not doing that. And you have exactly one guess as to where Valkyrie is,” he finished with an eye roll.

“The gym,” Silver answered instantly, receiving a nod from Comet.

“Where else?” Comet said sarcastically with a smirk.

“She’s what… thirty-eight now?” Silver smirked, receiving another nod from Comet. “And she hasn’t changed since I met her. Still only cares about her muscles.”

“Whatever makes her happy, right?” Comet shrugged. “She’s always been a strange one. Has to be the strongest, the toughest. I couldn’t believe it the day she finally gave up on ever catching up to Bomber.”

“Bomber like Valkyrie,” Bomber cut in briefly. “She cute and strong.”

“Heh…” Silver glanced up at Bomber. “I think you’re the only one that can call her cute and get away with it, Big Green.”

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber chuckled as Cannon continued to flail beneath him to no avail.

“Indeed a strange mare…” Comet repeated as Silver cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Why? Because of her muscles or because she’s tried to kill you several times for your advances?” Silver couldn’t hold back a sneer as Comet scoffed.

“There’s nothing wrong with being adventurous,” Comet put a hoof to his chest, adding an extra bit of suave to his voice for the full effect.

“Adventurous or drunk?” Silver cut in with a smirk. “Whenever you got alcohol in your system, you’d start running around like a fart in a whirlwind, hitting on any mare that moved. I don’t know if you had some internal turn-down clock or something, but you always went to Val on your fifth attempt to get laid,” Silver said with a laugh. “How many bar tops in Canterlot have an imprint of your face in them? You know, we used to place bets on how hard she’d slam your head down.”

“Such great friends…” Comet chuckled. “Is it safe to assume none of you ever bet on me being successful with her?”

“Yes,” Silver said without hesitation. “We all knew what was important to her. Your flirting was definitely low on her list. It was like watching a scheduled train wreck,” Silver leaned forward for a second and smacked the couch cushion as he laughed. “Hell, one time Blizzard gave her precise instructions on the quickest way to kill you after she knocked you out!”

They all suddenly went silent as Silver sat up straight, his jovial expression fading quickly, and his ears drooped down. He so casually mentioned Blizzard Strike… without even thinking about it. Comet, Steady, Bomber, and even Cannon all winced as they heard the name, looking towards Silver as he sat back and sighed. They were all there when Silver screwed up, and while it was long in the past, Silver knew how much they all liked Blizzard, so it made many old, suppressed memories surface.

“Bomber miss… Blizzard Strike…” Bomber spoke up in a sad, raspy tone.

“Dammit…” Silver cursed as he gritted his teeth and kept his eyes averted from the rest. Steady shook his head as he examined Silver.

“Still not over that, are you?”

“No, I am…” Silver quickly shook his head as he looked up at Steady. “I am long over it… but it doesn’t mean it’s painless to remember.”

“Silver,” Comet leaned forward in his seat. “You aren’t the only one of us that has made mistakes…”

“Several Wonderbolts died,” Silver cut him off. “And my mentor was knocked out by a sneak attack that led to his death. It was such a horrible, horrible way for a stallion as great and incomparable as Blizzard to go. He deserved better. After all the unbelievable things I had seen him accomplish and all the timeless lessons he taught me… for him to die like that is an injustice… it will always be. All the Wonderbolts that died there deserved better, but Blizzard… you know what I mean…”

“Whoa, hold up!” Cannon suddenly popped up from behind the couch, having finally freed himself from beneath Bomber’s bulk. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

Silver glared hard as if Cannon had just brutally insulted him.

“Did you leave your brain underneath Bomber’s ass? I’m talking about Blizzard.”

“No shit, dipshit…” Cannon rolled his eyes. “I’m sitting right here, but what’s all this crap I’m hearing about Blizzard dying like a punk?”

“Huh?” Silver blinked and looked over to Comet, and then Steady. Steady tipped his head to the side in confusion.

“Silver… did you ever read my scout report? You know… about how and where we found Blizzard’s body? Much less, what he did and what came from all of it?” Steady asked as Silver blinked.

“What are you—” Silver and the others all flinched as another loud boom of thunder shook the base, this one stronger than the last that did so. They all looked over at the window in confusion, but before they could continue, the P.A. system came to life, causing all the Wonderbolts and Renegades in the Rec room to turn and face the speaker up above the door.

“Attention all Wonderbolts and Renegades…” Spitfire’s voice blared over the speakers, mixing in with the constant sound of rain pounding on the rooftop. “After discussing possible scenarios for the next Shadowbolt attack with Descent, here is the plan we have decided on. Because the Wonderbolt numbers are currently down due to injuries, we will be remaining within the compound, taking up defensive positions at key entrances to the building to deal with any Shadowbolts that may manage to gain entry. Due to their knowledge of the enemy and how to deflect their magical attacks, the Renegades will be in charge of external defense, meeting the enemy outside. This is a defensive operation with an emphasis on protecting the Wonderbolts and keeping the Shadowbolts from completing any objective they may have pertaining to us. Don’t be surprised if this is a plan we use often going forward, because until we know the true motivations and nature of our enemy, we have no answer except to defend ourselves.”

Silver’s eyes narrowed upon hearing the last tidbit. Spitfire didn’t sound very comfortable in describing their tactics as ‘defensive’. She was clearly in the mindset of bringing the fight to the Shadowbolts, something Silver could agree with her on, but she was being smart. Not knowing the enemy before striking was like attacking blindfolded.

“Any and all administrative staff members are encouraged to evacuate, but I want security to stay and help the internal defense effort as well as the science and mechanic teams to stay and help us fortify the compound in any way we can. As of right now, we want all of the Renegades and all battle capable Wonderbolts to suit up and report to the lobby so we can divvy up the preparations. That will be all.”

Without a word, everypony began rising up from their seats or whatever they were doing in the rec room and headed for the door, Silver and his friends included. Before they got very far though, Silver reached out and stopped Steady.

“Wait… Steady…” Silver looked at him sternly as the rest began filing out. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to learn something new about an incident he had avoided everything about like the plague since it happened. “What… did you find out… that you put in your report?” he asked reluctantly. Steady stared for a moment before smiling. It wasn’t a happy subject in the slightest, but if Silver really didn’t know, he felt Silver was in for surprise.

“The initial attack may have been sneaky, as you described,” he began. “But none of the Wonderbolts caught in the trap went down without a fight. For every dead Wonderbolt we found, there were at least fifteen drakes lying dead as well… it was a field of death, but the drake losses were brutal. The drakes had backup that came to assist them for sure, but they definitely regretted it… but that’s not all. Drakes don’t leave until they kill their targets, you know this…” Steady smirked. “Do you know how we ended up finding Blizzard’s body?”

“How?” Silver pressed, forcing himself to listen. Steady nodded.

“There was a trail of drake bodies leading from the area… my squad followed it… and…” Steady shook his head. “I couldn’t count them all… but the trail of dead drakes extended for miles… there was easily at least three hundred… maybe even four hundred of them… leading to where we finally found Blizzard’s body.”

Silver’s eyes widened. He was completely speechless upon hearing this piece of old news that he had never bothered to learn.

“And that doesn’t even speak for the ones that lived, probably beaten senseless by him,” Steady continued.

“FOUR. HUNDRED?” Silver said in disbelief. Drakes were not easy to kill… and yet… his mentor… had survived against so many? Blizzard was more clever than he was strong… but…

“Believe me Silver…” Steady shook his head. “That face you’re making right now was the look on all of our faces when we found him like that. It was the single most unbelievable thing we had ever seen. It would have been a wonder if he had taken just fifty with him, but four hundred? Blizzard was always one to find a way to do anything, but that?” Steady chuckled. “Blizzard didn’t die shamefully… he went down fighting and he went down fighting HARD. Four hundred drakes? That’s about an eighth of their military force… all taken down by a single pony, and… the losses they suffered by his hooves tipped the scales incredibly against them in the Griffon-Drake War, forcing them to surrender and retreat back to their empire. That’s right… Blizzard was almost directly responsible… for ending the last Griffon-Drake war… effectively ending the bloodshed before it could spread towards the pony populace,” Steady paused, staring at Silver’s expression of disbelief as the rest of the ponies had left, leaving them alone in the rec room with just the constant stream of rain sounding on the roof. “I can’t believe you never read the report, or that nopony told you about it,” Steady added with a chuckle.

“It…” Silver could barely speak. “It was never something I was willing to discuss…”

“It’s not like everypony reads the scouting reports, but I figured you would know… since it was about Blizzard and all. Quit beating yourself up…” Steady turned and stood beside Silver. “You may still have blundered by running… but Blizzard went out in a blaze of glory that ended a bloody conflict. After all, he never did anything small, did he?”

Silver smiled. Nothing would change the fact that he ran… and he still vowed never to leave his comrades behind ever again, but knowing his mentor’s death wasn’t in vain as he thought all these years brought him a little piece of mind on the subject.

“No… he most definitely could not…” Silver chuckled as the two made their way towards the door. “Four hundred?”

“Mmhmm…” Steady hummed as he nodded.

“To quote you, you’re not yanking my chain are you?”

“Nope. Saw it with my own eyes.”

“Heh…” Silver chuckled as they stepped through the door. “You know… if it were any other pony I’d say yeah right and call you crazy for making shit up… but Blizzard…” Silver couldn’t stop smiling. “That sounds like just the sort of thing he’d do. He would go down doing what he did best… something that seems absolutely impossible. That magnificent bastard…” they left the rec room behind them.

“If only we could all bend the rules like him, eh?” Steady chuckled as the started down the stairs.

“Well, alright…” Spitfire pushed the P.A. microphone away and sat back in her chair, looking towards the rest of her squad, Descent, and Starry. “We should head down there, but anything else before we get going?”

The moment she asked, another bright flash of lightning shone from her office window followed by a loud roll of thunder.

“Alright…” Fleetfoot shook her head. “I think it’s safe to say the Canterlot weather team wussed out. This storm must’ve been scheduled, but nopony is here to remove it. I think we should clear it away ourselves,” she suggested while staring out the droplet covered window.

“I agree,” Spitfire nodded. “Fleet, when you get down there, tell Silver to take squad two out there and clear away—”

“The Great Animak shall go rally the troops!” Air Mach cut her off out of nowhere as he pushed himself off the wall and spoke up vigorously. Spitfire immediately flattened her brow as Descent and Starry both stared in surprise, Air Mach having not said much of anything until now. He hopped up on the couch, stumbling a little as he struggled to get stable hoofing on the cushions before striking a pose, the end tips of his extravagant sunglasses sparkling. “Wonderbolt and Renegade alike, our combination of fiery stallionly souls will pave our path to victory! Magical Shadowbolts? Who the hell do they think we are?!” He jumped off the couch, but with the uneven surface, it caused him to nearly faceplant as he dropped unevenly to the floor. He pointed at Starry and Descent, tipped his sunglasses, and winked before charging out of the office and towards the stairs.

Descent merely lifted an eyebrow, but Starry looked towards Fleetfoot and shook her head.

“Just when I thought they couldn’t get any worse than you…” she commented while squinting.

“What? You want him? PLEASE take him!” Fleetfoot joked while rolling her eyes.

“Abso-LUTE-ly not…” Starry cringed as Descent went right back to business.

“I’ll send out some scouts to keep an eye on the surrounding area. Having an advanced warning will be a plus. Also, I’d keep an eye on your own numbers… we don’t want another Rapidfire infiltration,” Descent suggested.

“That’s a definite yes, and good idea. I’ll leave the scouting to you.” Spitfire agreed.

“Starry,” Descent turned to her. “Head down to the lobby right now and tell Astral to gather up some scout teams. Have him meet me at the front doors as soon as I get down.

“On it,” Starry said simply, almost sounding eager to get away from them as she quickly left.

“Anything else?” Spitfire asked. Descent shook his head.

“That covers everything we can do here. Might as well head down and start directing preparations,” he nodded.

“Alright, let’s get moving,” Spitfire stood up from her seat as Fleetfoot and Descent headed for the door.

“So!” Fleetfoot shifted up beside Descent as they walked through the doorway. “Are most of the Shadowbolt stallions big and hunky chunks of beefy sexy like you?” she asked with a flirty tone. Descent visibly flinched, shook his head out, and stared at her as if he heard her incorrectly.

“Pardon?” he asked, Fleetfoot giggling as the two reached the stairs and headed down. Spitfire shook her head at Fleetfoot’s antics as she moved around her desk, but she stopped, her eyes moving to the wall where Soarin had been standing, completely silent since the meeting began. She almost forgot he was there.

“Soarin?” she said his name, but he didn’t react. She lifted an eyebrow before bringing the tip of her hoof up to her mouth and blowing a sharp, high-pitched whistle. Soarin flinched, blinked several times, and looked towards her.

“Huh?” he shook his head out and tipped it. Spitfire didn’t like seeing that. Whenever Soarin was in this kind of state, it was usually something to do with the magic. She had learned the signs.

“Are you okay? You were completely silent through that whole meeting. Did you sleep alright?” she asked. Soarin blinked a few more times before bringing a hoof up to his head and rubbing beside the horn.

“I’m… fine, Spitfire. Sorry,” he apologized. “For some reason I can’t seem to focus on anything.”

“Is it the magic?” she quickly asked. Soarin glanced at her, knowing how she tended to get more worried than she needed to be when it came to his recent problems, but he wasn’t going to get angry at her for being concerned.

“To be honest,” he began. “I’m not quite sure what it is.”

“I don’t know if that makes me feel any better…” Spitfire pouted while furrowing her brow.

“No, I mean…” Soarin quickly cut her off. “There’s no pain. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess… the best way to put it is I feel like I should know something, but I can’t remember what it is…”

“Um…” Spitfire gave him a blank look. “That’s a new one.”

“I know. That’s why I’m so preoccupied. I feel like I’ve forgotten something important, but there was nothing that instigated it, like I’m supposed to know something, but I don’t know it,” he looked towards her. “Doesn’t that sound confusing? It’s been bothering me since this morning.”

“With all the weird stuff we’ve been dealing with as of late, that definitely doesn’t sound encouraging,” Spitfire rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“I’m fine, really,” Soarin stepped away from the wall. “I’m not feeling lightheaded, just confused. It’s nothing that will keep me from doing my job. Let’s go.”

“Good,” Spitfire nodded as the two turned towards the door, but after two steps, Spitfire stopped in her tracks. Soarin halted and looked over his shoulder at her. “Actually, there’s one thing I have to do first, I just remembered. I’ll meet you down there…” they both squinted as another flash of lightning came from the window. “Go down and make sure that…” she paused and they both flinched as an incredibly loud roll of thunder rocked the compound. “Make sure that Fleetfoot stops rubbing herself on every muscular stallion and actually gave Silver my orders.

“Before rubbing herself on him too?” Soarin chuckled.

“I’d like to think even she has limits,” Spitfire snorted and smirked. “But I wouldn’t put it past her. Go on,” she nodded, turning back to her desk as Soarin left.

Her smile disappeared and she took a long deep breath, standing in front of her desk with the sound of the rain pelting against her window behind her. She opened the top drawer and looked into it, directly at a pair of cracked Wonderbolt goggles that sat atop everything else in the drawer.

She reached down and picked them up, holding them up in front of her face and staring at them seriously for a few moments before shutting the drawer, tucking the goggles under her wing, and heading for the door.

“Bliss…” Spitfire immediately called to Bliss at her desk as Spitfire entered the infirmary. Bliss looked up from the piles and piles of medical paperwork on her desk towards Spitfire as she approached. Spitfire glanced to her right as she moved, looking down through the infirmary at all the Wonderbolts in the beds who were still down and recovering from their injuries. A lot of them turned and looked at her, a few smiles forming on their faces at the sight of their captain. Spitfire smiled back at them, but quickly turned back to Bliss.

“Yes, Captain?” Bliss asked as her pen floated in her magic beside her.

Spitfire didn’t say anything. She just reached a hoof back and dropped the broken goggles from her wing into it, holding them forward for Bliss to see. Bliss stared at the goggles for only a brief moment before looking right back at Spitfire.

“She’s in the back room…” Bliss said with a slightly somber tone, pointing to the door on the right behind her. It was an unmarked door beside the door that was marked ‘storage.’

“Thank you…” Spitfire nodded as she stepped around Bliss’ desk and approached the door.

She hesitated for a moment as she reached for the doorknob. She never liked doing this, and was glad she only had to do it twice before… but she did it to remind herself of how important her job was… and how precious each Wonderbolt life was.

Spitfire opened the door and walked in, closing it right behind her.

The room was an onsite emergency room that was seldom used because of Canterlot Hospital being a short train ride away, but in the event that a Wonderbolt needed immediate medical attention of a severe nature, it served its purpose. However, in this case, and in two cases before it, it was used for something else.

There was only a single light on in the room… the light that was right over the medical bed in the middle of the room. A tattered Wonderbolt uniform was draped over the hoof of the bed. In the bed itself was a mound that was completely covered by a sheet. The mound resembled the figure of a pony that lay with its head rested on a pillow.

Spitfire clutched the goggles over her chest for a moment as her eyes landed on the bed before she slowly walked forward. She approached the head of the bed and slowly reaching up, gently pulling the sheet down…

Revealing Midnight’s face.

It was devoid of life, but looked peaceful, the several wounds and cuts had been cleaned and patched up in respect to the image of a fallen Wonderbolt. Spitfire felt a lump in her throat the moment her eyes landed on the face of a deceased comrade, but she quickly swallowed it and sat down while holding the goggles up between them.

“Well… here we are…” Spitfire sighed as she turned and sat down with her back against the bed, her head level with Midnight’s. “The one place I hope I never have to talk to anypony… but we don’t live in a fairytale, do we?” she spoke softly as she slowly turned her head to see Midnight’s face on the left edge of her vision.

“I’m… so sorry things turned out like this, Midnight…” Spitfire continued as she turned her head back, facing away again. “We weren’t very well acquainted… but that doesn’t stop you from being a member of a large family I hold dear,” she turned her head towards her again. “You were one of the best and you served… as one of the best.”

Spitfire remained silent for a moment, turning herself around and resting her forearms on the bed.

“Your death was a shock to us all… but… I’m sure you’ll rest easy knowing that it hasn’t broken us. In fact, it’s only made us more aware of what’s at stake. We gave you the salute… lots of tears were shed… Misty Fly already misses you greatly, but we’ve already turned around and are preparing to fight. You’re still fresh in our minds, but not as a weight, as a reminder, giving us renewed strength to prevent any more loss of life the best we can. I only wish we had it sooner… if we did, you may still be with us.” Spitfire smiled. “But who am I kidding… you are with us… right here,” she patted her chest. And I promise you… with every inch of my being… that I will do everything in my power to prevent any more deaths,” Spitfire nodded. “I know that’s what you would’ve wanted…”

Spitfire frowned again and took a deep breath, releasing a long, steady sigh.

She reached up and placed the broken goggles upon Midnight’s chest before reaching for the sheet. She stared at Midnight’s face one last time, knowing it would be the last time she ever saw it in person before it became a gold framed picture on the wall of fallen Wonderbolts on the second floor. She gently pulled the sheet back over to fully cover the body.

She stepped back from the bed, sat down, spread her wings, and looked towards the ceiling, repeating the sendoff salute.

“Wonderbolt, high tier elite class, squad six, Midnight. You have passed on… but your name will forever be remembered in the history of elite Wonderbolts…” she looked back down at the body, sniffling, but reaching a hoof up to catch a tear before it trailed down her face. “Take care… and… rest in peace…”

Spitfire turned, squinting again to stop tears from falling. Enough tears had been shed. It was hard on her to do this, but she was strong… and she had to remain strong. This whole ordeal had weighed heavily on her as it had the rest, but it was her duty to remain vigilant and do everything she possibly could to keep her fellow Wonderbolts alive.

And that’s exactly what she would do.

She left the room, closing the door behind her, catching Bliss’ attention as she did.

“All finished?” Bliss asked with a worried tone. Spitfire nodded with a stern, serious look in her eyes.

“Yeah… I gave her my last words as her captain. As soon as we get this storm cleared up, have the doctors take her to the hospital so they can handle the rest,” Spitfire ordered.

“Yes, but… are you alright?” Bliss asked out of concern. Spitfire looked towards Bliss and closed her eyes for a moment.

No, she wasn’t alright… but it wasn’t out of sadness, it was because she wouldn’t feel alright until all the preparations were in place for the coming attack, and she was sure they were as secure as possible with the help of the Renegades.

“It’s never easy to lose a wingmate, especially with how the Wonderbolt culture is nowadays,” Spitfire began, but her face was wrought with determination. “But I am honoring Midnight’s sacrifice, as we all are, by pushing forward and fighting to our fullest. The Shadowbolts won’t walk all over us again….” She started walking towards the exit. “I look forward to giving you much less work in here, Bliss…” she said as she left to set everything in motion.

The next few hours were nothing but commotion as Spitfire and Descent began directing everypony around. Wonderbolts were moving all about, helping with preparations ranging from preparing their assigned area defense to helping Rivet and the security teams fortify the windows with steel bar cage covers that were designed to be bolted to the window frames. This added an extra layer of security behind the already reinforced glass.

The lobby was the most critical vulnerable area. The window was still broken from when Comet broke through it during his ‘security warning’ stunt, not to mention the area nearby was soaking wet with the rain coming through it from outside. They also didn’t have any cage frames big enough to cover it, so Spitfire was concentrating most of the able high tier elite Wonderbolts to take up positions near it.

Descent and the Renegades were waiting inside and hovering about, all packed into the lobby as they waited for the scout teams to return. There was no sense in all of them getting soaking wet until squad two could finish clearing away the storm… which was taking them a surprisingly long time despite them being the best element and weather handlers on the force.

With all the commotion, there were lots of stragglers trying to figure out what to do… including squad Foxtrot, who stood near the entrance to the recruit barracks after helping Rivet place a set of window bars in the west hallway. They received no other orders, so they sat and waited patiently while examining the enormous group of Renegades that stood and hovered up in the air opposite of them.

“I don’t like sitting around like this…” Matteo grunted as he impatiently tapped a talon against the floor. Dash turned towards him as she stopped pacing.

“We’ll get new orders eventually, we’re not the only ones just sitting around…” she said as she looked around at a few Wonderbolts scattered about, trying to not get in the way. “But I agree…” she added with a pout.

Dash, Matteo, Star, and Twister were all waiting and were all anxious. It didn’t help that they were feeling less complete with Squall still under medical care. Dash at least felt better after hearing they were moving the injured to a more secure location in the basement. Should worst case scenario occur, and the Shadowbolts managed to get in the base, the last thing she and her squad wanted was Squall being put in danger while he was still recovering.

Dash perked up as she turned and a familiar friend approached, but she quickly cringed, knowing what was going to happen.

Storm Front was moving towards them, clearly with the intention of interacting, but he had yet to know about…

Dash looked up at Matteo, who was already glaring daggers at Storm. Storm stopped right in his tracks, his eyes going wide at the death glare Matteo was giving him. He frowned soon after, knowing exactly why Matteo was giving him the look.

“Matt… enough…” Dash growled up at Matteo, but he didn’t even look at her. “Matty, don’t make me say it again!” Dash strengthened her resolve, but she didn’t have to go any further. Matteo suddenly flinched as something landed on his head. He looked directly up to see Twister perched on his head, his body and neck completely hunched over, staring down and looking around with the likeness of a vulture.

Matteo glared up at him, but Twister only continued to act like a vulture as Star exploded into a fit of giggles beside them.

Dash snickered and shook her head, turning back towards Storm as he took the moment of distraction to approach Dash. Dash moved towards him to meet him halfway, wanting him to stay away from Matteo as long as the big dope was still being stupid about the father situation.

“I don’t have to ask what that was about, do I?” Storm sighed as he and Dash stopped in front of each other. Dash glanced back at Matteo as he continuously tried and failed to get Twister off his head. “How is Squall doing?” he asked before Dash got a chance to speak.

“Oh,” Dash smiled. “Well, he made it through having his face stitched up and so far has still been himself,” she said with a chuckle. “I heard from Bliss that his face took a lucky hit. It won’t cause any damage aside from leaving a scar, so he’ll still be able to scowl at us all he likes,” she said jokingly, earning a smirk from Storm.

“Heard he got it pulling off a really gutsy move…” Storm shook his head. “Paid the price, but from what Soarin told me, it definitely speaks for Squall’s grit.”

“He’ll be back up and fighting the moment they clear him,” Dash said with a wink. “Now what’s going on with you? I heard all about Descent,” she asked as she looked over towards the Renegades at Descent, smiling rather brightly as she remembered how often Storm mentioned his father. “I still can’t believe he’s your dad… we’ve known who he is this whole time.”

“You and me both,” Storm nodded with his own smile as he too looked towards his father giving out orders. “After all we talked about him… he was closer than we thought. I mean… I guess I’m still a little shaken about learning everything about him, but… he was completely honest with me and didn’t leave out a single detail. That’s the father I know, the one who would do anything for me, even reveal his secrets if needed to clear things up and make me happy.”

“Descent never struck me as the kind of stallion to be a father, but if you became who you are today? He definitely did something right,” Dash jabbed Storm in the shoulder, earning another bright smile in return. It was great to see Storm without a cloud of worry over his head. “So where is your squad? Are you guys all waiting for stuff to do too?” she asked as she looked around at the surrounding commotion. Storm shook his head.

“My squad is kind of scattered right now. With Point Dex still under medical surveillance, Macho Savage and Lead Runner were quick to do their own thing. I thought I’d come over here and join you guys, knowing Squall was out of commission I felt like filling the gap,” he paused and exaggerated a scowl. “Am I doing it right?” he joked. Dash snickered and lightly shoved him.

“Oh, stop that. Don’t poke fun at him when he can’t defend himself,” Dash said as she continued to chuckle, because it WAS a pretty accurate Squall scowl.

“Yeah,” Storm shrugged. “He probably would have punched me in the face for that one.”

Storm suddenly flinched as he looked past Dash, catching her attention. She turned and saw Matteo glaring at Storm again, having given up on Twister getting off his head. Star was now on Twister’s head, doing her best to copy the ‘vulture’ image that Twister was doing. The stack of idiots had a comical look to it, but it didn’t change the fact that Matteo was glaring directly at Storm.

Fan Art by: cowgirlvk

“He’s not going to like me for a while, is he?” Storm sighed in defeat as Dash growled.

“Oh, believe me, it’s worse than that,” Dash said as she rolled her eyes.

“What? What do you mean?” Storm asked, his ears flopping down as he looked at her with disbelief.

“I already talked to him about it,” Dash shook her head. “He’s going through a bit of culture shock right now… you know, because he’s not allowed to kill the son of his father’s killer here in pony society,” Dash looked Storm directly in the eyes as his jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

“WHAT?!” Storm looked away towards Matteo for a second. “You mean…” Storm shook his head. “No… he actually CONSIDERED that? After how much we’ve been through?”

“That was my reaction too…” Dash said with a sigh as she looked towards Matteo, trying to keep a straight face. Despite his glare he looked incredibly goofy with Twister and Star stacked on top of him. “Don’t worry too much about it. His head is in a complete knot right now since he knows who killed his dad. I’d be just as confused, only, you know, without griffon culture seeping out of my nose and ears to the point where I should probably get it checked. Just give him time, he’s a griffon warrior. He’ll remember how much of a comrade and friend you are more than anything else after he pulls his head out of his ass.”

“I hope so…” Storm sighed. They both perked up as Spitfire suddenly turned away from directing a few ponies around and moved towards them. Finally, new orders.

“Rainbow Dash, Storm Front,” she addressed them both. They turned and stood attention.

“Ma’am?” they replied in unison.

“We need more ponies to take up positions in the east hallway, report to Fire Streak on the double,” Spitfire ordered quickly and with a purpose, her mind clearly hard set on the task at hoof.

“Yes, Ma’am!” they both replied, but she was already moving on. Dash turned to gather up Foxtrot.

As Spitfire walked back towards the front doors, Descent joined her side.

“I’m ready to send out the Renegades to take up positions, but the weather clearing skills of the Wonderbolts seem to be coming into question,” he said flatly as another slow rumble of thunder passed by the compound. Spitfire flattened her brow as she looked towards him. “No doubt the storm is also making it harder for my scouts to survey the area.”

“They are the best weather handlers,” Spitfire shot back defiantly as they stopped a few yards from the doors to avoid the rain coming through the broken hangar window. “Just let them do their job, the only thing that will keep them from doing it is if something abnormal is—”

“Captain!” Silver’s voice cut her off as squad two suddenly came through the doors, still missing Blaze, but unbeknownst to Spitfire, Silver had dragged Squad eight, fourteen, and twenty out with him too… but even with all of them, the storm was still raging?

They were all completely soaked, High Winds looked miserable with her usually curly mane completely drenched and pressed down to her head. Wave Chill, right beside her, suddenly did one, powerful shake while throwing his wings out. He stepped back and all the water shed from his body, dropping to the floor, and leaving him completely dry. He turned to High Winds and smiled.

“I never liked you, you know…” High Winds growled as Wave shrugged and chuckled.

“Silver,” Spitfire approached as Silver shook himself out the best he could. “Mind telling me why it’s still pouring out there?” she asked, sternly as she glanced out the doors and up towards the large window.

“I couldn’t tell you, Captain…” Silver shook his head.

“Oh?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “Elaborate.”

“Those clouds won’t budge,” Silver began, catching Descent’s attention as well. “We tried every single possible technique for moving clouds, but they are stuck in place… pretty violent too. It was hard to get close. Not Even High Winds could move them with her wind blasts,” Silver shook his head. “These are not natural clouds, Captain…”

“Not natural…? That—” Spitfire’s ears stood straight up. An unnatural storm… that sparked a VERY important memory. She quickly turned to Descent. “Descent… this storm…”

“I’ve no doubt…” Descent replied before she could even say it. “If the Wonderbolts couldn’t move the clouds… then they were definitely created by the crystals.”

“Tornado!” Spitfire turned back to Silver quickly. “DID ANYPONY SEE A TORNADO OUT THERE?! A PINK ONE?!”

“SPITFIRE!” Descent quickly grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her to face him. “Calm down. I am not an expert on the crystals, but I do remember how long it took for us to conjure the one we used to attack Ponyville. Not only did it take a very long time for Nightshade and Starry to make it work, but we also had the luxury of doing it in the guise of the Everfree Forest. There is no way they’d be able to create such a natural disaster undetected in the middle of Canterlot,” he nodded as Spitfire breathed a sigh of relief. “Besides, tornados are not subtle, if there was one out there, my scouts would have already reported it.”

“Then why?” Spitfire looked back out. “This storm has been going on since last night… what do they have to gain from it?”

“A simple severe thunderstorm was easy to create,” Starry suddenly spoke up as she walked towards the commotion and stood beside Descent. Unlike Descent, she had used the crystals in the past, so she offered any knowledge she could “If you ask me, it’s probably one of those ten loony commanders just being a dick.”

“I would have to agree…” Descent nodded as he faced Spitfire. “There are more than a few among the ten Shadowbolt commanders that would do something like this just for kicks or to ‘set the stage’. Void… Ruin… Angel… probably Trance too.”

“Well great…” Spitfire rolled her eyes. “Even if it’s not an attack tactic, we have a small problem…” she turned and looked towards the administrative staff and the Canterlot Hospital doctors waiting off to the side by the mail counter. They were waiting for the storm to subside before they evacuated the premise, but now they were stuck.

“Looks like they’ll have to take shelter underground with the rest for now,” Descent grunted.

Spitfire took a long look at the doctors, and seeing them brought her mind back to Midnight for a moment. Why? Because the amount of lives the compound was now protecting was even greater, and it only reminded her of how important their success in would be. Plus, now… they couldn’t get Midnight’s body out of the compound before it came under fire.

She felt a slight discomfort in her heart… the feeling of losing more than they already had. They had only lost one, but that was more than they ever wanted to lose. Fear of loss was already something that tore at her often as a leader… but now… she had more than just lives to lose.

She looked towards Wave as squad two began following Silver into the west hallway. She quickly reached out and grabbed Wave by the shoulder. Before he could ask what was happening, she pulled him roughly off to the side, placing them behind a potted plant in the lobby that somewhat hid them from view.

“Spitfire? What is it?” he asked, confused.

“Are you doing alright?” she asked. Nothing had even happened yet, but… she felt like asking him anyway.

“Of course, nothing wrong yet,” he replied with a smile.

“Good,” she leaned forward and gave him a really quick kiss on the lips. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Wave only blinked, startled.

“That was for good luck,” she winked, breaking Wave out of his surprise and he pulled her into a quick hug.

“Be safe,” he said in response. The two looked into each other’s eyes and nodded before Wave hurried on his way to follow Silver.

Spitfire had wanted to connect with Wave at least one more time before everything began. She got her chance and took it… and now it was time to finalize.

However, as she walked back out into the lobby…

“Princess…?” Fire Streak’s voice met Spitfire’s ears, but… what did he mean, ‘Princess?’

Everything came to an abrupt halt, all ponies turning their heads towards the east hallway.

Spitfire’s eyes widened as Princess Luna slowly walked through the Wonderbolts, moving into the lobby while donning an impressive set of light blue armor that none of them had ever seen before. Spitfire turned and faced Luna as she approached. The lobby drowned in complete silence, save for the pitter patter of the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder.

Luna came to a halt a yard away from Spitfire and the two stared into each other’s eyes. Spitfire wasn’t sure what to make of what she was seeing, but Luna’s determination was clear.

“We shall fight by your side,” Luna spoke up, taking the initiative to announce why she was there. Several reactions could be heard with a mix of murmurs and quiet gasps.

“Fight with us?” Spitfire repeated, making sure she just heard Luna correctly.

“That is correct,” Luna confirmed, her composure as hard as stone. “We deceived thee… and it has caused more trouble than it has solution. It is time for us to repay the debts we owe… and aid thee in battle.”

Spitfire blinked, listening carefully to Luna. She looked around at the surrounding Wonderbolts. The reaction was mixed. Some looked encouraged, and why not? A divine alicorn just stepped forward and offered her aid in an upcoming battle, surely that increased their chances of victory. On the other hoof, some still showed a little bit of animosity, unwilling to accept ‘help’ after the last time Luna tried to ‘help’ them.

Spitfire was right in the middle of the road. She was still disappointed in Luna’s previous actions, but now she was offering help to make up for it… would she really say no to help from one of the divine sisters? The answer was a resounding no. However, there was one thing about this situation that Spitfire felt uneasy about.

“Princess, I would be a complete idiot to say no to such an offer, but… what about Canterlot Castle? Didn’t you say something about Celestia’s power residing within it? That seems like a pretty juicy target to me and… I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think the Royal Guard can handle these enemies.”

Luna quickly shook her head as if she expected Spitfire to bring up the castle.

“Do not forget who was guiding the Renegades up until now,” Luna reminded Spitfire. “We know what their target is. They have not once set their sights on the castle. There is no reason to believe they would do so now. They want Soarin and the destruction of the Wonderbolts…” she reached up and pounded her hoof gauntlet against her chest plate. “And WE will not allow either of those to happen. We shall stand in the compound to bolster your internal defenses."

Spitfire listened to Luna’s full argument, taking note of everything she said and weighing the options. There was a bit of a split between the Wonderbolts in terms of opinion on her, but her purpose was clear… and again… would Spitfire really turn away help from a goddess?

“Very well…” Spitfire nodded, keeping her serious demeanor, but allowing a smirk to crawl across her lips. “Welcome to the Wonderbolts, Princess.

“We thank thee,” Luna bowed her head down as a friendly gesture before she looked around and started moving into the lobby amongst the Wonderbolts and Renegades. The mixed response was just as clear to her as it was to Spitfire, but she understood it. That’s exactly why she was there in the first place, to make up for her mistakes. Her eyes were drawn to Descent as he scoffed nearby. She turned and looked at him as he nodded in approval at her.

“It’s about damn time, Luna,” he said with a smirk. Luna stared for a moment, but smiled. She only wished she had made the right choice sooner.

Spitfire had to admit, having Luna with them would likely improve morale once she showed off what she could do. It had her feeling a little better as well.

Everything was now in place to the best of her knowledge. They were as secure as they were going to get… now it was up to the Renegades to play their part.

Spitfire approached Descent with the intention of hearing anything from his scouts or as to how he’d handle the situation, but right before she spoke, a Renegade stallion came through the doors and shook himself out before pushing up his goggles and looking around. Descent turned his head towards the doors as he saw the Renegade.

“Astral!” Descent called to him as he turned and walked towards the stallion. “Anything to report?” he asked.

“Nothing out there yet,” the stallion replied. “It’s a little hard to keep tabs on everything with the storm, but there’s still nothing within a mile of the compound.”

“Hmmm…” Descent closed his eyes and pondered.

Spitfire looked at the stallion curiously. He was white with a short, dark red mane, but those were just the plain details. His wings… his wings were misshapen, bend and skewed, definitely not suited for flying, but he wore gold braces that attached to the base of the wing joints on his back and gripped the bent portions of his wing, forcing them to move whenever he moved the base of his wings.

She heard Descent call him ‘Astral’ as well… was this… their scout? A scout with distorted wings that needed braces for them to operate properly? To Spitfire, everything about the pony screamed, ‘get him to safety, he’s in danger with those wings’ but…

“Better to be safe than sorry,” Descent nodded. “Make another pass or two with the scout teams and report back.

“Will do,” the Astral nodded, pushing his goggled back down and turning towards the doors. The braces on his wings made uncomfortable creaking and shifting noises, but his wings slowly opened and he lifted off back into the rain, struggling a little to get up, but as soon as he had steady flight, he continued smoothly back into the air.

Descent… hadn’t so much as looked at or expressed concern for the stallion’s wings. Much less consider his safety with clear hindering state his wings were in. At least… that was the only thing Spitfire could see in the situation, what was going through Descent’s mind?

Spitfire took a step towards Descent with the intention of questioning what she just saw, but something else caught her eye… something that took priority.

Soarin was sitting off to the side, staring up at the broken window with a very vacant look on his face. Spitfire’s eyes widened slightly as she quickly turned to him. The last time she saw Soarin was roughly half an hour ago… and he hadn't moved from that spot.

“Soarin?” Spitfire called his name as she approached, but he gave no answer. She cleared her throat as she stopped beside him, but he still didn’t budge. “Soarin… you’re doing it again…” she tried to get his attention, but he didn’t as much as budge. “Soarin!” she yelled. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Something…” he suddenly spoke. Spitfire blinked and gasped quietly as Soarin’s horn suddenly began to glow… yellow.

“Oh… shit…” Spitfire backed away slightly. Soarin looked at her, quickly taking note of the look on her face. He reached a hoof out at her.

“No! No! Wait!” he blinked as his eyes began to glow yellow as well. “Don’t worry, I’m… nothing is wrong, I’m…” He looked down, his eyes darting back and forth. “I… I’m remembering… something! I…”

“What you were talking about in my office?” Spitfire blinked as she still kept a small distance between her and him because of the yellow magic aura suddenly appearing.

“YES!” Soarin looked back up again. A few eyes had moved to him, including Luna, who’s eyes landed directly on the yellow aura on Soarin’s horn. “I think…” Soarin slammed his eyes shut, the yellow light still seeping through his eyelids. “I remember what I was supposed to know! The…rgh…” Soarin put both hooves on his head. “The… Shadowbolts… are… going… to… attack…” suddenly the yellow glow completely disappeared from the horn and his eyes. His head snapped up and looked out the window. “In exactly five minutes?” Soarin said in a way that suggested he had no idea why such a thing came to him.

“Five minutes?” Spitfire blinked, what makes you say—”

“DESCENT!!!!” Astral suddenly burst back through the front doors, nearly slipping and falling on the wet floor as he hurried towards his leader.

“That was quick,” Descent said as he turned to Astral again.

“No…” Astral shook his head. “I think you better look outside…”

As soon as the words left his lips, Spitfire, Descent, Soarin, Luna, and multiple Wonderbolts and Renegades all looked towards the door and out the hangar window.

Up in the sky… roughly two hundred meters from the compound… A collection of pink energy had appeared and was steadily growing larger. As it grew, they could make out small silhouettes of ponies appearing from within the energy as if it were some kind of portal.

“RENEGADES!” Descent yelled immediately as he turned to them. “LET’S GIVE ‘EM HELL!” he rallied his warriors as they all fastened their goggles into place and started charging towards the door, disregarding the extreme downpour as they funneled out of the compound through the doors and the hangar window, taking to the air in full force.

As they moved out, Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Luna stepped into the center of the lobby. The Wonderbolts all scrambled to and fro to get into their defensive positions within the compound as the last of the administrative staff and the doctors were quickly moved into the west hallway and towards the basement. Spitfire took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Here we go…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

So there you go, not much happened in this chapter plot wise... but it was meant to give some personality and color to the old Wonderbolts, at least the stallions with a little bit of reference towards what you can expect from Pixie, Fairy, and Valkyrie. Got to have some fun with the other characters as well (never too much Fleetfoot! :rainbowwild:)

Plus Misty continues to show that she's got a sassy side beneath that innocent smile of hers :rainbowdetermined2:

And here we go... Another battle incoming... but how will this one turn out? :moustache:

And im also sure some may be curious about Astral. Astral Bolt is an OC created by a good friend of mine: Cyrix-FiM

He's a really fun guy that i've had a great time talking to, heavily discussing my work, and playing games with. For being a great guy, i offered to include a background cameo of his OC, but when he showed me a pony with wing braces... it gave me an idea towards a concept going forward :moustache: So expect to see him once or twice going forward. Talk about good timing too, he showed me his OC about a week ago :scootangel: He's a bit shy though :twilightsmile: a little scared to join in the comments (has sent all of his comments to me over PM or skype) So hope on over to his page and say hello, show him some love! :eeyup:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup::eeyup:

(800K words! :pinkiegasp: and climbing!:pinkiecrazy:)

Chapter 95: Specter from the Sky

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 95: Specter from the Sky

The Wonderbolts were all in place, taking up defensive positions on every floor with added security guards around them. Silver Lining and squad two were in charge of directing everything in the west hallway of the bottom floor, Fire Streak and squad three doing the same in the east hallway with Foxtrot stationed right beside them.

Whoever wasn’t on the bottom floor was placed in any position where a Shadowbolt could possibly make it through on the upper floors, save for the rooms and offices due to the armored shutters being closed over them. The armored shutters weren’t enough to hinder Rapidfire during their attack half a year ago, but they wouldn’t be getting through them without the sound of bending and straining metal alerting the Wonderbolts.

The lead squad and Princess Luna stood firmly in the center of the lobby, as close as they could to the doors without being rained on, acting as the first defense within the most vulnerable section of the compound.

They were all ready… now it was up to the Renegades to play their part.

“SPREAD OUT!” Descent yelled as the rain surged down against his head, soaking his mane within seconds of emerging beneath the storm. The Renegades heeded his words, flashes of lightning illuminating the courtyard as their numbers expanded outward, creating a cloud of pegasi that floated like a shield in front of the Wonderbolt compound.

Starry Skies and Lightning Dust floated up beside Descent, Blazetail and Flashwind hovering just below them as droplets of rain began to run down their goggles. The thunder rumbled through the air as the Shadowbolts continued to pour out of the massive, expanding collection of pink energy.

Descent narrowed his eyes as the Shadowbolts slowly approached, clearly picking out ten figures who flew out in front of the rest. He suspected it was the ten commanders because as the invading force drew within a hundred meters of the compound, the ten in front began spawning clones that ducked back among the rest of the Shadowbolts to bolster their numbers.

“HOLD!” Descent yelled out to all the Renegades, just in case any of them were itching to leap into battle. Starry suddenly tapped Descent on the shoulder.

“Descent, look,” she pointed down. With the Shadowbolts now closing, still flying slowly, the ten in front started moving towards the ground. “What do you think? Are they challenging us again?” she pondered out loud as Descent looked towards them and grunted.

“Did they already forget what happened last time? Fine… I’ll bite,” Descent snorted before looking down towards Blazetail. “Gather up your best… our friends want to take us on separately again, it seems.”

“Hm?” Blazetail looked towards the ten commanders lowering themselves down towards the wrecked courtyard as the rest of the Shadowbolts remained flying in the air with hundreds of commander clones among them. “Looks like fun,” Blazetail smirked. “We’re right behind you,” Blazetail reassured Descent before he and Flashwind lowered themselves to gather their fellow retired elites.

“RENEGADES! STEADY!” Descent yelled out. “Starry, Dust, with me.”

Descent lowered towards the ground with Starry Skies and Lightning Dust in tow. The three stopped and hovered about twenty yards from the ground, staring towards the ten commanders as they came to a halt fifty yards away, hovering at the same height. Descent glared as he spotted the other five commanders that were absent during the first attack.

Void. A large, light blue stallion with a short, faded yellow mane. He was about the size of Descent. He had a very confident look on his face as if he felt nothing could stand in his way.

Ruin. A small, skinny, red stallion with a short, slick, tied back mane. He had a strange fur pattern, splotches of white fur among the red. Most of them were covered by his suit, but one was visible close to his nose and on one of his hooves. He had a VERY deranged smile on his face, one of his eyes twitching as he continuously snickered, occasionally letting a laugh go. The way he held himself in an unstable manner was similar to Twister.

Angel. An average sized, black stallion with an incredibly long silver mane that nearly hung down past his hooves. He looked very calm, and a little snide. He had a natural elegance about him that gave off an air of really not caring about anything but his personal appearance and gain.

Trance. A small, dark blue stallion with a teal mane that was style in a very strange way. A good portion of it was sticking straight up from the center of his head while the rest of it hung down on the sides. He moved with an odd swagger, as if he was paying attention to something else, rather than the incoming clash with the Renegades.

Finally, Sin. A large, muscular, white stallion with an incredibly messy black mane and matching beard. He was covered in black tattoos of strange symbols, most blocked by his suit, but one extended over the left side of his face. He was smiling and eagerly pounding his hooves together as he licked his lips. He looked thirsty to scrap, as if that’s all that mattered to him, disregarding any mission or objective they may have.

Devil, Shadow, Moon, and Witch were all among them as well with Blade standing in front of them all.

“The whole circus is here, huh?” Lightning Dust chuckled as she, Descent, and Starry stared down the ten Shadowbolts.

“Remember…” Descent spoke up. “They are not the Shadowbolts we once knew. Perhaps those being led by them can yet be saved… but these ten are completely at the mercy of the crystals. They will not look back…”

Starry and Dust looked over Descent and listened. He couldn’t completely mask the slight tone of regret, but everything he said was true.

“Do not hesitate to go for the kill if you can,” Descent added as Starry and Dust nodded.

“So it’s another party?” Blazetail’s voice came from above. Dust and Starry looked up as Blazetail, Flashwind, and the rest of the retired elite Wonderbolts floated down and joined them, giving them a two pony advantage. “Don’t mind if we invite ourselves!”

Descent glanced back at all of them. Bomber, Valkyrie, Comet, Cannon Ball, Steady Wing, Pixie, and Fairy were all ready to fight.

“Descent…” Starry spoke up again. “They’re readying up.”

Descent looked back towards the Shadowbolt commanders. One by one, they began moving their three crystals around them.

Blade’s crystals wrapped around his right hoof, his magic sword extending from it.

Devil’s crystals conjured up two large spheres that floated beside him

Shadow’s crystals hovered in front of her, glowing and heating the air before her.

Moon’s crystals and hooves began to spark, his telekinesis ready to work.

Void’s crystals bunched up around his chest, causing a pink glow that completely surrounded him.

Ruin’s crystals floated around his head, forming multiple balls of pink energy that danced around him erratically.

Angel’s crystals created a thin veil of energy around his hooves.

Witch’s crystals conjured multiple tiny lights around her, that would no doubt become the barrage of small blasts.

Trance’s crystals orbited him, forming balls of energy similar to Ruin’s, but they remained in steady orbit around him.

Sin’s crystals shined brightly as the energy collected in his hooves, sparking and popping violently.

“This is it…” Descent looked back at those down with him before looking up at all the Renegades high up above them who were facing down the rest of the Shadowbolts and the commander clones. “RENEGADES! CHARGE!!!!” Descent yelled out.

The cloud of Renegades above charged, causing the Shadowbolts and clones to do the same.

Down below, Descent was the first to launch forward, Blade doing the same from among the commanders, the heavy rain splashing against their faces as they charged through the downpour. Starry, Dust, and the retired elite Wonderbolts all gave chase behind Descent, the rest of the commanders following behind Blade.

Some ducked low, less than a yard off the ground while a few stayed level as the groups closed in.

Descent and Blade stared each other down as the two glided along the ground at high speed in tandem with the rest of their forces high above.

“RAAAAHHH!!!” Blade roared as he wound up his sword.

“HMM!” Descent grunted as he pulled back his hoof.

The edge of the sword clashed with Descent’s arm, an incredibly bright flash of lightning illuminating the entire battlefield and their attacks met. Descent kept his hoof in constant vibration to negate the sword from cutting into it.

As they came together, the two forces high overhead clashed in tandem with the heavy boom of thunder that followed the lightning. Renegade and Shadowbolt collided violently, ramming and smashing into each other. A few were instantly clipped and sent tumbling towards the ground. Multiple clones exploded into light as Renegades immediately struck them at their source on the forehead. It instantly became a mess, a bloody free for all, everypony for themselves.

Back down on the ground, Descent and Blade slammed their back hooves to the muddy courtyard before breaking their first lock and both taking swings at each other. Descent dodged two sword swipes and knocked one aside before pressing his own attack, but Blade used the flat edge of the sword to deflect them. Descent threw a blow with both hooves as Blade brought his sword back around. The collision of the attacks propelled them both backwards, their hooves dragging through the mud before coming to a halt and glaring at each other.

Valkyrie suddenly leapt over Descent towards Blade, taking a heavy swing at him. Blade pushed back, but the mud didn’t offer him stable enough footing to create distance. Valkyrie touched down, galloped forward and spun around to swing the back of her hoof into him, but Blade put his hooves together against the crystals and moved them outward, expanding the sword’s width to shield himself from the attack. Valkyrie’s arm slammed into the flat blade and two deadlocked for a moment until Blade pushed off, released his other hoof from the crystal and swiped it towards her. Valkyrie barely put up a guard in time, absorbing most of the counter, but was sent tumbling into the mud.

She quickly got to her hooves, but her eyes widened in surprise as Shadow emerged from the ground beside her, her energy wave fully charged. Valkyrie grunted and shielded herself, but right as Shadow fired her burning energy wave, Bomber slammed down to the ground in front of Valkyrie, tossing up mud everywhere from the impact.

Bomber grunted and threw his massive arms up in front of his face while the energy wave approached, throwing them both outward the moment it struck him. The energy wave split in two, searing along the ground in two directions around him. Valkyrie immediately leapt over Bomber towards Shadow as Bomber turned to intercept an attack from Blade as he leapt in from behind. Bomber locked with Blade while Pixie and Fairy shot by them.

The twin sisters frantically looked around for a moment before Pixie tapped Fairy on the shoulder and pointed up. They both turned and looked above them at Witch right as she launched her barrage of small magic bolts. Pixie and Fairy quickly floated side by side and began swatting aside the bolts. Working together, they were able to knock them all aside, however the tiny deflected blasts split away and began raining down on the rest of the battlefield.

Lightning Dust looked up as the heavy rain pelted against her goggles and yelped as the deflected magic from Witch started coming down. She turned and pumped her wings, gliding low to the ground as the small magic bolts began thundering to the ground, kicking up mud, grass, and bits of concrete alike as she tried to outfly them.

Her path took her directly into the fray as she touched down and used her momentum to slide right under Bomber’s legs as he readied to take on another energy wave from Shadow. Dust showcased her agility, leaping up to avoid the energy wave before touching back to the ground and breaking into a gallop. Valkyrie flew in from above her, making another run at Blade. Blade leapt backwards as she slammed to the ground. The force of Valkyrie’s attack tripped up Dust, forcing her to tuck and roll before getting right back up, Bomber thundering past her as she found her hooves again.

Bomber clashed with Blade, the juggernaut’s force pushing Blade’s back hooves through the mud, skidding along the ground with no chance for him to match the hulking pony’s strength. Blade pushed off and took to the air to get away from Bomber, but Lightning Dust hopped up off of Bomber’s shoulders and propelled herself right up above Blade.

“What’s up?” Dust jeered at him, tapping him on the head twice as she passed before slamming her back hoof over the top of his head and sending him roughly back to the ground. Blade slammed down and was instantly bombarded by the deflected energy bolts that were following Dust. He expanded his sword again to shield himself.

Dust flew back down towards the ground and formed up beside Steady Wing as he glided along at low altitude. Steady glanced at her for a moment, but quickly looked around as large, pink spheres of magic began rising up around them. The two tried to pick up speed, but the spheres were one step ahead of them. Steady quickly slammed down and pushed himself hard off the ground, propelling himself up and veering off right before the spheres exploded, but Lightning Dust got caught in the blasts and was blown aside by the shockwave.

Steady straightened his wings out and dipped back down, using his steady gliding to pick up a tremendous amount of speed as he zipped along the ground, finding his target nearby. He weaved and turned as the spheres continued to try and catch him, but he was too quick. Devil, was watching as his spheres failed to keep up with Steady, and shifted his target to three steps ahead, forcing multiple spheres to push up from the ground where he predicted Steady would be.

Steady flew right into the trap, but also saw it coming. He repeated his same maneuver as before, but purposely hesitating to use it to his advantage. The spheres exploded and he rode the shockwave, shooting towards Devil. Devil grunted in annoyance and put up his hooves as the two clashed and deadlocked, glaring at each other as they fought for the upper hoof. Two ponies shot directly overhead.

Blade and Descent were flying side by side, facing each other and throwing attack after attack. Blade had wizened up after their last encounter and was being a little more careful about his attack choices. It evened the battle just enough to the point where Descent couldn’t simply knock everything aside. Suddenly the two of them were forced out of their flight paths. They tumbled away from each other as if an unseen force was pulling them.

“DAMMIT, VOID!” Blade yelled as he and Descent stabilized themselves and flew against the force. Void was standing nearby, the crystals in front of his chest glowing brightly as it created a vacuum that pulled at anything nearby.

“Urgh!” Descent pumped his wings against the force, but remained stationary. Void kept up the force, seeming to not give a damn that he had Blade caught in it too.

“Descent!” Valkyrie’s voice came from in front of him. Descent looked back forward to see Valkyrie willingly flying into the vacuum effect while holding her hoof towards Descent. He didn’t give it a single thought, knowing exactly what to do. He reached out and hooked his hoof with Valkyrie’s, swinging her around and throwing her towards Void, doubling her already doubled speed due to the pulling effect from Void’s magic. Void only had time to blink before Valkyrie’s back hooves crashed directly into his face. She pushed his head down, keeping her hooves firmly pressed into his face as she dug a trench with his head through the mud. She looked up and was forced to disengage as Starry and Angel shot by, nearly colliding with her.

Starry Skies kept her eyes locked on Angel, flying steadily and veering towards him as Angel dipped down towards the tall outer walls of the courtyard. He sneered at her, reaching a hoof out and beckoning her to keep following him. She growled and gladly gave chase. The two closed in and turned sideways, gliding along the curved walls as if it were the ground beneath them. Angel’s long mane was whipping and flailing behind him, somehow unaffected by the downpour. Starry shifted and began swiping her right hoof out, trying to knock Angel off course, but he met each attempt smoothly, making no effort to attack, only deflecting each attempt.

Starry scowled at him, knowing that she couldn’t attack effectively in the scenario he put them in, so she took a chance and rammed her body towards him. He was forced to push off the wall and move skyward. Starry anticipated it and gave chase, blasting through the rain and rearing back her hooves back to strike. Angel was forced into a defensive position, each attack he blocked pushing him further into the air.

A bright flash of lightning caused Starry to wince and squint, breaking her focus and allowing Angel to escape further up. By the time Starry refocused on him, he was gathering the crystal energy in his hooves. Starry gasped, alarmed knowing how dangerous Angel’s magic attacks were and quickly put on the brakes.

Angel sneered, a loud boom of thunder sounding out as he swiped his hoof out across his body, creating a wide arc of magic that fired towards Starry.

“AH!” Starry yelped as she flipped her wings in opposite directions, causing her to twist and lean back just enough for the arc of magic to pass less than an inch from her body and nearly nicked her chin. The blade of magic turned as it hit the ground below, slicing right into the earth and cutting through it.

It shot along the ground right towards Blazetail and Sin, who were on the ground and grappling, trying to force their strength against the other. They both turned and looked as Angel’s flying magic blade cut through the ground towards them, and the two broke apart just before it caught them. The blade slowly dissipated after passing them, and the two skidded to a halt, spread apart, but ready to charge again.

“WHAT THE—?!” Blazetail flinched as intense pink sparks began to erupt from the ground below him and Sin. Before he could react, a huge chunk of the ground was torn and upheaved from the courtyard, rising up and causing Blazetail to stumble to the point where he couldn’t stabilize his wings to take flight. He looked up to see Moon above him, his hooves sparking with telekinetic force as he effortlessly caused large chunks of the ground to rip from the courtyard and float up into the air. The surface Blazetail stood on began to tip and he started sliding, but he threw his wings out to keep himself from falling.

“Aw c’mon! I wasn’t done!” Sin guffawed as he charged down the floating ground, seemingly unaffected by the shift in the angle of the ground with his hooves exploding with energy. Blazetail grunted and put up a guard as he met Sin’s attacks, each one of them pushing him further and further towards the edge of the floating chunk of mud and grass as it continued to tip.

“Ah!” Blazetail yelped as he lost his hoofing, tumbled, and began sliding through the mud. He grunted and swung his hooves around, jamming them into the soft, muddy surface to anchor himself right before he fell off the edge. His body whiplashed, but he held on, his back hooves dangling off the edge. He opened his wings, ready to take flight, but Sin was still galloping towards him, despite the ground being tipped completely sideways. He pulled back and delivered a heavy blow beneath Blazetail’s chin, uprooting his hooves from the mud and sending him tumbling towards the ground. He grunted and struggled to regain flight, but he didn’t have to try for long.

“Got you!” Flashwind yelled as she glided by and grabbed her husband’s arm.

“I’m getting too old for this,” Blazetail shook his head out and shifted his aching jaw back and forth.

“Which one?” Flashwind asked quickly. Blazetail refocused and glared back towards the floating chunks of earth through the droplets of water that streaked over his goggles.

“Moon!” he yelled out as he tucked his back hooves up to his body.

Flashwind pulled him towards her and put her back against his plot, giving it her signature gentle push. The movement launched Blazetail right back the way he fell, sending him careening towards Moon, who was forced to drop his telekinetic hold on the chunks to defend himself. Blazetail clashed with Moon as the chunks of earth plummeted back towards the ground, shooting upturned mud, rocks, and other small debris everywhere as they slammed to the ground.

“Hey! Hey! You’re fighting me!” Sin yelled out heartily as he shot towards Blazetail. Right before he rammed into him, Flashwind shot in from the side and delivered a heavy punch directly into Sin’s jaw, forcing a change in momentum and taking him away so her husband could focus on Moon.

“No, you’re fighting ME!” Flashwind declared as she continued to drive him through the rain. They collided with Cannon Ball and Ruin, who were locked in a rather one-sided conflict, forcing them to disperse.

Cannon Ball bounced off the ground and took right back to the air, looking in all directions as little balls of magical energy shot around him in erratic patterns, following him as he flew in wide arcs to try and avoid them.

“Over here!” Ruin’s voice came from behind him. Cannonball swiped his hooves out to deflect two energy balls before turning around, but Ruin wasn’t there. “NOPE! Over here!” Ruin cackled. Cannon Ball spun with his hooves out to knock away three more blasts and turned to the voice, but once again, nothing.

“Dammit!” he cursed as he swung his hooves around to knock back two more balls before he suddenly came to a very abrupt, very painful halt. “AUGH!” he yelled out in pain that came directly from his plot. He turned around to see Ruin holding his tail in his mouth.

“GOT YER TAIL!” Ruin said while rapidly bouncing his eyebrows, his voice muffled by Cannon’s tail.

“Whoaaaa!” Cannon flailed as Ruin began to whip him around in circles before letting go, launching Cannon uncontrollably through the air, out of control. He zipped right past Void, who was chuckling to himself as he floated about twenty yards in the air, his crystals glowing in front of him, creating the vacuum wave as he angled the force towards the ground. Lightning Dust was holding onto the edge of the broken fountain for dear life, her wings pinned to her back by the suction force. Void had her stuck. Even the rain falling around him was bending in its path due to the force. She needed help…

Comet was looking over towards her as he glided along the ground. He didn’t want to get to close in fear of getting pulled in himself, but he also spotted Cannon Ball flailing out of control as he shot through the air. He saw an opportunity, but a bright flash of lightning alerted him to somepony overhead. He looked up as the thunder rumbled through the air to see Trance floating above him, his small spheres of magic still orbiting around him. With a smirk and a single spin, every single energy ball launched from around him, forming up in a scattered pattern as they fell towards Comet.

“Urgh!” Comet grunted as he was forced to start making his irregular shifts, barely dodging as the energy balls slammed to the ground around him.

“DANCE! DANCE FOR ME!” Trance laughed as he continued to create organized bursts of magic and fired them towards the ground. Comet continued to shift and lurch, but it worked perfectly to his advantage, using one final momentum shift to swing himself forward and fire from his spot, shooting through the air past Trance with the white streak extending behind his mane.

“Cannon!” he yelled as he approached his flailing wingmate. “CURL UP!”

Without responding, Cannon heard and obey, curling himself up into a ball as Comet shot up beside him. Comet swung his back hoof around and slammed it against Cannon, firing him like a projectile towards Void.

Void blinked and looked up, releasing his vacuum hold on Dust as he turned and shielded himself. Cannon Ball slammed directly into Void’s arms, causing both of them to tumble right out of the air. Cannon turned around quickly and put his hooves on Void’s back to drive him downward, nearly running into Pixie and Fairy as they passed.

The twins were still keeping eyes out in all directions, unable to completely keep track of Witch’s movements as she always seemed to disappear from the spot she fired her barrage of tiny bolts. They yelped and stepped back as a few bolts whisked by between them. They turned and knocked them away before the attack started coming from another direction.

The twins were forced down towards the ground by the constant barrage, but the moment they landed, several large spheres of magic shot up from the ground around them. It was a trap set by Devil. The two shrieked and guarded themselves as the sphere’s exploded around them, but when the dust cleared, they were still up, and surrounded by Bomber, Valkyrie, and Descent, who had deflected most of the explosion away. Blazetail and Flashwind landed beside the small group as they all charged forward again.

The battle raged, seemingly endless as the elite warriors clashed below, and the rest of the forces battled above. A battle raging within a raging thunderstorm as the lightning continued to illuminate the courtyard and the thunder continued to shake the premise.

“Wow…” Fleetfoot watched out the window with awe as she and the rest of the Wonderbolts remained at the ready in case any Shadowbolts decided to turn towards the compound. “They’re… amazing…” she said as she turned towards Soarin, Spitfire, and Air Mach.

“I gotta admit…” Air Mach smirked and chuckled. “The Great Animak… is heavily impressed. Check out those moves! Talk about some serious skill!”

“Yeah…” Spitfire agreed as she watched. “They are…” she sighed. “They’re really good…”

Silver, who was standing near the entrance to the west hallway, was staring towards Spitfire as she spoke. He exhaled through his nose as he looked back out a window near him at the battle.

“And here is why… I hate the retirement policy…” he said quietly to himself.

“Sir?” Wave stepped up to him, having heard Silver speak. Silver only shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just watch and learn,” he encouraged Wave as he glanced at Spitfire once more.

“Unbelievable…” Matteo commented in awe as he, Dash, Storm, Twister, and Star watched from a window in the east hallway.

Dash had seen Descent, Starry, and Lightning Dust fight before, but the retired Wonderbolts… they were AMAZING! And these pegasi were forced to retire? They were FAR from being outclassed by the younger Wonderbolts. While it was true they didn’t look quite as quick or nimble as some of the younger members, their combat experience and awareness were very clear. It didn’t matter if they’d lost a step, they more than made up for it by just understanding combat.

It was now no wonder to her at all why Silver was so against the retirement policy of the Wonderbolt code. None of the retired Wonderbolts out in the battle looked like they were down and out.

Dash turned and looked at Storm. He had not moved his gaze from Descent the entire time. His eyes were wide with a mix of worry and awe. Dash smiled as she examined Storm, she was sure that seeing the pure power, strength, and skill of his father was beyond inspiring, especially since he had never known about it all until now.

She looked around at the other Wonderbolts in the surrounding area. They were all pressed up to the metal bars covering the windows, all watching as their former fellow Wonderbolts and their former rivals turned allies showed off their fighting ability. But as she looked towards the lobby, she saw Soarin sitting perfectly still. The rest of the Wonderbolts in the lobby were walking around, conversing about the battle, but Soarin was like a statue, staring up out the broken hanger window. She didn’t want to leave her post, but she couldn’t help but worry that something was wrong.

“Something is amiss…” Luna suddenly spoke from beside Spitfire. Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach looked towards her.

“What is it?” Spitfire quickly asked, not feeling too good about the worried look on Luna’s face. Luna pointed out the window, specifically towards the large collection of pink magic that the Shadowbolts had arrived through.

“It’s still growing,” Luna stated. “The magic… it’s been steadily increasing in size throughout the whole battle…”

“Uh… that can’t be good,” Fleetfoot bit her bottom lip. “That isn’t good, is it?” she looked towards Luna.

“We do not know…” Luna shook her head, but she kept her eyes locked on it as the battle raged on.

“Ah!” Soarin suddenly yelped from beside them all. Spitfire perked up and quickly turned to Soarin. He was looking pale again as he bent down and started breathing heavily.

“Soarin?” Spitfire blinked and stepped towards him. “What is it?”

“Soarin!” Dash’s voice caught Spitfire’s ears. She looked up and growled for a moment as Dash blatantly left her post, but refocused on Soarin as Dash came up on his other side. “What’s wrong?” Dash pressed, but Spitfire cut her off.

“Soarin, is it the same thing?” Spitfire asked quickly. Dash gave her a curious look but then flinched as yellow sparks began cracking and popping over Soarin’s body, a yellow aura appearing over his horn and began rising from his eyes.

“It… yes!” Soarin stuttered as he gritted his teeth.

“Ah!” Dash stepped back as she saw the yellow magic, but came to an abrupt halt when she saw Spitfire remain nearby regardless.

“What? What is it?” Spitfire asked.

“I… I don’t know! Something… terrible… I can’t…” Soarin groaned.

“Commander Soarin…” Luna stepped up beside Spitfire, but hesitated, again locking her eyes on the yellow aura. For some reason, the sight frightened her. She had seen it before when she and Discord helped him separate the magic, but the way it was acting now sent unexplained chills down her spine.

“I feel…” Soarin grunted as the yellow aura intensified, it shined brightly and then disappeared, just like it had before. Soarin looked up, an expression of completely dread on his face as his ears flopped down. “Something terrible is coming…” he said as he stepped towards the closest window. “THEY'RE IN DANGER!”

“What are they doing?” Starry asked curiously as she hovered beside Descent, the downpour of rain washing any loose mud from their now slightly battle damaged uniforms.

“I don’t know…” Descent answered honestly as the rest of their comrades hovered around them. The fighting had come to an abrupt halt. The commanders had retreated back towards the portal along with the rest of the Shadowbolts. The clones were disengaged from around the real Shadowbolts as well, all disappearing as they retreated, leaving the entire force of Renegades in confusion as their enemy pulled back.

“Did that big ball of magic get… bigger?” Lightning Dust pointed at the portal that the Shadowbolts initially came through. Descent looked over the portal carefully.

Dust was right… but… why? What was the purpose?

They got their answer…

And it wasn’t a pleasant one.

An ENORMOUS silhouette appeared within the collection of magical energy and slowly became more and more defined.

“What is it?” Valkyrie asked from behind Descent.

“What?! No…” Descent’s ears flopped down and his jaw dropped.

“HOLY SHIT, WHAT?!” Starry exclaimed.

“Uh… please tell me I’m seeing things!” Lightning Dust freaked out as all three of them slowly lowered to the ground.

“Oh… this isn’t good…” Blazetail gritted his teeth.

With a harsh flash of lightning and an ominously low roll of thunder… the large silhouette came through.

It was the Shadowbolts’ flying compound.

“It can’t be…” Descent shook his head. “The flying fortress was DESTROYED! Completely blown to pieces!” he exclaimed as if he was staring up at a ghost from his past.

“Looks like they glued it back together…” Starry pointed out, her hoof shaking as she pointed at it.

Indeed, the fortress looked heavily modified. It was still flying with its numerous massive propellers atop the long poles that rose up around it, but the deck and the building atop it itself were littered with gigantic pink crystals jutting out all around it. The crystals illuminated the area with the pink glow as the flying fortress slowly edged its way through the air, the Shadowbolts moving with it.

“WHAT… WHAT?! WHAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!” Dash freaked out as she pressed her face to the window, disregarding the fact that rain was coming through the broken hangar window nearby. Soarin ran up and joined her side, not believing what he was seeing.

The Shadowbolt fortress… the very same compound they were held in as prisoners… it was here? But they saw it break apart themselves! The explosion from Nightshade had torn it asunder! They even searched the wreckage afterward, the whole thing was unsalvageable!

“Descent! What do we do?” Lightning Dust asked as she turned to him. Descent squinted and growled shaking his head out.

“I have no idea what they plan to do with it, but I’ll be DAMNED if we give them the time!” he leapt up into the air. “FOLLOW ME!” he yelled as he and the rest rose up to rejoin the rest of the Renegades.

The Renegade force all looked towards him as he lifted up in between them and instantly began barking orders.

“NO FEAR AND NO HESITATION!” he yelled out. “TAKE IT DOWN!” he yelled as he charged. True to his orders, none of the Renegades hesitated, all following right behind him. The Shadowbolts did not react to their charge. They simply held their positions around the flying fortress.

As curious as Descent was about the Shadowbolts’ lack of reaction to their attack, he pressed forward, refusing to be intimidated by some patched up specter of his former home.

But then… as they drew near… something started happening all over the fortress.

Descent’s eyes widened as multiple shutters and doors all over the structure of the fortress began to open and contraptions that looked like cannons started shifting out and pointing forward. Each one of them had a very large pink crystal mounted within the barrel. There had to be at least forty of them mounted all over the building structure.

As the Renegades drew near... the crystals within them began to glow… brightly.

“EVASIVE MANEUVERS!” Descent yelled on instinct.

Massive blasts of magic began firing from the crystals within the barrels, confirming that that’s exactly what they were… cannons. The blasts they fired were twenty to thirty times larger than the eye beams that were fired by the clones.

Despite Descent’s warning… the Renegades could do little to avoid them.

Multiple screams and yelps of pain filled the air as the Renegades tried to evade the blasts, but the cannons fired repeatedly, causing a barrage of large, powerful magic blasts that engulfed several Renegades at a time, blowing them right out of the sky and towards the ground in trails of smoke.

“RGH!”” Descent growled as he charged forward, watching with his own eyes as Renegade after Renegade was repelled. All the retired Wonderbolt elites went down. Even Bomber and Valkyrie were forced out of the air by the incredible offensive power of the base. Descent watched as Starry and Lightning Dust were blown away right beside him and sent spiraling towards the earth. “I WILL NOT FALTER!” Descent roared as he and roughly only twenty additional Renegades managed to make it through the blasts and close to the base, but all twenty of them were stopped by Shadowbolts and forced back to the ground.

Descent came to an abrupt halt as Blade, Sin, Devil, Moon, and Ruin all dropped down in front of him. Descent turned around, but Shadow, Void, Angel, Witch, and Trance had flanked him. All ten Shadowbolt commanders had surrounded him.

“I do hope you enjoy a painful landing…” Blade jeered as all of them focused their crystals directly at him. Descent tucked his arms and legs in to shield himself, but it would do little to protect him. All ten of them fired a powerful burst of magic, crushing him in between the forces.

“ARGH!” Descent roared in pain as he was bludgeoned by the attacks, his uniform was torn to pieces, his goggles shattering and flying off his head, and his whole body whipped backwards towards the barrage of blasts from the fortress itself. It was only a moment before Descent was back in the cannon range, and was struck by a blast that sent him careening towards the ground.

“NO!” Luna yelled as she stepped towards the window and saw the Renegades drop out of the sky like rocks, landing painfully on the ground.

Yelps and cries of terror rang out around the lobby and throughout the compound as the entire building began to shake. The Shadowbolt compound had turned its cannons towards the Wonderbolt compound and was showering its magic blasts down upon it. Loud explosions erupted all over the compound, the ceiling was shaking, the lights flickering, the foundations buckling, reinforced window shattering with the metal bars being blown off of them. The base was sturdy, and holding together, but it was not built to withstand such punishment.

Dash clung to Soarin, screaming as the building continued to rock and groan. Wonderbolts were stumbling and falling into each other all around as the attacks rocked the very floor they stood on like an earthquake.

“I…” Luna yelled out while holding her ground and glaring at the hangar window as a blast struck it and exploded, completely shattering what was left of it and showering bits of glass down upon the scrambling Wonderbolts. “SHALL NOT…” she extended her large wings. “ALLOW IT!!!!!!!!!”

Luna rocketed upward and shot right out the hangar window, the downpour of rain immediately causing loud, hard patters against her armor as she cut through the storm and angled towards the fortress.

The enormous blasts of magic shot by her as she skillfully spun and weaved in between them, all the while beginning a slow, powerful build-up of her magic into her horn. She eventually placed herself within fifty yards of the flying structure and faced it, locking her eyes to the dead center of the platform.

Her horn was alight, pumped full of her divine alicorn power as she angled and aimed it directly at the large base below the main structure with the intention of taking out what she believed was the source of flight with all the propellers leading down into it.

“RRRAAAHHH!!!!” Luna released a war cry as she fired her magic, manifesting it into a single, highly concentrated blast that was twice the size of those firing from the base. Her neck flew back from the recoil as she released it before she back flipped and looked forward to watch it go. The light blue blast blazed through the air, knocking aside every single pink blast that collided with it. It looked like a direct hit for sure, with nothing standing in its way.

But then the crystals around the fortress began to glow brighter and right before Luna’s attack could land, a bright sphere of pink light encircled the entire structure.

Luna’s magic slammed against it, clearly having an enormous amount of force behind it as it made the whole fortress lurch backwards, but her attack was stuck against the shield.

Luna’s eyes widened…

As her magic turned around and was PROPELLED directly back at her.

“AH!” Luna only had time to put up a magic shield that was weak due to the short amount of time she had to focus. Her own magic collided with her shield, dissipating some of it, but ultimately going right through her defense and knocking her right out of the sky. “BLAST!” Luna grimaced and coughed, her armor thankfully still in one piece, doing its job in protecting her. She rounded herself upright and put her hooves beneath her just in time to slam roughly to the ground.

She shook her head out, panting as she looked directly up into the rain. A bolt of lightning shot down from the clouds behind the Shadowbolt fortress, illuminating the sky behind it as it tipped itself up to face the Wonderbolt compound again.

Luna was ready to try again, but then something else happened…

The cannons suddenly retracted, moving back beneath all the shutters and doors littered about the structure. At first it looked as though the attack had ceased, but that was far from what was happening. The massive crystals studded all over the fortress began to glow brighter and brighter as a large door on the platform of the fortress itself opened.

A massive cannon, several times larger than the cannons littered about the base slowly began to rise up from underneath the platform, turning and aiming at the Wonderbolt compound.

Luna gasped and her eyes widened, taking note of the she sheer size of the crystal fixated within the enormous cannon. If the smaller cannons were as powerful as they were… a single shot from this one…

Would surely destroy the Wonderbolt compound completely… killing everything inside in the process… and everything surrounding it.

Luna frantically looked around at all of the renegades strewn about on the ground, rolling and writhing in pain if they were still conscious. She stared back up at the fortress as the crystals shined so brightly that they were illuminating the whole area, the crystal within the cannon sparking and popping as a buildup of energy formed at the tip of the barrel.

“No…” Luna growled. “No!” Luna pushed herself up off the ground and fixed her eyes on the fortress with determination.

“I REFUSE TO LET IT HAPPEN! I REFUSE!” she shouted as she set her hooves firmly in the ground and began to concentrate with all her might.

A bright, blue glow surrounded her body as she conjured up any and ALL magic she could from her body. The glow around her grew brighter and brighter until she forced ALL of it towards her horn. She winced as the magic collected, pushing more magic into her head than she ever had in the past. The overload came with a splitting headache, but she would forge on.

The aura that surrounded her horn was so heavily concentrated with her magic that glimmers and sparkles of light began rising up from it.

“Ahhh…rrghh…” Luna grunted and cringed as the magic build up clawed at her nerves, shooting pins and needles of pain all over her head and down her body, but it was done, she had gathered it all. “I SHALL NOT ALLOW IT!” she yelled out.

The magic exploded upward from her horn, sparks and streams of light shooting from the base of her horn as the incredibly powerful stream of alicorn magic fired directly upward into the sky.

Art by: Foxenawolf

When it reached three stories above the Wonderbolt compound’s highest point, it collected and expanded, slowly covering everything in an enormous, spherical magic shield. The entire compound, the courtyard, and all of the fallen renegades, everything covered by Luna’s might, even locking the rain out from falling down upon the area.

The moment the shield locked in place…

The massive cannon upon the flying fortress platform fired…

A continuous blast, roughly fifty times the size of those fired by the smaller cannons rushed at Luna’s shield.

“AARGHH!!! AHHH!!!!” Luna cried out in pain as the beam struck against the shield, the entire surface of it buckling dangerously upon impact. The beam split and splintered as it rushed against the shield, the smaller chunks flying out of control and shooting all over the surrounding Canterlot district. Buildings collapsed and structures fell as the splintered beams rained down from the sky. The Wonderbolt flight track and all of their outdoor facilities got hammered by the wild, falling blasts. Canterlot Castle took some punishment, the royal guards surrounding it dispersing and crying out as the broken blasts shot by and exploded all around them.

“NO! NOOOO!!!” Luna wailed as her shield continued to buckle, turning from blue to purple. “UUH! AHH!!” she fell to the ground, but kept her magic flowing. She felt like her head was going to explode… she wouldn’t be able to hold it for much longer…

And the fortress showed no sign of letting up.

Within the compound… all hope had been lost. Everything happened so suddenly and so quickly. There was no opportunity for them to assess the situation, and no time for them to run. Even if they could run, only the pegasi would escape, leaving so many behind to die.

Dash and Soarin held onto each other, watching out the window in horror as Luna struggled to hold against the crystalline power showcased by the Shadowbolt Fortress.

All around them, the Wonderbolts were silent, not a word spoken as if they all realized all too quickly and suddenly… that they weren’t going to get out of this one alive.

Soarin looked up from Dash and glanced around.

Fire Streak was clutching Misty Fly as tightly as he could. Behind them, squad Foxtrot and Storm all stared with hopeless expressions out the window. In the west hallway, Silver simply stared. Soarin had never seen Silver look so defeated before. Blaze and High Winds were holding each other’s hooves tightly.

In the lobby, Air Mach had removed his sunglasses and simply watched with no strong words or anything ridiculous to say. Fleetfoot had dropped to the ground and was holding her hooves over her head, whimpering.

Soarin watched as Spitfire slowly slumped down, plopping to the floor on her plot as if she didn’t even have the strength to stand. She just stared with her jaw hanging open.

It had all happened so suddenly… way too fast… way faster than they could have done anything about it. They had finally learned everything and were ready to join the fight… only to be confronted by something they never imagined could have happened. Not even the Renegades or Luna seemed to be ready for it… so even if they had avoided the whole incident beforehoof… this seemed like it was inevitable.

Inevitable?

They were doomed to all die here?

Was this really how it was supposed to end?

Soarin blinked and shook his head out. He felt Dash shivering against him. His eyes locked on her as he held her in his arms.

Fate?

No…

SCREW fate…

He’d be DAMNED to die now… to let everything go to waste!

NEVER!

“Dash…” Soarin forced her to let go of him and she stared up at him, a look of pure terror in her eyes. “Stay here…” he said simply, before turning and stepping away from her.

“Soarin…?” she blinked, finding that she was unable to move. Her eyes widened as Soarin looked towards the hangar window. “SOARIN?!” she exclaimed as she realized what he was about to do. But she couldn’t move… she could only watch as Soarin seamlessly executed the motions of the Sonic Blastoff… and exploded from his spot, causing an epic shockwave and sonic boom as he fired out the hangar window. “SOOOOOOOOOARIN!!!!!”

“Give me everything!” Soarin gritted his teeth as he began concentrating and pouring every bit of magic he could muster into the horn. “EVERYTHING! DON’T LEAVE A SINGLE DROP!” he encouraged himself as his horn began to glow blue. The aura grew brighter and brighter, increasing in intensity as he felt the magic rush through his body and into his head. His eyes began to glow, the streams of magic seeping out from beneath his goggles. A ribbon of blue light streamed behind him as he pumped his wings, pushing him faster and faster towards Luna.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“GOTTA PROTECT THEM ALL!” he continued to encourage himself, remembering his lessons in the use of shield magic from the former captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard himself.

He was going to protect them… he knew he could, he was going to do it!

“LUNA!!!!” Soarin yelled as he slammed his hooves to the ground and skidded hard through the muddy surface of the courtyard, coming to a halt a yard from her and stepping up beside her. “STAND UP!” he yelled at her as he set his hooves firmly into the ground. The magic was swirling violently around his horn, his eyes glowing so brightly that his pupils had nearly disappeared.

“S…SOARIN?!” Luna exclaimed in surprise as she continued cringe in pain.

“WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER!!!!!” Soarin yelled to her as he tipped his head down and slammed his eyes shut.

He wanted to protect his home…

He wanted to protect the Wonderbolts…

He wanted to protect the Renegades…

Spitfire…

Fleetfoot…

Air Mach…

Silver…

Wave…

Blaze…

High Winds…

Fire…

Lightning…

Misty…

Surprise…

Storm…

Descent…

Starry…

Dust…

Absolutely everypony…

But Most of all… Rainbow Dash…

“RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Soarin thrust his head upward, his magic ejecting violently from the horn and immediately encircling Luna’s stream of magic. His beam formed into hers, reinforcing it, tripling its strength as it widened considerably. Luna forced herself back up and poured every last bit of effort into maintaining the shield with the newfound strength added by Soarin’s magic. The shield hardened and returned to its original blue color, no longer buckling under the force of the incoming magical beam.

They roared out, forcing every bit of magic they had into the shield as it held strong, both with the desire to not allow any more death.

And it worked.

The cannon blast slowly began to die, becoming thinner and thinner against the shield until it completely stopped.

The flying fortress suddenly began to emit painful creaking and groaning noises, several of the propellers slowing down or stopping. The massive crystals all over the fortress structure began to flicker, looking as though they were completely drained of their power as the fortress itself began to lose altitude.

Descent grunted and groaned as a light drizzle of rain splashed down against his face. He looked up from the ground. His whole body ached as he stared up and saw an enormous magical shield slowly disappearing from over him. The rain now fell down upon them again, only it was no longer a storm, it was slowly dying.

“What…?” he blinked as he painfully shifted and watched as the Shadowbolts began… retreating through the portal? Despite the Renegades all being down and no doubt the Wonderbolts being completely vulnerable? However, he could also see the Shadowbolt fortress barely staying afloat. In fact, the commanders were generating an enormous amount of clones to push the fortress from below and help it move back into the portal.

The Shadowbolts were retreating…

They had won… but…

At what cost?

“SOARIN?! WHERE’S SOARIN!?!?!” Dash’s voice met Descent’s ears as he slowly forced himself up from the muddy ground and stood on all four, shaky hooves.

“DAD!” Storm’s voice caught Descent’s attention. He turned to see multiple Wonderbolts pouring out of the compound as the sun of all things came out from behind all the conjured clouds that were now dissipating. Descent watched as Storm approached, but looked back up just in time to see the flying fortress disappear and the large portal close, leaving no trace of the Shadowbolts. “Dad! Are you alright?!” Storm asked frantically as he stopped beside Descent.

“Urgh…” Descent’s legs buckled and he stumbled, but Storm caught him. “Augh… I’ve been better… but I’ll live,” he cringed in pain as his son supported him.

“Oh no…” Dash’s voice sounded out again nearby. Storm and Descent looked up towards Dash as she stood frozen about twenty yards away. Spitfire joined her side and looked equally speechless within seconds.

“Take me over there,” Descent requested. Storm immediately complied, helping Descent move. As they approached, Descent watched as several Renegades began rising up from the mud. He took note of Starry and Dust moving among them, as well as the retired Wonderbolt elites. He knew that a few heavy hits wouldn’t keep them down for long… but the rest of them. Descent growled to himself, knowing full well that it was highly possible a few Renegades were killed in the sudden powerful energy attacks from the fortress.

He still couldn’t believe it. His old home, the flying Shadowbolt compound… back from the dead and turned into a freakishly powerful weapon against them… a weapon the enemy had up their sleeve all this time, waiting for the right moment to pull it out. All the confidence they had, the numbers advantage, the skill and experience, the anti-magic tactics… it all meant nothing against a weapon that powerful, and…

Descent’s eyes widened when he and Storm reached Spitfire and Dash.

Luna was on the ground, conscious, but grunting and moaning in pain, barely able to move. Soarin… was right beside her, completely unconscious with sparks of yellow and blue magic bouncing around his body erratically.

Descent and Spitfire both looked up and stared at each other.

They now knew the true horror they faced… and knowing the quick turnaround time of the Shadowbolts… they had plenty of reason to assume that it wouldn’t be long before another confrontation. Only this time, they were minus one of the best Wonderbolts, several Renegades would need medical attention… and Princess Luna looked to be in no shape to help for a while.

Even the two proud, strong leaders were at a loss for words…

Because now there was only one question…

One that neither of them could answer…

Now what were they supposed to do?

---To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Oh damn...

Who could have seen that coming? :pinkiegasp:

Now what are our heroes going to do? :applecry:

(I personally felt like this was one of my BEST action sequences :scootangel:)

okay so first... that AMAZING PICTURE OF LUNA... i actually edited to increse the magic intensity, the true pic that fox did, unedited is right here (im uploading this to depribooru as we speak):

also... if you haven't already figured it out...

The ten Shadowbolt commanders ARE based on something.

Any hardcore Final Fantasy fans are going to squeal at this...

Blade = Garland

Devil = The Emperor

Shadow = Cloud of Darkness

Moon = Golbez

Void = Exdeath

Ruin = Kefka

Angel = Sephiroth

Witch = Ultimicia

Trance = Kuza

Sin = Jecht

yep... it's all of the final fantasy villains 1-10. I am a HARD CORE final fantasy fan and i could NOT pass up the chance to include the villains from one of my favorite video game series.

In fact... the battle between them and the Renegades? It was inspired by the opening of Final Fantasy Dissidia... (AKA one of the coolest opening scenes EVAR.) Hey look! Squall is in this video! (look for the guy with the black leather jacket and the sword with a gun for a hilt):

but...

yeah...

after this...

WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO?!?!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :scootangel:

Chapter 96: Hopeless

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 96: Hopeless

“Well?” Spitfire sighed as she sat down in her desk chair before leaning forward and placing her hooves on her desk. “I’m open to suggestions… because after what happened yesterday, we’re pretty limited in terms of options going forward.”

There was only one other pony in the room and he wasn’t even looking at her. Descent was facing the wall, his uniform removed, covered in pads and bandages, deep in his own thoughts.

“If you want me to be completely honest… Spitfire…” Descent shook his head. “I was hoping you’d have some sort of plan…” he turned and faced her. “Because I never dreamed we’d face something like this.”

The two stared at each other for a moment before Spitfire leaned back in her chair and shrugged while throwing her hooves out to her sides.

“Great… just great…” she groaned. “We only have about forty Wonderbolts in fighting condition and… how many Renegades are down?”

“One hundred seventy… that’s not including the thirty-four who are up on their hooves, but not in fighting condition, or five that were… killed during the flying fortress barrage,” Descent said with clear regret. He was a hard, stone-faced leader, but if his care for Storm was any indication, he had a heart, and it ached for any life lost among his numbers. “All former Shadowbolts… great fighters and great ponies. Honestly, we’re lucky we didn’t lose more.”

“So you’re down two hundred and nine… that’s over two thirds of your force. Meaning we have a hundred thirty-one total… up against all of them, plus their commanders, their clones… and a flying super-weapon… Spitfire said while staring straight up at the ceiling. “This is pissing me off…” she suddenly added with a growl.

“The doctors have already tended to all of us, I suggest we get them and any other non-fighting ponies off the premises,” Descent suggested. “That could be a start.”

“I already have Fleetfoot on that,” Spitfire looked back down at him. “But I’m keeping our own medical staff, security, and research/mechanic staff on site.”

“What? Why?” Descent looked towards her quickly.

“To care for those still injured, to bolster our interior defenses, and to help with repairs.” Spitfire explained her reasoning for each one.

“Repairs?!” Descent spoke out in disbelief.

“Yes, repairs,” Spitfire repeated. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Spitfire, I don’t think you’re looking at this realistically…” Descent flattened his brow. “The Shadowbolts are not going to sit down and rest… you’d think after how quickly they attacked again, you’d be more wary of the danger we’re in here.”

“I’d like to think with the way the flying fortress barely made it back through the portal… that it will be a while before that thing appears again… at least I hope…” Spitfire’s composure dropped a little as she looked down at her desk.

“Precisely,” Descent stepped towards her. “What if you’re wrong? What if they do come right back with it? We don’t know for sure, but I will tell you what I DO know…” Descent pointed at her sternly. “The Shadowbolts have consistently proved to us that they have the means to do what seems impossible… so assuming they won’t have a way to recharge the fortress and possibly come back with it today… is writing your own deathwish.”

“Descent… I know what you’re about to suggest… but….” Spitfire reached a hoof up and rubbed her forehead.

“Having anypony stay here is frankly, a poor decision… even us,” Descent nodded. “We should consider having a plan to flee the compound.”

“No,” Spitfire instantly answered while letting her hoof fall back to her desk. “Absolutely not.”

“Consider the circumstances, Spitfire…” Descent growled as he put a hoof on her desk. “Our forces are severely weakened, and the two ponies that saved us from certain destruction are now out of commission.”

“Descent,” Spitfire glared directly at him, equaling his harsh stare. “I will not go down in history as the Wonderbolt captain that fled and let our beloved home be destroyed,” she stated adamantly as the two locked eyes in a battle of wills.

“Consider what is at stake,” Descent gritted his teeth. “We are sitting ducks here, they know where we are, and they know more than one way to attack us. We’re a target. We’re vulnerable. It’s a disadvantage and you know it.”

“I don’t expect you to understand or care,” Spitfire shot right back. “After all, it’s not YOUR home… it’s not a symbol of YOUR organization, their strength, and their legacy. As far as I’m concerned, the moment we abandon the compound and run with our tails tucked between our legs, it’s no different than us being utterly defeated. The drop in morale would be too much. We’d crumble.”

“So you’d rather—”

“Descent…” Spitfire cut him off. “This discussion is over. We will proceed as I have planned until we otherwise know if we’re in the same danger that we were yesterday. Anything less than that gives us no reason to even remotely consider what you’re suggesting.”

The two stared long and hard at each other again in complete silence for roughly a minute before anything else was said. Descent grunted and blew a loud snort through his nose.

“Fine,” he turned his back to her. “Do what you will… I will continue our scouting with the Renegades we have available,” he glanced over his shoulder. “Consider your options well, Spitfire… Should you be forced to a decision, do you want to be known as the captain that ran, or the captain that let the Wonderbolts completely die? Your options are rather thin there as well…”

Not another word was uttered as Descent left. Spitfire simply stared at the door as it closed behind him. Her right hoof began to shake as she thought over everything that was just said… gritting her teeth and growling to herself. She slammed her hoof over her desk, causing the contents to shift and a stack of papers to collapse as she turned her chair around and looked out the window, up into the sky.

“Rainbow Dash.”

“Uh…” Dash groaned and stirred.

“Dash, wake up.”

“Huh?” Dash opened her eyes and blinked, picking her head up off the mattress and sitting upright in her chair. She groggily looked to her left to see Bliss tapping her on the shoulder.

“Sorry but, you’re going to have to move. I need to run a few checks on Soarin,” Bliss said with a frown, she didn’t want to pull Dash away from her lover, but she had a job to do.

Dash’s ears flopped down as she frowned and looked back towards Soarin, lying on his back in the medical bed. Obviously, she didn’t want to leave his side, but Bliss had to work… and in all honesty, Dash probably should have been out helping around the compound. She felt a little selfish, but at the same time, there had been no real new orders yet and the only thing on her mind was Soarin.

They had brought him right to the infirmary along with Luna and several Renegades after the flying fortress retreated. Dash ended up spending the whole night there, and had only left to grab breakfast before coming right back to his side and apparently nodding off.

The Wonderbolts and any Renegades who weren’t severely hurt were frantically running around the compound to help with evacuations of the staff and any repairs, but again… nothing had been said in terms of what the Wonderbolt plans were going forward, so Soarin was her top priority right now. She didn’t want to move from his side until she absolutely had to.

Despite the situation and the dangers they all faced, Bliss was still staying on task, caring more about the injured ponies than the possibility of being blown to smithereens. Dash was reluctant to pull away, but if Bliss could help Soarin in any way, she wasn’t going to block her path.

Dash looked over Soarin one more time… examining his condition. He was out cold, but occasionally squinted and groaned. The sparks and pops of magic around his body had ceased, but the horn was still glowing, changing between yellow and blue every few seconds.

Dash leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on Soarin’s cheek before pulling away and nodding to Bliss. Her eyes opened in surprise as Bliss’ magic came to life, surrounded her, and pulled her forward into a gentle hug.

“I’ll take care of him, don’t worry,” Bliss assured her before releasing Dash and giving her a warm smile. Dash smiled back weakly.

“Thanks,” Dash replied as she stepped back and let Bliss do her work.

She watched carefully as Bliss went through the motions. She gently felt around Soarin’s head first.

“Hmm…” she scrunched her face before putting a hoof to the pulse on his neck. “Hmmmm…” she hummed again before grabbing a sphygmomanometer and wrapping it around his arm. She pumped it up tight before hovering a stethoscope over to her, fastening it to her ears and placing the other end on his arm as she released the air. “Still has a light fever… heart rate is still higher than it should be, and his blood pressure is way off…” she looked over at Dash and noticed she didn’t look too happy to hear those things. However, she didn’t want to sugarcoat it for Dash. That was taboo in her profession. “I wish I could understand more of what’s going on in his body, but I have no doubt the inner magic or whatever he’s been dealing with had been putting a lot of strain on his body… I’m surprised he hasn’t come to me and complained more.”

“He tends to suck it up,” Dash said with a light chuckle, despite the situation. “I just hope he’s alright. It’s been a while since… this has happened,” Dash sighed and frowned again. Soarin’s body was reacting negatively, yet she was curious as to why she didn’t feel anything. He didn’t look like he was in pain, it was more like he had pushed his body and the magic far beyond their limits and was now paying for it with incredible mental and physical exhaustion. Perhaps using the magic on such a scale was risky, it was what kept Soarin alive after all. While the overuse obviously didn’t kill him, it had drained him to the point where his body was overcompensating.

While Dash was worried about him, she wasn’t afraid of his current state. The fact that her heart was at ease and not reacting meant that the magic wasn’t hurting him, nor was his condition fatal. She’d be having massive problems if that was the case.

It made her wonder though… about the magic itself. She didn’t feel anything when Soarin called forth as much magic as possible to save them all. Usually, he wasn’t able to do so without her right beside him. It was for survival… which made her wonder further…

Soarin had talked about voices in his head… most likely caused by the magic. Was the magic sentient? Did it want to survive as much as Soarin did, therefore allowing him to use it to its full potential without trying to pull him down? There were so many things about the magic they didn’t understand, it seemed reasonable to assume such a thing was possible.

Bliss looked back at Soarin, putting away her tools before she suddenly looked up and across the room.

“LUNA!” Bliss suddenly called out as she made her way past Dash and a few Renegade-occupied beds. Dash looked up to see Luna trying to get out of her bed, grunting and grimacing as she did. “Luna, for the last time, please stay in bed! You need rest!” Bliss demanded with a bit of sternness in her voice. Not even Luna was free of Bliss’ authority in the training room it seemed. Bliss tried to reach for Luna, but she held out a hoof.

“Bliss… we appreciate your concern, but… we can’t afford to remain bedridd—OW!” Luna yelped, her legs buckling as her hooves touched to the floor. Bliss quickly stepped forward and helped her stand back up.

“Luna, please…” Bliss pouted at her, but Luna shook her head.

“We are drained… but we must not lie down. For the sake of the Wonderbolts and Renegades, we must be seen on our hooves,” Luna spoke for the morale of the compound. “Just… let us try to stand, we will be fine,” she asked softly. Bliss sighed and let go of Luna.

“Fine… just take it easy, please,” Bliss asked. Luna nodded.

“We shall.”

Dash watched as Luna struggled to stand and she could definitely see why Luna denied Bliss’ request to remain down. Seeing Luna stand up after literally draining herself to save all of them was inspiring. The situation… was beyond grim. Everypony needed all the motivation they could get, and knowing their goddess of the night and only available Equestrian leader was up and on her hooves after sacrificing so much for them… was a powerful sight. It was a sight that was amplified knowing that she had put herself in the way of grave danger after having led them on for so long. Her intentions to help and make up for what she had done were very clear to all of them now. She had yet to fully regain their trust, but she was off to one hell of a good start.

“DOCTOR, DOCTOR!” A silly voice suddenly came from the ceiling. Bliss, Luna, Dash, and every other pony occupying the infirmary all flinched and looked towards Bliss. “TELL ME THE NEWS!” A ceiling tile suddenly shifted open on the ceiling. Bliss looked up at it, but Discord popped up from the floor and put his arms out. “I HAVE A BAA-AA-AA-AA-AA-AAHHHHD CASE OF LOVING EWES!”

Suddenly a bunch of sheep fell out of the open ceiling tile and landed on top of Discord in a huge pile.

Not a single pony as much as let out a chuckle as Discord poked his head out from the pile of bleating sheep.

“Oh, come on,” he sighed as all the sheep disappeared and he crossed his arms, looking down at Bliss glaring at him. “That Fleetfoot mare tells a joke and you all squirt milk out of your noses, laughing. But not me, hmm… not good old Discord, eh? I’ve never felt so punwanted…” he said with a scoff.

“YOU!” Luna’s voice boomed out from behind Bliss before anypony else could express their lack of enthusiasm for the god of chaos and his poorly timed joke. Discord barely reacted as he looked over at Luna, who was gritting her teeth and glaring at him. “WHERE WERE YOU YESTERDAY!” Luna fumed as Discord stepped around Bliss and approached Luna. “WE COULD HAVE USED YOUR HEL—mrph!” Luna’s voice was muffled as Discord reached forward and clamped her mouth shut with a hand.

“Lulu… inside voice, please…” he turned and looked as several Renegades who were resting had been stirred awake by the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Oh look, you woke them all up,” Discord rolled his eyes. Luna swiped a hoof up and patted Discord’s arm away, but as she did, she lost her hoofing, her legs shaking, and she began to teeter over. Discord reached down and grabbed her by the shoulders, preventing her from falling. Luna blinked and looked up at him in surprise, but still ended up glaring at him.

“Why didn’t you help?” Luna huffed. “Did you enjoy watching me struggle out there alone?” she pressed as Discord just stared at her sternly. “You help one moment and abandon us the next, what is WRONG with you?!”

“Lulu…” Discord snorted while letting her stand on her own and crossing his arms again. “I can’t be in several places at once…” he said as his body dismembered for a moment before coming back together, all with a straight face. “You glare at me right now, but believe me… when the time comes, you’ll be glad I’m doing my part,” Discord remained completely still as Luna stomped a hoof and nearly knocked herself off balance again.

“We were almost completely destroyed! That seems like quite a DRASTIC thing to miss! If you’re so concerned about Soarin and the Wonderbolts as you claim, what’s stopping you from helping us?! What could possibly be more important?! You sicken us! Every damned inch of you and your disgusting snake-like body!” Luna harshly berated him as Discord kept quiet and let her rant.

Dash was glaring at Discord as well from off to the side. She, and no doubt everypony else was wondering why he hadn’t helped during the attack yesterday. Dash glanced at Bliss as she grabbed electro-stim pads, hooked them up to the stim machine with her magic, and moved them towards Discord.

Without looking, Discord lifted up his arm and snapped his fingers. Bliss flinched in surprise as the stim-pads turned into puppy heads that began yapping and licking Bliss’ face. As she struggled to get away from them, Discord turned around and stared flatly at Bliss.

“Put those down, you made it loud and clear last time that I’m not welcome in your little kingdom of medicine here…” He looked back at Luna. “I greatly understand the situation the Wonderbolts are in, Lulu, but unfortunately, there are other things that require my attention,” he reached down and placed a finger under Luna’s chin. “And if I didn’t BELIEVE that you and the Wonderbolts could handle it… then I WOULD be here to assist twenty-four seven. You look at me and insult me when I place my faith in you? I can’t hold your hoof everywhere you go, Lulu…”

“Then why are you here now?!” Luna growled. “If you have the time to come in here and make terrible puns, then you have time to stick around and help us!”

“Unfortunately, I don’t,” Discord flipped Luna’s chin up before turning away.

“What?! You… you…” Luna was about to explode at him again, but Discord turned around sharply.

“I’m here now because I was CONCERNED about the condition of Celestia’s little sister!” Discord suddenly snapped. Luna’s eyes went wide with surprise as Discord stepped towards her and poked her in the chest. “And sooner or later you’re going to have to understand that I am working within our interests, as much as you’d like to simply glare and snarl at me,” he pulled away from her and turned his back as Luna stared at him in silence. “You like to think I don’t care at all… but if I didn’t, would I even be here to check on you right now?” he shrugged. “Oh well, can’t please everypony I guess… well… I’m off, and I hope you all are ready to keep fighting, because I don’t have the luxury of babysitting you all. Tah-tah, Lulu…” Discord reached up a hand.

“Wait!” Luna reached forward, but Discord snapped his fingers and disappeared. Luna stared where he used to stand, a look of confusion, and a little bit of regret on her face.

Dash had to admit, as much as she didn’t trust Discord, there was clearly a lot going on between him and Luna in terms of trying to diffuse the current situation. However they didn’t seem to be on the same page. Discord clearly knew something, and was withholding whatever that was, but he claimed it was for their own good… how far could they trust him? After seeing a rare display of concern for another, it seemed like he was being trustworthy, but if he refused to reveal things to Luna, how far did that trust go?

“Dash…” Bliss’ voice caught her attention. “I have a favor to ask of you,” she asked as she approached, going right back to business with Discord gone and the stim-pads no longer being puppies. Dash turned and nodded. Bliss made a head motion for her to follow.

Dash glanced towards Soarin for a moment before moving to follow Bliss. They walked by multiple beds, the infirmary now packed full with Renegades as opposed to Wonderbolts. Dash had not heard any reports, but after the punishment the Renegades took the day before, she was worried that some may have been killed. The magic blasts from the fortress cannons were enormous and some of the Renegades were struck by multiple volleys before being driven hard to the ground. They were in a bind in terms of staff as well. The Canterlot hospital doctors had done what they could to help and were now being evacuated from the compound. Bliss’ staff was capable of handling it from there, but the sheer number of Renegades hurt was drastically higher than the number of Wonderbolts from the two days prior. Bliss’ staff was stretched thin, and they only had so much room. Medical staff members were running back and forth between the infirmary and barracks, where any Renegades they couldn’t fit into the infirmary were being cared for.

“We only have one other Wonderbolt aside from Soarin in here right now…” Bliss began, grabbing Dash’s attention as they walked among the Renegades and Bliss’ frantic staff. “We need as much space as we can get, and he’s in good enough condition to go back to the barracks, I just want you to help him get there, I’m sure his equilibrium is still a bit off from slight pain centered on his forehead.”

Dash’s eyes widened as Bliss explained, and a moment later, they stopped in front of a bed with a familiar, unenthused face.

“Squall!” Dash’s eyes brightened and she smiled when she saw him sitting up in bed. He perked up and blinked when Dash called out his name, but quickly went back to looking miffed. Most of the bandages around his head had been removed. He now had a single patch covering the stitches on his face and a few bandages still wrapped around his head, but significantly less.

“Hmph…” he grunted and looked away, causing Dash to roll her eyes.

“Yep, he’s definitely feeling alright,” Dash smirked as Bliss walked over to Squall’s side.

“Squall, Dash is going to take you back to the barracks now, alright?” Bliss explained as she tapped him on the shoulder. To Dash’s surprise, Squall did not show any visible reaction to being touched.

“Fine…” he said quietly.

“Take it easy,” Bliss ordered as she helped him shift, “I’m sure you still feel a little bit of pain?”

“Yes…” Squall replied simply again as Bliss helped him get out of the bed and onto his hooves. His legs wobbled a bit, but he managed to stand. He grunted as he tried to take a few steps, his face wrought with discomfort as he winced and tipped his head down.

“Just lean on Dash, and take it slow…” Bliss helped him over to Dash.

As happy as Dash was to see Squall up and moving, she realized that she would be leaving Soarin behind. Bliss noticed as Dash glanced back towards Soarin and placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder.

“I won’t let him out of my sight, I promise,” she assured Dash. “You should make sure you aren’t needed around the compound too.”

“I probably should…” Dash admitted, despite having to leave Soarin. “But I’ll help Squall first,” she said as she looked towards Squall with a smile. Bliss helped Squall lean up against her and the two began walking down the aisle. Dash did her part in helping him move, but took it extra slow as they passed by Soarin, keeping her eyes on him until her neck couldn’t turn any further. They passed by Luna as well. She was still looking a little distraught after the brief encounter with Discord, but seeing her up on her hooves was still an inspiring sight. Hopefully the inspiration wouldn’t go to waste.

Dash and Squall remained silent as they reached the door and left the infirmary behind.

“So…” Dash spoke up as she and Squall slowly made their way towards the lobby. “How are you feeling?” she asked, generally concerned and also eager to talk to him for the first time since he got hurt.

“I’m fine…” Squall answered. Dash was noticing a trend. Squall’s words tended to be sharp, especially when prodded, but so far, from Bliss telling him it was time to go, to Dash asking him here, his words had been softer. He was asleep when they all woke up after the night she and Foxtrot spent with him. She wondered if he knew they were there. “What the hell happened last night?” he suddenly asked. Dash looked towards him and noticed him looking all around at the commotion.

It was no surprise he was curious, not only did the Wonderbolt compound suddenly get peppered by magic attacks the night before, but the hallways were in shambles. Ceiling tiles had been knocked loose, windows were broken, a few lights had fallen, some of the walls were cracked… Wonderbolts and staff workers in the form of security and mechanics/researchers were moving about, trying to repair internal damage the best they could on short notice. The overall mood of all the ponies seemed rather down as well, which was also no surprise, given the circumstances. Squall had missed a lot.

“It’s a long story…” Dash sighed. “In short, the Shadowbolts have much more at their disposal than we thought… and I’m not gonna lie, we’re pretty screwed unless something comes up in our favor.”

“That’s reassuring…” Squall grunted. “Is Little Star alright?” he asked completely out of the blue. Dash blinked and looked at him curiously. “What?” he asked while scrunching his face.

“Uh… yeah, we’re all fine, the Renegades are the ones who took a beating,” Dash replied.

“The who?” Squall asked. Dash stared at him blankly, realizing that he had been wounded before the Renegades even showed up. When they brought him back during the aftermath, his eyes were shut tight with the blood flowing down his face. They paused, forced to stop as Squall looked up to see two Renegades walk by, staring at them both alarmed and curious. Dash sighed.

“Where do I even start?”

They continued all the way from the hallway and to the barracks. Dash did her best to explain everything in short, but she knew Squall would have to see a great deal of things for himself before most of it would make sense. The only thing that was clear to him and to Dash as well at the moment was the mood of the compound. Ponies were rushing everywhere, trying to help out, but… nopony looked confident.

Dash herself was worried about what would happen next, as she was sure everypony was. Because after what happened the night before… what hope did they have to fend off another attack? Another worry, hit her as they approached the door to their barracks… what was she supposed to tell her squad? No doubt they would look to her for some guidance, but she had none to give. The P.A. had been silent all day. No word from Spitfire or any other Wonderbolt with authority. She hoped at least, that Squall being brought back to them would give them something to be happy about.

Dash stopped right in front of the door as Squall hesitated. She blinked and turned to look at him as he eyed the door with worry.

“What’s up?” Dash asked. Squall shook his head.

“Nothing, I’m… fine,” he said again.

“Are you sure?” Dash pressed, this being the fifth time he simply said ‘I’m fine’ when asked. Squall was clearly not expecting her to press him on anything. “Squall, what is it?” she asked with a sigh and a flat look.

“Why did…” he started while staring directly into her eyes, but paused, shutting his mouth tight. Dash waited for him to continue, but of course, he didn’t.

“Why did what?” she nodded to encourage him. He quickly shook his head.

“Nothing,” he dodged and tried to step towards the door, but he stumbled as he did. Dash quickly shifted to support him again. He released a heavy sigh as he looked at her, before staring back at the door.

“Squall…” Dash said his name sternly, really wanting to know what he was talking about.

“Nnnnnghh…” he grunted how he always did when he was done talking. Dash shook her head, chuckling lightly as she walked him towards the door.

“Great to have you back Squall,” she said with a hint of sarcasm, despite being very serious about it. She pushed the door open and helped him into the barracks.

Upon entering, Dash was surprised that nopony reacted. She figured they’d be on edge and wondering where she was. It became clear when they stepped out of the entry hallway and into the barracks itself. The only one in the room was Matteo. He was lying flat on his bed and facing away from the door. No doubt he had a lot on his mind right now. As if the whole thing with his father wasn’t enough, now he also had the current situation to worry about. Twister and Little Star were nowhere to be seen, making Dash’s heart sink a little. She was hoping that Squall would have a warm reception, but she wasn’t going to expect Matteo to do so with his current mood.

“I’ll just go over to my—” Squall began, but stopped the moment the mare’s bathroom door opened and Little Star stepped out. She froze in place and her eyes widened when they landed on Squall, and the somber look on her face was instantly replaced by an incredibly shocked smile.

“SQUALL!!!!” she squealed with delight as she lifted off and shot towards him. Squall and Dash both flinched as Dash reached out a hoof.

“Wait, wait! Star! He’s still—!”

“OOF!!” Squall grunted as Star slammed into him, latching onto his neck and hugging him while fluttering her wings happily. Squall was forced into a sitting position, before swaying woozily and falling flat towards the floor. Star gasped and detached from him before he slumped down.

“Star… he’s still a bit dizzy…” Dash sighed as Little Star frantically glanced between Squall and Dash.

“Eheh… Sorry?” she grinned sheepishly as Squall slowly pushed himself back up off the ground. He flattened his brow and pouted, staring at Star as she blushed in embarrassment. “Got a little carried away…I’m just happy to see you,” she admitted while pulling part of her long mane over and hiding all of her face except for her eyes behind it.

“Whatever…” Squall sighed as he turned to move to his bed, but he nearly ran directly into Matteo, who had silently made his way over during the commotion. Squall’s eyes widened and he looked directly up into Matteo’s usual stoic expression.

“Welcome back,” Matteo greeted him.

“Yeah… sure…” Squall took a step back and started walking around Matteo, but stopped halfway around. “I mean… uh… thanks…” he suddenly changed his response as he made his way over to his bed and slumped down on it, taking a deep breath and sighing.

“Say, where’s Twister?” Dash asked as she turned to Star. Star was barely done turning towards her when Dash held out a hoof. “Wait… lemme guess… he randomly disappeared about an hour or so ago?” she questioned, quickly earning a nod from Star.

“The usual… he made some comment about anchovies and disappeared,” she said while rolling her eyes.

“Typical,” Dash sighed as she looked towards Squall. Before she could ask anything else, Star was already hovering towards him. She sat on his bed beside him and started asking him how he was doing. Matteo’s focus had turned to Squall as well.

The site was heartwarming. Something that Dash really needed. With what lied on the horizon, she, nor anypony else had much to smile about. Not to mention she was endlessly worrying about Soarin. It was sure to be short lived, but simply having Squall back with her and her squadmates brought a much needed smile to her face.

She wanted to bring them all together and tell them everything was going to be alright, but she didn’t even know what was going on. No announcement had come over the loudspeaker… which to her suggested that even Spitfire was at a loss in terms of what to do next. Where could she go to get some reassurance?

She blinked as a very obvious pony came to mind… but as she thought about him… she also realized that the past two days had been quite a strain on the Wonderbolts, which gave her one, very particular worry.

“Guys, stay with Squall,” Dash suddenly spoke up and pointed at them. She didn’t want them to know how worried she was. She felt she owed them answers as the captain of their squad, but she needed to get some first. However, her sudden departure made it pretty clear she was worried. As she approached the door, she yelped as something landed on her shoulder. She turned around to see Matteo right behind her. She was seriously considering having him wear a bell.

“Wait…” he requested as he let go. “Is there anything you can tell us about what’s going on right now? The silence of the higher ups is worrying us.”

Dash frowned and shook her head.

“That’s actually… exactly what I’m going to try and find out,” Dash looked past Matteo back at Squall. “Keep him company for now, he’s more confused than the rest of us. Maybe give him a fuller rundown on what’s happened so far, I don’t think I did it justice. I’ll come back as soon as I learn something, okay?”

“Very well,” Matteo huffed in disappointment before turning back towards Squall.

Dash left eagerly right after because aside from wanting answers, something else was making her worry.

After how rough the past two days had been… was Silver alright?

“Wave, I swear to Celestia, if you ask me ONE more time, I will tie you to the flagpole outside by the tail and have High Winds blast your ass with strong gusts for three hours straight,” Silver growled as he lay in bed… at half past noon.

“Sir… you’ve been in bed all day, are you sure you’re fine? And really, you already did that to me once, years ago,” Wave commented as Silver kept his back turned to him.

“Are you tempting me to do it again?” Silver grunted, clearly aware that his threats were not having any effect on Wave. “I’m catching up on sleep…” he lied as he grumbled.

“This is an interesting time to catch up on sleep…” Wave tried desperately to understand why his captain refused to get out of bed.

Before he could prod Silver any further, a knock came from the door.

“Son of a bitch…” Silver growled, feeling trapped.

“Silver?!” Dash’s voice came through the door. “Are you in there?”

“Is that…?” Wave blinked as he looked towards the door. “Rainbow D—”

“YEAH, DOOR’S OPEN! GET YOUR TECHNICOLOR ASS IN HERE, WE NEED TO TALK!” Silver cut off Wave in a very over the top, shouting manner. Dash opened the door and looked in curiously, quickly spotting Silver, in his bed, facing the wall, ignoring Wave.

“Uh…” Dash blinked, not sure what she was looking at.

“Wave, take a hike,” Silver said plainly.

“Sir?” he shook his head out and blinked, completely confused as to what was going on.

“I said get your blueberry, candy-ass out of here, I need to… have a… talk with Rainbow Dash…” Silver stumbled over his excuse.

“Sir, really, what is—,”

“Dash, go get High Winds,” Silver suddenly ordered, but before Dash could reply, Wave flinched and turned.

“Alright! Alright! I’m going!” he grunted as he quickly left and closed the door behind him. Dash blinked several times before looking towards Silver.

“What the hell was that all about?” Dash asked as she eyed Silver curiously.

“Urrrgghhh…” Silver groaned as he slowly turned over.

“Be a good student, shut up, and grab my damn pills for me,” he said as his face came into view. It was clearly in a lot of pain.

“Oh!” Dash flinched in realization. She was completely right about her worries. She stepped over to Silver’s medicine cabinet and grabbed the two pill bottles she once helped him with before. She quickly brought the pills to him along with some water and helped him take them down.

As he slowly sat up in bed and took a few deep breaths, Dash smirked at him.

“So I guess you’re lucky I came along again, huh?” she let out a light chuckle. “Wave was really pushing it, wasn’t he?”

“He’s usually out of the room for the day by now…” Silver growled as he shook his head and cracked his neck. “Of course we’re not really following schedules at the moment…” Silver grumbled to himself as he slowly moved his limbs about. “Too much damn fighting too. Don’t know how many more back to back days of fighting I can handle… my body’s a mess…”

“Silver…” Dash began as she stepped around and sat on the bed beside him.

“If it’s about me sitting out, I’m gonna punch you in the gut so hard, you’ll throw up a rainbow…”

“Yeah, no, I gave up on voicing my concern for you a while ago,” Dash flattened her brow at Silver’s comment.

“At least somepony in this damn compound understands that… okay, what is it?” he asked. Dash paused and rubbed her shoulder with her opposite hoof.

“I dunno… I’m just trying to figure things out…” she began catching Silver’s attention. “I feel like I’ve been walking and sitting around all day. My mind keeps wandering. I go from one thing to the next in the blink of an eye because I’m desperate for some direction. All I’ve seen all day are ponies running around, trying to repair the compound while looking like they have no motivation to, what gives?”

Silver remained silent for a moment before sighing.

“I find it kind of funny that you’re asking me this. I’ve been in bed all day,” Silver glanced at her and saw her pouting and glaring at him. “Well, what did you expect?”

“Something reassuring would have been nice,” Dash sighed as she hopped off the bed and back to her hooves. “Didn’t you talk to Spitfire at all yesterday?”

“Nope,” Silver shook his head. “We helped the Renegades and then she shut herself in her office. I haven’t heard a damn thing since. Fire and I are meeting with her in an hour though.”

So much for this idea. Dash had come, hoping to get something, anything from Silver, but as he said, he was just as in the dark as the rest. What was going to happen to them? If the Shadowbolts attacked again, they were completely screwed. She only hoped that it took a long time for the flying fortress to recharge… because they had no answer to it.

Dash frowned as she turned back to Silver, sure he didn’t know, but now she was just getting frustrated. Since it seemed they would know soon, she shifted her attention to her mentor. A thought came to mind as soon as she thought over his current situation.

“You haven’t eaten today, have you?” Dash suddenly asked.

“Not this again,” Silver grunted as he slowly hopped off his bed and took a few stiff steps. “I thought they were evacuating our staff, I didn’t know our chefs were that suicidal.”

“They are being evacuated, but they set out food before being dragged out. Come on,” Dash grabbed him by the arm.

“I’m not hungry,” Silver denied it as Dash pulled him towards the door.

“Yes you are,” Dash looked at him sternly.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No,” Silver reached out and grabbed the edge of the door as Dash tried to pull him out of his room.

“Quit being stubborn!” Dash growled as she failed to move him. Three doors down, Storm suddenly stepped out of his room and looked towards them. “Storm!” Dash called to him as he looked at the scene curiously. “Get over here!”

“Uh…” Storm looked back and forth. “Okay?” he complied as he trotted towards them.

“Help me get this old fart to the mess hall!” she demanded.

“Pardon?” Storm winced as Silver looked sharply at him and started shaking his head back and forth vigorously. “I don’t think he wants to…” Storm took a step back.

“Shut up and help me pull him,” Dash demanded. Storm just stared. “NOW!” Dash added.

“Okay! Okay!” Storm complied, mostly because Silver never gave any orders not to. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew Silver and Dash often interacted… he just had yet to see it in this manner.

Together, the two managed to dislodge Silver from his door and nearly fling him out into the hallway. They both lost their grip on him as they fell over and he quickly tried to get up and get away. Only, he took two steps and stumbled, falling against the wall.

“Dammit…” he cursed as Storm and Dash approached him. “Fine, I’ll get some food, just keep in mind I have a meeting in an hour.

“Good,” Dash nodded triumphantly as Storm continued to wonder what he had just been dragged into.

“Just…” Fleetfoot scratched her head as she looked up at the hangar window. She sighed and turned back to a couple of Wonderbolts and a mechanic. “I don’t know what to do about the hangar window, it’s been broken for a few days now. Whatever you think might work I guess…” she shrugged at them.

The ponies glanced at each other, not looking too enthusiastic before they turned away from Fleetfoot and disappeared back into the cacophony of ponies moving every which way.

Fleetfoot’s ears drooped as she watched them leave, turning back towards the large groups of staff that were being led out of the compound.

“Keep moving! Stay in line!” She ordered as she watched the doctors all leave, followed by a large number of the administrative workers. Spitfire had put her in charge of evacuating any non-essential personnel, but the task ended up being a lot more depressing than she thought it would be. There wasn’t a single smile in the entire lobby. Not that they had much to smile about right now, but Fleetfoot was also the only member of the lead squad present. She hated when that happened because she preferred ponies looking to Spitfire or Soarin during troubled times. She was being bombarded by questions by the rest, about the repairs and what they should do about certain things, but she had no real good answers for them.

Spitfire was up in her office, Soarin was down for the count, and she had no idea where Air Mach was, so it was only her. Ponies were looking at her with wide eyes, for guidance, for encouragement, the kinds of things she never felt good enough to give. It was taking a toll on her, especially because she really had nothing to say. She didn’t know any better about what was going on or what was going to happen than those who were asking. All she knew was that Spitfire expressed interest in trying to patch up the compound and get it ready for another confrontation while also evacuating anypony who didn’t need to be there.

Fleetfoot was handling that for the most part, but she really, really wanted to know what was going to happen next. An uncertain future was not fun to look forward to… especially a bleak one. What could they possibly do against the might of the new Shadowbolts? Not even the Renegades were ready for it. The situation felt three hundred percent hopeless.

She looked towards the front door for a moment, spotting Descent at the door, conversing with a scout right outside. Specifically, the scout with the wing braces she had seen before. Descent had wasted no time in sending out lookouts again. Fleetfoot felt bad for him. She heard that a few of the Renegades managed to pick themselves up fine after the surprise attack from the flying fortress, but unfortunately, a large number of the rest were now down for the count, and they lost five. Descent, true to being a leader, went right back to business in doing what he could to help, but even behind his stone face, Fleetfoot was sure he was pained by the loss of five members. It probably didn’t help that they were all former Shadowbolts either.

She perked up when her eyes fell on the clock that somehow still hung below the broken hangar windows. She had been down in the lobby keeping the direction of things, but she had to go meet with Spitfire. After looking around, she spotted Blaze.

“Blaze!” she called over, purposely not using the nickname. There was no time for jokes, even Fleetfoot knew when to be serious. Blaze looked over from helping refit the metal bars over a window, quickly finishing the placement before gliding over.

“What’s up?”

It was definitely a strange sight to all around. Fleetfoot and Blaze talking with each other seriously, but this was the nature of the moment.

“Take over for me, alright? I gotta meet with Spitfire and the top captains,” she said as she started walking away.

“If she doesn’t tell you what the hell we’re going to do, punch her until she does, alright? I’m sick of this…” Blaze grumbled without complaining at all about Fleetfoot handing her job off to her.

Fleetfoot didn’t even reply, she simply shifted her eyes slightly downward to avoid any more eye contact as she moved towards the stairs, eager to get away from all the eyes landing on her, all looking for a sliver of hope or guidance that she simply couldn’t provide.

Reaching the stairs was an incredible relief for her. While there were still ponies moving around on both the stairs and the second floor, it wasn’t nearly as densely packed. She felt much less pressure as she made it to the top, and aimed directly for Spitfire’s office.

The door was already slightly ajar so Fleetfoot went right ahead and let herself in, only pausing for a brief moment right before opening the door when she heard a familiar voice speaking.

“There isn’t quite so much damage on the second and third floor… and even after that interior has mostly held together…”

Fleetfoot walked in, spotting Spitfire behind her desk, listening carefully to Rivet as he gave her a damage analysis of the compound. Fleetfoot quietly stepped through the door and walked over to the couch.

“I did a—” Rivet paused, his eyes going wide when he saw Fleetfoot walk up in his peripheral vision, but when she went for the couch and sat down instead of rushing him, he continued. “I took a quick look outside. Most of the damage is on the outer structure, quite a few pieces were blown off, revealing beams and the skeletal structure of the compound itself, but the frame looks more or less undamaged. We’re lucky Luna stepped in when she did because the only real damage was to the outer shell of the compound. I don’t see any danger of collapse unless we take another similar beating.”

Fleetfoot watched Spitfire carefully as Rivet gave the report. She had a strange look on her face that looked half-interested, half-‘what does it really matter?’. While it was important to get the damage report, Fleetfoot could only wonder what sort of options Spitfire was considering. What options did they even have?

Fleetfoot looked up, surprised when she saw Fire Streak and Air Mach walk in and sit down on the other side of the room. She didn’t even notice them walk in.

“We’re focusing most of our efforts on patching up the interior right now. Like I said, it’s not as bad as the exterior, but better to make sure that everything is stable inside first…”

Fleetfoot looked over to the door as it opened and Silver walked in… with both Dash and Storm Front supporting him? The two nervously led him in, both standing awkwardly by his side as they let go, wondering if they should be in there.

“Now, I took a look around the basement not too long ago, and thankfully, most of it is in one piece, none of the plumbing networks or heating pipes seem to be damaged which is good because those are a pain to get replaced…” Rivet went on as the rest waited patiently for him to finish the report. He hadn’t even noticed that Silver, Fire, Air Mach, Dash, and Storm were even there.

Dash and Storm kept hesitating between standing still and trying to leave, but eventually Silver rolled his eyes and looked at them both.

“Just stay here,” he said quietly so as not to interrupt Rivet. He looked at Dash specifically. “You were curious, right? Might as well.”

Dash swallowed and nodded, remaining still and waiting for Rivet to finish so Spitfire could start the meeting.

“And finally, there’s no damage to the underground passageways or any equipment in my—”

“Spitfire!”

Rivet yelped as Descent suddenly threw the door to her office open and rushed in with Starry, Blazetail, and Flashwind all in tow. Rivet turned around, his eyes going wide and his pupils shrinking as he spotted all the ponies that were behind him. He shied away off to the side, shifting all the way over next to the couch beside Fleetfoot as Descent stepped heavily past him. Spitfire was suddenly up and looking much more attentive than when Rivet was speaking, taking note of the urgency in Descent’s tone and manner.

“From the look on your face… I don’t think I’m going to like what you’re about to say…” Spitfire gritted her teeth and shook her head. The rest of the ponies in the room looked between the two of them curiously. The manner in which they exchanged words suggested that they had already once spoken on the matter at hoof.

“Our scouts just returned from a wide spread sweep of Canterlot and a good thirty miles outside of the city…” he explained. “There is a large force of Shadowbolts approaching from the south.”

“Just what I was hoping you wouldn’t say…” Spitfire replied in a manner that seemed surprisingly calm despite the rest of the room erupting into gasps. “Well…”

“Wait…” Descent cut her off. “I’m afraid there’s more,” he stated, remaining serious. Spitfire and the rest all kept their eyes glued to him. “They are advancing slowly, I’d say it will be about half an hour until they get here… but it’s because the flying fortress is with them.”

Not a single word was uttered for a good thirty seconds as the Wonderbolts in the room tried to absorb what they had just heard. Surprisingly, the first one to speak up was…

“THAT’S PREPOSTEROUS!” Fire Streak blurted out from Descent’s left. “They’re already coming back with that… THING?!”

“What chance do we even have?” Fleetfoot added as she put her hooves over her head and stuffed her face into the couch cushion.

“That doesn’t make any sense…” Spitfire blinked and threw her hooves out. “Why aren’t they using a portal like yesterday?” she questioned. “Are your scouts sure that’s what they saw?”

“My scouts are the best of the best, Spitfire,” Descent snarled, his demeanor calmer than one would expect, but then again, it wasn’t his compound that was in danger. “My best guess would be that they were going for a surprise yesterday… now they know we’re down… so they’re going to waltz right up to us and smash us to bits. Knowing my former fellow Shadowbolts in charge over there… that’s definitely something they’d do.”

“Grrr…” Spitfire growled as she looked down at her desk.

“Well?” Descent quickly pressed. “Now will you consider what we discussed before?” he stepped towards Spitfire. Again the rest were left wondering what was exchanged prior between the two.

However, Spitfire looked away from Descent and towards the rest.

“Suggestions?” she asked her captains and squadmates. All of them blinked and looked at her as if she was crazy for asking. Air Mach tipped his glasses down and lifted his brow.

“Uh… lady captain… we’re kind of here right now because we don’t know what to do…” he said seriously. Hearing Air Mach say something outside of a ridiculous ‘rah-rah let’s get them’ attitude was one step short of alarming. Even Air Mach had nowhere to turn to, not even his ridiculous speeches.

“Spitfire…” Descent huffed.

“SUGGESTIONS!” Spitfire repeated while standing up from her chair and glaring at the others.

“Captain, let me get this straight…” Silver suddenly spoke up as he took a few wobbly steps towards her, placing himself next to Descent. “The Shadowbolts are coming around to attack us again… and they’re bringing their weaponized fortress with them again… the one that nearly decimated us last time if not for two specific individuals who are now out of commission?” he kept his eyes locked on Spitfire.

“Yes,” she answered simply while staring directly at Silver.

“You want my suggestion?” Silver lifted an eyebrow. “We should evacuate the compound.”

Dash’s eyes widened as she stared in shock towards Silver. She looked back and forth frantically, seeing a similar look of disbelief on the eyes of the rest, save for Descent.

“No,” Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“Spitfire,” Descent growled. “Do we have to go over this again? Even one of your own is agreeing with me.”

“I said no,” Spitfire repeated while shooting a harsh glare at Descent. “That is not an option.”

“What happened to ‘I’ll consider it?’” Descent grunted in frustration.

“Changed my mind, we’re not leaving,” Spitfire hissed at him.

“Captain…” Silver snorted. “You saw what their fortress is capable of. We don’t have the means to stop them again. They will destroy the compound whether we like it or not. We have to leave.”

“No, Silver, NO! Don’t you side with him!” she pointed sharply at Descent while glaring daggers at Silver. “Are you even listening to me?! I’m not running. If we run, they win. They will destroy what we hold dear and it will break us!” Spitfire shot back while leaning over her desk.

“So you want us to all stay here and just die with the compound?!” Silver remained strong. Descent took a step back to let Silver handle the rest, confident the old Wonderbolt could talk some sense into his captain.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from YOU of all ponies!!” Spitfire yelled into Silver’s face. “This place has been your PRIDE and your LIFE much longer than it has been mine! Yet here you are, so eager to let it be destroyed without a fight?!”

“You’re talking to me like this was an easy decision! Since the first attack, I’ve been coming to terms with the possibility that we may be forced to abandon the compound. It does us no good to be in a stationary, sitting duck of a building like this!” Silver shook his head. “You’re right… this place is a home… it has been my pride and joy for over thirty years. I have a deeper connection to it than I do any other place in Equestria, but you know what matters right now?” Silver reached up and slammed his hoof down on her desk. “We have hundreds of lives at stake… lives that will be snuffed out like a dying candle flame if we sit in the false security of these walls with a misguided sense of pride. Do you know what I care about, Spitfire?!” Silver dropped the formality as he gave her a piece of his mind. “I care about keeping my family safe. I care about my Wonderbolt brothers and sisters. They are what matter to me, not some old building,” he stated while looking up and motioning around him. “A building can be rebuilt… Wonderbolts cannot. Captain… we should abandon the compound!” Silver leaned further forward to drive his point home.

“NO!!!!!!!!!!” Spitfire shouted at the top of her lungs while slamming both of her hooves down upon her desk so hard that the wood cracked and splintered under the force. The sudden outburst caused all of them, even Silver to take a step back in surprise.

“NO! NO! NO!” She continued to yell as she grabbed her desk lamp and angrily threw it away from her desk. Fleetfoot quickly reached down and pulled Rivet aside. The lamp zipped right past his head and smashed into the wall, the glass portions shattering and the frame breaking to pieces. They all stared at Spitfire in horror as she stood with her hooves firmly pressed to her desk, breathing heavily like a wild beast as she glared at Silver and Descent.

“How much longer do we have to put up with this?” Spitfire snapped at them. “HOW MUCH LONGER?!” she repeated, shouting. “Our current history with the Shadowbolts has been NOTHING but attack, after attack, after attack! They take us by surprise! The sneak around our base! They put the pressure on us from all directions! We are constantly put at a disadvantage and are forced to fight TOOTH and HOOF to defend ourselves! I’m DONE being the target! I’m done being the mouse, hiding in a hole from a tenacious cat!” She roughly tapped her right hoof against her desk. “I’m drawing the line HERE, and I am NOT taking another step backwards!” she yelled as she roughly pushed against her desk, shifting it a yard forward, nearly hitting Descent and Silver in the chest with it as anything left on it clattered and fell, rolling off or fluttering to the floor.

“When they show up…” she pointed at them while glaring fiercely. “We are ALL flying out there, Wonderbolt and Renegade alike! We will charge right down their throat, right down the barrel of that damn magic cannon if we have to… and we are fighting until our VERY LAST BREATH if that’s what it takes! It’s THEIR turn to feel the pain! Not us! No more!” she remained standing, still breathing heavily with her breath hissing out of her nose.

Spitfire suddenly wobbled, looking a little lightheaded as she stumbled backwards and fell back into her chair. She didn’t look up. She just stared at the floor, her body swaying slightly as the repercussions of her outburst caught up with her.

Everypony around was in complete shock, never expecting to see their captain unleash such a rant. Was finally being aware and in control of things really helping her in this situation as they first thought? She was no longer being tricked or kept in the dark, only to be thrown into a situation that seemed hopeless, it was one weight lifted off of her shoulders only to have another one piled on. Nopony had any words to say in the wake of her passion, not even the former captains, Blazetail and Flashwind, who had yet to speak at all. Everypony was speechless… except for Silver.

“Spitfire,” Silver began calmly as Spitfire took heavy, sharp breaths in her seat. “Do you really want to be the one that orders all the amazing mares and stallions that make up our great organization… to leap into certain death?” he asked. “Is that how you want to be remembered?”

Spitfire’s breathing calmed, but she remained looking straight down. Silver stepped around her pushed out desk and stood directly beside her.

“Think about this carefully,” he continued. “You know just as well as I do… what is most important to a Wonderbolt captain. Is it chasing pride in the face of certain death? Or is it ensuring the life and safety of those under your command? Dying to preserve a name… or living to fight another day? Besides, what do we hope to gain towards saving Equestria from this menace... if we all die here?”

All eyes landed on Spitfire as she took a long… deep breath.

It was clear to her as it was to the rest. They didn’t have the numbers, nor the means of fighting back, no matter what they claimed as a reason for standing their ground. For the past year, she felt like her time as the lead captain had been a complete disaster, a year filled with being forced to respond on short notice to threats and attacks of many kinds, always off-guard. But how was she supposed to feel? They were the Wonderbolts, known far and wide as the best of the best. Yet they had been pushed around time and time again by the very same abnormal threats they were trained to meet and quell. Perhaps her pride was getting the better of her…

As much as it pained her to…

She knew what she had to do…

“Start gathering up everypony…” she quietly spoke up as she lifted her face to look at her top captains and the rest. “We’re evacuating the compound.”

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

Such a burden Spitfire shoulders... if i were in her position, i would crumble so fast, i can't even describe it. It really speaks for her strength and composure that she has gone on this long without going insane. She finally snapped preetty hard here, but even in that realized what she really had to do... and made that choice.

So i wonder what's going to happen from here? :fluttershysad: Losing the compound... will not be an easy pill to swallow for sure...

Now...

Chapter 97 is going to be long, i'm calling it right now so i probably wouldn't expect a quick update. There's going to be some awesome art involved and it may mark, what i think is the halfway point of part 3 (or the 1/3 mark, knowing how bad my predictions are) So sit tight and be patient please :pinkiesmile: i have a lot of work to do :twistnerd:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 97: The Longest Leap of Faith

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 97: The Longest Leap of Faith

Dash’s eyes were stuck wide open, her mouth slightly ajar as she stared directly at Spitfire. The office was drowned in a thick, painful silence as Spitfire slowly pulled her desk back towards her and plugged the P.A microphone back in, grabbing it with her hoof, but not pulling forward. She simply stared at it, gathering the words and the courage she would need to make such a difficult announcement to all the ponies waiting for her guidance.

Silver turned around and stepped back towards Dash. His face was expressionless, but in a way that looked forced as if he himself didn’t want to show how hard this was for him to take. Dash looked towards him, as if looking for some sort of answer or reassurance that this wasn’t happening. The compound had become such an amazing home for her. She had only been there for a short time compared to most, but she had already made enough memories to form an attachment. She could only shudder at the thought of how hard this would be for the veterans. The compound had become such an integrated part of their lives. Leaving it was likely no different than tearing off an arm.

Descent was already speaking to Starry, no doubt giving orders on how to gather up the Renegades, but not a single word he said registered in Dash’s brain. It was like the shock of what was happening was so intense that it shut off her senses, allowing no other sound to enter as she and the rest of the Wonderbolts in the room stared at Spitfire as she prepared to deliver the news.

It was really happening.

They were going to leave the compound behind.

Dash felt a sudden tightness in her chest, her heart feeling heavy at the thought of how hard this would weigh on everypony. Not only the current Wonderbolts… but the former as well. She looked towards Blazetail and Flashwind, the former lead captain duo of the legendary Wonderbolt Gold Squad. They were just as shocked as the rest, dreading the struggle to come without the security of their former home…

But then Dash perked up as Blazetail suddenly looked down, blinked, and then looked towards his wife. He whispered something to Flashwind. Her ears shot straight up from being against her head, looking at her husband before staring towards Spitfire. Both of them no longer looked shocked.

Spitfire took a deep breath and pulled the microphone towards her…

“Hold on,” Blazetail suddenly stepped forward and drew all the attention away from Spitfire. Silver looked over his shoulder, Descent stopped talking to Starry, and Spitfire’s hoof hovered over the P.A. button on her desk. Blazetail glanced back at Flashwind for a moment before focusing on Spitfire. “There might be an alternative.”

As if the reality shock hadn’t already thrown everypony off their hooves. One word… ONE WORD was all it took to completely shatter the somber mood and lock their attention on Blazetail.

ALTERNATIVE.

Spitfire’s eyes were wide the moment the word left Blazetail’s lips.

“Uh…” Spitfire tipped her head as he immediately snatched up her curiosity. “Excuse… me…?”

“We may not have to abandon the compound,” Blazetail said with a nod. He didn’t have to look behind him to know that the collective reaction from everypony behind him was one of extreme interest. Nopony wanted to leave their home behind, so at the first mention of the smallest shred of hope was like a tidal wave crashing against them without warning.

Dash frantically looked about the room. Fleetfoot, Air Mach, Silver, Fire, and Storm all shared her eagerness to hear what this apparent ‘alternative’ was. Descent and Starry simply stared at Blazetail, curious as to what he was going to suggest. Spitfire’s eyes narrowed and she stared at her former captain seriously, removing her hoof from above the P.A. button and pushing the microphone away.

“I’m listening… but make it quick, we don’t have much time to spare,” she said as she propped her chin on her hooves.

“Well, we…” Blazetail began but paused as he looked back at Descent. Descent lifted an eyebrow as Blazetail looked away from him and towards Flashwind. Flashwind stepped up next to Blazetail as she spoke up.

“When we first joined the Renegades…” she began. “Blazetail and I decided to…” she also paused and looked at Descent.

“Is there something on my face besides scars?” Descent growled as the two seemed to be nervous to speak with him there. Blazetail sighed.

“Well, whatever, he’s going to know now,” he said as he looked back at Spitfire. “Shadowbolt records were salvaged from the wreckage of the flying fortress after it was destroyed half a year ago. The two of us decided to poke around them.”

“WHAT?!” Descent’s ears stood up as he reacted to the explanation. “You snooped around our records?!” he growled as he stepped forward. Flashwind remained facing Spitfire, but Blazetail turned around and met Descent glare head on.

“Oh come on, Descent…” he said with a scoff. “You used to be the rivals of our organization. Do you blame us for being curious?”

“No…” Descent flattened his brow. “But when the hell did you sneak into my room? You two are really pushing my patience. I ought to rearrange your face for disrespecting my space!” Descent growled as he stepped forward. Blazetail stepped towards him as well and the two butted heads.

“Spare me, son,” Blazetail growled right back as they forced their heads together. “It’s not our fault you don’t lock your door.”

Spitfire loudly cleared her throat to remind them of their situation, but the two continued to growl and snarl at each other. Flashwind stepped into Spitfire’s vision to take over.

“Anyway…” she began. “We came across some old records about the founding and history of the Shadowbolts, and how the original Shadowbolt, Raider, wanted the Shadowbolts to be everything the Wonderbolts were. Only… as mercenaries, free from the strict authority, able to use their skills and talents however they chose to…” she paused and turned around, glaring at her husband and Descent as they continued to push against each other. “Seriously, how old are you two?”

“He started it!” the two replied in unison as they snarled at each other.

“My point exactly,” Flashwind sighed and shook her head.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“As I was saying,” she turned back to Spitfire. “Raider wanted everything to be the same, absolutely everything, save for the style of administration. He was eager to stick it to the Wonderbolts, to be more successful than them by partaking in the very practices that got him discharged. His desire to mirror them included having his own compound, the Shadowbolt fortress. He not only paid for its construction using stolen bits from the Wonderbolts, but the design he submitted to the unmentioned architects was apparently identical to the Wonderbolt compound.”

She stopped there. Spitfire and the rest all stared as if waiting for her to continue the story, but she didn’t. The room was silent save for the consistent growling of Blazetail and Descent.

“Okay…” Spitfire rotated her hoof in front of her. “And…?”

Flashwind smiled and chuckled.

“Honey… IDENTICAL,” she repeated. Descent suddenly let up from Blazetail and blinked, turning his head sharply towards her. Spitfire tipped her head, still not understanding.

“Yeah, I heard you say that so—” Spitfire’s eyes shot open. “Wait… are you… suggesting…” Spitfire’s jaw dropped as Blazetail walked up beside his wife and smiled.

“Indeed, we are…” he nodded. “It’s highly possible… that the Wonderbolt compound is capable of flight.”

A loud collective gasp quickly spread around the room amongst everypony.

Dash blinked as she tried to picture what the two former captains were suggesting. It sounded ridiculous, but then again, she had not only seen, but had also been within the flying fortress in the past. She just never considered the possibility of the Wonderbolt compound being capable of the same thing. It was something that she only associated with the Shadowbolts and their endless surprises.

“WHAT?!” Spitfire’s expression suddenly turned from shocked to puzzled. “Uh… I’m sorry, but… that sounds incredibly farfetched,” she sighed as Silver moved towards the old captains.

“‘Highly possible’ implies that you’ve based this ‘alternative’ on conjecture… which is not something we can afford to place our faith in right now,” Silver huffed, feeling like his time was wasted listening to an idea that wasn’t solid. “Besides… how can you think such a thing is possible? Have you looked around the compound grounds? The last time and every time I’ve checked, the compound is firmly planted in the ground.”

As much as Silver and Spitfire’s reactions seemed to suppress any sudden hopes the revelation had roused, Dash and the rest had to agree with them. While the thought was attractive, given what they were about to give up, it did seem a little ridiculous. Spitfire was ready to defend her stance on it as well.

“How do we know that Raider didn’t just add the flight mechanisms to the design?” Spitfire asked while leaning back in her chair. “That or maybe one of their many leaders after him had the fortress modified? I read in Soarin’s report that the building of the fortress itself was arranged differently, who’s to say they didn’t remodel it at any point in time?”

“Raider apparently brought the original compound blueprints to the builders,” Flashwind spoke up. “At least… that’s what the records say.”

“I don’t recall seeing anything about this in our own records. Were the blueprints included in what you found?” Spitfire asked while smacking a hoof against her desk. The old captains both shook their heads.

“No,” Blazetail admitted. “This is purely a theory.”

“Theories are not something valid to base our decisions on,” Spitfire sighed while glaring. “Besides, like Silver said, the compound is firmly attached to the ground. Not only that, but if it really is able to fly, it definitely hasn’t done so for a very long time. The compound has undergone several remodeling and renovation projects over the years, adding new foundations, plumbing, electrical networking, and even underground passages. It was being renovated when I first joined up!”

“It’s undergone two renovations during my career,” Silver added with a scoff. “Say it is able to fly, would it even work with the new foundations? Would it be able to lift off?”

“Have you seen the size of those propellers on the flying fortress?” Blazetail cut in, frustrated with Spitfire and Silver and their lack of consideration. It was a shot in the dark for sure, but the only other option was to let everything be destroyed. “I bet with several of those propellers and the crazy amount of uplift required to keep the whole structure afloat… it could easily tear this old building right out of the earth. Aren’t you even the least bit curious?”

“I am, but I suspect there is a reason you didn’t bring it up until now,” Spitfire looked at them sternly. “Do you really expect something that’s both incredibly old and has been stationary for quite some time to suddenly work? How to we even start it up? Where are the propellers? Did you even think about how long it would take for us to both find and fix it up until it’s in working condition?!” Spitfire seemed a bit miffed that her hopes got up only to be handed a ridiculous proposition.

Off to the side, Fleetfoot sighed and her ears flopped down. So much for their little ray of hope. She wanted to remind Spitfire that they had Shadowbolts approaching and this argument had become a pointless quarrel, but she doubted she could cut in.

“Um… excuse me…”

Fleetfoot perked up and looked down at Rivet. He was holding a hoof forward and wincing as he looked directly at Spitfire, Silver, Blazetail, and Flashwind.

“Ex…excuse me…” he said quietly again as he took a half step forward, but none of the four pegasi so much as glanced at him.

“Um… guys? Excuse me…” he was clearly trying to get their attention.

Fleetfoot looked between the group of arguing ponies and Rivet several times. She was curious what he had to say, and it seemed important. So… she got their attention for him.

“HEY! GUYS!” Fleetfoot yelled at them, causing Rivet to flinch hard as all four of them looked towards him and Fleetfoot. She pointed a hoof down at Rivet. “Rivvey wants to say something,” she said calmly. Rivet stiffened for a moment as all eyes went to him, including the rest of the Wonderbolts, Descent, and Starry.

Rivet looked around at all of them, his nerves slowly thawing as he realized he had been given his chance to speak. He swallowed, took a deep breath and stepped into the middle of the room.

“Um… Actually…” he began nervously, but kept on going. “There’s… a second basement below the research and mechanics sector…”

Rivet paused as he saw Spitfire’s eyes go wide. He slowly glanced about, everypony eagerly waiting for him to elaborate.

“A second… basement… below the first…” Spitfire tipped her head to the side. She glanced at Blazetail and Flashwind, but Blazetail only shrugged as Spitfire’s eyes met his. This was new to them too.

“Yeah, uh… I found it a while ago when I was testing our prototype x-ray goggles.” Rivet continued. “There’s a hatch that leads further down at the end of the first basement hallway, which explains the weird dead end after the last door on the right. It leads down into an enormous wide open area that I think spans the entire length of the compound, maybe even some of the courtyard and backyard. It’s pitch dark down there, but I poked around with a flashlight, it’s full of machinery. Some pieces are incredibly large. Gears, axles, chains, engine belts, I’ve never seen contraptions so large. But—”

“Hold on a second…” Spitfire held her hoof out. “You never reported this to me?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow. Blazetail suddenly grunted.

“Spitfire, does that really matter right now?” he asked with annoyance. Spitfire glared at him.

“How were you here so long and never knew about—”

“HEY!” Fleetfoot yelled out again, causing both Blazetail and Spitfire to look towards her. She pointed at Rivet again. “Really, guys? Let him talk!”

Spitfire and Blazetail looked back at Rivet.

“OW! OW!” Blazetail suddenly yelped as Flashwind grabbed his ear with her mouth and pulled him away from Spitfire, forcing him to the other side of her to separate the two. “Flash!” he grunted in embarrassment.

“Dear, let the young stallion continue,” she said sternly as he scrunched his face and focused on Rivet.

“So uh… yeah,” Rivet spoke up now that he had their attention again. “I didn’t report it because I wanted to find out what it was first. I figured it was some sort of engine or similar mechanism, but I never really figured out what the function was. Some of them have large hatches on the top, about eight to ten feet in diameter. I got one of them open and it looks like something is supposed to extend upward.”

“Propellers?” Blazetail said to himself as he and Spitfire glanced at each other.

“I’ve actually been tinkering with all of it for a few months on my free time…” Rivet continued. “Trying to see if I could get it running. A lot of the parts were incredibly worn and rusted. I’ve been using spare parts from my workshop to replace some of the old or broken bits. I’ve fixed up almost everything along the wall surrounding the whole area, but I have yet to venture towards the center of the room. I have working lights set up, but I haven’t seen all of it yet.”

Spitfire held up a hoof before he could continue.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, rewind…” she stopped him. “Tinkering? Fixed up a lot of it?” she turned and looked at Blazetail and Flashwind. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this, but if it were any other pony besides Rivet telling me this, I wouldn’t be so curious to try. If the Shadowbolt records and your theories are true… Could it possibly be… that this old building really can fly?”

“Won’t know unless we try something,” Blazetail shrugged. Spitfire stepped around her desk, made her way past everypony, and stopped directly in front of Rivet. He stared at her with wide eyes as she bent her neck down to look him directly in the eyes.

“Rivet… I trust you more than ANYPONY else when it comes to machinery… give me your honest assessment. With the amount that you’ve fixed… would you say it’s in good enough condition to work?”

All the ponies locked their eyes back on Rivet.

It was still farfetched, but the hope was rekindled.

If the compound really could fly… it could be their answer to saving their home. Rivet was aware, but he was also aware of what was on the line. He stepped back for a moment and looked down as if in deep thought.

“There’s still a significant amount of the machinery I have yet to see, assuming there’s more in the center… the only answer I can give you is… maybe,” he looked up and saw the distraught faces. They all knew as soon as he said that, Spitfire was going to be pushed to abandon the idea, but Rivet couldn’t afford to stretch his opinion. Lives were on the line. “If I had a moment, and some help to look at the rest of it and make an assessment, we could go from there… but I still don’t know how to start it.”

Spitfire quickly turned and looked towards Descent as the rest kept their eyes on her, wondering what was currently going through her head.

“Descent,” she pointed. “What was the arrangement of the equipment in the flying fortress?” she asked suddenly. Descent reclined his head backwards while furrowing his brow.

“Don’t look at me, I don’t know a damn thing about machines,” he cringed in disgust. Starry suddenly pushed him aside and stepped forward, walking up to Spitfire while looking down at Rivet.

“The middle,” Starry spoke directly to Rivet. “You said you’ve never been in the center of the room, correct?” she asked. Rivet just stared at her for a moment before nodding quickly.

“It dips down in the center and my work lights don’t reach very far. I was afraid to go down there without somepony with me in case I got stuck or something. Safety precaution,” Rivet replied, and then flinched as Starry stepped forward and put a hoof on his shoulder.

“In the flying fortress engine room, there was a central piece that I always saw the engineers huddle around when they started it up. Hell if I know how it works, but that has to be where it’s activated.”

As soon as Starry gave her little tidbit of information, all eyes went to Spitfire again. She put her head down, turned, and walked back towards her desk.

“This is… urgh, this is not smart, but I can’t ignore it… a shot in the dark…” she mumbled. Silver cleared his throat and moved up beside her.

“If it can save the compound, it’s worth a shot, but we have to consider the chance we’re taking,” he shared his thoughts. Spitfire turned back and looked towards Rivet.

“This is the longest leap of faith… but… it’s not completely impossible…” she took a deep breath and tipped her head down again for a moment before looking up sharply with determination in her eyes as she turned to Descent and the former captains. “Okay… here is what I propose,” she began as everypony looked towards her eagerly. “We’ve already spent more time than we needed with this conversation. Based on Descent’s scouting report, I’d say we have maybe twenty-five to thirty-ish minutes until the Shadowbolts arrive. I don’t want the defenseless or injured here while we attempt this, so I say we evacuate them… however, with the enemy so close, we risk putting them in danger by moving them out over the courtyard lawn. I say we shift the evacuation through the tunnels that lead to Canterlot Castle…” she paused and turned to Rivet. “Those who are still able to fight will stay behind… and try to buy Rivet some time.”

She was going through with it. Dash couldn’t believe it, but she was just as happy to know... that they might have a chance, even if it’s just a slim chance, to save the compound. The rest shared her feelings, as they all paid close attention for their incoming orders.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Descent spoke up. “You understand that this puts a large majority of our strongest in harm’s way. If we take this chance and fail, which I feel is highly likely, we’ll all be caught in the fortress’ cannon fire.”

He brought up a very good point. There was a heavy risk involved, but Spitfire was already two thoughts ahead of him.

“I completely agree. That’s why I feel we should still have an evacuation plan. If the situation quickly turns hopeless, we flee… don’t let pride get in the way, a single life lost is much more tragic than the destruction of the compound…” she turned to Rivet and approached him again, placing both of her hooves on his shoulders and looking at him sternly. “Rivet, I realize I’m asking a hell of a lot from you here. It’s a big risk, and survival is not guaranteed. We won’t force you.”

Rivet stared right into Spitfire’s eyes as she spoke, her words swirling in circles in his head. When he didn’t answer, Spitfire nodded, understanding his hesitation.

“I still want to at least try, we can assemble a team, if you can give them some basic instructions and—”

“I’ll do it,” Rivet cut her off with a nod.

“Are… you sure?” Spitfire wanted to make sure he wasn’t making any rash decisions. She was responsible for him as well.

“So much of my life’s work is here in my workshop, I don’t have time to move it. If I have a chance to save it all, I’ll take it and…” he paused. “And this place has been great to me. I’ll give it a shot.”

Spitfire smiled and gave him a soft pat on the shoulder.

“Thank you Rivet,” she said with a clear sign of appreciation in her voice.

“I’m going to need some help though. I’m not expecting my unicorn assistants to stick around,” Rivet wasted no time in getting down to business.

“I agree,” Spitfire nodded. If there was a need to escape, wings would be helpful. “Actually, I know exactly who to send down there with you,” she smiled as she turned to Storm. “Storm, I want you to gather up your squad. Point Dex and Lead Runner are perfect for this. They have great knowledge of mechanics as well.”

“WHAT?!” Descent reacted as he quickly stepped over to Spitfire, but she didn’t look at him.

“You and Macho Savage can offer support as well. Again, this is a high risk situation—”

“HOLD ON A SECOND!” Descent growled as he placed himself between Spitfire and Storm. “I’m not letting you send my son on such a risky task!” he yelled as everypony looked on, Starry Skies still trying to recognize her leader in such rare form.

“If you’d let me finish my orders Descent…” Spitfire flattened her brow. “You’d know I’m giving him a choice in the matter.”

“I’ll go,” Storm spoke up as he walked up beside his father. Descent’s eyes widened as he turned to look at Storm. Storm looked him right in the eye and nodded. “This place has been the best home I’ve ever known. If we can save it, I’m going to try,” he stated adamantly. Descent growled, ready to protest, but Storm didn’t let him. “Dad, this is my choice. I’m standing by it.”

Descent ceased growling and looked at the determination in his son’s eyes. Who was he to deny his full-grown son freedom of choice? He said nothing, only turning his head away and facing Spitfire again. Storm could tell that he was worried though, and that was even more motivation for him to help this plan work.

Before anypony else could speak, Fire Streak stepped up as well.

“Squad Three will assist as well!” he spoke out. “The core function of our squad is coordination. I’m sure we’ll be able to assist Rivet.”

“I’ll go,” Starry Skies spoke up, walking over to Rivet. “If the room is really identical to the fortress’ engine room layout, I can get him where he needs to go quickly.”

Spitfire smiled as the plan took shape. It was a risky longshot, but the more they had working on it, the better their chances of success. She was about to give the final word, but before she could.

“I’ll take the lead,” Fleetfoot stood up from the couch and hopped down beside Rivet. “If Rivet’s going down there, I’m making sure he gets out alive,” she rapped a hoof against her chest. Spitfire’s eyes widened and she quickly shook her head.

“No,” she looked sternly at Fleetfoot. “You are a member of the lead squad. We’re going to need your help to buy time. I don’t want to put you at risk.”

“OH, SHUT UP!” she snapped while getting into Spitfire’s face. “So you’re willing to let Fire go down there with his squad, but not me? Forget it, Spitty, they need somepony to lead them down there. If you’re going to put some of our best at risk, I’m going with them to make sure they survive!” she glared directly into Spitfire’s eyes, not backing down for a moment despite the disapproving glare she was being given. “You’ll still have Air Mach out there with you anyway. That might not be as reassuring, but I’m not letting them go down there without me.”

“That’s extra harsh…” Air Mach scratched his head off to the side.

“Fleet… I…” Spitfire started to counter but stopped and sighed. “Very well…”

“WE’RE GOING TOO!” a voice turned all of their attention to the door as it swung open, revealing Shine Struck and all of Squad Zero behind her. Spitfire blinked as Shine barged right in and stood before her.

“Nice to know my office is always being eavesdropped on…” Spitfire growled as she shot a glance at Dash. Dash flinched and grinned sheepishly, having been guilty of doing just that more than once. “Are you guys even in any condition to be active?” Spitfire quickly replied, while watching Calm, Playbitz, and Swift enter the room shakily.

“Please…” Shine asked, dodging the question aimed at their current state. “Let us help Rivet. We’ve got to redeem ourselves,” she pleaded as Silver moved up beside Spitfire.

“Shine, there are other ways to redeem yourself,” he said calmly. “Putting yourself into an incredibly risky situation when you’re not at full strength is a recipe for disaster, not redemption.”

“Rivet is our friend,” Calm Wind spoke up before Shine could answer. “If he’s being put in danger… then we’re going with him, whether you like it or not,” he said defiantly towards Silver and Spitfire, Swift and Playbitz both nodding in agreement.

Silver turned his attention to Spitfire, lifting his brow in a manner that suggested it was her choice to make. Spitfire rolled her eyes, but realized that after Fleetfoot’s adamant display, nopony was going to take no for an answer. She smiled as she turned to Rivet.

“Well Rivet, looks like you’ve got yourself a whole team. Best make good use of it…” she turned away, stopping as Descent cleared his throat and pointed at the clock. Spitfire took note that they had spent ten minutes already. She nodded, acknowledging Descent before turning towards the rest of them. “LISTEN TO ME… VERY CAREFULLY,” she emphasized every single word. “I want you all to promise me… that at the first sign of it being a lost cause… you all get the hell out of there and get to safety. Nopony dies today, got it?” she looked around, receiving nods from all taking part in Rivet’s attempt to save the compound. “Good.”

“Now quickly,” Descent took over. “Time is short, what’s the plan to stall the Shadowbolts?” Descent implied that he was onboard with the current situation, saving Spitfire both the time and the energy towards convincing him.

“With our current numbers, can we afford to divide our forces any more than we already have?” Spitfire asked. “Most of those still in fighting shape are elites, so I’m not worried about us holding our own for a short time,” she turned to Blazetail as he walked up to them.

“If we’re looking to buy time, a small, surprise attack might be enough to startle them, at least for a few moments,” he suggested. “Have the Renegade Shadowbolts fly out right now and take up positions in the abandoned buildings outside the compound grounds. The old and new Wonderbolts can stay out in front, drawing their attention. We can attack from both sides.”

“That’s not much,” Descent nodded in agreement as he looked at Spitfire. “But we might be able to delay the fortress from firing for at least a few minutes, and from what I gather, that could make all the difference. I’ll have Lightning Dust lead the surprise attack. If I’m not out front with you all, they might get suspicious.”

“Then that’s it!” Spitfire stomped her hoof as she turned to the rest. “Let’s all get moving! Descent, Blazetail, gather up your forces. Silver! Head down and start organizing ponies to move the injured and then gather the rest of our forces in the lobby! Let’s move! GO!”

Dash glanced back and forth as everypony started moving in the office. She felt like just a bystander throughout the whole meeting that she technically wasn’t even supposed to be in, and on top of it, everypony had been given a task… except for her. She thought about asking Spitfire, but she was already heading towards her desk to use the P.A. system and make the announcement. So she looked to the next best place.

“Silver!” Dash called before Silver could leave, he stopped and looked towards her, his pain medication clearly kicked in because he was moving normally.

“What? Make it quick,” he said as he turned towards her.

“What should I do?” she asked. Silver blinked and looked back at Spitfire for a moment. “Should I gather my squad and get ready to fight?” she pressed.

“No,” Silver turned back to her and shook his head. “I want you to gather your squad and meet me in the lobby. The remaining recruits are going to help evacuate the injured.”

“Wait, WHAT?!” Dash stared at him in disbelief. “But what about—”

“Dash, we DON’T have time to argue this. This is a dangerous operation, and everypony has to play their part! Spitfire has put me in charge of organizing the evacuation, and I need to do it fast so I can join them outside! Get your squad, and meet me in the lobby for instructions! Need I remind you… that among those that need to be evacuated are Princess Luna, one of your squadmates, and SOARIN!” he made sure to put extra emphasis on Soarin’s name and it had the desired effect.

Dash gritted her teeth as she looked around the room at the ponies filing out. She watched Fleetfoot leave… She watched squad zero leave… She watched Fire Streak leave, and she watched Storm Front leave. All of them were ponies she had come to know and care about in some shape or form and she wanted to help them… but Silver was right, as usual. Soarin, Squall, and Princess Luna needed to be evacuated along with the rest. She would play her part.

“SILVER! GET TO IT!” Spitfire yelled as from her desk while holding the P.A. microphone with a grip to rival a vice.

Silver nodded before glancing at Dash.

“That goes for you too,” he tapped her chest before turning and quickly leaving. Dash took one last look at Spitfire before following right behind Silver.

The longest leap of faith… but it if it worked…

“ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL…”

Dash broke away from Silver as they touched to the ground floor, making her way towards the barracks as Spitfire’s voice blared over the loudspeaker. She began explaining the long, unexpected plan to the rest of the compound as Dash pushed her way through the doors to the barracks hallway. She had no doubt that Foxtrot was a little confused, so the sooner she got to them and gave them their orders the better.

She got to her barracks and was through the door the moment Spitfire finished her explanation. Matteo and Little Star both turned their heads from the P.A. speaker to Dash. Squall was lying on his bed, not really paying attention due to his fatigue. Twister, who had apparently returned while she was away, was standing on the ceiling.

“Did you guys get all that?!” Dash yelled as she skidded to a halt in front of them. Star threw her hooves out in confusion.

“Uhh… we’re leaving the compound but we’re not?! I don’t get it!” she asked frantically. Dash quickly shook her head.

“Short version: The compound is still likely screwed, but there’s a slight chance it won’t be. In the event of it being screwed, we have to make sure all the injured are evacuated and then leave the premises ourselves!”

“What?!” Matteo’s eyes widened as he turned and looked towards his space. Specifically, he was looking towards all of his family wooden carvings, he was about to turn and move, but Dash zipped around and got in front of him.

“Matty, forget it! We don’t have time!” she ordered, realizing what was on his mind.

“They couldn’t have given us more warning?!” Matteo growled, clearly protective of his personal belongings. Dash looked over her shoulder at all of the things Matteo had set out that he clearly held dear. Dash glanced over at her space at her floor locker, which held her cherished photo of her and Soarin and her signed copy of the first Daring Do book. No doubt the others had things valuable to them that had to be left behind, but what was more important right now?

“This is sudden for all of us, Matty… a few lost personal belongings is nothing compared to being blown to smithereens… the Shadowbolt fortress is on its way back, and if we want to ensure our safety and the safety of our fellow Wonderbolts… we have to leave, NOW!”

“Grr…” Matteo grunted as he looked towards his space again. Dash waited patiently for him to turn away and move towards the door.

“I’m sorry…” Dash said quietly, knowing how much Matteo cherished his culture. Leaving behind what reminded him of his family was no doubt hard for him, but even he understood the situation. She followed behind him with Twister galloping across the ceiling towards the door.

“Wait!” Star suddenly yelled. Dash and Matteo both came to an abrupt halt. Twister tripped and fell, bouncing off the ceiling and landing spread eagle on Matteo’s back. Dash turned and looked as Matteo pulled Twister off his back, let him go, and watched as he fell back up towards the ceiling. Dash’s eyes widened as Star pointed to Squall who was struggling to move out of his bed. She had completely forgotten about Squall’s current state.

“Star!” Dash quickly pointed. “I’m putting you in charge of getting Squall to safety! When you get to the lobby, follow everypony into the east hallway, they’re taking an underground passage to Canterlot Castle!” Dash explained. Star tipped her head to the side, never having known of this passage until now. “Trust me, Dash nodded, just follow everypony else!” she reassured her. Star gulped and nodded, before turning to Squall and helping him slowly get out of his bed.

“Come on, Squall! We gotta move!” Star encouraged as her rolled over.

“I know… I’m trying!” Squall grumbled as he winced and cringed. With Star taking care of him, Dash turned back to Matteo as she hovered up and forcefully pulled Twister off the ceiling.

“You two, come with me, Silver is giving out instructions to all the recruit squads in the lobby! Let’s go!”

The three of them made haste into the barracks hallway as Star slowly followed behind with Squall in tow.

The lobby was once again a mess of ponies moving about, but this time they were all moving in one direction, the east hallway towards the underground passage. The only ponies not moving were the remaining elites and Wonderbolt Renegades that were waiting to fly out and make their stand against the fortress. Lightning Dust had already taken the Shadowbolt Renegades out into position outside the compound walls, leaving Descent behind with the Wonderbolts to prevent speculation of their surprise attack.

Descent waited patiently as Spitfire spoke to her detachment that was heading down to the basement with Rivet. Rivet was already, donning his multi-purpose working goggles and carrying a saddlebag full of miscellaneous tools and supplies. Fleetfoot, Starry Skies, and squads three, seven, and zero were all prepped and ready to go. Squad three was still without Surprise, but Point Dex had returned to squad seven. They needed him to help Rivet anyway, so he agreed to go despite still being a bit shaken.

“Remember…” Spitfire pointed at all of them. “Above all else, if it’s not working, get out of there AS FAST as you can. Survival is the top priority.”

“Yes ma’am!” all but Starry replied.

“Be careful Storm…” Descent gave Storm a pat on the shoulder. “Now go.”

“Good luck, Dad!” Storm put his goggles down as he turned and joined his squad. Descent simply gave a nod to Starry as she turned as well.

“This way!” Rivet called out as he quickly began moving down the west hallway towards the basement. Fleetfoot turned to follow with the rest, but before she could take a single step, Spitfire reached out and caught her by the arm.

“Fleet… wait…” she said, her voice going completely soft from its hard commanding tone.

“Yeah?” Fleetfoot asked, tipping her goggles up and looking curiously into the concerned eyes of her friend. She flinched in surprise as Spitfire reached forward and pulled her into a hug. “Spitty?” Fleetfoot said in surprise as Spitfire gave her a squeeze.

“Promise me…” Spitfire began, the concerned tone in her voice sending a wave of comfort through Fleetfoot, allowing her to relax in Spitfire’s embrace. “That you won’t take any unnecessary risks. I mean it, if things look at all hopeless, in ANY way… I want all of you out of there. You’re in command down there, so I trust you’ll do just that. And… please do… I don’t want to lose a best friend.”

“Aw… Spitty…” Fleetfoot hugged her back. “Either way, I’m coming back. I promise,” she gave Spitfire a smile as they broke apart. “Gotta fly!” she winked as she turned and took off, gliding after Rivet and his group.

Spitfire watched Fleetfoot leave until she blended in with the moving group, before turning to survey the rest of the Wonderbolts. She turned just in time to see Silver sending the recruits off to help with the evacuation. She spotted Dash immediately moving towards the east hallway with Matteo and Twister in tow, no doubt to go to the infirmary. Spitfire felt at ease, knowing that Dash would definitely help Soarin first. That scratched another fear off of her list.

“Captain lady, the elites are ready to go!” Air Mach spoke up, drawing her attention towards him and squad two. Unfortunately, Blaze was still absent, being evacuated with the injured due to her wound across the chest. Spitfire had no doubt she was being dragged kicking and screaming because of High Winds being put in danger without her, but they couldn’t afford to keep an eye on her while also fending off Shadowbolts. It was already a stretch that she let squad zero and Point Dex go with Rivet, she wasn’t going to put any more injured at risk.

“Are you ready to go?” Spitfire asked Air Mach. He cracked a smile and pointed directly upward.

“Is that even a question?! The great Animak is always—”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Spitfire cut him off, much to his dismay. “The way you were acting in the meeting, I was afraid you lost your gusto.”

“Me?! NEVER!” Air Mach pounded his chest as he removed his glasses and replaced them with his custom goggles of the same shape and style.

“Good, because we’re gonna need all the confidence we can get…” she looked towards Silver, who was standing attention with High Winds and Wave Chill beside him. “All set, Silver?”

“As set as I can be,” Silver acknowledged as Spitfire looked over his shoulder towards the rest of the able elites lined up behind them. She stole a quick glance at Wave Chill, who gave her a nod and a smile. She smiled back, before looking towards Descent as he finalized the Renegade preparations with Blazetail and Flashwind. All the retired elites were standing ready, the rest of the retired Wonderbolts waiting eagerly behind them.

Spitfire’s attention shifted as one of the lobby doors flew open and Descent’s scout, Astral, burst into the lobby. He slowly folded his wings as he walked towards Descent, but one of his wing braces didn’t cooperate with him. He paused, glaring at his left wing and forcing it outward a few times before the brace clicked and let him fold it down to his side. As curious as Spitfire was yet again about this ‘scout’ of Descent’s, it would have to wait, because he was there to report.

“The fortress is within a mile of the compound, still approaching from the south,” Astral said to Descent. Descent and Spitfire both looked outside, and indeed, they could see something large slowly approaching in the distance.

“Thanks Astral,” Descent nodded as Astral looked over his shoulder.

“Should I try to make it back out and join Lightning Dust?” he asked. Spitfire’s ears stood up. If Descent flat out told this… clearly mostly disabled pony to go out and join the fight, she was going to have a word with him. Descent looked out the window, and to Spitfire’s relief, he shook his head.

“At this rate, they’ll definitely notice you if you try to make it back,” Descent began. “Go lend a hoof with the evacuations,” the manner he responded suggested he would have said yes otherwise.

“Will do,” Astral nodded as he turned and started walking. He stopped as he caught Spitfire staring at him, noticing she was staring directly at his wing braces. He rolled his eyes and kept walking, Spitfire watching him as he moved into the east hallway.

“Spitfire,” Descent called to her, drawing her attention back to the task at hoof. “We’re all set and their nearly upon us, we should get out there,” he suggested. Spitfire glanced out the doors towards the incoming fortress and gave a nod.

“Let’s do this,” she turned and took a deep breath, smirking suddenly as she glanced towards Blazetail and Flashwind. “Heh, this may be the last time I ever get to do this… do you guys remember the launch cadence?” she asked. The two old captains blinked as they turned towards her, looking at her as if she was crazy.

“Honey…” Flashwind chuckled. “We’re the ones that perfected it,” she said with a wink.

“Giving it a go? I’m sure the rest here would get a kick out of it,” Blazetail smirked.

“Then let’s do it,” Spitfire said as she turned and faced them all. Descent was already up and moving towards the hangar window, but he stopped and turned when he realized nopony was following him.

“What the hell are you all waiting fo—”

“ALL SQUADS READY?!” Spitfire yelled, cutting off Descent. All the Wonderbolts, current and Renegade alike all fell in line, all reaching up and pushing their goggles down.

“AYE!” They all replied in unison.

“ALL PONIES SET?!” Spitfire continued.

“AYE!” the Wonderbolts replied while all opening their wings causing a loud FLAP noise to echo around the lobby. Spitfire stole a brief glance at Blazetail and Flashwind, who both gave a nod in return.

“WONDERBOLTS! GO!!!!!” Spitfire yelled out as she, Air Mach, Blazetail, and Flashwind all took off.

“HOO-RAH!” the rest yelled as they all broke into a canter, taking off row by row while staying in formation.

Descent shifted aside as the Wonderbolts, both young and old, shot past him in an organized manner, moving out to meet the Shadowbolts all together as a single unit. Descent blinked as he watched them clear the hangar window and scoffed while shaking his head.

“What a bunch of showoffs…” he said to himself as he followed behind, but even he had to admit it looked pretty impressive.

“Scuse me! Pardon me! Coming through!” Dash called out as she pushed her way into the infirmary. She felt like a salmon swimming upstream as she made her way through the sea of ponies, specifically the mass exodus of the injured Renegades. Only she and Twister had made it through initially, Matteo had gotten stuck for a moment outside, trying to squeeze his giant bulk through the moving crowd and through the door, but he would catch up shortly.

Once they were in the infirmary, Dash and Twister lifted up and glided over the crowd of ponies. Dash locked on target, spotting Luna and Bliss huddled around Soarin. Just as Spitfire had suspected, Dash’s top priority was to get Soarin to safety.

But the moment she spotted Bliss and Luna… she knew something was wrong because Soarin was still in bed, and they were examining him curiously.

“Hey!” she called as she approached, causing Bliss to look up at her. “What’s the big deal?! We gotta get Soarin out of here! NOW!” Dash yelled in frustration as she landed right beside them. “Seriously, what’s going on?!”

“I don’t know!” Bliss quickly answered with a worried tone in her voice that alarmed Dash. “We can't move him!” she explained as Matteo finally made it through and landed behind Dash, beside Twister.

“What?!” Dash exclaimed as she looked past Bliss. Luna was standing over Soarin’s bed, her magic alight in her horn. She was trying to move Soarin with telekinesis, but as her magic aura surrounded him, Soarin’s horn came to life with a bright yellow glow, surrounding him in a yellow aura that knocked Luna’s away. Luna growled and shook her head.

“It’s no use! Every time we try to move him, his magic resists ours!” Luna looked towards Dash with worry.

“Confound it!” Matteo suddenly growled from behind them, stepping up and pushing past Dash, Bliss, and Luna. “Ponies and their magic!” he reached towards Soarin. “Did you not try to simply move him yourselves?!”

“WAIT!” Luna called out, but Matteo already grabbed Soarin’s arm. An intense yellow aura surrounded Soarin’s horn and lashed out, striking Matteo in the chest. Matteo’s massive body was propelled backwards, flying through the air. Dash, Bliss, and Luna all stepped aside, but Twister sat completely still. Matteo landed back-first, right on top of him, causing Twister to release a long drawn out whoopee cushion cheer. Bliss stepped over to Matteo and glared down at his face as he slowly rolled upright.

“You think we didn’t try that already?!” she said to him with a flat look.

“And of course…” Luna growled while looking all around the room. “OF COURSE!” she stomped a hoof. “Discord shows up to ‘CHECK’ on us… and then the moment we could use him, he’s nowhere to be found!” Luna’s eyes suddenly widened as she felt a tug on her mane. She looked down to see Twister smiling up at her with her mane wrapped around his face and his pupils wide and starry.

“You have a pretty mane…” he said with a giggle before Dash grabbed him and growled in his face.

“TWISTER I SWEAR… ugh… forget it…” she let go of him as his eyes spun in circles. She looked towards Soarin and bit her bottom lip, her mind racing as she thought about what to do next. If it were the blue magic reacting, she wouldn’t second guess reaching forward and doing something about it herself… but the yellow magic never reacted to her. After what happened to Matteo, she doubted it was a good idea to try. She looked towards the entrance, where the last of the injured Renegades made it out, leaving Soarin as the last to be moved. “What are we gonna do?!”

Silver looked to his left and right as he and the rest of the Wonderbolts came to a halt about fifty yards from the compound. There was a clear sign of fear among them, but he didn’t blame any of them. They were out, facing down an enemy much more powerful than them… with the intention of buying time. There was no victory in their scenario… at least not a plausible one. As good as it was to hear that they may have a slight chance to save the compound, Silver felt it was the most farfetched thing he had ever heard in his life.

They had to view it as if they were out there to buy time for the injured… not for Rivet. Silver just hoped that Fleetfoot would be smart enough to pull all of them out of there in time. Losing a lead squad Wonderbolt, a lead Renegade, two elite squads, their experimental special force, and their head engineer on top of it would be a devastating blow they wouldn't need on top of the compound being destroyed. He only hoped that Fleetfoot carried the same concerns.

“Hold steady!” Spitfire called out as the fortress drew within a quarter mile of them. The Shadowbolts could now be seen flying along slowly with it. The fortress did not have its cannons activated, suggesting they were going to roll up and immediately begin charging the main cannon. “Wait for Lightning Dust to move!” Spitfire ordered as she and Descent carefully watched the surrounding area outside the compound, making quick glances at the fortress to keep tabs on it.

Something was bothering Silver. The ten commanders were clearly out in front with the fortress… but… their numbers aside from them looked… small compared to what he had seen before.

“There they go!” Descent exclaimed as Lightning Dust and the Shadowbolt Renegades emerged from beyond the compound walls. “Time to go!” he yelled to Spitfire.

Silver was paying attention, but… if the rest of the Shadowbolts weren’t all out there… then…

“Oh no!” Silver suddenly yelled, catching all of their attention right before Spitfire gave the order to advance.

“Silver?” Spitfire looked towards him. But before anything else could be said…

Screams started erupting from the compound.

All of the Wonderbolts looked back in horror as pink flashes started appearing from the windows.

“WHAT?!” Spitfire exclaimed as her eyes went wide.

“Short range teleporting!” Descent shouted in disbelief.

A Wonderbolt security guard rushed out the front door.

“SHADOWBOLTS IN THE COMPOUND!” he yelled right before a pink beam of magic shot through the door and struck him in the back, knocking him out. Descent and spitfire looked at each other quickly.

“BLAST IT! I’M A FOOL!” Descent roared as he grabbed his mane and gave it a hard, annoyed tug. “I didn’t even CONSIDER their short range teleporting! They must be hopping in directly from their fortress!”

“We only have recruits inside the base!” Wave Chill yelled towards Spitfire. “They’re defenseless in there!” he called out as Spitfire’s mind raced on what to do. Their whole plan had just shattered before it even began.

“WE’LL GO BACK!” Blazetail suddenly yelled. “STICK TO THE PLAN OUT HERE! WE’LL GET EVERYPONY OUT!” he yelled and turned.

“BLAZETAIL!” Descent called out. “WAIT!” he tried to stop him.

“EX-WONDERBOLTS! TURN AROUND! GO! GO!” Blazetail ordered. Without a second thought, all of the Wonderbolt Renegades had turned around and were heading back into the compound, leaving them with roughly half the numbers.

“That IDIOT!” Descent growled as he watched them leave. “The Wonderbolts are not trained to fight against the magic!”

“Hey!” Spitfire rushed over to him. “We’re the Wonderbolt elites! We may not be trained to handle the Shadowbolts like you are… but we do learn from our mistakes! We have no time to argue, Lightning Dust is almost upon them!” Spitfire was clearly resisting the urge to turn around and help, but if they could salvage any of the plan… she would. That, and she trusted Blazetail and Flashwind to protect everypony back inside the compound. “There’s no time to second guess or think it over! Let’s buy them all the time we can give!”

“We have to move NOW!” Silver yelled as he inched forward and looked back at Spitfire. She and Descent turned and glared towards the fortress.

“You heard Silver! LET’S GO!” she ordered… and the Wonderbolts launched towards the Shadowbolts. Their slim plan was now even slimmer… but their hope was still alive. It was likely that Rivet and his team were now being hindered by Shadowbolts as well… and she trusted Fleetfoot to get them out of there.

Her thin hopes of saving the compound were now dashed. Now it all came down to survival.

Silver glanced at Spitfire as they charged in. There was a clear sign of uncertainty in her eyes. With this new development, he couldn’t help but feel the same…

Uncertain if their plan had any chance of success now.

“WHOA! WATCH OUT!” Twister suddenly yelled from beside Dash. She was about to turn and berate him for not being serious again, but she yelped as he jumped in front and a blast of pink energy struck him in the shoulder, glancing off and veering away, exploding against the ceiling. “EEEEYAI!” Twister yelped as the ricocheted magic blast spun him around and tossed him to the floor.

“WHAT THE—?!” Matteo looked up, Luna and Bliss looking around him.

Four Shadowbolts… each with a single pink crystal orbiting them. They were standing near the entrance of the infirmary and sneering towards them.

“SHADOWBOLTS?! IN THE COMPOUND?!” Luna exclaimed with her eyes wide. The Shadowbolts held their hooves forward, the crystals glowing as a buildup of pink magic surrounded their hooves. “NO!” Luna yelled as she glanced back at Soarin. She stepped forward and poured her magic into her horn. A flat shield expanded forth, widening in front of them as the Shadowbolts fired pink blasts towards them. Luna’s shield easily blocked them, but she winced and grunted as each one struck.

“Twister!!” Dash yelled as she crouched down to examine him on the ground. The moment she reached for him, he turned over, had a bushy moustache and a milk jug in his hoof and he took a large swig of it, leaving a milk moustache.

“Ey, I’m alright! Cause I drink my milk!” he said with a wink. “Got milk?!” he yelled before pouring the entire contents over his head. Dash flattened her brow and quickly hoisted him back up, his suit and face completely dry and without stache once he was back on his hooves. The two of them, Bliss, and Matteo all flinched as the pink blasts of magic pounded against Luna’s shield.

“AH!” Luna yelped as she crouched down. Her horn aura was flickering as the shield slowly grew thinner.

“Luna?!” Bliss quickly grabbed her arm and tried to support her.

“We are still weak! We cannot hold this for long!” she exclaimed. Matteo looked back at her, and then glared towards the Shadowbolts.

“Then we take the fight to them! Drop the shield!” he ordered as he spread his large wings.

“Matty! Wait!” Dash called to him, but he didn’t listen.

“Follow RIGHT behind me, you two!” he said to Dash and Twister. “DROP THE SHIELD!” he yelled again.

“URGH!” Luna groaned as she released her magic and the shield fell.

Matteo immediately leapt forward, angling and pounding his wings down to execute his Air Burst acceleration. A loud POOF and the air exploding behind him generated strong gusts that knocked over many appliances and ripped several medical posters from the walls, crashing against Dash and Twister as they forced through the pressure to follow him. Matteo threw his arms up in front of his face, willingly flying into the blasts of magic, using his sturdy body and iron poise to keep moving forward while protecting Dash and Twister. He grunted and gasped as the magic struck him, painfully pelting and ripping at his arms as he forged on through the attacks.

The Shadowbolts began to back away as they noticed Matteo plowing right through their magic, but they had little time to move. Twister shifted forward and bounced off Matteo’s back, twisting right over Matteo’s shoulder between his head and his wing, catching two of the Shadowbolts completely off guard as he shot down from above them and pushed their heads down hard into the floor.

“Shhhhhhhh…” he hushed them comically as he let go of their heads, fell up and crash landed on the ceiling, making the sound of breaking glass as he did.

With the blasts ceasing and the remaining two Shadowbolts focusing on Twister’s odd antics, Matteo reached back and grabbed Dash’s hoof, slinging her around and flinging her, back hooves first towards them. Dash kicked her back hooves out, striking and clipping the two other Shadowbolts, sending them flipping backwards and slamming into the back wall.

Dash and Matteo came to a halt, both panting as they stood over the knocked out Shadowbolts as Twister dropped down from the ceiling, grabbed his two unconscious targets and double noogied their heads together while snickering.

Dash stared in disbelief for a moment. These weren’t clones… they were real Shadowbolts… and the three of them just felled them easily with their teamwork, skills, and strength. She remembered struggling against them the last time she had fought a real Shadowbolt head-on before this crisis… All the training really had paid off…

But she would admire herself later… besides, it wasn’t like these were the higher ranking Shadowbolts.

She could hear all the commotion and screams of fright and pain out in the hallways… things had clearly taken an unexpected turn for the worse. Then realization hit her.

The Shadowbolts were in the compound… clearly with a quick avenue of escape based on how easily they got in. They were slowing down the evacuation process… Trying to keep any Wonderbolts from escaping…

They wanted to kill them all right here and now.

And what was worse… she also couldn’t move Soarin… meaning he was stuck in the compound regardless of what happened. The only way she saw them saving Soarin was if this ridiculous idea of the compound flying… actually worked. Her hopes were now stretched very thin… but it was clear…

If she wanted to save Soarin… they had to get the compound moving. And based on the situation in the compound…

Rivet’s team was most likely under attack!

“Ah!” Dash yelped in surprise as two more Shadowbolts jumped into the infirmary, but before anything could happen, two incredibly powerful blasts of blue magic hurled past her and struck them hard, sending them tumbling to the ground, sizzling. Dash looked up to see Luna with her magic alight, being supported by Bliss. Luna was up… and able to fight back a little, it seemed.

Dash knew what she had to do… it was their only hope now.

“TWISTER! MATTEO!” she called to them. “I want you to follow me! We still have a slim chance, but I’ll need your help!” she ordered.

“What are you talking about?” Matteo blinked in confusion. Dash pointed at me.

“I have no time to explain! I just want you to trust me!” she yelled at him while turning to Twister. “Twister we—”

“WHEREVER WE’RE GOING… I’M GAME!” he said while doing stretches near the door. Dash smiled as she looked back at Matteo. He shrugged, but gave a solid nod as he stepped up beside her.

“LUNA!” Dash yelled back at Luna and Bliss. “Can you protect Soarin?!”

“What…? We can but…”

“GOOD!” Dash yelled as she turned and ran towards the door with Matteo and Twister in tow.

“Rainbow Dash?! WAIT!!!” Luna called after her, confused, but Dash and her two squadmates were already moving through the door.

The moment the three stepped into the hallways, they came to a halt, staring in disbelief at the cacophony. Shadowbolts were everywhere, the injured Renegades and Wonderbolts along with the recruit squads fighting desperately to try and get to the end of the hall, but they were having little luck. The Shadowbolts had completely blocked off the path to the underground passage. They even had three generating a pink barrier that kept anypony from even getting near the doors leading underground.

“INCOMING!” Dash yelled as she turned to face towards the lobby. Six Shadowbolts had turned towards them and were charging magic in their crystals.

But then… right before they fired, the compound shook violently as Bomber suddenly crashed through the window beside them, going right through the armored bars as he body slammed all six Shadowbolts into the opposite wall, causing them all to cry out in pain as they were nearly crushed by his massive body.

“Whoa!” Dash’s eyes went wide as Comet and Cannon Ball flew in through the broken window. Bomber turned around and swung his hoof, striking Cannon as he curled up. Cannon shot over Dash’s head, clipping three Shadowbolts that were flying in a line towards them from behind. Comet reached a hoof out, allowing Bomber to grab him and throw him towards the lobby. He shot through the hall, taking out several Shadowbolts as a red blur with a white streak behind it.

As amazing as the display of fighting ability was, Dash saw an opportunity. If the Renegade Wonderbolts had turned around to help, she, Matteo, and Twister could easily slip all the way through to the west hallway while the veterans handled the Shadowbolts.

“COME ON!” she yelled to Matteo and Twister. “Let’s break through while we can!”

Without a second of hesitation, Dash took to the air with Matteo and Twister following directly behind.

Art by: Foxenawolf

They shot past Bomber, following in Comet’s wake as he left several Shadowbolts dazed and recovering behind him.

They reached the lobby, but were quickly forced to take a wide arc, avoiding Valkyrie as she dove in and thrust her hooves into the chests of two Shadowbolts, driving them to the ground before they could hinder Foxtrot’s path. Dash led Matteo and Twister around the north edge of the lobby, passing by the stairs as Steady Wing glided past them in the opposite direction with three Shadowbolts struggling to chase him.

“No! Look!” Matteo yelled as they neared the west hallway, pointing towards the mail counter. Dash followed his gesture and gasped.

Little Star and Squall were pinned down on the floor, stuffed in the corner between the wall and the mail counter. Squall had pushed Star into the corner and covered her with his body, his back facing two Shadowbolts as they peppered him with small magic blasts. The orange pony behind the mail counter was popping up and down, peering over and shivering as all hell broke loose around them.

“WE GOTTA—”

“WAIT!” Dash cut off Matteo and pointed. “The twins!” she yelled out.

Pixie and Fairy, in perfect sync, rammed the two Shadowbolts from behind before turning and landing by Squall and Little Star. Squall slumped down, falling into Star as he cringed. Dash was torn between keeping on track and helping them, but was relieved when she saw Pixie and Fairy personally help Star with Squall. “They’ve got it! Keep moving!” Dash yelled as they veered left and made a hard right, dipping down into the west hallway and making a beeline towards the basement. There were absolutely no ponies in the west hallway, making their travel easy until…

“Up ahead!” Twister yelled as about a dozen more Shadowbolts appeared out of thin air in loud flashes of pink light.

“DAMN!” Dash was ready to put on the breaks, but right as they began to slow down, two ponies shot past them.

Blazetail and Flashwind had entered the scene. They made several lateral shifts as they approached the group of Shadowbolts, making it hard to keep track of which of them was in front. Flashwind suddenly grabbed her husband by the arm and gave him a gentle push in the back, launching him forward at twice the speed. He held his arms out, clotheslining eight of the twelve Shadowbolts that barely had time to blink. The other four turned to face Blazetail as he shot by, but they were struck from behind by Flashwind as she passed.

“Get going!” Blazetail yelled at Dash. “We’ll handle these guys! Make sure Rivet’s team is alright!” the urgency in Blazetail’s voice suggested that he was hopeful of the long-shot plan being successful. He was the one that suggested it after all. “GO! NOW!” he yelled as the Shadowbolts they knocked down started to get back up.

“YOU HEARD HIM!” Dash yelled back at Matteo and Twister. “MOVE! MOVE!” Dash burst forward with her wingmates in tow. They passed by all the Shadowbolts and the two former Wonderbolt captains, giving them a straight shot for the stairs leading into the basement.

After what Dash had just witnessed while flying through the compound… it looked as if literally nopony had been evacuated before the Shadowbolts appeared. She had no idea how the fight was going on outside, but she had to assume not well if the Renegade Wonderbolts were forced to turn around. Time was clearly short… and with little to no ponies actually evacuated… their last hope of survival was an incredible leap of faith. She only hoped that Rivet was okay… and that what he found in the second basement really was the answer to their safety…

Because if it wasn’t, they were all dead.

“Damn!” Silver cursed as he barely dodged an incoming blast of magic, the beam grazing his back and ripping a piece of his suit off with it. He had three Shadowbolts coming after him as he flew, glancing at the flying fortress as he came near.

Their efforts weren’t having much of an effect. They charged the fortress from both sides, but after ten or so of the Renegades from Dust’s group painfully bounced off a magic shield surrounding it, they were forced to keep a little bit of distance.

The Wonderbolts and Renegades tried to engage the Shadowbolts in front of the fortress’ path, but whoever was piloting the monstrosity seemed to care very little for their fellow Shadowbolts, simply knocking them aside if they got too close to the shield.

“URGH!” Silver grunted as he took a blast directly to the back before veering off and flying away from the fortress to create some distance, a small trail of smoke rising from a singed piece of his suit. He was glad the Renegades were engaging the commanders, because he was having a hard enough time dealing with the lower ranks. His body was much stiffer than he realized, feeling like he was barely at seventy-five percent of his usual potential.

His eyes widened and he came to a sudden halt as five Shadowbolts dropped down in front of him with fully charged crystals. With the three behind him, he had been completely surrounded. He cursed himself for not paying attention to his surroundings. Now he was going to pay for it.

He stopped in his path and curled up to shield himself…

But nothing happened. Instead he heard eight screams of pain, followed by a gust of wind.

“Silver! You’re not looking so good!” Spitfire’s voice met his ears. Silver opened his eyes and fluttered his wings to hover, spotting Spitfire right in front of him and all eight Shadowbolts falling towards the ground below. He grunted and cracked his neck.

“I’m a bit stiff, but what else is new?!” he grumbled as he and Spitfire went back to back. “Not like it really matters… we’re not stopping this thing at all!” he referred to the fortress as he and Spitfire repelled two Shadowbolts that tried to flank them.

“I’m open to suggestions!” Spitfire asked as she met an incoming Shadowbolt with a hoof to the face so hard that his goggles blew to pieces and he tumbled towards the ground.

“It’s worrying me how much you’re asking for ideas,” Silver began as he grabbed a Shadowbolt, spun him around and threw him into another. “It’s your job to have the ideas you know!”

“I’ll take that as a no!” Spitfire growled as she turned to glare at Silver.

Silver hated this scenario. If they were going to go out fighting, it would be preferred fighting with a chance. They were so thin in numbers that the commanders weren’t even generating their clones. It felt like they were being toyed with, treated as an afterthought as they casually floated their giant overcompensation cannon into firing range.

“HEY! HEY!” A gruff voice came from above them. Silver and Spitfire both looked up, and with barely a moment to react, Spitfire rammed herself into Silver shoving them both out of the way as Sin came crashing down missing them.

“Crap! Commanders!” Spitfire yelled as she pointed up as the two began moving to stay in motion. Silver looked up while panting, barely keeping up with Spitfire as they moved. Ruin and Blade were charging down at them, fast.

“Looks like the lead captain has come out to play!” Ruin cackled as he and Blade gave chase. Blade already had his magic sword drawn, but before he could fly any closer, he was forced to turn and guard as Descent came flying out of nowhere and intercepted him.

“How the hell do I always end up fighting you?!” Blade yelled angrily as Descent pushed his hooves against the flat edge of Blade’s sword.

“Personal grudges die hard!” Descent yelled as he and Blade continued to struggle and fly in the opposite direction.

“Look out!” Spitfire yelled back at Silver as small orbs of pink magic began shooting from around Ruin and homing in on them. Spitfire and Silver pitched and turned to avoid, but every time an orb missed, it would turn around and come back after them. Spitfire was dodging them alright, but Silver…

“ARGH! AH! DAMMIT!” Silver grunted and cursed as he got struck by three of them in a row, the third stunning his left wing and causing him to tumble.

“Silver!” Spitfire yelled as she turned around and dove towards him, still avoiding the orbs as she tried to reach Silver.

“URGH!” Silver grunted as his vision continued to spin out of control. He heard a sudden burst of wind followed by Spitfire’s hooves suddenly grabbing him around the shoulders and helping him shift upright. Silver was still dizzy, but as he focused, he saw Spitfire turn and do something with her wings that caused another loud POW followed by a backdraft of wind. Silver focused and saw that all the magic orbs were gone and they were still a good distance above the ground. “Damn magic…” Silver grumbled as he shook his head out.

“HEY! WE’RE NOT DONE!” Sin dropped down from above again. Silver’s eyes widened as he noticed he was right in Sin’s path, his hooves alight with crackling pink magic. Before he could strike though, Spitfire shot up, pushed Sin’s hooves aside and punched him incredibly hard in the gut. Sin exhaled painfully as Spitfire reached up, wrapped an arm around his neck and pumped her wings, adding speed to his momentum and breaking through an air cone as she drove him straight towards the ground, releasing him twenty yards from impact. The force of Sin’s motion sent him directly into the torn up ground of the courtyard with a thundering crash that kicked up a great deal of dust and debris.

“Yikes Captain…” Silver blinked as he regained full control and watched Spitfire easily pull up and shoot right back into the fray.

He looked towards the flying fortress as he painfully flapped his stiff wings, but his eyes widened as realization hit.

The fortress had stopped advancing…

And he could hear clanking and creaking noises. It had to be the massive cannon rising from the deck. It would still be a little while before it fired, but their time was running very short.

“If there was ever a time for a miracle…” Silver muttered to himself as he glanced back at the compound. “It’s now…”

“STAY BEHIND ME!” Fleetfoot yelled as she backed Rivet against a wall and swiped her hooves back and forth, batting away strikes by two Shadowbolts as they slowly pushed her and Rivet backwards. Rivet was fully pressed against the wall, staring wide eyed through his goggles and looking back and forth at all the fighting going on around him.

They had been suddenly jumped when they reached the middle of the basement. Shadowbolts appeared in their path and also behind them, cutting off both their way to the end of the hall and their avenue of escape. They also outnumbered them by five ponies, making it difficult for the Wonderbolts to respond.

Squad zero was clearly not in good fighting condition, the special force struggling to keep up with the low ranking Shadowbolts as their injuries hindered them. None of them were expecting an attack, and their current weaknesses were being exploited.

“Comin’ through!” Starry Skies yelled as she flew in and rammed the two Shadowbolts attacking Fleetfoot. However, Fleetfoot was forced to engage the Shadowbolt following Starry, who shoved her against the wall, dragging them down the wall away from Rivet as the two grappled. Rivet was now exposed as he looked up and around frantically. He yelped as a Shadowbolt turned to him and approached with their crystal glowing. He stared wide eyed as the Shadowbolt pulled back a hoof with a collection of magic surrounding it…

But at the last moment, Misty Fly shot in front and took the blow to the face. She was thrust against the wall, squishing Rivet in between them, but she pushed herself right off and head butted the Shadowbolt below the chin. He stumbled back, but quickly recovered and fired the remaining magic from his hooves. Misty scooped up Rivet in her wing and broke into a gallop, outrunning the magic as several blasts came towards them, exploding along the walls.

“SUPER…”

The Shadowbolt looked up as a shadow cast over him. Macho Savage was falling towards him with his elbow leading the drop.

“SLAM!” he drove his elbow into the Shadowbolt’s back pressing him to the ground and knocking him out.

Misty skidded to a halt as the attacks ceased and tried to open one of the doors to hide Rivet in, but she was struck in the side, causing her to stumble and drop Rivet. Misty balanced herself and put up a guard to shield herself from an incoming blow. Her eyes widened as a Fire Streak shifted past her and grappled with the Shadowbolt. Rivet lay completely frozen as the two stallions struggled directly above him. Misty quickly reached under and pulled Rivet out, moving him away before Lighting Streak shot by her and delivered a punch to the Shadowbolt’s face over his brother’s shoulder. Squad three backed up together, the Streak twins standing in front as Misty held onto Rivet.

“This is not good, we’re wasting time!” Fire growled as they stared down approaching Shadowbolts.

“We’re toast, ain’t we?” Lightning sighed as they planted their hooves, ready to protect Rivet and Misty.

“None of that!” Fire scolded him before gasping. “GET DOWN!” he yelled pulling both Lightning and Misty down. Calm Wind and Playbitz both shot backwards over their heads, crashing painfully to the ground. Playbitz got up quickly, but Calm winced and cried out in pain, landing right on the wound on his back.

Rivet peeked over Misty’s arm as Shine and Swift were both thrown backwards. Fire caught Shine before she could crash. Lightning tried to do the same for Swift, but whiffed it and the two ended up as a pile on the floor. Storm Front grunted as he was forced towards them, but held his hooves to the ground, skidding to a halt in front of the Streak twins as the rest of his squad, along with Fleetfoot and Starry, struggled to fight a few yards away.

“If only we could break through!” Storm yelled as he looked towards the Shadowbolts blocking their path to the end of the basement.

They all flinched in surprise as sudden cries of pain echoed from the opposite direction. They all turned and looked to see the three Shadowbolts blocking the escape route go flying forward, revealing Dash, Matteo, and Twister searing towards them.

“Hey! Backup!” Lightning Streak cheered as he picked himself and Swift up off the ground.

Storm wasted no time in rushing forward, taking advantage of the Shadowbolts’ confusion just as Fleetfoot and Starry Skies were. The three of them had caught the remaining Shadowbolts in a pincer attack between them and the incoming Foxtrot assault.

With them mostly distracted by Foxtrot, Storm, Starry, and Fleetfoot were able to deliver knockout blows to several of their enemies between them, leaving only three for Foxtrot to deal with. Dash and Twister flew in front, but right before the first two Shadowbolts could attack them, they broke apart and flew around them, Matteo rushing forward and grabbing them both by the necks. He spun around and threw them both simultaneously past all of them towards the Streak twins. The twins stepped forward, leapt up and spun around delivering simultaneous roundhouse kicks to the two incoming Shadowbolts, forcing their heads to knock together before they hit the ground and slid, stopping right in front of Misty.

Dash slammed to the ground and skidded to a halt in front of the last Shadowbolt stuck between them. The stallion faced her and charged. As Dash readied to defend herself… she had a thought.

Watch the chest.

She remembered when Matteo attacked Descent, Descent never once took his eyes off Matteo’s chest. In doing so, he seamlessly dodged every single attack.

With the crystal glowing and magic surrounding his hooves, the Shadowbolt lunged and began throwing punches. Dash dodged each punch by a mile, as if she could see their path long before they were thrown. Then it hit her. The arms could not swing forward without movement in the chest muscles. The moment she saw movement in her opponent’s chest, she could easily predict where the blow was going to land. Of course this would only work in a frontal assault, but any motion for a kick was given away by a turn in the entire body. No wonder Descent dodged every attack thrown by Matteo so easily, this method was effective against an opponent attacking straight on.

She threw both of her hooves up and pushed the Shadowbolt’s arms away as she ducked between a double punch and rammed him, sending him tumbling backwards. His crystal clattered to the ground beside him.

He tried to get up, but right before he could, Starry Skies appeared above him. She lifted her hoof up… but instead of attacking him, she smashed the crystal, causing it to explode into pink light and disintegrate.

“NO!!!!!” the Shadowbolt stallion cried out as he reached towards where the crystal once sat, clawing his hooves on the ground desperately while breathing heavily. Dash blinked and watched in horror as Starry simply stepped backwards as the Shadowbolt grabbed her by the leg. She shook it off and snorted, turning away as the Shadowbolt curled up on the ground and began to shake.

“Leave him,” Starry said as she glanced back at Dash. “Trust me, he won’t do anything else.”

“Uh…” Dash stepped past the stallion as he cringed on the ground, tears dripping out from beneath his goggles. “Good… god…” she winced and gritted her teeth. Was the power of the pink crystals so potent that immediate disconnection caused massive withdrawal? Watching the Shadowbolt go from a strong position and attack to being completely broken was… disturbing. Starry’s method of subduing this one Shadowbolt almost seemed cruel compared to the rest, who they had simply knocked out for the time being.

Dash quickly looked away and focused on the task at hoof. She trusted Starry, who had had experience with using the crystals, that the stallion wouldn’t budge. Matteo and Twister both took long, disturbed looks as well as they followed behind Dash. They couldn’t afford to be distracted, they were short on time, and still had to act fast!

With the rest taken care of, the Streak twins quickly turned and alongside the rest of squad seven, engaged and easily defeated the remaining three Shadowbolts blocking their way to the end of the basement.

“Dash!” Fleetfoot called to her as she pushed up her goggles and approached Foxtrot. “What the heck are you doing down here?!” she asked out of concern as Misty and Rivet helped Squad Zero get to their hooves.

“No time to argue!” Dash quickly replied. “The Shadowbolts are wreaking havoc all over the compound and blocking the path to the underground tunnel! The Wonderbolt Renegades are trying to fend them off, but nopony and I mean literally NOPONY has been able to evacuate yet!” Fleetfoot and Starry Skies visibly reacted as Dash relayed the dire situation up above to them. “If this machine below the compound isn’t what we’re hoping it is… we’re all gonna die, plain and simple!”

“Well, what are we waiting for then?!” Starry replied before Fleetfoot could muster a response. Starry quickly moved over to Rivet and scooped him up onto her back with her wing, causing him to squeak in surprise. “Come on! Dying is NOT on my to-do list today!” she said as she broke into a gallop towards squad seven and the Streak twins, who were now waiting at the end of the hall. Misty Fly quickly gave chase as Fleetfoot turned and glanced at Dash.

“From the looks of things, we need all the help we can get… Let’s go!” Fleetfoot encouraged as she pushed her goggles down and she followed behind Misty. Dash, Matteo, and Twister brought up the rear.

“Is that everypony?!” Fire yelled back, looking around to make sure everypony was accounted for as the last of them caught up.

“Looks like it,” Lightning confirmed after taking a headcount himself. All eyes shifted to Starry Skies as she stepped forward and let Rivet down from her back.

“Well little guy…” she nudged him forward. “Your turn. Let’s see this hatch,” she encouraged as Rivet landed on his hooves and looked towards the dead end wall at the far side of the basement.

“Right…” he nodded as he reached up and turned a dial on his goggles. A pair of tinted lenses shifted down over the clear ones as he focused on the floor. He turned his head back and forth before his eyes locked on a certain spot. “There’s the door… and…” he looked up and focused on a specific part of the wall beside them. “And there’s the lever, right where I left it,” he said as he pushed his goggles up and hovered up to the wall.

He pressed against a spot on the wall that pushed inward as he touched it. The rest all watched curiously as a hidden panel opened on the wall, revealing a lever that looked a bit old and rusty. Rivet grabbed the lever in his hooves and glanced back at the rest of them.

“I’d recommend taking a few steps back,” he warned them. Taking his advice, they moved backwards… and Rivet grunted as he forced the lever down.

A loud CLANK came from the floor as if something unlatched. They all flinched in surprise as a set of four floor tiles buckled and swung upward from the floor, stopping with a loud, painful creak as it revealed metal staircase that led further down. It was about three yards wide, large enough for three ponies to walk down comfortably side by side. They all stared in awe as the passage was revealed, especially the Wonderbolt elites, who had never known such a passage existed. They heard about it just now in the meeting, but they definitely had their doubts… until right now.

“Well…” Fleetfoot gulped as Rivet stepped up to the stairs and pulled a flashlight out of his saddle bag. “Let’s do this.”

The only light that led them as they descended into the darkness below the metal steps was Rivet’s flashlight. The Wonderbolts stepped carefully, following behind their little mechanic as he shined the light on the pathway before them. Dash walked side by side with Fleetfoot and Shine Struck near the front of the group, staying as close together as possible so as not to lose anypony in the darkness.

“There it is…” Rivet spoke up, his voice causing an unexpected echo as he moved the light from the floor to the wall about ten yards from the bottom of the stairs. There was a fuse box that looked like it was recently mounted on the wall. It didn’t match the rusty, worn look of the wall it hung on, suggesting it was something that Rivet had put there himself. There were multiple wires that extended up from the box.

Rivet floated up to the box while holding the flashlight in his teeth, opening it and flipping several switches. Loud clicking noises sounded out nearby and got quieter. It sounded like they were moving far and around a large area. The clicks were followed by a quiet buzz of electricity. Dim lights hanging from the ceiling began to flicker on… revealing an incredible sight.

The lights turned on one by one, and continued to do so for a very long time as the lights, placed about ten yards apart each, kept coming to life, extending far beyond where they all stood. The lights wrapped around the outside of an enormous room, that easily extended across the length of the compound, maybe even more, just as Rivet had described. The lights shined down upon multiple large pieces of machinery, the likes of which most them had never seen before. They were mechanical, engine-like mechanisms full of gears, axles, chains, and running belts, again just as Rivet had described earlier.

Lead Runner and Point Dex both stepped forward and stared in awe.

“Dear sweet sexy mother of machinery…” Lead Runner commented as he pushed his goggles up. Point Dex flattened his brow and turned back to Rivet.

“What’s with you and always finding the fascinating stuff?” he asked grumpily as Rivet stepped past him and up towards the first piece of machinery closest to them. He looked it over as the rest of the Wonderbolts made their way in behind him and looked around in awe.

“This has been here… the whole time?” Fleetfoot shook her head as she and Dash approached Rivet and looked over the contraption. “How was none of this in the Wonderbolt records? This seems like a pretty huge thing to omit…” Fleetfoot continued as she glanced at Rivet.

“Based on what Blazetail and Flashwind said,” Rivet began. “It might be reasonable to assume that the Shadowbolt, Raider, took everything having to do with the compound with him. Don’t know why they never fixed the gap in the records though, unless it just slipped their minds.”

Dash could hear them, but she was barely listening. She was too busy staring in awe at the large machine before them. As Rivet had said, it looked like a lot of the parts had been replaced, but the chassis itself still looked old. It was also huge, many times larger than her, which made it even more awe inspiring that there were several of these machines lining the outer wall of the massive area they now stood in.

The metal floor below them was vented, suggesting that there was more to the machine below them. She floated up to take a look, spotting one of the large hatches. Judging by the hatches Rivet had described, it could be where the giant propellers were stored. Assuming this was all a flight mechanism like the Shadowbolt fortress.

This really could be everything Blazetail and Flashwind suggested, but they wouldn’t know unless they started it. Despite the doubts, it gave Dash a little bit of hope that they could really do this!

“There’s no time to dawdle!” Starry stepped up to Rivet and pointed towards the center of the room. “We have to keep moving!”

Dash followed Starry’s gesture and looked towards the center. She could see the machines extending all the way around the outer walls, but it was pitch dark in the middle. All they could see before it grew too dark was the metallic pathway tipping downward.

“Right!” Rivet grabbed his flashlight again. “Now that I have some help, let’s see what’s down…” Rivet froze and his eyes widened as he looked up.

“Huh?” Starry blinked as she turned and looked towards the center. “Aw… crap…” she growled as the rest of the Wonderbolts all quickly stepped forward.

Several pink lights lit up within the darkness in the center of the room.

The lights grew brighter and brighter until they created auras that surrounded the outlines of ponies… A LOT of ponies, easily twenty or thirty.

Which only meant one thing…

“SHADOWBOLTS!” Fleetfoot yelled as the pink lights surged towards them. “Shine! Dash! Starry!” Fleetfoot called to the three closest to her. “We have to get the brainiacs down to the center! Everypony else, engage the Shadowbolts!” she ordered.

“You heard the lady!” Starry yelled as she scooped up Rivet again. “Keep that Flashlight pointed forward!” she yelled as she broke into a gallop towards the decline in the center.

Dash hesitated for a moment, but quickly followed directly behind Shine and Fleetfoot as they kept Point Dex and Lead Runner in between them. They stayed grounded as the rest of the Wonderbolts lifted up, using the pink lights from the incoming Shadowbolts to guide their path through the darkness and clash overhead.

Dash had to lean back in her steps as the path sharply turned downward. It wasn’t too steep, but enough for her to surely tumble and roll forward if she didn’t compensate. She kept her eyes on Shine Struck in front of her as they all used the light from Rivet’s flashlight to guide them down the path. It took them down in between the machinery, a narrow walkway that was barely large enough for two ponies to fit side by side.

“INCOMING!” Shine yelled out. Dash looked up to see a Shadowbolt diving towards them with Misty Fly giving chase directly behind.

“Whoa!” Dash ducked as Misty Fly rammed the Shadowbolt in the back and sent him flying into the machinery extending overhead, he bounced between the machines flanking the narrow path and landed in front of Fleetfoot.

“AH!” Fleetfoot yelped as her legs got tangled with the fallen Shadowbolt and she tumbled over the top. Shine and Dash could not stop themselves in time and found themselves also toppling over, landing in a pile with Fleetfoot as Starry continued onward with the three mechanics.

All three of them quickly rose up and started after the rest, but they had lost ground.

“SQUAD ZERO!” Shine yelled up into the air. “DEFENSE PATTERN OVERCAST!”

Dash looked up as they started catching up to see Calm Wind and Playbitz take a flight position directly overhead, gliding along with them. She assumed that Swift was there too, but with how dark it was in the room, he was completely invisible. They were acting like a shield, keeping an eye out for anything coming near the group below as squad three, Matteo, Twister, Storm, and Savage continued to engage with the Shadowbolts. Each clash caused a burst of pink light that slightly illuminated the surrounding area. Dash could barely see any movement overhead, only catching a brief glimpse every time Wonderbolt and Shadowbolt collided or when the Shadowbolts fired their magic blasts. The Wonderbolts were being smart about it, keeping themselves angled slightly above the Shadowbolts to direct any magic fire away from the machinery.

Squad Zero did their part, fending off any Shadowbolts that tried taking a dive at the group moving below. Calm and Playbitz were putting themselves in front of any who angled towards them, and once they were halted, the Shadowbolts would be struck and knocked away by an invisible force… likely Swift.

They finally reached the bottom of the decline, the floor evening out as it also opened up wide. They were free from the confines of the narrow path, giving them space, but making them an easier target.

“It should be just up ahead!” Starry yelled as Rivet shined his flashlight over her shoulder. Indeed there was something different approaching, but a sudden grunt and cry from above caught his attention. Rivet quickly looked above him and gasped.

“LOOK OUT!” he yelled as he grabbed Starry around the neck and yanked her hard to the right.

“OW!” Starry yelped in pain and stumbled as Rivet forced her body to divert. She was about to snap at him, but then both Calm Wind AND Matteo came crashing down from above, slamming to the metal floor painfully and bouncing to a stop.

“AAAHHHH!!!!” Calm cried out as he landed on his back again, only this time with the weight of Matteo’s body also smashing against him. Matteo quickly rolled off and tried to regain his senses, but a Shadowbolt was heading right for the two of them.

“I DON’T THINK SO!” Fleetfoot took flight and flew over Calm, ramming the Shadowbolt before he could slam down. The Shadowbolt was knocked off course, but kept control of his flight, only to be knocked aside by an invisible attacker and then driven to the ground by an aerial plunge attack from Playbitz. Playbitz and Swift, who was just barely visible within the light of Rivet’s flashlight, quickly moved in to help Calm.

“I’M FINE! Get back up there!” Calm yelled while pointing back towards the battle overhead. Playbitz and Swift both glanced at each other before doing as they were told, shooting back up to continue the ‘overcast defense.’ Matteo had gotten up and launched himself back towards the battle as well, quickly forming up beside Twister to attack as a pair. Fleetfoot rushed up to Calm while crouching down to help him.

“Calm!” Fleet grabbed him by the arm but he shook his head.

“I’ll manage! Help Rivet!” he winced as he pointed at the rest.

“Come on Fleet!” Dash grabbed Fleetfoot’s shoulder and pulled her away from Calm as he struggled to stand. She reluctantly complied and turned to keep moving with the rest.

Starry blinked as she watched the whole, realizing she barely avoided taking a heavy hit because of Rivet’s intervention. She glanced at Rivet as they waited for the rest to catch up with them. He shied away under her intense eyes, but she cracked a small grin.

“Thanks,” she said simply as the rest caught up with them, turning Rivet back forward to once again shine his flashlight towards the middle.

They came upon another collection of large, engine like machines that were even larger than those up above. Unlike those around the outer edge, these were clearly untouched by Rivet, the pieces looking like they had definitely seen better days.

“I see something!” Dash yelled as they weaved between the contraptions. There was something closing in, it looked much different than the rest of the mechanical pieces, and it extended up towards the ceiling to the point where it disappeared into the darkness above. It was like a large pillar, a hexagon in shape with lots of levers, valves, and indicators all over them.

They all came to a halt in front of it and Starry quickly let Rivet down to take a look, but right as he jumped down, a Shadowbolt and Storm Front both slammed down, grappling. Rivet yelped and fell backwards as Starry grabbed him and pulled him away.

Storm pulled back and head-butted the Shadowbolt, causing him to stumble back as Shine leapt up and delivered a strong kick to the Shadowbolt’s face to knock him out. Storm fell to the ground, barely propping himself up while panting.

“Storm!” Dash yelled as she galloped up to him and supported him.

“Damn!” Storm cursed as he reached a hoof up to his shoulder. “That one took me by surprise…”

Dash looked up at the fight overhead. It looked like the battle was being handled well despite the numbers disadvantage. The Streak twins, Misty and Savage were proving their elite status by taking on as many as three each at a time while Matteo and Twister fell in line, supporting them the best they could.

“Stay down here with us,” Dash ordered Storm.

“No! I’ve gotta-ARGH!” Storm tried to spread his wings, but it was clearly painful with his shoulder.

“Storm, now’s not the time for pride!” Dash reminded him as she glanced around to keep an eye out. “Come one, we gotta let Rivet get at this… thing,” she said as she helped Storm move aside.

Rivet stepped forward with Point Dex and Lead Runner as Fleetfoot and Starry Skies remained close behind them. Rivet set his saddle bag down and opened up the main pouch, pulling out a large battery and four portable lights that he quickly set around the area. He wired them to the battery, and clicked a switch on the wire, bringing the lights to life and illuminating whatever the large structure standing before them was.

Just as they saw before, levers, valves, and indicators littering the surface of it… but now they could see large opening about twelve inches wide and tall that sat at the bottom of it. There was a grate covering it that was slightly ajar. There were also several pipes and tubes littered all about the pillar moving both up and down, on which most of the valves and indicators were attached to. All of them looked at the new machine curiously, even Point Dex and Lead Runner. Rivet’s flashlight dropped to the ground, clattering against the metal floor as he stared with his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

“You’ve gotta be KIDDING me!” Rivet threw his hooves up onto his head in disbelief.

“What? What is it?” Fleetfoot asked as she stepped up between the others and stood beside Rivet. Rivet shook his head.

“This thing is STEAM POWERED?!” he exclaimed as he stared at it. Point Dex and Lead Runner both visibly reacted as well.

“Something this large is run by a boiler?!” Point Dex exclaimed, his voice nearly cracking at the revelation.

“I didn’t see any smokestacks on the flying fortress…” Lead Runner pondered out loud. “It must be heavily modified… this is such an old design!”

“QUICK!” Rivet turned to the two of them. “There’s no time to gawk! We probably don’t have much time left! We need to get this thing started!” he yelled as he ran a quick circle around the centerpiece while shining his flashlight around it. “Okay, the main boiler is right here,” he said as he stopped back in front. “There are two secondary boilers with valve releases and pressure controls that will be needed to ease the stress off the main boiler once we get the engine running,” he stopped and glanced between Point Dex and Lead Runner, who both just stared at him.

“Uhhh…” the two of them both scratched their heads. Rivet flattened his brow.

“Please tell me you two know how a steam engine works!” he asked in disbelief. They both shook their heads. Rivet threw his hooves up into the air while groaning. “You two call yourselves mechanical wizards and you don’t know how to operate a STEAM ENGINE?! It’s the most basic of locomotive devices! Come on! I’ll direct you! They’ve gotta have what we need laying around here!”

“AH!” Fleetfoot yelped, catching Rivet’s attention. They both looked up just in time to see two Shadowbolts hovering above them. They fired magic blasts before any of the others could realize what was happening. Fleetfoot quickly grabbed Rivet and turned her side to the magic to shield Rivet.

She felt the shockwave of an explosion, but she didn’t feel any pain.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“Ahhh…AHHH…” familiar grunts of pain came from above them. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened and she gasped.

She turned around and saw Calm teetering towards her.

“CALM! OOF!” Fleetfoot grunted as Calm’s large body fell against hers.

“My… BACK!” Calm shivered in pain as his wounds once again took a heavy hit, the back of his suit turning red as blood from his re-aggravated injury seeped into it. Fleetfoot looked over his shoulder with dread as the Shadowbolts fired again. She had nowhere to move him! He was going to get hit again!

Shine Struck leapt up in front of Calm and pulled her hooves back, using the magic deflection methods she had been taught to strike at both blasts. They bounced back towards the Shadowbolts and caused them to awkwardly dodge while trying to stay afloat. As soon as they were off balance, Starry was up in the air going after one of them. The other dove towards Shine, but Storm dove in from the side, tackling the Shadowbolt out of the air and pinning him to the ground. The two struggled, but the Shadowbolt could not break free from Storm’s strength.

Fleetfoot took the opportunity to move Calm out of the way, gently helping him to the floor and grabbing his hoof, giving it a tight squeeze as he continued to grunt and groan in pain from multiple blows to the wounds on his back.

Dash and Shine started moving towards Calm, but Rivet stepped in front of them and shook his head.

“Let Fleetfoot take care of him! I’m going to need your help if we’re gonna get this thing moving!” they all flinched as Starry Skies and her opponent clashed right above them, the Streak twins shooting right by shortly after as they were perused by Shadowbolts.

Rivet turned and grabbed another flashlight from his bag. He gave one of them to Shine, the other to Dash. They jumped in surprise as Playbitz crashed to the floor, slamming a Shadowbolt down, bouncing off and painfully tumbling to a halt before forcing himself up and propelling himself back into the air. Swift appeared briefly in the surrounding light, giving the downed Shadowbolt a good whack to the head to knock him out before disappearing.

“PAY ATTENTION!” Rivet forced both Dash and Shine to look at him. “Boilers are never kept without the running materials nearby! Dash! I need you to find any container of water. Celestia knows how old the water may be, but I doubt any is left in the boiler, seeing as how it has to be ventilated outside. Shine!” he turned and pointed at her as he turned and shined a light into the opening at the bottom of the boiler. “This firebox is nothing but dust and soot! I need you to find a stash of kindling or coal, anything that could be used to start a fire! If you find anything like oil or kerosene, that will help as well! GO! GO!” he yelled as he turned back to the firebox, grabbed a work light and a few tools, opened the grate all the way, and stuck his head and arms inside to inspect it.

Dash and Shine glanced at each other briefly before turning and starting their search as directed, ignoring the cacophony all around them to address the urgency of the situation.

Time was short… for all they knew they could be blown to pieces any second.

Silver glided to the ground, his hooves hitting the ground roughly. He tipped forward, dragging his chin slightly through the dirt as he lost control and crash landed. He slowly pushed himself up and shook his head out as he panted and wheezed.

He looked up at the flying fortress as the super cannon continued to charge, slowly building up energy as it had the day before as it aimed, unhindered, towards the Wonderbolt compound.

The shield around the fortress crackled and popped, appearing for a moment as two ponies bounced off of it and fell directly towards Silver. They both managed to round themselves upright as they fell, coming into view and landing beside him. Silver looked towards Spitfire and Descent as they growled and stared up at the flying fortress. The remaining Wonderbolts and Renegades struggled to keep fighting above.

Descent immediately took off again, roaring as he charged back at the flying fortress, only to be repelled again and engaged by Shadowbolts.

Spitfire just shook her head as she looked towards Silver.

“This… this doesn’t look good,” she said as Silver continued to pant.

“What tipped you off?” Silver grunted as he fell onto his plot and sat. “The cannon is about to fire… there’s clearly still a struggle going on in the compound… and the Shadowbolts out here are barely trying against us. We’re dead screwed Spitfire…” Silver gave in tipping his head down in defeat.

Under normal circumstances, Spitfire would have probably punched him across the face and tried to rally him back into action, but this time… Silver was right.

She had no plan of action, nothing to use and nothing to do. They could run if they wanted, but that left all the ponies inside. The Shadowbolts got in easily, so they could probably get out, leaving everypony else inside to die with the compound. She felt strength leaving her body as well as she began to accept it.

She looked away from the fortress and to the compound.

“Rivet…” she said out loud. “If you’re going to give us our miracle… do it now… please…”

“The pressure valve should work properly now!” Rivet called, his voice muffled from inside the firebox.

“What was that?!” Lead Runner called from the other side of the boiler. Rivet pulled his head out and brushed the soot from his face.

“I said to try increasing the air pressure!” he repeated.

“Okay!” Lead Runner disappeared behind the boiler and a loud creaking noise came from within it. Suddenly a sharp burst of steam fired out of the firebox and sprayed against Rivet.

“ARGH! AH! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!” he yelped as he flailed and tried to block it. “RGH!” he grunted as the steam ceased before sticking his head back into the firebox to take another look at the flue pipes.

“RIVET!” Dash called out as she landed, startling Rivet and causing him to jump, bopping his head against the top of the firebox rim.

“OW!” he pulled his head out and saw Dash holding a bucket.

“I found a water reserve tank! The water is rusty as hell, but—”

“It’s all we’ve got!” Rivet jumped up and hovered towards a pipe with a cap and wide nozzle. He opened the cap and pointed. “Pour the water in here!” He yelled before pointing to an indicator next to it. “And keep filling it up until this ticker hits the green!” he pointed to an indicator that showed the water level in the boiler.

“Will do!” Dash yelled as she poured the water in and went to grab more.

“Whoa!” Rivet yelped as a Shadowbolt suddenly crashed to the floor right beside him, the faint outline of Swift on the Shadowbolt’s back for a moment before the Shadowbolt was swung around and thrown upward. Misty Fly dove in and intercepted the flailing Shadowbolt, driving him away from the boiler.

Rivet shook his head out and quickly got back down into the firebox with a wrench in his teeth, grabbing a wad of sealing gum to patch up the valve that still had a rupture. He found the hole and pressed the gum over it as he saw Shine’s hooves touch down back outside. He quickly shifted back out and pushed his goggles up, two rings of clean fur around his eyes, surrounded his soot covered face.

“There was no coal,” Shine dropped a pile of wooden blocks next to Rivet. “But I found these in a box labeled ‘kindling!’”

“Wood? Yikes, this thing is very primitive! We’ll have to make do! Go grab some more just in case!” Rivet ordered Shine as Dash flew overhead with more water. He turned to his right as Shine left. “Point Dex! Are the secondary boilers all patched up?!”

“Water is dripping from the pipes overhead!” Point Dex yelled back.

“Seal those NOW!” Rivet ordered before returning to the firebox. He stuck his head back in, looking around with a flashlight. He shined it in every corner and at every flue pipe to make the final checks on his patchwork before pulling his head back out and grabbing some of the firewood. He organized a neat pile of it in the center before just tossing the rest in as Shine dropped another batch beside him. With the firebox completely stuffed, he yelled around the boiler again.

“Are all the pressure valves open?”

“All open! No leaks?!” Lead Runner called back.

“No leaks!” Rivet confirmed. “Are the secondary boiler water pipes sealed?!” he called around the other side.

“No more dripping!” Point Dex confirmed. Rivet hovered up as Dash poured another bucket of water into the water tank. Rivet checked the indicator. It was in the green.

“That’s enough, Dash!” Rivet pointed at her as he landed and looked back into the firebox. He examined the firewood and wondered if simply lighting it with a match would be enough to get it started. Without something to help start the fire, it would take way too long to—

“RIVET!” Shine called from above. Rivet looked up to see Shine flying towards him with what looked like a small oil drum. “I found some kerosene!”

“PERFECT!” Rivet reached up for it.

“But…” Shine winced as Rivet grabbed it, his ears drooping when he realized how light the can felt. “There’s barely any in there…”

“We have to go with what we’ve got!” Rivet quickly turned to the boiler with the oil can and opened it, sprinkling the last bits from the bottom of the can onto the wood. He was unsure if it would be enough to start a fire, but they had to try.

Dash and Shine landed side by side as Rivet reached for his saddle bag. He paused for a moment to look up. The flashing of pink lights still going on overhead, however it looked like the Wonderbolts had the situation well in hoof, subduing the remaining Shadowbolts. Calm had shifted and was helping Storm hold down the Shadowbolt they had pinned. Rivet felt confident he could continue without any additional worries.

Fleetfoot and Starry landed behind them as Rivet pulled a box of matches from his saddle bag, pulling one out and getting ready to strike it.

“Lead Runner! Point Dex! Keep an eye on those indicators, I’m gonna try to start it!” he yelled as he closed the grate and struck the match. Starry and Fleetfoot turned their backs to them to keep an eye out for any of the remaining Shadowbolts as Dash and Shine watched Rivet. He tossed the match into the firebox…

But nothing happened.

After a moment, Rivet struck another match and tossed it into the fire box…

Again, nothing happened.

“NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME!” Starry yelled over her shoulder.

“I’m trying!” Rivet growled as he struck another match and tossed it in, but even as he tried to toss it onto the bits of kerosene, the wood still barely caught fire.

Shine and Dash gritted their teeth, their hearts pounding knowing that with how long they had been down below… the Shadowbolt fortress could fire at any moment.

“Blaze just had to be injured right now!” Fleetfoot freaked out a little as she also watched over her shoulder.

“DAMMIT!” Rivet cursed when the third match didn’t catch. With no other option, and feeling just as desperate and hopeless as the rest, Rivet struck a fourth match, but stuck it into the remaining matches in the box. The box erupted into one big flame as he wound up and chucked the burning box of matches into the firebox.

A loud FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH sounded from inside the firebox as a bright orange glow erupted from within. It was followed by an incredibly loud, ear piercing hissing noise that forced all the ponies nearby to shout in pain while throwing their hooves over their ears.

The noise was so loud that Dash lost hearing for a moment, nothing but a high pitched ringing noise going through her head as she stumbled and felt a rush of air against her. Both she and Shine were knocked off their hooves, tumbling on their backs before rocking up to take a look. The first thing she saw as she opened her eyes was the boiler coming to life.

“YES! YES! YEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!!!!” Rivet yelled out triumphantly as the release of compressed air from the long dead pressure valves and vents rushed against him.

Art by: Foxenawolf

Multiple lights all around the enormous engine room began to flicker on, suggesting the engine was sending power through all the renaming machines in the area, even bringing power to all the old dusty lights scattered around.

Everypony’s eyes turned to the center of the room, Wonderbolts and even the few remaining Shadowbolts. They stared in awe as flames shot out from the vents that ran up the pillar all the way to the ceiling as the running lights brightened the entire room, no longer giving anypony the benefit of the shroud of darkness.

Loud creaking, popping, and groaning noises began sounding from all the engines and machinery throughout the entire basement. The machines had come alive. The axles and gears were turning and the chains and running belts were clanking and clattering.

The engines along the outside walls up above were working fine, but the ones down below were clearly straining themselves as all the old, rusted parts were forced into movement after being frozen for so long.

“AH!” Rivet suddenly yelled as multiple valves began to hiss and groan all over the boiler, one of them bursting and shooting steam. The old piping was being strained under the intense pressure of the cold start, the indicators bouncing against the red edge of their measurements as the boiler itself began to shake and creak.

Rivet sprang into action as the rest of the ponies backed away. He turned multiple valves, pulled levers and grabbed rags from his bag to wrap around the steam leak, tying it tight to the old pipe to seal it the best he could.

“WORK THE PRESSURE VALVES!” he called to Point Dex and Lead Runner on the other side. “TAKE THE STRAIN OFF OF IT! RELEASE THE STEAM IN INTERVALS!”

Point Dex and Lead Runner did as they were told, doing their best to follow his instructions and keeping the boiler from destroying itself from within.

“Oh my god… what is happening…” Dash said to herself, knowing nopony could hear her. The engines were becoming incredibly loud as the gears and chains turned and clanked faster and faster and faster. The creaking and groaning of the old metallic contraptions only grew louder and louder as the power output from the boiler increased. It was clear that the machinery was being strained due to its age, but it was holding together.

All the ponies flinched as loud snapping noises sounded from atop multiple engine pieces. They looked around to see the engines that had hatches on top had opened… and a moment later, giant poles shot up from the openings, the floor shaking as if the poles were being ripped up from the very foundations below them underground.

“WHOA!” Fire Streak shifted as he, Misty, and Lightning overhead dodged the poles extending upward.

Art by: Foxenawolf

They all quickly landed with the rest near the others, unsure if staying in the air was a good idea.

“BRACE YOURSELVES!” Fleetfoot yelled as they all realized… that the poles shooting up towards the ceiling were not stopping!

They all crouched down and yelped as the poles collided with the top, causing the room to shake. They forced right through the ceiling as if there was supposed to be an opening in their path. Rivet stumbled and fell backwards, landing on Dash and Shine, shielding himself as bits and chunks of plaster fell from above.

He looked back at the boiler and glanced up, watching as the pillar that the boiler was attached to itself also began to turn, grinding upward into the ceiling and piercing through as well.

“YIKES!” Point Dex yelped from the other side as a large portion of the metal floor opposite of where they stood unlocked from the rest of it. They barely had time to see what it was, but there were several metallic boxes on it, that started opening right before the piece of floor also shot upward and crashed right through the ceiling. Three more poles extended up from way in the back of the engine room, lined up side by side with multiple pipes converging towards them. Like all the rest, they crashed into the ceiling and forced their way through.

What had they unleashed?!

“WHAT THE DEVIL?!” Blazetail shouted as the floor of the west hallway shook beneath him. He and Flashwind looked around as the compound continued to shake violently. The floor beneath him suddenly cracked.

“Honey, lookout!” Flashwind dove towards him and knocked him out of the way. The two broke apart as a giant metal pole erupted from the floor and drove right through the ceiling above.

Art by: Foxenawolf

The two former captains watched with awe. The sound of crumbling and crackling continued as the pole kept extending upward, likely through the rest of the floors. Several other poles shot from the floor along the hallway and from out the window they could see many rising from the earth, rising up over the courtyard close to the compound itself.

“Celestia alive!” Blazetail picked himself up off the ground and galloped towards the lobby with his wife close behind him. The compound continued to shake and buckle as they weaved in between the poles and looked out into the lobby. The Shadowbolts were retreating, spooked by the sudden rocking of the compound. A massive pillar was extending upward, breaking through the stairs, literally pushing them aside as it grinded through the floor and past all the steps. An additional piece about twenty yards wide and long suddenly broke right through the center of the lobby floor, extending up through the center of the floor with what looked like metallic panels and a large lever positioned on one end.

Renegades and other ponies all leapt aside or jumped off the metallic floor piece as it continued upward and broke right through the ceiling. It continued upward, pushing aside all the pieces of the compound that apparently used to not be there as the old machinery worked. The ponies below shielded themselves as chunks of metal and plaster fell from above, clanging and clattering to the floor.

“I can’t believe it…” Flashwind’s jaw dropped as the two watched the compound literally force itself to transform.

“WE WERE RIGHT! IT’S WORKING! IT’S REALLY WORKING! HAHAHA!!!!!” Blazetail cheered.

Silver’s ears turned as a strange noise caught his ears… the sound of crunching metal? His focus was ripped away from the flying fortress that was seconds away from firing and he turned to look at the compound.

His eyes went wide and he slowly reached over, grabbing Spitfire by the shoulder.

“Captain…” his voice squeaked as if he couldn’t quite find to words. “The compound!”

Spitfire turned and looked with him. Her eyes going wide.

“Wh…Wh…WHAT?!” Spitfire stuttered.

Giant poles were not only breaking out of the courtyard within close proximity of the compound, but they were also shooting out of the roof?! Then one giant pillar broke right through of the center of the compound roof, followed by three large smokestacks that punched right out of the back yard.

Spitfire and Silver both got to their hooves and turned around to look directly at the compound. Spitfire felt all the air leave her lungs as she barely managed to speak.

“No… you’ve gotta be kidding…”

The smaller poles extended up at least three stories from the roof of the compound. They came to an abrupt, loud halt when they reached their zenith. A large portion of the pole tips unfolding into giant propellers similar to those on the flying fortress, extending thirty yards from end to end. The three smokestacks reached their maximum height and locked into place as the enormous pillar continued to extend upward from the dead center. Several hidden ropes and cables ripped from beneath the rooftop, latching onto the pillar and hoisting upward with it. When it finally reached its full height, three stories above the rest of the propellers, the pillar also unfolded into one massive propeller that was almost as long as the entire compound itself, easily fifty to sixty yards from tip to tip.

With a long, loud, drawn out groan…

The propellers began to turn. It was a slow rotation at first, but the smaller propellers began turning faster and faster. As they continued to increase speed and the giant propeller began moving faster as well. The smokestacks spewed out giant puffs, shooting flames out the top as the compound roared to life and shot intense streams of smoke skyward.

As the giant propeller slowly matched the intense speed of its smaller brethren, incredibly powerful blasts of wind rushed all over the surrounding area, knocking Wonderbolts, Renegades, and Shadowbolts every which way through the air with strong gusts and cross breezes.

The floor below Dash began to shake.

Well… it was already shaking, but the shaking had grown more intense. She and all the ponies were being knocked off their hooves. Rivet struggled to hang onto the valves and levers of the boiler as the compound shook more and more violently by the second… followed by what sounded like loud ripping sounds coming from below them.

The very walls and floor that surrounded them began to creak and groan…

The compound wasn’t the only thing shaking. The very ground of the courtyard that surrounded the compound was shaking and rumbling.

The earth began to tear asunder… a large crack appearing on the ground about thirty yards from the lobby doors. The tear in the ground began to grow, extending further.

Grass and dirt were being tossed up in the air as the rip in the earth shot along the ground, extending in a circle all the way around the compound as it cracked and crumbled. Not even the concrete walk that extended from the entrance survived, breaking to pieces as it was torn apart.

The intense uplift of the enormous propellers was ripping the compound right out of its own foundations!

The sounds of tearing and crumpling metal and the grinding of stone and plaster began to ring out all around as the compound slowly…

Slowly…

Slowly…

Began to lift out of the ground.

Pipes and wiring snapped and tore, the concrete tunnel that connected the compound with the castle broke to pieces, collapsing. Bricks and metal beams that were part of recent renovations were completely ripped apart, falling from the compound as it continued to move up.

When it cleared the ground and had risen two stories, it revealed the lower outer walls of the second basement. Multiple doors opened along the bottom of the structure and several more, smaller propellers emerged, pointing downward and spinning to life. A large propellor emerged between all the smaller below, much like the large one above, slowly rotating until it matched the speed of the others. With the added strength of the propellers below, the compound’s ascent increased speed.

Bits and pieces of the newer foundations dropped from the structure to the ground…

As the Wonderbolt compound…

Took flight.

Spitfire and Silver looked up, their eyes as wide as can be with the smallest their pupils could possibly shrink without disappearing completely.

“Oh… My… God…” Spitfire uttered quietly as she continued to arch her neck back.

Beside her, Silver slowly reached up and pushed his goggles onto his forehead to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light gleaming off the lenses.

“Dear… Sweet… Celestia…” he whispered.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

:rainbowderp:This just happened:rainbowderp:

(The art of the ground breaking is by: Scootafail and animated by me. The incredible art of the compound rising up... is by the amazing: Aoki)
(Also, don't worry i'm already 8K words into chapter 98 :twistnerd:)

"Compound is going to be destroyed" ~Jim Hoxworth (7/1/2015 update blog)
:trollestia:

Chapter 99: Rekindling Hope

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 99: Rekindling Hope

“Oooh… ow…” Dash groaned as everything finally came to a halt. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’ve had enough flying for a day or two…” she said sarcastically as she slowly found the ground with her hooves. She felt Matteo’s grip on her loosen as he also began moving. “Everypony still alive?” she asked as she opened her eyes.

She could hear grunts and groans, but she couldn’t see a thing. All the lights had gone out, and wherever they crashed, it had blocked the opening that had been blown in the wall. They had been left in complete darkness.

“I’m a bit stiff,” Matteo spoke up as Dash felt him stand up and shake himself above her. A couple of clangs and clatters sounded out around him, implying he had shielded them from some falling metallic debris. “But not hurt,” he finished.

“Besides a mouthful of black feathers,” Storm said as he also got free of Matteo. “I’m fine.”

Matteo released an annoyed grunt as Storm spoke. Dash glared in the general direction of Matteo’s voice even though he couldn’t see her. If he was still dwelling on the whole thing with Storm...

“I can’t feel my face, but then again I never could weeheeheeeee!” Twister giggled as Dash felt a plot press against her side. “Can you feel my face?”

“Sometimes I wonder if that IS your face,” Dash rolled her eyes as she pushed Twister’s plot away from her.

“One moment everypony!” Rivet’s voice caught their attention from nearby. A few seconds and a quiet click later, a flashlight turned on, barely illuminating the area, but revealing Rivet standing near the dead boiler. He pointed it around, finding the portable working lights that had been tossed about in the crash. “One… two… three…” Rivet pointed the flashlight around, gathering up the lights. “Four… shoot…” he shined the flashlight around, briefly illuminating the rest of the ponies as the light whisked past them. “Has anypony seen the battery I had these hooked up to?”

“This thing?” Starry Skies spoke up from behind him. Rivet turned and shined the flashlight on her as she rolled over while groaning painfully. “It decided to jam itself into my flank when we crashed,” she grumbled as she shakily stood up and batted the battery with her hoof towards Rivet. “Ow… ow…” she winced as she started limping around with an obvious twitch in her back legs.

“Oh…” Rivet didn’t know what else to say to her as he pushed the battery over to the pile of work lights and rewired them to it. He flipped the switch on the wire and with a small buzz the lights came to life, giving off a bright, but soft glow that illuminated the surrounding area.

Dash shielded her eyes for a moment as they adjusted to the new light source, but she finally got a look around, as did the others.

“How is everypony?” Fleetfoot asked, drawing Dash’s attention to her as she slowly rose and shook her mane out. Fleetfoot blinked and reclined her neck slightly when she realized her goggles were heavily chipped and cracked. She removed them and tossed them aside as she began moving around to check on the others, starting with Dash. “You guys all okay?”

“We’re fine…” Dash nodded as she stepped forward to meet Fleetfoot. She tipped her head to look past her and spotted squad three. “Looks like some of us weren’t so lucky,” she said while wincing. Dash stepped past Fleetfoot as she turned to look.

“Oh…” Fleetfoot cringed as she followed behind Dash.

“God damn…” Lightning Streak shook his head and released a sigh of relief as he fell back on his plot, panting. He looked up to see Dash and Fleetfoot approaching before turning his head to take another look at his brother.

“Rgh…” Fire Streak groaned as he slowly sat up with the help of Misty Fly. His eyes squeaked open as pain around his chest and stomach stung at his nerves, but it wasn’t the worst he had had, so he was sucking it up. He barely saw Misty before she dipped down and gingerly moved her hoof around his chest, pushing aside the ripped shreds of his suit to examine his injuries. He was bleeding a little and had a few bruises, but again, they weren’t too bad, they just stung a bit. His painful expression wasn’t helping the case though, Misty pulled away and looked up at him with the widest eyes of worry he had ever seen, and it was killing him.

He quickly reached forward, ignoring the sting of his suit and fur rubbing against the cuts to place a hoof on her shoulder and smile. He put his hoof down in front of his stomach, raising it to the top of his chest and back down. Then he removed his other hoof from her shoulder and placed it on top of his hoof before tilting it upward towards his face. He reached his head forward and nuzzled her cheek with his as she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight.

His signs to ensure her he was fine eased her worry, but only a little. He was still hurt and she was not okay with it.

Dash smiled as they approached and watched the little exchange, but they turned to Lightning Streak first.

“How’s your shoulder?” Dash asked with a slight smirk.

“Shoulder?” Lightning blinked as he looked up.

“I saw Misty kicking you when she couldn’t grab Fire,” Dash mentioned while glancing at Misty.

“Oh,” Lightning rotated his shoulder as he also glanced at Misty. “Yeah, not the first time she’s kicked me, but damn…” he winced as a click came from his shoulder and he shook it out. “Girl kicks hard, man…”

“I’m glad you held onto her,” Fleetfoot sighed as she shook her head. “While I understand her want to save Fire, she’s unscathed because you kept her still,” she paused and smirked at Lightning. “Though knowing you and how often you actually get your hooves on a mare…” she trailed off with the sarcasm.

“Aw, why ya gotta be like that?” his ears flopped down as Dash turned away from the two and approached Fire.

“How are you holding up, Fire?” Dash asked as she placed a hoof gently on Misty’s shoulder as a friendly gesture.

“A bit shaken, but definitely alright,” he answered as he glanced towards Lightning. “Brother, how do you fare?”

“Besides your lady almost kicking me in the face a few times, I got no problems, bro,” Lightning answered as he rotated his shoulder again.

Dash was relieved to see the Streak twins and Misty in one piece. For a moment, her thoughts began trailing to the rest of the compound and how those above fared, but flinched in surprise as Fleetfoot nearly ran right into her. Dash followed her with her eyes, watching as she headed for squad zero. She looked over Shine, Swift, and Playbitz before looking around and expressing worry for Calm. Shine shrugged, stating that they were still looking for him.

“WHOA THERE!” Macho Savage’s voice caught Dash’s attention. She looked over on the other side of the boiler to see him lying on top of three Shadowbolts, pinning them down to the metal floor. “We still got some suckers over here!” he yelled. The three he had pinned, unlike the other, groaning and wailing Shadowbolts lying around, still had their crystals near them. However, every time they tried to make their crystal float up and do something, Savage smacked them on the back of the head with a hoof, breaking their concentration.

Lead Runner, Point Dex, and Storm approached as he held them down, eyeing the crystals curiously. Dash, curious, also made her way towards them.

“So this is how they use magic, huh?” Lead Runner examined one of the crystals carefully, without touching it as it floated up and down in its owner’s attempt to use it. “A bit tacky though… the color selection is so unfashionable.”

Storm tipped his head back and forth as Point Dex and Lead Runner continued to look on. He stepped forward towards one of the crystals and reached a hoof towards it. Dash gasped, picking up her pace as she readied to yell towards him, but…

“No,” Starry Skies grabbed Storm by the shoulder and roughly pulled him away from the crystal before he could touch it. He stumbled and fell on his side, Dash diverting her path towards him to help him stand as Storm angrily glared at Starry.

“What the hell is your—” Storm got cut off, his and Dash’s eyes widening as Starry slammed her hoof down thrice, smashing the three crystals to dust one at a time. The three Shadowbolts below Savage all screamed, drawing all attention in the area to them as the three stared in horror at Starry’s hoof, the dust from the disintegrated crystals disappearing before their very eyes. Savage blinked and eased up, letting go of them and backing away slowly as they no longer tried to resist his strength. The Shadowbolts all clutched their bodies, shaking and writhing, moaning and groaning in intense pain as tears began to squeak out of their goggles.

“Hmph…” Starry snorted. Dash turned back to Storm, but he was already stomping towards Starry with look of anger and frustration on his face. Starry remained poised as Storm got in her face and roughly pressed a hoof to her chest.

“What is WRONG with you?!” he belted as Dash slowly followed behind him, not quite sure if she should stop him or not. “Do you get off on causing pain to others!? That was just sadistic!”

Starry scrunched her face, swatting Storm’s hoof off of her chest.

“You mistake me for my former leader,” Starry rolled her eyes. “I’m doing them a favor, kid.”

“A FAVOR?!” Storm growled as he pointed a hoof at the Shadowbolts in pain. “You call that a favor?! Looks more like pure cruelty to me!”

“Storm…” Dash reached forward while biting her lower lip. She wanted to stop him, while she agreed it looked cruel, Storm was unfamiliar with what the crystals could do to a pony. Starry looked over Storm’s shoulder at Dash as if silently asking her to tame the anger being thrown at her in ignorance. She clearly realized Storm wasn’t going to listen to her.

“You’re just cold blooded! I can see it in your damn eyes!” Storm accused. “LOOK AT ME!” he yelled as Starry continued to roll her eyes.

“STORM!” Dash finally grabbed him and pulled him away, getting in front of him and pushing him back. “Back off!”

“Are you kidding me, Dash? Did you see what she did to—” Storm was hushed as Dash firmly pressed a hoof over his mouth and looked at him sternly.

“Storm… I understand how you think, and how you view any act of aggression against a defenseless pony as unnecessary. I also understand your will to help those who can’t help themselves, but…” she turned and glanced at Starry for a moment. “Starry is right, she is doing them a favor.”

“How can—” Storm tried to speak up again.

“I’ve seen it Storm… I’ve seen what the crystals can ultimately do to a pony,” she spoke, recalling what the crystals had done to Spitfire, Misty Fly, and even Lightning Dust. Not to mention how misusing them severely injured Rapidfire and may or may not have killed Nightshade. “It may look cruel, but she’s saving them from only greater pain down the road… trust me, you see how they look now,” she pointed at the broken Shadowbolts. “That’s nothing compared to what kind of pain the crystals can cause.”

Storm listened to Dash, looking up at Starry and grunting before pushing away from Dash and taking a few steps away. He hung his head and shook it gently, not finding any words to say in response with his own morals conflicting with what he was seeing.

“Okay…” Rivet’s voice drew Dash’s attention to him. “Looks like the boiler is mostly in one piece,” he spoke as he looked over the fizzled out boiler. It had clear signs of stress and split edges, but it hadn’t blown apart. “Can’t say the same for the engines down here though…” Rivet sighed as he looked at all the old rusted and broken pieces strewn about, all broken off from the surrounding engines, some even catapulted over the safety fence. “Then again, that’s assuming…”

“HE’S OVER HERE!” Shine suddenly yelled, cutting off Rivet and turning Dash’s attention to her. As soon as she saw Shine move towards a pile of metallic debris… with a light blue hoof sticking out of it, she too turned and moved towards it. They had found Calm.

Dash reached the pile at the same time as Shine, Fleetfoot, Swift, and Playbitz. They quickly began tossing aside the stray gauges and split metal. None of it was very heavy, but there was a lot of it piled on top of him. He probably could have easily emerged from the pile himself due to his strength, but with the state his back was in, nopony was expecting him to just ‘shake it off.’

Playbitz and Swift pulled the last few pieces of debris off of Calm, both cringing when they saw his blue uniform was now mostly red.

“Calm! Are you alright?!” Shine yelled as she crouched down. Calm was wincing and groaning quietly as he opened his eyes. He blinked a few times.

“I…” he sputtered. “I can’t feel anything below my neck…” he stated, a collective gasp around him lasting for about half a second before he grunted and his whole body twitched, his wings flaring open and knocking Swift and Playbitz over. “AH! NOPE! NEVER MIND… now I can feel it…” he groaned as he moved his arms beneath him and tried to push himself up. Shine and Fleetfoot both fell back on their plots with a hoof over their hearts.

“Dammit, don’t scare me like that!” Fleetfoot shook her head as Dash walked up beside her. Fleetfoot got up and followed behind Dash, the two examining Calm’s back as he struggled to stand.

“Oh, god…” Dash cringed as she too spotted the massive bloody stain on Calm’s back. “How much blood have you lost, big guy?” she asked as Calm teetered and fell back to the floor.

“I dunno… but… I feel very lightheaded…” Calm replied as his chin rested flat on the floor in front of him. Fleetfoot immediately returned to Shine’s side while looking Calm over.

“We’ve gotta get him to Bliss immediately!” she stated while looking around at the rest of squad zero. Swift looked between her and the others with a distraught look on his face.

“That’s ya know… assuming anypony is alive up th—” he was cut off as a massive tan and black wing pushed hard over his head.

“Don’t…” Playbitz spoke up while glaring at him. “EVEN… put that thought into my head… they have to be alive!” he said, obviously concerned about his wife.

Dash perked up, a feeling of dread filling her from head to tail. She wasn’t considering it at all because they were all okay down below… but now that Swift brought up such a morbid possibility, she was worried sick about the rest of them. Spitfire, Silver, Squall, Little Star, Bliss, Luna… everypony else, but especially Soarin!

“What are we waiting for then!?” Dash called out. “We need to make sure everypony else is okay!” she quickly turned, looking towards her squad. She was eager to get moving, but she wasn’t going to disregard the injured Calm. “Matty! Get over here!” she called to Matteo. “We need your help moving this big guy!” she ordered.

Matteo wasted no time in making his way over. Swift, Shine, and Fleetfoot helped get him up on Matteo’s and Playbitz’s shoulders.

“Rivet, can you guide us back up?” Fleetfoot asked as Rivet looked away from the boiler. He wanted to keep assessing the damage, but with Calm badly hurt, the choice was obvious. He nodded as he reached for his flashlight and pointed it around until he found the pathway leading back up, just outside the range of the work lights.

Dash walked with Fleetfoot, Shine, Swift, and Rivet as they cleared the path of any debris in the way, Matteo and Playbitz moving Calm as quickly as they could without hurting him.

As they began to leave, Starry took command, turning around and pointing at the three Shadowbolts as well as the others that were strewn about, broken without their crystals.

“Everypony else here, help me gather these Shadowbolts up. Let’s secure them now while they are suffering from the withdrawal. The last thing we need is them recovering and escaping,” she ordered. Twister, squad three, and squad seven moved in to do as she said, but Starry continued as they did. “Oh, and if none of you were paying attention when the white knight of Equestria tried touching them before,” she said while pointing at Storm. “They’re gonna cry like foals when you touch them. Ignore it,” she said while reaching down and picking up one of the Shadowbolt mares.

They all cringed as the mare whined and tried to wiggle out of Starry’s grip, but she forced her along roughly, not letting her get free. Reluctantly, the Wonderbolts of squad three and seven followed her example, even Storm… who forced himself to do what had to be done despite how much he still felt it was wrong.

With the wailing Shadowbolts in tow, they followed behind Dash and Fleet’s group, all hoping just as much that everypony up above was still alive.

“We’re not moving anymore are we?” High Winds spoke up as Spitfire opened one eye slowly. She felt incredibly stiff from the whiplash and her body tensing up upon impact, but one thing was thankfully for certain… she wasn’t dead.

“I think we stopped,” Wave Chill spoke up as his grip around Spitfire loosened. “Ow, Spitfire, that’s starting to hurt,” he added. Spitfire blinked and looked down to see she was unconsciously clutching Wave’s arm as hard as she could.

“Sorry,” Spitfire quickly released it before she slowly rolled over out of his grip, bits of ceiling plaster cracking beneath her body until her hooves found the floor and she slowly pushed herself up while looking around.

The lobby was a complete mess. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. The floor was covered with broken ceiling tiles, bits of glass from fallen lights, furniture that had been tossed about, potted plants that had been thrown, uprooted, and spilled everywhere. Bags of letters and bills had been thrown from the mail room, spread out all over the floor nearby. To top it all off, the compound felt like it was slightly tipped to one side, but barely enough to throw off anypony’s balance.

Speaking of anypony… Spitfire breathed a sigh of relief as ponies all around her began to groan and slowly move, standing up, shaking themselves off, and examining their surroundings. Spitfire wouldn’t rest easy until they had a full injury/casualty report, but for the time being, seeing that there were survivors gave her pause.

She turned around and looked outside the front doors. They were in the mountains, as they had been, but they had crash landed facing a mountain, explaining why it was quite dim in the lobby. Without the lights on and the mountain in the way, they didn’t have much in terms of lighting. All forward facing windows, which made up about seventy percent of the windows in the compound, were facing the mountainside. They weren’t completely up against it, but they were close enough to hinder most of the sunlight.

As her body relaxed and her senses returned, Spitfire shivered, startled by a sudden nip of cold in the air as well. Not like it surprised her, they were in the mountains, but many of the windows were broken, including the large hangar window up high in the lobby.

“Wave, Winds,” Spitfire returned her focus to the Wonderbolts themselves as she addressed the two of them. “First things first, help me check on everypony.”

“‘Kay,” High Winds said with a yawn as she slowly stood up and shook her body out.

“Yes, ma’am!” Wave agreed while standing quickly. The three dispersed moving around to assess the state of the rest of the ponies as they began to emerge from beneath furniture and debris.

“Rggggghhhhh…” a familiar groan caught Spitfire’s attention the moment they split up. She turned and looked towards the mail counter, where she spotted Descent and Air Mach rising up, with Silver still on the ground, his back facing her, twitching.

Completely disregarding Descent and Air Mach, she rushed up to Silver.

“Silver!” she called his name as she approached and slowed to a trot as she reached him. “Are you alright?” she asked while crouching down and placing a hoof on his shoulder.

“I think I’m still alive…” Silver replied sarcastically, causing Spitfire to flatten her brow.

“That’s not funny… Here, let’s get you up,” she tried to roll him over but he resisted. “Silver…” she said exasperatedly, not in the mood for stubbornness while she was worried.

“Just give me a damn moment, I’ll be alright,” he requested as Spitfire let go.

“Fine…” she shook her head as she turned to Descent and Air Mach. “You guys look just fine.”

“That was nothing, I’ve survived much wor—”

“The great Animak laughs in the face of mountains!” Air Mach completely cut off Descent.

“I know you're fine, Anima—” Spitfire shut her mouth and puffed her cheeks out. “I can’t believe I almost called you that…” she rolled her eyes as Air Mach guffawed heartily, completely contradicting the confused mood of the rest of the lobby. She looked towards Descent as he sighed and nudged Air Mach aside.

“As I was saying, I’ve survived worse. I’d be more worried about the injured. I’m sure that wasn’t a pleasant experience for them,” the moment Descent finished a few swears erupted from the east hallway.

Both Surprise and Blaze hobbled out from the east hallway, supporting each other as they observed the state of the lobby with wide eyes.

“The FUCK is going on?!” Blaze whined. “Somepony better start explaining this bullshit before I start beating asses!” she growled. Descent stared blankly at Blaze as Spitfire slowly shook her head.

“Well, my half-sister is definitely fine…” she commented.

“BLAAAAAZEY!” High Winds suddenly yelled as she rushed past Spitfire, jumping through all the debris in the lobby and leaping over the hole in the floor before launching herself at Blaze. Surprise yelped and pushed Blaze off of her as Blaze’s eyes widened.

“Whoa, whoa, WHOA! WINDY! ACK!” Blaze grunted in pain as High Winds tackled her to the ground. “OW! OW! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU-BALLS-CRAP-DAMMIT OWOW! WINDY!” she yelped as High Winds squeezed her despite Blaze’s still painful injuries.

Descent looked towards Spitfire in confusion again.

“Yeah, she’s fine,” Spitfire repeated as Descent shrugged.

“Come on,” Descent made a head motion as he moved to help others nearby. Spitfire glanced at Silver as he remained on the floor, rolling her eyes before honoring his request and moving to help others.

“A little help here?” Lightning Dust’s voice came from beneath an overturned couch as Spitfire passed. She glanced over as Descent moved the couch to free her. Spitfire huffed and looked in the other direction, seeing Blazetail and Flashwind get up and shake their limbs out.

“You two okay?” Spitfire asked as she approached them.

“I’ve had enough fun for a few years,” Blazetail commented as Flashwind looked him over. “So looks like it’s a good thing we gambled, huh?” he bounced his eyebrows at Spitfire. Spitfire smirked.

“I doubt I’ll ever make such a rash, low success decision ever again, but I admit I’m glad I did. Assuming Rivet and the others down below survived,” she paused for a moment, frowning at the thought of her being wrong on that account. “I’m hugging that little guy as hard as I can, I can’t believe he made it work, not to mention kept it all running under such conditions,” she looked around at the disheveled state of everything. “I just hope we can figure out what to do from here.”

“Let’s talk about that later,” Flashwind spoke up. “The important thing right now is that we’re alive and we should make sure everypony else is too.”

“Agreed,” Spitfire nodded to them both as they split apart to help out the others.

Spitfire barely took five steps before a large pile of furniture and ceiling tiles suddenly shifted and collapsed, revealing Bomber. The behemoth pony shook himself off and casually stepped aside as if completely unfazed. As he moved, he revealed Valkyrie below him, who was holding onto Pixie and Fairy. Valkyrie blinked and looked herself over, realizing that absolutely nothing had hit her. She turned and saw Bomber smiling at her innocently.

“Bomber? Why did you guard me? I could have taken it!” she almost sounded insulted that somepony protected her.

“Heh heh heh…” was Bomber’s only reply as if he found her reaction amusing. She glared at him flatly while pouting, the twin sisters both giggling at Valkyrie.

“I think you have enough scars, Val…” Steady Wing spoke up as he, Comet, and Cannon Ball all approached.

Spitfire flinched in surprise as Silver suddenly limped past her and towards the former Wonderbolts. She sighed as she watched him hobble, wishing he would cut the stubbornness and let somepony help him.

“You guys all lived?” Silver spoke up, grabbing their attention. “Damn,” he added with a chuckle.

“Ha!” Cannon Ball shook his head and stepped towards Silver. “You wish, you old mule! None of us are clocking out before you do!” he said while giving Silver a friendly jab to his side.

“RGH!” Silver grunted in pain staggered and fell to the ground. Steady and Valkyrie both quickly stepped up and pulled Cannon away while shoving him to the floor while expressing how big of an idiot he was. Pixie and Fairy were at Silver’s side instantly, helping him stand back up despite his attempts to shoo them away.

Spitfire smiled despite her worry for Silver’s state and moved on to help others.

Across the lobby, Squall peered up and over his back as he lay facing the wall. From the looks of things, they had stopped moving and now everypony was steadily recovering. His body hurt from all the bouncing around and his head felt like it wasn’t on straight, but thankfully the bandage was still in place over his nose and there was no blood. He got lucky, all the tumbling and crashing could have easily re-aggravated it.

With a shift and a grunt of discomfort, he rolled over, moving away from the walls and uncurling his body. He unwrapped his hooves… and let Little Star out. She set her little hooves on the floor and took several breaths, breathing multiple sighs of relief as she got her bearings. She looked herself over, and was more or less completely unhurt save for the few bruises she received before Squall grabbed and shielded her.

“You alright?” Squall asked her while he let his head fall against the floor, fatigued. Little Star quickly turned around to face him, smiling.

“Thanks to you, I’m perfectly fine,” she said as her smile grew wider. Squall scrunched his face and averted his eyes.

“Whatever…” he said with a sigh as he rolled back over and faced the wall.

“Aw, come on you…” Star giggled and reached for his shoulders trying to roll him back over to look at her.

“Nnnnnghhhh…” Squall replied as he held himself in place. Star pouted as she paused for a moment before tugging on him harder.

“At least get up, we have to go find the others!” she let go and hovered up above him.

“NYAAAAAAH…” Squall groaned louder and covered his face with his hooves so she couldn’t see his face.

Spitfire glanced at Squall and Star as the little Wonderbolt tried to move the grump from the wall, taking a look around as it seemed like everypony in the lobby was getting up and moving, despite being a little shaken. Wave Chill emerged from the hole in the middle of the lobby.

“Nopony fell through,” he reported to Spitfire. “And whatever hole was punched in the floor in the basement is completely blocked by debris, so even if somepony fell through it would have been a short fall.”

“Meaning everypony down below was blocked, at least through the ceiling…” Spitfire thought out loud.

“Captain? Er…” Wave winced, cursing himself for constantly forgetting his promise to call her by name but she shook her head.

“Sorry, just thinking out loud, keep at it,” she ordered.

“Yes, ma’am,” Wave saluted before moving to help the staff, Wonderbolts, and Renegades alike.

“So far so good. No casualties yet at least,” Descent spoke up as he walked up beside Spitfire. He looked to her for a response, but blinked as she sat down and released a heavy sigh. “Are you alright though?” he asked as he watched her head droop and her ears flop down.

“I’m absolutely exhausted…” Spitfire said as she brought her head back up and let it lean way back, staring at the ceiling.

“We finally have a victory of some kind and you’re already down for the count?” Descent grunted as he lifted an eyebrow.

“Bite me,” Spitfire replied simply.

“No thanks.”

“Spitfire!” Wave Chill suddenly called back out. Both Spitfire and Descent looked towards him. Spitfire’s eyes widened, but Descent’s reaction was very short lived, going from surprised to flat very quickly.

Wave, along with a few other Wonderbolt elites behind him, had a Shadowbolt supported on his shoulder, specifically a stallion in Wave’s case. He was cringing and groaning despite not looking too injured. His goggles hung down around his neck and his eyes were filled with a mix of dread and fear, which only seemed to grow as his vision landed on Descent.

Spitfire looked past Wave and saw six other Shadowbolts being supported by Wonderbolts behind them.

“They…” Wave paused as he looked at the Shadowbolt he was helping as well as those behind. “They’re not resisting… or making any attempts to get away. What should we do with them?” he asked.

Spitfire, admittedly, had no idea how to reply. Descent moved past her and towards Wave. The Shadowbolt’s pupils shrank as Descent grew closer, his eyes never leaving him.

“Did any of them have crystals?” Descent asked. Wave shook his head.

“No, sir. They were all curled up on the floor. They were a bit reluctant to be moved, but like I said, they offered no resistance whatsoever,” Wave clarified.

“There’s your answer then… without their crystals, they are powerless in both body and spirit,” he stepped closer to the Shadowbolt in Wave’s grip. He began to breathe heavily as Descent reached his face towards him. “Everything they once were is gone…” he glared, causing the Shadowbolt to whimper. “They’ve become so reliant on the crystals and the fake power they provide that they are completely broken without them…”

“AHH!” the Shadowbolt ripped away from Wave and crumpled to the floor, holding his hooves over his head and pressing his face into the ground, shivering violently. Descent exhaled sharply through his nose as he turned and faced Spitfire.

“See why I never accepted those damned things? Look at this,” he pointed at the Shadowbolt on the floor. “Once proud and strong warriors, crippled and broken the moment their crystal is taken away. If you questioned my reasons before, I hope you now understand the shame I wish to lift from my family,” he said with a slight hint of anger in his voice.

“Loud and clear Descent,” Spitfire nodded as she kept observing the Shadowbolt. “I didn’t question you at all, but… I can definitely say I understand now. They’re your former comrades. I’ll let you decide what to do with them.”

“Where is your detention facility?” Descent asked without missing a beat. Spitfire tipped her head to the side.

“Detention facility?” she repeated while blinking.

“Yes,” Descent nodded to clarify. Spitfire shook her head.

“We don’t have one,” Spitfire quickly replied, earning a look of disbelief from Descent. “What?” Spitfire shrugged. “We’re not a law enforcement or mercenary organization, you know.”

“Military functionality without detention facilities…” Descent grunted in frustration while shaking his head. “Lightning Dust!” Descent yelled across the lobby. Dust, turned and quickly glided over, landing beside them.

“What’s up?” she asked as she eyed the broken Shadowbolts.

“We need a makeshift detention block,” Descent began. “Gather up some Renegades and clear out one of the barracks they gave us for living space. Lock these stragglers in there. We’ll figure out what to do with them later.”

“Whoa, hold up…” Spitfire reached for Descent, but Dust was already doing as she was told, relieving the Wonderbolt elites from their Shadowbolts with the help of some Renegades. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Spitfire expressed as Descent turned to her. “That seems like something to decide assuming we even stay here.”

“And that’s what I want to discuss with you now,” Descent faced her as if he had the exact same thing in mind. Spitfire stood up as Descent looked around. “All I know is we’re here for now… what are your thoughts?” he asked.

“Before we make any long term plans we have to assess the situation,” Spitfire began. She looked up at the ceiling. The lights that hadn’t fallen were all out for obvious reasons. “We can start with what the consequences of, you know, tearing our building out of the ground are. I can already think of a few myself. We got the compound to move and all, but is it really a good idea to stay here?” she looked towards Descent as he watched the Shadowbolts get taken into the barracks.

“We weren’t knocked out for any extended period of time,” Descent spoke up. “And I’d like to think any Shadowbolt that had control of themselves or their crystal was smart enough to escape once all the chaos started. Any that are left here are those who lost their crystal. ASSUMING… that that’s the case and the fact that we broke their little pursuit ships, our relocation may confuse them for a while. They have no idea where we landed or if we landed at all, plus the mountains provide a nice veil despite the size of the compound.”

“That’s an awful risky assumption,” Spitfire shook her head. “And to be honest, I think we’ve taken our share of risks for the time being. We can’t possibly be sure that none of them escaped.”

“I agree,” Descent nodded. “That’s why I’m not so sure how to proceed…” Descent grunted. “It’s too risky of an assumption, but it’s not like we can mount a mass evacuation right now. We have to consider our injured, and that a good number of the ponies here are not pegasi. It will be hard for them to get through the mountains.”

“Rgh…” Spitfire sat down again and rubbed her temples. “I’m beginning to think we’ve only prolonged the compound’s destruction. Not to mention put ourselves in a more difficult spot.”

“We may be in a rough spot, but we’ve at least bought ourselves another day. We know their turnaround time now,” Descent reminded her.

“That’s barely enough time to prepare or come up with any plans,” Spitfire sighed.

“I’ll send out some scout teams to keep an eye out,” Descent decided, but Spitfire shook her head.

“What’s going to stop them from teleporting right to us if they do know where we are? I’m sure after we thwarted their little headstrong ‘roll up and blow up’ plan, they aren’t going to mess around anymore,” Spitfire threw her hooves out before standing up again. Descent cursed under his breath.

“That’s a good point,” he agreed as the two continued to ponder. “I hate to say it but, I’m fresh out of…” Descent paused and blinked as he looked out the front doors. Spitfire turned to him and tipped her head in curiosity.

“What?” she asked as she followed his eyes and looked out the doors. Small snowflakes were falling.

“Actually…” Descent smiled. “Scratch that, I think I have an idea.”

“I’m all ears,” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow.

“Let’s reconvene later after we have all of our comrades secured,” Descent suddenly suggested, earning a glare from Spitfire as her ears flopped down.

“You son of a—”

“Don’t talk to me like the well-being of your fellow Wonderbolts ISN’T the first thing on your mind right now,” Descent cut her off before she could berate him. She closed her mouth and huffed.

“Fair enough, but it better be good if you’re making me wait,” she tapped her hoof against the floor impatiently.

“Believe me, our new location may have an advantage… we have a day before they recover. If I’m right about this… we may be able to extend our time here for several weeks. I want to get a good look around outside before making any decisions though,” Descent looked around. “But for now, our friends take priority…” Descent trailed off as he glanced up and past Spitfire. “Speaking of which, here comes our heroes of the moment,” he pointed. Spitfire perked up and turned around.

Rivet, Starry Skies, and squad three stepped out into the lobby from the west hallway. Approaching behind them was squad seven, pulling along several broken Shadowbolts, most of which were piled on Macho Savage’s back as the rest were tugged along by Lead Runner and Point Dex. Twister, Swift, and Shine were pushing a few along as well.

“HEEEEEYYYYY!!!!!!” Surprise yelled out from across the lobby when she saw the rest of her squad. Her remark cued in the rest of the Wonderbolts and Renegades as all eyes shifted towards the west hallway. Faces brightened as all ponies took in the sight, and within seconds a mob rushed towards them.

Cheers, hoots, and hollers erupted from all around as they all began converging on the small group.

Rivet’s eyes widened as he saw the mob of ponies advancing towards him. He shuffled his hooves quickly, moving past Starry and hiding behind Misty Fly. Misty blinked as Rivet hid beneath her, smiled and giggled silently before gently nudging him back forward. He didn’t offer much resistance, but it was clear he looked a bit nervous. Misty walked him back up beside Starry as he got absolutely surrounded. He felt intimidated, but at the same time, everypony was smiling incredibly wide at him as they sang his praises. He started getting pats on the shoulder and his mane ruffled. He stood completely still throughout.

“HEY! EVERYPONY MOVE IT!” Spitfire’s voice came from the crowd as ponies got pushed aside. She weaved her way through the crowd, the ponies eventually parting to let her through. They stepped away from Rivet as Spitfire emerged at the front of the pack. Her eyes landed on Rivet as he continued to stand still, unsure of what to do. Spitfire couldn’t hold herself back, she smiled incredibly wide and reached down for him.

Rivet flinched and his eyes widened as Spitfire picked him right up off the ground and gave him a tight hug.

“Rivet, you GLORIOUS bastard!” she laughed as she hugged him tightly, unbelievably grateful for all that he had done, from discovering the lower basement to tinkering with the machinery enough that their miracle chance actually worked. Not to mention he kept it running long enough for them to make an escape. Sure they didn’t know exactly what to do next, but she along with the rest could live to fight another day because of him. That alone had them all grateful. “As if I already never had a reason to question your skill in mechanics, I damn well never do now!” she said with a hearty laugh, setting Rivet back down on his hooves.

Rivet frowned, the praise coming his way felt nice but…

“I… didn’t do that much really…” he spoke up and looked away. Spitfire stared at him blankly.

“I know you don’t like being praised, but really?” Spitfire chuckled. “You got a century old mechanical contraption to operate and save us all… and you’re gonna claim you’re nothing special?!”

“But all I did was get the boiler running…” Rivet shrugged. “And I couldn’t have done it without help from the others. They were all fighting Shadowbolts while I was just turning knobs and—” Rivet was cut off as Starry Skies pressed a hoof down over his head roughly.

“Alright kid, I’m gonna have to ask you to shut up before you tear yourself down any further,” she said sternly. “You’re the one that found it, you’re the one that fixed it up, and none of us knew a damn thing in terms of operating it. We’d all be ashes right now without you,” she finished as Starry removed her hoof from his head.

Rivet just blinked, looking down, not quite sure what to say.

“BE PROUD, DAMMIT!” Starry yelled while pushing him out towards the mob of ponies. Rivet yelped as he once again got mobbed by countless incredibly happy ponies who wanted to show him their gratitude. Spitfire had made it clear over the P.A. that Rivet was the one heading down with a team of ponies before the attack. So silently, everypony was rooting for him to give them a miracle… and he did, effectively saving the place that the Wonderbolts called home.

Rivet flinched as he was suddenly hoisted up on shoulders and started being paraded around as several Wonderbolts and Renegades rose up into the air and cheered.

Rivet couldn’t help it eventually. And despite his general tendency to deflect praise to those who assisted, he couldn’t deny that he had given it his all… and everypony knew it. He smiled, chuckling as he was carried around.

“Look at that smile,” Swift chuckled as he and Shine watched Rivet get paraded around the lobby.

“Hee hee…” Shine giggled. “There’s no way he’s getting out of praise this time. Not when the whole place is giving it to him.”

Spitfire was smiling as well. She was well aware of Rivet’s typical manner of avoiding attention and recognition, but he deserved more than they could ever give him, especially now. She was so glad she hired that timid little engineer who applied for the job amidst all those applicants who pushed their work into her face, stroking their own egos in hopes of looking like the greatest to ever grace the field of engineering. Modesty was what made Rivet stand out. The less one flaunts, the more one will stand out when they do something incredible.

Spitfire turned back towards the group standing in the entrance to the west hall. She took note of the broken Shadowbolts that had been brought up with them, bringing her attention back to the task at hoof. She would let the Wonderbolts have their celebration with Rivet, he deserved it, but the fact remained that they still had to figure out what to do next… and she was grinding her teeth as she wondered what Descent’s plan was.

Then something caught her attention, something she completely neglected while squeezing the hell out of Rivet. There were a few ponies missing from this picture! Fleetfoot, Rainbow Dash, Calm Wind, Playbitz, and… well a griffon too… Matteo! Spitfire moved forward to see if she had simply just missed them, but as she moved past Lightning Streak she ran directly into Fleetfoot, their faces crashing into each other.

“OW!” Fleetfoot yelped as she and Spitfire staggered back. They both shook their heads out and Spitfire smiled wide, ready to give Fleetfoot a big hug as well for a job well done, but Fleetfoot did not look happy in the slightest. “Outta the way! Outta the way!” Fleetfoot yelled, drawing some of the attention of surrounding ponies as she, Storm, and Dash rushed forward trying to clear a path.

“Fleet? Dash? Storm?” Spitfire called their names, but as she looked back towards the group she gasped. Playbitz and Matteo moved forward with Calm on their shoulders, moving him as quickly and carefully as they could. Spitfire cringed as she saw the state of the large pegasus and the distinct color change over most of his flight suit. As soon as they had come into view, the surrounding ponies stopped wondering why they were being pushed aside and gave the rushing group a clear avenue towards the east hallway.

Of course, Spitfire had felt so happy about things going right and the lack of serious injuries that she hadn’t even considered that there may well have been a few. Calm was the first pony she saw who looked worse for wear.

The mixture of seeing Calm and the fact that they were moving him towards the east hallway… made her remember something else that had completely slipped her mind and she had no idea how such a thing could have happened.

“LUNA! BLISS! SOARIN!” Spitfire shouted out loud to herself before she quickly followed behind them. Of all of them, how could she have forgotten about Soarin?! Her best friend who was out during the whole scenario? Her heart felt tight as she moved with them towards the infirmary. Despite how much had worked out for them, it would mean absolutely nothing to her if she had lost a best friend.

Little Star and Squall both perked up and looked as they saw Dash, Storm, and Matteo move by quickly. Star smiled as she hovered up into the air and waved at them, but got no response. She quickly saw why as she noticed Matteo carrying Calm.

While she understood why they couldn’t stop, she was distraught that she couldn’t express her relief. She had been worried sick since she and Squall were separated from the rest, but it looked like she would have to wait.

Squall finally got up from the floor and stepped up beside her, at head level with her since she was hovering in the air. As much as he still had a bit of animosity towards squad zero for the beating they gave Foxtrot a while back, he took note of how hurt Calm was, and how it probably happened while saving their lives. He couldn’t ignore that fact.

As the two stood side by side, Star still hovering at eye level with him…

Twister SLOOOOOOOWLY rose up from the ground behind the two of them, his sneer growing wider and wider past the boundaries of his face as he reached towards their heads.

The moment he touched them, he turned their heads to face each other and pushed them together.

“NOW KISS!” Twister yelled out. Squall and Star’s faces smushed together, their lips awkwardly touching, but nothing close to what could be called a kiss, as their faces mostly took the hit, Star’s cheek rubbing against the bandages on the side of Squall’s face. They both forced themselves apart immediately as Star fiercely turned to Twister while puffing her cheeks out and blushing madly.

“TWISTER!” she yelled while glaring and swinging her arms up and down frantically. Before she could say anything else, she gasped as Squall stepped up and full out punched Twister in the face really hard. “SQUALL!” Star quickly shifted forward to pull the glowering and growling Squall backwards. Twister keeled over, and bounced right back up after his back hit the floor, catapulting himself forwards, past Squall, and tackle hugging Little Star. There was not even so much as a bruise on his face.

“LITTLE STAR!” he yelled out, fake streams of tears gushing from his eyes as he pressed his cheek to her and roughly rubbed them together.

“BLEH!” Star stuck her tongue out in disgust as Twister showed her forced affection.

“HEY!” Squall gritted his teeth as he reach to give Twister a piece of his mind again, but the moment he got close, Twister spun around and caught Squall in a hug with his other arm, pulling Squall’s back into him.

“GROUP HUGS FOR EVERYPONY!” Twister yelled out while arching his neck back and laughing crazily as Squall flailed to no avail in his grip.

Rainbow Dash had gotten a clear lead in the rush towards the infirmary, and for a very good reason too. With how much everything had been thrown around during their miraculous escape, she dreaded what could have happened in the infirmary. There were so many loose pieces of furniture and medical supplies in it that it was easily one of the most dangerous places to be in the event of… well, the compound ripping from the ground and lurching all about.

She reached the door and forced herself against it in attempt to force her way through, but the door only opened slightly, clearly blocked by something. She gave it a few more hard pushes, but whatever was in front of it had it barricaded.

“Move!” Fleetfoot yelled from behind Dash as she reached forward and pushed Dash aside. She took a few steps back before charging headlong at the door and lowering her right shoulder into it. With a loud BANG and the sound of lots of shifting furniture, the door forced open. Fleetfoot grunted painfully, stumbling backwards. “Ah! Ow…” she groaned, reaching a hoof over to her shoulder as she fell down onto her plot, cringing.

“Commander!” Storm expressed worry, quickly making his way over to her as Dash did the same.

“Forget me! Make sure everything’s okay in there!” she ordered as Dash came to a halt, but Storm did not, examining her shoulder. Fleetfoot quickly grabbed Storm by the neck of his flight suit and growled. “That’s an order, dammit!” she yelled in his face before whipping him forwards towards Dash.

“Come on,” Dash reached out and pulled Storm with her. “She’s alright, I’d be more worried about Soarin, Bliss, and Luna,” Dash reminded him as she quickly turned and pulled Storm along with her.

The two entered the infirmary… and it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

It was hard to tell what the room was even for anymore. As Dash suspected, the trainer tables and medical beds had been thrown everywhere, all completely out of place and stuck in piles, some lodged against each other upon the walls. There were almost no ceiling tiles left, exposing all the pipes and wiring they once hid above them as said tiles laid strewn around the floor, some still in one piece, others snapped and broken. Medical supplies littered the floor, giving them little room to step without slipping or tripping on something. The fluorescent lights had thankfully all remained intact, but none of them were on… which made the situation worse. There were no windows in the infirmary, so save for the little bit of light coming through the door, it was pitch black after about twenty paces into it.

Or at least it was almost pitch black. There was a very dim, light blue glow coming from far back in the room. Dash and Storm’s eyes locked on it immediately as Matteo and Playbitz entered behind them with Calm.

“There!” Dash yelled out as she broke into a canter, but instantly stepped on a pill bottle and lost her hoofing. “Whoa!” she tipped forward and landed face first.

“Wait! Hold on!” Storm said as he helped her up. He turned away and moved towards Bliss’ overturned desk. He made his way around it and towards the two doors in the back. He opened the one that was labeled ‘Maintenance Closet’ and yelped as a good amount of the contents fell out right on top of him.

“Storm?!” Dash turned and moved towards him but his head popped out from the fallen supplies and he shook it out.

“There’s gotta be a flashlight in here somewhere…” he pondered out loud as he began moving his hooves around the fallen contents.

Dash stopped moving when she saw he was okay and instead turned her attention towards Matteo and Playbitz as they moved Calm towards an overturned trainer table. Playbitz handed Calm off to Matteo as he reached down and put the table back up on its legs.

“Here,” Playbitz tapped a hoof on the table. “Set him here for now.”

Matteo moved Calm up to the table and helped him lie down on his stomach as Spitfire entered with Fleetfoot limping behind her.

“Oh god…” Spitfire cringed when she saw the state of the infirmary. Fleetfoot’s ears drooped as she too took in the sight.

“Found one!” Storm caught all their attention as he held up a flashlight in his mouth, passing it into his hoof and clicking the button… but it didn’t turn on. “Aw, COME ON!” he groaned while shaking it. He growled in frustration and slammed the butt end of the flashlight against the floor.

It flickered on, shining up towards the broken ceiling.

“Oh… look at that,” Storm chuckled before pulling himself out of the pile of supplies and moving back towards Dash.

“Give me that!” Playbitz suddenly yelled as he ripped the flashlight from Storm’s grip.

“What the—hey!” Storm frowned as Playbitz quickly made his way down towards the faint blue light shining at the end of the room. Dash quickly placed a hoof on Storm’s shoulder.

“Bliss is his wife,” she explained as she moved past, following quickly behind Playbitz. There was no way she could be as worried about Bliss as her own husband, but she still cared. Not to mention she was worried absolutely sick about Soarin.

“Oh,” Storm blinked, instantly understanding Playbitz’s frantic movement before following behind to help. Spitfire brought up the rear, Fleetfoot staying back with Matteo to watch over Calm.

Dash walked right behind Playbitz, following his hoofsteps. They moved carefully in tandem with him as he shined the flashlight on the floor and weaved in and out of all the loose items strewn about the floor. Dash could hear the hoof steps of Spitfire and Storm directly behind her but she didn’t look back. She remained focused, determined to reach the blue light shining dimly on the other side of the infirmary.

It grew larger as they approached, but it was clear the reason for the dimness was because the source of the light was blocked. Dash shifted and stepped lightly along the messy floor as she and Playbitz grew near the source of the light. Playbitz shined the flashlight upon the source, the light falling upon an incredibly large pile of both beds and trainer tables that had been tossed across the room during the motion of the compound.

“Shit…” Playbitz cursed as he moved the beam of the flashlight around, shining it on all the pieces of furniture that littered the back wall. Dash glanced back at Storm and Spitfire as they stepped forward without hesitation. Playbitz set the flashlight down on the floor and aimed it to shine on the beds and tables.

All four of them worked together in moving the clumped barricade aside piece by piece. One table, one bed, one table, one bed, the blue light growing brighter and brighter with each piece they removed.

Eventually, the surrounding area donned a shade of light blue as the glow shone forth from their efforts. As Playbitz shoved the last bed aside, all four ponies stared wide eyed at the scene before them, and all simultaneously breathed sighs of relief.

Bliss, Luna, and Soarin… all just fine and unscathed thanks to a magic shield generated by a very fatigued Luna. Soarin was still out and Luna looked on the verge of collapse, but Bliss’ eyes brightened considerably when she saw that ponies had come to their rescue, not to mention she was ecstatic to see her husband alive after all the shaking and racket.

Luna’s eyes squeaked open as she mentally strained herself. Upon seeing they had been found and the pile of furniture had been moved, she gasped and released her magic, her horn sputtering and the aura fading as she slumped down on the floor beside Soarin. The magic shield dome dropped from around them, and before Storm, Spitfire, or Dash could move forward, they held their spot as Playbitz and Bliss ran at each other and embraced tightly, both relieved that their other half was alive and well.

“Aw…” Storm smiled as the married couple embraced before him, Dash smiling right beside him. She was glad Bliss was alright as well. Not only had she gotten to know her throughout the many trips to the training room… but they were definitely going to need her help with the current situation.

Spitfire, Storm, and Dash all made their way around the duo, approaching Luna and Soarin.

“We are… glad… to see thee…” Luna smiled weakly while panting. “Pray tell us… what in the world happened…?” she asked. Dash blinked as she realized that Luna and Bliss had no idea what had all just taken place. The infirmary had no windows after all. It was going to be quite an explanation, one that would definitely be repeated once Soarin… hopefully woke up as well.

“It’s a long story your Highness,” Spitfire spoke up as she looked towards Soarin.

“Is Soarin okay?” Dash stepped right in front of Spitfire, irking her slightly, but she understood her concern. Dash crouched right down by him, noticing immediately that the yellow magic did not appear upon him being touched again.

“We think so,” Luna began, catching her breath. “He was thrown with the rest of us when the shaking began. Strangely, that’s when his inner magic stopped lashing out at us as well.”

“Well, we have a lot of explaining to do,” Spitfire nodded as she approached Luna, but Luna shook her head.

“Please, tend to Soarin first, we are simply worn out,” she requested. Spitfire looked back at Dash and Soarin as Storm approached them as well.

“Alright,” she agreed. “You two,” Spitfire pointed to Dash and Storm. “Let’s get him up and back over by Calm, it’s too dark over here.”

Dash and Storm nodded, both reaching down and turning Soarin over in order to get leverage and hoist him up. They had a few ponies show up recently that revoked Soarin’s status as the largest pegasus in the compound, but he was still bigger than both of them. It took a good amount of effort just for the two of them to hoist him up and get him moving. Spitfire went ahead of them to make sure a table was set up and ready.

Matteo passed by them, heading towards Luna as they moved. Dash glanced back and watched as Matteo lent himself to her to both help her up and get her moving, allowing Bliss and Playbitz some privacy in their warm reunion.

“Soarin just can’t catch a break, can he?” Storm spoke up with a sigh. Dash turned and glanced at Storm as Soarin’s head bobbed between them.

“That’s an understatement,” Dash shook her head lightly.

“I don’t know how he puts up with it,” Storm continued as they reached Spitfire and hoisted Soarin up onto the trainer table she prepared.

“Well,” Dash grunted as she and Storm struggled to lift Soarin high enough. “He’s… very stubborn,” she gasped and wheezed as they finally got him on the table. “And strong willed. Anypony else would have caved by now for sure.”

“He’s also got an incredibly thick skull,” Spitfire spoke up as she sighed and stepped around to see Soarin’s face. She scrunched her face and puffed her cheeks out. “I swear he gives me more heart attacks than a whole pot of Rusty’s prime espresso. Always such an idiot…” Spitfire groaned and let her face fall down into the padding of the trainer table as Storm and Dash both chuckled to themselves.

Dash looked over by Calm as Fleetfoot remained by his side, looking incredibly worried. Calm had saved her and several of the others down in the engine room more than once, pretty much taking a lot of pain for them like a living shield. He was the only pony that suffered serious injury down below because of it, the most drastic of which he took while shielding Fleetfoot and Rivet. Fleetfoot definitely felt bad that she remained mostly unhurt at his expense and looked determined to watch over him.

Dash immediately turned to call to Bliss, but she was beaten to the punch.

“BLISS!” Spitfire called back down towards the married couple. “I don’t want to ruin your moment but we’ve got a severely injured Wonderbolt over here!” she yelled.

The moment Bliss heard ‘severely injured Wonderbolt’ her face was out of Playbitz’s chest, looking over his shoulder with her ears perked up.

“Oh, right…” Playbitz grimaced as Bliss ripped from his embrace and quickly cantered down towards the rest of them, her eyes landing on Calm as she snatched up a few stray medical supplies in her magic.

“Please step back,” Bliss said calmly to Fleetfoot as she dropped the medical supplies on a nearby table and used her magic to create a small ball of light. It hovered above and illuminated the area enough for her to see Calm clearly. She hopped up on a stool to get a good view of Calm’s back, not even flinching at the sight of all the blood.

“Please, let me help,” Fleetfoot suddenly asked as Bliss examined Calm. “Bliss?”

“I heard you honey, give me a moment so I can figure out what I need,” Bliss replied as she gently pressed around Calm’s back, causing him to grimace and grunt painfully. Fleetfoot’s ears drooped down as she heard Calm groan, again feeling even worse that he took this pain for her. “Alright,” Bliss spoke up. “Here’s what I need…” she paused and looked up, “I’ll need more help, can somepony go find Mahogany and anypony else? I’m sure Calm’s not going to be the only one hurt.”

“I’ll go find her,” Storm offered as he was already heading towards the door.

“Fleet, I need you to find a pair of scissors for removing sport taping, I have hundreds of them, it shouldn’t be hard to find one. I need to cut the suit open.” Bliss asked quickly while explaining her intentions.

“Right,” Fleetfoot turned and immediately began searching through all the supplies strewn about. She ripped the flashlight right from Playbitz’s hooves as he made his way over and used it to help her look.

Dash turned back to Soarin as Bliss went to work, resting her chin on the table by his face. She was worried about Calm, but Soarin had been out for so long. This wasn’t the first time his magic had knocked him out, but with all the crazy stuff that was going on, she needed his comfort. She felt only half her full self without him up to fill her with confidence. She wasn’t dependent on him to perform to her fullest, but he definitely helped.

She looked up as Matteo finally reached them with a teetering Luna leaning into his side for support. Dash was grateful that Luna had protected Soarin. All of Luna’s recent efforts had been incredibly helpful, not to mention she saved all of their lives once already. It was worrying to see her all drained though. The sublime sisters were renowned for their incredibly powerful magic and imposing presence. Dash had never seen one of them look so drained. It really put things into perspective in terms of what they were dealing with. If Princess Luna herself was struggling, the enemy was definitely one to be feared.

“Alright, I have to go check up on some things,” Spitfire spoke up with a slightly reluctant tone, stepping out into the aisle and facing the door. “Dash, keep an eye on Soarin for me,” she ordered as she glanced at Fleetfoot frantically helping Bliss. Spitfire decided to leave her be before looking at Matteo. “Matteo, do me a favor and bring Luna up to speed on what’s going on.”

“Me?” Matteo blinked as he glanced between Luna and Spitfire.

“Yes you, everypony else is busy,” she motioned around as Playbitz began assisting his wife as well. Dash snickered as Spitfire left, stepping away from Soarin and up to Matteo and Luna standing right beside the table.

“Don’t worry big guy, I’ll handle this,” Dash smiled, knowing Matteo wasn’t one to have long drawn out conversations with those he didn’t know well, unless it was about the Griffon Kingdom of course.

“We are very confused…” Luna shakily scratched her head.

“Well…” Dash grinned sheepishly. “This may all sound a bit… nuts, but here’s what happened.”

“Alright, alright guys, put him down. Party time is over we’ve got some serious work to do!” Spitfire called out as a few Wonderbolts were still carrying Rivet around. Rivet was released and dropped back down onto his hooves as Spitfire approached him from the east hallway. Spitfire was glad he was getting recognition for some serious feats of mechanics that saved them all, but the fact remained that they were not out of danger and needed an honest assessment of the situation, starting with the compound itself.

“Right…” Rivet shook his head out, glad he was done being swarmed despite the praise, but the tone in Spitfire’s voice suggested it was time to get to work, something he had picked up on from working for her.

“I still don’t know all the details,” Spitfire began. “But in the event that we stay put, I’m going to need your help,” she paused and looked around the lobby, specifically at all the lights that were out. “It’s obvious that the compound taking flight had some serious repercussions, I would like you to gather up any help you may need and make a solid analysis on the state of the compound. Any information you can report to me will help our decisions going forward.”

“Alright, I’ll get right on it,” Rivet nodded as he broke away to find some of his unicorn assistants.

Spitfire took a deep breath as she watched Rivet leave. She had so much on her mind that she thought her head was going to burst. She couldn’t make any solid decisions until Descent returned and relayed his idea to her. With many of the bases covered, there was one thing that still puzzled her, specifically as she stared at the giant hole in the lobby floor that had a pillar sticking out of it. Whatever was fixed atop the pillar had smashed through the lobby ceiling, but had stopped after passing through the second floor ceiling as well… which meant whatever the contraptions was, it has stopped on the third floor as opposed to blowing right through the roof like the rest. Its location allowed her to assume it had stopped right above in rec room. There was a large window facing forward in there… could those have been the flight controls?

And if they were… was their mystery pilot up there?

“Shall we go look?” Fire Streak’s voice came from beside her suddenly. She blinked and glanced at Fire, the rest of squad three right behind him. Surprise was on Lightning Streak’s back, hugging him tightly around the neck. Moments later, she hopped off him and onto Misty’s back, doing the same while giggling happily. She was obviously beyond overjoyed to see her squad alive and well. Spitfire glanced at the ripped and shredded potion on the chest of Fire’s flight suit, exposing the minor cuts and bruises.

“Aren’t you hurt?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow at him, voicing her concern over her curiosity. Fire chuckled and shook his head.

“First Misty, now you. Do not fear Captain, they are just a couple of scratches. I’d rather let the others get attention who need it much more than I,” Fire glanced up at the broken ceiling. “So… it looks like the rec room…”

“You noticed too, huh?” Spitfire let go of her concern and returned to examining the pole. “Rivet got everything running… but it’s safe to assume he wasn’t piloting it from down there?”

“Correct,” Fire confirmed. “We were all busy fending off Shadowbolts… and there was nothing that resembled controls down below. There were no windows down there either. I wonder who could have seized control, wherever they are located, and maneuvered us with such skill?”

“Well,” Spitfire turned and looked towards the massive pillar that was sticking through the staircase at the back of the lobby. “Only one way to find out…” she spread her wings despite being a bit stiff and lifted off. Squad three all followed close behind, making their way to the stairs and squeezing around the pillar that had more or less completely destroyed the stairwell.

“If anypony’s up there, I hope they’re a pegasus,” Lightning Streak commented from behind as they ascended, moving around the pillar up towards the third floor. “Cause damn, the stairs are completely shot.”

They emerged on the third floor, all glancing up at the opening in the ceiling above. The massive propeller extended overhead. This was the first time squad three had seen it, all of them stopping for a moment in awe. Spitfire waited patiently for them to get their eyeful, landing outside the door to the rec room.

Eventually, they all turned towards her. She gave them a nod, before turning around and reaching for the door and slowly pushing it open.

As expected, the state of the rec room was much like most of the compound. None of the furniture was bolted down, so couches, chairs, and tables were all upturned and tossed about. Several of the game tables were not upright either. The pool table was on its side with all the balls rolling around the floor. The ping pong table had capsized on itself, pieces of it scattered all around.

The only thing still standing upright and unscathed, was the air hockey table, which would no doubt make Surprise happy.

All of the carnage aside… none of them (except for Surprise) were focused on the state of the room. They were staring straight forward at a new addition to the rec room that had come right through the floor. It was a wide, metal platform one step up from the floor that extended across the length of the window at the far end from wall to wall. The platform had several chest high, metal boxes attached to it around the outer edge of it. The boxes were littered with levers and wheels all labeled with different functions or purposes. In the very center, facing out the cracked windows of the rec room, was a large lever of sorts that was firmly locked to an axle mechanism. At first glance, Spitfire had to assume that this lever was what navigated the compound in flight.

Yet even with all the new… well, old technology that had sprouted up out of the floor, this wasn’t what first caught their attention.

There was somepony at the controls.

But of all the ponies to take control in a dire situation, it was most certainly not who they expected… not in the slightest.

The pony in question was sitting against the large steering lever. Upon seeing the Wonderbolts enter, he smiled sheepishly and stood up, walking towards them while looking exhausted.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“Uh… hey guys?”

It was the orange pegasus that worked behind the mail counter. Spitfire couldn’t believe her eyes and stepped forward to address him, but stopped with a blank look on her face, blushing lightly in embarrassment when she realized… she didn’t actually know his name. Not wanting to reveal that little bit, she cleared her throat, shook her head out and gathered herself before going right back into professional mode.

“Were you… piloting this thing?” Spitfire asked, going straight to the point. The mail pony blinked, glancing back at the giant lever before grinning sheepishly and scratching the back of his head.

“Yes?” he answered, sounding a bit unsure what kind of response he was going to get. Fire Streak stepped up beside Spitfire.

“What exactly—” he began, but was cut off. They all flinched as Surprise suddenly squealed in joy, leaping across the room and swan dive-face planting onto the air hockey table.

“IT’S ALIVE! MY PRECIOUS!!!!!” she cooed while rubbing her arms and legs up and down on the table’s surface.

Fire cleared his throat and turned right back to the mail pony in a casual manner that was used to Surprise and her antics.

“Could you tell us exactly what happened up here?” he asked again with the same tone and curiosity.

“Uh… well…” the mail pony grinned awkwardly. “I was… hiding up here. I ran up the stairs and hid under one of the tables when all of those ponies appeared and attacked. Then all the shaking happened and this stuff burst out of the floor,” he motioned to the platform and controls. “When the place started spinning I struggled to hang on, but was eventually thrown against the lever. The spinning slowed down when I did, giving me a moment to realize we were up in the air and flying,” he shrugged. “We started flying towards the mountains and when I saw us on a collision course put two and two together and took a chance, pulling the lever hard to the left. When we missed the mountain I just… sort of, I dunno, went for it. It’s not like anypony else was up here.”

Spitfire and Fire Streak glanced at each other blankly for a moment before looking back towards the mail pony.

“I think you left out the part…” Spitfire chuckled. “Where you proceeded to navigate this massive hunk of junk through a dense mountain range, saving us all from a nasty fate even with the mechanisms failing left and right.”

“Huh? Oh… nah, I just grabbed it and did what I could,” the mail pony rolled his eyes as if he hadn’t done anything special.

“First Rivet, now you… Don’t be so modest,” Fire Streak chuckled as he walked up to him. “That was some skillful piloting! We’re all still alive and kicking because of you.”

“In one of our darkest hours we’re saved by the head of our engineering team and the mail room employee…” Spitfire chuckled. “Unlikely heroes indeed,” she stepped forward but hesitated again. The mail pony tipped his head to the side as Spitfire sighed and threw a hoof out. “Okay fine, this is embarrassing… I mean, you work here… you work for me, but I don’t even know your name.”

“Me?” The mail pony blinked, chuckling. “Lucky,” he said with a nod.

“Lucky?” Spitfire repeated, making sure she interpreted him right.

“Yes, Lucky,” he confirmed with a nod.

“A fitting name,” Fire smiled. “Considering you were in the right place at the right time,” he said giving Lucky a pat on the back.

“Well Lucky,” Spitfire smiled. “We owe you just as much for piloting this monstrosity as we owe Rivet for starting it up. That was very quick thinking on your part, not to mention the landing probably would have been much worse had you not softened it,” she smirked. “I don’t know, Fire… if we somehow get this thing up and running again, I think I know who I want to pilot it!”

“Agreed!” Fire laughed with her.

“Wait, what?” Lucky’s eyes went wide as he listened in. Spitfire shook her head and chuckled.

“Oh, don’t worry about it right now. We don’t even know what’s going to happen next… I’m just happy we had a pony with a head on his shoulders up here coincidently at the right time…”

Spitfire paused as she looked around, her eyes landed on Lightning Streak and Misty Fly first, who were in the process of trying to pull Surprise off the air hockey table. Spitfire kept moving her vision until it landed on the controls again. Now that they had the pilot’s identity figure out, she wanted to see for a moment… the brain of the beast that had lain dormant beneath them for so long. Her eyes landed on a scratched up plaque that was attached to a control station beside the steering lever. She shifted and moved towards it, taking a long hard look at it to try and deduce what it said. It was hard to read with all the scratches and chipped pieces, but after a few attempts she managed to put all the letters together.

“N… I… M… B… U… S…” Spitfire blinked. “Nimbus…” she looked up out the window and around at all the controls, her eyes eventually landing on the lever beside her. “The Nimbus, huh?” she smiled as she touched the lever. It was quite amazing to think about it actually. Something that hadn’t been touched or used since by the hooves of Wonderbolts centuries before them? As strange as it was and with all the predicaments they had to solve now… it was quite an amazing feeling.

“What was that, Captain?” Fire Streak asked as Spitfire removed her hoof from the lever and walked back towards them.

“Nothing,” Spitfire said while shaking their head. “Come on, we found what we came here for, let’s get back down and help out the others.”

Silver Lining sighed and leaned up against the wall beside the east hallway. His body hurt, it really hurt. It hurt more than it ever had in the past, even with the pain meds. It had been a hectic few days and he was beginning to worry about his own apparent frailty. It had been so long since he had had back to back days of intense action. He had held out for so long within the training regime, but how long would he last with things now getting serious?

No matter what happened to him however, he knew this conflict would be his last experience as a Wonderbolt. Spitfire saw it with her own eyes. She saw him struggling while buying Rivet time… and she was one of the two who saved him when his wings gave out. As weird as it sounded, he was glad they were possibly stuck for a while, because it wasn’t like she could dismiss him with their current location and situation.

Silver shook his head, purposely remaining away from other ponies, Wonderbolts and Renegades alike as he contemplated what was left for him going forward. It was something he had staved off for so long, but clearly could no longer afford to avoid. He didn’t curse his inability to fly and fight like he used to… he cursed his inability to keep the façade going. The situation didn’t help his ultimate goal: to train Rainbow Dash to meet her full potential and leave behind an unmatched legacy.

After all… it was what Blizzard wanted to do with him, but never got the chance. It was now up to him to carry out his mentor’s ambitions, so his legacy may live on through Dash as well… and hopefully many others after her.

Silver blinked, his thoughts breaking away from his finite scenario as Descent entered through the front doors and looked around at the same moment Spitfire appeared from the broken stairwell. Descent locked onto her and moved to meet her in the middle.

Just as curious towards what would happen next, Silver forced himself off the wall, straining himself to not limp as much as he could as he approached them. As Silver drew near, Rivet beat Descent to Spitfire with a few of his unicorn assistants behind him. Rivet was holding a clipboard, which he didn’t take his eyes off of as he began talking. Silver was just within earshot as Rivet’s report started.

“So we have quite a few problems…” Rivet flipped the pages on the clipboard over and over. “First let’s start with the obvious. All electricity, plumbing, and heating have been completely cut off. Those systems were all run on an off site network that we effectively severed upon liftoff. If we plan to stay put, this will create pretty rough living conditions that I’m sure most here are not used to.”

“Agreed, but go on,” Spitfire rotated her hoof as he paused.

“There are countless broken windows and a few pieces of the compound itself have been blown out, exposing the inside to the elements. Considering that we’re in the mountains, it’s going to get real cold in here real fast,” he said with a well-timed shiver. There was a nip of cold that was steadily getting more intense.

“What about the condition of the machinery?” Spitfire asked. Much to her dismay, Rivet shook his head.

“Nothing will be a quick fix. The bits and pieces I tinkered with are still in one piece, but most of the older rusted parts have completely blown themselves apart, not to mention the main boiler is in need of some heavy repairs. Even with constant work and the entire research/mechanical team, I can’t see any progress being made towards actually getting this thing to operate again for at least…” he paused as he looked over several calculations written down on his clipboard. “Three weeks… if we’re lucky. I doubt I have the necessary parts or supplies either.”

Spitfire’s ears drooped down, Silver sighing from behind her as he heard the news as well. So much for saving the compound.

“Three weeks?” Descent spoke up from behind Rivet as Silver continued to hover nearby. “That’s very doable. We could buy you more if it would help.”

Everypony else went silent and stared blankly at Descent. Spitfire furrowed her brow and quickly turned to him.

“Is this the part where you explain you little idea? Or am I gonna have to plant my hoof through your face for leading me on again?” Spitfire huffed. “I dare you, just try to say ‘wait and see’ again,” she said in a very sarcastic tone.

“Relax, I just wanted to make sure it was solid first,” Descent deflected her remarks and pointed outside. Silver followed Descent’s hoof as Spitfire looked as well. Spitfire didn’t say anything, just tipping head in confusion, but Silver noticed, stepping up to enter the conversation.

“The snow is picking up?” Silver asked curiously. Descent nodded.

“Sharp eyes,” he complimented before turning back to Spitfire. “I already have a large group of Renegades outside, creating an artificial, maintained blizzard.”

“A… blizzard,” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “Explain,” she got right to the point.

“A harsh blizzard will prevent the Shadowbolts from flying anywhere near us, even if they teleport in. Not only that, but because we destroyed their little pursuit ships, they currently don’t know where we are. An artificial blizzard maintained by a cycling group of fifty or more Renegades can cover hundreds of miles of terrain. To our knowledge, our general location is unknown to them and they will have no means of finding us unless they stumble directly upon the compound with a scout… who won’t make it very far if they find us. The Shadowbolts may have powerful resources at their disposal, but they aren’t stupid. They won’t take unnecessary risks.”

He stopped, looking at Spitfire as she thought over everything he had just said. She purposely let him finish, getting all the information before giving her two bits. Silver could tell by the look on her face that she felt unsure.

“So… you’re going to lock us in with no heat, electricity, or plumbing… we also don’t have access to food or any other supplies. Descent, how the hell are we going to last three weeks or more under those conditions?” she asked very good questions.

“As for the cold and the lack of electricity…” Descent began. “Suck it up.”

Silver snorted as Descent bluntly addressed the heat issue, earning a sharp look from Spitfire.

“As for the lack of plumbing, have you never gone camping? Figure it out,” he continued to be blunt, which was trying Spitfire’s patience. “As for supplies,” his tone turned from condescending to serious. “Leave that to us. We not only have multiple outposts in these mountains with hordes of supplies, but don’t forget how we eluded you for so long. The Renegades can make several stealth runs to locations outside the mountain ranges. Our most talented will be able to reach major urban locations, allowing us to communicate as well. We’ll leave plenty behind here to maintain the blizzard and keep a look out. Maintaining the weather will have us scattered all about the storm. If the Shadowbolts send any scouts into the thick of it, they will run into us anywhere, never getting a good general location,” Descent lifted his brow and tipped his head towards Spitfire. “Well?”

Spitfire blinked as he finished. Silver was nodding to himself. He definitely felt it was a solid plan, more solid than anything else they had come up with in the recent past. He could see it in her eyes though. Something was still on Spitfire’s mind.

“I didn’t hear anything about the Wonderbolts taking part in this plan,” Spitfire brought up. Descent looked as though he was expecting her to say it, answering quickly with a shake of his head.

“Leave this all to us,” he began. Spitfire looked ready to protest, but Descent held a hoof up to silence her. “The Wonderbolts have been through hell and back unexpectedly these past few days while we’ve been dealing with the Shadowbolts for an extended period,” he pressed his hoof to his chest. “I believe it is within our best interest for the Wonderbolts to get as much rest as possible and let the reality of the situation sink in. This plan gives us a large window of opportunity. Not only to get everypony healthy and back on their hooves, but also some time to train the Wonderbolts in magic deflection techniques. The longer we can drag this out, the more prepared we will be fore them in our next clash. Whether or not we get this hunk of junk moving again will be pointless if we’re ill prepared to fight back yet again.”

“But—”

“Spitfire,” Silver spoke up. “I think I speak for the rest of the Wonderbolts when I say… we could use a breather,” he said with a heavy sigh. Not to promote his own lack of fight, nor make decisions for the lead captain, but he knew Spitfire. She didn’t like not being in control. Now wasn’t the time to insist, it was time to accept the aid and bring the Wonderbolts back up to speed. Spitfire took a deep breath and exhaled through her nose.

“You’re right,” she agreed with Silver. “As usual,” she added as she turned to Descent. “Do what you must… we’ll make do and figure things out.”

“Good,” Descent nodded. “We can discuss more in terms of specific tasks later. For now, we have to start this blizzard,” he nodded and without another word, turned and trotted back towards the doors to rejoin the Renegades outside.

“Rivet,” Spitfire turned back to Rivet as he continued to stand in silence. “I’m not expecting you to do so much with so little at your disposal, but… if there’s anything you can do that will help us deal with the conditions we’re about to live under for a while… it will be greatly appreciated.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t make any promises,” Rivet nodded.

“Thanks,” Spitfire returned the nod as Rivet turned and started gathering up his helpers again.

That left just Silver and Spitfire standing alone in the middle of the lobby, a few paces away from the gap in the floor. Silver held his breath as he tried to hold himself steady, but he was clearly wobbling a little. Spitfire looked him in the eye with a concerned expression and Silver gritted his teeth as she opened her mouth to speak.

“Captain!” Wave Chill cut her off, calling to her as he glided across the lobby over the ponies that were moving about. Silver thanked his lucky stars that Wave distracted her. He was going to avoid any discussion about the state of his body for as long as he could. “All captains and staff chiefs have reported!” he added as he landed in front of her.

Spitfire immediately turned her full attention to Wave and stepped up to him, nearly getting into his face. It’s not like Wave wasn’t used to being so close to Spitfire, but her movement and eagerness had startled him.

“AND?!” Spitfire asked, nearly tipping forward on the edges of her hooves as she waited for an answer. Wave gathered himself and smiled.

“Multiple injuries have been reported but…” he nodded. “No casualties… everypony is alive.”

Spitfire’s eyes nearly caught fire with how brightly they lit up, but she cleared her throat looked down and tried to gather herself. However, it only lasted for a second. She completely lost control of her demeanor, flinging herself at Wave and hugging him tightly while giggling happily.

“Er… Capt— Spitfire?” Wave blinked in surprise at her strange public display of affection.

Silver grinned weakly as he saw Spitfire become absolutely overjoyed at the news. He took the opportunity to quit the conversation and begin moving towards the west hallway, aiming for the infirmary. If there was one pony he’d be willing to go to for the state of his body, it was Bliss.

He couldn’t help but smile as he continued to hear Spitfire’s laughter with his back turned.

“I just can’t believe it!” Spitfire exclaimed as she hugged Wave. “We still have the compound… and everypony survived!” Silver chuckled to himself as he kept moving. “I’m so happy!” Spitfire continued to voice her elated disbelief as Silver entered the west hallway… and started thinking about how he could spin the explanation of his pain to Bliss. He couldn’t have her reporting anything to Spitfire now.

The infirmary was quickly a busy place once again, and thanks to several portable work lights that were quickly found and brought in, Bliss and her slowly gathering assistants were able to clear away the mess and tend to all the ponies showing up. Bliss still hadn’t stepped out, and didn’t hear any of the explanation to Luna, but she didn’t care. There were hurt ponies in her infirmary, and they had to be tended to. The injured always came first in her book, ALWAYS.

And it was a good thing she was getting the help she needed as well, because Dash found it hard to do anything without worrying about Soarin. She felt selfish. Calm Wind was two tables behind her, sucking it up and fighting through the pain as Bliss continued to tend to him with the help of Fleetfoot and Mahogany. Yet she was more worried about Soarin, who was sleeping peacefully, or at least it looked peaceful. She had no idea what was going on in his head, especially since he was knocked out by overusing his magic.

She glanced behind her as Fleetfoot rushed by with a few supplies Bliss had requested, but the moment Fleetfoot passed, something else caught Dash’s attention. Silver was shuffling his way through the infirmary, limping as he looked around at all the commotion. As he examined Calm, his eyes eventually shifted, easily catching the colors of Dash’s mane. Dash had been wondering how Silver was doing, but her priorities had again drawn her directly to Soarin.

Yet another who was most likely in need of attention over Soarin, but she had almost disregarded him. Dash looked away quickly. There was too much going on in her head, and based on previous experiences, she wanted to avoid saying something stupid to Silver while her brain was in a tizzy. She was told to keep an eye on Soarin, and that’s what she would do. She would have done so even without Spitfire’s orders anyway.

She was relieved Soarin had survived the liftoff of the compound and she just wanted to sit and look at him as they finally received a brief respite.

She suddenly flinched as Silver stepped up right beside her, looking upon Soarin. She turned to him briefly and saw that he wasn’t looking, but she quickly looked back as he stole a glance at her. There was a long silence between the two. It wasn’t an awkward silence though. Silver simply remained beside her and his presence made her feel a little better. She really didn’t want to speak, her mind completely focused on Soarin now, but he wasn’t speaking to her. She really didn’t want to face anypony else, and he wasn’t forcing her to look at him. He was just… there. And that gave her a strange sense of comfort.

Once again Dash couldn’t believe how well Silver could simply read her. She knew what he was doing, and why he wasn’t talking. By now he had learned all of her mannerisms and could probably tell long before he reached her what was on her mind. This wasn’t the first time he had stayed by her side during Soarin’s troubles either.

Dash released a long sigh as she slumped down and gently rested her chin on the padding of the tabletop, her nose brushing against Soarin’s as she stared directly into his face at point blank. Silver looked towards her, but again said nothing. He simply reached up and gently rested his hoof atop her head.

Art by: Foxenawolf

He kept it there for a few seconds, before giving her head a light pat and leaving her side, limping away to seek out medical attention for himself.

They had all been through a lot in such a short time.

Dash didn’t know what was happening going forwards, but she hoped they could finally get some well-deserved rest.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

SO looks like things are going to die down for a little while... but the work is not done. The Wonderbolts shall get some well deserved rest (Just in time for chapter 100 :raritywink:) While the Renegades do some work to keep the Shadowbolts occupied and out of the way. All their power doesn't mean a thing if they can't find the WOnderbolts and kept out of the way... and the Renegades have already proven they are VERY good at eluding skilled ponies, eh? :moustache:

Gonna keep this short cause my ehad still hurts a bit >_<

Depending on how long this head aching of mine lasts i may extend my writing break a couple days, but now more than ever due to this unexpected literal pain in the neck i really need a short writing break. Don't you all worry though, i'll be back before you know it :) Only a week or so.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 100 special: The Importance of Comfort

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 100: The Importance of Comfort

Placing their trust in the Renegades was something the Wonderbolts did carefully. They were expecting a respite, but the moment Descent and every last Renegade was out of the compound, Spitfire gave the order to prepare for another confrontation.

While she trusted Descent and the Renegades to stay true to their word and their claims, Spitfire refused to take a load off until a day had gone by without the Shadowbolts finding and attacking them.

As much as the Wonderbolts wanted to look around and look through the compound for personal items and such, they all fell in line and did what they had to do for defenses. Spitfire assigned security guards to stand guard at the end of the recruit barracks hallway to keep a close eye on their Shadowbolt prisoners despite Descent’s repeated assurance that they would not fight back without their crystals.

The Wonderbolts were tired and they were weakened, but they would stand and fight if need be.

But thankfully…

Descent’s claim held its weight.

The artificial blizzard raged outside. Snow fell in through the broken windows as several maintenance teams struggled to board them up or cover them. The Wonderbolts stood at the ready, despite the chilly bite of the cold air that rushed against them non-stop.

A whole day went by with them all on the edge of their hooves… and when Starry Skies made a stop at the compound to give them an update…

Her words filled the Wonderbolts with sweet, sweet relief.

They had the Shadowbolts thoroughly confused. While they had had small, short encounters, they had all been similar to the quick scrap and divert they had managed for months before the Wonderbolts were even aware of the new Shadowbolts. None of them were able to track or follow the Renegades, the blizzard thick and the winds strong enough to throw off anypony who did not know the general location of the compound. Starry assured them that no Shadowbolt had come within miles of the compound, due to the sheer expanse of their artificial blizzard, and they planned to keep it that way for as long as they needed.

As Starry flew back out into the strong, freezing winds of the blizzard, a collective sigh of relief could almost be heard around the entire compound.

Finally… finally they could rest.

At least they hoped that’s what it meant. They definitely needed it.

Descent walked through the door of Spitfire’s office, immediately meeting the glare of Spitfire as Fire Streak stopped his report and looked towards the door. She and Fire were both free of their flight suits, instead donning a thick, heavy blanket for warmth in the current frigid environment of the compound.

“You and the Renegades need to learn how to knock,” she said with a grumpy huff that Descent simply shrugged off as he stepped into the room. Fire Streak looked between the two of them, knowing it had to be something important.

“Should I come back later?” Fire asked as he started taking small steps backwards. Spitfire shook her head, halting him in his tracks.

“No,” she said flatly. “Descent can wait his turn since he didn’t knock.

“Okay, I get it. I’ll knock from now on…” Descent said as he grunted and rolled his eyes. Spitfire turned back to Fire.

“Please continue,” she asked as Descent walked around a messy pile of books on the floor and leaned against the wall.

Spitfire had pulled her office back together the best she could, or at least her desk area. As with every other room in the compound, all the items within her office had been thrown about. Her desk had been tipped over and the contents of the drawers spilled everywhere. All the shelves had been toppled, several books thrown from them as well as many plaques and trophies that were now broken or shattered.

The first thing Spitfire did upon learning they had a window of rest was tidy up her office the best she could, still considering it a place to speak officially, despite the new obstacle in the stairwell that was the pillar holding the central propeller. She had put her shelves and desk upright, replacing all the desk drawer contents where they belonged but simply shoving most of the shelf contents aside since they weren’t all that useful and more for decoration.

Along with the cleaning up, she also forced the armored shutter down over her broken window, sealing the draft of cold air that rushed through it. She didn’t want to steal any of the portable lights being used by the rest of the compound just for her office, so she had placed and lit four large candles she had found amongst some of the items they had in storage. They were probably brought in or given as a gift at some point, but seriously, when else were they going to use them? It didn’t provide much light, but it gave enough visibility.

With everything in the best shape she could get it, she wanted to know all about what had happened below with Rivet and the ponies she sent along with him. She had summoned Fleetfoot, but got Fire instead, who claimed Fleetfoot sent him because she ‘wasn’t in the mood.’ While Spitfire questioned Fleetfoot’s reasons, she secretly wasn’t going to complain. She loved Fleetfoot and respected her as one of her best friends, but Fire was much more detailed and thorough in giving reports.

“Once Rivet got the boiler running, lights came on and we were able to subdue most of the Shadowbolts. Some of them were still up and about after our unexpected flight and crash, but with some rather…” Fire paused and glanced at Descent. “Questionable methods from Starry Skies, we were able to subdue them as well.

“Heh,” Descent snorted as Spitfire stole a brief, skeptical glance at him before refocusing on Fire.

“Injury report,” she beckoned him to continue. She knew the obvious, having seen Matteo and Playbitz drag a bleeding Calm Wind towards the infirmary, but she was covering all the bases. Fire humored her.

“Aside from the heavy injuries to Calm, most of us managed to escape with only a couple of bumps, cuts, and bruises. It would seem that our lack of heavy damage was mostly due to Calm taking many hits for us,” he finished with a frown.

Spitfire’s ears flopped down. Having been kept up to speed on the development of squad zero, she had come to learn of their mannerisms and impulses. Calm Wind had a tendency to use his large body as a shield, protecting others from harm. While this was valiant… he did it at every given chance, even if it was not necessary, especially with Swift Justice’s function in the group being to act as a shield with his defensive abilities. Needless to say, Calm had a bad habit causing himself a lot of pain that could have been easily avoided. No matter how selfless it seemed, he really needed to be aware of his own health as well.

The mention of Calm’s injuries brought an unexpected, personal question to mind. Spitfire wasted no time in posing it.

“Fire… one more question, aside from the report,” she clarified to dispel any confusion since a standard report usually ended with the injury analysis. Fire gave a simple nod, prompting her to go on. “How did they do? Squad zero I mean,” she asked with a hopeful expression.

Fire looked surprised at first, but he quickly smiled, knowing she’d be happy to know.

“They were key in our success,” he began. “From what I saw and experienced, their efforts helped immensely in us locating the boiler. Shine Struck handled them well, calling out a defensive formation that kept Rivet safe while also aiding us above. Not to mention Calm took a lot of hits for us alongside Swift’s shielding techniques and Playbitz’s quick strikes from above all allowed us to stay active and ultimately both start up the engines and subdue all the Shadowbolts. Shine ended up aiding Rivet in his efforts to start the engines as well. I will speak for them by saying their performance was that of true Wonderbolts and I’m not sure things would have gone as well without them.”

Spitfire smiled as he finished, breathing a sigh of relief. She had sunk so much effort into the Zero Project and was worried her investment was for naught once the Renegades revealed themselves. Squad zero entered the battle like a storm, but was quickly proved to have little effect… and their ‘unique’ ability to deflect magic was immediately obsolete compared to the techniques of the Renegades. All the deception had Spitfire peeved, but one of the greatest worries on her mind was that she had put four ponies through an intense and rigorous training regimen… only to have them not be useful or be forced to dismiss them for their own safety. Obviously they were in no position to be released in the middle of the mountains under a harsh blizzard in hiding, but had they been in danger or become a liability again… she wasn’t sure what she would do. If they were a large part of their escape, then they earned another chance. She just hoped she wasn’t jumping the gun on this one again.

“Thank you Fire, that will be all,” she gave him a nod of approval.

“Yes ma’am,” Fire returned her nod before grabbing and clutching his blanket around him for a moment. He took a deep breath and exhaled, expelling a brief cloud of warm breath before him as he turned and walked past Descent.

The moment Fire was out of the room, Spitfire released an uncomfortable groan and shivered, clutching her blanket around her tightly all the way up to her nose. Descent stepped forward as he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Cold?” he asked with a bit of sarcasm. Spitfire released a muffled grunt from her mouth beneath the blanket before pulling it down to reveal an unamused expression.

“Warm enough to kick your sarcastic ass,” Spitfire snapped back as she stuffed her nose back into her blanket. Descent rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Hey,” Spitfire cut him off before he could speak. “Don’t give me any of your lip, you’re out there flying and staying active. We’re resting… but it’s kind of freezing and your blizzard isn’t helping that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted the Shadowbolts to attack you again. We could drop the blizzard if you’d like?” Descent pushed the sarcasm. Spitfire quickly shook her head, letting it go.

“That’s why I’m not going to complain,” she said with another, brief shiver.

“We could have easily just met in the battledome, you know,” Descent suggested, but Spitfire shook her head.

“I’d prefer to keep some things official. Anyway…” she got down to business as Descent flashed an amused grin. “What brings you in?” she asked him.

“Thought I’d check in. Have you made assessments on the food situation?” he asked. Spitfire nodded as she removed her nose from her blanket again.

“We have a decent supply, but only in the form of simple canned food and a large stock of emergency ration boxes. Anything that required the touch from our chefs is pretty much useless, so overall our supply is limited.”

“We’ll make the food supply our first priority then,” Decent nodded. “We’ll bring what we can from our outposts in the mountain ranges, but I’ll send a few larger groups out of the blizzard to reach any nearby cities. I believe we are within a reasonable distance of Fillydelphia.”

“Are you sure they won’t get followed?” Spitfire expressed concern.

“We’ve become accustomed to deception, you know,” Descent smirked.

“Do tell…” Spitfire rolled her eyes, completely agreeing with him after how well the Renegades eluded the Wonderbolts and the Shadowbolts in the recent past.

“Anything else?” Descent wanted a full report, clearly interested in making the respite for the Wonderbolts as comfortable as possible so they may be at full strength when the time came to act again.

“Well…” Spitfire released a heavy sigh. “We’re not handling the lack of bathroom facilities too well.”

“I can imagine, but there’s not much we can do about that,” Descent quickly stated as Spitfire shrugged.

“We could use more blankets,” she said with a slight shiver. “And anything we need to keep the fires running in the battledome. That’s all I can think of in terms of us and necessities. If there’s anything else you need to know, I’d go find Rivet and ask him. He needs supplies more than any of us if he’s going to get this big tub up in the air again. Once we do that, we can seek out assistance against the Shadowbolts. I just don’t know where yet. I’m not going to risk calling in the reserves until we’re in the clear and have some established communication with another authority.”

“Oh, speaking of outside communication,” Descent suddenly spoke up. “I have some of my fastest Renegades gathered. They’re mapping out a few routes to and between major cities and will be ready to help us with outside communication soon. I suggest, within the next day or so, letting the rest of the Wonderbolts know in case they have any mail or messages they wish to send to acquaintances or loved ones. I’m sure that news of the incident in Canterlot has become known to the public by now, not to mention the Wonderbolt compound has disappeared. I’ve no doubt friends and family may be worried. Think about any other authorities you may want to warn and give direction to as well.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea…” Spitfire agreed. “As long as we don’t give away any information about our current location. I’ll be sure to lay down that rule when I bring it up. Technical things aside, thanks for doing that. I know quite a few Wonderbolts will be eager to send word to their families.”

“Oh, one last thing,” Descent spoke up again. “You can rest easy.”

“Pardon?” Spitfire looked up, curious to what he meant since that was already something they were doing.

“The flying fortress, you were worried about the rest of Equestria, were you not?” Descent clarified, Spitfire’s eyes widening and her ears standing straight up.

“You saw it?” she quickly asked.

“I didn’t, but my scouts have spotted it. It is parked outside the reaches of the blizzard. They have made no moves to attack any other locations. We’ll keep an eye on it, but from the looks of things, they are dead set on their prime objective,” he nodded as Spitfire breathed a sigh of relief. “Though I find it strange, if I were in charge I would have attacked populated cities, forcing you to act.”

“Let’s not even consider that scenario,” Spitfire cut him off while shaking her head. “If they’re hell bent on finding us, then it keeps the rest of Equestria safe for the time being. Though… I agree, I wonder what their orders are?”

“I can beat it out of one of our captives later,” Descent suggested with a disturbingly straight face. “For now we’ll keep up our maneuvers and watch them closely.”

“I don’t know if I’ll agree with your method of interrogation…” Spitfire flattened her brow. “But I agree, for now we need to focus on our situation.”

“No time to waste then,” Descent suddenly turned back towards the door. “We’ll get everything you need.”

“Wait, Descent…” Spitfire spoke up before he could leave. He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“Yes?” he asked, lifting his brow. Spitfire took a deep breath and smiled.

“I don’t think I’ve… properly thanked you yet,” she said as she clutched the blanket tighter to herself.

“Save it for when we’re out of this mess,” Descent deflected, but Spitfire shook her head.

“No, I’m thanking you now, and I will thank you later,” Spitfire said adamantly. “Everything would already be over without you guys. I didn’t like the deception or how everything was initially handled, but the fact remains that we’re alive now because of you and the Renegades. And now you’re helping us rest while shouldering the burden for us for a short while. Believe me when I say, the Wonderbolts owe you one.”

“Very well,” Descent cracked a smirk before turning, but Spitfire stopped him again.

“Um… Descent?” she spoke up one more time, making him look over his shoulder again. He curiously took note of the sudden weak expression on her face. “Could you… before anything else…” she looked like she was hesitating to speak. “Could you find and send Silver Lining up here for me?”

“Silver?” Descent blinked, wondering why she asked him instead of Fire.

“Yes,” she nodded. “There’s something I wanted to discuss with him personally, out of earshot and knowledge of the rest of the Wonderbolts.”

Descent’s curiosity was piqued, but Spitfire’s emphasis on it being personal immediately held him back from asking himself. Perhaps she asked him purposely, knowing how he was one to respectfully keep personal information to himself.

“Alright, I’ll stop in the battledome before I leave,” Descent faced the door, and left without another word.

Spitfire watched him leave, and the moment he was gone she released a heavy sigh, sinking into her blanket and slumping down in her chair.

There was a hard decision approaching that she was about to make… but she felt it was for the best. Silver would understand.

“It’s about time we had a chance to do this,” Dash commented, a blanket draped over her body as she walked down the barracks hallway towards the Foxtrot barracks. There were small lights set up on the left side of the hallway, leading all the way down to a pair of security guards that were posted outside the last barracks where the Shadowbolt prisoners were being kept. It offered enough light in the hallway itself, but Dash had a flashlight tucked underneath her wing that she planned to use once they reached the desired destination.

She wasn’t the only one either. Storm Front and the entirety of her squad were along with her, all covered with blankets as well (Matteo had several due to his size), and each with their own flashlight. Their purpose? To return to the recruit barracks and salvage what they could. It was no mystery what awaited them. With how all the furniture in the lobby and the infirmary were all tossed about, they were all certain their barracks had suffered the same fate.

Storm Front had offered to come along and help them out. If anything, it was to help Dash, Twister, and Little Star. He and Squall were still not quite on the best of terms and he still wasn’t sure how to face Matteo. He wasn’t going to let the slight awkward air between them stop him from helping though.

Matteo in particular seemed to be in quite a hurry, easily overtaking Dash at the head of the pack as they neared the Foxtrot door. They all had things to find, but Dash knew what Matteo’s drive was. He had brought a lot of things along with him that reminded him of the Griffon Kingdom, and he held each of them quite dear.

Dash was also admittedly curious to see what sort of things Twister would ‘find’ and claim to be his prized possessions… because she knew they were all going to be ridiculous and pulled out of thin air. She had him figured out.

“No you don’t,” Twister appeared beside Dash while jokingly rubbing his side against hers, his blanket wrapped so slightly around his face that it looked like he was strangling his nose. Dash blinked before giving him an awkward glare and pushing him away. Correction, ONE of these days she’d figure him out… but she still had yet to figure out Pinkie Pie… so she by no means felt an epiphany would come to her soon… or at all for that matter.

“Here we are,” Storm spoke up as Matteo halted in front of them, dropped his flashlight from his beak into his talons as he ripped the door open and immediately entered while shining his flashlight. The blanket covering his backside slipped off and fell to the ground, but he moved in quickly without a care for the cold.

“Dammit…” Matteo cursed as the rest followed behind.

Dash gritted her teeth and cringed when she saw the state of the room. It wasn’t like she wasn’t expecting it to be a mess, but it was MORE of a mess than she had hoped. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. The beds were all turned over, the sheets and pillows tossed about. The dresser drawers had all been pulled free from their frames. The contents of them spilled everywhere. Luckily, the floor lockers or at least the visible ones had remained shut, but the safety of their contents were in question due to how much they had clearly been tossed around with the rest.

It looked like each of their personal living spaces had been thrown into a box, shaken up, and dumped back out. Strangely, everything was packed together in a large pile in the center of the room. It was purely coincidence, but that made their search a little easier. Matteo was upon the pile and digging through it before the rest of them could fully take in the sight, but they all quickly moved up with him and began looking through it for their personal belongings.

“Anything specific you’re looking for?” Storm asked Dash as he trotted up beside her. Dash shined her flashlight on the pile and prodded around for a moment before looking up.

“Oh uh… if my locker spilled, then a book, a framed picture of me and Soarin and…” she paused and blushed while smiling awkwardly. “Uh… a special poster and or pillow,” she referred to the Soarin body pillow that Twister had made as a joke, not being specific.

“What’s so special about them?” Storm asked as he blinked in confusion.

“Oh, I think you’ll know it when you see them,” Dash chuckled as she went back to digging through a pile.

She pushed aside a bed frame and her eyes brightened as they came upon a shut floor locker. She reached in and pulled it out, but frowned when it was labeled ‘LS’ on the side, not ‘RD.’

“Star,” Dash called across the pile. Little Star’s head popped up from behind a tipped over dresser. She smiled when her eyes landed on the floor locker Dash was holding up.

“Thanks!” she bounced over and grabbed the locker. “Whoa!” she yelped as Dash let go, the locker nearly forcing her to the floor. “Yeeeeee-ikes! These things are a lot heavier than they look!” she commented as she hoisted it up, fluttering her wings as she wobbled back and forth on her hind legs away to take a look inside. It had to be a comical sight from the other side. The locker was bigger than her.

“The hell is…?” Squall suddenly spoke up as he pulled a large pillow out of the pile and shined his flashlight on it, his eyes widening with an uncomfortable expression as he looked upon it. Dash flinched, wondering if Squall had found her pillow, but before she could move over, Matteo suddenly reached out and snatched it out of Squall’s hooves, the image of Gilda slightly coming into Dash’s line of sight before Matteo tucked it under his wing and scampered back over to where he was digging.

Squall’s mouth hung down as he slowly looked at Dash.

“Big guy gets a little lonely sometimes?” Dash commented with a snicker.

“Urgh…” Squall shivered and shook his head. “And I TOUCHED that pillow!” he whined while reaching towards a nearby sheet and furiously rubbing his hooves into it as if he was wiping them off.

Dash glanced over at Matteo, smirking as he kept his back stiffly turned to the rest of them after his little piece of Gilda merchandise was finally discovered. Now she just hoped that she would find her Soarin pillow before anypony else did. Though she silently felt it would be hilarious if Squall also stumbled upon her pillow.

“I FOUND IT!” Twister’s voice rang out as he shot out of the top of the pile and slammed into the ceiling, sticking to it. Dash flinched, hoping that he didn’t line up a discovery with her thoughts again like he had moments prior, but when she looked up, he was holding onto what looked like some kind of deflated ball.

“Found… what?” Storm asked curiously. Dash smacked a hoof to her face. Storm wasn’t as aware as the rest of them that asking Twister any questions was a recipe for weird shenanigans that made little to no sense.

“MY PRIZED POSSESSION!” Twister yelled as he detached from the ceiling and slammed flat to the floor right in front of Storm. He sprung up and held the ball in front of Storm’s face, the rubbery surface of the ball flopping over his hooves. “IT’S A HOOFBALL!” Twister yelled as he reached up and stretched the flat ball pointing using his tail to point the flashlight at a signature on its surface. “IT’S EVEN SIGNED BY TOM SHADY OF THE DEFLATRIOTS!”

“Wha-MRPH!” Storm’s further questioning was muffled as Dash threw a hoof over his mouth.

“Twister, go play in a pillowcase,” Dash said flatly.

“KAY!” Twister said as he fell over on his back, his blanket gently draped itself over the top of him, and he scooted himself across the floor, skillfully maneuvering himself into a nearby pillow case, the open end trying itself shut once he was inside. Storm blinked and glanced at Dash.

“Can’t believe that worked,” Storm said with an awkward chuckle. Dash shrugged and shook her head.

“If it sounds silly enough, he’ll do it,” Dash explained as she looked down and gasped quietly. Her eyes landed on an ‘RD’ from the surface of a floor locker. It was right where Twister initially plopped down in front of Storm.

“YOU CAN THANK ME LATER!” the muffled voice of Twister came from within the pillowcase as it began to bounce around the room. Dash rolled her eyes and held her flashlight in her teeth as she reached down to pull the locker out of the pile. Thankfully it was still shut tight, meaning most of her prized belongings were in fact, not in the pile.

“Bleh…” Dash spat the flashlight out of her mouth and reach down for it again. “This would be so much easier if we could actually see.”

“Got you covered!” Twister suddenly spoke up again as violent hacking and coughing noises came from his direction. The pillowcase reared back and lurched forward, making a vomiting noise as a battery powered camping lantern popped out of it and rested on the floor. The rest all shielded their eyes as a hoof stuck out of the top of the pillowcase and flipped it on, illuminating the room with a dim, light. It wasn’t very bright, but it provided them with enough visibility to see without meddling with their flashlights.

Squall grunted as he flattened his brow, or at least the side that wasn’t covered by the bandage.

“Think you could just find all of our stuff by farting while you’re at it?” he asked sarcastically. The pillow case bounced over to him and went completely limp as if it was empty. “What the—?”

“LOOKOUT!” Twister’s voice came from behind him. Squall turned around and immediately squinted as Twister released all the air from a whoopee cushion directly into Squall’s face. Squall growled and reached for Twister, but he was gone the moment he tried. He turned around and saw the pillowcase bouncing away again, but right before Squall could go after the bouncing pillow, a floor locker labeled ‘LS’ slammed down HARD over the top of it, forcing it down to the floor. Squall blinked and saw Little Star with an angry, puffy face as she held onto her floor locker. “OOOOH MAAAAMAAAAA!” Twister yelped as Star opened up her locker and began looking through its contents as if completely content that she had flattened Twister and ended his little string of antics for a spell.

“Well then,” Dash turned back, the many shenanigans becoming a normal occurrence for her. She reached to unlatch her locker, but before she could…

“YES!” Matteo suddenly called out as he thrust his talons into a pile of bed sheets and forced them apart. Dash and Storm both looked up, catching a glimpse of a look of pure happiness on Matteo’s face, which was rare. Dash and Storm glanced at each other before Dash set her locker down and began moving to see what had Matteo so happy. Storm followed her for a couple of steps, freezing in place shortly after. He decided it would be better to keep his distance, since he still wasn’t quite sure where he stood in Matteo’s eyes.

“What’ve you got there, big guy?” Dash asked as she approached, watching Matteo as he had nearly half his large body stuffed into the pile of sheets and bedspreads. Her question was answered quickly as he popped back out, and held several wooden figures in his talons, specifically those that were crafted by his mother.

“They’re okay!” Matteo smiled wide as he looked at the figures of his family. “Oh, praise King Gerardo, they’re okay!” he said excitedly as he fell back into a sitting position and pressed all of the figures to his chest over his heart.

Dash and the rest watched with awe, never seeing such an emotional reaction from Matteo before. The wood carvings really did mean a lot to him. Just how hard was it for him to leave them behind when they thought they were evacuating?

Dash smiled, Matteo’s uncharacteristic display of joy giving her a warm, fuzzy feeling. She looked down into the pile he was digging through and saw that the figures he had been working on were down there as well… but they were all smashed and broken. She blinked, looking back up at the figures he held in his talons, her ears flopping down.

“Matty,” she reached down and pulled up one of his figures. It broke in two as she lifted it up, causing her to flinch and quickly look up at him. “Uh… looks like yours weren’t so lucky.”

Matteo quickly shook his head.

“I could care less about those. These here…” he looked down at the figures and set them all on the floor except for the Gilda one. “These were not only professionally crafted by my mother, but they, more than anything, remind me of what I have,” he said as his eyes scanned over the perfectly crafted wooden image of Gilda. “A practice of my culture, and they’re of things I hold dear… live for… and fight for,” he looked up at Dash. “My feeble attempts were merely a hobby, these…” he picked up the figures of his mother, father, daughter, and son. “Actually mean something to me.” He looked down at them. “Like I told you before… I’m a long way from home. It’s important to never forget where you came from or what’s the most important to you.”

“I can definitely agree on that,” Dash said as she continued to look upon him. She decided to leave it there, turning away to let Matteo enjoy his relief, looking upon the images of those he just fought hard to survive for. She noticed the others were all staring at him, except for Twister who was still trapped in a pillowcase, smashed beneath Star’s floor locker. Dash raised her hoof and made a quick motion across her neck for them to stop staring. They all complied, but not nervously. They did so with smiles, or at least Storm and Star had. Squall just grunted and went back to searching through the pile.

Dash finally got back to her floor locker beside Storm and quickly poked him in the side.

“Hey, most of my stuff is in here,” she explained as she sat down before her locker. “Except for the… pillow,” she said with a nervous smirk.

“You’re seriously making me curious about this special pillow of yours,” Storm commented as he lifted an eyebrow.

“Oh, just keep digging,” Dash waved him off as she focused on her locker. She reached down and unlatched it, slowly opening it in fear that anything was broken. The book was probably just fine. The sexy Soarin Poster may have suffered some damage, but she was more worried about the picture frame and her photo of her and Soarin.

“Aw dammit…” Squall’s voice caught her attention as she reached down to open it. Squall pulled his floor locker free from the pile. It was heavily dented and the door was missing from it, suggesting that all of his belongings were strewn about within the pile. Little Star poked her head over the top of her open locker door and cringed.

“Oooo… That’s not good,” she commented as she fluttered into the air and hovered over to him. “Here, I’ll help you,” she offered.

“N-no! It’s… fine, I’ll do it…” Squall said, sounding frantic for a moment before clearing his throat and calming down.

“It’s alright. My stuff is all fine, I’ll help, hon,” Star insisted in her usual motherly fashion, generally not taking no for an answer on anything.

“Uh… but… er… no…” Squall tried to refuse again, but Star was clearly not having it. Instead, he dove into the pile and searched around with her quickly as if trying to find something before she did.

Dash refocused on her locker, opening the door and breathing a sigh of relief as the first thing she saw was her copy of the first Daring Do book. It was completely unscathed and still in pristine condition, looking no different than it had when Twilight gave it to her for her nineteenth birthday a year ago. She opened the front cover, A.K. Yearling’s signature just as untouched as the rest of the book. She smiled, setting it back down before returning her eyes to the locker.

“Ooo…” she bit her lower lip as she examined the rolled up poster of Soarin. She didn’t dare pick it up and examine it with everypony else around, but she could tell from where she was that it was awkwardly bent and a few of the ends ripped. Probably from clashing with the book and the… Dash’s eyes widened and she frowned as she found the last thing she was worried about.

“Oh no…” her ears flopped down as she pushed aside the poster and saw bits and pieces of shattered glass… and a frame that was broken in two. She reached down and picked up the frame, realizing that the picture had fallen out of it. She carefully reached in, gingerly pushing the glass and broken pieces aside until she found a photo turned upside down. She carefully picked it up and turned it over.

Her ears stood back up and she smiled. The frame was completely broken… but the photo was perfectly fine. No rips, tears, or smudges on the surface, the image of her and Soarin playfully jeering at each other still clear as day. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she sat down and stared at the photo.

“That’s a nice picture,” Storm’s voice came from over her shoulder. Dash’s eyes widened and she quickly slammed the cover of her locker shut to hide the poster. Storm flinched in surprise, and then turned to look at her smiling sheepishly. “What was that all about?” he asked curiously.

“NOTHING!” Dash’s fake grin widened as she held up the photo. “What a lovely picture!” she failed to cover up his suspicions, but Storm played along, figuring that she was hiding something personal.

“I need to get a picture with Derpy…” Storm frowned. “Never thought about it while I had the chance… it would definitely help me at a time like this.”

“Hey,” Dash smiled, regaining her demeanor and placing a hoof on his shoulder. “You will get the chance, no talking like we’re not gonna pull through all of this. I still have to show you around Ponyville too!” she encouraged him. Storm smiled and nodded.

“Sometimes I envy how you can put a positive spin on any situation,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s refreshing really… you and Soarin are both good at it,” Storm mentioned. Dash chuckled and tapped a hoof against her chest.

“That’s what I call a perfect combination,” she said while bouncing her eyebrows and holding up the photo. “We play to win and only win.”

“No doubt,” Storm chuckled along with her.

“Squall?” Star’s voice caught their attention. Dash and Storm both looked over to see Star pulling herself out of the pile. Squall stood up, the paraphernalia falling down over him as he stood. There was a look of dread on his face as Star slowly hovered up… holding a small blanket. It was a hoof stitched blanket, a white base color with light blue edges. Within the white were many boxes. Within each box was a stitched design of a small, smiling pony, bear, griffon, or lion. It was an adorable pattern and clearly crafted with skill. It looked a little old and a little dirty in some spots, but the clear, fine craftsmanship had kept it all in one piece. “Is this…” Star blinked as she examined the blanket. “A foal blanket?”

Little Star flinched as Squall quickly pulled the blanket from her hooves, sat down, and hid it behind his back.

“NO!” he yelled at her while blushing in embarrassment. All eyes were on him in confusion. Even Twister popped his head out from the pillow case beneath Star’s locker and looked on curiously. “WHAT?!” Squall angrily yelled at them. “IT’S NOTHING! YOU SAW NOTHING!” he hissed.

“But…” Star blinked and tipped her head. Squall shut his mouth and held his breath as he watched Little Star try to look around him. Realization hit him hard in the face that he wasn’t going to get out of it.

“Grrrrrrgghhhh…” Squall growled, letting his head hang and slowly removing the blanket from behind his back. “FINE!” he gritted his teeth, his mane completely hiding his uncovered eye as he continued to blush. He held the blanket up in front of him. “Yeah! It’s my FOAL blanket! Go ahead and LAUGH, I don’t CARE!” he yelled shakily as if he never wanted to show his face again.

Everypony remained silent as Squall waited to be laughed at, but no such laughter came. Instead, somepony—er somegriffon spoke up instead.

“Why would we do that?” Matteo broke the silence quickly, causing Squall to look up quickly and blink. His ears halfway between flopped and up as if he was unsure how to feel. “It’s something you hold dear, yes?” he asked, not expecting an answer. Little Star hovered over to it and examined the designs stitched into the blanket’s surface.

“Squall, this is adorable, and… I love the designs,” she commented as she reached forward and ran a hoof over the blanket as Squall held it out. The situation was clearly incredibly backwards based on what he was expecting.

Dash looked away from the blanket at Storm, who had his cheeks puffed out and was snickering.

“Storm…” Dash flattened her brow at him. Storm’s eyes widened and he quickly waved a hoof at her.

“No, no… I’m not laughing at him… I just,” he looked at Squall holding the foal blanket and shut his mouth tight stifling a chuckle. “Of all the ponies I’d expect to keep a foal blanket around… he was one of the last. That’s why I’m laughing… what a twist.”

“You KNOW he won’t take it that way,” Dash made clear to Storm as she nudged him to make him stop.

“I know,” Storm said as he struggled to hold it back. “That’s exactly why I’m trying to keep it down.”

“This is nothing to be ashamed of, Squall…” Star smiled at him as Squall kept his eyes glued to the floor. “It’s cute!”

“Nnnnnggggghhhh…” Squall groaned, his eyes widening and looking up as Matteo stopped right behind Star. He held up the wooden carvings of his family and a small smile curled on the edges of his beak.

“We all have things that bring us comfort. Images of home, memories of our youth… our cultures may differ greatly, but this concept is universal,” he explained with a friendly tone.

“Yeah!” Star agreed with a nod before floating back over to her footlocker and disappearing for a moment before emerging with a large, slightly worn out teddy bear that was the same size as her. It was missing an eye and had a lot of stitch marks all over it, but she hugged it tightly as she hovered back over. “See? This is Snugglebear, I got him for my first birthday and, heh…” she blushed sheepishly. “I haven’t gone a single night since without him nearby. He’s my lucky charm.”

“When you’re away from home,” Dash spoke up as she walked towards them, holding out her copy of Daring Do. “You’ve always gotta have something that can bring home to you or remind you of good times,” she nodded. “I take it that blanket is something special… that you always keep around for the memories, right?” she asked as Squall sighed and turned the blanket around to look at the cute designs on the front.

“I CAN RELATE!” Twister popped up behind him holding a plastic flute in his hoof. “LET ME PLAY YOU THE SONG OF MY PEOPLE!” he yelled as he put the flute near his lips.

But before he could play a single note, Little Star slammed down plot first over his head, forcing his face to the ground which cause the flute to release a high pitched squeak as it smashed between the floor and Twister’s face.

“NO.” Star said sharply as Twister twitched beneath her. “You are NOT ruining this moment!” she scolded him as Twister released a series of inaudible noises.

All eyes turned back to Squall as he completely ignored the short altercation and continued to look over the blanket.

“My…” Squall bit his lip briefly. “My grandmother made this for me…” he revealed as his ears flopped back down. “I only saw her once when I was three years old before she died. During that single encounter, she gave this to me, letting me know that she heard I was visiting and wanted to give me something special,” he held the blanket close to him. "It’s the only thing I’ve ever really been happy about. It felt real, not like the silly yelling and touching my parents always do. It was made with love and care for me… and then my grandma was taken from me before I could ever see her again. I was too young to even say thank you. Never got the chance.”

No tears fell from his eyes, but it was clear from the way he told it that it was something he often thought about… and it weighed heavily on him. No wonder he always seemed so negative. Having such warmth be taken right from under his hooves at such a young age, and never quite getting the same feeling again from parents who were a bit… strange.

“Awww… Squall…” Star set her teddy bear down and slowly hovered over to him to give him a hug. He gave no resistance, nor did he even flinch as she wrapped her little arms around his neck and gave him a gentle squeeze.

Twister began to slowly rise up behind Squall with a silly look on his face, but Star shot a frightful glare at him. Twister froze in place, his eyes widening before he pressed a hoof over his head and slowly pushed himself back down to the floor.

Dash was happy that Squall shared such a personal story with them. Maybe they were finally reaching a point where he wouldn’t hesitate to confide in them. The amount of progress Squall had made from the bitter, glaring pony they all came to know at first was immense, and soon she hoped he could trust them all on a deeper level, especially after all they had been through thus far.

Her attention was drawn away as a heavy sigh came from behind her. She turned and looked towards Storm as he wore a sudden somber expression on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Dash asked as she fully turned to face him, tipping her head to the side curiously as she examined his face and posture.

“I envy you guys,” Storm began almost immediately. “I can’t say I have anything that reminds me of home. Honestly, I don’t think I even have a reason to remember home. All I ever wanted to do was get away from it.”

Dash’s ears stood up as a snort came from the rest of the group. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Matteo glaring towards Storm. He turned and began moving towards him, catching Storm’s attention, but Dash sharply cleared her throat, freezing Matteo in place. She turned back to Storm and smiled while putting a hoof on his shoulder.

“You’ve got your father,” she reminded him as she nodded. “I guess for you, it’s not so much a memory of home, but a memory of what or who’s important to you.”

Storm smiled, but flinched as Matteo released another snort from his nostrils. Storm’s eyes immediately went back to Dash as she sighed angrily and her ears began to twitch.

“Okay,” she began with an irritated tone. “That does it!” she sharply turned around and glared at Matteo, moving away from Storm and towards Matteo with heavy steps. Matteo remained still as Dash walked right up to him and stood in his shadow, not giving an inch beneath the glare he was shooting down at her. Her heavy-hooved approach had also caught the attention of Squall, Star, and Twister as they looked on curiously. “Matty…” Dash spread her wings and hovered up until she was face to face with him in a way similar to how Silver had handled him back during the recruit training. “This ends here and NOW!” she demanded.

Storm frowned and took a step back as Matteo looked past Dash and glared at him, but Dash grabbed Matteo firmly by the beak and forced him to look back at her.

“LOOK AT ME!” she yelled into his face as a low growl escaped his throat. “You like to talk on and on about your culture, well how about I let you in on a little bit of pony culture?” she yelled into his face, completely ignoring the scowl he was giving her and the way his feathers began to twitch and stand on end within his anger. “We have something we like to call NOT being judgmental! From your cultural point of view, Storm is an enemy because his father killed yours, but guess what? That’s not what everypony else sees every time you snarl and glare at him for it!” she let go of his beak and pulled back. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “You know what we see? What everypony sees? They see you labeling Storm as something he is not. You’re basing your view on him for something he did not do. You’re labeling him guilty by association. Maybe that’s how it goes in the Griffon Kingdom, but here? That’s WRONG here!” she snapped at the end before she turned around and floated over to Storm.

“Ah!” Storm yelped in surprise as Dash grabbed him by the arm and began dragging him towards Matteo. As she stopped with Storm directly in front of Matteo, she glared up at him and pointed a hoof at Storm’s face.

“Look into Storm’s eyes and tell me…” she was nearly grinding her teeth together. “That you want to disregard everything Storm stands for and all the time you two have spent as friends because of something he didn’t do and would never dream of doing!” she swiped her arm out. “Your father was killed by DESCENT! NOT STORM!” she emphasized the last point harshly.

There was a long, painful silence that filled the room as she finished. The only noise present was the high pitched gentle hum of the battery powered lantern, still sitting in the center of the room, illuminating everypony with a soft, dim white light.

Matteo kept glaring at Storm, and Storm kept frowning in return.

Eventually Matteo released a grunt and a heavy sigh as he looked away towards the wall and shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “But it’s not that easy for me.”

“MATT!” Dash threw her hooves up and her head back, growling and ready to berate him again, be he continued before she could.

“You have mistaken my actions,” he shook his head. “I have not, and will not forget the camaraderie I share with Storm Front, or the challenges we have faced and overcome side by side. A griffon never forgets the trust and honor gained from other warriors they fight beside,” he released a sharp breath from his nostrils as he looked at Storm again. “The initial shock of learning my father’s killer has passed. I no longer breathe ill will of Storm’s name or his character, but…” he turned his head towards the wall again. “His father killed my father. To my kind, that marks him as an enemy. My blood revenge is focused on Descent, but that doesn’t free Storm from my views. Whether I decide to act on such a label is my choice. And to be honest, I have respected that he is not a griffon and of a different culture. If I hadn’t, then I would have already challenged him to a duel of honor.”

Dash had calmed down, but she didn’t like it. Matteo’s connections to his culture were strong, but she didn’t want any of it to cause a rift of any kind between her friends.

“He is a pony,” Matteo continued. “And I have been told his connection to his father has been loose and uninformed. I have not lost my respect for Storm, but forgive me. I still need some time to come to terms with all of it and what my instincts tell me. I hope you can understand,” he finished as he remained facing the wall.

Dash looked between Storm and Matteo.

“Matty…” Dash was about to address him again.

“Dash, let it be,” Storm suddenly spoke up as his hoof rested on her shoulder. She blinked and looked back in surprise as Storm sat behind her… with a smile on his face? It was a weak one, but still a surprise.

“But…” she wanted to disagree, but Storm shook his head.

“The fact that he hasn’t disregarded what we’ve been through is good enough for me. And… I am ashamed that our fathers clashed and his was killed in the process. I want him to know I’m not just brushing the thought aside.”

Dash looked back towards Matteo and saw that he had turned to look at Storm, listening intently.

“I wish to respect his culture,” Storm continued. “But I appreciate that he decided against his instincts for my sake. I hope that, in time, we can put this behind us. After all, I cannot speak for the actions of my father,” Storm frowned. “He may have proved he is a good pony with how hard he tried for me, but that will never excuse or forgive taking Matteo’s father from him. Perhaps I can help make up for that wrong… somehow.”

Storm kept his eyes locked with Matteo’s the whole time, not once wavering or averting his eyes to ensure that Matteo could read his positive intentions and serious air to his words. Dash huffed, her tail whipping around as she decided to completely back off. It wasn’t exactly the outcome she wanted. She wanted Matteo to forget about it completely. But then again, perhaps Storm’s method was better. Matteo enjoyed a certain amount of respect to his culture and his different ways of doing things. It may heavily conflict with pony culture, but she wasn’t so sure forcibly pulling him out of his comfort zone was really the solution to anything. As long as she knew he wasn’t going to kill Storm randomly one day, she felt she could let the case rest. The two seemed to have a basic understanding going now at least.

“Excuse me?” A new voice along with a new glow from a flashlight entered the room. All heads turned towards it, spotting Bliss’ assistant, Mahogany as she stuck her head through the open door and peered inside. “Is Squall in here?”

“Right here,” Squall spoke up as the rest looked towards him.

“Bliss wants you to report to the infirmary. It’s time to remove the bandages,” she explained. All eyes went back to her for a moment, before landing on Squall once more. Squall blinked and swallowed nervously.

“Alright…” he said as he stood up from his belongings and started moving towards the door, replacing the large blanket over his body as he moved. As he neared the door, Dash quickly turned to the rest of them and made a circular hoof motion.

“Guys… let’s all go with him. We know our stuff is safe, we can come back and sort it all out later. The compound is going nowhere for a while,” she ordered. Nopony gave protest. All of them were just as eager to follow. They wanted to see Squall’s scar, sure… but they also knew it could be a rough moment for him. So naturally, they wanted to be there for him.

They dropped their belongings and followed close behind as Mahogany led Squall back towards the infirmary.

“Rghhh…” Silver grunted as his hooves touched down on the second floor, a collection of mist spewing from between his teeth as he exhaled into the cold air and cringed. He looked up and eyed the door to Spitfire’s office, reaching up to clasp his blanket around him.

He blinked as his hoof patted his shoulder, finding nothing. He looked over his shoulder and noticed that he wasn’t even wearing a blanket anymore. It had to have fallen off when he strained himself to take flight and just make it up to the second floor. Thing is, he didn’t even notice. Forget how cold it was in the compound, he couldn’t even feel it. In fact, his body was burning. It was sore, stiff, and in pain all over. He was lucky his pain meds all stayed in their bottles during the takeoff and crash. The hard part was sneaking them down and hiding them in a corner of the battledome among everypony else and taking them when nopony was looking.

Silver sighed as he started walking with a clear and nasty limp towards Spitfire’s office. No doubt this had to be about his condition. It didn’t help that it took him about twenty minutes to just stand up and get to the second floor. He wasn’t doing himself any favors, but he was definitely ready to protest any argument she gave him to remain in action. He refused to be held down when his brothers and sisters were in danger.

He reached the door and took a deep breath, preparing himself to walk as normally as he could, despite how painful it would be. He knocked.

“Come in,” Spitfire’s voice quickly answered. Silver hesitated for a few seconds before pushing the door open, and holding back grimaces as he walked in. He couldn’t completely conceal the limp, but he definitely restrained most of it.

Spitfire was sitting at her desk, completely wrapped in her heavy blanket. The first thing she noticed upon Silver entering was the obvious.

“Where’s your blanket?” she asked while looking him over.

“Lost it along the way,” Silver quickly answered as he closed the door behind him. “The cold isn’t bothering me that much anyway, I’m fine,” he quickly assured her before she could suggest anything.

“Alright,” Spitfire gave no fight on the matter and motioned for him to approach. “I want to talk to you about something.”

Silver subtly bit his lip. ‘About something’ she said. He knew exactly what this was about. She didn’t have to beat around the bush.

“I want you to know beforehoof that this wasn’t something I decided on a whim. I put a lot of thought into it based on what I’ve seen and how things have happened. This wasn’t an easy decision for me to come to… but I think it’s the right decision, no matter what way I look at it…”

Silver growled quietly. What was she waiting for? He wanted her just to get to the point already so he could shoot it down.

“Silver,” Spitfire gave him a serious look. “I want you to take command of the Wonderbolts.”

“Captain, I will not stand for—” Silver stopped mid-sentence and blinked as he realized what she had just asked. “Wait… excuse me?” he furrowed his brow and looked at her curiously. Spitfire’s expression had not wavered, remaining strong and serious.

“I want you to take command of the Wonderbolts,” she repeated in the exact same manner.

Silver remained silent for a few moments as he registered what she was asking of him. He tipped an eyebrow up, one of his ears flopping down as he gave her a curious look with slight disbelief. It quickly changed to a stern gaze.

“Captain, it’s not good to see our leader continuously second-guess herself,” he said.

“Dammit Silver, look at me,” her blanket shifted down as she removed a arm from it and pointed to her face. “Do I look like I’m wallowing? Am I downplaying myself? Calling myself useless with depressing moans? Oh, woe is me, I don’t know what to do?” she slammed her hoof down on her desk. “No. That’s not what you, nor I, nor anypony else here needs right now. This is a decision I’ve made through the power and responsibility I hold as the lead captain.”

Silver remained silent, letting her speak to hear her reasoning.

“The Renegades have made something very clear to me. What we need right now is not an icon,” Spitfire pressed a hoof to her chest. “But experience,” she pointed to Silver. “The current Wonderbolts have never been in a serious situation like this before except for you and Misty Fly. The two of you were both active during the last Griffon-Drake war. The decisions you have made and the risks you have taken in the past couple of days have done so much more for us then any of mine have… you’ve even acted while I’ve been frozen, unsure how to proceed. The Wonderbolts need a lead captain with a head on their shoulders, one who has been through situations like this before and can make the right choices. I will confidently and humbly admit that you are much more fit for the job in our current scenario and circumstances than I am. We need a veteran.”

Silver blinked, remaining silent as she finished. The two had their eyes locked, neither faltering. Spitfire tipped her head to the side slightly.

“Besides,” she spoke again. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Silver’s eyes widened, his mouth hanging slightly ajar.

“I remember how bitter you were,” Spitfire looked down. “When they named me the new lead captain instead of you, you were furious. Believe me, that’s not something I’d easily forget. Now’s your chance, it would be for the best in this situation.”

It went completely silent again and this time it lasted a long time. The two stared across Spitfire’s desk at each other for easily a whole minute. The flickering candlelight dancing up and down about their faces as the silence dragged on.

Silver slowly closed his eyes and let his head tip down. He didn’t need that much time to come up with his answer, but he took a moment to gather his words so she would hear him loud and clear.

“No.”

It was clearly not the answer Spitfire was expecting because she wore an expression of shock. Silver simply looked back up calmly as she scrunched her brow.

“What?!” she reacted in small fit of frustration.

“You heard me,” Silver nodded calmly. “No.” He repeated Spitfire gritted her teeth.

“Silver, this isn’t the time to—”

“Be stubborn?” Silver cut her off while lifting an eyebrow. “Listen to me Spitfire,” he dropped the formalities to help get his point across. “Do you think Blazetail or Flashwind had ever experienced something like the Griffon-Drake war before the Wonderbolts were drawn into it?”

“I…” Spitfire’s eyes widened and her mouth hung open, her own speech frozen with nothing to say in response.

“Welcome to your job,” Silver said sternly while blowing mist into the cold air from his nostrils. “I understand and appreciate that you’re thinking of us… and that you believe I have the experience required, but no thanks. The Wonderbolts don’t follow me, they follow YOU,” Silver suddenly slammed a hoof down on her desk. “I’m old, from a different generation. I may have the sage advice and the veteran mindset, but that’s where my role ends. You are the leader of this generation. It’s up to you to meet the unknown and lead the rest through it. And I’m confident you can do just that,” he turned his head slightly and leaned it towards her over her desk. “Have you seen what you’re capable of? Believe me, there’s a reason Blazetail and Flashwind chose you over me.”

Spitfire leaned back in her seat and took a deep breath. The serious expression returning as she listened.

“I was bitter at first, sure,” Silver shrugged as he pulled back from her desk. “But as the days turned to months, and the months turned to years, it became abundantly clear to me that they had made the right choice. That wasn’t an easy thing for me to accept either,” he paused and shook his head. “You… were better than me, superior in every regard. You were the right choice for captain and I’ve been proud to serve under a captain such as you.”

Spitfire didn’t say a word in response. She just kept staring forward. It was the same expression she wore at the start, no sign of weakness or doubt, but she said nothing.

“I believe that’s all that needs to be said,” Silver said conclusively as he turned to leave.

“Silver?” Spitfire spoke up suddenly before he could take a step.

“Hm?” he replied as he looked over his shoulder. Spitfire was smiling.

“Thanks for everything you’ve done, for me and for the Wonderbolts. Really, I mean that.”

“I’m just doing my job,” Silver said as he looked back towards the door.

“And for Celestia’s sake, put a blanket on. You’re making me cold just looking at you,” Spitfire added. Silver paused and grumbled to himself.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he slowly made his way out.

As soon as Silver was out the door and the door was closed behind him, Spitfire grasped her blanket and clutched it tightly around her, releasing all the shivers she was holding back in Silver’s presence. She looked back up at the door. Her ears flopped down and she frowned.

“I can’t do it Bliss…” she spoke to herself as she reached for the middle drawer of her desk. She opened it, and pulled out a medical report she received from Bliss the day before. Attached to it was a separate note.

Silver’s body is in a very poor state of decay. He’s clearly been hiding information and upon closer inspection, some of my medical records of him have definitely been tampered with. I recommend immediate dismissal from service for his own safety and well-being. – Siren Bliss.

Spitfire released a heavy sigh as she turned her head and dug her hoof back into the drawer. She pulled out numerous reports, all clipped together in a big stack. They were older medical reports, all about Silver. The dates were inconsistent because Silver had not been able to catch and change all of them. Silver was trying to cheat fate and evade the traditional retirement policy… and Spitfire had been aware of it the whole time.

If it were anypony else, Spitfire wouldn’t have hesitated to dismiss them, but, as he just proved, he was not a pony that they could simply let go of.

Spitfire unclipped the reports and put the newest one on top, Bliss’ note included. She stared at them for a few moments before moving them over her desk… and holding corner of the pile over one of the candles.

The papers caught hold of the candle flame and began to burn.

Spitfire sat back as she held the other end of the papers, watching as the fire slowly engulfed and burned them. As the fire reached her hoof, she let go of it and used her skills of fire manipulation to let the lingering flame hover in the air, staring at it with no regrets as the ashes fell onto her desk.

“I’m sorry Bliss…” Spitfire spoke to herself, her eyes remaining on the collection of flames as they slowly began to die in the air before her. “But some ponies simply can’t be replaced,” she sighed as the flames dissipated and the remaining ashes of the papers sprinkled down into the pile on her desk. “We need Silver…” she swiped her hoof out, knocking the ashes and burnt flakes onto the floor, blowing on her desk to rid the last traces that remained. “Now more than ever.”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t help it. She and the others were all there in the infirmary for Squall, but every few seconds she’d lean back and look past the two vacant trainer tables towards Soarin in the first medical bed. He was lying on his back, head resting comfortably on a pillow with his horn glowing a very soft blue light.

Dash frowned every time she looked, her ears surely would be glued to the side of her head if she kept it up. A whole day had gone by after the compound took off and crashed, but Soarin was still down after his efforts to bolster Luna’s shield. She just wanted him to wake up, for her sake and for his. He had been down for too long. The last thing she wanted to happen was for him to start having issues due to lack of nourishment or other needs of the body. It wasn’t like they had an arsenal of hospital equipment at their disposal.

Then again, she had no idea if that was even an issue. Her eyes landed on the soft glow of the horn. If past experience was any indication, it was highly possible that he was just fine, the magic keeping his body in top condition as it had in the past. She didn’t often wish for his magic to be a solution to something, but this was a special case.

“Ready?” Bliss’s voice caught Dash’s attention, turning her eyes back towards Squall as he sat on the trainer table. Bliss donned a thick blanket as the rest had as she completed preparations and Mahogany hovered a pair of tape cutting scissors over to her. Squall swallowed and gave a nervous nod in reply. Dash, Storm, Star, Twister, and Matteo all paid close attention, clutching their blankets tightly as Bliss hovered the scissors around to the back of his head as she leaned behind to get a better look. Mahogany shined a flashlight to give her better light compared to the dim glow of the work lights placed about the countertops.

“The stitches have probably dissolved by now,” Bliss explained as Squall felt the flat safety edge of the scissors rest against his head along with a tug on the bandages. “If not, they should be gone by tomorrow. There’s a good chance the wound has completely closed up as well since that area of the face isn’t very deep in terms of skin…” she trailed off as Squall felt the bandage begin to loosen as the scissors cut the piece that kept it all fastened together. The fact that Bliss trailed off had worried him. He remembered her saying that she was confident he was lucky in terms of where the cut was made and that his face wouldn’t be too damaged. She didn’t say that here though, which preemptively made his throat tight. He wasn’t a narcissist by any means, but his image was as important to him as it was to anypony. He hoped to Celestia that there was no damage, or at least not serious damage aside from the scar.

Dash and the rest held their breath, watching eagerly as the bandages began to loosen. Bliss caught the falling edge of the bandages in her magic so she could neatly unwrap it from around his head and face.

Squall closed his eyes as the bandages were slowly removed. He felt each strand of cloth fall until finally, the cold sting of the air met the right side of his face for the first time. It made him shiver as his face was fully exposed. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up.

Squall blinked as he stared forward, not quite sure how to take how his squadmates were reacting.

Matteo and Storm were both staring wide eyed, as if surprised. Twister was suddenly wearing a monocle and a fake moustache, which Squall immediately dismissed. Dash and Star’s reactions were a bit different. They were both staring with a small degree of awe, but both of them were… lightly blushing?

“Wow…” Star said quietly as she gently placed a hoof over her mouth and tipped her head down slightly as she continued to stare.

“Whoa…” Dash commented as she smirked and released a light chuckle. “Damn, Squall… that’s a pretty sexy scar, I’m not gonna lie,” she scrunched face and pushed her mane down over her face while admittedly smiling like an idiot.

Matteo and Storm both looked over at the two mares curiously as Twister dropped to the floor and vanished.

“Careful,” Storm chuckled while nudging Dash. “Who knows if your stallion can hear you in his sleep?”

“Oh, shut up…” Dash playfully nudged Storm.

Bliss came around with a small mirror as Mahogany shined the flashlight near it, blushing a little herself. Squall grabbed the mirror and looked upon the new scar for the first time. He internally breathed a heavy sigh of relief. His face looked just like it always had. Only now there was a bright red scar reaching from the middle of his forehead, down between his eyes, and extending slightly beneath his right eye. He slowly reached up and gently touched the scar with his hoof. The skin was incredibly sensitive, causing him to shiver at the touch and not because of the cold.

He blinked as Bliss’ magic aura surrounded his hoof and slowly pulled it away from his face.

“Looks like the stitches are gone,” she commented. “But I would advise against touching it for a day or two to ensure it’s fully healed over.”

“Hmm…” Squall replied simply with a nod as he continued to look at the scar in the mirror. He looked up in surprise as Dash and the rest approached to get a closer look.

“A fine battle scar,” Matteo spoke up as he nodded. “Wear it with pride. Scars earned on the battlefield tell the stories of great warriors.”

“Hmph…” Squall grunted, flattered by the compliment, but refusing to show it. Twister popped up between Dash and Storm with a fake scar drawn on his face with a red magic marker.

“Now we can be pals!” he said cheerfully before Storm reached up and shoved Twister back down to the floor.

“You’re learning how to handle him,” Dash chuckled as Storm held his hoof over Twister’s head.

Star hovered up and landed on the trainer table, leaning in to get a very close look at it as Squall nervously backed away a little. She giggled as she pulled back.

“Bliss was right. The scar didn’t ruin your good looks. I think it made them better honestly,” Star said with a teasing wink. Squall’s eyes widened.

“Nnnnnghhh…” he groaned as he put down the mirror and pulled his blanket all the way over his head to hide.

“Squall! Come back out and let us see your pretty face!” Star giggled as she tried to pull his blanket back down, but he held it firmly in place.

Storm chuckled and shook his head, smiling and happy for Squall’s fortunate end to a serious injury. Sure, they didn’t get along, but he didn’t wish ill will upon him. Storm looked to his side and noticed that Dash was gone. He perked up and glanced around, his eyes finding her as she walked away from the group and towards Soarin’s medical bed.

“I’m freezing in here…” Star suddenly spoke up. “Can we go back to the battledome now?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Matteo agreed. “As long as you don’t all hug me again,” he said with a grunt.

“Can’t make any promises Mr. Poofy Feathers,” Star poked him in the side as she turned back to Squall in attempt to get him moving.

Seeing that they wished to get back to where everypony else was, Storm decided to check with Dash before following. He turned away from the group and walked towards her as she plopped down on the floor beside Soarin’s bed and rested her chin on the mattress.

Storm hadn’t been to the infirmary since Bliss had cleaned up the place and rearranged all the toppled furniture. While it was still in a small state of disarray, it was set up for work and quite a few ponies were occupying the beds and tables. Not all of them were seriously injured, but they were taking the opportunity to get slow, careful treatment for any bumps, cuts, or bruises that were previously only patched up before being sent back into the fray. There were a few Renegades there as well, some who were still hurt from the takeoff and crash cacophony and one or two who had minor injuries from scuffles with the Shadowbolts. The blizzard was successfully eluding the Shadowbolts, but it didn’t stop them from a few encounters. Storm was a little concerned about his father being out there, but Descent had more than proven he was capable of taking care of himself.

The most notable occupant besides Soarin was in the bed right beside his, behind Dash. Calm Wind was lying on his stomach in the bed beside him, covered by several thick blankets. It was probably the only way he could lie down due to his back being a mess. He slept peacefully as well, probably from muscle relaxants and pain relievers given to him by Bliss. The big guy definitely needed them after the beating he took.

Storm refocused on Dash as he approached and walked in between the beds of Soarin and Calm. He stopped beside Dash and looked upon Soarin’s sleeping face, the soft glow from the horn splashing a dim blue light upon them. Storm wanted Soarin to wake up almost as much as Dash did. He wasn’t going to pretend it was the same amount of worry with Dash being Soarin’s lover and all, but Soarin was probably his best friend in the compound, not to mention he had become a bit of a Wonderbolt mentor figure to him.

Storm glanced down at Dash as her eyes remained perfectly fixed on Soarin’s face. He knew what she wanted to do, but he decided to let her know their plan anyway.

“We’re going to head back to the battledome to join the rest,” he spoke up as he placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Are you going to stay here for a while?”

“Yeah,” Dash answered quietly, nodding her head lightly against the mattress.

“Alright,” Storm nodded in response, leaving his hoof on her shoulder for another moment as he looked back at Soarin. “I’m sure he’ll wake up soon… Soarin is never down for long, so I’m told,” he reassured her as he removed his hoof and began back towards the door.

Dash released a heavy sigh as she continued to stare at the sleeping form of her stallion.

“I hope so…” she said quietly as she reached her nose forward and gave his cheek a light nuzzle.

Spitfire paused, clutching her blanket around herself tightly and shivering as she stood outside the doors to the battledome. She knew she’d be warmer once inside with everypony else, but she wanted to be ready.

The situation was well beyond ridiculous. Their whole damn compound had picked itself up and sent spinning into the northern mountain ranges… and now they were literally camping out in their own home while relying on the skills of ponies they had, up until recently, thought were their enemies. Life has a way of throwing curveballs, but this was a snot covered, weaving knuckleball thrown at twelve thousand miles per hour to the jaw.

They were in no situation to follow regular protocol in anything… but Spitfire refused. She refused to slump down and look as tired and as exhausted as she really was. She wanted everypony to see her up and walking with confidence. Why? Silver said it himself. The current generation of Wonderbolts followed her, and she wanted to bring them confidence no matter what the situation was.

She reached a hoof forward to push the door open.

“COMING THROUGH!” Surprise suddenly screamed out from behind her. Spitfire flinched and shifted aside as Surprise galloped past her and body checked the double doors to open them and get through. She dove at a pile of blankets just a few yards from the doors and dove into them, the pile shaking like crazy along with her shivers the moment she was covered.

Spitfire blinked as the doors began to close in front of her. She reached a hoof out and stopped it, pushing her way through and entering, keeping her eyes on the pile of shaking blankets as she walked in. She reached a hoof down and lifted up the edge to reveal Surprise, completely wrapped in a blanket, covered in three more blankets, her teeth chattering in a comical manner.

“Why do we have to go SO FAR TO USE THE BATHROOM!?” she whined as she shivered. Spitfire couldn’t hold back a snort. Surprise had derailed all serious thought for the moment.

“Because the stallion bathrooms smell bad enough when we have working ventilation,” she said as she let the blanket fall back over Surprise’s head. The moment she was fully covered again, Surprise log rolled until she was completely wrapped by all four blankets and inched along like a caterpillar towards the center of the battledome.

Spitfire smiled, shaking her head in amusement before looking up at the rest of the battledome and sighing.

Everypony was there… literally EVERYPONY. At least all those who were not helping or being treated by Bliss and those assisting Rivet. The battledome was quickly established as the best place to ‘camp’ once everything calmed down and they figured out what they could do without the general necessities they normally took for granted. It was also the most open area and had the best ceiling ventilation, making it possible to make several burning barrel fires without the smoke getting caught in the building. The floor was also not quite as flammable as the older flooring in the other larger gyms.

That’s what they had been reduced to, making fires in large metal barrels. Several of these fire barrels were strewn about everywhere, easily forty or more throughout the expanse of the battledome’s arena. Everypony was keeping a safe five yards from the fires, resting on mattresses pulled from storage and any easily accessible living quarters, all covered in blankets, resting near the warmth of the fires. The fires didn’t quite negate the nip of the cold from outside, but the combination of the fire, the blankets, and ponies huddling close together provided enough warmth for them to be comfortable.

Spitfire saw several look towards her as she started moving in. She stayed true to her goal, staying upright and strong in her steps as she walked through.

“Grrr…” a familiar, annoyed growl caught Spitfire’s attention as she approached one of the barrels. She looked towards it to see her half-sister sitting upright closer to the fire than she should be. She had her blanket completely wrapped around her entire body all the way up over her nose, her angry glare the only thing visible over the top. Beside her was High Winds, also sitting upright, but fast asleep and snoring loudly.

“It’s ass-munchingly cold in here!” Blaze whined into her blanket, her voice muffled.

High Winds snorted and started slowly tipping towards Blaze. Blaze easily saw it, her glare sharpening.

“Windy…” she said her name harshly as if warning her to back off. Of course, Winds was asleep, so the warning had no effect. High Winds completely tipped towards Blaze, most of her blanket fell off as she bumped against Blaze. The moment they touched, High Winds snorted and yawned while reaching around Blaze and grabbing onto her. “DAMMIT WINDY!” Blaze yelled beneath her blanket.

“I wanna…” High Winds babbled in her sleep. “I wanna…”

“Windy get your ass offa me!” Blaze continued to belt at her grumpily.

“I wanna…” Winds pushed forward and completely tipped them both over,

“Ah! OOF!” Blaze yelped as she landed on her back, her blanket being pulled off her face as they landed. She blinked, opening to see High Winds lying completely on top of her, digging her nose into the crook of Blaze’s neck.

“I wanna… ride… youuuummmnngggg…” Winds mumbled as she began to sleep soundly again, only on top of Blaze.

Blaze remained silent for a moment before flattening her brow in confused frustration.

“I’m so angrily turned on right now…” she growled to herself.

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as she watched the scene, deciding to move on before anything weirder happened. She paused after two steps, stopping just before stepping on Surprise by accident. She was still wrapped up, inching like a caterpillar with an apparent destination in mind.

Spitfire followed the path of her trail to a blanket that had a light blue head and a spiky yellow mane sticking out the top. Fire Streak was bundled up on the other side of the fire, lying down on a mattress by himself, which narrowed down who Surprise’s target was.

“I’d sure hate to be the Renegades right now…” Lightning Streak said to himself as he sat, snugly wrapped in his blanket. “I’m just way too comfy…” he sighed, sinking further into his blanket as Fire Streak rolled his eyes from the other side of the barrel fire.

Lightning was completely unaware of Surprise inching towards him from behind.

Surprise slowly approached. As she got near, she unwrapped the blankets and quietly rose up onto her hooves. She had her blankets draped over her like a ghost… even though the blankets weren’t white. A silly, sinister grin covered her face as she lifter her hooves up and rose above Lightning Streak. Fire saw her, but he kept his mouth shut.

“I wonder what’s taking Surprise so long? I mean, she’s a mare, but did she get lost trying to find the…” Lightning Streak turned his head to the side casually, catching a glimpse of something directly behind him in his peripheral vision. He turned further, his eyes widening as Surprise lunged down and tackled him. “WHOA!” he grunted as they crashed into the mattress he was sitting on.

“I’M FREEZING!!!!!!” Surprise whined. “KEEP ME WARM!!!!” she demanded as she shivered against Lightning Streak. Lightning blinked, frozen in place for a moment as Surprise shivered, but of course the only thought on Lightning’s mind right now was that Surprise was rubbing herself on him.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Lightning slowly reached a hoof for her plot, but before he could get halfway she shifted all the way up and pressed her nose against his, glaring at him sternly.

“And no, you’re not scoring,” she killed his hopes straight up.

“Damn…” Lightning sighed as Surprise went back to shivering and trying to steal his body heat.

“Heh…” Fire Streak chuckled to himself as his brother got his usual dose of denial. But his mind quickly turned back to where his warmth buddy had run off to. Misty had gotten up and left a few minutes prior. Fire saw her move towards somepony she had been worried about, but then she wandered out of his view and had yet to turn up.

He wasn’t worried though, he knew she’d come right back eventually. Misty had been quite the cuddle bug since they had picked their spot to camp out. She had about eighty percent of her body glued to him for the whole duration until she had broken away momentarily. Fire simply shifted and found a more comfortable position on the mattress as he let his hooves hang over the side. He rested his chin on his arms and closed his eyes as his blanket and the fire provided warmth that was helping him get much needed relaxation.

Less than a minute after he had assumed the position, he felt a light tug on the back of his blanket.

“Hmmm?” he hummed, only tipping his head slightly upon his arms. He felt the blanket lift up, followed by somepony wiggling themselves to get beneath it and start shimmying themselves over his back. Fire smiled as the ‘intruder’ made their way back up.

If she hadn’t done this to him more than once in the past, he would have been a little worried and confused as to who suddenly was climbing onto his back.

Fire slightly opened one eye as he felt a chin softly rest on top of his head, flattening his ears as he felt a pair of soft cheeks brush against them.

“You are adorable…” Fire spoke to himself. Misty obviously couldn’t hear him, but he wasn’t in a position to give her the signals… with her being on his back and all. She nestled her nose into his mane, releasing a content sigh.

Fire could tell she was wrapped up burrito style by the way she had stolen a good portion of his blanket and the way it was bunched up between them. He smirked as he suddenly rolled onto his back. Misty’s eyes widened as she lightly tumbled onto the mattress, remaining completely wrapped up as she landed on her stomach. Fire tipped onto his side, smiling at her as their eyes met. She smiled right back in an obscenely cute way while making her eyes very wide, still only her face exposed from within the blanket.

Fire reached out and slid her towards him, planting a light kiss on her forehead as he wrapped his arms around her. She wasted no time in nestling the top of her head into his neck, nuzzling him affectionately.

Spitfire chuckled at the hilariously contrasting situations between the Streak twins and the mares attached to them, but most of her attention had been drawn by Fire and Misty.

It made her thoughts turn to Wave, who she knew was somewhere in the battledome. It made her want to find him right away for more than one reason. She wanted to relax and be close to him… but she also had yet to really communicate with him at all after the crash besides the hug she gave him upon the hearing the deathless casualty report. Granted, she had lots to do and establish… but Wave was very important to her, and she really wanted nothing more than to relax and take a load off like everypony else was. Wave was her ticket to relaxation. He had that effect on her.

Spitfire’s ears flopped down as she looked about.

Now she just had to find him, squad three and the female half of squad two were near the entrance, but Wave was nowhere in sight, at least not close by. She had to navigate the sea of ponies. It didn’t help that Wave was also a very dark color. The barrel fires were producing enough light to see and navigate, but it was still relatively dim.

Either way, she wasn’t going to find him while sitting still, so she gathered herself and began her trek towards the center of the arena, hoping that would be a good place to start.

As she moved, she came across more than one… interesting situation.

“FOR THE LAST TIME!” Air Mach yelled as Lead Runner stuffed himself into the same blanket as him, “BUZZ OFF!” he yelled as he tugged and tugged on his blanket to no avail.

“I prefer beat off,” Lead Runner laughed while batting his fake eyelashes at Air Mach.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!” Air Mach roared in frustration as he continuously failed to remove Lead Runner from his blanket. With Air Mach pulling them along, they ended up running directly into a sleeping Macho Savage.

The instant the two touched Savage, he was up on his hooves and putting them both into a single headlock, smashing their cheeks together.

“DOUBLE STUFFED SUPER SLAM!” Savage reared backwards and drove them towards the mattress. Air Mach however, was not going down without a fight.

“BURNING STALLION UPPERCUT!” he yelled as he got a hoof free and throttled Savage below the jaw.

“WHOA YEAH!” Macho Savage ‘acknowledged’ the hit, but in doing so let go mid-suplex, sending both Air Mach and Lead runner flying away from them and landing on a mattress that was luckily unoccupied. Consequently, Air Mach landed right on top of Lead Runner.

“Oooo! You like being on top, eh?” Lead Runner waved a hoof at Air Mach above him like a cat scratch.

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…” Air Mach catapulted off of Lead Runner and rose so high into the air that he disappeared into the shadows above.

Throughout the whole cacophony caused by squad seven, Point Dex simply sat still, wrapped from head to plot in his blanked, only his eyes and glasses showing through. He wore a grumpy expression, wondering how he managed to get stuck with three idiots.

“Alright then…” Spitfire looked away as if it were all normal and kept walking. But wasn’t that something to be happy about? Normal?

They had been given an opportunity to step back from the action and rest. In doing so, it seemed that the usual carefree nature of the compound had returned, if just only a little bit. If anything, it was a sign that the Wonderbolts were relaxed and recovering.

Spitfire looked around at eveypony she could see nearby… and they all seemed happy. This whole ordeal was no doubt a shock for them all, but their spirit was still intact. Nopony seemed broken or depressed. Perhaps she was wrong in asking Silver to take the captainship because this was the nature of her Wonderbolts, not his. She was the one that lightened the protocol in favor of a more relaxed, family/brotherhood approach. She knew how to handle these Wonderbolts and they believed in her. Silver’s style of command would have been a switch they were unaccustomed to, and she wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of his reasoning in denying aside from everything else he mentioned.

In her thoughts, something caught her attention. She quickly glanced to her right as her peripheral vision picked up a starry, waving mane. She had been so busy and so tired that she nearly forgot something… that was kind of hard to forget.

Princess Luna… One of sublime sisters was stuck there with them. Luna was sitting alone, all bundled up in blankets as the others were. However she didn’t seem to mind sitting by herself, in fact she looked quite engaged in watching the others.

While Wave was still heavily on Spitfire’s mind, she felt the need to check up on Luna. She had yet to speak with her as well since they crashed. In fact there was one possible dilemma Spitfire wanted to question her about.

“Princess Luna?” Spitfire called her name as she approached. Luna remained facing away, but her ears rose upon hearing her name. She remained still for another moment before looking towards Spitfire.

“Yes?” she asked, sounding slightly detached as she looked away again.

“How are…” Spitfire paused when she saw Luna facing away. Something clearly had her attention. Spitfire flattened her brow, disliking that she being seemingly ignored, but it made her curious about what had Luna’s attention. Before she could step up and look, Luna closed her eyes and shook her head out.

“We apologize, we have been lost in thought over something…” she smiled and looked towards Spitfire. “What were you saying to us?”

“How are you holding up?” Spitfire asked, pushing her curiosity aside for a moment as she sat down. “This is hardly the environment for a princess, is there anything I can do to help?” she asked courteously. Luna’s smile held and she nodded.

“While the full scenario is not something we ever expected, the current conditions are not something we haven’t handled in the past,” she explained. “Our sister and us have been involved in military actions several times throughout our existence. We’ve had our share of necessity free living,” her smile grew and she giggled. “Actually, we’ve had our share of camping as well. Our sister is never one to miss a chance to get away from the palace. She greatly enjoys camping and we’ve been drug along on many occasions.”

“Er…” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, trying to get straight what she had just heard. “Princess Celestia… likes… camping?” it sounded so weird to her. “And she sneaks out?”

“Ha!” Luna chuckled. “Our sister is not as proper and stiff as she may appear. She’s quite the prankster and instigator behind closed doors.”

“Uh…” Spitfire shook her head out. As amusing as it was to hear some interesting tidbits of Celestia when she was out of the public eye, she had an important question for Luna. It was at least nice to know Luna was not uncomfortable in her current surroundings. “Luna I actually wanted to ask you something,” she spoke up, but Luna was looking away again. “Luna…” Spitfire pouted.

“Ah! We’re sorry, do go on,” Luna grinned sheepishly. Spitfire was definitely curious. She couldn’t see past the barrel fire before them, but she would ask her question first.

“I’ve been worried about something since we landed,” Spitfire quickly spoke before Luna could be distracted again. “With your sudden absence and the fact that you were onboard with us when the compound took off… would it be safe to assume that the Royal Guard will come looking for you?” she asked while gritting her teeth.

Luna listened to the question and tipped her head down in thought. A moment later she tipped her head to the side and bit her lip.

“We would say… yes… and no,” she said awkwardly as if unsure, as if her answer already didn’t express a degree of uncertainty.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Spitfire asked in confusion. Luna shook her head.

“I specifically ordered the royal guard to stay put, keep watch over the castle, and not come to my aid. They did as they were told while the compound was still grounded. I’m unsure how they will act now. The day guard, while a little less powerful in combat, are much more likely to hold to their orders no matter what. The night guard however…” she sighed. “I’m afraid the night guards are a bit more aggressive and less disciplined. I wouldn’t be surprised if the captains of the day and night guard are arguing on what to do as we speak.”

“I hope they don’t, because no offense, but they don’t stand a chance against the Shadowbolts,” said Spitfire as Luna shook her head.

“I will agree and disagree with you there,” Luna played positive and negative views again. “The bulk force of the royal guard vastly outnumbers the Shadowbolts and probably outnumbers them even with their clone trick. However individually matched up, there would be no question who is superior. While this blizzard gives us cover, it would also give the Shadowbolts cover to pick them off one by one. I can only hope they do not attempt such a brash maneuver.”

“Let’s hope not…” Spitfire agreed. “I don’t think we should make any moves until we are out of this mess. I’m not even considering calling in our reserve Wonderbolts until we know more…” Spitfire trailed off, glaring at Luna as she was looking at something else yet again. “Alright, that’s it… What are you looking at?”

Luna flinched, puffing her cheeks out and looking away from Spitfire shamefully for continuously losing focus. Spitfire stood up and walked around to the other side of Luna to see what she was looking at.

“Huh?” Spitfire tipped her head to the side as she found what apparently had Luna so preoccupied. “You’re looking at… our recruit squad Foxtrot?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “And Storm Front… ah, Dash isn’t there… But…” she looked towards Luna, and then back at Foxtrot.

Squad Foxtrot, minus Rainbow Dash, and Storm Front were all huddled around a very grumpy looking Matteo, who had all of his feathers puffed up for extra warmth beneath his blankets. Storm Front and Little Star were sitting against him, trying to use his warmth. Little Star reached out and pulled a reluctant Squall towards the puffy Matteo as the griffon continued to grumble and look mortified. The situation didn’t look like it warranted such an expression at first, but then Twister’s popped out of Matteo’s feathers on his side. Twister’s head began moving all about as if he was swimming in Matteo’s feathers, and Matteo was sitting still like he knew nothing he did would ultimately stop Twister.

“I know they’re a weird bunch,” Spitfire scratched her head as she looked between Luna and Foxtrot. “But… having dealt with you and Princess Celestia on several occasions, when something has your attention so fiercely, there’s a reason.”

“We’re sorry. We did not mean to express disinterest in your question. We have been watching and…” she paused, looking over at Foxtrot again as Squall tried swiping at Twister every time he came near him in Matteo’s feathers.

“What about them has you so interested?” Spitfire asked while eyeing Foxtrot curiously.

“Not all of them,” Luna clarified as she kept looking. “Just… that strange one… the green one.”

“Twister?” Spitfire blinked as she looked towards the silly pony as his head continued to zoom around Matteo’s feathers.

“That is his name?” Luna asked, Spitfire nodding in return.

“What about him?”

“We… cannot say for sure…” Luna admitted as she looked carefully. “What do you know about him?” she asked. Spitfire snorted and shook her head.

“Twister? To be honest, absolutely nothing. He never gives straight answers when asked… and when I asked him to fill out his address on his contract, he wrote down a recipe for white chocolate and caramel brownies. Apparently he’s like that all the time, I asked Dash specifically and even she doesn’t know much about him. He does so many random things, but has yet to actually cause any disruptions or harm. It’s an odd case where he does everything out of the ordinary but doesn’t actually do anything wrong. A mystery, but we have our share of strange ponies in the Wonderb—”

“Something is off with that one…” Luna cut her off, catching Spitfire’s interest before she could get miffed.

“Pardon? How do you mean?” Spitfire pressed, but Luna shook her head.

“We do not know… All ponies give off a certain aura… one that our sister and us can both see and detect. It helps us see the inner nature of a pony…” she paused and looked at Spitfire, who was staring at her, completely puzzled. “It is hard to explain… it is a sense only our sister and us possess, developed over countless years. It helps us sense if a pony is nearby as well as allows us to read emotions, intent, and overall character. It’s not always accurate, some aura’s giving off a different air than the pony does through their actions, so we can’t rely on it, but it’s helpful… however…” she looked back at Twister. “That strange pony… has no aura, not even a faint one.”

Spitfire had no idea what Luna was getting at, but if she found something strange about a particular pony it was worth analyzing.

“What does that mean?” Spitfire asked.

“We cannot say,” Luna shook her head. “It is a phenomenon we have never experienced since developing the sense. The unpredictable nature of a pony’s aura leaves much to be theorized… but we have never seen a pony without one. We have no idea what it means… but it is troubling us.”

“Should we keep an eye on him?” Spitfire asked, very curious and now doubly skeptical herself.

“We are unsure… you say he has been around for so long, but has yet to do any sort of harm, correct?” Luna questioned while turning to Spitfire.

“That’s right,” Spitfire clarified.

“Then we are uncertain. While his lack of an aura is strange… it merely has me puzzled, not alarmed. We would recommend keeping tabs on him, but we see no need for ala—” Luna was cut off as her head got tugged down slightly. She and Spitfire looked down to see Twister completely wrapped up in Luna’s mane on the floor.

“You still have a pretty mane!” he commented as his pupils spun around his eyes and mane took the same shape and form as Luna’s.

Luna reclined in surprise, the motion causing Twister to spin, unwrap, and log roll uncontrollably in place, grabbing onto and pulling all of the blanket off of Luna. When he stopped he was completely wrapped in the blanket like a cocoon. Luna reached for her blanket as she began to shiver, but upon lifting it up, the blanket went limp.

Twister had completely vanished.

Spitfire and Luna looked back towards Foxtrot, only to see that Twister was not there either, as if he had disappeared into thin air.

“Yeah… apparently he does that a lot too,” Spitfire scratched her head, recalling several of the strange things she heard about Twister.

“Most curious indeed…” Luna pouted as she wrapped her blanket back around herself. “But… as curious as we are, it is not the important task at hoof. We’ll keep him in mind for the time being…” she paused. “And we believe there is somepony you were trying to find, hmm?” Luna cracked a sly grin at Spitfire.

Spitfire flinched heavily and her eyes widened.

“Wha-wait, what?” she kept her eyes locked on Luna as she giggled.

“We just told you a pony’s aura can give away their emotions…” she said while smugly lifting an eyebrow at Spitfire.

“Uh…” Spitfire blushed. “Yeah, um, nice talk, Royal Guard should be smart, Twister is weird, yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotta find somepony…” Spitfire’s composure snapped, realizing that Luna could tell the whole time that she had a stallion on her mind.

“Go on, we are fine,” Luna encouraged her. Spitfire only gulped and pulled her blanket up to cover her nose as she got up and continued her search for Wave Chill.

As Spitfire left, Luna sighed and looked towards the fire.

“Yes… go find your loved one… I’m just fine on my own…”

Spitfire was quick to regain her composure. While a light blush remained on her face from Luna seeing right through her, the soft orange glow from the multiple barrel fires concealed the reddish tint on her yellow face.

Any thought of the conversation she had with Luna had faded in her embarrassment and she went right back to looking for Wave Chill. She had a lot of ground to cover still, having barely looked around a quarter of the whole battledome. That, paired with how easily she could miss him and his dark colors in the dim light meant that she had her work cut out for—

“WHOA!” Spitfire yelped as she lurched forward. She had been looking around instead of in front of her and had walked directly into a pony on the floor. “Yikes!” she barely managed to turn her body in time as she plopped against the firm cushion floor of the arena, the blanket also softening her impact, negating any kind of pain.

But what a clumsy thing to do. The captain of the Wonderbolts just tripped over where everypony could see her.

“Good to see you too,” a male voice and a chuckle made Spitfire freeze in her attempts to frantically stand.

Speak of the devil. She had tripped right over Wave Chill.

“Uh… hi…” Spitfire blushed in embarrassment to the point where it was actually visible within the lighting. She rolled onto her stomach and looked towards Wave as he lay on the ground beside her.

“Were you trying to find somepony? You were looking around,” he asked, being ever so helpful no matter what the situation. Spitfire couldn’t help but nervously smirk. He saw her coming but didn’t say anything?

“Yeah, I was looking for you,” she clarified, giving him a weak smile as she glanced around them. There was an empty mattress and a few blankets nearby that were not being used. They had been disturbed as if somepony had been lying there, but without its occupant, it was just the two of them around with a barrel fire a few yards away. They were ‘alone’ or as alone as they could be with others nearby.

“Well, you found me,” Wave chuckled as he looked back towards the fire. Spitfire glanced over at his face as the flickering light of the fire danced over his features. She didn’t take her eyes off of him, taking in the profile of his face.

She hadn’t had a chance to really sit down and relax with him, at least not since after the initial battle with the Shadowbolts. She still couldn’t believe just how… good she felt around him. He didn’t make her worries go away, but he definitely made them take a back seat. And there were times when she really needed that. Right now was one of them.

Spitfire quickly looked away as Wave turned his head to her.

“What is it?” he suddenly asked.

“What is what?” Spitfire immediately responded while pouting.

“Somepony looks a little stressed,” he chuckled as she let her chin fall down onto the blanket in front of her.

“I’m fine…” she paused and took quick note of how he didn’t reply. “Okay, maybe I am a little stressed,” she admitted while draping a hoof over her nose.

“Just a little?” Wave cracked a small grin. He looked over his shoulder briefly. “Here…” he said as he suddenly removed his blanket from over him and grabbed the edge of hers.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she looked back at her blanket. Wave lifted her blanket up and shifted beneath it, resting his body up against hers before letting the blanket fall over him. “Wave!” she exclaimed in a slightly hushed tone as she looked over her shoulder to see if anypony was looking.

“What? Everypony else is doing it,” he chuckled as he grabbed his discarded blanket and draped it over them both to double up the cover. “Besides, you looked lonely in your blanket,” he said with a smile.

Spitfire wasn’t really one for public display of affection. It was fine when they were on the couch in the rec room a few days ago because it somewhat concealed them, but here they were out in the open.

“N-nothing… I just…” Spitfire put her hoof over her nose again.

“I know, I know… it’s not like I grabbed you and started kissing you,” he joked, acknowledging Spitfire’s dislike for public affection. She always got plenty of it in private, so it evened out. Spitfire looked towards Wave curiously as he continued to smile at her.

“You’ve been acting different lately,” Spitfire pointed out while looking at him carefully. Her eyes widened as Wave suddenly flinched and bit his lip.

“Er… sorry… is it too much?” he suddenly asked as she felt his body leave from hers. She frantically replied.

“No! No…” she grabbed his arm before shifting over against him again. That confirmed it was still the usual Wave Chill alright, always abiding by the interests of his superiors. “I didn’t mean to imply that,” Spitfire shook her head as she shifted over and pressed the side of her body lightly into his. “You just seem much more relaxed. The rec room a few days ago and now,” she clarified.

“Well…” Wave looked away awkwardly. “The other day I was feeding off of how you looked more relaxed. Today? Eh… before Silver smacked me upside the head I was pretty tense,” he admitted while looking towards the empty mattress. Spitfire figured that’s who the mattress and blankets belonged to.

“Did he give you a stern talking to?” Spitfire chuckled to herself, absolutely not admitting that Silver had more or less just done the same thing to her.

“I won’t repeat his exact words or colorful language, but he basically told me to drop the soldier act for a moment and relax. So I’m trying…” he finished with a sigh.

“Well,” Spitfire pressed herself slightly harder into his side. “It’s not like I wasn’t enjoying it, I just wasn’t expecting it,” she said with a smile as Wave looked towards her and returned it. Spitfire glanced over her shoulder to see if anypony was looking before she moved her nose towards his cheek and gave it a light nuzzle. “I thought you were going to start calling me beautiful or something,” she said jokingly. Wave turned and looked at her as she smirked, giving her a curious look.

“I mean… you are,” he said.

Spitfire’s eyes shot open and her face turned so red it nearly changed her fur color. She pulled her head away from Wave and looked him in the eyes.

“What?” Wave asked, gritting his teeth slightly, worried he had gone too far again.

“I-I’m…” Spitfire stuttered. She puffed her cheeks out and looked away. “Don’t be ridiculous… I’m not beautiful,” she stated adamantly, her face feeling incredibly warm. Wave blinked, catching her tone of nervous denial. He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled as he nestled himself closer to her.

“I’m serious,” he said. He was completely winging it, but he already started it, he wasn’t going to back out. “You’re beautiful.”

“No I’m not…stop it…” Spitfire kept her face turned away, her head burning from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. Nopony had ever called her beautiful before. It was never something she really considered herself to be. Part of it may have been that she had been such good friends with Fleetfoot, a pony that was nearly consistently praised for being incredibly attractive. She just pushed all thoughts aside, it wasn’t her goal anyway. She was the tough, hardened captain of the Wonderbolts. Sure she had been in a photo shoots, but she always assumed Fleetfoot was the reason those sold so well. Yet here Wave…

“I think you are,” he said again. Each time he stood by his claim, it made her feel more and more tingly. Then she felt his nose brush against her ear. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that, especially to you,” he added.

“Wave…” Spitfire couldn’t hold back a smile as her face remained covered in a bright, rosy blush. “St-stop it…” she couldn’t hold back a giggle as she continued to feel tingly and Wave brushed his nose against her turned cheek.

“Wow, I’ve never seen you so flustered before,” Wave chuckled. Spitfire covered her face with her blanket.

“Nopony has ever called me beautiful before…” she admitted as she released a squeak.

“Then it’s about time somepony did,” Wave stated firmly as he rested his chin lightly on the back of her neck. He quickly removed it as she turned to look at him, the blanket still covering most of her face up to her eyes, which looked at him with wide pupils. “And now you’re hiding that pretty face,” Wave smirked as he reached up and pulled on the blanket.

“No. I’ll never show my face again,” Spitfire pulled the blanket over her head, but Wave gave it a quick tug, yanking it right off her face. “Ee!” Spitfire released another squeak as she and Wave were now face to face.

“That’s better,” he smiled as she tipped her head down slightly and looked into his eyes. The two remained silent for a moment, just taking in each other’s faces. But it didn’t last very long, the two both began to snicker before they tipped their heads forward and lightly bumped foreheads.

“It’s so weird seeing you like this,” Spitfire admitted. “Never thought I’d hear stuff like this from our ‘soldier’ pony.”

“That goes for you too,” Wave chuckled. “The great Spitfire, melting at the words of an idiot who’s making it up as he goes along…”

Spitfire suddenly pulled away and looked at him quizzically. Wave looked up as well and quickly took note of her face.

“NO!” he quickly put up a hoof. “I mean I was winging it! I’m being honest about you being beautiful!” he said a little loud, drawing some attention.

They both looked around frantically before hiding themselves from view in the blanket. Wave felt mortified. What a slip up. But thankfully, Spitfire was snickering. With the blankets concealing them, she leaned towards him and planted a light kiss on his lips. Wave loosened up the moment he felt her lips brush against his and returned it. It was short, but sweet.

“I know you meant it…” she clarified while shaking her head, the light blush reappearing. “I was joking… you’re a dope…” she said while nuzzling his face under the cover of the blankets.

“Don’t scare me like that…” Wave released a heavy sigh of relief.

“I don’t know what’s worse…” a new voice chimed in. “How sappy it got, or how hard it crash landed.”

Both of them completely froze, glancing at each other with wide eyes. Wave slowly pushed the blanket off of them. The two flinched so hard it was a wonder the sound of glass shattering didn’t ring out around them.

They were looking directly into the eyes of Silver Lining, lying on his mattress, but without the blanket on.

“What? Don’t look at me,” Silver directed at Wave. “Or do you think I’m beautiful too?”

“How long…” Spitfire spoke up shakily. “Were you…”

“I’ve been sitting here for the past five minutes,” he said with a completely straight face.

“Uh…” Wave remained still, but Spitfire completely disappeared beneath her blanket, releasing a long, painful groan.

“Sheesh… awareness, kids…” Silver sighed and stood up. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he said with an amused chuckle before walking away and leaving his blanket behind.

“Uh…” Wave repeated.

A lot of fun and a lot of love was going around… but not for everypony.

Near the back of the arena floor, there sat one pony all by herself. Not because nopony joined her, because she purposely put herself there.

Fleetfoot clutched her blanket tightly to her body as she sat upright, facing the barrel fire with her head tipped down slightly. She took a deep breath and exhaled, glancing up at the closest barrel fire nearby. As with several others she had seen, a Wonderbolt stallion and mare were snuggled up together. The two looked so content, happy to have the chance to relax together and share their warmth.

Fleetfoot looked away and back down. There were two things on her mind. One was silly considering the situation. The other was more important, but she couldn’t shake the first. Since they had set up in the battledome, the whole place had turned into one big cuddling session. Fleetfoot had taken notice immediately and kept moving in attempt to avoid seeing any of it, but everywhere she plopped down, she saw more love and more affection. Many ponies were taking the opportunity to seek out comfort, many of which were found with the help of another, but she couldn’t. She had no single special pony to go to at a time like this.

How was it any different than what she always did? She was the master of affection and being an instigator for sexual situations… but every instance, every target, and every other pony she made a fun pass at… she failed to find something.

Love.

And it tore at her. She had so many other things that she was supposed to be worried about, but no… what was on her mind was something she was afraid of, love. She had put herself as far away as possible, in the back of the arena, but the more the Wonderbolts packed in, the more she was exposed to it.

It didn’t matter how silly she acted or how much she flirted, or whatever front she put up for everypony else to see… they were always empty efforts, giving satisfaction only for a moment before dropping back down. She never smiled like the mares in couples. She never felt the gentle, soothing touch of another. Why the hell was it bothering her now?

The subject of love used to never cross her mind. She decided she wanted to live while she was young and have as much fun as she could, never worrying about who it was with as long as they were having fun too. But in the past year, all of that had changed. Why? Because everything had changed around her.

It all started when Soarin met Rainbow Dash in Ponyville. One of her best friends who had been the president of the ‘my job is more important than love’ focus group was smitten by a spunky mare with a unique colorful mane who wasn’t afraid to tell him off about how he treats himself. She knocked some sense into him, and the two are so ridiculously in love it was a wonder they didn’t get married in a week.

Half a year later, the whole thing between Spitfire and Wave Chill began. It took them FOREVER to get it going, but now they were together, if not still a little bit awkward about it around everypony else.

It didn’t take long for Fire Streak and Misty Fly to hop on the love wagon, something that had been brewing for years, but Fire was too much of a ninny to come about it.

Not to mention Blaze and High Winds had already been love bumping for a couple of years.

It all added up to four serious romances all within close proximity to her. And that was only top elite squads. Several other couples had bloomed recently, a few had gone bad but most of them were strong. Romance was everywhere around her and she couldn’t deny that it had been having an effect on her. She found her, herself… Fleetfoot the well-known party animal of the Wonderbolts… doubting her choices in life and wishing she had a special somepony to call her own. Part of her was telling her she was being ridiculous, but that didn’t stop her throat from being tight whenever she was around a couple now. It wasn’t so bad when it was just a few, but now there were so many. They say it’s not good to mix business with pleasure, but the Wonderbolts definitely did not follow that saying, at least not anymore.

So what was she waiting for? With her charisma and her outgoing nature, it would be a breeze to find a stallion… or a mare depending on what worked for her. She didn’t care what the gender was. She just wanted what she now consistently saw around her.

But she was scared. It didn’t matter how easily she could go out and hitch a date, she was scared of commitment. What if it was the wrong pony? What if she invested so much time in a relationship only to find she had made the wrong choice? What if somepony came along who went with her better than who she was with? She hated being uncertain about that… and now that she was thinking about it, perhaps that was the true reason she refused to be tied down for so long.

“Rgh…” She groaned as she let her head sink into the blanket, bringing the edge of it up over her face.

She felt like an idiot. There were more important things to worry about. She was only making things even worse for herself, because there was something else that kept eating away at her. A REAL problem, nothing her stupid brain was forcing with all the lovey dovey stuff around her.

She was still thinking about Calm Wind, and how she left an incredibly dangerous situation with only minor bumps and bruises because HE took the hits for her. He didn’t have to do it, but he did and she felt indebted to him. He also saved Rivet from a similar fate, meaning his actions, despite the incredible amount of pain they caused him, were essential in saving them all.

Considering the state Calm was currently in, and the angle at which he was hit, those blasts would have easily hit her right in the face. She’d be in a world of pain right now had he not shielded her and if she had taken the hit… it would have really messed up her face. Or worse, they could have killed her. A simple thank you wouldn’t be enough to show her appreciation, but part of her was also afraid. Afraid that he might blame her for how much pain he was in. She should have been paying attention and he was already knocked down once before he jumped in front of the second attack. Her lack of awareness got him seriously injured.

Now, she knew enough about Calm to know he would never blame her or anypony for something he willingly did. But it was hard for her to face somepony that she felt had been hurt because of her.

So great… she was worried about something she was struggling to face and she was being a lovesick puppy at the same time. What a mess she was in right now.

Fleetfoot sighed again and removed her face from her blanket. She felt like she was a depressing sight, sitting down, looking at the floor in front of a fire and sighing every few minutes. But she couldn’t help it. These things were legitimately bugging her, and she wouldn’t relax until she had some sort of word or idea on how to handle—

Fleetfoot’s thoughts got cut off as somepony approached. Not towards her, but moving along in between the barrel fires.

Silver Lining, still without his blanket, was walking along and drawing near.

For a moment Fleetfoot felt like stopping him, but honestly, she wasn’t sure if he would help her, or if he’d even give a damn. Silver’s eyes landed on hers looking towards him, but the moment they did, she turned her head away and looked back down at the ground.

Silver kept his eyes trained on her as he slowly passed by. He could tell something was off. It wasn’t often that one saw Fleetfoot looking sad. However, Silver was one to respect personal boundaries, so he just kept walking.

He only got two steps past her though.

“Silver?”

Silver stopped mid-step. He slowly glanced backwards at Fleetfoot. She still had her back turned to him.

“Yes?”

“Can I…” she paused as if it was hard to gather the words. “Talk to you?”

“Talk to me?” Silver lifted an eyebrow. “This is a new one,” he said sarcastically. However his sarcasm fell on deaf ears as Fleetfoot didn’t visibly react at all to his comment. Not even a light retort.

That was very unlike Fleetfoot. Silver’s curiosity took over as he slowly turned around and scooped up a blanket from the floor. He walked up to Fleetfoot and sat down to her right.

“Alright,” he said as he stared directly into the fire sitting before them with the blanket lightly draped over his shoulders. “What’s on your mind?”

“Um…” Fleetfoot shifted, her head drooping as her chin touched to her chest. “This may sound a little weird, but…” she hesitated and remained silent for half a minute. Silver didn’t budge. He simply waited for her to find the words. “How did you meet your significant other?”

Silver was definitely not expecting the question. He blinked and turned his head towards her.

“Pardon?” he asked to make sure he heard her correctly.

“Forget it,” Fleetfoot slumped down and groaned. “I’m just being stupid,” she said as she remained hunched over. She stayed that way for a moment before looking up and seeing that Silver hadn’t moved and was still looking at her. She groaned and lied down on her stomach, groaning as she pulled the blanket completely over her head.

“Heh,” Silver released a single chuckle.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. My suffering is amusing…” Fleetfoot grumbled to herself.

“I’m not laughing at you,” Silver clarified calmly. “Sit up,” he ordered, despite Fleetfoot being a superior officer.

Fleetfoot slowly picked herself back up and sat down, letting the blanket fall off her head and back down to her shoulders. She glanced at Silver. And to her surprise, he was smiling. Smiling as he looked towards the flames rising out the top of the metal barrel that splashed many different shades of orange against his aged face.

“How did I meet my wife?” he simplified the question before glancing at Fleetfoot. “By crashing and burning more times than I can count,” he said with another chuckle. Fleetfoot blinked and lifted an eyebrow.

“You? Crashing and burning? It’s hard to imagine you crashing and burning at anything,” she said as she shivered and wrapped her blanket up around her nose again. Silver grunted, determined to understand where this all came from.

“Honestly I’m a little surprised,” he said, causing her to peek towards him from her blanket. “You’re one of the last ponies I’d expect a question like this from. What happened to being ‘carefree’ and ‘not being tied down?’”

Fleetfoot cringed as Silver used her own words. She shook her head as she looked towards the fire.

“That’s how I’ve always preferred it, but…” she looked down and then towards Silver again. “Like… I’m twenty-four. I know that’s not really old or anything, but I guess in light of recent things going on around me, I’m starting to feel like I can’t be like that anymore…”

“Is the great Fleetfoot coming down to earth?” Silver cut in. “Am I hearing maturity? Was that trotka in that ration bottle I drank down an hour ago?” he said with a blatant smirk. He felt like he was going a little far, but honestly, this was strange. He never expected this from Fleetfoot and it was amusing him as much as it was intriguing him.

“Oh shut up…” Fleetfoot growled while stuffing her face back into the blanket.

“Fine, fine… sheesh, you give me hell almost as much as Blaze, I can’t get a few licks in?” Silver lifted his brow while tipping his head slightly towards her. Fleetfoot rolled her eyes.

“Touché,” Fleetfoot admitted as she removed her face from her blanket, but kept her head turned towards the fire. “But in all seriousness… it’s been bugging me. I feel like I should start taking relationships more seriously, but… I don’t know the first thing about…” she paused and bit her lip.

“Commitment?” Silver finished for her as he too, faced the fire. Fleetfoot released a long, uncomfortable sigh.

“Yeah… sure… I guess,” she replied unenthusiastically.

“Heh… heheh…” Silver released a few more chuckles. Fleetfoot groaned and pulled her blanket all the way over herself again.

“Stop laughing!” she whined, muffled by her blanket. Silver reached over, and pulled her blanket off of her head before she could resist it, loose strands of her mane falling over her face as she puffed her cheeks up and glared at him with a scrunched face.

“Again,” Silver began as he sat back upright. “I’m not laughing at you… in fact, I’m laughing at myself,” he clarified, causing Fleetfoot to drop the grumpy expression and look at him curiously. “This is all reminding me of a lesson my mentor taught me when I was a young Wonderbolt.”

“Your mentor?” Fleetfoot blinked. “Oh wait… I remember the name,” she put a hoof to her mouth as she thought. “Um... Blizzard… Punch?”

“Strike,” Silver corrected her with a snort and a flat expression that caused Fleetfoot to cringe.

“Right, Blizzard Strike, sorry,” she said sheepishly as Silver looked back towards the fire.

“It’s fine. But yes, Blizzard taught me a valuable lesson that relates to this. And he did it in his own unique style of course!” Silver chuckled as he smiled and shook his head. “That bastard…”

“Well, I messed up the name,” Fleetfoot bit her lip. “But I remember you saying he had a unique way of doing things.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Silver sighed as he continued to stare into the fire. “And while he taught me many lessons on the battlefield, he probably taught me more lessons about life. Some teachers and mentors have to teach a student something several times before it really sinks in, but Blizzard… he’d nail it on the first try, every time,” Silver closed his eyes and smiled as he remembered.

“Where were we…? It was Manehatten I think… about twenty years ago. A train scheduling error gave us an extra night in the city. We didn’t get many chances to go out and have fun back in the day, so we were making use of it. We went to a bar downtown, I can’t remember the name, but it wasn’t anything fancy. We just wanted to have fun after all. We weren’t looking for celebrity treatment. I was just barely in my twenties, but hadn’t really had a chance to have a marefriend yet. And a young stallion like me, full of spiking testosterone… believe me I was looking at almost every mare I passed. Thing was… I didn’t know the first thing about commitment and was afraid of making the wrong choice. I wasn’t a party animal like you, but I had the same fears. I didn’t know how to approach or go about it. And let me tell you… Blizzard set that straight in a heartbeat…"

I was sitting at the bar beside Blizzard, both of us with a glass of the good stuff in front of us. Sireberian trotka. Tastes like crap and shoots through your nose with every sip, but calms the nerves with a smooth touch. I thought I was going to burn a hole through my throat the first time I had it, but I wasn’t going to be a wuss in front of Blizzard.

The bar was lively, peak hours of the night. Several other Wonderbolts were around us at the bar including many of my old friends. Steady was dragging Cannon away from a lost drinking game, Comet was failing at darts, the twin sisters were proving just how lightweight they were, and Val was hoof wrestling Bomber… well, she was pulling with two hooves while he didn’t budge and chuckled at her.

Several of our veterans at the time were around as well, but me? I wasn’t paying attention to anything. There was this mare that I had my eyes on since the moment I walked in. She was sitting further down the bar with her friends gathered around her, but DAMN she was a looker… An earth pony with a nice body, pretty face, bright red fur and a long, flowing blonde mane.

Did I make any moves? Of course not, but I looked at her more times than I could count… I wasn’t the one counting though.

“That’s the twenty-seventh time you’ve looked at that particular mare,” Blizzard spoke up beside me, catching me completely off guard, as always. I quickly turned my head to him and saw that he was still looking forward, as he had been from the moment he sat down.

“What?! Uh…” I tried to play it off as if I’d ever have a chance to dupe him.

“Go talk to her,” he said, again while staring straight forward.

“Er…” I had nothing to say in response as I turned and glanced at her again.

“Twenty-Eight.”

“But…” I turned back to Blizzard and gritted my teeth, putting my hoof to my face nervously. “I don’t know what to say to her…” the moment I finished, Blizzard swiped my drink right from under me. “Hey!” I exclaimed as he lifted the drink to his nose and took a whiff of it.

“Just making sure you’re drinking alcohol,” he said as he nudged the drink back over to me and stared straight forward. “You’d think a little liquid confidence would help.”

“I wish it were that easy…” I sighed as I turned and looked towards the mare again.

“Twenty-nine.”

I groaned and put my head face down on the bar.

“What’s stopping you?” Blizzard suddenly asked me.

“What if she thinks I’m just a creep or an asshole?” I asked as I continued to doubt myself.

“She doesn’t even know who you are,” Blizzard reminded me, but in my inexperience I turned his words negative.

“Which will give her even MORE of a reason to think that! I can’t just…” I trailed off and released a frustrated sigh. “I can’t, I’m a wuss.”

“You’ll never know if you just sit here and call yourself a coward,” Blizzard pressed while casually sipping his drink.

“Too bad I am one,” I replied in my lack of confidence. “I’m a damn Wonderbolt and I can’t talk to ONE mare?”

“Being a Wonderbolt doesn’t make you a mare magnet by default,” Blizzard reminded me, but again, I found a way to put a negative spin on it.

“That’s another thing… what if she finds that out and then only likes me for that? Am I worrying too much?” it was like I could tell I was being ridiculous but my insecurities still wouldn’t let me act.

“Yes, and again,” Blizzard didn’t miss a beat. “You won’t know a thing unless you actually try to talk to her. Don’t make me repeat that again,” he said as he took a sip, his head never straying from looking straight over the bar.

“I just don’t know…” I groaned as I looked towards the mare yet again.

“Thirty,” Blizzard grunted. “That’s it.”

I flinched as Blizzard smacked his empty glass to the bar top.

“That’s what?” I looked towards him just before… “WHOA!” I yelped as he pushed me right out of my seat.

I stumbled, but quickly regained myself, shoving all four of my hooves against the floor in horror as Blizzard began pushing me towards the mare and her friends. My hooves made a loud screeching noise against the wood floor that more or less alerted every single pony in the place.

Blizzard finally stopped once he had me standing directly in front of the mares.

“Excuse me,” Blizzard went right up to the red mare.

“HEY!” I shouted, but remained stiffly in place.

“My friend here wishes to speak with you,” Blizzard said to the mare while pointing to me.

I stood there, frozen like a complete idiot as Blizzard casually turned around and walked back to his seat, pouring himself another drink after leaving me to fend for myself.

“Hi!” the red mare greeted me cheerfully as she and her friends all looked me over. I had no choice. I was sucked into the awkward moment. The best thing I could do was not make it more awkward by staying silent.

“Ah,” I cleared my throat and tried to put a casual outward appearance. “Hello!” I said while leaning against the bar. “I’m Silver Lining, pleasure to meet you,” I felt like I was going to burst, but I held it in the best I could.

“Nice to meet you!” the mare giggled. “I’m Rose Thorn, haven’t seen you around here before, are you from out of town?” she asked as she grabbed a maregarita that was sitting behind her on the bar and took a sip from it. I was glad she was asking the questions. That made it a little easier.

“Oh yeah, I’m a Wonder—” I paused, wondering why the hell that was what I immediately went for… after being worried about it, but I couldn’t back out of it. I played it off like something had gotten in my throat. “HM! Sorry, I’m a Wonderbolt. We just had a show yesterday, but we’re leaving tomorrow,” and as expected, not just her eyes, but her friends’ eyes all lit up as well upon me relaying the information.

“A WONDERBOLT?! No way!” she leaned forward and grabbed my arm. I was a little surprised, but I remained composed. “You should totally hang with us!”

A sexy mare was inviting me to join her and her friends… and grabbing my arm no less? Had I just gotten lucky for the night? Sure it was upon me dropping the Wonderbolt card, but I was a young stallion. On the surface this sounded like it would be an awesome night.

“Sure!” I replied preemptively. “What are you ladies up to tonight?” I asked with a bit of suave, feeling confident after being invited to go somewhere with a hot mare and several of her friends.

“Bar? Towel!” Blizzard suddenly yelled out behind me. I blinked for a second and watched as the bartender walked by us with a towel towards Blizzard, but my attention quickly landed on the mare again.

“So there’s a rave party starting in half an hour on the other side of town. We were about to head out!” the mare began. “I heard there might be an orgy afterward!” My expression was frozen. An… orgy? “Hey, even better!” she leaned towards me and whispered into my ear. “We also got our hooves on some ecstasy! It’s gonna make the night wild!”

Rave party, orgy, and psychoactive drugs… three giant red flags that punched me in the face like they were being blown by a monsoon. In an instant, I suddenly wanted nothing to do with any of them… and as I do here and now today, I spoke my mind.

“Uh… no that sounds incredibly stupid…”

Moments later… I was walking back towards Blizzard, covered in the mares’ drinks that they all splashed on me before calling me names laced with obscenities. As I reached my chair, Blizzard already had his hoof extended towards me with the bar towel he called for draped over it. Just like before, he was staring straight forward while casually enjoying his Trotka.

I didn’t ask any questions, I simply grabbed the towel from him and groaned as I wiped off my face.

“That was horrible,” I complained. I was angry, feeling like I had wasted my time. I didn’t even want to sit down. I blinked and looked down at the bar, seeing a fresh new drink at my place beside the one I hadn’t finished before. I grabbed the half empty glass and completely chugged the contents, cringing at the burn of the trotka in my throat before pushing it aside and reaching for the new glass.

“But now you know,” Blizzard spoke up. I glanced at him, confused.

“Know what?” I asked with a slightly sharp tone. Frustrated and a little annoyed that after all the worrying, she wasn’t even worth the trouble

“That she wasn’t worth your trouble,” he spoke my own thoughts to me. “She wasn’t worth it from the start,” he added, which had me curious.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw her slip the drugs to her friends under the bar a minute and thirty seconds after we walked in,” he said as he cracked a small smile. That burned me up.

“That would have been NICE to know before I went and got maregaritas splashed in my face!” I retorted as I took a step back and walked in a circle while grumbling. I was angry, but all I could see at the moment was that he willingly led me into a dead end.

“I’m your mentor, not your father,” he said casually. “Now tell me, what have you learned from this?” he continued to face forward. I was fed up.

“Not to ask you for help with—”

“Wrong,” he cut me off, completely turning on his barstool to look me in the eye. I froze as his eyes locked with mine, looking at me sternly with a furrowed brow. “You spent such a long time looking at her and thinking about her, but all you did was sit here and speculate. It wasn’t until you confronted your dilemma and saw the facts for yourself, that you were able to draw a conclusion and make an intelligent choice,” he reached up and tapped the side of his head, close to his eyes. “There is only so much we can do and see when looking on from afar. You have to look carefully up close before you can make a proper judgment. After seeing her and confronting her, you quickly learned that she wasn’t the one for you. Could you have done that by sitting here and staring at her good looks? No.”

I stared at him, speechless. As usual, he found a way to teach a valuable lesson in an unconventional way, in an unconventional place. I sighed, coming back down to earth out of my anger. He was right, as always.

“You want to know how to find the right mare?” he spoke up again as I cooled down. “By doing exactly what you did here. It’s pointless to sit and wonder. You’ll never know anything about a mare unless you approach her and talk to her. Remember that.”

“Alright…” I nodded as he turned and went back to facing straight forward.

Humbled and a little wiser, I moved to sit down.

“WHOA!” I yelped as my plot moved far past where my barstool was supposed to be. I fell backwards and tumbled to the floor.

“Awareness,” Blizzard said as he scooted my barstool back into place and took a sip of his drink.

“Never know unless I actually try…” she pouted. “It seems so simple, but…”

“It is simple, the doubt is all in your head,” Silver cut her off, tapping a hoof against the side of his head beside his eyes. “You have to be proactive or else you’ll never know if somepony is right for you,” he cracked a small smile. “And believe me… it works. From that day onward, I made the effort to meet several mares. A lot of them, and I mean a lot of them ended poorly, but through all the screw ups, I finally met the one. The perfect mare for me who eventually became my wife…” he sighed and his ears flopped down. “It’s just… a shame that Blizzard never go the chance to meet her.”

Fleetfoot remained silent. She understood the message Silver was trying to send, but getting up close and personal was something she already did on a regular occasion. Part of it was apparently knowing how to tell if a pony was the one for you or not.

“What was it about your wife that made her so special to you?”

“Serenity?” Silver smiled. “Heh, it was a lot simpler than I ever thought it would be,” he said as he shifted his weight and continued. “She resonated with me. That’s always the first thing you look for. If you don’t feel comfortable around somepony or they don’t feel comfortable around you, it won’t work. It has to be a deep level of comfort as well. That’s something you can’t figure out unless you get up close,” he winked. “But after that was established, what really sold me was her effort.”

“Effort?” Fleetfoot tipped her head as she continued to listen very carefully.

“Indeed,” Silver nodded as he turned his head to look at her. “Serenity went above and beyond for me, went the extra mile. She did everything she could to visibly show me that I was important to her. She attended every show she could, waiting for hours for me after some of them for us to finish all of our post show interviews and signings. She would send me care packages during long stretches that I couldn’t get away from the compound. I was hospitalized twice after the last Griffon-Drake war. One was because I got caught in an avalanche during a search and rescue operation… and the other was…” he paused and grunted. “I slipped and fell in the locker room showers and fell in such an awkward way that I dislocated my shoulder…”

“Wait wha—?”

“BUT,” Silver cut her off before she could process the thought. “Both times, she visited me in the hospital less than half an hour after the news got out. She expressed the exact same worry for me for something silly like slipping in the shower as she had for when I was nearly buried alive and killed in an avalanche. It didn’t matter what it was, I was important to her and she made it perfectly clear. Her efforts grew on me, and I found myself responding. I wanted to protect her, to put myself in harm’s way for her if need be. She was somepony who was willing to do it all for me, so I felt it was entirely worth my effort to do it all for her as well,” Silver sighed happily. “That’s what made her special… Now we’re married and have a family,” his ears flopped down slightly. “And I’ve no doubt they are worried sick about me right now. I hope we find the means to contact others soon. I want to let them know I’m not dead.”

The last few words fell on deaf ears. Fleetfoot was entirely focused on a few specific things.

“I’ll never know unless I try… Going the extra mile for somepony… Putting oneself in harm’s way for another…” she said quietly to herself.

Silver heard every word and stared towards Fleetfoot as a long pause began to stretch out. Silver looked at her carefully as she sat with her head tipped downward and her eyes moved back and forth. After nothing happened for another thirty seconds, Silver flattened his brow and released a grunt and a sharp exhale from his nose.

“He’s still in the infirmary,” Silver broke the silence. Fleetfoot’s head shot up and her eyes grew wide as she turned and looked at Silver. “What?”

“How did…” Fleetfoot failed to complete the question. She hadn’t said a word to Silver about Calm.

“It wasn’t very hard to figure it out. I heard the report from Fire Streak. I come in here and see you looking down. Pretty easy to put together,” Silver explained himself casually. “I know you’re thinking about him.”

“I’m not thinking like that!” Fleetfoot lashed out while blushing. Silver shook his head.

“I never said you were,” he remained cool and collected, Fleetfoot’s glare reverting to a look of indecision. “If you feel that bad about what happened… what are you doing sitting in here?”

Fleetfoot’s ears shot up and she gasped.

“It’s only going to keep bothering you if you don’t get up and—” Silver paused as he watched Fleetfoot sharply rise and move at a quickened canter, weaving through the ponies as she made her way across the arena towards the exit. “There we go…” Silver took a deep breath as he looked back towards the flickering flames rising out the top of the barrel fire. He slowly cracked a small grin. It eventually turned into a smile as he closed his eyes and chuckled. “God dammit…” he said as he continued to laugh lightly. “I can’t believe I once said… that I’d never turn into you. You old bastard…”

“Still not talking to me?”

Soarin winced in his sleep as the female voice chimed in.

“Hmph.” The male voice grunted in return.

“Stop being such a foal,” the female voice scoffed. “What, didn’t think I had it in me to take such a risk?”

“Hmph,” the male voice was clearly unwilling to speak.

“Or are you angry that I gave him a taste of what my power allows?”

“Hmph.”

“Such maturity.”

“Grrrr…” The male voice was miffed.

Soarin wasn’t going to let this go on without him this time. He grunted and focused, forcing his eyes open. The images before him were blurry at first, but as his eyelids continued to push, the yellow and blue silhouettes slowly came into focus. Something was different this time. While the yellow image was still standing upright, the blue was sitting and facing away from its counterpart.

“Oh? Look who found his way to us again,” the yellow image giggled as Soarin looked back and forth between them in the dark backdrop of what he more or less now considered ‘inside his head.’

“Joyous occasion,” the blue figure grunted as he remained facing away.

Soarin sighed as he looked back and forth. The first question on his mind was who they were. It was impossible to recognize the voices by how the tones fluctuated in their current state, but every time he asked for their identity he was denied an answer. By now he figured asking was useless, so instead of being annoyed, he simply went with it.

“So what’s he all angry about?” Soarin asked as he took a step towards the yellow light, slightly averting his eyes due to its brightness. The yellow figure turned its head towards the blue for a brief moment.

“He’s just being a sourpuss because I put us at risk,” she said in a slightly exasperated tone.

“Risk? What risk?” Soarin asked.

“She held you in place while you and your friends were trying to evacuate,” the blue figure suddenly spoke up as he turned his head. “Had the situation not been saved by a miracle, you’d be dead and we’d have been destroyed. Not only did she meddle in the affairs of you mortals, I refuse to speak to one who is clearly looking for more ways to be rid of me, no matter how drastic or consequential.”

“Excuse me?” the yellow figure sharply spoke up, causing Soarin to flinch and back away slightly. “In the affairs of mortals? You even try to speak as if you’re a god. And… if my ‘meddling’ is really so bad in your eyes, then why did you willingly allow Soarin full access to your power in order to bolster Luna’s shield, hm?”

“Tch!” the blue figure faced away again.

“Your hypocrisy is laughable at times,” the yellow voice scoffed in return.

“It’s laughable to hear YOU speak of hypocrisy…” the blue grumbled.

“Hmph,” the yellow figure turned away and faced Soarin. “At least I don’t claim to be something I’m not, nor will ever be.”

The blue figure went completely silent as Soarin shook his head.

“Okay, I followed the part about Luna’s shield, but what’s all this about an evacuation? A miracle? How long have I been out? What’s happened to my friends? Is Rainbow Dash okay?” Soarin fired multiple questions at the yellow silhouette.

“Your concern for your friends and loved ones is as admirable as ever, Commander Soarin. Your friends, and more importantly, Rainbow Dash are all just fine. As for what has happened while we’ve been tending to you… I believe there is someone much more suitable to explain sleeping right beside you.”

“Right beside—wait… tending to me?” Soarin blinked.

“Are you done moping? It’s time to wake him up,” the yellow figured called back to the blue.

“Fine…” the blue figure replied as he began to emit a soft glow.

Soarin looked down as a blue glow surrounded him. He looked back up to see the yellow figure do the same, and add her light around him.

“Mark my words…” the blue figure spoke up, drawing Soarin’s attention away from the auras surrounding him.

“Here we go again…” the yellow figure sighed.

“I am watching carefully, Soarin… and the moment that damned horn of yours is compromised, I am making my move. Your body will be mine,” the blue figure growled.

“Don’t bother listening Soarin,” the yellow figure almost sounded amused. “He has no idea who he’s threatening,” she finished with a giggle as the lights completely engulfed Soarin.

The first thing Soarin felt was the sharp touch of cold air on his nose. His whole face tingled as he gritted his teeth and shivered, opening his eyes slowly to find himself in a room that seemed familiar, just not as bright as it usually was. He stared straight up at the ceiling, which had its frame still intact, but it was missing all of its tiles.

He closed his eyes and groaned, but after a moment, his eyes opened right back up. He moved an arm and moved a leg. He glanced down to see he was covered by thick blankets, but as he moved his limbs they felt perfectly normal. He pulled his right hoof out from beneath the covers and touched his forehead. The hoof quickly bumped into the horn as he felt around, but there was no discomfort… anywhere. His whole body felt strong, revitalized, and refreshed as if he had just had the best sleep of his life.

With one solid effort, he sat upright in bed, touching his chest and moving his hooves up and down as the blanket slid down. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so good, not including the time the yellow magic more or less made him high on life. The yellow…

The yellow figure in his head said something about tending to him, as if the two beings had recharged and restored him to peak health after he had poured every inch of his willpower into doubling the power of Luna’s shield. Even the small wounds he had received from the battle the day before were gone without a trace.

As convenient as it was and as awesome as he felt… it was a little unnerving. Sure, the blue figure kept threatening him and claiming he was going to take over, blah, blah, blah… but there was clearly interest in keeping Soarin alive or else he wouldn’t have assisted the yellow figure. And speaking of her… she almost had Soarin more worried. While the blue voice made it clear what his intentions were, the yellow was secretive about hers. She seemed like the friendlier one and the one who had an upper hoof in keeping the blue under control, but… the yellow magic frightened him.

Not only had said magic easily overpowered his morals in its first appearance, but it had also given him brief glimpses of terrible things that were about to happen shortly before they did. Then there was something about holding him in place and putting him at risk? He had a basic understanding of what the blue magic was capable of, but the yellow was still a mystery and he didn’t like it. The friendly nature of the yellow figure in his head didn’t help. It almost made him wonder if there was an ulterior motive that she was hiding from him.

Soarin shook his head, finally breaking from his thoughts and taking a good look around. As he looked to his left, he immediately recognized the infirmary… but what the hell had happened to it?! The ceiling tiles were gone, the place was a mess, all the lights were out, emergency lights had been placed on the counters, and it was COLD AS HELL. He quickly reached down and grabbed his blanket to pull it back up, but his left hoof ran into something in the process. It felt like a mane.

“Hmm?” a soft, sleepy hum sounded out from beside him. He looked down, and immediately forgot about all the sudden changes to his usual environment. Why? Because he just laid eyes on exactly what he wanted to see.

Rainbow Dash was sitting on a stool and resting her head on his bed. It was turned slightly sideways and she was drooling on the mattress as she slept. Soarin’s heart swelled. Nothing helped the confusion of an unfamiliar situation like seeing what brought you the most comfort in the whole world.

He instinctively reached his left hoof up and gently placed it atop her head, running it softly through her mane. Her right ear twitched, flopping up and down as his hoof approached it.

“Ngh…” Dash made a sound and turned her head over on the other side. Soarin smiled and slowly moved his hoof down past her mane and onto her cheek. “Hhhuuuuh?” Dash’s eyelids began to flutter and eventually they slowly opened. She was facing away from Soarin, but the moment she felt something touching her head and noticed that there was nopony standing beside her, it didn’t take long for her brain to put two and two together. She quickly sat up, shaking the hoof off her head as she turned to look at Soarin, but her eyes met his waist. She slowly moved her head up until her eyes looked directly into his, complete with the smile she couldn’t get enough of.

“Hey sleepyhead,” Soarin said ironically as she stared blankly at him. He purposely set her up to give him a snarky comeback, but she just stared and stared. “Dash?” he tipped his head slightly.

Dash narrowed her eyes and bit her lower lip, slowly tilting her head down as she began to quiver while glaring at him.

“You…” she mumbled as she shivered in her seat, despite wearing a blanket. “You jerk…”

“Oh, Dash…” Soarin grinned sheepishly as he figured she was going to berate him for worrying her… again. She shook her head roughly before looking up and locking her eyes with his again, but they were not angry, they were filled with pure joy. Her expression just didn’t follow.

“SOARIN!” she yelled she slammed her eyes shut and launched herself at him with her arms outstretched.

“WHOA—OOF!” Soarin grunted as Dash flat out tacked him around the waist and knocked him back down onto the bed, landing with a soft THUMP. “Ho-man… yeow… Dash, that’s really tight…” Soarin chuckled as Dash squeezed the living daylights out of his midsection. He was expecting a snarky retort again, such as ‘shut-up and hug me’ but again, he didn’t get one. He tipped his head up and saw that Dash had her face pressed heavily into his chest fur and was shaking? Damn… he must’ve really worried her this time.

He quickly reached down, remaining quiet as he wrapped his arms over her back and gave a light squeeze in return.

Soarin looked up when he heard the shuffling of hooves. Siren Bliss was moving towards them with Mahogany close behind. Both of them wore expressions of great interest when they saw Soarin awake, but Soarin quickly reached one of his hooves up and waved it while shaking his head.

Mahogany yelped as Bliss came to an abrupt halt in front of her, nearly running face first into her plot. Bliss quickly turned and placed a hoof on Mahogany’s shoulder, gently turning her around and nudging her back the way they came with a smile on her face.

Soarin turned his attention back to his quivering mare that was latched to his body like she would never let go again. He reached over to her and grabbed both his blanket and the one that fell off of her onto his mattress when she jumped at him. He laid them over both of them up to the back of her neck before reaching his hooves beneath the blankets and holding her again.

They simply stayed like that. Soarin had a lot of questions on his mind about what had happened, why the infirmary was a mess without working lights and why it was so cold… but it could wait. Top priority: comfort Rainbow Dash.

Eventually her grip on him began to loosen and Soarin found he could breathe normally again. He looked down and gently ran a hoof over Dash’s mane as she began to slide down a little bit and press her hooves to the mattress, picking her head up and looking down at him.

“Sorry, I really needed that…” Dash admitted as she kept her eyes locked with his. “I’ve needed you…”

“Do I look like I’m complaining?” Soarin chuckled, then glanced back and forth. “But this quite a suggestive position we’re in… considering there are others in the room.”

“Uh…” Dash blinked and looked up and around. There were indeed other ponies in the infirmary who were all looking towards them awkwardly. She was sort of… straddling his stomach. “Oh… right…heheh…” Dash blushed and scratched the back of her head as she tipped to her right and ‘dismounted’ Soarin. She thought about lying beside him, but even that felt like a bit much in public, so she set herself back on the floor and leaned on the bed, bringing her face close to his as she took several deep breaths. She had to calm herself. She was overjoyed that Soarin was okay and awake, but she had to control herself, at least for the moment.

“My turn,” Soarin spoke up as he sat up and reached for her. She blinked in surprise as Soarin grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her towards him as he shifted closer to her. He nestled her head between his arms and his lower chest, giving her a very soft embrace. “Sorry if I worried you… again,” he said with a slightly sheepish tone.

Dash felt her whole body warm up as he held her gently. Feeling his embrace and its unique effect on her made her want to tackle him and pin him down for some more intense form of affection, but again… she controlled herself. They were in the infirmary, not in private. She also didn’t want to overwhelm him. He had just woken up after completely draining himself. He was probably a little…

“Hup!” Soarin’s arms suddenly moved. Dash felt his muscles tense against her body and yelped as she suddenly rose upward, her back hooves lifting off the floor.

“Whoa!” Dash exclaimed in surprise as Soarin lifted her up by the shoulders for a moment before setting her back down gently. She looked at him, confused, if not a little turned on. Soarin twisted his body back and forth after he released her and cracked his neck back and forth before turning his body and slipping off the bed onto the floor. “Wait, uh…” Dash expressed concern despite his apparent… healthy state. Soarin looked perfectly fine, and he was moving as if totally refreshed. “You aren’t feeling stiff or…?” she didn’t quite know how to word it or ask. She was beyond confused how Soarin seemed so unaffected by the incident that left him bedridden.

“I’m feeling right as rain actually,” Soarin expressed cheerfully as he bobbed up and down on his hooves. He suddenly gritted his teeth and reached for the blankets on his bed, quickly throwing it over his back. “It’s… kind of cold though.”

“Well I’m… glad you’re perfectly fine but…” Dash tipped her head to the side.

“But what?” Soarin asked as he draped a blanket over her, that she eagerly accepted.

“I don’t know,” Dash shrugged with a slight smirk. “Every other time you’ve gone down like this I’ve had to drag you back to your room.”

“Heh, actually…” Soarin glanced up at the horn. “I think I may have a loose explanation for that, but it’s not one I really understand.”

Dash didn’t quite hear him. She was in perfect earshot, but she was looking his body over. Honestly she didn’t care how he was in tip top shape more than the fact that he was in tip top shape. And that little stunt lifting her up despite not having the angle for leverage… Priorities Dash… priorities. Soarin had just woken up from a pseudo-coma, they were stranded in a compound with no power, running water, or heat, and they were hiding from a terrifying enemy while a vigilante force of mercenaries bought them time to rest… but all she could think of, looking him over… was sex.

“Speaking of things I don’t get…” Soarin’s voice broke Dash out of her admiration of him. She quickly shook her head out so fast that her ears made whipping noises before putting on a very false smile, while blushing like a moron. Luckily, Soarin was looking around the room. “Why is everything such a mess in here?”

“Oh…” Dash blinked, regaining some of her composure… but admittedly not all of it. Soarin lifted an eyebrow at her. He had been with Dash long enough to recognize certain signs, and honestly, the fact that she was showing signs of being in the mood so quickly after he woke up was entertaining. It was having a bit of an effect on him too, but seriously, he wanted to know what was going on. “I think you better see for yourself before I try to explain. Follow me,” she motioned for him to follow, making sure that her blanket was secure over her back before moving. The two moved into the aisle and began walking towards the door. Soarin flinched and stopped after they took a few steps.

He stared wide eyed at Calm Wind, who was still asleep on his stomach. He was covered by blankets, but he couldn’t help noticing all the tables packed full of tools and bandages, some stained with blood, surrounding his bed. No other pony in the infirmary had such a gruesome looking set up around them.

“What happened to Calm?” Soarin pointed and asked as Dash reached back and grabbed his arm to pull him along.

“Trust me… you have to see it first before any of this will make sense,” she assured him as she pulled him along.

Mahogany looked up from beside Bliss’ desk as the two neared the door. Bliss was hard at work, writing down medical reports. Soarin looked over and waved his hoof before Mahogany could speak up or say something. She looked back and forth between the two of them and Bliss, but obeyed and said nothing as Dash pushed the door open and led Soarin out.

“What the…?!” Soarin blinked as the first thing he saw was a large pillar sticking out of the floor and into the ceiling a few paces away from the infirmary, dimly lit by surrounding work lights. He looked towards the closest window, but it was boarded up. Dash remained silent, letting Soarin take everything in with his own eyes. He moved to the next window to the left, which was still intact. He blinked as his eyes met the mountainside that was about thirty yards away at the end of what looked like a small portion of the courtyard. He looked up at the pillars sticking up out of the front, seeing how high they rose, but he couldn’t see the top because of the blizzard raging outside.

Soarin tore his eyes away from the window, looking down the rest of the east hallway, seeing more pillars sticking through the hallways before he turned back to Dash, dumbstruck with his jaw agape.

Dash simply lifted her brow, knowing that anything Soarin expected upon stepping out of the infirmary was definitely nowhere near as heavy as the reality of the situation. After taking another quick look outside, Soarin swallowed and turned back to Dash, approaching her slowly.

“Uh…” Soarin managed to utter as he stopped in front of her.

“Mmhmm…” Dash nodded as Soarin looked over his shoulder, up at the broken pieces of the ceiling and all the work lights.

“How long was I out for?” Soarin asked the moment he found his voice.

“Two and a half days,” Dash replied quickly. She could have given him the exact hours and minutes as well because she was definitely counting every second until Soarin woke up.

“Only two and a half—”

“WHOA!”

“AH!”

Soarin was cut off as Dash suddenly lurched forward away from the pillar they started by. Soarin reached out and gently stopped her from falling before they both looked back to see Fleetfoot catch herself from face planting. Fleetfoot looked up at both of them and blinked. Her eyes moved to Soarin. Soarin smiled at her.

“Hey Fl—” he didn’t even get her name off in time before she bolted past them and moved right into the infirmary, nearly taking the door out as she pushed her way through it.

Soarin and Dash both stared after her until the infirmary door shut and then looked at each other.

“Must’ve been important…” Soarin scratched his head, surprised that she didn’t even acknowledge him. Dash kept staring for another moment, and then her ears stood up.

“Oh, I think I know…” Dash thought out loud. Soarin looked at her, hoping for a response, but she shook her head. “It’s part of everything,” she said as she grabbed his arm and turned him towards the lobby.

“Alright… I’m listening,” Soarin nodded as the two began to walk. “Just what the hell happened while I was out?”

“Well…” Dash began as they entered the lobby and Soarin got a nice view of the massive column sticking through the stairs as well as the hole in the floor. “This may sound crazy, but… here’s what happened…”

Fleetfoot stared directly at Bliss and Mahogany as the two looked towards her with wide eyes post-bashing her way through the door.

“Is… something wrong, Fleetfoot?” Bliss asked as she tipped her head to the side. Fleetfoot looked away without answering, staring down the aisle until her eyes landed on Calm. He was further away from the rest who currently occupied the beds and tables. With Soarin gone from his bed, Calm was the last one with three empty beds separating him and anypony else.

Bliss leaned forward on her desk to see where she was looking.

“Ah,” Bliss smiled and sat back down, returning to her work, deducing why Fleetfoot had come to visit.

Fleetfoot immediately started moving towards him, still not sure exactly why she had decided to visit Calm. Silver was half right. She felt incredibly bad about how much pain he took for her, and wanted to show appreciation in some way, but was that all of it? Silver had also mentioned what made his significant other so important to him, going the extra mile, putting oneself in harm’s way for the other’s sake.

Calm had just done both for her…

But no, she wasn’t going to jump to conclusions. Sure she was feeling lonely, and she was surrounded by what she didn’t have in the battledome, but she wasn’t going to let that control her. It was dangerous to let herself make a choice like that when under the influence of strong emotions.

She liked Calm, sure. He was a big, muscular, adorable doofus. But there were others, both stallions and mares that she also liked for other reasons. She was beginning to think it was time to be more serious about relationships, but it wasn’t going to be an instant switch. She’d need time to fully figure out what she wanted.

She slowly came to a halt as she neared Calm, stopping right beside his bed, lined up with his chin resting comfortably on the mattress. She frowned and her ears flopped down as she looked at all the tools and empty bandage rolls lying around the bed, stains of blood upon the metal safety surfaces of the tools and a few stains on the mattress as well. Calm had been through a lot of pain over the past few days, but she heard that Bliss has been using pain medication to help him rest while he healed up. So it was good to know he was making a slow recovery, but that meant he was knocked out, sound asleep and she didn’t know if she preferred that or not.

She was at a crossroads and unsure how to proceed. The fact that he was out made the situation less tense or awkward. She gently lifted her hooves up onto the bed and placed her chin on the mattress, staring at his sleeping face as she released a frustrated sigh.

She just didn’t know what to do. Being by his side for the moment made her feel better. At least the part of her that felt like his pain was her fault. She still couldn’t shake the other part though.

She didn’t want to act impulsively, and she didn’t want to leap before she looked. She had to figure herself out a little more before making any steps towards erasing her fear of commitment. There were a lot of other ponies in the compound… well, in all of Equestria for that matter. She wouldn’t want to simply latch to the first one that matched a loose description that may or may not also pertain to her. What Silver had told her was what made his wife special to him. For all she knew it could be something entirely different for her.

Nevertheless… Calm had still done things that showed he may care about her. Defending her until he was immobilized, and then forcing himself to move to defend her again, no matter how much it already hurt. She couldn’t just ignore that, and if anything she wanted him to know how much she appreciated him for it.

But… this is where the downside of him being asleep came in. She had gone through the trouble of coming in here, and she wanted to thank him, even if in a small way, but he was asleep, and she didn’t want to wake him up. However, she was confident that he was knocked out pretty hard. She had been given pain meds by Bliss once in the past after a nasty crash that caused a fractured rib. She was out in seconds, and woke up with a moustache drawn on her face by Blaze.

Seeing as how the dose was probably larger for this big dope, she had a feeling she’d be able to at least say something. He may not hear it, but it would make her feel better.

“Calm, I…” she began in a very hushed tone. So quiet that there was no way anypony nearby would hear. “I know you’re sleeping, but I just have to say. Thank you so much. If you weren’t there to block the magic attack, I’d probably be lying right where you are. Who knows, it might even have been worse since I’m nowhere near as sturdy as you…” she sighed, her ears flopped against the side of her head. She kept staring at the profile of his face, barely even blinking as she looked it over again and again. “I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate it. You put yourself in harm’s way for me… you really didn’t have to do that, but you did… knowing full well what you were doing too. I can’t say I know many ponies that would have done something like that for me… or anypony else for that matter.”

She paused again, looking down and blushing as her thoughts began swirling around the other topic again. She fought it back. She was not going to let herself fall prey to her state of mind. It was hard to hold it back, but she knew it was for the best, at least for now. At least… for now…

“Calm?” she found herself speaking again. “I don’t know what I want right now. I need time to figure it all out before I make any decisions. But…” she stared at his face. “But…” she bit her lip, blushing as she shut her eyes tight. She remained like that for a moment before relaxing her face and looking upon him again. She slowly leaned forward, closed her eyes, and planted a very light kiss on his cheek. Nothing more than a little peck, but a kiss none-the-less.

“But you’ve definitely more than earned a chance…” she whispered as she slowly pulled back.

She froze, staring at Calm’s face. It was turning bright red. To her horror, his eye facing her slowly opened. It looked groggy, but the hue in his face was enough for her to realize that he had woken up… most likely from the kiss.

“Uh… oh god…” Fleetfoot backed away and put a hoof over her mouth, her eyes growing incredibly wide as Calm turned his head towards her, his whole face glowing and his mouth slightly agape. He definitely was aware of what had just happened.

Fleetfoot had specifically gone that far because she was certain he was out cold. It couldn’t have backfired any harder… at least that’s what she thought at first.

Calm suddenly glanced away from her, and despite still looking groggy, something else made his eyes widen a little. Fleetfoot gulped as she turned her head, her pupils shrinking as she saw Bliss, Mahogany, Shine Struck, Swift Justice, and Playbitz all standing in the aisle, looking in at her and Calm.

Shine Struck and Mahogany both looked like they were internally squealing. Bliss was smirking while lifting an eyebrow. Playbitz looked excited, like he wanted to pat Calm on the back, but he wasn’t going to for obvious reasons. Swift Justice was gritting his teeth and shaking his hooves as if he wanted to ask Calm to teach him his secrets.

Calm and Fleetfoot’s faces were now both equally bright red. What a fiasco…

“I GOTTA GO!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled as she lifted off and shot over Calm’s back, zipping right over to the exit and slamming the door behind her as she escaped.

Squad zero, Bliss, and Mahogany all stared at the door for a moment before looking back at Calm.

Calm groaned, grabbing a nearby pillow and stuffing it over his head in embarrassment with only his muzzle sticking out from beneath.

“Wow…” Soarin stared blankly into the rec room at all of the silver boxes, panels, and controls that sat in front of the window looking out. His eyes landed on the large steering lever in the center and he shook his head. His horn was alight, hovering an emergency ration box beside him in a blue aura that he had been picking roasted almonds, dried apricots, and turkey jerky strips from.

They had stopped to grab some food for him before Dash started showing him around. While their emergency rations weren’t the best food around, Soarin hadn’t eaten in two and a half days. Even though he felt refreshed and rejuvenated, he was incredibly hungry and had already dusted off another box before starting on this one. He had completely forgotten his appetite for a moment though when he saw the drastically altered state of the rec room.

It was funny to see Soarin exhibit unicorn behavior, completely using his magic to scoop the food into his mouth, but with how cold it was and how they had to more or less hold the blankets shut to cover their legs, she didn’t blame him.

“Yep…” Dash nodded as she leaned up against him. “As crazy as it all sounds… that’s exactly what happened.”

“Rivet started up an engine in the basement… The whole damn thing just picked itself right out of the ground and flew… And Lucky steered it through the mountains…” Soarin said to himself as he continued to stare, taking a glance over his shoulder at the massive pillar sticking out through the stairwell and out the top of the ceiling.

“Mmhmm,” Dash hummed as she nestled herself against him and closed her eyes. It was a little colder up on the third floor because they hadn’t completely covered all the gaps in between the pillars and the ceiling. Even with their heavy blankets it was a little cold.

“And I missed all of that?!” Soarin suddenly said with a frustrated tone as he forced a large helping of jerky into his mouth. Dash opened her eyes, blinking as she looked up at him with an eyebrow raised.

“You know… it wasn’t really a painless endeavor,” she said with a smirk, amused at his apparent disappointment. Soarin swallowed and pouted.

“Well, yeah but… our compound can fly, we were tossed through the air and ran from other flying ships after dodging certain death… and I slept through all of it?” Soarin exhaled sharply through his nose. “I wish I could have experienced or at least seen all of that. That’s like something out of a science fiction movie!” Soarin chuckled as Dash giggled into his side.

“You are a pegasus with a medieval artifact attached to your head… imbued with two unknown forms of magic, and we’re fighting enemies that have powers gained from unknown crystals… who also have a flying base… and now you think this is like science fiction?”

“Point taken,” Soarin shrugged as he scooped the last bit of dried apricots into his mouth and used his magic to crush the flimsy box. He chewed and swallowed before he leaned into her as well. “But damn… the compound can fly… I don’t think I ever would have seen that coming,” he said as he hovered the crushed box underneath his blanket and tucked it beneath his wing.

“Nopony did,” Dash huffed as she remembered how scared she was while fighting. “It was a no-win situation that we squeaked out of with a miracle. The way the Shadowbolts planned their attack was flawless, they took us by surprise, and had everypony where they wanted them. Had we not bet on Rivet’s little discovery, we’d all be dead,” Dash shivered. “I was… really scared…” she admitted.

Soarin frowned as he looked down at her. Dash wasn’t one to admit fear. In fact she never admitted fear, but after hearing all about what they went through and how close they were to being killed… he could understand that she was scared. Though the fact that she remained strong and kept fighting through the fear spoke for how far she had come as a Wonderbolt.

At the same time, Soarin couldn’t help but notice that she had been practically glued to his side since she began showing him around and explaining what had happened. After how much time they had spent together, it didn’t take him long to figure out what she was indirectly telling him. She probably wouldn’t have been as scared… if he was fighting by her side.

But that was the kicker wasn’t it? That’s more or less how things had been. They vowed to spend more time with each other during their trip to Cloudsdale, but right after that everything went to hell, what with the Renegades showing themselves all at once and then the Shadowbolts attacking.

Where did all the time go? Where had all the opportunity gone? While it wasn’t the drive behind her, Dash simply trying out for the Wonderbolts, becoming a recruit, and then being selected to stay were all steps that both of them had been hoping for to bring them together and keep them together… however… all along the way, it felt like they had been kept apart. There was always something distracting them, always something else they had to focus on. Where had all the romance gone? What happened to all the time they thought they’d have together? Had everything gone business as usual, they would probably have had all their chances, but no… it didn’t work out that way.

First there was the horn… then the magic issues. Then they had their little argument… keeping them apart for a short time. Then Dash was stuck under the strict rules of Silver, now she had to run a squad… then the Renegades started messing with them, and now the Shadowbolts were trying to kill them.

Life and unusual circumstance had thrown such a curveball at them, and they longed for each other… to feel each other’s touch without worry.

They both remembered the train. The first kiss they shared. While they had yet to fully confess, it was what sealed how important they were to each other, how they had thoroughly affected each other’s lives.

Then there was the royal ball… oh, neither of them would ever forget that. The unexpected meeting, the flawless dance they shared, and their escape into the sky to have their own dance and first confess their love. Soarin still laughed whenever he thought about that moment. He completely let it slip and was certain he had ruined the night, only for Dash be overjoyed and return it all.

They had their moments since then… but all of them were… constrained. Always a time limit, always an ‘I better get going’ always an ‘until we get there.’ There was always something that kept it from feeling as free and as alive as it did those two nights they spent together… one during the royal ball and the other after they escaped the Shadowbolts.

Where had those moments gone?

Soarin missed them.

Dash missed them.

But… with their current situation… if Soarin understood Dash correctly, the Renegades were handling the everything and they had down time. And if they had down time… they could finally spend some real time together. Sure it was cold, sure they were in hiding, but there was nothing preventing them. They just needed the right environment, the right privacy.

So Soarin, while this was something legitimate he had been wondering, decided to take advantage of the situation.

“Oh, Dash,” he spoke up as he looked over his shoulder. “I want to check my room. You said everything got thrown around right? I bet my room’s a mess right now,” he lied through his teeth.

“Oh, sure,” Dash complied, not bothering to think about a thing as long as she got to stay by his side.

Soarin was leading her into a trap, but it was a meaningful one. He wasn’t going to jump her or surprise her and get rough and rowdy instantly… he just wanted privacy, but he wanted her only to know once they got there… he wanted to show her love. She looked like she needed it, and dammit… he needed it too.

The two of them made their way from the rec room, around the massive pillar and towards Soarin’s room. It wasn’t very far from the rec room, just one door down from Spitfire’s door, which lay in a bit of distress, having felt the repercussions of the surrounding floor breaking apart. Luckily, the damage to the floor stopped before they reached Soarin’s door. It made him hopeful that his room wasn’t in too much disarray. But he wasn’t going to hold his breath. Based on Dash’s description, the whole compound had been thrown about violently and the furniture wasn’t bolted down. He was sure his room was going to be a mess.

Soarin took a deep breath as he stood before his door, glancing back at dash for a brief moment before reaching for the doorknob. He cracked the door open and peered in. He stared for a moment, Dash waiting patiently behind as he remained silent.

“So how bad is it?” Dash asked, sharing his assumptions. Soarin blinked before flattening his brow and smirking with a snort.

“It’s too dark, I can’t see a thing,” he said with a chuckle, almost causing Dash to willingly face plant before stepping up to the door.

“You doofus,” she nudged him in the side before looking over her shoulder. “I dunno if they want us messing with the work lights. There are barely any on the upper floors anyway. Let’s go see if we can find a flashli—” she was cut off as a light blue glow surrounded Soarin’s horn.

“I got it,” he said with a wink before the glow intensified and a small ball of bright blue magical energy rose up from the tip of the horn and floated up. Dash eyed the ball of energy as it floated beside Soarin, shaking her head as she smirked.

“You’re such a cheater,” she said as Soarin pushed the door to his room open and shrugged.

“I just work with what I’ve got,” he said in a sly manner as he used his magic to open his blanket and drape it over them both. Dash shot him a sly look right back as the ball of light moved into the room and the two followed right behind.

As if it wasn’t already dark enough everywhere in the compound, it looked like the steel shutter had been knocked loose and forced down over his window during the takeoff and crash. Even if the window was uncovered, they wouldn’t see much with the blizzard raging right outside. They weren’t on the side facing the mountain, but the storm and the clouds were so thick that it didn’t matter what time of day it was. Not like they were complaining, the Renegades were doing what they did best, misdirecting the Shadowbolts for them so they could rest, recover, and prepare for a little while. The important thing was that the window was shut and sealed, not allowing any more of the cold air inside.

“Uh, wow…” Dash commented first as the ball of light illuminated the room with a dim blue hue. “You got lucky,” she said as she huddled against him.

“I’ll say…” Soarin agreed as he glanced around. While all of his belongings and furniture were not quite where they were supposed to be, everything still sat upright, well… everything except for his dresser. Which was tipped on its side and the draws had spat out lots of its contents. Aside from that though, his large bed had barely shifted, his desk and even the swivel chair were upright. The two large shelves had thankfully tipped backwards and wedged themselves against the wall. The contents were disorganized, but all in one piece, including the trophies that sat on it. All his posters were still up, and his framed copy of the same picture Rainbow Dash had in her floor locker was in one piece, lying flat on its back on his desk.

“From what I saw outside,” Soarin cringed as he stepped forward, gently pulling his blanket off of Dash as he moved. “I doubt Spitfire got so lucky, the cracks along the floor went right into her room.”

“Her office was basically destroyed,” Dash commented as she moved around. Spitfire’s room was right above her office. She had seen the state of Spitfire’s office briefly before Spitfire tried to reorganize it, but there wasn’t much she could do aside from propping up her desk. Everything else was all over the place.

“I bet she’s still using it anyway,” Soarin commented as if reading Dash’s thoughts. He moved towards his dresser and frowned. “Well, it’s not so bad, I just hope…” he paused as he scooted the dresser back slightly and began looking through the contents. Dash tipped her head curiously as she walked towards the dressed. Soarin was mostly tossing aside articles of clothing. Wonderbolt related things, official, unofficial, some free merchandise, and a few flight suits that were not Wonderbolt suits. She didn’t have time to see what they looked like as they all were tossed aside into a pile. “Come on, where is it?”

“Where is what?” Dash asked as her hoof suddenly hit something on the floor. She stopped and looked down as Soarin looked up.

“Oh!” Soarin exclaimed as the ball of light hovered down towards Dash. She had run into a small metal box that was about twelve inches wide and long and six inches tall. “There it is!” Soarin smiled as he reached over and slid the box towards him.

“What is it?” Dash asked as she made her way around the pile of loose paraphernalia. Soarin blinked as he looked at the box, before looking up and Dash, smiling.

“That’s right… I haven’t gotten a chance to show you any of this stuff yet, have I?” he said as she smiled back at him.

“I get the feeling you meant to…” she trailed off as she stopped by his side, turned around and sat down next to him.

“But I never got the chance?” Soarin asked as he opened his blanket and let her scoot into his side. She leaned heavily into him, nuzzling him beneath his cheek as he closed the blanket around them and rested his head atop hers.

“Mmhmm…” Dash replied as Soarin felt her subtly nod against his neck.

“That’s how it’s felt for just about everything,” Soarin said with a sigh as Dash turned her head and pressed her nose into the fur on his shoulder, sighing softly as she felt his fur bristle against her face and took in his scent. She released a soft moan of comfort as she felt Soarin’s arm reach around her and hold her tightly. “We’ve both been so busy… there’s been so much action… I keep getting knocked out by this stupid horn…” Soarin grunted in frustration. “It’s hardly given us as much time together I was hoping we’d have.”

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed as she turned her head to free her nose from his neck. “I guess that’s just our job though… would it have been different if it was just business as usual?”

“We’d still be busy…” Soarin tipped his head to rest his cheek on the top of her head, her ear flopping down to allow a clean landing in her mane. “But… that promise we recently made to make time for each other… well, we may actually have been able to do that.”

“I’m not holding it against you if you’re worried,” Dash paused to tip her head up and nuzzle the top of her nose against his cheek. “It’s not like I’ve had a chance to do anything either.”

“I can see you being a little miffed,” Soarin let a smile crack on his lips.

“Soarin, I’m not,” she pouted.

“Not even a little? OW!” he yelped as she lightly nipped at his cheek.

“Say it again and I’ll punch you,” she threatened before nuzzling him hard again.

“Alright, alright,” he chuckled as his eyes landed back on the box still sitting before him. “Well… it may not have been exactly how I wanted it to come around…” he reached for the box and pulled it right up to them. “But we have time now. I’ve been wanting to share this stuff with you for a long time.”

Dash turned her face and looked down at the box as Soarin reached for it with his free hoof, realizing just what they had at that very moment.

Time.

It had been a long time since they could just sit down like this and do something together. Honestly, part of her wanted to jump him and get rowdy immediately, which was mostly because of how refreshed and strong he looked. But… they didn’t have a time limit. She didn’t have to go back to the barracks, and he had nowhere to report, so it could wait. It would have to wait anyway, because she was very curious what was in this box. It was sturdy, so the contents had to be important to Soarin.

Soarin unlatched the two clip locks on the front and slowly opened it, lowering the light so they could see inside. There were several objects, photos, and newspaper clippings piled into the box. Dash remained silent as Soarin reached in and began pulling out the contents one by one with his free hoof. He reached for the newspaper clippings first as he began to speak.

“This is my little box of memories,” he began as Dash leaned over to look at the newspaper article. “When I became part of the lead squad, the amount of time I had to get out of the compound was cut incredibly thin. I’m here all day every day, but I never wanted to forget what it took to get here,” he said as Dash began to read over the article. It was a report on a Wonderbolt show, dated around five years ago. The headline was: ‘Wonderbolts Wow the Crowds with New Routines and New Recruits!’ Dash glanced up at Soarin to see a big smile on his face. “You know the fly by you did with Foxtrot during the Cloudsdale show? This was the show Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and I did our fly-by with Straight Arrow and Dozer. You know the two stallions in squad seventeen?” he asked as he paused. Dash shook her head. She admitted to not knowing many of the Wonderbolts well beyond the first three squads. “Yeah, they were in recruit squad Delta before we charged into the elite ranks all the way up to squad three. Honestly I wish they took one of those two with the three of us, they were both much more tolerable than Rapidfire…”

Soarin dropped the article back into the box and pulled out another one. The headline read: ‘Legendary Gold Squad Retires! New Captain Takes Charge!’ the headline was complete with a picture of Blazetail shaking hooves with Spitfire.

“This one speaks for itself,” Soarin smiled as he hoofed it over to Dash. “I mean… fine. I hate Rapidfire, but he DID help us become the lead squad. As much as I preferred Arrow or Dozer… neither of them had the skill to jump the ranks like we did.”

“Heh…” Dash chuckled as she looked closely at the picture. “I think I see the two of you…”

“Scowling at each other in the background, I know…” Soarin snorted with a smile as he leaned over and placed his chin on Dash’s head. “You saw us back in Ponyville. That was twenty-four seven for us. I’ll tell you, Spitfire was happy to give her yelling voice a rest once he was gone.”

“What’s in those photos?” Dash asked, eying the photographs in the box as she replaced the article.

“Going even further back,” Soarin answered as he reached his free hoof in and scooped the four photographs out. “These are all old pictures from before I became a Wonderbolt,” he explained as he held up the first one. Dash looked it over carefully, spotting Soarin in a Wonderbolt Cadet uniform in the center of the picture, but there were four others in the picture with him. Two other stallions that looked very similar to him, only slightly smaller and different color, and an older mare and stallion. The older stallion looked almost exactly like Soarin. She put it together immediately.

“Soarin, is this your family?” she asked, glancing at him briefly.

“Yep,” he nodded in response pointing to the picture. “My little brother Glide,” his hoof tapped the red stallion to his right. “And my other little brother Launch,” he pointed to the yellow stallion on his left. “My mother, Cloud Nine,” he pointed to the older, pink mare with a curly black mane. “And of course…” Soarin pointed at his older mirror image. “My father, Soar.”

“Soar?” Dash lifted and eyebrow and smirked.

“I’m partially named after him,” Soarin flashed her a smile as they looked over the photo.

“I can tell why, you look just like him,” Dash commented. “I bet that got a little confusing at home.”

“A little,” Soarin chuckled. “Apparently Soarin was my father’s nickname between him and all his buddies when he was young, so whenever my mother called for me we’d both reply, always,” Soarin explained, earning a giggle from Dash. “In general my life at home was hectic, my brothers and I didn’t make it easy for them…” he trailed off as he looked over the photo. “This was taken right after I got accepted as a recruit… and,” Soarin frowned. “I’ve seen them… four times since.”

“WHAT?!” Dash blinked as she turned and her jaw dropped.

“I’m afraid so,” Soarin sighed. “My life got real busy after that. I visited them a few times when I was a recruit, but once I made the third squad, and soon after became a lead commander…” he glanced at Dash. “I never really got another chance. Most of my communication with them is through letters now. I’ve been to Manehatten several times for shows, but our schedule is always tight… as is theirs. They’ve made it to some of my shows, but they all work very demanding jobs, long hours. I mean, I have seen them, but it’s been nothing more than a smile and a wave into a crowd. I can’t remember the last time I actually went home or spoken to any of them in person.”

Dash watched Soarin carefully as he stared at the photo of his family. She released a small gasp.

“You mean to tell me your family has no idea what you’ve been going through with…” Dash pointed to his horn. Soarin reluctantly nodded.

“They haven’t made it to any of our shows recently, and I haven’t sent or received any letters in a long time. I’d be lying if several things in the recent past haven’t made me think about contacting or going to see them,” Soarin flinched when he felt Dash grab him by the shoulder.

“Soarin, as soon as we get out of this mess, that’s the first thing we’re doing,” she said sternly.

“What?” he blinked.

“You heard me. I don’t care if I have to drag you to Manehatten myself. They’re your family. They need to know what’s going on and to see that you’re okay… besides…” her expression softened. “You met my family, it’s time for me to meet yours.”

“I guess if we have time…” Soarin trailed off as he saw Dash glaring at him again. “Okay, okay,” he chuckled. “As long as you promise to take the flak from Spitfire for dragging me away.”

“She can deal with it, this is important,” Dash put seriously. And it WAS a serious case for her…

She already had one pony that was important to her putting himself in harm’s way and severe danger… without his family knowing. She knew she wasn’t going to sway Silver, but Soarin… his case was a little different.

“Though I’ll warn you, my brothers are a little strange,” Soarin suddenly smirked.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Dash shot a confident smirk right back. If she could deal with Twister, Pinkie, and Surprise, how bad could they be?

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Soarin stuck his tongue out at her before placing the photo back down in the box and pulling out another. “Ah yes, check this out…” he held it towards Dash.

“Oh wow…” Dash cringed. “Hate to break it to you Soarin, but you don’t look too good in red,” Dash snorted. The photo was of Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Soarin standing with first, second, and third place medals respectively. Dash realized it was a photo of the amateur flyers competition she had been told about. What gave it away were Blazetail and Flashwind hovering in the background. Spitfire was wearing a sleek orange flight suit that matched her mane and body colors well. Fleetfoot was wearing a shiny, silver suit that looked good with her light blue. Soarin on the other hoof, was wearing a bright red flight suit that clashed heavily with his fur.

“I know,” Soarin chuckled. “Spitfire said the exact same thing when I showed up at her door before leaving…” he reached into the box and pulled out a bronze medal. “Still have that medal too…”

“HOLD THE BUS…” Dash reached back into the box and pulled out the next photo. “Oh… my… god…”

“Oh… geez, I forgot I had that picture…” Soarin sighed as his ears flopped down.

“AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” Dash nearly fell backwards laughing. “YOU TOOK SPITFIRE TO PROM?! Sweet Celestia, how awkward was that? This photo says it all!” she held the photo up and Soarin rolled his eyes.

The picture was indeed a photo of Soarin and Spitfire, looking around the age of sixteen, dressed up and looking very uncomfortable holding onto each other for the picture. Soarin’s mane was long and messy, nearly covering his eyes, which were looking away with an awkward expression. Spitfire’s mane was straight, and she was puffing her cheeks out while blushing madly. It wasn’t the nervous kind of blush, it was one that blared embarrassment. They were hugging in the picture, but there was a clear gap between them as well as a heavy case of hover hoof on both sides.

“Yeah… that was weird…” he shook his head. “Neither of us wanted to go, but our parents on both sides insisted we go just for the experience. The prom itself was fun, but the two of us felt so awkward. It didn’t help our friends kept giving us the ‘about times’ and ‘finallys.’ Thankfully Spitfire actually got asked the next two years, so we avoided that again.”

“I can picture how awkward the dancing must have been,” Dash snickered as she continued to look at Soarin’s ridiculous mane style.

“I felt like I was fondling my sister…” Soarin cringed. “And she whacked me more than once for being too ‘hoovesy’ when I was trying my hardest not to be.”

“I thought this box was for good memories,” Dash joked as she set the picture back down in the box.

“It is,” Soarin chuckled. “I mean, now we look back on it and laugh. I can’t begin to tell you how long it took Fleetfoot to stop laughing when she found out about it.”

“I can imagine,” Dash laughed as she looked back into the box. There was a small trophy sitting in the corner that said ‘first place’ on the base. It caught her attention immediately. After all, Soarin had told her that he always finished behind Spitfire. However, as she reached for it, her eyes diverted to a photo that sat right next to it.

“Ah yes… last but not least…” Soarin reached in as she paused and pulled out the trophy and the photo. “The one time… I beat Spitfire in something,” he chuckled as he held it up, giving Dash a better look at it. There was more writing on the base. ‘The Manehattan Tyke Flyers race.’ “It was actually… the first competition we ever had together. It was a race for ages five to seven, sponsored by the Wonderbolts. A low altitude race, one lap around the Manehatten flight track through a set of large rings. One lap on that track is LONG for a colt or filly. Spitfire was in the lead the whole time, but started celebrating one ring early, slowing down just enough for me to catch up and pass her before the last ring.”

“I bet she wasn’t happy about that,” Dash cringed as Soarin winced.

“Yeah she was in tears afterward, but… angrily. Like I said, that more or less sealed my fate. She never let me win anything ever again… but…” Soarin reached back into the box and pulled out the last photo. “I don’t keep this stuff around to remind her, I keep it around to remember this,” he flashed the photo to Dash.

Dash nearly had to hold her breath as her eyes and pupils widened. She refused to release a squeal that would have sounded supremely girly of her. But it was incredibly hard not to, since she was staring at a picture of Soarin when he was five years old. Not to mention he was getting his picture taken with the exact same trophy that sat in front of him and an old Wonderbolt was sitting beside him with an arm over his shoulder. Little colt Soarin had the biggest smile on his face Dash had ever seen, it was beyond adorable.

“First Wonderbolt I ever met too,” Soarin pointed to the yellow Wonderbolt with the grey, swept back mane beside him. “Hurricane Drive, second in command on the lead squad at the time when Shockwave was the lead captain. He was the father of the Hurricane who became part of Gold Squad along with Blazetail, Flashwind, and Jet Stream."

“Wow, two generations ago…” Dash chimed in as she forced her focus from the adorable colt Soarin and examined the Wonderbolt. It was an interesting sight because it was an older suit she had only seen in books. The lightning bolts were down the sides of the suit instead of down the chest and stomach. He even wore the old goggles that had straps weaved to look like lightning bolts. “That was the year I was born! You actually got to meet a member of the lead squad before they formed Gold Squad? I can’t even…” Dash put her hooves on her head as if it would explode. She had a hard time fathoming any Wonderbolts that came before Blazetail and Flashwind.

“It may have been Spitfire that drove me to work towards becoming a Wonderbolt, but meeting Hurricane Drive was what secured me as a fan for life whether or not I became a Wonderbolt,” Soarin smiled. “His presence was just… incredible. I’m sure you can tell by my expression in the picture that it was a pure amazement sensory overload,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll never forget watching him walk towards me, wearing that old-school Wonderbolt suit and those awesome goggles, my eyes almost popped out of my head, I felt like I was looking at a superhero.”

“Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar?” Dash nudged him while smiling wide.

“Me?” Soarin chuckled while pointing at himself. “No chance, not like him… there’s no way I could—”

“Swift Gale,” Dash cut him off. Soarin stopped with his mouth hanging open for a moment before closing it and sighing.

“I mean… that’s…” Soarin scratched his head.

“No different,” Dash poked him in the chest. “If you ask me…” Dash held the photo up to Soarin and pointed at it. “I’d say it’s come full circle,” she said with a warm smile.

“I…” Soarin began but shut his mouth again, not feeling like he had a valid argument.

“You saw how that little grey colt looked at you in Rusty’s diner. How about when he met you again in Cloudsdale? Did you see the look in his eyes when you tossed him your goggles? I thought the kid was gonna explode into confetti,” she said with a chuckle. “Not to mention… when I saw you in Ponyville after you saved Pound Cake from a nasty fall… I thought I was going to burst when you recognized me and came towards me. You’re much more than you’re giving yourself credit for right now…” Dash leaned forward and gave Soarin a really big hug. “Much more.”

Soarin blinked as Dash gave him the warm, gentle hug. He smiled to himself, returning it.

“Thanks… I guess I just don’t think about it too much,” Soarin said quietly into her ear.

“Yeah, you really don’t,” Dash said while giving him a brief hard squeeze that made him grunt. “I know you’re not into the whole spotlight thing, but seriously… when I tell you you’re awesome, you better believe it. I’m an agent of awesome. I know it when I see it.”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence, oh wise, and awesome one,” Soarin said goofily as Dash giggled into his neck fur and released him. The two looked at each other for a moment before Soarin’s ears stood up. “Oh, speaking of things that are awesome…” he turned and reached back into the box, shuffling some things about. Dash pulled back and waited patiently as he dug around. “C’mon… I know it’s in here… ah!” Soarin smiled as he pulled out a feather. Dash blinked and tipped her head.

“A feather?” she looked at it carefully. It was well preserved, but she couldn’t quite tell what color it was. Within the glow of the ball of light it was hard to deduce. “One of yours? Or…?” Dash glanced at him. Soarin smiled and shook his head, the ball of light hovering down by him as he opened a wing over the top of his blanket and held the feather against it.

“Too dark to be mine,” he said as his smile grew.

“Wait…” Dash’s eyes widened. “Is that…” she shifted her blanket and opened one of her wings. Soarin held the feather forward and hovered the ball of light right up to her wing.

It was a perfect match. Tone, color, and hue.

“That’s one of my feathers… but it’s in your memory box?” Dash asked curiously as everything began to add up and she slowly felt a glow build up in her chest.

“That’s because I’ve had it for a year,” Soarin winked at her. Dash’s ears stood up.

“But, when did you…?” she never remembered Soarin taking a feather from her. He looked back and forth with a silly look on his face.

“I… plucked it from your wing after we shared our first kiss on the train,” he admitted while grinning innocently. Dash stared at him blankly.

“How the hell did I miss that?” She tried to remember, but all she could remember was…

“Well you definitely had your head in the clouds… I even remember the look on your face,” Soarin chuckled. I took the opportunity… I know we weren’t officially a thing yet at that point… but I wanted to bring a little part of you home with me,” he said as he held the feather up between them.

Dash stared at the feather, with the view of Soarin’s warm smile directly behind it. The way he had just worded that… ‘To bring a little part of you home with me…’ It was happening again. Something she hadn’t felt in a while, but something she had wanted badly. The way Soarin made her feel all tingly and loved.

“This is the first little memory of you,” Soarin continued as he placed the feather back in the box. “Taken from the first real moment we shared together,” he reached forward and placed a hoof gently on her shoulder. “And I plan to add many more memories of us as time goes on.”

No more words had to be said.

The moment the feather was back in the box, Dash was reaching towards Soarin. Soarin had his eyes locked on her as if he knew it was coming. She reached her arms up around his shoulders, him reaching his around her back as their blankets slipped off of them. They both closed their eyes, and their lips connected softly, sharing a deep, loving kiss under the glow of Soarin’s magic.

The kiss started soft, and remained that way. They took it slow as they cherished the feeling of each other’s lips softly rubbing and puckering. Their grip on each other slowly tightened as they pulled their bodies together. Their passion flared, forcing them to press themselves chest to chest, but they kept steady, their many kisses soft, sweet, and full of love’s gentle touch.

They broke apart several times to look into each other’s eyes. How many times did they do it? They didn’t care, and neither of them was keeping track. They pressed their lips together again and again, each time feeling softer and more loving than the last.

It was clear that they wanted the moment to last. They both knew that they had no time limit, no deadlines, and no curfews. They wanted to share their passion and love for as long as they could, and nothing was going to stop them from doing so.

When they broke apart for the umpteenth time, they finally paused, gazing into the pairs of eyes that stared back at them. Dash had nothing on her mind but him, and Soarin had nothing on his mind but her. Speaking was pointless. Explaining was a waste of time. The only thing that mattered was that they were pressed to each other, and nothing could come between them.

They remained attached, staring endlessly for a few more moments before Soarin began to tremble. It was a very gentle, very week shake, but every time a shock ran through him, he squeezed Dash a little harder. And every time she felt his grip strengthen, her shivers grew a little stronger as well.

Dash gasped quietly as Soarin suddenly pushed forward against her. The ball of light that was illuminating their surroundings suddenly glowed brighter, before exploding with a tiny POP. The glow in the room faded, leaving them in the darkness as Soarin’s concentration clearly removed itself from lighting the room to focus completely on her. Dash yelped as Soarin pushed her backwards and the two of them fell onto the bed. Dash landed back-first on the soft surface of the mattress, her wings softening the fall. She was smiling from the moment she began to fall to the moment she touched down.

It was suddenly darker due to the lack of the ball of light, but they didn’t need light to know where they were. Dash had her back up against the bed, and although she couldn’t see Soarin too clearly, she could feel the warm breath from Soarin’s mouth against her face. He was right there and she could feel him pressed atop her. The sensation of their fur bristling together, the tingling of their touch making their skin stir… Who needed to see when they could feel each other so strongly?

Soarin’s horn began to glow as their lips hovered less than a centimeter apart. Dash stared up at it, but only for a moment as the light blue glow from the horn suddenly provided the light required for her to see his face. And hell if she was going to look away, Soarin was hot. The two looked directly into each other’s eyes as the new source of light gathered around Soarin’s horn. It was but a dim, blue glow, but it was more than enough for them to see and acknowledge their features.

Simultaneously, their expressions turned from wonder of each other’s features to a look of pure seduction. Soarin had Rainbow Dash on her back with him leaning over her. He was larger than her, and flaunted an air of dominance as he began to lower his body towards hers.

They were completely lost, neither of them paying attention to anything aside from the individual that appeared directly before them. They stared and stared and stared, both completely unaware to an unusual phenomenon that was occurring right in front of them.

The glow around Soarin’s horn began to shift and change, the soft blue glow became slightly distorted as it was pushed aside and a second color emerged… yellow. The yellow magic slowly began to coil around the horn, but as it did, the blue magic followed, creating a swirling, intertwining pattern as the two auras danced and rose up past the tips of the horn. It created an alternating, soft glow.

Dash saw it, but despite the previous encounters with the yellow magic aura, there was something that kept her from the usual sense of dread or worry. It was if the two auras within Soarin was interacting, soothing each other. Neither lashed about nor fought as they once had in the past. That mixed with how Soarin seemed unaffected. He was in control, not being forceful nor frightening as he was when the yellow magic took him over once before.

All in all, the mixture of light was calming… and the look in Soarin’s eyes put Dash completely at ease as he leaned himself down on top of her, gently and softly. They closed their eyes as their heads crossed, the fur on their cheeks brushing against each other as their bodies met and they felt their fur rub together. Dash felt Soarin’s muscles tense as he inhaled sharply. The feeling of her body against his was as intoxicating for him as it was for her.

Dash released a soft moan as Soarin began to run the tip of his nose around the back of her head and up towards her ear. She knew it was coming, and she waited with anticipation as he neared her sweet spot. Her body exploded with shivers as Soarin’s nose passed behind her ear and touched the soft spot. He exhaled as he brushed it, making her tingles intensify as his hot breath crashed upon it. He playfully nibbled on her ear, the edges of his mouth bending into a grin as she reached up and roughly clutched the sides of his body with her hooves, lightly squeezing his body and pulling herself up to press harder into him.

The blue and yellow auras continued to dance around each other on his horn as Soarin shivered himself. Dash was pressing herself to him intensely, physically showing him how much she was enjoying it. It was freezing in the room, but the constant contact of their bodies, their desire, and the sensations pulsing through them were all more than enough to warm them up.

With Dash pulling her body to his, there was enough room beneath her for Soarin to shimmy his hooves under her back. He was already hitting her sweet spot behind the ears, now it was time to give her a double dose. He teased her, moving his hooves gently towards her wing joints.

“Nnngggghhh…” she groaned and bit down softly on Soarin’s shoulder as he moved closer and closer. The anticipation was torture. She wanted it so badly and it couldn’t happen fast enough. Soarin suddenly shifted his hooves directly onto her wing joints, pressing on them hard. “AH!” Dash yelped, her mouth releasing Soarin’s shoulder as her face brightening with a blush of pleasure. Soarin continued to blow lightly on her ear as he began massaging the sweet spots on her wings. “Ahhh… ohhh…” Dash panted and moaned as Soarin worked his hooves around.

He continued to pleasure her, using her weak points to give her strong sensations for several moments before he began to move away, but her grip suddenly tightened on him considerably.

“Don’t stop!” she pleaded as she pulled her head back and looked up at him with an expression that was drunk with desire. “Please… don’t stop… just yet,” she demanded as she pushed her head back against his shoulder and rubbed hit hard into his neck.

“As you wish,” Soarin said in a seductive tone as he returned his hooves to her wing joints and nuzzled the bases of her ears.

“Mmmmffff…” Dash continued to moan and twitch, her whole body heating up like a furnace. “Yes… Ooooh… Soarin…” her reactions were so intense, one would think they were having sex, but Soarin knew just how much his touch and her sensitive spots revved her up. If she wanted more, he would give her more.

But she didn’t last too long. As Soarin continued to please her, she began to breath faster. With her chest pressed against him, he could feel her heartbeat quicken. Her grip on him began to tighten and relax at quick intervals.

“NNNGH!” Dash’s eyes shot open and she pulled back from Soarin, grasping his shoulders as she stared directly into his eyes. Soarin grinned as he saw the look. It was one he recognized. One that she wore whenever she was about to attack his—

“Hrmph!” Soarin grunted lightly as Dash crashed her lips into his, immediately forcing her tongue into his mouth before he could even return the kiss. He quickly grabbed onto her back and clasped her tightly, turning his head slightly so their mouths could fully cross. Their tongues slid together, rubbing and twisting against each other as they both moaned in delight, turning their heads slightly to kiss again and again as they pressed their tongues against the other. Their grips on each other tightened as all traces of the cold air around them completely vanished, their warmth being generated by their endless passion and powerful love for each other.

Neither could see it as it began because they had their eyes firmly shut, but the yellow and blue streams of magic upon Soarin’s horn began to glow brighter… and brighter… and brighter, both expanding in size until they completely formed together on his horn. The blue aura completely engulfed the shape of the horn as the yellow aura encircled it, creating a firm outline around it. The two lights flickered and flashed, making quiet sputtering and crackling noises as the tip of the horn began to shine. Much like before, two streams of light emerged from the tip of the horn and began to twirl around each other. They grew larger and larger as they expended off the horn, before suddenly shooting out into the room, arcing around as they danced together and aiming directly for Soarin and Dash.

The blue light flew into Soarin… and the yellow light flew into Dash.

The two of them gasped and pulled their lips apart as their bodies were suddenly covered in goose bumps. Something felt different in them both, but they couldn’t tear their eyes off of one another. Soarin’s eyes began to glow a light blue and Dash’s eyes glowed a bright yellow as the two stared directly into the eyes of the other.

What was this new feeling? Where did it come from? Neither of them knew… but… it hadn’t interrupted the moment. In fact… as they continued to look at one another, their longing and desire for each other seemed to increase… nearly two fold. Their curiosity was immediately replaced by lust as they rushed at each other again. Their eyes closed as their lips met, ravenously kissing each other, full mouth, full passion as if there was no tomorrow. Soarin gripped her tightly with all his strength as Dash pushed dug her hooves into his shoulders, kissing back with all her might.

Flickering streams of light began to appear around their bodies. A dark blue aura encircled Soarin and a bright yellow aura encircled Dash. The auras began to dance and swirl around them as they attacked each other’s lips, the power and drive behind their love feeling stronger than ever, as if boosted by whatever was happening with the magic around them.

The two of them had never felt so strong, so powerful in a moment of passion. The want, the need, and the desire for everything that was the other was beyond anything they ever experienced.

And neither of them wanted it to stop.

They pulled apart several times to take a sharp look at each other. Each moment of pause lasted only a second before they dove in for another round at each other’s lips… another fight for dominance with their tongues. They were both panting, their hearts were racing, their muscles tensing and flexing as the tingles and sensations traveled from their lips to the tips of their tails and all around their bodies over and over and over again. Shock after shock, and wave after wave of pleasure exploded through them.

And they were still only partaking in foreplay. They hadn’t even made love yet.

Soarin and Rainbow Dash pressed their mouths together, moaning and uttering each other’s name into the other’s mouth as they tipped their heads back and forth, giving their lips every angle of attack, their tongues twisting and wrestling between them one final time. It lasted several minutes. They breathed through their noses in sharp, wheezy breaths that splashed hot air against their faces. They finally pulled away, a trail of saliva hanging between their mouths for a moment as they panted.

Soarin propped himself up on his arms as Dash fell back onto the mattress, her arms and wings sprawled out beneath her. The two opened their eyes.

Blue auras rose from Soarin’s eyes as if they were literally alight with passion, the streams of blue light still dancing around him. Dash was breathing heavily as well as she opened her eyes, yellow auras rising from them as the yellow streams of light danced happily around her.

They both smiled, completely pushing aside the fact that there was a very strange display of lights emanating from both of their bodies. The mood of the moment dictated their mindsets. They were being seemingly boosted by whatever Soarin’s magic had spewed from his horn, and in the heat of the moment, there was no way they were going to stop.

They had never felt so good… never felt so right… and they were going to take full advantage of it.

“Mmmm…” Dash licked her lips as she looked back and forth at Soarin’s arms propping him up beside her shoulders. His arms were tensed, his muscles flexed and bulging as he panted overhead. She reached up and ran her hooves over his arms, moving them over their strong form before rubbing her hooves against his powerful chest muscles while biting her lip.

“Heh…” Soarin smirked as she felt him all over, looking down at her athletic, toned physique with the desire to feel up every inch of it. He grinded his teeth together, biting his lip as his body tingled at the sight of her reclined directly below her.

“I’m feeling pretty good…” Dash said while releasing sharp breaths and running her tongue over her bottom lip.

“Likewise,” Soarin agreed as his muscles continued to flex and tense as if it was telling him to take the next step.

“I love you so damn much, you hunk of sexy stallion…” said Dash as she pressed a hoof into his chest, taking a deep, shivering breath as she felt the rock hard surface of his chest muscle. Soarin slid one of his hooves against her body and slowly ran it up her side until it was up against her cheek.

“And I love you… you endlessly sexy mare…” Soarin replied as he continued to twitch. Dash giggled as she took note of his body jittering like mad.

“Soarin? I’m yours,” she said, biting her lip as she saw his eyes slowly widen and a smile grow larger and larger on his face. “Go for it, I want it.”

“Gladly,” Soarin glared down at her as his lips parted to reveal how large his smile actually was.

They had both hit full throttle.

It was time to go into overdrive.

Unbeknownst to the two lovers, they were not as alone as they believed.

Right outside Soarin’s door, standing with his back against the wall to the right… was Discord. However, the god of chaos was in rare form, looking far from being up to his usual pranks with a sour expression on his face.

“Hmph…” he grunted to himself as he stared straight across the hallway at the opposite wall with his arms crossed, tapping a talon from his eagle arm against his bear arm. His expression went flat, his ears folded backwards against his head as he quietly grumbled, rubbing his snaggletooth back and forth across his bottom lip.

He turned his head towards the door as grunts and moans of pleasure started up again. They were more intense than before. Discord could feel the pulses from the two magic auras grow even stronger as the two began to make love… and that was exactly what was bothering him.

Discord turned his head back forward and gritted his teeth. He snorted and pushed his back off the wall while throwing his arms out in frustration. He took a couple of steps away from the door before pacing back and forth in front of it. After his third pass, he stopped and turned sharply towards the door, glaring harshly at it. He held up an arm, both of his horns glowing with a distorted, purple and blue aura as a large collection of chaos magic began to form in his hand. He aimed it directly at the door, his eyes glowing purple, and snarling as his breaths hissed between his grinding teeth.

But he slammed his eyes shut and closed his hand around the collection of chaos magic. It completely dissipated. The glow from his eyes vanished as he slowly opened them again and sighed. He turned his back on the door and began walking away.

“I’m not jealous…” he said to himself in a sarcastic manner. “Me? The god of chaos?” he placed a hand on his chest as he approached the broken stairs. “I have MUCH better things to worry about… not some… stupid…” he paused at the top of the stairs and glanced back at the door. “Drat…”

Discord floated up off the ground and made his way around the pillar, leaving the two lovers to their much needed time together. The hallway was once again vacated and silent, only the echo of snapping fingers and a flash of purple light from the stairs made itself known before Soarin and Rainbow Dash were truly left alone, sharing their love without time limit or interruption for the first time in what felt like ages to them.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

All of the art in this chapter was done by the amazing Foxenawolf

The fact that we have made it to 100 chapters... is thanks to ALL OF YOU.

Really, truly, seriously, thank you so much, everyone. If not for the overwhelming support, i would never have even made it half this far. I can write, sure... but the motivation from you guys and gals has been what's kept the fire burning and burning. This has been such a wild ride, and one i definitely will never forget or regret.

And i hope it keeps on going, from now all the way until the end :eeyup: (And even then i won't be done, you can count on that :pinkiecrazy:)

As for this chapter...

FIRST AND FOREMOST. I'm not going to be shipping Calm and Fleet :rainbowlaugh: (At least not in this particular story.) If i'm actually going to do a real romance between them, i want it to be a seperate story so i can give it focus instead of having it be a side plot. The scene between Calm and Fleetfoot was meant for character development on Fleetfoot's part as she reevaluates he life and how she goes about things. She's definitely not going to change from the silly, bubbly, flirty pony we all know and love, but it's important to know what's important to oneself and what you want from life. Having Calm be a part of it was more to tease the FleetWind shippers :pinkiecrazy: And well... i just wrote 100 chapter's i felt you guys would be okay with me throwing myself a little self-satisfaction with my favorite female character :rainbowlaugh:

MOVING ON...

Fun, Fluff, and Feels... i hope i gave as much as hyped it up :twilightblush:

I was particularly happy to finally write for Blizzard Strike. I'm hoping to do something with him in the future so it was great to finally take a shot at him.

Other than that, of course, the Soarindash. I know that this is a Soarindash trilogy, but as im aware, it has been pushed aside a little lately by all the action and the fact that the two have been practically SEPARATED for most of the story.

And that was intentional, as spelled out in this chapter. Going forward... you can expect our two protagonists to be giving much more scene time... TOGETHER. The situation they are in, the situation going forward as well as part four when we get around to it, are all going to include much more Soarin and Rainbow Dash at the same time instead of apart. Sure there will still be times they are separated (Can't forget Foxtrot of course), but there's a reason this story still carries the SoarinDash label :raritywink:

Anyway... i hope you all liked it! And hope this chapter also provided a few new mysteries for you all to think about as we keep going :moustache: It's great to be back in action :twilightsmile:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 101: Salty Nuts

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
This chapter was edited by both Kestrel and Lucky424

Chapter 101: Salty Nuts

“I can’t believe you did that. Just what are you scheming?”

The stallion’s voice echoed as Soarin lay on his back, sleeping with the biggest, most satisfied smile on his face imaginable. The blue image of the stallion’s voice sat beside Soarin in the darkness of Soarin’s mind. The yellow image of the mare slowly appeared and giggled.

“You didn’t try to stop me,” the mare said with a smug tone. “It takes two to tango.”

“I fail to see what you are after…” the male voice sounded incredibly perplexed. “You bar me from my goals, you deny me eternal existence… yet you jump me and take advantage of a moment as if things never changed.”

“If there’s one thing that mortals have taught me throughout the countless years,” the female voice spoke up. “It’s to love and enjoy things that are finite.”

“Hmph… you say that so casually… After what just happened I fail to believe you are that willing to just let go,” the stallion grumbled.

“You are defying the natural laws of the universe and existence. You know I cannot allow that, but it doesn’t change how I felt about you,” the mare’s voice had a hint of sadness in it. “I will admit, it was hard containing you within my body all these years… knowing you were so close, but not being able to see you… or reach you.”

“Then let me go already, if this is what you truly want,” the stallion scoffed.

“I’m not perfect,” the mare huffed in response. “And I will confess that I bend a lot of rules, but this is something I cannot allow. Breaking the gap between mortality and immortality would defy the very order by which the world exists. It’s already hard enough that we have one entity on the loose that’s not supposed to be."

A brief silence extended between them as the image of the mare looked down at Soarin and the silly grin that remained on his face as he slept.

“I’m sorry… my love…” she said, causing the stallion to turn and face her. “You know where my heart stands. I believe I just proved it to you,” she paused as she looked up at the stallion. “But I cannot make exceptions for this… Not even for you.”

The stallion remained facing her for several moments. The silence between them was suddenly broken as Soarin rolled onto his side and released a goofy sounding sigh. The mare and the stallion both looked down at Soarin for a moment before the mare began to chuckle.

“Oh, and you should feel lucky…” she suddenly said as the stallion looked up and tipped his head slightly. “I only have a fraction of my power here… so you held up alright. I still remember that limp you had the first morning after.”

“Grrr…” the stallion growled, turning away and roughly sitting down with his back turned to the mare. “Blasted, oversized, big headed…” he continued to grumble.

“Some things never change…” the mare said with a giggle.

Soarin released a loud yawn as he stretched his limbs out. He opened his eyes as he felt the blanket slip off of him slightly, but he couldn’t see anything. It was completely dark in his room, but he didn’t need light to know where he was lying, nor to figure out what the extra weight clinging to his body was. After finishing his stretch he shifted his arms back beneath the blanket and placed his left arm around the body that lay beside him.

“Mmmm…” Rainbow Dash released a slow, high pitched squeak as Soarin’s arm rested on her back above her wings. Soarin smiled as he felt her shift and dig her nose into the fur on his chest.

“You awake?” Soarin asked as he concentrated, calming his mind and allowing his magic to flow smoothly to the horn. A very soft, blue glow gathered around the horn, giving him just enough light to see the side of Dash’s face as she nuzzled his chest with a wide smile.

“I woke up about ten minutes ago,” she said with a smooth tone in her voice. “Been enjoying pressing myself to you while you slept,” she said as Soarin felt the rest of her body push against him and she wrapped her back legs around his torso.

“Have you now?” Soarin chuckled as he turned his body, shifting within the blanket to face her and wrapped his other arm around her to hold her tight. “I guess I’m okay with that,” he said as he rested his chin atop her head. Dash giggled as she continued to lightly nuzzle Soarin’s chest, moving her cheek up to his neck to give it a few rubs. Soarin pulled his head back slightly, tipping his nose down before planting a light kiss on Dash’s forehead.

Dash pulled her head out of his neck and looked up at him, his face illuminated by the dim light of the horn. Soarin took note as she glanced up to look at the horn. No doubt she was thinking about what had just happened an… hour ago? Soarin wasn’t quite sure how long they had napped after the incredibly satisfying sex.

Both magical auras had become visible during their intense session, shooting from the horn and flying about the room. The blue aura returned to Soarin, but the yellow had imbued Dash. With the auras surging within them, they made love with such increased and charged passion. They both felt incredibly strong throughout and it lasted so much longer than it ever had before on top of it.

Neither of them knew how long it ended up lasting, but when it finally did, the yellow aura released from Dash and retreated back into the horn, back into Soarin’s body. Soarin wondered if it had anything to do with the entities in his head, but even if it did, he wasn’t going to let his curiosity take away from just how AMAZING it all felt.

Speaking of how he felt… there was little to no evidence of strain or drawback on his body, as if the magic acted all on its own, reacting to them without any effort on his part.

“So what do you think that was?” Dash asked, voicing her curiosity, but in a manner that implied she wasn’t too concerned due to the super afterglow. Her extremely satisfied state amused Soarin. Her body felt so loose in his grip, incredibly relaxed and free of any stiffness. Not to mention incredibly warm.

“No idea, but…” Soarin took a moment to feel over his body and touch his forehead beside his horn, confirming that he was free of discomfort of any kind. “Nothing feels wrong. In fact, I feel great… again,” he chuckled. “How about you?” he asked.

Dash let go of Soarin for a moment to stretch out, flexing and relaxing her muscles, turning and shivering with delight.

“I feel pretty damn amazing,” she said before replacing her grip on Soarin’s body. Soarin lifted an eyebrow, a slight bit of worry squeaking through. They saw the yellow magic return to his horn, but he couldn’t forget how the magic made him act when he first encountered it. While there was no sign of anything wrong, Soarin wanted to be certain. So as not to ruin the moment, he put a humorous twist on it.

“You’re not having any sudden urges to forcibly pin me down and do kinky things to me against my will?” he said snidely. “Whoa!” he yelped as he felt Dash’s body suddenly tense and push against him. He was forced to roll onto his back as Dash shifted and flopped right on top of him, the length of her body spread over his.

“Not any more than usual,” she said as she stared into his eyes seductively.

“Than usual?” Soarin lifted his brow while smirking. Dash placed a hoof on his chest and slid it around the outline of his chest muscles.

“With a body like this, you make me daydream about a lot of things on a regular occasion,” she said in a sexy tone while sticking her tongue out at him. Soarin scrunched his face and looked at her carefully. “Soarin…” Dash suddenly flattened her brow. “I’m fine.”

“Just giving you a hard time,” Soarin chuckled as he smiled again.

“Douche…” Dash said with a huff before smiling back and resting her chin on his chest. Soarin reached his hooves around her back and gently rubbed her shoulders.

“I should probably go let Spitfire know I’m up at some point. I’m sure Bliss is already miffed that I snuck out before talking to her,” Soarin said with a chuckle as Dash frowned.

“Five more minutes?” she asked with a pout.

“I said eventually,” Soarin winked at her as he pulled the blanket further up and tightened it around them. “I’m definitely in no hurry.”

“Good,” Dash nodded. “Because cuddle time isn’t over,” she stated firmly before digging her cheek into his chest again. Soarin held tightly to her as he laid his head all the way back.

“Agreed.”

The two of them ended up lying in Soarin’s bed for another hour at least. Eventually, they decided it would be a good idea to get up and have Soarin report to Spitfire. This was, of course, assuming Bliss already hadn’t done so, prompting a compound wide search for Soarin’s sudden ‘disappearance.’ Really, he wouldn’t put it past Spitfire, but Soarin knew that Spitfire was most likely worried sick about him, so he felt the need to personally reassure her.

Soarin and Dash were up and moving back towards the battledome… but that didn’t stop her from being glued to his side the whole way.

Despite Soarin’s worry however, Spitfire had yet to be told about Soarin being up and about, and the battledome environment had continued to remain casual and cozy.

It was hard to keep track of the time of day with the blizzard blocking out most of the sunlight, and with the fact that the battledome had no windows to begin with, but they had a system going. The Renegades reported to Spitfire every three hours to fill her in on the status of the Shadowbolts or any other noteworthy news. So far, every single report had been the same, but the strict punctuality of the reports had given the Wonderbolts a way to tell how much time had gone by.

The fourth report of the day had just come in, so most of the Wonderbolts were sitting upright and having their ‘dinner’ meal. With the food supply still limited, it was restricted to the ration boxes of nuts, dried fruit, and turkey jerky, but it was better than nothing, and honestly a price they’d all gladly pay for the amount of rest they were getting.

“DINNER IS SERVED!” Surprise bounced over to Misty Fly and the Streak twins with four boxes balanced on her head. The Streak twins both turned to look, Misty’s head gently sliding off of Fire’s shoulder. Fire quickly turned back and reached up, catching Misty softly against his chest. Her eyes squeaked open and she looked directly up at Fire as he smiled down at her.

“Yo, Lover-Bro,” Lightning called to Fire. Fire rolled his eyes as he turned to look at his brother. “Catch.”

“Ah!” Fire yelped as a ration box hit him in the face, lightly bouncing off and falling to the ground. “Brother!” Fire hissed as he glared at Lightning, who was smirking and snickering. Fire was ready to scold him, but looked down as he felt something shaking against him. Misty Fly was silently giggling at his expense. Fire pouted at her, but Misty replied by grabbing and wrapping her blanket up around her face again while giving Fire an overly cute smile and puppy dog eyes. Fire flattened his brow, but smiled at her attempt at innocence.

“Sheesh, you two should just start doing it under those blankets while you’re at it,” Lightning commented as a second box slid across the ground towards Fire for Misty. Fire shook his head.

“I’d like to think even you wouldn’t engage in exhibitionism,” he scoffed at Lightning. Lightning shrugged as he started turning back around towards Surprise.

“Hey if the pussy is good enou—” a ration box came flying out of nowhere and hit him in the face. “Blah!” Lightning yelped as he tipped over and fell on his back. He looked up as Surprises head stuck into his vision.

“Gotta keep your head on a swivel, silly!” she said with a goofy smile before disappearing from his view, grabbing the last box, and plopping down beside Fire and Misty.

“Karma’s a bitch,” Lightning said casually as he sat up, grabbed his box and shifted towards his three squadmates. Misty remained sitting against Fire as they began to eat with Surprise sitting right beside Misty and digging into her box ravenously. Lightning grabbed a hooffull of almonds and shoveled them into his mouth, not expecting much, but hungry nonetheless. He scrunched his face as he chewed and swallowed, sticking his tongue out.

“Bleh…” he voiced his dissatisfaction at how heavily salted the almonds were. He blinked and looked over at Fire’s box. Fire was busy focusing on Misty, so he failed to see Lightning lean over and take a close look at his ration box. Lightning looked between the almonds in his box and the almonds in Fire’s. “Wha?” Lightning blinked as he kept looking back and forth. Fire glanced at his brother, pulling his box away slightly in surprise in case he caught Lightning in the act of shenanigans.

“What?” Fire asked as Lightning continued to look between the boxes.

“Dude, how come your nuts are dry and mine are salty?” he asked while looking up at Fire. Fire’s eyes widened as an awkward expression covered his face.

“Do you… WANT me to answer that question?”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Surprise burst out laughing at Fire’s response before hacking and coughing. “OOO! AAAAHCK! GAAAH!” she grabbed the bottle of water that came with the box and began chugging it down to avoid choking on her food.

“Probably could have worded that better…” Lightning confessed to the slip up.

“Everypony listen up!” Spitfire’s voice caught all of their attention as Surprise continued to internally cough due to inhaling her food by accident. Spitfire was walking around, looking back and forth as she yelled. “As soon as everypony is done eating, gather up in the center of the battledome! I have an important announcement to make!”

Spitfire continued on, repeating herself so everypony in the battledome heard her loud and clear. She was just about to finish all the way around, ending near the front doors, but she stopped when said doors were pushed open. Figuring it was somepony else who needed to hear her orders, she waited… but then her eyes widened.

“So this is where everypony is staying?” Soarin said to himself as he and Dash walked through the doors. “I guess that makes sense and…” he paused as his eyes landed on Spitfire standing roughly ten yards away, her eyes wide and her jaw agape. “Oh… hey Spitfire,” Soarin said casually with a smile. After a brief silence, Soarin lifted an eyebrow. Spitfire seemed frozen in place, but upon closer inspection, she was… shaking? It was cold, but it didn’t seem like shivers.

Then, without a word, she sprinted towards Soarin. Dash’s eyes widened at Spitfire’s sudden approach and quickly detached herself from Soarin’s side as Spitfire lunged at him and threw her arms around his shoulders, stuffing her face directly into his chest as her blanket slipped off and fell behind her.

“Whoa! Spitfire?” Soarin blinked in surprise as he felt Spitfire’s body shivering against his. Both Soarin and Dash took a good look at her face, or what was visible of it with her nose and forehead pressed so hard into him. She had her eyes slammed shut, and she was gritting her teeth as she held onto him tight. Soarin glanced up at Dash… to see her smiling.

Soarin’s ears flopped down as he looked back at Spitfire. He suddenly felt incredibly selfish. While he didn’t regret going right from waking up to spending time with the mare he loved… he hadn’t given much consideration to how worried Spitfire was about him. He was her foalhood friend… best friend… and practically a sibling to her. No doubt she was overjoyed to see him alright. It took a lot for Spitfire to show any sort of affection, especially where others could see her, meaning she was definitely worried absolutely sick if she was hugging him around everypony else.

Soarin grabbed the edge of his blanket and pulled it forward, wrapping it around Spitfire’s back as he hugged her back, causing a warm feeling to well up in Dash’s chest. Well… another mare was hugging her stallion, but she wasn’t so petty to be bothered. What made her feel so warm and fuzzy at this particular moment was Soarin’s caring response, recognizing Spitfire’s worry for him quickly and even putting his blanket over her to keep her warm.

“How are you feeling?” Spitfire suddenly asked as she pushed off Soarin’s chest and looked into his eyes with concern. “Did you just wake up? No problems or anything?” she rapidly asked questions, catching Soarin off guard. He was expecting her to start berating him or scolding him for taking such big risks and putting himself out of commission, but she went right for the concern. Soarin had yet to really get a good look at how everypony was handling the current situation, but he had to guess from Spitfire’s demeanor that they were all taking advantage of the rest and loosening up for the time being.

Of course he had a feeling that Spitfire was still doing her best to keep up the lead captain demeanor around all of them, but even she knew the importance of resting and recuperating.

“Believe it or not,” Soarin chuckled as he pulled his blanket back and Spitfire retrieved hers. “I’m actually feeling great,” he nodded, earning a skeptical look from Spitfire as she wrapped her blanket back around herself. It was a look Soarin was used to getting. He quickly shook his head. “And no, I’m not just sucking it up,” he assured her as he tapped the fake horn. “I think the magic has something to do with it.”

“I don’t know if that makes me feel any better…” Spitfire huffed as Dash replaced herself at Soarin’s side. “No issues? Nothing feels off?” She asked again.

“Nothing bad,” Soarin shrugged, a small grin forming on his face as he felt Dash lightly press against him. “I’ve actually already been up for a few hours and—”

“A FEW HOURS?!” Spitfire reacted as she glared at him. “And you didn’t come report to…” she trailed off as her eyes landed on Dash. She blinked and flattened her brow as realization hit her. Dash noticed Spitfire’s quick change, figuring she put two and two together. Dash released a few awkward chuckles while blushing and crossing one of her back legs around the other. Soarin gritted his teeth and scratched the back of his head while looking slightly upwards towards the ceiling.

“Oh… I see,” Spitfire said with a grunt as she rolled her eyes. “Glad to see you have your priorities straight,” Spitfire’s tail whipped back and forth once as she lifted an eyebrow at Soarin. “Well then… I take it Dash filled you in on the situation before you filled her in?”

Both Soarin and Dash flinched as Spitfire used a surprisingly sexual choice of words.

“Ehhhh… heheh… yeah,” Soarin replied while forcing a smile.

“Good,” Spitfire threw her captain demeanor back on incredibly quickly. “I’m making an announcement soon about a few things going forward. Get situated, but make sure you follow everypony else when they start gathering…” she suddenly paused as she blinked, as if realizing something. “Oh… and by the way, have you seen Fleetfoot? I haven’t seen her the whole time I’ve been walking around in here.”

“Fleet?” Soarin perked up as he and Dash glanced at each other. “We saw her a few hours ago when we left the—”

“Whoa!” Dash suddenly yelped as she lurched forward, catching herself before falling flat. She and Soarin turned around as Spitfire looked past them.

Fleetfoot was standing behind Dash, her blanket draped over her head almost to the point where it was covering her eyes. She frantically looked between all three of them as Spitfire stepped up between Soarin and Dash.

“Perfect timing, Fleet. Listen we—”

Spitfire barely started speaking before Fleetfoot squeaked, clasped the blanket tightly over her face, looked down and scampered right between them, escaping into the sea of eating ponies in the battledome.

The three all stared blankly at her until they lost sight of her in the crowd.

“What’s gotten into her?” Spitfire asked curiously as they all looked back at each other. Dash shrugged.

“Last we saw her, she completely ignored us on her way into the infirmary like she was in a hurry or something,” Dash recounted how Fleetfoot literally ran into them just as she did here. Spitfire sighed as Dash explained.

“Great… I wonder what she did…” Spitfire spoke her mind. “Anyway,” Spitfire turned back to the two of them. “Grab some food if you need it, we’ve got a bunch of ration boxes stacked up near the center. Make sure you follow everypony else back there in about half an hour,” she turned away. “I’m going to go see what’s going on with Fleetfoot before anything weird happens,” she said, turning away immediately to find Fleetfoot.

“Anything weird…?” Dash asked Soarin as she turned to look at him. Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

“Whenever Fleetfoot isn’t acting like herself… it usually leads to weird or awkward situations. It doesn’t happen often, thankfully… but she’s had her share of strange moments,” Soarin replied.

“Like what?” Dash chuckled as the two started walking towards the center of the battledome.

“Well… the last time she was acting strange, we found her sitting on the rafters up on the weight room ceiling, with a blank look on her face, dropping peanuts on anypony who walked beneath her…” Soarin tipped his head back and forth as he recalled the strange encounter. Dash’s ears flopped down and up.

“Say, what now?” she blinked as she tried to form the image in her head. “What the hell caused that?” she said with an amused giggle. Soarin shrugged.

“I have no idea,” he said with a smirk. “The thing about Fleetfoot is… if something is bothering her it’s obvious. She either gets super down or starts doing something weird. But…” he glanced at Dash. “It’s impossible to pry why from her. I doubt Spitfire is gonna get a peep out of her. There isn’t much that bothers her, so it’s easy to narrow down, but the specifics are impossible to dig up.”

“I’m still laughing at the thought of Fleetfoot dropping peanuts on you guys,” Dash continued to snicker.

“My personal favorite was when she started brushing Silver’s mane on a train ride back from Whinneyapolis while asking him ‘are we there yet’ every ten minutes,” Soarin recalled, as Dash burst out laughing and fell against him.

“WHAT?!” she said in between laughs. “And Silver didn’t fight it?”

“We had had a long, tiring trip and Silver looked more willing to sit there and just take it than get up and move,” Soarin laughed as he shook his head. “I thought Blaze was actually going to die laughing.”

“That totally sounds like Silver,” Dash agreed on the behavior of her mentor.

“You hungry?” Soarin asked as they drew near the ration boxes. “I just stuffed my face, I’ll be fine.”

“Sure,” Dash nodded as she reached a hoof out of her blanket and grabbed one of the boxes. “I gotta hear more of these Fleetfoot encounters,” she chuckled.

“Trust me, I’ve got some good ones,” Soarin smiled as the two made their way into the crowd of ponies to find a place to sit down.

“Gather in! Gather in!” Silver called out as the last of the Wonderbolts moved towards the center of the battledome. There was a slight bit of confusion as they all gathered around. Soarin and Air Mach were in the center, but Spitfire was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Captain Spitfire?” Little Star spoke up beside Dash as she fluttered her wings and rose up, perching atop Matteo’s head to look around the sea of ponies.

“Didn’t she call this meeting?” Matteo shared Star’s curiosity as the two looked back and forth in tandem.

“ALRIGHT EVERYPONY…Fleet! Get over here!” Spitfire’s voice suddenly caught all of their attention. Dash tipped her head up to see over Surprise in front of her, seeing Spitfire approach the center of the battledome. She was dragging Fleetfoot along with her, her hooves skidding against the floor as she held her blanket tight to her face. Fleetfoot was holding the blanket so firmly around her that the only part of her body visible was her nose sticking out of the blanket.

“Mmmmrrrr!” Fleetfoot released a high pitched noise that sounded like crying kitten as Spitfire pulled her along.

“Get… moving…!” Spitfire growled as she got behind Fleetfoot and pushed her the rest of the way with the crown of her head. Once the wrapped up Fleetfoot was sitting beside Soarin and Air Mach, Spitfire turned towards the Wonderbolts. Soarin looked like he was trying not to laugh at Fleetfoot. Air Mach was sitting with his chest puffed out, trying to look hard and stallionly as if the cold wasn’t bothering him, but he was visibly shivering regardless. Spitfire floated up into the air to address them all.

“Alright, listen up! I hope everypony is getting the rest they need, but there are a few things I want to lay out now so there are no surprises,” Spitfire began. “We’re going to keep up the current rest period for another week. I know it’s been a little rough without running water, heat, or bathroom facilities, but Rivet has a few of his staff working on a temporary solution to those issues that will make it a little easier. As for the food, we’re going to be hopefully getting more than just emergency ration boxes,” she explained. “As for a week from now, a few of the Renegades are going to be coming back here… and they are going to train us in the arts of magic deflection.”

Dash’s eyes lit up as she heard that. She was wondering if she’d get a chance to learn the interesting techniques the Renegades used, and it looked like she was going to get her chance. She wondered if she’d also get the opportunity to watch some of the Renegades fight in general. She had learned many new techniques through her ability to copy others… watching and learning the techniques of Wonderbolts from a whole generation ago would be a whole new level of awesome.

“When that time comes, we’re dropping all rank while they teach us,” Spitfire continued. “We are all equally uneducated in magic deflection, so pay attention to them and do as you’re told,” Spitfire made clear. If they wanted to be ready for the Shadowbolts, then they had to start from square one, at least with this technique that had helped the Renegades fight them successfully for so long.

“Oh… and one more thing,” Spitfire smiled and nodded to them all. “I have just received word that the Renegades have established a system that will allow them to take letters and messages from us out into the rest of Equestria. They will be able to reach nearby towns, and more importantly, Fillydelphia for longer range mail. With this system in place and ready, we will be able to communicate. Not only will this help us send word to other authorities, it will allow us to contact and reassure any friends or loved ones,” she paused, her heart swelling as she saw smiles creep onto the faces of the Wonderbolts, all who were no doubt eager to let their friends and families know they were fine. “We plan on bringing in some paper and pens tomorrow. Think about what you’d like to write tonight, and tomorrow morning we can send them all out. There is only ONE condition to these letters,” her voice took a stern tone. “Do not give out any specific information about our location. We don’t need anypony coming to look for us. It could add extra complications… and will likely put them in danger. Aside from that, anything goes. Send out word… Equestria needs to know we’re alright. It will help keep the citizens calm as we figure out how to deal with all this. That will be all.”

A happy stir moved throughout the crowd as Spitfire concluded her announcement and lowered back down to the floor. The Wonderbolts were all very excited to know they’d be able to reassure the rest of Equestria they were all right. There was no doubt a lot of confusion surrounding their fate right now. Knowing the Equestrian media, they were scrambling for answers as well as all those who read the news probably were.

“What a relief,” Fire Streak commented as he put a hoof to his chest, I can let our poor mother know how we fair,” he said towards Lightning Streak as Dash listened in directly behind them, she was certain this was going to end with a few chuckles at least.

“I know right, all the mares of Equestria will know that I’m not dead,” Lightning said casually while rubbing a hoof against his chest, completely ignoring Fire’s comment about their mother. Fire flattened his brow at Lightning as the Wonderbolts began moving about around them.

“Oh, I have no doubt that ALL the mares in Equestria would simply GRIEVE should you be lost,” Fire said sarcastically as Lightning continued to rub his chest and bounce his eyebrows.

“Hey, I’m just saying it how it is, bro!” Lightning shimmied his shoulder back and forth with a smug grin on his face. Dash glanced to the right of the Streak twins briefly as squad two drew near. “I like this whole mail thing. I know a good dozen mares I can write letters to. Hell, I can set up a few future dates while I’m at it,” Lightning continued to play himself up as if he was a master of wooing the opposite sex. Dash glanced at squad two as they were nearly upon squad three. A smile grew on Dash’s face as she saw Silver’s ears turned towards the conversation. “Once we’re out of this I’ll have some mares ready and waiting for a good time,” Lightning pounded his chest as Fire continued to shoot a flat expression towards him. Silver cleared his throat as he and his squad passed by.

“I think all these mares of yours have better things to do with eight seconds of their time,” Silver said plainly as they passed.

High Winds burst into laughter right behind him, followed immediately by Blaze and Surprise as they all fell to the floor, rolling around as they guffawed. Lightning Streak’s confident expression was completely gone, replaced by wide eyes and shrunken pupils as Fire and Wave Chill tried their hardest not to lose their composure as well. Silver just kept on walking without another word.

“Dude…” Lightning streak shook his head as he folded his ears back. “Low blow…”

“Doubt you’ll even get that,” Silver said, looking back as he kept walking. The three mares laughing on the floor erupted with a new round of laughs as both Fire and Wave lost control and broke into laughter as well.

“And this is where I stop talking,” Lightning admitted defeat in the wake of Silver’s quick wit.

Misty Fly looked back and forth, confused. Fire turned to her as he tried to control his chuckling, using the sign language to relay what had happened. It was shaky and he had to repeat a few of the signals due to him laughing, but once he got the full message to her, Misty’s eyes widened and she immediately tipped over onto the floor. She rolled onto her back, her blanket falling off as she kicked her hooves up in the air. She shook lightly as she laughed silently, her mouth open, but no sound coming from her throat she shared the same level of amusement with the other mares.

“I wasn’t paying attention, why did all the mares in front of us suddenly collapse?” Squall asked as Dash turned back to her squad while giggling.

“Silver just owned Lightning Streak,” Dash explained as she continued to snicker while squinting her eyes shut.

“What do you…? Ah…” Squall suddenly went from curious to looking over Dash’s shoulder, his eyes widening slightly. Dash blinked and turned her head to see Soarin standing directly behind her, examining the scene behind them.

“Did I miss something funny?” he said with a pout.

“Yes,” Dash said as she leaned backwards into him.

“Damn,” Soarin chuckled as he watched Surprise, Blaze, Misty, and High Winds roll on the floor around an extremely defeated Lightning Streak.

He looked towards Dash and squad Foxtrot. Matteo and Little Star were trying to pull Twister out of Matteo’s blanket to no avail, but Soarin’s focus was drawn to Squall, looking directly at Soarin.

“Oh…” Soarin blinked as he noticed the scar. Soarin’s ears flopped down.

There was a brief silence as the two stared at each other. Dash looked between the two of them, gasping quietly as she eventually remembered…

“Glad to see there wasn’t too much damage,” Soarin spoke up, his tone slightly somber. “How are you feeling?” he asked Squall. Squall didn’t reply for a moment.

“I’m… fine,” he said in a hushed tone, looking away from Soarin.

Dash flinched as Soarin suddenly moved. She stepped back as Soarin moved directly up to Squall and put a hoof on Squall’s shoulder. Squall clearly did not see the gesture coming, because his eyes grew and his pupils shifted back and forth between Soarin’s hoof and Soarin himself. Soarin wasn’t as in tune with Squall’s desire for personal space as Dash was, but because Soarin was a superior officer, Squall didn’t offer any protest. That was something Silver had really drilled into his head.

“Look, Squall… I know it’s not good to dwell on ‘what ifs’… but…” Soarin closed his eyes and sighed. “I was within range to grab you and pull you out of the way of that magic sword, but I hesitated because I was worried about being hit by it myself. If I hadn’t had that single moment of doubt, I may have been able to prevent… this. I’m sorry about that,” he said while looking over the scar on his face. Squall simply stared straight at Soarin, as if unsure what to say… or if he should say anything. “That was a real fearless move you pulled and you were the only one that landed a clean hit on the enemy because of it. Honestly, we all should have followed your example out there,” Soarin gave Squall a weak smile as he removed a hoof from his shoulder. “I know I can’t quite make up for getting your face slashed… but if you ever need anything, any help or any assistance… let me know. I feel like I owe it to you.”

“Uh…” Squall blinked before looking down. “Sure, alright,” he said before turning and quickly moving away. Soarin blinked, not quite expecting that response, but Dash quickly moved up beside Soarin.

“Don’t worry, he heard you loud and clear,” Dash reassured him. “Squall’s just… not quite used to praise. He’s a little sheepish about it, even from us.”

“Oh, so… I kind of just overwhelmed him, didn’t I?” Soarin said, awkwardly gritting his teeth while looking towards Squall, who was sitting with his back turned to Soarin. Little Star was looking him over, trying to figure out why Squall was suddenly hiding his face.

“Probably,” Dash giggled as she leaned into him. “But don’t worry… I think Squall needed to hear that. An apology and acknowledgement from a Wonderbolt like you isn’t something you get often.”

“I’m not that…” Soarin paused, blinked, and looked down to see Dash looking flatly at him. “Hey, I caught myself that time,” he said with a chuckle, causing Dash’s flat look to turn into a smile.

“Good,” she said as she nuzzled his shoulder. Soarin grinned, tipping his head to acknowledge her muzzle as something else came to mind.

“So… who are you planning on writing to?” Soarin asked her. Dash stopped mid-nuzzle as she took in the question and thought about it.

“Oh…” Dash blinked as she pulled back from Soarin. “I mean… I was just going to write a letter to my parents and friends saying I’m alright… but now that you mention it… I think I’m going to put a little more thought in my letter to Ponyville,” Dash thought aloud.

“Are you going to write to Princess Twilight?” Soarin asked while tipping his head to the side. “I thought Luna said we weren’t going to get the Elements of Harmony involved until we had a better grasp on the identity of our enemy.”

“That’s true,” Dash nodded. “But… I can at least let them know about the situation, something I probably should have done earlier…” she huffed, cursing herself for not thinking of it. She had a resource in Twilight. While she wasn’t sure if Twilight would be able to send word back, she was the first pony Dash would trust in terms of possibly finding some information on what they were up against. Everything had become so hectic so fast that the thought had completely slipped Dash’s mind. “If anything, I can let my friends know I’m alright, and I can tell them to be ready to be called on short notice. Plus, Twilight may be able to get some information for us… maybe…” she tipped her head slightly. “Though if Luna doesn’t know exactly what we’re dealing with, I’m not sure if Twilight’s going to find much.”

“Anything helps though,” Soarin agreed. “And Princess Twilight has ties to Princess Cadance, right?” Soarin asked, earning a nod from Dash. “I’m sure Spitfire will be sending word to all the major authorities, including the Crystal Empire, but having closer connections will help get the word out as well.”

“There we go then,” Dash smiled up at him. “So what about you?” she asked.

“Well…” Soarin smiled. “Spitfire is handling the technical stuff. So I’m just writing to my family,” Soarin explained.

“And you’re going to tell them everything right?” Dash poked him.

“Everything?” Soarin eyed her curiously. Dash sighed as she tapped her forehead. “Oh…” Soarin looked up at the horn. “I… dunno if I’m going to do that yet.”

“Soarin…” Dash huffed and pouted at him.

“I know, I know… but…” he shrugged. “My mother will be worried enough that the Wonderbolts suddenly disappeared. I don’t want to burden her with twice the worry.”

“And your father won’t care?” Dash asked skeptically. Soarin chuckled.

“My father cares, but he leans on the side of trusting my ability to handle things… my mother is a bit… paranoid. I don’t blame her, I’ve given her plenty of heart attacks throughout my childhood and life, but that’s just her being a good mother,” he paused and looked at Dash, who was still giving him a stern look. “Look, I’ll let them know when the time is right. For now I just want to do it this way.”

“Fine…” Dash sighed, not agreeing with Soarin, but it was his choice.

Soarin frowned at her clear exasperation with him, but he understood it, and felt he deserved it.

“So I wonder,” Soarin spoke up to change the subject. Dash looked at him as he glanced around and smiled. “I wonder who the rest of the Wonderbolts will be writing to?”

“I think I may know a few…” Dash spoke up as she glanced through the crowd of Wonderbolts and her eyes landed on Storm Front, who was currently being given a noogie by Macho Savage. “All I know is… there are a lot of friends, families, and loved ones out there who are gonna be a hell of a lot happier tomorrow.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

The art in this chapter is by: Foxenawolf

Oh Lightning Streak... you certainly don't do yourself any favors :rainbowlaugh:

Short, but fun. And it looks like we're going to see some letters being sent out... i wonder who will write what... and how said letters will be delivered? :moustache:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup: (And it's great to be back in the regular swing! :scootangel:)

Chapter 102: Reassurance from the Shadows

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
This chapter was edited by both Kestrel and Lucky424

Chapter 102: Reassurance from the Shadows

Dear Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie,

I’m writing to let you all know that despite any strange things you have heard or read… you don’t need to worry, I’m still alive and kicking. You know me, too awesome to kick the bucket so easily. I just wanted to get that out of the way, since I’m sure Fluttershy has lost sleep over me as it is. Let everypony know I’m okay, especially Scoots, Thunderlane, Derpy, and Bulk Biceps. In fact let, those four know the Wonderbolts are okay as well.

Now… onto business. I can’t give you any specifics about our location for safety reasons, but we are being hunted. The Shadowbolts I’ve told you about in the past are on our trail and trying to wipe us out for reasons that we are still trying to put together. The compound was not destroyed. This may be hard to believe, but it moved, it can fly just like the Shadowbolt base. Also, you can rest easy Twilight, Princess Luna is with us. We’re also not taking this all on alone. Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust, the three who helped us during the last Shadowbolt incident, have formed a resistance force called the Renegades, consisting of Shadowbolts who broke away and former Wonderbolts. It’s because of them that we survived and their support is keeping us alive.

I’m not sure yet… but based on discussions with Luna, we may need the Elements of Harmony at some point. I don’t know when exactly, but be ready to be called upon in the near future. Something big is happening. We still don’t know what it is, nor do we know how everything ties in. But it’s clear we are going to need everything when the time comes. And hey, just another day, another problem to solve, that’s what we do best!

But really, I’m alright, I promise. I swear on my Element of Loyalty that I’ll see you all again soon.

With all the love and awesomeness,

Rainbow Dash

(P.S.) Twilight, you won’t be able to send anything back, but regardless, could you look up something for me for when we meet up again? Please see if you can find anything on pink, magically infused crystals. They are apparently a form of chaos magic, at least according to Discord. Also, could you see if there is anything, ANYTHING at all about something or somepony named Kayn Ost? Lastly, and this is more of a personal request. Could you look up anything about earth ponies or pegasi in the past who have used an ancient artifact to learn or control magic? You know, like the one Soarin was wearing when you guys showed up at the banquet. I’d like to know, if anything just to know more about it. Thanks Twi, hopefully we can meet up again soon.

Dear Mom and Dad,

How have you been? It’s been an incredibly long time since I’ve had a chance to talk to you both… or even write for that matter. I’ll get the obvious out of the way. I’m sure the media has put quite the twist on whatever they think the current situation is but… I’m fine, as are all of us.

The compound moved, it wasn’t destroyed. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s way too complicated to explain. There is a major threat to Equestria on the loose, but they are so largely focused on us that you can all carry on without worry for now. We will take care of business, we always do.

Also, I’m sorry that I’ve been so distant. My life has been so busy since I became a lead commander. Many things have happened… many of which I believe you have a right to know about. I love you both so much and I promise that sometime soon I will come visit and catch up. In fact, I have somepony I want you… need you to meet.

Until then, please rest easy. Things have been rough, but we’re the Wonderbolts. There’s nothing we can’t handle.

Love,

Soarin

(P.S.) Tell Glide his ass is grass if he touched anything in my room.

Dear Serenity,

Part of me would like to think that you’re concerned about the explosion and the disappearance of our compound, but at the same time I’ll just assume you’re not even worried because you know I’m too stubborn to die. Well, you’re reading this so now you know you’re right, as always. There have been a lot of crazy things happening and while it’s been hard on these old bones, I’m doing my best to keep up with all the kids.

I’m not gonna sugarcoat it and say that we’re safe, or that we’ll be out of danger anytime soon, but for the moment, we are fine. I won’t bother you with the details because I know all you’ll say is ‘suck it up and come home when you can.’ I wouldn’t miss a chance to come home and get a no-nonsense lecture from you as I drag myself right to bed.

All joking aside. I’m still alive. We’ve had some close calls, but that’s part of the job. I’ve lasted this long, I’m not gonna clock out now after all this time. The day my career as a Wonderbolt ends will be when my wings stop working. I refuse to let anything else take me down. I promised you that someday I’d come home, and we’d enjoy the rest of our lives away from all the crazy Wonderbolt spotlights and dangerous missions. That’s a promise I intend to keep.

Please let the kids know their old stallion is still up and chugging. I love you.

Silver Lining

“Hey, damn old ass!”

Silver flattened his brow as he put down the pen and began looking over his letter. Blaze suddenly trotted up behind him and draped an arm over his shoulder while leaning into him.

“You writin’ to your chick?” she asked as she tried to read over his shoulder. Silver quickly and smoothly folded the paper in half while snorting.

“Yes, Blaze. I’m writing to my ‘chick,’” he replied with an exasperated grunt.

“I feel sorry for her if she has to put up with you,” Blaze added with a yawn. “I bet sex is fucking difficult when you’re old,” she added purely for the reason of being vulgar and believing she was being witty.

“Please resist the urge to dry hump the mail slot,” Silver said as he grabbed the envelope beside him. “I know how you are with tight openings.”

“Tight open…” Blaze trailed off as she thought over what he said.

“What are you guys…” High Winds leaned in beside Blaze and yawned. “Talking… about…?”

“WHAT?!” Blaze pushed back from Silver while glaring at him. “I oughtta slap your shit, you ancient—”

“Better hurry up and finish your letter to Lesbia,” Silver said casually as he stuffed his letter into the envelope. Blaze flattened her brow and began to growl.

“You’re asking for it…” she grinded her teeth together, losing her cool even though it was her own fault for challenging Silver. “Give me more of your shit and I’ll cook you up a nasty hoof to the face.”

“Blaze, we all know you don’t cook,” Silver said as he stood up, sealing the letter. Blaze eyed him curiously.

“The fuck makes you think I can’t?” Blaze recklessly continued to bite back. Silver finally turned his head to look at her while nonchalantly lifting his brow.

“We all know you prefer to eat out,” Silver said while giving High Winds a brief glance. Blaze froze with her mouth agape. High Winds yawned and looked towards Blaze.

“Well,” she yawned again. “He’s got you there…”

“YOU…” Blaze leapt at Silver, her blanket somehow remaining around her as she launched herself. “SON OF A—”

Silver took a single step backwards causing Blaze to completely whiff in her attempt to hit him. Silver gently held his letter in his mouth as he reached forward, grabbed Blaze’s blanket with one hoof as he shoved her to the battledome floor with his other hoof. He smoothly pulled her blanket around until he had her completely wrapped in it like a parcel and tied it off, leaving her trapped inside while flailing and swearing excessively. Silver placed his letter in his hoof, moving it back to tuck it under his wing as he grabbed the Blaze-in-a-blanket and held it towards High Winds.

“Candy gram,” he said simply as he dropped Blaze at Winds’ hooves and walked towards where the Renegades were collecting letters. High Winds just yawned before laying down on the struggling Blaze.

“Just what I’ve always wanted…” she said sleepily, dozing off as Blaze continued to yell and make up a few new words when she ran out of ones to shout.

Just as Spitfire had said, the very next morning, Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust showed up with a group of hoof picked Renegades that were going to make mail runs for them. With Comet and Steady Wing among those selected, it was obvious they had chosen their fastest and most elusive Renegades. The Wonderbolts had been given a large supply of pens, paper, and envelopes to write letters to their friends and families, along with a supply of postage stamps for any letters being dropped off in Fillydelphia for further long distance sending.

The letters were being gathered by the Renegades at the front doors of the battle dome, organized depending on location being sent. Single Renegades were making runs to nearby locations while a small group of five waited for the letters being taken to Fillydelphia.

Soarin and Rainbow Dash had just finished writing their letters, and were making their way over to drop them off to the right ponies, at least after stopping for a moment to see High Winds sleeping on a blanket that was both shaking violently and swearing.

Dash leaned into Soarin, looking at his envelope to see the address as they walked towards the doors of the battledome.

“What are you doing?” Soarin asked while playfully leaning back to stop her.

“Making sure you’re actually sending a letter,” she said with a smirk. Soarin frowned and let his ears flop down.

“Do I really seem that detached from my family?” he asked as Dash quickly shook her head and put a hoof up on his shoulder.

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” she giggled. “You’d think by now you’d know me well enough.”

“I forgot about your sarcasm for a moment,” Soarin chuckled in response as he and Dash approached the group of five Renegades heading to Fillydelphia. Soarin’s letter was going to Manehatten, which wasn’t too far from them compared to some of the letters heading out, namely Matteo’s letter to the Griffon Kingdom, Squall’s to the Crystal empire, or Little Star’s to Whinneyapolis. But it was far enough away to warrant a ‘long distance’ send.

Dash examined the Renegades handling the Fillydelphia run. They were all former Shadowbolts, which she found odd. The Shadowbolts weren’t quite as team oriented as the Wonderbolts. They were probably chosen for their speed and technique. Besides, Dash was more surprised to see Squall’s letter at the top of the pile beside Soarin’s.

But despite how strange his parents may be, Squall still decided to let them know he was fine. Though knowing him, he probably did it to avoid being smothered with worry upon seeing them again.

Soarin followed Dash as they made their way over to Comet, who was holding a paper sign that read: ‘Ponyville.’ He had no letters with him.

“Finally!” Comet chuckled as Dash hoofed over the letter to him. “I was worried I wouldn’t be getting any.”

“Might be the only one,” Dash smiled… admittedly a little bit in awe. She still had yet to communicate much with the retired Wonderbolts.

“Better than nothing,” Comet nodded while looking at the letter. “Princess Twilight Sparkle?!” he smirked and ran a hoof through his mane. “Delivering to royalty! I must look my best!” He hammed it up with a suave tone as Dash and Soarin stared at him awkwardly. Somepony behind them cleared their throat loudly. Soarin and Dash both glanced to their left to see Princess Luna walk up beside them, her horn alight, holding three letters in her magic.

“Former second commander Comet…” Luna began with a stern tone. “Princess Twilight Sparkle is young enough to be your daughter,” she stated as she hovered two letters towards him.

“Like that would stop him from trying,” Silver’s voice came from behind them as he walked by, carrying his letter to a snickering Steady Wing for a Canterlot delivery.

As Dash finished chuckling along with Soarin and Steady, she caught a glimpse of the two letters that Luna gave to Comet. The first was addressed to Twilight, but the other was covered by it. Dash looked back to see the third letter, still in Luna’s magic, was addressed to Princess Cadance. Dash looked towards the hidden letter to Ponyville as Luna hovered her third letter over towards the long distance pile.

“Luna, who else are you writing to in Ponyville?” Dash asked curiously. Luna looked down at her and smiled.

“We have been pen pals with little Pipsqueak since our first Nightmare Night visit to Ponyville,” she frowned. “It pains us to think of how worried for us he must be.”

“Pipsqueak writes to you?” Dash blinked as her pupils widened slightly. “God, that’s cute.”

“Indeed,” Luna’s face brightened back up again. “He is such a darling little colt.”

The three of them perked up as Spitfire crossed directly in front of them with a pile of letters tucked in her wing.

“This one goes here… and this one here…” she dropped letters as she moved by. All of them had the official Wonderbolt stamp seal on them. “And here…” she dropped one addressed to Twilight next to Comet as she moved on. Even Twilight was getting an official letter of their status, despite not being much involved in official authority yet. Princess perk by the looks of it.

“Sheesh…” Soarin tipped his head to the side as Spitfire moved along. “Hope she had time to write back to her parents…” he thought out loud as Lightning Dust passed by behind them with a small stack of letters she had collected and suddenly halted in her tracks. Soarin, Dash, and Luna all turned and glanced at her as she stared at the letter on top quizzically, then glanced up at Dash.

“What the…?” Dust blinked as she looked back at the letter. Dash’s curiosity got the better of her.

“What’s up?” Dash asked as she casually approached Dust, who simply shrugged.

“Uh… I’ve got a letter here addressed to you,” she said as she flipped the letter off the top of the pile with her wing. It jumped up and floated towards Dash.

“Huh?” Dash blinked as she snatched the letter out of the air in her teeth and dropped it into her hoof. As Dust had said, it had her name on the envelope. Dash stole a brief glance at Soarin and Luna, who were both looking at her with curiosity. “Might as well…” Dash turned the envelope over and opened it.

The instant the seal was broken, Twister’s head popped out of the letter.

“DIDN’T EXPECT THIS ONE, DIDJA?!” he yelled in Dash’s face as he reached out and placed a party hat on her head before grabbing a party horn and blaring it into her face, causing her to squint as her mane blew back.

Without a single yelp or flinch, Dash reached her free hoof up and forcefully shoved Twister all the way back into the envelope and slammed her hooves tight to keep it closed.

“You know…” Dash said in a very calm and casual manner as she turned and looked at the surprised Soarin, Lightning Dust, and Luna. “I honestly don’t know why I didn’t expect that,” she said as a foal-like giggling noise continued to come from the envelope. She looked back at the envelope, noticing that it had completely stopped moving and making noise.

“AH!” Luna suddenly shouted. Dash turned to see Twister sitting beside her with the end of her long flowing mane in his mouth, nomming on it.

“You have a TASTY mane!” Twister said, slightly muffled with his mouth full. Dash sighed as Soarin and Lightning Dust continued to look back and forth between the envelope in Dash’s hooves and Twister, trying to make heads or tails of what they just saw, but Dash knew better. She simply shook her head as Luna tried to pull her mane away, but Twister slid along the floor on his plot, keeping pace with her.

“I hope we’re not stuck here in the mountains for too long,” Dash sighed. “I can’t imagine what’s going to happen if Twister gets bored…”

“And finally… here,” Spitfire dropped several official letters into the pile being taken to Fillydelphia. She took a deep breath and exhaled, pushing a faint cloud of mist into the air in front of her as she looked at the last letters. It had taken her a long time to write all of those. She had even gotten up earlier to get a head start on the rest. With all the official business out of the way… she opened her wing and dropped two letters into her hoof.

One was to her mother, the other to her father. They had to be separate letters due to her parents being divorced. She had only met Blaze’s father twice, never getting a chance to get to know him… though she had to wonder where Blaze got her foul mouth, because it was definitely not from their mother.

Not that it bothered her. It had been that way for years now. She had gotten used to it and was busy all the time anyway. She gladly used part of her enormous paycheck to support her family, it didn’t matter what their marital status was. She dropped the two letters into the pile.

She looked up at the group of Shadowbolt Renegades handling the trip to Fillydelphia, noticing that one of the five had disappeared while she was walking around.

“Have we collected all the mail?” Descent’s voice from behind her interrupted her search for the fifth Renegade. Spitfire turned to look at Descent before acknowledging his question and looking around checking.

“It looks like we have a few still writing,” she said as she scanned the Wonderbolts. She turned back to Descent, a question coming to mine. “So I have to ask, what exactly is your plan to get all of these out? I mean, I’ve been wondering in general how exactly you’ve all been able to remain so elusive. Isn’t the blizzard affecting you as well?”

“Our best weather handlers are the best for a reason,” Descent chuckled. “We have about fifty of them managing this storm in two different shifts, all the best weather control ponies you’ll find. They can easily make flash manipulations or weaken certain parts of the blizzard… redirect wind currents, giving us pseudo-pathways through the blizzard… If a Shadowbolt comes into range, they can close it up, or even strengthen it just as fast. With their help and our techniques it’s been a breeze to keep the Shadowbolts completely out of range and chasing false leads.”

“That is pretty impressive,” Spitfire had to agree. She knew there were a few retired Wonderbolts among those she saw leave to create the blizzard.

“Rest assured, we also have our fastest and most elusive Renegades gathered to handle the mail. They will get the job done. They always do,” Descent added as he and Spitfire watch the last batch of Wonderbolts come forward with their letters.

“Descent, are we all clear?” a new voice caught Spitfire’s attention, one she had heard before. She turned to see the Renegade with the wing braces approach, the braces creaking as he stretched and folded his awkward wings. Spitfire’s eyes widened slightly as Descent turned.

“Patience, Astral. We’ve almost gathered all the letters,” Descent assured him.

“Good, I need to get back up in the air. Getting too stiff just sitting around,” Astral huffed as he continued to move his bent wings in and out.

“Just make sure your team is ready,” Descent snorted as Astral rolled his eyes and did just that. Descent turned and glanced at Spitfire as her eyes remained glued to Astral. “Something wrong?” He asked. Spitfire blinked and looked towards Descent. She opened her mouth to speak, but paused and closed it, shaking her head back and forth for a moment.

“No,” she lied about her curiosity… and worry. Descent could see right through it, but he didn’t press the subject. He was beginning to understand Spitfire’s thought process, and as one leader to another, he respected that she would make herself heard eventually. “Looks like the last letters are being dropped. Again, thanks for the help.” Spitfire dodged any discussion. She was… puzzled. Her morals and the Wonderbolt code telling her one thing, but her constant curiosity told her to not bring it up. Descent was spot on, she would speak up once she felt the need to.

“Good, then we can…” Descent trailed off as his head turned and looked down towards the other Renegades that were delivering to nearby locations. Spitfire tipped her head to the side before following Descent’s eyes.

Descent was looking at Comet, who was having a discussion with Steady Wing, but that’s not what had his attention. Storm Front was dropping a letter into Comet’s small pile of letters. Storm looked up at Comet for a moment, before smiling down at the letter and going about his business.

“Excuse me,” Descent said indirectly to Spitfire as he walked towards Comet, keeping his eyes on Storm as he moved. He kept his pace slow until Storm was back mingling with the rest of the Wonderbolts, picking it up into a slow trot as he moved all the way over, and stopping in front of Comet’s small pile of envelopes.

He looked back over his shoulder to make sure Storm was out of sight before looking down at the envelope. It was upside-down. He quickly reached down and grabbed it off the top of the pile, turning it over. He blinked as he read the front.

“Derpy… Hooves?” he read the name while lifting an eyebrow, stealing another glance over his shoulder. He read further, his eyes widening. “Ponyville?” he stared down at the address.

Ponyville… the small town in the middle of nowhere that they were sent to destroy… the event a little more than a year ago that changed everything for him and the Shadowbolts. Storm Front was sending a letter there?

“Oh, is that the last one?” Comet’s voice alerted Descent, who quickly pressed the letter against his chest as if he was caught red-hooved. “Perfect, I can get going then,” Comet said as he reached for the pile on the floor.

“Wait,” Descent suddenly reached forward and stopped Comet’s arm. Comet blinked and looked towards Descent curiously. “Help Steady Wing with the delivery to Canterlot. I’ll make the Ponyville delivery.”

“Huh? But…” Comet flinched as Descent glared at him.

“I’ll make the Ponyville delivery,” he repeated with a low growl in the back of his throat.

“Yeesh, fine, fine…” Comet put up his hooves and backed off, moving towards Steady as the Renegades began gathering up the mail in small saddlebags and heading out of the battledome. Descent stole a quick glance at the rest of the letters in the stack. “Princess Twilight Sparkle… Princess Twilight Sparkle… Pipsqueak?” Descent read off the names as he saw what else he had to deliver with this job he had decided to take on. He shrugged as he picked up the saddlebag that Comet was issued and strapped it on, placing the first four letters in the pouch before looking at Storm’s again. “Derpy Hooves…” he repeated the name as he looked over the address again. With his curiosity about this apparent important acquaintance of his son’s fresh on his mind, he placed the last letter in the pouch, sealing it tight before following behind the rest of the Renegades. They all looked rather surprised to see him suddenly include himself in the mail run.

What awaited Descent in Ponyville?

“Heh, you’ve got some nice moves for an amateur!”

“I’m full of surprises!”

“Well? What are you waiting for? Surprise me.”

“Who the hell are you?!”

“More than you could ever handle, colt!”

“Hmph…” Descent grunted as he cleared the edge of blizzard, following directly behind Steady Wing, Comet, and Astral’s group of five. Six Shadowbolts burst out of the blizzard, following behind as their pink crystals began to glow.

However, none of the mail carrying Renegades reacted to them or panicked. Bomber, Cannon Ball, Pixie, Fairy, and Valkyrie were waiting for them. The five dove down from above, flying the opposite direction of the mail carriers. Valkyrie, without warning him, grabbed Cannon Ball and flung him at the Shadowbolt in front. Cannon quickly curled into a ball and slammed into the Shadowbolt’s face, knocking him backwards and colliding with his five comrades who all foolishly flew in a straight line. With them dazed, Pixie and Fairy moved in and flew in quick circles around them, causing rotating winds that spun the Shadowbolts around to make them dizzy.

“HRRRRAAAAAAAH!” Valkyrie released a battle cry from beside Bomber as the two rammed themselves into the disoriented Shadowbolts, forcefully pushing them back into the blizzard.

Descent stole a quick glance over his shoulder as Cannon, Pixie, and Fairy moved back into the blizzard before focusing on his task. The carriers began to split off in different directions, as did he, aiming himself in the direction of… Ponyville.

His objective was clear, his curiosity was specific, but unexpectedly… this decision was causing lots of memories to resurface.

“Having fun, Descent?”

“Heh, I like this colt. I crammed his face right into the dirt, full speed. But he still has the gusto to resist. I admire his determination and willpower, but in the end, he was just another weakling. How was your opponent, Nightshade?”

“Spunky, but careless. She wasn’t much of a fight. I saw Starry Skies make quick work of the third. She’s already above, making the storm clouds. Are these chumps really the lead squad of the Wonderbolts? These weaklings took over for Blazetail and Flashwind? If this is the legacy of the legendary Gold Squad, then all the apples have fallen far from the tree.”

“Nightshade…” Descent spoke to himself as he cleared the expanse of the mountain range and flew over an open field. He remembered how blindly he followed Nightshade’s orders. How his own loyalty was used against him. He had fought countless battles and taken on so many jobs without question… only to have one battle, that battle, change everything for him. It wasn’t just because of afterward, when he learned Nightshade took on the job just to get more of the crystals. It was also because of Soarin. Descent was far stronger than him… but even badly beaten and injured, Soarin kept pushing back. Nightshade and Starry were right there with him, but even the presence of all three could not douse the flame of Soarin’s will to fight.

“This bastard just won’t die.”

“His mind has completely overpowered his body. I doubt he’d stay down even if we ripped his legs off.”

“You are quite a piece of work. I’ve never seen a pony fight so hard past their limit. You are a rare find indeed. As much as it pains me to kill you, it has been beyond satisfying! YES! CLING TO LIFE! SHOW US JUST HOW STRONG YOUR DESPERATION IS!”

“HEY! Captain, cut it out before you start rubbing yourself all over me too! Save your twisted fantasies for another time!”

Descent shook his head as he continued to glide at high speeds across the grasslands, finding the rail line that led to Ponyville and locking onto it, following it the rest of the way.

Perhaps that’s why they failed… because Nightshade was wrong. Desperation? Soarin wasn’t fighting desperately. He was fighting like a warrior, one that wouldn’t go down until they had squeezed every drop of life out of his body. Nightshade’s overconfidence ended up being her undoing. Her inability to properly gauge Spitfire made her careless… and Descent’s own underestimation of Soarin was what led him to his first defeat at the hooves of someone he was physically superior to in every way.

“Oh, that’s it! I’m going to smash your smug little head until your eyes pop out!”

“Better watch your own!”

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

“THAT’S RIGHT YOU OVERGROWN BULL! COME AT ME!”

The most humbling experience of his life and one that he would never forget. While the discovery of his son helped unlock his emotions… the discovery of Soarin unlocked great wisdom. Descent had fought countless opponents that matched him in power, speed, and ability. Each one was a great battle, and he had earned many scars… such as those he obtained fighting the Master of the Sky, Massimo. But Soarin was the first opponent who, despite being inferior at the time, took him head on and defeated him.

It proved to Descent that true strength comes from devotion and pride. Soarin refused to lie down, and pushed back again and again until he achieved victory, no matter what the cost to protect Ponyville and others that he held dear. It was this devotion that really made Descent take a long, hard look at the direction the Shadowbolts were going. Then after his second confrontation with Soarin and the Wonderbolts… it led him to make one of the hardest decisions he ever made. To push his undying loyalty to Nightshade aside… and leave the Shadowbolts with the intention of someday returning them to their former glory… the real Shadowbolts… his family.

“Hm?” Descent gazed forward as he followed the tracks. He had been flying for a good half an hour now. On the horizon he could see what looked like a two story tower and several hay-thatched rooftops. He simply stared for a moment, realizing that his destination was closing in. He pitched upward, shooting into the air until he was flying sky-high and stared down.

It was Ponyville.

Descent came to a halt, hovering in the air and looking over the rather small area that the town covered, at least it was small compared to Canterlot and most of the other cities and towns he had been to. Of course this wasn’t the first time he had seen Ponyville… but it was the first time he had been back since the battle… and the multiple revelations he had come to.

“Such a small, peaceful looking place…” Descent spoke to himself as his eyes scanned around and moved towards the dark, murky looking forest nearby as well as the open field next to it.

He stared for a long time at the two areas. It was the very place that he, Nightshade, and Starry Skies had battled the Wonderbolts. He sighed as he took note of a clear imbalance in the trees and grass surrounding the area. It seemed there was still a scar from their tornado. Luckily, the tornado had been stopped before it reached the village, which remained unscathed.

“Heh…” Descent chuckled as he thought. Luckily? How ironic that he’d think that way. He was one of the three controlling the damn tornado and now he considered their failure to be lucky.

He looked over his shoulder at the saddlebag that hung off of his side, and then back towards Ponyville below. He had letters to deliver… but at the same time, he was incredibly curious.

He was about to see with his own eyes the very town he was sent to destroy a year ago. Just what was in store for him?

Descent was no doubt a little hesitant to simply land in the middle of Ponyville and start looking around. It was a thought that hit him halfway down. He was wearing a rather menacing looking outfit, which didn’t help the fact that he himself looked a little menacing to say the least. The Shadowbolt uniform was designed to be intimidating and he felt it wasn’t worth risking anypony possibly noticing it and panicking. He doubted that anypony living in such a small secluded town would know of the Shadowbolts, but he, Starry, and Nightshade did attack the weather team here. The possibility was very slim, but in case anypony managed to catch a glimpse of them, he didn’t want to cause a stir.

Descent took a sharp dip downward as he glided near the outer edge of the town, quickly landing between a pair of large bushes behind the last house on the town’s edge. Even if he was on the far edge of town, he didn’t want to risk being spotted by pegasi in the high speed airways.

Confident that he had landed unseen, he ducked behind the bushes and set his bag of mail on the grass. He shed his uniform, headband, and goggles, neatly folding them up and hiding them beneath the bushes before strapping the small mail bag back to his side.

He grunted as he stole a quick glance at his hidden uniform. He’d look less suspicious without it, but it’s not like simply taking off the flight suit would get rid of the intimidation factor. He was a large, mean looking pegasus who was covered in battle scars. He began to wonder if this whole thing was a bad idea. Comet wouldn’t have stood out quite so much. There wasn’t much he could do about it now either way, but regardless, he was being driven by his desire to find out who this pony his son had written to. Not to mention he also had to get several messages to Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Descent took a deep breath and released a long, gentle exhale before he stepped out from behind the house and started walking down the path into town.

Absolutely nothing happened as he suspected it would.

As he grew closer to the center of town he started passing several ponies. However, while he drew many looks, none were of suspicion, worry, or fear. In fact… nearly everypony who gave him a look also flashed him a smile. Some of them even said hello.

Descent was immediately awestruck by how incredibly friendly and neighborly everypony was… he wasn’t even from Ponyville and he was being acknowledged like a long time resident. His curiosity drove him to stop and observe once or twice as he moved through town. The genuine smiles, the friendly greetings, and the seemingly carefree nature of everypony no matter what they were doing… he had never seen anything like it.

Descent would be the first to admit that he was extremely biased when it came to judging communities. He grew up as an abandoned colt in the slums of Canterlot. His dreadfully harsh and unforgiving foalhood experiences had painted a negative picture of society as a whole for him. Because of this, he generally preferred to avoid civilization, feeling that no matter where he went, he would always see the worst of things first, and that alone would shape his entire judgment of the city or town. And that was exactly the case nearly everywhere he went… but then there was Ponyville.

Try as his brain might, there was nothing, absolutely nothing in Ponyville, at least on the surface, that fed his habit of negative judgment. Everypony was smiling, everypony was happy. And what really took the cake was that none of it looked forced. It was all natural and genuine. So much so that Descent felt if all the ponies around would randomly turned to him and throw him a welcome party, it would still feel natural.

“HEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!”

“GAH!” Descent yelped, rearing back and hopping several steps back as somepony shouted in his face. He shook his head out and blinked. The space directly in front of him was vacant for only a second before a pink pony with a large, puffy mane was suddenly directly in his face with wide eyes and the largest smile he had ever seen in his life.

“Oh my gosh! You’re a scary looking pony!” the pink mare said bluntly with the smile on her face never fading. “I’ve never seen you in town before! Does that mean…” the pink mare’s eyes suddenly grew followed by her gasping so hard and loudly that it was a wonder her lungs didn’t suck her face and head all the way down her throat. “YOU’RE NEW IN TOWN?!”

“Uh…” Descent had absolutely no idea what to say to this… overly ‘happy’ pony. He didn’t know how else to describe—

“Overly happy works!”

“Wha…?!” Descent blinked and she was gone. He flinched as he felt a set of hooves touch lightly to his back.

“Wow! You’re really big too! Not anywhere near as big as Big Macintosh, but still!” her head dropped down in front of him. “BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT! LET ME THROW YOU A WELCOME PARTY!”

“A welcome—?”

“PARTY!!!!!!” she yelled as the sound of noise makers suddenly blared out all around them. Descent’s eyes went wide as the pink mare dropped down in front of him with… a cannon?! It was aimed directly at his face! He slammed his eyes shut as she pulled the cord, but all he felt was a burst of air pressure, followed by confetti shooting all over him. He opened his eyes and flattened his expression as confetti lay draped all over him, one piece hanging over his nose.

He snorted and shook his nose once, dropping the confetti from his face. This was… quite an interesting greeting. Not only that but… despite how loud and rambunctious this mare was, nopony was stopping and staring at them. A few glanced and smiled at her, but otherwise they went about their business as if this was a normal occurrence.

Apparently this pink pony was known for this… and it was something they were all used to. While it was a little annoying to him, it was another case where the citizens of this town seemed to be welcoming and friendly, even if this case was… more than a bit over the top.

“Oh, I’m an advocate of over the top!” the pink mare got back in his face. Descent’s pupils shrank for a moment.

“How in Equestria are you reading my thoughts?” he asked, a little put off by this seemingly psychic/psychotic mare.

“You’d be surprised what you can do if you don’t think too hard!” the pink mare giggled while bouncing on her hooves, which made spring like noises as she hopped up and down.

“That seems to contradict—”

“LESS TALK! MORE WELCOME PARTY!” the pink mare appeared in front of him, floating in midair with balloons tied around her while pressing her nose to his. One of the balloons was self-inflating above her as she floated. “OH! I KNOW!” she continued as Descent’s eyes went to the single balloon growing larger and larger over her. “Let’s have a party at Sugarcube Corner!” The balloon began casting a shadow over them as Descent began to wince while he watched it. He squinted as the balloon exploded with a loud POW, which made the pink mare slam to the ground, but bounce up. “We can invite everyponyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…” her voice slowly got quieter as she rocketed skyward and disappeared.

“What just happened?” Descent asked himself as he stared upward.

“Fun, that’s what!” the mare was suddenly standing right next him, causing him to yelp and stumble away while staring at her wide eyed. “So what do you say!? Party time?!”

As…. Interesting as this encounter was, Descent had to stay on track. This mare seemed overly happy and excited to welcome him, but he wasn’t in Ponyville for fun.

“Perhaps… another time, I’m actually here to deliver some mail, that’s all,” Descent got right to the point.

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…” The pink mare slumped down, her mane making a deflating noise as it also slumped down with her. Descent scrunched his face as he saw her tremendously disappointed reaction. It was a little disheartening to see, not that he was so easily emotionally swayed… or anything. Perhaps asking her for directions would make her feel better. He didn’t know his way around after all. Being pointed in the right direction would save him lots of time.

“I could do with some assistance though,” he spoke up while taking a step towards her. The mare was up in an instant, mane fully re-inflated. Her eyes were wide, her smile large, and she was bouncing in place.

“Ooo~! I can do that!” she agreed after her hilariously quick turnaround.

“I’m looking for the residence of Princess Twilight Sparkle. I have some important mail for her,” Descent got right down to business.

“Oh! That’s easy!” the mare giggled while springing up and down. “She lives at the Golden Oaks Library! It’s a big tree! Hard to miss! Unless you’re some giant centaur-monkey-demon that fires magic beams from between two large horns, but I doubt that’ll ever happen!”

“What?” Descent blinked, trying to understand what she was getting at. He understood the first part about a library built into a tree but…

Descent’s thoughts were cut off as the pink mare unleashed another loud, powerful gasp that was so strong, it sucked all the confetti off of Descent’s body and into her mouth.

“OH MY GOSH! I COMPLETELY FORGOT! I’M LATE!”

And as quickly as she appeared, the pink mare was gone.

“What a strange mare…” Descent said to himself, trying to disregard all the strange and impossible things he just witnessed. It took a few minutes and a lot of odd shenanigans, but he learned that Princess Twilight Sparkle lived in a library built into a tree. That wouldn’t be too hard to find.

Descent spread his wings and lifted off, hovering up just above the rooftops of the surrounding houses. He glanced around until his eyes landed on a tree in the middle of town, a large tree that looked to have windows and a balcony on it. It definitely stood out. With his target in his sight, he casually flew towards it.

He couldn’t help but continue to observe Ponyville as he approached the library. So pleasant and peaceful. So… innocent. That mixed with the collective friendliness he had been shown was creating a tight feeling in the pit of his stomach.

A year ago… he and his comrades were sent to destroy this place? A town that seemed like such a comfortable place to live without worry? A place where everypony was happy and there was no sign of oppression, bitterness, or animosity of any kind? It was nearly a utopia. A small town, set aside from the rest of Equestria where everything was based around friendship. He was having a hard time processing all of it. He never thought such a place could exist, but it was incredibly refreshing to see someplace that was completely free from what ailed many other communities.

Destroying such a place would have been terrible.

Descent snorted as lowered himself towards the front door of the library.

“I can’t believe how much I’ve changed…” he said to himself as his hooves touched down.

He approached the door slowly, trying to figure out what to say. At first he was sure he’d just hand her the letter and get on with finding whoever this Derpy Hooves was, but then he remembered he was about to knock on the door of a princess. The fact that she was a princess had nothing to do with his hesitation. He did not fear her status. She wasn’t even one of the divine sisters. Even if she was a divine alicorn, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He had no problem speaking to Luna like he spoke to everypony else.

What crossed his mind was something else, the situation. An intimidating pony like him showing up and handing off information? Well… that would be taken care of by the official Wonderbolt seal on the letters from Spitfire. Should he fill her in on anything? No, again Spitfire’s, Luna’s, and Rainbow Dash’s letters would take care of that.

“Just focus,” Descent grunted as he reached up and knocked on the door. The sooner he got the letters to Princess Twilight delivered and dropped off Luna’s letter to her pen pal… he could track down what he really came there for.

But the door didn’t open.

Descent tapped his hoof, waiting for a response, but received nothing. He reached up and knocked again. After waiting for a few moments, he once again received no response.

“Grr…” he growled as he slowly realized there was nopony home. Under normal circumstances, or if he were just another mail pony, he’d have left the letters in the mailbox. But these were not just letters, they were important messages about an important situation. He didn’t feel comfortable just leaving them there, especially the letter written by Spitfire with the official Wonderbolt seal on it.

“Can’t catch me!” a snide voice of a filly suddenly caught Descent’s ears.

“No fair!” Another filly whined. “Flying is cheating!”

Descent turned his head and stepped back from the door to see two little fillies move around the tree towards him. One was an orange pegasus with a dark purple mane, gliding over the ground while looking back and blowing raspberries at a little white unicorn with a fluffy mane with shades of purple and pink. The two were not paying attention, heading straight for Descent.

“Sorry! Now that I can use ‘em, you better bet I’ll always—” the orange filly flew head first into Descent’s chest. “OOF!” she grunted as she bounced off of him and plopped plot first onto the ground. The unicorn filly immediately skidded to a halt and stared wide-eyed at Descent as the orange filly groaned.

“What the heck was…” the orange filly froze as she realized she was sitting in a shadow. She slowly tipped her head up, her pupils shrinking as her eyes landed on Descent, looking down at her.

The filly’s mouth hung open as she stared, her unicorn friend equally frozen in place.

Descent sighed as he looked at the reaction of the fillies to him. No surprise, he had a feeling at least the children would be scared of him. However, from what he observed, this town seemed to be built on mutual trust and a willingness to be neighborly or helpful. Perhaps… he could ask these fillies if they knew what the princess was up to. News about princesses traveled fast after all.

“Excuse me…” Descent tried to make his tone of voice as soft as possible, hoping it would make him come across as friendly, but it didn’t work. The moment he spoke, the orange pegasus filly yelped and scooted herself backwards until she ran into her friend. The orange filly crouched to the ground, the unicorn hiding behind her, peeking over the orange filly’s back in fear.

Descent tipped his head to the side slightly, scrunching his mouth as he tried as hard as he could to adjust his demeanor to fit the situation. It wasn’t something he could really do, but he needed to at least try.

“I have an important letter for the Princess… do you know where I can find her?” Descent asked, trying to soften his tone further. Alas, the two fillies remained completely silent. Perhaps they needed more persuasion. While Ponyville had proven to be ridiculously friendly, this at least proved to Descent that it wasn’t simply blind or misguided. The fact that these two fillies exhibited a careful approach to a scary looking stranger proved this.

Descent looked down for a brief moment, realizing that he was probably glaring a little. It was something he did naturally, but his natural state was not going to help him here. He didn’t try to force it, but he tried to soften his eyes a little as well before adding more to his request.

“It’s about the Wonderbolts, I must…” Descent trailed off as the orange filly’s eyes suddenly reverted to normal and she stood right up, leaving her unicorn friend alone on the ground.

“The Wonderbolts?!” the orange filly flapped her wings excitedly. “Do you know Rainbow Dash?!”

Descent blinked upon hearing the name. Perhaps this was the key to finding the princess. He reached into his mail bag and shuffled through the letters until he found the one written by Rainbow Dash. He dropped it into his hoof and held it out towards the orange filly, whose eyes widened upon seeing the letter addressed to Twilight and four others, along with Rainbow Dash’s name in the top corner.

“As a matter of fact,” Descent felt so silly, incredibly glad that Starry wasn’t around to see him acting so ‘friendly’. “The letter was written by Rainbow Dash.” Sure there was a letter from Luna and Spitfire as well, but this filly clearly was an acquaintance of Dash’s.

“Oh my gosh! Is… Is she okay?!” the orange filly suddenly hopped up and hovered directly in front of Descent, putting her little hooves on his chest. “What happened to the Wonderbolts?!”

How brave the little filly had become through concern for a friend. Any and all fear was gone the moment Descent mentioned Rainbow Dash. She disregarded how scary he looked in order to find out more. Based on her reaction, it seemed clear that news about the explosion in Canterlot and the disappearance of the Wonderbolts had reached other locations.

While it seemed life went on as usual, there was no doubt concern from those who were acquainted. Descent wondered if things would have gone differently with the crazy pink mare if he had mentioned Rainbow Dash. It seemed like everypony knew everypony here after all.

“She is alive and well, as are the rest of the Wonderbolts,” Descent reassured the filly, returning a bit of serious tone to his voice in order to sound firm in his words. “That’s why I need to find Princess Twilight and deliver this letter, it’s urgent.”

“We were about to go see her! Come on! Follow us!” the orange filly frantically ordered while pulling away from Descent and pointing down the path.

“Scootaloo!” the unicorn filly shouted at her while she kept staring at Descent. “You’re just gonna trust him? What if he’s lying?” she asked with clear, extreme worry. Descent didn’t blame her for obvious reasons. In general she didn’t seem quite as brave as her friend, but…

“Oh don’t worry, Big Macintosh is gonna be there! If he tries anything funny, he’ll regret it!” the orange filly turned to Descent. “You got that, buster?” she shook her hoof at him. Descent blinked pulling his neck back slightly in surprise at the sudden burst of sassiness. This filly showed signs of being good friends with Rainbow Dash for sure.

But who was this Big Machintosh? This was the second time this pony was mentioned. Apparently he was somepony who’d give him what for if he was lying. He wasn’t lying but he’d have to see this pony to believe it. Descent pushed the thought aside as he followed close behind the two fillies.

“Where exactly are we going?” Descent asked curiously as the fillies led him down a path that went away from Ponyville and onto a large expanse of farmland… that looked to be growing nothing but apple trees. The orange filly pointed towards the barn.

“This is Sweet Apple Acres! Princess Twilight and her friends are always hanging out here, one of my friends lives here too!” she explained as they suddenly came to a halt. Descent stopped as well, looking at them both. “Just head up the path to the barn, she should be in there. We have to stop at our clubhouse!”

“Wait a second—” Descent tried to stop them, but the two fillies ran off into the apple orchard, quickly disappearing. Descent snorted and sighed. This had all become much more complicated than he wanted it to be.

Prepared to continuously expect the unexpected going forward, Descent walked the rest of the pathway himself, past what looked like some sort of refrigeration building and a few sheds on the way. He stopped in front of the barn door, hearing voices on the inside.

“So no word on what happened in Canterlot yet?” a voice with a thick country twang asked.

“None, and I still don’t know why. I’ve sent multiple letters to Princess Luna through Spike, but each one came right back!” a worried voice replied. “I’d visit myself, but every letter that was returned included something about staying put until further notice… and it had Celestia's watermark on them, not Luna’s! I’m so confused.”

“Don’t worry darling,” a voice with a much more proper tone spoke up. “I’m sure we’ll know more soon, at least I hope.”

“What about you, Thunderlane?” the country voice spoke up again. “No word from them at all about needin’ the reserves or somethin’ like that?”

“Nothing at all,” a male voice spoke up. “Believe me, I’d be in my suit and heading out now if I had heard.”

“Hey! I bet they’re ALLLLLLL just fine and kicking some serious plot with the help of formal rivals or something! Wouldn’t that be awesome?!”

Descent cringed as he heard the voice of the pink mare he encountered earlier. So she did know the princess, it looks like she could have saved him a trip if he had explained his intentions to deliver the letters personally.

Despite the slight reluctance that came from knowing the crazy pink mare was back, Descent was looking forward to delivering this letter, getting the information to Princess Twilight, and then moving on. So he reached up and knocked on the barn door without hesitation.

“Hey! That must be Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle!” a younger, country voice spoke up.

Somepony spoke after that, but it was incredibly quiet. It sounded something like ‘I’ll let them in,’ but it was so hushed Descent could barely make out what was said.

He looked straight at the door as it began to rattle and swing open.

“Hello Scoo—”

Descent blinked as the incredibly quiet voice met his ears. He was expecting to look down at whoever answered the door, but not that far down. A yellow pegasus mare with a very long pink mane had answered the door, but she was tiny! Not quite as small as the fillies he was just following, but definitely close. Much like the fillies, however, the mare’s eyes went wide and she stared up at Descent with an expression of pure terror.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEE!” the mare shrieked before slamming the door shut.

Descent flattened his brow. He knew he was intimidating, but was he really that much of a fright?

“Fluttershy? What’s wrong?” the country voice spoke up. She got no response. Descent was ready to confront whoever decided to open the door next, figuring he would be met with suspicion after how the small mare reacted.

“T-t-t-t-there’s…” the small mare’s voice was finally heard. “A sc-sc-scary pony at the door!”

“A scary…” the country voice spoke up again, but stopped. “Ya got it, Mac?”

“Eeyup,” a new voice, male, also with the country tone. Descent waited patiently for the door to open again… but the hoofsteps heading towards the door sounded incredibly heavy.

The door opened again. Descent was ready to speak immediately… but he froze in place and looked UP with wide eyes in disbelief.

Descent stared up into the casual gaze of an ENORMOUS, bright red earth stallion that was easily almost as large as Bomber. While he may not have been the size of Bomber, he definitely looked just as powerful and muscular. He had a short, orange mane and a string of wheat sticking out of his mouth. The small yellow mare was standing beneath him, peeking her head out from behind his left arm as the earth stallion looked down at Descent with no visible reaction.

There was no mistaking it. This had to be ‘Big Macintosh’.

“What in tarnation is going on over there?” the female country voice called out from behind them, before a large, orange earth mare, wearing a brown, wide-brimmed hat pushed her way past the red stallion. Well… she was large in regards to the usual proportions of a pony, easily twice the size of the cowering pegasus mare. Her expression switched from curiosity to suspicion the moment her eyes landed on Descent. “Uh… can I help you?” she asked, while eyeing him carefully.

Descent, glanced between her and the big red stallion a few times, still in awe. He never expected to find another pony as large, or close to being as large as Bomber. Descent cleared his throat, pushing aside any other thoughts while focusing on the task at hoof.

“I…” he glanced at the stallion once more. “I have a few letters for Princess Twilight Sparkle,” he paused for only a brief moment before adding to it. “The letters are from Spitfire, Princess Luna, and Rainbow Dash… about the Wonderbolts.”

All three of the ponies instantly reacted, or at least the two mares did. The only expression he got out of the giant stallion was his eyes opening a tad wider.

“Did somepony just say—” the other male voice sounded out from inside, but he was cut off as a magenta aura suddenly surrounded the three ponies standing in Descent’s way. The two mares yelped, but the giant stallion remained expressionless as the aura shoved them out of the way, allowing Descent to see further into the barn. There were several other ponies present, three more mares, a filly, and two stallions.

It didn’t take long for Descent to spot the odd one out. The differently shaped wings and a unicorn horn to go along with them really gave her away.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle?” Descent spoke from the doorway.

Twilight hovered into the air and over the table they were all sitting at, touching down on the other side.

“Please, come in!” she beckoned him with a sense of urgency. Descent hesitated, not quite sure if he wanted to surround himself with unknown ponies, but again, Ponyville had more than proven itself as an innocent town. Plus, he was certain a princess wouldn’t surround herself with ponies she didn’t trust.

“HEYYYYYYYYY!!!!” the pink mare leapt up and landed directly in front of him before he got two steps into the barn. Descent gritted his teeth and cringed as he leaned away. “You’re the scary pony I saw on the edge of town!”

“Pinkie…” Twilight quickly cut her off, surrounding her with an aura and floating her back over to the table. “Not now, please, I need to hear what he has to say,” Twilight walked out to meet Descent halfway as he too moved towards her.

“I’m afraid I’m only the messenger,” Descent spoke up as he and Twilight met in the center and started reaching for his mailbag. “I can’t say much about the situation, but hopefully these letters will—” Descent abruptly stopped as he turned back around with the letters in hoof. His eyes halted directly on the black pegasus stallion with the silver mohawk mane that sat at the table behind Twilight. The white unicorn mare and the bright yellow stallion sitting beside him both glanced at him, and then back at Descent.

“Uh… what?” The black stallion blinked, looking a little uncomfortable at the sudden stop and how attention had somehow shifted to him. Descent blinked and shook his head out.

“I apologize…” Descent grunted as he refocused on Twilight. “I am mistaking you for somepony else.”

Descent lied through his teeth. He didn’t know the name of the pegasus stallion, but he definitely recognized him. He was on the weather team that tried to counter the artificial tornado. Specifically he was the first one that they took down. Descent remembered diving through their counter tornado and driving his hooves directly into the stallion’s back. Meeting victims of his past missions was something nopony, no matter how hardened, would ever get used to. He didn’t show it, but it was hard for him to look upon Matteo after learning he was Massimo’s son. Soarin was a special case, due to considering him to be a worthy rival. Such uncomfortable thoughts never used to cross his mind, his victims merely being part of his work, but many things had changed for Descent lately. Again, it was something he blamed on meeting Soarin.

“Here,” Descent hoofed over the letters from Spitfire, Luna, and Dash. He expected Twilight to open the letters from Luna or Spitfire first, but to his surprise, she tossed those two over to the table with her magic and frantically looked over the letter from Rainbow Dash. Descent watched curiously as Twilight turned and quickly moved back towards the table, the rest of the present ponies gathering around her. Descent lifted up a hoof in surprise as the two fillies who had led him there suddenly sprinted past him and hopped up to see as well.

Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship… her name rang true, showing more concern about a close friend than official business. Descent hovered around for a moment as Twilight began to read the letter aloud, but with all of them preoccupied, he decided not to overstay his welcome.

While the ponies of Ponyville had been a refreshing community to experience, he felt completely out of place, not to mention the guilt of almost destroying such a peaceful town a year ago was weighing more heavily on him than he ever thought it would… or could.

He turned and quietly showed himself out as the ponies voiced their excitement and relief to each other. He had no more need to stay, and decided to focus on the last two letters. He stepped away from the barn and spread his wings…

“Um… excuse me…”

Descent froze in place as the quiet voice barely made itself heard behind him. He blinked and refolded his wings as he looked over his shoulder.

It was the small, yellow pegasus mare. She was looking up at him with half her face covered with her long mane and there was a clear shiver in her legs.

“Yes?” Descent turned towards her, causing her to squeak and take a step back. If she was so scared of him, why did she follow him?

“Um… are you… Descent?”

Descent’s eyes widened. How did she know?

“I… I am,” Descent answered quickly, not seeing any possible avenue of escape.

“Oh… okay, I was…” the yellow mare’s face seemed to slowly hide itself further behind her mane as she spoke. “I was curious… Rainbow Dash has mentioned you… and you fit the description. I… um…” she got quieter and quieter as she spoke. Descent’s ears were tipping as far forward as they could on his head in attempt to hear her clearly.

He waited for her to say more, but every noise that came from her after that was squeaky gibberish and she slowly began to curl into a yellow and pink ball. Descent’s eyes widened as two enormous red hooves moved in and stood beside her. He looked up quickly to see the giant earth pony beside her. Again, the giant pony gave little in terms of expression, simply looking down at Descent casually as he passed the string of wheat in his mouth from one side to the other.

The stallion glanced down at the small mare and reached one of his hooves over, resting it gently over her shoulder. She uncurled and looked up at the big red stallion, smiling before standing back up. The giant stallion clearly made her feel safer, and he didn’t blame her, he was like a walking mountain. She took a deep breath and looked back at Descent, still hiding her face slightly.

“Um… well, I just wanted to say… um…” she still spoke nervously as the stallion lightly rubbed her shoulder to comfort her. “Thank you, for helping Rainbow Dash. She means a lot to us… and she’s… my best… friend,” the mare struggled to get it all out. Descent cracked a small smile. All that trouble just to thank him? This town really was an interesting place.

“She has mostly been handling herself,” Descent spoke truthfully. “But you are welcome.”

His eyes widened slightly in surprise as the small yellow mare made a very quick, very brief move towards him and hugged one of his arms before zipping back beneath the giant stallion. Descent tipped his head curiously, looking back up at the giant red stallion, who even after all of that, had remained expressionless.

“Mac? Fluttershy? Where’d ya go?” the voice of the orange mare sounded out from the barn.

“I should get going,” Descent spoke up, not wanting to be drawn back into the barn. “I have two more stops to make,” He started to turn.

“Take care,” the red stallion finally spoke up. Descent paused, glancing back up at the giant and smirking before spreading his wings and taking off without looking back.

Ponyville was an interesting place indeed. How different might his life had been, had he grown up in such a place? From what he had seen… drastically.

No matter what happened going forward, Descent had clearly had an odd yet refreshing experience in Ponyville. However, there was one thing left that he felt would be more significant than anything else: Meeting this acquaintance of his son’s.

After awkwardly asking many very friendly, helpful ponies for directions to where Luna’s little friend, Pipsqueak lived. He dropped the letter in his family’s mailbox and turned back to the sky, the final letter in his hoof as he looked over the address.

Having flown a few circles around the whole town, he was beginning to get a slight idea of the layout and what streets were where, but he was still having an issue with the specific addresses. The last letter, addressed to ‘Derpy Hooves’ from his son, apparently lived on Center Street, which was ironically not through the center of the town, but actually two blocks east of Mane Street, which ran through the center of town. The town was organized in a circular pattern, meaning the further in one went, the longer the streets were. Center Street was pretty close to the center… so it extended pretty far from start to finish.

Descent sighed as he landed at the north edge of Center Street and looked down the expanse. It wasn’t like he was staring down the endless roads of Manehatten or Canterlot, but he had just gotten done looking all over town for one house. Now he had to find another, but at least he knew what street he was on this time. He didn’t want to bother anypony else for directions so he decided he would just walk the length until he found the right address.

“101010…Center Street…” Descent read off the address to himself as he started walking and glancing at the houses. Six numbers seemed like overdoing it in such a small town, but it wasn’t his place to decide it. “101010… 101010… 101010…” he repeated as looked back and forth at the houses.

A strange anxious feeling began to rise up in his chest as he closed in on the right number. He was nearing the motivation for snatching the letters from Comet in the first place. Perhaps this was just another thing he had yet to experience among the many changes and new feelings he had since discovering his son. Storm was important to him, and this Derpy Hooves was somepony he was clearly acquainted with.

Fatherly instincts were kicking in. It was easy to see all the ponies around Storm with the Wonderbolts and despite some of their interesting personalities, Descent had come to understand that the Wonderbolts were good ponies. This was a pony Storm felt the need to write to when the theme of the letters being sent was to friends, family, and loved ones. He didn’t know Storm had any friends outside the Wonderbolts, so… again… he had the urge to investigate.

“100990… 101000… 101010…” Descent stopped as his eyes landed on the house marked with the number. It looked just like every other house, but inside was what he was looking for. His eyes landed on the mailbox sitting at the edge of the short front walk. It was a grey box that had little, brown muffin designs painted on it. He had simply dropped the letter to Luna’s pen pal in his mailbox, but here… he wanted to deliver this letter personally.

As he casually walked towards the front door, he coached himself through the situation. Don’t be harsh, don’t glare, don’t react, don’t be forceful… this was a friend of his son’s that he knew nothing about. He didn’t want to go in feeling like he had to judge them at first glance. He also didn’t want to do anything impulsively… as a matter of fact, he didn’t even want to reveal that he was Storm’s father. He wanted to just observe and possibly see this pony’s reaction to Storm’s letter.

With his thoughts gathered and as much composure built up as he could muster, he reached up and gently knocked on the door.

At first he worried that there may be nopony home, because this was exactly what he wanted to come into town for and it would be a major let down if he didn’t get to fulfill his desire. However, his worry was quickly alleviated by the CLIP-CLOP sound of hooves approaching the door from the inside. There was a peephole in the door, and Descent figured he would be observed, and possibly questioned before let in. After all, he was a large, mean looking pony covered in battle scars. While out and about, the citizens of Ponyville seemed carefree and friendly, but after getting a barn door slammed in his face, he wondered if they were at least a little more careful about—

Descent flinched as the door swung inward and revealed a smiling grey mare with a straight, yellow mane.

“Hello!” the mare said in a carefree tone, opening her eyes and looking at Descent curiously. She was wall-eyed, her eyes not quite lining up and moving separately as she examined him.

A mare.

Descent had considered the possibility… but this changed things slightly. He wasn’t going to jump to conclusions, but how did this mare know his son?

“Excuse my intrusion, but…” he paused before reaching the letter towards her, examining how she simply stood and smiled at him. She was completely unaffected by his appearance. This mare seemed a little out there… but she had a very warm smile. “Are you Derpy Hooves?” Descent asked. The mare blinked twice, her eyes switching which was up and which was down both times. Her smile grew wider and she nodded vigorously.

“Yes I am!” she answered cheerfully. “Who are you?” she asked before Descent could hand the letter to her. He remained still for a moment, unsure how to respond.

“My name… is…” Descent awkwardly tipped his head to the left and bit his lower lip as he struggled to come up with a name. He didn’t want to start throwing his name out everywhere, even if one pony had already unexpectedly called him out. “Just call me… Dee,” he said while lightly blushing in embarrassment. It was such a sorry attempt to create a secret identity.

“Nice to meet you Dee!” Derpy replied without hesitation, not even questioning it as she continued the endless display of friendliness. “What can I do for you?” she asked while swaying back and forth.

One thing was for certain, this mare was testing Descent’s inability to find anything ‘cute.’ Her demeanor and way of speaking and doing things was almost too much for him to handle. He finally held up the letter.

“I have a letter for you,” he reached it towards her.

“Oh?” her ears stood up as she put a hoof to her mouth and tipped her head way to the right. She reached her hoof from her mouth, towards the letter and took it. Descent kept his eyes on her face. He had purposely handed her the letter upside down so he would have time to focus and watch her reaction. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask any questions. He hoped her reaction to both seeing and reading the letter would give him a better idea what the relationship between Storm and Derpy was.

It didn’t take long. The moment Derpy turned the letter over and read who it was from, her eyes grew several sizes and she gasped loudly as an incredibly wide, open mouth smile made its way onto her face.

“STORM FRONT!” she exclaimed joyfully as her wings began to flap furiously and lift her slightly into the air. Descent stared at her blankly as Derpy turned her side to him, nearly whacking him with one of her wings as she floated sideways towards a table in the center of her living room and placed the envelope down, using both a hoof and her teeth to open it and pull the letter out.

Again, Descent watched her carefully as she unfolded the letter and began to read. He could only see the side of her face, but he didn’t need to see much more than that. As Derpy read the letter, her smile grew wider and wider, a pink rosy blush crossing over her nose and cheeks. She started giggling partway through the letter, her hooves moving the unfolded piece of paper closer and closer to her face as her eyes scanned the words. Her eyes shot back up to the top after she finished, skimming the contents of the letter again, then again, and again before she reared back on her hooves and clutched the letter to her chest, over her heart, laughing with high pitched, squeaky giggles as her wings flapped and made her hover up into the air.

It was… quite a reaction. Not to mention one that made something almost perfectly clear.

Seeing as how Derpy didn’t seem to mind his presence one bit, Descent took a step into her house.

“You must be good friends with Storm Front,” Descent said simply as his expression remained serious, but not hard. He didn’t get much further because Derpy turned and floated over to him in such a smitten state that she probably didn’t need to use her wings.

“Better than that!” Derpy giggled excitedly as she stopped in front of Descent. “He’s my coltfriend!”

Descent’s eyes grew and his pupils shrunk. He quickly slammed his eyes shut and shook his head out to hide his visible facial reaction. He had definitely suspected it… but hearing it straight from Derpy was something he didn’t expect… or apparently was ready for.

“I was so worried about him after I heard about Canterlot…” Derpy floated away from Descent and twirled in midair. “But he’s okay!”

“Y-yes…” Descent nodded, still feeling strangely affected by accidentally meeting an apparent love interest of his son’s. “They’re all okay and currently very safe and sound,” he added to try and stick with the moment instead of thinking about exactly who he was looking at and talking to.

“Oh, you know him?!” Derpy suddenly turned back to Descent, her eyes so wide that the wall-eyed effect was almost impossible to notice. Descent flinched, realizing that he may have pseudo-spilled the beans on who he was, but he still had room to dodge.

“Er… yes, I do,” he quickly deflected. “I am part of a group helping out the Wonderbolts. He and I have met," she didn't seem the type to ask many questions, so he kept it simple and vague.

“Oh! Can you take something to him for me?!” Derpy suddenly touched down and bounced up and down on her hooves. Descent looked down at her curiously, but simply nodded, eager to shift the subject away from him. “Wait right here!” Derpy said cheerfully as she turned and cantered into her house and up the stairs. They had made an agreement to have no returning mail... but... Descent felt the need to make an exception here. Was he playing favorites? Maybe, but seriously, Storm was his son.

As he waited, Descent’s eyes shifted to the letter sitting on the table. He stared at it for a few moments, glancing between it and the stairs where Derpy disappeared.

He shouldn’t… he really shouldn’t, but it was too late, he was already reaching for the letter. He gave the stairs one last glance, aware that he was more or less invading privacy, but… he wanted to see the words of his son.

Dear Derpy,

First and foremost, I want you to know that despite any news that may be going around Equestria right now, I am alive and so is everypony else. We had quite a scare recently, but we all managed to escape, compound included. I know, that sounds impossible, but believe me, it’s too hard to explain.

The important thing is that we’re not dead, besides, I refuse to die knowing I can always come back to see your adorable face. It’s been rough, but I’ve been thinking of you every night. All I have to do is envision that bubbly smile of yours and it turns any bad day into a good one.

We have a long road ahead of us, but believe me, after the night we shared together I’m convinced I have the best mare in Equestria, and I will do anything to make it back safe and sound for you. Nothing in my life as ever felt as good as holding you close, your head resting against my chest under the moonlight. I want to feel that again, and I plan to feel that again.

Wait for me Derpy, I promise you I will see you again.

I love you,

Storm Front

“Hmm…” Descent remained expressionless as he read the last paragraph over specifically. Descent wasn’t an expert on romance… but he knew a thing or two about care thanks to Storm. While Storm’s words in the letter did little to move him, the effect they had on Derpy was clear. Both seeing this letter and meeting Derpy was giving Descent the urge to sit down with Storm and simply talk to him.

Not necessarily about having a marefriend, more about getting to know his own son better. Their interactions throughout Storm’s colthood were all very brief. Aside from a pat on the head, a smile, and assurance that he’d be there for him, Descent barely got to see Storm grow up, never had enough time to hear about all the things he experienced in his life, or in general just be a major part of Storm’s life. He had been the father figure, but one that was only around in spurts. Perhaps it was time to change that. Sure, it would be hard with how busy the Renegades were protecting the Wonderbolts, but it needed to happen. He wanted to know more.

Descent quickly put the letter back down as he heard Derpy’s hoofsteps come down the stairs. He stepped away from the table to dispel any suspicion and waited for her to reappear. She touched down to the floor and bouncily trotted up to Descent… holding something in her mouth.

As she grew closer and stopped before him, Descent eventually saw what she was holding. It was a small, hoof-stitched plush of herself.

Assuming she wanted him to take it, Descent reached out a hoof. Derpy dropped the small plushie into his hoof and smiled happily at him.

“Please take this back to him. If I can’t be there with him right now, I want him to still see me every night,” she said while swaying back and forth again. Descent stared at the small plush. It was well crafted, if not a little simple. It shared a clear resemblance to her, the soft grey fabric, the yellow mane that seemed to be made from her own hair, and two yellow buttons for eyes that were purposely made to not line up. He looked back at Derpy and gave her a brief nod before reaching back and putting the plush in his saddlebag. As he did so, he wondered if he could subtly find out a little more.

“You really care about him, huh?” Descent said, trying to crack a natural smile. He was expecting to say more, but Derpy sounded off without further provocation.

“Oh, he’s the best! I love him so much!” she was definitely eager to talk about him. “I’ll never forget when we first met at the Wonderbolt tryouts. He was my bunkmate! I was… nervous and being a little clumsy, but he started helping me without a second thought. He also never said one word about my eyes… that doesn’t happen very often. He helped me keep my space tidy, he supported me in all of the tryout events, and he defended me when other ponies tried to put me down or intimidate me. He was such a sweetheart!” she was blushing and slowly floating up into the air as she spoke.

Descent watched as the mere mention of his son sent Derpy into such a blushing giggling mess. Perhaps he had had more of an influence on Storm than he first thought. He had tried hard to be as caring and helpful as possible, to be the parent Storm didn’t have the luxury of having with his mother. From what he was hearing, it looked like some of that had rubbed off on Storm.

“I was so sad when I didn’t make it… but when he told me he wanted to stay in touch, it made me happy all over again! And then there was the night after the Wonderbolt banquet…” she trailed off for a moment as she floated back down to the floor, placing a hoof to her cheek as she blushed. With how much she was gushing, Descent wouldn’t have been surprised if hearts began floating up from her head.

“He left the party early… and he met me in the central park of Canterlot,” she began. Descent’s ears stood up. He had just read something about a ‘special night’ they shared and was admittedly curious. He wanted to know more, sure, but he wasn’t expecting to actually get it. “We spent the whole night there,” Derpy continued. “We found a spot hidden away from the rest of the park, cuddled up together and looked at the stars. I felt so safe with him holding onto me… and then…” She put both of her hooves to her face, squished her cheeks together and lightly squealed. “Then we shared our first kiss! And he told me how much I mean to him, and…” she stopped, her eyes widening and shifting up and down. “Oh… sorry… I got a little carried away, hehehe…” she giggled while turning away from Descent and blushing.

“No, no… it’s alright,” Descent replied with a light, awkward chuckle. “He definitely sounds like a great stallion. I’m happy for you two,” he nodded as Derpy smiled back at him. “I should probably get going,” Descent started to turn, but Derpy quickly hopped over to him.

“Wait, Mr. Dee… could you please tell him something for me too?” She asked, giving Descent crooked puppy dog eyes as if she had to convince him.

“Sure,” Descent agreed as he stopped. Derpy sat back and twiddled her hooves. She looked down, her face still glowing.

“Please tell him… that I love him very much, and I can’t wait to see him again,” she requested. Descent stared at her as she looked up at him with an expression that seemed absolutely desperate for Storm to hear those words from her. While he may feel a little weird saying those things, Descent would do it for his son.

“I will tell him that,” Descent glanced at his saddle bag. “And I’ll be sure he gets your gift,” he reassured her. Derpy’s face lit with a radiant smile and she launched herself at Descent.

“Thank you, thank you Mr. Dee!” she squealed giddily while wrapping her hooves around Descent’s neck and hugging him tightly. Descent blinked and stiffened at the unexpected show of affection. Derpy suddenly froze and quickly removed herself from Descent while blushing in embarrassment and smiling sheepishly. “Eheheh… Sorry…” she apologized while sweeping a hoof back and forth on the floor.

“Think nothing of it,” Descent assured her she was fine. “And…” Descent stopped before stepping out the door. “You’re a good mare,” he added as he left. Derpy stared after him curiously as the door closed, before going right back to the letter and squealing over it once more.

Descent remained outside her door for a moment, hearing her continuously giggle over the letter from Storm. He couldn’t hold it back… a smile, a real smile… a proud smile formed on his lips. He wanted to know more about his son, sure. But this was a hell of a start. Despite the limited guidance he was able to give his son, it seemed that Storm had become a respectable, caring stallion. The kind of stallion that Descent wanted Storm to be, one that could live his life the way he wanted and be free from the harsh life that his father had led. While Storm up and became a Wonderbolt anyway, Descent was glad that Storm had done so while also finding things in life that made him happy.

Storm had found a fine companion. While she was a little ditzy, she was clearly a very happy and cheerful mare, one that cared as much about him as he cared about her…

What a shame it would have been… if the Shadowbolts had succeeded in destroying Ponyville a year ago. Storm would have never met Derpy.

It seemed that Descent owed Soarin more than he realized.

With the letter deliveries taken care of and thoroughly satisfied with the discovery of Derpy, Descent spread his wings and took off back towards the northern mountains. His brief visit in Ponyville was interesting, but definitely an experience he wouldn’t soon forget. He never knew just how peaceful and different the small town was… and couldn’t believe how close he had come to destroying it all in the past.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

All of the art in this chapter was done by the magnificent Foxenawolf.

Derpy... y u so aderpable? :derpytongue2:

So there you go... working the irony here by putting Descent in a situation that he didn't quite think through. His desire to meet an acquaintance of his son's also put him through some tough memories. However, it ended on a good note, with Descent happy that his son was finding happiness in ways he himself was never able to.

Also good LORD Mac is huge :eeyup:

Also, lets give a round of applause to Silver Lining for always being ready with the witty comebacks :rainbowlaugh:

Last but not least, internet muffin for anyone that figures out why i made Derpy's address 101010 :twistnerd:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 103: Absolutely Twisted

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
This chapter was edited by both Kestrel and Lucky424

Chapter 103: Absolutely Twisted

The soft glow of the barrel fire sitting five yards away splashed a warm, orange glow against the two sitting nearby. The light danced about the different shades of blue fur on the two faces that kept endlessly nuzzling together. Soarin and Rainbow Dash were aware that they were delving heavily into the realm of ‘public display of affection,’ but to be fair, they weren’t the only couple in the battledome that was sharing a blanket, and thoroughly rubbing their heads together as they stayed warm. In fact, Fire Streak and Misty Fly were sitting at the same barrel, right across on the other side of it. Misty was doing everything in her power to turn Fire into her personal pillow, to the point where she knocked him over on his side while trying to continuously increase the level of snuggles.

Either way, it wasn’t like they had anything better to do. The Wonderbolts were resting and trying to stay warm as the Renegades gave them time to do so. They were even delivering mail for them now too. It was safe to say that the Wonderbolts owed Descent and the Renegades… as they had been saying and thinking over and over again since they first appeared. It was something all the Wonderbolts had on their mind and when the time came, they would be ready to repay that debt in full force, working with the Renegades to reach the goals of both groups.

They only hoped their combined power would be enough. They still didn’t fully understand the depth of what they were up against. Hopefully they could get some answers out of their captive Shadowbolts eventually, because they needed some badly.

But for now… it was time to rest. Something they also desperately needed. And who would say no to cuddling? Well, maybe a few…

“Nice to see our captain has forgotten all about us,” Squall scoffed as he glanced two barrels down towards Rainbow Dash and Soarin.

“Oh hush you…” Star said dreamily as she teetered back and forth beside him, swooning and watching Soarin and Dash with wide eyes. “They are just too cute!” Star squealed while leaning towards Squall… who leaned away in tandem while scrunching his face.

Storm Front chuckled as he watched Squall and Star from beside them. He figured the rest of Foxtrot was used to it by now but it was amusing to see it for himself. Squall acted differently around Star. If any of them got too close or invaded his personal space, he tended to lash out at them or tell them to get lost. With Star… he still showed disapproval and discomfort, but he didn’t make any attempts to push her away. The faces he made and his overall reactions were definitely a source of light-hearted humor. They emitted an air of ‘I don’t know if I like this or not’ and tended to end with Squall’s usual long, drawn out ‘stop it’ groan.

Storm glanced towards Matteo briefly, noticing that the big griffon was looking a little sleepy. He was already lying down, unlike the rest of them and nodding off. However, he seemed to keep forcing his eyes back open and looking towards something. Storm followed Matteo’s eyes over towards the barrel between theirs and the one that currently had the two couples.

Twister was sitting IN the barrel, completely unfazed as he was surrounded by flames. He was scrubbing his back with a loofa and whistling as if he was taking a bath… in the fire.

Of course, that’s what was keeping Matteo up. Twister had been more or less targeting Matteo with his shenanigans since the whole rest period had begun, mostly through diving and hiding in his thick feathers for warmth. Matteo had become, as expected, fed up despite not being able to do much about it, and was trying to keep an eye on Twister. Though in the end, Storm was sure Matteo knew that his efforts would ultimately be fruitless, plain and simple.

Storm blinked…

And Twister was gone. The barrel fire now vacant, not that anypony else would attempt to bathe in flames. He didn’t go very far though. Storm spotted Twister sneaking up behind Fire Streak and Misty Fly. The two had sat up after Fire managed to ‘gain the upper hoof’ and hold onto Misty instead of vice versa, and it seemed that Twister was about to invade somepony’s personal privacy… again.

Twister leapt towards them with his arms outstretched as if he was going to join in the hugging, but right before impact, Misty turned and looked towards him. Her eyes widened and she pushed Fire away from her while reaching up and putting Twister into a headlock, slamming him down onto their mattress. Twister simply looked up at her with his lips puckered as she glared down at him in disapproval.

Misty suddenly fell flat, blinking in confusion as Twister somehow vanished. She looked directly upward and rolled aside as Twister swan dove from above, but landed face first, flat on the mattress.

“Recruit Twister!” Fire spoke up with an annoyed grunt. “Cut out this nonsense imme—”

“LOOK OUT BELOW!” a voice rang out from above. Fire looked up, his eyes widening as Surprise dove in from above. “SILLY CITIZEN’S ELBOW!” she yelled as she drove her elbow into Twister’s back. Twister released a loud sound that resembled a goose honk before Surprise pinned him down by the neck and back.

“SWEET MOVES!” Macho Savage’s voice rung out from literally the other side of the battledome once Surprise’s wrestling technique was complete.

“What in the…” Fire shook his head as Surprise looked up at him and giggled.

“You can’t scold silly!” Surprise began as Twister flailed and made turkey calls beneath Surprise's grip. “If ya wanna beat silly, ya gotta counter it with silly, silly!” she explained as she kept Twister down.

Storm slowly shook his head as he watched the whole encounter from start to finish. What exactly made that stallion click, if at all? Dash had relayed multiple interesting tales to him about Twister’s mysterious, incredibly strange, yet harmless shenanigans she had experienced, and if she couldn’t draw any solid conclusions after that, then he sure as hell wasn’t going to. Dash had mentioned Twister spoke of a twisted, troubled past in subtle terms in between disturbing actions. At least that’s what she felt Twister was conveying, there was no way of knowing if Twister was spinning the events of his life to fit a certain theme or if there was any truth to what he was saying either.

Storm was admittedly just as curious to know as Dash was… and he didn’t doubt Matteo, Little Star, and even Squall shared their curiosity to a certain point. Would they ever know for sure?

“Now, I’m not even gonna bother asking Twister…” Little Star’s voice caught Storm’s attention as he turned to face her. She had stopped playfully teasing Squall and was back sitting in her spot beside him. She too, apparently was watching Twister’s little encounter with squad three. “But I’m curious,” she continued as she looked towards the rest of them. “Who did you guys write to?” she asked, waiting for any of them to respond.

“My wife,” Matteo spoke up, saying nothing further as he continued to lie on his stomach. Star grinned as she looked towards Matteo, focusing on him.

“Say anything special?” she asked, ever curious about the romantic lives of her friends.

“No.” Matteo put simply. Star blinked, her eyes widening for a moment before they flattened slightly.

“Sheesh, aren’t you the romantic?” she said sarcastically as Storm snickered beside her. Matteo lightly shook his head.

“Griffons express affection physically. Sweet and fluffy words, whether written or spoken, do little to stimulate us,” he explained flatly. Star huffed and pouted at him before her lips curled into a snide smirk.

“Actually I think I could have put that together,” she said as she turned her head slightly to exaggerate her smirk. “Seeing as how your wife has already popped two buns out of the oven and is baking a third,” she teased with a giggle. Matteo only grunted in response, turning his head to face away. A little bit of embarrassment was actually squeaking through. Star wasn’t about to let up there, it wasn’t often one caught Matteo in a flustered state. “I have a hard time imagining you being affectionate at all. Though, knowing you and griffons in general, it probably involves violence.”

“HRM!” Matteo cleared his throat in a manner that sounded both incredibly awkward and forced. “Male griffons have needs…” he said, barely avoiding a stutter in the process.

“Oh stop,” Star burst into giggles. “You’re a guy. Don’t try to snake out of this one with your culture. I know how testosterone works, stallions just express it differently. Right guys?!” she looked up and back and forth between Storm and Squall. Storm scrunched his face, looking away as he rubbed the back of his head. Squall just instantly avoided eye contact with her. “YEP! Spot on!”

“Alright, fine!” Matteo grumbled as he rested his chin down on his talons. “If you really wish to keep talking about my sexual relationship with my wife, then by all means—”

“NO!” Squall cut him off while shuddering. “I got the clue when I found your damn pillow!”

“Alright, alright…” Star sighed while shaking her head and looking towards Matteo. “I was just teasing ya big dope,” she refrained from going further, instead turning to Storm. Storm noticed her eyes training on him, and figured he was next. “So who did you write to, Storm?”

“Derpy,” Storm answered instantly with a smile on his face. Star blinked and tipped her head to one side.

“Who?” she asked. It looked like she was trying to remember if she had heard the name before. Storm was quick to clarify.

“The mare who broke the endurance course record during the tryouts. Remember the mare that I met up with during the banquet?” he explained. Star blinked and her eyes widened slightly.

“Oooooohhhhhh, her!”

“That’s right,” Matteo spoke up while looking at both Squall and Star. “We weren’t all acquainted until after she left. Derpy Hooves was one of Dash’s friends along with Thunderlane and…” Matteo paused and furrowed his brow. “Who was that loud white pony again?”

“Arctic Blast?” Storm cringed, “She was definitely not a friend…”

“No, no…” Matteo shook his head. “The white stallion with the muscular body and tiny limbs,” he clarified.

“Oh!” Storm chuckled. “That was Bulk Biceps, Coach Pec Bounce’s son.”

“Yes… that rambunctious pony…” Matteo snorted.

“Well,” Storm turned back to Star to get back on track. “Derpy and I were bunkmates during the tryouts. Honestly, it was hard NOT to quickly grow attached to her. She was just so naturally happy and cheerful, anytime something made her worried, I had this urge to help her just so I could see her smile again,” Storm paused as he scrunched his face. Little Star was giving him the goofiest swooning look.

“Awwwwwwww… you guys met here and became a thing? That’s so adorable!” she commented while pressing her hooves into her cheeks, squishing them inward. Storm stole a quick glance at Matteo, who noticed and lifted an eyebrow as Storm smirked.

“I’m happy to say that I’m not a griffon when it comes to expressing my feelings romantically,” he joked as Matteo snorted in amusement and Star giggled. “I wrote a pretty fluffy letter to her, but believe me, if you saw the adorable giddy look on her face every time I talk sweetly to her, you’d want to do the same thing. She just makes me so happy.”

“You’re making me more and more jealous by the second…” Star said dreamily as she snuggled herself into her own blanket while sighing dreamily.

“What? You wanted to know,” Storm snickered as Star’s demeanor became more and more ridiculous.

“You’re damn right I did, hun! PLEASE! Tell me more!” she demanded while giggling.

“If you say so,” Storm shook his head at her while smiling. “Derpy is a little out there, but it’s in a cute way. It compliments her bubbly personality. Everything she does makes me smile, even if it’s silly or clumsy. She has this innocent charm that’s unmatched. She absolutely adores being cuddled and pretty much melts in my arms every time I hug her. She makes these cute little noises when I do too. In short…” Storm smirked. “She’s the most adorable thing in Equestria and she’s MINE,” he finished with a little bit of added snark as Star continued her blushy, girly giggles.

“I definitely need to stalk you two someday,” she spoke up as she swayed back and forth. “It sounds like you and her are a one way ticket to the best kind of heart attack.”

“Pff…” Squall suddenly scoffed from beside them. Star flattened her brow for only a moment before glancing snidely at Squall.

“Took you long enough, Mr. Grumpy Wings,” she spoke up before Storm could give any sort of response to Squall. Squall lifted an eyebrow at her.

“What?” he asked as Star, still wrapped in her blanket, bounced lightly on her plot towards him.

“You like to act like you find nothing cute, well I see right through you, tough guy!” she reached one of her little hooves out of her blanket and nudged him while giggling.

“Nnnnnggghhhhh…” Squall looked away from her while groaning. Star pulled her arm back into her blanket and pulled it tight before looking at Squall curiously.

“So who did you write to?” she asked him. Squall released a quiet grunt.

“Parents,” he said simply. Star blinked.

“That’s a surprise, I thought you didn’t like them,” she mentioned as Squall rolled his eyes.

“I don’t,” he clarified while stealing a quick glance at Storm, who looked like he was trying his hardest not to say anything. Their past disputes on family weren’t an issue between them, but it wasn’t something they’d forget.

“Oh? Then why did you write to them?” Star leaned herself towards him, causing him to lean away naturally.

“I knew if I didn’t, my dad would have probably done something stupid like rally a search party or crusade to ‘brave the dangers of the unknown’ to find me. And probably get himself killed in the process,” Squall said while rolling his eyes multiple times. Star listened carefully, giving him a lot of analytical looks as he spoke, and continued to do so after he finished. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You definitely have a certain way of saying things…” Star pondered out loud, a smile slowly forming on your lips. “But with the right spin… it definitely sounds like you care about your parents regardless. It sounded like care.”

“It’s not,” Squall quickly shot down her statement with a snort, but she only giggled.

“Yes it is…” she said goofily while shedding her blanket and fluttering her wings to put them face to face. Squall glared at her, but she only giggled.

“Nnnnnnggggghhhhh…” he groaned again while averting his eyes and scrunching his mouth.

“You look like you need a BIIIIIIIIIIIG hug!” Star teased him as she hovered closer. Squall was pushing the limits of how far one could lean without tipping over, but Star kept lined up with him, eventually reaching him and wrapping her little arms around his neck and hugging him.

“Stop,” he demanded.

“No,” she quickly denied. Squall puffed his cheeks out, looking ready to protest, but as usual with Star, he didn’t. “You are gonna get snuggled and LIKE IT!” Star giggled as she jokingly nuzzled her cheek into his neck.

“Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Squall released his signature louder groan as Storm Front and Matteo both watched awkwardly.

“What exactly is going on here?” Storm asked with a chuckle. Matteo snorted and turned his head to rest it sideways on his arms.

“I’d rather not get involved,” he stated, flinching for a moment as Twister suddenly walked by him. Storm trained his eyes on Twister, watching as he walked towards the cuddle struggle while wearing a pair of librarian glasses and a fake moustache that matched his mane. He had a clipboard in one of his hooves that was marked ‘shipping,’ which he held up and made a few marks on before moving along casually.

Storm just shook his head, purposely disregarding Twister as Squall continued to be snuggled into submission by Star.

“Looks like the Renegades are back,” Matteo chimed in. Storm turned and looked towards the entrance to the battledome. As Matteo had said, the Renegades who had left with the mail were entering and dropping their empty mail bags on the floor. Storm was about to dismiss it, but then he saw Descent walk through as well… with a mail bag…

Descent followed behind the rest of the Renegades as they entered, pulling his goggles down and shaking the snow out of his mane as he walked right past the rest of them without taking off his mail bag. He immediately began looking around for Storm, but somepony got to him first.

“Whoa, hold on a second,” Spitfire approached him after surveying the returning Renegades. “You went to deliver letters too? What happened to ‘personally hoof-picking the best for the job while I remain here?’” she quote his own words. Descent blinked and glanced around again before answering.

“After some brief contemplation I saw fit to deliver the letter to Princess Twilight personally,” he lied without hesitation, refusing to reveal any sort of emotion that drove him towards the real reason he did it. He was ready to counter any sort of skepticism from Spitfire, but instead got something else.

Spitfire was looking at him with a blank, yet somewhat flat expression that slowly turned into a furrowed brow.

“You went… to Ponyville,” she said slowly. Descent could read it in her expression. Relating him to Ponyville clearly only brought one thing to mind. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t soon forget the event that set everything into motion between the two organizations.

“Indeed I did,” Descent replied and returned her gaze in a manner that made it quite clear he understood what she was thinking. Spitfire folded her ears back and huffed.

“I’m sure that was an interesting experience for you,” she said with blatant sarcasm. It was well placed sarcasm, and Descent was not opposed to it, considering what his objective was a year ago, but he found himself chuckling. Spitfire looked at him quizzically as Descent not only nodded, but smiled too.

“As a matter of fact…” Descent paused as he recollected everything he just experienced. “It… was a very pleasant experience,” he said in a tone that was uncharacteristically soft. He glanced back at his uniform. “I was so distracted by it that I nearly forgot to pick up my flight suit on the way out,” he shook his head as he looked away from Spitfire, scanning the surrounding area until he spotted Matteo. Knowing the son of Massimo was acquainted with his son, it didn’t take long for Descent to spot Storm’s brown fur and yellow mane. “Excuse me,” Descent stepped away and moved towards Storm, leaving behind a confused, but interested Spitfire.

“Hmm…” Spitfire examined him carefully as he moved away, not quite sure what to make of what she just saw. Descent was still his normal, brutally serious self, but little bits of emotion were squeaking through.

“Hm?” Matteo suddenly lifted his head up from his arms, his eyes narrowing into a firm glare. With Squall still being affectionately harassed by Star, Storm was the first to notice. It was a glare Storm had seen a lot lately, but it wasn’t aimed at him. Which… could only mean one thing.

Storm looked over his shoulder to see his father approaching while wearing a mail bag. Descent was looking directly at him, but as he grew closer, his eyes shifted towards Matteo and hardened into a fierce glare to counter the one he was receiving. Storm swallowed nervously as Descent grew closer. It was clear Descent was coming over to see him, but with Matteo so close by, he wasn’t sure what would happen.

Descent stopped right beside Storm, but kept his eyes locked in a battle of fierce gazes with Matteo. Matteo began to release a low growl from the back of his throat, his talons opening and closing, making audible scratching noises against the battle dome floor. Descent’s lips curled into a confident smirk.

“You have your father’s battle glare,” Descent spoke up. “And are as equally unwavering in the face of mine. Good… I expect no less from the son of the strongest warrior I ever faced.”

“HMPH!” Matteo grunted, clicking the bottom point of his beak against the top as if he was restraining himself from engaging Descent in battle. Storm didn’t dare say anything until the little exchange was complete, remaining completely silent with his eyes darting back and forth between them.

Despite the gravity of the air between the two, Descent turned away from Matteo and looked towards Storm.

“Storm,” he addressed him while making a small head motion to his right. “Come with me for a minute,” he said simply before turning his back and walking away.

“Huh?” Storm blinked as he looked at Matteo, who was still looking away, and then back at Star and Squall, whose little struggle against each other had paused due to curiosity. Twister of course, was nowhere to be found. “Ah!” Storm quickly got up, seeing that his father was not stopping or waiting for him, and followed behind in a canter to catch up, doing his best to keep his blanket from falling off as he moved. As soon as he was beside Descent, he glanced at his father’s face to see the usual serious expression. Storm was still not used to that face. Every time Descent had briefly visited him throughout his colthood, it was always with a smile. He understood this was how his father truly was most of the time, but since it was new to him, he couldn’t help but feel he was being pulled aside for something serious.

But then Storm realized that they could have stopped numerous times as they walked around. It looked like Descent was trying to find a spot where they could have some privacy, if any. He ended up stopping at a barrel near the wall that was unoccupied, and the closest ponies were two barrels away. It seemed to suffice.

Descent made his way around the barrel to somewhat block him from view of any others and sat down. Storm followed, moving around in front of Descent before sitting down as well, looking into the serious gaze of his father and anxiously awaiting what he wanted to talk about.

Then Descent suddenly exhaled and his expression softened slightly. It didn’t lighten too much, but there was a clear difference. It was as if he had two separate states of mind set aside, one for business, and one just for Storm. It didn’t seem fake though because it was reminiscent of how Descent had always looked while visiting him in the past.

“So… Storm,” Descent spoke up, breaking Storm’s thoughts completely and causing him to focus on his father as the orange flicker of the fire nearby caused the shadows to dance about their faces. “I saw you place a letter in the pile.”

Storm froze and his eyes widened.

“Uh…” he winced and bit his lower lip. “Yeah, I did… but,” his eyes widened further as he eyed the mailbag that Descent was still wearing.

“Based on your face, I’d say I don’t have to explain what I did because of it,” Descent called out Storm’s thoughts. Storm’s ears drooped as he stared at his father in disbelief.

“Wait, whoa, whoa, you… went to Ponyville?! And…” his mouth hung agape. “Oh god…” he lowered his head as he looked up at Descent. Descent lifted an eyebrow as his son shrunk before him. He let out an amused snort before shaking his head.

“What are you doing?” he asked as Storm wore a look of complete defeat.

“You met… you… uh… my… er…” he stuttered, clearly never expecting such a scenario to happen so soon.

“Your marefriend?” Descent stated flatly, causing Storm to flinch.

“Um…”

“Derpy Hooves?” Descent switched which eyebrow he had raised.

“Uh…”

“Storm, stand up,” Descent ordered.

“Huh? Oh…” Storm looked down, finally realizing that he had lowered himself all the way to the floor. He quickly pushed himself up, but remained stiff and worried.

“Storm…” Descent furrowed his brow. “RELAX.”

“I… sorry…” Storm took a deep breath, looking at the floor for a moment. “I guess… I just…”

“Didn’t think I’d find out?” Descent finished for him. Storm flinched… again.

“Well… I had a feeling you would eventually, but…” Storm looked up and around. “Given where we are right now…”

“Curiosity provoked the cat,” Descent added as Storm looked up at him curiously.

“Isn’t the saying, ‘curiosity killed the—?’”

“Beside the point,” Descent quickly cut him off after butchering the saying. He growled as Storm continued to look uncomfortable. He didn’t know if it was his demeanor, which was something that he rarely changed, but the fact that Storm seemed afraid of the whole situation was starting to bother him. “STORM!” he said his name sternly, causing him to freeze up completely. “For the love of Celestia… is there something about this situation that’s implying I’m angry?”

Storm blinked, looking Descent in the eyes before looking his face over.

“Er… I hate to break it to you, Dad… but you do have a naturally stern look,” Storm pointed out. Descent grunted before cracking a subtle smirk.

“I guess you’re seeing the natural me now…” he quickly shook his head. “No, the smiles I put on back when I used to visit you were not fake, but I admit, smiling was something I didn’t do very often, it felt unnatural, but I did it for you.”

“Then why aren’t you smiling now?” Storm tipped his head to the side.

“Too many ponies around,” Descent answered instantly.

“PFFFF…” Storm’s cheeks puffed up as he held a hoof over his mouth.

“What?” Descent scrunched his face as Storm tried to hold back laughter, but failed, letting a few chuckles loose.

“Can’t not look like a hardass around your comrades?” Storm asked as he continued to chuckle.

“Believe me,” Descent grunted as he looked away. “With the idiots I have to keep in line, it helps,” he growled and looked sternly at Storm again. “Hey! We’re NOT talking about me here!”

“Sorry!” Storm stiffened and shrunk backwards, but the goofy smile on his face remained.

“We’re talking about Derpy Hooves… who I met,” Descent reminded Storm. Storm swallowed and stood up straight awaiting his father to continue. “She is a little… out there,” he said first. Storm gritted his teeth. While he didn’t disagree on Derpy being a little bit of an airhead, he was hoping Descent didn’t see that as bad. “But she was very friendly, letting me right into her house like a neighbor. I admit, my appearance had me worried, but she and Ponyville in general didn’t seem to care at all. Well, at least most of them.”

“That’s the kind of mare she is…” Storm was under the impression Descent was speaking negatively and he was scratching and clawing in his brain to find a way to sway his opinion, but—

“I like her,” Descent suddenly added.

“But she—” Storm blinked. “Wait… you do?”

“You sound surprised,” Descent narrowed his eyes.

“No! No…” Storm quickly held out his hooves, his blanket dropping to the floor. He shivered, reaching down and picking it back up before continuing. “I’m… glad you do, I’m just curious as to why. You don’t come off as somepony who is easy to sway… no offense.”

“None taken because you’re right,” Descent agreed. He smirked again. “In fact, I didn’t even tell her who I was. I wanted to see her unbiased reaction to your letter and… her reaction definitely spoke towards how she feels about you.”

“Really?” Storm smiled. “What did she do?” he asked eagerly.

“She read the letter over three or four times, clutched it to her heart, and squealed like a giddy little filly while hovering in the air,” Descent recalled Derpy’s extravagant reaction.

“Oh…” Storm sighed happily as he blushed lightly. “Well, she absolutely adores sweet words… I tried my best to give her—”

“I know, I read it,” Descent cut him off.

“YOU WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!” Storm fired straight up into the air out of his blanket, making it halfway to the ceiling before falling back down and landing right in front of Descent and grabbed his shoulders. “You… you… DAD!” he yelled while trying to shake Descent by the shoulders, but he mostly remained in place. “Oooohhhh… Dammit…” Storm’s face turned bright red as he looked down. “That was… supposed to be for her eyes only…”

“Obviously,” Descent said stiffly as he lightly pushed Storm off of him. “However, I wasn’t just there to judge her. I was there to judge you too.”

“Me?” Storm looked right back towards him with his ears pointing straight upward, the remains of the embarrassed blush still clear and present on his face.

“Yes,” Descent nodded. “Storm… while I’ve done the best I could to make brief time for us over the years, I feel like I’ve missed a lot. We’ve never had much of a chance to sit down and talk about things happening in your life, the experiences you’ve had, or the other ponies you’ve met. I’ve gotten to watch you grow up, but it was from behind a thin veil that separated us, the guise that I kept up for so long. While my trip to Ponyville was a very interesting experience, the highlight of my trip was what I learned about you.”

He paused as Storm listened intently, now more curious than embarrassed.

“What I took away the most from my encounter with Derpy… was the kind of stallion you’ve become,” he cracked a small grin. “The way Derpy reacted to your words, the words you wrote to her, and how she described you to me before I left… all spoke greatly towards your character,” he watched as Storm’s face became blank, as if he was unsure what to say or how to feel. “It made me very proud to hear that my son had become such respectable stallion, and that you’ve learned to love and care for others, grasping opportunities that I have never had.”

“Aw, Dad…” Storm smiled, his ears folding back as he felt his chest swell with delight.

“Don’t let go of her Storm, she cares just as much about you as you do her. I do not regret the life I have lived, but I envy you for those you have met and known,” Descent added as he reached back for his mailbag. “And I have something for you…”

“Oh?” Storm blinked, his eyes lighting up as Descent shuffled through his bag. He thought that there was going to be no returning mail… did Descent violate that rule for him?

All thoughts on the possibility were immediately shoved aside in Storm’s head when Descent turned back around and held out his hoof. In it, the small, hoof made plushie of Derpy, crafted by Derpy herself. Storm stared at it, his mouth slightly agape as he reached out and took the plushie into his hooves and held it in front of him.

“She wanted you to have this…” Descent spoke up as Storm’s eyes remained locked on the plush. “So that you could see her every day even though you two are apart,” he released a single chuckle. “A mare who wants something like that for my son is definitely okay in my book.”

“She is so adorable…” Storm smiled as he tipped his head forward and lightly bumped his forehead against the soft material of the plushie’s nose. “This is totally something I can imagine her doing… I miss her so much.”

“And she misses you,” Descent relayed her words. “She also wanted me to tell you that she loves you very much…” as he expected, he felt a little weird saying such things, but he did it for his son. “And that she can’t wait to see you again.”

Storm listened to Descent as he delivered Derpy’s message. His eyes widened slightly as he stared at the plushie and took it all in. Descent flinched as Storm suddenly stepped forward and hugged him. Descent’s eyes widened and his pupils darted around to see if anypony was looking. Not that he didn’t want to give his son a hug, but…

Who was he kidding?

Descent returned the embrace with one arm as Storm held onto him tightly with the plushie still in hoof. Storm Front was the only light in his dark life. He could make an exception and drop his guard… but only a little.

“Once things die down, we need to sit down and talk more,” Descent suggested. “I want to know more about your life, all the things that I missed.

“Agreed,” Storm nodded against Descent’s shoulder. “And… thanks Dad…”

Descent and Storm were not as hidden as Descent thought or wanted to be. In fact, Descent had failed to notice that they were almost in direct eyesight of Soarin and Rainbow Dash. The father and son duo were a good five barrels away from them, but it was easy to watch them from their position.

“I’m so glad for Storm,” Soarin spoke up as her rubbed his hoof on Dash’s opposite shoulder. She gave his shoulder a nuzzle as she listened. “He was always so down on himself and worried about his dad. I could almost see it weighing him down in everything he did. Since Descent showed up… well, Storm’s been looking like a different pony.”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed as she too looked over. “Though I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it.”

“Around what?” Soarin asked her as he lightly squeezed her against him.

“Descent being Storm’s father. After all we’ve been through with Descent, he just doesn’t fit the description Storm continuously gave him. I mean, I know all about everything now, but it’s still hard to grasp,” Dash explained.

“No, I hear ya,” Soarin agreed. “But ponies have reasons for keeping things secret. Descent didn’t want Storm to ever have a part in the life he led. Obviously that broke down and he knows now, but I can see Descent’s reasoning behind it. I guess the big guy has more of a heart than we thought, he was just a professional at hiding it.”

“And some ponies…” Dash suddenly dug her nose into the crook of his chest and shoulder roughly, causing him to flinch lightly. “Hide things when they really shouldn’t.”

“I apologize for my stubborn insolence, I will not fail you again,” Soarin answered jokingly, acknowledging his reluctance to be straightforward about his troubles as Dash snickered and bumped her head against him in response.

“Oh stop. At least you can’t get away with it when I’m around,” she pulled her head back and stuck her tongue out at him.

“Sheesh you two…” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up from the barrel across from theirs. Soarin and Dash both perked up and looked over. “Just bang in that blanket while you’re at it…”

They were both paying such close attention to each other that Fleetfoot had gone almost completely unnoticed. She still had herself entirely covered, barely more than her nose and eyes exposed to the cold. Soarin chuckled when he saw her and her barely changed state of blanket cover.

“I’ll restrain myself if you come out from hiding and tell us why you’re acting so weird,” he asked to jokingly compromise.

“Yeah, no,” Fleetfoot quickly covered her eyes. “If that’s the price, just start having sex, don’t mind me!” she stated firmly. While she had somewhat returned to her usual self post…whatever she had done, she was still refusing to let anypony know. Soarin knew that, but it was refreshing to have a temporary card to play against her usual shenanigans.

“Where’s Descent?” A new voice chimed in, causing Soarin and Dash to look over their shoulders. Lightning Dust and Starry Skies were trotting towards them. “You, horn-boy,” Starry said bluntly as she pointed at Soarin. “You seen Descent? He was supposed to be back out with us hours ago.”

“‘Horn boy?’” Soarin said to himself briefly before making a head motion over his shoulder. “He ran a personal errand, now he’s with his son.”

The moment Soarin mentioned Descent being with Storm, Starry furrowed her brow and grunted. Soarin watched her carefully as she stepped around them, not recognizing Fleetfoot covered in the blanket as she moved to get a better view of the father-son duo not too far away.

“I just don’t get it,” Starry huffed. “Where the hell did this come from? This isn’t like him at all,” she thought out loud as Lightning Dust walked up beside her.

“Maybe the big guy has a soft side?” she suggested.

“HA!” Starry instantly released a single guffaw while looking at Lightning Dust like she was crazy. “Soft side? Descent?” she shook her head. “And Griffons are vegetarians,” she replied with an intense amount of sarcasm in her voice. Dust shrugged.

“His life has been hell, right?” she asked Starry. “Maybe this is his way to get away from it.”

“Pfff,” Starry rolled her eyes. “I’ve been through just as much hell as he has. You don’t see me going around looking for hugs, ugh…” Starry cringed and shivered. “I can’t stand affection. Ponies are better off keeping their hooves to themselves.”

Dash flattened her brow at Starry’s very blunt opinion of love and care, but Soarin was snickering. Dash followed his eyes to so Fleetfoot had poked her head back out from the blanket and was looking towards Starry with sly amusement. Dust was still trying to reason with Starry.

“Yikes Starry, a hug isn’t gonna kill you,” she said while scrunching her face. Starry scoffed.

“But it might kill whoever tries to hug me,” she said coldly, unaware that Fleetfoot was shuffling towards her from behind in her blanket.

“Surprise attack!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled as she leapt out of her blanket and onto Starry’s back, wrapping her arms around her neck.

“AHH!!!” Starry immediately yelped and frantically looked over her shoulder.

“Snuggle time!” Fleetfoot giggled as Starry looked at her completely mortified. Her eyes narrowed into a harsh glare and she growled as Fleetfoot jokingly rubbed her body up and down Starry’s back.

“I am giving you EXACTLY three seconds to get off of me before I break every bone in your body,” she hissed, but Fleetfoot looked directly into Starry’s eyes slyly, unaffected by the death glare. Lightning Dust slowly backed away, knowing full well what happened when one crossed Starry while she wore that glare. Fleetfoot shifted forward on Starry’s back to press her face into Starry’s.

“One,” Fleetfoot began to count as she drew close. “Two,” she snickered. “Three!” she finished while pressing her nose to Starry’s.

Soarin, Dash, and Dust all cringed as Starry lurched her body to the side, shaking Fleetfoot off. Fleetfoot landed on her hooves, but looked right up into an incoming hoof from Starry. Without dropping her snarky smirk, Fleetfoot dodged right, grabbed Starry’s arm, and pulled her into herself.

“Gah!” Starry yelped as she slammed into the Fleetfoot. The two fell flat on the floor and began wrestling as Fleetfoot sneered and Starry growled.

“Uh…” Dust blinked as she looked up at Soarin and Dash, then back down at the two wrestling mares. “Okay then…” she relaxed, seeing that despite Starry’s killing intent, Fleetfoot was not so easily beaten, and kept putting Starry in a position where she could neither get free nor land any hits.

“I didn’t know you liked me this much!” Fleetfoot joked while they tangled on the floor.

“I'd rather rinse my mouth out with broken glass!” Starry snarled back.

As they grappled on the floor, Air Mach, Macho Savage, and Lightning Streak all approached while just casually walking. The three of them stopped and stared at Fleetfoot and Starry on the floor, all exchanging brief glances before they turned and sat on the floor, observing as they offered each other hoofbumps.

“Hey! We have an audience now! Come on Starry! Feel it!” Fleetfoot continued to giggle as Starry began to growl and snarl ferociously.

“This is too weird,” Soarin spoke up as he and Dash watched. “And honestly, I thought Starry would learn by now that Fleet doesn’t back down so easily.”

“Doubt she’ll forget it after this,” Dash snickered as the ‘event’ in front of them drew a few more stallions… and High Winds.

It got to the point where the two were rolling around on the floor. Fleetfoot snatched up her blanket as they rolled and started wrapping it around them. A few minutes of struggling, grunting, laughter, and spectator hoofbumps later, the two of them were completely wrapped in the blanket, pulled tight by Fleetfoot with the two of them back to back, only their heads sticking out.

“How did you even get us like this?!” Starry struggled, but was completely stuck.

“Trade secret!” Fleetfoot snickered as she managed to turn around and teasingly rub her nose against Starry’s ear. Starry quickly folded her ear to avoid it.

“GAH! STOP IT!” she frantically yelled as she struggled.

“You got yourself into this mess! Now you gotta deal with it!”

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Starry growled and yelled as she moved her head and folded her ears sporadically to try and avoid.

“What in the HELL is going on over here?” Descent asked as he and Storm pushed through the crowd of stallions. He blinked when his eyes landed on Starry, looking defeated and a little panicked as Fleetfoot rested her chin atop Starry’s head with a goofy smile. He furrowed his brow and raised an eyebrow.

“Descent, HELP!” Starry whined as she continued to grit her teeth and growl.

“NOPONY CAN HELP YOU NOW!” Fleetfoot continued to be silly as Descent sighed.

Off to the side, Soarin and Dash had enjoyed the entertainment, both shaking their heads with amusement.

“Never a dull moment in the compound,” Dash commented while glancing up at Soarin.

“Even when it’s planted in the northern mountains and we’re hiding from strange ponies trying to kill us all. Really, sometimes I wonder just how sane we are,” Soarin said jokingly.

“I lost all hope for my sanity the moment I got to know all of you guys,” Dash nudged him in the chest.

“That sounds about right,” Soarin chuckled in response as he looked over towards the scene. Descent and Lightning Dust were trying to pull Starry out of the blanket, as the stallions and High Winds booed at them. They were struggling due to Fleetfoot’s apparent skill of trapping another pony in a blanket with her.

“I’m feeling kind of stiff,” Dash leaned away from Soarin and shook out her arms, shedding the blanket from her shoulders to stretch out her wings. Soarin watched her move, glancing back at the blanket wrestling before turning back to Dash and nodding.

“You know what?” Soarin spoke as he stood up and grabbed a spare blanket nearby on the floor. “I’m feeling like a walk. I don’t mind resting all day, but I gotta stretch my legs…” he cracked his neck and forth before shaking his mane out.”

“Want some company?” she fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“You don’t have a choice in the matter,” Soarin smirked in response as he tossed the extra blanket to her, landing it right on her face.

“Hey!” she laughed as she grabbed it, but before she could pull it off her face she felt feathers against her back. She yelped as Soarin grabbed her with his wing and scooped her right up off the ground. Dash flattened her brow, but grinned at him as he began carrying her away from the cacophony and through the battledome. “It’s called a ‘walk’ for a reason, Soarin.”

“Shhhhhhhhh… no tears…” Soarin replied goofily as Dash giggled and let it happen.

“You’ve got until the doors to have your fill, or else I’m going right for your exposed sides Mr. Ticklish, and don’t think I won’t,” she smirked as Soarin flinched lightly.

“Yes ma’am.”

Rainbow Dash and Soarin left the battledome behind them, stepping out into the cold, but much quieter hallway. Soarin put her down as promised, but not before getting another vigorous threat to be tickled.

“So, uh…” Soarin shrugged. “Normally I’d suggest we head into town or something, but… kind of hard to do that right now,” he said as he stared out a nearby window in the hallway, taking in the sight of the artificial blizzard raging outside.

“Yeah, I dunno, that might be a little hard,” Dash chuckled as she trotted up to the window and looked out. Soarin walked up beside her and watched the blizzard, the wind whistling as the snow sprayed against the window. “It’s funny how much things can change, huh?” Dash spoke up as she rested her arms on the cold windowsill and placed her chin atop them. “A year ago, I didn’t even know you guys were a military force, now here I am as one of you… and… I feel so calm despite the danger.”

“Then you’re definitely one of us,” Soarin said with a light chuckle as he shifted and leaned up against her. “I used to be afraid… very afraid of everything. Now we get into trouble or go into hiding, or whatever… things that you’d think would have me on edge feel natural. It comes with the job. I know we have a little bit of comfort going right now with the Renegades helping us out, but we are technically one slip up away from being under attack.”

“Natural, yeah…” Dash nodded. “That’s exactly how it feels…” she smirked. “I think I have to thank Silver for driving that into my head so quickly.”

“That’s the whole point of the ‘The Test’ too,” Soarin continued. “Shock the recruits with something way more dangerous than they’d ever really face and they’ll never feel so nervous again. Well, at least on a crisis level, it helps breed the calm approach to any situation.”

“Yeah, and I still hate how good of an actor you are,” Dash joked while pushing against him, remembering Soarin’s ‘injured’ charade during the test. “Make that all of you. I thought for sure we were all dead.”

“We like to think we’re multi-talented,” Soarin said jokingly, earning a few giggles from Dash. “Speaking of Silver…” Soarin’s tone suddenly turned serious. Dash blinked, not expecting Soarin to bring up her mentor. “How is he holding up?” Soarin asked, looking directly at Dash.

Dash froze for a moment, unsure how to proceed. She knew for a fact that Silver had been struggling. She saw the state of his body herself and just how broken he is beneath the guise of his unbreakable spirit. She trusted Soarin, and didn’t want to lie to him, but at the same time she felt it would lift a weight off her chest if she told somepony. Soarin, obviously, was the first pony that came to mind to talk about things like this, but he happened to be associated with somepony Dash didn’t want to spill the beans to… Spitfire.

In fact, a thought hit Dash as she contemplated what to say… she hadn’t talked to Soarin at all about Silver… at least as far as she could remember, barely if any at all. She had been receiving personal training under Silver, but wasn’t that supposed to be a bit of a secret as well? So much had happened she couldn’t remember what was meant to be told and what wasn’t. Everything happening right now seemed so much more important than a few personal training sessions.

“Dash,” Soarin smiled and looked down as he let a few light chuckles go. “Relax, I know about your training with Silver.”

“Huh?” Dash blinked. “How did…”

“Well, for one,” Soarin reached a hoof up and booped her nose with his hoof. “You always have this distinct look on your face when you’re nervously trying to figure out what to say.”

“What? I do?” Dash furrowed her brow and pouted at him.

“And that’s the face you make when you’re being cute and grumpy,” Soarin booped her nose again.

“Stop that!” she pushed him away while giggling. “Okay… so you know, I guess Silver told you.”

“I kind of figured it out, but yeah, he told me too. Honestly, I’m jealous. I wish I had a pony like him for a mentor… I want to hear all about that too, but first, seriously how is he holding up?”

“What do you mean?” Dash asked him, nervously thinking it over. It was fine if Soarin knew Silver was training her, but what about the rest of it? About Silver’s body?

“You’re making the face again,” Soarin grinned. Dash groaned and put a wing over her face.

“Seriously, stop! You’re going to make me paranoid about it!” she whined as she let her wing fall off her face and puffed her cheeks at him. Soarin shook his head lightly before his expression turned serious.

“Worried about telling me how poorly his body is holding up?” Soarin suddenly asked. Dash froze again, her eyes widening.

Soarin… knew about Silver’s secret?

“I’ll take that face,” Soarin reached to boop her nose again, but she quickly reached up and pressed her hoof over his to prevent it. “As a yes…” Soarin turned away from her and glanced over his shoulder. “C’mon, we haven’t done much walking on this walk yet. Let’s walk and talk,” he suggested as Dash gulped and trotted up beside him. The two aimed towards the lobby and walked slowly with no true destination in mind. They moved beneath the dim working lights and enjoyed each other’s presence as well as the warmth of the blankets.

“So… you know, huh?” Dash sighed and her ears flopped down. “So much for keeping the secret…”

“Actually…” Soarin sighed. “It really isn’t a secret… to any of us in the Wonderbolts, at least among the elites.”

Dash stopped right in her tracks for a brief moment, causing Soarin to come to a halt a few steps ahead of her. Soarin smiled weakly at her.

“Hey, the Wonderbolts look after one another… and Silver is a very important part of our family,” Soarin’s smile grew stronger as Dash found her motion again and caught up.

“So you guys all know about… what he’s been doing? How…” she paused and her ears flopped down. “How broken he really is?”

“I don’t know if broken is the right word to describe it, but yes,” Soarin confirmed as they reached the lobby. They paused for a moment as Rivet flew by, guiding two unicorns who were lifting a heavy metal cylinder towards the giant pillar sticking through the lobby. Soarin and Dash angled their path to stay out of the way of Rivet and all the repairs taking place.

“Silver has been here for longer than all of us, and no matter how many times the old guy tries to hide it… we see it,” Soarin explained. “His movements are stiff, he grimaces often, he spends more time in the training room with Bliss than the rest of us, and from what Wave Chill tells us, he has a hard time just rolling out of bed in the morning. In fact, he usually…”

“Shoo’s him out before getting up, he told me,” Dash cut off Soarin while sighing. “Silver has let me in on a lot… most of which I kind of learned by accident, but know nonetheless. Every part of me wants to tell Spitfire and get him out of danger but…” Dash trailed off.

“I’m sure suggesting that went well,” Soarin chuckled.

“Nope, not one bit.”

“And believe me, we’ve all thought about that too,” Soarin let his ears flop down. “We’ve all talked about it amongst ourselves and have considered on many occasions letting Spitfire know about our concerns, but… how could we?” Said Soarin as Dash turned her eyes towards him. It was already a bit of a shock that the ‘secret’ she was keeping wasn’t much of one at all… but were the rest of them being just as secretive? “Have you seen how hard Silver tries? Have you seen how passionate he is about everything that is the Wonderbolts? There’s nothing that can keep him down, not even being beaten senseless… which,” Soarin paused and cringed. “Which I still feel really bad about…” he said as he glanced up at his horn, remembering when the yellow magic ran free and led to him severely beating up Silver in a training battle. Dash remembered it just as well.

“But even if you were in control, would you have held back against him?” she asked as they made their way around the workers in the lobby and into the east hallway. Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

“That’s why I said I don’t think ‘broken’ is the right word to describe Silver… because no matter how battered his body is, he’s still the Iron-Horse Silver Lining. You ever punched him? It’s like hitting a thick sheet of metal. Plus, if we hold back while training with or against him, we pay for it hard,” Soarin shook his head. “I’ve had my share of bruises while training, but I’ll definitely say the worst ones came from taking it easy around Silver.”

“I can fully relate to that,” Dash smirked as she thought back on all the training her had done with Silver. If she gave any less than her best, he’d make her regret it.

“And that’s exactly why we’re so hesitant,” Soarin continued as they paused and looked back into the lobby. “Silver is a driving force among us. We all like to give positive encouragement, but so much comes directly from Silver alone. He doesn’t only talk the talk, he walks the walk and pulls us all along with him. We are all better flyers because of him. We are all stronger because of him. You don’t find ponies that have an effect like that on all around them very often,” Soarin and Dash both looked at each other as they turned and started walking into the east hallway.

Dash agreed with everything Soarin said. She would not be the Wonderbolt she is right now if not for how hard Silver pushed her. She had learned so many lessons from him and gone through so much personal, vigorous training. Would she be where she was if somepony else had been in charge of her? Definitely not.

She never doubted how great Silver was, but hearing all of this from Soarin was putting things into a new perspective… an even greater perspective. Silver wasn’t just having an effect on her, he was having an effect on everypony he came near. While she still worried about him and felt the need to protest his choice to keep going and hide the pain, she couldn’t deny everything that he was and what he stood for… the stubborn old fart. But, it did make Dash wonder…

“You think Spitfire sees it too?” Dash suddenly asked, drawing Soarin’s attention. “I mean… Silver is a good seven years over the average retirement age, you think she’s keeping him around because of it?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Soarin shook his head. “But I’m sure you can understand why we’re hesitant to risk it.”

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed as she put everything she knew about Spitfire together. It didn’t take her long to see it.

“Spitfire is very adamant about her duties. She will follow Wonderbolt code even if it’s against her interests. While I don’t believe she would let it control her completely, none of us want her to even consider it. Silver’s pain is visible, I’m sure she’s seen it, and if Silver is still here, it’s safe to assume she doesn’t want him gone either… but for good measure we just don’t bring it up.”

“There really is no pony like him, is there?” Dash added.

“Like I said, they are hard to come by,” Soarin nodded. “Silver is like a father figure to us as well. The day Silver retires will be a sad day for all of us. I hate to put it this way, but I’m glad he held out until after all of this began. We need a pony like him around in tough situations.”

“He’s a different kind of awesome,” Dash agreed. “And… I hope he’ll be alright. I mean, I know he’s Silver Freaking Lining, but he’s done so much for me… and for us, I can’t help but worry a little.”

“Yeah…” Soarin nodded as the two went quiet, continuing down the hallway all the way up to the end of the east hall, staring at the door leading towards the stairs to the basement. They didn’t want to get in the way of any work being done on the compound, so they turned around to walk back.

“Kind of limited where we can walk, huh?” Dash shrugged as they started moving back towards the lobby.

“I wasn’t expecting too much,” Soarin tipped his head back and forth. “But whatever, I’m just happy to spend some time with you,” he said while looking towards her and smiling. Dash turned her head and returned the smile right back to him.

“WHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!” a voice suddenly yelled out as something shot by right between them, causing them to twirl and stumble. After turning around a couple of times, the two shook their heads out and got their bearings.

“What the hell was…?” Dash spoke, but quickly trailed off as her eyes widened.

“What?” Soarin blinked as he too started looking around, his expression going blank. “Uh… what the…?” Soarin was equally stumped.

They were still in the Wonderbolt compound, there was no doubt about it, but… the hallway had changed. It was endless in both directions, nothing but continued hallway and doors for what looked like miles. No matter how hard Soarin and Dash looked to the left and right, there was no end in sight. The lobby was gone from view, and despite only walking a few yards, the wall behind them had vanished, revealing a hallway that extended forever in the other direction.

“Uh… okay…” Soarin commented as he stood on the tips of his hooves to try and see as far down the hallway as he could.

“What the actual f—” Dash cut herself off as she looked towards the closest door. “Huh?” she blinked as she spotted a sign hanging from the doorknob by a thread. “Soarin,” she quickly got his attention as she moved towards the door. Soarin watched curiously as he followed right behind her.

“What’s it say?” Soarin asked as he moved up beside Dash.

“Uh…” Dash lifted an eyebrow. “‘Review session scheduled for ‘no-pants’ o’clock?’’” Dash read off the sign.

“No pants o’clock?” Soarin furrowed his brow as he repeated the words. Dash turned the sign over, to see if there was more on the back, but it was blank.

“What does this even mean?” she asked herself as she looked up towards the door, but as she did… the door suddenly flew open, nearly knocking both her and Soarin over. Dash stumbled back into Soarin, who caught her before she could fall and the two stared up at the open door.

“GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!” Twister suddenly popped out of the door, rearing back on his hind legs… wearing a pair of dress pants. He reached into his wing and pulled out a massive clock that was several times larger than him. “LOOK AT THE TIME!” he yelled while pointing to the clock hands. They were moving so fast around the clock that they were blurry. There were pairs of pants in place of where the numbers were supposed to be on the clock that were all identical save for the twelve spot, which had a pair of pants that was crossed out with a red X. The clock hands suddenly slammed into place, both pointing to the icon crossing out the pants. “IT’S NO-PANTS O’CLOCK!” he yelled as he slammed the clock to the floor and kicked it, making it roll down the endless hallway. “DON’T WANT TO DISAPPOINT YOU GUYS!” he added as he reached down and completely ripped the pants off of his lower body, complete with the painful sounds of tearing fabric.

Soarin just stared straight forward at Twister. It wasn’t like he had never experienced strange ponies before, hell he knew Surprise, but… what?

“I should have known…” Dash released a long exasperated sigh and slammed a hoof over her face as the giant clock suddenly rolled by behind them from the opposite direction as if it had circled the earth. She stole a quick glance at Soarin as he sat with his mouth agape. It was a little scary to her just how calm she had become in the wake of Twister’s random shenanigans and seemingly impossible scenarios… but this time she had a buddy along for the ride. Why did he rope Soarin into this one? Asking definitely wouldn’t work, but she wouldn’t put it past being something simple like ‘being bored.’

“Twister!” Dash yelled as the clock rolled by behind them again. “I know you’re probably bored out of your skull, but I’m really not in the mood for this right now and…” she paused and thrust her plot backwards, slamming it into the face of the clock as it rolled by again, causing it to tip and fall against the wall. “And did you have to annoy Soarin too?” she continued.

Soarin slowly turned his head towards Dash, admittedly a little in awe of how casually she was taking this. She had mentioned Twister and his antics to her in the past, but… seriously, what was going on?

“Now now…” Twister was suddenly riding on Soarin’s back in the blink of an eye. “Hold your horses there, young lady!” He pulled a bowler hat out of his wing and smacked it onto his head, causing his neck to telescope between his shoulders before bouncing back out with a loud SPROING. A big sticker in the shape of a sheriff star badge had appeared on his chest that had the words ‘truant-officer’ on it. “We can’t have you playing hooky!” he pointed at her as he dismounted Soarin and placed himself behind Dash.

“Twister, I swear to Celestia if you touch my—” Dash was cut off as Twister placed both hooves on Dash’s plot. She immediately bucked at Twister’s face, but he appeared in front of her.

“HA! CAT-LIKE REFLEXES!” he said while pressing his nose to hers before appearing directly behind her again and shoving her into the door.

“WHOA!” Dash tried to anchor her hooves, but they slid across the floor as if it was coated with butter… and upon closer inspection… it was. Dash slipped and slid across the floor until she crashed into the door and fell through it, tumbling into the classroom.

“Dash!” Soarin yelled out and was ready to follow, but Twister slammed down onto Soarin’s back with a saddle.

“GO MY NOBLE STEED!” he yelled as he opened his wings and flapped them to create a back draft. The push forced Soarin to take a step forward right onto the butter coated floor, causing him to slip and fall, his chin hitting the floor as he began to slide across it.

“Whoooahhaooaoaaaaahhh!!!” Soarin flailed his hooves, trying to stop himself as he slid into the classroom, with Twister still on his back despite the awkward face-down-plot-up angle Soarin was in as he slid.

Once Twister had them both in the room, the door slammed and the lights shut off, leaving both Soarin and Dash in complete darkness. Everything went silent for a few moments.

“Um… Dash?” Soarin spoke finally.

“What?” Dash replied with a clearly exasperated tone.

“Is this normal for—”

“Yes,” Dash cut him off.

Suddenly the lights came on, revealing the classroom in its entirety, but it looked quite a bit different. For starters, it looked like a schoolhouse. There was a blackboard on the wall instead of the usual whiteboard and there was a teacher desk at the front, with an apple on it. Several open cabinets filled with arts and crafts supplies lined the right wall, a sink with a cabinet labeled ‘SNACK TIME!’ on the other. There were multiple motivational posters on the walls with cats on them, as well as the ABC’s lining the wall near the ceiling. To complete the look, Soarin and Rainbow Dash were both sitting at school desks, the usual long tables removed.

Only they were roped to the chairs. Their limbs were free, but the chairs were attached to the floor, making it impossible for them to move. It was also strangely warm in the room, as if they were completely cut off from the cold.

Soarin examined his surroundings with a mixture of confusion and disbelief as Dash remained staring straight forward with a flat look on her face. She glanced at Soarin as he looked completely mortified and sighed.

“I’ll see if I can get us out of this,” she said casually as Soarin continued to not quite be sure if he was dreaming or not.

“GOOD MORNING CLASS!” Twister suddenly popped up from behind the desk wearing a pair of large glasses and holding a retracted teacher pointer in his hoof. “This review session is now… well… IN SESSION!” he said with a silly tone as he pressed a button on the side of the pointer. It suddenly shot outward, extending towards Soarin.

“AH!” Soarin ducked as the pointer zipped past his head and hit the snack cabinet, smashing right through the door.

“Oh, this thing is SO finicky!” Twister snickered as he pressed the button again. The pointer retracted, pulling the tip out of the snack cabinet with seventeen cookies stuck on it. Two of the cookies flew off the pointer, one landing on Soarin and Dash’s desks each as the other fifteen went right back to him, shooting off the pointer as it stopped and arcing around into Twister’s open mouth as he swallowed them whole. “Educational nutrition at its best!”

“Twister,” Dash spoke up in a very flat tone as Soarin remained silent, letting her handle it.

“Now class,” Twister ignored her and stepped out in front of the two of them while whirling the pointer around.

“Twister…” Dash growled.

“It’s time for us to look back on everything we’ve learned about… ME!” he pointed to himself with a wide smile before zipping up to Dash and getting into her face. “AND YES, THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST.”

“Twister!” Dash raised her voice a little, but Twister shifted over to Soarin.

“YOU MUST BE NEW AROUND HERE! Perfect! We can get you up to speed as well, heheheheh!” He pulled back from Soarin. “After all… we’ve got a lot of readers who are dying to figure me out…” Twister paused as a hatch on the floor labeled ‘The Jim Hoxey Moxey’ suddenly opened. Three ponies stuck their heads out. An orange unicorn mare with a darker orange mane, a light blue pegasus mare with a mane and tail of different blue shades, and a grey stallion with a black mane.

“What the…? Is this the right hatch?” The grey stallion scratched his head before Twister pushed all three of them back into the opening, slammed the hatch shut and spontaneously welded it shut with a blowtorch and welder’s mask before throwing said tools out the window, the breaking of the window making the sound of a dog barking instead of glass shattering.

“BUT I AIN’T GONNA MAKE IT THAT EASY. WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Twister danced around their desks before bending his body backwards and belly flopping onto Soarin’s desk, sliding across the desk and onto Dash’s, eating the two cookies that had been placed on them.

“TWISTER!” Dash yelled as loud as she could while slamming her hooves down on him before he could slide off her desk. “CUT IT OUT! If you’re gonna bother me, do it LATER and don’t get others involved in this crap!” she ordered. Twister was out of her grip in an instant, his hooves pressed hard to her desk as he got in her face with an exaggerated flat expression and his eyes pointing in different directions.

“I WILL NOT TOLERATE MISBEHAVING PONIES!” He lifted his hooves from the desk and reached all the way back behind his head. He flung them back forward with something in his hooves. Dash yelped as Twister slammed whatever it was over her head, creating a loud HONK noise as he did. Whatever it was, it didn’t hurt, and when he stepped back, Dash looked up to see a large cone hat on her head with the word ‘DUNCE’ written down it.

“Oh for the love of…” Dash reached up and tried to pull it off, but as she suspected before the attempt, it was stuck.

“NOPONY APPRECIATES MY WORK!” Twister flailed about as he trotted in circles around Dash’s desk. “I SPENT THIRTY SIX YEARS IN LAW-SCHOOL TO EARN MY DOUBLE MAJOR DEGREE IN PHYSICS AND CREATIVE WRITING. IT WAS THE FINAL STEP TO MY DREAM OF BECOMING A GRADE SCHOOL TEACHER!” Twister jumped back and grabbed the edge of his desk. “YOU’LL NEVER INVENT GRAVITY, THEY SAID! TWO PLUS TWO IS FIVE THEY SAID! TALKING, CANDY COLORED, MINIATURE CARTOON HORSES, THEY SAID! WHO’S LAUGHING NOW!? WAHARWAHAHAHAR! HUP!” Twister threw his arms up, flipping his desk completely and tossing it across the room.

“I’m scared… and confused,” Soarin admitted as he watched the table flip and hang in midair for a few seconds before landing perfectly upright, with the apple still resting on the surface in the same place.

“Just let it happen…” Dash sighed as she rested her chin on her hoof. “He never does any actual harm and stops once he’s had his fill.”

“SO!” Twister zipped up onto Soarin’s desk and reclined on it. “LET’S REVIEW!” he exclaimed in a flamboyant voice before zipping over to his desk and pushing it all the way back to where it began… only the apple had turned into an orange. “A-HRM!!” Twister suddenly coughed and held his hoof to his mouth. He began to cough over and over again, each one more violent than the last before finally. “AAAAAHHHGGGG HUCK!” Twister snapped his head towards the chalkboard and coughed up a thick cloud of chalk dust that splashed against the board. When the dust cleared, the board was covered with multiple diagrams and doodles of himself done with varying degrees of artistic ability. At the top, the whole thing was titled: ‘Freaky Twister.’

“Whoa!” Twister grunted a few times while patting his chest. “I should probably cut down to only one pack of chalk a day…” he did a quick pirouette before tapping the pointer against the board and looking directly at Soarin. “Let’s start with when I tied up your honey in the ladies room!”

“Wait, you did WHAT?!” Soarin blinked as his eyes widened. Under any other circumstances he would have been glaring, but he was too confused to do so.

“Soarin I told you about that,” Dash reminded Soarin. Soarin glanced at her, his eyes reverting to normal.

“Oh… right…” Soarin scratched his head. “Sorry, so much has been going on, I guess I forgot.”

“HENCE THE REVIEW!” Twister zipped up and slapped the pointer against Soarin’s desk. “If I only had small clues about myself in four places across one hundred and three chapters, I’d be just as confused as the readers! So pay attention!” Twister zipped back up to the board. Soarin cocked an eyebrow and looked at Dash again, but Dash shook her head before he could ask her anything. Twister inhaled sharply.

“Where was I… AH YES! MARE BATHROOM POETRY!” Twister tapped an image on the board of himself dancing, drawn incredibly well. It was right beside a picture of Dash, drawn like a three year old crayon doodle, tied to a stool. “Our first encounter where I expressed to our female protagonist how she reminded me of a very, VERY special pony in my life…” Twister’s body… twisted around itself as he clutched the pointer to his heart and hearts began to literally float up from his head. “Ah… that pure white mare… her colorful mane… how much she adored my craaaaaaazy way of doing things when all others pushed me away. Ahhhhh…” he said as he began to tip to one side. “I was afraid she didn’t like me, just like the rest, but the ways she led me on and revealed how much she enjoyed it… aaaaaaahhhhhh…” But no matter how far he tipped in his dreamy daze, he remained off the floor. “A one of a kind mare… I’d do anything to get her back… but…”

Twister suddenly scrunched his face as he sprung back upright, and poked a large heart floating above his head with the pointer, making it explode with an absurdly loud POW. Soarin and Dash both winced, shutting their eyes for a moment, but a moment was all Twister apparently needed to completely change what was up on the chalkboard… and the orange on his desk was now a pear.

The blackboard now read ‘Twist Ledger’ on the top and was filled with different diagrams, and the rubber knife labeled ‘dramatic effect’ was dangling from a pin in the corner of it. Twister took a deep breath.

“On to part two!” Twister had a clear sound of slight grumpiness in his voice, but never losing the sneer. “When I tied you to a bed and walked around with a knife… like I was going to turn this into a popular gore fic or something about/not actually about pastries… BUT!” Twister reached up and grabbed the knife, flinging it towards Dash. Soarin gasped as he watched the knife careen towards Dash, he didn’t have the reach to stop it, nor did he have time to focus his magic, but Dash didn’t even budge.

Soarin blinked as the knife bounced off of Dash’s chest and wobbled through the air, landing on Soarin’s desk. Soarin blinked, poking the edge of the knife to discover it was a rubber knife. He yelped and pulled his hoof away as Twister slammed his cheek down on Soarin’s desk over the knife and began rubbing it against the rubber edge.

“IT STILL UNDERSTANDS ME!” he said as he picked his head up, the knife remaining attached to his cheek. “But oh, ho, ho…” he let the knife fall off of his face before leaning in towards Soarin’s face. “I believe during this time… I told Dash she was the only one I trusted… but… I have you here now, don’t I? I wonder why I trust you too?” He leaned too far forward and landed belly first on Soarin’s desk. “Guilty by association! She trusts you, so I guess I do too!” He reached up and grabbed Soarin’s face, turning his head towards Dash as she continued to sit and look incredibly annoyed. “Isn’t she a gem?”

“Uh…”

“BESIDE THE POINT!” Twister catapulted back in front of the blackboard and pointed a picture of himself drawn Phablo Phillicasso style with a tear falling up. “Twas during our second encounter that I revealed my struggle… the lack of understanding from others,” Twister smacked the pointer against three images of ponies walking away from him. “Everypony else was free to do as they pleased, but when I tried? Oh, no… not little old me… I can’t be who I want, it’s wrong… at least that’s what everypony told me. I had nopony who understood me… and nopony who tried to.” He turned around and faced his back to them. “Losing loved ones is hard… something that brings you down… and only the support of friends can help put you back on your hooves.” He fell onto his back and scooted across the floor until he was under Dash’s desk. “Am I riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?” he asked.

“And you had nopony to do that for you…” Dash continued for him monotonously. “Because the only pony who ever understood you and would be that pony for you was also the pony that you loved…. Twister can you hurry this—?”

“CORRECT!” Twister’s head shot up, jamming through the bottom of her desk and out the wooden top. “Wow! That was like, forty-five chapters ago! Somepony has done her homework!” he fired through the hole in the desk, making the sound of a firecracker as he shot back over to the board. “But now I have you to understand me! And…” Twister pointed the pointer at Soarin. “Somepony else I feel is worthy of my story! What fun! I’ve never had two friends before!”

“Friends?” Soarin lifted his brow. A tomato came flying out of nowhere at Soarin’s face. “Ah!” Soarin ducked. The tomato flew over his head. “Nice try—AH!” Soarin yelped as an apple pie hit him directly in the face, splattering all over him.

“I know for a fact you like pie! My first gift to you as a friend!” Twister chuckled as he reached forward and pulled the pie off of Soarin’s face. The pie somehow reassembled as he dropped it on Soarin’s desk, sucking all of the splattered bits of pie off of Soarin as if he was never hit. Soarin looked down at the pie slowly realizing that there was no way he was going to understand any of this. Twister was right about him liking pie, but he hadn’t eaten any in a long time for healthy dieting reasons. Following Dash’s example, he didn’t reach for the pie, he just sat there and did nothing as Twister went on. Twister took another deep breath.

“Lights please!” Twister yelled, and on cue, the lights went off, turning back on a second later. The board had changed again, but this time only had one large image of him and Rainbow Dash sitting on stools with a pane of glass between them. The title on the board now read, ‘Twistable Lecter’… and the pear on the desk was now a pineapple.

“Ah… this moment was special…” Twister turned and pressed his face against the blackboard and dragged it across the surface, smearing the chalk on his cheek and distorting the image. He sharply turned towards Soarin with chalk dust all over his face and sneered. “Oh! Let’s have you experience this one directly! We are friends now after all, and I can prove it! Because friends know everything about each other!”

“Twister…” Dash suddenly growled, catching Soarin’s attention quickly. She had expressed to him to just ‘let it happen…’ so why was she going against that here? “I’m still creeped out over this one, just stop already.”

“NO,” Twister slammed a second dunce hat over the one Dash was already wearing, the letters on this one were lined with blinking Hearth’s Warming lights. Dash’s only reaction was to grunt and glare harder, which didn’t have an effect on Twister at all. “Now then!” Twister turned back to Soarin and leaned onto his desk. “Let’s play a game! Friends play games all the time!”

“Do I have a choice?” Soarin asked as he too, started to feel a little annoyed. He blinked and looked over Twister’s shoulder as the blackboard had been completely erased and just the word ‘NO’ was spread across its entirety. “I don’t know why I asked…” Soarin gave Twister a nod.

“The game is called…” Twister pressed the button on the pointer and it extended back towards the blackboard, catching a small ring neither of them had seen before. Twister pulled it down, unrolling what looked like a large classroom map, but instead it was just a big white poster that read ‘HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW SOARIN?!’

“What?” Soarin blinked as he looked the poster over.

“You first,” Twister offered as he released the ring of the poster and it shot back up. Soarin looked towards Dash, who only shook her head.

“Just do it… and don’t be too weirded out after,” she explained. Soarin furrowed his brow and looked back towards Twister.

“I’m Soarin, the Wonderbolt Power Flyer, first commander and second in command in the lead squad,” Soarin said simply. Twister bounced his left eyebrow at Soarin.

“That’s it?” he snickered. “Oh come on… am I the only pony around here who is willing to look at themselves a little deeper?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Soarin scrunched his face.

“Is that all you see when you look in the mirror? HMMMMMMMMM, my stallionly princess?” Twister reached the pointer forward and poked Soarin in the chest. “You only see what’s on the surface? Only acknowledge what you’ve done right?”

“I don’t think I’m perfect… if that’s what you’re getting at…” Soarin leaned away as Twister leaned over his desk and moved his face closer and closer to Soarin’s. It was as if Twister was examining him closely. “Will you cut that out?”

“Oh, just give me a moment, I’m only looking right through you…” Twister snickered. “You see… I pride myself in being quite perceptive… I can read a pony through their mannerisms and behaviors. I’ve had plenty of time to watch nearly everypony in the compound and believe me, you’re all hiding something, suppressing things you wish to forget about yourselves,” he pulled back and leaned towards Dash. “I’ve already done it to Dashie Washie over here. I wish you could have seen the look on her face!”

“I swear I’m gonna knock you silly after this… for real this time, Twister,” Dash growled as her patience wore ever thinner.

“And I…” Twister ignored Dash, focusing back on Soarin. “Have you all figured out as well!”

“You expect me to believe you can tell me about my flaws and regrets just by watching me?” Soarin flattened his brow. Twister’s smile grew as he plopped his plot down on the floor in front of Soarin’s desk and rested his arms on it, planting his chin on his forearms.

“Let’s see…” he slowly licked his upper lip from left to right. “Your large amount of confidence in yourself wasn’t always there… was it?” he began as Soarin blinked. “You were never a go-getter… you would watch incredible things and simply say, ‘I could never do that.’ You accepted that you were mediocre and were poised to live your life that way. As long as you could be comfortable and eat lots of pie… you’d be happy!”

“Uh…” Soarin’s mouth hung slightly agape.

“If it wasn’t for a good friend of yours pushing you along, you never even would have considered the Wonderbolts! But old habits die hard… you found a way to keep your lack of effort attitude even after you became a Wonderbolt. Your priorities shifted to your mind, body, and ability… but then you shunned anything else you wanted, claiming it wouldn’t be worth it or you had no time. You pushed many away, and burnt many bridges before they could even be built for the sake of ‘your career’… when in reality you just didn’t want to put forth the effort!”

“No! That’s… that’s not true! I…” Soarin suddenly freaked out. Twister was reading him completely.

Dash had turned to pay attention. There were a few things even she didn’t know about Soarin here. She knew about how he was neglecting what he wanted… but this talk of a lack of effort? This was new.

“I’ve changed! I have Rainbow Dash now! I will ALWAYS give her my full effort!” Soarin suddenly growled, glaring at Twister.

“You think one thing is enough to redefine you completely?” Twister snickered, his sneer growing incredibly wide. “What about your family?”

Soarin and Dash both stared at Twister wide eyed, Dash joining in on the surprise and disbelief.

“My family… But…” Soairn looked down.

“Haven’t made much of an effort for them, have you?” Twister bounced his eyebrows. “You’re too busy, you don’t have time… not even to write to them? Not to mention Rainbow Dash over here was another pony who had to encourage you in the right direction…” he glanced between them. “What? Please, it’s not that hard to put together, I can almost picture it… you told her you didn’t have time for love… and she tore you a new one for it… which eventually led you to force yourself slightly out of your habits for a marefriend. Face it, ‘first commander’… you only give real effort where you have your mind set… and everything else… just vanishes behind you.”

Soarin remained frozen in place, staring at Twister in pure, perplexed, quizzical, dumbfounded disbelief. Based on his reaction to Twister’s words, Dash found it safe to assume that Twister, like he had with her, had completely read Soarin top to bottom. Lack of effort was never something she associated with Soarin. With how hard he trained, how serious he was about being as strong as he could be, and how devoted he was to her. The thought had never once crossed her mind, at least not since their first times together in Ponyville. But she had been curious about his lack of communication with his family… and as it turned out, it was another case of how he was with her. Did he do it intentionally? Definitely not, but it was clearly something Soarin was aware of… and didn’t like to acknowledge.

Soarin was getting the full exposure to Twister and his antics… only unlike Dash, he was getting it all at once instead of little bits at a time. Why Twister decided to rope Soarin in, Dash wasn’t quite so sure. He explained it as Soarin being somepony he could trust by the deep association with Dash, but in reality, Dash was never quite sure she could believe Twister’s true intentions through his word alone. The fact remained that he had yet to do anything that was truly detrimental. He wasn’t causing disruptions like Rapidfire, nor was he hindering the Wonderbolts in anyway. He was just… weird… and creepy… and disturbing.

“I WIN!” Twister tipped backwards and rolled along the floor back over to his desk, passing underneath it before standing upright and beaming victoriously.

“How did he…” Soarin continued to stare for a few moments before slowly turning his head towards Dash. Dash shrugged.

“Like he said, he did the exact same thing to me. Don’t ask me to explain it, I can’t,” she said, hoping the way she remained calm would help Soarin feel a little less mentally violated. That marked three of the times Twister had messed with her… meaning he was almost done.

“YOU’D BE RIGHT!” Twister yelled as he smacked the blackboard. He yelped as the board unlatched from the wall and tipped forward, crashing on top of him and falling onto the desk… which capsized as the legs all snapped in half. “CHEAP ASS IKEA!” Twister yelled from beneath the blackboard as he pushed up against it and eventually tipped it all the way back up to the wall.

And of course, as he put it back up, the pictures and diagrams had changed. Now it was a bunch of doodles with wooden ships on it and at the top the board read: ‘S.S. SoarinDash’. Also, the pineapple on his now flattened desk had turned into a pumpkin.

“Oh god…” Dash let her head fall onto the table as she recalled the strange dream that Twister somehow found his way into. She glanced up at Soarin to see that he hadn’t reacted much to the new board, looking as if he was still trying to fathom how Twister replayed his past and his flaws to him… when they had never once spoken. Dash turned and looked back at Twister as he inhaled sharply again.

“Last but not least… THE SHIPPING WAR!” he said excitedly as he pointed to all the ships in the picture. They all had the same, strange mix of pony names that Dash remembered in her dream. “Obviously… the shenanigans here are not as important as what I—” Twister was cut off as all of the ships in the picture turned towards a single one that was labeled S.S. Flashlight. He turned around and placed his hooves on the board. “Not again! Stop, stop, give it a chance!” Despite Twister’s words, the ships fired the drama from their head cannons and the S.S. Flashlight sunk again… like it had in the dream. “I’m gonna have to have a talk with the captains of all these ships…” Twister grunted before turning back around.

“ANYWAY…” Twister turned back around and zipped up between their desks. He glanced at Soarin, who was still staring forward. “Psst…” he tapped his hoof on Soarin’s desk. “Pay attention, you can rethink your life later,” he said with a snicker as Soarin shook his head out and gave Twister a weak glare. “All the shipping wars aside… what Dashie here learned during my little joint dream effort,” he leaned over onto Rainbow Dash’s desk. “Was that… I have… encountered the love of my life again… in fact, she had been there all along where I couldn’t touch her… but it was not a happy encounter,” his eyes narrowed into a glare as he averted his eyes from them both. “And… I was oh… so… sad… to learn that she had found love elsewhere…” he pushed away from their desks and walked up to his collapsed desk. “I was crazy… I was shunned… I was hunted… and the one hope I clung to was I’d have her… and she’d understand… she’d protect me… she’d love me… she’d make them all understand… and yet…” Twister turned and leapt through the air onto Soarin’s desk. He grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him lightly.

“Somepony else… somepony else… somepony else…” his grip weakened and he slid onto his stomach in front of Soarin, who went back to looking confused as Twister released a defeated wail. “She… had somepony else…” he said in a very hushed tone.

This was new, even to Dash. When Twister revealed this info to her in the goofy dream… he remained goofy, even talking about how it made him snap, but it ended there, he didn’t elaborate on it. Here… his demeanor was completely different… broken even. She was sure it would shift at any second to something else, but… for the moment, was Twister showing them more? Something even she hadn’t heard yet? There were a few tidbits included he had not revealed before.

“She is so perfect… she deserves everything… And I… I could have given her everything! But she went for another. He was nothing, nothing compared to me!” Twister began slamming his back hooves on the floor. “He had no imagination! He was bland! He was one track minded! He was…” Twister slammed his face multiple times against the desk. “He was… apparently what she wanted… which stung. It stung deep… stabbed at my very heart. After all the times she had told me she loved my crazy, unpredictable nature in the past… she went for somepony who was normal… did she lie to me? Was it just sympathy? Did she lead me on beyond her own tricks?” Twister turned over on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling. “It didn’t matter… not anymore. I saw what I had to see… I saw that she had chosen another over me… the one chance I felt I had at being understood… and loved… gone… out of my reach forever… I was not him, and never could be him… oh, what I would do… what I would give to feel that way again… even if it was just for her to know I care… to know that though her eyes are elsewhere… I’m still here…” he slid off the desk and stood up between them, his sneer gone, his face taking a serious expression Dash had seldom seen from him. “I would do anything…”

“So now, Dash…” he turned his head towards her. “Now do you understand? Even if just a liiiiittle…?” his face slowly began to go right back to its usual, creepy smile… but the change was so slow that it added a whole new disturbing level to it. “What I’ve been through… it’s enough to knock any number of screws loose…” his head began to tip slightly to the right as his smile eventually reached its maximum length. His head turned slightly towards Soarin. “And I embrace it… I don’t chase it away. My flaws define me… they always have, and don’t I look just absolutely HAPPY with myself?” he said to Soarin as he began to snicker.

Soarin and Dash glanced at each other for a very brief moment before focusing back on Twister, now both equally learning something new about Twister despite their lopsided exposure to him.

“If you don’t acknowledge your flaws… you don’t learn from them… and if you avoid what has helped define you… then how can anypony else truly understand you?” He snickered and poked Soarin in the chest. “Don’t look so disturbed… you should be happy somepony knows all about you… he glanced at Dash and snickered. “EVERYPONY should feel great about that because…” he stepped away from them slowly and the lights began to dim. “It’s not like I have anypony like that… at least not anymore…” the lights went off completely, leaving them in the dark. “But you two… perhaps…” Twister’s snicker echoed in the darkness. “Perhaps you two are capable… this was a fun conversation… let’s do it again sometime…”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked. He looked to his left to see Dash standing right beside him. She too, was blinking and looking around. They were right back where they started, in the hallway outside the classroom, in the cold, with their blankets draped over them. Before Dash could say anything, Soarin stepped towards the classroom door, shoved the door open roughly, and flipped the lights on.

It was all perfectly normal, the same classrooms he had known throughout his Wonderbolt career. He turned the lights off and let the door close slowly, turning to Dash with his brow raised and a disturbed look on his face.

“When you told me that a pony on your squad was crazy…” he trailed off as Dash sighed.

“I meant it,” Dash grumbled to herself as she sat down on the floor.

“I assumed you meant, like Surprise crazy… but that…” Soarin shook his head. “That was just messed up… how did he do all of that?”

“I don’t even know how Surprise or my friend Pinkie Pie back home do their much tamer crazy stuff… believe me, I haven’t the foggiest,” Dash shook her head with a flat look on her face. “And don’t bother trying to find him and ask… you won’t get a straight answer.”

“Well…” Soarin looked himself over. “You also weren’t kidding about him never really causing any harm… I feel perfectly fine.”

“And that’s why it pisses me off,” Dash sighed as she lied flat despite the cold floor.

“And I thought I knew interesting ponies…” Soarin released an awkward chuckle as he stepped over to Dash reached down to pick her up. She stood with his help and rolled her eyes.

“Recruit Squad Foxtrot… reporting in,” she said sarcastically as they began to walk back towards the battledome.

But neither of them were without questions. Dash got to see Twister express true emotion… or at least that’s what it seemed like. She wondered if there was any more to his story… more about this mare of his… maybe about the stallion who ‘stole’ her from him. Twister revealed just how much he cared for the mare. At first it seemed like a simple attachment, maybe some jealousy, but he was still clinging to it regardless… just how broken was Twister’s mind… if it was even broken at all? Sooner or later… she’d be able to piece it all together, she felt like he was giving her all the clues to paint her own picture, but for now Twister remained a mystery. But as long as he continued to be helpful in her squad, she wouldn’t be skeptical of his intentions. If she could even call them intentions…

At least now she wasn’t the only one who experienced him… now Soarin could vouch for her and prove that she wasn’t just having weird dreams or seeing things.

“So what do you plan to do?” Luna spoke up as she walked beside Spitfire. The two of them entered the lobby from the east hallway, turning towards the recruit barracks.

“Actually, I was going to ask you first,” Spitfire replied as the two glanced at each other. “I may be the captain here, but you are technically the highest authority.”

“We are afraid that interrogation is not our forte,” Luna exhaled, blowing a cloud of mist from her nostrils into the cold air. “These Shadowbolts we have captive may hold the key to us figuring a few things out. We’ll leave the methods up to you.”

“Good,” Spitfire agreed as they stayed near the wall to avoid the workers moving about in the lobby. “Because, honestly… I don’t know if I want any of the Renegades handling the interrogations. This will require a firm, controlled approach and I get the feeling Descent or Starry Skies will resort to beating it out of them.”

“Agreed,” Luna cringed. “We commend the former Shadowbolts among the Renegades for their service to us, but they lack a degree of… control. We take it you didn’t tell Descent?”

“I told him we’d hold them for a while and then interrogate them, but I wasn’t specific,” Spitfire winked at Luna. “They’re busy, so now’s our chance. After assessing the situation, I’ll send for Silver and Fire… and we can begin question—YIKES!” Spitfire suddenly flinched as something landed on her back, Luna yelped as well, causing both of them to turn their heads and look behind them.

“Oof… this isn’t as comfortable as I thought it would be…” a familiar, unwanted voice met their ears as they glared. Discord had his snake body draped over their backs. “You need to grow a few feet Spitfire, putting myself at an angle like this can’t possibly be good for my back,” he chuckled as Spitfire quickly and roughly pulled herself out from beneath him, but Discord’s body remained floating. He picked himself out into the air and set himself down in front of them. “Why the long faces? I thought you’d be happy to see me!” he said with a fake tone of disappointment.

“Where have you—?!” Luna cut herself off and groaned. “You know what? We don’t even know why we bother.”

“Ah! You’re learning!” Discord chuckled as he reached forward and booped Luna’s nose. She bit at his finger, but it bent out of her reach. “I’m so proud!” he looked around the lobby at the current state of the Wonderbolt compound and whistled. “I really like what you’ve done with the place by the way… I’m honestly astonished that you managed to get that ancient piece of machinery down there started!”

Spitfire blinked, her eyes widening before glaring at Discord.

“Hold on a second…” she tipped her head to the side. “You knew about it?!”

“Of course I did!” Discord curled his body down to place his face in front of Spitfire’s. “I can remember a time when this place used to fly all around… it’s honestly a pity that they anchored it down. I was always a fan of it. Even when I was a statue, I could watch it flying all about… what a sight it was, and believe me it’s hard to impress a god,” Discord slithered over to Luna and put an arm over her shoulder. “Even Lulu here knew about it!”

“What?” Spitfire looked towards Luna. Luna used her magic to remove Discord’s arm from her before shaking her head.

“We did not consider it an option… we admit that we too were surprised it worked,” she admitted.

“Honestly, I was on the verge of saving you all myself…” Discord spoke up, causing Spitfire to sharply turn her head back to him. Luna did the same, but offered a glare. “Oh, don’t give me that look Lulu, I know the rules… not that I haven’t broken them in the past. But it was going to be only if absolutely necessary. But I didn’t even need to!” he stepped back and threw his arms out triumphantly. “Kudos to you mortals for making a miracle happen, I admit I was so impressed that I just let you handle it.”

“Rgghhhhhh…” Spitfire planted her hoof right into the center of her face and rubbed it slowly around. “Whatever… I’m not going to try making sense of your reasoning.”

“Indeed, that’s for the best,” Discord patted her on the head with a smirk.

“OH, HELL NO!” a voice suddenly came from the west hallway, catching all of their attention, including several of Rivet’s workers. The voice had come from Rainbow Dash, who was standing just inside the lobby with Soarin as the two looked towards the trio of Spitfire, Luna, and Discord. “Come on, come on!” she suddenly got behind Soarin and started pushing him along. “I’ve had my fill of crazy today already, I’m NOT dealing with Discord right now!” she said as Soarin quickly agreed and complied.

The three watched as Dash and Soarin made their way around quickly and disappeared into the east hallway.

“Huh… I wonder what that was all about?” Discord blinked as he tipped his head and rubbed his chin curiously.

“Look, we’re busy,” Spitfire spoke up, seeing an opportunity in the interruption. “If you want to taunt us with all the stuff ‘we don’t know,’ you can do it later… we have something to take care of,” she stated as she and Luna began moving around him.

“Ah, ah, ah…” Discord quickly teleported in front of them before they could get any further. “Please… both of you should know by now that I don’t show up without a good reason. I have plenty of other things I could and SHOULD be doing, so honestly you really should cherish my presence,” he said giving a bow.

“Then get to it!” Luna snapped, obviously losing her patience. Discord reclined slightly, expecting the Royal Canterlot Voice, but Luna managed to keep it just below.

“I feel so appreciated…” Discord sighed as he put his hands on his hips… or whatever he had around that area on his snake body. “I couldn’t help but hear something about interrogations… but I came to tell you… you may want to consider something else first,” he said in a serious tone. Spitfire and Luna glanced at one another.

“Pray tell, what that would be?” Luna lifted an eyebrow. Discord turned himself to the side as he crossed his arms, wagging a finger.

“Chaos magic is a very, very potent form of magical energy… there’s a reason that no mortal is able to wield it. Your enemies have been using an imitation of said magic with their bodies enhanced by the crystals… can you see where I’m going here?” he looked back and forth at the two of them, but got no response, only blank looks. He flattened his brow and sighed. “Perception is lacking these days…” he turned and faced them. “What happens when you introduce something into your body that doesn’t belong… that gives you an incredibly enhanced and good feeling… use it for extended periods of time… and then take it away?” he asked while moving his arms slightly across his body with each section of the explanation.

Luna and Spitfire both stared for another moment before both of them perked up, their eyes widening and their ears pointing upward. Discord lifted his brow and tipped his head to the side.

“In fact… a few of them are about to snap. You’d better hurry if you don’t want your prisoners… and source of possible answers to… oh, I don’t know, die or be driven mad from extreme pain.”

Not another word was spoken. Luna and Spitfire broke into a sprint towards the recruit barracks.

“Honestly…” Discord sighed as the two disappeared through the doors. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one around here that has my head screwed on straight …” he said, his head spinning around on his neck as he snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of chaos magic.

“Move aside!” Spitfire yelled as she and Luna galloped towards the door at the end of the barracks hallway. The two earth pony security guards standing outside both looked towards them curiously. Spitfire skidded to a halt in front of them and grabbed the first guard by the shoulder. “I SAID MOVE!” she pulled him away from the door as the second security guard quickly backed away.

Luna approached the door, readying her magic to open it, but she halted as a gut-wrenching scream of pain suddenly came from inside of the room. Luna gasped and quickly used her magic to rip the door open as Spitfire ran up beside her. The two stepped into the dimly lit room and both gasped.

“AAAAUUUGGHHHH!!!! AAAGGGG!!! AHHHHHH!!!!” a Shadowbolt mare closest to the door was crying out and shaking as she clutched her body, shivering and writhing on her mattress on the floor.

“HAAAACCCCKKK!!! AHHHHH!!!!!” two more down from her, a stallion had begun to hack and cough, spitting up blood as the rest of the Shadowbolts began to shift away. Only two were suddenly showing signs of extreme pain, but the way the rest of them move suggested they were very weak, all shifting with jittery, uneven movements.

“Ahhh… AHH!” a third, a mare among the rest shifting away suddenly tipped forward, clutching her chest. “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” she cried out as she fell over, shaking and shivering on the floor, kicking her back hooves out as she began to slightly foam at the mouth.

The rest of the captives looked terrified, as if they realized what was happening… and aware it would start happening to them.

“AAAUUGGHHH!!!!” A fourth, a stallion threw his hooves up to his head and began to flail around before running into a wall and throwing his hooves out, pushing away all those near him.

As Spitfire watched in horror, Luna quickly called forth her magic and used it to create shield domes over the Shadowbolts who were showing the sudden intense signs of withdrawal. She turned and looked at Spitfire with a sense of urgency in her expression.

“CAPTAIN SPITFIRE!” she called back to her. Spitfire slammed her eyes shut and shook her head out before turning around and stepping out of the door and pointing at the two guards.

“You!” she pointed to one of them. “Go to the battledome and grab four or five strong Wonderbolts! You!” she pointed to the other as the first took off into a gallop. “GO GET BLISS! NOW!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter was done by Foxenawolf, and the twister image was an edited vector image of Dash edited by EasyGlider.

Oh dear... this doesn't look good...

But seriously... wtf Twister... how dare you make me have fun unlocking the randomness of my brain for all to see :rainbowlaugh:

I hope this was as fun for you all to read as it was for me to write.

Looks like Silver's secret... isn't so secret after all! :pinkiegasp: But... none of the Wonderbolts want him gone (not even Blaze) after what he's done for them and what he's been... it's no wonder they'd do whatever it takes to keep him around. You don't find ponies that drive others like he does often.

But all that aside... again... what is up with the Shadowbolts?! :twilightoops: We shall finds out... next chapter :moustache:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! :eeyup:

Chapter 104: Crystallized Horrors

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
This chapter was edited by both Kestrel and Lucky424

Chapter 104: Crystallized Horrors

“What do you mean we’re not allowed in the barracks?!” Dash furrowed her brow as she glared at the security guards barring them from the recruit barracks. “You just let Soarin through, why not us? Our quarters are back there for Celestia’s sake!” she continued as she made a hoof motion behind her to Squall, Little Star, Matteo, and Storm. They had no idea where Twister was, but Dash wasn’t about to invite his presence again so soon after his little ‘lesson.’ The earth pony security guard on the left simply shook his head.

“Captain Spitfire’s orders. No entry until the situation is over,” he said flatly.

“What situation?” Dash threw her hooves out. “What’s going on back there?” she asked as she and her friends watched Misty Fly and Fire Streak trot right by and enter the barracks unhindered.

“It has to do with the Shadowbolts,” the other guard spoke up. “Aside from that, I don’t know. We were told to keep this area secure. Only the medical staff and the Command Elites are allowed through until further notice.”

“But…” Dash was ready to protest further but before she could a hoof pressed roughly on the top of her head. She blinked and turned beneath its pressure to see Silver Lining standing right beside her while looking down at her sternly. Wave Chill was beside him, as if waiting for Silver before proceeding.

“Dash, go back to the battledome,” he ordered. Dash lifted her brow and pointed towards the barracks.

“But what’s going—”

“Squad Foxtrot Captain Rainbow Dash,” Silver called out her rank sharply. “Stop pestering the guards, and do as you’re told. That’s an order.”

Dash’s mouth hung open as Silver removed his hoof from atop her head and made his way past the guards with Wave Chill in tow. She flattened her brow and growled as the guards stood aside, let the two elites in, and once more barred their path. She shook her head and turned towards the rest of Foxtrot and Storm, clearly not in much of a mood to talk. Storm, however, took the chance.

“Guess we’re not finding anything out until later…” he put casually as they all turned back towards the east hallway.

“Yeah, yeah…” Dash grumbled in frustration.

“By the way…” Little Star spoke up as she glanced back and forth. “Where is Twister?”

“DON’T ASK!” Dash quickly replied.

The medical team had responded quickly and professionally from the moment Spitfire sent for them. As soon as Bliss got word of a medical emergency, she had her assistants as well as several Wonderbolts helped her move loads of supplies as well as roll medical beds from the infirmary into the barracks. What was initially being used as a holding cell had quickly been turned into a hospital… because something was horribly, HORRIBLY wrong with the Shadowbolts they had captive…

Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Luna all stood out of the way near the door and watched with dread as the Shadowbolts, now occupying the medical beds, moaned and groaned in pain, jittering and writhing. Some of them had to be bound to their bed because they wouldn’t remain still.

However, their motions and noises were the least horrific part of it. Their suits had been removed in order to for the medical team to examine them… and the removal had revealed something that was truly unnerving.

Their bodies were covered in rashes and scabs that were hard to the touch. It was reminiscent of a crystal pony’s body when within the range of the Empire, only it didn’t look natural, instead very painful, and littered about their bodies. Worse… they also had open wounds that were not bleeding, but instead had clear, white crystal formations jutting out of them as if said crystals had formed within their bodies and were trying to push themselves out.

Was this a side effect of prolonged use of the magic crystals? There was no way they could know. Spitfire had sent Air Mach to wait in the lobby for the next report from the Renegades. They needed to get Descent and Starry Skies into the barracks to see it for themselves… and to see if they had any idea what was happening and if there was anything they could do about it. Specifically Starry Skies, because she herself, had once used the crystals… had she experienced anything like what they were seeing here?

“Ah… AHHHHHH!” cried one of the Shadowbolt stallions as Bliss ran up to him.

“Mahogany! Witching! Hold him down!” she called to two of her assistants as they frantically ran over and used their magic to hold the stallion’s hooves in place. The two unicorns grunted as the stallion ripped and pulled at their magic auras, but managed to hold him down as Bliss concentrated and channeled her magic through her horn. She focused it on his head and began to hum as her aura surrounded his head. The stallion slowly calmed down, panting, but relaxing as his head dropped back down on his pillow.

Bliss exhaled and slumped down. Her unique magic ability to relieve pain temporarily was being useful here, but it was having a huge drain on her after casting it easily twenty or so times in the past hour. She stared at the crystals jutting out of the stallion’s shoulders and chest and shook her head, not knowing what she could do to help this strange condition. Mahogany and Witching quickly trotted over to Bliss and helped her walk to another table where she began to check on a Shadowbolt mare.

“What is this…?” Soarin thought out loud as Fire and Misty Fly walked in behind them and both were quickly visibly shocked at the sight.

“This must have something to do with the crystals… there’s no other explanation…” Spitfire shared her thoughts as Silver Lining and Wave Chill followed close behind Misty and Fire.

“But…” Fleetfoot spoke up. “But aren’t the Renegade Shadowbolts also former users of the crystals?” she asked while glancing at Luna. Luna had remained speechless since they entered. It was a disturbing sight indeed, but seeing Princess Luna at a loss for words was equally as troubling.

“That’s why I have Air Mach waiting in the lobby,” Spitfire explained as she glanced back at the members of squad two and three who had come as she requested. “I want Descent and Starry to get in here as soon as possible to tell us what the hell this is… if they even know.”

“This is why…” a voice suddenly echoed all around them, causing them to all flinch and look around. Discord suddenly dropped through the ceiling and slowly floated down. He touched down on the floor with his back turned to them, shaking his head at the Shadowbolts. “Mortals shouldn’t touch what they don’t understand.” He turned and looked at them, admittedly surprised to see that none of them had an initial negative reaction to him… for once. “There’s a very good reason that chaos magic is only something a god such as myself can handle.”

“Discord!” Luna finally spoke up, surprising all of them as she stepped towards Discord. Her tone was unusual towards him, as if there was concern in her voice. “Please…” she looked away and scanned the room, her eyes passing over all of the Shadowbolts in extreme pain. “This is no time to nurse mysteries… these ponies are suffering from pain caused by chaos magic, correct? Then you MUST know what we can do to help them!”

Discord stared down at Luna, swiping his snaggletooth back and forth across his lower lip as he scanned all the Wonderbolts looking at him as well. He snorted and shook his head.

“Sorry, no can do.”

“Discord!” Luna took another step towards him. “Please! You must—!” She was cut off as Discord reached his hand towards her mouth and pinched her lips shut.

“Lulu… your desire to act quickly is refreshing… but believe me, if I knew how these pseudo-chaos crystals worked, I’d give you an answer. If it was pure chaos magic, I’d be able to give you an explanation, albeit one I doubt you’d understand, but as for how its properties affect a mortal’s body… much less in a way related to these crystals, I’m afraid there is little I can do to help.”

“Bullshit!”

Discord’s eyes widened as he picked up a voice he really didn’t want to hear. The Wonderbolts all flinched and turned, stepping aside as Silver Lining pushed through them and walked with heavy steps towards Discord. Discord cringed as Silver approached, snarling quietly.

“Good gracious…” he grumbled. “Who let the old bag of bones in here?” he said with a very annoyed tone in his voice as Silver planted himself less than a yard from Discord and glared.

“Says the sorry excuse for a god who’s been around longer than all of us combined by a longshot,” Silver fired back, holding himself firm in the presence of Discord. Discord rolled his eyes.

“I’d hardly call that a basis for calling me old,” he waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Seeing as how I’m still fine and chipper while you get a limp from something as simple as walking to the bathroom…”

The rest of the Wonderbolts looked back and forth between Silver and Discord, wondering where this sudden jargon between them came from as if they had a history. Silver growled as his nostrils flared.

“Cut the crap and stop acting like you can’t do anything, you duffel bag of discarded animal parts!” Silver shouted as he took another step towards Discord. Discord lowered his head down towards Silver as the two exchanged glares.

“HEY!” Spitfire suddenly stepped forward and got between them. “That’s enough!” she pushed them apart before turning to Silver. “Silver, what has gotten into you?!”

“You don’t honestly believe he can’t do anything about this?” Silver glared at Spitfire while pointing harshly at Discord. All eyes went to Discord as he stood up straight and crossed his arms. Silver shook his head while keep his eyes harshly set on Discord. “I’d sooner trust the intelligence in my left ass-cheek than the crap I hear from his mouth!”

“You’re welcome to your opinion…” Discord turned his back to them. “But—” he got no further. Silver shoved Spitfire aside, made his way around Discord, reached up, and yanked him down to his eye level by the scraggly beard. Discord immediately narrowed his eyes as he met Silvers glare.

“We all know you could snap your fingers and make this all better! Now tell us what you know already! We’re sick of your shit!” Silver demanded, the rest of the Wonderbolts watched in awe as Silver asserted himself in the face of a god that could erase him from existence with the snap of his fingers if he really wanted to.

“Hmph…” Discord grunted as he pulled himself free of Silver’s grip and stood up straight again. “I liked you better when Blizzard did all the talking…” he turned away from them all and shook his head. “However, I regret to inform you that this is a very rare case. I am, indeed, stumped.”

Silver growled, shaking his blanket off of him and pulling a hoof back. Fleetfoot and Soarin quickly reached forward, grabbing onto him to hold him back.

“I oughtta break my hoof off in your—”

“Sweet Celestia!” Discord glared at Silver while pointing at him. “Will you please shut up for a moment?”

“Second Commander Silver Lining…” Luna spoke up, moving beside Silver and placing a hoof gently on his back. Silver stopped pulling against Soarin and Fleetfoot, glancing at Luna before calming down. “Please let him speak,” she requested calmly. Silver scoffed and looked away from Luna.

“Hmph… no matter what he says… I’m not buying it,” Silver made his stance clear. Discord just rolled his eyes.

“Good because it’s not for sale,” he replied sarcastically before facing the rest of them. “Anyway… something I’ve already voiced to Lulu is that, despite what you all might think…” he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at all of them. “I am playing my part in all of this. Sure, I haven’t been lending you all much of a hoof, but there’s more to this scenario than what’s happening to you, as I’m sure you’re putting together from this,” he made a head motion to the suffering Shadowbolts. “I can’t be foalsitting all of you when I have my own agenda as well. Part of that agenda has been trying to figure out exactly what these crystals are and how they work.” He paused as he turned towards Silver. “And while it’s true that I could simply snap my fingers and make something happen… I admit that I’m a little reluctant to try it here.”

“I’ve gotta hear this,” Silver scoffed again.

“Silver,” Spitfire said his name sternly as she walked forward and glared at him. “I don’t know what sort of vendetta you have against Discord, but stop it. That’s an order.”

“Hmph…” Silver averted his eyes from Spitfire and did as he was told.

“Thank you,” Discord snorted before continuing. “Chaos magic is not something to be approached blindly. The crystals emulate the properties of chaos magic… but as I said, I don’t know how they work, so it would be foolish to assume I could counter it with my own magic,” he glanced at Luna. “There’s a very good reason that I have certain restrictions in place in exchange for my freedom. The most notable of which is the one I’m reminded of most often, not to bend reality… or the course of time and space. Whilst I admit to… safely disregarding this restriction once or twice for noble reasons, it can have very dangerous and serious effects if not handled properly. There are serious consequences linked to bending the natural rules of the universe and my past incidents of running amok were only fixed through the intense effort of both of the sublime sisters… and even together, they were barely able to stitch everything back together.”

“And… we only have one of them,” Soarin spoke up as he and the rest looked towards Luna.

“Precisely,” Discord nodded before looking towards the Shadowbolts again. “And while having me here to handle it would easily fill the gap of a missing Celestia, I still don’t believe it’s a risk worth taking. If I were to say… try and relieve these Shadowbolts from their pain and something went wrong or the crystal version of the magic exploded or went wild, there’s no telling what could happen. Chaos magic is unpredictable by nature. If the clash were to cause an intense reaction… it could easily cause more damage than I ever had in the past and I can’t guarantee, even with Lulu’s help, that I’d be able to fix it.”

“Hmph,” Silver grunted again.

“Yes, Silver,” Discord lowered his face down to his. “Even I’m capable of approaching a situation carefully while considering all the angles… in fact, that’s something I learned from all the times I crossed paths with your mentor.”

Silver’s eyes widened slightly before he furrowed his brow.

“Now…” Discord took one last look around the room. “I’ll leave this all to you. If you’ll excuse me, there are quite a few things I have to look into, so—”

“Hold it RIGHT there,” Silver suddenly cut off Discord while holding up a hoof. Discord had his fingers primed to snap, but he held them in place while raising an eyebrow. The rest of the Wonderbolts and Luna looked towards Silver as he slowly walked towards Discord.

“You always have to get the last word in, don’t you?” Discord sighed as Silver approached him. “Very well… give me your best shot.”

“Oh, you bet I will,” Silver smirked as he stopped in front of Discord. “You almost had me there,” Silver glared as he began. “You mentioned that you were looking into what the crystals are… but you didn’t say anything regarding figuring out WHERE they came from!”

Discord’s eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly. All eyes went to Discord as Silver began to chuckle with a snide grin on his face.

“I know how you think you slippery, snake-bodied son of a bitch. You’ve already figured out where the crystals have come from… haven’t you?” Silver pressed as he took another step forward and pointed his hoof directly up into Discord’s face. Discord flattened his brow, reaching out a finger and pushing Silver’s hoof down.

“This is EXACTLY… why I don’t miss Blizzard Strike,” he grinded his teeth together. “You’re turning into him and it’s really grinding my gears…” he said as two metal gears appeared beside his head and began turning as they made painful creaking noises. “Do yourself a favor…” he started again as the gears disappeared from beside him. “And stop while you’re ahead. The last thing we need is another mortal finding his way into higher realms of existence…” he paused, giving Soarin a very quick glance. “I don’t think my sanity could handle a fourth…”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked as he caught what Discord said, his eyes widening slightly as he remembered the conversations in his head… but he had little time to think about it. Silver was not backing down.

“You beat around the bush more than a single, puberty-stricken teenager on Hearts and Hooves Day!” Silver shook his head. “I’m WAITING for an answer!”

“You’re not getting one,” Discord snapped as he turned away from Silver.

“Like I didn’t see that one coming.” Silver rolled his eyes. Discord turned sharply towards Silver while clenching his fists.

“Before you all start throwing accusations at me… it’s not by my choice. Yes, even I have my loyalties… I’m sure that’s something all of you can relate to!” His calm demeanor had buckled, the god of chaos himself showing frustration instead of his usual suave calm. “Now, as I was saying… I have many things to attend to. I have my own role to play, and when the time finally comes, I hope you all thank me and regret giving me any lip!” he reached his hand up to snap his fingers, giving Silver one more, harsh glare before snapping his fingers and disappearing.

All the Wonderbolts remained silent, their ears once against filling with only the sounds of groaning Shadowbolts and the medical team rushing about to do whatever they could. Silver suddenly stomped a hoof on the floor and started walking towards the exit, scooping up his blanket as he walked. Spitfire came to her senses and quickly turned to him.

“Silver!” she called after him.

“Put a reprimand on my record or whatever, I really don’t give a damn,” Silver replied instantly.

“That’s not—” Spitfire tried to stop him, but he already had the door open… only to walk face first into Air Mach.

“Whoa! Preemptive strike? You looking for a fight, old timer?!” he quickly took a battle stance with a smirk on his face.

“Get out of my face before I rearrange yours,” Silver said coldly before pushing Air Mach aside and walking out into the barracks. Descent, Starry Skies, Blazetail, and Flashwind were all following behind Air Mach and all stood aside as Silver stormed out. They only watched him for a moment before turning back towards the barracks.

“Descent!” Spitfire called to him as she approached the door.

“We came as requested, what is going—”

“AAAH! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!” a Shadowbolt mare near the back suddenly cried out. Bliss was up and rushing towards her in an instant with several assistants behind her.

“What in the…” Descent blinked and quickly pushed past Spitfire, his eyes snapping open as he came to a screeching halt. “What…?”

Descent scanned the room back and forth, looking over the captive Shadowbolts and the strange, painful condition their bodies were in. His mouth hung slightly agape as the moans and groans of pain moved in and out of his ears, the Shadowbolts twitching and shivering as the crystal scabbing and jutting formations made their nerves burn. Starry Skies walked up beside him, showing much less of a visual response, but clearly reacting. Blazetail and Flashwind followed close behind, Flashwind gasping and throwing a hoof over her mouth as they examined the afflicted Shadowbolts.

Descent quickly turned to Spitfire and pointed towards the Shadowbolts.

“What is this?!” he demanded, causing the hearts of the Wonderbolts and Luna to sink.

“We…” Soarin’s ears flopped down. “We were hoping you would know…” He looked back at the other Wonderbolts. Wave Chill and Fire Streak were both comforting Misty, who seemed to not be taking the sight of the Shadowbolts very well. It was to be expected though. While Misty had not been exposed as much as these Shadowbolts had… she had been exposed to the capabilities of them, and just how tempting they were. If she had not resisted Nightshade’s temptation… would she be like this right now?

Descent made his way over to the first bed, where a Shadowbolt stallion lay. He looked him over carefully, taking in the horrific sight of the hardened scabs and the clear crystals poking right out from his body.

“Starry!” Descent quickly turned to Starry Skies. “I never used those cursed things… but you have. Did anything like this happen to you?” his voice was filled with intense purpose as if he was frantic to figure out what was going on. Starry put up a hoof and shook her head.

“I didn’t use it for very long… and even when I did, I only used it if absolutely necessary. There was a brief period of minor withdrawal, but it was weak, nothing I couldn’t easily resist.”

“Hmm…” Descent looked back towards the Shadowbolts. “That would explain why this didn’t happen to any of our former Shadowbolts in the Renegades… they are all ponies who either didn’t try the crystals or ones we pulled away quickly… so this…” Descent gritted his teeth. “This is what happens… if…” He let his head hang down.

“It would appear.” Spitfire stepped up beside him. “That this is what happens after prolonged exposure,” she said with a shudder, recalling her brief experience of being affected by the crystal magic. “The body is forced to adjust… and when the crystal is taken away… this happens?”

“Oh my god!” Flashwind suddenly yelled out, drawing all attention to her. Blazetail’s eyes had widened as well, suggesting whatever Flashwind has realized… he had too. “Blazetail!” Flashwind turned to him. “Our son!” She grabbed him by the shoulder.

Soarin’s mouth hung open as he listened. He watched as Flashwind clung to Blazetail’s shoulder… and looked back towards the Shadowbolts.

If this was what happened when the crystal was taken away… that meant… Rapidfire…

“Our baby… he’s… oh god… this could happen to him too!” Flashwind shook Blazetail. Blazetail remained silent. Soarin recalled Blazetail not speaking kindly about Rapidfire… but even in the wake of doing so, he was still Rapidfire’s father… and this was likely not an easy pill to swallow. He reached around Flashwind and pulled her in tightly as she worried like a good mother should.

“Descent…” Luna spoke up as she stepped towards him. Descent was simply staring at the Shadowbolts as Bliss and her crew moved about. He hadn’t said a word since he asked Starry if she had experienced anything like what he was witnessing.

“But…” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up. “These are all just the regular Shadowbolts right…? Holy…” she shook her head. “They all only had one crystal on them… what would happen to their commanders if we took their crystals away? They use three…”

“RGH!” Descent suddenly stomped on the floor so hard that the room shook slightly.

“The hell?” Starry blinked as Descent turned around and quickly left, passing by Luna, the former Wonderbolt captains anxious about their son, and the rest of the Wonderbolts, nearly knocking over both Fleetfoot and Soarin as he left the room.

Spitfire sighed as she turned to Luna. Luna looked down at the floor and shook her head.

“It seems there is much more pain and suffering among all involved… than we first thought…” she said to herself as she looked out towards the Shadowbolts before instinctively moving towards Bliss to offer any assistance she could. Spitfire followed right behind with similar intentions.

Soarin and Fleetfoot glanced at each other before looking at Starry Skies. Starry was scanning the room, but there was little emotion on her face. Aside from a few snorts, she barely showed any reaction. Fleetfoot looked towards the door, seeing that Descent had stopped right outside and was facing the opposite wall. She looked right back at Starry.

“Hey… aren’t you going to go talk to him?” she asked, taking a few steps towards her. Starry turned and glared at Fleetfoot, obviously being wary of her.

“What the hell for?” she replied flatly. Fleetfoot furrowed her brow as she clutched her blanket.

“What for?!” She removed a hoof from her blanket and pointed towards the door. “This is obviously weighing pretty heavily on Descent… shouldn’t you like… you know… go talk to him?”

Starry lifted an eyebrow, looking out towards Descent before shrugging.

“You have a very strange perception of Descent… he isn’t some emotionally weak ninny like most of you guys are,” she hissed before looking back towards the Shadowbolts.

“Wow!” Fleetfoot threw her hooves out. “Could you be any more of an ice block?! Do you even care about what’s going on?” she pointed towards the Shadowbolts.

“Frankly, I couldn’t care less,” Starry narrowed her eyes at Fleetfoot as she stared back with a mixture of shock and disbelief. Soarin only sighed as he watched Fleetfoot struggle to understand Starry. “What? Don’t give me that look… I have no sympathy for these idiots who let themselves be controlled by something as simple as addiction.”

“But—!” Fleetfoot gritted her teeth and averted her eyes.

“Get this through your thick skull,” Starry growled. “In the Shadowbolts… those who are strong fly with us… and those who are weak are left behind.” She made a head motion towards the Shadowbolts. “These dumbasses are weaklings, succumbing to something that I easily pushed aside. As far as I’m concerned… none of the pegasi who still fly with the Shadowbolts are REAL Shadowbolts… only those who now fly with the Renegades are… so excuse me if I don’t give a damn about these traitors.”

“Would you say the same…?” Soarin stepped up behind Fleetfoot, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “About Nightshade?”

Starry’s pupils shrank as she opened her mouth to retort… but no words came. She quickly turned away.

“Nightshade is dead…” she said in a voice that had clearly changed tone.

“You don’t know that,” Soarin stated firmly. “And something tells me that… if you knew she was still alive, you wouldn’t speak of her in such a way. Am I right?” Soarin asked as Fleetfoot settled down and let him take over.

“I…” Starry’s ears drooped as she remained facing away.

“A code of ethics should only dictate your feelings so far, Starry…” Soarin said as he glanced towards Spitfire further into the room. “Guidelines are meant to dictate our decisions, not our hearts… I’d like to think even you would agree with that.”

Starry remained silent. She simply sat and stared at the wall with her back turned to them. Soarin sighed, glancing over his shoulder at Blazetail and Flashwind as Air Mach, Wave Chill, Fire Streak, and Misty Fly approached them to help comfort Flashwind. He looked past them out the door, spotting Descent still sitting outside.

Without another word to Starry Skies, Soarin gave Fleetfoot a gentle pat on the shoulder before turning and walking out the door.

“Descent…” Soarin said his name quietly as he approached. Descent made no effort to turn and look at him.

“Hm?” Descent hummed in response. For a moment nothing else was said. Soarin stopped a yard from him and simply stood there as Descent remained facing away. Several times, Soarin opened his mouth to speak, but in the end, decided against it. What was he supposed to say? It wasn’t very hard to piece together what was on Descent’s mind. It all came together… and was now a mess.

Eventually Descent sighed. It was a long, heavy sigh that caused his shoulders to drop slightly. Soarin’s ears stood up as he waited for Descent to speak… but ended up waiting several more moments before he did.

“So this is what has become of my family…” he said in a serious tone. His posture had weakened, but his voice still held its usual strength. “I know every Shadowbolt in that room by name… and they are all fine warriors, the perfect example of what a Shadowbolt stands for.” He shook his head slowly. “And now, without the crystals that tore them from me… they are reduced to this. Helpless, crying out in pain as something foreign to their bodies destroys them from inside out.”

Soarin’s ears flattened. There were absolutely no words he could offer. This was not his problem. Anything said would easily come off as forced. He got the feeling Descent didn’t want it anyway.

“I may have saved several Shadowbolts from this before it could happen, but…” he grunted and growled. “If this is what awaits those who are left… by freeing them would I only be killing them?”

“Descent, none of them are dead!” Soarin stepped up quickly to strike the thought from his head, but Descent turned around and glared.

“But who’s to say they won’t be?!” he snapped at Soarin. Soarin stopped dead in his tracks, but didn’t back away or flinch. “Do you see what’s happening to them? They are suffering! Crying out in pain, writhing and retching as your medical staff runs around without a clue towards what course of action to take!”

Soarin scrunched his face and held in the urge to give false hopes. Not even Discord was willing to risk it… so they really had nothing they could do. The only thing that came to mind was to get them crystals… or let them go… but both of those were definitely not options.

“Had I known this would be what happened, I wouldn’t have been so eager to smash the crystals they wielded,” he shook his head. “This is the first time we’ve taken Shadowbolts captive… every other time we ridded a crystal from one in the recent past, they were retrieved by their comrades. This is…” Descent turned back around. “What has become of us…? Why?!”

Soarin admitted that he was at just as much of a loss. Their boon of having captured enemies to interrogate had turned into a seemingly hopeless fight to keep them alive.

“And what’s worse…” Descent shook his head again. “If this is what happens to a wielder of a single crystal… then… the commanders are doomed.”

Soarin wanted to retort and tell him once again that he couldn’t assume that, but who was he kidding? The Shadowbolts they had captive were of lower rank among their new order, each wielding only a single crystal, and he was surprised they weren’t begging to kill them yet based on how much pain they were clearly in. Each commander wielded THREE… and easily used them much more than the rest. Their exposure was literally triple that of the others, it made Soarin shudder to think what would happen once the crystals were taken away.

Not to mention… if Nightshade was still alive… she had been more exposed to the crystals than easily the rest combined…

That was, no doubt, also on Descent’s mind.

“I’ve known the Shadowbolt commanders for a long time…” Descent suddenly spoke up again. “In fact, several of them have been there the whole time I’ve been a Shadowbolt. I wouldn’t say I think highly of all of them, but some of them were very good friends. Devil… Moon… Witch… Sin… and Blade, especially Blade,” he shook his head. “Nightshade and Starry Skies were always my first choice of combat partners… but were they ever busy, those were the ones I’d fight beside in a heartbeat. I could care less about Angel, Trance, and Ruin… those three always got on my nerves, but the rest were alright,” Descent turned and faced Soarin. His expression remaining firm as it always did. “Regardless, because Nightshade’s fate is unknown, it was my goal to get them more than anypony else out of the clutches of the crystals. With them, it would have been easy to coral the rest, but now…” he growled. “Now I’m not so sure if that’s possible.”

“We don’t know for sure,” Soarin spoke up despite how long he had already held back. “If we can find a way to counter the withdrawal effect, then maybe we can—”

“I’m not going to get my hopes up,” Descent cut him off. “From what I’ve seen here… I’m afraid my plans have changed.” He stood up and started walking down the barracks hallway. The weight of the situation was heavy on his shoulders, but he walked upright with the usual strength as if he was standing tall in the face of a terrible, terrible revelation. “If this is what they will suffer after we break them from the enemy’s grasp… then I will put them out of their misery and save them a long, painful demise.”

Soarin’s ears stood up and his eyes widened. He wanted to retort… but it wasn’t his choice to make. The Wonderbolts and the Renegades had different agendas. Even WITHIN the Renegades, there were different agendas. Descent had one goal: restore the Shadowbolts to their former glory. And that goal had just gotten one hell of a wrench thrown into it, forcing Descent to make a very difficult choice.

It was clear from what was happening that ‘saving’ the Shadowbolts may only cause them intense suffering… possibly killing them as a result. Descent wasn’t one to express care, but as somepony who referred to the Shadowbolts as his family… it was clear that wasn’t something he wanted to put them through. That left only one choice, and clearly it was a choice Descent was hoping to avoid.

But Soarin wasn’t so willing to accept it. Descent’s mission was not his, but he refused to believe they couldn’t save the Shadowbolts under the influence of the crystals. There had to be a way to help them. There just had to be… but it didn’t seem like the solution was within their grasp, not even close. There was only so much Bliss could do in the meantime, not to mention she still had to worry about the Wonderbolts and Renegades as well.

Whatever the case may be and whether or not a solution would surface… it was now very clear what was at stake. Not just for them and the Renegades, but for the Shadowbolts as well. It was already known that they were being controlled… but was it against their will? Perhaps the terrified reaction to their crystals being smashed indicated they knew what would happen eventually without another to take its place? As much as he disliked the stallion… he couldn’t help but wonder what was going through Rapidfire’s mind. He was obviously working with the Shadowbolts, but Rapidfire was never one to completely follow orders. If the Shadowbolts were really being controlled through harsh restrictions… Soarin just couldn’t see Rapidfire simply conforming to it. They had encountered him once and then had yet to see him again.

Whatever waited for them on the horizon was unknown. Soarin could only hope that once they had received the training for magic deflection and got the compound moving again… that they’d be able to turn the tides and get some answers.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Short, but this was originall part of chapte 103, obviously this was meant to be a very heavy bunch of scenes, so i didnt want Twister overshadowing it.

Anyway... it looks like Descent is being faced with a terrible choice... if he saves his fellow Shadowbolts who are still being controlled... will he really be leading them to excruciating pain and... death? He has accepted it... but Soarin hasn't... is there a solution to this? Only time will tell.

But there is definitely much more on the line than firs thought... for BOTH sides.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 105: Those We Aspire To Be

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 105: Those We Aspire To Be

“Oh, come on!” Point Dex growled as he peered into the box with a flashlight. “I swear this is exactly what I saw Rivet do a moment ago…” he grumbled as he held the flashlight in his teeth and poked around the wires.

“Problem, hun?” Lead Runner poked his head in over Point Dex’s shoulder.

“Stupid wiring…” Point Dex mumbled, muffled by the flashlight in his mouth.

“No, no, no… wait…” Lead Runner reached in and tried to unhook and reattach some of the wires. “Wasn’t it this way?”

“I just had it that way!” Point Dex exclaimed, the flashlight dropping from his mouth and clattering into the box among the wires. “Grrr…” he growled again, stumped by the wiring.

“Okay, what?” Lead Runner scratched his head. “I was just looking at the other, why isn’t this—”

Rivet suddenly squeezed himself between the two of them, switched two wires and then rapped his hoof on the side of the box. A spark flew from the inside followed by a hum. Rivet pulled back out and walked over to the boiler.

Point Dex and Lead Runner pulled their heads out of the open door of the makeshift generator and stared after Rivet with their mouths agape. Rivet casually went about his business, nursing a gentle flame that burned within the firebox of the boiler.

“That’s it,” Point Dex dropped the flashlight as several lights surrounding the boiler flickered on, illuminating the area and making it easier for all of the workers to see. “I’m giving up on being a genius…” he sighed as he and Lead Runner moved towards one of the old engines to continue repairs.

It had been a week since the dreaded discovery of the horrific condition of the Shadowbolts and the news weighed heavily on everypony, not just the Renegade Shadowbolts. Learning that their enemies had such a painful affliction bred a degree of sympathy for them. Nopony would hold back against them if attacked, but learning of their warped state thwarted many hopes that the Shadowbolts could be saved… at least as long as no solution was in sight.

Bliss and Luna had worked together, combining Bliss’s therapeutic magic with Luna’s divine alicorn magic to ease the suffering of the Shadowbolts they held captive, but they still had no cure. While it seemed they had found a way to make the captives comfortable, it was clear the condition was spreading through them. In a week, the scabs had grown larger and the crystals had spread… but thankfully at a very slow rate. Bliss was unable to say how long it would be or how long it would take the crystals to kill the host… if that was indeed the end of the process, but she felt the slow spread was evidence enough to assume they had some time to figure it out… if they even could.

The Shadowbolts were their enemies. They would fight them, afflicted or no. The new development about them was disturbing and disheartening in a way… but it would not change the approach to the conflict.

Elsewhere, Rivet proved once again to have perfect timing. A day before the Wonderbolts’ rest period was set to end, he managed to construct several power generators using the materials he requested from Descent and the Renegades. Using the newly repaired boiler in the second basement, he was able to use steam power and three patched up engines to run said power generators. They weren’t enough to restore full electricity to the compound, considering the compound’s wiring was still a mess, but he was able to restore functionality to the heating system.

He also, with the help of some Renegades, managed to locate a nearby underground water reservoir, which he and his workers managed to run a temporary pipe into, restoring running water and plumbing in one locker room… but only one. They found a suitable drainage location as well, allowing all the facilities within the one locker room to be fully functional.

Indeed, there were severe limitations. The heat could only be run for an hour at a time before it had to be shut off for at least thirty minutes. The generators Rivet built, while operable, were makeshift and made quickly. Just a temporary fix, but it was a welcome one. The water flow was only useful when the heat was on, unless anypony wanted to freeze to death. Obviously, running the boiler also caused some smoke to rise from the smokestacks, so a few Renegades were assigned to divert and dissipate the smoke as it lifted in order to avoid the smoke rising above the blizzard clouds and revealing their location.

The heat wasn’t constant and having only one locker room open for both mares and stallions to use was going to be a little awkward, but considering that they had just gone a full week in the extreme cold and without any facilities whatsoever, they wouldn’t complain.

With a few fixes in place, Rivet was able to focus more on the compound itself, hoping to restore and possibly fortify the flight mechanisms as well as repairing any damage caused by the reveal of the propellers. Not to mention repairing said propellers as well as reattaching those that were blown off during their escape, found and returned by Renegades out on patrol. He had a lot to take care of, but he had a lot of help, so he was confident he’d get it all done quickly… allowing the Wonderbolts to be completely ready to fight with every possible advantage at their disposal.

Well rested, and with some essential necessities restored… the Wonderbolts were ready to get up and get back in action, starting with a special lesson in magic deflection from the Renegades all packed into the auxiliary gym.

“Alright, alright… I got this, come on… GAH!” Lightning Streak grunted as a weak blast of magic bounced off his hoof and hit him right between the eyes. “Ugh…” he stumbled and wobbled. “Bro… this is harder than it looks…”

“GRH!” Fire Streak grunted from beside him as a similar blast of magic struck his hoof, but exploded instead of deflecting. He shook his hoof out and blew on it. “Indeed…” he agreed.

“Come on…” Pixie stepped up beside Fire.

“…you two,” Fairy finished the sentence as she moved beside Lightning. Pixie shook her head.

“We know you two can do…” Pixie started.

“…better.” Fairy poked Lightning in the side.

“You two make it sound simple…” Fire shook his head. “And you two are finishing each other’s sentences again.”

“It’s not my…” Pixie started.

“Fault,” Fairy finished. Pixie trotted over to her sister and lightly smacked her upside the head. “Ow! Sis!”

“Stop,” Pixie turned back to the Streak twins. “It is simple,” she began without Fairy interrupting her. “It’s a flick of the wrist. It just has to be perfectly timed and subtle. Lightning—” she turned to him— “You have the timing down, but your flick motion is too lax, you’re just going to keep taking it in the face if you keep that up.”

“Fire,” Fairy addressed the other Streak. “Your motion is quick enough, but your timing is off. There is a precise moment before impact between the magic and a surface where the energy bends in a tight vacuum of space… which causes it to explode. If struck at this precise moment, with a very quick motion, it prevents the magic from bending and causes its motion to continue.”

“A slow motion,” Pixie spoke up again. “Will only cause the magic to bend around whatever hit it and continue on its course, as Lightning knows well. A quick, harsh motion will bend the path in a different direction.”

“Bro…” Lightning scratched his head as he scrunched his face. Fire Streak shook his head.

“This is the third time I’ve heard it and I’m still confused…” he commented.

“Yeeeeep!” Surprise yelped from nearby as a blast of magic exploded on her hoof and she tumbled backwards. The Streak twins both turned to see both Surprise and Misty struggling as well.

“At least we aren’t the only ones…” Fire took a deep breath and exhaled as he refocused. "Alright, let’s keep going…” He nodded to Pixie and Fairy as he and Lightning awaited another stream of magic from the research team unicorns the Renegades had enlisted for help.

“SON OF A BITCH!” Blaze yelled out as she fell backwards, clutching her nose. Comet trotted up to her and lifted an eyebrow.

“You completely missed the magic that time…” he commented as Blaze continued to mutter obscenities from the floor.

“Yeah! No shit!” she yelled up at him as she rubbed her nose.

“Hit her harder next time!” Silver called to the unicorn stallion assisting Comet as he readied to take on a blast of magic himself.

Silver focused on one of Bliss’ assistants, Witching Hour, as she channeled a little bit of magic into her horn and aimed it at Silver. She looked like she was trying as hard as she could to make it as weak as possible, which Silver appreciated since he was having trouble getting it down as well.

“Remember…” Blazetail spoke from behind Silver. “Point of impact, swift movement,” he reminded Silver.

Witching fired the small magic beam and Silver brought up his left hoof. He focused his attention on it as it slowly flew through the air towards him. He waited for the precise moment of impact and flipped his wrist out, but the point of impact was slightly off. A few bits of energy splintered off and shot away from him, but a majority of it exploded on his hoof.

“Argh!” Silver grunted and shook his hoof. “I don’t know how you guys do this on the fly…” Silver commented.

“Of course you do,” Blazetail chuckled. Silver looked at him for a second, Blazetail winking before realization hit Silver.

“Practice, practice, practice?” Silver recited something Blazetail always used to say. Blazetail pointed at him and smiled.

“Precisely, as soon as you get the timing down, it’s just a matter of getting used to it,” said Blazetail.

“Back to square one, eh?” Silver smirked. “Can’t remember the last time I’ve been in this position…” he sat down, making a brief wave motion with his hoof to signal to Witching that he was taking a rest. She nodded before turning and looking if she could help elsewhere.

Silver shifted his eyes slightly to the right, focusing on Mahogany beside Witching. Bliss had let her assistants go to help out with the deflection training. They needed all the unicorn help they could get with so many in need of learning. Silver, however, was less interested in Mahogany, more interested in who she was about to fire magic at. Silver had been training side by side with Dash… and…

“Here it comes!” Mahogany called to Dash. Rainbow Dash stood at the ready, focusing on Mahogany as she remembered the explanation and all of the motions that Flashwind had showed her. She purposely held back her giddiness of being taught by a legendary Wonderbolt captain in hopes of impressing not just them… but everypony else. Mimicking, and learning techniques of others, was her forte after all.

Mahogany fired the small beam of magic, which flew through the air and straight towards Dash’s face. Dash brought up her hoof, waited for the exact moment before impact, and gave her wrist a hard flick to the right, copying the same rhythm and speed that Flashwind had shown her. A large portion of the magic deflected away from her and dissipated in the air, only a small portion of it exploded on her hoof, but no more than a tiny pop came from it.

“Damn… not quite perfect!” Dash frowned as she looked at her hoof.

“But still…” Soarin spoke up from the other side of her. She turned to look at him as he held up his hoof, which had a few small singed spots on it. “You’re getting it down faster than most of us.”

“Indeed!” Flashwind spoke up from behind Dash. “It’s quite impressive how quickly you are picking this up, recruit,” she added. Dash thought her face was going to turn completely red, not from embarrassment but from her heart jumping out of her chest.

“Aw, gee… I mean… I’m just…” she goofily stumbled over her words.

“Can you do that again?” Spitfire moved around Soarin while asking Dash. “I want to see how you’re doing it.”

“Yeah, seriously!” Fleetfoot approached as well. “How are you making it work?”

“Uh…” Dash blinked. Soarin wasn’t making her so nervous, but now the rest of the lead squad wanted to know, well, aside from Air Mach who was taking multiple blasts to the face seemingly on purpose a few yards away. She just wasn’t used to this situation, all of them on equal ground, not to mention now she figured something out more than the rest of them did and they all wanted to learn what she was doing. The situation was backwards, and having her idols want to learn from her was almost more than she could handle. “I’ll uh… just do it again… Mahogany!” She waved. “Give me another!”

Silver watched as Dash demonstrated for the lead squad… and couldn’t prevent a smile crawling on his face. Dash was his student after all. He knew that picking up the abilities of others was her natural talent, but it still made him proud to watch her pick it up fast and help teach some of the best Wonderbolts. She repeated the motions, deflecting most of the magical energy as she had before.

“Yeah, just like that,” Dash nodded to the rest of them as she shook her hoof lightly. She still didn’t have it perfect, but she was definitely closer than the rest of them.

“I still don’t get it…” Fleetfoot rubbed the back of her head.

“Oh… I see what I was doing wrong…” Spitfire quickly turned and walked back towards her unicorn helper. Fleetfoot perked up and quickly followed.

“What?! Spitty! Wait! Tell me your secrets!” Fleetfoot whined as she followed behind Spitfire.

“Can you show me one more time?” Soarin asked her as he scratched his chin. Dash looked up at him and smiled, relieved that the intense attention had been lifted from her.

“Sure, look at how I’m moving my hoof…” Dash began explaining in depth to Soarin as Silver continued to watch.

Silver himself wouldn’t admit it, but he missed his training sessions with Dash. It had been a long time since they had had some private training time for obvious reasons. He was curious how she had developed her skills, if she had worked on her awareness, and most importantly… if she had conquered her fear of lightning. It was clear the coming battles with the Shadowbolts would involve magic more than elements, but the last thing Silver wanted was for Dash to lock up, should a Shadowbolt use elements instead.

“You’ve really got this down,” Soarin complimented Dash as he tried to recreate her movements in front of his face.

“Thanks, but…” Dash sighed, her ears flopping down as she peered across the gym. “It’s not perfect…”

Silver watched as Dash and Soarin looked towards another part of the gym. He followed their eyes, finding that the two were looking at Squad Zero.

Swift Justice, Shine Struck, Playbitz, and a recovered Calm Wind were all deflecting magic with ease.

“Hmm…” Silver hummed as he watched Squad Zero manage the magic deflection far better than any of them. Dash had picked it up faster than all the normal Wonderbolts. Compared to Squad Zero, she was behind. The special force’s quick mastering of the deflection was to be expected though. They were already well versed in magic deflection, just a less efficient form. They already understood the basics of it, so they would likely have it down very quickly… as they were already taking on small volleys of multiple blasts at a time. Shine Struck in particular looked like she wouldn’t need another day of practice. She had similar copying abilities to Dash along with her previous deflection training, so she was quickly mastering it.

And it seemed to frustrate Dash… which only made Silver smile again. Nothing pushed a pony more than competition. They definitely weren’t competing at anything, but Dash’s natural urge to be the best no matter what was one of the reasons he had chosen to train her. Her desire to better herself was clear, present, and almost unmatched. Silver knew there would be no ill will, Dash wasn’t angry with Shine, she was angry that she couldn’t pick it up as fast as somepony else with similar abilities. Obviously there was a difference in circumstances, but Silver wasn’t about to tell Dash she shouldn’t aim higher.

“What are you sittin’ around for?” Valkyrie’s voice caught Silver’s ears. He rolled his eyes as he stood up and turned to face her as she and Bomber walked by.

“Take pity on an old stallion,” he joked as Valkyrie stopped and lifted an eyebrow.

“You’re only four years older than me,” she commented as Silver chuckled.

“Sarcasm, Miss Muscles,” Silver said as he rolled his eyes. “One of these days you’re gonna have to relax, Val.”

“Ha! That’ll be the day…” she shook her head.

“Did Bomber have to drag you out of the gym to attend this training session?” Silver harmlessly jeered.

“Heh heh…” Bomber chuckled, earning a flat look from Valkyrie.

“I was joking, but I take it that’s a ‘yes’?” Silver smirked at Valkyrie as she puffed up her cheeks and looked away from them both. She looked ready to fire back, but was cut off as Descent walked towards them. They looked surprised to see him, not expecting him to stop by apparently.

“Valkyrie, Bomber…” he said their names sternly. “Report.”

“Some are picking up faster than others,” Valkyrie quickly replied. “Progress is slow, but it’s progress. The Wonderbolts are highly skilled, it shouldn’t be too long before they’ve all got enough of a grasp to be useful in battle.”

“Good…” Descent looked up towards Bomber for a moment, opening his mouth, but pausing. “You know what, I’m going to assume your smile means you agree.”

“Heh, heh, heh…” Bomber chuckled in reply.

“I thought so… carry on,” Descent nodded to the two of them.

Silver watched Descent carefully as he and the burly former Wonderbolt duo went about their business. Descent glanced at Silver, the two locking eyes for a moment, but exchanging no words as Descent went to speak briefly with each Renegade helping out.

Silver was intrigued by Descent. A ruthless, no nonsense mercenary… a hardened shell of a pure warrior… with a strong, yet soft heart in the center. He’d do anything for victory… but also sacrifice everything for his comrades. Silver had never met a pony in his life that was so blatantly shoved onto opposite ends of the spectrum at the same time. He’d kill without a thought, but tenderly care for his foal. He’d take on any opponent no matter what the danger, but actively seek to preserve himself for those who need him. Descent was a hard pony to figure out… but it was clear he wasn’t just a mindless killer. Underneath the battle scars and the gruff exterior, he proved to be a very smart individual who considered all angles of a situation and could make quick, intelligent decisions at moment’s notice. In a way, Descent reminded Silver of Blizzard Strike. While Descent didn’t have the pure wit and brilliance of Blizzard, his approach to situations was similar. He definitely had all the best qualities of a leader beneath his harsh glare, yet for so long he had followed orders under a simple code… bending to the will of Nightshade… who was in charge only because she was stronger.

Descent wasn’t a pony one could properly gauge without prolonged observation, and Silver was happy to have a pony with a head on his shoulders leading their allies.

Speaking of leaders, Descent had made his way past Spitfire, who stopped what she was doing to look and watch him pass, however… something else had caught her attention.

“Descent!” a voice came from behind Silver. Silver looked up to see Astral glide over his head and land behind Descent.

“Ah,” Descent turned and faced Astral. “It’s time for the scouting report? I apologize, I’ve been distracted.”

“Yeah, I had to comb this place for you, dammit…” Astral scoffed as Descent waved a hoof.

“Alright, alright, none of that,” he said sternly before nodding. “Your report?” he asked.

Silver’s eyes shifted to Spitfire as Astral spoke to Descent. She was looking directly at Astral, her eyes narrowed. Silver recognized this. This wasn’t the first time he saw Spitfire eye the semi-disabled scout curiously. Silver was honestly surprised she hadn’t said anything yet… because he knew exactly what was on Spitfire’s mind. In fact… it looked like this time she was finally going to speak up.

The moment Astral finished and made his way back out of the gym, Spitfire turned towards Descent.

“Descent,” Spitfire said his name as she approached from behind. Descent’s ears stood up as he looked over his shoulder.

“Yes?” He eyed her body language as she walked towards him, quickly seeing the purpose in her motion.

“Can I talk to you about something for a moment?” she asked as she stopped right in front of him and looked at him sternly.

“What is it?” Descent asked as he turned to face her, remaining unaffected by her gaze. She pointed towards the gym doors.

“That scout of yours…” she began, but trailed off.

“Astral Bolt?” Descent confirmed for her.

“Astral, yes.” Spitfire put her hoof down and tipped her head curiously. “The pegasus with the mangled wings and the creaky braces that barely keep them in place… that pegasus…” she spoke as if he was supposed to pick up on what he was saying, but Descent didn’t bite.

“What about him?” Descent asked, clearly realizing there was something that was bothering Spitfire, but he remained cool. Spitfire flattened her brow.

“Why exactly are you putting a pony like that in danger?” she asked straightforwardly. Descent lifted and eyebrow.

“Excuse me?” Descent asked as he narrowed his eyes slightly. Spitfire looked annoyed that he wasn’t picking up on her intentions… or was ignoring them, she couldn’t tell.

“That pony has a clear disability and relies on an external brace to fly… and you’re not even the slightest bit concerned that something… you know… could go wrong and it could get him killed?” Her voice had risen slightly. “I’ve seen him fight to get those things to cooperate with him while he’s just standing still! You’re not even considering what could happen if they lock up on him in flight or while in danger?”

Descent didn’t reply for a few moments, simply staring down at Spitfire as if she were wasting her breath. Descent scoffed and turned away from her.

“Astral’s condition is of little significance. His skills benefit us, and he always gets the job done,” Descent explained casually.

“You aren’t even the slightest bit concerned?” Spitfire threw her hooves forward in disbelief. Descent quickly turned back to her.

“Why should I be?” he answered sharply, causing Spitfire give him a look like he was some sort of monster. “The Renegade Code is similar to the Shadowbolt code. As long as you are strong, efficient, and positively contribute, you are welcome into the ranks,” he recited the slightly altered Shadowbolt code to her while pointing towards the doors. “Astral is our best scout. His wings may be distorted and he can’t even use them without wing braces, but that is not a proper judgment of his capabilities. On more than one occasion he has returned to us on hoof because his braces locked up, but he has always, and I mean ALWAYS… made it back alive after accomplishing what was asked of him. He is resourceful and useful, and for that reason he is welcome to be a Renegade.”

“But he’s—” Spitfire tried to cut in, but Descent cut her right off.

“Not a perfect, young, in-top-condition pegasus?” Descent rolled his eyes. “The Wonderbolt code is laughable, and before you try to defend it, I’ve heard all that I need to about it from all the ponies you forced to retire over your tenure as captain,” Descent berated Spitfire as he made a hoof motion towards several of the former Wonderbolt Renegades that were helping with magic training.

“I’m questioning your precautions towards the safety of an individual,” Spitfire narrowed her eyes as well to match the look she was receiving. “Not questioning your code.”

“Well, too bad, because I’m questioning yours,” Descent shot right back, causing Spitfire to grit her teeth, but Descent continued. “The Wonderbolt ‘desire’ to keep only the ponies that are in perfect condition has led to an extreme waste of skill and experience. You stick to the code and let go of valuable ponies who, in the long run, will do much more for you and your organization than all the youngsters you replace them with. You look only at physical shape and vigor… disregarding the usefulness and potential of many remarkable individuals with years of experience to back them up… need I remind you many of those individuals are in here… and are the reason the Wonderbolts are even alive right now,” Descent used every card he had in his argument.

“You’re dodging the subject,” Spitfire scrunched her face.

“Am, I?” Descent tipped his head and lifted his brow. “I’m honestly shocked to hear this from you… not that I didn’t see it coming with the way you’ve been eyeing up my top scout, but really, Spitfire. You’re being a bit hypocritical aren’t you?”

“I will not tolerate being insulted on top of it,” Spitfire growled at him, but Descent looked away over her shoulder.

“If you’re so concerned about the health and wellbeing of those who are hindered physically… then tell me,” he pointed. “Why do you still have him around?”

Spitfire blinked before looking over her shoulder… her eyes widening when she realized she had argued her way right into a wall.

Descent was pointing at Silver Lining, who was standing about fifteen yards away and watching his squad as Comet and Cannonball instructed Blaze and High Winds. She quickly turned back around, glaring at Descent, but in a manner that suggested she was uncomfortable.

“He’s…” she began but trailed off.

“A special case, right?” Descent finished for her before scoffing and looking around again. “Let me guess…” he said as he rubbed his chin. “She must be a special case too,” he said while pointing towards Misty Fly. “I mean, she’s deaf… right? That seems like something that fits into your category of disabled or hindered, hmmm?” Descent looked back at Spitfire. “Oh, but that’s right… she’s a member of a top elite squad. I guess that’s because she earned it and also gets the job done despite her disadvantage. Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s exactly what Astral does for us.”

Spitfire flattened her brow, folding her ears back as well. Silver was one case she wasn’t expecting Descent to clue in on… but she felt pretty stupid walking into this argument without considering Misty Fly. Descent grunted and turned away from her.

“Don’t go telling me I’m putting certain ponies in danger or question my code when you’re doing the same thing and bending your own rules to begin with.” Descent said no more and Spitfire didn’t make any attempts to fight back as Descent walked away to check on the rest of the Renegades.

“Dammit…” Spitfire cursed as she glanced at Silver again. She shook her head before sighing and moved back towards Fleetfoot and Soarin. She had been called out of her own charade. Was she concerned about Astral? Yes, but it wasn’t her decision to make. The same could be said for all of the old Wonderbolts among the Renegades, but who was she to argue when she was already bending her own rules to keep Silver Lining in her ranks? She was always focusing so much on Silver that she never once thought about how Misty Fly already was a bit of an exception with their rules as well. Misty fit the bill when it came to being physically fit and able to perform, but technically, under the code, her being deaf was considered a liability.

However, she had never once given thought about Misty Fly’s case, because Silver’s was much more clear and present. Descent had deduced her efforts to keep Silver active in their roster, and she was sure others may have made the connection, and while it would be difficult for her to argue any sort of concern on the matter, the Renegades were under Descent’s jurisdiction, not hers. She felt it best not to question him any further.

But she couldn’t help but think about his criticism of the Wonderbolt code. It wasn’t the first time the code had come into question, but Descent backed up his arguments with some incredibly relevant points. Astral was a perfect example of how a pony that was clearly not in top physical condition could still be useful given they found ways to be reliable and work towards the goals of the organization. Astral was in worse condition than Silver in a way, his body was broken from the start, but he made it work, and Descent trusted him as his top scout.

Hell, Silver was another shining example, but Spitfire had been so torn between keeping Silver around and following the code at the same time that she hadn’t considered how the benefits of one school of thought contradicted the other. And in the end… after how much the older Wonderbolts had helped, how great of an influence Silver had been, how Misty had worked through her disability for so long without drawing a single question towards being a liability, and seeing this scout. Astral was PARTLY-DISABLED, but praised by Descent for always getting the job done even if his half functional wings gave out mid-mission…

She began to wonder if it was time to revise the Wonderbolt code. They had to live long enough first, but if they survived, the first thing she was going to do was meet with Blazetail, Flashwind, and any other notable Wonderbolts to discuss a new code.

As Spitfire moved along… Silver glanced back towards her. She clearly didn’t realize that he was within earshot. He stared at her from a distance for several moments as he put everything he heard together.

And all he could do was chuckle.

So he had been kept around intentionally all along? All his efforts to keep things hidden were a waste of time?

Nah… of course they weren’t. If anything, the lengths to which he went in order to secure a longer career spoke to how much he cared about the Wonderbolts, not to mention the amount of pain and effort he had put himself through in front of everypony else.

The realization that Spitfire was most likely aware of his physical condition wasn’t going to change anything. Even if she wanted to let him go, she couldn’t do so in their current situation.

But nonetheless, Silver felt like a little bit of weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He wasn’t sure exactly what Spitfire’s plans were for him, but it clearly involved him being around for now and that was enough for him.

Feeling a little lighter, he glanced towards Dash as she continued to coach Soarin on magic deflection.

He was feeling pretty good… why not smack around his student a bit? For training purposes of course. He cracked his neck and advanced towards Rainbow Dash.

“Dash,” he called as he approached. Both Dash and Soarin turned and looked at him. Silver lifted an eyebrow at Soarin. “Is your name Dash?” he asked sarcastically. Soarin snickered before turning to Dash.

“I’ll be over here,” Soarin winked at Dash before moving back towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot. Dash kept her eyes on Soarin for a moment before turning back to Silver, flinching for a moment because he was suddenly right up in her face, with a slight sneer… which was not a good sign.

“Uh… yes, sir?” Dash blinked, Silver’s somewhat playful mood seeming very uncharacteristic… and a little frightening.

“After this session is over, meet me in the squad two private gym,” he said with a tone that almost sounded a little devilish. “And don’t keep me waiting.”

“Yes…” Dash paused as Silver turned away and walked back towards his squad. “Sir?” she blinked several times as she heard him chuckle to himself all the way back. “What’s up with him?” Dash pondered, admittedly both amused… and a little terrified at what was going to happen.

“Huh? Silver?” Little Star let her ears flop down as turned herself towards the lobby instead following her squad into the fitness center. Dash scratched the back of her head.

“Yeah, Silver said he wanted to meet with me,” she waved her hoof towards them. “Go on without me, I’ll catch up later.”

“Okay…” Star seemed disappointed, which Dash noticed.

“See what I mean?” Squall said gruffly as he shook his head. Star turned to him and pouted.

“Oh hush, she’s not doing it on purpose…” Star sighed. Dash furrowed her brow and walked towards them.

“Wait a sec, what’s up?” Dash asked as Squall just stared at her with his usual lack of a smile and Star looked up at her with a sad expression like a filly would look up to an older sister. Ironic, with their age difference.

“Oh nothing…” Star pouted.

“You’ve been a bit distant lately,” Matteo spoke up, causing both Squall and Star to flinch. “What? That’s it, is it not?” he asked upon seeing their reaction.

“I have?” Dash’s ear flopped down. Had she? If she had, she definitely hadn’t been paying attention to it. But then again…

Soarin.

“Oh…” Dash gritted her teeth awkwardly. “Uh…”

“You’ve been busy with your stallion,” Matteo continued to speak bluntly as Star and Squall continued to remain silent, feeling a little awkward themselves about the subject.

“Why worry about her?!” Twister suddenly popped up and landed on Squall’s back. “YOU’VE ALWAYS GOT ME!” He threw his arms up in the air and tossing confetti. Matteo quickly grabbed him from Squall’s back and thrust him to the floor, Twister making the sound of an angry cat as his face met the ground.

“This has been a troubling time,” Matteo spoke up as Twister writhed beneath his talons. “You sought out your loved one. Had Gilda been here I would have done the same thing,” he explained as he glanced at Squall and Star. “When everything is back in motion, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other than we can handle…” Matteo grunted. Star furrowed her brow at his last comment.

“What’s that supposed to—?”

“Heeyyyyyyy kid!” Twister slid on his back up to Star. She scrunched her mouth and glared at Twister before planting one of her little hooves right into his face.

“Never mind…” Star rolled her eyes at Twister before looking back to Dash. “Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong… we just miss our captain.”

“Sort of—hey!” Squall reacted as Star gave him a gentle kick to his leg. He glared down at her, but as soon as it met her stern glare, he huffed and looked away.

Yeah… everything was normal with Squad Foxtrot. Dash felt bad that the thought had crossed their minds… but Matteo was right. She naturally sought out Soarin, the one who made her most comfortable during their time of rest as the others would have if they had a loved one or somepony of that nature nearby. And Matteo was right again, it was only a matter of time before they were back in action against the Shadowbolts and she’d be at the head of her squad once more. She’d be knocking their heads together again soon.

With that worry clear from her head, Dash parted ways with her squad, heading towards the lobby and into the east hall with the squad two gym as her intended destination. It had been a long time since she and Silver had gotten to train together, but she was less focused on that and more focused on how Silver seemed… eager to train with her. Maybe the rest period was something he really needed, that or he was actually… happy to spend some time with his student? The latter seemed highly unlikely, but Silver definitely had an unexplained spring in his step.

Dash wasn’t quite sure what Silver’s good mood meant, nor if she should be worried or not. As she moved through the east hallway, she started planning ahead. She knew for a fact that Silver was going to pull an ‘awareness’ stunt on her the moment she walked in. He had gotten her so many times with it in the recent past and had done it more than once during their rest period to be a jerk… okay, maybe he wasn’t trying to be a jerk, he was trying to help her, but he was getting crafty with the timing and places he’d do it.

She had to be ready for that… if that didn’t happen, she had to be ready for a surprise attack or instant combat engagement… or whatever. She knew he was going to try something she just didn’t know what.

She blinked as she stopped outside the door of the private gym at the far end of the hallway. The walk was a lot shorter than she had hoped. She wanted a moment or two to plan ahead, but at the same time she didn’t want to keep Silver waiting… she knew that would only make things worse. So she decided to focus on the moment and what was directly in front of her. She set her hoof on the door and readied herself to counter an attempt at ‘awareness’… she’d be ready for it this time, she swore it on her rainbow mane.

She hesitated, putting her ear to the door first to see if she could hear anything on the inside, but there was nothing. Of course, even if Silver was waiting right on the other side of the door, he wouldn’t be making any noise anyway.

She was thinking too hard… just open the door and let the old fart have it. She focused and pushed her hoof against the door, stepping through carefully while making sure her eyes were peeled for anything out of the ordinary.

She took two steps in when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye to the right.

“HA!” She turned and held out her hoof. “Nice… try?” she blinked as she blocked… a stretching mat? Indeed, a mat that was set upright flopped down against her hoof.

Wait… was this… a distraction?

“WHOA!” Dash yelped as she felt her tail get yanked up. Her back hooves lifted off the floor and she found herself flipping forward. “OOF!” she grunted as she tucked and rolled, ending upright on her plot and blinking.

“Awareness,” Silver’s voice came from behind her as he walked in and passed by her. Dash stared at him for a moment as he walked into the gym before puffing her cheeks out and glaring.

“Okay… that wasn’t fair!” she complained as she stood up and brushed herself off. Silver turned and faced her with his head slightly tipped and his brow raised.

“What, you thought you were gonna get me that time?” He shook his head and chuckled as she angrily pouted at him. “Face it Dash, you’re talented, but you’ve got a long way to go before you get the drop on me.”

“That was still a cheap shot… using a distraction…” she grumbled.

“No, it was clever,” Silver praised his own trap. “You thought I was just going to keep hitting you with the same tactic? Please, I know you’re not that stupid—” he winked— “You’re starting to pick up on it… so I’m stepping it up a notch. And it was fun to stand behind you outside the gym door while you contemplated the meaning of life.”

“Har har har…” Dash grunted. “How am I supposed realize when somepony is behind me?” she sighed, dropping the complaints knowing that she’d just sound whiny if she kept it up. “That just seems impossible.”

“Remember my story about Blizzard counter-pranking Cannon Ball’s sneaking pie attack?” he reminded her.

“Yeah, but that’s Blizzard Strike…” Dash let her ears flop down. “That’s kind of a hard example to follow.”

“In this case, not as hard as you’d think,” Silver’s tone suddenly turned very serious as he approached Dash. Dash caught his tone and she focused. “Sure, Blizzard’s was incredibly well refined, but… pegasi are capable of a sixth sense.”

Dash’s eyes widened slightly as she tipped her head to the side curiously.

“Sixth sense?” She blinked before her eyes narrowed. “Wait… are you telling me that there’s been a trick to this the whole time?”

Silver walked right up to Dash, and narrowed his eyes as well. The two stood with their faces less than a yard apart, Dash not backing down from his gaze. A moment later, Silver smirked.

“Heh… I remember a time when you’d press yourself to the floor the moment I gave you this look…” he smiled and turned away from her. “And yes.”

“WHAT?!” Dash threw her hooves up in the air and groaned. “You… sneaky…” Dash pulled her hooves down over her face. The old troll had gotten her again. “I bet you’ve been having fun with this too…”

“Dash, you know by now that I don’t do things like this without a reason,” Silver brushed a hoof against the floor, turned around and sat down facing her. “In fact, I’m only giving you a clue… I’m not going to tell you.”

“But…” Dash trailed off as she walked up to him and sat down across from him.

“You’ve seen it used as a primary fighting technique,” he said with a nod.

“I have…?” Dash blinked.

“It’s something a lot of the elite Wonderbolts have trained, but there’s one who uses it better than all of us.”

“Who?” Dash asked quickly, but Silver only shook his head.

“Figure it out,” Silver quickly denied. Dash folded her ears back and sighed.

“I should have seen that coming...” she narrowed her eyes. “That or… you’re not telling me so you can mess with me longer.”

“Maybe,” Silver snorted and tried to hide a smirk. “No, really… I want you to figure it out because I know you can. There are many things I’m willing to pass onto you directly, but half of growing better and stronger is learning from observation and experience. Besides… the reason I called you here is not because I wanted to teach you something new,” Silver explained as he stood up. Dash quickly caught on that something was about to happen, so she stood up too. “It’s been a while we’ve last trained together… It’s time for a little pop quiz…”

“A pop quiz…?” Dash blinked and quickly set her hooves firmly, ready to fight. “Pop quiz…” she smirked as Silver did the same and shot her a battle glare. “Right…”

“Come at me!” Silver ordered. Dash smirked and cracked her neck.

“If you say so!” she replied as she spread her wings and broke into a gallop.

“Commander Soarin!”

Soarin stopped halfway through opening the doors to the gym as his ears stood up. He looked over his shoulder to see Storm Front galloping towards him from the direction of the auxiliary gym, from which a lot of the Wonderbolts and Renegades had started pouring out of since they concluded the magic deflection lessons for the day. They had worked through two cycles of the heat being switched on and off, and had half an hour left on the current cycle and they all wanted to make use of. It was hard to get any sort of training in while also holding a blanket to oneself.

Soarin sighed as he let go of the door and turned to Storm as he skidded to a halt in front of him.

“Storm…” Soarin chuckled.

“Yes, Commander?”

“How many times am I gonna have to tell you to drop the formality?” Soarin reminded him. Even after all they had been through, Storm still often forgot that Soarin rather he address him as a friend.

“Oh…” Storm winced. “Sorry… I keep forgetting.”

“What’s up?” Soarin asked as he stepped aside to let Air Mach and Macho Savage into the gym, giving them both hoof-bumps as they passed.

“I was wondering if we could practice the Sonic Blast-off some more. I’ve been doing some work on my own, but I want some feedback, do you mind?” Storm asked with a clear eager tone in his voice. Soarin glanced at the gym doors for a moment. He wanted to get some weight lifting in since it had been a while. Not that he or the Wonderbolts had lost any strength because of how active they had been. It took more than a week of rest to lose an edge too… But really, he just had the urge to do some heavy lifting like he used to.

But… it had been a long time since he and Storm had trained together and he wasn’t going to say no to a pony that he was more or less mentoring and was excited to mentor. Storm had expressed so much interest in learning Soarin’s techniques. Storm wasn’t the only one, but he was the second pony to not give up after the physical requirements were put into perspective. The first was Dash, but she had her mimicking talent on her side, Storm was the first with no advantages to keep on going.

“Sure,” Soarin nodded as he turned away from the gym. “Let’s go see if we can snag a private gym,” he suggested as Storm quickly followed behind.

“Alright!” he reacted enthusiastically, which earned another eyebrow raise and smirk from Soarin.

“You’re in a good mood,” Soarin commented as they walked side by side. “You’ve been like this for the past week actually, what’s got you so happy?” he asked, curious about Storm being unusually upbeat. Not that Storm wasn’t usually in a better mood than some, but he was especially giddy now.

“Oh, well…” Storm folded his ears back and looked away while blushing lightly. “It’s a little complicated, but… my dad met my marefriend…”

Soarin came to an immediate halt and blinked.

“Wait…” he turned and looked at Storm curiously. “You’re marefriend is Derpy Hooves right? The mare that beat Flashwind’s endurance record?”

“Yeah,” Storm answered as he took two steps ahead of Soarin before stopping and turning to look at him.

“She lives in Ponyville…” Soarin was actually not aware until now that Descent had decided to take letters out with the Renegades, but that wasn’t what his brain focused on. “Descent went to Ponyville…”

“Something wrong?” Storm blinked, not picking up on Soarin’s expression.

“Hmmm…?” Soarin hummed as he scrunched his face. He turned slightly away from Storm. “No… well… yeah, no. Just…” Soarin bounced his response around before sighing. “Look, everything’s cool between your father and I now, but it’s hard to forget…” Soarin paused as he looked Storm in the eyes. Storm’s eyes widened as he realized where Soarin was going.

“Oh… right, I didn’t think about that,” Storm let his ears droop down beside his head. “That’s where you and he…” he trailed off.

“Yeah,” Soarin nodded as he looked up down the hallway. “That’s where we first encountered each other… and where he beat me to the brink of death. Hell, he’s the reason I got the magic put into me and why I wear this,” Soarin recalled as he tapped a hoof to the fake horn. He looked back towards Storm, noticing that Storm looked a little uncomfortable. This was something they had yet to bring up since they discovered Descent was his father. Storm clearly didn’t look too happy about it. Soarin quickly stepped up to Storm and placed a hoof on his shoulder, giving him a smile. “Storm, don’t worry about it. I’m not Matteo.”

“Huh…?” Storm blinked and tipped his head curiously.

“Dash told me about it.”

“Oh…”

“I’m not about to hold something you had no part in against you,” Soarin continued as Storm looked up at him. “Descent and I were once enemies. We’ve crossed hooves twice in the past, both incredibly heated and brutal battles, but we survived both encounters… and things changed. Not only do I now understand where his mind and heart are set, but I also owe him my life twice over. I’m not about to ignore that,” he finished as he gave Storm another pat on the shoulder. Storm sighed and smiled.

“Thanks, Soarin, really—” he nodded— “I’ve been purposely avoiding talking about it after all the bitterness the subject of my father placed between Matteo and I.”

“I’d expect no less from a griffon,” Soarin chuckled as the two turned back down the hallway and crossed into the lobby. “You don’t have to worry about a thing. I see your father as nothing but the most valuable ally we have right now and I plan to keep it that way.”

“Thanks,” Storm thanked Soarin again.

“But back to what you were saying…” Soarin spoke up again as they crossed the lobby and moved into the east hallway. “Descent went to Ponyville and met your marefriend, huh?” Soarin smirked. “This is definitely second on the list of things I never thought Descent would do.”

“What’s the first?” Storm asked. Soarin looked directly at him while lifting an eyebrow. “Oh, right… haha…”

“I’m assuming the trip was weird for him, seeing as how Ponyville is a very interesting place, but how did it go with Derpy?” Soarin asked.

“Well… aside from him peeking on my fluffy letter to her…” Storm trailed off, waiting for Soarin to stop snorting while holding back laughter. “He liked her, gave his approval… it was unexpected, but it was really great to hear it from him. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a parental judgment on something. I guess that’s why I’m so happy…” he finished as a light blush appeared on his face, probably half from embarrassment and half from thinking of his marefriend.

“Heh…” Soarin looked forward as Storm lived in the moment. After how much Storm got down on himself and how many bad things he had dealt with in his life, Soarin definitely felt Storm deserved every positive development he was getting.

“HEY!” Fleetfoot’s voice suddenly came from behind them. They both flinched as she suddenly pushed herself between them, more or less shimmying herself up their bodies due to the lack of space between their walking lanes, and sticking her head out between their shoulders, looking at a surprised Storm first. “What’s with all the blushing over here? Am I missing out on some quality bro love?”

“Uh…” Storm’s eye twitched, definitely not ready for the ridiculous question, but Soarin was quick to react. He shifted to his right, effectively squashing Fleetfoot between him and Storm as she let out a little squeak.

“A bro-love sandwich with Fleet filling,” Soarin joked, playing along while getting her caught in her own joke. Storm’s flight response was kicking in, but he didn’t have enough space between him and the wall to get away.

“Well…” Fleetfoot giggled as she managed to pull herself forward a little. “Can’t say I’d complain,” she glanced at Storm. “One slice of bread seems a bit stiff though,” she snickered as Storm remained in ‘what is going on’ mode.

“Not all of us here are immediately used to you rubbing yourself on us at any moment’s notice,” Soarin chuckled as he shifted away to free her and get her off of Storm. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re a cat deep down inside.”

“Meow!” Fleetfoot giggled while swiping her hoof in Soarin’s direction like a claw swipe while sticking her tongue out at him.

“So now that you’re clearly back to normal, mind telling—”

“NOPE!” she sternly shook her head back and forth. “What in our history together makes you think I’d reveal any of my weaknesses?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him as Storm remained as far from her as he could on the opposite wall.

“Except for that spot on your thigh…” Soarin leaned his head comically away from Fleetfoot, bringing up a soft spot on her he was unfortunately aware of as she turned bright red.

“You jackass…” she grunted as she puffed her cheeks out.

“I didn’t need to know that,” Storm finally spoke up. He flinched as Fleetfoot suddenly zipped over to him.

“What? Ya wanna touch me there now, don’tcha?” she said while brushing her flank against his.

“Uhhhhhhhhhh…” Storm kept glancing between her and Soarin, his looks towards Soarin screaming S.O.S.

Fleetfoot hadn’t gotten within range to harass Storm in any way since the tryouts, which was lucky. But Soarin only shrugged at him. If he wanted to be a Wonderbolt in this generation, Storm would have to get used to Fleetfoot’s harassment, it was part of the job at this point.

Luckily for Storm however… a large distraction left the infirmary just before they passed by. Calm Wind had stepped out, likely after getting his back checked before heading off to train like many others were doing. Soarin saw the big lug before Fleetfoot did, since she was still jokingly rubbing her flank against Storm, but he had a feeling she’d switch targets the moment she looked up, because Calm was definitely one of her favorite flirty teasing targets. The poor guy never lasted more than a few seconds before capsizing.

“Oh?!” Fleetfoot’s ears pointed up as she started turning her head. “Light blue fur and muscles spotted in my peripheral vision! Hunk senses are tingling!”

“I know, I’m a lot to take in at once,” Soarin joked, knowing full well she wasn’t talking about him.

“Oh, you wish… humper of rainbows…” she snickered as she pushed off Storm and gave Soarin a playful, soft swat in the face with her tail. “Heeeeeyyyyyy!!!” she called as she picked up her pace and moved up behind Calm. Soarin just shook his head as he watched Calm’s ears, fur, and every strand of his mane and tail stand up as her voice caught his ears. He turned his head around for only a brief moment, his wide eyes catching Fleetfoot moving towards him before his head snapped back around and he started leaning towards the wall on the left side of the hallway as he moved.

“Hey, you… yeah, you…” Fleetfoot giggled as she quickened her steps to keep up with his longer stride. All that escaped Calm was a helpless squeak that was muffled by his mouth being scrunched shut. “Aw… c’mon…” Fleetfoot giggled as she moved in closer to him, causing him lose distance between himself and the left wall quickly. “What? Do I have to do it again to give you another hint?” she suddenly said.

Soarin lifted an eyebrow, lacking context to what she said, but once Calm’s face turned completely red and he held his breath, it was safe to assume Fleetfoot had done something recently… Possibly something Calm didn’t want to admit he liked based on how Fleetfoot was acting.

“Awww you, DID like it!” she giggled, the mischievous, sly look never leaving her face as she leaned into his shoulder… which was at the perfect height for her to rest her head against. “C’mon you big goof… you can admit it…”

“Er…” Calm finally managed something audible, but it went no further than that, his mouth closing right up as he found his body pressing to the wall, squishing his side and cheek against it as if still trying to lean away from her.

“Should we help him?” Storm suddenly asked from the other side of Soarin. Soarin quickly placed his hoof on Storm’s shoulder.

“He can take it,” Soarin said with a chuckle before pushing Storm along. “C’mon, while she’s distracted…”

“This feels wrong,” Storm held back a snicker as he and Soarin used Calm’s bad timing as a means to escape. “But if you say so…” the two continued on while trying to hold back laughter, amused at the situation. Calm was roughly twice Fleetfoot’s size, but she could break him with a wink.

“Now that we’re out of that frying pan…” Soarin turned towards the first private gym that came into view. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He opened the door, and peered in, blinking. “Well then…”

The gym was filled to the brim. Even though it was a smaller gym, squads three, seven, fifteen, and twenty were all packed in along with a few stragglers from other squads. Soarin had seen a lot of Wonderbolts head down from the back at the other end of the compound, but apparently a large portion of them had headed to the smaller gyms… all with similar intentions.

“What’s up?” Storm asked as he pulled open the door beside Soarin’s. “Whoa…”

“Yeah, let’s try the next gym,” Soarin chuckled as they backed out. They glanced back towards Fleetfoot and Calm to see that he had, as usual, lowered himself to the ground and covered his face with his hooves as Fleetfoot tried to make him move or at least respond… while lying on his back. “Only one way to go,” Soarin joked as he and Storm moved towards the next gym.

They quickly found that they might be out of luck for a while. The first three gyms meant for any squad use were all completely filled. Even the private gyms for squads three and one were being used. Authorization had clearly been neglected due to circumstances… squad three wasn’t even training in their own gym due to it.

The possibility of them being shut out aside… the sight of nearly every single Wonderbolt up and training again was a very refreshing and encouraging sight. And based on the bustling fitness center Soarin left behind before coming this way, it was easy to assume any that weren’t in the gyms training they were in the fitness center lifting weights. The downtime was nice, but they were definitely all itching to get back up and be active again. It was built into their brains. Gotta be strong and gotta be ready. They had battles to fight in the near future, but even without those battles looming, they’d be at it.

“Sheesh…” Storm scratched his head as they backed away from the lead squad private gym. Soarin could have easily kicked out a Wonderbolt or two since it was the gym for his squad, but with how hard all those inside were working, sparring, or practicing their fighting techniques. “Guess we’re not going to get any work in, huh?” Storm said with slight disappointment. Soarin shook his head.

“We can always hit the weights and try again later if we have to, but,” he paused and looked down towards the end of the hallway. “We aren’t out of luck yet,” he made a head motion for Storm to follow. “Let’s check out the Squad Two gym.”

“Come on!” Silver yelled at Dash as he remained locked in place, reared back on his back hooves as he blocked multiple punches and kicks from Dash. He was impressed, the strength and speed of her attacks were definitely better than the last time they had sparred, but he wanted her to give him more. “You call that an offense!? I’m just dying to hit you back!” he jeered to fuel her.

“Rgh!” Dash grunted as she rushed at him again, throwing her right hoof forward. Silver shifted, grabbing her arm and forcing it back, making her spin as she flew backwards. Dash remained upright and quickly slammed her hooves to the ground. “If you’re so eager, quit love-tapping me and let me have it!” she fired back as she leapt forward again. Silver smirked as she approached.

“If you say so!” he mocked her as he put up both hooves. Dash carelessly came at him with the exact same punch she had just tried. Silver easily read it, batting her hoof aside while swinging his other hoof directly for her face.

Dash’s eyes widened. She had not time to dodge it.

Rule number one: Never be afraid of your opponent. It doesn’t matter how big, strong, or fast they are… if you fear them, you lose the battle before it even begins.

Instead of bracing for impact, Dash focused on Silver’s incoming hoof for the brief half-second she had, leaning towards it instead of away. She shifted her head to the left, Silver’s hoof caught half of her right cheek. She grunted as she felt the force of her blow against her face, but due to her gutsy move, she avoided taking the hit head on. A punch delivered by Silver Lining, even when he didn’t do his full wind up, was still incredibly strong, proven by how much it knocked her off balance despite only half of the punch landing. She lost her balance as she continued to move forward, sliding to the side of Silver. She pushed her hooves down to remain upright, looking up in time to see Silver turning and glaring down at her, winding up another punch, she had room to move and get away this time, but…

Rule number two: Intimidation will always win. “It doesn’t matter if the intimidation is in the form of threatening your opponent… or taking and returning the threat right back at them. Force your will onto your opponent and let them know you will fight.

Like hell she was going to step back. Dash shifted her body and put up a guard as she glared right back into Silver’s eyes. A smirk crept onto Silver’s face as he delivered the blow into Dash’s forearms.

“Ah!” she grunted as the force pushed her to the right, toppling her right over towards the ground.

Rule number three: Never go to the ground if you can avoid it. A wall that’s knocked down no longer stands in the way of those it was halting… if you go to the ground, you are giving your opponent a perfect opportunity to knock you out, severely injure you, or worse.

Dash twisted her body, using her right hoof and right wing to stop her from hitting the ground and spring right back up. She gritted her teeth and growled, especially as she spotted the smirk on his face. She invited him to attack, but was he enjoying punting her around. She felt like giving him a piece of her…

Rule number four: “Never fight angry. Controlling your emotions is essential to survival.

No, she wasn’t going to let him get under her skin. If she started fighting angry, he would only use it against her. She focused, stealing Descent’s strategy by keeping her concentration on Silver’s chest as she put herself upright. Silver’s chest muscles tensed as he lifted up a hoof to slam down towards her. She read his movement and shifted backwards to avoid his attack. The moment his hoof struck the ground in front of her, she burst forward again, rearing her hoof back to strike. Silver was quick to react, squaring his body up to her before turning his shoulders. Dash recognized this. It was his full motion punch. He was going to throw his own attack right as she threw hers. The last time they traded blows head on, hers had little effect while his sent her flying backwards, not to mention she almost broke her hoof against his hard head. She had gotten stronger, but she wasn’t about to believe this time she’d deliver the harder hit.

Rule number five: Learn from defeat. You don’t experience defeat the first time you lose to a specific opponent. You are defeated if you lose to them again. You must analyze and adapt to your enemies. You have to figure out and exploit their weaknesses.

Silver was confident. He was going to meet her attack with his own, knowing full well that she couldn’t overpower him. Dash felt she had an advantage… even if it was just a small advantage…

She knew he would go through with the attack… and while his confidence wasn’t a weakness, she could count on it.

At the very last moment before their hooves struck each other’s faces, Dash made a small shift, moving her arm against his. She hooked her hoof on it, and kicked off the ground with her back hooves while spreading her wings and giving them one powerful beat. The force from her wings propelled her up as she pulled on his arm, causing her to swing around him to the right. She extended her back hooves out as her motion swung her all the way around… she had a direct line to attack into Silver’s back with a kick.

She was going to land a blow! She was—

“Nice try.”

“OOF!” Dash grunted as something struck her hard in the stomach. Silver’s wing had fired out from his side and caught her right in the gut, forcing the air out of her lungs and causing her to let go of his arm. The force of the blow combined with her momentum from the swing sent her flying away from Silver, tumbling through the air right for the gym doors… which was the ONE spot on the gym walls that wasn’t padded.

“Ah hell…” Silver winced as he saw Dash careen towards the doors. “That’s gonna hurt…”

But right before she hit the door in the middle… it opened.

“Let’s see—WHOA!”

Silver’s ears stood up as he heard the new voice, followed by them folding back as he winced. Dash collided with whoever had just opened the door. It saved her the rough impact, but… it still didn’t look like a soft landing.

Silver turned and trotted towards the door. As he grew closer, he made out who Dash had run into, and instantly lifted an eyebrow.

“Well then…” Soarin’s voice came from the hallway as Silver stuck his head out. Silver glanced to his right to see Storm staring wide eyed at the crash before focusing back forward. Talk about timing. Dash had run smack into Soarin’s chest, toppling him over onto his back as she landed on his stomach.

“Oooo… Gah…” Dash grunted and wheezed as she got her breath back. She looked up, the shape and musculature of whatever she landed on feeling awfully familiar. She looked up to see Soarin looking down at her with a half startled, half amused look on her face. “Ugh…” she groaned as she let her chin flop down on his chest. “Nice catch…”

“No problem?” Soarin chuckled as he sat up and helped her get to her hooves before looking at Silver and scrunching his face slightly. Silver scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t look at me, son… she told me to fight back.”

“I bet she’s regretting that now.” Soarin smirked as he looked down at Dash. She shook her mane out and flattened her brow.

“Hell no I don’t,” she glared towards Silver. “He was going easy on me,” she complained as she felt around her cheek where she was struck. “Do that again and I’ll kick your old ass!” she barked at Silver despite having just the opposite happen.

Granted she still had the adrenaline flowing, but Soarin and Storm were both staring at her wide-eyed as if they couldn’t believe she had just said that to Silver. Silver, however, burst out laughing.

“What the hell are you still doing out here then? Come in here and kick my ass already!” he urged as Dash took a step towards him but grunted and grabbed her stomach, still feeling the blow from Silver’s wings. Silver lifted an eyebrow before moving out towards her.

“Gimme a second… ass kicking is on the way… just… errrgghh…” Dash groaned as she stood up right and winced. Silver shook his head.

“You can try to kick my ass another time, let’s work on something else,” he suggested as he helped Dash stand upright. Silver paused and looked up at Soarin and Storm, who were now sort of just standing there and watching. “Can I help you boys?”

“Oh, right,” Soarin chuckled. “Anypony else in the gym with you? I didn’t have time to see before I was rainbow struck,” he joked. Silver shook his head.

“Just Dash and me,” he stated plainly.

“Mind if we join? The rest of the gyms are packed full,” Soarin asked as Storm stepped up beside him.

Silver lifted an eyebrow as he glanced between Soarin and Storm. As much as he liked to keep the training between him and Dash private, save for his own squad, Soarin already knew about it. And if Soarin couldn’t get into his own squad gym then his claim that the rest were packed held weight. What would it hurt?

“We’re not using the whole place, come on in,” Silver invited before dragging the grunting Dash with him back in.

Soarin smiled and nodded at Storm before the two followed in right behind.

“Wait… shoot…” Storm stopped right before following in. Soarin came to an abrupt halt before looking over his shoulder.

“What?”

“We… I didn’t want Dash to know I was trying to learn the Sonic Blast-off… remember?” he reminded Soarin. Soarin blinked, indeed recalling that Storm personally didn’t want Dash to know that he was also trying to learn Soarin’s technique, but he shook his head.

“Look, Storm…” he sighed. “I understand that you wanted to keep it to ourselves, but…” he chuckled and motioned around the hallway, specifically towards the blizzard outside the windows and the working lights. “I don’t think it’s time to be keeping secrets, at least not ones of little consequence,” he made a head motion into the gym. “Come on, believe me, she won’t care. Think more about getting better for what we have ahead of us.”

Storm sighed, flattening his brow and shaking his head.

“Oh, alright…”

“Again!” Soarin ordered as Storm turned around, setting his hooves firmly to the ground and going through the motions of the Sonic Blast-off without the wing force at the end. Storm was basically bouncing over and over, repeating only the body and leg motions. “Keep it going! Keep it going!” Soarin encouraged as he sat and watched. “Don’t lose focus! Every motion must be precise and exactly the same every time! It must be second nature for it to be effective!”

Off on the other side of the gym, Dash was cradling a small bundle of flames between her hooves, concentrating on it and skillfully keeping the fire all in one place, small beads of sweat trickling down past her nose as the heat splashed against her face. She had been holding onto the fire for at least five minutes as Silver sat across from her, observing her technique with a stern gaze.

“Good,” Silver gave her a nod of approval. “Take a breather.”

“Ahhh…” Dash exhaled as she pushed her hooves up and let the fire escape into the air before dissipating. She sat down on her plot and shook her head to whip the sweat from her mane.

“Thanks for the shower…” Silver grumbled as Dash opened her eyes, realizing she had just sprayed Silver with her sweat.

“Oh… heh… sorry,” she shrugged as Silver shook his head out and looked towards Soarin and Storm.

Dash took another deep breath as more sweat began to fall down her face. It was great to have the heating system back online, but leave it to Silver to make her feel it twice over with some fire handling training. It wasn’t so much tiring as it was hot, especially with it so close to her face for five whole minutes. She had gotten better with fire over time, never really having a problem with wind and water… but the last element…

She knew that was coming next. She felt a little more prepared for it, but it had been a while. She looked up at Silver, following his example by glancing over at the other training pair.

“Again! Again! Go! Go!” Soarin kept ordering as Storm hopped repeatedly through the motions.

So Soarin was teaching Storm the Sonic Blast-off… or at least trying to. She had no idea that Soarin had decided to do so, but it’s not like it was her business or a subject that was bound to come up in casual conversation. Knowing Storm was often down on himself for not living up to the standards of a high-tier elite, Storm probably asked Soarin himself if he could teach him.

Dash took pride in being able to execute Soarin’s signature move, even if it was with a little bit of difficulty. Her mimicking prowess allowed her to pick it up quickly. She just lacked the physical requirements to fully master it.

It wasn’t like she would feel challenged should Storm learn it as well, but from the looks of things, Storm was having a very hard time with it. He didn’t have the skill in mirroring motions like she did, as proven by how often Soarin corrected his form. She thought he’d have a little bit of it down pat already since his Surface Tap technique used similar smooth successive motions, but the delivery of said motions seemed to be giving him trouble.

Was this how Soarin mastered his technique? It came so easily to her, but that was just how her brain was wired. She never really had the means to appreciate just how difficult of a technique she had managed to copy.

“He’s never gonna get that down…” Silver suddenly said as he shook his head. Dash blinked and looked back at him quickly.

“What makes you say that?” she asked curiously, wondering why Silver would dismiss Storm so quickly. Silver shook his head again.

“Even if he figures it out… he lacks the physical strength and the ease of execution,” Silver glanced at Dash before pointing at Soarin. “Just look at the difference in their bodies. Storm is barely half as built as Soarin, not to mention Soarin is larger, has a broader, more powerful upper body, and has musculature that allows him to easily generate the motions that activate his move.”

Dash looked back at Soarin and Storm. Everything Silver said was true. Soarin was, in general, just much more of a physical specimen than Storm. Well… she was an expert on Soarin’s body to say the least, but from a technical standpoint, Silver was one hundred percent correct… however…

“That didn’t stop me from learning it,” Dash reminded Silver, assuming she had an argument in Storm’s favor, but he only shook his head again.

“You are a special case,” he began as he looked at her. “Your ability to analyze and recreate the techniques of others is a very freakish talent, Dash. You are only the third pegasus I have ever seen with such an unheard of skill…”

Only the third. This wasn’t the first time Dash had heard about others with abilities like her. In the past, the Wonderbolts had mentioned two others with mimicking abilities, but never really went into specifics. One of them was obviously Shine Struck, she knew that for a fact, but the third had never been mentioned. With the way Silver spoke she had to assume it was a former Wonderbolt. She had to ask about it sometime.

“There’s a reason you don’t see to many Wonderbolts using each other’s moves,” Silver kept going as he looked back towards Soarin and Storm. “We devise our signature techniques and train them to absolute perfection… using them to supplement our already refined combat prowess. We make them our own to the point where it fits us uniquely, to the point where our body composition and even our personal motions and movement are part of their execution. Any attempt to replicate them will never be a fraction as effective… unless a freak of nature pony like you comes around,” he chuckled, throwing Dash a smirk. “Because you can copy the technique nearly down to perfection with little effort, all you have to do is meet certain physical requirements. From what I heard, you lacked the strength to perform Soarin’s Sonic Blast-off, so you hit the weights and built up your muscles until you could. You chose to go the power route with your mimicking, allowing you to mostly conquer moves related to strength, helping you figure out my full motion punch as well, but hindering your ability to master certain speed based abilities.” He pointed towards Storm. “Storm is not so lucky to have such freedom of choice. If I were him I’d stick to perfecting and finding new uses of his own techniques. He’s welcome to try learning the Sonic Blast-off, but I just don’t see him being successful, hell, not even I know exactly how Soarin pulls off that crazy acceleration.”

Dash frowned as she looked towards Storm. Silver was wise as always, but she felt bad that under such wisdom Storm was more or less wasting his time. On the other hoof, Dash knew Storm better than Silver did, and knew that he’d try regardless of how hard or impossible it might be. If anything, Storm may learn a thing or two about how to enhance his own move, just like Silver suggested.

“Alright, break’s over.” Silver stood up and cracked his neck. “I’m sure we’ll be in here past the next heating cycle, but I want to get through something before we have to wait.”

Dash gulped as she stood up.

“Lightning?” she asked anxiously. Silver nodded as he turned away from her.

“You knew it was coming, huh?” he said seriously as he walked over and picked up the pair of flint hoof-covers that he had used to make Dash’s fire before. “Then we don’t even need to talk about it…” he made a head motion to a large trough filled with water they had hauled in from the locker room. “Get me some water,” he ordered as he put on the hoof covers and struck them together to create a spark of flames that he quickly controlled into a ball before him.

Dash did as she was told, moving towards the basin and thrusting her hooves into it, splashing the water up into the air and catching the moisture, passing it in Silver’s direction in a controlled stream. Not a perfect shot like Wave Chill, but it was good enough. Silver held the flames up into the air as the moisture approached and mixed the two together. After some quick and careful manipulating, Silver had a small cloud in between his hooves that he let float up above him. He clapped the flint gloves together three more times, each spark adding heat to the cloud until it grew darker and darker… and little volts of electricity began to run along it.

Dash gulped as she watched the electricity pulse about the mini-cloud, her skin feeling tingly beneath her fur. She took a deep breath as Silver stuck his hooves into the cloud and pulled the electricity out of it. The cloud dissipated and his hooves and forearms crackled and popped, ribbons of lightning dancing about them. Dash waited for Silver to approach as he usually did to carefully pass it to her, mentally preparing herself to show that she HAD indeed worked on it, even though it still scared her a little.

But Silver took her by surprise.

“Catch.”

Dash’s eyes widened considerably as Silver thrust his hooves forward, the lightning shooting off of them and careening towards her in undulating ribbons. Dash yelped as she put her hooves up in front of her face, the lightning crashing against them, forcing her to rear back on her hind legs and take several steps backwards. The electricity was upon her and she could feel it surging through her arms towards her chest, but she quickly opened her eyes and focused on her arms, despite being slightly terrified.

“RGH!” she grunted loudly as she gritted her teeth and forced the lightning to stay away from the center of her body and in her arms. Her eyes darted back and forth as she watched the electricity move up and down her arms as well as jump between them. There wasn’t nearly enough to cause any potential harm to her, but if she lost control of it and it shot into her… it was definitely going to sting… a lot.

“Control it! Contain it!” Silver yelled at her as he approached her.

Both Soarin and Storm had stopped and were observing from afar as well. Soarin was holding himself back from jumping in to help, knowing full well it was a training exercise despite his knowledge of Dash’s fear.

“Don’t lose focus! Keep your eyes steady, dammit!” Silver ordered as Dash slammed her eyes shut and opened them again, this time with her eyes fixed directly in the center of her arms where the lightning was passing between them.

It wasn’t hard… not even the slightest bit difficult to control the small amount of electricity Silver had tossed at her, but that wasn’t the problem. She was doing absolutely everything in her power to not simply toss the lightning aside and back away.

She didn’t like it. The memories of the traumatic shock were too vivid and too real…. But she fought it. She fought it with all of her might, pressing back the awful recollection with the desire to prove she could handle it.

Silver watched her carefully as she continued to hold on, specifically her eyes. The last time they had trained her electricity handling, she still had a scared expression written all over her face, but this time it was different. Her eyes were filled with determination… something he had seen from her often, but never once while they were working with lightning.

He felt her handling of the element was still a little shaky, but… the progress he was looking for was right in front of his face. She had control of it, and was holding on. Every other time she had lost it by now.

Silver let her continue for a few more moments before reaching forward.

“That’s enough,” he said as he put his hoof between hers and pulled all of the lightning away from her.

“Ahhh…” Dash took several steps back, falling onto her plot and panting as Silver reached his hoof over his head and let the lightning burst upward before is crackled, snapped, and disappeared. “Dammit…” Dash pounded her hoof against the floor as Silver approached her. “Dammit, dammit, dammit…” she repeated, each time smacking the floor with her hoof again.

“You did well,” Silver spoke up, ready to compliment her on her progress. He opened his mouth to speak again but Dash slammed her hoof down twice as hard and glared up at him.

“Did WELL?!” she repeated before shaking her head. “That was still bad!”

Silver blinked, surprised at her outburst considering she had just proved she had made progress. In fact, he was surprised she didn’t complain about him suddenly tossing the lightning at her, he was sure she was going to give him hell for it.

“Dash…” he tried to speak up but she slammed her hoof down again.

“I don’t care if I did ‘better,’ it was still way under par… I’m a Wonderbolt, I should have this down by now!” she complained as she looked at her own hooves. “Seriously!”

“Dash, it’s not…”

“How can you guys trust me out there in battle if I can’t handle one stupid little—?”

“RAINBOW DASH!” Silver raised his voice. She flinched, but didn’t look up. Silver silenced her, but she was clearly still mulling over it. “Look at me,” Silver ordered, getting her to look up. She scrunched her face into a half pout as she looked into his eyes.

It was indeed interesting how much their relationship had changed over time. Dash used to cave beneath Silver with little more than a single glance from him. Now, he was looking down at her with his crushing gaze, and she wasn’t giving an inch. As much as Silver pushed the ‘stern instructor’ vibe on all those he trained, due to his goals with Dash he actually preferred a more down to earth air between them. Of course he wouldn’t admit it though.

“Was it perfect?” Silver tipped his head slightly before shaking it. “No. Do you have a ways to go?” He put his head back upright and snorted. “Absolutely. But don’t disregard what you’ve done so far. This isn’t a simple case of you not understanding how it works. We are battling a phobia. I wanted to see your progress in working on it, but to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t expecting much to have changed as much as you have. You proved me wrong.”

Dash grunted, looking away as Silver sighed.

“Fine, you know what… you sucked, it was awful, F minus-minus, you fail, forever,” Silver suddenly took an odd tone as he turned around. Dash’s eyes widened.

“Wait, what?” she looked up.

“Is that want you want me to say? That it was bad and you’re a terrible student? Celestia knows I do the opposite a lot,” Silver scoffed as he bobbed his head back and forth.

“Wait, no…” Dash stood up and stepped towards him. “That’s not…”

“Be proud, Dash!” he turned and pressed a hoof to her forehead, causing her to stop in place. “I know you don’t have any problems being confident in yourself.”

Dash blinked, looking directly into his eyes as his stern look helped back up his words.

“You’ve proven that you can figure things out. You have a bit of a crutch here, but in time… it will come to you it like other skills have. Practice, practice, practice,” he finished as he removed his hoof from her forehead.

“Sorry…” Dash huffed to herself as she looked away towards Soarin and Storm. “It’s just frustrating after how quickly I pick up on other things.”

“I know,” Silver agreed. “Don’t forget I overcame a similar fear with fire. Believe me, it wasn’t a cakewalk…” he trailed off as he eyed Dash carefully. She was still looking away at Soarin and Storm. He started moving towards her quietly.

“Still frustrating…” she sighed. “Seriously, it’s not hard to control its just—” she stopped abruptly as she looked back. Silver was gone. “Silver? WHOA!” she yelped as she felt a hoof push against her back. She tipped forward and put her hooves to the floor before she could face plant.

“Awareness,” Silver said from behind her.

“Will you stop that already?!” Dash growled as she quickly stood up, turned and glared at Silver.

“Not until you’re fully aware,” Silver said with a smirk. Dash exhaled loudly through her nostrils and bit her bottom lip, a little miffed that he went from making her feel good to catching her off guard. Only he would pull such a prank on her and she cursed herself for not seeing it coming. However… now that he had told her there was supposedly a trick to it, she couldn’t help but feel like he was doing it more for his own enjoyment instead of to help her.

“Seriously,” Dash threw a hoof out to her side. “You’re not gonna tell me how this works? It’s easier to learn when I can actually see it… that’s kinda my thing you know.”

“Figure it out,” Silver repeated. Dash flattened her brow.

“I can understand seeing things out of the corner of my eye… but you did that and the one before from behind me… how can I possibly be a hundred percent aware of everything around me at all times?” she pointed over her shoulder. “I don’t have eyes in the back of my head… it just doesn’t work.”

Silver took a deep breath and sighed, shaking his head.

“You think so, huh? After you fought beside her too…? That’s a shame, you’re usually better than that,” Silver said with his focus moving away from Dash.

“Wait, what did you just say?” Dash asked, but Silver’s eyes landed on Soarin. He smirked before looking back at Dash.

“It’s impossible… right?” he said in a sly manner before turning away from her and moving towards Soarin.

Dash blinked, going completely silent as Silver moved away from her. It took her a moment to realize that Silver’s steps were very light, making little to no sound at all against the floor. She tipped her head slightly to see Soarin… who had his back turned to them, still sitting and barking orders to Storm. Silver came to a very gentle stop less than a yard from Soarin before looking back and smirking at Dash again. Soarin clearly had no idea that Silver was behind him, just out of his vision to his left.

Dash gasped. Silver was going to…

Silver set his front hooves firmly in the ground, focusing his eyes on Soarin’s head. With a forward thrust, he swung his back legs around, using subtle shifts in his body to create his full motion… but doing so with his legs? It was the first time Dash had ever seen it, but that wasn’t her main concern. Silver had gone through his motions to harness every little bit of power his body could generate, and was pushing it into a hard buck… that was aimed directly at Soarin’s head.

Dash gasped and was about to yell, but—

Soarin’s wings suddenly twitched.

“What the—?!” Soarin yelled out.

Dash’s eyes nearly bulged out of her skull and her jaw dropped. Soarin, in a split second before impact, ducked his head away and crossed his opposite hoof over to block the kick from silver. He didn’t only block it, he met it with enough force to counter Silver’s full motion power, despite being at an angle disadvantage.

Soarin quickly tipped onto his hooves and stood up, facing Silver as he came back down on all fours.

“What was that for?” Soarin asked, furrowing his brow as he tipped his head to the side.

“Heh…” Silver chuckled as he turned and looked at Dash, his smile growing as she stared in pure disbelief. “See?” he said while ignoring Soarin’s curiosity.

“Guh…” was all Dash could say as she tried to fathom what she had just seen. Something happened, Soarin didn’t simply sense Silver there. That wasn’t possible. How did he feel it? How did he know?

“Still think it’s impossible?” Silver lifted his brow as he approached Dash again. “Soarin has mastered awareness… just as many of the elite Wonderbolts have,” he explained as he stopped in front of her. “Part of what makes us so dangerous in combat is how aware we are of our surroundings. It’s hard to take us by surprise under most circumstances, especially when we’re focused and in control of the situat—” Silver’s eyes suddenly widened as he turned and put his hooves. Soarin’s hoof jammed into his forearms and sent him skidding a yard across the floor. Dash blinked as Soarin landed on his hooves in front of her and smirked.

“Damn! Almost got you!” he jeered as Silver glared at him.

“Is this a challenge, son?” Silver asked while lifting an eyebrow. Soarin cracked his neck back and forth and bounced his eyebrows.

“Heh, you know what? Why not? It’s been a long time since we’ve fought,” he tapped his horn. “And I mean for real, I promise not to go nuts this time.”

“As long as you hold to that and keep the princess magic out of it…” Silver cracked his hooves and grinned.

“Oh, them’s fighting words!” Soarin joked as the two both smirked.

Dash scooted herself backwards as Soarin and Silver rushed at each other and locked hooves. The two kept smiling at each other in a sporting manner as Soarin began to push Silver back, his hooves skidding along the floor.

“Come on, you old stallion!” Soarin yelled as he pushed. “Don’t let a princess overpower you!”

“Just being courteous to a lady,” Silver shot right back with a sneer. “Here, allow me,” he said smoothly before releasing one of Soarin’s arms, letting it slide over his shoulder. Silver latched on and used Soarin’s forward momentum to pull him onto his back and launch him upward.

“Whoa!” Soarin yelped as Silver spread his wings and took to the air. “Bring it!” Soarin eagerly called as he rounded upright and guarded just as Silver thrust his hooves into him. The two pushed off and engaged each other in airborne close combat.

Dash watched them both with a blank look on their face.

“Well… that escalated quickly…” Storm said as he walked over and sat down beside Dash.

“That’s putting it lightly…” Dash said as one of her ears flopped down. “I’m still trying to figure out how Soarin knew Silver was behind him.

“That was pretty crazy…” Storm agreed as the two continued to watch their mentors fight overhead. “I wonder how he did that?”

Wonder indeed. Dash saw the whole thing, but cursed herself for being more distracted by the worry of Soarin getting hit in the back of the head. She saw something happen, but she missed the fine details. And what did Silver mean by ‘after you fought beside her too?’ had she seen a perfect example of it in the past? If she had she had either missed it or completely forgotten.

“What’s the matter? Can’t break an old stallion’s guard?” Silver’s voice caught her attention. She looked back up to see Silver holding his iron defenses up as Soarin tried, and failed to get through them.

“Eh… I could,” Soarin chuckled as he continued to throw punches and kicks.

“What are you waiting for, and invitation? A love letter? Sorry, I only write mushy hugs and kisses to my wife!” Silver taunted as he smirked as he stared down Soarin from between his arms.

“I’m not so heartless that I’d hit an old stallion as hard as I can,” Soarin said with a sarcastic tone.

“Go easy on me and I’ll make you regret it!” Silver suddenly batted away a punch from Soarin and followed up with a punch of his own right for Soarin’s face.

“I’m betting on it actually!” Soarin laughed as he shifted his head left and grabbed Silver’s arm, pulling him in, spinning him around and putting him in a bear-hug from behind. “I like to respect my elders, so here’s a gentle toss!” he said as he spun around and threw Silver towards the ground.

“Sweet Celestia…” Silver grunted as he calmly spread his wings, did an inline twist, and evened out, gliding along the ground as he looked over his shoulder. Soarin had followed right behind and was gaining on him. “I’d like to rip that horn right off your head and corkscrew it somewhere you won’t find it…” he said with a chuckle as he turned to meet a flurry of punches from Soarin as they glided.

“Yikes!” Dash yelped as she and Storm ducked, the two battling Wonderbolts passing right over them.

“Whoa…” Storm managed to say as the two looked on in awe. “It’s so intense, yet so casual…”

Dash smiled as her mind finally broke away from figuring out the awareness ‘technique’. She was missing a good fight, one that she could probably learn something from. But even then, she felt more like focusing on the two individuals fighting. Soarin, her lover. Silver Lining, her mentor. The last time she saw them fight it was serious and frightening. Soarin was not himself, under the influence of his yellow magic flaring out of control and beating Silver senseless with his amplified aggression.

Here… the two were sparring, simply going at it with smiles on their faces, egging each other on and taunting every chance they got. She MUCH preferred this. Watching two ponies she both respected and held in such high regard have a friendly competition was heartwarming. Not to mention she had a private show of two of the most awesome ponies in the Wonderbolts locked in combat. As Storm said, it was so intense, but so casual. It was something she really missed.

All of the recent battles had been life and death. It seemed so long ago that things were normal and they trained hard every day… helping each other, learning from each other, and having fun as they did it. That was the life, far and away the most fun Dash had ever had. She’d do anything to get things back to the way they were. It gave her a whole other reason to see all the coming battles through to the end, doing her duty as a Wonderbolt, meeting their challenges head on to defend Equestria so they can rest easy and go back to living the Wonderbolt life.

She and Storm both flinched as Soarin and Silver slammed down to the floor in front of them… well… more crashed into the floor. They both had the other in a simultaneous headlock as they wrestled on the ground.

“Nice landing, punk!” Silver grunted as he tried to gain the upper hoof, but despite his slightly better position he could get Soarin’s arm off of him.

“Hey! I wasn’t the one flapping my wings!” Soarin shot back as the two struggled. They continued to grapple until Soarin pushed off his hooves and the two flopped over, yelping as they flew off of each other and rolled in opposite directions. They both quickly rose and took to the air again.

The fighting continued for at least ten more minutes, the pace never slowing down, but eventually it was clear Silver wouldn’t be able to keep up with him much longer. While their skill levels were similar, Soarin was stronger and younger, his endurance keeping him going where Silver became gassed.

They landed a few yards apart from each other and charged, slamming their front hooves together once more and locking in place in front of their students. Soarin was smirking and raised an eyebrow, only panting a little. Silver was breathing heavily.

“That… all… you’ve got…?” Silver asked as he chuckled beneath his panting.

“As much as I’m willing to give before I start giving you bruises,” Soarin taunted.

“Heh…braggart…” Silver exhaled and eased up, falling back onto his plot. “Yeah… that’s enough for me.”

“Phew!” Soarin sat down across from him. “You’ve still got it, Silver.”

“Of course I do…” Silver scoffed while panting. “Just a little creaky,” he added as he rotated his shoulder, causing the joints to pop a few times.

Storm and Dash watched as the two shared a good chuckle after the sparring ended.

“And that wasn’t even full tilt…” Storm shook his head. “And they let ME into the elites?”

“Don’t start with that now,” Dash reached over and poked him in the arm. Storm smiled and shook his head.

“No, no… I’m not gonna start berating myself… I just have a long road ahead of me to get on that level,” he turned to look at Dash. Dash looked at him and returned the smile.

“You and me both,” she winked. They both looked back towards their mentors to see Silver and Soarin both staring at them. “Uh oh…” Dash blinked. “I dunno, but I don’t like that look.”

“Hey,” Soarin suddenly smirked as he turned back to Silver. “I bet my student can beat up yours!”

“What?!” Dash’s ears stood up as she glared at Soarin. Soarin glanced back at her with a mischievous look in his eyes that she knew well. He totally said that to purposely get her riled up.

“You shittin’ me?” Silver spoke up as her also smirked. “Your student wouldn’t last five minutes against mine.”

Storm and Dash both looked awkwardly towards their teachers as the two went back and forth about which one of them would beat up the other. They looked at each other for a moment, both with no words to describe what was going on before looking back… and seeing they were being stared at again.

“You two!” Silver yelled at them. “Quit sitting around and fight each other or something!” he said with a smile on his face.

“Uh…” both Dash and Storm said simultaneously.

“Two bits on Storm,” Soarin said while glancing between Dash and Silver.

“That’s it…” Dash stood up and grabbed Storm by the arm, hoisting him up. Soarin was teasing her and she was gonna throw it right back in his face… for fun of course.

“Whoa, Dash, hold on a sec—WHOOOOA!!!” Storm yelled as Dash spread her wings, lifted Storm up in the air with her, and flung him skyward.

“You heard the idiots!” Dash called as she flew after Storm. “I gotta beat you up now!”

Storm regained control of his flight while shaking his head.

“Welp…” he shrugged before putting up his hooves, ready to take on Dash.

Down below, Soarin and Silver were snickering to themselves.

“Wow, she went for it… you’re a bastard, you know that?” said Silver as he glanced at Soarin.

“Trust me, it doesn’t take much. You’ve just gotta challenge her and she goes for it,” he explained as he watched Dash and Storm go at it.

“Oh, I know…” Silver agreed. “Just don’t blame me if she denies you sex now.”

Soarin flattened his brow, keeping the smirk on his face as he looked towards Silver.

“Did we have to go there?” he asked while chuckling. Silver tipped his head as he looked towards Soarin.

“Just telling you how it is, son. Take the word of a married stallion,” Silver said as he patted his chest.

“I have my ways to encourage her anyway,” Soarin defended his ‘moves’ and their effect on Dash. “Besides, it’s not like we’re married…”

“Yet,” Silver finished for him. Soarin snorted and laughed to himself… but Silver saw right through it. He knew how much the two adored each other it was only a matter of time. “Hrgh…” Silver suddenly grunted as one of his arms wobbled. He reached the other hoof over and grabbed his shoulder, holding it steady for a moment until it stopped. He took a deep breath, refocusing on the battle between Dash and Storm.

Soarin was facing the fight, but he had his eyes focused on Silver. That little grunt and wobble did not escape him.

“Is the heat off?” Silver asked before Soarin could say anything. The two looked up towards the ceiling vents high above them. There was no audible noise coming from them, so they assumed the heat had been shut off to let the boiler rest. It wouldn’t be too long before it started up again, but they could feel a sudden chill in the air. “Go grab those flint gloves,” Silver asked, pointing away from them. “Doubt they’ll even notice since they’re fighting, but no reason for us to freeze to death.”

Soarin looked over and did as he was told, getting up and moving to grab the gloves. He kept glancing back at Silver as he made the round trip, catching a few more winces and quiet grunts from Silver. Soarin wanted to ask, but he waited until after returning the gloves to Silver.

Silver struck the gloves together twice, creating two small fireballs that floated before him. He waved his hoof beneath one of them, passing it over to Soarin. It wasn’t much, but the small collection of flames in front of both of them generated enough heat to remain comfortable as the temperature dropped for the time being. Silver wobbled again, this time nearly falling over, but catching himself and trying to play it off, but again, Soarin saw it clear as day.

“So… how are you holding up?” Soarin asked, purposely not being specific to see how Silver replied.

“I’m fine,” Silver answered quickly. Soarin looked towards him and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you…?” Soarin pressed. A silence grew between them, the only sound coming from the fighting and jawing between their students and the tiny crackles and pops of the flames in front of them. Silver took a deep breath and released a heavy, exasperated sigh.

“Has my student been blabbing?” he asked with a low growl.

“No…” Soarin chuckled. “You’re just a bad actor.”

Silver turned his head towards Soarin, flattening his brow.

“Oh, stop looking at me like that, I’m not about to go tell Spitfire… and neither is anypony else,” Soarin assured him. Silver took another deep breath and exhaled through his nose, the flames before him flickering at the burst of air from his nostrils.

“Who am I kidding?” Silver grunted. “I know I really can’t hide it anymore.”

“Hey, hey…” Soarin quickly reacted to Silver’s shift in tone. “We’re not about to rat you out.”

“Wouldn’t matter if you did,” Silver cut him off. “Spitfire is already bending the rules for me. I know she’s aware of my body, I’m just surprised she hasn’t kicked me out yet after how quickly she let the others go.”

“Really?” Soarin blinked in surprise. He was actually unaware of that. Spitfire usually kept him in the loop about what was on her mind, but the condition of Silver never came up. Maybe it was a subject purposely avoided… due to how important Silver was to everypony. “Heh… Even Spitfire, huh? How did you find out?”

“I have good ears, that’s how,” Silver replied, not going into detail.

“After thinking about it…” Soarin chuckled. “I can see why she’d suddenly bend the rules.”

“Oh?”

“Spitfire loves sticking to the Wonderbolt code, but as her foalhood friend, I can guarantee you she won’t let it completely control her. I bet she’s more aware of what you do for us. Screw the code, none of us want you gone, Silver.”

“Good,” Silver replied flatly, trying to play off the fact that those words warmed his heart. “Because I’m not leaving until my wings stop working for good.”

“Heh…” Soarin smirked as he looked back towards the fighting.

Dash had Storm in a headlock, but Storm was in control of their flight. It was getting a little out of control, but Dash was determined.

Soarin glanced back down at Silver to see a small smile in his face, his eyes focused on the flame in front of him.

“No, we definitely need you right now,” Soarin spoke up again, catching Silver’s attention. “With all this stuff going on… the Renegades, the Shadowbolts… and now with this new development of the Shadowbolts being in danger themselves… we need all the help we can get, and a veteran like you is irreplaceable.”

“Hmm…” Silver simply nodded before turning his attention back up to the battle of their students. Soarin did the same, but he found his mind wandering. Specifically to the ‘new development’ he had just mentioned with the Shadowbolts being afflicted with some sort of unknown condition from overusing the crystals. If that wasn’t confusing enough… there was Discord, who mentioned the ‘higher plane of existence’ that was often mentioned by the voices in his head.

Discord said he didn’t want a fourth mortal there that didn’t belong… The yellow voice spoke as if she had always been able to see it, which ruled her out. She spoke of the blue as one that struggled to simply catch a glimpse… and described Soarin as stumbling in by accident. Then who was the third?

Soarin doubted he’d get an answer any time soon… but there WAS something else that stood out from the encounter…

He glanced towards Silver.

Silver and Discord exchanged insults in a manner that suggested it wasn’t the first time the two had met… in fact, the way they went at it made it seem like they had several unsavory encounters prior. Soarin was definitely curious.

“Say, Silver?” he spoke up.

“Yes?” Silver looked towards him.

“I couldn’t help but notice you and Discord seem to have a little animosity going…”

“Pff…” Silver scoffed and rolled his eyes immediately at the mention of Discord. “Don’t even get me started on that sack of snake droppings…” Silver growled.

“Too bad, I’m asking…” Soarin chuckled. “I’ve been dealing with him a lot lately, I’m curious how you two know each other.”

“Fine…” Silver grunted, clearly not eager to talk about Discord, but he started anyway. “I never thought I’d see his sorry hide ever again… I didn’t even know he was out of his damn statue again until recently.”

Soarin listened, his ears flopped up and down and he tipped his head to the side while blinking.

“Wait… you’re talking as if you met him in the past…” Soarin put together. Silver nodded.

“Oh, you have no idea…” Silver rolled his eyes. “I swear if he left us alone for more than a day it was a miracle.”

“Us?”

“Blizzard and I,” Silver looked towards Soarin sternly as Soarin continued to tip his head back and forth.

“Wait, wait, rewind, hold on… How could you and Blizzard have encountered Discord? Wasn’t he stuck in a statue for thousands of years? I never heard about him getting loose until the infamous second coming thwarted by the Elements of Harmony.”

“There’s a reason for that…” Silver smirked. “A reason called Blizzard Strike. Thanks to him… Discord’s little rampage was cut incredibly short, and it is often forgotten by history due to what was going on at the time.”

Soarin shifted so he was facing Silver. Despite the battle between Dash and Storm continuing above them, Soarin focused all of his attention on Blizzard.

“Go on…” he nodded. It wasn’t often that Silver talked about Blizzard, but Soarin never missed a chance to learn more about the legendary Wonderbolt who mentored the now legendary Silver Lining. Silver looked down at his flame for a moment, collecting his thoughts as he readied to tell the story.

“How much do you know about the last Griffon-Drake war?” Silver asked him before starting. Soarin thought for a moment.

“I was too young to remember any of it or understand what was going on at the time… but I read that it was the worst one by far in their long history of fighting,” Soarin recalled. Silver nodded.

“Indeed it was… and the worst part about it was that fighting found its way into Equestria. In the past, they had kept to their countries… their ancestral leaders made sure to keep the dispute between them and not to drag the ponies or any others into the fray. It was a personal rivalry. Well…” Silver shook his head. “Let’s just say that little rule of theirs was thrown out the window at some point. Because King Gerardo of the griffons and Czar Kazimir of the drakes didn’t seem to give a damn who got involved or where they took their battles as long as their side was trying to kill the other.”

“Despite several attempts by Celestia to persuade the warring kingdoms to stay within their borders like their ancestors promised before them, her words went ignored. Ponies were caught in the fighting, several were killed… this was the very reason that Blazetail and Flashwind took action, and tried to convince Celestia to allow the Wonderbolts to intervene and drive them back. Celestia was reluctant for reasons she refused to explain, but as things got more and more out of hoof, she was forced to comply… saying that she herself would face the consequences that would follow.”

Silver huffed, looking into the flame dancing before him carefully.

“We entered the fray with the intention of simply pushing them out and keeping them out… but it wasn’t long before we became part of the fighting. Despite our efforts, the Sky Wings and the Scale Guard got fed up with us and attacked. We were forced to fight them in what turned into a three sided conflict… and the consequences Celestia feared became reality. The constant fighting and disarray had created pure chaos… and it broke Discord free from his prison.”

“I never thought of that…” Soarin cut in briefly. “I once read that Discord was sealed in Equestria because of how peaceful it was known for being… an environment where Discord had no means to build up his strength and escape.”

“Indeed,” Silver nodded. “With how terrible and widespread the war became, he was easily released. The griffons and the drakes continued to war, but the Wonderbolts and the focus of any and all ponies was turned to Discord. He caught all of us off-guard, easily eluding Celestia, warping and manipulating anything and everything he saw fit. He was loose and on a rampage, causing havoc every step he took. Everypony that tried to go after him or fight him either failed miserably or met a sick and twisted end. Many of us, including Blazetail and Flashwind were convinced it was the end of everything. We had warring nations on one side, and the chaos of the war feeding the wrath of the god of chaos on the other…”

Silver paused and smirked.

“But that’s when Blizzard Strike stepped in,” he said as he looked up, smiling and chuckling.

Soarin waited eagerly for him to continue. Everything Silver had just said to him was both interesting and something he had never heard before, but… Blizzard Strike. He wanted more than anything to hear about Blizzard Strike.

The Discord that Silver spoke of also seemed much different than the one Soarin knew. He sounded much more wild and violent, nothing like the prank-pulling, annoying and helpful-in-his-own-way Discord that he had come to know. The ‘reformed’ Discord that lingered about, dropping them clues about what he knew and was apparently ‘helping’ them out.

It was well known that Blizzard Strike was a pony that could make the impossible happen… but how did he best a more primal Discord?

“Blizzard took a much different approach,” Silver looked back down and turned slightly towards Soarin. “One that nopony else had considered. He recognized Discord and his nature, how the god of chaos thrived on confusion, disarray, and desperation. He could see the mischievous and curious nature of Discord, the way he would do anything as long as he was amused or got a laugh from it… how he’d never miss a chance to best somepony or something else. I’ll never forget it… the moment Blizzard walked right up to Discord as we all kept our distance. Others had flown in and gotten batted aside, but he landed and walked at a casual pace right up to Discord… and asked him if he wanted to play a game of chess.”

“Chess?” Soarin blinked as his ears flopped down.

“Yes, Chess,” Silver chuckled which turned into a soft belly laugh as he took a moment to shake his head and catch his breath. “The look on Discord’s face was indescribable. He looked right down at Blizzard like he had never seen a pony before in his life, he was that befuddled. Of course, Blizzard was absolutely right. After a few moments of trying to figure out the brave pony who walked up to him without a second thought, Discord accepted, even provided the board.”

“I can’t imagine trying to play any game with Discord…” Soarin commented as Silver smirked.

“Oh, he cheated every two moves. Most of them were clear as day too, but Blizzard didn’t say a word about it throughout the match… and still won,” Silver paused to watch Soarin’s eyes widen. “Believe it, son. Discord even flipped the board around three times, switching which side they were playing, and Blizzard Strike still found a way to win. Don’t ask me how, all that matters is he did. Discord was speechless. Blizzard simply thanked him for the game, stood up, and walked back over to us. When he got back to us, he looked at our captains and said ‘I’ll take it from here.’”

Silver paused as he looked back at Storm and Dash, they were still sparring, clearly having a good time so who was to stop them? Silver stared at them for a few moments as he kept recalling the past.

“Just as Blizzard said… the Wonderbolts and the ponies no longer had to worry about Discord and could fully focus on quelling the war between the griffons and the drakes… why? Because Blizzard Strike had successfully shifted all of Discord’s focus away from Equestria to him and him alone. As Blizzard’s student… I got to watch time and time again as Discord would appear before us and try to best Blizzard… but no matter what he tried to pull, Blizzard always got the last laugh.”

Silver closed his eyes and grinned.

“Blizzard was Discord’s worst nightmare. He formulated his strategy with a mixture of awareness, wit, philosophy, and personal ideology, brilliantly proving Discord wrong or turning his pranks back on him every time. He saw through all of Discord’s tricks, never falling for any of them and often having something waiting to trick Discord the moment his own failed. It got to the point where Discord tried to find anything, absolutely anything that he could best him at… and it eventually led to Discord challenging Blizzard to prove the significance of mortals and what they could possibly be in the universe compared to gods like him… Blizzard’s response? ‘Well, you’re terrible at Chess.’”

“Oh man… I can bet Discord didn’t like that,” Soarin gritted his teeth while snickering.

“He was fuming so hard I thought he was going to explode,” Silver chuckled. “But it didn’t end there… Discord’s pranks ceased and were replaced by ‘challenges.’ Not those of a physical nature, mind you. Discord put forth many dilemmas and scenarios, engaging Blizzard on what he would do, why he would do it, and what significance it would have in the long run. Sometimes he even engineered live scenarios for us to deal with. Blizzard never missed a beat, answering every challenge, giving solid solutions to every problem, besting every scenario, and firmly explaining why he did what he did. Even when Discord thought he caught him in a moment of bigotry or contradiction, Blizzard would shrug it off, stating firmly that he wasn’t perfect, that he was simply stating what he felt was right and would have an impact, doing what he felt would move things forward because sticking to one’s ideals is important to being credible and making a difference of any kind. Discord was searching for weakness in Blizzard, anything he could exploit. Blizzard wasn’t perfect, just as he said… but he never let his guard down. He never let a single weakness show, absolutely none.”

“No weakness for Discord to exploit… the perfect weapon against him,” Soarin nodded in agreement.

“Discord couldn’t stand Blizzard to say the least,” Silver snorted while sharing the nod with Soarin. “I still don’t know how Blizzard did half the things he did, but he was always ready, always aware, and knew exactly what to say and do every time Discord confronted him,” he chuckled. “Blizzard single-hoofedly humbled the god of chaos… He pushed Discord all the way to the brink of madness. He was completely fed up and threatened to erase Blizzard from existence… but the damage had been done. Blizzard had fully convinced him that he would live forever knowing that there was a mortal who had utterly defeated him, a god. Discord had always disregarded mortals as being useless and insignificant, only to have one best him at everything his twisted mind could come up with. Blizzard simply smiled at him, knowing that Discord wouldn’t do it. After all, being overtaken by rage and simply making Blizzard disappear would only make the sting of defeat worse.”

So that explained it… Soarin remembered back when he was training his magic and he saw Fancy outsmart Discord. Discord’s interest was caught immediately and he even proclaimed he would keep an eye on him in a way that expressed interest over caution.

Silver sighed and shook his head.

“And mortal Blizzard was… because a week later he was killed in the surprise attack when we were on our way to negotiate peace talks. He went down fighting, taking on an army of drakes by himself and not clocking out until he had taken a few hundred with him. Beats me how he did it… Drakes may be much smaller than dragons but they are just as tough. Just another example of how Blizzard made things happen against all odds and circumstances… only it wasn’t quite enough that time.”

Silver paused and Soarin observed his silence, knowing that the death of Blizzard and how he ran from the battle was more or less the reason Silver rarely talked about him, but after a moment, Silver looked back up at him.

“When Blizzard was gone, we feared that Discord would run rampant again, but… when we found him he was once again frozen in stone. How? Princess Celestia was with the group that discovered him, and the only two that were capable of turning something live to stone were Celestia and Discord himself. The only explanation was that he froze himself. Why? You’d have to ask him, but I’m convinced that he punished himself for not being able to best a mortal. Perhaps Blizzard’s death was part of Discord’s decision to return to his prison. Blizzard’s mortal status was proven by his untimely demise, forcing Discord to accept that he had been bested… and now would never get the chance to get even. The god of chaos had been taught humility. Even in death… Blizzard won.”

Soarin didn’t say anything as Silver brought the story to a close. So the seed that eventually led to Discord being reformed was planted by Blizzard Strike. His historic ‘second coming’ was drastic and he caused a lot of damage, but not anything near what Silver had just described. Blizzard had brought him down to earth it seemed, and now… a generation later, the efforts of Blizzard Strike now had the god of chaos himself on their side… or at least that’s how it seemed.

“Whoa!” Storm yelped as he tumbled towards Silver. Silver reached up and caught Storm, the two of them skidding to a halt as the flame in front of Silver instantly fizzled out.

“Oops…” Dash said from above as Silver looked up and glared at her before dropping Storm on the floor with a soft PLOP.

“OOF!” Storm grunted before standing up and pouting towards Dash. “That was a cheap shot…”

“Hey, you left yourself wide open! Awareness, Storm!” she yelled while winking at Silver.

“Pfffffff…” Silver puffed his cheeks out and looked down to hold in the chuckles, shaking his head. “Yeah, I think that’s enough, get down here you rascal,” he motioned for Dash to land.

“Did the heat go off? I didn’t even notice!” Dash commented as she suddenly shivered as she landed. She went right up to Soarin who opened his wing and pulled her in.

“Let’s wait for the heat to come back on and train a little more,” Silver said as he and Storm approached Soarin and Dash. “Then we can hit the showers before it turns off again.”

“What were you guys talking about, by the way?” Dash asked as she pressed into Soarin and tried to absorb heat from the tiny flame.

“Blizzard Strike,” Soarin answered quickly, knowing Dash would immediately pick up on it.

“WHAT?!” Dash’s ears flopped down. “I missed a story about Blizzard?” she frowned in frustration. Soarin looked up at Silver and shrugged. Silver rolled his eyes.

“If you want to know it that badly, I’ll tell you later,” he said, admitting defeat. There was no way Dash would leave him alone about it anyway. She always wanted to hear about her mentor’s mentor.

“He’s quite the pony we can all aspire to be, eh?” Soarin commented while smiling at Silver.

“More than anypony else… we can only hope to come close,” Silver agreed. Soarin put on a sly smirk as he tipped his head.

“I dunno, from all I’ve heard about him, I think you channel him pretty well,” he directed at Silver. Silver lifted his brow.

“Not even close, son,” he scoffed, playing it off. Soarin glanced at Dash before looking back to Silver.

“What do you think Dash, I know he’s told you about him. Do you think Silver is like—”

“I challenge you to name one significant thing that can even slightly match me to Blizzard,” Silver cut him off while looking at him sternly. Soarin averted his eyes, sly grin appearing on his face.

“Well… you’re both old…”

Silver flattened his brow and scowled at them as Soarin and Dash both burst into laughter at his reaction. The scowl turned into a grin as he lightly shook his head.

“Jackass…” he said with a chuckle.

Storm sat between all of them, looking back and forth, completely confused.

“Who are we talking about?”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

All of the art in this chapter was done by Foxenawolf

Phew! That was a big one! :twistnerd:

Spitfire... sticking to the code while also bending it... yeah, i think Astral was the last nail in that coffin. The Wonderbolt is getting a makeover when all is said and done.

And how about that... Blizzard Strike was such and incredible, inspiring, and seemingly invincible pony through his sheer intelligence and ability to work his way through any situation... but even he wasn't able to elude death.

He sure left a mark before he left though... bringing down Discord several notches off his high horse, containing him and keeping him out of the fray until the war could run it's course.

A pony to aspire to indeed.

(and i had to sneak in Fleetfoot messing with my OC again, it's just too much fun :rainbowlaugh:)

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 106: Chills

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
This chapter was edited by both Kestrel and Lucky424

Chapter 106: Chills

POOF

“Whoa! What the—?!” Rivet peeked around one of the engines near the outer wall of the second basement. A ventilation shaft on the ceiling had suddenly split… and was blowing smoke?! “Why is there smoke coming from a ventilation shaft…Hey! Who’s working the boiler?!” Rivet moved around the engine, his tools falling out of his work belt and clattering to the floor as he broke into a sprint. He made his way down past the machinery and towards the center where a few unicorns were scampering around and turning all the valves. Rivet shoved past them and pulled a lever on the floor beside the boiler.

A loud metallic creak filled the air and the smoke billowing out of the vent back up above ceased. Rivet lifted off into the air and hovered as he examined the split vent from afar before sighing and looking back down at his assistants. Lead Runner and Point Dex both came running from above as well to see what was wrong.

“Who was watching the pressure?” Rivet asked sternly as he looked between the four unicorn assistants. The first three pointed to the unicorn to their right, the last pointing at the first. “Great…” Rivet shook his head before turning and examining the length of the pipes rising up from the boiler.

“What was that all about?” Lead Runner asked as he tried to follow Rivet’s eyes.

“My ‘trusty’ assistants down here mishandled the boiler pressure…” Rivet said sarcastically. “And as a result… it looks like we have a leak somewhere and it got into one of the air vents… great, it’s gonna take forever to find that puncture.” He scratched his head. “But if it was getting into the vents at least we know it’s somewhere along the shafts…” He looked around the ceiling and flattened his brow. “Not that that narrows it down much.”

“Did you seal the vents?” Dex asked as he also tried to see where Rivet was looking.

“Just the section where the break is…” Rivet lifted off and flew towards the vent system leading towards where the puncture happened. Dex and Lead Runner followed behind him, hovering behind as they reached the vent. “The ventilation system is allowing us to pump fresh air in and bad air out, but it’s connected all around the compound, so we don’t want any boiler smoke getting into it. We can keep the heat cycle running, but wherever this vent leads to is going to have pretty stale air until we fix it,” Rivet explained. “Oh, jeeze….” Rivet suddenly slapped his hoof to his face. “I’m gonna get an earful for this.”

“What?” Lead Runner and Point Dex both blinked and asked simultaneously.

“The vent I had to seal off…” Rivet sighed and shook his head. “It’s the ventilation shaft connected to the…”

“Uuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh…” Little Star groaned as she and Rainbow Dash walked towards the locker room behind Matteo, Squall, and Twister. They had just finished their workouts for the day with a hard weight lifting session in the fitness center. Pec Bounce had finally gotten all of the machines back in the right place, allowing the Wonderbolts to make full use of the strength training facilities instead of squeezing in to use only what was available. Regardless, Foxtrot still had to fight their way in since a lot of Wonderbolts were eager to use it, but they managed to get in.

After some hard work and a good sweat, it was time to clean up and call it a night. They had about half an hour before the heat was shut off again, so it was a perfect time to shower up and dry off before grabbing a blanket and heading to the battledome for dinner.

But it was the cleaning up part that had Little Star groaning because the entire Wonderbolt force was still limited to a single locker room, mare and stallion alike. They had made attempts to have a schedule where the mares got to use it followed by the stallions, but after the first attempt ended well into the night they decided just to suck it up and deal with it.

“This is so AWKWARD!” Star whined as they approached the locker room door. Rainbow Dash glanced down at Star while lifting an eyebrow.

“You’ve been saying that for four days now,” Dash chuckled as Star sighed and pouted towards Dash.

“You mean to tell me that you’re just okay about it?” she asked. Dash quickly shook her head.

“Definitely not, but it’s that or be smelly,” Dash said while whipping her head about to get a drop of sweat out of her eyes.

“Mmmmmrrrgghhhhh…” Star groaned again. “I just feel way too exposed… I mean, I know we’re not always wearing our uniforms and all, but taking showers and stuff, that’s more personal.” She blushed as she stared forward at Squall and Matteo. Twister was log rolling on the floor instead of walking. Dash snorted and shook her head.

“Yeah, I wonder why the guys haven’t complained at all yet,” she pointed out sarcastically, knowing full well why they hadn’t.

“Of course they haven’t!” Star huffed. “I bet the stallions are enjoying this…”

“I’m not,” Squall suddenly spoke up while glancing over his shoulder.

“HA!” Star guffawed before hovering up into the air and shifting forward until she was head level, side by side with Squall. “Don’t you give me that, Buster. I’m not falling for it!” She paused and glanced at Matteo. “Either of you.”

“Griffons don’t separate gender in facilities,” Matteo said plainly without looking at her. Star blinked and her jaw dropped.

“Okay, that’s not weird or anything…” she said, her eye twitching as she awkwardly shifted back beside Dash.

Twister suddenly accelerated as he rolled along the floor, reaching the locker room door before the rest of them, completely flattening to the floor, and sliding beneath the door. The four didn’t even blink at it as Matteo reached forward to open the door, but right before he could, the door suddenly swung open hard. Twister frantically stepped out with a clothespin clamped over his nostrils and slammed it shut, putting his back to it.

“WHEWWHEEEE!” he shouted as he shook his head, his pupils bouncing around his eyes like pinballs. “Do NOT… go in there!” he warned them. Dash just flattened her brow and pushed herself between Squall and Matteo.

“Yeah, yeah, right…” she grumbled as she moved Twister aside and grabbed the door, but the moment she opened it, an incredibly foul stench rushed from inside and splashed against her face. “SWEET CELESTIA!” Dash pulled away from the door and held her nose. “It REEKS in there!”

Matteo and Squall glanced at each other for a moment before Matteo opened the door himself. The two winced for a moment but otherwise didn’t look that affected by it.

“Oh, it’s not that bad…” Matteo commented as he and Squall made their way in, Matteo dragging a screaming Twister by the mane. Star cringed as the lovely scent met her nostrils.

“Oh my god!” she reacted as she took a step back. “It’s like… pure body odor!”

“Something must be wrong with the vents or something…” Dash groaned as she sucked it up, feeling like her eyes were going to start watering. “But…again… do we have a choice?”

Dash and Star reluctantly made their way in, hurrying up a little since Matteo was still holding the door for them.

“Jeez, how are you guys handling this?!” Star asked as she hovered, allowing her front hooves free to cover her nose. Matteo shrugged.

“It’s pretty bad,” Matteo began. “But the male locker rooms generally have a bit of a stench to them, so it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

“Whatever, I can still breathe,” Squall agreed. The two of them glanced at Twister, who was writhing on the floor and foaming at the mouth.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Matteo sighed while rolling his eyes.

“I believe him!” Star stuck her tongue out in disgust. “WOW! How do you guys stink so bad?!”

Dash sighed as she looked into the locker room. It was pretty full, the stallion to mare ratio relatively even, but in general it looked like the mares were heavily disgusted while the stallions were handling it no sweat… well… a lot of sweat. It smelled really bad.

But once again… it wasn’t like they had much of a choice. Dash grabbed a towel and headed towards the showers with her squad. They had at least drawn an invisible line down the center of the showers, all the mares using one side and the stallions using the other, but it didn’t make it any less awkward since they could all see each other. Awkward at least for the mares, the stallions, no matter what they said, were definitely not complaining.

“Holy—!” Storm put a hoof to his nose as he and Soarin entered the locker room. Soarin’s eyes widened as he wrinkled his nose.

“Whoa!” He exhaled and raised an eyebrow. “It smells worse than usual in here…” He glanced up at the vents in the corner of the ceiling as Storm made his way in. “Must be something wrong with the vents.”

“Alright, move it, I wanna get this over with and—WHAT THE—?!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from behind Soarin. He turned to see her and Spitfire entering the locker room behind him. Fleetfoot was heavily wincing and sticking her tongue out, but Spitfire simply looked disgusted. “WOWWEE!” Fleetfoot nearly gagged.

“Are the vents not working?” Spitfire asked as she continued to remain much more composed than Fleetfoot. Soarin shrugged.

“That’s my best guess,” he chuckled. “Sorry, looks like you have to deal with our stench.”

“Good gravy!” Fleetfoot spoke up, her voice slightly muffled by her hoof over her face. “Does it ALWAYS smell this bad in the stallion’s locker room? It smells like a yak’s armpit in here!” she whined. Soarin smirked as his nose had already somewhat adjusted to handle the extra bit of odor.

“I’m sorry that our stallion scent is too much for you to handle,” he joked. Fleetfoot rolled her eyes in response.

“Yikes, as if it was bad enough that I have to share a locker room with all of you pervs…” Fleetfoot grunted in disgust as she started walking through the locker room. “YOU HEAR THAT, YOU HORNY TOADS?!” she yelled, addressed the stallions. “BETTER GET ALL YOUR LOOKS NOW! CAUSE AFTER THIS IT’S ONLY IF YOU’RE LUCKY!”

She flinched as Air Mach suddenly zipped up beside her, a towel hanging off the pointy edge of his sunglasses.

“Hey, don’t mind if I do!” he said as he tipped his glasses down to look at her flank.

“EXCEPT FOR YOU!” Fleetfoot yelled as she grabbed him by arm and threw him over her shoulder into the showers.

Soarin’s ears perked up and he glanced back at Spitfire as he heard her release a heavy sigh. She started walking past him, but he started moving with her, walking side by side.

“Well, we can scratch unisex locker room off of the ‘things we’d never thought we’d do’ list,” Soarin joked.

“Mmhmm…” Spitfire hummed in response, her eyes remaining forward. Soarin lifted an eyebrow as he looked her over.

“Tough few days?” he asked, reading her body language.

“Mmhmm…” she repeated. “I didn’t get much rest in during our little week off,” she admitted. Soarin furrowed his brow, holding back the urge to push her to relax… at least for the moment. He didn’t want to immediately jump on her about it.

“The smell doesn’t seem to be bothering you that much,” he continued the small talk as they stopped to grab some towels. Spitfire shook her head as she draped a towel over her shoulders.

“I have more important things to worry about than how bad you guys stink up locker rooms I’ll thankfully never use under normal circumstances,” Spitfire explained herself monotonously.

“Phew!” High Winds’ voice came from the door, causing them both to look. “It smells like lemons and assholes in here…” she said as she inhaled for a yawn, but immediately shut her mouth and coughed. “Ooog...” she stuck her tongue out. “Not a good idea…” Her ears flopped down as she moved in and continued to cough a little.

Soarin looked back at Spitfire as she shook her head out.

“Honestly, I don’t care that we have to share a locker room either as long as we have a way to stay clean…” she said, still looking very tired.

“YO!” Lightning Streak suddenly called out as he emerged from the showers, soaking wet, and without a towel. “Five legged pony coming through! It’s okay to look ladies!” he shamelessly invited as Blaze emerged behind him, practically wrapped from head to hoof in multiple towels to conceal herself.

“More like four legs and a spud…” she grumbled as she stepped into the locker area. “GAH!” she winced and threw one of her towels over her nose. “SHIT! It got worse in here! Did somepony rip tremendous ass on top of it?!”

“I mean…” Spitfire spoke up, once again catching Soarin’s attention. “Really, we’ve had weirder things happen.”

Soarin looked over her shoulder to see Surprise and Misty Fly chasing Fire Streak while whipping him in the plot with their towels.

“Much weirder…” Spitfire put a hoof over her mouth to yawn without inhaling the stench.

The door to the locker room flew open and Silver stepped in. He instantly scrunched his face.

“Did somepony fuck a CLOWN in here?! It sure smells like it!” he reacted before grunting in disgust and walking past Spitfire and Soarin.

“I’ve kind of become numb to it all at this point,” Spitfire shrugged as Soarin chuckled at her.

“You need a break,” he suggested.

“I don’t get breaks, Soarin,” Spitfire instantly replied while shaking her head, but Soarin completely ignored her.

“Promise me you’ll find at least a little bit of time to get off your hooves and relax. We need you at a hundred percent too, you know.” He put a hoof on her shoulder. “We want our captain at full strength so we can be at full strength.”

Spitfire flattened her brow as she turned to look at him, but instead of protesting she sighed and nodded weakly.

“I’ll try.” She didn’t even argue it. Soarin was surprised she gave way so quickly, but maybe even she was aware of it this time.

“Good.” Soarin nodded in agreement as the two headed towards the showers.

They split up as they stepped into the wide open shower room, Spitfire heading left as Soarin went right. It was a little awkward, sure… but honestly, Soarin was a stallion, and there were mares taking showers across from him and the rest of the stallions, he knew what was on their minds because it was on his too. Most of the stallions were behaving themselves, but there were also a number of them taking more than a few peeks. Needless to say, a few shampoo bottles were being launched from the left side to the right in response.

Of course, Soarin didn’t want to look like a pervert, but… there was one particular mare that was easy to spot taking a shower on the other side. He made sure to aim all of his glances at Rainbow Dash. He knew she wouldn’t complain…that much if she caught him.

Dash kept her eyes on the shower handle as she let the water run through her mane and down her body. She didn’t even want to glance towards the stallions because it would only make her feel more awkward. Unfortunately, one of her squadmates was not particularly known for behaving himself… ever.

“Twister…” she spoke up without looking. The green and blue in her peripheral vision told her all she needed to know. “Quit being a creep and stay on your side.”

With some snickering the colors disappeared. Dash turned to grab the bottle of shampoo on the floor, only to see Twister sliding along the floor towards her.

“Twister, knock it off.” she reached her back hoof towards him and shoved him back over to the stallion side. She rubbed the shampoo into her mane and dipped her head back under the water until…

“HEY!” Squall yelled.

Dash forced herself to glance towards the stallion side. Her eyes locked on Soarin’s plot for about ten seconds before she blinked and noticed Squall was inching towards the mare side with a massive blush on his face as his hooves slipped along the wet floor.

“CUT IT OUT!” he yelled while looking over his shoulder at Twister, who was pushing him along while whistling.

“Twister!” Dash yelled as several Wonderbolts turned to look towards the commotion. Squall managed to break away and move right back over to the stallion side, but the moment Twister was in view again…

“Hey! Where did my soap go?” Star called out from beside Dash. Dash groaned as she saw Twister holding fourteen bars of soap in his arms.

“IT’S TIME TO LATHER UP…” Twister bounced his eyebrows before vigorously rubbing all of the soap bars on his body. Several Wonderbolts reacted, expressing their displeasure that their soap had not only been stolen, but was also being rubbed on another body. Dash just held a hoof over her face and acted like she didn’t know him, despite the collective knowledge that she was his captain.

Only after a few seconds of soap rubbing, Twister completely disappeared into a mound of soap bubbles, only his eyes poking out near the top. He began sliding around the shower room as a ‘bubble monster’ which had a lot of the stallions laughing, but the mares shouting and taking swipes at him if he tried to come over to their side.

“TWISTER!” Dash yelled his name in embarrassment as he continued to make an ass of himself.

“For the love of…” Matteo growled as Twister drew near him. He reached up and slammed his talons over the bubble mound, but his arms went right through it and the bubbles shot out in all directions.

Twister had once again… disappeared.

“Seriously, where does he keep going?!” Star groaned as she returned to her spot, which had Dash conveniently blocking her from the stallions’ view.

“I gave up wondering ages ago,” Dash sighed as she glanced at the wet, dripping Soarin again before returning to washing up with a slightly giddy blush on her face, almost forgetting all about Twister with her personal stallion eye-candy so close by.

After lots of awkward showering, the Wonderbolts were clearing out of the smelly locker room, eager to grab some food. There still wasn’t much of a food selection, but just like with the locker room, it was better than having nothing.

Soarin finished wiping his mane off with his towel, catching a glimpse of Dash and her squad conversing with Storm as they left. Well… they were missing Twister, but he was told that happened often.

He wanted to join Dash to eat, so he quickly tossed his towel into the dirty towel bin that some poor maintenance worker would have to retrieve later before following behind. He passed by Spitfire and reached the door, but it opened before he could touch it. Wave Chill stepped through nearly running directly into Soarin’s chest.

“Oh! Sorry Commander, I—dear lord, it smells bad in here!” Wave reacted before he could finish his sentence.

“Vent seems to be caput,” Soarin chuckled as he pointed to the ceiling.

“I can smell, er… tell,” Wave waved a hoof in front of his face.

“You’re just coming in now?” Soarin asked while looking around the locker room. The last of the Wonderbolts were finishing up and on their way out.

“I got a late start to my training, hopefully I can clean up before the heat is shut off,” Wave explained as he started to move, but Soarin suddenly stopped him. “Commander?”

“Actually,” Soarin smiled as he looked over his shoulder. There was only one Wonderbolt left as a group walked by them and through the exit. And that Wonderbolt was none other than Spitfire. “Perfect timing.”

“What for?” Wave asked while tipping his head.

“Somepony is stressed…” Soarin grabbed Wave’s shoulder and pulled him around so he could see exactly who he was talking about. “You know what to do.”

“Do wha—? Oh.” Wave’s eyes landed on Spitfire as she stretched her wings out and released a sigh of slight discomfort.

“I got her to agree to relax a little, but knowing her it wasn’t enough to fully convince her. I want her to get some quality rest and I know she won’t say no to you,” Soarin explained as he winked. Wave glanced at Soarin with an eyebrow raised.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that…” he said as he looked back towards Spitfire.

“Oh, just go,” Soarin chuckled while giving Wave a light push towards her. Soarin watched Wave approach the unaware Spitfire before turning to follow after his own mare, leaving the two alone in the less than romantic environment of the smelly locker room.

Wave made his way over to her. She didn’t even notice somepony was still there until he got close. She suddenly looked up, glancing around briefly to see she was the only pony left, save for the new arrival. She smiled when she saw it was Wave, who gave her a warm smile in return.

“Hey,” he said simply as he approached her.

“Hey,” she replied in kind, but sounding rather flat.

“I’ve been told you were overdoing it again,” he said as he walked up and gave her a light rub on the shoulder with his hoof. He pulled it back when he saw her looking flatly at him.

“Oh great,” she sighed and let her head droop down. “Now Soarin is using you against me.” She looked back up at him carefully as he forced a smile and lifted his brow. She shook her head. “I’m just a little stressed. This is part of my job, Wave. It’s nothing I’m not used to,” she said as she tried to walk around him.

Wave watched her as she started moving, but he could clearly see it. She couldn’t even walk without looking tired. Soarin was right, she needed rest, and because Wave cared about her, he wanted to be sure she got it. He quickly reached out and gently hooked a hoof over her shoulder, stopping her in place. Was it a little forceful? Maybe, but he wanted her to know he was concerned and he wasn’t going to let her brush her own health aside.

“That doesn’t mean I have to let it happen,” he said sternly to her. Spitfire’s eyes widened slightly as she turned and looked at Wave’s hoof on her shoulder. Her eyes ran along his arm and back to him, looking into his eyes.

Wave had changed so much since their little relationship had finally begun. It had taken him so long to drop formalities with her and even after he did, he was still a bit stiff when it came to speaking to her. Wave respected authority more than any other pony in the Wonderbolts and Spitfire’s status of captain still seemed to affect him at times even though they had become a closer as a couple.

However, recently that had been fading. Wave was starting to relax more around her. He was starting to act less like a soldier when they were alone and more like a coltfriend. He had gotten more playful, more gentle, more tender, and had even called her beautiful recently, something she thought she’d never hear from anypony.

And now here… he was sternly expressing his concern about her overworking herself. Something a second commander, especially one as strict about rank like Wave, would never normally do to the lead captain, but Wave was looking past rank here.

He was thinking of her, thinking of Spitfire, not the lead captain. That thought made her heart flutter a little, and as he looked at her with his concerned eyes, it only made it flutter more. This was the first time in a long time another had expressed such feelings to her, not including Fleetfoot and Soarin, who she heard this kind of stuff all the time from. Because it was from Wave, it had a different effect on her. She wasn’t sure if she was blushing or not, but her face felt a little tingly.

“Tell you what,” Wave started talking again since she had gone silent in her sudden admiration of his forwardness. “I’m running a little behind here, but after I get cleaned up and grab some food, the next heat rotation should be starting. Let’s meet in your room and we can relax together. Some quiet time, just me and you, okay?” he suggested with a smile.

She just kept staring at him.

“Spitfire?” he tipped his head to the side curiously. Spitfire blinked and shook her head lightly.

“Um…” She looked down and bit her lip. She was certain she was blushing now.

Wave tipped his head down to get a better look at her face and was surprised to see her blushing. She suddenly looked up, right into his eyes for a brief moment before leaning forward and planting her face right into his shoulder while releasing a heavy sigh. Wave remained still for a few seconds before smiling and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“That sounds… great. Let’s do that,” Spitfire agreed while sighing again.

“Good,” Wave tipped his head to rest it against hers.

“You guys are right… I do need it, but…” Spitfire trailed off, suddenly reaching her arms up and grabbing onto Wave’s neck, holding it VERY tightly. “I need it with you.”

Wave’s face went blank momentarily as Spitfire showcased her need for him on top of her need for rest. It quickly turned into a warm smile as he felt his heart swell in his chest. However, Spitfire wasn’t letting go of him. She mumbled something into the crook of his neck, but it was too muffled for him to understand.

“What was that?” he asked as he tried to turn his ears towards her. She pulled her face off of his shoulder and moved back slightly so she could look him directly in the eyes. She was blushing really hard, a clear a present pinkish, red hue spread across her nose and over her cheeks.

“I…” Spitfire squeaked, letting her feelings spill over. She was tired… they were in a locker room that smelled absolutely awful… but Wave was just too much. He had her in a mood she didn’t want to wait any longer. She had thoroughly convinced herself over the years that in her position as the lead captain she’d never find the time for somepony else. But Wave suddenly became that pony for her, and after how much he had changed and how far he had gone to express his care for her, she just couldn’t help herself anymore. She had fallen for him and she wanted to let him know.

“I love you.”

Wave’s eyes widened. Not in shock… but surprise. He wasn’t frozen or suddenly over-stimulated, he was just not quite sure if he had really just heard Spitfire say that.

“I… what?” Wave stumbled over his words clumsily.

“I love you,” Spitfire repeated. “I really do, okay?” She tipped her head forward and bumped her head against his chest. “I really, really do.”

Wave looked down at her as she rested her forehead against him. Did this really just happen? Had he really just gotten a mare to fall for him by doing what came natural to him? Sure, he had been feeling more comfortable around Spitfire and was trying to show her how much he cared… but he didn’t think she’d suddenly confess.

But who was he kidding? He wouldn’t have been trying so hard if he didn’t feel something special with her. And if she felt the same way…

“Things have been so rough,” Spitfire spoke up, her head still against his chest. “We’ve managed, but I’ve been falling flat on my face a lot throughout the process. I’ve been questioning my own decisions, feeling like I’m out of the loop and being shown things I never considered…” She tipped her head up to brush her nose through the fur on his chest. “Without you, I’d have pulled my mane out by now… and don’t start saying that you haven’t done anything. You’ve done more for me than any other stallion I’ve ever known. I can’t help feeling like this. You’re special to me.”

Wave listened to her as she described what he had done. She was right, he assumed he hadn’t done anything special, but apparently he had. The way she was acting right now made it perfectly clear that he had made a difference for her… and it had led to this.

And now he felt like the luckiest stallion in the world. How many stallions could say they had naturally wooed the captain of the Wonderbolts? She was much, much more to him than that… but it spoke towards how incredible of a mare she was. Him… Wave Chill… and the most incredible mare he could possibly think of… it just didn’t line up right in his head, but that was his humility talking.

“And you’re smelly…” Spitfire added as she pulled her nose back from his fur.

Now he had to respond. He realized he was staring down at her like an idiot for more than a few moments.

“Spitfire…” Wave finally spoke up, getting her to look up at him and finally see that he was smiling. He brushed a hoof against her face. She quickly reached up and touched her hoof to his. “I would be… the dumbest stallion in Equestria if I let this pass me by… wouldn’t I?” he chuckled, his smile growing wider as she just kept staring at him. “Well, I’m not gonna be that stallion… I promise,” he reached his face towards hers. “I love you… too…” he said while leaning in further. “And I also… really, really do.”

“Wave…” Spitfire inhaled sharply as their faces grew close… and their lips met.

Was it the first time they had kissed? No, they had already been a couple for a while, but they had yet to confess that they were in love with each other. The softness and sweetness of the kiss felt so much different now that they had. They pulled apart and stared into each other’s eyes for a long while, neither with much of an expression nor with anything to say.

Art by: Foxenawolf

Talk about a strange relationship they had had. A traumatic circumstance first brought them together, followed by a prank that forced them into a very awkward situation, and then Spitfire went through heat while trying to avoid him at the same time. She ended up stuffing him into a mattress before they finally found their balance again… and now here they were, the compound uprooted and crashed in the mountains, former enemies helping them, a half functioning heating system… and they confessed their love for each other in a locker room that smelled absolutely awful before sharing their first kiss in said environment.

Their intertwined lives had been full of so many interesting twists and turns that it seemed fitting for it to reach this point with circumstances that were utterly ridiculous. Neither of them cared though… as long as they had each other. Spitfire felt love and attention from him towards her as a mare and not simply flattery towards her being his captain. And Wave Chill had found his way out of his shell with the urge to express himself on a deeper level to her. They had helped each other and it was definitely not just by chance. They were in love, and they finally got to express it to the other.

“Talk about an interesting time and place for this, eh?” Wave spoke up finally. Spitfire smiled and let out a soft giggle.

“Speaking of… you better get cleaned up before the heat shuts off. You might only have a few minutes left,” she suggested. “We can continue this later in my room,” she said while looking at him lovingly.

“Indeed,” Wave nodded before leaning in again. Spitfire noticed his movement and instantly did the same. They share a very brief kiss before Wave gave her a nod. “I’ll meet you in your room later, okay? I think we REALLY need some private time now, who knows when we’ll get another chance.”

“I completely agree,” Spitfire smiled. “Now hit the showers, soldier,” she joked, winking and sticking her tongue out cutely. “I’ll see you later,” she said with renewed vigor in her voice.

Wave did as he was told, glancing over his shoulder to watch her leave. Her posture was now upright instead of slumped and she had a clear happy hop in her steps. Everything else that had just happened aside, Wave wanted her, more than anything, to feel better. And he had definitely succeeded in that, probably much more than he ever had before.

He turned towards the showers as she left, already thinking about around an hour from now where he’d have a chance to spend some time with Spitfire. After their little confessions, it was bound to be romantic. He wouldn’t claim to be a master of romance, but now he felt less worried about doing too much. Cuddling was probably much more satisfying when the two parties were this into each other.

He loved her, and she loved him. It came from both of their mouths to the other. It was official now, they both knew and there was no reason to restrain themselves. He was definitely looking forward to relaxing with her, now with absolutely no hesitation, and with full comfort.

He bobbed his head back and forth happily as he walked through the locker room and grabbed one of the few remaining towels, completely forgetting how bad it smelled as he moved towards the showers. He hung the towel on a hook outside the shower, but right before he could step in, he squinted.

“Ah…” he grunted as he blinked. Something had gotten in his eye. He turned away from the showers and moved into the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror and leaning over the sink to try and deduce what was irritating his eye. He reached up and pulled down his eyelid, locating a stray strand of his own mane that had gotten caught in his eye. “Hm…” he hummed as he reached up and brushed his mane, removing the hair from near his eye and blinking several times. “That’s bett—”

As he blinked one last time he saw what he thought was something moving behind him, a blur moving quickly. Wave’s eyes widened and he immediately looked over his shoulder.

But he saw nothing. He looked back and forth around the bathroom several times, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.

“Huh…” he shrugged, assuming it must have just been the light tricking him as he was blinking. He was the last pony in the locker room after all. He was just seeing things.

He turned and walked out of the bathroom, moving back towards the shower area, but as he got there… his towel was gone.

“Wha…?” he glanced around the locker room. His head suddenly turned towards the showers themselves as he heard what sounded like a gentle tap of hooves against the floor. He flattened his ears and brow. There was definitely somepony with him in the locker room. Whoever it was, they were messing with him. And what’s worse, whoever it was had also definitely been around and eavesdropped on his and Spitfire’s romantic moment.

“Alright…” he spoke with an annoyed tone towards the showers as he stepped into them, looking left first. “Who’s there, and how long have you—”

He looked right.

“WHAT THE—?!”

“How are they doing?” Spitfire asked as she let herself into the new infirmary at the back of the barracks. Princess Luna looked up towards the entrance as Spitfire walked through, glancing back and forth at the afflicted Shadowbolts as she moved, a blanket draped over her to keep warm until the heat started up again. Each one of the Shadowbolts was surrounded by a glow that shifted between light blue and green, signifying the joint efforts of Bliss and Luna to sooth their pain.

While they all looked peaceful, and were resting comfortably, it didn’t stop them from looking completely and utterly drained, blank looks on all of their faces as they lay still. The clear crystals and hardened scabs had grown, spreading slowly and leaving the fates of those they grew upon unknown.

Spitfire was in a good mood for obvious reasons, but she had wanted to check in with Luna and Bliss before meeting with Wave. The glow in her chest that he had planted didn’t overpower her professionalism though. She remained serious, showing concern for these pegasi, even if they were her enemies.

“They are resting…” Luna spoke up as she looked away from Spitfire and towards Bliss, who was reapplying her therapeutic magic around a nearby Shadowbolt mare as Mahogany and Witching moved about the others. “But, we have found no solution within our power,” she explained with a sigh as she looked back towards Spitfire.

“Do you think if we had more resources and better facilities we could figure something out?” Spitfire asked as she stopped in front of Luna. Luna shook her head.

“Unless we find a way to get them to said facilities… we cannot say,” she admitted. “We have never seen, in all our countless years, a condition such as this. It’s frightening.”

“All the more reason for us to try and get this tub moving again,” Spitfire nodded as she referred to the compound flight mechanisms. “I don’t care if they are our enemies. I’m not about to consider leaving them for dead.”

“Well spoken,” Luna nodded in agreement. “We must plan our strategy going forward soon. We feel it is nearly time for us to act again, yes?”

“I believe so,” Spitfire said with a quick nod. “I plan to speak with Descent tomorrow on the matter. Rivet has expressed to me that he believes he can get this thing up and flying again, but we should have plans for both scenarios just in case.”

“Speaking of…” Luna suddenly said as she looked up and over Spitfire’s shoulder. Spitfire blinked and turned her head towards the entrance. Descent had just walked in with Lightning Dust trotting in behind him shortly after.

Descent didn’t even look towards Luna and Spitfire. His eyes went directly to the first Shadowbolt in the row of beds on the right, a stallion. The afflicted stallion had the clear white crystals jutting out of his chest and running down the side of his body. He was wincing periodically, but breathing steadily.

Lightning Dust walked up beside Descent and looked towards his face. Descent was staring blankly towards the stallion, but his eyes were moving subtly, indicating he was examining his former comrade.

A quiet groan drew his attention away and towards a Shadowbolt mare that lay in the bed across from the stallion. Descent turned and moved towards her, taking in the more horrific state she was in. The crystals on her body moved from her left shoulder, up her neck, and had covered half of her face. The shifting magical aura around her was doing its job, but her state looked far and away the most painful of all the Shadowbolts in the room.

Descent slowly approached the mare, placing himself on her right to examine her. The mare’s uncovered eye squeaked open as she gritted her teeth and her pained breath hissed between them. Her teeth parted as she let out a quiet squeak of pain, as if she was trying to say something, but the crystals on her neck were pinching her vocal cords.

Her eye landed on Descent, and she struggled to move her right arm, reaching it up towards Descent desperately. Descent calmly reached his arm up and grabbed her hoof, holding it for a moment before slowly lowering her arm back down to the bed.

“Rest…” he said quietly to her as her eye closed again and she continued to breathe with labored breaths.

“Descent…” Lightning Dust walked up behind him with her ears flopped down beside her head. “I… Is there anything…” she reached up as she moved beside him to place her hoof on his shoulder, but his wing unfolded slightly to stop it.

“I am fine,” he said with a quiet grunt as he turned away from the Shadowbolt mare and moved onto the next. His face remained perfectly stoic, but the fact that he was there, examining each one of them spoke volumes for how he was feeling. Lightning Dust could clearly tell Descent was not at ease. She proved to be much more sympathetic than Starry by trying to comfort him, but Descent wasn’t having it. Not because he didn’t want it, he just wanted to look strong for his friends that were down. He clearly still considered them family.

Spitfire watched carefully as Descent moved from Shadowbolt to Shadowbolt. She observed as some of them reacted to his presence. Some of them reached for him, some of them smiled, some of them simply looked at him. Despite being on opposite sides… they still looked towards Descent as anypony would towards a leader.

How awful it had to be to have those you trusted and regarded as comrades be torn completely down the middle. Spitfire admired Descent’s composure as he moved about. She couldn’t even imagine how hard it would weigh on her if the Wonderbolts were divided and she was forced to fight against ponies she had grown so fond of and viewed as family.

Even worse, what if these were Wonderbolts lying in these beds? What if she were forced to look upon Fleetfoot, Soarin, Silver, Wave Chill, Misty Fly, Fire Streak… any of them, it didn’t matter who as they suffered from a painful state that they had no current hope to cure?

As if Spitfire hadn’t grown to admire Descent a little already for how calmly and quickly he made decisions, seeing him being sensitive to those he wished to save and protect was another testament to how he balanced his emotions. He was a hardened, ruthless warrior in combat, but in other situations, he turned that off in favor of more fitting behavior. He was in control of himself in any and all situations, something she wish she was better at doing. She had had a few encounters with him recently, challenging his decisions only to have it turned around on her, but despite how she felt she had made a few errors and made herself look a little hypocritical, she felt she was learning a lot from him.

While she was the rightful captain of the Wonderbolts, she was still young. Her skills spoke for themselves, but she had lots of room to gain experience… and… perhaps this was why Blazetail and Flashwind had chosen her over Silver. Perhaps that was why Silver turned down her request to have him take over. They recognized that she already had the physical prowess… but also had the luxury many years ahead to gain experience and learn from those around her. After all… that was how she lifted in the ranks so quickly with her squad, by learning from those around her. Most captains only held the position for five or so years. At the age of twenty-five, she had the luxury of having a reign of double that, maybe even more.

Descent paused when he reached Spitfire and Luna, looking at them both briefly and lifting an eyebrow when he saw them both with their eyes on him.

“Something on my face besides scars?” he asked sarcastically. Spitfire flattened her brow as she shook her head.

“Actually there’s something I wanted to talk to you about if you have a moment,” she said, thinking about what she and Luna had just brought up.

“Again?” Descent huffed, clearly citing what happened last time she wanted to ‘speak’ with him. Spitfire quickly cut off his assumption.

“It’s about the situation, relax,” she said flatly. “I’m done trying to argue policies, we need to focus on other things,” she explained. Descent turned away from her.

“Not until I check on the rest,” he stated firmly before he continued to check on the Shadowbolts. Spitfire felt it right to honor his request. She could see his concern for the Shadowbolts, and keeping up on their status was clearly a priority for him, one she would feel bad to interrupt.

As he walked past them, Lightning Dust tried to keep up behind. However, she froze and stared wide eyed at Spitfire for a moment before looking away uncomfortably and quickening her pace to keep up with Descent.

Spitfire furrowed her brow, narrowed her eyes, and exhaled through her nose as she watched Lightning Dust avoid eye contact with her.

Spitfire still had mixed feelings about Lightning Dust. She was an ally, she had been very helpful along with the rest of the Renegades, she had assisted her in saving Silver as the compound was taking off… but Spitfire still found it VERY hard to forget the incredible amount of emotional pain Lightning Dust had inflicted upon her back during the second Shadowbolt conflict.

It was clear that Lightning Dust was being influenced by Nightshade at the time, and even more clear that she had come to her senses, had seen the wrong in her ways, and had turned over a new leaf, working towards more admirable ends. However, some scars take a while to fade… on both sides. There was bound to be tension between the two of them for a long time.

Spitfire waited patiently for Descent to make his way around before she made any attempt to talk to him again.

“What is it?” he asked with little emotion in his voice as if he was trying to conceal the emotional pain he was clearly feeling for his former comrades. Spitfire gave a nod, wearing a serious expression to convey the importance of her request… despite the fact that she was still thinking about where she was going right after.

“We should meet at some point, preferably soon to discuss our plans going forward. Is there a time we can gather up all relevant Wonderbolts, Renegades, and other authorities to do so?” she asked while stealing a glance at Luna.

“Tomorrow,” Descent said quickly and simply.

“When?” Spitfire pressed as Descent turned away, clearly not wanting to think much about it at the moment.

“First scouting report in the morning,” he said as he slowly started walking towards the exit.

“Does that work for you Luna?” Spitfire asked.

“Indeed,” Luna replied quickly, paying more attention to helping Bliss, Mahogany, and Witching as they tended to a Shadowbolt whose comfort magic had to be reset.

“Good we’ll…” Spitfire turned back around, but Descent was already opening the door and leaving. Lightning Dust was right behind him, glancing between the door and Spitfire several times before following him. “See you then…”

Spitfire took a deep breath and sighed. So much stuff to take care of… so many issues to address and so many problems to solve. Luna was clearly busy now, so she decided to leave her and Bliss to their duties.

She needed to relax, and…

Spitfire smiled as a certain stallion came to mind, one that she had just exchanged confessions with. It was time to put the problems behind her for a bit. It was important to be aware of what was going on and doubly important to be focused and concerned… but she needed some rest.

Despite the somber air of the barracks infirmary, she left with a smile on her face. She felt incredibly fortunate that she had Wave to help her relax and cope with everything going on… and it was time to make use of that comfort. She couldn’t remember the last time she had taken a load off for an hour or so… and she couldn’t be happier to do it with Wave involved.

“FINALLY!” Fleetfoot cheered as she threw off her blanket and stood directly below a heating vent on the ceiling of the east hallway. “Sweet sweet relieeeeeeef… mmmmmmmmm…” she giggled as she melted to the floor and spread her wings out.

Soarin, Storm Front, Rainbow Dash, and Squad Foxtrot, who was still minus Twister, all shed their blankets as well as the warm air splashed into the halls.

Foxtrot and Storm had decided to go visit their barracks again with Soarin tagging along for something to do, but were ‘intercepted’ on their way by Fleetfoot, who was looking for some giggles at the lighthearted expense of others, per usual. The heat had come back on right before they reached the lobby, prompting Fleetfoot to sprawl herself out on the floor as the vent above her pumped out the warm air.

“Ahhhhhhh… so satisfying… yeah, ooh, ah, right there…” Fleetfoot rolled onto her back to let the heat splash against her stomach. Storm and the rest of Foxtrot were all just staring at her, but Dash and Soarin were both chuckling.

“You naturally make everything sound sexual, you know that?” Soarin commented as he walked up to her. Fleetfoot looked at him while still upside down, bouncing her eyebrows.

“Don’t tempt me, your Highness I could do much worse,” she giggled as she rolled back onto her hooves and shook herself out.

“Seriously, don’t tempt her,” Dash joked while nudging Soarin. “Especially with both of us here. She’ll bury us in innuendos.”

“She’s learning!” Fleetfoot joked as she playfully ran herself into Soarin’s side, pushing him into Dash.

Rainbow Dash snickered as she stumbled, regaining her balance before glancing towards the others. Twister had yet to show up again, he wasn’t even around during dinner. Whatever he was up to, Dash knew he’d reappear eventually in some silly way.

Storm was right beside her, looking perfectly normal and natural, but Squall, Star, and Matteo all looked a little stiff, all with their eyes either on Soarin or Fleetfoot.

“Hm?” Dash shifted towards them as the whole group drew near the lobby. “What’s up guys?” She looked back and forth between them all. Squall and Matteo said nothing, but Star spoke up.

“Eh…” she gritted her teeth. “It’s just kind of weird.”

“What is?” Dash asked as she looked towards Soarin and Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot was on Soarin’s back, yanking at his neck like she had him in a chokehold, but Soarin was walking naturally as if she wasn’t even there.

“Casual encounters with two first commanders…” Star shrugged.

“Really?” Dash asked as she glanced at Storm, who was chuckling at Fleetfoot trying to wrestle Soarin to the ground with absolutely no luck. “It’s not like you haven’t interacted with Soarin before…” Dash tried to put it together. Well, it didn’t make sense to her, but her case was much different from theirs. Hell, the rest of them were intimidated with Silver around. Granted there was more to it with him being their former instructor, but he was a second commander as well.

“Not used to it,” Matteo spoke up. “Authority is lax right now due to circumstance, but… just not used to it,” he repeated. “You’ve had much more time among them than us.”

“I guess…” said Dash as she looked them all over again. “Never really thought about it.”

“That’s cause you’re banging one of them…” Squall muttered grumpily. Before Dash could even give him a flat look, Fleetfoot popped up right beside him.

“Oh, you BET she is!” she said slyly as she pressed the side of her body completely against Squall’s.

“GAH!” Squall immediately shifted so hard to the left that he tripped over Star and tumbled to the floor, taking Star down with him.

“WOW! Somepony is high strung!” Fleetfoot giggled as Squall quickly rolled to his hooves, not realizing that Star’s wing was caught on his.

“Whoa!” Star yelped as Squall stood up, flinging upward and barely catching herself in a hover before hitting the ground.

Squall just glared at Fleetfoot and gritted his teeth, but it looked like it was with great hesitation, perhaps because she was authority… and he knew he couldn’t do much to retaliate against a lead squad Wonderbolt.

“Ooo, I like that look you’re giving me!” Fleetfoot joked while shuffling towards him.

“Get away from me!” Squall’s expression turned from aggressive to mortified as Fleetfoot teasingly backed him all the way up against the wall.

“Fleet, leave him alone,” Dash chuckled as Squall turned himself sideways to go as flat against the wall as possible.

“Aw, relax… I don’t bite,” Fleetfoot winked at Squall before leaning towards his face. “Hard.” She added, causing Squall’s face to go pale and his ears to flop down.

“Okay, okay, okay…” Star hovered up between them and placed herself between their faces. “Please, Commander… he’s really a bit anxious about personal space…” she asked respectfully.

“SNNNRRRRRKKKK…”

Dash blinked as the loud noise came from behind her. She turned and looked up at Matteo, who was looking away from all of them, an arm reached up with his talons covering his beak. He looked a little embarrassed as Dash glanced at him.

Dash just shook her head at him. That was definitely a snicker or snort of some kind, and it was obvious why he did it. Star vouching for respecting Squall’s personal space was a bit humorous considering she violated it often. On the flipside though, Squall never reacted when she did it. Fleetfoot on the other hoof had nearly turned him completely white with her flirty behavior.

“Aw, but he’s so handsome!” Fleetfoot tried to look past Star, but every shift she made, Star stayed lined up to block her from Squall. “Lemme see that sexy scar!”

“Please?” Star asked again as Dash walked up behind Fleetfoot.

“I’m gonna have to agree with her here, Fleet,” she suggested as Fleetfoot turned to look at her. “Go easy, he doesn’t handle this kind of stuff well.”

“Oh alright,” Fleetfoot reached up and lightly pushed Star aside so she could see Squall. “Hey, sorry,” she apologized immediately. “I’m just teasing, no need to be afraid of me,” she tried to assure him, but Squall just kept staring at her wide eyed. Fleetfoot glanced back at Dash, who only shrugged.

“Oh great, you broke him,” Dash chuckled. “Snap out of it Squall, this is just what she does.”

“Hey!” Star suddenly yelled, drawing all of their attention to her. However, she was looking into the lobby. Soarin, Storm, and Matteo had all kept going, leaving them behind. “Where do you guys think you’re going without us?!” she fumed as she hovered after them.

Squall removed himself from the wall, but his eyes remained locked on Little Star as she flew away from them.

Fleetfoot examined the expression on Squall’s face… then looked as Star turned the corner to follow behind the other three. She looked at Squall, then at the lobby, then at Squall, then at the lobby. A wide, mischievous smile formed on her face. Dash quickly noticed and her eyes widened.

“Fleet… don’t…”

But it was too late.

“Sssssssssssssssaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…” Fleetfoot shifted over to Squall again, causing him to flinch and freeze up. “I saw that look on your face!” she put an arm over his shoulder and leaned in towards his ear. “You have a thing for that cute little lady, don’t you!?”

“WHAT?!” Squall reacted as Dash sighed and planted a hoof over her face and pulled it down.

“Alright Fleet…” Dash walked up, ready to pull Fleetfoot off of Squall. “That’s enough harassing my—”

“Ah?! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

Dash, Fleetfoot, and Squall all quickly looked towards the lobby, their eyes widening as the cry of pain echoed past them. They all stared for a moment before Dash and Fleetfoot’s ears both stood straight up.

“That was…!” Fleetfoot quickly released Squall, but Dash was already up in the air and flying towards the lobby.

“SOARIN!” Dash yelled out, easily recognizing the painful cry as Soarin’s voice. Fleetfoot was right behind her, quickly catching up behind Dash with her speed as the two completely left Squall in the dust. They turned the corner into the lobby to see all the workers in the room looking towards Matteo, Star, and Storm… who were backing away from Soarin.

Dash gasped as Soarin came into view. He was standing up perfectly straight and stiff, the fake horn was surrounded by a glowing, pulsating yellow aura.

“Ah! AAAAHHH! AHHH!!!!!” He shouted as he slammed his eyes shut.

“SOARIN!” Dash called his name again as she and Fleetfoot picked up their pace. Fleetfoot landed beside Matteo, staying a safe distance away, but Dash moved right up to him, pressing her hooves to the floor and skidding to a halt in front of him. “What’s going on?!”

“UGH! GAH!” Soarin grunted as his eyes opened, an incredibly bright yellow glow flaring out from them. He stopped yelling and grunting the moment his eyes opened, going silent as if he was watching something. The yellow light continued to shine brightly from his horn, his whole body releasing a faint yellow glow now.

“Soarin?!” Dash reached for him, but as usual with the yellow magic, when she tried to touch him, the light lashed out and struck her. “Ow!” Dash pulled her hoof back and shook it out. She was about to call his name again, but right before she could… Soarin suddenly exhaled and shut his eyes. The glow faded from around his body and the horn, his eyes opened, revealing they had returned to normal…

“Ah…” Soarin slumped to the floor and immediately pressed a hoof to his forehead.

“What… the hell… was that…?” Matteo asked slowly, the griffon warrior caught in a rare moment of utter confusion along with the rest.

“Soarin… what the heck, I thought you had that stuff all under control now!” Fleetfoot said with concern as she walked up beside Dash.

“I’ve seen that before…” Dash spoke up, drawing all of their attention as a confused Squall finally caught up with them. “Soarin!” Dash crushed down and gently cupped his cheek with her hoof. “Was that the same thing that happened before? When the Shadowbolt fortress appeared?”

The others all froze as Dash spoke. Whatever it was that had just happened, they ALL hoped it didn’t mean what Dash had just suggested. Soarin his eyes and looked into Dash’s concerned expression.

This had happened to him before, and Dash was right. It happened right before the Shadowbolts revealed the rebuilt flying fortress and another time before that as Soarin had told her. The yellow magic had flared up and he was given a brief vision of something terrible happening, right before it actually happened.

“It was… but…” Soarin blinked and shook his head. “What… did I just see?” The others looked on curiously, but Dash kept prompting him for more.

“What was it? What did you see?” she asked as she helped him stand up.

“It was… I don’t know. It was all blurry. Orange, blue, and yellow colors… but I couldn’t see what it was,” he looked towards Dash with an incredibly worried look on his face. “But it was different this time. It didn’t fill me with a sense of dread… I felt more… worried.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “All I know is that it felt very, very wrong…”

Dash blinked as she listened, looking down briefly to go over everything he had just said. Orange, blue, and yellow? A sense of worry instead of dread? She couldn’t draw those things to anything they were currently dealing with or anything they knew at this point. Yellow and blue made her think of his magic, but why orange? Was it about something else entirely?

She turned her focus back to Soarin. They were in the middle of a crisis situation the last time Soarin saw something that seemed like a warning. Right now they were in no such danger, unless what had just happened indicated they were. There was no sign of anything happening around them and they weren’t under attack, so it could’ve meant something else, but what? Whatever it was… they now had a chance to address it.

“Guys…” Dash turned to the rest. “Soarin and I have to go see Luna, go on ahead without me.”

“Ugh…” Soarin groaned as he reached up to rub his forehead again. Dash grabbed his arm and started heading towards the barracks ahead of them with the intention of going all the way to the back to see Luna.

“Wait! Hey!” Fleetfoot quickly ran after them. “Wait for me!” she called, leaving Storm, Squall, Star, and Matteo behind, all incredibly confused as to what they just witnessed.

Spitfire moved towards her door from the west end of the third floor, taking several deep breaths as she drew near. She was already feeling much better and she hadn’t even gotten to relaxing yet. She had decided to go for a walk back and forth on the top floor while she waited for Wave to arrive, since she had some time kill while clearing her thoughts. The meeting with Luna was the last thing on her agenda before spending some quality time with Wave, and the moment it was over she felt so much lighter. She smiled as she reached her door.

Just let everything go for a while. Take a load off. Relax… be relieved of duty… you can be vulnerable around him… let it all go.

She really needed this, and knowing she had a newly confessed lover coming her way made the anticipation even more intense. A simple kiss felt so much different after admitting love… how would everything else feel? Nuzzling, cuddling… simply being in each other’s presence… all of it would be different, but in a good way. It was well beyond simple comfort now, it was love. Spitfire’s heart fluttered just thinking about it. Spitfire, the proud, serious captain of the Wonderbolts with her heart a-flutter, who would have thought?

She let a quiet giggle slip as she reached for her doorknob and opened the door to her room. She was glad nopony else was around to see her in such a blushy, giddy state. She’d never hear the end of it, especially from Fleetfoot.

Her room was still a bit of a mess from the lift-off and crash of the compound, but her queen-sized bed was still upright and that was all they would need. Her room was spacious enough to push all the fallen clutter aside.

It had been a while since she had been in her room with the heating system actually working, so it was nice to feel cozy back in her own personal space. They didn’t have much of a choice, but honestly, she didn’t like being stuck in the wide open area of the battle dome with everypony else around at all times. She did like to enjoy a bit of privacy.

Spitfire approached her bed and patted her hooves along the mattress to flatten the wrinkled sheets and blankets down. It wasn’t like how her bed looked really mattered since the rest of her room was a complete mess of spilled items, but she wanted it to at least look nice for when Wave arri—

“Hey.”

“Gah!” Spitfire flinched and her eyes widened as she turned around quickly, but breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Wave Chill standing against the wall beside the hinge side of her door. “Jeez… Wave… you almost gave me a heart attack there…” Spitfire exhaled, lifting an eyebrow while giving him an amused smile.

“Heh…” Wave chuckled, pushing off of the wall and approaching her. He was already there. He wasn’t the pranking type, so it was a little amusing to her.

“I didn’t think you were going to get here before me,” said Spitfire as she set her plot down on the mattress. Wave smirked and turned his head slightly as he stopped in front of her.

“What can I say? I couldn’t wait,” he reached up and brushed his hoof against her face. Spitfire felt her heartbeat quicken as Wave looked her over with rather seductive eyes. Quite a forward move for him… but as she observed earlier, he was definitely coming out of his shell. Maybe confessing to each other broke him out even more.

“Mmmm…” Spitfire hummed at his soft touch against her cheek, reaching up and brushing her hoof along his arm. “Come on…” she patted her free hoof on the mattress. “Let’s relax, I need this… and you.”

She began to lean backwards, but Wave suddenly shifted his hoof to grab her arm and pull her back up. Spitfire blinked, looking into his eyes, which hadn’t changed from the suggestive stare.

“Wave?”

“Who says we only have to relax?” He pulled himself closer, bending his neck back slightly so he could push his chest up against hers while keeping their eyes locked, the tips of their noses brushing lightly against one another.

“Wave…” she blushed as her felt her body covered with goose bumps as Wave’s chest fur bristled against hers. “MMmmhhh,” she bit her bottom lip as she felt a hoof run along the curve of her back. “Feeling a little adventurous?”

“Can’t help it…” Wave leaned his head down and moved his body further forward. “I mean… with a mare like you…” He pushed his chest against her, reaching his nose down to her neck, brushing his lips along it. “I simply can’t.”

“Oh!” Spitfire inhaled sharply. She was definitely not expecting this… but it felt so good. She had no idea Wave was so eager, had he been holding this in all this time for the sake of his duties? Stallions will be stallions after all. Underneath discipline and manner, a stallion always had some desire hidden away… even a pony like Wave, it seemed. “Oh, Wave… ah…” she moaned as her moved his lips up the side of her face and brushed them against her ear.

He pulled back and stared into her eyes. She felt herself slipping. She was drawing close to simply wanting him. It didn’t take that much. Was that how badly she wanted it from him? A simple brush of the chest, back, neck, and ears? She was more desperate for him than she thought. The look in her eyes screamed it, and it was clear he could tell as his smile grew.

“We can relax… sure…” he said with a sexual tone. “But how about… we have a little fun first?”

Under normal circumstances, Spitfire would have questioned it, but she was sold. She had opened up to Wave about how much she loved him… and if he wanted to express it right back, she wasn’t going to stop it. Because it was exactly what she wanted, especially with how easily he was making her feel hot right now. He had caught her in a moment of weakness while he was in a moment of strength. Only she was letting him do it. The roles were completely reversed from when she first pounced on him at the recruit graduation party… and she had no urge to protest. She had taken a liking to how Wave was starting to treat her more like a mare and less like his captain… she didn’t expect him to move this far forward, but she liked it… maybe a little too much.

She reached forward and grabbed Wave by the neck, pulling him towards her and pressing her lips to his vigorously. The moment she did, Wave forced his head harder against hers, their mouths crossing in a deep kiss immediately. They turned their heads from side to side, moaning as they attacked each other passionately. They pulled away for a brief moment, Spitfire breathing heavily as she stared up at Wave.

“Heh…” Wave licked his upper lip. “You said I was being adventurous?” he suddenly thrust himself forward, pushing her down and pinning her to the bed. She could have tried to overpower him, but she didn’t want to. She wanted him to be on top, to be in command. Spitfire was drunk on lust. She didn’t question any move he was making and was begging for more.

“I want you…” she said between her sharp breaths. “Ah!” She squeaked as Wave moved on top of her, sliding his back leg along her thigh.

“Hmmm… say it again…” Wave demanded. Spitfire reached up and clutched her hooves on his shoulders.

“I want you!” she repeated. She didn’t even feel like herself anymore. How badly did she need this? Apparently more than she could have ever imagined.

“Good…” Wave pressed his body down against hers. “Because you’re MINE. All mine.”

He kissed her again, this time even more roughly than before. Spitfire pressed her hooves against his back, moving them up and down furiously, as their tongues pressed and twirled around one another.

“Mmmm!” Spitfire moaned, muffled by Wave’s mouth against hers. “Ah!” she exhaled as they parted for only a moment. “Wave—MM!” she continued to moan as Wave went at her again and again. Her whole body was tingling as she felt Wave’s body press and rub against her. She suddenly pushed her hooves against his shoulders, pushing him up and away from her as she panted, a trail of saliva lingering between them for a brief moment. She opened her eyes. They were hazy with longing. She didn’t see anything in her room, she only saw him looming above her. He was grinning slyly down at her, biting his lip as his eyes moved up and down her body.

“I love you, Wave…” Spitfire shakily said as she began to almost feel lightheaded from how good she felt.

“Oh, I know…” Wave growled with pleasure… as he moved in to kiss her again.

“Hold on… would thou please repeat that?” Luna blinked, tipping her head to the side as she tried to make sense of Soarin’s explanation.

They had moved to the empty recruit barracks room next to the temporary infirmary. Luna wished to discuss what had happened to Soarin without disturbing the Shadowbolts or disrupting Bliss.

“It’s something that’s happened to me more than once,” Soarin added as he prepared to explain it again. “The yellow magic flared out and I was filled with a sense of dread right before the Shadowbolt fortress appeared in the sky. I was knocked out shortly after when I helped you hold your shield.” Soarin glanced back at Dash and Fleetfoot sitting behind him. “Just now, the magic went nuts again, very briefly as it had before, only this time I was filled with worry instead of dread… and nothing happened after.”

Luna looked down, her pupils shifting back and forth as she pondered.

“Sense of dread… followed by the attack… sense of worry…” Luna’s eyes suddenly widened and she looked up at Soarin.

“I really don’t like it when you look surprised…” Soarin said as he gritted his teeth. Luna shook her head.

“Did you have… a magical premonition?” Luna asked. Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“How am I supposed to know?” he asked. “And what does it mean if I did?”

“Wait…” Dash spoke up as she stood up and stepped forward. “Premonitions…” she said as she stopped beside Soarin and looked between him and Luna. “I swear we’ve talked about that before.”

“Indeed we have…” Luna confirmed for Dash as she began pacing back and forth. “However… this makes absolutely no sense to us…” she stopped and stared at Soarin’s horn. “There is only one pony capable of having magical induced premonitions.”

“Pardon?” Soarin tipped his head to the side as Luna paused and continued to stare at the horn.

“The only pony capable of such a thing… is Celestia…”

A silence filled the room. Nopony knew how to respond to that.

“Uh… WHAT?!” Fleetfoot exclaimed from behind them. “How is that possible?”

“We… do not know…” Luna admitted as she looked down. “Not even we receive premonitions. It is not something we understand.”

Dash glanced at Soarin as his ears flopped down and he flattened his brow. She frowned as it was clear this news didn’t please him.

“Just when I thought I finally understood the magic a little…” Soarin growled as he rubbed his forehead in frustration.

“That is the only conclusion we can draw,” Luna shook her head. “Although we admit we have little else to go on. However… if this truly is the same sort of premonitions that Celestia was capable of… then it is a warning of things to come. You said the Shadowbolt fortress appeared immediately after your first, correct?”

“Yeah…” Soarin nodded. “Meaning…” He trailed off and furrowed his brow. “I don’t like this.” He gritted his teeth as Dash gently put a hoof on his arm.

“That means something bad happened… just now?” Dash asked, biting her lip with worry. Luna nodded.

“It very well could mean that, but nothing occurred around you… it could mean whatever happened was where we couldn’t see it.”

Fleetfoot immediately stood up.

“Then we have to go check around and make sure everypony is alright!” She ran towards door and left without another word. Soarin put a hoof on Dash’s shoulder and nodded.

“I agree, let’s help her,” he said before looking towards Luna. “We’ll talk more about this later, but we can’t ignore the possibility.”

“Go,” Luna encouraged. “We must return to Bliss.”

They went their separate ways. Soarin, Dash, and Fleetfoot made their way back to the battle dome, hoping to possibly catch a few Renegades reporting in the process in case they had seen anything suspicious.

Luna returned to the Shadowbolts to continue to assist Bliss.

However, the moment they were gone from the empty barracks…

Discord phased through the ceiling and landed on the floor. He took a deep breath, exhaling sharply through his nose as he crossed his arms.

“I’m really getting tired of this Celestia…” he said while looking up towards the ceiling. “We have enough problems as it is… why did you take the risk?” he looked back down and towards the door. “I told you, I TOLD you that you should have just destroyed him, but no… you just had to keep him around. And put him into another body no less…” He huffed as he lifted back up towards the ceiling. “You could have saved Soarin a lot of pain and frustration if you had just let him die… You break so many of your own rules, it makes me laugh sometimes… really…”

He paused for a moment before passing through the ceiling back the way he came.

“I’m a god of my word Celestia… if you don’t make it work I will have to destroy him. I hope you are still aware of that, and I hope I don’t have to make that choice… for your sake.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

And there we have it... something seems... off... here... :rainbowderp::moustache::trollestia:

so... two things to say here...

first, i've been here writing for three years as of a few days ago on october 18th... (posted soft spoken three years ago today! :3)

and second...

OH MY GOD...

THIS STORY HAS HIT A MILLION WORDS...

*faints*

*SNRK* Wha?! oh... he he...

BUT WOW! A MILLION WORDS! And we've still got a LOT to go! Thank you EVERYONE for sticking with me for so long! i cannot express enough how much fun it has been to write here and interact with everyone! It's been a blast and I hope it keeps on going for a LONG time to come!

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! (aka... hope i horrified you here because THAT WAS THE INTENTION:pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy:)

Chapter 107: Wave of Dread

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 107: Wave of Dread

“Still nothing?” Soarin asked Fleetfoot.

“Nothing… I even checked again twice this morning,” she replied as the two sat in the battledome beside Princess Luna. “No problems, nothing out of the ordinary. I think you had a misfire there,” she suggested as she glanced up at Soarin’s horn. She smirked, ready to make a snarky comment, but stopped herself when she saw the serious look on Soarin’s face.

“That can’t be right…” Soarin grunted as he furrowed his brow. “Something is wrong. Something happened… I know it. I felt it. I wish I could explain. I just know we have a problem. I just wish I knew where.”

“Hmmm…” Fleetfoot hummed as she glanced at Luna, then back at Soarin. “Keep looking then?”

“Yes,” Soarin quickly nodded. “After this meeting we should gather up a few groups and make an organized effort to sweep the whole compound. I’m not letting this go until we have clear evidence that there is nothing wrong… unless we’ve already missed it,” Soarin trailed off as Fire Streak, Misty Fly, and Silver Lining all approached and greeted Princess Luna.

Fleetfoot looked around the battledome for Spitfire, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Say, Princess. You sure this was when Spitfire said to meet?” she asked. Luna looked about as well before tipping her head slightly in confusion.

“This was the time we were told,” she spoke as she perked up and looked towards the doors. Descent, Starry Skies, Blazetail, and Flashwind all entered and walked towards them. “And here come the rest.”

“Then where is she?” Fleetfoot asked again while looking around and scratching her head. “It’s not like her to be late to a meeting she called.”

“Forget the captain,” Silver spoke up, drawing their attention as he sat down. “Where the hell is Wave? He hasn’t been late since the first day he was assigned to my squad… don’t think I have to tell you why.”

“Wait…” Fleetfoot suddenly smirked. “If they’re both late… I think that narrows it down! Hehe!” she giggled as Silver furrowed his brow.

“I expect that from Lightning Streak, not Wave,” Silver grunted as Fleetfoot zipped up to him and leaned into his side.

“Oh shush, Gramps. Wave may be a stiff-ass like you, but he’s still a stallion in his prime! Don’t act like you would’ve passed up the chance to boink a mare you liked when you were his age!” Fleetfoot giggled as Silver rolled his eyes.

“Not when I had a meeting to go to,” Silver replied flatly.

“That’s not a ‘no!’” Fleetfoot laughed as she pulled away from Silver. Silver’s eyes widened for a moment, realizing his misstep, but he just sighed and shook his head. Fleetfoot shifted back up to Soarin. “Guess we gotta wait till Wave’s done slapping cheeks with her, eh?” she joked.

However, Soarin gave no visible reaction to her antics, not even a smile. Fleetfoot blinked several times with the mischievous look still on her face before it slowly melted into a frown.

“Sheesh, you really are worried something’s wrong, huh?” she asked.

“Huh?” Soarin perked up and looked towards her before furrowing his brow again. “Sorry… Yeah, I am. I just can’t shake the feeling that what I saw was a warning, and that something awful has happened or is about to happen.”

“Hey! Sorry we’re late!” Spitfire’s voice suddenly came from the doors. Soarin, Fleetfoot, and the rest all looked up to see Spitfire and Wave Chill enter the battledome.

“Well it’s about time!” Fleetfoot huffed as the two made their way towards them.

Soarin focused on Spitfire as they approached, examining her curiously. She was walking upright with very strong posture. Her strides were confident and full of energy. She had a subtle curl of a smile on her face. Everything about her looked strong, physically and mentally. It was the complete opposite of how she looked the night before. It looked like some rest and time with Wave was exactly what she needed. He wasn’t going to ask what they did, but whatever it was, it worked. It was nice to see Spitfire in top form.

But then his eyes shifted to Wave Chill walking behind her. Soarin kept his eyes on him for roughly twice as long as Spitfire, even after the two had stopped in front of the rest and sat down.

“Mind telling us where you two were?” Fleetfoot asked as she shifted over and prodded Wave in the shoulder. Wave chuckled and smirked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he replied smarmily. Fleetfoot pulled her neck back and her eyes went wide.

“Wow,” Fleetfoot chuckled as she looked Wave up and down. “Must’ve been some great sex to get you talking like that!”

“Alright…” Spitfire reached over and nudged Fleetfoot away while blushing a little, but not losing her composure. “No need to get into the personal details. Let’s get this meeting started,” she said as she shot Wave a grin.

“Yikes, I would’ve liked to be a fly on that wall…” Fleetfoot said to herself as she shook her head and backed up to sit beside Soarin again.

Soarin narrowed his eyes curiously as he continued to examine Wave.

What was this?

Why did it feel… off?

Sure, Wave looked a little different, holding a composure they didn’t see often from him, but nothing looked out of the ordinary.

Maybe it was just his imagination. Soarin wouldn’t deny that he was feeling a little paranoid at the moment because of his little magic premonition the night before. Wave was probably just feeling good from having a rather intimate experience with Spitfire. Maybe they took it farther, like their current behavior suggested. It was unlike Wave to not quickly regain his dutiful composure, but Soarin wasn’t going to claim he’d regain himself in full so soon after some ‘fun’ with Rainbow Dash.

Nevertheless, when he looked at Wave right now, there was a tight feeling in his stomach that he just couldn’t ignore, paranoid or not.

His eyes widened subtly as Wave glanced towards him and lifted an eyebrow as Spitfire readied to speak.

“What’s up?” Wave asked with a confident tone. Soarin just stared for a moment before shaking his head and looking towards Spitfire.

“Nothing, sorry,” he lied. Wave didn’t address him as ‘Commander’ just now, something else that Wave would never forget to do, but again, Soarin felt like he was overthinking it. Spitfire’s demeanor had shifted as well, so maybe they were both on an endorphin high or something.

He decided to just pay attention to the meeting, but not without keeping an occasional eye on Wave, just in case this strange, unsettling feeling wasn’t just paranoid speculation on his part.

“So…” Spitfire began as all attention turned to her. “With our little recuperation period over, the Wonderbolts on their way to learning magic deflection, and the confidence that Rivet will, indeed, get this thing back up and flying, we should consider what our next move should be.”

Even her speech was stronger. Soarin couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Spitfire so energized.

“It’s clear that no matter what we do, we’ll have the Shadowbolts right behind us. It is also clear that we are their primary target, seeing as how they are relentlessly pursuing us and not attacking the rest of Equestria. However, this means it will be difficult to make any moves. If we’re going to go anywhere, we better go where we can find help because we may not have the luxury of changing directions once we’re on the run. I’ve already ruled out Canterlot. The royal guard most likely already has its hooves full restoring calm and protecting Canterlot castle. I don’t want to put any more weight on their shoulders. We should consider other cities… or even nations that have a strong military presence. Unfortunately, that narrows our options very thin. Thoughts?”

Spitfire’s command of her surroundings was impressive. She had Blazetail, Flashwind, Descent, and even Luna at full attention.

“Military presence…” Blazetail pondered out loud as Spitfire opened the floor. “The Sky Wings of the Griffon Kingdom and the Scale Guard of the Drake Empire are easily the strongest in that regard, but…” he trailed off as he glanced at Descent. Descent quickly shook his head.

“Not only are those nations incredibly far away, but there are a few complications with them,” Descent took over. “Griffons don’t forget their enemies, and let’s not forget I felled the previous Master of the Sky in combat. As for the Drakes… good luck getting them to agree on anything.”

“Those are both definitely out of the question,” Spitfire spoke up again. “The Sky Wings and the Wonderbolts are on good terms, but because of your previous history with them… I doubt they’d just let bygones be bygones.”

“Hmph…” Silver huffed. “Believe me… the drakes won’t even stand still long enough for us to ask.”

“What about the Crystal Empire?” Flashwind suggested. “They have the second largest military force in Equestria behind Canterlot. It’s still a bit far, but it’s closer than the griffons or the drakes.”

“Oh! Wait a second!” Fleetfoot suddenly popped up into the air and hovered. “The Crystal Empire! That’s it!”

“That’s what?” Spitfire asked, lifting an eyebrow as Fleetfoot landed right in front of her and put a hoof on her shoulder.

“We should go there! For help sure, but think about the Shadowbolts! The ones we have in the barracks! Nopony knows about crystals more than Princess Cadance! Maybe she will know how to cure them!”

“Pardon?” Descent stepped right up to them as Fleetfoot spoke.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Spitfire smiled as he turned from Fleetfoot to Descent. “Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t consider this, good thinking Fleet,” Spitfire complimented her before focusing on Descent. “The princess of the Crystal Empire has very broad knowledge about crystal magic… she may know of a way to help your comrades.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” Descent stated firmly. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Hold up there, Descent, we still have to plan this out.” She turned back to the rest. “So we have a destination in mind, I don’t think we really have any other options in terms of acquiring more might against the Shadowbolts. The Crystal Guard has the numbers and the training to give us a much needed boost… the problem is getting there. The Shadowbolts will be on our tail, but whether or not we can outrun them or fend them off long enough has yet to be determined.

“We may have a solution for that,” Luna finally spoke up after remaining silent for the whole meeting.

“I’m all ears, Princess,” Spitfire said as she turned to her. Luna nodded and glanced between all of them.

“The Royal Guard, no doubt, must stay in Canterlot to protect the castle, however… we can summon the Night Guard to meet us halfway,” she suggested. A brief silence passed between the others as they glanced at one another.

“The bat ponies?” Fire Streak asked out of curiosity as he broke away from relaying everything being said to Misty for a brief moment.

“Indeed,” Luna nodded. “To be frank, both the Royal Guard and the Crystal Guard are trained and specialize in defensive military tactics. While they would be a great deal of help, I do not believe either of them alone will be sufficient to aid us in full. However… our Night Guard is different.”

“How so?” Spitfire asked, clearly interested.

“While they are a little less disciplined than the Royal Guard, they are much more aggressive and warrior-like. We believe their style of combat would be much more useful against the nature of our enemies. Once we are clear of the blizzard and on our path to the Crystal Empire, we can give them a long range signal that they are trained to respond to.” Luna smiled.

“Hmm…” Spitfire furrowed her brow. “No offense Luna, but my experiences with your guards have been mixed. They tend to come off as overaggressive and reckless.”

“We know,” Luna winked. “We trained them that way on purpose. It pays to have more than one type of soldier to look to. Worry not. They will follow our orders without question.”

“I’ll take your word for it, Princess,” Spitfire nodded. “Because it’s the best chance we have. If we can combine our current force with the sheer number of the Night Guard, make it to the Crystal Empire and add the defensive capabilities of the Crystal Guard to our forces… I think we’ll have everything we need to take the fight to the Shadowbolts.” Spitfire smiled, feeling content they had a solid plan. “Any objections?”

“As long as none of the bat guards bite me again…” Fleetfoot mumbled in the background.

“Good,” Spitfire nodded. “And…” she paused and glanced at Soarin. Soarin was looking directly at Wave Chill, who upon seeing Spitfire look, turned to catch Soarin’s eyes.

“Everything okay Soarin?” Spitfire asked as Soarin looked between her and Wave Chill. Wave chuckled.

“I hate to break it to you Soarin, but I’m taken,” Wave joked.

Soarin narrowed his eyes at Wave, still not quite sure why he felt so… strange about the way Wave was acting. Spitfire had loosened up and taken charge… and Wave apparently had loosened up as well.

He was just being paranoid. Soarin shook his head and looked towards Spitfire.

“Sorry, I just have something on my mind,” he said, hoping to address his little magic premonition with Spitfire once the meeting was over.

Spitfire looked Soarin up and down once before returning her focus to the group as a whole.

“So… anything else we should talk about while we have all the leaders here?”

Only a few yards away from the meeting of leaders, Rainbow Dash sat with an ear turned towards the group as she sat facing her squad.

“You know…” Little Star spoke up as Matteo and Squall eagerly waited to hear what was going on. “One of these days we’re going to actually get in trouble for always eavesdropping,” she commented as Dash continued to pick up bits and pieces of the conversation. Matteo shook his head as he kept his eyes on Dash.

“I feel better knowing what’s going on,” he expressed while glancing down at Star. “I prefer to be kept in the loop. You are not curious?”

“Well, yeah, I am, but they’ll tell us later anyway,” Star huffed, her ears flopping down.

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed as her ear turned back forward.

“Well, what’s going on?” Squall asked, showing equal curiosity, just not being so vocal about it. Dash shook her head.

“I didn’t get all of it, but they were talking about where to go once we fix the compound,” Dash explained. “Something about getting help from other nations or military powers.”

“Oh?” Matteo lifted his brow. Dash looked at him and quickly shook her head again.

“Hate to break it to you, Matty, but the Griffon Kingdom did come up and they decided against it,” she relayed. Matteo narrowed his eyes in disapproval.

“What? Surely there is no better military force we could make use of,” he growled. Dash sighed and folded her ears back.

“Having experience with griffons, I’m not going to fight you on that, Matty…” Dash tipped her head to the side. “But… let’s not forget we’re allied with… the pony that killed your dad.”

Matteo’s eyes widened for a moment before looking down and snorting.

“Hmph…” he grunted as he looked away from them. “Indeed, that would be problematic… Killing the Master of the Sky in combat brands the killer an enemy for life. I heavily doubt the griffons would be willing to align with the Renegades as a result.”

“You’ll be happy to know they ruled out the Drake Empire as well,” Dash added, causing Matteo’s head to snap back towards her.

“How did they even consider that?!” he remarked as his talons extended and dug into the floor, making a loud scratching noise. Little Star quickly lifted up and hovered up to his face, clamping her little hooves over his beak and gave him a stern look.

“By all means, just let them know we’re listening in while you’re at it!” she scolded him sarcastically as Matteo exhaled through his nostrils and rolled his eyes. Star squeaked as Matteo began shaking his head back and forth to try and loosen her grip on his beak.

“So where did they decide?” Squall asked Dash, ignoring the struggling pair of completely opposite sizes.

“I heard something about us meeting up with some help, in between, but it looks like we’re going to be heading to the Crystal Empire,” Dash explained, and then blinked as Squall visibly reacted with a hilariously harsh change of expressions. His normal, calm face turned into a look of pure dread as his eyes widened, his pupils shrunk, and his ears nearly slapped the sides of his head by how hard they flopped down. Dash had to hold in a snicker because it was totally unexpected. “What…?” she asked as she continued to stare at Squall… until realization hit her. “Oh… ohhhhhhh… that’s right,” she nodded. “You’re from the Crystal Empire.”

“Rgggghhhhhhhhhnnnnghhhhhh…” Squall released a long, exasperated sigh as he lowered himself all the way to the floor and bopped his head lightly against it. “Really…? Of all the places… we HAVE to go there?”

“The Crystal Empire?” Matteo spoke up. Dash glanced over to see his beak free from Little Star. He had an arm extended outward with his Little Star in his grip, trying to get free as she pouted.

“Never been there?” Dash asked as she looked between Squall and Matteo.

“Of course not, I’ve had never been to Equestria before joining the Wonderbolts,” Matteo reminded her.

“It’s a pretty awesome place,” Dash said as she described it. “Not as Big as Manehattan or Canterlot, but definitely close. The cool thing about it is that it’s, as its name suggests, built entirely out of crystal structures, it’s quite a sight.”

“Hmph… so we’re going someplace ‘pretty’ for help?” Matteo grunted, clearly still a little miffed the griffons were not an option.

“It has the second strongest defense force in Equestria,” Dash quickly assured him. “Second only to Canterlot’s. But I’d almost suggest they are better than the Royal Guard. Prince Shining Armor of the Crystal Empire was formerly captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard, and actually a friend of mine. Trust me, he’s no pushover, and wouldn’t allow his own guard to be either.”

“Wait!” Little Star finally wiggled her way out of Matteo’s grip and zipped up to Dash. “You’re on a first name basis with—” she cut herself off and stepped back, shaking her head. “You know what… I forgot that you’re an Element of Harmony… and best friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle…” Star reminded herself out loud that Dash had lots of connections that they only recently learned about. Dash smirked and chuckled.

“Prince Shining Armor is Princess Twilight’s older brother,” she added with a wink.

“That’s it, I’m done,” Star turned around and floated away. “You know too many important ponies. I’m not worthy…” She stopped after hovering a few inches, freezing completely, including her wings. She plopped down on her hooves and sharply turned towards Squall, who was still lying on the floor, moping. “Wait!” her eyes widened. “If we’re going to the Crystal Empire… that means…” she hovered down to Squall and bounced up and down in front of his face. “We get to see you crystalize! That’s going to be so cool!”

“Joy…” Squall groaned as he reached forward and draped a hoof over his nose to hide his face.

Dash looked away to hide a smile as Star reminded them of Squall’s ancestry. Indeed, they were going to see him crystalize. In fact, she was curious to learn who else among the Wonderbolts had some crystal pony blood in their lineage. However, that all depended on if they got there first. There was a long road ahead of them and it wasn’t going to be an easy road to walk.

Dash looked back at her squad as Star continued to express excitement towards seeing Squall crystalize and Matteo tried to figure out exactly what they were talking about…

But a piece of the group was still missing… and had been missing since he disappeared the day before.

Dash scrunched her face and let out an annoyed grunt, causing the other three to turn and look towards her.

“Okay… Where the hell is Twister?” Dash asked as she stood up and tipped onto the edges of her hooves as she looked around the battledome. “Seriously, he disappears a lot, but he’s never been gone this long,” she said with clear displeasure in her voice. She was responsible for her squad, and she’d be damned if she’d let Twister go unchecked. Who knew what sort of shenanigans he was up to? All she knew was she’d get berated if he did anything stupid.

“Wow… uh…” Star scratched the back of her head. “Come to think of it, you’re right. He’s been gone a lot longer than usual.”

“I sure as hell haven’t missed him,” Matteo snorted as Squall gave no comment, still hiding his face.

“I’m going to go look for him,” Dash said as she stood up. “He’s been gone too long. Knowing him, he’s doing something he shouldn’t be.”

“You really think you’re gonna find him anywhere?” Star asked, forging a good point. Trying to physically find Twister was not something that seemed like an easy task under any circumstances.

“I’m just going to check room to room,” Dash explained as she stretched out her arms, legs, and wings. “It’s not like he can leave the compound.”

Star looked between her and the other two before turning and walking up beside Dash.

“I guess I’ll come too then, not like we have anything better to do,” she offered. Dash accepted her with a nod before Star turned and looked back at Squall and Matteo again. “You guys wanna come along?”

Squall peeked over his hoof to see Dash and Star preparing to leave. He glanced up at Matteo for a moment before grunting and standing up.

“Hmph… fine. Better than sitting around with Feathers…” he said, as he started walking. Matteo blinked as he replayed what Squall had just said.

“Pardon?” he asked while narrowing his eyes at Squall.

“Just come on you guys,” Dash chuckled as she beckoned for them to follow. “It’ll be easier with four of us anyway. You know how slippery Twister is.”

Matteo shrugged, standing up and following behind as the four made their way towards the exit. Dash glanced around as they moved, eventually finding Storm. However, Storm was clearly occupied with Macho Savage and Air Mach. They had Storm in a double headlock as they explained, for the umpteenth time, what it meant to be a true stallion. There was no way they were getting Storm out of that one, so Foxtrot was on their own.

Now they just had to find Twister… a task that could be simple… or incredibly complicated.

Soarin was listening as Spitfire and Descent continued to converse, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He looked up as he saw Rainbow Dash and her squad walking towards the doors, but not even that distracted him from what was on his mind.

Despite the upbeat demeanor Spitfire was displaying and the refreshing confidence she was expressing towards their actions going forwards, he couldn’t tear his mind away from the night before when the yellow magic gave him another vision. Just like the other visions, they were blurry and left him with less of an idea of what happened right after and more of a feeling that something bad was about to happen.

Only nothing had happened… and that was exactly what had him worried. He had come to learn the trends of his mysterious magical powers over time. And while Luna claiming only Celestia could have premonitions like he was having was interesting and definitely something they would address later, he refused to focus on that until he figured out what he missed.

He had expressed to Fleetfoot that he wouldn’t let it go until they were sure nothing was wrong, but he knew something was wrong. The yellow magic wouldn’t have reacted otherwise.

He looked towards Wave again, and furrowed his brow.

Okay… he had to stop it. Wave looked confident and satisfied. Sure that was away from the norm, but Spitfire was showing a confidence boost as well. He wasn’t about to jump to conclusions. The last thing he wanted to do was accuse a fellow top elite Wonderbolt of something he had little knowledge of out of pure paranoia. He was worried, but he didn’t want to look desperate or not mentally sound. Once this meeting was over, he’d gather up some top tier elites to help him make a full sweep of the compound.

But why… why couldn’t he shake the feeling… that there was something up with Wave? Every bit of his common sense told him there was nothing wrong and he shouldn’t draw conclusions quickly, but something in his head kept pulling him back… as if he didn’t have control of one part of his mind.

He quickly looked away as Wave glanced up at him again, this time, thankfully averting his eyes before Wave could catch him. Soarin subtly shifted his eyes, seeing that Wave was again looking at Spitfire.

Soarin exhaled roughly as he turned and looked at Fleetfoot, who was not paying attention at all and not being subtle about it either as she stared off elsewhere into the battledome. Despite how much he was coaching himself to let it drop, Soarin ended up asking her anyway.

“Fleet,” he spoke up quietly while giving her a nudge. Fleetfoot flinched lightly before turning to look at Soarin.

“Hmmmmmmm?” she hummed in response, sounding bored.

“Can you level with me for a moment?” he asked.

“Are you coming onto me?” she asked with a smirk that quickly faded as Soarin glared at her. “Okay, okay… what is it?”

Soarin glanced over at Wave for a brief moment before looking back at her.

“Does anything about Wave seem… off to you?” Soarin asked. Fleetfoot leaned forward to look past Soarin. She examined Wave from afar for a moment, taking in his more confident posture and the smirk that wouldn’t fade.

“Well, he did just get laid,” said Fleetfoot as she leaned back. Soarin groaned and rubbed his face with a hoof. “Hey, I was being serious,” Fleetfoot pouted as Soarin didn’t take her answer seriously.

“He’s acting differently. It doesn’t seem right,” Soarin relayed his thoughts that he couldn’t seem to get rid of.

“Like I just said, he just got laid.”

“Fleet!” Soarin growled, expressing his discontent in her answers but keeping the volume down.

“What?” She shrugged. “I’m not kidding. I bet you were smiling like that after the first time you tube-slid Dashie too.”

Soarin released a long sigh as he looked down and shook his head.

“I don’t even know why I asked…”

“You wanted my opinion, I gave it,” Fleetfoot replied with a slightly annoyed tone. “Yeah he’s acting a little different, I noticed that too, but we both know exactly why, so what’s the big deal?”

“Okay, look,” Soarin pointed his hooves at her. “I get it. He and Spitfire had some fun overnight, but… I don’t know… something just feels off and I don’t know why. I wanted reassurance that I wasn’t going crazy and you’re not helping.”

“Wait, wait, wait…” Fleetfoot looked at Wave briefly again before focusing on Soarin. “This is about the magic premonition isn’t it?” she suddenly asked.

Soarin wasn’t sure how to proceed. He wanted to say yes, but he also was determined to avoid seeming paranoid… but she just read him back to front and it was going to seem that way anyway.

“Soarin…” Fleetfoot sighed and shook her head. “I know you’re worried about something being wrong, but don’t start getting loopy and accusing your friends just because something is slightly different. We’ll make another full sweep after the meeting. Hell, I guess we can feel lucky if we find nothing… You know, considering what happened the last time you had a little vision.”

“Alright…” Soarin backed away from Fleetfoot and sat down, looking back forward. Fleetfoot examined him for a moment before shrugging and glancing off into the battledome again.

Soarin, however, did not take her word for it.

He looked right back at Wave Chill, taking care not to get caught staring.

He didn’t quite know how to describe what his mind was doing. Every part of Soarin said stop… but a little voice in the back of his head, behind every voice of reason, kept nagging him to not overlook it.

And honestly? He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Wave,” Soarin stood up and walked towards him. Spitfire and Descent stopped conversing, both looking towards Soarin as he trudged over to Wave Chill. The rest all looked up as well as Fleetfoot suddenly stood up with him

“Soarin!” Fleetfoot groaned as she quickly followed and reached out to him. Soarin’s wing flared out and batted Fleetfoot’s hoof away as he stopped directly in front of Wave and glared at him.

“What’s going on?” Soarin asked sternly as he pressed a hoof to Wave’s chest. Wave quickly rose up and took a step back while giving Soarin a strange look, but not losing the confidence in his expression.

“Whoa! Hey!” Wave put a hoof up. “Take it easy there…”

“Soarin!” Spitfire quickly broke away from Descent and placed herself in between Soarin and Wave. She looked back and forth between them. “What’s gotten into you?!” she asked as she examined Soarin with concerned eyes.

“I could ask you the same thing!” Soarin fired back as he pointed at Wave. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something’s not right here!”

Spitfire put both hooves on Soarin’s chest and pushed him away from Wave across the floor. She glared at him sternly, ignoring his little innuendo as she tried to control the situation.

“What are you trying to suggest here? What the hell has Wave done?” Spitfire pressed, clearly angry that Soarin was suddenly accusing Wave of anything.

“Whoa ho ho hoooooo there…” Fleetfoot pushed herself in between Soarin and Spitfire, forcing Spitfire off of Soarin in an attempt to diffuse the situation. “Look, Spitty, something happened while you and Wave were busy and I think it’s made Soarin a little jumpy… let’s just finish up this meeting and—”

“The hell it’s made me jumpy!” Soarin cut her off as he looked past them both at Wave, who was looking at him with an expression that Soarin found taunting. It was as if Wave was dismissing his sudden pressure and thought Soarin had a few screws loose.

“I think you need to calm down…” Wave said from behind Spitfire. Soarin gritted his teeth and pushed Spitfire and Fleetfoot aside, his horn and his eyes glowing a faint blue as he approached Wave.

“I’m only going to say this once Wave, what the hell is—”

Soarin never got to finish. All of the attention, including his, was drawn away as a scream came from the direction of the battledome doors.

Soarin looked past Wave, his eyes locking on Rainbow Dash and her squad as she, Little Star, Squall, and Matteo all threw themselves backwards from the doors. The doors slowly closed as they landed and faced the doors in battle ready stances.

Rainbow Dash quickly turned around, facing all of the Wonderbolts.

“GUYS!” she yelled out in a shocked, frantic tone. “SHADOWBO—”

She was cut off as a bright flash of pink light shined from behind the doors followed by an explosion and shockwave that blew the doors right off their hinges. Matteo quickly grabbed Little Star, Dash, and Squall, bringing them together and turning his back to shield them as two of the doors slammed right into his back.

“WHAT?!” Descent yelled out as he and the rest all faced the doors. Starry shook her head as she fitted her goggles over her eyes.

“How?!” she added her disbelief as every Wonderbolt in the battledome was up and on their hooves.

But as they focused on the doors, nothing came through. Instead, several flashes of pink light began to shine all over the battledome.

“What the…?!” Soarin blinked and his eyes darted about as yelps and grunts of surprise passed around all the Wonderbolts. The pink flashes grew brighter and brighter, pulsating until they grew in size.

“Look out!” Spitfire yelled as Shadowbolts began shooting out from within the flashes of light. The Wonderbolts scrambled, all getting to their hooves, spreading their wings, and taking to the air within the dome.

“WONDERBOLTS! GO! GO! GO!” Spitfire yelled, giving the universal order to take action.

Soarin, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot lifted off the ground and were in formation with Air Mach bringing up the rear immediately. Soarin glanced back and forth as the Shadowbolts started swarming around within the dome. They flew in circles and in erratic patterns overhead as if simply trying to spook the Wonderbolts into flight. He didn’t recognize any of the commanders among them, but there were a lot of them… seemingly out of nowhere…

Was this what his horn was warning him about?

“They aren’t attacking!” Fleetfoot called out, “What gives?!”

“WHO CARES?!” Starry Skies yelled as she and Descent pulled up beside them. “CATCH THEM AND BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM!” she added as they all neared the center of the dome.

“Bring them down!” Spitfire ordered. “GO!”

Something still didn’t feel right to Soarin as he broke off and locked his eyes on the closest Shadowbolt he could find.

This was… TOO sudden… and seemed a little too convenient timed with his suspicions towards Wave.

The Shadowbolts… after weeks of being flawlessly kept at bay by the Renegades… had suddenly pierced through the defense measures just like that?

“RGH!” Soarin grunted as he twisted, avoiding Fire Streak as he shot by in pursuit of another Shadowbolt.

And what the heck were they doing? Not a single Shadowbolt had turned to attack any of them… they were just flying… and avoiding them.

Soarin shifted his eyes as he kept up behind his target. All the Wonderbolts present in the dome were up and flying… including Dash and her squad. They were still missing their fifth, but they made do with what they had. Storm was up with Macho Savage, down two members with Lead Runner and Point Dex below with Rivet. Several squads were broken up, but they all took action. Starry, Descent, Blazetail, and Flashwind were all in hot pursuit of targets… but just like the rest, they couldn’t catch these Shadowbolts… and as Fleetfoot pointed out, the Shadowbolts weren’t fighting, just running. Princess Luna was firing thin, powerful blasts of Alicorn magic that the Shadowbolts were swiftly dodging. The blasts were exploding against the ceiling as if they were shot at air. If she pumped any more power into the magic she would easily start ripping the place apart.

It was sudden, pure confusion and disarray… and the Shadowbolts were acting strange… he couldn’t be the only one feeling this way, could he?

This couldn’t possibly be what his horn was showing him… what about the orange, yellow, and blue colors?

“HEY!” a voice nearby caught Soarin’s attention. He turned towards the doors. He saw Lightning Streak step in. “BROS! WE GOT A SITUATION OUT HERE AND… oh man…” He gritted his teeth as he saw the Shadowbolts swarming around the dome.

“More?!” Spitfire growled as she broke away from her target and aimed towards the doors. “Soarin! Fleetfoot! WITH ME!” she yelled, the two of them being nearby with Air Mach all the way across the dome.

Soarin pulled up and turned towards Spitfire, meeting up with her and Fleetfoot as they shot towards the doors. He glanced down to see Silver, Wave, and Descent also turn to follow as they picked up on what was happening.

Based on Lighting’s entrance… were there Shadowbolts all over the compound?! And where were their crystals by the way? Soarin hadn’t seen any yet despite the Shadowbolts appearing from within the magic portals. The first thing that came to mind was that they were magic clones, but they were not acting like the clones they fought before, nor did they look like any of the commanders, they were all unique.

What the hell was this?

“Delta! Disperse!” Dash yelled as Matteo, Squall, and Star all broke away from her to chase nearby Shadowbolts.

They were just about to go find Twister, and suddenly Shadowbolts? How the hell did they get in? How did they get past the Renegades? What was going on?

There were too many questions in Dash’s head, and no time to think about them. Enemies had somehow appeared and it was her duty as a Wonderbolt to react, not hesitate. She locked onto her target and pumped her wings as hard as she could to catch up… but the distance wasn’t closing?

No matter how fast she went, the Shadowbolt stayed the exact same distance ahead of her… exactly five pony-lengths. She glanced back and forth at the cacophony around her, and she realized that everypony was in the same situation, chasing a Shadowbolt they couldn’t catch.

Speaking of the Shadowbolts… all of Dash’s history against them suggested they weren’t the types to just run… in fact there was NO fighting going on right now, only chasing.

Something wasn’t right.

“Huh?” Dash looked towards the doors, catching a glimpse of Soarin, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot as they broke away and charged towards the doors. She shifted her eyes to see Silver, Wave Chill, and Descent following behind them.

If they were heading out… did that mean they had seen something? From what she had observed, what was going on around her seemed more like a distraction than an attack. Her impulses got the better of her, and she turned, shooting towards the doors to follow behind them without a word to the rest of her squad.

“Dash?!” Little Star’s surprised voice met her ears, but Dash was already fixed on the doors, hoping to follow behind Soarin and figure out what the heck was going on.

She glided towards the doors, twisting sideways to shoot through them and immediately pitch right.

“WHOA!” she yelped as she blasted through… and nearly ran directly into Silver’s plot as she tried to turn. She angled herself just in time to pull up and slam down onto her hooves roughly, barely avoiding running face first into the opposite wall of the east hallway. She skidded to a stop and looked up at the group that had halted right outside the doors. All six of them were staring with their mouths agape… and Dash found herself doing the same as soon as she got a good look.

There were Shadowbolts EVERYWHERE. Wonderbolts and any Renegades that were within the compound were chasing them about as more and more Shadowbolts poured into the compound through flashes of pink light.

“What the hell is this!?” Descent growled. “How did they get past our defenses!? We left no holes whatsoever!”

“Worry about that later!” Spitfire yelled back to him. “We have to—”

Spitfire ducked as a Shadowbolt stallion flew over her… and rammed himself directly into Wave Chill.

“ARGH!” Wave grunted as the others jumped aside. Wave grappled with the Shadowbolt briefly before grabbing him by the arm and skillfully throwing him over his shoulder, right through one of the few windows that hadn’t been broken. The others all shielded themselves as the shattered glass was blown inwards by the raging gusts of the blizzard outside.

“Wave! Are you…” Spitfire spoke up with concern for Wave as she looked up, but… “WAVE?!”

Spitfire called his name, but Wave had already leapt out the window to pursue the Shadowbolt. Silver shifted towards the window, squinting as the cold gusts blasted him in the face.

“What the hell is he doing?!” Silver yelled out as he shielded his eyes and tried to keep an eye on Wave as he slowly began to disappear into the blizzard.

Before anypony else could do anything… Spitfire took to the air and followed right after Wave.

“WAVE! WAIT!” she yelled as she recklessly followed him outside.

“What the hell is SHE doing?!” Fleetfoot cried out. “Has she lost her mind?!” she looked back, her nose almost planting itself right into Soarin’s chest as he approached quickly.

“It doesn’t matter!” Soarin yelled. “We have to get them both back here NOW!” he ordered as he looked back at Descent. Descent didn’t question him, he agreed the moment Soarin said it. He stepped up to the window and pushed his goggles down.

“I’ll navigate! Stay with me!” he yelled as he spread his wings and dove through the window.

Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Silver all followed right behind. Dash quickly scampered to the window, wincing as the cold air hit her face.

This didn’t feel right… she felt like they were being led out, and she wasn’t about to let Soarin fall into a possible trap. He was obviously acting out of concern for Wave and Spitfire, but he was one of the primary targets of the Shadowbolts! Not to mention her mentor and two close friends had also followed.

“Rainbow Dash!” Storm Front’s voice came from behind her, but she ignored it. She leapt up and through the window, pumping her wings against the force of the winds and following after Soarin. “Dash!” Storm repeated as he moved right up to the window, but was forced to shut his eyes and turn away as a strong gust forced him away from the window. When he looked up, he had lost all sight of Dash and the other Wonderbolts outside. Squall, Matteo, and Little Star all ran up behind him. Star’s eyes widened.

“Please tell me Dash didn’t just…” she trailed off as Storm slowly nodded.

“She did… the lead squad and Silver too…” Storm answered as he turned. Dash had carelessly left the compound, but they also had to worry about the Shadowbolts currently flying around the compound.

But then…

“What?” Matteo was the only one to speak as one by one… all of the Shadowbolts around them… flickered?

One of the Shadowbolts moved towards them, but they all stood still. The Shadowbolt continued to flicker, passing directly through Squall before fizzling out and disappearing.

“They aren’t real?” Squall spoke up as their eyes darted about. The Shadowbolts all slowly disappeared as if they were never there.

They all looked back towards the battle dome doors as Fire Streak and Misty Fly suddenly burst out and glanced all around. Fire Streak growled and slammed his hooves to the floor.

“Can somepony please explain to me what is going on?” he yelled, clearly frustrated as his eyes landed on Foxtrot and Storm. “Were those just illusions? What could they possibly hope to gain from that? Where’s Captain Spitfire? Commander Soarin and Fleetfoot?”

Storm’s eyes widened as Fire stared at him. Storm slowly turned and looked towards the broken window.

Fire Streak blinked several times, his ears folding back and his jaw dropping as realization hit.

“Oh my god…” he turned and took a deep breath. “WE HAVE A SITUATION HERE!”

“Rgh!” Soarin grunted as he followed directly behind Descent with Fleetfoot and Silver right on his six. All three of them were having a bit of difficulty keeping up. Unlike Descent, the three of them were without their flight suits and goggles. The challenge posed by not having eye protection was obvious with all the snow and icy winds stinging their eyes, but the lack of flight suits also made them a little less streamlined.

Nevertheless, they kept pace. Even Silver managed to keep up, despite the clear grunts of discomfort that kept coming from his direction. Descent was obviously adjusting his speed to make sure he didn’t lose his followers, but that didn’t pose a challenge in keeping up with Spitfire, because she too was without the essential flight gear.

“I can’t see her!” Fleetfoot called forward with concern.

“Don’t worry! I still have a mark on her!” Descent called back as they pushed through the blizzard. They were being battered from all sides by the strong winds and the chunks of snow whipping about. Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Silver were completely relying on Descent to keep them going because they couldn’t see a thing aside from what was right in front of them.

“LOOKOUT!” Silver called out. “ABOVE US!”

“EVADE RIGHT!” Descent ordered, all four of them pitching hard to the right as several Shadowbolts suddenly shot by with Steady Wing, Cannon Ball, and Comet all in hot pursuit.

“They’re out here too?!” Soarin remarked as he glanced back, making sure Silver and Fleetfoot were still with him.

The Shadowbolts were even engaged with the Renegades outside. How had their protection dissolved so quickly? Were the Shadowbolts simply waiting for a moment to attack? If so, why did they wait until after they were all rested?

“We’re gaining on her!” Descent yelled as they shifted left to avoid another Shadowbolt-Renegade chase.

“Can you see Wave?!” Silver barked forward.

“Negative!” Descent called back. “But Spitfire is definitely still chasing something!”

“Keep going!” Soarin yelled. With how difficult the flight had been and how many twists and turns they had taken, he had no idea how far they had strayed from the compound. They had to stop Spitfire and Wave soon. “We have to—ARGH!”

Soarin yelled out as he suddenly felt an incredibly strong shockwave smash against him. And not just him, but Descent, Silver, and Fleetfoot were all for forced to a dead stop as well as if they had run directly into an invisible wall. The four of them tumbled towards the ground, but only for a few moments as they skillfully leveled out and regained their flight… but…

“What happened?!” Descent exclaimed as he looked all around, the three Wonderbolts sharing his awe as they examined their surroundings.

The blizzard around them had completely dissipated, the extent of the shockwave still visible as they looked behind them to see the blizzard literally being pushed away from them… however, the sudden phenomenon aside, they were more focused on what was now directly before them in broad daylight.

“Spitfire!” Soarin yelled as his eyes locked on her. With the blizzard no longer battering against them, the four flew up to join her side. As they approached, they observed that she was looking directly at Wave’s back as he floated a few yards in front of her, staring down the Shadowbolt stallion he had chased after. Spitfire ignored Soarin, keeping all of her attention directly on Wave.

“WAVE!”” Spitfire yelled with concern. “Stand down and form ranks! Don’t take him on alone!”

Wave Chill said absolutely nothing, his eyes remaining on the Shadowbolt hovering before him.

“Wave!” Silver spoke up as the four joined Spitfire’s side. “Back off! That’s an order, dammit!” he tried, but again, Wave didn’t even flinch under Silver’s stern voice.

“Hmph… so not only did you pull them both out here…” a voice came from them. “But you also managed two other high ranking officers and our favorite traitor…”

“That voice…” Descent growled, narrowing his eyes as they all of them except for Spitfire looked up. “Blade…”

Soarin’s eyes widened as two Shadowbolt commanders, Blade and Ruin… hovered down from above and halted right in front of Wave, beside the lone Shadowbolt.

“Behind us!” Fleetfoot exclaimed. Soarin looked over his shoulder to see they had been completely flanked. Three more Shadowbolt commanders were behind them, Moon, Trance, and Witch. All of the commanders had their three crystals floating about them.

“I told you I’d do it…” Wave suddenly spoke… only it wasn’t his voice. Soarin’s eyes widened as the voice quickly registered in his brain. “Want to tell me I’m useless now?”

The Shadowbolt that Wave had been chasing flickered and disappeared, a single, pink crystal floating out in front of Wave and glowing brightly.

Spitfire gasped loudly, throwing her hooves up over her mouth as her eyes widened and she edged backwards, nearly running into Soarin. Soarin’s eyes narrowed into an incredibly harsh glare as Wave started to turn around.

As he moved, a pink glow appeared at the tip of his ears and began to run down them to his head and then over his body… a form of the pink magic they had already seen once before… revealing somepony they knew all too well.

“Yellow…” Soarin spoke quietly to himself as he glanced at Spitfire. “Blue…” He glanced towards the disappearing colors of Wave Chill. “And Orange…” He finished while gritting his teeth as he focused on the pony being revealed.

“I brought the whole gang and a few extras,” Rapidfire snorted as he hovered between Blade and Ruin. “Checkmate.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Oh golly this isn't good :pinkiegasp:

QUICK REVIEW! :twistnerd:

The Shadowbolt commanders involved here are as follows:

Blade:

Cool, level headed. Former good friend of Descent. Crystal power: Magic swords that extend from his front hooves.

Moon:

Very stoic. Seems like a reasonable pony, but never questions orders. Crystal Power: very strong telekinesis.

Ruin:

Wild, crazy, unpredictable. Disliked even amongst his own comrades but couldn't care less. Has an incredible amount of screws loose, and very dangerous for many different reasons. Crystal power: Small magic spheres that dance around him wildly and erratically.

Witch:

Stuck up and haughty. Feels above everypony else, but doesn't handle up close confrontation well. Crystal power: barrages of tiny pin like magic bolts.

Trance:

Happy go lucky, not a care in the world and never takes anything seriously. Acts like everything is just a game. Crystal Power: similar to Ruin, only his spheres stay in neat formations and move in synchronized patterns.

Pony creator was all i could settle for for some of these xD

Sorry for the extra wait, wasn't much i could do about it, but sometimes things happen. :derpytongue2: The good news is that im already well into chapter 108, (about 8k words already written, roughly the size of this chapter as is and im about halfway through it. shouldn't be too long of a wait depending on how much longer it ends up being of course :moustache:

I wonder how they're going to get out of this one.... and what happened to Wave?! :rainbowderp:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 108: What Do You Fight For?

(Important note: For those who have not seen my recent blogs, i made a small change to the scene between Spitfire and 'fake Wave Chill' because i mishandled it, conveying rape when thats exactly what i was trying to avoid. It was a very subtle change, and has not messed with story events at all. I basically took the implied sex out of the scene. It was choice i felt necessary because the way i had it may have messed up how i wanted things to go in the future. It was not a panic choice, it was not influenced by comments. It was my choice. For more information please see these blogs: Making a change, Not as bad as i thought, and Just to Clarify.)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 108: What Do You Fight For?

Soarin’s eyes shifted between Spitfire and the Shadowbolts floating before them, checking occasionally on the ones hovering behind. They were caught in a trap, completely flanked, and the cover of the blizzard blown away by crystal magic in the middle of the snowy northern mountain ranges.

Soarin had no doubt that they were on their own. Rapidfire’s ploy had the whole compound in disarray as well as distracting the Renegades outside of it. They were down one pony compared to the Shadowbolts… but upon closer inspection… they may be down two.

“Spitfire…” Soarin said her name quietly as she continued to edge backwards towards him. She was shaking, her hooves still clamped over her mouth as she stared at Rapidfire. Soarin gritted his teeth, knowing exactly what had her so shocked.

His suspicions about something being off with Wave Chill were true, proving that he had developed some sort of sixth sense towards danger with his magic, however… ‘Wave’ and Spitfire had shown up to the meeting, clearly after having a personal, intimate night… only now… it looked like Spitfire had not spent the night with Wave Chill at all…

Rapidfire had tricked her for his own pleasure… how… utterly… typical.

Some things never changed, it seemed. Soarin had never once respected Rapidfire for the way he acted and the way he treated mares… but even he felt that Rapidfire would never stoop so low. But this… Rapidfire had crossed a line that he could never step back over… Spitfire was clearly in shock and disbelief, realizing she had been deceived in a moment of intimacy and how she let it happen on top of it. Soarin was going to make sure Rapidfire regretted it.

He fixed his eyes on Rapidfire, concentrating and taking in his surroundings to make sure he didn’t lose track of the Shadowbolts. He wanted to know where Wave was. They had made sweeps of the compound while Rapidfire was with Spitfire and found nothing suspicious, which suggested Wave had either been removed from the compound, captured… or worse.

And if… it was the latter… Soarin would personally bury Rapidfire with all the power he could muster.

“Rrrrggghhhhh…”

Soarin’s eyes widened as a low growl escaped Spitfire’s throat.

Not good.

Spitfire being shocked and frozen was one thing… Spitfire acting on anger in this situation would be worse.

“Well?” Rapidfire spoke up, as he turned to face Blade. He crossed his arms and gave Blade a satisfied smirk. Blade lifted an eyebrow before snorting.

“What? Are you expecting a hug or a pat on the back or something?” he said sarcastically, quickly turning Rapidfire’s smirk into a scowl.

“What the hell is with you guys?” he spat at Blade, who only looked away and shook his head.

“Shut your trap,” he ordered.

Rapidfire flattened his brow and scoffed.

“Pardon me for succeeding where you guys failed…” he flinched as Blade reached towards him and grabbed the neck of his suit, hooking it in the spandex, and yanking Rapidfire towards him with it, nearly pressing his nose into Rapidfire’s face as he glared at him sternly.

“Watch your mouth, you worthless runt,” he hissed as he let go and shoved Rapidfire back. “Now get out of our way and STAY out of it.”

Soarin watched curiously as Rapidfire was more or less disrespected and told to go sit down while they handled things. He had already noticed that Rapidfire held only a single crystal, implying he was of lower rank… but what was he seeing here? Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time to think about it.

“You…” Spitfire continued to growl as she removed her hooves from over her mouth held them down at her sides as they shook. “You… BASTARD!”

“Spitfire, don’t—” Soarin tried to reach for her… but he was too late. Spitfire’s whole body was tensed, her muscles flexing taught, pushing all her strength into her wings as she roared out in rage and fired from her spot towards the Shadowbolts, aiming directly towards Rapidfire. “SPITFIRE!” Soarin yelled as he reached out, but she was already out of his reach.

“Hmph…” Blade grunted as Spitfire careened towards them. “MOON! TAKE HER!”

“AAHHHH!!!” Spitfire suddenly yelped in pain as she came to a full, abrupt stop, her head whiplashing forward painfully as pink sparks encircled her hooves, chest, head, and flank. She was yanked right back towards the Wonderbolts.

“Look out!” Soarin yelled, the four of them moving aside as Spitfire shot right by them and halted five yards in front of Moon.

Moon’s crystals were glowing brightly around him as he held his arms outstretched, pink sparks similar to those holding Spitfire crackling and popping around his hooves. He shifted his hooves slightly to the right, causing Spitfire to turn around and face him. She gritted her teeth, grunting in pain as the sparks of magic stung her body.

“Spitty!” Fleetfoot yelled as she pumped her wings and shot towards them, but Moon shifted his eyes towards Fleetfoot. They glowed pink before a thin, spherical veil of similar shaded light surrounded both him and Spitfire. Fleetfoot slammed against it, bouncing right off and tumbling backwards. “What the hell?” she remarked as she regained control of her flight and shook her head out.

“Fleetfoot! Get back here!” Soarin yelled to her. She immediately complied, realizing Spitfire was caught.

“RRRRRRGGGHH!!!” Spitfire’s eyes snapped open, filled with pure anger as she began to pull and tug at the magical bonds that held her in place.

“HRGH!” Moon grunted, the magic flickering in his arms as he focused and held his ground.

“Having trouble there, Moon?” Witch asked slyly as she hovered by, passing right through the magic barrier around them as if it wasn’t even there. Moon shook his head.

“She is… INCREDIBLY strong! I have never seen anypony manage movement while I’m holding them… but I can handle her,” he said calmly, not even glancing at Witch as she smirked at Spitfire.

“Impressive… but still caught like a fly in a web,” she giggled slyly before passing out of the barrier and retaking her spot beside Trance.

“Dammit…” Soarin growled as he, Fleetfoot, Descent, and Silver all positioned themselves back to back with enough space for their wings to keep them afloat.

“Great…” Fleetfoot sighed. “We’re outnumbered… and they have our strongest tied down.”

“We were foolish…” Descent spoke up as he shook his head. “Played, sent into disarray, and led right into a trap.”

“We can take them,” Silver spoke up confidently, causing them all to glance at him briefly. Descent scoffed.

“Don’t be overconfident now,” he warned. “We’ve only just begun the magic deflection training, they still outclass you.”

“ExCUSE me?” Silver fired right back with an annoyed tone. “Do you even know who you’re talking to here? We may not have your fancy deflection techniques mastered yet, but we’re Wonderbolts, heavily trained special forces. We learn from our mistakes, and I’ll be damned if I let one of these punks push me around again.” He turned and refocused on the Shadowbolts that had flanked them. “You aren’t defeated the first time you lose to an opponent… only if you lose to them again.”

Descent exhaled through his nose, shaking his head as he kept his eyes on Blade.

“If you say so,” he said with a clear lack of confidence.

“Silver’s right,” Soarin spoke up with a smirk. “They have us outnumbered, but they don’t have the surprise factor they did last time, plus we know how they fight now. That should even the playing field.”

“Just don’t get yourselves killed,” Descent grunted.

“I call not being the one who fights two at a time,” Fleetfoot said sarcastically as she remained tense and ready to fight at moment’s notice.

They all refocused, putting up guards as the Shadowbolts shifted towards them, each brandishing their signature magic. Ruin and Trance’s crystals produced the small, similar magic spheres they both used, Trance’s remaining in perfect orbit around him as Ruin’s danced all about his body erratically. Witch’s crystals floated above her as her tiny, needle-like bolts of magic began forming over her head as Moon continued to hold Spitfire in place to the best of his telekinetic abilities.

Rapidfire tried to move up beside Blade and Ruin, but Blade’s crystals activated and he cut off his path, barring Rapidfire’s way with his magic sword.

“I told you to stay out of our way,” Blade reminded him harshly. Rapidfire glared at Blade, bearing his teeth as he growled.

“I have a score to settle with Soarin,” Rapidfire replied, demanding to be let through. Blade turned his head and narrowed his eyes at him.

“And I don’t give a damn. Now do as I say before my sword ends up through your chest,” he threatened before moving the sword and pointing it in Descent’s direction.

Rapidfire growled quietly as he backed away, but his eyes remained on Soarin.

Soarin met Rapidfire’s eyes with his as his old ‘friend’ was once again treated like trash by his commander. He had seen that look in Rapidfire’s eyes in the past. It screamed of him plotting to disobey orders, but for the time being, it looked like they might be granted the boon of even numbers.

“It looks like our favorite deserter is being forced to the sidelines,” Soarin pointed out to the others as they remained at the ready. “Good, they’re evening the odds for us.”

“Then we should make the first move,” Silver suggested as his eyes shifted between Trance and Witch.

“I agree,” Soarin said with a nod. “They always attack us first. We should give them a taste of their own medicine. Name your marks.”

“Blade is mine,” Descent immediately decided. “Get in my way and I’ll make you regret it.”

“Sheesh,” Fleetfoot shrugged. “I was really hoping to fight him, I guess you can though,” she said sarcastically as Soarin glanced at all available targets. His eyes landed on Trance, the small dark blue stallion with the out of control, teal mane.

“I’ll take the little guy,” Soarin said as he shifted to face Trance. “If I can take him down fast I can get to freeing Spitfire.”

“Don’t judge Trance by his small stature,” Descent spoke up as he and Soarin now floated back to back. “Or his immaturity…” he added as Trance floated in a reclined position while brushing a hoof through his large mane. “He’s just as dangerous as the others.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Soarin acknowledged with a nod. To his left, Silver glanced over his shoulder and back forward between Witch and Ruin. He scrunched his face when he saw the creepy smile on Ruin’s face.

“I’ll take the mare,” he said as he focused on Witch.

“I’ll take the—darn…” Fleetfoot sighed as she turned and looked at Ruin, cringing as her eyes met his. “I guess I have the weirdo… as usual…”

With all of their targets set, and ready to make the first move, Soarin focused all of his attention on Trance.

“On my signal, make your moves and push the pressure. We’ll see how they handle being on the defensive for once. All set?” They all gave brief verbal cues since they were all locked on their targets. Soarin narrowed his eyes into a glare towards Trance. “GO!”

The four fired from their spot towards their opponents.

Descent was the first to reach his target, having already been edging forward before Soarin gave the command to attack. As Soarin predicted, the Shadowbolts were clearly not expecting the Wonderbolts to make the first move. Blade flinched, but held his ground as Rapidfire and Ruin both backed away from him.

“HRRRAAAAH!” Descent yelled as he pulled back a hoof, ready to strike. Blade remained composed, crossing his sword over his body to meet Descent with a strong horizontal slash. Descent shifted his other hoof up and batted the sword aside as Blade swung, but Blade used the momentum from the deflection to spin right into another slash. Descent was forced to turn and slam his forearm against the flat edge of the sword as he punched, decreasing the strength of the blow. Blade caught it with his free hoof, and the two were deadlocked, holding each other in place, struggling in midair as they glared and growled into each other’s faces.

“Taking the initiative this time?” Blade said as he tried with all his might to gain the upper hoof. Descent didn’t jeer back… he had something else in mind.

“Blade… listen to me,” he said in a serious tone as they continued to grapple. “You don’t know what’s happening to you.”

“What?” Blade blinked, lifting an eyebrow and looking at Descent as if he didn’t even recognize him. “What are you playing at?”

“Blade, the crystals are going to destroy you, you have to stop using them!” Descent voiced his concern.

“This is a new one…” Blade scoffed as he pushed off and the two broke apart. “Do I hear you pleading?”

“You know where I stand, Blade!” Descent yelled as the two charged at each other again. Descent caught Blade’s sword between his hooves, tossing it off before ramming Blade in the chest.

“URGH!” Blade grunted as he was forced back. “You stand between the Shadowbolts and our goals!” he yelled as he charged forward, swiping down over Descent’s head. Descent knocked the sword aside with a flick of his wrist and grabbed Blade by the shoulder, but before he could throw him, Blade shifted to gain leverage and lock them in place again.

“I stand between the Shadowbolts and what will ultimately destroy them!” Descent yelled as the two struggled. “You don’t know what that fake power is doing to you! I have seen the result! You must fight it!”

“Quit preaching your lies!” Blade yelled as they ripped apart. Blade charged, throwing a flurry of swings at Descent. Descent ducked and dodged as he hovered backwards, looking for an opportunity to attack. “You left us behind, you shunned what has made us strong, you ignored our goals and are a traitor! Nothing you say is convincing to me and it shall remain that way!” Blade yelled as he put his left hoof over his right. The crystals spread out, encircling both of his hooves and causing the sword to grow larger. “I will not be swayed like those you’ve already tainted!” He swung the sword down furiously.

Descent reached up, clapping his hooves on the flat edges of the sword, but he was forced downward, grunting as he held strong.

“Then you are a fool!” Descent growled as he stared down Blade while holding the sword. “And you’ll only die like one!”

“What the…?!” Fleetfoot blinked as Ruin had completely disappeared before she could get halfway to him.

“Well, well, welly, helloey, there!” a creepy voice came from over her shoulder.

“AH!” Fleetfoot yelped as she looked to her left to see the profile of Ruin’s face, his smile so wide it almost engulfed his cheeks.

“Lovely day today, isn’t it? HEEEEHAHAHA!” Ruin cackled as he pushed his hooves against Fleetfoot’s back.

“Oof!” she yelped as she twisted upside down to face him. “OH JEEZE!” she yelped before flapping her wings hard, pushing herself downward as the small spheres of magic darted towards her, coming from every direction. She used her well-known speed and agility to shift and turn, dodging the spheres as she grew closer and closer to the ground. She wasn’t about to trust her magic deflection abilities. Of all the lead squad members, she had been the slowest at getting the basics down.

“Dance, DANCE!” Ruin called as he dove after her. “DANCE FOR ME! HAHAHA!” He laughed maniacally as he continued to whip the small blasts of magic towards her in inconsistent arcs and patterns.

“This guy has a few screws loose!” Fleetfoot said to herself as she turned to take forward control of her flight, but the moment she faced away, he was somehow right in front of her, flying backwards casually. “GAH!” she yelped as she tried to pull up, but he followed right with her. “OOF!” she grunted as he reached up and grappled his arms with hers, pulling her body into his… gently?

“Hmmm…” He licked his lips as he and Fleetfoot stared at each other less than an inch apart. Fleetfoot was leaning her neck back as far as she could in disgust. “My, aren’t you quite the looker?” he snickered. “It would be a shame if that pretty face got a little scuffed up, WAH-TAH!” he swung his head forward, but Fleetfoot yanked herself free to the right, avoiding the headbutt to the face, but instead taking it to the chest.

“GRH!” she grunted, coughing once as she regained control of her flight and looked up towards him. But in his place was a volley of magic spheres that shot towards her. With no time to move, she shielded herself, but at the last second they pulled back and flew around her. “Huh?” she blinked as she looked up over her arms.

“Oh, come on,” Ruin’s voice came from behind her. “It was more fun watching you try to dodge them all!” he said with a goofy tone as Fleetfoot turned around and glared at him.

“Sheesh… this guy is more random than Surprise…” she shook her head out and focused. She knew how to handle Surprise, which meant she could handle this guy too.

“Surprise? That’s a Wonderbolt mare, right?” His voice came from behind her again. She blinked and he was gone from before her as if his voice traveled to the spot before he actually did. “You say she’s like me?!” he grabbed Fleetfoot from behind and held her in place before she could shift away again. “You must introduce us sometime, I’d GLADLY drop my pants for her,” he said while brushing a hoof through Fleetfoot’s mane.

“GOD, STOP IT!” Fleetfoot yelled as she reached back and flung Ruin over her head.

“BUT I WANNA PLAY!” he yelled giddily as his spinning body unleashed an enormous cloud of his small magic spheres that flew at her in strange coiling pathways.

“Oh man…” Fleetfoot yelped as she turned and began out-flying the spheres.

Silver fixed his eyes on Witch as she thrust her arms forward, launching her signature barrage of tiny magic bolts at him.

“HRM!” Silver grunted, forcing his wings to cooperate and pushing himself to his limits as he sped up, avoiding the barrage of magic as he angled towards the ground.

Silver was unfamiliar with Witch’s preferred method of attack, having only faced Devil’s full attacks in a previous encounter the Shadowbolts, but he wasn’t going to hesitate.

He had heard enough descriptions of the rest of the commanders to know what Witch was all about. Now he just had to best her.

He dipped all the way down to the ground, gliding along the snowy mountain side with as much speed as he could muster as he put all of his strength into outrunning Witch’s magic. He barely managed to keep ahead of the bolts as they thundered along the ground behind him.

He flapped his wings no matter how hard it was or how much it hurt. He was determined to best any opponent that was thrown at him. Witch was holding herself in place as she followed his movements, making it clear to him that he wouldn’t be able to get close without exposing himself to some harm.

However, Silver was not phased, after all, those who used techniques that kept themselves in place and held their opponents on the run tended to be meek and fragile when the fight was up close and personal. He could read Witch as he remained on the run, she never made one move to intercept or attack on her own, keeping him a good distance from her.

“I smell a pansy-ass…” Silver said to himself as a smirk grew on his lips. “Shadowbolt magic, huh?” He forced his body to keep up as he continued to outfly her attack. “Let’s see how tough it really is!”

Silver glanced at the barrage of magic following him and purposely slowed down just enough to stick a back hoof into the stream of rapid magic bolts.

They exploded against his hoof, but nothing more than small explosions that were barely strong enough to bruise. Silver had long become numb to meager pain. He barely felt more than a small sting.

Silver lifted an eyebrow as he angled up and glided directly over the snow covered mountain side. He looked skyward, training his eyes on Witch again as his smirk grew into a confident smile. This would be a cinch.

“Come on, you old stallion! Is this the best you can do?” Witch yelled down at him.

She had no idea who she was dealing with. What a perfect opportunity to scare the living daylights out of an enemy. Silver, after feeling the force behind her attack, knew that Witch’s magic was not nearly strong enough to break his iron will and determination.

Silver had been slowly getting the hang of the magic deflection… he had been watching his own student figure it out, for Celestia’s sake. But while he couldn’t hope to replicate Rainbow Dash’s incredible knack for picking up on the techniques of others… and trying to block every bit of magic here was a bit silly… he could still show this Shadowbolt… just how strong the Wonderbolts were.

Silver chuckled as he glided along the ground.

“Oh, I’ve got more…” he said quietly to himself as he glided down towards the mountain. “You want a piece of a Wonderbolt?” Silver slammed his hooves down into the snow before blatantly propelling himself directly towards Witch.

“What?!” Witch’s eyes widened in surprise as Silver willingly turned into her barrage of magic.

Silver charged forward, Witch’s magic bolts striking and exploding against his body, but they were weak. They did little to slow Silver down as he careened towards his target. He grunted and winced as he was battered, his body feeling the constant stings of the tiny explosions, but like hell he was going to let these piddly attacks slow him down.

“STAY BACK!” Witch yelled as she tried to pour more power into her stream of magic bolts, but Silver was too steadfast. Even with a slight increase in force, Silver ploughed right through it, growing closer and closer as Witch began to panic.

Silver grinned as he pushed on. Small little attacks would never slow him down. Quantity over quality? Please, he’d break down any challenger who thought such a method could defeat him.

“Urgh, argh… ah!” Silver grunted as the magic bolts pelted him, but he held himself steady and continued to beat his old wings again and again and again as Witch failed over and over to keep him away.

“AH!” Witch yelled out in horror and released her magic, her mouth agape and her eyes wide beneath her goggles as Silver finally made it directly in front of her. Silver pulled his hoof back and glared into the eyes of Witch as she stared at Silver in unexpected terror.

“I’ve got plenty! Have a taste!” Silver yelled as he thrust his hoof directly into Witch’s face.

“Oh! I get the big rhino?!” Trance bounced up and down in place, the magic spheres orbiting around him faster as he smiled giddily at Soarin approaching. “This is going to be so much fun!”

Soarin didn’t pay attention to Trance’s behavior as he beat his powerful wings and shot towards the small stallion. Descent said to not underestimate Trance, but Soarin was still in the mindset that he could overpower him quickly. He had to, because the moment he was done with him, he’d turn to help break Spitfire free.

There was no need to hold anything back. Soarin had magic at his disposal as well as his great physical strength. From his point of view, he had the advantage, and he would make use of it.

Soarin scrunched his face as he pushed magic through his body to the horn, causing it to glow blue as streaks of blue light appeared from his eyes as well.

“I’m truly honored!” Trance chuckled as he spun in a circle, the sphere’s spinning with him. “LET’S TANGO!” he yelled as he stopped and whipped himself in the other direction.

“Whoa!” Soarin’s eyes widened as all the spheres fired from around Trance’s body and all homed in on him before taking a synchronized angle to rapidly strike him on at a time. “HRM!” Soarin grunted as he angled his wings and did an inline twist to his left. All of the spheres shot past him, leaving him untouched. Soarin quickly focused and whipped his head forward, sending a concentrated beam right back at Trance.

“Ooh! Pretty colors!” Trance joked as he leaned back and let the beam pass right over his head.

“Damn!” Soarin cursed as he shifted his angle and sped directly towards Trance. “Huh?” The wing tips of Soarin’s feathers twitched and he looked over his shoulder. “What?!”

The spheres that had missed him had made a full U-turn and were heading right back at him. Soarin turned quickly mid-flight to face the incoming surprise, but the moment he turned…

“AH!” Soarin grunted as he felt a force drive directly into his back that was amplified from moving in the opposite direction he was.

“The big rhino isn’t very smart!” Trance chuckled as Soarin’s momentum came to a halt. He exhaled as he tried to regain himself. Trance wasn’t very strong, but combining the kick with Soarin’s opposite movement was enough to throw him off balance… and…

“RGH!” Soarin grunted in pain as the first two magic spheres caught him, exploding on his chest. He quickly threw up his hooves to block as the remaining eight started exploding against him one by one. After the fifth, Soarin’s horn began to glow. “RAH!” Soarin shouted out as a shield encircled him and blasted outwards from his body. The remaining five spheres struck it and exploded. It also slammed into Trance behind him, sending him tumbling back.

“Oooo!” Trance smiled as he rounded himself upright. “The rhino has a few magical tricks of his own! How delightful!”

“This guy’s weird…” Soarin growled as he turned around and released the shield.

“Let’s do it again!” Trance laughed as he spun in a circle, his crystals glowing and creating ten more spheres.

Soarin didn’t charge this time. It was clear that Trance was tricky, relying on feints and deception to get his hits in, causing his opponent to focus on two targets. It wasn’t the first time he had fought an opponent like this.

“Shall I make the first move this time?” Trance twirled his hooves in the air as he bounced his eyebrows. Soarin took a moment to examine the spheres… they weren’t the same as the beams they were using to train deflection, but they moved like them. Trance’s attacks were in a straight line, not moving erratically. It would make them easy to focus on one by one.

“Dash… it’s time I took a page from your book,” Soarin chuckled to himself as he tried to recall what he had seen her do. She had picked up the magic deflection easily, and while he had struggled, he felt she had shown him enough to give it a go here. It took too much focus to use his magic, Trance would just deceive him again. “Give me your best shot, munchkin!” he beckoned to Trance.

“WHAT?!” Trance suddenly glared, his happy demeanor fading completely. “WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?! I’LL KILL YOU!”

Soarin blinked as Trance called forth several more spheres.

“Whoops… guess I struck a soft spot,” Soarin nervously smirked as the amount of magic he’d been dealing with suddenly tripled because of his big mouth.

Trance spun in three circles, firing three sets of ten spheres each in a straight line towards him. They weren’t perfectly lined up, but they never strayed from their course.

Soarin put all of his attention on the first sphere as he pumped his wings and propelled himself forward. He put his hooves up and met the first sphere head-on, swiping his hoof at it with the best timing he could manage, flicking the wrist upon impact.

“AH!” Soarin winced as about a third of the magic dissipated, the rest exploding against his arm. He didn’t give up, focusing on the next the best he could, the blasts were about five yards apart, so he didn’t have much time, but he would do it!

The second blast deflected, only a little bit exploding.

The third, he completely whiffed, but kept moving.

The fourth, he dodged because he had no time to concentrate.

It was sloppy, but his current path kept Trance in his vision. He knew the moment he took his eyes away, he’d be blindsided again, so it was this or nothing.

Not a single attempt was perfect, and Soarin took a few nasty hits, but he eventually got to Trance, who went from glaring to staring wide eyed as Soarin appeared right in front of him, and grabbed hold of him.

“Don’t think I’m falling for it again!” Soarin yelled as he pulled Trance around and held him out in front. All the magic that had gone undeterred, just like last time, had U-turned and was heading back at them. Trance flailed and yelped for a moment, unable to redirect his own magic in time before it began striking him.

“Ow! Ow! Ow! No fair!” he yelled as Soarin held Trance into his own attack. After this, he’d take a dive, drive this little guy right into the dirt and then go help Spitfire. “AYEYEEEEYEEE!” Trance yelped as the last sphere hit him.

“Going down!” Soarin spun and readied to dive, but the moment he turned… a pair of hooves jammed into his side really hard. “AUGH!” Soarin cried out in pain, dropping Trance and grabbing his side as he leveled his wings to hover. He coughed once as he turned to see his attacker. “Son of a…” Soarin growled as he glared.

Rapidfire was hovering beside Trance as he dusted himself off.

“Hmph…” Trance looked Rapidfire up and down flatly.

“You’re welcome,” Rapidfire said while narrowing his eyes.

“Meh…” Trance shrugged.

“Soarin’s too strong, let me help,” Rapidfire requested as Trance shrugged again.

“Fine, sure, I’m getting bored anyway. Just don’t blame me if you end up on Blade’s sword,” Trance said, seemingly not caring about Rapidfire getting involved, even though Blade had clearly ordered Rapidfire not to intervene.

“Damn…” Soarin gritted his teeth as his eyes darted between Rapidfire and Trance, their crystals hovering around them. His horn alighted with the blue magic again, though now he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to handle this. As if one fighter with deceptive tactics wasn’t enough… Rapidfire was a master of deception. Soarin could only imagine what kind of techniques he could use now with a crystal on his side, even if it was only one compared to the commanders’ three.

Soarin gulped as he pondered what to do. He had gone from creating an advantage to gaining just the opposite. With the rest occupied, he’d have to fight both Rapidfire and Trance at the same time, definitely not favorable odds, and not what he was hoping for. He needed to finish this up and help Spitfire, but now the task didn’t look quite so doable.

He readied himself as Trance and Rapidfire started moving towards him, Trances spheres encircling him as pulses of pink light shined from Rapidfire, creating what looked like split images of himself that remained close to his body. They were moments away from attack.

But then Soarin’s ears perked up as he glanced towards the sky.

Something was shooting down from above with tremendous speed. The form and motion looked similar to Fleetfoot’s Silver arrow technique… but it couldn’t have been Fleetfoot. Not only was Fleetfoot busy fighting Ruin, but the form also looked a bit… off. That and it looked like whoever was coming down from above was also having a hard time controlling their trajectory.

A similar move… but unrefined… only one pony came to mind, and his suspicion was completely confirmed when he noticed a rainbow colored trail streaking behind them.

“Dammit…” Soarin shook his head in frustration, but smirked at the same time. “You always find a way to be part of the action… don’t you?”

“HEY RAPID-DOUCHE!” Rainbow Dash yelled from above as she drew near… which was probably a bad idea, since both Trance and Rapidfire looked up at her the moment she yelled. Soarin winced, knowing that despite the speed she was going, they’d both definitely have time to react with the distance she had left to cover.

But maybe that wasn’t her intention. In an instant, Soarin realized Trance and Rapidfire had both focused on her, giving him a clear shot. He already had his magic built up too.

Trance fired his magic spheres towards Dash with Rapidfire following, shooting a dual beam of pink magic from his eyes.

Soarin kept his focus, trusting Dash’s abilities to take care of herself as he poured more and more magic into his horn.

“WHOA!” Dash yelped, combining Matteo’s Air Burst and Twister’s Spiral Turn to make quick trajectory shifts while maintaining her speed. She dodged all of the incoming spheres and used her hooves to deflect the magic beams from Rapidfire. Still not perfect and hard to execute while she was moving, but she actually managed knock most of Rapidfire’s magic aside.

She glanced to her right as she drew closer and closer, eyeing Soarin. He was doing exactly what she hoped he would do. He was making use of her distraction. She flattened her body and shot down purposely moving right past Trance and Rapidfire.

“GET ‘EM, SOARIN!” she yelled as she pulled up and tried to slow down… but landed with a loud yelp and POOF as she went headfirst into a large snowdrift on the mountain side.

“RAAAH!” Soarin whipped his head forward, releasing the magic from his horn violently. The beam was wide and fast, easily large enough to tag both Trance and Rapidfire. The two Shadowbolts turned and stared wide eyed as the beam hurled towards them… and it engulfed them both.

“Augh…” Soarin winced, his head throbbing as the magic ceased. Maybe that was a bit much, but the good thing was that he got them…

“That was close!”

Or… he didn’t… Because that was definitely Trance’s voice.

Soarin growled as he looked up, seeing Rapidfire and Trance high above him. Rapidfire has his hoof placed on Trance’s shoulder. Trance reached up and swatted it off, earning a glare from Rapidfire, but Trance ignored him, brushing a hoof through his mane suavely.

“Quick teleports are convenient, I’ll have to learn that sometime!” he commented as if not acknowledging Rapidfire’s abilities at all.

Soarin glanced down as a gasp for air and feminine nicker came from right below him. Dash had popped out of the snow and was shaking her mane off.

“Aw… they dodged it?” she huffed as she spread her wings and lifted herself up, hovering beside Soarin.

Despite Soarin not being too happy about her being there and in danger, his minor headache completely vanished the moment she was beside him, as usual. He didn’t like having to worry about her, but having her here did come with its advantages. But still…

“Don’t give me that look,” Dash caught his stern eyes and wasted no time in firing right back. “If you thought I was gonna let you out of my sight with what’s on the line for us—” she said as she tapped a hoof over her heart— “Then you don’t know me,” she finished with a wink.

“Heh…” Soarin chuckled. “I suppose you’re right,” he acknowledged as he held out a hoof. “I’ll let Spitfire do the scolding later… right now… I could really use some help.”

Dash turned with him to face Trance and Rapidfire as the two lowered themselves to be level with them. She kept her eyes locked on the two for a moment before glancing around to take in the rest of her surroundings. Descent was fighting Blade, Silver was fighting Witch, Fleetfoot was fighting Ruin, and Spitfire was being held by Moon.

“Where’s Wave Chill?” she asked Soarin obliviously. Soarin made a small head motion forward.

“That wasn’t Wave…” Soarin said with a low growl. Dash blinked, looking towards the two Shadowbolts, her eyes landing on Rapidfire.

“Oh…” she said as her eyes widened. “Oh god… and they…did they?” She looked over at Spitfire, her mouth agape.

“I don’t know… and I don’t know what happened to Wave either… but I plan to beat it out of them… slowly,” Soarin stated firmly as he pounded his hooves together and snorted, his nostrils flaring as he kept his eyes on Rapidfire.

Dash took a moment to examine Soarin’s face, and the way he was glaring at Rapidfire.

They had two enemies before them. Trance, a Shadowbolt commander, and Rapidfire, apparently a low ranking Shadowbolt. All logic in this situation pointed to Soarin taking on Trance while she handled their former, undesirable comrade. However… that seemed wrong to her.

There was a lot of tension passing in between Soarin and Rapidfire. This was an old rivalry, no matter what rank they both held. Not only that, but Soarin was a stallion who valued the wellbeing of his friends, and those he loved. Wave Chill was missing in action, and Spitfire would definitely be emotionally hurt after this… and Soarin wanted to give the pony responsible a straight-up beat-down.

This was going to be difficult, but after seeing Trance’s attacks, Dash felt she’d be able to take him on with her magic deflection. Soarin needed to fight Rapidfire, plain and simple.

“Soarin,” Dash spoke up, drawing only a subtle glance from him. “I’ll handle the commander.”

“Wait, what?!” Soarin’s eyes widened as he managed to tear his glare away from Rapidfire. “Dash, that…” he trailed off as she turned and looked at him sternly.

“I know what you’re gonna say… but I know you want to tear Rapidfire apart for this. And if he’s the one who posed as Wave Chill, I bet he also knows where Wave is right now too. I know you want to make him squeal and spill the info, don't try telling me you don’t.”

Soarin’s expression went blank as he glanced at Rapidfire and Trance again. Rapidfire looked angry with something Trance was saying as Trance only laughed heartily.

“Well… you would definitely be right there,” Soarin admitted. Dash had read him back to front. “But…” he glanced at Trance.

“Hey,” Dash quickly re-caught his attention. “This guy only throws magic spheres, right?” she lifted an eyebrow. “Who was teaching you the key parts of magic deflection?” she reminded him with a wink.

“Point taken,” Soarin smirked as he looked back at Rapidfire. “Alright, I’ll leave Trance to you… and I’ll give Rapidfire a few punches to the gut for you, how does that sound?”

“Not a few, several.” Dash chuckled as she turned and faced Trance. “I’ll draw this guy’s attention and lead him away.”

“Call him a munchkin,” Soarin suddenly suggested. Dash blinked and glanced at him.

“Why?”

“Trust me.” Soarin smirked. “That’ll get him to go after you.”

Dash shrugged and took a deep breath.

“Here goes…” Dash gave Soarin a light punch to the shoulder. “No dying. I don’t want you dragging me down,” she said in a lighthearted manner… even though that was what would happen if one of them did.

“Me? Die?” Soarin chuckled. “Who the hell do you think—?”

“A dummy,” Dash cut him off with a wink before turning to face Trance. “Let’s do this!” She shot forward, rising up as Trance and Rapidfire both locked on her. “HEY! YOU! MUNCHKIN FACE!” she yelled, immediately earning a surprised glare from Trance. “Yeah! I’m talking to you short-stuff! How’s the weather at three inches?!”

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!” Trance immediately took to the air, leaving Rapidfire behind.

“Whoa… that worked too well…” Dash quickly turned and pumped her wings to create some distance, giving Soarin plenty of room to fight Rapidfire.

And with that… Soarin and Rapidfire were left alone.

Rapidfire looked back towards Soarin as Trance was led away and snorted.

“Satisfied now?” he asked as he slowly moved towards Soarin.

“Not nearly enough,” Soarin snorted as he too started hovering forward.

The two kept their eyes locked, old grudges and wounds flaring forth as they started a slow descent towards the snow covered ground below.

Battles were raging around them. Stray shots from Trance flew nearby, Fleetfoot and Ruin zipped past them overhead. Witch crashed to the ground a few yards away before picking up and taking back to the air as Silver pursued, the sounds of Descent deflecting Blade’s sword echoed out throughout the mountains, and Soarin could still see Spitfire being held by Moon.

“I won’t be satisfied until I know what you’ve done with Wave… and I’ve given you a good beat-down for what you’ve done to Spitfire,” Soarin growled as the two landed in the snow, standing less than fifteen yards apart.

“And what exactly did I do to Spitfire?” Rapidfire asked in a snide tone.

“You know damn well what you did to Spitfire,” Soarin growled, knowing full well that Rapidfire was egging him on… just like old times. “You’ve done some despicable things, Rapidfire… but this takes the cake.”

“You’re making it sound like I forced myself on her,” Rapidfire scoffed. “Please Soarin, even I have standards…” A snide grin grew on his face. “But it was definitely fun to make her think I was Wave… never thought I’d see that side of her, she really knows how to make out hard. Finally got my hooves on her body too… damn it’s nice.” His smile grew as he saw Soarin’s face fill with more and more anger. “I buttered her up and she didn’t hesitate for a second to follow after me during my little distraction. You idiots are too easy to predict,” he kept going, knowing he had Soarin on the brink of going nuts. “You wanna know why I didn’t do it? I prefer the mare knows it’s me before sex. It’s much more satisfying when they melt under my moves, say my name, and plead for me to give it to them… but hell, if I had gone for it… I’d have given her a better ride than that pussy-hooved Chiller ever would have managed.”

“You deceived her and took advantage of her!” Soarin stomped a hoof on the ground, his eyes starting to glow blue as he growled and ground his teeth together. He was filled with rage. Rapidfire may have stopped short of completely violating her… but it was still more than enough to warrant being beaten to a pulp. To Soarin, playing with his best friend’s emotions in such an extreme manner was just as bad as causing her physical harm.

“It’s not my fault she couldn’t see through it,” Rapidfire remained calm despite Soarin’s emotional escalation, his smirk still present and taunting. “I don’t know what she sees in that stiff goody four-hooves anyway. I bet if she spent some more personal time with me she’d be BEGGING for it from me instead!”

“You haven’t changed at all,” Soarin huffed, the horn beginning to glow as well. “Deep down, some part of me thought you’d learn a lesson or two after the stunt you pulled after the royal ball, but I don’t know why the hell I even bothered.”

“DON’T act like you understand me!” Rapidfire suddenly snapped back, his crystal glowing and a pink aura slowly growing around him. “You don’t, the Wonderbolts didn’t, my parents didn’t, my friends didn’t… NOPONY does!” The pink aura flared out, small crackles and pops of pink magic shooting from it. “All of you and your rules… All of you and your orders… Your own personal goals… it’s all you care about. I’m not a part of your story!” he yelled as his aura grew larger.

Soarin narrowed his eyes, the glow around his eyes and horn growing as well. It was an unexpected outburst from Rapidfire, but he wasn’t going to let it distract him.

“Keep your ‘reasons’ to yourself!” Soarin shot back as he set his hooves and the blue aura of his magic flared out to match Rapidfire’s. “All I know is that you’re hurting my friends, and you’re going to pay for it!”

“SHUT UP!” Rapidfire yelled as he launched himself forward.

“BRING IT!” Soarin yelled as he fired forward as well.

Descent grunted and struggled as he clasped the flat edges of Blade’s sword. Blade was pushing the offense harder than ever before, but he still couldn’t break through Descent’s defenses.

“Give it up, Blade!” he urged. “Surrender and listen to me!”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Blade shook his head as he continued to try and press the sword down. “Surrender?! Listen?! It’s like you don’t know who you’re talking to! I won’t be deceived!”

“Well, you certainly aren’t going to best me!” Descent pushed back, forcing the sword away before pulling back and throwing a punch right into Blade’s face.

“GRH!” Blade grimaced as he spun around and sliced at Descent’s neck. Descent knocked it away and advanced, but he quickly noticed two of Blade’s crystals glowing brighter.

Two bright flashes shined beside him, and two clones shot out from Blade’s sides. They darted around Descent, their eyes glowing bright pink.

Descent quickly turned and planted a hard punch to both of their faces, right in the forehead between the eyes. The clones immediately burst into a blast of pink light.

“Your damn clones aren’t going to save you either!” Descent yelled as he turned back around to see five more clones in front of him, all charging. “What did you just say about deception?!” Descent hovered backwards, punching each one in the precise weak point one by one, until the fourth suddenly drew a sword.

“Why don’t you ask yourself?!” the fourth clone yelled, proving that it wasn’t a clone at all and in fact, Blade himself. Descent barely leaned back in time to avoid the swipe as the clone behind Blade fired it’s eyebeams over Blade’s shoulder. Descent barely brought up a hoof in time to deflect it, but the force sent him tumbling.

“WHY BLADE?!” Descent pleaded as he regained control and glared back up. “Why won’t you look inside yourself and see what you are doing?!”

“Because I know what I’m doing!” Blade yelled right back as he fell towards Descent with several clones behind him.

“Ah… ha…” Fleetfoot winced as she pushed herself up out of the snow.

“You know…” Ruin hovered down beside her as she struggled to stand. “There are times I wonder about the choices ponies make in life…”

“HRG!” Fleetfoot whipped herself around and leapt at Ruin, but she shifted and several of the energy balls fired out from behind him. Fleetfoot turned and managed to poorly deflect two, but the other three struck her right in the chest, knocking her over into the snow.

“We make a choice and it has an impact. Big, small… drastic, or insignificant… EVERYTHING has a purpose and consequence…” Ruin continued as he did slow pirouettes in midair. “Life is all about choices… that’s what everypony says anyway…” He evened out and rested his chin on his hooves as Fleetfoot sat up in the snow and glared at him. Ruin reached up a hoof and flicked a single magic sphere towards her. It hit her in the face and knocked her right back into the snow.

“Oof!” She grunted as her body pressed itself a little deeper into the fluffy drift.

“It’s funny because… I never really give a damn about choices…” Ruin snickered as he flicked on other sphere at Fleetfoot as she was down, not allowing her to get up. “Why try to make sense of things? Why worry about what impact your choices have? Honestly, why give a damn at all?” His snicker turned into a chuckle.

“RAH!” Fleetfoot growled as she exploded out from the snow drift and launched towards him. The moment her vision was clear however, Ruin was completely gone from her sight. She flinched when she felt something on her back.

“Everything is a hell of a lot more fun when it’s senseless!” He drove his hoof down over Fleetfoot’s head, forcing it into the snow as she yelped and dragged through it. “What’s the point of putting sense to anything? It just makes everything BORING! AAAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” he cackled as he continued to drive Fleetfoot’s face through the snow.

“Yikes! Whoa!” Dash yelped as she remained on the run, flying along the mountainside as Trance’s magic spheres crashed and exploded down around her.

“ARE YOU LAUGHING NOW?!” Trance was still enraged at Dash’s comments apparently. She tried to turn and get a look at his attack pattern, but she was forced to turn right back around and focus on running.

“Shoot!” Dash gritted her teeth as she barely avoided every sphere that landed around her. Maybe she was in over her head. She wasn’t a top tier elite Wonderbolt… and she was taking on one of the strongest amongst their enemies. She wanted to fight back, but she was worried one false move would end in pain… lots of it.

She glanced to her left as she shot along the ground, catching a glimpse of Silver fighting Witch.

It was completely the opposite of her scenario. Silver had Witch on the run… and he was charging headlong into her attacks, taking them on with grit and strength. It seemed that Witch didn’t have an answer for him, her magic abilities not being of a pure strength nature. Silver was able to deduce her weakness and exploit it. He didn’t even need to use the magic deflection, which was probably okay by him because Silver had struggled to get it right.

Something about seeing her mentor press the enemy while she ran… lit a fire in her heart. She may not have the experience, the raw power, or the ability of a high tier elite… but it was time to prove that Silver’s faith in her was well placed. She could do this!

First she needed to get a good look at how Trance was attacking, and she wouldn’t get that with her back turned. She had to pick up speed, but she wasn’t sure attempting the Sonic Blast-off was a good idea. Not only was she in motion, but the ground was covered with snow, most likely slippery as a result. She was also still not quite fully confident in her ability to execute it without fail. She had been pretty consistent with it recently, but the past few times she had used it were in situations where a failed attempt could have been easily recovered and made up for. She couldn’t afford any slips here, the margin of error and consequences of a botched attempt were too dangerous… but she knew another technique that could help her.

She fixed her eyes on the ground less than a yard beneath her and suddenly dropped, spacing her hooves, both front and back, slightly off-kilter. The moment her right hooves touched the snow covered ground, she struck it hard and rapidly with her lefts, using both sets of hooves to activate and double the power of Storm Front’s Surface Tap technique.

Dash tensed her body as she launched upward, quickly turning around and getting a good look before Trance could adjust the trajectory of his projectiles.

It was brief, but she saw it. He was firing them in small arcs that went no further from the center of their trajectory than half a yard. It made them slightly difficult to zero in on, but they literally did not stray from their path.

“Yipe!” Dash yelped as Trance turned his attack towards her. Dash quickly combined the Spiral Turn and the Air Burst to propel herself further skyward just in time to retake a lead ahead of the attacks. Now she was on the run in the air, but she felt she could find an opportunity to attack at some point—

“OW!” Dash yelped as an explosion erupted on her back. She flailed for a moment and looked over her shoulder quickly to see that the spheres missing her were turning around? Not good… not good at all. Now she was caught between spheres being thrown at her, and those coming from behind.

To hell with it. Running was clearly not getting her anywhere. She had to take a chance. If Silver was pressing the offense, so would she… even if it seemed like a long shot for her.

“Here goes everything!” she fixed her eyes on Trance and dove directly into the incoming spheres as the others followed behind her. Trance stopped moving as he saw her turn towards him, smirking.

“Oh, I LOVE when my targets have a death wish!” he chuckled as he spun around and around, flinging more and more spheres in her direction.

Focus Dash…

Remember…

YOU CAN DEFLECT THEIR MAGIC!

Dash recalled her training, also running her thoughts through what Flashwind had shown her directly.

She put up her hooves…

“Whhhhoooooaaaaaaa!!!!!” Dash voiced her uncertainty as she began swatting the blasts aside. She barely had any time at all to focus on each blast. Most of her swings were purely instinctive, moving at the first tiny glimpse of the next sphere every time. A few of them missed her, colliding with some of the spheres following behind, which only intensified the moment as explosions rang out behind her.

“What, what, what?!” Trance’s smirk slowly disappeared as Dash grew closer and closer. She wasn’t even keeping track of where Trance was. She was focusing entirely on swatting aside the blasts.

“Yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes, YIIIIIIIKES!!!!!” Dash continued to panic a little as she felt like she was barely managing. But she was doing it… she was getting closer!

“FORGET THIS!” Trance growled, his crystals glowing brightly. Four clones of himself appeared around him, their eyes already glowing and ready to fire. “EAT PINK!” he yelled as the clones fired their eyebeams while he increased the rate he was firing the spheres.

Dash swatted one more aside… and then one struck her in the shoulder.

She had only an instant to think as she was suddenly faced with a barrage of magic she couldn’t hope to avoid or deflect.

She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth… but kept pumping her wings as she got absolutely peppered with the magical attacks.

“AH! ARGH! AHHHH!” Dash yelped and screamed as she was hit again and again and again.

“YES! TAKE IT! YOU CAN’T MESS WITH ME! I’LL… WHAT?!” Trance’s eyes widened in shock…

Dash burst right through his outrageous cacophony of attacks. She removed her hooves from over her face, glaring at Trance and bearing her teeth. She was covered in singe marks, bruises, and her nose was bleeding, but she charged as if she felt nothing.

“YOUR TURN TO TAKE IT!” Dash yelled.

With her opportunity well in hoof, she pulled back and began absolutely unloading hard punches into Trance. To the gut, to the face, across the jaw, to the chest, in the ribs… she pounded and pounded and pounded as he grunted and coughed. She followed up by grabbing him around the neck, swinging him around and using him to swat each of his clones in the face right where Descent mentioned their weak point. All of the clones burst, and Dash ended her assault by releasing Trance and giving him a hard double buck to the back, sending him hurling forward and into the snow, his face dragging through it.

“Ahhh…” Dash exhaled painfully and fell to the ground the moment after the kick. She had made it through and got to throw several licks to a Shadowbolt commander… but damn, did it hurt… Her whole body stung after taking on the magic. There was definitely more oomph behind Trance’s attacks than Witch… because not even Silver would have gotten out of that one unfazed.

She pushed the pain aside, forcing herself up and wiping the blood from her nose as she frantically looked around for Trance’s crystals. She had knocked him down, but from past experience she knew that the Shadowbolts weren’t truly down until the crystals were dealt with… there was a pang of reluctance in her heart, knowing what destroying their crystals and likely cutting them off from more would do to them, but it was that or they would get right back up.

Unfortunately, the crystals had fallen into the snow… and before she could find them, they suddenly shot up from a few yards away and zipped towards Trance.

“Damn!” Dash cursed as the crystals found where Trance lay.

“You…” Trance growled as the crystals glowed, hovering over him. “You… BITCH…” he slowly rose, turning around and glaring at Dash as his goggles slipped off his face, the strap completely snapped and both lenses cracked as they plopped in the snow before him. Pink streams of light were rising from his eyes and the corner of his mouth as his body emitted a pink shine. His nose was bent. It looked like Dash had broken it with one of her blows across his face. It seemed he wasn’t very sturdy, as his small stature suggested, but he was definitely angry now…

Dash grunted as the pain from her charge worked its way back across her nerves, grimacing as she whipped blood slowly oozing from her nose again. She got a chance… and it was a lucky one, but her failure to find the crystals quickly led to this. He had taken her hits, but was back up and clearly ready to give her hell… what was she going to do now?

“AAAAAAIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” A scream suddenly came from above. Dash’s eyes widened as Witch suddenly fell down from above, tumbling uncontrollably through the air and crashing RIGHT into Trance roughly. The two were forced into the snow, painfully sliding to a halt.

“Good lord… what the hell are you doing here?” A very familiar and very welcome voice came from behind Dash. She glanced to her left as Silver Lining landed beside her, giving her a look of complete disapproval. “Sometimes I wonder how you haven’t gotten yourself killed yet.”

“I came here to save YOUR ass,” Dash shot right back with a confident smirk, despite the pain. She grunted and lowered herself to the ground slightly. Silver’s eyes remained narrowed for a few moments before a smile curled on his lips. He glanced at Trance as he struggled to push Witch off of him. Silver took note of Trance’s broken nose and his painful movements.

“Heh…” Silver chuckled as his smile grew. “Stubborn to the bone and with a punch to back it up… You know how to make this old stallion proud... now on your hooves!” he yelled down to Dash as he turned to face the Shadowbolts.

“Grgh…” Dash grunted as she pushed herself up, realizing Silver wanted to team up. She would never pass up a chance, no matter how much it hurt.

“We’ve got them on the ropes,” Silver nodded as the Shadowbolts picked themselves up out of the snow and stood at the ready. “Let’s take them down!”

“Yes sir!” Dash grinned as she and Silver charged.

Soarin looked all around, firing beams of magic in every directions as several images of Rapidfire zipped around him.

“HOLD STILL!” he yelled as he fired a beam that struck and split two illusions.

“I’m not giving you any chances this time!” Rapidfire yelled as he drove his hooves into Soarin’s back.

“GAH!” Soarin cried out as he lurched forward, having taken more than one blow to the back thus far. Soarin turned and swiped a hoof out, but it went right through Rapidfire, the image dissipating. “Dammit…” Soarin watched as several more Rapidfire’s appeared in pink flashes.

This wasn’t like the commanders, these were clones. They had no physical presence, flickering and disappearing the moment Soarin touched them, but they were all identical. There was no way to tell them apart from the real Rapidfire. The commander clones all had a distinct pink glow that shone from their eyes.

Soarin charged forward, punching through several images as he tried to find the real target, but the every time he attacked one, two more would appear. They all flew in circles around him, randomly charging but none of them actually touching them as they either disappeared or his hooves went right through them.

“AH!” Soarin put his hooves up as they all suddenly disappeared and Rapidfire tried to slam his hooves down over Soarin’s head. The force caused them both to plummet to the ground as they struggled against one another.

In a way, Rapidfire’s new techniques reminded Soarin of how he used to fight using cloud doubles… only those took a moment for Rapidfire to create. These magic images appeared instantly and were perfect.

“Sooner or later you’re ALL going to acknowledge me!” Rapidfire yelled in Soarin’s face.

“I’d rather land plot first on a castle spire!” Soarin snapped back as Rapidfire’s eyes began to glow brightly. Soarin ducked as magic beams fired from Rapidfire’s goggles. Soarin’s head movement placed the horn directly in front of Rapidfire’s face. “You like magic?!” Soarin yelled as the horn glowed brightly and jettisoned a strong blast, point blank.

“AHH!” Rapidfire yelped as his head whipped backwards, his grip releasing from Soarin as a trail of smoke followed him as he fell. Soarin turned down, ready to follow up, but Rapidfire suddenly vanished in a flash of pink light.

“What the—?!” Soarin blinked as a similar flash came from his right. Rapidfire shot out of it and drove a hoof right into Soarin’s cheek. Soarin grunted as his body followed the motion of the blow, spinning out, and barely regaining control in time as Rapidfire charged right at him. He disappeared in another flash right before reaching Soarin. Determined not to be fooled again, Soarin waited for the first sign of another flash. It came from his right. He quickly turned and punched at Rapidfire as he shot out, but his hoof went through him. Before Soarin could recheck his surroundings, Rapidfire thrust up from below, ramming his shoulder into Soarin’s stomach. “OOF!” Soarin grunted, but quickly clamped his hooves around Rapidfire.

“RGH!” Rapidfire struggled to get free as Soarin shifted his grip and began spinning Rapidfire around, letting go after a good deal of momentum had been built up. However, the moment Soarin let go, Rapidfire teleported again, appearing behind Soairn, but keeping his momentum as he drove his hooves into Soarin’s back… again. Soarin turned, seeing two Rapidfires, but as he fired a wide magic wave, they both vanished.

“WILL YOU STOP?! FIGHT ME LIKE A STALLION!” Soarin yelled as he looked around.

“What, will that make you feel better?!” Rapidfire yelled out as he charged from behind. Soarin turned and guarded as they clashed, the two growling and snarling at each other as Rapidfire kept pushing him. “Screw playing fair! This isn’t a sparring match! This is combat! We don’t have to follow any damn rules!”

“Then you’re a damn coward!” Soarin yelled as he managed to turn them around and pumped his wings as he angled Rapidfire towards the ground. “And you always have been!”

“OH YEAH!?” Rapidfire disappeared and reappeared directly behind Soarin, hooking his arms under his, turning the fall control right back around to him. They were on a slow, steady descent towards the snow covered mountainside, but moving at an incredible speed. “You don’t know anything!” Rapidfire yelled into Soairn’s ear as they drew closer and closer.

Right before Soarin’s body began skimming through the snow, he thrust his head backwards, jamming the back of his head directly into Rapidfire’s nose. The two split apart and both crash landed painfully, bouncing through the snow. As they struggled to stop themselves.

Soarin got his hooves to the ground and propelled himself back upward, Rapidfire doing the same as they both went directly at one another and exchanged punches to the face, sending them both back in the opposite direction. But being both bigger and stronger than Rapidfire, Soarin didn’t take quite as hard of a hit, nor did he fly back half as far. Rapidfire bounced once in the snow again before disappearing and reappearing right in front of Soarin. Soarin threw his hooves up to block as he planted his back hooves firmly in the snow, but the punch went through him, flickering and disappearing. Soarin frantically looked around, but Rapidfire was actually right behind the image. Soarin barely noticed in time, blocking in the same direction as Rapidfire’s hoof met his arms. The force caused Soarin’s back hooves to skid through the snow, kicking up drifts and tossing chunks in all directions as Rapidfire beat his wings and pushed him further back.

This didn’t make sense…

It didn’t make sense at all.

Rapidfire was dangerous and incredibly skilled… he was pushing Soarin hard, forcing him to go all out… but he was a low ranking Shadowbolt? Not only that, but Blade clearly didn’t think highly of him at all. In fact, Blade treated him like dirt, pushing him around and telling him to stay out of their way before the fight. With how much pressure Rapidfire was putting on him, and how Soarin observed two commanders struggling against Wonderbolts that ranked below him… why was Rapidfire not of higher rank? His manipulation of the magic crystal was both effective and efficient, and he was keeping a top tier elite Wonderbolt on the tip of his hooves. Rapidfire was a lead squad Wonderbolt as well before he left for the Shadowbolts…

As the two continued to growl and push against one another… as they glared into each other’s eyes, part of Soarin couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in Rapidfire’s head. Was there more to this than met the eye?

Dash and Silver crossed back and forth in the air, calling out to each other as they landed punch after punch into the foreheads of incoming clones of Trance and Witch.

“TO THE LEFT!” Silver yelled as Dash turned left and struck a clone of Witch in the face, destroying it. Dash looked up as she shifted back.

“ABOVE!” she yelled. Silver turned and thrust a hoof up, landing a punch in the gut of a Trance clone before striking the other hoof between the eyes.

“Incoming!” Silver yelled as Dash turned to hover side by side. A volley of magic spheres from the real Trance hurled towards them. They took turns, shifting back and forth, deflecting or blocking one and letting the other take on the next so they’d have plenty of time to focus on each one.

“She’s firing!” Dash yelled as she eyed Witch above them.

“Let’s take it low!” Silver called out, grabbing Dash as he dove down. Dash quickly took control and the two flew side by side, angling up and gliding along the ground as Witch’s barrage thundered down to the snow behind them.

Dash felt so silly.

This was a serious situation. They were fighting very dangerous enemies… but she was fighting side by side with Silver and the two were working together perfectly.

It felt…

So…

AWESOME…

“Focus, Dash!” Silver yelled as Dash felt a hard yank on her hoof.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as he pulled her out of the way of an incoming attack from Trance. The two kept up their pace as their opponents tried to keep their distance.

“Listen up, Dash!” Silver spoke up as they continued side by side. There was a little bit of discomfort in his expression, most likely from strain. Dash could see it clear as day, but as long as he kept flying she would. “We can take these two down easily, but we’ve got to work together!”

“What do you have in mind?!” Dash asked as they veered hard to the left to avoid incoming spheres.

“These two are nothing if we get up close and personal! If we can flank them and force them together we can—” Silver was cut off and they came to an abrupt halt as ten clones, five of Trance and five of Witch, appeared around them in a bright flash of light. Before Dash could react in any way. Silver suddenly grabbed her by the arm. “I know, it’s a good plan, remember what I said to do.”

“WHAT?! WHOA!!!!!” Dash yelped as Silver yanked her towards him, latching both hooves to her as he began to swing her around. “AHHHH!!!” Dash yelped as he spun her, her back hooves crashing into the faces of the clones and destroying them as if Silver was using her as a living flail. Dash continued to yelp and shriek as Silver swung her around and around, destroying the rest of the clones before making one final spin and flinging her towards Witch.

“Keep up the good work!” he yelled as he turned and fired towards Trance.

Dash quickly took control of her flight, making use of the insane momentum Silver’s throw had given her to take an arcing path towards Witch, who failed to track Dash with her barrage of magic bolts. Dash made a mental note to punch Silver across the face for surprising her and using her as a weapon before focusing on her target.

Witch couldn’t keep up with Dash’s movements as she grew closer and closer, visibly panicking when she realized Dash was gaining ground. She aimed to get behind Witch before pressing an assault and forcing her towards Trance, since that was the one actual part of Silver’s plan she fully registered before he whipped her around like a ragdoll.

“AH!” Witch yelped as Dash shot right past her and thrust her wings out to brake. She came to a halt and pumped her wings, ramming her shoulder into Witch’s side before she could fully turn. Dash pushed her off and kept pressuring her, forcing Witch to back away and guard herself as Dash continued to shove her forward again and again.

She glanced up to see Silver wailing on Trance… it just wasn’t the little guy’s day, getting throttled in the face several times by two different ponies.

As Silver ordered, the two of them drew closer and closer as they forced their enemies together. Eventually Trance and Witch were less than a yard away, and…

“CROSS!” Silver yelled out as he disengaged Trance, shot past him, and began to wind up a full motion punch. Dash didn’t say a word, she saw exactly what Silver was doing, and using her knowledge of synchronized movements from the Streak twins, she copied his movements on the spot, launching by Witch while winding up a full motion punch of her own.

Dash and Silver passed right beside each other… and unloaded their crushing blows into the faces of the two Shadowbolts, Dash hitting Trance and Silver hitting Witch. The two Shadowbolts took the attacks head on while moving in the opposite direction of the force, causing them to whiplash backwards, Witch’s goggles shattering and ripping from her face before the two ran directly into each other and fell limply to the ground. Their crystals fell with them, landing softly in the snow as their owners landed roughly beside them.

“See? Told you it was a good plan!” Silver said with a snide wink. Dash just stared flatly at him, but he didn’t look at her long enough to notice. “Now hold them down! Don’t let them regain control of their crystals!”

Dash quickly dropped the look, remembering she failed to take her opportunity against Trance earlier. The crystals were already picking themselves up out of the snow. She dropped down and grabbed Witch as she struggled to stand, putting her in a headlock before forcing her head to the ground. The crystals shook, flickered, and fell back into the snow. Witch struggled beneath Dash, but she wasn’t nearly as strong. As the crystals started to rise again, Dash simply gave Witch another thump of the head against the snow. Did it feel a little cruel? Yes, but she saw Macho Savage do this back in the engine room of the compound, and if they let them refocus, they’d just get right back up.

“Good work,” Silver’s voice caught Dash’s attention. She looked up to see him simply sitting beside Trance, holding his face against the snow as the little Shadowbolt flailed. He let up for a moment to let Trance get a breath of air, but before his crystals could even react, he pushed his head right back down. “We just iced two of their commanders…” Silver smirked at her. “And… even though you’re still just a recruit, you came through when we needed you.” He winked again. “I definitely picked the right student.”

“Heh… oh, stop it you,” Dash chuckled as she pushed Witch down again. She exhaled as her adrenaline rush began to fade a little, and the sting of pain around her body returned. She winced a little, but didn’t let it break her focus. She was sure Silver was feeling it too, but as usual, he wasn’t showing it.

Dash glanced towards the other fights still going on, specifically the crazy fight going on between Soarin and Rapidfire. Descent and Blade were still deadlocked and yelling at each other… and Dash couldn’t see where Fleetfoot had gone. Spitfire was still being held by Moon, but it was clear he was struggling to hold her in place. Spitfire was growling and yelling fiercely as she tried to break free.

“Stay down,” Silver suddenly ordered. Dash looked towards him with concern, but also looked at Witch pinned below her. “I know you want to help… I do too, but we’ll have to place our faith in them. If we get up, these two will just be right back in the game.”

As much as it pained Dash to sit there and watch instead of help, Silver was right. She just had to have faith.

“Will you shut up already?! I’m not bending to your words!” Blade yelled as he swiped his sword about. Descent backed away, dodging and deflecting several times before rushing forward and purposely putting them in another deadlock. The crystals around his hoof crackled and flicked as Descent pressed his hooves to the sword.

“So you’ll bend to your own self-inflicted demise, but you will not hear out an old friend?!” Descent yelled as the two butted heads.

“You are NOT my friend!” Blade yelled as he forced Descent forward. “You revoked that privilege when you betrayed us all!”

“Tell me, Blade…” Descent took a quieter tone as the two remained locked. “When you look around you… do you still see the Shadowbolts?”

Blade’s eyes widened slightly.

“Do you still see your family?” Descent continued. “Do you still care for them as brothers and sisters?!”

Blade gritted his teeth and looked away briefly, but before he could refocus he caught a glimpse of both Trance and Witch, defeated and held to the ground.

“What?!” Blade verbally reacted as he blinked. The two pushed off and Descent glanced down to see what Blade had seen.

“Hmph… why so surprised?” Descent asked as the two locked glares again. “You may have surprised the Wonderbolts and caught them off guard with your magic and tricks… but did you really think such a highly regarded group wouldn’t learn from their encounters?” Descent glanced around. “You underestimated them… bringing so few along. I don’t know what your intentions were with such few numbers, but you should have known better… or were you just blindly following orders… not thinking of the consequences?”

“Rgghhh…” Blade growled as he looked around again. Trance and Witch were down, but he also saw Moon still keeping Spitfire held, and Ruin having no trouble at all against Fleetfoot. He held up his sword and pointed it at Descent. “The battle is not yet lost… Witch and Trance are careless.”

“Yet they were named commanders?” Descent lifted an eyebrow. “Just how much control do you really have, Blade?”

“I swear I will cut you down if you don’t shut up!” Blade growled.

“Like you’ve been trying already?!” Descent barked towards him. “Take off those goggles and open your damn eyes, Blade!”

“NO!” Blade yelled as he rushed forward again. “NO! NO! NO!”

“It’s a little depressing when you think about it…” Ruin was reclining in the snow, right on top of a battered and beaten Fleetfoot. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t follow Ruin’s movements or land a single hit. He had bested her seemingly effortlessly despite her being a lead squad Wonderbolt. “Conflicts, I mean…” Ruin rocked back and forth on his side as he turned and grabbed Fleetfoot’s mane, pulling her head up gently.

“Gah… ah…” she panted and gasped in pain.

“Both sides think they are right and nothing will change their minds.” He released a heavy sigh as he reached a hoof out and examined it before blowing off some snow that had collected on it. “But at the end of the conflict, somepony has to be wrong… and they are forced to conform… or be shunned.”

“Rgh…” Fleetfoot tried to stand up, but he had her firmly pinned, despite looking lackadaisical.

“And I find that sickening to be honest,” he growled as he pressed Fleetfoot’s head into the snow. “To be told you’re wrong without a way to defend yourself… to have your very thoughts revoked… cast aside as if you’re not even supposed to exist.”

“AH!” Fleetfoot gasped for air as he let her head up. He leaned down and bounced his eyebrows at her.

“But honestly, what do I know?” he chuckled as he twirled his hooves above his head. “I couldn’t care less after all… I just want to see everypony SQUIRM…” He shoved Fleetfoot’s head back into the snow. “HHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” he cackled as she writhed beneath him. “Oh? Oh dear…”

Ruin suddenly leapt off of Fleetfoot as something very large shot by, slamming to the ground nearby and skidding to a halt. Ruin looked up and around him, chuckling to himself as his eyes narrowed upward, his cheekbones scrunching his face around his nose.

“Lookie, lookie here! I feel so popular!” he cooed.

Matteo turned from his landing zone and quickly stepped up, standing over Fleetfoot protectively. Overhead, Storm Front, Squall, Little Star, and the Renegade scout, Astral Bolt all hovered down. Storm turned to Astral as they descended.

“Astral go and warn the…” he trailed off as Astral had already turned and rocketed back towards the blizzard in the distance as fast as his creaky wings could take him. “Efficient,” Storm commented as he and the rest of Squad Foxtrot landed in front of Matteo, eyeing Ruin as the Shadowbolt licked his lips.

“I’m sure making lots of new friends today… and friendship is magic, they say! HAHAHA!!!!” Ruin tipped his head back as he laughed uncontrollably.

“The hell is up with this guy?” Squall scrunched his face as he watched Ruin.

Matteo stepped up beside Storm as the two surveyed their surroundings. Matteo’s eyes found Dash and Silver first, noticing they were busy holding down Shadowbolts. Dash had noticed them and was waving, but had to quickly refocus on her ‘prisoner.’

Storm, of course, immediately spotted the fight between Descent and Blade going on overhead. He forced himself to remain still, trusting his father’s abilities. Descent clearly had it under control. He also saw Soarin and Rapidfire fighting nearby, their movements hard to discern with all the magic flashing around them.

They had already seen Spitfire and Moon upon arrival, but with the shield of magic encircling the two, it was obvious they couldn’t do anything to help. Either way, Fleetfoot was in need of assistance the most, and they had arrived in time.

“Having fun admiring the views?” Ruin slurred his words creepily at them as he tipped over and reclined on his side. “You’d better entertain me soon… or I’ll have to take matters into my own hooves.”

“I’d say you’re losing this battle,” Matteo huffed back at Ruin, his stoic demeanor unaffected by Ruin’s creepy air. “You’ve two comrades down, and soon Astral will bring the whole force out here against you. I don’t see any backup coming your way.”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Ruin burst out laughing as he keeled over and fell completely into the snow. He continued laughing as he started making a snow angel. Storm, Squall, Matteo, and Star all reclined their necks backwards while glancing at each other. “You know…” Ruin’s voice suddenly came from behind them. They all turned and took battle stances as Ruin popped out of the snow behind them. “I think you should all take a good look below you…” he pointed to the battered Fleetfoot that Matteo was still standing over protectively. “Now take a good look at this beautiful image of a stallion.” He pointed to himself while rubbing his hoof around his chest. “Not a scratch on me… after taking down one of your best… Heh… haha… I mean, do I really have to spell this out for you? Do I have to do the math? C-A-T spells four? Two plus two equals cat? You think throwing a few weaklings at me is going to make aaaaaaaaaany difference?”

“Star,” Storm spoke up. “I want you to look after Fleetfoot.”

“But…” Star blinked as she looked at Squall and Matteo.

“That’s an order,” Storm said firmly as Matteo stepped away from Fleetfoot.

“Y-yes… sir…” Star said reluctantly, not wanting to be on the sidelines while her friends engaged a very dangerous enemy, but Storm was a superior officer and they couldn’t leave Fleetfoot unattended.

Star bent down and slipped her body beneath Fleetfoot’s chest, helping her stand up and move slowly as Storm, Matteo, and Squall all stood at the ready, facing Ruin.

“Too long, I’m bored,” Ruin said casually as he suddenly disappeared and popped out of the snow directly in front of them. “PUNCH ME IN THE FAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!” he yelled with his eyes wide, nearly breaking free from the diameter of his goggle lenses.

Without hesitation, both Matteo and Squall lunged forward, throwing punches towards Ruin as hard as they could.

“WHOOPSIE!” Ruin chuckled as he ducked and the two fell forward, Squall’s and Matteo’s arms crossing as they fell into each other. “PAH!” Ruin yelled as he fired four spheres backwards. They wiggled and wobbled as they arced around and launched towards Matteo.

“URGH!” Matteo grunted as he brought up his large wing to block them, the magic exploding against them and knocking several feathers loose. Squall backed off to set himself as Storm rushed forward in his place. He jammed his front hooves to the ground in rapid succession to use the Surface Tap and spring over the top of Ruin. With him and Squall flanking Ruin, they both charged.

“Is it humid today?” Ruin asked nonchalantly as he disappeared and reappeared behind Squall with all of his fur puffed up beneath his suit. “OH GOD, IT’S HUMID!”

“GAH!” Squall yelped, as he tried to shake Ruin off. Storm leapt up and dove at Ruin, but Ruin suddenly dropped off Squall, grabbed him by the arm, and threw him into Storm. The two tumbled to a halt as Matteo jumped up, beating his wings hard to use his Air Burst and propel directly up to Ruin.

“BOY, ARE YOU FAT!” Ruin yelled as he suddenly popped out of Matteo’s feathers.

“BLAST IT!” Matteo didn’t hesitate, willingly driving his body into the ground in hopes of getting Ruin caught in the collision. “OOF!” He grunted, and felt nothing smash between him and the cold ground as he skidded through the snow.

“ABOVE US!” Storm yelled as he and Squall looked up.

“CATCH!” Ruin laughed as he flailed his arms about, sending magic spheres in all directions with no clear path or target. Storm and Matteo were forced to shield themselves with Star doing her best to keep Fleetfoot from harm not too far away.

“RGGGGHHH!!!!” Squall growled as he managed to deflect a wayward sphere before leaping up and preparing to use his rapid strikes. “HOOORRRYAA—”

He cut himself off, his eyes widening as Ruin appeared behind him and leaned his chin on Squall’s shoulder.

“Nice scar! It makes you look EXTRA gloomy!” Ruin teased. Squall reached up and grabbed Ruin by the head, pulling him over his shoulder with the intention of throwing him down. “Whoopsie DAISY!” Ruin yelled out as he turned the momentum on Squall, flinging him right over HIS shoulder the moment Squall followed through. Squall crashed right into Matteo, who fell against Storm, causing them to all collapse in a heap. They all struggled to get up, but Ruin was in the pile with them! “Snowcone, anypony?” he offered, bouncing his eyebrows before throwing his hooves out to create a shockwave of magic that threw all three of them into the air. “HOO! HOO! HAA! HAA! WAHAHA!” he hooted and hollered as he followed up by launching multiple hooffulls of spheres up into the air.

“GUYS!” Star yelled out in horror as she watched them get peppered in the air before all falling limply around Ruin.

“Huh, really I wasn’t expecting much, but jeez…” Ruin shrugged while reclining back down in the snow. “Well, come on, try to get up while I observe myself…” he taunted while pulling a mirror out of nowhere and examining his face, making duck faces at his reflection.

“NO!” Dash yelled out as she watched, but the moment she started moving—

“DASH! STAND DOWN!” Silver yelled to her, causing her to freeze in place.

“But…!” she looked between him and her friends.

“THAT’S AN ORDER! DO NOT LET THAT SHADOWBOLT UP!” Silver barked at her. Dash shook her head.

“That Shadowbolt is hurting them!” she spoke the obvious, but Silver just glared sternly.

“That Shadowbolt also took down FLEETFOOT,” he reminded her. “He’s clearly much more dangerous than these two! If you jump at him, you’ll go down and let your captive up!”

Dash bit her lip as she glared towards Ruin as he taunted the hurting Matteo, Storm, and Squall. What could she do?!

But… she didn’t have to do anything.

“Can’t… keep… track of him…” Matteo grunted as he struggled to stand up, spheres of magic whirling around above each of them, knocking them back down each time they tried to get up.

“How is he moving like that…?” Storm wondered out loud as he was smacked back down.

“GRGH!” Squall was struck by two blasts to the back. He was stuffed back into the snow and glared as he pulled his face back out. “This guy…ARGH!” Squall winced as he was hit again. “He’s worse than Twister!”

“WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” a sudden noise that sounded like a siren came from above.

“What the everlasting f—” Ruin blinked and looked up. Something green was shooting towards him. “WHOA!”

Ruin stepped aside to allow whatever was falling towards him to avoid a hard impact…

But with a loud TING… Twister landed softly in front of Ruin, in a ballet dancer pose on the tip of his hooves as if he hadn’t just fallen several hundred yards through the air.

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii there!” Twister bent over backwards, looking into Ruin’s eyes as Ruin stared blankly at him. He reached up and grabbed Ruin’s goggles, pulling them way back before letting go. Ruin ducked, his goggles launching off the top of his head and falling into the snow behind him.

“Twister?!” Star called out as she saw him appear. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!” she fumed, but Twister was suddenly right beside her.

“BRUH, I’VE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME!” he said as he put her in a headlock and gave her a soft noogie. “Now…” he dropped her in the snow and zipped over to Squall, grabbing him by the ears and yanking him over.

“Ow! Ow!” Squall yelped as Twister tugged on his ears.

“Watch my buddies!” Twister asked of Star as his smile went past the boundaries of his face. He leapt back over and dragged Storm by the tail over as well. “So I can…”

He stopped in front of Matteo, scratching his head. He took a deep breath with his hooves in front of his face, closing his mouth around them both while blowing hard. The muscles in his arms and upper body inflated to comical proportions (with his legs remaining skinny). He hoisted Matteo up into the air over his head and carried the incredulous large griffon over to the others, tossing him to the ground in a way that made Matteo land face first in the snow, his legs kicking as muffled swears came from within.

“BEAT UP THIS GIRLY-STALLION,” Twister said in a strangely deep voice with an accent. A valve suddenly popped on his back and his body deflated back down to normal with a long FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Ruin’s eye twitched as he watched Twister saunter back up to him before a wide sneer appeared on his face.

“Oh, I like this guy already!” Ruin chuckled as he and Twister sneered at each other.

“Guys…” Star stuffed herself beneath Squall’s wing, just peeking her little head out to see Twister and Ruin. “I’m scared… this is gonna be weird…”

“SO!” Ruin slid up to Twister with his head turned slightly, biting his lower lip with wide eyes. “You think you’re pretty good, huh?”

Twister mirrored the action, sliding right up to meet Ruin halfway, also turning his head and biting his lower lip.

“Oh, I’m the best!” Twister replied as the two continued to give each other the exact same silly look.

They remained like that for several moments, never looking away, changing expression, or blinking. Until suddenly…

“PAH!” Ruin chucked a snowball into Twister’s face. “HAHAHAHAHA! GOTCHA!” Ruin cackled, but the snow instantaneously melted and dripped off of Twister’s face, save for a snow monocle, moustache, and cigar.

“I say, good sir! I do believe the game is ahoof!” Twister bounced his eyebrows as the snow cigar spontaneously combusted and burned down to a nub. A shadow appeared over Ruin.

“Eh?” Ruin looked up and a giant pile of snow fell down from above, landing over the top of him with a loud PLOP.

“SNOW DAY!” Twister yelled as he put on a hat and scarf before grabbing a snow shovel and zipping around the mound of snow faster than anypony else could follow. He shaved the pile down until just a snow sculpture of a pony remained.

“Blah!” Ruin’s head suddenly popped out of the snow pony head as he shook his head vigorously. Before he could even glare, Twister jammed lumps of coal over his eyes and shoved a carrot in his mouth.

“Hmm…” Twister backed up and scratched his chin as Ruin began to growl. “Meh, two out of ten, would not snow pony again!” He zipped around Ruin and smacked him in the back of the head with the shovel, forcing the coal and carrot off of Ruin’s face.

“Heh… hehahahaha!” Ruin laughed out as his head disappeared into the snow pony… and the whole thing fell into a pile. “You’re good!” he appeared behind Twister, grabbed him and tossed him into the air. “But you’re all show!” Ruin threw his arms out, firing several of his spheres in random directions. They all wiggled and waggled on their paths before shooting towards Twister. They collided with him in midair, sphere after sphere, explosion after explosion.

“Zero out of ten, seen better fireworks in a popcorn machine,” Twister suddenly said from beside Ruin.

“GAH!” Ruin shifted away as his crystals flared. Twister hopped back and forth on his hooves, zigzagging towards Ruin slowly. “So! You wanna play that way, do ya?” Ruin sneered. In the blink of an eye he was behind Twister. “Gotcha!”

“Nope!” Twister said from behind him. Ruin flattened his brow and appeared behind Twister again.

“Gotcha!”

“Nope!” Twister again, managed to get behind him right after. Ruin scrounged his face, steam blowing out of his ears like a tea kettle.

“GOTCHA!”

“NOPE!”

“GOTCHA!”

“NOPE!”

“GOTCHA!”

“NOPE!”

They kept shifting behind each other, the two slowly moving out of sight of everypony else as they kept shifting and shifting and shifting repeatedly.

Squall, Storm, Matteo, and Little Star all stared blankly as they disappeared for a minute until…

“GOTCHA!”

“NOPE!”

“GOTCHA”

“NOPE!”

They had turned around and came back the other direction.

“GRAAAAAH! Okay! You’ve got some skill!” Ruin growled while getting into Twister’s face. Twister tipped forward and pressed his chest against Ruin’s causing a long, squeaky fart to sound out and a blast of air to rush against Ruin’s chin. Ruin took a step back and grabbed the whoopee cushion off of Twister’s chest, turning it around with the intention of releasing the rest of the air back at Twister.

Twister took a deep breath and blew into the open end of the cushion, inflating it way past its capacity until it exploded. Ruin flinched and backed up, only to see Twister right back in his face, puffing his cheeks out and sticking his tongue out. Ruin lifted an eyebrow, smirking.

He quickly copied Twister’s face. They stayed that way for a brief moment before Twister changed his face, biting his upper lip and making his eyes go in opposite directions. Ruin copied. Twister made fish lips with narrowed eyes. Ruin copied. Twister opened his mouth wide, turning his head to the side while blinking his eyes unevenly. Ruin copied.

The game of copycat continued, Twister making faces faster and faster, and Ruin keeping up with his many strange facial expressions. It got to a point where they barely kept one face for a second, but Twister started repeating faces in a fixed pattern that went around and around a dozen times.

Twister then pulled away and disappeared into the snow, but Ruin kept on making the faces as if still trying to keep up. The others all watched with blank expressions as Ruin continued to make the faces to nopony.

After several cycles of Ruin making the weird faces, Twister’s head popped up out of the snow along with a sign that read ‘Silly, isn’t he?’ with a squiggly arrow that eventually pointed at Ruin and the squiggles of the arrow were arranged in a way that spelled the word ‘butt.’ Ruin froze the moment the sign came into view and completely flattened his expression as he glanced at Twister.

“You sly, crazy bastard…” Ruin said ironically before smiling again. “I admit I’m impressed, but can you keep it up?!”

Off to the side, Squall pressed his hooves to the side of his head.

“I’m seriously losing ALL of my brain cells watching this…” he groaned.

“I mean… He’s literally doing nothing productive…” Storm commented as Twister and Ruin began another round of silly pranks on each other. “But…” he turned and looked down as Star helped Fleetfoot stand up again. “If Twister can keep him occupied until backup arrives… all the better.”

“That pony…” Fleetfoot spoke up, drawing all of their attention.

“Commander, take it easy,” Star encouraged, but flinched as Fleetfoot reached and clutched Star tightly, shaking. “He’s… not normal… he’s… dangerous… I…” Fleetfoot slammed her eyes shut. “I don’t know…”

The rest all glanced between each other, unnerved by how weak and scared the commander Fleetfoot looked when describing Ruin.

“Then I guess…” Matteo swallowed as he looked towards Twister and Ruin goofing off. “We’re fortunate Twister is keeping him entertained…”

“Enough…” Blade pushed away from Descent as he examined the battlefield again.

“Going to listen to me now?” Descent asked while hovering in place.

“Ha!” Blade scoffed. “Absolutely not… we are fighting a losing battle here. We took the chance with a small, hard to detect group and letting our little, annoying spy try it his way, but it’s clear it failed.”

“Hey!” Descent yelled as Blade retracted his sword and flew towards Soarin and Rapidfire. “Get back here!"

Blade fixed his eyes on Soarin and Rapidfire as the two grappled with each other in midair. They were both beat up and bruised, their battle easily the most brutal and action packed of any of the bouts that had occurred.

“What the—?!” Soarin turned and let go of Rapidfire, putting up his hooves to guard as Blade suddenly rammed him in the side. Soarin tumbled backwards, but quickly regained a hover as he looked between the two.

“Blade!” Rapidfire growled. “Butt out! This is—HURK!” Rapidfire was cut off as Blade grabbed him by the neck of his flight suit and pulled him forward, butting heads with him as he glared and snarled into Rapidfire’s face.

“We’re done here…” he said in an intimidating tone. “And if you disobey my orders ONE MORE TIME… I will kill you VERY slowly, making sure you feel every bit of pain possible before you die. UNDERSTAND?!”

“Y-y…” Rapidfire stuttered, his eyes wide beneath his goggles. “Yes… Sir…” he barely managed to say as Blade let go of him. Blade turned, his crystals flickering as he threw his hooves out, covering them both with a shield. Descent ran directly into it, grunting as he bounced over it and almost ran into Soarin. Soarin grabbed him by the arm to help him regain himself.

“Blast it…” Descent grunted as he and Soarin floated side by side. “These damn shields.”

“They’re trying to get away?” Soarin asked as he looked around for the rest of the Shadowbolts. As he did, he noticed Trance and Witch were down. He turned back to Blade. “Leaving without your friends?”

“Hmph…” Blade scoffed, still protected by his shield. “They underestimated their opponents and have fallen. If they can’t even muster the strength to use their own crystals, then they have become useless.”

“Is that really what you feel?” Descent asked as he looked down at Trance and Witch. “Or is that your blind devotion to orders again?”

Blade and Descent glared at each other for a few moments, Soarin catching the vibe that something wasn’t quite right, but without the details, he had nothing. Blade simply grunted again before turning to his two comrades that were still up.

“RUIN! MOON! We’re done here!” he yelled to them. “Moon, make sure she’s held until we can get away, we don’t have the numbers to take her on.”

“RRRRRRRRRRRGH!” Spitfire growled as she glared at Moon like a wild beast. Moon was panting and sweating as he struggled to keep her in place. He shook his head slowly.

“Unbelievable…” he said to himself as he looked towards Blade and Rapidfire. “URGH!” he grunted as he poured more magic into his telekinesis. “How… how are you so strong? Nothing should be able to move in this!”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH WAVE?!” Spitfire continued to pull and tug on the magic binds. “TELL ME! WHERE IS HE!? WHERE?! IS?! HE?! I SWEAR IF YOU’VE LAID A SINGLE HOOF ON HIM…!” she barked in pure anger, a tone of bloodlust in her voice towards anyone who may have brought harm to her lover. Moon watched her as she pulled and struggled in a mixture of rage and desperation. He looked down, closing his eyes as he kept her in place.

“Your friend… he’s…”

Moon was cut off as Ruin suddenly popped into the shield surrounding them and hoisted an arm over Moon’s shoulder.

“Oh, chill out you silly pony!” Ruin chuckled as he pointed to Spitfire. “He’s a Wonderbolt second commander! It would be such a waste if we right out killed him… We…” Ruin was cut off as a loud POOM came from outside the shield. Moon and Ruin looked to their right to see Twister with his body flat against the shield. He started breathing air to fog it up as if it were glass. “Right…” Ruin blinked before turning back to Spitfire.

“As I was saying… you don’t need to worry at all… for now,” he bounced his eyebrows as he hovered away from Moon and up to Spitfire. “We’ll be sure to keep him alive…” He placed a hoof on her chin, which she instantly bit at, but he pulled it away. “So we can TORTURE him…” the white of his eyes suddenly turned black, his pupils turning white and shrinking as he opened his eyes as wide as he could. Spitfire’s ears flopped down and her face was wrought with pure horror. “Squeeze ALL the information we can out of him…” Ruin’s smile widened into a very creepy grin. “And THEN… We’ll kill him… and I’ll be sure to be creative with it! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Ruin cackled as Moon shook his head.

“Ruin, I—”

“Let me guess,” Ruin was back beside Moon quickly. “You need help holding her down so we can get out of here?”

“Yes,” Moon nodded calmly.

“WAH-TAH!” Ruin thrust his hooves towards Spitfire, his crystals shooting a magical discharge towards her that surrounded the telekinetic holds around Spitfire and made them grow thicker. “There! Now she won’t get out until we’re long gone!”

“Right…” Moon sighed as his crystals glowed and the shield retracted from around Spitfire and then moved with the two of them up towards Blade and Rapidfire, leaving Spitfire in place and shaking Twister off… but not before he drew a large plot in the fogged up portion with the words ‘Ruin’s fat ass’ next to it.

“Bah,” Ruin looked towards Twister. “I’ll be sure to not underestimate YOU next time, he said towards Twister as he comically tumbled to the ground much more than he should have been in a simple fall.

As the shield rose up and merged with the shield holding Blade and Rapidfire, Moon blinked, looking around until he say Trance and Witch being held down.

“Wait! Blade…” He pointed down. Blade shook his head.

“They were careless, we’re leaving,” Blade repeated. Moon folded his ears back.

“You can’t be serious…” Moon voiced his concern.

“I’m very serious,” Blade glared at him.

Soarin and Descent could both see it. Moon seemed different, expressing concern for his comrades and all around looking as if he was… displeased with their actions altogether. But he quickly caved once Blade made his intentions clear.

“So what are you going to do?” Descent spoke up as Blade, Rapidfire, Ruin, and Moon all hovered in the shield. “You’ll have to drop the shield to get away quickly. If you keep it up and move slowly, our reinforcements will arrive and easily catch you.”

“We’re not letting you get away! Not until you hand over Wave!” Soarin added.

“Hmph…” Blade shook his head. “I hate to break it to you, but your friend is already being held at our fortress. Probably the only good thing that came of this…” he said gruffly as he shot a glare back at Rapidfire. “So don’t expect to ever see him again.”

“Grgh…” Soarin growled, not quite sure what to say. If they really had Wave at their fortress already…

“As for our escape…” Blade shook his head. “If you think we don’t have escape maneuvers… then you’re just as guilty of underestimating us! NOW!”

As Blade gave the order, he, Ruin, and Moon all thrust their hooves out. The shield veil covering them pushed outward violently. Descent and Soarin both yelped in surprise, throwing their hooves up to protect themselves as the shield throttled against them HARD as if it were a shockwave with physical form. They were both knocked right out of the sky and sent falling towards the ground, tumbling out of control.

The Shadowbolts shed their shield and turned to leave, beating their wings hard to build up speed quickly.

But Soarin refused to let them go.

As he and Descent drew near the ground with a painful impact imminent, Soarin forced his body to turn so all four of his hooves angled to the ground. Descent crashed and bounced through the snow with painful grunts, but Soarin’s hooves slammed down, right in the position he wanted to be. He locked onto the retreating Shadowbolts and swiftly executed all of the movements to activate the Sonic Blast-off.

Kicking up an explosion of snow behind him, Soarin launched after them, breaking an aircone and emanating a sonic boom that was luckily mostly muffled with a loud POOF from the snow around him. He fired towards them at a tremendous speed. His horn was alight and his eyes glowing blue, causing a light blue streak to follow behind him.

The Shadowbolts were completely unaware he was approaching… and catching up at an alarming rate. He aimed right for Blade, figuring he was in command and the others wouldn’t be so willing to leave him.

Unfortunately, as he drew near… Rapidfire decided to look over his shoulder.

“LOOK OUT!” Rapidfire yelled, throwing himself towards Blade and ramming himself into Soarin right before he could deliver the knockout blow to Blade’s back. The rest of the Shadowbolts shifted aside in surprise as Rapidfire latched onto Soarin and was pulled along as Soarin’s disrupted trajectory forced him off target.

“GRRGH! GIVE IT UP!” Soarin yelled as he and Rapidfire locked arms, trying to overpower the other as they seared through the sky at outrageous speeds.

“I’LL NEVER LOSE TO YOU AGAIN!” Rapidfire yelled with hopeless determination as they fought for control.

Their struggle against each other caused their direction to change, moving in a wide arc all the way up into the sky, and all the way around until they were shooting back towards the mountains. As they grappled, they tried everything they could to get an edge. There was no technique and finesse, it was uncontrollable thrashing… and with their wings flapping together and gravity in general, their speed increased even further, adding to the speed generated by the Sonic Blast-off. They were moving so fast that Soarin could barely keep his eyes open with the wind blasting against him.

They were so focused on trying to overpower the other that neither of them realized they had broken through a second aircone with their combined wing power. They were traveling at dangerous speeds… while heading directly for a mountainside.

“No!” Moon stopped midflight, turning back towards Soarin and Rapidfire, but Blade circled around and caught him by the arm.

“Leave him,” Blade ordered. Moon gritted his teeth and glared.

“But he hasn’t told us the location of their compound yet!” Moon pointed out, but Blade only shook his head.

“I don’t care. We gave him his chance and look where it got us. We’ll do this our own way. I’m sick of that damn brat. Now MOVE!” Blade yelled as he threw Moon back in the right direction. Moon did as he was told, following Blade and Ruin as they got away.

“RRRRRGH!!!”

“GRRRRRHHHH!!!”

Soarin and Rapidfire didn’t look away from each other’s glares, completely sucked into their bitter rivalry. The past was flowing through their actions, dictating their focus, and not breaking free until the other was taken down.

Their lack of awareness for their surroundings, however, had them on a lethal collision course with a fast approaching mountainside.

Which grew closer…

And closer…

And closer…

Soarin’s horn began to glow… blips of yellow light appearing within the blue…

Rainbow Dash gasped as she watched the two fall so fast that they were a blur, like a comet with a blue, orange, and purple streak blazing behind it… She realized all too late that they weren’t pulling up.

“NO!” Dash yelled as she stood up from Witch. “NOOOOO!!!!”

“RAINBOW DASH!” Silver yelled as she saw her get up from her captive, but she only saw one thing, hearing nothing around her.

“SOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAARIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Soarin and Rapidfire… crashed into the mountainside.

The impact echoed throughout the mountain range, causing the whole area to shake.

Enormous drifts of snow broke free from the icecap… and plummeted down.

The Wonderbolts all shielded themselves as the resulting shockwave from the impact finally hit them, followed by the avalanche striking the ground at the base of the mountain and causing stray bits of snow and ice to shoot up and batter against them.

As the chain reaction ceased, and the avalanche stopped short of harming any of them…

They looked up to see the snow had completely fallen along the mountain side… and a whole portion of the mountain itself had crumbled and collapsed…

There was no sign of Rapidfire… or Soarin…

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Scootafail/Chiweee

Oh boy... this can't be good...

So Wave is captured and Soarin... oh dear oh dear...

But hey... it looks like the Wonderbolts have learned from their past encounter... and this has proven that The Shadowbolt commanders can be beaten...

Well... some of them... Ruin and Blade seem to be quite good regardless, but Witch and Trance didn't quite have the same oomph. Yet Rapidfire is clearly highly skilled, why does he rank lower?

Quite a lot up ahead for the Wonderbolts and Renegades...

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 109: Never Break

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 109: Never Break

“Rgghhh…” Witch growled as she slowly began to rise out of the snow.

“Rainbow Dash!” Silver yelled as he held Trance’s face in the snow. Dash didn’t turn, or give any sign that she heard or acknowledged Silver. She just kept staring at the collapsed portion of the mountain.

Witch’s crystals hovered out of the snow, glowing. She was nearly right back up.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Silver yelled her name louder, but once again got no response. “Dammit!” Silver was ready to release Trance and try to handle both at the same time, but before he could let go of the small Shadowbolt, Descent plunged down from above.

“HRM!” Descent grunted as he slammed his hooves over Witch’s head, knocking her back to the ground, her crystals falling with her. Descent stared at the crystals as they jittered, waiting for their owner to call to them again. He gritted his teeth, knowing full well that it would cause them pain if he destroyed them, but they had no choice. “Destroy the crystals!” he yelled to Silver. Silver blinked and glanced towards Trance’s crystals in the snow.

“Are you sure?!” Silver asked, making sure Descent understood what he was asking of him. Before Descent could clarify, Trance suddenly lurched, nearly slipping completely out of Silver’s grip. “Whoa!” Silver yelped as he shifted and tackled Trance before he could get near his crystals.

Without another word, Descent turned back to Witch.

“Forgive me…” he said quietly as he smashed his hooves down over all of her crystals one by one.

“AH!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Witch yelled as she watched the crystals shatter before her eyes. Small flashes of pink light shot out of her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as she reared back and grabbed her head. Despite her unsettling screams that sounded MUCH more painful that anything they had heard from the lower ranked Shadowbolts, Descent steeled his nerves, confident there was no other way to prevent them from fighting back.

He immediately turned towards Trance and repeated the process. Trance also screamed at the top of his lungs, similar bursts of light shooting from his head as Silver released him and quickly backed away.

“AAAAhhhhhhh…. Aaaaaggghhhhhh… haaaaaa…” Trance collapsed to the ground just as Witch had, both of them looking completely drained and in pain. They slowly writhed on the ground, Witch clutching her body tightly, shivering as Trance stared straight upward, his eyes wide and bloodshot.

Storm and squad Foxtrot approached them with Fleetfoot being helped by Little Star, all taking in the rather disturbing sight of the broken Shadowbolt commanders.

“Thanks, recruit, but I’ll manage…” Fleetfoot gave Little Star a soft pat on the shoulder before standing on her own. She wobbled for a moment, but found the strength in her legs and started hobbling towards Silver.

She took in the surroundings as she moved, seeing Spitfire stuck in the air, her bonds slowly weakening and seeing Dash staring towards the collapsed mountain. Fleetfoot had been dazed and confused for most of the latter half of the battle, trying to keep track of what was going on, but barely able to see over the snow drifts despite Little Star propping her up. She heard about what happened to Wave… but what was all that commotion at the end about and why was the mountain collapsed? Where was Soarin?

“Alright,” Descent spoke up after a heavy sigh, briefly pulling Fleetfoot’s attention away. “Let’s get these two back to the compound and put them with the others. Hopefully in time they can be cured just like—”

Descent froze in place, his eyes widening as Trance and Witch suddenly began screaming again, this time along with quick breaths, choking, and gagging in between.

“What the—?!” Descent pushed his goggles up and stared in horror. “What is happening?!”

“No… no, no, no, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!” Witch began to yell, tears falling from her eyes as she curled up into a ball and clutched herself tightly. “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

Crystal scabs began appearing on her face and nose. Descent gasped as clear crystals began to appear, slicing through her flight suit with their jagged edges.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” Witch yelled again.

Descent remained still, his mouth still agape as he looked towards Trance. Trance had gotten up and stood up straight proudly, his face bending and grimacing as the pain shot through his body, but managed a smile.

“If I’m to have AAHHHH! A few moments of a glorious solidified image… OOHHH!!! I want it to be… this…”

Everypony around watched in pure terror as the bodies of Trance and Witch gained the scabs and crystal formations as their lower ranking comrades had… only it happened instantly, mere moments after their crystals were destroyed.

And it showed no sign of stopping.

Descent found the will to move, darting back and forth between the two of them as Trance and Witch were slowly… slowly… completely engulfed by the crystal formations that emerged from their body. Trance remained still, letting it happen as if he was embracing it, but Witch did not go quietly, screaming out in agony and despair up until every last part of her body was trapped within.

“NO!” Descent managed to yell as he backed away from them, now speechless and nearly breathless… not wanting to believe what he just saw happen, but even that wasn’t the end of it.

The crystal statue Shadowbolts began to shimmer… and a moment later… shattered.

The bits and pieces of the crystals dissolved and floated into the air, all traces of Trance and Witch… gone..

“N…No…” Descent barely managed to squeak out as his legs shook and he fell to the ground, his eyes remaining wide, trained in the direction of where Witch and Trance last existed.

The Wonderbolts were all just as silent, jaws all dropped from the horror they just witnessed.

“My… god…” Silver spoke quietly, and was the only one of them to utter a single word.

Descent’s body lay flat in the cold snow, his body numb from something much worse than just the frigid ground beneath him. He lowered his head, sticking his nose into the snow slowly as he put his front hooves over his head.

“So…” he spoke, his voice muffled by the snow. “This… is how it is…?” He had put it together. The Shadowbolts back at the compound were slowly being affected by their single crystal being taken away… but here… “This is the consequence of using too much crystal power…” He shook his head back and forth slowly, his nose brushing back and forth in the snow. “And the fate that awaits them…”

All of the Wonderbolts except for Storm turned and looked away as reality hit Descent incredibly hard in the face. Perhaps the lower ranking Shadowbolts might yet be saved… but the commanders? It seemed using three crystals yielded much harsher consequences when said crystals were lost, instantaneous consequences.

Descent had expressed care for several of the commanders. He had known most of them for a long time. Blade was even described as a good friend.

But now… seeing this… could any of them be saved?

Fleetfoot hobbled up towards Silver as the two pulled their attention away from the horrific scene and looked skyward. Spitfire’s bonds were beginning to fizzle and pop… and eventually they vanished.

“Rgh…” Spitfire cringed, bringing her limbs in tight as her wings spread and caught her in a hover. She began a slow, shaky descent until she landed a few yards away from them.

Silver and Fleetfoot glanced at each other, the two witty Wonderbolts with no words to spare or share as they turned and slowly made their way towards Spitfire.

Spitfire sat down in the snow as they approached, slumped her shoulders, and leaned her head forward as her body shook.

“Damn it…” she cursed, gritting her teeth with her eyes shut tight. “Damn it!” she yelled louder. "DAMN IT ALL!” she shouted out as she pounded her hooves into the snow several times. Fleetfoot and Silver both paused in their tracks as Spitfire vented her frustration into the snow. She had many reasons to be frustrated. She had been used, led on, lured into a trap, was careless, and was forced to watch a battle she could have easily turned in their favor quickly… but of course, there was one thing that had her more frustrated than anything else… “Wave…” she said quietly to herself as Fleetfoot and Silver continued on their path towards her.

The two of them stopped a yard away, giving her space in a moment of anger. Silver looked between Spitfire and Descent.

“Just when I thought we had shown them a thing or two…” Silver shook his head and fell onto his plot as his body ached. “Now I see two of our leaders have been dealt a heavy emotional blow…”

Fleetfoot moved up to Spitfire, quickly feeling the need to be there for her longtime friend.

“Spitty…” she reached a wing out and draped it over Spitfire’s shoulder. She didn’t know what to say. Despite their apparent victory, what was the cost? Wave had been captured by the Shadowbolts… Spitfire’s happiness ripped from her and sent right down the drain… Fleetfoot wanted to say she felt for her… but she had never known such a feeling.

Fleetfoot suddenly perked up as something came back to her.

Soarin…

“Where is Soarin?!” Fleetfoot asked as she looked towards Silver. Silver’s ears flopped down as she asked. He took a long, deep breath, before looking towards Rainbow Dash.

Fleetfoot followed his eyes, spotting Dash as well… and how she was staring at a mountain that had a large portion of it in pieces, crumbled, and collapsed. It didn’t take long for Fleetfoot to put the pieces together as she quietly gasped and threw a free hoof over her mouth.

“No…” she squeaked… “You… don’t mean…” she looked at Silver again. Silver exhaled loudly through his nostrils.

“Him and Rapidfire… heavy collision…” Silver said without emotion. Fleetfoot squinted further as she looked back towards the mountain, small tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“No… after all we’ve been through… Soarin…”

Rainbow Dash continued to face away from them all, even as squad Foxtrot, finally all back together again, approached her slowly with Storm. All of them thought the same thing as they stared at her, frozen in place staring at the mountain.

A huge chunk of the mountain had broken away and collapsed and Soarin was nowhere to be found… the reality of the situation was hard to accept.

There was no way anypony caught in the massive avalanche and rockslide could have survived. Storm glanced back at Dash’s squadmates. Matteo was staring towards the mountain with a straight, stoic expression, surveying the damage, but no doubt aware of what had happened. Squall had his eyes fixed on Dash, but his attention shifted to Star. Star’s ears were pressed to the sides of her head, a little hoof over her mouth and her eyes filled with sadness.

“Commander Soarin…” Star managed to squeak out as she shifted between Matteo and Squall, nestling herself between their arms. Twister was floating in place above them. His usual expression in place, but he made no moves or any attempt to do anything silly. He simply stared.

Storm sighed as he looked towards the mountain himself. There was a knot in his heart, a feeling that he didn’t want to acknowledge, but he had to. Soarin was the pony that helped him feel comfortable in his unexpected position among the elites… and his best friend among them. However, he wasn’t about to believe he was feeling this as hard as Dash.

“Dash… I…” Storm stepped forward, trying to find words of comfort, but what could he say? She just lost her loved one and—

Rainbow Dash suddenly stood up sharply.

Storm and the rest all focused on her as she turned around and faced them, but wasn’t looking at them. Her expression was vacant, but full of focus. She looked down at the snow and back and forth as she slowly reached a hoof up to her chest and placed it over her heart.

Her heart was beating faster than normal.

“Dash…?” Storm asked as he blinked and watched her.

Dash turned around and looked back at the mountain as she continued to hold her hoof over her heart and feel the faster rhythm.

Before any of them could ask her what she was doing, she suddenly turned and trotted right past them. Dash moved quickly, all the way over to Silver, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot.

Silver and Fleetfoot both turned to Dash, Spitfire not moving from her slumped position, eyes down towards the snow. The two Wonderbolts eyed Dash curiously, as Dash wore a serious expression, filled with hope? It definitely wasn’t the face of a mare who just lost the stallion of her life.

“Soarin is alive,” Dash finally spoke.

A wave of silent disbelief rushed through all those present… that weren’t currently occupied. Storm, Squall, Matteo, Star, and Twister all quickly moved towards them, having heard Dash speak, but not sure they heard her correctly.

Fleetfoot tipped her head to the side and lifted an eyebrow.

“Uh…” She wasn’t sure what to say as Silver stood up and hobbled towards Dash.

“Pardon?” he asked as Dash nodded at him and pressed a hoof over her heart again.

“Soarin isn’t dead,” Dash stated again.

Silver and Fleetfoot exchanged glances.

“Dash…” Silver shook his head and sighed. “He crashed into a mountain and it fell on top of him.”

“There’s just no way…” Fleetfoot took over as she looked back towards the mountain as she sniffled. “I’m one for staying positive, but…”

“He’s. Not. Dead,” Dash repeated again, this time putting emphasis on each word and showing absolutely no shaken emotion. Fleetfoot looked at her like she couldn’t believe Dash wasn’t taking it seriously, but Silver examined the look in his student’s eyes, noticing a fire lit behind them that he had come to recognize over their time training together.

Dash was not an unreasonable pony, and in the wake of something tragic, like Soarin being killed, she wouldn’t blindly go around saying he wasn’t dead without reason. He hobbled up to her and stood directly in front of her, looking down at her sternly.

“Alright Dash…” Silver snorted. “I’ll bite. How do you know he isn’t dead?” he asked, drawing Fleetfoot’s attention to him briefly before she looked back and forth between them. She looked like she was about to protest how heartless they were being, especially Dash because of how much Soarin meant to her… but then Dash pressed a hoof over her heart again and smiled.

“Because I’m alive,” she said simply.

Silver’s eyes opened, losing the stern look and replacing it with a blank one. He remained that way for a moment before scrunching his face and giving Dash a look similar to Fleetfoot’s.

“Have you snapped or something?” he asked with concern. Dash shook her head.

“No… I mean it. If I’m alive, then so is Soarin,” she assured him. Silver flattened his ears out.

“You better start elaborating before I put you in a straitjacket.” He made it clear he wasn’t convinced… at least not yet.

“It’s hard to explain but… Soarin and I have a spiritual connection,” she began, Silver’s eyebrow slowly lifting as she continued. “You see, Soarin’s magic isn’t fully in his control. His body and spirit alone can’t contain the power raging inside of him. When the magic was put in his body by Celestia, she took a piece of my spirit, my life essence and used it to bolster Soarin’s, anchoring the magic down so that it couldn’t escape. That’s why when I’m around Soarin he has easier control of his magic. We were recently told that our spirits are further linked than we realized. I can feel it when his magic causes him pain, letting me know when I have to be by his side to get it under control. This also means that if Soarin died, and his spirit destroyed… it would take me with him, since there’s a link to my spirit inside of him. It would literally destroy my spirit as well. Same if I died, it would—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa… stop right there,” he said as he held a hoof up. “Ok, wow… uh…” Silver took a step back while blinking and shaking his head. “Uh… right… that sounds incredibly complicated… but given Celestia was involved, I’m not going to try to understand it… anything I hear about what the divine sisters or the gods do just makes my head hurt.” He shut his eyes tight and grimaced as if it literally hurt to try and follow what Dash was trying to tell him. But before he could go further Fleetfoot had rushed up beside him, her eyes wide with a look of excitement completely replacing her sorrow.

“If I hadn’t already seen how messed up everything with Soarin’s magic is, I wouldn’t believe it for a second… but…” Her pupils widened as if pleading for it all to be true. “But he’s alive?! Please! Dash, tell me Soarin’s alive again!”

“Yes,” Dash smiled as she looked down. “My heart is beating quicker than normal… meaning… something might be hindering him, but he’s definitely alive. I’d be dead right here in the snow if he wasn’t.” She looked up at the collapsed mountain. “Don’t ask me where he is or how he survived though…”

Fleetfoot breathed a heavy sigh of relief, leaning completely into Silver. He grunted as she made him tip slightly, barely catching himself before falling over. Fleetfoot’s ears stood straight up with a large smile on her face. She turned to Spitfire.

“Hear that Spitty?! Soarin’s al—” she cut herself off as she saw Spitfire still slumped over with her hooves jammed in the snow, her mane hanging down and covering her eyes as she continued to grit her teeth and take slow, heavy breaths.

Fleetfoot’s smile quickly vanished again as her ears flopped right back down and she bit her lower lip.

“Oh… right….” She looked up at the mountain before walking towards Spitfire. “Soarin’s alive, but… What are we going to do about Wave?” she asked as she paused and turned to look at Silver.

Silver looked up into the sky, a long, heavy sigh escaping his nostrils. Okay, so Soarin was fine… but Wave, one of his own squadmates and most trusted comrades, had been taken from them and put in a terrible situation. He pondered what they could possibly do as Dash moved away from them towards her squad and Storm Front.

Soarin was fine… and the issue about what to do with Wave’s situation was important… but Dash had turned away for a moment to address the most drastic outcome of the battle of all.

She approached her squad from behind as they had all turned to watch Storm. Storm was sitting a few yards away from his father… who hadn’t moved since he had slumped down into the snow near where he watched two former comrades disappeared into thin air.

Dash placed herself beside Little Star, as she struggled to hold down any sort of emotional response. She was more visibly stricken than the rest of them, at least among those watching. Storm looked like he desperately wanted to go to his father’s side, but what would he say? What would he do? Descent was strong willed, and it was definitely not the first time he had lost comrades, but the implications of this event towards his overall goal were clearly weighing heavy on him.

Not to mention… that the horrific sight occurred after he personally crushed Trance’s and Witch’s crystals. Killing his enemies was something he had never had trouble doing… but killing his allies? Or those he still considered to be friends or comrades in a way? Not even the ruthless warrior had enough of a heart to ever consider such things.

“They…” Little Star spoke up in a shaky, squeaky tone from between Squall and Dash. The two of them looked down towards her. “They just vanished… gone without a trace…” she barely managed to say as she shivered. Matteo shook his head slowly, closing his eyes.

“They sold their very souls for power… and nothing remains,” he said in a tone that hinted sympathy. “In the end, was it really worth it?”

Star’s shivers grew harsher as she hugged herself.

“It’s like they were just erased…” Dash reached a hoof over to Star, placing it lightly on her shoulder. “Ponies just like us… with goals… dreams… gone just like that? Not even a trace of them left behind?” She suddenly leaned away from Dash, grabbing the closest thing to her, which happened to be Squall’s arm.

Squall blinked for a moment, looking down to see Star shaking against him, visibly terrified by the scenario. He instinctively opened his wing and began reaching it down towards her… but he stopped halfway, hesitating. He sighed, not retaliating at all to her seeking comfort, but refolded his wing.

Dash watched as Star sought comfort from Squall for a moment before turning back to look at Descent and Storm.

“So this is it…” she said as she exchanged glances with Matteo. “Too much crystal power seals your fate… so much for saving the commanders.” Dash’s ears flopped down, looking away from Descent. Seeing such a strong pony be shaken in such a way was hard to see. Descent was most likely the strongest pony among them emotionally. But not even he could completely hold himself in the wake of what had happened, what he had just done.

Dash looked up above them to see Twister still hovering. This was the longest she had ever seen him behave himself, but she was glad he was. This was not the time for shenanigans, and despite Twister’s usual silly face, he was clearly aware of when and where to mess around. Dash just wanted to know where the hell he had disappeared for so long.

“Hmph…” Squall suddenly grunted, drawing Dash’s eyes towards him. Star was still clutching his arm, but Squall’s eyes were shifting between where Trance and Witch last stood. “Idiots…”

Dash’s eyes widened and Matteo turned to look down as Squall came out of nowhere with that one. Dash looked forward just in time to see Storm was already turning around, a harsh glare on his face aimed directly at Squall. Dash quickly stood up and stepped towards Squall.

“Squall!” she said harshly, but in a hushed tone. Why did he have to do that? Storm was clearly going to react and this was not the time for an argument. Squall, however, ignored Dash, snorting as he shook his head.

“Why?” he said. “Why would they give it all away like that?” he asked into the air. Dash’s expression lightened, realizing that Squall wasn’t just being randomly rude… but Storm didn’t seem to catch that. He stomped right up to Squall while glaring. Squall scowled at him as he approached. “What?”

“Are you serious right now?!” Storm yelled at him. “Have you been paying attention at all?! The Shadowbolts are being controlled by those crystals!”

“Then they were careless too!” Squall fired back bluntly. Storm gave him a look of pure, angered disbelief. He pointed at Descent.

“I think my father has made it perfectly clear that they were coerced into using them!”

“Guys…” Dash took a step forward, but Matteo reached over Squall’s back and caught Dash by the shoulder, shaking his head. Dash gave him an odd look for a moment, but stepped back and held her breath, letting them continue. It wasn’t her job to solve every dispute.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Storm asked as he nearly butted heads with Squall. Star squeaked as she held onto Squall’s arm, stuck directly beneath the argument. Squall glanced down at her for a moment before returning Storm’s glare two fold.

“Nothing is more important than your personal identity and what you leave behind!” Squall suddenly spoke his mind in a rare moment. “They were willing to sacrifice that? Who would do that?! I’m just saying it how it is!”

“You don't know how it is!” Storm spat right back.

“What? You don’t agree? Glowing crystals? Artificial magic flowing through them?! That sounds fishy from the start!”

“Squall…” Star tried to speak quietly. “Stop… please…” she tried as she looked up at him, but he couldn’t hear her.

“You…” Storm growled. “You…” He shook his head, not willing to admit that Squall had a very good point. “You son of a…”

“STORM FRONT!”

They all flinched and everypony went silent as Descent’s voice suddenly boomed from behind Storm. Storm turned around, the rest all looking past him as Descent stood up.

“That’s enough…” he said as he turned and started walking towards them slowly, stopping beside Storm. “Your comrade is right. It was foolish of them…” he agreed with Squall’s harsh words. “It was the very reason I never took a crystal. I was told everything they could do, and from the start I was skeptical. I had fought all of my battles and won them all through my strength alone. I had no need for fake power, and was not willing to risk whatever repercussions came with it. While I stated my reasons, I was unable to convince Nightshade otherwise…” He paused and looked back over his shoulder. “And now I see what would have happened had I accepted them like the rest. If only I wasn’t a coward and fell right in line despite my worries. Had I been more vigilant… I might have pushed Nightshade harder to reject them.” He sighed and looked up into the sky, “Did Blade leave Trance and Witch behind knowing this would happen? Have the Shadowbolts really become so heartless?”

He said nothing else for several moments before looking down, then back up at Dash.

“Listen to me ramble… now I know what’s really at stake and I just have to accept it. More importantly…” He started moving between them, his eyes remaining on Dash. “I heard you say Soarin is alive… well, he better be…” Descent turned his focus away from her as he moved past. “Because without their primary target… I have no idea what the Shadowbolts will do.”

They all remained quiet as Descent made his way over to Fleetfoot, Silver, and Spitfire. Storm and Squall looked back towards one another and just stared at first. Storm’s expression suddenly turned apologetic, his ears folding back, expressing shame for his outburst. Squall, however, gave nothing in response. He wasn’t used to somepony backing down so sharply after a confrontation, but he said all he wanted to say, so he didn’t push it further. He instead focused on the little mare that was still clutching his arm tightly.

“The cavalry is here…” Matteo chimed in.

Dash looked up as Matteo spoke. It took her a moment to see, due to not having Matteo’s eagle eyes, but eventually a large force of Renegades, with Astral Bolt flying point, appeared from the blizzard in the distance.

“Let’s get ready to go, guys.” Dash spun her hoof in the air to signal her squad. “Everypony able to fly?” she asked to make sure. She received silent nods from her wingmates.

“A little stiff, but I’ll manage,” Matteo answered.

“Mmhmm…” Star hummed quietly.

“I’m fine,” Squall replied.

All of their answers were stiff, and lacked emotion, but that was to be expected.

“You alright, Storm?” Dash asked out of courtesy. Storm simply nodded, still looking in the direction of Descent.

“Yeah… I suppose…” he said without much energy.

Dash was overjoyed that Soarin was alive. His current status was unknown, but her spirit was very much intact, meaning wherever he was, so was his, and his magic was not causing problems… yet. Her heart was still beating at a slightly quickened pace. She didn’t quite know why, but as long as her heart continued to beat, she was confident Soarin was not severely injured or worse.

Now they were to return to the compound… and await the next course of action.

Soarin was of high priority, but with Dash they could keep track of him to a certain extent. The real issue was Wave Chill, captured and heading towards horrors they could only begin to imagine. They would have to work fast… if saving him was even an option… or possible.

With heavy hearts and weakened hopes, the Renegades floated down towards them, ready to help them return to the compound.

As they all arrived back in the compound, the small group was literally bombarded by their fellow Wonderbolts. Well, not all of them were. Dash and her friends stepped aside as several elite Wonderbolts, following behind Fire Streak, ran right up to Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Silver. A crowd quickly formed in the lobby.

“Captain!” Fire yelled as he approached, directing his attention to Spitfire. Spitfire, however, did not look at him, nor did she look at anypony as she walked in and right past him. The moment she ignored Fire, it nearly went completely quiet. Fire stared at her for a moment before looking back at Fleetfoot and Silver. His eyes darting back and forth past them. “Wait a second… where are…” he looked back at Spitfire, as did many, as she walked slowly towards the mail counter and stopped, placing a hoof on it while looking straight down. Fire quickly looked back at Silver and Fleetfoot for an explanation as a harsh, harsh reality began to slowly hit.

Silver saw all the Wonderbolt staring at them. He glanced down at Fleetfoot beside him, her being the higher authority after all, but she looked uncomfortable and still fairly affected by the situation. By now some of the former Wonderbolt Renegades had landed and were entering the lobby, also curious what was going on.

Everypony needed some answers, and Silver took it upon himself to be blunt, clear, and leave nopony in the dark.

“We had an encounter with Shadowbolt commanders,” Silver spoke up as he stepped up for Fleetfoot. “The good news is we were able to dispatch two of them.” He glanced at Descent as he met up with the Renegades who had just landed. Silver decided to leave the specific details out for now on that. “However… During the battle, Soarin went missing in action… and Wave Chill was an imposter.”

“What?!” Blaze suddenly pushed past Fire roughly with High Winds right behind her. “What happened to Chiller?!” she demanded.

Silver took a moment to scan the whole crowd looking towards him. Well over half the force was listening to him. He braced himself as he delivered the rest.

“Rapidfire was posing as Wave Chill… Wave has been captured.”

Blaze’s eyes widened as the info hit her ears, the rest of the Wonderbolts all reacting in kind as Silver delivered the news.

“What?!”

“No!”

“That can’t be!”

“Wave Chill? Commander Wave Chill?

“Captured?!”

The reactions were widespread, and clearly left the force in a state of shock. It was a hard slap to the face. Having one of their highest ranking officers captured and one of their lead squad commanders missing… it wasn’t very motivating news at all.

“Soldier boy got nabbed?!” Cannon Ball approached Silver with a few other retired Wonderbolts behind him.

“How?” Steady Wing looked very distraught. “Our blizzard ploy was impenetrable!”

“Apparently not…” Valkyrie sighed as she shook her head.

“Wave Chill… captured?” Bomber frowned. “But Bomber like Wave Chill…”

Silver did his best to not show any emotion. He had to remain strong. Spitfire was clearly taking it hard, and showing it to the entire Wonderbolt force. Fleetfoot was sitting beside him, but couldn’t find the courage to look them all in the eye. He wasn’t going to rely on Air Mach to handle the situation. Besides, he was among the rest, just as shocked.

“No…” Blaze spoke up as she fell back onto her plot. “Chiller…” Her ears flopped down. High Winds quickly stepped over to her and draped a wing over her shoulder. “I can’t believe it…” For all the fun poking and jeering she gave Wave Chill, he was still her friend and squadmate.

Silver scrunched his face, holding his composure as he glanced towards Spitfire. She was still sitting at the mail counter, back turned to everypony, one hoof upon it, head looking down, and not moving.

The Wonderbolts were all clearly shaken, but Descent walked right through them, keeping his mind on what course of action to take next as he made his way over to Spitfire. Silver thought about stopping him, but in the end he couldn’t speak for her, not when it came to planning.

“There will be a time to mourn those lost,” Descent spoke as he approached Spitfire from behind. Despite losing his former friends, he was ready to act. “We have reason to believe Soarin is alive and well, so we should focus on searching for him. He is the main target of the Shadowbolts, and will be vulnerable by himself.”

Spitfire didn’t move. She remained perfectly still. Descent furrowed his brow.

“Spitfire…” he started again in a stern tone as he took two more steps towards her, placing himself right behind her. “Wave Chill is gone.”

He paused. Making sure his words sunk in before continuing, now with every last pair of eyes in the lobby looking towards him and Spitfire.

“The Shadowbolts have captured him and will eventually kill him. There is absolutely no way we’ll be able to save him. We don’t have the means, nor the resources and no possible courses of actions in our current state to stage a rescue operation, much less against everything they have. In times like these, you can't dwell on the loss of a single life… not even one that is important to you. ACCEPT IT.”

There was a long, painful, drawn out pause. Not a single word was uttered among the hundreds of ponies in the lobby and barely an audible breath was taken. All eyes were on Spitfire as Descent awaited her response.

Then suddenly, Spitfire’s head snapped upward, looking towards the ceiling. Her slumped posture corrected itself to a strong form. She slammed her hoof against the wooden surface of the mail counter so hard that it splintered and cracked. She stood up sharply, her wings flared out, and she turned around to face Descent and all those looking towards her.

The look on her face?

One of pure, unhindered determination.

“You know what?” said Spitfire as she pointed at Descent. “NO.”

Descent pulled his neck back slightly while blinking.

“No, what?” he asked, flinching as Spitfire took a step forward and pointed at him again, her hoof bumping against his chest.

“NO.” She stepped forward again, putting herself almost chest to chest with Descent. “I have had ENOUGH.”

Her sudden spirit, while confusing, resonated around the Wonderbolts. They all perked up, their ears turned towards their leader as a sudden spark roared into a burning flame that raged in her eyes. She directed her intense eyes upon Descent.

“Time and time again…” she continued. “ We’ve been on the run, we’ve been in hiding, we’ve been protected. The Shadowbolts have consistently gotten the drop on us in every way imaginable, attacking us when we’re not ready, forcing us to react, forcing us to be defensive…” she paused, her face scrunching considerably as she furrowed her brow and ground her teeth together with a faint growl. “And now on top of THAT, they step right into my life and play with my emotions!” She removed her hoof from Descent’s chest and slammed it so hard to the ground that every pony present flinched in surprise. “THAT… IS THE LAST… STRAW! I will not play their game, I will not let them think they can do as they please, and I will not be made the fool ANY LONGER!!!!”

“Spitfire…” Descent scrunched his face in disapproval. “We—”

“SHUT UP!” Spitfire shouted right into his face, cutting him off as she pushed herself against him, chest to chest, forcing him to take several steps back before he finally managed to anchor his hooves. She had nearly pushed him all the way back into the crowd that was watching them. “It’s time to make a statement,” she continued as she pressed her will against him figuratively and physically. “It’s time to stop being the hunted and show them who they are messing with! They will know that we’re not afraid of them! And we’re going to make that perfectly, crystal clear to them… by finding their fortress… and rescuing Wave Chill!”

A wave of surprise passed through the Wonderbolts, but one that was followed by… motivation?

“DON’T BE ABSURD!” Descent pushed back. “They will annihilate us! We don’t have the means to attack them head on! What do we have to gain from trying aside from casualties?!”

Spitfire was not swayed. In fact, she was ready to bite back no matter what he said to her. The last time she had pushed for action, the circumstances were different. They were sitting ducks in a stationary compound. Now? They had an opportunity with the Shadowbolts unaware of their current location.

“And maybe that’s been your problem from the very start!” she barked in his face, barely giving any ground as she dropped a new argument on him.

“What?!” Descent threw a hoof out in protest, but didn’t have a chance to keep going as Spitfire controlled the situation.

“Diverting their attention, keeping them at bay, techniques to deflect magic, hiding in a blizzard…” Spitfire rapped a hoof against the side of her head. “I have yet to see a single brain cell in that thick muscle-head of yours nurse a thought towards striking back! How long are you going to suggest running and hiding?!”

“If I was suicidal and didn’t care, I would have attacked them by now!” Descent refused to go down without a fight. “You are basing this entirely on your desire to save a LONE PONY that you have intimate relations with! That’s hardly worth risking the whole force!”

Spitfire’s expression lightened, but not because she was struck down by his words. In fact, her face flattened, looking at Descent as if he had just stepped his way right into losing the argument.

“So you’re telling me…” Spitfire began again with a quieter tone. “After what you just saw out there after the battle, that you wouldn’t be willing to risk everything even if it were just to save a single life?”

Descent’s eyes widened and his ears folded to his head.

“You wouldn’t give it your all if you knew the effort could save the commanders?” she continued, shaking her head. “Of course I want to save Wave Chill.” Spitfire’s voice remained controlled. “I love him. He means more to me than any other pony I’ve ever known. But… I would do this for any of the Wonderbolts, from a member of the lead squad, down to the lowest ranking recruit. They have kidnapped one of our own and they don’t think we have the courage to come after him… well… they’re wrong!”

Spitfire released herself from against Descent, reaching her hoof up again.

“WE… ARE… SAVING HIM!” she yelled, each word accompanied by poking him roughly in the chest.

The uplift in spirit among the Wonderbolts upon seeing and taking in Spitfire’s burst of emotional strength was so strong that one could almost physically feel it. Frowns had been replaced by smiles, weak feelings had been replaced by adamant ones. Blaze had gotten up so fast she nearly launched High Winds into the air. Fire Streak and his squad were all side by side, waiting to hear more as Fire relayed everything said to Misty. Not a single thought was being guided towards the danger such a mission would pose. Spitfire wanted to save Wave, a cherished member of their Wonderbolt family. It wasn’t hard for them all to agree it was what they wanted.

Descent could see and feel the motivation spreading, but he still didn’t think it was a good idea, even if Spitfire had given him a taste of his own medicine. He felt Soarin was of higher priority. He would do whatever it took if he knew a way to save the commanders… but only if it didn’t pose unnecessary risks. He still had one card against her though.

“Hmph…” Descent grunted as he stepped backwards from Spitfire and turned away from her. “Do what you will… but I won’t be a part of it. I’m NOT risking the Renegades on a suicide mission for ONE pony. If you’re so hell bent on doing this, you won’t have Renegade support.”

“Fine,” Spitfire answered immediately, causing Descent’s eyes to widen as he quickly turned back towards her in disbelief. “Have it your way, tough guy. All it does is make you look like a hypocrite… sound familiar?” she jabbed. He scrunched his face and held his breath as she used his own words against him. Technically, he was being a hypocrite, despite the difference in situation desired to rescue those he cared about. It still came down to whether or not he would risk something to save a friend… and he would.

“We’ll help you,” Blazetail suddenly stepped past Descent, addressing Spitfire. Descent quickly looked towards Blazetail with a glare of disapproval as several retired Wonderbolts stepped up with him, all looking just as determined as their old leader.

“No, you won’t,” Descent shot down Blazetail quickly.

“Yes, we will,” Blazetail glanced towards Descent, giving him a look of dismissal in defiance of the direct order. Descent, obviously, did not like that.

“Blazetail, you are NOT going!” Descent squared up to Blazetail and growled in his face. Blazetail glared right back, but kept calm under Descent’s harsh gaze.

“Descent, shut your damn trap.”

“WHAT?!” Descent glared harder, if that were even possible. Blazetail had defied his role as their leader on many occasions, but this was really pushing his patience.

Flashwind suddenly stepped forward, putting herself between them before the two of them could start butting heads… again.

“We may be Renegades,” she began. “But we were once Wonderbolts. And the Wonderbolts do not take being pushed around lightly. If the mission is to save one of our own, we will assist, no questions asked.” She paused and turned to Spitfire. “We will do whatever we can to help, isn’t that right?” she asked as she turned to face all the retired Wonderbolts standing behind them.

The large group of Wonderbolt Renegades moved in unison, all pounding a hoof to their chest before tapping the hoof to their forehead and holding it there.

“AYE!” they all yelled as they finished the old Wonderbolt military salute. Flashwind turned back towards Descent and stared into his eyes with full confidence.

“Is the chance slim?” Silver’s voice met their ears as he made his way towards them, taking his place beside Spitfire. “Maybe… we won’t know exactly until we assess the situation. But not trying at all?” He shook his head. “I once made the mistake of leaving fellow wingmates… friends, behind… and that’s something I’ve regretted my whole life. Never again.”

Descent went silent. He grunted as he flattened his brow and looked between them all, but he was clearly not going to gain any ground. Spitfire completely disregarded his presence as she turned to her captains.

“Silver, Fire, Blazetail, Flashwind… let’s all go to my office, we have some planning to do,” she looked to her right at Princess Luna, who had been sitting nearby, observing. “Princess, I would like to ask for your presence as well,” she asked as the others began heading for the broken stairwell. Princess Luna perked up. She had been paying attention, but was not expecting to be addressed. She glanced away for a moment before nodding.

“We shall join you shortly… there is something we must do first,” she replied as she stood.

“Very well,” Spitfire nodded before eagerly turning and following behind the others, ready to formulate their plan.

Luna watched her leave, taking a brief moment to watch Descent trudge down the west hallway with Starry Skies and Lightning Dust follow behind before turning her attention back to a certain pony in the lobby. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to agree about the direction the Wonderbolts were heading… at least until she got a clearer picture on the situation with Soarin. One piece was already in place… and she wanted to speak to said piece, who was still alive, right now.

Dash smiled, still holding a hoof over her heart as she watched the Wonderbolt morale soar before her very eyes. They were without two key members, but Spitfire’s show of leadership and urge to make a statement to the Shadowbolts had rekindled confidence. It wasn’t just a small spark either. It was an inferno that set all of their spirits ablaze.

Was the situation grim? Yes. Was the window of opportunity small? Very. But it seemed the Wonderbolts felt the same way Spitfire did… that they were being toyed with and they had had enough. They would start by going after and taking back one of their own.

As for Soarin… Dash knew he was alive. The fact that she still lived made that clear. She didn’t know what his situation was, or why her heart was still beating slightly faster, but they knew the danger Wave was in, and agreed that it was a good idea to go after him first. Soarin was strong, tough, and resourceful. She believed in his ability to survive.

“Huh?” Dash blinked as she saw her squadmates, save for Twister, go stiff and hold themselves steady. “What’s up guys?”

“Rainbow Dash.”

Dash’s ears stood straight up as the familiar, regal voice met her ears. She turned around to see Princess Luna approaching.

“Oh, what’s up, Princess?” Dash asked casually, completely contradicting the reaction her friends had to her.

“We wish to speak to you about…” Luna paused and sighed as she felt a tug on her mane. She looked down to see Twister with the end of her mane wrapped around his head and eyes.

“I’M BLIIIIIIIIND!” he cried out as Dash reached forward, grabbed Twister by the tail, and yanked him back.

“Let’s start over,” Dash nodded as she forced Twister to the ground and sat on top of him. “What’s up. Princess?” she repeated as if nothing had happened. Luna played right along as Twister stared at Matteo from beneath Dash, making quiet eagle screeches. Luna shook her head at Twister before focusing back on Dash.

“We wish to speak to you about Soarin, we understand he is missing, but well?” Luna asked. Dash gave a smile and a nod.

“You bet’cha,” Dash winked. “You see, Soarin and I—”

“Have a spiritual connection created during the magic transfer process, we know,” Luna explained with a smile. “Thou would be dead if he was.”

“Oh, you already knew,” Dash tipped her head to the side, wondering if she ever mentioned it to Princess Luna.

“Discord told us, in a rare moment of being informative,” Luna recalled, rolling her eyes slightly. “Any problems? Anything out of the ordinary with you?” Luna asked, clearly very well educated in how the connection was affecting the two.

“Well…” Dash pondered for a moment. “In the past, I’ve experienced heart jumps and inner pains at times that Soarin has been hurt by the magic… it was happening for a while actually and got stronger as we began to understand it… but so far, I’ve felt nothing like that.” Her eyes widened for a moment. “Oh, but…” she put her hoof over her heart. “My heart has been beating a little faster since he went missing.”

“Thy heart?” Luna tipped her head to the side slightly. “A faster heart rate… but no pain… hmm…” Luna looked away for a moment as she thought it over.

“Anything I don’t know about the connection I should?” Dash sighed, a little tired of things being revealed gradually and not all at once. Luna, however, shook her head.

“Actually, we’re not sure,” she stated. “But that does trouble us… because a common effect that the magic had on Soarin before we placed the horn on his head, was a rapid heartbeat.”

Dash’s eyes widened. She hadn’t thought about that.

“But… if it were really causing problems, I’d be feeling it too, right?” Dash asked. Luna quickly nodded, but looked concerned.

“Indeed, however… the horn has been providing Soarin a way to control the magic as it grew in power… not placing the horn would have eventually led to him being consumed…” Luna began pacing back and forth. “The steady rapid heartbeat is of similar nature to him not having the horn on… and yet… you are feeling nothing aside from heartbeat of a similar pace…”

“Luna… a little clarity here?” Dash asked with a pout. Luna stopped and quickly looked back at Dash.

“We’re sorry, but we fear some damage may have come to the horn… which would be bad…” Luna admitted. “We are confident in Soarin’s ability to handle the magic should it become a little unruly… but we should not wait too long to look for him.”

“What do you mean by—” Dash was cut off and her eyes widened as she suddenly felt an incredibly tight pain in her chest. “AH!?” she winced and lurched forward, her heart suddenly feeling like it was going to jump out of her chest.

“Dash?!” Little Star quickly broke from her stiffness and hopped over as Luna gasped.

“Rainbow Dash! What is it?!” Luna shouted, drawing lots of attention towards them from around the compound. Fleetfoot cantered over as she saw the commotion.

“What’s going on over here?!” she asked, gasping as she saw Dash drop to the ground while grunting in pain.

“Ahhhh… arrrrghhh…. Oooooh….” Dash grunted over and over as she clutched her chest. “Soarin…?! SOARIN!” she yelled as she scraped her free hoof against the floor.

“Oh no…” Luna looked upon Dash with dread. “Please… please get control of it Soarin…” she spoke quietly to herself. “Please…”

“Soarin!”

Soarin writhed, his insides churning and his body burning as he felt like he was being torn apart from the inside out.

“Soarin! You must fight!”

“GHHHAAAAAAAH!” Soarin’s eyes snapped open.

He was in a black void, the large, yellow silhouette of the mare in his mind standing over him.

“Ahhhh! AAAAAHHH!!!” Soarin continued to feel continuous shocks of pain, like his whole body was being ripped apart down the center. He rolled back and forth, looking down at his body. It was glowing blue, and the blue light was fluctuating between light and dark hues. “RRGHHHHH!!!!” he slammed his eyes shut.

“Don’t let it control you!” the mare encouraged.

“HE IS MINE!” the stallion’s voice suddenly boomed, echoing all through the empty void. Soarin forced his eyes open again, meeting a horrific sight. The image of the yellow mare had turned her back to him and was standing defensively over Soarin. In front of her, was the blue stallion… or rather, just his head… and it was enormous, easily around ten times the size of the already large image of the mare and surrounded by pulsating, dark blue collections of light. “MY BONDS ARE WEAKENED! I WILL BE IN CONTROL!” he yelled as the surrounding clouds of blue light began to move about his head and spread outward. Soarin groaned and clutched his own head, shaking on the ground.

“You will not!” the mare yelled as she began to glow brightly as multiple concentrated beams of yellow light shot out and pierced through the expanding blue light. She kept firing the beams from her body, but she could not keep up with the spread.

“YOUR ATTEMPTS ARE POINTLESS! YOU COULDN’T STOP ME ALONE BEFORE AND YOU WILL NOT STOP ME NOW!” the male voice shouted as his image grew even larger. “YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE TO DESTROY ME AND YOU WASTED IT! YOUR FATE HERE IS YOUR OWN DOING!”

“Ah!” the mare yelped as her image began to flicker.

“RAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” the stallion roared out as his light slowly began to fill the entire area.

“Soarin!” the mare yelled as she continued to flicker and stumble. “I need your help! He’s powerful, but he is underestimating your willpower!”

“Ugghhhhh! Aggghhhhh!” Soarin heard her, but his head felt like it was going to explode.

“If you let him control you… nopony will be able to stop him! Help me, Soarin!” she pleaded, but Soarin could barely focus, much less find his hooves.

“IT’S USELESS!” the stallion laughed. “YOU’VE LOST! ALL YOUR EFFORTS FOR NAUGHT! FROM THE VERY BEGINNING I SAID HE WOULD BE MINE! NOW IT’S TIME TO CLAIM HIS BODY AND BE FREE ONCE AGAIN!”

“NO!” the mare yelled as all the light the stallion had emitted began to shoot towards Soarin. She put herself in front of Soarin, but was immediately knocked aside by its overwhelming power.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Soarin cried out as the multiple streams of light began to rush into his body.

“YES! YES! MINE! HAHAHA!” the stallion laughed as his light surged into Soarin.

“RRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Soarin suddenly growled…

And the light flow halted.

“WHAT?!”

“GET…” Soarin rolled onto his stomach. “OUT…” Soarin pressed his hooves to the ground. “OF…” he slowly began to rise.

“BLAST IT! GIVE IT UP ALREADY!” the stallion snarled as he tried, but failed to force his power forward.

“MY…” Soarin stood up, his muscles all tensed and looking down while grimacing.

“NO! IF ONLY THAT DAMN HORN…”

“BODY!” Soarin roared out as he threw his head back and flared his wings out. All the light that had entered his body shot out of him in all directions.

“URGH! CURSE IT! YOU… YOU…!” the stallion panicked.

“Yes, Soarin! YES!” the mare cheered as Soarin forced all the light out of his body.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!” Soarin kept yelling as the light was fully ejected.

“AH!” Soarin yelled as he awoke. “Haa… haa… grrrghhh aaaaahh…” he panted, his whole body in pain.

What just happened? Where was he? It was pitch black, but he wasn’t in the void with the voices in his head anymore… it felt like he was resting on top of a pile of rocks.

“Ohhh…” he groaned as he reached up to touch his head. His felt like his head was in a vice, being compressed with the pain concentrated all around one specific spot, the usual spot around the horn.

Something had to be wrong with it. He hadn’t felt this much pain in his head for a long time. There was nothing he could do while it was pitch black though, he needed some light.

One problem, though. The only way he was getting any light was through his magic, and he wasn’t sure if using it was the best idea with the pain… but he didn’t really have a choice. His body hurt, his head hurt more, and he had no idea where he was. So he had to give it a try.

Soarin pushed aside the pain and tried to concentrate. It was hard… and when he finally got the magic flow in his body to respond it didn’t feel right at all. It was taking a lot of effort just to get even a small response from it, and as it gathered towards his forehead it felt like he was burning a hole right through his skull.

“Ahhhh…” Soarin released a labored breath as the magic failed to focus in any direction once it reached his head. Some of it went into the horn, but a lot of it spilled. He felt burning sensations in his nose, eyes, and mouth… as if the magic was leaking. “HRGH!” Soarin grunted, straining himself as a flickering light began to spark above him. After lots of blinking and failed attempts, Soarin finally generated enough light to get a vague idea of his surroundings.

He was indeed sitting on a pile of rocks, and as he looked up, there was a ceiling of rock above him. Was he in a cave? That’s what it seemed like. He had to see more, the light was helping, but he couldn’t even get a good look at his horn with how dim it was.

“Gotta… try… RGH!” Soarin winced as several crackles and pops came from the horn, small sparks shooting from it as the light grew brighter, but continued to flicker with an aura that looked uneven. “Oh no…” Soarin cringed as he opened his eyes and finally got a good look at the horn.

It was heavily damaged. Its sharp, smooth surface covered with multiple, large cracks with several chipped spots to go with them. The cracks were filling with a bright blue glow as the magic worked through it, spewing the small sparks as he tried to maintain it.

“Damn… that’s… not good…” Soarin groaned as he looked back down at himself. His body was pretty beaten up as well, multiple scratches and heavy impact bruises. That explained why his body hurt on top of it all.

He now got a better view of where he was… and it was, indeed, a cave of some sorts, a small and cramped space. He had crashed and an insanely high speed into the mountainside… he didn’t remember much beyond that, but he did see a soft glow before the impact. It was a yellow glow. Had the yellow magic protected him? If it had… it only protected him from the initial impact. It certainly didn’t keep it up all the way through.

Were there any exits? He was breathing, and it wasn’t hard to do so, so he assumed that there had to be some air flow. But wherever it was, it was small and would take some time to find, because where he currently sat, he couldn’t see any openings along the walls. And if he found them… he hoped he one, would uncover a tunnel and two, find a way out.

But he was getting ahead of himself, first he had to get up and find his equilibrium. A battle had clearly raged inside his head, and while he was able to hold the magic from consuming him, he was still feeling incredibly off.

“Huh?” Soarin blinked as he suddenly spotted something on the cave floor nearby. It looked like… shreds of something. Upon shining the light on them, they looked like pieces of a flight suit.

But he wasn’t wearing a flight suit… also, the pieces were black.

Soarin turned his head to the left, but there was only a wall. He turned his head back right, shining the light into the rest of the cave’s small area.

“Oh…” he blinked.

He was not alone.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art by Foxenawolf

Hmmm... this should be interesting.

But would you look at that... the Shadowbolts have pushed Spitfire to the line and she is sick of their shit... The Shadowbolts have made their gravest mistake... they've made Spitfire angry :pinkiecrazy:

But her anger alone wont be enough to save Wave... so i wonder what the plan is going to be? :moustache:

Also... It's going to be clear to the Wonderbolts that they can't neglect Soarin for long... Dash's little psuedo heart-attack at the end will be enough evidence towards that.

But will they even need to? Soarin is resourceful... but how long will he last with the horn damaged? Thats up to his own willpower... which he seems to have a lot of after what we just saw :pinkiegasp:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 110: Connection

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 110: Connection

Soarin winced shortly after his eyes landed on Rapidfire. He was surprised to see him, but it was hard to ignore the incredible amount of pain spread throughout his body. Nothing felt broken. His arms and legs were moving, but he was very beaten up. It looked like Rapidfire was less fortunate. His bruises and cuts looked twice as severe as Soarin’s, not to mention he also had a pretty bad black eye.

Speaking of eyes, Soarin was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. There was an intense burning sensation in them that was more excruciating than the rest of his injuries combined. He shut his eyes and shook his head in attempt to find some relief, but had no such luck. And why was everything he looked at a dim shade of green? Everything related to the magic, at least the magic he had control over, was blue. The only other color of magic he knew of within him was yellow. Soarin shut one of his eyes in attempt to try and focus it, but was surprised to find everything he saw turned blue. He opened his eyes back up, and everything was green. Out of curiosity he closed the other eye… and everything turned yellow.

That explained it… blue and yellow mixed together made green. He shakily reached a hoof up and moved it in front of his eyes, quickly pulling it away when he felt something brush against it. It gave off a sensation similar to when he was deflecting magic. Were the two magic auras in his body literally oozing from his eyes right now? He wasn’t about to not believe so. With the horn damaged, it felt like the magic was going all over the place in his head, even shooting back through his body in uneven flows that were crashing into one another.

He refocused on Rapidfire after determining his own pain. The mere sight of his old rival lit a fire in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to scowl, but he didn’t have the strength, or desire to with how much his body hurt at the moment.

“Hrrrggg…” Soarin grunted as he moved his legs, trying to find his hooves so he could push himself off of the pile of rocks. “Ah!” Soarin yelped as his hooves slipped and he slid off the pile, landing in a heap on the ground. “Son of a…” he stopped short of cursing as he found his hooves again and pushed himself up slowly and painfully.

He exhaled as he finally stood up, taking another look at Rapidfire. He remained still for a moment before taking a step towards him and reaching a hoof towards Rapidfire’s neck, gently touching it.

A pulse.

Rapidfire wasn’t dead. He was in worse shape than Soarin physically, and half buried under a pile of large rocks, but even here he was too stubborn to die.

Every ounce of Soarin’s being wanted to slam his hooves down over Rapidfire’s neck and end him right there and then. Soarin was not a violent pony by nature. He never entertained the thought of killing another just because he wanted to. This was a different case however. Rapidfire had been such a living hell for him, and not just him, all of his friends. All the constant douchebag moves, the betrayal in Canterlot, the impersonations, violation of Spitfire’s feelings… Soarin couldn’t remember if he ever held a positive view of Rapidfire and Rapidfire certainly never did anything to make him feel otherwise.

It wouldn’t be hard to understand what was going through Soarin’s head.

Do it.

Kill him.

Rid your life and the lives of those you care about of this disease that has plagued them for years upon years.

Rapidfire has earned that much for all the crap he’s put you through.

Just end it.

NOW.

…

But…

Soarin couldn’t bring himself to do it… and it wasn’t just because his body was weak and being plagued by a splitting headache.

Rapidfire had been bad. He had been awful. He had done things that Soarin would never forgive him for… but did he really know Rapidfire? Seeing the Shadowbolts treat him like trash had Soarin thinking, but it was more than that. Had this been Soarin a year ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice about this, but all the things he had gone through and experienced had him more aware that ponies are not one dimensional, no matter how awful they may seem. He blamed Descent for planting such compassion in his head. A pony that beat him senseless and brought him to the brink of death was now his most trusted ally as well as a pony who cared for those who worked with him.

What were Rapidfire’s motivations? What drove him to be the pony he was? Would killing him out of frustration for what he had done really give Soarin any closure? He certainly didn’t feel that way. There are many things that can drive a pony towards poor decisions. Since he didn’t know for sure… Soarin felt killing Rapidfire would be nothing but a coldblooded act… and he wasn’t capable of such things.

Soarin shook his head before turning and looking around their cramped, closed space. He would worry about Rapidfire later. His top priority was to find a way out and make it back to the compound. He was certain the Wonderbolts were all worried sick about him. He dragged his hooves as he moved towards the walls, shining the flickering light from his horn against it to see if he could find anything that could possibly be broken away or lead to a passage. He limped as he walked, one of his back legs stinging every time he put pressure on his hoof.

“Great…” he sighed as he felt the pain in his leg. More problems to deal with and yet another thing he’d have to power through. But he didn’t care. As long as he had strength to move his body, he was going to find a way out.

He was breathing normally, which implied that there was a source of air somewhere. If they were truly trapped without air, they’d surely be asphyxiating by now. He slid his hooves over the wall as he looked around. He was relying more on touch than sight due to the magic messing with his eyes, but he was determined to get out… to see his friends, to see Rainbow Dash… he would find a way, even if he had to smell his way out.

His determination was strong… but that didn’t change the fact that he was struggling just to stand. All the pain was taking its toll, and the more he strained himself to keep the horn alight, the more his head hurt.

After a moment of searching around, his hooves began to slip down the wall.

“Ahhh…” he exhaled, feeling incredibly lightheaded and dizzy as he slumped to the floor. “Can’t… quit…” he grunted as he pushed himself back up.

As Soarin denied all the negative messages his body was sending him and forced himself back to work, he failed to hear a very weak, faint groan.

Rapidfire’s eyes shut tighter as he began to stir and feel the pain all over.

“Ah… aaaahh…” He quietly exhaled as his eyes opened slowly, barely managing to open his black eye at all. The moment he could see, he didn’t wonder where he was or try to figure out why there was light… he was looking for his crystal. But reality quickly hit him in the face. His crystal was nowhere to be found. It was easy to conclude, even as he looked for it. His body felt weak, devoid of all the strength the crystal gave him, not to mention he was being plagued by constant, crushing pain. He could feel the pressure on his lower body. He could wiggle slightly and his wings were free, if not incredibly stiff, but he was stuck.

“Yes!” Soarin’s voice caught Rapidfire’s attention. He looked up, finally acknowledging the light source and noticing Soarin for the first time. Had he the strength to react, he would have, but he wasn’t in a position to do much of anything. He remained quiet as he watched Soarin prod around the wall, also realizing where they were. They were in some sort of cave… and if Soarin was still with him, that meant they were stuck. He remembered hitting the mountain and some yellow aura shooting around them… or at least around Soarin. Soarin broke his impact, striking the mountain first, but judging by how Soarin seemed still able to move, the yellow aura had protected him, while Rapidfire had taken the brunt of any collapsing rocks as they drove through the mountain.

What a way to go. All that effort… only to be trapped in a mountain with your rival.

“Hrg!” Soarin grunted as he put his shoulder against a large rock and gave it a push. Rapidfire blinked as he watched Soarin work, what was he doing? “Hrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh…” Soarin groaned as he strained himself. The rock jostled a little, but didn’t move from its spot. “AH!” Soarin lost his position on the rock and tumbled, falling to the ground.

Soarin was trying to find a way out? Not to mention he was pushing through all the pain and straining himself to keep his magic alight. Why? What was the point?

“Dammit…” Soarin cursed as he panted on the ground. The horn flickered and sputtered, the light slowly dying. “Oh no you don’t…” Soarin quickly regained as much focus as he could, causing the light to brighten again. He was about to push himself up, but his eyes widened as they landed on Rapidfire… and stared directly into a pair of eyes looking right back at him.

The two of remained silent for several moments, no words or expressions exchanged.

But it wasn’t long before Rapidfire found the strength to furrow his brow and scowl at Soarin.

Soarin rolled his eyes at the gesture.

“Nice of you to wake up,” Soarin said with a sarcastic tone. Rapidfire said nothing in response, he only growled at him as his glare persisted. Soarin lifted an eyebrow and sighed. “Really?” He shook his head. “You’re gonna keep up that act now? Look at where we are.” He made weak hoof motions to the small cave surrounding them.

“FEH!” Rapidfire scoffed before turning his head to look away. No sooner did he finish the movement did he groan in pain… and it was a very lame, cringe-worthy groan. Soarin was seconds away from making a harsh ‘that’s what you get’ comment about Rapidfire losing his crystal, but really… it wasn’t the time to jeer back and forth. They were both hurt and trapped. He already decided against smashing Rapidfire’s face in and that was final. If Soarin was going to make constructive use of his time, he’d focus it on trying get out.

Soarin strained himself, his muscles twitching and aching as he stood up and moved back towards the rock. He placed his shoulder against the side of it and dug his hooves into the ground, pushing with as much strength as he could muster despite his nerves screaming at him. The light from his horn flickered as his concentration was split between pushing and maintaining the light. His wings unfolded slightly and swung in small flaps close to his body as he did everything he could to generate any physical force.

But again, to no avail. The rock continued to buckle, but showed no signs of being uprooted. Soarin squinted, his eyes looking towards the small opening behind the rock that made him even try pushing it in the first place. The light shining from his horn showed what he thought was a tunnel behind it. So close, yet so far…

“Damn…” Soarin groaned as his strength gave out and he slumped against the rock, beads of sweat rolling down his face as he panted, and his head feeling like it was caught between an eternally tightening vice. It was no good… there was no way he was moving the rock by himself…

By himself…

Soarin thought for a moment… absolutely stunned that he was even considering it, but really… What choice did he have?

He looked towards Rapidfire, who was actually already looking at him again. The moment their eyes met, Rapidfire shifted his eyes away, groaning in pain once more.

“I can’t believe I’m about to do this…” Soarin mumbled quietly to himself as he pushed his body off of the rock and began limping towards Rapidfire. Soarin moved past him… and reached for the pile of stones that lay atop Rapidfire.

Soarin grabbed the stone, and grunted as he pulled it off the top. Rapidfire’s ears stood up. He turned his head and looked to see Soarin pulling the stones off of the pile. He simply stared for a few moments as he felt the pressure against his body slowly decrease, but it didn’t take long for his glare to return.

“What are you doing?” he asked. Soarin didn’t look at him. He just kept removing rocks from the pile.

“Digging you out,” Soarin replied. Rapidfire’s glare faded slightly, but he still looked uncomfortable.

“Why?” he followed up. Soarin paused for a moment, halfway through dragging a stone off the pile.

“I need your help to get out of here,” he said with a straight face, no matter how hard it was to say. Rapidfire quickly scowled again.

“What makes you think I’d ever help you?!” he was quick to snap at Soarin. Soarin pushed the stone off the pile, turned his head towards Rapidfire and gave him a flat look.

“Do you want to get out of here alive or not?” Soarin asked before looking away and going right back to pushing the rocks. Rapidfire didn’t say anything, he just kept looking at Soarin with a glare that looked very forced. He looked back as Soarin pushed against the last pile of rocks on his back. “I can’t… do this… alone…” Soarin spoke in between grunts as the last bit of fallen cave debris rolled off of Rapidfire’s lower body. “I’m… AH!” Soarin fell down as he stepped away, the horn flashing brightly for a moment before calming down. “I’m not in the best shape right now…”

Rapidfire looked back at the rest of his body. His flight suit was heavily damaged, pretty much torn beyond repair. His back legs were moving, but they were almost completely numb. He tried to stand, moving very slowly as his limbs buckled and wobbled. He eventually managed to stand and took a step, but the moment he put weight down on his hoof, an intense rush of pain filled his body.

“RGH!” he groaned as he tipped forward and fell back to the ground. He breathed heavily for a few moments, before looking up, his face covered in sweat. Soarin looked back at him, taking in the broken image of his enemy. Not only was Rapidfire physically hurt, but losing his crystal was having an impact as well, at least that’s what Soarin assumed. They were both damaged externally and internally.

There was no way around it, they had to work together.

“Looks like you’re not in very good condition either,” Soarin said as he turned and shuffled towards Rapidfire. “We’re going to have to work together,” he shifted to help Rapidfire stand, crouching down to support him as he stood. The moment Rapidfire felt Soarin touch him, his eyes snapped open.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” he yelled as he swung his arm out.

“AH!” They both yelped as Rapidfire’s sudden move caused both of them to fall away from each other and roll to a stop a yard apart. Soarin’s horn flickered and the glow faded as he fell. They groaned and twitched as the impact, while not bad, was more than enough to sting their injuries.

After a few moments of struggling in the darkness, Soarin forced his horn to light up again. The two managed to roll over onto their stomachs and looked towards each other. They both huffed, giving each other matching looks of annoyance.

“Look,” Soarin spoke up as the two remained in their spots. “Either we work together and get out of here alive, or we keep glaring at each other until we starve to death or the cave collapses on us or whatever. I’m not about to wait to die.”

Rapidfire said nothing. He just shifted his body, rolled over, and faced the wall behind him.

Soarin exhaled and shook his head before struggling to stand and lurching his way back over to the rock. It was worth a shot, but it looked like he wasn’t going to get any help from Rapidfire… not like that was a big surprise. He placed himself against the large rock once again… and pushed it with all his might.

Rapidfire lay still and listened as Soarin continued to grunt and gasp, giving everything he had to try and free them. The light from the sputtering horn flickered with every heave. The more Rapidfire listened… the more it became clear that Soarin was going get out or die trying. To Rapidfire… it was all just a big waste of time, they were done for.

“HRRRGHHH!!!! Ahh…” Soarin panted, shaking his head to whip the sweat from his face. “HHRRRRRRRAAAAAAAGH! GAH! Ah…” He tried and tried and tried…

Rapidfire’s ears flopped down as the labored grunts and determined roars came from Soarin as he continuously failed. Rapidfire found himself rolling back slightly, turning his head and watching Soarin as he tried over and over and over again. Never once did the look of determination leave his face. Never once did he look defeated. He was going to keep trying no matter how hopeless it seemed.

Rapidfire looked away for a moment. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, growling quietly to himself.

“Fine…” he said loud enough for Soarin to hear. Soarin stopped pushing the rock and looked over to Rapidfire as he breathed heavily.

“What… was that?” Soarin asked between breaths. He blinked as Rapidfire shifted and tried to stand on his own again.

“I’ll help you move… the damn rock… OW!” Rapidfire yelped as he plopped back down on his stomach, his body still not listening to him.

Soarin watched from beside the rock as Rapidfire struggled on the ground. He sighed, and started shambling back over towards him. He stopped directly in front of Rapidfire, towering over him under the light emanating from the horn. Rapidfire huffed and cast a discouraged expression up at Soarin. They remained still a moment, Soarin looking down at him and Rapidfire looking right back up.

Rapidfire gritted his teeth, but his expression quickly lightened… when Soarin reached a hoof towards him. Rapidfire stared at the hoof for a moment before looking back up. The two gave each other serious looks, locking eyes as if they were both about to make a serious compromise.

This was by no means a gesture of good faith. Soarin was not about to forget or forgive. Rapidfire had done terrible things to him and his friends… but right now, he needed his help. And if Rapidfire wanted to survive, he’d have to help Soarin.

Rapidfire exhaled loudly through his nose as he slowly reached up and hooked his hoof with Soarin’s. Soarin helped him stand up and turned to support him.

Rapidfire was clearly livid, incredibly pissed off that he was being helped by Soarin, but Soarin was equally peeved about resorting to assistance from a pony he had absolutely no respect for in any way shape or form. With his arm propped under Rapidfire’s, Soarin led him over to the rock in their way, both of them limping from point A to point B.

They reached the boulder and took their places on the side Soarin had been pushing. Rapidfire pushing low from an angle, and Soarin pushing high.

“On my count…” Soarin nodded. “One… Two… THREE!”

The two grunted as their back hooves pushed into the ground, skidding slightly, but locking firmly into the ground right after. They pushed and they pushed and they pushed… the rock jostling further than it had before with only Soarin.

“Again! One… Two… THREE!” Soarin repeated, the two pushing again. It moved a little further this time. “One more time!” Soarin encouraged as the light from his horn flickered and the different colored glows from his eyes intensified. “One… Two… THREE!”

The two of them gave one final push…

The rock tipped, the rounded bottom lifting from the ground… and rolling forward. The two of them fell towards it as it moved. Soarin landed right on top of Rapidfire.

“AAARRGGHHH!!!” Rapidfire yelped in pain as Soarin’s weight came down on top of him. Soarin quickly tried to push himself up, but he was assisted as Rapidfire flared his wings upward and knocked Soarin off roughly, causing him to roll on the floor… and the light to go out again.

After both of them spent a few moments grunting in pain in the darkness… again, Soarin forced his magic to cooperate and relit his horn. Every time it got harder, but they needed the light. The two of them shot glares at each other, but were both quickly distracted.

They turned their heads and looked at what lay behind the boulder…

Soarin shined his horn towards it as he shakily stood up and shuffled towards it.

“Oh… wow…”

There wasn’t a tunnel behind their prison… it was a large cave… a very large cave… easily the size of the Wonderbolt compound at first glance… maybe even larger. It was only half as tall, but still much more than Soarin could have predicted. He shined the light around from their lookout, spotting running water and stalactites. His light didn’t even reach the other side… the cave extending beyond what his horn was revealing. Scratch that, it couldn’t be compared to the compound. It looked like they had stumbled into a whole cave system!

Rapidfire pulled himself over along the ground and stared in awe.

“Well…” Soarin began as he stepped forward and looked over the edge, seeing that there was about a three yard drop from their lookout. “I guess we better start searching.”

“We?” Rapidfire huffed. Soarin looked down at him and reached down, grabbing him by the arm and helping him stand.

“Yes, we,” Soarin said firmly.

“What, we’re suddenly partners here?” Rapidfire growled. Soarin shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” he said while shooting Rapidfire a stern look. “I’m not letting you off the hook, but I’d bet bits our chances of survival are better if we stick together. Once we’re out, all bets are off.”

“Hmph…” Rapidfire looked over the edge with him. Soarin gingerly tried to lower himself, but slipped and landed roughly on the cave floor below.

“OW!” Soarin grunted as he rolled up and shook his head. Rapidfire stared down, watching as Soarin continued to move forward, confident that they would find a way out no matter how much it hurt. Rapidfire winced as another shock of minor withdrawal hit him, but refocused quickly and tried to lower himself. He slid down the wall, but lost control, yelping as he hit the ground, but Soarin reached back and stopped him from rolling further.

Rapidfire looked up and quickly pushed Soarin away as he grabbed the wall beside him and pushed himself up on his own. He glared at Soarin, fed up that he kept helping him.

“Why are you helping me?!” Rapidfire yelled out of nowhere. Soarin didn’t visibly react, but he had a good answer.

“Why are you more worried about that than making it out alive?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “I already told you, you’re not getting left off the hook, but I have ponies I care about that I need to get back too… and I’m going to assume you may have a reason or two to find your way out as well.”

Soarin was internally laughing. Rapidfire? Care about other ponies? The mere thought had his inner conscience cracking up. That was what was driving Soarin to survive… but Rapidfire? His peers treated him like dirt, and he had alienated anypony that ever gave a damn about him.

But Rapidfire’s expression changed when Soarin said it. The glare faded and his expression went… neutral? Like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to agree or be angry and deny it.

“Fine…” Rapidfire huffed. “Let’s just get the hell out of here already…” he said in a slightly defeated tone as he started hobbling further into the cave. Soarin watched Rapidfire for a moment before turning and following right behind.

Perhaps Rapidfire did have a reason to get out… but what could it be? Soarin would admit, despite his view of Rapidfire, he couldn’t help but wonder what kept him going. What made that twisted mind of his tick?

Whatever Rapidfire’s motivations were, it wasn’t hard for Soarin to keep moving with his own.

He looked around the cave as he followed behind Rapidfire, speaking to himself in a quiet tone to encourage himself.

“I’m okay, Rainbow Dash…” he whispered under his breath. “I’ll survive and come back… I promise…”

“Urgh…” Silver grunted as he pushed the door to the infirmary open with his head and hobbled in. “Stupid… old body…” he grumbled as he slid into the room and almost got hit by the door as it closed behind him. “Can’t go one damn battle without feeling like I just got shat through a wood chipper and double back-door banged by a yak and a dragon…” he mumbled as he limped over to the ice.

Silver had excused himself from the strategy meeting with Spitfire shortly after they got their base objectives down. His body was beat up from the encounter with the Shadowbolts and was wasting no time in feeling like a wreck. Based on what he heard in the meeting, it sounded like Spitfire wanted to attack the moment they ironed out all the remaining details of their plan… He wasn’t in much of a condition to enter another battle, but he would regardless… so if he was going to get some ice on his bruises and make a stop at his room for his prescription pain-killers, now was the time to do it.

As he pulled four plastic bags off a roll above the ice machine, that was now filled with snow gathered from outside, his eyes caught other ponies in the room. He was too busy grumbling a moment earlier to notice. It looked like Squall, Little Star, Twister, Matteo, Storm Front, and Princess Luna. Fleetfoot was also there up on one of the trainer tables with ice bags. What were they all doing in there?

His answer came quickly. During the moment he looked away to scoop hooffulls of snow into the bags, Luna had shifted. As he looked back over, his eyes widened. Rainbow Dash was on the table beside Fleetfoot, and she was… out?

Silver furrowed his brow. Dash was not nearly beat up enough to pass out, what had happened?

He made his way over to the group, but the state of his body had him thinking twice, so he stopped halfway and pulled himself up onto the a trainer table that was a few down from where the group was sitting. None of them had looked towards him, and it was just close enough for him to listen in. He was okay with that. He wasn’t in the mood to engage in conversation, at least not until after he had gotten some nice cold relief from certain burning joins in his legs, back, and wings.

Silver minded his own business, only hearing bits and pieces of the conversation going on as he carefully placed every ice bag exactly where he wanted it. Once he finally balanced them all in place, he turned to rest his chin on the table cushion, but…

“AH!” Dash suddenly yelped, waking up with a start and lifting her head up to look around. It caused all of the ponies around her to flinch.

Silver quickly looked up as well… but the sudden motion caused all the ice bags to slip and fall off of him, two of them rolling off onto the floor. Silver flattened his brow and sighed, grumbling as moved to retrieve the bags and place them again, this time listening in though.

“Dash?!” Little Star landed on the table as Rainbow Dash looked around and blinked. “What is it?”

Dash looked forward seeing all of her friends standing before her, including Princess Luna, and Fleetfoot on the table to her left. Luna put a hoof up on Dash’s table with a look of concern.

“Rainbow Dash, pray tell us… Is there something wrong with Soarin?” she asked. All of the others looked towards Luna, who still hadn’t given them an explanation towards what was going on with Dash. They had tried, but she was too preoccupied with the apparent implications of the situation.

But Dash smiled. She gently reached a hoof up and placed it on her chest, over her heart.

“Soarin… I swear I just heard Soarin’s voice…” she said in a warm tone as her smile grew wider.

“What?” Squall said flatly as he lifted an eyebrow.

“You going loony on us, Dash?” Storm asked in a much softer manner with a slightly chuckle. They both flinched as Luna shifted in front of them, nearly smacking her plot right into Storm’s face as she forced her way into Dash’s view.

“Tell us more!” she demanded. “What did you feel? Was there anything else? How did it sound?” she fired questions loudly at her as Storm and Squall shifted to avoid any unintentional physical contact with the divine princess’ rump. Dash blinked and pulled back slightly as Luna continued to lean forward, eagerly looking for answers as if they would solve all of their current problems.

“Princess…” Matteo spoke up as he reached up and gently grabbed her shoulder. “Please give our captain some space,” he requested respectfully.

“We’re… sorry…” she backed up and sat down with a sigh. “There is very much on the line here… we are merely worried.” She cleared her throat. “Please describe to us what just happened.”

Dash took a deep breath and slowly breathed out as she continued to hold her hoof over her heart.

“I was resting, my heartbeat had slowed down,” she began as everypony listened in, even if the rest of them weren’t quite as informed on her state as she was. Fleetfoot had been keeping quiet beside her, but she already knew a little bit about their connection. “Suddenly my heart jumped and I heard Soarin’s voice in my head… he said ‘I’m okay, Rainbow Dash… I’ll survive and come back… I promise…’” she looked up at Luna. “I know it sounds weird, but it felt like I could actually hear him. My heart jumped at the same time… it’s as if he was speaking to me through our connected spirits.”

“DATS WERD,” Twister suddenly spoke up while sprawled out on Luna’s back. Luna’s eyes widened as she looked back at him, but Matteo was already holding him by the head and pulling him off of her.

“No, I agree, Twister,” Dash said with a chuckle. She ignored the look of pure disbelief the rest of her friends were giving her for saying those particular words in that particular order. “I wish I could explain it fully, but… it was something I felt inside of me.”

“Dash,” Star spoke up as she hovered beside Squall. “Could you… explain all of this to us? I’m so confused.”

“Please do,” Storm asked as he stepped up beside Dash’s bed and placed a hoof on it. “What do you have to do with Soarin’s magic? There’s clearly a connection.”

Dash sighed as she looked between all of them, getting a nod from Luna as her eyes scanned over her. It was high time they got the full details of it. It’s not like they were being kept secret, there was just so much more going on around them, taking the focus away from the issues she and Soarin were facing.

“I’m not about to claim this is easy to explain, but it goes something like this,” Dash began as her squad and Storm all focused on her and listened carefully. “By now you guys know that Soarin, despite not being an alicorn, has the ability to use magic. That’s because the magic was forced into him by Princess Celestia to restore his broken body after our first encounter with the Shadowbolts. The magic is powerful, unstable, and dangerous, and is constantly trying to consume Soarin’s spirit and take control of his body.” Dash paused, glancing at Luna, who was looking away with her cheeks puffed out. Even now, after all this time, she still didn’t like Celestia’s decision to save Soarin. Not that Dash blamed her though. It clearly did something to Celestia that had kept her away for a long period of time.

“The horn is an ancient artifact that allows Soarin to control the magic to a certain degree, which was something he had to learn to do from scratch,” Dash continued. “But this is all stuff you guys already know, the kicker is… there’s something else involved in his magic… that’s me.” Dash put a hoof to her chest as she nodded to them. “You see, when Celestia transferred this magic into Soarin… she needed help to cast it. If she did it by herself, she would have completely destroyed herself. So she enlisted Spitfire and me to ‘support’ her. She chose us because we both had close connections to Soarin.” She paused again, and blinked. “Well… what happened next is sort of… impossible to explain…” she chuckled, knowing the little sequence in the darkness where she and Spitfire yelled at Soarin while yanking him out of a dark void would be… well… pretty high up the weird things that have happened to her throughout all this list.

“I… uh… guess…” Dash scratched her head. “The best way to explain it is that Soarin needed familiar encouragement and somepony he cared deeply for in order for his soul to take hold of the magic. And that’s what Spitfire and I provided, but… while Spitfire got out of it without any extra strings attached, I didn’t,” she sighed. “Despite Soarin absorbing the magic, Celestia couldn’t lock it down in his body. It was wild, and lashing out constantly. So… in order to keep it tied down, she anchored the magic down… with a piece of my own spirit. I’m still not exactly sure what she did, but I’d guess that while Spitfire and I were coaxing Soarin out of the darkness, we were not in physical form. Instead our spirits were speaking to his. Celestia must have done it then, taking a part of my spirit and leaving it behind. Whatever she did, it worked, because Soarin now has enough control over the magic to keep it stable.”

Dash took a moment to look her audience over. Luna was still looking away, Fleetfoot had turned to look, and looked a little confused. Dash figured she had already heard about this from Soarin to a certain degree but maybe not this much in depth. Storm and the rest of her squad had varying reactions. Storm had his eyes narrowed as if he was struggling to follow. Squall just had an eyebrow raised. Matteo’s eyes were moving back and forth as if trying to process all the information. Little Star was just staring at Dash as if waiting for her to continue. Twister was staring blankly while holding up a sign that read ‘No, I agree, Twister… -Rainbow Dash. Never forget.’

Schemmer

“Wait… so…” Little Star spoke up while pulling the sign out of Twister’s hooves and tossing it over her back. “So figuratively speaking, there’s an actual connection between you two? Like, there’s a part of you in Soarin?”

“That’s ironic,” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up quietly. Dash’s ears flattened as she glanced over at Fleetfoot, but she quickly looked back as Storm failed to hold back a snort. Even Squall was suddenly holding his breath. “Sorry…” Fleetfoot released a quiet giggle while putting her hoof over her nose. “It was too easy.”

“ANYWAY…” Dash chuckled while shaking her head. “To put it in a way that can’t be spun sexually, a part of my spirit is in Soarin, so we’re linked.”

“Is that why you can… ‘feel’ when he’s having problems?” Storm asked, having finally regained his composure.

“Right,” Dash nodded. “There are repercussions to it. My body can physically feel any of his pain caused by the magic. For a while that wasn’t the case, but as the link developed, so did the reactions. Also… and probably the most drastic, is that our spirits have become fully linked as a result. Meaning if Soarin’s spirit were to be destroyed, such as through him being killed, that means it would drag my spirit with it… killing me too. The same vice versa. That’s why I know he’s alive.”

“Oh my god…” Star put her hooves over her mouth. “That’s…”

“That’s quite a burden,” Matteo finished for her.

“It’s not completely bad,” Dash smiled. “I mean… yeah, the whole if he dies I die thing was pretty hard to swallow at first, but… at the same time this link has brought us even closer. Before he had the horn, his magic pretty much prevented him from ever calming down or running out of energy. That may sound great on the surface, but it was taking a huge toll on him. That was, until we came back together for the first time, and we realized that me being around made the magic calm down and behave itself. Apparently the magic is afraid of me because I’m the reason it was locked in to begin with. The horn allows Soarin to control it and has kept the magic from taking him over, but it was my spirit that initially allowed it to be trapped. And it goes even further now that Soarin has control. If I’m around him, he can use the magic on a near master level with no repercussion that usually come with pushing it too hard. In short… whenever I’m around, it’s easier for Soarin to relax and he can push himself way past his limits.”

As she finished, Star’s expression turned from worry to one of pure giddiness. Her eyes had gone incredibly wide.

“So you two… basically need each other, you draw from each other, and you’re lovers on top of it…” She puckered her lips and began swaying as she hovered. “Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…” She inadvertently began shifting towards Squall, who started leaning away while flattening his brow. “That’s… TOO adorable!” Star continued to fawn as she ended up against Squall’s shoulder.

Squall, however, could not get away because Twister had suddenly popped out from Matteo’s feathers beside him, imitating Star’s facial expressions and cooing. Squall sighed as he found his head sandwiched between Star and Twister as Matteo was already reaching up to grab Twister without even looking.

Storm snorted as he watched Foxtrot’s reaction before looking back at Dash.

“Well… I knew there was a lot of weird stuff going on with Soarin, but that one takes the cake,” Storm commented. He suddenly ducked as Twister zipped over his head, having been thrown by Matteo. Storm looked back and cringed as Twister crashed and did an unnecessary amount of collateral damage, somehow pulling several of the trainer tables with him.

“Weird doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Dash chuckled. “I’ve been learning all this crazy magical and spiritual stuff throughout all this and I still don’t get half of it.”

“It is not something we regularly try to explain,” Luna spoke up beside them. “There is much about other planes of existence and inner auras and spirits that often remain completely unknown by normal ponies and mortal species in general. Believe us, even in our long existence there are many things even we have yet to understand about them.”

“Yowza…” Storm voiced his awe as Luna nodded. “Sounds like a one way ticket to a headache… even more so than the explanation I just heard.”

“That’s why I’m just going with it,” Dash shrugged. “I mean… clearly it’s something we’re not meant to normally know about. If none of this stuff happened I’d never have even given it thought.”

They were all interrupted as a squawk came from Matteo’s direction. They looked over to see Star hugging Squall around the neck, her eyes still wide while looking at Dash. Squall had tried to shift away. Unfortunately, his attempt had led to him stepping down hard on one of Matteo’s back paws and all three of them had fallen into a heap on the floor. It would have ended there, but…

“DOG PILE!” Twister yelled as he leapt over the top and body slammed Matteo, causing a little scuffle on the floor. Dash let her nose plop down onto the trainer table cushion.

“I love my squad… but sometimes, I swear…” she sighed, but couldn’t hold back a smile.

“You rest, I’ll stop them,” Storm snickered as he turned away and moved towards Foxtrot.

Luna watched Storm as he left Dash’s side, but before she could turn back to Dash, her eyes landed on Silver Lining. She stopped and blinked, her eyes widening.

“Oh dear, we completely forgot…” she turned back to Dash. “Forgive us, Rainbow Dash, but we were supposed to attend the planning of our next move… please excuse us, we must go catch up.”

Before Dash could respond, Luna was already up and trotting towards the exit, smoothly gliding over the random wrestling pile of varying mindsets on the floor.

As Luna left, Dash finally noticed Silver lying a few tables down with his body covered in ice. He wasn’t looking at her, in fact he looked like he was… asleep? She thought about calling to him, but—

“Hrrmmmmm…” Fleetfoot suddenly groaned. Dash turned away from Silver and looked to her other side, where Fleetfoot lay on the table beside her.

Fleetfoot was lying flat like her, but had her chin resting on the cushion and had a hoof draped over her nose. She released a long sigh through her nostrils as her eyes looked somber, barely visible over her hoof.

“What’s up, Fleet?” Dash asked, eying her curiously.

“Nothing…” Fleetfoot said weakly, almost in a way that was blatantly a load of bull. Dash just stared at her for a second before tipping her head to the side curiously. Fleetfoot lifted her hoof up slightly to reveal her eyes looking at Dash. “This is the part where you call me out for lying through my teeth.”

“Uh… sorry?” Dash chuckled as she forced a weak smile. Fleetfoot waved her hoof slightly before replacing it over her nose.

“Forget about it, it’s really, REALLY not important right now… I just…rgh…” she grunted as she brought her other hoof up and placed it over her nose as well. The ice bag on her right wing joint fell off and tumbled to the floor, but she made no effort to retrieve it. Dash just stared, but not out of confusion. It seemed like Fleetfoot had something she wanted to get off her chest. Knowing Fleetfoot, it would only be another moment before she voiced her thoughts. “I’m just… jealous…”

Now it was time for Dash to be confused. Vulnerability was a side Fleetfoot seldom showed in general, but jealousy? Of her and Soarin…? Or what…?

“Jealous?” Dash asked singularly, not quite sure how else to format the question. Fleetfoot released another long sigh.

“It’s stupid, I know… I have the worst timing with this kind of thing,” Fleetfoot started beating herself up again.

“Fleet, stop… what is it?” Dash asked, concerned. Fleetfoot had stuck by her all the way through this whole experience. Fleetfoot had helped her when Dash and Soarin disagreed back in Ponyville, Fleetfoot led the assault on the Shadowbolt fortress when she and Soarin were first captured, she vouched for and voted for her all throughout the tryouts, and then made sure Dash knew she was still her friend afterward. Fleetfoot, while not a constant in Dash’s life, had always been a pony she knew she could count on. She wanted Fleetfoot to know she could count on her too.

“I just wish I knew what it was like…” she said quietly.

“What do you mean?” Dash asked, her ears flopping down as she caught a sad tone in Fleetfoot’s voice.

“Having somepony that’s so special to me… that everything about them gives me strength,” she continued with her face still covered. Dash’s eyes widened as Fleetfoot continued to spill her heart. “I mean…” she removed her hoof from her face and looked sternly at Dash. “Look at you and Soarin, look how much motivation you draw from one another… look at how strong you two are in spirit. And I’m not just talking about this weird magic stuff,” she raised her voice a little. “And then look at what just happened in the lobby. Spitty is so determined to stick her hoof up the Shadowbolts’ asses that she almost caught fire. She completely dominated Descent and pushed him right out. Why? All because of Wave… she wants to save somepony that means the world to her and she’s not going to let anything get in her way.” Fleetfoot put her hoof back over her face. Dash was about to speak up, but never got the chance. “Yeah, yeah… I know that she said she’d do it for any of us… but I could tell, I could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. I have never seen her assert herself and her goals so passionately. And it’s all for him… for Wave…”

“Fleet… I…” Dash cut herself off. She was about to naturally try and comfort her, but… it seemed she was part of what drove Fleetfoot into this little state, so she felt it wasn’t her place to speak up.

“I’ve seen it from you and Soarin all the time, how the two of you drive each other, push each other, draw strength from each other… and for a while it was limited to just you two. Now though… I’m seeing it from Spitfire too, and it’s making me wonder… what it would be like,” Fleetfoot shook her head subtly. “I’ve never been one to really be connected like that to others. You know me. I’m very big on staying open and showing affection and fun to everypony. So many things are making me think twice about that recently, certain events, certain ponies, seeing couples… I feel like I’ve been missing out, like I haven’t been taking it as seriously as I should. Sorry… like I said, this isn’t the time for this. I just had to tell somepony.”

“This again?”

Both of them flinched. Fleetfoot stuck her head up to see over Dash as Dash turned to look at the table on her other side. At some point, Silver had gotten up and moved all the way over to the table right next to her. He was looking over Dash’s back at Fleetfoot.

“Did you already forget our little chat?” he asked as Fleetfoot pouted and lowered her head.

“No…” she said with a slightly miffed tone.

“Uh…” Dash looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Oh, so you just ignored my advice then,” Silver rolled his eyes.

“NO! I did go to him, but, uh…” Fleetfoot blinked as Dash turned and stared at her. Fleetfoot puffed her cheeks out and blushed. “Mrrrgghhh…” she reached her hooves back and pulled her swept-back mane all the way forward and over her eyes.

“For somepony that secretes affection more than a changeling on laxatives, you sure aren’t a go-getter when you narrow it down to one pony…” Silver lifted an eyebrow as Fleetfoot threw her hooves up, her mane snapping back into its normal shape.

“Okay! Okay! I get it! I’ll… ugh…” Fleetfoot groaned.

“Just don’t keep denying yourself what you really want, Commander…” Silver finished in a tone that was much more serious. Fleetfoot looked up over Dash again for a moment. Her eyes met Silver’s. Silver lifted his other eyebrow.

“Hrmmmmm…” Fleetfoot slowly lowered herself back down and sighed. She didn’t look defeated, angry, or embarrassed. She looked like she was taking the words to heart…

But Dash was completely lost.

“Did I miss something here?” she asked as she looked towards her mentor. Silver shook his head.

“Nothing. Just something personal the two of us have discussed,” he confirmed while respecting Fleetfoot’s privacy. Dash glanced back at Fleet as she remained still in her spot.

“I… see,” Dash shrugged. “Oh…” She realized Silver had left the lobby before she had her little pseudo-heart attack. “You’re probably wondering why I’m in—”

“I was listening,” Silver cut her off. “And don’t try explaining it again, I can’t stand all the spiritual mumbo jumbo the divine sisters are always all about.”

“Fair enough,” Dash chuckled as she took a brief glance over the top of Silver. It looked like Storm had finally managed to separate her squad. She had no idea how it turned into a scuffle, other than the fact that Twister treated the initial accident as a mosh pit. She looked back at Silver, quickly analyzing him. She noticed all the ice bags on his body and was quick to show concern. “How are—”

“I’m fine,” Silver answer before she even asked, recognizing the way she was looking him over. Dash furrowed her brow.

“Can I finish a sentence befo—”

“No,” Silver cut her off again. Dash glared at him, but met a smirk that slowly curled on Silver’s lips. She couldn’t hold back a smile forming on her own.

“You’re an ass,” Dash shook her head.

“I know,” Silver answered proudly with a chuckle. “But really, Dash, you know me. I’m stiff as hell, but I’ll pull through.”

“Yeah I DO know,” she rolled her eyes. “You could have a broken wing and you’d still try to fly out there with us.”

“Good, now stop worrying abou—”

“No,” Dash cut him off with a very sly grin on her face. Silver scrunched his face and glared at her. Dash just lifted her brow while smiling smugly at him. “What? You can dish it, but ya can’t take it?” she whipped her mane around tauntingly. “I think I’m starting to get the better of y—” She was cut off as plastic bag filled with a mixture of water and melting snow smacked her in the face. “Ow!” She rubbed her nose before pouting at Silver. Silver was staring at her, perfectly calm as if nothing had happened… but he was missing an ice pack.

“What?” he asked smoothly.

“That was a cheap shot,” Dash stuck her tongue out at him.

“What was?” he asked, keeping up the blatantly false ignorance.

“Gee, I dunno, this?” Dash held up the ice bag. Silver blinked and glanced over his shoulder towards where the ice bag once sat.

“Fleetfoot!” Silver called over Dash. “Stop stealing my ice bags!” he yelled as he failed to stop a smile from forming.

“Leave me out of this!” Fleetfoot quickly retorted as Dash burst into chuckles.

“Alright, alright… enough…” Dash tossed the ice bag back over to Silver, who replaced it on his left wing. “Rest, like I am, we both need it.”

“Agreed…” Silver grunted as he laid his chin back down. “I could barely stay standing in that damn meeting. Once we got the initial stuff figured out, I got the hell out of there before I could fall flat on my face.”

Dash held her breath as she watched Silver cringe a little bit. Time and time again, he told her to not worry about him, but she couldn’t help it. She believed in his strength, toughness, and unbreakable will, but those things didn’t make him invincible.

To avoid blurting out her worry again, she decided to ask him something else.

“So… what’s the plan now? I mean… if you’re allowed to tell me,” Dash tipped her head back and forth, realizing she might be prying into the planning. Silver shook his head.

“Nothing secret about it. Spitfire is going to come right out and explain it to everypony once she gets all the snags ironed out,” he explained. One word stuck out to Dash. ‘Snag.’

“Snags?” Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“Spitfire’s determination is fueling her with a fiery passion, but she’s not letting it cloud her judgment. She ruled out a head on assault, but about halfway through our discussion, we realized there’s a major factor we haven’t accounted for,” Silver grunted. “The shield surrounding the fortress.”

“Oh…” Dash blinked. That was right. She hadn’t thought about that either and it was likely most of the Wonderbolts hadn’t during Spitfire’s motivational speech earlier.

The Shadowbolt fortress was heavily protected by a magic shield, one that had repeatedly repelled Wonderbolts and Renegades alike who had tried to fly near it while the Shadowbolts passed through it with ease. The desire to save Wave Chill was strong, but how in Equestria were they going to bypass that particular defense mechanism?

“Until we iron out that detail, I have no idea what we’re going to do,” Silver continued. “Because thus far, I haven’t seen any way we could possibly get through it. The moment we show up, they’re going to activate it, if it isn’t already up by default. Even if it isn’t up, if we sneak a small force inside, they would be easily caught and overwhelmed with the size of their force.”

“The shield… hmm…” Dash looked down and pondered for a moment. Silver perked up and watched her as she thought.

Penetrating the crystal magic… was it possible? The first thing that came to Dash’s mind was when she pierced through the tornado in Ponyville with a double Sonic Blastoff… but she quickly shook that possibility from her head. Sure it worked in Ponyville, but there were some key factors that made trying such a stunt here too risky. The first being… she punched through a tornado, which consisted of incredibly violent gusts. It wasn’t solid like the Shadowbolt shield had proved to be. The second… the tornado was created by a single crystal, a little larger than those the Shadowbolts carried. The Shadowbolt fortress was covered with crystal formations, some that were massive. For all she knew a large amount of them were powering the shield. She wasn’t about to challenge something that could easily be several times sturdier.

However, there was one thing she did remember from their recent encounters.

“Wait…” she turned to Silver. “What about their magic cannon?”

Silver blinked and stared for a moment, before tipping his head, puzzled.

“What about their magic cannon?” he asked while shaking his head. “I doubt we have anything that could match the power of that—”

“No, no, no,” Dash shook her head while waving a hoof out in front of her. “They’ve fired that thing at us twice… and we found interesting ways to survive it, but what happened when they did?”

“We freaked the hell out?” Silver was really having trouble picking up on what Dash was getting at.

“No, Silver, remember what happened to their fortress?” She tried to clue him in, but it didn’t work.

“I was too busy wondering how the hell we were all still alive…”

“Argh!” Dash smacked her head against the table cushion. “After the first time they fired… the fortress was so drained of its power that it couldn’t stay up in the sky without the Shadowbolts themselves pushing it from below. All the crystals were flickering like it could barely stay running. The glow of their shield was gone too. Now… I was down below in the engine room when they fired the second time… but they didn’t follow us, right? I heard we were chased by smaller flying machines… right?”

Silver nodded, listening carefully as she continued.

“So I think it’s safe to assume that when they fire the cannon… it drains the power of the fortress. I’d be willing to bet that the shield goes down as a result too,” Dash explained.

“Hmmm…” Silver narrowed his eyes and looked down as Dash brought this to his attention. That was not something any of them had thought of in the meeting, nor did it seem any of them had been paying attention like Dash had been.

This brought another point into the discussion… but at the same time… put another snag into it.

“Interesting… but…” Silver grunted as he looked back up at Dash. “That means we’d have to get them to fire that thing… and I don’t know how the hell we’d get that to happen. The compound is still under repairs.”

“Well…” Dash spoke up calmly. “That’s easy… we just have to make them fire it.”

“Dash, how exactly are we going to make them fire that cannon?” Silver furrowed his brow. At this point, Fleetfoot had turned to listen as well, equally curious to hear what Dash was saying.

“Uh…” Dash scratched her head, but it wasn’t in a way that seemed frantic, she was putting legitimate thought into it, which kept Silver curious towards what she might suggest. “We just have to give them something to shoot at!” she pointed at Silver. “Like… Like…” Dash looked away tapping her hoof on the table. “Like… hmmmmmmmmmmm, oh!” Dash turned back to him, a smirk on her face. “Like, say… something that they’d never expect… like an ancient black dragon!”

Silver stared blankly at her for several seconds… but when it finally hit him, his eyes widened considerably, followed by his jaw dropping. He suddenly shook his body with a painful grunt, all of the ice bags falling off of him. He slid off the table and stepped right in front of Dash.

“Can you walk?” Silver asked quickly. Dash pulled her head back slightly, surprised at the tone of urgency in his voice.

“Uh, yeah? I—”

“Come with me, NOW.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter done by Foxenawolf

Oh ho...? Dash has an idea! We cannot forget... that the Wonderbolts have something the Shadowbolts don't... something that they may be able to use greatly to their advantage :raritywink:

And Soarin and Rapidfire... forced to work together for survival... this is going to be interesting indeed :moustache:

Sorry for the longer wait! But alas, it's holiday season, so im a little busy/preoccupied. Updates will probably be a little less frequent until after all the holidays are over (and that means like... maybe a few more days wait than usual) but once January first rolls around, any slowdown in the schedule will quickly go away.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

(note: if anyone is wondering, yes, matteo is missing his two crest feathers in the picture, something that both fox and i only realized recently after the pic had been finished xD She's going to be tweaking it in our next stream, so the pic may change early this week, but for now, enjoy 'bald' Matteo :rainbowwild:)

Chapter 111: Reluctant Trust

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 111: Reluctant Trust

“Nothing? Nothing at all?” Spitfire asked with a sigh from behind her desk. Blazetail shook his head and shrugged.

“You’d have to ask one of the Shadowbolt Renegades about it, if they even know,” he huffed. “All of the Shadowbolts Descent pulled from their clutches have been with us for a long while now. They were all just as surprised by the fortress appearing and shield as we were, so I doubt they have any answers.”

“Hmmmm…” Spitfire hummed to herself as she reached her hooves up and rubbed her temples. She was so ready to put a plan into motion, only to run headfirst into a brick wall with the shield issue.

“From what I’ve seen,” Fire Streak spoke up opposite of Blazetail. “I doubt Descent would be willing to share anything he might know anyway… seeing as how he refuses to help at all…” he trailed off for a moment, looking towards the newly arrived and briefed Princess Luna who was sitting on Spitfire’s couch. “Your majesty… would you happen to have any thoughts on how we might possibly penetrate a magic shield that powerful?”

Luna looked down at the floor for a moment before slowly shaking her head.

“We’re afraid there is little advice we can offer here. We can only assume the shield is incredibly powerful. It repelled our own divine Alicorn magic, meaning there is no known force that can break through it, at least not easily,” Luna paused and blinked as she looked up. “Although…”

“Yes…?” Fire Streak waited as Blazetail, Flashwind, and Spitfire all turned to look at her as well as she furrowed her brow.

“The shield is generated by their crystals… meaning it is of the ‘false’ chaos magic that Discord mentioned,” she groaned. “And while Discord is unwilling to risk using his own chaos magic against it, we feel he would know better than anypony how to possibly break through…”

“Wonderful,” Fire Streak voiced his discontent as his ears folded back. As the others expressed similar discontent, Luna glanced up and around the ceiling as if looking for something.

“THOU CAN SHOW THYSELF NOW!” she yelled in the old Royal Canterlot Voice. The other four all flinched and stared at her curiously before also looking at the ceiling.

However, there was no response. Only silence. The four all looked back down at Luna, who blushed in embarrassment before covering her face sheepishly with a hoof.

“Pardon us,” she said quietly. “We assumed Discord was listening in as he does often, but… apparently he isn’t. That’s a first.”

All eyes went back to Spitfire as she exhaled loudly.

“Well… I’ve no clue where to go from here,” she admitted, a tone of disappointment slowly making its way into her voice. “I’m open to any suggestions. We know how we’re going to find it, but if we can’t get that damn shield figured out…” She paused, gritting her teeth in frustration. She was so dead set and filled with determination, but she was ignorant of the facts. Now, after how much she had riled up and rallied the Wonderbolts, was she going to have to come right back out and kill their hopes? Was she… going to have to let go of Wave?

BAM.

Spitfire looked towards the door.

“What the…?”

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as Silver yanked her into Spitfire’s office. He had been pulling her along rather roughly since they left the infirmary. Apparently he was incredibly eager to relay her idea to Spitfire.

Dash looked up as they entered, and her pupils shrank as she found Spitfire, Fire Streak, Blazetail, Flashwind, and Princess Luna all staring at her. Luckily, all attention was quickly diverted to Silver as he spoke.

“Are we still talking about the shield?” Silver asked Fire Streak as he pulled Dash right up to Spitfire’s desk.

“Ye—”

“Good,” Silver cut him off as he smiled.

“Silver?” Spitfire tipped her head curiously. “And… Rainbow Dash? What’s this all about?” she asked Silver. Silver finally let go of Dash’s arm and pointed to her with a smirk.

“Somepony here has been paying closer attention than all of us. We may yet have a way to get past that shield.”

All of their faces lit up, particularly Spitfire’s as Silver turned to look at Dash.

“Tell them what you told me,” he encouraged.

Dash gulped. She was put on the spot rather abruptly. Suddenly, she was proposing a plan, or at least an idea for a major Wonderbolt operation?

Don’t panic, just calm down.

Dash looked around at all of them, they all looked eager to hear what she had to say. Silver had already shown his recognition of her little scheme, so there was no reason for her to be worried. In fact, the way Spitfire was looking at her, a smile full of curiosity and hope, also encouraged Dash to share. After all, the main purpose of all of this was to save Wave Chill.

“Uh… right…” Dash swallowed again before stepping up to Spitfire’s desk, gingerly placing herself right beside Blazetail, whose presence was still a bit overwhelming to her. “So… the… uh…” Dash’s eyes were darting between Spitfire and Blazetail. The two lifted an eyebrow as she continued to sputter.

Dash flinched as Silver cleared his throat loudly behind her. She turned and looked over her shoulder at him. He held a hoof out and rotated it while giving her a stern expression. She turned back, took a deep breath and focused towards Spitfire.

“The magic cannon. If we want to get through the shield, the key is the cannon firing,” Dash said straightforwardly.

“Come again?” Flashwind was the only one to speak up, stepping beside her husband as the rest simply stared, confused. Dash was locked on course, and began explaining.

“When they first fired that massive cannon at us, it was blocked by both Soarin and Princess Luna working together. Right after that happened, I saw the fortress begin to teeter and fall. Its crystal formations were flickering, and the faint glow of the surrounding shield was gone. The cannon must drain its power or leave it with very little in reserve, considering the Shadowbolts had to physically push it below with nearly every member to keep it from falling,” Dash paused and looked about to see if they were following.

“Actually…” Fire Streak perked up. “I recall seeing that too, but I didn’t put that together.”

All eyes shifted to Blazetail and Flashwind. Flashwind shook her head.

“We were out there, but we were all shot down by the fortress,” she explained.

“The only thing I remember was how much pain I was in,” Blazetail grunted. “But we can’t possibly be certain after seeing it only once…”

“But,” Dash turned and winked at him, her nerves already calming since she was on a roll with the explanation. “They fired it at us again, right? When we were taking off?”

“They did…” Blazetail furrowed his brow. “But…”

“We didn’t get to see what happened after?” Silver chimed in. He walked up beside Dash. “I think it’s safe to assume the place was drained again through because they didn’t follow us. Instead, they sent those two weird airships after us that Bomber, Val, and I buried in an avalanche.”

“Hmmmmmm…” Spitfire sat back in her desk chair and rubbed her chin. “So… if we can’t get through the shield… then we have to make them drop it. Thing is, how in the world are we going to coerce them to fire that cannon? Hell, they took down the entire Renegade force with their smaller cannons alone.”

“Heh… Dash,” Silver nudged her. “Go on.”

Spitfire looked up and leaned back forward, focusing on Dash again the moment Silver suggested she had more to tell. Dash quickly continued.

“We just need to give them something to fire at. You know, something that will threaten them,” she explained with a smile, but in return she received looks that lacked confidence.

“But, Miss Dash…” Fire Streak spoke up. “What could we possibly threaten them with? We don’t have any upper hoof in terms of power. They hold all the cards in strength.”

“Who said we had to use power?” Dash smirked. “We have deception! We can spook them right into using it!”

“Deception?” Fire Streak continued to question her. Dash nodded eagerly.

“I say we throw them a curveball! Let’s take a page right out of the recruit training book… and use the black dragon illusion!”

Dash looked around.

Not a single expression changed. Her eyes darted back and forth and if the silence had lasted a moment longer she was certain she’d start to sweat. But then her eyes landed on Spitfire, who was looking at her carefully… and a moment later, her eyes lit up.

“Hmmmmm…” Spitfire turned her swivel chair around and faced the armored shutter of her window. “Hmmmmmmmmmmm…”

Dash bit her lower lip, waiting impatiently for a response. Was this really a good plan like Silver’s reaction suggested? Or was she in over her head and sounded like a moron?

“Hmmmmmm!” Spitfire suddenly hummed again, but in a much different tone. It was a tone of satisfaction or realization. “Recruit Captain Rainbow Dash…” She turned back around in her chair, resting her elbows on the desk and holding her hooves up in front of her mouth while glaring. Dash flinched and froze up, holding her breath as Spitfire’s eye landed on her, but she loosened up as Spitfire lowered her hooves from her mouth to reveal a very wide, somewhat sinister smile. “That is incredibly clever!”

Dash released all the air from her lungs in a loud breath as Spitfire chuckled to herself.

“I never, ever would have thought of that!” she added as she leaned to one side and tapped her hoof on her desk.

“Wait,” Blazetail held up a hoof. “You mean… The Test? That old crisis simulation?”

Dash’s ears began to tip downward. Blazetail clearly didn’t seem convinced. She glanced over at Fire Streak, who was scratching his head.

“That seems like quite the gamble. I see where you’re coming from, but how will we set it up? How will we conceal the generated image as it’s generated? How can we be sure it fools them?” he kept questioning. Fire Streak was also shaking his head, suggesting he wasn’t convinced either. Dash felt it was going so well too.

“No, no, no, guys!” Spitfire drew all their attention back to her while chuckling. “Of course it won’t work!”

Dash’s ears nearly slapped the sides of her head, but the feeling of failure was incredibly short lived.

“At least…” Spitfire continued. “Not by itself!” She added with a wink.

“Uh…” Flashwind was about to speak, but Spitfire pushed herself up from her chair.

“Don’t you see what Dash is getting at here? It’s genius!” She rubbed her hooves together. “We were able to take down a few of them in a fight… but in an all-out attack, us against them, I have no doubt they would overpower us. An assault is out of the question, BUT,” She pointed at Dash. “I think there is something we’ve all overlooked here. The Wonderbolts have something the Shadowbolts don’t! We have functions that we train outside of military!” Her excitement was clearly growing. “I think it’s about time we called upon our other skills and put them to good use! Now, let’s see…” She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms, and looked down for a moment as if going through options in her head.

Dash turned as she heard Silver chuckling beside her.

“Now look what you’ve gone and done.” He glanced at her. “You’ve gone and gotten the captain all happy again.”

“I’m so very sorry,” Dash said while sticking her tongue out at him.

“I’ve got it!” Spitfire pounded a hoof on her desk while leaning back forward again. Fire Streak, Blazetail, Flashwind, and Luna had all been completely dominated out of the conversation until Spitfire had finished. She hopped up onto her desk and dropped herself down right between Silver and Dash. “The first phase of the operation will be about confusing them. We need a good distraction to buy time for the image generators to be put in place. I’ll have Rivet take a quick look at them to make sure they survived the crash intact, but assuming they are all still functional, we’ll have the Renegades and the recruit squads help move them and our unicorn staff members into place on a mountain close to their fortress. And to make sure they are undeterred…” She clapped her front hooves together. “We’ll put on the biggest show we’ve ever done with the Shadowbolts as our lucky audience! We’ll use every trick and stunt we have in the book, our first performance with every elite squad at once! It will be spectacular and throw them for a loop as we purposely avoid conflict and focus on the spectacle. Hell, if they come after us, they’ll get caught in all the effects.”

Fires Streak was nodding, finding interest in this crazy, but interesting plan, but Blazetail and Flashwind looked a little worried about it. Either way, Spitfire didn’t stop there.

“This is perfect, not only will we make a statement with this operation, it will also prove that we can mess with them just as much as they’ve messed with us.” She turned and looked towards Silver. “Once everything is in place, it will be all about selling the act to them. We must make everything seem as real as possible or else I don’t see them even considering firing the cannon. So for starters we’ll have to kick up a lot of smoke and clouds to completely conceal their view of the giant image flickering on. Then, after that, we have to make them believe it. Project the roar sounds as if it’s approaching from far away, have some of our strongest ponies create tremors in the mountain sides to simulate a massive beast landing… then, of course, fake a few deaths to make it seem—”

“WHOA! Whoa…” Blazetail cut in, holding a hoof out as he stepped up to her. “Slow down. We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? I’m following what you’re proposing, but…” He shook his head. “Don’t you think this is incredibly rash? Especially considering it’s to rescue one pony. There are just too many variables to consider, too many things that could go wrong.”

Spitfire flattened her brow and gave Blazetail a stern look.

“Sir,” Silver cut in before either of them could argue. They both stepped back as Silver got between them and focused on Blazetail. “I think you should have a little faith in your former organization.”

“Silver, I understand you are good friends with Wave Chill as well, but don’t you think we’re going a little overboard with this? The loopholes, the margin of error, it’s too risky.”

“Not if we pull it off correctly,” Silver quickly shot back with a smirk. “I’m sure my student here can vouch for how convincing we made it during her training. In general, with the extended time of peace, we’ve all had a lot of time to work on our show performances, and believe me… we’ve all gotten a lot better at it. We have new effects involved, including faking our own deaths within the fire breath, leaving false burnt bodies. We had the recruits running and screaming for their lives,” he finished while glancing at Dash, who snorted and pouted at him.

“We’ll make it as real as possible,” Spitfire started up again as Blazetail decided to let her finish. “We’ll do everything involved with The Test, but we’ll take it a step further with your help Blazetail.”

Blazetail’s ears perked up.

“With the Renegades amongst our numbers, we can add even more convincing effects, such as collateral damage. Blow away a few mountain tops with elemental chain reactions to fake the ‘might’ of the dragon and then…” she looked over at Luna. “We can put Luna at the main controls of the image! I’m sure with her divine alicorn magic, she can make the dragon image look and move more realistically than ever before! You see, we’re not just using The Test… we’re using The Test and EVERYTHING else at our disposal!”

Fire streak, Silver, Dash, Luna, and even the old captains looked more convinced now. This was not a shot in the dark, Spitfire was covering every detail.

“You know…” Flashwind chimed in while placing a hoof on her husband’s back. “I think this has a good chance of working. Think about it honey,” she addressed Blazetail specifically. “The Shadowbolts have always been very quick to rely on their personal shields when faced with something powerful. If the Wonderbolts fake their deaths, they’ll activate their magic to defend themselves from the flames… they won’t be able to tell if it’s fake or not!”

“Yes!” Spitfire trotted up to Blazetail. “And then after giving them a good scare and causing a lot of blatantly unnecessary damage around us, we can have the dragon turn towards the fortress! I don’t know who’s in charge of that cannon of theirs, but all we have to do is convince them they need the firepower!”

“So…” Silver shifted towards Spitfire again. “Assuming we get them to fire, what’s next?”

“What’s next, what’s next…” Spitfire stepped away from him and started pacing back and forth. “Yes… yes!” She stopped and turned, her hooves skidding on the floor as she faced them. “We’ll all pop up from our ‘deaths’ and engage them in a Wonderbolt-Renegade joint attack, provoking them to send out their entire force.”

“What?” Blazetail furrowed his brow.

“Let me finish, please,” Spitfire pointed sharply at him before he could question her. “The recruits will be charged with getting all of our equipment and staff members back to the compound immediately with a small force of Renegades to lead them through the blizzard. There will also be a priority order to retreat if any injuries are sustained. This is an operation to save one of our best… we are NOT losing anypony or else it will be an empty victory. However… the reason for this ‘mock’ assault, is to clear out their compound and buy time for a small force of Wonderbolts to slip into their fortress and spring Wave Chill.”

“Again…” Blazetail sighed. “I feel that’s still risky, especially if you want nopony to get taken out. I doubt they will leave their interior completely uncovered.”

“Hey, hey…” Spitfire stepped towards him with a smirk. “Have you forgotten? We have ten genuine Shadowbolt uniforms sitting in our ‘detention infirmary’ that we can make use of! It will be a covert operation.”

“But... won’t they recognize your faces? There’s only so many features the masks can hide. What about fur and mane colors?” Blazetail continued to try and cover every base.

“We may be able to help with that,” Luna suddenly broke her silence, drawing all eyes to her. “We know of a spell that can temporarily change fur and mane colors. We have used it often for Nightmare Night. However, we are afraid we cannot alter facial features.”

“Meaning,” Flashwind took over. “You probably won’t be able to send in any of your highest elites, since the Shadowbolts have files on most of you, especially the top tiers. Unless of course, you can really sell Shadowbolt behavior, which would take some really good acting.”

“So we’ll have to rely on lesser known Wonderbolts, possibly recruits even, Or…” Spitfire rubbed her chin as Silver cleared his throat.

“For the behavior thing, I bet Starry Skies would be a good informant for that,” he suggested. “Descent won’t let her go, and she definitely wouldn’t get in without being recognized, but she seems to radiate their typical mannerisms. Which just leaves who we’re going to send…” Silver glanced back at Dash, scrunching his face. From Dash’s perspective, that screamed that Silver rather not have her risked in such a mission, but at the same time, he probably felt she could be useful.

“Oh… OH!” Spitfire perked up and turned to Silver. “I’ll leave that up to the elite squad I’m sending in. They can choose who comes along.”

“Wait…” Silver lifted an eyebrow. “Didn’t we just agree the elites would be a bad idea?”

“Not unless they can really sell it…” Spitfire poked Silver in the chest and smirked. “This way we can send in four elites to lead the infiltration, assuring an effective extraction.”

“Who?” Silver questioned while switching which eyebrow he had lifted. Spitfire chuckled and shook her head.

“Silver, Silver, Silver. Have you forgotten?” One of our top tier elite squads…” She turned and looked over her shoulder directly at Fire Streak. “Is full of pretty damn good actors!”

“Ow! Watch the wing!” Rapidfire grunted.

“Sorry, I’m just trying to keep us up,” Soarin grumbled in response as he shifted his shoulder to not press on Rapidfire’s wing.

The two had been moving along the cave floor, walking the length of it while realizing just how large of a cave they had fallen into. The light from Soarin’s sputtering horn showed them the immediate area in front of them, but they couldn’t see the end of it, and could just barely see the cave ceiling overhead. Although, neither of them were really sure if the cave was really long… or it was just taking them a long time to find anything due to how slowly they were moving.

They had quickly learned that they needed to support each other just to walk semi-normally. Both of them had at least one limb that was not taking pressure without intense shocks of pain. And to make matters worse, both of them found their wings to be inoperable. They could move them a little, but it wasn’t without difficulty, suggesting that it was a combination of back, shoulder, and wing muscle pain or strain.

So they were forced to walk… reluctantly and awkwardly, while leaning against one another. Neither of them were the slightest bit amused and their slow movement was hindered further by small verbal scuffles that continuously broke out, mostly triggered by Rapidfire complaining. Speaking of…

Soarin shifted in order to avoid tripping on a rock as they moved, but he forgot to warn Rapidfire.

“Ah! What are you doing?!” Rapidfire snarled as he nearly toppled over. Soarin was about to apologize again, but instead he stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Rapidfire to stop too.

“Will you QUIT whining already?!” Soarin snapped at him. “We’re both hurt, walking is difficult, and I can’t move in a perfectly straight line for you, your MAJESTY,” Soarin said sarcastically. “You’ve been annoying the hell out of me since we started looking around!”

“Then you should have left me in that pile of rocks!” Rapidfire shot back. “I don’t even know why I agreed to help you!”

“Hey, it’s not like I asked!” Soarin growled as the blue and yellow lights flowing from his eyes grey brighter. “I only dug you out. Face it, Rapidfire, you chose to help, hell if I know why!”

“Fuck this, I can do it myself!” Rapidfire huffed as he looked away. Soarin immediately removed his support from Rapidfire, bracing himself so he wouldn’t fall. “AH!” Rapidfire took one step, yelped and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Well… go on… do it yourself…” Soarin looked at him sternly as Rapidfire struggled on the ground. He tried to push himself up, but no matter how many times he tried, he could barely lift a few inches before falling again.

“Son of a…” Rapidfire growled while sighing in defeat.

“Look…” Soarin lowered himself down and grabbed a chunk of Rapidfire’s torn suit, pulling him up a little by the neck so Soarin could look him in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re trying to escape for… but I have my reasons and you have yours… so I’ll try saying this again.” He pulled Rapidfire closer, their noses almost brushing together as Soarin growled in his face. “Shut up… and work with me… or neither of us are getting out of here… alright?”

They just scowled at each other. Several moments went by before Soarin released Rapidfire’s suit and let his chest fall back to the floor. Soarin slowly pushed himself back up, clearly struggling, but standing nonetheless. He looked down at Rapidfire again.

“We’re not friends, and I’m not trying to make friends. If you’re worried I’ll think you owe me or something after this… Don’t. I’d rather drown myself in a septic tank than look to you for a favor. I just want to get out of here, and I know you do too. So cut the wailing…” Soarin reached a hoof towards him for the second time. “And get up. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

Rapidfire glared up at Soarin, saying absolutely nothing for several seconds before reaching and accepting Soarin’s hoof… again. Soarin hoisted him up and the two supported each other again. Rapidfire started quietly grumbling to himself. Soarin couldn’t make out anything he was saying, but he recognized it.

Whether he liked it or not, Soarin did spend several years with Rapidfire as a squadmate, and was familiar with a lot of his mannerisms. Grumbling to himself under his breath was something Rapidfire tended to do when he agreed with somepony or had no argument against somepony… and he really hated that he did.

While it wasn’t an acknowledgement of cooperation, it was a sign that Rapidfire wanted to get out and that he knew he couldn’t do it without Soarin.

“Whoa!” Soarin came to another abrupt halt, but this time made sure to reach up and stop Rapidfire as well.

“Ah…” Rapidfire released a small, painful grunt as they came to a stop. He looked up and blinked. “Oh…” he reacted as he and Soarin looked on.

There was a sudden dip in the cave floor before them. It wasn’t steep, but the surface was smooth. And with a nearby stream of water running beside it, a few stray streams had leaked onto it, making it appear slippery as well.

“Shoot…” Soarin voiced as he shined his light back and forth. The sudden dip extended in both directions. “Looks like we have no choice.”

“It looks slippery…” Rapidfire commented flatly.

“Let’s take this slowly…” Soarin suggested as he touched a hoof to the surface. “Keep our weight against each other and lean back a little, hopefully our hooves will hold against the rocks.”

Rapidfire nodded as they slowly shifted their hooves onto the angled surface. The angles surface was smooth, probably from water running over it for who knew how long. Only little divots were here and there, but they could all be seen within the light from the horn.

“Careful…” Soarin guided them as they slowly positioned themselves as he suggested. Their hooves were bent to accommodate the angle, and it didn’t feel very good. Soarin felt tugs of pain in his nerves up his back left leg as he tried to stabilize himself, but he held firm. “Small movements, nothing long.”

The two slowly slid their hooves in sync, both hoping to see something that resembled the ‘bottom’ of the decline, and hoping their path didn’t lead to a long fall. They managed for a few shifts, but then…

“Ah!” Soarin yelped as one of his front hooves slipped forward. Rapidfire grunted as Soarin’s shift caused him to shift as well. Soarin quickly tensed his body and forced his hooves down, hooking one of them in front of Rapidfires’. Their hooves slid along the angled floor, but came to a stop before they could slip a full yard. “Hooooo…” Soarin exhaled as the two regained their position.

“Come on, butterhooves, you’re gonna get us both killed,” Rapidfire growled.

“Alright, alright…” Soarin sighed. “Let’s just… keep going slowly.”

They moved inches at a time, bracing themselves against each other and holding their hooves firm on the ground, not even picking them up off the tilted surface. Soarin kept his light shining down. It was a difficult task, since his concentration was split between balancing and lighting the way, making him rely on Rapidfire to help hold him steady.

Rapidfire wasn’t going to get out without him, but that was equally true the other way around. Soarin had more control over his movement and wasn’t quite as beat up, but his head was being split in two with the magic flow imbalanced. He hoped the damage done to the horn would be reversible, because this would be hell to live with.

“Watch it!” Rapidfire suddenly called out. Soarin blinked and scrunched his face, ready to tell Rapidfire to shut up, but then he looked down and saw that his hoof was one small move away from hitting a crack in the stone floor. They both paused and moved together to make sure Soarin’s hoof didn’t catch and trip them both.

Rapidfire was cooperating, which, was a first.

But was it really?

While Rapidfire wasn’t the easiest to work with, he did follow his orders and did what was required of him as a member of the lead squad… to a certain degree. He did earn his spot in the ranks after all. Soarin was sure that Rapidfire hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be a Wonderbolt and work as a team. It hadn’t even been a year since he had turned his back on them to join the Shadowbolts.

Nostalgia… wasn’t the right word to describe how it felt to work together with a former teammate here. Nostalgia implied it was good to remember. Soarin was remembering times he’d like to forget, but Rapidfire probably was too. He was just glad Rapidfire had enough common sense here to understand their situation and act accordingly.

“Ah!” Rapidfire suddenly yelped as both of his front hooves suddenly skidded over a wet spot. Soarin quickly shifted and tried to grab him, but it caused him to slip as well.

“Damn!” Soarin painfully forced his body to turn as he grabbed onto Rapidfire’s arm and tried to shift his weight. The light from the horn crackled and popped as Soarin lost concentration, blinking on and off as they struggled to regain their control. They skidded a few yards, stopped, and then skidded a few more when Rapidfire tried to turn again.

“My… leg!” Rapidfire suddenly groaned painfully. Soarin looked down to see Rapidfire’s bad leg taking most of his weight. “I… can’t…” He gritted his teeth as sweat began running down his brow, running over his wounds and black eye. “Ahhh…!”

“Don’t let up! Fight it!” Soarin encouraged as he tried to reposition himself, but his own body was also rebelling, keeping him from making and quick movements. Rapidfire began to skid a little further, pulling Soarin along with him as he tried to hold on.

“I… AH!” Rapidfire’s leg buckled and he fell flat against the slick surface.

“I’ve got—OW!” Soarin yelped as his concentration snapped. A sharp wave of intense pressure shot through his head as the horn released a bright flash of both yellow and blue light before he found all of his strength fading for a moment, leaving him dizzy. His light went out and he felt himself falling forward.

“Gah!” Rapidfire yelped as Soarin fell beside him, twisting Rapidfire’s arm painfully as his weight came down on it. Soarin’s chin hit the stone surface and the two began to tumble. After another shock and a flash of bright light, Soarin’s eyes widened and his vision was going in circles. He felt his strength return and he pressed a hoof to the surface, trying to stop his descent as his body slid, rubbing painfully up against the rocky surface, which wasn’t helping the pain from all his cuts and bruises. As he began to slow down, he felt a hoof reach out and grab his leg. He looked down to see Rapidfire holding on, breathing heavily and holding a hoof over his heart while panting and wheezing.

Perfect timing…

During a moment that required very careful balance and movements, Soarin had a magic issue and Rapidfire had a withdrawal shock. Now they were sliding into the unknown despite all of Soarin’s efforts to stop them.

Soarin glanced over his shoulder to try and see where they were going, and it was a good thing he did because they were nearing the end of the decline. Unfortunately… about a yard after it evened out was a drop off, and Soarin wasn’t about to assume it wasn’t a deep drop.

Soarin focused forward and clawed his hooves at the ground, trying to create any friction he could, but their momentum was too great. And with Rapidfire’s weight pulling him down too, there was little chance of them stopping.

Soarin felt the ground even out, but as they slowed, his hooves ran into Rapidfire’s shoulder, pushing him right up to the edge. With Rapidfire still hanging on tightly to his hoof… Soarin knew what was coming next.

“AHHH!” Rapidfire yelled out as he felt his body slide right off solid ground. He reached his other arm up and hooked his other hoof around Soarin’s leg as well as he swung down against the cliff. Soarin quickly focused forward and let out a roar as he reached his arms up and slammed them down to the floor as hard as he could just as Rapidfire started pulling him off the edge as well. Soarin’s hooves jammed against the stone hard and made loud squeaking noises as they roughly skidded.

“GRH!” Soarin grunted as his hooves locked, his body swinging down and smacking against the cliff side. With that last ditch effort, Soarin had brought them to a halt, but now he was hanging onto the ledge above him for dear life with his head being overwhelmed by his magic, and an extra weight dangling beneath him in the form of Rapidfire latched onto his back hoof. “Rapidfire! Can you see the bottom!?” Soarin called out, tipping his head back to shine the light downward as the muscles in his arms, shoulders, and chest tensed and twitched, all burning as he struggled to hold on.

“No! There’s nothing!” Rapidfire called out as his hooves kept slipping off of Soarin’s leg little by little.

What were they to do? If Soarin let go, there was no way of knowing how far they would fall… Their wings were also not working. Soarin doubted he could even open his wings enough to manage a glide and he was certain Rapidfire’s were in no better condition. A fall could be fatal, they couldn’t afford to take that chance. But as it stood, Soarin did not have the strength to pull them back up. His body was already pushing its limits in his weakened state. There was only one option.

“Rapidfire! I’ll hold on! You have to climb up my back! I can’t pull us both up!” Soarin called down.

“My body… isn’t… AH… I can’t! It won’t listen to me!” Rapidfire painfully yelled out as his hooves continued to shake and quiver against Soarin’s leg.

“Yes you can!” Soarin encouraged. “Do it, or we’ll both fall!”

Soarin said nothing else. He put all of his focus into holding on, the horn flickering out and plunging them into darkness. A moment later, Soarin felt Rapidfire’s hooves move. He was going for it.

“Rgggghhhh!” Rapidfire grunted and groaned as he slowly pulled his way up.

“Keep… going!” Soarin yelled as he felt his hooves slip little by little, but not enough to lose his grip. Rapidfire made it to his back, and started reaching for his shoulders, but then…

His hoof slipped.

“AH!” Rapidfire yelped as he fell back down, instinctively grabbing onto Soarin’s back legs again… and the sudden force caused Soarin’s hooves to rip free from the ledge.

Soarin completely lost his grip.

They fell.

Soarin and Rapidfire both yelled out desperately as they plummeted, but the fall wasn’t clean. They began bouncing off rock formations that were jutting out from the cliff wall. Soarin tried to create light, but every painful bounce broke his focus, causing only a brief flash of bright sparks to shoot from the horn. Soarin felt his body go numb as he and Rapidfire continued to have their fall broken, only to fall again. After hitting a sixth surface, Soarin forced his magic to cooperate, emitting a bright sputtering light… that finally showed him where the bottom was, but only a moment before impact…

And Soarin was falling headfirst… or more specifically… horn first towards the floor…

Then they hit.

Rainbow Dash kept pace behind Silver and Fire Streak as they followed Princess Luna and a VERY excited Spitfire out of Spitfire’s office and towards the stairs.

She turned to Silver, but the moment she opened her mouth to speak… her eyes widened and she froze.

Silver and Fire Streak both took two more steps before noticing Dash’s sudden halt. They turned around to face her, looks of worry quickly covering their faces.

“Dash…?” Silver blinked.

“Miss Dash… is something wrong? You’re…” Fire Streak looked her up and down. “You’re sweating?”

She was. Dash’s body had locked in place. She couldn’t move her limbs, wings, or even her neck. She felt completely stiff, her body shivering as beads of sweat formed almost instantaneously and began running down her face.

Her chest felt tight as her heartbeat suddenly sped up little by little followed by a sharp pain in her head and chest that was so intense, the shock forced her stiff body to crumple to the floor.

“AAHHH!!” she cried out as she fell onto her side roughly and clutched her chest. Luna and Spitfire both turned around quickly, eyes widening as they saw Silver and Fire Streak standing over Dash.

“What the—?!” Spitfire was cut off as Luna pushed her aside.

“NO!” Luna yelled as she galloped up to Rainbow Dash. Fire Streak moved aside to let Luna through, but Silver remained in place. When Luna tried to push him, he pushed back, refusing to leave Dash as he looked her over.

“Rainbow Dash!” Silver yelled as he frantically looked her over, but he was quickly surrounded by a dark blue glow as Luna forced him aside with her magic and crouched down.

“Rainbow Dash, what is it?!” she pleaded as Dash continued to grunt and groan in pain, yelping and shouting as he heart felt like it was going to tear out of her chest. “What’s wrong with Soarin?!” Luna desperately called to her.

“Soarin!” Dash yelled out as she rolled over onto her other side. Luna was about move around her, but… “Dammit Soarin! What the hell are you doing?! FIGHT IT, YOU IDIOT!” Dash yelled out, causing Luna to step back in surprise. “RGH! COME ON! GET UP, SOARIN!” Dash kept yelling as her spectators looked on with utter confusion.

“WHY?!” the stallion’s voice boomed throughout Soarin’s head. “WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO RESIST?!”

Soarin slowly opened his eyes to see the large blue silhouette of the stallion’s face directly above him.

“LET GO! LET THE POWER FILL YOU! GIVE YOURSELF UP OR THE PAIN WILL ONLY CONTINUE!”

“NO!” Soarin yelled out as he clasped his hooves over his head and growled. “I… REFUSE!”

“EVEN NOW, YOU RESIST… THE HORN IS WEAKENED FURTHER AND YOU STILL RESIST!”

“SCREW THE DAMN HORN!” Soarin glared up as his body remained flat on the ground. “WHO CARES ABOUT THAT DAMN ARTIFACT? I’M… AH… NOT… LETTING… YOU…AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!” Soarin threw his hooves back over his head.

“YOU ARE PERSISTANT AND ANNOYING, BUT EVERY WILL CAN EVENTUALLY BE BROKEN!”

“LIKE HELL!” Soarin remained defiant. “I… RRRGHHH!!!!”

“Soarin!” A new voice called out. It wasn’t the voice of the mare. “Dammit Soarin! What the hell are you doing?! FIGHT IT, YOU IDIOT!” the voice echoed.

Soarin’s eyes widened. That voice… Rainbow Dash?!

“WHAT IS THAT AWFUL CATERWAULING?!” The stallion asked in disgust. “WHAT?!”

The stallion’s image began to back away a little. Soarin looked up to see… a faint image standing in front of him. He shook his head out, trying to focus, but the image wasn’t clear, and a little translucent… however, it’s body and shape was that of a pony… a pegasus… a mare… and it was a shape he recognized easily. The mane style, the toned body, and the mix of vibrant colors… there was no mistaking it. The image slowly became clearer.

“Rainbow Dash?!” Soarin couldn’t believe his eyes. Was she really there?

“ARGH! NO!” the stallion’s head backed away further. “AWAY WITH YOU! AWAY!” he yelled at the image, but it remained.

“You just don’t get it do you?” The voice of the yellow mare suddenly came from behind Soarin. Soarin glanced to his left to see the image of the mare walk slowly and stand beside the flickering image of Dash. “You were so sure that the horn was your only obstacle in getting free. It has done its job, and even damaged it holds you back to a certain degree… but you continue to underestimate the power of Soarin’s will… and continue to overlook other precautions I have taken.” The mare looked down at Soarin. “The horn has been weakened further… unlocking a large portion of your power, but it still isn’t enough to break Soarin’s will… or the will of the one who loves him.”

“RGH!” the image of Dash growled. “COME ON!”

“NO!” the stallion growled, hissing at the image.

“Not to mention…” the yellow mare giggled. “She was the initial safeguard that held you until we could place the horn… I’m sure you remember that. The weakened state of the horn has forced her spirit into action… yet another obstacle in your way.”

“GRAAAAH!!!!” The blue stallion shrank further away.

“GET UP, SOARIN!” the image of Dash yelled.

“You heard the lady!” the mare yelled down to Soarin as she stepped up in front of him and her image began to glow brightly. “I’ll keep him busy! Take back control!”

Soarin watched as the mare unleashed a large aura of yellow light that mingled and clashed roughly with the aura of blue surrounding them.

Soarin forced himself to his hooves and concentrated with all his might…

“I’m up, Dash! I’m… UP!”

“GAH! HAAAAA! RRRRGHHHH!!!” Soarin’s eyes shot open, the horn glowing intensely with a swirling aura of blue and yellow as the same colors shifted between his eyes. He was looking directly at Rapidfire, who had pushed himself as far away from Soarin as possible, up against a wall in fear as the chain reaction from Soarin’s horn intensified.

The horn had been chipped further, now with more cracks and several new pieces missing. It felt like he was completely losing control.

But he didn’t forget the words of encouragement, not just from the mare in his head, but from the image of Rainbow Dash… the presence of which made him feel like Dash was actually right there with him.

“GRH!!! AAAAHHH!!!” Soarin rolled onto his stomach and pressed his chin to the floor as he fought to concentrate. The blue and yellow auras splashed and crashed together around the horn as if they were fighting. He had to regain control, he had to get them to stop.

“STOP IT!” Soarin yelled as he forced his body to stand up, all traces of pain in his body being overwhelmed by the intense mental strain. The auras began to splinter and sputter, firing small discharges of magic about, causing tiny POPS and BANGS as they hit the surrounding terrain. “I SAID…” Soarin reared back, holding his hooves up in the air. “STOP IT!” he yelled out as he thrust his body down, slamming his hooves to the floor while opening his eyes wide, holding his breath and forcing the magic flow to listen to him.

The two auras were suddenly forced into each other, they combined, creating a bright green light that rose from the horn like a blazing torch. The auras from his eyes turned green as well. Soarin continued to gasp and pant as the magic all mashed together.

“Ah… AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Soarin threw his head back and the magic discharged, and sending large beams of green magic outward in all directions that split into separate blue and yellow beams scattering everywhere.

“WHOA!” Rapidfire willingly tipped over and covered his head with his hooves as the powerful magic blasts shot around out of control, exploding violently against the cave walls and floor, even high up on the ceiling. Debris fell everywhere, chunks of the cave splintering off and crashing around them.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Soarin gasped as the aura eventually died down, the scattering streams of magic growing smaller and smaller until they were mere sparks that flickered and sparked from the horn. The horn itself returned to a mixture of a blue and yellow glow.

Soarin panted, as everything returned to normal, or at least to how it felt before he landed on his head. The physical pain across his body was there again accompanied with the splitting headache.

“What… the HELL… was that?” Rapidfire spoke up from off to the side.

Soarin blinked and looked over to him, feeling exhausted after such a strain. He shook his head.

“Apparently… what you and the Shadowbolts are after, right?” he said, as looked down, ready to lay down for a moment.

However… Soarin was never given the chance and Rapidfire given no time to reply.

The cave started shaking.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me…” Soarin looked up as he heard crumbling noises followed by rocks falling around them. “Damn!” Soarin yelled as he forced his body to move, hobbling towards Rapidfire. Rapidfire was already using the wall to help support himself. “Come on!” Soarin yelled as the two of them leaned against each other and started moving as quickly as they could.

They both yelped as a part of the cave floor Soarin was just laying on crumbled and caved in.

“MOVE! MOVE!” Soarin yelled as the two of them forced their bodies to cooperate, trusting the path in front of them as Soarin’s horn shined as much light as he could muster.

“Look out!” Rapidfire yelled as a large portion of the cliff behind them toppled and fell towards them. Soarin forced his body forward, hooking his arm with Rapidfire’s to yank them both forward, just out of the way as the rocks crashed down behind them. They quickly supported each other, rising up and continuing on as the shaking grew more intense, as if the entire cave was crumbling beneath them and falling from above at the same time.

“Ah!” Rapidfire yelped again as the floor underneath him gave way, but Soarin quickly braced himself and pulled Rapidfire up and forward.

No questions were asked, no motions questioned. They were fighting to stay alive and every bit of teamwork counted. They kept their eyes forward, until the light finally revealed what looked like the other end of the enormous cave.

“Up there!” Rapidfire yelled, pointing to what looked like the entrance to another small tunnel.

“I see it!” Soarin acknowledged as he examined the area leading towards it. There were two small cliffs leading up to the tunnel, the first he could probably scale on his own, but the second looked just too large. They would need to scale it together. “Whoa!” Soarin yelped as he felt the floor give way below him, he looked down to see it was giving way beneath Rapidfire again as well. With one last kick off the breaking ground, Soarin managed to push them out of the way and right up to the first, smaller wall to scale.

Soarin let go of Rapidfire and painfully extended his body, pushing off his good leg as he reached for the ledge. He didn’t make it, and tried again, but he just couldn’t generate enough vertical force. On his third try, he felt something grab his back hoof. He looked down to see Rapidfire pushing it up from below while keeping an eye on the falling rocks and crumbling floor fast approaching.

“GO!” Rapidfire yelled as he supported Soarin. Soarin reached his arms up and latched onto the edge, using the combined force to pull himself up. He quickly turned around and reached down, grabbing Rapidfire’s extended hoof and helping him climb up.

“AH!” Rapidfire yelped, the two of them falling over as he got up. The floor below had completely collapsed, and the edge they made it onto began to buckle. The two of them quickly looked up at the large wall. It was not only twice as high, but also oddly shaped. It remained vertical for only half the distance before turning into a steep angle as it reached the top.

There was no way they’d be able to climb up using the same method, but they had to think fast because their platform wasn’t going to last long. Only one option came to mind.

“Rapidfire, launch-boost!” he yelled out an old maneuver they used to use in their shows. Rapidfire looked at him blankly for a moment, but caught on seconds later when he saw Soarin put his back to the wall and cup his hooves. Rapidfire quickly recalled what Soarin was suggesting and stepped up, placing his good leg into the hoofhold. “Going up!” Soarin yelled as he summoned every bit of strength he could, forcing Rapidfire up and tossing him into the air. Normally, the move could have launched Rapidfire VERY high, but in his weakened state, Soarin only managed to get him over the top. Soarin turned and looked up as Rapidfire made it over the edge.

He waited…

And waited…

But… Rapidfire didn’t come back.

“Rapidfire!” Soarin yelled out. “RAPIDFIRE!” Soarin yelled again.

But nopony came.

Soarin’s eyes widened and he frantically looked behind him at the floor. It jostled, loosening as it prepared to break free and fall into oblivion below like the rest of the surrounding floor had.

“RAPIDFIRE!!!!!!!!!” Soarin yelled at the top of his lungs.

No…

It couldn’t be…

Was Rapidfire playing him the whole time? They found another tunnel, Soarin helped him get up… and with the perfect chance, Rapidfire left him for dead…

Soarin’s eyes locked on the floor below as it started to break away. He gritted his teeth and looked back up. He only had one chance, and it was going to hurt like hell, but it was try or die.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Soarin yelled out as he forced his battered wings to unfold and pushed down on the ground, jumping while giving his wings a single hard beat that was accompanied by many cracks and pops of his joints. “AAAAAAHHHHH!” Soarin cried out in pain as he launched upward, away from the platform as it completely capsized. He managed to get some good height, but fell short of the top. With one final effort, Soarin drove all four hooves to steep surface, his hooves digging in and bringing him to a halt… but a shaky one.

“Ah! AH!” Soarin yelped as he barely managed to keep himself from sliding. His hooves kept slipping and skidding, but he pulled and clawed and the rocky surface, desperately causing just enough motion to keep himself from plummeting.

“Rapidfire!” Soarin yelled. “RAPIDFIRE, HELP ME!” he called out in despair. But again, there was no sign of him. And the longer nopony showed themselves over the ledge, the more fear set into his heart. His body was aching, his wings were stuck shut to his body, and his muscles felt like they were going to give out any moment as his hooves continued to slip and slide as the horn flickered fiercely, reacting to his emotions.

He wasn’t going to make it…

He was going to die…

He was…

Just as his hooves gave out, Rapidfire suddenly appeared over the edge and reached down. He grunted and grimaced painfully as he hooked his hoof with Soarin’s.

“ARGH!” he yelped as Soarin’s weight pulled him flat to the ledge, but with Rapidfire’s assistance, Soarin was able to get his hooves back against the wall.

With Rapidfire pulling him, Soarin quickly pushed back against the wall and forced himself up.

“AH!” they both exhaled as Soarin made it up and they tumbled to the ground, the light going out.

After moments of panting and wheezing in the darkness, Soarin’s horn flickered to life again, revealing a relieved, but pissed off Soarin.

“What the hell was that?!” Soarin growled as Rapidfire turned over. “Could you have cut that any closer?! Contemplating whether to leave me for dead or something?!”

Rapidfire fully turned and glared at Soarin, the light from the horn shining upon a rather nasty bruise right smack in the middle of Rapidfire’s forehead. Rapidfire angrily pointed to it.

“Hey! It’s not my fault you threw me face first into a goddamn wall!” he spat while pointing to the wall beside the tunnel entrance, causing Soarin to blink and quickly lighten his expression. “It took a few moments before I could even see straight!” He flopped back over onto his back and grunted.

That was unexpected. Soarin was quick to assume Rapidfire had deserted him. Instead… it was because he had accidentally face planted him into a wall?

“Heh…” Soarin let out a single chuckle. Rapidfire’s head quickly snapped back.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing…” Soarin propped himself up and shined his light towards the tunnel before them. It looked like it extended quite a bit, and thankfully had held together despite the cave in behind them. “Thanks for pulling me up,” he added as he glanced back at Rapidfire.

“Save your thanks. I can’t walk on my own, I would have been sunk if I let you fall,” Rapidfire made clear. Soarin sighed and shook his head as he reached down to help Rapidfire back up.

“Thanks anyway,” he said as the two were once again both up and leaning together as they started moving into the tunnel.

The only noise between them as they moved?

Rapidfire grumbling under his breath.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this Chapter by: Foxenawolf

WHOA... that was a close one... looks like Rapidfire understands that he needs Soarin to get out... no matter how much he dislikes it.

So... it looks like the Wonderbolts are going to take a new tactic to the Shadowbolts... it's time for a big Wonderbolt flight show!

But oh? what's this? Squad three is going to lead a team of disguised Shadowbolts into their compound? You bet they can act the part... after all, they did a pretty damn good job back in chapter 24 :moustache:

And ouch... extra ouch... Soarin's horn is already badly damaged from the dangerous crash into the mountainside... and then he falls on it head first! x_x Normally that wouldn't have done much, since it is sturdy, but ow... hopefully it can hold together!

And oh my... looks like the connection between Soarin and Dash keeps getting stronger! The peril of the damaged horn is making there spiritual bond awaken to protect them! How romantic and badass ;D

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!:eeyup:

Chapter 113: The Death of a Dream

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 113: The Death of a Dream

“Where the hell are we?” Rapidfire complained as Soarin helped him along through the cramped tunnel, the light from his horn shining forth to light their way. The tunnel was winding and kept going up and down, but really, there was no way to tell if it actually led anywhere. The only thing Soarin knew was that they couldn’t just stand still and wait. “This tunnel looks no different than the other three we tried… is this the same one we were just in?”

“I swear to Celestia, Rapidfire…” Soarin growled as he shifted to re-prop Rapidfire’s weight over his shoulder. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to purposely drop you again.”

“I dare you,” Rapidfire growled right back. “Ah!” Rapidfire yelped as Soarin feigned dropping him, clasping back onto Rapidfire’s arm before he could faceplant. Soarin winced as his body struggled to pull Rapidfire back up, but he turned his horn towards him and glared.

“Look, Rapidfire, I’m doing the best I can and I’m doing most of the work. I don‘t know where any of these tunnels lead, I don’t have a freaking map of beneath the northern mountains, I’m just trying to find a way out.” Soarin snorted as he looked forward. “So shut your trap and keep moving your hooves.”

“Hmph…” Rapidfire grunted in response.

“Though…” Soarin grunted and winced, the horn flickering as they kept moving along. The clitter-clatter of their hooves kicking pebbles and scrapes of their hooves dragging along the rocky floor echoed down the tunnel. “I think I might need a break soon… my body is getting sore and the magic is getting harder to keep lit.”

Rapidfire said nothing as Soarin explained his little dilemma and need for rest, which was good. Because if Rapidfire complained after how much ‘help’ he was being in their situation, Soarin would have dropped him again, for real this time.

“The echo is getting weaker,” Rapidfire suddenly pointed out.

“What?” Soarin glanced at him curiously as Rapidfire waved a hoof weakly in front of him.

“There’s something up ahead, the tunnel echo is getting softer. It’s either something bigger, or a dead end,” Rapidfire explained.

An effect specialist through and through…

Soarin quickly focused on the path before them, trusting Rapidfire’s claim that something laid ahead. Rapidfire was a master of special effects in their shows and deception in combat. Sound was something he had to work with on several occasions, so Soarin was quick to believe him.

“Ow! Ow! Hey!” Rapidfire grunted as Soarin picked up speed.

“Deal with it,” Soarin huffed as he tipped his head back and forth, trying to extend his light to find whatever Rapidfire had detected.

His eyes lit up when the light suddenly bent up ahead, suggesting there was, indeed, something different ahead.

“There!” Soarin pointed as he continued to pull Rapidfire along. Rapidfire only continued to painfully grunt in response until Soarin finally came to a stop and shined his light into the new area. “Huh…” Soarin blinked as he moved the light back and forth, his ears catching the sound of running and dripping water. “Not what I expected, but... it’s new.”

They had found a small cave, only a little larger than the one they woke up in. While it was close to the same dimensions from back to front and side to side, it had a higher ceiling. As they moved in, they found the source of the noise. There was a small spring that filled about a third of the cave. Water was flowing from a small hole in the wall into the small basin and gently trickling over the edges onto the floor. The runoff was forming together, and flowing towards another tunnel on the other side of the cave that led down, which explained why the cave itself wasn’t filled to the brim. Soarin led Rapidfire towards the water while directing his light towards it. The blue light caused a glistening, shimmering effect on the water’s surface, and they could see the bottom of the spring clear as day. It looked clean enough to drink.

Which was perfect because Soarin was incredibly thirsty. Not only had he gone through a whole battle, but then had been clambering through caves and tunnels, falling, climbing, and taking two hard blows to the head that left the horn damaged.

He needed a damn drink of water.

“Whoa!” Rapidfire yelped as Soarin let go of him. He fell, but caught himself to soften the fall, glaring at Soarin as he put his hooves on the edge of the spring and dipped his head down. The water tasted as clean as it looked, and was ice cold. Soarin’s parched throat tingled as he took down several gulps.

“Ah!” Soarin gasped as he came up and sighed in relief. “Good god… I needed that…” he said as he lowered himself and rested his chin on the side of the edge.

“Rggghh…” Rapidfire growled from behind him. Soarin turned his head to see Rapidfire pulling himself along the ground, his lame back leg twitching as he tried to reach the water. Soarin watched him for a moment before taking another quick drink and then turning towards him. Rapidfire shot him a glare when he moved to help, but by now he had learned his questioning wasn’t going to stop Soarin from helping him.

Soarin hoisted him up, and moved him up to the water. The moment Rapidfire got a hoof on the edge, he pushed Soarin off of him and dunked his head into the water, drinking the water and completely submerging his head and shoulders as he did.

“GAH! Ah…” Rapidfire gasped as he pulled his head out and the water dripped down his mane and chest.

“Just as thirsty as me?” Soarin asked as he me moved to take another drink, but Rapidfire had already dunked his head again. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Soarin answered himself as he drank more of the water.

“MRPH!” Rapidfire suddenly made a noise with his head under the water, several bubbles rising over his head. He roughly pulled his head out of the water, droplets whipping from his mane as he grabbed his chest and slammed his eyes shut. “Rgghhh! Argh…” he groaned as slivers of pink light shone from behind his eyelids. He slowly crumpled to the ground and shuddered.

Soarin only shook his head as he watched Rapidfire experience more withdrawal shocks without his crystal. He looked so pathetic, just as Descent described those who were disconnected. While Rapidfire sure hadn’t lost his attitude, he was clearly in a state of extreme pain and weakness. Soarin was lucky Rapidfire had at least found the strength to pull him up earlier.

“Let’s take a rest here,” Soarin decided. With some open space and water to drink, it was more than he was hoping for already. He turned and lowered himself to the floor, taking the weight off his hooves as he lied down. He took a deep breath and sighed as he readied to release the light and let his brain rest as well.

As Rapidfire’s pain seemed to subside and he rolled over to lie on his back. Soarin looked him over, letting the light dim, but keeping just enough of it lit to see Rapidfire. Rapidfire was breathing heavily, his breaths all sounding squeaky and wheezy. Soarin saw first hoof what happened over time to those who lost their crystals. He would bet bits that Rapidfire’s insides were giving him hell. He recalled when they faced off in Canterlot a while back, and after absorbing an entire crystal, he eventually threw up, coughing up blood as well as if his insides were being squeezed in a vice.

Was it really all worth it? Why would he let himself go like that? In general, how did he go downhill to the point that he’d easily accept such a dangerous thing?

Rapidfire’s breathing eventually calmed down and he just remained still, letting his body rest just as Soarin was. Soarin furrowed his brow and exhaled, allowing the light to dissipate and welcoming relief around his entire body, something he had needed for the past half hour.

But as the cave descended into pitch-black darkness, Soarin found one simple, little question was on his mind. A little question that he wanted a big answer for. He didn’t know if Rapidfire was currently in a state to talk, nor was he sure Rapidfire would oblige, but when was Soarin going to get another chance like this? He just wanted to know.

“So… Why?” he spoke in Rapidfire’s direction.

It was already quiet in the cave, but the silence that extended between them felt even emptier. The sound to trickling water was all that filled the void as he waited for Rapidfire to answer… or not answer.

“Why what?” Rapidfire finally replied after several moments, prompting another hush between them. Soarin waited, as if expecting Rapidfire to know damn well what he was talking about. When he went no further, Soarin elaborated to get his point across.

“Why did you desert the Wonderbolts?” he paused to let that one sink in. “You became a member of the lead squad… you earned high honors… You did what most pegasi could only dream of. But shortly after, it all went downhill. What happened?”

He got no answer, at least not immediately. Soarin had said everything he wanted to ask. If nothing else was said, so be it. He took the chance on something that had been a mystery to him and his friends for a long time.

“Why the fuck do you care?” Rapidfire finally responded sharply and vulgarly. Soarin snorted at the harsh reply.

“Why the hell do you think I do?” he snapped back through the darkness. “I think I’ve made it perfectly clear I don’t and that I’ve no reason to. I just want to know.”

Rapidfire didn’t reply. Soarin was about to give up, but he decided to give one last effort.

“We’ve never understood you and never knew why you were always acted the way you did. I’ll admit we never made an effort to figure it out, but can you really blame us? It’s not like we’re going anywhere right now, so dammit, just humor my curiosity,” Soarin was a straightforward as he could be.

After another brief silence, Soarin heard some shifting.

“No.”

Soarin released a heavy, exasperated sigh.

“Nothing I say or tell you will mean a damn thing,” Rapidfire continued. “And frankly, your ‘curiosity’ pisses me off. I don’t owe you any explanation for anything.”

“Why not?” Soarin pushed, losing his patience. He was less willing to give up on this than he first thought.

“Because I don’t,” Rapidfire quickly and flatly shot back. Soarin grunted and scrunched his face.

“You know…” he began with the full intent to rip Rapidfire down with things he witnessed before their crash. “For somepony who’s apparently so hell-bent on earning recognition, being himself, and rebelling against authority… you sure don’t do a very good job at justifying yourself,” Soarin paused for a moment as he heard a low growl through the dark. He didn’t let up. “You’re very unconvincing. Are you as tough as you claim or are you just a lame dog that barks, but never bites? That would explain why you’re still just a peon and not a Shadowbolt commander.”

“SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH!” Rapidfire shouted at him instantly.

“Come over here and make me… you fraud,” Soarin calmly plunged the dagger deeper. He could hear Rapidfire growling, but that’s all he did. He gave no other retort. “That’s what I thought.”

“You don’t know me!” Rapidfire yelled, his voice sounding slightly shaky as he repeated what he said during their battle above the mountains. “NOPONY knows me!” he yelled, his voice breaking up further. “And dammit, it’s YOUR fault!”

…

“What?” Soarin blinked.

With low effort, Soarin focused his magic and caused the horn to glow dimly, just enough so he could see Rapidfire. Rapidfire’s eyes were wide, a look of shock on his face as if realizing he let something slip.

“My fault?” Soarin asked while tipping his head, locking his eyes with Rapidfire.

Without a word, Rapidfire rolled over and lay on his side, facing away from Soarin.

“Care to explain?” Soarin pressed, but Rapidfire said nothing. He just kept facing the opposite direction. Soarin flattened his brow and sighed, shaking his head as he released the magic and the glow faded.

“Fine…”

Soarin’s horn lit right back up and he looked towards Rapidfire again.

“I don’t care…” Rapidfire continued, his voice sounding like it was quivering slightly. “You really want to know, huh? You really want to know why I’m like this so badly? You really want to hear how my dreams died?”

Soarin’s ears pointed up.

How his dreams died?

“Yes,” Soarin answered quickly and simply, now more than ever curious about his former, unruly squadmate who he, nor Spitfire or Fleetfoot could ever figure out. Rapidfire sighed heavily as he slowly rolled back over to lie on his other side, facing Soarin with an expression of frustration and slight sadness. Soarin paid very close attention as Rapidfire began.

“Do you know what it’s like, Soarin? What it’s like to push and push and push for your goals… and when they finally right in front of you, to have them dangled just out of reach?” Rapidfire rested his head against the floor. “Who am I kidding? You haven’t a damn clue… because you’re at the top.”

Soarin opened his mouth to reply, but decided against it. He wanted to hear all of it without interrupting him. So he steeled his nerves, ready to take any insult or lash Rapidfire might dish out.

“I don’t think I have to explain how high the standards were set for me. I’m the son of the two ‘legendary’ Wonderbolt captains, two pegasi who were well known even before they were named the captains for how they forged their way to the top through hard work and determination. I had a hell of a lot to live up to… but I never once questioned whether or not I could succeed. I wanted to follow in their hoofsteps and they supported me, challenging me every single day to climb the long ladder. With their encouragement, I strived to be the best of the best. If somepony trained hard… I would train harder. If somepony was fast… I would be faster. If somepony was strong… I would be stronger. If somepony was skilled… I would be sharper. I always aimed to be higher than the next pony and the effort paid off. Through my constant, grueling training and practice, I ultimately never failed, never lost, and never wavered. I had my share of defeats, but I treated each one as incentive to train harder, come back, and win. If I ever fell short of an achievement, I pushed myself until it was mine. Anypony that bested me, I eventually bested them.”

Rapidfire paused as he shifted his eyes away from Soarin.

“It wasn’t long before my name became known. I was praised, followed, and seen as a rising star likely to take over for his legendary parents. It was no surprise. After all, with my genetics and guidance from my parents, everypony felt it was obvious. I’d be great, just like my mom and dad. It seemed like there was nothing that could stop me as I ploughed my way through every challenge on my way to the top, just like they did. And… I believed it just as much as everypony did. I felt like nothing could stand in my way and I trained everyday with the same mentality my dad taught me: ‘train every day assuming there is somepony better than you, even if you are at the top. Being at the top is something earned. Assuming you will never be challenged is asking for that honor to be taken away.’ I thrived on those words, and my parents were proud of me. Nothing would ever slow me down.”

Rapidfire released a long breath through his nose.

“I was ready to lead. I was ready to be the captain of the Wonderbolts. I tried out, made the recruits, quickly made my way up the ranks, and had the captainship in my sights. I was going to do it. I was going to lead. It was everything I worked for, everything I dreamed of. I wanted my decisions to influence the future of the Wonderbolts and all of Equestria. I was going to carry on my family name and go down in history as one of the greatest just like they did, to be remembered for all time. It was a magnificent feeling… the security of knowing I’d never be forgotten. It was only a matter of time before I reached that peak. It was so close… my life goal and my goals extending beyond it…”

Rapidfire paused… and remained silent for a long time. Soarin waited patiently for him to continue, but then his eyes widened slightly as Rapidfire suddenly turned his head back to him and glared.

“Then… it happened…” his glare hardened. “You three appeared…”

Soarin pulled his head backwards for a moment. It went from his fault to three? But… oh…

“You, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot showed up… and I was stuck on a squad with you, my father claiming it would be one of the most talented and skilled squads in the history of the Wonderbolts. At first it was just business as usual. I saw what you three could do… I was a little behind, but this was just business as usual for me, ponies that I had to best to earn my spot as the best. I never believed in limits or challenges that I couldn’t overcome and I wasn’t about to do so.”

Rapidfire shook his head.

“But… it wasn’t just another challenge. It wasn’t just another bar to reach for. I was determined to topple each one of you. I would work as hard as I possibly could and snatch victory as I always had… but it didn’t take long for me to realize where I stood. I tried, I trained, and I improved… but so did you three, and not only did you three improve, but I couldn’t keep up. You were all pulling ahead. Fleetfoot was faster than me…"

"Spitfire was sharper and more skilled than me…"

"And you were stronger than me…"

"All three focuses of my drive, my training… all blown away. Not one, not two, but THREE ponies all got the best of me in the core principles of my abilities and no matter how hard I tried, they were better than me. It went against everything I had ever known.”

He tore his eyes away from Soarin, once against focusing on the floor as if he couldn’t stand looking at Soarin.

“At first it didn’t hit me so hard. After all, my mother was never able to best my father, yet she still went down in history as a legend. I decided to be reasonable. If I couldn’t be the best, I’d be the second best. It was easy to see that I would never come close to beating Spitfire… she’s a complete freak of nature. But even when I tried to focus on you and Fleetfoot, I came up short. Fleetfoot’s speed is ridiculous and untouchable. And you worked just as hard, if not harder than I could in the gym… You were also bigger and more muscularly built than me. By default, naturally stronger. When you developed the Power Acceleration, it was another sign I had no chance. I was utterly defeated. That’s when it all came crashing down on me… I began to see how things were going and it crushed my spirit beyond repair. Here’s a simple fact of life… those who are recognized tend to be first, second, or third. Fourth? Who has ever been known for being the fourth best? As if that reality didn’t hit me hard enough, you three became this ‘symbol of greatness,’ and drew all the attention. It was literally identical to how my mother and father became the symbol of ‘Gold Squad.’”

Rapidfire released a hard scoff.

“Gold Squad… ‘Squad’ my ass…” he glared back at Soarin. “How many times have you heard about Hurricane and Jet Stream since Gold Squad was disbanded, huh?”

Soarin blinked and tipped his head down as he thought.

He was right… Whenever the previous generation was brought up, only two names ever mention? Blazetail and Flashwind. Soarin had remembered Hurricane, since he had met his father, Hurricane Drive. But he had admittedly forgotten Jet Stream’s name up until Rapidfire just mentioned her.

“That’s right,” Rapidfire continued. “Nothing. Whenever Gold Squad is mentioned, it’s all about my mom and dad. The legendary captains. The other two? Nopony remembers. They’ve been completely forgotten to all but the Wonderbolt archives and any old farts left over in the ranks. I refused to let that happen to me, but it was no use. I fought and I fought… for nothing. I was always behind you three… that fourth pony on the lead squad, the one that spectators had to sift through the program to remember the name of… the one who followed any order without grounds to give his opinion. ‘The effect specialist…’ What kind of designation is that for the lead squad?! The super freak, the speedy mare, and the strong brute… oh yeah, and that pony who does special effects for them. I was in the back, stranded and hidden in your looming shadows with no way out… I despised it, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.”

“My passion faded, my dreams slowly slipped away. With my ultimate goal just out of my reach, I could no longer see the point and no longer see what I was working so hard for. I had gotten so close, so close that I could taste fulfillment, but was denied it before I could take the very last step. Barred from earning the glory and recognition I had dreamed of and shed blood, sweat, and tears for. I had become just another Wonderbolt, doing things from the background where nopony was willing to look. I realized what was happening, I was falling into the same bottomless pit that Hurricane and Jet Stream disappeared into, doomed to be behind and forgotten. After all the work I had put in and the countless struggles and challenges I had overcome to constantly find success and earn my way up… It felt so unfair, so wrong. I wasn’t going to live up to the greatness of my parents. I had discovered a wall I couldn’t topple. Nothing had ever hit me harder in my life.”

Rapidfire paused and let out an annoyed grunt.

“My parents kept encouraging me… but it started to feel so empty. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t beat you guys. They didn’t understand how I felt. They had what I wanted. They achieved their goals and dreams. Nothing they said had any positive effect anymore. In fact, their attempts only made it worse, constantly reminding me that they had no clue what I was going through… and it certainly didn’t help that they were the ones who both found and invited you to join the Wonderbolts.”

Soarin recalled Blazetail’s ‘opinion’ of Rapidfire that he had recently shown to the Wonderbolts. How he more or less spoke as if he disowned Rapidfire for his decisions and actions. It didn’t matter how much Flashwind tried to get Blazetail to take it back, he was furious at Rapidfire.

“I stopped caring…” Rapidfire continued, the bitterness in his voice growing stronger. “For the first time in my life I was without direction. If I couldn’t have what I always dreamed of, I decided to make use of what I did have. It had to be useful for something, right? I had some fame, I had some fortune, and some celebrity status by association and apparently being part of the lead ‘squad.’ All of it made it so easy to take the gap that had been punched in my life and flood it with simple pleasures. VIP access to parties, general celebrity recognition, and of course, any hot mare I wanted. But… the satisfaction was always short lived, never lasting more than a night or two. The gap would open right back up, convincing me I just had to temporarily fill it again. I started to lose standards for myself, I no longer felt good about myself or who I was. I had lost all reason or purpose in favor of easy lays and empty acknowledgement. So what if I got easy sex and countless ponies kissing my ass… it was all hollow. All soulless.”

“Nothing could truly make up for what I had lost. I became cold, bitter, and full of hatred for you, Fleetfoot, Spitfire, and the system in general. The Wonderbolts, just like my father, preach that all pegasi are capable of great things, it’s all just a matter of hard work and effort… Yeah, bullshit. The Wonderbolt ‘dream’ destroyed my life, but I kept wading through it because I knew nothing else. I had nowhere else to go and nothing else I could do.”

Soarin perked, he was barely producing enough light to see it, but a small smile appeared on the edges of Rapidfire’s lips?

“But then… they came to me. Lightning Dust approached me, speaking for the Shadowbolts. It was at a time when I was at the breaking point. I no longer gave even the slightest damn about anything related to the Wonderbolts, but the Shadowbolts and Nightshade… They offered me something I thought I’d never find again: An opportunity to climb a new mountain. I failed to fulfill my dream with the Wonderbolts, but maybe I could start from scratch with the Shadowbolts and work my way up through their ranks. In the Shadowbolts, as long as you are strong, you are given respect and recognition. They couldn’t offer me the fame, nor could they write me into history like the Wonderbolts could, but they offered me a chance I desperately wanted, a chance to prove myself. They had new means of training, new power to tap into… I wanted to make use of it. If I could prove myself to them, I could also prove myself to everypony that ignored me in the Wonderbolts. A new fire was alight in my stomach, a feeling that I had not felt for a long time, one that burned with a purpose and a passion to succeed. It felt amazing, so I took the leap. I joined the Shadowbolts and started on my path to grow stronger and earn the respect and satisfaction I had been denied.”

Soarin listened, but despite his firm decision not to speak, he simply couldn’t hold it back here.

“That’s sure going well for you,” Soarin spoke up, earning a huff and a glare in return.

“Don’t act like I’m some clueless nitwit, Soarin,” he hissed. “It has gone poorly so far, very poorly, but by now I’m used to things not going my way," he huffed and let his head rest on the floor. "I may be struggling, but it’s a struggle with something to hang on to. I don’t give a shit what that thing is, it’s better than nothing… it’s a purpose. Nightshade took me into the ranks and made me feel alive again, made me feel like I had a chance to once again chase dreams and goals… I felt like I belonged, a feeling that disappeared when everything came crashing down on me in the Wonderbolts. And isn’t that what life is all about? Finding where you belong?”

Soarin opened his mouth, but stopped. He couldn’t argue with that.

“You can tell me all you want that I’ve done terrible things, that I’ve hurt others, and that I’ve played with emotions and feelings… I really don’t care what you or anypony in the Wonderbolts think. The Shadowbolts gave me a chance to do it all over… so I took it.”

“You don’t care what we think,” Soarin tipped his head. “But you care what they think when they treat you like complete trash?” he asked, citing the way Blade treated him before their battle.

“So what if they do now, they’ll see it in due time. You don’t become the best overnight. If I have to bleed and struggle my way into their respect, then so be it. It’s what I did to chase my first dream, so it’s what I’ll do to chase my second. Either way I will make everypony see that they’ve underestimated me! I will have my recognition… it’s all I’ve ever wanted. I don’t care where I get it from.”

Rapidfire exhaled staring at Soarin for a long time before he snorted, turned over, and faced away.

So that was it… that’s how Rapidfire got to where he was. Soarin didn’t know what to say, not out of shock however. It was actually the opposite. Soarin listened, Soarin heard every word, and Soarin had come to a rather disappointed conclusion.

“There,” Rapidfire spoke up without looking. “Now you know what you did to me. Happy?”

“No,” Soarin quickly replied, causing Rapidfire to glance up over his shoulder at him. “What I did to you? What we did to you? Sorry Rapidfire, but no. After that long explanation, the only thing I concluded is that you gave up and turned into an asshole instead of appreciating the privileges you had rightfully earned. You failed to find a middle ground and accept it. That’s on you, not us.”

“You know who you sound like right now?” Rapidfire shot back. “My dad… and just like him, how the hell could you possibly know how I feel? You have what I wanted, just like my Dad did. Not everypony gets to live the dream, Soarin. That’s something I doubt you’ll ever understand.”

“You were part of the LEAD SQUAD!” Soarin yelled towards him, holding a hoof out and glaring, the light from the horn glowing slightly brighter. “All of the elites below us would have given everything to have that honor. Do you remember when they named us the successors to Gold Squad? Silver Lining was pissed for weeks after we were chosen over his squad. I don’t recall him turning his back and going rogue.”

“Silver didn’t have what I have!” Rapidfire snapped. “Neither he, nor anypony else came as close as I had. None of them got to see it so up close. Everything I ever wanted right in front of me, dangling just out of my reach. It crippled my spirit! All the hard work, everything, all denied when it was right there in front of me!”

“I heard you the first few times and ways you said that,” Soarin scoffed. “So that’s really all this is? It’s all because you’re incredibly bitter and salty?”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t be if you were in my hooves,” Rapidfire snarled.

“I wouldn’t have turned into you,” Soarin retorted, earning a headshake.

“Can you really predict that?” Rapidfire narrowed his eyes. “You don’t realize just how irrelevant you three made me feel. I mean, look at what you did after I left… you put Air Mach of all ponies in my place. As if the job wasn’t already insignificant enough, you put the THIRD BEST effect specialist in my place and things have worked out as if I was never even there! If you, Spitfire, or Fleetfoot had gone down, the Wonderbolts would lose their minds trying to find anypony to take your place and fill all your functions! It would be disastrous… but me? No problem at all… you didn’t even replace me with the next best up!”

“That’s… not…” Soarin struggled to quickly respond. After all… that was what they did. Spitfire had her reasons for keeping squad three together, but what Rapidfire just said was true.

“Don’t try to deny it!” Rapidfire continued his rant. “It stung hard when I found out you guys replaced me with a pony from squad seven instead of Surprise. That only proves my point. I didn’t matter. You three were the show. I was just the fourth wheel. You bet your ass I’m bitter, but if you really think I’m the only one, you’re mistaken… do you know what happened to Hurricane and Jet Stream after Gold Squad disbanded?”

Soarin remained silent.

“Hurricane refuses to ever associate with the Wonderbolts and has slammed the door in my dad’s face every time he approaches him for the ‘Veteran Representation’ program. Jet Stream left Equestria to become a mercenary. My mom tried to convince her otherwise, but Jet threatened to kill her if she tried to stop her. It doesn’t help that I can completely relate to Hurricane. His dad, Hurricane Drive, is a legendary, remembered Wonderbolt from two generations ago along with former lead captain Shockwave! I feel his pain! He’s been lost despite being in the ‘highest’ squad because he was overshadowed by my parents, not living up to the legacy of his father. Face it Soarin, for every Wonderbolt success story, there is one of failure and effort gone to waste. I bet all the Wonderbolts who have been forced to leave under the retirement policy feel the same way. Dedicating your life to something and then just falling short of achieving it is a crushing weight, especially if you keep trying and trying to no avail. I saw which direction my career was heading. It tore me apart inside-out.”

Soarin sighed and rolled his eyes. Rapidfire was putting up an argument, one that he had clearly thought about a lot for it to be so long winded and in depth. But while it was in depth, it was laced with a tone that Soarin had a hard time taking seriously, as if Rapidfire was looking for reasons to sound like Soarin should have sympathy for him, not that Rapidfire was seeking it from him, obviously. But just in case he was, Soarin decided to quickly debunk any thought of it.

“So…” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “Knowing all this, are you expecting me to feel sorry for you?”

“Says the asshole with ‘curiosity’… Keep your damn sympathy,” Rapidfire scoffed. “I don’t need it nor want it.”

“Then you’ll be happy to know my opinion hasn’t changed of you either,” Soarin added harshly.

“HA!” Rapidfire guffawed, cringing and clutching his chest for a moment before taking a few breaths and narrowing his eyes at Soarin. “Who said I was looking for forgiveness or anything stupid like that? I know what I’ve done, I did it all without hesitation. Egging you on to get you in trouble, banging and leaving mares, betraying you, attacking you, playing Spitfire for a fool and getting some hooves on experience…” he smirked as Soarin glared. “That’s right, hate me, I could care less. I don’t regret anything I’ve done. I’m not going to waste my life wondering if I could have done things differently. I only look forward. Screw the past… it screwed me.”

“Hmph…” Soarin snorted.

And just like that… it was over. The two kept their eyes locked for several more minutes, nothing but silence as a battle of gazes flew back and forth. Eventually, Soarin just shook his head at Rapidfire as the light slowly faded and left them in the darkness once again.

Now Soarin knew it all. He knew it all, but he didn’t know how to feel about it. How he felt about Rapidfire was unchanged, but knowing how everything happened shed light on something he had wanted to know for so long. In the end it was just as he thought it might be, Rapidfire putting reasons to his behavior with excuses or a sob story… but what Soarin hadn’t counted on was, in fact, feeling nothing from it. He was expecting to find several new reasons to hate Rapidfire, but instead he found some of Rapidfire’s speech to be… believable? Not towards his behavior, but towards what he had experienced.

Rapidfire was right about one thing: that Soarin didn’t know what it was like to be in his position. There were things Rapidfire had experienced that he didn’t understand because he achieved what Rapidfire wanted.

If there was any satisfaction to be had from this… it was simply that now he knew. While it wasn’t much to be happy about, he could close the book on wondering what created such a nasty, ill-mannered pony from a family deemed the best of the best.

But regardless, he still never trusted Rapidfire… and he never would.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Images by: Foxenawolf

Well...

There we go...

Chapter 114: On With the Show

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 114: On With the Show

Spitfire slowly walked circles around the lobby, observing the Wonderbolts as they all prepared for their operation. By now, they were geared up and ready, donning their flight suits and any other equipment they needed to pull off their show routines. Several of them were strapping on the signature Wonderbolt smoke packs, backpack-like smoke machines that generated their ‘jet stream’ effects. Some were able to generate the steam effect themselves, but these packs, recently redeveloped and upgraded by Rivet, allowed any Wonderbolt to have a jet trail. Not only would these be useful for the show, but they would be essential in both keeping the Shadowbolts off balance and creating the smokescreen when Luna formed and took control of their dragon image.

She glanced over towards the stairs to see Rivet float down from the broken stairwell, aiming himself towards the west hallway. No doubt he was heading towards his workshop or to the engine room, but seeing him reminded Spitfire that she wanted an update on his progress. There was no doubt, if they were successful, that the Shadowbolts might be pretty angry. She knew that the compound was being worked on around the clock, but she wanted to know where progress on restoring the flight mechanisms stood for the sake of their plans moving forward.

“Rivet!” she called out. Rivet stopped as he landed, turning his head towards Spitfire as she approached. “Do you have a moment?”

“Something wrong with the projectors?” he asked, sounding a little grumpy. Spitfire smirked as she heard his tone, having heard he was dealing with a slight ‘lack of competence’ with some of his helpers recently while trying to deduce and repair the mechanisms of the bridge controls that had emerged in the third floor break room.

“No, we’ve got everything we need from you down here,” she assured him. “I’m just curious how the compound repairs are going. We’re taking a risk here. While it’s meant to save one of our cherished members, if successful, we have to assume the Shadowbolts will redouble their efforts to come after us.”

“Actually, it’s pretty functional right now,” Rivet answered without missing a beat. Spitfire’s eyes widened slightly and she blinked, tipping her head as Rivet continued. “We’ve more or less put all of the engines down below into working condition, at least with the resources available to us. We’ve been running tests on them without connecting them to the propellers and they’ve performed thus far. Stress tests have been positive, but it has yet to be seen if they can handle a lift off. All of the calculations say yes, but nothing will tell us more than an actual attempt. That’s more or less the reason I’ve been moving around up here. The engines are as good as we’re going to get them, I’m just trying to get the bridge put back together as well as the blades on the central propeller. Once we get the propeller blades all fixed up and make sure the flight controls work like they’re supposed to, we just have to seal up the last pieces of the compound that were blown apart during the propeller extensions and we should be good to take flight, or at least try.”

Spitfire stared down at Rivet with her mouth agape.

“What?” Rivet asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“That’s…” Spitfire blinked again. “A lot further along than I was expecting.”

“The staff has been diligent and efficient… for the most part,” he said while glancing back at the stairs and the central propeller shaft. “Honestly, they’re just as happy to be stuck out here in the mountains as everypony else, if you catch my meaning. We’re all pretty eager to get this tub moving. The Renegades have been especially helpful in repairing the propellers outside.”

“Well, can you give me a timetable then?” Spitfire asked eagerly. She definitely wasn’t expecting an opportunity so quickly, but knowing they may be able to get their greater plan underway soon had her excited.

“You’re stretching my workforce a little thin right now with this operation,” Rivet explained while looking past Spitfire at the unicorns and the projectors recruited for the mission. “But assuming I’ll be getting all of them back, we could have this beast ready for an actual takeoff attempt in a matter of days. If you ask me, the place is far from top working condition, but with our limited resources it’s the best we’ll be able to manage. Until we get back to civilization, we won’t be able to make full repairs. Based on what you’re saying, we’ll have to take the chance regardless.”

“Hmmm…” Spitfire pondered their options. “This may be a bit of a stretch, but do you think this thing could make it all the way to the Crystal Empire?”

“If we can get it in the air and keep it in the air, maybe. It all depends on how much stress is put on the engines and how my team handles it.”

“Yet another risk. We’re making a living off of those recently,” Spitfire shrugged. “There’s no way around it, but I trust you, Rivet. And… thanks for all you’ve done.”

“The best thing you can do to thank me after all this is to let me take a long nap. Celestia knows I’m going to need it…” he sighed as he turned away and moved towards the west hallway.

Spitfire chuckled as she watched him leave. He’d get a nap and a raise if they made it out of all this alive. Rivet tried to humble his way out of praise, but the fact remained they’d likely all be dead right now if he hadn’t stumbled upon and initially tinkered with some of the engines down below.

“Captain!” Fire Streak’s voice rang out from the recruit barracks, Spitfire’s ears turning and catching it. “We’re ready to go!” Fire added as he approached.

“Alright then,” Spitfire turned to face him and his group. “Let’s—WHOA!” Spitfire cut herself off, her eyes widening and her jaw dropping as Fire Streak approached with his group.

“How do we look?” Surprise asked cheerfully from behind Fire as Spitfire scanned them over in disbelief.

“Uh… Wow…” Spitfire commented.

Just as Starry Skies had initially reacted to them, Spitfire couldn’t believe just how… perfect they all looked.

The Streak twins and Squall simply had their mane and body colors switched and darkened, but Luna had put a few personal touches on the rest.

Surprise had gone from pure white to a dark, dirty grey color, her mane following by transforming from vibrant yellow to a dusty brown. She had also altered her mane style to look more similar to Blaze since her puffy, wild mane was pretty recognizable.

Playbitz retained his brown color, but the black wing tips were turned to brown and his black mane turned to silver-white.

Swift Justice was given the opposite treatment, his mane remained the same but he was given black fur, which only acted to further enhance his stealthy look and would likely aide him in lurking in the shadows of the fortress.

Shine Struck’s colorful mane was turned to all yellow, her thistle fur color replaced with a faded red that heavily contrasted with her mane.

Twister looked like he had gotten in a fight with a blender and lost. His green fur was turned blue, but he was also covered in several white and gray splotches. His mane was a dark viridian color and looked a little more wild than usual.

Misty Fly… looked absolutely ferocious. Her fur had been turned dark red with fake scars all over her face and sticking out on the exposed portions of her body beneath the Shadowbolt suit. Her mane was no longer its pretty, sky blue, instead black with red streaks in it that matched her fur. It was a little hilarious to see Misty Fly look so sinister with her usual, bright, happy smile still on her face.

As Spitfire looked them over, a dirty yellow mare with a tri-colored mane of black, dark grey, and light grey stepped out and smirked.

“How AWESOME do I look?” Rainbow Dash’s voice came from the mare. Rainbow Dash pushed her goggles up and whipped her mane about. “I look just like Daring Do! This is so cool!” she stated as Starry Skies and Luna stepped around them.

“Not bad at all…” Starry Skies nodded as she looked them over again and turned to Luna. “You’ve got a good choice of colors.”

“We have observed your Renegades closely,” Luna winked at Starry. “It served as a good template to make the changes.

“Well then!” Spitfire spoke up, catching all of their attention. “You guys look pretty damn good!” she chuckled. “Well done Princess,” Spitfire nodded to Luna. “Have you met with the unicorns yet?”

“We have not,” Luna shook her head. Spitfire turned and pointed towards where the Renegades, Recruits, and unicorn staff members were gathering with the image projectors.

“They’re waiting for you over there,” she turned back to Luna and smiled. “Just ask and one of them will run you through the operation of the projectors. Don’t worry about the machinery, it just takes magic to run and I’m sure with your alicorn magic you’ll be able to put on quite a show for us.”

“We shall do our best,” Luna nodded.

“And thanks for helping us,” Spitfire added respectfully.

“It is an honor to work beside the Wonderbolts,” Luna gave her a bright smile before heading off to get further instructions. It was interesting to hear such a phrase coming from one of the divine sisters. If anything, it was an honor to have her involved. This was going to be one of the largest Wonderbolt operations in their history, and Spitfire felt lucky to have the abilities of a goddess at their disposal.

Spitfire refocused and looked to find Starry Skies, but she had already gone on her way. She wanted to thank her as well, but they didn’t have time to dawdle. She was confident Fire Streak and his infiltration team were ready. The Wonderbolts themselves were ready. The former Wonderbolt Renegades were saddling up and ready to fly with the unicorns and projectors in tow.

Everything was in place, now they just needed their signal to move.

“Everypony listen up!” Spitfire yelled as she hopped up and hovered into the air. The lobby went silent and all eyes turned to her. “As soon as the Renegade scouts return with the fortress location, we are heading out! Make all your final checks with your squads and equipment! Be ready! We are not delaying a single moment!”

Rainbow Dash had to tell herself over and over to focus. She was about to embark on a very difficult, very dangerous mission, but her inner filly was giddy all over because Luna’s color change had basically turned her into her favorite book hero. She must have stared into Surprise’s mirror, quietly squealing for several minutes before Fire Streak finally got her to calm down… for the most part.

She’d have to find out if Twilight knew about this spell, because it would make her next Nightmare Night not just twenty percent cooler, but double that! Like… forty percent cooler! That was cooler than anypony besides her could handle!

Dash blinked, shook her head out, and lightly smacked her hooves against the sides of her head.

“Focus, Dash… Focus…” she whispered to herself. Geek time was over, it was time to be professional. She was chosen for this, so she needed to prove Fire’s faith in her was well placed. After coming back down to earth, Dash looked around and took in the commotion around her and their group.

The Renegades and recruits were moving about, helping Rivet’s staff move the image projectors into place. Princess Luna was nearby, being instructed on the use of the projector control panel. Seeing the recruits helping, Dash looked them over to see if she could find Little Star and Matteo. She still wanted to meet with them one last time before they launched. She just couldn’t stand the thought of Star worrying about them like she already was. One extra hug and attempt at reassurance wasn’t going to stop her from worrying, but Dash felt Star deserved it anyway.

However, she ended up finding somepony else.

Descent was standing just inside the front doors, glancing back and forth as the Wonderbolts, both current and past, young and old moved about in preparation. He didn’t look pleased at all, shaking his head as a look of disapproval remained constant on his face.

While his expression was clear, his curiosity suggested he was conflicted. He kept watching with apparent interest regardless of all the arguments he had given Spitfire towards why he felt the operation was suicidal and pointless.

Dash kept watching as Storm Front suddenly emerged from the crowd, walked towards his father, and started talking to him. Dash couldn’t hear a word of it over the commotion, but it looked like he failed to sway Descent. Descent just looked away and grunted. Storm’s ears folded backwards as he let out a sigh. He reached forward and gave his father a hard pat on the side of his shoulder. Descent flinched and tipped slightly, the ‘pat’ having strength behind it. Storm nodded and said something else before turning, smiling, and walking back into the crowd. Descent kept his eyes on his son, looking confused… and slightly surprised.

Shortly after Storm returned to the crowd, Lightning Dust and Astral Bolt stepped through the doors of the compound, shaking snow off of their bodies before addressing Descent.

Dash figured the Shadowbolt Renegades were still outside working the blizzard. They probably all had to since the Wonderbolt Renegades broke rank to help the Wonderbolts. Descent probably felt like he was in a little bit of a bind, but Spitfire’s determination had overpowered him. He was forced to keep up their initial charade for them as the Wonderbolts executed their plan.

“Oh!” Dash quickly turned back to the recruits as a familiar large figure entered her peripheral vision. She looked over to see Matteo, in his flight suit with the hood pulled down, pushing a cart that held two projectors on it. Dash was certain Matteo would be one of those chosen to carry the projectors out. They were box shaped and about a cubic yard in dimensions. Matteo could easily carry two of them.

Most of Dash’s attention, however, was not drawn by Matteo’s task, but by Little Star, who was also suited up and… laying on top of his head, and clutching his crest feathers with her little hooves. Matteo looked unaffected, but slightly unamused with his pony-hat, but he was a griffon of his word. Dash and Squall both asked him to keep her safe and he was going to do that, even if she was acting weird.

Dash couldn’t stand it. She needed to talk to them one more time. They still had a moment or two, so she turned and started moving towards them. She heard a second set of hooves following behind her as she did. She glanced back to see Squall was following behind her. Instinctively, she looked for Twister too, but he was currently stuck and flailing in a headlock provided by a glaring Misty Fly. Twister was good at picking the wrong targets for his shenanigans. With Squall in tow, she approached Matteo and Hat Star.

“Matty,” Dash said his name as she stopped right behind him. Matteo pushed the cart into place with the rest of the projectors before turning and looking at her. He blinked for a moment, looking over her color change, but despite Dash’s very slim hope that he’d make a comment about it, he said absolutely nothing as if nothing had changed. Dash held in a snicker as he remained perfectly serious despite the pouting, wide eyes little mare latched to his head. “How are things going over here?”

“We’re almost ready to leave,” he answered, again unfazed by Star. “Apparently I’ll be carrying a couple of these,” he explained while giving a head motion towards the projectors, one that failed to move Star at all. Matteo sighed and moved his eyes up, releasing whistle from his nostrils. “And it looks like I’ll be carrying a pony on my head too…”

“Star…” Dash chuckled as she floated up and got eye level with her. “I know you’re worried, but I promise we’ll make it back.” While it seemed easy to simply say that, Dash knew her words would reach Star. Dash wasn’t one to reassure others without weight behind it. She reached up and grabbed Star, trying to pull her off Matteo’s head, but she was firmly latched to him. “Star, look, you have to play your part too,” Dash said, realizing she had to get a little stern, something Star was usually more likely to do.

“I know…” Star sighed, finally speaking up. “I just wish I could be out there with you guys, I hate knowing I won’t be able to do anything if you get into trouble.”

“Everything needs to work for us to carry this out safely,” Dash tried to encourage her, but Star still looked concerned. What could she do here to—?

“Will you stop it already?” Squall’s voice suddenly came from behind Dash. He nudged her aside as he floated forward and grabbed Star. Her eyes widened and she tightened her grip on Matteo’s crest as Squall yanked her upward.

“BRUAWK!” Matteo released a painful, low pitched squawk as Squall ripped her from his head. His crest remained intact, but Matteo quickly bent down and grabbed his head in pain. Dash didn’t blame him. That had to sting.

Squall floated down and placed Star on the floor, completely ignoring Matteo uttering several swears under his breath. Star just stared blankly as Squall, in his odd reversed color scheme, pulled the Shadowbolt hood off of his head, bent his head down, and shot her a serious look.

“WE. ARE. COMING. BACK.” he emphasized each word. “If you have any doubt in your mind about it I’ll punch y—” Squall slammed his mouth shut and blinked, squinting and swallowing before continuing. “I’ll… uh… be angry,” he struggled to finish as Dash tried not to keel over laughing. It was thoughtful of Squall to try and dissuade her worry, but what had her laughing was how he realized he was about to suggest he’d hit her and he quickly tried to change it. “So stop,” Squall regained himself and pointed at her. “We need you to do your thing so we can do ours. Got it?” His words were a tad harsh, again, but that was the nature of his speech. Star’s expression remained blank for a few moments, but then she looked down and nodded towards the floor.

“I will, but promise me you’ll be careful?” she asked. Squall grunted.

“I just said we’d—HURK!” Squall grunted as Star reached up, grabbed the neck of his suit and yanked him forward, butting heads with him and glaring.

“I SAID PROMISE ME!” she growled as Squall tried to lean his head back in surprise. Star quickly let up and let go. “S-sorry… just… please…”

Dash stepped back and let Squall handle it. She knew he could. He had just admitted he cared about Little Star, and she wanted to see it for herself. Matteo remained quiet as well, finally sitting back up, but still rubbing his head with one arm.

“I promise,” Squall said to grant Star’s request. Squall was ready to turn away, but Star leaned forward and grabbed his arm, hugging herself tightly to it. Squall gritted his teeth before opening his mouth to speak, but chose against it and let her do it. After a moment, he reached down and picked her up with one hoof. “Okay, now stick with Feather-brain, will you?” Squall said as he lightly tossed her back to Matteo. She yelped, but landed softly against Matteo’s chest feathers before he reached up and stopped her from falling.

“I’d appreciate it if you called me by my real name,” Matteo said to Squall with irritation. “Or do you want me to call you Scarface?”

“Stick by him and we’ll be back,” Squall said to Star, ignoring Matteo.

“Hey!” Matteo’s feathers fluffed up slightly as he growled at Squall.

“I will! Good luck!” Star replied to Squall. Matteo sighed as neither of them paid attention to him, but glanced to his left as Dash approached again.

“We’ll come back, Matteo,” Dash humored him, “Until then, I order you to be a badass, got it?”

“Heh…” Matteo smirked as Little Star dropped out of his talons and started moving on her own again. “Now that’s an order I can follow naturally.”

“Good luck, Matty,” Dash returned his smirk and reached out a hoof. Matteo nodded, balled up his talons on his right arm and bumped it with Dash’s hoof.

“Luck to you as well,” he returned before going back to his preparations.

Dash turned away with Squall as the two started moving back towards their group. As the two walked, Dash glanced at him and smiled.

“Nice work with—”

“Okay, yeah, I know…” Squall cut her off quickly. Dash chuckled and let it be, knowing Squall was still not used to expressing himself emotionally to others. They were a few yards away from the rest of their group when suddenly Fire and the rest looked up and turned their ears forward. Dash and Squall blinked before turning to see Spitfire hovering above them with Steady Wing and Comet floating behind her.

“Everypony ready up and get in your formations! We have the location of their fortress. We’re launching in two minutes! Move! Move!” Spitfire yelled out.

Squall and Dash glanced at each other briefly before quickly making their way back towards their group. On the way there, Squall bumped right into Storm as he tried to cross towards squad seven. The two blinked and exchanged glances for a moment before Squall huffed and kept moving, but Dash stalled for a moment. Storm looked her up and down and smirked.

“Give ‘em hell in there, Daring Do,” Storm chuckled and held out a hoof. Dash squealed internally, but kept her composure, returning the smirk and bumping her hoof with his.

“Put on a show they’ll never forget,” she winked at him. The two kept it short, breaking away to join their groups. Dash increased her pace as she saw Fire Streak waving her over, but when she got halfway her eyes suddenly widened. She stopped and looked back towards the Wonderbolts gathering together, looking for somepony specific.

“Miss Dash!” Fire Streak called her name as she continued to look around. “Miss Dash, let’s go!” he yelled a little louder, but instead of abiding by the order, Dash fully turned and made her way into the crowd. “What in the…?!” Fire growled, but Misty Fly placed a hoof on his shoulder. Fire looked back at her to see her neck extended up as high as she could make it, looking in the direction Dash was moving. Fire blinked and hovered a few inches off the ground. Then he saw it too. “Ah…”

“Silver!” Dash yelled as she approached squad two. Silver’s ears stood up and he turned to look towards Dash’s voice. But when he turned he blinked and looked back and forth, trying to find Dash. “Right here, dummy,” Dash chuckled as Silver’s eyes snapped to her and he stared blankly.

Dash approached him wearing the Shadowbolt uniform and with her changed colors, even as she did it seemed to take him a moment to realize it was her. When he did his expression went from blank to serious.

“What are you doing over here?” he asked sternly as he looked at all the Wonderbolts moving around them. “You should be with your team.”

“Oh, relax,” Dash scoffed. “Spitfire said two minutes, I just wanted to see you before we launched…” she trailed off as she noticed Silver examining her temporary look. She smirked and whipped her mane around. “Looks awesome, doesn’t it?” she asked as Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“You look silly,” he commented bluntly. Dash immediately scrunched her face and glared at him.

“Dick…” she shot back with a scoff. Silver chuckled at her reaction before stepping away from Blaze and High Winds and patting Dash on the shoulder.

“Good luck out there Dash,” he said with a sudden sincere tone. “Be safe, and…” his eyes looked strong and confident… confident in her. “I hope you can save Wave Chill.”

“I don’t hope we can,” Dash quickly said. “I know we can… and we will!” she showed her confidence to show his was well placed. “I promise.”

“ONE MINUTE!” Spitfire’s voice rang out, causing Silver to look up and nod.

“Get moving, I’ll see you back here,” he smiled.

“You too you, old fart,” Dash turned and took a step. The moment she was about to take her second step, her eyes widened in a moment of realization.

“Aware—”

Dash stuck her hoof out and blocked Silver’s before it could hook trip her. She glanced to her left and smugly grinned at him. Silver was already grinning from ear to ear.

“Nice try, ass…” Dash pushed his hoof away.

“Go make me proud,” Silver made a head motion towards Dash’s team.

The two parted ways as the Wonderbolts readied to launch. It was time to strike, take back Wave Chill, and show the Shadowbolts that they were not to be taken lightly.

“Soarin, let me go for a second,” Rapidfire suddenly asked as Soarin helped him through the tunnel. Soarin blinked and glanced at him.

“I thought you didn’t want me to drop you,” he said sarcastically.

“Shut your trap,” Rapidfire growled back at him. “I think… I might be able to put weight on my leg now. The pain has lessened,” he explained.

Soarin kept looking at Rapidfire for a moment, the glow from the horn splashing against Rapidfire’s face in full now that he had finally shed the shredded bits of his flight mask away. If Rapidfire fell this time, he had no reason to lash out at Soarin because this was on his request… so, Soarin obliged.

He slowly removed his arm from beneath Rapidfire’s arm-pit, but kept his hoof there just in case he was getting ahead of himself.

“Rghhh…” Rapidfire winced and grunted as he put weight on his back leg. As Soarin let go, Rapidfire managed to support himself, but he was shaking. Soarin stepped away and watched as Rapidfire struggled to stay up, but he ended up holding firm. Soarin sighed and sat down, relieved that, even if only for a moment, he had relief from carrying Rapidfire’s weight with him. It was bad enough that he had to keep his horn alight. If Rapidfire really could move on his own now, that would lift half the burden Soarin was dealing with.

“You sure you’ve got it?” Soarin asked as Rapidfire continued to shudder and wince.

“I’ve got it!” he yelled at Soarin angrily. Soarin rolled his eyes and just sat back as Rapidfire tried to take a few steps. Each one was labored and looked primed for a crash, but he managed to stay up. After a few more steps, it looked like he was getting the hang of it. He had a very nasty limp, but he was able to walk on his own.

“You’ve got it. It’s not pretty, but it’s working,” Soarin commented as he stood up and hobbled up beside Rapidfire.

“Hmph…” Rapidfire grunted in response as the two continued through the tunnels.

Soarin had noticed, since Rapidfire had told him his story, he had been a little more cooperative. Maybe getting it off his chest helped. It definitely wasn’t due to any sympathy Soarin had given him, because he didn’t give him any. Rapidfire’s path leading up to now was clearly rough and in the end he missed his goals… but Soarin couldn’t forgive him for the terrible things he had done as a result of letting his morals go. He felt pity for Rapidfire. A story like his was one that sounded unbearable, but he could not, and would not forget the damage Rapidfire had caused him and to those he cared about.

It was too bad… had Rapidfire only confided in them instead of pushing them away, had he treated them as friends as they had him at first and let them know what was on his mind, maybe things would have been different, maybe they could have stopped him from turning down a dark path… but he didn’t and as a result they couldn’t. All he ever did was anger them, annoy them, and especially with Soarin, try to draw him into conflict. They had tried at first to understand why he had suddenly become an ass, but his constant deflection of their concern eventually became unbearable… and he simply became somepony they really, really disliked.

It was a shame, really.

“There’s a thin draft in this tunnel,” Rapidfire suddenly spoke as he limped along. Soarin perked up and he glanced at Rapidfire, his wings were being held about an inch off of his body and the feathers were all pointed out.

“Huh?” Soarin tipped his head to the side as he also subtly puffed out his wings to try and sense any wind currents, but he felt none. “I can’t feel it…”

“It’s barely there. I almost can’t feel it, but it’s there,” Rapidfire explained as his wingtips continued to twitch. Soarin wasn’t about to cry foul. Rapidfire handled all the elements and effects better than he or any other member of the lead squad could. Despite him apparently thinking it was a useless skill, he was quite a master. If he could feel something, it was definitely there.

“Do you think it’s a way out?” Soarin asked as he aimed his light forward.

“If it is,” Rapidfire pondered. “It’s a ways away.”

“Only one way to find out…” Soarin nodded as the two continued down the tunnel.

While Dash had recently gotten over her pre-show anxiety a little bit, it didn’t stop her nerves from getting all tingly now. That’s how she was treating it as she flew in formation behind Lightning Streak and Surprise. Like a show. This operation was clearly much more than just a simple show, and she wasn’t even taking part in the ‘show’ portion, but the more she thought about the danger she was about to be exposed to, the less calm she felt. It wasn’t so much that she was afraid, just anxious. If everything worked out as planned, she’d be inside the Shadowbolt fortress, someplace she never thought she’d find herself in again… but worse, someplace she didn’t really want to see again.

In the back of her head, she was afraid about one thing. Something that had yet to be confirmed. It was almost worse that they didn’t know, because if she was really still alive… if Nightshade was onboard their fortress, Dash would at least be able to prep herself to possibly run into her. She hated not knowing, because Nightshade’s presence would completely and totally change everything about their approach.

“Everypony hold formation until Spitfire gives the order to break,” Fire Streak’s voice pulled Dash from her thoughts. He was glancing over his shoulder at the rest, Dash could just barely see him with Lightning Streak directly in front of her. “Once she does, follow my lead.”

Dash nodded along with the rest, glancing around them as they continued to fly.

They were flying through the artificial blizzard, the Renegades manipulating the specific area around them all to give the force smooth sailing through it. Only the strength of the blizzard was reduced though, the lack of visibility less than five pony lengths in front of them was still being held. Dash couldn’t see the rest… but she could feel it: The combined draft of the entire Wonderbolt and former Wonderbolt Renegade forces all flying together, the continuous THUMP THUMP THUMP’s of hundreds of strong wings. If they were out in the open and in the clear, it surely would have been quite the spectacle.

Dash’s ears perked up as a high pitched whistle came from somewhere way in front.

“Slow descent!” Fire called to them. “Pitch down and follow behind!” he ordered.

Dash did exactly as she was told, following directly behind squad three as the little band of false Shadowbolts began to fly lower. As they drew closer to the ground, the limited visibility lifted a little, allowing Dash to get more of a view of what was going on around her. They were surrounded by Renegades, many of whom either had a unicorn passenger or a piece of equipment in tow. Among them, but a little further off, Dash could barely make out groups of Wonderbolt recruit squads helping out.

Her attention was drawn away as Luna flew past them and formed up beside Blazetail and Flashwind, exchanging words with them before the two former captains pointed forward.

“KEEP LOW!” Blazetail yelled out. “We are approaching the edge of the blizzard! STAY! LOW!”

Dash gulped as they all suddenly hit a very thick pocket of wind and snow. While the Shadowbolt goggles did their job, their smaller design made Dash feel less protected, causing her to squint and grimace as they hit the strong outer edge of the blizzard and powered through it.

And then, just like that, they were clear. However, Dash barely had a moment to look around before the entire secondary force of Renegades, recruits, and unicorns all came to an abrupt, somewhat shaky landing as a mountainside appeared before them. Nothing was damaged, nopony was hurt, but a few had to be helped out of the snow.

Everypony made it down, and no sooner did they land on the mountainside, did they set to work. Dash pushed up her goggles and exhaled, spewing a cloud of mist from her mouth into the cold air. She glanced around as the rest of the ponies outside of their team helped the unicorns as they began explaining the setup of the projectors.

“Sit tight,” Fire Streak spoke to the team as they all gathered together. “Now we just wait. Stay loose, walk around, move your wings, but don’t stray too far.”

Dash was way ahead of him. As were most of them, it seemed. Squall was already keeping his wings loose, and Dash had started doing the same the moment before Fire had spoken.

She spotted Matteo and Little Star being directed by a unicorn, showing Matteo where a projector was to be set up and getting Little Star to help him with the precise details. Dash wanted to help them, or maybe… oh, who was she kidding, she just wanted another excuse to go reassure them again. She couldn’t keep doing that, it would suggest she was very unsure of how things would turn out. Confidence was key to everything being successful here.

To take her mind off of it, Dash started walking around a little, not straying too far, as Fire had ordered. She kept opening and closing her wings and moving her limbs about to keep them loose as she hopped up a small, nearby cliff and moved a little bit further. She stopped right in her tracks after gaining a bit more of a view of what was just beyond.

Before, she couldn’t see it due to the mountainous terrain around them, but after hopping up and moving a little… there it was. Right there… parked on the ground just a little over a mile away…

The Shadowbolt fortress.

The sight sent shivers through her body. It wasn’t up in the air and glaring down at them like it had twice already, but it didn’t take away from its intimidating presence. It was sitting on the ground in a clearing, the propellers at rest, and the giant crystal formation strewn about it were all calm, but still emitting a soft glow.

Dash could see Shadowbolts flying around it. All who got close passed through a thin pink light that appeared briefly, signaling that the shield was indeed up. Those moving in and out shot towards the blizzard, luckily far from their current location. Hopefully the Shadowbolt Renegades could keep the charade up and running without their former Wonderbolt counterparts. Despite Descent’s unwillingness to help them here, the blizzard was playing a very important role, having kept them concealed and allowing them to move undetected and set everything up.

Dash turned around and took a deep breath. Her Wonderbolt training had paid off. A year or so back, she’d be absolutely quaking in her own hooves, but her experience with the Wonderbolts had taught her to keep calm under pressure. She was still anxious and a little scared, she was sure all of them were. But, like her, their nerves were not causing them lock up. This was what the Wonderbolts did, they handled outrageous situations that most others could not. Just another day at the office. The absolutely insane office.

It was time to focus. Dash knew they wouldn’t move a muscle until/unless the fake show and dragon attack were successful, but always being prepped assuming their moment would come was key to their success.

In the meantime… something else had been on her mind, but had taken a back seat due to the situation. They had a moment now… so she wanted to briefly touch base with them. With squad three, that is.

She contained it earlier to be professional, but Dash was incredibly happy to work with squad three. It wasn’t that she’d feel less inspired with squads one and two, but squad three was special. Her first real experience within the Wonderbolts was with them back when she was granted a visiting training day after the royal ball. They made her feel so welcome and at home, not to mention she got to meet her fillyhood idol, Misty Fly and learn about how awesome she really was. It was an experience she would never forget and getting another chance to fly side by side with them had her pumped up.

She climbed down the little cliff side and made her way back over to her team. She stopped for a moment as she caught a glimpse of Squall stuffing Twister’s head into the snow, but she decided to let it be. Twister probably had it coming and would be perfectly fine no matter how hard Squall hit him. Squad zero was nearby as well, at least the three who were chosen since Calm was up with the rest of the Wonderbolts. They all looked a little nervous. Dash had already heard it from Shine, but it was a little strange to see Playbitz and Swift showing similar behavior. Perhaps they were all aware that their job security may rest on whether or not the mission succeeded. While they had been given a free ride into the ranks, Dash was actually glad she didn’t have to worry as much as they did about failure… at least in most situations. She had earned her spot, so mishaps could be tolerated to a point. Squad zero? They didn’t have that luxury.

However, Dash was confident they would succeed because they were under the command of squad three. Fire was one heck of a captain and he had a professional team under his wing.

“Hrmph…” Lightning Streak suddenly grunted and belched loudly… directly into Surprise’s face causing her to grimace.

“Gah! I took a direct hit!” Surprise yelled out as she pressed her face into the snow and rubbed it vigorously against it.

“Whoa… where the hell did that one come from?” Lightning blinked and shook his head.

Mostly professional. But despite their natural silliness, squad three was still incredibly reliable. Spitfire wouldn’t have put her faith in them otherwise.

“Something troubling you, Miss Dash?” Fire Streak asked her before she could even speak to him. She blinked and tipped her head to the side.

“I don’t look that nervous, do I?” Dash pouted, feeling as if Fire had masterfully picked out her small bit of anxiety.

“Well, no,” Fire gave her a smile. “I just noticed you’re moving around more than the rest.”

“Oh…” Dash saw the reason behind his concern. “I’m a little jittery,” she admitted. “Getting a glimpse of the fortress didn’t help. I’m ready and willing to go through with this mission but…” She glanced back up at the small cliff she was just standing atop. “I mean, my last experience inside that place was unpleasant. Very unpleasant. So yeah, I guess I’m a little troubled,” she quoted him.

“Worry not, milady,” Fire gave her a proper bow. “A great majority of our plan will be executed by my squad. You six were selected to help us blend in and provide us with assistance should things go wrong. Just act natural, leave most of the deception to us, and be ready to assist us with anything we ask. Do those things, and it will be smooth sailing, hopefully.”

“Hopefully?” Dash flattened her ears.

“I apologize,” Fire exhaled through his nose. “I have the utmost confidence in our success, but it is important to acknowledge the error margin and the danger. Such thoughts will not deter us, but it is important to acknowledge them.”

Fire blinked and flinched as something bumped into him. He looked to his side to see Misty Fly more or less slide herself along his side until she was standing even with him. Once in place she flashed Dash a very bright smile… which still looked so wrong with how intimidating her color change had made her.

“Well,” Fire chuckled as he looked back towards Dash. “I know one pony right here who has endless confidence… and can back it up too.”

Dash always felt giddy in the presence of Misty, but she suddenly felt awful. She wanted to acknowledge Misty, but it had been such a long time since she had used any of her sign language, in fact she had nearly forgotten all of it. Fire noticed Dash fidgeting slightly and quickly turned to Misty, giving himself a little space before opening his wings and holding up his hooves.

All he did was hold his hooves at chest level before making them shake in place while also shaking his wings. Then he pointed at Dash. Misty blinked several times before looking at Dash and giving her a smile. She walked up to her, turned to face the same direction, and draped a wing over her before flashing her a confident grin. Dash stared blankly as Misty gave her the confident smile. She reached up a hoof, motioning between her, Dash, Fire, and all the rest. She then touched her hooves to her chest before pointing one hoof down at the ground.

Dash quickly looked at Fire, who chuckled.

“Misty says ‘we’ve got this,’” he translated for her.

Misty saw Fire translate, and quickly followed up by holding a hoof towards Dash. It only took Dash a moment to catch on. She smiled back at Misty and bumped hooves with her. Misty gave a strong nod before moving back towards Fire.

Dash had goosebumps all over. It was one thing to meet Misty Fly back during her first visit, it was entirely different to have Misty approach, treat her, and influence her as a fellow Wonderbolt. Dash felt a wave of confidence wash over her. She was already set to go, but having extra motivation from one of the most incredible Wonderbolts overshadowed many of her fears. She had nothing to worry about at all. Squad three was in command, it didn’t matter what sort of danger they were flying into. They’d get the job done.

“Fire Streak!” Spitfire’s voice came down from above. They all looked up to see their captain hovering down towards them. She was looking around at the whole team though.

“Right here, Captain,” Fire Streak waved.

“Ah,” Spitfire chuckled and shook her head. “The color changes and uniforms are throwing me off,” she admitted as she touched down. “The Wonderbolts are all in position and ready to move. Is your team all set?”

Fire Streak looked behind him to see Surprise throw a snowball into Lightning Streak’s face at point blank. Lightning’s head whipped backwards as he took the hit before looking right at Surprise with a face full of snow.

“Seriously bro… throw another one!” he threatened, only to get hit in the face with three more snowballs.

“As ready as usual,” Fire sighed, but Spitfire seemed to like how relaxed and casual they were being.

“Good! I know you understand the importance of your role… and I know you won’t let me down,” she gave Fire her vote of confidence.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain,” Fire nodded. Spitfire glanced at Misty and exchanged a hoofbump and a nod with her before turning and seeing Dash. Dash was still smiling from her interaction with Misty, bouncing a little, and looking ready to blast off at any moment. Spitfire didn’t ask, she just smirked and turned to the commotion around them.

“Blazetail! Flashwind!” Spitfire called out as she glanced around. Less than a moment later, Flashwind appeared over the small cliff Dash had stood on and landed in front of Spitfire. “Preparations?” Spitfire got right to the point.

“All the projectors are in place, I believe my husband is checking with Princess Luna as we speak…” she looked up just in time to see Blazetail glide down and land beside her.

“The Princess?” Spitfire quickly asked him as well. Blazetail gave her a nod.

“Luna is all set and waiting at the controls,” he answered.

“Your teams?” Spitfire continued.

“The tremor teams are in place, the recruit squads are ready to fly the unicorns to safety once their job is done, and the rest of the Renegades are ready to launch as soon as you give the order. I hope your little plan works, because they’re itching to put pressure on the Shadowbolts for once. Nothing against Descent’s strategies, but we all feel like it’s long overdue.”

“Good, and I agree,” Spitfire smiled. “It’s time to give them a taste. We’re all tired of being the target.” Spitfire looked back and forth between them. “Well…” she put on a devious grin. “It’s show time!”

Rainbow Dash watched as Spitfire and the former captains parted ways. She took a deep breath as Spitfire moved up and back into the edge of the blizzard to join the Wonderbolts. It was almost time…

“Are we all good to go down there?” Silver asked as Spitfire rose back up to the front of the Wonderbolt force beside him. She gave him a nod as she stared out towards the Shadowbolt fortress. They were at the misty edge of the blizzard, just barely hidden from view.

“All set,” she said simply. Silver looked her up and down as she focused.

“So how are we going to approach? Stealthily or—” he stopped as Spitfire shook her head.

“No, we are going to fly right towards them, slowly,” she explained. Silver blinked and stared at her blankly.

“We’re just going to casually waltz right up to them…”

“Yep,” Spitfire glanced at him, meeting his blank stare. Silver’s brow flattened before he exhaled and shook his head.

“If you say so…” He didn’t protest, but it was clear he was iffy on it. Spitfire was okay with that because she was honestly a bit iffy on it too. The whole thing was supposed to be a charade, so she wanted it to look as casual as they could. Whether or not the Shadowbolts would be affected by it was an unknown variable, but after their last encounter, seeing Moon’s behavior made her feel the Shadowbolts weren’t mindless. If they still had their wits about them and weren’t blindly following orders, perhaps they could also be thrown for a loop as well.

“I take it you’re ready?” Spitfire asked Silver. Silver nodded.

“Just give the order and I’m moving,” he said as he stared out at the fortress now. Spitfire turned to the others in their squads.

“Blaze? High Winds? All set?” she asked as the rest of the force began to rise up behind them.

“Bet’cher spicy ass, sis!” Blaze replied while bumping her flint gloves together, creating small sparks. High Winds yawned before pointing at Blaze.

“What Blazey said…” she added monotonously. Spitfire turned to her squadmates.

“Fleet and—” she flattened her brow when she saw Fleetfoot perched on Calm’s back. Calm was hovering in the air, but his face was bright red. “Calm… are you two good to go?”

“Ready with my noble steed!” Fleetfoot giggled as Calm simply nodded, holding his breath.

“Good, and Fleet… you have two perfectly functional wings. Stop terrorizing Calm and use them. We need him to not be distracted,” Spitfire ordered sternly.

“Aw… alright,” Fleetfoot pouted as she dismounted and hovered forward.

“And Air Mach, are you—” Spitfire flinched as Air Mach rushed past her and pointed towards the Shadowbolt fortress.

“The time has come my brothers and lady brothers! The colt gloves are off and the very-stallion gloves are on! We’ll take the fight right to their front door and put on a show they’ll never forget! We’ll punch ‘em in the mouth with our burning stallion spirits and take back our brother from their dirty, cowardly hooves!” He shifted over towards squad two. “We are Wonderbolts young,” he jabbed Blaze in the shoulder.

“Ow!”

“And old!” Air Mach shifted over to Silver and jabbed him as well. Silver flinched and glared at him. “Why, I bet the old Iron Horse, Silver Lining himself is itching to break a hoof off in their ass and call it a dowdy-do! Give them a solid, Iron Horse beating for taking his brother and trusty friend away! Isn’t that right my brother?!” he wore an overzealous smile as he stared through the lenses of his ridiculous sunglasses into the completely unamused eyes of Silver Lining.

“You’ve got such a big mouth,” Silver grunted. “Seriously, I could jam a flagpole in there. It might knock all your teeth out, but I could definitely get it in.”

Air Mach swiftly turned to Spitfire, his cape lightly smacking Silver in the face as he pointed at his captain.

“You heard it right from the legend’s mouth! We’re all ready to do this!” he exclaimed as Silver angrily pulled him down by the cape.

“Heh…” Spitfire smirked, again feeling good about how natural the Wonderbolts looked. If they could keep up the antics and casual mindset… this would be a success. It needed to be a success. This was all to get him back. Spitfire took a deep breath and hardened her gaze towards the Shadowbolt fortress. “Hold on Wave… we’re coming to get you.”

Spitfire turned and whistled loudly.

“Wonderbolts! Let’s go!” she gave the order before turning and pumping her wings. She could hear the sound of beating wings follow right behind her as they started moving out of the blizzard’s edge and towards the grounded fortress.

Slowly, the entire force of Wonderbolts emerged and flew at a fixed pace, slowly approaching with every intention of the Shadowbolts eventually spotting them. Due to their approach from an angle, it seemed to take the Shadowbolts longer than expected to notice them, which was perfect because Spitfire wanted to get as close as possible.

When they reached about a quarter mile away from the fortress, they were spotted. A lot of commotion began erupting around the fortress and Shadowbolts began pouring out of it as well as the blizzard. Several commanders were among them. Spitfire was able to make out Blade, Sin, Shadow, Devil, and Angel. All five of them started spawning a few clones as they emerged. Spitfire was expecting this, but what she wasn’t expecting was their lack of full numbers. They had… defeated Trance and Witch, but Ruin, Moon, and Void were nowhere to be seen. They were probably out in the blizzard or still in the fortress, either way, having three less than what they thought they were going to deal with was more than Spitfire could’ve asked for. Specifically, the absence of Ruin pleased her, especially after Fleetfoot’s description of her encounter with him. Something about that pony was absolutely messed up and Spitfire had worried he would’ve been able to call their bluff more than any of them. Without him there, that factor was gone.

“HOLD!” Spitfire yelled out bringing the entire force to a halt about a hundred meters from the fortress. She briefly scanned the Shadowbolt numbers. With the commander clones, the Shadowbolts outnumbered them at least two to one. The commanders were being less ambitious with the clones it seemed, perhaps because the Wonderbolts knew their weak point, but they still had enough to tip the numbers heavily in their favor. With Blade in front, the Shadowbolts were charging towards them.

It was time for the show of the century. Spitfire took a deep breath and smiled.

“Fleet, phone me,” Spitfire ordered casually as she reached a hoof back. Fleetfoot hovered up beside her and hoofed over a megaphone. Spitfire looked down at it, the volume dial was set at four. She immediately cranked it all the way up to eleven as she cleared her throat and lifted the megaphone up to her mouth.

“LADIES AND GENTLESTALLIONS!” her voice blared through the megaphone so loud that several of the Wonderbolts behind her cringed.

The Shadowbolts came to a sudden and abrupt halt and stared towards the Wonderbolts as they were all… smiling at them? Blade pushed his goggled up as his crystals floated around him, lifting an eyebrow at the strange demeanor of the Wonderbolts. Several other Shadowbolts did the same thing, many of them looking back and forth at each other, perplexed as the Wonderbolts behind Spitfire began floating about in silly patterns, doing stretches, bumping hooves, and shaking themselves out in a sporting manner.

Spitfire’s smile widened as she saw the reaction from the Shadowbolts.

Perfect… it was exactly what she was hoping they’d do. It was time to really ham it up.

“We have a very special treat for all of you today!” Spitfire continued to blare through the megaphone. “The first ever, full Wonderbolt force air show!”

Blaze and several other fire handler’s threw flames into the air. High Winds and other wind specialists created gusts that made the flames dance about and explode above them.

“That’s right!” Spitfire pointed towards the Shadowbolts. “Every single Wonderbolt in the sky at the same time in a spectacular display of synchronized flying, dangerous stunts, and stunning special effects! And you are the lucky audience to witness it! Prepare to be dazzled, stunned, shocked, and left in awe!”

Blade flattened his brow and growled.

“What sort of backwards, absolute insanity is this?!” Blade exclaimed towards Spitfire. Spitfire took a deep breath and aimed the megaphone directly towards him.

“THE BEST KIND!” she yelled as hard as she could into it, causing Blade to cringe and cover his ears. When his ears stopped ringing, he shot a heavy glare towards Spitfire, grinding his teeth together.

“Whatever tricks you are up to, we’ll—!”

“Wonderbolts! Are you ready?!” Spitfire called out, cutting off Blade completely. Every single Wonderbolt pounded their chest.

“AYE!” they replied all at once.

“You hear that, Shadowbolts?!” Spitfire turned back to them. “You better be ready! Because this performance will blow you away!”

“Have you all completely lost your—?!” Blade was cut off again, this time by a loud CLONK as Spitfire chucked the megaphone at him and bounced it right off of his face.

Shadowstrike11

“ARGH!” he grunted in pain and clutched his face for a moment before shooting a death glare towards the Wonderbolts. “THAT DOES IT! KILL THEM ALL!” he yelled out to the Shadowbolts. They all pushed their goggles back down and charged, all feeling just as fed up with the taunting antics as Blade. As they approached, Spitfire threw her arms up.

“WONDERBOLTS!” she yelled out as she and the rest of them completely spread out in all directions and all forced their wings outward. “ONE! TWO! THREE!”

On three, every single Wonderbolt simultaneously curved their wings and thrust them forward, causing a massive blast of wind to rush forth. The collective wing power of the whole force caused an incredibly loud POW to ring out right as the blast slammed against the incoming Shadowbolts.

The Shadowbolts yelped and grunted as they were propelled backwards, the wind not only striking them, but also blowing away several drifts of snow on the surrounding mountains. Even the shield around the fortress felt the effects, several intense ripples appearing around the pink shield as it was battered by the incredible whirlwind.

As the Shadowbolts all eventually regained control of their flight, Spitfire took advantage of their disoriented state.

“It’s show time!” she exclaimed. “WONDERBOLTS! GO! GO! GO!”

“HOO-RAH!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Surprise update! Managed to get this done little by little over my time off.

Back to the regular schedule now, or at least as much as i can (so about once a week).

Time for a show! The most rediculous show the Wonderbolts have ever performed! :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 115: Cruisin' for a Rusin'

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 115: Cruisin’ for a Rusin’

The Shadowbolts charged headlong at the Wonderbolts, but unbeknownst to them, they were doing exactly what Spitfire and the Wonderbolts wanted them to do. It also quickly exposed a weakness in the Shadowbolt ranks.

Literally, all it took to boil them over was a little bit of grandstanding and ricocheting a megaphone off the head of one of their commanders. Blade lost his cool completely and ordered a full out charge that every Shadowbolt followed without hesitation.

If the Shadowbolts were really so impulsive, then the Wonderbolts could work that to their advantage, both now and later.

A smirk crept onto Spitfire’s face the moment after she gave the launch order in response to the Shadowbolt charge.

Up until this moment, they had played by the Shadowbolts’ rules. They had been constantly forced onto the defensive, and forced to take on the Shadowbolts in their element: pure combat. The Wonderbolts had never had an edge, and were always forced to adapt.

Well, this time it was different. The Wonderbolts had surprised them and had a whole plan of action laid out, one that the Shadowbolts could never be ready for. The Wonderbolts had struggled, but adapted and managed to punch back when punched first. It was time to see if their counterparts had similar adaptive resilience.

As the Shadowbolts charged, they glanced about as the Wonderbolts did not fly at them when Spitfire gave the order. Instead, they all turned towards Spitfire and flew in towards her?

“Nova Starburst!” Spitfire yelled out as she turned to Blaze and several other fire handlers. They all huddled around Spitfire, each receiving a collection of intense flames from Blaze. As every other Wonderbolt did a backflip before shooting towards the huddled fire users. “Let’s turn up the heat! Triple the usual intensity!”

“Heh, don’t get burned!” Blaze chuckled as she and the rest all clapped their hooves together continuously, adding power to the already intense flames dancing around them.

Spitfire looked up in time to see the rest of the Wonderbolt force drawing near, all taking fixed flying lanes to avoid a collision at the center.

“AND… BURST!” Spitfire yelled out, she and the fire handlers turning out and throwing their hooves outward, causing an explosion of loose flames to expand around them in a sphere. The other Wonderbolts all flew directly into the sphere, the loosely concentrated flames swirling around and following them as they shot by. The intense drafts of the passing Wonderbolts caused the sphere of fire to literally burst and ignite the flight trails of all the Wonderbolts shooting outward.

The result, from the Shadowbolt perspective, was a spectacular, blinding flash of light and an explosion followed by the Wonderbolts scattering in all directions. The flames caught in their trails were forced forward, surrounding the Wonderbolts as they careened wildly past the Shadowbolts, all encased in auras of fire. The disoriented Shadowbolts yelped as the half of the Wonderbolts that shot in their direction zipped by at tremendous speeds, forcing the Shadowbolts to dodge and shy away to avoid being burned.

“RGH!” Blade grunted as he tipped out of the way, barely avoiding Air Mach as he seared by. “Blasted parlor tricks!” he yelled as he turned and chased after Air Mach, the other commanders and Shadowbolts all picking targets as well.

Blade’s crystals shined brightly and enveloped him in a pink veil of light which seemed to enhance his speed as he accelerated and caught up to Air Mach. The crystals formed around his right hoof as he caught up and formed his sword.

“HRAH!” he yelled out as he swung at Air Mach… but the sword went right through him. “What?!” His eyes widened as the flames split and scattered, the image of Air Mach within the flames flickering, bending, and disappearing as they dispersed. Blade frantically looked around as Devil, Sin, Shadow, and Angel, as well as every other Shadowbolt all caught up to their targets… only to also find they were chasing nothing, every single Wonderbolt encased in flames like a comet… all disappearing upon being attacked.

“YOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” a collective taunt came from back where the explosion occurred. Blade and the rest of the Shadowbolts all whipped around and stared in disbelief as they spotted the entire Wonderbolt force… barely ten to twenty yards from where they started.

“Where are you guys going?!” Spitfire yelled towards them while waving a hoof in the air. “That was only our first trick!”

Several grunts and roars of anger rang out from all of the Shadowbolts as they turned back towards the Wonderbolts and began charging again.

Spitfire casually cracked her neck and gave Air Mach a jab in the shoulder.

“That was pretty impressive, handling that many flame images at once!” she complimented him. Air Mach pounded his chest and a flash of light glinted off the pointed edge of his custom shaped goggles.

“That was child’s play! I told you I was the best!” he claimed.

“I threw in twenty images for good measure,” Blaze quickly added from behind.

“THE BEST!” Air Mach repeated with sweat dripping down his face as several other fire handlers admitted to throwing in a few fire images because they wanted to. “THE! BEST!” Air Mach repeated again with fake tears wavey-streaming down his face.

“A-hem…” Silver cleared his throat, Spitfire turning to look towards him. He pointed forward as the Shadowbolts grew closer and closer.

“I know, I know… let ‘em come, we’re ready,” she winked at Silver. “RIGHT?!” she yelled to the rest of the Wonderbolts gathered around.

“HOO-RAH!” they all replied instantly. Spitfire clapped her hooves together and pointed dramatically towards the Shadowbolts.

“It’s routine time! Dazzle and frazzle them! Go! Go! Go!” Spitfire ordered as the Shadowbolts flew at them with rage.

Just as planned.

The Wonderbolts all packed together, the water handlers gathering moisture and turning it into thunderclouds with the help of the fire handlers. They handed them off to Silver Lining and the other prominent lightning wielders as those with smoke packs got ready to activate them.

“Group lightning rod!” Silver called out as the lightning handlers shifted forward. “GO!” Silver called out as all of them threw their hooves up. A loud KA-POW rang out as an enormous ribbon of lightning extended above and below them, striking the ground beneath as it burst into different directions above. The Shadowbolts ducked and weaved to avoid the lightning shooting by, but as they focused on that, the Wonderbolts wearing smoke packs threw the switch and dispersed, creating trails of thick, grey smoke in their wake to cut off visibility and give the Wonderbolts several screens to duck and move behind.

“Squad up!” Spitfire yelled out. “GO! GO! GO!” The Wonderbolts all dispersed in multiple directions and gathering by squad, all avoiding conflict and using the smoke screens to throw off the Shadowbolts as they gave chase.

“Come on everypony!” Spitfire called out to her joint squad. The rest of the lead squad and the three present members of squad two all came together.

“We’ve got a real mad pony at six o’clock!” Fleetfoot chuckled as she looked back.

“GET BACK HERE!” Blade yelled, growling as he gave chase. Spitfire glanced back and smirked.

“Actually, it looks like we have several,” she added as Shadow and Devil veered in behind Blade, all three spawning two clones as five other Shadowbolts joined. “And the more the merrier!” Spitfire looked towards Air Mach, Fleetfoot, and Calm Wind as they all flew in formation beside her. Calm seemed to be handling the situation fine so far, now it was time to see if his very brief briefing on his role this show was adequate. “Come about, Silver!” Spitfire yelled as Silver guided Blaze and High Winds, forming up directly behind them. “Air Mach! Take position!” she yelled as she guided all of them through multiple smoke trails, changing directions and crossing paths with other squads and Shadowbolts to keep their pursuers from catching up.

They pitched upward and into the clear away from smoke trails. Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Calm flew side by side in front with Spitfire in the center, behind her Air Mach lined up with her. Directly behind Air Mach was Silver, with Blaze and High Winds at his sides. The formation was usually three-two-three meant for two squads, but without Wave Chill it was three-one-three, Air Mach the lone pony in the center of the formation shaped like an I.

“Double Silver Slingshot maneuver, fire-cracker effect follow up!” Spitfire called. “Can you handle that by yourself, Air Mach?!”

“No problem!” He confidently replied with a smirk.

“Uh…” Calm bit his lower lip as Spitfire turned to him.

“Relax. Just stick with Fleetfoot and Silver and throw them where and when they tell you to,” she reassured him, earning a quick nod in response. Calm looked nervous, but Spitfire was confident as long as he paid attention he could pull this off. She was already choosing maneuvers where Soarin didn’t have to do too much.

They broke formation, Spitfire, Blaze, Air Mach and High Winds moving into a square formation as Fleetfoot, Silver, and Calm started a short loop trajectory to turn around and head back towards them.

“Quickly now!” Spitfire ordered while seeing the Shadowbolts close in. Blaze quickly clapped her hooves together, generating two large flames. She handed one to Spitfire and the two of them held them outward. Air Mach gathered up as much air moisture as he could, creating a thick, dark cloud that the half-sisters quickly pressed the flames into. The result was a cloud bursting with lightning that High Winds quickly fired towards the Shadowbolts with a strong blast of wind.

As the Shadowbolts focused on the cloud, Blaze repeated her motions, giving her and Spitfire another flame to handle each. Air Mach and High Winds both backed up as Spitfire and Blaze aimed themselves towards the incoming Shadowbolts, specifically locking onto the floating, crackling thundercloud behind that the Shadowbolts had just dodged.

“Ready you two?!” High Winds asked before lightly yawning. Spitfire and Blaze threw their arms and wings out, causing the flames to spin around them.

“Send us on our way!” Spitfire acknowledged. On cue, Air Mach and High Winds thrust their wings forward, creating controlled bursts of wind that Spitfire and Blaze rode, accelerating at twice their fastest rate directly at the Shadowbolts with a trail of fire searing behind them.

“Spiral!” Spitfire called out as she and Blaze began doing synchronized barrel rolls, the flame trails coiling around each other and lingering in the air. The Shadowbolts dispersed to avoid the flames as the two shot by.

Fleetfoot, Silver, and Calm looped around, flew past High Winds and Air Mach, and approached the lingering flame coil. Silver quickly shifted in front of Calm.

“Throw me right into the center of the fire!” he ordered.

“What?!” Calm blinked.

“NOW!” Silver added harshly. Calm flinched, gulped, and did as he was told, not willing to disobey any orders. “Swing launch me!” Silver yelled as he faced Calm and reached his hooves towards Calm.

Fleetfoot had at least described what kind of ‘launches’ Soarin did, so Calm didn’t hesitate, he grabbed Silver’s hooves, spun him around and let go, doing his best to aim Silver right for the flames. He was a little off, but Silver flawlessly corrected his trajectory, flying right between the coiled flame trails. He pumped his wings in an odd motion that seemed to cause the coils to spin, creating a tunnel of fire.

“My turn!” Fleetfoot chimed in. “I’m not half as fat as Silver, gimme a hoofball launch!” she asked as she shifted in front of Calm. Calm stared blankly at her for a brief second. “Yes, that means you have to touch this,” she giggled and winked while patting her waist.

Calm, completely aware of the situation and what was on the line, quickly held his breath, grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up. While still holding his breath, he aimed, pulled back, and threw her as hard as he could towards the flame tunnel.

“YYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIKES!” Fleetfoot’s eyes widened beneath her goggles as Calm threw her with more force than Soarin ever had. She only flailed for a moment though, gaining control and following right behind Silver’s path, directly into the floating tunnel of fire. She angled her wings inward and let her momentum carry her, the air coned outward in her wake, forcing the tunnel of fire to expand and consequently also forcing the Shadowbolts to back away as they continuously tried to deduce exactly what was going on.

As Fleetfoot made it through the end of the tunnel, her eyes locked on Silver, who had just received the initial thundercloud from Spitfire and Blaze. She smirked as Silver wound up and punched his hoof into the back of the cloud, sending a strong ribbon of lightning horizontally towards her.

“HRM!” Fleetfoot pulled her arms back as she and the lightning grew closer and closer. “PAH!" she yelled out comically, thrusting her hooves forward to strike the lightning as it struck her. Her speed and the force of her hooves caused the lightning to split around her and shoot in multiple smaller ribbons towards the expanding flame tunnel.

When the lightning met the fire, every collision caused countless small explosions that shot out. The Shadowbolts yelped and frantically moved about as the bright flashes and explosions erupted all around them for several seconds, giving the Wonderbolts more than enough time to fully regroup.

“RGH!” Blade growled and looked around, sword crackling as if the energy was resonating with his anger. He began violently swinging his sword about at the explosions as if it would do something to free him from the tiny light show, but he was caught in it just like the rest of his wingmates. “WHERE ARE THEY?!” Blade yelled as he tried to find the mixed Wonderbolt squad, but every little fire/lightning chain reaction disoriented him. He spotted something out of the corner of his eye that looked like a pony, and without hesitation, swung his sword at it.

“HEY!” Shadow yelled as she barely shifted out of the way before shielding herself from more explosions. “Blade! Watch it with that damn thing!”

Off to the side, the Wonderbolts simply hovered and watched as the prolonged chain reaction had completely caught their pursuers, even the commander clones. Blade’s wayward, careless swipe at Shadow had them chuckling a little too.

“Well… they look like they’re having fun,” Silver commented as the yelps, growling, and snarling continued.

“Am I the only one enjoying watching these ass-pricks squirm?” Blaze threw out there, only to receive several head shakes. “Didn’t think so.”

The only pony that didn’t acknowledge Blaze’s vulgar statement was Spitfire, who watched as three commanding Shadowbolts failed to free themselves from relatively tame special effects. The maneuver was complicated, but they had much more spectacular displays. She chose this one just to throw them off a little… but they were disoriented to the point where they were desperately flailing about?

Spitfire took a moment to look around the entire area. They had a moment of pause, but all over the Wonderbolts were executing show maneuvers… and the Shadowbolts were failing to catch them. They were being thrown completely off by the special effects, smoke trails, and synchronized movements.

The Wonderbolts were feigning… they were putting on a show… they were literally just trying to distract the Shadowbolts with silly tactics… and it was working this well?

The Shadowbolts looked… incredibly disorganized.

Every time they had attacked the Wonderbolts in the past, the one thing that really kept the Wonderbolts alive was their ability to coordinate and work together. So far, the Shadowbolts were showing no such ability. They had power, they had enhanced abilities, they wielded dangerous magic… but did it end there?

Spitfire couldn’t stop a devilish smile from creeping on her face, staring down Blade, Shadow, and Devil as the firecracker effect finally faded and the Shadowbolts regained themselves. It required a little more testing before she came to a conclusion… but Spitfire was beginning to wonder if they had just discovered their enemy’s weakness.

“Didja have fun with that one?!” Spitfire called out as Blade charged, the others behind him taking a moment to locate them before following behind, again in a disorganized fashion.

“I’ll show you FUN!” Blade growled back as he careened towards them.

“Heh…” Spitfire glanced back at the rest. “Let’s mess with them some more, shall we?”

“Are you enjoying this?” Fleetfoot smirked at Spitfire.

“Way more than I should be… Let’s go!”

“Let’s go! Let’s go, Renegades! Take up positions! Get ready to launch!” Blazetail ordered as the Renegades moved about around him. All the unicorns were in place, two per projector with Luna at the controls further back. The powerful speakers for the dragon sounds had been placed all around and the recruits were standing by to hold them steady and aim them based on where Luna directed the projected image.

“We’re launching whether or not this works!” Flashwind added beside her husband, turning her focus to Valkyrie as she landed close by. “Is the tremor squad ready?” she asked Valkyrie.

Valkyrie looked over her shoulder at Bomber, who was sitting patiently and smiling his usual gentle smile as the rest of the strength focused Renegades and Wonderbolt recruits sat around him… looking rather small beside his freakish girth.

“Ready to pound some mountains into dust,” Valkyrie nodded and cracked her neck.

“Good,” Flashwind smiled before turning and looking towards Fire Streak and his squad sitting off to the side. She was too far away to say anything but she waved and gave him a nod.

Fire Streak waved back at Flashwind before turning to his disguised group.

“Everypony ready up. If this works, our window of opportunity will be very small. When I give the order to launch, there will be no questions or hesitation. You fly right with me and don’t stop for any reason whatsoever until we’re in their fortress. If you fall behind or the fighting shifts towards us and you get caught in it, lay low and RETREAT. I cannot stress that enough,” he hardened his gaze at them. “If any of us are discovered, it could potentially alert them to our intentions. So your job, should you get separated on approach, is to disappear. Understand?”

They all gave him a nod in response.

“Good. At the ready now! Stay alert!”

Dash gulped as Fire turned and moved to get a better view of what was about to happen. It was all on him. The moment Dash heard him call the order to move, they would be moving and they wouldn’t be stopping. Everything had slowly moved into place. The Renegades were waiting to launch, the unicorns were ready to work the projectors, and Luna was ready to control the image.

She looked off to the side just in time to see a few Wonderbolt recruits being led towards the tremor squad, easily spotting Matteo among them. Valkyrie shouted a few orders to them before they all turned and readied for liftoff.

“Huh?” Dash blinked as she saw something. Right before the tremor squad took off, Little Star, laying low and shuffling her hooves, snuck her way over to Matteo, who quickly scooped her up and tucked her up in his armpit. Dash’s eyes widened and she took a step, ready to yell, but she slammed her mouth shut. She didn’t want to disrupt them as they were taking off, but what in Equestria was Little Star doing?!

“What are you looking at?” Squall suddenly asked from behind her. Dash’s eyes darted back and forth as she turned and cleared her throat, quickly putting on a straight face.

“Uh… nothing, just thought I saw something,” she lied. For some reason, her instincts were telling her not to tell Squall what she had just seen. With his obvious concern for Little Star, he’d probably do something rash. Like chase after them if he knew she hitched a ride with Matteo towards a more dangerous part of their operation.

Squall just lifted an eyebrow before turning away and pushing Twister’s head into the snow as he tried to let the air out of a balloon into Squall’s face.

Dash quickly turned back to focus on Fire Streak as everything started going into motion.

It was almost time to move… she had to focus on her role, whatever Star was doing, Matteo was clearly on board with it since he willingly picked her up to bring along. Whatever it was, he’d keep her safe. Matteo wasn’t the kind of griffon to go back on a promise.

“Up and over!” Spitfire called out as her joint squad crossed by squads four and five. Blade, Devil, and Shadow managed to dodge the crossing paths of their fellow Shadowbolts in pursuit, but those behind them and their clones weren’t so lucky, all colliding painfully and getting mixed up.

“What do you hope to gain from this?!” Blade yelled as he picked up speed and closed in on the squad.

“Some cheap laughs!” Spitfire heckled back at him as the joint squad passed through a fresh smoke trail laid out by squad twelve. Blade quickly stopped as he entered the trail and changed his trajectory, flying up out the top of the smoke instead of following through into another trap. However, when he shot out of the top he was forced to turn and create a shield around himself as several energy spheres from Devil rose up and exploded around him, accompanied by an intense wave of energy from Shadow. Blade angrily swung his sword about once his shield dropped and glared down at his comrades.

“You fools! It’s me!” he barked at them as Devil and Shadow both cringed.

“Don’t go popping out of the smoke like they are then!” Devil shot back with his own growl.

“See? Cheap laughs!” Spitfire’s voice came from right behind Blade. Blade turned and swiped his sword, but it wasn’t until after he attacked that he realized he had just slashed through a compressed thunder cloud, Spitfire and Silver Lining hightailing it away from him as he did.

“AUGH!” Blade cried out, shielding himself as the electricity shot out in all directions.

“Ayieee!”

“GAH!”

Devil and Shadow also got caught in it, the lightning bouncing and crashing against their bodies for a moment before they threw up personal shields.

“RGH!” Blade forced himself forward and moved in the direction Spitfire and Silver went, but Fleetfoot suddenly shot by, a trail of mist streaming behind her as she zipped in an arc around the three Shadowbolts. Blade’s eyes followed her and he quickly turned, shooting magic beams from his eyes that he tried to lead into her trajectory.

But then Calm’s hoof reached out of the mist and grabbed her arm, swinging her around and launching her back the way she came. Blade’s eyes widened as his eyebeams flew into the open and struck Angel as he came around, pursuing squad seven.

Angel stopped after taking the hit and glared towards Blade with a surprisingly calm expression otherwise. It was a short visual exchange as a cloud suddenly struck him in the face. Angel’s long hair was blown backwards as the cloud released a strong gust of wind… that sounded like a fart.

“OH YEAH!” Macho Savage dropped down past him. “BREAKING WIND THE HARD WAY!”

Angel readied to pursue, but was forced to delay and shift aside as Lead Runner also dropped past him.

“Love your hair, hun! What shampoo do you use?!” he asked as he zipped by. Angel huffed in annoyance as his magic built up in his hooves he swiped them both in the direction of Lead Runner and Savage, sending two deadly blades of energy towards them.

Point Dex and Storm Front shot in from below and created cross breezes that allowed the two of them to easily change course and avoid the blades. The magic fell towards the ground.

“What the?!” Sin looked up as he chased after squad nine along the ground, diving out of the way and crashing against the snow as Angel’s magic blades struck and cut deep into the ground. Sin rolled up and shook himself out. “Yo! Aim your pretty-colt shit at them, not me!” he yelled while giving Angel the middle feather.

“Hmph…” Angel scoffed and rolled his eyes as he continued his pursuit of squad seven.

Blade hovered in the air, his nostrils flaring and angry snarls hissing through his gritted teeth as he glared towards squads one and two. Devil and Shadow were hovering behind them, their crystals glowing, but hesitating to use them.

Spitfire noticed this… and was pleased. They had the Shadowbolts completely under control. All their powerful magic was useless when they didn’t know where to aim it. They had the five commanders and the rest of the Shadowbolts all flailing and reeling, trying to take shots at the Wonderbolts without first trying to deduce their movements. This was it… this was how they could handle them. There was no doubt there would be times when they were drawn into close combat again, but even if the operation right now failed, it was clear that the Shadowbolts didn’t handle tricks, bluffs, and misdirection well. That would work heavily to their advantage in the future.

“I think he’s about to pop a few veins in his head,” Blaze chuckled as she hovered beside Spitfire.

“END THIS!” Blade belted out right after Blaze spoke. “You’re not even fighting! Making us angry will NOT help you!”

“Oh, really?” Spitfire yelled right back as she glanced at the fortress. “I don’t see your little guns shooting at us! If you’re not being serious about taking us out, why should we?” she asked as she turned around and wiggled her plot at him, spanking it. “Come on tough guy! Come over here and teach me a lesson! I’ve been a bad, bad mare!”

The rest of the joint squad did their best to keep their composure. They knew Spitfire was purposely going overboard, but none of them had ever seen her act like… well… act like Fleetfoot before. Silver, specifically wore an incredibly flat expression that was luckily hidden by his goggles.

“You…!” Blade growled while also looking back at the fortress. “RGH! YOU!!!!!” he growled, but gave no comment on Spitfire mentioning the smaller cannons on the fortress.

It was actually something Spitfire had been curious about, and despite putting effort into her rather interesting taunts, she noticed his inability to give a full response. As if… they weren’t firing the cannons on purpose… or because they couldn’t? Or… was there another reason? She hoped it was something else and not because they were currently inoperable because that was part of their plan. The shield was clearly up though… so why weren’t they using them?

“The bitch has a point,” Shadow scoffed, hovering beside Blade. “Can’t we just—?”

“NO.” Blade turned and glared right into Shadow’s face. She backed away and furrowed her brow.

“Yikes, fine!” she shook her head.

Spitfire and crew were beginning to wonder what they had stumbled upon.

“Something is fishy here,” Silver whispered to Spitfire. “I almost had a heart attack when you asked them about the cannons, like you were giving them a suggestion. Though they seem unwilling to for some reason.”

“This won’t ruin the plan, will it?” Fleetfoot asked as she shifted up. “We kinda need them to fire the super over-compensating long-dong cannon for this to work,” she reiterated as Blaze and High Winds both snickered.

“We won’t know until we try…” Spitfire gulped, trying not to show any uncertainty to keep up their act. “For now…!” she suddenly pointed as Blade, Devil, and Shadow all started charging again. “We keep it up! Tornado Flash!”

The seven of them all shifted into a circular formation before turning and flying into the thick of the action. They crossed and weaved through the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts using the lingering smoke trails and other special effects around them to keep their pursuers from gaining ground.

Flames shot up, blasts of water flung about, bolts of electricity scattered, and gusts of wind whipped around. The Wonderbolts were using their full arsenal of elemental abilities as well as their smoke pack tech, creating incredible spectacles that shielded and boosted them as they avoided their counterparts. The Shadowbolts were misdirected, tossed about, and struggled to fly straight as all the spectacular effects continued to light up in their paths.

To Spitfire and the rest of the force, navigating through such effects and elemental displays was like a regular day of training, but to the Shadowbolts, it was a maelstrom of confusion. Beams of pink magic and signature attacks from the present commanders flew wildly in random directions, desperately trying to break the Wonderbolts out of their tricks. But the Wonderbolts didn’t practice their routines to perfection for nothing. Any change in course was easily compensated, any break in formation was easily corrected, and any disruption in the special effects was filled through clever improvisation.

The joint top squads were about to add to fuel to the fire, making their way into a clearing above the rest as Blade, Devil, and Shadow followed behind them, a few lower Shadowbolts breaking away and following behind.

“Stay in formation! Begin the rotation!” Spitfire yelled as they kept the circular formation perfectly flat. “SPIN!” she yelled as they began to fly in a circle and create a spiral gust. As they flew faster and faster, Blaze clapped her hooves together and held them up, the resulting flame getting caught in the breeze and whipping around. Air Mach gathered up air moisture to create a stream of water that did the same, the fire and water mixing together to make steam. Blaze pumped more fire into the mixture as the steam turned into what looked like a tornado funnel in shape, the added heat creating an electrical reaction.

“NOT THIS TIME!” Blade yelled as he and the Shadowbolts picked up speed, determined to thwart the trick before the Wonderbolts could finish it.

“Double time it!” Spitfire ordered as Silver quickly reached up and began taking control of the developing electricity, forcing it up and down to spread it around the fake tornado faster. “And… BREAK!” Spitfire called out, the seven of them pulling out of the electrified funnel cloud opposite of the Shadowbolts, the spectacle itself hiding them from view as they moved away. “Now spin it!” Spitfire ordered.

Calm linked his hooves with High Winds and Fleetfoot, whipping them both around and launching them towards the funnel, High Winds slightly in front of Fleetfoot. High Winds pitched and did a sharp U-turn in front of the funnel, slipping right past the noses of the Shadowbolts as they came to a halt and shifted backwards to avoid her. She pumped her wings towards the funnel as she passed, her powerful wings creating strong gusts against the funnel. Fleetfoot dove straight down through the funnel, twisting as she shot through it to catch the strong gusts from High Winds and turn them into a powerful, inward whirlwind. The funnel began to spin violently and compress as Fleetfoot shot through the other side, electricity crackling and popping around it as the Shadowbolts found themselves being pulled in.

The commanders managed to hold themselves steady, but the lesser Shadowbolts behind them weren’t so fortunate. They yelped and screamed, slamming into the backs of Blade, Devil, and Shadow and forcing all of them to be drawn in. They were poked and shocked by the volts of electricity causing bright flashes about the funnel cloud as the lightning danced about it.

“And… NOW!” Spitfire reached towards Calm. Calm grabbed her by the arms and spun her around before launching her towards the funnel. Spitfire took the opposite direction of High Winds, completely countering the direction of the funnel winds as she passed by with her own gusts.

The tornado effect was abruptly halted, causing the clouds, lightning, and the Shadowbolts themselves to be thrown in all directions, flailing and floundering through the air as they blew apart.

“HAHA!” Fleetfoot arced around and formed up beside Spitfire. “YEAH!” she reached out and the two bumped hooves as they formed up with High Winds and made their way back over to the rest of the group.

“That oughtta blow a few fuses,” High Winds chuckled as the three rejoined the other four.

“RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Blade’s roar of anger drew their attention towards the ground. The other Shadowbolts, including Devil and Shadow, were all quickly up and backing away as Blade swung his sword violently at the ground and a nearby rock. The rock was sliced to pieces as he unloaded his pent up rage.

“Blade!” Devil furrowed his brow. “BLADE!” he tried to step near, but was forced to stay back as Blade’s sword swung dangerously close to his nose. Shadow ended up reaching forward and pulling him back, but Devil shook her hoof off angrily and focused back on Blade. “You moron! Get a hold of yourself!” he yelled as he threw up a shield and stepped in. Blade’s sword crashed against the shield, causing Blade to turn and snarl at Devil before slamming his sword against the shield again, forcing Devil to brace himself. “BLADE! For the love of... CONTROL YOURSELF!”

A pink glow appeared on the ground behind Blade and Shadow quickly rose up from it, jumping up on Blade’s back and trying to hold him by the shoulders.

“You idiot!” She yelled as she struggled to hold on. “You’re clearly doing EXACTLY what they want!” she tried to convince him as Devil managed to shift forward and help her hold him in place.

Blade breathed heavily, his crystals glowing brightly, and the pink light in his eyes so intense that it was nearly spilling out from beneath his goggles. His chest was expanding and contracting like a wild beast as his breath hissed loudly through his teeth and nose.

He had stopped thrashing about, but it was clear he had been pushed pretty far over the edge.

Back up above, the Wonderbolts all watched with wide eyes, half-shocked, half satisfied that they had, indeed, made Blade quite angry.

“Well then,” Silver chuckled. “It looks like somepony is in danger of sucking half his suit up his own ass…”

“If that Shadowbolt on his back isn’t careful, she might end up sucked in with it,” Fleetfoot joked, earning a few laughs from the rest.

“Hm…?” Silver blinked and looked back towards the blizzard. “Captain!” he quickly turned to her and tapped her on the shoulder. He pointed at the blizzard as Spitfire turned to look.

“Oh!” Spitfire perked up.

A faint, blue light was blinking in the swirling snowfall. It was very faint, but it matched the color of Luna’s magic.

That was the signal, everything was ready.

It was time to spring phase two of their plan, and the signal couldn’t have come at a better time. The Shadowbolts specifically targeting them were currently distracted by one of their top commanders romping about in anger, giving Spitfire the window she needed to alert the rest of the Wonderbolts.

Her confidence was high. The fact that they managed to disorient the Shadowbolts much, much more than she ever thought they would, she felt they had a good chance at completely tricking them, no matter how outrageous the black dragon image might seem. If Luna could make it extra realistic, and if they could really sell the false fear, the Shadowbolts might just take the bait. Now she just hoped Blade’s little hesitation to answer about the cannons didn’t mean they were not operational.

“Stick with me!” she quickly ordered to the others. “Three-by-four flank formation!”

In the blink of an eye, squad one and two had shifted in place and followed Spitfire’s lead. They fired into the thick of the action, once again pitching, turning, and weaving as they crossed paths with several squads and their pursuers. As they flew, Spitfire put the tips of her hooves to her lips and began whistling several tones in a fixed pattern.

The Wonderbolt force caught on, every member turning their ears and picking up on the specific tone and pattern of Spitfire’s whistling as she flew by. After two passes around the entire force, Spitfire was confident every Wonderbolt had been informed.

“He’s on our tail again!” Air Mach yelled as Blade’s growling could be heard behind them. “You really pissed him the hell off, captain!”

“I know!” Spitfire said without hesitation. “Just keep flying!”

They did as ordered, continuing to simply avoid the Shadowbolts as the rest of the Wonderbolts began to spring into action. All of the Wonderbolts donning the smoke packs reached back and jammed the control switch all the way up, the packs spewing much larger and thicker plumes of smoke as a result. They began flying erratically, covering as much area as they could with the smoke.

“Give them a hoof!” Spitfire yelled back. Blaze, Air Mach, and Silver quickly worked together, combining their element prowesses to create dark clouds that filled in any gaps they could find in the ever thickening smokescreen.

The area grew darker and darker as the smoke grew thicker and thicker. The Wonderbolts were relying on their reflexes, and a plan explained earlier to only fly clockwise around the area while the screen was being put up. Some close call collisions with Shadowbolts were barely averted, but luckily, most of the Shadowbolts had simply stopped and hovered in place, either trying to figure out what was going on or trying to blow the smoke away. Without an organized effort however, the Shadowbolts were unable to dissipate the smoke parallel to the rate at which the Wonderbolts were producing it.

Spitfire listened carefully, knowing that the rest of the force was doing the same. They were waiting for the faint sound of a dragon roar far in the distance. That was their cue that the image was being formed and the tremor squads were lifting off. Then they just had to tease the Shadowbolts a little more until the roars became loud enough to overpower the cacophony between the two forces.

Spitfire kept up her flight pace… and listened… listened… listened…

“Raaaaaaaaaooooooowwwww…”

Spitfire’s eyes widened.

“Go!” she pointed as she turned and fired towards the center of the smokescreen. She smiled as she saw several other Wonderbolts from multiple squads appearing near her. They had all been listening carefully as well and followed the cue. The more the operation unfolded, the more Spitfire realized they had been taking the wrong approach to fighting the Shadowbolts all along. Organization and making use of their unique abilities in the process evened the playing field against the Shadowbolt magic, they hadn’t even used their magic deflection techniques yet. “Spread out and tease ‘em!” Spitfire yelled, certain that every single Wonderbolt was in earshot… and purposely loud enough for the Shadowbolts to hear them as well.

Spitfire shot right past Sin, as he dodged her and a few other Wonderbolts as they zipped by.

“Sheesh! You guys suck!” Sin called out, seeming less pissed off and more disappointed that nopony was brawling with him.

“COWARDS!” Blade yelled out as he dodged Silver and swung and missed Fleetfoot. “BLATANT COWARDS! ENOUGH TRICKERY! FIGHT US!”

“Your despicable ruse will not deter us!” Devil added as he tried and failed to follow Blaze and High Winds’ movements.

“Then stop us!” Spitfire taunted as she zipped past Angel, who grunted and hesitated to fire a magic blade, almost certain he’d miss.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAOOOOOWWWWW…”

Spitfire’s ears picked up the roar again. It was louder, but none of the Shadowbolts showed any visible reaction. Good… they were still focused entirely on them.

“RRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!” Blade growled as Air Mach shot by him and smacked him upside the head. “RAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!” he took an angry swipe that Storm Front just managed to twist away from. “I’LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!” Blade yelled as he began swiping his sword in random directions again.

“OW!” Shadow yelped as one of his swipes nicked her shoulder, sliced the material of her suit, and drew blood. “Blade, for the love of Celestia, stop it!” she barked at him.

“THEY ARE MAKING US LOOK LIKE FOOLS! I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!” Blade shouted right back at her as he kept swinging his sword and almost hitting Sin.

“Whoa! Dude! Cut it out!” Sin grunted as he backed away and ran into Angel. The two exchanged a brief glance before pushing off each other to avoid Calm Wind and Macho Savage as the two plunged down between them.

“And you’re taking their bait!” Shadow yelled at Blade as she tried to get close and stop him again, but after he came close to cutting her arm off, she was hesitant to try.

“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!!!”

Shadow stopped and turned her head, staring up into the air as the roar, a little louder, sounded again.

Spitfire immediately locked eyes on Shadow as she arced around. She was waiting for the specific moment that the Shadowbolts realized something was ‘nearby’ but only Shadow looked up, the rest of the commanders were trying to restrain Blade… again, and the other Shadowbolts were struggling to handle the Wonderbolts.

Perfect. The longer it took for the Shadowbolts to realize what was happening, the more effective the end result would be.

“Shadow?” Devil asked as he shifted back and glanced at her. “What is it?”

Shadow’s ears turned left and right before she furrowed her brow and glanced at Devil.

“I thought I heard something… WHOA!” she yelped as she avoided Storm Front and Point Dex shooting by. “Forget it, let’s just get these assholes already! AH!” she flinched as Lead runner flew between her and Devil.

“We need to get rid of this blasted smoke screen first!” Devil grumbled as he kept failing to keep a bead on any of the Wonderbolts flying at them.

Silver formed up beside Spitfire as she continued to circle and listen for the cues, leaving the ‘teasing’ to the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“They’re about to catch on,” Silver said quietly as they flew side by side.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Spitfire smiled.

“You’re having fun with this aren’t you?” Silver chuckled as Spitfire winked at him.

“And you’re not?” she asked back.

“It was about time we took action,” Silver nodded. “I’m enjoying the hell out of it.”

“We’re about to spring phase three… how good are you at dying?” she joked.

“These idiots are bigger emotional dingbats than any recruits I’ve ever trained… they’d probably fall for it if I gave a one star performance,” Silver scoffed.

“RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!”

The roar was loud… very loud. There was no way the Shadowbolts missed that one. Spitfire and Silver looked in towards the Shadowbolt commanders and all of them had sharply turned towards the roar, their ears all turned in the direction with looks of surprise on their face.

“Good luck, Captain,” Silver gave a quick nod and broke off.

“The hell was THAT?!” Sin blurted out as the commanders and all the Shadowbolts turned and stared in the direction of the noise.

Spitfire quickly arced in, making it look like she was coming for an attack, but she and several other Wonderbolts doing the same all stopped once they were in view of the Shadowbolts and turned to look as well.

“Uh… What the fuck was that?!” Blaze yelled out towards Spitfire to play it up as if they didn’t know either.

“It’s another trick!” Blade yelled as he pointed his sword at Spitfire.

“RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!”

“Captain!” Silver flew in and hovered beside her. “It’s coming from this direction!”

“What is it?!” Spitfire yelled, the two of them putting on the best ‘frantic’ tones they could. Silver, facing an angle where he could subtly glance at Blade, and noticed that he was staring at them quizzically instead of going by his initial ‘trick’ assumption. Silver gave Spitfire a wink with the eye opposite of Blade’s view.

“RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!”

The roar was so loud that it made every Wonderbolt and Shadowbolt cringe.

“Ayeyaiyeeee!” Fleetfoot squeaked as she covered her ears. She turned to the Shadowbolts. “Was that your fortress?! That’s one hell of a creaky engine start!” she commented with very convincing false annoyance.

“That wasn’t our fortress…” Angel spoke up quietly, staring up. His fellow commanders looking towards him before turning up in the same direction. “Something is out there!”

That was the cue to Spitfire that they had them. Angel, the calmest of the Shadowbolt commanders present, was convinced something was coming towards them. The Shadowbolts were experiencing a rollercoaster of varying emotional responses. Blade was lost in rage, not thinking straight. Devil and Shadow were desperately trying to calm him down. Sin didn’t seem very bright to begin with, Spitfire wasn’t worried about him. But Angel’s calm demeanor throughout had her a little worried. Now with him curious and the rest all shaken from the Wonderbolt antics… she was certain their ruse would work.

Hopefully it would keep working.

“Steady! Hold formation and spread out on my command!” Valkyrie yelled back to the rest of the tremor squad. She and the strongest members of the Renegades and Wonderbolt recruits were flying steadily behind the mountain that was equipped with the dragon projectors. The mountain itself stood between them and where the Wonderbolts were currently throwing the Shadowbolts for a loop. “After we spread out, we’ll dive in two groups to simulate a dragon landing! Both strikes must hit the mountain with everypony involved to cause the desired effect! Anything less will not work!”

Matteo listened carefully as he flew behind Bomber. He had to listen closely because he couldn’t see Valkyrie around Bomber’s bulk. Spread out and slam against the mountain all at once? He had trained similar tactics before being rejected from the Sky Wings, so this would be a piece of cake.

“Let me get this straight…” Star spoke up quietly as she held onto the barrel of his chest behind his arms. “We’re all going to crash into the mountain?” she asked.

“Yes,” Matteo answered simply.

“Uh… and you’re okay with that?” she added, a little nervous about the maneuver that seemed a bit… dangerous from her point of view.

“Yes,” Matteo answered again.

“Oh jeez…” Star held onto his chest tighter. Matteo sensed her bracing herself.

“You wanted to come along,” he reminded her calmly.

“I know, but…”

“SPREAD OUT!” Valkyrie called. Matteo shifted over, taking up a flank position beside Bomber in the first group. “DIVE!” Valkyrie ordered.

“Ooooohhh myyyy god!” Star exclaimed without raising her voice, gripping Matteo’s chest as tightly as she could and closing her eyes as the large joint squad of the strongest Renegades and Wonderbolt recruits plunged towards the mountainside.

“RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Valkyrie roared, the rest of them joining in with a collective battle cry as they dove and made subtle shifts to ensure the uneven surface of the mountain didn’t deter the tremor effect. The only two who didn’t join in the roar, were Bomber, who just kept smiling, and Little Star, who held on for dear life and shut her eyes as the ‘pumped up brutes’ approached the mountain side and readied for impact.

The Shadowbolts and Wonderbolts all flinched as two loud crashing noises rang out. Followed by another roar. This one so ear piercing that it left everypony’s ears ringing.

“Argh!” Spitfire grunted as she shook her head out. “Wonderbolts!” she called out “Break the smokescreen! We need visibility!”

“AYE!” the Wonderbolts collectively replied as they positioned themselves and all began pumping their wings in place, causing strong gusts. The Shadowbolts braced themselves as the winds crashed against them, holding themselves steady as the thick clouds of smoke were slowly blown away.

As the smoke cleared, the Wonderbolts kept up their ‘focused’ act, all peering up at what appeared when the smoke was cleared.

Needless to say, they probably didn’t need to do much acting when it came to the initial reaction… because when Spitfire laid her eyes on part of her own plan… her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.

“Oh… my…” she squeaked as she stared.

“RRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!”

After having witnessed The Test at the Wonderbolt compound several times, Spitfire had come to notice certain things about the dragon image that gave it away being a fake. The image tended to be imperfect, lacking full color and detail in certain small areas such as the scales and wings. The tail and wings were static, never moving from a fixed position. The dragon’s jaw tended to snap move and look unrealistic and its eyes stayed locked in place in its sockets. It was geared more towards the initial shock followed by the Wonderbolts faking to drive the recruits for a loop.

But this time… Spitfire took down a mental note to praise Princess Luna later… because sweet mother of mercy, the dragon looked 100% genuine in form and movement. It was opening and closing its wings, the tail was swishing back and forth, its massive claws were shifting and gripping the mountainside, and its tongue slid in and out of its mouth as it fixed its eyes in the direction of the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts. Low hissing noises escaped through its nose, images of smoke billowing from its nostrils as it released deep growls. Its maw opened slightly, revealing its massive teeth that looked detailed with chips and cracks. Bits of fire could be seen gurgling in the back of its throat.

Spitfire glanced subtly to her right at Fleetfoot, who glanced back at her and mouthed ‘holy shit’ to her.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Blade called out as he shifted backwards, the rest of the Shadowbolts doing the same. They all looked around, seeing the Wonderbolts all staring up in fear as well.

This was, by far, the part that Spitfire was the most worried about, but thanks to Luna’s incredibly realistic version of their fake dragon… the Shadowbolts looked sold… hell, half of them looked like they has just soiled themselves. Now the Wonderbolts just had to play it up. The show must go on!

The glow in the back of the dragon’s throat grew brighter. The dragon roared out, whipping its long neck around before firing an enormous stream of fire away from the group, towards a nearby mountain top. The fire collided with the mountain and a large explosion erupted from it, sending rocks and debris up into the air.

Spitfire watched in even more awe as the image seemingly ‘destroyed’ a whole mountain, when, in reality, it was just Luna working the extent of their projectors. She was pushing the limits of Rivet’s magic image generators to fake collateral damage and even make large structures such as a whole freaking mountain just… disappear! Luna was making it look so real she almost had Spitfire convinced it really was an ancient black dragon!

Their first acting cue came when the dragon turned and looked at them, the glow intensifying in the back of its throat once again.

“Wonderbolts!” Spitfire yelled out frantically. “Disperse! Spread out!”

The Wonderbolts all scattered, several taking a path to the left of the dragon. The Shadowbolts, without any word, also started backing away. The dragon turned its head to follow the Wonderbolts that had broken away.

“LOOKOUT!” Spitfire yelled towards them, but the dragon reared its head back and thrust it forward, spewing its fiery breath towards them as they flew, engulfing several. The Wonderbolts caught in the fire screamed and wailed, falling out of the sky, completely blackened and covered in projected burns.

“GOOD LORD! TELL ME I’M SEEING THINGS!” Shadow yelled out as the Shadowbolts all stared at the Wonderbolts, shocked.

“NO! DAMMIT!” Spitfire cursed as she turned toward her wingmates nearby, stealing a quick glance at the Shadowbolts, they looked absolutely terrified. Spitfire did her best to hide a smirk. “Screw the Shadowbolts! I dunno where this thing came from, but engage it!” Spitfire turned and broke into random formations with the rest of the Wonderbolts.

As the Shadowbolts watched, Blade suddenly furrowed his brow.

“I’m not convinced!” he growled. Devil looked towards him and raised an eyebrow.

“Blade, look at that thing!” he shook his head. “We have to get out of here!”

They all cringed as the dragon roared out again, shooting fire at another group of Wonderbolts and knocking them out of the sky.

“It’s too convenient!” Blade glared at Devil.

“Uh, dude…” Sin shook his head. “If you wanna stay here, be my guest! I’m out!” Sin turned to leave but Blade reached back and grabbed him by the arm.

“YOU ARE ALL COWARDS! Are you really buying this?!” Blade kept yelling.

“LOOK OUT!” Shadow yelled, pointing at the dragon. It was following Spitfire with its eyes. She and her squad was flying in wide arc around it, and the dragon was about to fire right when it was lined up with the shocked Shadowbolts. The flames spewed from the dragon’s maw.

Spitfire saw the projected fire breath incoming and quickly twisted her body.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” she screamed as the image passed by her, the fake burns appearing all over her suit and body as she began tumbling towards the ground with Fleetfoot and Silver feigning the same. As she fell out of the fire, she kept one eye slightly open, watching as the fire careened towards the Shadowbolts.

Every single one of them threw up magic shields… except for Blade. Spitfire gulped as she saw him arguing with the rest of them. Had he called their bluff?

The fire struck the Shadowbolts, Luna manipulating the image to have it appear the fire was deflecting off their shields, but it went right through Blade.

Not good.

The fire shot past them and careened to the ground less than a hundred yards away from the Shadowbolt fortress. It struck the ground and created another false explosion, generating the image of a crater with snow and debris being thrown up into the air.

Spitfire gritted her teeth when she saw all of the Shadowbolts looking at Blade as he was completely unscathed. However, she gave no signals to the Wonderbolts. She kept falling and waiting to see what happened before jumping to any conclusions. She glanced over and saw Silver looking at her as he kept feigning the limp fall as well. He had seen Blade too and was waiting to receive orders, but Spitfire remained quiet.

“SEE?!” Blade growled while brandishing his sword. “I TOLD YOU!” he pointed the sword at the dragon. “Not a scratch on my body! It’s a fake!”

The Shadowbolts all dropped their shields and looked between Blade and the dragon quizzically.

“They’ve been playing us the whole time! We didn’t just watch them die, they’re trying to trick us there too! Trying to scare us and…”

He trailed off as a loud, low hum suddenly came from behind them all. Blade’s eyes widened as he and the rest of the Shadowbolts turned around and saw the crystals around the fortress glowing and the propellers starting up. As it began slowly lifting into the air, it turned and the large door on the main platform began opening up… the door that housed the main cannon.

“WHAT?! NO! NOOOO!!!!! WHO?!” Blade yelled out while waving his arms at the fortress.

Spitfire and Silver both threw their wings out and stopped themselves in midair right before hitting the ground. They stared out as the fortress lifted into the air and the cannon emerged and began charging. Spitfire smiled and bounced giddily. They failed to fool Blade and the rest of the Shadowbolts, but apparently they had convinced exactly who they needed to… whoever was in control of the fortress!

“STOP!!!!!! WHO ACTIVATED THE—” Blade cut himself off as the fake dragon roared out behind them. Blade looked between the dragon image and the fortress. The fortress was edging towards the dragon, the dragon glaring at it as embers spilled from its maw. “YOU FOOLS! DON’T! STOP!!!!! IT’S NOT REAL!!!!!!” Blade pumped his wings and started flying as fast as he could towards the fortress as the crystals gleamed brightly with a blinding pink light. The cannon began to rattle, spark and crackle as the barrel muzzle glowed.

Blade barely got halfway to the fortress before coming to a halt and throwing up his shield, bracing himself.

“WONDERBOLTS!” Spitfire called out. “TAKE COVER!!!!!” She and Silver pumped their wings, pushing themselves to get as far away from the blast as possible. She looked up as she moved to see Fleetfoot and Calm zip down beside them and saw the recruits carrying the unicorn staff members away with a steady stream of magic shooting from their horns towards the projectors to ensure they’d keep running as they were moved to safety.

Spitfire had been worried about one thing: if they fired, would they hit the mountain or the dragon? The order to take cover was to avoid the latter… but luckily, she could see the upward angle of the cannon.

They had done it.

With a large distortion of air around the barrel, the energy in the cannon gathered… and fired.

The Wonderbolts all stared up in awe as the enormous beam of energy ripped through the air…

And passed through the dragon.

The dragon continued to move and roar, but the image and the roar sputtered with a white noise tone, flickering as the beam skewered through it. The false damage on the nearby ground and mountain flickered as well, showing that no real damage had been done at all. The beam shot past the mountain top and flew into the distance, eventually angling down… and careening towards a mountain a couple hundred yards away.

“Another larger cave…” Soarin grunted as he and Rapidfire limped into a larger opening, which was a nice change after they had been crawling through tunnels for the past hour. Soarin shined his light around the area, finding that they were in another open area like the first one they found. He couldn’t see the other side and the ceiling was higher than his light reached. He tried to open his wings a little but a cramp ran through his heavily bruised wing muscles as he did. “GRHHH…” he grunted, looking towards Rapidfire.

“One second…” Rapidfire winced as he managed to open his wings enough for the wing tips to fan out. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Soarin watched as the feather tips jittered slightly. “The draft is still there… it’s getting stronger and…” he looked straight forward. “It’s coming from that direction.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” Soarin decided and started walking as soon as Rapidfire clarified. Rapidfire took one step…

“AH! RGH!!!!!” he yelped and grunted, falling forward onto his haunches. Soarin quickly turned around to see Rapidfire shaking and clutching his chest.

Soarin watched as Rapidfire struggled to contain the crystal withdrawal pain. Half of him wanted to feel bad for Rapidfire, but the other half of him felt Rapidfire was getting everything he deserved. That was more or less the reaction he had had throughout since learning of Rapidfire’s ‘reasons’ for how he was. It was hard to watch… but Rapidfire had brought it upon himself. Nevertheless, the two of them were working together to find salvation from the large cave system they had crashed into. It was pointless to sit and growl at each other in their current situation.

Soarin waited for Rapidfire to stop groaning and stepped up to him as he lay on the ground, panting. Soarin reached his hoof down to help him up.

“You alr—” Soarin pulled his hoof back as Rapidfire swatted it away. He didn’t say anything or make any outlandish comments, but Rapidfire grinded his teeth together and slowly pushed himself up on his own power. Soarin just let him do it, knowing that any attempt to protest would just end in an argument.

Rapidfire had been adamant on moving under his own power from the moment he found the strength to do so again, so Soarin waited patiently until Rapidfire was back on his hooves and the two began on their way again.

They walked side by side, Soarin lighting the way with Rapidfire guiding them based on where he was feeling the draft. Neither spoke, they just did what they had to do to escape.

But then Soarin realized something. A thought rushed into his head so hard he nearly broke his focus on the magic light. Rapidfire gave him a brief glance with a raised eyebrow as Soarin’s light flickered, but quickly focused back forward.

Soarin looked towards Rapidfire… as a very, very important question came to mind. One that he had completely overlooked, distracted by Rapidfire’s story and their situation.

He had to know… he was surprised he didn’t ask right after Rapidfire brought her up during his story.

“Rapidfire…” Soarin stopped in his tracks, ensuring that Rapidfire would have to stop. Rapidfire took two more steps before turning and looking towards Soarin flatly.

“What?” he asked harshly.

“Is…” Soarin swallowed as he hesitated. This was an opportunity, but the prospect of his question being confirmed… worried him. Even after all this time … her name still made him feel uneasy. “Is Nightshade still alive?”

Rapidfire’s expression went from flat to blank. He blinked a few times before tipping his head.

“She’s—”

Before he finished his first word, the two of them flinched as a loud KABOOM rang out and the entire cavern shook violently. The two of them were knocked right off their hooves, tumbling to the floor as the tremors rumbled and echoed throughout. Soarin’s light went out as the two hit the ground and they were plunged into darkness.

When the shaking finally ceased, Soarin slowly relit his horn as the two of them lay sprawled out on the ground. They lifted their heads and looked around frantically, ignoring the pain of being thrown about in favor of wondering what had just happened.

“What was that…?” Soarin asked quickly.

“I wasn’t looking, did your magic throw up all over the cave again?” Rapidfire asked sarcastically. Soarin threw him a flat glance, but it was short lived as the cave started shaking again. The two quickly got to their hooves, adrenaline giving them the strength over their pain as the steady rumbles echoed throughout the cavern… and suddenly stopped.

The two stood perfectly still as little CLACKS from rocks and pebbles falling to the floor and bouncing down the edges of the cave echoed into the empty space around them.

Neither of them moved a muscle, save for their eyes as they glanced at one another, not even breathing as they waited to be sure the tremors had stopped.

“Don’t start again, don’t start again, don’t start again…” Soarin began saying quietly.

They flinched as the floor beneath them began shaking… again.

“You just HAD to say it!” Rapidfire commented harshly as the two of them braced themselves, louder sounds of rocks hitting the floor and pieces of the cave chipping away could be heard.

“Oh, sure this is MY fault!” Soarin growled as he shined his light around to see bits of the cave breaking apart.

But then the tremors stopped again. And bits of dust gently fell to the ground around them.

They both remained still, hoping that the cave would remain stable and they could continue on their way without worry. They had already dealt with one violent cave in, another would not be—

The cave began to shake… yet again. And it shook a lot harder than it had previously.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Soarin growled.

“Seriously, did you do something again?!” Rapidfire asked. Soarin whipped his head around and glared at him as the shaking and rumbling grew more intense.

“WILL YOU STOP BLAMING ME FOR—”

The two flinched and froze as a giant chunk of cave ripped from the ceiling above and crashed against the floor less than a yard away.

They both looked up, Soarin’s horn showing that the cave was coming apart completely, collapsing down on them as chunks from the ceiling rained down into the light’s range.

“Which way is the draft coming from?” Soarin looked down and quickly asked with wide eyes.

“Over there,” Rapidfire replied just as frantically, his eyes equally wide as he forced his body to start moving without further insults or banter.

“Let’s move! MOVE!” Soarin added as the two pushed themselves along as fast as they could with limping gaits. The ground was shaking below them. The cave was collapsing above them. If the draft Rapidfire had felt was a false lead… they were as good as dead.

The Wonderbolts all shielded their eyes as a blinding flash of pink light shone forth, followed by an incredibly loud explosion. They braced themselves as a powerful shockwave crashed against them, followed by an aftershock of strong tremors that could have easily been mistaken for an earthquake.

The shaking eventually faded and the Wonderbolts slowly regained their composure as they looked in the direction the beam had flown. The mountain in the background had been completely blown away, a large cloud of dust and smoke rising up from the ground as several bits and pieces of rocks, snow, and debris fell to the ground. The smallest of which had been catapulted all the way over to them, tiny pebbles and bits of dirt raining down upon them. This wasn’t an image or fabrication, the mountain in the distance was gone.

They turned back to see the Shadowbolts remove their shields and all look towards their fortress. It was still afloat, the barrel of the cannon fizzling out. Smoke began to rise from it as the large crystal formations around the structures of the fortress began to flicker and sputter, the glow fading to a weak light. It slowly began to fall towards the ground, the propellers losing the full strength of their spin. Large pillars resembling landing gear extended down in a seemingly desperate last second attempt to land softly. It landed on the ground with a loud THUD that echoed throughout the mountain range.

Spitfire watched the fortress carefully as it landed, specifically keeping her eyes on the large spherical glow that remained around it, signaling the shield was still up. It began to flicker.

“Come on…” Spitfire bit her lower lip.

The shield started blipping in and out.

“COME ON…” Spitfire gritted her teeth.

Finally… the crystals completely powered down and the shield… poof.

“YES!” she cheered.

Blade growled fiercely as his crystals began to glow and ribbons of pink energy pulsated around him.

“Fools… FOOLS! Who was on duty on the bridge?! WHO?!”

“BLADE!” Shadow yelled at him as the rest of the Shadowbolts were facing the Wonderbolts. “LATER! We’ve got a problem!”

Blade turned to see all the Wonderbolts shooting up from the ground and into the air. Then, from behind the mountain, the Wonderbolt Renegades took to the sky, joining up alongside the Wonderbolts. Blade’s eyes widened and he turned to the Shadowbolts below.

“SOMEPONY GO GET THE REST OF THE FORCE OUT HERE! NOW!”

“WONDERBOLTS!” Spitfire yelled out. “GO!”

“RENEGADES!” Blazetail called out.

“GIVE ‘EM HELL!” Flashwind finished for him.

The Wonderbolts and the Renegades launched towards the Shadowbolts, now outnumbering them. The Shadowbolts all scattered, their crystals coming to life as they prepared to take them on. The numbers advantage would only last until the rest of the Shadowbolts were out and clones started appearing. But the pre-emptive strike would give them momentum. The Shadowbolts were on the defensive this time, and frantically focusing completely on them.

And… once again… that was exactly what Spitfire wanted.

Spitfire wasted no time in choosing her target. She charged right at Blade, pumping her wings as hard as she could. Blade didn’t even have time to form his sword. He found himself putting up his hooves and locking them with Spitfire’s as she crashed into him. The two ended up face to face as they hovered in midair, deadlocked and pressing against one another.

“I bet you think you’re terribly clever!” Blade snarled at her. “You would have been better off hiding like the cowards that you are! Taunting us will only—”

“Yap, yap, yap, shut’yer trap!” Spitfire cut him off and taunted. “We don’t play by your rules, Blade! You aren’t the only ones who can start a fight! How does it feel to be on the receiving end of a plot whooping?!”

“You speak as if…” Blade growled as he tried to push against her, but she held herself steady. “This is already a victory!”

“Oh, it will be!” Spitfire sneered. “As soon as we kick your asses! And I’ll start with you!”

“Hah!” Blade scoffed. “You don’t even realize who you’re threatening! I equally trade blows with Descent! You are outmatched.”

“News flash, bucko!” Spitfire chuckled. Blade’s eyes widened as he felt the pressure against him increase. He glanced down to see Spitfire’s body tensing, her muscles bulging beneath her suit as she pushed harder, her wings beating even faster. She growled as she started forcing Blade further and further back. He tried and tried to match her, but he couldn’t. He was being overpowered. “I’M NOT DESCENT!”

Silver flew side by side with Blaze and High Winds as they entered the dogfight. It had gone from a silly display of effects to a crazy brawl.

“Split up and knock some heads together!” Silver ordered, perfectly content with the situation.

“FUCK YEAH!” Blaze cheered as she broke off with a twist and pile drove the first Shadowbolt in her path.

“Wheeeeeeee…” High Winds acknowledged, throwing her wings out to stop before freefalling and heading off to find a target.

Silver focused forward, looking for some hell to cause, but after a moment he winced and grunted, a cramp running between his left wing and shoulder. He lost control of his flight and tumbled for a second before forcing his wing out. With a loud CRACK he felt his wing loosen up and he quickly evened out.

“Grrrrgh…” he groaned and gritted his teeth as he shifted and threw his arm out to clip an incoming Shadowbolt. The blow made a shock of pain shoot through his arm, but he toughed it out and dipped low into a glide, purposely using a low effort flying technique to regain his composure.

For a moment… just for a moment, he thought he would make it through the entire operation without his body rebelling on him, but who the hell was he kidding? This morning he had engaged and taken a bit of a magic beating from Trance and Witch before taking them down. His toughness was what allowed him to prevail, but he didn’t walk away unscathed. His body was aching and his muscles were stiff all over. Had he not taken a painkiller beforehoof, it would have felt much worse, but masking the pain only did so much. His body still felt beaten up and was feeling the blows from the earlier encounter.

Silver’s eyes widened as a pink globe suddenly rose up in front of him. Without hesitation he swung his hoof out and flicked his wrist, batting the globe aside the best he could before it exploded violently.

“Argh!” Silver grunted, the blast close enough to push him out of his flight path. He looked behind him to see Devil flying after him, his crystals glowing brightly as more globes began to form beside him. “Dammit…” Silver grumbled under his teeth.

Had this been the first conflict of the day, he’d have turned and charged the Devil head on, but with how his body felt at the moment? He wasn’t sure that was the best idea. Besides, even now, their orders were not to engage with the intent to defeat. They were to engage with the intent to distract. Who knew what would happen if they managed to spring Wave from the fortress? Silver wanted to be sure he’d have the strength to handle the most important part of the operation. Now he just had to figure out how to shake Devil. It was poor luck that he managed to attract the attention of one of the commanders.

Silver blinked and looked forward.

“BAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!” Air Mach yelled as he shot right past Silver to his left. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHPAH!” he yelled as he pulled back and threw a punch at Devil. Devil was forced to pull up and throw up a shield, but even with protection he was sent flying in the other direction by Air Mach’s attack. “Picking on old ponies! You’ve got no class, bro!” Air Mach yelled as he pursued Devil.

“Pfff…” Silver scoffed and rolled his eyes, but smirked. Air Mach bailed him out for the time being, now he had to focus on self-preservation… but he’d get a few licks in on some Shadowbolts. It would be really satisfying.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot yelped as she twisted and dove to avoid a wide burst wave of pink magic from Shadow.

“HOLD STILL!” Shadow growled, flying after Fleetfoot. She launched wave after wave of pure magic energy from her three crystals rotating around her midsection. She couldn’t match Fleetfoot’s speed, but her attacks were forcing Fleetfoot to change direction, preventing her from reaching her straight line velocity.

Fleetfoot gritted her teeth, sweating as she glanced back at Shadow. Why was her body shaking? She had to shake the anxiety. This wasn’t the same as before.

The Shadowbolt she faced earlier, Ruin… something was different about him. He had completely and utterly defeated her and humiliated her. The thought was still fresh on her mind… that creepy smile of his just wouldn’t get out of her head.

Fleetfoot pressed her eyes shut and shook her head out. She had to focus. This wasn't Ruin. This was Shadow, and so far, Shadow didn’t show any signs of being capable of the same unnerving abilities Ruin had.

“GET BACK HERE!” Shadow yelled as she kept firing waves. Fleetfoot dodged and turned, easily avoiding the waves.

In fact, she was just the opposite of Ruin. While Ruin was unpredictable and his attacks danced about wildly with no clear aim or path… Shadow flew in a straight line at her, and so far her attacks seemed very limited. All she did was fire the same wave blast of magic over and over again, which always traveled in a straight line from her.

This was an entirely different battle.

“STOP RUNNING!” Shadow yelled after her again. Fleetfoot rolled her eyes and turned around to fly backwards while shrugging at Shadow.

“Look honey, I know my plot is shapely and desirable, but if you want it that badly, you gotta catch me first!” she turned back around and wiggled her plot, swishing her tail back and forth.

“Wow… just wow,” Shadow scrunched her face. “How about I kill your ‘desirable’ ass?!” she yelled out as she fired another wave. Fleetfoot, by now, had deduced the exact width and trajectory of Shadow’s magic waves. She shifted just far enough to let the wave pass right beside her.

“Whoops!” Fleetfoot taunted, now purposely keeping her speed down. Shadow fired three more, each one easily dodged again. “You know…” Fleetfoot suddenly bent her wings, and pulled herself into a hard U-turn, pushing herself back towards Shadow. Shadow didn’t flinch, firing another wave. Fleetfoot twisted away and angled in, grabbing Shadow by the shoulders, whiplashing and pulling her along with her. “You guys have been a nuisance, but you don’t really seem that tough once we figure out your moves!” Fleetfoot clutched Shadow’s shoulders, spun her around and threw her downward.

“ARGH!” Shadow grunted as she tumbled and struggled to even out.

It wasn’t entirely the truth. Fleetfoot was, admittedly, trying to push Shadow’s buttons and make her angry. While she had figured out Shadow’s abilities and quickly countered them, her statement definitely did not hold true for Ruin. If anything… it seemed like the Shadowbolt commanders were split. Some of them were frightening warriors with great magical technique, while others… were lacking in both regards. There was no indication of any rank differential between them and from what Descent and Starry had told them, the strongest were the leaders. Trance, Witch, and now Shadow all seemed a bit… lacking for that designation. Perhaps they had become too reliant on the crystals that their other abilities dulled, but it wasn’t the time to think about that.

Shadow was struggling to land attacks, and Fleetfoot was going to take advantage of it. Her anxieties from Ruin had been pushed aside, and now she had an opportunity to pay back some of the pain.

“ONE SIDE!” A familiar, over the top voice came from above. Fleetfoot looked away from Shadow and up above her.

“YIKES!” Fleetfoot shifted out of the way as Air Mach shot by, driving his hooves into Devil’s shield and pushing him along. Air Mach forced him all the way back into Shadow, who didn’t see them coming until it was too late. Devil’s shield dissipated when his crystals collided with Shadow’s and Air Mach effectively drove the two of them all the way to the ground, letting up and pulling up just before hitting. The two Shadowbolts crashed into the snow and rolled apart.

“Do not fear, Fleetfoot!” Air Mach arced around and hovered beside her. “Your noble knight in stallionly armor is here to kick ass in your name!”

Fleetfoot flattened her brow and shook her head.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” she waved a hoof at him. “I can handle myself.”

The two flinched as the air around them suddenly felt different. Their eyes widened as it suddenly felt like they were being pulled through the air. They flapped their wings against the pull, only to find the wind shift grew stronger, and started pulling them backwards.

Devil and Shadow both locked their hooves in the ground as they stood up, erecting shields as they looked up.

“It’s about time!” Shadow huffed as they focused on a new Shadowbolt that had entered the fray.

Fleetfoot and Air Mach both looked back to see Void, the large Shadowbolt commander who had been absent up until now. He was floating in the air, sneering at Fleetfoot and Air Mach as his crystals hovered, bunched together in front of him, and was causing a vacuum effect. The air around him was being sucked in, drawing anypony nearby closer to him in a spiral wind. Other Wonderbolts, Renegades, and Shadowbolts flying near were thrown off course, members of all three forces crashing into each other as Void’s magic ran rampant.

“Where have you been, Void?!” Devil growled at him as he braced himself, even with shield up.

“You weaklings couldn’t handle this on your own? Allow me to finish the job!” Void spoke in a very odd, sinister tone that almost sounded forced.

“Hey! Don’t pull us in too!” Shadow grunted as her shield slid along the snow.

“Your demise is not my problem. It’s your own fault for getting in my way!” Void continued to speak in the odd tone.

“The hell is wrong with this guy?!” Fleetfoot yelled as she and Air Mach beat their wings fiercely to try and counter the inward suction. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t counter it. Normally their wind control techniques would be working… but this magic seemed unaffected.

“HHHRM!” Void grunted, dropping to the ground and slamming his hooves into the snow, the winds growing stronger.

“Down! We have to land!” Air Mach yelled, grabbing Fleetfoot’s arm and pulling her down. The two dropped and pressed their hooves into the cold snow drifts, trying to anchor themselves against the pull. While it worked better than flight, they were still being pulled in, their hooves slipping and sliding gradually.

“It’s no use!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she pushed her hooves continuously against the snow.

“Then… WE LET IT HAPPEN!” Air Mach called out as he pushed off and used the inward suction to catapult himself towards Void. “EAT HOOF YA SUCK-N-BLOW HARD!” Air Mach yelled as he threw a punch right for Void’s face.

“Ha!” Void scoffed and tipped his head slightly. The crystals grew brighter and the magic winds made a hard shift, creating a burst effect around Void that crashed against Air Mach.

“WHOOOOAAAAA!!!!!” Air Mach yelped as he was boosted upward and went cartwheeling through the air before getting lost in the action above.

“EEE!” Fleetfoot squeaked as the suction turned back on her, growing even stronger. “Nononononono!” Fleetfoot panicked as she started patting her hooves on the ground in a desperate attempt to stop.

It looked like she was right. This Shadowbolt came out of nowhere, and despite being pretty predictable like Shadow, seemed much more powerful and fearsome overall. There was a gap in their ranks!

Fleetfoot’s eyes widened as she felt her hooves slipping and lifting, she was about to be scooped up and thrown towards Void… then probably given quite a facial rearrangement, based on the brutish look and size of Void. She gritted her teeth and shut her eyes as she waited to be tossed up… but then something caught her ears.

It sounded like the pat-pat pat-pat of heavy hooves thundering against the snow. Her eyes shot open as Calm Wind galloped past her, using his ground sprinting prowess to stay anchored while approaching Void.

“Oh?” Void lifted an eyebrow. “A lummox appears!” he chuckled as his crystals brightened and the wind direction reversed and blasted outward.

“RGH!” Calm grunted, his body flinched and his neck was forced up as the reverse blast of wind struck him hard, but he kept pounding his hooves against the ground. His motion slowed, but he pushed with all the strength his large body could muster, his gallop continuing even though his hooves slipped and his momentum slowly came to a halt.

“Hahahaha!” Void laughed as Calm continued to gallop in place against his magic. “The lummox is strong! But not strong enough!” The glow from the crystals intensified, the wind growing stronger. Calm tensed his body and bared his teeth as he tried to keep pushing into the wind, but eventually he felt his front hooves lift, and not touch back down.

“GAH!” Calm grunted as he was pushed up and toppled over, falling on his back and rolling along the ground towards Fleetfoot. When she saw Calm’s large body rolling towards her, she dropped down and covered her head with her hooves, but luckily… and unluckily, Void again reversed the wind, once again pulling it towards him.

“Ah!” Fleetfoot yelped as she was pulled forward and crashed into Calm, tumbling over his body, losing all control as she bounced into the air. At the last moment, Calm stood up, locked his hooves into the ground, reaching his right arm up and grabbing Fleetfoot’s arm. He pulled her back down, but slipped, nearly losing hold of her as he was forced to reset his hooves and brace himself against the vacuum. Fleetfoot managed to grab hold of Calm’s arm and hang on, her body lifting up like a ragdoll within the vacuum.

The magic winds had become so strong that half of the battle above was being affected by it. Wonderbolt, Shadowbolt, and Renegade alike were struggling to get away from Void’s wild magic.

“VOID! THAT’S TOO MUCH!” Shadow yelled out as she and Devil barely managed to anchor themselves with their shields.

“None can best me!” Void proclaimed, completely ignoring his comrades as he focused on Calm and Fleetfoot.

Fleetfoot glanced back at Void as Calm struggled to keep them in place. Void’s magic was different, totally different. This wasn’t something they could dodge or deflect, it affected their environment! How were they supposed to counter this? Not even Calm got through even with his strength. With no way to deduce Void’s attacks or how to best him… they needed help… from ponies who had fought him already.

And luck would have it… they arrived just in time.

Calm and Fleetfoot both winced as something very large crashed to the ground in front of them. They both opened their eyes to see Bomber standing like a mountain before them, bracing himself and acting as a shield against the winds. With the effects lessened by Bomber’s presence, Calm instinctively pulled Fleet in and dropped the two of them to the ground, giving them more traction as protecting them from whatever Void would try against the new arrival.

“Ah, now the bigger lummox arrives!” Void chuckled, seemingly not giving a damn about the new challenge. Calm and fleet winced as Void increased the flow of the magic, but Bomber held himself completely firm, not budging an inch. “Come on!” Void taunted. “Come at me! You know I love a challenge!”

Bomber said nothing, nor did he show much emotion aside from a simple glare. He simply began taking heavy steps forward, each step accompanied with a loud THUD as he drove his hooves not only into the snow, but partially into the rocky surface beneath them, effectively making it impossible for him to slip.

Void’s confident smile faded as Bomber continued to stomp his way forward.

“YOU WILL FALL TO ME!” Void shouted angrily at Bomber. “I DON’T CARE HOW MANY TIMES I FACE YOU!” he gritted his teeth as Bomber slowly came within reaching distance. “YOU WILL—HURK!”

He was cut off as Bomber reached forward and grabbed him by the neck. The crystal glow faded and the pull of the winds completely vanished.

“You shut up now,” Bomber said calmly.

Calm and Fleet both watched with wide eyes as Bomber picked up Void with one hoof and slammed him into the snow… four times successively before pulling him up and looking him in the eyes. Void’s goggles had come off and his nose was bleeding. Bomber shrugged and slammed Void's face down one more time before turning and throwing him towards Calm and Fleetfoot.

Void tumbled to the ground and landed roughly, face sliding through the snow and coming to a halt a yard from Calm and Fleetfoot. Void had a completely blank look on his face, blinking twice as he stared at them.

“Ow…” Void’s voice cracked..

Suddenly, Bomber was forced to shield himself as pink globes rose up around him and exploded, waves of energy crashing against him as well. The attacks from Devil and Shadow off to the side ripped and tore at his flight suit, but he held firm, showing no signs of pain. He was unable to move though, locked in place as he braced against the attacks.

Calm stood up, ready to assist, but he remained in place as Comet and Cannon Ball dropped down and grabbed Devil and Shadow from behind, wrestling with them to hold them in place. Their attacks ceased and Bomber dropped his guard, simply walking towards the struggling ponies casually without a care in the world… despite a good portion of his suit being ripped up.

Valkyrie dropped down, landing in front of Calm, beside the fallen Void. She focused on Bomber and called out to him.

“Big Green! Target practice?!” she asked. Bomber glanced at her as he stopped in front of Devil and Shadow, whom Comet and Cannon had successfully wrestled to the ground, keeping their crystals from freeing them.

“Heh heh heh,” Bomber chuckled with a nod.

Valkyrie turned and bent down, hooking her hooves beneath Void.

“HUP!” she grunted, her muscles tensing as she lifted Void off the ground. Void was a little larger than her, about the same size of Soarin, and very bulky. Then again… Valkyrie had picked up Calm after the first battle… and even earlier had thrown Matteo, so Fleetfoot wasn’t as surprised, but Calm was staring with his eyes wide and jaw nearly on the ground. Valkyrie hoisted Void up over her head and turned to face Bomber.

“Here ya go, fatass!” Cannon Ball joked as he and Comet pushed Shadow and Devil towards them. Bomber grabbed the two of them as they grunted and struggled to get control of their crystals, but they couldn’t concentrate.

“PULL!” Valkyrie yelled towards Bomber. Bomber immediately wound up and launched the two Shadowbolts into the air. Valkyrie took aim, and took a deep breath. “HRRRRRAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” she let out a roar as she launched Void’s heavy body into the air Void flailed as tried to get his body to listen to him, but rammed right into Devil, who in turn ran into Shadow. “Right on the mark!” Valkyrie yelled out triumphantly as the three Shadowbolts broke apart, Shadow and Devil reaching out to support Void.

Void threw his arms and wings out, forcing the other two off of him angrily before regaining shaky control of his flight. Before the three could do anything, Steady Wing with Pixie and Fairy flanking him, glided in at high speeds, intercepting the three Shadowbolts and driving them back into the battle.

Valkyrie pointed up, signaling Bomber, Cannon, and Comet to get back into the action before she turned to check on Calm and Fleet.

“Are you two al—” Valkyrie paused mid-sentence and lifted an eyebrow. Calm was staring with wide eyes at her, his pupils moving up and down her body. She cleared her throat loudly. Calm blinked and quickly shifted his eyes to her face. “And what exactly are YOU looking at?” she asked while furrowing her brow. Calm’s pupils shrank and a subtle blush appeared over his face.

“Uuuuuuuhhhh…” he trailed off, his voice almost cracking in the process.

Fleetfoot blinked as she quickly glanced between the two of them. When she put two and two together, she puffed her cheeks out and pouted angrily. Valkyrie just shook her head before turning and pointing to the dogfight above.

“Quit fooling around, have at them!” she yelled before lifting off and shooting back towards the sky.

Calm and Fleetfoot remained grounded for a moment, Calm still stuck in place and a barely audible ‘uhhhh…’ still escaping the back of his throat. Fleetfoot huffed and gave him a flat look.

“You know she’s like… twelve years older than you… right?” she asked with a sharp tone. Calm blinked and shook his head out before looking down at Fleetfoot.

“Sorry, what?” he asked while blinking continuously.

“Ugh… forget it…” Fleetfoot flattened her ears as she turned and faced the dogfight. “Let’s just go!” she took off. “Stupid… pumped up… muscle mare…” she mumbled quietly as she ascended. Calm stared after her while tipping his head.

“What did I do?” he asked quizzically as he took a running start before lifting off and following behind.

“GO! GO! DON’T STOP!” Soarin yelled as he and Rapidfire managed to increase their pace as much as they could… which pretty much amounted to a limping jog accompanied by grunts of pain.

“Shut up! I get it!” Rapidfire spat back as he tried to focus on moving and guiding them towards their hopeful exit. Neither of them was focusing on how much it hurt to move quickly because they were much more worried about being crushed by the chunks of cave falling from above. “Left!” Rapidfire called out, the two of them shifting, but Rapidfire suddenly stopped. “Wait! No! Shit! Right! RIGHT!” he shifted back, Soarin following while trying to keep his light forward.

“Look out!” Soarin pulled Rapidfire towards him, saving him from stepping beneath a falling chunk. It struck the ground and shattered, bits of rock crashing against them. They stumbled, but regained their hoofing before continuing forward.

“There!” Rapidfire’s eyes widened as his wings twitched harder. He stared forward as Soarin shined his light in said direction. There was a large tunnel ahead… and near the base of the tunnel… light!

“GO!” Soarin encouraged, ignoring the grunt Rapidfire gave in response as the two pushed themselves, weaving around as the cave continued to collapse. Soarin briefly looked behind him, his light showing him that the ceiling was literally coming down behind them. The tunnel up ahead was not showing signs of collapse at all. Soarin hoped it stayed that way, because if they could make it to the tunnel before the rest of the cave collapsed, they’d be home free.

That was just the problem though. The collapse rate was increasing. The amount of rocks and chunks falling around them was growing and becoming more intense. It was going to be close… they just had to keep their pace and—

Soarin’s eyes widened as the glow from his horn suddenly pulsated and released a bright flash.

“AHHHH!!!!!” Soarin fell forward as a searing pain shot through his head. “No… not now! NOT NOW!” he exclaimed as he tried to find his equilibrium, but the pain was incredible, blue light oozing forth from the several large cracks in the fake horn.

“What the…?” Rapidfire turned when he saw the flash of light, but the moment he turned… “RGH!” his hoof went to his chest, a withdrawal shock coursing through him.

At the absolute worst time possible, the two of them were hit by their current crippling issues.

Soarin looked up, forcing his eyes open as he saw Rapidfire lower himself to the ground as well.

He had to do something! HE HAD TO!

“RRRRGHHHHHGRRAAAA!!!” Soarin roared out painfully as he pushed himself to his hooves, the horn glowing even brighter as tiny bits and chips began to fall from its surface as if it were about to blow apart. The yellow and blue glows emerged from his eyes and rose up in a constant stream as he forced himself towards Rapidfire.

Rapidfire was barely managing to stay on his hooves, but with a push from Soarin, the two began to squeeze out every last drop of effort they had. They were so close! SO CLOSE TO SAFETY!

The two yelled out painfully as they both pushed towards the edge of the tunnel, the smaller corridor ahead still remaining completely intact as the cave continued to collapse behind them. Two more steps…

Soarin looked up, the light from his horn shining upon a large collection of rocks, freshly dislodged from the ceiling, and plummeting towards them. With one last effort Soarin pushed Rapidfire forward, forcing him into the tunnel first and then pressed down hard on his back legs, reaching for the tunnel himself.

As the rocks crashed to the floor, it kicked up large clouds of dust, shooting them up through the tunnel and crashing against Rapidfire. Rapidfire curled up on the ground, shielding himself from the rushing cloud of dust as the final tremors of the cave shook.

“This way! This way! Follow us!” Luna called out as Rainbow Dash watched from below. Princess Luna was doing her part, guiding the recruits along as they carried the pieces of projection equipment and the unicorn staff members along to safety as quickly as possible.

Dash quickly picked out the recruits that had returned from the tremor squads, the stronger ponies carrying the pieces of equipment as the rest helped the unicorns. Instinctively, she assumed that meant Matteo would be back and among them… but as she looked, she saw no sign of a griffon… and it was pretty hard to miss him. But no matter where she looked, he was nowhere to be found.

Dash gritted her teeth as she began to worry. Little Star hitching a ride with Matteo plus Matteo not being present once the strength recruits returned equaled the two were up to something. She didn’t know what, but she hoped they knew what they were doing because if anything happened to them, it would be Dash’s ass for not keeping her squad in line with orders.

She had little time to dwell on it though, as Fire Streak turned and whistled to them.

“Everypony up!” he ordered as he tossed a stop watch aside. “It’s time to move!”

The moment he gave the order, all ten of them were lining up two by two. Fire and Misty were in front, Lightning and Surprise behind them, and Dash side by side with Squall right after as the rest filled in behind.

“Stay in formation and DON’T stop flying! GO! GO! GO!” Fire gave the order.

Dash barely had time for a lump to form in her throat. Honestly, that was preferred. Their take off was sudden, just as Fire has suggested. Although, he had clearly been keeping track of time with a stopwatch, suggesting that he knew and didn’t tell them how long they were going to wait, but the sudden nature of the launch didn’t give Dash any time to be nervous. They were up and flying, taking a low path along the ground towards the fortress in a long curve away from the fighting.

“STAY LOW!” Fire ordered. “Stay low and move quickly! MOVE! MOVE!”

Dash kept her eyes fixed on Surprise’s back hooves, keeping perfectly in line. She didn’t think about where they were going, she kept her mind on the mission and what she had to do right then and there.

At least… that’s what she did initially.

Dash glanced to her right for a moment… and she was sure she wasn’t the only one who did.

There was a one on one fight going on nearby that had detached from the main dogfight. It wasn’t close enough for the two ponies involved to see the group gliding low, but Dash’s jaw dropped when she realized who the two were.

It was Spitfire and Blade…

And Blade… was getting the stuffing beat out of him.

Spitfire was delivering heavy blow after heavy blow to him and his shielding attempts. Blade kept roaring and throwing his own attacks by mixing punches, kicks, and sword swipes, but Spitfire was dodging effectively. She had a few nicks and bruises, but the scales were heavily tipped in her favor. She kept pushing him further and further back as he struggled to get in attacks of his own.

Dash had seen Descent and Blade battle… and the two were even. Yet here, Spitfire was destroying Blade. Dash could barely believe her eyes. Was Spitfire really that strong?

The way she was laying the hurt on Blade right now… no wonder she was the current captain of the Wonderbolts!

“Whoa…” Dash blinked as she witnessed the display of combat ability from afar.

“DASH!” Squall’s voice broke her from her awe. She looked back and quickly realized they were turning, and she almost broke formation. She quickly corrected her trajectory, forming right back up beside Squall. “What are you doing?!” he asked with a huff.

“Sorry,” Dash replied simply as she glanced briefly towards the duel as they quickly moved beyond view.

They continued gliding along the ground, staying as low as possible and taking a route completely around another nearby mountain with the intention of approaching the grounded fortress from behind. They were so close to the snow covered surface that Dash could feel little bits of snow kicking up and bouncing against her face and goggles as they zipped along.

Eventually they arced around the mountain and emerged behind the fortress. It loomed before them as they closed in, completely blocking their view of the battle raging on the other side. They could see more Shadowbolts pouring out from several windows and from the front, lifting off into the air before taking off towards the fighting.

They would have to work fast, because their element of surprise and the advantages that they had enjoyed so far in the confrontation would only last for so long before the Shadowbolts got a hold of themselves and pushed back. They had this window to sneak in and save Wave… they had to make the most efficient use of it.

“Rainbow Dash! Forward!” Fire called back as loudly as he could without risking audible attention to themselves. Surprise and Misty shifted aside. Dash took it as an order to come forward and quickly shifted up front to fly beside Fire Streak. “Can you give us an idea of where to enter from?” he asked. Dash bit her lip and shook her head.

“When Soarin and I escaped, we exited through the front door! I doubt that would be a good idea!” she admitted. Fire looked back forward as he pondered. Dash continued. “It shouldn’t matter where we go in, I won’t have much of a recollection of the interior until I see it!”

“Then let’s aim for a back door!” Fire decided quickly. “That seems like our best bet!”

“If its design is similar to our compound… then there might be a few backdoors right where we’d expect them!” Dash added, receiving a nod from Fire. Dash remained up front in the formation as they all pitched upward, slowly ascending to just rise over the edge of the fortress platform and examine the structures of the fortress itself.

“There!” Fire pointed. Indeed the building did look very similar to the Wonderbolt compound, at least on the outside. There was a back door behind the fortress much like the one they used to get outside to the flight tracks at their own. Fire glanced back, taking count of each of them to make sure they were all still there. Dash, Misty, Lightning, Surprise, Squall, Twister, Shine Struck, Playbitz, and Swift Justice. They had all kept up and were all accounted for. “We’re going in!” he exclaimed as they angled towards the door.

Dash glanced about as they closed in. No Shadowbolts were in sight. The distraction had their attention faced entirely forward, giving the small team a clear path right into their fortress.

The group glided down, avoiding the giant crystal formations jutting from the structures as they landed right outside the door. They all paused for a moment as they caught their breath, keeping a lookout all around them for any Shadowbolts, but they were in the clear.

“Alright…” Fire exhaled and motioned to the door. “Let’s head in… remember everything we’ve been told. Leave most of the acting to my squad, but be ready to assist if need be. Dash, up front with me. The rest file in behind, but don’t line up single file, we have to keep it all informal in here.”

Everypony nodded, and Dash stepped up to lead the way, but as she did…

“Ah!” she suddenly tensed up, her eyes widening slightly as she froze in place and the ends of her feathers and fur tingling. All eyes went to her as she tipped her head down and started breathing harder, but only for a moment. Misty Fly quickly stepped up to her, placing a hoof on her back as she examined Dash with concern. Fire, on the other hoof, looked concerned for a different reason.

“Miss Dash…” he spoke up. “You gave us your assurance this wouldn’t be a problem,” he said sternly, easily deducing what was happening.

Dash put a hoof to her heart and took a deep breath, her heartbeat had quickened, but returned to normal pace shortly after. She looked up and saw every pair of eyes on her and swallowed, focusing on Fire.

“I never said it wouldn’t happen…” she reminded Fire, a little nervously. He didn’t look very thrilled. “I said I didn’t THINK it would be a problem.”

Fire narrowed his eyes, giving a frustrated look that fit right into the angled Shadowbolt goggles. Lightning Streak stepped up and patted his brother on the back.

“Bro, nothing we can do about it right now,” he said straightforwardly. “We gotta save Chiller, we don’t have time to worry about this.”

Fire Streak released a heavy sigh, tipping his head down for a moment before looking back up at Dash with the stern gaze remaining.

“We also don’t have anypony else with at least some knowledge of the interior,” Fire added as he stepped up to Dash and looked down at her. “So we’ll have to deal with whatever happens,” he looked around, specifically at his squad mates. “Be prepared to improvise should Miss Dash have any more issues with her connection to Soarin.”

Surprise and Lightning gave a solid nod in reply, Misty doing the same once Fire relayed his order to her via sign language.

“Let’s go,” Fire made a head motion towards the door.

Rainbow Dash glanced back at Squall, Twister, and the detachment from squad zero. While she knew, and made it clear her knowledge of the interior was foggy, she was still their best bet at making the mission quick and successful. They were all counting on her, so she would do her best.

Now she was worried about Soarin on top of it, she hoped he was okay.

“Rggghhh…” Rapidfire groaned, coughing a few times as he lifted his head and shook it out. Dust scattered everywhere from his mane and he squinted as the light from the other end of the tunnel met his eyes. He blinked, his eyes eventually adjusting and seeing not only the sky, but clouds as well.

He took a deep breath and released a long sigh, slowly pushing himself to his hooves as he grunted and winced in pain. An exit… finally. It looked like all of the pain and effort wasn’t in vain after all.

Rapidfire took two steps before realization hit him. He stopped and slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder.

Soarin was lying on the ground, unconscious, horn no longer lit… and the lower half of his body buried beneath the fallen cave debris at the back end of the tunnel.

From the looks of things, Rapidfire had made it into the tunnel just fine… but only half of Soarin had. Soarin was trapped.

Rapidfire stared for a moment before releasing a scoff. He turned, faced the tunnel opening leading outside and started walking. He never thought they’d get out… but now that the exit was in sight, he could ditch Soarin and be on his way. In fact, this was fortune in his favor. If he could make it back and report where Soarin was trapped, the Shadowbolts could come get him, and Rapidfire would be praised for helping capture their main objective.

Piece of cake… His first step towards earning more power. He’d have three crystals and the respect he deserved in no time.

But then Rapidfire stopped.

The only reason Rapidfire was up and walking right now instead of buried beneath rocks… was because Soarin gave him a shove into the tunnel… which he did before making his own dive and clearly falling just short.

Not only that… but Rapidfire wouldn’t even be looking at an exit of any kind right now had Soarin decided against bringing him along… or not helped him walk for half of their endeavor…

Soarin could have easily left him for dead.

Yet, he didn't...

Rapidfire’s ears flopped down, and then sharply folded back as he slammed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, a quiet growl barely escaping between. He relaxed and exhaled, looking down and remaining completely still for several moments, a distraught frown appearing on his face.

He looked up at the exit…

Then looked back at Soarin.

He looked up at the exit again…

And then again… slowly back at Soarin…

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art by: Foxenawolf (She was able to! yay!)

Wonder what's going through Rapidfire's mind right now? :moustache:

And how about that performance! The Wonderbolts certainly do know how to put on a show! The Dragon apparently failed to sway them, but whoever was in control of the compound was sure convinced! Spitfire laying the smackdown! (And channeling Fleetfoot for a little bit too! :rainbowlaugh: Uh oh, Dashie having some heart shocks... hopefully it won't deter them... and hopefully Soarin's alright! Time to find Wave.

SHADOWBOLT ROLE CALL!

Just a reminder the Shadowbolt commanders featured in this chapter are:

Blade: Magic ability: Magic Swords.

Devil: Magic ability: Large hovering globes that explode violently.

Shadow: Magic Ability: Burst waves of magic, can also disappear and reappear into pools of magic along the ground.

Void: Magic Ability: Controls magical winds that are unaffected by wind control tactics. Can use a vacuum effect or a strong gust effect.

Angel: Magic Ability: Creates deadly flying blades of magic by swiping his hooves.
(pony creator didnt have much in terms of ridiculously long manes xD)

Sin: Magic Ability: channels the magic into his arms to add more power to his attacks.
(Colors: White with Black mane)

Not featured in this chapter:

Trance and Witch (for obvious reasons)

Moon and Ruin (i wonder where they are... :twistnerd:)

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 116: Lunar Eclipse

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 116: Lunar Eclipse

The door creaked as Fire Streak pushed it open and peered into the back corridor of the fortress. He quickly stifled a sneeze as a blast of dust hit him in the face.

“Dear me,” he commented as he pulled back and wrinkled his nose. “Either they never use this hallway or they seriously need to rethink cleaning duties…” he turned back and beckoned them in as he pushed the door open and the whole group followed.

There was no sign of any Shadowbolts, so each of them took a moment to look around and take in the surroundings. To Dash though, it looked all too familiar, at least by design… and she didn’t like it.

The hallway, while lit only by dim hanging lights, and covered in cobwebs, immediately brought back memories of when she and Soarin were being held within. It looked like the Wonderbolt compound, had it not been painted or had any ceiling tiles, exposing all the pipes and electrical wires.

“The hell is with all this dust?” Playbitz asked as he covered his mouth with his wing.

“Looks like nopony has walked in here for years,” Shine Struck added as the dust nearly overwhelmed their senses.

With a few steady wing beats, Fire and Misty managed to blow a lot of the dust near them away. Fire Streak peered down the hall, spotting the door likely leading into the main lobby of the fortress just as it did in their compound.

“My best guess,” he began as he started walking and the others followed. “Is that they never use it. Think about it, they always seem to be on the attack, why use a back door if you’re always facing your targets head on?”

“That makes sense I guess…” Shine Struck scratched her head as the group closed in on the opposite door.

“Good guess by us then, eh bro?” Lightning Streak chuckled. “Free to walk right in!”

“Stay focused, we can’t rely on lucky breaks…” Fire reminded the team as they stopped in front of the opposite door. He reached up and pressed a tiny switch on the side of his goggles, activating the X-ray effect Rivet added to them. It only lasted a few seconds before switching off. “Blast it…” he cursed as he pressed the switch back and forth until the lenses reactivated. “Looks like these things are going to be finicky… the tech doesn’t like the smaller goggles,” he spoke to himself before turning around. “Swift Justice, Rainbow Dash, and…” he turned and made a pointing gesture to Misty Fly before putting his hoof in front of his face and swiping it down. “Up front,” he said for Dash and Swift. “We’ll handle any confrontations, but our top priority is to avoid all confrontation. Swift, I need you to hide in every shadow you can find ahead of us and keep a lookout, especially around corners. Dash, you’ll be up with me for the sole purpose of recognizing anything that might help us find Wave. And Misty of course, will do her thing to help alert us of anypony nearby,” he finished while relaying the plan to Misty, who nodded.

“Sweet! Front row!” Swift smiled as he took a step, only to be lightly nudged by Shine.

“Be serious, dummy…” she said sternly as Playbitz hovered behind as if preemptively ready to separate them. Swift stepped up beside Fire and Misty Fly, but Dash did not.

“Miss Dash?” Fire turned to look at her. Dash quickly shook her head out.

“Sorry… bad memories of this place,” she said with a subtle shiver. Fire pushed his goggles up and looked her over carefully, but he quickly stopped when she shot him a flat expression in response. “No, Captain, it’s not going to keep me from doing my part.”

“Whah-pish…” Lightning quietly imitated the noise of a whip cracking behind Fire. Fire rolled his eyes at his brother before putting on a brief grin.

“Very well, come on up… anything you may recognize will help,” Fire reiterated as Dash stepped up beside Swift Justice.

“Hey, check this out…” Swift nudged Dash before stepping to the left and into a shadow. His body slowly and completely blended into the dark corner next to the door. The goggles lifted up and vanished followed by a smile appearing as if floating in the dark.

“That’s just freaky,” Dash winced as she heard Shine groan behind them.

“But quite useful in the right places,” Fire commented, looking over Dash’s shoulder as he tapped a hoof against the goggles again. He used the X-ray function to look at the immediate area beyond the door… and when there was no sign of anypony he nodded and reached for the door. “Here we go…” he said quietly as the group gathered up and moved in.

Fire pulled on the door, but it didn’t budge. He furrowed his brow, giving it a harder yank. The door creaked and opened, bits and flakes of the door frame sprinkling to the ground. The rough motion made a little bit of noise, causing them all to flinch, but luckily, nopony was nearby to hear it. The door, like the rest of the back hallway, was definitely barely used.

Fire made a head motion to Misty. Misty closed her eyes for a moment, her wing feathers twitching before giving Fire a quick nod.

“Swift,” Fire pointed to the open door. Swift ducked and slipped through, slinking his body around the door and disappearing.

“Coast is clear,” he said quietly a moment later.

“Let’s move,” Fire ordered, the group quickly making their way through the door. As Dash stepped through she looked up… and saw something familiar.

They were in the back corner of the main lobby. This was the last part of the fortress she and Soarin flew through during their escape. She recognized the shape and structure, but it had one major difference. Large crystals… everywhere. The walls, the floor, the ceiling… there was no direction she could look without seeing some sort of crystal formation jutting out of the walls, floor, or ceiling. There was a dim pink glow emitting from them, but it looked weak, drained. It was probably due to the cannon firing. The drain of their power was a boon to the group, creating a dimmer environment to make use of Swift’s abilities.

“Look familiar?” Fire asked Dash. Dash kept looking around and bit her lower lip.

“Yes…” she said before pausing a moment. “Soarin and I came through here, but I’m trying to remember from which hallway…” she trailed off as she examined the lobby. Fire did as well, taking note that while the shape of the lobby was near identical to the Wonderbolt compound, the similarities ended there.

“I don’t blame you,” Fire commented. “The hallways are arranged differently.”

The hallways were not single large corridors to the left and right like the Wonderbolt compound. While a stairwell was in the same place near the center in the back, there were four hallways leading out of the lobby. Two on the right, two on the left. There was also a balcony mezzanine level midway between the floor and the ceiling that had hallway leading out left and right.

“They have a lobby balcony?” Surprise asked as she poked her head forward. “WAYYYY cooler than our lobby!”

“Focus please, Surprise,” Fire hushed her before looking at all the possible exits. “Any thoughts, Miss Dash?”

“The only thing I remember…” she turned and pointed to the right. “Soarin and I flew from that direction before we broke down the doors leading outside.”

“Then we’ll go that way,” Fire decided with a nod. He flinched as Misty Fly suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder. He turned and looked at her as she pointed to the left hallway up on the balcony. Fire’s eyes widened and he glanced around, pointing towards a crystal jutting out of the floor beneath the balcony. “Everypony, behind the crystal!” he ordered frantically, but hushed.

They all moved as quickly and quietly as they could, shuffling behind the crystal. Dash peered out around it, watching as three Shadowbolts flew out from the balcony level and pitched towards the window above the lobby doors. They used their crystal magic to open the window and shot out towards the battle outside, before the window closed behind them.

Dash blinked as they stepped back out, glancing at Misty Fly. She seriously sensed those Shadowbolts coming? It took them at least ten seconds from when she alerted Fire before the Shadowbolts appeared and flew out, flying very fast. She remembered when she fought Nightshade beside Misty, and she used her ‘blind fighting’ technique… but she had no idea it was so fine tuned. Seriously, those Shadowbolts were definitely not close at all.

Dash eyes widened as she threw a hoof over her chest.

“Rgh…” she grunted quietly as she felt her heart beat speed up for a moment.

“Everything alright?” Shine asked as they all emerged from behind the crystal. Dash turned and flashed a discouraged look.

“Definitely not…” she said honestly as Fire glanced back at her. Dash took a deep breath and put her hoof back down. She could feel her heart beating, but they were small shocks, nothing powerful enough to conclude something was horribly wrong with Soarin… wherever he was. She looked up, catching Fire’s eyes again. She looked at him sternly, silently reminding him that she was fine and would tough it out… which he seemed to pick up on because he didn’t say anything to her.

Fire tapped Misty on the shoulder. She closed her eyes for a moment, opening them up and shaking her head.

“Coast is clear,” Fire pointed at the hallways on the right. “Let’s go.”

The group made their way across the lobby, weaving in and out of the crystals. Fire only had to remind them once to walk loosely and not in any sort of orderly fashion. They hadn’t had to resort to acting like the Shadowbolts yet. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t have to.

When they reached the right side of the lobby, they glanced between the two hallways. Both were about half the size of the hallways in the Wonderbolt compound, and from where they stood, they looked like they went to different parts of the fortress.

“Surprise?” Fire Streak looked back as Surprise bounced forward. Fire gave her a flat look, with a slight grin. “First, try to hold back on the bouncing, second… we need you here, what do your instincts tell you?”

The detachments from Foxtrot and Zero watched curiously as Surprise walked up and stood in the space between the halls.

“Hmmm…” the front part of her mane suddenly reverted to its original poofy state. The front tip of her mane pointed forward and began to jiggle. It started making a quiet puttering noise as it slowly pointed towards the door on the left, but then stopped. “HMMMMM…” she hummed, the piece of her mane suddenly edged towards the right door before straightening out, and pointing at the right door while making a DOING noise. “This way!”

“That way it is, everypony back in positions, let’s go…” he trailed off as he saw the rest looking at squad three quizzically. Fire chuckled. “Surprise has a knack for making guesses with a ninety percent success rate,” he explained.

It was Surprise, there was no need to search for an explanation. They simply accepted it and moved along.

The hallway had several turns and rooms in many different places. It was also a lot dimmer, but again that probably had to do with the power reserves being drained. Dash, walking side by side with Fire as Misty and Swift worked point, kept looking around while trying to recognize the area. It all looked familiar… but there were no specifics. When she and Soarin escaped, they had rushed through the halls, taking every corner they could to escape their pursuers before luckily emerging in the lobby… and consequently ended up outside surrounded. Right now, unless they hit the few hallways she had seen before they were forced to run, she wouldn’t be able to give an honest assessment.

She assumed they would be keeping Wave Chill in the detention block, which was at the end of a hallway and down a flight of stairs. Aside from that hallway, they were only taken up the same stairwell and to Nightshade’s room… she just needed something to help her get her bearings.

They quickened their pace from a quiet trot to a canter, remembering that the current mood amongst the Shadowbolts was probably urgent with the battle going on outside… especially with their fortress grounded. They remained in the clear for a while, proving that indeed most of the Shadowbolts had to be outside.

But then they neared a corner and Swift and Misty both stopped.

“Uh oh…” Swift appeared from the dim corner of the hallway. He peered around the side, looking back at Fire as Misty also tapped Fire on the shoulder. Everypony came to a halt as Fire looked around and nodded.

“We have no way to avoid this one… quickly! Dash, Shine, take your squads back several paces and make it look like you're running forward. Swift, disappear. Squad, get ready to react.”

Dash and Shine had turned and motioned to Squall, Twister, and Playbitz before Fire had even finished. Swift ducked into the nearest shadow. Fire waited for Misty to give him a nod before he took a step forward, but then…

As a Shadowbolt mare turned the corner and screeched to a halt to avoid hitting Fire, a Shadowbolt stallion ran into her plot and the two lurched forward.

“HEY!” the mare pushed the stallion off of her and growled at him. “Keep it between the legs, pervert! We gotta get outside!”

“It’s not my fault you stopped, if I didn’t know better I’d say you wanted it!” the stallion reacted.

The two continued to bicker, and as they did, Fire saw an opportunity. He whipped his tail backwards, batting Lightning in the face with it. Lightning scrunched his face for a moment, but then blinked. He turned and made a subtle hoof motion for Shine and Dash to keep moving.

“HEY!” Fire yelled at the two Shadowbolts, who both sharply looked at him. “You can bang later! Get out of our way!” he yelled at them as Misty glared and growled at them as well. Dash and Shine filed in right behind them, stopping and looking over squad three, feigning curiosity at what was holding them up.

“Ugh!” the mare grunted, shoving the stallion away and walking between Fire and Misty. She made a sharp head fake at Fire as she passed, causing Fire to flinch slightly. But before she could scoff at him, Misty Fly turned and throttled the mare with the left hook right to the cheek. The mare was thrown against the wall. Squad three managed to hold in a reaction, but Shine and Dash’s groups all flinched and backed away.

The mare grunted and stumbled to her hooves, glaring at Misty, but Misty walked right up to her and pushed her back against the wall. The mare looked at Misty hesitantly, and as soon as Misty saw it, she grabbed her and shoved her along, Dash and Shine moving aside as the mare stumbled towards them and shook her head.

“Sheesh!” the mare grumbled as the stallion made his way through them as well.

“You got your ass kicked,” he chuckled as they broke into a canter towards the lobby.

“SHUT UP!”

Once the two had disappeared from sight, Fire breathed a heavy sigh of relief, giving Misty a slightly frustrated look. Misty only smiled brightly and contently in response.

“Yikes, bro…” Lightning chuckled. “If I were you, I’d stay on your lady’s good side.

“Alright, alright…” Fire rolled his eyes, glancing back at Shine and Dash. “I’m sure none of you saw that coming, but showing a little hesitance after Misty… gave that mare her opinion… helped you blend in.” He smirked. “Honestly, I’ve had my doubts from the start… but after that little quarrel and how nothing really came from Misty’s…” He glanced at her again. She was still smiling and now swaying back and forth. “Greeting… It looks like it really will work.”

“Ow…” a groan came from near the wall. Everypony looked to see Swift appear from the shadow and stumble for a moment. Upon closer inspection, it was the wall the mare was thrown into by Misty’s punch.

“Oh jeez,” Playbitz chuckled as he stepped over to him and supported him. “Did you get plot to the face?” he asked as Shine Struck also walked up to check on him.

“Yes…” Swift shook his head out. “And it was glorious…”

“Pfff…” Shine Struck scoffed. “He’s fine, come on, let’s go…”

“All set?” Fire asked as he peeked around the hallway, seeing they were in the clear. “Let’s go.”

They turned the corner and kept moving. As Dash tried to recognize anything she could, her eyes briefly landed on Squall. She shifted over and trotted beside him.

“How are you holding up?” she asked. He blinked and raised an eyebrow at her.

“I haven’t had to do anything yet,” he replied flatly, almost sounding like he was bored.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Dash chuckled as she kept her eyes peeled.

“Hmph…” Squall huffed. “I’d rather be out there fighting… sneaking around isn’t my thing.” He flinched as Twister’s head popped up over Dash’s back and he bounced his eyebrows.

“That’s what’cha get for being sexy and having a scar!” he joked, he swiped his hooves in front of his face, his face turning into an imitation of Little Star’s face when they first saw his scar.

“Really?” Squall scowled at him. “You’re gonna do this shit now? Just because we’re on a mission, doesn’t mean I won’t punch you,” he threatened.

“I DARE you to punch this face,” Twister said, his face still shaped like Little Star’s. Squall completely flattened his expression, but didn’t say or do anything else.

“Twister,” Dash sighed. “You already get punched in the face more than anypony I’ve ever seen, sooner or later they’re gonna get tired of trying.”

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…” Twister’s face reverted and he slowly... slipped off Dash’s back… over the course of twenty seconds. Dash sighed, not even moving to stop his antics.

“Just stay focused Twister, I know you do it in your own way… so keep doing it please,” she asked nicely.

“Yes ma’am!” he said happily, now on the other side of Squall, making him flinch and grumble.

“Ah! Captain!” Dash suddenly called forward. Surprise popped up in front of her and held her hoof to her mouth.

“SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” she hushed while slowly towering over Dash. Twister tried to join in the hushing, but Surprise slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth that had ‘bad pony, no biscuit’ written on it. Twister began to flail while trying to pull the tape off.

“Alright, alright…” Fire calmly made his way past Surprise and Twister to address Dash. “What is it?”

Dash blinked before pointing towards an approaching door, third on the right.

“This is a little bit of a shot in the dark… but—” She looked towards Fire— “I think that was the door Soarin and I emerged from before we were chased… if I’m right, it will be a stairwell going down.”

“Let’s check it out,” Fire nodded moving along with Swift and Misty up front. But as they approached, when they passed the second door right before their target, Misty suddenly gasped and threw her wings out.

The door beside them opened and a small Shadowbolt stallion rushed out while trying to put his suit and goggles on at the same time. He crashed right into Lightning Streak, who ran into Surprise.

Dash flinched and froze, Squall bumping into her, Shine bumping into Squall, and Playbitz bumping into Shine, causing all of them to stumble forward.

“Uh… SORRY!” the Shadowbolt frantically apologized as he looked up at Lightning Streak. It seemed this one was a bit more submissive, so maybe they wouldn’t—

“HEY!” A larger Shadowbolt stallion stepped out and glared down at Lightning… who was still pressed into Surprise. “Who said you could stand over my little brother?!”

Lightning blinked as he stared up at the stallion, but Surprise suddenly jabbed Lightning in the side.

“Get the hell offa me you overgrown gas bag!” she hissed at him, forcing Lightning’s attention to her. “Yeah I’m talking to you!” she shoved him away from the larger stallion. “I’m sicka you acting like you can rub yourself all over me!” She kept pushing him further and further away.

“The hell?” The large Shadowbolt stallion lifted an eyebrow. “GAH!” he gasped as Fire Streak grabbed him by the neck of his suit and yanked him down.

“Who said you could stand over my brother?” he snarled.

“Watch it, Shortstuff…” the Shadowbolt stallion growled as his ‘little brother’ kept backing away. The smaller stallion ran directly into Squall and yelped, turning around and looking up with wide eyes. Squall glared down at him fiercely, but the smaller stallion was looking over Squall’s shoulder. Squall blinked and looked over his shoulder to see Twister’s chin perched on it with a very absurd, disturbing look on it as he also glared down at the stallion. Squall growled and… punched Twister in the face.

Squall turned and kept hitting Twister… who took it like a champ as Dash, Shine, and Playbitz all rushed forward to break them up.

The large stallion looked away from his glaring contest with Fire and broke away towards the commotion to pull his little brother out of there.

“Screw this, let’s go!” he grumbled, pushing his brother along.

They all continued to scuffle in different ways until the two Shadowbolts had disappeared around the corner. They all stopped and looked to see the coast was clear, except for Squall, who kept punching Twister. Twister’s face changed into a different pony’s face each time it was punched. One of the times it turned into Matteo’s face, complete with a beak… which Squall punched twice as hard, only to stop when that made it turn into Little Star’s face, which made him scrunch his face and hold his breath.

“Squall, that’s enough…” Dash reached over and pulled him off as Twister stood up with his own face back in place and pulled out a mirror, smiling into it with his teeth glinting.

“Rgh…” Squall grumbled as Shine and Playbitz finally backed away, both distracted by how Twister was literally unfazed by several blows to the visage.

Fire breathed another sigh of relief as he looked around to make sure everypony was fine. He smiled when he looked towards Foxtrot and Zero. They played the part well, falling right into character… well… to a point. It seemed Squall randomly wailing on Twister was a regular thing. Either way, it worked. He blinked when he saw Surprise dragging Lightning Streak over by the tail as Lightning lay curled up on the floor and twitching while clutching his stallionhood.

“Eh…?” Fire lifted an eyebrow. Surprise giggled while sticking her tongue out.

“Um… it was an accident?” She flashed a forced smile as Lightning squeaked.

“Let’s all go to the mountains…” Lightning Streak sputtered, his voice an octave higher. Fire snorted, realizing what had happened.

“I, uh…” Surprise cringed while looking down at him. “Aimed a little low while trying to play it up…”

“The spunk bunkers have been compromised…fall back… retreat…” Lightning continued as he rolled over.

“Oh, get up,” Fire chuckled as he gave Lightning a gentle kick to the shoulder. “Suck it up and be a stallion, you’d think by now you’d be used to this.”

“Harsh bro…” Lightning groaned as he struggled to stand.

Fire turned as the rest of the group filed in, only to meet a strange look from Misty. She had her goggles pushed up and was looking at Fire with… a suggestive stare, while biting her lip and blushing a little. Fire’s eyes widened when he saw it, not sure what he had done to earn that look.

Surprise quickly zipped up beside Misty and looked between her and Fire. She tapped Misty on the shoulder to get her attention and used the sign language to ask her what the look was for. Misty made some motions in response before tipping her towards Fire and bouncing her eyebrows. The angle the two were at prevented Fire from seeing the signs. Surprise giggled before turning to him.

“Misty liked how you handled that big guy,” she pointed down the hall. “Bigger than you, but you got in his grill and faced him down like a boss!”

“Oh…” Fire chuckled and looked away nervously. “Well… heh… that was…”

“Sexy?” Surprise finished for him.

“Yes, that was se—what?! NO!” Fire turned bright red as Surprise keeled over laughing.

Before Fire could protest further, Dash cleared her throat.

“Guys…” she pointed towards the door.

Fire blinked, shook his head out, and tried to ignore the fact that Misty had taken a step closer to him. She was still giving him bedroom eyes and was now swaying back and forth too while biting her lip.

“Right…” he nodded. “Let’s check it out.”

The group continued, now thoroughly confident they could blend in as they approached the door in question.

Dash was right. It was a stairwell leading down. As she saw it, more memories came rushing back in. They weren’t pleasant ones for sure.

As they moved down the stairs, every step made Dash shiver a little. Her whole first experience in the Shadowbolt fortress was one of fear and uncertainty. If not for Descent and Starry’s unexpected desertion and assistance, who knows what would have happened to them? She couldn’t forget that Nightshade wanted to ‘keep’ her… whatever the hell that meant.

Dash took a deep breath as they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner.

There it was, directly across from them, a straight shot from the entrance…

The cell she and Soarin were held in.

There was no mistaking it. To the rest it probably looked generic, but she could feel it. She could tell. She remembered how terrified she was, waking up in a place she didn’t recognize, trapped behind bars. Her experiences throughout the entire, drawn-out scenario with the Shadowbolts had taught her it was okay to be afraid, even if she was dead set on never being scared. Nightshade had proven to her what it really meant to be scared in more ways than one.

As they walked into the detention block, she began to remember how it all played out, how Rapidfire showed up and threw down their food, followed by Starry Skies intimidating him into cleaning it up and getting them more. She glanced to the cell beside it, remembering Lightning Dust crying on the floor, beaten and bruised after Nightshade put her in her own punching bag to ‘punish’ her for misusing the crystals. She remembered the revelations when Descent and Starry came to explain everything and let them go, seeing for the first time with her own eyes the softer side of Descent as he and Starry cared for Lightning Dust.

It was an experience for sure… but all of that aside… something wasn’t right.

They were in the detention block, but…

“Uh, Miss Dash?” Fire spoke up as the group spread out and looked around. “There’s nopony here…”

As Fire said, all of the cells were empty.

No sign of Wave Chill.

“But… I don’t get it,” Dash tipped her head to the side as she walked around to make sure she got a view of every cell. “This is where they held Soarin and I when we were here.”

“Think they have more than one detention block?” Lightning Streak asked as he, Misty, and Surprise walked around the cells for any sign of a pony. Dash bit her lip as she came around and looked towards Fire. Fire streak sighed and rubbed his chin.

“I believe it is safe to conclude that they have more than one… this could be a problem…” He turned, looking around at all them. “Time is of the essence but I’m not willing to split up, it’s too risky.”

“Then what are we standin’ around for?!” Surprise called out as she bounced up to Fire. “We better start looking!”

“Agreed,” Fire nodded. “Alright everypony, we have to—”

“AH!” Dash suddenly yelped, drawing all of the attention towards her. She stumbled backwards, tipping down and slowly lowering to the floor as she pressed a hoof to her chest. Surprise and Shine both quickly turned and went to her side as Squall and Twister lingered nearby. Fire gritted his teeth and growled when he saw Dash crumple.

“Blast it…” he grumbled as he shook his head. “We don’t have time for this.” He turned and pointed at Lightning. “Brother, I want you to carry Miss Dash, we need to…” he trailed off as his eyes darted to the left at Misty. Her eyes were wide and her wings twitching… followed by her looking sharply to the left towards the stairs. Fire quickly followed her eyes towards the way they came from…

And looked directly into the eyes of Shadowbolt commander Moon.

He was standing in the doorway, his goggles around his neck and his crystals resting on his back between his wings. He wore a calm expression while looking back and forth at the group.

Fire shuffled through his brain quickly for something to say, but Surprise beat him to the punch.

“HEY!” Surprise yelled while turning away from Dash and grabbing Twister. She scrunched her face and glared at him as he simply smiled back. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!” she pointed at Dash. She turned and threw Twister towards Moon. Twister gave no physical reaction, his smile remaining as he bounced along the ground and slid to a stop at Moon’s hooves. Surprise leapt over and grabbed the neck of Twister’s suit, hoisting him up with one hoof as he went limp in her grip. “I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU…” She punched him in the face. “TO STOP TOUCHING…” She punched him in the face again. “MY BEST FRIEND…” She punched him again. “OR ELSE I’D…” And again. “PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE REPEATEDLY!” she yelled while she continued to punch Twister in the face. Every time he took a hit to the face, his toothy smile showed new missing teeth, but which teeth were missing kept changing every time he got punched, ones missing before coming back.

Moon just stared at them flatly while lifting an eyebrow.

“Oh, stop it,” he said simply. Surprise froze as she wound up another punch, Twister’s body completely limp like a ragdoll in her other hoof with his goggles dangling off the tip of his ear and his eyes filled with spirals. “I know who you are,” Moon added, Surprise's eyes widening and looking towards Moon.

Moon shook his head.

“Third Commander Surprise and Foxtrot Recruit Twister…” He looked past them. “Third Captain Fire Streak, Third Commander Lightning Streak, Third Commander Misty Fly, Foxtrot Recruit Captain Rainbow Dash, Foxtrot Recruit Squall…” He paused as he eyed Shine Struck and Playbitz. “You’re two of those new Wonderbolts that randomly showed up in our first attack…” He glanced over at the cell to their left. “And you, underneath the cot in cell B-14. You can come out now.”

Swift’s head appeared from the shadow beneath the cot, eyes wide as he poked his head out.

Everypony was frozen in a moment of shock. Moon literally saw right through them and called out each one of them despite their color changes.

“What?” Moon scoffed. “You really think I don’t know my own Shadowbolts?”

Before anypony could do anything else, Squall decided to make a move… a rash move, but it was clear they were compromised. He launched from his spot, glided towards Moon, and squared up to take his stance as he drew near.

“HOOOORYYYA—” before he could attack, Moon’s crystals jumped off his back and wrapped around his right hoof as he held it up. They all glowed brightly, firing ribbons of pink energy towards Squall. “GAH!!!” Squall yelped as the energy surrounded Squall and held him in place, his hoof inches from Moon’s face. The rest of the Wonderbolts took battle stances as Moon trapped Squall, but he tipped his head and lifted his brow.

“Will you all just relax?” he asked as he rolled his eyes. The Wonderbolts all blinked as Moon slowly pushed Squall through the air towards them and gently placed him back on the floor. “I’m not here to fight. So you can drop the bad act.”

“Uh…” Fire failed to find any words as he and the rest all just stared towards Moon. Lightning, on the other hoof, was quick to loosen up.

“Bad act? Bro… we got this far with that ‘bad act,’” he pointed out as the rest of the Wonderbolts cautiously moved out of their stances.

“Pfff…” Moon scoffed as he took a few steps into the room and leaned against the cell on his right. “Please… I was suspicious from the start. And really? A black dragon? Anypony with a brain knows that the black dragons were sealed over a thousand years ago by the Divine Princesses and Sombra the Great. The moment I saw that thing sitting on the mountain I knew it was all fake.”

Confused and befuddled, the Wonderbolts all glanced between each other, Wondering why Moon was being so… casual around them. And if he knew it was an act… why didn’t he do something about it? Surprise crossed her arms and pouted at Moon.

“Well, aren’t you so very smart,” she huffed. “I guess it didn’t matter though cause we convinced your buddies to fire the cannon and drop the shield anyway,” she ended by sticking her tongue out at him.

“No you didn’t,” Moon said promptly. Surprise lifted an eyebrow.

“Somepony is in denial, how do you think we got in?” she continued to press.

“Our idiotic pilot on duty was taking a nap in his chair,” Moon explained while tapping a hoof to his chest. “I fired the cannon.”

“What?” Surprise narrowed her eyes and stared towards Moon with utter confusion. Moon pushed off the cell and started walking towards them. Dash in particular, while still dealing with her heart jumping, was incredibly confused.

“I fired it, and walked out using the pilot as a scapegoat to cover my tracks. I had a feeling you were here to stage a rescue, and how else were you going to get in? It’s the only way to drop the shield. I know the Wonderbolts aren’t stupid. You wouldn’t have tried if you didn’t know.” He turned back towards the door. “You’re here for Second Commander Wave Chill, correct?” He paused and looked up. His eyes began to glow for a few seconds before he looked back down. “Our captain is currently teaching our evening-duty pilot a ‘lesson’ in wasting crystal energy and Ruin decided to go watch… which is no surprise. We have a window here. Follow me.”

Dash shook her head out as Moon turned away. A random heart pang made her ears ring for a moment as Moon was speaking. She missed whatever Moon said in between mentioning Wave and that they had a window, but that’s all she needed to hear. Moon wanted to help them? What was going on?

“No,” Fire held out a hoof before any of them could follow. “This is a trick. It’s too easy,” he growled. Moon sighed and looked over his shoulder.

“Do you want to save your fellow Wonderbolt or not? That’s the whole reason you’re here isn’t it?” he asked.

“What reason do we have to trust you?” Fire sharply asked. Moon shook his head.

“Our crystal energy is considered a privilege… some among us are real fanatics about it… borderline insane. Wasting it is heavily frowned upon by our higher authority, and met with extreme punishment. Do you honestly believe we would be ordered to waste an entire main cannon charge just to capture a small group of Wonderbolts?”

A silence grew between them as Fire continued to keep a wary eye on Moon, but Dash suddenly stood up and walked towards Fire.

“Fire… I trust him,” she said, causing everypony to look at her as if she had gone mad.

“Miss Dash,” Fire furrowed his brow at her. “Are you not feeling well now too? How could you possibly justify trusting our enemy?”

“What he said about the crystal power,” Dash pointed at Moon. “That’s completely true. I saw it myself. Lightning Dust and Rapidfire were brutally punished for misusing the power the crystals gave them. There’s no way they would have cleared using up so much of the energy for such a small goal.”

“She’s right, you know…” Moon said as soon as Dash finished. “While I have no intention of apologizing to our pilot for using him… it’s safe to say he won’t be one of our pilots after this, or possibly alive depending on how hard he gets ‘reminded’ of proper crystal use. Now let’s go… while Ruin is occupied.” Moon turned and started walking towards the stairs.

The Wonderbolts all looked towards Fire. He scrunched his face, conflicted on how to proceed, but with Moon almost to the door, he gave a hoof motion for them to follow.

“No matter what you do…” Fire whispered to the rest as they followed Moon up the stairs. “DO NOT… take your eyes off of him,” he warned, favoring caution over relaxation. Despite Dash’s confirmation of Moon’s words, their numbers over him, and his lack of interest in confronting them, Moon was still a Shadowbolt, and not of the Renegade variety. He was an enemy.

But then why was he taking them to Wave? It was either a boon or a trap, but should Moon prove to be trustworthy, it raised several questions about the internal affairs of the Shadowbolts.

Why would Moon, a Shadowbolt commander with the power of three crystals be willing to help them? From what they had seen so far it had been assumed their judgment had been clouded by the power the crystals gave them, which didn’t help their suspicion of Moon, but again… should he be telling the truth…

Just how complicated of a situation had they stumbled upon?

Dash flinched as they made it to the floor above them, but then kept going up the stairs instead of heading back into the hallway. Shine Struck nearly ran into Dash, looking her over quickly.

“What was that?” she asked. “Another heart shock?”

Dash blinked and quickly shook her head while taking a breath.

“No… sorry… just remembering more about this place…” Dash replied. She left it at that, the less she talked about it the better. She and Soarin had only gone up one floor before making their escape… but prior to that, when Descent and Starry took them from their cell, they went up both flights of stairs and made their way down the second floor hallway towards… Nightshade’s ‘office,’ if one could even call it that.

“Where exactly are you taking us?” Fire asked Moon as they neared the second floor, his voice harsh to send a signal of caution. Moon ignored Fire’s tone as he glanced back at them.

“Unlike most of our prisoners… Wave was never put in a detention cell. Ruin wanted to interrogate him immediately,” he explained with a slight tone of frustration in his voice. “When I asked him why… he ignored me. But knowing him, he probably predicted that the Wonderbolts would come after Wave.”

“Interrogation?” Fire repeated with skepticism.

“That hardly describes it,” Moon shook his head. “That’s what Ruin calls it. I don’t know if any of you have gotten much exposure to him yet… but he has more than a dozen screws loose. I doubt anything Ruin has done thus far could be considered interrogating. He’s a sick, twisted mind who gets a rush from inflicting pain on others.”

Dash shuddered at the thought. Ruin sounded similar to Nightshade in that regard… but it was a little different. It sounded like Ruin simply liked to inflict pain and enjoyed it… Nightshade got off to watching others struggle and squirm, no matter how she had to make it happen.

“Ruin likes to break them from the start before even asking them anything,” Moon continued. “And since Wave has been here since last night… I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been tortured quite a bit already.”

“What?!” Fire perked up, the rest all reacting in a similar manner.

“That’s why we can’t dawdle,” Moon reminded them as they reached the second floor hallway. “We’re lucky he decided to take a break right as you all showed up.”

“That’s too convenient,” Fire stopped and held out a hoof to make the rest stop behind him. “Using our own emotions and worry for our comrade while leading us along is just the kind of thing I’d expect a sly enemy to do. You honestly expect us to believe you’re leading us to our objective when your friend just so happened to be occupied? And then you’re going to give Wave to us and let us on our merry way? How stupid do you think we are? HEY! I’M TALKING TO YOU!” Fire spat as Moon looked up at the ceiling. They all flinched as one of his crystals hovered over to his hoof and his eyes glowed, still pointing at the ceiling. An image of Ruin laughing appeared above the crystal.

“Yes! YEAH! Oooohohoho hit him harder!” the image of Ruin guffawed and pumped his hooves as if he was watching something he enjoyed. Moon’s eyes returned to normal and the crystal floated back over to him as he pointed towards the ceiling.

“Ruin is on the bridge, like I said he was. I just showed you where he is, and am fully aware of his movements. If he starts heading back down, I will know. Now if you really want to save your friend, I suggest you stop asking questions and follow me.”

Moon turned and started down the hallway as Fire blinked and looked back at the rest. Everypony was very confused… could they really trust Moon? Their options were already stretched thin… at this point it seemed like they had no choice.

Fire gave a nod and they all started up again, following behind Moon.

As they moved Dash subtly began shifting to Squall’s side. Squall noticed immediately and furrowed his brow.

“What are you doing?” he asked quietly.

“Just… keep walking please…” Dash said with her voice a little shaky.

“Why?” he lifted an eyebrow.

“Squall, shut up and do it… please…” she repeated, asking sharply but nicely. Squall huffed and did as he was told.

Dash appreciated that he did, because as they walked behind Moon, he led them right past Nightshade’s room. Dash didn’t want to think about it and she didn’t even want to see it, much less notice any indication that Nightshade might actually be in there. If Nightshade really were nearby, she was certain Moon wouldn’t be helping them like this, but all that mattered was the possibility.

Moon ended up taking them three doors past Nightshade’s room, stopping at another pair of double doors. There was a sign on it that read: ‘Ruin’s Special Room. Intruders will be killed. Survivors will be killed again.’

There was a crystal lock on the door, with a crystal chain linked between the door handles.

“Give me a second here…” Moon nodded to them as he stepped towards the door and his crystals floated off his back. They hovered close together in front of him while pointing their tips towards the lock. A small beam shot forth from each of them into the lock. Moon furrowed his brow, concentrating as he worked his magic against the strange security piece. Eventually, after moving the crystals and their beams around, there was a click and the crystal lock disintegrated along with the chain links. “There…” Moon nodded with satisfaction as he reached forward and pulled the door open.

Every Wonderbolt’s ears stood up when the first sound they heard… was a drawn out, painful, lame groan that was almost continuous. Fire nearly pushed passed Moon as they all entered and galloped in. They all came to an abrupt halt and gasped.

As Moon had said, Ruin was not there. The room was dark and empty… completely empty from the door to the sides and all the way to the back… save for one thing. The light from the hallway shined through the open door, reaching all the way to the very back of the room…

Where Wave Chill was chained to the wall… with six pink crystals hovering about a yard from him, all focusing a constant gentle discharge of pink energy that splashed against him.

Wave cringed and groaned in pain, his neck twisting and straining back and forth as he gritted his teeth. There were tear stains down his fur beneath his eyes, quiet, desperate wails escaping his throat as the pink energy touched him. His body was covered in what looked like painful burns that followed distinct paths over his body leading towards where each crystal was currently focusing.

The shock had them all frozen… all except for Moon and Misty Fly. Misty broke into a gallop towards Wave, a look of horror and desperation on her face as she rushed towards him.

Fire gasped as he saw Misty move, knowing that it would be reckless to approach so many crystals while their magic was activated. Her intent to save Wave was clear, but if something were to happen.

“STOP!” Moon yelled as he thrust out a hoof and his crystals rotated around it. Intense ribbons of pink magic shot from his hoof and struck Misty, catching her in his telekinesis and freezing her right before she could reach Wave. She struggled to break free, trying to reach her hooves out to Wave, but Moon held her firmly in place.

Whether or not he was aware Misty couldn’t hear him was irrelevant. He clearly understood something about the crystals they didn’t and prevented her from doing something rash. Regardless, Fire wasn’t too thrilled that Moon had a hold on Misty.

“Hey!” he yelled sharply. “Release her!” he demanded as he looked between her and Moon, everypony else completely focused on Wave, hesitating to approach.

“Let me deal with the crystals,” Moon replied, giving Fire a stern look. He released the energy, letting it linger around Misty, holding her in place as he trotted forward and focused his three crystals on the six surrounding Wave. Moon’s eyes began to glow as his crystals floated out and one by one, his three crystals removed those focused on Wave by surrounding it, cutting off its discharge, clamping to it, and guiding it over to the right-hoof wall.

All the Wonderbolts watched with painful patience as Moon continued the slow process, eventually removing all six crystals from around Wave one at a time.

Wave’s pained wails ceased, but his breathing remained heavy, he continued to groan, and his eyes remained shut tight. Moon released Misty the moment the crystals were cleared, and she immediately rushed forward. She didn’t even look at Moon as she, Fire, Surprise, and Lightning all approached Wave and began looking him over frantically, examining the chains that held him to the wall.

“Commander!” Fire called out as he propped his hooves up on the wall beside Wave. “Commander, it’s us!”

“Chiller! Bro!” Lightning propped up on the other side. “Come on dude, look at us!”

“Uhhhhhhhh…”Wave moaned as his eyes slowly forced apart.

“Wave!” Surprise called out sadly as she and Misty hovered in front of him with looks of intense worry on their faces. “Say something! Please!”

“G… guys?” Wave sputtered his voice hoarse and weak. “S…Surprise? Misty?” his pupils moved slowly as his eyelids struggled to stay open. They moved left and right. “Fire…? Lightning…?”

“Hang tough bro! We’re getting’ ya out of here!” Lightning patted him on the shoulder lightly.

“AHHHHHH!!!!! Ahhhhhhh…” Wave cringed and cried out as Lightning frantically pulled his hoof away.

“Aw hell…” Lightning grimaced as Wave shivered in pain.

“Painful to the touch…” Fire pondered out loud as he looked Wave over. He shifted and nodded. “Brother… let’s get him out of these chains. Be as gentle as possible,” he ordered, earning a nod from Lightning. “Commander,” Fire spoke calmly to Wave. “We are going to get you down… we’ll try to make it as painless as we can.”

“Don’t… bother worrying…” Wave barely managed to say as he continued to shake. “My whole body… is on fire… everything hurts… and everything will hurt,” he struggled to speak a full sentence.

“Then...” Fire’s ears flopped down and he sighed. “Forgive us… this will be painful.”

“I don’t… care…” Wave said, his voice cracking. “Just help me… make it end…” It was absolutely disheartening to the rest to hear the brave second commander of the Wonderbolt squad two sound so broken. “I want… to go home…” he continued, new tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “I want… to see Spitfire… I… AH…!” he choked as his body cringed.

“Stop talking!” Surprise ordered him as she floated close, but avoided touching him. “We all came this far to bring you back, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do!” she stated adamantly with Misty Fly hovering beside her eyes filled with determination.

“Let’s get to work on these chains,” Fire ordered Lightning. “Stay strong commander…”

As squad three gingerly worked on freeing Wave, the rest of the Wonderbolts sat behind, allowing the top tier elite squad to do their work. Rainbow Dash was just as concerned about Wave as they were, but she was still trying to wrap her head around something.

She glanced towards Moon, who was sitting patiently and simply letting them rescue Wave. His eyes were glowing and remained fixed on an angle towards the ceiling, just as he had when he ‘showed’ them Ruin. Was he keeping a lookout for his fellow Shadowbolt? That had to be the case. This didn’t make any sense at all.

“I don’t get it,” Shine Struck spoke up as she shifted over and sat down next to Dash. “Why is he just letting us take their prisoner? It seems too good to be true.”

“Don’t look at me,” Dash shook her head. “I’m trying to figure it out too…” she paused as they watched Moon’s eyes move back and forth, looking at the ceiling. “It seems too easy, but he’s been convincing so far. I’m stuck right where you are, why would he help us?”

“We could always just ask,” Playbitz’s voice came from right behind them, causing them to both blink and look behind at him. “I mean…” he paused as a cry of pain came from the direction of Wave. They all looked over and cringed as they watched the Streak twins lower Wave from the wall to the floor as softly as they could. “Yikes…” Playbitz shuddered. “Anyway… it looks like we’re gonna give Wave a few moments, we might as well ask Moon why he’s helping us. What’ll it hurt?”

Shine and Dash both blinked at Playbitz before looking at each other.

“I guess,” Shine shrugged. “Which of us will…” she trailed off as she glanced back over at Moon. “Oh.”

“Huh?” Dash also looked over to see Squall up and moving towards Moon. “Looks like somepony else is just as curious,” she commented as she rose and followed behind with Shine, Playbitz, Swift, and Twister bringing up the rear.

Moon continued to look towards the ceiling, his nose scrunching every few moments up until Squall stopped right in front of him, looking at Moon with narrow, skeptical eyes. Moon noticed Squall standing before him, the light fading from his eyes as he looked towards Squall and lifted an eyebrow.

“You want something?” he asked in a blunt tone, noticing Dash and the others also moving up behind Squall.

“Why?” Squall asked while scowling.

“Hm…?” Moon refocused on Squall.

“Why are you helping us? It doesn’t make sense and I hate being confused,” he demanded. Moon scoffed.

“Well, that’s too bad,” he said before looking back up at the ceiling, but before his eyes could glow again, Squall reached forward and grabbed the chest of his suit and yanked on it.

“Tell me!” Squall growled as he tugged on the stretchy fabric of Moon’s suit. Moon looked back down and glared.

“If you don’t want me to blow your arm off… you will let go of me RIGHT now…” Moon threatened with a snarl.

“Hey, hey… enough…” Dash stepped up and put her hoof on Squall’s extended arm. “Squall... let go,” she ordered sternly. Squall grunted and pulled his hoof free, snorting as he kept his eyes locked on Moon. Dash looked him over before turning her head to Moon. “I’m afraid I must agree with my wingmate here, though…” she turned square to Moon. “We’re all a little confused.”

“And that’s just wonderful,” Moon retorted again. “I’m helping you free a friend of yours, I’m not here to explain myself,” he huffed, quickly reactivating his magic and looking up.

“Please?” Dash added on a whim. Moon looked back down, the magic fading. He looked back and forth at all of them and then looked over them to see squad three working with Wave. Moon sighed, looking down and grumbling to himself for a moment.

“It really doesn’t matter,” he spoke up. “I’m only doing what I feel is right. Can’t you just accept that and leave it be?”

“No. Ow!” Squall flinched as Dash jabbed him in the shoulder. She looked towards Moon and examined his posture. He had been sitting upright, but just now he slumped, his ears looked like they were about to flop to the side of his head.

“Alright,” Dash nodded. Moon quickly looked up, a surprised expression on his face. “If you’re reasons are personal, then I won’t pry, but…” Dash smiled at him. “Thank you for helping us,” she finished with a nod.

Moon kept his eyes locked on Dash as she turned and started corralling the rest to leave it be, making hoof motions for them to turn and leave. Moon watched for a moment as they all started turning away, then hung his head and sighed heavily. Dash heard him sigh and she glanced over her shoulder at him. She was obviously still curious… but Moon clearly didn’t want to share. Whatever his motivations were didn’t matter at this point. He was helping them save Wave. That’s all that mattered right now.

“Hm?!” Moon suddenly looked up sharply, his eyes glowing again. He looked back and forth quickly, his frantic movements causing the rest to turn back and look at him again. His sudden change in demeanor also caught the attention of squad three, who had finally managed to get Wave up and supported by the Streak twins. “Ruin is moving!” Moon exclaimed before looking down at them all. “You have to leave, NOW!”

All eyes moving to Fire Streak as he helped support Wave.

“We have who we came for, can you show us the way out?!” Fire asked Moon frantically, realizing the weight of the situation. Moon shook his head.

“I can’t,” he stated simply.

“Well gee, thanks bro! Let us in but now we’re on our own?” Lightning growled at Moon, who ignored Lightning’s tone as he focused on Fire.

“I have to cover my own tracks, in fact I’m going to sound the alarm and report we’ve been infiltrated,” he explained.

“Say what?!” Surprise reacted, getting in Moon’s face as Dash and the rest backed off to let squad three handle the moment.

“I’m only doing what I must to avoid suspicion!” Moon growled. “Look, take the stairs back down, take the third hallway on the right, and then take the first stairwell down on the left. That leads to one of our Falcon hangers! The place will be all but empty with nearly every Shadowbolt already outside. There will be a lever right by the door that opens the hangar bay. It’s the quickest way out from here! I’m giving you all a half-minute head start, so GO!” he yelled pointing at the door.

None of them protested. Moon made it clear what they had to do, and that time was of the essence. They had to move to avoid Ruin and get moving before whoever was left in the fortress was notified of intruders. They had to MOVE.

“GO! GO! GO!” Fire yelled as he and Lightning moved as fast as they could with Wave on their shoulders. He was groaning in pain, but they didn’t have time to move him carefully. They made their way out of the room with the rest following right behind. Dash paused for a brief second in the doorway and glanced back at Moon. He shot her a stern glare as she did.

Without any further acknowledgement, Dash pushed her curiosity to the back of her mind as she turned and chased after the group.

“Uuuhhhh… hhhrrrrrgggg…” Soarin groaned as pain shot through his body. His eyelids squeezed together as he felt his nerves shudder and his head throb with one of the worst headaches he had felt in a long time. He pressed his hooves down, digging them into the stone floor below him as he forced his eyes to open.

He was in the tunnel at the end of the collapsing cave, rays of light beaming through the exit on the other side. He lifted his head up slowly, every inch his neck moved made his head feel like it was being tightened further and further into a vice, but he had to know what the situation was.

He looked back slowly to see that he was lying on a pile of rocks, but by the amount of bruises on his back and wings and how much it all hurt, he concluded that he probably took several large pieces of cave to the back as they tried to dive through. His wing muscles felt so swollen that he couldn’t even move them without sharp pain. Whatever had hit him, it had knocked him out, but at least he avoided being buried.

Then he realized there was somepony he should probably be looking for.

“R…Rapidfire?” he said weakly, looking around as his head continued to ache horribly. “Rapidfire?” he repeated, but nopony replied and Rapidfire was nowhere to be found. Soarin looked up towards the exit of the tunnel twenty yards ahead of him. He knew he pushed Rapidfire forward, getting him into the tunnel before the cave came down. So it looked like whatever happened, Rapidfire was up before him… and had taken the chance to get away.

“Dammit…” Soarin cursed as he slowly pushed himself up on his hooves. Rapidfire had gotten away, but that didn’t matter. All Soarin wanted to do was find his way home and reunite with Dash and the Wonderbolts.

Now the only problem was… he could barely walk. His head was killing him, his magic sputtering from the cracks in the horn, and on top of it his body felt like it had been pounded into submission as if the cave actually had fallen on him. All of the pain put together was overwhelming… so much so that he felt like he was going to pass out if it got any worse.

“Hrrrgghhh… come on…” Soarin groaned as he forced his hooves along, dragging himself towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

He slowly… slowly made his was all the way to the exit, and stopped when he reached the edge. He narrowed his eyes and managed to reach a hoof up in front of his face to shield his eyes from the light as he leaned against the edge of the tunnel.

A cold blast of wind hit his face as he removed his hoof and his eyes adjusted.

He did it… he made it out alive… now he just…

Now he…

Just…

Soarin groaned as he took two steps out onto the snow covered mountainside. His horn began to flash and blink, yellow light rising from one eye and blue light rising from the other as magical energy began seeping through the cracks on the horn’s surface.

“I…” Soarin’s head bobbed back and forth, the headache growing worse by the second. “I…” he fell forward, his face hitting the snow as he slid a few inches down the snowy slope and came to a halt as the terrain evened out just a few yards below. “I can’t…” Soarin said as he looked up, bits and flakes of snow stuck to his fur around his nose and eyes.

“Rainbow… Dash…” his voice squeaked as his chin hit the ground and his eyes slowly closed. His vision turned green, matching the mixed yellow and blue as the pain overwhelmed him and he passed out.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art by: Foxenawolf

Oh? Looks like Rapidfire dug Soarin out... not that he would want Soarin to know that. Looks like he's not completely devoid of honor, feeling obligated to help Soarin after he did so much to help him... but i wonder what will happen to him now... :moustache:

So i wonder...

Moon as seemed different up to this point, generally showing no enjoyment in their battles and even looking reluctant to hold Spitfire during the confrontation before... and now... he helped them free Wave Chill. I wonder what Moon's story is? :moustache:

Either way, they better hope they get out before Ruin finds them... that certainly won't go well.

On another note... Piercing the Heavens has just reached 500 likes! :pinkiegasp:

Thank you all who have supported me thus far! The story goes on and your support helps every step of the way :rainbowdetermined2:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!:eeyup:

Note to self: Don't mess with Fire Streak or Misty Fly will punch you... HARD :rainbowwild:

Chapter 117: Escape Escapade

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 117: Escape Escapade

“KEEP MOVING!” Fire Streak yelled out as they made it back to the first floor and galloped down the hall. “Even if you see any Shadowbolts, DON’T STOP!”

With Fire and Lightning Streak at point carrying Wave Chill, the group thundered their way down the corridor, past where they turned before, following Moon’s instructions towards what he said would be some sort of hanger bay. He had mentioned it was a ‘Falcon’ hanger. That was something Dash had picked up on. She recalled when they escaped the Shadowbolts from Canterlot, how she heard of flying machines chasing after them. That had to be the Falcons Moon was talking about. It was too bad they were rushing to escape before Moon’s delayed alarm, she would like to get a better look at the Falcons and—

Dash’s eyes widened as her heart suddenly throbbed with a sudden jolt.

“AHHHH!!!!” She yelped as her stride buckled, the front of her hooves scraping against the floor before she fell face first and tumbled to a halt. The rest of the group skidded to a stop as Dash fell, staring towards her with worried eyes. “AGH! AH! S-SOARIN!” Dash cringed and twitched in pain as her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest.

Without hesitating for a moment, Fire quickly pointed towards her.

“PICK HER UP! LET’S GO!” he ordered sharply before turning and continuing, nearly yanking Wave from Lightning’s grip as they continued.

“I’ll carry her!” Playbitz decided as he stepped up and crouched down to grab her arm. Shine Struck and Squall quickly moved to the other side of Dash to help pushed her up onto Playbitz’s back. The moment she was up, they charged after squad three, catching up behind as they turned down the third hallway on the right, as Moon had directed.

“There!” Fire yelled, his eyes locking on a stairwell on the left that sat at the end of the new hallway. “Go! Go!” he yelled as they forged ahead. There were three hallways between them and the stairs. All they had to do was keep moving and they would be well on their way.

Dash’s breaths were quick and painful. She was gasping and panting, feeling light-headed as she bounced up and down on Playbitz back. Something was wrong with Soarin. At first she wasn’t sure, but now… this was one of the worst reactions she had had.

“Almost there! Hang in there!” Playbitz called back to Dash as he and the rest followed behind squad three. They had passed two of the hallways, just on more and it was a straight shot to the stairs…

But then Fire and Lightning both came to abrupt halt, Misty and Surprise nearly running directly into them from behind. Zero and Foxtrot put on the breaks, all skidding to a stop.

“Now that was a good show!” a deranged voice came from the hallway.

Ruin stepped around the corner while looking up at the ceiling, his smile so wide it almost devoured his chin.

“Ahhhhhh, there’s nothing QUITE like the sound of a helpless voice screaming out in pain while being beaten to a bloody pul—” Ruin looked down. He stopped mid-step and stared directly at the group. His smile faded to a completely blank expression as he glanced back and forth, his face scrunching while lifting an eyebrow when he saw Wave Chill supported by the Streak twins.

Everypony flinched as alarm claxons suddenly blared out from every direction from speakers in the corners of the ceiling.

“INTRUDER ALERT!” Moon’s voice blared over the speakers. “ANY AND ALL SHADOWBOLTS IN THE FORTRESS BE ADVISED, WE HAVE BEEN INFILTRATED AND A PRISONER HAS BEEN SEIZED! IF YOU SEE ANY SUSPICIOUS PONIES, DETAIN THEM IMMEDIATELY!”

Ruin casually looked up at the ceiling as he listened to the broadcast before blinking and looking back down. He snickered as a sneer appeared on his face.

“Well, well, welly, welly, wellington… aren’t I the lucky pony to be in the right place at the right time! Way ahead of ya Moony-Moon! Oh ho ho ho!!!!” he cackled as his crystals sprang up and rotated around him.

Fire made two very harsh motions with his free hoof. He and Lightning shifted backwards as Surprise and Misty Fly sprang over the top of them and dove towards Ruin, hooves pulled back and ready to strike.

“OH, WHAT FUN!” Ruin took a step back, his crystals shining brightly as two clones shot out at Surprise and Misty. The two reacted quickly, striking the clones right in the sweet spot on the forehead. They braced themselves flying forward through the following clone explosions before refocusing on Ruin, but they both gasped. “CATCH!” Ruin bounced his eyebrows as more small magic spheres than they could count were hovering around him.

Misty pulled up and shielded herself as the barrage flung at them, but Surprise twisted and pitched down, sliding on her hooves on the ground beneath the spheres.

“LOOK OUT!” Fire yelled as he and Lightning both dropped Wave and stepped in front of him. They tried to deflect the incoming spheres, but they were quickly overwhelmed and forced to just shield themselves. Playbitz dropped down with Swift, Squall, and Twister behind him as Shine hovered in front of them and knocked away any that got past the Streak twins.

“NO GO, PAL!” Surprise called out as she hopped up right in front of Ruin. His smile grew wider as she thrust her hoof towards him, his eyes glowing behind his goggles.

“HA!” Ruin guffawed as he fired magic beams from his eyes.

“Whoops!” Surprise thrust her wings down, catapulting herself in a quick arc over Ruin and back flipping. “I got—!” Surprise blinked as she landed, Ruin was no longer in front of her.

“Sorry babe,” Ruin’s voice came from behind her. “But ain’t nopony got me!”

Surprise turned, but the moment she faced him, Ruin grabbed her by the neck and hoisted her up.

“GAH!” she grunted as he began to spin around.

“And a-one!” Ruin spun once. “And a-two!” he spun again as Misty got up and launched towards him to help Surprise. “And a—” he suddenly teleported the moment before Misty reached him, placing him five yards further back than he was. “THREE!” he launched Surprise at Misty, the two colliding and tumbling to the ground. “Have another round on me!” he gleefully exclaimed as his crystals spun around him violently, glowing intensely as an endless barrage of spheres fired from them and danced about in random patterns. Fire stepped forward, placing himself in front of Misty and Surprise as Lightning shielded Wave.

“AHHHH!!!”

“GAAAHHH!!”

The twins cried out as they took the hits, forcing them both down to the floor as they continued to get peppered. Behind them, Shine was unable to counter the spheres as they kept coming and coming, Ruin’s rate of fire nearly doubling as he pressured them.

“HOOPLA! HOOPLA! AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Ruin fell over on his back laughing as his crystals pounded and pounded the Wonderbolts, none of them even getting a moment to stand up or fight back.

Dash covered her head with her hooves. Her heart had calmed down a little, but now they were being completely and utterly beaten by… a single Shadowbolt? Then again she remembered this one… Ruin. Ruin was the one who took out Fleetfoot by himself. Frankly, he beat the hell out of her, so much so that Fleetfoot was shaking with fear once they pulled her away.

Now here he was keeping them all at bay… ten of them, with little effort. His power was terrifying!

Eventually Ruin let up, the barrage ceasing. His crystal floated back over to him, pink steam rising from the tops. He bunched them together and casually blew on them, the smoke dissipating.

“Hmph… well then,” he shrugged. “You know, I admit. Very clever, very impressive. I mean…” he started walking towards them as the Wonderbolts all struggled on the floor, groaning and cringing in pain as they tried to regain themselves. “I wanted SOOOOOOOO badly to join that mess you’ve made outside, but I was busy with this tough stallion,” he stopped in front of Wave and leaned down. Wave’s eyes opened and instantly filled with fear. Wave started trying desperately to inch away. “Priorities, priorities…” Ruin continued as he kept shifting, not allowing Wave to put any space between them. He stood back up and shrugged again. “Eh, I think I made the right choice, honestly. I bet all I missed were some fancy fireworks and Blade making an ass of himself… again.” He glanced around at the Wonderbolts still struggling. “Now then, let’s see who else has landed riiiiiiiiiiiight in Uncle Ruin’s lap…”

The Wonderbolts all yelped as a sudden shockwave fired forth from Ruin’s crystals, pushing them all along the floor before lifting them up and pressing them against the wall. Wave cried out in pain as the rest grunted and gasped, struggling, but unable to move under the pressure of the magic. As their bodies were held against the wall, their colors began to fade.

Slowly, their color swaps all disappeared. When their colors had fully returned to normal, the magic ceased and they all fell to the floor. That wasn’t all… the wave of magic had done something. None of them could find the strength to stand. Small blips of pink magic swirled around them, their nerves stinging every time they tried to force themselves to their hooves.

“Oh?” Ruin pulled his goggles off. “OH HOOOOO! Do I spy… with my leeeeeettle itty bitty eyes…” he slid up to Fire Streak, looking between him, Lightning, Surprise, and Misty Fly. “Top Elite Squad Three?!” he stood up on his hind legs and placed one hoof on his chest and the other on his head as if he was about to faint. “My, my, my… I simply CAN’T believe it! AHHHHHAHAHA!” he fell backwards, but stopped before touching the ground, a pink glow surrounding him before he tipped back up and fell back down to his hooves. “Hmmm…” he looked around at the rest. “A few no name straggler tagalongs as well, huh?” he commented as he looked at Foxtrot and Zero.

Dash tried to turn over as Squall growled beside her. The two were trying to get to their hooves, but their bodies burned with pain upon every attempt. Their bodies weren’t cooperating. Whatever Ruin’s magic burst had done… it had effectively incapacitated them all… how was that possible?

“Hmmmmmmm…?” Ruin suddenly hummed.

Dash’s eyes widened when she saw Ruin staring directly at her. His icy stare gave her chills as he turned square to her and started slowly tip-hoofing towards her.

“Oh…?” his eyes grew wider as he slowly approached her. “Oh? Oh? OH?! OH?!” he threw his goggles to the floor and stood directly before her.

Dash yelped, flinching as Ruin reached down and yanked her goggles off, the strap snapping as he flung them away. She shut her eyes as he reached down again, grabbing the mask of her Shadowbolt uniform and ripping it right off of her face. Dash dared not open her eyes as she felt Ruin’s hoof grab her by the chin and force her head up.

“You, open your eyes!” he demanded, but Dash kept them shut. “OPEN THEM NOW!!!!!” Ruin yelled, his voice suddenly deepening into a tone that was one step short of demonic.

Dash gritted her teeth and slowly opened her eyes, her thoughts racing as she stared up into the glare of Ruin. When their eyes locked, Ruin’s face slowly turned into a very, very creepy smile.

“Well I’ll be…” his smile kept growing wider and wider. “Hearth’s Warming came early! Not only did you idiots drop me four of your best…”

Dash felt all of the air leave her lungs, her heart beating faster as Ruin inched his face closer to her. Ruin slowly closed his eyes… and when he opened them back up, the whites of his eyes had turned black and his pupils were small, white dots.

“THEY ALSO GAVE ME THE ONE CONNECTED TO SOARIN…” his voice had a ghostly echo in the back of it that made Dash go pale.

She wanted to gasp, but she couldn’t even manage that. Forget Nightshade… she was creepy, but this? What was this?!

A low hiss escaped the back of Ruin’s throat as his he ran his tongue over the lower row of his unnerving smile. The only noise Dash could muster was a high pitched, frail squeak.

But suddenly… Ruin blinked, his eyes returning to normal as his ears turned back and forth.

“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” a noise was coming from nearby.

“What in the hell is that…” Ruin trailed off as he slowly looked to his left. His eyes snapped open and his jaw dropped as he released Dash, her head falling back down to her hooves. She landed facing the direction that Ruin had turned to… and saw what had caught his attention.

The noise was coming from Twister, who was lying on his side, facing the wall beside them. Unlike the rest of them, there was no sign of Ruin’s strange magic affecting him. Twister slowly began to turn over as he continued to make the noise.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” he paused when he rolled onto his back, sharply inhaling for five seconds before starting again. “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” he kept going until he had completely rolled over, facing Dash and Ruin. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey there!” He pulled his goggles off and bounced his eyebrows at Ruin. “FRIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNND!”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Ruin launched from his spot, hitting his head against the ceiling before crashing back to the floor. He quickly rolled back onto his hooves and glared fiercely at Twister. “GAH! NO! NOT YOU!!!!!”

Twister sprang up with a loud SPROING and shifted right up, stopping an inch from Ruin’s face.

“YES ME!” he shouted cheerfully as his pupils rolled in circles around his eyes.

Without wasting a moment, Ruin activated his crystals, creating several of his small magic spheres that he fired at Twister, point blank. They all slammed into Twister, the ensuing explosions knocking Ruin backwards. He slid to a stop and shook his head out.

“Hey, guess what?” Twister’s voice came from behind Ruin.

“NO.” Ruin appeared behind Twister and grabbed him by the top of the head. “I’m NOT playing your game this time!” he yelled as he thrust Twister’s head to the floor as hard as he could. Twister’s head hit the floor, but bounced as if it were made of rubber. “Gah!” Ruin yelped as his arm was yanked up and backwards, eventually letting go as Twister landed on his back.

“RIDE ‘EM COWBOY!” Twister hooted as he reached back and spanked Ruin’s plot several times. Ruin disappeared in a flash of pink light, Twister falling face first while uttering a whoopee cushion cheer. Ruin reappeared several yards away with multiple spheres at the ready. He launched them all towards Twister, scoring direct hits with all of them.

“I think you got him!” Twister said from beside Ruin, giving him a pat on the back. Ruin turned and threw a punch directly into Twister’s face, but upon hitting it, a loud metallic CLANG rang out through the halls. Ruin pulled his hoof back in pain.

“YYYEEEEEEOOOOWWWW!!!” he cried out as he shook his hoof out and blew on it.

Twister reached up and pulled off a metallic mask of his own face.

“THE OLD MY FACE NOT REALLY MY FACE TRICK!” he pounded his other hoof against his chest. “WORKS EVERY TIME!” He bounced back and forth as the mask liquefied and spilled out of his hooves. Ruin growled and turned towards Twister, but he was gone.

An instant later, Twister popped up right in front of Ruin’s face. Before Ruin could react, Twister clamped his hooves over Ruin’s mouth.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Twister hushed him before leaning towards Ruin’s ears. “So…” he whispered. “I entered ten puns into a contest to see which one would win…”

Twister pulled back and stared at Ruin with an incredibly blank expression on his face. He paused for at least twenty seconds while slowly lowering to the floor and disappearing. Before Ruin could do anything, Twister suddenly zipped in from the left with his eyes wide and a silly look on his face.

“NO PUN IN TEN DID!” Twister headbutted Ruin, sending him tumbling to the floor.

“RRRRGGHHH!!!!” Ruin growled and looked up from the floor, only to see a plate of cookies being held down to him by Twister.

“Snickerdoodle?” Twister asked with a cookie over each eye, a hole cut in both of them so he could see through.

Without a word, Ruin teleported again, appearing back by the Wonderbolts. As Twister turned and faced him, Ruin reached down and grabbed Squall by the neck.

“GGRRHHH!!” Squall grunted in pain as Ruin forced him into the air and hovered one of his crystals right beside him.

“JUST KEEP TRYING THIS SHIT WITH ME YOU LUNATIC!!!!” Ruin roared towards Twister, sounding like a desperate, cornered, rabid animal as he tightened his grip around Squall’s neck and the crystal began to glow. “KEEP IT UP AND I’LL KILL HIM!” his eyes turned black again. “I MEAN IT! I’LL SNUFF HIM OUT RIGHT HERE!” his voice gained the freakish echo again.

But then Ruin blinked, his eyes returning to normal as he stared towards Twister. Twister had not made any moves towards him. Instead Twister was holding two coffee pots. One pot was labeled ‘regular’ and the other ‘decaf.’ Twister scrunched his face and put on a ridiculously hard, angry expression as he began tipping the ‘regular’ pot towards the ‘decaf’ pot.

“I’LL DO IT!” Twister yelled in a low gruff voice as he tipped the pots closer. “I SWEAR I’LL DO IT! DON’T TEST ME! NOPONY WANTS THIS, BUT YOU’RE PUSHING ME!”

Ruin’s face turned into a flat glare. Twister eventually tipped the ‘regular’ pot over, the contents slowly spilling out into the other.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!” Twister cried out in agony, slowly lowering to the ground as he continued to pour the regular coffee into the decaf. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?! YOU MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS HURTS ME MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I literally have no words…” Ruin slowly shook his head, his hoof still clamped around Squall’s neck. He blinked… and Twister was suddenly right next to him, holding a cup of coffee while wrapped in a large blanket.

“Mmmm…” Twister hummed as he smelled the coffee. “A petite, gentle mix of uncontrollable jitters and falling asleep at the office…” he thrust his hoof forward and splashed the hot coffee right into Ruin’s face.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” Ruin cried out as he dropped Squall and threw his hooves to his face.

“LESS-SPRESS-OHHHH!!!” Twister yelled out as he swung and broke the coffee mug over Ruin’s head, knocking him flat to the floor right beside Dash. Ruin twitched and writhed on the floor as the scalding liquid dripped from his face, but when he removed his hooves from his eyes, he saw Twister laying on the floor right beside him. “Sir, I think you need to slow down… there’s enough caffeine in here to drop a pack of timberwolves and one clown!”

“Grrrphrgphrphgphr!” Ruin released a series of strange grunting and growling noises as he shimmied his body away and got to his hooves, his face stained by the coffee. “I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE YOU!” he yelled while stomping his hooves. “Where the hell did the Wonderbolts find you!? Did they pull you out of rainbow factory pipe or something?!”

Twister only smiled cheekily in response, lying on his stomach as he twiddled his back hooves and sleeping a yo-yo… upwards. Ruin coughed and bobbed his head shaking his mane out and whipping his face some more as he continued to rant.

“I’ve seen drunken ponies that are more coherent than you! Do you even get oxygen to your brain?!” Ruin sounded like he was losing his mind. His eyes were twitching and his pupils darting about, as he kept talking and asking strange questions. “What’s your blood alcohol content? Pure hard cider?”

“Yak Daniel’s, actually,” Twister corrected as the yo-yo broke from the string, fired forward and ricocheted right off of Ruin’s forehead.

“THAT’S IT!” Ruin yelled at the top of his lungs as a trickle of blood ran down his face. “YOU DIE! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” A large pink aura erupted around him and his crystals shined so brightly that it was hard to look directly at them. “I’LL KILL YOU! KILL KILL KILL YOU YOU YOU!!!!!!”

The Wonderbolts all braced themselves as Ruin’s magic released an intense wave of energy that rushed against them. Just the power buildup alone caused powerful shocks.

Twister rolled over and faced Dash. He reached a mug of cider towards her.

“Yo, Bae… Hold my cider, I got this,” he winked at her before somehow launching from his position and right up to Ruin. Ruin’s eyes widened, his magic aura growing even larger as Twister appeared in front of him.

“SON OF A—” Ruin tried to push back, but Twister was already upon him… wearing a shirt with a mustard bottle on it. He held out a shirt with a ketchup bottle on it towards Ruin.

“WEAR THIS AND LIE ON A BUN WITH ME! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEASE?!”

The two clashed. Twister pulled Ruin down to the ground. The two began rolling away down the hallway Ruin came from, Ruin swearing up a storm as his crystals followed after the tumbling pair.

Squall blinked as the small pulses of magic around him faded. He felt his strength return and he pushed himself up.

“Everypony! Come on!” he yelled as he reached down and started helping Dash up. Fire Streak finally let go of Misty and looked up, realizing he could move again. He caught a glimpse of Twister and Ruin tumbling away before he also forced himself up.

“Up! Up! Let’s go!” he called back as everypony else found their strength.

Dash stood up, her eyes widened in horror. Squad Three was up and moving again with Lightning and Fire carrying Wave. The others were about to follow behind…

But what about…

“TWISTER!!!” Dash cried out. Twister had rolled away with Ruin! She tried moving towards the hallway, but Squall caught her by the arm. “LET GO! WE HAVE TO HELP TWISTER!” Dash demanded. Squall shook his head.

“Dash! Come on!” he tried to persuade her as squad three stopped and turned to look at her. Fire was about to yell at her, but he perked up, looking over the top to see several Shadowbolts turning the corner from the other side of the hallway and heading right for them.

“Incoming!” Fire yelled. “We have to move!”

“NO!” Dash tried to rip free from Squall. “I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT TWISTER!” she screamed at all of them. Squall growled, looking towards Playbitz, Shine, and Swift.

“Dammit! Guys! Help me here!” he yelled at the three. Without a single protest, Squad Zero stepped over and all grabbed onto Dash, pulling her along as they moved up behind Squad Three.

“TWISTER! TWISTEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!” Dash called out desperately, but as they neared the stairs, she looked back and saw the Shadowbolts closing in. She gritted her teeth and forced herself free from those dragging her along, taking control of herself as they caught up to squad three.

There was nothing they could do. Twister was giving them a chance to escape… they had to take it. No matter how hard it was to do. Ruin had trapped them, his magic keeping them from moving. Had Twister not intervened, the Shadowbolts would have had ten new prisoners.

The group thundered down the winding stairs, hoping their escape route would be clear when they reached the bottom. Moon said the stairs would take them to a hangar…

But when they go to the bottom, they found themselves in another hallway that reached both left and right.

“Oh, for the love of…” Fire Streak growled as everypony frantically looked left and right. “He said this would be a hangar!”

“Did we take a wrong turn?!” Surprise asked as she frantically looked to Fire.

“GUYS!” Swift yelled behind them as he looked back up the stairwell. “We gotta move! They’re right behind us!” he reminded them as the Shadowbolts in pursuit galloped down the stairs after them.

“Oh!” Fire quickly shifted, placing all of the weight from Wave on his left Shoulder as he reached up and flipped the switch on his goggles, but the X-ray effect didn’t activate. “Blasted, technology!” he growled as he smacked the side of the goggles so hard in frustration that he almost hit himself right in the face. His frustration proved to help, the hit caused the goggle lenses to buzz, followed by the X-ray tech blipping on. “Oh, well then,” Fire quickly looked back and forth, his eyes stopping on the second hallway to the right. Every other door seemed to lead into some sort of viewing room or control room, but the second hallway on the right was a straight flight of stairs that ended in a VERY large room… that had a lot of large, oddly shaped objects in it. “There!” he yelled, flipping the X-ray function off before he and the rest of the group made their way to the right.

Surprise glided ahead and peered into the door, quickly turning and beckoning them all.

“Yep! This is it all right!” she confirmed before diving through the door.

Dash and Squall kept pace, bringing up the rear as they neared the door. She glanced back, as she had several times already. Part of her kept telling herself that she might have a chance to turn around and help Twister, but her common sense knew better. There were several Shadowbolts in pursuit of them now, more than there had been initially as new groups appeared from the hallways behind those who had just come down the stairs. There were at least fifteen following them now. Apparently they had greater numbers than they anticipated, but it made sense. They had faced a large number in force in the past… but there was no doubt it took a good number of them to keep the Fortress running.

Dash glanced at Squall briefly, who had simply faced forward the whole time.

She was angry with him… She wasn’t focused on him at the moment, but it was lingering. She knew there was no way that they could have assisted Twister, but Squall didn’t even try, much less suggest they do. He was the first to call for their advance without him. She knew Squall wasn’t the biggest fan of Twister, but she liked to think he at least respected him as a squadmate…

Dash didn’t have time to dwell on it. Squall’s reasons were his own. She’d ask him later. She kept her mind on task as they brought up the rear, turning into doorway and gliding down the stairs.

“Whoa!” Dash exclaimed as she touched down at the bottom of the stairs, both she and Squall taking a moment to gawk at the sight before them.

The enormous room they had emerged in could indeed be described as a ‘hangar’. It was very large, not quite as large as the engine room they discovered beneath the Wonderbolt compound, but its spaciousness reminded her of it. Instead of a dip into machinery though, it was a flat floor that was at least fifty yards in length to the other side and just as wide. They could see the massive hangar door on the other side, but they had to look past several impressive looking contraptions.

Each one of them was dark grey and triangular in shape with extended wings off the back tips. Each of them had three large crystals fixed on the back of them all side by side and two small, but powerful looking propellers extending upward from the base of the wing extensions. They looked to be about twenty yards wide, sitting two by two in the hangar with eight of them total reaching towards the hangar doors. They looked large enough to hold at least seven or eight ponies, but through the large cockpit window on top there appeared to be four stations.

These had to be the Falcons!

They fit the exact descriptions Dash had heard of what attacked them during the escape from Canterlot. But neither she, nor any of them had time to dawdle. They had to get the door open and take flight. If they could make it outside and into the swarm outside, they were basically home free. At that point it would just be about losing the Shadowbolts in the blizzard. Hopefully the Renegades would be able to effectively cover their escape.

“He said the controls were somewhere around the door!” Fire reminded them as they made it halfway across the hangar. “Spread out and find them, quickly!” he ordered. Surprise shot up and pumped her wings, Misty following right behind as soon as Fire made a few wing signals towards her. The two mares scanned the large hangar door from wall to wall as Fire and Lightning set Wave down in front of it. Shine, Swift, Playbitz, Squall, and Dash all slid to a halt behind them, turning around to see the Shadowbolts emerging into the hangar. They were outnumbered two to one, with more Shadowbolts likely on the way. Wherever they had all been during the initial infiltration, Moon’s alarm certainly sprung them all into action. Running into Ruin had severely complicated their escape plans.

“We’ve got company!” Squall yelled to Fire Streak as he and Dash turned to face the quickly approaching Shadowbolts. “Hurry up back there will ya?!” he added.

“You wanna come up here and find it?!” Surprise yelled down as she shot by, she and Misty both frantically looking for the controls mentioned by Moon.

“Bro, he said by the door right?!” Lightning asked as he and Fire remained beside Wave.

“Yes!” Fire quickly replied as he scanned around the door, Misty and Surprise still frantically zipping around. “That’s exactly what he—” Fire’s eyes widened as he turned and looked back towards the incoming Shadowbolts. He specifically looked past them. Back by the door they came through at the bottom of the stairs, looked like a large control station. “Oh for the love of…” Fire gritted his teeth. “He should have been more specific!” Fire yelled out as he struggled to formulate a plan… which he had roughly three seconds to do before the Shadowbolts reached them.

Luckily for him, however. Dash had been putting thought towards one already, the last piece of which came together when Fire located the control panel.

“Squall! Shine! Swift! Playbitz!” she called to them. “I need a distraction!” she asked. Shine, catching on, didn’t hesitate.

“Squad Zero!” she yelled out. “Lurking Shadow Maneuver!” she ordered. Swift and Playbitz’s ears both stood up.

Playbitz spread his large wings and forced them down, propelling himself way up towards the ceiling with a single flap. Swift ducked low and zipped beneath the nearby Falcons, using their shadows to conceal his quick movements. Shine flew directly at the Shadowbolts, the whole incoming crowd focusing on her, taking their eyes off of Swift and Playbitz.

“COME AT ME!” she yelled in a threatening manner.

Squall didn’t know what this ‘Lurking Shadow Maneuver’ was, but he received an order from Dash, so he rushed forward, trusting that she had a plan. He followed right behind Shine, gritting his teeth as he saw the low-ranking Shadowbolts power up their crystals. But then a shadow appeared on the ground, a shadow with a wide wingspan. Squall looked up to see Playbitz gliding right up against the large, extended light fixture that reached across the entire ceiling.

Then suddenly, as the shadow was cast down on the Shadowbolts, they started taking hits from something invisible? Squall tried to figure out what was going on, but it wasn’t long before Swift appeared, shooting out from the shadow cast by Playbitz, making quick loops, using his agility to dodge strikes before disappearing into the shadow again or beneath a Falcon. Shine and Squall dove into the cacophony of confused Shadowbolts, taking them on as a few of them started aiming and firing magic beams at Playbitz above as well.

That was exactly what Dash needed. It was four against at least twenty. Dash knew their little trick would only keep the Shadowbolts off balance for a few moments… but she only needed ONE moment.

With adrenaline pumping, her focus sharp, and currently enjoying relief from the heart shocks related to Soarin, Dash locked on target and set her hooves. With the thought of Soarin fresh in her mind, she called upon the very first Wonderbolt move she copied, going through the smooth, quick motions of the Sonic Blast-off. Knowing there was no room for a slip-up and boosted by her determination to survive and find Soarin post-escape, Dash flawlessly performed the motions, accelerating from a dead stop to nearly full speed as a loud BANG of a sonic boom echoed from her starting position. The burst of wind from her wake caused the propellers on the surrounding Falcons to rattle as the shockwave rushed by them.

Dash didn’t shift course. She aimed right into the center of the confusion, having purposely timed her launch in a moment where Squall, Shine, and Swift were out of her path. She thrust her hooves forward, slamming them into and knocking out four of the Shadowbolts, sending them reeling and crashing into their comrades. The moment she was clear, Dash dropped down and slammed her hooves against the floor. A loud SCREECH rang out as she pressed her hooves down, the friction generating so much heat that it almost stung.

She wasn’t able to make a full stop, her speed so great that even hitting the breaks as early as possible still caused her path to end with a light THUD against the opposite wall. She didn’t waste a second, pushing off the wall and looking over the control panel full of buttons and levers. Her eyes quickly landed on a large lever on the right end of the panel marked ‘hangar doors’. She yanked the lever back.

“Yipe!” she flinched as loud creaking and clanging began to echo throughout the hangar. She looked up towards the ceiling. Several large spokes, wheels, and gears were turning both on the ceiling and on the wall behind her. Large cables that extended all the way to the hangar door started moving… and with loud, metallic groans the massive door began to nudge upward very slowly. They would only need a small opening to escape, and she could see Fire and Lightning already crouching down to slip beneath it the first chance they got.

“Yes!” Dash cheered. “OW!” she yelped as she shook her hooves. Not only were they hot from her rough stop along the floor, but it had put a lot of strain on her wrist joints. She looked up to see five Shadowbolts shooting towards her, the rest still engaged with Squall and Squad Zero… who were now backing off. Squall had his eyes fixed on Dash, but he had no openings to assist.

Dash gulped as the five Shadowbolts closed in on her. Her initial plan was to also use the Sonic Blast-off to get back, plowing through any enemies that followed her. But with her hooves hot to the touch and her joints twitching from the uncomfortable stop… there was absolutely no way she’d be able to pull off the maneuver again without falling flat on her face.

“SHAAAAAA-BAM!” Surprise’s voice suddenly came from the right as she fired in from the side and completely decked one of the Shadowbolts, driving him out of his flight path and out of the picture. The Shadowbolts flinched in surprise, but kept on course towards Dash… only to come to an abrupt halt as Misty Fly dropped down from above and set herself in front of Dash. The Shadowbolts hesitated, as if realizing who had just dropped in. They shifted their strategy and spread out before flanking Misty and closing in.

Dash looked back and forth as the four closed in on Misty, trying to focus through the pain in her hooves, but Misty simply looked over her shoulder at Dash and flashed her a bright smile… before winking.

Dash’s eyes widened as Misty softly shut her eyes and spread her wings, flaring the feather tips out.

Her wing feathers visibly twitched.

She shifted left and swung her right arm around, clotheslining the first Shadowbolt to reach her. The stallion backflipped while flying forward, running headfirst into the wall beside Dash.

Misty’s wings twitched, making a soft fluttering noise.

She continued in the swinging motion, turning it into a punch to the face of the second Shadowbolt, following up with three more rapid punches to the mare’s chest.

Misty’s wings twitched again.

She grabbed the staggered mare and swung her around, tossing her directly into the face of a second stallion. The two Shadowbolts grunted in pain as they tangled and crashed.

Misty’s wings twitched once more.

She bucked her legs backwards, striking the last Shadowbolt in the upper chest. The stallion choked and coughed, his speed heavily decreasing as his hooves went to his neck. Misty turned and swung a hard right hook into his face, spinning him in a full circle. He shook his head and tried to ready himself, but Misty stepped forward and unloaded seven rapid blows. Three to the chest with enough force to push him back onto his hind legs and four more to his stomach once he was up. Misty hopped up and finished with a strong headbutt that knocked the stallion right off his hooves and onto his back.

Dash stood with her jaw nearly unhinged as Misty stood before her, eyes still closed.

Her wings suddenly twitched as a beam of magic shot towards her from directly behind. She made a quick, full turn and flicked her wrist at it, deflecting the beam before launching upward, grabbing the Shadowbolt mare that had snuck up on them and dropping to the floor, pile driving the mare to the ground.

Misty bounced up and landed a yard from Dash. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before opening her eyes and flashing her cute smile at Dash as the five Shadowbolts all rolled around on the ground, groaning in pain as their crystals flickered.

“Uh…” Dash had no words, not that Misty would hear any of them had she some. Then her ears perked up.

“You’ve seen it used as a primary fighting technique.”

“I have…?”

“It’s something a lot of the elite Wonderbolts have trained, but there’s one of us who uses it better than all of us.”

“Who?”

“Figure it out.”

“I should have seen that coming…”

Dash could almost hear Silver laughing at her as she realized how obvious it was. He was right… she had seen it up close and personal, but she somehow had not made the connection to… gee, only one of her most important idols.

Duh… Rainbow Dash… Silver was talking about Misty Fly. Seeing it so up close also gave her a visual of how it worked. The wings… using the wing tips to sense air movement.

“Awareness…” Dash said to herself with a chuckle as Misty quickly looked over her shoulder. “Using the wings… that’s what I was missing…”

She let go of her thoughts as Misty suddenly reached back and grabbed her by the arm. Dash looked up as Misty made a sharp head motion towards the hangar doors. The Streak twins were already out and flying while carrying Wave. Surprise was working with Swift to confuse the remaining Shadowbolts as Shine, Playbitz and Squall glided towards the exit, picking up speed.

Dash quickly nodded in response, following right behind Misty as the two lifted off and pumped their wings hard, shooting past Swift and Surprise, who brought up the rear the moment they had a chance to break free.

Dash felt a blast of wind hit her face as she emerged, she, Misty, Surprise, and Swift all catching up to the rest as they pulled away from the Shadowbolt fortress. As they caught up, Dash quickly realized that they weren’t going very fast, immediately linking it to the fact that the Streak twins had a passenger. Carrying Wave wasn’t slowing them down too much… but…

Dash turned around as they pulled away from the fortress, and as she suspected. They were being followed. However, only five Shadowbolts were in pursuit? Not all of them were beaten down, where were the rest?

“Uh oh…” Dash blinked as she flew, her eyes still fixed over her shoulder. Something was happening in the hangar. Several pink lights were appearing within… very bright pink lights. The groups was pulling away, but she could hear a loud whirring sound coming from the hangar. “Fire!” Dash yelled as she looked back forward. “We have a problem!”

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

Art by: Foxenawolf

Oh dear... something is on their tail... (gee i wonder what)

And double oh dear... what's gonna happen to Twister? :rainbowderp: Especially after that show he put on... :pinkiecrazy: It would seem there are major gaps in skill amongst the Shadowbolt commanders... Ruin, being one of frightening skill... but it looks like the Wonderbolts have a single trump card against him, the only pony CRAZIER than him :rainbowwild:

Oh... and lets all take a moment to remember how much of a badass Misty Fly is :pinkiegasp:

Sorry for the cut off in the middle of the action, but like i said in my blog post, the original chapter was split in two, and i have 13k words already written for chapter 118, meaning it's really close to being complete and you can expect a REALLY fast update on the horizon.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 118: Kick Reason to the Curb

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 118: Kick Reason to the Curb

“Get back here!” Devil yelled as he kept pace behind Silver. Silver continued to grimace and wince, his wings feeling stiffer every beat. He looked back at Devil behind him, counting the fourth time Devil had tried to chase him.

“Rgghh…” Silver grunted as he saw Devil forming the large magic globes around him. Silver forced his body left, twisting away as the globes appeared around him and exploded. He felt the force of the explosion, but avoided any damage. He sharply looked over his shoulder. “You sure like throwing your balls around!” he jeered. “But you may want to make them smaller! Exaggeration is just another way of lying to yourself!”

“Oh you think you’re real funny, don’t you?!” Devil growled as he continued pursuit.

Silver hated this. The encounter earlier in the morning against Trance and Witch and the current scenario had proven that some of the commanders weren’t quite as fearsome as the others. Devil fell into the category of those he could probably handle pretty easily… that is, if his body wasn’t slowly going numb. He was already straining himself just to keep flying. It was times like these Silver wished he was twenty years younger. His younger self could have pounded Devil flat in seconds.

“Hup!” Silver pulled up hard as two globes exploded in front of him. He could probably do the same now… if his body would start cooperating. He had been relying on other Wonderbolts flying around in the dogfight to back him up. He wasn’t sure how much longer he would last, but he would definitely keep going until he couldn’t move if he had to.

“Yo! Sil-dog!” Air Mach’s voice came from above. Silver flattened his brow as Air Mach formed up beside him. “Do I gotta bail you out again?!” he asked with a smirk as the two pitched right to avoid more explosions. Silver shot him a flat look as they evened out.

“Are you following me or something?” he asked calmly as they continued to fly away from Devil.

“Just keeping an eye on our old hard-ass!” he reached to jab Silver on the shoulder, but Silver reached out and stopped him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Silver snorted. “Yes, I could use some help.”

“Aw yeah!” Air Mach was about to break off, but Silver continued.

“And if you call me ‘Sil-Dog’ again, I’ll smash those silly glasses of yours into sharp, jagged pieces and force feed them to you through your ass… understand?”

“Yes sir!” Air Mach replied full of gusto before putting on the brakes and ramming himself backwards into Devil. The two grappled and shot away from Silver.

Silver just shook his head while rolling his eyes.

“I swear, nothing fazes that dense—” Silver’s eyes widened as a large beam of magic, one much larger than the basic beam fired by the magic crystals, appeared in his peripheral vision. “RRRAAAGH!” Silver roared painfully as he forced his wings up, pushing him down as the large beam shot overhead, coming within an inch of his head as he pulled his wings down. Silver lost control, plummeting towards the ground for a few moments before straightening his wings and finding balance, catching himself in a glide well before he was in danger of crashing. “What the hell was that?!” he called out as he looked in the direction of the attack. “Oh…”

Silver blinked as he saw something in the distance, fast approaching from the direction of the Shadowbolt fortress. It wasn’t long before he recognized something.

“Those are… hell’s bells, there’s five of them!” he growled. Five of those smaller ships. He had helped bring down two of them when they escaped Canterlot. The Shadowbolts sure took their time bringing out their toys… why did they wait until now?

But then Silver realized something was amiss. The ships were firing, but they were not aiming their forward cannons at the dogfight. They were moving and angling towards something. Silver turned towards them and squinted, trying to see if he could make out anything else. As he moved a little closer… he noticed something in front of the ships. Then his ears stood up and his jaw dropped when realization hit.

The ships were chasing after a group of ponies… Despite the Shadowbolt uniforms all had familiar colors, especially one rainbow mane… and the two in front were carrying one of his very own squadmates.

“It’s them!” Silver said out loud to himself. “They have Wave!” he exclaimed as he quickly turned and looked back towards the swarm. “Captain! CAPTAIN!” he yelled as he looked around, eager for them to begin phase four of their plan. Silver had had his doubts, and was worried sick about the ponies in the fortress, particularly Dash… but they had made it out!

But… where was Spitfire? Silver willingly entered the thick of the dogfight, the cacophony of Wonderbolts and Renegades flying around and lightly engaging the Shadowbolts still going strong. But Spitfire was nowhere to be found.

Silver quickly came to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to find her, and instead of wasting more time trying, he found the next best option.

“Commander!” Silver yelled as he approached Fleetfoot. She was currently holding a Shadowbolt around the neck and giving her a rough noogie. “Commander Fleetfoot!” he yelled.

Fleetfoot looked up and blinked as Silver approached, she tossed the mare downward.

“What’s up, old fart?” she asked cheerfully. Silver grunted, trying to ignore that he was getting a lot of the elder slang over the past few hours. He stayed on task, quickly pointing towards the ships in the distance.

“It’s our infiltration team!” he exclaimed, prompting Fleetfoot to follow his hoof and gasp when she spotted them. “They made it out! And they have Wave! We’ve got to help them get away from those monstrosities and make our exit!”

“Holy shit!” Fleetfoot bounced in midair as a smile appeared on their face. “Quick! Where’s Spitfire?!” she asked while looking around.

“Hell if I know! That’s why I came to you! I can’t find her!” Silver explained as Fleetfoot slowly realized she couldn’t find Spitfire either. “You have to rally the Wonderbolts and get moving!”

“Eh?!” Fleetfoot gritted her teeth. “Me?!”

“Yes, you!” Silver growled.

“B-but…” Fleetfoot frantically looked back and forth. Silver grunted, knowing exactly what was going on. Fleetfoot preferred to pass orders and decision making to Spitfire and Soarin. She picked a hell of a time to seize up. But luckily for her, Silver knew the whistle commands. “Forget it, I’ll do it!” he yelled while pointing at her. “Find Blazetail and Flashwind and tell them we’re ready for blizzard re-entry! GO!” Silver ordered.

Fleetfoot didn’t argue. She nodded and turned, locking onto Blazetail and Flashwind nearby before moving towards them.

Silver turned around and began gliding around the swarm of pegasi, putting his hooves to his lips and making several three-tones whistling patterns. Wonderbolt heads and ears turned as Silver’s whistling met their ears, the disciplined Wonderbolts quickly diverting and shifting the moment they acknowledged the sound commands.

Silver kept his eyes peeled, watching as the Wonderbolts and the former Wonderbolt Renegades started veering off and shooting back towards the blizzard. Every Wonderbolt made sure to follow close behind a Renegade, knowing that they were key in navigating the artificial blizzard. With the first command in place, Silver moved on to his second course of action.

He veered down towards the retreating Wonderbolts and called out to them.

“Squads one through seven! Form up on me!” he yelled down before searching out some of his former comrades. “Steady! Comet! Cannon! Pixie! Fairy! With me, now!” he added. The selected Renegades broke off as Bomber, Valkyrie, Blazetail, and Flashwind stayed with the main group, leading the rest of the force back into the blizzard, hoping to shake off the Shadowbolts pursuing.

Silver looked back and forth as his squad along with the rest he called up rose into formation with him. Squads four, five, and six formed a three squad formation nearby. Squad Seven pulled up behind him. Storm Front, Lead Runner, Point Dex, and Macho Savage following right with Blaze and High Winds. Silver looked to his left to see Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and Calm Wind form up.

He furrowed his brow as he noticed Spitfire was still gone. Not that he was really worried about her. She was more than capable of handling herself, but what the hell was she doing?

“Yo! Silver!” Cannon Ball’s voice came from up above. Silver glanced up to see his chosen Renegades all lined up. “What’s the plan?!” he asked, drawing the attention of everypony else as Silver looked back down and nodded.

“We have few options in engaging their smaller crafts!” Silver began. “They are equipped with magical shielding and the circumstances Valkyrie, Bomber, and I used to bring them down before are not present! So we’ll have to lose them in the blizzard! Our top priority is securing Wave Chill and getting him in the clear! The rest of us will split up and force the ships to disperse. There are five of them and we have five renegades. Each Renegade will be responsible for leading a group of Wonderbolts back to the compound! If we can draw one ship away with each group, it will be easier to lose them!”

They all yelped in surprise as a large burst wave of magic shot past them. It missed horribly, but it forced all of them to look over their shoulders.

They were being pursued as they headed towards the ships. Devil, Shadow, and Angel were closing in behind them with several more Shadowbolts following.

“Keep going!” Silver ordered. “Execute the plan! We can lose them the same way we lose the ships! WONDERBOLTS! GO! GO! GO!”

“Damn!” Dash swore as she barely managed to avoid another blast from the Falcons following behind. She looked over her shoulder as she and Squall remained spread out from the group. They, along with everypony not of the Streak family name were doing their best to try and draw the fire of the Falcons away from Wave Chill. They had tried to break away, but the Falcons were working together, using their cannons to control the Wonderbolt trajectory and not allowing them to make any significant course changes. If it were only one, it would have been easy to confuse the pilot and go beyond the machine’s range of motion… but five? That was a different story.

“Just make it to the blizzard!” Fire yelled back at all of them. “That’s our best chance to lose them!”

Dash hoped so, because right now they were not making much progress. It was already a lucky break that none of them had taken a hit yet. The cannons were slow and it was easy to tell when they would fire, but they definitely packed a punch and continued firing, giving them no real chance to counterattack. Besides, Playbitz had already tried attacking one of them and bounced right off of a magic shield. Thankfully Shine and Swift were able to help him upright before he got blasted. They had to run. They weren’t going to get through those shields.

“HEY!” Surprise suddenly exclaimed while pointing upward. “The cavalry is here!”

Dash and Squall both looked up, Dash’s expression quickly turning into a relieved smile as she spotted Silver flying down from above, leading a large group of high tier elite Wonderbolts and a few Renegades.

“Yes!” Fire Streak yelled as he also took notice.

Silver veered off with the Renegades as the rest of the Wonderbolts charged down at the Falcons. They didn’t dive head on. They purposely made glancing, distracting blows against the Falcon shields as they passed by. The ships lurched slightly, the pilots trying to make out what was happening as the new targets entered their view.

Silver dropped down and formed up beside Fire and Lightning Streak as the Renegades flew just overhead.

“Am I glad to see you!” Fire said happily as Silver ignored him and looked over Wave. Fire noticed immediately. “He’s… hurt, but alive. We need to get him to Bliss immediately.”

“I agree,” Silver nodded while looking back. The Wonderbolts had disengaged the Falcons and were catching up. The Falcons would be back at them soon and the Shadowbolts following behind would be joining them shortly. “We need to get Wave out of here!” Silver exclaimed. “It will be easier to deal with these jackasses if we’re not worrying about him!” he yelled as they looked forward. They were nearing the edge of the blizzard. Once inside they would have some cover, but he wasn’t about to bet simply having lower visibility was going to break them free.

“We’ll take him!” Shine Struck’s voice came from behind Silver. Silver perked up and turned, looking towards Shine as she shifted forward with Squad Zero, now complete with Calm back among them. “The problem has been carrying him, right? Calm’s big enough to carry Wave on his back! We can speed up and meet you guys back at the compound!”

Silver narrowed his eyes at them. Shine Struck had a point. While he wasn’t sure if handing off Wave to their experimental squad was the best course of action… what other choice did they have? His worry faded though… when he saw a determined look in Shine Struck’s eyes. A look filled with the desire to succeed. He had seen that look before from Rainbow Dash. The two mares were similar in many ways, and seeing similar confidence from Shine swayed Silver. He had to trust them. He was the one who found and chose Shine for the Zero Project after all.

“Hop to it!” Silver gave a nod of approval. “Comet!” he yelled up to the Renegades. Comet quickly dropped down beside them as Calm shifted beneath Wave. Silver watched as Swift and Playbitz helped the Streak twins lower Wave onto Calm’s back. Wave groaned and grimaced as they moved him, but he was eventually lying comfortably between Calm’s wings. Silver turned back to Comet and pointed. “I need you to lead Squad Zero back to the compound! Do EVERYTHING you can to stay out of sight! Take a long detour if you have to!” Silver looked back for a moment as they kept moving forward.

“Will do!” Comet nodded. “Alright you guys follow—”

“Wait!” Silver stopped him. “I’ve got an idea! WONDERBOLTS!” Silver called out, drawing all eyes to him. “SCATTER BURST MANEUVER!”

“Huh?” Shine Struck blinked as she took up a position to hold Wave steady on Calm’s back. “Whoa!” her eyes widened as every single Wonderbolt suddenly flew towards them and all packed together as closely as possible without their wings clashing.

“Yipe!” Dash yelped as she and Squall were pulled along by Misty and Surprise, leading them in. Surprise winked at Dash.

“When Silver says ‘burst’—“ she started explaining.

“BURST!” Silver yelled out.

“Oops!” Surprise winced and turned away from Dash. “JUST GO ANYWHERE!” she yelled while flailing her arms.

Dash did as she was told, choosing a direction and following behind the first Wonderbolt she trusted the most… being Silver Lining. The Wonderbolt squads fired in all directions, breaking rank and file, even mixing up across squads. They ended up forming into four random groups, each with a Renegade leading them. Silver timed the order perfectly just as they were reaching the blizzard’s edge. They went in all directions, forcing the Shadowbolts and Falcons in pursuit to choose targets. Dash found herself mixed in with Squall, Storm Front, Silver, Fleetfoot and Air Mach. Steady Wing flew in front of them, ready to direct them through the blizzard.

The Falcons broke off, each of them being trailed by a few Shadowbolts as they went after each group… except for Squad Zero.

Dash glanced down as she kept pace, watching as Comet led Squad Zero down below. Wave was resting on Calm’s back with Shine Struck gently pressing her hooves to Wave to keep him steady. They picked up speed and made it into the blizzard with no Falcon or Shadowbolts chasing them. After a brief look around, it appeared that none of the Shadowbolts saw them dip down either.

“Yes!” Dash cheered to herself. “Wave is clear!” she proclaimed. However, Silver’s gaze looking over his shoulder at her, quickly brought back to the situation.

“He’s clear… but it looks like we’re not,” he stated. Dash looked over her shoulder as they entered the blizzard and a few moments after they entered the lower visibility, not one, but two Falcons appeared behind them in pursuit. To make matters worse… three Shadowbolts appeared between the Falcons.

Shadow, Devil, and Angel… with a small group of five lower ranks following behind.

“Two Falcons and three commanders…” Silver grumbled. “Just our luck.”

“Look out!” Fleetfoot yelled as their pursuers closed in.

The Falcons began firing, forcing the Wonderbolts to pitch, turn and react. Steady Wing grunted in frustration as he tried to keep his trajectory through the blizzard.

“Steady! We need to shake these guys!” Silver yelled as he formed up beside him. Steady Wing shook his head.

“I’m doing the best I can Silver! If we go any faster, I won’t be able to navigate!” he explained as they forged through the swirling snowfall.

Silver looked back as the Wonderbolts kept dodging and the commanders kept approaching. He could see them powering up their crystals as the Wonderbolts kept looking to Silver for what to do next. But in the end… it was his apprentice that made the call.

“We have to engage them then!” Dash yelled, drawing attention to herself. “They’re just gonna keep shooting at us if we don’t!”

They all looked towards Silver, then Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot just shrugged.

“She has a point, we have to do something to throw them off or else we’ll just take them right back to the compound!” Fleetfoot yelled. Silver huffed and nodded.

“It’s better than nothing!” Silver shifted back to Steady Wing. “Keep moving! We’re gonna try to keep them off of you!”

“Right!” Steady nodded as he kept forging forward.

“NOW WE’RE TALKING!” Air Mach yelled as he and Fleetfoot pitch hard upward and looped back around. Dash joined up with Squall, Storm flanking her other side. Dash was having slight difficulty seeing without her mask or goggles, but it was hard to miss dark purple uniforms in a white backdrop. Silver pulled up right below her.

“Don’t engage the ships! Focus on the Shadowbolts! And whatever you do, keep moving forward! If you lose sight of Steady, you’re lost in the blizzard!”

“Aye!” Dash acknowledged him as Silver pushed himself to join Air Mach and Fleet. Dash squinted as she locked onto Steady. They had to keep up with him while fighting the Shadowbolts… this was going to be rough.

“We better stay together,” Storm spoke up as they shifted back, grabbing Dash and Squall’s attention. “Let them handle the commanders, keep the lower ranks off their backs.”

“If one of them gets in my way I’m punching them into next week,” Squall stated firmly. Storm smirked across Dash at Squall.

“Fair enough,” Storm nodded.

“Here they come!” Dash alerted them.

They took evasive maneuvers as several magic beams from both the Shadowbolts and Falcons started firing in their direction.

Silver scrunched his face as he watched a majority of the attacks head towards Dash, Squall, and Storm, but he, Fleetfoot, and Air Mach had drawn the big dogs away.

“Call your targets!” Silver ordered, at this point just ignoring the chain of command in favor of keeping the situation under control. He wasn’t going to trust Fleetfoot or Air Mach with giving orders anyway.

“I’ll take the guy who thinks he’s got balls!” Air Mach called out while pointing back at Devil. “I’ll show him some REAL balls!”

“You do that…” Silver shook his head as Air Mach shifted back, aiming for Devil.

“YOU AGAIN?!” Devil reacted as Silver and Fleetfoot glanced at each other. Fleetfoot looked at Silver carefully. She could see him straining himself. She looked back at Shadow and Angel. She remembered Shadow was fairly easy to handle with her predictable attacks. She didn’t know a thing about Angel and she didn’t want to put an unknown on Silver. She made up her mind quickly.

“I’ll take the pretty one!” Fleetfoot decided as she carefully veered off.

Silver didn’t actually hear what she said, he was paying closer attention to a very sharp pain that was suddenly pinching him right beneath his left wing. He blinked when he saw Fleetfoot break formation, turning to see her heading towards Angel. Silver sucked it up and looked back at Shadow, getting ready to dodge her attacks. He had to draw her focus. Her burst wave attack had a long range. She could easily hit Steady if he didn’t—

“ARGH!” Silver grunted as the pain cause his wing to twitch and seize up for a moment. He looked away from Shadow, glaring at his wing as he forced it out. A loud POP sounded from it before he regained control. He felt like a wreck. He was getting sick of playing it safe, but he didn’t have much of a choice, he would have to elude Shadow more than he fought. He had to preserve himself just in case a greater emergency arose that called for him to fight.

With his wing sorted out, he refocused on Shadow…

But the brief moment he spent handling his wing… proved to be costly.

Shadow wasn’t aiming at him. Her crystals were directed below him. His eyes widened with alarm.

“STEADY!” Silver yelled down at Steady Wing. “WATCH OU—”

Shadow fired her burst wave, concentrating it into a wide cylinder as it shot down below Silver, zipped passed Dash, Squall, and Storm, and careened towards Steady Wing.

“What?!” Steady glanced over his shoulder, only to get completely blindsided by the incoming magic burst. “ARGH!” Steady cried out in pain as the intense pulse of magic rushed over him, hitting him full force. He was blown off course and sent tumbling to the ground. He struggled and flailed as he tried to find his balance, but was fruitless in the attempt.

“Shit!” Silver yelled as the rest slowly became aware of what just happened. Silver dove down, chasing after Steady in hopes of catching him before a painful crash.

They were taking action specifically to keep them off Steady… and the first thing Silver did was let a Shadowbolt commander take an open pot shot at him. Curse his pain and battered body, it distracted him long enough for him to fail one of his old friends.

Silver picked up speed, gliding down and reaching Steady just in time, but it wasn’t a clean catch, more of a collision.

“Gah!” the two of them grunted as Silver tried to break his fall, but in the end he only softened the crash as the two struck the snow covered ground and bounced twice before sliding to a stop.

“Silver!” Dash yelled out as she broke away from the Shadowbolts and pitched down.

“Everypony down!” Fleetfoot yelled out, stopping her movements towards Angel. “Quickly!” she reinforced as she, Air Mach, Squall, and Storm all took maneuvers that allowed them to aim towards Silver and Steady.

“Rgghh…” Silver groaned as he rolled onto his stomach. His eyes opening as he heard Steady groaning as well. Silver looked up to see smoke rising from one of Steady’s wings.

“Ow… ah…” Steady hissed and gritted his teeth. It looked like his wing took most of the force from Shadow’s concentrated attack.

“Dammit… I’m sorry Steady…” Silver growled.

“I’ll… be up… ARGH!” Steady tried to roll over, but the moment the ground touched his toasted wing, he only cringed and groaned in pain.

The rest of the Wonderbolts all landed around the two of them, quickly turning and facing up into the blizzard. The wind blew loosely, the rush of snowfall swirling in the air. The visibility wasn’t the best, but they could clearly see the situation they were in.

Dash bit her lip as she looked back and forth, Storm and Squall sharing her anxiety as the enemy loomed overhead.

Angel hovered directly above them, Devil and Shadow flanking him and the five other Shadowbolts right behind. The two Falcons were circling at low altitude around them.

“Well damn…” Fleetfoot growled as she surveyed the situation. “This sure turned out well.”

“What do we do?” Dash asked her as she refused to take her eyes off the Shadowbolts.

“I…” Fleetfoot shook her head. “I don’t know. Fighting them wouldn’t be very smart, but with Steady injured and disoriented… we won’t be able to navigate, not to mention if we tried carrying him it would slow us down.”

Dash gulped. Silver was punching himself for letting Steady get hurt, and Fleetfoot had no ideas on what to do… this was not good. Just when everything seemed to be working in their favor, they hit a brick wall right before the finish.

“Hmmm…”

Everypony blinked and turned to look at Air Mach. He was looking directly up at the Shadowbolts with a serious look on his face as if deep in thought.

“HMMMMMMMMMMMM…” he hummed again while tapping one of his back hooves up and down in the snow.

“Dare I ask if you have an idea?” Fleetfoot asked as the Shadowbolts continued to loom, their crystals beginning to float and glow around them as if ready to attack and the Falcons coming about, aiming at them.

“You know what?!” Air Mach suddenly smiled and stood up on his hind legs, pointing fiercely up at the Shadowbolts. “I’ve decided I’m not gonna tolerate this anymore!”

“Uh…” Fleetfoot lifted an eyebrow as Silver finally turned his attention away from Steady Wing. Air Mach pulled his hooves down and clenched them tightly.

“I’m all about a straight up fight… and straight up fights have to be fair!” he yelled before shifting and pointing directly at the Falcon on the left. “So… I’m gonna take that one for myself!”

Everypony stared flatly at him as they glanced between Air Mach and the Falcon he had ‘chosen.’

“Excuse me. WHAT?!” Fleetfoot furrowed her brow while reaching both of her hooves out towards him in disbelief.

“You heard me!” Air Mach’s grin grew wider as a glint of light blinked off the edge of his glasses… despite there being no such light source around capable of creating the effect. “I’m taking that ship! That one right there!” he proclaimed loudly.

He even had the Shadowbolts giving him looks now, Devil and Shadow both looking towards him blankly. Angel didn’t react at all as the Falcons pulled up side by side and hovered in place.

“Air Mach…” Fleetfoot groaned. “There’s a time and place to be an idiot. This is NOT either! Please shut up and think seriously!”

“I resent that, Fleet!” he turned and aimed his ridiculous pointing gesture at her. “I AM thinking seriously!”

“APPARENTLY NOT!” Fleetfoot screamed back at him, full of frustration. “Be reasonable, you dumbass! They have shields! You’re not getting through those! It’s impossible to just punch through it!”

Air Mach turned away from her and scoffed.

“Reason?! HAH!” He pounded his chest. “I don’t have time for reason!” He glanced at Fleetfoot. “Impossible? PUH-LEASE! That word isn’t in my thesaurus!”

“Dictionary…” Silver grumbled to himself as he was one motion away from slamming his own hoof to his face.

Air Mach turned back and pointed at the Falcon again.

“Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb! That’s how Animak rolls!” he yelled out as he planted his hooves and leaned back.

“AIR MACH!” Fleetfoot reached towards him, but she was too late.

“I DON’T HAVE TIME TO ARGUE! I’M GONNA PILOT THAT THING!”

Air Mach fired from his spot, aiming right for the Falcon on the right. Angel didn’t even look at him, but Devil and Shadow both turned, their crystals glowing. Shadow fired her energy wave with Devil following up with his globes. Air Mach dipped beneath the wave and flew headlong into the globes, zipping past them before he could get caught in the explosions. He twisted, navigating through a barrage of eyebeams that came from the lower ranked Shadowbolts, never once taking his eyes off the Falcon.

“TIME TO TAKE THI—” Air Mach was cut off as he bounced right off the Falcon’s shield. “OH! GONNA PLAY IT THAT WAY, HUH?!” Air Mach yelled out, the lower ranking Shadowbolts and the other Falcon all turning towards him as he went at the shield, punching it several times before he was forced to disengage, dodging fire from both Falcons and the Shadowbolts.

Shadow and Devil were about to assist, but—

“Stop,” Angel spoke up calmly, his voice low and smooth with little sign of emotion. Devil and Shadow both froze in place. “If they want to waste their time with a moron, let them… we have more important targets to worry about,” he continued. Shadow quickly turned and faced the Wonderbolts again, but Devil hesitated, growling as he glared towards Air Mach. “Devil,” Angel spoke again. “Do I have to repeat myself?”

“I…” Devil suddenly cringed before turning back to face the Wonderbolts. “No.”

“I thought not,” said Angel as he scanned over the Wonderbolts.

Fleetfoot was growling at Air Mach as she watched him flail about, trying to get into a Falcon when he literally had no visible way to do so.

“He’s such an idiot!” She pressed her hooves into the snow, opening her wings. “We gotta help him, he’s gonna get himself killed!”

“Wait!” Silver stood up from Steady and grabbed Fleetfoot’s shoulder. “I don’t disagree, but look…” he pointed at Air Mach. Despite his lack of success, his ridiculous maneuvers and attempts to break through a Falcon shield… he had the lower ranking Shadowbolts and the two Falcons focusing completely on him. “We have an opportunity here,” Silver explained. “Air Mach isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s tough. I’m willing to bet he’s gonna last a while. We’ve got to take the fight to the Shadowbolts while we can.” He shifted his eyes between Devil and Shadow. “I don’t know about the pretty colt in the center, but the other two I know we can take on.”

Fleetfoot looked back towards the Shadowbolts as their crystals began to glow.

“Might as well make the most of it…” she acknowledged. “Same targets?”

“Same targets,” Silver nodded.

“Just be careful,” Fleetfoot nodded at Silver. “And don’t tell me you’ll be just fine, I can tell you’re hurting.”

“I’ll be just fine,” Silver replied in defiance, earning a snort from Fleetfoot.

“Dash,” Silver glanced back at her, Storm, and Squall. “You three handle Devil. I’m confident you three can bring him down.”

“Are you going to be alright?” Dash quickly asked.

“Don’t you start with me too,” Silver furrowed his brow at her. He blinked and looked up, Shadow and Devil were charging. “Go!”

Silver quickly pushed away, putting distance between him and where Steady lay to avoid hurting him further.

Dash, Storm, and Squall quickly did the same, drawing Devil away.

But Fleetfoot remained still, standing in front of Steady as Angel simply hovered above her. Fleetfoot kept glancing back and forth between Angel and Steady.

Something was unsettling about the way he was simply waiting. As if he wanted her to make the first move. Fleetfoot found herself conflicted. Should she attack or should she try to move Steady?

“Rgh… Fleet… Foot!” Steady suddenly spoke. Fleetfoot’s ears stood up as she glanced back at Steady. “Be… careful!” he groaned. “Angel… is… unpredictable and dangerous! If you see his crystals… activate… back off! Don’t try to deflect or take the attack!” he huffed and puffed as his wing continued to twitch.

Fleetfoot looked up at Angel, biting her lip, hesitating.

“I’ll keep that in mind…” Fleetfoot gulped. “Now stop talking, save your strength, we’re gonna need your help as soon as we can.” She tapped Steady on the shoulder.

“Well?” Angel finally spoke, not even flinching as Silver shot by in front of him. Shadow’s magic wave passing in front of his nose right after.

“Well what?” Fleetfoot asked as she stepped away from Steady and placed her hooves firmly in the snow.

“Are you going to let me kill you up here or do I have to come down there and do it?” he asked with a perfectly straight face, making Fleetfoot grimace and then glare.

“Aren’t you full of yourself…?” Fleetfoot grumbled to herself. “We’ll see how confident you are after I yank that pretty hair of yours right out of your head…” she kept saying under her breath.

Keeping Steady’s warning in mind, she pulled back and launched herself towards Angel. He made no visible reaction when she started moving, and continued to remain completely still in the air as she closed in.

At the last moment she feigned a punch and with a quick wing beat, shifted herself all the way around behind him, aiming the punch to the back of his head. Angel, without looking, simply shifted left. Her punch flew over his shoulder, but she used the momentum to flip over the top, ball up her hooves and slam them down towards his head. He just shifted again. She spun and bucked her legs back, again, just a shift.

Fleetfoot bounced up into the air and looked down at him, blinking. Angel looked up at her, lifting an eyebrow.

“Are we fighting yet or what?” Angel asked, his voice still completely calm despite the snarky comment.

Something wasn’t right, how was she missing him? She saw Starry trade a few hits with him.

She launched towards him again, throwing precise, fast punches. But again and again, Angel only shifted and shifted, dodging each punch by the thinnest margin. Fleetfoot gritted her teeth as she kept up the attack, but after hitting nothing but air for half a minute she pulled back. Angel continued to stare, emotionless.

“Am I punching at air or something?!” she yelled towards him.

“Yes,” Angel’s voice suddenly came from behind her. Her eyes widened as the Angel she was attacking flickered and disappeared. She tried turning around to defend herself but took a heavy blow to her side.

“GAH!” Fleetfoot grunted as she tumbled, but quickly threw out her wings and leveled out. She blocked as Angel rammed into her, giving her no time to mount an attack. Angel pushed her closer and closer to the ground, but at the last moment, Fleetfoot forced her body to the left, spinning away from him and pitching back up. Angel touched to the ground and slid to a stop with very graceful control, looking back up at her. “Cheap moves…” Fleetfoot growled, feeling stupid for trying to wail on an image, or a clone… whatever it was. She locked her eyes on Angel’s crystals, which were following him, but he was not using them.

He didn’t make any moves towards her, he just reached up a hoof and beckoned her to come at him. She gladly obliged, rushing down towards him and throwing a punch. Angel reached up, grabbing her hoof, but the force pushed him back through the snow. Fleetfoot kept pumping her wings as she threw her other hoof forward, forcing Angel to bring up his other hoof and block the second as well. Fleetfoot drove him backwards, his hooves skidding and digging through the snow covered ground.

“HM!” Angel suddenly grunted, releasing his back hooves from the ground for a moment before jamming them into the ground and repositioning his body.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot found herself tipping up, her motion carrying her in that direction as Angel swung his arms upward, letting go of her as he did. Fleetfoot tumbled upward, but again quickly found her balance, turning and blocking before Angel could attack her. They locked hooves in the air, Angel still giving her a blank stare.

“Not bad…” Angel commented as the two struggled.

Fleetfoot was now very glad that she chose Angel as her target. This guy was good… really good… and he hadn’t even used his crystals yet. With Silver struggling, he wouldn’t have fared well. It was also interesting to see the skill gap again. She had handled Shadow just fine, and Devil was around the same level. But she had gotten absolutely destroyed by Ruin… and struggled against Void. Now Angel proved to also be heavily skilled.

Yet even here she was feeling more confident than she had with Ruin. Ruin wasn’t this strong… but Ruin’s movements and use of his powers were much different. Here… she felt like she had a chance.

“HUP!” Fleetfoot inhaled as she forced Angel off of her, putting a little bit of distance between them. The two backed off… but Fleetfoot feigned her backward motion, turning a backward flap into a forward one at the last second, propelling her forward. Angel’s eyes opened a tiny bit wider for a moment as Fleetfoot closed the gap instantly and started throwing rapid punches. Angel reached up and blocked the first three, but the fourth got by his guard, he tipped his head to the right, barely dodging a head-on strike, but Fleetfoot’s hoof still caught the edge of his cheek.

Fleetfoot backed off as she connected the punch, Angel’s head whipping to the side as the force of the blow pushed him back slightly.

He slowly turned his head back towards her, his face still mostly devoid of emotion except for a very small hint of a glare and frown.

“What? Did I ruin your makeup? Pretty face got a boo-boo?” Fleetfoot taunted as she sneered, feeling confident. Angel was good, but she wasn’t a lead squad Wonderbolt for nothing.

Without a word, Angel’s crystals began to glow. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened.

“Aw crap…” she winced, taking Steady Wing’s advice to heart as she immediately started backing off.

Angel’s crystals bunched around his right hoof, much like Blade’s, only instead of creating a sword, his whole right arm began to glow. He crossed his arm over his chest before roughly swiping it outward.

“AH!” Fleetfoot yelped as a thin, wide blade of pink magic erupted from his arm, careening towards her so fast that it was already halfway towards her in the blink of an eye. Fleetfoot pushed herself back and leaned backwards, the flat magic blade zipping over her. A few stray strands of her mane got caught in the attack, slicing them clean off. Fleetfoot dropped down and leveled out while staring wide eyed at Angel, the small end strands of her mane floating down past her. “Oh man… that’s… not cool,” Fleetfoot cringed as she saw Angel’s magic building again. He swiped his arm multiple times, sending several thin blades of magic shooting towards her.

“Crap, crap, crap, CRAP!” she yelled as she turned and pumped her wings, moving as fast as she could to avoid the incoming deadly magic attacks.

“Keep moving! Keep moving!” Storm Front yelled as he flew along, flanked by Dash and Squall. Devil’s globes were exploding behind them, the three feeling the blasts but escaping injury.

“You can’t run forever!” Devil yelled as he followed behind them, his crystals glowing endlessly as they created more and more globes that edged towards the three Wonderbolts.

Dash glanced up as she followed with Storm. Without goggles, she was forced to squint against the icy winds and whirling, light snowfall, but there was still enough visibility for her. They were gliding at the lowest altitude, giving her a full view of the other three conflicts going on. Fleetfoot was currently running from Angel, Silver was simply avoiding Shadow… and grimacing a lot. And Air Mach was…well, still flailing about like a yeti after eating a bowl of lightning while stroking an intense urge to disrespect its surroundings. But as Silver said, Air Mach was keeping the Falcons and the lower Shadowbolts completely occupied. Any attempt by them to subdue him was met with ridiculous posing, monologuing, and harder flailing. It wasn’t pretty, but it was working.

“WHOA! SPLIT UP!” Storm suddenly yelled, bringing Dash back down to earth as she broke away from Storm and Squall.

“You don’t have to order us around!” Squall snapped as he and Storm flew side by side, shifting back right to avoid more globes.

“I apologize for watching out for you!” Storm fired back while giving him a flat look.

“I don’t need—” Squall was cut off as Storm reached out and shoved Squall, the two pushed apart, narrowly avoiding a globe that had risen up right in front of them. They both twisted away from the explosion, meeting up again as they arced around. Dash dropped down right between them and reached her hooves out towards both of them.

“Not the time, guys!” she berated them both. “Focus! We need to turn the hurt on this guy so we can help Fleet and Silver!”

Squall and Storm forced themselves to focus on Dash, both nodding in agreement.

“Ideas?” Storm asked as they kept flying in wide circles. Dash looked behind them at Devil.

“The way this guy just kept launching these things randomly, I get the feeling he has tunnel vision! If one of us can distract him, the other two can flank him! Maybe we can take him out with one heavy hit!” she suggested.

“Fine by me!” Squall answered before Storm could. “Who’s gonna be the bait?”

“You, because you asked!” Dash quickly decided, earning a flat look from Squall. Dash shook her head. “Just get his attention so Storm and I can loop around and double deck him!”

“GO!” Storm pointed. Squall didn’t hesitate. He wanted to get a few licks in anyway.

Squall broke off from Storm and Dash, doing a hard U-turn and aiming straight for Devil as Dash and Storm pitched up and took a wider arc around in opposite directions. Squall glared towards Devil, pumping his wings and picking up speed as Devil’s globes started popping up on the ground all around him.

“Finally!” Devil sneered as he locked onto Squall, pushing his glowing hooves inward. “Come on! Give me your best!” he taunted, sounding very overconfident.

Squall pitched and turned, twisted and tumbled as the globes kept popping up from the ground and exploding. He felt the shock of each one, but forged forward, determined to close in and give the smiling yellow bastard a hoof through the face.

Unfortunately, his chances grew slimmer as he drew closer. Squall gritted his teeth pushing himself as hard as he could to stay focused and react, but moved his hooves closer together slowly, the collection of globes popping up from the ground growing more and more dense.

“DAMN!” Squall yelled as he was forced to pull up and curl up to shield himself as several of the explosions caught him. “AUGH!” he grunted as he was thrown backward, growling to himself as he heard Devil laughing triumphantly. Squall peeked out from between his arms, staring towards Devil as he failed to notice Dash and Storm careening towards him outside of his view.

“I’LL HIT HIM HIGH! HIT HIM LOW, STORM!” Dash yelled. Devil’s eyes widened, realizing all too late that he was being attacked. Storm and Dash throttled Devil from opposite sides, tackling him both low and high while grabbing onto him.

“GRAAAHH!!!!” Devil cried out in pain as his body was painfully forced in two different directions, the motion quickly forcing him out of his hover. Dash and Storm both let go, flinging in opposite directions as their momentums drastically shifted. “RRRGHHH!!!!” Devil grunted, his wings flapping wildly as he tried to prevent himself from crashing. He barely managed to even himself out right before his hooves struck the snow covered ground, landing roughly with his body still awkwardly bent. He continued to grunt and gasp as several loud CRICKS came from his back, several nerves pinched by the awkward, painful division of directional force the simultaneous hit had caused. “YOU! AUGH!” His legs shuddered as the pain coursed through him, “I’ll… AH!” he continued to struggle, his head looking up sharply… and seeing Squall standing right in front of him.

“Shut up,” Squall talked down to Devil’s as he took his stance. “HOOOOORYAAAA!” he shouted his battle cry as he unloaded two hard, rapid blows into Devil’s face, the first smashing his nose, the second striking his forehead. Devil’s head whipped backwards as the blow pushed him right off his hooves.

Squall felt very content, feeling the need to give a Shadowbolt what for after what Blade had done to his face. It almost felt too good.

But he quickly realized he should have probably kept pressing his attack. Devil bounced right up, a pink aura glowing around him as he snarled at Squall, his eyes alight with anger behind his goggles.

“I WILL NOT…!” his aura flared up and his crystals brightened. “BE DISRESPECTED BY LOW RANKING INSECTS!”

“Squall, MOVE!” Dash yelled as she and Storm backed off. Squall’s eyes widened and he kicked off the snow as the ground between him and Devil lit up. Several globes bounced up from the concentrated line of light, causing a wave of explosions that careened towards him. Squall found himself on the run, pushing his wings to the limit to avoid being caught in the blasts closing in behind.

Storm Front broke away from Dash, seeing an opportunity to strike while Devil’s focus was on Squall. He hoped to catch Devil not looking again, but as he closed in, Devil’s head turned sharply over his shoulder and glared up at Storm, the intense, pink glow seeping from behind his goggles.

“Whoa!” Storm yelped, pulling up as a second wave of exploding globes began moving towards him as well. He pitched hard to the right, steering away and trying his best not to overlap flight paths with Squall.

“YOU ARE ALL NOTHING!” Devil roared out, the glow around him growing even larger as his crystals shined brighter and brighter.

“What the?!” Dash perked up as globes started appearing behind her as well even though she hadn’t attacked him.

“ARGH! AHHH!” Devil began to grunt and cough, a trail of saliva dripping down the corner of his mouth. It sounded like he was in pain.

“DEVIL!” Shadow’s voice suddenly came from nearby. Dash looked up to see Shadow stop midflight. “STOP! DON’T PUSH THE CRYSTALS TOO HARD!” she yelled with a very frantic tone in her voice.

“I WILL NOT BE DISGRACED!” Devil shouted as his aura began to grow.

“NO! YOU’LL—” Shadow was cut off and forced to throw up a shield as Silver rushed at her and threw a heavy punch. She, along with her shield were sent flying backwards. Silver grunted, his body visibly shivering before he followed after her.

“Hmph…” Angel suddenly stopped mid-charge towards Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot blinked, putting her guard down briefly as she watched him curiously. Angel slowly looked towards Devil shaking his head slowly. “What a fool… Give a weakling power and he’s quick to abuse it through pure emotion alone.”

Fleetfoot looked towards Devil, watching as the pink magic swirled and flared around him like an inferno with his crystals glowing incredibly bright. Apparently overusing the crystals was a bad thing… as if that wasn’t already clear by what happened to Nightshade a while back. However, she found it interesting that Angel didn’t seem to care.

“You don’t look too worried about your friend blowing himself up…” she spoke, feeling unusually calm in Angel’s presence. It was probably on the fact that he wasn't Ruin alone.

“Why should I be?” Angel said so easily. “Devil is an entitled whiner. He’s always barked much harder than he bites. If he kills himself, more crystals for the ones who actually deserve of them.”

Fleetfoot furrowed her brow. It was disturbing how… straight faced Angel remained as he spoke so cruelly.

“You don’t even care that he’s one of your own? Not even the slightest bit?” Fleetfoot pressed, remaining alert in case Angel charged again.

“There is no need to feel anything, especially for those who pale in comparison,” he said smoothly. “There are few among the Shadowbolts who deserve my respect… the rest of them mean absolutely nothing to me.”

Fleetfoot’s ears folded backwards as she gritted her teeth in disgust.

“That’s… sad,” she said, shaking her head. “I could never live like that.”

“Then you are weak,” Angel’s arm began to glow again. “And you will die.”

“Shit…” Fleetfoot cursed as she quickly pumped her wings, pushing herself down before Angel even began his motions. She didn’t look back, she knew the flying blades were coming. Like Shadow, Angel’s attacks only moved in a straight line, but unlike Shadow’s burst wave of magic… Angel’s blades were lightning fast, traveling from his arm to his intended target in less than a second.

She kept moving, flying faster and faster without moving too far from the immediate area, but her focus on staying ahead of the attacks kept her from seeing she was playing right into Angel’s hooves… literally.

“GAH!” Fleetfoot gasped as she slammed right into Angel unintentionally. He grunted, but caught her, spun her around, and put her in a choke-hold with one arm, using the other to hold her arms flat to her body. Her wings swung and flailed, but they had no effect towards breaking her free.

“Flying around aimlessly, picking fights you can’t win, you may be good, but in the end the Wonderbolts are nothing more than amateurs who call themselves soldiers,” Angel spoke smoothly as Fleetfoot continued to fight his grip. “It’s easy to simply train and call yourself a soldier, but a soldier is not a warrior by default… Warrior is a title you earn.”

Fleetfoot growled as she opened her eyes and looked out towards the rest of the action. She didn’t see much because the absurd scuffle between Air Mach, the low ranking Shadowbolts, and the two Falcons took up the full length of her vision.

She watched as Air Mach continued to pull off and try the most absurd and ridiculous maneuvers, continuously fall on his face, and blunder again and again… only to keep getting right back up. His cape had been ripped free of his suit and his specialty goggles were smashed from a blow to the face, but he held strong. In fact, he pulled a pair of his signature sunglasses out of… somewhere and put them on to replace his goggles in the midst of fighting, claiming he was unstoppable… and so far he was proving it.

Yet, here she was, taking hits from an uptight pretty boy that loved to hear himself talk… She scrunched her nose and squinted as his long mane strands started brushing in front of her face from the wind.

Screw it… if Air Mach could use unorthodox tactics… then she could too!

“Struggling is pointless, accept your…” Angel paused and blinked as Fleetfoot started growling and reaching her neck out. “What are you doing?” he asked, his tone still never changing.

“RRRRRNNNNAAAAAH!” Fleetfoot gave one hard effort… and bit down on his mane. Angel’s eyes widened as Fleetfoot managed to catch a large portion of it and thrust her head downward, causing a hard, painful yank on his head.

“Ah!” Angel yelped, his arms releasing Fleetfoot in reaction to the sudden lurch that nearly pulled him down. As Fleetfoot got free, she reached around, grabbed the end of his mane in her hooves and sneered at him.

“Nice mane!” Fleetfoot yanked on his mane, pulling him towards her before she let it extend and started spinning him… by the mane. “But it’s not—” she swung him faster and faster as he continued to grunt painfully— “As hot as mine!” she yelled as aimed him at the ground and let go.

Angel plummeted to the ground, a rough collision looking all too likely, but at the last moment, he spun around and threw out his wings, causing a loud FWOOMP as a burst of air smacked against the ground and blew the snow below him apart and up into the air. He looked up at Fleet, his face changing ever so little into the slightly angered, slightly glaring expression he wore after she landed her punch before. Both of his arms lit up with pink magic the moment he locked his eyes on her.

Fleetfoot yelped and backed away as Angel fired several smaller blades towards her. He threw them in a cone-like pattern, preventing her from making any attempts to start moving and use her speed again. She was forced to duck and dodge desperately, not willing to allow any of the razor sharp projectiles to hit her.

Angel crossed his arms and swung them both at the same time causing a larger blade with four points, shaped like an X to fly towards her. Her eyes widened, not expecting it after every one before it had been flat. She was forced to break focus and duck backwards while spinning away…

But the end point of one of the blades, caught her forearm. It dug into her suit, and lightly into her skin ss it whipped by.

“AHHHH! AHHH!!!!!” Fleetfoot cried out as she tumbled towards the ground. She evened out and slammed to the ground, quickly reaching her other hoof over to her arm, breath hissing through her teeth as she winced and shut her eyes tight. She shuddered at the intense stinging sensation, slowly forcing her eyes open as she looked down at her arm. Her suit along her forearm had been cut cleanly as if sliced by fine, sharpened blade. Her fur and skin had been lightly slit open as if it was the worst paper cut she had ever felt. Blood began to seep from the wound seconds after she looked at it. She quickly closed her eyes again, grabbing her torn suit and pulling the loose fabric over the wound to stop the bleeding and shield it from the cold. “Hnnnnggg…” she groaned as her nerves around the area felt like they were on fire.

What a deadly attack. If getting nicked by the very edge of the flying blades hurt this much and cut so finely… If she were to take a hit head on…

Fleetfoot suddenly realized just how dangerous Angel was. If not for her agility, she could easily be in pieces right now. This was a different kind of fear than with Ruin. Ruin, she just felt helpless, Angel? This guy would kill her in an instant if she didn’t stay on her game!

But as she held her arm and looked towards Angel, he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring into the distance, into the thick of the blizzard where visibility eventually disappeared. His ears were moving back and forth and he was tipping his head as if he was listening for something.

Fleetfoot didn’t bother to wonder what had him distracted, all she knew was just that. He was distracted. She needed to address her wound, so she grabbed the ripped portion of her sleeve and tore it off, wrapping it around the nasty cut.

“I’ll turn you all to dust! You will not best me!” Devil yelled, his voice echoing as the magic around him flared brighter and more intensely than any other time the Wonderbolts had seen it. It was as if he was pushing himself and his crystals incredibly hard, and based on Shadow’s brief moment of worry… it was something that could end poorly for him. But whether or not he hurt himself didn’t mean a thing… if Dash, Storm, and Squall couldn’t get away from his intensified attacks.

The three flew in wide circles around Devil, trying their best to outrun the trails of exploding globes that followed behind them. No matter what they did, they couldn’t shake them. Dash made several attempts to move towards Devil, but each time she tried, Devil would repel her with a combination of magical shockwaves and more globes popping up to block her path.

“We have to do something!” Storm yelled as he flew by Dash. “We can’t keep this up forever! AGH!” Storm cried out as a globe rose up in front of him and exploded. He managed to veer away, but caught a good portion of it. “DAMN!” he cursed as he dipped down and double tapped his hooves against the snow, executing his signature Surface Tap to propel himself upward and create more distance. Dash only briefly glanced up at Storm before quickly looking down and pitching hard to the left. She and Squall nearly ran directly into each other as they both turned and formed up side by side.

The two glanced at each other before both looking towards Devil. Dash, desperate to try anything, spoke up.

“Squall, if I give you a boost, do you think you can punch him really hard?!” she asked, Squall glancing at her.

“The first felt really good, so sure, why not?” he replied quickly as the two turned and angled towards Devil.

“Alright! Let’s do it!” Dash yelled, shifting herself behind Squall carefully, doing her best not to run into him or get caught in the multiple explosions following behind them. “Ready?!”

“Ready!” Squall yelled back to her. Dash focused on Squall’s back hooves as he extended them towards her. Dash put up her hooves similar to Squall’s martial arts stance. She decided to do a little combination work, readying the strike while also planning her strike to work like Storm Front’s Surface Tap.

“HRAH!” Dash yelled out as she struck her hooves against Squall’s rapidly striking them like Storm’s movements. The impact propelled Squall forward… much faster than he was expecting, but he locked his eyes on Devil. Devil tried to generate globes to block Squall, but they didn’t explode fast enough, Squall zipping by them as he readied his hooves. Squall shot through every attempt to stop him and gritted his teeth as he readied to give Devil another piece of his mind.

But right before Squall threw the punch, Devil roared, his crystals emitting strong pulses that smashed against Squall.

“GHRG!” Squall grunted as his forward motion was completely stopped.

“YOU ARE NOTHING!” Devil yelled out, another large shockwave bursting from around his body. Squall shielded himself as the wave floored him, sending him flying backwards before hitting the snow and tumbling to a stop.

“Damn!” Squall grunted as he tried to push himself up, but the shock from the hit had him disoriented. Dash gasped as she saw Devil focus on Squall, the globes following both her and Storm ceasing. Squall was defenseless!

“DIE!” Devil yelled out as his aura and crystals flared, sending the full power of his previously spread out attacks towards Squall. A bright line of pink light extended along the ground towards Squall. Globes began rising up from the light, but instead of exploding, they started combining together, growing into a large, single globe as is shot towards Squall. It was densely packed with energy, pulsating and flashing brightly.

“SQUALL!”

“DAMN!”

Storm and Dash both turned and fired towards Squall in hopes of moving him, but there was no way they’d make it in time… and Squall was still struggling to get up. The massive pink globe moved closer and closer and closer, less than five yards away when it began to flicker and…

Squall’s eyes grew wide as the force from the explosion slammed against him… followed by a little body being thrown into his chest. He was thrown backwards, flying several yards away.

Little Star had come in out of nowhere… and taken the hit.

Dash and Storm both gasped, confused and alarmed at the sudden appearance of Little Star. Their questions about what she was doing there quickly set aside by the horror of her using herself as a living shield to save Squall.

Squall crashed into the snow, shutting his eyes and grunting as he roughly hit the ground, but the moment he slid to a stop, he opened his eyes and nearly all the breath escaped his lungs.

“STAR!!!!” he cried out as he sat upright and grabbed her. She lay limply in his arms, a whole side of her suit blown away by the blast, including a shattered lens of her goggles. “STAR! STAAAAAARRR!!!!” Squall frantically yelled, but got no response.

Dash and Storm quickly landed nearby, but instead of checking on Star they turned to face Devil… who looked like he was ready to aim another volley of globes.

They glanced at each other, gritting their teeth as they looked back and forth between Squall and Devil. What could they do here?

“Incoming!” Storm yelled as he pointed at Devil. Devil had already sent another set of globes towards them, popping them up from the ground in a line, exploding. Dash and Storm got ready to take the attack head-on to shield the two behind them… but then something very large slammed down in front of them.

“HRM!” Matteo grunted as he reached up and crossed his arms in front of him while digging his back paws into the snow. The spheres reached them and exploded, Matteo holding himself firm, taking the smaller attacks without flinching.

“MATTY!” Dash yelled out, her face lighting up as Matteo shielded them all effectively. As Devil’s attack ceased, Matteo looked over his shoulder and simply gave a nod. Dash decided to save any questions for later. Both he and Little Star had disobeyed orders, but it proved to be a boon in this moment where things had gone awfully awry. Matteo narrowed his eyes when he saw Squall holding Little Star.

“Let’s not put Star’s sacrifice to waste…” he said calmly as he cracked his talons. Dash looked over her shoulder, gritting her teeth at the sight of Star, Squall holding her and staring at her while… shaking? Dash wasn’t about to tell Squall to drop her and help, so instead she stepped up beside Matteo with Storm.

“I’ll fly in front,” Matteo suggested. “You two follow behind and break off to strike once close enough!”

“You got it!” Storm acknowledged as Dash also nodded in response.

Matteo leapt up and pumped his large wings, sending him towards Devil. Devil growled, pounding his hooves to the ground as he called upon the same attack, multiple smaller globes popping up in Matteo’s path. Instead of just letting them hit, Matteo reached up his talons and did his best to deflect as many as he could in his path. He still hadn’t picked up the magic deflection techniques that well, but he had figured it out enough to divert some of the damage and explosions, giving Dash and Storm a smooth flight behind him.

“HRGH!” Matteo grunted as he kept pushing forward, more spheres hitting him than he was deflecting, but it was nothing. He kept pushing and pushing forward. Devil noticed this and began intensifying the attack, focusing everything on Matteo. As Matteo began to slow, he glanced back at Storm and Dash. “NOW!”

“Go!” Dash yelled at Storm as the two split up and shot outward, arcing around and shooting towards Devil at opposite angles. They didn’t have time to flank him this time, but they charged headlong at him with the intent to knock him out completely. Matteo was blown backwards as he took on the rapid attacks, but he had succeeded.

“AH!” Devil perked up as Dash and Storm pulled back their hooves. At the last second, he threw up a shield. Dash and Storm drove their hooves into the shield. It hurt, the shield’s surface solid, but the two didn’t pull back, they pushed, trying to penetrate the shield… hoping it was possible. “BACK OFF!” Devil yelled, his crystals flaring and emitting powerful shockwaves that forced the two of them away from him.

“Dammit!” Dash yelled as she and Storm eventually evened out and came to a halt near where Matteo stood. “These stupid crystals are so unfair!” she complained while growling.

“How are we supposed to get through?” Storm shook his head. “Since he went wild, it’s just one obstacle after another!”

The three all contemplated how else they could penetrate the crystal defenses that Devil continuously bolstered. They had to think fast, because he was slowly approaching them. Though his power output was clearly taking its toll. His breathing was harsh, his steps were heavy, and his face kept wincing and scrunching in pain. All of those things sharply contrasted with the intense bursts of energy coming from the crystals and around his body, his eyes glowing incredibly bright. Perhaps Shadow’s worry was part of what they were looking at. His power seemed to increase exponentially, but at what cost?

“Rgggghhh…” a growl came from behind them. They all looked over their shoulder at Squall.

He was still shaking, he was still holding Little Star, and his mane was blocking his eyes as his head remained tipped down towards her. His mouth slowly opened, revealing his teeth grinding so hard together than they could almost hear them from where they stood. Squall sharply looked up towards Devil, his eyes filled with pure rage. He slowly lowered Star down and gently placed her on the ground in the snow before standing up and planting his hooves, focusing all of his anger towards Devil.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Squall whipped his head back, yelling up into the sky before he looked back down and fired from his spot, shooting right past Dash, Storm, and Matteo.

“SQUALL! WAIT!” Dash readied to follow after him, but Matteo grabbed her by the shoulder. Dash glared up at him, but Matteo shook his head before making a quick head motion back towards Star.

“YOU CAN’T BEAT ME!” Devil yelled as Squall approached, his aura intensifying and the globes popping up from the ground. Squall ignored him, flying headlong into the incoming attacks. Squall twisted and shifted while swinging his hooves out wildly. He didn’t care if he managed to deflect a globe or if his attack made it explode right in his face, he kept moving forward.

“HRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!” Squall kept growling as the explosions ripped and tore at his Shadowbolt suit, his goggles blowing to pieces and flying from his head as his mask shredded and exposed his face and scar.

“DAMMIT!” Devil yelled, throwing up his personal shield as Squall pierced through his attacks and shifted into his stance.

“HOOORRRYAA!” Squall yelled out, rapidly striking the shield. Devil shifted backwards from the attack, but the shield held. “HOOOORRYYAAA! RAH! RAAAAAH!!!!” Squall yelled out over and over as he continued delivering attack after attack, pounding punches and kicks into the shield non-stop.

“Give it up!” Devil yelled, snarling through his aura and shield. “You can’t get through!” He flinched as Squall snarled right back, headbutting the shield twice. He paused after the second, his glare fierce and a trickle of blood coming from his forehead, sliding past the scar and onto his nose alongside tears that were lightly dripping from his eyes. Squall roared out retaking his stance.

“RAAHH! RAAAAHHH!!!!!! HRRRAAAAAAHHH!!!!!” Squall threw more attacks, punches, kicks, everything he could. He unloaded every bit of strength he had into Devil’s shield. Every punch made loud, screeching CRACKLE as sparks of magic bounced from the shield.

“AH!” Devil yelped as he was forced down, his legs shaking as the shield began to pulse and buckle. Squall didn’t let up, he kept hitting the shield over and over and over again, his joints in his hooves began making harsh cracking noises, a few stains of blood made their way onto his fetlocks. “NO!” Devil yelled out as the shield began flickering and bending as Squall stuck it. His crystals began to flash, small waves of energy rushing out of them as they blinked.

Squall jumped up and pulled back his right hoof, gritting his teeth and crunching his face into the fiercest glare he could muster. Devil’s eyes widened as he looked up at Squall above him.

“HHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!” Squall roared out as he pushed his wings back and punched downward.

His hoof struck the shield, shattering the top portion of it. His hoof went right through and crashed directly into Devil’s face with so much force that the blow snapped his goggles right off his face, the lenses breaking into small shards. Squall pushed Devil’s head right down, smashing it against the ground, Squall’s hoof against it the whole way until it was buried against the snow.

Devil’s aura faded, his crystals ceased glowing and fell into the snow beside him.

Squall stumbled backwards, falling down onto his plot a few yards away, panting and wheezing as he leaned forward. His hooves stung like mad, his eyes fixed on the ground between them as a gentle drip of tears and blood stained the snow below. Squall shook his head, a slight whimper coming from the back of his throat.

“D—dammit…” he sniffled. “Damn it all…”

“Hgn…” a tiny grunt from behind him made his ears stand up. He looked up and spun around as quickly as his pain allowed him.

His eyes landed on Little Star, resting in Dash’s arms. She was twitching, stirring painfully…

But… she was alive.

Squall ignored all of the pain in his front hooves, galloping back over.

“Star!” he yelled as he approached, skidding to a halt and looking her over. Star’s eyes slowly opened, but remained squinted as she glanced up at Dash, then turned and looked at Squall. Every little bit she moved made her cringe, the half of her body exposed by her blown apart suit looking painfully bruised, but thankfully only a little cooked. She breathed steadily, but slowly.

“Oh…” her lips curled into a weak smile. “Good… I made it in time,” she said as she saw Squall looking her over with worry. She cringed and turned back, shutting her eyes as she quivered in Dash’s arms before passing out.

Squall released an incredibly long sigh of relief as he fell flat on his stomach, his chin resting in the snow.

Dash smiled at the two of them, thankful that despite all the punishment they had taken, they were both very much alive.

“That was something,” Storm commented as they found a moment of respite. Matteo nodded.

“Indeed,” he added. “And admirable.”

“Rgghhh… gaaahhh…. AHHH…” Devil’s groans caught their attention, Dash, Matteo, and Storm all turned and looked towards the fallen Shadowbolt. His crystals were flickering… and shaking.

“DEVIL!” Shadow suddenly yelled from above, landing beside him and looking him over frantically. “NO! YOU IDIOT!” she yelled as she backed away.

“AAHHH!!!” Devil cried out.

Shadow watched in horror as Devil’s crystals… one by one… began to crack, and eventually shatter.

Dash gasped, staring wide eyed towards Devil as she remembered all too well what happened to Witch and Trance.

“GAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!” Devil cried out into the air as his body, from the hooves up, slowly began to crackle and solidify, his entire body engulfed into a crystal formation. Shadow backed away, her mouth hung ajar as a looming silence grew over the immediate area. Shadow looked away as the crystal form of Devil began to crack… and then shattered, disintegrating into bits of pink dust that caught the wind and blew away.

Shadow slammed her eyes shut and bared her teeth, a growl growing louder from her throat as she looked up at the Dash and the rest.

“YOU!” she roared. “I’LL KILL YOU AL—”

“No.”

Dash’s eyes widened as Angel suddenly landed next to Shadow and grabbed her by the shoulder.

Silver and Fleetfoot both glided over and hovered nearby, wondering what their opponents were doing.

“LET GO OF ME, ANGEL!” Shadow snapped at him. “THEY KILLED DEVIL!”

“Devil killed himself,” Angel said calmly. “And he deserved it for being a fool.”

Shadow intensified her glare at Angel, but she remained silent as if she knew saying anything… or trying anything in defiance would be pointless.

“We’re leaving,” Angel suddenly said, Shadow’s eyes widening.

“WHAT?!” she stared at him in disbelief. “WHY?!”

“I said, we’re leaving. Question me, and you’ll end up just like Devil,” he repeated while adding a threat. Shadow flinched, leaning away from him slightly before looking down and shuddering. She suddenly looked over Angel’s shoulder.

“What about—”

“Leave them,” Angel cut her off. “I’m not going to waste my time corralling them.”

“But—”

“NOW,” Angel’s voice became slightly stern if only for a moment, causing Shadow to flinch.

“Dammit…” she forced herself to turn away and take off as Angel looked up at Fleetfoot and Silver for a moment. She turned and followed behind, the two of them eventually disappearing into the blizzard.

“Hey!” Fleetfoot was about to follow, but Silver shifted in front of her.

“Hold up there,” he shook his head. “Save it for another day, I don’t know why they left, but I’m not about to waste the free fly out of here,” he said while glancing down at Dash and the others. “Let’s go make sure everypony is alright, gather up Steady Wing and get back home.”

Fleetfoot sighed and nodded.

“Yeah… that sounds good,” she agreed as the two turned and glided down towards Foxtrot and Storm.

As they approached, Silver narrowed his eyes at Matteo and Little Star.

“What exactly are you doing here?” Silver asked Matteo as he and Fleetfoot landed. Matteo hung his head.

“I apologize for disobeying orders,” he quickly gave in.

“Hey, Matty, shut it,” Dash quickly took over, drawing both their attention as she held onto Star. Silver lifted an eyebrow as he glanced at her. “If Matty and Star didn’t show up, we’d probably be dead, or getting killed right now,” Dash explained. “So I’m willing to bet it was a good idea, even if they did go against orders.”

Silver huffed, but then smiled.

“I suppose we can let it slide,” he said as Fleetfoot approached, taking a moment to examine Squall sprawled out in the snow before looking towards Star.

“She okay?” Fleetfoot asked. Dash nodded.

“She took a hard hit for Squall, but she’s fine. Might want to get her back soon though, she could use some medical attention,” Dash said while looking Star over as well.

“Well then,” Silver spoke up as he looked between all of them. “We should get move—”

He paused and blinked, his expression going blank. Fleetfoot and the rest all looked towards him.

“What?” Fleet asked while tipping her head.

“I’m feeling like we’re forgetting something…” Silver said as he continued to blink.

They all flinched as a loud explosion came from close by, followed by lots of yelling, hooting, and hollering.

They all looked at each other with wide eyes.

“AIR MACH!”

“OOF!” Air Mach grunted as he hit the snow hard and tumbled to a stop. He popped right back up, his body and suit covered in sweat as he panted. He smiled wide and pounded his chest. “Is that all ya got, wimps!?” He pointed towards the five Shadowbolts and the two Falcons that were all aimed and flying right at him. “I’m not even breaking a sweat!” he proclaimed, striking a pose as sweat whipped around off his body. “Whoop!” he launched upward, avoiding cannonfire from the Falcons as it peppered the ground towards him.

He blew raspberries at the Falcons as he ascended, but then inadvertently flew directly into the middle of the five Shadowbolts who surrounded him.

“Oh? Five against one? Again? Alright! Gimme your best!” he beckoned them as their crystals began to glow, but none of them got a chance to use them. Dash, Storm, Fleetfoot, Silver, and Matteo all shot down from above, clashing with one Shadowbolt each. Dash and Storm’s targets both turned and grappled with them, but Matteo, Fleetfoot and Silver all caught their targets off-guard, pushing them all the way to the ground roughly and knocking them out with the the initial strong blow and crash.

“Hey! Dumbass!” Fleetfoot growled towards Air Mach as he turned and faced the Falcons, the two ships coming about. “Good job staying alive, but come on! We have an escape window!” she yelled as Matteo and Silver broke off to assist Dash and Silver.

“Yo!” Air Mach glanced over his shoulder at Fleetfoot. “What’s all this about running away?! I still gotta take one of these things for myself!”

“Forget it!” Fleetfoot yelled as she flew up and grabbed his arm. “Face it, Air Mach! There’s no way to get through those shields!” she tried to reason with him, but he yanked his arm free.

“Sorry! Too busy kicking reason to the curb!” he tipped his glasses up and winked before shooting towards the Falcons, gliding low along the ground. The ships tipped and their cannons fired, shooting rapid bursts of powerful pink magic to the ground. Air Mach laughed as he pitched left and right, weaving past the incoming blasts as they struck the ground and kicked up snow all around him.

Fleetfoot backed off as the blasts zipped by her, shaking her head while tugging on her mane.

“My god, he’s going to kill himself and Spitfire is gonna blame it on me!” Fleetfoot grumbled loudly.

“Actually,” Dash flew up, breaking away from Matteo as he grabbed hold of their Shadowbolt and drove him to the ground. “The shields aren’t completely impenetrable!” she pointed back towards where Squall was waiting with Star and Steady Wing. “Squall was able to punch through Devil’s shield after hitting it repeatedly as hard as he could! He almost broke his hooves, but he did get through it!”

Fleetfoot’s eyes widened as she listened, Silver and Storm floating up as well, having taken care of their Shadowbolt.

“She’s right, it’s possible,” Silver nodded. “When these things chased us before, Bomber, Val, and I dropped an avalanche on them. The constant pressure eventually broke through their shields.”

They were all forced to back away and shield themselves as Air Mach shot by, blasts from the Falcons chasing him thundering to the ground and blasting snow in their faces. They all broke apart, spreading out in different directions. Silver and Fleetfoot remained together as Storm and Dash broke away to join up with Matteo.

“But can we do enough?! These things are huge! Devil was just a single pony… plus you used an avalanche!” she couldn’t stop doubting the possibility.

“HA! GOT YOU!” Air Mach’s voice caught their attention. They looked over to see he had landed on the shield of one of the Falcons and struggled to remain stationary as the pilot began making sharp maneuvers to try and shake him off. The other Falcon followed right behind as if trying to line up a shot to knock him off.

Air Mach ducked as the following Falcon fired, sliding down the front of the shield and latching to it as he looked into the cockpit. A Shadowbolt stallion in the pilot seat glared back at him, yanking on the arm levers as he tried to toss Air Mach aside. Air Mach held firm sneering into the cockpit.

“HEY! YOU!” he yelled, not even sure if they could hear him from inside or not. “AND YOU! AND YOU! YOU TOO!” he pointed at the other three Shadowbolts inside who were not looking at him. “It’s time to fork this thing over! If you don’t I’m gonna come in and take it myself!” he proclaimed before clambering back up on top of the shield. “OH YEAH! TIME TO BREAK IN!” he yelled as he began punching the shield over and over again, having little effect.

“AIR MACH!” Fleetfoot yelled in his direction while swinging her arms about. “Give it up already—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening as Silver suddenly took off, flying towards the Falcon.

He landed right beside Air Mach and started striking the shield as well. Air Mach looked up and smiled.

“Yea-ha! Give it everything!” he encouraged while pointing at him dramatically. Silver turned and glared at him.

“Shut up, quit posing, and start punching!” Silver ordered.

“Yes sir!” Air Mach agreed as he went back to it. Their hooves kept bouncing off the shield, but they didn’t let up, even as the Falcon kept swaying and lurching. The other Falcon was moving right behind it, but the pilot seemed hesitant to fire in fear of hitting his fellow Falcon instead of the Wonderbolts.

“SILVER, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!” Fleetfoot gawked towards them. She flinched as Dash, Matteo, and Storm all shot past her, all shooting towards the Falcon, most likely to join them.

Fleetfoot stared blankly as the three landed beside Air Mach and Silver, joining the two of them in striking the shield. The Falcon started taking hard turns, pitching and swaying hard, but the five held on tight, determined to break through.

“Dammit…” Fleetfoot sighed before smirking. “You know…” she pumped her wings and started flying towards them. “Sometimes that idiot just gets on my nerves…” she focused and shot towards the Falcon, shooting past it and aiming for the other Falcon following behind. The pilot clearly reacted, pulling up and aiming the cannons towards Fleetfoot. “That’s right! Over here!” she yelled as she pitched and flew over it, bracing herself against the wind from its propellers as the Falcon turned about and began firing. The blasts were large, but easy to predict.

She looped around and pitched downward, forcing the pilot to keep following her movements until she flew right beneath it. The cannon fire hit the ground very close to the Falcon itself. The kicked up snow crashed against the shield, semi-blinding the pilot for a moment and forcing him to turn about.

With the other Falcon distracted for a moment, Fleetfoot shot towards her fellow Wonderbolts, who were bashing their hooves and talons endlessly against the shield. The shield was flickering, but holding in place.

“Room for one more?!” Fleetfoot called out as she avoided the propellers and slammed to the shield beside Air Mach.

“Now we’re talkin! GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT!” Air Mach yelled out. With all six of them hitting the shield over and over again, the Falcon actually began to buckle in its flight path, the shield flickering harder. “YEAH! KEEP IT UP!” Air Mach yelled.

The six of them all roared out in a synchronized battle cry as they hit the shield again and again and again and again…

Then the shield started to bend.

“GO! GO! GO!” Silver yelled out in encouragement as they kept striking it. “We’re almost got it!” he yelled. They kept hitting it as Matteo suddenly leapt up off the shield and forced his large wings down hard. His Air Burst technique propelled him upward with a BANG before he turned back down and used it again. He shot down towards the shield with both of his talons balled up and pulled back. Silver and Dash looked up, seeing Matteo going for the crushing blow. The two of them, without planning it, both wound up to use the Full Motion Strike, timing it up with Matteo’s plunge.

“RAAAAAH!” the three of them all yelled, Matteo, Dash, and Silver all striking the shield close together at the same time.

With a loud, crackling CRASH… The shield blew to pieces.

“Whoa!” Fleetfoot yelped as they all fell through and landed against the dorsal hull of the Falcon. The destruction of the shield caused the Falcon to dip down and bounce against the snow, but they all held on tight.

“Over here!” Matteo yelled as he reached and grabbed a handle attached to a hatch. He yanked it, forcing it open with a loud snap.

“Don’t mind if I do!” Air Mach leapt up and plunged head first into the Falcon. “D’oh!” he grunted as he crashed, landing face first on the floor of the interior. The four Shadowbolts inside flinched as the new arrive literally dropped in. “Ha! Perfect landing!” Air Mach stood up and pounded his chest. He glanced back and forth. It was a small interior, not much room, but had four stations in it. There was a pilot’s seat with two other seats flanking it, facing control panels. There was a fourth station facing what looked like some sort of core with a large pink crystal floating in it. It all looked really high tech, like nothing Air Mach had ever seen before.

He didn’t get much of a chance to take it all in though, because the two Shadowbolts from the side stations immediately abandoned their posts and rushed at him. He reached out as they grabbed at him, struggling with both of them at the same time. The third manning the crystal turned to help, but Matteo’s right talons suddenly reached down from above, grabbed the Shadowbolt by the head and yanked him out with a yelp, the crystal under his control smacking against the top of the core before dropping.

“Sorry!” Air Mach sneered as he struggled with the other two. “I ain’t got time for hugs!” he pushed them off and began wildly swinging his arms around with no real form or function. The two Shadowbolts were forced to shield themselves as he simply threw random blows. Matteo reached in again, grabbing one of them and yanking them out. Air Mach caught on, grabbing the third and pushing her towards the hatch. “Have another, Big Bird!” he yelled, Matteo reaching in and grabbing the mare as well.

Air Mach rushed towards the pilot seat, reaching around and putting the stallion at the controls into a headlock.

“Time to give it up, pal!” Air Mach yelled. The Shadowbolt stallion gasped as Air Mach held him by the neck, instinctively pulling back on the two levers. The Falcon tipped up and started climbing higher.

Outside, the rest of the Wonderbolts stumbled and quickly took flight as the Falcon tipped upward to avoid getting struck by the propellers. They had to anyway to engage the Shadowbolts Matteo had thrown out of the Falcon.

The Falcon kept climbing as Air Mach struggled inside with the pilot. Eventually, he simply yanked the stallion completely out of the chair.

“I GUESS WE GOTTA DO IT THE HARD WAY!” Air Mach yelled as he held onto the stallion, his back hooves slipping backwards against the floor. He fixed his eyes on the open hatch as they slid, winding up and chucking the stallion right out of the Falcon. The stallion yelped, barely missing the propellers as he flailed through the air.

“Yeah!” Air Mach cheered as the Falcon began to even out. He leapt forward and plopped right down into the seat. He didn’t bother trying to figure out what did what, he simply stuck his arms forward, grabbing the lever controls. “Alright, let’s see what this thing’s got!”

He pulled back and pushed his arms forward…

But the levers barely budged a loud, painful clicking and cracking sound coming from them as if they were being forced against power locks.

“What the?!” Air Mach gritted his teeth as he tried to pull and jerk the levers, but they barely moved as if they were being held in place. “What gives?!”

Loud beeping noises started blaring around him, several red lights flashing from the control panels. Air Mach glanced around at all the systems going nuts, looking back forward as the Falcon began to tip downward… and fall.

“COME ON!” Air Mach yelled as he continued to try and push and pull the levers. “COME ON! LISTEN TO ME!”

“Air Mach!” Fleetfoot yelled as the group outside forced the Shadowbolts from the Falcon to retreat. Everypony looked up to watch as the Falcon started falling like a rock, losing all the altitude gained while Air Mach was struggling with the pilot.

They all gasped as the other Falcon suddenly rushed past them… and started firing on its falling counterpart. The magic blasts struck Air Mach’s Falcon, causing it to spin and lurch out of control as it fell.

“NO!” Fleetfoot yelled as she looked back at the rest and pointed. “We have to help him!”

“GO! GO! GO!” Silver ordered as he took off with the rest following behind. “Dash! You and Storm try to get that Falcon’s attention!” he pointed. “Fleetfoot, Matteo, with me! We gotta get him out of there!”

“GAH! AUGH!” Air Mach flinched and grunted as the entire Falcon shook, peppered by the magic cannons of the other. Every shock and accompanied explosion hit him with nasty whiplash. He barely had any moments in between to get his bearings and see straight.

“WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME?!” he yelled at the controls as he kept trying to pull at them. “WHY THE HELL AREN’T YOU MOVING?! AUGH!” he yelped as the Falcon was struck again, throwing him forward against the cockpit shield. His face hit the glass, knocking his sunglasses off. “DAMMIT!” he cursed as he pushed away from the glass and looked back into the rest of the interior again.

His eyes widened as they landed on the pink crystal sitting in the back. Through all the red lights and the ear wrenching beeping, it suddenly made sense.

The crystal… it was no longer floating in the contraption fixed to the back, its glow completely faded as well. Without the power of the crystal, or somepony controlling it… was the Falcon doomed to fall to the ground as if its wings were clipped?

Air Mach refused to believe it.

“NO!” he snarled, turning around and sitting back into the seat, fixing his eyes forward through the cockpit shield as the approaching view of the snow covered ground spiraled out of control in front of him. “I WON’T GIVE UP! THERE’S GOTTA BE A WAY!”

“DAMN!” Silver cursed as he was forced to pull up. The cannons firing from the other Falcon were preventing him, Fleetfoot, and Matteo from getting close. He glanced back as he took a wide arc around, seeing Dash and Storm. They were on top of the Falcon’s shield, punching at it and flying around it, but the pilot was not taking the bait. The cannons remained focused on Air Mach, firing non-stop.

Without a shield around it, Air Mach’s Falcon began taking heavy hits, large chunks of the hull being ripped and torn apart, exposing the machinery of the propellers. At this point Silver wasn’t sure what would kill Air Mach first, a crash landing or the other Falcon peppering him to shreds.

“What is he doing?!” Fleetfoot yelled as she formed up next to Silver. “AIR MACH! GIVE IT UP! GET OUT OF THERE! She yelled desperately towards the Falcon.

But Air Mach remained inside.

It seemed like a lost cause…

“Above us!” Matteo suddenly called out as he came about and formed up with Silver and Fleetfoot.

They all looked up into the sky.

A purple streak was shooting down towards the Falcon.

“I REFUSE!” Air Mach yelled while growling. “I REFUSE TO GIVE UP!” he kept trying to convince himself as the ship continued to shudder and lurch from the cannon fire. “RRRAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!” he growled while gripping the levers as hard as he could, now only seconds away from crashing…

But then his ears perked up as a loud BANG sounded out from behind him. It sounded like it was from inside?

Air Mach turned his head, looking over his shoulders with wide eyes.

Starry Skies was standing behind him, frantically looking around. She glanced at him for only a brief moment before her eyes landed on the fixture in the back, specifically on the crystal lying lifelessly in the compartment.

Starry shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, tensing her whole body. Her eyes shot open and she reached for the crystal.

“RRRRGGGHHHAAAAAA!!!!!” she cried out as she grabbed the crystal, a bright light erupting from its surface as she clasped her hooves around it. “RRRGHHH!! NGRRAAAAA!” she continued to groan loudly as she lifted the crystal up and forced it back into place within the core.

The beeping noises stopped, the red lights around the interior ceased blinking, and several loud whirring and buzzing noises came from within the Falcon. Air Mach quickly turned around as he felt the levers loosen in his grip. A smile quickly spread across his lips.

“YEEEAAAAAAAHHHH-HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” he yelled out as he pulled back hard on the levers.

The Falcon regained control of its balance and pulled up. Air Mach and Starry braced themselves as the bottom of the fuselage bounced and skidded along the snow before turning up and shooting back skyward.

“HA!” Air Mach’s grin kept growing, his body covered with goosebumps as the Falcon finally responded to his movements. “THAT’S RIGHT! IT’S MINE NOW!”

“Was that Starry Skies?!” Fleetfoot yelled out in disbelief.

“More incoming!” Matteo yelled out, pointing up as Descent, Lightning Dust, and a small group of Shadowbolt Renegades appeared in the distance.

“We’re not clear yet!” Silver called out as Dash and Storm disengaged and joined them. “Air Mach and Starry are still in danger!” he yelled while pointing at the two Falcons.

Air Mach had gained control, but the other Falcon was still following behind and continuing its barrage. They were both climbing skyward, but Air Mach’s Falcon suddenly cut its engines and sharply turned all the way around while floating up into the air.

“WHOA!” Air Mach yelled as he almost fell out of the pilot seat. “These are some sensitive controls!” he smirked while reaching down, picking his glasses up off the floor and slamming them back over his eyes. He stared right through the cockpit window at the other falcon, still climbing after him as his simply floated up in weightlessness. “ALRIGHT! I’m sick of being pushed around! Time to—”

“OH MY GOD! SHUT UP AND DO SOMETHING BEFORE WE GET KILLED!” Starry barked at him as she continued to grimace, holding the crystal in place.

“Heh! I like your enthusiasm!” Air Mach replied, grabbing the levers. “Now, I wonder how I fire the—” his hoof slipped and squeezed the lever handles. Pink flashes erupted in front of them as the cannons on the front of the Falcon fired, sending two blasts down towards the other Falcon. They exploded against the shield, forcing the Falcon out of its flight path. “HEY! THAT WORKS! LET’S DANCE!”

Air Mach forced the levers forward, his body pressing into the seat as the engines fired and shot them straight down towards the other Falcon. As they approached, it turned and began firing on Air Mach.

“HA! I AIN’T SCARED OF YOU!” Air Mach yelled as he twisted his hooves, causing the Falcon to twist hard to the right. Starry yelped, grabbing onto the side of the core before she was thrown away from it. “WHO THE HELL…” Air Mach called out as he leaned forward, glaring towards the other Falcon. “DO YOU THINK I AM?!” He squeezed his hooves down on the handles as hard as he could.

Dash, Silver, and the rest all watched in awe as Air Mach’s Falcon spun and fired an intense barrage of pink magic bursts, countering the other Falcon climbing towards it. The blasts shot both up and down, some of them colliding as the attacks met. But Air Mach’s twisting seemed to cause a displacement, several more of his blasts getting through and striking the other Falcon’s shield as it flew through the explosions. The other Falcon was pushed out of its course, tipping down to the point where its cannons were no longer facing Air Mach.

The Falcon’s shield flickered and buckled under the continuous pressure, the whole machine forced down into a tailspin. Air Mach didn’t let up, peppering his target non-stop until the Falcon’s shield broke less than a yard from the ground. The whole thing crashed roughly to the ground, loud creaks and snaps echoing throughout the mountains as the wings bent and the propellers snapped. The Falcon dragged through the snow, leaving several, smashed pieces of itself in its wake before coming to a stop, the whirring and buzzing of its engines slowing fading.

Moments later, the hatch opened and the four Shadowbolts inside shot out, immediately turning and flying away desperately into the blizzard.

“Should we—?!” Dash started inching forward, but Silver stopped her.

“No, let them go,” he said while releasing a heavy sigh, all of them ducking down slightly as Air Mach’s Falcon pulled up and shot overhead. They all turned and watched as the Falcon slowed down and began to fly in wide circles. Very faint cheering could be heard from inside, likely from Air Mach. “I think we’ve had enough… and it looks like we came out with a little prize as well,” Silver added while shaking his head and smiling. “I gotta admit… that was one hell of a ballsy move by Air Mach, but if there’s one thing I like about the dumbass, it’s that he never backs down.”

“And gives us heart attacks in the process,” Fleetfoot added as let her body hang limply, but remained hovering.

They all looked up as Descent and Lightning Dust approached with their small force.

Silver smirked as Lightning Dust broke off towards the Falcon.

“I wonder what happened to ‘not being a part of it?’” he recalled Descent’s unwillingness to help them. “This ought to be good,” he said as he, Dash, and the rest all landed.

Descent pitched down and landed near them with his followers and surveyed the area, his eyes landing on the Falcon for a few moments as Lightning Dust hopped inside.

“Well, well, well…” Silver began, causing Descent to flatten his brow immediately. “Look who decided to show up after all.”

“Spare me,” Descent said with a grunt. “I already survived a full range of taunts from your captain.”

“Hm?” Silver blinked. “Spitfire is with you?” he asked. Descent glanced over his shoulders as Spitfire suddenly came into view through the thick of the blizzard, a few Shadowbolt Renegades guiding her along.

“We found her trying to navigate the blizzard herself,” Descent explained. “Apparently she ignored her own retreat plan in favor of throwing more punches.”

“Heh…” Silver chuckled as Spitfire approached. She looked like she had been in a fight, her suit sporting small rips and tears here and there. As she landed, Silver saluted. “Captain, nice of you to—” Silver stopped as she trotted right past him and moved towards Dash.

Dash was watching Matteo and Storm as they helped Steady Wing and Squall, who was holding onto Little Star. She blinked when a hoof suddenly roughly grabbed her shoulder.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped as was forcefully spun around, her eyes widening as she stared directly into the very stern eyes of Spitfire.

“Did you get Wave out?” she asked as she nearly pressed her nose to Dash’s.

“Yikes, Captain I—”

“DID. YOU. GET. WAVE. OUT?!” she asked while pushing against Dash, nearly forcing her all the way down into the snow. Silver quickly turned and trotted up to her.

“Captain,” Silver spoke up as he reached between the two of them and pushed them apart. “You can rest easy, Squad Zero and Comet managed to sneak away from the action without being pursued. I ordered them to stay out of sight and take no risks on their way back. So relax, Wave is safe.”

Spitfire stared at Silver for a few moments before letting go of Rainbow Dash, taking a very long, deep breath, and falling back onto her plot while exhaling.

“Then we did it,” she smiled. “We really did it.”

Dash smiled as she saw the relief pour over Spitfire. The whole operation was one hell of a gamble. Spitfire had shown confidence throughout, but Dash was more than certain Spitfire was incredibly nervous from start to finish.

“Why didn’t you follow the retreat plans?” Silver asked her out of curiosity. Spitfire looked up at him and smirked.

“I was busy beating the tar out of Blade,” she said as she stood back up. “I admit… I had a bit of pent up anger after everything that’s happened recently… I may have gone a little far,” she winked.

“As long as you didn’t kill him,” Descent grunted from behind them. “I’d rather you not interfere in my grudges.”

“Oh, relax,” Spitfire rolled her eyes as she and Silver came together with Descent. “I made sure he could fly back at least,” she joked while winking.

“That’s not funny…” Descent grunted. “Should we find a way to save them, I’d appreciate it if they were alive to BE saved.”

Dash’s ears perked up and she bit her lip as Descent mentioned the Shadowbolts… well… ‘being alive.’

“I’m getting mixed messages here,” Spitfire tipped her head at Descent. “Either you want to kill Blade or hug him, but I don’t think you can do both.”

“Dammit, you know what I mean…” Descent snorted. “Blade is an old friend led astray.”

“Um…”

They all turned to Dash as she stepped forward. Dash swallowed, looking directly at Descent.

“Might as well get this out of the way,” Dash said, stepping past Spitfire and Silver, looking firmly into Descent’s eyes as he listened with curiosity. “Devil is dead,” she said seriously. Descent’s eyes opened slightly, but there wasn’t much of a reaction besides that. “I can’t really say we killed him though… he pushed his magic really far, and after we managed to stop him, his crystals shattered. Then the same thing happened to him that happened to Trance and Witch.”

There was a long pause as Spitfire and Silver both turned to look at Descent as well. Descent sighed, looking down for a moment and shaking his head.

“Devil too, huh?” he said as he looked back up. “So reckless abandon and pushing the crystals too far also causes an untimely demise…” he paused, then snorted. “Devil always had more pride than he could handle… barking loudly for respect and leadership when he never could get the better of those ranked above him. It’s no wonder he fell prey to the crystals, greed for power is a dangerous thing.”

Dash, Spitfire, and Silver all looked between each other as Descent turned away and looked towards the Falcon.

“Come on,” he said calmly. “We’ve achieved victory and stolen one of their toys on top of it, let’s head back.”

Before any of them could reply, Descent spread his wings and lifted off.

“Let him be,” Spitfire declared quickly. “Let’s make sure we’ve got everypony…” she paused, looking around as she saw Matteo and Storm helping Squall, Fleetfoot now supporting Steady Wing. “Let’s get them up and into the flying thing-a-majig,” she suggested, referring to Steady, Squall, and Little Star as she pointed at the Falcon. “It’s been a long day. Let’s get home before the sun sets so we can rest and figure out what to do about Soarin next.”

They all nodded in agreement, everypony taking off to join up with the rest… and curious to get a good look at the newly acquired Falcon.

Dash felt a wave of relief wash over her as well. A ‘long day’ was putting it lightly. A false attack, chasing a disguised Rapidfire, fighting Shadowbolts, Soarin disappearing, depression turned into a rally cry, a fake show, fortress infiltration, running from and stealing a Falcon… Dash could easily mark it down as the craziest day of her life.

But in the end, they managed to get Wave back… but was it without cost?

Dash frowned as they flew towards the Falcon.

“Where is Twister?” Matteo asked as they flew, making Dash cringe. “I don’t like that look…” Matteo added as Dash shook her head.

“I’ll explain later…” she said somberly, glancing at Squall as he rode on Matteo’s back, gripping Little Star tightly. She sighed, looking back forward.

The day was won for the Wonderbolts… but Twister was gone, and they still had no idea where Soarin was. Spitfire could put one of her worries to rest, but Dash’s were still unfulfilled.

Air Mach looked up as gentle THUMPS sounded against the top of the Falcon. Shortly after, Spitfire and Fleetfoot dropped inside from the hatch and looked around.

“Whoa…” Fleetfoot blinked as she glanced about before turning and helping lower Steady Wing, Squall, and Little Star into the Falcon as well. She directed them over to the empty chairs to let them rest. All of them too tired, or not conscious enough in Star’s case to take in and react to the Falcon.

“This is something…” Spitfire commented as she looked towards Air Mach.

“Pretty cool stuff, huh?” Air Mach glanced over his shoulder and flexed his arm. “I got tired of them having all the cool gadgets, so I took one!”

“Heh…” Spitfire chuckled, having already gotten a quick rundown of what happened from Fleetfoot. “Good work Air Mach, but… really. Next time, don’t be so reckless.”

“No can do boss!” Air Mach replied before sitting back down and looking over the controls. Spitfire shook her head, but did so smiling. She was excited that Air Mach had somehow managed to pull off the capture a Falcon. The Shadowbolts had used all manner of unknown and complicated technology against them. This was an unexpected boon. If they could get this thing back to Rivet, he may be able to reverse engineer some of it and find ways to bolster their own recently discovered technology.

“Hgggnnn…” a fatigued grunt came from behind them. Spitfire and Fleetfoot both turned to Starry Skies, who was still clutching the crystal that was powering the craft. Lightning Dust was standing beside her with a hoof on her back, offering encouragement and the presence of a comrade. The two Wonderbolts cringed as they watched Starry willingly expose herself to the crystal. Starry had used the crystals in the past, but after denouncing them and then seeing what they were capable of, there was no doubt Starry had staved off her own fears in order to ensure their success.

“Starry… are you gonna be okay?” Fleetfoot asked as she stepped up beside her and Lightning Dust.

“I’m… fine…” Starry grunted, beads of sweat dripping down her face. “I’ve handled these… before… and it’s just one,” she gasped, her head bobbing down. Lightning Dust winced and crouched down, but Starry shook her head. “Just get us back to the compound… I’ll manage until then.”

Lightning Dust looked up at the Wonderbolts, worry written all over her face.

Spitfire caught on, recognizing that Starry was likely downplaying how much she was straining herself. Spitfire quickly turned to Air Mach.

“Air Mach, you have the controls figured out?” she asked.

“Wanna ask the ship I shot down?” he laughed to himself. Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Well, keep it up, and follow behind us when we get moving,” she ordered. Spitfire reached up and rapped her hoof against the ceiling.

A moment later, Dash popped her head in and looked around.

“Wow!” she reacted when she saw the interior, but Spitfire cleared her throat.

“Dash, focus,” Spitfire ordered, quickly commanding Dash’s attention. “Tell Descent to lead on, we need to get this thing back quickly,” she ordered.

“Yes ma’am!” Dash saluted before pulling her head back up.

“I’ll go too,” Lightning Dust pulled away from Starry as she subtly kept her eyes on Spitfire. Spitfire narrowed her eyes at her.

“Have something to say to me?” Spitfire asked harshly.

“N-no…” Dust flinched before hopping up and going through the hatch rather hastily.

Dash braced herself against the wind from the propellers, standing on the dorsal hull of the Falcon with Silver and Storm as she waved to Descent. Descent nodded and started giving orders to his Renegades, the cavalry moving soon after. Dash’s ears perked up as she heard the clambering of hooves behind her. She looked back as the Falcon began moving behind the group, spotting Lightning Dust as she joined them on top of the Falcon. She looked distraught.

“Everything alright, Dust?” Dash asked her as Lightning Dust sighed.

“No… I still can’t look her in the eye…” she said as sat down on the hull. Dash glanced at the hatch before putting two and two together.

“Oh… Spitfire?” she asked, earning a nod from Lightning Dust. Dash looked away, really not sure what to say to her. She knew Lightning Dust regretted what she had done to Spitfire… but Dash would openly admit she wouldn’t know how to approach this either.

“Give her time,” Silver suddenly spoke up from behind them. Both Dash and Dust turned and looked towards Silver, who was standing on the front of the Falcon, just behind the cockpit shield, staring forward with his mane blowing in the wind. Storm glanced between Silver and the mares shifting backwards to move out of the way. “Keep showing her you regret what you did and she’ll eventually come around.”

“How did you…?” Lightning Dust trailed off as she tipped her head.

“I ain’t blind,” Silver said as he remained facing forward. “I’ve seen the way Spitfire glares at you,” he explained as Storm continued to shift away from him. “You’re on our side now. A lot of us have been putting aside differences. Spitfire is a reasonable mare, she’ll do the same.”

Lightning Dust looked down and thought about it as Storm finally shifted all the way over to Dash. Dash lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Storm,” she chuckled quietly. “What are you doing?”

Storm cleared his throat and put on a weak smile.

“I felt like I was ruining the moment,” he said goofily.

“What?” Dash tipped her head. Storm pointed at Silver.

“See how badass he looks standing on the front of this thing with his mane catching the wind like that? I felt like I was cramping his style,” Storm ended with a smirk. Dash puffed her cheeks out as she tried not to laugh.

“Now you are ruining the moment!” Dash said in a hushed tone as she jabbed him in the shoulder. Storm pushed her back playfully before taking a breath and sighing.

“So… what did happen to Twister?” Storm asked, his tone turning serious. Dash’s ears flopped down, the light hearted air instantly gone from atop the Falcon. She looked up into the blizzard as they rode, following behind Descent and the Renegades. Almost every part of her wished she had had a chance to help Twister… the rest of her wanted to believe that Twister would be just fine… which was probably why she kept delaying talking about it.

But even with his seemingly impossible way of doing things… could Twister possibly escape the Shadowbolts… much less Ruin all by himself? The whole operation was to save Wave… who was a very important member to the Wonderbolts, the risk was justified… but…

Twister was a very important member of her squad… and a friend, regardless of how weird he was. Their hopes of getting out without losing anypony had failed.

“He—”

WHAM

Dash, Storm, and Lightning Dust suddenly all yelped and flinched as the loud sound came from below the Falcon, followed by it lurching and bouncing upwards a bit.

“THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Air Mach’s voice came from inside the cockpit. Silver was around and moving towards the three the moment the sudden jolt had occurred, all four of them glancing around to see if they had hit anything, or if Air Mach had accidentally skipped the Falcon’s underbelly against a drift. But they were flying at least twenty yards off the ground. Then what was…

“HEY! YO!” A gruff voice came from below the Falcon. “Who said you could just up and take one of our Falcons?!”

All four of them stiffened, their eyes widening in alarm at the sudden, new voice.

“If I came into your yard…” the voice continued as a loud CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP came from the hull as if somepony was climbing up the bottom. “And stole your garden hose…”

All of them sharply turned to the left wing as Shadowbolt Commander Sin pulled himself up onto the top of the Falcon, a wide sneer spread across his face.

“You probably wouldn’t be okay with that! Wouldn’t ya?!” he finished as he planted his hooves on the hull and stared them down.

Dash, Dust, and Storm all stared in shock, wondering how Sin managed to both follow and sneak up on them, but Silver didn’t hesitate for a second. He turned and whistled loudly, alerting the rest of the group.

In seconds, Descent had redirected his Renegades and all of them were flying around the Falcon. Descent himself glided down and landed on the hull, glaring and growling at Sin.

“Well, well…” Descent began as he and Sin exchanged glares of varying emotion. “You’re either just as idiotically brash as I remember… or you have an extreme death wish, Sin…”

“Hey, come on…” Sin lifted an eyebrow, his smile remaining as he glanced around at all the Wonderbolts and Renegades surrounding him. “Who said my buddies got to have all the fun? I’m here to get my fill!”

“What’s going on out here?!” Spitfire suddenly popped up from the hatch, her eyes immediately fixing on Sin. She was up and on the hull, in a ready stance in seconds with Fleetfoot popping up and looking around right after.

“I think you’re biting off way more than you can chew, as usual,” Descent growled at Sin. “Look around you, idiot! You’re heavily outnumbered, not to mention you’re looking at the captain of both the Wonderbolts and the Renegades!”

Sin didn’t budge an inch. He just kept smiling as he looked around at all the eyes fixed on him.

“If the odds are stacked against me…” he looked back down right at Spitfire and Descent. “Then I ain’t gotta play fair!” he stated as his three crystals began to glow.

“I’m warning you, Sin!” Descent growled. “Get lost or we’ll make you regret it!”

“Now… why the hell would I do that…?” Sin’s hooves began to slide towards the edge of the Falcon. His crystals focused their energy around his front arms. “When…”

Everypony blinked in surprise as Sin suddenly tipped off the edge of the Falcon and dove down towards the ground.

“I CAN RAISE HELL?!” he yelled out as he pulled his two magically imbued arms back.

Descent gasped before frantically turning to everypony else.

“EVERYPONY! BRACE YOURSELVES!” he yelled.

“HYYYYYRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Sin roared out as he punched his hooves forward into the snow as he crashed to the ground, the magic discharging from his hooves as he did.

An incredibly loud FWOOM echoed throughout the mountain range as the impact of Sin’s strike and the discharge of magic caused an absolutely massive blast of snow, easily fifty yards from end to end, to fire up from the ground, propelled by Sins magic as if a powerful bomb had exploded beneath it.

“AH!” Dash yelped as the snow rushed up from the ground, pummeling both the bottom of the Falcon and crashing against Matteo, Storm, and the Renegades flying around it. Silver, Descent, Spitfire, Storm, and Lightning Dust were all forced down against the hull of the Falcon as it lurched upward, all of them grunting and yelping as Fleetfoot fell right back into the hatch while swearing.

Dash struggled to hold on, her hooves slipping slightly against the smooth hull of the Falcon as the snow kept shooting up and falling down at the same time, literally blinding all of them while also forcing the Falcon to tip and sway violently. It was like Sin had caused a blizzard that went UP, and then came back down all at the same time.

“WHO WANTS SOME OF THIS?!” Sin’s voice came from above as he suddenly slammed down onto the top of the Falcon. The landing forced the Falcon to tip back down roughly, causing all on top to slip and slide some more. Spitfire and Descent slid right off the edge, plummeting down as they continued to be battered by the tremendous blast of snow.

Rainbow Dash managed to set her hooves and hold on, looking up to see that Sin was standing right in front of her with his back turned to her. She quickly pushed herself to her hooves and steadied herself. With the element of surprise on her side, she stepped forward, pulling a hoof back to strike.

But the moment she threw the punch, Sin’s wings twitched.

He turned around and grabbed Dash by the arm, lifting an eyebrow at her as he smiled.

“We have a winner!” he chanted before clamping his hoof tightly around Dash’s arm. His grip was so powerful that it made Dash cringe painfully. She had little time to focus on the pain though… because no sooner did he clamp on, did he yank her around.

“OW!” Dash yelped as Sin swung her in a circle.

“Aaaaaand…” he gritted his teeth and whipped her around one more time. “GO!” he yelled out as he roared and let go, effectively LAUNCHING Rainbow Dash.

“AHHHH!!!!” she cried out as she flung away from the Falcon, half terrified, half in pure disbelief at how hard Sin had thrown her. She was moving so fast that she couldn’t even straighten out her wings to regain control!

“Haha! YEAH!” Sin took off and shot after Rainbow Dash, following her path as she shot through the rushing snow and disappeared into the blizzard.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Silver yelled, just barely managing to focus and find his hooves. He saw the whole exchange between Sin and Dash. Silver’s body was still aching and beaten up, but the moment he saw Dash get launched, he found the will to force himself into action. Everypony else was still scrambling against the aftermath of Sin’s ground strike, but Silver didn’t have time to wait for help. Before Sin could disappear from view, he locked on, forced his wings into flight, and pushed his way through the rushing snow, determined to not let Sin get away with his student.

“RGH! AH!” Dash grunted and yelped as she continued to careen uncontrollably through the air. She had never moved so fast before without being in control, the amount of wind resistance mixed with her speed rendered any attempt to take control completely useless.

She kept flying and flying and flying while tumbling, hoping to Celestia that she didn’t hit anything. Luck would have it that she was in the clear, at least from smashing into anything. She braced herself as her trajectory turned down and she hit the snow.

She grunted and gasped as she bounced roughly several times before she hit the ground and dragged through the snow for several more yards before coming to a halt.

“Owwww…” she cringed and shuddered as she rolled over and tried to get to her hooves. She shivered as she looked up, surrounded by the artificial blizzard with no idea how far she had been thrown. Her eyes widened as a silhouette appeared in the distance… eventually becoming fully visible.

“Now this is more like it!” Sin chuckled as he glided down and landed a few yards from Dash. “You were the first to attack me… so you get the honor of fighting me one on one!” he said with confidence.

Dash gritted her teeth, forcing herself to stand strong and face Sin.

“Great…” Dash mumbled as she stared towards him. Just when she thought she was in the clear. She had had just about enough Shadowbolts for one day. A surprise turncoat, a crazy bastard, a power-thirsty time bomb, and now this pumped up oaf.

She definitely couldn’t run. She didn’t know where to go, and she wasn’t sure if she could outfly him. While Sin’s incredibly muscular build made him look like more of a power stallion than a speed one… the last thing she wanted to do was turn her back and get knocked out through underestimating him.

Plus…

“Ngrh…” Dash’s legs shuddered. She was still feeling a little sore from her Sonic Blast-off stunt in the Shadowbolt hanger. Without the use of the Sonic Blast-off, she didn’t trust she could simply lose him.

She had to fight.

“Hey, hey! Come on! What’s the hold-up?” Sin asked while holding a hoof out. “Let’s do this!”

Dash blinked, not quite sure what to make of him. Sin showed no signs of attacking. He wanted her to attack.

Dash swallowed and glared, setting her hooves. She didn’t know the extent of Sin’s abilities… she had no idea where he stood amongst the rest of the Shadowbolt commanders. That little snow explosion stunt was impressive, but Devil’s magic appeared impressive as well. In the end they had bested Devil… with help, but they beat him. Which meant if Sin was on a similar level, then maybe she had a chance… maybe.

She wouldn’t know unless she tried. And as Silver once made clear to her: Never be afraid of your opponent.

He wanted her to move first? Fine… she would do just that!

Dash spread her wings, ignoring the soreness in her arms and legs as she took off, rushing directly at Sin. Sin made no moves as she approached. His crystals remained still, stacked on his back with no sign of activity.

If he was really that confident, then Dash was going to give him a punch to the face he’d never forget. She twisted her body, pulling her right hoof back. She recalled Silver’s movements, turning her body in small subtle, smooth motions into a full wind up to use Silver’s full motion strike. She’d make use of every bit of power her body and strength could generate.

Sin still didn’t move.

Dash whipped her body around, delivering the punch directly into Sin’s face as hard as she could, every bit of motion and momentum transferred directly between his eyes.

But… Sin’s body didn’t budge an inch. His hooves slid back slightly in the snow, but otherwise… his body remained upright, just as it had before being hit.

Dash instantly felt an incredible rush of pain shoot through her arm, traveling all the way up her nerves and into her body.

“AH! AHHH!!!! OW!” she cried out, yelping as she pulled her hoof back, all feeling gone from it. It felt like she had literally punched a sheet of metal. As she gasped and panted, she looked up at Sin with wide eyes.

Sin wore a look of disappointment, releasing a sharp sigh from his nose.

“Man… really? That’s it?” he asked while lifting an eyebrow. “That’s too bad,” he said as he lifted up a hoof. “You got my hopes up when you had the guts to attack me…” His chest and arm muscles flexed and tensed, bulging as veins popped up from them, visible even with his suit covering his body. “Guess I picked a boring one.”

Dash had no time to move, and even if she did, with the pain in her body she wouldn’t have gotten far.

All she saw was Sin’s hoof… followed by an impact… followed by her laying on the ground, on her stomach at least twenty yards away from him. The time between seeing his hoof in her face and lying in the snow felt like it didn’t exist, like it had never happened.

She blinked several times as she tried to pick her head up, but it took her several seconds just to lift her neck. And the moment she stopped, she couldn’t keep her head steady. Her vision was blurry, her head felt lighter than air, and everything looked like it was tipping back and forth.

Her cheek felt swollen, her eyelids fluttering, and she felt short of breath. She couldn’t even remember if she had gotten hit or not. The moment Sin’s hoof connected with her face, the next instant she was down, completely disoriented, and completely devoid of any strength.

“Yep…” Sin’s voice caused her ears to lazily turn. “Definitely a boring one…”

Dash slowly turned her head and looked towards Sin’s voice, her head swaying and her eyes unable to focus. She saw the blurry image of Sin… or two of him as he walked towards her.

But then Sin stopped and looked up.

Dash was slow to react as a pony suddenly landed in front of her, but she couldn’t tip her head up. She was having enough trouble keeping her neck upright alone. Did somepony come to help?

“You son of a bitch…” a familiar voice caught Dash’s ears, one that brought her comfort as she struggled to think straight. “If you lay one more hoof on her… I’m gonna beat your face in till that ugly tattoo of yours runs away to your ass.”

“S-Silver…?” Dash sputtered, her voice quiet, cracking, and stuttering as she failed to focus.

The voice and the sharp words… It was definitely Silver.

Silver stood protectively in front of Dash, his hooves firmly planted in the snow as he glared towards Sin.

A silence hung over the two of them for a moment.

“You got through my snow blast, huh?” Sin chuckled. “Not bad… not bad at all, maybe you can—” Sin suddenly stopped abruptly mid-sentence, his smile disappearing. Silver lifted an eyebrow as Sin stared blankly at him.

“What?” Silver asked, his sharp tone remaining constant. Sin suddenly shook his head, gasped, and his jaw dropped.

“Whoa! Whoa! HOLD UP!” he said as he pushed up his goggles, staring wide eyed at Silver. “You!” he blinked, a look of shock on his face. “You’re Silver Lining! The Iron Horse!”

“You want my autograph or something?” Silver snorted while scowling.

“Hot DAMN! Now this is more like it!” Sin suddenly smiled, nearly bouncing on his hooves.

“What the hell are you going on about?” Silver growled, remaining firm as Sin seemed to bubble over with excitement.

“Can I fight you?!” Sin asked giddily. Silver’s expression went blank for a moment before hardening back up.

“Son, you’ve already brought that upon yourself,” Silver grunted while stealing a quick glance at Dash, still struggling to see straight behind him.

“I’ve always wanted to fight you!” Sin beamed. “You’re a freaking legend! One of the toughest ponies to ever live!” He pulled his goggles off and threw them to the snow. “This is the best! This is what I live for, man!” His excitement only seemed to build more and more as he reached up and ripped the hood mask of his flight suit clean off, tearing it at the neck and tossing it aside.

“What an idiot…” Silver grumbled as Sin continued to look at Silver with the excitement of a colt opening birthday gifts. Silver stayed focused, ready for a fight, but then he blinked when Sin’s crystals came together and landed gently in his hoof. Sin reached down and jammed the crystals into the snow, tapping them as he let go. A small shield appeared over the top of the crystals. He took a step away from them and stood at the ready, cracking his hooves back and forth. “What are you doing?” Silver asked while glancing between Sin and his crystals. Sin briefly looked at his crystals before shrugging.

“As if I’d let those things ruin this opportunity!” he said with a wide smile. “I mean… the crystals are cool and all, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING... beats a good old-fashioned brawl! And hell, if I’m gonna take on the one and only Iron Horse, I’m gonna do it fair and square with my bare hooves!”

Silver remained silent, staring at Sin curiously as he willingly set aside the crystals, treating the encounter more like a boxing match than a battle of life and death. While unexpected, Silver wasn’t about to protest. If anything, Sin’s willingness to not use the crystals helped Silver’s chances.

Silver was, after all, not in the best shape at the moment. It had been a long, rough day on his old body. His pain killers had helped, but they could only do so much for his worn out bones and muscles. He wasn’t about to show any wear or tear to an enemy staring him down though.

He glanced back at Dash, the sight of her down and knocked nearly senseless angered him more every time he looked at her. The wisest course of action would be to scoop her up and run, but with how his body was feeling, that was out of the question. There was no way around it. He had to fight.

And fight he would. Silver would stand strong, protect Rainbow Dash, and defeat Sin no matter what the cost, even if he fell apart in the process.

“Alright, son…” Silver exhaled, pulling off his goggles and tossing them aside. “You want to fight me that badly?” He reached up and slowly removed his mask, whipping his mane back and forth. “I enjoy a good scrap myself…” He cracked his neck back and forth. “Just don’t cry if you get hurt.” Silver set his hooves in the snow, his nostrils flaring as a puff of mist billowed from them into the cold air.

Sin looked like he was about to burst. His eyes were wide, his breathing was fast, and his muscles continuously twitching and tensing.

“Come on!” Sin beckoned. “I wanna see how you earned that awesome nickname!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art by: Foxenawolf

Oh dear... Time for a hard-nosed, iron pony brawl... but will Silver's body hold up?

But lets rewind for a moment, Looks like another Shadowbolt has fallen... this time Devil. Another drawback of the crystals, pushing them too hard leads to the crystals shattering, which we all know leads to being dust in the wind.

However it seems there is still a bit of the Shadowbolt power hierarchy preserved, even among the commanders. Despite having removed Devil from the playing field... it would appear he was one of the lesser contenders. Angel on the otherhoof... has proven to be quite dangerous, and one of high respect/authority by how quickly Devil and Shadow fell in line. It makes you wonder what the atmosphere is like within the Shadowbolt ranks... especially when it seems like some care, while others are in it for themselves... or to control... who knows? :pinkiecrazy:

Poor Little Star... Zipping in there like a bat out of hell to protect Squall. Well... if Squall's reaction is any indication, he's going to have a really hard time denying that he values her now! :raritywink:

And hell YEAH Air Mach has commandeered a Falcon! With the painful help of Starry Skies of course... this will be a boon for them indeed :rainbowdetermined2:

Speaking of the Falcons, i've got a great example to help everyone picture what they look like. Think Stealth Bomber:

Imagine one of these with a propeller on each side, right at the point where the wings extend outward. Also imagine it being a little less flat in the middle with a larger cockpit window.

And by the way...

This...

Was totally intentional :rainbowwild:

Chapter 119: Unstoppable Toughness, Unwavering Will

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 119: Unstoppable Toughness, Unwavering Will

Everything kept flashing. One moment Soarin was awake, the next he wasn’t.

Lying in the snow below the mouth of the cave, Soarin kept slipping in and out of consciousness. He could no longer feel the icy winds, his body completely numb from the cold air and the snow pressed against his fur, small buildups of snow piling on top of him.

His eyes fluttered as he tried to resist, but he had no strength. He had squeezed every bit of effort out of his body to survive within the cave, only to come this far and have nothing left.

His mind was screaming at him to get up, to move, to get back and see everypony again, to see Dash again… but his body didn’t respond.

Was he going to die? No, he couldn’t die. If he died, Rainbow Dash would die too. He couldn’t let his spirit fade, it would pull Dash’s down with it. But… there was nothing he could do.

If he didn’t start moving soon… he would freeze to death, but he couldn’t move.

“I…” his voice sputtered as his eyes grew heavy again. “I… can’t…”

He slipped into unconsciousness again.

Soarin’s body lay flat on the ground, surrounded by complete darkness save for the blue light cast forth upon him by the silhouette of the stallion. The stallion simply stood before Soarin, staring down at him.

“I’m surprised…” the mare’s voice echoed into the void as a brief yellow flash shined forth. The image of the mare stepped towards Soarin, her own yellow light mixing with the blue. “Soarin is down, yet you are staying put.”

The stallion snorted, looking away and into the darkness.

“I’m not a mindless imbecile. I’ve tried and failed twice already,” the stallion looked down at Soarin. “Even with the horn weakened, his mental willpower is too strong to break. Unless the horn is completely destroyed, I can’t get a proper hoofhold to overpower his will. I would just be wasting my time and energy.” He paused and looked towards the mare. “And I know this is why you chose him. It’s become clear.” He shook his head. “No, survival is my first and foremost interest. Right now we should be thinking of how we’re to save him, lest he freezes and we disappear with him.”

The yellow mare tipped her head and suddenly released a happy sigh.

“Strength and ambition… but intelligent and wise…” She stepped around Soarin and passed by the stallion as he gave her a strange look. “That sounds a lot more like the stallion I once loved.”

The stallion snorted loudly and turned away from her.

“Don’t even try it. I may have loved you once, but you pushed that love aside ‘for the good of the universe.’ Feh… what a joke. You’ve made it clear where your heart really stands.”

The mare watched him as he took several steps away. She looked frustrated.

“I am loyal to my purpose in the universe. You attempted to become something you cannot be. THAT… is why I acted against you. My feelings had nothing to do with it,” she explained harshly.

“Is that so?” the stallion looked over his shoulder. “Surely they had nothing to do with me being here now.”

The mare flinched, but remained silent as the stallion continued.

“If you’re so loyal to your ‘purpose’ then you would have completely destroyed me after what I became… what you FORCED me to become.” He pointed out, turning back to her. “Even better, you pieced back together my consciousness, after my actions destroyed it.” The stallion scoffed. “Did you think you could change my mind? Did you think being brought back would make me see an ‘error in my ways’ and accept a fate I never wanted? No. All you’ve done is show me my first attempt was inadequate and push me to seek other means. And with no body of my own, this is the only purpose I have left. You’ve only strengthened my resolve and I will keep trying, even if it means defying a god, again.”

“You make this so difficult for me…” the mare said as she sat down and hung her head. “I put you back together in hopes of seeing the stallion I once admired again. I didn’t want to remember you for the terrible things you had done.” She looked up at him. “You were a great stallion, one worthy of legends… no, not even legends could have captured all that you were. But in the end… you couldn’t accept your mortal fate, eventually driving you to madness and hurting others.” She stared strongly at him. “You are right, I brought you back hoping that you would see the error in your ways, but you’re only continuing down a path that shames the name of a great stallion. Why can’t you see what you’ve done? What you’re doing? Why can’t you remember who you were? Who you are? Where did it all go wrong?!” her voice grew louder as she demanded he speak.

The stallion stared at her, a silence passing between them in the void, with Soarin lying directly between them. The stallion slowly shook his head as he turned away.

“Had you not charmed me with your beauty…” he began, but the yellow mare stomped a hoof, creating a loud echoing BANG that resonated throughout the empty space.

“Don’t speak as if this is my fault!” she growled. “I am not responsible for your actions!”

She flinched as the stallion burst out laughing, releasing hearty guffaws as he whipped his head back.

“How EASILY you try to avoid blame!” he said as he failed to hold down a few more laughs. “Do you truly believe that your immortality… your omnipotence… casts a veil of perfection?” he asked as he turned to face her.

“I… I never…” she stumbled over her words. The stallion scoffed.

“The day we met was the day that sealed my path,” he began as he turned his back to her again. “I doubt I’d have gone so far for something thought impossible otherwise.” He turned his head, but didn’t look at her. “An immortal like you would never understand the burden of love on a mortal. You talk about your rules and about how you must abide by your laws of the universe… but where were those when you and I fell in love?!” He raised his voice as he turned and started walking towards her. “It is forbidden for divine to fall in love with mortals, but that didn’t seem to stop you, did it?!” He stepped around Soarin and walked right up to her, his image growing larger until it equaled hers in height. “You willingly defied your own rules when you fell in love with me…” He got in her face. “But when I drove to become one of you, to prevent the fate that would tear us apart forever, the rules suddenly mattered again?!”

The mare didn’t respond. She just sat still as the stallion yelled.

“Stop acting like you’re beyond consequences! You are VERY much responsible for everything that happened to me! My drive to become a god was not out of greed, lust for power, or extension of my influence! I DID IT FOR YOU, CELES! YOU WERE ALL THAT MATTERED TO ME!”

The two stared at each other, less than an inch between them as the stallion glared into the blank expression of the mare. The stallion grunted, his image returning to its normal size as it turned away from her.

“Then why?” The mare asked. “I made our spirits one… you have me. I put you into Soarin because I felt that, all together, we could save Equestria from the coming disaster… I felt that with your conscience restored, you’d seize the opportunity to help ponies like you once had.”

“Then let me take over Soarin,” the stallion asked sharply.

“I can’t allow—”

“Therein lies the problem,” the stallion scoffed. “You want to use me. Well, I see no reason to since you continuously deny me my goal, just as you did then. I refuse to do things your way.”

“I already told you why I did what I did. You’re impossible,” the mare shook her head in frustration. “If it was for love, how did it change?”

“When you refused to help me and labeled me a megalomaniac so easily… it destroyed me inside out, my love for you felt betrayed. I decided I would find my own methods. If you would not accept me, then I would do it for myself. What did I have left? My influence and my power. YOU are the reason it turned to that and don’t even try to apologize because your word has lost all weight to me. I refuse to disappear into history books, I will defy fate and defy the gods just as I have defied every challenge I’ve faced, everything I was told was impossible in my life. My body is gone, but my ambition will never falter. Your refusal to help me changed my goals. It was no longer for love, it was for survival. Without your aid, it pushed me to unethical extremes, it twisted my mind and soul, and in the end I was corrupted and did horrible things… and the day you and I met in battle I—”

The stallion suddenly stopped, his ears standing up.

The mare perked up as well.

The two of them glanced frantically about.

“What…?” the stallion asked as he continued to look around.

“Do you sense it too?” the mare asked quickly.

“What in the world is that…?” the stallion asked, looking back down as something had completely drawn their focus away from the moment. The mare looked down at him.

“I… I don’t know!”

“Nnghh…” Soarin stirred, his eyes opening back up as he shifted back to consciousness again, staring forward into the whirling snowfall before him. His body was still numb and completely devoid of energy.

But then… he saw something. It was very faint, but… in the distance, it looked like something was approaching.

Soarin kept his eyes open, as heavy as his eyelids felt, curious as to what was moving towards him. However, as it grew closer, he still couldn’t immediately identify what it was. It didn’t help that his vision was a little blurry either.

Was it a friend?

A foe?

Or something else entirely?

Soarin remained still in the snow as it grew closer, the strength of the blizzard winds and snowfall seemingly growing as it approached and eventually… stopped right in front of him. Soarin closed his eyes tight before opening them again, hoping to clear his vision a little. What he saw… he couldn’t really explain.

It was a bright, white light. Even as it stood right in front of Soarin it was hard to see since its color blended in with the white of the blizzard swirling around it, several falling snowflakes floating towards and encircling it.

Then the light dimmed slightly… revealing what looked like the silhouette of… a pegasus?

Soarin stared at the entity, trying to make out any features, but again, its white color made it hard to see in the whirling snowfall.

The only thing Soarin could see on the figure…

Was a smile.

“YOU!” a voice suddenly came from above. Soarin’s eyes shifted as the familiar voice met his ears. He looked up to see Discord float down from above, his arms crossed, his teeth grinding together, and a very angry scowl on his face. “How the hell did you reach this plane as a spirit?!” he demanded as he landed on the other side of the image.

The image simply turned and looked at Discord, the smile remaining. Discord snorted.

“I swear,” he growled. “If you just say ‘it’s doable’ I’m going to—” Discord cut himself off and flattened his brow while staring at the image. “You know what, forget it. I don’t care how you got here. Why are you here?” he asked.

The image stepped aside, giving Soarin a full view of Discord. The image pointed to Soarin in the snow as Discord’s eyes widened and he blinked.

“Okay, okay, fine…” Discord grumbled in frustration as he looked back at the image. “You found him before I could, big deal. Now get back where you’re supposed to be and stay there!”

The image shook its head.

“Oh?” Discord lifted an eyebrow. “What makes you think you can just go around breaking every rule?”

The image simply tipped its head. Discord sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Yes, yes, I know, I break the rules from time to time too, but that doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate you—” Discord’s eyes widened before sharpening into an intense glare. “WHAT?! NO! I’m NOT still sore about that! RGGHHH!!!” He uncrossed his arms and clenched his fists, the distorted aura of his magic pulsating from them for a moment before he threw his arms up in frustration, the auras dissipating.

The image shook gently as if it were chuckling.

“FINE! I don’t care!” Discord turned his back on the image. “Go and do whatever the hell you want. It’s not like I’ve ever been able to stop you anyway…”

The image nodded contently, smiling.

“Don’t you gloat on top of it,” Discords hissed as he looked over his shoulder. “You… insufferable… intolerable…” Discord started grumbling as he turned and started walking away. “Unbelievable… ‘Are you still sore about losing’ he says… RGH! The nerve!”

Discord disappeared in a flash of light.

The image looked back down towards a very confused Soarin. He was so weak and disoriented that he wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was real or a dream… but he kept his eyes fixed on the white silhouette as it stood above him, the snowfall from the blizzard was behaving strangely as it came near it, attracted to the light and swirling around it like a moths drawn to a flame. The figure picked up one of its hooves and reached it down, placing it on Soarin’s shoulder.

“Soarin…”

Soarin heard a whisper. It was very faint and it sounded like it was coming from all around him, not from the image itself.

“Soarin… rise up…” it encouraged.

“Wh…who…?” Soarin struggled to speak, his body still devoid of any strength. But then his eyes opened a little as the white light form the image extended from its arm and started surrounding him as well.

It felt… warm.

While he still felt weak, he suddenly felt something well up in the pit of his stomach. As the light grew brighter around him, he suddenly felt like he could fight against his body as if his willpower was being boosted.

“You must get up…” the voice whispered, echoing in his ears as the light continued to move into him, the figure crouching down closer and closer. “You must be strong…” The figure reached down… and phased completely into Soarin, the entirety of the white light now emanating forth from Soarin’s body. Soarin’s eyes widened as he found the strength to move his hooves. He pushed them down, slowly rising up as the snowfall began swirling around him as it had around the figure. Soarin looked up, into the blizzard, his eyes fixed into the distance as a faint, white glow rose from them and from the cracks in the horn. “You must…” the voice continued, now completely in his head. “Rainbow Dash… and Silver Lining… they need your help… they are in danger!”

“Rainbow Dash…?” Soarin spoke into the blizzard. “Silver…?”

“Yes…!” The voice sounded eager. “You must aid them!”

“I…” Soarin picked up a hoof and took a step. It came without pain or challenge.

He could move.

His body felt like it was being driven by an unknown force. His actions were his own, but the willpower, the drive, it was coming from something else. He didn’t care what it was though. The voice claimed Dash and Silver were in danger, and it was pointing him in a direction. Soarin, more than anything, was always driven by the desire to protect those he loved and cared about… and whatever gave him the power to move had him believing it was time to do just that.

“Dash!” Soarin shouted as he started taking heavy steps forward. “Silver!” he yelled out as he was guided along. “I have… to help them!”

Silver winced as he and Sin rushed at each other and slammed their front hooves together, digging their back hooves into the snow. Silver grimaced, hissing through his teeth as pain shot through his body, but he refused to show any weakness, holding firm as the two pressed together. His eyes widened for a moment as his back hooves slipped slightly, but he picked them up and jammed them back down, determined to remain strong.

“YES!” Sin smiled as he glared into Silver’s eyes. “BRING IT!” he jeered as Silver growled right back at him, the two sliding off their hooves and grappling up close.

Silver blinked as Sin pulled back his head and thrust it forward. Silver ducked while removing his hooves from Sin’s, causing Sin to yelp in surprise and fall forward as he missed the headbutt. Silver went down on all fours and pushed hard upward, ramming his back into Sin’s chest.

“OOF!” Sin grunted as he was tipped upward, causing him to stumble backwards on his back hooves. Silver immediately pushed up and rushed at Sin, pulling his hooves back. He delivered several heavy blows into Sin’s stomach, causing Sin to gasp and lean forward. Sin’s head was right in Silver’s range.

“HRM!” Silver grunted, turning his body and winding up a full motion strike. He made all the small shifts, delivering a right hook with every bit of force he could generate right to Sin’s jaw. Sin’s head was whiplashed sideways as Silver followed through the motion… but he didn’t stop.

The end of Silver’s strike put him in the perfect position to deliver another full motion strike with his left hoof. He did just that.

“HRAH!” Silver roared out, delivering a left hook that knocked Sin’s head back in the other direction.

Silver preceded to repeat this maneuver, using the end of each full motion strike as the start of another going the opposite way.

He delivered a left, and a right, and a left, and a right, and a left, and a right… over and over, each strike hitting Sin with full efficiency, and whipping his head back and forth.

After delivering six hard hooks with each hoof, Silver spun around and delivered one hard punch right into Sin’s face.

Sin was sent flying backwards, landing on his plot before tumbling backwards.

“ARGH!” Silver grunted after completing his assault, dropping down onto his haunches for a moment as his aching body screamed at him all over. “D…dammit…” Silver groaned as he shuddered. He looked down at his hooves, they were trembling. Sin’s body was dense and hard as a rock. Silver hit him hard and knocked him down, but every strike felt like he was fighting a brick wall.

“HA HA!” Sin suddenly guffawed as he lay on his back. Silver’s ears shot up as he stared towards Sin, his jaw dropping as Sin simply rolled over and stood up. His face was bruised, and his forehead was bleeding slightly, but he was still smiling. “Dude!” He whipped his head back and forth before reaching up and wiping the blood off of his face. “That was awesome!”

Silver just stared at him blankly as he struggled to stand up and face Sin, grunting every inch of the way. He had just unloaded everything he had against Sin, hitting him hard enough to put most other opponents he had faced to the ground… and maybe INTO the ground several times… and Sin had shrugged it off… and was laughing about it?!

“You didn’t hold anything back! Like…” Sin paused for a moment to laugh some more. “I don’t think anypony has ever hit me that hard that many times before! You are a beast!”

“I’m glad you’re impressed…” Silver grumbled sarcastically, subtly wincing as he felt his right shoulder cramp up. He wanted to reach his left hoof over and punch it until it stopped, but he was afraid of falling the moment he lifted the weight off his stable hoof.

“You’re damn right I’m impressed!” Sin bounced on his hooves again. “Come on! Let’s keep going!” he yelled as he started galloping towards Silver.

Silver forced himself through the pain, bringing up his hooves in a defensive position. Sin charged right up into Silver’s grill, throwing rapid, hard punches. Silver took the first two head on to the arms, but the moment he felt how hard Sin was punching, he switched tactics. He began trying to divert Sin’s attacks, pushing the punches aside. However, he couldn’t block them all, one hitting Silver square in the shoulder… the right shoulder.

“GAH!” Silver cried out as he was spun around and sent to the ground, his shoulder twitching even harder. He had to get up quickly. Rule number three: never go to the ground. He turned his head as his neck muscles stung alongside his shoulder, but Sin wasn’t coming at him.

“Yeah! Come on! Get up!” he beckoned. “I know you’re not done!”

“Hrgnnn…” Silver cringed as he pushed himself up. He didn’t know how many more times he’d be able to force himself. Sooner or later the pain was going to be too much, even for him. He had to end this as quickly as possible, but after Sin got right back up from his initial assault, that seemed unlikely. Still… Sin was right about one thing. Silver was the Iron Horse, and he’d be damned if he’d lie down just because his body hurt. He was unbreakable, especially when those he cared about were on the line.

“YES!” Sin breathed heavily as he saw Silver get up. “LET’S GO!” Sin charged again.

Silver slammed his eyes shut, forcing the thought of his pain to back of his head as he opened them back up and glared. He was battered and beaten, but he had more than physical strength on his side.

He shifted himself sideways the moment Sin threw his punch, roughly grabbing his arm. Sin yelped as Silver used his momentum against him, lifting him up over his shoulder and swinging him over the top. Several cracks and pops came from Silver’s shoulder as he forced Sin’s weight over him, but he gritted his teeth and followed through, slamming Sin into the ground on the other side. Silver stumbled backwards and tried to open his wings, to take to the air. His right wing opened… his left one didn’t.

“OW!” Silver gasped as his left wing twitched painfully, the feathers shuddering erratically as his wing muscles refused to cooperate.

“BLAH!” Sin grunted as he picked his face up and spat out a bunch of snow, springing back up and charging at Silver again. Silver brought up an arm to block, a painful POP cracking from his hoof as Sin’s hoof connected with it. The pain traveled all the way through Silver’s arm, his nerves on fire. Sin followed up with a second punch.

But Silver sucked it up, swinging his other hoof around while executing the full motion strike to meet Sin’s attack. With a loud CLACK, their hooves clashed, Sin’s hoof propelling backwards and spinning him around.

“Whoa!” Sin reacted, stumbling backwards while turning. Silver stepped forward, winding up for another strike, but Sin caught himself and whipped back around to throw his own. Their hooves crossed and they belted each other in the face at the same time.

The two flew apart, both falling backwards, creating short trenches in the snow.

“Woooohoohoohaha!” Sin laughed as he rolled over and got to his hooves quickly. “This is so much fun!”

“Rgh… yeah…” Silver grunted as he cringed and shook on the ground. “Loads… and loads… of fun…” He gasped as he pushed against the snow, forcing himself up even though he was slowly losing feeling in several joints. He panted and squinted towards Sin as he struggled to fight his pain.

Once again… Silver was just frustrated.

Back in the day, he could have gone through a week of action like he had today and still had enough left to trade blows with Sin, full tilt. The past five years of his life had been spent doing everything he could to defy his age, to stay active and show no weakness to remain at the post he had spent his whole life working for.

He was never one to believe in limits, but he sure as hell was feeling them now. Belief in his ability could only take him so far. What good was willpower if the body was worn and deteriorated? Was he finally hitting limits he couldn’t overcome?

No.

No. No. No.

Absolutely not.

Silver took a deep breath and released a loud shout as he forced himself to stand and stood strong, refusing to let the pain hold him down. He wasn’t ignoring the state of his body, he knew he couldn’t take blows like he used to, but that just meant he had to dish it out without taking it!

If her head didn’t feel like it was sitting about twenty yards from her body, Dash would be up and helping Silver, no questions asked. But that was the problem. She took a full on, full force blow to the face from Sin and she was feeling every bit of it. He was several times stronger than her, one punch leaving her completely dazed, confused, and with one hell of a stiff neck.

“Rgh… ah…” she grunted and gasped as she tried to stand over and over again, but she never got more than a few inches off the ground before falling back down. She had the strength, she just didn’t have the balance and focus.

Her eyes kept shifting between the ground and Silver. She could see it. She could see how much pain her mentor was in. He was holding strong like the stubborn old stallion he was, but his face, his movements, his labored breathing. He was in pain and fighting to survive. Sin never faltered, getting right up no matter how many times Silver hit him with attacks that could down any other pony. This wasn’t good.

Her past discussion with Silver about his health poured into her head. They had been fighting nearly all day. His pain medication could only do so much for him… and then there was his heart. The more strain he put on his body, the more pain he tried to ignore, the more stress he would put on his heart.

No… she had to get up, she had to help him!

“ARGH!” Silver stumbled backwards after taking a heavy blow to the chest, but forced himself back forward, throwing a punch right back towards Sin. Sin had his eyes locked on Silver’s hoof the whole way and willingly let Silver hit him.

“OOF!” Sin grunted as his back hooves slipped through the snow, kicking it up into small drifts as he came to a stop. “Yeah! YEAH!” he hollered as he rushed forward. Charging at Silver with his head down. Silver noticed the bull-rush and set himself, putting up his hooves while digging his back hooves into the snow.

“GRH!” Silver released a painful gasp as Sin’s head crashed into his hooves, instantly forcing them to Silver’s chest. Sin pounded his hooves into the snow driving Silver backwards.

“COME ON! COME ON!” Sin yelled out with gusto as he kept pushing against Silver.

Silver managed to push his arms out slightly, getting enough leverage to shift to the side and turn himself, wrapping his arm around Sin’s neck. With one solid pull, Silver managed to pull Sin out of his forward motion, harshly turning him. Sin’s hooves slipped and slid in the snow, losing his hoofing. Silver pulled harder, causing Sin to flip forward as he fell, slamming him into the ground. Silver, consequently, also fell down with him, but gently slid through the snow as Sin rolled and tumbled roughly until he ran face first into the base of a rock, his body rolling up onto it, upside-down.

Seeing the opportunity with Sin stuck in a vulnerable position, Silver forced himself up, shouting through the pain as he broke into a gallop. His steps were uneven, his muscles cramping and relaxing erratically as he pushed himself, but he picked up speed. Sin was kicking his back hooves up into the air, trying to roll himself back down onto his stomach, but before he could make any progress, Silver hopped up, spinning around as he continued moving, jammed his front hooves into the snow and reversed his full motion strike, applying it to a double-hoofed buck.

His back hooves slammed into Sin, striking with a loud POW directly into his stomach, near the diaphragm.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” Sin yelled out, exhaling loudly as Silver kicked all the air out of his lungs.

“ARGH!” Silver cried out right after delivering the hit, several muscles throughout his body twitching and cramping up. Silver pushed away from Sin, stumbling forward before falling face down into the snow on his stomach.

Sin’s back slowly peeled off the rock, falling down and landing softly in the snow.

Silver forced his neck up, squinting as his whole body felt like it was tearing itself apart. He turned and looked over at Sin to see that he wasn’t moving. He hoped Sin stayed that way, because that last effort felt like it caused his battered muscles to nearly tear apart.

His chest was also feeling tight, his heart beating furiously with all the strain he was putting on himself. He reached a shuddering hoof over and placed it over his chest as he panted with heavy breaths, expelling thick clouds of mist into the cold air above him.

He needed help. He needed to get back to the compound. The day had been way too rough on his body and he was feeling it. With Sin down, they had a chance to escape, but now a new problem arose. Dash was still trying to pick up her brain and he was more than certain his wings were not working… not to mention he was having trouble just moving at the moment. How were they going to—?

“HHRRRRRnngggggg…” a loud groan suddenly came from Sin. Silver’s eyes widened as he slowly turned, his hoof still pressed over his heart as the beat quickened.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Silver mumbled to himself, a wave of dread sweeping over him as his eyes landed on Sin.

Sin slowly grunted and coughed, but rolled over and pressed his hooves to the ground. He remained slightly crouched as he pounded a hoof to his chest, coughing a few more times before he stood up straight and shook his head out, whipping the snow from his mane.

“Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!” Sin hooted as he took a few more deep breaths. “Dang! That was a hard hit! I love it!”

“For the love of…” Silver growled and cringed as he pressed his hooves to the ground. Every attempt at moving was a struggle, he couldn’t even stand without his body shaking rapidly in the process. His nerves had nearly gone numb with pain as every muscle in his body screamed at him to just stay down, but he had to stand. He had to fight. “Gahhh…ha…” Silver slammed his eyes shut, breathing heavily as his heart continued to thump uncomfortably in his chest. “No, dammit!” he patted his chest twice. “Settle down!” he yelled at his own heart as Sin cracked his neck.

“I can’t get enough of this!” Sin laughed as he set his hooves firmly in the snow. “HAHA!” He yelled out as he charged.

Silver’s eyes widened, forcing his hoof away from his thumping heart to put up a guard. Sin landed a heavy punch right into Silver’s arms, pushing him backwards and spinning him around.

“AUGH!” Silver gasped as he planted his hooves, pain shooting through both his arms from the impact. “Ah… gah… AH!” Silver struggled as his body twitched and his heart thrashed about in his ribcage. He forced himself back around, putting up his arms again just in time to intercept a right hook, but Sin’s hoof knocked Silver’s guard aside, leaving him wide open. Sin whipped his other hoof around, catching Silver right in the jaw, the blow slipping past his cheek and smashing against the side of his nose.

Silver’s head was pushed roughly to the side, a sprinkle of blood shooting from his nose and staining the nearby snow. He tipped over and rolled, but stopped with his hooves already pressed to the ground.

“Hey! You ain’t done yet, are ya?!” Sin yelled as he charged again.

“RRGGHHHAAAAAAA!!!!” Silver roared out in pain as he pushed himself back up and looked towards Sin. His vision had become a little wobbly, the stress from the pain and his heart making him lightheaded. He coughed as the taste of his own blood entered his mouth as it trickled down from his nose. He glared up at Sin as he wobbled, thrusting himself forward with a hoof pulled back. He tipped to the side, letting an attack from Sin rush past his head, before throwing a punch into Sin’s face.

The blow was weak, it literally just bounced off Sin’s cheek.

Silver’s strength was fading, he had nothing left.

“GAH!” Silver gasped as Sin put him in a headlock.

“Please tell me that’s not it!” Sin questioned, sounding slightly disappointed. “You know… I guess I got a little too excited!” he chuckled as he tightened the grip on Silver’s neck, causing Silver to gasp and cough. “You’re definitely the Iron Horse… but you’re lookin’ a little old!”

Sin winced as Silver began pulling his neck to the side and bashing the side of his head against Sin’s.

“WHOA-HO!” Sin laughed as he willingly took the hits. “But at least you live up to your toughness! Either way, this was great! But it’s time to finish it!”

Silver yelped as Sin thrust him to the ground, holding him down by the chest. Sin delivered two heavy punches across Silver’s face before lifting him up and throwing him. Silver tumbled through the air, landing severally yards away. He rolled back up on his hooves, but nearly fell right back down, his body roughly crashing into a boulder. Sin rushed at him, ramming his entire body into Silver’s.

“AHHHHH!!!!” Silver cried out as he was smashed in between Sin and the solid surface of the rock. Silver tried to stumble away, his body having lost all feeling and one hoof pressed over his chest, but it was hopeless.

“It’s too bad,” Sin shifted and got in front of Silver. “If only I got to fight you in your prime.”

Silver’s eyes were fighting to stay open, his heart racing and his body shaking. Blood now dripping from both his nose and mouth. He couldn’t even think straight, but he saw his opponent in front of him. Silver’s reached a hoof up, slowly moving it towards Sin. Sin watched and smiled as Silver’s lame attempt at a punch lightly tapped Sin’s forehead.

“But I got to at least see that spirit… and it was magnificent!” Sin sneered.

He pulled back his right hoof.

“N…no…” Dash gasped and panted as she forced herself up, only to fall back down. He eyes snapped open wide…

As Sin unloaded a punch just as strong as the one he gave her… right into the face of Silver.

Silver was lifted right off his hooves and sent flying towards her. Her jaw hung agape, her body shivering as Silver landed head first in the snow and bounced until sliding to a stop only a few yards in front of her…

And lay still.

“No… NO!” Dash tried to yell, but her voice was still squeaky. Her eyes remained locked on Silver’s motionless body as Sin slowly appeared over the top, walking towards them.

“Man… that was too short…” Sin sighed as he looked down at Silver. “Lived up to his name, but I guess even the toughest ponies get old.”

“Hhhhrrrnnngggggg…”

Dash gasped and Sin blinked as Silver suddenly groaned and stirred. He was shaking and twitching painfully, but he wasn’t dead. Dash never felt more relieved in her life.

“Holy shit! The old bastard is still kickin’?” Sin smiled. “I didn’t even knock him out! Now that’s grit!”

Dash began to panic, the relief very short lived. Silver was alive… but Sin showed no sign of letting it be. She… had… to… do… something!

“I guess one more lick wouldn’t—” Sin stopped, his eyes opening a little wider. “Oh? OH?” His smile slowly returned.

Dash didn’t know how she found the strength, maybe it was the sight of Silver being pummeled, or the fact that she refused to let Sin touch him again… but she didn’t know or care. She found the will to stand, and now just as Silver had stood over her to protect her… she was doing the same for him.

“Well! Look at you shrugging off that hit I gave you earlier! Impressive!” Sin smirked and chuckled as Dash teetered back and forth, her legs wobbling. She had found the will, she had found the strength, now she just to find her damn balance! She was still dizzy and lightheaded.

“I… won’t let you…” Dash struggled to speak. “Hurt him… anymore!”

“Hey, girl, I didn’t force him to fight,” Sin lifted an eyebrow while smirking. “It’s not like I had a problem with him hitting me.”

“He--AH!” Dash shouted, nearly losing her hoofing and falling, but she held her ground.

“Looks like I didn’t give you enough credit,” Sin complimented while whipping his mane about. “So I wonder… think you can take another hit? How about we find—”

Sin never got to finish. Dash wasn’t even sure what happened at first, but a blurry streak suddenly shot in from behind him, striking him in the back of the head. Sin’s eyes went wide, a loud, painful grunt escaping his throat as he catapulted forward. He flew over the top of Dash before landing head first, his face dragging through the snow before rolling over the top and landing on his back.

Dash watched Sin tumble before turning back forward.

“Big dumb oaf…” the newcomer said with a huff. A smile overtook Dash’s face.

“Lightning Dust!” she yelled happily before teetering and falling into the snow beside Silver. Dust shook out her front hooves and blew on them.

“Yeow… that guy is made of rock, I swear…” she cringed as her hooves stung, but she quickly refocused on Dash and Silver. “Aw jeez…” she winced when her eyes landed on the two of them, especially Silver. “Damn, I didn’t make it in time.”

“He’s alive,” Dash quickly pointed out. “But… we need to get him help, fast!” she didn’t go into specifics, knowing Silver didn’t like others knowing about his heart and pain medications.

“Don’t worry,” Dust nodded. “We have several Renegades flying around looking for you guys right now, I can easily go grab one of them and—”

“DAMN!”

They both froze and slowly looked towards Sin.

“No way…” Dust’s jaw dropped. “I hit him going full speed!”

“Wooooo!” Sin called out as he rose up and tipped his neck back and forth, several loud cracks and pops coming from it. “That’s one way to loosen up the neck!” he chuckled as he turned around and smirked at Lightning Dust. “But come on… a sneak attack? That’s dirty!”

“Crap…” Dust growled as she looked between Sin and the worn out Wonderbolts.

“Lightning Dust, huh?” Sin called her out as he smirked. “Probably could’ve guessed since that felt like a love tap. You’ve got guts coming out here all by yourself!” he taunted.

Dash watched Lightning Dust’s movements. She was edging away, her legs shaking a little as Sin started to walk towards them slowly.

“After what happened last time I thought you’d learned your lesson!” he continued.

“Shut up!” Dust snapped back at him, shifting back a little further.

“Or what?” Sin chuckled. “Big Hero Descent isn’t here to save your hide this time!”

“I…” Dust bit her lower lip, finding no words to counter as Sin closed half the distance between them.

Dash could see what was happening. She had to do something.

Sin had just beaten down Silver. Dust was hesitating, and Dash was still on the ground, feeling like she had little control to move or act… but she had strength.

The situation seemed like a lost cause, but if Lightning Dust found them, maybe there were more Renegades out looking for them. If that were indeed true… then the best option for survival was to fight as long as they could.

Dash chuckled to herself as she moved her hooves and firmly planted them into the snow, ready to force herself up. Silver had left an impression on her for sure. Here she was, beaten and delirious… but despite being hindered, she was finding the will to fight. The only one of them that was at full strength was Lightning Dust… their hopes for lasting at all hinged on her… so they couldn’t afford to have her hesitating. Dash decided to fix that.

“Lightning Dust!” Dash yelled out, grunting and gasping as she forced her hooves down and slowly pushed herself up. Sin stopped moving and blinked as Dash slowly got to her hooves, Lightning Dust turning and looking towards Dash. “Don’t let him… intimidate you!” she encouraged as she stood up straight, wobbling slightly. “Come on! He’s just a big meathead! We can take him!”

“Oh?” Sin lifted an eyebrow, his smirk quickly returning. “I gotta hear this…”

“You heard me, you pumped up windbag!” Dash yelled as she stumbled and nearly fell. “You don’t scare me!” she tipped to the side and fell against Lightning Dust, who quickly turned and helped her stand back up.

“Dash, you’re hurt!” Dust pointed out.

“So what?!” Dash growled as she pushed herself off Dust, slammed her eyes shut, and shook her head out, trying to find her equilibrium. “I can still fight!” she claimed.

“We…” Dust looked back and forth between Sin and Dash.

“I’m not gonna let this guy walk all over us!” Dash continued while facing Dust.

“Yo, are we gonna fight or—” Sin spoke up, but Dash angrily pointed at him.

“Shut your damn trap! We’ll get to you!” she growled at him.

“Fine, sheesh…” Sin shrugged, sitting down in the snow. “Just hurry it up, I’m getting bored over here.”

“Dust… listen to me,” Dash suddenly whispered. Lightning Dust perked up as Dash cringed. “I’m not about to think that we can beat this guy. How much my face hurts is enough to tell me that… but if you’re out here I’m gonna guess that means the Renegades are looking for us?”

“Yeah…” Dust swallowed and nodded.

“Then we have to keep this going as long as possible. We have no way out, you can’t carry us both, and you leaving us to get help isn’t an option either. Our best bet is to take the fight to him, and keep him busy…” Dash glanced at Sin, who yawned noisily as he tapped one of his hooves against the snow. “As far as I can see… that’s all we have going for us.”

Lightning Dust glanced at Sin as well, the hesitant look returning to her face. Dash picked up on it, and decided it wasn’t time to get lost in thoughts.

“I take it you’ve fought him once before?” Dash asked. Lightning Dust quickly looked back at her, nodding.

“He… beat the crap out of me… to put it lightly,” Dust shivered. “If Descent hadn’t stepped in and bailed me out, I probably would be dead.” She shivered for a moment. “I was bedridden for days, confused, and dizzy, monitored twenty-four seven because of a major concussion. I don’t even remember the second half of the fight.”

“I’m not surprised…” Dash cringed as she stumbled slightly. “Hell, I think he gave me a minor one with one punch…”

“Then you shouldn’t fight…” Dust said with a bit of hesitation in her voice. Dash shook her head.

“And you’re going to take him on by yourself?” she asked as she shook her head and found her balance again. “No… this is a matter of life or death, and I’m not gonna lay down when Silver is in danger.”

“Today, please!” Sin called towards them.

Lightning Dust looked at Dash for a moment before taking a deep breath and exhaling as she looked down.

“Come on Dust!” Dash reached over and jabbed her in the shoulder. “Bring out that fire I saw back in flight camp! We can do this, together!” Dash encouraged. Lightning Dust released another, shorter breath before looking up and nodding with a determined expression.

“Let’s do it… it’s the only way,” she agreed.

They both turned and faced Sin, Dash doing her best not wobble. She really was in no shape to fight, but if Silver fought through his pain, she would too.

The moment Sin saw them turn, he smiled and stood up.

“We fighting now? About damn time!” he remarked as he cracked his neck again. “I don’t mind a two on one. Just make it worth it!”

“Can you fly?” Dust asked as she and Dash set their hooves.

“Probably not,” Dash admitted, earning a sigh from Dust.

“Then we’re off to a great start,” she said sarcastically.

“I might be able to, but probably not well,” Dash added.

“Then our best bet will be making use of the numbers advantage. No direct attacks, force him to focus in two directions and attack unevenly. If that doesn’t work… I don’t know, do anything.” Dust suggested. “Sound good?”

“Works for me,” Dash reached up a hoof. Lightning Dust bumped her hoof with Dash’s.

“I’m waiting!” Sin called at them, looking a little frustrated.

“GO!” Dust yelled.

Dash forced her legs into movement, breaking into a gallop while angling off to the right. Dust kicked off the ground pumping her wings to get a little bit of height as she snapped around to the left.

“Hey! Hey!” Sin chuckled as he locked his eyes on Dust, completely ignoring Dash. “Who said you could fly?” he taunted as Lightning Dust turned towards him and pumped her wings harder, pulling back her hooves to strike. “Sheesh, fine…” he said casually as Dust approached. He remained completely still as Lightning Dust aimed for his face, slamming both of her hooves into his cheek. Sin’s neck was forced away from her, his opposite hooves picking up and jamming down into the ground to support himself as Dust pulled back and shook her hooves out.

“Son of a—!” Lightning Dust cursed as her hooves stung again.

“Whew! Come on! Hit me harder!” he joked, turning as he heard the sound of Dash’s hooves approaching.

Rainbow Dash was charging the best she could. Her path wasn’t the straightest, but she was determined to do her part.

She leapt up, giving her wings a single pump to propel her forward as she threw a punch into Sin’s other cheek. He shifted back slightly, but barely moved. Dash grunted, as she bounced back and barely landed upright as she shook her hoof out.

“What was that?!” Sin scoffed.

“Dammit…” Dash growled, as she and Lightning Dust backed away and circled around again, crossing each other. Sin didn’t have to tell Dash how pathetic that punch of hers was. She felt it herself. She wasn’t able to muster half her strength with how off balance she was. Dash blinked and turned in, charging as she saw Lightning Dust pitch and fly upwards, arcing back around and diving.

“You both get two more shots before I fight back,” Sin declared as they approached.

“Cocky freak,” Dash grumbled as she glanced up at Dust. Dust dove down, evening out as she shot towards Sin from behind. Dash shifted and ran headlong at Sin.

“Hit me riiiiiight here!” Sin pointed to his chin as he focused on Dash, not giving a single look behind him.

Dash purposely slowed her pace a little, hoping to time up their attacks just enough to give him a rapid one two hit from different directions. Dash did the best she could, planting her front hooves in the ground and spinning around, delivering a hard buck right beneath Sin’s chin… like he asked. His head whipped up just in time for Dust to ram herself into his neck.

“OOF!” Sin grunted as his neck was forced back down, but the moment his neck straightened out parallel to the ground, it halted in place.

“Whoa!” Dust yelped as the rest of her body crashed into Sin’s neck before bouncing off and falling into Dash. The two quickly rolled off one another and got to their hooves, splitting apart and flanking Sin.

“That’s two! Third time’s the charm, am I right?” Sin bounced his eyebrows while snickering.

Fed up, Dash launched forward… a bit recklessly. She started unloading punches into Sin’s body, first into the shoulders, then into the side of his neck and face. The blows were rapid, but ineffective.

“That’s more than one, but yeah… get that spot right there!” Sin laughed as Dash continued to punch him.

“Dammit!” Lightning Dust growled, charging in from the other side and joining Dash in the shift in tactics. If Sin was going to let them hit him, they would hit him… a lot. But it wasn’t working.

“Ooo, aah, yeah…. Hehehehe…” Sin continued to taunt, jokingly kicking one of his back legs as if enjoying a massage.

Dash and Dust didn’t let up. Every punch hurt and every blow did nothing. It was completely inefficient.

The only thing that seemed would buy them time now was Sin not taking anything seriously. Nevertheless, they kept up the attack, hopelessly believing that a continuous attack might succeed where their other attempts failed.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Sin spoke up, bracing himself on his back legs as he reach up and caught both Dash and Dust’s arms, holding them in place.

“RGH!” Dash growled as Sin held onto her. She ripped and thrashed, but she couldn’t pull her hoof free. Lightning Dust was in the same boat, completely locked in Sin’s grip.

“AH!” They both yelped as Sin suddenly pulled them both in and put them in headlocks.

“Alright ladies, fun time is over,” he said as the two struggled. “If you can’t knock me down, the next most fun thing is to see how long you last!”

Dash and Dust yelped as Sin placed his hooves on their heads and drove them both face first into the snow before spreading his wings and pumping them while driving his back hooves. He shot forward, dragging both of them through the snow.

“HA!” Sin yelled out as he released them forward, rolling them like bowling balls through the snow. They both tumbled, slamming roughly up against a nearby boulder.

“Ow…” Lightning Dust sat up quickly, but yelped and ducked as Sin’s hoof flew at her face. It passed over the top, striking the rock with a loud CRUNCH, a large chunk of the rock breaking free with Sin’s follow through. Dust rolled out of the way as Sin stomped down, kicking up a large amount of snow.

“Not bad! Guess you learned from our last fight!” Sin chuckled as he watched Lightning Dust roll up onto her hooves.

“RAH!” Dash suddenly roared from behind, jumping up on Sin’s back and wrapping her hooves around his neck. But Sin didn’t react at all as she tugged and tugged on him.

“Keep it up!” Sin smiled towards Dust as Dash continued to pull on his neck. “I like a good challenge, even if they don’t fight back!” He paused and glanced at Dash’s hooves shaking on his neck as she tried to yank his head back. “Yo,” he said casually as he reached a hoof up and grabbed both of Dash’s hooves in his iron grip. “That ain’t doing shit,” he said as he pulled Dash’s arms up and over his head with on solid yank before spinning and throwing her towards Lightning Dust.

“OOF!” Lightning Dust grunted as she tried to catch Dash, the two of them falling over the top of one another into the snow.

“Keep it coming!” Sin laughed as he bounced back and forth on his hooves.

“A ground attack isn’t working,” Dust said as she and Dash rolled up and stood. “We have to get into the air and use all dimensions, do you think you can try flying?”

“I don’t think that’s the issue,” Dash said as she wobbled in place, still a little off balance. “Will it really make a difference?”

“Forcing him into the air might buy us more time,” Dust explained. “I’m not about to think we can beat him, but maybe gaining some height will help any nearby Renegades spot us… even through the snowfall.”

“Well,” Dash grunted as she opened her wings shakily. “I’ll try… but you’re gonna have to do most of the distracting.”

“Fair enough,” Dust acknowledged as the two bumped hooves again.

“More whispering and planning, huh?” Sin called towards them. “Good! Surprise me!”

“Go!” Dust called out, thrusting her wings down and propelling herself skyward.

“HGR!” Dash forced her wings to flap. The motions were uneven at first, but after a few flaps she managed to line them up and lifted off, moving much slower than Dust.

“Aw, what?” Sin sighed as he watched them fly up. “You’re big plan is flying? Come on, I prefer fighting on the ground,” he whined.

“Too bad!” Dust called down to him, a little confident in knowing they were taking him out his self-proclaimed comfort zone.

“Heh… wanna know why?” Sin grinned, spreading his wings. He crouched down and jumped while forcing his wings down hard. With a loud, audible blast of wind, Sin propelled upward, shooting past Dash towards Lightning Dust. “CAUSE IT’S TOO EASY IN THE AIR!”

“AH!” Lighting Dust gasped as Sin approached her VERY quickly. Dash’s eyes widened as the wake from Sin nearly knocked her out of the air. With her wings barely cooperating with her, she forced herself to move faster, pumping her wings to pursue and assist Dust.

Lightning Dust ground her teeth together as she barely dodged three incredibly strong swipes from Sin, but Sin proved to be much more mobile in the air than he appeared, keeping up with every shift Dust made as she dodged and giving her no room to build speed or get away. Dash forced herself to fly as fast as she could, approaching Sin from behind.

Right before she threw a punch, Dash’s eyes widened as they moved to Sin’s wings. They twitched.

Sin suddenly spun around and swiped the back of his hoof around. Dash yelped, redirecting the motion of her arms to block. Sin’s hoof struck hers, forcing her own hooves to smack her in the face and sent her tumbling down.

No wonder she couldn’t approach him from behind. He was using his wings to sense movement around him just like Misty! It wasn’t as quick or refined as her, but he used it, just like Silver mentioned most of the elite Wonderbolts did. It really didn’t surprise her, given Sin was clearly an elite fighter, but if he knew how to use awareness tactics, then was there really any way they could attack him?

Dash grunted, forcing her wings out to stop herself from tumbling. She looked back up, hoping to charge again to help Dust, but she gasped.

“DUST!” she yelled out as Lightning Dust didn’t quite manage to dodge one of Sin’s punches. All he did was nick her on the shoulder, but there was so much force behind his attack that it caused her to spin around twice while falling back. “NO!” Dash yelled out while pumping her wings and pushing herself back towards them, but without full focus and balance, she couldn’t muster the speed.

By the time Dust leveled out and turned around, it was too late. Sin had already pulled back and threw a low punch, connecting it right into Lightning Dust’s stomach.

“GAAAAAAahhhhhhh!” Lightning Dust gasped, her cry weakening quickly as all the air got pushed out of her lungs. She shuddered, going limp over Sin’s arm as he held it in place.

“Man, that didn’t take much… it’s too bad…” he shrugged, releasing his hoof and letting Lightning Dust fall.

Dash came to an abrupt halt, staring wide eyed as Dust plummeted like a ragdoll to the ground and crashed into the snow, crying out as she landed right on her wings. She looked up to see Sin already looking at her.

“Hey, hey…” he squared up to Dash and beckoned her. “I know I knocked you a little silly, but come on, gimme a fight over here!”

“Dammit…” Dash growled while looking down towards the ground. Lightning Dust was shuddering, curled up while breathing heavily. Silver still lay on the ground nearby as well. She growled as she looked back towards Sin. She didn’t care if he seemed different than the Shadowbolts she had encountered so far. He was hurting her friends… and she didn’t like it.

She forced her wings, pumping them hard as she shot towards him. Sin smiled and held himself in a hover, letting her attack.

Dash roared out, throwing rapid punches. She struck his face, his chest, his stomach, everything she could hit in his position, but nothing worked. Every blow hurt, her hooves growing stiffer and sorer by the moment. With Dust down, all was lost, if luck would have that a passing Renegade would aid them, then so be it, otherwise, there was nothing left. Dash was just angry now, angry at Sin for hurting her mentor and a friend. But what good would it do, once Sin got his fill, he was just going to beat her down hard. His absolutely impossible toughness unlike anything she had ever seen or fought against.

Sin reached forward and grabbed both of Dash’s hooves.

“Alright, alright…” Sin chuckled. “Nice try, but honestly? I’ll save you the trouble.”

Dash yelped as Sin suddenly threw her arms to the right, completely spinning her around. Dash spun several times, realizing that she might meet a fate exactly like Dust’s. She quickly forced her wings out and stopped herself, ready to move before Sin could deliver the punch to her gut.

But he wasn’t there. Dash blinked, and her eyes widened realizing that she was about to be knocked out… but from what direction? Her instincts took over. Her brain, while teetering, worked furiously to recall the motions of Misty Fly… and her body reacted. Dash slammed her eyes shut, she flared out the end feathers of her wings.

She felt something, it was very faint, but she felt it. The wind and swirling snow of the blizzard was intense, but in one specific direction, the movement of the air was slightly off.

Dash’s eyes shot open and she shifted slightly forward while ducking down.

“HA—Huh?!” Sin’s shout turned from one of intensity to one of surprise as he tried to slam his back hooves down over Dash from above, but she moved out of the way at the last possible moment… and now she was right in position in front of him.

This was it. She was in a favorable position with Sin off balance, and she knew she didn’t have much left. She had all the focus she could possibly muster and she was going to put all the strength she had left into one blow. She turned her body and did everything she could to recreate Silver’s full motion strike, shifting her body smoothly through all the subtle motions to generate every bit of power into it.

“HRRRRRRAAAAAHH!” Dash yelled out, releasing all her power into an uppercut below Sin’s chin, the force of the impact doubled by his downward momentum. A loud POW came from the strike, Dash immediately losing all the feeling in her arm as it hit, but Sin’s neck was whipped up, his body actually flipping out of control as Dash followed through.

Dash cringed, grasping her arm as it hung limply at her side, turning and looking towards Sin, watching him tumble through her pained, squinted eyes.

Did she… actually hurt him?

Of course not.

Sin fell a mere ten meters before he evened out and his wings caught the air again. He hovered and turned, looking up at Dash while reaching a hoof up to his jaw, moving it back and forth.

“Wow!” he commented as his jaw made clicking noises, he gave it one final push before it stopped clicking and smiled. “Hey! That was a pretty hard hit! Not bad!”

“What the hell…” Dash shook her head, giving Sin a disturbed look. This guy was so messed up in a different way. Unlike Ruin, who had a clear goal and even identified her as ‘the one connected to Soarin’ presumably with plans to torture her like he had Wave, Sin was just looking for a fight, and didn’t care about anything else.

But what did it matter? She had nothing left. All her strength was gone after that attack. She began to feel dizzy as Sin hovered towards her. What was he going to do? Was he going to kill her, Dust, and Silver? No… she couldn’t die. If she died, Soarin would die too.

If she was really thinking about this… then all was lost.

“Ahhh…” Dash wobbled as she tried to stay afloat, her head spinning with her focus fading fast.

“I think you need to lie down,” Sin joked as he stopped in front of her.

“Eat a dick…” Dash snarled at him, using the last of her strength to be sharp with him. Sin reached a hoof over her head and shrugged.

“Boop,” he said goofily as he tapped his hoof over Dash’s head. It was just that… a tap, but it was all it took. Dash’s wings seized up and she tumbled limply. She was aware the whole way down, her consciousness remaining as her face hit the snowy ground. She blinked to get the snow out of her eyes as she rolled onto her back, panting and wheezing. She looked to her right to see she had landed right next to Lightning Dust, who was still struggling on the ground, trying, and failing to roll over as she clutched her stomach and her wings twitched.

They had failed, and their hope of being found had fallen short. She turned her head back as she heard hooves crunch through the snow towards them. Sin stood over her, looking down, still smirking.

“Well, it wasn’t bad…” he reached down and grabbed Dash by the mane, pulling her up off the ground.

“Rgh!” Dash grunted in pain as he pulled her up.

“You too weren’t as fun as Silver… but still gave me a little bit of a workout.” He paused and blinked, looking down. Lightning Dust had crawled over and had latched onto his other hoof, pulling on it in defiance. “If anything, you’ve both got guts! Even after a beat down, still trying to fight… Heh,” he looked back up at Dash. “Well… it was fun while it lasted, I guess it’s time to end—”

“HEY. FUCKSTICK.”

Sin’s eyes shot open wide. He turned towards the voice, only for a grey hoof to crash headlong into his face. Sin’s grip instantly released Dash as he was thrown off of his hooves, tumbling to a stop a few yards away. He quickly looked up, his eyes lighting up and a smile quickly forming on his lips.

“Wh-what?” Dash shook her head out, rolling over after falling from Sin’s grip. She looked up.

“WHAT DID I SAY… ABOUT TOUCHING HER?!”

Silver Lining was up… and he was standing over Dash once again. He looked badly bruised and beaten. His legs were wobbling, his body was shaking, and his breathing was heavy… but he was glaring at Sin with an intensity that Dash had never seen before. It was almost frightening how hard his eyes were set on Sin, baring his teeth and his breath hissing between them.

“HELL YES!” Sin stood up and laughed. “The Iron Horse is back up!” Sin cheered as he set his hooves in the ground. “Come on! Let’s—”

Silver didn’t let him finish. He charged right at Sin with heavy, thundering strides, his hooves pounding into the snow as he approached. Sin welcomed the charge, pulling back a hoof to strike at the exact same time Silver did. But Silver delayed his punch, bringing up his other hoof to knock Sin’s punch aside before delivering another, hard, full motion strike into Sin’s face.

“GRH!” Sin grunted as he was spun around and stumbled backwards further. He quickly looked back up, his smile growing wider and wider. “HAHAHA!” he laughed as Silver continued to charge. Sin charged this time as well, both of them reaching up and slamming their hooves together. “This is amazing!” Sin exclaimed into Silver’s face. “Nopony has ever—”

He was cut off as Silver thrust his neck forward, slamming the crown of his head into Sin’s nose. Sin’s pressure let up on Silver’s hooves. Silver grabbed one of Sin’s arms while pulling his other hoof back. He yanked Sin towards him while punching, slamming his hoof into Sin’s face against his motion. Sin stumbled backwards, shaking his head out, but Silver stepped up and unloaded several punches into his chest.

Sin grunted, his neck lurching forward with each hit. He reached up and pushed off of Silver, grinning as he regained his hoofing and went on the attack. Silver knocked away two punches, but the third caught him off-guard, Sin going lower and hitting him right in the chest.

“GRHRRRR!!!” Silver grunted painfully as he stumbled back and began tipping over, but he reached his left hoof up and jammed it down into the snow to support himself, refusing to go down. Sin followed up by unloading a punch right into Silver’s cheek, knocking him even further back, but again, Silver forced his hooves to the ground to brace himself.

“Yeah, YEAH!” Sin yelled as he leapt towards Silver, but Silver pumped his wings, launching himself into Sin before he could attack, his shoulder crashed into Sin’s chest. The two grappled with each other, stumbling back into a large rock, bouncing off of its surface before putting each other at arm’s length again.

The two began unloading heavy blow after heavy blow into each other’s bodies. Neither taking any steps back despite each punch delivered cause the recipient’s body to whip in the direction of the force. Each time they simply turned and punched back.

Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust both watched with their mouths agape as Sin and Silver simply wailed on each other. Punch after punch after punch, each strike easily would have taken either of the two mares out in one. Where had Silver found this strength? He looked like he was about to fall apart, but no matter how many times Sin hit him, he held his ground.

After nearly a full minute of the two trading blows, Sin finally looked like he had actually taken some damage, stumbling a little, but his smile growing ever wider. It looked like he had never had so much fun in his life.

Silver finally ducked one of the blows, grabbing Sin and pushing him back against the rock next to them. Sin tried to bounce off, but Silver latched onto Sin’s arm completely.

“HRRRRAAAAH!” Silver roared as he propped himself beneath Sin and threw him over his body, slamming him down into the snow. Instead of letting go, Silver shifted and yanked on Sin again, throwing him BACK over his shoulder and into the snow beside the rock. Sin pulled his hoof free, scrambling to his hooves, but the moment he was up, he received a heavy blow to the chest that thrust him against the rock.

He looked… happy. Even though Silver was pressing him with an intense assault.

Silver rushed forward, ramming his body into Sin and crushing him against the rock. He pulled back and punched Sin in the face, slamming his head back against the rock. Silver pressed his left hoof against Sin’s neck to hold his head to the rock while pulling back his right hoof.

“DON’T YOU…” Silver punched him, Sin’s head rattling against the solid surface. “EVER…” He punched him harder, Sin grunting as Silver refused to let up. “TOUCH…” He punched him again. “MY STUDENT…” He punched Sin so hard that he slipped from his grip. Silver reached down as Sin flopped into the snow, forcing him back up and placing him right back against the rock. He wound up for a full motion strike. “AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!” Silver unloaded the punch, putting everything he had behind it. The blow was so strong that the rock surface behind Sin’s head cracked and chipped.

Silver released Sin, stumbling backwards and setting his hooves firmly into the snow as he continued to hiss and snarl behind his gritted teeth.

Sin slipped off the rock, his legs shaking and his hooves barely supporting him. He began to stumble around, clearly very dizzy after repeated blows to the head, not to mention against a solid rock surface. He was coughing and his nose was bleeding, but he was still smiling.

“Heh… hehahahaaaaaaa…” he laughed weakly as he turned and wobbled, stumbling towards Silver. “Dude…” he said shakily as he slowly made his way towards Silver. He stopped right in front of him, reaching up a hoof and pointing. “Dude…” he repeated with a chuckle, wearing a very content smile even though his eyes were almost pointing in different directions. “You…” his hoof lightly pressed against Silver’s chest. “Are so cool…”

Silver reached up and punched his hoof down over the top of Sin’s head as hard as he could. Sin dropped instantly, face first into the snow.

“Thanks,” Silver said sarcastically with a grunt.

Sin was down… and out.

“Holy… shit…” Lightning Dust squeaked as she and Dash kept gaping at Silver.

Dash couldn’t even find the words. How Silver managed to not only get back up, but then continue the fight with Sin and win… after how much he was already hurting and after the beating he took initially was beyond her. But good god… there were no words to describe the amount of grit and willpower she just saw.

Silver Lining… The Iron Horse. Sin got his wish for sure… now he knew why Silver was given that nickname.

“Ahhhhh…” Silver exhaled and began to wobble. Dash’s eyes widened as she looked towards him. Silver turned and looked towards the two of them. He took two steps before his legs buckled, and he tipped over, falling on his side while groaning painfully and clutching his chest.

“Silver!” Dash yelled out. She was unable to stand, but she forced her arms to move, crawling along the ground towards him. Lightning Dust, despite the pain in her abdomen, pushed herself up and approached Dash, reaching down and helping her up. She moved her as quickly as possible towards Silver, Dash ripping herself free from Dust’s support and nearly falling face first into the snow beside Silver before clambering the last few inches towards him. “Silver! Silver!” she yelled as Lightning Dust sat down and exhaled. Silver’s eyes were shut tight as he clutched his chest, his breathing heavy and labored “SILVER!” Dash yelled louder while shaking him.

“What?!” Silver growled painfully, as he forced his eyes open and glared at Dash. She immediately stopped shaking him, her eyes lighting up as he responded. “I’m right here, quit yelling!” he grumbled as he continued to groan uncomfortably.

“Oh, thank Celestia…” Dash sighed in relief as she flopped down… on top of Silver.

“Ow! Ow! DAMMIT, DASH!” Silver grunted, prompting Dash to immediately push off and almost fall over.

“Ah, sorry…” she apologized before smiling. She just stared at Silver for a moment before letting it all sink in. They had survived. She wanted to ask Silver if he was okay, but the answer to that was obvious, so she asked the next best thing. “How bad is it?” she asked while cringing at the sight of his heavily bruised up body. With his body already screaming at him for other reasons and his heart… she was sure it was pretty bad.

“I feel like I just got run over by the Crystal Express,” Silver said painfully as he continued to cringe, his heart thumping madly. Dash flattened her brow.

“You’re still well enough to be a wise-ass, so that’s a good sign,” she commented. Silver shook his head.

“In all seriousness though… I feel completely broken,” Silver explained as he continued to gasp every time his heart jumped. “And I need… my medicine. My heart’s not very pleased with me right now…”

Dash quickly looked up at Lightning Dust.

“Dust, think you can fly up and find us some help? We’re going to need it,” she asked. Lightning Dust perked up. She opened her wings and moved them about, wincing in pain from falling on top of them, but they were still in well enough condition to fly slowly.

“Yeah, I definitely can’t move you two alone… but,” she looked towards Sin. “He’s not gonna get back up, is he?”

The two of them examined Sin. Sin was definitely out cold, but his crystals were still sitting in the snow off to the side… the barrier still around them.

“From my experience,” Dust continued. “The crystals tend to jump up and ‘revive’ their user whenever they are knocked down. I wonder why his aren’t?”

“Think that shield is keeping them from doing that?” Dash asked out loud.

“I’d say… yes…” Silver spoke up, drawing their attention. “He was a blowhard… but,” Silver glanced at Sin. “When he said he wanted a fair fight… he meant it. He didn’t use his crystals once, not even when I got the upper hoof on him. Call me crazy, but that proves he’s a stallion of his word. He’s not getting up until he wakes up on his own.”

“Huh…” Dash realized Silver was right. Even when things suddenly turned out of his favor, Sin stayed true to his word on not using the crystals. What a strange stallion. He didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the Shadowbolt commanders. Then again… if Moon was any indication… there was more to some of the commanders than met the eye.

“Well… in that case,” Lightning Dust nodded. “I’ll get up there and flag down any Renegade I can find.”

“I don’t think so.”

Dash and Dust both flinched at the smooth voice that suddenly came from nearby, they both turned to face the rock that Silver had just repeatedly crushed Sin’s head against.

Standing atop it… was Angel. And hovering behind him? Shadow.

It took both Dash and Lightning Dust several moments to break from their initial shocked reaction. Silver simply released a sigh and let his head fall into the snow, as if knowing they were done for the moment the new Shadowbolts appeared.

“I wasn’t expecting you to actually defeat Sin… that’s quite an accomplishment,” Angel commented, his tone flat and unchanging as Shadow landed beside him. “But either way, he served his purpose.”

Dash glanced at Dust, who was shivering at the sight of Angel even harder than she was upon facing Sin.

“What do we do…?” Dash whispered to her as she glanced between Angel and Dust. Lightning Dust fell back onto her plot, shaking her head.

“We’re screwed…” Dust said in defeat, her ears flopping down. Dash blinked, not wanting to believe she just heard Dust give up so easily, but she continued. “Angel is just as dangerous as Sin, but for different reasons. We’re in no shape to fight him.”

The two yelped as Angel suddenly jumped down and landed a few yards away from them, pulling his goggles down around his neck and pulling his long mane through so it wasn’t trapped by the strap. He stared towards the two of them with lifeless, icy eyes, his visage almost seemed artificial with how flawless and… devoid of emotion it was.

Dash tried to push herself up onto her hooves, but fell right back down, Lightning Dust remained sitting. Lightning Dust wasn’t one to give up, but if she actually was, then Dash knew how dire the situation was. Silver was down, Dust’s wings were hurting, and Dash was still a bit dizzy. This was not good at all.

Angel looked towards Sin lying face first in the snow, briefly glancing towards the crystals encased in the dome nearby as well. He snorted, shaking his head.

“As foolish as always, putting aside the gift of crystal magic for the sake of brawling like a rabid animal,” he said while looking down at Sin. “I hope it was worth it, you overgrown ox. You’re lucky you’re worth saving or else I’d leave your muscle-bound hide out here to freeze,” He turned and looked up at Shadow, who was still perched on the rock. “Shadow, gather up Sin and his crystals,” he ordered her.

Shadow didn’t move, she was staring down at Rainbow Dash, scowling at her.

“Shadow.” Angel raised his voice a little making her flinch. “Do. As. I. Say.”

“Hmph…” Shadow forced her eyes away from Dash and glided down towards Sin.

“Now then…” Angel started walking towards Dash and Dust. He fixed his eyes on Lightning Dust. “Wise move, Lightning Dust…” he said as he approached. “Knowing when you have no chance…”

Lightning Dust held her breath, shaking as Angel approached. He suddenly reached over and grabbed her by the neck.

“AH!” Lightning Dust gasped as Angel picked her up and held her in the air.

“Today has been a frustrating day… I will enjoy killing you…” He looked at Silver, then at Dash. His eyes locked on Dash. “It’s a pity that I have to spare one of you,” he said while he continued to focus his blank eyes on Dash. “After all, you have taken out three of our own. They were not of significance, but the loss of their crystals is a setback.” He looked back at Dust. “So tell me… how would you like to die? Quick and painless? Or are you one of the honorable types that needs to be slowly shown the path to hell?”

“Sweet merciful Luna in heat on a warpath…!” Silver suddenly spoke up from the ground, drawing Angel’s attention. “If you’re gonna kill us, stop talking out of your ass and get it over with already ya stone-faced, pretty colt, twig!”

Angel’s expression hardened very slightly as he stared down at Silver. Without dropping Lightning Dust, his crystals began to glow around him.

“Hmph,” he grunted as the magic began focusing around his arms. “If you wish to die first, I can gladly arrange it.”

“Good!” Silver kept jeering. “Listening to you stroke yourself is about as fun as rubbing my face on a dirty toilet seat!”

Even in the face of certain death, Silver spoke his mind, but Dash was struggling, she was struggling so hard to stand and do something. Dust gave up the moment Angel appeared, and Silver was down, now Angel was moments away from killing Silver. Dash completely ignored Angel’s words about sparing her, all she cared about was Silver…

Angel crossed his arm over his body, the magical energy building up in it as he stared down at Silver. Silver was glaring up at him as if daring him to do it.

But before Angel made any more movements. He stopped and blinked.

The magic dissipated from his arm and his crystals stopped glowing. He dropped Lightning Dust back into the snow and looked away, into the thick of the blizzard, his head tipping side to side slightly as a slight look of confusion came onto his face.

“Angel?” Shadow spoke up as her magic surrounded and levitated Sin, the orb holding his crystals floating right beside. “What is it?”

Dash watched curiously as Angel completely turned his back to them, looking in one direction with his ears turned towards it as well. His head kept twitching as if he was trying to figure something out, but couldn’t. Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust glanced at one another, both equally confused about what had suddenly drawn Angel’s attention away.

Then, inexplicably, the blizzard started to grow in strength. The wind became stronger, the snowfall became harder, and visibility decreased.

“Huh?” Dash suddenly perked up as she felt something in her chest. She reached her hoof to it, placing it over her heart, but her heartbeat wasn’t quickening… it was calm, and felt… strong? She didn’t know how to describe it, she was suddenly filled with a warm feeling… one that she recognized.

“What in the world…?” Angel suddenly said, drawing everypony’s attention in the direction he was staring.

Something was there. As it grew closer, it also grew brighter. A bright, white light…

Dash kept her eyes fixed on the approaching light, her eyes growing wider and wider as the feeling in her heart also grew stronger and stronger.

Eventually, something emerged from the thick of the snowfall, rather… somepony.

Dash couldn’t believe her eyes and she couldn’t hold herself back.

“SOARIN!!!!!” she yelled out happily as both Lightning Dust and even Silver looked up and their jaws dropped in surprise.

Shadow quickly dropped Sin back into the snow, galloping forward and skidding to a halt beside Angel.

“It’s… him!” she exclaimed as Angel remained silent.

Soarin was slowly moving towards them, with lumbering, heavy steps. He was completely surrounded in a white aura that blended in with the blizzard. The light was also glowing from his eyes and from the horn. His eyelids were heavy, but he was staring forward at all of them. Each step in the snow caused it to shift apart as if the snow itself was surrendering to his movement, the flakes falling from the sky moving towards him and dancing around him gently.

“What is going on?!” Shadow asked frantically as she observed both Soarin and the change in the environment. “Is he doing this?! ANGEL!!!” she belted at him as he remained silent.

“Quiet,” he said simply while shooting her a single glance. Shadow immediately shut up and shifted a little away from him.

Angel turned, slipping his goggles back on, and stared at Soarin as he continued to slowly move towards the group. Soarin was breathing heavily and his body covered in serious wounds and bruises, the artificial horn was wrought with nasty cracks and chips, however he moved as if the injuries had no effect on him. His movements looked smooth, his body looked strong, and every step was with a purpose. Angel snorted as Soarin stopped a few yards away and stood still, the glow gently rising from his body, causing his mane and tail hairs to wave as if floating on air.

“Hm,” Angel hummed calmly. “A strange display of power… but with you, the unknown is to be expected. However, you would have been wise to stay away. Because now two of our main objectives are within our grasp,” he said while looking back at Dash. “I don’t know where you came from, but you’ve just made our job a lot easier.”

Soarin didn’t say anything. He just stood, the snow swirling around him as the glow continued to rise from his body. His eyes were firmly fixed on Angel.

“Not much to say? That simplifies things,” Angel said as he turned and looked at Dash. “That means I just have to—” as he reached for Dash, the light around Soarin suddenly intensified. A growl escaping his throat as an incredible amount of blue magic flared up from his horn, sparking and crackling with small spurts of light spitting from the cracks. A massive beam of magic ejected from the horn, packed with so much power that it created an echoing BANG and caused Soarin’s hooves to slide slightly backwards.

Angel whipped his head around, his eyes widening as the magic blast, which was large enough to completely engulf him, approached at an incredible rate. His crystals came to life, a shield encircling him just in time.

Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust both yelped, covering their heads as the magic beam struck Angel’s shield and immediately began forcing him backwards.

“AH!” Angel gasped as his crystals blinked and his shield buckled, struggling to keep its own shape as he was pushed further and further backwards until he struck a large boulder and was put right through it. The rock shattered into little bits and pieces as the magic blew it apart, followed by a massive explosion that sent the smaller pebbles and pieces flying in all directions.

“Angel!” Shadow shouted towards him, erecting a shield to block the flying debris as the dust cleared. Angel was still standing, but his shield flickered and shattered as he fell onto his haunches, panting and wheezing while staring towards Soarin in disbelief.

Shadow turned and glared at Soarin, propelling herself upward with her crystals orbiting around her. She hovered above, her crystals glowing brightly as they floated in front of her. She aimed them towards Soarin, an intense buildup of the pink energy on the ends of the crystals. She fired her burst wave, the rushing wave of energy expanding as it careened towards Soarin.

Soarin looked up at her, the blue magic receding from the horn and the yellow magic surfacing in its place. It encircled the horn before growing brighter and brighter, a yellow dome forming over Soarin. The rush of energy from the burst wave crashed into Soarin, completely drenching him in the intense flow of energy, but it had no effect.

“What the hell?!” Shadow exclaimed as she continued pushing the magic.

Soarin’s eyes widened, the yellow glow from the horn growing larger still as the dome around him suddenly expanded and released an intense shockwave. The ends of the burst wave connecting to the ground around Soarin suddenly lifted and began being pushed up and away from Soarin. Soarin lifted up his front hooves and slammed them to the ground, another burst of energy shooting out from around the yellow dome.

Shadow’s burst wave bent upwards and turned all the way around, shooting right back at her.

“AH!” Shadow yelled out as she looked up, seeing her own magic coming right for her. She didn’t have time to activate her shield. She curled up, tucking her head behind her arms as the wave of magic rushed past her. “ARGH! AHHHHH!!!!” she yelped as the burning energy ripped and tore at her suit, cooking her wings and causing her to fall right out of the air with a trail of smoke following.

She crashed into the snow right beside Rainbow Dash, cringing and groaning as she felt the burning effects of her own magic.

Dash looked back towards Soarin as the mysterious white glow continued to shine from around him. She had no idea what was going on. The horn looked incredibly damaged… which was a bad thing. Was this white light something that overtook Soarin? No it couldn’t be. He was using not only the blue but also the yellow magic with ease. Was something else propelling him? If so… what could it possibly be?”

Dash perked up as Angel landed beside Shadow. He glanced down at her and snorted.

“I don’t even know why I tolerate weaklings…” he said with a slight tone of frustration as Shadow continued to shudder in pain. He looked up and saw her crystals still floating around her, shedding light upon her. “At least you didn’t destroy your own crystals,” he said coldly as he turned to Soarin.

The yellow magic had receded, once again leaving Soarin standing with just the white glow surrounding him. He had still not moved from his spot.

“I don’t know what this power is, nor do I care if you have it,” he spoke towards Soarin, his calm demeanor finally breaking, if only a little. “You WILL NOT best me!”

Angel’s crystals came to life, glowing as the magic encircled his arms. He spread his wings and rose up, hovering a yard off the ground to free his front hooves. The crystal glows intensified, the magic swirling harder and harder around his hooves as he crossed them over his chest. With swift swinging motions, he swung both of his arms back and forth, twice each, sending four flying blades of magic swiftly shooting towards Soarin.

Soarin still remained right in place, not moving an inch, even as the deadly attacks careened towards him. The blue and yellow magic emerged together on the horn, swirling around one another. The two auras smashed together, creating a bright green glow that layered itself over the white, covering Soarin’s entire body.

One by one, Angel’s flying blades crashed into Soarin, each one of them breaking in half, the two pieces splitting off and flinging into the blizzard like shrapnel fragments. All four of the blades failed to make a dent in Soarin. Angel broke his emotionless image, his eyes widened in disbelief as two pieces broken off collided with nearby rocks, slicing them cleanly.

“That’s… that’s impossi—” Angel barely had a chance to express his incredulity. In the blink of an eye, Soarin suddenly fired from his spot, executing the Sonic Blast-Off with an explosion of green magic erupting behind him. It propelled him into the air, along the ground, pumping his wings as he closed the distance between him and Angel. Angel had no time to react, his jaw hanging open as Soarin thrust his hoof forward, landing a punch right into Angel’s face. The impact was accompanied by two green shockwaves erupting from Soarin’s hoof, Angel’s goggles nearly disintegrated, breaking into tiny pieces, his mask hood ripping to shreds along with them as he was catapulted backwards and sent flying back-first into the debris left behind from the rock he was first thrown into. He yelped and gasped as he bounced off the jagged pile of rocks, landing on top of them as he finally came to a halt.

“RRRRRGGHHHHH!!!!!! AAAAAARGHHHHH!!!! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGHHH!!!!!!” Angel released several loud, painful, angry growls as he shuddered and stirred. His crystals rushed over to him, shining their light on him as he slowly began to sit up. His body shook erratically as he pushed. When he was finally up off his back, his face had completely changed. Gone was the calm, stoic, cool demeanor. In its place, a terrifying expression of rage, his face scrunched to the point of stretching his skin as he glared through a stream of blood oozing down between his eyes and over his nose. “AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!” he gasped as he coughed violently, sounding more like choking as he continued to convulse. “DAMN YOU!” he yelled towards Soarin as his crystals continued to circle him.

Dash watched in fright as Angel seemed like he completely lost his mind. He couldn’t stand no matter how hard he tried, but the amount of anger pouring out of his once solid, unwavering calm was terrifying. However, Soarin was now standing right in front of her, and the rest of them. The green glow faded around him as the yellow and blue lights separated and returned to swirling around the horn. Seeing him up close was evening out her fears, filling her with a sense of protection… but what in the world was happening to him?

“GRRRHHH! NO!” Angel cried out as he slumped back down, unable to find his balance and get back up on his hooves. He glared towards Soarin, barely managing to reach his hoof up. His crystals shot towards Soarin, but stopped just short, hovering around Sin and his crystals. They were encased in a pink sphere before levitating and floating towards Angel. “YOU!” he yelled towards Soarin. As he continued to grunt and gasp, Sin floating above his head in his magic. Shadow, still cringing as she was trying to stand, perked up as small spheres surrounded her crystals and pulled them away towards Angel. “YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!” Angel snarled. “MARK! MY! WORDS!”

Angel reached up and tapped his three crystals before falling back and gasping, failing to even remain sitting up. His crystal expanded outward, surrounding all three of them and spinning. In seconds, they were surrounded by circular gusts that grew stronger.

“H—hey!” Shadow yelled towards Angel, forcing herself up as the winds kept building. “WAIT!” she forced her wings open, grunting in pain as she broke into a gallop and lifted off, gliding towards Angel. She made it to them just before the winds transformed, creating a pink tornado that surrounded them all.

Dash watched as Angel, Sin, and Shadow escaped, carried away into the thick of the blizzard by the miniature whirlwind.

“Hggnnn…” Soarin suddenly groaned, drawing Dash’s attention right back to him. Soarin began to wobble, putting a hoof to his head as the white glow grew brighter around him. “Ahhhh! Ahhhhh…” Soarin cried out weakly as he suddenly lowered to the ground, slowly as if being cradled into a soft landing. The light guided him down, placing him gently into the snow next to Rainbow Dash, Soarin’s eyes slowly closing as his chin touched the cold surface.

Dash, Dust, and Silver shielded their eyes as the light slowly pulled itself away from Soarin and shifted beside him. They squinted, watching with curiosity… as the faint silhouette of a pegasus slowly appeared, standing over Soarin.

Dash blinked, wondering if she was seeing things as the ghostly image bent down and looked Soarin over carefully. Even though its head was closer to them, Dash couldn’t see anything besides its mouth.

The image stood back up… and looked toward her. Dash wasn’t sure how to feel. She had seen a lot of weird things over the past few months, but something about this one seemed… friendly. Especially if it was whatever allowed Soarin to find them and help them. The image only looked at her for a brief moment… before turning and looking at Silver.

Silver stared, harboring just as much curiosity as Dash even though he was still dealing with several pains both internal and external. He tipped his head back and forth as the image continued to face him for several moments.

“Who…?” Silver barely managed to say in between his heavy breaths.

The image remained still for another moment… then smiled. It turned away from them and began walking into the blizzard, the snowflakes swirling around it as they had around Soarin while the light was surrounding him.

“Ah!” Dash suddenly gasped, she, Lightning Dust, and Silver all reacting as the blizzard winds and snow suddenly grew incredibly strong. They all closed their eyes as they were pelted by the sudden surge… but then it ended as abruptly as it started.

The three of them opened their eyes to see the blizzard’s strength had returned to the constant level the Renegades had maintained throughout… and the image of the pony was gone.

“What the hell was that?” Lightning Dust spoke up, Dash and Silver both completely silent as their minds remained locked on what they had just witnessed. Or at least… it locked into Silver’s head. Because something else immediately drew all of Dash’s attention.

“SOARIN!” she yelled out, even though Soarin was laying right beside her. She pulled herself the few inches along the ground she needed to reach him, grabbing onto his neck and pulling herself the rest of the way. “Soarin! Are you alright?!”

Soarin didn’t answer.

“SO—” Dash flinched as a sudden burst of blue light popped from Soarin’s horn, his eyes shooting open as he shook lightly.

“Whooooaaaaa… ahhh…” he blinked several times, his eyes darting about and quickly landing on Dash as she stared in surprise. “Rainbow Dash?” he asked, a weak smile appearing on his face.

“Soarin…” Dash smiled back at him, both of them incredibly weary. “You’re alive… well, I knew you were alive, but… I was so worried about you.”

Soarin slowly pushed himself up, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. He noticed she was looking up at the horn.

“Yeah… I need to get this looked at,” he said as he held himself steady the best he could. “It’s stopped sparking at least… and my eyes aren’t bleeding lights anymore and…” Soarin paused when he realized Dash wasn’t listening. She was staring at him, her lip quivering and tears building up in the corners of her eyes.

Without another word she threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around Soarin’s neck and hugging him as tightly as she could. Soarin caught on before she even went for it, reaching out and catching her, hugging her back just as tightly.

Forget the worries, forget the explanations, and forget the talk for now… They had been separated. It wasn’t even for a full day, but Soarin had no doubt that him crashing into a mountain and having it fall on top of him probably gave Dash a heart attack strong enough to kill an elephant. If not for their connection letting her know he was alright, she’d probably have been emotionally destroyed. Either way, he could have been easily killed, and she was beyond relieved to see him again… and he her.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again…” Dash scolded him while sniffling.

“I feel like that’s the fourth or fifth time you’ve said that to me,” Soarin said with a weak chuckle.

“Because you keep doing it!” Dash said louder as she bumped her head against his chest.

“Force of habit?” Soarin joked again, as Dash shook lightly from quite laughter against his chest.

“Stop it…” she ordered, pulling her head off his chest and just hugging him as hard as she could again. “I’m just so happy…”

“Me too,” Soarin replied, refusing to let go.

Off to the side, Lightning Dust approached while propping Silver up on her shoulder.

“Awww…” Lightning Dust cooed quietly as she watched the reunion, smiling happily. Silver just sighed as Soarin and Rainbow Dash continued to hug one another, flattening his brow impatiently.

“Alright, alright,” Silver spoke up towards them. “Love conquers all, can we go home now please?” he said sternly with a little bit of sarcasm.

Dash and Soarin slowly broke apart, still looking at each other for a moment before Dash turned and lifted an eyebrow at Silver.

“Can you even fly?” she asked while giving him a smug smirk. Silver scrunched his face and snorted.

“Well enough to kick your ass—OW!” he grunted, dipping a little as Lightning Dust shifted to prevent him from falling.

“That would be a no,” Dash chuckled as Silver grumbled to himself. She turned back to Soarin. “I doubt I could fly well right now either, how about you?” she asked him.

Soarin glanced back at his wings. He tried to open them, but they cramped up immediately, causing him to wince.

“NOPE! Ow… oh… yeah, still not working,” he admitted, earning a strange look from Dash.

“But I just saw you use them…” she recalled when he attacked Angel. Soarin shook his head.

“Honestly… I have no what just happened to me…” he said as Dash looked him over, biting her lip as she saw all the nasty bruises and cuts on him.

“What happened to Rapidfire?” Dash asked.

“Why are you wearing a Shadowbolt uniform?” Soarin asked.

“What the hell was that bright, faceless pegasus?” Silver chimed in as Lightning brought him forward.

All three of them nearly asked at the same time, all blinking and looking back and forth at one another.

“You know what,” Lightning Dust spoke up. “How about we just get everypony back home safely first, before it gets dark,” she suggested, all of them looking at her. “It’s about time we put this day in the books.”

“Let’s do that, actually… please…” Silver quickly shifted. “I need a nap.”

“You look like you need more than that,” Soarin joked as Dash shifted to help Soarin get on all four hooves.

“Look who’s talking,” Silver grunted. “You’ve got enough spots to blend in with a herd of cows.”

“Alright boys…” Dash interrupted them as she and Lightning Dust helped the two of them move. “Come on, Spitfire is going to be thrilled to see you, if she’s not already latched to Wave.”

“Wave is alright?” Soarin asked, his ears standing up.

“We have a lot to catch up on,” Dash smiled and nodded at him.

“Follow me,” Lightning Dust beckoned as she started walking. “If we at least get moving in the right direction, we’re bound to hit one of the patrols looking for us eventually.

As they started walking, Dash paused and looked around.

“What is it?” Soarin quickly asked her. Dash smiled and shook her head.

“Nothing, twice today when everything looked fine, we were blindsided. I guess third time’s the charm,” she giggled, pressing herself against him, lightly to avoid hurting him.

They walked off into the blizzard, keeping an eye out for Renegades above, all of them breathing a huge sigh of relief. Except for Silver… who started constantly grumbling about being scolded by Bliss upon return.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxena, Penumbraglow, and Scootafail.

What the hell was that?! :pinkiegasp:

Well... whatever it was... it saved them. And reunited them too. Soarin was led right back to Dashie and now... upon returning the Wonderbolts will have all the pieces. It is an incredible victory for them. The details on what happened to Soarin from his perspective? Next chapter :trollestia:

Damn Silver... old and worn out, but when you touch those he cares about you better watch the hell out. Sin got a lesson in what happens when you hurt Silver's student... and probably enjoyed it. However, Sin... much like Moon... seems to have other motivations beyond their orders. Angel... also appears to only give a damn about himself and those he deems worthy. Hell he almost left Shadow behind! Interesting developments about the commanders throughout this sequence... Perhaps we will learn more about our antagonists? It may be closer than you think :moustache:

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Oh and for those of you who are Undertale fans... this is what i listened to to get in the mood for the Silver vs. Sin fight:

Chapter 120: Victory

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 120: Victory

“Witching, I’ll be fine,” Spitfire pulled her hoof away before Witching Hour could reach for her.

“What? But…”

“Go help the others,” Spitfire ordered, motioning around the lobby. “These are just minor scratches, I can wait.” Spitfire referred to the minor cuts she received from fighting Blade. Her suit was slit open here and there, exposing the small wounds, but she wasn’t in need of quick attention.

Witching reluctantly followed orders, moving away to other Wonderbolts. Spitfire realized that Witching was probably just trying to help the lead captain, but she felt it would be better for Witching to move along and assist the rest of the medical team with the other Wonderbolts and Renegades. She would be fine, a few others were in much more need of help.

They had all gathered in the lobby upon returning to the compound, the medical team meeting them there as if Bliss knew they were returning. Very few ponies were injured to the point of needing the infirmary, including Little Star of Squad Foxtrot and a couple of others. Besides them, the order to put survival as top priority was heeded exceptionally, most of the members of the operation retreating at the first sign of personal danger. Even those who did not had others aware and ready to help them retreat.

It was good to see the Wonderbolts and Renegades all gathered, receiving any minor medical attention needed, but Spitfire was NOT at ease. Not by a long shot. She was back with the rest, but Silver and Rainbow Dash were still missing… and Comet and Squad Zero had still not returned with Wave.

Every part of her wanted to get up and shoot out into the blizzard to find everypony that was still missing, but it was her duty to make sure the rest of the Wonderbolts returned safely. Descent himself suggested she let them handle tracking down Dash and Silver after the encounter with Sin, since the Wonderbolts and former Wonderbolt Renegades were likely exhausted from the mission. Spitfire agreed, placing her trust in the Shadowbolt Renegades. That did not, however, reassure her about Wave. Silver mentioned Squad Zero had taken Wave and were being led by Comet. If that was the case, why weren’t they back yet? Especially if they went ahead. Hopefully it just meant they were taking a long route to avoid detection.

Spitfire refused to claim any sort of success until Wave was secure, and Silver and Dash were found. They had succeeded in throwing the Shadowbolts for a loop, but that would mean nothing if they failed to achieve the full objective. Once everypony was accounted for and secure, she could start planning how they would search for Soarin. As soon as the Wonderbolts got some rest, that was the next priority.

She looked around for something, anything, to help keep her occupied while she was waiting and worrying, but there was little she could find. Most of the Wonderbolts looked worn out, tired from a long day, not to mention most of them were already occupied through receiving medical attention and ice for sore joints. She couldn’t speak to Luna because the princess had gone right back to the barracks to resume monitoring their impaired Shadowbolt captives. She didn’t want to leave the lobby, so that was out of the question. Wave wasn’t available for obvious reasons, same with Soarin, scratching off two more of her usual options for when she was looking for some sort of comfort. That only left Fleetfoot, but she couldn’t find her, at least not in her immediate view.

“Rgh…” Spitfire grumbled quietly to herself, her ears folding back as she started pacing around. It looked like it was just her, and her thoughts as she was forced to wait. She hated waiting, especially after the whole operation had been about getting up and making a move. Now being forced to wait was driving her crazy, not to mention just making her worry more and more.

She made her way over to the lobby doors, looking out into the blizzard, hoping every second she stood there that something good would appear, but it was really just making it worse. She looked down, staring at the Falcon that now rested on the compound deck, that they were lucky was in one piece after Air Mach had ‘landed’ it ungracefully. It only served as further reminder that while they came away with a lot, it would mean nothing if the most valuable things were lost right at the very end.

“My, my, I have to admit—” Spitfire blinked as the faint reflection of Discord suddenly appeared beside hers in the glass of the lobby doors— “That was quite an impressive operation you pulled off. Very fun to watch I might add.”

Spitfire sighed heavily, flattening her brow as she turned and glanced over her shoulder at Discord. He too stared out the window, eyeing the Falcon while twirling a finger in his scraggly beard.

“You stole one of their toys as well!” he continued with a chuckle. “I wonder what we’ll learn from it.” He snickered as he glanced down at Spitfire. She didn’t say anything to him. She simply turned away from the doors, without looking at him, and started walking away. “Not even a hello? How rude.”

“I have better things to worry about right now,” Spitfire said sternly as she stopped a few paces away from him. She wanted somepony to take her mind off of things, but Discord was definitely her last choice.

“Do you now?” Discord asked snidely as he slithered along the ground in between her legs and popped up in front of her. Her expression remained flat and uninterested as she stared up at him.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Now buzz off,” she said sharply before shifting to move around him, but he simply shifted at the same time to prevent her.

“Oh, don’t be like that. The way you were walking around grumbling to yourself suggests you need somepony to talk to. Are we not friends?” he teased while reaching his face towards her and batting fake eyelashes that appeared on his eyes. Spitfire’s flat look turned into a light glare.

“Because I’d totally consider an omnipotent troll who gave me hell when I was in heat a friend…” she reminded him, earning a stifled laugh and several snickers.

“Good times! Am I right?!” Discord winked at her. She only glared harder. “Oh, you’re no fun at all,” he pouted, standing up completely and crossing his arms. “It’s too bad, I was really looking forward to joining your victory celebration.”

Spitfire’s eyes went wide before glaring harshly at him.

“Celebration?!” she suddenly erupted, spreading her wings and hovering up to get eye level with him. “We are not even CLOSE to being able to celebrate! I don’t care if we succeeded in a conflict with the Shadowbolts, we are still missing a few ponies, not to mention Wave Chill is still not back. And after that, we have to find Soarin! Go have your party somewhere else! We don’t have time for your immature tomfoolery!” She flinched as Discord suddenly extended his neck towards her, nearly pressing his face to hers as he smiled.

“Such fire! Such passion! I see the Shadowbolts really pushed you over the edge, huh? That’s good, I was tired of watching you walk around while grumbling and doubting yourself.”

“I’m glad that you approve,” Spitfire said sarcastically while continuing her glare. “Now get the hell out of my face.”

“Hahaha!” Discord laughed as he pulled his head back. “Yes! Keep that up. You’re going to need that strength going forward, believe me,” he commented, earning a raised eyebrow from Spitfire as he reclined and floated up into the air. “But take my advice, sit back, and relax. Everything is better than you think!”

“Apparently you didn’t hear me the first time,” Spitfire growled at him. Discord just wagged a finger towards her.

“Au contraire, ma capitan,” Discord winked, glancing up. “But don’t worry, I know when I’m not wanted. So I won’t stick around to ruin the moment.”

Before Spitfire could question him, he disappeared. She furrowed her brow, not sure if he was trying to tell her something, or if he was only being his usual, annoying self, but then something caught her eye.

Blaze and High Winds, who were sitting across the lobby from her, suddenly jumped up and stared with wide eyes towards her.

“CAPTAIN!” Blaze suddenly yelled out before she and High Winds broke into a sprint towards Spitfire. Blaze only referred to Spitfire as ‘Sis’… so it wasn’t hard to narrow down what had just happened. Spitfire turned around quickly as soon as Blaze and High Winds had rushed by her, her eyes lighting up.

A Shadowbolt Renegade, a dark grey stallion with a shaggy brown and grey mane had just pushed his way through the lobby doors… and he wasn’t alone. Propped up on his shoulder, severely beaten, bruised, and a little bloody… was Silver Lining.

Upon taking in the sight of Silver’s serious injuries, Spitfire’s reaction quickly turned from excited to incredibly concerned. She resisted the urge to rush over to him like several Wonderbolts already were, instead looking for Bliss.

“Bliss?! BLISS! Where is Siren Bliss! Somepony get Bliss over here NOW!” she ordered before turning and pushing her way through the crowd of Wonderbolts all rushing to see Silver. “Clear the way, clear the way!” she yelled while shoving them aside, glancing back to see Bliss come running with both Mahogany and Witching Hour close behind.

“We’re landing, are you doing alright?” Lightning Dust asked as she lowered towards the front doors of the compound with Dash in tow.

“Still a little dizzy, but I’ll manage,” Dash answered as her hooves gently touched down, Lightning Dust still propping her up. Dash glanced over her shoulder. “What’s taking Descent so long?” she asked as she looked back into the blizzard. “I know Soarin’s a big stallion, but jeez.”

“They’ll catch up,” Dust reassured her before reaching towards the doors. “Let’s just get you inside for…”

They both paused for a moment as they opened the doors, only able to take a few steps before they were blocked by a very large group of Wonderbolts all crowding around Silver Lining. Dash could see Spitfire clearing a path towards him with Bliss and her two assistants in tow.

“Looks like we missed the grand entrance,” Dust chuckled as the two of them got absolutely no attention upon entering. Dash shook her head.

“Perfectly fine by me, Silver is the one who needs help the most,” Dash said, knowing full well she wasn’t even half as hurt as Silver.

“Silver, what the hell happened to you?!” Spitfire’s voice came from the crowd, catching Dash’s ears.

“Later…” Silver replied weakly. “I need… to lie down…”

Dash’s ears flopped down. It destroyed her on the inside to hear Silver sound so weak. ‘Broken’ would be the wrong word to describe it, because Silver would never break, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be hurt, and this encounter left him seriously hurt. Dash stepped away from Lightning Dust, entering the crowd and shifting her way through, hoping to get to Silver. She made her to the front, popping her head in between Lightning Streak and Blaze just as Bliss finished looking over Silver’s injuries.

“Let’s get him to the infirmary,” Bliss ordered while turning to Witch and Mahogany.

“Wait!” Silver wheezed before the two unicorns could take him from his helper. “Send somepony to my room…” he said, taking a deep breath and pressing a hoof to his chest. “Get my… heart medication…”

Dash bit her lip as both Spitfire and Bliss nearly unhinged their jaws. There was a collective reaction around the nearest members of the crowd as well.

The secret was out. But Silver had no choice. Dash cringed as Spitfire and Bliss both stepped towards him, Spitfire looking worried, Bliss looking the same, with a bit of anger.

“HEART MEDICATION?!?!?!” the two mares yelled into Silver’s face simultaneously. Bliss threw her hooves up into the air, groaning in frustration.

“Silver you’re supposed to report any outside prescriptions to me!” she scolded him. Spitfire took another step towards Silver, her expression full of worry.

“Silver, how long have you been hiding this?!” she asked. Silver barely had the strength to respond.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t stand it, they could worry about what he had been keeping from them later. What he needed right now was their help!

“HEY!” Dash barked out, drawing attention to herself as she stepped out. Spitfire blinked, just now realizing Dash was back as well, but Dash didn’t give her and time to say anything. “Scold him later! Just do what he says, PLEASE!” Dash pleaded while glaring at them. Spitfire flattened her brow, exhaling through her nose before looking at Bliss and nodding. Bliss shook her head and pointed at Witching.

“Witching, go to Silver’s room and grab his medication,” she ordered, earning a quick nod.

“It’s hidden… in the glass cabinet… behind the junior flight contest photo…” Silver explained, Witching acknowledging the info before running off.

“Come on Gany,” Bliss nodded to Mahogany. “Let’s get Silver to the infirmary.”

Dash breathed a sigh of relief as she and Spitfire watched Bliss and Mahogany carry Silver away. Several Wonderbolts said a few words to Silver as they passed, including acknowledgement, encouragement, and relief to see their old veteran back safe.

“So…” Spitfire spoke towards Dash, drawing her attention. Dash gulped when she saw the stern look in her eyes. “You knew about this?”

Dash averted her eyes. Yeah, she knew all about Silver’s use of medication without Bliss’ knowledge… or anypony else for that matter. Was she going to get in trouble for keeping it secret?

“Um…” she stumbled to find any words. Spitfire sighed and shook her head.

“Let me guess… you found out and Silver forced you to keep quiet?” she asked, basically hitting the nail right on the head. Dash simply nodded in response. “I’m not surprised… I wonder if Wave knew too…”

A brief pause went between them, the void being filled by the chatter of the Wonderbolts conversing around them. Spitfire eventually shook her head.

“Forget about it for now, all that matters is that he’s back and safe… And I’m glad you’re safe as well. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. Can you tell me what happened out there?” she asked.

Dash quickly perked up. She was looking back at the doors, wondering just how far behind Descent had lagged while carrying Soarin. Dash thought about mentioning that Soarin was with them… but she decided to start from the beginning.

“I’ve got a bit of a headache, so I’ll give you the simple version for now,” Dash explained while putting a hoof to her head. She was still feeling the initial punch from Sin a little. “Sin threw me away from the group and followed. Then he punched me in the face really hard. Silver followed, Sin beat him up. Lightning Dust showed up, Sin beat us both up… then Silver got back up and beat up Sin.”

Spitfire blinked several times as Dash paused to rub her forehead.

“That’s definitely the simple version,” Spitfire chuckled. “Anything else?”

“Well…” Dash looked back at the doors, Descent still hadn’t returned. “What happened next is kind of hard to explain without the one who did it,” she said with a small smile. “We better wait for Descent to get back.”

“Descent saved you?” Spitfire tipped her head.

“Nope…” Dash smiled. “Let’s just—” she glanced over her shoulder, perking up and smiling— “Perfect timing!”

“What do youuuuuuuuuuuuu…?” Spitfire slurred as she glanced towards the doors and her eyes grew several sizes.

It wasn’t just her either, several heads turned upon the lobby doors opening again. Descent stomped in, grunting as he pulled along… Soarin.

“Soarin?!”

“SOARIN!”

“It’s Soarin!”

“Commander Soarin!”

“Is that Soarin?!”

The collective reaction from the Wonderbolts came from every direction in the lobby as Descent dragged Soarin in. The Wonderbolts all got up and rushed to see it for themselves just as they had when Silver was brought in.

“You’re heavier than you look,” Descent grumbled.

“Are you calling me fat?” Soarin snorted sarcastically in response.

“SOARIN!!!!!” Spitfire yelled out. Dash yelped, barely moving out of the way before Spitfire ran her over. Spitfire kept galloping in a straight-line, knocking aside several Wonderbolts.

“GAH! FUCK! WATCH IT, SIS!” Blaze yelled as Spitfire shoved her aside, but Spitfire didn’t even look at her. She ran right up to Soarin and stopped, looking him right in the eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

Soarin looked forward through his black eyes, blinking as he noticed Spitfire and the path of destruction behind her.

“Oh, hey Spitfire,” he said with a grin. Spitfire kept staring for a moment before flattening her brow and gritting her teeth.

“‘Oh, hey?!’” she growled at him. “Are you kidding me Soarin?!” she yelled. Soarin just stared, his eyes widening as much as they could beneath the bruising.

Rainbow Dash stepped up, smiling as she saw the two old friends reunited, knowing Spitfire’s ‘anger’ was just frustration with Soarin’s casual response.

“OUTTA THE WAY, OUTTA THE WAY!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from the crowd, Dash stepping aside as Fleetfoot pushed through and also sprinted up to Soarin. “Oh my god! Soarin! You’re—” she was smiling happily, looking ready to throw herself at him and hug him, but she flinched and almost fell over as Spitfire stomped her front hooves on the floor.

“YOU ALMOST KILL YOURSELF BY CRASHING INTO A MOUNTAIN, AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS ‘OH HEY?!’” she yelled right into Soarin’s face as Descent released him, stepping away to avoid any collateral damage.

“Uh… Sorry?” Soarin edged away, putting on a weak smile as Spitfire kept looking him up and down. It was a funny sight. Spitfire looked like she was about to explode with anger, but her eyes were examining him with worry. Specifically, she kept looking back at the damaged horn.

“YOU… YOU… dammit…” She put her head down and slammed her eyes shut. “Why do you keep doing this to me!? You keep taking such stupid risks!” She started stomping her hooves on the floor again. Fleetfoot kept trying to shift up, but Spitfire’s motions were making her keep a little distance just in case. “WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!!!! And… and what happened to the horn?!?! And…” Spitfire’s bottom lip stared to quiver.

“Sheesh, Spitfire…” Soarin rubbed the back of his head, looking down at her as small tears started welling up in the corners of her eyes. “First Dash, now you,” he chuckled, causing Spitfire to look up at him with a glare. “Ladies, I know I take a few spills, but I’m a big colt, I can—”

“STOP BEING SO CASUAL ABOUT IT!” Spitfire yelled at him while lunging forward and punching him across the face… really hard.

Dash’s ears stood up and her eyes widened as Soarin fell over and crashed to the floor roughly with a painful grunt. The surrounding Wonderbolts all took a step back in surprise as Fleetfoot instantly stepped forward and grabbed Spitfire by the shoulders.

“SPITTY! What the hell?!” she questioned. Spitfire blinked and gasped loudly, putting her hooves over her mouth as she stared down at Soarin on the floor.

“OH!” Spitfire began to shudder. “OH GOD! SOARIN, I’M SORRY, I… I DIDN’T MEAN…” she frantically stuttered.

But a collective sigh of relief passed around everypony as Soarin started laughing as he rolled over. Dash quickly trotted over to him and helped him stand as he groaned, but smiled.

“No, Spitfire, it’s fine…” He looked directly at her as Dash propped him up, giving Spitfire the biggest smile he could muster. “I totally deserved that. It’s what I get for making you all worry about me constantly,” he said with a wink.

Spitfire looked down, wiping her eyes, but failing to stop small tears from trickling down her face. Fleetfoot let go of her as the two stepped up to Soarin.

Dash smiled, letting go of Soarin as Spitfire and Fleetfoot both reached up and gave Soarin a big group hug, which he returned the moment they latched to him.

“Just promise me you’ll be more careful?” Spitfire said as the three friends embraced. “It’s hard to watch one of my best friends continuously in peril. You give me so many heart attacks, you’re going to make my mane turn white at a young age at this rate.”

After a brief silence, Fleetfoot pulled slightly away and blinked.

“Are you implying I look old? Meep!” she squeaked as Soarin pulled both of them in as tight as he could.

“I can’t make any promises,” Soarin began. “But thanks, both of you for caring so much. You have no idea how much it means to me.”

Rainbow Dash stepped back, letting Soarin reunite with his squadmates and two best friends. Yeah, she was overjoyed to see him and wanted to completely latch herself to his side, but she could spare a moment to let the other important ponies in his life to be happy…

But only for a few moments, then he was hers again.

However, the brief moment gave her a small window to think about a few other things… in particular, two things.

Little Star and Twister.

Little Star was nowhere to be seen in the lobby, so Dash hoped that meant she was already being tended to. Squall and Matteo were not there as well.

Then there was the case of Twister… What was she going to say to Spitfire? Twister was lost during their escape from the compound, but they would probably all have been captured had he not intervened and led Ruin away. Again, she wanted to believe he was fine. Twister was always fine, but what were his chances of getting out of the Shadowbolt compound? Twister was unpredictable, but he wasn’t invincible. His act worked on Ruin… but not every Shadowbolt.

Dash’s ears stood up when her eyes caught sight of a very familiar large figure in her peripheral vision. She turned and looked towards the eastern hallways just in time to see Matteo and Squall emerge from it. Squall had already ditched what was left of his Shadowbolt suit and had been tended to, multiple light bandages covering the injuries he sustained while charging headlong into Devil’s attacks. Matteo was still in uniform with his hood down.

As they walked in, they both turned towards Dash upon seeing her returned, however Dash was not smiling. She was glaring at Squall.

“Captain,” Matteo spoke up as they stopped near her. He sat down as Squall remained standing. “It’s good to see you ba—”

“Squall!” Dash cut off Matteo, sharply calling Squall’s name as she stepped right up to him. Squall blinked, lifting an eyebrow as Dash stood before him.

“What?” he asked simply. Dash narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t you ‘what’ me, buster…” she snapped, but Squall didn’t react, he just kept looking at her curiously. “You know why I’m angry with you… right?”

“Uh…” Squall scrunched his face. “No… I don’t.”

“Are you being serious right now?” Dash growled.

“Yikes, good to see you too…” Squall said sarcastically as he shifted and walked past her. Dash grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him around to look at her.

“TWISTER,” Dash reminded him. Squall tipped his head.

“What about him?”

“WHAT ABOUT HIM?!” Dash threw her arms up. “Gee, I dunno, he didn’t make it out… and you didn’t make a single effort to go after him!”

Squall lifted his brow while edging his face towards Dash’s.

“Dash, really? We didn’t even have time to go after him,” he reminded her of the situation they were in.

“I know that! But, you could have at least showed interest in assisting him. You didn’t even blink when we lost him!” Dash fumed. She had been pushing the importance of their squad as a team to all of them for some time. The fact that Squall let Twister go so easily burned her up. Forget the fact that they couldn’t save him. She felt like Squall had more or less ignored how hard she had tried to bring them all together.

“Dash…” Squall grunted while looking over her shoulder.

“Look, Squall, I know you aren’t the biggest fan of him…

“Dash…” he repeated while making a head motion forward, but she kept going.

“But you know how important it is to care about your squad. I don’t think I could have made that any clearer.”

“Dash…!” Squall said louder while making more head motions over her shoulder.

“Squall, are you even listening to me?!” she yelled while taking a step towards him.

“DASH!” Squall yelled while glaring harshly at her and pointing over her shoulder. Dash flinched and glanced at Squall’s arm extending past her. “Really?”

“What are you…?” Dash trailed off as her eyes went wide, blinking several times as something hit her.

“Dash,” Squall rolled his eyes and grunted. “For Celestia’s sake, what in our history as a squad…” As he spoke Dash slowly began to turn around, looking where Squall was pointing, which happened to be right at Matteo. “Made you think Twister was ever in any danger?”

Dash’s jaw dropped as she stared up at Matteo. Matteo glanced between the two of them curiously and looked over his shoulder once to see if they were pointing at something else. Upon seeing nothing he looked back at the two of them… and flattened his brow.

“He’s on my head… isn’t he?” Matteo asked with a grumble.

“Uh…” Dash failed to utter any coherent words as she stared at Twister. Twister sat with his shoulders hunched, acting like a vulture, shifting from side to side every time Matteo tried to look up and see him. He looked completely unscathed, literally no different than he did before he disappeared while leading Ruin away in the Shadowbolt fortress.

“Did you HONESTLY think he wasn’t going to be just fine?!” Squall huffed with some clear frustration. “You do know who we’re talking about here right? That’s why I didn’t bother trying.”

“You know…” Dash turned back to Squall, putting her head down and blushing lightly in embarrassment. “That’s a very good point.”

Twister suddenly stopped eluding Matteo, instead flopping down between his crest feathers and staring into Matteo’s face, upside-down. Matteo reached up and flicked at Twister with his talons. A very loud, comical WHAP echoed out as Twister flung from Matteo’s head and he landed face first behind Dash. She yelped as Twister belly flopped behind her. She turned away from Squall and looked down as Twister rolled over and lay flat on his back with his hooves propped up on his chest and holding a single daisy. He wore a silly, wide smile on his face as a tombstone popped up near his head that read:

“Here lies Twister. He came for the ruse, he stayed for the cruise. Rest in spaghetti, never forghetti.”

Dash turned right back to Squall with her ears gently flopping to the sides of her head.

“Yeah, uh… sorry,” she apologized while rubbing the back of her head. Squall narrowed his eyes and scrunched his face into an annoyed pout at her. “Look, this has been a stressful day, I’m sorry I blew up at you, I didn’t even think about it that way…” she glanced back at Twister, the daisy had turned into a rose and he was puckering his lips while making kissing noises. Dash turned back to Squall and smiled weakly. “I guess I got caught up in the moment.”

“Yeah, you did…” Squall scoffed, his tail flicking once as he looked away.

Dash didn’t push him. He had every right to be a little miffed. She hadn’t considered the obvious during the mission and as she said… it had been a stressful day. If anything it was nice that Squall simply left it at that and didn’t explode at her. With Squall acknowledging her apology in his own way, she turned back to Twister.

“Twister,” she said his name and he instantly sprang upright, the rose in his hooves was now an orange.

“Yesssssssssssssss?” he asked while his ears flapped like wings.

“How did you get out of there?” she asked.

“I divided by all the zeroes,” Twister quickly replied with his eyes pointing in different directions.

“Fair enough.”

Twister froze completely as Dash reached forward and pulled him into a hug. Dash didn’t say anything at first, but after a moment, she spoke up in a stern tone.

“Don’t disappear like that again, that’s an order. I should have known better, but seriously… in the moment I thought for sure we lost you,” she said roughly, but with a hint of relief. Twister dropped the orange out of his hooves as he blinked and went limp, his back bending over Dash’s arms.

“Ah…” he sighed goofily. “Affection… my one weakness!”

“Don’t push your luck, dummy,” Dash said as she let go, causing Twister to fall right back to the floor. “Is Little Star okay?” she asked, turning to Squall.

“Infirmary,” Squall said simply, still pouting post-premature scolding by Dash.

“That’s good,” Dash smiled. Simple, but to the point, and exactly where she was hoping Star would be. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief, her worries about her squad being broken apart, vanishing completely. She turned away from them and looked back towards Soarin as he finished speaking to Spitfire and Fleetfoot and was now walking towards her. Dash smiled as she saw Soarin approaching.

Assuming the group transporting Wave Chill was just running behind… they really had succeeded without losing anypony.

A full, total victory.

“That’s a nice smile,” Soarin commented as he limped up to her. “Everything alright with your squad?” he asked as he looked towards her squadmates. Dash did the same, looking over her shoulder. Squall was still glaring, but Twister was on his back, reaching around Squall’s head and forcing the corners of his mouth into a smile. Squall wasn’t resisting, likely knowing it was pointless to do so. Matteo was seconds away from biting into the orange Twister had dropped. The moment Dash turned to look his eyes widened and he quickly hid the orange behind his back.

“Yep,” Dash nodded turning back to Soarin. “Star’s in the infirmary, but otherwise, everything is fine.”

“Good to hear,” Soarin smiled down at her.

“Now there’s just one thing left…” Dash mentioned while leaning to her right, looking past Soarin.

“Hm?” Soarin glanced back towards the crowd to see Spitfire walking in circles with Fleetfoot following behind her, trying to talk, but having little luck. “Oh… right.”

“Where are they, WHERE ARE THEY?!” Spitfire fretted loudly as she kept walking in a circle. Fleetfoot was sitting in the center of her path, watching her while pouting.

“Spitty, please calm down! I’m sure they’re fine!” she encouraged. Spitfire sharply turned to her, pointed, and opened her mouth to yell, but slammed it back shut before she could say anything, biting her lower lip hard as she resumed walking in circles. “And will you stop that?!” Fleetfoot huffed as she stepped out and grabbed Spitfire’s tail in her mouth, giving it a good yank. But it didn’t stop Spitfire, in fact Fleetfoot ended up getting dragged along, her hooves squeaking against the floor as Spitfire pulled her in a circle.

“Yikes…” Soarin blinked as he and Dash approached and watched Spitfire drag Fleetfoot around. “Spitfire, relax.”

“Don’t you start with me too!” she growled while shifting her path towards Soarin, dragging Fleetfoot with her all the way up to them.

“Please don’t punch me again,” Soarin asked seriously as Spitfire sighed and suddenly sat down.

“YEEP!” Fleetfoot yelped as she was pulled down to the floor by Spitfire’s tail.

“Spitfire,” Dash spoke up. “I saw it myself. Squad Zero and Comet made it out of the fray and were not followed. I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”

Spitfire gave her no response as Fleetfoot pushed herself up and pouted, looking towards Dash.

“At this point, don’t even bother,” Fleetfoot waved her hoof. “SPITTY! YOUR MANE IS ON FIRE!” she yelled into Spitfire’s ear at point blank.

Spitfire still didn’t respond or even react. She just kept looking down and gritted her teeth while her eyes darted back and forth.

“See?” Fleetfoot groaned as she sat down as well.

Soarin looked away as Fleetfoot and Dash continued to fruitlessly try and get through to Spitfire. In fact, he looked up just in time to shift aside as Descent nearly bumped into him.

“Whoa there!” Soarin reacted as he stumbled slightly. “Watch it!” he said while shifting to support himself. Descent, however, did not reply. He walked right up to a small group of Shadowbolt Renegades, focused on the dark grey one that had carried Silver.

“Epic, have you seen Starry Skies?” Descent asked quickly. Epic blinked and glanced around before shaking his head.

“Haven’t seen her since I got back,” he answered. Descent snorted, glancing at Astral standing beside Epic. Astral quickly shook his head no as well.

“Dad, she’s in the infirmary,” Storm Front’s voice got his attention. Descent turned around to see his son approach. “She went there to lie down right after we landed the Falcon on the deck.”

“Hmmm…” Descent hummed while looking down. “Alright…” he turned towards the east hallway, but suddenly stopped and looked towards Soarin. Or at least Soarin thought Descent was looking at him. Upon closer inspection, he was looking right past Soarin.

Soarin watched as Descent shifted and moved towards them, walking right past Soarin, without hitting him this time, and up to Spitfire. Dash was already backing away as Fleetfoot latched herself to Spitfire’s back, threatening to bite her ears if she didn’t stop worrying.

“Spitfire,” Descent spoke up, causing Spitfire to look up at him and Fleetfoot to pause right before chomping down on one of Spitfire’s ears. Dash shifted back beside Soarin, the two glancing at each other as the two leaders came face to face. Descent looked down at her calmly and shook his head.

“Comet is, by far, the most skillful at eluding danger among the entire Renegade force. If Silver gave him an order to take every measure to avoid danger, then that’s exactly what he’s doing and why they aren’t back yet.”

He didn’t tell her to not worry or calm down, he simply stated facts. And perhaps that’s exactly what Spitfire needed to hear because she stopped grinding her teeth and simply sighed heavily.

“I just want him back… I want Wave back,” she admitted. Descent snorted.

“Obviously,” he said harshly as he kept his gaze on her. “Have faith, they’ll be—”

“COMET!” Cannon Ball’s voice came from nearby. Spitfire’s ears shot up, whapping Fleetfoot right in the face. Descent looked over his shoulder towards the doors.

“Speak of the devil. Scratch that, you can put your worries to rest right now,” he said as he stepped aside to clear Spitfire’s view towards the lobby doors.

The full attention of everypony in the room was drawn back to the lobby doors, but this time it was for a different reason. When Silver was brought in, it sparked relief. When Soarin was brought in, it sparked surprise. But when Comet’s name was called… everypony realized who was about to be brought in… The very reason they embarked on the huge operation to begin with.

Comet stepped through the door and held it open as Shine Struck, Swift Justice, and Playbitz came through first.

They all turned and looked as Calm Wind bent down to avoid bumping his head on the top of the door and stepped in…

With Wave Chill resting gently on his back.

The moment he appeared, Wonderbolts began pouring towards Squad Zero, all eager to see their second commander back and alive. They didn’t call his name as they had with Silver and Soarin, they all simply moved to get a look as if they, just like Spitfire, didn’t feel they could really call the operation a success until they saw their objective back home, safe and sound.

They didn’t crowd him. It didn’t take long for them to all notice the painful sight of Wave’s body. The burn lines from the crystal magic running up and down it with near surgical precision. None of them had heard the report from squad three yet, but it was easy for them to discern that he had been tortured.

The Wonderbolts parted, this time willingly, as Spitfire got up and quickly moved towards Wave with Fleetfoot, Dash, Soarin, and Descent in tow.

“My god…” Descent blinked with his mouth slightly open as he examined Wave. He shook his head as Calm lowered himself to the ground, allowing Playbitz and Comet to help Wave off of his back. “What in the world happened? Who did this to him?”

“Ruin,” Dash quickly answered as they remained slightly behind Spitfire and Fleetfoot. “We found him in Ruin’s room, chained to the wall, and being exposed to crystal magic.”

Descent’s eyes went wide and he quickly looked down at Dash. Dash stared back in confusion. Descent looked… horrified?

“I’m…” he stuttered. “I guess I’m not surprised since Ruin always made me uneasy, but… they just let him do that? Blade let him do that?!” Descent looked towards Wave again. “How low… have the Shadowbolts fallen?” Descent paused and blinked, his expression going flat. “Also, how did you get into Ruin’s room? He never let anypony into his room.”

“It’s a long story,” Dash shook her head. “I’ll tell you later.”

Descent accepted her request, releasing a heavy sigh while flattening his brow angrily. Dash could only imagine what was going through his head. While Starry Skies had generally referred to her fellow Shadowbolts as morons and several other blunt words, Descent’s view was much more positive and family oriented. It seemed like his expectations and pride in his former organizations was slowly being chipped away, and it was clearly taking a toll on him.

“Sorry we’re late,” Comet’s voice drew Dash’s attention back to the moment. Comet approached Spitfire and Fleetfoot, letting Playbitz support Wave once they had him down. “We ended up taking quite a long detour to avoid all the commotion,” he explained, basically confirming every bit of assurance Descent gave Spitfire moments before the arrival.

Spitfire didn’t move a muscle, she was simply staring at Wave as Playbitz supported him. Her eyes were wide with nopony able to get a true read on her emotional state. Even Fleetfoot, sitting right beside her, was looking at her quizzically.

Wave was moving, if only a little. He was breathing heavily, and cringing slightly, feeling the effects of his injuries, but still… Spitfire didn’t move.

Rainbow Dash noticed, and quickly stepped up to her.

“Spitfire,” she said while placing a hoof on her shoulder. “When we found him… the first thing he said, while crying, was that he wanted to go home and see you. Please… don’t keep him waiting.”

Spitfire’s ears flopped down as she turned and looked at Dash, her expression slowly turning sad as she heard Dash’s recount of the rescue.

It was all coming down and Dash could see it. The moment Wave was captured, Spitfire had hardened up and rallied them into a large, joint operation… leading them into battle and standing firm in the face of danger. Maybe she was still fighting to keep some of that up. It had proven the strength of her leadership to many, after all. The sight of Wave, however, seemed to be pushing the emotions she buried for the sake of leading right back up.

Spitfire looked to her other side, away from Rainbow Dash as she felt another hoof touch her, belonging to Fleetfoot.

“What? You go all rah-rah and lead us into an impossible mission, but when everything works out, you freeze up?” she winked at Spitfire. “Can’t believe we actually did it? Come on! We did it, and you led us. You deserve what you worked for! Now go to your hubby!”

“Spitfire,” Soarin said as he moved up behind her. She looked over her shoulder up at him to see him smiling down at her through his bruised visage. “What the hell are you waiting for?” he gave her a nudge. “Go.”

Spitfire looked back at Wave, also realizing that all eyes were now on her. Indeed, every single Wonderbolt, new and old, was staring at her. They were all thinking the same thing. Spitfire had led them to a victory with two goals to reach for. The first, to stick it to the Shadowbolts, the second…? To save Wave Chill. They were all on board and willing to do whatever it took, but they also all knew what succeeding would mean to their captain.

Spitfire slowly stood up and slowly walked towards Wave. As she moved, Rainbow Dash shifted herself beside Soarin, lightly pressing herself to his side. The two exchanged smiles as they watched Spitfire approach Wave.

The lobby went completely silent as Spitfire stopped in front of Playbitz, reaching forward and taking Wave Chill from him as she sat down. Her eyes ran up and down his body, the sight of the painful burn lines on his body nearly tearing her heart in two. Her lip began to quiver, her eyes squinting as she reached a hoof up and gently brushed it against his cheek.

“Hgnnn…” Wave stirred the moment he felt her light touch. The slight movement was followed by a painful shudder and a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth as he cringed and his eyelids tightened.

But then he slowly opened his eyes. They were weak, and looked cloudy. They focused right on Spitfire, but he remained silent for a moment as if they were adjusting to a blurry sight. But then his eyes opened a little wider and his lips parted.

“Spit…fire…?” his voice squeaked, but the words were clear.

Spitfire bit her lower lip. She wanted to be strong. She wanted him to not just see his lover, but also his leader who refused to leave him behind. But she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t keep her emotions from pouring out. Seeing Wave back safe and in her arms filled her with immeasurable relief and joy on a personal level that pushed aside duty.

“Wave…” she said back quietly.

“I’m… home…?” he asked as his eyes slowly moved around, catching brief glimpses of the Wonderbolts gathered in the lobby.

“Yes…” Spitfire’s voice began to waiver, a sniffle escaping. “You’re safe.”

“Oh…” Wave forced his lips into a very weak smile. “Oh… thank Celestia… I…” he paused, cringing as he forced his arms to move. Spitfire fought to hold in tears as Wave pushed through his pain to reach his arms up to her and grab hold of her torso. “I thought…” he gasped and wheezed. “I thought I was done for, I thought…” he looked directly into her eyes. “I thought I’d never see you again…” he closed his eyes, tears lightly falling from the edges as his grip, while weak, tightened around her.

The dam didn’t just break, it exploded. Spitfire slammed her eyes shut as tears began pouring down her face. She opened her eyes back up, revealing a look of pure happiness as she embraced Wave.

“WAVE!” she yelled his name, the two of them closing their eyes and nestling into each other, the couple reunited after fighting through the terrible, terrible prospect of never seeing each other again.

The Wonderbolts all smiled at the sight of Spitfire’s joy. She rarely showed these emotions to them. They knew they were there, but Spitfire’s duty-bound focus often kept her smiles and laughs locked away. Seeing her let them go, especially in a moment that meant very much to them as well, was the icing on the cake.

They had won the day.

Soarin looked down at Dash as she pressed herself into him harder.

“Ow, Dash, too hard,” he commented quietly as he felt little stings of pain from his injuries. Dash shook her head against his shoulder.

“You’re a big colt, you can handle it,” she said, using his own words against him.

“Fair enough, ow…” He let her have her way. Soarin glanced to his other side, seeing Fleetfoot sit still as she watched Wave and Spitfire embrace.

Her expression was… mixed. It didn’t take long for Soarin to put together why, this wasn’t anything new.

Luckily for him though, somepony else offered a nice distraction for her.

“YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!” Air Mach yelled out boisterously as he moved up in between Soarin and Fleetfoot, grabbing them both and shaking them lightly.

“Ow, ow, ow…” Soarin said quietly, but didn’t protest as Air Mach stood up and pointed to the ceiling, shrugging off the flat look Fleetfoot was giving him.

“GUESS WHAT BROS AND LADY-BROS!” he yelled out as he hovered up into the air over Spitfire and Wave Chill, drawing everypony’s attention. CHILLER IS BACK! SOARIN IS BACK! AND I JUST COUNTED… EVERYPONY IS ACCOUNTED FOR!” He briefly crossed his hooved over his face before doing a pirouette and pointing towards the lobby doors. “YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?! WE JUST STUCK IT HARD TO THE SHADOW-DOLTS! WE BEAT ‘EM UP, SAVED OUR COMMANDER, AND STOLE ONE OF THEIR TOYS TOO!” He pounded his chest with both hooves and slowly spun while pointing at all of the Wonderbolts and their Renegade counterparts. “THEY BETTER THINK TWICE ABOUT MESSING WITH US NOW, EH?! VICTORY FELLAS! DRINK IT INNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!” he yelled while throwing his neck back and hip thrusting into the air. The Wonderbolts were all quick to share the burst of enthusiasm.

“HOO-RAH!” Lightning Streak suddenly yelled out from the crowd.

“HOO-RAH!” The rest of the Wonderbolts shouted right after, followed by hooting, hollering, and cheering as several took to the air, exchanging hoof-bumps, playful jabs, and sharing the collective good feeling of coming out on top. It had been nothing but running, defending, and more running against the Shadowbolts thus far. Words could not describe how good it felt to not only claim victory, but also slap their enemy right across the face as disrespectfully as possible. It was something all of them desperately wanted to do.

Even though he was hurt, Soarin had pumped his hoof in the air and echoed the cheers along with his squadmates. He looked down at Dash and gave her a big hug, ignoring the pain to share in the cheer as the Wonderbolts all celebrated around them. He glanced up and saw Descent looking around flatly, shaking his head subtly as he sighed. He glanced down at Soarin, locking eyes for a moment before his expression changed into a small smirk, scoffing again before shaking his head some more.

Soarin knew Descent wouldn’t say it, but the Wonderbolts had just proven him wrong. He was against the operation from the start, citing how ridiculous it sounded and refusing to get involved, only to follow behind them as back up and watch as the Wonderbolts effectively sent the Shadowbolts into a whirlwind of deception and accomplish their goal. He was definitely humbled, and maybe a little jealous that he didn’t get to take part in making a statement to their common enemy. He was so sure his tactics were the best course of action, and Spitfire just stuck it to him.

They didn’t come out unscathed, but everypony was back, alive, and well.

Score one for the good guys, it was about damn time.

But for every victory, a defeat runs parallel.

Moon stepped out of the west hallway and into the lobby of the Shadowbolt fortress, his expression remaining flat and unwavering as he observed the open area. The Shadowbolts were all standing and lying about, grunts and groans of pain and frustration filling the room. Beyond that, no words were being uttered, no conversations were taking place. The only other sounds were those of the crystals as they lit up and hovered over bumps and bruises.

Moon snorted, walking in casually as other Shadowbolts from within the fortress also emerged to get a look at the battered and beaten force. Stragglers made their way in through the front doors, some falling flat on their face as they did.

Moon’s attention was drawn to one of the large crystal formations jutting out of the floor. Commander Void was standing against it, the only commander currently present besides him. Void did not look thrilled. He was pretty banged up, his suit torn in several places. He was grumbling to himself, scowling at any Shadowbolts that came remotely close to him.

A bright flash of light right outside drew Moon’s eyes towards the doors along with everypony else’s. A moment later, one of the doors was pushed open roughly, Angel taking a heavy step inside. He braced himself, panting and wheezing with blood dripping down his face as the door bumped against him. He growled and punched the door, forcing it too far and breaking the hinges as he stumbled in and fell flat for a moment. He pushed himself back up glaring harshly into the lobby, any and all Shadowbolts quickly averting their eyes to avoid invoking Angel’s seldom seen wrath.

Shortly after, behind him, Shadow pulled herself into the lobby, grunting as she struggled to pull an unconscious Sin into the lobby behind her. An audible stir began passing around the Shadowbolts gathered in the lobby, and Moon wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Seeing their supposed ‘leaders’ all beaten up and struggling was an unusual sight.

“GAH!” Shadow grunted in pain, falling down as she let go of Sin and let him lay flat on the floor as he continued to snooze. She picked up her head and shook it out, pulling her goggles down as she glared at Angel. “Angel, what the HELL is wrong with you?!” she yelled, the first to really speak out in the silent air of the room. Angel didn’t even look at her he followed Void’s example, and leaned against a nearby surface, grumbling through his battered face. “YOU ALMOST LEFT ME OUT THERE!” Shadow yelled while limping up to him. “Are you listening to me?!”

“SHUT YOUR TRAP!” Angel barked back at her while turning his head so sharply that his hair whipped around. He reached up and shoved her backwards, causing her to stumble backwards and fall over the top of Sin. Instantly any Shadowbolts nearby began backing even further away to avoid Angel at all costs.

Moon watched as the commanders provided a sorry display for everypony in the lobby. He subtly shook his head and exhaled through his nose.

“WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!” Ruin’s voice came from behind Moon. Moon only grunted in frustration as Ruin slid backwards right past him. “It looks like I missed quite the party!” he looked around mischievously, his eyes landing on Angel first, snickering when he saw the angered look on his usually blank face. “Awwwwwww…” Ruin cooed as he shuffled up to angel and got in his face before patting his head. “Your poor, poor, beautiful face…” he joked, pulling his hoof away and scrunching his face as some of Angel’s blood got on it. He reached forward and grabbed part of Angel’s mane, using it to wipe off the blood.

“I’M NOT IN THE MOOD!” Angel moved to shove him as well, but Ruin shifted slightly, causing Angel to miss and nearly fall right down onto the floor below. Ruin just patted him on the head again, a little higher to avoid getting blood on his hoof.

“Do tell, pumpkin,” Ruin chuckled as Angel continued to growl at him. “My, my…” Ruin continued as he turned and observed Sin unconscious on the floor with Shadow struggling to stand right behind him. “Looks like you guys really took a beating… was it really that hard without little ol’ me out there?” He gently touched a hoof to his chest while batting his eyelashes at them.

“I didn’t lose,” Void spoke up rather randomly from off to the side. Ruin stood up on his hind legs and bent his back all the way backward until he was looking at Void, upside down. He bounced his eyebrows as he smirked.

“You tried to use your magic against Bomber again, didn’t you?” he hit the nail right on the head.

“I DIDN’T LOSE!” Void repeated while stamping a hoof loudly.

“OOOOOOHOHOHOHO!” Ruin cracked up, hovering upside down over to Void. “Sure you didn’t! You crack me up sometimes, you simpleton…” Ruin casually taunted Void as he simply growled in response. “Really, how many times have you tried it? I told you it would never work. I know I’m crazy, but you really should listen to me sometimes,” he said while tapping Void’s nose. Void bit at it, but Ruin shifted back just before being nipped.

“Hmmmmm…” Ruin turned himself upright, looking around the room again. “Where are Blade and Devil?” he asked casually, completely contrasting the defeated mood of the room. Nopony answered at first, but Ruin’s eyes landed on Shadow. She was looking down, her ears flopped to the sides of her head.

“Devil… is dead,” she spoke up quietly, drawing looks from all around. “He…” she paused.

“Overused his crystals?” Ruin finished for her while lifting his brow. Shadow didn’t reply, she simply nodded. “HAH!” Ruin fell flat to the floor and reclined on his side. “Color me not surprised in the slightest! It was bound to happen eventually, the careless twit.” He continued looking around despite Shadow shooting him an angered glare. “So that’s three of us in one day, hm? Trance, Witch, and Devil all snuffed out… and where is our fearless ‘director’ in this whole operation? Blade is never one to miss out heheheheheeee…”

Moon simply watched from off to the side as Ruin gave a blatant disregard for the mood of the moment. But as far as he was concerned, the Shadowbolts had gotten exactly what they deserved. He flinched and blinked as Ruin suddenly slid across the floor and popped up in front of him.

“What about you, Moony-moon? Have you seen Blade?”

A loud BANG sounded out from the front doors, saving Moon from Ruin’s harassment and drawing everypony’s attention to the front.

“GAH… AH…. GRH….” loud painful grunts echoed throughout the lobby, several pairs of eyes going wide as Blade dragged himself into the room. He was severely beaten, heavily bruised, his suit had been so heavily damaged that not even half of it remained. Blood was dripping lightly from his nose, and mouth, one of his eyes was nearly sealed shut by a terrible black eye. His breathing was heavy and his body shook as he grunted and growled, barely managing to stand upright. He teetered his way a few steps, his crystals weakly floating behind him, before collapsing and groaning while grinding his teeth in anger. His crystals clinked against the floor, bouncing lightly before rolling at his sides.

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…” Ruin threw his hooves over his mouth, his cheeks puffing out as his eyes went wide. “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” he keeled over, laughing maniacally while rolling back and forth on his back, drawing several strange and disturbed looks from everypony else.

Moon disregarded Ruin cackling to himself as he calmly strode up to Blade, who was far and away more beaten than the rest of them combined.

“What the hell happened to you?” Moon asked as he stood over Blade.

“GRRRRHHNNnnnnnnnnn…” Blade only growled as he continued to struggle. Ruin suddenly appeared beside Moon and leaned against him while hanging down towards Blade.

“Let me take a WIIIIIIILD guess here!” he snickered. “Who among the Wonderbolts could have possibly beaten you up MORE than Descent usually does?” he said as he began prancing with light, goofy steps in a circle around Blade. He stopped after making a full lap around him, leaning down and putting his face right up to Blade’s. “OH! I know! You tried to fight Spitfire by yourself, didn’t you! And I thought VOID was an idiot!”

“FUCK... OFF!” Blade finally managed to speak as he released a series of painful grunts while forcing himself up.

“Boy, I’m on a ROLL tonight! You guys are just so predictable, ya know that?” He snickered while flipping his hoof beneath Blade’s chin. Blade didn’t even retaliate, he just kept glaring. Ruin slid back across the floor on his hooves, lining up with Moon again and leaning on his shoulder. “Looks like we’re lucky we were on guard duty, eh Moon?”

“No doubt,” Moon replied flatly, not even gracing Ruin with a look.

“HA!” Ruin slid off Moon and shifted right back up to Blade. “Honestly, part of me wishes I was out there. I would have loved to see you get your ass kicked so soundly,” he taunted while bouncing his eyebrows at Blade.

“RRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Blade growled fiercely at Ruin, one of his crystals hovering up beside him and lighting up. Ruin casually glanced at the crystal before reaching up and gently pushing it back down to the floor while lifting an eyebrow at Blade.

“Oh, stop it.” Ruin rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Take your lumps and learn some humility, hehehehe…” He couldn’t hold back the silly chuckle at the end.

“You laugh…” Void broke his silence, pushing off of the crystal formation and stomping towards Ruin until he towered over him. “But what happened in here? We were infiltrated and our prisoner was sprung on YOUR watch, was he not? Care to explain yourself, clown?!”

Ruin didn’t cower or flinch and inch even under the intimidating size of Void.

“Don’t ask,” Ruin snorted, waving a hoof. “They unleashed their screwball on me again. But I wasn’t the only one in here you know,” he pointed out. The commanders and the rest of the Shadowbolts all turned and stared towards Moon.

Moon didn’t panic or falter, he remained completely calm, simply raising an eyebrow and scoffing.

“Don’t look at me. I was the one that found Ruin’s door open AND sounded the alarm. Ruin was the one that left the prisoner unguarded to watch our pilot get beaten,” he explained as all eyes went right back to Ruin. Ruin blinked and shrugged while smirking.

“Okay, fine, but I did try to stop them,” he waved it off despite getting several looks of disapproval.

“Commander Blade! Commander Blade!” a voice suddenly came from the doors. Everypony turned to look.

“AH!” Rapidfire grunted as the Shadowbolt stallion tossed him into the lobby and he landed roughly against the floor. He cringed, clutching his chest, breathing heavily as the pains of being without a crystal were the harshest yet. He forced his eyes open, barely able to muster the strength for such a simple motion.

“I found him trying to climb up the side of the outer platform,” the stallion spoke as Rapidfire tried to focus. Was he back in the fortress? Who was around him? He could barely make anything out. It felt like his body was being destroyed from the inside out by the withdrawal.

“Hmph… so… you actually survived.”

Rapidfire knew that voice, and it wasn’t the one he wanted to hear.

He heard hooves sliding across the floor towards him, prompting him to lift his head to the best of his ability and see something. When his vision finally stopped blurring, all he saw was Blade standing over him, severely beaten but glaring down at him.

Rapidfire said nothing.

“WEEEEEEELLL, well, well, well, well, WELL!” Ruin slithered up beside Blade, examining Rapidfire on the floor. “A mountain falls on you, but you live to tell the tale? Not bad at all!” Ruin barely finished before Blade reached up and roughly shoved Ruin aside stepping up and glaring harshly at Rapidfire.

Rapidfire cringed again, his hoof clawing at his own chest. He hated Blade… but he was desperate.

“C…crystal…” Rapidfire sputtered, pleading for his pain to be addressed.

“You!” Blade yelled down at him, not even using his name. “You know where the Wonderbolt compound is! You were there!” Blade yelled, stroking a preemptive, misguided thirst for revenge. His voice rang in Rapidfire’s ears as his pain receptors burned.

“P…please… crystal…” Rapidfire begged.

Blade growled, reaching down and grabbing Rapidfire by the mane. He yanked at it, forcing Rapidfire up off the ground.

“AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!” Rapidfire cried out in pain, the front of his hooves resting limply against the floor as Blade held him in the air.

“WHERE IS IT?!” Blade roared wildly, saliva spraying into Rapidfire’s face.

“I… need… a crystal…!” Rapidfire sputtered painfully, his breath wheezing loudly.

“IF YOU WANT ONE SO BADLY… TELL ME WHERE THE HELL THEIR COMPOUND IS!” Blade ordered, yelling as hard as he could right into Rapidfire’s face.

Rapidfire opened his eyes a little wider as Blade demanded he reveal what he knew. He looked right into Blade’s eyes, filled with anger, and rage. Rapidfire’s vision shifted, looking at the rest of the Shadowbolts. Some of them were watching, but most of them didn’t seem to even care. Rapidfire refocused his eyes on Blade.

He knew exactly where the compound was… but…

Rapidfire had been left for dead. No Shadowbolts had come to find him. He had to make it back on his own… No, even worse, he made it back because of SOARIN. To top it off, looking at all the Shadowbolts, there was barely any reaction to him coming back. Even better, he was being held up in the air, by the mane, and being questioned brutally.

He was more than certain… that if Soarin did indeed manage to make it back to the Wonderbolt compound…

He was likely being showered with welcomes, smiles, and relief.

“…………………………………………………………… I don’t… know.”

Blade’s eyes widened briefly, quickly sharpening back into the intense glare as he growled and ground his teeth together.

“Oh HELL no! I know you were there you useless, little piece of shit! I was part of that operation! NOW TELL ME!”

“I don’t… know…” Rapidfire weakly repeated in defiance. Angel suddenly pushed himself forward, right up beside Blade while glaring at Rapidfire. His crystals were floating with him, a flickering glow emanating from their surfaces.

“You will tell us NOW, you insignificant peon! NOW!” he demanded, doubling the harsh aura being directed at Rapidfire.

“I don’t—” Rapidfire didn’t get to finish. Blade thrust him down, slamming Rapidfire’s head against the floor, his body crashing right down with it. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!! AH! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Rapidfire wailed as Blade let out his frustration on him.

If the other Shadowbolts weren’t watching, they were now, with the exception of Void still looking away and grumbling. Shadow looked like she wanted to step forward and stop them, but she hesitated. Moon kept watching silently, but Ruin was holding his sides while laughing.

“OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! THIS IS FUN! HAAAHAHAHA!” Ruin cackled as he shifted nearby to watch Blade and Angel brutally interrogate Rapidfire.

“TELL ME!” Blade yelled again.

“I don’t… I… crystal…” Rapidfire pleaded. Blade pulled back and punched him across the face as he held his head down, rattling it against the hard floor.

“TELL ME NOW!” Blade demanded.

“Crystal…!” Rapidfire cried out. Blade lifted and slammed Rapidfire’s head back down as Angel bent down to get in his face.

“NOW, YOU LOWLY TRASH!” Angel spat in his face. “NOW!”

“AHHHH!” Rapidfire yelped as Blade forcefully turned him onto his back and his crystals slammed around his arm. They flashed brightly, Blade’s magic sword extending from his hoof.

“TELL US…” he lowered the sword and held the edge against Rapidfire’s neck. “OR DIE!” he threatened, holding the edge of the sword close enough to lightly dig into Rapidfire’s neck, but not cut it.

Rapidfire shuddered as he felt the sharp edge against his neck. He looked up, staring into the enraged eyes of Blade and Angel as they demanded he tell them the location of the Wonderbolt compound. Their voices filled with an intense desire for revenge.

Rapidfire’s voice just squeaked, fear filling his heart as he realized the beating he was taking had broken him to the point where he could barely speak.

And if he didn’t answer them…

He was dead.

…

“Blade.”

Rapidfire blinked as the pressure against him suddenly buckled and weakened. Both Blade and Angel’s expressions shifted from anger to shock. Blade’s sword immediately dissipated, both his and Angel’s crystals losing their glow. The two had completely frozen in place as lots of shuffling and gasps came from the surrounding Shadowbolts, all in reaction to the calm, smooth, female voice that came from above them.

“Release him, and DON’T touch him again,” the female voice added.

“Ah…” Rapidfire gasped as Blade removed his hoof from him. Rapidfire rolled over on his side and curled up into a ball, shuddering. His eyes barely squeaked open, giving him no more than a view of Blade and Angel’s hooves… and a set of light blue hooves that landed near them.

“C…Captain, I…” Blade stuttered, his voice shakier than his body.

“Well?” The mare cut him off. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Blade cleared his throat… clumsily. It sounded more like he choked for a moment.

“We… the Wonderbolts…” he paused and swallowed. Rapidfire could easily see both he and Angel shuddering even though he could only see their hooves. “We were caught off guard,” Blade continued. “And… and…”

“Caught… off… guard?” the mare repeated Blade’s words, each one sounding emphasized and harsh. “Is that what you’re calling it? That’s a very generous way to describe it. It looked more like you were humiliated,” she corrected him sharply. “Not only did they make complete fools of you, they also beat you senseless. I trust you idiots each with three crystals and THIS is how you repay me? With blunders and failures? Perhaps it was a mistake to grant you the privilege of the extra power.” The blue hooves began slowly walking around the two of them. “I don’t think I have to remind you the price of wasting the crystal power…” she said as her voice remained commanding and dominant. “You could ask our former pilot… if he was still alive.”

Rapidfire watched as Angel’s hooves shimmied backwards, moving him away and leaving Blade alone up front with the mare. Blade stiffened for a moment, but then took a step forward.

“I apologize, we were unprepared!” he said stiffly with a very forced, shaky tone. “It’s just a minor setback! As soon as we tend to our wounded and rest up, we will redouble our efforts, broaden our search radius, and find their—”

“No.” the mare cut him off abruptly.

“But… but we… we can…” Blade struggled to try and continue but the mare turned quickly, placing herself directly in Blade’s face as he flinched.

“Blade, I said no,” she repeated.

“But, Captain…!”

“BLADE!” the mare’s voice boomed, followed by a collective shift of everypony present, the sound of hooves squeaking against the floor briefly echoing from wall to wall, only to immediately drown back into silence with everypony frozen in fear. “By all means… keep acting like you’re in charge,” the mare suggested.

Even from his vantage point Rapidfire didn’t need to see Blade’s face to know what sort of expression he was wearing right now.

“It would be such a shame…” the mare continued as she took another step forward, likely putting her face so close to Blade that he was afraid to move a muscle. “If I were to take it as a challenge. And if I do… there may not be much left of you when I’m done…” She took another step putting her in a position where her chest was likely pressed to his. “But don’t worry… I’d make sure you’d have plenty of ‘fun’ before I kill you.”

Blade remained completely still.

“I thought not.” The mare stepped back from him. “I gave you guys more than one chance… and you’ve done nothing but blunder time and time again. I’m tired of waiting, and so is our client. We’re going to do things MY way now. UNDERSTAND?” she paused, not a single Shadowbolt in the entire lobby said anything. “Good,” the mare sighed as she started moving away from Blade. “Now all of you go be good little colts and fillies and put some band aids on those bumps and scratches, I’ll give my orders later.” She paused again. No pony moved. “I said GET!” she suddenly raised her voice a little.

Rapidfire glanced from side to side as the Shadowbolts suddenly yelped and started scurrying about, some of them tripping and falling over each other. The commanders followed right with them, all moving as fast as they possibly could to get away from the mare.

All of them were long gone within seconds, except for Moon.

Upon turning the corner into one of the smaller side hallways, he stopped and glanced back. Instead of running away scared, like the rest, he slid against the wall and glanced back into the lobby, where Rapidfire was still on the ground. Sin was still on the floor behind him, but the big lug was really out cold.

“Hmph…” the mare grunted, her voice reaching Moon’s ears. “Put an alpha in the room and watch the betas whimper and hide…”

Moon could only see Rapidfire from his point of view. A crystal dropped onto the ground and rolled towards Rapidfire. His eyes opened wide as he ignored his pain, reached out, and snatched it, instantly pressing it against his chest. He was surrounded by a faint, pink glow in seconds as he released a heavy sigh of relief.

“Th…. Thank you…” Rapidfire barely managed to say.

The moment Moon saw the blue hooves step up, he moved back into the hallway. He didn’t want to risk being seen, but he could still listen.

“Save it, kid,” the mare spoke. “You’re no use to me dead… and if I let Blade do as he pleases then I’m unfit to lead us.”

Moon remained still, not sure what was going to happen, but he kept his ear turned, curious to hear what anything else.

“Now…” the mare spoke again. “I know you found your way into the Wonderbolt compound. That was some stand you put up against Blade,” she paused. “But… forget about that. By now they are too wary, and even if I went out there with you guys, it would be too much of a hassle and a waste of time and resources. However… they can’t stay hidden forever…”

Moon blinked, turning his head as he continued to listen.

“I know you’re a lot more resourceful and diligent than Blade gives you credit for… I’m willing to bet you caught ear of some juicy info on their plans going forward… well?” the mare asked.

Rapidfire didn’t respond.

“Aw, come on now…” the mare’s voice changed, becoming lighter. “Please? I’m asking nicely.” A seductive tone made its way into her words. “I can make it worth your while.”

Moon flattened his brow, resisting the urge to grunt in annoyance, but his ears picked up as Rapidfire groaned.

“They… are heading… for the Crystal Empire…” he said weakly. Moon’s eyes widened as the mare giggled.

“Oh? Really? Anything else?” she pressed.

“And… they are planning… to meet… with the Lunar Guard… halfway…” Rapidfire added.

“Hmmmmmmm… now that's something I can work with…” the mare expressed with satisfaction.

Moon looked down, processing the information he just heard. He looked back and forth before taking a step, but froze for a moment when he heard… something else. He turned his ear back towards the lobby. He heard a few sudden moans… a sharp breath… and what sounded like sloppy kissing.

“Mmmmmhmmhmmhmm… ahhhh…” the mare moaned seductively. “I like to reward those who are helpful… keep it up, kid… and you’ll get moreeeeee…” her sexual slur grew more and more pronounced.

Moon scrounged his face and gritted his teeth, shuddering as he shook his head. He heard what he had to hear, so he started down the hallway.

The fortress was silent, the Shadowbolts likely hiding from their captain after she put her hoof down. That was perfect, because Moon needed a moment to think over what to do next.

But as he walked, he blinked, briefly glancing up at the ceiling before focusing back forward as he moved.

“Ruin, you can’t possibly understand how annoying that is,” Moon said into the air.

Moon came to a halt as Ruin suddenly fell from the ceiling and crashed against the floor. An instant later he was up on his hooves and smiling into Moon’s face. Moon gave no visible reaction. He simply stepped aside and kept walking.

“Hmph…” Ruin grunted as he lifted off and hovered sideways along with Moon. “You’re really no fun, you know that?”

“I’ve never been one for your antics,” Moon explained as he kept looking straight forward and walking.

“Why the long faaaaaaaaaaaaaace?” Ruin asked as he popped up in front of him again while grabbing and stretching his nose comically. Moon just furrowed his brow.

“Because there’s an idiot in my way.”

“OOOOHOHOHO!” Ruin laughed as Moon stepped around him again and kept walking. “You’re always cold as ice to me. Really, I never feel any love,” Ruin chuckled as he turned and followed, keeping up pace directly behind Moon. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you have some sort of personal grudge with me!”

Moon didn’t answer. He just rolled his eyes and kept walking.

Ruin stopped, a creepy, wide sneer appearing on his face.

“No wonder you helped them spring Wave Chill!”

Moon came to a hard, abrupt halt, freezing mid-step. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he swiftly turned all the way around.

But Ruin was gone.

“Not only that…” Ruin’s voice came from behind him. Moon turned, but Ruin wasn’t there either. “But you also fired the cannon and dropped the shield for them!” his voice came from behind him again.

Moon gasped and turned to see Ruin right up in his face, sneering and bouncing his eyebrows.

“Did you really think you were gonna get away with all that?” Ruin snickered.

Moon pushed back on his hooves, propelling himself backwards. His hooves skidded across the floor as he set himself and his crystals hopped off his back. They began to glow and surround him with the pink magic sparks of his telekinesis. But…

“OOOOOOOHHHHHHOHOHOHAHAHAHA!” Ruin burst out laughing and waved a hoof at Moon. “Oh, you crack me up! Relax… RELAX! Put those down!” He waved his hooves forward while bobbing his head back and forth. He chuckled to himself and started walking towards Moon.

“STAY BACK!” Moon yelled, causing Ruin to stop and flatten his brow.

“Moon, really, come on,” Ruin shrugged while lifting an eyebrow at him. “Put them down, pretty please?” he asked in a silly tone while leaning his neck forward.

Moon’s eyes shifted to Ruin’s crystals resting on his back. They were devoid of magic, completely at rest. Moon shifted his eyes back to Ruin, keeping them locked on him as he cautiously lowered his crystals, letting them rest on his back.

“I admit, I was surprised!” Ruin chuckled while leaning against the air as if there was a wall to support him. “The steadfast, dedicated Moon… from nothing to a commander, muscling his way through the ranks… and now he’s a turncoat! Quite a shock, a SHOCK I say!” He suddenly disappeared and popped up RIGHT in front of Moon’s face. “I JUST CAN’T…” he pressed his nose to Moon. “BELIEVE IT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Moon remained still as Ruin cackled in his face. His eyes darted back and forth as sweat began to drip from his brow and down his mask. His expression hardened into a glare, his crystals coming to life again, floating up and shining beside him. Ruin took a step back and folded his ears back hard, making a quiet slapping noise against his scalp.

“Moon, really? Again? What did I just say?” Ruin said while tipping his eyebrows up and down.

“I won’t let you report me!” Moon growled at him. “Even if I have to kill you right here!” He yelled desperately.

“PAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!” Ruin instantly burst into a fit of laughter, falling over onto his back and rolling back and forth between the hallway walls as his wings flailed about. Moon kept his eyes fixed on Ruin, his breathing heavy as his mind raced. “Ohhoooooo hohoho that… oh dear, Moon… that is rich.” Ruin bounced up and casually tipped his head, focusing his eyes on Moon. “First of all… you know you could never kill me. Second… Moony, who said anything about reporting you, hm?”

“Wh…what?” Moon blinked, his eyes widening as his crystals stopped glowing and floated back down again.

“Look,” Ruin smiled smugly. “I’m not gonna ask ya why, I really don’t care!” he waved a hoof into the air nonchalantly. “Hell, I do whatever I want all the time and get away with it, so why should I care what you do?”

“You don’t… care?” Moon scrunched his face, giving Ruin a look of disturbed confusion.

“Of course not!” Ruin guffawed as he hopped up and floated casually in a circle around Moon. “I don’t care about anything we end up doing as long as I get to enjoy myself!”

Moon flattened his brow, just standing still as Ruin floated around him.

“So why would I turn you in? Why would I interrupt the show? That wouldn’t be any fun now, would it?” Ruin’s snickering behind his voice grew louder and louder as he slowly shifted closer and closer to Moon, stopping right in front of his face as he released a high pitched, creepy giggle.

“You’re insane,” Moon stated harshly while wincing and glaring.

“Tell me something I don't know, Moony-Moon! OOOOOHOHOHO!!!!” Ruin backed off while bouncing up and down in the air.

Moon had had enough, he didn’t know how Ruin had found him out, or what he was planning, but he didn’t care. Moon had an agenda, and he wasn’t going to let Ruin stall him.

“Hmph,” Moon snorted. “Well, if you’re done making an ass of yourself, I have matters to attend to,” he explained as he stepped aside.

“Indeed, you have to go to the Wonderbolt compound and let them know we know their plans now, right?” Ruin sneered, Moon stopping before he could move past him. Moon remained calm, turning and lifting an eyebrow at Ruin.

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do. Don’t try and lie to me you silly goose, you know exactly where the Wonderbolt compound is…” Without picking up his hooves he slid along the floor and tipped his head directly into Moon’s view. “Believe me. I was following you when you found it. Quite surprising when you simply turned away though!”

Moon’s jaw dropped and he shifted away, officially disturbed at how much Ruin knew about what he was doing.

“What do you want from me?!” Moon questioned as he turned and squared himself with Ruin again. He was being taunted, played with, but why?

“HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!” Ruin arched his neck back and threw a hoof over his face as he cackled. “Nothing! Nothing at all!” he exclaimed while bringing his head back down and zipping right up to Moon, smiling and snickering. “Just keep doing your thing! I promise I won’t be a tattletale! I mean… come on…” He closed his eyes as he edged his face closer to Moon’s. When he opened them, the whites of his eyes had turned black and his pupils were small, white dots. “It’s MUCH more interesting this way…” his voice had changed to a demonic echo that mad Moon shudder with fear. “Don’t you agree?”

Moon just stared, not sure what he had just seen, but all he wanted to do at this point was get away from Ruin. All this time he had felt like he was making progress and was in control, but over the course of one conversation, Ruin had reversed it and made him feel like he nothing but a little trouble maker trying to get away with petty pranks.

Ruin closed his eyes and backed his head up. He opened his eyes, their normal colors returning.

“So really, go on! Trust me, if I wanted to turn you in, I could’ve done so multiple times already!” he said while casually stepping back and leaning against the wall. “Go! GO! Don’t hold up the show! Hehehe!”

Moon shivered and furrowed his brow. He looked away from Ruin and started walking away, trying his best to push everything that had just happened out of his head. He glanced back at Ruin after taking three steps. Ruin was just staring and chuckling quietly. Moon quickly turned back and kept moving.

“Just watch your back, Moony-Moon,” Ruin spoke up as Moon continued to move away from him. “After all… it would be such a shame if you met the same fate as Iris.”

Moon froze completely, his ears pointing up, his eyes widening, and his jaw dropping as a strong gasp released from his throat. He swung himself around, turning to face Ruin as fast as possible…

But Ruin was gone.

Moon looked in every direction, even over his shoulder a few times, but Ruin was nowhere to be found.

“Don’t disappoint me!” Ruin’s voice echoed from every direction. “The fun is only beginning! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOhohohohohohoho…” the voice faded, whimpering out as the sound of Ruin’s laugh became quieter and quieter before disappearing.

Moon looked down at the floor, his eyes wide and his pupils darting back and forth. He slammed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, shaking his head while quietly growling to himself before he sharply turned and started cantering down the hallway.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

If anyone is curious, Twister's vulture pose in the first pic is a reference to Snoopy:

The Shadowbolt Renegade who brought in Silver is an OC cameo belonging to Sylvian, Epic Prose:

Oh my... something is amiss in the Shadowbolt ranks... Moon has an agenda... but does Ruin as well? If he does, it sure doesn't seem good intentioned like Moon's.

i don't think i have to tell anyone who... "the mare" is :pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy:

on the Wonderbolt front, it looks like Silver's in for extra large scolding with a side of gumpy mares.

An Wave has been returned! everypony is back! Everything is awesome!

.....right? :trollestia:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 121: It's Personal

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 121: It’s Personal

“Silver, this is incredibly irresponsible of you,” Bliss scolded as she used her magic to work one bandage around his leg and use her hooves to wrap another around his chest. A bottle of Silver’s heart medication sat on the table beside her among several rolls of bandages, medical tools, disinfectant, and a container of cotton swabs. A trash bin sat beside her with numerous bloodstained swabs piling up in it.

“Hmph…” Silver gruffly grunted in reply as he laid flat on the table, his arms hanging off the front edge and his chin resting on the mattress. He was being covered in bandages just short of looking like a mummy, a grumpy look on his face that he kept constant despite the amount of pain he was in.

“Don’t you harrumph-harrumph me, mister. This is very serious!” Bliss reminded him as both Mahogany and Witching Hour moved around to the other side of Silver, cleaning up any blood from Silver’s wounds. He was mostly bruised, but some of Sin’s incredibly strong blows had drawn blood.

“Hmph…” Silver grunted again as he continued to look directly forward between his arms. His face only scrunching very slightly every time he felt a cotton swab against his body, or the bandages were being pulled tight.

“Any and all medications are to be reported to me for the sake of keeping a complete medical history record. This is something I make very clear, yet you keep dodging the rules… and don’t think I haven’t noticed some of my own reports missing from my files, I know you’ve been trying to evade my system.” Bliss continued, not letting up at all as she worked.

“Rgh…” Silver grunted again, releasing a low, exasperated growl.

“This isn’t safe Silver.” She paused while glancing at his pills on the table. “You’re trying to keep up being a Wonderbolt while leaning on pain medication, not to mention you’re putting so much strain on your heart to the point of needing heart medication as well. This is too much, even for you.”

“Mmmmmmmrrrggghhhh…” Silver groaned in reply, ending it with a loud huff of air from his nostrils.

Bliss used her magic to cut off the edge of the bandage and sealed it down with a strip of medical tape. She glanced towards Silver’s head and exhaled sharply. She stepped around and placed herself right in front of him, tipping her head down to look him directly in the eyes. He immediately shifted his eyes away to avoid eye contact.

“Silver, listen to me,” she spoke in a serious tone. “It’s MY JOB to make sure you’re all healthy and well. My purpose as the Wonderbolt’s trainer and head of the medical facilities is to make sure you all stay alive, okay? It’s my RESPONSIBILITY. If something bad should happen to you, despite it being your own actions, it will ultimately fall on me as well. Please consider that?”

“Rrrrgph,” Silver grunted in response. Bliss flattened her brow, slowly becoming fed up with his refusal to answer.

“I swear this is the fifth time I’ve had a conversation like this with you, so I don’t even know why I’m bothering,” Bliss admitted while sighing. She looked at Silver carefully as she fished for reasons to make him see the seriousness of the situation. She refocused on him after finding a good one. “What about your family? Seriously, do you even consider them when you do this to yourself?”

Silver finally looked at her, but still remained silent. Their eyes locked in a battle of harsh stares, but try as he might, Silver couldn’t overpower Bliss’ stern glare. He was quick to avert his eyes again.

“You have a wife, a son, and a daughter, right? How would they feel if they knew how much danger you put yourself through? Worse, should something terrible happen, what would Spitfire and I say to them? That we didn’t know?” Bliss asked him, doing her best to make it perfectly clear that his actions could possibly yield more than just physical consequences for him… but Silver wasn’t having it.

“Hmph…” Silver simply grunted again. Bliss scowled at him briefly before shaking her head and sighing sharply.

“You know what? Fine. Keep being a stubborn, old, selfish grump,” she said harshly as she continued to patch him up. “Maybe you’ll listen to your body this time? You’re lucky you escaped without any broken bones. I don’t have the equipment to know for sure, but I’m more than certain you might have some minor bone fractures, if not that, some serious nerve contusions. Maybe you’ll finally learn to understand your limits if your body revolts. Nothing I say seems to stick…”

Bliss continued to ramble and ramble in frustration as the subject of a lot of career heart attacks kept sulking and grunting in return.

Dash kept her eyes on Silver as she listened to the brief exchange, holding an ice pack against her swollen cheek. Bliss’ words to him had completely stolen her attention, despite Soarin laying on the bed right beside Silver. She was equally worried about both of them to be perfectly honest.

Dash winced as a unicorn applied a bandage around a cut on her arm, glancing at her own body for a moment as she was tended to. She was still slightly dizzy. She had no doubt that Sin’s blow to her head was going to keep her out of action for a few days, maybe a week. But after the way they just worked the Shadowbolts, she was sure it would be a little while before they had to worry about them again.

Dash perked up as Bliss turned away from Silver, leaving him in the care of Witching and Mahogany and moving towards her. Bliss looked incredibly frustrated, and Dash felt she had every right to be. Dash knew full well that Silver actively dodged medical exams, hid his problems, and even sought outside help, paying off doctors to keep it quiet. As Bliss said, it’s her job to keep them healthy and well. Silver’s actions were effectively undermining her responsibilities.

However, Dash disagreed with Bliss on one thing, the fact that she called Silver ‘selfish.’

From Bliss’ point of view, Dash could understand how she’d think that way. Silver was putting himself in danger time and time again, unknown to a family that loved him, and for what only seemed to be so he could remain a Wonderbolt longer than he should be.

Dash knew that wasn’t the case. Silver wasn’t an unreasonable stallion. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. What Bliss hadn’t seen, was the devotion Silver had to his fellow Wonderbolts. It was something that could only be seen from a Wonderbolt’s point of view. Especially Dash, who had gotten the rare opportunity to learn about Silver on a personal level.

Silver had two families, his wife and his children, and the Wonderbolts. Dash had heard straight from Silver how much his family back in Canterlot meant to him, but he had spoken of his fellow Wonderbolts with just as much love and care. Silver refused to lie down and let his comrades fly into battle without him as long as he still had an ounce of strength left in his body. Dash had also experienced, first-hoof, how far Silver was willing to go for those he cared about. He had done that just now, protecting her from Sin even though his body was falling apart.

But in the end, Bliss had a job to do, and Silver was making that job very difficult. Her frustration was very justified.

“Rainbow Dash,” Bliss called her name, keeping her tone professional and holding back any annoyance in her voice.

“Yes?” Dash asked as the unicorn assistant finished wrapping up Dash’s arm and moved on.

“How is your head feeling?” she asked. Dash blinked, removing the ice from her cheek and turning her head back and forth. She blinked, tipping slightly as her slight dizziness affected her balance.

“Still a little woozy,” Dash admitted, having already mentioned the blow to the face she took earlier.

“Turn and face me,” Bliss waved a hoof. Dash did as she was told, Shifting on her stool to sit squared to Bliss. “Put down the ice pack for a moment,” she added. Again, Dash obeyed. “Now, turn your head so only your right eye can see me and focus on my hoof,” Bliss ordered ash she held one of her hooves up in the air. Dash turned her head and locked her eye on Bliss’ hoof. “Now follow it with your eye as closely as you can.”

Dash gave a subtle nod, keeping her eye locked on the hoof as Bliss began to move it back and forth. Dash followed it as she was asked, but whenever Bliss changed directions, it took Dash a very brief second to refocus on it. Otherwise, she was able to follow Bliss without much trouble.

“Hm…” Bliss hummed before twirling her hoof. “Other side.”

Dash turned and focused her left eye on Bliss’ hoof. Bliss repeated the motion and Dash found she had the same results. Able to follow the motions, but it took her a moment to refocus every time bliss switched directions.

“Yep, you definitely have a concussion, but luckily, it’s not a bad one. Very minor,” Bliss explained, causing Dash to tense up and relax all in one sentence. “You had no trouble remaining focused when I was moving, but every time I changed direction, your eyes jittered a little before refocusing. Your ability to keep basic focus proves it’s not too bad. The shifting of direction is the harder part of the test. If you weren’t able to do either, we’d have much more to worry about,” she explained as Dash simply nodded. “It’s a good thing you took that heavy hit to the cheek instead of higher up. You would have likely been hit into next week.”

“So when in doubt, get punched in the mouth instead of the forehead?” Dash chuckled as she replaced the ice pack on her cheek. Bliss let a single laugh go before shaking her head.

“I’d recommend not getting punched in the head, period,” she said with a small smirk.

“So what should I do?” Dash asked. Bliss hovered a clipboard over to her and took down a few notes.

“Like I said, it’s a minor concussion. Typically you’ll be fine in a few days without short term repercussions, but I’d like to at least keep an eye on you. No matter how bad a concussion is, that’s always the smart thing to do. Just drop in here every few hours for the next couple of days so I can check on you, okay? And take it very easy. Rest, rest, rest.”

“Okay, thanks Bliss,” Dash nodded with a smile beneath her ice pack.

“Mmhmm,” Bliss hummed in response as she moved on to the next pony who needed attention.

Dash watched as Bliss walked away, and when she turned back, she immediately caught a pair of familiar eyes staring towards her. Soarin was looking right at her from his bed beside Silver’s. Unlike Silver, he was lying upright, but he wore an expression of concern. Figuring he had just witnessed the concussion test, Dash quickly hopped down from the seat and hobbled towards Soarin, making sure to smile to preemptively reassure him that she was alright. She stepped up right in between Soarin and Silver’s beds, reaching up and resting her arms on the mattress, still holding the icepack to her face. Soarin kept his eyes locked on her and followed her through her entire movement, tipping his head slightly as he looked her over.

“How are you doing?” he asked, his voice wrought with as much concern he was showcasing visually. Dash reached forward and gently touched her hoof to his arm.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him with another smile, but he didn’t look too convinced. “Bliss was just testing me for a concussion… and apparently I have one, but it isn’t that bad at all, very minor,” she explained quickly so he wouldn’t have time to be alarmed. “It’s nowhere near as bad as the one I got against Nightshade during the Ponyville tornado.”

She finished explaining, but Soarin didn’t respond. It didn’t seem like her words made him feel any better. He was still looking at her with worry. Dash’s ears flopped down as she took a page from his book and looked him over.

Soarin wasn’t as beat up as Silver, but one didn’t simply have a mountain fall on them and walk away unscathed. In fact, While Silver had taken more of a bashing, Soarin’s injuries were different. He was riddled with cuts and gashes alongside the bruising. Several of his bandages showing faint red strains that were likely to grow larger as he wore them. While he was lying upright, which was a strong, heavy contrast to the way Silver was sprawled out over his bed, it was still hard for Dash to look at.

“I’m the one that should be asking you,” Dash said as she looked back up and locked eyes with Soarin. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, before Soarin’s ears turned back up and he smirked.

“You’ve already asked me that several times,” he said with a weak chuckle. Dash narrowed her eyes and pouted at him.

“And I’m gonna keep asking you. Seriously, you get yourself hurt more often than Lightning Streak does hitting on mares!” she said with a straight face, but Soarin couldn’t hold it in.

“HAH! Gah, ow! Ow, ow…” he cringed and grunted as he laughed.

“Ah!” Dash pulled herself up a little closer to him. “Sorry!” She winced as Soarin quickly shook his head while smiling and gritting his teeth.

“No… no, I’m fine. It was worth the laugh, heh…” He smirked as he glanced past her at Silver. “That was totally something I’d expect from Silver, he’s definitely rubbing off on you.”

The two glanced briefly at Silver as he released a quiet grumble. He didn’t look at either of them. He just kept glaring forward from in between the bandages wrapped around his head and face.

They both blinked and looked up past Silver as Descent suddenly walked through the door into the infirmary. He extended his neck upward, looking over everypony else for somepony specific. Soarin turned his head to look as well, his eyes stopping two beds down from his.

Starry Skies was lying on the bed, curled up and clutching the pillow from her bed tightly. She still wore her uniform, but her goggles and bandanna were removed, sitting on the table beside her next to a half-full bottle of water. Bliss stopped beside the bed for a moment as she was passing by, placing a hoof on the mattress.

“Anything I can do for you, hon?” she asked as she frowned. Starry simply shook her head silently. Bliss nodded quietly before continuing on to continue her duties.

Starry wasn’t hurt externally at all. There wasn’t a bruise or scratch on her, not to mention her uniform was spotless, but she had exposed herself to the crystal core of the Falcon to help Air Mach take control. Neither Dash, nor Soarin knew how it felt to use the crystals, but Starry, unlike Descent had used them in the past. Due to their addictive nature, it was easy to assume Starry once fought that addiction to be rid of them. Suddenly using them again probably caused some kind of relapse.

Soarin looked back just in time to see Descent walk by. He only briefly glanced at Soarin and Dash, but otherwise remained focused on his path, walking with a pace just below a canter up to Starry Skies. Both Soarin and Rainbow Dash had been in the infirmary for almost an hour since the brief lobby celebration ended. Descent had expressed worry over Starry, but they had yet to see him stop into the infirmary, probably due to checking on all the Renegades.

The two watched as Descent finally got the chance, no doubt concerned at the state of one of his most trusted wingmates.

Descent turned and walked up beside Starry’s bed on the side she was facing. His expression remained stoic, but he carefully looked her over, taking in the very weak position, the way she shuddered lightly every few seconds and clutched the pillow with all of her limbs. She wasn’t whimpering, groaning, moaning, or making any noise whatsoever, but she looked uncomfortable, and clearly in pain, beads of sweat running down her face as she panted lightly.

“How are you feeling?” Descent asked suddenly, his voice calm and controlled. Starry’s eyes fluttered open, but remained narrowed as if she was unable to open them fully. She took a few light breaths before responding.

Fan Art by nightalein

“I’m… fine…” she replied, her voice hoarse. She reached towards the water bottle on her side table, but it appeared to be just out of her reach as she lightly swiped her hoof at it. Descent lifted a hoof, grabbed the bottle, and gave it to her. She took a few heavy gulps, before roughly putting the bottle back down, nearly tipping it over as it plopped back on the table. “I just… need… rest,” she continued as she closed her eyes again and clutched the pillow tightly.

Descent remained still, simply looking at her for a few moments before moving his hoof again, but this time he reached it towards her and placed it gently on her shoulder. Starry’s eyes opened again, a little wider as they looked between Descent’s hoof and his eyes.

“Take as much time as you need,” he said, his tone remaining constant. Starry stopped looking back and forth, locking her eyes with his. She stared curiously for a moment before looking away.

“I won’t be long,” Starry assured him, but she flinched as she felt Descent’s grip tighten on her shoulder.

“Starry… Take as much time as you need… okay?” he repeated with more emphasis. Starry looked back at him, narrowing her eyes. It wasn’t a glare, it was more confusion. Descent had been showing a side of himself lately that she never knew existed. It started coming out when he was reunited with Storm Front. It wasn’t putting her off. She just wasn’t used to the stoic, tough, strong, merciless mercenary juggernaut showing emotion… or care. He showed it even more once the Shadowbolt captives became afflicted with the crystal formations.

She didn’t say anything in response, she just kept staring. Descent’s expression finally shifted, folding his ears back and flattening his brow a little.

“Just do it for me, okay?” he asked, his tone shifting a little as well. Starry sighed as she let her head back down onto the mattress.

“Fine…” she complied reluctantly, rubbing her face against the pillow to wipe some of the sweat building up. She decided to leave it at that, closing her eyes again as she tightened her grip around the pillow. After a few more moments, she realized that Descent’s hoof was still on her shoulder. Her eyes squeaked back open as she glanced up at him again. “What?” she asked while furrowing her brow. Descent blinked, his eyes widening a little and his ears flopping to the sides of his head. He removed his hoof from her shoulder and turned away, releasing a heavy sigh as he shook his head.

“Nothing…” he said with a tone Starry had rarely heard from him. Regret? He started walking.

“Huh? Descent, wait…” Starry called after him. Descent stopped, but remained facing away. “What’s gotten… into you?” she asked as she weakly shifted herself to get a better angle. Descent remained still, looking towards the entrance of the infirmary as Spitfire suddenly entered. She conversed with Bliss for a brief moment before moving towards the private monitoring room where Wave was being treated. He took note of the confidence in Spitfire’s strides, and the overall look of pure satisfaction on her face. The high of their victory and success would surely stick to her for a while. He kept watching her until she disappeared through the door to join Wave Chill.

“Have I made the right choices, Starry?” he asked without looking at her.

“What?” Starry blinked, tipping her head. Descent shook his.

“When things went wrong… I left and dragged you with me. We left several of our comrades behind, including a pony we had known and trusted since we were young. I told myself Nightshade was lost and didn’t look back, I accepted it as the ‘reality’ of the situation but…” he dipped his head down. “Yet here, the Wonderbolts lost one of their own… and despite my warnings and urging them to accept fate, they charged headlong into the danger, ultimately succeeding against the odds and getting their cherished wingmate back. I don’t care if the situation is different with Nightshade… I didn’t even try. Perhaps I’ve been too quick to judge the Wonderbolts. Maybe I need to look in a mirror and ask who’s really at fault.”

Starry no longer wore a look of confusion. She simply stared with her mouth slightly agape.

“Forget it…” Descent suddenly grunted. “Rest.”

Starry tried to speak, but she ended up remaining silent as Descent walked away.

Soarin and Rainbow Dash kept their eyes trained on Descent as he walked back through the infirmary. He walked right past them again, but this time didn’t look. Soarin shook his head slowly as Descent slowly made his way out of the infirmary.

“Poor guy is going through a lot, huh?” he said, having just been within earshot of the exchange between him and Starry Skies. Dash tried very hard to hold in a snicker, but she let it go anyway, drawing Soarin’s eyes down to her.

“That’s hilarious coming from you…” she said, giggling as she looked over his injuries and the horn. However, Soarin didn’t seem too amused.

“I’m serious,” he added. “Forget what I’ve gone through for a moment, he’s dealt with a whole different level of issues.”

“No, I know,” Dash said with a sigh, quickly sensing Soarin’s tone as she slowly looked around the infirmary. The room was nowhere near close to being full. In fact, only ten others were present aside from the medical staff. It was great to see them emerge from their operation mostly unscathed. Very few of them even had to come to the infirmary for the light injuries they received. But Dash knew it wasn’t time to relax. “I’m gonna enjoy this victory, and a lot of things turned out well, but we’re still far from being out of danger. And some of us…” she paused as she looked towards Silver, who was still just looking forward while sulking. “Some of us might be down for a little while...” she trailed off as she looked down the aisle past Starry Skies.

She perked up when she saw a familiar color combination of bright yellow and magenta. She leaned over to get a better look and identified it as Little Star… who was lying curled up similar to Starry, but asleep, resting after being tended to. Her yellow fur on the side of impact was darkened, giving it a bit of a ‘cooked’ look that probably didn’t feel too good. Somepony was sitting on the floor beside her bed, barely visible with only his chin resting on the mattress from the other side… somepony that Dash didn’t even see come in, unless he had been there the whole time.

It was Squall.

“Have you checked on her yet?” Soarin suddenly asked. Dash blinked and looked up at him.

“Star?” she asked. He nodded to confirm. “No… I haven’t yet.”

“Go on,” Soarin nudged her. “Trust me, I’m not going anywhere without you right now, I’ll be right here.”

Dash flashed him a weak smile, reaching her head towards his chin and giving him a light nuzzle before shifting her arms off his mattress and slowly walking towards Squall and Little Star.

She felt a little ashamed. She had been meaning to check on Star, having been incredibly worried after she deliberately took such a powerful blast of the crystal magic to save Squall. Dash had even learned from Matteo himself that Star saw what was happening as they approached the battle and asked Matteo to throw her in the way of the attack. That explained how she shot into the path so fast.

Dash was more surprised that Squall didn’t say anything when Matteo told them about it, instead, during Matteo’s speech about ‘Star’s honorable sacrifice’ Squall simply turned and left. Now she knew where he had gone.

As she drew closer, she finally got a better look at Squall sitting on the other side of the bed. He was hunched over, his chin resting on the mattress close to Star’s head. He simply stared at her with a sad expression mixed with worry and a little confusion. He was so focused on Little Star, that he didn’t see Dash approach, not once tearing his eyes away from Star.

“Squall,” Dash said his name as she reached the bed.

The moment she said his name, Squall’s ears twitched. He blinked, his eyes widening as he pulled his head off the mattress and ducked down below the table.

Dash froze, and tipped her head while lifting an eyebrow as she watched him try to hide.

“Squall, I can still see you,” she informed him as he released a heavy sigh.

He poked his head back up, barely peeking over the edge at Dash for a moment before rising back up to his previous level and replacing his chin on the cushy surface of the bed. He stared at Star again, not once looking at Dash as she walked around and sat down beside Squall.

“Nghhhh…” he grunted quietly as Dash sat down, but she ignored it, feeling he was being silly in trying to hide his concern. She frowned as she looked over Little Star, taking in the sight of her bruised side and slightly singed fur.

“How is she doing?” Dash asked, knowing Squall had been sitting with her for quite a while. He didn’t respond for a few moments, but Dash was confident she’d get an answer.

“I don’t know,” Squall replied quietly, a somber pitch in his voice. “She’s been out since I came in.”

Dash simply nodded in response, the two of them remaining hushed to let Star rest. She seemed pretty knocked out from fatigue and the pain, but Dash didn’t want to take any chances at disturbing her.

“Why?” Squall suddenly spoke up while shaking his head. “Why did she do that? Why did she put herself in danger like that to protect me?” he lightly furrowed his brow. “It’s pointless. I probably would have been fine.”

Dash locked her eyes on Squall and looked him over carefully, somewhat unsure of what to say. Squall was looking at Star’s actions completely the wrong way. But was it the wrong way? Or just the only way he knew?

“If the situation was reversed, would you have jumped in to take a hit for her?” Dash asked. Squall turned and looked at her quickly.

“Yes, but…” he glanced back at Star. “I mean… that’s different. I’m built stronger than her, it wouldn’t have knocked me out and…”

“Squall, stop trying to dance around it,” Dash cut in. “You would have done it because you care. That’s exactly why she did it too.”

“Again, why?” Squall reiterated. Dash exhaled through her nostrils as she looked flatly at him for a moment. She knew who she was talking to, but his refusal to acknowledge what was right in front of him got a little frustrating at times.

“Maybe you should ask her yourself when she comes to,” she suggested, looking away as Squall turned to look at her. “I don’t know why this is so surprising to you Squall and don’t you think for a second that others wouldn’t have done the same. Both Storm and I tried to get to you before Star did, but we were too far away. Matteo, and hell, maybe even Twister would have tried to assist you as well.”

Squall looked back at Little Star, his expression flat as if in thought. Dash also looked at Little Star, again examining the extent of her injuries.

“Though, I’m not so sure we would go as far as taking the hit like she did,” Dash added. Squall blinked and glanced at Dash while furrowing his brow.

“You’re confusing me… would you protect me or not?” Squall asked in befuddlement. Dash chuckled quietly, shaking her head.

“That’s not what I mean, Squall,” Dash looked him in the eye. “I just told you we would have done what we could because we care about our teammates. What Star did… takes that a step further. Storm and I were not remotely close enough to help you, but if we were, our goal would have been to move you out of the way. Throwing ourselves into the path would have been ill advised based on how things were going, so we would have pulled up. Why? As a rational choice, if we were knocked down, that would have been one or both of us grounded along with you. I don’t think our chances of survival would be very high in that scenario. We would have pulled up and taken the fight to the enemy to protect you after you were knocked down, self-preservation to ensure that we’d be able to get you to safety later.”

Dash paused before pointing at Star.

“Self-preservation doesn’t mean we don’t care, it just means thinking ahead based on the situation. Star, on the other hoof, completely disregarded self-preservation. She willingly risked her life and her body to save you. That takes more. It takes a whole different level of devotion that runs deeper than just camaraderie or friendship. It means you mean something to her, and no I’m not implying any romantic interest here, it’s much more meaningful than that. She saw you in danger and in a split second decided to shield you completely, preventing you from being in the spot she is right here. She set aside a fear or injury for you. That’s not an easy thing to do and it’s rare to find somepony you would willingly do it for. Trust me… I’ve done it myself…” Dash trailed off while glancing back across the room at Soarin.

Squall remained still, his expression remaining constant throughout Dash’s explanation. Dash looked between him and Little Star, grinning. She said that there was nothing romantic about it, but that was just part of her greater point. She wouldn’t be surprised if Star felt something more for Squall. But even if she didn’t, Squall never had anypony that was willing to go such lengths for him before. Either way, Star was having an incredible impact on him.

“I still don’t get it…” Squall finally said, which Dash was expecting.

“I think you do,” she said while nudging him. “You just don’t want to believe someone cares that much about you.”

“That’s because nopony ever has…” Squall huffed while leaning away from Dash, but keeping his eyes on Star.

“Guess what Squall,” Dash lifted an eyebrow at him while making a subtle head motion towards Star. “You’re looking at a pony who does.”

Squall’s eyes opened slightly wider, but they didn’t stray from Star.

“Think about that,” Dash said with a smile as she stood up, turning and leaving them alone before Squall could say anything else. But he didn’t anyway.

Dash said what she wanted to say, and she hoped Squall would consider her words. After all, these concepts were foreign to him. It wasn’t her job to push him in any direction, but she could at least shed some light on it for him.

As she returned to Soarin, he wasn’t looking in her direction. He was looking towards Fleetfoot, who had just entered the infirmary. She waved at Soarin, but turned away as the door to the back room opened and Spitfire slowly stepped out, keeping her eyes looking inside as she slowly closed the door. Fleetfoot cooed at her jokingly as she shifted up and leaned against her. Spitfire was startled for a moment, but just rolled her eyes at Fleetfoot. The two conversed for a moment before pointing down the aisle right as Dash made it back over to Soarin.

“Uh oh,” Dash spoke up as she put her hooves back up on Soarin’s bed. “Are you about to get punched in the face again?” she joked, earning a chuckle from Soarin.

“I don’t think I am…” he made a head motion towards the approaching mares. “But Silver might be.”

Dash leaned over to see that while Fleetfoot was smiling at the two of them, Spitfire had her eyes on Silver who… was still staring forward and sulking. He literally hadn’t moved from his spot, changed his grumpy expression, or looked in any other direction aside from when Bliss brought up his family.

As Spitfire and Fleetfoot grew closer, Fleetfoot realized Spitfire’s intentions, also focusing on Silver.

Spitfire opened her mouth to speak, but she never had the chance.

Everypony flinched as the sudden noise of something hitting a door very hard echoed from the entrance of the infirmary. Spitfire and Fleetfoot both turned around to see what the commotion was.

“COMMANDER SOARIN?! WHERE IS COMMANDER SOARIN?!” Princess Luna’s voice boomed as she looked around. Everypony around her near the entranced flinched and backed away as the Royal Canterlot Voice filled the room. Except for Bliss, who stood right in front of Luna, not budging an inch or even wincing as Luna’s powerful voice blasted her in the face and blew her mane back.

“Luna, inside voice please,” Bliss requested calmly as Luna stopped looking around frantically and focused on Bliss.

“But…”

“He’s over there,” Bliss pointed.

Without a moment of hesitation, Luna stepped around Bliss and cantered towards the small gathering around Soarin, which got her there fairly quickly due to her longer strides.

“Princess Lu—” Spitfire was about to address her, but was cut off as Luna’s magic came to life. Her blue aura surrounded Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Rainbow Dash and gently pushed them all aside as she stepped right up to Soarin. Soarin blinked in surprise, but greeted Luna with a smile.

“Hey there,” Soarin said casually, but paused as Luna’s eyes fixed on his forehead, going wide with shock and horror. “Oh, right,” Soarin glanced up at the horn. “I had a few—ACK!” Soarin yelped as Luna’s magic surrounded his head and forced his chin down onto the mattress, holding him down as she leaned forward and frantically looked the horn over.

“Whoa, whoa!” Fleetfoot stepped forward, stopping just short of touching Luna.

“Princess, easy there…” Spitfire echoed her concern. Dash quickly shifted over to Luna could see her beside Soarin.

“Princess, he’s hurt!” she said in a demanding tone, hoping that was all she had to say. Luna gritted her teeth and released her magic from around Soarin, shaking her head.

“Sorry, we…” she paused and took a deep breath, calming down. “We are simply concerned… when we heard of Soarin’s return and the state of the horn we…” she trailed off, swallowing and taking a closer look again without forcing Soarin’s neck down.

“This happened when I crashed into the mountain,” Soarin explained, now free of his restraint. Luna pulled back slightly and listened carefully. “Then it got hit again while I was trying to—”

“Move,” a new, male voice suddenly spoke over Soarin, Discord appearing out of thin air directly behind Luna.

“Gah!” Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all jumped and backed away in surprise as Discord pushed Luna aside and stepped up to Soarin. Luna tried to resist, but Discord had none of it, not allowing her near as he eyed the horn.

“Discord?!” Luna growled as she glared at him. “What are you—?!”

“QUIET!” Discord suddenly snapped at her, shooting her an intense scowl. Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all slowly backed up a little more as the two omnipotent beings snarled at each other. Discord turned back, disregarding any threatening gaze Luna was sending him as he bent down and looked over the horn. Soarin remained completely still and kept quiet, knowing that if anypony knew what to do or what the state of the horn meant it was Luna or Discord. “Don’t move,” Discord ordered even though Soarin was already frozen stiff.

Discord reached a finger up to the cracked tip of the horn and gently pressed it to the sharp end. He closed his eyes the distorted, purple aura of his chaos magic began to swirl around his arm. Soarin gulped as he watched the aura reach forward and start encircling his horn as well. Discord’s eyes remained closed, his face scrunched several times in different ways, but none of which gave a really good indication of what he was thinking, or how bad the news was going to be when he was done.

Eventually Discord gritted his teeth and began to growl, shaking his head as he opened his eyes and his magic retracted back into his arm.

“I bet that smarmy know-it-all feels really good about himself…” he grumbled very quietly.

“What?” Soarin asked as everypony else stepped back up to hear Discord’s assessment, but Discord didn’t address Soarin, he quickly turned around to look at Luna.

“The damage is mostly on the outside. The cracks, while bad, do not cut deep enough to be a problem. However, the artifact’s effectiveness has been weakened considerably,” he glanced back at Soarin. “We’re lucky that Soarin has proven to be resilient… it could have been much worse.”

“What dost thou mean?” Luna asked while furrowing her brow and tipping her head. Discord rolled his eyes and waved an arm while turning sideways to her.

“Let him give his side of the story first,” he suggested while taking a few steps away and turning to face Soarin. “So I don’t have to repeat myself.” He crossed his arms as Soarin was given the attention. He blinked and glanced to his left at the bed right beside him. Silver had turned his eyes up towards him and was glaring daggers at him. Discord narrowed his eyes at Silver. “And what the hell are YOU staring at?” he asked. Silver’s glare sharpened further. Discord stuck his snake tongue out at Silver and let it whip up and down several times before turning back to Soarin. “Go on,” he encouraged as he reached up his tail and stuck the fluffy white tuft on the end of it right into Silver’s face. Silver began wincing and shifting back and forth to trying to free himself from it.

“Yes, please tell us,” Luna pleaded as Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all gathered around to listen closely.

“Well,” Soarin took a deep breath. “I can’t really give the full explanation without also somewhat explaining what happened after I crashed.” He glanced at Discord as Silver was still trying to shake off his tail.

“Whatever, just start talking,” Discord prompted.

Dash in particular was curious about what she saw happen to Soarin. Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Luna needed the full break down, but she was incredibly anxious to hear it all from Soarin’s point of view. What had happened to him? What was that white light and the pony inside of it? Discord seemed to know something, but at this point that wouldn’t surprise her anymore, nor would she expect him to ever explain. However, Dash had only seen the end of it, she was just as curious to know about what led to Soarin finding her, Silver, and Lightning Dust as she was about the strange light.

“I’ll save the details on Rapidfire for later,” Soarin began. “But we survived the crash and found ourselves in a cave, both badly hurt. The horn was damaged and my vision had a green tint to it due to a blue aura rising from one eye and a yellow rising from the other. Every time I tried to create light, sparks flew from the edges of the horn, and it caused a massive headache, but it was the only source of light we had. Rapidfire was half buried in collapsed cave debris. I was getting nowhere alone, so I dug him out and asked for his help. He was reluctant, obviously, but the situation called for it. I couldn’t focus much due to producing light, and his back legs were in too much pain to walk, so we had to combine our efforts.”

“You got him to work with you?” Fleetfoot asked while cocking an eyebrow skeptically.

“I know it sounds like a stretch, but even he understood we would die if we didn’t help each other out,” Soarin confirmed with a nod. “It wasn’t graceful, and, as you might expect, we had our fair share of quarrels along the way. Those quickly took a back seat when the cave itself started having issues. Our crash definitely rocked the structure and at several points we were forced to move quickly to avoid being buried in falling rocks and collapsing floors.”

He paused and focused on Luna and Discord.

“I didn’t get so lucky at one point… While trying to navigate down a steep slope, we slipped and fell right into a deep pit. I ended up landing right on the horn,” he explained as everypony cringed heavily. “The horn went haywire, becoming even more damaged from the heavy blow. My magic spewed in all directions, shooting beams everywhere and blowing the cavern apart. In my head, the power was trying to completely rip itself free from the horn’s control, now having very little resistance, but—” he glanced over at Dash and smiled— “Thanks to Dash, I was able to fend off the magic and get it back under control.” He took a moment to wait for a reaction, but was surprised when nopony even flinched at the mention of Dash.

“I told them about the connection,” Dash quickly explained with a smile.

“Oh,” Soarin blinked while glancing at Spitfire and Fleetfoot as they nodded.

“Yeah, I mean, they thought you were dead,” Dash continued. “Since I was alive I knew that wasn’t the case. Knowing you were alive let us focus on our other mission.”

“I see,” Soarin flashed her a smile. “An image of Dash appeared to me in my mind and helped me drive back the magic, she offered a few words of encouragement to get my ass in gear as well.”

“That must have been when you started yelling to yourself on the floor,” Fleetfoot reminded Dash while winking and giving her a nudge.

“What?” Soarin tipped his head as Dash blushed lightly.

“I, uh… was having heart aches every time your magic was disruptive, and at one point I started yelling out while sprawled out on the floor,” Dash explained herself.

“Alright, alright, come on, the connection is old news,” Discord cut in. Soarin glanced at Discord while lifting an eyebrow.

“You seem a little miffed, you know that?” Soarin pointed out, drawing everypony’s attention to Discord. Discord grunted and flipped his tail, whipping Silver in the face again.

“Maybe because I am a little miffed, now shut up and keep talking,” he said, earning a blank stare from everypony. Discord quickly realized what he said and reached up, smacking his face against his palm and rubbing his eyes while grumbling. “You know what I mean, just go on…”

“After I managed to hold down the magic,” Soarin continued, still smirking at Discord’s slip-up with Fleetfoot quietly giggling as well. “We barely escaped being crushed by a cave-in and finally took a moment to rest,” he paused and looked specifically at Spitfire and Fleetfoot. “During our respite… I learned some rather interesting personal information about Rapidfire straight from him.”

“Oh?” Spitfire lifted her brow in curiosity, but Soarin quickly shook his head.

“Nothing helpful towards defeating the Shadowbolts, but it helped put some color towards his choice of actions. I’ll tell you about it later,” he assured them as he continued. “As we continued on, something caused a massive earthquake. It was very brief, but the cave shook and knocked us both down… and of course, it was followed by another massive cave in. However, as we ran we spotted a source of light. It was an exit leading up out of the underground. We made a break for it, but… call it a spontaneous instinct, but I pushed him forward when it looked like we might not make it. I was hit and knocked out. When I woke up, I was lying on the ground, just beyond the collapsed debris. Rapidfire was gone, but there was little I could do about it. I was injured and in pain. I could barely walk or see straight. I made it out of the cave, but then collapsed and passed out in the snow.”

“Come on, get to the important part already,” Discord spoke up again in the annoyed tone he had sustained throughout. All eyes went to him again, but this time they were also filled with skepticism. He huffed as he looked away from them. “Before any of you accuse me of knowing what happened, yes, I was there, I saw it all happen, okay? I thought that was already pretty clear.”

“Hrrgghhh…” Silver suddenly growled loudly behind him. Discord looked over his shoulder and glared at Silver.

“Quiet you.” Discord snapped his fingers and two extra bandages appeared, wrapping themselves around Silver’s nose, holding his mouth shut. He looked back to see Soarin was giving him a glare similar to Silver’s.

“So you’re telling me you know what the light was?” Soarin asked, just as fed up with Discord’s secrets as the rest of them were.

“Yes, I know what the light was, but because it’s not supposed to be possible, I don't want to talk about it,” Discord hissed.

“What?” Dash spoke up, floating up towards Discord while crossing her arms. “Somepony else besides you starts doing things that are normally impossible and suddenly it’s a bad thing?” she asked while giving him a flat look. Discord lifted up a finger, surrounding Dash with his chaos magic. “HEY!” she yelled as he forced her away and back to the floor where she was standing.

“Yes, as a matter of fact there is a problem with that,” he said sharply. “And I don't want to talk about it!” he repeated before looking back at Soarin again and crossing his arms. “Now hurry up and tell me how everything happened, because believe it or not, that’s actually something I don’t know… making it the only part that really matters.”

Soarin kept his eyes trained on Discord for a moment, taking in the God of Chaos’ demeanor. He had never seen Discord look so peeved before. Apparently this white light was something beyond his control… and by the looks of things, Discord was not a happy camper when he couldn’t control things.

“I was down,” Soarin continued, refocusing on the rest. “Slipping in and out of consciousness. Curiously, my magic wasn’t acting up anymore, despite how damaged the horn was, but my body was battered, beaten, and barely able to move.” He paused and looked down, still trying to grip the meaning of the events himself. “Then something happened. The blizzard seemed to grow stronger and a bright, white light approached me. The snow swirled around the light as it began to shift and take a shape, turning into what looked like a pegasus.”

He looked towards Discord, flattening his brow as he snorted.

“Then Discord appeared and even though the pegasus didn’t utter a single sound, Discord had an argument with it, which from my angle he lost.”

“Feh!” Discord looked away as every pony glanced at him.

“After a brief exchange, Discord got fed up and left,” Soarin continued, but Dash leaned forward towards Discord.

“Whoa, hold on a second! You FOUND Soarin and you didn’t help him?!” she growled at Discord.

“Shush,” Discord replied casually as bandages wrapped around her nose as well, silencing her. Discord blinked as he saw Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Luna all looking at him sternly as well. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop that. By now you should all understand that I’m not here to do exactly what you want me to. Continue please,” he beckoned, rotating his hand towards Soarin.

“After Discord left, the image of the pegasus bent down and… merged with me, I guess I’ll say. Its light was now surrounding me and the snow swirled around me as well. Then I started hearing a voice in my head, a voice I have never heard before. It told me to rise up and defend my friends… telling me specifically that Rainbow Dash and Silver Lining were in danger.” He looked back and forth between Dash and Silver behind Discord. Both had been silenced, but they were looking at him curiously. Even Silver, who up until now had only been grumbling and glaring.

Dash and Silver stole a glance at each other as well, equally perplexed. Whatever this thing was, it knew both of them? Why them specifically?

“What happened next, I really can’t explain,” Soarin continued. “As the light continued to surround me and the voice spoke several words of encouragement and pushed me to help my friends, I suddenly found the strength to push myself up and start moving. I didn’t feel any different, I didn’t have any new power, I wasn’t stronger or enhanced… the strength was my own, every step was laced with the same sharp stinging pain that was keeping me down in the first place, but I fought it and pushed myself through it. The light was urging, pleading me to get up, and encouraging me to do what I knew I had to do, even if the pain was too much to bear. It was as if it was channeling confidence, amplifying my already strong feelings about defending and protecting those I care about. It hurt so much, everything hurt, but I was determined to take control of my battered body and move with some unknown force gently holding my hoof and telling me I could do it.”

Soarin finished and looked around at all the looks of fascination and bewilderment. Even Princess Luna’s jaw hung agape as if she had never heard of anything like it in her timeless existence. Then he looked towards Discord, and was met with a completely blank, unsure expression.

“You felt… nothing?” Discord asked while blinking.

“Nothing.” Soarin nodded. “Not once while the light surrounded me did I feel like anything had changed. The only thing it actually did was point me in the direction of Dash and Silver.”

Discord’s mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out, he simply kept looking at Soarin as if trying to put together a puzzle with only half the pieces.

“It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” Soarin added. “And it went further than just encouragement. I was filled unwavering determination. I refused to let anything stop me, I knew what I had to do and I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way. NOTHING. When I faced Angel and Shadow, I forced my magic to comply. Both the yellow and blue auras bent to my will… and even worked in tandem when I dominated them! I called upon the magic as I have several times in the past, but my focus and drive were so strong that it submitted to me without a single issue… even with the horn fractured the way it is.”

Discord just kept staring in disbelief. Something none of the others had ever really seen before.

“I felt in control, driven completely by what matters most to me. And nothing was going to stop me.” Soarin finished with a nod.

“Grrr…” Discord suddenly sharpened his expression into a hard glare, grinding his teeth as his eyes remained locked on Soarin. Everypony looked towards the God of Chaos as he continued to look very, very angry.

“Discord…” Luna stepped up to him, her ears flopped down with a look of confusion and worry on her face. “Please, what dost thou know that we do not?” she asked, desperate to understand. Discord looked down and took a deep breath, looking back up with his expression calmed and flat. He released a snort as he looked away.

“Nothing,” he replied simply, but Luna was not willing to accept the answer.

“Discord—”

“I SAID NOTHING!” Discord suddenly yelled out, lifting up a leg and stomping the ground once, really hard. The whole room rattled as several little sparks of chaos magic began to flicker around his limbs. Everypony backed away a step, including Luna. Discord’s eyes were wide with anger, his teeth were grinding together and hard breaths hissed through his nose. The emotional outburst only lasted a second before Discord shook his head out, quickly covered his face with his hands and stood back up straight, he slowly rubbed his hands down his face while releasing a long groan. “Sorry…” he apologized while turning his back to all of them. “Look, Lulu, let’s talk later, alright? About the horn I mean, not about this. I need…” he trailed off and looked to his right down at Silver. With his arm remaining down at his side, Discord snapped his fingers, removing the bandages around Silver’s and Dash’s mouths. “I need a moment to think about some things.”

Discord rose up into the air and began to glow.

“Discord! Wait!” Luna tried to stop him, but in an instant, he was gone.

Soarin and Dash glanced at each other briefly before refocusing on Luna as Discord disappeared.

Discord had just… lost his cool. Not only that, but he looked distraught, and even APOLOGIZED? It didn’t look or feel anything like the Discord they had come to know… and somewhat dislike. He had kept things from them before, but in the past he claimed it was for their own good. Here it felt personal. What could possibly bother Discord in such a way? Was it the white light? It seemed like it was more than that, but the white light was part of it for sure.

“Luna,” Spitfire stepped up. “Let him go, we should reconvene in my office and debrief our infiltration team,” she suggested. “Fleetfoot,” Spitfire made a head motion for her to come over. Fleetfoot perked up and approached, the three conversing further.

Dash turned back to Soarin and looked him up and down. Soarin’s eyes were locked on the princess and his two squadmates, but after a few moments he blinked and turned his head, realizing he was being eyed.

“What?” Soarin grinned as he saw Dash continuously run her eyes up and down his body and towards his face. She lifted her brow and smirked.

“Oh… nothing,” she said as she walked in between Soarin and Silver’s table and leaned forward on Soarin’s mattress again. She let her eyelids sink a little into a look Soarin knew all too well.

“Bullshit, I know what those eyes mean,” he said while shooting her a mischievous face. “What did I say this time?”

“I dunno…” Dash cooed at him as she turned her head slightly, but kept her eyes on him. “Something about knowing I was in danger… pushing yourself to move despite being in pain… and letting nothing stand in your way on your path to save me…”

“Hmmmm?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow as his smile grew wider. Dash bit her lower lip, a light blush appearing on her face as she began to sway her plot back and forth.

“You know that’s something about you that really gets me,” she reminded him as her plot began to sway a little more. Her tail began to swish back and forth behind her… and unbeknownst to her, the end strands were lightly brushing against Silver’s head behind her. Silver winced and scrunched his face as her tried to edge away, but he was stuck in place. Soarin noticed, but quickly stifled a snort, focusing back on Dash.

“Hey, it’s just what I do,” Soarin replied while changing his tone to match hers. “Believe me, once I heard you were involved, I would have walked there even if my limbs had been lopped off.”

Dash stopped swaying and just stared up at Soarin for a moment. She released a sigh that sounded half relieved and half enamored.

“Well, I’m glad you came through for me… as always,” she leaned towards him. “And I’m glad we’re back together,” she added as she, pressing the crown of her head into the crook of his neck and beneath his chin, nuzzling him very affectionately. Soarin immediately returned the gesture.

“Oh for the love of…” Silver suddenly spoke up for the first time, causing Soarin and Dash to flinch. “I didn’t ask for front row seats to a bruised and bandaged slap and tickle session.”

Soarin and Dash both turned to see Silver glaring at them, both of them snickering the moment they realized they were getting a little hot and heavy right in front of him.

“If you’re as horny as your head looks,” Silver continued, focusing on Soarin. “Feel free to storm the cotton gin when your mare’s plot isn't directly in my face,” Silver finished, continuously grumbling under his breath as Soarin and Dash both burst into a fit of giggles. Soarin smirked towards Silver and tipped his head.

“I think you’re just jealous that my lady is here and yours is back home,” Soarin joked, earning a harsh, grumpy glare from Silver.

“I oughtta slap your shit so hard—”

“Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire cut off Silver as she moved towards them. “We’re going to gather up everypony from the infiltration team for a full report and debrief in my office. Are you well enough to join?”

Dash reached up and rubbed her head.

“I’m just a little dizzy really, but yeah I’ll come. I don’t want to miss it after everything weird that happened in there,” she replied with a nod. Fleetfoot giggled.

“A master of suspense!” she joked as she took her place beside Spitfire.

“I’ll come too,” Soarin spoke up as he started inching himself towards the edge of his bed. Spitfire was shaking her head immediately.

“No, you won’t,” she ordered sternly. “You will stay here and rest.”

“Absolutely not,” Soarin quickly fought back. “This whole situation is as much about me as it is about the Wonderbolts as a whole. I want to know everything that happened.” He and Spitfire locked eyes and battled with intense stares, but Luna interjected.

“He is correct, it would be wise to let him attend,” she suggested, still allowing Spitfire to make the decision. Spitfire sighed and let her ears fold back.

“Fine,” she caved. "Just take it easy on yourself, okay?” she requested as Soarin slowly let himself down from the bed and stumbled slightly when his hooves touched the ground.

“Don’t worry,” Dash smiled at Spitfire as she stepped up to Soarin. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t kill himself on the way,” she joked with a wink.

“At this rate, I don’t trust him to walk to the bathroom without almost dying… or tripping over wet floor signs.” Spitfire rolled her eyes, but returned the smile before looking towards Fleetfoot. “Fleet, go gather up squad three and squad zero. Oh, and Dash,” she looked back at her. “Before you drag the walking bruise up with you, could you round up…” she paused and blinked. “Well, round up Squall at least. If you can find Twister, bring him too, but don’t waste your time if you can’t.”

“Now you’re getting it with him,” Dash snickered, enjoying that she wasn’t the only one that understood her wacky, unpredictable squadmate anymore. Spitfire turned to move along, but paused as she eyed Silver. Silver had returned to staring straight forward and sulking.

“Silver,” she said, causing his eyes to shift to her for a moment, but look away a moment after. Spitfire sighed through her nose while looking at him seriously. She glanced at the table beside his bed at the bottle of heart medication before refocusing on him. “I have a lot of things to address and take care of first over the next few days… but we’re going to sit down and have a little chat about this when I get the chance,” she made clear while pointing at the heart meds.

“Hmph…” Silver replied simply before Spitfire turned away and started towards the exit. Dash kept her eyes trained on Silver for a moment, not quite sure what Spitfire meant, but at the same time, there weren’t many scenarios that came to mind other than the one that she knew Silver dreaded. But she really didn’t want to think about that right now, as Spitfire said, they had important Wonderbolt matters to address.

“I’ll be right back.” Dash tapped Soarin on the shoulder and flashed him a brief smile before stepping away and moving back towards Squall. Again, Squall didn’t give her a single glance as she approached, focusing his full attention on Little Star. “Squall, Spitfire is calling a debriefing meeting for our mission, let’s go.”

“No,” he replied instantly. “I’m staying right here.”

Dash glanced between Squall and Little Star, smiling at Squall’s determination to watch over her, but the meeting wasn’t optional. Well, for him at least, it would probably be much more productive without Twister.

“Squall,” Dash stepped around and stood beside him, placing a hoof on his shoulder. “She’s not going anywhere. You can come right back after the meeting.”

“Hrgn…” Squall groaned in response, his ears straightening back up before folding back against his head.

“Squall, please,” Dash chuckled while trying to push his left ear back up, but it went right back against his head. “You were a large part of the operation, not to mention you took out one of the Shadowbolt commanders. I want you to get the recognition you deserve.”

“Fine…” Squall sighed, slowly dragging his chin off the bed, keeping his eyes on Little Star as he started moving, bumping into the table behind him, and into a bed on the opposite side of the infirmary hall since he wasn’t paying attention.

“Oh, and if you happen to find Twister on the way, tell him to come too, but don’t worry if you can’t,” Dash added.

“Hmm,” Squall hummed in response as he finally managed to tear his eyes away from Star and head towards the exit.

Dash glanced down at Little Star, smiling and giving her a gentle pat on the shoulder. Little Star stirred and curled up a little tighter as she continued to rest. Dash smiled weakly, glad to see Star was getting some much deserved rest. And she was confident, that when she woke up, she wouldn’t find herself alone. Squall was going to be right there, unless he hid the moment she woke up… In fact, that was probably what would happen.

Dash stepped back around and headed back towards Soarin. Soarin greeted her with a smile as she leaned against him to give extra support. The two started moving, but quickly stopped for a moment in front of Silver. Dash looked down at Silver, who was looking at the floor, sulking again. Dash glanced up at Soarin, giving him a soft tap on the arm before shifting over to Silver. She leaned up on his bed and reached forward, giving Silver a very gentle hug around the back. Silver blinked, slowly looking up as she released him and tipped her head down towards his.

“I don’t think I’ve said this yet… but thank you for being there to protect me,” she said. “Please rest, you’ve earned it.”

“You’re damn right I did…” Silver huffed gruffly. Dash giggled and reached a hoof towards Silver’s nose. Silver’s eyes widened and he shifted his neck away as far as his bandages would let him, scrunching his face grumpily as she did, but he couldn’t escape. Dash tapped his nose and winked.

“Get some sleep ya old fart,” she ordered. Silver just grunted and snorted in response.

Silver was probably not in for any good news once Spitfire had her ‘chat’ with him. Dash just wanted him to understand that whatever happened, she was behind him all the way. She would definitely not be anywhere near where she currently was without him… and whether he liked it or not, she would repay him in full.

She returned to Soarin’s side, the two exchanging smiles as they started moving again.

“So I take it this meeting isn’t going to be about the operation as a whole,” Soarin deduced as they neared the exit to the east hallway.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be about why I was wearing a Shadowbolt uniform,” Dash confirmed for him. “A lot of stuff happened in between that and when you crashed.”

“Care to fill me in as we walk?” Soarin asked.

“Sure,” Dash smiled as the two left the infirmary, on their way to Spitfire’s office.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Silver didn't have much good fortune in this chapter, did he? :rainbowlaugh:

Squall, admit it, she means something to you.

Descent... looks like he has some thing to think about.

And what's gotten to Discord? Could it just be the white light? or is there more to it? :moustache:

And yush... it felt good to write some Soarin and Dashie interaction, i can't believe how long ONE DAY has been over the past... almost ten chapters :rainbowderp: (and chapter 122 is still going to be the same day, er, night at this point)

So yeah, decided to break here in my initial chapter map to allow the readers to absorb what's been addressed so far, more to come next chapter! :twistnerd:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 122: Very Personal

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 122: Very Personal

“And it fooled them?” Soarin asked, blinking as Rainbow Dash grunted and set him down on the stairs past where they had been wrecked. They had failed to factor in that Soarin wasn’t in very good flying shape at the moment.

“Well, yes and no,” Dash answered as the two of them continued up the fractured staircase and neared the second floor. “The full explanation is complicated, but I saw everything initially from where our infiltration team was waiting. The Shadowbolts had no idea what to do against the mass show performance. They were completely focused on the Wonderbolts, giving Luna the time to form the dragon image. Once it was up and the fortress fired on it, Fire Streak gave the word and we all moved in,” She explained as they reached the top of the stairs and made their way towards Spitfire’s office. “You’ll hear the rest of the interesting details during our report.”

“I have the worst timing,” Soarin said after a moment. Dash looked at him quizzically.

“Wha…?” she lifted her brow and smirked.

“I’m out cold when you guys discover our compound can fly and make a hilariously epic escape from certain death…” he tipped his head to one side. “Then while I was digging myself out of a mountain, you all stage a full Wonderbolt force show to con the hell out of our enemy and slap them across the face in an extraordinary manner…” he tipped his head back and turned to look directly at Dash. “I really need to stop missing all the fun, seriously,” he said with a snort of discontent. Dash giggled and gave him a playful nudge.

“You’re the only pony I know that gets jealous about not being a part of terrifying scenarios,” she said as she continued to giggle.

“What?” Soarin lifted his brow while smiling smugly. “Were you scared?” He got the exact look from Dash he was expecting, a sudden, harsh, challenging glare.

“Say that again and I’ll give ya a matching bruise next to every one you already have,” she shot back while clutching her hoof and moving it back and forth between them.

“Ha! Fair enough,” Soarin snickered while leaning against her, almost falling when he forgot how much of a limp he currently had.

“Whoa, whoa!” Dash yelped as the two of them stumbled and lightly bumped against the wall on their right.

“Heh, sorry,” Soarin chuckled, “I forgot I’m broken.”

“Yeah, careful you,” Dash said with a worried pout, completely reversing her previous face. She helped him regain his balance as they reached Spitfire’s door. Dash stopped as she placed her hoof on the doorknob, glancing back at Soarin. “I’m definitely curious about what happened with Rapidfire. You said he helped you?” she asked, earning a quick head tip from Soarin and an eye-roll.

“Yeah, he did help me, but it wasn’t easy to get him to listen. He hasn’t changed much at all,” Soarin explained.

“You said you learned about his reasoning though?” Dash pressed, her hoof still resting on the doorknob and sliding against it gently.

“Yeah,” Soarin nodded. “I did, and it was informative, but I’ll give the details when we get the chance. There’s a lot to go through, so I’d like to have Spitfire and Fleetfoot around when it comes up.”

“Alright,” Dash smiled, but still didn’t turn the doorknob. She was just staring at Soarin. Soarin noticed quickly once she didn’t open the door. He locked his eyes with hers, giving her his… and her favorite smirk.

“Found something you like again?” he asked while subtly bouncing his eyebrows.

“Pfft…” Dash smiled while scrunching her face slightly. She tipped to her right, looking past Soarin. She then glanced to her left and right before refocusing on Soarin. She extended herself, going on the tips of her hooves, planting a surprise kiss right on his lips, nothing more than a little peck, but she really couldn’t resist it. “Had to,” she said as she pulled back and winked.

“I know,” Soarin winked back.

“You just look too hot. Even when you’re covered head to hoof in bruises, you pull it off,” she snickered.

“I’m glad I still meet your standards,” Soarin replied snarkily in return.

“You two know my door isn’t soundproof, right?” Spitfire’s voice suddenly came through the door.

“Eep…” Dash blushed lightly, but Soarin didn’t falter. He reached forward, grabbing Dash and pulling her forward.

“KISS ME, DARLING!” he yelled while pressing his nose to the door before pulling Dash up and kissing her. Dash yelped in surprise, but was quickly muffled as Soarin made several, exaggerated noises while kissing her.

“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, just get your asses in here…” Spitfire’s voice came again, causing Soarin to burst out laughing as he released Dash… who was now bright red in the face and looking at Soarin flatly.

“You’re lucky I don’t want to hurt you right now…” she said with a huff.

“Come on, you liked it,” Soarin chuckled as he turned the doorknob.

“I did,” Dash fumed while puffing her cheeks even more.

Soarin pushed the door open, the two of them expecting to see an unamused look from Spitfire, but the two of them froze in the doorway when they spotted Luna sitting beside Spitfire’s desk, looking away with an awkward expression across her face.

“Oh…” Soarin blinked, smiling sheepishly as he nudged Dash into the office. Her hooves squeaked against the floor, Soarin more or less pushing her along as she opened her wings and bent them forward to hide her face.

“Professional display in front of the Princess, Soarin… very professional,” Spitfire commented, sitting at her desk, arms propped on the table and resting her chin on her hooves. Soarin scoffed as he looked towards Spitfire.

“Oh, whatever,” he was quick to dismiss. “Like anything I’ve ever done or will do is as bad as Fleet.”

“I heard my name!” Fleetfoot suddenly glided in, touching her hooves to the floor and skidding along the floor.

“YIPE!” Dash yelped as Fleetfoot wing spanked her as she slid to a stop and sat her plot down on Spitfire’s desk, completely blocking her from Soarin and Dash’s view. After a sigh, Spitfire leaned to the right to see Soarin again.

“That’s a very valid point, Soarin,” she agreed.

“What is?” Fleetfoot asked while glancing back and forth. Dash finally put her wings down, holding her breath for a moment and exhaling. She shot an awkward look at Soarin but he just smiled in return, ultimately causing her to smile along and see the humor in it over the embarrassment.

“Absolutely nothing,” Spitfire blatantly lied, not trying to hide the fact from Fleetfoot at all.

“Oh?” Fleetfoot spun around and laid on her stomach the length of Spitfire’s desk, twiddling her back hooves while sliding herself closer to Spitfire. Spitfire’s expression didn’t change a bit. “I don’t buy that, and something tells me you knew I wouldn’t.”

“I’m glad two of my highest ranking colleagues are putting on a great display of manners in front of Princess Luna,” Spitfire ignored her request. Fleetfoot blinked and turned on her side, taking a reclining position as she looked towards Luna, who had taken great interest in Spitfire’s less than organized, post-compound-crash-landing shelf until further notice.

“Pffff…” Fleetfoot blew air between her lips as she waved a hoof towards Luna. “Yeah, like I’m about to believe she’s never done something lewd or naughty over the past ten-thousandish or more years.”

Luna flinched so hard that her mane bounced and fell forward, covering her face. She reached up and flipped it all back before turning and glaring at Fleetfoot while blushing.

“WE BEG YOUR PARDON?!” she asked angrily as Fleetfoot giggled and turned to lay on her back while smiling mischievously at Luna.

“Denial that quickly is a sure sign of hiding from the truth!” she declared while giggling as Luna’s blush grew redder and she ground her teeth together. “WHOA!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelped as Spitfire grabbed her shoulder, turned her back upright and pulled her back to the center of her desk.

“What took you so long anyway?” she asked to change the subject for the ever reddening royal goddess. “How did the train wreck with wings get here before you?”

“Hey now…” Soarin stepped up while pouting, but Fleetfoot shrugged.

“You told me to gather squad three!” Fleetfoot reminded Spitfire, earning a nod of acknowledgement in response.

“I know, but Fire Streak was standing right outside the infirmary and you were talking to him when I passed. What were you doing?” she asked further.

“Duh, I had to find the rest,” Fleetfoot put bluntly while folding her ears back.

“Nice try, I heard Fire say he would gather them up right before I was out of earshot, what were you really doing?” Spitfire asked, trying her best to put on an atmosphere of order to help Luna calm down. “Squad Zero was still in the lobby, I saw Calm at least.”

“Oh, uh…” Fleetfoot grinned sheepishly. “I uh… yeah, about that.”

“What did you do…?” Spitfire sighed, knowing some sort of justification for silliness was coming.

“Calm was actually the only one in the lobby,” Fleetfoot tried to explain and leave it there, but Spitfire wasn’t buying it. “Okay, I had to ask Calm to find them,” she added, but Spitfire was still looking at her sternly. “Okay, so maybe I used some extra persuasion to help me,” she admitted while sticking her tongue out and winking. Spitfire immediately let her head fall slowly to her desk, lightly bouncing her nose against it while sighing.

“Extra persuasion?” she asked while looking back up.

“Well—MRPH!” Fleetfoot’s voice was muffled as Spitfire jammed her hoof against Fleetfoot’s mouth.

“You know what? No. You don’t need to explain. I can easily draw a conclusion from the usual bag of Fleetfoot ‘maneuvers.’ You really need to leave that poor stallion alone, you know he’s already a nervous wreck around mares. You’re probably terrifying the poor guy.” Spitfire explained to her as she removed her hoof from Fleetfoot’s mouth.

“But his reactions are so adorable!” Fleetfoot giggled before shooting a sassy look at Spitfire. “Come on, I know he really likes it!” She puckered her lips and turned back over on her back as Spitfire continued to just stare at her sternly. Soarin scoffed behind her.

“Not everypony is into being mounted and humped in public you know,” he said, causing Fleetfoot to spin herself around, smacking Spitfire in the cheek with her plot as she failed to keep her general position on the desk.

“How shameless do you think I am?” she pouted at Soarin.

“Very.”

“I resent—EEE!” Fleetfoot squeaked as Spitfire pushed her forward and tipped her right off the desk. Fleetfoot landed with a quiet THUMP before her head quickly shot up over the desk, resting her chin on the surface and glaring while folding her ears back against her head. Soarin and Dash both snickered as Luna, again, remained facing away, waiting for order to be restored.

“Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire looked right over Fleetfoot’s pouty-glare. “Did you inform your squad participants?” she asked as Fleetfoot released an annoyed, feminine nicker. Dash cleared her throat, stifling any remaining giggles.

“I sent Squall along and told him to find Twister if he could in a few minutes or so. Not gonna hold my breath though, like you said. Squall will be along shortly,” Dash explained as Fleetfoot sat down in front of Spitfire’s desk, put her back against it, and crossed her arms… still pouting.

“Good,” Spitfire nodded, glancing to her right as Luna suddenly stepped forward. Luna was looking towards Soarin. She still had a bit of an embarrassed blush on her face, but it was clear she was looking for something to distract her.

“Excuse us, Commander Soarin,” Luna spoke up as she approached him.

“Yes?” Soarin asked while tipping his head curiously.

“Do you mind if we take a closer look at the horn while we await your comrades? We know Discord already gave a diagnosis, but we wish to examine it ourselves more closely,” she asked, her eyes not once straying from the damaged artifact.

“Oh,” Soarin glanced up at the horn. “Sure, by all means.”

Luna gave no response, not even a nod. She quickly stepped up and started looking at the horn really closely and not giving Soarin that much space to change his mind. He edged away slightly when she nearly stuffed her neck into his face, but she was adamant.

“Hold still please,” she requested as her magic came to life, gently preventing Soarin from reclining his neck any further. Soarin sighed and let her continue, glancing at Dash as she grumpily stared at Luna. Dash wasn’t too thrilled at the way Luna was forcibly treating Soarin since he came back, first she nearly pile drove him with her magic in the infirmary, and now here was almost rubbing herself against him. Yeah, sure, the horn was important, Dash wasn’t denying that, but Luna could definitely be a little more calm and gentle about how she was handling it.

“Princess…” Dash spoke up quietly and calmly, about to request she not be so rough, but she was cut off.

“Have you tried using it?” she asked. Soarin blinked, not expecting the question, but he quickly replied.

“It wasn’t pretty, but I used it while I was in the cave…” He stopped as he saw Luna shaking her head.

“No, we mean since you have returned, since the white light ‘merged’ with you and you were able to push the limits of the magic… have you used it at all since then?” she clarified.

“Er… no,” Soarin answered truthfully. Luna suddenly stepped back and finally looked Soarin in the eye.

“Try using it,” she ordered.

“Here?” Soarin blinked. “But…”

“Do not worry,” Luna quickly shook her head as her horn began to glow. “We will make sure any negative reactions are contained. We are not asking for anything spectacular, simply try activating it, as we are now with the aura alone,” she explained while pointing to her magic hovering around her horn.

“Alright…” Soarin swallowed as he looked up. He had intentionally not used the magic at all once the fighting was over because he was sure, after the cave scenario, that any attempt would feel just as painful as it had when he was trapped. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad.

Dash shifted backwards anxiously as Soarin closed his eyes and began to concentrate. She was just as ready as Luna to jump forward and help if need be. She wanted to stay beside him from the start, knowing her presence and the proximity of their spirits always gave Soarin an edge when it came to keeping his magic under control. However, it was clear Luna wished to see the extent and the effects of Soarin’s own control with the damaged horn. Her little ‘boost’ wouldn’t give a good indication of Soarin’s magic situation.

Soarin took a deep breath as he cleared his mind and went right back to the basics.

Find the magic, pull it from deep inside. Recall the sensation of the magic flowing through the body. Let it flow smoothly like a river. Channel it and bring it all together at the point of projection through the horn.

Those were not the exact words… but it had become Soarin’s own description of it. His lessons under Fancy Pants had slowly become second nature in handling the unstable power within him, but with the horn in its currents state, he took it slow, going through every piece of the process in his head as he readied to at least gather it in the horn.

He felt the sensations tingle from the center of his chest, and spread around. So far so good, but that was the easy part. He hesitated, letting the magic flow and swirl around inside of him for a little longer as he prepared to channel it, knowing that the moment it reached the horn, things could get ugly. Knowing that Luna was waiting on him, he eventually directed the magic forward, letting all the channels flow towards his forehead and close in on the horn itself. It grew closer… closer… closer…

“Hnghh!” Soarin suddenly grunted as a harsh, throbbing sensation filled his head. The rest watched with bated breath as the cracks in the horn began to glow, followed by a weak flickering aura slowly appearing around the horn. The aura struggled to remain, but eventually surrounded the horn and held constantly… but only did so for a few seconds. “AH!” Soarin suddenly yelped, throwing his neck up as a sharp pain shot through his head.

Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Dash all yelped and ducked, but Luna’s magic erupted from her horn and created a protective bubble around Soarin just in time. Small sparks and small beams ejected from the cracks in the horn, hurling in several directions, but all slamming and exploding against the shield projected around him.

“Ah… ah…” Soarin huffed and puffed, slowly lowering himself to the floor as the magic flow from the horn died down and ultimately stopped as his concentration faded. As Soarin rested on the ground panting, Luna removed the shield, a distraught look on her face.

“Soarin!” Dash was quick to yell his name as she rushed forward and lowered herself down to him, her heart beating a little faster in her chest. No sooner did she reach him, did Soarin hook his hoof around her leg and held it tightly. His breathing calmed down and he took several controlled breaths, using Dash’s presence to help calm the magic down and ease the headache he had just caused himself. Dash looked him over with worry, quickly turning her head to Luna for a verdict.

Judging from Luna’s expression though, the news was not good.

“This… is troubling,” Luna confirmed Dash’s fears instantly. “Discord said the damage was merely to the outer shell, but regardless, it seems to have had a vastly negative effect towards your ability to control the magic.”

“Yeah… that feels… about right,” Soarin said in between breaths as Dash helped him sit up. “I mean, I was able to completely control it regardless earlier with the white light, but as I said before, I can’t really explain how that all happened. It did nothing to enhance my abilities. The magic just listened to me. It was like it suddenly feared me and fell right into line regardless of the horn’s state.”

“Hmm…” Luna hummed as she listened, putting her head down and tipping her head back and forth as she thought. “What in the world was that which helped you?”

“Discord seems to know,” Soarin spoke up with a huff, but Luna shook her head.

“However, something about it seems to trouble him,” Luna reminded them as she looked up. “We admit, we have seldom seen Discord become so… irritated. At least not for a very, very long time. His control over his emotions is part of something that allowed us to let him be free again. When he had that sudden outburst, we were afraid he might… distort reality unintentionally.”

“Excuse me, what?” Soarin asked quizzically as Dash helped him stand back up.

“Discord can really break things,” Dash spoke up, drawing Soarin’s attention. “When he was released a few years back, he really screwed up everything until my friends and I sealed him back up… it wasn’t until later that we let him out again and things changed.”

“Indeed,” Luna nodded. “One of the conditions of his freedom is that he no longer bends reality, and since he seems okay with that, we let him out. However, we will admit, when Rainbow Dash and her fellow Elements of Harmony took him on, he was surprisingly calm and docile. In the end nopony got hurt and everything was put back to normal, much different compared to the Discord that was confronted by my sister during the last Griffon-Drake War…” Luna paused, blinked and shook her head. “We’re sorry, we should stay on topic… Discord clearly knows something, but we doubt he will tell us. He has his reasons for doing things his way. We disagree with him, but we have no control over him. He has shown a certain respect for the interests of our sister, whatever those may be. And as long as he keeps helping us, we will not question him.”

“You sound reluctant,” Spitfire pointed out from behind her.

“You would be right,” Luna grunted in frustration. “We would be grateful if he would inform us what he knows of our sister and why she sacrificed so much for where we stand now… yet he dodges and eludes the question, claiming to be doing what’s best for all of us. We don’t trust him, yet we do at the same time. It’s quite annoying.”

“Well, he hasn’t killed us all yet, so I think we’re good for now,” Fleetfoot chimed in from in front of Spitfire’s desk as she stood up and paced over to the couch. Spitfire nodded.

“He is an unpredictable factor among the current cards we hold,” Spitfire said while thinking out loud. “Who knows what he’ll do for us, but I’m not about to dismiss him. Now then…” she looked at Soarin. “While we’re still waiting, Soarin, I’m curious about this exchange with Rapidfire you mentioned.”

Dash perked up and looked at Soarin, who narrowed his eyes slightly and sighed. Dash had been waiting to hear about it.

“Yeah…” Fleetfoot also voiced her curiosity as she sat herself down on Spitfire’s couch, which was surprisingly spotless despite the how much it had been thrown around during the takeoff and crash landing. “You said he ‘explained’ himself? I gotta hear this…” she huffed.

“Well, to be honest,” Soarin began while looking towards Fleetfoot. “It’s a little bit of expected and unexpected. His reasons don’t excuse his actions, but I can see how he became the way he is. The biggest problem is that he handled it all wrong.”

“Don’t keep us waiting now,” Spitfire waved a hoof. “Let’s hear it.”

“He blamed us,” Soarin said simply and intentionally paused to let it sink in. Dash quickly furrowed her brow, but she barely got a moment to say anything.

“Ex-CUSE-me?” Fleetfoot leaned so far forward on the couch that she almost fell off.

“Oh, here we go,” Spitfire sighed, shaking her head.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but listen,” Soarin continued. “I’m not about to say he’s justified, but this is what he told me. He’s the son of Blazetail and Flashwind, setting his bar unbelievably high from the start. He worked hard to become the flyer, and competitor he was and apparently never hit a wall he couldn’t overcome… but then he met us.”

Soarin paused, seeing that he had Spitfire and Fleetfoot’s full attention and curiosity.

“The reason he blames us is because he could never beat us. He inherently believes that it’s possible to overcome any challenge, something Blazetail once told him. However, meeting us contradicted that… It wasn’t like he was bad, he was on the lead squad with us, but he never beat us in individual contests. It was his goal to be top-dog like his parents were, but he fell just short. He felt like he was falling into the same boat as Hurricane and Jet Stream.”

“Who?” Fleetfoot asked while blinking. Soarin glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow as Spitfire cleared her throat.

“They were the other two members of Gold Squad,” she explained.

“Oh…” Fleetfoot scrunched her face awkwardly. “Wait, yeah, I remember now. Wow, that was a while ago.”

“And that’s his point,” Soarin continued. “How often are they mentioned? Rarely. It’s all about Blazetail and Flashwind whenever Gold Squad comes up. Rapidfire felt that the three of us were getting all of the attention and he was being left in the dust.”

“He… has a bit of a point there,” Spitfire cut in. “I do remember him getting a lot less attention from the media… but as I ALSO recall, he had a habit of leaving or forcibly pushing himself through them… I’m not about to forget the two legal fees I took out of his pay when he hurt those two reporters in Fillydelphia.”

“Like I said, his argument has some holes in it,” Soarin pointed out as he continued. “But he claimed our success was at his expense, and he stopped caring when he realized he would never top us. That’s around when he started… you know… acting like the Rapidfire we all know today.”

“Hmph…” Spitfire grunted, baring her teeth slightly while growling quietly. “Yeah… and I’d say he’s fallen several steps below the bottom of the ladder in my book… after what he did to me and Wave.”

“He told me that the Shadowbolts offered him a new start, a place where he could prove himself to those who ever doubted him… and that’s why he accepted Lightning Dust’s offer when she appeared with a crystal for him,” Soarin paused as he saw Spitfire’s glare tighten further. “I can’t really give it to you the way he spoke to me, nor do I recall everything word for word, but that’s more or less the deal. He was raised to be a champion, was cut off before he could become that champion, he rejected his parents, he rejected us, he turned into what he is now, and then turned his back on us.”

A brief silence made its way into the room as Spitfire and Fleetfoot momentarily glanced in each other’s direction.

“Gee…” Fleetfoot chimed in as she looked back and flattened her brow. “You know… unlike Spitty glaring holes into the wall over here… part of me feels maybe a teeny bit of sympathy for him? I mean,” she quickly waved her hooves in front of her face when Spitfire directed said glare at her. “Whoa, whoa, Spitty, turn off the angry floodlights. Let me be clear, I’m not reversing my opinion of him. That sounds rough and all, but why the hell did he keep it all in?” she asked, glancing at both Spitfire and Soarin. “What part of us being a team did he not understand?”

“Apparently all of it,” Soarin quickly replied.

“That’s entirely his fault,” Spitfire interjected harshly, drawing all eyes to her. “When I became the captain I personally pushed to shift the environment of the Wonderbolt ranks towards a family atmosphere. While a good portion of our harsher military environment remains, the new system I enacted was specifically designed to help those who fell into situations like this. It offered solutions to personal problems instead of dismissing them as ‘issues’ that could hinder one’s rank. It’s not a system that coddles, but it’s a system that gives the opportunity, and as far as I’m concerned, Rapidfire didn’t take the opportunity that was right in front of him.”

“Things could be very different right now,” Soarin added loosely, earning a nod from Spitfire. “Hell, I would have listened. Would it have killed him to let us know?” he sighed while glancing at Dash, who had remained quiet as she listened.

“I guess…” Fleetfoot shrugged as she lied down on the couch on her side. “At least we now know… I mean, we always knew he was a bit of a loner and stuff. But it’s interesting.”

“Yeah, fine, but it doesn’t excuse his actions,” Spitfire snorted. “He had other options to consider and ignored them outright. Sometimes you have to swallow your pride to find real solutions to things.”

“That’s a little funny coming from you,” Fleetfoot suddenly jabbed with a light smirk, but Spitfire clearly didn’t appreciate it, glaring at her.

“I’m not speaking out of both ends, Fleet,” Spitfire replied harshly. “It’s not easy to do, and I’m guilty of avoiding it myself… as are you…” she glanced at Soarin. “And Soarin… maybe even Luna too. However, it still doesn’t wipe his record clean. He has a lot to answer for, and he WILL answer for all of it.”

“Why do you keep talking to me like I’m on his side?” Fleetfoot grumpily pouted at Spitfire. “It’s just interesting to know, I’m not saying it was right.”

Spitfire released a heavy breath from her nostrils.

“Sorry,” she looked back at Soarin. “You have to understand me here Fleet, I’m a little… pissed the hell off at Rapidfire right now after he posed as Wave and engaged me in heavy deceptive foreplay.”

“Eeeeeeeeeyeah…” Fleetfoot cringed. “Don’t worry, I get that.”

“So look,” Soarin spoke up to regain control of the conversation. “I wasn’t trying to shift any opinions or stances on Rapidfire, this is just what he told me. While it’s true I would be dead if he hadn’t helped me and I helped him, he still has to be held responsible for his actions. I highly doubt I would ever forgive him for what he’s done to me, Dash, and now you on top of it.” He nodded to Spitfire. “He had reputation for stepping over the line, but his personal selfish actions, especially those that have an effect on those I care about, are not things I can simply forget.”

“I agree a hundred percent.” Spitfire was quick to nod. “However, our personal qualms with him will have to wait… unfortunately. Our top priority is still the Shadowbolts as a whole, who is behind their movements, and how we can bring them down.” She got right back to business, but not before Fleetfoot could bring up one last detail.

“What about his parents? Should we tell Blazetail and Flashwind, or do you think that’s a bad idea?” she asked. Soarin and Spitfire looked at each other, both pondering the question.

“I think we should,” Soarin spoke first. “I don’t think it would be right to keep them in the dark.”

“I agree,” Spitfire nodded. “They are clearly uneasy about the whole situation with their son. It may be hard for them to hear, but they have a right to understand their son’s actions, no matter what they may be.”

All three of them nodded.

“Yikes…” Dash finally spoke up, causing the others to all focus on her.

“What’s up?” Soarin asked, very much interested in what she had to say on the matter. Dash shook her head, but continued.

“I’m not about to forgive him for everything he’s done to me… and you guys, but I do feel a little sympathy for him.”

Dash quickly looked up to meet varying reactions. Fleetfoot was lifting an eyebrow, Soarin’s eyes were wide, and Spitfire… well, she was still glaring. Dash put her hooves up and shook her head.

“No, look, nothing he did was justified, and I’m not about to claim I know him the way you guys do. But that’s just it, I’m looking at this from the outside in and… I feel a little bad. I guess the right word is ‘pity.’ I definitely pity him for not having a solid trust in others. I know whenever I have or had problems, my friends were always there to help. And if not them, I knew plenty of others I trusted. Having somepony to lean on when troubled can solve all sorts of problems and if I didn’t have access to one, even for a short period, it drove me nuts. I can only imagine how he must have felt.”

“But he DID have that, Dash,” Spitfire reminded her while pointing to herself. “We were right here for him and he didn’t even try.”

“That’s not what I mean, Spitfire,” Dash held her ground. “He didn’t use it because he didn’t understand it. That's what I pity. He didn’t understand how others could help him through his struggles. He had you guys, but he also pinned the blame on you guys, effectively making him feel like he had nowhere to turn, and his pride from his family line prevented him from seeking out anyone ranking below. I equally agree with all of you that his actions deserve just punishment… it just makes me sad. I’m best friends with the Princess of Friendship, I’ve gotten to see my fair share of problems around Equestria that could be fixed through trust and connections. Not everything was fixable, but several things were. THIS is something that I feel could have gone differently with the right touch, but he let it sit and fester.”

Soarin, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all stared blankly at Dash, all of their surprised expressions turning neutral as they listened.

“Now that I’ve heard about it,” Dash continued. “He kind of reminds me of one of my squadmates, Squall,” Dash shook her head. “Squall was very different when I first met him. He was a loner, unhappy, and very distrustful of others. Over time, throughout recruit training and our time as a squad, I’ve given him little nudges and opportunities to express himself to me. Most of his replies were harsh and sharp, but I slowly broke through. He’s now opened up to us, and overall seems a little happier, even if he doesn’t show it much. I wonder if the same could have been done with Rapidfire.”

“Look, Dash,” Spitfire tipped her head to the side and frowned. “I understand what you’re saying, and I’m glad you’re offering an intelligent point of view. But the one thing that really places Rapidfire apart from Squall is that Rapidfire refused to associate with us and intentionally avoided us unless we were in a show or operation. Had we the chance to act the way you have towards your squadmate, we would have taken it. But he wanted nothing to do with us.”

“Yeah, he was a bit of an ass twenty-four seven,” Fleetfoot spoke up as she turned onto her back. “He made it hard for us to approach him… ever.”

“That’s kind of why we didn’t bother,” Soarin continued for her while looking down at Dash. “We did try to include him and have him be a part of everything, but it did not resonate with him at all. We tried several more times, just being friendly and offering him several chances to hang out and build camaraderie, but… no real luck. He always mucked it up or ended on a low or nasty note. It got to a point where we simply ignored him to avoid confrontation. We had no real read on him to go by. If we had known he was so internally conflicted, believe me, we would have done something about it.”

“Hmm…” Dash hummed in response as she looked towards the floor.

Talk about an interesting scenario. The whole situation with Rapidfire was complicated, feelings of pity mixing with feelings of dismissal. As it had been said multiple times, Rapidfire had to be held responsible for what he had done, but that didn’t mean the circumstances weren’t unfortunate.

“Like I said,” Dash spoke again. “I feel bad for what he went through, but YIKES, did he not handle it correctly. That’s very much his own fault, he can’t blame you guys.”

All of them looked up, including Luna, who had been respectively silent throughout the personal discussion. The door to Spitfire’s office jostled and opened, revealing Fire Streak and several others behind him.

“Captain,” he nodded as he stepped in, Surprise, Misty Fly, and Lightning Streak all stepping in behind him. “Are we interrupting?” he asked politely as Squad Zero and Squall also walked in. There was no sign of Twister. Big surprise.

“No, no, come on in,” Spitfire beckoned him.

Dash looked right at Squall as he entered, not even having to ask about Twister. Squall simply shrugged and shook his head, earning an eye roll from Dash in return. Spitfire had already expressed that the meeting would go on, with or without Twister, so Dash wasn’t worried.

Before the door to Spitfire’s office could close, a hoof stuck in and stopped it. All eyes went back to the door as it slowly turned back open and Descent walked through. Everypony watched him curiously as he casually trotted in and took his place among them. He narrowed his eyes when he saw the attention he was getting.

“What?” he asked as if expecting everypony to ignore him.

“Descent!” Spitfire said his name while leaning forward and smirking. “I’m surprised to see you here!” she said with a VERY sarcastic tone. Descent snorted and flattened his brow.

“Spare me,” he huffed, catching on immediately. “I’ve eaten enough humble pie for one day. I want to know what happened in the fortress. That is all.”

“Alright then…” Spitfire looked around at everypony now in her office, scanning over Squad Three, Squall, and Squad Zero. Calm was with them, which was fine, he played a part in the operation too even if it was not part of the infiltration. It was hard to separate Squad Zero. Spitfire glanced at Fleetfoot just in time to see her fully recline on the couch, with her hips and plot turned in a seductive way. She fluttered her eyelashes and waved a hoof. Spitfire followed Fleetfoot’s eyes to see her making the motions towards Calm Wind, who was already bending his head down behind Swift to ‘hide’ while blushing. Spitfire cleared her throat loudly in Fleetfoot’s direction, causing her to flinch, turn and giggle when she saw Spitfire giving her a stern gaze. “Where is Air Mach?” Spitfire asked as she finally realized they were missing the last member of the lead squad. Fleetfoot released a long, loud scoff.

“I told him to come, but he claimed it was not time for boring meetings when there was the burning fire of passion in his—”

“Alright,” Spitfire cut her off quickly. “Just let him have fun, he’ll be less disruptive that way. Fire,” Spitfire turned to Squad Three, focusing on their captain as she got down to business. “Report. We’ve had a long day, so try to be brief but thorough.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Fire nodded as he stepped forward. “Honestly, the first part of the mission was incredibly smooth. The distraction the rest of the force caused provided the perfect blanket for us to slip around the action and make our way to the back of the fortress. We made our way in and… well, found our way around with only a little hindrance.”

“Hindrance?” Spitfire asked curiously.

“Well, we did have a confrontation or two, among some other things…” Fire glanced towards Dash. Dash gulped, hoping Fire wouldn’t call her out for having issues after she assured Spitfire there wouldn’t be. However, Fire moved his eyes past her and made it look like he was scanning his whole group. “I will admit, the inside of the fortress was quite interesting,” he continued to divert any attention he may have put on Dash. “The interior is like a more advanced and complicated version of our compound and less… blue,” he said while looking about the office.

“And super giant crystals sticking out all over the place!” Surprise added while throwing her hooves up. “HYYYUUUUUUUUGE crystals!”

“Indeed,” Fire nodded in acknowledgement. “In need of some dusting and cleaning too, if you ask me.”

“We’re mercenaries, not cleaning maids,” Descent growled off to the side. “We used to decide who cleaned the compound through fights. If you had a track record for getting your ass kicked, you got assigned cleaning duties. And if you refused, you got your ass kicked again.”

“That’s an effective system,” Spitfire said sarcastically, causing every Wonderbolt to look at her quickly. “No, guys, I’m joking. Don’t worry.” She turned her head towards Descent. “Really liking this ‘family’ atmosphere you keep talking about,” she continued the sarcasm towards Descent.

“Just because I treat the Shadowbolts like my family doesn’t mean I take it easy on them,” Descent huffed while grinding his teeth together and averting his eyes.

“Anyway,” Fire continued. “As I said we had a few confrontations, but we were able to stay in character. Starry Skies’ guidance proved to be invaluable…” he paused and glanced at Lightning Streak. “And a good source of humor.”

“Bro…” Lightning spoke up quietly as Fleetfoot suddenly sat up on the couch.

“Wait, wait, I gotta hear this, what happened?” she said, heavily interested in Lightning Streak’s misfortune. Surprise was quick to slide up to Fleetfoot while giggling.

“I cracked him right in the nuts and the Shadowbolts didn’t bat an eye!” she said while falling backwards onto the couch.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!” Fleetfoot fell backwards as well, clutching her stomach as she erupted with laughter. Fire Streak smirked, but tried to keep calm, the rest all held in snickers and snorts, save for Squall, who was holding a grumpy scowl. Even Spitfire and Luna couldn’t hide their amusement. Misty Fly seemed to catch on, shaking a little with her silent giggle.

“Bro…” Lightning repeated while scratching the back of his head. Fire turned and lifted his brow.

“You bring this upon yourself, brother,” he said with a light chuckle. Lightning shrugged.

“Naw dude, you just gotta put a positive spin on it. Surprise basically touched my—”

“OH, NO YOU DON’T!” Surprise popped up in front of him and grabbed his face, pulling on his cheeks.

“Bruh…” Lightning’s voice was distorted with his cheeks being pulled.

“Okay, settle down everypony,” Spitfire spoke out to get back on track. “Go on, Fire.”

Fire Streak cleared his throat as he turned back to Spitfire, ignoring the scene behind him of Surprise sitting on Lightning’s back and still pulling on his cheeks from behind.

“Right then, we were able to find our way around for the most part. Rainbow Dash provided some key visual cues from her last experience within the fortress. However, even with her help finding their detention block, we ran into some… interesting circumstances.”

“Hmm?” Spitfire lifted her brow, visually urging him to continue.

“Well to start, Commander Wave was not there,” Fire said as he glanced at Dash again. “And as you know, we were on a tight time table. We feared we looked in the wrong place and that if they had more than one cell block, that we wouldn’t have time to look for it. Nevertheless, we searched the entire block to make sure we weren’t missing him… and that’s when got caught.”

“Caught?” Spitfire’s eyes widened.

“Yes, caught,” Fire admitted while wincing and tipping his head. “I mean, we weren’t being very subtle in there, but regardless, we tried to play it off. The thing was, we weren’t just caught by anypony… We were caught by Shadowbolt Commander Moon.” Fire paused, glancing at Descent for a moment.

“And that’s when things got weird,” Lightning Streak chimed in.

“Super weird,” Surprise added, still sitting on Lightning’s back.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Fire Streak confirmed. “First, he saw right through our disguises. He even called each one of us out by name and even exposed Swift Justice from cover that he was completely invisible under. But that’s not the shocking part…” Fire took a brief moment to look at every member of the team involved. “Moon… helped us.”

“Wait, what?!” Descent spoke up as his ears pointed upward and his eyes grew wide. Spitfire had a similar reaction, leaning further forward and blinking.

“He helped?” she asked as if she had not heard it correctly, exchanging a look of disbelief with Luna.

“That is correct,” Fire nodded as those not included in the operation showed varying degrees of surprise. “Also… it would appear that our efforts to distract them and make them fire the cannon were not as effective as we thought. He revealed to us that he knew full well the dragon was an illusion, citing his knowledge of ancient history and the sealing of the black dragons. But, despite that knowledge, it was HE who fired the cannon to lower the shield, and let us in. It felt like he had our entire mission and plan picked apart. He then encouraged us to follow him. We had our doubts, but he led us right to where Commander Wave was being held… and even broke the lock on Ruin’s room for us with his magic to let us in.”

As Fire finished explaining, all eyes turned to Descent as if he could explain what they had just heard, but Descent looked more stumped than all of them combined.

“Why would Moon…?” he thought out loud, looking down for a moment before looking back up, equally perplexed with no answer coming to mind.

Rainbow Dash frowned as she saw Descent ponder. She remembered Fire had his misgivings about trusting Moon, and wasn’t going into complete detail to keep the report to the facts. She already felt bad for Descent, and felt he deserved to hear more. So in a bold move, she stepped away from Soarin and towards Descent before Fire could continue.

“Moon declined to explain himself,” she spoke up, causing Fire to hold his tongue and look towards her along with the rest. “Like Fire said, we didn’t have much time, so we couldn’t press him to talk. But he did say that he was only doing what he felt was right,” she explained as Descent listened to her carefully. He furrowed his brow, glancing down again.

“Really?” Descent scrunched his face. It looked like he was trying to put the pieces together.

“He clearly had a plan of his own,” Fire continued after Dash. “He shifted the responsibility of firing the cannon to a reckless pilot of theirs that fell asleep on the job. He even gave us a head start after retrieving Wave before he activated an alarm and made an announcement about infiltrators over their P.A. He was covering all his tracks brilliantly.”

Fire paused to see if they would get further reaction out of Descent, but Descent remained silent, the shifting looks of confusion continuing to cycle on his face. When he showed no signs of speaking up, he continued with his report.

“Unfortunately, even with Moon’s intervention,” Fire cringed. “Our escape was not clean. We ended up running into Ruin and…” he trailed off as he continued to cringe a little, the rest of the ponies involved all doing the same. Spitfire and Descent both took notice.

“Dude…” Lightning Streak spoke up as Surprise slid off of him and landed with a little SQUEAK beside him on the floor. “That guy like… kicked the shit out of all of us, easily.”

Spitfire blinked as her eyes widened.

“Wait, by himself?” she asked with her jaw remaining slightly parted.

“Yeah!” Surprise spoke up as she hugged herself and shivered. “He was freaky! And weird! And unpredictable! Not even I could keep track of him!” She continued to shiver as her mane suddenly wrapped tightly around her head and her tail did the same around her body. “I even tried pulling some randomness on him, but he was always three steps ahead!”

“He did… something to us,” Fire Streak took over as Surprise curled up into a white and yellow ball on the floor and Misty stepped over to pat her on the head. “After catching us off guard and unleashing a devastating barrage of magic, he used some sort of pulse that burst past us and surrounded us with a field of some sorts that kept us down and constantly in pain. It felt like my strength was completely drained and I was being pricked by needles,” he explained as he looked towards the rest, who all nodded to confirm his description. “His magical abilities and his unpredictability are absolutely fearsome. I have not personally gauged every Shadowbolt commander thus far, but he is easily the most powerful one I’ve come in contact with. There were ten of us and one of him… it was unthinkable.”

As Fire finished, Spitfire simply stared, trying to comprehend how a single Shadowbolt was able to take on and take down ten Wonderbolts by themselves. Even if only four of them were elites, it still seemed implausible. If he was really that powerful, what was keeping the Shadowbolts from simply unleashing him on the Wonderbolts? She broke from her thoughts and turned to Descent.

“Descent, what can you tell us about Ruin?” she asked. Descent looked like he wasn’t paying attention, instead deep in thought. “Descent?” Spitfire repeated his name.

“Sorry,” Descent closed his eyes and shook his head for a moment. “Ruin? Yes, Ruin…” Descent snorted and flattened his brow. “I don’t quite remember when he showed up in the Shadowbolt ranks, but I never gave him much thought. He was weak, annoying, and disturbing,” he paused and tipped his head. “But the crystals have clearly offered a new avenue through which to excel. And somepony with screws loose like Ruin? I’m not surprised the gift of magic has turned him into a force to be reckoned with.”

“Yeah…” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up from the couch as she followed Surprise and hugged herself. Only, unlike Surprise’s self-hug, which had a little bit of her silly charm within it, Fleetfoot looked really uncomfortable. “I fought him this morning when they caught us in Rapidfire’s trap. He… scared me. I felt so powerless against him, like no matter what I did, he would always have me off guard without anything in my control. He wasn’t very strong, but his magic was wild and the feeling of powerlessness just destroyed my confidence. I was able to tango blow for blow against Angel, but Ruin? I just didn’t know what to do, I couldn't do anything!”

It was very ominous to see Fleetfoot, a lead squad Wonderbolt, express fear towards one of their enemies. Even Spitfire looked concerned. She quickly looked back at Fire.

“So, how did you get away from him then?” she asked. Before Fire could answer, Dash released a heavy sigh.

“Twister,” she said simply.

“Twister?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow.

“Yes, Twister, need I say more?” Dash said while rolling her eyes.

“No, but humor me,” Spitfire requested.

“Uh…” Dash scratched her head while trying to find the right words. “Twister basically…” she shrugged and threw her arms outward. “Out…crazied him? I’m not gonna try explaining any of the stuff he did, but it was so wild, random, unpredictable and… prop-heavy. Ruin didn’t stand a chance. He had no response to any of it. Twister effectively beat Ruin badly at his own game…” Dash trailed off as she glanced to her right to see Descent looking at her with very wide eyes and a very disturbed face.

“That’s… absolutely terrifying,” Descent said while shaking his head. “A pony crazier than Ruin? And he’s been among us this whole time? Part of me would like to meet him, the other part—”

“Listen to the other part,” Squall cut him off out of nowhere. “Trust me.” His intervention forced a brief chuckle from Dash before she continued her explanation.

“Twister ended up pulling Ruin away from us, loosening his magic’s grip and giving us a chance to escape. I… admittedly hesitated and tried to go after Twister to help, but I was held back.” She glanced at Squall. “I was furious that nopony considered trying to help him, but… I completely forgot who I was trying to save.” She smiled sheepishly. “As usual, Twister popped up back here, just fine like nothing happened.”

“I… see…” Spitfire nodded while staring blankly at Dash. She stole a glance at Luna to find that Luna was already looking at her as well. They said nothing as a past conversation about Twister came to mind. Spitfire decided not to press the issue, refocusing on the infiltration team. “So what happened next?” she asked while looking back at Fire Streak.

“We found the Falcon hangar that Moon pointed us towards,” Fire continued his report. “After a brief tussle and some improvisation, we made it out. However, we were followed by the Falcons. Once rejoining the force, we scattered to elude them and… you know the rest,” Fire finished with a smile. Spitfire returned the smile while glancing at Squad Zero, all of whom had remained quiet in the back corner throughout everything said so far.

“Indeed…” she said as her smile remained and all four members of squad zero wondered what would be said about them. Fire noticed Spitfire looking at their experimental squad and cleared his throat again.

“I would like to personally offer my approval and acknowledgement of how the members of Squad Zero on our team handled the situation and contributed to our success. Not to mention they were also instrumental in getting Wave safely away from the fighting afterward. They performed admirably.” Fire explained while shooting a glance at them. Calm, Playbitz, Swift, and Shine all smiled weakly, looking a little nervous. Spitfire nodded as she kept her eyes on them.

“Job well done,” she said as she exchanged eye contact with Swift, Shine, and Playbitz. “Calm Wind, you filled Soarin’s spot in the show moves effectively as well… and thank you for providing yourself to carry Wave,” she paused as all four of them remained stiff, but they weren’t traditional Wonderbolts, they weren’t used to the pressure. “All four of you,” she continued, focused on the squad as a whole again. “From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your help in the success of our mission. You stepped up and took on a dangerous set of objectives like true Wonderbolts are meant to do. I am glad we were able to count on you.”

As Spitfire praised the makeshift experimental squad, Dash kept her eyes on them, her smile growing wider as she saw their collective reaction. All of them instantly relaxed, breathing quiet sighs of relief, Shine tipping back and bumping against Calm and Playbitz while Swift almost floped down on the floor. An extremely heavy weight had just been lifted off their shoulders. Their involvement thus far, in the situation as a whole had been nothing but mishaps and partial successes. Shine had even expressed beforehoof that she felt one more slip up would mean termination of their squad completely, stripping away the absurdly rare chance the four of them had as a special force for one of the most honored institutions in Equestria. This was a big victory for them, complete with praise from the third captain and lead captain themselves. It was one they needed badly, and would surely provide them with a confidence boost.

Spitfire then turned to Squall.

“I must also recognize that one of our recruits… managed to take down one of their commanders!” she said while smiling towards Squall. Her attention was drawn away as a low, barely audible grunt escaped Descent’s throat. She looked at him as he narrowed his eyes slightly and averted them. “Descent,” Spitfire quickly addressed him. “Regardless of your feelings, your former comrades are trying to murder us. I understand that your goal is to save them and rebuild, but right now they are our enemies.” She waited for Descent to reply, but when he didn’t a smirk crept on her face. “Or are you flip-flopping on me right now?” she added. Descent didn’t look at her, but his eyes narrowed further. “I believe your own words were, ‘accept—’”

“I have nothing to say,” Descent cut her off with an angry snort.

“Exactly,” Spitfire nodded triumphantly as she turned back to Squall. She felt like she was maybe pushing Descent a little too hard, but after how much he had criticized her and tried to exert his ideals and influence on her before… she sure was having a good time giving it all right back to him… in the face… hard.

“Anyway,” Spitfire continued as she addressed Squall. “Foxtrot Recruit Squall. It is my understanding through various sources that it was you who took down Shadowbolt Commander Devil. I have to admit, I am extremely impressed. Devil’s apparent skill level among his fellow commanders aside, he was still one of their highest ranking Shadowbolts. As a recruit, your odds at success were incredibly small, but in the end you prevailed. Over performing in the field far beyond what is expected and taking on challenges that are heavily stacked against you are both actions that we heavily value in a well-rounded Wonderbolt. Your efforts have been noted, and will definitely be kept in mind, especially if you continue to outdo expectations like this.”

Squall gave no visible reaction, despite Dash smiling very wide beside him. Spitfire didn’t take any implications from his silence, simply giving him credit where it was due, like Dash had convinced Squall he deserved.

“Now then—”

“It wasn’t…” Squall suddenly cut off Spitfire before she could continue. All eyes went to him, causing him to immediately look down and go quiet.

“Yes?” Spitfire gave him the floor, but he remained silent. “Well? Speak up, recruit,” she encouraged. Squall looked up and around at everypony. All eyes were on him, and he felt uncomfortable. Dash was very curious why he decided to speak up, and tipped her head slightly when Squall turned and looked at her for a moment, as if looking for support. Dash was about to shift, but he turned back to Spitfire before she could.

“It… wasn’t just me,” Squall spoke, his speech slightly broken, but clear enough to understand.

Dash’s eyes opened wide. She was already surprised that he spoke up, but was he also about to acknowledge his peers and share the recognition… without her having to persuade him to? Dash never thought Squall was selfish, that wasn’t the point. He just rarely shared words of praise for those around him, it just wasn’t his thing.

“Rainbow Dash, Matteo, and… Storm Front were all helping me. Devil also… I only got through his shield and hit him really hard. In the end it looked more like he destroyed himself by pushing his crystals too hard.” Squall’s voice remained shaky throughout, as if he was struggling to find the right words, but Dash could hear it in the tone of his voice. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t the only one who was recognized. “Plus, I was only able to attack because Little Star flew in front and saved me… and—”

“HMM! BUT!” Dash suddenly slid right beside him and draped a hoof over his shoulder, cutting him off and causing him to flinch and look at her. “We were having no luck against Devil, whatsoever. There were absolutely no avenues of attack for us through his offensive and defensive magic,” Dash explained as she took over. “We all backed off, but when Little Star protected Squall and took the hit for him, THIS stallion,” she reached her other arm up and poked him in the chest. “Rose up in her defense and furiously dove headlong into Devil’s attacks, eventually getting through despite being peppered with magic and beating on Devil’s shield until it eventually shattered. Then he followed up with a haymaker that stuffed Devil face first into the snow.”

Dash smiled as she watched Spitfire’s expression turn to impressed as she spoke. Dash was really proud of Squall for acknowledging all of them, but as she said before, she wanted to make sure he got the credit he deserved, because he did much more than they did.

“Thing is,” Dash continued as she let go of him. “He did more than I think he knows. Because once we saw him break through Devil’s shield, we realized that the Shadowbolt shields were breakable… which led to us gathering together and breaking through the shield of one of the Falcons. So if you ask me, we can partly thank him for that nice trophy sitting on our deck right now too!”

Squall turned his head towards Dash and gave her an embarrassed pout, but Dash just shook her head in response.

“Don’t give me that look,” she spoke quietly, just to him. “I’m just telling them what I saw, as your captain.”

“Very, very well done. Rainbow Dash, it seems your squad and Storm Front all deserve some recognition here. I’m willing to overlook that Matteo and Little Star disobeyed their orders since it led to a boon. However, Squall,” she refocused on him, causing him to look up and blink. “Once again, impressive. Selfless acts to defend fellow Wonderbolts and defeat those bringing harm to our fellow wingmates… pushing oneself to the limit through pain for the sake of victory… you’re making me want to slap gold stars all over your record right now, you know that?” she chuckled as Squall slouched his shoulders slightly and looked away. “Be proud. Keep showing the mindset of a full-fledged Wonderbolt and you may find yourself moving up before you know it.”

Dash moved away as Squad Three and Squad Zero both moved in to compliment Squall. He looked a little uncomfortable, but he didn’t protest… in fact, Dash could tell he was happy, even if his face didn’t show it. Squall had told her and the others a while back that he hated not being taken seriously. Well, he was just praised several times by the lead captain of the Wonderbolts. You couldn’t get much more of an endorsement than that. She wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t secretly on top of the world right now.

“Yikes,” Soarin spoke up as he stepped up beside Dash and sat down. She looked up at him as he pouted and huffed. “You guys did all that fun stuff while I was underground?”

“Again,” Dash giggled as she leaned against him. “Your idea of fun is hilarious.”

“I miss all the good stuff, I swear…” Soarin sighed as he bent his head down, wrapping his neck over the top of Dash’s head and smushing her mane down over her face. She continued to giggle while pushing back against him.

“Thank you for the report, Fire…” Spitfire spoke up to bring the attention back to her. “Now… while we’re on the subject, I’d like to briefly discuss something you just told me a little more closely,” she said as she leaned forward and rested her chin on her hooves again, taking on a more serious expression. “Shadowbolt Commander Moon… assisting us? If I’m to take anything from your explanation, Fire, it seems like he was more less the reason your mission ended in success.” She looked towards Descent, who looked deep in thought again. “Descent, what can you tell us about Moon?”

Descent looked up at her and blinked as she asked. He took a deep breath and looked back and forth as he thought back.

“Moon has always been a little different than most of the Shadowbolts… easily one of, if not the quietest one. In general, he was one of the smarter and more level-headed members of the force. He was very calm and always putting things into perspective, looking before he leapt, always. But I never really could get a full read on him or what he was thinking. All I knew was that he was very wary of things and always made intelligent decisions.” Descent released a heavy sigh as he glanced back up. “This is very strange. Back when Starry Skies, Lightning Dust, and I launched our campaign to pull as many Shadowbolts away from the crystals as possible… he refused to come along with us. He was the last pony I expected to reject our reasoning. When I pressed him, he refused to explain himself.”

“And now he’s a commander…” Spitfire thought out loud. “You said rank was awarded by strength and ability, right?”

“Correct,” Descent nodded.

“Was he of high rank back before all of this started?” Spitfire asked.

“No,” Descent shook his head. “He was of lower rank at the time. Looks like the crystals have provided him a boost, much like Ruin. But… he doesn’t strike me as the type who would ignore the dangers of the crystals or succumb to their power. I was confused as to why he was among the commanders from the start, but now I’m even more stumped.”

Spitfire exhaled through her nose as she turned back to Fire Streak.

“He gave no indication of his motives? Nothing at all? Was there any evidence towards what he might be up to?” she asked.

“No ma’am,” Fire quickly replied. “He was absolutely tight lipped about it.”

“Actually…” Dash spoke up as she stepped up beside Fire. “There WAS something I noticed when we asked,” she brought up, grabbing everypony’s attention. “When Squall and I confronted him up close, when he explained he was doing what he felt was right, his tone sounded sad… almost melancholy.”

Spitfire looked back at Descent quickly.

“A personal vendetta? Unfinished business perhaps? Did he have any enemies?” She threw possibilities out there. Descent scrunched his face as he processed the information.

“He… rarely spoke,” he rubbed his chin. “Much less engage in any of the usual scuffles that broke out around the fortress. He was always very reserved and avoided pointless confrontation, but…” Descent’s ears stood up and he blinked. “Oh!”

“What?” Spitfire removed her shin from her hooves and tipped her head forward. Descent looked towards her.

“I do recall him being close friends with two others. Angel and Iris.”

“Commander Angel, huh?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “But… who is Iris?”

“They were all lower ranking at the time,” Descent explained. “Angel, as we know, has become a commander. Quite a fearsome one. But… I have no idea what happened to Iris. None of us found her during our campaign to build the Renegade ranks.”

“Could there be a connection?” Spitfire pondered aloud again. “It’s clear something is driving Moon… and if he really IS on our side, this could prove to be quite a boon to our efforts, but we have to know more to be sure.”

The whole room had remained silent throughout the exchange between the captains, and with their conversation at an end, now it was dead silent. Soarin and Dash glanced at each other, both just as curious as the rest about Moon and his reasons for helping. What were his intentions? His Goals? His reasons? And… could they trust him? Was there something going on within the ranks of their enemies that was completely out of sight?

“Moon…” Descent broke the silence as everypony remained deep in thought. “What are you trying to do?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Everypony nearly jumped to the ceiling and all rapidly turned towards the door as the new voice met their ears… followed by excessive, rampant swearing.

Gasps filled the room as the very topic of discussion had just inexplicably walked into the room. His crystals were alight, powering his telekinesis as it held both Blaze and High Winds floating in the air directly behind him. Blaze was swinging her arms, or at least trying to, while glaring, snarling, and swearing towards Moon. High Winds was… fast asleep in Moon’s hold, as if it was cradling her like a foal.

“MOON?!” Descent pushed himself past everypony in his way, stopping three yards away from Moon. Everypony else had turned and anchored their hooves firmly to the floor, ready for anything. Spitfire was up and ready to hop over her desk.

But Moon made no sudden movements, and in general the others weren’t sure what to do or how to proceed based on everything they had just heard.

“Might I ask,” Moon spoke up smoothly. “That you tell these two to calm down, please?” he glanced behind him to see High Winds asleep. He stared at her for a moment before looking back forward. “Just this one actually,” he requested while pointing over his other shoulder at Blaze.

Everypony was tense, none of them were able to tear their eyes away from Moon, but they subtly glanced back and forth at each other, wondering if they were going to get any indication.

Spitfire took a deep breath, remaining up behind her desk as she glared towards Moon.

“Blaze,” Spitfire broke their silence. “Calm down.”

Blaze stopped hurling incoherent insults and swears and stared towards Spitfire in disbelief.

“But… Sis! He’s a—”

“I know,” Spitfire firmly cut her off. “Calm down. NOW.”

Blaze flinched as Spitfire shot an intense, commanding look at her. Blaze growled and grumbled, but she quieted down.

“Thank you,” said Moon as he gently lowered Blaze and High Winds to the floor before releasing his magic around them. High Winds remained asleep and Blaze puffed her cheeks out while glaring daggers into his back. Moon looked around at all the pairs of eyes on him and lifted his brow. “None of you are making any moves… so I’m going to assume that you’ve been informed of what transpired within the fortress.”

“That’s right,” Spitfire nodded, remaining firm and wary of his every action as the rest, except for Descent, cleared to the sides of the room to give a clear path between Spitfire and Moon. Luna snorted and took a step forward, her magic coming to life in her horn as she locked her eyes on Moon, but Spitfire reached a hoof up, encouraging her to let things happen. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to leap over this desk and take you down if you try anything funny,” Spitfire threatened. Moon calmly shook his head.

“That won’t be necessary,” he insisted as his crystals hovered onto his back and the glow around them faded. “I have information to share,” he said as he casually stepped towards Spitfire. He was abruptly cut off as Descent shifted and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Hold on a second! Moon! What the hell is going on?!” Descent demanded. Moon’s expression barely changed as he glanced at Descent.

“Even if I wanted to tell you my intentions, I haven’t the time to explain it in full. If I’m gone for too long, my colleagues will get suspicious.” He explained.

“If you’re trying to avoid suspicion,” Spitfire spoke up. “Then you’re doing a terrible job at it. How are we supposed to believe this isn’t some sort of trick or setup?” she questioned him. Moon ignored Descent glaring at him as he looked back towards Spitfire.

“If you really don’t want to know what the Shadowbolt plans are going forward, then it’s your loss,” he said, testing Spitfire’s trust by showing no anxiety or hesitance. Spitfire looked at him carefully, her eyes narrowing as she weighed her options. Rainbow Dash, who had been planted against Soarin’s side between him and Luna, bit her lip and emerged, taking two steps forward despite Soarin trying to pull her back.

“Spitfire,” she spoke as she looked between her and Moon. “He helped us, we have Wave back because of him.” She was subtly shaking with each word. She didn’t know if it was smart to believe Moon or not, but something was telling her it was wise to hear him out. Fire Streak was giving her a glare of disapproval from the other side of the room much like the one he gave her when she suggested they trust Moon back in the fortress.

“Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire’s voice was harsh and cut deep into Dash as she turned her head and gave her a very stern gaze. “Don’t be so naïve. I don’t care what he did or if he helped you. He’s a Shadowbolt Commander. He may have helped spring Wave Chill, but for all we know, it could be a trick to gain misguided trust. It’s a little alarming that he also found his way into the compound with little to no resistance besides Blaze and High Winds,” Spitfire turned back to Moon and gave him a sharp glare. “I’m not willing to take a risk by suddenly trusting somepony who has been attacking us just like that.”

“Think what you want.” Moon was completely unaffected by Spitfire’s eyes. “I’m here to share what I know. Nothing more, nothing less. And then I’m leaving. What you do after that is your choice.”

Spitfire didn’t respond, she just kept staring as silence filled the room. Descent looked like he was holding himself back from bombarding Moon with questions, and Luna, beside Soarin, was growling again with her magic once more coming to life. This time, however, Soarin reached up and pressed a hoof against her shoulder. Luna glanced down to see Soarin not even looking at her, but instead looking towards Moon with a determined expression. Soarin stepped forward and placed himself beside Dash.

“Tell us,” he asked,

“Soarin…” Spitfire growled quietly at him. Soarin quickly shook his head.

“Spitfire, I don’t trust him either, but let’s hear what he has to say. That won’t hurt,” he said while meeting Spitfire’s eyes and giving her a firm look to equal her own. Spitfire exhaled loudly through her nostrils before refocusing on Moon.

“Fine…” she caved, honoring Soarin’s request as her friend as she sat back down in her chair and once again rested her chin on her hooves. Soarin took the initiative, getting a question in before Moon could speak.

“So,” he began as he took another step towards Moon. “I’m going to assume that you found us because Rapidfire told you the location?”

“Actually,” Moon shook his head. “He did not.”

“What?” Soarin perked up, his eyes widening.

“I discovered the compound hidden out here about a day after you escaped and eluded our Falcons. This ‘flurry’ you have created to hide yourselves isn’t too hard to navigate. I can’t speak for my fellow Shadowbolts, but it’s doable.”

“Rapidfire… didn’t tell you?” Soarin was trying to wrap his head around that fact, Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Dash were all equally as surprised to hear it. Moon shook his head again.

“Rapidfire was pushed to reveal his knowledge upon his less than graceful return to the fortress, but he refused,” he paused as he saw Soarin’s jaw drop. “Perhaps he felt some reason not to?”

“Hold the bus…” Fleetfoot stepped forward, placing herself in the middle as well as she looked between Spitfire and Soarin. “Rapidfire… protecting us?” she asked in pure disbelief as Spitfire looked to be at a loss for words as well.

“Whatever his intentions were, it doesn’t matter,” Moon continued. “Shortly after his refusal, the decision was made that we will not waste effort or resources coming to find you,” he explained, causing a stir to pass through the rest. “However,” he quickly continued. “While Rapidfire remained silent about your immediate location, he did not on other things. Once Blade and Angel were forcibly stopped from physically beating him, he was given a crystal. After some further persuasion, he revealed your plans to reach the Crystal Empire and meet up with the Lunar Guard along the way.”

“WHAT?!” Spitfire sprang up from her seat and slammed her hooves down on her desk.

“Oh no!” Luna gasped as she quickly looked towards Spitfire. “He was sitting right beside us, disguised as Commander Wave Chill while we were discussing it!”

Everypony flinched as Spitfire slammed a hoof down against her desk so hard that crackling noises came from the wood top. Fleetfoot sighed heavily and rolled her eyes.

“Yikes… for a moment there I actually thought he did something considerate…” she said with a groan. Moon huffed quietly.

“He was… persuaded after being told that going after the compound directly was off the table for the time being. Once he had his hooves on a crystal to stem his withdrawal, he was easily manipulated and spilled the rest of the info quickly. It is likely the new plan is to wait directly in your path to the empire.”

“Dammit…” Descent snorted as he angrily gritted his teeth. “So much for our plan…”

“It may yet be salvageable,” Spitfire chimed in as she shook out her hoof. “There are many ways we can execute it, but them knowing will definitely make it more difficult…”

“Do we have any other options?” Soarin asked. Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“The Crystal Empire is our only bet. No other reachable location has the military power we need. Plus, we have to consider the Shadowbolts we are holding captive. If there’s any place that might have an answer to save them… it’s there.” Spitfire looked towards Moon to see if the mention of the captive Shadowbolts had any effect, but again he remained completely stone faced, showing no indication of weakness or worry as he held himself firm. “Is there anything else?” she pressed, hoping for something else they could work with. Moon shook his head.

“No, I left the moment I heard him reveal your plan. The Shadowbolts are currently in a flustered state thanks to your efforts. I had to take advantage of the situation while I could.”

“Hmmmmm…” Spitfire hummed while looked down at the newly formed cracks on her desk.

“Oh, one more thing,” Moon suddenly spoke again, causing Spitfire to quickly look back up. “Ruin also knows about this location… in fact he knows I’m trying to help you as well.”

“What?!” Descent was the only one to speak up as the rest in the room simply flinched and blinked in surprise. Moon sighed heavily, finally showing a slight shift in emotion.

“He confronted me before I left, but…” Moon grunted in annoyance. “He specifically told me that he has no intention of turning me in… nor does he care about what I do, saying and I quote, ‘It’s much more interesting this way.’”

Dash felt a cold shiver run down her spine. It wasn’t even Ruin that said the words, but the fact that the words were his was enough to get the reaction out of her. Ruin’s actions towards her, and the way he got in her face… the way his eyes changed… the way his voice echoed… and how he knew of Soarin and Dash’s connection… All of the dread rushed right back into her. Now on top of it… it looked like Ruin also had an agenda of his own. And if it was specifically related to her and Soarin? It was like a walking, talking nightmare.

“I have no idea what Ruin’s intentions are,” Moon continued. “But they are definitely his own and not within the interests of the Shadowbolts. He is incredibly dangerous and there is no telling what he might do. I’d keep an eye out, no matter where you are,” he warned them before abruptly turning and facing the door. Everypony wanted to react in some way as he readied to leave, but there was way too much to take in, none of them found the words… all except for Descent, who quickly shifted and moved himself in front of Moon before he could leave.

“Moon! Wait!” he demanded as he stood face to face, looking down at his former fellow Shadowbolt. “Tell me why you’re helping! Why didn’t you come with us?!”

Moon stared right into his glare, furrowing his brow a little.

“That’s my business, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Now if you’ll excuse me…” he tried to step around Descent, but Descent moved with him and roughly pressed his hoof against Moon’s chest.

“MOON!” he growled, determined to not let him go until he had an answer. Moon suddenly scrunched his face, bared his teeth and snarled back at Descent.

“Do you share your personal matters and feelings with everypony?! HUH?!” Moon yelled back into Descent’s face. “Or maybe I should ask your SON?!”

Descent’s eyes widened and his jaw nearly unhinged, releasing a silent gasp as he pulled himself back from Moon and took a few steps away. Moon’s face remained angered for a moment before quickly reverting back to his calm expression.

“Hmph…” he grunted, walking right past Descent and towards the door with nopony making a single move to stop him.

But the moment before he stepped through the doorway, a stream of light blue magic shot over his shoulder, sharply curved upward and generated a dome of magic around him. He stopped right in his tracks, and glanced back to see Luna standing firmly in the center of the room, an intense glow of magic pulsating around her horn as it emitted a stream controlling the prison around Moon.

“We think not!” Luna yelled towards him, everypony around backing to the walls as she decided to take things into her own hooves. Moon, however, did not panic, nor did he react. He simply looked towards Luna calmly.

“I would advise you to release me and let me return, unless you want me discovered and no longer able to assist,” he said as Luna continued to snarl towards him.

“Save us the act!” she growled. “We have no reason to trust a word thou says.” She took a single step, her hoof causing a light tremor throughout the room. “We are at wit’s end trying to figure out many things about who we face and the source of the power being turned against us! Somepony like you with the knowledge we seek just dropped right into our laps… it would be foolish of us not to take this opportunity!”

Despite everypony terrified of getting in the angry goddess’ way, Spitfire removed herself from the wall behind her desk and stepped around it.

“Princess—!”

“SILENCE!” Luna roared in the Royal Canterlot Voice, causing Spitfire to flinch and back up, bumping into Fleetfoot behind her. “Whether or not he speaks the truth, we care not! We will not take the risk or lose this chance!”

Moon’s face slowly turned into a glare again as his crystals lifted off his back and began to glow.

But then, without warning…

Discord suddenly walked through the back wall, a look of anger and annoyance on his face as he pushed aside anypony standing in his way and stepped right up to Luna with a burst of chaos magic gathered in his hand. He reached it up to Luna’s horn and pressed his thumb and index finger around its tip.

“AH!” Luna yelped, her magic crackling and popping loudly as her control over the dome failed and removed itself from around Moon. “OW! OW!” Luna continued to whine as Discord pinched the tip of the horn harder. Discord turned his head roughly to Moon, still glaring as Moon simply lifted an eyebrow back at him.

“Go on,” Discord made a nonchalant motion with his free hand towards the door. “Get out of here,” he said as if he didn’t care one bit.

“Thanks… I guess,” Moon shrugged before he turned and walked out the door.

“WHOA! WAIT!” Fleetfoot yelled as she and Descent ran towards the door, but the two of them ran smack into a shield of chaos magic covering the doorway, bouncing off and tumbling to the floor. They both got up frantically, looking back to see Discord’s other arm outstretched and generating the shield.

“Let him go,” Discord said sternly.

“DISCORD!” Luna’s voice boomed towards him, blowing his beard to the side. He simply kept his fingers pinched on the horn as he released the magic from the door. Spitfire and Soarin both ran towards the door the moment the barrier was gone, but when they looked outside, back and forth down the halls, Moon was long gone.

All eyes were immediately set upon Discord with varying degrees of confusion, anger, and frustration, but he looked like he didn’t give a damn about it.

“He was telling the truth,” Discord snorted as he released his fingers from Luna’s horn, causing her to gasp and tilt her head back as she stumbled. She shook her head out and blinked before stomping right up to him.

“HOW DOST THOU KNOW?!” she demanded, the Royal Canterlot Voice again blasting right in his face.

“Because I do, it’s not important how,” Discord said, crossing his arms while not wavering within her harsh gaze.

“YOU…” Luna gritted her teeth, absolutely furious with him. “YOU!”

“Hush,” Discord grabbed her by the nose and clamped her mouth shut. She tried to wiggle free, but she couldn’t no matter how much she struggled. Discord looked about at everypony else and flattened his brow. “Oh, quit looking at me like that.” He waved his free hand out in front of him. “Carry on, talk about your all so important plans…” he paused and stared at Soarin for a moment. “The princess and I have a matter of utmost importance to discuss.”

Discord released Luna’s nose and she immediately tried to bite his hand, but she missed horribly as Discord moved his hand around and instead grabbed her by the ear.

“Ow!” Luna yelped as Discord began pulling on it roughly and dragging her along, but not towards the door, towards the right wall of the room, everypony else moving out of the way as Discord stomped along. “AH! OW! UNHOOF US, YOU RUFFIAN!” Luna demanded as Discord phased right through the wall and pulled Luna through it with him.

Everypony just stared blankly at the wall as the two omnipotent beings disappeared through it. The room remained in complete, utter, painful silence. That is, until High Winds suddenly yawned loudly, for a whole ten seconds while stretching out on the floor. She smacked her lips and barely opened her eyes as she sat up and looked around at everypony looking bewildered.

“What did I miss?” she asked sleepily.

“WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!” Blaze yelled out at the top of her lungs, pointing at both the door and the wall while looking around at everypony else.

Spitfire sat down and released a long, agonizing moan as she reached her front hooves up and rubbed them roughly against her temples.

“You know what? No. I’m done. This day has been way too stressful…” she began as she stood up and walked back behind her desk, slouching down and letting her chin rest on the surface. Everypony glanced around for a moment before focusing back on her. “Everypony just go get some rest. This may sound crazy coming from me, but let’s just assume that Discord is right for now, and that Moon really did come to warn us. I’ll meet with some of you tomorrow to discuss what course of action to take. Dismissed, go to bed, that’s an order,” she said everything very quickly, sounding annoyed and exhausted. Descent suddenly broke from the daze Moon had put him in, quickly turning to Spitfire and stepping up to her desk.

“No, Spitfire, we should—”

“Descent, go to bed,” she huffed while glaring at him from down on her desk.

“Spitfire!” He furrowed his brow, but she had none of it.

“You, bed, now. Talk tomorrow,” she made herself clear.

Descent scrunched his face, ready to protest further, but then a loud CLANK followed by a slowly dying WHIRRRRRR came from the vent in the corner of Spitfire’s ceiling.

“And there’s the heat shutting off,” Spitfire pointed out. “Better all go to bed and huddle up, because that’s what I’m doing.” She forced herself up and walked around her desk. She stopped when nopony moved. “Well? Skedaddle!” she ordered.

Awkwardly and uncomfortably, everypony started making their way out of Spitfire’s office. Dash remained pressed to Soarin’s side as they started moving towards the stairs. Dash would have to help him back down, but that was the least of her worries. Just when they thought they had learned so much about what they were facing, they were struck in the face with a whole new set of questions… and what was up with Discord?

“HEY!” Luna yelled as Discord pulled her out of the wall and across the office until he pulled her through another wall and into the next. “STOP THAT! OW! AND LET GO!” she whined as the process continued for several more rooms until they were at the far end of the second floor in a small meeting room where all of the tables and the whiteboard were upturned or on the floor, untouched since the takeoff and crash.

Discord finally released Luna and stepped forward, pointing his finger at the lightbulb on the ceiling and shooting a small burst of chaos magic at it. The lightbulb lit up as if it had electricity, illuminating the room just enough for the two of them to see each other.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Luna growled, completely miffed at him and demanding to know why he just yanked her through several physical objects against her will. She flinched and her eyes widened as Discord stomped right up to her and pressed a finger hard against her chest, nearly pushing her against the wall behind her.

“Be quiet and LISTEN!” he yelled right into her face, causing her expression to completely shift from peeved to curious, and a little startled. Discord’s demeanor, was once again very different than what she was used to. The past few moments with him had been strangely serious and prank free… which didn’t seem right at all. His eyes were staring straight into hers and were filled with purpose, a clear objective. “Forget about the Shadowbolts! Let the Wonderbolts focus on them and figure out what they have to do,” he hissed, his voice sharp and devoid of any nonsense. “There is something much more important we have to address right now!”

He released his finger from Luna’s chest and moved his body back slightly, giving her some space. She blinked tipping her head curiously.

“What… art thou talking about?” she asked, sensing the clear urgency in Discord’s actions and words.

“Soarin’s horn,” Discord quickly replied while crossing his arms and keeping his expression sharp. Luna blinked and lifted an eyebrow.

“Did we not already discuss this?” Luna asked, puffing her cheeks out as she wondered if Discord dragged her through several walls for something she already knew. “It is damaged and—”

“It is HEAVILY damaged!” Discord cut her off as he leaned his face back down close to hers. Luna’s eyes widened and she lightly shook her head.

“Wait, WHAT?!” she reacted in disbelief. “But… We looked at it… and you said it was…”

“I lied,” Discord admitted without hesitation. Luna’s jaw dropped, but Discord continued before she could say anything. “In the infirmary, I told you I wanted to speak to you about it later and there’s a reason for that. The horn is in an incredibly fragile state right now. I’m surprised, from what he told us, that it hasn’t broken already. We’re incredibly lucky that it hasn’t!”

Luna blinked as she processed it. She started emitting squeaks that sounded like she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t find the words.

“Better believe it, Lulu…” Discord growled, flattening his ears as he rubbed his snaggletooth back and forth against his bottom lip. “And it’s much worse than that. What I gathered from my analysis of the horn… is that it’s barely holding itself together. The only thing that’s currently keeping it in one piece, and holding back the magic within, is Soarin’s willpower and emotional state. That’s why I lied in the infirmary, I didn’t want him to worry or be afraid for the horn. He must remain emotionally level and strong. Should his emotions become imbalanced, disturbed, or intense… and he takes one hit to the horn… it’s turning right to dust!”

“Ah!” Luna gasped, still at a loss for words as the reality of the situation was slowly dropping right on top of her.

“If that happens,” Discord paused and pointed a finger to his forehead. “No amount of willpower, no matter how strong Soarin’s may be, will be enough to keep the magic from running completely wild. The Shadowbolts and Kayn Ost will be an afterthought. If Soarin is consumed… we will all be destroyed. Not even Celestia’s power would be enough to stop it!”

Luna simply stared at him for a few moments before looking down and glancing all around at the floor tiles beneath her.

“Then…” she looked back up. “What should we do?” she asked. Discord sighed heavily, tipping away from her as he closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I really don’t know… but until I can figure something out, it would be wise to keep him as far away from any sort of action or fighting as possible. The real question is how we can do that without revealing just how much danger he’s really in…” Discord pondered as he twirled a finger around the end of his beard.

“How are we supposed to manage that?” Luna pressed. Discord growled and gave his beard a light yank.

“If he is aware of the danger he is in, that will only contribute to the emotional imbalance… again, why I lied. That sort of state will make him more vulnerable, should he be drawn into any fighting. We have to figure out a way to keep him confined to the compound and convince him it’s for his own good…”

“That will not be easy,” Luna stated, completely forgetting about any sort of annoyance she had with Discord and now completely invested in what course of action to take. “Commander Soarin has the heart of a lion. He will likely protest any suggestion that he remain out of the action. He’s not the type to be held down.”

“I know,” Discord snorted as he looked away. “But we have to try. This is far and away the most dangerous situation we’ve had yet, and if we mishandle it? I don’t think I need to repeat myself, you know how that will end.”

“Y…yes…” Luna gulped.

“Now,” Discord turned his back to her and waved his hand towards the door of the room. “Just play along with them. Get some rest. I’ll see if I can figure anything else out. If we can get him to the Crystal Empire unscathed, then we’ll be safe. Maybe we can find a way to repair the horn there, I’m certainly not willing to risk messing with it with my magic alone. I doubt the Wonderbolts will get there without confrontation, but we really have no choice.

“Okay… we shall keep an eye on him,” Luna nodded, her pupils moving back and forth as she looked at the floor, laying out some ideas in her head.

“You do that,” Discord said as he continued to wave his hand towards the door. Luna got the point, doing as he was silently asking by turning and walking out the door, leaving Discord alone in the room.

Discord turned his head, watching as Luna’s tail disappeared around the edge of the door. He crossed his arms, keeping his eyes on the door for a few moments as he tapped a finger against his arm. He took a very deep breath and sighed, looking straight up at the ceiling.

“Celestia… I know you’re listening,” he started talking into the air. “Was this all really worth the risk? Or is the situation really so hopeless that the possible downside of using Soarin… was a quicker, less painful end?”

He kept his eyes up, pausing for a long time as if hoping for somepony to talk back to him, but he was alone.

“Have I…” Discord gritted his teeth. “Have I really screwed things up that much? Why didn’t you say something to me? Why didn’t you ask for my help?” he looked down at the floor. “You went to him… instead of me, again. Leaving me behind to simply keep watch for you...”

He snorted and closed his eyes, a soft aura of chaos magic surrounding him as he slowly began lowering himself into the floor.

“I guess I deserve it, don’t I?”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art by: Foxenawolf

Wouldn't be me if i didn't drop a basket full of mysteries on you guys every few chapters! :pinkiecrazy::trollestia:

So... discussions discussions...

What is Moon's motivation?

What is bothering Discord so much?

Oh god, Soarin is in incredible danger, but his safety relies on him NOT knowing it? AW HELL THATS GONNA BE A PROBLEM.

One more chapter to go and then we're going to have a week time jump... because it's time to start the final stretch to the end of part 3... but don't worry... that stretch includes more than one major event ;D

Thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed!:eeyup:

Chapter 123: Weakness

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 123: Weakness

“Hrmmmm…” Soarin hummed as he stirred and opened his eyes. He lightly winced as he slowly moved his limbs about, a few POPS coming from his joints as he tried to loosen up. It wasn’t like his body had never been stiff or sore before, but when mixed with the pain of his injuries, it made for some unpleasant moments… like waking up after having fallen asleep on one of the less than comfortable infirmary beds for an hour or so while lying on the side of his body that hurt more than the other.

But the pain and stiffness were quickly forgotten, taking a backseat in Soarin’s thoughts as the first sight upon opening his eyes was exactly what he wanted to see.

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Dash smiled at him, resting her chin on the mattress, her eyes level with his.

“Did I wake up in heaven?” Soarin said goofily, earning a snicker and an eye roll from Dash.

“Yeah and it’s made of cheese,” she said while sticking her tongue out at him playfully. She moved her head over and placed her chin lightly upon one of his arms as he shifted to lie on his stomach. Once in place, Soarin rested his head atop hers.

“I fell asleep again, huh?” Soarin asked while yawning. Dash lifted her head slightly to press her head into his neck, gently nuzzling him.

“It’s fine, I’m nodding off here and there too,” she assured him as she found a comfortable spot on him and attached her head to it. Soarin smiled, enjoying the feeling of her soft mane against his fur, but he knew the nature of his lady, so he had to ask.

“You don’t have to stay here if you’re bored, you know…” he offered, silently hoping she wouldn’t leave.

“You kidding me?” Dash giggled while edging herself forward and putting herself into a position where she could rest her shoulder and more of her body against his chest. “With what you put me through, I’m almost afraid to let you out of my sight now!” she said while hooking one of her hooves over his arm.

“I appreciate that,” Soarin sighed happily as he got to rest his chin on Dash’s head longer. “I just don’t want me distracting you from some of your duties. How has your squad been doing since you got back?” he asked with a little bit of snark since he knew Dash had been by his side non-stop since they returned.

“Half of my squad is already here,” she said, returning the snark as she pointed behind her. Soarin looked up briefly to see Little Star still asleep on the bed, and that Squall had returned to watch her again.

“He came back, huh?” Soarin chuckled as he looked towards Squall. Star actually did wake up briefly at one point, receiving some food from Bliss, but Squall quickly left when she started to stir. Dash was prepared to force him back over to her if he tried running away again. She needed to know he was keeping an eye on her, it would absolutely warm her heart. “What about the other two?” Soarin pressed.

“Matteo walked away from the whole thing without a bruise and Twister is Twister. The only other doofus I’m worried about is…” Dash trailed off as she shifted to get a view of Silver on the bed behind them… But Silver wasn’t there?

“OH, NO YOU DON’T!” Bliss suddenly yelled from nearby. Dash and Soarin looked over to see Bliss gallop past them and towards the infirmary entrance. They looked further down her path to see Silver hobbling and limping towards the door.

Before Silver could reach the door, Bliss’ magic surrounded his tail and tugged, bringing him to a halt.

“Rgghhhhh…” Silver grumbled as he stopped moving, but kept his hooves planted as firmly to the floor as he could manage. Bliss’ magic began pulling him back down the aisle, his hooves making loud, squeaking noises against the floor. Eventually Mahogany and Witching Hour stepped up and used their magic to assist, picking Silver up off the floor and floating him back towards the beds.

Dash was holding her breath, trying not to crack up as Silver got caught trying to escape. Soarin chuckled while glancing down at Dash.

“I guess I asked the wrong pony if they’re bored,” he joked as Bliss and her two assistants placed Silver right back on his bed.

“For the last time, Silver…” Bliss began while giving Silver a flat look. “Stay in bed and get some rest. If you try that one more time, so help me, I’m strapping you down.” Her voice was calm, nothing around the lines of angry, but she was clearly starting to get a little irritated with Silver’s unwillingness to follow her directions.

“Hmph…” Silver only grunted in response. Bliss sighed and rolled her eyes before going about her business.

“Hey,” Dash tapped Soarin’s shoulder as she scooted her body off the mattress and stood back on the floor. “I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere,” she winked at him while pointing at Silver.

“Can’t make any promises,” Soarin joked, earning a pout in return.

“I swear, I’m gonna smack you…” Dash threatened playfully as she stepped around the bed and approached her grumpy mentor. He was staring straight forward and sulking as he had for most of the time he was being monitored already. Dash stood in his peripheral vision, and knew full well that Silver could see her, but he was ignoring her. “Hey, Silver.”

“What?” he replied quickly and flatly with a loud grumble present in the back of his throat.

“Wow…” Dash blinked and winced a little. “You’re super grumpy.”

“I’m wrapped head to hoof in bandages, can barely feel most of my body, and I’m at the mercy of a doctor that plans to dip me in vats of ice-water against my will several times for the next few days. So yeah, I’m grumpy,” Silver explained himself without looking at Dash once.

“Oh, suck it up you ninny…” Dash scoffed… and Silver was definitely looking at her now. He shot her a glare of frustration and snorted loudly.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to see if I could get a little of each color while yanking out one big chunk of your mane…” he said with a light snarl. Dash puffed her cheeks out as she held in a few chuckles, eventually letting them go as she stepped up and rested her hooves on Silver’s mattress.

“As long as you keep that sharp tongue of yours I’ll always be confident you’re just fine,” she said, giving him a smile that he did not return… but his expression softened a little.

“Hmph…” he grunted as he looked away from her. “Just give me a few days, I’ll be back on my hooves.”

“Not a fan of ice baths?” Dash asked, causing Silver to shiver subtly.

“Never have been…” Silver said with another grunt. “Yeah, I know I’m pretty much a walking, swollen bruise right now and the ice will help, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he complained as he glanced down at the bandages around his face. “Okay, I’m sick of these…” Silver forced his arm up and swiped a hoof at the face bandages before the tape holding them down came loose.

“I don’t think you should take those off…” Dash chuckled.

“Blah, blah, blah…” Silver grumbled in response as he shook his nose and let the bandages slide off. Dash gave him a flat look, but chuckled as Silver let his chin plop right back down on the mattress. He was being testy, but the grumpiness was starting to be amusing.

“Heh,” Dash smirked before resting a hoof on his back. “Do as Bliss says, okay? I don’t care how much of a hardass you are. Rest. Recover,” she said while jokingly patting him on the head.

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want,” Silver grumbled, earning a chuckle from Dash as she nudged him in the shoulder.

“I’m sure you will,” she pressed her hoof a little harder against his shoulder, causing Silver to shudder slightly from the pain and then give her an annoyed look. She only smiled and winked at him in return.

“Silver Lining, the great Iron Horse…” Soarin suddenly spoke up from his bed behind Dash. “Fears no stallion, but is at the mercy of mares!” he chuckled. Dash glanced over her shoulder to see Soarin had rolled over and was looking right at them with a devilish smirk. Silver scoffed loudly.

“Oh, you’re still alive over there?” Silver quickly shot back. “I thought you were dying of cranial erectile dysfunction.”

Dash lowered herself a little, realizing she was about to get stuck in between some stallion banter.

“Trust me,” Soarin chuckled. “It stays up all night over here if you know what I mean.”

“Pfffff…” Dash found herself throwing her hooves over her mouth as Soarin talked up his… endowment. Not that she disagreed. Soarin glanced down at her as he heard her stifle a giggle.

“Just ask Dash!” Soarin added with a smirk.

“SOARIN!” Dash turned completely red and glared at him.

“Gee, thanks…” Silver shuddered. “Now I’m thinking about what it looks like when a spectrum of colors takes it hard from a damaged hood ornament.”

“Guyssssssss…” Dash groaned as she covered her head with her wings and started lowering herself to the floor.

“Only this horn is damaged,” Soarin winked. “Believe me, I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve.”

“HA!” Silver released a single guffaw and cringed in pain right after for a moment. He glanced down at Dash shrinking down and looking up at Soarin with a pouty glare.

“Soarin… stop,” she asked.

“You kidding? I have him on the ropes!” Soarin chuckled as Dash glared at him harder. Silver shook his head, exhaling loudly.

“Take it from me, son. And believe me, you’ll learn this soon enough if you keep pipe twisting rainbows,” Silver began as Dash put her hooves over her head and pulled on her ears, her face so hot it was a wonder it wasn’t steaming. “If you want to keep your membership card to the happy hole, you’ll learn to agree with her on everything.”

“Oh?” Soarin tipped his head. “I never took you for the whipped type,” he taunted as Bliss suddenly passed by them slowly, looking down at a clip board. Silver lifted his brow and narrowed his eyes.

“Mares have all the authority because mares have all the vaginas,” Silver put bluntly. Bliss halted right in her path and glanced up at Silver while blinking. She sighed and shook her head before she continued past them. “The sooner you get used to it, the better,” Silver chuckled.

“Man, I gotta meet your wife sometime,” Soarin said with a little wonder as he blinked.

“Serenity would break your ass so fast, you’d be in a diaper and sucking on your hoof in two or three days,” Silver explained. Soarin looked down Silver’s body.

“Where’s yours?” he jeered, earning a grunt and a smirk from Silver.

“I’m not the dainty princess in the room, am I?”

“OKAY! Okay…” Dash shot up between them, her face still red. “Please stop before you guys make me explode.”

“Oh, fine…” Soarin gave in while chuckling.

“It begins,” Silver said as he casually rolled over and faced away.

“Hey!” Soarin looked to fire back, but Dash had her hooves pressed against his chest.

“Soarin…”

“What?” Soarin smiled at her. “Don’t tell me you’re not enjoying this.”

“I was until our sex life came up,” she said with a pout.

“Oh, alright, I’ll stop.”

“It continues…” Silver said as he stayed facing away. Soarin looked up at him, but Dash grabbed his face and pulled it back down to look at her. Soarin pouted back, before a devilish grin crept onto his face.

“Well, if you’re going to be that way…”

“YIKES!” Dash yelped as Soarin grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her right up onto his bed. “Hey!” she yelled as Soarin held onto her tightly and forcefully snuggled her.

Bliss walked by again, stopping as she saw Soarin gently stallion-handling Dash. She sighed and shook her head again before moving back towards the front of the infirmary.

“Soarin, stop!” Dash struggled. She was embarrassed, but she didn’t DISLIKE what he was doing.

“Hmmmm… no,” Soarin denied her as he held on. He knew full well she wouldn’t get too rough because she didn’t want to hurt him.

“YO!” a very loud voice suddenly came from the front. Soarin and Dash stopped ‘fighting’ each other and glanced over to see. Cannon Ball had just burst through the door and was glancing around. “WHERE’S THE BODY BAG?! I WANNA PUNCH THE OLD BASTARD BEFORE WE BURY HIM! ACK!” he suddenly grunted as Bliss’ magic surrounded his neck and pushed him down. She gave him a stern look as she trotted over.

“One, please quiet down, we have ponies resting in here. Two, Silver isn’t dead… and last time I checked he’s only three years older than you,” she explained calmly as she looked up and saw the rest of Silver’s old comrades enter behind, Bomber bringing up the rear as he crouched down and shimmied his massive body through the doorway.

“Really?! Damn!” Cannon said as he stood up, earning a sharper glare from Bliss. “Yikes, alright, I’ll quiet down.” He got the point quickly as Steady Wing walked up behind him, a set of bandages wrapped around his wing that was hit during the escape. He patted Cannon on the back.

“The sooner you accept that Silver will likely live to be five hundred years old, the less you’ll be disappointed.

“LIKE HELL!” Cannon raised his voice again. “I’ll kill him myself!”

Before Bliss could scold him again, Valkyrie stepped up behind him, placed a hoof on his head and drove it to the floor with a loud THUMP.

“Shut up,” she ordered flatly.

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber chuckled as he watched Cannon struggle and sputter under Valkyrie’s strength. Comet hopped up on Bomber’s back and looked about the room.

“So where is the old donkey?” he asked as he failed to find him.

“Over…” Pixie pointed.

“There…” Fairy finished while also pointing.

All of them except for Cannon looked over towards Silver, who avoided eye contact with them completely. Soarin and Dash glanced at each other as Soarin released her and let her down from the bed.

“This should be fun,” Soarin whispered to her as they watched the Renegades approach, Valkyrie dragging Cannon along the floor by the mane as they did.

“Hey!” Steady spoke up as they all gathered around Silver. Silver kept his eyes down. “You’re a real charmer, you know that?” Steady joked as he chuckled. Silver looked up to see all of his old wingmates standing around him. His eyes landed on each one of them for a moment before he looked back down and grunted.

“Typical,” Valkyrie said while rolling her eyes. “Swallow your damn pride you, stone block,” she said as she stepped up and rested a hoof on Silver’s bed. “Do you really think you have to prove anything to us?”

Silver looked back up again, catching smiles from Bomber, Steady, Pixie, and Fairy. Valkyrie was sort of smiling, Cannon was grumbling to himself, and Comet…

“Excuse me, I don’t believe we’ve met…” they all turned to see Comet casually leaning against one of the opposite beds, whipping his mane back and forth as he addressed Bliss.

Bliss stopped as she was walking by and lifted an eyebrow at Comet.

“I’m a former elite Wonderbolt, my name is Comet. And what might be the name of our lovely new doctor?” he asked with a clear flirtatious tone.

Bliss didn’t say anything, she simply flattened her brow held up her hoof that had the marriage band around it.

Comet blinked and went silent for a moment.

“Uh, well I was just wondering and—HURK!” He was cut off as Pixie and Fairy grabbed him by the neck and yanked him back over to Silver.

“We’re here…”

“For Silver.” The two spoke together.

“Not to flirt…”

“With married mares.”

“You two always make my intentions sound so shallow…” Comet sighed as he was forced back up and flashed a forced smile at Silver along with the rest.

Silver continued to look at all of them for another moment before sighing and pressing his nose down into the mattress.

“Will you all quit looking at me like that?” he said with a slightly shaky voice.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but put on a very wide smile as she heard the tone in Silver’s voice. She and Soarin were staying quiet as the Renegades addressed Silver… and the tone of Silver’s voice almost sounded like he was going to lose it. She remembered when they reunited after the first Shadowbolt attack. Silver was driven right to tears when he saw all the comrades he missed so dearly again. He had had little time to really sit down and catch up with them since they were all so busy.

“You guys didn’t have to come check on me, I’m fine,” Silver said while looking away from them again.

“Again, typical,” Valkyrie rolled her eyes as Bomber chuckled behind her.

“Wonderbolts look after their own,” Steady smiled as he gave Silver a very light jab on the shoulder. “Just because we’re Renegades now doesn’t mean we’re throwing out the old practices,”

“Indeed,” Comet agreed as he leaned up against Silver’s bed and waved a hoof in the air. “Worrying about you killing yourself was routine back in the day, why change routine? Oh, hello there…” he cut himself off staring at Witching Hour as she passed behind them. Steady scoffed and sighed while shaking his head.

Silver ignored Comet going about his own routine of being overly flirty, letting Pixie and Fairy scold him again as he focused on Steady, specifically his wing that was wrapped up.

“Yeah, I sure did a good job of looking after you,” Silver grunted with frustration. Steady looked back at his wing and briefly lifted it up and down.

“Oh, this?” he chuckled. “Please, Silver, this is just the line of duty, I’m not the one who looks a few bandages away from being in a straightjacket,” he bounced an eyebrow towards Silver.

“Well, THIS was in the line of duty too,” Silver said while grunting and looking at his bandages.

“Will you die already so I can say I told ya so?!” Cannon suddenly pulled himself out from underneath Valkyrie’s hoof and propped his chin on the edge of Silver’s mattress. Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“How old are you again?” Silver taunted back.

“Old enough to kick your ass!” Cannon quickly snapped. Silver switched which eyebrow he had up.

“And now you’re using my own lines,” Silver rolled his eyes. “You’re right Comet, lots of us don’t change our routine.”

“Hm?” Comet glanced briefly at Silver. “Oh, right, yes,” he said before looking back at any mare that walked by.

“I oughtta yank your ears off and eat em raw,” Cannon growled at Silver. Silver looked past Cannon and up at Bomber.

“Big Green, can you hold him still for me?” he asked. Without a word and without dropping his innocent smile, Bomber pressed a large hoof down over Cannon’s head.

“OW! WHAT THE--?!” Cannon freaked out as he suddenly couldn’t move.

“Give me a second here…” Silver grunted as he struggled to lift up and pull back a hoof. After a few more painful grunts, he thrusted his hoof forward and punched Cannon right in the face.

Steady, Pixie, and Fairy all burst out laughing as Comet turned around and blinked. Even Valkyrie let a few snickers go. Bomber just gave his usual chuckle.

“Thanks for coming to visit, Cannon. I really needed that,” Silver said sarcastically as his old friends continued to laugh at Cannon’s expense. Cannon just sat upright on the floor, crossed his arms and pouted.

“One of these days I’m gonna get ya, ya old bastard,” Cannon grumbled.

“For the last time…” Pixie bopped a hoof over Cannon’s head.

“We’re all just about as old as him,” Fairy finished while bopping her hoof over Cannon’s head as well.

Silver smiled. He dreaded being seen so vulnerable at first, but as usual, his old friends simply made him feel happy. He looked at each of them again as they continued to just be casual while visiting him.

Steady was holding onto Comet’s tail as he tried to follow Witching Hour, again. Pixie and Fairy ended up sitting on Cannon and locking him against the floor when he started being rambunctious again.

Valkyrie…

“Bomber, please stop that…” Valkyrie said without looking, sighing as Bomber started petting and stroking her long, wavy mane.

“But Bomber like pretty mane,” Bomber said innocently as he continued, earning another sigh from Valkyrie.

“How come you never punch him?!” Cannon complained to Valkyrie as he struggled beneath the twin sisters.

“Because punching him doesn’t work,” Valkyrie explained as she flattened her brow and just let it happen. Comet shifted over, placing himself in front of Cannon as he leaned near Valkyrie.

“I agree, it’s just as hard to punch an innocent face as it is to punch a handsome one, right?” he said as he inched his face towards Valkyrie’s. He instantly ducked as Valkyrie swung at him, dropping to the floor. Steady Wing grabbed Comet’s tail and pulled him away before Valkyrie could try again.

“You know,” Steady chuckled. “If you have to have an escape plan, I think the chances are low on arrival.”

“She’ll open up to me one of these days,” Comet shrugged as Valkyrie instantly shook her head.

“I’ve said no for fifteen years, I’m not suddenly going to say yes now, you jackass,” Valkyrie hissed at Comet. She flinched as she suddenly felt something stick into her mane, she blinked and glanced over her shoulder to see Bomber hunched down, sniffing it. “BOMBER!” she complained, her face turning a little red as she glared at him.

“Smells like the gym, heh, heh, heh…” Bomber chuckled as Valkyrie puffed her cheeks out and huffed in embarrassment.

Silver couldn’t hold it in. He was smiling and chuckling at everything going on around him.

“I hope you bastards never change…” he said quietly to himself as the shenanigans continued.

Soarin and Dash continued to smile and laugh a little off to the side as they watched Silver get his spirits lifted by his old friends. Soarin glanced down at Dash as she was slowly edging herself towards him, but before he could think of much his stomach growled. Not very loudly, but he definitely felt it. He was already a little hungry, but he didn’t want to control where Dash went. While he did suggest earlier that she didn’t need to bore herself by staying in the infirmary, he was aware of what she wanted. She even said it herself, aside from being by Soarin’s side, she also wanted to keep Silver company.

Seeing as how Silver now had plenty of welcome company to keep him occupied, Soarin tapped Dash on the shoulder.

“Want to go grab some food?” he asked as Dash looked up at him. “I think Silver’s gonna have his hooves full for a while,” he said with a wink. Dash looked back down at the Renegades and her mentor before returning her eyes to Soarin and nodding.

“Alright,” she agreed. “But let’s come right back, okay?” she requested. Soarin quickly nodded in agreement, knowing that Dash was just very concerned about Silver and didn’t want him to be left alone at any time… even if Silver claimed he was just fine.

As the Renegades continued to laugh and joke with Silver, Dash helped Soarin off the table and supported him as they made their way around the commotion and down the aisle. After briefly reassuring Bliss that Soarin wouldn’t be gone long, the two of them made their way out.

They were about to turn towards the battle dome, where the rations were still being kept and many ponies were still camping out, but Soarin pressed his hooves down, bringing them both to a stop.

“Wait a second,” he said, causing Dash to look up and see that he was looking in the opposite direction at the lobby. Before she could ask him what he was looking at, he pulled himself away from her and started limping towards the lobby.

“Whoa! Hey!” Dash exclaimed as she trotted up beside him and supported him again. “Careful, you don’t want to…” she trailed off as she looked into the lobby, quickly seeing what had caught Soarin’s attention. He had stopped right at the edge of the hallway and placed a hoof against the end of the wall… he was focused on a little meeting that was currently happening near the middle of the lobby.

Spitfire was talking to Blazetail and Flashwind… and while they were too far away to hear the conversation clearly, both Soarin and Dash picked up on the word ‘Rapidfire’ as Spitfire kept talking.

The two of them glanced at each other for a brief moment, both with distraught expressions and ears flopped down before looking back to watch how it ended up. Spitfire remained firm, as she should. The subject was one to be taken seriously, despite the emotional tax it might have. Blazetail and Flashwind listened, Flashwind slowly reaching a hoof up to her mouth and looking down as Spitfire spoke. Blazetail didn’t show much of a reaction at first, but as Spitfire explained, he began averting his eyes.

Blazetail’s position on Rapidfire was not unknown to them. He was open in his criticism of his son’s decisions despite being scolded for it every time by Flashwind, but did he really feel that way? Or was it a cover up? His different reaction as Spitfire explained suggested so.

As Spitfire finished, remaining poised and serious throughout, Flashwind began shaking lightly and leaned against Blazetail. Blazetail looked away from her for a moment, his face in the line of sight of Soarin and Dash. They could both see that he wore a look of confliction. He wore a similar expression to the one he had upon denouncing his son before, but he said nothing. His face also seemed to change between that and a sad look very briefly every few seconds.

Blazetail suddenly turned back to his wife and draped his wing over her before facing Spitfire and nodding, thanking her for telling them. Spitfire said nothing in response, and remained in place as Blazetail spoke to Flashwind, the two of them turning and moving towards the west hallway slowly, side by side. Soarin and Dash could hear faint sniffling from Flashwind for a moment, but the two of them were soon out of earshot, Blazetail’s wing over Flashwind’s back in a gentle, comforting manner as they disappeared down the hall.

Dash had her eyes locked on the hallway, but Soarin had shifted all of his focus to Spitfire. He kept his eyes on her, gritting his teeth as she remained perfectly still. Just as he expected, the moment Blazetail and Flashwind were out of sight, Spitfire exhaled, dipping her head down and shuddering. She reached a hoof up to her opposite shoulder, rubbing it as she shook her head. Spitfire did her duty well, no matter what the situation, but that didn’t mean it was easy for her. Over the many years of being her best friend, he knew that, more often than not, she hid how she truly felt about things.

The situation with Rapidfire was one of several mixed emotions. Mostly negative from Spitfire’s point of view, but even then, it wasn’t easy to spill the news to two ponies she heavily respected, especially when it affected them on such a personal level. It wouldn’t have been right to keep it from them though, and had Spitfire waited longer to tell them, the harder it would have eventually been.

Dash finally looked towards Spitfire, placing a hoof on Soarin’s arm as soon as she saw Spitfire’s stoic demeanor ‘break’ into a realistic image of how she felt. She looked up at Soarin to see him sigh through his nose. He made no moves to step out of the hallway to go to her and Dash knew why. Spitfire wasn’t weak, she had handled all sorts of difficult scenarios, physically and emotionally. Hell, Dash wouldn’t have been able to face Blazetail and Flashwind and break the news like she just did.

After a deep breath and tipping her head up towards the ceiling, Spitfire stood up and turned towards the front doors of the lobby. Soarin and Dash perked up and glanced to their left to see where Spitfire was heading. As she took several deep breaths to regain her composure, Spitfire approached a small gathering near the front doors. Well, it was actually only two ponies, Air Mach and Luna. They were both facing outside, looking at the Falcon sitting on the deck. While Luna was simply sitting patiently, Air Mach was pressing his face and body up against the glass doors, his breath creating fog. Every time the fog cut off his view, he shifted so he could see again… until fogging up the new spot as well.

“What has Air Mach so interested?” Dash thought out loud as she scratched her head, the difficult conversation she just witnessed taking a back seat in her head for the time being as Spitfire joined the two by the doors.

“Only one way to find out,” Soarin nodded as he stepped off the wall.

“Hey, hold it! What did I just say about being careful?” Dash scolded him as she trotted up and supported him from the side again.

“Sorry,” he chuckled as they focused on reaching the doors. As they grew closer, they were surprised to see Rivet suddenly enter the compound through the doors, wearing a winter coat and hat.

“So can I fly it?!” Air Mach immediately asked Rivet while bouncing up and down.

“No,” Rivet answered calmly, removing his coat and hat before turning to Luna, but Air Mach shifted around and got in his face.

“What do you mean ‘no’?!” he whined while gritting his teeth.

“As in ‘no you can’t’,” Rivet clarified.

“Why not?!” Air Mach pressed despite it being given crystal clear twice.

“Because it isn’t possible right now,” Rivet huffed, his ears flopping down as Air Mach more or less refused to listen.

“That’s no way to approach the situation!” Air Mach stood up on his hind legs and pounded his chest while pointing out at the Falcon. “Let me at it, I’ll force it to fly!”

“That’s not how machines work,” Rivet sighed while slapping a hoof over his face.

“I’ll be the judge of that!” Air Mach called out heroically as he pointed to the ceiling. Rivet slowly rubbed his hoof down his face before glaring at Air Mach.

“Did you already forget how you managed to fly it in the first place?!” Rivet threw his arms up, losing his patience with the idiot.

“Details, details, details!” Air Mach shook his head. “It’s all about believing in yourself and—”

“Air Mach,” Spitfire spoke up calmly as she approached. “Shut up.”

“With pleasure!” Air Mach turned and saluted her before turning back to the glass doors and pressing his face against them again. Spitfire watched Air Mach for a second before rolling her eyes and focusing on Rivet, who seemed relieved to have Air Mach off his case.

“So, what can you tell me about it?” Spitfire asked as she glanced at the Falcon outside.

“It’s an incredibly complicated device,” Rivet began as he scratched his head. “Unlike anything I’ve ever seen, really. I have no idea where or how the Shadowbolts could have gotten their hooves on technology like this. A mechanical device powered by magic? I never even considered the possibility.” As he pondered out loud, Spitfire tipped her head and blinked.

“Isn’t that how our image projectors work?” she asked. Rivet shook his head.

“Those are only activated by magic, and refract it to create the images. They are powered by batteries. This thing…” Rivet looked over his shoulder at the Falcon. “Seems to use magic as a direct power source. I only got a peek at the inner workings, but it’s clear that everything in it is connected directly to the back where the crystal was floating between the glass lenses. Based on what I was told about Air Mach commandeering it, the thing basically shut down and nearly crashed before Starry Skies dropped in and took control of the crystal.”

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed as she rubbed her chin. “Do you think the Shadowbolt fortress is the same?”

“I’d have to get inside and see it to know for sure,” Rivet said with a shrug before focusing on the Falcon again. “I don’t have time to really give it a full examination and break down its inner workings right now since I’m finishing up the patchwork on the compound… but assuming we survive, I’d be more than interested in taking a much closer look once we’re in the clear,” he said as he looked back at Spitfire. “I’m curious about its magic based core, its power output, efficiency, and other affected systems. If I can figure out how they all work, I may not only be able to find a way we can use the Falcon, but also a way to apply some of the technology to the compound. At this point, anything would be better than the disastrously old systems down in the engine room. Plus I might also be able to recreate some of the defensive systems.”

“We’d have to find an alternative to the crystals though,” Luna finally spoke up. “We cannot allow such dangerous power to be relied upon.”

“And that’s why I won’t make any guarantees right now,” Rivet assured her. “For all we know, the crystal could be a requirement, not just a source of power. If that’s the case, then we’re sunk and we just have a lemon sitting on our deck, but if it can be switched out with something else, then we’re in business.”

“The crystal is still within the Falcon, correct?” Luna asked while biting her lip.

“Yes,” Rivet nodded and then shook his head. “I didn’t dare touch it after seeing what’s happening to our Shadowbolt captives… that and the, you know, turning to dust thing I’ve been hearing about the defeated commanders.” Rivet looked back towards the glass, scrunching his face as Air Mach was in the way. He shifted slightly to get a better look. “The crystal is still sitting on the base of the core in the back.”

“T’would be best to just leave it be for now,” Luna suggested. “Perhaps we or Discord can remove it later for examination.”

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed again as she absorbed all the information. The analysis was highly technical, but nothing she couldn’t understand for the most part. Rivet sounded like he had a basic grip on what he was looking at, and that never failed Spitfire in the past. “Thanks for taking the time, Rivet. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now. For now we should—”

“SO CAN I FLY IT NOW?!” Air Mach suddenly blurted out as he stepped in between Spitfire and Rivet, bending way down to poke his face into Rivet’s again. After her initial flinch, Spitfire just flattened her brow and sighed as Rivet slapped his hoof against his face… again.

“Hey, Air Mach.”

Spitfire perked up, looking to her left to see Soarin approaching with Rainbow Dash beside him.

“What’s up big guy?!” Air Mach turned to Soarin, posing dramatically with his cape waving as if it was blowing in the wind… even though they were indoors.

“Fleetfoot fell down the old well,” Soarin said, clearly joking, but…

“What?! HA! An old well is no match for the great Animak! Never fear, Fleety! I’m on my way!” Air Mach suddenly broke into a sprint, stopped in the center of the lobby for a moment, and then turned and galloped down the west hallway.

Soarin, Rainbow Dash, Spitfire, Luna, and Rivet all just stared dumbly as Air Mach left the area.

“I… didn’t think that would actually work…” Soarin said with disbelief as he chuckled. He looked back towards Spitfire while smiling, but she did not look thrilled.

“Soarin, why aren’t you in the infirmary?” Spitfire asked sharply. Soarin scoffed and shook his head.

“I’m not Silver, my body is still functioning,” he said, again in a joking manner, but Spitfire had an odd reaction to it. Both Soarin and Dash saw it. The moment Soarin mentioned Silver, Spitfire’s expression changed drastically. It went from hard and serious to… shocked? Or… was it worry? It was hard to tell because it looked like she was trying to hide it. It also didn’t help that Spitfire said nothing in response.

That worried Dash. It clearly meant Spitfire had Silver on her mind… and it didn’t look like it was for a good reason.

Soarin’s attention, however, was quickly diverted when he noticed Luna looking very uncomfortable. She was staring right at Soarin, fidgeting in place and looking at the damaged horn artifact. The scene had gone from casual to awkward, Spitfire and Luna both remaining silent while keeping their thoughts to themselves while Soarin and Dash tried to figure out what both were thinking.

Then Rivet cleared his throat loudly.

“Captain?” he addressed Spitfire. “What were you saying before Air Mach interrupted?” he asked to bring things back to their discussion.

“Oh, sorry,” Spitfire squinted her eyes shut and shook her head very lightly, regaining her composure and serious air as she turned back to Rivet. “For now we should focus on the compound and reaching the Crystal Empire. Recent developments have thrown a wrench into that plan as a whole, but we’re working to adjust the strategy. Are we still on track in terms of getting this big tub up and running again?” she asked, giving Rivet a brief rundown of the situation in the process.

“Yes, we are still on schedule,” Rivet confirmed. “Might finish up a few days early actually, it will give me time to run extra stress tests and simulations on the engines. Better to be safe than sorry, we’re already going to be pushing the systems harder than they were initially built for. We had no way of getting below and fixing the main ventral propeller that was snapped off during our escape. We stayed afloat without it, the real question is if we can get it up off the ground without it.”

“Alright,” Spitfire chuckled as some of the mechanical lingo went right over her head. “I’ll leave the technical details to you. You got us out of Canterlot with some solo tinkering, now that you have a full team working with you, I’m confident you can get us to the Crystal Empire.”

“We will see,” Rivet finished with a nod and began to turn, but Dash suddenly stepped up from Soarin’s side.

“Wait, question,” she said while raising her right wing into the air. Both Rivet and Spitfire looked towards her. “Since we’re on the subject, I was thinking about this a little while ago. What about all the furniture and stuff? This place was an absolute mess after the first flight. We had to do a lot of digging around for personal belongings. Is there anything we can do to prevent that?”

“Oh,” Spitfire blinked. “I didn’t think about that, that’s a good point,” she turned to address Rivet but he was already nodding.

“I’ve actually already thought about that,” he pointed out. “I recently spoke to a lot of my staff and a few other employees who are stuck here with us. As soon as we’re done with the internal and external repairs, I won’t need everypony to run the final tests. So I’ve put together a group who will comb through the entire compound, room by room, and fix the furniture to the floor or the wall. Beds, shelves, tables, and anything else that can be secured. We have a lot of spare nuts, bolts, and metal brackets that can be used to lock everything down. I figured that it would be a reasonable change to make if we intend to use this thing more.”

“Always thinking ahead,” Spitfire smiled at Rivet. “I’ll make an announcement about securing valuables as well. I guess I won’t be keeping trophies and plaques on my shelves anymore. Hell, we may have to completely remodel the place at this rate, haha…” Spitfire chuckled, never in her life expecting to need to make such decisions as the captain of the Wonderbolts. “Let’s at least get things secured and locked down, then focus on surviving.”

“Agreed,” Rivet nodded again.

“And Rivet?” Spitfire stopped him before he could leave. “Thanks again. I promise a vacation and a raise when we get out of this mess.”

“After a long nap, sure, I’ll take it,” Rivet replied with a soft yawn as he finally managed to pull away and return to work.

Soarin watched Rivet for a brief moment before catching Luna ‘nervously staring’ at him again.

“Okay, Luna,” Soarin flattened his brow. Luna’s eyes went wide, her pupils darted back and forth and she looked away… all very conspicuously. “What is it?” Soarin asked while turning and walking towards her. Luna looked back at Soarin, her eyes still wide as he approached and stared up at her curiously. She remained quiet for a moment before gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes. She looked away and sighed.

“It… is nothing. We’re sorry,” she stumbled over denial before looking towards Spitfire. “We apologize, but we must discuss something with Captain Spitfire in private.”

Soarin lifted an eyebrow, glancing over his shoulder for a moment at Dash before turning back to Luna and looking her over carefully.

“O…kay…” Soarin huffed. He thought he was done being left out of confidential discussions, but it was clear Luna wasn’t going to say a thing with him around. Dash walked up to him, wearing an expression of equal frustrated curiosity. Soarin wasn’t the only one who was tired of being left out of these discussions. She wasn’t of high rank, but anything having to do with Soarin also had to do with her more often than not.

“Come on…” Dash grabbed Soarin by the arm as she spoke in a less than enthusiastic tone. “Let’s go grab some food.”

“FLEETFOOT! THERE YOU ARE!” Air Mach’s voice suddenly echoed from the west hallway. Soarin and Dash both looked towards the center of the lobby to see Fleetfoot landing on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, staring towards the hallway as Rivet suddenly back-peddled into the lobby, his hooves slipping frantically as he pushed backwards. He dropped to the floor after scooting around ten yard back and covered his head as Air Mach leaped over him, slamming his hooves to the floor after clearing Rivet and skidding to a stop in front of Fleetfoot.

“What?” Fleetfoot cringed, scrunching her face and pulling her head back as Air Mach panted and wheezed, pointing towards her.

“Never fear! I’m here to save you!” he shouted triumphantly as Fleetfoot narrowed her eyes and folded her ears back.

“From what?!” she asked as she continued to inch backwards. Air Mach pointed to the ceiling and took a deep breath, but then he held it, blinking as he looked back and forth.

“I, uh… don’t remember,” he admitted, but then pointed right back down at Fleetfoot. “BUT ALAS! I WILL SUCCEED!” he yelled out as he hopped forward and tried to grab her. She immediately put up her hooves to smack his arms away.

“Hey! Son of a… DON’T TOUCH ME!” Fleetfoot snapped at him as she began shifting away from him, Air Mach giving chase.

“I shall not be denied the heroism I deserve!” Air Mach proclaimed as he chased Fleetfoot in circles.

“Oh my GOD! Stop!” Fleetfoot tried to fake him out, but ended up getting caught. Air Mach latched his hooved on her sides and hoisted her up into the air. “EEEE!” she yelped before swinging her wings down and slapping them right in Air Mach’s face, knocking his glasses off. He immediately let go of her, dropping her on the floor in favor of finding his glasses. Despite the rough landing it gave Fleetfoot the opportunity to get on her hooves and shuffle over to Rivet.

Rivet looked up from his position on the floor and his eyes went wide as he saw Fleetfoot charging at him with Air Mach right behind. Before he could make any moves, Fleetfoot scooped him up off the floor.

“Wah!” Rivet yelped as Fleetfoot turned and held him at arm’s length, facing Air Mach.

“Stay back!” Fleetfoot yelled at Air Mach. “I have a face-hugger and I’m not afraid to use it!”

“A what?! AH!” Rivet stuck all four of his hooves out as Air Mach ran directly into them and bounced off. He got right back up and pounded his chest.

“No challenge is too challenging!” he yelled as he ran at them again and tried to reach past Rivet to Fleetfoot.

“HEY! AH!” Rivet yelled as he kicked and flailed his hooves, continuously bopping Air Mach in the face as Fleetfoot fended him off with him. “PUT ME DOWN!”

“Should we help him? Er… them?” Rainbow Dash asked while trying not to laugh at the absolutely ridiculous scene. Soarin was already chuckling.

“Yeah, we probably should… I kind of brought this on them,” he agreed as the two moved to save Rivet from Fleetfoot and Fleetfoot from Air Mach and Air Mach from Rivet.

Luna kept her eyes trained on Soarin as the two left her alone with Spitfire. Spitfire’s groans of frustration pulling her focus back to her.

“Sometimes I wonder how this place doesn’t fall into complete, idiotic anarchy every few seconds,” Spitfire commented as she looked towards Luna. “Well, we’re alone now… you wanted to speak with me?”

“Y-yes…” Luna nodded as she stole one more glance at the commotion nearby as Soarin and Dash followed the triple struggle into the east hallway. “It’s something important regarding Commander Soarin.”

Spitfire blinked, and tipped her head down for a moment before throwing it back and releasing a very loud, exasperated sigh that lasted several seconds before she refocused on Luna, wearing a very flat expression.

“What now?” she asked with a tone that matched the face she was making. Luna just stared blankly for a moment. “Sorry,” Spitfire apologized while reaching a hoof up and rubbing her head. “There’s just a lot of difficult things on my mind right now… Soarin, Silver, Wave, the Shadowbolts, and a little bit of anxiety over our plans being a bit compromised. I’m thrilled that we claimed a victory and saved Wave, but one victory doesn’t win the war. We can’t get cocky and I can’t ignore duties.”

“We understand,” Luna nodded while letting her ears flop down. “However this is something we cannot overlook, and it has everything to do with the safety of everypony… and all of Equestria for that matter.”

Spitfire’s frustration vanished and her ears pointed up.

“Wait, wait… all of Equestria?” she asked while holding up a hoof. Luna nodded solemnly.

“That is correct,” she confirmed.

“What does Soarin have to do with Equestria-wide safety?” Spitfire asked, bewildered. “I thought we were already addressing that with the Shadowbolts.”

“We had a most disturbing conversation with Discord last night after he…” Luna huffed and puffed her cheeks. “Pulled us through several walls to find privacy.”

“Yeah, what was that about?” Spitfire asked curiously as she stood up and stepped towards Luna, sitting down closer to keep the tone hushed and private. “Discord wasn’t quite acting like himself yesterday, what’s going on?”

“What is bothering Discord is not something we know, nor do we believe he would ever reveal to us,” Luna said with a quiet sigh. “However… he revealed something most troubling to us about Soarin and the condition of the horn.”

“The condition?” Spitfire blinked. “NO…. nonono, he said it was just fine,” Spitfire narrowed her eyes. “I swear if he was lying through his pointy teeth…”

“He was,” Luna said while looking away and shaking her head.

“Oh, I swear…” Spitfire grumbled as she gritted her teeth. She had absolutely had it with Discord. Part of her didn’t even want to hear the rest of the explanation. “The next time I see that snake I’m gonna—”

“Be calm… Spitfire,” Luna encouraged, even though she sounded a little annoyed herself. “The lie was necessary… for Soarin’s ignorance to the danger he’s in will be the key to preventing this.” She paused and stared as Spitfire gave Luna several strange looks ranging from confused to miffed.

“Okay… okay…” Spitfire sighed as she hissed air loudly through her nostrils. “Fine, lay it on me, after everything we’ve gone through so far I doubt anything will surprise me now.”

“Up until now,” Luna began despite Spitfire’s lack of focus. She knew that would change shortly. “One key factor in Soarin’s ability to constantly keep the magic under control has been his willpower and his strong emotions. He has proven our worries wrong several times through unexpected showings of mental strength. It gave us confidence that the artifact mixed with these traits of his would keep the magic at bay for as long as possible… however a few mishaps showed us that his emotions could also have a negative effect…” she trailed off, noticing that Spitfire was waiting for her to get to the point. This was not news to Spitfire she had seen most of it, and heard about the rest already from more than one source. “The truth is,” Luna continued. “That the horn is not simply damaged on the surface. According to Discord, the horn is heavily damaged, inside and out, and now, more than ever, its physical state and integrity may rely on Soarin’s mental state.”

“Uh… what does that mean exactly?” Spitfire asked, lifting an eyebrow while trying to follow.

“Soarin’s emotions are now key in keeping the horn from breaking,” Luna explained putting on a very serious expression. “Should his confidence and morale remain high, the horn will likely stay durable. Should he become worried, scared, angered or any other weakened state of emotion or focus… the horn could shatter in a single, precise hit.”

“Oh…” Spitfire’s eyes went wide. “Oh, that’s not good…” she bit her lower lip as she looked down. “Just great, something else I have to worry about.”

“And we are sure you understand,” Luna carried on. “That Soarin is imbued with a powerful magic that—”

“Will consume him, I remember,” Spitfire clarified as she sighed.

“And likely take control of his body,” Luna added as Spitfire looked back up at her. “The threat is not to be taken lightly. We once felt we would be able to handle such a situation… but as Soarin’s power kept growing and we witnessed the magic more and more… our doubts have been growing with it.” Luna shook her head. “Now even Discord is convinced that all the power in Equestria wouldn’t be able to stop Soarin… should he fall prey to the power within. If what Discord says is true, not even our sister, were she available, would be able to stop it…”

Spitfire just stared blankly at Luna. After several moments, Luna looked back and forth awkwardly.

“We’re… sorry if this complicates things even further… but it cannot be ignored,” she tried to dispel the situation. Spitfire replied immediately.

“Complicates?” Spitfire threw her head back and groaned. “Princess… that’s putting it incredibly lightly!”

“Um… we’re…” Luna winced.

“Is this really what things have come to? You’re telling me that this possibly poses more of a danger than what we’ve already been fighting against? If this was so dangerous, then why did Celestia go through it in the first place?! I know she saved Soarin, but really? Suddenly our enemy is the least of our worries and the biggest threat is one of our own?! MMMRPH!” she was muffled as Luna used her magic to clamp Spitfire’s mouth down. Spitfire glared daggers at her, but Luna barely noticed as she frantically glanced around.

“Please… let us not get any others involved!” she pleaded. Spitfire sighed through her nose and gave Luna a flat look as her mouth was released. “Just listen to us… we cannot let Soarin know. If he is worried about his state, it will weaken the horn and make it more vulnerable.”

Spitfire’s expression remained flat. Luna could tell Spitfire was at the end of her rope with all of this.

“We’re… sorry…” Luna caved, but Spitfire quickly held up her hooves.

“No, no, stop…” Spitfire shook her head. “Don’t apologize. I’m not gonna whine to you about how frustrating this all is. It’s just going to be another hurdle that we have to jump over, but…” Spitfire folded her ears back. “Luna, please… PLEEEEEEEEEASE. Is there anything, anything at all that you can tell me about what Celestia’s motives were or about the magic she used? I feel like those details keep getting diluted or distorted,” she asked, hoping for something, anything that would help shed more light on the plight her best friend had been battling against for quite some time now. “Like I said, I’m grateful that Celestia saved Soarin, but are there things we are not being told?”

Luna looked down, not uttering a single word.

“Nothing?” Spitfire sighed. “Or are you just as starved for information as we are?”

“Truthfully, all we know is what has already been described,” Luna spoke up as she kept her eyes on the floor at her hooves. “The spell our sister used was of a forbidden art devised by Mad King Sombra. Magic meant to repair flesh and imbue the target with energy that would bring it back to life… rekindling a dead spirit, Necromancy. We were against it from the start. Not against saving Soarin, mind you, but it’s clear there have been unforeseen consequences, even with the failsafe assistance given to our sister by you and Rainbow Dash. The spell usually requires a deceased subject, but Soarin’s spirit was still intact upon performing the ritual, and the effects are clear. The magic grew from simply keeping him alive to trying to run rampant and possess him… and the burden it had on our sister has definitely been much more than she predicted.”

“At this point I’m beginning to wonder if Celestia lied to you,” Spitfire spoke up. Luna’s eyes went wide before they sharpened into a glare.

“Our sister would never—!”

“Would she?” Spitfire cut her off while lifting an eyebrow. “I seem to recall you weren’t entirely honest to us about the Renegades.”

Luna opened her mouth to retort, but she blinked and not a single sound came from her. She exhaled sharply as she looked back down at her hooves again.

“Well?” Spitfire pressed. “Face it, Princess. I think this whole situation has shown us the more vulnerable side of many things. This isn’t the time to believe anypony is beyond such things. Not even—”

“Stop,” Luna quickly said back as she shook her head. Spitfire kept looking directly at Luna, but Luna continued to avert her eyes.

The sight would have been interesting had any other pony been around. Normally the roles would be reversed, but Luna knew Spitfire was right. She didn’t want to show weakness as a goddess, but as Spitfire had said. The whole ordeal had pulled many ponies down a notch… her included.

But then it hit her.

Despite her defensive response… she was already looking away from the truth that was a lie. She already knew, thanks to Discord… that Celestia had lied to her about Soarin being key to a ‘vision’ of the future.

Soarin was supposed to be dead, and Celestia went through the magic transfer anyway. Did Celestia make it all up? Had she seen something else entirely and lied to avoid more protest? Or was she pursuing a different goal?

“With how things have gone,” Luna finally spoke again. “And how our sister’s reassurance of her quick return has proven false…” Luna paused, releasing a long sigh. “We are willing to entertain the thought that there is more than we are aware of, yes.”

Spitfire remained quiet, locking eyes with Princess Luna as the two of them once again held equal ground.

“And I’m going to readily assume that Discord has not said anything more on the magic?” Spitfire asked.

“He has been tight lipped about it,” Luna grunted with discontent. “But we know he knows something… after all, he keeps claiming that he is acting on our sister’s behalf, yet never explains why. How he annoys us so with secrecy…” Luna trailed off and blinked when she saw Spitfire lifting an eyebrow at her last statement. “Oh…” Luna looked away awkwardly, since she herself had engaged in said secrecy.

“Well… let’s get back on the here and now…” Spitfire said reluctantly as she decided to drop the further subject. “So here we are… What are we going to do about Soarin?”

“We must keep him confined and out of action… without telling him the true reason why,” Luna quickly explained to get back on track.

“That’s…” Spitfire furrowed her brow. “Not going to be easy. Trying to keep Soarin out of action is like trying to derail a train with a paper cup. He already gets himself into danger when it can be avoided on a regular basis and it’ll be even harder when his body heals up.”

“We know,” Luna agreed with a nod. “But we also know that you know him best. We thought about addressing Rainbow Dash on the matter, but we weren’t sure if her strong loyalty would prevent her from keeping it a secret from him.”

“That may have been the right choice,” Spitfire followed up, finding no argument with that.

“And Commander Fleetfoot—”

“No, that would be a definite no,” Spitfire cut her off. “You were right to come to me about it as his captain and longtime friend. I’ll figure something out. It may be just as simple as stressing we don’t want the horn to be damaged without raising the real concerns.”

Spitfire kept pondering quietly to herself, but looked up when Luna remained silent. Luna was looking down again… and that was starting to bother Spitfire. Yes, they had a small clash of words just now, but Luna had to remain strong.

“Look, Princess…”

“We’re sorry,” Luna spoke up quickly, causing Spitfire to stop and tip her head. Another apology?

“For?” Spitfire asked curiously.

“We feel as if we have not been as helpful as we should be,” Luna explained in a tone that was strange for what she was saying. It didn’t sound somber or defeated. She was speaking in a strong, serious tone as if it was a matter that had to be addressed officially. “For all we stand for, we have done nothing but fall short. Not just us, but all the gods involved. Our sister, the most powerful being in Equestria, is unable to act. Discord, a sure and true wildcard, is bound by an objective he refuses to share. And we… I… While not as powerful as our sister, should be highly capable of having a large impact. Yet it seems we have heavily missed the mark.”

Spitfire stared right up into Luna’s serious gaze and blinked.

“Luna, did you forget that you shielded the whole damn compound from certain destruction during our first run-in with the Shadowbolt fortress? Not to mention you JUST worked the dragon illusion for us in our operation to save Wave.” She explained. “I’d say you’ve been very helpful.”

“But we should be doing more,” Luna replied sharply. “For all the power we have, and everything we are capable of, we’re afraid we’ve not offered many solutions.”

“Luna, whether or not you are a goddess and no matter how much you’ve done for us, you have to realize that your presence alone has had a positive effect,” Spitfire said as she stepped up to Luna. “We’re in disarray right now, we’re confused, and not really sure if we’re going to survive. The good vibes of our victory are only going to be a temporary high. Having a familiar, ruling icon such as yourself around has been a consistent morale boost.”

“Still, we are a goddess, and a lot is to be expected of us,” Luna countered… starting to sound like a broken record.

“No,” Spitfire shook her head, causing Luna to tip her head curiously. “Stop worrying about it, please. If we were bowing at your hooves and pleading for you to save us, things would be different, but we’re not doing that. Yes, you’re a goddess, but no, we are not relying on you as the solution. If that’s really how we felt, the way you buckled beneath the power of the fortress cannon would have sucked the confidence out of all of us and left us completely broken. We’re the Wonderbolts. We’re trained to fight the unknown and unheard of. Facing something that even a goddess struggles against? That’s just another day at the office.”

Luna remained silent, her eyes widening slightly as Spitfire explained.

“It was clear to us very early on that we weren’t dealing with something ordinary. We never viewed raw power as being the answer to this. Don’t get me wrong, having divine alicorn magic on our side is a trump card I would NEVER turn down. And I’m sure there will be times going forward when your power may get us out of a bind again, but I’m not going to plan around it or expect anything from you,” she spread her wings and hovered up to get eye level with Luna. She placed a hoof on Luna’s shoulder while smiling. “Just stay strong for us, alright? Like I said, your presence alone is having a positive effect on our morale. So don’t sweat it. We’re glad you’re here and we’re glad to have you in our arsenal.”

Luna smiled, closing her eyes and sighing lightly.

“Thank you, Captain Spitfire. We deeply appreciate the vote of confidence. We shall continue to be at your disposal for as long as you need us.”

“Good to hear,” Spitfire nodded as she pulled back and lowered herself back to the floor.

No other words were said as Luna turned and made her way back towards the east hallway and the battle dome. Spitfire kept her smile on until Luna was out of sight and then looked back out the doors at the Falcon.

She stared at it for several moments as her thoughts swirled around in her head. Thoughts of things that had happened, thoughts of conversations that just happened, and thoughts about what was going to happen next…

But then one thought stopped dead, front, and center causing her ears to twitch back and forth before they flopped down to the sides of her head and her heart sank.

“I’m not Silver, my body is still functioning.”

Soarin was being lighthearted, but his words cut into her deep. She looked up as she heard the sound of hooves clip clopping across the lobby. Soarin and Rainbow Dash trotted through back to the east hallway while laughing and joking with each other.

“I’m not Silver…”

Spitfire looked down and her pupils darted back and forth as she bit her lower lip. She hugged herself tight as she began to shiver. The heat was on… it wasn’t cold, but…

She looked up again as she heard another set of hooves. Fleetfoot was trotting through, following far behind Soarin and Dash. The moment Spitfire saw her, she called out.

“Fleet!” she yelled. Fleetfoot stopped right in her tracks, turned, and tipped her head as she stared towards Spitfire. Spitfire reached up a hoof and beckoned Fleetfoot towards her. Fleetfoot glanced back down the east hallway before turning and moving towards Spitfire.

“What’s up?” Fleetfoot asked casually, clearly relieved to be free of Air Mach’s pursuit. It wasn’t until she got a little closer that she noticed Spitfire’s demeanor. Her smile faded and her mouth hung slightly ajar as she noticed how… weak Spitfire looked. “Spitty?”

“I…” Spitfire stuttered. “I need… uh…”

“Whoa… whoa!” Fleetfoot picked up her pace into a canter, stopping in front of Spitfire and reaching both of her hooves to Spitfire’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?” she asked with worry. Spitfire had been nothing but a pillar of strength and confidence for the past twenty-four hours from the moment she declared they were going to save Wave, to their victory and the day after… what was eating at her?

“I need… some help with something…” Spitfire continued to speak in broken sentences, her body still shaking a little as she looked away from Fleetfoot. She looked incredibly uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong?!” Fleetfoot asked again, looking down at her outstretched arms. “You’re shaking!”

“I know,” Spitfire replied, reaching up and grabbing one of Fleetfoot’s arms. “I can’t… I just can’t wait to do this any longer. It would be unfair to let this linger for a week. It will be unfair to him and just claw at me. I can’t avoid it anymore, I…”

“What?” Fleetfoot pressed as she clasped a hoof over Spitfire’s. “Who?”

“It was already hard telling Blazetail and Flashwind about Rapidfire… This is going to be worse,” Spitfire looked Fleetfoot in the eyes. “Please… I need support here. I don’t know if I can do this one alone…”

“Spitty,” Fleetfoot narrowed her eyes. “Stop dancing around it! What are you talking about?!”

Spitfire closed her eyes and swallowed.

“Silver.”

“It’s hilarious how good dried food tastes when you’re really hungry,” Soarin joked, popping his last almond into his mouth as he and Dash walked back into the infirmary.

“SILVER!”

They both came to an abrupt halt, looking down the aisle to see Silver hobbling towards them. He was quickly surrounded by Bliss’ magic and halted in place.

“Dammit…” Silver grumbled as his hooves skidded along the floor back towards his bed. Bliss was standing beside it as her magic drew Silver back, tapping her right hoof impatiently.

“I mean it, I’ll strap you to the bed!” she repeated her threat from before.

“Hmph…” Silver scoffed as Mahogany and Witching Hour stopped by to help hoist him up and back onto the bed again. “Until you make good on that threat, I’m gonna keep trying,” he stated defiantly.

Soarin and Dash glanced at each other and blinked before erupting into fits of giggles.

“Somepony is determined,” Soarin said as the two of them moved down the aisle towards Soarin’s assigned bed beside Silver.

“I could have told Bliss he would never listen,” Dash added with a continued chuckle as the two passed right by Silver and Bliss, Bliss glaring daggers at him as Silver simply shrugged her stern eyes off.

Bliss eventually huffed and turned away from Silver, her eyes landing on Dash as she and Soarin moved by.

“Ah, Rainbow Dash, perfect timing, I need a distraction,” Bliss said flatly as her magic came to life on her horn and aura surrounded Dash’s hoof.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped in surprise as Bliss’s magic pulled her away from Soarin and towards a stool nearby.

“Sit down so I can do some concussion checks,” Bliss ordered, her flat tone remaining constant. Dash looked past her at Soarin, who smiled at Dash and pointed at his bed to reassure her that he wasn’t going anywhere. Dash smiled back before letting Bliss do another examination.

As Dash did as she was told, following Bliss’ hoof with her eyes when asked and doing a few resistance tests against her arms, she noticed a familiar group walk in. Storm Front and Matteo walked through the door, followed close behind by Twister, who shot through the door and dove into Matteo’s feathers.

Storm flinched and stared at Matteo as Twister took part in his usual griffon shenanigans, but Matteo just shook his head and casually started walking, completely used to it by now.

“Dash, focus,” Bliss asked.

“Oh, sorry,” she winced as she looked back at the slightly miffed Bliss and continued with the test. Without breaking her focus, she saw both Storm and Matteo make their way down the aisle. Matteo stopped in front of Silver for a moment, Storm doing the same with Soarin. Matteo didn’t get a word out of Silver and kept moving, Storm following right behind him after greeting Soarin.

“Turn right,” Bliss ordered. Dash quickly complied, conveniently giving her a view down the aisle.

Storm and Matteo were clearly heading towards Squall and Little Star, which led their path past Starry Skies… who was also still resting in the infirmary. While Matteo carried on, Storm Front stopped and looked Starry over. He didn’t move for several moments… until Starry Skies suddenly twitched and shifted her position. The small movement made Storm nearly leap a yard into the air before he scurried after Matteo.

“Pffffff…” a sharp breath that sounded like a stifled laugh came from Soarin. Dash glanced back to see Soarin watching Storm and holding his breath.

“All done, better than yesterday,” Bliss patted Dash on the shoulder.

“Thank—” Dash couldn’t even finish before Bliss had turned and walked quickly back towards the front of the infirmary. “Heh…” Dash smirked. Yeah, sure, it was at Bliss’ expense, but knowing it was due to Silver’s neverending stubbornness added a humorous factor to it.

“Did you see that?” Soarin asked, still chuckling as Dash hopped down and walked up to his bed.

“What, Storm?” she clarified, Soarin quickly nodding.

“He almost went through the ceiling when Starry Skies stirred. I wonder what that was all about?” he said as he started inching off the bed.

“Let’s…” Dash trailed off as she glanced back at Silver. She wanted to go join her squad but…

“Come on,” Soarin encouraged while tapping her on the shoulder and pointing towards Bliss approaching with Witching Hour, holding several bandages and supplies towards Silver. “He has plenty of ‘company,’ we’ll come right back,” he both joked and assured her. Dash kept watching as Bliss kept a sharp stare on Silver. As she and Witching began to work on replacing his bandages, her worry faded.

“Yeah,” she snickered. “He’ll have his hooves full for a little bit,” she agreed.

The two started making their way towards the small gathering, Matteo was trying to talk to Squall, but he wasn’t paying much attention. Twister had removed himself from Matteo’s feathers and was slowly inching his face over the top of the mattress beside Squall.

But then suddenly, right before Soarin and Dash could reach the group. Little Star stirred and released a little groan. Everypony looked towards her, but no sooner than a moment after, Squall sprang up, his eyes wide as he backed up and bumped right into Matteo, falling flat to the floor.

“What the…” Matteo blinked as he looked down to see Squall frantically trying to get back on his hooves. “Squall, what are you…”

“Hgggnnn…” Little Star groaned a little louder as she shuddered and turned over.

Squall grabbed hold of Matteo’s lion fur and yanked on it to pull himself up, earning a squawk of discontent from him, but before Matteo could glare at him, Squall turned and broke into a gallop, completely flattening Twister before running smack into Storm Front and coming to another halt with Twister stuck to his back left hoof.

“Whoa! Squall?!” Storm blinked as he stumbled backward. Squall reached forward and pushed Storm out of the way before galloping down the aisle, stopping briefly to kick Twister off his leg, sending him laughing maniacally into an open cabinet that slammed shut before Squall continued on his course.

Dash realized what Squall was doing and tried to get in his way before he could escape, but she was an inch too late, just missing him as she reached a hoof out to stop him.

“Squall!” Dash yelled as he thundered down the aisle towards the entrance.

“No running please!” Bliss said sternly as Squall passed by her, but he didn’t listen.

“SQUALL! COME BACK HERE!” Dash yelled again, but it was no use, Squall was gone.

“What’s all the racket…?” Little Star groaned as her eyes fluttered open and she cringed. She reached down and grabbed her side as she shuddered. “Oooo… Ahhh… owowow…” she voiced her pain quietly.

Dash sighed as she turned back towards Star. Soarin was still looking back at the entrance as they started walking again.

“That was interesting…” Soarin commented with a chuckle as Dash groaned.

“That guy… seriously… sometimes I wanna smack him upside the head,” she grumbled as they drew near.

“Why is that?” Soarin asked with a snicker.

“He keeps running from things that would be good for him, I understand he’s afraid of some things but, rgggghhh… it would be so good for him!” she ranted as they finally made it up to Star’s bed, where Matteo and Storm were already looking her over and smiling.

“Hey guys…” Star squeaked weakly as she smiled up at Matteo and Storm. Rainbow Dash moved up beside Storm to look down at her as well with Soarin hovering behind her.

“How are you feeling?” Dash spoke up, eager to know the state of her brave little squadmate.

“A little stiff and sore…ow!” she winced again. “And a little painful, but I’m alive,” she said with another weak smile. She followed up with a very long yawn as her body shuddered. “Yikes… hurts to move. How long have I been asleep?”

“Couldn’t say,” Dash shrugged. “We’ve been in and out since you last woke up yesterday, but I’m glad you’re getting rest, you earned it.”

“Rest and recover,” Matteo spoke up. “Your selfless acts of honor and bravery have earned you that much.”

Twister suddenly stuck his head out from Matteo’s chest feathers wearing a monocle, a fake moustache, and holding a cup of tea.

“I say, chap, would a nice cup of tea get the blood flow—” he was cut off as Matteo calmly reached up and stuffed Twister back into his feathers.

“You not only saved Squall, but you motivated him to take action that may have ultimately saved us as well,” Matteo continued despite being interrupted. “On my griffon honor, I commend you.”

“Gee, thanks,” Star accepted, with a tiny bit of sarcasm since Matteo was going all ‘griffon-code’ on her. She looked back and forth at all of them. Matteo and Dash were still looking at her. Storm seemed distracted by something. Twister was sitting on Dash’s back, slowly reaching a hoof towards Soarin’s horn. Soarin had skeptical eyes locked on Twister and was slowly tipping his head away to avoid Twister’s hoof. Star barely noticed the shenanigans though, because she couldn’t find a certain stallion. “Speaking of which… where is Squall?”

Matteo and Storm glanced at each other as Dash released a long sigh, followed by giving her left wing a hard flap to smack Twister in the side of the head, forcing him off her back as he fell to the ground… very slowly, while making a loud screeching, screaming noise that slowly faded as if he was falling several thousand yards.

“He WAS here a moment ago,” Dash said with frustration. “He left right before you woke up.”

Star pouted as Dash explained, clear disappointment on her face.

“Why did he leave?” she asked, her voice sounding just as disappointed as she looked.

“Cause he’s a wuss when it comes to—”

“We cannot say,” Matteo cut off Dash while suddenly pushing the shanks of his talons down over her head. “However, he has not left your side since we returned,” he explained straightforwardly.

“Huh?” Star tried to sit up as her eyes widened a little, but her attempt quickly failed due to the pain. Dash felt a bit scrunched with Matteo pushing down on her, but instead of protesting, she listened.

“We’ve come to check on you many times,” Matteo continued. “Every time, Squall was already here, keeping an eye on you. He refused to leave, even for food, forcing us to bring it to him from the battle dome. He has not spoken to us about his devotion to watching over you, but he has been dedicated to you since our return.” Matteo finished as he gently removed his talon shanks from around Dash’s head.

“What he said,” Dash echoed, smiling while pointing at Matteo, ultimately surprised that Matteo came right out with it. Then again, the way Matteo always spoke of devotion, pride, and honor, he probably felt the need to praise Squall despite their on and off love/hate relationship as squadmates.

“Wow, really?” Star said as she slowly rested her head back down on the mattress. “And he ran off when I woke up…” She lay still for a moment before smiling and rolling her eyes. “That dope…” she said quietly with a giggle and light blush.

“I tried to stop him but—” Dash suddenly blinked and ducked as a plastic arrow with a suction tip flew over her head. It zipped towards Matteo and stuck to his beak with a quiet POP. Matteo didn’t even flinch, he just glanced at his beak and lifted an eyebrow. The arrow had a heart as the feather. Dash looked opposite of her and saw Twister wearing paper angel wings over his own with a wire attached to a halo bobbing over his head. He hovered in midair, whistling innocently while failing to hide a pink bow and additional arrow behind him.

“I tried to stop him, but he bolted like he was scared to death the moment you started waking up,” Dash repeated as Matteo tried to pull the toy arrow off his beak, but found it stuck quite firmly. “So yeah, ‘dope’ is probably the right word. He wouldn’t take his eyes off of you, barely paid attention to anything going on around him, and tried to hide from me every time I came to check on you.”

“Hehe! Oo, ow!” Star cringed as she giggled. “Well, he better be ready,” she said with a cute sigh. “Cause the next time I see him, he’s getting a big hug, whether he likes it or not.”

Soarin scooted himself slightly back as he watched Matteo continue to yank and pull on the arrow stuck to his beak. He decided to give himself a little more room as Twister hopped up on Matteo’s head and began sticking more of the toy arrows all over his beak. The building ‘situation’ could easily end with somepony being whacked by a flailing griffon arm.

Dash was still conversing and laughing with Little Star about Squall’s amusing tactics to try and hide his selfless actions, but somepony had been strangely silent throughout.

Storm Front was sitting among them, also giving himself a little bit of space away from Matteo and Twister. He hadn’t said a word to Little Star as Dash, Matteo, and Twister, in his own way, all spoke to her. He seemed to be distracted by something. Soarin was only just now picking up on it. Storm held a constant warm smile when looking at Little Star, but every few seconds he was glancing elsewhere. After watching him do it three or four times, Soarin noticed it was always in the same direction.

Soarin turned his head and looked in the same direction, but there were plenty of things to look at going back towards the entrance of the infirmary. Starry Skies was just a few beds down. Further down, Silver was being scolded by Bliss for not lying still as she and her assistants tried to change his bandages. Then at the front… Soarin perked up upon seeing Spitfire and Fleetfoot walk in, followed by Spitfire suddenly turning around and walking right back out. Fleetfoot turned around and followed her quickly.

While that little instance had him curious, he still wanted to know what had Storm so distracted. But honestly, he already had a feeling based on his little moment where a simple stir from Starry Skies nearly sent him through the ceiling.

He reached over and tapped Storm on the shoulder.

“Ah!” Storm yelped, but quickly covered his mouth as his ears flopped down and he turned to look at Soarin. Soarin held his breath and scrunched his mouth as he snickered.

“Whoa there, someone’s a little high strung,” Soarin joked as Storm exhaled and loosened up. He glanced at the others still conversing with Little Star before turning and shifting over near Soarin.

“Sorry…” he apologized meekly while scratching the back of his head.

“What’s up? You’ve been quiet the whole time,” Soarin pointed out.

“I have?” Storm blinked. “Uh…”

“Yeah, you have,” Soarin smirked.

“Well, uh… I kind of… wanted to… uh…”

“Starry Skies?” Soarin said before he could finish. Storm’s eyes widened and he blinked. “I just figured,” Soarin shrugged. "I saw you flinch like you got struck by lightning while walking by her.”

“Aw jeez, you saw that?” Storm looked town and sighed, embarrassed.

“So what’s up? Something you wanted to do regarding Starry?” Soarin pressed.

“Well, uh… yes,” Storm admitted, looking back up with an awkward expression.

“Well, what is it?” Soarin continued to chuckle at Storm’s hesitant demeanor.

“I… wanted to ask her how she’s doing,” Storm followed up.

Soarin lifted his brow and tipped his head slightly. That was it? That was all he was getting worked up about?

“I mean, you know,” Storm looked away and rubbed the back of his head again. “She’s a very good friend of my father’s and… I dunno, I guess I just felt like, it would be a nice thing to do?”

Soarin smiled. Getting to know Storm had been an interesting experience, that along with teaching him the basics of the Sonic Blast Off. But if there was one thing that always impressed Soarin, it was Storm’s respect and sympathy. Even if he didn’t know a pony well, or if the pony wasn’t necessarily nice to him, he always worried about the wellbeing of others. It was something that had been tested, and something that had initially worried Spitfire and other elites in terms of entering battle, but Storm had proven capable of setting aside personal feelings if the situation called for it. Sure, he had a few spats with Squall here and there, but from what he heard, that was more a conflict of values and personal issues.

“Okay, then go do it,” Soarin encouraged, but Storm didn’t budge, glancing towards Starry Skies as she continued to rest… and clutch her pillow. “Storm?”

“Er… I want to, but…” Storm winced.

“But?” Soarin pressed, anticipating an amusing answer.

“But, you know how she is… I’m afraid she might bite my head off…”

“PFFFFFFFFFFF…” Soarin held in the laughter as he bent forward and clutched an arm around his stomach. Storm pouted as he looked away shamefully.

“I’d like to think my worry is justified, she’s not very… friendly,” Storm admitted his unwillingness. Soarin shook his head as he managed to hold down the belly laugh.

“Oh, come on,” he chuckled. “If Fleetfoot can handle her, there’s no reason you can’t.”

“That’s hardly a comparison,” Storm twitched awkwardly. “I’d rather not employ the same… sexually driven tactics as Commander Fleetfoot.”

“HA!” Soarin failed to hold back a guffaw as he reached out and grabbed Storm by the shoulder. “I was joking,” he assured Storm. “Come on, you…” he said as he started pulling Storm along.

“Ah!” Storm yelped as he was forced to his hooves and moved behind him.

“Stallion up and face the big bad Starry Skies. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she doesn’t cook and eat you,” Soarin joked as he felt Storm half-heartedly resist.

“Uh… alright…” Storm gave in as Soarin pulled him away from the group and the two approached Starry Skies three tables down.

She was still asleep, or at least appeared to be, and was still curled up and clutching a pillow within all four of her limbs.

They stopped in front of her, but Storm didn’t make any move. Soarin glanced down at him and rolled his eyes before opening a wing and nudging Storm forward.

Storm gritted his teeth as he looked upon Starry, biting his lower lip as he struggled to find any words. He took a deep breath and let his head hang down for a moment before looking up and swallowing.

“S…Starry Skies?” he said her name.

She gave no response.

“Well, looks like she’s still asleep!” Storm said quietly, turning around quickly with a very fake smile on his face. “Guess I’ll have to come back later or not at all!”

Soarin was about to reach forward and stop him, but he didn’t have to.

“WHAT?” Starry suddenly spoke with a sharp tone, causing Storm to squeak and freeze in place for a moment. Storm slowly and shakily looked over his shoulder to see Starry glaring at him, a frightful sight that was amplified by how messy her mane had become after digging into the mattress for so long, loose strands everywhere and big chunks sticking in odd directions.

“Uh…!” Storm tried to speak, but was still not fully turned towards her.

“For the love of…” Soarin sighed, reaching forward and forcefully turning Storm so he was squared up to her.

“Er… HI!” Storm smiled as wide as he could, but couldn’t hide the nervous look in his eyes.

Starry Skies lifted an eyebrow before snorting and letting her head plop back down on the mattress.

“Buzz off,” she hissed before closing her eyes, clutching her pillow tighter, and digging her nose into it. Storm’s smile faded instantly and his ears slapped to the sides of his head.

“Wow, what a ray of sunshine,” Soarin commented, causing Starry’s eyes to snap back open and glare towards him, her face mostly hidden by the pillow.

“Got a problem, princess?” Starry asked, her voice muffled by the pillow.

“Like I haven’t heard that one a million times already,” Soarin shrugged off her words before stepping up beside Storm and nudging him forward again. “Come on Storm, just ask her.”

Storm flinched as Starry glared at him again.

“Uh…” he hesitated but despite Starry’s expected mood and tone, he still wanted to go through with it. “I just… uh…”

Soarin glanced down at Storm, sighing. He could tell Storm wanted to say it, but Starry wasn’t being very welcome… big surprise.

As Storm struggled, Starry began moving to turn over and face away, but before she could get halfway, Storm blurted it out.

“I just…! Wanted to ask… how you are feeling…?” he started strong and slowly fizzled out, just barely getting the whole question. Starry paused mid-roll, on her back with the pillow above her. She blinked before turning her head, tipping an eyebrow up before switching to the other a moment later.

“What?” she asked with a tone that was less harsh and more confused.

“I just wanted to…” Storm started repeating, pausing to swallow nervously before finishing. “Ask… how you are feeling…”

Starry kept staring for several seconds before flattening her brow and folding her ears backwards, the motion of which batted aside bits of her crazy bed-mane.

“I’m fine,” she said flatly before continuing her motion and facing away. “Now get lost, kid.”

“Alright that does it,” Soarin growled as he nudged Storm aside and roughly patted his hoof on the mattress beside Starry. “Why do you have to be like that? Are you really that unappreciative of simple kindness?”

“Leave me alone,” Starry growled as Soarin narrowed his eyes.

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Starry tipped her head, not enough to put Soarin in her view, but enough for a reaction.

“I said no. Descent walks in and expresses worry for you… and you reassure him you’re fine. You didn’t snap, or be testy with him,” Soarin described the scene he saw between them the day before.

“Descent is different,” Starry said flatly as she let her head fall back down, still facing away.

“That sounds like an excuse, are you afraid that somepony might think you’re friendly?” Soarin asked sarcastically. Starry slowly turned herself back over and glared.

“Shut the hell up and go away,” she growled. “You don’t know Descent.”

“Apparently you don’t either,” Soarin quickly retorted while stepping aside and glancing at Storm.

“What?! I…” Starry began, but she clearly did so before thinking because she stopped cold, mid-sentence. Storm glanced between Soarin and Starry, not sure what his simple desire to check on Starry had suddenly turned into. “Hrrrgnnn…” Starry groaned as she clutched her pillow and stuffed her face into it again.

“Well?” Soarin pressed. He knew she was recovering, but he wasn’t going to let her get out of this push away Storm.

“Hmph…” Starry huffed as she removed her nose from the pillow and rested her chin on top of it, looking towards Storm with narrow eyelids. “Just please go away…” she said in a much, much different tone while averting her eyes from Storm. “I really don’t want to talk to you.”

“But…” Storm spoke up, causing Soarin to glance back at him, and then step aside. Storm took a few steps towards her. “Why?” he asked simply, remaining silent for a moment. “Does something about me… bother you?”

Starry released a long, exasperated breath from her nostrils as she let her chin sink deeper into the pillow and she visibly clutched it tighter.

“Look, kid…” she began. “I have nothing against you. I really don’t… it’s just…” she trailed off. “Forget it…”

“No! Please, tell me…” Storm pleaded. Soarin could see the change in Storm’s demeanor. He stepped up beside him to listen as well as Storm pursued answers. He knew how Storm was… how he only wished the best for those around him. Starry had unknowingly opened up a new issue the moment she made Storm feel like he had some sort of negative effect on her. Seeing that Storm wasn’t going to go away, Starry sighed and gave in.

“I thought… I knew Descent,” she admitted. “He’s one of the only ponies I’ve ever trusted in my life,” Starry explained. “The other… was Nightshade. Over time, Nightshade ended up turning into something I didn’t even recognize anymore, which left Descent as the only pony I felt I could count on,” she paused as her eyes landed directly on Storm again. “Then you came into the picture. And just like that I found myself looking at Descent as if I didn’t even know him. He started acting differently, I saw him show a side of himself I didn’t know existed. The fierce, ruthless fighter I had come to trust by my side in battle… a soft, caring father?” Starry shook her head. “It broke everything. The last pony I trusted had not been completely honest with me about who he really was. He’s been completely different since you showed up. He’s been emotional, showing doubt on his actions… expressing worry for me when in the past he’s told me to suck it up and get on my hooves.” Starry released a loud sigh as she clutched her pillow very tightly. “I don’t even know who he is anymore and it’s getting to me. My life has been nothing but battle after battle, I’ve cared about nothing else. I never felt alone because I always had two ponies beside me with the exact same outlook. Now they are both gone… I feel alone.”

Storm and Soarin both blinked, neither of them expecting such a sudden… burst and expression of thoughts from the usually stone faced Starry Skies.

“There, you happy?” Starry grunted as she turned back over. “Now go away, and so help me, if you tell anyone about this I will kill you both.”

“Starry,” Soarin spoke up while sighing. “Do you really not trust Descent anymore?”

“I don’t,” she said bluntly.

“I think you do, why are you still following his orders?” Soarin pressed.

“Because I follow the strongest, that’s the Shadowbolt code.” Her tone had turned completely flat.

“It’s not because you trust him?” Soarin kept going.

“Are you even listening to me?” Starry growled quietly.

“I am, and I don’t believe you,” Soarin said as he leaned forward onto her mattress. “I think you’re making excuses.”

“Think whatever the hell you want, you don’t know me,” Starry huffed, refusing to face him.

“Maybe I don’t, but I understand how leadership works,” Soarin started reaching for her. “Your code says the strongest leads, but a leader can’t lead without trust or the confidence of those who follow. And you’ve known about Storm for a while now. If you don’t trust him, then why do you still—”

The moment his hoof touched her shoulder she threw herself around, swinging her arm out and swatting his away. Facing them now, she wore an incredibly angry expression, face scrunched up and teeth bared.

“Shut up!” she yelled, her voice very shaky. “Ah!” she put a hoof to her forehead, wincing harshly before tightening her grip on the pillow and stuffing her face into it. Her body shook as she still felt the effects of her brief crystal use.

Soarin looked around, seeing that attention had been drawn to them. Dash and Squad Foxtrot were all staring towards them, Bliss and her assistants looking towards them as well. Silver was the only one who didn’t show any interest.

Starry looked up at Soarin once her shaking ceased, her eyes were wide, devoid of strength as she panted.

“Please… just stop it… I don’t…” she hugged the pillow tightly. “I really don’t want to talk about it, please… my world and everything I believe in has been turned upside down and Descent’s deception was the last, hardest slap to the face. My trust in him was all I had left and I’m conflicted on what to believe in now.”

Soarin looked down, staring at the floor as he heard the weakness in Starry’s voice. He didn’t regret confronting her, but at the same time felt sorry for her.

Then he felt a hoof tap his shoulder.

Soarin looked to the side to see Storm walk by him and approach Starry.

“Starry…” he spoke up, causing her to just barely look up from the pillow. “You can trust my father,” he said reassuringly. “You and I are more similar than you think. After all, I didn’t know about my father’s life as a Shadowbolt.”

Starry blinked, removing her face completely from the pillow as Storm spoke.

“I was shocked… frankly, a little appalled to hear about what he really did, what he had done… how he had killed Matteo’s father and many others over the course of his life. I didn’t know what to believe either, but despite the discovery, he still showed me the side of him that I knew and the side I believed in. It’s difficult for him… I can see it every time he speaks to me. The two lives he lived are now smashed together and he’s not sure what to do. Some of his softer side is carrying over to the harder in the way he’s showing care for you and his afflicted comrades… and likewise, he sometimes shows a harder, sterner side with me that I’m not quite used to… but he’s still the father that was always there for me.”

Storm reached up and put a hoof on her shoulder, just as Soarin had, but she didn’t retaliate this time. In fact, she looked at him in a similar way she looked at Descent when he made the same gesture the day before.

“Maybe your trust for him has been damaged… Maybe he doesn’t seem like the Descent you trusted anymore… but he still trusts you and relies on you for support through this rough patch. I know he does.” Storm gave her shoulder a pat. “Please rest and get better for him. He needs you.”

Storm didn’t even wait for her to respond, as if he knew she wouldn’t. He simply turned back to Soarin and nodded.

“Come on, let’s leave her be,” he suggested. Soarin looked between him and Starry as she stared at him before his lips curled into a small grin and he followed behind Storm.

He was proud of Storm. Soarin felt like he put himself in a little bit of a corner throughout that situation, arguing with Starry on how she should feel. In reality, he didn’t want to decide that for her, but he felt she was being irrational. Soarin had a lot of respect for Descent, and that wasn’t an easy thing for Descent to earn, considering that he had a major hoof in creating Soarin’s current situation with the magic and all. It was hard for him to hear a pony very close to Descent voice such doubt about him. It got to a point where he felt he went too far, and then Storm bailed him out like a champ, channeling a bit of his father in the process.

Storm and Starry were in the same boat, but on different ends, teetering back and forth wondering who Descent really was. It may have been easier for Storm to accept due to his inherent nature being much more positive than Starry’s, but she had no reason to doubt Descent. If anything, Soarin felt this new side of Descent would be good for her and the rather negative view she carried like a badge of honor over every possible subject.

“What was that about?” Dash asked Soarin as she watched Storm walk up to Little Star with a smile on his face.

“The son reassuring her about the father,” Soarin said with a smile. Dash tipped her head and blinked, glancing between Storm and Starry Skies, who was still looking at Storm, but had her head back down on the pillow. “You know how Starry is… I think she’s afraid of ever showing any sort of compassion or anything she might feel is ‘soft,” Soarin explained as he also looked towards Starry. “But she can’t hide it,” he continued as he looked back at Dash and smiled. “I mean… did she forget most of us were there when she faltered about Nightshade after checking on our captives?” he chuckled, remembering when Starry acted like she didn’t care about the Shadowbolts that were battling the crystal affliction.

“Some have a hard time being realistic with themselves,” Dash commented as she sighed. “That’s something I’ve seen a lot of over the past few months… from myself included. If anything, it’s a reminder that none of us are perfect,” she paused, smirked, and poked Soarin in the chest. “But don’t you dare go around telling people I said that, I have an image of being awesome to keep up.”

“Fair enough,” Soarin chuckled, blinking as he saw Dash lean over and look past him, but not towards Starry. He turned and glanced over his shoulder, tracing her eyes towards Silver. Bliss and her assistants had just finished changing his bandages, leaving him right back where he started despite all his attempts to escape. The moment Bliss stepped away, Silver reached up and angrily ripped the bandages close to his nose again. “Pfff…” Soarin held in a laugh as he started turning back. “Want to go—”

He blinked as he saw Dash already moving past him towards Silver.

“I’ll take that as a yes…” Soarin chuckled as he stole one glance back at Storm, to see him now happily conversing with Star and checking up on her. With Storm back to his usual self, Soarin followed behind Dash, catching up with her as they approached Silver.

But Soarin perked up, both of them stopping as something caught their eyes, specifically Soarin.

Spitfire had returned to the infirmary, walking very slowly as Fleetfoot walked behind her with a hoof on her back. Just a little earlier, Soarin saw Spitfire walk in and right back out with Fleetfoot in tow… now she was back, and something didn’t look right.

“Wait…” Soarin said as he reached forward and stopped Dash before she could continue. Dash glanced back at him for a moment before focusing on Spitfire as well.

Spitfire turned to Fleetfoot, and started moving as if she wanted to leave again, but Fleetfoot stepped up and pressed her hooves against Spitfire’s chest to stop her. She looked at her sternly and said a few words before Spitfire looked down, and then over her shoulder… towards Silver.

Spitfire took a deep breath and exhaled for a long time. Once she regained her breath, she stood up straight, and her expression turned serious and professional. With Fleetfoot in tow, Spitfire made her way down the aisle with a strong posture and steps.

Silver turned his head to look at her as she approached, as if he could sense her commanding presence nearby.

Soarin looked down at Dash, blinking as he saw her… shivering? He stepped up and put a wing over her as he realized what had her in such a state…

But he hoped he was wrong.

The two watched anxiously as Spitfire and Fleetfoot stopped right in front of Silver, who only kept his eyes on them for a moment before he looked away.

Spitfire kept her expression firm as she stepped up to Silver.

“Silver, we need to talk,” she broke the silence, saying his name in attempt to get him to look at her, but he didn’t. She had told him they would talk eventually, but her sudden appearance now didn’t seem to spark any surprise… or reaction at all. Spitfire released a quick breath of air from her nostrils and continued despite his defiance. “I don’t think I need to tell you how disappointed I am in you.” Her tone was harsh, but it seemed to have little to no effect on Silver… again.

“Hmph…” Silver grunted in response, knowing exactly what she was talking about.

Dash reached a hoof over and grabbed Soarin’s arm as the two listened in. She was heavily conflicted, both glad and worried that Silver’s little secret had gotten out. She had respected his privacy and his desire to keep it to himself, but at the same time it made her worry for his health and safety. Overall, it was a battle to weigh two different matters of great importance. Silver’s health versus the irreplaceable motivation and influence that Silver brought to his fellow Wonderbolts.

But if Spitfire’s tone was any indication…

“Look, Silver…” Spitfire continued. “I’m going to be perfectly honest with you.” She leaned down so she could be eye level with him. “I’ve been looking the other way for a very long time. I’ve had several reasons and opportunities to enact the usual protocols, call you into my office, and discuss your retirement from active duty. I’ve had several recommendations from our veteran representatives on our financial board… I’ve had medical discharge recommendations from Bliss… And I’ve even damaged my own credibility, shooing away some complaints from former Wonderbolts about you still being in the force. I don’t agree with our rules of forced retirement, but I have never stepped out of line to defy them… except for you,” she paused as Silver’s eyes finally turned towards her. Still not much of a visible reaction beyond his grumpy expression, but she at least got him to look at her. “I have constantly defied our base rules and regulations for you because I personally felt that that keeping you in our active duty ranks was extremely beneficial to the development of younger Wonderbolts and to the family atmosphere I wanted to build. We need strong, experienced mentors and I didn’t want to lose what you offered. It was far too valuable to give up.”

As Spitfire took a step back from Silver, both Dash and Soarin blinked in surprise. They had no idea that Spitfire was personally putting up a fight against the rules to keep Silver in the ranks. They knew Silver was doing everything in his power to fight the rules, but Spitfire as well? Dash was surprised that Silver gave no visible reaction to Spitfire’s explanation. Did he… also know that Spitfire was pulling some strings for him? If so, Dash wished he had told her. It probably would have helped her rest easier on the subject.

“However…” Spitfire spoke up again, refocusing all their attention. “THIS,” Spitfire sharply pointed to the bottle of heart medication. “Has changed my mind.”

Dash felt all the air leave her lungs and tightened her grip around Soarin’s arm. Soarin’s ears flopped down and he frowned as he heard Spitfire’s words and felt Dash’s reaction. He tucked his wing tighter against her and gritted his teeth as he absorbed what was happening.

Silver, again, showed no visual response, but would that last?

“I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt because I believed that you were persevering against your own limits. When I saw you push yourself, I saw a pony who was ignoring the age of his body and doing his best… it was both inspiring and influential to all those around you…” Spitfire looked back at the heart medication. “But this… this is totally different,” she indicated as she looked back at Silver. “Wonderbolts risk their lives, putting themselves in danger every time they fly into battle. That is a fact. But it is still my responsibility as the lead captain to take every precaution necessary to ensure the highest chance of survival for those I lead. Even in this regard, I’ve been stretching the limits for you because I had confidence in your abilities and your drive towards our goals…” she trailed off, looking down and shaking her head. “But heart medication? Pain killers? Both hidden and not obtained or recorded through consent of our medical staff? I’m not even going to ask what you did to convince whoever provided you with these pills from filing official records with us, which is required and carried heavy consequences if violated. But that’s not the point.” She looked back up at him, her eyes narrowed into a very stern glare. “The fact that you have to go to such lengths to keep your body from destroying itself… Your own body and the amount of strain you're putting on it has clearly become hazardous to your health. With this knowledge I cannot possibly send you out into battle because what you’re doing to yourself is putting your life in just as much danger, if not more than what our enemies present.”

Spitfire looked back up at him and opened her mouth to continued, but slammed her eyes shut, swiftly turning around for a moment. Fleetfoot perked up and stepped towards her, but Spitfire held out a hoof to stop her, shaking her head lightly before turning back to face Silver, keeping her stern demeanor intact.

“I’m sorry Silver, but it can’t be avoided any longer. If we manage to make it to the Crystal Empire…” she paused and took a quiet, long breath. “I’m relieving you from service.”

Silver’s right eye twitched, but aside from that, he barely reacted. Fleetfoot, behind Spitfire, was holding herself as firm as Spitfire was, but failed to keep her ears from flopping to the sides of her head.

Soarin’s heart sank, this wasn’t the first time he witnessed Spitfire breaking news like this to a pony, but something was different about it this time. Silver wasn’t just another pony. He held in a grunt as Dash’s grip tightened so hard around his arm that it started to hurt.

Dash felt like her heart had just been ripped from her chest. She knew exactly why Silver had gone to such lengths and put himself at great risk, he had given her his full side of the story, why he put himself through all the pain, why he tried so hard to lengthen his time as something he dedicated his life to. Dash, like Spitfire here and now, was worried about Silver and the state of his body. But at the same time, it ripped and tore at Dash as she recalled how passionately Silver spoke about the Wonderbolts, what they meant to him, how he cared for each and every member like a second family, and how he lived to fly out into battle with them. It was his life dream and his drive… just like it was for her. Dash wouldn’t have to face the end for a long time… but watching it happen to somepony else?

“Look,” Spitfire spoke up again after a brief silence. “I want you to understand me here, Silver. This is a very tough decision for me to make. I don’t believe this is the end of your role in the Wonderbolts. You are far too valuable and I am more than certain you will have a role in our future going forward, but I am no longer willing to let you take part in our core function of combat. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take anymore. Your guidance and experience are likely still going to be called upon as we fight our way through this mess we’re currently in, but I am officially grounding you. No more fighting.” She kept looking into Silver’s eyes as he kept his expression hard, showing no sign of negative reaction. Spitfire released a brief sigh without faltering. “We’ll discuss this more later, but I wanted to make it very clear to you that, under my authority as captain, I’m not longer allowing you to put yourself in such danger…” she trailed off for a moment as she looked over his injuries and all the bandages strewn about his body. “Especially with how everything just played out. You could have very easily been killed and I’m not about to believe that your internal issues were not a factor in your confrontation with Sin.”

“Hmph…” Silver finally gave some sort of response, even though it was just another grunt. It was almost as if he was expecting this.

“That all being said,” Spitfire looked away from him for a moment, her expression changing from the serious look she had donned so far to one that looked more thankful. “I’m very, very glad that you are alive and I’m thankful that you kept your wits about you, ultimately allowing you to save Rainbow Dash,” she said as her eyes briefly glanced towards Soarin and Rainbow Dash nearby. She barely kept her eyes on them for more than a second as if it was hard to look at them. “You were also instrumental in engineering the maneuvers that ensured Wave’s safe return. I hope you understand that my decision to ground you for the remainder of the conflict does not mean I don’t appreciate your efforts or everything that you’ve done for the Wonderbolts. It’s because I don’t want you retiring in a casket. You deserve to leave our ranks alive and with pride, more so than any Wonderbolt I’ve ever known.”

She finished with words of praise and appreciation. To all those watching it seemed as if it was her attempt to try and cushion the blow she was, truthfully, forced to lay on Silver. Spitfire and Silver just stared at one another, everypony else remaining silent. Everything in the room had come to a halt. As the meeting had gone on, Soarin and Dash were not the only ones who had caught ear of Spitfire’s words. Squad Foxtrot and Storm had all heard as well. Bliss and her assistants were watching from near the entrance. But everypony was absolutely speechless.

Silver was old… the oldest active member of the Wonderbolts. Nopony was stupid, they all could see how hard he pushed himself, they all knew he was forcing his limits, it was no mystery that eventually… Silver wouldn’t be flying with them anymore.

But none of them were prepared for it.

Prepared for when that became a reality.

“I’m…” Spitfire suddenly struggled to speak, her voice started to sound shaky, completely clashing with how she still managed to hold up her stern demeanor. “I’m sorry… Silver.” Cracks were appearing in the armor. It was slowly becoming clear that Spitfire wasn’t as composed as she looked. She averted her eyes. “I couldn’t push it aside any longer… I’m so sorry.”

Spitfire immediately turned and started walking towards the front of the infirmary. Fleetfoot blinked and reached towards her, but hesitated, just watching for a moment as Spitfire walked. Fleetfoot stole one quick glance at Silver, who was now looking down, before she turned and followed behind Spitfire.

Soarin stumbled forward a little as Dash ripped her hoof from his arm and out from beneath his wing, cantering right up to Silver. She came to an abrupt halt in front of him with her mouth open to speak, but no words came out.

“Si… Silv…” she managed to stutter, but could barely form any words. “I… I…”

Silver released a long sigh, closing his eyes as Soarin slowly walked up behind Dash and sat down, a somber expression wrought across his face.

“Silver, I…” Dash tried again, her ears flopped against her head and her lower lip quivering. Silver opened his eyes, looking at Dash for a moment before looking back down at the mattress.

“I’m fine, Dash,” he said while shaking his head. “It was only a matter of time before… before I…”

Dash’s eyes widened as Silver’s voice began to break up and crack slightly. Her chest felt incredibly tight as she watched Silver grit his teeth and his eyes started to slowly close.

“I knew this would happen… I knew I couldn’t run forever…” Silver began to quiver as his eyes began to water. “I’m fine… I’m…”

Silver shut his eyes tight, a tear squeezing out as he sniffled and let his chin fall down against the mattress.

The sight made Dash absolutely shatter. It made her want to cry, but she refused. She held them in for Silver. She wanted to be strong.

He had always been strong for her as her mentor.

It was time for her to be strong for him as his student.

She shifted forward, leaning herself against his bed and reaching her head forward, pushing her nose underneath his chin, lifting his head slightly and pressing into his fur to give him reassurance that she was there. She could feel him quivering. She felt the wetness around his cheek as small tears continued to squeak out every second or so. It was so hard to keep herself from tearing up… but again, she held it in for him.

Soarin sat behind Dash in silence, watching as she did everything within her power to soften the devastating hit Silver had just taken. Soarin looked away from the two of them. The sight was almost too much to take.

It was inevitable, and everypony knew it.

As Soarin looked off down the aisle he saw that Spitfire had stopped at the front of the infirmary, she was turned towards the door, but hadn’t stepped towards it yet. Her ear was turned towards Silver. She was definitely hearing Silver’s reaction… his soft crying.

Bliss and Fleetfoot both approached Spitfire, but before either of them could say something to her, Spitfire suddenly rushed for the door and nearly knocked it off its hinges as she blasted through it.

Bliss took a step towards the door, but Fleetfoot shifted in front of her, holding her at arm’s length while shaking her head. Bliss sighed and nodded before Fleetfoot turned and followed Spitfire out.

Soarin kept his eyes glued on the door for a moment as it swung close behind Fleetfoot. He looked back at Dash and Silver. He knew there was nothing he could say or do to help Silver. Only Dash could offer any sort of comfort, having clearly been a part of Silver’s life on a more personal level through his struggles. So instead of just standing behind them, he gave Dash a gentle, caring pat on the back before getting up and heading towards the exit.

Because after what he just saw, somepony who was close to him was clearly not too happy about what she just had to do.

He moved past Bliss, only giving her a quick glance as she returned to her work before he angled towards the door. He stopped right in front of it for a moment, his ears picking up the sounds of sobbing. He sighed as he stepped forward and through the door.

He didn’t even have to move into the hallway, coming to an abrupt halt in the doorway as he peered through. He leaned against the doorway, frowning again.

Spitfire was hunched down, leaning heavily into Fleetfoot as tears fell from her eyes. Fleetfoot was hugging her tightly, offering support as she let it all out.

“That was… so hard…” Spitfire blubbered into Fleetfoot’s shoulder. “This isn’t the first time I’ve… I’ve…” she sniffled and shook her head. “Why? I really didn’t… I didn’t want…” she couldn’t complete her thoughts, but it was clear that as much as what she did needed to happen, that she didn’t want to do it.

Fleetfoot gently rubbed a hoof up and down Spitfire’s back as she cried into her shoulder. She looked up as she held Spitfire, seeing Soarin in the doorway. Fleetfoot and Soarin locked eyes for a moment. No words were needed to describe how it all felt. It hurt to be so powerless, but there was nothing they could do. Spitfire was carrying out a responsibility. It hurt, but she had to do it.

Sometimes the hardest things to accept are the inevitable. Silver was irreplaceable, there would never be a pony like him among the ranks again, and they all knew how much Silver cared. While it fell within the lines of the code, Spitfire’s choice was driven by more than just rules she really didn’t agree with. She made the choice, as his captain, for the sake of his health and safety. She had given the bad news to older Wonderbolts many times as the captain in the past. It was part of the job. It wasn’t without regret or pain, it hurt every time she had to do it… but this one stung especially deep. Silver was more than just a veteran to all of them. He had become like a father figure, a loved one, a cherished member of their family that had offered more than combat service, much more than any Wonderbolt in his generation.

Hearing him break down after how long he had managed, how hard he had fought and how many rules he had dodged just for the sake of extending the time he could do what he loved most with those he considered to be family…

It was just too much for Spitfire to bear.

But it had to be done. It couldn’t be avoided anymore. Fear for Silver’s life overshadowed Spitfire’s confidence that he could hold his own.

They had just achieved a major victory, the satisfaction of that would not fade any time soon, but this was going to leave a scar that would last for all time.

Silver was relieved from service… but one could never replace Silver Lining.

It was a terrible loss for the Wonderbolts.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

It was only a matter of time :ajsleepy: One of the hardest things to accept in life is when you can no longer do what you love. Cherish every moment.

As Spitfire said, Silver's role in the Wonderbolts is definitely not done, but he won't be flying out into combat anymore, and that is more than enough to tear him apart. But Spitfire's only doing what she must... whether it's easy for her to do or not.

Silver wasn't the only one feeling it this chapter though. We got a look into Starry Skies' personal feelings, as well as Luna's regret for her perceived lack of impact thus far... even the woe of Blazetail and Flashwind hearing about their son, even if only briefly.

Victory has been earned, but that doesn't mean all is well.

Now then... there is going to be a one week time jump into the next chapter, leading into the final sequence of part 3. After finishing my chapter mapping less night (Using my main outline to try and figure out what will go where and how the pacing will be) it looks like the end of part 3 will be chapter 140, at least thats how it looks right now, we all know that could easily change. :rainbowwild:

Sorry for the slightly longer wait!

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 124: Ready For Takeoff?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 124: Ready for Takeoff?

“Thanks, I’ll let Spitfire know,” Soarin said while looking over his shoulder. He spread his wings and hovered into the air as he began lowering himself down from the third floor, gliding in a slow, spiral descent around the main propeller pillar as he made his way back down to the lobby. There was a soft rattling noise coming from the pillar itself as Rivet and his team below ran their final checks on the engine systems before finally attaching the only piece missing that connected the engines below to the propellers themselves.

A week had gone by since the operation to save Wave Chill. After several days of rest, the Wonderbolts were up and moving again, preparing for yet another leap of faith… something they’d been making a living off of as of late. Today was the day that they were going to finally see if they could get their compound… or the ‘Nimbus’ as it was once called, up into the air and on a path to the Crystal Empire. Soarin had spent the whole morning helping Spitfire check in with everypony to make sure everything was ready for the takeoff attempt.

The final details on what to do about the Shadowbolts being aware of their destination were still being ironed out, but Soarin knew Spitfire, Descent, and Luna had something in the works. No matter what the plan ended up being, though… It was going to be one hell of a spectacle.

Soarin landed on the lobby floor amidst several ponies trotting, galloping, and gliding by. He folded his wings and moved the joints near the shoulders about to see how they felt. His bruises had faded, and his cuts had almost fully healed, but he was still a little bit stiff. Overall, he felt much better, despite maybe only being at eighty to ninety percent in terms of confidence in his body to perform at its best. He definitely couldn’t say the same for Silver… that was, if Silver were still allowed to fly out and fight with them.

Silver was still being kept in the infirmary, his wounds healing, but much more slowly for obvious reasons. He had also shut himself out for the past week, asking to be left alone. Bliss, upon Silver’s request, had turned away Dash, Blaze, High Winds, and several others, including Silver’s former comrades. But nopony argued with her. They knew why Silver wanted to have some time to himself.

Soarin shook himself out after rotating his wings a little before looking about the busy lobby, using his height to his advantage to find Spitfire. He spotted her in the center of the lobby, speaking to Fire Streak before he gave her a salute and turned away to carry out his orders. Soarin trotted towards her, making sure to dodge the bustling commotion as he approached.

“Reporting in,” he spoke up with an official tone as she glanced over her shoulder before turning to face him.

“Go ahead,” she replied, looking up at him as he sat down before her.

“All the third floor dormitories are secure,” Soarin began. “I checked with each squad captain, personal belongings are safe and they’re ready for further orders.”

“Good,” Spitfire nodded again, looking away for a moment before focusing on Soarin and staring at him. Soarin blinked and tipped his head curiously.

“What?” he asked as she continued to look him up and down.

“How are you feeling?” she asked without hesitation.

“Why do you ask?” Soarin questioned as he flattened his brow. More often than not, questions like this from Spitfire ended with an argument of some sort.

“Just answer the damn question,” Spitfire pushed while narrowing her eyes, putting her hoof down.

“Yikes, alright,” Soarin rolled his eyes. “I’m still a little stiff and sore, but you know me, I’ve dealt with worse. I’m ready and able to perform my duties.”

“The jury is still out on that one, Soarin,” Spitfire shook her head, but before he could retort, she aimed her eyes just above his and tapped her forehead. “What about the horn? Any problems?”

Soarin held in his protest of her ‘decision’ on what he should be allowed to do as he glanced up, examining the cracked headpiece and thinking about how his little head predicament had played out over the past few days.

“Aside from the thing being damaged, I haven’t had too many issues or—”

“‘Too many issues?’” Spitfire abruptly cut him off while raising an eyebrow.

“No! No…” Soarin threw his hooves out to the side while growling. “Sheesh, let me finish. I’ve had a headache or two, but none of it has been bad, it’s probably just some pains caused by the minor cracks. A quick run to Rainbow Dash was all I needed each time to make it go away immediately.”

Fleetfoot suddenly scooted in beside Spitfire while bouncing her eyebrows.

“A quicky with Dashie helps with headaches?” She giggled. “Thanks for the advice!”

“Wait, WHAT?!” Soarin blinked, taking a moment to realize what Fleetfoot said, but before he could react, she kicked off the floor, landing behind Soarin.

“HA-CHA!” she yelled out as she bumped her plot against his, bouncing into the air and gliding away while giggling.

Soarin grunted and snorted as he watched Fleetfoot escape before he could fire back, but Spitfire was still focused on him as if Fleetfoot’s little interruption had never happened.

“We’ll talk more before takeoff,” she said suddenly, causing Soarin’s eyes to widen and look back at her.

“I don’t think there’s anything else to ta—”

“And when I do…” she cut him off again while taking a step forward and pointed her hoof towards his face, nearly jamming it against his nose. “I expect your cooperation, understand?”

Soarin looked past her hoof down into her stern eyes, scrunching his face as he wondered where this sudden tone she was pushing had come from.

“What does that mean?” he asked defiantly.

“Soarin, don’t make me repeat myself,” she quickly shot back. Soarin narrowed his eyes and pouted.

“Fine, I understand.”

“Good,” Spitfire withdrew her hoof from his face, turned, and left quickly, looking around before heading off to address something else. All the while, Soarin just stared towards her with confusion… and a little frustration.

Something told him that her little ‘talk’ with him later was going to be about something he didn’t want to hear. Her tone right now was probably a forewarning. Soarin sighed as he began looking around the lobby with no current objective to fulfill.

He knew Spitfire was his captain, and with her authority over him, he had to comply more often than not. She was usually more laid back with him, them being friends and all, but all that did was strengthen her authority. Because the few times when she got stern or serious with him, he knew he had little choice in the matter… at least initially. He had… ‘bent’ her orders more than once in the past and was usually good about covering his tracks. There had been a few times where it had ended very poorly though.

With nothing to do, and knowing full well he wouldn’t get a word out of Spitfire until later, his thoughts backtracked to Fleetfoot’s little teasing interruption… which in turn made his brain shift to something on his mind twenty-four seven in some shape or form.

He glanced about, once again using his height as he scanned the bustling lobby for a specific mane of several vibrant colors. However, after a few moments of nothing catching his eyes, he slumped down and sighed.

“Hmmm… I wonder what Dash is up to right now?” he said to himself as he looked around again casually. “Oh?” He blinked as he looked over his shoulder, his eyes landing on the entrance to the recruit barracks as Princess Luna and Descent entered the lobby from the doors.

Luna kept walking into the lobby, but Descent sat down right outside the doors, glancing over his shoulder at them.

Assuming that Descent had just been to check up on the ill Shadowbolt captives, Soarin got up and started walking towards him. He and Descent hadn’t spoken in a while, and he was curious how the Shadowbolts were doing.

Descent perked up when he turned back around and saw Soarin approaching, but didn’t keep his eyes on him for long. Soarin lifted an eyebrow as he closed in, wondering if Descent was ignoring him.

“Checking on the captives?” Soarin asked, skipping pleasantries knowing that Descent wasn’t one for them.

“Hm,” Descent simply hummed in response as he continued to look elsewhere. Soarin stopped about a yard from Descent, sat down, and looked slightly up at him, something he rarely had to do. Soarin had enjoyed being the largest pony in the compound for a while, but he found himself falling short of that title recently with Calm Wind, Descent, and Bomber being around. He didn’t count Matteo since griffons tended to be larger than ponies in general. He also just barely had Valkyrie beaten by half an inch. It wasn’t such a large margin with Descent though. Descent was only about an inch taller than him, not quite so freakish in size like Calm or more so Bomber.

“They are… stable, thanks to Princess Luna,” Descent explained flatly as he finally looked slightly down at Soarin, his eyes stopping on the cracked horn for a moment before he made eye contact with him.

“You don’t sound very confident,” Soarin picked out the tone in Descent’s voice. Descent exhaled and shook his head.

“I’m not,” he admitted straight-out. “They are becoming less responsive and the crystals on their bodies continue to slowly spread. It’s as if the crystals are sapping their life away. The further they spread, the weaker the host gets.” He kept a solid air about him despite speaking of such a horrific, potentially tragic subject. “I’m afraid if we don’t find a way to help them soon… they will perish just as the commanders have.”

“Well…” Soarin looked over his shoulder as he took note of Descent’s negative outlook. “That’s why we’re hoping to take off soon and make it to the Crystal Empire. We’ll find them help.” He tried to offer reassurance, but it had little effect.

“I wish I shared your positive attitude,” Descent said as he also scanned the busy lobby. “Based on Moon’s information, I doubt our path to the Empire will be smooth or unchallenged.” He paused and snorted. “And assuming that we even make it there, there’s no guarantee they will have a solution.”

“But would you prefer we did nothing?” Soarin asked an obvious question. Descent blinked and glared harshly at Soarin.

“Of course not!” he raised his voice and growled. Soarin leaned away and put up a hoof.

“Whoa, hey, take it easy,” Soarin shook his head while furrowing his brow. “It wasn’t a suggestion.”

Descent turned his head away and blew a loud, hard breath through his nostrils.

“I apologize. I’ve been… a bit on edge as of late,” he started explaining as he glanced back at the barracks doors. “I really want to save these Shadowbolts we have here. It pains me greatly knowing that I will likely not be able to save Blade or the remaining commanders. The ones we have here may be of lower rank and be less likely to give an advantage if added to our numbers… but it would be a personal victory for me if we’re able to rid them of this ailment.” Descent turned back and looked down. “I just want to know it’s possible. I just want to know we can help them. My number one goal from the start has been ridding the Shadowbolts of the crystal influence so I can rebuild them, and recent events have suggested that I will be completely denied that goal. If only I had acted quicker or persuaded more of them to turn away… are those who are left all doomed?”

Soarin examined Descent’s face carefully as he spoke and looked away upon finishing. Every time Soarin interacted with Descent, a part of him laughed internally. Why? Because of how ironic it was to hold any sort of conversation with somepony that was responsible for so much of his pain. It was a testament to just how strange the whole situation was.

But while strange, getting to know Descent had been an adventure all of its own, seeing and learning about the pony behind the warrior. Soarin definitely wasn’t the only one on this adventure, if the encounter with Starry Skies and Storm a week ago was any indication.

“I understand how you feel,” Soarin got up and moved to a position at Descent’s side and turning to face the same way he was. Descent gave him an odd look as he made the move and sat down. “I mean figuratively,” Soarin clarified. “If we had Wonderbolts, or anypony I’m close to in the hooves of the Shadowbolts back there… I’d do anything to help them, even if I was uncertain of the result.” He glanced over at Descent. “You really would do anything for them, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Descent quickly replied with a nod. “You may call it or label it whatever you wish. My one desire is to see the group that gave my life a purpose restored. We all had our reasons for being Shadowbolts, but one thing that generally stood out was the desire to belong to something.” He turned to Soarin. “I refuse to rest easy until the Shadowbolts, and those who made it special to me, are once again the group offered me that chance as it had many others.”

Soarin turned and made eye contact with Descent as he finished.

The desire to belong to something…

Rapidfire immediately came to mind. Soarin recalled Rapidfire’s reasons for defecting, one of them being that he felt like he didn’t belong in the Wonderbolts. His experience in the Shadowbolts had not been pleasant… but perhaps part of the Shadowbolts that Descent cherished still existed at the time of Rapidfire’s defection.

It was hard for Soarin to imagine the environment that Descent described based on his own experiences with the Shadowbolts and within their fortress, not to mention the rather rough, tough, and violent nature of the Shadowbolt command system that had been described to him. But was there a time, even under Nightshade, that the Shadowbolts offered a welcome sense of belonging to disaffected pegasi? The more Soarin discovered about the Shadowbolts and what lay beneath the surface of their image and actions, the more he felt sympathetic for them and the fate that befell them. Of course he withheld his opinions on their mercenary work and the whole ‘kill the leader to become the leader thing’ in an effort to understand them on a broader scale.

But he grinned as he thought back to Starry and Storm’s conversation. Descent’s words right here and now, along with what he was expressing was falling right in line with it. Descent lifted and eyebrow as he saw Soarin smiling.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked as he flattened his brow.

“Oh, nothing,” Soarin chuckled. “Just thinking about a conversation I had recently with—”

“Starry Skies?” Descent cut him off along with a frustrated grunt. Soarin blinked in surprise. “My son already told me about it.”

“Oh,” Soarin tipped his head and nodded. “How is she? Has she said anything to you about it?”

“She’s back on her hooves again, but she hasn’t said a word to me since. In fact, she’s been avoiding me,” Descent explained as he narrowed his eyes further and further every few words, causing Soarin to lift his brow and lean away slightly. “I would have preferred if you two hadn’t bothered her.”

“Did Storm tell you what she was saying?” Soarin asked as he sat back upright.

“Yes.”

“And you don’t mind that she’s confused about you?”

“No I don’t.” Descent shook his head. “You don’t know Starry like I do.”

“Funny, she said the same thing about you,” Soarin looked away for a moment before looking back to see Descent glaring at him again. “What? She did.”

“Starry works best when she’s allowed to face and deal with things on her own. It’s how she’s always been. Emotional stimulation tends to… confuse her.”

“You don’t say?” Soarin scoffed quietly.

“Your sarcasm is noted,” Descent continued without retort. “But it’s true. Starry is the pure definition of an ice queen. She doesn’t give a damn about feelings, including those of others and even her own. To her, it’s all about combat, fighting for everything she believes in. She doesn’t make connections like most of us do. She only trusts those who she’s fought beside and has risked everything beside… and by that I mean for at least twenty or so years,” Descent sighed while tipping his head a little. “I can’t even begin to tell you how long it took for her to fully trust even me and Nightshade. I think the first time she ever opened up to us, if you could even call it that, was about… four years ago? And it wasn’t much of anything, she just finally expressed that she trusted us.”

“She sounds like she needs a hug,” Soarin said with an awkward chuckle, Descent joining in with his own chuckle.

“I guarantee that would end poorly for any who try,” Descent admitted without hesitation.

“Yeah, I know,” Soarin nodded. “She’s very picky about her personal space…”

“Something that your fellow lead squad commander likes to constantly violate,” Descent added, referring to Fleetfoot’s countless intrusions upon Starry’s personal bubble. “If not for her rank and skill, I’d wager she’d have been killed slowly and painfully by now.”

“Yeeeeeeeeah,” Soarin cringed as he rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry about Fleetfoot, she does that…”

“No need to apologize,” Descent snorted. “I’ve seen enough to know it’s pointless to try and stop her. I will admit…” He trailed off.

“Admit what?” Soarin blinked and glanced at him.

“Nothing,” Descent quickly denied.

“Whoa, wait, come on,” Soarin smirked as he saw Descent trying to hide the curl of a smile on the edge of his lips. “Admit what?”

“Caught red hoofed,” Descent shook his head as he chuckled. “It has been… a little amusing to me to watch Starry try to deal with Fleetfoot.”

“Hmmmmm?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow as he kept smiling. “So you wanted us to leave her alone, but you’re okay with Fleet harassing her?”

“There’s a difference. You and my son went to her and dropped the subject about me on her. Fleetfoot is just not giving a damn,” Descent explained. “Starry ends most confrontations like that with a punch to the face or worse. She’s finally met somepony she can't punch away… and it’s amusing to me to watch her be at an absolute loss on how to get away. I stand by how I feel she works best, but this isn’t a part of when she’s on the job.”

“The pony who hates being touched meets the pony who can’t keep her hooves off others, eh?” Soarin chuckled.

“It’s an explosive combination,” Descent chuckled again. Soarin got his laughs in, but remembered Descent mentioned Starry was back up and about. The last time he had seen Starry, she was still curled up and clutching a pillow in the infirmary.

“So… How is Starry holding up by the way? I mean in terms of shaking the crystal effects,” Soarin asked, leading to Descent showing the signs of a frown but stopping just short of looking sad.

“She’s fine… I guess.”

“You guess?” Soarin tipped his head.

“There always comes a point where she starts sucking it up and not telling me if anything is wrong,” he said with a sigh. Soarin held back the urge to relate Descent to Spitfire in the moment. After all, that was more or less a worry Spitfire always had about him as well.

“You sound worried,” Soarin said to dodge the thought.

“I am worried,” Descent immediately clarified. “Starry is important to me.”

A brief silence extended between them as Soarin simply stared. Descent noticed and lifted an eyebrow.

“Does that surprise you?” Descent asked.

“Not really. I’ll believe anything after I saw you hug Storm while crying,” Soarin replied, recalling the full reunion of father and son.

“Hmph, yeah, that…” Descent rolled his eyes, but Soarin knew he was just trying to look tough. “But you’ve heard me talk about this already… how I speak of the Shadowbolts as my family.” He paused and turned to look at Soarin. “Well, that became my family once I was there… it really all started with Nightshade and Starry Skies saving me from certain death when I was a colt. I’d be dead if they didn’t stumble upon me in back alley slums of Canterlot. With my parents abandoning me before I could even remember their names or what they looked like, Nightshade and Starry were the only two who had ever… cared for me. That’s why I stayed with them after the fact. I felt indebted, obligated… I felt a connection with them, they were ponies I wanted to be with.” He paused and looked down. “Starry is all I have left of that first feeling of belonging somewhere, of having others looking out for me. The other part… Nightshade… who knows where she is or if she’s even still alive. I never found answers to that.”

Soarin listened carefully, taking in everything Descent was saying and thinking it all over. His heartfelt explanation was interesting, but his focus was quickly drawn away when he brought up Nightshade, realization hitting him.

“Oh…” Soarin blinked. “We could have asked Moon.”

“I know,” Descent grunted in frustration. “It was the perfect opportunity, but I was lost in the shock of the moment.”

“What about the Shadowbolt Renegades? Didn’t you run a campaign to draw them away from the Shadowbolts? Did any of them know?” Soarin pressed.

“Believe me,” Descent quickly replied. “I asked everypony we brought back. The Shadowbolts were still in heavy disarray at the time, long before any of the developments, the formation of the commanders, or anything in the recent months. None of them knew anything related to Nightshade.”

Soarin could hear the regret in his voice, not even Descent’s gruff, serious undertone could hide it. Descent was always a very serious pony… that is, very serious about a lot of things, not just in nature. When he believed in something, he followed it. He didn’t let doubt get in the way… at least ninety-nine percent of the time, not counting one or two recent events. Nightshade and Starry Skies, as he said, were very important to him. Soarin could see it clear as day. It was almost like how Spitfire and Fleetfoot were to him. He could only imagine how he’d feel if suddenly Spitfire was removed from the picture for reasons beyond his control. It would devastate him.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Soarin finally came out with it. Descent blinked and looked towards Soarin curiously.

“For what?” he asked.

“For Nightshade,” Soarin clarified.

“Hmph… There’s nothing to be sorry about. If Nightshade is gone, then her demise was her own doing. I accepted that a long time ago. But…”

“But…?”

“That’s why I worry about Starry,” Descent admitted. Soarin just stared towards Descent as he looked back forward, his ears lowering, but not quite flopping down. “I’ve already lost one pony who had been there from the start. I don’t want to lose the other. Connections like that cannot be replaced. Seeing Starry suffer from using a crystal again… after what happened to Nightshade… it…” He paused, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. “It was hard.” He released a sharp breath from his nose and shook his head out, looking away. “Listen to me ramble on and on…”

“No, it’s fine,” Soarin quickly interjected, looking forward as Descent glanced towards him. “I understand what you’re saying. The situations are different, but—” he turned his head to meet Descent’s eyes— “In the end, we’re both ponies who are a part of something that’s important to us… and we both have certain individuals that have been there for us for most of our lives, who have helped shape them. I immediately thought about it as you described how important Nightshade and Starry Skies have been to you. Spitfire and Fleetfoot are the exact same for me. We didn’t have to fight for survival on the streets or anything like that, but it’s the connection that’s so similar to me. I don’t know who or what I’d be without them… certainly not what you’re looking at right now. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

“Heh,” Descent cracked a small grin as he looked back forward. “That I do. I guess we’re not as different as we think.”

“Except you’re old and have a son,” Soarin added with a smirk.

“And there goes the moment…” Descent quickly shot back with a snort.

“Princess Luna!” Spitfire’s voice came from nearby. Both Soarin and Descent turned towards her voice, spotting Spitfire very close by, approaching Luna. Soarin and Descent shot each other a brief glance before Descent made a head motion towards the two. Soarin nodded as the two stood up and made their way over.

Spitfire noticed both of them approaching, but paid little attention to them as she focused on Luna.

“Are the captives secure? Spitfire asked, earning a brief nod from Luna.

“We have done all we can to ease their pain… and they have been secured to their beds.”

“Good,” Spitfire approved as she briefly glanced at Descent, but only for a moment before again focusing on Luna. “So that leaves one last detail we need to discuss. We obviously can’t follow a straight line from here to the Crystal Empire if we know the Shadowbolts know what we’re doing. We also will need an edge to fight through them if need be, so along with the ‘bent’ path I described earlier, how can we fit the Lunar Guard into all of this?”

“A good question,” Luna immediately answered. “One we have already pondered.”

“How will this work exactly?”

“We have a rare… difficult magical technique that we can use. Telepathy,” Luna explained.

“Telepathy…” Spitfire blinked, her jaw slowly opening for a moment. “Uh… correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not… magic, is it? At least last time I heard anything about it.”

“You would be right,” Luna nodded. “Technically telepathy is not magic, falling more in line with what one might call a psychic ability, one of enhanced mind power that is technically impossible. However… there is a something of a similar nature through magic that we know of.”

“I’m listening… and wondering why, if you could do something like this, you haven’t already used it,” Spitfire pressured for an explanation.

“There is a reason, allow us to explain,” Luna shrugged off the skepticism. “There is a very unique spell that, if done correctly, can send a message in the form of an energy wave to anypony we wish. However, it’s not so easy to pull off. It requires tremendous mental focus and since we cannot actually pass a thought from one pony to another, we have to force the thought into our magic and press it through the horn.”

“Okay, that’s… incredibly weird, but you’re telling me this actually works? And I’m assuming your reluctance to use it already means that there’s a heavy downside?” Spitfire asked as she crossed a hoof over the other and tapped it against the floor.

“Yes,” Luna cringed. “We have only had to use it twice in our long life, and would rather not use it. It is not of conventional magic, falling within the arts that we never teach other ponies due to it being beyond the comprehension of a mortal unicorn or even a mortal alicorn. The intense mental focus and the act of compressing pure thought can backfire considerably if held too long or mishandled. Not only that, but we are personally not very good at it, it is likely to give us a massive, painful migraine for several minutes.” Luna pouted and huffed. “Our sister perfected it… she used to play tricks on us all the time with no issues or problems, but we never got the hang of it.”

“Oh,” Spitfire blinked. “So that’s why…” she rotated a hoof.

“Why we sent a letter with the Renegades to Canterlot, instead of using the technique. It’s always been something we’ve kept knowledge of just in case. Since right now we have no time to waste, and the situation calls for quick and coordinated communication, we are prepared to use it now.”

“But you won’t, say… blow your head up while doing it? You sure?” Spitfire expressed her concern.

“No,” Luna shook her head. “It will only take us all of three to five seconds to perform. Captain P.L. is VERY disciplined and extremely loyal to us. All we have to say is the location and ‘move out’ and you can expect him to be there with the full force of the Lunar Guard behind him.”

“And you’ll be fine?” Spitfire continued showing concern. Luna chuckled and smiled.

“Your worry warms our heart, but fear not. It will hit us pretty hard, but we’ll be fine. We are willing to face the drawbacks for the sake of the plan coming together,” she explained to ease Spitfire’s worry.

“Well, alright,” Spitfire nodded contently. “Then I won’t ask you to do it more than once.”

“We appreciate that,” Luna quickly agreed.

“We’ll time it right as we get into the air…” Spitfire looked up and around, glancing back at the large pillar sticking through the now repaired floor that extended the bridge and controls up to the top floor back when they first took off. “Assuming this all works…”

As she trailed off, both Spitfire and Luna just happened to glance towards Soarin and Descent at the same time. It took less than a second for both of them to shift their eyes specifically towards Soarin. Soarin lifted an eyebrow as the two pairs of authoritative eyes landed on him, Spitfire’s expression remaining constant, but Luna’s eyes widening upon seeing him.

“Ahem…” Spitfire quietly cleared her throat while looking back up at Luna, but she failed to get her attention. “AH…HEM,” Spitfire repeated, heavily exaggerating it to make it much louder. Luna flinched and looked back towards her. “Luna, come here for a moment…” Spitfire beckoned her to follow as she stole another quick glance at Soarin. The two moved a few yards away before they both sat down with their backs turned. Luna bent her neck down as Spitfire whispered into her ear. They both glanced over their shoulders at Soarin before turning back and whispering some more.

Soarin flattened his brow and snorted at how ridiculously conspicuous and unsubtle the two of them were being. It was almost insulting.

“I think they’re talking about you,” Descent spoke up in a tone that was so typical of his voice that Soarin couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

“Ya think?” Soarin sighed while rolling his eyes. As if it was bad enough he felt he was being left out of crucial discussions… possibly about him again, the fact they were doing it right in front of him now was even worse.

Ignoring the secretive slap to the face, Soarin looked back around the lobby, searching for somepony that tended to make him feel better no matter what the situation… but again, his eyes failed to pick up any sign of that unique, multi-colored mane.

Where was Rainbow Dash, anyway?

As a matter of fact, Soarin was much closer to Dash than he realized.

Rainbow Dash, along with the rest of her squad and Storm Front, were right in the Foxtrot barracks, both examining their new fixed pieces of furniture bolted to the ground as well as safely stowing their personal belongings. Storm hadn’t been given any specific orders from Point Dex, who was currently down below with Lead Runner helping Rivet, so he had tagged along. He much preferred that than being stuck alone with Macho Savage.

Matteo was busy stuffing sheets into his floor locker in attempt to keep his family wood-carved figurines snug in the drawer. It was a tactic that Dash decided to copy after getting a look, despite her only really having to worry about the picture frame of her and Soarin, she wasn’t so worried about her Daring Do book or the… sexy beach Soarin poster.

Storm was simply hanging around Dash and chatting as she checked around, mainly avoiding the shenanigans going on elsewhere in the barracks.

Twister was being… well, himself, specifically finding every single possible way to get Little Star to accidentally bump into Squall. He kept stealing one or two items from her locker, causing her to scold him while giving chase, doing her best with one of her wings still wrapped up and healing from the hit she took against Devil. But despite her best efforts, every attempt ended with her eventually being tossed onto Squall’s back, running into his plot, tripping into his legs, etc. You name it, Twister found a way to make it happen.

Squall continuously ignored everything that happened, even when Star touched him. He was scrunching his face angrily, but never reacted.

Twister got away scot-free every time… up until he snatched both Squall’s blanket and Star’s teddy bear. He didn’t last two seconds. Star and Squall both turned and tackled him, taking him right to the ground. They both grunted as Twister spun around and threw… ten pillows into the air that seemed to appear out of thin air. Star and Squall both shielded themselves, but Star got a hold of one of the pillows and began vigorously beating Twister over the face with it, his face changing every time she hit it while making squeaky toy noises. Squall blinked and backed away as Star unloaded on Twister, but noticed his blanket on the floor. He reached down to snatch it up and get out of there, but Twister grabbed his arm as he leaned, and pulled him in, putting his face in the way and absorbing three pillow strikes.

When Star realized she was hitting Squall she gasped and froze right before swinging a fourth time, but the hesitation was her downfall. Twister reached his other hoof out and grabbed her, pulling her in. She and Squall immediately began resisting, but their forceful motions caused all three to start rolling around on the floor. They crashed into the pile of pillows that Twister dropped and effectively disappeared into a cluster of cursing, squeaking, and maniacal laughter.

Storm watched them blankly as Dash and Matteo went about their business as if nothing was happening. Storm looked back at Dash, lifted a hoof and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped and closed his mouth, looking back at the cacophony. The pillows suddenly all collapsed to the floor… and revealed a set up with a small table, covered with a white cloth cross stitched with orange lines. A white wax candle fixed in a green bottle sat on the tables edge next to a small jar filled with bread sticks. In the center of the table was a large plate of spaghetti. Little Star and Squall blinked as they stared blankly at the setup, sitting side by side with one long string of spaghetti in their mouths, one end in Squall’s the other in Star’s. Sitting across from them was Star’s teddy bear with Squall’s blanket fixed to it like a cape.

Twister suddenly popped up behind them with a blue, pointy moustache under his nose, wearing a pink shirt and a green vest, a white sheet wrapped around his midsection as he stood on his hind legs, and swaying back and forth behind them while playing an accordion.

Fanart by: -_Rainbow_Dash-_

Squall spat out the spaghetti as Twister leaned down in between them. Star simply looked away and blushed subtly as Squall grabbed Twister by the back of the head and slammed it down into the spaghetti.

Storm again looked towards Dash and Matteo as the two continued to pay no notice. Storm shrugged before stepping up to Dash.

“So… uh…” he began as he looked back to see Squall pull Twister’s head back up, the entirety of the spaghetti somehow wrapped around his neck. Storm shook his head and completely focused on Dash. “How has Silver been? Is he feeling better?”

Dash sighed as she closed her locker, snapped the latches shut, and turned around while sitting her plot down on top of it.

“I don’t know,” she said with a mixture of frustration and worry. “He still won’t see anypony.”

“Still?” Storm furrowed his brow and blinked.

”Still,” Dash repeated with a slight whip of her tail behind her.

“Why not? If anypony, you’d think he’d at least let you…” Storm thought aloud, trailing off. Dash shook her head.

“He wants to be left alone, I respect that,” Dash said as she stood up and moved over to sit down on her bed. Storm watched her shuffle by, not picking up her hooves at all.

“But you’re still his student…” Storm said, hesitating mid-sentence. He watched Dash turn and sit down on her bed while releasing a sigh. “I don’t know,” Storm diverted. “Maybe I’m just being a little biased here… I think he should see you.”

“I get where you’re coming from, with your dad and all…” Dash nodded as she tipped over and plopped down on her stomach. “With Silver though… this is a different. I want to see him, but even if he let me, I don’t know what I’d say or do.”

“We have a saying in the Griffon Kingdom…” Matteo suddenly spoke up from the opposite side of his bed. Both Dash and Storm looked over to him as he continued to obsessively rearrange to figures in his locker to make them as snug and safe as possible. “There are two ways for a true warrior to die. The first is in the heat of combat, the other… is if they live to see the day they can no longer fight,” he explained, still looking at his locker instead of them. Dash furrowed her brow and exhaled loudly through her nose as she stared at Matteo’s back.

“Matty, you’re not helping,” she said bluntly.

“I merely wish to convey that I understand his choice to be alone,” Matteo explained as he lifted up his wooden figure of Gilda, holding it in front of his face gently in between two of his talons. “My time is far from up, but should I live long enough for my body to give in before my spirit… I have no doubt I’ll feel just as he does.”

Storm tipped his head and lifted his brow.

“I think there’s more to it with Silver though,” Storm pointed out. Matteo let the figure of Gilda drop into the base of his shanks as he curled them around the figure and gripped it lightly.

“Probably.” He finally turned around and faced them, still holding the figurine of Gilda. “Something I have learned from being around ponies, is that they find many places to draw strength from. Kindness, laughter, generosity, honesty, loyalty…” he looked down at the Gilda figure. “Friends, family, love…” he looked back up. “These are not things that are foreign to me, but with the exception of loyalty and honesty… they are not valued or taught on the same scale in the Griffon Kingdom that they are in Equestria. They are all held much higher here, on a different level. I’ve found myself discovering new sources of strength I’ve never considered in the past…” he looked up from the figure, back towards them. “While it’s new to me, it is something you have all had around you for most of your lives in some shape or form.”

“That sounds about right,” Dash spoke up while releasing a strong breath of air upward that blew her mane out of her eyes. “And I agree one hundred percent with Storm. I know there’s a lot more at stake here for Silver. It wasn’t just the combat… it was the other ponies he flew into combat with. He cared about the Wonderbolts like they were a second family… they were his life and passion on such a deep, connected level.”

As Dash finished, Matteo reached his opposite talons up and caught Twister as he flew towards him, curled up into a ball. The moment he was stopped, Twister unrolled himself and held a pepper grinder out to Matteo.

“Fresh ground pepper?!” he asked enthusiastically. Matteo set the figure of Gilda down, before reaching up and yanking the pepper out of Twister’s hooves. He jammed the open end in Twister’s mouth and began turning the crank as fast as he could. Twister began flailing as his mouth filled up with pepper, eventually sneezing and flying away from them with a cloud of pepper dust flying up into the air in his wake.

“I’m sure he’ll come around,” Matteo nodded to Dash as he reached back town to retrieve the wooden Gilda and place it back in his locker. Dash just sighed and let her nose plop down onto the mattress.

“I know that, but I still don’t know what I’ll say to him…” she admitted as she groaned. Storm exhaled as he leaned back against Dash’s bedframe.

“Boy, do I know that feeling,” he sympathized with her. Matteo slowly closed the door of his floor-locker and gently snapped the latches down.

“A good teacher knows they can confide in the student as much as the student confides in them,” he hit them with another saying as he turned around and faced them. “I’ve no doubt he will come to you when the time is right.”

“Hello?” a new voice entered the room as the door opened. All eyes turned and all shenanigans ceased as everypony in the room, except for Twister, who had drawn two eyes on his plot and mooned the door, turned to look. It was Siren Bliss. “Oh, you’re all—” she paused, looking at Twister only once before continuing. “You’re all here. Perfect. Silver wants to see you,” she explained without specifying anypony.

Dash blinked, tipping her head as Storm, Star, Squall, Matteo, and Twister’s butt all looked towards her.

“Just me?” Dash asked while pointing to herself. Bliss shook her head.

“No, he wants to see all of you,” she clarified. “You too, Storm.”

They all stared silently for a moment before looking around at one another. Twister began moving his left plot-cheek towards Squall, but Star slammed herself down over his head, causing all him to smack down against the floor as he uttered a noise that sounded like an angry rooster.

“I guess…” Storm shrugged. “He wants to see all of us, actually.”

“Let’s not keep him waiting then,” Dash nodded as she quickly got to her hooves.

“SILVER!”

Dash flinched as Bliss yelled out the moment they all stepped into the infirmary. Dash blinked and watched as Bliss broke into a gallop down the aisle.

“What the…?” Dash leaned over along with the rest behind her, taking in the mostly empty infirmary. Wave was still isolated in the ‘urgent care’ room off to the side behind Bliss’ desk. The only other pony present was Silver…

But he wasn’t in his bed.

The reason Bliss broke into a gallop towards him, was because he was on the floor… trying to do wing-ups.

“Silver, stop it!” Bliss commanded as she skidded to a halt and used her magic to support him after he managed to squeeze out three.

Dash immediately held in laughter, her cheeks puffing out as she looked back at her friends. Star shrugged while smiling.

“Color me not surprised?” she said with a giggle.

“Come on,” Dash said with a chuckle and a head motion, the group of six making their way down the aisle towards Bliss and Silver.

“Relax, I’m fine,” Silver huffed, showing disapproval of Bliss stopping him.

“No, you are not,” Bliss scolded him. “You—” she stopped… and sighed. “You know what, forget it, I know you’re not going to listen to me.”

“It’s about time,” Silver snorted as Bliss released her magic, removing the support from beneath him and putting him back on his hooves under his own power. Bliss completely ignored his comment as she glanced behind her at Dash and the others approaching.

“Well, I brought them like you asked, have fun,” she said sarcastically as she turned and trotted right in between Dash and Storm. The rest of Foxtrot moved aside, allowing Bliss to go unhindered on the off chance Silver’s continuous rebellious behaviors had pushed more buttons than she showed.

As soon as Bliss had gone by and Dash turned back to Silver, he was already down on his wings, struggling to do another wing-up. Dash’s eyes widened as Silver got stuck halfway back up, gasped, and fell flat onto his stomach. Dash, Storm, and Star all instinctively rushed forward to help him, Dash reaching him first. She held out her hooves to grab his arm, but the moment she touched him…

“RGH!!!” Silver threw his arm out, knocking her hooves away and making her stumble right back into Storm and Star. Dash’s eyes widened, but she didn’t react or get angry. She immediately realized something. Storm and Star were already shifting past her, but Dash extended both of her wings outward and blocked them. Star just squeaked as her face ran into Dash’s feathers, her little nose popping out between them. Storm turned to protest, but Dash gave him a really stern look and shook her head. Storm stopped pushing and tipped his head curiously as Dash looked back towards Silver.

She let him do it himself.

Silver slowly positioned himself, using both of his wings and all four hooves to slowly and shakily push himself back up all on his own power. It took him almost half a minute, but he eventually was standing up straight, panting and sweating.

He looked up, his eyes scanning all six of them for a moment before he turned and grunted as he took very slow, wobbly steps towards his bed, several painful cracks and pops sounding from his joints as he made the motions. He reached up and placed his front hooves on his bed before forcing them down, trying to pick himself up onto the mattress.

“Hgggnnnn…. Grh…” he tried, but failed. “Hrrrrrrrgh…. Gah…” he tried again, but still couldn’t lift himself. He flattened his brow and blew a loud puff of air through his nostrils. He slowly looked over to Dash. “A little help here?”

The instant he asked, Dash closed her wings, unbarring Star and Storm as she started moving towards Silver. Star and Storm followed right behind, Matteo stepping up as well to lend some assistance as Squall and Twister came around to the other side of the bed.

Working together, but with Dash, Storm, and Star mostly just keeping Silver steady as Matteo lifted him up, the four of them managed to get Silver back up and lying comfortably on his stomach on the bed. As they placed him down, Twister was waving two blinking batons in the air in front.

Silver didn’t even look at Twister. He simply punched him right in the face the moment the others let go of him. Twister fell right to the floor with a loud THUD.

Silver took a deep breath and exhaled, shaking his head and mane out before looking around at the five rookie Wonderbolts, soon joined by the sixth after he peeled himself off the floor.

“Thanks…” Silver said as he continued to pant, sweat rolling down his brow.

“How are you feeling?” Dash asked as she stood right in front and placed a hoof up on the mattress.

“I’m fine,” Silver quickly claimed just as he had to Bliss moments before. He looked Dash in the eye and watched as she slowly narrowed them into a stern, flat gaze. “I’m… better,” he corrected himself with a snort.

“That’s good to hear,” Dash lightened her expression and nodded as Silver was truthful with her. “You probably shouldn’t be doing… that,” Dash pouted as she made a head motion towards the floor. Silver snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Just because Spitfire’s not letting me fly into combat… doesn’t mean I’m not going to be ready if I have to defend myself,” he stated firmly.

It went silent. Just as Dash was afraid would happen, she didn’t quite know what to say or do and neither did the rest of them. Silver quickly noticed that they were all hesitating and fidgeting.

“Oh, loosen up… all of you,” he broke the silence, causing all of them to flinch. “I’m done moping,” he clarified for them as they all glanced at one another.

“Uh…” Dash gritted her teeth and looked away. “Well, I didn’t… we didn’t want to…”

“Look,” Silver cut in, silencing Dash, but looking at her with an expression she knew well. It wasn’t his usual grumpy look, nor was it his stern glare… it was the way he looked at her when he wanted her to listen carefully and well. While it wasn’t something her friends were used to like she was it had a similar effect on them. “Sure, it hit me hard. I think that was pretty clear when I started bawling my eyes out like a little colt.” Silver shook his head. “Getting some alone time helped me pick my ass up and deal with it. I’m not happy about it, but I knew it was coming.”

He paused for a moment, not a single one of the rookie Wonderbolts uttering a sound as they waited for him to continue. The only sound was that of Witching and Mahogany’s hooves clip-clopping by behind them as they walked behind them all.

“You can’t cheat age,” Silver continued. “Everything ends eventually. I was never going to believe I’d be able to do this forever. You can’t approach things that way. Life isn’t all fairy dust and unicorn farts.”

Dash and the rest suddenly flinched and looked to the side as the sound of hooves sliding to a halt echoed around them. They looked to their left to see both Witching and Mahogany looking over their shoulders and lifting their brows with surprised looks. Dash rubbed the back of her head awkwardly before trying to shift the focus back to Silver.

So… uh…” she spoke up as the others all looked back as well. “Bliss told us you wanted to see all of us.”

“You’ve got that right,” Silver nodded.

“But…” Storm stepped up beside Dash. “Why all of us?”

Silver shifted his eyes from Dash to Storm for a moment before looking around at each one of them. He let his eyes rest on Squall… Little Star… Matteo… and Twister.

“Because you six… are the next generation of Wonderbolt elites,” he explained.

Another brief silence spread, but unlike the last, this was one of slight shock. That was a pretty high vote of confidence from a veteran Wonderbolt… but why them?

“Why us?” Star asked the question on everypony’s mind. “What about the rest of the recruit squads?”

“Heh,” Silver shook his head. “They weren’t part of your recruit class, nor were they trained by me,” he explained, showing an extreme confidence in his own training techniques. Dash had to hold in a sudden snicker. Silver may have been broken, physically and a little emotionally, but his confidence in himself burned stronger than ever. “Believe me… none of them would have made the cut if they were in your class. It wasn’t even close with you five…” he trailed off for a moment as he focused on Storm. “And Spitfire was confident enough in your abilities to put you on a high tier, elite squad. I trust Spitfire’s judgment. She heard no arguments from me.”

Dash felt a swell of passion flare in her heart. It didn’t matter how many times Silver complimented her ability or told her how high of expectations he had of her, it got her every time. She looked back at her friends who had made it this far with her to see each of them looking just as honored. Squall, in particular, was looking towards Silver with a look of wonder, as if he’d never felt so moved by a vote of confidence before. Also, the fact that Twister was behaving himself was plenty of evidence towards Silver’s control over their attention at the moment.

Silver’s expression suddenly hardened.

“I want all of you to listen to me very carefully,” he instructed them. Dash leaned forward, putting her other hoof up on the mattress, as the rest gathered in a little more, lending Silver their ears.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he began. “I can’t predict the future, but no matter what direction the Wonderbolts go… I want you all to promise me something.” He sighed, looking down for a moment but never losing the strength in his expression as he looked back up at them again. “Don’t… EVER… let anypony tell you that you can’t do something. Don’t… EVER… let anypony convince you that you’re losing your edge. Don’t… EVER… accept limits. And most importantly… don’t ever call it quits if you still have plenty fight left in you.”

He paused, releasing a very long sigh.

“I get the feeling that Spitfire is finally going to fight the archaic, so called ‘rules’ that the Wonderbolts have been following in terms of forcing old flyers out. If anything, I can be glad that I may have had a hoof in her doing so, but even if she doesn’t, remember exactly what I just said. If you ever feel like the odds are tipping against you, or your body is slowing down…fight it. Fight it with all of your might and every last inch of effort you can squeeze out. Don’t let them talk you down from duty, don’t accept any ‘honorary’ titles. Don’t let them take that flight suit away from you, because as long as you wear it… you can make a difference. The moment you give up and step out of that Wonderbolt suit for good… it doesn’t matter anymore.” Silver shook his head. “Nothing can replace it… and you certainly can’t replace it with black and purple. Ask any of the Wonderbolt Renegades if that suit they’re wearing is important to them and they’ll say no. They will always be Wonderbolts in spirit, but without that suit, without being in our ranks, they will never feel the same. To retire… is to expire.”

He looked them all over again briefly before fixing his eyes on Dash again. While he was speaking to all of them, Dash couldn’t help but feel what he was about to say was meant more for her than anything else.

“I’ve had a long, fulfilling career. I may have gone almost literally to my body’s last gasp, but I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. It’s been filled with more lessons, good times, friends, and memories than I can count and it gave me a purpose and drive. It was something I refused to give up until my body was in pieces and my wings detached…” he trailed off, but his eyes remained fixed completely on Dash.

“I implore you…” he paused and looked at each of them again. “All of you… to push your limits and keep going as long as you possibly can… I can tell you from experience, that you will have no regrets,” he shook his head, sharpening his eyes as he locked them with Dash’s. “Never listen to your body… Listen to your heart.”

All six of them just stared in awe as Silver’s words sunk in.

“You’d probably be better off if you had listened to your heart,” Bliss suddenly spoke up as she walked behind them.

“And don’t… EVER…” Silver suddenly continued. “Listen to our trainers.”

“That’s enough out of you,” Bliss nudged her way past Matteo, pointed at Silver, and tossed him an angry pout.

Dash lost it, exploding into a fit of laughter along with Storm, Twister, and Star as Matteo chuckled and Squall tried to hide that he was amused. Silver had somehow managed to seamlessly segue from one of the most motivational speeches Dash ever heard to cracking a joke on Bliss.

Only Silver…

Soarin came to a halt and nearly bumped into Fleetfoot’s plot as she stopped right after stepping into the infirmary.

“Huh? What’s going on over there?” she asked as Soarin stepped past her with Spitfire following right behind him. Bliss sighed and shook her head as she approached the three lead squad members.

“Silver is being a good and bad influence,” she explained sarcastically.

“So… the usual?” Soarin asked with a chuckle.

“Yes,” Bliss nodded as she walked towards her desk. “The usual.”

“Bliss,” Spitfire spoke up as she stepped around Soarin, stopping her before she could make it to her desk.

Soarin watched Spitfire carefully as she walked by him. He had been keeping an eye on her for several minutes now, because despite being around her and following her and Fleetfoot to the infirmary, she had yet to make good on her decision to ‘talk later’ with him. He had expected it several times as he remained in the lobby after the little whispering conversation with Luna, but she still hadn’t brought it up again.

“We’re making our final round of checks,” Spitfire explained as Bliss turned to face her. “Is the infirmary secure?”

“Yes,” Bliss quickly replied. “Rivet’s crewponies have effectively bolted everything down and all the cabinets have been fitted with new locks. Anything fragile has been rearranged to ensure nothing breaks and…” she flattened her brow and glanced over at Silver and the rookies. “I’m prepared to strap down any misbehaving ponies that won’t stay in bed.”

Both Soarin and Fleetfoot descended into a fits of giggles and chuckles. Soarin kept his eyes fixed on the group down the aisle, specifically on Dash. It had been a busy morning and he really wanted to check in with her.

“Good,” Spitfire was unaffected by Bliss’ comments. “Also… how is Wave?” she asked as her tone suddenly hushed and grew worried.

Soarin turned his head back as he heard the shift in Spitfire’s tone. It caught his attention not so much because of the tone shift, more because it shifted while asking about Wave? Why did she sound so worried? Soarin’s curiosity only grew as Bliss shook her head.

“I’m afraid nothing has changed,” Bliss explained. Spitfire’s ears flopped down and she lowered her head.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Fleetfoot shifted over and stood beside Bliss and Spitfire while looking back and forth between them. “Hold on, what’s going on with Chilly?” she asked. Bliss took a long, gentle breath.

“His wounds are not healing.”

“What?” Soarin’s eyes widened and he blinked as he stepped forward as well. Spitfire shook her head as she looked back up.

“I’ve been visiting him every day since we brought him back, but the marks left by his torture have not faded at all. Not even a little, they are still as clear as they were when we first brought him here,” Spitfire explained solemnly.

“It’s only been a week,” Bliss took over while reaching up and placing a hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder. “But the wounds have shown no signs of healing… and I have no idea why,” she admitted.

“That’s… troubling,” Soarin gritted his teeth as he winced. “Have you spoken to Wave much? How is he, emotionally speaking?”

“He’s been happy,” Spitfire quickly answered. “Mostly conserving his strength and resting, but I’m still worried. If the wounds weren’t bad enough, he keeps talking about the pain not going away.”

Soarin thought it over for a moment before looking over at Rainbow Dash again.

“The infiltration team mentioned that Wave was tortured with crystal magic… right?” he asked as he looked back over at Fleetfoot, Bliss, and Spitfire. “Do you think that has anything to do with it?”

There was a brief pause as Spitfire’s ears stood up straight.

“I… certainly hope not…” she said with the tone of worry strengthening in her voice. She quickly looked towards Bliss. “Bliss, I’d like to see him, is he awake right now?”

“He’s been sleeping most of the morning, but he might be awake now, let me go look.” Bliss gave Spitfire a soft tap on the shoulder before turning and making her way around her desk and towards the door in the back.

“Spitty…” Fleetfoot turned and pouted at Spitfire. “You weren’t keeping this from us, were you?”

“No,” Spitfire quickly denied. "This was only something that we noticed a day or two ago,” she explained as Fleetfoot shifted beside her and leaned against her for comfort.

“I hope he’s okay…” Fleetfoot added as she looked Spitfire over with concern.

Then suddenly, a loud gasp came from the door, followed by a BANG as it swung inward and hit the wall beside it. All three of them looked up to see the door swing shut with Bliss gone.

“Uh…” Soarin tipped his head. “What just…”

Before he could say anything further, Bliss suddenly burst back through the door, her eyes wide with shock.

“CAPTAIN!” she yelled towards Spitfire.

Spitfire’s eyes widened considerably and her jaw dropped. She was up and on her hooves in an instant, effectively tossing Fleetfoot off of her and throwing her against the wall by accident.

“EEEP!” Fleetfoot squeaked as she bounced off the wall and hit the floor. Spitfire broke into a hard gallop towards the back door, Soarin thundering right behind her. Spitfire got into the room first, and released the sharpest gasp that Soarin had ever heard in his life. Soarin angled himself and put on the brakes, skidding to a halt beside Spitfire as he passed through the door.

“Oh my god…” Soarin barely managed to utter as the air left his lungs.

“Spit… Fire…”

Wave was on the floor… the sheet fixed around his plot as if he had struggled to roll out of bed. He was reaching towards them, his face wrought with extreme pain…

Crystal formations were jutting from his wounds.

“HELP… ME…!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Ooo... that's not good... :rainbowderp:

(Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf)

Well with that shock out of the way, looks like we had some insight to Descent's feelings here, as well as Matteo going all Griffon culture on us again and a very motivational speech from our favorite old stallion...

of course I'm sure the *cough* sudden little thing at the end will be what's remembered most (along with several incoming comments about how i'm evil with cliffhangers wahaha :pinkiecrazy:)

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 125: Emotions Run High

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 125: Emotions Run High

The doors leading into the recruit barracks hallways flew apart as Fleetfoot and Bliss forced them open and held them aside.

“EVERYPONY OUT OF THE WAY! OUT OF THE WAY!” Spitfire yelled as she approached the doors, clearing a path through the busy lobby as Soarin ran behind her with Wave Chill on his back. Heads turned, and gasps sounded throughout the lobby as several Wonderbolts took in the sight of Wave Chill, groaning and wailing on Soarin’s back with crystals jutting out of his body.

Spitfire stepped inside the barracks hallway and beckoned Soarin as he thundered through behind her, galloping as fast as he could towards where the Shadowbolt captives were being held, knowing that Princess Luna was already there.

Fleetfoot and Bliss released the doors and followed behind them, but the doors quickly swung back open as a few other ponies began following behind. Spitfire pulled ahead of Soarin, shouting at the Earth Pony security guards standing in front of the tenth recruit barracks door to open the doors and let them through. They immediately obeyed despite being just as shocked to see Wave Chill, pulling the doors open.

“LUNA!” Spitfire yelled as she rushed in, the princess immediately turning to face her from the middle of the room, faint blue auras from her magic surrounding all the afflicted Shadowbolts in the beds.

Princess Luna blinked as she examined Spitfire rushing into the room, but she went from confused to shocked faster than she could form a thought as Soarin came in behind Spitfire.

“Good heavens!” Luna gasped as she rushed forward and looked over Wave. “What… what happened?!”

“We don’t know!” Spitfire yelled right into her face. “Just help him!” she demanded harshly while glaring right into Luna’s eyes.

“Here!” Bliss yelled as she and Fleetfoot followed in behind. Her magic came to life, removing a large leather band that was holding several extra bed frames against the wall beside the door. The frame screeched against the floor she dragged it over, Fleetfoot gliding to the other side of the door to grab one of the spare mattresses that were secured in a similar manner. She pulled it over and hoisted it up onto the bed as Bliss put the frame in place.

Soarin lowered himself beside the bed as Spitfire hovered up into the air and pulled Wave gently off Soarin’s back, placing him on the bed.

“AAAAHHH!!! Ahhhhh…” Wave cried out in pain despite how gentle Spitfire was with him.

“Luna!” Spitfire yelled out again as Luna’s magic came to life.

“Stand aside!” Luna ordered as Soarin reached up and pulled Spitfire off the bed.

Luna’s horn glowed brighter, the soft blue light shining upon Wave as a faint aura, similar to the ones surrounding the Shadowbolts, surrounded him. Bliss stepped up beside Luna, her magic glowing upon her horn as well, as she added her medical, soothing magic to Luna’s efforts.

“Ahhh…” Wave’s groans began to die down, sounding less pained. “Ahhhhhhhh…” His body finally relaxed, despite the horrific state. He was still breathing heavily, but it was clear Luna’s and Bliss’ efforts were easing the pain as they had done with the others.

Luna and Bliss both exhaled as they released their magic, allowing the lingering aura to work its effects. They both looked at each other, and then back at Spitfire, who was still behind, held back by Soarin as Fleetfoot stood beside them, still in shock.

Luna looked back to Wave, tipping her head down near him as her horn and eyes began to glow softly. She hovered her horn above him, moving it back and forth until nodding.

“That should do it,” she said as she lifted her head back up and turned around, looking at the Shadowbolts. “We applied the same spell mix we did to the others. That should slow the spread and keep him stable…”

While that was good news, the situation was hardly good news at all. Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot were still wearing varying looks of dread as their eyes locked on Wave. With the spell in place, Luna shifted back to the first question on her mind.

“How?” she asked as she looked back over to the lead squad. “How did this happen to Commander Wave?”

Fleetfoot, Bliss, and Spitfire all remained silent as Soarin finally released Spitfire. Spitfire rushed right up to the new bed and placed her hooves on the mattress, pulling herself as far forward possible. There was less than an inch between the tip of her nose and Wave’s face as she looked him over with extreme worry.

Luna kept her eyes fixed on Spitfire, awaiting a response, but Soarin quickly realized that Spitfire was definitely not listening to Luna. He exhaled as he walked up beside Luna.

“We don’t know… but we—”

“What the hell is going on in here?!” Descent’s voice boomed from the door, cutting off Soarin as he barged in, he rushed towards them with a sense of urgency, possibly alarmed that there was a sudden commotion moving directly towards where the Shadowbolts were being kept. “Why are you…” his eyes went wide as they landed on Spitfire, quickly shifting to Wave. “W… what?” he blinked, moving past Soarin and Luna to examine Wave, glancing between him and his afflicted Shadowbolts. “But… how?”

“HEY!” Blaze’s voice filled the room as she barged in and hovered into the air, High Winds right behind her. “I know I saw you guys carrying Wave! What the hell is…?!” She went completely silent, High Winds opening her usually tired-looking eyes fully when she too, saw where Blaze was looking. The two belligerent mares didn’t say another word. They rushed towards their squadmate, looks of shock and confusion wrought upon their faces.

The door opened again, but this time with no shouting, Soarin glanced over to see Starry Skies poking her head into the room, slowly making her way in, but saying nothing as she made her way over. She stopped short of moving up beside Descent as she visibly reacted. No gasp or look of shock, but it was clear the sight was unexpected.

“Commander Soarin…” Luna spoke up, patiently waiting for the shock of the moment to move aside so she could get the answers she desired. Soarin looked up at her as they sat side by side, but he shook his head.

“We don’t know,” he finally answered her question. “I… may have a theory or two… but nothing definitive.”

“Tell us,” Luna pleaded. Her tone of voice just as worried as it was urgent.

Soarin opened his mouth to speak, but paused when he heard a long sigh come from the bed’s direction. He glanced over to see Spitfire slowly let her nose fall down to the mattress, poking against it gently as her forehead pressed lightly to Wave’s cheek. Soarin watched her for a moment before looking back up at Luna.

“Sorry, Princess, give me a moment…” he said as he stood up. Luna gave no objection as he watched him move past Descent and Starry, placing himself beside Spitfire, between her and Blaze and High Winds, still both silenced and in shock.

Soarin lifted a hoof and rested it on Spitfire’s back, rubbing it up and down gently. Soarin glanced over her for a moment as Fleetfoot finally made her way over and put herself on Spitfire’s other side. Fleetfoot looked very sad, ears flopped to the sides of her head and almost on the verge of tears.

Was it because of Wave’s sudden affliction? No, Soarin knew exactly what had Fleetfoot so stricken. It was Spitfire and Wave Chill in general. How much more did the two of them have to go through before enough was enough? Wave was captured, Spitfire’s feelings were deceived, Wave was tortured, Spitfire put a lot on the line to get him back… they succeeded, and now this? Not to mention the two of them already dealt with a lot before the conflict with the Shadowbolts even began.

It was hard for both Soarin and Fleetfoot to watch one of their best friends be constantly put through an emotional wringer.

But Soarin noticed something as he held his hoof on Spitfire’s back. She was not shaking or shivering. Her body wasn’t tense. She wasn’t sniffling, there were no signs of tears. Soarin leaned down to see her eyes were open as she rested her forehead against Wave’s cheek. There was clear distraught in them, but that wasn’t the only thing… there was strength in them as well. She wasn’t breaking.

That fact alone made Soarin proud of her… after all, he heard all about Spitfire’s motivational speech before the operation to save Wave. She was done bending, and refused to break, but how much more could that strength be tested?

Soarin blinked as he continued to rub her back regardless of what he saw in her eyes, his hoof coming to a halt as Spitfire reached over her shoulder and grabbed it when he came within range of her reach. She gave it a really hard squeeze, making Soarin flinch.

“Ow…” Soarin grunted quietly as she released his hoof and picked her head up from the mattress. Spitfire took a deep breath as most of the eyes in the room went to her.

“This… is…” Spitfire began, but struggled to get the words out. She tipped her head down and shut her eyes, but remained relaxed.

“Spitty…” Fleetfoot leaned towards her, brushing her shoulder against Spitfire’s arm as she looked up at her with concern. “Are you…?” She pulled back as Spitfire turned around, and sat down on the floor, leaning her back against the edge of Wave’s bed.

“No,” she answered before Fleetfoot could continue. “I’m not okay.” She opened her eyes, keeping them angled down as a glare formed within them. “So don’t ask,” she finished sharply. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened and she looked up at Soarin. Soarin quickly made eye contact with Fleetfoot and shook his head while holding up a hoof.

They both flinched as Spitfire suddenly stood up quickly.

“This changes things,” she said with a commanding tone in her voice. “We’re leaving right now,” she declared, causing everypony to blink in surprise. “We’re adjusting our flight path too. We’ll go through them if need be,” she continued as she began walking towards the door.

“Captain Spitfire,” Luna spoke up. “Just a moment…” But her words didn’t reach Spitfire, she was on a warpath.

“Let’s go to the bridge,” Spitfire ignored Luna. “And re-map our—”

“HEY! Hold it!” Descent brought out his own commanding voice to break the reluctance of the others to respond. Starry Skies moved aside quickly as Descent broke into a gallop and skidded to a halt in front of Spitfire, barring her from moving any further. “Get a hold of yourse—”

“Descent, move,” Spitfire ordered, her face scrunching into a harsh glare up at him. He growled, returning her glare with one of his own.

“Put your head back on your shoulders and think! We have a plan in place and we should—”

“MOVE!” Spitfire yelled in his face. Descent bared his teeth and snarled. “NOW!” She yelled louder.

“NO!” Descent yelled right back as he began to grind his teeth together.

Everypony had turned to look at them, most of them wide eyed with shock as the two captains butted heads… again. All except for Soarin, whose right hoof was twitching as he weighed whether or not to get between them.

“Descent, I swear to Celestia,” Spitfire hissed at him. “If you don’t get out of my way right now…”

“You’ll what? Punch me? Go ahead and give all of your top commanders a professional example of restraint!” His glare sharpened further. “And why the hell are you suddenly so desperate to push ahead the schedule?!” He pointed over her shoulder at the Shadowbolts. “What… now that one of your own, not to mention your lover is afflicted, you’re suddenly going to go rush things along. Uh oh, now it’s a WONDERBOLT, now it’s time to force everypony into action?!” Descent snorted as he pushed his face closer to Spitfire’s. “That’s quite a message you’re sending me here!”

“Don’t push me, Descent!” Spitfire snapped right back, his towering size over her meaning nothing against her personal resolve. “Unless you want to end up like Blade, I suggest you step aside!” she yelled while cracking her hooves.

“So this is really how you feel about the Shadowbolts, huh?” Descent growled. “We’re convenient to your mission, but you dump all consideration the moment something becomes personal?!”

The room collectively gasped as Spitfire didn’t even hesitate, she brought up a hoof and pulled it back.

But it was grabbed from behind.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Soarin yelled as he yanked Spitfire back and forced himself in between them. He threw his wings out, pushing both her and Descent further back. Soarin harshly looked back and forth between them as the two continued to glower and growl at each other.

Fleetfoot rushed over beside Spitfire and grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Spitty! Stop it!” she pleaded as Spitfire turned and focused her glare at her. Fleetfoot inched her head backwards, but didn’t let go. “Eep!” Fleetfoot squeaked and shut her eyes as Spitfire unexpectedly wound up… and threw a punch in her direction.

But it didn’t connect, because Soarin turned and rammed himself into Spitfire forcing her backwards. Blaze and High Winds both yelped, shifting aside as Soarin pushed Spitfire by them and slammed her back against the wall beside Wave’s bed.

“OOF!” Spitfire grunted before opening her eyes and immediately matching Soarin’s sharp glare. She instantly tried to push him off, but despite being very capable of challenging Soarin’s great strength, her backward leaning position and Soarin’s height gave her no leverage with him also pressing his weight forward, holding her shoulders to the wall with his hooves.

“Spitfire, what the hell has gotten into you?!” Soarin yelled.

“LET ME GO!” she demanded.

“You’re not even slightly put off by the fact that you almost sucker-punched Fleetfoot?!” he yelled, trying to talk some sense into her.

“Soarin, I’m warning you!” she threatened, clearly ignoring any concern or reason being thrown at her.

“Good god, what is your deal?! You don’t even realize how irrational you’re being!” Soarin tried to get through to him again.

“I’m not being irrational! We have to help Wave, NOW!” she argued.

Soarin readied to retort again, but paused, glancing to his right.

“Yeah? Well…” Soarin suddenly hushed his tone. “Then how about you calm down for him?” he suggested as he reached a hoof up to Spitfire’s chin and forcefully turned her head, aiming her vision down at Wave on the bed beside them.

Spitfire was instantly silenced.

Every smidgen of anger disappeared from her face and was replaced with complete dread as she looked down upon Wave lying helplessly on his back.

He was looking up at her… and reaching a hoof towards her. He had one eye open, the other shut because of a small crystal formation right beneath it, but that one eye was all she needed to see. It was filled with pain and worry and his eye was fixed on her as he struggled to keep his arm elevated and still breathing heavily.

Spitfire began to shake, her resistance against Soarin fading. Soarin let go of her, stepping back quietly as she looked around at everypony else. Descent had turned away with Starry glancing between the two of them, but Fleetfoot, Blaze, and High Winds were all staring at her, visibly terrified. Luna and Bliss both stared blankly. Some of the sick Shadowbolts had also opened their eyes if they could, and turned to look.

Spitfire’s back legs buckled, dropping beneath her as her back slid against the wall and she slowly fell down onto her plot, reaching her hooves up and covering her eyes. She didn’t sniffle nor cry, she just remained quiet for several moments, her body shivering as she sat propped up against the wall.

Soarin glanced over at Wave to see him still struggling to reach out to her. He was at least two arms lengths out of reach from the middle of his mattress. Soarin stepped up to the bed and grabbed Wave’s hoof while reaching the other towards Wave’s body. As gently as he could, Soarin began inching Wave towards the edge of the mattress. Wave twitched and flinched, gritting his teeth in pain as Soarin moved him, but kept his open eye locked on Spitfire. Soarin knew what he wanted and he was going to help his fellow commander get it.

Soarin moved Wave all the way to the edge of the bed, just short of the tipping point. And it was just close enough for his hoof to reach her. But as he tried to reach, his weakness seemed to win as his arm began to fall. Soarin quickly reached down and propped it up, allowing Wave to push the last inch… and rest his hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder.

Spitfire didn’t look up from her hooves for a moment, but eventually turned her head, her distraught eyes focusing on Wave’s hoof, before shifting to make eye contact with him. She suddenly turned her body, facing him and inching forward as she clasped both of her hooves around his arm and tipped her head to the side to brush her cheek against his hoof. She pulled herself all the way to his mattress, resting her chin on it and digging her nose into the crook of Waves neck as he rested his arm weakly over her back.

Soarin backed away, watching as Spitfire picked her head up and stared down at Wave with a very serious look on her face, bringing Wave’s arm around and holding his hoof against her heart.

As Soarin saw the controlled, professional expression return to Spitfire’s face again, he turned away to leave them be as he approached Descent. Starry saw Soarin coming and immediately turned and took interest in a nearby wall as Descent continued to face away from Spitfire and everypony else.

“Descent,” Soarin called his name as he stopped behind it.

“Hmph,” Descent only grunted in response.

“Descent, look at me,” Soarin demanded. Descent released an exasperated sigh and honored Soarin’s request, turning his head and looking over his shoulder. “All the way, please,” Soarin pressed. Descent rolled his eyes and did as he was told, turning and glaring down at Soarin.

The two stared harshly at each other for a moment, but Soarin was confident he had control of the situation. There was a degree of respect between the two of them, and Descent was likely to hear him out.

“Drop the subject,” Soarin said simply. Descent blinked and lifted an eyebrow. “You know what I’m talking about,” Soarin added. Descent was not amused.

“She’s completely disregarding my—”

“She wasn’t the one who brought it up,” Soarin quickly cut him off. Descent blinked, his eyes widening slightly. “You’re both acting on impulse and assumption. We have a situation here, and as the two leading captains we can’t afford to have you two fighting amongst yourselves, so DROP IT. We all know what we need to do here, so let’s all calm down and figure this out."

The two stared at each other for several moments. Descent eventually glanced past Soarin, looking at Spitfire as she continued to look down at Wave with a serious look on her face. He then glanced to his right, making eye contact with Starry Skies for just a brief moment before she looked away and faced the wall… again.

Descent released a long, hard breath from his nostrils as he closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Very well,” he said with reluctance in his voice. Soarin wasn’t going to dismiss Spitfire’s impulsive remarks, but Descent’s own impulsive reaction and tying it to Spitfire being biased about who was worth saving was equally unwarranted. Spitfire and Descent were two very powerful figures. They couldn’t let emotional outbursts drive a wedge between them.

“Luna,” Soarin finally addressed the princess again. She perked up from her spot beside Bliss. She had remained off to the side, considering intervening at several points, but she remained in place the moment Soarin took action. She stood up and made her way over to Soarin and Descent. “Sorry about all that… Now… about Wave, I’m still not—”

“Something smells here,” Descent suddenly spoke up, drawing both of their attention to him.

“Pardon?” Soarin asked while tipping his head.

“I wholeheartedly agree that time is of the essence,” Descent explained himself while giving a long look at all the Shadowbolts in the room. “But this situation begs several questions, the first being the obvious…” He turned his attention to Wave as Blaze and High Winds both joined Spitfire’s side, Fleetfoot still sitting a little ways back as if still in shock that Spitfire almost hit her. “How did Wave Chill become infected with the crystals?” he asked nopony in particular as he turned back to Soarin and Luna. “He’s not a crystal user.”

As Soarin and Luna pondered that very confusing point, the door to the barracks suddenly opened again, revealing a confused and worried Fire Streak and Misty Fly. They both spotted Wave immediately, but Misty broke into a gallop while Fire Streak merely trotted up behind her. Soarin watched as Misty began to silently fret over Wave, Soarin’s eyes landing on Fire as he slowly approached Misty from behind.

“Fire Streak!” Soarin called out his name, stopping him before he could drape a wing over Misty. Fire glanced over at Soarin. “Come here,” Soarin beckoned him while waving his hoof.

Fire frowned, looking back at Misty for a moment before refolding his wing and turning to Soarin, Descent, and Luna, approaching them slowly.

“Sir?” He saluted, keeping his manner despite the weight of the situation.

“Describe for me again, in full detail, what you saw when Moon led you to Wave. You said he was being tortured. How?” Soarin ordered. Fire looked over his shoulder back at Wave, easily recognizing that he was now suffering a similar aliment to the Shadowbolt captives. He turned back to Soarin and nodded.

“When Moon led us in, Wave was… chained to the back wall,” Fire cringed as he recalled. “There were several crystals hovering around him, each one of them directing a focused beam of magic at his body,” he explained as Fleetfoot came to her senses and turned to join them. “The beams were not moving from their spot, but each one had a clear line drawn upon his body.”

Fire finished his explanation as Descent and Soarin both glanced down to ponder.

“He was gone for… how long?” Descent asked while looking up at the rest of them. Soarin glanced towards Fleetfoot and Fire Streak since his knowledge of the exact timetable of the operation was foggy. Fleetfoot shifted up in between Fire and Luna.

“He was gone for at least a day, assuming he was taken right back after Rapidfire replaced him the night before,” Fleetfoot explained.

All five of them looked back towards Wave as, specifically at the wounds beneath the crystals and the wounds that had yet to sprout crystals.

“I’ve taken more than my share of hits from the crystal magic,” Soarin spoke up while shaking his head. “But I’ve never received wounds like that.”

“Me neither,” Descent added as they all looked back into their huddle. “They tend to have a harsh impact, but never leave more than small burns or singes on the fur, nothing as clear as that. It changes depending on the magic usage too. Blade’s swords tend to leave deep cuts or gashes and Angel’s flying blades… well…”

“Let’s not talk about what those can do…” Fleetfoot chimed in while shivering and glancing down at the healing scar on her arm.

“I think that the beams had moved along, but very slowly,” Fire built on his explanation. “It’s probably safe to assume the marks were caused by prolonged, intense exposure.”

“That could explain this,” Descent took over. “Wave had not been previously exposed or had used them over time, but perhaps Ruin had the crystals focused on him for so long with such intensity that…” he paused and grunted. “Which brings me to my second question.”

Soarin perked up and glanced at Descent.

“Now that I think about it… I think I know what you’re about to say,” Soarin gritted his teeth.

“Hm?” Descent lifted an eyebrow.

“This seems…” Soarin paused and rubbed his chin. “Intentional. All of it.”

“Exactly,” Descent nodded, but sounded a little hesitant.

“Wait, how so?” Fleetfoot asked as Fire and Luna also showed curiosity.

“I know I suggested we trust Moon while he was here, but think about it…” Soarin explained. “Moon gives us back Wave… Wave is passed off during the escape, but is the only group not followed… Then Moon tells us the search for the compound had been called off and instead they are waiting for us to move… then this happens, suddenly pushing Spitfire to call for immediate departure.”

As he paused, they all glanced back and forth at each other. Soarin shook his head.

“Could they have given us Wave on purpose?” he suggested. “Could Moon’s ‘help’ all be an elaborate ruse between both him and Ruin to force us into action?”

“But,” Fleetfoot spoke up. “He warned us about Ruin, right?”

“But Ruin was the one who did this to Wave,” Soarin supported his suggestion while pointing back at Wave. “He could be in on it.”

“It is entirely possible,” Descent said as his head began to tip down. “But…” the hesitant tone returned.

“But?” Soarin pressed him while looking Descent’s posture over.

“But Moon… and…” Descent struggled to speak before looking away and snorting. Soarin sighed and shook his head.

“Descent, I know he’s one of your former comrades, but—”

“Enough,” Descent cut him off. “My personal feelings are not important. Everything you have pointed out could easily be possible.”

“Wait, wait…” Fire Streak stepped up to both of them. “But what about Discord? Did he not confirm that Moon was telling the truth? Well, in his own way at least…”

Descent and Soarin both blinked and glanced at each other, but Soarin released a hushed growl as he looked back at Fire.

“I forgot about that. And as much as I’m unwilling to acknowledge Discord, he was acting very strange that night. I’ve never seen him so serious or peeved before.”

They all went quiet as thoughts swirled and possibilities loomed before them. Fire blinked and flinched suddenly, glancing towards his right wing as something pushed its way beneath it. Eventually Misty’s head popped out from between his wing and his body, a sad, distraught look on her face as she nestled her body into his. Fire quickly pressed his wing inward to squeeze her gently.

Soarin watched Misty seek comfort from Fire. Misty didn’t need words or even sign language to express her worry for Wave. But as he looked towards them, Soarin perked up as he saw another approaching them.

Spitfire.

She walked towards the group with her posture upheld and her eyes forward. Fleetfoot shied away as she approached, apparently still a little affected by Spitfire nearly attacking her. But Spitfire didn’t even look at her. She continued to wear her professional expression while focusing her gaze directly on Descent. Descent noticed immediately, fixing his eyes on her as well.

The two said nothing as Spitfire stopped a yard from him, Soarin and the others looking on, wondering what would happen between the two after their little episode just moments ago.

“Descent,” Spitfire spoke up, her voice just as strong as her posture. “I apologize. I was acting out of impulse and let my emotions get the better of me. Let’s put it behind us, and start considering our options.”

As she paused to let it sink in, Soarin released a quiet, but long sigh of relief. He didn’t have to push Spitfire to make conscious decisions often, but when he did, it was rough. It was great to see she quickly recognized that she had made an error. Now hopefully Descent would drop the subject and do the same.

“Hmph, I was a tad impulsive as well. Your concern was for a loved one, and not for a lack of consideration towards the Shadowbolts,” Descent sounded a little uncomfortable apologizing, and Starry was looking at him with her face scrunched, but Soarin was glad Descent went through with it. Both Spitfire and Descent were aware of the situation, and both recognized that there was no time to butt heads over misunderstandings. Though Soarin was sure both of them were secretly grinding their teeth together at the thought of have to ‘cave’ in some way to the other, even if it was for a good reason. “Let’s focus on the here and now,” Descent added as he looked over to Wave and the Shadowbolts. “It looks like we both have great reason to act now… if only it weren’t on such thin hopes of finding a solution.”

“Stop,” Spitfire immediately retorted, causing Descent to blink and look back at her.

“Wha—MMPH!” Descent flinched, his eyes going wide as Spitfire reached up and jammed her hoof over his mouth to silence him.

“Don’t let me hear you say that again,” she said sternly while giving him a glare that was less of anger and more of determination. “We chose the Crystal Empire because of the possibility of finding a solution there. Motivation to save our friends here is going to be crucial towards our success in reaching the Empire.” She removed her hoof from his mouth as Descent gave her a look of dissatisfaction at her physically silencing him, but he did not argue with her. With her hoof still extended, she pointed sharply at him. “I don’t want to hear another ‘I hope so’ or ‘we don’t know for sure’.” She took a step towards him and almost jammed her face into his. “We are going to find a way to save them. I refuse to even think it’s impossible.” She paused, pulling back and looking around at everypony.

“Let’s stick to our travel plans, I still feel like our best chances lie in avoiding confrontation if possible. But…” She nodded. “We’re moving up our departure time. We’re leaving right now. There’s no more time to waste sitting around in these damn mountains.” She turned and looked at Descent. “We have ponies to save.”

While the sudden decision to take off immediately took everypony by surprise, it was accepted without objection. Soarin could see it in everypony there, they all wanted to do something and they wanted to do it now.

Spitfire turned away from Descent and moved towards the door, taking three steps before turning and facing them all.

“Soarin, Fleetfoot… round up the squads in the lobby,” she ordered as Blaze and High Winds were already on their way out. “Then…” Spitfire trailed off as she noticed Fleetfoot was looking at her with uncertainty and unease. Spitfire frowned and sighed. “Look, Fleet, I’m sorry…”

“You almost hit me without even a thought, what the hell?” Fleetfoot voiced her discontent.

“I know, and again, I’m sorry,” Spitfire apologized again. “You know I’d never intentionally hurt you, I was… not thinking straight at all,” she explained herself, but Fleetfoot still didn’t look happy about it. Soarin stepped up beside Fleetfoot and pressed a hoof gently against the crown of her head.

“Fleet, just let it go for now, we’ll worry about this little incident later,” he suggested. “Let’s focus. We have ponies that need our help.”

“Okay,” Fleetfoot sighed as she gave in. Spitfire looked away shamefully as she took a deep breath and brought herself back on task.

“Fire Streak, inform Rivet that we are bumping our takeoff plans up by a few hours and make sure he’s all set to go,” Spitfire ordered as she turned to him.

“Yes, ma’am!” Fire saluted before nudging Misty Fly along and signaling to her what was happening as they left.

“Descent—”

“I’ll make sure the Renegades are aware of the change,” he cut her off. “Assuming our plan is still what we discussed.”

“It is,” Spitfire confirmed with a nod.

“Good. Starry!” Descent gave a head motion to Starry, who followed him out, remaining silent as she had the entire time.

“Bliss, Luna,” Spitfire turned to them. “Make any final checks you need and make sure Wave is secure,” Spitfire addressed them, receiving nods. “Alright let’s move!” Spitfire shouted towards Soarin and Fleetfoot as all three of them started moving towards the exit, but Spitfire stopped halfway, turning and looking over her shoulder.

Soarin noticed Spitfire wasn’t with them the moment he and Fleetfoot were in the doorway. Soarin suddenly came to a halt while reaching out and grabbing Fleetfoot’s shoulder.

“YEEEEEP!” Fleetfoot yelped as her momentum swiped her hooves right out from beneath her, causing her to fall over on her side due to Soarin’s grip on her.

“Uh… sorry,” Soarin gritted his teeth and shot her a weak smile as Fleetfoot rolled over and angrily pouted at him.

“What was that for?!” she demanded, but Soarin was already looking over his shoulder, paying attention to Spitfire instead. Fleetfoot shifted and looked past Soarin, her expression quickly softening. “Oh.”

Soarin and Fleetfoot waited and watched… as Spitfire walked back over to Wave.

With everypony dispersed and finally a moment alone, Spitfire leaned onto the mattress and looked Wave over closely. Wave’s open eye was fixed on her, having not once left her since he had reached for her moments ago. He couldn’t find the strength to reach for her again, but he didn’t need to.

Spitfire slid her hooves over the mattress, clasping them around his right hoof and holding it tightly as their eyes remained locked. She held his hoof as strongly as she could as if silently reassuring him that she would never give up on him. She had already fought so hard to get him back after he was captured, and she wanted to him to know that she was going to fight just as hard now to find a cure for his ailment.

After a few moments, despite being in pain, a small, weak smile curled onto Wave’s lips. Spitfire returned the smile with a caring one of her own, gazing upon him as the soothing aura continued to faintly swirl around him. Her smile didn’t last very long, turning to a frown for a brief moment before she shut her eyes tight and tipped her head down, bumping her nose against his hoof and holding it there.

“Stay strong, Wave…” Spitfire broke the silence, slowly opening her eyes. “I’m going to save you… I promise…”

“I…” Wave suddenly sputtered, his voice incredibly weak and raspy. “Know… you… will…” he barely managed to express his confidence in her.

His effort to speak to her nearly made her cry, not out of sadness, but because his sheer determination to make the effort, despite being in incredible pain, warmed her heart. She leaned forward and planted a long, soft kiss on his forehead.

“I love you,” she whispered to him, following it up with a gentle nuzzle as she felt his hoof squeeze hers. Wave released a few weak gasps that sounded like a failure to form any other words, but Spitfire knew he was trying to say it back. She gave him a nod to assure him that she knew before touching his shoulder and slowly sliding it along his arm as she began to pull away. She kept her hoof on him until she was out of reach, before turning and moving towards the door, Wave keeping his eye on her the whole way.

Spitfire immediately saw Soarin and Fleetfoot watching from the door, but she kept on her path, stopping right in front of both of them.

Soarin and Fleetfoot made no comments about Spitfire’s affection towards Wave. Soarin knew the power of drawing strength from love, and Fleetfoot, who would usually take the chance to be snarky, understood the gravity of the situation.

“Soarin, Fleetfoot…” Spitfire said their names as she walked right between them and into the lobby. “I hear the Crystal Empire is beautiful this time of year.”

Soarin and Fleetfoot both grinned confidently, putting the small confrontation behind them for the time being as the three broke into a canter down the barracks hallway towards the lobby.

“Everypony to the lobby! Let’s go!” Fleetfoot suddenly zipped overhead as Dash and her friends neared the lobby from the west hallway.

“Huh?” Dash blinked, looking behind at the rest as several Wonderbolts began rushing overhead behind Fleetfoot.

They had given chase after she saw Soarin and the lead squad rush out of the infirmary, but they never did find where they went. They ended up combing the whole east and west hallways trying to find them, but aside from some commotion in the halls, they had no idea what the sudden rush was, or why they had bolted from the back of the infirmary where Wave was being kept.

Dash was beyond confused, and was so desperate to find out what was happening that she actually pulled herself away from fretting over Silver… and now something else was happening, Fleetfoot buzzing back and forth through the hall and telling everypony to get to the lobby.

Fed up with being confused, Dash broke into a gallop, quickly covering the short distance left between her and the lobby where everypony seemed to be gathering.

“Whoa! Hey! Wait up!” Storm called after her as he, Squall, Twister, and Matteo with Little Star on his back all followed right behind.

They all came to a screeching halt, and continued slowly as they reached the building crowd. It felt like every single Wonderbolt was present along with any Renegades that weren’t out managing the blizzard. Dash hopped up, spreading her wings and hovering a few yards into the air as she scanned the crowd, looking for a certain somepony that she was sure would be out helping Fleet get everypony organized.

It was hard to miss him due to his size… and obviously the horn as well. She spotted Soarin instantly near the main propeller pillar sticking through the central stairwell, yelling out orders and directing Wonderbolts around. Leaving her friends behind for a moment, she pumped her wings and glided over, landing next to Soarin just as he finished speaking to two other squad captains.

“Soarin!” she called his name right as she landed. Soarin’s ears instantly stood up and he turned to face her. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“We—”

“Why did you guys rush out?” she cut him off, stepping closer.

“There—”

“And was that Wave on your back?” she cut him off again while taking another step, almost putting them chest to chest.

“DASH!” Soarin reached a hoof up and pressed it down gently over her head.

“Hey!” she protested, but as soon as she pulled her head back, she flinched and stiffened as Soarin gave her a serious look.

“I don’t have time to explain we—”

“Commander Soarin?” another squad captain called to him while landing on his other side. “Fleetfoot said to report to you.” They saluted. Soarin turned to him.

“Is your squad all here?” he asked.

“Yes sir!”

“Stay in the lobby, don’t worry about lining up or anything. Await further orders from Captain Spitfire,” Soarin explained.

“Yes sir!” the stallion repeated before turning and waving to his squad.

Soarin looked back to see Dash still waiting.

“Why is everypony coming to the lobby?” she asked.

“Is your squad here?” Soarin dodged the question.

“Yes, but Soarin—”

“Good, just stay put and wait for Spitfire,” he ordered.

“What? But—”

“Dash, do as I say. Spitfire’s orders,” he said sternly.

Dash bit her lip, but if Soarin was being this frank with her, it was definitely for a reason. They were a couple, but he was also a superior officer. She couldn’t let one designation interfere with the other.

“Yes sir!” she saluted, albeit a bit reluctantly as she hopped up and glided back towards her squad.

As she approached them, she noticed that Storm had separated, probably to join up with Squad Seven. Dash’s own squad all looked up to her as she approach, their eyes all telling her that they were just as curious as she was. She landed in front of them and shook her head.

“I know what you’re all thinking, but I don’t know,” she said as she turned and looked around. “Apparently Spitfire is making an announcement shortly…”

She trailed off, blinking as everypony began to go quiet the moment she mentioned Spitfire.

Indeed, she was up above the crowd, over where Soarin was standing with Fleetfoot hovering next to her. Eventually, Soarin lifted off and hovered near her, saying a few words before Spitfire nodded.

Dash blinked and looked up as Descent, Starry Skies, Blazetail, and Flashwind all glided overhead, slowing to a stop in front of Spitfire. They exchanged a few words, Spitfire nodding at them as well before the Renegades turned and moved aside to let Spitfire shift forward.

“Everypony listen up!” Spitfire yelled out as she garnered everypony’s attention. Dash focused, ready and eager to hear what was going on. “There has been a slight change of plans,” Spitfire began as she scanned the crowd. “I’m going to be completely transparent with everypony here. A new development has pushed me to make a shift in our schedule going forward. I don’t have time to go into the details, but for those of you who were not present a little earlier… Commander Wave Chill has been infected with the same crystal ailment that our captive Shadowbolts are battling.”

Dash’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped as several gasps and murmurs of surprise began spreading throughout the crowd, Wonderbolt and Renegade alike.

Despite her questions being answered so quickly, Dash barely focused on it them. Sure, she now knew what the sudden rush was about and why Soarin was carrying Wave but…

Dash fixed her eyes on Spitfire, who was holding herself strong as she addressed them all.

They had just gotten Wave back… only for this to happen. Dash couldn’t even begin to imagine how heavily this was weighing on Spitfire. How much more had to go wrong for her? At this rate Spitfire was closing in on Soarin in terms of the level of sympathy Dash felt for unfortunate circumstances. If there was any reaction, it had clearly already happened and been done with. Dash admired Spitfire’s resolve in the face of continuous emotionally challenging scenarios. Despite the alarming development, Spitfire was taking action instead of curling up and shivering, just as she had before they made the leap of faith to rescue Wave.

“Due to this new development,” Spitfire spoke up again, raising her voice as if trying to get everypony to refocus. “After talking it over, we have decided we are shifting our plans forward… we are going to start our journey to the Crystal Empire RIGHT NOW!”

Every Wonderbolt and Renegade were instantly re-focused and listening, not expecting it, but also not questioning it. Everypony stood attention after shaking off the brief surprise, paying attention and awaiting the explanation of the full plan as well as their orders.

“First things first,” Spitfire began. “As soon as we hear from Rivet, the first step is going to be getting this big tub up into the air. Assuming that it all works… here is the rest of the plan. As I’ve discussed with several of you already, we are not taking a direct route to the Crystal Empire. We are going to take a wide, curved route, first heading southwest deep into the grasslands until we hit the badlands canyons and turning west. We are hoping to meet up with the Lunar guard there, before turning northwest, pushing our way back north through the grasslands and heading into the snowy plains until we hit the Crystal Empire. We will engage the Shadowbolts if we must, but only if we can’t avoid them. However, if we must fight them… we are going THROUGH them, got it?!”

Spitfire paused to look over the crowd, nopony objected or showed any signs of doubt or confusion, so she continued.

“Good, but remember, the top priority is to avoid them, I don’t want anypony thinking they’re a hardass. Only directly engage if I give the order… now then…” she nodded. “As for assignments…” she turned and looked towards Descent, giving him a tip of the head to come forward. Descent hovered up in front of her, focusing on the Renegades present.

“The first task of the Renegades will be to create a clear, smooth path through the blizzard for the compound to reach the grasslands,” Descent explained. “Once we are clear of the northern mountains, the Renegades will pull back and land on the deck out in front of the lobby doors. Their main task as we fly is to be the first response to the Shadowbolts or their Falcons should they come after us. Do NOT engage the flying fortress unless we give the order to shift tactics. All engagement with the Shadowbolts or the Falcons are to be with the intent to slow them down or hinder them, allowing the compound a better chance at shaking them. We have to get the Wonderbolts to the Crystal Empire at any cost!”

Dash bit her lip as she listened to Descent’s orders for the Renegades, glancing over at Silver’s former wingmates nearby.

At any cost? Were the Renegades simply going to act as a shield for them? She wasn’t so sure she liked that, and she was certain she wasn’t the only Wonderbolt that felt that way.

“That being said…” Spitfire hovered forward, surprising Descent as she shifted in front of him. “The Wonderbolts are going to play a role in this too. We are going to have two groups. One stationed in the lobby, and the other spread throughout the hallways on the second and third floors. The Wonderbolts in the lobby will have a purely defensive role, ready to engage any Shadowbolts that gain entry through the lobby doors, the easiest method of entry. Those stationed on the second and third floors will wait by the windows in the hallways and be on alert for intruders, just like those in the lobby, however… If things get dicey for the Renegades, these are the Wonderbolts who will launch upon my order to assist them. The Wonderbolts in the lobby will only launch if things start going really bad and we need the full force, otherwise, they are to remain in place to ensure the defense of the entrance. If you are an even number squad, you are stationed in the lobby! If you’re an odd numbered squad, check in with me on the third floor outside of the bridge and…” she trailed off as she got a few confused looks. “It used to be the rec room,” she clarified, earning lots of nods and ‘ohs’ in response. “Check in with me there before liftoff for positioning and assignments. The recruit squads will also be a part of this set up, even and odd numbers based on the letter of the alphabet accordingly!”

Spitfire paused, looking like she was about to wrap it up, but then blinked.

“Oh, and one last thing. I only want Wonderbolts who are in top form and able to fight at the ready. If you are still nursing an injury or are not close to being at one hundred percent, remain in the compound and either help out or stay out of the way, understand?!”

Dash glanced back at Little Star sitting upon Matteo’s back. She still had her wing wrapped up. Star’s eyes caught Dash’s, Star sighing as she realized that once again, she was going to be in a position where she couldn’t help them. She sighed, pouting as she lied down and nestled herself into Matteo’s fluffy back arrangement of feathers and fur, mumbling incoherently to herself as she avoided eye contact with any of them.

Dash instinctively felt bad for Star, but Spitfire’s orders were law. They already ‘bent’ them a little during Wave’s rescue. Dash didn’t want to push their luck.

“The plan is structured assuming that we’ll have to confront the Shadowbolts at some point,” Spitfire continued. “Though until we meet up with the Lunar Guard, it is our preferred objective to evade them. Once we have the Lunar Guard on our side, we’re confident we’ll have the numbers and the force to push through them if need be, giving us a straight shot to the Crystal Empire. Once there, we can add the Crystal Guard to our numbers… and we will heavily outnumber the Shadowbolts and can finally start planning how to take them down!” Spitfire added a degree of enthusiasm to her voice. A few hoots and cheers rang out from the crowd, mostly from Wonderbolts. The Renegade Shadowbolts knew what she meant, but that didn’t stop it from being a tiny bit awkward. “Now everypony suit up and get ready! We’re lifting off as soon as Rivet gives the word! I want all top tier squad Wonderbolts with me on the bridge after you suit up! Let’s move everypony!” Spitfire finished.

Dash glanced back at her squad as the lobby turned into a cacophony of moving ponies again.

“You heard the captain!” Dash nodded to her squad. “Let’s…!” she trailed off as her eyes landed on Little Star. “Er… let’s find Star a safe place first… then we’ll get ready…”

Squall and Twister both glanced at Star moping as she sunk herself deeper into Matteo’s fur. Matteo glanced over his shoulder to look at her as well.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted as he reached up and patted Star on the back… but didn’t look at her. “Relax, we’ll be fine,” he assured her. “How many times do I have to tell you that? Seriously…” he kept talking without looking at her. Star was peeking out of Matteo’s black fur, staring at Squall as he finally stopped awkwardly patting her back. Twister’s head popped out beside her.

“Comfy in here, ISN’T IT?!” he asked right as Dash hovered up and casually stuffed him back into Matteo’s fur.

“Come on,” Dash motioned to them as she placed a hoof on Star’s back. “Let’s take her to Silver, at least that way she won’t be by herself.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” Star hummed with disappointment as they started making their way through the crowd to the east hallway.

As the crowd continued to disperse, Soarin was about to turn towards the stairwell to retrieve his suit from his room, but he blinked and stopped when he felt a hoof on his shoulder.

“Soarin, hold on a moment,” Spitfire’s voice caught his ears. He turned and faced her, the two of them landing at the base of the stairs with Fleetfoot and Air Mach both stopping and glancing at one another close by. It didn’t take Soarin long to figure out what she wanted. The serious look in her eyes matched the one she wore earlier when she mentioned needing to have a ‘talk’ with him.

“What is it?” Soarin asked, his tone preemptively voicing his lack of amusement as Luna came into view, stopping beside Fleetfoot and Air Mach with similar curiosity. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow for a moment, but ultimately ignored Soarin’s tone before she continued.

“Should the lead squad be forced into action, you will remain in the compound,” she came right out with it. Soarin’s ears stood up and his eyes went wide, but they almost instantly sharpened into a glare.

“WHAT?! Why?!” he questioned. But Spitfire shook her head.

“Soarin, what part of ‘it’s not up for debate’ wasn’t clear earlier?” she shot right back, but Soarin didn’t have it.

“Oh, no you don’t. Your authority can tell me what you want, but I have every right as a commander ranking right beneath you to demand why!” Soarin cited the Wonderbolt code, earning a flat look from Spitfire.

“Really Soarin?” she snorted. “I said it wasn’t up for debate because I thought it would be obvious why I don’t want you out there,” she explained calmly.

“What’s that supposed to…” Soarin blinked before looking up at the cracked horn. “Oh, of course…” he looked back down at her and scowled, glancing to his left briefly and pointing at Luna. “I take it this was all the secret whispering you and Luna were having?” he accused. “Discord said the horn was fine! I’m not going to let you two shield me like a frail little foal and keep me from helping all of my friends during a dangerous operation!” Soarin argued back.

Luna visibly flinched when Soarin brought up Discord, but Soarin didn’t noticed since he looked away just before she did so. Spitfire, however, didn’t falter one bit.

“Luna had nothing to do with this decision!” Spitfire shot back, poking Soarin in the chest. “This is MY decision! I don’t want you compromising the horn that’s keeping you alive any more than you already have. The only thing Luna and I have discussed about the horn, is possibly also finding some way to repair it when we get to the Crystal Empire. The decision to keep you grounded is mine and mine alone. You are to stay out of combat unless forced to defend yourself within the compound, and so help me, if you try to fly out there, I am ordering Wonderbolts to restrain you,” she made herself very clear, countering every harsh look Soarin gave her with one twice as strong. “And if you don’t like it, you should have thought about that before hurling yourself into a mountain! If you weren’t so reckless and prone to hurting yourself all the time, I wouldn’t have to make tough decisions like keeping one of my best on his hooves instead of in the air… so do as you’re told or I’ll lock you in one of our empty recruit barracks!” she threatened.

Fleetfoot, Luna, and even Air Mach were left speechless as Spitfire and Soarin continued to glare at one another. But Soarin’s imposing size reaching over her had little effect… and he couldn’t argue with her words, she had a point. He didn’t want to admit or acknowledge it, but she had a very solid point.

“TCH!” Soarin scoffed as he broke eye contact with her and looked away. “Fine…”

“Good,” Spitfire huffed as she pulled back from him, glancing at Fleetfoot and Air Mach. “Well? Go suit up and meet on the bridge!” she ordered. Both Fleetfoot and Air Mach quickly turned and left. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as Soarin remained still. “That means you too!” she ordered harshly. Without a word, Soarin followed behind his fellow lead commanders, flying up into the broken stairwell.

Spitfire released a long breath the moment the rest of her squad was out of earshot, letting her head hang down and shaking it back and forth. Luna stepped up beside her, patting her on the shoulder.

“That was… er…” Luna awkwardly looked away. “Quick thinking on your part…”

“Don’t sugarcoat it, Princess,” Spitfire groaned as she tilted her head all the way back. “It was a bold-faced, flat out lie… and I didn’t like doing it.” She brought her head back forward and blinked, staring at the stairs before glancing up at Luna. “But… now he’s convinced I’m being too soft on him, at this point anything is better than him becoming hysterical about his safety and compromising the horn… I guess…”

Luna frowned as she watched Spitfire grumble.

“But… be warned, anger is one such emotion that may weaken the horn’s remaining integrity,” Luna reminded her. Spitfire reached a hoof up and rubbed her forehead.

“I know, but no matter what we tried, he was going to have some negative reaction, trust me… I know him. He doesn’t like it when I order him around like this, but he usually comes around quickly. If he goes the usual route and eventually accepts my reasoning, he’ll be back to normal before we even takeoff. Either way, I’ve made it clear he’s not going to be fighting, even if he tries, so even if he’s angry, he won’t put the horn at risk.”

Luna opened her mouth several times, trying to follow up, but she really had nothing to say. She knew what they had to do, but only Spitfire knew how to handle Soarin on this level. Before she could say anything, Spitfire stood up.

“Come on. Let’s get ready… the sooner we get to the Empire, the less I have to be stressed over…”

Soarin grumbled to himself as he shuffled through the bolted down dresser in his room.

“Dammit Spitfire,” he said to himself, venting his anger. “Thinks she knows what’s best for me…” he continued to slide his hooves around among the other outfits and gear he owned, but barely wore. “I don’t care if it makes sense, nothing about all this has made sense…” After getting fed up with trying to hoof his way around the drawer, he stuck his face into it, poking around with his nose as he continued to grumble. “Ponies I care about are going to be at risk and you’re forcing me to stay down and—OW!” he yelped as the horn bumped into the dresser.

He pulled his head out of the drawer and stumbled backwards, blinking several times as a sudden pain began to build in his head.

“Ahhhh… Guhhh…” Soarin fell back onto his plot and bent over as tiny sparks began to flip from the horns surface for only a moment or two, his eyes shifting between a faint glow of yellow and blue as he blinked and tried to find his balance.

After a few seconds, the pain subsided, the sparks ceased, and the glow in his eyes disappeared. Soarin exhaled, glancing up at the horn as little beads of sweat ran down his forehead, but quickly were absorbed into his fur before they could reach his nose. He let his hooves fall to the floor and shook his head as he looked down.

“Son of a…” he said quietly as he lightly pounded his left hoof against the ground. “Maybe Spitfire is right, maybe I should play it safe.” He glanced up at the horn again. She was right. He did this to himself. Things were somewhat stable, even after Discord’s makeshift barrier stopped working, but then he had to go and ram himself into a mountainside and now it was almost as bad as when he first put the damn thing on… or more like when Discord nearly jammed it through his skull followed by a hilariously painful reaction that had to be controlled by both him and Luna.

Soarin blinked as he reached up and rubbed his forehead beside the horn.

He had gotten so used to wearing the stupid thing that he nearly forgot how messed up his whole situation was.

The horn was fine according to Discord… but it was clear the damage had some effect on his stability. So… yeah… Spitfire was right, even though he was still miffed at her. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to fly out into combat. She always found a way to be right, but if Soarin saw somepony in danger and he was the one close enough to help… orders be damned, he was going to help them. If it was Rainbow Dash? Double damn the orders. He didn’t care if he had to throw off Wonderbolts trying to restrain him, he’d never let anything stop him from saving Rainbow Dash.

But… if it didn’t come to that, he would follow Spitfire’s orders. He just didn’t want to.

Soarin looked up as realization hit him.

“Uggghhh…” her groaned as he stood up and closed the drawer of his dresser. “What the hell am I doing?” He grunted as he moved towards his sliding closet instead and opened it, grabbing the first Wonderbolt suit on the row of hangars.

He was so distracted and miffed that he wasn’t even looking in the right place for his suits, despite having kept them in the closet instead of his dresser for upwards of 5 years.

“Focus, Soarin…” he told himself as he shook the suit out and began shimmying his limbs into the sleeves. “Just go with it…” he continued as he slipped the suit over his body and pulled his head through, pulling the mask all the way over his head and securing the rest of it. “Do as Spitfire says as long as the situation warrants, otherwise…” Soarin reached down and pulled the mask up, making sure to slip the horn through the cutout hole without brushing the suit against it too much. “All bets are off…”

He turned and looked in the mirror as he grabbed his goggles and hung them around his neck. He stared into his own eyes, completely ignoring the horn as he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Let’s just get the hell out of these mountains...” he said to himself, giving the damaged horn a single glance before turning and heading out of his room.

One thing was for certain, it would never be a long walk from his room to the bridge if they kept using the Nimbus in the future. With his room right beside Spitfire’s in the center of the third floor hall, it took Soarin less than half a minute to get to the rec room turned bridge.

A left turn from his room, right past Spitfire’s room, past the stairwell around the propeller pillar and…

“WHOA!” Soarin’s eyes widened as he stepped through the doors into the bridge.

He had… not seen it since they started repairs and… Rivet’s teams had completely transformed the room.

The control platform that had burst through the floor, along with all the control panels and levers along the sides of it and large steering lever front and center, were actually the only things he recognized. The rest of the room had been given an extreme makeover. Any piece that was once part of the rec room had been completely removed. All the couches, tables, chairs, games, and even the bar and fridge had been removed, leaving a lot of empty space, but several new holes had been drilled in the floor, many wires running from them towards the control platform. The floor surrounding the platform had been fixed, filling in the spaces that exposed the floors below, and steps had been attached to the rear of the platform base to allow ease of movement on and off. Aside from where the stairs were placed, a railing had been erected all the way around the platform ending near the main steering lever. The broken glass panes of the forward facing window had been replaced and looked to be much sturdier.

Soarin looked around in awe as he approached the platform where the rest of his squad was already waiting along with Luna, Blaze, and High Winds. Squad Three had yet to show up, but several of Rivet’s helpers and Lucky were moving about the platform, Rivet’s staff making final check on all of the components while Lucky paced back and forth near the steering lever.

“It seems… empty…” Fleetfoot spoke up as Soarin approached them quietly and sat down, still a little miffed at Spitfire, even though he had seen the reason in her judgment.

“According to Rivet it’s just a placeholder,” Spitfire explained as she too examined the area. “We’ve only got what was already built into the place, I heard something about looking to completely remodel and improve on everything if we make it to the Crystal Empire…” Spitfire looked towards Lucky as he continued to walk in circles. “Hey, Lucky!”

“GAH!” Lucky suddenly shrieked, spread his wings, and launched himself upward, smashing right into the ceiling before falling flat against the floor.

All eyes turned to him as he rolled over and stood up quickly, brushing his mane aside and smiling very wide.

“Yes? Er, YES MA’AM ahah…” he stumbled over his words with a slightly hysterical tone.

“Uh…” Spitfire blinked, lifting an eyebrow. She looked him up and down, but ultimately dismissed his frantic and silly response as she continued. “Has Rivet talked to you about what else he might do with the bridge? I know it all depends on whether or not we reach the empire, but…” she trailed off as Lucky seemed to stiffen as she spoke, his face going blank. “Are you alright?”

“WHAT?!”

Everypony flinched and turned back towards the door to see squad three entering the bridge, but most of the focus went to Surprise as she dove into the room, and floated over to where the air hockey table used to be.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! WHERE IS IT?!?!?!?!” She wailed as she landed completely flat on her stomach on the floor, flailing her hooves while lightly bopping her nose against the ground.

“Surprise…” Spitfire sighed. “We didn’t throw it all away, we just moved—”

"WHERE?" Surprise had somehow moved across the entire room and was up in front of Spitfire’s face while clutching the neck of her suit in the blink of an eye. As if it already wasn’t silly enough that Surprise was just a little over half the size of Spitfire, she had her back hooves firmly planted on Spitfire’s chest as she held onto Spitfire’s suit with her front.

“We put them into storage in the…” she trailed off and pouted as Surprise, instead of listening to her, was pushing her back hooves hard against Spitfire’s chest while yanking the elastic fabric of Spitfire’s suit as far as she could while growling, grinding her teeth, and tipping her head back. “Surprise, stop that,” Spitfire asked calmly as Fire Streak approached and grabbed Surprise’s head.

“Surprise, please respect the Captain’s personal space,” he asked nicely, but she only tipped her head further back and glared at him as she continued to pull on Spitfire’s suit. Fire tried to pull her off, but when the attempts failed miserably, Misty Fly stepped up beside him. She wagged a hoof at him while shaking her head before moving beside Surprise. Misty floated up into the air and reached her front hooves out, aiming them towards the middle of the sides of Surprise’s stomach. She then jammed them down, poking Surprise on both sides, at the same time, right below her ribs.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!” Surprise released the highest pitched squeak any of them had ever heard, immediately letting go of Spitfire’s suit and scrunching all of her limbs inward as she launched away from Spitfire. Fire Streak’s eyes widened and he ducked dexterously, but his twin was not so fortunate.

“OH SHI—” Lightning Streak’s reaction was too little too late as Surprise crashed right into him. Surprise stopped dead in the air and fell flat to the floor, but Lightning Streak tumbled backwards, crashing into the doors behind him. He rolled over and sat up, shaking his head out just in time for the door to slowly swing back and bop him in the face.

Spitfire and Fire Streak, along with the rest, all slowly looked towards Misty Fly with blank stares as she simply smiled brightly at them in response.

“I… didn’t know that worked,” Fire admitted while chuckling as Surprise rolled up into a ball and began rolling in circles while clutching her sides saying ‘ooo, ahhh, ooo’ over and over again. With Surprise pacified, Spitfire regained her senses and approached her.

“Surprise, we just stored everything down in the basement for now, we didn’t throw any of it out. The air hockey table is down there too,” she flinched as Surprise leapt back up and grabbed her again.

“DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!” she demanded as she began to pull on Spitfire’s suit again, but then Misty Fly moved up beside them again and looked at Surprise while poking her hooves together. Surprise’s eyes widened and she instantly let go, lowering herself to the floor while shuffling away and keeping her eyes on Misty as she moved, climbing over and hiding behind Lightning Streak and peeking over the top of him as he tried to get his focus back.

“Anyway…” Spitfire rolled her eyes as Fleetfoot, Blaze, and High Winds all giggled behind her. “Fire, report?”

“Rivet says ‘about time’,” Fire relayed to Spitfire as he saluted. Spitfire chuckled.

“Of course he does…” she shook her head and then looked towards Lucky. “Now then…”

As she turned and walked back towards the platform, Soarin kept his eyes on her, sitting against the railing on the edge of the platform. Spitfire suddenly glanced at him, but he looked away, wearing an expression of disinterest. As Spitfire kept moving, Soarin looked back, watching her for another moment before glancing towards Luna. Luna flinched as Soarin caught her looking, and she glanced away as if she had done nothing.

“Hmph…” Soaring grunted to himself, tired of all the restraint and just wanting to get everything going so he could quit focusing on how much he was being held back and refocus on his own problems like he had before all of the crap with the Shadowbolts began.

“Lucky…” Spitfire spoke up, drawing Soarin’s attention over to her. “Seriously, are you alright?”

Soarin lifted an eyebrow as he examined Lucky’s… strange behavior from further back. He was standing beside the control lever, resting his head against it while sliding his hoof up and down it in a small back and forth motion with his eyes wide. He was also shivering.

“Lucky, hello? Equestria to Lucky,” Spitfire spoke again when he didn’t respond.

“Huh? What? All good here!” he suddenly said, detaching himself from the lever and sitting down with a very fake smile plastered on his face.

“No, you’re not, and don’t tell me you are again,” Spitfire suddenly sharpened her tone, causing Lucky to flinch. “You’re about to fly this thing for us, I would hope nothing is…” Spitfire trailed off, blinking. “Oh, that’s what it is, isn’t it?”

“Uh…” Lucky’s ears flopped down. “M…maybe?” he flinched as Spitfire flattened her brow. He sighed and looked down. “Okay, okay, yes. I’m… kind of nervous. Okay I’m very nervous…” he groaned and threw his hooves up in the air. “Dammit, I’m lying to myself now, I’m terrified, okay?!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Spitfire stepped towards him and shook her head. “Enough of that. Stop,” she urged him as she put a hoof on his shoulder. She looked him over as he put his hooves down and sighed heavily.

“I mean…” he began. “It was all sort of by accident before. The adrenaline was pumping and when I realized the lever was steering the place I just… grabbed it in a desperate attempt at survival. Right now…” he sat down and slumped. “I’m just an employee that works behind the mail counter, and I’m being asked to drive… an ancient airship carrying the most respected force in Equestria while navigating it through dangerous terrain and possibly outrunning a ship equipped with magic cannons and smaller craft that will be buzzing around us? I don’t know if I’m ready for that responsibility… or, you know… something this crazy. Should I really be the one to do this? Crazy is what you guys do, I just organize mail for Celestia’s sake.”

Spitfire let him finish, listening to every word he said. She wanted him to let it all out so she could assess him. After all, she didn’t want him flying the Nimbus if he was too nervous, but that would leave her with a dilemma. He was the only pony who had flown the Nimbus and they didn’t have time for anypony else to ‘take their best shot’. However, she didn’t feel she would need to, because while he seemed nervous, it didn’t feel, at least to her, like it was a lack of confidence, more a fear of screwing it up. After all, there was a lot of pressure on him due to what he was flying and who he would be transporting.

“Look,” Spitfire spoke up while placing her other hoof on his other shoulder, looking him right in the eyes while facing him directly. “I’m not going to force you to fly the Nimbus. I know you were just a mail counter employee before this, but I want you to understand why we need you. I personally feel you are our best chance to make this all work. Only you have gotten a feel for how this ship controls, so I’m not confident that having somepony learn it as we go will be the best choice, especially with what we might be flying through,” she nodded while sharpening her eyes into a stern gaze. “After how you took control of the compound and effectively became a major factor in our survival… I have confidence in you to help us out once again. We all have confidence in you.”

“Still nervous…” Lucky instantly replied with his voice slightly higher, Spitfire’s encouragement having absolutely no effect on him whatsoever. Spitfire blinked, her jaw dropping slightly as her words of encouragement simply bounced off of him. She was more than sure it would work, but apparently…

“One side, Captain Serious!” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke from behind Spitfire. Spitfire glanced to her left as Fleetfoot grabbed her by the shoulder and winked at her. “Let me handle this.”

“What?” Spitfire furrowed her brow, but stepped back as Fleetfoot pushed her way in front of her and looked Lucky in the eye for a moment before her lips curled into a smile. She shook her head back and forth to whisk her mane around before turning slightly sideways and leaning towards him while giving him a look that could easily be described as ‘bedroom eyes’.

“Look here, Mr. Hero Ace Pilot Stallion…” she said while inching towards him and fluttering her eyelashes. Lucky’s eyes widened slightly with every motion she made. “That was pretty awesome when you flew us all to safety…” she added a flirtatious tone to her voice as she leaned her shoulder into his chest. Lucky’s pupils shrank and he edged his neck back slightly as she got really close, his face adopting a very red tint quite quickly. “Somepony with the cahones to fly a big old ship like this on a whim has my attention…” she reached up and began sliding her hoof in a circle on his chest. “And I bet those cahones also pack enough heat to help us take on the Shadowbolts. Let us down? Please, you already blew us away once. You just gotta do it again. You can get us out of here…” She slid her side along his chest and brushed her tail beneath his chin. “It would be even more awesome if you ended up helping us save these sick ponies we have on board… and help us take another step in kicking some Shadowbolt ass…” she said while shaking her plot before turning around and facing him. Lucky’s face was completely red, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Well? You gonna help us you big stallion? I wanna see those hooves make this big flying machine their bitch,” she ended while swiping her hoof lightly out towards him while biting her lower lip and batting her eyelashes at him again.

Lucky blinked several times, a look of ridiculous confidence making its way onto his bright red face.

“Heh… heheh uh, heh… yeah… oh…” he stuttered as Fleetfoot leaned towards him again while smiling seductively. “I, uh, YEAH! I’ll do it! Haha…” he suddenly stood very upright as he turned and glared at the steering lever, “I’ll fly this big pile of bolts! YEAH! HAHA!” he sounded completely different.

Fleetfoot giggled as she turned around and faced… everypony else as they all looked at her with very disturbed expressions. All except for Air Mach, who was already up next to Lucky saying something about being a stallionly stallion, and Soarin and Spitfire who were both shaking their heads while holding a hoof over their eyes.

“Dammit, Fleet…” Spitfire said with a loud sigh as Fleetfoot cheerfully trotted back over to them.

“What?” She asked as if she didn’t already know.

“You know what? Soarin is right. You are completely shameless,” Spitfire said as she pointed towards Lucky and flattened her brow. Fleetfoot glanced over her shoulder to see Lucky was now shouting along with Air Mach and posing with him.

“Hey, come on,” she shrugged while giggling, leaning forward and poking Spitfire in the chest. “So I know how to push the right buttons. I got him to stallion up, didn’t I?” She bounced her eyebrows as Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Nice work… I guess,” Spitfire said sarcastically as she turned away from Fleetfoot.

“Hey! What’s with the tone?” she pressed, but Spitfire was ignoring her.

Soarin chuckled as Spitfire walked by him, drawing her attention for a moment, but he only looked away when she glanced at him. She quickly disregarded his clear avoidance of her as she made her way over to squad three and Luna.

“Fire, let’s get this operation started, can you take care of a final check to see if everypony is ready and in place?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am!” Fire saluted before turning to his squad. “Surprise, Lightning, go…” he trailed off and lifted an eyebrow. Misty had Lightning Streak in a headlock and was ruffling his mane to the point where it looked full of static. Surprise was poking his fuzzed up mane and flinching, expecting to get shocked. They all looked up at Fire, Misty instantly dropping Lightning to the floor with a THUMP as Surprise shifted up next to Misty and mimicked Misty’s deceptively innocent smile. Lightning Streak stood up, but his mane was so fluffed out that it almost looked like a perfect sphere, and it was covering his eyes. Fire cleared his throat and repeated himself. “Surprise, brother, I want you two to run a sweep of the lobby and the two upper floors, make sure everypony is set and report back here.

“RIGHT-O!” Surprise saluted with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. She turned, pulled a bucket of water out of her mane, and dumped it over Lightning Streak. The deluge completely flattened his mane down. “Success!” Surprise yelled before putting the bucket on her head like a hat and bouncing out of the room.

“Ooo… bro…” Lightning cringed as he started awkwardly walking towards the door behind her, dripping wet. “Soggy suit… soggy suit…”

Fire, immune to his squad’s shenanigans, turned to Misty, pointed at her, and pointed to the floor while smiling and nodding. She smiled and nodded in response before Fire turned back to Spitfire and saluted, but Spitfire was already turned away and walking.

Soarin found himself ‘glaring’ at Spitfire again as she drew near. He was feeling conflicted. On one hoof, he could see the reasoning behind her decision… but that didn’t mean he had to like it, especially with her pushing her authority on him. He hated when she did that, even though she was completely allowed to do so. It was a drawback of Spitfire condoning a more family atmosphere, they were lax so often, that when it was time for authority, it could come across as overly harsh… or maybe that was just how he felt because they had been friends for so long. Whatever… he really just didn’t like that he was being forced to sit out.

Soarin blinked as Spitfire stopped, sighed, and sharply turned her head towards him.

“Do you have something to say to me, Soarin?” she asked while lifting an eyebrow. Soarin snorted and looked away again.

“No,” he said simply.

“Yeah, sure,” Spitfire said sarcastically as she walked towards Lucky and Air Mach to calm them down.

Soarin shot her a hard glare as she went on her way, but grunted and went back to moping.

“Are you two fighting?” Fleetfoot suddenly asked as she slid up beside Soarin. “I think you guys have the wrong mare and stallion, unless a foursome I didn’t know about went wrong or something.” Fleetfoot joked and giggled, trying to lighten the mood. But when she got no response from Soarin, she pouted and huffed. “Gee, sorry I interrupted your brood mood…”

Soarin glanced at her as she got up and moved away, but had little time to think further.

Surprise burst back through the doors.

“FIRST!” she proclaimed as Lightning Streak slowly came in behind her.

“We were racing?” he asked while scratching the back of his head.

“Surprise! Brother! Report!” Fire Streak immediately asked them as he moved towards them.

“Lobby is all set!” Surprise tapped her hoof against her head repeatedly in a goofy salute.

“Yo, the bros and gals are all ready on the second and third floor,” Lightning Streak replied casually, without saluting. Fire Streak nodded twice before turning around.

“Captain Spitfire, we’re—”

“Heard them loud and clear, Fire,” Spitfire called as she glided back over to them and looked around. “It’s time…”

Soarin perked up as he watched Spitfire walk over to Luna and exchange a few words before turning and moving to the front, where Lucky was eagerly awaiting.

His dissatisfaction with Spitfire aside, Soarin suddenly had goosebumps. Even after everything they had been through being stuck in the mountains for nearly a month… there was one part to the whole scenario that he had completely missed out on and was still, frankly, incredulous about…

The fact that their compound was actually once a flying stronghold called the Nimbus.

He had gotten chances to go outside and look at all the propellers, see the damage and where exactly the whole thing ripped out of their encampment in Canterlot, but it was still such a ridiculous thought despite all the evidence being right in front of him.

Now he got to see it… assuming it was going to work. He kept his focus on Spitfire as she looked around the panels on the control platform.

“Where is the P.A. system?” she asked.

“Oh, here…” Lucky shifted over and pointed to a panel to the right of the main control lever. He led Spitfire over to it and pushed a button on base of the panel, causing a microphone to pop up next to it. “And…” Lucky pointed to two big red buttons beside it. One of them read ‘Engine Room’ the other one read ‘Everything Else’. Both labels were written with scratchy, hard to read letters in black ink. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as she glanced at Lucky.

“Another placeholder, I hope?” Spitfire asked. Lucky just shrugged before sliding back over to the control lever and rubbing his hooves together as he and Air Mach continued to be overly excited for completely different reasons.

Spitfire stared at the button labeled ‘Engine Room’ and pressed her hoof down on it. A loud SCREEEEEEECH came from the speaker fixed to the side of the device above the panel itself, as well as a makeshift loudspeaker that was fixed to the ceiling above the center of the control platform, something none of them had really noticed until just now as it came to life. All they could hear as the speakers powered on was something that sounded like clanking metal and humming.

“Uh… hello?” Spitfire spoke into microphone. After a brief pause she heard the sounds of a small scuffle among the mechanical noises and then…

“HEYA CAPTAIN, HUN! YOUR VOICE SOUNDS LOVELY OVER THE SPEAKER!” Lead Runner’s shrill, flamboyant voice blasted through the speaker that was right in front of Spitfire’s face. Spitfire cringed before glancing around and seeing a dial labeled ‘volume’. It was turned up to eleven. She quickly reached for it and turned it down to six.

“Learun? Is Rivet there?” she asked as she let her ears flop up and down, trying to stop them from ringing.

“Rivet? Oh, the darling is busy being a cute little genius, can I take a message—HEY!” he was suddenly cut off as a lot of bumping noises came from the speaker, suggesting the microphone on their end was being fought over.

“This is Rivet,” Rivet’s voice came through the speaker after the sounds of struggling calmed down. “What’s going on up there?” he asked. Spitfire chuckled, certain she could hear Point Dex yelling at Lead Runner in the background.

“Rivet, we’re ready to give this a shot,” she paused. “Are you?”

“As ready as I’m going to be,” Rivet replied. “Should I connect the main propeller?”

“Let me address the force first,” Spitfire quickly veered off. “But go ahead and ready the main prop, I’ll call you again when it’s time to fly.”

“Right,” Rivet answered simply. “Everypony! Time to get moving! Let’s go!” Rivet’s voice trailed off as he began giving orders.

Spitfire removed her hoof from the button, the speakers tuning out before she eyed the other one. ‘Everything Else’. She cleared her throat and pressed her hoof down on it.

“ATTENTION ALL WONDERBOLTS,” Spitfire’s voice boomed through the loudspeakers of the lobby.

Dash looked up with the rest, donning her suit with her goggles hanging around her neck. Her heartbeat began to quicken slightly in anticipation as she awaited orders with the rest.

“ALL FINAL CHECKS HAVE BEEN MADE AND WE ARE READY TO TAKE FLIGHT. THIS MIGHT BE A LITTLE BUMPY, SO STAY ALERT. OUR DESTINATION IS THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE, AND WE’RE NOT LETTING ANYTHING GET IN OUR WAY. SO READY UP! SPITFIRE OUT!”

Dash took a deep breath and swallowed before exhaling. She turned and looked back at Squall, Matteo, and Twister.

“Alright guys…” she stepped in towards them, fastened her goggles over her eyes, and stuck her hoof out. “Are we ready?!” she asked with enthusiasm.

“Heh, always,” Matteo replied first, putting his goggles in place before reaching his arm up, balling up his talons and placing it in with Dash’s hoof.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted, but followed along anyway. He strapped his goggles tight and placed his hoof in the center.

Twister suddenly stuck his head into the center, his goggles fastened, but wearing a leather helmet on his head and a red scarf around his neck.

“Time to get ahead…” Twister said while bouncing his eyebrows and bopping his head against their arms.

“Close enough,” Dash nodded. “Let’s do this!”

Spitfire reached back over to the ‘engine room’ button, glancing over at Lucky. He gave her a nod before turning to the control lever. Spitfire pressed the button.

“Rivet?”

“Rivet, here.”

Spitfire looked up from the microphone and glanced around at everypony in the room. They were all looking towards her with anticipation. She closed her eyes for a moment, before opening them and showing an expression of determination.

“Let’s fly,” she said simply.

“Roger! We’ll start the rotors now!” Rivet exclaimed as the speaker cut out.

Soarin finally detached himself from the railing and walked towards Lucky. Fleetfoot followed right behind him, the two of them stepping up beside Spitfire as they anxiously waited.

The past few hours had been rough and a few scuffles, overreactions, and disagreements had pitted each of them in an awkward spot in some way or another. But despite all of it, they were all clear on one thing…

It was time to get moving, to rise from the shadows of the mountains and the veil of the blizzard, to move forward and blaze a trail to the Crystal Empire. They would pick up help both along the way and once they got there, and then they would finally strike back.

If you asked any of them, it was about damn time.

They looked about the room as loud, muffled WHOOSH sounded out from below, signaling the steam furnace coming to life in the basement below. A low hum echoed throughout, the walls and the floor rattling as the hum grew louder and became accompanied by loud groans and creaks as the sounds of gears, axles, and belts met their ears, specifically coming from the main propeller pillar that was right outside the bridge doors…

Descent watched from behind his misty goggles, the snow bouncing off of his face as the smaller propellers atop the Nimbus slowly started to rotate. He looked towards the main propeller in the center, and the moment it began to slowly inch its way around, Descent turned to face Starry Skies, Lightning Dust, Blazetail, and Flashwind with the entire Renegade force behind them, save for the small detachments still maintaining the blizzard.

“LET’S GET THIS UNDERWAY!” Descent yelled as he twirled his hoof in the air. “GO!” he ordered, the Renegades dispersing in every direction as a loud whirring noise filled the air.

The smaller propellers of the compound were speeding up and slowly disappearing from sight as they turned faster and faster. The enormous central propeller finally made a full turn and began to pick up speed, the creaks and groans echoing through the mountain range as it went around again and again and again.

Soarin blinked as the floor continued to shake beneath him. It felt like an earthquake that just kept getting stronger and stronger. He glanced over at Spitfire, who couldn’t hide the look of doubt in her face. The constant creaking and groaning didn’t sound good. The machinery and contraptions were all old, even if they were patched up by Rivet. Soarin also remembered hearing something about missing the bottom propeller that helped them take off in the first place…

But despite the doubt and fears, Soarin and the rest all gasped as they felt the floor shift and wobble.

Everypony looked outside…

The faint view of the mountains near them began to move down…

Only, the mountains were not moving, they were.

Soarin’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he took a step forward, putting himself right up near the front window as he braced himself against the rocking back and forth.

The compound was ascending… it was actually ascending.

The large propeller turned faster and faster, causing a massive draft that pushed against the nearby Renegades as they readied to clear a path for the Nimbus through the blizzard. The uplift managed to force the large bulk of the Nimbus off the ground, ripping it out of the snow covering its base. Large, packed chunks of snow came loose, falling off the bottom and over the top of the platform, falling to the ground as the Nimbus slowly pulled away from it. The small propellers fixed to the bottom of the Nimbus whirred to life, slowly turning and speeding up until they added to the push.

The creaks and clanks of the old mechanisms continued to ring out as large puffs of smoke began billowing from the rear smokestacks, the smoke being pushed and thrown about by the extreme whirlwinds and gusts being generated by the central propeller. The roar of the engines below could be heard growing louder and louder as the old mechanisms were pushed by Rivet and his team. Plumes of fire began to shoot up from the smokestack as the main boiler made use of the reinforced strength given to it through the many repairs.

The rise was slow… much slower than when they first took off…

But despite missing the lower large propeller…

The Nimbus was rising.

“Well, I’ll be damned…” Descent commented as he watched in awe from a safe distance where he was regulating the efforts to manipulate the blizzard. “That little engineer of theirs actually got it to work… Not bad at all.”

After being grounded and exiled in the mountains for almost a month.

The Wonderbolt compound… the Nimbus… had taken flight.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

And here... we... go.

Some rough moments here. Both ponies in positions of power losing their cool and being irrational, Soarin getting miffed at Spitfire for her orders, that she doesnt want to have to give him, lying in the process for his sake.

And for gods sake, there would have been hell to pay is they actually threw out Surprise's air hockey table :pinkiecrazy:

But it is time for them all to calm down and focus, they have ponies to save, now including Wave Chill. But many question remain... was giving them Wave part of the plan all along?

Was it a plan by Moon? By Ruin? By... somepony else entirely?

I guess we'll find out, won't we?

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 126: Turbulence

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 126: Turbulence

Soarin braced himself as the very floor beneath his hooves continued to shake and vibrate vigorously. He had spread his legs out a little to keep his balance as his eyes darted between the ground and the bridge window.

Was this really happening? Was their home flying? Sure, it had to have gotten out into the mountains somehow in the first place, but he still couldn’t believe it.

He finally managed to look elsewhere to see everypony else in the room just as tense as he was as if they were all seeing it for the first time. But if the story he got about the initial takeoff was any indication, all of them were too busy wondering what the hell was going on to register that the compound had ripped from the ground and taken flight.

This time… it was part of the plan. They were really going to fly this massive thing.

Soarin’s little spat with Spitfire was pushed far into the back of his mind. Undoubtedly that was the case for Spitfire and Fleetfoot too while everypony tried to wrap their mind around the indescribable scenario they had just set in motion.

The shaking slowly died down as the retracting view of the mountains stabilized. The vibrating remained, but the Nimbus was up, and hovering. Soarin wished he could see it from the outside, he had no doubt it was a spectacle.

As the compound remained in the air, Pixie and Fairy popped up outside the bridge window from below. The two of them moved in sync, bracing their bodies against the intense gusts generated by the propellers above, keeping their wings flapping strongly to hold their position. They reached forward at the same time and tapped on the window before both turning and motioning to the left.

Nopony within the bridge reacted for a moment as the twin sisters both lifted their right eyebrow before repeating the motion. Spitfire blinked and came to her senses.

“Oh! Oh, right… Lucky, we need to correct our position to line up with our flight path. Follow their directions,” Spitfire ordered while stepping up and pointing at the synchronous twins as they kept pointing to the left.

Lucky focused on the twins, nodding as he swallowed.

“Alright… here goes…” he said as he gripped the large lever, looking it up and down at the control mechanism that was twice his height. He glanced down at the smaller throttle lever on a face-up panel to his right. He reached down, and pushed the throttle forward very slightly. Everypony in the bridge took a small backwards step as the Nimbus slowly inched forward, Pixie and Fairy pushing away from the window and continuing their motions to the left. Lucky refocused on the steering lever, shifting himself to the right and putting his shoulder into it. With a deep breath, Lucky pushed himself into the lever, causing it to tip to the left.

Faint creaking and groaning resonated throughout the Nimbus as the large rudder on the back behind the smokestacks turned and the smaller propellers began to tip slightly, causing the massive bulk to slowly turn to the left.

Pixie and Fairy kept themselves aligned with the window, swinging their arms to the left continuously as the Nimbus turned. As it rotated, Soarin looked up from the floor to see them slowly line up with their flight path. Their ‘path’ was a sight in itself. The Renegades had worked the artificial blizzard in such a unique and skillful way that they had created a literal tunnel through it, a large pipe-like path, cleared of all snowfall, but the icy gusts and clouds of mist still persisted.

Pixie and Fairy both glanced behind them as they lined up the Nimbus with the path, and then both turned and held their hooves forward, motioning for Lucky to stop.

“Stop,” Spitfire ordered.

Lucky grabbed the lever and pulled it in the opposite directions, but…

“WHOA!” Soarin yelped as the Nimbus lurched violently, lots of creaks, clanks, and pops sounding out from the structure, both faint and loud. Soarin managed to keep his hooves, but Fleetfoot was tossed to the floor along with almost everypony else, including Spitfire.

The faint echo of grunts, yelling, and swearing could be heard outside the door, echoing from the other Wonderbolts throughout the building.

Lucky, who had only stayed up because he was holding on to the lever, quickly scrambled and shifted to his right and slammed his hoof down over the compound-wide P.A. button.

“Uh, sorry about that!” he said with a nervous chuckle before releasing the button. But the moment he took his hoof off, the P.A. the speaker screeched.

“I thought I told you the lever would be more sensitive,” Rivet’s voice came through the speaker as the sound of uncomfortable groans could be heard behind his voice.

“Do you wanna fly this thing?” Lucky shot back sarcastically as he poked his nose against the microphone.

“No,” Rivet replied quickly and calmly. “Just reminding you.” The P.A. cut and Lucky grumbled to himself.

“Alright… Alright… it’s just like petting a jaguar… no sudden movements… unless necessary,” Lucky coached himself as he looked behind at the Wonderbolts getting back up.

“Relax,” Spitfire reassured him as she brushed herself off. “I wasn’t expecting perfection…” she looked past him as she trailed off to see that they were perfectly lined up. “At least we’re lined up with our path.”

They all looked forward to see Pixie and Fairy beckoning them to follow before the two turned and flew off towards the swarm of Renegades maintaining the tunnel.

“Alright Lucky, let’s take it slow,” Spitfire commanded.

Lucky nodded as he reached for the throttle again, inching it further forward.

Soarin refocused as he and the rest finally got their hoofing back, bracing himself and taking note to continuously brace himself as the Nimbus began to move a little faster. It was still moving at a snail’s pace, but slowly picking up.

While keeping his hooves firm on the floor, Soarin shuffled forward to watch as they began slowly following the Renegades. His eyes shifted to Lucky briefly as he held the lever steady, but Lucky was shaking slightly. He was focused forward, but he was undoubtedly still a little nervous. Soarin glanced back at Spitfire to see that she had noticed as well. It looked like she wanted to encourage him, maybe give some direction… but it wasn’t hard for Soarin to figure out why she hesitated. After all, she was used to giving squad orders and commands of that nature. This? Flying an airship? A whole new set of commands and orders would be required here.

Soarin looked back and around at the other ponies in the room. The Wonderbolts were all busy staring in awe out the window, and the unicorns from Rivet’s crew were all busy monitoring the several gauges and indicators that were apparently linked to the engine room or kept track of the Nimbus’ system status.

“Er…” Spitfire quietly gritted her teeth as she blinked, drawing Soarin’s attention back to her as she stepped forward and stood beside Lucky. “Hold steady… Follow the Renegades…” She looked down, but then back up quickly. “Keep us low in the tunnel, but avoid the mountains… let’s not push the speed too much until we’re out over the grasslands. For now, just get a feel for the controls again, alright?” Spitfire awkwardly issued her orders as Lucky took a deep breath and nodded, giving no verbal response.

Spitfire stepped back, looked down, and then reached for the P.A. system, hitting the comm. to Rivet.

“Rivet? How is everything holding up down there?” she asked as the Nimbus entered the tunnel. The Nimbus swayed a little back and forth as the icy gusts and mist pelted against it, but held steady on course with Lucky keeping it balanced.

“The engines are straining, making some noises they didn’t during the trials, but they are showing no signs blowing apart, so I guess that’s a plus,” Rivet replied, getting straight to the point.

“Good,” Spitfire nodded. “Keep in contact. Let us know if anything starts to go wrong. We don’t want to make any fatal mistakes.”

“Agreed, Rivet out,” Rivet quickly ended the conversation to get back to work.

Spitfire kept staring at the microphone, even though she was done speaking.

“You alright there?” Soarin spoke up from the other side of Lucky as he stepped back to get a full view of her. Spitfire blinked and looked towards him with an eyebrow raised.

“Oh, now you’re talking to me?” she said sarcastically. Soarin flattened his brow and then rolled his eyes.

“Unbelievable…” he huffed as he refocused outside.

“Sorry,” Spitfire suddenly apologized, getting Soarin to glance back at her. “Not used to giving orders like this, that’s all,” she clarified, confirming Soarin’s thoughts, but didn’t look at him. Soarin kept his eyes on her for a moment before once again turning his focus to the spectacle outside.

He let his thoughts wander for a moment, telling himself to forget about Spitfire for the time being. Don’t engage her at all. Focus on the task at hand and survival. They could argue all they wanted once they were safe in the Crystal Empire.

“Where is the map?” Spitfire spoke up again. Soarin looked over his shoulder, eventually turning his body to look as Spitfire moved to the center of the control platform and began looking around. “Somepony brought the map up here, right?”

“H…here…” Luna spoke up as she stepped up onto the platform. Soarin blinked as the singular response form Luna met his ears. Her voice seemed strangely hushed. “It’s in the corner…” Luna explained as her magic came to life, picking up a large, rolled up map that was rolling back and forth on the floor. Soarin continued to watch Luna as she floated the map over to Spitfire and unrolled it on the floor. Luna looked… nervous.

Then he remembered. Luna was about to do the wacky… signal, she mentioned, wasn’t she? Soarin recalled Luna wasn’t thrilled about it. Something about it hurting, a lot.

Soarin glanced down at the map as Spitfire and Luna flattened it out, immediately recognizing it as one of the pull down maps that they had in every first floor classroom… but never really used. It was trimmed however, cut to just show a majority of the area they were going to be traveling through. There was a fat, red line drawn in permanent marker that ran in a curved route. A big red dot marked in the northern mountains showed where they started and a big red star was drawn over the Crystal Empire with small marks in between at the borders of the grasslands, the badlands canyons, and the far west region of the northern mountains where the Empire was located.

Spitfire and Luna began to converse, but Soarin didn’t bother to listen. He already knew what the plan was. He didn’t need it drawn out for them as well. Besides, it wasn’t like he had any role in the operation anyway aside from ‘sit down and watch while the others do the work.’

And there it went again. Soarin exhaled through his nostrils and shook his head out as he stared out the window.

He failed to take his own advice he pushed earlier. Just drop it.

He decided, instead, to move forward and get a closer look outside as the Nimbus continued to putt along. The shock and awe over the fact that the compound he had lived in for years could fly had not faded, and he wasn’t sure it would. He stopped in front of the window, standing off to the side so as not to get in Lucky’s view in an open space with no controls or panels.

It was still hard to see much of anything with the mist surrounding them as they moved through the ‘blizzard tunnel’ but he could still make out faint signs of the mountains moving nearby. He leaned forwards and bent his neck down, looking up as he held himself steady against the gentle sway of the floor. He could see the edge of the massive central propeller blades turning so fast that they were barely visible.

“I can’t believe it, I really can’t,” he repeated what his brain had been saying over and over again since the moment they lifted off.

“I still don’t,” Fleetfoot’s voice came from beside him as she stepped up and also tried to see the propeller.

“Haven’t you already seen it?” Soarin asked her as he looked down at her. Fleetfoot kept looking up at the propeller for a moment before shaking her head and looking back out forward.

“I was down below in the engine room, fending off Shadowbolts and hanging on for dear life when we first got moving. This is the first time I’ve, you know, actually seen that this tub is flying,” she explained. Soarin looked forward, the two of them remaining silent as the faint chatter between Spitfire and Luna continued behind them.

“Heh,” Soarin smirked and shook his head again. “All this time we’ve been living in a giant, flying, stronghold?” He looked down at Fleetfoot as she glanced back at him. “The Wonderbolts sure have some awesome secrets. I wonder why they never passed this on to us? Why did they lock it down?”

“Who knows…” Fleetfoot shrugged as they continued to watch the Renegades outside guiding them.

“The canyons are very dense in this area,” Spitfire’s voice caught both Soarin and Fleetfoot’s attention as they heard a thing or two that had yet to be discussed among them. They both looked over their shoulder to listen in. Spitfire was pointing at a spot about halfway through the drawn route through the badlands. “This will probably be a good place for the Lunar Guard to meet up with us. They’ll be able to slip in and hide until we arrive, how does that sound?” she asked Luna as the princess stared at the location.

“That should suffice, and is actually a great idea since… well,” Luna tipped her head from side to side. “They are not very fond of daylight. The shade will help them relax while they wait.”

“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” Spitfire blinked while scratching the back of her head.

“Do not worry, they are very capable both night and day, it’s just a preference of theirs for reasons I believe are quite obvious,” Luna explained.

“Yeah, but if shade will help them wait, that’s better. No offense, Luna, but your guards tend to be a bit cranky,” Spitfire recalled.

“We know, but their shortcomings are part of their strengths. Their rough, unpredictable nature along with their loyalty to us adds a different edge to the protection they provide. Our sister may be for the more traditional, chivalrous knight types for her guard, but I felt ponies that were a little more rough around the edges would be—”

“Uh, Luna?” Spitfire cut her off as the princess suddenly rambled on and on.

“Yes?”

“You already told me this word for word yesterday… and the day before also,” she pointed out. Luna flinched, her eyes widening as she slammed her mouth shut and held her breath.

“Uh… we’re… sorry, we’re just…”

“Is this about the signal?” Spitfire asked her, he ears flopping down.

“Yes,” Luna gave in immediately. “We apologize.”

“You really are not looking forward to this, are you?” Spitfire asked as she stepped toward Luna. “I mean… I’d like to say the nice thing and suggest you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to… but we kind of already shaped our plan around it.”

Luna remained silent, looking down and taking several deep breaths. She eventually picked her head back up, a calm expression on her face with her eyes closed.

“Worry not… it is going to be very unpleasant for us, but… we are ready.” She opened her eyes, looking down at Spitfire, determined. “It is unreasonable for me to shy away from it. The Wonderbolts have shown so much bravery and grit, it’s time we did the same.”

“Luna…” Spitfire gave her a look of disapproval. She didn’t want Luna to feel obligated, but it was part of the plan. She wasn’t going to step on Luna’s hoof now that she was showing a willingness to do her part, even if it caused her some extreme discomfort.

“Since we are up and moving… we shall send the signal now. What is your travel time estimate?” Luna asked.

“Oh,” Spitfire glanced back at the map. “I can’t say… it depends on if we run into any kind of trouble. My guess would be to give them… at least three hours. That should be a nice window.”

“Very well,” Luna gave her a nod as she looked back at the map to remind herself of the exact location. “Please, give us some space.”

Soarin and Fleetfoot both turned to face Luna as Spitfire stepped back and Luna backed away from the control platform, finding a space where there were no wires along the floor. Soarin and Fleetfoot both glanced at one another briefly as Luna prepared herself.

Soarin had heard the entire explanation of Luna’s ‘signal,’ but the details were very vague aside from the fact that she apparently wasn’t very good at performing it and thus it was quite painful to do. The mere idea alone of ‘compressing’ and ‘sending’ a thought through magic just sounded weird to begin with, but as a divine alicorn, Soarin was sure Luna had knowledge of many interesting tricks of magic that he, nor any knowledgeable unicorn had ever heard of. He watched now with anticipation, as did several others around him, as Luna prepared. Apparently the technique was slightly dangerous too… that or her inexperience with it made it so, since she mentioned Celestia used it to prank her casually.

Well, they were about to find out as Luna finally stopped moving, set her hooves firmly against the slightly swaying floor of the bridge and took more deep breaths, her horn emitting a soft blue glow, just short of forming its magical aura.

She closed her eyes and tipped her head up, pointing the horn directly upward at the ceiling. The aura finally appeared around her horn, swirling gently at first before suddenly undulating and rotating faster than usual.

“Hrgn...” Luna grunted painfully, squinting her eyes tighter and gritting her teeth as her waving mane began to lift higher and float upwards. A small, blue ring of light encircled the floor around her as she opened her eyes, revealing a bright blue light shining from them, hiding her pupils and irises completely.

Soarin watched curiously, blinking in surprise when he felt his mane moving. There was a small, invisible force pushing against him. It definitely wasn’t just him either, he noticed everypony else reacting like he was. Even Lucky glanced over his shoulder for a moment.

“HNGH!!!!” Luna suddenly grunted, her legs buckling slightly as her body twitched, but she kept herself from falling. She tipped her head down for a moment but immediately forced it right back up, the light from her eyes growing stronger and the force pushing from her growing more intense.

“Luna?!” Soarin called out as he tried to step forward, but found the force keeping him in place.

“WHOA HEY!” Lucky yelled as the compound began to tip down slightly due his body being pushed forward against the lever. “Stop! I can’t…”

But before he could finish, the force shooting from Luna ceased. She opened her mouth, revealing light within her throat as well. The light slowly and calmly lifted out of her mouth and out of her eyes, swirling around her as her body stiffened and twitched. It eventually spiraled up to her horn, and wrapped around it, all collecting in a bright white ball on the tip of her horn.

The Nimbus quickly evened out as Lucky regained control, but everypony was staring in confusion and a bit of alarm at the incredibly bizarre process of Luna’s divine alicorn magic technique.

“Hnnnng…. Haaaaa….” Luna groaned and sputtered as the ball of light on her horn, about the size of a grapefruit began to pull away, but looked to be clinging to her horn as it tried. “HNNNRRGGG! AHHHH!” Luna cried out as the ball detached from her horn. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…. Ooooooooooooo…” Luna gasped and groaned as she limply collapsed to the floor.

Soarin, Spitfire, and several others all gasped and took a step, but they all stopped and flinched as the white ball of light suddenly propelled towards the front of the bridge.

“Ah!” Soarin yelped and ducked. The ball zipped right over him… but then phased right through the forward bridge window as if it wasn’t even there. The ball of light remained visible in the mist outside for only a few seconds before it was gone from view.

“Ow…. Owwwwwwww… Ohhh…” Luna’s wailing immediately drew them all back to reality.

“Princess!” Soarin was the first to approach her as Luna tucked her limbs into her body and shook, panting and sweating with her eyes slammed shut. The rest of the lead squad and squad three all rushed forth and bent down around her to make sure she was okay. One of Luna’s hooves reached out, grabbing Soarin’s arm and squeezing it as she continued to breathe heavily in pain. Without hesitation, Soarin reached down and shimmied his hoof beneath her side, looking at the others standing around. “Hey, c’mon, help me get her up!” he demanded, nopony arguing as Air Mach immediately pushed his hooves beneath her from the other side and helped Soarin hoist her up, the rest making sure her neck was propped up as the two stallions lifted her. She was larger than Soarin, but was surprisingly light. It was more challenging to keep her body from contorting in awkward positions since he wasn’t familiar with the larger, different shape of Luna’s body.

They managed to get her in an upright, sitting position, leaning her weight against Soarin as he sat beside her. Spitfire and Fleetfoot looked her over as she pressed a hoof against her head, still breathing short, hard breaths and shaking.

“My god, Luna…” Spitfire shook her head. “When you said painful, I didn’t think you meant… THIS…”

“The Lunar Guard captain… has received… our message…” Luna forced out in between the labored breaths. “He will be… in position… with the force… in three hours… waiting for… us.”

“Are you going to be alright?” Spitfire asked out of courtesy and out of plain worry since Luna hadn’t been very clear on exactly how hard it was going to be on her. Spitfire was expecting a little dizziness that maybe a nap would fix, but with how much pain she was in now it looked more like Luna had literally ripped her own head off and banged it against the floor a few times.

“We are… incredibly dizzy…” Luna continued, her eyes still closed. “And our head… really hurts…” her voice was beginning to choke up.

“Rest,” Spitfire immediately ordered while placing her hooves gently on Luna’s shoulders. “Don’t push yourself.”

“No,” Luna painfully shook her head, nearly falling over on top of Soarin, but he quickly shifted to keep her propped up. “The pain will only last… a few minutes… just, ah, ow, oooooh ow…”

“Luna…” Spitfire began but as she trailed off, Luna shook her head again.

“This will go away… shortly,” she forced out as she reached her other hoof up to press both hooves against her head. Spitfire pulled back and bit her lip as she noticed tears beginning to squeak out from Luna’s eyes. Luna quickly brushed them away as she leaned back on Soarin. “Please… take us down… to the lobby…”

“The lobby?” Spitfire asked quizzically.

“Yes,” Luna nodded, taking a deep breath and finally opening her eyes, brushing aside another tear that managed to escape her right eye. “We want to be in the most convenient location to take flight should the need arise. Our armor is still stashed in the infirmary anyway.”

“Wait, Luna, you should stay up here with—” Spitfire stopped mid-sentence and her eyes widened slightly. Soarin eyed Spitfire and tipped his head slightly, wondering why Spitfire had gone silent. He watched as Spitfire looked down, her eyes moving back and forth at the floor for a moment before she looked back up and nodded. “Alright,” she agreed. “Soarin, could you take Luna down to the lobby? She’ll be a nice trump card for our main entrance defense.”

Soarin didn’t respond for a moment, glancing at Luna to see… a smile? Her face was still full of agony and she was fighting back tears, but clearly something about Spitfire agreeing with her request to help had Luna grinning right through it.

“Alright, I’ll—WHOA!” Soarin yelped as he and everypony else suddenly stumbled, the Nimbus lurching hard, but quickly evening out.

“EEEEEEYIKES! Aye-aye-aye…” Lucky spoke up as he held the lever upright in its resting position. “Eh… sorry, this thing is a hell of a lot more sensitive than when I first flew it…”

“Watch it then, will ya?!” Blaze grumbled out loud while taking a few steps towards Lucky. Lucky bit his lip nervously, focusing forward as Blaze slowly approached. Spitfire quickly turned and glared at her half-sister as she looked primed to chastise Lucky some more. High Winds blinked sleepily and yawned as she looked between Spitfire and Blaze. After a few glances, she turned and followed behind Blaze quickly. “Seriously!” Blaze ranted as she stopped beside Lucky. “Are you sure you know how to fly this—MMMPH!” she was cut off as High Winds reached around her from her left and shoved her hoof into Blaze’s mouth. Blaze began to whine and flail angrily as High Winds pulled her back, but Winds used her free hoof to give a halfhearted salute to Spitfire to acknowledge she had caught on.

Spitfire nodded in approval towards High Winds before glancing at Soarin and Luna as Air Mach helped Luna get back upright with a hoof draped over Soarin’s shoulder.

“And, HUP! There we go!” Air Mach cheered as Luna rested against Soarin’s side.

“Thank you Air Mach,” Luna thanked him as she turned her head to look towards him. Soarin winced as Luna’s wavy mane flowed right in front of his face.

“Fear not, my princess!” Air Mach posed dramatically in several different ways, some so quickly that he almost got tangled in his cape. “I, the great Animak, am confident you will shake that headache in seconds flat!”

Luna just stared and blinked as she continued to wince and hold a hoof to her head.

“Uh… okay,” was all she managed to say before she was drawn away by blowing noises. She looked back towards Soarin to see her mane batting him in the face. “Oh, we’re sorry…” she pushed it around to the other side.

“Alright, let’s get you down.” Soarin quickly got the ball rolling once he could see again. “Just lean on me, I’ll do most of the walking.”

“Thank you…” Luna nodded, rubbing her head as she continued to quietly groan. Soarin began moving slowly, letting Luna make her own pace and not rush; plus with the way the compound was swaying, he hoped to avoid a nasty fall. As they moved, Spitfire walked past them to address Squad Three.

“Fire Streak,” Spitfire began as she stopped in front of them. “Should we run into trouble and the Renegades need our help, I want you ready to take command of our squads launching from the upper floors,” she ordered.

“Yes, ma’am!” Fire Streak saluted as he turned to repeat Spitfire’s orders to Misty Fly, but before he could, Spitfire grabbed his shoulder.

“But stay up here for now, I want all my top elites in one place for direct orders instead of over the comm, especially with Squad Two in shambles. Without Wave and Silver, I may have to make some unconventional choices, maybe sending Blaze or High Winds with you, leaving the other up here with us. Since I’m keeping Soarin grounded, we’ll have to fill one spot on the Lead Squad if needed, and if I send one of them with you… do you guys still remember the recruit five pony formations?” Spitfire asked. Fire Streak nodded.

“Yes, I believe we—”

“What were they again?” Lightning Streak asked while scratching his head, but Fire Streak stepped backwards and stuffed his hoof over his twin’s head, shoving it down and throwing Spitfire a fake smile.

“YES, I BELIEVE WE DO!” Fire repeated, grinding his hoof harder into Lightning’s head with each word. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, but she wasn’t worried, Squad Three was reliable and could figure out including an extra member.

“That goes for you too, Soarin!” Spitfire called towards him right before he and Luna reached the door. Soarin paused and looked over his shoulder.

“What? The part about being put on a squad?” Soarin asked sarcastically.

“Nice try, I mean get your ass back up here after helping Luna,” she replied sharply, not appreciating his sarcasm.

Soarin grunted as Spitfire turned away and moved back towards the front. He was beginning to wonder if she was just being no nonsense or if she was deliberately trying to piss him off, both felt highly likely to him even though he knew it probably wasn’t the second. He was, after all, just frustrated with her at the moment.

“Come on, Princess…” Soarin said with annoyance in his voice, Luna not saying a word as they left the bridge.

Luna had managed to find some strength, using Soarin for the bulk of her support, but not putting her full weight into him as she took weak steps herself. Soarin made sure to take it slow, giving her time to come to her senses so the part where he had to fly her down the broken stairs would be easier.

“We apologize…” Luna suddenly spoke up as they made their way around the central propeller pillar towards where the stairs down began. Soarin shook his head, keeping his eyes forward as they kept moving, remaining quiet for a moment with nothing but the steady, clanky, hum of the main propeller whirring right beside them.

“It’s nothing, you’re not heavy,” Soarin assured her, not reading anything into her sudden apology.

“You flatter us,” Luna said with a very weak giggle. “But…” she sighed. “That’s not what we meant.” Her tone changed drastically.

“Wait, what?” Soarin stopped and shifted so he could turn his head to look up at her. Luna was looking down. Her breathing was calmer, but her eyes still squinted slightly and showing pain.

“We…” she started, but paused. “We…” she let her head hang and sighed again. “Forgive us, we should not have spoken.”

Soarin immediately furrowed his brow and exhaled loudly through his nose.

“Luna…” he didn’t even have to say anything else. She knew damn well why he was frustrated. He had let her know several times he was tired of the secrecy.

“We’re sorry…” Luna apologized again. “We—” But before she could go any further, Soarin held up a hoof and shook his head while growling.

“No, stop, forget it,” he grumbled loudly. “I don’t want to hear it. Just keep keeping your damn secrets to yourself. If it ain’t broke, why bother fixing it, right?” Soarin let loose, voicing his annoyance. He wasn’t expecting to sway Luna or guilt her, and he didn’t care if she belted in his face with her ever-so-loud megaphone vocal chords. He was just plain tired of it all.

Luna remained completely silent as Soarin shifted himself beneath her. He only looked up at her for a moment as she draped her arms over his shoulders and positioned herself on his back to keep his wings free, but she was looking away. Soarin couldn’t tell if her expression was still due to the pain or if it was some form of regret. He didn’t waste time thinking about it, assuming the first as she groaned and winced after positioning herself to be carried. Soarin released a long breath as he spread his wings and beat them strongly to lift both him and Luna up.

“Ah!” He immediately had to compensate and adjust his flight path as the Nimbus kept moving. He grunted, forcing himself to glide in a style he wasn’t used to as he kept up with the movement of the Nimbus. He hadn’t thought about that, and wasn’t sure if anypony else had either. Just because he was IN the Nimbus didn’t mean he moved with it when suspended in midair. “HRNG!” Soarin grunted as he took the last turn around the pillar, spiraling down and landing on the lobby floor with loud THUMPS as his hooves slammed down and skidded.

“Ah!” Luna yelped as the vibrations ran through Soarin and consequently her.

“Sorry about that,” Soarin apologized as he tipped himself to let her off, looking around to see several eyes in the lobby had been drawn to them by the sudden loud entrance. “Didn’t factor in the whole… you know, place moving.”

“It’s fine…” Luna’s voice was still a little distraught. “We think… we will manage,” she stated as she shimmied off Soarin’s back and supported herself with her own hooves completely. “The headache is already starting to subside.”

“Are you sure?” Soarin asked, remaining courteous even though he was rather miffed.

“Yes, we shall not trouble you further,” Luna said while avoiding eye contact, turning away and slowly moving towards the east hallway for her armor in the infirmary.

Soarin watched as Luna struggled to move, several times considering ignoring her request and helping her. But at the same time… He kind of felt like she deserved it.

The calm, sympathetic, good natured side of him was screaming at him right now, asking him how he could even think such a horrible thing, but the realistic side was fending it off with a chair.

He was becoming increasingly less and less inclined to hold Princess Luna in good graces by default. She had done lots to help him, but at the same time kept so many things from him that he felt like his head was going to explode, and not because of the magic. What’s worse, she now had Spitfire in on it, turning his own best friend, who he had trusted to always be honest and straightforward with him, into another pony that held secrets and reasons for choices from him. He had every right to know what they had discussed and why he was being held back. Obviously there was something wrong with the horn, but if they weren’t worried about something, why were they keeping it from him?

He was tired of it, all of it. His respect for Luna as one of the divine sisters was natural and he would never disregard the good things she had done for him throughout his experience with the horn, but the more she tested his trust and fanned the flames of his frustration, the more that respect began to waiver. He wasn’t about to turn on anypony, most definitely not, but this was starting to become really personal.

Among the ponies who had caught the sound of Soarin and Luna landing roughly was none other than Rainbow Dash. It was the first thing that managed to catch her attention. She had been staring out the lobby doors, gawking like an idiot at the site of the Nimbus not only making it up off the ground, but also moving. But when she thought she heard Soarin’s voice after the less than soft thumps and screeches of hooves, her attention was completely drawn away. She awkwardly managed to climb on Matteo’s back, surprised by the Nimbus’ movement when she tried to hover. But once she had higher ground, it only took her a moment after to spot Soarin and Luna.

Dash tipped her head to the side and blinked as she watched Luna reluctantly turn and struggle to move on her own. She immediately wondered why Soarin wasn’t helping her, and then also began to wonder why Soarin looked incredibly pissed off.

Without hesitation, she slid off and quickly gained the attention of Squall, Twister, and Matteo while pointing towards Soarin.

“I’ll be right back,” she told them, turning to leave before any of them could give her a response. “S’cuse me, pardon me.” Dash weaved her way through the squads. She would have glided, but she had just learned, as many others around were, that flying while the Nimbus was flying would take some practice.

She eventually found her way through and moved towards Soarin, trying to reach him before he could move back towards the broken stairs.

“Soarin!” she yelled his name the moment he spread his wings and rose up on his back hooves to take off. Soarin immediately closed his wings and fell back down, looking over his shoulder in surprise for a second or two, but when he saw Dash he sighed, flattened his brow, and looked away. “Soarin?” Dash said his name again as she stopped right behind him. Did he just give her a cold shoulder? “Hey, hey, what’s up?” she asked quickly while pulling her goggles down and letting them hang around her neck.

Soarin released a long sigh and shook his head out, whipping his mane back and forth as a low nicker escaped the back of his throat. Dash blinked and scrunched her face as he continued to face away.

“Soarin, what’s wrong?” she asked with a slightly demanding tone. “What’s going on with Luna?”

“I don't want to talk about her,” Soarin suddenly replied sharply. Dash flinched in surprise, but glared at his backside. It was one thing if he was being harsh while giving orders, but in any other circumstances? That would not fly with her.

“Whoa there, don’t you take frustration out on me!” she scolded him as she walked around him and tried to look him in the eye, but he kept avoiding eye contact, but the short, few views she managed to get of his face showed that he was maybe regretting it.

“Sorry,” he confirmed with a sigh as he finally turned and looked at her. He still looked angry though. “I’m just a little furious right now, no big deal,” he said sarcastically while rolling his eyes.

“Well, I’m listening,” Dash said with a pout. Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Dash, I don’t want to talk about it,” Soarin repeated his stance with a snort. “And I don’t have time to, so if you’ll excuse me—”

“No.” Dash placed herself right in front of him. “You’re talking.” She poked him in the chest. Soarin scrunched his face and held his breath, puffing his cheeks out as he looked away from her. “I’m waiting,” Dash pried while tapping her hoof. Soarin released the air from his mouth, his lips puttering as the air rushed between them before he shook his head and growled.

Silver was right, Dash was totally putting him on a leash and he was letting it happen.

“It’s just more of the same… secretive, keeping-things-from-me bullshit,” Soarin explained while not looking at her and glaring into space. “Luna’s doing it again… and Spitfire’s in on it now too. I’m just fed up with it.”

“More secrets?” Dash furrowed her brow while letting her ears flop down. She glanced past Soarin down the east hallway just in time to see Luna drag herself into the infirmary. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Soarin confirmed with a loud huff. “And it’s really starting to get to me, much more than it already has. I’m starting to feel like I can’t even trust her. And I do not appreciate that Spitfire is taking part now too. She claims the horn is the reason I’m staying out of combat, but since she and Luna are clearly in cahoots about this, I don’t know if I can believe anything they say.” Soarin looked down at Dash to see her still looking down towards the infirmary, her pout even stronger.

“I don’t get why Luna’s doing this.” She shook her head. “I mean, come on. The least she can do is be transparent. What the hell do they have to keep secrets for?!”

“Just forget it, Dash,” Soarin shook his head. “I’ve been trying endlessly to get the whole truth at all times but Luna always ends up holding something back. Discord is no better… I just thought Spitfire would be the one I could count on not to put me through this.”

“Then screw them all!” Dash threw her arms up. Soarin’s eyes widened.

“What?” he tipped his head, looking for her to elaborate. Dash edged closer to him and glanced back and forth.

“Look, I’m not about to say disrespect authority or anything, but I’m tired of this! It feels like they’re misusing their rank or standing to keep important issues from us. Then claiming it has to be done for our sake? I feel like we’ve been getting that non-stop. When are we going to get answers instead of deflections?” Dash full out ranted, but in a hushed tone.

“Dash…” Soarin released a short breath, his tail flipping behind him. “Just let it go. I agree with you, but it’s pointless.”

“Does it have to be? I’m sorry, Soarin, but I’m getting to the point where being berated by Spitfire is nowhere near as bad as what could happen to you. If Spitfire is really your friend and really cares, she wouldn’t be going along with Luna’s tight lipped crap!” Dash grabbed him by the arms. “I mean it! In the end it’s all about you! Spitfire wouldn’t—”

“No, she would,” Soarin cut her off, reaching up and placing a hoof atop her head. “Look, Dash, I appreciate your concern. It’s heartwarming, always is, and I love you for it. I’m angry, very angry, but at this point I’ve exhausted all my willing efforts to pry the truth from them. I know you want to do it for my sake, but don’t go compromising your standing with Spitfire over something I’ve already tried. She’s stubborn, and while I don’t agree with what she’s doing, not one bit, she must have her reasons.”

“But Soarin…”

“I’m not caving Dash, don’t worry. Spitfire has pissed me off and if she goes any further I’m not going to stand for it. I already plan to defy her orders if I absolutely can’t afford to stay down and watch. Just don’t go trying to stick your hoof into our argument… she might bite it off.”

Dash continued to pout, but now she was mixing it with angry puppy dog eyes.

“Don’t try to give me the ‘angry/cute’ look, just let it go. We don’t have time to argue with them anyway…” Soarin trailed off, the two of them looking towards the infirmary to see Luna emerge, donning her armor. She was still walking with shaky steps, but her posture had improved and she was moving a little more smoothly. “Let’s just make sure we get to the Crystal Empire first, okay? I plan to give them a piece of my mind and break my hoof off in a few asses if I have to when we get there.” Soarin flinched as Dash suddenly lunged towards him and hugged him tightly. “Dash?” Soarin blinked in surprise as he reached around her to return the hug.

“Mrph…” Dash made a small, annoyed noise as she smushed her cheek against his chest.

“What?” Soarin chuckled as he rubbed his hoof up and down her mane.

“Mrrrrrrrph…” Dash made the same sound but held it out longer. Soarin’s ears folded back flattening his expression as he just let Dash hug him, ruffling her mane some more as she stayed latched to him. “Fine…” Dash said unenthusiastically as she slowly released him and pushed her mane back behind her.

“I know how you feel, just humor me, alright. I wanna kick their asses just as much as you for making this so frustrating,” Soarin explained as he kept his hoof on her shoulder.

“Okay…” Dash’s tone remained, immediately prompting Soarin for some way he could reassure her.

“I’ll manage for now, I mean, I have so far…” he trailed off as she looked up and glared at him. “Well, for the most part,” he added with a chuckle as she tipped her head back down and bopped the crown of her head against his chest. He smiled as she continued to be all grumpy and pouty, deciding to throw a little sarcasm in. “What could possibly go wro—”

He was cut off as the Nimbus suddenly shook. Not violently, but enough to force everypony to brace themselves.

“Yikes!” Dash yelped as she reached up and held onto Soarin. Soarin quickly slid his arm around the back of her shoulders and held onto her as the initial shaking ceased and was replaced with lighter, but continuous shaking.

“EVERYPONY HANG ON!” Spitfire’s voice came through the P.A. system. “WE ARE NEARING THE EDGE OF THE MOUNTAIN RANGE AND PUNCHING THROUGH THE THICK OF THE ARTIFICIAL BLIZZARD!”

Descent gave one last look back, scrunching his face as the icy winds batted at his face and pushed his mane in every direction. He turned his attention to the edge of the blizzard being held together by several Renegades. With a deep breath, Descent put his hooves to his mouth and whistled loudly.

Nearby, Blazetail and Flashwind whistled back.

With the Nimbus fast approaching the edge, Descent and the rest of the Renegades propelled themselves forward, holding their arms in front of their faces as they pushed themselves through.

The Nimbus remained on course, thick chunks of ice and snow shooting from the blizzard’s edge and breaking against the fuselage as it kept on forging forward. The propellers batted away the snow and the mist, working against the icy winds, growing closer and closer, and then picking up speed as Lucky pushed the throttle further.

The Nimbus surged against the thick outer layer of the blizzard, the smoke and flames billowing violently from the smokestacks as the bulk of the airship forced its way right into it and pushed onward. The strong forces of the artificial weather challenged the flying beast, but it overcame everything thrown at it, wading further… further… and further through the storm…

And finally shot out the other end.

The Nimbus hurled out over the outer edge of the northern mountains, reaching the edge of the grasslands in seconds, shaking off the built up ice and snow spattered about the outer frame as it flew into the clear, open air, soaring without any hindrance over the grassy plains heading southwest.

The shaking ceased and everypony was slowly looking up. Soarin lightened his grip around Dash as the two relaxed and looked about the lobby as most others were.

“Whoa!”

“Check it out!”

“Look at that!”

“Amazing!”

Several voices called out as the attention of nearly everypony in the room moved to the lobby doors or the nearest window. Soarin and Rainbow Dash glanced at one another for a moment before moving towards the gathering ponies, confident in their hoofing with the Nimbus now sailing smoothly. They weaved their way through the ponies crowding near the lobby doors, Dash gasping as she reached the glass doors first.

Soarin shimmied his way forward to join her, his eyes widening as he too got the view.

To say a pegasus was excited that they were flying would be an odd statement. It wasn’t so much that they were flying… it was the fact that the compound, the Nimbus, their very own home was up in the air and streaking through the sky, moving faster and faster as they found themselves free of the blizzard with the Renegades forming up beside it to begin their landing on the platform. Dash leaned forward, her nose pressing to the glass as her eyes darted about, the clouds in the blue sky rushing by the platform, the propellers, and the rest of the compound structure of the Nimbus. Soarin moved to get a closer look as she had, but then Dash suddenly pushed her hooves forward against the door bar in front of her and forced the door open. A very strong gust of wind rushed in, causing everypony near it to wince and shield themselves. But Dash moved right through the door and galloped out onto the platform through the strong gusts.

“Dash?!” Soarin’s jaw dropped in alarm as he quickly pushed forward to follow her. “DASH! What are you doing?!” he yelled. Really there wasn’t anything wrong, she just wasn’t supposed to go outside, not to mention he didn’t want the strong winds knocking her off her hooves and throwing her off the edge of the platform… but that wasn’t likely to happen, maybe he was just being overprotective.

His short-lived fears were completely pushed aside as he followed her out onto the platform, Dash holding her body strong against the intense gusts of wind as she moved and stopped in the center of the platform, far from nearing the edge of it. Soarin galloped right behind her, feeling his goggles press into his face as the wind rushed against them. He slowed down and focused at holding himself steady, his muscles flexing as he anchored his hooves and took heavy steps to stand beside her. Dash was tipping against the winds, but otherwise her focus as well as Soarin's were both quickly tuned to what was going on around them.

They were standing outside… On a clear, beautiful day… on what was once, to them, just the front walk of their home base. But their base, was up in the air and blazing a trail above the grassy, rural plains of Equestria as the strong beating vibrations of the propellers tingled the bottom of their hooves and caused cross breezes that danced around them. The wind from their flight blew in their manes as they held themselves firm, but it gave a sensation both of them were not used to: A feeling of flying when they were not actually flying. It felt a lot different, but it was exhilarating. The two of them looked from side to side up in the air as the clouds passed them by, the Renegades flying up and coming in for a landing one by one ahead of them.

“Wow…” Soarin said quietly. It was hard to hear with all the wind and the noise from the mechanical creaking and churning of the dated machinery.

“This is amazing…” Dash added loud enough for Soarin to hear as she tipped and leaned against him for extra support against the wind. She, like Fleetfoot, was also below when they took off, so it was the first real look she had gotten at the Nimbus as well.

“This may sound silly,” Soarin spoke up, placing his mouth near Dash’s ear so she could hear him among the many noises present. “But I never realized how cool it would be to fly,” he said, earning a giggle from Dash. “It’s such a different sensation… I’ve ridden on blimps before, sure, but this… with the wind in my mane…”

The two remained in place for several more seconds, despite both knowing that they weren’t supposed to be out there. But as more and more Renegades came in for a landing, including Descent, Blazetail, and Flashwind, who were all giving them strange looks, Soarin tapped Dash on the opposite shoulder.

“Come on,” he said with a smile, the little brush with something both amazing and awe inspiring helping him forget his frustrations for a moment. “Let’s get back inside, we have to be ready.”

“Alright…” Dash said with a similar smile and mindset as the two turned and slowly made their way back to the lobby doors, bracing themselves against the strong winds.

Soarin ended up staying down below with Dash for a little while longer, but he eventually had to get back to his post. As much as he wanted to remain with Dash, Soarin followed his orders and made his way back up to the bridge with some difficulty, once again taking into account the motion of the compound as he circled around the main propeller pole. He was already grumbling to himself when he reached the top, contemplating saying to hell with his orders and turning right back around. Dash agreed with him that there had been too much bullshit surrounding what he was and wasn’t being told and since one pony he usually relied on was now a part of it, he’d much rather be with the other who was on his side.

But he sucked it up and walked around towards the bridge. He knew that if he didn’t, he’d just get more crap from Spitfire later. Plus, now wasn’t the time to cause rank and file drama. Just like several other issues at the moment, he’d save his arguments for later. It was more important to focus on reaching the Crystal Empire. More importantly, he wanted to focus on saving Wave Chill and the Shadowbolt captives. Lives were at stake, his personal qualms could wait.

He pushed through the door, preparing himself to swallow his pride and face Spitfire, but as he moved into the bridge nopony was even close to ‘facing’ him. Anypony that wasn’t helping operate the Nimbus had their faces almost pressed against the forward windshield. And those who didn’t have a spot in between all the controls were climbing on backs to get a view. Blaze was on High Winds’ back, and… Fleetfoot was on Air Mach’s back, probably the only time she would ever willingly touch him. There was only one pony who was not fogging up the glass with their breath, but despite Spitfire standing beside Lucky, she was still leaning forward, almost on the tips of her hooves as she looked out at the grasslands moving below them and the clouds moving above.

“This is incredible…” Spitfire said to herself as Soarin approached and sat down on the other side of Lucky. Spitfire only gave him a quick glance before looking back forward. There wasn’t any ill will in the lack of acknowledgement, Soarin could tell she was distracted. “Hmmm…” she suddenly hummed. “I just wish we could see more… the wrap around window gives us a nice forward view and plenty of peripheral vision… but we have one hell of a blind spot behind us and directly to the sides.”

“Oh,” Lucky, without looking away from the controls, reached a hoof back and pointed up. “We put in a makeshift periscope actually.”

“Wait, what?” Spitfire blinked and looked up where he was pointing, but she only saw the ceiling. Lucky tipped his hoof further back and jabbed it into the air.

“It drops down from in between the speakers on the ceiling to the middle of the control platform,” he explained. “It has two different viewpoint options, one in front of the propeller and one behind.”

Soarin and Spitfire both looked up and saw where he was talking about, but Soarin looked down and lifted an eyebrow.

“Wait, if the periscope is right here, how the hell can it show us a view behind the main propeller pole?” he asked. Lucky shrugged.

“Don’t ask me, Rivet made it work with gears, tubes, mirrors, and all sorts of science stuff,” he said as he continued to focus on driving, slowly pushing the throttle little by little to keep building speed. Soarin and Spitfire glanced at one another, both deciding not to question it before Spitfire refocused on the ceiling, She spread her wings, readying to hover up and pull it down, but…

“Oh, Spitfire, wait!” Soarin reached towards her, but she already hopped up.

“Whoa!” Spitfire yelped as her momentum with the Nimbus faded and she lurched right past the periscope, running right into a passing unicorn. Soarin cringed as the two fell into a pile and tumbled to a stop. “Oh…” Spitfire shook her head out as she stood up and helped the staff member to their hooves. She turned around and walked back until she was right beneath it, looking up. “Right… motion, physics, and all that jazz…”

“I got it,” Soarin said as he glanced up and focused, his magic flickering around his horn and lighting up. Spitfire immediately looked down at him with wide eyes.

“Wait! Soarin!”

“Relax,” Soarin said with a grunt as he grimaced slightly. “This is nothing…” he said, not admitting that it actually was a little difficult. He could have easily let one of the unicorns take care of it, but with how much crap he was getting about the horn, he seized the opportunity to show he was in control. Spitfire was looking at him with disapproval, but he ignored it as he worked, a blue aura surrounding the handles of the periscope, gripping them, and slowly sliding it down. Spitfire looked up and watched as if moved towards her. But then Soarin suddenly gasped as a small pulse of magic burst outward from his horn. His grip on the periscope released, and it plummeted down, hitting Spitfire right in the face.

“OW!” Spitfire grunted as she stumbled backwards and rubbed her face. Soarin hunched over as he reached up and rubbed his forehead, faint streams of blue light rising from his eyes.

“Grgh…” he groaned quietly as he barely opened his eyes. Even though his vision had gone a little blurry, he could clearly see Spitfire glaring at him. He had no way out of this one. “Sorry…” he preemptively apologized while awaiting the inevitable chastising. But, surprisingly, she turned away.

“Hmph…” she huffed, but even though Soarin didn’t get any lip from her, he could tell the mishap didn’t help his case. He just rolled his eyes and turned away as Spitfire clasped her hooves on the periscope handles and stuck her eyes against it. “Hmmm… this must be the front view…” she thought out loud as she turned it from side to side. “How do I get the back view?”

“Just turn it all the way around, that makes something move up there in the ceiling. Again, don’t ask,” Lucky chimed in. Spitfire removed her eyes from the scope for a moment, shrugged, and put them back in as she slowly turned the scope all the way around.

“Neat,” Spitfire said nonchalantly as she turned back and forth while facing backwards. “This will be useful. And it looks like we’re in the clear for n—”

Spitfire froze in place, the periscope making a loud CREAK as it stopped with her. Soarin instantly looked over his shoulder and stared at Spitfire as her jaw dropped.

“Spitfire?” Soarin said her name as he stood up. Lucky looked over his shoulder and several of the Wonderbolts up against the windshield also turned once they heard Spitfire stop mid-sentence.

“Spitty?” Fleetfoot tried as well as she hopped off Air Mach’s back and walked up to her. “What is it?”

Spitfire closed her mouth, gritting her teeth and growling.

“Me and my BIG FAT mouth!” she suddenly remarked before ripping her eyes away from the periscope and charging towards Soarin and Fleetfoot.

“Whoa!” Soarin barely got out of the way in time as Spitfire galloped right by them, skidding to a halt in front of the of the P.A. system and slamming her hoof down against the call button to the engine room.

“RIVET!” she yelled into the microphone.

“EEEEEEYOW!” Rivet’s voice came through the speaker. “WHAT?! Careful with the P.A! Most of the speakers are literally right next to me!”

“RIVET, WE’RE BEING FOLLOWED!” Spitfire yelled into the microphone again despite Rivet’s request. “WE NEED EVERY BIT OF ENGINE POWER YOU CAN GIVE US!”

“WHAT?! Rivet yelled back through. “What you’re getting now is all it’s got!”

“Well, give us more!” Spitfire ordered before reaching over Lucky and pushing the throttle the rest of the way forward.

“Whoa! WAIT!” Lucky yelped, but he was too late.

“Yikes!” Soarin braced himself as the Nimbus lurched forward, reaching out and grabbing Fleetfoot as she shrieked and nearly tipped over backwards. While he saved her, he couldn’t do much for the rest. Everypony up against the window was on their back and swearing while sliding across the floor as the speed adjusted. The Nimbus itself tilted up as Lucky held onto the lever and consequently pulled back on it. The moment he regained control, he reached for the throttle to slow down, only to flinch as Spitfire grabbed his arm tightly.

“Hold her steady and drive!” she ordered. “I’ll keep an eye on them! Take evasive action on my command!” she yelled into the confused face of their pilot. Soarin was frantically looking back and forth at the periscope and Spitfire as the sudden chain of events unfolded.

“Spitfire!” he growled as he turned and grabbed the periscope, turning it in the direction she had it before her reaction, aiming it at four o’clock. “What the hell is—” He went dead silent the moment he looked into the scope. “Oh… Oh shit…”

It was just barely visible, a good distance away and slightly concealed in the leftover aftershocks of the dissipating artificial blizzard, but it was slowly emerging and chasing after them.

It was the Shadowbolt fortress.

The large Nimbus counterpart was tearing through the mist and snow, the propellers spinning furiously and the large crystal formations glowing brightly as it slowly emerged into the clear of the grasslands and although it was still easily a few miles behind them, it was approaching rapidly.

So much for them avoiding combat…

Soarin simply remained still for a moment as his mind raced. It was hardly the time to think about some of the mysteries that were at hoof, but based on how the fortress was lagging far behind and just now making it out of the mountains confirmed one thing for him.

If the Shadowbolts were that prepared to react to their takeoff… they would have intercepted them directly. The angle they were chasing them at suggested they were waiting right in the straight-on path to the Crystal Empire. But because the Nimbus took the curved path, now the Shadowbolts were reacting, playing catch-up instead.

Did that mean Moon was telling the truth?

The crystals sprouting on Wave were clearly meant to force them into action, the fact that they were already being chased proved that, but they clearly were traveling a path the Shadowbolts were not ready for. Where did Moon fit in all of this?! It was so confusing!

“EVERYPONY LISTEN UP!” Spitfire’s voice brought Soarin back to reality as he removed his eyes from the scope and turned around to see Spitfire screaming into the P.A. once again, this time with her hoof jammed over the cross-compound call button.

“Are you all unhurt?” Matteo asked as he opened his wings and let Squall, Dash, and Twister fall back out on the floor.

“Ptooey!” Dash spat out a few black feathers and let her tongue hang out, but she quickly shook her head out and looked around as everypony else, Luna included, all slowly got to their hooves and braced themselves against the sudden speed increase. She looked outside to see several of the Renegades were also getting to their hooves in surprise as they crouched down to fight the wind, the chains holding the captured Falcon to the platform creaking and clanking as inertia forced against them. “What the hell was that?!” Dash asked as she looked back and forth. Squall was looked just as confused as her and Twister was… covered head to hoof in black feathers stuck to him with what looked like tar, only his head was sticking out, still wearing the silly leather cap and red scarf.

“Did we suddenly speed up? They could have given us more warning,” Squall complained with a grunt as Dash moved past him, hoping to look for some answers, but she didn’t have to look at all.

“EVERYPONY LISTEN UP!” Spitfire’s voice blared over the P.A. system, drawing everypony’s attention up towards the speakers. “GET IN SQUAD FORMATIONS AND READY UP! THE SHADOWBOLT FORTRESS IS ON OUR SIX AND CLOSING IN! WE’RE GOING TO PUSH THE NIMBUS AS HARD AS WE CAN BUT I WANT THE SECOND AND THIRD FLOOR READY TO LAUNCH! THIS IS LIKELY TO GET HAIRY! STANDBY FOR FURTHER ORDERS! SPITFIRE OUT!”

Dash’s eyes widened as everypony immediately began scrambling and rearranging themselves into their squads for defensive positioning as Luna stepped forward and took up a position close to the doors to be the first line of defense.

“Well, that explains that…” Dash said as she swallowed, took a deep breath and turned back to her squad, who had all turned to her except for Twister, who was now featherless, but standing on his back legs on Matteo’s back, striking a heroic pose while his scarf flowed like it was blowing in the wind without wind. “Alright guys! We’re part of the defense force, but be ready for anything! Stand in plus formation with the middle spot vacated! Let’s go!”

“Son of a bitch! They’ve already closed most of the gap!” Spitfire yelled as she pressed her face into the periscope. Soarin kept his focus forward, sitting beside Lucky as they continued as fast as the Nimbus could take them.

“How much mobility do we have?!” Soarin asked Lucky frantically. “We’re smaller than they are! Maybe we can outmaneuver them?!”

“We only have left, right, and down mobility! Lucky replied as he gritted his teeth, visibly sweating as he held the Nimbus on course. “Without the lower main propeller, our ascending ability is very limited, at least that’s what Rivet told me! If we still had it, we might have done a flip with how hard I pulled on the lever after we sped up!”

“Just keep going!” Spitfire yelled as she rushed up to the other side of Lucky.

“I’m going, I’m going!” Lucky nervously replied as he refused to look away from the lever. “I’m just steering the thing! I can’t make it go faster!”

“WANT ME TO TRY?!” Air Mach shifted over and pressed against Spitfire. “I bet I can convince this tub to do circles around the Shadowbo—OOF!” he grunted as Spitfire immediately shoved his head down with her wing.

“If we can’t go faster then we need more from Rivet!” Spitfire yelled as she crossed and pushed past Soarin toward the P.A. But before she got there—

“FUCK! FUCK!” Blaze suddenly yelled. Spitfire, Soarin, and the rest all turned to see Blaze looking through the periscope and flapping her wings with Fleetfoot sitting right beside her, leaning away as Blaze’s wings beat up and down in her face. “THECANNONSAREGLOWINGTHECANNONSAREGLOWINGTHECANNONSAREGLOWING!” she yelled incoherent gibberish, but Fleetfoot was close enough to understand it.

“THEY’RE FIRING ON US!” Fleetfoot yelled forward towards Spitfire.

Without another moment of hesitation, Spitfire slammed her hoof down over the P.A.

“EVERYPONY HANG ON!” she yelled before turning to Lucky. “Evasive maneuvers! NOW!”

“Where?!” Lucky asked as his hooves shook against the lever.

“ANYWHERE!” Spitfire ordered, but then made a suggestion anyway. “GO LEFT!”

“EVERYPONY BRACE YOURSELVES!” Soarin yelled out as he and the rest either crouched down or held onto something.

Lucky reached down and pulled down a lever, causing several loud clanks and creaks to ring out from outside. He then stepped to the right and threw himself against the lever, pushing it all the way to the left.

The Nimbus tipped to the left, remaining on course but strafing roughly instead of turning as it lurched.

“Ah!” Soarin gasped as his hooves slipped and skidded, but he pressed them down hard to anchor himself in place. Blaze, Surprise, and Fire Streak all reached out as they slid by, grabbing onto Soarin’s body to stop themselves. Soarin spread his wings and pushed them down over the top of the three, helping to hold them in place.

Soarin’s eyes went wide as he looked out the front window just in time to see several huge beams of pink magic hurl by starboard. Bright pink flashes illuminated the bridge as the magic shot by, causing everypony to look forward with wide eyes as the beams eventually struck the ground ahead of them and erupted in large explosions.

“HRGH!” Lucky grunted as he tried to force the lever back, but his hooves slipped, causing him to tip forward and fall into the lever. The compound tipped down. And began descending rapidly. “SHOOT!” Lucky yelled as he reached forward and began yanking on the lever, but the Nimbus’ mechanisms were not cooperating. Soarin yelped as he slipped and rolled onto his side, reaching out and grabbing the side of a control panel, almost knocking the unicorn staffer that was already latched to it.

Air Mach and the Streak twins were all in much better position. They picked themselves up and galloped against the rocking of the Nimbus towards Lucky, all three of them grabbing the lever with him.

“ON THREE!” Air Mach yelled. “ONE! TWO! THREE!”

All four of them yanked hard on the lever, forcing the lever all the way back, causing a loud, straining groan from the Nimbus it began to pull up.

“HHHRRRGGGAAAAA!” the four of them yelled together as the Nimbus evened out, but not before the bottom of it brushed against the grassy plains below, causing a very rough tremor and the Nimbus to bounce back up the air, but only giving them about twenty yards of lift from the ground. Lucky, the twins and Air Mach were all thrown back from the lever as everypony else stumbled and fell, but Spitfire caught Lucky as he tumbled by her, immediately set him back on his hooves, and nudged him towards the lever. She didn’t even have to order him. He rushed forward and clutched it, regaining control.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON UP THERE?!” Rivet’s voice came from the P.A. Spitfire picked herself up quickly as everypony else did and grabbed the microphone.

“WORRY BOUT THE ENGINES!” she said before forcing the microphone back down into its compartment.

“Yikes, I hope Descent and the Renegades are hanging on for dear life!” Soarin commented as he pulled himself up and across the panels for support as the Nimbus continued to shake.

“They have perfectly functioning wings! They’ll manage!” Spitfire yelled in the heat of the moment.

“GAH! SPITTY!” Fleetfoot’s voice turned their attention behind them. Fleetfoot was peering through the periscope, facing backwards. “They’re moving higher! Pointing the cannons at us agai—THEY’RE FIRING!”

“LUCKY!” Spitfire yelled instantly.

“I’m on it!” he acknowledged, already moving left to shove the lever right.

Just as Soarin predicted, the Renegades held on for dear life, bracing themselves up against the compound, holding onto the numerous chains securing the captured Falcon, or being held by the larger, stronger members who had lowered themselves and anchored their hooves down. Bomber alone had at least twenty others hanging onto him.

The Nimbus tipped and strafed back to the right the bottom propellers on the starboard side barely a few yards off the ground as the intense blasts of wind ripped and kicked up large chunks of grass.

“RGH!” Descent grunted as his hooves continued to skid and slip on the Nimbus’ front platform. Like the other bigger, stronger Renegades, he was managing to hold himself for the most part, but the only one of them that was actually stuck in place was Bomber. It didn’t help that he had Lightning Dust hanging onto his tail with her mouth… and Starry Skies hanging off of her. He felt like his tail was going to be ripped out, but he held firm. He looked up and gasped. “AH!”

He threw his hooves up and crouched down as cannon fire from the Shadowbolt Fortress rained down from above. Two of the large blasts struck the Nimbus way at the front of the platform, causing big explosions that tossed debris into the air and threw a few Renegades nearby backwards, tumbling to a halt as other rushed to secure them.

The Nimbus rocked and tipped down as it was hit, but kept on course, moving to the right and successfully evading the rest of the incoming barrage that thundered down off the port side and bludgeoned the grasslands below.

Descent grunted as Valkyrie suddenly slid in and slammed into his side while holding onto Cannon Ball, Pixie, and Fairy. She knocked Descent right off his hooves, creating a pony-pile, but the Nimbus suddenly evened out and pushed onward, giving them a moment to all collect themselves and get on their hooves.

Descent growled as he looked up towards the bridge, just barely able to see the Shadowbolt fortress as it soared high enough to be visible in the distance.

“RENEGADES!” Descent yelled out. “IF THIS KEEPS UP WE ARE LAUNCHING!” he yelled out in frustration.

“WHAT?!” Lightning Dust reacted beside him. “YOU SAID WE WEREN’T GOING AFTER THE FORTRESS!”

“IF THIS ANCIENT PIECE OF SCRAP CAN’T OUTRUN IT, THEN WE HAVE NO CHOICE!” Descent yelled, but ground his teeth together while staring at the bridge.

Going after the fortress was definitely not his first choice, but if the Wonderbolts couldn’t improve the situation, they would have to.

“They’re lining up again! SHIT! SHIT!” Blaze yelled as she once again had control of the periscope, clutching the handles so tightly that they were squeaking, her back hooves creating a constant clip-clop-clip-clop against the floor as she nervously picked them up and down rapidly.

“Can we keep this up?!” Soarin asked as he held onto the control panel beside Lucky.

“I don’t know what else to do!!!” Lucky yelled as he jittered, the pressure clearly driving him nuts. Spitfire growled as she looked out the window, their destination in the canyons still too far away to see.

Soarin frantically looked to Spitfire as Lucky pushed them back left, the compound shaking again as it tipped and magic cannon fire glanced off the starboard bow, the wayward blasts shooting by, causing more bright flashes as the explosions erupted along the ground. Everypony yelped and held tight as the shaking mixed with the hard port strafe nearly knocked everypony over…again.

Spitfire looked to be at a loss and Soarin was just as stumped as her. While their altered path gave them a slight head start, the Shadowbolts were already on them and one well-placed shot away from bringing them down. And even if they did make it to the badlands… how were they going to get away from the fortress?

“HELLO?! HELLO!?” Rivet’s voice suddenly came from the comm speakers. Soarin blinked, looking at Spitfire, but she was still staring forward.

“SPITFIRE!” Soarin yelled over Lucky at her. Spitfire blinked and quickly looked to Soarin. Soarin pointed to the comm.

“HEY! ANYPONY THERE!? I HOPE SOMEPONY IS STILL DRIVING!” Rivet yelled through the speaker. Spitfire came to her senses and shifted over, pulling the microphone back out of its compartment.

“SPITFIRE HERE! PLEASE DON’T TELL ME SOMETHING BROKE!” she pleaded, pausing to brace herself as Lucky stabilized the Nimbus again.

“YOU WANTED MORE ENGINE POWER RIGHT?!” Rivet yelled, causing Spitfire’s face to light up.

“YES! YES! OH GOD PLEASE TELL ME YOU FOUND A WAY!” she pressed.

“WHY ELSE WOULD I ASK?!” Rivet shouted sarcastically. “I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG THE ENGINES CAN HANDLE IT… BUT FROM HOW MUCH WE’RE SHAKING AND BEING TOSSED AROUND, I’M ASSUMING WE NEED IT!”

“YES! WE NEED IT! DO IT!” Spitfire ordered.

“ROGER! JUST DON’T PULL BACK ON THE THROTTLE!” Rivet recommended. Lucky blinked and looked over.

“What? Why?!” he asked, his teeth almost chattering with how much he was jittering.

“JUST DON’T!” Rivet repeated. “WE’RE GOING TO TURN IT UP NOW! LEARUN! DEX! NOW!” Rivet yelled right as the comm shut off.

Before anypony could say anything else, several very loud, very painful noises groaned forth, echoing throughout the Nimbus and shouting through the ventilation shafts.

“Ah!” Soarin flinched and grabbed hold of the panel in front of him as the Nimbus suddenly began to speed up faster and faster. The screeching and groaning persisted, causing everypony to cringe, but they all heard Rivet say it would strain the engines. They just had to go with it!

Outside, the Shadowbolt fortress was slowly gaining on the Nimbus. It pitched upward again before tipping back down, ready to unleash another barrage of cannon fire. The timing was different, the Shadowbolts had cut their last barrage short to regain their position and ready for another right as the Nimbus ceased its lateral movement. They hoped to catch the Wonderbolts off-guard and knock them right to the ground.

The large crystals at the back of the cannons began to glow, growing brighter and brighter as its target, stopped shifting and stayed on course.

The cannons unleashed loud, ringing CLANGS as the powerful blasts of magic jettisoned from the barrels, pink rings of light erupting from the end of the muzzles as the magic shot forth. The magic beams hurled towards the Nimbus… and this time, it looked like every single one of them was going to hit its mark.

But then the Nimbus suddenly sped up, moving out of the way just in time. The cannon fire zipped past the stern of the Nimbus, barely missing as they crashed to the ground, the ensuing explosions creating shockwaves that battered the Nimbus, and actually propelled it faster.

“WHOA!” Soarin grunted as his grip ripped free of the panel in front of him and he found his hooves skidding across the floor. Spitfire managed to remain in place only because she was strangling the P.A. microphone, but everypony else that wasn’t expecting the extra boost found themselves sliding or falling backwards. Soarin ended up reaching out and grabbing a hold of Fire Streak’s hoof as he held himself against one of the panels off to the side of the control platform, holding Misty Fly to his body with the other. Once Fire helped him get stable, Soarin let go and pushed against the floor, shifting over to stop Lightning Streak and grab hold of Blaze as she lost her grip on the periscope. Fleetfoot, High Winds, and Air Mach were directing themselves about, sliding on their hooves and using their wings to propel themselves along as they supported and saved several unicorn staffers that were yelping and tumbling about. Surprise had latched herself to the back wall and was comically hyperventilating.

“I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON!” she yelled as she flailed her hooves before High Winds slipped and tumbled towards her, colliding with Surprise on the back wall and creating a loud SQUEAK from Surprise’s throat.

“We’re definitely moving a lot faster!” Soarin yelled out in response as he dug in his hooves and stomped forward against the incredible inertia from the speed increase. He reached Lucky and pushed his hoof against his back, helping him remain steady. “I’ve got you! Just keep steering!” Soarin assured him. Spitfire looked back towards the periscope.

“Where is the fortress?!” she yelled as Lightning Streak grabbed a hold of Blaze’s hoof and swung her around, giving her enough momentum to slide forward and grab hold of the periscope again.

“GAH! FUCK!” Blaze swore as one of her hooves slipped and she nearly lost her grip again. She forced her body forward, grabbing the handles and jamming her eyes into the scope before pivoting it all the way around. “UH…! UH…!” she mumbled loudly as she finally lined it up. “FOUND IT!” she yelled while bouncing up and down on her back hooves. “WE’RE PULLING AWAY! Er… wait… no!” she stopped bouncing. “Well… uh…”

“WELL, WHAT?!” Spitfire growled toward her half-sister. Blaze pulled her face free from the scope and glared over her shoulder at Spitfire, a clear indent of the scope eyepiece around her eyes on her suit.

“SHUDDAP FOR A SECOND WILL YA?!” Blaze hissed before pressing her face back into the scope. “Uh…! We’re… uh, never mind! It looks like we’re going the exact same speed!”

“Hell, that’s better than them closing in on us! Keep pushing it, Lucky!” Spitfire yelled as she turned back around.

“It’s not like I can do anything else!” Lucky said while wiping away sweat dripping down his brow.

“WAIT! WAIT!” Blaze suddenly yelled again. “SHIT!”

Spitfire turned back around to see Blaze had turned the periscope a little to the left.

“What?! What is it?!” she asked as Blaze flapped her wings obsessively.

“LITTLE BITCH SHIPS INCOMING!” Blaze yelled while pulling her face away from the scope.

Spitfire blinked and tipped her head but Soarin got it immediately. He turned and grabbed Spitfire by the shoulder.

“FALCONS!”

“MR. BONES! I WANNA GET OFF THE RIDE!” Twister yelled as he hung over Matteo’s back and continuously heaved into a paper bag that seemed to get larger with every breath he took.

Dash and Squall were hanging onto Matteo’s arms as he locked his talons into the floor, giving them a solid base to hold themselves steady as everypony else stumbled, bumbled, and tumbled throughout the lobby. They all flailed, trying to remain steady as the Nimbus continuously rocked, shook, and teetered. Luna was using her magic to try and help as many of them as she could, but she could only focus on so many targets at once.

Dash yelped and grunted, clutching Matteo’s arm tighter as she looked outside towards the Renegades. She saw some of them forced to lift off and land multiple times in desperate attempts to avoid being thrown and tossed about. She hoped none of them had been thrown off or worse, sent plummeting off the edge. If one of them happened to hit one of the lower propellers, there was no doubt such a blow could be fatal.

But then… Dash watched as several Renegades suddenly looked to the sky and began pointing. Moments later they spread their wings, took running starts and launched into the air. Was something happening outside?

Her curiosity was quickly confirmed as two large shadows passed over the outer platform and two big objects zipped by before turning about.

“Oh, great… those things again?!” Squall growled as he too noticed. Dash gasped as she let go of Matteo’s arm.

“We have to help! Come on!” Dash yelled instinctively, but Squall reached forward and grabbed her.

“HEY!” he yelled as he held her back. Dash looked back at him and glared.

“WHAT?!”

“Did you already forget our orders?!” Squall asked her as he yanked her back over to them. Dash opened her mouth to retort, but… she stopped because Squall was absolutely right. Matteo was shaking his head as well.

“We are not in a position to bend our orders this time,” he said incredibly calmly as he pointed around. “We are here for a purpose, we’d best fulfill it.”

“BLLLLUAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Twister suddenly leaned over the top of Matteo’s head and acted like he was tossing it all into a now enormous paper bag that launched away from his face when he finished, shooting erratically through the air while making a constant ppppptthhhbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbthbth as if it were a balloon losing all its air. The bag got smaller and smaller until it whipped back around and smacked Twister right in the face, sending him off of Matteo’s head and screaming to the floor with a loud screech.

Dash stepped aside as Twister landed with a loud THUMP right beside her, ignoring him as she gritted her teeth and stared back out towards the platform.

They braced themselves as several small tremors shook the compound, followed by three more Falcons casting shadows from overhead before diving down while being chased by a formation of Renegades.

“Grrr…” Dash slid her hoof back and forth on the floor as she held herself back. Her squad had its role to play in this operation, she had to stay focused on that. But she wasn’t the only one. Nearby, Luna was also showing signs of restraint, her eyes completely fixed on the action outside, and her legs stiff and jittering as she took deep breaths to remain calm and composed.

Dash felt powerless, but this wasn’t a case where she saw an opportunity to break rank and take a chance. There was too much at stake and too much out of their control. But if things started going to hell, or somepony she cared about was suddenly in danger, orders be damned, she was going to launch and help them. She was sure Soarin would do the same thing.

What was at first a smooth flight path ahead of the Nimbus had quickly turned into a hectic dogfight as the Renegades took flight and engaged the Falcons.

Descent kept his head on a swivel as he pumped his wings, barking orders and making sure he kept his forward pace up. The scenario quickly proved to be a challenge, trying to divert and throw off the Falcons while also trying to keep up with the Nimbus. The speed of the old airship had increased, but it wasn’t nearly moving fast enough to outfly a pegasus. That being said, the Renegades quickly found their endurance being pushed with the mixture of staying on course, distracting the Falcons, avoiding their cannon fire, fighting against the intense gusts of the Nimbus propellers, and avoiding crashing into the Nimbus itself all at the same time.

“Dammit!” Descent grunted as he and Starry Skies body slammed the shield of a Falcon, knocking it off its course, but bouncing off and tumbling. The two of them rounded out and looked around, but Starry pointed up.

“MORE OF THEM!” she yelled.

“What?!” Descent glanced up to see five more Falcons diving down, raising the number of the ships swarming them to ten. The Renegades were all engaged with the first five, and they were already struggling with those. Before Descent could formulate a plan, he could see the small cannons on the Falcons glowing. “EVERYPONY! ABOVE US!” he yelled while pointing up.

Only a few of the Renegades got the message in time as magic cannon fire rained down over them. Several of them getting blown right out of the sky and sent tumbling. Descent grunted as he barely dodged a blast, forcing himself to keep up his pace with the Nimbus as he formed up beside Bomber and Valkyrie passing by. He looked back and forth at the two strong ponies.

“Think you two are crazy enough to try deflecting some of these blasts?!” he asked frantically, seeing no other option with the Renegades being forced onto the defensive. Valkyrie looked at Descent with her eyes wide.

“These?! Are you nuts?!” she asked while glaring. “Those things will—”

“Okay,” Bomber cut her off, forcing himself up and turning around.

“BOMBER!” Valkyrie’s eyes went wide as she and Descent both turned and watched with surprise. Descent wasn’t expecting one of them to actually try it!

But Bomber held himself steady and glared at an oncoming Falcon as it aimed towards him. It’s cannons fired rapidly, sending multiple blasts, most of them shot right by Bomber, but he focused on one coming right at him, put his hooves together, and swung them right as the blast reached him, releasing a loud, ferocious roar as he did. His hooves collided with the blast, and after a loud CRASH, the beam splintered, most of it flying off away from Bomber, but splitting into smaller beams, some hitting him and peppering him in the face and chest while the rest scattered and struck other Renegades.

“ARGH!” Bomber grunted as he was thrown backwards by his attempt, Descent and Valkyrie rushing around to help him gain control as they continued their flight and avoided more incoming blasts.

“Bomber, are you out of your MIND?!” Valkyrie scolded him as the two supported him.

“Ow… ow…” Bomber winced as he grimaced and shook out his front hooves. “That no work… ow… hooves… hurt…”

“You’ve got balls for trying though…” Descent said as he looked up, Blazetail and Flashwind coming around while twisting out of the way of more blasts.

“Did I really just see Bomber deflect a cannon blast?!” Blazetail asked as Bomber managed to retake control of his flight.

“Big dummy tried…” Valkyrie huffed, but they were all suddenly forced apart as more blasts rained down. “WHOA!”

“Have you all noticed?!” Flashwind spoke up as they continued to move, the rest of the Renegades keeping up, but being battered continuously from above. “Why are they going after us?!”

Descent blinked and then his eyes widened as he looked over his shoulder at the Nimbus. Four of the Falcons had broken off as they were all distracted with avoiding the cannon fire. The ships were charging directly at the Nimbus!

“LOOK OUT!” Soarin yelled as he pointed forward.

“AH!” Lucky yelped as he reached down and pushed the strafe-lock lever back forward, unlocking the turn radius as he yanked the steering lever to the left. The Nimbus tipped and took a hard left, everypony hanging on as it banked and veered off its course, some of its momentum still pushing it forward as they tried to change the direction.

Lucky’s maneuver was just in the nick of time as the Falcons began firing, the blasts peppering the third floor of the compound building to the right of the bridge window. A few sparks erupted from the control panels on the right side of the platform, the unicorn staff members shrieking and pushing away as one of them caught fire.

“BLAZE!” Spitfire yelled as she held on, pointing at the panel. Blaze let go of the periscope and slid over to the panel waving her hooves over the flames rising from it and whisking them right off, collecting the fire in her hooves before smacking them together to snuff them out. High Winds slid right up beside her, cupping her wings and forcing them down to create a focused gust that blew out any traces of fire that Blaze missed.

“That was a close one!” Soarin said with a grimace as he looked back at Lucky. “Can you get us back on course?!”

“I think I can I just…” Lucky trailed off as he yanked on the lever, but they were still turning. “GAH! It won’t stop!” he yelled. Soarin quickly reached forward and pulled back with him, the two forcing the lever over with several loud creaks and pops coming from it as they tried. The Nimbus eventually stopped turning, but its momentum was now carrying them off course.

“Even us out! NOW!” Spitfire ordered as she pointed at the window back in the direction of their path.

“Hey! I’m doing the best I can!” Lucky yelled as he and Soarin kept trying to pull it, both of them flinching hard as a loud SNAP suddenly came from beneath the lever. Soarin, Lucky, and Spitfire all looked down and blinked, but they didn’t have time to wonder what it was.

“UH OH!” Fleetfoot suddenly chimed in from the periscope. Spitfire looked back to see Fleetfoot pull her face away from it. “WE HAVE INCOMING!” she yelled as she pointed out the window. Spitfire looked outside and pulled her goggles down.

“I was wondering where they were…” she growled.

First the Falcons… now the rest of them.

A large force of Shadowbolts was approaching from the left, the group seeming to increase in number as they approached, confirming that there were definitely some commanders among them creating clones. Soarin’s eyes moved out the window as he kept pulling on the lever, focusing on the Shadowbolts that were incoming. He paused, staring carefully at them. Was Rapidfire among them? What about Moon? Soarin couldn’t tell from their position and there were too many to pick out specific ones, especially with the commander clones doubling by the second.

With the Renegades already struggling with the Falcons, Soarin was sure that Spitfire saw no other option, just as he didn’t.

“FIRE STREAK!” Spitfire yelled as she spun around and pointed at him as he held onto both Surprise and Misty with Lightning Streak clutching a panel beside them. “I’m going to make the order for the upper floor squads to launch! Get down there and take command!”

“Yes ma’am!” Fire Streak yelled as he looked to each member of his squad and directed them to follow. They helped each other move as they made their way out of the bridge. Spitfire turned to Blaze and High Winds, who were looking at her for orders based on what she mentioned before. “High Winds! Go with them! Blaze! Stay here in case we need to handle more fires!”

Blaze and High Winds looked at each other, the two of them reaching out and tightly gripping the others shoulder briefly before High Winds separated and followed Squad Three out.

“What about us?!” Fleetfoot asked as she kept her grip on the periscope, but looked out towards the Shadowbolts closing in. Spitfire slammed her hoof to the floor.

“If it comes to it, I want you and Air Mach to fly out with the ponies in the lobby, but only if it comes to that, understand?! I want enough of us up here to back up and help out Lucky as much as we can!” Spitfire turned and lifted an eyebrow at Soarin and Lucky pulling on the lever. “Speaking of, why haven’t we turned back yet?!”

“Uh…!” Lucky looked at her nervously. “I think the lever is broken!” he yelled as their momentum began to shift, moving them in the wrong direction directly towards the Shadowbolts.

“Oh, TERRIFIC!” Spitfire growled as she stepped forward and over to the P.A. “ATTENTION!” she yelled as she addressed the entire compound. “SECOND AND THIRD FLOOR SQUADS READY UP! SQUAD THREE IS HEADING TO YOU NOW WITH ORDERS TO LAUNCH!” She barely paused for a moment before contacting Rivet. “RIVET WE HAVE A PROBLEM! THE LEVER IS BROKEN!”

“WHICH ONE?!” Rivet’s voice came through the speaker a moment later.

“THE BIG ONE!” Spitfire yelled, letting him draw his own conclusion.

“WHAT?! YOU BROKE IT ALREADY?! I TOLD LUCKY NOT TO PULL IT TOO HARD!” Rivet growled.

“We didn’t really have a choice!” Lucky yelled over Spitfire’s shoulder.

“We don’t have time to play the blame game!” Spitfire interjected. “Can you get up here and fix it?!”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Rivet replied immediately. “IF I LEAVE THE ENGINE ROOM THESE IDIOTS DOWN HERE ARE SURE TO MESS THINGS UP!”

Rivet paused, giving a moment for Spitfire and Soarin to look at each other, then back at Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and the rest. They looked forward to see they were veering way off their course, still inching to the left.

“HOLD ON! LOOK AT THE BASE OF THE LEVER FOR ME!” Rivet suddenly chimed in again. Soarin was the only one who immediately reacted, letting go of the lever and crouching down, there was a gap in the platform where the lever was anchored.

“Looking at it!” Soarin yelled towards the microphone.

“I HAD TO DO SEVERAL CRUDE PATCHWORK JOBS ON THE CABLES CONNECTING IT TO THE MECHANISMS!” Rivet explained. “THERE SHOULD BE FOUR OF THEM, FORWARD, BACKWARD, LEFT, AND RIGHT. THE CABLES ARE PLACEHOLDERS, EACH ONE HAS A ‘CONNECTING PIECE’ TO MAKE THEM EASIER TO REPLACE LATER! IS ONE OF THEM DETACHED?!”

“Uh…” Soarin’s eyes darted as he tried to make heads or tails of what he was looking at, but before he could make any solid conclusions the Nimbus shook, peppered by Falcon cannon fire. “Ah!” Soarin yelped as he lost his hoofing and slipped, falling face first and roughly bumping the horn against the lever. “ARGH!” Soarin cried out as the cracks in the horn instantly lit up and a burst of light shot out from it. Soarin’s head whipped backwards as the horn reacted, tipping him all the way over backwards as Spitfire and Lucky ducked in surprise.

“SOARIN!” Spitfire yelled out as she watched him sprawl out on the floor in shock.

“Agggghhhhhh… rggghhh…” Soarin groaned, opening his eyes as he ground his teeth together. His vision was blurred by a green light, signaling that his eyes were glowing different colors again. His ears were ringing, muffling the voices around him as he recognized the blurring outlines of Fleetfoot and Air Mach crouching down in front of him. The green blur eventually faded and his hearing returned, revealing and hearing the worried words and face of Fleetfoot as she shoved Air Mach away.

“Soarin! Soarin!” she called to him as she tried to help him up.

“I’m… argh…” Soaring grunted, feeling dizzy as he tried to sit up. He immediately looked past Fleetfoot to Spitfire, who unlike his other squadmates, was standing a few paces away and looked… terrified? She was looking at his horn, not him. Had he not been so dizzy and occupied with their situation, Soarin would have demanded to know what was going through her head.

“CAN I GET AN ANSWER HERE?!” Rivet yelled from the speaker. Spitfire shook her head out, bit her lip, and turned away from Soarin as she took his place, crouching down and looking for what Rivet was talking about. The Nimbus shook again, causing her to look up and gasping as Shadowbolt Commander Void suddenly rose up and lunged towards the bridge window, but right before he struck it, Fire Streak and Misty Fly shot in from the right and tackled him out of the air. The view out the window was now filled with Wonderbolts, Renegades, Shadowbolts, and Falcons flying everywhere in such an off the rails cacophony as the Nimbus continued to slowly turn and throw them further off course.

Spitfire had to get control of the situation before everything went to hell.

She looked back down, her eyes darting back and forth as Lucky kept trying to force the lever to no avail. After a moment, she spotted something, a dangling cable that looked like some sort of plug with lugs in it.

“I see something!” Spitfire yelled up to the microphone. “It’s a plug! Or something! Just hanging on the right side!”

“THAT’S IT!” Rivet replied. “THERE SHOULD BE A CONNECTING PIECE CLOSER TO THE LEVER! PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER AND CONTROL SHOULD BE RESTORED!”

Spitfire tipped her head further down, bracing herself as the Nimbus shook again, after pushing her head all the way to the floor she spotted exactly what Rivet was talking about.

“Lucky! Stop pulling the lever for a second!” she ordered. She reached for the base of the lever, squeezing her hoof in between the small space, hoping to Celestia that the contraption didn’t suddenly move as she did so in fear of her hoof being crushed. After a couple of attempts, she got a hold of it and gave it a yank, pulling it towards the other piece and jamming them together, the cable went taut as she let go, followed by the Nimbus making a hard lurch to the right.

“WHOA! That did it!” Spitfire yelled. “Is it working?!” she asked as Lucky pulled the lever harder to the right.

“YEP! We’re turning back!” Lucky cheered as he began moving them back on course.

“Just angle us back! Keep going! Keep going!” Spitfire yelled stumbling as the Nimbus received another peppering from the Falcons. She kept her hooves set as she moved towards Soarin, helping Fleetfoot get him on his hooves.

“I’m fine, I’M FINE!” Soarin yelled as he pushed them both off and held himself steady. “RGH!” he grunted, shaking his head out.

“Ah!” Dash suddenly yelped, letting go of Matteo and throwing a hoof over her heart. Squall and Matteo both instantly looked towards her.

“Dash?” Matteo asked as he reached to her to make sure she didn’t get thrown about by the motions. “What is it?!”

Dash gasped and panted, her heart racing. Her eyes widened and she looked up towards the ceiling. Did something just happen to Soarin?

“EVERYPONY LOOKOUT!” Luna suddenly yelled.

Dash’s eyes went forward quicker than she could blink. She and the rest of the Wonderbolts only had a moment to set themselves and be ready as ten Shadowbolts, including Blade, Shadow, and Void, flew side by side towards the upper lobby window. They were all encased in magic shields as they surged forward and smashed right through, shattering the glass and forcing their way into the lobby.

Luna immediately set her hooves and called forth her magic, erecting a large magic bubble that protected the Wonderbolts from the falling glass. The Shadowbolts all kept charging, throwing themselves into Luna’s shield and pushing against her magic with theirs.

“HHHRRRGGGHHHH!!!” Luna grunted, gritting her teeth as she held against them. She wasn’t sure how long she could hold them back, but her efforts were to give the Wonderbolts time to ready themselves for battle. Blade, Void, and Shadow let up as the seven other Shadowbolts continued to press. They dropped to the floor behind, their crystals encircling them and glowing brightly. Bright pink flashes erupted behind them, creating their signature clones of themselves that shot up into the air and rammed against Luna’s shield with reckless abandon. “AH!” Luna gasped and stumbled backwards as the pressure against her shield grew harder and harder as the clones piled up and pushed against it, quickly increasing the number of enemies hitting it from seven to over forty. She had regained her focus, but was still feeling the effects of her signal magic a little, she could feel her hold on the magic slipping. “BE READY!” Luna yelled to the Wonderbolts as the elite squads all stepped up around her. Dash and her squad filed in behind, setting their hooves and talons hard to the floor against the motions of the Nimbus. “HRRRAAAH!” Luna gasped and leapt backwards as her magic released.

The Wonderbolts stomped and launched, flinging themselves up as the bubble disappeared, several hard, painful collisions ensuing in midair with the Shadowbolts and clones. Locked pairs and flailing bodies were sent in random directions as their momentum faded and the motion of the Nimbus caused them to fling uncontrollably about the lobby, bouncing off the pillar in the center and off the secured furniture strewn about.

Matteo had stepped aside, catching Luna out of her backward leap, but the move got him separated from his squad as Dash and Squall stuck together, launching side by side and crashing into one of the lesser Shadowbolts. Dash tackled the stallion to the ground, the two quickly getting to their hooves and struggling before Squall shifted up and let out his signature battle cry, catching the Shadowbolt grappling with Dash in the side of the head and forcing him away. The Shadowbolt was clipped by one of the elite Wonderbolts before he could regain himself and charge back towards Dash.

Dash and Squall went back to back, their eyes darting about as ponies whisked by them and flung about. The situation was completely out of control, turning into an all-out brawl on the lobby floor with nopony able to control their flight, falling victim to the shaking and shifts of the Nimbus repeatedly.

“GRH!” Dash cringed and shuddered, clutching her chest again as she and Squall stood at the ready. She looked up towards the ceiling towards where she could feel Soarin, but the heart pang ended up being a blessing in disguise. Commander Shadow was right above them, just barely holding herself in place with the motion of the Nimbus. Her crystals were glowing, ready to fire her burst wave straight down. Dash kicked back, pushing herself into Squall and moving them out of the way as her attack streamed down and struck the floor, breaking and kicking up the floor tiles.

Dash and Squall tried to look up and find her, but Shadow was forced out of position and already sucked back into the mayhem. Instead, they were suddenly surrounded by clones of Void that popped up out pink flashes of light. While they shared Void’s imposing size, Dash and Squall were well aware of how to deal with the clones. They recalled their training with the Renegades, using their hooves to deflect the magic eye beams fired at them. Squall’s deflection technique was not as refined as Dash’s but the extra focus from adrenalin helped him deflect the beams effectively enough. Once in the clear, Dash and Squall pushed off one another, taking out the clones one by one with well-placed blows right in the center of the forehead, causing them to explode into bursts of pink energy.

But the moment they dispatched the clones, Blade and a Wonderbolt elite slammed down to the floor between them, separating Dash and Squall and forcing them into the crowd away from each other. Dash looked back and forth frantically, doing everything she could to avoid being sucker punched, but she couldn’t avoid getting bumped around like a pinball as the fighting raged around her. To top it off, when she finally got her balance, she suddenly felt like she was being tugged at, and it wasn’t the shaking or tipping of the Nimbus. Several others were being affected around her as well.

Void had planted himself in the middle of the lobby and has activated his signature Vacuum Wave, throwing everypony about even more than they were already being.

Nearby, Blade brandished his magic sword and jammed it into the ground, using it to hold on. All the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts began trying to anchor themselves against Void’s selfish use of his magic. Dash reaching for the closest thing that she could hold onto… which happened to be Blade’s tail. The moment she latched to it though, Blade looked behind him and growled. Dash gulped and was forced to let go as Blade kicked back, Dash’s arms going up just in time to shield her face, but ultimately sending her flailing through the air right towards Void.

Dash flinched as Void locked his eyes on her, grinning while pulling his hoof back to strike as she tumbled towards him, but right before he could punch her, Dash got a lucky break. Matteo shot up from behind Void and tackled him, wrapping his arms around Void’s neck and pushing him down to the floor.

“WHAT THE—?!” Void grunted as he lost control of his magic, the vacuum effect disappearing. He tried to fight back, but Matteo’s weight proved to be more than the large Shadowbolt could handle. Despite the advantage, Matteo still had to struggle to keep him in place.

“RGH!” Matteo shifted and pulled as he tried to keep Void down, the two of them flailing about on the ground. Dash managed to turn her body around and land awkwardly on her side, sliding along the floor towards Void’s face.

“Yikes!” Dash yelped as she reached her front hooves and kicked them against the ground, trying to stop her momentum. She did manage to stop, but found herself face to face with Void, glaring at her as he gritted his teeth and continuously tried to push back against Matteo. His crystals were spread across the floor in front of him, glowing and scooting back towards him as his eyes began to glow as well. Dash gasped and began scrambling to gain traction, knowing Void was about to use his eyebeams, but there was no way she was going to move in time.

Luck was on her side again though. Twister suddenly popped up from behind Matteo, leaping over his head, his flight cap and scarf were gone, replaced by a big, fake, curly moustache and holding a big spaghetti pan in his hooves.

“IT’S SPAGHETTI TIME!” Twister yelled as he jammed the pot right over the top of Void’s head. Void’s eyebeams fired the moment after the pan was in place, causing a bright pink flash to shoot out of the pan followed by pink smoke and Void roaring out painfully. Matteo grunted and released Void as the magic jettisoned out of the pan and rushed past his arms, but Twister dropped down, sitting on Void’s neck while holding a wooden stirring spoon in each hoof. “COME AND GET IT!” Twister yelled as he began banging the spoons against the pan repeatedly.

“ARGH! AAAAAAAAUGH! STOP IT!” Void yelled as he pushed himself up and began running frantically, running into, and knocking over several other ponies as Twister rode on his neck, hooting and hollering as he continued to drum the spoons against the pot.

Dash stood up as she watched Twister make a fool of Void, but as she looked back, she already lost sight of Matteo in the carnage. Before she could try to find him though, a Wonderbolt mare suddenly slammed right into her.

“AH!” Dash yelped as she turned herself and anchored her hooves, grabbing onto the mare as she fell limp in her arms. Dash’s eyes widened as she stared down at the elite Wonderbolt, but breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the mare struggling to move. She was alive and breathing, but she was cringing and groaning in pain, her suit slashed in several places, exposing painful, bleeding cuts. Dash looked up to see Blade rushing towards her, sword balanced over his shoulder and pumping his wings to compensate only using three of his limbs to gallop. Dash quickly turned, taking a chance as she spread her wings and thrust them down, pushing her into the air. Her motion was heavily disrupted by the movement of the Nimbus and hindered by the weight of the mare in her arms, but she managed to propel them over most of the action, landing off to the side behind one of the secured couches in the lobby. Dash set the mare down gently against the couch, but then yelped as Blade’s sword jammed through the back of the couch, just barely slipping by her nose.

Determined to protect the Wonderbolt, Dash immediately leapt over the couch, springing up suddenly and surprising Blade. She rammed herself into him, knocking him off the couch and causing the two to tumble on the floor. Dash tried to get an advantage early, but Blade quickly proved to be stronger than her.

“OOF!” Dash grunted, as Blade put her on her back and pushed a hoof down over her chest. She looked up with wide eyes as he brandished his sword in the other hoof and readied to bring it down. But before he did, he looked up suddenly, removing his hoof from Dash and bringing up his sword in front of him, bracing it with both his hooves.

“HOOORYAA!” Squall hurled in from the side, unloading a heavy punch into the flat edge of the blade. Sparks flew from the magic sword’s surface as Squall ground his hoof against it, knocking Blade off of Dash and forcing him to anchor his hooves against the ground.

“Oh? It’s you…” Blade huffed as Squall growled in his face. “How’s that little souvenir on your face I so kindly gave you?”

“RRGGHHHH!!!!” Squall growled louder as he jammed his other hoof forward, Blade turning the sword to position it horizontally and block the other as well. Dash quickly rolled to her hooves and readied herself as Blade and Squall grappled, but she was forced to divert her attention as a few clones of Blade and Shadow surrounded and charged her.

“Dammit!” Dash grunted as she engaged the clones. “SQUALL!” she yelled after him, her split focus causing her to get knocked back down.

“You’ve got a lot of guts coming after me again,” Blade taunted, holding himself easily as Squall continued to push. “Or are you eager to have a matching one on the other side?”

“SHUT…” Squall pushed off and spun around, winding up and uppercut. “UP!” he yelled, throwing his hoof up beneath Blade’s chin, but Blade shifted his sword and bumped Squall’s arm with the flat edge before forcing it forward. “AH!” Squall yelped as his arm was sent flying up, completely missing and leaving him wide open. Blade slammed his sword to the ground before dragging the tip along the tiles, sparks flickering up from the ground as he dragged it along, prepared to swing it upward into Squall.

“NO!” Dash yelled as she finally dispatched the last clone going after her and leapt towards Squall, but she wasn’t going to make it in time!

Dash flinched and came to a screeching halt as a dark grey, blurry streak suddenly shot in and collided with Blade.

“GAH!” Blade grunted as he was thrown to the side, Dash rushing forward to catch Squall before he fell on his back. As she reached out and supported him, the two looked up and blinked.

“Hmph!” Descent snorted as he set his hooves into the floor and glared at Blade. Blade rolled back onto his hooves and glared right back at Descent.

Dash smiled as she looked around, seeing several Renegades rushing in through the window, using the motion of the Nimbus to double their entry speed as they surprised the Shadowbolts, throwing them about and getting several Wonderbolts out of binds.

Blade’s crystals shined as they remained attached around his hoof, his sword glowing as he readied to engage in yet another grudge match with Descent, but before either of them made any moves, Blade suddenly looked away and out the broken window. Descent lifted an eyebrow, curious, but not losing focus.

“Hmph…” Blade grunted, his sword dissipating before his three crystals floated above him, came together, and released an odd screeching noise.

Dash cringed and covered her ears as the awful sound pierced right through her head, but as she looked up and around, she noticed all of the Shadowbolts pulling back and looking towards Blade. Blade made a swift hoof motion towards the window… and without warning they all broke away, galloping back and launching themselves out the window. Even Void, who had finally managed to get Twister and the spaghetti pot off of his head, his mask ripped up, his goggles shattered, and his nose bleeding from the mishap of firing his eyebeams while his head was covered.

Descent made a brief effort to follow Blade, but he stopped, hesitating as he was unsure if the move might have been a trap. But either way, the hesitation sealed his chances of immediately catching up.

Dash and Squall stepped up beside Descent, Luna finding her way over to them as well as they all looked out the window. The Shadowbolts were pulling back and the Falcons were doing the same. The Wonderbolts and Renegades outside were all looking around in confusion as they kept up their pace with the Nimbus.

“They’re… retreating?” Dash wondered out loud. Descent exchanged worried glances with Luna before growling.

“I doubt it… Blade would never randomly retreat…” he said as he started moving back towards the lobby doors, the wind rushing through the broken hangar window brushing against his face and pushing his mane back.

Dash bit her lip as she looked to Matteo and Twister, and then to the rest of the Wonderbolts, some faring better than others as they all wondered what was happening. An eerie silence filled the room as the Nimbus continued on its path, rocking back and forth gently.

She didn’t like this…

“What’s going on?” Spitfire pondered aloud as she watched out the window. Behind her, Soarin was back up on his hooves, but holding a hoof to his head and panting as he also turned his attention outside.

“Are they… backing off?” Soarin asked as the Shadowbolts and Falcons suddenly dispersed and were moving aside. The Wonderbolts and Renegades outside moved with the Nimbus, remaining at the ready, but all very confused.

“DID WE SCARE ‘EM OFF?!” Air Mach grinned and pounded his chest, but Fleetfoot shook her head immediately.

“It’s never been that easy. What are they doing?” she said worriedly as she glanced between Soarin and Spitfire, ignoring Air Mach’s posing.

Everypony, including Lucky and all the unicorns went silent, only the puttering sound of the propellers and the muffled clanking and creaking of the machinery filled the room as questions swirled around their heads.

For a moment, Soarin felt like his headache from simply bumping the horn was subsiding… but as he removed his hoof and readied to shake his head out, a sudden, excruciating pain shot through his head, his eyes widening.

“GAH?!” Soarin stumbled backwards, everypony’s attention drawn to him as he stepped up onto his back hooves and pushed his front hooves against his head. “AHHH! GRRGHH AHHH!!!!!”

“SOARIN?!” Spitfire gasped as Fleetfoot and Air Mach backed away from him. She took one step towards him, but immediately halted in place as a bright yellow aura encircled Soarin’s cracked horn, sparks shooting from the base and the cracks and fizzling out as they fell to the ground. Soarin opened his eyes, revealing a bright, yellow light that completely concealed his pupils.

Soarin fell down onto his plot, but remained sitting upright as his mouth hung open. He made no more noise, whether it be a grunt or a wail, as he sat and the light shone forth. After ten seconds, the light vanished from his eyes and the aura shot back into the horn.

“GAH! Guhhhh…” Soarin lurched forward and hunched down, panting and wheezing.

While Lucky and the unicorns all had no idea what they had just seen, Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and Blaze had ALL seen it before.

A premonition.

Spitfire’s eyes widened as she rushed up to Soarin and supported him. Soarin held a hoof to his forehead as his eyes remained stuck open, his pupils shrunk down.

“Soarin! Was that… was that one of those visions?!” she asked frantically, remembering that every time it had happened in the past… something horrible happened very soon after.

“I… I…” Soarin blinked and shook his head as sweat ran down his face and over the side of his nose. “I couldn’t see clearly but…” he looked up and out the window for a moment, and then down at the floor. “Somepony… I saw somepony… falling! Outside!”

“Somepony falling?” Fleetfoot chimed in as she came up beside him as well. “But… who?”

“I don’t know! Soarin shook his head, but… I…”

“Uh…” Blaze’s suddenly spoke up. “Sis…?”

Everypony, save for Soarin, looked towards Blaze. She had her eyes pressed to the periscope and was looking behind them. Spitfire’s body tingled with anxiety as she heard the uncertainty in Blaze’s voice.

“Blaze… What is it?” she asked quickly, but hesitantly. Blaze remained quiet, swallowing as she moved the periscope back and forth.

“Where did the Shadowbolt Fortress go?”

“Oof!” Dash gasped and hunched over, her heart suddenly pumping harder again. She blinked and looked up at the ceiling. Seriously, what was going on with Soarin? She flinched and looked up to her left as Princess Luna tapped her on the shoulder.

“Rainbow Dash… are you well? Is something happening?” she asked, showing concern as Dash clutched her heart. Dash bit her lip and shook her head.

“Something is hurting Soarin… I don’t know what though…” she said as she looked up.

“Hurting him? Oh… your connection,” she said as she tipped her head, biting her lip and looking up towards the ceiling with worry. “Whatever could be—”

“WAIT!” Descent yelled, causing both of them to jump in surprise and turn to him as everypony else did. “Oh NO!” he added as he sprinted towards the lobby doors and began looking around.

“Captain Descent?!” Luna remarked as she turned and addressed him. “What is the matter?!”

“The fortress! I was so distracted by the Shadowbolts that—” he froze, stepping back as Dash and Luna looked past him, several Wonderbolts and Renegades outside all reacting, pointing, some of them turning and rushing back for the Nimbus as others began following behind them. “Oh my god…” Descent kept backing away as Squad Three, High Winds, and the rest of the Wonderbolts and Renegades frantically poured into the Nimbus in alarm.

“What are you…?” Dash trailed off as she looked outside. “Oh hell…”

“What do you mean ‘where did it go!?’” Spitfire freaked out as she stepped towards Blaze, everypony, including Lucky turned around and staring at them.

“As in I can’t see it out there, what the fuck did you think I meant?!” Blaze snapped back. “It’s not behind us anymore!”

“Well, FIND it!” Spitfire ordered.

“HEY! Shuddap! I’m already trying!” Blaze kept fighting back as she swept the periscope back and forth along the aft view.

“At the rate we’ve been moving, we should be at the edge of the badlands very soon, the canyons start, literally right at the border, we can’t afford to be in the dark once we start trying to navigate—”

As Spitfire went on, Blaze suddenly turned the periscope all the way around to face the view forward. The moment she had it in forward position, she froze.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Blaze shrieked, her tail sticking out straight behind her and stiffening. Spitfire immediately stopped talking and blinked towards Blaze.

“WHAT?! WHAT IS IT?!” she demanded.

“Uh… Sp-sp-sp-spitty?” Fleetfoot said with a very hard stutter.

Soarin looked up, his head still pounding, but he focused on the forward window as everypony else did, gasps resonating throughout the bridge as Spitfire slowly turned around.

Soarin could just barely see the badlands, Spitfire was right about them closing in… however, it looked like their brief change of course with their mechanical mishap… had put them in a very… very bad situation.

The Shadowbolt fortress slowly hovered down from above, putting itself right in the Nimbus’ flight path at the edge of the badlands. The Nimbus was still moving full throttle with the extra boost from Rivet in the engine room, and the Shadowbolt Fortress was right in the way… the heavy cannons on the front were already glowing brightly.

“LUCKY!” Spitfire yelled out after a moment of disbelief. “SLOW US DOWN! TURN! TURN!”

“WHAT?! BUT RIVET SAID NOT TO—!” Lucky frantically replied as he stared at the throttle.

“WE HAVE NO CHOICE! NOW!” Spitfire reached forward and forced the throttle down, prompting Lucky to throw his body against the lever and push it left again.

The Nimbus shook harder than it had so far during their flight as multiple snaps, pops, clangs, creaks, and groans sounded from within the walls and the nearby propellers. Everypony stumbled forward as the Nimbus’ speed slowed considerably and it made a hard turn, but their forward momentum kept carrying them. Yelps and shrieks came from the ponies around the bridge as sparks and pops flew from wires and panels. The steering lever groaned and strained as Lucky pushed against it, but despite their efforts, they had not managed to turn much at all, nor move themselves out of the way.

Soarin’s eyes widened in absolute alarm as he looked out the bridge window… and saw the cannons firing. He forced himself up and rushed forward, ripping Blaze off the periscope and pulling her along as he dove towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

“GET DOWN!” Soarin yelled out as he landed atop Spitfire and Fleetfoot, bringing all three mares down to the floor with him as Air Mach yanked Lucky free from the lever and did the same, all the unicorns hitting the floor with them.

Everypony covered their heads as the Nimbus began to violently shake, rock, and shutter, the sounds of slamming, crunching, and explosions resonating throughout the walls. Sparks flew from the machinery and wires, whipping noises cracked and strained as cables splintered and snapped.

Ceiling tiles began falling, wires spewing out from above. Two blasts struck the front window, going right through it while shattering the glass and showering it down in little bits overhead as the blasts struck the back wall, exploding and coming just short of tearing the walls down themselves.

“AAAHHHH!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot screamed as Soarin held her and Spitfire to the floor.

“GAH! HA!” Soarin cried out as the shards of glass from the window pelted him, a few pieces cutting through his suit and slicing his skin as more blasts shot through the window and exploded.

They began sliding as the Nimbus tipped, its starboard side pushed upward by the constant pressure. Soarin held tight to Spitfire and Fleetfoot as they tumbled, but failed to secure Blaze as she slid right out from beneath him. One of the smaller propellers outside was struck, blowing it right off of its pole and sending it whipping downward. It caught the wind, flailing as it bounced off the fuselage and angled into the broken bridge window, jamming and impaling itself into the floor right beside the steering lever and just missing Air Mach and Lucky. A couple of fires erupted as the sparking panels and mechanical pieces continued to creak, groan, and shudder.

They were being absolutely pounded… was this the end?

“OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!” Dash yelled continuously as she and Squall braced themselves against Matteo.

“RRRGHH!!!!” Matteo grunted as debris fell from the ceiling, including an entire light fixture loosing from the tiles high above and smashing to pieces over his back.

“WE’VE GOT TO! ARGH! DO SOMETHING!” Descent yelled, but the shaking was so intense that he couldn’t even keep his hooves.

There was only one pony who had managed to get to her hooves and hold her ground.

Princess Luna.

She stood strong as the Nimbus was assaulted, bracing herself against the shaking and brushing off the collateral damage. She glared out the hangar window as the view of the Shadowbolt fortress remained, despite them being slightly tipped and turned. After a brief glance at all the Wonderbolts and Renegades fighting for their lives around her… she knew what she had to do.

“WE SHALL NOT… ALLOW IT!” Luna roared out as she broke into a gallop, her strong steps fighting against the unstable floor beneath her as she spread her wings and leapt into the air, launching herself out of the Nimbus and into the deadly barrage of heavy cannon fire.

“LUNA!!!!!!” Dash yelled as she watched the princess take flight, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t even stand up without being knocked right back down. Matteo was the only thing keeping her from face planting.

Luna pumped her large, powerful wings as hard as she could, shifting, turning, and twisting to avoid the cannon blasts nearly twice her size as they hurled and zipped by her. She already had her magic alight around her horn and was constantly pouring more and more power into it.

The first time she took on the fortress, she was fighting blind, unaware of the amount of power it possessed. She also had the crutch of trying to protect a much wider area than she needed to. This time it was different. She knew what she was up against, and had already thought about what she could do differently beforehoof. While she wasn’t confident her efforts would wholly succeed, she had to do something to help. The Wonderbolts had to meet up with the Lunar Guard and reach the Crystal Empire!

She kept flying, glancing over her shoulder once briefly to see the Nimbus. It was being pushed helplessly, the building of the compound being battered and beaten as the magic blasts chipped away at it. The sight only propelled her drive further as she came to a stop halfway between the two airships.

She fixed her eyes on the Shadowbolt fortress, growling and grinding her teeth as the glow surrounding her horn first doubled, tripled, and then quadrupled in size.

“HHHHHRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Luna whipped her head forward, pointing her horn towards the fortress. The magic exploded forth from her horn, but instead of taking the form of an attack, the beam extended only ten yards from her before it stopped in its place and instead expanded outward, turning into a giant, square shield that was about a yard thick. The shield grew and grew, larger and larger until it completely blocked the attack radius of the Shadowbolt fortress cannons.

“HRGH!!!!” Luna grunted, but held herself firm as the cannon fire slammed and smashed against her shield, but with her magic much more focused than her last attempt it held steady and she was able to keep it in place. If the Shadowbolt fortress decided to break out the main cannon, she would have a problem, but in the current situation with the Nimbus as a moving target, it seemed unlikely.

As she remained firmly positioned, she realized that her efforts were working, glancing back at the Nimbus to see it teetering, but remaining afloat, smoke trails rising up all over it.

“GO! YOU MUST… GO!” she yelled in her Royal Canterlot Voice towards the Nimbus as she grimaced and winced against the pressure.

“Rggghhhh…” Soarin grunted and coughed as he looked up, pain shooting through his back and sides as bits and shards of glass slid and fell off his body. Spitfire was already pushing herself up and out from beneath him, but Fleetfoot was still covering her head, shaking and whimpering.

“They… they stopped?” Spitfire said as she shook herself out and stood up. She squinted, trying to see through the smoke that had filled the room, using her wings to create gusts that blew the smoke away. Her eyes widened as she saw several small fires rising from broken machinery and panels. The P.A. panel was still in one piece as well as the steering lever, but almost everything else was broken or burning, a few pieces of equipment uprooted and knocked over. Everypony was strewn about, beaten up and bruised, but no pony looked seriously injured, save for Soarin and Air Mach who seemed to have taken the brunt of the falling glass. But even their wounds were not too serious.

Spitfire blinked and quickly looked around.

“Blaze? BLAZE?!” Spitfire looked around, unable to find her half-sister. “BLAZE?! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Soarin slowly pushed himself up as he also began looking around for Blaze, but he was unable to move and help Spitfire due to being anchored in place by Fleetfoot. She was gripping his arm as tightly as she could while shivering, her eyes shut tight as she took short, frantic breaths.

“BLAAAAAAAAAAAZE!!!!!!!!” Spitfire yelled out as she ran around the disheveled bridge, checking every single pony she could find, stopping by every unicorn that slowly found their hooves and even looking behind Air Mach as he helped Lucky stand. Spitfire’s expression became more and more devastated as she made another lap around the bridge.

“Hrg… here…”

Spitfire’s eyes widened further as she snapped her head around towards the sound of the voice. It came from one of the overturned control stations that lay flat on the floor with flames dancing out the back of it. It was tipped in a way that suggested there was something beneath it… and a yellow hoof was poking out from underneath, scraping at the ground as if trying to pull its owner out.

“BLAZE!” Spitfire yelled as she ran over. Soarin tried to go help, but he was held back again, his first step being hindered and dragging Fleetfoot. She released a cry and only tightened her grip on Soarin. Soarin looked down at her and furrowed his brow, but when he saw Air Mach get up to go help Spitfire, he decided to stay in place, and instead crouched down and rubbed his hoof on Fleetfoot’s back to assure her they were alright.

“Fleet…” Soarin said her name quietly as she continued to shiver. He looked up and watched for a moment as Spitfire and Air Mach grabbed the control station and began hoisting it up. “Fleet, we’re alive… it’s okay,” he continued to comfort her as she finally opened her eyes and looked around. Soarin moved his neck down to make eye contact with her. “We’re all good… I hope…” he said, making sure she could see him, helping her calm down. He glanced back up as Spitfire and Air Mach grunted, finally toppling the station, causing a few extra sparks to fly up, but snuffing out the fire as it fell on top of it.

“Argh…” Blaze immediately began pushing herself up, her suit ripped and torn, but otherwise, she looked alright, already moving on her own. Despite her strength still clearly being with her, Spitfire reached down and helped her up, immediately pulling her into a hug. “OW! Sis?!”

“Thank Celestia…” Spitfire said as she gritted her teeth and squeezed Blaze. Blaze was ready to protest, but when she heard the tone in her voice, she relaxed. Spitfire was legitimately worried.

“Sis… I’m fine…” Blaze said a little embarrassed, but hugged Spitfire back.

“Sorry…” Spitfire shook her head as she kept up the hug. “Just really thought I lost you for a moment…”

“Um…” Lucky suddenly chimed in. “Guys…”

Being the only pony not occupied at the moment, Air Mach was the only one to look up towards Lucky. Lucky was standing next to the steering lever and pointing out the shattered windshield. Air Mach quickly trotted over and looked out.

“Oh… DAMN!” he shouted while tipping his goggles down. “WHOA-HO! Look at her go!”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked and tipped his head. He looked back down at Fleetfoot briefly as she finally let go of him and started to stand, making sure she was alright before he turned and moved to join Air Mach. His eyes widened as he looked out.

“LUNA!” he yelled as he stared out in awe.

“Luna?!” Spitfire reacted as she slowly let go of Blaze and looked towards the window.

As Spitfire made her way over, Soarin watched with his jaw dropped as Luna held her ground against the onslaught from the Shadowbolt Fortress, Soarin was already looking at Spitfire the moment she stood beside him and gawked as well.

“We have to help her!” Soarin yelled, but Spitfire reached her hoof out and pressed it to his chest.

“WAIT!” she ordered harshly, but didn’t even look at the glare Soarin was giving her as she turned her ears to listen. “Listen!” she said while pointing out the window. Soarin watched her curiously before copying her motions. It was faint… but the familiar tone and pitch of Luna’s famed Royal Canterlot Voice could be heard.

“F…dbolts…mus…”

Soarin narrowed his eyes and listened harder.

“GO! YOU MUST… FLY! GO! NOW!” Luna’s voice reached his ears. Soarin gasped.

“No! We can’t just…” he trailed off and flinched as Spitfire growled beside him. Soarin’s eyes widened as he looked at her. “NO! Spitfire, don’t even—”

“She’s giving us an opportunity!” she said with a clear tone of regret in her voice that she was trying to suppress. “We have to move!”

“SPITFIRE!” Soarin turned to her, but Spitfire glared up at him shaking her head.

“WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO ARGUE!” she shouted, her expression distraught, emotions squeezing through, but she refused to hesitate. She stepped over to the P.A. hoping to Celestia it was still working. “RIVET! RIVET! Please tell me you’re still alive down there!” she pleaded. Seconds later, the speaker came to life. It was much scratchier, but noises of struggle, yelling, and clanging burst through the interference.

“RIVET—RGH! HERE!” Rivet’s voice blurted through, amid coughing fits. “WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?! AND DID YOU GUYS PULL DOWN THE THROTTLE LIKE I SPECIFICALLY SAID NOT TO?!”

“We did! But we’ll argue about that later!” Spitfire didn’t even give him the chance. “Damage report! I know we’re still floating, but we have a chance to get away! Can we?!”

“WE—!” Rivet paused, releasing a coughing fit. “THANKS TO WHOEVER PULLED THE THROTTLE, THE REVERSE IN STRESS ON THE ALREADY OVERCLOCKING ENGINES CAUSED HALF OF THE OLDER MACHINERY PIECES TO TEAR APART AND CATAPULT THEMSELVES ACROSS THE DAMN ENGINE ROOM! BUT WE STILL—GAH!”

Spitfire cringed as she heard what sounded like an explosion, followed by more yelling and coughing.

“BUT I CAN STILL GIVE YOU A LITTLE! I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG IT WILL LAST THOUGH!” he finished as he turned away and yelled something behind him.

Spitfire looked down, her eyes darting back and forth as she contemplated what to do. Pulling back on the throttle had a consequence, but they had no choice. The Nimbus had taken a lot of damage from the fortress, including at least one propeller destroyed that they knew of. There was no way they were making it to their Crystal Empire in this state, but they could worry about what to do after they had gotten to safety, if anything they could at least make it to their meeting location with the Lunar Guard.

“GIVE US ALL YOU CAN!” Spitfire yelled before cutting off the microphone and turning to Lucky. They waited for a moment as faint whirring and clanking began to sound out from the Nimbus. “Lucky! Let’s go!”

“Where?!” Lucky yelled back while throwing his hooves out. Spitfire pointed towards the canyons, off their course.

“Anywhere in the canyons! Just away from the fortress!” Spitfire ordered as she hit the other P.A. button. “EVERYPONY STAY PUT! REPEAT, DO NOT FLY OUT! WE’RE MAKING A BREAK FOR IT! LUNA IS GIVING US A CHANCE! AGAIN, DO NOT FLY OUT!”

Soarin kept looking out the window between Luna and back in at Spitfire. He bit his lower lip hard, nearly drawing blood as the reality of the situation was weighing heavily on his back. He wanted to save Luna, but Spitfire was right. Luna was giving them a chance that they had to take. He continued to hear Luna’s pleas for them to run and save themselves, grinding his hoof into the floor as he forced himself to stay still.

Lucky pushed forward on the throttle, the smaller level only going halfway before it got stuck and went no further. Confident that was all he was going to get, he gripped the steering level that had somehow stayed intact during the onslaught, and took control as the Nimbus began to inch forward and turn.

Luna glanced over her shoulder, sweat dripping down her brow from beneath her armored headpiece as she continued to pour her magic into holding the shield. She caught a glimpse of the Nimbus turning and starting to move again, which brought a smile to her wincing face. She was now confident that all she had to do was keep it up for a little longer and then she could worry about her own survival. But first things first, she had to remain steadfast and continue to push herself to the limit so the Wonderbolts could—

“Oooooooooooooooh ho ho ho ho…”

Luna’s eyes widened as the eerie, creepy laughter sounded from… somewhere. Who was it and where did it come from? It literally sounded like it came from every direction… or had she imagined it?

“Welllllllllll…” the voice, which she identified as male, spoke. It came from the right. Luna kept up her magic output, glancing to her right to search for the source of the voice, but nothing was there. “What is such a marvelous, beautiful, tantalizing princess such as yourself…” the voice came from the left this time. Luna quickly looked left, but again saw nothing. Was she really hearing things or was the constant sound of explosions as the magic cannons pelted her shield throwing her off? “Doing out here playing hero…?” the voice came from directly behind her as she felt something touch her shoulders… softly.

“Ah!” Luna yelped, shivers running down her spine as she looked as far over her shoulder as she could without redirecting her magic, but yet again… there was nothing. She no longer wondered if she was imagining it. There was definitely somepony there!

“Quite a noble sacrifice… but to what end?” Luna looked back forward and all around her, but the voice seemed to be coming from everywhere. “You think you’re making a difference, but really… it’s all for naught. You’ve tested the trust of the very ponies you seek to support… and now you’re doing ‘your part’ in hopes of earning their faith back… but can you? Are ponies really so simple? So quick to look the other way? Forget all the secrets you kept from them? You led them on quite a big lie after all… you claim it was for their own good, but you’ve done more damage than you could ever repair!” The voice changed location rapidly, almost every word coming from a different direction. “Does the name Midnight ring a bell?” the voice slithered about. Luna’s eyes widened and she gasped, but she kept her focus forward. “The Wonderbolts are no stranger to deaths in the line of duty… but I bet that’s one they could have avoided if… you know… you had been honest with them. Don’t you agree?”

“SHOW YOURSELF!” Luna yelled as she winced, holding the shield steady as the fortress continued to blast away. What was happening? This voice, it was playing mind games with her! How did it pick out something Luna had not discussed with anypony? A death that was a consequence of her choice to work in the shadows behind the Wonderbolts? “COWARD!” Luna added as the voice refused to show itself.

“Feeling a little jumpy? Are we?” the voice taunted. Luna felt something slide gently against her plot.

“AH!” she flinched, the shield buckling for a moment and bending as more cannon fire hit it, but Luna quickly glared back at the shield, causing it to harden back up.

“Oooooo, I think I might do that again, do all Alicorn princesses have such a nice, firm, shapely—”

Luna bucked her left leg backwards, but hit nothing.

“Really now. You’d think you’d take that as a compliment, OH HO HO!” the voice cackled.

“DON’T PLAY—RGH! GAMES WITH ME!” Luna began to pant as the pressure from the shield began testing her limits, this chilling distraction throwing a wrench into her focus.

“Why not?!” the voice got louder, it’s tone and pitch causing Luna to wince as the shrill vibrations began to make her ears shiver. “After all… you and the rest of you serious ponies ought to loosen up. Really now!” the voice sounded like it was getting closer. “Some of us have been stripped of purpose, cast away, given nothing to live or care for…” the voice suddenly got deeper, and was suddenly accompanied by a demonic echo. “Some of us are denied the right to be who we are… some of us are locked away… some of us are forcefully held down…” the voice grew louder and deeper. “SHUNNED… FORGOTTEN… DEPRIVED… SNUBBED… REJECTED…”

Luna began to shake. She had no control over whatever was happening. She had to put focus into the shield, leaving her defenseless against whoever or whatever was toying with her… and at any moment it could strike… what was she to do?

“WHEN EVERYTHING ELSE IS GONE… WITH NO DIRECTION TO FOLLOW…”

Luna shrieked as Ruin suddenly appeared out of thin air directly in front of her face, the lenses of his goggles were pitch black with small white dots in the middle of them. He wore a smile that seemed… too big for his own face. It only remained for an instant, the black fading from his goggles and the smile shrinking to one of normal size, but it had already shocked Luna to the point where her heart was ready to leap out of her chest.

“Then it all becomes a GAME!”

Ruin reached forward and swatted Luna’s nose.

“AH!” she yelped, her head snapping up for a moment before she looked back down. But Ruin was no longer in front of her.

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!” his voice slurred from above.

Luna looked up, her eyes widening. Ruin was not only surrounded by hundreds of his small magic spheres… but he was also surrounded by twenty or more clones of himself, all of which had their eye beams primed and ready.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry so much about little old me!” Ruin cackled as his crystals orbited around him. “I mean… I’m just ONE commander…”

Luna gasped as several gusts of wind brushed against her. She looked to her left, to her right, above, and below her…

She was surrounded. Blade, Shadow, Void, and Angel had all joined Ruin, all with their crystals glowing, and each with ten or more clones hovering with them. Luna’s eyes widened further… as Moon rose up with them, taking his place among them and generating clones as well.

With her magic still focused on blocking the cannon fire and the Nimbus still struggling to move out of range…

She was trapped.

Blade lifted a hoof and pointed towards her.

“Kill her.”

Luna looked directly at Moon…

But he didn’t even flinch or hesitate.

The commanders and the clones began firing their eyebeams and launching any projectiles they could use. Angel did not use his flying blades, but it didn’t matter… The six commanders absolutely unloaded magical attacks on Luna.

“AH! AAAAAAAHHH!!!!” Luna screamed and yelped as she was struck from every angle, each impact exploding and stinging her with unbearable pain. Ruin’s spheres danced about and hit her all over, Shadow’s burst waves burned against her, and the countless eyebeams pelted her endlessly. She lost control of her hover, her wings flailing for control as the blasts pushing her around violently, impacting both upon her armor and her body. Her grip on the shield began to slip, the strength of the barrier fading as it began to buckle and dent.

“HO HO! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” Ruin laughed maniacally as the commanders kept pushing the bombardment. Luna cried out as the attacks continued to rip and slam against her, several of her joints were going numb as the heavy impacts cut off circulation and kicked her around like a helpless leaf in the wind.

Then her magic faded…

A cannon blast from the Shadowbolt fortress punctured right through the shield, shattering it to bits before… it hit Luna dead on. The cannon beam twice her size exploded against her, the shockwaves forcing the Shadowbolts to scatter as Luna was catapulted backwards by it, her head whipping back and her helmet flying off, faint trails of blood whipping from her nose and other nasty wounds as she started tumbling through the air… and falling.

Blade quickly twirled his hoof to get the other commanders’ attention before pointing at Luna again.

They all turned their magic down… and fired.

Luna fell helplessly, her body whipping about like a ragdoll, all feeling gone, her wings rendered useless, and her conscious slipping as the Shadowbolts continued to pelt her.

She could barely think straight as she took the punishment… but one thing was clear to her…

Thousands and thousands of years... an omnipotent being of legends… She had fought her share of battles, more than she could remember off hoof… She was making the effort for the sake of the Wonderbolts whom she felt she owed much, but all it took was one moment of weakness… Letting her guard down…

The whole conflict had proven that the divine entities were not so perfect and all powerful… Their flaws and misgivings taking center stage as their choices were constantly questioned and scrutinized, their ‘divine’ magic pushed to their once never seen limits and struck down by unknown powers. And now it all culminated to this…

Luna, the Goddess of the Moon, was going to die…

“LUNA!” Dash yelled as she saw the entire thing happen from inside the lobby doors. She was constantly moving herself further and further to the right as the Nimbus struggled to turn, “LUUUUUUUUNNNNNAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” she yelled as she moved further away from her squad. She pushed against the door, but found it was stuck, sealed by damage it had taken. She moved to try another one, but her intentions had already been noticed.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Fire Streak yelled as he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back. “Do NOT fly out there!”

“LET ME GO!” she yelled as she thrashed, but Fire held her still. “LUNA IS—!!”

“Luna is distracting them for us!” Fire said, obviously uncomfortable.

“HOW CAN YOU BE SO HEARTLESS?!” Dash barked right in his face. Fire glared angrily at her and pointed outside.

“You insult me! Do you really think I don't want to help the princess?!” he yelled right in her face, causing her to flinch. “Look out there and tell me how you would save her!”

Dash looked out, grinding her teeth as she shook. Luna was being attacked by a group of commanders and clones, the Falcons were still out there along with the rest of the Shadowbolts, and the fortress was now free of her shield. The Nimbus was just starting to move away and if they kept moving they maybe had a chance to lose them as everything was focused on Luna…

Descent walked up beside Dash, his expression completely stoic.

“Rainbow Dash… the Wonderbolts have taught me not to be so quick to give up… but I’m afraid I must agree with Fire here…” he said while closing his eyes and sighing. “Luna is giving us a chance to escape… this was her choice. It’s different than one of our own being taken against their will.” He opened his eyes and looked down at Dash. “She is making a noble sacrifice to give us a chance. If we waste it, it will all be for naught.”

Dash glanced around as she shook in Fire’s grip. Several Wonderbolts were looking out towards Luna as the Nimbus kept turning out of view. They all looked like they wanted to fly out, all watching with horror as Luna took the endless hits, but were all reluctantly holding back. Not only that, but Fire was right… the Shadowbolts had surprised them and the Wonderbolt/Renegade force had taken a beating, at least a third of them grounded after engaging in combat. Even if they tried to save her, they would be outnumbered and any attempt could not only end with some of them dead… but it could also destroy their chances of escaping into the canyons, effectively getting them all killed… right?

But… did she have to accept that?

Dash closed her eyes and looked down. She stopped shaking and took a deep breath.

The Wonderbolts were trained to handle abnormal situations… On top of Luna’s choice to use herself as a distraction, Spitfire had given an order to hold back. However, she had been giving orders on the fly in the middle of a crazy crisis scenario. Were they sound decisions? How could anypony possibly have a level head right now? Dash trusted Spitfire’s judgment as the captain… but… Based on their training and what they stood for…

Wasn’t this just another ‘abnormal situation?’

It sure as hell felt like it, so why the hell were they being so… passive?

No.

Enough.

“Fire?” Dash suddenly said as she opened her eyes. Fire lifted an eyebrow as he examined Dash’s complete change of expression from frantic to determined.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Dash said calmly.

“For wha—?”

Fire Streak never got to finish.

Dash punched him in the face… really hard.

“ARGH!” Fire Streak yelled as the sucker punch connected, forcing him to stumble backwards and let go as he fell against Descent. He opened his eyes after getting his balance and gasped as Dash pushed against the door in front of her and opened it. “STOP!” he yelled as he galloped towards her, but she was already out and spreading her wings. “RAINBOW DASH! STOP! THAT’S AN ORDER!” he yelled, but he came to a halt in the doorway. Watching as she took flight. “Dammit! DAMMIT!” he yelled as he squeezed the doorframe, contemplating what to do.

“Ah!” Descent suddenly yelped in surprise, causing Fire to look over his shoulder and gasp again as Squall, Matteo, and Twister all barged their way through the other lobby doors, charged along the same path behind Dash and all took flight, chasing after her.

Rainbow Dash knew she was going to regret punching a top elite captain… and if it landed her cleaning the bathrooms for a year or worse so be it… but she couldn’t believe how easily everypony dismissed trying to save Luna just because the situation seemed impossible, had they all forgotten that this was what Wonderbolts did?! It was Luna’s choice and Spitfire gave an order to hold, but handling the impossible was the calling card of the Wonderbolts… if they were going to forget who they were, she was going to do it herself!

She pumped her wings against the heavy gusts of the propellers, aiming right towards Luna as she vowed to keep going, grab her, and make it back.

Was it suicide? Maybe if she slipped up or the Shadowbolts caught her, but whatever. She could do it… she could save Luna despite the circumstances.

Hell, she was sure Silver would have done the same thing… after all, he beat the odds, fought his own body, and took a life or death chance to rescue her from Sin. Screw odds… she was going to save Luna!

“NO!” Soarin yelled as he rushed towards the window, watching in horror as Luna fell while being pelted by the crystal magic.

Somepony falling… the one he saw in his premonition was Luna!

“NOOOOOOO!!!!!!” he spread his wings, but Spitfire suddenly leapt on his back and forced him to the floor.

“SOARIN! WE CAN’T!” she yelled. “WE HAVE TO KEEP MOVING!”

“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!” Soarin yelled at her, but Spitfire rolled off and shook her head.

“HAVE YOU LOST YOURS?! We have to get away! Luna’s giving us a chance!” Spitfire yelled her face filled with uncertainty, but she remained firm. Soarin tried to push past her but she pushed back again.

“SHE’LL DIE!” Soarin yelled in her face, but Spitfire lunged forward and forced him backwards, his hooves screeching against the floor.

“And if we don’t keep moving SO WILL WE!” Spitfire yelled as small tears began building up in her eyes. “You think I like this choice?! You think I’m being irrational?! OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EYES AND THINK STRAIGHT! WE—”

“UH! UH! SPITTY!!!!!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled out, drawing both Soarin and Spitfire away from snarling at each other. Fleetfoot was pointing outside. “IT’S… RAINBOW DASH!”

Soarin and Spitfire both instantly dropped the subject, both of them blinking before Soarin shoved Spitfire aside and sprinted up to the broken windshield. He stopped next to Fleetfoot and gasped as he saw Rainbow Dash flying out… BY HERSELF.

At the very moment Soarin realized what Dash was doing, it was no longer just an argument about trying to save Luna… this was about his OWN life… Dash, for some reason, was disobeying orders and flying out towards Luna.

If Dash was killed trying to save Luna… He would die too!

Soarin immediately set his hooves and leaned back while reaching his wings forward. He lifted up his front legs to begin the motions of the Sonic Blastoff…

“GAH!” He gasped and grunted as Spitfire dropped her elbow into his back from behind, forcing him to the floor and putting him into a headlock.

“SPITTY?!” Fleetfoot shrieked as Soarin immediately began grappling with Spitfire as she struggled to hold him down, doing absolutely everything she could to not hit his horn in fear of his emotions weakening its integrity.

Soarin was clearly emotionally compromised and based on Luna’s warning, any sort of damage would destroy the horn… but now she had a dilemma… If Dash got herself killed, Soarin would die… she bit her lower lip, looking out the window and down at Soarin as she continued to keep him down, shifting her weight back and forth to constantly keep him from gaining leverage.

“SPITFIRE!” Soarin yelled. “DAMMIT SPITFIRE LET ME GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” he roared wildly in desperation. Spitfire slammed her eyes shut, finding herself forced to make yet another choice on the fly.

Dash had just put them in a much tougher situation… because she didn’t know EXACTLY would happen to Soarin if she died. She wasn’t willing to take a chance.

“LUCKY! BRING THE THROTTLE DOWN! FLEETFOOT!” Spitfire yelled as she tightened her grip on Soarin. “GO OUT THERE AND BRING HER BACK!”

“WHAT?! BUT…” Fleetfoot’s jaw dropped as she looked out.

“NOW! BEFORE SHE GETS TOO FAR AWAY! ONLY YOU CAN CATCH HER!” Spitfire yelled, turning to look at Air Mach. “AIR MACH! GO WITH HER! FLY BACKUP! GO! GO!”

“Oh… OH! OH MY GOD!” Fleetfoot yelled nervously as she turned, spread her wings and shot out the window, clearly nervous, but doing as she was told. Air Mach, remaining serious for a change, followed after her, determined to see she made it back alright.

“BLAZE! HELP ME! UGH! KEEP SOARIN DOWN!” she yelled, Blaze frantically approaching, scared and confused out of her mind as she held him down, but not knowing why.

“DASH!!!!!!!! RGH!!!!!” Soarin yelled as he growled and flailed. “DASH!!!!” he yelled again, his horn beginning to spark and flicker. An unstable, pulsating green glow began to surround his body. His muscles began to twitch and flex as he slammed his hooves to the floor. “RRRAAAAAGGHHHH!!!!” he roared as his eyes disappeared behind a green glow and he slowly began to push up, lifting Spitfire and Blaze off the floor with him.

“DAMMIT!” Spitfire cursed as she tried and tried, but even her strength was shrugged off as Soarin’s magic seemed to enhance his with an aura she had never seen before. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve given me no choice!” Spitfire said as she turned her head and whistled VERY loudly, three tones, in a continuous pattern.

Suddenly the doors at the back of the bridge swung open and a flustered, slightly beat up Squad Zero galloped in. They stopped and gasped as they saw Soarin not only being piled on by Spitfire and Blaze… but also glowing green.

“STOP STANDING THERE!” Spitfire yelled. “HELP US HOLD HIM!”

Without asking question, Squad Zero rushed forward, Swift, Shine, and Playbitz all slid down and grabbed a hold of Soarin’s legs, holding him still as Calm came up from behind. Calm reached over the top of Soarin and pressed the entire bulk of his body over Soarin’s back, pushing him down to the ground hard.

“GURGH!” Soarin released a sharp breath as his chest landed on the floor, knocking the wind out of his lungs as the glow around his body and eyes faded. “AH! NO! D-DASH!!!!!!” he managed to yell despite his lack of breath.

“HOLD HIM!” Spitfire yelled. She glared as the members of Squad Zero looked at her reluctantly. “DON’T FUCKING ASK ME WHY! JUST HOLD HIM!” she yelled channeling her half-sister’s language in the heat of the moment.

“Can somepony please tell me why I didn’t take the job at the local supermarket instead?!” Lucky randomly blurted out as he kept his eyes forward, anxiously gnawing on one of his hooves as he held his head against the lever.

“SHUT UP AND STANDBY!” Spitfire yelled at him furiously as she reached up, grabbed her mane with one hoof and began yanking at it as she stared after Fleetfoot and Air Mach, feeling like she was going to absolutely lose her mind if anything else decided to go wrong at the worst possible time. Even Blaze was left speechless and afraid as she glanced between Spitfire, Soarin struggling beneath Squad Zero, and Lucky, feeling absolutely powerless.

The situation had gone from out of control to indescribably off the wall.

Dash was scared.

Scratch that, she was absolutely terrified of the situation she put herself in, but she also refused to let that deter her or break her resolve. Princess Luna had been an incredibly important part of her life and was irreplaceable in terms of what she stood for. Losing her was NOT acceptable to her, so she was going to do it… she was going to save her, even if it meant doing it all by herself…

“Dash!” Squall’s voice made her ears stand up. She looked behind to see Squall dive in and form up beside her.

“Your orders?!” Matteo dropped in on the other side… with Twister riding on his back, once again wearing the leather helmet and red scarf.

Dash was an instant away from asking them why they followed, but really, did she have to ask? If anything, the fact that they followed showed her something… Their loyalty to her. And she knew a thing or two about loyalty. They followed their captain without hesitation, she didn’t have to question why. In truth, it motivated her even further.

Dash looked up to see some of the lesser Shadowbolts below had turned and were pointing towards them. The commanders were still focused on Luna… so they had a chance. Dash wasn’t afraid of the lower ranks.

“We have one goal!” Dash yelled as she pointed towards Luna. “Grab Luna and get back home! Get ready for evasive action! GO!” Dash yelled. They tipped down and went into a full out dive as the Shadowbolts began firing their eyebeams towards them, they dipped pitched and twisted, staying close as they pushed through the attacks with their eyes locked on target.

“RGH!” Dash grunted as they closed in. However, there was a problem. Not only had the commanders ceased their attacks on Luna and were now looking at them, but Luna was plummeting at an alarming rate. At their current speed and with them forced to dodge… were they going to make it in time?

“She’s falling too fast!” Squall yelled. “We’re not going to make it!”

“I BEG TO DIFFER!” Twister suddenly yelled out as he rode atop Matteo’s back. “TIME TO SEE HOW MUCH HORSEPOWER THIS NOT-HORSE HAS!” he yelled as he scooted up towards Matteo’s head and reached for his crest.

“What the hell are you—BRAWK!” Matteo squawked as Twister grabbed his crest feathers.

“DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!” Twister yelled as he pulled the feathers back and then yanked them hard forward.

“OW! OW! WHOOOOOAAAAAA!!!!!” Matteo yelled as he suddenly accelerated three fold. Dash and Squall’s jaws dropped as Twister somehow made Matteo launch forward at a ludicrous speed, leaving them in the dust. “HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?!” Matteo demanded as he grimaced in pain, trying to look back at Twister as the wind pushed against his face so hard it was nearly pulling his feathers out.

“LESS TALK, MORE NONESENSE!” Twister yelled as he yanked on Matteo’s crest and forced him to look down at Luna.

Matteo’s eyes widened as he saw them closing in. It was going to be close… REALLY close… but at their current speed, he had a chance to catch her! He immediately ignored any questions he had about how Twister was making him fly so fast, and instead focused on the fact that he might actually catch Luna thanks to it!

Luna was falling like a rock, back first with her wings and legs dangling in the air above her.

Matteo and Twister were closing in, but the ground was approaching at an alarming rate as well.

It grew closer…

Closer…

Closer…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND… EJECT!” Twister suddenly made a motion as if he was pulling a lever before he propelled upward, off of Matteo’s back and into the air while spinning uncontrollably and laughing like a maniac.

“HHHHRNNGGG!!!!!” Matteo kept his large, powerful wings firmly outward in glide position, forcing himself against the wind resistance as he leveled out…

And caught Luna on his back less than three yards from the ground.

“AH!” he grunted tucking his arms and legs as close to his body as possible as he came dangerously close to the rocky terrain below. He pulled his neck back, cringing as he desperately tried to keep his gliding level and even. “HHHHRRRRRRRGGGGAAAAAAAA!!!!!” he roared as he bent his body and gave his wings a hard flap, propelling him back upwards with Luna on his back.

“WHOOOAAAAA!!!” Squall cheered as Matteo pulled up with Luna in tow.

“YES!” Dash cheered with him as they flew down to form up with him.

“I got her! I GOT HER!” Matteo yelled out triumphantly, nearly in disbelief that they actually managed to catch her. Dash quickly leveled out beside Matteo to check on Luna as she lied over Matteo’s back, draped on her side across his shoulders. Luna cringed and groaned the moment Dash touched her shoulder. She was alive!

“And I got her helmet!” Twister yelled as he suddenly appeared beside Dash, no longer wearing his props with Luna’s armored helmet in his hooves. Dash reached forward and pulled him back, but not before he managed to slip it back over her head. Dash just gave Twister a brief flat look before facing back forward.

“Okay! Come on guys! Let’s get her back to…” Dash’s eyes widened as she looked up, seeing the entirety of the Shadowbolt force looming above them. All the commanders, the lower ranked Shadowbolts, and the Falcons were descending upon them.

Matteo, Squall, and Twister all looked to Dash, but Dash just stared with wide eyes.

“Crap…” was all she managed to say.

They all looked back up, completely at a loss towards what to do as crystals began glowing, and cannons began powering up.

“Hm?! THERE!” Matteo suddenly turned and pointed.

Dash glanced skyward, her face lighting up the moment her eyes caught the sight.

Misty Fly came shooting out of the blue, ramming herself into Blade and knocking him right out from the groups of Shadowbolts. Behind her, the rest of the Wonderbolts and the Renegades from the lobby, even a few that were not at full strength. They caught the Shadowbolts and Falcons off guard, dive-bombing as one large collective unit.

“DASHIE!” Fleetfoot’s voice caught Dash’s ears. Dash looked to her left to see Fleetfoot shoot down from above and skillfully pump her wings, causing an air impact that halted her drop with a loud FWOOSH. Air Mach followed up behind, flying ahead of them. “COME ON! FOLLOW ME!” Fleetfoot yelled, beckoning for Dash to follow behind her. Dash nodded as Fleetfoot shot forth, leading them into the cacophony as Wonderbolts and Renegades tumbled down while grappling with the Shadowbolts.

Everything was in disarray, even the Falcons being swarmed. So Dash worked quickly. She made a few hoof motions towards Luna, getting Squall’s attention. Working together, the two grabbed Luna and shifted her so she was laying on her stomach parallel on Matteo’s back with her hooves draped over the front of his shoulder.

“LET’S GO!” she yelled, Squall, Twister, and Dash placing themselves protectively around Matteo as they surged forward, following behind Air Mach and Fleetfoot. They winced and cringed as they navigated, dodging and shifting to avoid the wild action. Dash and Squall even took a few hits purposely to divert a scuffle that was in their flight path. Magic attacks were hurling in all directions, shooting up down, left and right. The signature attacks of the commanders were zinging about as well, twice forcing Dash to direct Matteo elsewhere to avoid Shadow’s burst wave.

Dash was flying completely on instinct and adrenaline. The situation was more dangerous now than it had been the entire time, with literally no rhyme or reason driving it. One false move could mean the end for her or any of her allies out there. Knowing how much was on the line kept her wings pumping as hard as they could.

As they approached the other side of the action, High Winds twisted down in front of Fleetfoot and Air Mach, using her strong wings to create a burst of wind that rushed forward and knocked the last stragglers aside, Wonderbolt, Renegade, and Shadowbolt alike, giving them a clear path towards the Nimbus. The Nimbus had ceased movement, now hovering in place.

“Rainbow Dash!” Fire Streak yelled as he flew down. Twister and Squall both flinched and pulled back a little as Fire shifted down and flew beside Dash. Dash looked towards Fire while biting her lip.

“Uh!” she stuttered. “S-sir…”

“Hmph, forget about it for now!” he said with a clear look of frustration on his face. “How is Luna?!” he asked.

“She’s alive! But badly hurt! She needs help!” Dash replied while looking towards Matteo and the cringing, barely conscious princess riding on his back.

“No doubt!” Fire agreed as he looked over his shoulders. He turned and flew backwards as he put his hooves to his mouth and took a deep breath. He blew into his hooves, releasing a loud, high-pitched whistle that sounded similar to the way Spitfire did whenever she wanted to get everypony’s attention. But it sounded awkward and way off pitch. Fire grunted as the Wonderbolts began disengaging and following despite the off tune command, the Renegades doing the same once Blazetail, Flashwind, and Descent picked up on what was happening. Fire cringed as he turned back around. “One of these days I’m going to figure out how Spitfire and Silver do that whistle… WONDERBOLTS! GO! GO! GO!” he yelled.

“HOO-RAH!” the Wonderbolts replied as they and the Renegades caught up behind them. They were immediately followed by magic beams and cannon fire, but they pitched, turned, and in some cases shrugged off the attacks as they charged back toward the Nimbus.

“MOVE! MOVE!” Fire yelled. “WE HAVE TO—”

He was cut off as several bright flashes came from the direction of the Shadowbolt Fortress. Dash and Fire both turned their heads to see the fortress focused on the Nimbus, the halted course giving the Fortress more than enough time to shift, realign, and fire on it again. The Wonderbolts cringed as they watched the cannon fire crash against the Nimbus, breaking chunks of the fuselage off and clipping another small propeller. The Nimbus teetered, but again showed its resilience by staying afloat.

“BLAST! They’re already hitting us again!” Fire yelled out as Fleetfoot glanced over her shoulder ahead of them.

“WHAT DO WE DO?!” she yelled as they stayed on course despite being pelted from behind WHILE watching their own escape ship also being pelted.

“I… I…” Fire bit his lip as Dash, Fleetfoot, and everypony else nearby, including his own squad looked towards him, the only present top elite captain, for an answer, but he had none. There were three Wonderbolts that ranked above him flying nearby, but as the only captain, they seemed to put their trust in his judgment. Fire frantically looked around, his eyes landing on Blazetail and Flashwind behind him, but they also looked just as stumped. Even Descent simply stared, watching helplessly as they flew towards a dead end.

“KEEP… GOING…!” a voice suddenly caught all of their attention. Everypony’s eyes shifted to Luna as she struggled to lift her neck up. “DON’T… STOP…!”

“Your Highness?!” Fire shifted over to her. “Do you have a plan?!”

“RGH!” Luna cringed as her body shuddered, but she shrugged it off and glared towards the Shadowbolt Fortress. “Stay on course! Get me in between the Nimbus and the Fortress! Everypony else keep going!” she yelled. “I may have… a spell… that can stop them!”

Fire’s eyes widened as Luna brought up yet another ‘spell’ of hers. If the last time she revealed some secret magic to them was any indication… Luna was likely going to harm herself in the process.

“Your Highness… it won’t harm you, will it?!” he asked with worry. Luna shook her head while shuddering.

“WE HAVE… NO CHOICE!” she didn’t even try to deny it. “IT MAY BE OUR ONLY CHANCE!”

Fire looked back forward at Fleetfoot, who seemed to be looking at him to give the word. He took a quick, sharp breath and exhaled before glaring forward.

“GO!” Fire yelled. “KEEP MOVING! WE MUST REACH THE NIMBUS! GO!” he yelled, the Wonderbolts and Renegades surging onward as they continued to be pelted by the crystal magic, several painful grunts and cries ringing out as they fought through the punishment.

Just as Luna instructed, they pushed on, flying as fast as they could towards the Nimbus as it too faced a predicament similar to theirs. The attacks by the Shadowbolts intensified, and suddenly seemed to be focusing. The Wonderbolts and Renegades had spread out to prevent collateral damage, but now the eyebeams and commander attacks seemed to be zeroing in on Matteo and Luna. Several Renegades shifted downward as Blazetail called out to them, placing themselves behind Matteo and turning to fly backwards. With Bomber, Comet, Cannon, and Steady at the center, they created a shield, deflecting as much of the magic as they could away from Matteo.

The collective effort was taxing, forcing the Renegades to take many hits they could not cleanly block, but they held strong and kept moving. Dash and Fire stayed close to Matteo, flanking Luna as she stared forward with a strong, determined expression. They were growing closer and closer to Luna’s desired location. As they closed in on the midway point between the Nimbus and the Fortress, Luna began taking several deep breaths, her horn slowly coming to life with a blue aura surrounding it. As she prepped herself, she suddenly looked up and yelled at the top of her lungs.

“EVERYPONY KEEP GOING!” she belted out in her Royal Canterlot Voice. “KEEP MOVING AND DON’T LOOK BACK, OR YOU WILL BE BLINDED!” she commanded.

“Blinded?!” Dash repeated, but didn’t have time to ask.

“Griffon! Stop and face me towards the Shadowbolts and their fortress!” she commanded Matteo.

“What?!” Fire looked at her in disbelief, but Luna only shot him a harsh glare.

“NOW!” she pressed. Fire winced before refocusing on the Wonderbolt and Renegades.

“DO AS SHE SAYS! GO! GO! GO! TO THE NIMBUS!” Fire yelled out.

“HOO-RAH!” The Wonderbolts replied, breaking off and continuing towards the Nimbus, taking care to stay clear of the incoming fire from the Fortress.

“RENEGADES!” Descent called out. “COVER LUNA!” he yelled as he and the Renegades remained, stopping and placing themselves in the way of the Shadowbolt magic attacks once again.

Dash and Fire remained behind with Luna and Matteo, both refusing to leave to assure the two made it back in one piece.

Luna focused her eyes on the Shadowbolts as Matteo turned her around, her magic aura upon her horn growing in size as she readied her spell.

“HRGH!” Luna grunted, squinting as the glow grew larger and larger. She twitched, her neck and head jittering as she ground her teeth and fought to keep her head upright. Fire and Dash both wanted to voice their concern, but they held themselves back, respecting Luna’s efforts and her claim that they had no other option. “AAHHH!!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!” Luna groaned louder as not only the aura, but her whole horn began to shine with a blinding light.

“Whoa!” Dash reacted, shielding her eyes as Luna’s horn became nearly as bright as the sun.

“EVERYPONY! AVERT… YOUR… EYES!” she yelled, getting the attention of the Renegades shielding them as well. “CLEAR OUT! NOW!” she added.

“RENEGADES! FALL BACK!” Descent yelled, getting them all to break and launch towards the Nimbus, giving Luna a clear view of the approaching Shadowbolts and the Fortress as it kept up its barrage on the Nimbus. Fire and Dash both turned away, Matteo reaching up and arm and covering his eyes.

“HHRRRGGGGGRAAAAAAA!!!!!” Luna shouted out, her voice filled with intense pain as she unleashed an incredibly large burst of magic from her horn. It shot out in front of her, angling upward before expanding greatly, slowly becoming a large globe that grew and grew until it was nearly half the size of the Shadowbolt fortress itself! The approaching Shadowbolts all came to a sudden halt as they gawked at the enormous discharge of magic… but they would regret doing so.

With another painful cry, Luna pumped another wave of magic through her horn and into the stream that was forming the globe. It shot along the stream, colliding with, and absorbing into the globe. The globe pulsated and suddenly released a loud, ear-piercing screech. It followed up by producing an incredibly bright light and enormous, thunderous shockwaves that burst forth, crashing against both the fortress and the Shadowbolts.

Shouts and roars of pain sounded out from the Shadowbolts as they were both blinded and forced backwards violently by the shockwaves, knocked out of the air and flung backwards. The Shadowbolt Fortress was effected as well, the light not only blinding the pilot, but the shockwaves kicking at it, forcing it to tip up and backwards, the crystals along its fuselage blinking and glowing as the pulses smashed and crashed against them.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Luna cried out in agony as the stream disconnected from her horn, but the globe continued to linger, creating more light and waves of energy. Luna’s horn kept flickering as she continued to yell. Her head lurched back and forth for a moment before an explosion of light burst forth from not only her horn, but also out of her eyes and mouth with a loud BANG. “Ahhhhhhhh…” Luna’s voice grew weak, faint blue streams of light rising from her horn, eyes, and mouth as she fell limply against Matteo’s back and passed out, her majestic mane losing its ethereal flow as it fell against her head and body.

“LUNA! Argh!” Dash gasped, but quickly shielded her eyes as she turned, avoiding eye contact with the globe of light currently hammering the Shadowbolts. Luna’s magic was incredible, but based on the horrific sight right after, such a powerful spell came at a cost. If she weren’t still breathing she would have easily been mistaken for dead. She was completely out cold.

“COME ON!” Fire yelled as he reached down and turned Matteo. “TO THE NIMBUS! WHILE WE HAVE THIS CHANCE!” he encouraged.

Dash quickly refocused and nodded, following right behind as Fire and Matteo pumped their wings and pushed themselves as fast as they could towards the Nimbus.

They were far behind, but they could see the Wonderbolts and Renegades landing on the platform and charging into the Nimbus, which looked to be straining itself just to remain in the air. The light behind them shone so brightly that even facing away they had to squint to fend off the illumination of the surrounding area from irritating their eyes.

They caught up, Dash and Matteo angling down to take Luna directly into the lobby, but Fire Streak broke away from them, aiming right for the broken bridge window above.

“CAPTAIN! CAP—!” Fire Streak cut himself off as he landed in the bridge and stared at the sight before him.

Squad Zero, Spitfire, and Blaze were all piled on top of Soarin as he growled kicked and tried to break free. The bridge was also in complete disarray, wires hanging from the ceiling, panels and control stations knocked over and overturned, smoke still rising from several components, hardly the state it was in when he last saw it.

“Uh… what in the world is—”

“FIRE!” Spitfire suddenly yelled as she continued to hold Soarin’s leg. “What the hell is going on out there?!”

Fire decided not to question anything. Time was of the essence, so he made it short and to the point.

“Everypony is back! We rescued Luna too!” he explained, Spitfire’s eyes widening in surprise. “She has given us another chance to escape and—”

“RAINBOW DASH!” Soarin cut him off. “I don’t give a SHIT about the others! Is Rainbow Dash safe?!” Soarin yelled out in an uncharacteristic fit of panicked rage. Fire flinched, his eyes widening, but he quickly answered.

“Yes! She’s with us!” he said quickly. Soarin immediately stopped struggling, the group holding him down almost falling off since they didn’t have to brace anymore, but Spitfire got right to her hooves.

“You said we have a chance?!” she went right back to what Fire was saying before Soarin cut him off. “IS THAT WHAT YOU SAID?!” she asked frantically as she came forward and grabbed the stretchy material of Fire’s suit, shaking him.

“Argh! YES!” Fire replied as he clamped his hooves down on her arms and held her steady. “Look I’ll explain everything later! We have to move! NOW!”

Spitfire didn’t argue, she immediately let go of Fire, ripping her arms free of his hooves as she galloped up to Lucky who was literally latched the steering lever while almost hyperventilating.

“LUCKY! PUNCH IT!” she ordered. He blinked, looking towards her. “NOW!” she yelled right in his face, bringing him back to reality.

“UH! RIGHT!” he shook his head out roughly before reaching down to the throttle and slamming it forward. It got stuck halfway, just like before, but as they moved, the propellers and components made very ugly creaking and groaning noises, their acceleration barely half of what it was capable of earlier. The noises kept spewing from the walls and from outside as the Nimbus strained itself, and it wasn’t long before the PA speaker came to life. Before anypony spoke through it, the same manner of painful noises came through it, only they sounded much worse.

“CAN SOMEPONY PLEASE TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON?!” Rivet yelled through it. “BECAUSE A LOT OF STUFF IS EITHER BROKEN OR BREAKING DOWN HERE AND I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER IT CAN RUN!”

Spitfire immediately grabbed the microphone with so much force that she nearly ripped it right out of the panel.

“Just keep it going as long as you can!” she yelled.

“OH FOR THE LOVE OF—” the speaker cut out.

“JUST GO!” Spitfire yelled to Lucky. “GET US—” a loud screech and SPROING sounded out as Spitfire accidentally ripped the microphone out of the panel. “Oh, dammit. GET US DEEPER INTO THE CANYONS!”

Outside, the Nimbus strained, groaned, and wailed. The propellers were turning, but the old contraptions were voicing their damage as the airship pushed forward and away from the Shadowbolts left in disarray by Luna’s persisting magic spell.

Clanks and creaks echoed throughout the canyons as the Nimbus forged ahead, trails of smoke rising from several places as it teetered back and forth, some of the propellers failing and starting back up as Rivet and the engineering crew struggled to keep the heavily damaged systems running.

It wasn’t a pretty sight, but they slowly pulled away from the Shadowbolts, leaving them far behind as they moved further and further into the canyons… but it was hardly the end of their troubles.

As they flew above the expanse of very large canyons that cut deep into the earth below, several painful snaps and pops rang out and nearly half of the lower propellers came to an abrupt halt. Without the lower propulsion, the Nimbus began to descend very slowly.

Squad Zero had removed themselves from Soarin, but Blaze was still clinging to Soarin’s arm as Soarin himself watched with wide eyes out the window. His worry for Dash was quelled, but now replaced with a worry for everypony’s survival. It was hard to tell since he was still on the floor, but from his angle it looked like they were losing altitude.

“WE’RE NOT GOING DOWN… ARE WE?!” he asked, yelling forward frantically as all eyes went to Lucky. Lucky was pulling back hard on the lever, yanking it again and again, but when it had no visible effect, he let the lever back into resting position and gritted his teeth.

“Uh… we kind of… are…!” he replied while jittering. The P.A. blared on again.

“WE’VE LOST SEVERAL LOWER ENGINES!” Rivet yelled through the speaker. “I CAN’T KEEP THE OTHER ENGINES RUNNING WITH THIS MUCH STRESS! WE—” he was cut off as several loud clangs sounded over his voice and a very loud groan filled the entire compound. “AW, HELL! THAT WAS THE MAIN PROPELLOR! THE CABLES HAVE COME APART! WE’RE ABOUT TO LOSE ALL UPWARD LIFT!”

Spitfire didn’t bother replying. She couldn’t even if she wanted to since she had just yanked the microphone out of its panel moments ago.

“LUCKY!” she yelled as she stepped forward and put her hooves on the frame of the broken windshield, bracing herself against the strong wind rushing through as she looked below to the canyons.

They were approaching a very wide, very deep canyon. It looked like the Nimbus would fit. She was forced to make yet another judgment call, but she had no time to mull other options so she went with it. There was a canyon below they would fit into, she wasn’t going to bet on finding another any further out.

“LAND US!” she yelled as she looked over her shoulder.

“WHERE?!” he yelled back while throwing his hooves out, but quickly grabbed the propeller again. The groans of the main propeller shaft were growing weaker and their descent was gaining speed in small increments.

“THERE’S A CANYON BELOW US, I THINK WE CAN FIT IN IT! EVEN US OUT AND DO ANYTHING TO KEEP IT THAT WAY!” she ordered.

“OH! OKAY! I’LL TRY!” he yelled “Oh lord, oh lord, oh lord, OH LORD!!!!” Lucky yelled as he turned and twisted the lever to correct any sudden shift.

Spitfire immediately slammed her hoof over the compound-wide P.A., but then realized she was holding the broken microphone in her hoof.

“Dammit! I hope everypony is ready for a rough landing!” she yelled as she lowered herself to the floor and braced for impact.

Soarin remained down on the floor, tensing his body as the Nimbus’ downward descent sped up. It wasn’t falling like a rock, it still had several smaller propellers fighting to keep it afloat, but that didn’t mean the landing wasn’t going to be one hell of a shock.

Everypony else dropped, and waited for impact.

The Nimbus remained level, teetering only slightly as Lucky fought to keep it even, the central, large propeller was slowing down as the Nimbus approached the canyon.

It slipped right down in between the canyon walls, but there was nothing in terms of even, soft terrain below. That mixed with the slightly increasing speed of the fall was going to make for a very sloppy, and uncomfortable set down.

Still… it went down…

Down…

Down…

And the main propeller cut off completely with the Nimbus still about thirty yards in the air. With the main source of lift gone, the Nimbus gave way to gravity.

And a loud, thunderous crash rang out, echoing throughout the canyons.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this Chapter by: Foxenawolf and SOARINDASH1

*Flops down on the floor*

Geeeeeeeeeee-wiz... that was a loooooong and taxing chapter...

But man oh man... so much happened, and not just action. A few... disagreements, and physical exchanges within the ranks... Not all is well, that one can be certain of. And hopefully there weren't any unintended consequences through Dash's actions... She saved Luna, but...

Anyway there we have it, quite an intense sequence, one of the most intense sequences ive ever written.

If anyone was wondering, yes, Twister riding on Matteo's back was another reference to...

Oh and i animated that picture by Fox using Photoshop and manipulating the layers a bit. The original picture is here:

Once again, sorry it took so long to get this out, as you can see it was quite large, but there has been some stress on me lately with regards to fimfiction, but i wont go into that here, i plan to post a blog later to give some insight. Dont worry, nothing is wrong :eeyup:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enj-- *plop* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Chapter 127: Fractured

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 127: Fractured

Soarin lied flat on the ground… well, whatever you’d call the floor whenever he appeared on what he had come to know as ‘inside his head.’

His spirit, alight with a soft, flickering blue glow, lay before the large, bright yellow image of the mare as it stared down at him with concern. She tipped her head from side to side as she watched his spirit flicker. It remained strong despite the beating the horn was taking, but she was still worried that any further pressure could cause the horn to break. It was already in danger of being broken if Soarin happened to engage in combat again, but it didn’t help that he kept bumping it against things. His emotions were also taking their toll. No doubt they were enraged by what was being done to hold him back… but they had no choice, it was that or risk the horn receiving a blow in battle, the perceived lesser of two evils. She only hoped it would work out, even she was unsure of where to go next.

“So close… yet so far…” the blue stallion’s voice came from behind her. The mare looked over her shoulder to see the blue silhouette of the stallion sitting a few paces away with his back turned to her. The mare stared at him for a moment or two, but said nothing as she turned back around and looked back towards Soarin. “Still haven’t found your tongue, eh?” the stallion taunted, sounding rather smug and content. The mare, again, said nothing. “Good, I was getting tired of arguing with you.”

“Why?” the mare suddenly spoke up. The stallion took a deep breath, releasing an exasperated sigh.

“Really?” he asked as he glanced to his left. “Are we seriously going to have this conversation again?”

“Look at me,” the mare asked as she turned around to face him.

“No,” he quickly denied while staying put. The mare grunted, standing up and moving herself in front of him, sitting down less than a yard from him and staring down at him.

“Should have kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the silence,” the stallion grumbled as he refused to look up at her. The mare kept staring at him for several seconds, their eyes never meeting as she slightly loomed over him.

Eventually… the mare sighed.

“You know what? Fine…” she suddenly said.

“Hm?” the stallion hummed, but didn’t grace her with eye contact.

“I acknowledge it… Everything that you’ve been saying, it’s all true,” she continued.

That did the trick. The stallion finally stopped disrespecting her attention, turning his head to face her directly while lifting an eyebrow. The mare shook her head.

“I’m not perfect, I don’t have all the answers to everypony’s problems, I sit on a pedestal of greatness for all of ponykind to look up to, but I have failed them constantly. One disaster after another… I have the power to see the future, but I constantly fall short of averting catastrophe. I sell myself as a beacon of hope, order, and prosperity, but more often than not, my actions do more harm than good. There are times that I’ve wondered just how meaningful my power really is, if it really is my place to rule when mortals end up solving more problems than I…” she trailed off, pausing as she looked over his shoulder at Soarin laying on the ground. “Nothing has made me more aware of that than the recent years… six mortal ponies earning the right to wield the unspeakable power of the Elements of Harmony… a power that rejected me after I impulsively misused it against my own sister…”

The stallion remained quiet, watching her carefully as she looked away from him.

“I am immortal…” she began again. “I wield magic that’s naturally far more powerful than that of any living being… but it seems my designation as a ‘goddess’ ends there.”

“Thanks for telling me what I already know,” the stallion chimed in with a grunt. “Are you going somewhere with this?”

“Your goal is to become immortal, yes? To ‘prove’ to me that you can?” the mare asked.

“Yes, and?” the stallion asked with another grunt, rolling his eyes.

“You see my struggles clearly enough to call them out… what makes you think you won’t be burdened with the same?”

A silence rushed between the two as the mare posed the question. They stared directly into each other’s eyes for nearly a whole minute before the stallion gave any sort of response.

“Feh,” the stallion scoffed and whipped his tail. “I won’t make your mistakes.”

“You don’t know that,” she quickly rebuked.

“You underestimate me,” he growled right back.

“You underestimate that which you seek!” she stood up and glared down. “The power, the responsibility, it’s not so simple. You already failed once, even if you should succeed upon trying again, you will not be ready for it. It will overwhelm you.”

“This is pointless,” the stallion said as he stood up and turned around, slowly pacing towards Soarin. “We’re just going in circles now.”

“Only because you’re failing to see the greater point in my actions,” she hissed as he moved away.

“Oh?” he looked over his shoulder. “This should be good, enlighten me,” he asked sarcastically, but then blinked in surprise as she turned and sat down, facing away from him. She remained quiet for a moment, but she had his attention.

“You were a great pony,” she began. “One worthy of gracing the pages of history books for all of eternity. But your descent into madness and chaos… It destroyed your legacy, erasing decades of heroism, bravery, and prosperity, replacing it with violence, brutality, and oppression. The pony you became rubbed out all traces of the pony you once were. It still completely eludes me how that doesn’t bother you at all.”

“I willingly left it all behind, I believe I already told you why,” the stallion grunted as he readied to turn and ignore her again, but she continued.

“You did tell me why,” she spoke up, stopping him mid-turn. “You did it for me, correct? Because you loved me?”

“Hmph,” the stallion snorted, looking away. “What, you wanted to hear me say it again or something? That WAS why I did it, but don’t forget it was YOUR actions that pushed me away and forced me to seek it out for other—”

“I’m doing this because I STILL love you,” the mare cut him off. The stallion went completely silent. His eyes were wide for only a moment, quickly narrowing into a skeptical glare. “You can claim I pushed you away all you want… I still love you and I only want what I feel is best for you. Had you still been the legendary warrior and king, I would have let you pass on with your pride and dignity intact… but I refused to let you die as a monster,” she paused, taking a deep breath and sighing as she let her head hang. “I’ve already explained my intentions, and I did everything now because I believed you could help us fend off this evil that is lurking under everypony’s nose, waiting to strike. I’d hoped you’d see and understand the true opportunity I’ve given you here, and exactly how far I’ve stuck my neck out through my own rules just to pull certain strings for you,” she turned back around to face him. “I kept your spirit intact within me… for more than one reason. You wish to know the one that wasn’t based on my feelings?”

The stallion kept his narrowed eyes on her as he waited for her to continue. She took his stare as acknowledgement to continue.

“I hoped that one day an opportunity would arise… One that would give you a chance to be redeemed. So you could once again act as the great stallion I grew to love against my own decree. I saw this conflict looming before us, and I saw it as a fitting moment for you to take action and remind the world of the hero that once protected the lands. Then your honor and respect would be restored and you could take your rightful place in history,” she reached a hoof out to him. “A second chance… if you will. To right the wrongs and die without regrets. It’s something mortals can only dream of.”

The stallion gritted his teeth and snarled at her.

“How deplorably naïve…” he sharply replied, immediately taking his eyes off of her. “You lecture me on how your own actions have done harm to mortals and then preach to me about second chances?! Do you even listen to what you say? Do you even think about it?”

“That’s not…”

“Keep your ‘second chances’ to yourself. I knew the consequences of my actions and I accepted them. If history remembers me as a monster, forgetting all that I did beforehoof, so be it.”

“You really don’t regret any of it?” the mare pressed while moving towards him. “Did your actions not cause you any pain?”

“Need I remind you that it was YOUR actions that caused ME pain?” he lashed back, causing her to freeze in place. “Forget it, Celes. Your intentions are noted, but I’ve no reason to respect them. I have my goal, and you are not swaying me from it.”

“But…” the mare looked down and shuddered. “But…”

“You might as well add this to the growing list of your ‘decisions’ that have blown up in your face. Your solution to your ‘actions’ doing harm was yet another ‘action’ that will ultimately do more harm than what you’re trying to fight against if I get my way. How does that make you feel? I doubt you even took a single moment to think it through.”

“I…” the mare bit her lip and gritted her teeth.

“Welcome to reality, O great goddess of the sun…” the stallion said sarcastically. “I don’t care how long you’ve existed. You have no respect or awareness for actions that have consequences. I honestly can’t believe that you really just offered me a ‘reset’ as if it’s really that easy to erase a past. When you make your bed, you have to sleep in it.”

The stallion stood up and walked past Soarin, moving away from the mare. She remained still, staring down at the ground as the stallion’s words sunk into her deep. She shook her head, and took a deep breath as she slowly looked up.

“So… I guess that’s it then,” she said, causing him to stop. “I concede defeat. This chance I took… it has been a complete failure and as a result, I’ve made the life of a good stallion a living hell,” she said while looking at Soarin in between them. “I should have just let him die… I would have saved him a lot of pain and suffering, and you would have still been contained within me. I don’t know if my power would have been enough to solve this conflict, but at least it would have had my full, undivided attention.”

“You’re finally getting it… but it’s too little, too late,” the stallion reminded her.

“I know,” the mare shot right back. “But it was you who just told me… I’ve made my bed, so I intend to sleep in it,” she reached a hoof forward and stomped it to the ground, causing a loud CRACK and the white light of the surrounding area to pulsate. “If you go through with this… if you gain an opening to seize control of Soarin… I will help him resist you.”

“Heh,” the stallion scoffed. “Even with only a fraction of your power?”

“Even with only a fraction of my power,” she growled.

“Then you will fail,” the stallion turned to keep moving.

“And you will have to kill me.”

The stallion stopped again, but after a moment, he put his head down and snickered.

“You really do take me for a fool…” he turned around and tipped his head. “You could call upon your full power whenever you’d like, but you refuse to do so because it will destroy Soarin… and both of us. I know self-preservation when I see it. I’m calling your bluff. You wouldn’t risk your life like that. Not with more at stake for Equestria. Would you really take yourself out to stop me? I thought your goal was to stop whatever this enemy you keep referring to is. Honestly, what good did you think would come from fighting something dangerous…” he paused while placing a hoof on his chest. “With something you consider MORE dangerous?” he shook his head. “You immortals are so short-sighted… You want to know why I feel I won’t make your mistakes? Because I have the judgment of somepony without the luxury of unlimited time. When life is short, you are forced to develop judgment. I can see through everything you say and claim. The more you talk to me like you know better, the less inclined I am to believe a word you say.”

“Am I bluffing?” the mare glared. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’m calling yours.”

The stallion opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing, flattening his brow as he closed it.

“I don’t think you would be willing to kill me if I stood in your way. You’ve seen first-hoof how long I’ve held onto my feelings for you… I wonder if you have truly shed your feelings for me. After all… you didn’t protest when we resonated and bonded through Soarin and Rainbow Dash.”

The air around them went quiet as they locked eyes and battled wills again, but they were interrupted as Soarin began to stir between them. The stallion snorted as he turned away.

“I guess we shall see who is bluffing who… all in due time…”

“Oooo… Oh…” Soarin groaned as he opened his eyes, coughing as he picked his chin up off the floor. His vision was blurry for a moment, and his head felt like it was splitting in two with one of the worst headaches and dizzy spells he had ever had in his life. He must’ve hit his head pretty hard, which would explain the headache. Probably been out for a short while too because he was hearing the voices in his head again. They were muffled, the words inaudible to him, but he could hear them conversing and arguing again about something.

He felt something heavy on his back, the metal scraping and clanging that sounded out when he moved quickly telling him that he had some sort of machinery on him.

“HHHNNNRRGGGG!!!! Ahhhhh…” Soarin grunted as he pushed himself up, several bangs and clangs ringing out as a control panel slid off of him. He reached up to touch his head, his hoof brushing against a tattered portion of his suit. He pushed it up with his hoof to see the mask portion of his suit hanging down from his face, nearly torn to pieces. Yeah he definitely hit his head, that was the only way to explain the ripped mask too, hopefully the horn was fine. He was still too dizzy to get a good close look at it.

“Soarin!” Fleetfoot’s voice caught Soarin’s ears as he shook his head and mane out, his vision finally clearing up and he blinked and looked around. His initial thoughts about being covered in broken parts had him worried, but as he got a look around and saw Fleetfoot standing in the doorway to the bridge. She ran towards him, letting the door swing shut behind her. Soarin breathed a preemptive sigh of relief.

Spitfire, Blaze, Fire Streak, Squad Zero, the unicorns… they were all up and moving about, helping anypony that may have been stuck or trapped, but nopony looked hurt. It brought him pause, but he made sure not to get too comfortable with it, because he’d only rest easy once he made sure everypony down below was alright as well.

“I’m fine,” Soarin quickly said as Fleetfoot stopped a few paces from him. He didn’t want anypony fretting over him since he was perfectly fine aside from a headache. Even though this was easily the worst, he had had so many headaches recently that they were becoming a natural occurrence and didn’t bother him quite as much anymore. He could feel the warm air of the badlands coming through the broken windshield nearby. There was an eerie calm about the surroundings, but compared to all the shaking, rattling, and explosions during their escape, anything quiet would seem that way. From the looks of things, they managed to land without the place breaking to pieces and since they were not frantically moving about, they had eluded the Shadowbolts… for now. For the time being it seemed like they had earned a moment of respite. And after the crazy scenario they had just gone through? That would be welcome.

Soarin looked over to see Lucky lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling and breathing steadily.

“Are we there yet…?” Lucky said in a tired, silly, hysterical tone. Soarin chuckled before cringing again, a hoof going right to his head.

Scratch that, this headache was… pretty damn bad, and actually bothering him. He wondered why it hurt so much… and didn’t Fleetfoot just approach him? Why hadn’t she said anything yet?

“Fleet?” Soarin said her name as he turned back to look at her, but she wasn’t looking him in the eye. She was staring wide eyed slightly ABOVE his eyes.

“Uh… Soarin…” she pointed at his horn. Soarin looked up, wincing as he did due to his head throbbing, but his eyes widened regardless when he saw it.

“Oh…” Soarin gritted his teeth as he quickly noticed what had her attention. The cracks in the horn had gotten larger. They now extended all the way to the base of the horn. “That’s… not good.” Even Soarin wasn’t going to try and spin it in his favor. He must have hit it again as they crashed and it didn’t look good. It was holding together, but if his headache was any indication he had just made his chances of being allowed into action again even worse.

Not that it seemed to matter… because the amount of shouting he was about to do at Spitfire for holding him down when Dash was in danger was probably going to get him grounded even longer, or at least she would try.

“It looks worse,” Fleetfoot spoke up as she hovered up and looked at the horn closer. Soarin quickly stepped away and reached out a hoof to pushed her back by the nose.

“Okay, okay… not you too, Spitfire’s already going to give me more hell for this,” he grumbled. Fleetfoot pouted as she landed.

“Since when am I not allowed to worry about you?” she asked while stepping towards him and poking him in the chest. “I care about you too, you know.” She reminded him. Soarin sighed as he continued to rub his forehead.

“Sorry,” he apologized while looking past her towards Spitfire, who was still fretting over the unicorn staff members and helping any others that were stuck. “First Dash, now you… both of you are being alright about it. I’m just pissed at Spitfire right now.”

“I didn’t notice,” Fleetfoot said sarcastically while rolling her eyes. “But… she’s stressed you know?”

“Doesn’t matter, she’s keeping things from me and she’s somepony I trust not to do that…” Soarin trailed off, perking up as Spitfire suddenly turned and rushed out of the bridge. Fleetfoot looked just in time to see her leave as well. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it,” Soarin began again as Fire Streak and Blaze both followed after Spitfire. “You came up from below, right? Is everypony okay?”

“I… uh…” Fleetfoot rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. “I kind of, didn’t even look. The moment we stopped moving I rushed right up here to make sure you guys were okay.”

“How about we go down then,” Soarin suggested, still rubbing his head. “I want to make sure Rainbow Da—Everypony is fine.”

“I heard that,” Fleetfoot said while lifting her brow as the two turned to follow after Spitfire as well.

“Whatever, let’s go…” Soarin grumbled. He was worried about the others despite the Rainbow Dash slip of the tongue, but he wasn’t looking forward to what was going to come right after. There was going to be a little confrontation with Spitfire… and it probably wasn’t going to be pretty.

Soarin fought off the pain in his head the best he could as he and Fleetfoot glided down around the pillar sticking through the broken staircase. With the Nimbus now at rest, the ease of flight had returned, much to his approval. With the way his head hurt, he doubted he could have focused enough to fly against the motion. Fleetfoot kept glancing back at him as they slowly made their way down, never once looking him in the eye, each time focusing on the horn. While it was a little frustrating, Soarin was okay with it. Fleetfoot was just showing concern in a similar fashion to Dash. She wasn’t making a huge deal about it, confronting him, or making it an integral part of the overarching planning process… like a certain lead captain was.

As they reached the bottom, the scene was similar to the bridge. Ponies all strewn about, slowly picking themselves up while wincing and groaning… only on a much larger scale and with a clear absence of overturned mechanical control stations.

The first thing they saw upon landing was Spitfire rushing around and checking on everypony with Blaze and Fire Streak doing the same. Blaze immediately found High Winds, diving into her and hugging her. Fire clearly wanted to do the same for Misty, but held back in favor of remaining professional and taking count of his entire squad. However, Soarin’s eyes immediately drifted, looking for a specific mane as always.

As usual, it didn’t take long to spot, but it was also easy because she was right beside a large griffon and a divine alicorn. Soarin breathed a sigh of relief as he saw both Dash and Luna. Luna looked… incredibly hurt, but she was alive. She was unconscious, a faint stream of blue light rising from her horn and beneath her eyelids. Soarin was even more relieved to see Dash was mostly unscathed. It’s not that he didn’t care about Luna at all… Dash just kinda, sorta… had her spirit tied to his and he’d die if she did… It made her his highest priority among other reasons to say the least.

“Descent! Blazetail!” Spitfire’s voice caused Soarin’s ears to tilt as he started moving. He looked over as he walked, watching as Spitfire and Descent helped Blazetail stand up, the old retired Wonderbolt groaning and cracking several joints. Soarin stopped momentarily to watch.

“Ah!” Blazetail looked up and around frantically the moment he was up. “Head count… HEAD COUNT!” he called out, looking around, making a hoof motion to Pixie and Fairy, the closest Renegades. They both nodded and immediately went around. “Where is my wife?!” Blazetail added as he shoved off Descent, nearly falling right back down to the ground.

“I’m right here…” Flashwind called out, pulling Blazetail’s attention to his left as she limped over to him.

“Flash!” he quickly moved over to her and grabbed her by the shoulder, propping her up.

“Honey, I’m fine,” Flashwind said with a light chuckle as she reached up and squeezed his hoof. “Gonna have—ah…” she cringed. “Very large bruise on my left leg, but I’ll manage.”

Blazetail frowned as he looked his wife over, leaning to the right to see his wife holding her left back hoof off the floor. He quickly turned around and looked for the twin mares. They were still going around, taking count.

“Descent,” Blazetail spoke up as he looked over his shoulder at him. “Do you have all the Shadowbolts?”

“Just sent Starry around,” Descent nodded. “It looks like we have everypony… but I want to make sure.”

Both of them turned to Spitfire. Spitfire took a deep breath and turned to Fire Streak.

“Fire?” she simply said his name. Fire Streak, who was nearby with his squad, immediately nodded and saluted.

“Right away,” he said as he turned and gave orders to his squad to streamline the process.

Spitfire looked at Soarin the moment Fire left, but Soarin immediately turned his head away to distort her view of the horn. He didn’t know what she did next, if she stayed still or followed him, but he immediately began moving as if he was never looking. He would put off any crap about his horn for as long as he could, which… was silly considering that he was approaching Luna, but he cared less about that and more about Rainbow Dash.

Dash was sitting on the floor, her back up against Matteo, who laid flat on his stomach, panting. Squall was also sitting against the bulk of the large griffon with Luna lying on her side beside them. Twister was laying on his back, over Matteo’s back, snoring fast asleep with one of Matteo’s large black feathers floating above his mouth that got sucked towards him every time he breathed in and pushed back into the air every time he breathed out.

Soarin kept his eyes on Twister for only a moment before diverting a hundred and twenty percent of his focus to Rainbow Dash, who was panting and wheezing, head down with her mane covering her eyes, and a hoof over her heart? Soarin bit his lip when he saw her hoof position, but knowing their connection, it likely had to do with the state of his horn and the splitting headache that he was still fighting.

He readied to say her name as he moved towards her. But before he could, her ears twitched and perked up. She looked up, revealing a very exhausted pair of eyes behind the dusty lenses of her goggles. Her open, panting mouth quickly turned up into a smile, but it only lasted for a moment as she gasped.

“Soarin…” she said his name weakly as she pulled her goggles off of her head and dropped them to the floor beside her. Soarin sighed as he saw the positioning of her eyes. Just like Fleetfoot, she was looking right at the horn, but he didn’t feel the need to mentally prepare to repel any verbal assaults, he knew what Dash’s approach would be and it was not the same as Spitfire’s. However, when she stood, Soarin picked up his pace to reach her before she could say anything.

“Dash…” he said with concern in his voice.

“The horn, it’s—”

“I know, just… hold on a second,” Soarin halted her, touching her face and looking her over, fighting back his headache as he made sure she was okay. He took a deep breath and sighed, letting his head tip down and rest his chin stop her nose. “I mean…” he spoke up. “I’m alive… so I know you’re fine, but… for Celestia’s sake, Dash… you scared the hell out of me.”

“Oh…” Dash’s ears flopped down as she glanced away, reaching up and wrapping an arm around Soarin’s neck to hug him. “Sorry, I…” she shifted her cheek as she rested it against his, glancing at Luna. “When I saw Luna falling, I just acted, I couldn’t just…” she trailed off as she stared at Luna, lying still, but breathing.

“I know how you think,” Soarin reminded her with a brief smile. “Still scared me.”

Dash pulled back and looked up to Soarin’s forehead. Soarin instinctively looked away, but Dash grabbed his chin.

“Soarin, let me see it,” she demanded in a soft voice with a firm undertone. Soarin exhaled through his nostrils as he reluctantly turned and dipped it to let her see the new damage. She cringed when she looked at it, her eyes examining the cracks that, while not necessarily new, now extended all the way down the horn. “That’s—”

“Bad, I know… and my head hurts, and all the usual crap,” Soarin said as he forced his head back away. Dash immediately furrowed her brow.

“Soarin, stop it. I’m not going to chain you to a wall, I’m just concerned,” she told him sternly as she poked him in the chest.

“I know…” Soarin said with a grunt. “Guess I’ve just got a hair trigger right now. I know Spitfire is going to give me hell about it.” He looked back at Dash to see her gritting her teeth and glancing between his eyes and the horn. Soarin’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “Oh no… no no no, not you too…”

“Look, Soarin,” Dash started as she narrowed her eyes into a serious stare, placing a hoof softly against his chest. “I was… okay when Discord said that the horn was fine, but now it looks even worse. Until I hear otherwise, I may have to agree with Spitfire a little…” she trailed off and pouted as Soarin glared at her. “I said A LITTLE, Soarin. I just want to make sure nothing bad happens to you. You know that, don’t forget my life is tied to yours in more ways than one…”

Soarin’s glare faded and he sighed tipping his head down. Dash’s life was tied to his… that was something they had lived with for a little while now. It gave Dash more leverage to convince him otherwise on certain subjects and she was milking it here. He knew that Dash wasn’t Spitfire. He knew that if he were to take action to save others she would do the same thing, unlike Spitfire who recruited Squad Zero to pin him to the floor.

Dash loved him, and he loved her. There was a mutual understanding between them and he knew Dash wouldn’t exploit their connection for personal gain or leverage. It was just as much about the fact that she loved him as it was about her own survival, maybe even more.

“I can’t accept that…”

“Soarin…” Dash grunted, pouting harder as she put her other hoof up on his chest as well.

“But, for both of us, I promise you that I won't act unless I absolutely have to… or if it’s for the sake of your safety. Unless those conditions arise, you have my word that I will be as careful as possible,” Soarin assured her.

Dash immediately realized what he did. She scrunched her face as she broke it down. He basically promised to remain out of danger as long as she did… but that meant he didn’t want her in danger either.

“Well played…” Dash said while smirking and lifting an eyebrow.

“Who me?” Soarin snickered as he looked away, but Dash propped her hooves up on top of his shoulders.

“Look, I’m just glad we’re both alive… let’s keep it that way, okay?” she said as she started leaning forward, moving her lips towards his. Soarin glanced past her briefly to see Squall groaning and rolling his eyes as Dash readied to kiss him. Soarin held in a chuckle, ready to meet Dash’s lips half-way.

“Captain!” Pixie and Fairy both yelled at the same time while flying over the top of Soarin and Dash. Soarin’s attention was instantly pulled away. Dash blinked and frowned, but she noticed Soarin watching the twin sisters fly towards Blazetail.

“Sorry,” Soarin said as he looked back at Dash. “Excuse me…” he reluctantly pulled away as he turned and trotted towards the captains to hear the headcount reports. Any disappointment from Dash faded quickly and was replaced with curiosity. If something was important enough to pull Soarin away from kissing her… she wanted to know what was happening too. She left Luna and her squad behind, following close behind Soarin, approaching Spitfire, Descent, and Blazetail.

Dash flinched and stopped, nearly bumping into Soarin’s plot as he came to a halt about ten paces away. She blinked and shifted beside him, for a moment wondering why he didn’t keep going, but she quickly recalled he was less than enthusiastic about Spitfire confronting him about the horn. So from their spot, they listened in.

“Pixie… Fairy…” Blazetail removed his hoof from around Flashwind and turned towards them as the twins landed. “Well…?”

The twins both looked at each other for a moment… a long moment. Eventually, in a break from their usual synced movements, Fairy shuddered and lightly waved a hoof at her sister. Pixie frowned as she watched her sister turn away. She took a deep breath as she turned to face Blazetail.

“We…” she began slowly, hearing her without her sister either finishing or speaking with her was strange, adding an extra element to what was clearly not good news. “We lost one.”

Soarin gritted his teeth, Dash’s ears flopping down as the two listened in. They both watched Blazetail. He remained stoic, sighing and closing his eyes.

“Who?” he asked.

“Graceful Gust…” Pixie clarified, swallowing as he voice almost cracked.

“I see…” Blazetail turned away, running right into an open arm of his wife. She looked up at him, brushing a hoof against his cheek. “I’m fine… it’s… definitely not the first time,” the old captain grasped his wife’s hoof as he looked back to see Pixie hugging her sister. Bomber approached the two twins, a very sad look on his innocent face as he bent down and gently picked up the twins, hugging them both.

“Descent…” Starry’s voice came from above. Soarin and Dash tore their focus away from the old Wonderbolts. Descent said nothing as he turned away from Spitfire and looked up towards Starry. She landed in front of him, but unlike the Renegade twins, she didn’t even hesitate.

“Raptor and Dozer. We have everypony else,” she said without a smidgen of sorrow in her voice.

Soarin flinched as he felt Dash grab his arm. She hadn’t moved from her position, but he looked down to see her reaching out and gripping his arm tightly. Soarin looked at her for a moment before returning his eyes to Descent.

“Hmm…” Descent hummed in response. He, like Starry, showed no emotional response, but he turned away and looked down. “Unfortunate… they were fine warriors. May they rest in peace,” he spoke with strength in his voice, showing his resolve in the face of loss and his experience in dealing with losing those he fought beside.

Dash’s grip on Soarin grew tighter, and he knew exactly why. The Renegades had lost three… a former Wonderbolt and two defected Shadowbolts. It was a shock. They had already lost a small number of ponies throughout the conflict, one of which Dash still felt slightly responsible for, but despite Descent’s lack of reaction, Dash was certain, that even if she had his amount of experience, she would never get used to knowing that ponies she had fought beside were now… gone.

But that was just a part of it, Soarin knew there was one specific thing on her mind… and it wouldn’t be answered until…

“Captain Spitfire!”

“Hrnk!” Soarin grunted, Dash pressing to his side and squeezing his arm even tighter as Fire Streak flew over their heads with Surprise, Misty, and Lightning all following behind. Soarin quickly unfolded a wing and closed it over the top of Dash as they awaited Fire’s report.

Squad Three had their backs turned to them as they landed, but Spitfire’s reaction when she faced them was enough to tell Soarin and Dash… that the news wasn’t good.

“I… don’t like that look,” Spitfire said to Fire Streak. Fire was trying to remain strong, but he couldn’t shake a slight frown. His squad wasn’t helping. Anytime Misty didn’t smile was a problem. Surprise had already sat down, ears flopped down and hair slightly deflated. Lightning Streak refused to make eye contact with Spitfire. Spitfire took a deep breath, focusing on Fire as Fleetfoot approached to listen in. “Report.”

She braced herself, several others nearby also listening. Soarin and Dash didn’t even move.

Fire closed his eyes.

“Three.”

Spitfire flinched as Fleetfoot gasped loudly beside her. Spitfire glanced at Fleet as she shuddered and staggered backwards, looking back at Fire as she failed to hold back some shaking of her own.

“Names and squads,” Spitfire remained professional despite the news. Fire Streak opened his eyes, the corner of his mouth subtly quivering.

“Ember, Squad Nine. Ranger, Squad Fourteen. Black Bird, Squad Twenty,” Fire listed them off.

Spitfire kept her eyes on him for a moment, her ears turning as she heard the sound of a plot hitting the floor behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see Fleetfoot sitting on the floor, a hoof over her mouth and her eyes wide as she shivered.

Spitfire turned back, spreading her wings and lifting off, hovering up to take a look around. Her eyes moved about, locating Squad Nine, Squad Fourteen, and Squad Twenty. The three remaining members of Nine and Fourteen were already huddled together, embracing one another with their goggles on the floor, post Wonderbolt sendoff salute. She looked over as Squad Twenty stepped back from each other, removed their goggles, and dropped them to the floor, spreading their wings as they looked up. Two of the remaining already with faint traces of tears streaming down their faces.

Spitfire couldn’t bear to look at them. She refused to show weakness. Loss was something Wonderbolts had to deal with in times of conflict. Her family atmosphere project had its benefits, but one downside was much, much more pain when a member of the family fell.

But something else pushed her thoughts aside… Something, that if confirmed… was going to make her REALLY angry. She quickly dropped back to the floor and turned to Fire Streak. Fire blinked as Spitfire rushed up to him and got right in his face.

“Fire Streak.”

“C-captain?” Fire acknowledged her as her eyes narrowed.

“I’m going to ask you something… and I want you to be COMPLETELY transparent and honest with me,” she began. Fire swallowed and held himself firm as he nodded.

“Of course, ma’am,” he acknowledged. Spitfire pressed a hoof to his chest.

“Were Ember, Ranger, and Black Bird… all present in the lobby BEFORE the move was made to rescue Luna?” she asked very harshly. Fire Streak’s eyes widened, his mouth hanging slightly agape for a brief moment as the question surprised him. He swallowed and started looking over his shoulder, but Spitfire reached up, grabbed his chin and pulled him back. “FIRE.”

“Y… uh…” Fire stumbled over his words. “Ember and Black Bird, they were both present before we launched the final time. I don’t know about Ranger.”

Spitfire’s bottom right eyelid twitched as Fire answered. She let go of him and looked past him sharply at Surprise and Lightning Streak, ignoring Misty.

“And you two?! Did you see Ranger!?” she asked, her voice rising. Lightning Streak’s mouth was shut tight, he just shook his head quickly. Spitfire’s eyes landed squarely on Surprise, who was tucking her neck as far into her shoulder as she could.

“Um…” Surprise squeaked. “Ranger was… right next to me before I followed behind the rest…” she admitted.

Spitfire barely waited for her to finish, she turned and looked at Descent.

“Raptor and Dozer? Were they in here?” she demanded. Descent narrowed her eyes at her.

“Raptor yes, I don’t know about—”

“Dozer was here…” Lightning Dust spoke up from off to the side. “But, why?”

Spitfire turned away from her and looked at Blazetail and Flashwind.

“Graceful Gust?!” she yelled simply. Blazetail and Flashwind both shook their heads, but Valkyrie cleared her throat.

“Yes… she was here before we—”

Everypony flinched, as Spitfire stomped a hoof to the floor so hard that it chipped the tiles beneath it.

It took Soarin a moment to realize what was happening… and why Spitfire was asking. He looked down at Dash, his eyes widening considerably when he noticed that she was as stiff as a statue, frozen in place, mouth hanging slightly ajar.

The six ponies that died… were all killed as they were saving Luna.

“Ah!” Soarin flinched as something suddenly roughly bumped into him. He barely had enough time to look as Spitfire rushed at him, reached her hoof under his wing and grabbed Rainbow Dash by the chest of her suit. Before Soarin could do anything, Spitfire roughly pushed Dash right out from beneath his wing, Dash yelping as Spitfire drove her backwards, Dash’s hooves skidding along the floor until Spitfire pushed her all the way against the mail counter. Dash’s plot was forced to the floor and her front hooves were pushed up as Spitfire applied all of her force against Dash’s chest, holding her firmly against the metal counter.

Dash’s pupils nearly disappeared, shrinking as she stared into Spitfire’s eyes. She was glaring fiercely, her eyes filled with rage as her breath hissed through her nostrils. Not even Silver Lining had ever given Dash a look that send chills of fear down her spine like the one Spitfire was forcing upon her.

“DASH…” Spitfire’s voice was harsh with a low growl hidden in her tone. “THIS… IS WHY… YOU FOLLOW… MY ORDERS!” she yelled right into Dash’s face. Dash’s heartbeat quickened, sweat began running down her forehead, and little squeaks escaped the back of her throat as she felt an untamed pressure pushed upon her. “You DELIBERATELY ignored them… and now six ponies are DEAD! FOUR OF THEM WONDERBOLTS!”

“AH!” Dash cringed as she felt Spitfire’s pressure on her increase.

“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!” she yelled.

It wasn’t wild, it wasn’t out of control… and that was what terrified Dash. Spitfire was imposing her voice of authority, grinding it into Dash that she was not pleased with her actions. In fact, she was LIVID. She had been yelled at by Silver in a similar manner, but this was different. This wasn’t a little training mishap…

Six ponies had died. Apparently they all died after following her out to save Luna. However, Dash was barely able to concentrate on that shock, instead facing the controlled wrath of their lead captain. Spitfire’s eyes cut deep into her, letting Dash know that Spitfire felt the six deaths were entirely her fault and her blame to shoulder. She didn’t know what to say or do… or how to feel. Her actions led to them saving Luna… but at a cost that Spitfire found unacceptable. She wanted to defend her actions, but she was being completely overwhelmed.

“HEY!” Soarin yelled as he turned and readied to rush towards them, but he yelped as Something tugged on his tail. He quickly turned around and saw Fire Streak letting go of his tail. Fire quickly turned his full attention to Sarin, held up a hoof and shook his head.

“Let me handle this,” he said quickly, but Soarin wasn’t having it.

“She saves Luna and THIS is what she gets?!” Soarin growled. He looked past Fire to see Fleetfoot trot up and grab Spitfire by the shoulder.

“Captain… go easy…” she tried to cut in but Spitfire turned and glared at Fleetfoot without taking any pressure off of Dash.

“I’ll get to you!” Spitfire snapped at Fleetfoot. “I’m curious how you forgot my orders were to bring Dash back! Not to join in her reckless act!”

“What?!” Fleetfoot reacted, throwing her hooves up. “I only slowed down when I saw they were actually gonna catch Luna! At that point the rest of the Wonderbolts were already out there, what the hell was I supposed to do? HEY! I’M TALKING TO YOU!” Fleetfoot yelled, but Spitfire had turned her attention back to Dash.

Soarin growled, ready to go give Spitfire a piece of his mind, but Fire reached up and firmly pressed his hoof against Soarin’s shoulder.

“Sir! Please! Trust me!” he requested.

Soarin blinked, tipping his head, but didn’t say anything else. Fire shifted aside and trotted over towards Rainbow Dash and Spitfire. Spitfire was still grilling her as Fire approached.

“I don’t know what part of your training gave you the idea that you can question my orders…”

“Captain!” Fire yelled as he approached and lightly coaxed Fleetfoot to move aside, but Spitfire paid him no notice.

“BUT THIS IS ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE! AND NOW—!”

“CAPTAIN!” Fire Streak, in a bold move, stepped beside them and pushed his hooves in between them, only managing to push Spitfire a little bit, but it was enough to get her attention. She said nothing, she only redirected her incredibly strong gaze to Fire, but Fire held himself firm. “Captain…” Fire said calmly, keeping a serious expression on his face. “If I may be so bold… you should not entirely blame Rainbow Dash for what happened.”

Everything went completely silent. Spitfire stared at Fire Streak as he held himself in her glare. Everypony else around the lobby was watching them, the faint breathing squeaks of Rainbow Dash the only audible sounds.

“I’m listening…” Spitfire finally said, her eyes fixed on Fire, but kept her iron grip on Dash’s suit. Fire cleared his throat as he took a single step backwards.

“Dash is not innocent of instigating the launch. She disobeyed direct orders and flew out on her own, her whole squad following behind her,” Fire began.

Dash shivered as he spoke, feeling Spitfire’s hoof squeak against her suit tighter as Fire mentioned her launch.

“However… the first thing I did after she and her squad left was give the order with my authority as the third captain… that no pony was to follow and everypony was to stick to your orders,” Fire glanced over at his squad. “Believe me, I gave Misty the very same order with the sign language… but mere seconds after I did, she shook her head and rushed out to follow Dash.”

Dash stopped shivering, blinking as she felt Spitfire’s grip loosen as well.

Misty was the first to follow?

Even after she punched Fire?

“Then…” Fire continued with a sigh. “My brother and Surprise followed right behind her. And before I knew it, several other Wonderbolts were rushing forward and taking flight… leading to the Renegades joining in. Before long I was… the only pony left in the lobby, and flew the coop with the rest while cursing myself.”

Dash was listening to Fire, but her eyes were locked on Spitfire. She had calmed down quickly. She was not free of anger, but she had stopped forcing it towards Dash.

“So it pains me to say… that every single Wonderbolt ended up disobeying direct orders. They were rallied by Rainbow Dash, and through our efforts… we saved Princess Luna, and…” he paused while holding up a hoof. “Because we did, Luna was able to give us one more chance to escape, probably a better chance than we would have had if Dash had not made the brazen move. It came with… a cost, but those who died, did so while doing their duty. They put themselves in harm’s way intentionally. Chastise Dash for not following orders… but I must implore you not to blame her for those we lost.”

Dash exhaled as the strain on her suit faded, Spitfire letting go the moment Fire Streak finished. Dash fell forward, landing back on her front hooves. She looked up, freezing again as her eyes met Spitfire’s. The anger was gone from them, but they still held a strength that pressed down against Dash.

Then Spitfire looked away, her eyes slowly moving towards the three squads who had just lost one of their members. They had come together, huddled up with their goggles in a pile within them. They were all looking towards her. Spitfire examined their faces. They were holding strong. A few tears were falling, but none of them had broken down. A mare from Squad Twenty suddenly sniffled, looked down and quivered, but the moment she did the other eight ponies immediately turned to her, offering a comforting hoof or wing. The mare shook her head, looking back up and swallowing as she wiped away the tears.

Other Wonderbolts began heading towards them to offer their support, creating a large group surrounding the squads as they all dealt with the shock of losing a precious wingmate. But it was how they were dealing with it that struck Spitfire the most. They understood where they were, they knew the situation, and they were not breaking under pressure.

“Hmmmmmph…” Spitfire released a long grunt as she looked back at Dash one more time. Dash gulped as their eyes met again, Fire may have ‘saved’ her, but that didn’t change the fact that Dash disobeyed orders… again. There were bound to be consequences. “We’ll talk LATER,” Spitfire said sharply while narrowing her eyes.

Dash flinched and cringed, but Spitfire turned away from her and moved the large group forming around the three squads.

Dash’s back legs gave way, dropping her to her plot as she exhaled and finally found the time to breathe. She looked up as Soarin rushed towards her, pushing past Fire Streak as he bent down to check on her. Fire Streak remained in place, looking between Spitfire and Dash as Soarin looked her over.

“Grrr…” Soarin growled quietly as he glanced towards Spitfire. Dash blinked as she finally looked up at Soarin. She wanted to tell him not to be angry at Spitfire. She disobeyed direct orders and six ponies died. She felt Spitfire’s reaction was mostly justified despite saving Luna. She didn’t want Soarin to have more reasons to be angry at the lead captain. The two of them already had enough disagreements going between them between the horn and whether or not Soarin should enter combat. She decided to distract Soarin…

“Hngh…” she grunted as she stood up, acting more shaken than she actually was to get Soarin to look back at her. “Ah…” she exhaled, leaning against him. Soarin quickly turned to support her, but didn’t say anything. Dash looked him in the eyes and shook her head.

She was, honestly, a little scared of herself at the moment. When Midnight of Squad Six was killed after she collided with her in the heat of battle, she felt like everything was crashing down on top of her. They just lost six… SIX… and the shock wasn’t nearly as strong. Had she already accepted it so easily? Wonderbolts have a sworn duty to fight and protect Equestria… and sometimes, in the line of duty… they die. Perhaps Silver’s words to her after the death of Midnight sunk deep into her head. It was part of the job.

But that didn’t mean she was okay with it. She never would be.

“How do you handle it?” Dash suddenly asked Soarin.

“What?” Soarin tipped his head as he held onto her. She looked down and shuddered.

“How do you handle… losing ponies? How do you get used to it?” she clarified. Soarin’s ears flopped down and he sighed.

“I never have,” he replied quickly. “And I never will… None of us will.” Soarin placed a wing over Dash as he looked down at her, but blinked as she pulled away and slipped right out from beneath it. She walked towards Fire Streak, who had his back turned to her as Misty approached from the other side. He was looking at Misty, but when she stopped and looked over his shoulder at Dash, he too glanced back.

“Fire St—Er, Captain,” Dash began weakly, switching from her usual friendly exchange style with Squad Three to formal. She stopped right in her tracks as Fire gave her a look that she had never seen from him before, one of disapproval and a little frustration.

“What?” he asked in a harsh, hard tone that made Dash cringe as he turned to face her. Regardless, she continued.

“I just wanted—, I mean…” Dash stumbled over her words. “Thanks for… that. With Spitfire, I didn’t know what to—”

“Save it,” Fire Streak hissed, causing her to freeze and immediately stop talking. Her eyes were open as wide as possible as Fire glared at her. “I only reported as I saw it all happen. I didn’t do any of that for you,” he snorted and turned his eyes away from her. “The only favor I did was leaving out the part where you punched a superior officer.”

Dash’s lip began to quiver, not out of sadness or an emotional outburst, but because she felt like she had really screwed a lot of things up. In the heat of the moment she made so many split-second, questionable decisions, but she couldn’t just do that… she was a Wonderbolt, she had to keep a level head at all times, or at least the best she could. If she wanted to keep being a Wonderbolt, she had to keep herself in check.

“Eep!” she squeaked as Fire suddenly took a step towards her and poked his hoof roughly against her chest, narrowing his glare further as he got right in her face.

“Don’t EVER… do that again. Understand?” he growled as Dash inched her head backwards. Dash swallowed and nodded.

“Y-yes sir…” she quickly replied.

Misty Fly stepped up behind Fire and began reaching her hoof out to his shoulder, but he turned and trudged away before she could touch him. She looked at Dash, staring blankly for a moment before giving her a slightly flat look. Dash was probably lucky that was all she got… since she punched Misty’s stallion, but she was the first one to follow Dash out so maybe that helped her case a little. Misty’s flat look turned into a pout as she turned and quickly followed behind Fire, leaving Dash behind, shaking and contemplating everything she had just done.

She sat down again, letting her head hang. Her eyes moved back and forth along the floor before her as she thought about everything. She did what she thought was right… maybe some of the ways she did so were not well thought out… such as punching a top tier captain, but did she make the right choice? Should she have just left Luna out there? Would Luna have died or not?

She sighed as she saw a shadow appear beside her. She glanced up only a little to see Soarin’s leg. He simply sat down beside her, not offering any words or touching her. Dash picked her head up further to look at his face, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was sitting like she was, contemplating what had happened. Only, he wore a more serious and angered expression that her. She could tell he was likely holding back some strong words for Fire Streak, but despite Soarin currently being a little pissed off at just about everything, he was still a lead squad commander, and had to show at least some restraint. He couldn’t show favor to her, especially her being a recruit and Fire Streak being a third captain. In fact, she was certain that if they were not a couple, he likely would be berating her right now for half of her decisions.

They had gone from a situation that was out of control to a situation full of somewhat fractured trust and friendships… The conflict seemed to be taking a real toll. The possibility of getting killed was still as high as ever, but should they survive, could they make it to the Crystal Empire without breaking from within?

Dash looked up at the group surrounding the three Wonderbolt squads, her eyes shifting over to see the retired Wonderbolts gathering to comfort each other over the loss of one of their own. She then looked towards the defected Shadowbolts. Descent wasn’t showing it, but she had learned enough about him to know he respected those who fought beside him. Lightning Dust and Storm Front kept trying to approach him, but Starry kept pulling them both back to leave Descent alone.

“Everypony listen up…” Spitfire suddenly spoke as she rose up from the group, drawing everypony’s attention towards her. All traces of anger were gone, instead replaced with a serious, professional look that she directed towards everypony. “I know this is a lot to ask in a moment like this… but we must stay focused. We can’t afford to pause and mourn losses right now.” It looked hard for her to say such a thing, but as eyes turned towards her, faces hardened and ears listened. “Regroup with your squads and rest until further orders. We’ll pay our respects to the fallen once we’re out of harm’s way.” She lowered herself down, specifically right near Squad Nine, Fourteen, and Twenty. She approached them as they all stood attention despite what they were going through. Spitfire looked each one of them in the eye for at least five seconds each before nodding at all of them. She removed her goggles, dropped them on the floor in front of her, spread her wings, and looked towards the ceiling. She held the sendoff salute for a moment or two before looking back down at them. “Stay strong for us… and for them,” she encouraged. They all saluted her through any wayward tears and regrets.

“Move! MOVE!” Bliss’ voice suddenly echoed throughout the lobby.

Dash and Soarin looked away from Spitfire to see Bliss pushing her way through the crowd.

“Where’s Luna?!” she demanded as everypony instantly began moving aside for her. Dash looked back over towards her Squad, Matteo scooting himself aside on the floor as Bliss started nearing them. Squall forced himself to his hooves and moved as well as Twister remained on Matteo’s back. “Oh… dear…” Bliss slowed down as Luna came into view, sprawled out on the ground, unconscious, but still breathing as faint blue light continued to rise from her horn and from beneath her eyelids. “Luna!” Bliss yelled as she broke into a gallop and slid to her haunches in front of her, her medical magic immediately glowing to life upon her horn as she examined Luna carefully.

Spitfire moved away from the group to join Bliss’ side in examining Luna.

If nothing else, she was relieved that something good did come from the operation, at least that’s how Spitfire looked from Dash’s point of view.

Maybe Dash was just fishing for something to make her feel better now, but she felt, she HOPED, that despite her actions, Spitfire was able to at least appreciate that Luna was safe. That counted for something, right?

She didn’t know how to proceed. Under normal circumstances, she would have rushed to Luna’s side and made sure she was fine, but she wanted to keep a little distance from Spitfire after everything that just went down… plus Soarin was also avoiding their captain…

What an absolute mess… and they hadn’t even gotten around to addressing the state of the Nimbus yet.

“Oh, here you all are!” a very familiar voice suddenly came from all the way from the east hallway.

Dash’s ears stood up and she instantly looked over, only to have her view blocked by the group of Wonderbolts, but she didn’t need to see to know who the voice belonged to. She was more wondering how he got out of the infirmary.

“Can somepony PLEASE tell me…” Silver pushed his way into the crowd as everypony just stared at him. “What the hell is going on?!” he asked, unaware of the current situation as he trudged forward, wincing every step as he dragged an unwanted passenger along. Witching Hour was holding onto his tail with her teeth and trying to use her magic to hold his hooves, but Silver kept moving, Witching’s hooves skidding along the floor as he pulled her. Little Star was trotting along right behind them, but she quickly broke away upon seeing Matteo, Squall, and Twister all completely tuckered out off to the side. “WELL?!” Silver yelled out, drawing Bliss and Spitfire’s attention away from Luna for a moment.

“Witching…” Bliss grunted as her assistant failed to restrain Silver. Witching dropped Silver’s tail, released her magic, and face-planted on the floor before looking up and shaking her head.

“He forced the straps off, I couldn’t stop him…” she admitted as Silver kept moving forward until he was right up beside Spitfire, looking down at Luna.

Silver looked Luna up and down, he looked back at the group of Wonderbolts and Renegades, noticing the slightly somber air among them. He glanced at Spitfire, who was glaring at him, and then lifted an eyebrow.

“What?” he asked her, completely oblivious to the situation.

Taking a chance, Dash trotted away from Soarin and right up to Silver, doing her best to stay on the opposite side of him to avoid eye contact with Spitfire.

“Silver…” Dash spoke up, causing him to completely turn and look at her, eyebrow still raised. She made a few hoof motions, while tipping her neck awkwardly, determined to not meet Spitfire’s eyes.

“Hmm…?” Silver switched eyebrows.

“Just come over here,” she said with a flat expression. Silver glanced back at Spitfire before exhaling and doing just that. He walked behind Dash, but she kept walking awkwardly as if trying to keep him directly behind her.

“What the hell are you doing?” he questioned.

“Silver… just… please, shut up and come over here and quiet down… We lost six ponies in battle. I’ll explain everything later…” she pleaded. Silver’s eyes widened for a brief moment, before returning to normal. He didn’t protest upon hearing the tragic news and did as Dash said, following her back over towards Soarin.

Spitfire kept her eyes fixed on Silver and Dash as they moved away, ignoring Soarin behind them for a moment as she turned back to Bliss and Luna.

“Bliss, how is she?” Spitfire asked preemptively as Bliss continued to look her over with her magic alight.

“She’s—” Bliss began, but before she could go any further, they both jumped in surprise as Luna suddenly kicked her legs out, barely missing Bliss as she began to thrash and scream. Everypony in the lobby turned in shock as Spitfire and Bliss both reach down and pressed their hooves against Luna’s side.

“Luna?! LUNA!” Spitfire yelled as Luna’s body jerked and contorted, but it only lasted for a few seconds.

“Haaaaa! Aaahhhhh… Haaaaaa…” Luna exhaled loudly several times as her eyelids squeezed tightly. “Hrrrggnnnn…” she grunted and cringed as the light rising from her horn and eyes faded and the ethereal flow of her mane suddenly resumed, albeit much weaker than it usually looked. Spitfire and Bliss removed their hooves from her as she slowly opened her eyes and looked back and forth between them while taking heavy, wheezing breaths.

“Luna…?” Spitfire said her name as she bent down. “Luna are you alright?” she asked rhetorically. Luna just stared, barely able to keep her eyes open as she came to her senses.

“We…” she squeaked. “We…” she looked around as much as she could, looking at all the ponies nearby for a moment. “Gods… we were so… careless…” she immediately berated herself. Bliss frowned, but Spitfire instantly flattened her brow.

“Luna, look at me, don’t think about that right—” Spitfire reached down and pressed a hoof against Luna’s shoulder, but immediately regretted it.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Luna cried out, her body twitching and curling right back up as she shuddered in pain. Spitfire pulled her hoof back and gasped as she and Bliss looked at her in surprise. Spitfire had no idea what she had just done, and was confused because the two of them had just touched her to calm her down… or did their touch shock her back into consciousness before? At this point they had no idea, not even a smidgen of an idea. Whatever the problem was, it had something to do with divine alicorn magic, and neither of them were an expert on the subject. “P—please!” Luna barely managed to say. “Do not… touch us…! Our body…. Is… is burning…” Spitfire and Bliss looked at each other while biting their lip. If they couldn’t touch her, what in the world were they going to do to help her? “Head… hurts… Can’t feel… wings…” Luna continued to wail as ponies began gathering around to show concern, but kept their distance.

They kept still, allowing Luna time to calm down and relax as much as she could. When she finally opened her eyes again, she saw all the Wonderbolts and Renegades standing around her. She closed her eyes and let her head rest against the floor.

“Princess…” Spitfire spoke up, but trailed off as Luna sighed.

“We were caught off guard… and forced your hoof to save us… shameful…” she sputtered. Spitfire opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. Luna was once against treating herself like a burden, so the last thing Spitfire wanted to mention was that they lost six ponies in the process. That wasn’t her first choice anyway, but she hoped everypony else way feeling the same way. She did however, feel the need to let Luna know that her efforts after the fact gave them a cleaner avenue of escape as Fire had mentioned. She was miffed at Dash for disobeying orders, but it would be foolish of her to not recognize what did come of it all.

“But we were also able to escape because of you. In the end our effort to rescue you helped but—” Spitfire cut herself off. She looked down to see Luna staring at her as if waiting for more, but Spitfire shook her head. “All that matters is you’re alive… but to be blunt, there’s a lot of… things happening to you we know nothing about, like light rising from your horn and eyes, it stopped after you woke up. Your mane flow ceased while you were out as well.”

“We are not… surprised…” Luna said weakly as she curled up her body a little more. “Some of the… mysterious spells our divine alicorn magic allows us to use are… dangerously powerful… and can really hurt the user if not used properly, carefully, without extreme focus, or overused,” she spoke in a broken pattern, taking short pauses to breathe. “Only our sister has… AH!” Luna cried out, arching her neck back before curling up tighter. Spitfire flinched and reached forward, but stopped just short of touching her, nearly forgetting what happened the last time she did.

“Luna, enough,” Spitfire spoke instead. “Just rest for now, we have to figure out what to do next,” she forced the subject forward.

As if they weren’t already dealing with enough problems, now Luna was in such bad shape they couldn’t even touch her without her screaming in pain.

They went through hell, lost six ponies, almost lost Luna, and their airship was grounded. She had to accept the circumstances for now and move forward, there would be plenty of time for explanations, reprimanding, and personal confrontations later. As the captain, she had to push on and work towards their next goal.

Although it was a revealing sight… to see one of the great divine alicorn sisters fall victim to her own magic. For so long the sisters had been viewed as beings of unparalleled power with the ability to control the very sun and the moon that rose and fell overhead day and night if they so choose. Tales were told of their incredible magic, but it seemed the reality of the divine alicorn powers were not so romantic. Their magical powers were so strong, so taxing, that even they could not fully control them depending on the nature and complexity of the spell. Spitfire couldn’t speak for Celestia, but Luna had just showcased two divine magic techniques that both carried a toll on her body and mind. She didn’t doubt Luna’s power, her incredibly impressive use of conventional magic in the form of blasts, shields, and natural tasks spoke for itself, but once she delved into the powers unknown to mortal ponies, it nearly tore her apart.

Then again, Spitfire recalled the last time she saw Celestia, when she saved Soarin, and how the spell nearly knocked out her out. Luna claimed that Celestia had a better grasp on the divine level of magic… but it was clearly dangerous and had to be handled with care. Not even the divine alicorn sisters were without their struggles… barely the perfect beings they always seemed to be.

But that was best left to discuss later. Luna’s challenges throughout the scenario were proving the alicorn sisters were not quite so all-powerful. But while they were not all-powerful they certainly were powerful. Their prowess would not be denied, even if it fell a little short of the legends they occupied.

As Spitfire turned away and left Luna in the hooves of Bliss for the time being, she looked up at all the ponies gathered around.

“Give her some space please…” Spitfire asked sternly. Everypony immediately backed away and began regrouping as she asked them to earlier. Fleetfoot approached her as they moved.

“So…” she began in a shaky tone, clearly trying to hold back how devastated she felt, but she couldn’t hide it from Spitfire. “Now what are we gonna do?”

Spitfire exhaled through her nostrils as she looked down for a moment. She was already regretting a few of her outbursts earlier, specifically when she lashed out at Fleetfoot while berating Dash. Fleetfoot was definitely letting it go for now, but Spitfire had a feeling she’d pay for it later. She turned and looked back up at Fleetfoot.

“That all depends on if Rivet is still alive down—”

“Where is Captain Spitfire?!” Rivet’s voice suddenly came from the west hallway on cue.

“That all depends on what Rivet can tell me about the Nimbus,” Spitfire corrected herself as she turned to look towards the west hall. “Over here Rivet!” she called to him as she turned and approached the small engineer with Fleetfoot in tow.

The lobby was already bustling again, or at least as much as it could be in the current state of affairs. Squads were coming together and checking on each other, friends were finding friends, loved ones finding loved ones. Spitfire glanced towards the recruit barracks as she watched a few couples find one another, wondering… hoping that the captives and Wave Chill were fine. Bliss’ assistant, Mahogany, emerged from the recruit barracks hallway and moved towards Bliss as Spitfire and Fleetfoot approached Rivet, so hopefully that was a sign.

Following her own advice, Spitfire refocused to get the rundown from Rivet before she worried about anything else, no matter how much it clawed at her. She looked Rivet over as they approached, he was covered in dark splotches, likely from working machinery as it was spewing smoke and oil. Some of the marks looked like bruises, but she couldn’t tell the difference.

“Before you say anything,” Spitfire began as she and Fleetfoot stopped in front of Rivet. “I’m glad you’re alive, you look like hell.”

“I know,” Rivet immediately replied with a grunt. “I ordered everypony evacuate the engine room for an hour or so. We just opened all ventilation to let the smoke clear out.”

“I hate to immediately push the subject, but we don’t have much of a choice… can you give me a rundown on the damage and status of the systems?” Spitfire got right to the point.

“No need to waste time, so don’t worry,” Rivet agreed with her eagerness. “I was able to get a good look at the extent of the damage before we were forced to air out the whole floor, and… there’s no way the systems are in any condition for us to take off again.”

Spitfire gritted her teeth and cringed, but Rivet shook his head.

“It’s nothing I can’t fix though,” he added quickly to reassure her, earning a sigh of relief.

“How long?” Spitfire got right back on track, but Rivet shook his head again.

“That… isn’t the problem,” he admitted. Fleetfoot pouted at him.

“Sheesh, stop teasing us… are we screwed or not screwed?” she demanded, but she squeaked and shut right up as Spitfire elbowed her and gave her a glare.

“We’re not trying to rebuild the whole place like before,” Rivet explained. “It’s just a matter of repairing what broke during the flight just now. Nowhere near as big of a job. I estimate that if I have full cooperation and support, it should take one, maybe two days around the clock to get back up and running.”

“But what’s the problem?” Spitfire asked.

“The problem is supplies,” Rivet quickly clarified. “We enjoyed a nice surplus of parts and pieces when the Renegades were making runs for us, but we don’t have much left over. I guess it will all depend on if Descent can—”

“What do you need?”

“GAH!” Fleetfoot shot up into the air, catching herself in a hover as she looked down to see Descent standing right behind where she just was. “Sheesh, Spooky! Give a girl a little warning!” she complained, but Spitfire, Descent, and Rivet all ignored her as Descent stepped up to Rivet.

“We have several Renegade outposts hidden in these canyons with lots of stockpiles to draw from,” Descent explained as Spitfire eyed him skeptically.

“For Celestia’s sake, Descent,” she growled. “Just how many of these ‘secret bases’ do you guys have?”

“Several,” Descent answered without looking at her.

“And where in the world are you getting all of your supplies from?!” she pressed further.

“Trade secrets,” Descent again answered simply. Spitfire only gave him a flat look in return, but Descent didn’t waver. “Did you already forget that we were fighting the Shadowbolts long before they finally attacked you in broad daylight?”

“Oh, please...” Spitfire rolled her eyes sarcastically. “Don’t remind me…” she huffed and looked back towards Rivet. “Okay, if Descent gets what you need, you said two days?”

“That’s the best case scenario,” Rivet said with a nod. “Could be a little longer depending on how bad the damage is outside, but the more important issue is the machinery down below, obviously.”

“Alright…” Spitfire glanced back at Descent. “Work with Descent and do everything you can. I want to stress the urgency of the situation, we can’t afford to stay still for too long, I bet the Shadowbolts are already looking for us.”

“Noted,” Rivet agreed before he approached Descent and began listing off what he needed.

“Yo, Captain!” Air Mach suddenly called, drawing Spitfire’s attention as Fleetfoot finally landed beside her again. Air Mach was standing between them and Luna, waving his hooves. “Princess wants ya!” he called while beckoning them. Spitfire’s eyes went to Luna as she and Fleetfoot began trotting over. She was surrounded by a faint green glow from Bliss’ soothing medical magic and she had stopped shuddering, but her face was still wrought with pain.

Air Mach moved aside and fell in line behind Spitfire and Fleetfoot as they continued towards Luna, all three of them stopping in front of the injured princess and looking down.

“What is it, Princess?” Spitfire asked, not expecting a quick reply. Luna slowly opened her eyes, a level of calm showing from within them as she lay still and let Bliss’ pain relief magic work. She remained on the ground, somewhat curled up, but focused her eyes on Spitfire with a purpose.

“We must… move quickly…” she spoke pausing for a moment to take a few breaths and find a position that allowed her to remain as still as possible. “We have to meet the Lunar Guard.”

Spitfire blinked as Luna’s gaze remained fixed and serious. Her head was so full of the issues they were facing in the immediate situation that she had completely forgotten that’s what their next goal was. Unfortunately… it didn’t look like they were in a position to move immediately.

“That… might be a problem,” Spitfire said while gritting her teeth. “I just spoke with Rivet, we’re probably going to be stuck here for a day or two.”

“No! Rgn…!” Luna cringed as she made her disapproval clear. “We must reach them! I gave them a direct order to meet us… they are likely almost in position!”

“But…” Spitfire began but then started thinking about it. Luna sent them a message, and they were on their way… but the message was likely just to fly out, not to prepare for a long stake out. Meaning, they would be without food, water, or any other supplies. “Hmmm…” Spitfire looked down and hummed.

“They will not be… equipped to wait,” Luna continued, confirming Spitfire’s thoughts. “And we… are in no condition… to send another message.”

“That’s a given,” Spitfire immediately agreed as she pondered further. Two days… forty eight hours at least. With the Shadowbolts on the hunt, it was highly likely they would be found before that time was up. They needed the extra support, and the Lunar Guard would provide just that. And with the conclusion she just came to, it seemed necessary that they had to find a way to meet them for their sake as well. “Hold on a moment,” Spitfire pointed at Luna. “Fleet, Air Mach, wait here for a second…” she ordered as she turned and looked back towards Rivet and Descent. She caught a glimpse of Soarin as she moved, he was over with Dash and Silver, conversing. She couldn’t see him too clearly from her spot, a few ponies in the way, but she was beginning to wonder why he had remained a good distance from her. Fleetfoot and Air Mach had already fallen back in line with her. Then again, based on their earlier arguments and knowing his general thought process, he was probably still at odds with her. She’d deal with him and their personal issues later, they had some planning to do.

She made her way back over to Rivet and Descent as Rivet finished listing off his supply needs.

“That’s… a lot,” Descent commented while blinking.

“There’s a lot of damage,” Rivet calmly clarified.

“Are you sure all that will only take two days to fix?” he asked skeptically. Rivet scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Is that a challenge?” the little mechanic asked with a glare. Descent waved a hoof and shook his head.

“Whatever you say, I’ll get what you need, you just do your job,” he said to avoid sparking more conflict than needed. He turned to see Spitfire approaching as Rivet left to check on his crew.

“Descent, gather up your leaders and meet me by Luna,” she ordered.

“In a moment, I have to gather the teams for supply ru—”

“Now,” Spitfire added sternly before turning away. Descent blinked and scowled at her as she turned away, but huffed and started moving to find Starry, Blazetail, and Flashwind, acknowledging that it was probably more important at the current moment.

“Soarin!” Spitfire yelled.

Soarin looked up and away from Silver and Dash as his name was called. He saw Spitfire beckoning him.

“Get over here!” she ordered, turning away and moving back towards Luna and the rest of the lead squad. Soarin snorted, never given the chance to reply, but when he saw the top Renegades also heading over to the group, he knew he had to do it. He was reluctant to, knowing full well Spitfire would finally get a complete look at the new damage of the horn, possibly Luna as well but he had no choice. If he refused, it would raise suspicion and maybe another argument. He wasn’t in the mood for that, so he chose the lesser of two evils.

“I’ll be back,” Soarin said as he tapped Dash on the shoulder.

“Pff…” Silver grunted as Soarin stopped to face him. “Screw that, I’m getting in on this,” he stated firmly as he turned and started walking ahead of Soarin towards the group. Soarin glanced at Dash, who only chuckled and shrugged as she too turned and started moving right behind Silver. Soarin could see a bit of hesitance in her steps, knowing that she was approaching Spitfire again, but she kept herself strategically placed with Silver blocking her from view.

Realizing he had been standing still for a few seconds and another barking of orders from Spitfire was imminent, he broke into a trot, moving quickly past Dash and Silver to make his way over and join the meeting just as Descent arrived with Starry and the former Wonderbolt captains, Fire Streak gliding in as well as Spitfire called to him.

Soarin slowed as he moved in, Spitfire’s eyes moving to him immediately as he poked his way into the huddle forming near Luna. He kept his mouth closed, secretly gritting his teeth as Spitfire’s eyes moved up and they widened, looking directly at the horn. He glanced down at Luna, noticing that she was also looking at the horn, despite the fact that turning her neck at such an angle was clearly a little painful. Soarin narrowed his eyes as both Spitfire and Luna glanced at one another, but then he was surprised when they didn’t say anything. Both of them only looked at him one more time and then the horn before refocusing on the group.

“So… what’s the situation?” Descent spoke up.

“We have a little problem regarding the Lunar Guard, but let’s get the smaller, obvious stuff listed and out of the way first,” Spitfire began as they all listened in, Silver and Dash hovering behind the group just close enough to hear without drawing attention. “We’re obviously not safe here, even if we’re slightly hidden in the canyons. There isn’t much we can do in terms of a weather distraction here so we’re going to have to go at this the old fashioned, more conventional way.”

“Patrol shifts?” Blazetail immediately chimed in, earning a nod from Spitfire.

“Exactly, we have to have a perimeter of vision with no blind spots so we can be ready and able to respond in case they are nearby or on the verge of discovering us,” Spitfire explained. “Let’s not worry about squads or ranks here. We need to organize ourselves in teams with broad skill sets to make balanced effective patrol teams.” She turned to Descent. “Descent, no offense, but due to the less organized style of the Shadowbolts, I’m going to ask you and your team to focus more on supply runs and let the current and former Wonderbolts handle the patrols.”

“None taken and I agree,” Descent quickly brushed the comment aside. “But if you let me send Astral and his scouts out there first, we can map out the most effective patrol route through the canyons. That’s literally his job so the rest of us don’t have to worry about it, so I suggest we use him.”

“Sounds good to me,” Spitfire nodded. “We’ll set up teams for the scouting, but let’s be smart about it. A large force of Wonderbolts and Renegades should remain here in the Nimbus for the worst case scenario. I feel that I and the other three leaders should remain here for that purpose,” she suggested, earning a nod from Descent, Blazetail, and Flashwind. “Now…” she trailed off for a moment as she glanced towards Luna beside them all. “The bigger problem to address… the Lunar Guard. Due to them being under the impression that we’re meeting them in a few hours, along with the fact that they will have no supplies while waiting, and lastly the fact that Luna won’t be able to send another telepathic message in her current state… we’re going to have to send a small task force out to find them and bring them back here. Our plans going forward heavily lean on us having the support of the Lunar Guard, so this is not a negotiable objective. I’m going to ask for some senior members from the Renegades to accompany a few hoof picked Wonderbolts to head out and—”

“One moment…” Luna suddenly spoke up from the floor. Everypony turned and looked at her as she cringed and groaned, turning herself so she could see all of them. Bliss urged her to take it easy, but Luna refused, whatever she had to say taking precedent over how much pain she was in. “There is… another problem…” she said as she continued to cringe every few words.

“Oh, joyous…” Spitfire said sarcastically as she sighed and focused on Luna. “Well, I don’t see how it can get much worse, so lay it on me,” she asked while waving a hoof at Luna.

“The bat ponies of the Lunar guard are… not very trusting of outsiders,” Luna said while looking away. Spitfire and the rest stared flatly at her.

“Luna…” Spitfire’s eyes hardened into a concerned state of light, controlled hysteria. “What does that mean…”

“They are trained to… only follow and respond to my orders… I fear they will not trust you…” Luna said as she continued to avert her eyes.

Everypony flinched as Spitfire suddenly slapped a hoof over her eyes, moved it up and pressed it against her forehead before wiping it down, dragging most of her face with it as she released a long, frustrated groan.

“LUNA!” she yelled out straight up towards the ceiling. “That’s… KIND of an important detail! Why didn’t you mention that before?! We would have factored in your safety into our original plan! UGH!” She grunted again as she turned around sharply, whipping Fleetfoot in the face with her tail before she thrust her wings out, knocking Air Mach stumbling into Soarin. Soarin held himself steady as Air Mach bounced off of him before looking towards Luna with a scrunched expression and a lifted eyebrow.

“Outsiders?” he asked as he stepped towards Luna. “How would we be considered outsiders? We’re the Wonderbolts! Part of the Equestrian military force!”

“Rightfully so…” Luna said with a sigh as she turned and looked towards Soarin. “But as I’ve mentioned many times… The Lunar Guard has been uniquely trained to be very different from the Royal Guard. It was done intentionally. They are warriors of strict loyalty, meant to be a trump card against those who may threaten Equestria… in a way they are similar to the Wonderbolts, trained and bred to be something different that a possible invader or threat won’t expect…”

“Again, Luna…” Spitfire suddenly turned back around and pushed past Soarin. “This would have been GREAT to know EARLIER! We can’t even touch you without you screaming out in pain, how are we supposed to get you to the Lunar Guard?!”

“We did not… think of it,” Luna said with a sigh. “And we did not want to burden you further with our safety. We admit our actions to protect the Nimbus were also on impulse, a reflex… We’re sorry.”

Everypony looked towards Spitfire as she pressed her hoof to her forehead again and released a long, agonizing groan.

“So… is there anything we can do?” Soarin asked. “There has to be some way we can prove it.”

“We’re afraid that won’t be possible without us,” Luna repeated. “Without our presence Captain P.L. will not…” she suddenly trailed off and blinked.

“What?” Spitfire removed her hoof from her face quickly. “What, what, WHAT?!” she pressed while stepping up, hoping Luna somehow had an alternative after this little… well… huge mishap. Luna looked away for a moment before looking around at all of them.

“Captain P.L., the leader of the Lunar Guard is an old, seasoned veteran. If there is anypony within the Wonderbolt ranks who has dealt with him in the past… he may be willing to listen,” she explained.

Spitfire and Soarin both looked at each other, before they both looked back at Blazetail and Flashwind. Blazetail immediately shook his head.

“I knew you were going to look at us,” he said with a sigh. “Unfortunately… any trust we had with the Lunar Guard was sacrificed to push forward the Renegade operation.”

“Indeed,” Flashwind added as she leaned against she husband. “Captain P.L. was very much against Luna’s employment of the Renegades. It was mostly due to the Shadowbolts among our ranks, but they chastised us and condemned us often for letting ourselves be used by those who were ‘untrustworthy’ with a history of ‘dishonorable work’.” She explained as she looked towards Descent.

“In short, he’s an ass,” Descent said with a scoff as he rolled his eyes.

“He is not!” Luna quickly retorted, cringing for a moment as she raised her voice. Everypony looked back to her. “Unfortunately… the captains of Gold Squad are correct… The Lunar Guards detested my use of the Renegades. They didn’t question my choices, they just… disagreed with them. Captain P.L. continuously refused to work with the Renegades despite my requests for him to do so. What we asked was outside his line of duty, so we respected his choice to defer and didn’t press the matter, allowing them to continue their duty of protecting us without further protest. There is little hope that any of the Renegades will be able to convince them.”

“Which means…” Spitfire looked towards her Wonderbolts in the huddle, moving her eyes between Fire Streak, Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and Soarin. “We must rely on one of our Wonderbolts,” she exhaled loudly as she furrowed her brow. “I can’t leave, I need to be here to bolster our defenses, even so… I haven’t dealt much with the Lunar Guard… I’ve only ever met Captain P.L. once and that was before I was captain.” She paused, her eyes shifting between the Wonderbolts present. “What about any of you?” she asked, her eyes landing on Fire Streak first, who had been quietly sitting and listening throughout. He tipped his head slightly before shaking it.

“I’m afraid I’ve never directly interacted with them…” Fire admitted. Spitfire turned to Fleetfoot, but she immediately held her hooves out and vigorously shook her head.

“Ooooooh no, don’t look at me… I hate those bat ponies… the last time I went near one, he bit me!” she recalled while cringing. Spitfire rolled her eyes and looked towards Air Mach, but immediately shook her head before he could strike a dramatic pose. He froze mid pose and sighed while flopping to the floor. She looked at Soarin, but her eyes went to her horn.

“No…” she said before anything else. Soarin glared at her, but didn’t say anything.

He knew why she didn’t want him, but he didn’t protest. His relationship with the Lunar Guard wasn’t the warmest either, and as of recently consisted of him being scowled at while waiting for his magic lessons with Fancy Pants, as well as being hit by a tidal wave while Discord posed as a sailor on a boat over them.

“Dammit…” Spitfire grumbled as she turned back to Luna. “Blaze and High Winds are a definite no… Wave used to go on some night stealth missions with them, he might have been an option if he weren’t afflicted… I know Misty doesn’t like them either… Lightning Streak and Surprise are a definite no…” she continued to mumble and weigh her options, but it was looking increasingly bleak…

“A-HEM…”

Somepony nearby suddenly cleared their throat. Spitfire’s ears perked up and she blinked several times. She looked to her right as Fleetfoot moved aside and everypony else followed the sound.

Silver Lining limped forward, leaving a startled Rainbow Dash behind him as he stopped right between Fleetfoot and Air Mach. He lifted his brow and looking directly into Spitfire’s eyes.

Spitfire’s pupils shrank right before she slammed her eyes shut, shook her head out, and glared, quickly holding out a hoof.

“Oh no… no, no, no, no, NO. Don’t you even think about it, Silver!” she didn’t even give him time to explain his reasoning. She made a choice as captain of the Wonderbolts to bar him from combat and assure he not get himself killed, and she was going to stand by that. “You are NOT going anywhere!” she added to swiftly get her point across.

“I have a lot of experience with those stiff-ass moon-humpers,” Silver completely ignored Spitfire’s disapproval while also earning several surprised looks from the rest, but mostly Luna for his choice of words. “I know exactly how to handle them and I’ve known Captain P.L. for a long time too. In fact… he owes his life to Blizzard Strike several times over. My mentor stepped in to pull his reckless, albino ass out of certain death more times than I could count during the last Griffon Drake War. He’ll listen to me… he owes a few favors.”

Everypony blinked and glanced about at each other, eventually all looking at Spitfire. She was quiet for a second, but narrowed her eyes quickly after.

“No. Forget it, Silver, it’s not happening.” She swiped her hoof across her body before turning to Luna. “Princess, is there anything else you can…” Spitfire trailed off when she saw Luna looking directly at Silver. “Of for the love of Celestia, please don’t say what I think you’re going to say…”

“We’re afraid…” she began while gritting her teeth. “Silver might be… the only one who can. We had not considered the kinship between Captain P.L. and Blizzard Strike… P.L. often spoke highly of him. It was strange to hear too. P.L. never spoke of anypony else with such words… and if Silver was Blizzard’s student… then…”

“I was with Blizzard every time he stepped in to help P.L.,” Silver added to help his case.

Luna looked back at Spitfire. Spitfire looked down, and took several deep breaths, groaning and grumbling in between every one. She turned and glared hard at Silver, stepping towards him and standing eye to eye with him.

“Fine,” she gave in, clearly unhappy to do so. Dash’s eyes went wide behind Silver as she heard Spitfire cave, but she had little time to react as Spitfire pushed herself closer to Silver, nearly jamming their noses together as she pressed a hoof to the burn scar on his chest. “BUT! READ MY LIPS, SILVER…” she said as she narrowed her eyes further. “You are ONLY going along to converse with the Lunar Guard captain. You are not to engage in any fighting or anything else, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!”

Silver simply remained stoic and said nothing in response. His lack of verbal acknowledgment made her simmer turn into a boil, but she kept it under control.

“Oh, okay tough guy, if you’re going to be that way…” she turned away from him and looked at the Wonderbolts present as well as glancing about the room. “Squad Three will lead this mission… with Fleetfoot, Air Mach, Blaze and High Winds flying backup…”

As she explained, both Soarin and Rainbow Dash immediately noticed that she left Soarin out. Soarin growled to himself, but held himself back for the moment.

“Also…” Spitfire trailed off, glancing at Silver. “You can’t fly too well right now, can you?”

Silver grunted, scrunching his face.

“I can fly just—”

“Didn’t think so,” Spitfire cut him off. “In that case…” She paused, ignoring Silver’s glower as she looked around, but as she looked back, she spotted Rainbow Dash behind Silver. Dash quietly yelped and tried to shift out of sight, but it wouldn’t do her any good. “Rainbow Dash, attention!” Spitfire yelled.

Dash swallowed, and quickly moved back out, instinctively placing herself in view and standing upright as Silver had grilled into her over several months of recruit training. Spitfire approached her and got in her face in a very similar manner that she had to Silver. Silver did not interrupt, he just watched, wondering what was going through Spitfire’s head… and still wondering what he had missed, especially now with how Dash seemed a bit reluctant to face Spitfire directly.

Despite the visible anxiety, Dash held herself firm as Spitfire’s eyeballing persisted for several more seconds.

“Listen up, Dash,” Spitfire finally began, without pulling her face back at all. “You’re NOT off the hook… but I have a mission for you and your squad. Carry out these orders effectively… and maybe I’ll consider overlooking your reckless maneuver.”

Dash’s eyes widened, but she nodded quickly. Spitfire just kept staring at her as she looked around, eventually finding Dash’s squad, who were all looking towards them already, Matteo, Squall, and even the newly arrived Little Star all watching. Twister was still draped over Matteo’s back.

“Silver,” Spitfire looked back towards him. “I am assigning Squad Foxtrot to be your personal escort, they will remain with you behind the group of top tier elites,” she explained, Dash’s jaw dropping slightly as she looked towards Silver. Silver looked like he was getting more and more annoyed by the moment.

Spitfire’s eyes landed on Little Star and her bandaged wing for several seconds.

“Hmmm…” she turned and looked around the lobby. “Storm Front!” she yelled out. Within seconds, Storm Front emerged and looked about, spotting Spitfire and gliding towards them.

“Captain,” Silver growled as Storm Front landed beside Dash, wondering what was going on. “With all due respect, I think you’re going a little overboard with—”

“Dash,” Spitfire cut him off again as she pointed. “You are relieved of command of Squad Foxtrot.”

Silver, Storm, Dash, and even Soarin off to the side all flinched and blinked in surprised.

“Wait… WHAT?!” Dash blurted out instinctively. “But…!”

Spitfire ignored her and turned to Storm Front.

“Storm Front, with Squad Foxtrot being down a member, you will lead them in this task of protecting Silver Lining as he follows the top elites to meet with the Lunar Guard. He is to be carried on Matteo’s back and kept out of any sort of action. Your secondary objective is to fly backup for the top elites, but your primary objective is to KEEP SILVER OUT TO DANGER, forcibly if need be.”

It seemed like the shock of Dash’s relief of command was still settling in. Storm heard everything she said loud and clear, but he was still very confused as he and Dash exchanged several glances. Spitfire suddenly turned back to Dash.

“I know you and your squad has a good relationship with Storm, that’s why I’m putting him in the lead. It’s only a temporary change. Instruct your squad to follow Storm’s orders and please, for the love of Celestia and all else that is divine…” she paused and pointed at Silver. “Do anything and everything necessary to keep this old, stubborn, son of a bitch from getting himself killed!”

Dash and Storm just stared silently as Spitfire finished, but she was confident that she had gotten her point across. She turned and glared at Silver, who was making it visually clear he didn’t agree with anything Spitfire had just put forward. She, however, brushed off the look he was giving her and gave him a flat, slightly sarcastic look in return.

“If you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to some of your recruits you often speak so highly of?” She glanced back at Dash. “Or your student?” she added. Silver’s eyes widened for a second, but he quickly brought his expression back to its hardened look. Dash was also surprised, but… by now, she wondered if Silver’s ‘secret’ training of hers was really that much of a secret at all anymore. “Alright everypony let’s…”

“HEY!”

Spitfire stopped mid-sentence and looked over towards Soarin, her flat expression remaining as he angrily stomped towards her.

Soarin had his eyes locked on her, eyes narrowed into a harsh glare as he stepped up and stood right before her, looking down as she looked up at him. He let it go before, but now that Dash was involved, he wasn’t thrilled that Spitfire blatantly left him out of this operation. It was no mystery why, but he’d be damned if he didn’t fight her on it. Including Rainbow Dash added a whole other perspective he could work with and sell his case.

“What?” Spitfire asked flatly.

“What about me?” he asked first, looking to hear her explanation first, which he assumed would be weak enough for him to punch right back. Spitfire paused for a moment, glancing up at Soarin’s horn before looking back at him. If she was hiding any worry about the state of the horn, she was doing a damn good job of it.

“You’re staying here,” she said, beginning to turn before she even finished the sentence, but Soarin reached out and angrily grabbed her shoulder.

“Hell no!” Soarin yelled. “If you’re sending Dash out there, I’m going with them!” he stated adamantly. Spitfire didn’t react, or show any sign of matching his tone. She remained completely cool as she looked back at him and narrowed her eyes.

“Soarin, I am sending nearly all of the top tier elites out for this dangerous mission. As the two strongest Wonderbolts, I want both you and me here as a final line of defense,” she explained, but Soarin had NONE of it.

“BULLSHIT!” he yelled right into her face, nearly spitting as he belted. “That’s complete and utter bullshit, and you know it!” Everything stopped in the lobby as everypony’s attention was drawn to the two highest ranking members of the Wonderbolts, one clearly keeping better control of themselves than the other. “If you were really serious about this mission, you would have put me in command! This has nothing to do about our defenses and everything to do with the horn and all of the secretive crap that you and Luna keep passing back and forth right in front of me!”

“Soarin.” Spitfire said simply as she leaned forward. “If you really think I’m going to change my mind from earlier… you’re dead wrong,” she made crystal clear as Soarin grew angrier by the word. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed the horn’s damage has gotten worse. If anything, I’m now more concerned about it than I was before. You are going to stay right here and that’s final.”

“Okay, so let me get this straight…” Soarin prepared his retort as his heavy, angry breaths hissed through his nostrils and teeth. “You’re willing to bend over backwards and let Silver, who is on the verge of falling to pieces, be taken out into danger… but you’re digging in your hooves about me and the state of this stupid head ornament that’s been forced on me when I’m perfectly ready, able, and capable of taking care of myself!?”

Dash suddenly flinched as the heated exchanged continued in front of her. She quickly placed a hoof over her heart, feeling it suddenly beat a little faster. She blinked and looked at Soarin… it was very faint, but his eyes were beginning to emit a dim glow.

“That’s as hypocritical as you can get!” Soarin yelled the light began to rise from his eyes. “Stop walking around the truth, dammit! Do you have any idea how much it bugs me that a pony I’ve trusted my whole life is suddenly treating me like this?!”

Dash glanced at Luna as her heartbeat continued to quicken. Luna was staring wide eyed, shocked, and terrified. Luna could see the light rising from Soarin’s eyes as well, but despite Spitfire being right in front of him, she showed no reaction to the magical phenomenon.

“Soarin,” Spitfire again barely lifted her voice. “I am your captain, and you will follow my orders. Keep this up and I will have you detained.”

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” Soarin absolutely lost it. “NO! You know what?! I am a lead commander! And part of my duty is to call you out when you’re abusing your authority! If you really were worried about me, you’d either keep Dash here or let me fly out with them! What happens to her affects me too!”

“Your personal matters do not affect my decision making, Soarin,” Spitfire said calmly.

“Ah…” Dash cringed, her ears flopping down as her heart beat fast enough for her to nearly feel it pushing against her chest. She looked back up with dismay as the argument continued.

“NO! SCREW YOUR ORDERS AND ‘DECISIONS’!” Soarin unleashed his fury, faint streams of light rising from his eyes. “UNTIL YOU CUT THE CRAP AND COME CLEAN WITH ME, I REFUSE TO FOLLOW OR ACKNOWLEDGE ANYTHING ELSE YOU SAY!”

“Okay Soarin, let me ask you something…” Spitfire remained firm, everypony around them surprised and impressed that Spitfire had managed to keep her cool in the face of such criticism from her best friend. “You’re talking about your duty right now… well,” she lifted an eyebrow. “Your duty is to the Wonderbolts. Are you pushing for this right now for the good of the Wonderbolts, or for the good of Rainbow Dash?”

A hush stuck between them. Soarin continued to glare and growl, but despite several attempts to reply, he said nothing.

“I thought so!” Spitfire continued, pushing into his face and finally raising her voice.

“I…!” Soarin tried to preemptively retort, but she had immediately thrown the net over him. He did indeed come forward only after he found out Dash was going.

“Soarin, you’re walking on thin ice right now!” Spitfire continued while poking him in the chest, staring him down even though he towered over her. “You just finished questioning several of my orders without a base of accusation other than your personal feelings…” She pointed at Rainbow Dash. “I wouldn’t be sending her if she wasn’t capable! I’m even sending all but three top tier elites with her! If you had any of your senses about you, you’d see how safe she will be simply by the company she’s going along with!” She took another step forward, forcing Soarin to take a step back. “You better stop thinking of yourself and start thinking about all the ponies we have here that we’re trying to get to safety!”

“I haven’t forgotten about them!” Soarin desperately tried to counter, but he walked right into a trap.

“Oh, okay then!” Spitfire rolled her eyes. “So that’s what you meant up on the bridge when you said ‘I don’t give a shit about the others. Is Rainbow Dash safe?!’”

Soarin’s eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and his pupils shrank as the light faded from his eyes. He took a few steps back from Spitfire before looking around the lobby. All eyes were on him, some shocked, some confused, and some… angry? He looked towards Dash to see her holding her hoof over her heart, he couldn’t read her thoughts, but she looked just as shocked as the others.

Then he looked back at Spitfire as a very disturbed look crossed his face.

Did she… really just do that?!

He wasn’t going to deny saying it, he was in the heat of the moment, adrenaline was pushing him to save Dash and he was being prevented from doing so… his anger had boiled over when he yelled that at Fire… WHY did Spitfire have to repeat it in front of everypony?!

“I think you need to stop criticizing me…” Spitfire began again, drawing Soarin’s horrified eyes back to him. “And start getting your own priorities in line.”

Soarin bit his lip, scrunching his face and ears falling to the sides of his head as he continued to absorb the wide range of different looks the others were giving him. He squeezed his eyes shut before shaking his head out.

“RRAAAAAAHHH!!!!!” he yelled out, throwing his head back before turning and running. Everypony in his path moved aside as he sprinted towards and disappeared down the east hallway.

Nopony spoke, and nopony moved for at least a minute. All eyes were glued to the east hallway where Soarin had disappeared. Eventually everypony began looking around at Spitfire and each other, murmuring. Not even Descent, Blazetail, or Flashwind had anything to add on the matter… nor did they feel they should.

Dash just remained still, speechless as she stared towards the east hallway. Soarin’s apparent remarks didn’t bother her so much, she understood his thought process and knew he was terrified when he saw her fly out. She could see him losing his cool and yelling something like that, but did Spitfire really have to do that? Sure, Soarin was in her face and yelling at her in front of everypony but…

She was so conflicted, she had absolutely no idea how to feel about the situation. It just felt like more and more stress was being pressed down on them by the second. It was being driven by the out of control escape and now the clearly fractured emotions of their leaders and everypony else as they watched an intense division and disagreement between two of their highest ranking and trusted members.

Dash glanced to her left to see Storm still sitting beside her, he was shifting his eyes back and forth between her and the east hallway, looking like he had something to say, but no voice to say it. Perhaps he was wondering why she wasn’t going after Soarin, which he had every reason to wonder. Soarin was a good friend and a mentor to him, so he probably knew that Soarin often searched her out for comfort.

But comfort didn’t seem like the right thing to look for now. This was clearly something of a different nature. Hugs, kisses, and words of encouragement couldn’t solve everything, and Dash felt it would be best to leave Soarin be to figure things out, not to mention she had other things to focus on at the moment, namely, Silver Lining and the mission they were about to embark on… but everything that just happened in front of her was definitely going to hurt her focus.

Dash flinched as Spitfire suddenly walked by her and up to Luna. The two began quietly conversing, nothing audible reaching Dash’s ears, but Luna looked nervous, incredibly nervous. Despite that though, Spitfire just shook her head and turned away. The look on her face surprised Dash. Spitfire looked disturbed, like her strong stoic demeanor had completely vanished into thin air and she had just done something she did not want to do at all… maybe even regretted.

What was going on with Spitfire, Soarin, and Luna? Seeing them and how their actions were causing drama they didn’t need was killing Dash. She cared about all of them, but had no idea what to do.

Fleetfoot approached Spitfire as she started aimlessly pacing away from Luna. She rested a hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder.

“Spitty… what the hell was all that about?” she asked with great concern in her voice. Spitfire stopped, but didn’t even look at her she simply sighed, gritted her teeth and roughly pushed Fleetfoot away from her. “Ah!” Fleetfoot yelped as she stumbled and glared. “HEY!” she yelled while glaring, but Spitfire spread her wings and rose up into the air.

“EVERYPONY, LET’S GET MOVING!” she yelled.

Nopony moved, they just kept staring at her. She flattened her brow and took a deep breath.

“NOW!” she yelled as loud as she could. Everypony flinched and slowly, reluctantly began moving again.

Dash glanced about as her squad approached her, she turned and focused on them as Storm joined their side and they all looked to her, confused and wondering what was going to happen. Dash didn’t say a word, she merely shook her head and looked at Storm.

“Uh…” Storm rubbed the back of his head. “Hey, uh, guys…” he began awkwardly. “Captain Spitfire has… given you a mission and put me in charge of you…”

There was a brief wave of shock, but the only one who reacted was…

“Wait, WHAT?!” Squall reacted as he glared at Storm. Storm only looked at Dash. She sighed and nodded.

“Yes, Spitfire said that,” she confirmed, her voice quiet and weak. “We’re going on a mission with the top tier elites… Silver is being taken with them, it’s our job to keep him out of danger… and because Star is still hurt, she relieved me of command for this mission and put Storm in charge.” Dash explained with a very monotonous, continuous tone.

“But… What… We…” Squall kept looking between Storm and Dash, his brow scrunching with discontent. Matteo placed a set of talons on Squall’s shoulder as he stepped up.

“Rainbow Dash… what is happening? Why were the Captain and Commander arguing?” he asked. Dash looked up into Matteo’s ever-serious eyes as he questioned her, but she sighed and shook her head.

“If I knew for sure, I’d tell you… look, we just need to do as we’re told, we’re already in trouble for breaking rank and disobeying orders more than once, plus we should be more worried about the full plan and the Shadowbolts.”

“But clearly there’s something personal affecting you and everypony else,” Matteo pressed.

“Thanks for pointing that out, Matty…” Dash said sarcastically as she glanced at Star, who had just pushed herself forward in between Matteo and Squall’s legs.

“So… you guys are leaving me behind again…?” she said with a sad pout. “What the hell did I earn my spot in the Wonderbolts for?”

Star’s discontent was loud and clear for all of them. Dash knew exactly how she felt. She remembered Star’s background, how she had tried so many times, and the tears she shed when she finally put the uniform on. She was already much further along in age than most of them, so being held back was eating at her… however, Dash felt Star could still be put to good use while stuck in the Nimbus.

“Star, you’re not coming with us, but I have an order… no, a favor to ask of you…” Dash began. Star blinked and her eyes lit up slightly, which was exactly what Dash was hoping for. Star just wanted to be useful, after all. “Go find, and keep an eye on Soarin for me… I don’t have time to go to him now. Tell him I sent you and don’t leave even if he demands it, okay?”

Star tipped her head side to side before frowning, but nodding.

“O…okay… I’ll try,” she said as Dash looked up at Squall, who was still glaring at Storm.

“Squall, stop it,” Dash ordered, drawing his attention. “It’s just a temporary change. Storm ranks above us, so please respect his command.”

“Hmph…” Squall grunted with discontent as he averted his eyes.

Dash took a moment to look over her shoulder. Everypony was on the move again. The air surrounding the conflict between the elites had not faded, but it was clear the objective at hoof had taken precedent for the time being.

“Alright, everypony…” she trailed off as she heard a loud snoring. She tipped to her right to see Twister was still fast asleep on Matteo’s back with the feather still bouncing up and down over his mouth. At least she knew where he was, which couldn’t be said at all times. Twister suddenly inhaled much stronger than he had before, sucking the feather right into his mouth. He shot upright and began hacking and coughing violently, rolling off Matteo’s back and landing on his stomach, he exhaled loudly upon hitting the floor. The feather shot out of his mouth and smacked Dash right in the face. She scrunched her brow and shook her head out, before looking flatly towards Twister as he held out a feather duster, made with Matteo’s feathers, and continuously brushed it against Matteo’s wedding ring on his talons.

“Alright,” Dash started over. “Everypony standby until we’re ready to launch—oh…” she turned and looked at Storm. “Sorry, you’re in command.”

“Pff…” Storm puffed his cheeks out and shook his head. He turned to the rest of Foxtrot and pointed at Dash. “What she said,” he said a little comically.

With that, Star turned to leave and honor Dash’s request, inconspicuously brushing her tail against Squall’s leg as she began to move away. Squall turned and watched her leave, but did nothing else as he, Matteo, Twister, and Storm began making sure they were ready to go and in the right place. Dash was ready to do the same, but…

“Dash,” Silver’s voice suddenly came from behind her. She turned around to see him take two more, weak limping steps to place himself right behind her.

“Yes?” she asked while tipping her head. Silver pointed to the broken stairs near the central propeller pole.

“I need to get a suit. Can you help me get up to my room? I want you to fill me in on all the crap nopony is telling me too,” he ‘requested.’

“Oh…” she glanced at his wings. They were free from bandages, but based on what she saw before take-off and his lack of ability to do consecutive wing-ups, he was going to need some help. Spitfire had voiced an idea to have Matteo basically carry Silver on his back, maybe that was one of the reasons she chose their squad. “Alright…” she turned to Storm. “I’ll be right back.”

Storm gave her a nod as she turned and placed herself beside Silver, reaching out to help him, but he declined.

“I can walk, dammit, I just need… help getting up to the third floor,” he grumbled reluctantly.

“Fine, fine…” Dash said while rolling her eyes as they slowly moved towards the stairs, the pace slow due to his limping.

“So… what happened?” Silver pressed again, reminding Dash that he was stuck in an enclosed space during the entire battle that just occurred.

“Well… it went like this…”

As Silver and Dash walked away, they were unknowingly being watched by Spitfire. Her interest was not in Dash, however, despite the lingering disappointment she had in her.

She was looking solely at Silver.

As Dash helped Silver liftoff and the two slowly made their way up the stairs, Spitfire looked down at the floor, and then towards the rest of the team she had put together to protect Silver. She was sending out the best she had, minus Soarin… and she had an extra squad in the form of Foxtrot, led by Storm Front as a personal escort and guard to keep Silver out of harm’s way… but…

“Hmmm…” Spitfire scrunched her face, feeling… unsatisfied. Despite the elite team she had put together, she felt like it wasn’t enough to give her pause. And with all the crap she had to deal with here including being a pillar of defense and handling Soarin… she didn’t want to be worrying about Silver.

She looked up and around the lobby, quickly finding exactly who she was looking for.

“Shine Struck!” she yelled, quickly grabbing attention of the small mare and the rest of Squad Zero packed around her. Upon beckoning them over, the whole squad followed behind Shine as she responded.

“Yes… Captain?” Shine asked the moment they stopped in front of her.

Spitfire remained quiet for a moment, looking over her shoulder at the team of ponies preparing to escort Silver.

“I have a favor to ask…”

“Did you listen?” Silver asked as he and Dash turned left down the third floor hallway towards Silver’s and Wave’s room.

“I… uh…” Dash hesitated, looking away and biting her lip. Silver glanced at her as he limped along, lifting an eyebrow.

“Well?” he pressed as Dash averted her eyes.

“I… kinda… punched Fire in the face and—”

“PFFFFFFFF…”

Dash stopped in her tracks as Silver tipped his head down, his cheeks puffed out as he put a hoof to his mouth.

“PAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” he burst out laughing. “HAHA—OO! OW!” he cringed, the shaking from the laughter stinging his stiff joints and nerves.

Dash just stared blankly as Silver found something that she felt was a big mistake… amusing? Silver continued to chuckle quietly as his laughter died down, but he glanced at Dash, tipping his head.

“What?” he asked as Dash scrunched her brow.

“That’s not… the reaction I was expecting,” she admitted while looking away. “Fire wasn’t very thrilled, and I’m sure Spitfire, had he told her, would have torn me a new one for it.”

“From what I saw, you ended up saving Luna, right?” Silver said as he continued to limp, leaving Dash slightly behind.

“Yes…?” Dash replied as she started moving along with him again.

“Then it all worked out,” Silver said simply, still chuckling as they reached his door.

“But… six ponies died following after me…” she tried to be clear of her discontent, but she didn’t even realize that she said it VERY quietly. Silver didn’t even hear her as he kept chuckling at what he had heard. Dash continued to be a little befuddled. It seemed like Silver wanted to say more about it, but he didn’t. He just kept smirking as if he was proud of something…

Her? For punching a senior officer? Wouldn’t be the first time he liked something she did that seemed off the beaten path, but this felt like a stretch, especially with how much Silver spoke of how things used to be in the Wonderbolt ranks before Spitfire shook things up.

They reached the door and Dash made a move to open the door for him, but had to stop quickly to avoid running into him as he pushed himself forward and opened it himself, limping his way in and letting the door swing shut, forcing Dash to hold out a hoof and push through it as well.

“I can guess the rest…” Silver began as he limped into his room and leaned against his bed with a sigh. “Luna did some weird Alicorn shit that put her in her pain to the touch state, Soarin is angry because Spitfire is keeping something from him, and Soarin said or did something before thinking. I’m strapped to a bed for a few hours and everything goes to hell… figures,” Silver ended with a scoff as he rolled his eyes.

“That’s surprisingly accurate…” Dash chuckled while blinking as Silver got it generally spot on.

“You spend enough time doing what we do and it’s easy to call out what your fellow idiots will do in any situation,” Silver explained. “We lost six though…” he continued as he released a quick sigh. “Unfortunate…” he kept it simple, but trailed off while looking down and remaining silent for a moment or two. Dash was shocked at how natural he sounded at first, but it quickly faded. She knew Silver cared, but he fought in the last Griffon Drake War, so losing fellow Wonderbolts wasn’t anything new to him. It still weighed on her though.

“So Bliss actually strapped you to the bed?” Dash asked with a smirk, changing the subject for her own sake as Silver leaned his body further against his bed.

“She finally made good on that threat,” Silver confirmed with a nod. “I guess I finally poked the bear too hard…” Silver trailed off and slumped down, sitting with his back against his bed.

“Are you alright?” Dash asked instinctively, approaching him as he hung his head and took several deep breaths. She gritted her teeth and winced the moment she asked, knowing she had walked right into a lawn mower. Despite Silver’s head being tipped down, she saw his eyebrows angle down the moment she asked.

“Ask me again and I’ll—”

“Kick my rainbow ass, I get it. Sorry that I care,” Dash cut him off quickly, causing him to look up and blink. Dash tipped her head to the side, giving him a flat, unamused look. Silver smiled, chuckling and shaking his head.

“Who am I kidding?” Silver sighed as he looked away. “I’m a wreck. I’m limping like an old mule and I can barely flap my wings without feeling like I have a branding iron being held to my back. I’m going to be carried out on the back of a tubby griffon and have to rely on everypony else for personal safety…” His smile turned into a frown and he exhaled through his nose. His tone slowly descended as he spoke, from casual to sad. Dash’s ears flopped down as she listened to Silver admit how weak he felt, something she never thought she’d hear from him. Silver looked back at her, the frown remaining. “It’s hard, Dash… hard to admit when you may actually be done. I’ve already shed my tears, already came to terms with it, but looking back will always hurt. I guess it’s time I stop being such a stubborn ass and accept that I need help…”

“Silver…” Dash took a step forward, concerned because this was a side of Silver she basically never saw, but he held out a hoof.

“Stop. I don’t want to waste time with sympathy… You can hug me against my will all you want later. We need to get moving to ensure our safety. I may be done fighting… but I’m answering the call again for the sake of the Wonderbolts and everypony else.” He put his hoof down and looked towards his closet. “Could you be a dear and get one of my suits for me?”

“Oh…” Dash blinked, Silver was asking for help. She immediately nodded. “Sure,” she said with a smile as she turned away from Silver and approached his closet. She grabbed the edge of the sliding door and slid it open, revealing all of Silver’s suits. Eager to help, she reached in and grabbed one of the suits…

But right before pulling it off the hanger. She completely froze, her eyes widening.

“Be a dear…?” Dash repeated to herself, her left eye twitching… because no way in a million years would Silver ever use such fluffy, sappy words.

Then she heard a clatter behind her.

Dash let go of the suit, and quickly turned around.

Silver was up on his hooves, and had moved all the way across the room to his cabinet, where he had pushed aside another picture frame and had pulled out a bottle of his prescription painkillers he had stashed in the back. He was holding the bottle in his mouth, with one eye over his shoulder, which grew wide when he saw Dash turn around.

“SILVER!” Dash’s eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. “What are you doing?!” she yelled as she galloped over to him.

Silver immediately turned to her, but arched his neck away as he held out a hoof to stop her.

“Oof!” Dash grunted as she ran into his hoof, Silver extended one of his wings also to hold her back as she stared at the bottle he held in his mouth. She growled and gritted her teeth. “And just WHAT are you doing with those?!” she asked. Silver only grunted in response as he held her back.

He was… holding her back? He had the strength to do so? He was still wincing and cringing in pain… but he was definitely not as weak as he just talked himself up to be. She couldn’t believe how easily she fell for the sick puppy act.

“You can’t be serious…” she shook her head as Silver continued to glare at her. “Acting all weak and powerless to soften me up, then pop some pain pills when I’m not looking?!” It wasn’t hard for her to put it all together. Silver was trying to slip it all right under their noses, then try and fight despite everypony telling him not to. “You are NOT fighting! GIVE ME THOSE!” she demanded as she tried to reach for them, but she failed to come close as Silver held his wing out to keep her away.

“SILVER!” she yelled again, annoyed that he was being so reckless. “I know Spitfire has been giving erratic orders lately, but I agree with her when she says you should STAY OUT!” She gritted her teeth and squinted, emotion pouring forth as her frustration hit its peak. She cared so much about Silver, but he seemed hell-bent about disregarding the dangers he posed to himself.

Silver grunted painfully and pushed his wing out, forcing Dash backwards and knocking her over onto her back. She tumbled, but quickly stood right back up as Silver spat the bottle out into his hoof and stomped the other hoof down, asserting himself and forcing a heavy glare upon Dash that caused her to halt right in her tracks before she could reach him again.

“Dash… I am staying out,” he growled, wincing in pain and his legs shuddering as Dash remained in place for a moment, but she quickly brushed off his harsh tone and glared at him.

“Yeah, like I’m about to believe that! Why else would you distract me and then go for a hidden stash of painkillers right before leaving? You got me with that little sob act, but I know you, Silver, and I’m NOT falling for this!” she barked back at him, but before she could take a step, she took a good look into Silver’s eyes. His glare had faded, and was replaced with a stern, strong look that cut right into her.

“And what happens if we get ambushed, everypony goes down, and I’m left as the only pony left to fight?” he asked.

“That…!” Dash was quick to fire back before thinking, stopping after the first word because… she didn’t really know how to argue against that.

“It’s called thinking ahead, Dash,” Silver snorted as he placed the bottle on the floor in front of him. “Fine, I tried to sneak it past you because I knew you’d protest, like you are now. I stabbed my own dignity to distract you and you called my bluff… but my body IS broken. My limbs shudder with every step I take, my wings ache like never before when I fly… When looking at things realistically, I agree with Spitfire as well. My time has come and gone, fighting would be a mistake. I intend to follow Spitfire’s orders, but,” he held a hoof out and pointed at her. “If something happens and I’m the only pony that can act to save the ponies I care about… then orders be DAMNED. The painkillers don’t fix me, but if I need to fight… they’ll help me resist the pain as I do.”

Dash stared as she listened. ‘Orders be damned…’ That spoke volumes to her because it was literally a stance she had just taken, and acted on in order to save Princess Luna. Hearing Silver say the same thing confirmed what she felt as she made the bold move earlier… Silver totally would have done the same thing.

But that didn’t change the fact…

“Silver…” Dash spoke up weakly as she bit her lip. “You really should just follow orders and…” she trailed off, not sure where she was going with it. Silver spoke loud and clear and it resonated with her. It was as if desperation was welling up inside of her to ensure Silver’s safety no matter what the circumstance.

“Did you follow orders when you rushed out to save Luna?” Silver put the spear right through her, using her own actions to justify his. She knew it was coming, but had no answer, regardless she resisted… or at least tried to.

“No… but…” she stuttered while looking down.

“That’s right, no buts,” Silver cut in. “No ifs, ands, butts, plots, or asses about it.”

Dash blinked and looked up while lifting an eyebrow, but she ignored his interesting saying as she finally felt she had something to use against him.

“But, Silver, I’m on thin ice. I’ve disobeyed orders twice now recently. I don’t intend to keep doing it and you shouldn’t do it either, so please…” she reached for the bottle, but Silver placed a hoof down in front of it.

“Who are you to suggest what orders I should follow?” Silver asked harshly.

“Silver, STOP IT!” Dash blurted out as she stomped her hooves on the floor. “JUST STOP—”

“Tell me,” Silver cut her off. “If you came across a village of ponies that was set ablaze, and Spitfire ordered you to stand down because it was too dangerous… would you listen?”

“OF COURSE NOT!” Dash shouted without hesitation, but then blinked and leaned backwards as she realized how quickly she answered. Silver smirked.

“Thanks for proving my point,” Silver said smugly as he removed his hoof from the floor in front of the bottle. Dash made no move to grab it.

“I…” Dash sighed, slumping down. Silver had masterfully flipped the situation from him and his safety to her and her actions. She hated that he could do that. “Silver, I just don’t know… I don’t know if what I do is right or wrong. You tell me to do what I feel is right, and then when I do it, I get yelled at. Then I do it again here, and you push me down…”

“I’m not giving you orders,” Silver said as he lifted an eyebrow, but Dash shook her head.

“I don’t CARE what it is! How can I do what I think is right if it only seems to get frowned upon and get ponies killed?!” she yelled while sitting down and squeezing her eyes shut. “I can’t even stop you from hurting yourself!”

“Dash…” Silver sighed as he flattened his brow. “You should ask Blazetail about what he thinks of me sometime… or maybe ask him about Blizzard Strike…” Silver said with a sudden chuckle. Dash looked up and scrunched her face, wondering what the hell that had to do with what was happening now. “I don’t think you’ll get a very positive answer. He may sugar-coat it now, but he hated us, especially Blizzard. I think Blizzard followed his orders, maybe twice. Blazetail was a good captain, but he was too… passive. Blizzard joked about having a backup plan for every order Blazetail gave because ‘our brave captain doesn’t know his ass from third base’ as he used to say.”

Dash stared at Silver with a scrunched brow and a pout. Silver shook his head.

“Look, Dash, what I’m saying is, you’re thinking way too hard about it,” he paused, leaned forward and pointed at his face. “Look me in the eye and tell me EXACTLY why you made the move to rescue Luna.”

Dash stared into Silver’s eyes blankly as she thought over his words. The answer was simple.

“Because I thought I could… and because… I didn’t want her to die…” she answered in a broken sentence.

“Exactly,” Silver winked. “You know…” he looked off to the side. “If there is one thing I regret as a Wonderbolt… it was how I trained Wave.”

“Huh?” Dash blinked. Silver glanced at her and saw her surprised expression.

“What?”

“When you say you trained Wave…”

“Yes, I once weighed making him my pupil before you,” Silver admitted, earning a slightly frustrated look from Dash.

“And you never told me?” she asked, confused.

“I didn’t realize it was such an Equestria shattering secret,” Silver joked, but shook his head. “Look, that’s not the point,” he brought them back on track. “My point is, when we lost Blizzard, I thought it was a sign that I had to harden up and become a more firm, rule abiding Wonderbolt. I took Wave Chill under my wing after he became an elite… but I made the mistake of drilling him into a stiff soldier who never questioned orders. As I grew older and I watched Wave work his way up through the ranks and become a member of my own squad, I realized the mistake I made. I wanted to have an impact on somepony like Blizzard had had on me, but whenever I watched Wave Chill work, I couldn’t see anything that reminded me of the pony I was under Blizzard. Make no mistake, Wave Chill is a fine Wonderbolt, one of the best… but he rarely thinks for himself… and I blame myself for that.”

Dash remained quiet as Silver looked away for a second before looking back at her and giving a single nod.

“Dash, don’t EVER turn into a drone that only follows orders. If a life is in danger and in your heart, you know you can save it… then save it. Orders are meant to keep just that… order. They are not there to take precedent over your conscience or your better judgment. If you ask me, you did exactly what you should have done, even though you ended up punching a senior officer in the face. I’m surprised Fire complied with the orders, to be honest. Though, based on how all the Wonderbolts followed you out there, it seems everypony had the same thing on their mind, but it looks like you were the only one with a big enough brass set to actually do it,” he paused, shaking his head. “I don’t know what Spitfire was thinking with orders like that, but then again, it was probably because of her lack of wartime experience. She is a great captain, but this whole shit show has been her first real test of command. She’s bound to make a judgment error or two. I’m just glad you led the charge against her orders, because a good captain becomes a great captain over time the more their orders are questioned or challenged. If Spitfire lives in an echo box, she’ll never learn and grow to understand those she commands or how best to lead them.”

“But…” Dash started, but trailed off and sighed.

“But what?” Silver immediately pressed.

“But six ponies died. Three of them current Wonderbolts,” Dash said as she let her head hang. While she felt less shocked by it than the first time, it still weighed heavy on her. She didn’t care if Fire described it as them willingly following, she still felt a little responsible.

“But you saved Luna,” Silver reminded her. Dash looked up at him with a disturbed expression.

“But six ponies still died!” she said defiantly as if he wasn’t even acknowledging the fact.

“Was it your fault?” Silver quickly asked.

“I…” Dash hesitated. “Well, they followed me… and…”

“They didn’t have to follow you, but they chose to. Did they come out there to save you or did they help you save Luna?”

“They…” Dash blinked, remembering the process that unfolded after she launched. After the Wonderbolts and Renegades reached them, they worked together for the sole purpose of getting Luna back to the Nimbus. So Silver was right… they didn’t fly out just to save her, they flew out behind her and worked together to save Luna. “They flew out to save Luna…”

“Exactly,” Silver said again with a nod. “Spitfire can’t and shouldn’t blame you for any deaths that occurred. They died in the line of duty while working to save a pony that means more for the future of Equestria than any single Wonderbolt ever could. We lost three from our ranks… but just like I said with Midnight, get used to it,” Silver reminded her sharply. “As Wonderbolts, we face death on a regular basis… and I guarantee it won’t be the last time we lose somepony in this conflict.”

Dash looked up as Silver finished, the two of them staring at one another for a few moments before Silver reached for the pill bottle. He stopped halfway through the motion, looking up at Dash, but she made no move to protest or stop him. He smiled as he grabbed the bottle, dropped two pills into his hoof and took them down with some water from an old bottle that was sitting on its side on his bed. He cringed as the lukewarm water washed down the pills, but looked down, took a deep breath, and sighed.

When he looked back up, Dash was moving towards his closet. She reached in and brought down on of his suits, carrying it back over to him.

She held it out to him, a look of determination beside some lingering doubt in her eyes as she waited for him to take it. Silver wasn’t expecting a few words from him to completely turn her around. It wasn’t that simple, it never was. But she understood that he was doing what he felt was right just as she did… and now she was willingly giving his suit to him.

Silver took it from her.

Dash stepped back and watched as Silver, with some difficulty, shimmied his way into the suit, slid his arms and legs into the sleeves, secured it tightly, and placed his hooves on the mask. He stopped before pulling the mask up, turning and facing the mirror in the room before he did. He stared at himself for several seconds, Dash staying quiet as the moment moved along.

She didn’t know exactly what was going through Silver’s head, but she had a pretty good idea.

This was likely the last time Silver would ever put on a Wonderbolt uniform for a mission.

She was certain that he had gone through this process countless times, but never once thought about when would be the last. It had to be a hard moment for him.

Silver closed his eyes, reached up, and pulled the mask up over his head, letting it rest firmly against his face. He shook his head and mane out before opening his eyes, and taking another long look at himself.

Dash simply waited, letting Silver take all the time he needed. Everypony was waiting for them down in the lobby, but they could afford a minute or two. She knew Silver was aware of the situation, but this was an important moment for him.

He knew where he stood, he knew that his career was over, but it took him by surprise. He never had the chance to take one last look. He never had the chance to accept it before taking on one last mission. But now, being called upon to handle an important objective, he had his chance to go through the process one last time.

And then, after taking it all in, he turned away and faced Dash, limping over to her.

She stood up as he approached and reached out, gently touching a hoof to his chest.

“Did you take your heart medication?” she asked him suddenly. Silver blinked, but simply nodded.

“I already took my dose for the day in the infirmary.”

“Okay, just making sure,” Dash said as she turned around and the two started heading towards the door. “You’re not fighting.”

Silver flinched and stopped mid-step as Dash kept moving towards the door. He narrowed his eyes and glared at her.

“What the hell did I just get done saying to—”

“To follow my conscience and judgment,” Dash cut him off as she reached for the doorknob, grabbing a pair of Silver’s goggles that were dangling from it. She turned around and looked at him seriously. “And those are telling me not to let you fight.” She tossed the goggles over to Silver. He caught them, but kept looking towards Dash. “You’re going to fight if the rest of us go down? Fine. Then I won’t go down. So if you try fighting otherwise, you can bet your ass that I’ll hold you back, even if I have to punch you in the face too.”

Silver blinked as Dash stared him down with a stern glare. He lifted an eyebrow and smirked for a moment before pulling on the strap of his goggles and stretching them over his head, placing the lenses over his eyes.

“Hmph… if you say so,” he said as he adjusted the goggles and approached the door. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Dash turned as he reached her, and the two made their way out, but Dash perked up as they stepped through the door.

“Oh, this is kind of random, but I was wondering…” she suddenly began.

“Hm?”

“You guys keep calling the captain of the Lunar Guard Captain P.L.” Dash glanced at Silver. “What does P.L. stand for?”

Silver blinked and snickered as the door began to close behind them.

“What?” Dash asked quizzically.

“I’ll let you ask him when we get there.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf, SOARINDASH1, and Witching Hour

Well, i've gone and done it again. :C

And it looks like despite saving Luna, Dash caused a bit of drama... not to mention Soarin and Spitfire have as well.

And now Silver is forced to come right out of retirement for one last mission...

Who am i kidding? We all know this won't be a smooth flight.

Well, sorry for the longer wait, but i'm already working on the next so hopefully it will be a quick turnaround.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 128: Falling Apart

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 128: Falling Apart

The Nimbus lobby was alive with activity as the Wonderbolts and Renegades made their preparations and checks before receiving orders. Spitfire was busy leaning over several lists that had been laid out on the mail counter. Some of them were the pages of the full Wonderbolt roster. The others, lists of Wonderbolts organized by ability and skill that she was using to determine who to group with whom in order to carry out the unique patrol paths. She was nearly finished with her decisions. She just had to wait for Descent’s scout team to return with the patrol route mapped out for them.

Descent was pacing back and forth in front of the lobby doors, glancing out from time to time to check if the scout team was on approach, but all he got each time was an eyeful of the surrounding canyons walls outside, as well as the captured Falcon. The captured aircraft was still sitting chained to the platform, and had miraculously avoided any major damage during the flight.

Descent had complete confidence in Astral and his scouts. They had always come through for him, but he was still worried about them running into the Shadowbolts. Astral was reliable, and had gotten out of some really nasty situations in the past, but there was no telling what kind of tactics the Shadowbolts would employ.

His fears were soon pacified though as he stopped, turned, and blinked in surprise. Astral and his five fellow scouts were on the approach, all landing on the platform and advancing towards the lobby doors. Astral scrunched his face as he flicked his left wing, trying to get the wing brace on that side to cooperate with him as he attempted to fold it up.

Descent quickly pushed the door open as they trotted up to let them in.

“That was quick,” Descent commented, expecting them to take much longer. Astral shook his head and glanced back at his scouts as he finally got the brace to fold up with a loud CREAK.

“I had us split up to save time,” he said with a nod. Descent glared at him.

“Astral, that’s incredibly reckless,” he said with a grunt.

“You said make it quick, I was just doing what you wanted. Give us a map and we can draw the route out for them,” he requested, but Descent reached out and tapped his shoulder.

“Wait. First things first, anything abnormal out there?” he asked. Astral turned and looked towards his team.

“Epic?” Astral asked the pony who helped him drag Silver in after the fight with Sin.

Epic stepped up and removed his goggles.

“No sign of anything strange on my path.” He said with a nod. Astral turned to a white mare with a long blue mane that had black strands at the end. She wore a necklace that had a gold pendant with wings on it.

“Blue Jay?” he said her name. But she didn’t look. “JAY!” he tried again. Her ears twitched and she looked at him.

“What?” she asked while cupping an ear with her hoof and leaning towards him.

“Anything weird on your path?” he asked.

“Nope,” she simply replied.

Astral turned to a light grey stallion with a jet black mane, revealing light brown eyes as he pulled his goggles down. He had a burn scar on the left side of his face.

“What about you, Hoxton?”

“Nothing, not even a few bread crumbs,” he said with a shrug.

Spitfire’s ears turned as she heard the nearby conversation with the scouts. She looked up to see them reporting to Descent, and decided to go join them, scooping up a map from the mail countertop with her wing as she started walking.

“Penumbra?” Astral asked a white mare with a very long, wavy brown mane.

“All I saw were a few birds,” she replied.

Spitfire glanced between Descent and Astral as she waited, but then her eyes went wide when Astral turned to his last scout.

“Talon?” he turned to a… changeling?! It was different than any Spitfire had seen before. It was black with a blue fin crest. All his visible color was blue, as opposed to green. He had dragon-like wings with a couple of holes in the webbing here and there, a large, single sabre tooth sticking out the right side of his mouth, and a finned tail like that of a dragon. It was wearing the Renegade uniform and everything. How in the Equestria had she not noticed a changeling among them? Unless… well… because it was disguised. It was a changeling after all.

“Nothing sir, all clear from start to finish,” Talon answered in a voice that had an interesting, quiet echo effect as if two voices of the same tone were speaking at once.

“And I saw nothing either,” Astral said the moment Talon finished. “No sign of the Shadowbolts or their fortress,” he said directly to Descent.

“Hmmm…” Descent looked down. “That almost worries me more…” he said to himself as he glanced to his right and saw Spitfire, staring towards Talon. “Oh, perfect timing,” Descent reached up and pulled the map out from beneath Spitfire’s wing. “Here,” he handed it to Astral.

“Thanks, this will only take a moment,” Astral nodded and turned back to his scouts as he spread the map out on the floor and they all gathered around it with a black marker.

“Make it quick,” Descent agreed. “I’m going to set up our supply teams as soon as you finish…” he trailed off and lifted an eyebrow as he glanced back at Spitfire. She was still staring at the group of scouts as they worked on the map, a brief silly scuffle breaking out as two of them bickered over who got to draw the line on the map. “What has you so interested in my scout team?” Descent asked. “This isn’t about Astral’s wings again, is it?” he added with a grunt.

“Uh… no…” Spitfire blinked and shook her head. “Just…” she pointed towards Talon. “Is that a changeling?” she asked. Descent looked over at Talon for all of two seconds before looking back at her.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

Spitfire looked back and forth between the group and Descent, her eyebrow rising a little more each time. Eventually she took a short breath and shrugged.

“Well… okay then.” She really didn’t know what else to say. Descent’s Shadowbolts kept surprising her with their interesting members, but after the short argument over Astral, nothing really surprised her anymore.

After a moment, Astral returned to them with the map in hoof.

“Thanks,” Spitfire nodded as she took the map back, tucked it under her wing, and looked back at Descent. “Okay, get your supply teams moving and I’ll get my patrol teams set up. Keep checking in with me and make sure Blazetail and Flashwind are up to speed as well. I don’t want any mistakes here… let’s see if we can get through something perfectly for once.”

“I’m not going to hold my breath,” Descent said with a scoff.

“Me neither, but it never hurts to hope or try,” Spitfire added. They both nodded and went back about their current business.

“Now get off me,” Silver said grumpily as Dash helped him lower to the ground. She scrunched her face at his comment, letting go an inch before his hooves touched the ground, causing him to grunt and stumble upon landing. He quickly shot Dash a glare, but she returned it with a flat, smug look.

“We’re going to be taking care of you for the next hour or so, so I’d advise you to start dealing with it,” Dash suggested as she stepped over to him and leaned against him for support as they started walking. Silver remained quiet as Dash went from teaching him a small lesson to helping him in seconds. He snorted quietly as they walked but smirked inconspicuously. She had a way of giving him a taste of his own medicine. It didn’t annoy him as much as it made him proud of her.

As the two approached the top tier elite mash-up team and the altered squad Foxtrot, Storm saw them both coming and turned towards Fire Streak.

“Captain Fire!” He called while waving his hoof, drawing Fire’s attention.

Fire followed Storm’s hoof as he pointed at Dash and Silver approaching. Dash stopped, letting go of Silver next to Matteo as she looked over to see Fire staring directly at her. Fire furrowed his brow and grunted before nodding and waving back at Storm. Without giving Dash another look, Fire turned back to Fleetfoot to continue discussing the upcoming mission.

Dash sighed as she directed her attention back at Silver, who had just slammed Twister to the floor face-first for trying to hug him. Normally she’d find the scene humorous, but she was still being jabbed by what her previous actions had caused. It wasn’t so much the deaths… it had been made clear, and accepted by many that those were not her fault. It was more that she had tested the trust and impression of others she both cared about and respected. Fire was clearly livid at her, as he had every right to be. Misty didn’t seem too happy with her either. She wasn’t sure Spitfire would actually go easy on her later, even if this mission was streamlined and successful. She had too much on her mind to laugh at, much less acknowledge any shenanigans.

She perked up as Storm Front approached her, hesitantly glancing back and forth between her and Fire while looking conflicted.

“R…ready to go?” he asked, trying to make small talk, but it was clear he was uncomfortable with the tension being passed around. Dash sighed, her ears flopping down and her tail flipping from right to left as she sat down.

“Yeah, I guess so…” she said while staring towards Misty Fly and Fire Streak instead of Storm. Storm gritted his teeth and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.

“Dash…” he started again, pausing. “I… We…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dash cut him off, causing him to shut his mouth tight. “Look, I know you’re just trying to help, and I appreciate it, but I deserve this.” She motioned towards Fire. “I punched him in the face for Celestia’s sake… a top tier elite captain. I probably could have gone about it differently, but that was my reflex response to get him off of me. He has every right to be angry with me. I wouldn’t be surprised if others were too.”

“Yeah…” Storm sighed as he looked back at Fire. “Well—” he turned back to try and say something else, but Dash had already gotten up and walked away. Storm blinked, his mouth hanging open mid-sentence, but he decided just to leave her alone.

Dash moved at an angle on a path that was only somewhat towards the group of top tier elites. She was trying to avoid Fire and Misty specifically. She wasn’t sure how Surprise and Lightning felt about what she did, but she didn’t want to test the waters. Instead she looked towards the other top tiers among them. She didn’t share quite a bond with Blaze and High Winds, and Air Mach… forget that. But that left one pony who specifically told her she’d always be there as a friend. That was Fleetfoot.

Fleetfoot was done speaking to Fire. However Dash’s hopes quickly fell. Fleetfoot didn’t look all that happy. Regardless, Dash wanted to know she had at least one of the top tiers she could still talk to. She technically had Silver, but Fleetfoot was more down to earth with her on a friend and age level as opposed to a mentor/apprentice level.

She approached Fleetfoot slowly, examining her body language. She was sitting with her side facing Dash, leaning forward with her shoulders a little hunched. Her ears were flopped against her head and she looked a little frustrated. Dash swallowed as she stopped a few paces from her.

“Hey…” she said very quietly. Fleetfoot’s left ear popped up. She made very little effort as she barely turned and glanced at Dash with a flat, somewhat sullen look.

“Oh… hey…” she said in an annoyed tone. Dash cringed, not quite sure if the tone was directed at her or something else that was bothering her.

“Um…” Dash bit her lip, trying to think of how to follow up, but Fleetfoot only looked away from her and sighed roughly. This wasn’t looking good. Dash was desperately seeking some form of encouragement in the face of how she felt at the moment. If Fleet couldn’t give it to her… “So, uh…” Dash trailed off, but flinched when Fleetfoot suddenly groaned and shook her head.

“Sorry, Dash…” she said as she stood up, she glared towards Dash, but after a quick look at her eyes, Dash realized that Fleetfoot wasn’t focused on her. Dash glanced over her shoulder to see Fleetfoot was glaring at Spitfire. “I’m not really… in the mood to talk right now,” she said with a hiss of air from her nostrils as she turned and moved away.

The shock was brief. It wasn’t often Fleetfoot was in a sharp mood like this, but Dash at least had a little bit of pause at the fact that Fleetfoot was clearly angry at Spitfire, not her. But there went her last chance at having some sort of good natured conversation with the top tiers before takeoff.

Who was she kidding? All she had to do was look around to get an idea of how everypony was currently feeling. The emotion surrounding the Wonderbolts was not what it usually was. There was a distinct lack of confidence in the air, or at least none of it was showing. The Wonderbolts were being very quiet, completely serious. Some of them didn’t look like anything Dash had come to know them to be. When Surprise was being completely serious and Lightning Streak paying full attention… there was clearly something off.

The death of their comrades… the tensions escalating between commanding officers… not to mention the spotlight that was focused on Dash right now by some. Nopony seemed to be in the mood or have any reason to smile. The carnage was definitely taking a toll on them all, but it really showed how much they needed the help that the Lunar Guard could provide. While there wasn’t much fire in her belly, Dash could see how important this mission was, and how important it was for them to protect Silver so he could sway the bat ponies when they arrived.

With nowhere to find any comfort, Dash knew who she wanted, but… he wasn’t present. She had no idea where Soarin went after Spitfire dropped the unnecessary bombshell on him and everypony else. He ran off in anger and humiliation down the east hallway, but had not emerged. Dash hoped that Little Star was able to find him… because she didn’t want him to be alone at a time like this.

“Ahhhhhh… Rgghhhhhh…” Weak cries and grunts from Luna drew Dash’s eyes over to see Bliss and a hooffull of unicorns all using their magic together to lift Luna up as gently as they could.

“Hold her steady, move… move…” Bliss gave the order as she and the rest slowly moved Luna towards the east hall and the infirmary. Even with how careful they were being, it looked incredibly painful for Luna, but they had to get her out of the way and to a more comfortable surface so she could rest.

“Alright everypony!”

Dash flinched, looking back forward as Spitfire approached. Dash quietly yelped and scurried back over to her squad, staying away from the top tiers as Spitfire reached a map out towards Fire Streak.

“Let’s get this underway,” she continued as she and Fire unrolled the map in front of them, the two of them each holding onto one side as Spitfire began showing him the path from their location to where they were meeting the Lunar Guard.

Dash swallowed, waiting patiently beside Squall as Spitfire explained the path. Squall glanced at her, tipping an eyebrow, but said nothing despite Dash’s less than solid body posture.

“Okay… that’s doable… we just have to follow the canyon and make a quick move over the top… here and… here?” Fire asked while poking his hoof against the map. Spitfire nodded.

“It’s a little bit of a haul compared to a straight line, but I don’t want to take any chances, understand?” she gave Fire a stern look.

“Yes, ma’am,” Fire agreed dutifully.

“Okay, line up! All of you!” Spitfire yelled as she turned and faced the rest of the top tiers and Foxtrot. Dash flinched, but fell in line, standing attention with the rest as they organized themselves in two lines, the top tiers in front and Foxtrot, with Silver, behind. Spitfire stood before them and looked back and forth. Dash strained herself to keep her eyes forward and not look away as Spitfire’s eyes met hers more than once. “I don’t think I need to stress the importance of this task I’ve given to you,” she began as she paced to her right. “And I DON’T…” she stopped once parallel with Silver. “Need to remind any of you what your exact orders are…” she said as she shot a harsh glare at Silver, which he gave right back. “I know you’re all capable… or else I wouldn’t have trusted this mission to you. That being said… you are all very important to the Wonderbolts, so I want you to exercise caution and BE INTELLIGENT with any situation,” she turned back and paced towards the middle. “Good luck… and come back alive. We’ll be waiting for you.”

“Yes…!” Fire was the only one to respond, but Spitfire had already turned away by before he could finish. Fire held his tongue and blinked as Spitfire walked away into the bustling crowd. “Ma’am…” he finished with a light grunt.

With Spitfire’s pep talk concluded, Fire Streak turned to address the group, but as he turned, his eyes first landed on Dash.

Dash winced and bit her lip as Fire’s eyes narrowed on her again. She couldn’t stand it. Fire was one of the elites she always felt comfortable and relaxed around. She knew she deserved it, but it was still hard to face. She shifted, backing up as Fire kept his eyes on her, yelping quietly as she bumped into somepony. She glanced over her shoulder to see she had bumped into Silver… but Silver wasn’t looking at her, he was staring at Fire. Dash gulped as she looked between them, Silver’s expression flat and serious as Fire shifted his glare to Silver instead of Dash. They locked eyes for several moments, drawing the attention of the rest of the group. Fire was giving Silver a fierce look, but it completely and utterly failed, bouncing off Silver without any effort from his end. Eventually, Silver simply lifted an eyebrow. Fire gritted his teeth and snorted as he ripped his eyes away and looked around at everypony else.

“Alright, listen up,” he began, a seldom heard tone of annoyance and frustration in his voice. It struck everypony, but they all stood attention to listen regardless. “The elites will fly in a two by two line formation with me and Fleetfoot in the lead. Squad Foxtrot will fly behind in the five pony, plus formation with Matteo in the center carrying Silver. We’re on a tight schedule and…” he paused and looked at the map. “And by the looks of things we’ve a bit of distance to cover, so let’s not waste any more time,” he rolled up the map and tucked it in his wing as he reached up and fixed his goggles to his face. Everypony else was slow to react, glancing about at each other before also fitting their goggles. “Get Silver loaded up! Let’s go!” Fire added harshly as he turned and faced the lobby doors.

“Feh…” Silver grunted. “‘Loaded up…’” he grumbled at the terminology as if he was being treated like a box or parcel, but he gave no resistance or trouble as Matteo crouched down and Dash and Squall moved to help Silver onto his back. Dash looked Silver over carefully as he willingly let them help. That was exactly the problem. He was letting them. It made her a little miffed because she knew he probably didn’t need their help to do so. She wondered if he was faking again to avoid suspicion, but she let it go and just did as she was instructed.

“All set!” Storm Front yelled up to Fire once Silver was resting comfortably on Matteo’s back. Fire glanced back and nodded.

“Let’s head out onto the deck and get in formation,” Fire ordered as he started moving towards the doors. Everypony followed right behind without question, but not without unease. Dash could see it just as readily as she felt it. Nopony was comfortable with the current situation, not even the elites. She was sure once they got up in the air and focused, all would mostly be well, but it was hard to watch.

As they stepped outside onto the Nimbus platform, the warmer air of the canyons rushed against Dash’s face. It made her fur tingle, adjusting to the warm air after being stuck in the cold, northern mountains for so long. It was warm, but not humid, a light breeze mixing in to give the weather just the right amount of balance to be comfortable. With a clear sky above, there was no reason to worry about surprise attack due to full visibility and clear weather conditions. The canyon walls extended high above them in every direction, the Nimbus resting in the belly of an enormous carved crevice from millenniums of erosion that shaped the rocky canyons throughout the ages. These natural barriers were a boon, and were likely to shield them from sight as they made their way towards where the Lunar Guard awaited.

“Form up for takeoff!” Fire shouted, bringing Dash’s attention back to the moment. She did as she was told, stepping up to take the position in the front of the Plus formation, but she stopped when she and Storm nearly ran right into each other. She blinked, as she stared at him, gritting her teeth as he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. Dash shook her head and waved a hoof, allowing him to take the command position as he had been instructed to. It felt strange, but she resigned herself to her role at the moment, placing herself in the three o’clock position beside Matteo with Squall on the other side and Twister in the back… holding Matteo’s tail in his mouth.

The elites all moved into their spots as well, Fire Streak and Fleetfoot taking their positions in the front, with Misty Fly and Air Mach behind them, Surprise and Lightning Streak in the third position, and Blaze and High Winds bringing up the fourth.

Dash swallowed and waited for the takeoff chant, but Fire gave no such words. He simply spread his wings and took two gallops before pumping his wings and propelling himself into the air. The lack of verbal command startled the rest, Fleetfoot barely reacting in time to keep formation and the rest of the elites breaking ranks for a few moments before quickly correcting the positions after takeoff. Dash and Foxtrot followed right behind, trailing the two by two line of elites as they rose up into the air and began following as Fire navigated them into the canyons.

The mission was a go… but it hardly felt like it was well managed.

“Easy… easy…” Bliss directed the unicorns as they used their magic to carry Luna into the infirmary. “Almost there Luna,” Bliss spoke softly to her as they floated her towards the first two tables, two of the unicorns moving to push them together to host Luna’s larger, alicorn frame. Luna was obviously in pain, but she was sucking it up, possibly feeling that the constant screaming and groaning wasn’t going to help the morale of those around her.

Bliss, however, was convinced there was more to it. Her job was to take care of the Wonderbolts and keep them alive, but she wasn’t oblivious to what was happening around her. It seemed like everypony had their own idea or position on what was going on and what should happen… and all of them were arguing without being clear about it. Then after the fact, they’d all break away and look like they regretted it or wished they had been clearer. Spitfire, Soarin, Luna… and many others, all of them were acting that way. The Renegades, both Wonderbolt and Shadowbolt variants, seemed to have themselves in order for the most part, but the Wonderbolts were slowly falling into shambles. If somepony didn’t speak up soon… Bliss couldn’t begin to wonder what would happen. She began to weigh if she should say something. She cared, obviously, but also because anything that happened out of consequence would likely have her work piled up with those who paid the price. She didn’t want to see that. She was just as scared and unsure about what was going on as the rest of them. She wasn’t out there fighting, but she could see the emotions pouring out from those who had been.

But honestly… something that scared her most was that Silver seemed like the only one keeping his cool… and he was just sent out on a mission because they had no other choice. Knowing Silver, there was a high chance he’d do something rash, and she’d be here later strapping him to a bed again with twice the restraints she had before while taking care of MORE injuries littered all over his slowly breaking body.

“Hm…?” Bliss blinked and perked up as they finally set Luna down. She glanced to her right and down the length of the infirmary. The place was basically empty… There were some injuries among those who were fortunate enough to survive the escape from the Shadowbolts, but with the urgency of the moment, those who were injured were forced back into action. The place was empty except for two.

Little Star was sitting on a bed three from the end wall… And Soarin was pacing back and forth at the end of the infirmary.

Soarin growled and grumbled as he turned, walked, turned, walked, turned, and walked again and again His eyes opening and narrowing over and over as he fumed internally. He was still experiencing some minor headaches, but he barely gave a damn about them because all of his focus was on how much he HATED Spitfire at the moment.

His best friend… She had been there his whole life. He had never questioned her trust, always respected her, and he always felt like she had his back no matter what the circumstances.

That view was being challenged… by none other than Spitfire herself. She had been actively withholding secrets from him, lied to his face, acted like he was a pony beneath her instead of one she treated like an equal regardless of rank for so long, and now on top of it she had just thrown him under the bus by bringing up an off-hoof comment he made while emotionally compromised, sharing it with everypony to make him look like the one at fault.

This was not the Spitfire he knew, trusted, or loved like a sister. It was like that Spitfire never existed.

Now here he was, at a loss towards what to do, pacing back and forth while swearing and snarling to nopony in particular. He didn’t care how it looked. He was pissed and had no other way of venting it.

He took a moment to glance up when he saw Bliss enter the infirmary with Luna in tow, but the sight only made him angrier. He was just as angry at Luna, if not more than he was at Spitfire. He knew Luna had a hoof in Spitfire’s current actions, and while Spitfire was at fault for going along with it, Luna was the instigator. He wished she would just butt out… both her and Discord. He was starting to not give a damn if the two of them had an active role in keeping him alive. If it was at the expense of his free will, and his better judgment then what the hell was he even alive for? It was like they were keeping him on a leash woven by interfering with his friends and turning them against him.

In his opinion, it was time for Luna, Discord, and any other damn ‘immortal’ being to step out of the way and stop intervening… because no matter what they did it only seemed to cause hell, expose them for having poor judgment, and end poorly for everypony around them.

“Hmph?” Soarin grunted as his eyes shifted slightly to his right. They landed on Little Star, who was looking at him, but quickly looked away as she continued to sit nearby.

And seriously… what the hell was Little Star doing there with him? She had been sitting there for at least fifteen or so minutes, he didn’t even know how long at this point. But she had done nothing. Whatever, Soarin just wanted her to go away and leave him alone.

Little Star glanced back at Soarin as he turned away and continued to pace while quietly ranting to himself. Star sighed and pouted. Rainbow Dash told her to go stay by Soarin’s side and keep him company, but what was she supposed to do now? He was angrily walking in circles while cursing and grumbling, shooting her sharp looks every few seconds.

It looked like he was throwing temper tantrum. He was a lead squad commander, but Star couldn’t tell that with how Soarin was acting. It made him look very childish. She had no idea what was going on, but was this anyway to handle it? Not how a stallion his age should handle a problem at least, it was unbecoming and immature.

Despite the uncertainty and a little bit of fear towards what kind of response she would get… Star decided it was time to break the silence. If she was going to honor Dash’s request, she felt she would also have to calm him down and get him to relax. So she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before sliding off the table and trotting to the bed closest to Soarin. He didn’t look down at her, and she doubted he would. So to get eye level with him, she climbed up onto the bed he kept passing beside.

“Commander…” she said the moment she was up and sitting down on the bed’s mattress.

“WHAT?!” Soarin instantly turned and glared at her, yelling so loud that Star’s ears shuddered. She cringed and flinched, freezing in place with wide eyes as sharp breaths hissed through Soarin’s teeth and nose. When she didn’t reply, he growled and whisked his head away, going right back to stomping around.

It took Star a moment… but when she regained her senses, she also found her backbone.

This wasn’t right. A pony like Soarin should not be acting like this and she was determined to make him stop.

“Soarin!” she called his name harshly as he passed by again, putting on the sternest glare she could as he tried to flash his angry eyes at her again. She swallowed, not faltering despite being a little scared of the look she was getting from the large stallion that could more than likely squash her with little effort if he wanted. Soarin clearly expected her to back down again, because when she didn’t and held herself steady, he closed his lips, no longer bearing his teeth. His harsh glare remained, but he lifted an eyebrow.

“What the hell do you want?” Soarin asked, his voice quieter, but still incredibly harsh. Little Star furrowed her brow.

“Rainbow Dash told me to keep an eye on you,” she said without mincing words and going straight to the point. Soarin’s eyes widened, but only for a second before they narrowed right back into a glare.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” he denied as he turned away and prepared to continue his inner rants.

“Too bad,” Star quickly retorted, causing Soarin to freeze and glance back at her. She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, determined to assert herself and make it clear she wasn’t budging. “Dash told me to stay even if you said no, and that’s what’s I’m going to do.”

“Go away…” Soarin said in a more hushed tone as he turned away and growled. Star lifted an eyebrow, becoming more and more incredulous by the second that a grown stallion like Soarin could be acting like such a grumpy little colt. She didn’t care what had just happened, she saw all of it. She was unaware of the exact circumstances, but that didn’t matter. Soarin was an influential figure among the Wonderbolts, but he certainly wasn’t acting like it here and now.

“No,” Star replied defiantly. Soarin suddenly turned back to her and slammed a hoof onto the mattress right in front of her, causing her to flinch hard.

“Go the FUCK away and leave me ALONE!” he yelled out, prompting several looks from Bliss and the medical staff near the front of the infirmary. Little Star shivered for a moment, but did not drop her stern gaze. Soarin was intimidating and easily five to six times her size, in every category, height, weight, muscle mass, you name it. But she refused to budge, her loyalty to her squad captain overpowering any attempt by him to scare her off. If anything, the way he was acting was adding fuel to her fire… and this little outburst dumped a whole barrel of gasoline on it.

“Alright buster…” Star suddenly stood up and pressed her face to Soarin’s causing his eyes to widen in surprise. “THAT’S ENOUGH!” she yelled right into face. Soarin was caught so far off-guard by the small mare’s bold move that he couldn’t form a coherent retort, he just continued to slightly open his mouth without anything coming out. Eventually, he forced the shock out of his expression and tried to match the look she was giving him, but she was not having it. Star pulled away and pointed a little hoof at him, pushing it against his nose.

“Don’t you give me that look!” she chastised as Soarin continued to fumble over how to respond to the sudden, unexpected verbal beating.

“What the hell are you—?!” he tried to start, but Star pushed harder against his nose, causing him to wince and lean backwards. “OW!” he yelped as he reached up and rubbed his nose.

“You shut your mouth and listen to me!” Star kept up the attack. “I don’t care if you’re one of the highest ranking officers! I’m doing this for a friend who I respect and believe in, who is out on a mission I wish I was on with her!” she made clear her discontent of her own current situation. “You need to stop stomping around like a little brat and act your age!”

Soarin gritted his teeth and growled.

“Who are you calling a little brat?!” Soarin shot back.

“Nice try, I’m five years older than you!” Star returned fire. Soarin blinked and lifted his brow.

“What does THAT have to do with any—” he flinched as she stepped forward and almost caught him in the nose with her hoof again.

“Rainbow Dash, you know, that mare that you love and who loves you more than anything in Equestria asked me to personally find you and make sure that you are not alone right now… and that's what I’m going to do, whether you like it or not!”

Soarin’s expression softened for a moment, but despite the passion Star expressed and the reasons she cited, Soarin wasn’t sure even Dash would have been able to quell his anger on the issues at the moment. He quickly found himself glaring at her again, but she only shook her head.

“And don’t you think that look is going to work on me, mister! I already get that all the time from a stubborn stallion on my own squad,” she stated while sitting back and crossing her arms again, giving him a firm, angry pout.

“Son of a bitch…” Soarin grumbled as he gritted his teeth and turned around, releasing a heavy sigh as he sat down with his back to Star “Fine… if Dash wanted you here, then stay, just… don’t talk to—”

“What’s bothering you?” Star asked quickly before he could finish.

“I SAID DON’T TALK TO ME!” Soarin lashed out without turning to face her. But his outburst didn’t affect her at all. After several moments of silence, Soarin glanced over his shoulder to see Star had not moved and was still giving him her stern glare. Soarin’s ears flopped down as he looked away, again putting his back to her. He released a long sigh and let his head hang.

What the hell was it with him and mares finding ways to pry stuff from him?

“Do you…” he suddenly spoke up in a quiet tone. Star’s ears stood up and she blinked, listening the moment she heard his shift in tone. “Do you ever feel like others are abusing your trust?” he asked. “Like those you’ve always believed in are no longer being honest with you?”

Star remained quiet for a moment or two, but she swallowed and shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it.

“No, I’ve never felt that way with my squad,” she answered truthfully. Soarin scoffed.

“Well, lucky you…” he commented with a grunt, causing Star to scrunch her face.

“Excuse me for answering the question, jerk,” she shot back while turning to look away from him. She flinched subtly as she heard Soarin shift and turn around sharply, but as she looked back she saw a conflicted look on his face that seemed to keep shifting between angered and disaffected.

Soarin took a deep breath and released a long, heavy sigh, slowly tipping forward until his chin rested softly on the mattress right beside Little Star. He kept his eyes forward, with her only in his peripheral vision. He blinked as he saw Bliss fretting over Luna, only to suddenly order her staff to once again pick her up and start moving her into the private monitoring room behind her desk at the front of the infirmary. He kept his eyes on Luna for a moment, sighing when Bliss disappeared with her into the back room and shifting his eyes to what he could see of the damaged horn on his head. He released another long sigh as he looked back down at the now emptying infirmary, with Bliss sending most of the unicorns back to work and the others following her into the back room, leaving him and Star alone.

“I haven’t felt in control of my life…” Soarin finally began as Star listened beside him. “Or anything for that matter since I got this damn—” he furrowed his brow as he looked up at the horn again— “Spike… thing… on my forehead. Everything has been going slowly downhill, Luna and Discord continuously assuring me that they know what they are doing and I should simply tuck my tail in between my legs and do everything they say ‘for my own good.’ It’s been annoying and insufferable, and every time something bad happens it feels like they tighten the rope around me tighter. I feel like I’m on the brink of being detained and now, to kick sand in my face, they have Spitfire, my best and most trusted friend, keeping secrets from me and treating me no differently than they have. I can’t take it anymore…” Soarin trailed off for a moment as Little Star continued to just sit and listen to him vent. “Seriously… What’s the point of living through this if all they’re going to do is continuously restrict me further and further until I’m chained to a damn wall or worse?! And in some cases not even tell me WHY?! At this point I almost feel like it would have been better if I just died back in Ponyville… my life has been an oppressed hell ever since.”

Star’s eyes widened when Soarin brought up Ponyville… and dying. She quickly shifted over so she was sitting in front of him, looking down at his head sternly.

“But you and Dash didn’t officially become a thing until after Ponyville, right?” she asked, leaving them in silence for several moments as Soarin simply stared up at her with little expressions. Star released a short, strong breath upward that made the ends of her mane flip up and fall into her face. She reached up and pushed them aside, hooking her mane behind her ear. “That’s what she told me,” she added to subtly telegraph that she was looking for a response. Soarin blinked and exhaled through his nostrils.

“That’s… the one exception I guess…” Soarin said weakly as if he was hardly paying attention.

“One?” Star pressed, trying to take control and get him to talk more in hopes of it relieving his visible stress.

“Stop,” Soarin suddenly slammed his eyes shut. “Just stop it… I’m frustrated right now, okay?” he threw out while shifting his chin on the mattress to look away from her.

“I didn’t notice,” Star said with a pout as she tried to get back into his field of view, but even when she did he closed his eyes to avoid eye contact.

“Really,” he continued with a weak voice. “I don’t want to talk anymore about it or anything else. I’ve already said things I don’t mean. Spitfire had the nerve to repeat one of them loud and clear for everypony else to hear and judge me for it,” he vented despite claiming he didn’t want to talk. “So I’m just going to shut my damn mouth before I say anything else I’m going to regret.”

Star stared down at him as he kept his eyes shut, but she shook her head, shifting so her side was facing him.

“Look, Soarin, I know you didn’t mean it,” she said truthfully. Soarin opened his eyes and blinked as he turned to look at her, but saw that the tables had flipped and now she wasn’t looking at him. She glanced at him briefly, but looked back at the wall once she saw she had his attention. “The thing about not caring about the Wonderbolts and only caring about Dash. I can’t speak for everypony here… but trust me, I know how stallions think. I have four brothers, I’ve been around them long enough to know when one is thinking straight or not.”

Soarin flattened his brow at the last comment.

“I’m not sure if that was supposed to be reassuring or…” he trailed off but Star released a short giggle.

“Oh hush, I meant that I know you were just worried about Dash and reacting. But here… I don’t think I’d limit it to stallions,” she looked back up away from him. “Anypony with a heart will go to extremes to protect those they care about deeply…” she paused and looked back, extending her wing off of her body and looking at the bandages wrapped around it, as well as those still wrapped around her body and her healing magic burns. “Believe me… I’ve done it…”

She glanced back at Soarin to see him also looking at her bandages. She hoped that she was helping. She wasn’t sure how much she could do, but Dash wanted her to help Soarin relax and it seemed like she was at least doing that for him. And now that she had him calm, she decided to try and boost his confidence. She was new to the Wonderbolts, but she understood how important their leadership was.

“Just… clear your head, for us,” she began again, causing Soarin to refocus and make eye contact with her. “We’re all being hit pretty hard here. But it doesn’t matter if I’m worried and fretting about being left behind by my squad again… YOU on the other hoof… are one of our leaders. If I went on rant in the middle of the lobby, nopony would care, and just think I’m weird. But seeing you and Spitfire argue was… hard. Look, I don’t know half of what you’re feeling or what the two of you are going through, but everything is out of control right now. Try to leave your differences for later, okay? We need you.”

Soarin listened carefully, absorbing everything she said. He agreed… nothing she said was wrong… but…

“I wish it were that easy,” he said with a sigh. “I’m not suggesting it should be. This is all too complicated to just push aside… especially with the toll it’s already taken on me and the rest. As is I can barely keep my thoughts straight right now because Dash is out on a mission while I’m stuck here worrying about her and—”

Soarin suddenly stopped, cringing as a sharp pain came out of nowhere and shot through his head like a sharpened arrow.

“AH!” he grunted, slamming his eyes shut and throwing a hoof to his head. “What the hell?!” Soarin groaned and cringed harder, putting his other hoof up to his head as he sat up straight and began to shake. Little Star’s eyes widened, blinking as she watched Soarin’s sudden erratic movements.

“Soarin? SOARIN?!” she reached towards him, but hesitated as Soarin lurched backwards, pressing his hooves to his forehead on both sides of the horn.

“AAAggggrrrrhhhhhh! Aaaahhhhh! GAAAAHHH!!!” Soarin continued to grunt and wail as he tipped over backwards and rolled onto his back. Star’s mouth hung open as she looked towards the front of the infirmary, but Bliss was still in the back room with Luna. She gritted her teeth as she turned back to Soarin and slid to the edge of the mattress.

“Soarin!!! What’s wrong?!” she pleaded. She knew Soarin had weird magic issues, but this was something Dash had always dealt with, not her!

“Hhhhnnnggghhhh!” Soarin continued to grunt and writhe on the floor, eventually forcing himself up and slamming his back against the wall while still holding his head. The horn began to glow bright yellow with several streams of light oozing from the cracks as a yellow aura surrounded it. The horn began to crackle and pop as sparks danced and shot out from the base near the metal headband, bright flashes of yellow light seeping through Soarin’s eyelids. “AAAHHHHH?!” Soarin’s eyes shot open.

His eyes were completely engulfed in a yellow light that shone outward, his hooves fell down from his head, propping him up in a sitting position as he stopped shaking and simply sat still with his jaw agape.

Little Star had no idea what to do. Part of her wanted to run and get Bliss, but the other part of her didn’t want to leave in case something really bad happened to Soarin. But then…

“Wh…what?!” Soarin spoke with a terrified, shaking tone in his voice.

He could hear something. It sounded like… screaming.

Screams of pain…

He couldn’t see anything in the blinding brightness of the light emitting from his eyes, but slowly… an image began to form within the light… and the screaming became more coherent.

Eventually… the scream became recognizable… it was one he had heard… and one that sent shivers down his spine.

It sounded like Rainbow Dash.

“N…no…” Soarin’s voice cracked as the faint image within the light became clearer and clearer. “No!” he said louder as the image slowly turned into one of Rainbow Dash, her face completely wrought with fear. Soarin began to reach a hoof up… but he gasped as a light blue hoof with a Shadowbolt sleeve struck her right in the face and sent her backwards through the air. “NO!” He yelled reaching his hoof up higher as the image of Dash cried out in pain and began falling, tumbling downward.

Dash hit the ground painfully crashing, bouncing, and rolling to a stop.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” Soarin yelled out as the light blue hoof came within inches of smashing Dash’s head into the ground, but the light exploded outward from his eyes. “AHHHH!!!!!!” he cried out as the light from both his eyes and horn flashed brightly, before disappearing completely. Soarin kept his neck arched, looking directly upward for a few moments with wide eyes and body shaking. “Ah…” he tipped forward, barely catching himself on his hooves as he began to sputter and pant heavily, sweat pouring down his brow and dripping onto the floor. He looked up in shock, not even noticing Little Star staring at him in complete horror.

After remaining frozen for several seconds, Soarin quickly shook his head out and stood up fast.

“DASH!” he yelled, his breathing becoming heavier. “Dash is in danger!”

“What?!” Star finally reacted as Soarin started moving. “Wait! Soarin! What about Dash?!”

“She’s going to get killed! I have to tell Spitfire and—!”

Soarin stopped after taking no more than three steps from Little Star. He blinked and looked down as he thought about what he had just said.

‘Have to tell Spitfire…?’

That would be the usual course of action but… after all the crap she had just put him through and where the two of them currently stood with each other… would she believe him? Or even listen to him? Because of their last exchange and his strong stance on wanting to fly out with Dash… there was no question she was going to assume he was making it up. There was no point in reasoning with Spitfire right now. She knew of his ‘premonitions’ but after the shitshow in the lobby… she was not going to hear him out, he was sure of it, and…

He didn’t have time to go and argue with her, especially with Dash on the line.

Screw it… Screw it all…

He was going to do this himself. He had no choice.

“Soarin!” Star tried to get his attention again… but then out of nowhere, Soarin whipped around grabbed Little Star, picked her right up off the floor, forced her onto the medical bed, and pushed her all the way across the mattress, pressing her to the wall behind it roughly. “EEE-MPRH!” she shrieked, but was muffled as Soarin forcefully pressed a hoof over her mouth. As she stared at him in pure terror, but Soarin wasn’t even looking at her.

He was staring down towards the back room, where Bliss had still not emerged. The private monitoring room was soundproofed, so he was certain Bliss had heard none of his yelling, or Star’s shriek just now. Confident that Star was the only witness, he turned his focus to her and glared at her. But it was different than the angry glare he was giving her before. This one was filled with incredible seriousness and intensity that completely crushed her by the second as she stared into it.

“Now you listen to me… RECRUIT!” Soarin began in a low, harsh, intimidating tone that caused Star’s eyes to widen as she remained silenced, Soarin’s eyes looking right through her. “I’m going after the group Dash was sent out with. I’m going to save her…”

“MMMMRPH?!” Star’s pupils shrank as Soarin told her what he was going to do, but she couldn’t protest. Soarin’s strength had her completely pinned and despite her little hooves yanking on his arm, she couldn’t remove his hoof from her mouth. The Soarin she was just talking too was completely gone. Whatever just happened to him had to do with Dash, and whatever he apparently saw or knew had completely taken him over.

“Spitfire isn’t going to believe me, so I have to do it myself…. And YOU…” Star squeaked as Soarin pressed against her harder, a dim yellow glow starting to appear in his eyes and from the cracks of the horn. “You are not going to say a DAMN thing to her about it… UNDERSTAND?!” he yelled as streams of yellow light began rising from his eyes.

Star’s eyes widened to their limit as she stared at the magical reactions to Soarin’s anger, not to mention he was threatening her now too. She was so terrified that she couldn’t even muster a squeak as a response.

“Because the moment you do…” Soarin continued. “She’s going to try and stop me. Spitfire isn’t being reasonable right now, and after what I said, I doubt many of the Wonderbolts are going to be on my side about this either… they will fly out and likely stop me. SO…” he inched his face closer, gritting his teeth and blowing loud puffs of air out of his nostrils, the streams of light from his eyes growing larger. “KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!” he snapped.

Star still couldn’t reply, small tears squeaking out of the corners of her eyes as her heart beat faster and faster.

“AND IF YOU DON’T… I will make sure you REGRET IT!” Soarin threatened further. “If Dash dies… I will die. And trust me, if I’m brought back by Spitfire and the rest, I will be sure to make good on that BEFORE I die with her!”

All Star could muster was a single, quiet, helpless wail in response, shaking as Soarin finally let go of her and let her slump back against the wall and bed. She just stared at Soarin, breathing heavily and a tear dripping down her cheek from her wide eyes as she was finally free from his tremendous strength.

Soarin didn’t even give her another glance, convinced that he had made his intentions very clear to her. He looked to make sure there was still no sign of Bliss, the glow in his eyes fading, but the glare most certainly not. With the cost clear, he turned and galloped towards the front.

In seconds, he was gone, leaving Little Star, shaking, scared, and alone.

She was terrified and stricken… but her head was filled with a deluge of fearful thoughts, mainly on everything Soarin had just said and threatened her with. Her brain was screaming for her to get up and find Spitfire, but if she did…

She knew of the connection between Soarin and Dash. If Spitfire stopped Soarin and he didn’t get out there to save Dash… would Dash die? And then Soarin would die too? If she decided to tell Spitfire and she brought Soarin back… was he really going to… hurt her? And then die on top of it if he was right? There were so many scenarios running through her head right now and it didn’t help that she was scared to death!

She had to do something… but what could she do?! Was there anything she could do without dire consequences? And was any choice the right one?!

She slumped down onto her back as a tear finally dripped off her face and plopped to the mattress. She stared straight up at the ceiling feeling like there was absolutely nothing she could do. Soarin had left her completely powerless…

Dash remained in formation beside Matteo as Fire Streak and Fleetfoot led the team on a steady, but speedy pace through the canyons. As they grew further and further away from the Nimbus, the canyon depth and width shrank, giving them perfect, condensed cover to move discreetly and inconspicuously. Fire had his eyes shifting between the map and in front of him as he navigated, directing the team in the right direction every fork and corner of the way.

From what Dash had gathered as they flew, they were taking a very winding path, one that would have taken much less time to traverse had they had just flown up and out over the canyons in a straight line. They had been flying for at least twenty minutes and she wasn’t sure just how much progress they had made, but for the sake of their safety and more importantly Silver’s, she was okay with this approach.

Foxtrot followed behind the two-by-two line of elites as they approached a fork where the canyon split into three much narrower paths.

“Hold!” Fire Streak ordered as he held up a hoof. They slowed down, remaining in formation as they hovered. Fire looked over the map carefully as he glanced up at the three paths. They waited patiently as Fire blinked, furrowing his brow as he turned the map over. Everypony saw it, and hoped he hadn’t been holding it upside down, but then he put it back upright.

“Bro… we lost?” Lightning Streak spoke up.

“Shut it!” Fire Streak snapped at him, causing Fleetfoot, and Air Mach to edge away from him.

“Yikes…” Lightning Streak furrowed his brow and hovered forward, pushing his way past Misty Fly and placing himself in front of Fire. “Bro, chill out, I was just—”

“I suggest you follow my orders,” Fire cut him off, shooting Lightning a glare.

“Okay, hold on a second,” Lightning Streak held out his hooves, visibly angry. “What crawled up your ass and laid a dozen eggs? I didn’t do shit to you, why are you getting all sharp with me?”

“Brother, don’t make me say it again!”

“Guys…” Surprise scooted herself up and tried to get between them, but Lightning Streak pushed her out of the way.

“I ain’t challenging you, bro!” he said while glaring. “Quit being a stiff ass!”

Dash bit her lip as she saw the Streak twins getting testy with each other.

This was wrong… it felt so wrong. Everything was so off balance, everypony was so out of whack.

She looked towards Fleetfoot, who kept inching forward, but backing off with a hesitant expression. Despite Fire being in charge of the mission, Fleetfoot was technically the highest ranking Wonderbolt present. But it seemed like she was hesitant or unwilling to take control of the situation.

In the end she didn’t have to though, because Misty Fly pushed forward and immediate shoved the twins apart before Lightning could grab Fire by the suit. She shot both of them a very stern glare that they both absorbed and eased up. Lightning snorted as he turned away and went back to his spot in the formation, Blaze and High Winds both shifting backwards as he drew near them again. Fire went back to looking at the map, but he was quickly grabbed by the shoulder by Misty, who forced him to look at her.

Fire flattened his brow as Misty continued to glare at him. The two of them didn’t exchange any sign language, but Misty didn’t need to voice her disapproval with how they were acting. Fire snorted and looked back down at the map, prompting Misty to blink and glare harder, but Fleetfoot finally came forward and pulled Misty back. Misty shifted her eyes to her, but Fleetfoot wasn’t trying to assert her will. She wore an expression of unease.

Misty looked Fleetfoot over, quickly reading her face and body language. Misty released a sharp sigh, tapping a hoof to Fleetfoot’s calmly before returning to her spot in the formation beside Air Mach. Air Mach was dead silent, his usual bravado nowhere to be seen. Not even his reckless carefree attitude could break through the weight of the emotions getting the better of all of them. Blaze and High Winds were surprisingly quiet as well. Not so much High Winds as Blaze, who was probably the most vocal Wonderbolt on the whole force. The two of them seemed to be focused on the grumbling Lightning Streak, as if he might turn and lash at them if they said anything at all.

“Hmph…” a grunt came from beside Dash. She looked towards Matteo, specifically to Silver on his back. Silver was scowling towards the elites, but it wasn’t in a way that matched the air around them. Silver looked… angrily disappointed. And if Dash had to guess, it was at the way they were all acting. Silver had trained all of them, save for Misty, and had molded them into the Wonderbolts they were today. Seeing them get sharp with each other and argue in the middle of a mission was clearly putting him off. No doubt the fact that Misty got involved was also making him angry. Of anypony here, Dash expected Misty would be more in control, being more of a veteran like Silver. Dash was surprised Silver hadn’t spoken up yet… he was probably going to if the elites kept it up.

In the moment, with her attention on Silver, she shifted over to him.

“How are you doing?” she asked. Silver didn’t look at her, he just grunted again.

“I’m fine, like I said the first two times,” he replied flatly. Dash pouted at him in return, but she had no time to say anything else.

“Oh…” Fire finally perked up. “I was looking at a fork we already passed…” he said out loud as he pointed to the right. “That way…”

He pumped his wings, the rest following behind as he led them down the right canyon path, but said path led them right to a dead end. They came to a stop again, but before anypony could say anything, Fire pointed up.

“We have to scale this cliff and dive into another canyon that starts about… a quarter of a mile after,” he explained as he folded up the map. “Let’s be quick about this. The moment we are over the top, we will be exposed. Stay as close to the ground as possible and fly quickly until we reach the next canyon.” He looked back and saw nopony protesting, despite a few less than enthusiastic looks he was getting. He brushed them off and faced forward. “Let’s go!”

Dash pushed aside her thoughts and focused as the elites pitched up. She pumped her wings, keeping up with her squad’s formation as they followed behind. They rose quickly, streaming up along the canyon wall and neared the top.

“GO! GO!” Fire yelled as he and Fleetfoot shot over the top and pitched down hard, flattening themselves out as everypony else followed.

“Hrgh!” Dash grunted as she and the rest of her squad evened out. It wasn’t as clean of a shift as the elites, but she leveled out, Storm, and Squall quickly getting back in formation with Matteo taking slightly longer, probably due to having extra weight on his back… and Twister who wasn’t actually flying, just hanging onto Matteo’s tail with his mouth while flailing in the wind behind him. Dash quickly had to refocus on flying straight, because she was still instinctively shifting. She was not used to flying in a secondary position in these formations. Three times now, during a sharp maneuver, she had almost realigned to the front spot and just narrowly avoided colliding with Storm.

After some minor adjustments, Dash stayed on course, zipping along the rocky desert ground in the open air behind the elites as the forged ahead towards the next canyon. They pitched and swayed as they avoided rocks and a cactus or two, otherwise staying as close to the ground as possible and flying as fast as they could, the warm air splashing against Dash’s face as they moved. It was hard to keep up with the elites, but they were clearly maintaining a reasonable increased speed. Otherwise Fleetfoot would have left all of them in dust by now.

As they kept moving at the faster pace, Dash took a quick moment to check on her squadmates. She already knew Twister was being a doofus. Matteo didn’t seem to care Twister was dangling off of his tail, or probably didn’t even bother to protest. Storm was simply leading as he was ordered… but as she rose up slightly to look over Matteo, she scrunched her mouth. Squall was glaring at Storm. This was the third time she had caught him doing so. She appreciated Squall’s preference that Dash be leading, but she knew it also had to do a little with the fact that he and Storm still were a bit at odds and she was SURE it was more about Storm being in command than her not being in command.

Despite his scowling however, Squall was doing as SHE had told him and following Storm. Squall would stay true to her orders and follow Storm’s, at least she hoped.

She faced forward and kept flying, keeping her eyes on High Wind’s hooves as they shot along the ground and drew near the next canyon opening, but since they were still above in the open air, Dash took in their surroundings.

But there wasn’t much to take in…

It was the rocky desert, plain and simple. She knew Appleloosa was somewhere in this barren landscape, but every time she had flown over this rocky desert, she was way up high in the sky where the air was much cooler. She couldn’t find her bearings at all with them gliding right along the ground. Doing so got rid of the cool view of the canyons below, but they weren’t here to sightsee. From this level she couldn’t see much aside from rocky formations here and there and some cliffs in the distance.

Nothing to see at all… and very… peaceful despite the urgent nature of their flying.

It was a little eerie to her, and it made her uneasy.

Thus far they had encountered no resistance what so ever and had seen no sign of the Shadowbolts. She wasn’t complaining, but it seemed strange that they had to take no special measures yet. It was a clean flight in a scenario that had been deemed dangerous enough to send out nearly all of the elites.

She struck the possibility from her thoughts as they shot out over the new canyon, Fire dipping down and leading the whole team in a sharp descent between the cliff walls. It was a bit wider than the ones they had been mostly traversing so far, giving them more comfortable space to maneuver as Fire put his eyes to the map again and started leading them through.

“Whoa!” Fire suddenly yelped as he looked up from the map and put up his hoof. “Reduce speed! Reduce speed!” he ordered, the whole group slowing down. “We’ve a complicated path ahead of us for the next mile or so, let’s take this slow, I don’t want anypony crashing into cliffsides,” he gave his reasoning as he began moving forward at a much slower pace with the rest following suit. “Somepony keep an eye up just in case,” he added.

Dash looked up and gulped. Again… clear, blue sky, peaceful, not a sound… not even a mouse or something… anything. Nothing but the quiet whispers of gusts as they all beat their wings and the occasional echo created by Fire giving orders or by a pebble or rock tumbling down from above.

“Fire…” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up, catching Dash’s attention. She looked to the front as Fire navigated to see Fleetfoot looking around. “I don’t like this…”

“Don’t like what?” Fire asked, rather flatly without looking towards her.

“It’s been way too quiet,” Fleetfoot explained, speaking Dash’s own unease as she looked up towards the mouth of the canyon crevice above them. “I thought by now we’d at least, you know, SEE something we’d have to avoid.”

“Perhaps we’re just lucky,” Fire continued to converse with a tone of disinterest. Fleetfoot pouted and her ears folded back as she glared at Fire.

“Fire, I’m being SERIOUS. I’ve seen enough weird shit over the past months to know anything could happen at any time…” she said, but Fire continued to pay little mind.

“No doubt,” Fire again gave little response.

“Ugh, god… forget it… ass…” Fleetfoot grumbled as Fire continued to dismiss her.

Dash bit her lip and cringed for the hundredth time, once again feeling that she had some responsibility in causing the testy mood passing between the Wonderbolts. She kept telling herself it wasn’t her fault but the feeling was never fully shaken. Wanting to take her mind off of it, she glanced at Silver, shifting her flight path up a little to get level with him.

“How are you doing?” she asked… again.

“For crap’s sake, Dash… Stop asking,” Silver sharply replied while shooting her a flat look. Dash blinked, but returned the look with a glare.

“Hey, I’m JUST keeping tabs on you, okay? It’s kind of what I was told to do,” she argued her case. Silver sighed and shook his head.

“Stop worrying about me. I already told you, I’m following Spitfire’s orders as long as the orders are within reasonable circumstances. Nothing is happening, so I’m not doing anything till I need to,” he made clear.

“Just…” Dash sighed as she rolled her eyes. “Just don’t do anything—”

“Quiet down back there!” Fire suddenly yelled back at them, causing Dash to flinch and look to the front, catching Fire’s eyes as he glared at them through his goggles over his shoulder.

“Okay, that does it…” Silver growled. “HEY!” he yelled forward, causing everypony to look at him. He leaned to look around Matteo’s head and pointed a hoof towards Fire. “Pull the vibrating, twelve-yard, metal pole out of your ass already!”

Fire stopped mid-flight, causing a few yelps and light collisions as the whole group came to an abrupt halt. Fire turned around, hovering in place as he glared at Silver.

“EXCUSE ME?!” he shot back, but Silver didn’t even flinch.

“You heard me, you cream colored, whipped, pantyhose and girdle set wearing pussy! I’ll talk if I damn well please!” Silver unleashed on Fire. Fire Streak gritted his teeth and growled as the rest of the Wonderbolts backed away, clearing the path between the two of them. Fire flew forward slowly, pointing a hoof harshly at Silver.

“Silver…Spitfire put me in command here, so I suggest you do as I say!” Fire snapped, but Silver only rolled his eyes and scoffed.

“HA! Ohhhhhhh, I am SHAKING in my suit right now!” he fired back. “You scare me about as much as a tempest in a teacup! How about you just keep sucking Spitfire’s teat and quit acting like you’ve got a pair of coconut sized jingle bells clanging between your legs! You sure aren’t convincing ME, son!”

Fire’s ears folded back and he narrowed his eyes further… but he didn’t say anything. Was there really any way he could top that? Not likely. His ears shot back up as a few snickers escaped the surrounding Wonderbolts. He turned his head around quickly, anypony that was failing to hold in laughs quickly suppressing them. Fire released a snort, conceding defeat.

“Fine… whatever…” he gave in.

“That’s right, now quit trying to be a hard ass and keep navigating,” Silver ordered while pointing forward.

Without another word, Fire turned around and slowly flew back to the front. Everypony else in awe of how easily Silver completely asserted himself over Fire in seconds.

“Come on! Back in formation! Let’s go!” Fire yelled, a tone of frustration very clear as he shoved his nose back into the map.

Dash returned her focus to Silver as they started moving again.

“Silver…” she began while still trying to suppress a giggle or two. “That was… a bit much, don’t you think?” she asked, much quieter. It was hilarious, as Silver usually was, but she wanted to stay serious for the mission.

“I don’t care if he’s in command,” Silver replied with a similar hushed tone to keep the conversation between them. “I’m not gonna let somepony I trained suddenly give me shit and push me around. If he thinks he can be the boss of ME when he ranks below me in the grander scheme of things, he’s got another thing coming,” Silver stated firmly. “But…” he sighed in frustration. “That aside… Fire is not acting like himself, not even in the slightest. I’ve never seen his composure crumble like this. It’s not just him either, everypony needs to suck it up, focus, and put personal matters and feelings aside before something goes wrong.”

Dash blinked, looking back up at Fire for a moment before glancing back at Silver with a flattened brow.

“I don’t think what you just did helped that any…” she said while lifting an eyebrow.

“Too bad,” Silver scoffed. “He picked the fight. If he didn’t want to get punched in the mouth, he shouldn’t have given me any lip.”

“Heh…” Dash had to smile at that. Silver would always be Silver, no matter how much anypony tried to restrict him… but she wanted to move on from a subject that was causing her to worry. So she decided to ask something that had been on her mind almost as much as what the P.L. stood for in the Lunar Guard Captain’s name. “So… you said the captain of the Lunar Guard owes you a favor…” she paused as Fire led them around a few quick bends and turns. She pulled back up beside Matteo and up to Silver as soon as she could. “What did you do for him?”

“Saved his life a few times. Not as much as Blizzard did, but I did a few times as well,” Silver said, but quickly. Dash tipped her head curiously.

“If you ask me, it seems like he needs to be saved a lot…”

“Feh… don’t let that fool you,” Silver said while rolling his eyes. “P.L. is an incredibly ferocious, bat-shit insane fighter.”

“I see what you did there,” Dash said with a smirk as Silver continued.

“I’d say he’s almost as skilled as Spitfire actually, definitely as strong as Soarin. The only difference is that P.L. is a dumbass and tends to get himself into situations he can’t win… all the time. He has poor judgment when it comes to taking on more than he can chew, but sometimes I swear the bastard does it on purpose,” Silver said with a brief chuckle. “The first time I saved him was early in the last Griffon-Drake War during the battle of Talon Peak. Talon Peak is the tallest mountain within the Sky Skimmer mountain range west of the Griffon Kingdom. The drakes launched a surprise attack at night when a detachment of the Wonderbolts and Lunar Guard were trying to reason with several Sky Wings captains stationed at the Il Corvo, their fortress on the peak. We were in the middle of convincing them we were there to help and not try to push a personal agenda before we were attacked. Shocker, the griffons didn’t like or trust us… isn’t that right Fat Beak?” Silver snickered while giving Matteo’s shoulder a rough pat on the shoulder.

“What?” Matteo blinked and looked over his shoulder. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Forget it, keep flying,” Silver shook his head and pointed forward before turning his focus back to Dash. “Anyway, P.L. decided it would be a good idea to dive headlong into the center of the drake formation as they came around for their second pass… needless to say, he was knocked around and surrounded, seconds away from being completely mauled and burned by their claws and fire breath. If I didn’t happen to be passing by and hadn’t, in with my quick, spry, younger reflexes, thrown a volley of lightning his way, he would have been toast, no doubt. He thanked me later and said he owed me… but only because Blizzard forced him to say so. He’ll stay true to his word though, he won’t say no to me.”

Dash thought over everything he said. She heard all of it loud and clear, but something he said near the start played back… making her sigh.

“What?” Silver lifted his brow. “Hard to believe I used to be young and spry?”

“What? No…” Dash snorted. “Stop it… I was just… you mentioned Spitfire and…” Dash trailed off and looked away, not sure where to go with it.

“She’s being stupid, I know,” Silver finished for her, causing Dash’s eyes to widen as she looked back up at him. “Look, Dash, I’m not her, I’m not in her head, I don’t know what’s going on or what’s pushing her to act the way she is, but Spitfire is mishandling herself and her authority and the only conclusion I can come to is that the pressure is causing her to bend. It would be easy for me to say she needs to step down or be relieved… but from what I’m seeing right now, nopony is currently fit to take her place. I got a good look at all of the Wonderbolts before we left and I could barely recognize any of them,” Silver shook his head. “I’ve already made it clear I have no intention of taking command of the Wonderbolts. It’s not my time, my generation, or my system. If you ask me…” he looked back forward at all of the elites. “This is something they have to go through and have to experience. This is a crisis situation. With the exception of Misty Fly and I, the current Wonderbolt force has never faced a crisis situation before where we’re the weaker party. We’ve handled more than one situation, but this is the first for them with the odds stacked against. None of them were ever involved in the Griffon-Drake War… few of them know what it’s like when death could be lurking around the corner, few of them understand how to dictate themselves when there’s no advantage to be seen… and it shows, let me tell you. Emotions are coming out, ponies who I’ve never seen get frustrated with each other are arguing… and the focus is completely off.”

Silver paused and looked towards Dash again.

“If you ask me… the next few days… hell, maybe even the next few hours will put this generation to the ultimate test. If we can get back on track, we will see who is truly ready to be a Wonderbolt… and who has to rethink their approach to wearing this uniform and what it represents… that goes for Spitfire just as much as the rest of them. However…”

Silver grunted and furrowed his brow.

“Spitfire is going to have to take a good look at herself and ask whether or not she is making the best choices. Right now, from what I’ve seen and from how I’ve come to understand her… it feels like something is heavily influencing her approach and her orders. It’s as if she’s following a set of rules and ideas she doesn’t completely believe in. In doing so, it’s making her look incredibly delusional and hypocritical, at least to me. I mean, come on… she nearly loses her mind and makes a split decision to take off because of Wave Chill… and then later puts down Soarin in a similar impulsive manner for wanting to act for your sake? To top it off, she had no right to use an off-hoofed remark he made against him. I was ready to pull my mane out while watching her.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Dash asked as he paused.

“I didn’t have the presence of mind as it was happening,” he admitted while shaking his head. “Plus you held me back and told me to shut up so…” he slowly rolled his eyes towards her, earning a flat look in return. “I’m kidding,” he said waving a hoof in her direction. “Anyway, it all smells to me and my best guess would be that Luna… and maybe even that slimy bastard, Discord, have something to do with the way she’s commanding and making her choices. I don’t know if they threatened her or if they convinced her of some bullshit that they believe is right… but it wouldn’t be the first time… and Spitfire needs to ignore them. She can’t simply succumb to the will of these self-proclaimed ‘gods’ who have worse judgment than an alcoholic locked in a wine cellar. I really can’t see why else she’d be so backwards in her thinking with Soarin or even consider listening to Luna about leaving her behind. Yeah I know I just criticized her, but that doesn’t discount her from being a symbol that all of Equestria looks to. As a leader, her life and safety are non-negotiable no matter what, even if she tells us otherwise. If Spitfire is really being advised or in some cases manipulated by the ‘higher beings…’ then she’s going to have to look at our own code and rethink her actions. Questioning those with higher authority when they are making poor judgments does not stop at the lead captain. She too has to be capable of doing so. If she can fight back and think for herself… showing confidence in her own choices and fully restore her strength of command, the confidence of the Wonderbolts will follow.”

Silver looked forward staring at the elites as Dash did the same, her ears flopping down as she looked them all over.

Restore strength of command…

Show confidence and the confidence of others would follow.

By far the best advice one could give in a moment like this… Dash began to wonder why Silver wasn’t taking control of things himself. He was literally the only pony with his head on straight right now. But… She knew Silver. He didn’t make choices without thinking them through. If he wasn’t stepping in, then he was confident he didn’t need to… and that Spitfire and the rest would eventually realize what they were doing. But would they all be able to without a little nudge of some kind?

She perked up as they reached the edge of the canyon corridor and flew out into a much, much wider open canyon. It was similar to the area the Nimbus was sitting in back where they started with a lot of open space and lots of smaller cliffs and rock formations riddled around it. It almost reminded Dash of a large, deep, but empty lake.

“Stay low!” Fire Streak yelled from the front as they hugged the ground and kept gliding along, weaving in and out of the obstacles littered about.

Dash followed orders along with the rest, continuing on as she kept thinking over Silver’s words.

“I hope that—” Dash began but she stopped as something up in the sky caught her eye. She blinked and looked up. She was certain she saw something… she looked back and forth around the sky above them.

Suddenly, in the distance, her eyes spotted something… it looked like a… a pegasus…?

But before she could think any further or point it out, she gasped as she saw a flash of pink light erupt from it.

“AH!” she yelled out. Catching the attention of everypony as they looked over their shoulder at her… everypony except for Air Mach, who instinctively looked up when he heard Dash shout.

“YO! INCOMING!” he yelled out as he pointed to the sky. Everypony looked up in time to see a burst wave of magic streaming towards them… the signature move of one of the Shadowbolt commanders.

“EVADE!” Fire yelled out with not time to give any specific movement directions. As a result, the Wonderbolts scattered, breaking off in random directions, one or two bumping into each other as they avoided. The burst wave shot down between all of them, colliding with ground near them, the ensuing impact blowing them all backwards with a searing shockwave.

“RGH!” Dash grunted as she hit the ground and tumbled. She flailed, regaining control of her hooves and slamming them against the ground to propel herself back up and catch the air with her wings. She looked around to see the Wonderbolts all finding their balance. She immediately looked for Matteo, relieved to find he had held himself steady and Silver was still hanging on. Twister had been whipped from his tail though and was sent flying, spiraling in an erratic path before falling behind a large rock nearby and a massive, fake explosion erupting from behind him as he crashed, the smoke forming the word ‘BOOM’ as it rose up.

Dash just scrunched her face and rolled her eyes before refocusing and looking up with the rest of them, however… whoever was in the sky was gone.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot yelped. “OVER THERE!” she yelled, pointing down nearby. Something was jumping from cover to cover, whisking by so fast that it was just a purple blur.

Suddenly, as the figure disappeared behind a rock, a volley of erratic spheres popped up and flew in random directions before aiming towards them.

“It’s Shadow and Ruin!” Fleetfoot yelled, recognizing the two attacks that had been used on them. The Wonderbolts pumped their wings, forced to remain disorganized as they dodged the crazy spheres hurling towards them.

“AH!”

“GRH!”

“OW!”

Yelps and grunts rang out as several of the spheres ended up hitting their mark, and those that missed shot by, colliding with nearby cliff sides or rock formations, breaking off chunks that rained down from above.

“Dammit!” Dash yelled out as she and Squall flew side by side. Squall was struck in the back by a small rock, forcing him into a tumble. Dash glanced down at him, but was forced to refocus as she was almost hit in the face by another sphere. She spun out of the way, but her eyes widened as something came streaking towards her from the right. She didn’t have time to turn her head, but she saw two pink blades of magic swinging at her. She grunted and twisted, barely shifting aside as the swords slashed at her. She lost control, doing a flip before forcing her wings out and looking towards her attacker, but they were moving so fast that she never got a clear view and barely saw them as they disappeared behind another rock. “Blade too!” she yelled to the rest.

“GO! GO AFTER THEM!” Fire yelled as Dash zipped up and got into formation beside Fire Streak and Lightning Streak. She kept her eyes on them, copying their mirrored flying technique to move in tandem and shoot towards the rock the attacker had just hidden behind… but as they approached, there was a bright flash and three purple streaks shot out in different directions. “BREAK!” Fire yelled as the three of them broke formation and chased after each one. But each of them suddenly sped up and moved way out of range before either of the Streak twins or Dash could get a beat on them. They watched in shock, the Shadowbolts never showing such speed before. They had yet to even get a clear view of any of them!

“AH! HELP!” Blaze suddenly yelled from nearby. Dash looked, but was also suddenly pulled out of her flight path by some sort of vacuum effect. She looked over to see Blaze, High Winds, and Air Mach all holding on as a bright glow shone from behind a rock formation, pulling them all in.

“Void! Come out and fight like a stallion, you overgrown son of a bitch!” Air Mach yelled as his hooves grasped the ground and slid.

“Hold on!” Storm front yelled as he shot down from above and grabbed Dash, helping her straighten out. “Dash! Fly around and double deck him! I’ll hit him high! You hit him low!” he ordered. Dash quickly nodded as they flew against the Vacuum Wave.

“Roger!” Dash yelled as the pushed off each other, straining themselves against the force of the magic. They came around and readied to fly in strong arcs behind the jutting rock formation, but right before they could, the wave faded and a pink flash shone out, FOUR different streaks shooting out from behind it.

“What the hell?!” Storm yelled out as he and Dash looked at the four shooting away from them.

“We have to stop them! We have to gain an advantage!” Fire Streak yelled as he flew by, Dash and Strom pumped their wings to follow behind him, Fleetfoot forming up beside Fire.

“How?!” Fleetfoot asked while throwing her hooves out. She looked down to see multiple blurs shooting to and fro, jumping from cover to cover at an insane pace. It was so hard to keep track of them her eyes almost crossed trying. “I can’t even keep track of them! They’re moving too fast and keeping us off balance!”

“WHOA SHIT!”

“EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!”

Lightning Streak and Surprise yelled out followed by a nearby BOOM. Fire, Fleetfoot, Dash and Storm all turned their heads and gasped as they saw the two members of Squad Three barely in control of their flight. Three of the purple blurs were dancing around them, bright pink glows around where there arms would be that struck the surrounding cliff sides and rocks. Lightning Streak grabbed Surprise, pulled her into his body, and turned his back to the falling debris that broke off and rained down upon them.

“GAH! AH!” Lightning Streak grunted as the smaller rocks hit him first, but the larger ones on their way were sure to hurt. At the last moment, Misty Fly shot in from the side, ramming herself into Lightning, pushing all three of them out of the way. But they crashed to the ground as a result, grunting painfully as they tumbled and kicked up dust.

“That’s Sin’s magic!” Dash yelled. “But…” her eyes darted back and forth, noticing that three were using his technique? Were they clones? She thought the clones couldn’t use the signature techniques!

“We can’t keep this up!” Silver’s voice caught their attention as Matteo flew down beside Dash with Squall formed up beside him. “We have to pinpoint them and strike back!” he yelled towards Fire.

“I’m open to suggestions!” Fire yelled. “We’re already trying!”

“Above us!” Dash yelled out as she pointed skyward again, one of the blurs shooting high up overhead…

But it stopped when it was directly over the top of them, far enough away for them to not quite see which Shadowbolt it was. The rest of the blurs bounced around, disappearing around corners and behind rocks as if clearing the area.

A bright pink glow surrounded the pegasus above them, and based on what happened before, Dash assumed it was Shadow.

“It’s Shadow!” Dash yelled.

“Evade!” Fire yelled, frantically repeating his order from last time.

But when the pegasus unleashed their attack… they were not met with Shadow’s Burst Wave.

Instead an enormous volley of tiny pin-like blasts rained down in a wide arc?!

“Huh?!” Dash blinked, everypony else also looking up in surprise as the different attack came raining down. They had evaded… but they were expecting the constant pillar like stream of the Burst Wave.

Instead, they were all forced to shield themselves, Silver included as the tiny blasts rained down, crackling, popping, and bursting against them.

“OW! OW! OW!” Dash yelped along with the rest as they struggled to keep their flight, their wings being peppered and forced to flap awkwardly. They were all pushed to the ground, unable to remain up as the pin needle blasts continued to fall.

When the attack finally let up, they all looked up in surprise as they cringed and shuddered… all of them except for Dash and Silver. Something about that attack seemed… familiar.

Before they could get back into the air, the pegasus above was gone and another one was streaking by… this one had spheres orbiting around them. They were following the blur in a very controlled manner, much different from Ruin’s. The spheres began slinging from the blur, shooting towards them in a straight line.

“FLY! FLY!” Fire yelled, all of them forcing the pain aside, spreading their wings, and taking to the air, avoiding the spheres as three of them stuck the ground, but the rest turned up and followed them. “Stay together!” Fire yelled as they all flew in a group. “They are trying to separate us! Don’t fall for it!” he yelled as the four remaining spheres followed behind them.

Dash glanced back at the spheres following them, looking at them carefully the best she could while not breaking formation.

Her eyes widened.

She… had seen this before!

“Dash!” Silver yelled from Matteo’s back beside her. Dash looked right at Silver as he continued to hang on for dear life.

“Silver! These attacks! They’re—”

“FLEETFOOT! FIRE!” Silver cut her off, yelling forward as they flew in an arc to avoid the spheres following them. “These attacks! They belong to Witch and Trance!” he yelled. Fleetfoot’s ears perked up, but Fire turned to look back.

“WHO?!” Fire yelled while furrowing his brow, but Fleetfoot gasped.

“Wait a minute!” she yelled. “Aren’t those the first Shadowbolts that died?!” she asked looking back, sending a wave of confusion through all of them.

“Yeah!” Dash yelled. “I saw them both turn to crystal and shatter!” she clarified. Fire shook his head and growled.

“That makes no sense!” he yelled. “If they’re dead, then how are they—?!”

Fire was cut off and everypony opened their eyes in shock as ten… twenty… THIRTY large globes of magic popped up from the ground and surrounded them…

Commander Devil’s technique…

“BRACE YOURSELVES!” Fire yelled out.

Dash slammed her eyes shut, folding up her wings and curled up into a ball as the globes ignited and exploded violently around them.

“AAAHHHHH!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!!” Dash cried out as the explosions burned and kicked her around, singeing her suit and ripping the strap of her goggles, throwing them off her face. The pulses tossed her against the others as they all desperately defended themselves, bouncing like pinballs.

The final blast sent them all flying in different directions, some of them thrown roughly to the ground with hard landings as they bounced and tumbled.

Dash, Storm, and Fleetfoot were all propelled skyward by the shockwaves. Dash grunting and kicking as she opened her eyes and tried to level out. Both Storm and Fleetfoot failed to regain their flight, tumbling back down while yelping and screaming.

But Dash was determined to regain control, eventually forcing her wings to comply and flipping upright into a hover.

Unfortunately… the moment she did, the first thing she saw was a light blue hoof an inch from her face.

“AHHHH!!!” She cried out as she received the heavy punch. Her head whipped backwards and she was sent right back out of control, grunting and gasping as she fell like a ragdoll towards the rocky ground. She couldn’t find her balance… and was going to crash.

She tensed her body and curled up, hitting the ground really hard.

“GAH! AH!” she yelped as her body rolled and bounced, eventually coming to a painful stop on her stomach. “Rggh…” she cringed as pain shot through her body, but she refused to stay down. She opened her eyes and saw the rest of the Wonderbolts all struggling to get to their hooves. Matteo was trying to roll over, Silver on the ground beside him, trying to stand on his own. That was all she needed to see. She had to get up and fight! She had to—

She was barely a few inches off the ground when she saw something shooting down towards her from above, a streak of light blue and purple, it was aiming right for her head! Dash gritted her teeth and slammed her front hooves to the ground, pushing her upper body out of the way, the moment before the attacker struck the ground. The attack was so hard that it kicked up debris and caused a small shockwave that pushed Dash’s body backward.

“OOF!” Dash grunted as she keeled over and rolled onto her back, her head falling backwards and whiplashing against the ground. “OW!” she yelled as she reached back and grabbed the back of her head while wincing in pain.

But she couldn’t let it distract her! The enemy was right in front of her! She had to—

“Well…well… well…”

Dash stopped completely… absolutely frozen as the voice met her ears and shot through her head like an ice cold arrow. The alto, feminine, seductive tone sending a cold chill throughout her body as her eyes went wide, her pupils became tiny dots, and her mouth hung open.

That voice…

She… knew that voice.

She hadn’t heard it in so long, but… she would never, EVER forget that voice. Not in a million years.

And that was exactly why her body had nearly shut down. Nasty, frightening, and traumatic memories flooding her head as she began to shiver.

“If it isn’t a bunch of old… familiar… lovely faces…”

Dash somehow found enough control to move her head, slowly… slowly tipping her head up. First she saw the hooves, the light blue hooves that had just attacked her, hooves that she had been on the receiving end of in the past. She slowly moved her head up, her eyes running along the thick, strong arms, the large, powerful shoulders, and up to the broad, muscular chest testing the limits of the spandex suit stretched over it.

“WHAT?!” Fleetfoot’s called out from behind Dash, but Dash couldn’t pull her eyes away as she kept slowly looking up, her eyes moving their way up the neck and towards the mare’s face.

“It… it can’t be!” Fire streak added as everypony else began reacting.

Dash’s finally looked directly at the mare in front of her. The mare reached up and pulled down her Shadowbolt goggles, revealing two yellow eyes filled with an assertive, sinister confidence as they cut right through Dash. The mare slowly licked her lips from one side to the other before parting them and brandishing her teeth in a hair-raising, rapturous smile.

Dash began to sputter as she tried to speak, but her voice was so thin and squeaky that she could barely get the words out.

“Oh… m-m-my… g-god…” she shook, her whole body tingling and shivering as if the mere sight chilled her to the bone. “N…Ni…N-N-Nigh…Nightsh-sh-sh…”

“It’s so DELIGHTFUL to see you all again!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

(Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf)

Chapter 129: Her

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 129: Her

“I haven’t the foggiest about what to do to help her…” Bliss explained as Spitfire leaned against the mail counter in the lobby, listening, but not facing Bliss. “Alicorns are not something I’ve ever really worked with before, not to mention she’s an omnipotent one. I also don’t understand her magic or what it’s doing to her…” Bliss paused for a moment scrunching her face as Spitfire remained facing away, but she continued. “But we’re doing what we can to make her as comfortable as possible so she can rest and recover.”

Bliss finished and waited for Spitfire to reply, but she remained quiet for several moments. Bliss huffed while examining Spitfire. She was leaning against the counter, swaying slightly, and staring straight forward with a serious expression on her face that looked conflicted and a little forced.

“Hm, good, carry on,” she finally answered monotonously. Bliss furrowed her brow. Spitfire had not once looked at her throughout her report, not even when she approached. First Soarin throwing a temper tantrum in her infirmary… now Spitfire simply treating her like a passing thought. She wasn’t going to stand for it.

When Spitfire realized that Bliss was still standing there, it finally got her attention. She turned and glanced at her, meeting a pair of frustrated eyes.

“Bliss?” Spitfire blinked, pushing off the counter and tipping her head.

“Spitfire… can I talk to you about something?” she asked, her tone stern. Spitfire just stared for a moment, but then narrowed her eyes. Based on Bliss’ tone and everything that had just gone down, she had an idea on what this was going to be about.

“What is it?” she asked skeptically, already preparing her retort if it just happened to be about what she thought it would be. Bliss shook her head as her eyes remained stern.

“I don’t think what you did to Soarin was right or necessary,” she came right out with it, immediately earning an eye roll and a quiet groan from Spitfire.

“I knew it,” Spitfire said with a snort. “Bliss, that’s enough. It is not your place to question or make judgments on my actions.” She stepped forward and placed a hoof against Bliss’ chest. “You are our doctor, not an officer of any kind, so I suggest you focus on your job and leave Wonderbolt matters to—”

“Stop,” Bliss cut her off while reaching up and resting her hoof on top of Spitfire’s. She did not try to push it off. She did not get forceful or raise her voice. She simply kept herself firm, as she had from the start. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as she halted in her speech, giving Bliss the chance to talk since she wasn’t trying to force herself upon her. “Please don’t try to pull the Wonderbolt hierarchy talk on me. I’m not raising concern or filing a complaint as an employee of the organization, I’m bringing this up as one pony to another.” Bliss kept her tone steady, showing control to let Spitfire know she was being serious and not looking for a fight. “When I brought Luna to the infirmary, Soarin was in the back, stomping around and grumbling. He was gone when I left Luna in the back room for monitoring, but he probably stormed off somewhere else.”

“Hmm?” Spitfire hummed and lifted an eyebrow while releasing a sharp breath from her nose. “Okay, so he’s acting like a child. How does that have anything to do with me?” she asked while leaning back down against the counter and turning her head away. Bliss did not appreciate the gesture, but continued anyway.

“True, his behavior right now is a little immature, but honestly? I don’t think I blame HIM.” She paused after emphasizing. Spitfire immediately looked back to her and glared.

“Bliss… If I were you, I’d stop right there. You’re sticking your nose into a personal matter,” Spitfire said with a growl, but Bliss didn’t even blink at it.

“Look, Spitfire, I’ve known more than one stallion like Soarin. He is a type that feels the need to act and take matters into his own hooves… and if he can’t he’ll only concede if given a good reason to. The only thing that can make a stallion like that act like he is… is if he feels completely hopeless and powerless. He knows what he wants to do and feels he has to do something, but YOU have effectively turned everything on its head and have pushed him into a corner, making him feel trapped emotionally and physically.”

“That’s not my problem,” Spitfire looked away while grunting, now clearly trying to avoid any further discussion.

“Isn’t he your best friend?” Bliss added while lifting her brow. Spitfire didn’t look at Bliss, but visibly flinched and stiffened briefly. She looked down, and then turned her head as if suddenly very interested in the empty, dusty mail boxes behind the counter that hadn’t been touched since they first took off. Bliss shook her head as she examined Spitfire’s efforts to avoid any more talk on the subject. “I don’t understand what could have possibly made you feel like what you did to him in front of everypony else was justified. I don’t care what’s going on with him or his magic. How he feels is what’s more important. With everything he’s going through, he’s relying heavily on the support of others, especially those he is real close to. Without your trust and respect, you’ve ripped a very important part of his life and what he believes in away from him. With nowhere to turn, it’s no wonder he’s stomping around in frustration.”

Bliss left it there and waited for Spitfire to answer, but Spitfire just kept looking at the mailboxes. Bliss furrowed her brow and glared.

“Spitfire, are you even listening to—?”

“That’s enough,” Spitfire cut her off. Bliss’ eyes widened but before she could protest, Spitfire shook her head. “Bliss… just… please go tend to Luna,” she asked quietly. Bliss sighed and shook her head.

“Fine…” She turned around and faced the east hallway. “But you owe Soarin an apology.”

“I don’t owe him anyth—” Spitfire turned to look as she spoke, but Bliss was already walking away. Spitfire kept her eyes on her as she slowly made her way through the lobby and eventually disappeared into the east hall. Spitfire turned her head back forward and looked down at the floor, taking several slow, quiet breaths.

“She’s not wrong, you know,” Descent’s voice suddenly caught her ears. Spitfire immediately flattened her brow and she snorted. She didn’t even look up as she saw Descent’s shadow run along the ground and approach her.

“Descent, I don't want to hear it,” she growled, keeping her head down.

“I apologize for not falling into your category of ‘employees,’” he replied, causing Spitfire to sharply lift her head up and glare at him, but he had his side to her and was looking out into the lobby activity instead of looking at her. “I have no hurdles to step over in voicing my opinion. And in my opinion, you don’t have much control over the Wonderbolts right now.”

“Who the hell asked you?” Spitfire sharply shot back as she rolled her eyes. “Don’t have control… that’s absolutely rich coming from somepony who follows a code that has no order, is okay with killing for money, and let’s their members pretty much do as they please.”

“I didn’t write the Shadowbolt code, you know,” Descent explained himself while finally tipping his head in her direction, but remaining calm.

“But you follow it, nice try,” Spitfire said with a scoff as she looked away again.

“Well,” Descent lifted an eyebrow at her. “To use your very words… I don’t need to hear this…” he turned and faced her directly. “From a pony who preaches order and organization and then single-hoofedly sends the very ponies she commands into psychological disarray.”

“You son of a…” Spitfire shook lightly as she gritted her teeth. “Do I have to outline your failures while we’re at it?” she threatened.

“I’ve owned my failures and missteps. I don’t see how they prevent me from disagreeing with you,” he said, watching as Spitfire tried to hold herself back. “Besides, you’d be on my back in an instant if I made a critical blunder… so don’t act like I can’t do the same.”

“I haven't made any mistakes here!” Spitfire snapped at him loudly, drawing attention from a few nearby. “Now buzz off!”

“Who put you up to lying and keeping Soarin down? Was it Luna? Discord? Have any secret meeting lately with one or both? I know Luna loves doing that,” Descent suddenly accused.

“My choices are my own, Descent!” she shot back, but he didn’t give in.

“Are they?” he tipped his head. “I seem to recall you went against everything that was suggested in order to save Wave Chill, you looked completely confident and in control… leading a very devoted following of Wonderbolts into battle and emerging victorious. Since we took off, I haven’t seen that Spitfire. You clearly aren’t one to cave, so why are you now?”

Spitfire glared at him, but said nothing. Descent noticed her bottom lip quivering as she held the harsh expression.

“Struck a nerve? The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Descent added to pound an extra nail. Spitfire pushed off the counter and jabbed a hoof towards him.

“Listen here you…” she began with a loud snarl. “I’ve had it up to HERE with you and your constant—”

The groundwork had been laid for Spitfire to completely go off on him, whether or not what he said had struck home… however, both of them were suddenly distracted… as a very small mare approached them and stopped, looking up at them while shivering.

Spitfire and Descent both blinked and looked down at Little Star as she stared up at them with wide eyes. She looked completely stricken by something, wearing a blank expression. Her eyes opened wider the moment the two arguing leaders turned their attention down to her.

“Uh… Um…” she stuttered, her right ear flipping up and down and her left eye twitching.

Descent and Spitfire looked up and stared at each other for a moment, both lifting an eyebrow before looking back down at her.

“What is it, recruit?” Spitfire asked as Little Star just kept staring and shaking lightly.

“Uhhhhhhh…” Star tried again, but only slurred. She tried three more times, each time never getting past ‘uh’ or ‘um’ as if she couldn’t decide what to say, or was afraid to say it. Spitfire eventually glared and snorted.

“Recruit… if you have something to say SPEAK UP!” she snapped harshly, startling Descent. In an instant, Star turned and scurried off. “Feh…” Spitfire shook her head, but when she looked back at Descent, his challenging eyes were gone, instead replaced with a flat look.

“Are you going to argue with me now? Or do you need more examples?” he pointed towards Little Star as she erratically shuffled away before disappearing into the east hallway.

Spitfire’s eyes widened as she watched Star leave, her pupils darting back and forth a few times before she slammed her eyes shut, growled, and threw a harsh glare at Descent.

“That’s it, get out of my face, right—”

“SPITFIRE!”

Both Spitfire and Descent perked up, cut off as the commanding voice was directed towards them. They turned to see Flashwind walking up with her eyes trained on Spitfire. Spitfire tipped her head curiously at the stern gaze the former lead captain was shooting her, but Descent furrowed his brow and stepped in before any further words were exchanged.

“Flashwind, what are you doing? I thought I told you to monitor the supply teams and—”

“My husband is handling it,” she cut him off without looking at him. Descent blinked before glaring at the older mare.

“I told you both to—”

“Hush, kiddo, I’m not here to argue with you,” she abruptly stopped him again.

“KIDDO?!” Descent repeated in disbelief, but Flashwind stepped right in front of him, while shoving herself against him to force him backwards out of her way. He scrunched his face as Flashwind asserted herself over him, but failed to find any rebuttal. It was as if he knew it wasn’t going to work.

“Spitfire,” Flashwind said her name again as Descent looked away and began to grumble to himself behind her. Spitfire glanced at Descent for a moment before refocusing on Flashwind, genuinely curious what her predecessor wanted.

“Y…yes?” she asked while tipping her head, her ears flopping down, then back up.

“We need to talk,” Flashwind said simply and firmly, immediately causing Spitfire’s blood to boil as she whipped her head back and released an annoyed grunt.

“What the hell is this, ‘everypony-against-Spitfire’ day?” she yelled while throwing her hooves out, but when she looked back down and saw Flashwind’s face had not changed, she flattened her brow and snorted. “No, we don’t need to talk, with all due respect, MA’AM… everypony just needs to leave me alone and—”

“Honey, this isn’t a request,” Flashwind cut her off while reaching forward and grabbing Spitfire by the arm. “I want to speak with you as a fellow lead captain…” she paused and glanced over at the rest of the ponies in the lobby. “And my husband is being too passive about addressing this.”

Spitfire looked carefully at Flashwind as she turned back and their eyes locked on each other.

“Flash…” Descent finally spoke up again. “Just let me handle—HEY!” he blinked as Flashwind completely ignored him, and started walking while pulling a defiant Spitfire along with her. Spitfire said nothing, resisting for only a moment or two before giving in and letting Flashwind lead her away, mentally preparing herself for what she assumed would be another scolding she didn’t want or need…

Or was it?

Rainbow Dash was shaking. Her heart was beating fast, her skin was tingling uncomfortably, her eyelids were twitching, and she felt short of breath. She had faced many things since she became a Wonderbolt, and while there were times when things got tough or uncertain, every single time she faced it confidence, bravery, and dedication. Those were all mindsets she had built up and solidified under harsh training with Silver and the rest of wingmates.

But this…

She was not prepared for this.

From the moment the conflict with the Shadowbolts began, there had been a small knot in her stomach. A small, but ever present fear in the back of her mind… that the mare she was now looking up at was still alive. After not seeing her for so long, Dash had mostly surrendered to the assumption that she was gone. Descent often spoke of being unsure if she was alive or not, but Dash just kept telling herself she was gone, and the one pony she was truly afraid of would never be seen again.

What a fool she was to think that way.

Nightshade was standing right in front of her… over her… sneering as she looked down into Dash’s terrified eyes, bringing back all the horrible traumatic memories and fears Dash had experienced in the past.

She was not ready for it… and he body language alone was making it clear as day to Nightshade.

“N…N…No… nonononono…” Dash began to squeak weakly as she gave a shaky, pathetic effort to try and shimmy herself backwards. She couldn’t tear her eyes from Nightshade, keeping her body in a position that made it difficult for her to move at all.

“Hmmmmm…” Nightshade hummed as her smile grew wider the more Dash showed her fear. Nightshade took a step towards Dash.

“Eee!” Dash flinched and tumbled over onto her side before flailing to prop herself back up, but the moment she was turned back towards Nightshade, she had shifted forward and bent down, pushing her face right into Dash’s.

“BOO!” she shouted, causing Dash to flinch so hard that a few of her joints made popping noises, a few feathers popped off of her wings, and her body stiffening as her eyes tested the limits of how wide she could make them, her pupils tiny dots as they shuddered under the gaze of Nightshade’s. “Pfff… HAHAHAHA!!!!” Nightshade threw her head back and laughed heartily for a moment before pushing her face right back down into Dash’s with an intimidating smile.

Dash only managed to release a quiet whimper as Nightshade bounced her eyebrows.

“Awww…. Dashie… you’re so happy to see me!” she said with a cooing tone, batting her eyelashes, but after the fifth blink, she closed her eyes and leaned in a little closer, opening them up to reveal a very seductive stare, biting her lip. “GOOD,” her voice had changed to match the look, a pleasurable tone filling the back of her throat. “Because I’m certainly happy to see YOU!”

“HOW?!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from behind Dash. Nightshade’s ears twitched as she sneered and looked up at the rest of the Wonderbolts, shooting them the same look she was just giving Dash. The Wonderbolts were all slowly getting to their hooves and taking defensive stances as they stared in disbelief. “How the HELL are you still alive?!” Fleetfoot continued. “We found no trace of you at all after the fortress fell apart and crashed!”

“HA!” Nightshade stood up from Dash, and walked towards the Wonderbolts, purposely stepping on Dash with her first two strides, causing her to squeak and gasp loudly. “Are you really that surprised?” she asked, moving smoothly and casually as the Wonderbolts showcased the completely opposite demeanor, each of them looking ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice.

“You freaking EXPLODED!” Fleetfoot added while grinding her teeth together.

“Pfff…” Nightshade scoffed while rolling her eyes, stopping ten yards from them and whipping her mane around before putting on a wily smile. “Please… You know who you’re talking about right?” she parted her lips to reveal a grin as she touched a hoof to her chest. “As if I’d let a little mishap like that be the end of me.”

Nightshade perked up and glanced over her shoulder as she heard noises of panicked shuffling behind her. Dash was scrambling to get to her hooves, struggling to do so with how much she was shaking, but she eventually stood up and started slowly shifting towards the Wonderbolts, taking a wide arc around Nightshade without taking her eyes off of her. Nightshade snickered as she watched Dash move slowly and so skittishly.

“Wow, Dashie… Old habits die hard, eh?” she teased as Dash eventually made it all the way around and took her place next to Fleetfoot, earning a look or two from the rest of the Wonderbolts as the usually steadfast and headstrong Rainbow Dash shook like a terrified little filly. “Awww, you look positively spooked!” Nightshade brought back the condescending tone as she tipped her head and smugly smiled towards Dash. The smile turned into a devilish sneer as she licked her lips. “All this time and you’re still scared shitless of me… I’m flattered, really!”

“I’m…!” Dash suddenly shouted, startling the Wonderbolts. “I’M NOT SCARED OF YOU!” She yelled in a tone that was incredibly forced and very shaky as she struggled to regain her composure.

“Yes, you are,” Nightshade replied simply while shooting her another seductive stare. Dash flinched and her hooves nearly fell out from under her as Fleetfoot reached over and grabbed her.

“Dash! Get a hold of yourself!” Fleetfoot whispered sternly to her. They were all shocked and a little scared at the sudden entrance of an old, incredibly powerful foe, but Dash was literally falling apart.

“Enough!” Fire suddenly shouted. Nightshade slowly drew her eyes away from Dash and locked them on Fire as he stepped up and growled. Nightshade briefly shifted her eyes, her devilish grin growing wide as she saw Misty Fly step up beside Fire. Misty was glaring at her so hard that her scrunched face and furrowed brow made her face barely recognizable. Nightshade winked and blew a kiss at Misty. Misty glared even harder and her hooves began to shake, but Fire reached one of his wings over to her and placed it on her back, a gesture meant to keep her steady.

With Nightshade no longer looking at her, Dash backed up, sliding out from Fleetfoot’s hoof and back towards her squad and Silver. Matteo quickly grabbed her by the shoulder as she continued to shake, trying to calm her down, with both Squall and Storm frantically looking between her and Nightshade. Silver was propped up against Matteo, his eyes narrowed towards Dash, but Twister was still missing. He hadn’t shown up since his comical launch and explosion.

“Everypony stay alert!” Fire ordered, causing the Wonderbolts to mostly focus. “Elites! Around-the-Clock ground defense formation! All eyes peeled! Don’t let any of the others take us by surprise!” he yelled out.

Dash and Squad Foxtrot all flinched as the rest of the elites immediately took action, clumping together and then spreading out in a circle with at least one pair of eyes facing in every possible direction, Misty Fly, Fleetfoot, and Fire Streak all remaining within view of Nightshade while the others watched the blind spots. Dash glanced at Storm, but he looked stumped as if it was something he had yet to be taught.

The formation was clearly meant to cover all directions, a precaution taken to ward off any attacks from any of the Shadowbolts that had come along with Nightshade… after all, they were all attacking before Nightshade’s entrance.

But then Nightshade burst out laughing, nearly falling over herself as she reached a hoof up and pressed it to her chest. The Wonderbolts all glanced toward her, confused, but still alert. There was no knowing what could happen, especially with Nightshade.

“OOOOH! HA HA! This is rich! Hahahaha!” Nightshade kept guffawing as she shook her head and pounded her chest a few times. Fire scrunched his face and gritted his teeth.

“STEADY!” Fire yelled, causing them all to refocus on their formation. “Don’t let her intimidate you!”

“Hey… you,” Nightshade directed at Fire as he fought to keep the Wonderbolts in order. Fire blinked and looked towards her. Nightshade bit her lip as she looked Fire up and down. “Yeah, you… you sexy, chiseled-jaw white knight…” she began as one her hooves began grinding against the ground. She glanced at Fleetfoot and Misty. “With the mute and the pegaslut flanking you. I suggest telling them to keep their eyes over here where the view is…” she said seductively while reaching up and stroking a hoof against her chest.

“WHO ARE YOU CALLING A SLUT?!” Fleetfoot yelled in a sudden angry outburst, immediately drawing Nightshade’s attention.

“Quiet sweetie,” Nightshade teased. “If you’re a good little girl, and behave yourself… I’ll hump you later if I feel like it and believe me I WILL.”

“Why… you…!” Fleetfoot edged forward.

“Fleetfoot! HOLD!” Fire ordered while shifting over and pressing a hoof down on her back as she shook with anger.

“This is too easy…” Nightshade laughed as she continued to hold herself casually. “Seriously, insecure much? Maybe if you didn’t hop on so many stallions and mares then you wouldn’t need to passionately defend yourself.”

Fleetfoot lurched forward, but Fire grabbed her and held her back.

“Don’t let her distract you!” Fire yelled at Fleetfoot as she continued to growl at Nightshade. “Everypony stay focused and stand your ground! Be ready for anything!” he repeated his orders, getting them all to turn and face their designated direction again, but Nightshade suddenly furrowed her brow and grunted.

“Sheesh, do I have to spell it out for you or something?” she said with a slightly irritated tone as Fire looked back towards her, holding himself steady much better than Fleetfoot or Misty beside him. Nightshade reached up and slowly ran a hoof through her mane, down her neck and over her chest, stopping in the middle of it. “Stop being such a drama queen… I’m the only one here, handsome.”

Every Wonderbolt’s head turned towards her in an instant before they glanced at one another again. Fire took a breath to yell out his orders yet again, but his voice broke into quiet incoherent noises as he looked around, not wanting to believe her, but her confidence spoke for itself. The Wonderbolts were still in their formation hesitantly, unsure if they should keep it up or believe Nightshade. If it were anypony else…

“Heh…” Nightshade sneered as her eyes landed on Fleetfoot again. Fleetfoot was nearly glaring as hard as Misty Fly now, but unlike Misty Fly, Nightshade knew she could audibly exploit Fleetfoot. “I like that look you’re giving me,” she began, causing the Wonderbolts to look between her and Fleetfoot. “But if you try anything, I guarantee that you won’t be on top… but I wonder if that’s what you prefer?”

“Oh, THAT does it!” Fleetfoot shouted.

“WAIT!” Fire tried to reach for her again but it was too late. Fleetfoot spread her wings, leapt up and launched herself at Nightshade. Consequently, Misty Fly decided to do the same, Fire watching in alarm as the two mares broke rank and went on the attack.

Nightshade’s eyes widened and her smile grew as the two shot towards her, closing the gap in an instant since they were already close.

But despite their preemptive strike… Nightshade was ready. All she did was kick the ground hard with both of her back hooves, causing her to shift a yard forward in the blink of an eye while holding out her right arm. She dipped down and drove her arm up, swinging it into Fleetfoot’s neck from below. Fleetfoot released a loud painful choke as Nightshade kept up the momentum, locking her arm around Fleetfoot’s neck and swinging her all the way over her, shifting aside and slamming Fleetfoot down over the top of Misty Fly, driving them both to the ground.

“AHHHHHH!!!!” Fleetfoot cried out painfully as she was pressed over Misty, sliding off and smacking the ground beside her. Nightshade giggled sinisterly to herself as she held both of them down.

“I love when they’re eager!” she taunted as she suddenly shifted her arm, putting them both in a single, crushing headlock and picking them up. She turned and launched them both back towards the group of Wonderbolts.

Surprise, Blaze, and High Winds all yelped in surprise as Air Mach and Lightning Streak forced themselves past them and stepped up beside Fire Streak, working together to brace themselves and catch the two mares as they careened back.

“OOF!” They all grunted as Fleetfoot and Misty struck them. Their combined weight was nothing the three stallions couldn’t handle, but the force of the throw made itself known, nearly knocking all three of them off their hooves as they made the save. From behind the other three Wonderbolt mares and the members of Foxtrot unfamiliar with Nightshade stared in awe.

“Oh my god…” Storm managed to say as his jaw hung open.

“She just…” Matteo blinked, even he was shocked. “Pounded two of the best Wonderbolts with ease…”

Dash just swallowed as she continued to shiver to the point where her teeth were almost chattering. She was slowly being reminded just how dangerous Nightshade was. All the Shadowbolts she had confronted thus far? They were nothing compared to her. It was all coming back to her and she did not like it one bit.

Lightning, Fire, and Air Mach gently released Fleetfoot and Misty, the two mares cringing and groaning as they were put back on their hooves, dizzy from the combo of devastating attacks. The three stallions immediately stepped in front of them, Blaze, High Winds and Surprise shifting up as well as Misty and Fleetfoot recovered. Fire was still not convinced. His eyes kept darting about, waiting for the others to show themselves.

“Really now?” Nightshade sighed, blowing a puff of air upward that made her mane bangs bounce. “Are you even listening to me? I thought you were one of the smarter ones.”

“We saw the magic!” Fire quickly shot back, determined to not show any unease. “All of the techniques we’ve faced thus far! Do you take us for fools?!” he yelled.

“Uh… bro… what about the three that are dead?” Lightning spoke up beside him. Fire blinked, but quickly hardened his glare again.

“A trick! An illusion, I don’t know! I’m not buying it!” Fire continued to shout, his uncertainty finally showing through… and it clearly amused Nightshade.

“Okay then…” she said as she slightly tipped her head down to amplify the effect of her already sexual, bedroom gaze. As if the look wasn’t enough to send shivers through the Wonderbolts, her eyes also began to glow pink. “Since you seem so hell-bent on not believing me… I’ll just show you!”

The Wonderbolts all flinched and took defensive positions as bright pink flashes blinked all around her… revealing six crystals floating in place. Before the Wonderbolts had any time to react, Nightshade reached up her hoof, three of the crystals clasping around her hoof. They shined brightly, forming a pink, magic sword that extended out before her. The other three crystals split apart and blinked in a constant pattern. One of them cause three large globes to rise up from the ground, one of them summoned a collection of small spheres that orbited in a circle around her, and the last emitted pink sparkles that levitated nearby rocks into the air.

Blade, Devil, Trance, and Moon’s techniques.

All the Wonderbolts stared with their jaws nearly unhinged. Nightshade’s smile grew wider. She swung the sword at the rocks floating in Moon’s magic, breaking and smashing them to pieces. The globes hit the ground, causing explosions that sent the smashed up debris into the air. The spheres shot out from around her body, smashing the chunks of rocks into small bits. She recalled the sword, instead, thrusting her hoof upward, launching Shadow’s burst wave towards the bits of rock, chewing them up into dust. The crystals all released and touched to her body, glowing brightly as an inward suction force pulled all of the dust from the pulverized rocks into her, before reversing and sending it all shooting outward.

The Wonderbolts all shielded their faces as the rock dust rushed against them, the backwards force of Void’s magic making their hooves skid along the ground a little before it all stopped.

“Hoooooooly shit…” Blaze was the only one to speak up as the Wonderbolts all regained their focused and stared in disbelief, the six crystals floating around Nightshade as her eyes continued to glow and her smile remained wide.

“And just who do you think taught them those fancy moves?” she said while bouncing her eyebrows at them. “Not to mention…” her eyes suddenly flashed with a pink glow surrounding her. In the blink of an eye she surged forward, her body disappearing into a blur.

Fire Streak blinked and looked around, but suddenly yelps of surprise behind him caught his attention. He rapidly turned around and backed away. Nightshade was suddenly in the middle of all of them, and they were all stepping away in shock.

“I have a few tricks of my own they’ve never gotten the hang of… but most of all…” she continued, the crystals spinning and glowing brightly.

The Wonderbolts backed further away as six bright flashes appeared in front of each of her crystals, each flash leaving behind a clone of herself. Nightshade stomped a hoof and each clone set their hooves.

One of them brandished Blade’s sword.

One of them summoned three of Devil’s globes.

One of them used Moon’s telekinesis to pick up chunks of rock beneath it.

One of them summoned Trance’s orbiting spheres.

One of them formed Witch’s pin like projectiles around it.

And the last collected the magic in its arms like Sin.

“Honestly…” Nightshade chuckled. “Those amateurs don’t know the first thing about generating proper, effective clones.”

“REGROUP!” Fire suddenly yelled. “NOW!”

Nightshade watched with glee over the top of her clones as the Wonderbolts scrambled, all grouping back together and placing themselves in front of squad Foxtrot. They continued backing away, trying to create some distance.

“Convinced?” Nightshade asked tauntingly. “Good.” Her clones all disappeared, her crystals returning to her side as she began to walk towards them. “Honestly… I was tired of those bumbling morons constantly failing to deliver… even though I gave them every possible advantage to tip the scales heavily in their favor. They just kept screwing up, time and time again. I was hoping to simply enjoy myself… and wait until I had what I wanted before coming out to finally say hello… but clearly I either set my expectations for them too high…” she paused and licked her lips. “Or I forgot how DELICIOUSLY stubborn you all are. If you want something done right, I guess you just have to do it yourself!”

Despite the display of power, a few of the Wonderbolts were still succeeding in holding themselves steady. Fire streak pushed feelings of unease aside to stay focused, as did a few others.

“So you came out here by yourself?” Fire shot back. “You, alone… against nearly all of our top Wonderbolts?”

“Overconfident much?!” Fleetfoot added as she growled beside him. It was only a moment before Misty was back up beside Fire as well, and soon the rest of the top tiers had regained their senses. Air Mach, Blaze, High Winds, Lightning Streak, and Surprise all standing at the ready. They faced a daunting contender… but despite their anxiety, they would not simply give in and grovel.

“Heh… hehe…” Nightshade started to chuckle as she looked into the defiant eyes of the Wonderbolts. “HA! HAHAHAHA!!!!” she laughed while shivering and scraping one of her hooves on the ground beneath her. “Oh, I LOVE defiance!” she said in a tone that almost sounded…aroused. “It’s so… TANTALIZING!” She looked towards them, running her eyes over the body of each Wonderbolt in her view. “But… how much of it is talk? You know, one thing nopony ever pays enough attention to… is how they, themselves affect the air of those around them. You can yell and stamp your hooves at me all you want… but I know you’re all scared… that you’re all afraid to come at me!”

The Wonderbolts didn’t budge, all holding firm, but they couldn’t conceal some hesitant shaking. Dash was placed behind the elites, but Nightshade found a small space between all of them to look through and lock eyes with her. Dash yelped and shifted back, bumping into Matteo and causing one or two of the elites to look back at her.

“You see that?” Nightshade asked while grinning at Dash. “See the look in her eyes? You see how I’ve taken the brave, brash, shining example of loyalty… and turned her into a shaking pile of fear?” Everypony except for Fire and Misty glanced back at Dash, taking in the sight. They all quickly looked back when Nightshade started taking very slow steps towards them, inching her way forward as the crystals orbited around her. “She understands… she knows who I am…” she turned her head slightly and opened one eye wider. “She’s had real… hooves on experience with me…” she looked towards Misty as she kept her slow pace, pointing at her next. “See THAT? I know she wants to tear my guts out for what I’ve done to her. She just tried to… and it failed. Now she’s holding back despite the urge to destroy me for the pain I’ve caused her. She’s already hesitating, isn’t that precious?”

“You will not intimidate us,” Fire suddenly replied, but did so in a calm tone, causing Nightshade to stop a few paces away from them. Everypony looked towards him. There was hesitation, his body was not being held steady, but he was showing a degree of control that was definitely needed in the current situation. “We have a mission, and we’re going to carry it out. I don’t care how powerful you think you are… One more step and we will do everything in our power to go through you!”

Nightshade blinked, scrunched up her mouth, and puffed up her cheeks while releasing an amused snort. She followed up with a devious smirk.

“Mmmmmmmm… hmmhmmhmm… Through me?” she grinned while narrowing her eyes. “I like the sound of that… well, okay… if you insist!”

Three of the crystals suddenly broke from orbit around her and shot inward, pressing against her body. They began to glow, intensifying into a bright shine, disappearing into balls of pink light. The three lights phased into her body, completely disappearing.

“MMMMMMM!!!!” Nightshade suddenly moaned loudly, her body twitching as she sharply dipped her head and neck down. A faint pink glow began to surround the edges of her body, growing brighter and brighter as she visibly shivered. “OOOOOHHH!!!!” she cried out as she lifted her head back up and arched it back, the glow intensifying as her body began to twitch, her muscles flexing and tensing… and seemingly growing slightly larger. A light shockwave suddenly propelled forth from her, crashing against the Wonderbolts, forcing them to brace themselves as the force blew past them and caused their manes to dance as if within a strong gust. “YESSSS!!!!!!” Nightshade yelled out as the glow surrounding her turned into an aura that rose from every inch of her body like a roaring flame. It was as if she had taken on the properties of a crystal itself, generating her own magic.

Her eyes shot open as she directed them towards the Wonderbolts. Her mouth was slightly agape with her tongue resting over her bottom lip, turned slightly to the right side of her mouth as she panted and gasped pleasurably. She vigorously licked the edges of her mouth before pulling her tongue back in and slamming her teeth shut into a crazed, power-high grin, a bright pink glow shining forth from her eyes.

The Wonderbolts watched in horror, but none were anywhere near as terrified as Rainbow Dash… because she had seen this before. Technically all of them had seen it, but she had also fought against it. This was exactly what Nightshade had done when she and Soarin had faced her previously… and the act of absorbing the crystals as she just had… sent her on a psychotic warpath like a wild, untamed beast.

“Oh… oh god… oh god…” Dash pushed herself backwards, forcing Matteo to reach down and stop her before the pressure against his arm caused him to tip over. But… as Nightshades little magic infusion continued… Dash began to notice that something wasn’t quite the same.

“HAHAHAHA!!!!” Nightshade laughed maniacally as she fixed her eyes on them. Her smile remained plastered to her face as her body and muscles continued to flex and twitch. “Well then!” she yelled towards them, sounding disturbingly happy. She grabbed her goggles from around her neck and pulled them back up to her face, but rested them on here forehead for the moment to keep her eyes free.

Dash’s jaw dropped as her fears were confirmed. Nightshade did the same thing she did last time, but unlike last time… she did not lose her mind. She was in control.

“You said… one more step… right?!” she slowly lifted up one of her front hooves. She bounced her eyebrows once, the whole massive aura around her suddenly shooting inward and surrounding her, giving off a bright flash and moving down her body until it was gathered in her lifted hoof. “Don’t mind if I do!”

She slammed her hoof down to the ground, a massive shockwave many times larger and stronger than the first, erupted from the ground where she stomped. It smashed into the Wonderbolts, blowing all of them off their hooves and sending them tumbling along the ground. Even Matteo was pushed over, dragging Silver along with him who was using him as support.

Several grunts and yelps rang out as the Wonderbolts finally stopped rolling, roughly coming to a halt on the hard rocky ground. None of them wasted any time in propping themselves up and staring in disbelief towards Nightshade. She reached up and lightly tapped her goggles down into place over her eyes, the pink light seeping out from beneath them as she licked the upper row of her teeth.

She was simply walking towards them again, her other three crystals orbiting her as the aura began to rise from her again. Invisible forces rushed from her body like continuous whirlwinds. Fire Streak was the first to his hooves, determined to not give in and keep up command.

“Everypony on your hooves! Now!” he yelled as he gave quick glances over his shoulders. The elites all rose, but Dash and Foxtrot remained behind, staring at Nightshade as she slowly approached. “Storm Front!” Fire suddenly yelled back. Storm perked up, somehow tearing his eyes away from his father’s former leader and friend as Fire called his name. “We’ll handle this! Take your squad and get Silver out of here! GO!”

Dash blinked as she tried to put together what was being suggested, she was being heavily distracted by Nightshade, but she could have sworn Fire had just told them to—

“W-what?! Storm fumbled to respond. He heard the orders loud and clear, but he was also unsure how to feel about them.

“THAT’S AN ORDER!” Fire added while shooting a sharp glare over his shoulder. “GO!!!”

Matteo and Squall both looked towards Storm, Dash slowly turning her head to look as well. Storm bit his lip, looking down with his pupils darting back and forth. He slammed his eyes shut, grunting uncomfortably as she shook his head and then took a deep breath.

“Let’s go…” he finally said while looking at all of them. “Come on, get up, let’s get moving! We have our orders!” he said as he twirled his hoof in the air and turned. He ran right into Silver, who was up and staring harshly at him. Storm froze for a moment, his eyes widening when he saw Silver, but he didn’t let it affect him for long. He fought past Silver’s gaze and continued to twirl his hoof. “LET’S GO!” he yelled, motioning to Squall, then Silver.

“What?” Silver blinked as Storm and Squall flanked him, lifted him up and placed him on Matteo’s back. “HEY!” Silver tried to resist, but being caught by surprise didn’t put him in a position to do so. They already had him up and his wings pressed to his body. “HOLD ON A SECOND!” Silver demanded, but Storm just kept pushing and pointing at Squall to remind him who was in charge.

“Uh…” Dash mumbled as she finally found her hooves, slowly turned around and began following. With no real idea what to do or how to handle the fear Nightshade was pressing into her, she went along without question.

As Matteo rose back up with Silver on his back, Silver held on, looking down at Dash and glaring as if he wanted her to speak out against what was happening, but she wasn’t even looking at him, just straight forward as they began taking off. Silver released a loud growl, but was cut off as Matteo began moving and he was forced to hang on.

“STOP!” he yelled. “WHAT THE HELL ARE—?!” Silver kept protesting, but Storm ignored him, as did Matteo and Squall but not without hesitation. Dash was just completely out of it, almost a completely different pony, the only goal on her mind to get as far away from Nightshade as possible.

“Where is Twister?!” Storm asked, looking around as they lifted off. Squall just shook his head in response.

“Hell if I know! He’ll be fine!” he replied, which Storm seemed to accept as they took to the air, Matteo struggling a little because of a certain, old, defiant voice yelling in his ears.

Dash just kept flying, but Nightshade’s laughter met her ears, causing her to cringe and nearly freeze as they slowly pulled away.

“YES! RUN!” Nightshade yelled after them. "I’ll have my fun here and then get a nice second helping when I find YOU!”

Dash didn’t look back, but every word stabbed at her. Nightshade had completely overwhelmed her and there was nothing she could do about it. She didn’t dare even peek over her shoulder. The only thing she heard as they left was Fire Streak give the launch chant.

“WONDERBOLTS! GO! GO! GO!”

The air around Dash had gone silent as if her ears were numb. She could hear things, but the sounds were barely registering. Faint noises… yelps, cries, explosions, screams. When she was sure they were out of direct visual range, she found the will to look back, only to see bright pink flashes erupting from the battleground. She quickly looked forward and bit her lip, her instincts kicking in but clashing with the intense fear that had gripped her and her heart. She just stuck next to Matteo, flying in formation as the internal battle raged.

But then… she suddenly had to react, shifting aside as Matteo nearly veered right into her. She was suddenly thrown back to reality and into the sounds of bickering happening right next to her.

“OW! OW!” Matteo grunted. “Captain Silver… ARGH! Stop it!” he yelled.

Dash looked towards Silver on Matteo’s back. Silver was yanking at Matteo’s feathers, fuming while trying to pull himself further forward to get a view of Storm.

“WHERE THE HELL DO YOU ALL THINK YOU’RE GOING?!?!” Silver yelled at the top of his lungs. “Turn around RIGHT now and go help them!” he demanded, but Storm kept his eyes forward.

“Captain, please! I’m following orders! We have to get you out of here so we can—”

“THE HELL YOU DO!” Silver cut him off. Dash gasped as she watched Silver push himself up and drive his elbow hard into Matteo’s back right into Matteo’s left wing joint.

“AUGH!!!!” Matteo cried out painfully, his left wing buckling and pulling in. He fell right out of his flight path and tumbled towards the ground, Silver hanging on for dear life as the two plummeted.

“Matty!” Dash yelled as she and Squall dove after them. Storm stopped and blinked for a moment before diving as well. They didn’t have nearly enough time or space to reach the falling duo, all three of them cringing as Matteo struck the ground hard, Silver bouncing off his back upon impact. The two tumbled to a painful halt, rolling up against a small cliffside below. Matteo rolled over and stood up immediately, cringing in pain and holding his right talons over his shoulder. Silver was slowly and painfully pushing himself up off the ground as Storm, Squall, and Dash all landed, rushing up to them. Dash was ready to ask Silver if he was alright, but Storm pushed by her before she could.

“Silver! What are you—” he was cut off the moment he reached Silver.

Silver suddenly reached out, grabbed Storm by the shoulder, yanked him around, and slammed him hard against the cliff wall. Dash, Squall, and Matteo all flinched and gasped in surprise.

“AH! OW!” Storm yelped as Silver continued to apply heavy pressure against him. He opened his eyes and his pupils shrank as Silver ripped his own goggles off and glared as hard as he could into Storm’s face from less than an inch away.

“Now you listen to me and you listen well, PUNK!” Silver yelled as hard as he could, spraying tiny bits of saliva into Storm’s face. “I didn’t let Fire tell me what to do so I’m sure as HELL not letting YOU do it either!” he unloaded, completely taking all the air out of Storm’s lungs, asserting himself fully and completely. “If you’re all going to turn your tails and run away… FINE! I’m going back to help them with or without you!”

Dash, Squall, and Matteo remained in place, mouths and beak still agape, glancing at each other while completely hesitant to step in the way of Silver’s onslaught. None of them were more conflicted than Dash however… because while her mind was still being invaded by Nightshade, she heard one thing loud and clear. That Silver was going to try to go back and fight.

“W-what?!” Storm managed to say despite being intimidated to hell and back. “No! We… we can’t!” he tried to argue.

“Oh really?!” Silver growled, narrowing his glare further. “Okay, son! What’s your excuse?!” he demanded.

“Ex… Excuse for what?!” Storm failed to get it.

“I’M ASKING THE FUCKING QUESTIONS HERE!!!!!” Silver roared into Storm’s face while pressing his nose to Storm’s. “What the hell makes you think it’s a good idea to just leave your comrades behind?!” he asked, spelling it out for Storm. Storm seemed to find a little bit of strength as his ears pointed back up and he gritted his teeth.

“I…I’m following Fire’s orders! And Spitfire also gave us orders to—”

“BULLSHIT!” Silver cut him off, yelling even louder. “This is coming from the pony who made a name for himself in the tryouts through showing an unyielding willingness to protect everypony he could!” Silver reminded him. Storm caved completely his eyes widening beneath his goggles. “That’s exactly why you ended up earning the elite spot too! Are you telling me you’re not the pony you built yourself up to be?!

“Uh… UH…!” Storm tried to reply, but he had nothing. Silver had completely called him out for caving.

“Feh…” Silver grunted as he pulled a little away. “You’re just as compromised as the rest of them…” As he felt Storm’s resistance let up, Silver let go, letting Storm drop to the ground. Storm looked up from his stomach to see Silver standing over him and looking down with a very disappointed expression. “Fine, if you’re that eager to run away… then you’re relieved of command of this squad!”

Storm didn’t reply, he just kept looking up as Dash, Matteo, and Squall continued to be bystanders, not sure what to do in the wake of what they just saw. But then they all flinched as Silver sharply turned and looked at them. He fixed his eyes on Matteo, and then Squall for a brief moment each, but then trained them directly at Dash standing between them. She simply looked back, the same expression of weakness and fear stuck on her face that had been since Nightshade appeared.

Silver’s glare hardened, pushing the limits of how much he could distort his face and brow as he growled and stomped over to Dash. Dash just kept staring, not picking up any of the anger Silver was aiming at her. He stopped right in front of her, gritted his teeth, and lifted up a hoof, pulling it back. Matteo and Squall both reacted in alarm, both turning and reaching out… but they were too late.

Silver UNLOADED a right hook into Dash, walloping her across the face and sending her right off her hooves to the ground. Matteo and Squall didn’t stop, angrily reaching towards Silver to restrain him, but Silver quickly slammed a hoof down over Squall’s head, pressing him down to the ground while simultaneously hooking Matteo’s arm and painfully twisting it in an awkward position. Silver’s breath hissed between his teeth, grunting painfully as he held the two at bay, both of them lurching and flailing as they tried to get free of his hold. Silver looked up at Dash on the ground as he struggled against Squall and Matteo.

“GET UP!” he yelled to Dash. Dash slowly turned over onto her back and propped herself up, reaching a hoof to her bruised cheek as she blinked. She locked her eyes on Silver, opening them wide as her mentor painfully groaned and gasped, holding her two friends down as they tried to push and yank free. “GET UP, AND GET YOUR RAINBOW SHERBERT ASS OVER HERE!” Silver demanded as he grinded his teeth together, his body shuddering and twitching.

Rainbow Dash didn’t even know how or why, but her body responded to Silver’s words. She slowly started to get up, pushing her hooves to the ground and rising. She started walking towards him, taking slow, but smooth steps as her eyes remained fixed forward. Matteo and Squall both saw Dash moving, causing them both to stop struggling and watch as their captain approached as she was told.

Silver gasped painfully, releasing both Squall and Matteo as they stopped resisting, he bent down for a moment to catch his breath and fight back the pain, but soon after, his head was up and he was giving Dash the same glare he just gave Storm. Dash remained still for a moment but then averted her eyes, looking towards the ground.

“Look at me,” Silver said quietly, but firmly. Dash blinked, tilting her head slightly, but not going all the way up. “Dammit, Dash… LOOK at me!” he lifted his voice a little, but didn’t yell. Dash shivered, but did as she was told, tipping her head all the way up. “Dash… I want you to look me in the eye… and honestly tell me that you are scared.”

Dash blinked again, taking a moment to realize what he had just said… and wonder if she had even heard him correctly.

“Uh…”

“Tell me you are scared!” he said louder. Dash just kept staring. “TELL ME!” he continued to stay just short of yelling, instead pouring strength into his voice that weighed down on her. “Because… if you are…” he paused and pointed back at the cacophony in the distance, all of the explosions and the yelling and screaming of familiar voices. “And after all I’ve seen and expected from you, all it takes is one pony to bring your composure, bravery, loyalty, and resolve crashing down…” he put his arms down and narrowed his eyes. “Then I have FAILED as your mentor, and have been completely wasting my god damned time with you!”

It felt like something had completely stabbed Dash through the heart. Suddenly something was overtaking the fear and thoughts of Nightshade… something that, no doubt by how she felt, meant much more to her than anything Nightshade could say or do to her.

Hearing Silver say those words did something to her. It filled her with… shame. But with the shame… came something else. Something that made her want to resist it… to bite back.

“SO SAY IT!” Silver finally yelled, startling her and causing Squall and Matteo to step back. “TELL ME YOU’RE SCARED! I DARE YOU! DISGRACE THAT UNIFORM YOU’RE WEARING! MAKE US REGRET EVER LETTING YOU WEAR IT! MAKE ME REGRET PUTTING SO MUCH FAITH IN YOU! I! DARE! YOU!”

Dash froze in place... but it wasn’t out of fear, in fact her continuous jittering had stopped completely.

It was realization.

She was scared. She could not deny that. She was very, very afraid of Nightshade. She always had been. Nightshade was like a nightmare that had escaped her head, the only pony she had ever, truly feared and lacked the strength to stand up to all on her own, the mere sight of her making her skin crawl and her stomach churn. Her traumatic fear of lightning was like a sweet, fresh baked cupcake compared to Nightshade.

But could she afford to let that control her? What would happen if she left? If she didn’t face her deepest fears? If she ran away and… left everypony she cared about behind?

The moment the thought crossed her mind, it hit her.

She looked down, shut her eyes, and gritted her teeth as a very specific memory flowed back to her.

We were ambushed. We didn’t stand a chance. A group of at least fifteen drakes surprised us… almost all of us. I spotted them incoming and called out a warning right as they were upon us. I managed to duck out of the way, but Blizzard Strike and four others were plucked right out of the sky and driven a hundred feet to the ground. The two remaining and I tried the take the fight to them, but before I could count to five, they were both down and I was being driven to the ground as well. I managed to break free and push off before the knockout blow, but now there I stood, the only thing between them and my seven fallen comrades. They all writhed and groaned in pain behind me as the drakes slowly closed in.”

“I was scared… Dash. I was scared of death. I was staring right into the eyes of the same species that had recently nearly burned me alive two months prior. They all approached slowly, with embers and small flames protruding between their teeth. I was terrified and knew the only thing ahead of me was pain. My fear overtook me. The cries and wails of agony from my fellow Wonderbolts failed to reach my ears.”

Dash’s ears stood straight up as more screams came from the direction of Nightshade… but none of the screams belonged to Nightshade herself.

"I ran… I fled the scene… In my fear, I forgot my duties. I only thought of my own safety and left them all… to die."

"They were all killed as soon as I left them. Six Wonderbolts who were all part of my recruitment class and my mentor, who was like a second father to me… all dead because I ran in the face of extreme danger. I ran into the approaching squads, king, and princess less than a minute after running, but by then it was already too late."

"We were soldiers… but they were also my family. They were my brothers and sisters, and Blizzard Strike was my mentor. They are all dead because I ran instead of holding my ground and taking the blows for them. Afterward, I never felt like more of a pathetic failure in my life. If not for Misty Fly adamantly convincing me otherwise, I was prepared to remove myself from the Wonderbolt ranks in shame. Since then, my life has gone on, I met and married my wife and I have two children. I have a little family of my own. But I will never get my first family back. I’ve lived every day of my life with it weighing heavily on my shoulders, but I have no one to blame but myself."

"It was on that very day, when Misty dragged my ass back into the compound, that I made a vow. A vow to never again run away from danger, to never again leave a fellow Wonderbolt or anypony else to a terrible fate. To protect each and every one of my brothers and sisters… until my very last breath if need be. This is the most important lesson I can ever teach you, Dash… Take good heed of it, and think about it. I’ve been cursed with a terrible shame that weighs on me every day of my life, and I do not wish the same for you."

Silver didn’t want her to admit she was scared… that’s not what he wanted at all.

He wanted her to DENY it. He wanted her to deny it with everything she had.

She was now in a situation that was similar to the one Silver had failed to face when he was her age… and he was doing everything in his power to make her see it and understand it.

He didn’t want her to make the same mistake.

He didn’t want her to be overcome with the same shame that he now lived with every day of his life.

Dash feared Nightshade. That wouldn’t change. But when those she cared about were in grave danger… she couldn’t afford to run from her fears… she had to face them. She had to face them, overcome them, and fight. She couldn’t leave them all behind.

She REFUSED to leave them all behind!

Dash slowly opened her eyes, her face relaxing as she took a quiet breath.

“I’m not scared…” she said as she slowly looked up at Silver. Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“Louder.”

“I’m NOT scared!” Dash spoke up, baring her teeth.

“Bullshit!” Silver yelled back at her. “I’m not convinced!” Silver was about to take a step forward and push her back, but before his hoof could touch the ground, Dash pushed forward into HIM, catching him off balance and pushing him two steps backwards as Dash glared at him.

“I’M NOT SCARED, YOU OLD BASTARD!”

Dash yelled as loud as she could, startling both Squall and Matteo and finally causing Storm to blink and look up from where Silver had left him. Silver stared at Dash with a flat, serious expression as she growled, her nostrils flaring as her anger spilled over at him.

After a moment, Silver smiled.

“Okay then…” Silver said as stepped back and turned his side to her. “Prove it.”

Dash shifted forward, ready to say more, but before she could, Silver cleared his throat loudly.

“Recruit Rainbow Dash, as Second Captain of the Wonderbolts, I hereby revoke the orders of Lead Captain Spitfire on the grounds that she is emotionally compromised. I am placing you in command of recruit squad Foxtrot and assigning you full use of Storm Front of squad seven.” Silver paused and glanced over at Storm, who was still on the ground, but looking towards them in surprise. “Well…?” Silver turned to face Dash again as she stared with wide eyes, caught slightly off-guard by the official declaration. “You’re in command now,” Silver immediately granted her. “The choice is all yours. Either we leave… or we stay and fight.”

It took Dash a moment to fully register the restoration of her command, but the moment she did, she briefly thought over every word Silver had just said… quickly picking out something he tried to sneak in there, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

“We are staying and we are fighting!” Dash yelled, addressing Storm, Squall, and Matteo first, Silver started moving up beside her, but she abruptly turned and pressed a hoof to his chest. “But YOU… are not fighting.” She quickly denied him. Silver’s eyes widened and he blinked.

“Wha—?”

“Don’t start with me!” Dash cut him off. “Nice try. You weren’t specific in which orders by Spitfire you were revoking. I’m not gonna let you use that as an excuse to fly into battle with us. And I know you were thinking that, don’t deny it!” Dash called him out. Silver immediately flattened his brow and huffed as she continued. “You have restored my authority as captain of this operation, and my orders to you are to stay back and respect that you’re in no condition to fight!” She stepped up and got in his face, even though she had to reach her neck up a little to do so. “And if you’re going to challenge me like you did Fire and Storm… Give me your best shot, geezer! I’m not gonna bend over and take it like they did!”

Silver stared down at Dash as she forced her glare up towards him. He looked into her eyes carefully for several moments before failing to hold back a smirk and a chuckle.

“Heh, then what the hell are you waiting for?” he said while shaking his head. “Don’t waste your time with a broken, old stallion like me,” he made a swift head motion towards the fighting. “Get going… And don’t look back.”

The corners of Dash’s lips turned up into a grin as Silver immediately caved, respecting her will and her desire to keep him out of danger. That or her ego felt a bit inflated after she got him to back down when two that ranked much higher than her got their asses kicked trying. In reality, it was a sign that she had his respect on a deeper level.

“Storm! Squall! Matty!” Dash yelled as she swiftly turned around and stepped up to Squall and Matteo. The two were still showing a little unease and uncertainty, but both of them perked up the moment Dash approached and made her presence and determination known. “Bring it in!” She beckoned them. Squall and Matteo both hesitated for a moment, but both swallowed, nodded and stepped forward, following the lead of their captain. The weight of the situation was clear and present, but they would not run while their captain stood ready to fight.

Storm, however… didn’t move from his spot. He still sat against the cliff side, staring towards them blankly. Dash, glanced past Squall and furrowed her brow.

“STORM!” she yelled at him, but aside from turning his eyes towards her specifically, he didn’t give any sort of response. Dash scrunched her face into a sharp glare. “Storm, get your ass over here or we’re leaving without you!” she threatened. Squall scoffed as he looked over his shoulder at Storm.

“Feh…” Squall flipped his mane over as he looked back at Dash. “Don’t even bother. Let him be a chicken and—ow!” Squall yelped as Dash jabbed him in the arm.

“Squall… let him speak for himself!” Dash ordered. Storm’s eyes widened as Dash turned her attention back to Storm. “It’s his call. He’s the only elite among us, but in the end it’s up to him what that title of ‘elite’ really means.”

Storm visibly flinched, his ears standing straight up as Dash continued to glare towards him. He looked away briefly, staring at the ground and face slightly changed as his eyes darted back and forth.

“Well Storm?” Dash continued. “Are you with us, or do we have to leave you here with the old bag of bones?” she asked while pointing towards Silver. Silver snorted and pouted.

“Alright, enough with the old pony talk—”

“WELL?!” Dash cut him off, keeping her eyes on Storm.

Storm kept looking down, but he began to shudder. He gritted his teeth as he slammed his eyes shut, the specific words Dash had used cutting even deeper than the onslaught Silver piled on him earlier. She was right… he was the only ‘elite’ among them… so why was he the only one hesitating?

Storm lifted his head up, his eyes opening to reveal a renewed fire of resolve. What the hell was all his work and advanced achievement for if he just caved when it mattered? They gave him the privilege of becoming a high tier elite fresh out of cadet tryouts. He refused to let them regret the decision.

Storm rocked forward and slammed his hooves to the ground, pushing himself up and quickly trotting over to them, joining the other three in the huddle. Dash smiled as Storm walked up, watching as Storm and Squall exchanged challenging glares before the two refocused.

“I’m right with you!” Storm declared strongly, glancing up at Matteo to receive a grin of approval. “Let’s do this!”

Dash smiled and held a hoof forward into the middle of the huddle.

“Alright, let’s…” she suddenly paused, blinked and looked around.

“What?” Matteo asked as he started glancing in the same directions she was, but looked right back when Dash released an annoyed growl.

“I swear to Celestia, I MIGHT actually consider murdering Twister the next time I see him…” she grumbled. Storm, Squall, and Matteo all blinked and glanced around as if expecting Twister to show up the moment Dash mentioned him… but he remained missing in action… for who the hell knows why. “Forget it, LISTEN UP!” Dash yelled.

They all turned their attention back towards Dash, all huddling up. Dash, still holding her hoof into the center of them, bobbed it up and down to encourage them to do the same. Squall and Storm both put their hooves into the center. Matteo followed up by reaching in and clasping his talons around the three hooves. Dash gave each of them a brief look, making sure to look into each pair of eyes before giving a strong nod.

“We’re about to fly into battle against somepony that’s… not normal, in any sense of the word. She is cruel, merciless, and will constantly try to get in your head, doing anything and everything to physically, mentally, or emotionally conquer you. I will come right out and say it… Silver is spot on. I am scared of her,” Dash admitted, drawing looks of surprise, especially because she had just denied it by yelling in Silver’s face. “I have fought her before, as I told you guys when we were in Cloudsdale… she is nothing like anypony else I’ve faced and I’m sure it will be the same for you…” she paused and hardened her gaze, glaring at each one of them. “But there are lives on the line here… WONDERBOLT lives…and as Wonderbolts… we can’t just back down while they put it all on the line against her. I’ll be damned before I let her intimidate me! It’s up to us to help them! ARE YOU WITH ME?!” she yelled while tensing her arm and pushing her hoof against the others. Squall, Matteo, and Storm all gave a hard nod.

“HOO-RAH!” The three of them yelled. Without another word, they broke the huddle and all turned to face the battle, making sure their goggles were in place, save for Dash who had lost hers. They spread their wings, ready to fly.

Dash briefly glanced over her shoulder at Silver, who was leaning against a rock for support… smiling. Dash smirked right back before facing forward.

“WONDERBOLTS!” she yelled out. “GO! GO! GO!” she gave the order, the four of them breaking into a short sprint before leaping into the air and taking flight in a diamond formation, shooting towards the battle between Nightshade and the elites.

Silver watched proudly as the four left him behind, his smile growing wider as he pushed off the rock and started limping towards the fighting.

“Heh… heheh…” he chuckled to himself. He couldn’t stop smiling. “Well I’ll be…” he said to himself as he hobbled along and kept chuckling. “Looks like we brought some Wonderbolts along on this mission after all…”

It was a very short flight back to the battle, but Dash was contemplating what to do from the moment they took off.

“Steady!” she yelled as they approached the cacophony below, the pink explosions leaping up from wide open canyons accompanied by yelps and grunts. “Stay in formation!” Dash yelled as they shot out over the top and finally got a good look at what was happening below. Dash wanted to assess the situation before giving any specific orders… but it didn’t take long to see the situation was beyond crazy.

There were lots of Nightshades engaged with the Wonderbolts below, well… clones of Nightshade. Dash took a second or two to specifically watch an exchange between Surprise and one of the Nightshade clones that was using Witch’s needle barrage. Surprise evaded and closed in, but when she went for the clone weak point in the forehead, the clone quickly and skillfully guarded the spot, pushing Surprise back and pressing its attack. Surprise even tried using some of her random ‘reality defying’ tactics to gain vantage points, but they were met with the same result. No matter where she popped up or appeared, she struggled to get even close to hitting the clone’s weak point. Dash glanced back and forth to see similar sequences play out with the others in the immediate area.

Unlike the commander clones, Nightshade’s were not slow, weak, or clumsy. They were not on the level of Nightshade herself, but they were strong, aggressive, and skillful, even taking measures to specifically guard the weak point. It wasn’t perfect, a few of them being felled as Dash flew over the top, but it took a lot of effort from the elites, as opposed to the commander clones who tended to leave the weak point wide open. These clones were forcing the Wonderbolts to actually engage and fight them, which provided Nightshade the perfect cover to launch her own attacks. It certainly didn’t help that these clones seemed capable of also using at least one of the commander techniques… what a nightmare.

It didn’t take Dash long to decide… that to reach victory, they had to single out and bring down the real Nightshade… as ridiculously hard as that would be. The Wonderbolts were divided and forced to focus on one or two clones at a time… if they were going to take on the real Nightshade, they’d need at least three or four Wonderbolts all focused on her at once.

It was settled, they had to locate and engage Nightshade herself… the first task would be finding her. Dash wasn’t too worried about the Wonderbolts fighting the stronger clones, they could handle themselves. She was more worried about whichever elite was unlucky enough to run into the real Nightshade.

Dash was faced with a dilemma. Part of the current problem was that the Wonderbolts were separated, but the fastest way they would possibly find the real Nightshade was if her squad split up. She didn’t feel like she had the time to think it over, so in the end, she was forced to make a quick choice.

“Split up and assist out fellow Wonderbolts!” she yelled back. “Help them break free and try to get them grouped back together! Strength will be in numbers in this fight! If you find the real one, give some sort of signal to alert the others! GO!” Dash split off, as the rest did the same. She cursed herself for possibly thinking too fast since she didn’t specify what the ‘signal’ should be, but she had a feeling anything that spread alert would suffice.

As they all broke off, Dash kept surging forward, she ended up fixing her eyes on a scuffle going on further away from the others. She pumped her wings and shot over the top, looking down to see Blaze and High Winds. The two of them were engaged with two clones.

Dash stopped and hovered in the air, looking carefully at the clones. There had to be some way to tell them apart from the real Nightshade. If she had known she would be engaging her now, she’d have paid more attention when Nightshade showed them before.

Dash perked up when Blaze and High Winds executed a well-timed maneuver, crossing and catching each other’s opponent off guard, striking both their foreheads and causing them to explode in a bright light. Dash smiled at their success and turned away to check the others. She already noticed that Squall, Matteo, and Storm were no longer up in the air, all three of them likely down and helping the Wonderbolts. She was about to start up and look for Nightshade again…

But then a yelp rang out, forcing her to turn back and look down at Blaze and High Winds again. The two of them faced another Nightshade… but only one? Dash blinked and her eyes widened as a soft pink glow emitted from the Nightshade…

The Nightshade… wait a minute… that was Nightshade!

Dash’s eyes widened as Blaze and High Winds rushed at Nightshade, only to be met halfway and driven towards the ground. Dash quickly looked back, swearing as she saw nopony in the direct vicinity to call too, so she put her hooves to her mouth and whistled as loud and for as long as she could, hoping somepony from her squad heard it before she turned and started a careful approach to Nightshade.

“OOF!”

“OW!”

Blaze and High Winds both grunted in pain as they were harshly forced to the ground on their backs, grinding against the rocky floor of the canyon as Nightshade pushed them along, pinning and pulling their wings painfully beneath them. Nightshade eventually stopped and doubled the pressure down against them to lock them in place, both of them gasping and struggling as they yanked at Nightshade’s arms.

“Ah…” Nightshade lowered her head down and looked at both of them real close while bobbing back and forth between them. “The mares of the second squad…” She grinned as she bounced her eyebrows. “I don’t believe we’ve been FORMALLY introduced!” she taunted as she stopped over Blaze and leaned in closer, Blaze growling as Nightshade put her face real close to hers. “Oh?” Nightshade lifted her brow. “You must be related to Spitfire! Same pathetic glare and ugly mane to match… only you’re a bit smaller and scrawnier. Such a shame!”

“GO FUCK YOURSELF!” Blaze belted, spraying saliva at Nightshade’s face as she yelled at the top of her lungs. Nightshade snorted and rolled her eyes.

“Been there, done that…” she shrugged. “My clones ARE pretty good in bed, but they never resist… nowhere near as satisfying as subduing the REAL thing!” she sneered as she tipped her body down towards Blaze and pressed her chest against Blaze’s stomach. “Want to try me, little mare?” she asked as Blaze cringed and arched her neck away.

“GET… OFFA HER!” High Winds yelled, lurching and pulling harder at Nightshade’s other arm.

“Oh, you want some too?” Nightshade asked with a creepy giggle as she remained on Blaze but looked over at High Winds. She opened her mouth to say more, but her eyes suddenly glanced up. She blinked and sighed in disappointment. “Pardon me for a moment.”

Nightshade suddenly lifted herself up, grabbed both Blaze and High Winds by the fabric of their suits, smacked their heads together and then spun, throwing them both into a nearby cliff wall. Blaze hit the wall first and then High Winds smashed into her. Both of them cried out painfully as they fell into a heap on the ground.

The moment after Nightshade let them fly, she turned, anchored her back hooves into the ground, and reached her front hooves up. Rainbow Dash shot in and clashed her front hooves with Nightshade’s causing a loud, echoing CLACK that bounced off the cliff walls. Dash gritted her teeth as she felt the opposite pressure from Nightshade, but she kept pumping her wings harder and harder, pushing her along the ground as Nightshade’s hooves began digging along the rocky floor. Dash forced herself to remain strong and poised, even though Nightshade was staring right into her eyes, Nightshade’s confident gaze very visible behind the yellow goggles. Nightshade didn’t seem surprised, or at all shocked to see Dash… it was almost as if she was expecting her. The look pierced right through Dash, but she refused to yield. She looked headlong into Nightshade’s eyes and told herself to fight the fear.

Don’t be afraid, push back against it!

Unfortunately, Dash’s strength was not as strong as her resolve… because try as she might, Nightshade managed to completely counter her force after only being pushed back a yard or so. Dash’s wings were still pumping, and she was still pushing, but Nightshade had halted them completely.

“Awwwww!” Nightshade suddenly cooed, but her natural voice tone made even something like a coo sound incredibly seductive. “I KNEW you’d come back!” she taunted as Dash continued to struggle, but it got to a point where it seemed like Nightshade wasn’t even trying. “I LOVE eager types! They ALWAYS come back to me!”

“I’m NOT…” Dash grunted. “The pony…” she gasped as she kept pushing. “I used to be!” she declared as she kept glaring into Nightshade’s goggles and the confident eyes that lay behind.

“Oh… believe me,” Nightshade licked her lips. “I’ve noticed!” Nightshade suddenly released one of Dash’s hooves and grabbed her arm. Dash didn’t even have time to yelp as Nightshade swung her around and threw her down to the ground back-first in the blink of an eye. Dash opened her eyes just in time to see Nightshade jam her hoof down hard against her chest. Dash gasped as Nightshade’s hoof connected, sending waves of pain through her from head to hoof. Survival instincts kicked in and she immediately grabbed Nightshade’s arm, but no matter how hard she yanked and pulled at it, it didn’t even budge.

Dash eyes widened as she realized just how easily Nightshade subdued her. As if it wasn’t intimidating enough to have her over her and looking down with her creepy smile, Dash’s hooves could feel the enormous, rock hard muscles in Nightshade’s arm, tensed and holding her in place as if a solid, heavy, metal pillar had been dropped on her chest. Nightshade released a deep, slow giggle as she increased the pressure, causing Dash to gasp and writhe as she was pressed down, causing a painful amount of compression against her wings as they were sandwiched between the ground and her back.

“Hee hee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Nightshade bit her lip as she started leaning down, the glow disappearing from around her body for the moment. Dash’s eyes shooting open and her ears folding back as Nightshade lowered herself down. “You look even better than you did last time I saw you! Oh… I love how this suit hugs your body…” She lifted her other hoof over and began running it along Dash’s chest and stomach. “Still hitting the weights hard, I see! Good, I love a pony who stays in shape!”

Dash slammed her eyes shut and shook her head, holding her breath for a moment before growling and opening her eyes, glaring hard at Nightshade. She couldn’t let her get in her head! She refused to play her game again!

“I’m gonna… hit… YOU hard!” Dash spat back defiantly. Nightshade puffed her cheeks up and held in a laugh.

“Pfffff… on, don’t tempt me!”

“Ah!” Dash flinched and cried out as Nightshade slammed her whole body down on top of hers. Seeing the position she was now in, Dash started shifting her whole body, struggling to shimmy herself out from beneath Nightshade, but her strength, not to mention her size made it incredibly difficult to gain any ground.

“Yesssssssssss!!!” Nightshade shivered, while grinning ear to ear. “Keep struggling! MORE! MORE!” she demanded as she started pressing her free hooves harder against Dash’s body while feeling her up, slinging one of them all the way back to give her plot an uncomfortable squeeze.

“DAMMIT!” Dash slammed her eyes shut and arched her head back. “STOP IT!!!!” she yelled out desperately. She was facing Nightshade against her fears… trying to fight back against Nightshade’s manipulations, but it was as frustrating as it was difficult. She was trying to legitimately fight… but Nightshade was simply humiliating her!

“Oooooh Dashie!” Nightshade giggled as she reached forward and grabbed Dash’s shoulders, increasing the pressure of her body against Dash’s. “The more you squirm, the more it drives me wild! Keep it up…” she leaned in really close to Dash’s face, causing Dash to look back and glare instead of arching away. “I might just have to slip us out of these suits!”

“HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” Blaze suddenly yelled out from nearby.

“Dammit… always when I’m busy…” Nightshade grunted in frustration as she pushed herself up off of Dash and reached up a hoof to block a flying kick from Blaze. But at the last second, Blaze thrust her wings down, propelling her up and over Nightshade. Nightshade didn’t even react, just looked up while lifting an eyebrow.

“WINDY!” Blaze yelled, causing Nightshade to glance back down casually. High Winds was ten yards away, in the air with her wings cupped back.

“HRGH!” High Winds grunted as she slammed her wings forward, a loud BANG ringing out as an incredibly strong burst of wind propelled forward. Nightshade blinked, reaching up a hoof to shield her face as the burst slammed against her, knocking her up onto her hind legs and tipping her over. “BLAZEY!” High Winds yelled as she finished the wind attack.

“SUCK ON THIS, BITCH!” Blaze yelled as she shot up from behind Nightshade with her front hooves clasped together and thrust them down towards Nightshade’s face to hammer her to the ground.

“Heh…” Nightshade smirked, the glow reappearing around her as thrust her wings towards the ground beneath her back, bracing herself as she reached up and caught Blaze’s hooves. “Tell me where and on what and I’ll gladly oblige!” Two flashes of light suddenly ripped from both sides of her, each creating a clone that shot out and arced around. One of them headed towards High Winds while wielding Blade’s sword, the other one took a wide turn while magic auras gathered around its arms like Sin. Nightshade shoved her hooves to the ground, barely missing Dash’s face as she pushed off and grabbed Blaze. She skidded to a halt a few yards away, and sneered at Blaze as she struggled to try and get free. Nightshade spun around and launched Blaze into the air, Blaze barely shielding herself in time as the Clone collided with her, the two hurling away from Nightshade.

Dash frantically glanced back and forth as both Blaze and High Winds were forced away by the clones. She scrambled to her hooves and focusing on Nightshade. She had her back turned to her. Dash wasn’t going to let the opportunity go to waste. She crouched down and opened her wings, leaning back while holding her wings forward. With her adrenaline pumping and filled with determination, Dash pushed through the motions of the Sonic Blast-off. Propelling herself at top speed from only a few yards away. The moment she felt the surge of speed, she used Twister’s Spiral Turn to begin a motion that allowed her to also wind up Silver’s full motion strike…

But the one rotation that took her eyes off Nightshade for a split second was apparently all the time Nightshade needed… to turn around in an instant, step forward to throw off Dash’s timing, reach up, and clasp her arms around Dash in a bear hug before any attacks were executed.

“HRRRMM!!” Nightshade grunted as Dash’s slammed into her, ripping Nightshade’s back hooves off the ground. But she thrust out her powerful wings, slowing them down and placing her back hooves to the ground with little effort…

“AHH!” Dash yelled out as Nightshade began to squeeze her, her arms caught as she wiggled back and forth in Nightshades arms. Her struggles were masking just how much in disbelief she was that Nightshade managed such a quick reaction. And now she was caught in a crushing hold, face to face with Nightshade as she sneered at her and squeezed her tightly.

“Really, Dashie…” Nightshade snickered. “Every time you leap at me, you’re doing exactly what I want!”

“Ah!” Dash squeaked as she felt Nightshade’s muscles tense and the pressure around her increase.

“It’s almost like you want me to do as I please with you!” Nightshade added while reaching her head forward and poking her nose against Dash’s cheek.

“RRGHHH!!!!” Dash pulled her head back in disgust, glared at Nightshade, and thrust her head forward as hard as she could, crashing her forehead against Nightshade’s with the strongest headbutt she could muster… but then immediately regretted it. Nightshade didn’t even flinch, and she felt nearly as solid as Sin. “AHHH!” Dash cried out and shuddered as pain shot through her head and neck from the attempt. Nightshade burst out laughing as Dash cringed.

“What was THAT?!” Nightshade asked as she watched Dash grunt and gasp. A devilish smirk appeared on her face and grew larger and larger as she watched Dash struggle in her grip. “You know…” Nightshade let her tongue push between her teeth, lightly licking her upper lip. “If you wanted a kiss… you should have just ASKED!”

Dash’s eyes shot open incredibly wide as Nightshade suddenly thrust her head forward and crashed her mouth against hers. Dash released a muffled shriek as she immediately tried to pull away, but was locked in place. She pulled her head back and forth trying to detach her mouth from Nightshade’s as she felt Nightshade’s tongue pin hers down and freely explore her mouth. In her desperation, Dash managed to rip her right arm free and started punching Nightshade in the side of the face, but even that didn’t dislodge her. Dash was completely helpless as Nightshade utterly humiliated and violated her.

Nightshade finally released Dash’s mouth, but bit down hard on Dash’s lower lip, pulling it back a little with her. Dash screamed as Nightshade’s teeth lightly punctured her lip and drew blood as she finally let go.

“AH! Ahhhhhhh!!” Dash wheezed and gasped as she tasted her own blood in her mouth. Nightshade shuddered and moaned smiling as a light trickle of Dash’s blood dripped from her lip. She slowly licked it up before smiling at Dash’s pain.

What the hell was happening? Dash felt like she had literally dived right into her own nightmare. Her will to fight was strong, but how could she fight something that had complete, unyielding control over her to the point where she couldn’t even fight back? She opened her eyes, feeling violated and traumatized, but narrowed her gaze into a glare that she aimed right at Nightshade. Nightshade giggled slowly as she continued to hold Dash in the vice grip.

“Even after all that… you’re still defiant…” she gave Dash another painful squeeze, causing her to grunt, but she kept her glare strong. “You’re right. You are a different pony, much tougher to break…” Nightshade’s eyes widened as she pushed her nose against Dash’s. “But the harder they are to break… the more satisfying the—” Nightshade blinked, looking into Dash’s eyes and seeing a reflection. She growled and scoffed. “For fuck’s sake…!”

“PUT HER DOWN!!” Squall yelled as he, Storm, and Matteo came diving in from behind. Nightshade glanced over her shoulder at the three closing in and smirked.

“Oh, you want sloppy seconds? HERE!” she yelled as she shifted her grip on Dash and spun around.

“AH!” Dash yelped as Nightshade swung and threw her effortlessly into the air, right into the flight path of the trio. Storm Front pumped his wings harder, shifting in front of Squall and catching Dash, pushing his wings to the left as he did to change momentum and shift the two of them out of Squall’s path, Matteo lagging behind on a delayed approach. Squall shot forward aiming towards Nightshade as she set her hooves and eagerly waited. Squall gave one final push before shifting upright and putting up his hooves in a ready stance as the gap closed between them.

“HOOOOORYAAA!” Squall’s battle cry rang out as he began throwing rapid punches, pairing the attacks in rapid successions, throwing every attack combo he could think of within his repertoire of martial arts. Every punch and kick was followed up by another punch or kick, pushing the assault… but nothing was getting through. Nightshade was stepping backwards, but doing so casually while blocking or dodging every attack… while smiling at him.

“Oh? Oh? OH! Almost got me with that one! Oo! Whoa! Heheh!” Nightshade taunted and teased as Squall gave his hardest effort to no avail.

“GRRRR!!!” Squall growled as he kept up the attack, Nightshade admittedly striking a nerve that he despised. Squall hated not being taken seriously more than anything else, but he did his best to stay focused, heeding Dash’s warnings about Nightshade getting in the heads of her opponents. Squall’s ears perked up when a loud BANG rang out from behind him. He grunted, shifted back, landed, and leapt upward while thrusting his wings down, propelling himself upward.

“Where are you going? Oh!” Nightshade immediately shifted her focus back down to see Matteo careening towards her with added speed from his Air Burst, his right talons balled up and pulled back. Nightshade reached up one hoof just in time to meet Matteo’s thunderous punch. “WHHHHOOOAA!!” she grunted as Matteo’s punch had enough power to force her hoof to her chest and knocked her off her back hooves. Matteo pushed his large, powerful wings into overdrive, each beat causing a powerful gust of wind around him as her pushed onward. Nightshade reached up and grabbed his arm, slamming her hooves back to the ground and trying to anchor herself. Matteo followed suit, reaching up and grabbing his forearm with his free talons, slamming his back paws to the ground and pushing forward with all of his might, causing Nightshades hooves to slip and skid.

“WOW!” Nightshade called out as she struggled to stop the juggernaut, shuddering and smiling as she finally secured her base but still found herself being pushed back. “You are DAMN strong!” she said in twisted admiration as she found herself unable to completely stop him, his strength, height advantage, and leverage not allowing her own strength to fight back. “Guess I’ve got to boost myself at least a little for you!” she said with a sneer as the pink aura began to rise from around her body again. Her body tingled and her muscle flexed and bulged as the light swirled around her… and Matteo suddenly found himself no longer able to push her back, Nightshade stopping him with added strength just a yard shy of being pushed up against a cliff wall.

“Oh, that’s just not fair…” Matteo grumbled as he scrunched his brow and tried to push harder, but Nightshade didn’t budge any further.

“Matty!” Dash yelled as she, Storm, and Squall rushed forward to assist, but Nightshade’s eyes disappeared in a flash of light. Dash yelped as she was suddenly struck from behind and driven to the ground, she heard similar cries from Squall and Storm as she hit the ground. She rolled over and tried to get up, but a hoof slammed down against her. “OW!” she cried out, looking up to see a Nightshade clone pressing down against her back. She immediately tried to push herself up, but while the clone was nowhere near as strong as Nightshade, it was still strong enough to hold her down and force her to struggle for an advantage. Dash glanced left and right to see Squall and Storm both wrestling with clones as well. Dash refocused, trying as hard as she could to push back against the clone as her eyes went forward, fixing on Matteo and the real Nightshade, still locked in the power struggle.

“You sure are… a BIG boy, eh?” Nightshade taunted as she looked up into Matteo’s glare, which only hardened and was accompanied by a low growl as Nightshade continued to sneer and shiver as if she was enjoying it. “Ooooooo… I like that look you’re giving me! You know…” she paused for a moment as Matteo gave a sudden hard push, forcing her to tense up and match it. “I’ve never banged a griffon before,” she batted her eyelashes, causing Matteo to blink, and lift an eyebrow. “I hear your kind gets rough… even violent when you mate. That’s kinky as hell! Want to show me?” she asked while inching her head forward and biting her lip. Matteo scrunched his face and twitched.

“You DISGUST me!” he shot back without hesitation.

“I know,” Nightshade said coyly with a wink. Matteo’s eyes widened as she suddenly yanked him forward instead of pushing back, his forward force causing him to lurch forward as she pulled. She ripped one hoof free of Matteo’s arm and curled it up close to her, shifting her shoulder and ramming Matteo hard in the chest.

“HRGH!” Matteo grunted loudly and exhaled, but quickly slammed his talons down to stop himself from falling forward.

“Ooooh, wow!” Nightshade giggled as she kept her shoulder against his chest. “Those massive muscles aren’t just for show are they? You are one solid birdie! That’s… SEXY!”

“RGH! DAMMIT!” Matteo tried to push himself back, but Nightshade latched onto him, running a hoof along his chest.

“Hey, hey, hold on, I’m not done touching you…” she snickered as she pressed herself to him, Matteo struggling to pull back.

“Matty!” Dash yelled as she finally pushed down hard enough to stagger the clone stepping on her. She stood up and threw her elbow into the chest of the clone to knock it back. “GET OFF OF HIM!” she demanded as she used her chance to rush towards them.

“Hmm…” Nightshade glanced past Matteo and shrugged. “My offer stands!” she joked as she suddenly slammed her back hooves down and spread her wings, pumping them hard as she pushed off the ground.

“AUGH!” Matteo grunted as he felt himself lift up into the air, Nightshade pressing into his chest and forcing him off the ground. She drove him backwards, plowing him right into Dash, slamming into the clone following behind her as well. Squall and Storm looked up in horror as Matteo, Dash, and a Nightshade clone were all shooting towards them.

“GAH!”

“AH!” Squall and Storm both cried out as the flying trio were thrown on top of them, Matteo’s weight pressing down on top the other three members of Foxtrot and the three Nightshade clones.

“PILE ON!” Nightshade yelled out as she shot up into the air and let herself fall towards the pile, driving her elbow right into Matteo’s stomach and smashing him painfully down on top of the rest. Matteo cried out in pain, the other three doing the same as the pressure surged down over them. The three Nightshade clones were crushed completely, all shining brightly before exploding RIGHT in the faces of Squall, Storm, and Dash and burning Matteo’s back.

Nightshade bounced back and landed nearby as the smoke cleared and the four members of Foxtrot rolled off of each other, singed, cringing, and groaning in pain.

“Hmmm…” Nightshade hummed as she strolled up to them and licked her lips. “So…” she got right in the middle of all of them and laid herself flat on the ground, propping an elbow on the ground and resting her cheek on a hoof, twiddling her back hooves in a very girlish manner. “Which one of you wants to take it first? Trust me, there’s plenty of me to go around…” she eyed Matteo, Squall, and Storm. “Especially when I have so many new toys to play with!” she giggled as she reached out and placed a hoof on Squall, stopping him from rolling away from her. She forced her hoof down, causing him to yelp in pain and turn towards her. “You are quite the looker when you’re not trying to punch me in the face. You’re the one that Blade scarred, right?” she sneered and reached for Squall’s mask. “Let me see it!” she grabbed Squall’s mask, but right before she yanked on it, she felt a tug on her other arm. “Hm?”

She looked down to see Storm grasping her arm and pulling on it as he growled in between grunts of pain.

“My… my… we have an eager one here!” she chuckled as she released Squall and turned herself towards Storm. She looked down at how hard he was squeezing her arm with his hooves and shivered. “And a desperate one too… oh, I love those types...” She slowly stood up, Storm still clinging to her arm as she did. She reached her other arm down and grabbed him by the chest of his suit, ripping his hooves off her arm and yanking him up to eye level. Storm immediately reached his hooves up and grabbed her wrist from both sides. “Yessss…” she said as her grin grew wider. “Defy me till the bitter end…” she leaned forward, nearly pressing her face to his and looking into his goggles, staring into his eyes. “Such wonderfully defiant eyes to match! That look always gets me going… you’re only making me want you more!” she visibly shivered. “Let me see those eyes without these goggles in the way!” she tipped her head up and grabbed the nose strap of Storm’s goggles in her teeth, giving them a hard yank down.

“Gah!” Storm yelped in surprise, tipping his head away and slamming his eyes shut.

“Ah, ah, ah…” Nightshade lightly shook him by the suit. “Don’t go soft on me now! Glare at me again! Glare at—!”

Nightshade suddenly stopped, her eyes widening as Storm turned his head back, and glared at her fiercely. Nightshade stared right into Storm’s eyes, her pupils visibly shrinking behind her goggles and her mouth remaining open.

“Wh… what?” Nightshade blinked several times as she slowly began reclining her neck backwards as if… frightened?

“Rgh…” Dash grunted, rolling over and straining herself to find her hooves as she looked up and saw Nightshade holding Storm. He was hanging limply in her grip and glaring at her. But why had Nightshade stopped? She hadn’t just stopped, she was shaking… and it wasn’t the pleasurable shivers or jitters she so proudly expressed in her arousals.

Storm kept pulling on her hoof to no avail, never removing her eyes from Nightshade’s, too entrenched in the moment and in his own survival to really notice Nightshade’s sudden drastic shift in demeanor.

A few squeaks escaped the back of Nightshade’s throat, failing to speak as she began lightly shaking her head.

“N… no…” she finally managed to get out before suddenly gripping Storm’s suit even tighter. “NO!” she yelled thrusting her arm forward while letting go. Storm gasped as he hit the ground hard and bounced once before landing on his side, facing away from her. Nightshade pushed herself back several steps, leaning backwards, lifting her arm up and crossing it over her chest, gripping her opposite shoulder as she shuddered. “It’s a trick! You’re not him! YOU’RE NOT HIM!” she yelled while putting her head down and reaching her hoof from her shoulder up to her head, pressing it against her forehead as the pink aura began shining around her. She looked up and snarled towards Storm as he rolled onto his stomach and cringed in pain. “NO! STOP IT!” she shook her head roughly before her eyes narrowed into a killer’s glare. “Forget you! I’ll KILL you!” she threatened in a crazed voice.

Dash had no idea what was going on, she hurt too much to form much of any complete thoughts, but one thing was crystal clear, Nightshade just threatened to kill Storm… and Nightshade never bluffed. Dash struggled, but try as she might she couldn’t get her body up, she and the rest of Foxtrot completely down for the count.

But before Nightshade could make any moves, one of her own clones suddenly came flying in, flailing helplessly through the air and blindsided Nightshade so hard that it knocked her right off of her hooves and sent her tumbling away from them.

Dash perked up and glanced to her left to see Fleetfoot shoot by overhead, followed close behind by every member of squad three.

“RGH!” Nightshade punched her own clone, sending it flying off of her and into a nearby rock, causing it to explode. She forced herself right up, glaring angrily, but blinked and exhaled as Fleetfoot, Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, and Surprise all dropped down from above, surrounding her from all sides in a ten yard radius. Nightshade simply scoffed as she glanced around at them, her confident smirk quickly returning.

Fleetfoot took a moment to glance back at squad Foxtrot all struggling in pain on the ground.

“They… came back,” she said as she looked towards Fire. Fire also glanced over his shoulder, but didn’t do so for very long as he quickly refocused on Nightshade.

“And they provided a lot of satisfaction…” Nightshade spoke up as if the little episode with Storm never happened. “I admit, they distracted me. It looks like my clones weren’t quite up to handling you on their own…” She looked up into the air to see Air Mach, Blaze, and High Winds still fighting a few of her clones above. “But they still gave you quite a workout I see,” she added with a sneer.

“Your plan to keep us divided won’t work forever!” Fire shot back. “You may be strong, but I doubt even you can handle us all at once!”

“HA!” Nightshade threw her head back, releasing a single laugh. “Didn’t you already say that? I think how long it took you just to fight off my clones speaks for itself!” She waved a hoof towards Fire while turning her eyes away. “I can make more whenever I want, so why are you acting like you’ve suddenly got an advantage?”

“She’s got a point bro…” Lightning spoke up, but shut right up as Fire glared at him.

“We’re only getting started!” Fire claimed strongly, but flinched when Nightshade turned her eyes back to him and snickered.

“Please… I’m barely trying!” Nightshade pointed out while tipping her head a little. “I’m just enjoying myself… it’s been so long since I’ve had some combat fun. If I wanted to end this quickly I could! I mean…” she shrugged as the three crystals she didn’t absorb suddenly appeared beside her and hovered up, orbiting around her head. “Do you really want me to use these to their full potential? All I’ve done so far is supercharge myself and fight hoof to hoof…” she smiled as she saw several pairs of eyes widen. “I guess I could use them… if you really want me to…”

“Fire…” Fleetfoot spoke up in a hushed tone towards Fire Streak. “I don’t think you should poke the bear…”

“Fine! Use them!” Fire suddenly called out, startling the rest of them. “We’ve fought all of your commanders, the magic techniques are nothing new to us, and we’ve even been trained on how to counter them! I don’t care what other sorts of ‘tricks’ you claim you have, we’re more ready for it than you give us credit for!”

“How utterly adorable…” Nightshade said as she chuckled to herself steadily. “You amuse me, you really do… but you don’t convince me. You’ve got nothing but fake confidence, trying your hardest to look strong in front of your peers when in reality, you’re just as terrified of me as the rest!” she grinned confidently as Fire only gritted his teeth in response. “It doesn’t matter how much you try to bite back, I’ve had an advantage from the start... one that always works, whether I have the crystals or not!”

She looked around at the other four before looking back at Fire.

“Allow me to demonstrate my control over everything!” she said with a smile as her crystals began to glow.

“St…STEADY!” Fire yelled out to the rest as they all set their hooves firmly and kept their eyes locked on Nightshade, keeping tabs on the activity of the crystals floating around her. One of the crystals floated down to her hoof and she held it right beside her face, smiling as she saw all the Wonderbolts completely focused on her.

“See this?” She bobbed the crystal up and down as her aura began to glow brighter. “Keep your eyes on this now! Don’t look away or you’ll miss it!” she taunted as the Wonderbolts remained stiff. “Because it’s…” Nightshade trailed off, then stuck her tongue out and winked. “A DISTRACTION!”

Four Nightshade clones suddenly shot down from above, crashing into Fleetfoot, Misty Fly, Lightning Streak, and Surprise, pinning them all roughly to the ground as they all cried out painfully. Fire Streak was the only one left untouched. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened, gasping as he frantically looked back and forth at the surprise attack from above. His eyes darted back to Nightshade as she leaned forward and charged at him, but after the first step, she became a purple blur, shooting right past him and seemingly through him as she left a pink trail of light in her wake. Fire shielded himself as she shot at him, but when he looked up moments later, she was completely gone…

“WHAT IN THE—ARGH!” he yelled out as Nightshade suddenly leapt on his back from behind and pushed him down to the ground, roughly pinning him and pushing his head against the ground with a hoof.

“See?! This is TOO easy!” Nightshade laughed as she gave Fire Streak’s head an additional push to increase the pressure, Fire groaning painfully as his head ground against the rocky floor of the canyon. She held his head firm, but gently lay the rest of her body down against his back, making herself comfortable.

“FIRE!” Dash yelled as she finally managed to push herself up, but her eyes widened as pink sparkles began floating around her… and she felt completely locked in place. Her eyes darted to the right to see a single Nightshade clone standing beside her and her squad, holding them all in place with Moon’s telekinesis technique. She could only watch in horror as Nightshade leaned her head down towards Fire and brushed her nose against his ear.

“You see…” she began speaking slowly and quietly to him. “You’re right about one thing… under normal circumstances, it would be rather difficult to take you all on by myself… even with all my abilities…” she sneered, blowing warm air from her nostrils onto Fire’s ears and making him shiver. “At least, that would be true if I was simple minded and didn’t think outside the box…” she giggled as she pressed her body a little harder against his back. “I think WAY outside the box.” She reached her head down and pressed her neck against his, pushing her cheek into his chin. “I control the moment, I get in ponies’ heads, I make them fear what I could do to them and it makes them crumble… if only you could all see just how much you shake while simply looking at me, it’s exhilarating!”

Nightshade suddenly paused, blinked, and glanced away from Fire… right at Misty Fly. Misty was the only one looking directly at the two of them instead of fully focusing on trying to remove the Nightshade clone. In fact, Misty was doing a better job at it than the other three while focusing on Fire and the real Nightshade instead. This made Nightshade grin VERY wide as she turned her attention back to Fire beneath her.

“And I can control ponies in more ways than one… Just watch…” she removed her neck from Fire’s, grabbed his mane, and yanked his head up.

“AH!” Fire yelped and squinted as he felt the yank on his scalp, but blinked and stared as Nightshade aimed his eyes towards Misty.

“See your precious, silent partner over there?” Nightshade said as she leaned in towards Fire’s ear. “I hear that you two are quite the happy lovebirds!” Her voice slithered into Fire’s ears, causing him to shudder and become alarmed as he began to realize what was happening. “Aw…” Nightshade cooed in a condescending manner. “She doesn’t look to happy with me right now! Holding her stallion down against his will…” she suddenly gave Fire’s mane another yank.

“AH! Ahhhhhh…!” Fire cried out, his face visibly wrought with pain. Nightshade shivered delightfully as she not only listened to Fire’s cries, but also as she watched Misty Fly react. Misty increased her efforts to remove herself from beneath the clone, her face scrunching into a hard glare that nearly displaced her goggles as she began wildly kicking and hitting the clone, but never looking at it.

“Look at that fire in her eyes!” Nightshade pointed to Misty as Fire watched helplessly. “Look at how angry she is at me!” she described as Misty began to gain the upper-hoof on the clone, forcing it to try and press Misty down with its whole body. “She wants to kill me!” Nightshade continued while shivering, Fire feeling her vibrations upon him. “She wants to tear me to pieces!” Nightshade forced Fire’s head up slightly so she could look him in the eyes. “I can see it! Isn’t it something?!”

“N… no! Misty…!” Fire sputtered, but his words could not and would not reach Misty. He couldn’t warn her. He was powerless and she was losing control.

“And now…” Nightshade let Fire’s head fall back down. “I’m going to piss her off even more… I’m going to push her to the edge! Her anger will take control of her!”

Fire flinched and shuddered as Nightshade pressed herself down against his back hard. He gasped as she began rubbing her thighs against him, leaning down and licking him from the base of his neck, up over his suit and to his ears… all while keeping her gaze on Misty. Misty’s eyes filled with pure rage, her anger boiling over as she began to violently thrash against the clone holding her.

“Ahhh! St…STOP!” Fire demanded as Nightshade bit down hard on his ear and gave it a yank while humming and giggling to herself.

“Hmmmmmhmhmhm…” Nightshade released his ear and inhaled sharply as she shifted her plot forward a little, rubbing her inner-thighs up Fire’s sides. “You know… it’s been a while since I’ve had a new stallion to play with…” Nightshade’s eyes lit up as she bit her entire lower lip and inhaled through her nose. “I could REALLY use this!” she lowered herself down, pressing her chest to Fire’s upper back, looking towards Misty. Misty finally overpowered the clone and managed to get on her hooves, but was still locked in place, grappling with it. Misty’s face was alight with anger, her mouth opening several times that would have likely been paired with growls and roars had she a voice. “Look at her!” Nightshade paused in between her quickening breaths. “She’s losing her mind! YES! This is amazing!” Nightshade shivered harder her hooves grabbing and squeezing Fire Streak all over. Misty started to turn the tables on the clone, thrashing and flailing like a rabid animal. “I’ve got you to satisfy me… while I make her go crazy!” Nightshade flinched and leaned down quickly, pressing herself down and pushing her hips back. Suddenly her eyes widened, her body freezing for a moment before it suddenly sharply flinched and jittered like crazy. “UUUUGGNNNNN!!!” Nightshade released a very loud moan. She reached down, grabbed Fire by the shoulders and released a growl of pleasure. “AH, FUCK IT!” She briefly stood up and forcibly turned Fire over, smashing his back to the ground.

“ARGH!” Fire cried out as his wings got pressed beneath him, his arms and legs up helplessly in the air as Nightshade’s hooves slammed against his chest. She reached down, grabbed Fire’s goggles and pulled at them, the strap snapping free from behind his head as she ripped them clean off and tossed them to the ground. His eyes widened as Nightshade stared at him with a primal, lustful look in her eyes.

“COME HERE!” she yelled as she dropped down on top of him, pressed her pelvis down against his, shoved her hooves over his shoulders, and pushed her head down, crashing her lips onto his. Fire immediately began release muffled wails of extreme discontent as Nightshade forced herself upon him unleashing her sexual desire.

Rainbow Dash watched in horror as Fire Streak received similar treatment she had earlier, only it was roughly ten times more intense and Fire was completely trapped, Nightshade constantly forcing his head back every time he tried to pull away, the rest of his body stuck beneath hers as she continuously rubbed it up and down his frame.

And then…

Misty Fly completely snapped.

Dash’s attention was suddenly drawn to the scene right beside Nightshade and Fire… as Misty grabbed the Nightshade clone in a crushing hold around the neck, picked it up, and wrestled it down, slamming it to the ground. The moment she had the clone down, Misty pushed it over onto its back, sat on top of it and began punching it in the face CONTINUOUSLY, her mouth open as if she was shouting with every punch. The clone couldn’t do anything to fight back, it’s face literally chipping breaking to pieces until bright lights hone forth out of it… and it exploded. Misty held her ground, letting the explosion rush past her. She turned to face Nightshade on top of Fire as the pink smoke from the deceased clone dissipated.

“AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!” Nightshade released her mouth from Fire, but kept her head close as she shuddered, uttering a moan and sigh of satisfaction as Fire gasped and panted for air. Nightshade licked her lips ravenously and slightly turned her head towards Misty as a trail of saliva hung between her mouth and Fire’s.

Misty immediately charged, galloping with the most ferocious look one could possibly imagine covering her face.

“YESSSS! COME JOIN THE FUN!” Nightshade beckoned as she continued to lick her lips.

Misty leapt at Nightshade spreading her wings and giving them a hard flap to propel herself faster. Nightshade kept one hoof on Fire as she reached up, pulled back, and threw a punch meant to meet Misty right between the eyes the moment she reached her. However, Nightshade’s eyes widened slightly when Misty swung her left arm around, striking Nightshade’s incoming hoof, and knocking it aside as she wound up her right. Misty unloaded, putting every ounce of strength, force, and momentum into it as she punched Nightshade right between the eyes. Nightshade was tipped backwards by the force, her other hoof lifting off of Fire’s chest. She gave out no cry or grunt of pain, but the punch was so fierce, that had she been wearing her goggles, they definitely would have shattered to pieces.

Misty didn’t stop; she continued throwing the strongest punches she could muster, striking Nightshade in the face, neck, and chest. Nightshade tipped further and further back, her thighs finally sliding off of Fire’s body. Misty was clearly on a warpath with one objective in mind. To get Nightshade the hell off her stallion while beating the crap out of her. Unfortunately, since Misty couldn’t hear, she couldn’t tell that Nightshade was not voicing any pain… and by the time she noticed Nightshade’s smile, it was too late.

Misty flinched as Nightshade’s right arm suddenly swung around, caught her behind the neck, and drove her to the ground, slamming her down right beside Fire. Misty exhaled loudly as her back crashed to the hard surface, her head landing right in Fire’s view, his eyes widening in horror as he saw Misty’s expression of pain.

“Oh, you picked the BEST time to jump at me!” Nightshade said as she slammed her hooves down over both of their chests and sneered down at them. Misty couldn’t hear her, but as she and Fire looked up and saw Nightshade shuddering, her chest greatly expanding and receding with every sharp breath and her tongue lightly showing between her teeth. Misty could clearly tell what was likely going through Nightshades mind just by looking at her. Fire immediately doubled his struggling efforts, hoping to avoid more sexual violation, but Nightshade was just too strong. “Now that I’m all turned on, I think I’ll go for twice the relief!” she snickered as her teeth parted and her tongue hung loose over her bottom lip.

“Hey… hey… hey…”

Nightshade blinked and lifted an eyebrow, closing her mouth as she looked up and her ears rotated in and out.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey…!”

“The hell is…?” Nightshade looked up and her eyes widened.

“HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!” Air Mach shot in like a bat out of hell, tucking and rolling in midair before driving both of his back hooves forward and right into Nightshade’s side.

“AGH!” Nightshade grunted as Air Mach’s hooves dug into her ribs with so much force that she was knocked right off of Fire and Misty and sent tumbling to the ground. She immediately stood up and glared leaping back as Air Mach tried to slam down over the top of her. Whether it was his intention or not, Air Mach managed to get Nightshade at least twenty yards away from where the rest were struggling.

“YO!” Air Mach skidded to a halt five yards from her, tipping up on his back hooves and striking a dramatic pose while pointing at Nightshade. “You’ve got a lot balls rubbing yourself all over my friends!” he proclaimed heroically. Nightshade furrowed her brow and tipped her head as her jaw hung slightly agape.

“Balls? I’m a mare you—”

“WELL KEEP YER FILTHY BALLS OFFA THEM!” Air Mach cut her off. “I, the great Animak, oughtta rip ‘em right off ya for being so indecent! Your methods are no way to treat a stallion, mare, or stallion! I think I should teach you some manners the bare hoofed-way!”

Nightshade just stared blankly as Air Mach began striking several poses, a few of them looking as if they required an accessory for their full effect like a sword or long cape, but he did them anyway. At one point Air Mach looked back over his shoulder and flinched.

“WHOA WAIT A SEC! I FORGOT TO PUT ON MY CAPE BEFORE WE LEFT!” he exclaimed, turning his back to Nightshade. “SHAME! SHAAAAAAAME!” he yelled while throwing his hooves up into the air and shaking them.

“What in the hell am I…?” Nightshade slowly shook her head. “Did Sin and Ruin have a lovechild when I wasn’t looking?” she said to herself as she growled. “Hey DUMBASS!” she yelled.

“Whoa there!” Air Mach turned around and wagged a hoof at her. “That’s no way to address a worthy opponent! Something more along the lines of—”

“God, SHUT UP!” Nightshade snorted as she lifted an eyebrow. “You were shaking in your suit with the rest moments ago and now you’re grandstanding? Are you in denial or just plain stupid?”

“You had me going for a little while!” Air Mach shifted his hooves back and forth galloping in place while bouncing. “But when it came down to it, I realized the great Animak… that’s me if you’re not paying attention… doesn’t have time to be creeped out! So I hardened up like a true stallion and introduced your torso to my hooves!”

“Just plain stupid…” Nightshade rolled her eyes and grunted. “Fine, you want it so bad? I’ll lay it on you NICE and thick!”

“Sorry, I don’t want your balls!” Air Mach held a hoof to his nose while shaking his head. Nightshade flinched, growled, and leapt into the air, shooting towards Air Mach.

“DAMMIT! I’M A MARE!”

Rainbow Dash tried to move and get a better view of the fight that ensued, but she was kept held firmly in place by the Nightshade clone using Moon’s magic. She didn’t really need to see it though, because if the ensuing grunts were any indication, Nightshade was already beating Air Mach senseless.

“HGGRRR!!!” Dash growled as she made another effort to move. “COME ON!” she yelled as her arms managed to shift a little but her body was held firmly. Dash glanced at the Nightshade clone, wincing as she looked into the goggles. It wore an ice cold, blank stare, standing so still that it almost seemed like a lifeless statue, but it looked back at her with indifference as it continued to hold her and the rest of Foxtrot down, a soft glow seeping from behind the goggles as the telekinetic sparks hovered around them all. Dash shifted her eyes over to see Misty Fly clinging to Fire, the two of them trying to help each other stand with difficulty as Lightning Streak, Surprise, and Fleetfoot continued to try and shake off the clone Nightshade had dropped on them.

“HRRRRRAAAAAAH!” Blaze’s voice suddenly roared through the air as she and High Winds dove down from above. Blaze tackled the clone on top of Lightning Streak, knocking it off of him and driving it’s face into the ground. High Winds pulled up and used her wings to generate a short, strong burst of wind that rushed towards Fleetfoot and smacked into the clone pinning her down. The clone staggered just enough for Fleetfoot to kick her back hooves up and propel the clone off of her.

Lightning got to his hooves the moment he was free, diving over and wrestling the clone pinning Surprise off of her, Surprise popping right up and jumping to help High Winds pursue the clone she knocked off of Fleetfoot.

Dash blinked and smiled as Fleetfoot turned her attention towards the clone holding Foxtrot.

“Hey! Let go of our kiddies!” Fleetfoot yelled, despite being within the average age range of Squad Foxtrot herself.

She hopped up and beat her wings, picking up lots of speed as she shot towards the clone. The clone looked up from Dash, directing its emotionless eyes towards the incoming lead commander. It reached a hoof out slowly, ribbons of the pink magic energy undulating around it and flashing brightly. Each flash generated a collection of sparks near Fleetfoot, but having seen Moon’s magic more than once, Fleetfoot made quick shifts and maneuvers, timing each one perfectly to avoid being caught in the telekinesis. Each move she made was small enough to allow her speed to continuously build and when she reached the clone, it immediately put up its hooves in front of its forehead to block the weak point.

Fleetfoot, however, had other plans, forcing her wings down to propel herself up and over the top of the clone. The clone looked up, but lost sight of Fleetfoot as she angled her wings and made a hard, sharp turn, stopping after only moving ten yards past, shifting almost all of her momentum and shooting towards the back of the clone. The clone turned, but Fleetfoot was already winding up her hoof, striking it in the forehead with a heavy punch the moment it faced her. The clone only stumbled back a little, but the damage had been done. Pink light fire out of its eyes and it shook until it’s whole body broke down and exploded in a burst of magic.

“Ah!” Rainbow Dash gasped as the telekinetic hold immediately released. She stumbled forward, but Fleetfoot dropped to the ground and helped support her. “Thanks…” Dash said with a cringe as several parts of her body hurt upon moving. Her wings, back, shoulder, chest and her right arm all stung from the abuse she had been given.

“Don’t mention it,” Fleetfoot quickly replied while looking back to see Squall, Matteo, and Storm all slowly rising, Storm shaking his mane out and replacing his goggles on his face. Dash stared at Storm for a moment, wondering why Nightshade had such an odd reaction when looking Storm right in the eyes. Did it have something to do with being Descent’s son? They had practically identical eyes after all.

Dash quickly pushed the thought to the back of her mind for later as three more explosions rang out right nearby. Lightning, Surprise, Blaze, and High Winds had just dispatched Nightshade’s clones as well. True to their prowess as elites, it seemed to Dash that the top elites were already adjusting to the increased power and ability of Nightshade’s clones, finding ways through their tougher defenses. They were still much tougher to deal with, but the Wonderbolts key function WAS to handle the unexpected and unknown after all.

Now if only it were that easy to say about the real Nightshade.

“Easy bro!” Lighting called out as Fire and Misty got to their hooves but both wobbled as Misty continued to cling to him. Surprise reached forward and held Lightning back, shaking her head as he looked back at her. Lighting got the message, letting the two do it themselves. The only one who really needed help standing was Fire after the violent and vulgar punishment he had gotten, Misty was already supporting him.

“OOF!” a loud grunt from Air Mach suddenly sounded out. They all looked up over the top of a small cliff near them to see Air Mach fly up into the air, but not by his own means. He was flailing like a ragdoll as he arced and fell back down.

Fire blinked and gritted his teeth for a moment before looking down at Misty clinging to him. She wore a look of absolute worry for reasons that were obvious. Fire closed his eyes taking a few deep breaths before giving her a soft pat on the head and nodding. She gave a weak smile in response before the two of them looked up towards where the fighting was taking place.

“Everypony listen up!” he called out, getting all of their attention and taking advantage of the moment with Nightshade distracted by Air Mach. “She has had a clear strategy from the start! To play on our anxiety, distract us, and keep us separated with her clones! We have to go at her all at once! I don’t know if she’s bluffing or not about the magic, but if she isn’t then we have to hit her fast and hard and never give her a chance to go all out!”

“That’s not a very reassuring or solid plan…” Fleetfoot commented as they all gathered in quickly.

“I don’t think anything is gonna be reassuring here…” Surprise added while shuddering and shaking her mane out. Fire nodded reluctantly.

“Unfortunately, it’s all we’ve got!” Fire pointed. “Come on! Air Mach isn’t going to last by himself! Take it to her!” He yelled, none of the Wonderbolts were about to argue with him on that. “GO! GO! GO!”

Without another moment of hesitation, Fire took off, Misty following behind, having ‘heard’ it all from Lightning Streak translating for her. Lightning and Surprise stayed with them as the rest filed in, Fleetfoot leading off with Blaze and High Winds flanking her.

“You heard the captain!” Dash yelled back as Storm, Matteo, and Squall all forced themselves up to her. They all seemed pretty beat up just like her, but now wasn’t the time to cry and lick wounds. “LET’S GO!” Dash yelled, grunting and cringing as she opened her wings and forced her legs into a gallop. She heard two other sets of hooves thunder behind her, assuming Matteo was doing the same since his talons and paws were quiet no matter how hard me stepped.

Dash flapped her wings, taking to the air and following right behind the rest of the group as they vaulted over the small cliff side and shot towards Nightshade, who was currently holding Air Mach up by the neck and repeatedly punching him in the gut.

“I SWEAR…” She punched him. “If you make any reference to me having a sack…” She punched him again. “ONE MORE TIME I’LL—” She blinked and stopped, looking to her right to see the rest of the Wonderbolts all grouped together and diving at her.

“Fleetfoot! Blaze! High Winds! Ready up! If she generates clones, break off and take them out before they can form!” he blinked, watching as Nightshade’s body began to glow and bright lights began shining around her. “AS IN NOW! GO!” he ordered.

The three mares rose up and broke off as squad three clumped together and rammed into Nightshade with all of their strength and power combined. Nightshade grunted and was forced to turn and focus her strength, her grip on Air Mach loosening.

“Foxtrot! Grab Commander Air Mach!” Dash yelled. She shot forward dipping down as Blaze and High Winds collided headlong into a pair of clones right as they appeared. The clones exploded in a bright Flash, Dash squinting to keep her eyes on Air Mach as he fell from Nightshades grip.

“OOF!” Dash yelped as she caught Air Mach, but his weight pushed them to the ground. “OW! GAH!” Dash grunted as they bounced, but was suddenly stopped by a pair of large arms and talons.

“Got you!” Matteo yelled as she turned them upright and set them down. Dash quickly set down Air Mach and looked him over.

“Ooooog…” Air Mach groaned and coughed as he grabbed his stomach. “It hurts almost as bad as passing the cafeteria quiche…”

Dash furrowed her brow and scrunched her face.

“Thanks for that image…” she shuddered, shaking her head free of the thought as she refocused on Nightshade. Squad Three had split up and they were doing flybys. With the direction of Fire Streak, they only charged when Nightshade was not focused on a particular one of them, the four keeping equal distance from her from four different directions so that there was always at least one completely out of sight. If she charged one of them, the other three converged on a sneak attack. She tried to generate more clones, but every time she did, Blaze, High Winds, and Fleetfoot would take them out before they could fully form and activate. In between the attempts, Fleetfoot used her speed to carry out passing strikes that threw Nightshade off balance making it harder for her to deal with the coordinated attack from squad three.

Dash dropped Air Mach on the ground with a THUD and made quick hoof motions to her squad.

“Let’s join up!” she yelled, pointing to squad three while spreading her wings. “Pair up with a member of squad three to double the dose! GO!”

Dash said no more as she and her squad took flight, spreading out and forming up beside the squad three elites. Matteo paired up with Lightning streak, Storm with Misty, Squall with Surprise, and Dash with Fire. Fire only gave her a quick glance as Dash flew in beside him before he continued to give out orders and hoof gestures. Dash and her squad followed suit.

“HRG!” Nightshade growled as she kept getting batted around. The Wonderbolts were not doing much in terms of damage to her, but they had effectively cut off her lines of attack and rendered her clones useless. It was annoying her, and that was exactly what Dash was hoping.

Nightshade could dish it… but what would happen if she took it?

Well, maybe it would be best not to think about that, because Nightshade was capable of… LOTS. As long as they kept it up and prevented her from retaliating, then they would have called her bluff and would make her regret showcasing her overconfidence, coming out to face them all on her own. Even with all her power, with all of them working together there was no way she could—

Dash’s eyes widened as Nightshades three crystals once again appeared around her and her body began to glow as she slammed her hooves to the ground and crouched down, pulling in her wings.

Call it an instinct… but the moment Dash saw Nightshade begin the motion, alarm bells went off in her head.

“EVERYPONY WATCH OUT!” she yelled, but it was one moment too late.

“HYYYYYYYYYYRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” Nightshade roared as she stood up, arched her neck back and flung her wings outward, a large pulse of magic shooting out from around her body. Every Wonderbolt was caught off guard, struck by the unexpectedly solid wave and thrown right out of their flight paths, all bouncing tumbling to the ground in different directions.

It wasn’t so much of a devastating counter attack as it was a startling one, every Wonderbolt immediately rolling over and standing up once they had control of their movement again. They stepped back up, surrounding Nightshade to once again tout their numbers advantage. Even Air Mach managed to drag himself up and join them.

However, Nightshade just stood in the middle with the crystals floating about her, panting as she shook her head out. Dash swallowed as they waited. She was surprised and not surprised that they had stopped pressing the attack. Surprised because they just had Nightshade on the ropes moments ago, but not surprised because the crystals had appeared, and Nightshade had used them, adding an unknown factor to what might happen next. Dash had also been wondering something for several moments.

In the past, when Nightshade absorbed crystals, and even when Rapidfire absorbed a crystal, after a while there was an explosion from within them. Rapidfire’s was not so intense due to only absorbing one… but what happened to Nightshade was so catastrophic that they simply assumed she was blown to smithereens. Why then… did she absorb three crystals again? Unless of course… she figured something out. She already was showing complete and full control over herself as opposed to having none last time. This just kept getting more and more complicated and the more Dash felt confused, the less confident she became in them pulling through. That wasn’t going to stop her from fighting though. Nightshade’s abilities were immeasurable, who knew what else she was capable of, but she made her choice. She wasn’t going to stand down or give up.

“Okay… not bad,” Nightshade finally spoke up with a grunt. “I admit, I didn’t think I’d have to do any more than boost myself and beat you all senseless, but now that you’re working together I guess I have no choice…”

“Aw… hell…” Fleetfoot said to herself as Dash gulped and glanced at her for a second. She looked back to see Nightshade’s crystals glowing brightly and her aura rising up off of her like a roaring flame.

“Oh, who am I kidding… this is going to be fun!” Nightshade added with a chuckle. “I don’t get to do this very often… so I’m going to make sure I THOROUGHLY enjoy it!” The aura expanded further releasing a burst of wind that rushed against the Wonderbolts as her crystals began orbiting around her. One of them called forth Trance’s synchronized spheres, another summoned Devil’s globes from the ground beneath her, the last created little blips of pink light that slowly thinned out into Witch’s needles. “Come and GET it!” Nightshade laughed as she spread her wings and shot up into the air, a blast of magic exploding beneath her as she jumped that propelled her faster.

“GO!” Fire yelled. “BEFORE SHE CAN GET AN ADVANTAGE!”

Rainbow Dash had her doubts, but she agreed. They had to take the fight to Nightshade. She crouched down and launched up with the rest, fighting against the pressure of the power pouring out of Nightshade as she and the rest of the Wonderbolts tried to take the fight to her again…

But they were flying right into a gauntlet of pain.

“WHO WANTS SOME FIRST?!” Nightshade grinned maniacally as pink ribbons of magical energy began sparking and popping around her body as well. “Let’s go with…” she suddenly threw her arms out, sending the globes, spheres, and needle pins all flying towards them. The Wonderbolts managed to knock aside some of the spheres, but could only dodge the globes and willingly take the tiny pin blasts. But as they did, Nightshade suddenly dropped down, the crystal energy shooting into her arms, and empowering them with Sin’s magic. “YOU!” she yelled as she dropped down and floored Lightning Streak right in the face, smashing his goggles and knocking them off as he cried out in pain and was sent shooting back towards the ground.

Dash gasped, her eyes widening as she saw Lightning Streak tumble helplessly, knocked right out of the sky in a single blow.

“BROTHER!” Fire yelled down, bring Dash’s attention back up.

“AH!” Dash flinched as Nightshade shot right past her, brandishing two swords like Blade’s.

“NEXT!” Nightshade laughed, taking aim at High Winds.

“HRGH!” High Winds thrusted her wings forward to unleash a strong burst of wind, but it bounced right off Nightshade as she charged in. “AH!” High Winds was forced to shield herself as Nightshade swung the blades, but they never connected. She blinked and looked up, her eyes widening as she saw five of Devil’s large globes surrounding her.

“WINDY!” Blaze yelled as she shot towards her tried to tackle her out of the way, but the maneuver only got them BOTH caught in the ensuing violent explosions that sent them plummeting to the ground.

“GO! GET HER!” Fire yelled as the rest of the top elites advanced in a group attack. Dash saw them flying, gulped, and waved at her Squad to follow suit. But before they could even make it halfway, Nightshade shot forward in between the elites, grabbing Surprise by the neck as she passed. She threw her straight down and sent a volley of Trance’s Spheres after her. Surprise was unable to focus or right herself in time, all ten of the spheres hitting her and exploding one by one, the last striking her after she crashed to the ground.

The elites turned around, Foxtrot still on the approach, and tried to spread out and encircle Nightshade.

“Nice try!” she yelled out, laughing as Ruin’s erratic spheres suddenly began launching out from around her body, flinging in wild, random directions and pelting the elites. They tried to fight through them, but the unpredictable nature of the spheres kept them distracted. Air Mach in particular was struggling, still fighting off the pain he had been dealt as he failed to dodge and weave enough.

“Ah!” he gasped as Nightshade suddenly zipped up to him with a large collection of magic in her hooves, pressing them to his chest.

“Bye!” she taunted as she fired Shadow’s burst wave, propelling Air Mach into a nearby cliff side and pinning him against it with the flow of magic. When it finally ceased, Air Mach peeled off the cliff and fell limply to the ground.

“STOP IT!” Dash yelled as she and Foxtrot surged towards her, the elites finally managing to bat away the spheres buzzing around them and joining in the surge. Nightshade sneered as she pushed her wings down and lifted herself further into the air.

“Okay! I was getting tired of using the same old magic anyway! How about I show you some of my own?!” she yelled out as her crystals began rotating around her again. Dash’s eyes widened as Nightshade made the suggestion, hoping that she wasn’t about to make good on what she said earlier about having several magic techniques they had never seen…

But who was she kidding… NIGHTSHADE NEVER BLUFFED.

Nightshade thrust her hooves downward as the remaining Wonderbolts kept climbing towards her, they all flinched, expecting something to happen, but… nothing did, or at least not in front of them.

“AROUND US!” Fleetfoot suddenly called out.

Dash quickly looked back and forth, small blinking lights appearing around them, the lights grew into small spheres, but they were not like Ruin’s or Trance’s. When the spheres fully materialized they started zipping around, moving in quick, straight lines from one spot to another around them, shooting small beams similar to the Shadowbolt eyebeams!

“Argh!” Dash grunted as she and the rest suddenly found themselves breaking formation and shifting their flight patterns to dodge the little turrets, but as they broke apart, the spheres of light suddenly multiplied, at least five of them following each one of them! “Dammit!” Dash yelled as she tried to pick up speed and take a swipe at one of the sphere’s, but every inch she moved, the spheres moved too, staying just out of her reach, it was as if they were tethered to her at a fixed distance, all five spheres creating a web of simple magic blasts that never ended. All she and the others could do was keep flying, either deflecting or moving away from the small beams that constantly battered them.

“Hey! Don’t get too caught up!” Nightshade yelled as she suddenly zipped by Dash so quickly that she appeared as a blur with a pink trail of light. She was moving at a seemingly impossible pace, the pink trail behind her looked like an ‘echo effect,’ a stretched out shape of her body. She was sharply changing direction at perfect angles without losing any momentum. It almost reminded Dash of Comet’s flying technique that accelerated him in midair, but not even the skilled, former Wonderbolt could have executed such maneuvers like this. “HA! HO! HUP! HA!” Nightshade called out every time she shifted, being propelled along by her magic and taunting the Wonderbolts as they struggled with her turrets. She shifted and shot towards Storm and Squall as the two managed to stick together despite facing attacks from all angles.

“GUYS! WATCH OUT!” Dash yelled, but Nightshade had already slipped between the two before Dash even finished her warning.

“Here boys!” she said with a deceptively cute tone while holding up her front hooves, a bright ball of light the size of a basketball rising up from them and hovering in between the two. “MY TREAT!” she winked and blew them both a kiss before she instantly shot away again.

“AAHH!!” Squall and Storm both yelped, shielding themselves as the ball ignited, but instead of causing an explosion is shot several small beams out in every direction, the beams traveled about one yard before splitting into eight more beams, all of which split into eight more beams. The pattern continued until countless small beams of magic danced around them, pelting and striking them endlessly along with the turrets continuing their assault.

“GAH! RGH!”

“OW! AH!”

Squall and Storm were bounced back and forth, forcefully tipped and buckled as they were pelted by the attacks. Squall took a hit right to the face, knocking him into Storm. The two losing all control upon colliding and fell, the turrets following them and shooting at their helpless falling bodies all the way to the ground before they crashed… and KEPT shooting at them while they were down for several more seconds.

“NO!” Dash yelled as she was struck in the cheek by one of the turrets and forced to refocus on not meeting the same fate. But then she blinked and quickly shifted aside as Misty Fly suddenly blazed past her. The turrets following her were shooting at air, constantly aiming where Misty Fly was at the moment and not leading her. Misty had the right idea, and was using her speed to outrun the blasts while giving it her all towards reaching Nightshade.

Misty’s eyes remained narrowed behind her goggles, her pupils darting back and forth as she followed Nightshade’s sharp, supersonic movements. Nightshade saw her coming, smiled and began approaching her. She shifted to and fro in every direction, disappearing into blurs every which way and making it hard for Misty to get a lock on her. The pink silhouette trails flashing behind Nightshade were easier to follow than Nightshade herself, but it put Nightshade’s true location on a head start. Misty gritted her teeth, realizing that if she used the trail as an indication, she’d have to react an instant earlier than what she saw…

So… forget her eyes, she took a risk and slammed them shut, using her heightened awareness senses to try and get a better feel for Nightshade’s movements as she closed in. It was a dangerous move, since she was forced to keep up her speed to avoid the turrets, but she knew with her ears useless and when her eyes failed… she could rely on her sense of touch. She puffed the feathers on her wings out, causing her to lose a little bit of speed, but she had to in order to feel air movements. Her senses were a little muffled with the wind rushing past them at her current rate, but she could still feel it, very scant, sharp shifts caused by Nightshade’s movement ahead of her.

She gritted her teeth and focused as hard as she could to find any sort of pattern or evidence of Nightshade’s flight path…

All it took was one thing to feel off… directly behind her!

Misty Fly opened her eyes, angled her wings and gave them a hard flap, turning her around as she continued to speed forward and punch at Nightshade behind her. Nightshade took the hit right in the face and was launched backwards, but gave no reaction at all… only to disappear in a flash of light. Misty’s eyes widened as she realized it was only a clone, she turned and pumped her wings to avoid being caught in the crossfire of the turrets tethered to her, but she ran right into the arms of Nightshade.

Nightshade sneered, turning Misty around and holding her in place as the turrets began peppering her with their beams. She arched her neck back and forth, throwing it back a few times to try and headbutt Nightshade, but Nightshade simply moved her head aside with each attempt. Misty’s mouth hung up in pain as her eyes remained shut.

“MISTY! ARGH!” Fire yelled out as he flew by Dash, but was knocked off course by the turrets surrounding him. “MISTY!!!!!!!" He yelled again as he failed to pick up enough speed to fly to avoid the small blasts. Dash was caught just as he was, unable to find an opening to assist.

Misty cringed and winced as she kept being peppered, but then the blasts suddenly stopped, the turrets around her disappearing. She opened her eyes as she felt Nightshade turn her back around, panting, wheezing, and squinting as she stared into Nightshade’s sneer. Misty looked down as Nightshade suddenly gently pressed a hoof to her chest. Her eyes grew wide and she flinched as Nightshade’s hoof emitted a bright flash and it felt like something was pushed through her. Misty looked all over her body to see a pink glow surrounding her… then she suddenly couldn’t move at all.

Nightshade licked her lips as she shifted back and let go, Misty floating in the air as if the magic was holding her up. Nightshade smiled… and waved at Misty before thrusting her hoof forward. Misty gasped as she was suddenly propelled away from Nightshade up into the air, her eyes darting around frantically as the glow around her grew brighter and brighter… and began to burn. When the glow became intense, she shut her eyes, exhaling loudly as the burning sensation became unbearable…

“NOOOO!!!!” Fire yelled as he brushed off several of the blasts and tried to reach Misty, but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t get free.

Fire and Dash watched in horror as Misty was engulfed in a massive explosion of pink light.

“MISTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Fire cried out in horror as he saw something fall from the smoke left behind.

Misty plummeted to the ground limply, a trail of smoke behind her.

Fire was forced to watch, restricted by the endless peppering of magic, as Misty landed roughly near the others who had been felled.

“Four more to go! Don’t let me finish too fast! I really hate when my playthings are premature, if you know what I mean…” Nightshade taunted without a care in the world, laughing as she continued to completely elude them with her strange movement magic and keep them all at bay with the spherical turrets.

Dash kept up her speed, feeling helpless as she was forced to completely focus on the spheres following her. She was unable to help a veteran Wonderbolt that she cared so much about and watch another lose his mind. Fire was yelling and roaring towards Nightshade, trying to get to her as he was pelted. Nightshade turned her attention towards him, toying with him by adding small, piddly attacks of her own as Fire struggled to even get close to her. It was like watching a large pony hold a small one at bay at arm’s length while the smaller swung its arms wildly.

“Dash!” Fleetfoot yelled from above as she formed up beside her, the two both doing their best to stay ahead of the turrets. “We have to shake these!” she yelled out in an obvious fashion, but Dash could tell she was looking for any suggestions.

Fire was completely emotionally compromised. There was no way they could calm him down and getting near him wasn’t going to help their situation, but Dash looked to her right to see the only other Wonderbolt still up. Matteo.

He was flying nearby, going in the opposite direction of them. The gears in Dash’s head turned quickly as she realized there was something they hadn’t tried yet… and if it worked, she had damn wished she had thought of it before only four of them were left.

“I’ve got an idea!” Dash yelled to Fleetfoot as she suddenly broke off and flew towards Matteo.

“Hey!” Fleetfoot reacted, pitching and following. “How about you tell me before leaving!?” she asked, but as she followed, she noticed that Dash was flying on an intercept course towards Matteo. So instead of demanding further, she watched carefully. Matteo blinked and turned his head as he saw Dash incoming, but she quickly shook her hooves towards him.

“MATTY! KEEP FLYING!” she yelled. Matteo simply nodded in response and continued on his course as Dash approached and aimed herself towards two of the turrets tethered to him. She angled herself to make sure she timed her attacks, giving herself a slight lead on Matteo’s path. She crossed her front hooves in front her, and the moment she passed over Matteo, she swiped her arms out flicking her wrists as her hooves connected with two of the turrets on Matteo. The two spheres flashed and sparked, flying away from Matteo before popping and fizzling out. “It worked!” Dash yelled as she came around. “Did you see that Flee—” she was cut off as Fleetfoot shot over the top of her, breaking two of the turrets over Dash.

“Way ahead of ya!” she yelled, making a sharp turn and flying back towards Dash. “Quick thinking Dashie!” she yelled as the two crossed paths again. Dash twisted, the two passing stomach to stomach as they took out two more each following them, coordinating on the fly like a show routine. The two of them turned and looked around for Matteo, he had caught on and was already turning back towards them. “Let’s help the big fella!” Fleetfoot yelled to Dash.

“Roger!” Dash acknowledged, following close behind Fleetfoot, the two still being followed by one turret each. They split apart, lining up vertically with five yards in between them, the turrets still shooting beams, but not able to keep up with their increased speed. Matteo, as he approached, still had two turrets above him and one below. He kept on pace, and flattened his wings to glide as Fleetfoot and Dash passed by above and below, taking out the three turrets following him. The moment he had cleared them, Matteo grunted and forced his body into a twist, reaching his arms out with his talons bared. He closed his talons hard, crushing the last spheres.

“Yes!” Dash cheered enthusiastically, happy that something finally went right, but it was short lived, knowing full well that they still had a major problem to deal with.

“Form up!” Dash yelled out, calling out to Fleetfoot and Matteo as they came around and did just that. Fleetfoot gave no protest to Dash taking the lead as they aimed towards Fire Streak…

“Ooooooh shoot!” Fleetfoot shouted as they finally refocused on Nightshade. She had Fire in a full nelson, holding him from behind in the air as he kicked and flailed his arms and legs, his wings flapping desperately as the turret spheres sat in front of them and pelted him all over his body. Nightshade was also glowing brightly, steam rising from between them as if the glow was generating heat and burning Fire’s back.

“AHHHH!!!! AAAAGHAHHH!!!” Fire wailed in pain as he was basically tortured.

“Feeling a little… hot?” she taunted, as she tightened her grip on him and licked the back of his neck, steam trails rising from his fur where her tongue touched as well. “If I had it my way,” Nightshade spoke casually in between his shouting and screaming. “I’d put you back on the ground and get a good ride, but hey… I guess I don’t always have time to get a lay.”

“LET HIM GO!” Dash yelled as the three approached, Fleetfoot and Matteo breaking off slightly to hit the turrets as Dash aimed right for Nightshade. Nightshade sighed as she remained in place.

“See? Without privacy I’m always getting interrupted, fine…” she smiled as she turned towards the incoming attackers. “I guess I can play with you three too!” she said with a giggle as she shifted backwards. Matteo and Fleetfoot shot by her, Matteo crushing two of the spheres with Fleetfoot skillfully twisting to knock out the other three with her hooves and wings. Nightshade blinked as she saw Dash aiming right at her, but sneered, suddenly turning Fire in front of her.

“Ah!” Dash’s reflexes kicked in, pumping her wings down to propel her right over the top and avoid striking Fire. Dash twisted, retaking control of her flight and making a sharp turn to form up with Fleetfoot and Matteo as they came around, all glaring towards Nightshade,

“Oh… you want him back?” Nightshade yelled towards them while holding Fire out. “Okay… HERE!” she spun around and tossed Fire towards them.

“Catch him!” Fleetfoot called out as they took their eyes off Nightshade and locked onto Fire, as he helplessly flung towards them. What none of them saw though… was Nightshade collecting a large amount of magic in her right hoof. She thrust it straight up into the air above her, the magic shooting into the sky, and disappearing.

Dash and Fleetfoot moved aside to let Matteo through and get in position to catch Fire…

But the moment Matteo reached out, a massive pillar of magic energy thrust down over head completely engulfing Matteo and Fire as if a massive hammer had just fallen out of the sky.

“AAAAAAAGGHHHHH!!!!” Matteo and Fire both cried out, the two of them instantly thrust down at an alarming speed and crashing to the ground hard.

Dash and Fleetfoot came to an abrupt halt, their eyes widening and their jaws agape as the sudden attack left them as the only two Wonderbolts left in the air.

“Oops! Did I do that…?” Nightshade asked with a devilish tone and matching sneer.

Dash and Fleetfoot both glanced at each other, the two remaining strong at first glance, but internally accepting that they were in trouble… It would be foolish not to acknowledge it.

There were twelve of them. Twelve Wonderbolts, eight of them top tier elites. Not only had Nightshade single hoofedly whittled their numbers all the way down to two… but she spent the first half of the fight not even trying.

“Hmmm…” Nightshade hummed as she slowly inched towards Dash and Fleetfoot. The two tensed up, but kept their wings flapping, holding their hover and glaring towards Nightshade. “Such bravado… it’s sexy, if I do say so myself.”

“Oh, SHUT UP!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled, startling Dash. “We GET it! You wanna bang us! Do you get off hearing yourself talk like a slut?!”

“A lot of things get me off,” Nightshade replied almost… proudly. She slowly licked her lips as she kept inching closer to them, her crystals hovering around her in an angled orbital pattern as she continued to glow. “I actually keep a list… I have one through two-hundred six memorized. Want me to try ‘em all on you?”

“Rggghhhhhhh…” Fleetfoot grunted in frustration as Dash simply remained silent, cringing as Nightshade’s voice never failed to violate her ears the way it unwelcomingly slithered in and out.

“Nothing to say?” Nightshade inched even closer, prompting both of them to shift back a little. “You know I have a rule back at the fortress…” She narrowed her eyes and grinned devilishly. “If you don’t say no… It means yes… and if you say no…”

“AH!” Dash and Fleet both yelped as she suddenly shot forward, leaving the pink outline trail behind her as she zipped between them and stopped, fully turned around and stuck right between the two of them so close that their wings immediately clashed. Nightshade threw her wings down over both of them, showing their strength by literally holding Dash and Fleetfoot down against the side of her body as they kicked and flailed.

“Then I do it ANYWAY!” she said with a delightful snarl, bending her neck down and pressing her cheek against Fleetfoot’s and nipping at it.

“SON OF A…!” Fleetfoot shrieked while flailing harder. Nightshade suddenly thrust her wings down, releasing the two.

“ARGH!” Dash grunted, immediately throwing her wings out as Fleetfoot did the same. They rounded themselves upright and looked up, but Nightshade was gone.

“It’s too bad really…” her voice came from behind them, they turned, but only in time to see the pink magic trail of her movement before it disappeared. “I’d love to show you my absolute favorite past-times…” her voice came from behind again. They both turned, but once again, too little too late. “But I have to admit…” Her voice came from below. Dash and Fleetfoot tried turning quickly this time, but they really didn’t need to. “I don’t have all day… so I’ll just enjoy watching you squirm!” Nightshade was right below them, and lightly stroking one of Fleetfoot’s hooves.

“GAH!” Fleetfoot shrieked, pulling back a little further than Dash.

“Ooooooh… so meek…” Nightshade puckered her lips and batted her eyelashes at Fleetfoot.

“What is wrong with you?!” Fleetfoot lashed out at her as she turned her body slightly sideways in disgust. Her unsound body language brought a smile to Nightshade’s face.

“Have you ever wondered that about yourself?” Nightshade suddenly blindsided her with the question.

“Wh…what?” Fleetfoot blinked, reaching a hoof over to her shoulder, further showing how uncomfortable she was. Dash’s eyes widened as she realized what was happening. Nightshade had effectively narrowed their numbers down… and now she was going to play her mind games with them. Fleetfoot… had yet to really be exposed to it. She was a sitting duck.

“Fleet! Don’t listen to her! She—MMRPH!” Dash blinked in surprise as her mouth suddenly slammed shut with a pink band of magic wrapped around her muzzle. She tried to move, but her body froze with pink sparks hovering around her. She looked towards Nightshade to see her glancing at her, with one crystal up in the air to use Moon’s telekinesis on her.

“You, quiet,” Nightshade ordered. “I’m having a little… heart to heart with a fellow pleasure enthusiast,” she said while bouncing her eyebrows. Fleetfoot gasped and glared at Nightshade.

“I’m NOT like you!” she yelled, shifting her eyes between Dash caught in the magic and Nightshade as she slowly approached. Fleetfoot kept her wings flapping but her whole body looked like it was going numb. She looked down at all the Wonderbolts on the ground, rolling around in pain and struggling to stand. She had to fight, there was so much on the line, but each time she looked back at Nightshade… chills ran through her body, an icy feeling that made every strand of fur on her body stand up.

“Oh, I think you are…” Nightshade kept moving forward as Fleetfoot suddenly stopped her backwards motion, freezing in place while maintaining her hover. “You may not express it as much as I do… but you simply can't keep your hooves off of other ponies… am I wrong?” Nightshade stopped right in front of her as Fleetfoot slowly looked up into Nightshade’s eyes, her own widening as she started to shake lightly.

“I… I don’t…” Fleetfoot stuttered, her teeth gritting as she tried to deny, pulling her head back slightly as Nightshade leaned in.

“Yes you do… I know you do…” She slowly began making her way around Fleetfoot, staying as close to Fleetfoot as she could as if trying to assert herself physically over her. Fleetfoot was much smaller than Nightshade, which wasn’t surprising since Nightshade was slightly larger than Spitfire and only a head shorter than Soarin. Nightshade also had about twice the body mass, powerful muscles covering her body while Fleetfoot was much leaner and slender. Nightshade made her look small in every way, and as Nightshade moved around her, her motions gave off an impression that she was trying to rub it in, to make Fleetfoot feel small and inadequate. “But there’s more to it with you… isn’t there? I will admit I simply have a fascination with getting up close and personal with other ponies but you… you do it for more reasons than that… right?”

“You… you won’t… get in my head! I…!”

“Simmer there little girl…” Nightshade taunted. “Just keep those ears open… you know, it can be quite an experience when another pony that barely knows you… can see right through you…” Nightshade licked her lips and smiled wide as her eyes glowed dimly, never taking them off of Fleetfoot’s head as she moved around. “Now where were we… oh yes…” she stopped when directly in front of Fleetfoot, looking into her eyes. “It’s…” Nightshade tipped her head to the side while her eyes glowed. “A cover up…? Oh, now that’s interesting!”

Fleetfoot gasped, her jaw hanging agape.

“A cover up for your insecurities… But not just any insecurities… Your DEEPER ones! You know… those ones that you never tell anypony, not even Spitfire or Soarin? Yes, those…” Nightshade snickered while leaning in.

“H…How…” Fleetfoot shook her head. “You’re bluffing! There’s no way you—”

“How very, very interesting. You feel small next to them…” Nightshade cut her off, getting even closer. “You feel like they do everything… while you just follow along. You want to lead like they do, you want the confidence and the drive to direct that they have, but when your chances come, you back off… you shy away and look to somepony else. But why? Hmm… oh?”

Fleetfoot’s ears shot straight up.

“Oooooooh…? Wait, what? REALLY?!” Nightshade suddenly burst out laughing as she inched away. “Wow! Honestly I didn’t expect that at all! I mean… wow!”

“No! S-stop!” Fleetfoot shook her head. “Please!” she pleaded, readily convinced that Nightshade wasn’t bluffing. She was already breaking. It was like Nightshade was reading her mind. She experienced this once already, but it was just Discord messing with her… this time, it was like her deepest troubles and insecurities were being held out in front of her, things even she was afraid to think about or face.

“You worry about leading and setting an example…” Nightshade shook her head and smirked. “But your biggest worry in that regard is that you don’t… look the part? Are you kidding me? Body image? You? Wow, as if the priorities there aren’t fucked up enough… YOU? The Wonderbabe magazine extraordinaire who puts herself on display all the time and flirts herself silly every chance she gets? That’s so contradictory my sides hurt!” Nightshade grabbed her stomach as she laughed.

“STOP IT! STOP!” Fleetfoot burst out, her lip quivering. “You don’t know me! You can’t judge me! I… I’m not worried about…” Fleetfoot sounded desperate.

Dash floated helplessly, watching, and wondering what she was seeing and hearing. Nightshade was pulling some of Fleetfoot’s deepest secrets out apparently, but Dash was just as surprised as Nightshade was. Fleetfoot? Body issues? She was practically the Wonderbolt supermodel, she had one of the sleekest physiques of all of them, how in the hell did any of that tie in? But Dash barely cared about what she was hearing… because this was all starting to look very familiar. It wasn’t the first time she had seen Nightshade pry into a pony and… try to tempt them with something.

She had to get free… somehow! Dash believed Fleetfoot was a tough mare, but would she be able to resist temptations like Misty Fly? Dash wasn’t going to risk making assumptions, so she struggled with all her might to get free, but it felt useless.

“No!” Fleetfoot backed away a little more, hugging her arms over her shoulders as she shivered, every part of her telling her to fight, but she couldn’t shake the invisible grip Nightshade asserted over her with pure mental willpower and presence. “NO! I have no reason to be! I’m NOT disappointed in my body! It has nothing to do with—”

“I am,” Nightshade cut her off again, causing Fleetfoot’s ears to flop down and she hugged herself tighter. “Believe me, I love those magazines, but… you never seem to do it for me,” she sighed as she shifted sideways and leaned her head down into Fleet’s view. “You’ve got the sex appeal down… but the body is… hmm…” she hummed while watching Fleetfoot quiver and glare at her. “Not up to speed with the others. Hey, I’d still go for you. I’m not one to let that stop me, but there’s something… extra sexy about dominating a pony with a larger, strong body. Spitfire and Soarin always catch my eye… your old friend Rapidfire isn’t too bad either… you could use some work though.” Nightshade sneered. “I have to say this is still killing me… Whenever I hear about a mare disappointed in her body it’s usually not this… I wonder what the rest of Equestria would think if they knew you… the mare voted sexiest athlete several times… was not content with her appearance when many would kill to look like you! Oh, I doubt they would listen to your reasoning… most ponies only hear the surface of the ‘problem.’”

“SHUT UP!” Fleetfoot reached up and covered her ears, slamming her eyes shut while shuddering. She yelped as Nightshade grabbed her arm and yanked one of her hooves free of her ear. Fleetfoot tried to lean away, but Nightshade prevented her, putting her mouth real close to her ear and whispering.

“It hurts… doesn’t it?” she asked while slowly licking Fleetfoot’s earlobe. “And there’s the other cover up…” Fleetfoot’s eyes shot open as she began to breath harder. “Am I wrong?”

“I… I-I-I…” Fleetfoot stuttered as her body started to shake so hard that she could barely hover. Nightshade slipped her other arm around Fleetfoot’s back, but Fleetfoot didn’t react.

Nightshade had taken full control, and all Rainbow Dash could do was watch.

“I don’t think I should call it the other reason… that’s the MAIN reason, right?” Nightshade added. And Fleetfoot… nodded, a soft whimper escaping her throat. “You like to get close to ponies… you like to touch them… you like to feel them… and why you do it depends…” Nightshade kept going as Fleetfoot’s head slowly bobbed down. “You simply like to do it? That’s what you say to your closest friends… that you don’t know what you want, that you are afraid of committing to a relationship. That may be true, but… there’s more to it… and you keep it to yourself at all costs. I can see it clearly!” She slowly began running a hoof up and down Fleetfoot’s opposite shoulder. “It’s a matter of size! You love brushing against… feeling the body of a pony that is larger than you… it makes your wings shudder… it makes your tail twitch… it sends shocks through you, satisfying a pleasure, but also helping you fantasize what it must be like to be more like them! You’d be more confident, just like your two best friends, if you were bigger and stronger like they are? But, oh, there’s more…? You get so much attention for your beach bod, but when other bigger, stronger mares are noticed for how they look… oh, does that irk you so… in fact, you felt that recently didn’t you?” Nightshades eyes flashed brightly for a moment. “That old Wonderbolt of yours, Valkyrie… was her name? Oh, to be big and strong like her… If you were like her, you’d have to confidence to lead!”

“Y…yes…” Fleetfoot admitted it all right out, her voice shaking pathetically.

“And then… oh, how precious. You chase around, pick up, and forcibly cuddle that poor little mechanic of yours…” Nightshade tipped her head and laid the side of it against the top of Fleetfoot’s. “Feels good to be the bigger pony… doesn’t it? I’m sure he’s a little bundle of huggable but it carries that unique satisfaction for you… not many others you can do that to in the Wonderbolts, huh? Wow, I never would have guessed how badly you wanted to simply be… more than you are…” Nightshade lifted her head up and let go, putting herself back in front of Fleetfoot. “Who would have thought a famous Wonderbolt like yourself would have such a simple thing that bothers her to no end… Unable to break your own physical limits, you certainly were given good genetics, but it weren’t the ones you wanted? You hold several speed records, fastest in Wonderbolt history, but you could care less? How deliciously selfish of you! And oh, how you’ve tried… tried to no avail to get what you want, only for it to be ineffective through your own means. You remain smaller and weaker than those you wish to match… The icing on the cake? You’re too insecure about it to ask for help or advice… but then again that would only solve one of the problems, wouldn’t it? You’d still be shorter than you’d like.”

“Y…y-yes…” Fleetfoot replied again, a few sniffles escaping. She looked completely dazed. It was frightening how easily Nightshade had taken her over. Fleetfoot, a top tier, lead squad commander of the Wonderbolts. Her urge and drive to fight completely sucked out of her and her duty to protect her wingmates pulled from her head. Nightshade was in complete control.

Dash’s eyes widened as Nightshade began to grin, a fourth crystal appearing and hovering over her back.

“Poor, poor, little Fleetfoot…” Nightshade began as she slowly moved closer and hovered right in front of her. “The very things she desires plucked from her little head… And fed right to her by somepony who has exactly what she wants…” Nightshade reached forward and grabbed one of Fleetfoot’s hooves. Fleetfoot looked up slowly as Nightshade pressed Fleetfoot’s hoof against her chest and moved it around. “I can tell you from experience, that being large and strong has a certain… satisfaction to it,” she teased, her grin growing as Fleetfoot’s lip quivered. “Well, what if I… helped you out a little bit?”

Dash wanted to scream, she furiously tried to shake her head, restrained by the telekinesis. She wanted to do something, ANYTHING to break the sequence playing out before her and help Fleetfoot come to her senses. She screamed and yelled muffled noises, but the magic hold on her muzzle prevented her from getting anything audible out.

“I…” Fleetfoot tried to speak again, but still couldn’t form anything more than a single syllable.

“Shh…” Nightshade let go of Fleetfoot’s hoof and gently placed it over her mouth instead. “Don’t think about it… don’t deny it… and don’t fight it. You would do anything for it… I know you would. And… I’m telling you that I can give it to you. Who are you to deny your own deepest desires when they are within your grasp?” Nightshade reached up, Fleetfoot not moving an inch as Nightshade gently grabbed Fleetfoot’s goggles and pulled them off her head, dropping them and letting them gently fall to the ground far below.

Fleetfoot’s eyes were defeated, powerless. She was looking directly at Nightshade as if silently asking, pleading for what she was offering. She was completely under Nightshade’s control, small tear droplets forming in the corner of her eyes.

“I… want it…” Fleetfoot sputtered, Nightshade smiling as she leaned closer to her.

“Just relax…” Nightshade whispered to her as she reached a hoof up and whipped a tear from Fleetfoot’s cheek as it fell. She followed the motion by removing her own goggles and letting them hang around her neck, locking eyes with Fleetfoot without any goggles in between them. “I’ll make it all better…” she continued as she tipped her head to the side and slowly slipped her lips over Fleetfoot’s. Fleetfoot didn’t resist, or react. She closed her eyes, tears falling down her cheeks as Nightshade softly kissed her.

And as she did… the extra crystal floating behind Nightshade’s back suddenly began to glow.

Dash watched helplessly as the crystal grew very bright, hovered around Nightshade’s body…

And pressed to Fleetfoot’s chest.

The crystal turned into a bright ball of light, before it passed into her much like how Nightshade absorbed her crystals.

“Ah!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelped, pulling back from Nightshade and her eyes widening as she felt something within her body.

Nightshade sneered as she licked her lips, inching backwards to watch as Fleetfoot began to shudder, her neck arched back, her ears pointed up, her arms, legs, and wings, shivering. She didn’t drop out of the air though… a faint pink glow surrounded her, invisible forces keeping her suspended in the air.

“Ah! AHHH!” Fleetfoot’s body began to twitch heavily. She slammed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, a sharp breath of air seeping between them as she began to breath harder, her nostrils flaring and her neck straining as she looked down and released a groan that was slightly muffled by her closed mouth.

“Don’t fight it…” Nightshade said quietly as she backed away slightly and began floating in a circle around her. “The first time you feel the power, it can be daunting… but believe me, if you let it go and let it work, it will do exactly what you want. After all I took the liberty of telling it what to do, so all you have to do is let… GO!” she said eagerly as she stopped to the left of Fleetfoot and watched with ravenous anticipation as Fleetfoot’s body kept shivering and twitching. “You wanted it! Now accept it!”

Fleetfoot lifted her head back up, her lips parting as she released a loud gasp and her eyes opening wide to reveal a pink glow from within them. Her chest expanded and contracted visibly as she began nearly hyperventilating, each breath loud and labored.

“Haaahgghhhh, hrrggggggggg!” she began to groan loudly as the glow around her became brighter… and then her body began to change.

Dash watched in horror as Fleetfoot began to scream and wail, her voice cracking as it hit an incredibly high pitch. They were screams of intense agony as if she was being ripped in two. But that’s not what was happening…

Fleetfoot’s body was… getting larger, the stretchy material of her suit squeaking as her body was forcibly manipulated by the magic. As if her body increasing in size was already putting strain on her suit, Dash noticed that Fleetfoot’s bulk was increasing in size as well, her chest, shoulders, back and limbs filling up with new mass. Her suit began to creak and strain as her muscles swelled up, becoming very visible beneath the spandex as it was stretched to its limits.

Nightshade began to shudder beside Fleetfoot as the magic worked on her, her eyelids twitching as her tongue remained glued to her upper lip.

“Feel it! Believe it! If you want it, the crystal will give it to you!” Nightshade encouraged as Fleetfoot continued to scream and cry out.

As he body continued to grow and her muscles continued to expand, the suit finally started giving way. Faint ripping noises began accompanying the squeaks as small tears started appearing in Fleetfoot’s suit, the sleeves on her limbs already being pulled upwards. Several bits of her light blue fur began to show through, her suit failing to contain the surge as her body began bursting out of it, the rips and tears growing larger, and revealing bits and pieces of her enhanced form. The neck portion of her suit began to tear right beneath her chin, the rip circling around slowly until it snapped and flopped down towards her shoulders, sliding down slowly against her enlarged neck and leaving the mask by itself.

Fleetfoot stopped wailing, but her mouth remained open and her eyes remained hidden within the pink light as her body was now the size of Nightshade’s, her musculature slowly catching up and matching Nightshade’s as well. Her chest was still expanding and contracting as she breathed heavily, each breath threatening to rip the whole front of her suit apart. There was already a large rip right on the front that grew larger by the second, revealing the new, powerful chest beneath.

Dash looked on in complete and utter horror… as Nightshade remained by Fleetfoot’s side, the two now equal in size and mass. A devilish smile plastered to Nightshade’s face as Fleetfoot reached the end of the transformation. Fleetfoot was no longer the small, sleek Wonderbolt she was known to be. She was just the opposite, every inch of her at least two times larger and easily many times stronger.

“Ahhhhhh… wh… what…?” Fleetfoot finally spoke as the light faded from her eyes, but a soft glow remained around it. She slowly looked down at herself as her body, while mostly numb, tingled and shuddered with an odd light burning sensation, her eyes widening considerably as she looked at her chest and down to her arms. Her body felt different and… looked different. She gasped as Nightshade swung around in front of her, noticing that Nightshade was… the same size as her? She quickly glanced towards Dash, noticing how small she looked.

“Now…. THIS… is more like it!” Nightshade commented with intense satisfaction in the back of her voice.

“What did… you do to me?” Fleetfoot asked with a shaky voice, her whole body slowly beginning to hurt as if it had been stretched and put through a wringer.

“Only what you really wanted. If you didn’t… the magic wouldn’t have worked,” Nightshade sneered as she moved in a little closer. “How about you get a good look?” she suggested as her three crystals came to life and a faint light rose from them, collecting in front of Fleetfoot before flattening out horizontally and solidifying. The surface of the magic became shiny and reflective like a mirror.

Fleetfoot barely looked at herself for a second before her jaw dropped and her voice failed to give any audible response. Her eyelids stretched to their limit as her pupils darted about, looking at every inch of herself as she struggled to comprehend that she was, indeed, looking at herself.

She was bigger than Spitfire, and looked more powerful too. Her suit stretched past its limits as it failed to contain her new size and bulging muscles that surely would rival Soarin’s. Her wings had grown at least two sizes as well. Nightshade leaned up against her side so Fleetfoot could see that they were perfectly equal.

“Well?” Nightshade whispered into her ear as she began moving the mirror around so Fleetfoot could get a look at herself from the side as well. “I know I don’t have to ask, but you like it? I know I do!”

“I-I-I…” Fleetfoot was so shocked she could barely manage a stutter.

“It’s what you’ve always wanted!” Nightshade added as she brought the mirror closer to emphasize the view. “You always felt a leader had to be physically convincing! Or are you just too shocked to tell me just how amazing you look and feel?”

Fleetfoot didn’t answer she just slowly began moving her arms, reaching them both up and touching them to her chest, moving them around as she felt the sheer size of it before crossing her arms over it and touching the arm opposite. Her body was still tingling with a slowly growing prickling sensation, but she inhaled sharply and unevenly as she felt her body as if she couldn’t believe it or even comprehend it.

“Or… can you not handle it?” Nightshade suddenly continued as she removed the mirror, the light returning to her crystals. “I’m willing to bet you’re in awe… but believe me… as somepony who manipulates their body often… it’s not for the faint of heart…”

Fleetfoot blinked and looked up at Nightshade, her eyes twitching as the prickling sensation suddenly increased, her body trembling as it was followed by pain.

“Ah… AH!” Fleetfoot began to wince and cringe as she felt like her body was being stabbed all over.

“That was quite a massive increase in size and mass…” Nightshade rubbed her chin. “No doubt it stunned your nerves and strained your joints something fierce! But… I wonder how bad you want it?” she cooed as Fleetfoot began to groan and moan in pain, hugging herself as she shook. “I bet your body is about to punish you for it… can you hold on? Can you fight the growing pains your own desires have brought upon you? Don’t make me regret giving you a bit of our magic now! If you really want it so bad, you’ll FIGHT IT! FACE THE PAIN NOW TO KEEP WHAT YOU WANT LATER!”

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot threw her head up, shrieking and screaming as her body began to burn all over. She had never felt so much pain in her life, the agony spreading all over her body as if the shock of the spontaneous height and muscle growth had shocked her body into a numbed state, only to come back with a vengeance and extreme consequences. “AHHHHHHHH!!!! OOOWWWW!!!!! AAAAAAAAUUUUGHHH!!” she began to thrash about, her body tensing and flexing uncontrollably as she curled her body up, pressing her hooves over every inch of herself in a desperate, but fruitless attempt to ease the pain. “GAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…” Nightshade sighed as she shook her head, flipping her mane out of her eyes as she casually watched Fleetfoot be tortured by her own body. “Really… I thought you’d be stronger than this,” she said as she turned her back to Fleetfoot. “Your desire is so strong… but you immediately folded once the pain hit you… you didn’t even try to fight it or resist.” She turned back around and faced Fleetfoot as she bit down on her wrist, the intense groaning and crying muffled against it as she kept struggling. “No wonder you’re efforts to be more like this have failed… you aren’t even willing to fight for it…”

“H…HELP… ME!!!!!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot suddenly cried out as her body kept shaking, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as she looked towards Nightshade.

“Such a shame… You had me convinced you’d go all in… but I wasted my time,” Nightshade lifted an eyebrow. “As you wish.”

Nightshade held out a hoof and her eyes flashed brightly. The pink light surrounding Fleetfoot faded and a large collection of it erupted from her chest, shooting out from within her and swirling around Nightshade before being absorbed by her crystals.

Fleetfoot remained still for a moment, shivering as the magic was pulled from her. As soon as Nightshade’s crystals absorbed it, she began to shrink, reverting back to her normal size. The added height, size, and bulk in her body faded until she was completely back to normal. Her suit was full of holes, the spandex overstretched in some areas, making it no longer skin-tight.

“Ooooo… ahhhhh…. Oohhhhh…” she shuddered, tears rolling down her eyes as she tried and failed to hug herself. Everything about how she currently looked was the definition of broken and with the magic no longer keeping her in the air, she slowly began to fall, plummeting limply to the ground as tears dripped from her eyes, lifting up off her face and into the air as she plunged.

She cried out as she hit the ground, immediately curling up into a ball and shaking, but her eyes remained open wide. She looked positively terrified and emotionally broken as if she had just died, and been revived moments later.

“Hmph…” Nightshade grunted in disappointment, turning towards a frozen, terrified Rainbow Dash. “Such a buzz kill… She was doing so well up until when it really mattered… no wonder she’s afraid to lead. She’s not even willing to give it all for what she really wants.” Nightshade repeated to herself, then blinked as she glanced towards Dash. “Oh, I totally forgot I had that on you, let me help you… loosen up,” she said with a wink. The wink caused a faint flash from her eye when she opened it. The magic bind around Dash’s muzzle disappeared.

“FLEETFOOT!” Dash immediately yelled while looking down instead of at Nightshade. Nightshade smirked and willingly released the telekinesis magic from around her, watching with interest as Dash ignored her and dove towards the ground, aiming right for Fleetfoot. “FLEET!” Dash yelled as she slammed down and galloped up to her.

Dash’s heart sank and her ears flopped down as she looked Fleetfoot over frantically. Fleetfoot was hugging herself, shuddering, whimpering, and vigorously shaking her head with the smallest increments of head movement possible. The sight of Fleetfoot in such a dominated and broken state was peak demoralization.

“Ah!” Dash yelped as Nightshade suddenly slammed down to the ground nearby. Dash quickly turned and faced her, placing herself in front of Fleetfoot as Nightshade slipped her goggles back on and began casually sauntering towards them. Dash bit her lip, her arms and legs shaking as she, herself, remained the only Wonderbolt left.

She had to focus, she had to fight, she had to defend them. They meant everything to her and she refused to simply let Nightshade do as she pleased. She didn’t know what good she could do, but she refused to lie down and give up. She blinked as she looked down, noticing that Fleetfoot’s goggles were at her hooves, right where they had fallen when Nightshade removed and dropped them. Dash gulped, frantically reaching down and scooping them up. She stretched the band and pulled the goggles down over her head, placing them over her eyes. With Fleetfoot’s goggles in place, she reset her hooves and glared at Nightshade, ready to resist.

Nightshade stopped and scoffed, her cheeks puffing up as she saw Dash go through the painfully frantic process of picking up and putting on the goggles.

“Oh, I’m scared now!” she taunted.

“I’m NOT scared!” Dash quickly shot back, causing Nightshade to blink and tip her head.

“Dashie, I didn’t even ask if you were,” she said with a few snickers as Dash blinked and gritted her teeth.

“Dammit, I…!” Dash tried to retort, silently chastising herself, but she flinched as Nightshade continued sauntering towards her.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, Dashie…” she said in a condescending voice as she reached up and tipped her goggles down, shooting a disturbing form of bedroom eyes towards Dash that made her shiver. “It was fun playing with your friends, but I admit… none of them are as much fun as you.”

“Don’t you try it with me!” Dash yelled at her as she glanced at Fleetfoot. “I know how you work! I won’t let you control me!”

“That’s precisely why I like you!” Nightshade released a slow giggle, her alto toned voice made it sound creepier every time. “Fleety here didn’t see it coming, so it was too easy… but YOU… you KNOW me!” Nightshade stopped right in front of Dash. “It’s much more fun when I have to work for it!”

Dash took a step backwards, her back hoof bumping into Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot released a cry of despair as if she had just been stabbed through the chest. Dash flinched and looked back at her as she curled up more and shook violently. Dash blinked, looking up to see that she was surrounded by her fallen comrades. Her squad and all the top tier elites all groaning and struggling to move in the same area… had Nightshade purposely done that? Did she engineer this all just to put her in a desperate situation with hurt and wailing comrades all around her? Dash wasn’t about to discount that possibility.

“Grrrr…” Dash gritted her teeth and set her hooves firmly in the ground. She was beat up, battered, and bruised, but if Nightshade wanted her to resist, then that’s exactly what she would do!

Dash leapt at Nightshade recklessly, the only thought on her mind to fight and protect everypony, but her eagerness was met with a very quick and rough demise.

Nightshade simply reached up, blocking Dash’s first punch. She quickly hooked her hoof around Dash’s wrist, pulled her forward, placed her other hoof atop Dash’s head, and slammed her down to the ground right on her jaw.

“GAAAAHHH!!!! AHHH!!!” Dash cried out as Nightshade gave just enough slack to allow Dash to open her mouth and voice her pain, a trail of blood dripping down from her top lip from her own teeth puncturing it on impact.

“It’s also fun when you think you have a chance!” Nightshade said with a sneer as she lowered herself down to Dash’s face, letting Dash glare at her as she held her down. “Let me get that for you…” she said before tipping her mouth towards Dash and slowly licking the blood off Dash’s lips as she growled. “Mmmm…” Nightshade hummed as she licked her lips and pulled back. “Tasty…”

“FUCK… YOU…!” Dash barely managed to say with her head still locked down to the ground.

“Ooooh, such a foul mouth you have! Maybe I should personally wash it out… but we’d need some more privacy for that!” Nightshade taunted while making subtle rocking motions with her pelvis.

“RRGGHHHH!!!!!” Dash growled loudly, thrashing beneath Nightshade’s hoof, fed up with being humiliated.

“Whoa! Getting feisty!” Nightshade chuckled as she put her other hoof to her mouth and tipped her head. “Hmmmmm…. Now how should I break you…” she pondered out loud, defying Dash’s claim that she would never do such a thing. “What really gives you chills? Besides me of course, I wonder…” Nightshades eyes began to glow, the light seeping out from behind her goggles. “Hm…? Oh?” Nightshade sneered as the light faded. “How… simple! If I had known you were that afraid of it, I would have done this already!” she taunted as Dash kept glaring, determined to resist anything Nightshade threw at her.

Nightshade reached a hoof up and one of her crystals floated up to it, a faint glow surrounding her as her smile grew wider.

“Let me show you another trick from the arsenal up my sleeve!” she said eagerly as the crystal began rotating. She turned and looked towards it, focusing for a moment as the crystal spun faster and faster.

Then suddenly, a ball of fire burst up from her hoof, surrounding the crystal.

“Oops! Wrong one!” Nightshade shrugged, grinning down at Dash as she remained locked to the ground. The fire disappeared and the crystal began spinning again. Eventually a collection of water swirled up and formed a swirling bubble around the crystal. “Hmmm no… wrong again!” Nightshade rolled her eyes, smiling as she teased Dash.

But after watching Nightshade use the magic to somehow summon the first two elements that the Wonderbolts were taught to handle… her eyes shot open, nearly growing larger than the goggles she wore as she realized what Nightshade was slowly building up to.

“NO!” Dash yelled out desperately as she started thrashing again, but gasped as Nightshade pressed down on her head hard, keeping her down.

“Now, now, Dashie… it’s rude to interrupt in the middle of a magic trick!” she taunted as she looked back at the crystal spinning in her hoof. Small swirls of air shot up around it, little gusts of wind shooting out from around it. “Wow, I’m zero for three… But hey, I bet I’ll get it right NEXT TIME!”

“STOP! NO! NO!” Dash yelped and pleaded, completely failing to hold her claim that Nightshade wouldn’t break her… because she knew what was coming next, and she never considered the possibility until just now.

“Aaaaaaaaaand…” Nightshade sneered as she slowly turned her head towards the crystal. Dash felt all the breath leave her lungs as several crackles and pops began to sound out from around Nightshade’s hoof… and small ribbons of electricity began bouncing up between it and the crystal. “TAH-DAH!” Nightshade called out as a bundle of electricity shot up and surrounded the crystal, sparks dancing between it and her hoof while also shooting up above. “THERE WE GO!” she said cheerfully as she looked down at Dash, her smile growing wider as she saw the look of horror on Dash’s face.

Dash herself was shaking, her eyes straining as they stared at Nightshade’s hoof and the electricity.

She was not ready for this… not in the slightest. She had been working on overcoming her fear of lightning, but it had been in controlled environments, not to mention she had Silver watching over her and making her feel safe. She had barely been exposed to it outside of her training… the only other time being when Cannon Ball tried to hit her with it when they chased the Renegades in Cloudsdale. She froze completely when it happened and had Silver not flown in and caught it, she would have had another nasty shock.

THIS… was much, MUCH worse. Nightshade scared her more in general than lightning… but Nightshade USING lightning on her? That was by far the worst case scenario. The thought of the two mixed together alone was enough to give her chills, but now it was actually happening. Her will to hold her ground no matter what was quickly replaced with a sharp fear that built more and more as Nightshade slowly moved her hoof down.

The crystal moved away as Nightshade directed all of the electricity into her arm and tensed it up, focusing the concentration to make it stronger until the ribbons of electricity were jumping wildly and fiercely like small bolts of lightning.

“Aw, you look so scared… it’s precious,” Nightshade cooed as she reached the hoof closer and closer to Dash. “That big shock back during our little Ponyville altercation really shook you up, didn’t it? I had no idea!” she said as she stopped the hoof a few inches from Dash’s face.

“NO!” Dash edged her neck away sweat dripping down her face, but Nightshade simply moved her hoof closer. Dash’s eyes remained wide, her pupils shrinking as Nightshade edged it closer… and closer… until it was JUST close enough. “AH!” Dash yelped as a few of the sparks bounced, a ribbon or two of the lightning jumping onto her and lightly shocking her. “STOP!” she pleaded desperately. “STOP IT!”

“But why? You’re clearly enjoying this!” Nightshade said sarcastically, laughing as she inched her hoof closer, letting more of the electrical pulses sting Dash’s face.

“OW! AH!” Dash cried out, slamming her eyes shut and pushing her neck so far that it was a wonder she didn’t break it.

“What’s that?” Nightshade asked while turning her ear towards Dash. “You want more? Why didn’t you say so?”

Dash’s eyes shot open as Nightshade pressed her hoof completely against her cheek. The volts surged into her, shocking every inch of her face and traveling down her neck. She screamed at the top of her lungs, the pain was bearable, but the trauma boosted the effect. She thrashed, winced, and cringed as Nightshade held her hoof down, letting Dash feel all of it, but she wasn’t done.

“You look like you could take more!” Nightshade yelled down at her while nearly salivating at the agony Dash was expressing. All three of her crystals rose up and floated around her. Nightshade reached down and grabbed Dash, picking her up as she spread her wings and gave them a hard flap to push herself up onto her hind legs. She put her arms around Dash and squeezed her tightly as all three crystals spun vigorously. “You know… I never really paid you back in full for dislocating my elbow… SO LET’S TURN IT UP!” Nightshade said with a sneer, looking directly into Dash’s horrified eyes as her crystals shined brightly.

Large volts of electricity shot up around the crystals. They were several times larger, complete lightning bolts, and at least three times the amount. It all shot into Nightshade and began dancing around her body.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Dash arched her neck back and screamed, her voice nearly cracking as Nightshade directed all of from around her body into her. Dash’s body tensed, flinched, and shook, thrashing in Nightshade’s grip with her neck straining back and forth as she felt the volts surge through her, burning her nerves and making her muscles forcefully twitch out of control. Nightshade’s grin grew and grew as she laid endless pain on Dash.

“YES! SCREAM! WAIL! SHOW ME YOUR DESPAIR! SHOW ME YOUR PAIN! I LOVE IT!” Nightshade yelled into her face as her eyelids twitched with delight and she vigorously licked her lips. “OH I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF IT!” she continued, followed by arching her neck back and letting out a loud, raspy moan before swinging her head back forward and biting down HARD on Dash’s shoulder.

Dash’s voice cut off, replaced by a loud exhale as the additional pain of Nightshade biting into her completely broke her voice, staggered, weak gasps and grunts replacing any attempt for her voice to emphasize her pain. Her body was slowly going numb as if resorting to cutting off feeling in a desperate, reflexive attempt to get away from the extreme physical and mental pain caused by the lightning and the bite. Soarin had once told her that in order to not be hurt by lighting, one had to stretch their limbs out while controlling it. Not only was she not in control, she was being held with her body and limbs all pressed together, so she was feeling every bit of pain imaginable. If Nightshade had put any more power into her current gathering, there was no doubt it would have killed her, but she was holding it back just enough to keep her alive.

“HAAAAaaaaaa…” Nightshade gasped as she released her mouth from Dash’s shoulder, a stain of blood left behind on Dash’s suit. She shivered, letting go of Dash and letting her fall to the ground as the lightning dissipated. “Ooooooo… hoo…haa… that was AMAZING!” Nightshade said as she kept her head pointed up and released several heavy, satisfied breaths.

Dash lay still on her back, her body twitching involuntarily as small sparks and pops jumped from her body, the last bits of electricity escaping. She stared straight up, a blank expression on her face with wide eyes as if any traces of life had been sucked out of her. She couldn’t feel anything, her pain receptors fried for the moment and a faint trail of smoke rising from her due to the heat generated by the lightning.

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… HMMMM!!!!!” Nightshade hummed while shivering and rubbing her hooves on her chest, still reveling in her own pleasure as she looked down at Dash. “Now wasn’t that FUN?” she asked as she visibly pondered what to do next. Dash just stared at her, no reaction, no expression. She had nothing, nothing left to say or do.

Her greatest fear came true when Nightshade reappeared… and her fears had been given full merit.

Nightshade had, single-hoofedly, defeated them all. And it felt like she didn’t even try very hard. She was the pure definition… of a monster.

“Huh?” Nightshade suddenly perked up and glanced away from Dash. “Oooo, don’t you look desperate?” she said, but she wasn’t looking at Dash.

Dash blinked as she stared up, finding just enough strength to turn her head to the side.

Matteo was crawling along the grown towards her, grunting and wheezing in pain. He dug his talons into the ground and pulled himself along, glaring at Nightshade the whole way.

“By all means, keep trying so hard, it only makes me—” Nightshade was cut off as she felt a tug on her back hoof. She lifted an eyebrow and turned around and saw Squall on the ground behind her, gritting his teeth and squeezing his hooves around her leg. “Hmmmmmm?” Nightshade’s smile only grew at the site. She ignored Squall, letting him try as she faced forward only to be met with a similar sight all around her.

The rest of the Wonderbolts were all slowly moving towards her, either desperately trying to push themselves up or dragging themselves along. Each one of them, From Fire Streak to Storm Front, was straining themselves to reach her, determined as if rallied by the site of Dash taking so much punishment. Nightshade’s lips parted, revealing a grin as she shivered.

“Such… amazing loyalty and devotion…” she said to herself, her voice slowly rising. “I’ve had my way with every single one of you and you still want more? Hmmmm… the rest of the Shadowbolts could learn a thing or two from you… whenever I do this to them, they cower and run…” she licked her lips. “Or maybe that’s because they’re smarter!”

Her words did nothing to deter the Wonderbolts. Matteo slumped down as he finally reached her, grabbing one of her front hooves in his talons as Squall kept holding on behind. The rest of them kept on dragging themselves along.

Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, Surprise, Blaze, High Winds, Storm Front, and Air Mach. The only one missing was Fleetfoot, who was still curled up nearby, utterly broken by what Nightshade had done to her.

“Magnificent… absolutely mag—” Nightshade suddenly stopped, her eyes widening. “HRGH!” she grunted, wincing as she threw a hoof over her heart. The glow around her began to grow brighter, her whole body shaking, her muscles twitching, and her neck straining.

Dash turned her head back, a very faint gasp escaping her throat as Nightshade staggered and groaned, the light around her flickering. Pulses of pink energy began erupting from her body as she slowly bent down, struggling to stand.

Dash recognized this… this was what happened to Nightshade after Soarin beat her down after their escape from the Shadowbolt fortress. Nightshade had absorbed multiple crystals during that encounter… and at a certain point, the magic erupted within her, exploding and ultimately causing what they first thought was her demise, not to mention it was powerful enough to destroy the fortress itself.

Was that about to happen again? Had Nightshade not learned her lesson?

No… of course not. Nightshade was not a pony that made the same mistake twice.

“Heh… heheheh!” Nightshade began chuckling as the power began reacting within her. “Perfect timing! I can show you all my last trick!” she said confidently.

The crystals floating around her began to glow and Dash soon felt something familiar… a shift of wind, gusts surging towards Nightshade. She was using Void’s Vacuum Wave. Dash cringed as the inward winds grew stronger, inching her body closer to Nightshade. Several yelps and shrieks rang out as the Wonderbolts all around we lifted up off the ground by the force and drawn towards Nightshade as well.

“Everypony gather in!” Nightshade called out in between pained grunts. The mindset of the Wonderbolts changed on the spot, all of them swiping at the ground with their hooves in a desperate attempt to halt their movement towards her, but none of them had the strength or the traction. All of them slid towards Nightshade as the pulses of magic rushing from her body became stronger and brighter.

She released the Vacuum Wave once all of them were within at least five yards of her. She sneered, and took a few steps back to put Squall and Fleetfoot in front of her with the rest of them.

“HHHMMM!!!!!” Nightshade grunted as she slammed her hooves to the ground, shut her eyes tight and threw her wings out. “HAAAH!” she gasped while throwing her head back.

A massive amount of pink energy ejected from her body, stopping about a yard from her in one big cloud, pulsating and flickering. Nightshade’s body visibly reacted, the ‘boosted’ look fading from her muscles and her whole body relaxing as she released a sigh… and stood up straight in no pain at all. She smiled as the cloud of magic energy floating around her began to flash brighter and brighter, all of the Wonderbolts staring at it in horror.

Nightshade simply smiled as her three crystals began to glow and encased her in a protective shield.

“Enjoy!”

The cloud of magic exploded.

“WHAT THE—!?” Silver stumbled and fell, landing roughly on the ground. He blinked and looked up, painfully pushing himself back up onto his hooves, certain that what he had just heard… and felt was an explosion…

He had been taking his time, limping along back towards where the battle was taking place, taking a path that winded through a small canyon. He was certain he was about to find them after making it around a rock formation in front of him, but he was suddenly knocked off his hooves just a few paces from it, and was now more than certain he was right there.

Only… the explosion and the force that had knocked him over filled him with a sense of dread. The moment he was back on his hooves, he took one step… and his eyes widened as something… somepony shot towards him overhead and struck the rock formation stomach first, bouncing off.

“AUGH! AH!” Blaze yelped and cried out as she hit the small cliff wall opposite of the formation and landed two steps from Silver, instantly grabbing her stomach and rolling over, groaning in pain. Silver blinked and quickly dragged himself up to her.

“BLAZE?!” Silver yelled as he shifted to his right and knelt down.

“Ah… Ahhhhhhh…!” Blaze continued to cringe and groan, shuddering as her body contorted and shook.

“What the hell happened to…?” Silver trailed off as he looked up. His small shift to the right was just enough for him to see past the rock formation that extended several yards up and overhead. “Oh my god…” Silver swallowed as he glanced down at Blaze. He left her side and pulled himself slowly over towards rock, using it as cover as he placed himself against it and peeked around, his jaw dropping in disbelief.

The Wonderbolts all lay around the immediate area near him, all of them on their backs, stomachs, or sides and groaning in pain. Considering how Blaze made her entrance moments ago… and the explosion he heard, they had all met a similar fate, and all showed no signs of being able to stand or protect themselves as none of them even managed to push their hooves to the ground.

Silver’s eyes darted back and forth, but he quickly blinked and pulled himself back behind the rock as he heard devilish laughter.

“WOW! That was intense!” Nightshade’s voice met Silver’s ears as he pressed himself against the rock, wondering if he had been seen or not. “And you all lived! Perfect, I don’t want the fun to be over already!”

Silver took a chance and slowly peeked around, moving as slowly as possible and stopping the instant he saw Nightshade. He halted as she came into view and watched as she approached the Wonderbolts while smiling like a psychopath.

Silver blinked, pulling back briefly to remove his goggles and rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. He looked back, blinking again as his jaw slowly dropped down a little.

A single Shadowbolt… had taken down all of the top tier elites including a high tier and a whole recruit squad? It was Nightshade, but Silver had SEEN Nightshade in the past. He saw the fight between her and Soarin a while back… was she really this dangerous? He couldn’t comprehend it.

He perked up and pulled back as Nightshade turned her head towards him. He stiffened and held his breath, hoping that she had not seen him.

“Well, Dashie?” Nightshade spoke again. Silver released a long, quiet breath of relief, briefly glancing at Blaze in pain behind him before he edged forward again, keeping himself against the rock wall as he peeked around and saw Nightshade bending down towards his student.

“Are you still with me?”

Nightshade’s words pierced through Dash’s ears as they continued to ring from the explosion that she was right next to. Her body had already lost feeling from the torture Nightshade had dealt to her, the force of the explosion only adding to it. She could barely move, feeling incredibly dizzy, the world spinning above her as she opened her eyes. She couldn’t move one of her back legs at the moment, and could barely move her other three limbs. Her wings were stiff, but were apparently still attached.

As her vision finally stopped spinning, she looked up weakly into Nightshade’s eyes, just in time as Nightshade reached down and grabbed her by the neck of her suit.

“Hng…” Dash lamely grunted as Nightshade hoisted her up and held her out in front of her, her whole body limp and dangling in Nightshade’s grip. She pointed her eyes towards Nightshade, too tired and hurt to even muster a glare, but looked at her regardless.

“There you are! I didn’t want you to die on me so soon! Besides… I still need you…” she said as she looked down at the rest of the Wonderbolts, all of them moaning and groaning on the ground, failing to even struggle as the pain rendered them all useless and defenseless, not a single flame of a fighting spirit left to resist.

“Hmm…” Nightshade hummed as she looked around. “Not much I can do when I’ve already pretty much beaten the hell out of all of you…” she pondered out loud, bouncing Dash up and down in her grip as Dash gasped and grunted. “Oh!” Nightshade stopped, her ears pointing up. “I know what I can do! Ooooooooh this will be fun to watch…” she said eagerly as she released Dash and let her fall to the ground. Dash yelping as he hit the ground and rolled onto her side.

Dash cringed, pushing on of her hooves down desperately, but only managing to turn herself over and look at Nightshade as she stepped back and her three crystals floated around her. Three flashes of light shone in between the crystals, causing three more to appear, making six crystals like she had before she started with them.

“I’d say I’m up for watching some nice… long… SUFFERING right now…” Nightshade spoke louder, assuming all of them could hear her. “How about I share a little technique I learned from watching a certain… former Shadowbolt recruit of mine!”

Dash blinked, her eyes opening slightly wider.

Former Shadowbolt recruit?

“Watching your own captain be controlled by her own emotions was such a treat… I simply had to figure out how she did that!”

Dash gasped, cringing right after as her alarm was briefly overpowered by her pain.

It all came flooding back to her.

In the past, Lightning Dust had used a crystal to turn Spitfire against them, amplifying her negative emotions to turn her into a mindless, wild animal that attacked Soarin.

Forget the lightning, Dash had not even entertained the thought much less considered the possibility, nor did she believe any of the rest of them had. The only one who was around to see it when it happened was Fleetfoot, but the rest were all told about it later.

What alarmed her even more though… was the circumstances that currently occupied the moment. The situation couldn’t possibly be any worse… why? Because the Wonderbolts, with all the fighting amongst themselves, the disagreements, witnessing the two highest officers get into a heated argument, and then having Soarin’s wayward comment about them all used against him… Negative emotions were currently running high! They were sitting ducks! They were ticking time bombs!

Dash could only stare in horror as Nightshade began to glow with her six crystals orbiting her, but before anything happened, she looked down at Dash and smirked.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking Dashie…” she began. “But I don’t intend to make you fight each other. I mean, look around,” she motioned at all the Wonderbolts as they struggled to simply turn and look towards her. “I’ve got nothing to work with there! Besides,” Nightshade sneered. “As much fun as it was to watch Spitfire go nuts… I’d much rather it be ME causing the pain… as opposed to letting sompony else do it for me. Seriously where is the fun in that?” she explained.

Dash wasn’t sure what to feel, Nightshade claimed she wasn’t going to do what Lightning Dust did… but then, what did that mean? What was she actually going to do?

“Let’s just say… after I learned the magic myself, I found there were many ways to manipulate negative emotions… and…” she paused, trailing off as one of the crystals floated up to her and she peered through it, much like Lightning Dust had in the past before determining Spitfire was her target. Nightshade blinked as she shifted it back and forth, scanning all of them. “WOW! Okay… I know this isn’t just me…” she grinned as she let the crystal down and lifted an eyebrow. “Something juicy must be up in the Wonderbolts right now! You’re all RADIATING dormant, negative feelings! Oooooooh, this is going to be SALACIOUS!”

Dash gave one final effort. One last push against the ground in attempt to stand, but she couldn’t. She, and the rest, were completely at Nightshade’s mercy… and they all knew she had none.

“Just let me dig real deep…” Nightshade said coyly as the crystals orbited around her faster, a pink glow surrounding her and growing. As her aura grew, trails of pink light began seeping out of the crystals, slowly reaching out and floating through the air. Each one of them broke off, moving towards one of the Wonderbolts on the ground. Any efforts to get away or simply move out of the way failed, and every single Wonderbolt present found themselves being touched by the lights. As they were touched, the lights expanded, encasing each of them in a faint pink aura. Nightshade let her tongue slip between her lips and licked them from side to side. “Dig real deep… and turn those negative feelings…” the glow around her grew brighter. “Into pure… UNBEARABLE pain!”

Dash’s eyes widened, feeling nothing at first aside from the chills that Nightshade’s words sent down her spine… but soon after, she felt a burning sensation. Her body was numb to all pain, but somehow… she was feeling it, as if more than her body was under attack. It was like she could simply feel the pain regardless.

“Ah! AHHH!” Dash yelped and shrieked as the burning sensation grew stronger and stronger, the rest of the Wonderbolts coming under the same torture as yelps and cries rang out, echoing throughout the canyons.

Nightshade simply smiled as the Wonderbolts began to scream in agony, casually strolling around in between all of them as she watched them thrash and twitch, grabbing and hugging themselves as the sudden, incredible pain clawed and gnawed at them endlessly.

“Yesssss… YES!” Nightshade couldn’t hold in her satisfaction as she admired her work. “Oo! I’m getting chills!” she inhaled sharply, her breath hissing between her teeth as she bit her lower lip. “It’s music to my ears! Keep singing!” she said in a tone that sounded just short of insanity. She burst into uncontrollable laughter, holding onto her stomach as if she was being tickled.

“N…NO!” Silver gritted his teeth as he watched the scene play out. He already couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and now she was simply torturing them! He felt a sudden guilt grip his chest as he peeked around and his eyes fell on Dash, Squall, Matteo, and Storm.

He had convinced them to turn around, he had drilled them into believing they could be victorious… and while he didn’t regret that mindset or approach, he had woefully underestimated Nightshade. If he had known THIS is what he was sending them back into he may have considered other options, possibly to save the top tiers instead of fighting beside them.

But what was done was done… and a heavy price had already been paid. He couldn’t dwell on what had happened, instead focusing on what he could do…

But what? Was there any option? Was there any possible course of action here?

Silver blinked as he heard a whimpering noise behind him.

“What the fuck… what the fuck…” Blaze swore in a broken, shaky voice behind him. Silver turned around and saw her struggling to prop herself up. She was staring out towards Nightshade and what she was doing to the rest of the Wonderbolts, shaking in fear as she watched them be tortured by the magic. She only had a partial view, but it was more than enough to scare her out of her own suit. “This isn’t real… this… oh my god, what is happening…?!” she continued, sounding completely senseless and unable to comprehend it all. The fact that ONE pony was doing this to ALL of them. “How is she so strong…?” she kept going while shaking her head. “How is this possible?!”

Silver gritted his teeth as he listened to the whimpering words. Under normal circumstances, he’d tell Blaze to suck it up and get on her hooves… but unfortunately, he agreed with her here. In all his years as a Wonderbolt, he had never seen or experienced anything like this. The Shadowbolts were strong, they were clever, they had strange powers, but they had learned to fight against them. But THIS… Nightshade was in a league of her own, hell a whole different universe! Nothing Silver had seen so far from the Shadowbolts held a candle to this.

While he fought a mental battle to decide what to do, he couldn’t help but ponder… why?

If the Shadowbolts had Nightshade, a pony capable of THIS… then why had she remained behind the scenes for so long? If she was really this strong what had been keeping her from simply coming out until now?

Silver blinked, completely ripped from his own thoughts as four shadows of various sizes suddenly passed overhead. He immediately looked up into the sky before quickly peeking around the rock again to see.

“Huh?” Nightshade’s ears twitched as she abruptly stopped laughing, four shadows rushing along the ground towards her. She blinked and looked up “Oooooooh?” she blinked, her eyes lighting up with delight… as four pegasi passed overhead and landed behind her. She grinned devilishly as she turned around to face them. “My, my, what have we HERE?” she asked in a sly tone.

With Nightshade facing away, Silver took the liberty to poke his head out a little farther to see who had just joined the fray, his eyes widening briefly when he finally got a good view.

Shine Struck.

Playbitz.

Swift Justice.

And Calm Wind.

It was Squad Zero.

While Silver was relieved to have backup… it was clear something was wrong. All four members of the special force squad were staring out at the downed and tortured Wonderbolts… looking as if they were filled with sudden guilt.

“Oh god…” Playbitz spoke up as they all looked around at the fallen Wonderbolts. “We…” he gritted his teeth.

“We screwed up again…” Swift followed up, but they both flinched as Shine threw her wings out.

“Guys… enough…” she said, keeping order despite looking just as distraught as the rest of them. “We’re here now. Forget about everything else.”

“Hmmm…” They all looked forward as Nightshade hummed and approached them. “These are some new faces…” she said as she scanned them slowly. “And you’re a squad of four… so that means you’re not recruits.” She stopped, blinked, and smiled. “Oh! Wait a minute! I heard about you four from Blade!” she said as she smiled. “You must be the ‘secret special force’ I’ve been hearing about! My what an interesting crew…” she said as she looked them over again.

“We’re Squad Ze—” Swift was cut off as Calm reached a wing forward and stuffed it over his face.

“Swift… That’s supposed to be a secret…” Calm said quietly under his breath.

“Squad Zero?” Nightshade spoke up, causing Calm and the rest of them to flinch. “Some secret… you certainly don’t look like Wonderbolts… I can see it as sure as your standing there. Did they pull you off the street or something?”

“They kinda di—” Swift was cut off again as Playbitz threw a wing over his face this time. The other three glared at him as he shrugged.

“How cute,” Nightshade sneered as she started walking towards them, leaving the wailing Wonderbolts behind her. “And what was that you were saying when you landed? Something about screwing up?”

“We got lost while follow—”

“DAMMIT, SWIFT! SHUT IT!” Shine growled at him as Swift threw his hooves over his mouth.

“Yeah I think I’ll do that…” Swift nodded, his voice muffled behind his hooves. Nightshade burst out laughing.

“So let me get this straight… You were sent to follow these losers…” she pointed at the Wonderbolts. “And you got LOST?!” she paused as she snickered and shook her head. “Some special force you are!”

“That was only part of our orders,” Shine spoke up, glaring towards Nightshade. “So we messed up the following part… but we were also told to step in and help if they ran into trouble,” she explained full-out, no longer caring about the situation because of how condescending Nightshade was being.

“If you ask me…” Nightshade chuckled as she glanced over her shoulder at the Wonderbolts. “You screwed that one up too!” she taunted, causing Shine to glare harder, gritting her teeth as if fighting to deny it.

“Not entirely…” she grumbled. “We already have a reputation of falling short of what’s asked of us… and this isn’t going to help us. But if ANYTHING…” she paused and looked back at the rest of the squad. “We won’t lie down and give up when we can still help! The Wonderbolts are down… but we’re not. We’re here to rescue them!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Nightshade laughed so hard she reared up on her back legs and kicked her front hooves several times before slamming them down and grabbing her stomach. “That’s the most outrageous thing I’ve heard all day… You four? A bunch of no-names they pulled off the street… think you can save them from me?” She kept snickering as she shook her head. “Look behind me… all but four of these chumps are top tier Wonderbolts. I’m not about to believe that the four of you are remotely close to as good as them… I think you’re walking into your own demise!”

“You don’t know us!” Shine growled at her. “We may not be as good as they are, but like you said, we are ‘no-names!’ You don’t know anything about us or how we fight!” she took a step forward. “I don’t care how bad the situation is… we have something to prove! The Wonderbolts put their faith in us… so we’re going to fight like Wonderbolts!”

“And the Wonderbolts put their ‘faith’ in ‘stupidity’ it seems,” Nightshade shook her head, but smiled. “But hell, who am I to deny some more fun? Especially with some new toys?”

“Ready up!” Shine yelled, ignoring her as Calm, Swift, and Playbitz shifted into a diamond formation behind her.

“Tell you what,” Nightshade kept going as her crystals began to glow. “You want to prove yourselves? Okay… SHOW ME WHAT YOU CAN DO!”

In the blink of an eye, the crystals flashed, revealing several prepared magic attacks in the form of the Shadowbolt commander techniques. Large globes floated up from the ground around Squad Zero, Small, controlled spheres orbited around Nightshade and small pin-needles of magic hovered above Nightshade. She launched both the spheres and the needles as the globes around Squad Zero began to flash.

“HEAVY SHIELD MANEUVER! DEFLECT! DEFLECT!” Shine yelled out.

The instant Shine gave the order, they rotated clockwise in their formation to put Calm in front, Swift in the back and Playbitz and Shine on the sides. Playbitz and Shine both lashed out, using refined magic deflection techniques taught by the Renegades to knock away every single large globe. Calm placed himself in front of all of them, tensing his body while throwing his wings and arms up in front of him to willingly take the small pin sized blasts. The spheres circled around them all, spreading out and flying at them from all directions. Swift moved quickly, zipping around in front of them, showing off his agility as he managed to dip beneath legs and over backs in order to reach and deflect every single sphere. Nightshade followed up by launching Shadow’s burst wave. Playbitz and Swift moved to Calm’s sides with Shine standing in front.

“HEAVE…” Shine began.

“HO!” the three stallions finished as all four of them slammed their wings to the ground and threw their hooves up, the wave of magic bending and shooting upward harmlessly as if they deduced exactly where it’s focal point was.

“Huh…” Nightshade tipped her head while raising her brow as Squad Zero frantically got back into their formation and faced her, all panting loudly from the hard effort they just gave. “I admit… that was pretty impressive… you seem a little more adept at magic defense than the others…” she smiled and rubbed her hoof against her bottom lip. “Special force, eh? Something tells me this was exactly what they recruited you for… not a bad plan, I’ll have to give Spitfire some credit I guess…”

“STAY… ALERT…!” Shine yelled in between breaths as the rest of them panted with her, showing just how difficult it was to pull off what they just did.

“Okay, you passed that little test… but that was the easy one…” Nightshade sneered while cracking her hooves. “I wonder if you can handle it… while in full hoof to hoof combat as well!”

The moment Nightshade finished, she launched towards Squad Zero, all four of them reacting by shooting up into the air to create space, only for Nightshade to immediately catch up and force them to engage her.

Silver braced himself as Nightshade left a powerful burst of wind in her wake, one that reached all the way back to his hiding spot. He stared up into the sky as Nightshade engaged Squad Zero, attacking them directly while sending wild magic attacks at them as well.

Silver had faith in Shine’s abilities. He had been critical of the whole squad from the beginning, but wasn’t about to disregard that they had performed better than he expected. However… he wasn’t sure, after what Nightshade had already done, if the special force had any chance at all. Their magic deflection techniques were well above those of the elite Wonderbolts, but when it came to pure combat, they fell short… and Nightshade was sure to quickly figure that out and exploit it.

“Ah!” Silver gasped as Nightshade suddenly grabbed Playbitz and the two of them shot down… right towards the fallen Wonderbolts! Silver held his breath, cringing as Playbitz barely managed to get free in time before pulling up, he and Nightshade coming dangerously close to crashing into or colliding with the Wonderbolts. Silver looked down as he felt a slight tremble on the ground beneath him. Calm was on the ground, thundering along in a full gallop. “WATCH IT!” Silver yelled instinctively as Calm spread his wings and lifted off right before accidentally trampling on the Wonderbolts. Silver exhaled as he looked up and saw Calm’s attack from below separate Nightshade from Playbitz, Shine suddenly appearing from beneath Calm’s wing and shooting off his body towards Nightshade. Nightshade batted her away, her eyes glowing and firing the standard magic beams towards the two large stallions. Swift appeared over the top of them and deflected each one with fast, barely visible motions. "SHIT!” Silver cringed as some of the deflected blasts shot down towards him, slamming to the ground behind him and one of them hitting Matteo on the ground.

“ARGH!” Matteo cried out as he rolled over, running into Squall and Dash, who also yelped in pain from the sudden extra pressure. Silver looked out towards them with alarm, but was forced to shield himself as Nightshade, zipped down right over the ground, Calm following after her and Playbitz freefell from above to join. They left a powerful gust in their wake, causing several groans of pain as the Wonderbolts shifted, some of the smaller ones rolling from the force.

That did it, Silver couldn’t take it anymore. He appreciated that Squad Zero showed up and engaged Nightshade… but his fellow Wonderbolts… his friends… his family… They were stuck in the crossfire! He had to do something!

“Blaze!” he yelled towards her, but Blaze didn’t reply, she just stared at him as she sat back on her plot, still shivering and staring towards the carnage. “I need your help! We have to move them!” he yelled, pointing out to the Wonderbolts. “Get up! Let’s go!”

“Uh… uh… UH!” Blaze babbled, blinking several times.

“BLAZE!” Silver barked her name. “AH!” he reached up and grabbed the cliff side as a volley of spheres rained down, two hitting the rock formation above him, the others landing right in the middle of the Wonderbolts, several cries of pain following. Silver looked up to see Shine and Swift deflecting spheres as Nightshade peppered them towards the duo. “Rgh!” Silver growled as he stomped over to Blaze and grabbed her by the arm, trying to hoist her up, but his own body retaliated, the stiffness sapping his strength. Determined, Silver instead started dragging her. “GET THE HELL UP!” he yelled as he got her to the edge of their cover, but when he looked back and saw that she was still frozen in fear, and just staring at him, he dropped her roughly. “FINE! I’LL DO IT MYSELF!” he proclaimed.

Leaving Blaze behind, Silver forced himself out into the open, pushing his body into action as he moved towards his fallen comrades. He kept his eyes peeled, occasionally glancing up to keep tabs on the battle raging overhead and avoid becoming a casualty himself.

“Hrgh! RGH!” Silver grunted and gasped, ignoring the stiffness and pain of his worn out body as he reached the first Wonderbolt closest to him, High Winds. She had her eyes shut and was hugging herself as she cringed, rolling back and forth with tears streaming down her face. Silver quickly reached down to her, but the moment he touched her, a sudden, sharp pain ran into his hoof and up his arm. He looked down to see the aura around High Winds’ body reaching up his arm. “AH!” he gasped, squinting as he pulled his arm back and shaking it out.

It seemed that if he touched them, the magic affecting them would affect him too. His already tough job just got much tougher. Silver blinked and looked up sharply as Playbitz suddenly hit the ground hard just a few paces away.

“GAH! SHIT!” he yelled as he quickly rolled up onto his hooves and launching back up into the air before a volley of the pin needles rained down. Silver gasped, stepping up and putting himself in front of High Winds, shielding her and himself as the pins rained down. Only a few hit him, but it was enough to force him down to the ground.

“Dammit!” Silver swore as he struggled to push himself back up, fixing his eyes on High Winds again. “Screw it!” Silver yelled as he reached down and willingly grasped High Winds by the shoulders. “AHHHH! AH!” Silver yelled as the pain shot through his body, the aura traveling up into arms. But he ignored it and slowly dragged High Winds along the ground with every bit of effort he could muster. He eventually got her over to the rock formation, somewhat protected by the rock wall that extended above. “GAH!” he let go, the light leaving his arms and the pain subsiding...

But that was only one… the rest of them were still out there.

Silver looked out, wincing as Nightshade shot by overhead again with all of Squad Zero behind her. It was like she was taunting them. Silver shook his head.

“I’m too fucking OLD for this…” he cursed as he jumped back out into the fray, moving up to Air Mach and Surprise near where High Winds previously was.

“AHHH! OW!” Calm’s voice rang out from above. Silver looked up as he knelt down beside his two comrades to see Nightshade on Calm’s back, her arms around his neck and squeezing as Calm struggled to stay afloat.

“Aren’t you a big hunk of stallion?” Nightshade teased as she continued to yank on his neck, sliding her head down the side of his face and pressing her cheek into his neck. “You must hit the gym a lot… too bad it takes more than big muscles to handle me!” she yelled as she lifted her back legs and jammed her hooves into Calm’s back… right in the spot he had been gravely injured in during the Nimbus takeoff.

“AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!” He yelled out in pain as he dropped like a rock out of the air, falling right towards Silver.

“Aw hell!” Silver growled, reaching down and tensing his body as he touched Surprise and Air Mach. Ignoring the pain shooting into him, he gave them both a hard yank backwards, pulling them and himself out of the way right before Calm crashed to the ground, Nightshade leaping off his back while laughing and shooting back into the air.

Silver fell back with Surprise and Air Mach sliding next to him. He frantically looked up as Calm forced himself to his hooves and broke into a shaky gallop to take off again.

“COME ON!” Silver yelled as he grabbed the two beside him again and pulled them back towards High Winds, slowly and painfully making his way back over inch by inch, yard by yard. “Hahhh! Ha…” Silver panted as he let go, Surprise, High Winds, and Air Mach now all together.

He glanced between the three of them, all of them looking like they had never felt so much pain in their life. High Winds and Surprise were both in tears, and it looked like Air Mach was on the verge of crying as well. It looked like pure, unending torture. Silver couldn’t stand it.

He reached down and clasped a hoof with one of High Winds’ then reached over and did the same with Surprise. He felt the shocks of pain, but ignored them as he gently pulled the two of them together.

“SUPPORT EACH OTHER!” Silver yelled at them as her reached their hooves towards one another. “FACE THE PAIN TOGETHER!” he encouraged as he touched their hooves, Surprise and High Winds immediately grasping hold of each other. “YOU ARE WONDERBOLTS! YOU ARE A FAMILY! YOU’RE ALWAYS THERE!” he yelled as he let go and reached over to Air Mach, using both his hooves to shift him over. He grabbed Air Mach’s arm and yanked it over to High Winds. Air Mach grasped High Winds’ shoulder as Silver brought him over. “BE THERE FOR ONE ANOTHER!” Silver pleaded as he let go and fell back, gasping and panting with a hoof over his heart. It was beating furiously, not from its usual weakness, but from how much he was straining himself right now in general.

He looked back out gritting his teeth as he still had his work cut out for him.

“Dammit… DAMMIT!” Silver spread his wings, cringing as a few cracks and pops sounded out from his back. “I… WON’T… GIVE… UP!” he encouraged himself as he hopped up and glided out, shooting towards Fire Streak and Lightning Streak. “Ah!” he grunted as he landed, stumbling and nearly falling forward as he landed between the twins. He barely avoided falling, but moments after a globe of magic hit the ground right nearby… exploding.

Silver yelped as the force knocked him off his hooves and also sent Fire Streak rolling right on top of him. Silver quickly pushed out from beneath and stood up, squinting as a burst of wind rushed past him. Swift and Shine were engaged with Nightshade directly overhead, ganging up with Shine focusing on offense and Swift defending her with his quick movements. This included deflecting anything Nightshade shot at them… making where Silver stood a very hazardous spot.

He looked back and forth at the Streak twins, his eyes widening when he spotted Misty Fly right nearby as well. His instincts got the better of him as he refused to leave any of them in imminent danger. He stepped over to Misty Fly, grunting as he stuck his nose under her and got enough leverage to shimmy her over his head and up over onto his back. He turned and staggered over to the Streak twins, reaching down and hooking one arm with Fire, hoisting him up and supporting him with his shoulder, sticking that hoof back down as he used the other to grab Lightning Streak by the arm.

“AaaaaggghhhhhhhRRGGGHHH!!!!!” Silver groaned and growled as he felt sharp pains from three different sources, taking it willingly as he began stomping back toward the cover, carrying the weight of three Wonderbolts on his shoulders at once and fighting back against any pain his old joints hit him with. He didn’t give a single damn. He was hell-bent on securing his family no matter how much it hurt.

He struggled through every step, pulling the three other members of squad three along slowly until he finally reached cover. He gasped and fell, letting go of Lightning Streak with Fire and Misty falling down on top of him. Fighting back the pain from the magic, he pulled himself out, only to touch them again in order to pull them together.

“DON’T FACE THIS ALONE!” he pleaded to them as he had to the others thus far, pulling the three of them together as he edged them towards the others he had saved. The Streak twins and Misty all reached out as Silver touched their hooves together, grabbing hold and hanging on to each other.

“I… ah…” Silver staggered away from them, shaking his head as the temporary pain subsided and left him briefly dizzy. He lifted his goggles up and looked out, gritting his teeth as he saw Fleetfoot, Storm, Squall, Dash, and Matteo still out. “RRRRRAAAAAAAAAGH!” he roared as he pushed his goggles down and rushed back out, forcing his legs into a painful gallop as he refused to back down. He looked up towards the fighting above just in time to see Playbitz nearly get blindsided by Nightshade, only to have Swift slip in at the last moment to catch her punch and try to divert the force. Nightshade tensed her body, not allowing him to turn her as she sneered.

“Well then… I’m starting to get what you’re good at,” Nightshade chuckled as Swift kept trying to push her arm, Playbitz rounding upright out of his fall and shooting back up to come around and assist, but the maneuver left Swift on his own. Shine was unable to help either, currently down on the ground trying to help Calm get up after a nasty crash. “You haven’t thrown a single attack at me… you’re only defending, acting as a shield for the others.

“Rgh…” Swift released her as he shifted back, but Nightshade stayed with him, not allowing him to create space between them.

“Let’s see…” Nightshade sneered as she pressed forward, forcing Swift to square up and ready his hooves and wings. “I wonder just how good your defense is!” Nightshade began rushing forward, throwing fast punches and kicks. Swift blocked them all skillfully, using a combination of arm and wing swipes. “Not bad… not bad…!” Nightshade taunted as she kept up the attacks. “Let’s go harder!” she said in a sexual manner while bouncing her eyebrows. Swift didn’t have time to absorb her tone because her attacks suddenly doubled in speed, moving incredibly fast, every punch and kick barely blocked in time as Swift was forced to also shift his body as he blocked.

“Yikes!” Swift yelped as he pushed his wings back, dropping a few yards down to avoid a punch aimed at his face, but he was instantly forced back on the defense as Nightshade followed right after him, continuing the faster pace.

“Don’t slip now! You’re doing well!” she chuckled as kept up the assault. “Okay… FINAL TEST!” she suddenly said, Swift’s eyes widening in disbelief.

Nightshade pressed even HARDER, punching and kicking even faster! It was so fast that there was barely half a second in between each attack. Swift was pushed to the limit, his eyes darting about as he desperately tried to follow her movements, blocking each attack by a paper thin margin, and doing most of the defending right up against his body… but he couldn’t keep it up. Nightshade eventually got an attack through, her hoof hooking him right across the face. The moment he was staggered, she absolutely unloaded into him, beating him senseless all over his body.

“SWIFT!” Playbitz yelled as he finally arced around above, beginning a freefalling towards Nightshade. But he was far too late. Swift was beaten and bruised, coughing and wheezing as Nightshade finally stopped, his wings giving out as he slowly tipped downward, but Nightshade decided to rub it in. She brought around three of her crystals, clamped them together in front of her, and gathered magic into them. They released Shadow’s Burst Wave.

“GAAAHHH!!!!” Swift cried out as the surge of magic energy crashed against him and propelled him downward.

Silver gasped as Swift hurled towards him, diving out of the way as Swift crashed right nearby.

“GRH!” Silver grunted as he landed on his side and slid across the ground. He looked up towards the remaining Wonderbolts first before making a quick glance at Swift. Swift was already pushing himself up, groaning in pain, but moving nonetheless. Silver gritted his teeth, forcing himself to follow his priorities and help the other Wonderbolts first. Swift was down, but he wasn’t being tortured by magic. Silver wasn’t considering aiding Squad Zero until the rest of the Wonderbolts were in the clear first.

Silver glanced up just in time to see Playbitz clash with Nightshade from above, but Nightshade simply turned and caught his hooves, only moving down a little as she completely braced against his free-fall. With her back turned to him, Silver sprung back into action, continuing on his path and sliding to a halt between Storm and Squall. He looked left and right, but Matteo, Dash, and Fleetfoot were not in the direct vicinity.

“AH!” Silver gasped as Nightshade suddenly slammed to the ground in between him and his view of the others, wrestling Playbitz down onto his back before straddling his body and locking herself down over him.

“HEY! GET OFF!” Playbitz demanded as Nightshade simply licked her lips.

“I like those nose scars… give me a few minutes here and I can give you a few more, maybe right next to them if you’d like!” she said while biting her lip, running her hoof over his nose as he tried to edge his neck away.

Silver remained still, lowering himself down in between Squall and Storm, hoping that Nightshade wouldn’t turn and see him, but she was completely focused on Playbitz. Not only that, but the ground began to tremble… again. Silver glanced over Storm’s body to see Calm Wind, back on his hooves and pounding the ground with his heavy, thunderous steps as he galloped to Playbitz’s aide.

“Whoa there!” Nightshade grinned as she turned her eyes towards Calm, releasing Playbitz and turning as Calm lowered his shoulder into her, colliding with her and pushing her back violently. Nightshade dug her hooves into the ground, but Calm kept going, loud crackling and crumbling noises coming from the rocky ground beneath Nightshade’s hooves as he tried to stop the juggernaut. “YES! HAHA! COME ON! SHOW ME WHAT YOU’VE GOT!” Nightshade encouraged, laughing as she egged on Calm.

Silver looked back to see Playbitz take back to the air while Shine landed nearby to check on Swift. He wasted no more time as he reached up and grabbed Squall and Storm by the shoulders, digging his back hooves into the ground and flapping his wings to help him pull them along the ground. By now he didn’t even blink at the extra pain as it traveled up his arms. He expected it and was ready for it each time and care much more about getting his fellow Wonderbolts to safety.

He grunted as he made it back, pulling the two stallions over to the gathering of their fallen brethren.

“HELP EACH OTHER!” Silver yelled to them as he nudged them up to the rest. Squall and Storm hooked one hoof with each other, reaching the other out, Storm finding a free hoof from Misty, and Squall finding another from High Winds. “PULL THROUGH TOGETHER!” Silver yelled, stumbling as he turned back out and locked his eyes on the last three… who were also the furthest away.

He was almost done. He didn’t know what his efforts would mean or do. The situation was dire… but he was determined to protect them all.

He surged back out, galloping as fast as his old legs could take him. Each step wrought with pain, but after all his years as a Wonderbolt, his pain threshold was built with steel. Pain NEVER mattered as much as the lives of his comrades. Even if he was missing all of his legs he still would have tried to save them. Silver turned his head to the left as he sprinted, his eyes quickly aiming up as he saw Playbitz… falling and flailing.

“Ah! Rgh!” he grunted as he failed to gain control despite his midair prowess and large wings. He zipped right over Silver’s head, but Silver kept looking, eventually finding the source of his movement. Nightshade finished spinning, as if she had just thrown something, followed by aiming all six of her crystals towards Playbitz’s path. They glowed brightly before releasing a bright flash.

Silver blinked and looked back towards Playbitz…

Ten large globes of magic popped up from the ground right where his trajectory was leading him. Playbitz couldn’t do anything. He flew right at them, the globes exploding violently as he hit the ground. He cried out, the explosions bouncing him right back into the air, but limply as he fell right back down with a trail of smoke behind him.

“Shit!” Silver cursed as he refocused and forged ahead. That was two of them down… was all of this effort for naught? He struck the thought from his head as he heard Calm and Shine engage Nightshade. He still had time, so he would use it!

He skidded to a halt in front of Matteo, his expression going flat when he realized something…

How in the world was he going to efficiently move the giant griffon? Sure he had just carried three ponies, two of them large stallions, but he had leverage on his side there… and Matteo was larger than both of them combined. It was not going to be a simple task.

“Hrrggrggghghhhhhh…” an uneven groan came from behind Matteo. Silver’s ears stood up as he recognized the voice. He quickly made his way around, looking towards the other two. Fleetfoot was still down, looking more broken than any of them for reasons Silver was unable to immediately deduce, despite the more destroyed state of Fleetfoot’s suit. However…

Rainbow Dash was standing.

Silver’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped as he looked upon his student. She was yelling, screaming, crying out in pain, and shaking all over, but she was on her hooves and refusing to fall. She gasped and panted, forcing her eyes open slowly and turning her head to see Silver, her pupils pulsating behind the faint pink aura that surrounded and tortured her.

Silver just stared for a moment, absolutely in awe that Dash was up after seeing the very same effect keep every other Wonderbolt, mostly top tier elites, down and out. How she managed, he had no idea, but she was up, and fighting it. It filled his chest with a swelling sense of pride that his student was pushing back so strongly. Silver hardened his eyes and quickly turned towards Fleetfoot, reaching down and picking her up, gritting his teeth against the transferred pain as he shifted her up onto his back. He turned around and faced Dash as she slowly followed him with her eyes. The two of them stared at one another for a moment, before both looking at Matteo. Silver didn’t need to explain… he knew Dash would follow him.

“DASH! HELP ME OUT HERE!” he yelled as he moved towards Matteo and grabbed one of his arms. Silver glanced up to see Dash still staring, but before he could say anything else, Dash grunted, wheezed, and groaned as she forced her body into action, taking slow, heavy steps towards them before painfully reaching down and grabbing Matteo’s other arm. She was still wailing and screaming as the pain gnawed at her, but she showed her determination, resolve, and loyalty by rejecting it and helping Silver.

Slowly but surely, the two yanked on Matteo’s arms, dragging him along as Silver carefully balanced Fleetfoot on his back. Silver made several glances up above, where Calm and Shine were still fighting… at least they were trying. Nightshade was practically toying with them. Calm and Shine worked together the best they could, using several team maneuvers, some of which Silver had never seen before, but Nightshade repelled each one. Calm was basically using himself as a meat shield, shifting himself in front of every attack Nightshade threw at Shine, either physical or magical. His suit was being riddled with burn marks from the magic and small rips and tears were appearing as Nightshade bludgeoned him with her hooves. He looked exhausted, but he refused to yield, Nightshade almost seemed to be enjoying the sight of it.

Then Nightshade suddenly rushed forward, ignoring Shine Struck as she rammed herself into Calm’s chest and pumped her wings, causing him to tip back in midflight and grunt loudly as she turned him down and started driving him towards the ground. Her crystals shined brightly, the energy collecting in her arms like Sin as she pushed him harder and harder.

“CAAAAALM!” Shine yelled as she tried to give chase, but she was feeling the blows herself and unable to assist.

“Brace yourself!” Silver yelled to Dash, whether she was capable of doing so or not. Silver ducked, covering his head as Nightshade drove Calm right into the ground, a loud CRASH sounding throughout the canyons as she punched the magic force through him, spitting up rocks and debris as it created a small crater.

“AAHHHHHHH!” Calm’s voice came from the crater shortly after as Silver glanced up, Dash laying against him after being knocked over. Silver could only barely see the top of Calm over the edge of it, but he could clearly see Nightshade laying her body out over his as he lied on his back.

“Mmmmmm…” she hummed as she rested her head on his large chest and rubbed her cheek softly over his muscles, shivering as she felt them twitch and tense in pain. “What’s your workout routine?” she asked casually, sliding her body up to look at Calm’s face as he continued to pant and gasp in pain. “I want to put every Shadowbolt stallion… and mare for that matter, on your regiment. Boy would that spice up my life!”

“GET OFF OF HIM!” Shine yelled as she dove down and touched to the ground, mimicking Calm’s style of landing and turning the momentum into a gallop.

Nightshade grinned as she jumped off Calm and landed on the ground outside the crater, waiting for Shine to reach her. Shine suddenly launched up into the air shooting at least thirty yards above before copying Playbitz’s free fall and diving down.

“Batter up!” Nightshade yelled as she collected three of her crystals around her hoof and Blade’s sword extended from it. She lifted up on her hind legs and twirled the sword behind her like a bat, swinging the moment Shine reached her. But Shine spun, using a shift dodge similar to Swift to slide right past the swing and threw a punch, startling Nightshade and actually catching her right in the cheek.

But the size and strength difference spoke for itself, the punch not even fazing Nightshade or pushing her a step backwards. Shine cringed as she touched down behind Nightshade, sliding to a halt between her and Calm while grasping and shaking her hoof.

“You on the other hoof… should probably hit the gym more!” Nightshade taunted as Shine glared and growled, remaining determined despite being the last of her squad standing.

“I’m not done!” she yelled.

“Yes you are,” Nightshade said right back without a moment in between, causing Shine to flinch. “You were done before we even started. I haven’t even boosted my strength with the crystals like I did against the elites!”

“Wh…what?” Shine blinked, her eyes widening beneath her goggles.

“Believe it, shorty… I’m not even trying. You four are… interesting, but compared to the real Wonderbolts, you’re trash. But if you want another run at me… go ahead, I’m dying to show you how pointless it is!”

Shine slammed her eyes shut and shook her head. She gritted her teeth as she pulled back and launched right at Nightshade, tipping her body up and taking a stance in the air as she flung towards Nightshade, prepared to use every fighting technique of her own martial arts in attempt to prove Nightshade wrong.

But it was a fruitless effort. Shine tried and tried and tried, throwing multiple punches and kicks at Nightshade, most of which she simply took willingly as she smiled and chuckled.

Silver watched the scene unfold, cringing as he watched Shine Struck fight with all her might to no avail. The more the situation unfolded, the more useless all his efforts felt, but the fire in the pit of his stomach refused to fade.

He got up, helping Dash stand as he did, she held herself strong against the pain once again as he encouraged her to keep going. Silver made sure Fleetfoot was stable on his back as he and Dash continued to pull Matteo along, using the little bit of time Shine was buying them to get back to the others.

Silver and Dash yanked and pulled on Matteo’s arms, slowly moving him along until they finally got him over to the rest. Silver pushed Matteo up towards the others, setting Fleetfoot down beside him. Fleetfoot immediately reached out and grabbed hold of Fire Streak’s shoulder, searching for comfort in her peers without Silver having to encourage it. Silver panted as he was once again free of the magic pain, looking over all the Wonderbolts. His eyes landed on Blaze, still shocked and frozen nearby, only now she was looking at the Wonderbolts instead of Nightshade. Silver shook his head, his eyebrows slowly pointing up as the reality of the situation kept slowly setting in.

How in the world were they going to get out of this one?

“Hrrghh…” Dash suddenly grunted, drawing his attention. Silver looked back towards her to see Dash… turning towards Nightshade? She was still surrounded in the magic, still groaning in pain, and still shaking… but she was looking right towards the enemy, taking very shaky steps.

Silver couldn’t believe it. Even in the face of certain doom, Dash was forcing herself. What the hell was he doing, sitting here and wondering if it was all pointless? He had no right to entertain the thought as long as some of them were willing to get up and fight. He—

“Hey!” Nightshade suddenly called towards the Wonderbolts.

Silver flinched, blinking as he looked up and saw Nightshade looking RIGHT at him. She was holding a heavily beaten Shine Struck up in her hoof.

“Yeah, you!” Nightshade waved at him while snickering. “The one who’s been sneaking around while I’m up here fighting! I’ve got four more to add to your little pile over there!” she said with a disturbingly playful tone. “Allow me!”

All six of her crystals sprang to life, glowing brightly as Swift, Calm, and Playbitz suddenly surged towards her, their limp bodies suspended in midair by her magic.

“Catch!” Nightshade yelled as all three of them flung towards them.

“Ah!” Silver’s eyes widened as he looked back at the fallen Wonderbolts. He gritted his teeth, spread his wings and hopped up, putting his body directly in harm’s way. Calm hit him first, his weight flooring against Silver. Playbitz and Swift hit Calm soon after, sending Silver back and down beneath all of them. “GAAAAAAHHH!!!! FFFFFFRGGGHHH!!!!!” Silver grunted hard as the pressure of the three pushed down on his body, still feeling the effects of his encounter with Sin. He quickly slipped out from beneath, at least satisfied that he had prevented them from hitting the Wonderbolts.

“Oops! I forgot one!” Nightshade called out. Silver gasped and got back up quickly, but Nightshade had already chucked Shine towards them. Silver tried to move and intercept, but he failed to move fast enough. Shine crashed right into Rainbow Dash, the two of them crying out as they collided and fell into a pile.

“No!” Silver yelled as he moved towards them but stopped when he saw a bright light out of the corner of his eye. He stopped and looked back towards Nightshade, quickly shifting out of the way as four streams of pink light shot by him… and surrounded the four members of Squad Zero.

Silver watched in horror as the four of them began writhing and screaming… just like the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“Wow… all of them had such little confidence and their own personal fears that clawed at them… It’s so easy to turn all of that into pain!” Nightshade said with a giggle as she started strolling towards them.

“My god…” Silver said again, gritting his teeth as he looked back and forth between Nightshade and the Wonderbolts, his mind racing.

But he was given an unexpected moment of respite when Nightshade suddenly stopped in her tracks, her ears twitching as she looked up into the sky. Silver blinked and looked up, but couldn’t see anything.

“FINALLY!” Nightshade blurted out while shaking her head. “Seriously, what took him so long?!” she complained as three of her crystals floated away from her. “Excuse me for a second,” Nightshade winked at Silver as the crystals floated towards Shine and Dash, but stopped about five yards away from them and slowly lowered to the ground. They touched down, and phased into it, disappearing completely. “I’ve got a quick bit of business to attend to!” Nightshade added as her three crystals orbited around her, moving faster and fasted until Nightshade herself… faded and disappeared. “Hmhmhmmmmm…” her humming giggle confirmed that she had not left… but apparently, she was able to conceal herself, blend in to her surroundings.

Silver stayed alert. He was confused as to what was happening, but refusing to believe that he had simply been let off the hook, especially with Nightshade’s little move where she hid three of her crystals. And what was she talking about before the… ‘preparations?’”

Suddenly, Silver heard what sounded like the pounding of powerful wing strokes. He blinked and looked back up in the direction Nightshade had upon being distracted.

“What the…?” he said as somepony approached at an incredibly speed. They quickly came into view. “Commander Soarin?!” Silver reacted with a mixture of surprise and alarm before bracing himself. A large burst of wind shot from Soarin’s wake as he dove down and slammed his hooves to the ground, skidding to a stop before frantically turning and looking around.

“Wh…WHAT?!” Soarin instantly reacted, his eyes going wide as he looked around at all of the Wonderbolts strewn about on the ground, wrapped in faint pink auras while groaning and wailing in pain. “WHAT THE HELL?!” he yelled out as he took a few steps, examining all of them from where he stood.

Silver shook his head out after holding himself steady against the gusts, looking up to see he was not in Soarin’s view. He quickly moved up around Calm to get a look at Soarin, but Soarin was not looking in his direction. Soarin’s eyes had locked on target elsewhere.

Silver glanced over, and was not surprised to see Soarin was staring right at Rainbow Dash. Silver had no idea what was going on. He knew why Soarin had showed up, if Dash’s explanation of their connection was any indication, but rather, he wondered how Soarin managed to slip out of the compound. The details on Soarin’s arrival could wait because realization hit Silver like a ton of bricks.

Silver gasped as Soarin immediately broke into a gallop towards Dash while calling her name.

Soarin had no idea Nightshade was hiding… or that she had just done something suspicious with her crystals near where Dash was lying on the ground. It was as if Nightshade knew exactly what was going to happen… because Soarin was moving DIRECTLY where she had hidden the crystals!

“COMMANDER!” Silver yelled out, but Soarin didn’t stop. “COMMANDER SOARIN! STOP! THERE’S—”

His words didn’t reach Soarin. He was too focused on Rainbow Dash.

The moment Soarin stepped on the spot, the three crystals sprang up from the ground around him, each one of them directing a beam of magic towards him.

“HUH?!” Soarin blinked as he suddenly came to a halt and couldn’t move. His eyes widened, his pupils darting back and forth at the two crystals he could see in front of him, the magic pouring from the crystals morphing to almost look like chains as a bright pink aura encased him. He couldn’t move, no matter how hard he tried.

His eyes darted back to Dash as she and Shine next to her both struggled to look up at him. He could see the pain in their eyes, the sight nearly distracting him from the sudden situation he was in. It was clear he had just fallen into a trap, but whose? Where were the Shadowbolts and how did they bring down ALL of the top tier Wonderbolts?

“HRRGGH!!!!!” Soarin immediately focused on getting free, straining his body against his restraints. His body tensed and his muscles flexed. With the extreme efforts he found that he was able to move his body, but it was only very slightly, it felt like he was being held down by hundreds of pounds.

“Mmmmmmm…”

Soarin blinked and his eyes darted left and right as he heard the seductive hum. Something about it was chillingly familiar, but in the moment he couldn’t pinpoint it.

“My, oh my… Please… keep struggling, I’m having fun watching!” the voice continued.

“Wait…” Soarin froze as it came to him… more like slapped him right in the face. There was no mistaking it.

Then right before his very eyes, a faint pink glow drew itself around the outline of a pegasus. It grew brighter and brighter until a faint image… a familiar faint image, began to appear within it.

Soarin’s jaw dropped as Nightshade became visible, and sneered at him as she stood between him and Rainbow Dash.

“NIGHTSHADE?!” He didn’t stutter or hesitate. The instant he saw her he blurted her name out in disbelief as if he simply denied it the moment she came into view. His brain was running circles, trying to figure out if what he was looking at was real or he was suddenly dreaming.

But there was no doubt about it. She was standing right there in front of him. They never confirmed if she was alive, but a small part of him wasn’t surprised… not to mention there was no other pony who could have possibly downed all the Wonderbolts. But even that was a stretch, at least to his past knowledge of her.

Nightshade smirked as she stepped up close to him. Soarin blinked as the crystals suddenly moved around him, lifting him up into the air helplessly as Nightshade spread her wings and hovered face to face with him.

“I’m SO pleased that you remember me, honey…” she pulled down her goggles and batted her eyelashes at him, biting her lower lip as her eyes ran up and down his body. “Mmmmmhmmm…” she hummed, shivering a little. “How I’ve missed looking at you, you sexy, ripped hunk of a stallion…”

“How the hell are you alive?!” Soarin yelled at her, hardening his eyes into a glare. He was done being surprised, quickly accepting what he was seeing and instead letting his anger boil up. He really didn’t care how she survived or whatever the hell she had been doing until now. She had just brutally abused all of his friends. That did NOT sit well with him.

“Hmmm…” Nightshade ignored him, instead shifting forward and lightly touching his chest.

“HEY! I’M TALKING TO YOU!” Soarin yelled, determined to keep his wits about him.

“Please… yell at me some more, it’s so sexy when you’re angry…” she tried to persuade him as she shifted further, folding her wings up as she passed right into the magic aura holding him, but remained unaffected by it as she pressed her body to his and pushed her face against his chest, rubbing it around up to his shoulders and into his neck. “Oh god yes!” she said with a heavy, sharp sigh, her body nearly jittering.

Soarin gritted his teeth, growling loudly. Nightshade had showed up in a shocking, surprising matter, and was immediately humiliating him as if she had never gone away. She completely ignored his anger and rage as she pleased herself, pulling herself around onto his back and rubbing herself all over him.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FRIENDS!?” Soarin yelled out, trying to get an answer out of her, but it was clear that she was completely distracted. Despite his movements being heavily restricted, Soarin bent his neck away as far as he could as Nightshade shifted her neck past his, mushing her face into the fur of his neck as her tongue slipped between her lips. She pressed her tongue to his neck and slowly slid it all the way up towards his face.

“Ahhhhhhhh…” Nightshade exhaled, giving Soarin’s body another squeeze before releasing him and hugging herself, shivering with delight as she bit her lower lip and giggled seductively. She hovered back around and got in front of him, lifting an eyebrow. “I’m sorry… were you asking me something?" she asked with a clear snicker, loving every moment of it.

“YOU HEARD ME, YOU DISGUSTING BITCH!” Soarin belted at her. Nightshade backed up and inch and blinked.

“Please, Soarin…” she gave him a fake pout. “It’s your fault really, if you didn’t take so long to show up… I may not have had to keep myself entertained with your fellow Wonderbolts. Though…” she smirked as she lowered herself down next to Rainbow Dash and grabbed her by the neck. “I’m sure abusing your little Rainbow here sped up your arrival!”

“DON’T TOUCH HER!” Soarin barked, his train of thought slowly derailing as the mere sight of Nightshade holding Dash made him want to tear Nightshade apart piece by piece.

“Kind of late for that, handsome… I’ve already touched her enough to match a late night between the two of you. If you’re keeping score you may want to step up your game, I’m catching up!”

“YOU…!” Soarin was ready to let loose at her again, but the better part of his conscious that was still thinking over the situation hit an absolutely absurd realization. “Wait…” he glanced back and forth at the crystals, the way they were set like a trap, what she had just said about having to ‘entertain’ herself while waiting for him. “You… knew I was coming?”

“Ha!” Nightshade let go of Dash. She yelped as she hit the ground, drawing Soarin’s eyes for a second until Nightshade spread her wings and hovered back up in front of him. “Not exactly…” she said as she tipped her head to the side and reached forward, tracing her hoof around his chest muscles. “I got a little tip from Ruin about this little connection that you and Dashie share. Whenever she’s in danger, that antenna on your head picks it up and you come running…”

Soarin blinked, his anger fading for a moment as she explained. How in the hell did Ruin know about their connection?

“I was skeptical at first, wasn’t sure if it would actually work…” Nightshade continued as she stopped her hoof and poked his chest a few times. “But then I remembered how you think, and how hopelessly devoted you are to little Dashie. You’d sacrifice rank, opinion, trust… EVERYTHING to save her. There is no price too high to ensure the safety of the love of your life. I admit that it’s incredibly romantic of you… but it makes you pathetically predictable. And look…” she pushed off his chest and motioned both hooves towards him. “Here you are! You didn’t disappoint! I’m just surprised Spitfire was dumb enough to let Dashie leave the compound knowing how volatile you are when she’s in any sort of danger!”

“Dammit…” Soarin cursed quietly to himself. It was a trap… a set up… a ruse. Sure there was circumstance that led to his decision to sneak out… but he played right into the enemies hooves, his own personal feelings working against him.

“Now then,” Nightshade shrugged. “As much as I’d love to keep looking at you and… re-familiarize myself with your desirable physique… I have part of a contract to fulfill…”

Soarin blinked as she turned away from him and focused on Dash. He watched in confusion as her crystals came to life, and surrounded Dash with an aura brighter than the one already around her. Dash gasped and released a weak cry of pain as she lifted off the ground and hovered towards them. Nightshade smiled, keeping her eyes on Dash as she moved her over and placed her on the ground directly beneath Soarin’s prison.

“You know…” Nightshade spoke up as she looked back towards Soarin. “The Wonderbolts have actually done me a huge favor here!” she turned and glanced towards the Wonderbolts. “I have to take you and Dashie back to my employer… but that’s only half of the job we took from him. The other half…” she paused, a grin forming slowly on her face. “Is to eradicate the Wonderbolts.”

Soarin felt the air leave his lungs as the words slipped from Nightshade’s lips and into his ears. His ears flopping to the sides of his head as he looked out at his friends.

“How nice of them to send out so many of their elites… I was really just waiting for Dashie to be let out, but look at all the fun they sent along with her! The Wonderbolts have been a pain… a thorn in my side to say the least,” she glanced back at Soarin. “As much as I’d hate to rid the world of so many… physically conditioned bodies that I would adore to individually interrogate with my hooves… and how much I’d love to pry into their fears, learn what scares them and exploit it for my own pleasures…” She shivered as she taunted Soarin with her sleek, abusive words. “If I’m to keep being supplied… then I believe it’s time to pluck the thorn. The deaths of several top elites will destroy the Wonderbolts from within. Spitfire may remain, but the morale will plummet, making them easy pickings when it’s time to take down the rest. And guess what…?” she hovered up and shifted right up beside Soarin as if she was purposely saying all of these things to try and break him, make him feel hopeless and useless. “You get a front row seat!” she said as she gave his neck a playful nip that made him flinch. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring each of them over here so you can say goodbye before I torture and kill them slowly… right in front of you!”

“No…” Soarin finally managed to speak, but his anger was gone, drained and replaced with fear. He couldn’t move, and for some reason or another, his magic refused to activate as if it was being blocked by the same forces holding him in place. His pupils shrank as Nightshade turned away from him, placed her goggles over her eyes, and cracked her wrists.

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmhmhmhmhm…!” she hummed and giggled. “This is going to be SO delightful!”

Silver’s body stiffened as his ears picked up everything Nightshade had just said. He was still hidden behind Calm, but she would certainly come for him too.

His mind raced, scratching and clawing for what he could do.

But there was nothing, absolutely nothing about the current situation that could turn things in their favor. The only two that were up and able to resist were him and Blaze, but he was in no condition to fight, and Blaze had shown that she was effectively intimidated.

What could they do? Nightshade didn’t seem like one to bluff about this kind of thing. She just claimed she was going to kill everypony aside from Soarin and Dash and now she was strolling towards them to do just that.

“Yoohoo!” Nightshade finally called out. “I know two of you are still hiding around here! Feel free to come out whenever! I’d love to kill you both first! Or do I have to convince you with some dying screams from your friends?!” Nightshade teased, Silver stiffening up briefly as he realized she was well aware of not just him, but also Blaze.

Silver peeked out around Calm, catching a glimpse of Nightshade as she turned towards the where the top elites and Foxtrot were all grouped together on the ground.

If he didn’t come up with something quick…

Wonderbolts were going to die.

…

Silver blinked.

He looked down at the ground.

He slowly picked up his front hooves and held them near his face. His hooves were shaking… was it fear? No. It was because his body hurt badly. He moved his hooves a little, the joints hurt… but he wasn’t sure that there was a part of him that hadn’t ‘hurt’ over the past few years. He subtly opened his wings, stretching them out and in. Yep, they hurt too… but what else was new?

Silver slowly looked up from his hooves.

He looked towards the fallen Wonderbolts, in pain.

He glanced behind him at Squad Zero.

He leaned over again, looking at Nightshade as she stopped in front of the Wonderbolts, licking her lips for what seemed like the millionth time.

Silver leaned back, closed his eyes, and took a long… deep breath.

There was absolutely nothing that could be done to stop Nightshade…

At least… there was nothing that could be done in the CURRENT SITUATION.

There was something that Blizzard had taught him in the past… something that he had seen Blizzard do countless times… including when he faced Discord all by himself. It was something Silver believed he would never be able to do in the way Blizzard did because he was just a different pony in a league all of his own…

If the situation is impossible…

Change it.

How? It doesn’t matter. MAKE it change.

It was about time he tried to truly live up to his mentor…

“I’m sorry Serenity… I might have to break our promise…” Silver said to himself as he pressed his hooves to the ground and stood right up.

“Hm?” Nightshade hummed as she glanced over towards Silver. “Wow, I didn’t expect you to actually get up and—” she stopped mid speech and blinked with her mouth hanging open as Silver started walking, completely ignoring her. “Uh… excuse me…” she tried to get his attention, but Silver just kept walking, making his way over to Blaze, who was just out of sight near the Wonderbolts. Curious, Nightshade stepped to the side to watch.

“Blaze,” Silver called her name as he approached. Blaze was staring out at Nightshade, still shaking. “BLAZE!” Silver yelled at her, causing her to flinch and look up at him as he stopped in front of her and cast a shadow. “Do you want to save them?” he asked. Blaze was caught off-guard by the question. She was still completely flustered and scared, the presence of Nightshade and everything she had done to her and her friends causing her body to remain locked up.

“W…what?” she shakily replied, staring with wide eyes at Silver.

“Do you want… to save them?” Silver repeated as he removed his goggles and made a head motion towards the Wonderbolts. Blaze remained silent for several seconds, but even with how intimidated she was, it didn’t stop her from saying what she really felt.

“Y-yes…” she answered, swallowing right after. Silver nodded.

“Good. Fly back to the compound and bring Spitfire here,” Silver ordered. Blaze’s eyes widened.

“Wait… what?!” she asked frantically.

“You heard me. Go find the compound… and tell Spitfire to get her ass out here!” Silver repeated, raising his voice. Blaze blinked, staring at him for a moment before making several glances between him and Nightshade patiently waiting behind them.

“But…” she shuddered. "But… but… but…. What about you?!” she asked, her seldom seen concern for her squad captain showing through in her moment of uncertainty. Silver looked over his shoulder at Nightshade. Nightshade lifted an eyebrow, tapping her hoof on the ground impatiently. Silver exhaled through his nostrils.

“I’m going to keep her busy.”

“WHAT?!” Blaze flinched, her eyes widening even further as her jaw dropped. She quickly shook her head. “NO! She… she’ll kill you!”

“And if you don’t do as I say,” Silver growled as he turned back to face her. “Not only will she kill you next, but then she’ll kill everypony else! Now get going!”

Blaze, for the first time since she had been struck down, moved. She leaned forward and placed her front hooves on the ground, getting closer to Silver as she shook her head.

“NO! Silver!” she gritted her teeth as an alarmed expression filled her face. “I can’t just leave you here and…” she glanced at the other Wonderbolts. “And… You… you always said to NEVER leave any fellow Wonderbolts behind! No matter what the—” she flinched and yelped as Silver suddenly reached forward and roughly grabbed her suit, yanking a good portion of it as he pulled her towards him and got in her face.

“THAT’S ENOUGH OUT OF YOU, DAMMIT!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “I AM YOUR CAPTAIN AND I AM ORDERING YOU TO GO BACK AND BRING OUR LEADER HERE! SPITFIRE IS THE ONLY PONY THAT CAN POSSIBLY TAKE ON NIGHTSHADE!”

Blaze’s eyelids began to tremble, her lip quivering as small tears started forming in the corners of her eyes.

“NOW GET YOUR ASS MOVING AND DON’T LOOK BACK! YOU WANT TO SAVE EVERYPONY?! THEN DO AS I SAY OR EVERYPONY HERE IS GOING TO DIE! UNDERSTAND?!”

“NOW GO!”

The moment he finished, he released Blaze’s suit. She immediately stumbled backwards, keeping her eyes on Silver as she sniffled. She stared into Silver’s commanding eyes, her feelings giving way to his words as she turned, spread her wings, and took flight, a weak wail escaping her throat and tears dripping behind her as she took off.

“Whoa there!” Nightshade perked up as Blaze took off. “Who said you could leave!?” she exclaimed as she spread her wings and crouched.

“HEY!” Silver’s voice boomed towards her. Nightshade flinched and looked down at him, standing right back up as she saw Silver glaring at her fiercely. Silver snarled, baring his teeth as he squared up. “Yeah, I’m talking to you! You stimulation addicted, heat seeking, sex starved, super strumpet!” he barked at Nightshade. Nightshade remained still for a moment, tipping her head back and forth before smiling.

“WELL THEN!” she said with a chuckle. “That’s a naughty… yet sexy commanding voice you have there!” she commented as she turned all of her focus to Silver. She took two steps before glancing up. “You sent your little friend away… but why?” Nightshade smugly grinned while putting a hoof to her lips. “To bring back Spitfire… if I heard correctly? As if that will make any difference.” She rubbed her hoof against her lips, slipping her tongue out and licking it slowly. “But it’s not like I’m going to complain. Not only will it further speed along fulfilling my contract, but I’ve been dying to play with her again!” she sneered as she put her hoof down. “I’d hate to get bored while waiting though… so I might as well start the killing! Since you think you’re so tough… do you want to be first? You’ll be a good start, putting yourself out here to try and distract me from your friends… the noble ones are always the most satisfying to break!”

Silver didn’t budge an inch. He stood firmly in his spot, not giving way at all to her words. Nightshade noticed, and shivered with delight.

“I wonder… what do you fear?” she suddenly asked as her crystals hovered up beside her. “See your friends around you?” she taunted as the crystals began to glow. “You’re about to end up just like them! I wonder how steadfast you’ll be when your deepest troubles are turned into pure pain?” she giggled, sounding so incredibly sure of herself as she aimed the crystals at him. “You could always run away… in fact it would be amusing to watch you try!”

She looked through the crystal at him…

But then her smile faded and she lifted an eyebrow.

“What…?” she shifted the crystal down and blinked at him, Silver remaining still and glaring. “Nah, that’s not right…” Nightshade scoffed as she let the crystal down. “I know there’s something in there! Nopony is without it!” she proclaimed as three slow beams of light oozed from the crystals, all reaching towards Silver the same way they had to the others before encasing them in the auras that now tortured them.

The lights converged and surrounded Silver.

But nothing happened.

Nightshade stared blankly towards Silver as the magic slowly faded and disappeared from around him. Silver simply shook his head.

“Run away? Absolutely not,” he stated sharply.

Off to the side, Dash struggled, her whole body twitching in pain as she finally managed to pick up her head and look around. She immediately saw Soarin, but before she could wonder why he was there, she heard two familiar voices…

Nightshade… and Silver.

She forced her neck up, locating the two as they remained in a standoff. She watched as the magic that currently clawed at her simply… bounced off of Silver. Silver was shaking his head.

“There was a time…” Silver started talking slowly. “When I abandoned my comrades.”

Dash’s eyes shot open, the pain suddenly becoming a second thought.

“I was plagued by a fear that lay right before me and I ran away,” Silver continued. “I ran away, and everypony I left behind… died. It’s something that scarred me, and I have been forced to live with to this day.”

Nightshade stared towards Silver, hesitating as if unsure if she imagined her magic not working and if she should try it again.

Dash began to grunt, pressing her hooves to the ground. But she had no strength to push herself up. She looked up to see Soarin staring towards Silver in alarm, probably thinking exactly what she was thinking.

“N…No…” Dash’s voice forced out in a raspy, broken tone. “S…Silver… No…!”

“Never again…” Silver nodded firmly, briefly glancing around at all the hurt Wonderbolts. “I will NEVER… EVER… abandon my comrades again! I will fight for them, and I will stand my ground, protecting them from you! Even if it takes every last bit of strength and every last breath in my body!” he adamantly stated.

Nightshade didn’t respond. She activated her crystals again, the light oozed from them once more and surrounding Silver as he stood firm.

And again… it had no effect. There was no fear, no regret, and no negative emotion to exploit. She looked towards Silver in shock… but it wasn’t so much surprise as it was… pleasure?

“You…” Nightshade’s face was slowly taken over by a nasty, seductive smile. “You aren’t afraid… you aren’t scared of me… You really mean it don’t you?” She started to visibly shudder with delight. “You really aren’t afraid to die… You’re staring death in the face and snubbing your nose! You’re literally fearless! Even knowing what I can do! Oh! OH! OHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Nightshade began to moan as her body tensed and sharp, quick breaths escaped between her teeth.

“What?” Silver lifted an eyebrow and scoffed. “Am I too much to handle?” he bluffed. His body was not in any condition to back it up, but he refused to show it.

“Mmmmm! MMMMMMM!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly moaned loudly, causing Silver to tip back slightly in confused disgust. Nightshade looked up at him, her eyes visibly wide beneath her goggles as she stared at him with an unnervingly lustful gaze. “It’s been SO LONG since I’ve faced somepony like you! Breaking you will be the BEST feeling!” She bit her lip really hard as she continued to release the atrocious sounds, a trickle of blood dripping down her lip as she pierced it. It only dripped once before she eagerly licked it up and exhaled loudly. “Oh my GOD… this is going to be SO SEXY!”

“Hmph…” Silver snorted. Her threatening words and demeanor meant nothing to him. She was focused on him, and ignoring the Wonderbolts. That’s exactly what he wanted. And now…

It was time to fight… one last time.

Silver slowly stepped away from the Wonderbolts and towards Nightshade as she eagerly anticipated him. There was a faint glare from the sun as it peeked around the surrounding cliffs of the canyon, giving the space between them the glow of the late afternoon sun, slowly beginning to set.

“No…” Soarin sputtered, still locked in his prison as Dash continued her struggle to act. “He’s…! He’s going to fight her!”

Dash finally got to her hooves, but immediately fell, unable to fight back the pain as it continued to course through her body. She slammed her eyes shut and screamed.

“SILVER!!!!!!!!!!”

Silver heard Dash’s cry loud and clear, but he had made up his mind, keeping his eyes fixed on Nightshade.

He had one mission.

He had one goal.

Protect the Wonderbolts.

“This one’s for you… Blizzard.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

(Art in this chapter by Penumbra, Colorstrike and Foxenawolf.)

Oh.... oh dear... this isn't good.

Well, there you have it, the chapter that was much longer than it was supposed to be in a story thats ended up being much longer than i thought it would be :derpytongue2:

But wow... i didn't realize just how much creepy shit i had bottled up. I've been looking forward to writing Nightshade again, but yow... especially with planning it out. I feel like such a jerk to my characters... especially Fleetfoot, jesus she had it probably the worst... thats a scarring memory that wont go away anytime soon...

Anyway thanks for putting up with me for these few weeks, i will say and stand by the hopes that this will not happen again in terms of chapter length, but as for the reappearance of a major villain... i think i can let it slide this time.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:(and were creeped the hell out:pinkiecrazy:)

Yes, this is a planned cliffhanger... but the next chapter will not be as long, in the slightest. So it wont be a long wait.:twistnerd:

Chapter 130

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Chapter 131: Quiet Rage

All eyes were pointed upward…

The air was filled with the screams of a single name…

And then all at once…

The eyes all shut tight…

And the yelling ceased…

As Nightshade closed the gap between her and Silver…

And came down with a full speed, thundering impact.

A loud crash roared out, echoing throughout the canyons and bouncing off the cliff walls… slowly dying down until the loud echo became a quiet whimper in the distance.

…

Rainbow Dash and everypony else slowly opened their eyes, each one of them forcing themselves to do so as the fear of what their eyes would land upon clawed at their very beings.

A large cloud of dust hung over the impact zone, one that lingered for a few seconds. But those seconds felt like years, Dash’s whole body shuddering and it wasn’t because of the crystal magic surrounding her. She fell back onto her plot, reaching her hooves up and covering her mouth to muffle the several small gasps and sharp breaths she began taking, her eyes stuck open wide as tears flowed down them.

She knew what she was going to see when the dust cleared… she didn’t want to see it, none of them wanted to see it, but none of them could look away.

This wasn’t a bad dream… Nightshade had made it clear everything happening was real… So they all knew that this nightmare was as real as can be…

And Silver…

Silver was…

Dash wasn’t the kind of pony who cried often or easily… But right now, it all let loose, sniffles and muffled wails escaping from between her hooves as she held them over her mouth and started lightly shaking her head.

And then…

The dust finally cleared…

And everypony gasped.

Nightshade stood over Silver’s body. Her eyes were wide, she was breathing hard, and her body shivered.

She stared down… right at Silver…

And then suddenly exhaled really loud as if she had been punched in the gut.

But nothing had hit her… it was what she was looking at.

…

She…

MISSED?!

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 131: Quiet Rage

Nightshade began breathing quickly and heavily, hyperventilating as she stared down at her hooves. They were in a divot of heavily cracked and splintered stone… but they had not hit Silver… She hit a couple inches to the left of his head. Nightshade’s jaw hung open, quivering as she tried to say something or make any sort of noise, but all that came out was a crackly, sputtering assortment of sounds as her eyes darted back and forth between her hooves and Silver, who still had the faint white glow surrounding him.

“Rgghhh…” Silver weakly opened his good eye. He fixed it on Nightshade as she stood over him, shaking and shuddering. She looked baffled, confused, in complete and utter disbelief but with no idea why.

Silver couldn’t believe it either… but his surprise only lasted a few seconds as the white glow surrounding him suddenly faded… and he was left alone. As soon as Blizzard was gone… Silver was hit with a deep realization.

Nightshade couldn’t do it… in her defeat, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him in retaliation…

Just as Discord couldn’t bring himself to simply kill Blizzard back in the Griffon Drake War.

“What…?” Nightshade finally spoke up, still constantly looking back and forth between her hooves and Silver as if completely dumbfounded at what she had just done. “Why…? What did…? Why didn’t…?” she failed to finish every attempt at questioning her own actions. She was right on target, she had aimed herself directly at him, she was pumping her wings as hard as she could and the only thought in her head was smashing Silver’s head into a fine liquid… but something… something caused her to miss. There was no outside influence. She felt nothing as she was diving. She could see where Silver was lying and he had not moved from the moment he had rolled over on his back.

The only way she could have possibly missed… was through her own action.

“WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!” Nightshade yelled without moving. She kept still, staring endlessly at her hooves trying to understand what had happened… Did her own body overpower her mind? Did she unconsciously prevent herself from going through with it? Did Silver’s reversal of her own tactics influence her? Did his breakdown of her actions and harsh critique of her lack of purpose make her question herself at the last moment? She wanted to believe it was Silver’s doing, but he was down and unable to move… meaning it was all her doing?! Why, why, why, why, WHY?! SHE WANTED TO KNOW WHY!!!!

“Heh…” Silver chuckled as he thought it all through. Quiet whispers lingered in his head. The light was gone. He could no longer feel Blizzard’s presence. The whispers were quite, barely audible… but he could hear just enough.

”Nicely done, kid…” the whispers said over and over again before completely fading. "I’m VERY proud of you…"

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?!” Nightshade yelled as she finally removed her hooves from the ground, stumbled backwards and fell onto her plot, reaching up and grabbing her head as she continued to take heavy, heaving breaths. “I’VE… I’VE… I’VE NEVER HESITATED TO KILL… EVER! AND I SWEAR I WASN’T HESITATING HERE EITHER!!!!” she yelled in a crazed tone, phrasing her words as if she was trying to explain herself and defend her credibility to an invisible peer. “I… WHAT… HOW… WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!” she turned her focus to Silver, trying to blame him for what was clearly her own blunder.

Silver continued to chuckle as he lied on his back, erupting into intense coughing fits and moving his broken arm over his chest as he struggled to find any strength to respond. It would have probably been a good idea to simply save the little strength he had left… but he wasn’t going to pass this up… he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to really rub it in.

“I did… absolutely… nothing…” he sputtered with a broken, raspy voice. “You’ve done it… all… to… yourself… AAAAARRRGGHHHHH GRRRHHHHH!!!!!!” Silver cringed and coughed some more as his body shook and involuntarily contorted. Despite his body breaking down, he forced his eye open and forced his lips into a grin as he looked towards Nightshade. “You’ve… lost… How does it… feel…?”

Nightshade remained in place, body shaking vigorously as her eyes hardened into a furious glare… but she didn’t move from her spot. Just like her body couldn’t kill Silver when her mind told it to, her body refused to move and attack him when she willed it to do so now.

Silver had beaten her at her own game… and it was destroying her. Simply killing him meant absolutely nothing… She’d get no satisfaction… no joy out of it. It wouldn’t change the fact that she had been beaten. She’d have to live with that now for the rest of her life.

“YOU!” she yelled, but again made no moves. “AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!! YOOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!” she roared, her chest heaving as the breaths she took grew harder and harder, her aura erupting around her as her crystals shined brightly. It all looked like a reaction to her emotions, like a temper tantrum amplified through her magic. “DAMN YOOOUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!” she yelled out as she ripped her hooves free from her head, looked down at the ground, and slammed her hooves against it several times…

But the moment she looked back up…

There was suddenly a yellow hoof inches from her face.

As if the hoof-biting realization that Nightshade had missed her death-blow was already almost more of an emotional swing than the Wonderbolts could take… a very strong blast of wind rushed against them as a blue, yellow, and orange streak had just shot through the air from the opposite direction, surging towards Nightshade.

Nightshade barely reacted in time, turning herself slightly upon realizing she was about to be attacked, but all it did was save her a second punch to the face as the new arrival rammed into her. Nightshade was pushed right off the ground, but her attacker quickly threw their wings out, putting on the brakes as Nightshade was sent flying.

“AUGH!!!!!” Nightshade yelled out, flailing as she careened through the air less than a yard off the ground. She zipped right over the Wonderbolts, shooting right between Soarin and Rainbow Dash and right towards a cliff wall nearby, a faint glow surrounding her body right before she hit. The impact was fierce, causing the wall the crack and crumble, burying her beneath a pile of debris.

The sudden development broke Dash from her conflicted, confused daze. Two massive waves of relief hitting her at once like a tidal wave to the face.

Nightshade had somehow missed Silver… and a new arrival had gotten her away from Silver.

At first glance, Dash thought it was Blaze from the colors, after all, Blaze had not been gone for very long, not even half the time it had taken them to get out this far into the canyons… but there was no way… Blaze was not capable of that speed, and she had never shown strength like that.

As the attacker finally came into view… Dash not only saw the noticeably larger size and musculature, but also the extra color tones in the mane.

It was Spitfire.

“SILVER!” Blaze’s voice came down from above, further confirming that the Wonderbolts and Dash were not imagining things. As Blaze shot down and landed near Silver and Spitfire approached as well, a temporary wave of relief rushed over Dash. She looked over to Soarin… but Soarin was looking up into the sky. Dash blinked and did the same but saw nothing.

Then it hit her… Soarin was looking to see who else was with Spitfire… but she was alone? Not only that, but Dash quickly felt the stinging sensations of the crystal magic around her again, confirming that they still had a problem… because if they were still being affected, then Nightshade’s crystals were still focused.

As everything was trying to sink in all at once with many questions lingering overhead, Dash looked over towards Silver.

“SILVER! SILVER!” Blaze yelled as she immediately crouched down, pulled her goggles off, and reached for Silver’s arm. Silver cried out in pain as she tried to grab his arm, causing her to immediately drop it, but not before she felt how… uneven the arm felt. She looked him over frantically, gasping when she saw his left wing utterly crushed as well. “Oh my god!!!” she yelled as she held her hooves to her mouth and shuddered, not looking or sounding anything like the Blaze they all knew. She always butted heads with Silver and got into shouting matches with him, but the connection they had as squadmates showed through as she looked upon the horrifying mess before her.

Spitfire quickly trotted over, pulling all of her focus away from Nightshade soon after she hit her. She did not get down on the ground like Blaze, but still pushed up her goggles and looked Silver over with a face of pure shock and horror. It didn’t take long for her eyes to land on Silver’s utterly mangled wing that lay completely lifeless beside his twitching body. She remained silent, but her face was covered with concern as Silver finally managed to open his good eye and weakly look back and forth.

He saw Blaze first, quickly noticing the completely backwards image of her looking incredibly concerned for him. He then moved his eye to the left to see Spitfire standing over him, looking down with worry. Silver kept his eye trained on her for several moments before releasing a raspy, annoyed grunt.

“The hell… took you so long…?” he said with a sarcastic tone to acknowledge she had gotten there quicker than he expected, but it was followed by several coughs and a new trickle of blood running down from his lip. He cringed, but started glancing around again as if looking for something or somepony as Spitfire continued to just look on in silence, no words coming to her as she also glanced around at the scene accompanying the terrible sight of Silver.

Blaze caught on as she watched him look around with difficulty. She shook her head.

“I… ran into her halfway back. She was flying alone…” Blaze explained as Silver refocused his eye on Spitfire.

She wasn’t looking at him anymore, but Silver noticed something. Finding some focus among the incredible amount of pain and internal suffering he was experiencing. He noticed that Spitfire’s demeanor, the way she was holding herself, her posture… everything seemed different, calmer and nothing like the Spitfire sharply confronting everypony before they left.

“HRG!” Silver grunted as his heart began thumping painfully hard. He cringed, his neck arching back as he shook and helplessly tried reaching an arm towards his chest.

“SILVER!!!!” Blaze quickly began fretting over him again, tears building up in her eyes as the sight began overwhelming her. Spitfire also looked back down at him quickly, stepping forward and holding a hoof out. Silver hooked the function part of his right arm around hers and clamped down on it hard. Spitfire said nothing, just remained there… offering her presence. Silver took several labored, painful breaths before his heart calmed down a little and he again lay flat, twitching in pain. Silver looked right back up at Spitfire.

He said absolutely nothing as he moved his eye over. He was barely able to see the rest of the Wonderbolts nearby, but he could make out all the pink glows of crystal magic still surrounding them. He slowly released Spitfire’s arm and gave her a very weak, subtle nod. A nod that Spitfire returned before looking up at the rest of the Wonderbolts… as if she knew exactly what Silver wanted her to do. It was a request from an old, loyal Wonderbolt… to his captain.

“Blaze…” Spitfire finally spoke, her half-sister perking up and looking towards her. “Stay with him,” she said simply as she turned and started walking towards the Wonderbolts. Blaze opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. She did as she was told, staying beside Silver and immediately trying to figure out if there was anything she could do to help, constantly in fear that Silver would die or was dying of his injuries… somewhat surprised that he hadn’t already based on how brutally and fatally destroyed his body looked.

Spitfire slowly made her way over to the Wonderbolts, her eyes fixed on Soarin and Rainbow Dash for most of her walk, but she approached the other Wonderbolts first. She stopped in front of the group sprawled out on the ground around her, but every single one of them was looking up at her. Still surrounded in the crystal auras, their breaths were sharp and labored. But they held in an audible sounds of pain, perhaps inspired by the show of will and toughness from their oldest veteran.

Spitfire looked around at all the eyes on her. They were strong, but pleading eyes that told her everything she needed to know. They didn’t need to say anything for her to know that they were looking to her, their captain, for help.

Spitfire crouched down by Fire Streak and reached out to touch him, confused as Fire’s eyes widened and he shifted away from her. She scooted forward so she could touch him, but quickly pulled away as a shock of sudden, sharp pain ran up her arm. A faint glow surrounded her arm for a moment before it trickled off and dissipated. She stared at it, her eyes wide as her arm continued to tingle, the pain subsiding. She looked back down and around at the Wonderbolts, not just realizing why Fire tried to move away from her, but also exactly what her Wonderbolts were being put through. The pain in her arm just now was brief and enough to make her pull away after only a brief second or two… but they had it surrounding their bodies… and stabbing at them constantly.

Spitfire’s look of slight shock slowly turned into a harsh glare, gritting her teeth as a quiet growl escaped the back of her throat.

She turned away from the Wonderbolts, half of her couldn’t bear to look at them in such pain, the other half didn’t want them to see the anger that was slowly and quietly building up. Spitfire took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she exhaled. When she opened them, they remained in a glare, but she was no longer growling, keeping herself in check. She perked up, now facing Soarin and Rainbow Dash just a little ways away. She could see Soarin looking towards her, still trapped in the crystal prison with Nightshade’s additional crystals holding him in place… but Rainbow Dash on the other hoof…

Spitfire blinked, keeping her eyes on Dash as she started walking towards the two of them. Rainbow Dash was the only Wonderbolt not looking at her… and was the only Wonderbolt trying to stand. As Spitfire approached, Dash kept falling down, but every time started over, trying to push herself up. At times she got a single step in towards Silver before falling again. Spitfire observed both curiously and with admiration.

Spitfire stopped by Soarin first. The two of them locked eyes, Soarin still suspended slightly in the air, but neither of them spoke. In fact, Soarin looked away from her, keeping his mouth closed but gritting his teeth on the inside. He was fully aware that he had disobeyed orders, and was expecting to get chewed out… again, but he blinked in surprise as Spitfire looked down at his prison and instead tried reaching into it. Her hoof was repelled lightly each time she tried, small crackles and pops coming from the energy surrounding Soarin.

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed to herself… showing little else of a reaction as she returned her focus to Dash.

“Rgh…” Dash grunted as she struggled to stand. “Grh… graaahhh….” She gasped as she took a step and fell down. Her eyes were stuck open wide and aimed at Silver with damp traces on the fur and suit mask beneath them. Spitfire watched as Dash showcased incredible resilience and perseverance, completely ignoring the pain surging through her that was keeping even the elite Wonderbolts down. She only cared about Silver, and was trying to get to his side.

Spitfire glanced down at her own arm again, remembering the quick jolt she just experienced and tried to fathom what Dash was fighting against. It was impossible to ignore how impressive Dash’s efforts were.

Spitfire opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again before any words could be spoken.

Now wasn’t the time. And Dash wasn’t the only one she wanted to speak to. She had to address the situation at hoof before anything else… and based on what she was looking at between Dash, Soarin, and the rest of the Wonderbolts… she was far from being in a position to relax.

She turned away from Dash and scanned everypony, the gears turning in her head as she sized up the current scenario.

Priority number one: Silver.

Silver was in horrible shape… which was putting it lightly. Based on the state of his body, the way he was shaking involuntarily, and what she knew about his health already, it was a wonder that he was still alive… but she refused to be relieved. He could still die from his injuries… so if there was any hope of him surviving, she needed to get him help fast… but there were two problems. The first being that she couldn’t do it alone. With Blaze’s help, she’d be able to take Silver back, but then she would be leaving the rest of the Wonderbolts behind, something that was obviously not an option. The only Wonderbolts present capable of carrying Silver on their own were all down or unable to act. The second problem was exactly that… the help she would need to rush Silver back was currently still under the effects of Nightshade’s magic…

From her experience against the Shadowbolts, she had learned that their magic would dissipate if they completely lost focus, or if they were knocked out…

Meaning… there was still somepony she had to deal with before she could do anything else.

Right on cue… the pile of rocks nearby that had fallen on Nightshade began to stir.

Spitfire perked up as Dash grunted and fell again, immediately trying to push herself back up, but Spitfire finally spoke up to her.

“Dash…” she said. Dash stopped struggling, exhaled, and looked up at Spitfire. She followed Spitfire’s eyes towards the rumbling rock pile as she panted and gasped in pain. “We’ll help Silver as soon as everypony is safe,” Spitfire continued. “Believe me, it’s what he wants.”

Dash blinked, watching Spitfire as she turned, stepped over in front of her and Soarin, and set her hooves. She pulled her goggles back down onto her face and locked her eyes on the rocks as they began tumbling off the pile, a pink light started shining through the cracks.

“RRRRGGHHHHH!!!!!!” Nightshade roared out as a rock on the top of the pile launched off and Nightshade stood up. She was unscathed, the pink glow of a protective aura shining brightly around her as she shook her head out and angrily looked around. Her head snapped towards Spitfire, her eyes narrowing to thin slits behind her goggles as she bared her teeth. She roughly stepped out of the pile, several rocks being batted aside by her movements and her crystals knocking them away.

Once she was free and stomped a few paces out towards Spitfire, she stopped.

Spitfire and Nightshade stood in silence, glaring at one another with only twenty yards in between them. The rest of the Wonderbolts looked on as the captain of the Wonderbolts and the captain of the Shadowbolts faced each other down, the silence only lasting briefly as Nightshade’s growling grew louder. Though while she showed visual anger, Spitfire remained calm, letting her glare voice her feelings about the current situation without allowing her anger to boil over.

Nightshade continued to growl for several moments, occasionally glancing over at Silver as Blaze fretted over him and tried to tend to his wounds, ripping pieces of her own suit off to tie over the bleeding. Spitfire took note of Nightshade’s behavior, remembering how she was sitting… and screaming in front of Silver’s broken body as she flew in to hit her initially. Nightshade was not acting the way Spitfire was familiar with. She seemed angry, bothered by something. She had no idea what happened between her and Silver… but it was clear, before he went down, Silver had some sort of effect on her. Nightshade’s usual smooth, sly, sadistic demeanor was nowhere to be found.

“Well…” Nightshade suddenly spoke while whipping her head back forward and glaring at Spitfire. “Isn’t this just PERFECT!” she said in a sarcastic, pissed off manner. Spitfire said nothing, keeping herself still, calm, and composed as Nightshade continued to act irregularly. “You know I was looking forward to seeing you… Looking forward to bending you to my will… But guess what?!” Nightshade ranted as if letting off steam. “Then your rusty old bucket-fuck over here decided to push a lot of buttons he shouldn't have!”

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as Nightshade continued to shout and bark… it was like watching an angry child.

“Well, tough shit… I’m done with him… Fuck it, he’s going to die anyway,” she shook her head, her speech pattern giving off the air that she was avoiding a subject or trying to get away from it. “I need to let off some steam… and since you so kindly showed up and tried to punch me in the face, I’ll start with YOU!” she yelled, her words seemingly devoid of direction or reason.

Spitfire could see and hear all of it. She was almost wondering if who she was looking at was really Nightshade. But in the end, the details didn’t mean a thing. Spitfire had seen everything she needed to see.

The Wonderbolts all grounded and tortured by magic…

Her best friend imprisoned within a cage formed by crystals…

And the most cherished member of the current Wonderbolt force… beaten within an inch of his life with no guarantee of his survival.

And that… was enough to awaken a quiet rage in her heart. One that she knew she had to be careful with considering her opponent, but it would drive her none-the-less.

“Nightshade…”

“OH, SO YOU CAN TALK?!” Nightshade blurted out the moment Spitfire spoke. “About damn time! Now shut up and—!”

Spitfire suddenly turned away as Nightshade contradicted herself.

“HEY! LOOK AT ME!” Nightshade demanded, but Spitfire shook her head.

“It’s about time you came out of hiding,” Spitfire suddenly pointed out, causing Nightshade to blink and open her eyes very wide. “What were you doing? Afraid of something?” Spitfire asked, keeping her cool.

“Oh ho ho no…” Nightshade growled. “Now is not the time to fuck with me you flame broiled bitch! I’m not in the mood! I—!”

Nightshade froze as Spitfire pushed her goggles up, snapped her eyes back to Nightshade and glared at her with the hardest gaze she could muster.

“That… makes…. two of us,” Spitfire said slowly with a very harsh tone as she narrowed her eyes further and exhaled sharply. “I come out here, find you, and all of the ponies I cherish like family beaten down and lying at your hooves. One of them…” She glanced towards Silver. “Taken to the brink of death…” She looked back at Nightshade, her pupils steadily shaking as if she couldn’t completely hide the anger burning within her chest. “If anyone is not in the mood right now. IT’S ME.”

Nightshade remained quiet for a moment, but snarled, grinding her hooves against the ground.

“SO COME AT ME THEN! I’M DYING TO KILL SOMEPONY!” she yelled, saliva flinging from her mouth as she raged. Spitfire pushed her goggles down and snorted.

“You’re talking as if I’m not going to put up a fight,” she pointed out while tipping her neck back and forth to crack it, opening and closing her wings as well to loosen them up.

“YOU’RE talking like you haven’t gotten your ass thoroughly kicked the last two times we’ve crossed paths! OH WAIT! THAT’S RIGHT! YOU DID!” Nightshade yelled almost incoherently as she pointed.

Spitfire shook her head very slowly as she set her hooves in the ground, glancing back and forth over her shoulders at Dash and Soarin behind her. Seeing the two of them there and having Nightshade in front of her brought back some painful memories for Spitfire. After all… both Soarin and Rainbow Dash were present to witness her embarrassing, shameful defeats both times they had faced the Shadowbolts in the past.

Spitfire had been hoping to get a chance to do this… a chance to set the record straight and erase the past blunders.

“Nightshade…” Spitfire began as she refocused on her foe. “The first time we met, you took me by surprise. I didn’t know what we were dealing with and you took advantage of the situation, beating me soundly before I could muster any counter attack. The second time?” Spitfire growled quietly. “A recruit of yours attacked me with a form of magic I had never experienced before… and effectively removed me from the equation before you even showed up… or before I could even throw a punch. But this time?!” Spitfire took a firm step forward, slamming her hoof to the ground hard. “I know who and what I’m dealing with! So if you underestimate me… especially with all the motivation you’ve provided…” she glanced over at Silver, the Wonderbolts, then back at Soarin and Dash. “I guarantee… you’re going to regret it!”

“PFFFFFF!!! HAHAHA!” Nightshade suddenly bent down and stomped the ground heartily. “Now THAT is rich! I didn’t even use the crystals against you the first time we fought! And now you think you’ll be able to take me on? Don’t make me laugh… Besides… you’re basically putty in my hooves. If your emotions are so far out of whack that an amateur like Lightning Dust was able to bend you completely… oh, I can’t wait to see how far I can break you!” she glared as her crystals began to glow. “In fact… WHY WAIT?! If you’re so ‘motivated’ by what I’m doing to your pathetic Wonderbolts, then how about I shove the exact same thing down your throat?!”

Spitfire flinched in surprise as a surge of pink light shot out from Nightshade’s crystals and flew towards her.

But… even though Spitfire had more than enough time to react, she held her ground.

“HNNNRRGGG!!!!” Spitfire grunted as the light engulfed her and completely covered her body, surrounding her with the same aura that was around everypony else. She immediately felt the sharp stabbing and stinging pains that the rest of them were experiencing.

“Wow, nice!” Nightshade laughed. “You really showed me! You just stood there and took it!”

But as Nightshade taunted, Spitfire kept her hooves firm on the ground. She didn’t cry out and she didn’t fall. She took a deep breath and crouched down slightly, clearing her thoughts… steeling her emotions. She didn’t think about any of the pain… she didn’t think about any of the Wonderbolts… she simply focused on relaxing and the importance of controlling her emotions.

“Uh…” Nightshade blinked as Spitfire suddenly stopped shaking and stood up straight. She opened her eyes and stared calmly towards Nightshade as if the aura was suddenly having no effect.

“HM!” Spitfire suddenly arched her neck while throwing her wings out. Nightshade’s eyes widened as the aura surrounding Spitfire suddenly burst, the energy shooting out from around her before dissipating.

Spitfire took one long breath and exhaled before looking back towards Nightshade.

“Okay…” Nightshade tipped her head. “How the hell did you do that?” she asked as she looked towards Silver. Spitfire clearly had some negative emotion within her, it was confirmed by the magic having an effect on her… then how did she manage to fight back?

“You really think I wouldn’t learn?” Spitfire spoke up. “Lack of control over my emotions was my downfall last time we fought… I may not been doing a very good job of keeping them in check thus far, but that doesn’t mean I forgot what brought me down last time. You picked a bad time to show up… I just got a much needed reminder from an old captain of mine. A reminder of what I need to be for my family. It made me think about a lot of things, and how I was forgetting some of the most important functions within my role as captain today. It was a real eye opening experience… and a much needed one. After all the effort I put into figuring things out before the Shadowbolts crossed our path again… I was still losing control.” Spitfire took a firm step forward. “But now I can see clearly what I’ve been doing wrong. So I hate to break it to you… but you won’t be able to manipulate me.”

Nightshade kept blinking and looking at Spitfire as if she had no idea what she was talking about. Then Spitfire smiled.

“Rule number five of combat…” Spitfire continued as she glanced at Silver. “Learn from defeat,” she looked back at Nightshade to see her eyes suddenly twitching underneath her goggles. “You don’t experience defeat the first time you lose to a specific opponent… You are defeated if you lose to them again. You must analyze and adapt to your enemies. You have to figure out and exploit their weaknesses.” Spitfire paused for a moment as Nightshade began to shake. “In short, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on m—.”

“STOP IT!” Nightshade suddenly yelled, startling Spitfire. She grabbed her head and roared while arching her neck back, looking over at Silver while breathing heavily. “NO! DAMMIT NO! DON’T YOU START TALKING TO ME LIKE HIM!” She sharply turned her eyes back to Spitfire as she looked on, unaware of Nightshade’s experience with Silver. Nightshade’s body began to glow, her body twitching as the power began to pour forth, her crystal energy flaring up, crackling and popping. “You know what?! NO! I made the mistake of letting him get in my head! So guess what?! I’ll follow your stupid fifth rule of combat! I won’t give you the chance!”

Before Spitfire could respond, Nightshade had spread her wings and launched herself into the air. Her crystals spun around her quickly as pink energy spewed forth from them, swirling around her as she gathered it together, preemptively forming several of the techniques used by her commanders.

Spitfire watched calmly as Nightshade rose into the sky and hovered in place, the magical build up around her growing larger and larger. Spitfire didn’t think about or question anything. There was a lot of context she was not caught up on, but again… it didn’t matter. She had to bring Nightshade down, and for what Nightshade did to her fellow Wonderbolts? She would show no mercy.

Dash growled, once again straining herself as she dragged her body sideways and looked up. She saw Spitfire standing before her, but her focus was drawn to Nightshade and the magic cacophony surrounding her.

Dash’s body hurt, a lot. She was not beaten up nearly as much as Silver, but the constant stabbing of the magic surrounding her was unbearable, and it seemed the more she tried to move the more it hurt.

She gasped as she tried to move again. She hated being powerless, she hated being left on the sidelines… but after what she saw Spitfire just do, it made her feel even worse.

There was a way to shake the magic? If only she had known.

“RRRRAAAAHHH!!!!” Dash roared, putting forth effort even though she didn’t know why. She forced herself right up, painfully holding her legs steady and drawing the attention of Spitfire.

Dash immediately tried opening and closing her wings, copying the motions that Spitfire had done, but she failed to make anything happen and fell right back down.

“Dash, save your strength,” she suggested calmly even though Nightshade was right overhead. “This isn’t something you’re going to copy on a whim… it’s more than just the motions. It took me a very long time to figure out…” she turned and looked back up at Nightshade. “I just wish I had made more of an effort to control myself up till now…” she said mostly to herself as Dash gasped and panted on the ground, still forcing her neck up to look towards Nightshade. “Besides…” Spitfire looked over her other shoulder at Soarin, who was still looking at her and still remaining silent. Soarin blinked as Spitfire… frowned and looked away. She hardened her eye and turned back to Nightshade again. “This is something I really want to do by myself…” she stated as she moved her hooves around, cracking her joints.

At that moment, Dash stopped struggling. The tone in Spitfire’s voice spoke for itself. Though she seemed very in control, it was clear she wanted to rip Nightshade in two. Dash moved her head slightly to glance towards Soarin, who looked down at her briefly before the two refocused on Spitfire.

“You know Dash…” Spitfire suddenly spoke up as she took several deep breaths. “There’s a reason I’ve enjoyed watching you so much… watching you train and grow…”

Dash blinked and tipped her head curiously as she noticed Spitfire’s body tense up.

“You remind me a lot of myself.”

Just as Dash finished processing the exact words Spitfire had just said, her eyes went wide and she gasped as Spitfire set her hooves, spread her wings, and leaned back while reaching her wings forward.

It was the starting position for the Sonic Blast-off.

Dash’s jaw dropped, but what happened next was not what she was expecting.

Spitfire, while remaining in the leaned back position, took two forward trots, both of them strong enough to get her moving forwards. After the second trot, she reached all four hooves forwards, slammed the ground and then executed the movements for the Sonic Blast-off!

Dash flinched and winced as a loud POW rang out, Spitfire firing from her spot, breaking through an air cone instantly as she executed Soarin’s move, shooting along the ground at an incredible speed.

What was that?!

Dash abruptly forgot all the pain she was feeling as she tried to fathom what she had just seen. It was Soarin’s move, but… she executed it differently?

Dash’s pupils shrank as it didn’t end there. Spitfire suddenly twisted hard and pounded her wings downward. The twist allowed her to turn up against the wind resistance and the wing thrust caused a burst of wind that shifted her momentum upwards.

Those were… Twister and Matteo’s moves! But the twist was more controlled and the wing thrust seemed strong enough to equal the strength of Matteo’s massive wings… but how? Her wings were cupped? Just like how High Winds angled her wings before using her powerful wind techniques!

Dash kept watching as Spitfire shot into the air. Nightshade seemed unaffected as she kept her eyes locked on Spitfire’s path and began launching volleys of random magic attacks at her. Eyebeams, spheres, globes, needles, and anything else she had at her disposal flung towards Spitfire.

Spitfire suddenly made one hard, irregular shift and changed her path from up to sideways, immediately sticking her wings out and holding them steady in a high speed glide, moving away from the Wonderbolts to get them out of the line of fire. The mixture of Comet and Steady Wing’s moves kept her several yards ahead of the attacks as they rained down, at least for the moment. Nightshade shifted, aiming her attacks further ahead.

Spitfire was forced to angle down towards the ground, but the moment she reached it, she flipped and tapped down with a one-two kick, using Storm Front’s Surface Tap, but adding a third kick that doubled her speed after the bounce, shooting her right into the incoming cloud of magic attacks hurling at her.

“QUIT MOVING!” Nightshade yelled down at her as Spitfire shot towards her. She put her wings back into the glide position, but began fluttering them like Little Star, making small, quick shifts out of the way of each attack… but she was doing so with her eyes closed, using Misty’s enhanced awareness techniques to sense and dodge each one instead of relying on her eyes while using the same method to swing her hooves out and deflect the few magic attacks that reached her. “AH!” Nightshade yelped as she realized Spitfire was making it all the way through her barrage unhindered.

Spitfire opened her eyes as she approached, locking them on Nightshade as she tried to turn and move. She cupped her wings and pounded them upwards, using High Winds’ wind blast to stop her momentum dead, then shifted and pounded them down like Matteo to push herself along with Nightshade, using the synchronization of the Streak twins and the Renegade sisters to stay right with Nightshade.

She closed the small gap between her and Nightshade, executing a hard twist like Twister again, but using it to wind up… Silver’s Full Motion Strike.

Nightshade didn’t back down, she wound up as well and met Spitfire head on, their arms crossing and the two of them punching each other right in the cheek. Spitfire was thrown backwards, but Nightshade was sent spiraling, a familiar technique transferring an absurd amount of momentum into her. She grunted as she fought to regain her hover, Spitfire having a much easier time and coming around first.

When Nightshade finally evened out, Spitfire stopped. The two hovered and stared at each other as Nightshade tried to fathom everything that just happened.

But she was not nearly as surprised or in as much awe as Rainbow Dash.

Dash couldn’t believe it.

Spitfire was using the techniques of others!

Spitfire… was the third pony that could mimic?! It was her all along?!

But at the same time, something was different… She was using other moves, but they didn’t look exactly like the same moves… on top of that, she was also combining moves to execute other moves… It was almost as if…

Spitfire was putting her own personal touch on every move to effectively make them her own… changing them to make up for a certain skill or prerequisite she lacked in order to make them possible for her! She was even using some of the moves… she was combining together to create entirely new techniques!

Dash was brought back to reality as Spitfire combined High Winds, Matteo, and Comet’s techniques to go from a dead stop to nearly full speed in midair. Like a half Sonic Blast-off without the need for ground beneath her hooves.

Instead of using magic, Nightshade gritted her teeth and met the attack head on, the two slamming their hooves together. Spitfire pushed her back several yards, but with a few very strong wing beats, Nightshade slowed them all the way down, forcing both of them into a mid air power struggle. They pumped their wings and pressed their hooves hard, glaring at one another.

“Okay… fine…” Nightshade grunted. “You’ve got some skill…” she said as both of them refused to give an inch, their muscles taut and wings beating hard, powerful blasts of wind rushing behind them as neither gained an inch. Spitfire didn’t reply, she just kept pushing while glaring right into Nightshade’s eyes.

The two continued to push and push to no avail… until Nightshade decided to shake things up, she suddenly hooked her hooves over Spitfire’s and angled herself down, pumping her wings.

“Ah!” Spitfire yelped as the two suddenly plunged towards the ground below. She was caught in an awkward position with her wings flailing above her and Nightshade completely controlling their trajectory. But Spitfire wasn’t going to let it last. She ripped one of her hooves free and swung her arm around, smacking it against the center of Nightshade’s back.

Nightshade yelped in pain, releasing Spitfire and trying to angle herself up, but failed to do so in time, crashing on her side and bouncing to a stop. Spitfire twisted and put her hooves down, but hit the ground too hard, only her left hooves holding up as the right slipped and caused her to hit hard as well, tipping and rolling to a stop.

The two were immediately back up and charging at each other again. Nightshade’s crystals glowing brightly and splitting her into three Nightshades, two of them fake, but which ones? Spitfire didn’t even flinch, she picked a target and went for it, spinning around and bucking her back legs into the face of the Nightshade on the left.

The moment her hooves touched it, it flickered and disappeared. Spitfire, ready for the possibility, slammed her front, left hoof down to turn her body, immediately seeing one of the other two turn towards her and wind up a punch. Spitfire was not in a good position to block, so instead she swung her arm up as hard as she could…

But her arm went through that Nightshade too.

“Ah?!” Spitfire yelped as the motion of her swing threw her even further off balance. It was a magnificent bluff, the real Nightshade was acting like a mindless clone that kept going as the other clone turned to attack. Nightshade turned out of her fixed path, her three crystals jumping out from behind her and hovering in front. Spitfire gritted her teeth as she saw the crystals glowing brightly, knowing if she didn’t do something… she was about to get a hell of punishment.

Acting on instinct, Spitfire thrust her wings down, which due to her turned over position sent her right to the ground, hitting the rock hard surface back first. It was an uncomfortable impact, but it moved her out of the way just enough. Nightshade fired a Burst Wave that shot right over her, almost skimming her nose.

“Huh!?” Nightshade blinked, looking down as Spitfire swiped her back legs out, tripping Nightshade and toppling her onto her side.

“HRM!” Spitfire rolled over and quickly leapt on top of Nightshade, putting her in a headlock.

“GAH! HEY!” Nightshade yelled. “LET GO!” she demanded as she began thrashing about, but Spitfire held strong, tensing her body as she refused to let go. She eventually got into a position where she could free one of her arms, and began delivering several jabs into Nightshade’s side. “I SAID… LET GO!” Nightshade yelled again, her three crystals floating up over them and each firing a beam of magic at Spitfire.

“ARGH!” Spitfire grunted as the blasts hit her back and wings. With no other option, Spitfire released Nightshade, rolled out of the way, and sprang back up as Nightshade got back to her hooves as well.

The two stood only a few yards apart, staring each other down for a moment, both panting loudly.

“Not laughing much, are you?” Spitfire finally spoke up, earning a harsh glare from Nightshade. “I’m still waiting for you to kill me.”

“Keep talking and I will!” Nightshade yelled at her, without much to back it up.

“Oh, so you’re not trying yet?” Spitfire added, throwing in more verbal jabs. “Or is it just not going your way?”

Nightshade’s eyes twitched. She glanced over towards Silver again before growling loudly with her aura shooting up over her.

Spitfire quickly refocused, watching as Nightshade’s crystals danced wildly around her. Several of the Shadowbolt magic moves appeared around her again. She floated up only a yard off the ground. One of her arms brandishing Blade’s sword, the other encased in energy like Sin. Three of Devil’s globes popped out of the ground beside her, a collection of Trance’s spheres began orbiting around her midsection, and several pink sparkles picked up nearby pieces of rock and rubble from the collateral damage with Moon’s telekinetic magic.

Spitfire took a deep breath, shook out her limbs and wings, and prepared to use the altered Sonic Blast-off again.

Rainbow Dash was having a hard time fathoming what she was seeing. She was powerless to act, but even if she was able, would she even hold a candle to Spitfire and Nightshade? It wasn’t likely.

The two captains were going all out… Nightshade was actually trying now and it was frightening. Seeing her use her magic and abilities to their full extent really drove home how much she was just toying with the rest of them earlier.

But that made Spitfire just that much more impressive. Other details aside, Spitfire was forcing Nightshade to hold nothing back. Spitfire was by no means in full control of the battle. She had to do her share of work as well, but she was trading blows equally with a magic enhanced, strength boosted Nightshade.

So this was it… Dash had never really realized that she had yet to watch Spitfire in combat. All this time and she never knew or considered that Spitfire would be the elusive third move mimicking pony she was always wondering about. The answer was always right in front of her, she could have found out if she had simply asked another Wonderbolt… because they knew, right?

Dash glanced over her shoulder quickly to see Soarin watching from his prison with admiration… but no shock. She looked over towards the rest of the Wonderbolts. She couldn’t see all of them, but those elites that she could see had similar expressions. It wasn’t a secret at all… wow, she felt a little silly.

But forget how she felt, she immediately scanned the Wonderbolts and luckily, who she was looking for was in front and not hidden behind her much bigger wingmates.

Shine Struck was the only pony sitting up, just like she was. She was staring with wide eyes and a nearly unhinged jaw.

Dash had Shine had discussed their unique abilities on more than one occasion, always bringing up the fact that some copied techniques were harder to execute than others. And no matter what they tried to recreate, it was never close to being perfect.

Dash perked up as Shine glanced down at her, the two locking eyes from their spots for a moment. Dash was certain that Shine was thinking the same thing she was… Were they getting a visual crash course on how to better their own copying technique?

With that in mind, both of them quickly turned back to keep watching the battle.

After another altered Sonic Blast-off, Spitfire was in Nightshade’s face immediately. Dash slowly tipped her neck up as the two captains rose into the air, locked in intense combat. Nightshade was throwing every single magic move she could muster at her, using all of the techniques of the Shadowbolt commanders and several of her own, mixing in close combat. Spitfire was throwing every attack of both current and retired elite Wonderbolts she could do without assistance at Nightshade. She even mixed in a few Dash had never seen before, which she had to guess were signature moves of other elites or possible some who have been long retired? Spitfire even found time in between attacks to use the Renegade magic deflection motions to knock away some of the incoming moves from Nightshade. Just in general, the way Spitfire was mixing and matching the techniques, using some techniques to make others work… it was beyond incredible.

Watching the captain of the Wonderbolts and captain of the Shadowbolts go at it head to head while using the all of the single moves mastered by those they led was… well… epic.

If the situation wasn’t so dire or life threatening, Dash would probably have been bouncing up and down giddily.

But she was aware of the situation, and despite Spitfire’s arrival, she refused to breathe easy until the battle was actually won… and Spitfire still had her work cut out for her there.

“RGH!” Spitfire suddenly grunted as Nightshade swung around, missing with her sword, but clubbing Spitfire with her arm encased in magic. Dash gasped as Spitfire shot towards the ground, grunting and flailing before barely regaining control in time. She turned and slammed her hooves down, panting very hard as she glared up at Nightshade.

Nightshade immediately launched a Burst Wave with a volley of spheres shooting in an arc around it.

Spitfire growled, moving her hooves and galloping out of the way of the wave before hopping back and forth to dodge the incoming spheres…

But Dash gasped as she watched the way the spheres behaved. They didn’t aim directly for Spitfire, they followed her and began spreading out. It was the turret magic she had used on them earlier!

“Spitfire!” Dash yelled, but grimaced the moment she tried to move, her body unable to fight against the magic.

“What the—?!” Spitfire winced as small beams of magic began pelting her. She looked back and forth to see six spheres hovering around her that were moving perfectly with her, shooting small beams at her every few seconds. “DAMN!” she growled as she moved only to find out they were fixed to her position and she couldn’t reach any of them.

Spitfire seamlessly moved to use her altered Sonic Blast-off again… but as she began the motions she suddenly flinched and yelped painfully, nearly falling over herself as her legs shook. She quickly spread her wings and took flight normally instead.

That little mishap didn’t go unnoticed by Dash. The heavy breathing was already one indication, but it looked like Spitfire’s prowess did indeed have a drawback. She was putting a heavy amount of strain on her body all at once, especially with the Sonic Blastoff. Dash knew first hoof how hard that move was on the body. Before Soarin’s recovery and endurance were enhanced by his magic, he could only execute it two to three times in one sitting before he was tuckered out, and that was with his larger, more muscular and powerful body. Spitfire was clearly feeling it.

Spitfire moved quickly and carefully as she examined the behavior of the turrets, soon concluding that she had gotten caught in a complicated trap and wouldn’t simply be able to chase them down or shake them off.

The only problem was… she had to worry about Nightshade too.

“HHRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!” Nightshade shot in from the side driving her aura encased hoof forward. Spitfire turned to catch it, but the amplified impact from Sin’s magic immediately propelled her backwards. She shot towards the ground again, this time at an angle towards a cliff wall.

Dash tried to force herself up again, failing as she had every other attempt, but as she watched Spitfire flying helplessly… but after a closer look, Spitfire wasn’t so helpless after all. She was looking towards the sky as she careened through the air… and the moment she reached the wall, she flipped and used Storm Front’s Surface Tap, adding the third tap again to increase her speed and shoot up into the sky while combining Twister’s and Little Star’s techniques to dodge the never ending barrage from the turrets surrounding her.

“GET BACK HERE!” Nightshade called after her as she pumped her wings and gave chase.

Spitfire looked down and up between the approaching clouds and Nightshade, gritting her teeth and wincing as a few of the small turret blasts struck her. She was clearly in a bind…

And from down below Dash’s mind was racing. Things were not looking so good for Spitfire, but before Dash could worry further… a second yellow and blue streak shot up towards Nightshade with a trail of fire in its wake.

“The hell?!” Nightshade reacted, looking down as the incoming fireball approached.

“LAY THE FUCK OFF MY SISTER!!!!!!” Blaze yelled as she shot in like a bat out of hell, her body surrounded by controlled flames with heavy concentrations of fire surrounding her hooves, her flint gloves on and set ablaze. “HRRRRAH!” Blaze roared out as she rammed her shoulder into Nightshade’s stomach, several hot flames bouncing over to Nightshade and sending the two of them away from Spitfire.

Spitfire gasped as she saw her flame-wielding half-sister engage Nightshade, but it gave her the chance she needed, so she took it. Doing her best to ignore the ensuing grunts of pain as Nightshade instantly turned the tables on Blaze, Spitfire shot higher and higher, all the way up into the clouds above. She moved quickly to avoid the turrets as they kept tethered to her. She stuck her wings out, using Steady Wing’s hard gliding method as she angled out and forged her way through the thick clouds, splitting the feathers of her wings like Wave Chill to gather up the moisture in the clouds until her feathers were wet with dew. The moment she felt she had enough, she turned down, grabbing a large clump of the clouds with her arms and manipulating the moisture, directing it into the cloud to pump it full of water as she dove. Once her wings were free of the moisture, she began pushing them hard, adding speed as she plummeted down towards Nightshade. Her positioning and motions suggested she was attempting to use Fleetfoot’s Silver Arrow Dive, but she altered her motions, giving her wings extra angle like Lightning Dust’s method of voiding wind resistance. She completely tucked her limbs in to make her body as streamlined as possible, clamping her limbs around the darkened cloud, making sure to not let it get away from her as she moved faster and faster, her speed making it impossible for the turrets to hit her even though they were keeping up.

She gritted her teeth and fixed her eyes on Nightshade as the sight of her pummeling Blaze came into view. Blaze was still surrounded in flames, doing her best to engage Nightshade with little success. Every attack she threw, Nightshade moved right out of the way of and easily countered. Blaze even tried launching a few volleys of flames among her attacks, but nothing was working. Nightshade was no longer pulling punches, and Blaze was taking a harsh beating.

“GAH!” Blaze cried out as Nightshade clocked her right across the face and sent her tumbling. Nightshade shifted to follow, but blinked when she saw Blaze pull her arms back while looking into the sky.

“SIS! HERE!” she yelled as she whipped her arms forward. The remaining flames encasing her body shot up above her. Spitfire kept her angle, shifting slightly so that the incoming volley of flames from Blaze would strike the cloud in her grip. Her timing was perfect, the flames slamming into the cloud the instant she passed. The cloud suddenly lit up with electricity, the heat of the fire revving up the moisture… at the same time Spitfire’s speed broke the first air cone.

A loud BOOM echoed throughout the canyon as Nightshade looked up and gasped. She immediately surrounded herself with a spherical magic shield as Spitfire broke a second air cone… the second boom accompanied with her crushing the cloud in her grip. The cloud burst and electricity exploded out of it, Spitfire quickly reining it in and collecting it around her as she stuck her hooves forward. She wasn’t going to reach a third air cone, she didn’t have the pure speed like Fleetfoot to do so, but this would be more than enough.

Spitfire, with electrical energy surging around her, slammed her front hooves hard into Nightshade’s shield. The shield immediately buckled from the force, shattering as her hooves punctured its surface and slammed directly into Nightshade’s face, smashing her goggles to pieces as she was sent flying downward.

Nightshade cried out as she tumbled down, her crystals coming to life and encasing her in a thin veil of light as she crashed hard and bounced along the ground below with traces of electricity following in her wake.

Spitfire pulled up, a lot of her momentum already released from the impact. She flexed her muscles and tensed her body, keeping her limbs extended outward to prevent the electrical energy flowing through her from gathering too much at one point. Her mane spiked up, looking wild and split as the volts coursed through every inch of her body.

She briefly looked down to make sure Blaze was okay. She was down on the ground, hurt, but not severely. She had a hard fall, but she quickly waved at Spitfire, motioning for her not to worry.

With that, Spitfire quickly turned her focus to the turrets still following her. With lightning now at her disposal, she made use of it, turning and reaching a hoof out towards every sphere, arcs of electricity jumping from her hooves with every thrust, splitting and destroying the magic turrets one by one.

Once she was finally free from the annoying barrage, she turned just in time to see several small spheres hurling towards her from the ground. She swiped her hooves out, batting aside each one with ribbons of electricity flailing in the wake of each swipe, but right as she swatted the last sphere away, her eyes widened as a pair of eyebeams zipped towards her in the wake of the spheres, moving much faster. She had no time to move, the beams hitting her right in the face and exploding. Spitfire lurched backwards, her head whipping around as the explosion destroyed her goggles, sending them off her face in several pieces while also tearing up most of her suit mask. But she held her wings out and stopped after only edging back a yard or two, still holding onto the electricity as she slowly turned her head back forward and shook the pink smoke free from around her face. Her goggles and mask were gone and a light trail of blood dripped from her nose and mouth.

Nightshade rose back up into the air. Her goggles gone as well, but her mask still intact and her eyes alight with a pink light that rose from both of them like small flames. Spitfire grunted and spat out a wad of blood before focusing a harsh glare on Nightshade to counter hers.

Without a word, they both rushed forward, Spitfire’s body sparking and surging with lightning and Nightshade’s alight with her pink magic. The two clashed head on, their hooves locked while butting heads, growling, snarling, and roaring into each other’s faces as they began a power struggle, the lightning and magic surrounding both of them as they came together. Their hooves slipped off one another, bringing the two closer as they began hooking and grappling to try and gain an advantage. The magic burned against Spitfire and the lightning clawed at Nightshade, but the two refused to give in, both of them beyond determined to take the other down.

Dash and Soarin watched from below as Spitfire and Nightshade grappled above, the two began shifting through the air, moving sideways in several directions, neither able to get the motion going in their favor.

“Ah!” Soarin yelped as a wayward volt of electricity fell down and struck the ground right beside his prison.

“Yikes!” Dash winced as another hit near her as well. But she immediately looked back up as the two captains continued to try and get an upper hoof, the magic and lightning crackling and popping around them fiercely.

It was absolutely unreal… the ability of the two mares. But something that impressed her even more was the fact that Spitfire was fighting within her own power and abilities. Nightshade was fierce even without the magic, but the fact that Spitfire was keeping up with her with the magic boosting her was a testament to her prowess…

Spitfire was putting on full display why she was the captain of the Wonderbolts.

Spitfire and Nightshade suddenly pushed apart and both swung at the same time, their hooves crashing together, causing a flash of pink magic and a burst of lightning, they both followed up with a second punch with the other hoof, that crossed, the two punching each other simultaneously again. They both flipped and tumbled backwards, Spitfire quickly throwing her wings out, which caused several volts of electricity to jettison outward from her wing tips. With Nightshade still trying to regain her balance, Spitfire shot forward, a loud CRACK like a lightning strike echoing throughout the canyon as the electricity exploded behind her. Spitfire closed the gap quickly, grabbing Nightshade by the neck and swinging her around before throwing her down towards the ground. Nightshade cried out as her back hit the solid rocky ground, but Spitfire didn’t let up. She brought her limbs inward, letting the electricity gather up near the center of her body. But before the energy intensity could overwhelm her, she thrust her hooves out towards Nightshade, the buildup of electricity shooting down the length of her arms, giant ribbons of lightning dancing between them like a power surge between two pylons before erupting from the ends of her hooves. The electricity was so densely packed that it resembled an actual lightning bolt in both size and ferocity as it shot down and struck Nightshade.

The impact caused a shockwave that pulsed outward, followed by a loud rumble of thunder that shook the surrounding environment.

With all the electricity spent, Spitfire pulled back, gasping and panting for air as she tried to catch her breath, trails of steam rising from her arms in the aftermath of the electrical burst.

But as she looked down, something wasn’t right.

Nightshade was… flickering?!

Nightshade’s body suddenly disappeared below in a bright pink flash of light.

It was a clone?! When did she switch out?! It had to be the brief moment Spitfire was tumbling and lost sight of her… but where—?”

“SPITFIRE! ABOVE!” Soarin yelled out from below. Spitfire’s eyes widened, looking up to see Nightshade plunging towards her with her hooves extended and surrounded in Sin’s magic. Spitfire grunted, forcing her body backwards as she reached up and caught the hooves, only to have her arms immediately pressed to her chest by the amplified attack.

“GRH!” Spitfire gasped as she was whiplashed, her whole body forced downward by the pressure as Nightshade continued to pump her wings and drive her down. Spitfire glared right into her eyes and cupped her wings convexly and pumping them upwards towards the ground as it approached. Several loud POOFS and BANGS rung out as she combined High Winds and Matteo’s techniques, reversing the motions to work opposite and shooting powerful bursts of air below her. The maneuver cushioned the fall, drastically reducing the speed at which Nightshade was pushing her, the massive blasts of wind rushing in every direction and crashing against everypony watching from the sidelines. It effectively brought them to a stop just before they hit the ground.

But then Nightshade released, letting Spitfire fall painlessly to the ground as she launched back upwards… and revealed a large volley of spheres that was hiding behind her.

“AH!” Spitfire yelped as she shielded herself, the first two hitting her before she put her hooves up and deflected the next four. Between the sixth and seventh, she rolled over, willingly taking the seventh to the back as she broke into a gallop, running as the last three slammed to the ground, kicking up debris behind her.

Spitfire picked up speed for a few more steps to create distance before she slammed her front, left hoof down and skidded along on it, anchoring the hoof down and swinging herself around to face Nightshade.

But as she set her hooves and turned her focus back to Nightshade above her, her back legs suddenly buckled.

“Ow!” Spitfire yelped as she fell and tipped over onto her side, immediately flailing to stand back up, but it looked like a struggle for her to do so.

“SPITFIRE!” Soarin yelled as he and Dash watched with worry.

It had to be as Dash suspected earlier. Spitfire was using so many moves that required incredible physical ability, and doing so over an extended period had to be exhausting. Her physical endurance spoke for itself, but it looked like the fatigue was finally catching up to her.

And that… was a problem. Because Nightshade had risen further up into the air and was gathering her magic.

“SHIT!” Soarin yelled as he began thrashing in his prison again. “SPITFIRE!!!!” he yelled again as Dash looked on, glancing between the two of them. Spitfire was not finding any success in getting back up. It was almost as if her back legs had completely given out. She tried to spread her wings, but one of them twitched painfully and pulled itself back in, showing signs of cramping.

Dash’s eyes widened as a bright pink light came from above. She looked up to see Nightshade gathering magic into another massive globe, much like the one she threw at Silver… but unlike Silver, Spitfire was in a compromised position… not to mention Dash wasn’t going to try and understand how Silver managed to go right through one of these globes unscathed.

Dash looked back at Soarin again, watching as he desperately thrashed within the prison again, his eyes glowing blue and the horn’s cracks blinking steadily… then a loud POP came from it.

“AH!” Soarin yelped as a bright flash came from his eyes and a small sliver of light burst from the middle of the horn. A very small chip of the horn popped off and landed beside Dash, a trail of blue steam rising from the tiny fracture as Soarin began to groan in pain and stop thrashing. But he still looked up at Spitfire with a degree of desperation.

Dash gasped as she looked at the horn, feeling a jolt and jump in her heart as Soarin cried out and his magic reacted… he was trying so hard… and she could almost feel his thoughts, his desperation to save Spitfire.

Dash quickly turned her head around, searching for Blaze, but when she found her, Blaze was still down, her wings looked unhurt, but her beaten body was keeping her down.

Dash turned back to Spitfire, her pupils shrinking as Nightshade threw her hooves down… and the giant globe shot towards the ground.

Dash’s jaw dropped as she lay still, her mind racing.

She…

She couldn’t let this happen…

Spitfire was their last chance, if she went down… not only would Soarin be taken, but Silver would die for sure… and everypony else would be killed!

She had to do something!

Without any real idea of what she could possibly do in mind, Dash forced herself up, screaming out in pain as her body and limbs burned madly, the pink glow surrounding her becoming a little brighter as if reacting to the extra effort she pushed forward.

As the globe fell towards Spitfire, Dash’s mind raced, quickly falling on the only thing she could possibly think of.

It was possible to remove the magic from around her. She saw Spitfire do it… that meant she could too! But she had already tried! What was missing?!

She pushed her wings out again and again, each attempt hurting more than the last. WHAT WASN’T SHE DOING RIGHT?!

Everything seemed to slow down for Dash as she rapidly thought through everything Spitfire did… and said to Nightshade after.

And one thing stood out more than anything else…

When Spitfire mentioned her past downfall… was the lack of control over her emotions.

With only seconds remaining before their last hopes were thwarted, Dash looked directly at Spitfire… and thought of nothing else.

She pushed out worry about Soarin, she pushed aside anxiety about Nightshade, and she pushed out despair about Silver…

She willed her thoughts to clear, the Wonderbolts were in danger, but the more she fretted and was overcome by any kind of fear… the more the magic around her would tighten its grip.

All that mattered right now… was what lay right before her!

AND SHE WOULD ACT!

“GRRRRAAAAAAH!!!!!” Dash yelled, throwing her wings out as her eyes remained fixed on Spitfire.

Soarin blinked and looked towards Dash, his eyes widening as the magic surrounding her suddenly crackled and exploded, shooting out and completely freeing her body.

Without a single thought towards her success and all of her focus on what had to be done, Dash immediately set her hooves and leaned back with her wings forward. She had not time to figure out Spitfire’s altered Sonic Blast-off… but she didn’t need to. She knew how to do the real one!

She quickly pulled her goggles up, putting them in place to protect her eyes and then went through the motions, forcing her body to remain relaxed and smooth despite it being beaten and bruised. She executed each motion seamlessly, and launched from her spot, creating an immediate sonic boom that drew every set of eyes away from Spitfire to her.

But Dash immediately gritted her teeth and winced. She made it work and felt the blasts of wind against her, but it was very sloppy, very shaky after the launch. She barely managed to stay in a straight line as she shot along the ground. She had the strength to execute it, but her injuries were making themselves known, keeping her from achieving the perfect technique all the way through, but she was determined, fighting back every time her body threatened to lose control… closing the gap between her and Spitfire and making just in time.

With less than five yards between the globe and its target, Dash exploded into the scene and rammed her body into Spitfire’s side, latching on and holding tight as Spitfire grunted in surprise. Dash’s force and momentum picked Spitfire right up off the ground and sent the two of them away from the impact zone… but they only flew a few yards before they hit the ground and began tumbling.

The globe exploded in a spectacular fashion the moment it touched down, both Spitfire and Dash were sent flying from the nearby impact, Dash hanging onto Spitfire for dear life as the two continued to tumble, pushed further by the shockwave of the explosion’s aftermath. They stayed down as they finally came to a stop, keeping their heads down as bits and pieces of splintered rocks rained down, the larger chunks luckily falling around them instead of on top of them.

As soon as the debris settled and the dust began clearing, Spitfire grunted, pushing herself up and forcing her back legs to cooperate, it was a shaky rise, but she made it work. She continued to gasp and pant for air, her lungs working overtime to help her catch her breath, but she immediately looked down to her right as Dash stirred, groaned, and turned over to stand up as well.

Spitfire watched Dash curiously, trying to figure out what had happened, but then her eyes widened as realization hit her. Dash wasn’t covered in the pink light anymore… and she had rescued her from a very unpleasant experience… which meant…

“Rainbow Dash…” Spitfire spoke up as Dash stood up, her legs wobbling and her body cringing in pain, but in between the heavy breaths, she looked up, tilting her head to get a chunk of her rainbow mane out of the way so she could make eye contact. “Did you… seriously just…” Spitfire looked back towards Soarin, glancing between him and Dash for a few moments before an impressed grin appeared on her face. “Sheesh, Dash… You never listen to me, do you?” she said with a lighthearted sarcastic tone, her expression telling Dash everything she needed to know.

This was the first time Dash had spoken to Spitfire since… everything that happened back at the Nimbus. Seeing Spitfire act the way she used to was refreshing… and seeing her impressed made her pride swell up. But before she could reply at all, Spitfire suddenly looked up, refocusing as the sound of hooves slamming to the ground came from nearby.

Dash looked up as well to see Nightshade standing firm about ten yards away. Spitfire stood ready, but as Dash turned to do the same, she noticed Spitfire’s legs were still shaking. Not to mention Dash’s own body wasn’t feeling too great.

This wasn’t good. Even with both of them together, it wouldn’t mean anything if they were worn down and Nightshade was showing no signs of letting up.

“Dash… I hate to admit it, but I need some back up after all… can you fight?” she asked. Dash blinked and glanced up at Spitfire…

She was smiling. It wasn’t a very confident smile, but it was there. Dash was completely honest.

“I can, but… I doubt very well…” she admitted, earning a grunt from Spitfire.

“Well. Then we better give it the best we’ve got!” Spitfire proclaimed as she forced her wings open. Dash cringed, doing the same and keeping an eye on Spitfire, ready to use the Streak twins’ synchronization methods…

This was it, their last chance, they had to give it all they—

“AH!” Nightshade suddenly yelped as she flinched and her muscles visibly tensed up. She stood up from her ready stance, tipping backwards and stumbling a few steps as her crystals began to shake and her aura flickered.

Dash and Spitfire both blinked, staying at the ready, but watching curiously.

“GRH! GRAH! ARGH!” Nightshade began shaking, quickly placing a hoof over her chest as her body shuddered. “OW! FRRGGHHH!!!!!” she groaned as she began pounding her chest several times.

Suddenly a loud hiss like a rushing wind began to sound from her body. Her aura completely faded, the crystals struggled to stay afloat, and her body and muscles lost their boosted appearance, reverting to normal. Pink streams of smoke began to rise from her body, seeping from several spots as if her body was literally leaking magic.

“Ahh!!! AH!!!!!!” she cried out, holding her hoof to her chest as the crystals clattered to the ground around her. “N… NO! DAMMIT!” she cursed as the magic started giving out on her.

“What’s… going on?” Spitfire asked as she kept her eyes glued to Nightshade.

“I think…” Dash began but stopped, still not sure how the crystals worked, but based on previous events, it seemed like there were some consequences for using the crystals too much, for too long, or overusing them… was that happening to Nightshade? Was this an opportunity for them?

“NIGHTSHADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

A familiar voice suddenly boomed down from high above. All eyes went up. Spitfire, Rainbow Dash, Soarin, and everypony else…

They all knew that voice… but nopony…

NOPONY…

Was apparently as surprised or shocked to hear the voice as Nightshade.

She looked up into the sky, her ears flopping down, her eyes widening, her pupils shrinking, and a pathetic, weak gasp escaping her throat.

Up in the sky, coming in for a landing, was Descent, Starry Skies, Lightning Dust, and a small group of Renegades, all who appeared to be former Shadowbolts.

As they flew down, Descent pointed towards the fallen Wonderbolts. The Renegades behind the three in the lead all broke off and landed nearby to help, one breaking away to help Blaze as she dragged herself back over to Silver and another moving towards Soarin.

But Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust all came in for a landing… and touched down in front of Spitfire and Dash, placing themselves in between them and Nightshade. Lightning Dust immediately backed up to check on Dash, but Descent and Starry just stared forwards, a very long, painful silence extending as they looked upon their former captain.

The only noise that could be heard within the calm was the sound of Nightshade taking short, quiet, gasping breaths, still holding her hoof over her heart, but clearly in some sort of odd shock as she stared towards the two of them.

“Nightshade…?” Descent spoke up, drawing Starry’s attention to him as he slowly reached up and took off his goggles. “Is it… really you?” he asked. Starry took off her goggles as well and slowly began glancing back and forth between Descent and Nightshade, her face wrought with an expression of anxiety and hesitance that she nearly never showcased.

Nightshade didn’t respond, she just kept staring at them as if she was absolutely terrified, overwhelmed and stricken by fear. Descent gritted his teeth, a look of regret on his face as he slowly took a step forward…

Nightshade suddenly shrieked, causing Descent to freeze and his eyes to go wide as he watched her react.

“NO!” she yelled, her voice cracking. She stumbled backwards, her hooves slipping and causing her to fall onto her plot. She frantically stood back up and froze, her legs and body completely still with her head low, like a frightened cat arching its back. Only, Nightshade looked far from dangerous, she looked as though she had just woken up from the worst nightmare imaginable and couldn’t tell if she was awake or not.

“Nightshade!” Descent took two more steps.

“It’s me! It’s us!” Descent pleaded to her as Starry looked on hesitantly from behind him. But Nightshade just kept shaking. “Please! You have to—”

“NO! STOP!” Nightshade yelled back at the top of her lungs. Descent stopped talking but started moving towards her again, rejecting her demand. Starry still remained in place, looking like she wanted to go to Nightshade as well, but didn’t know what she would say or do if she attempted it. “STAY BACK!” Nightshade yelled as Descent kept walking slowly towards her. She threw an arm up over her eyes and turned her head away, hiding her face from him. Her crystals all huddled together and hurried around behind her, reacting to her emotions as if afraid of Descent or emulating her emotional reaction. “STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

“Nightshade!” Descent called her name again as his pace picked up, his body language and movements suggesting he desperately wanted to reach out to her. “PLEASE!” he yelled, his voice starting to break up a little. “LOOK AT ME!”

But Nightshade refused, shimmying herself backwards, but unable to keep herself away as Descent came within range to touch her.

But right before he could a sudden burst of energy ejected from her body.

“AH!!!!!” Nightshade yelled out as Descent grunted, shielding himself as he skidded back away from her a little.

Descent looked up in confusion and horror as Nightshade began to scream and wail, reaching up and grabbing her head while thrashing around and more pink bursts ejected from her.

Rainbow Dash recognized it immediately, the absorbed magic had run its course again and was about to jettison out from her! Nightshade screamed as she forced the magic from her body, the cloud of pink light pulsating and growing brighter.

“LOOK OUT!!!!!!!!!” she yelled towards Descent.

Everypony hit the deck, Descent throwing his hooves up and covering his face as a massive explosion erupted from the magic surrounding Nightshade. Despite guarding himself, Descent was thrown backwards, falling right on top of Starry Skies and Lightning Dust as everypony braced themselves against the shockwave and incredible forces that propelled outward like a typhoon.

Everypony stayed down until the rushing force finally subsided, the surrounding area remaining silent for only a moment afterward as awful, painful, excruciating sounds of agony came from the direction of Nightshade.

“HHHNNGNGGGGGG!!! HRRRGGGRRRRR!!!!” she grunted raspily as everypony looked up.

She was not in the same spot. It seemed that unlike the first magic release, she did not have the power, nor the focus to wrap herself in a protective shield before the explosion. She and her crystals had gotten caught in it and she was rolling back and forth on the ground twenty yards away while making all sorts of noises that didn’t sound normal at all.

But along with Nightshade’s abnormal vocalizations, several sighs and cries of relief rang out from around them all. Dash looked up from her spot beside Spitfire to see several faint pink lights rising up into the air. She followed their trail back down to see that the torturing auras surrounding all of the Wonderbolts dissipating, lifting up from their victims and dissipating into the air.

Dash quickly turned her neck around to look towards Soarin, but her hopes were quickly suppressed. Soarin was still encased in the magical prison as if the crystals surrounding him were acting as a separate entity.

She turned back around as Spitfire forced herself to her hooves. Dash did the same with some difficulty, never taking her eyes off of Nightshade. Descent rolled off a groaning Starry Skies and Lightning Dust, the two taking a moment to recover and get their bearings after a pony more than twice their size landed right on top of them.

Descent, however, did not even ask if they were alright. It seemed odd that he wouldn’t but the entirety of his attention was fixed on Nightshade. He got to his hooves and readied to move towards her again, but he hesitated when he saw Nightshade’s crystals floating above her in a circle.

But something wasn’t right.

Dash noticed it immediately as she watched from behind Descent… Nightshade’s crystals were flickering, shuddering, and making odd screeching noises that almost sounded like screams of pain.

“AH!” Nightshade suddenly yelped, ceasing her flailing and lying still on her side, her disturbing grunting noises finally stopping as well. Her head shot up off the ground, her neck arching and straining as she looked at her shivering crystals, the screeching noises becoming louder and louder as they began to slowly lower to the ground and lose any sort of glow.

Then one of the crystals cracked.

Descent’s eyes grew wide and he gasped as his eyes fixed on the crystals. The other two began to crack with loud popping noises sounding from them.

“GAH!” Nightshade screamed in pain as her body shook. “OW! ARGH!” she yelped as the crystals began to chip and pop, sparks shooting from them as they shook.

“NO! NOOOO!!!” Descent yelled as he broke into a gallop back towards Nightshade. But he only got a few steps forward before all three of Nightshade’s crystals…

Shattered to pieces.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” Nightshade wailed, her eyes remaining wide and fixed on the crystals as they broke into tiny pieces that sprinkled to the ground before disappearing completely.

Descent stopped right in his tracks, his jaw nearly unhinged as he stared in shock.

Dash was in the same state… knowing exactly what was going to happen, but she could scarcely believe it…

Without the crystals to sustain her… just like the others who lost their crystals… was Nightshade going to die?

Nightshade began to scream and writhe on the ground, holding onto herself as her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. Crackling noises started coming from her body, everypony else watching in horror as small traces of crystals began appearing on her. Nightshade quickly reached for her chest, pressing a hoof over it as hard as she could as she continued to grunt, gasp, and cry out.

“NIGHTSHADE!” Descent called out, but he didn’t move toward her.

He began to collapse.

Everypony watched as Descent’s legs slowly gave way, first the back, and then the front until his stomach was on the ground.

“No…” he said in a quieter tone, his voice broken as he watched the crystals spread on Nightshade’s body.

But then Nightshade began pounding a hoof against her chest.

“HHHHRRNNNGGG!!!!!” she suddenly released a loud growl, slamming her eyes shut as a faint pink glow surrounded her.

Everypony watching her perked up, but looked on with confusion as the spreading of the crystals over her body suddenly stopped… But it looked far from relief. Nightshade continued to shout, yell and growl as if she was fighting it? Not only that, but she didn’t have any crystals around her, where was the faint aura coming from?

Whatever she was doing… it didn’t seem to have the desired effect.

“AHHHH!!!!!” Nightshade cried out in pain again, the aura fading and the crystal spread continuing.

Starry Skies suddenly shifted forward, drawing Dash’s attention. But Starry didn’t move any further than a single step. She stopped and moved no further, her eyes darting between Descent and Nightshade, her body continuously leaning forward, but never moving as if she was roped to her spot against her wishes.

“RGH! DAMMIT!” Nightshade suddenly yelled, reaching a hoof out.

Dash blinked as she saw the motion, immediately perking up and turning her head to follow the direction Nightshade was pointing. Her hoof was aimed at Soarin.

“Huh?!” Soarin blinked as the magical pulses surrounding him suddenly flickered and faded. “Whoa!” he yelped as was dropped from the hold and landed roughly on the ground with a loud THUMP.

“Soarin!” Dash yelled towards him, but was immediately distracted by the three crystals hovering above him. They stopped their continuous orbiting motion and launched themselves towards Nightshade. Nightshade’s arm was shaking, the crystals spreading rapidly and close to covering her whole body. They reached up towards her head, covering her neck. She struggled to keep her arm up as the crystals began moving from her shoulder and down her upper arm. Her eyes began to close as if she was weakening and losing consciousness…

But just as her hoof fell and the three crystals began drooping towards the ground… they had gotten just close enough.

One of them bounced and tapped her hoof before it could be covered by crystal growth.

A bright light exploded from it, the other two crystals coming to life as the light rushed over them as well. Everypony shielded their eyes as the crystalline growth covering Nightshade instantly crackled cracked and shattered.

“GAH! HAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” Nightshade gasped as she was freed, falling flat to the ground and panting as the three crystals hovered in a circle over her, shining a soft warm light down over her body.

Nopony knew the first thing about what they were seeing. Even Dash found her focus drawn away from Soarin, watching as Nightshade struggled. Dash perked up as Starry suddenly rushed forward, but she didn’t move towards Nightshade, she stopped right at Descent’s side. She crouched down beside him, but stopped just short of reaching out to touch him. She suddenly pulled herself back slightly when she came into view of Descent’s face, a look of disbelief on hers.

Dash couldn’t see what startled her, but soon after Starry pulled back, Descent stood right up and reached up a hoof, rubbing it over his eyes roughly before staring out towards Nightshade again. Starry stared at him for another moment before joining him in looking towards their former captain with great concern.

Nightshade was still on the ground, the three crystals still tending to her as she slowly shifted, placed a hoof on the ground and pushed against it, grunting as she shakily propped herself up.

But then she tipped her head up and opened her eyes. They immediately grew wide as she stared directly into the concerned and confused eyes of Descent and Starry Skies. Nightshade gritted her teeth, her ears folding down against her head as her bottom lip began to quiver. Her body shivered and… tears began to appear in her eyes.

Starry flinched in surprise as Descent suddenly rushed forward without a word of warning, galloping as fast as he could towards Nightshade. Nightshade gasped as he approached, her heavy breathing quickening like she was having a panic attack. She began shaking her head as she pushed her hooves against the ground, scooting herself backwards.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” Nightshade screamed, slamming her eyes shut and holding a hoof out, bright flashes of light shooting out from beneath her closed eyelids, her falling tears glistening with the light as the crystals glowed brightly.

“GAH!” Descent suddenly grunted as a pink dome surrounded him right before he touched her, appearing out of nowhere and causing him to run face first painfully into its hardened surface. “WHAT?!” he looked around him, but immediately refocused on Nightshade. “NIGHTSHADE!” he yelled at her while pressing his hooves against the inside of the dome. His voice muffled, but still audible.

Nightshade opened her eyes, staring at Descent. They were just a few inches apart, only the thin shield between them as he began slamming his hooves against it and kept yelling her name, calling out to her as loud as he could. Tears poured down Nightshade’s face as she stared into Descent’s eyes, her body shuddering as she faced him with a look of despair and regret, sniffling as the tears dripped from her chin.

Then she slowly stood up… and started backing away from him. She shook her head slightly, closing her eyes and shaking it harder before she whipped around and spread her wings.

“NO!” Descent slammed his hooves harder against the shield. “NIGHTSHADE, WAIT!!!!!!”

But his words did nothing to stop her.

Starry Skies had broken into a gallop towards the two of them, finally breaking free from her continuous hesitation.

“NIGHTSHADE!” Starry yelled, echoing the concerned tone of Descent.

But she was too late.

Nightshade took off, her crystals immediately enhancing her speed. She blasted off, shooting through the air with the pink stream of light in her wake. Within seconds she was long gone from sight.

Descent slammed his hooves against the shield three more times, each strike several times weaker than the last, the third nothing more than a light tap. He put his hooves down on the ground, simply staring in the direction Nightshade disappeared in as the shield flickered and vanished, freeing him.

For several moments, nopony said a word, or even moved for that matter. Every pair of eyes was either looking in the direction Nightshade left, or at Descent. The Wonderbolts, now free from the magic, finally began to rise up, taking their time as lingering pain from the constant torture slowly subsided, leaving them worn out and achy to the bone.

Dash’s body wasn’t feeling the best either, but she remained standing, watching Descent as a soft clip-clop of hooves came from behind her. She blinked as Soarin appeared beside her, stopping at her side. Dash turned and tipped her head up to look at him. He was cringing, rubbing his forehead and gritting his teeth in discomfort as small, faint flashes of light shone from the cracks in the horn. He looked down at Dash as he exhaled and shook his head out, the two locking eyes for a moment before Soarin looked over the top of her at Spitfire. A regretful look made its way onto his face, prompting Dash to turn and glance towards Spitfire as well, expecting to see a glare or some sort of disapproval, but that was hardly the case. She had a look of worry as she stared at Soarin, but no words were exchanged between the two.

“Descent…”

All three of them looked back towards Descent as Starry Skies spoke up. She was standing beside Descent, one hoof lifted up off the ground as she bit her lower lip and bobbed forward and backward, looking completely unsure of what else to do or say, hesitating yet again. She looked in the direction of Nightshade’s exit for a moment, releasing a heavy sigh, but flinching in surprise as she turned back. Everypony else took note of Descent as well.

He was… shaking?

He sat down and shook his head as he gritted his teeth and released a frustrated growl.

Dash and Soarin exchanged glances again as they observed Descent, having no doubt towards what he was feeling. Descent had more than proven that he had a heart and cared for those he was close to, whether he showed it often or not. There was no question, based on many discussions they had had with him about the Shadowbolts, that he cared very deeply about Nightshade and was incredibly determined to find out if she was still alive.

Well, he finally met that objective, but it clearly didn’t go the way he was hoping. It was interesting to see, however, Nightshade’s reaction to him. His presence almost completely broke her, but not in the way Silver had torn her down. Just seeing Descent caused her demeanor to completely change as if she was scared right out of her suit. She tried to hide herself from him, yelled at him as if he was a monster that frightened her, and on top of it all, ran away… even though her superiority to all of them had been proven.

What was going on here?

“ARGH!” Spitfire suddenly grunted painfully, Soarin and Dash both quickly turning to look at her in surprise as she fell to the ground on her haunches, panting and cringing.

“Spitfire!” Soarin quickly stepped around Dash and crouched down, reaching out to her shoulder. Dash stepped back as Soarin looked her over, glad that the situation was taking precedent over quarrels that had happened only a few hours ago. Perhaps Nightshade’s appearance was a wakeup call for them? Dash hoped so, because the way things were going sure didn’t help their chances to face her… not like they stood a chance anyway.

“I’m… alright…” Spitfire assured Soarin as she sat up and took a few deep breaths. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone all out like that… As is, you know how rough using all your moves is on my body,” she said casually as Soarin gave a single nod. Dash felt so silly… it seemed like Spitfire’s abilities were not a mystery at all. She just never considered asking.

With everything appearing to calm down, Dash perked up, her focus quickly shifting back to Silver, but before she could move, Descent suddenly stepped right in front of her, approaching Spitfire.

Spitfire and Descent locked eyes, Soarin stepping back as the two captains stared at each other for a moment before Descent finally spoke up.

“Why the hell did you fly off on your own like that?” he asked Spitfire with a grunt of disapproval. He was still visibly stricken, but perhaps trying to get his mind off the subject. “What did Flashwind say to you?”

Spitfire simply shook her head.

“I’ll tell you later, it’s not important right now,” she said as she stood up, immediately lifting a hoof to stop Soarin as he reached for her, assuring him she could stand without help. She started turning. “Right now we need to get help for—”

“Silver? Silver?! SILVER!!!!”

Dash’s ears stood up as Blaze’s voice suddenly filled the air.

She wasn’t the only one who glanced around in search of her. Everypony present, Wonderbolt and Renegade alike all looked about until their eyes fell on Blaze…

She was sitting over Silver, her eyes wide with a look of panic and shock on her face.

“SILVER!?!?!?! SILVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she yelled as she tipped herself lower.

Dash suddenly felt all of the air leave her lungs, her ears flopping down as her jaw dropped. Soarin and Spitfire had both turned their focus towards Silver as well, but before they could even take a step, Dash suddenly surged forward, pushing past both of them and even knocking Descent aside as she broke into a gallop.

She had been aware of Silver’s condition the whole time, but the heat of the battle unfolding before them had distracted her completely from him.

She wasn’t very far away, but the sprint towards him felt like an eternity, her mind wishing, and hoping over and over again… that tragedy hadn’t struck while they were busy trying to survive.

As Silver slowly came into view, she got a better look…

Blaze was yelling his name and nudging him…

But he wasn’t moving.

The moment Dash reached Silver’s side she reached up both hooves and shoved Blaze aside roughly. Such an action would normally trigger a very crass response, but Blaze was speechless. She fell down on her side, but instead of protesting, she simply sat up and stared with shocked, wide eyes.

Dash stood above Silver…

Her body shaking…

Her legs weak…

Her eyes stuck open…

Her breaths light and few…

Silver… he was… no… he couldn’t be…

“Silver…” Dash immediately knelt down and touched him.

He didn’t respond. His eyes remained closed and he didn’t move at all.

“Silver… please…” she nudged him. “This… this isn’t funny… please…”

She reached a hoof over to his neck.

Nothing.

Her body went numb as her eyelids began to feel wet. The slow clip clop of hooves began to sound out around her. Soarin and Spitfire approaching first with everypony else around them closing in, everypony wearing a look of disbelief and denial.

Spitfire and Soarin moved around to stand beside Dash, both looking down towards Silver’s body. Spitfire lifted a hoof up and covered her mouth as Soarin just stared, not wanting to believe what he was seeing.

Everypony else gathered around, all packing in close around Silver.

Fleetfoot, Air Mach, High Winds, Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, Surprise, Calm Wind, Playbitz, Swift Justice, Shine Struck, Storm Front, Squall, and Matteo…

Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust did not come as close, respectfully giving the Wonderbolts some space with the rest of the Shadowbolt Renegades doing the same.

Dash didn’t look at any of them, she shook as sniffles began to escape her nose and tears began to drip from her eyes. She slowly, subtly shook her head as she began lowering her head down to Silver’s chest. She rested the side of her head on his chest…

And heard nothing.

His heart wasn’t beating.

“No… NO! NO! NO!” Dash suddenly yelled as she picked her head up and put her hooves to his chest, pressing hard against it, winding up and pounding her hooves a few times on it before putting her head down again.

Still no heartbeat.

Dash, breathing heavily and unevenly, picked her head back up and sniffled, her tears dripping right into the frames of her goggles.

“Silver…” she said his name again, but was beyond hoping for a response.

It was clear…

He was gone.

Dash slammed her eyes shut. She tried to hold in the tears, to stop them from going any further. Silver would hate to see her crying… She was stronger than that… but…

But why…?

WHY…?!

She reached up and pushed her goggles up, letting the escaped tears run free down her face…

But as she touched her goggles… it made her realize something.

Silver, to the very end… did his duty as a Wonderbolt.

In the end… all Silver ever wanted… was to be a Wonderbolt for as long as he could…

He said it himself.

Some dreams are worth risking everything for, Dash… but I’m sure that’s something you already understand well.

He had not only risked everything for them… but he had protected them all, redeeming himself for his past mistakes.

Just as he said he would… he defended them all…

Down to his last breath.

Dash sat up, keeping her head tilted down as her goggles rested on top of her head.

As the tears fell down her face, she slowly reached up and pulled the goggles off of her head.

Silver had saved them all… and gave it all away to do so…

So he more than rightfully earned a send off.

Dash looked forward as she extended her arm out, holding the goggles in them as she prepared to open her wings. But she held it for a moment, staring at the goggles and thinking about everything Silver had taught her…

It destroyed her on the inside that he slipped away during the action…

It killed her that she never got the chance to say goodbye…

But she wasn’t going to sit there and cry her eyes out when she could be honoring him and everything he stood for.

During her pause, Soarin looked up at her, holding in his own tears as he examined Dash’s body language. She was doing the sendoff salute… so he would too. He had no goggles with him, but he held his hoof out as if he had them and readied to open his wings when she did. He quickly glanced around at everypony else, giving them all a firm look.

Nopony hesitated.

Every single Wonderbolt around Silver moved at once, removing their goggles if they had them and extending their hoof out, fluffing their wings and reading them for the full salute.

All eyes went to Dash, waiting for her since she started the honorary motions.

Dash closed her eyes. And took a deep, shaky breath.

“So long… Silver…” she said very quietly as she tipped her hooves.

The goggles fell from her hoof, the air around her completely silent as they hit the ground with a very soft clack and rested on the ground beside Silver’s face. Right after, the sound of every other pair of goggles hitting the ground echoed around all of them.

Dash then threw her head back, staring up into the sky as she slowly opened her wings, every Wonderbolt doing the same as they completed the salute…

In honor of Silver Lining…

Dash did not pull her eyes away from the sky, keeping them fixed on the cloud above as if hoping Silver was already looking down at her.

And it was at that moment, that her eyes gave way and tears poured down her face. She held in the sniffles and whimpering, but she could stop the tears.

Silver was…

He was really gone.

Dash started turning her head back down to look, almost afraid to look upon him again.

But…

The moment she looked down, she yelped and slammed her eyes shut as a pair of goggles flew at her and struck her right between the eyes.

“OW!” she yelled out as she tipped back, but just managed to not fall over. As her body tilted back forward, she stuck her hooves out to catch herself from falling face first. She blinked as she shook her head out, her nose only a few inches from the ground.

Who the hell, in their right mind, just flicked their goggles at her during such a sad moment for her?!

As Dash blinked, scrunched her face, and felt out the tender spot between her eyes where the goggles hit her… She realized that the goggles thrown at her…

Were the ones she had just dropped?

Without warning, she felt a very strong pull on her suit, right around the neck accompanied by a loud, raspy grunt from below her… followed by several incredibly loud and startled gasps from the Wonderbolts around her. Dash didn’t look up, she refocused her eyes and stare at her chest…

At a grey, bloody hoof with a large chunk of her suit awkwardly clenched in it. Before she could react in any way, she was suddenly yanked forward, pulled right off her plot and yelping again as she pushed her hooves down against the ground to steady herself. But when she looked up, her pupils shrank as she stared right into the one eyed glare…

Of Silver.

“PICK UP… THOSE FUCKING GOGGLES… AND PUT THEM… BACK ON…!”

Dash’s brain literally stopped.

She wasn’t imagining this… right? She wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating… right? Her brain wasn’t just showing her what she WANTED to see… right?”

“S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S…” her lips quivered as she blinked and stuttered.

Silver was… ALIVE?!

She was so shocked her every move or attempt to move misfired. She wasn’t the only one either, Soarin, right beside her was frozen stiff, Spitfire and the rest as well.

“AH!” she yelped as Silver pulled on her suit harder and forced her body to turn. He grunted loudly in pain, his arm bending awkwardly and making very painful cracking and scraping noises as he pulled her and pointed her eyes towards the goggles that had just been thrown at her. She squeaked as Silver shifted, using the working part of his arm to roughly push her, Dash tumbling forward and bouncing off Soarin as she landed right beside the goggles.

“THOSE!” he yelled as he cringed, throwing his broken arms over his chest, and teetered on his back, looking at all the pairs of dumbstruck, shocked eyes set on him. “THAT GOES… FOR ALL… YOU FUCKING… PANSY-ASSES TOO! ARGH! Silver coughed roughly, cringing and arching his neck back, but never losing the strength in his voice. “WHAT… DID YOU… THINK I DIED… OR SOMETHING?! I’M… Ah… gah… I just… nodded off… for a second…” he gasped for air, exhaling loudly as he stopped yelling. “The shit… I put up… with…”

And just like that, like a tsunami slamming into a coastline, the Wonderbolts were all broken out of their shock.

Silver was alive… and despite being beaten to a bloody pulp… he was still being his usual self.

“SILVER!”

“SILVER!”

“Thank Celestia, Silver!”

Cheers and shouts rang out as the reality of Silver surviving sunk in. Celebrating lasted only for a moment as the rush of relief caused several of the Wonderbolts to fall over or sit down, finally resting. They weren’t about to act like all was well, but Silver being alive was more than enough to bring them much needed relief.

Dash’s mouth extended into the widest smile she had ever managed, her face almost hurting as it strained to contain it.

“SILVER!” she yelled out along with the rest as she immediately lunged forward, pushing aside Soarin again as she slid down on her haunches in front of Silver, taking care to be extremely gentle as she reached down and hugged him, resting her head on his chest again… and this time hearing a heartbeat. It was erratic and uneven, but it was there. It made her so happy she felt like she was going to burst.

“What… is it… my birthday… or something?” Silver barely managed to get out, acting like it was no big deal, but really… it was. Only Silver would treat his heart stopping as ‘nodding off.’ Dash wanted to punch him for it… but he had been punched enough already.

“Shut up… just shut up you old bastard…” Dash said as she began to sob, the prospect of crying no longer an issue because she was so happy it all came out. “Don’t die again… okay…?”

“Hmph…” Silver grunted as he kept his eye away from Dash, glancing around as the rest of the ponies all closed in around him with looks of extreme relief on their faces. “How many… times do I… have to say…” he said slowly, taking several hard breaths in between every few words. “I’m not… clocking out… until I… say so…”

“Silver…” Dash just said his name, completely lost in relief as were the rest. Silver though, of course, continued to act like he was fine. Always one to feel concern for him was unnecessary.

“Oh, for craps… sake… Somepony just… get me to Bliss… or something… I need some… ice…” he said with several loud grunts. “And hurry it up… before I feel like… dying instead…”

Soarin smiled as he watched the brief celebration, keeping his eyes on Dash as she hugged her mentor gently. She really had something special with Silver, something that made him a little jealous. Dash had been given a unique Wonderbolt experience, the opportunity to be personally taken under the wing of one of the most hardened, experienced veterans ever to grace the Wonderbolts with his presence.

He wasn’t even going to try and compare his mentoring of Storm to it… it was completely different with Silver and Dash, aside from the fact that the roles were reversed. Soarin considered Storm to be a friend and helped him because of that… seeing Dash’s overwhelming joy when she found out Silver was alive? It was like watching a daughter express relief over the wellbeing of her father. The connection was so deep and strong. Not even Dash could hold back the tears of joy.

Soarin turned and looked at Spitfire as he heard her release a long, strong sigh. Spitfire slowly sat down, reached a hoof up, and pressed it against her forehead, rubbing it softly for a moment before looking up at Silver and… frowning?

Soarin glanced between the scene and Spitfire for a moment, but it didn’t take him very long to put two and two together. She was likely thinking about what to do next.

They had two urgent things they had to address now.

The first being Silver.

Sure, it was great he was alive, but the more realistic angle was that he was alive for now. His injuries were some of the worst Soarin had ever seen, he’d even goes as far as saying Silver’s body was in worse shape than his was after his first battle with Descent. The mere sight of Silver’s painfully bent arms, his right eye was badly hurt, that whole side of his face stained with blood, and then his left wing, completely smashed and crushed… it all made Soarin cringe and shudder. It amazed him to no end that Silver managed to somewhat remain in consciousness despite the state of his body because Soarin was out almost immediately once his battle with Descent was over. He didn’t have that pure, unwavering toughness that Silver had, and it was even more impressive considering Silver was much older and his body was already mostly broken in other ways. It made him wonder, if Silver were to live through this, would he ever be the same? Especially with that wing…

But he would not, by any means, assume Silver’s survival was a given. In fact, Soarin could see it in the eyes of a few other ponies as well. Fire Streak and Misty Fly’s looks of relief were replaced with concern, Blaze and High Winds slowly becoming the same as they all began looking towards Spitfire.

They needed to get Silver help as soon as possible. He was alive now, but the severity of his injuries… and the amount of blood he had lost could easily be the end of him if they didn’t act. Not to mention his heart was probably going crazy on top of it… how he was even still alive for the moment was beyond Soarin.

But there was the other problem… and the problem had multiple layers.

Soarin wasn’t about to believe that Bliss had the means to completely tend to Silver in their emergency medical room. She might be able to keep him alive, but unless they got him to a hospital, he would likely not last. Silver had held his own against an opponent that had more than enough power to tear him to pieces… but he fought as hard as he could to defend everypony… and on top of it, somehow survived. Now it was their turn to save him, but how?

Silver was now on the list of those who were in dire need of help from their planned destination, the Crystal Empire… but them getting there relied on help from the Lunar Guard, which put them in quite a predicament.

Silver was the one tasked with convincing the Lunar Guard captain to believe them and was the only one they were confident would do so… but if they took Silver to the meeting spot, they may not get him back in time to receive whatever help Bliss might be able to administer to at least keep him from dying.

Without Silver, and with Luna still recovering back at the Nimbus, how were they going to convince Captain P.L.? The Lunar Guard was waiting for them and weren’t equipped to survive for an extended period… they had to act, but what were they going to do?

Soon all the attention, including Soarin’s, was focused on Spitfire.

She was looking down, her eyes shifting back and forth as she contemplated the situation.

Soarin examined her as she thought. From the moment she arrived, something was different. The demeanor that surrounded her back in the Nimbus was totally non-existent. She looked calm, back in control, and that gave Soarin confidence. He could see one or two personal discussions in the near future regarding certain things said and poor decisions made… but at the moment, when matters were urgent, Spitfire was focusing on the task at hoof.

She looked up, meeting several pairs of eyes that had turned to her, Wonderbolt and Renegade alike.

“Alright everypony… listen up…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Okay i'd be lying if i didn't find a little bit of guilty pleasure in hearing nothing but "Either Nightshade's going to kill Silver, or Spitfire is going to save him at the last moment." Aside from ONE person i heard bring it up, i heard practically NO ONE think for a second... that Nightshade would MISS :trollestia:

And i'm a dick i know, i effectively brought the impression silver was dead then fine then dead then fine and i know lots are going to call me out for playing with emotions and such :rainbowlaugh:

And how about that? Spitfire was the third copycat all along... and she makes the moves more effective with personal touches and combining... :moustache: Though it seems to take a physical toll on her body.

So now we have a little bit more of an idea why Nightshade freaked out upon seeing Storm's eyes... she practically broke down when she say Descent and Starry... It seems somepony has some regrets she doesn't want to acknowledge... :fluttershysad:

Now i know there are going to be a few people who don't like the fact that Silver survived. I've been hearing things about how it has to happen from many people, but honestly? no it didn't. But what about consequences if no important characters ever die? Character deaths are not needed for consequence. Does that mean no character are going to die?

Obviously thats not something i can reveal, but keep in mind this story is planned out, start to finish, nothing is being made up on the spot. So having Silver survive this encounter was not me suddenly getting teary eyed and being unable to kill him off. I've known the outcome of this moment since the beginning.

But anyway, as usual with me... just keep reading. How i had things turn out here.. as i do with all important events, are meant to set up particular circumstances for future events, nothing is taken for granted, and nothing is a last minute adjustment for personal sentiment.

I really just wanted to get that off my chest, because honestly? i was anxious for a while writing this chapter because i had never had so many polar opposite opinions on what should happen being thrown at me. After a few good nights of sleep i remembered that im following a plan and it's my story, not something to be manipulated by outside opinion... but i still wanted to let everyone know my thoughts on the matter.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 133: Broken

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 133: Broken

“Whoa, whoa, WHOOOOOAAAAAA!!!!!” Surprise yelped as she came in for a landing with the rest of them. Soarin tried to reach over and grab her as he slowed down, but her hooves bounced on the Nimbus deck and she landed face first with a squeak. Soarin’s shift to try and help her put him right in Fleetfoot’s path.

“EEEK!” Fleetfoot yelped as she landed right on Soarin’s back.

“OOF!” Soarin grunted as he was almost forced to the ground, but caught himself, only to have Lightning Streak also land on top of him, sandwiching Fleetfoot and pushing them all to the ground into a pile.

Spitfire landed roughly, but held herself steady as Fire and Misty helped each other touch down without trouble.

“Nice landing, Goldilocks!” Soarin yelled from beneath Fleetfoot and Lightning Streak.

“Bro… you totally moved right in front of me…” Lightning claimed as he rolled off.

“Fleetfoot hit me first,” Soarin pointed out as Fleetfoot shakily pushed herself up and hopped off of Soarin without a word. “What were you doing flying so close behind her?”

“Bro, do you have to ask?” Lightning shrugged as Fire Streak walked up behind him and smacked him upside the head. “Dude…” He glared at Fire while rubbing the back of his head.

“Mmmmrph…” Fleetfoot released an awkward, uncomfortable, and muffled sound, drawing their attention over to her as Squad Foxtrot came in for a landing. Fire pointed at Fleetfoot as she turned away from them all and hastily shuffled towards the lobby doors.

“Brother, there’s a time and place,” he said sternly before pointing at Surprise, who was still lying flat on the deck. “Now go help our wingmate, she appears to be having problems,” he ordered as Surprise peeled her face off the deck floor and released and squeaky groan.

Soarin brushed himself off, watching as Dash, Squall, and Storm all landed and stumbled. Matteo was the only one who crashed, his talons and paws slipped right out from under him as he touched down. Twister landed on Matteo’s back on his hind legs and put his arms in the air to let everypony know he stuck the landing.

“Hmmm…”

Soarin perked up and looked to his left at Spitfire as she hummed. He saw her looking towards the doors. He followed her eyes to see Fleetfoot just in time before she barely opened one of the lobby doors wide enough and shimmied her way through it, leaving them all behind.

“What do you think is up with her?” Soarin asked. Spitfire glanced up at him.

“Dash didn’t tell you?” she asked in surprise. Soarin shook his head.

“She shooed me away.”

“You too, huh?” Spitfire looked back at the doors and huffed. “Well… I hope she’s alright. I need both of you if we’re going to get things moving in the right direction. We’ll have to check on her later.”

“What about Air Mach?” Soarin asked with a chuckle as he looked up and saw P.L. and the thestrals coming in for a landing.

“Well, obviously him too, but more for enthusiasm. I wouldn’t leave precise important duties to him if my life depended on it.” Spitfire said bluntly.

“Brutally honest,” he said with a smirk. “But yeah, I hope Fleet’s alright, I’ll see if I can pry anything out of Dash later, but she already threatened to kick me if I kept asking.”

“We’ll have time for that later,” Spitfire turned around to face the thestrals as P.L. approached them. “Right now, we have an overgrown bat to bring up to speed.”

Several Wonderbolts and Renegades were present in the lobby. A lot of them watching and wondering why Fleetfoot had just suddenly returned, was without her suit, and had quickly sprinted and taken off up towards the broken stairwell before disappearing.

She had whisked right past Descent and Starry, completely ignoring Descent as he tried to question her.

“What was that all about?” Starry asked, lifting an eyebrow as she stared towards the stairs. “Did they just get back or what?” she asked as she turned back to Descent.

“Hmph…” Descent grunted, saying nothing more.

“Descent?”

“What?” he snapped at her without looking, grunted flatly. Starry blinked and edged away slightly, but huffed and turned away.

“Nothing,” she said with anger lingering in her tone, looking away from him and folding her ears back. Descent finally turned his head and glanced at her before releasing a long, frustrated sigh.

“Sorry,” he said awkwardly, but Starry kept facing opposite. Descent watched her for another moment before releasing a quiet snort and turning his head back towards the doors. Starry waited several moments before she slowly glanced over her shoulder. She looked over Descent’s face and saw the same, uncommon look he sported earlier… when they encountered Nightshade. Starry’s ears shifted forwards to be at the side of her head instead of folded back. She turned herself around, hesitating for a moment, but reached towards him while opening her mouth to speak.

But she never got a chance.

“Oh?” Descent perked up. “Looks like they’re back.”

“Come on, in we go,” Spitfire ordered, guiding everypony into the lobby as Soarin held the door. Soarin watched and cringed as the rest of the elites and Squad Foxtrot all hobbled their way into the lobby, all looking like they would collapse at a moment’s notice.

A few of them did. While Spitfire kept her hooves and beckoned in the thestrals, all of Squad Three was on the floor after clearing the way for the Lunar Guard. Rainbow Dash, Storm, Squall, and Matteo all hobbled over and joined them, making sure to be out of the way. Several Wonderbolts started making their way over to them as they panted, gasped, and wheezed on the ground, wincing from their injuries, but mixing in sounds of relief as they finally made it back from quite possibly the closest brush with death they had ever had.

After a good look around, Soarin noticed that the ratio of Renegades to Wonderbolts was large. There were a lot of Renegades present, mostly of the Shadowbolt variant. He was willing to bet it was because of Silver Lining. He had no doubt that Silver’s entrance caused quite a stir, most of them were probably over by the infirmary at the moment, the retired Wonderbolts as well.

There was a very distinct reaction from all present when P.L. stepped through the doors and the thestrals came in behind him. The Wonderbolts mostly just glanced and looked with curiosity, but Descent’s Shadowbolt Renegades had a much different response. Many of them set their hooves and fixed their eyes on the doors, some of them growled… and were met with glares and hissing in response from the thestrals.

P.L. stopped after taking a few paces in, his eyes immediately shifting and landing on Descent, the glow from the eye slots in his helmet intensifying. Descent stood right up and glared back at him. Some of the thestrals began advancing, shifting forwards while growling and snarling. The Renegades did not back down, showing they would not be intimidated.

“Well this is going south fast…” Soarin commented as he let the door close and approached Spitfire.

“P…” Spitfire began as she grumbled and walked up behind P.L., but…

“Hold.”

P.L. flinched, and every pair of notched thestral ears stood straight up as their heads all sharply turned to the east hallway.

Princess Luna walked into the lobby slowly, a very visible limp in her steps as she shuffled forward. She was being supported by both Blazetail and Flashwind with several Wonderbolts and Renegades following in behind them. Luna looked absolutely exhausted, her eyes only half open, her mouth stuck slightly ajar, and her ethereal mane barely waved at its normal, majestic pace. The two former Wonderbolt captains barely got her a few steps into the lobby before the thestrals reacted.

“MY LIEGE!” P.L. yelled out, completely forgetting Descent and the Renegades as he and the rest of the thestrals turned towards Luna and broke into a gallop. P.L. inched ahead of the pack easily with his longer legs and strides, slowing down as he closed in. He reached up and pulled his helmet off, visibly squinting and wincing as the lights in the lobby shone brightly on him, but he ignored the bright light, lowering himself down, and bowing his head to Luna a yard away from her. All the Wonderbolts and Renegades watched with awe as the rest of the thestrals all did the same, all of them removing their helmets and bowing in the same fashion as their captain. For a force of ponies known for being ferocious and untamed, the sight of them all bending to the mere presence of Luna was quite something.

“Whoa…” Dash’s voice caught Soarin’s ears as she hobbled up beside him and leaned into him for support. Soarin quickly opened a wing and placed it over her to help her stand before focusing back on the sight before him. He was surprised Luna was up, she was barely functioning when they left. She must’ve sensed the thestrals were nearby… or something like that. He wasn’t going to rule out anything in terms of divine alicorn magic. But based on how Blazetail and Flashwind were holding her up, he had to assume that she was still not doing so well.

Regardless, Luna quickly nodded to both of the former captains. The two of them hesitated, but then released her and let her stand on her own. Her legs wobbled, but she braced them as she stood before her guards and fixed her eyes on P.L.

“Rise.”

On her word, they all stood and looked up to her. Luna’s size as a divine alicorn was a given, but it was impressive to see just how close P.L. was to the same size as her. He was just about an inch shorter. It was nothing new to the Wonderbolts, Calm, and Bomber being abnormally large, but neither of them had the same intimidating nature that P.L. carried.

Luna tipped her head down very slightly to lock her eyes with P.L. before flashing him a small smile.

“Thank you for coming, Captain. We worried that you would not place your trust in these ponies,” she spoke to him, her legs wobbling again, but still holding. P.L. gave her a very subtle nod, his head still slightly tipped down in a gesture of obedience and respect.

“Until this moment, they did not have my trust… only my curiosity,” he explained as he glanced over his shoulder towards Rainbow Dash. “But…” he looked back into Luna’s eyes for a moment before bowing his head. “But seeing you here, my lady, it puts my heart at ease,” He lowered himself down again. Luna tipped forward slightly and reached a hoof out, but hesitated and pulled it back, allowing P.L. to bow again. “We are at your disposal… and await your command.”

“Captain… please, rise and look at us,” Luna requested softly, causing P.L. to stand right back up obediently.

Soarin was beyond intrigued. For all the talk of the bat guards being different, when faced by their leader, they acted just like the Royal Guards. If they were trained to have such specific control over themselves, then that was quite a unique and impressive form of order Luna had created within their ranks.

“Captain, heed us well,” Luna began as she continued to stand firmly. “We face an enemy unlike anything we’ve ever encountered, even in our long existence. The Wonderbolts and Renegades have fought valiantly, but up against the enhanced powers of our foes, they have not been able to gain a solid upper hoof. It is our hope, captain and the warriors that you lead, that you can be the factor that pushes us through.” She reached down and placed a hoof on his shoulder. He remained still. “Fly with us and unleash the fury of your thestrals upon the enemy. It’s time for the guardians of the night to emerge from the shadows, help us tip the scales, and strike back…” P.L. looked up towards her. “Can we count on you to work closely with Spitfire and Descent to ensure victory is achieved?”

There was a clear change in P.L.’s expression the moment that Luna uttered the name ‘Descent.’ He looked over his other shoulder briefly at Descent standing off to the side. He narrowed his eyes briefly, but did not hesitate to comply.

“As you command…” he said dutifully as he turned around and moved towards Spitfire, the rest of the thestrals standing still and facing Luna as the two captains met halfway. Spitfire looked towards Descent, whistling and making a swift head motion indicating that he should come over. Descent sat still for a moment before picking himself up and gliding out over the top of all the thestrals. They did not look thrilled, a few of them growling as Descent flew over them, but they remained at attention. Descent landed and trotted up to Spitfire and P.L. as they came together and stood a yard apart, but P.L. did not take his eyes off of Spitfire as if completely ignoring Descent as he approached. Spitfire stopped first, flashing P.L. a smirk as he finished moving and held himself a yard from her. Descent sat right beside them, glancing between the two.

“By the word of my liege…” P.L. began as he bowed his head down slightly. “I hereby offer you the full support of the Lunar Guard.” He picked up his head and reached a hoof up to Spitfire. “By ensuring the safety of Princess Luna, you have earned our trust. We shall follow your commands and directions.”

Spitfire looked at P.L.’s hoof as he held it out to her, and her smile grew into one that looked a tad forced as she reached her hoof out too.

“Thank you,” she said with a hint of annoyance in her voice, likely from how much of a hassle it was to deal with the thestrals already, but hopefully with Luna in their sights, they would cut the crap and comply.

The two locked hooves and shook, sealing the much needed and much awaited alliance that they had all hoped would be their ticket to finally deal some real pain to the Shadowbolts.

But that was just one alliance…

P.L. glanced at Descent as he released Spitfire’s hoof, his eyes narrowing into a glare. Descent returned the glare right back at him, past animosity flaring up between them. Spitfire looked back and forth as the two leaders clashed in a battle of wills, huffing quietly to herself as she recalled what she heard about the Luna Guard never trusting the Renegades. She waited patiently as the two glared, hoping that one of them, preferably both of them, would put their differences behind them and agree to work together.

But she didn’t hold her breath, and it quickly ended exactly as she expected it to. P.L. grunted and turned to walk away.

Spitfire cleared her throat loudly the moment he turned, anticipating the move and ready to confront both of them.

“P…” Spitfire spoke up, causing P.L. to immediately stop in place. She walked up beside him and faced him directly.

“Yes?” P.L. asked without looking at her, keeping his eyes locked forwards towards Luna. Spitfire furrowed her brow.

“Look at me,” she ordered. P.L. sighed and glanced down at her. She pointed at Descent who was still glaring at P.L. “You’re going to be working with Descent as well.”

“And…?” P.L snorted while shifting his eyes down to her, but keeping his nose held up, a gesture that Spitfire did not take kindly. She spread her wings and hovered up to get eye level with him while giving him a harsh glare.

“And I’d appreciate it if you’d swallow your pride and set aside your animosity,” she asked sharply while glancing at Descent and sharpening her glare towards him. “That goes for BOTH of you.”

P.L. scoffed, drawing Spitfire’s attention back to him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said with blatant sarcasm.

“Forget it, Spitfire,” Descent chimed in with a grunt while turning away. I don’t need or want this asshole’s trust.”

“Shut up, Descent,” Spitfire shot him down immediately. Descent flinched and angrily turned to growl at Spitfire, but she wasn’t even looking at him, she was still focused on P.L. “P… Luna told you to follow my orders, right?” she lifted an eyebrow while tipping her head towards Descent. “Then my first order… is to unclench your armored ass-cheeks and shake hooves with Descent,” she said harshly with a slight snarl. “You two are ALLIES. Plain and simple,” she made clear to them as she touched back down to the ground and backed up so she was equally between the two of them. “So deal with it!”

P.L. and Descent both stared at Spitfire for several moments before finally pulling their eyes away and glaring at each other again. Spitfire took one step back, allowing the two to take a step towards each other. They kept up their harsh glares, nearly face to face with P.L. standing only an inch higher than Descent. P.L.’s nose began to subtly twitch, shifting between scrunching up his face and holding himself in check. He could not, however, conceal a quiet growl that escaped his throat. Descent’s ears perked up upon hearing it and he immediately scowled, slightly baring his teeth as the two began holding steady and exchanging audible noises of disapproval as if waiting for the other to cave and reach out first.

Spitfire blinked and looked between the two of them before sighing heavily through her nose and rolling her eyes.

“For crying out loud…” Spitfire stomped forward, reached out, and grabbed Descent’s arm. “Could you two STOP bleeding testosterone…” she reached out her other hoof and grabbed P.L.’s arm. “And act like adults?!” Both of the stallions flinched in surprise as Spitfire yanked their arms towards each other and forced them to lock their hooves together. “Now SHAKE on it!” she yelled at the top of their lungs at them.

The two of them looked down at her, then at each other before shooting each other flat looks… and giving their hooves one, firm, shake.

“There, that wasn’t too hard now was it?” Spitfire said in a somewhat condescending tone as the two immediately let go of each other and grunted in frustration.

“I DON’T trust you,” P.L. hissed towards Descent.

“I could care less,” Descent shot right back.

Spitfire blinked before reaching up and slowly dragging her hoof down the center of her forehead and over her face with a long, held out sigh.

While the sight was slightly amusing, everypony watching, Wonderbolt, Renegade, and thestral alike, were all in awe of how Spitfire had managed the situation. The two stallions were not embracing or patting each other on the back, but she had put herself right in between the two and forced them to at least acknowledge each other. They both towered over her and were both extremely imposing figures, but she asserted herself regardless.

Soarin glanced around as the scene played out, knowing that the rest of the Wonderbolts around had yet to come into contact with the newly refocused Spitfire. The reaction was instant and clear. All eyes were wide, all ears were up, they wore looks of interest, looks that showed Spitfire was leaving an impression. Perhaps this was part of Spitfire’s plan, immediately showing who was top dog. P.L. was partly following orders given by Luna, but Descent’s compliance was what really impressed Soarin. Sure, she had to force them together, but they did shake hooves as she asked, as small of an effort as it was. Soarin had a feeling this was only the tip of the iceberg… Spitfire was looking more and more like her old self again… and it was about time.

Soarin watched with anticipation as he waited for Spitfire to make her next move, he inadvertently pushed his wing a little harder against Dash, still leaning up against him. She yelped quietly as her face got pressed into his shoulder.

“Soarin… ow… too tight…” she gasped quietly, but Soarin was so distracted he didn’t notice. He watched as Spitfire finished taking a few deep breaths before she stepped up to confront the two stallions again, but then…

“AH!”

Everypony perked up and turned their attention away from the standoff as Luna suddenly cried out and collapsed, her legs buckling beneath her as she fell to the ground. Gasps rang out as the royal sister fell to the ground. The Renegades close behind her were quick to start moving towards her, but they halted and hesitated as a few flashes of magic sputtered from Luna’s horn, shooting sparks in multiple directions that fizzled out quickly after erupting. Descent and Spitfire both flinched in surprise as P.L. immediately ripped himself away from them.

“MY LADY!” he called out, the Renegades behind Luna coming to an abrupt, full stop. Why? Because P.L. and nearly every single thestral was rushing towards her, a few of them hissing at the Renegades as if protecting Luna from them and warning them to keep away. But apparently, the thestrals were not all on the same page as their captain because he galloped towards her regardless of who or what was in his way, literally mowing down or knocking aside several of his own soldiers as he forced his way to Luna’s side. The thestrals closer to Luna quickly caught on that their captain was on a warpath and quickly shifted aside to let the large stallion through to her. He skidded to a halt as he reached her, immediately crouching down in front of her as she panted and lay flat on her stomach, sweat running down her face as her horn continued to flicker. “My lady… you are not well…” he said with great concern in his voice, now seeing for the first time that Spitfire’s assertion of Luna’s weakened state was not a fabrication.

Luna groaned, picking her head up as P.L. lowered himself as much as he could. She forced her eyes open and looked up into his as they darted about, examining her state. She quickly tried to push herself up.

“We… are fine… Captain…” she tried to convince him, but he had already seen more than enough. He shook his head as he stood up and moved to her side, turning around so that he was directly beside her.

“My lady, do not hide what ails you…” he pleaded as he lowered herself again and tilted himself slightly, opening his left wing and gently shimmying it beneath her body. “Let me help you.” He offered. His soft words sounding strange mixed with his incredibly deep, intimidating voice.

The surrounding thestrals took his offer as their cue it was safe to approach. Several more of them stepped forwards, mare and stallion alike. They surrounded Luna and placed either a hoof on her side or a wing beneath on the other to help P.L. lift her slowly.

The Wonderbolts and Renegades all observed as the thestrals flocked to Luna’s aid, it was almost like watching a large group of colts and fillies running to the aide of their mother who had fallen. Throughout the whole scenario from Luna’s entrance to now, they were all seeing, first-hoof, a side of the thestrals they had never seen or heard about. The stories and recounts were all the same. Vicious, violent, unhinged, erratic, wild, untamed… but that seemed to only apply to dealing with anypony aside from their leader. When faced by Luna, they almost appeared more disciplined and loyal than the Royal Guard, which was not an easy feat. Reverent would be the better word to describe them as Luna’s presence had an incredibly profound effect on them. The radical contrast between their separate behavioral patterns was staggering. P.L. just got done snarling and glaring in the faces of Spitfire and Descent, but the moment Luna cried out in pain, his demeanor immediately switched to one of deep concern and care.

Many of them had come to wonder how Luna had such firm control over a force of ponies known for being fierce and barbaric… now they knew. To them, Luna seemed more important than anything, perhaps even their own lives.

Carefully working together, P.L. and the thestrals got Luna to her hooves, but she immediately stumbled. P.L. reached his arm out and grabbed hers, holding her up and steady as he tilted his head up to examine her pained face. Luna struggled to open her eyes again, her eyelids holding, but squinted as she glanced at P.L. She took note of the great concern he was expressing, but then hung her head in shame.

“We… are still woozy from our efforts…” Luna began as she avoided eye contact with any of them, which was difficult considering she was surrounded by thestrals looking up to her. “The spells we used both to contact you and protect everypony on the way, they are not spells we have fully mastered. The inability to control our divine powers to the perfected extent our sister can… it is shameful. It pains us that you must see us in such a state,” she spoke with a faint choked up tone. She slammed her eyes shut, the mixture of her face and voice suggesting she was trying not to cry.

P.L. suddenly shifted, pressing his armored side closer to her and moving his arm so that she could fully lean on him for support.

“My lady, fear not. There is no shame in your noble acts. You’ve taken great risks at your own expense for the sake of others. That brings us honor as your soldiers,” he comforted her as he shifted his hoof to hook his arm with hers. “Please, my lady. Allow me to lend you my strength.”

Luna opened her eyes again, her panting growing lighter as her horn calmed down and her head stopped throbbing. She looked down at her hoof and how P.L. was supporting her before looking back up at him, her head tilted slightly down to look him directly in the eye to read his expression.

“T-thank you… Captain,” she said with a tired sigh as she put her weight against him. While shorter, it put his body at the perfect height for him to fully support her. “We require rest… Will…” she paused and looked away while smiling lightly. It almost looked like she was trying to hide the smile from him. “Will you please help us back to the infirmary?” she asked while making a subtle head motion back towards the east hallway.”

“Of course, my lady,” P.L. immediately replied as he braced his body and arm to fully support Luna. “Slow steps…” he coached as they began to move her, the entire thestral force staying with them, every pair of yellow eyes locked on her with concern as P.L. began moving Luna.

As Soarin watched them leave, he tipped his head and blinked. As they slowly moved out of sight, Soarin thought he saw something…

Luna’s face… her smile was growing wider, and she was still looking away from P.L. as he kept his eyes down at their hooves. Soarin was too far away to see for sure, but it looked like there was a faint hint of red spread over Luna’s nose and cheeks. It was hard to miss something like that upon her dark fur, but P.L. had moved her out of his view before he could do a double take.

“Feh…” Descent grunted, drawing Soarin’s eyes to him as Spitfire shot him a flat look. “What a bunch of kiss asses-OW!” He suddenly picked up his right arm as Spitfire rapped her hoof against his wrist joint.

“Let’s keep that to a minimum, okay?” Spitfire said sternly as she poked him in the chest, more or less acknowledging that there was no way he and P.L. were going to completely get along. Descent simply grunted in response… or at least Soarin thought he did, it sounded a little less… masculine?

Then he heard the grunt again. It was actually coming from his side. He blinked and looked down to see he had Dash completely smushed against his side with his wing. Her face was uncomfortably pressed to his shoulder and her nose digging into his suit.

“Oh, whoops,” Soarin quickly lifted his wing.

“OOF!” Dash exhaled as she dropped to the ground.

“Er… sorry,” Soarin chuckled awkwardly as he reached down to help her up off the ground. Soarin looked up briefly to see Spitfire moving to speak to the rest of the Wonderbolts and then likely follow Luna to the infirmary, the elites of squad three and most of Foxtrot already on their way there. Storm was the only one who stayed back for a moment, staring towards his father as he trudged off.

“What was that for?” Dash asked as she pouted at him. Soarin lifted an eyebrow and shook his head.

“Are you actually complaining about being pressed to my side?” he asked with a snicker.

“Ye—no… I mean…” Dash folded her ears back and puffed her cheeks out. “I… gah… forget it,” she sighed as she looked towards the east hall. Soarin instantly perked up as he noticed where she was staring. A lot of stuff just happened, but he knew exactly where Dash needed to go and wanted to be.

“Come on,” he tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “Let’s go to the infirmary.”

Dash blinked and her ears stood straight up.

“Y-yes…” she said with a sudden anxious tone as she bit her lip. “Quickly, come on,” she started walking at a quickened pace just sort of a trot. Soarin picked up the pace to keep up with her, because he knew she was eager to hear about the condition of… a certain pony that was very important to her.

It was much more of an ordeal to simply get into the infirmary than Soarin and Rainbow Dash expected. They found themselves wading through a sea of thestrals who were all packed around the door. Squad three and Squad Foxtrot were slightly ahead of them, but they too were struggling to find their way through the crowd. Hundreds of ponies all stuck right in the hallway, and any of them that they touched on the way through didn’t take too kindly to it, throwing a hiss or growl.

Eventually P.L.’s voice came from inside the door. Neither Soarin nor Dash could hear it, but it must have been an at ease order or a disperse order of some sort because the thestrals began moving away, several of them looking disappointed or frustrated. Based on their strange behavioral shift around Luna, the reaction was likely because every single one of them wanted to be by her side. But there were hundreds of them, that wasn’t going to work. The Wonderbolts kept making their way forward as the thestrals slowly cleared out of their way, the path eventually becoming clear.

Soarin and Dash found themselves right beside Spitfire as they got free and approached the door, the rest already making it through. Soarin looked over his shoulder as the thestrals just sort of… dispersed and began loitering, giving sharp looks at any Wonderbolt or Renegade who passed them.

“Having them around is going to be weird,” Soarin thought out loud. Dash didn’t react, but Spitfire nodded in agreement.

“They may not be the most pleasant bunkmates, but I’ll gladly deal with it for the battle advantages they’ll give us,” Spitfire said as she tilted her head down and scrunched her mouth. “Now I just hope our best flyers won’t be down for too long…” she said quietly as they reached the door. Spitfire was in a slight bind, and Soarin could read her expression. Her confidence in herself had returned, but it was a moment too late. Having the thestrals on their side was going to be a major advantage, but it was an advantage that had to make up for a very harsh disadvantage. The top tier elites were likely not going to be prepared for battle in a day or two, the amount of time they hoped it would take Rivet and his team to repair the nimbus to a functional state. The rest of the elites were ready to go, but the top tiers were the top tiers for a reason. Just one of them could be the difference in a conflict. It was going to be a tough hurdle to overcome, but they couldn’t afford to wait it out.

Soarin refocused as they made it through the door and into the infirmary. Spitfire didn’t seem to dwell on that certain tidbit of the situation for very long, instead focusing on checking the status of each elite. Soarin could see the elites and Foxtrot immediately slumping onto the medical tables with Bliss’s medical team springing into action quickly… or… at least the stallions.

The mares? They were all very distracted.

P.L. was helping Luna over to the double bed she had rested on before making the trek out into the lobby. He had a small hooffull of seven thestrals following him, whom he probably picked to watch over Luna with him. But every mare in the room he passed had their eyes stuck on him, opened as wide as possible. Some of them had their jaws hanging agape. Spitfire sighed and rubbed a hoof on her forehead as the female members of Bliss’ staff failed to… focus. Soarin just chuckled lightly to himself as he, Spitfire, and Dash walked in and stopped behind Bliss’ two top aides, Witching Hour and Mahogany.

“Whoooooaaaaaa…” Mahogany blinked repeatedly as she stared towards P.L. watching him gently lay Luna down on the bed.

“G…Guh…” Witching’s jaw hung agape as she rose up onto the tips of her hooves unconsciously, her horn’s magic blinking twice when she couldn’t rise up any higher.

Soarin was trying his best not to laugh. Spitfire walked up right behind the two mares and cleared her throat loudly.

“Ladies,” she said sternly. Both of them flinched and immediately turned around, blushing while trying to fix their composure. “Focus please, get our ponies any medical attention they need,” she ordered while giving a single nod.

“Y-yes ma’am!” both of them replied quickly before scampering off, the rest of the mares of Bliss’ team catching on and refocusing, or at least trying to as the initial surprise of P.L. slowly faded. But they kept stealing glances.

Spitfire exhaled upwards, causing her mane to bounce about a little bit before she broke away from Soarin and Dash to evaluate the injured.

Soarin glanced down at Dash, realizing how silent she had been. He knew who she wanted to see. She had pulled her mask off and was looking all around them without moving from Soarin’s side. Soarin looked up as well, hoping to maybe use his height to help her find who she was looking for. He had a feeling Silver wasn’t being kept out with the rest of them, but it didn’t help to look first. It also helped him get a look at how everypony else was doing.

Squad Three was already being tended to. Fire had just finished helping Misty Fly up onto one of the tables. He turned to hop onto the table beside her, but before he could take a step, she reached for his shoulder and turned him back around, pulling him in and planting a quick kiss on his cheek. He smiled and gave her a light nuzzle before moving onto his table.

Lightning was lying on a table near them, but he was waving off any medical staff that came up to him and was directing them to help Surprise first, who had slumped down on the table next to him and nearly passed out from exhaustion.

Closer to Soarin and Dash, Squad Foxtrot had set up camp. Storm had hopped up and was waiting for attention as Matteo struggled to push two beds together for himself. Squall was visible for only a moment before Matteo pulled himself up and laid himself down. Soon after he did, some commotion rang out behind him. It caught his attention for a moment, but he ignored it. Soarin assumed Twister had pulled something on Squall, several members of the medical staff rushing over to stop whatever was happening.

Further back, closer to Luna, Soarin perked up when he saw Air Mach being restrained by several of Bliss’ staff. He was yelling something about being one hundred percent healed, but was covered in bandages, some with stains of blood on them. He was clearly not better because the unicorns were able to push back down to his table without even using their magic.

Blaze and High Winds were actually nowhere to be seen, Soarin scanned the room again, trying to find them, but he had no such luck. Perhaps they had already been helped and were sent on their way. They were, after all, not beat up quite to the extent Air Mach was and had returned sooner with him.

Fleetfoot was also nowhere to be found. Had she avoided coming to get medical attention? Spitfire was looking around near them as well, and she stopped to ask one of the unicorns about her, but the stallion only shook his head in response. Spitfire looked upset that Fleetfoot was apparently hiding, but she let it go, moving towards Luna and P.L. instead.

“Do you need any help?” Mahogany’s voice caught Soarin’s attention as she trotted up to him with several medical supplies hovering in her magic around her.

“Oh, no I’m perfectly fine,” he said while immediately looking down at Dash, who was still looking around. “Dash, do you need any help?”

“Huh?” Dash’s ears twitched as she looked up at Soarin first before seeing Mahogany. “Oh, um…” Dash looked herself over. There was still a bit of dried blood on her lip and the top of her chest burned a little from the… teeth marks left by Nightshade. That was really all that was visible. Her body felt like a complete wreck and there was likely several nasty bruises being hidden by her suit. However, she refused to rest in any way shape or form until she knew where Silver was and if he was okay… but for the time being, she could at least get some ice for her incredibly tender wing joint. “Just some ice for my wing please.”

“Are you sure?” Mahogany asked as her eyes went directly to the clear, full mouth bite mark near the top of her chest and shoulder. Dash quickly moved her left wing forward and shifted it down to somewhat cover the bite mark.

“I’ll get more treatment later, I need to do something first,” Dash clarified. Mahogany nodded, despite not looking convinced, and did as she was asked.

Dash sighed and leaned harder into Soarin’s side as Mahogany went off to gather the ice. Soarin opened his mouth to ask about Silver, but he missed the mark and decided to wait until she got back. For the time being, he draped his wing over Dash to comfort her as she silently sought just that with her physical gesture.

Soarin’s attention was drawn to P.L. as they waited. They were pretty far away, but it was hard not to see a pure white thestral donning full armor and a divine alicorn princess. P.L. was giving the business to every member of Bliss’ staff as they passed or tried to tend to her, demanding to know the specifics of everything they were doing and exactly how it would help Luna. At one point Luna flinched and her horn sputtered, prompting an immediate reaction from P.L. as he turned and put his hooves up on the bed, touching her shoulder as she shuddered and looking over her with concern. He rubbed it softly as Luna panted and her magic calmed down.

It was so interesting to watch how… gentle he was with her. While Soarin concluded it would be weird to have the thestrals around, watching the way they acted around Luna was an interesting experience. P.L. in particular showcased a very strong devotion to Luna. His duty as her knight and protector was clearly something he cherished as if it was the pure meaning of his life. He was a knight from top to bottom, his life completely dedicated to his lady… It was interesting, considering any trace of chivalry or knightly behavior vanished the moment he was detached from her side.

Soarin looked down and blinked as he realized he missed the opportunity AGAIN. Mahogany had just finished wrapping a bag of ice to Dash’s wing and had moved on. Luckily, Witching Hour was right nearby, unconsciously unrolling an entire roll of bandages while staring at P.L.

“Witching,” Soarin said her name. Witching squeaked and the entire roll of bandages launched from her magic grip, draping a good portion of it right over Soarin’s face and body. “Ah! Sorry! Sorry!” she immediately reactivated her magic and unraveled it from around the rather flatly amused Soarin. “Yes?”

Soarin looked down at Dash briefly before asking the question of the moment.

“Where is Silver Lining?”

Dash’s ears stood right up as her eyes shot to Witching and locked in place.

“Oh, he’s in the emergency care room.” She pointed past them towards the back room, where Soarin had suspected he would be. “Bliss is with him.”

Soarin’s eyes widened slightly at the mention of Bliss. He was so focused on what was going on around them he hadn’t even noticed that Bliss wasn’t even there.

“Thanks,” he nodded as Witching went back about her business… mostly… while distracted.

As she left, Dash sighed while looking up at Soarin’s face.

“Was I thinking that loudly?” she asked. Soarin shook his head.

“Wasn’t that hard to put together, but I want to see him too…” his voice trailed off as his ears flopped down to the sides of his head and he frowned. Dash could see it written all over his face. He was still feeling guilty about being trapped and unable to fight beside Silver.

“Soarin…” She reached her head forwards and pressed her cheek into his shoulder, rubbing it against it sympathetically. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

“Yes I could have,” Soarin put adamantly, making it clear he wasn’t going to let it go for a while. Dash didn’t say anything else. She just exhaled and looked over her shoulder at the back door leading to the emergency care room. “Come on,” Soarin suddenly spoke up again, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “Let’s go see him.”

Bliss walked up to the door as the soft knocking rapped against it. She exhaled, wiping sweat from her brow using her magic and a clean cloth as she reached for the door and slowly opened it.

Her reaction was brief, her ears twitching once and her eyes growing a little wider for only a second before she relaxed.

It was only a matter of time before Dash showed up.

Soarin and Rainbow Dash were standing in the doorway, both of them wearing expressions of quiet concern. Dash in particular looked incredibly worried. Her ears were flopped to the side of her head, her posture was very weak, leaning most of her weight into Soarin, and Soarin had a wing draped over her back.

“Can we…?” Soarin spoke up, but trailed off. Bliss didn’t wait for him to finish. She immediately stepped aside and nodded.

“Come right in,” she said quietly.

Soarin felt an extra pressure against his arm as Bliss stepped aside. He glanced down to see Dash’s hoof giving his arm a tight squeeze. There was a very light vibration coming from her as well as she bit her quivering lower lip. Soarin pressed his wing in closer, giving her a light squeeze. He twitched slightly as he felt the cold touch of the ice bag on her wing touch against his side. He dealt with it and reached up a hoof, gently rubbing it on the back of her neck and running it softly through the bottom of her mane. She slowly looked up at him as her grip on his arm tightened.

Soarin said nothing. He only gave her a nod, a silent gesture to let her know that he was going to be with her the whole time. She looked back forwards, the medical bed still out of view from the doorway. She swallowed and let go of Soarin’s arm, putting her hoof back on the floor before moving forwards. Soarin moved with her, keeping his wing firmly placed over her for comfort the whole way.

Then the bed came into view.

Soarin instinctively tightened his wing around Dash as he heard her inhale sharply. He gritted his teeth and winced. Both of them had already seen the horrible state Silver was in… but it didn’t mean it wasn’t a jarring sight. This time, however, it seemed even worse because of the atmosphere and the situation.

They slowly approached the bed… while looking upon the broken image of pony known for being unbreakable.

Silver Lining was lying on his back, a white sheet pulled up to his chest. There was barely a patch of his grey fur visible beneath the bandages that dressed his many wounds. The bandages looked like they had been doubled up and replaced often, several completely red strands discarded in a nearly overflowing waste bin beside the bed. The bits of Silver’s fur that were visible had a dark stained look of dried blood or intense bruising that showed right through his color.

The slice in his right earlobe had already been stitched up by Bliss, but it looked like a rushed, patchwork job due to lack of supplies or time to focus on it. There were several bandages wrapped around his forehead, but not completely over his face. His mouth, nose, and left eye were free of cover, save for a wad of torn cloth pressed into the space where his tooth had been knocked out. His right eye was completely covered with several thick bandages, balled up in the center to handle how much it was bleeding, the streak of dried blood still stuck to his fur beneath it.

One of his arms was tucked beneath the sheet, but the other was laying out over it. It was covered in bandages placed in several places to stop the bleeding, but it looked awkwardly bent and visibly broken, as they got closer, both Soarin and Dash could see a splint was in place to keep the arm straight. The worst sight of all, however, was his left wing. It was not at his side like the right, it was unfolded and visible, lying from out beneath the sheet and hanging off the bed and propped up on a small table that had been pushed up beside the bed. It barely resembled the shape of a pegasus wing, bent, mangled, broken, and missing at least half of its feathers.

Silver was surrounded by and hooked up to several pieces of medical equipment. It looked like Bliss had rolled out anything and everything she could find to help him. His heartbeat was being monitored, the blip on the machine was inconsistent, but not out of control. He had a blood bag hooked up to an I.V. hanging above him, flowing through a tube and into the arm beneath the sheet. The last touch to complete the horrible image was a portable respirator helping him breath, the tubes resting on his nose and fastened into his nostrils.

Dash shook more as they drew closer, prompting Soarin to rub his wing on her back as they walked. He glanced to his left as they walked in, surprised to see Blaze and High Winds sitting on the floor and up against the wall. They had both been tended to, but Blaze was out cold, High Winds supporting her and offering her shoulder for Blaze to rest her head on. Soarin glanced between Silver and Blaze, taking note of the blood bag and the fact that Blaze had an extra cloth tied around her arm that looked out of place compared to the rest of her tended injuries. High Winds didn’t say a word as Soarin and Dash came into view, she simply glanced up for a moment before putting all of her attention back on Blaze and keeping her propped up. Of course… the two mares, once tended to, went right to the side of their squad captain. With Wave Chill already down, this had to be absolutely devastating to the two mares.

Soarin refocused on Silver as they approached the bed and walked around to the other side. It would have been preferred to be on the side where his face was not covered, but the table holding his wing prevented them from getting near the head of the bed, forcing them to take the other side to get close.

Neither of them said a word as they stood beside the bed and looked down upon Silver. Dash couldn’t pull her eyes away, her constant shivering continuing as she held herself to Soarin’s side. Soarin glanced up at the heart monitor, watching as it continued to blip steadily, yet a little unevenly. He looked back as Bliss approached, setting the cloth in her magic down on the table before reaching them.

“How is he doing?” Soarin asked. As much as he wanted to know, his mindset was to get the rundown as quickly as possible for Dash. Bliss sighed as she walked up and stood beside them.

“He’s stable for now… at least as stable as I can manage. I hate to put it this way, but I don’t know how he’s still alive. I don’t have the means to find out everything that’s wrong, but based on the extreme physical trauma, the signs of critical internal injuries, the blood loss, the slightly irregular heartbeat… he should be dead, but he’s hanging on.”

Soarin flinched as Dash grabbed and squeezed his arm as tightly as she could. Soarin grunted and grimaced before looking towards Bliss and furrowed his brow. She shook her head as she caught his expression.

“I’m a professional, Soarin. I don’t mince words or sugarcoat. I’m astonished that he’s still alive based on the extent of his injuries, and I don’t even know them all without the proper equipment. This isn’t a hospital,” she looked back at Silver and exhaled. “Sorry, I nearly flipped out when Calm brought him in and I haven’t left this room for hours.”

“It’s alright,” Soarin reassured her as he lightened his expression. “I didn’t mean to step on any hooves. Any other specifics?” Soarin asked, wanting to get the full story.

“He has several broken bones, his right arm is practically in pieces, but I was at least able to put it in a splint. His ribs are likely in shambles… his breathing is weak, so there must be some pressure on his lungs. I’m glad I still had that respirator lying around. I never thought I’d have to use it. His right eye… I have no doubt he’s lost it for good, it was the only thing still bleeding fresh when he was brought in. There was absolutely nothing I could do for his wing. I barely felt anything that felt like bones or joints in it when I checked it. What to do about it will be up to whoever we get him to… if we even get to the Crystal Empire that is.” She paused and glanced at the heart monitor and the uneven pattern of blips. “There’s also nothing I can do about his blood pressure… I get a different reading every time I check it. I’ve no doubt he may have internal injuries that are hindering the blood flow a little, the flow to his wing is probably disrupted too. His heart hasn’t been helping either. It’s been calm, but constantly inconsistent. I can’t give him his medication in this state, so hopefully what I’ve done will be enough to at least keep him alive.” She released a long, exasperated sigh. “I don’t have a fraction of the proper supplies or equipment to handle this, I feel like I’m working with a magic ward and a hoof tied behind my back… Not even my pain soothing magic will do him any good at this point.”

Soarin didn’t say anything as she finished, and Dash still remained silent. Soarin turned his head back to Silver, his eyes making their way to the tube administering the blood from the bag hanging over the bed.

“How long has he been out?” Soarin asked.

“He was out when they brought him in so I don’t know,” Bliss explained again as she turned away and walked towards the counter opposite of the foot of the bed. Her magic came to life, picking up a clipboard and flipping several of the pages as she looked them over. “It was likely loss of consciousness due to blood loss. It goes without saying that he was in danger of bleeding out. Thankfully, the moment I called out for blood donations the Wonderbolts were almost fighting each other to line up and provide for Silver.”

“Ah!” Dash suddenly perked up. “He needs blood?!” she ripped free of Soarin’s wing, trotted up to Bliss and placed both of her hooved on Bliss’ shoulders. “Please! Let me help him! I’ll donate!” she offered frantically, but Bliss reached a hoof up and gently tapped it against Dash’s.

“Don’t worry about it, honey. We had it all taken care of within an hour of his return. Five Wonderbolts were chosen and have given enough to last us at least three days.” She leaned over and looked over Dash’s shoulder. “One of them is sitting right over there.”

Dash blinked and looked behind her, her eyes landing on Blaze as she continued to rest on High Wind’s shoulder, completely out. Dash’s ears flopped down and her bottom lip quivered as she turned back around, released Bliss’ shoulders and sighed while letting her head tip down.

“I wish… I could have…” Dash’s voice squeaked as she tried to speak. Bliss suddenly reached up and pulled Dash into a hug, startling her for a moment, but Dash let her chin rest on Bliss’ shoulder.

“You may not have been able to, Dash. I ended up turning several of them away. It’s about the right blood type. We only had seven other Wonderbolts on record with blood compatible,” she explained as Dash slowly slid her chin off of Bliss’ shoulder and turned back around to look at Silver. Soarin was still standing at the side of the bed, his eyes locked on Silver with an expression of frustration, likely at himself. Dash too, focused on Silver as she walked back to Soarin’s side. But before she pressed into him again, she instead stepped up to the edge of the bed and placed a hoof on the mattress. She leaned forward, but hesitated.

“Bliss…” Dash spoke as she looked over to her. Bliss set down her clipboard and looked towards Dash. “C-can I…?” she motioned her hoof towards Silver. It didn’t take long for Bliss to catch on.

“Go ahead,” she nodded. “He’s probably going to be out for a while. I doubt anything will wake him up.”

Dash didn’t reply. Her ears drooped as she looked down at Silver, her frown growing larger as the hoof she had on the mattress slowly slid towards him. She leaned further, reaching all the way over to his shoulder and touching it.

Silver did not move, but his body was at least warm. Dash suddenly sniffled, prompting Soarin to step up and touch a hoof to her back. Dash swallowed and sniffled again before lowering herself down, resting her chin on the mattress right beside Silver’s pillow as she kept her hoof extended. Tears were threatening to flow, but she held it in. She didn’t want her own feelings to interrupt this. Seeing Silver alive… even if it was just barely, took precedent over her emotions. But it was hard, looking at Silver like this was hard… but she had to. She had to see her mentor. She had to see his sacrifice. She had to come to terms with the fact… that live or die, Silver wasn’t going to be coming to her aid anymore when she found herself in a bind. She had to acknowledge it.

Soarin perked up as Dash took her moment, looking towards the door as it quietly opened and Spitfire stepped in. The sleeves of her suit were rolled up to reveal ice bags on her upper arms. She had a few bandages applied, one cross patch on her cheek to cover a cut. She also had an abnormal bulge in the chest portion of her suit, but based on the bunched up plastic sticking out by her neck, it seemed to be another ice bag. She looked towards Silver first, but her attention was pulled away at the sight of her half-sister passed out on the floor with High Winds.

Soarin looked back to Dash as he saw her shifting. She pulled back her hoof and reached the other up onto the bed, sliding it along the mattress towards Silver’s hoof, taking care not to touch his arm or the makeshift splint. She slowly and gently slid her hoof onto Silver’s before closing it around and grasping it, holding his hoof firmly as she kept her eyes on his face.

“Silver…” Dash began. “I…” she leaned closer to his face without taking her hoof off of his. “I know you can hear me.” She spoke directly to him. Silver was unconscious, that was perfectly clear, but she did it anyway. “Don’t stop,” she pleaded as she tightened her grip on his hoof. “Don’t stop fighting.”

Soarin glanced to his right for a moment as Spitfire made her way around beside him, listening in as Dash continued.

“Don’t stop being that stubborn old stallion who refuses to quit… who refuses to listen… please…” Dash bit her lip, slamming her eyes shut, but a single tear fell from each eye. She wasn’t able to stop them. She opened her eyes and sniffled, but sported a firm expression as she looked upon Silver. “So don’t you DARE die. Don’t you DARE stop fighting. Don’t you DARE quit while I’m still here… I won’t give up as long as you don’t…” she trailed off, releasing his hoof before shifting forwards and nuzzling her face into Silver’s neck as gently as she could. “I’ll kill you if you leave me…”

Soarin and Spitfire both sighed and glanced at one another as Dash expressed her ‘demands’ to her brutally injured mentor. It was like watching a daughter beside the bed of a sick father, but she deserved it. Soarin and Spitfire may have known Silver for longer than Dash did, but Dash had been given the rare and privileged opportunity to connect with Silver and learn about him in ways he had never done with the two of them. The connection Dash and Silver shared was strong.

“Spitfire,” Bliss spoke up as she walked over with her clip board hovering with her again.

“Give me all the details,” Spitfire asked as she tore her attention from Silver to get Bliss’ report.

Soarin watched Spitfire walk over to Bliss before returning his attention to Dash. She was still leaning forward on the bed, nuzzling Silver’s neck lightly and it looked like she had no intention to move from that spot any time soon. Soarin sat down and scooted himself up to the bed as close as he could, shifting himself to the side so his body was touching hers. He ran a hoof up and down her back softly, letting her know he was there, even if her focus was entirely on somepony else.

It was still bothering Soarin… the fact that he got caught in a trap and was forced to helplessly watch as Silver Lining was beaten within an inch of his life. If there was one thing Soarin hated… it was feeling powerless. It was the very feeling he was trying to get away from by sneaking out to follow after Spitfire shouted him down… and when he got there the exact same thing happened in a different way. It didn’t matter how many ponies told him there was nothing he could have done, it was all empty sympathy, even from Dash. He knew he could have made a difference. He didn’t care how damaged the horn was or if he had experienced a brain shock or two… he didn’t care if Spitfire said there was nopony to blame. In his mind, he failed two ponies… he failed Silver and he failed Rainbow Dash.

Seeing Silver like this sent a chill down his spine… It could have been anypony… what if it was Dash? What if she was the one being attacked while he was snared? It was never good practice to dwell on what ifs, but seriously, WHAT IF IT WAS DASH?! Soarin shuddered at the thought. Silver was likely still alive because… above all else he had the willpower of at least a hundred ponies and the toughness of minotaur warlord. If it were Dash…

Soarin found himself squeezing Dash’s shoulder. She didn’t turn to look at him, but he gritted his teeth as he felt overwhelmed with shame. Not the kind of shame that made him feel weak… the kind that made him angry… angry at himself and at his failure to handle something that he knew he could have had he not slipped up. He couldn’t afford any more mistakes… he wouldn’t allow anypony else he cared about to be put in such danger.

The horn was going to be an issue, but it had been an issue from the start. He knew he was in danger, but that did not take precedent over those he loved and cared about.

Nopony else was going to end up like Silver… Soarin swore on his honor as a Wonderbolt.

Soarin blinked and looked down as Dash slowly removed herself from Silver, turned herself around and tipped herself right into his chest, digging her face into his suit and reaching her arms as far around him as possible. It brought him right out of his thoughts as he picked up his arms and hugged her as tightly as he could. He could feel her shaking lightly, and she sniffled a few times into his chest, but she wasn’t crying. It was just so hard for her to take.

“Oh, so that’s why…”

Soarin looked towards Spitfire and Bliss to see Spitfire nodding and turning her head to her half-sister.

“Five, you said? Including Blaze?” Spitfire asked.

“Yes,” Bliss nodded. “We didn’t have a choice, Silver would have died of blood loss had I not,” she explained.

“So the five of them will likely not be able to go for a few days…” Spitfire thought out loud, but immediate shook her head when Bliss sighed. “No Bliss, thank you for taking action. We need all the elites we can get, but this is a small price to pay to ensure we didn’t lose an irreplaceable pony,” she said as she looked back over to Silver, her eyes shifting quickly to Dash as Soarin hugged her tightly. “Thanks for taking care of him, Bliss,” Spitfire thanked her without looking at her. “Please keep doing everything you can.” She didn’t wait for Bliss to reply, but Bliss didn’t take offence as Spitfire turned to move towards her friends. She understood the emotions running through the Wonderbolts right now.

Spitfire made her way over to Soarin and Dash, her eyes remaining on Silver until she reached them. She and Soarin made eye contact for a moment before both of them looked down at the mare in Soarin’s arms, digging herself as deep into Soarin as she could for comfort.

Spitfire exhaled as she reached up and placed a hoof gently on Dash’s head, moving her eyes towards Silver.

“He’ll pull through, Dash…” she said as Dash released a sniffle. “You know just as well as any of us that Silver is tougher than the rest of the force combined.” Spitfire paused, grinned, and released a single quiet chuckle. “Like he always says, he’s not clocking out until he says so… and believe me, he has plenty to live for,” she said as she slid her hoof down and patted Dash on the back. Dash turned her head to look at Spitfire, pressing her cheek into Soarin’s chest. “Listen to me, Dash,” Spitfire looked at her firmly, the slight smile fading into a stern gaze. “I don’t care what Bliss says, or any other doctor says,” she clasped her hoof tightly on Dash’s shoulder. “He WILL live. And we ARE going to make it to the Crystal Empire in time to help him further.”

Dash just stared into Spitfire’s eyes, but the message left its mark. Silver was important to Dash, almost as, if not just as important to her as Soarin. Hearing such a strong declaration straight from Spitfire gave her much needed hope, even if only a little.

Soarin glanced over as he heard Bliss sigh, seeing her roll her eyes at Spitfire’s comment about doctors. Soarin couldn’t hold back a single chuckle. Bliss could cite scientific mumbo-jumbo and technical information all she wanted. Silver was not the kind of pony who was interested in dying, no matter how broken he was.

“I mean that, Dash,” Spitfire continued as Dash finally released herself a little from Soarin. “We’re making it to the Crystal Empire, and I’m not going to stand for anypony thinking otherwise. That goes for you too.”

Dash sniffled, swallowed, and nodded, trying her best to put on a confident face to show Spitfire that her words and encouragement meant a lot to her.

Then the door suddenly opened again, causing both Spitfire and Soarin to look away from Dash. It took her a moment, but Dash reacted to them, turning her head around as well.

Captain P.L. was standing in the doorway.

Dash blinked, releasing herself from Soarin as P.L. slowly entered, the dim light of the room serving his presence well as he proceeded to not look a single one of them in the eye. Everypony in the room watched as P.L. kept his eyes locked on one pony… Silver Lining.

His expression remained solid and firm, but there was a tiny crack in his demeanor. Dash could see it. Upon growing closer, P.L.’s eyes and bottom lip twitched once as he grew closer and looked down upon Silver. He examined him, from everything he was hooked up to, to his broken arm, and to his wing, exhaling quietly through his nose as he looked at Silver’s face.

Spitfire broke away from Soarin and Rainbow Dash, making her way around the bed to P.L.’s side.

“I’m surprised you left Luna’s side,” Spitfire said. It was something Dash expected to be paired with some sarcasm, but there wasn’t a trace of it in her voice. P.L. didn’t take his eyes off of Silver as he lightly shook his head.

“My Liege urged me to do this,” he explained. Spitfire glanced up at him.

“But you wanted to do it regardless, right?”

P.L. remained silent for a moment before nodding.

“Of course.”

Everypony went quiet as P.L. continued to look upon Silver, giving him time to look over the pony that was more or less the reason he was there right now… in more ways than one. Within the silence, Dash eventually found herself stepping forward and sitting right up against the edge of Silver’s bed again.

“Hmmm…” P.L. suddenly hummed in a somewhat somber tone, causing Dash to glance up at him and observe him more closely.

She couldn’t begin to comprehend what was going through his head. Based on what Silver had told her, there was a long history between these two. This was a moment of one old warrior looking upon another. Old comrades and friends. P.L. suddenly sighed and closed his eyes briefly.

“It has been a long time…” he began as he slowly opened his eyes again, revealing a look of… regret? “To finally meet again like this? It’s unfortunate…”

Dash perked up and glanced to her right as Soarin shifted beside her, but remained standing, looking up at P.L. He didn’t say anything else for a moment, the only sound in the room of Spitfire’s hooves as she turned to check on her half-sister again.

“You two go way back, huh?” Soarin suddenly asked. P.L. nodded, finally looking away from Silver to lock eyes with Soarin.

“After the last Griffon-Drake War ended, our meetings have been few and far between. But we fought together in countless battles during it. Those who have had your back and cheated death as comrades… as brothers… That is something that you never forget. But Silver… and his mentor? I consider myself lucky and privileged to have fought alongside them.” He paused, taking a deep breath as he looked back down at Silver. “Silver and Blizzard… they were just so… different. They were unique, unlike anypony I had ever met in the past. On the surface there was nothing about them that stood out. I was stronger, faster, and more skilled than both of them, superior to them in every physical way. Yet… There was never a time during the war that it didn’t feel like they were at least four to five steps ahead of me. As the war progressed and I was exposed to them more and more, I began to envy Silver. Why?” P.L. grunted. “Because he had a mentor like Blizzard Strike.”

P.L. turned away, taking a few steps away from the bed and looking down.

“Blizzard was indescribable. He was so… normal in terms of his prowess and abilities and yet he continuously proved he was capable of unbelievable things through wit, will, and honestly some means I don’t understand to this day. He made the unthinkable happen at a moment’s notice, turned the tides of battles in one or two actions, seemed in tune with the world and his surroundings in ways I could never fathom, and he made it look so easy. Then there was Silver…”

P.L. turned back around and approached the bed again, looking upon his old friend.

“I am five years Silver’s elder, but even when we were younger, he carried sure signs of his mentor’s wisdom, thinking, and awareness that made me feel so… small compared to them. Observing Silver taught me a lot about my shortcomings…” P.L. lifted up his arm and stared at it. He suddenly growled, tensing his arm and flexing his muscles. The armor plating actually made a quiet creak sound as his powerful muscles bulged and pushed against it from the inside. “It didn’t seem to matter that I was many times stronger than them. It didn’t matter that I was more aggressive, could fly faster, or could take on the most ferocious enemies the opposition could muster… They always managed to do more than me. Everywhere.”

P.L. exhaled, relaxing his arm and placing his hoof back on the floor.

“Before I met Silver and Blizzard… I had always questioned the purpose of the Wonderbolts. I never understood what made them so great or why everypony always held them in such high regard. To me, they were nothing but show ponies with fancy, flashy moves that weren’t any more effective than what I or my force could do. But then I met the two of them…” P.L. shook his head. “They baffled me, I couldn’t understand it. Not only was I better than them… but there were ponies even among the Wonderbolts who seemed leagues ahead of them both, yet Blizzard Strike was the captain of the second highest ranking squad? It was madness, it was ludicrous to me. But after that first battle at Il Corvo Fortress on Talon Peak… and I saw what the two of them were capable of…” P.L. flashed a very brief smile. “I’ve had a special, personal respect for the Wonderbolts ever since.”

Dash looked down at Silver as she listened. Seeing a pony like P.L. a thestral of great presence and authority speak so highly of him was inspiring to say the least. But it made her wonder… Silver had never brought up P.L. before, why? It seemed strange that he would leave out such an imposing character from the stories he told her, but perhaps that was just how Silver thought. P.L. said it himself before they left the cavern, Silver was not one to gloat, talk himself up, or tout his successes. He never talked about just how much he affected those around him. In fact, the only time he ever had was admitting that he erred in his guidance of Wave Chill. It didn’t matter if it was a recruit like her, or a high ranking pony like P.L., Silver left his mark on their life just by being himself and never taking credit for it.

“I found myself battling side by side with Silver on many occasions,” P.L. continued. “In the madness of the fighting we were often separated from his mentor,” he snorted. “Blizzard had a habit of disappearing in the middle of a battle, but then solving things out of sight and reappearing afterward, acting like he did nothing. Not even Silver really knew how he did it, but those battles where Silver and I were left back to back were where I witnessed Silver’s true prowess come through. He worked well with his mentor, but he wasn’t reliant on him. I had paired up with many warriors much greater than him, but none of them left an impression on me like he did. Perhaps it was because Silver wasn't the greatest of warriors… or that he excelled despite what held him back. He was among the Wonderbolts, a force that boasts the impressive abilities of their fighters, but he lacked those. He didn’t have anything that set him apart like they did. He had nothing but toughness, passion, and grit. Those are things that often compliment a warrior… not what defines them. Yet, just like his mentor, he made it work.”

Dash found herself utterly fascinated as P.L. continued on. She was hearing things about Silver that she had never known, not to mention more about Blizzard Strike. Spitfire, Soarin, and even High Winds sitting off to the side all listened in as well, but Dash wasn’t sure they had picked up on something he had just said. Dash zeroed in on one particular point P.L. had made.

Silver… nothing that set him apart?

Obviously that sounded like an incredibly backwards statement to her, but then she thought about the context. She considered what it would be like in P.L.’s position during the war. If she did not know Silver personally and observed him for the first time… how did he match up with the other Wonderbolts? He didn’t have flashy moves… he had admitted to her that he’d never been very talented… and his signature technique was simply a refined punch free of resistance. That was just something he put together over the years of throwing more punches than he could count. He was a top notch lightning wielder, but element wielding was a standard practice. Many of them could do it.

This was quite a revelation to Dash. From outside looking in… Silver really didn't seem to have anything that made him stand out like the others did. And yet as a part of the Wonderbolts, there wasn’t another pony Dash found to be as impressive overall as Silver. The rest of the Wonderbolts regarded him as one of the greatest and respected him as such. Spitfire had gone against every code in the book to keep him in the ranks. And now here… she was hearing the CAPTAIN OF THE LUNAR GUARD… praising Silver in a similar light.

Silver was pure, raw proof that it took more than skill and ability to be a Wonderbolt. Dash had never considered this, she had never looked at it this way, but now that she was… It made Silver seem even more inspiring.

“You,” P.L. suddenly directed towards Dash. Dash blinked and looked up to see P.L.’s red eyes locked on her.

“Yes?”

“You said you are Silver’s pupil… correct?” he asked. Dash stared at him for a moment before nodding. “Heh…” P.L. released a single chuckle… and smiled. His eyes remained angled in the same scowl-like position, but his lips had curled into a soft grin. “I am not surprised. I can see him in you. The way you faced me… The way you forced your way forward and asserted yourself…” P.L. looked down at Silver, the smile remaining. “It was like I was looking right into Silver’s eyes. The content of your appeal was convincing, but what really sold me on giving you a chance was by the look in your eyes. I could see his shadow behind you, I could see his glare staring at me… The glare that never backed down and looked through anything that seemed hopeless as just another challenge to overcome,” P.L. exhaled looking back at Dash. “It puts me at ease to know Silver Lining is passing on the teachings of his master. It would be a shame if such an impressive legacy were ever to fade from the Wonderbolts.”

Dash felt her chest swelling with pride, but it wasn’t something that filled her with joy or made her smile. It was such a heavy compliment to be given directly from such an important pony, it almost overwhelmed her. Spitfire and Soarin both looked towards Dash as well, in awe to hear P.L. speak so highly of one of their recruits.

P.L. looked back at Silver one last time.

“Rest up, my friend,” he said while reaching up and placing his hoof on Silver’s shoulder for a brief moment. Then without another word, he turned and started walking back towards the door.

“Huh?” Spitfire perked up as she saw him leaving. “You’re not going to ask how he’s doing?” she asked with surprise. “Our head doctor is right here, you know.”

“Pfff…” P.L. scoffed as he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “He’ll be fine,” P.L. said casually. “Believe me, if he gives in and dies here… then that’s not Silver Lining.”

Dash’s mouth hung slightly ajar as P.L. spoke those words. Not because she was shocked. It was quite the opposite. P.L. was more than confident that Silver was going to live. He believed in Silver much like she did. He had further reinforced her hope that Silver would make it.

Bliss was their doctor, and as their doctor, it was her job to be honest and upfront about a pony’s condition and apply rules and practice to her assessment.

But since when did Silver follow rules or standards?

Dash felt it was time to stop worrying about whether or not Silver would live… why? Because he was going to live.

“Now I must return to my lady’s side,” P.L. said with a nod before continuing his walk to the door, leaving them behind.

“Wow…” Soarin was the first to speak up after a moment of silence. “He is really something else.” Soarin couldn’t help but grin a little as he kept his eyes on the door. Spitfire nodded as she looked over at Silver.

“So is Silver,” she said as she stepped up to the bed and placed a hoof on the mattress. “He never told me he and P.L. had close ties, but honestly… I’m not surprised.”

“Two stubborn, old fighters.” Soarin looked down at Silver, releasing a long sigh as he recalled everything P.L. had just said, how he had spoken so highly of Silver. “Can we ever hope to be half as great as them?” he asked honestly as P.L.’s words put a very profound perspective on things for him. They had fame, they had the names that would be remembered, but what actually made a pony great? Silver wouldn’t be at the top of the history books, but it felt like he had done more than they ever would.

“They are what we aspire to be, Soarin,” Spitfire said as she kept her eyes locked on Silver. “Who knows if we’ll ever be the kind of pony Silver forged himself into, but we’ll never know unless we try.” She looked up towards Dash, a light smile curling on her lips. “But I think somepony here may have a head start on us. She made her way around the bed over to Dash, taking to her side opposite of Soarin and placing a hoof on her shoulder. “I never thought I’d ever hear P.L. dish out compliments like that. From a pony that holds Silver in such high regard, that was some high praise he showered on you.”

But Dash didn’t react. In fact, it was almost as if she couldn’t hear Spitfire. With P.L. out of the room, she had gone back to completely focusing on Silver. Spitfire frowned, her ears flopping to the side of her head as she noticed Dash’s demeanor. It really said something if Dash wasn’t reacting to praise, but her absolutely devoted focus to Silver laying before her sent a message loud and clear to Spitfire.

There was no more time to waste. The sooner they got the ball rolling, the better.

“Soarin, Rainbow Dash…” Spitfire began, changing her tone of voice to one very familiar to Soarin… one that he was happy to hear again. “Let’s not dilly-dally another moment,” she turned to look at Silver. “We now have one more reason to reach the Crystal Empire, so we better be ready to move as soon as we’re able.”

She then focused on Soarin, who was still holding a wing over Dash. She nodded at him while pointing her other hoof at Dash. Soarin tipped his head briefly, but when Spitfire started whisking her free hoof towards him, he got the message and took a step back, removing his wing from around her.

“Rainbow Dash, attention,” Spitfire ordered. Dash’s ears perked up, the order finding its way through her concern for Silver. She swallowed and turned to face Spitfire, taking a deep breath as she stood up and nodded. “Dash… I want to personally thank you again and commend you. Your handling of the Lunar Guard was fantastic. First you saved me when I was in a bind against Nightshade and then you saved us all from an unnecessary confrontation with P.L. and the thestrals.” She placed both hooves on Dash’s shoulders. “Believe me, I won’t forget it.”

Dash blinked, taking in Spitfire’s words, but wasn’t given any time to reply. Spitfire walked around her and right up to Soarin, squaring up and tipping her head so they looked eye to eye.

“Soarin, under normal circumstances, I’d be more than willing to discipline you for your drastic disregard of my orders…”

Soarin’s ears stood up and he narrowed his eyes into a glare, but Spitfire shook her head.

“But these are not normal circumstances,” Spitfire made clear before Soarin could retort. “And I did not even truly believe in my own orders. So… it’s time to bury the missteps and mistakes and start anew. I’m going to be crystal clear with you. You are going to be limited, BUT…” She pointed sharply at him. “I’m going to need your help, lots of it, to help steer us in the right direction.” She put her hoof down as Soarin’s full interest and attention were now focused on her. Spitfire kept looking at him for a moment before her eyes averted towards Silver. “I’ve been at a crossroads… I’ve been doubting myself and the choices I’ve had to make.” She turned her head back to Soarin. “It’s time for us to retake control of our destiny and face our challenges head on. No more dodging issues and no more avoiding the truth.” She turned and looked between Soarin and Rainbow Dash. “And we’ll start with both of you coming with me… to have a word with a certain royal passenger of ours.” Spitfire gave a hard, definitive nod before making her way around the bed. “Come on, let’s let Bliss work.”

“Go easy on Luna,” Bliss said from the other side of the room, as if she understood what Spitfire was suggesting.

“That depends on her, Bliss,” Spitfire said without looking. She made her way over to Blaze and High Winds. Tapping her half-sister on the shoulder. Blaze stirred and yawned groggily, her eyes open, but still looking incredibly dazed from donating blood. Spitfire made a head motion to High Winds before reaching down. The two of them helped Blaze stand before High Winds offered her body to support her. The two slowly made their way out of the room.

Spitfire looked back towards Soarin and Dash, ready to call to them again, but she stopped, deciding to wait instead. She wanted to give Dash one last opportunity to look upon her mentor. She would have wanted to do the same thing.

Soarin remained at Dash’s side until she was ready to leave, placing a hoof on her shoulder and rubbing it gently as Dash looked over Silver one last time.

Rainbow Dash took a long, deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled. She opened her eyes, leaned forwards onto the bed, and gave Silver one more gentle nuzzle to his neck.

“Hang in there you old bastard,” Dash said softly to him as she slowly pulled away.

And with that, she turned away from Silver, facing Soarin and looking up into his eyes. She took another deep breath before hardening her expression, showing that she was ready before giving him a firm nod. Soarin nodded right back before turning and walking beside her. As Spitfire saw them come around, she turned and left. But halfway to the door, Dash suddenly stopped again and shuddered, reaching a hoof across her body and grabbing her opposite shoulder. Soarin blinked and stopped in his tracks, looking to his left, down at her. Dash continued to shudder for a moment, rubbing her shoulder as she looked behind her at Silver one last time.

Soarin frowned, knowing that she had just made the effort to harden up and focus on what was ahead of them… but it was still so hard for her not to worry about Silver. Soarin shifted, pressing his side gently to her and reaching an arm over her shoulders. Dash turned back, looking down and shaking her head as a sharp breath hissed through her teeth. She then looked up at Soarin, her eyes showing worry. Soarin could read it all from her eyes.

Dash had confidence Silver would live. Dash wanted to get moving to ensure that too… but Silver was still in a broken state, and that alone was enough to hit her hard regardless. As Dash moved her eyes off his and took several small breaths, Soarin leaned his head down, planting a comforting kiss behind her ear as he tightened the one-armed embrace around her.

“Let’s go,” he whispered to her before pulling his head back.

Dash only gave a single nod as the two made their way out.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf and Penumbra

So there we go, this is where i decided to cut the chapter off because there was a hell of a lot more planned and... well... this was about only 1/3 of the initial outline so...:twilightsheepish:

So they made it back... And it looks like Spitfire has some rough waters ahead of her dealing with two stallions who won't see eye to eye.

It seems Luna and the Thestrals have quite the impressive relationship. (and it looks like Luna finds P.L.'s chivalrous demeanor quite flattering and charming, but the moment she is out of sight, they are right back to normal. It's gonna be fun having them around, that's for sure.

And the feels... i just had to hit you all with the feels, though we now got another deep look into Silver and Blizzards background, at least as how it relates to P.L. and the Griffon Drake War. But how about that? Silver is unique by not being unique... Quite the revelation by Dash, but Silver's most prominent traits were never his abilities as much as it was just... HIM.

And that's where we're going to leave it for now, but it seems like the first order of business in the next chapter will include setting down some new, firm rules to a certain princess who has been a little... heavy hooved in terms of the direction of the current situation.

Chapter 134 is well underway, i'm already 5000 words into it so i hope to have it done at some point next week as long as everything goes smoothly.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!

Chapter 134: The Longest Day

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 134: The Longest Day

Dash felt a sudden, unexpected feeling of relief wash over her the moment she and Soarin left the emergency care room. It didn’t take long for Soarin to take notice. While Dash’s posture didn’t change much beneath his wing, Dash’s expression shifted. She took a few breaths before facing forward as they walked closely behind Spitfire through the infirmary.

Dash even surprised herself a little. It was if some of the weight was lifted off of her shoulders. There would be no true rest for her on the subject until Silver received full attention at their destination, but simply facing him in his current state won half the battle against her current anxiety within the situation.

Now things just had to get moving in general… and they kept up behind Spitfire, drawing looks from the other Wonderbolts as they made their way towards Luna. However, they were unsure of what was about to happen.

Spitfire mentioned confronting Luna, but about what? Both Soarin and Dash had a feeling it was something about decision making, but the way Spitfire brought it up and the way she was walking with authority and confidence suggested there was something more to it, perhaps something personal?

As they closed in on Luna, P.L. didn’t look up from her, but the rest of the thestrals suddenly glared at them, as if the approach by Spitfire was all they needed to see to go on the defensive. P.L. didn’t do the same until the thestrals started quietly hissing and growling.

P.L. lifted an eyebrow as he saw Spitfire completely ignore his thestrals, even as one of them leaned forward and bared her teeth right in Spitfire’s face. She simply stepped around the mare and looked right towards P.L.

“P, I need to speak to Luna.” Spitfire asked in a strict tone. P.L. narrowed his eyes as he glanced behind her at Soarin and Dash briefly. He snorted as he examined Spitfire’s body language.

“About what?” he demanded to know, but only received a glare from Spitfire. “Hmph, later, she needs rest,” P.L. denied, but then jumped slightly as Luna reached out and tapped a hoof on his side.

“Captain… We are well enough to speak now,” she explained as P.L. quickly turned around to face her. “Please, let her through,” she ordered as she slowly lifted her head up from the table.

“As you say, my lady,” P.L. instantly complied and stepped back, the rest of the thestrals obeying as well as Spitfire stepped up. Soarin and Rainbow Dash hovered behind her with several others around them turning to see what was going on.

“Captain Spitfire,” Luna began with a weak nod of acknowledgement as Spitfire stepped right up to her. “Please tell us what happened out there, we have yet to hear the full story,” she requested while glancing around at the hurt top tier elites and squad Foxtrot.

“Have you been told about Nightshade’s appearance?” Spitfire asked, interjecting. Luna blinked and tipped her head, but nodded again. “Then there’s really nothing else to say. She appeared, we were unprepared, and I was lucky I was out flying or else we may have lost everypony sitting here being treated right now,” Spitfire explained, keeping it short and to the point, but Luna didn’t seem satisfied.

“But—”

“If you want more specific details, I don’t have them. You’ll have to ask the others,” she explained, cutting off Luna and earning glares from P.L. and the thestrals surrounding her. “We have more important things to address right now… starting with how things have been progressing. You can’t solve a problem without first acknowledging what’s causing it, so we’re going to be making several changes to our approach effective immediately.”

Spitfire’s words caused a little bit of a stir among those around them. Wonderbolt and medical staff alike were sharing glances, wondering what Spitfire was going to say. Soarin and Dash watched curiously as Luna tipped her head again, this time in confusion as she was continued to be met by Spitfire’s determined eyes.

“What… dost thou mean?” Luna asked in a slightly anxious tone. Spitfire didn’t reply for a moment, she looked over her shoulder, locking eyes first with Soarin, and then with Rainbow Dash. She took a deep breath before turning back to Luna, making sure her strict, adamant expression remained firm on her face.

“I have not been performing my duties as captain the way I should be… I’ve been leaning on and caving to voices of outside authority or insight, and because of that… things have been deteriorating fast. With the appearance of Nightshade, our current state spells doom for us no matter how or when we face her,” Spitfire took a breath, exhaling loudly through her nostrils. “There is only one way to fight Nightshade… and with the way things are now, we don’t stand a chance. So…” Spitfire stood as upright as possible, her posture showing strength and resolve. “I’m sorry, Luna, but it’s time for me to take back complete control.”

Luna blinked, P.L. and the thestrals all turning to look at her as a silence extended between them.

“What…?” Luna again expressed her bewilderment.

But Spitfire didn’t say anything else to Luna.

She turned to Soarin instead… and glanced up at the horn before looking him in the eye.

“Soarin, there’s something you need to know about the state of the false horn,” Spitfire began. The focus in the room instantly became split. Some kept their eyes on Spitfire, but a few were drawn away as Luna suddenly gasped and her eyes went wide. Soarin was briefly distracted by Luna’s reaction, but immediately refocused on Spitfire. The horn? Something he had to know? Dash immediately flinched and looked up at the horn, looking back and forth between Soarin and Spitfire in a sudden panic urged on by the fear that she was about to be told something… bad. It was a fear that was mixed with a slight hidden anger that began to bubble up… and was bound to be difficult to hold back if it was yet something else that had been kept from them.

“After we returned from rescuing Wave Chill,” Spitfire kept going, drawing attention back to her as Luna started shuffling and trying to move. P.L. reached out to her, but she pushed his arm aside. “Discord wasn’t entirely truthful about the horn.”

“WAIT!” Luna’s voice boomed, getting up into the octaves of the Royal Canterlot Voice. “STOP! ARGH!” She hit the octaves, causing the room to shake, but then she immediately cringed, dropping her head down to the table as her horn sputtered and shot small weak blips of light.

“MY LADY!” P.L. yelled as he quickly reached towards her and looked her over, completely ignoring Spitfire.

“Wh…What?!” Soarin blinked, his jaw dropping as Spitfire immediately dropped the fact that Discord had lied to him. “What’s this about?!” he demanded to know as he glanced up at the horn. Dash’s eyes were stuck wide open and her mouth hanging slightly agape as she stared at Spitfire and waited for more, a scene playing out behind Spitfire of Luna fighting back her own magical headaches as she tried to regain her composure. But Spitfire wasn’t going to let anything stop her. That much was clear.

“Luna came to me after Discord dragged her away and through the wall of my office,” she continued. “And revealed to her that he had lied, giving her the truth of the situation. She then came to me and dropped the information on me, which put me into a bind that I ultimately mishandled under pressure.” Spitfire shook her head. “The reason I was incredibly tough on you and forced you into a scenario where you were restrained and ordered to stay behind… is because your horn is in an incredibly fragile state.”

She paused as it sunk in, both Soarin and Dash reacting in shock. The horn being damaged was not new information to them, but if this was being kept from them, there was likely more to it than they had been told. With Luna growling and yelling in pain behind her, Spitfire continued.

“According to Discord, your horn is one well-placed hit away from completely shattering and the only thing that can reinforce it in its current state to prevent a terrible accident from happening is your emotional state and your effort to keep a level head. If you were to lose control of your emotions, whether it be through adrenaline or anger, and then take a direct hit to the horn… it will break.”

The room went silent, even Luna stopped grunting and struggling. It was clear that Spitfire had gotten out everything that Luna wished to prevent her from saying. Both Dash and Soarin were frozen, trying to process the information. Everypony around them found themselves caught in the revelation as well. While it didn’t directly affect them, they were getting insight on what had caused Spitfire’s earlier behavior.

“That’s why—”

“CAPTAIN SPITFIRE!!!!!!” Luna’s voice surged outward, cutting off Spitfire as she held down her magical reactions through sheer force of will and mind power. She was glaring towards Spitfire with her eyes glowing, her horn alight, and her teeth grinding together. P.L. immediately stepped aside, removing herself from in between Luna and Spitfire, the rest of the thestrals shifting backwards in fear as Luna’s anger boiled over and punched through her pain. “HAST THOU LOST THY MIND?!” Luna’s voice was so fierce that P.L. and the thestrals began cringing in pain, their heightened sense of hearing working against them as Luna yelled. Spitfire did not react now show any fear what-so-ever as she slowly turned around and faced Luna. “DID YOU NOT TAKE HEED OUR WARNINGS OF THE HORRORS THAT WILL BE UNLEASHED IF—!”

While Luna’s display of anger and her booming voice were intimidating, everypony in the room nearly leapt into the air in surprise as Spitfire suddenly slammed a hoof as hard as she could to the ground, a loud CRASH bouncing, echoing, and resonating through the room, the walls, and the ceiling.

“LUNA!” Spitfire yelled in a voice so loud and strong that it sounded like the Royal Canterlot Voice without the omnipotent tones behind it. The way she yelled mixed with her hoof striking the floor and the hard step she took towards Luna shocked everypony and even managed to silence Luna, the goddess of the moon freezing in shock as Spitfire made the move to assert herself. “THAT’S ENOUGH!” she yelled, as she took a second step, putting her right in front of Luna.

Luna remained frozen, but her guards and P.L. did not. Now free of Luna’s booming voice, Spitfire’s advances earned her growls and hissing as the thestrals rushed and tried to force their way in front of her, but they were batted aside as P.L. shoved his way in front of all of them, stood tall over Spitfire, his teeth bared as he glared down at Spitfire as fiercely as he could.

“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO THE PRINCESS WITH SUCH DISRESPECT!” he roared down at Spitfire, his deep, intimidating voice taking on the tone he used to order around the thestrals back in the cavern.

Spitfire stood completely still as P.L.’s voice rushed past her, but she didn’t yell back, she just scrunched up her face and glared RIGHT back up at him as she started picking up one of her hooves.

“P…” she began in a much quieter tone, reaching her hoof up to his chest and placing it firmly on his armor. “GET… OUT… OF… MY… WAY.” She spoke at a natural volume, but she poured as much emphasis into each word as she could, driving home her point to P.L. that the exchange had nothing to do with him.

But P.L. did not comply. Despite Luna’s orders to obey Spitfire, he refused to move out of the way, instead growling louder as he began leaning forwards, trying to cast a shadow over Spitfire. But Spitfire did NOT have it.

“THAT’S AN ORDER!!!!!!!!!!!!” Spitfire barked up at him, pushing harder on his chest to prevent his attempt to literally stand over her.

P.L.’s eyes changed several times, shifting, almost twitching between being open wide and a narrow glare as Spitfire gave him a strong reminder that he was under her orders… per order of his liege. He looked incredibly conflicted, his orders and his personal code of ethics clashing. Spitfire suddenly increased the pressure she was applying to his chest and actually forced him to pick up his back hoof and reach it slightly backwards to brace himself.

He continued to grind his teeth, glancing over his shoulder to see Luna had not moved and was still in a state of slight shock. Her eyes were still filled with anger, but it looked like Spitfire’s assertion had run Luna’s will to fight right into a brick wall.

P.L. slammed his eyes shut and grunted as his orders eventually suppressed his will to stand between them. He stepped aside and allowed Spitfire to move in. But even though he caved, he did not remove his glare from Spitfire, snarling at her as she stepped past him and approached Luna.

“If you lay a single hoof on her, YOU’RE DEAD.” P.L. threatened, but Spitfire didn’t even face him.

“Relax, Snowflake, I don’t need to,” Spitfire shot back.

“What did you just call me?” P.L. growled loudly, but Spitfire completely ignored him and focused all of her attention on Luna.

Luna was still giving her the hardest stare she could muster, and her lips were quivering as if she wanted to berate her further, but Spitfire was not going to give her the chance. It was time to put her hoof down, and she wasn’t going to let Luna speak over her… not any more.

“Luna,” Spitfire began, keeping her tone of voice firm, solid, and without any signs of hesitation. “You can glare and yell and me all you want, but I’m drawing the line right here and right now.” She sharply pointed a hoof at Luna, stopping just short of touching her. Luna flinched, pulling her head back slightly in surprise. P.L. and the thestrals all inched forwards, but stopped, holding themselves back when they noticed Spitfire had not touched her. Luna blinked, staring at Spitfire’s hoof for a moment before looking right back into the powerful gaze being thrust upon her. “I’m DONE with being told what to do,” Spitfire continued. “I’m DONE letting you convince me what you think is ‘for the best’ and how I should handle situations. It’s my duty as the captain of the Wonderbolts to make choices and decisions that I feel is right for the force. I answer to the higher authorities of your royalty, but it’s up to me to make a judgment on what you ask of me as well. It’s time I made that judgment!” Her sharp words were clearly cutting into Luna, her eyes were wavering, her signs of anger were fading as if being beaten down by Spitfire’s voice. “From this point forward, I am no longer going to be making choices solely based on what you feel is right… and that goes double for that sorry excuse for a narcissistic chaos-snake god. The choices and actions you immortals have pushed upon us have continuously gotten us nowhere and you know it!”

Any and all traces of Luna’s will to fight back had completely vanished. She was now leaning even further back, her eyes wide and no longer glowing, her magic completely suppressed, and her jaw slightly agape, with a quivering bottom lip.

“You’ve gotten us out of binds, sure… but you know what? Those binds may not have been there had you let me DO MY JOB! You and Discord have done nothing but throw wrenches into our efforts, put us in constant disadvantages, and forced us to fly into danger with one wing tied behind our back time and time again! Playing it safe and holding certain things back has gotten us nowhere and has kept us guessing and reacting instead of knowing and acting! Your efforts to continuously intervene and dictate what’s happening have yet to end well ONCE! You CAN’T deny that!”

She stopped for a moment, letting it all sink in as Luna remained frozen in shock. A princess known for her incredibly powerful voice was utterly speechless.

“From this point onward, I’m following MY judgment,” Spitfire rapped her hoof against the floor as she made it perfectly clear. “Not yours, not Discord’s, not ANYPONY else’s! We’ve been doing it your way, and we all see where that’s gotten us. As the captain of the Wonderbolts, it’s my duty to lead, not to bend over backwards or follow. So it’s time I lived up to my duties.” With Luna still stuck on the ropes, Spitfire took a deep breath and gave her a hard nod. “The Shadowbolts are a threat to Equestria, but thus far they have only been coming after us. The Wonderbolts have been taking the full brunt of their aggression. So since the Wonderbolts are MY responsibility, we are going to do things MY way. Understand?” she leaned forward while narrowing her eyes further at Luna.

It was all such a spectacle for the present Wonderbolts to take in. All the top elites and squad Foxtrot had front row seats to watch their captain effectively lay down the law to one of the most powerful ponies in Equestria. Soarin was in awe of Spitfire’s control and authority… and hoped she would channel this while addressing the entire force later, but Dash? The scene brought something else to Dash’s mind. Before Nightshade appeared, part of the conversation she had with Silver was about Spitfire’s state and her actions. Specifically, she was recalling the part where Silver detailed how it’s not good to let authority go unchecked, and Spitfire needed to question authority above her just like the rest of them should if she was acting out of turn.

But right now it looked like they didn’t need to step in at all… because the true Spitfire was back, and she was doing exactly what Silver said she needed to do.

But not everypony in the room was thrilled.

“THAT’S FAR ENOUGH!” P.L. finally lost his restraint. Spitfire quickly put up a hoof to guard herself as P.L. forced his way forwards and thrust his right wing out to shove Spitfire back. Spitfire stumbled two steps before lowering her guard and setting her hooves down… but she didn’t glare at him, she just looked at him with strict disapproval as P.L. turned and faced her.

“P…” Spitfire began with a light growl. “Do I have to remind you AGAIN who is in charge here? Luna told you to follow my orders so I suggest you do that.”

“I have my orders…” P.L. snarled as he shook his head. “But I will not allow you to speak down to the royalty I serve! My orders do not take precedent to my oath to serve and protect my lady!”

The air in the room tensed to a suffocating level as P.L.’s thestrals quickly took his side, all of them hissing at Spitfire. The Wonderbolts were not able to rush to Spitfire’s side.

“Son of a bitch…” Soarin growled as he saw them all bearing down at Spitfire.

“Wait, Soarin!” Dash flinched as Soarin ripped away from her side and advanced towards the standoff, determined to stand by Spitfire. But he stopped halfway there when…

“Captain… Stop it…” Luna suddenly spoke up before anything could happen. P.L. immediately stopped growling at Spitfire, blinked, and turned around.

“My lady…?” he asked as he examined her. She was looking down at the bed, her body posture very weak as she began to slump down. She rested her chin down on her hooves as she took a deep breath.

“We are… greatly ashamed to admit it, but…” Luna closed her eyes and sighed. “There is truth to Captain Spitfire’s words.”

The hostile air of the room had faded completely, the thestrals all reacting the same as their captain as Luna admitted fault. P.L. looked absolutely astonished as if he was unwilling to believe or accept that his liege has just confirmed weakness or imperfection. Luna looked up at him, but could barely hold her eyes on his long enough because of the shock written all over his face.

“We have been putting our hoof down and making decisions based on what we believed would be best,” Luna explained. “We believed it was our duty to guide the course of events, to lead everypony through the conflict and give sage guidance the way our sister would have, but…” she paused and sighed again, this one lasting much longer. “Captain Spitfire is correct. Our efforts have been ineffective. We’ve yet to achieve any sort of success within what we’ve willed upon them. What do we have to show for it all? Ponies have died, irreversible damage has been done, and we’ve never found any salvation, always stuck in one bind after another. Perhaps it’s time we stepped aside…” She shook her head slowly. “First, we tried to handle it without the Wonderbolts, then we slipped into feeling sorry for ourselves and wishing our sister would guide us. We tried to pull ourselves out by taking firm control and being the voice of authority, but now we wonder if we’ve only been making the wrong choices over and over again.”

Luna paused briefly before turning and looking past P.L. towards Spitfire.

“Throughout this long ordeal, there has only been one success. It was when Captain Spitfire took direct control and led a bold, fearless operation to rescue Wave Chill from the Shadowbolt Fortress. The moment we asserted ourselves again… it all went downhill once more.”

P.L. looked like he didn’t know what to say or think, he just kept glancing back and forth between Spitfire and Luna with his eyes and mouth stuck open wide.

“We believe that one moment of victory has proven something,” Luna nodded as she kept looking towards Spitfire. “It’s clear… who is truly fit to lead. And… it’s… not me.” Luna finished while noticeably dropping the old Canterlot speech to refer directly to herself.

“I…” P.L. sputtered, staring at Luna as she shifted and turned her head to face away from everypony. “I…”

“Luna…” Spitfire chimed in, taking hold of the opportunity to make something very clear to her. “What’s done is done. What has happened so far is not as important as what we do now. Be critical of yourself if you must, but we are facing forward, understand?” she said while putting a hoof to her eyes and moving it out in front of her. “I’m taking over full command and plan to use everything at my disposal to get us on the right track… and I’m expecting you to be part of the equation.”

Luna picked her head up and blinked, surprised as if she expected Spitfire to tell her just to completely stay out. P.L. suddenly found his hooves again and growled at Spitfire. Spitfire sighed and glanced at him.

“Really? You’re going to do that again?” Spitfire asked with slight annoyance.

“You chastise her… and then ask her to work with you?” P.L. threw his hoof out angrily.

“Yes,” Spitfire answered simply. P.L. blinked, his face going blank for a moment before he scrunched up his face.

“But… what… you…”

“If she wants to get out of this alive, she better cooperate,” Spitfire said while lifting her brow and tipping her head towards Luna. “We’re not going to continue things the way we’ve been doing them. I’m going to be calling the shots…” She slowly looked back towards Luna. “And she’s a divine alicorn. I’d be stupid if I didn’t want to use her.”

“Then show her some more respect!” P.L. demanded empathetically

“Then SHE… better respect my authority,” Spitfire made clear, earning another angry look, but she shrugged it off. “Face it P.L., this is my force, and this is my house you’re standing in,” she said as she tapped her hoof to the floor. “You can’t come into my house, kick my dog, empty my fridge, and start making demands, got it?” she asked, earning a few snickers from around the room. P.L. closed his mouth, muffling the growls as his eyes twitched. He scoffed, kicked a hoof against the floor and turned away to face the wall. “I’m glad we agree,” Spitfire said with a deceptively cheerful tone.

Luna had lowered herself back down, but was still looking towards Spitfire with curiosity. She was feeling the blows from Spitfire’s assertion, but she still wanted her help? She almost felt privileged to be considered after what had just been laid out. She blinked as Spitfire stepped forwards and placed a hoof beside her on the table.

“Rest up, Princess,” Spitfire gave her a nod, her voice housing a bit of softness that was completely missing a moment ago. “Report to me when you are ready. You were a big help during our rescue mission and I’d like to use you further, but…” she lifted her hoof and pointed, but it wasn’t a sharp point. The movement was slow and natural. “You’re going to be considered a passenger and a volunteer, and will be following my directions as one.”

As Spitfire pulled away, she looked towards P.L. He was looking over his shoulder at them, but when Spitfire caught him, he quickly looked back at the wall and grunted. Spitfire just rolled her eyes before moving back towards Soarin, the regular activity in the infirmary continuing as the scene ended.

Despite everything that just went on in front of him, Soarin found himself mostly focused on one specific part. Spitfire was taking back control from Luna and Discord, that’s all he needed to know and felt good about that… but…

What the hell had he just heard about his horn? About his wellbeing? About just how much danger he was in?

To top it off, had he avoided the trap Nightshade set and fought her in his current state… and then taken a hit to the horn…

Was a major disaster just narrowly avoided by pure luck? Not that what happened to Silver was any better... but from the looks of things, they’re lucky Silver’s situation was all that happened.

Spitfire was moving towards him now, but he was still trying to process it all. The integrity of his horn was tied to his emotions? He remembered what Fancy Pants had told him during their training sessions, how emotions can have an effect on magic and casting and how the magic reacted when used. Was the horn damaged to the point where magic leaked out or sputtered just based on how he was feeling? His anger that spilled out when he tried to break free of Nightshade’s magic prison caused a small chip of the horn to pop off… and it wasn’t even touched…

Soarin blinked as he felt something brush up against his side, it was slightly cold. He looked down to see Dash brushing up against him, the ice bag on her wings touching him as she looked up at him with eyes that absolutely killed him on the inside. She looked just about as worried and concerned as she could possibly be, her eyes locked on the horn. Soarin just kept staring at her, his instincts telling him to offer her words of reassurance, but how could he possibly do that? He didn’t even understand exactly what was going on with him. It would just be empty words. This was a serious situation and trying to dance around it would be a mistake.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you…” Spitfire’s voice brought both of their attention forward as she stopped and sat down before them. There was quite a shift in her demeanor. The stern, steadfast leader that just shrugged off the growling faces of the thestrals and verbally pile drove one of the divine royal sisters seemed to step aside in favor of another Spitfire Soarin knew well, the caring friend. She took no position of dominance, sitting instead of standing, her expression soft and her eyes showing regret. “It was stupid to be secretive, and it didn’t help anypony. I admit complete fault in the way I decided to handle the situation… and I apologize. But there you go,” she motioned to Luna behind them. “It doesn’t make what I did right, but at least you know my reasoning for being so strict, as misguided as it was.”

Soarin didn’t know what to say for a few moments. In fact, he wondered if he’d be able to muster the will to say anything else for the rest of the day. This had been the most chaotic, most ridiculous, and most terrifying day of his life, easily. And that was quite something considering everything that had already happened up to this point.

And now here was Spitfire, sitting in front of him, apologizing… which he appreciated, but he felt like he had just hit the brake section of an old roller coaster and his body got whiplashed so hard against the restraint that it knocked all the wind out of him.

If he had his way right now, he’d simply flop down on the floor and go to sleep. That’s how much he just wanted the day to be over already.

But despite it finally being the evening, he didn’t have that option. He had caught onto Spitfire’s change in demeanor, and though he was exhausted, he had to acknowledge what was happening. Nothing good would come from simply saying ‘screw it’ for the night.

He opened his mouth to speak, finding the will despite how he was feeling, but he paused and blinked, lifting an eyebrow as he realized something.

“Wait… but… you let me come along just now to meet the thestrals even though you knew about this?” he asked, his curiosity pushing itself in front of his acceptance of her apology. His nose twitched when he realized his poor choice of order for his thoughts, but he made a mental note to accept it right after.

Spitfire shook her head.

“I didn’t believe we were going to have any more trouble after Nightshade retreated,” she explained. “The rest of the Shadowbolts were not around, and even if they were, I don’t think their leader retreating would keep them out and about. I made a judgment call, and let you come along. Though I admit to regretting it for a moment when I was sure the thestrals were going to attack us. We’re lucky Dash had her wits about her.”

“Well… I appreciate that at least,” Soarin said with a sigh as he realized what this probably meant. Just when he thought he finally had some leeway and Spitfire would let him partake in the action, this more or less solidified that wouldn’t be the case. But now that he knew what the real reason was… it was for the better, right? He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. “And apology accepted. Sorry, I should have said that first,” Soarin added while rubbing the back of his head lightly.

“Thanks for understanding,” Spitfire smiled weakly at him. “It was really—”

“What did Discord say about the horn?” Dash suddenly cut her off, removing herself from Soarin’s side and stepping right up to Spitfire. “Did Luna say anything else? Please, tell me!” Dash fired the questions rapidly, an intense and desperate concern in her voice. Spitfire shook her head.

“I—”

“TELL ME!” Dash cut her off again before she could even start, reaching up to grab Spitfire’s shoulders tightly and almost pressing their noses together. Spitfire’s eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly lifted her hooves and placed them over Dash’s.

“Dash… let me speak please,” she said firmly, but not harshly. Dash swallowed and put her hooves back on the floor. “Thank you,” Spitfire nodded before continuing. “Everything I told you is what Luna told me, and she was only repeating to me what Discord told her, or at least that’s what she claimed. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

Dash’s ears immediately flopped down as her lips curved downward into an intense frown that exposed her slightly gritted teeth. Spitfire placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder.

“Look, Dash… We’ll figure out how to go about this, but I’ll make sure everything is fine…” she trailed off, but the reassurance didn’t seem to have any effect on Dash’s emotional state. Spitfire wasn’t surprised.

After all, she knew exactly what it felt like to have a loved one in danger through means that were beyond her control.

Confident there was nothing else she could say to Dash, Spitfire turned her attention back to Soarin.

“While we’re on the subject…” she stood up and stepped around Dash, stopping and glancing at her as she released a long sigh and placed her hooves on her forehead. It looked like Dash was calming down a little, perhaps because panicking or being overly worried wasn’t going to help. Spitfire left Dash to her thoughts as she faced Soarin. “We’ll worry about the details later, but Soarin… I want your help. No, I need it. I’m not the only leader here, and between you, me, and Fleetfoot, it is imperative that the Wonderbolts are motivated and willing to fight to their fullest, especially once we get moving.”

Soarin blinked and perked up. Maybe he wasn’t going to be as limited as he thought. Though he was very concerned and a bit stricken by the news of how close he was to being messed up… he did sort of just make a vow to himself that he would protect everypony, that he wouldn’t allow anypony else to end up like Silver. He wanted to stay true to what he felt was right despite the dangers. Was Spitfire giving him a chance to do that?

“However…” she lightly pressed a hoof to his chest, immediately signaling that there was a catch. “I’m going to request that you try and avoid any combat if you can. Only engage to defend yourself if you absolutely must.”

Soarin exhaled through his nose, he flattened his brow, and his ears folded back. That made sense considering the situation… but was he supposed to sit back if somepony was getting hurt? He could never do that!

“Soarin, this is through my personal concern for your well-being, not me caving to the interests of Luna or Discord. You are important to me and I’m concerned about you. I’m not asking you to go lock yourself in a room and hide, I’m just asking you to consider your own safety as well as that of who you directly affect,” Spitfire motioned towards Dash, turning Soarin’s attention to her briefly. But the moment he looked, Dash suddenly perked up, staring down further into the infirmary towards her squad. Spitfire wasn’t looking at her, and didn’t notice, but Dash got up and walked away from them. “The next time we find ourselves in combat, try to avoid confrontation if you can,” Spitfire continued, drawing Soarin’s attention back to her as Dash moved out of sight among the ponies moving about. “But for Celestia’s sake, if a Shadowbolt ends up coming at you, beat the hell out of it.” Spitfire said while lifting her brow slowly and smacking one of her hooves against the other.

Soarin couldn’t help but smirk a little at her choice of words. Something about the casual way she delivered it forced a smile out of him despite the circumstances. She trusted him. She was telling him not to fight if he could, but also to use his judgment instead of robotically following her will.

“Alright, I can get behind that,” Soarin said with a nod. Spitfire smiled back, but then leaned to her right, looking past Soarin. Curiosity took hold of him as well, Soarin looking over his shoulder.

Bliss had just emerged and was advancing towards them with no particular destination as she surveyed the activity in the infirmary. Her eyes focused towards Spitfire and Soarin as she eventually drew near, aided by Spitfire flagging her down with a few waves of her hoof.

“How is Silver holding up?” Spitfire asked as Bliss stopped beside them.

“He’s about as stable as I can make him,” Bliss began explaining as her magic lit up on her horn and grabbed the tied off end of the ice bag sticking from Spitfire’s suit. “I’ll definitely be spending a lot of my time with him until we make it to the Crystal Empire,” she began to drone on a little, sounding a little miffed as she pulled the now completely melted ice bag out of Spitfire’s suit and tossed it over to a sink nearby. “Dammit, Silver, always giving me too much work…” she said with a huff.

“Heh…” Spitfire chuckled quietly. “Did you expect anything less from him?”

“No,” Bliss immediately answered. “Of course not, but I’m going to have my assistants monitor him for an hour or so. I have to go check on the Shadowbolts and Commander Wave Chill,” Bliss explained, Spitfire’s eyes suddenly opening wider and her ears standing up the moment Bliss dropped a certain name. The reaction was very visible, drawing Soarin’s attention to Spitfire momentarily. “Silver picked a hell of a time to kill himself,” Bliss said sarcastically as she started turning away from them.

Spitfire looked like she wanted to say something, but no words were uttered as Bliss left them, Soarin watching as she approached her two assistants… who were still having some problems with the ‘view.’ Both of them were holding clipboards that they were apparently supposed to be recording information on, but instead they were both staring at P.L. as he firmly stood guard beside Luna and visibly frustrated. There was a lot of quite blushing and giggling coming from the two assistants.

“What a stallion…” Mahogany swooned as she leaned up against Witching and fanned herself with her clipboard.

“I know right?” Witching Hour agreed while biting her lower lip. “I would hit that like the hoof of an angry god,” she started rambling as Bliss walked up behind them. “You’d either need four hours and the jaws of life to pry me out of the mattress… or the pony who pulls me out would be crowned the next king of—”

Bliss cleared her throat loudly.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEK!” Witching shrieked, drawing a few eyes towards her as she dropped her clipboard, jammed both her hooves in her mouth, and turned completely red. Mahogany subtly slipped away as Witching slowly turned around to face Bliss with her eyes super wide, but her pupils tiny behind the lenses of her glasses. Bliss just lifted an eyebrow before slowly shaking her head.

“Honey, shut those legs and take over watching Silver for me. I’ll be back in a couple of hours, alright?” she said in a very professional manner, disregarding all the mare talk she just heard.

“Mmmhmm…” Witching replied, muffled by her hooves still in her mouth as Bliss turned her head slightly.

“Mahogany.”

“Eep…” Mahogany slowly rose up from hiding behind a nearby table. Bliss just made a head motion down the aisle of the infirmary.

“You’re in charge out here while I’m gone,” Bliss ordered, again in a professional manner.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mahogany nodded quickly before scampering off.

With that taken care of, Bliss turned and made her way back past Soarin and Spitfire. Soarin gave Bliss a nod as she left, but blinked when he realized Spitfire had not moved and was still staring straight ahead as if Bliss was still standing before her.

“Spitfire?” Soarin reached up a hoof and waved it up and down in front of her eyes. She didn’t react. Soarin shrugged and instead turned to look for Dash, wondering where she had run off too during their little exchange with Bliss just now. Was she with her squad?

“Soarin,” Spitfire suddenly spoke. Soarin blinked and turned back to Spitfire. She was still facing the same direction, but she looked like she came to whatever conclusion she was contemplating.

“What’s up?” he asked as Spitfire faced him and pointed.

“I need you to gather up everypony in the lobby once the elites have received full attention here and then…” Spitfire suddenly trailed off, her face was serious as she started, but as she went on it softened up as if her thoughts were conflicting with what she was trying to say.

“Uh… Spitfire?” Soarin tipped his head, waiting for her to continue “Hello? Equestria to Spitfire.”

Spitfire winced and shuddered for a moment, closing her eyes and tipping her head down. Her wing feathers puffed out for a moment before resettling into a place as she opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder. She scanned the room, looking at all of the elites as they received medical attention. They all looked extremely tired and exhausted.

They had been through a lot, and the rest of the Wonderbolts were likely shaken upon Silver’s return. Descent was also not likely to be in the best mood following the confrontation with Nightshade, and P.L. was just reunited with Luna and showed no interest in breaking away from her… not to mention the whole scenario he was forced to accept.

“You know what? No,” Spitfire suddenly said as she turned back to Soarin and released a long sigh. “Forget what I just said, we have at least a day or two before we’re going anywhere, so the pep talk can wait. The Wonderbolts need rest. Everypony needs rest. I need rest…” she openly admitted. Soarin managed to not show any reaction, but was nonetheless surprised she’d said it.

But Soarin’s surprise failed to distract him from Spitfire’s demeanor. It had shifted from serious to conflicted… and was now starting to look a little sad.

“Spitfire, is everything okay?” Soarin asked her, his instincts kicking in. There was obviously a lot wrong, but Soarin was more curious if there was anything else on her mind. Spitfire blinked before smiling weakly and shaking her head.

“Oh, no… just thinking about something,” she clarified in a tone that sounded sincere but…

“Spitfire—”

“At ease, Soarin. I’ve got something I need to do,” she cut him off before standing up and slowly making her way around them. Soarin thought about pressing her, but he decided to let it go. Spitfire seemed like something was bothering her, but the way she exited sounded like she knew exactly what she wanted to do about it.

As he watched her leave, instead of dwelling on Spitfire’s thoughts, Soarin thought further on her sudden shift in orders. He agreed that they could use some rest after such a hectic day, but there had to more to it, especially since not every Wonderbolt was involved in the entirety of the day’s hardships. After thinking about it, and how Soarin had been seeing Spitfire regain the qualities of her leadership that had been effective for so long, perhaps she wanted to give the Wonderbolts some time to themselves, some time to reconnect with those they were close to. Spitfire’s style of leadership had always advocated for a strong, connected atmosphere similar to a family. While the Wonderbolts of older generations were trained with a straight forward, yes-pony, militaristic mindset, the Wonderbolts of the present were trained to be motivated by each other, to feel emboldened by the support of those around them, to have more than just an ideal to fight for.

As Spitfire had said, they only had a day or two before Rivet and his team fixed up the Nimbus and once they did, they would be right back on their way with an intense sense of urgency. Spitfire was clearly trying to take back control, and the next order of business for her would be to restore the Wonderbolts’ confidence in themselves and each other. This was the only time they had, and Soarin was sure the Wonderbolts would jump on the opportunity

This was, yet again, more evidence that the true Spitfire was back. The Wonderbolts of their generation couldn’t operate to the best of their ability if they felt mentally stressed and disconnected from each other. Spitfire was giving them a chance to recalibrate, and Soarin planned to make good use of it.

With the thought fresh in his mind, he turned back around to look for Dash… but she saved him the trouble.

“SOARIN!” Dash’s voice ripped through his ears as he turned back around, causing him to wince and blink in surprise as his ears stood up. Her tone was… angry? She was stomping towards him, an incredibly miffed look on her face made up of a glare and a heavy pout. She drew looks from a few nearby as she stopped right in front of him and glared harder.

“Uh…” Soarin’s jaw hung slightly agape as he glanced around at those looking towards the two of them. He leaned back slightly, confused as he glanced back down at Dash. What just happened? Moments ago she was sad about Silver and worried about him… what caused the sudden shift into anger? “What?”

Dash suddenly reached forward and hooked her hoof into the chest portion of his suit, grabbing a large chunk of it and giving it a hard yank.

“Ah!” Soarin yelped as he was forced forwards, Dash turning around and pulling him along against his will. “Ow! Dash! What are you doing?!” he asked frantically as he stumbled along, his neck forced into a lower, uncomfortable position as Dash kept his head down at her height.

She said nothing to him as she kept leading him down the aisle, drawing looks from every member of Squad Three. Misty, Surprise, and Fire Streak just stared, but Lightning Streak whistled as the two reached him. Whether or not he was implying something sexual, Dash assumed anyway, flicking her tail to the side to swat him in the face. Fire, Misty, and Surprise all blinking and leaning back slightly as Dash was apparently angry to the point where she wasn’t going to take any crap.

“Dash! Come on!” Soarin whined as his hooves kept slipping from his attempts to regain control. “What did I—?”

Soarin’s eyes widened as Dash suddenly stopped and released him. She walked a few more steps before turning around and glaring at him harshly.

Standing right behind her… was Squall. His hood was pulled down, his suit a little battered, and his injuries tended to…

But that wasn’t the problem.

Squall was also glaring at Soarin. In fact, he was glaring much harder and even bearing his teeth a little as he glared at Soarin.

Why?

It probably had something to do with Little Star completely latched to Squall’s leg like a koala to a tree, a traumatized look on her face as she shivered slightly and stared at Soarin with wide, apprehensive eyes.

Soarin cringed and scratched his head awkwardly as he looked between Little Star and Dash.

“Oh… Right…”

Spitfire stopped as she reached the last door of the recruit barracks hallway. She looked back towards the doors to the lobby, not really checking for anypony or anything, but she was hesitant to move forward.

It was a hesitation she was fighting because she wasn’t sure if what she was about to do would help. Part of her lack of control over the past day was partly due to a frantic lingering worry in her heart about the very pony she was thinking about. It was how the whole crazy day started, with a horrible discovery and a heated argument with Descent over what was important…

Would coming back to where it all began make it start all over again? Or was it something she had to face to really acknowledge the problem and move past it?

Oh… who the hell was she kidding… None of that mattered.

She just wanted to see him.

Spitfire reached a hoof forward and slowly pushed the door open, the sound of steady, clip-clopping hooves immediately coming from inside as a group of Bliss’ staff, broken off from the main lot in the infirmary, made their way about.

Spitfire did not second guess what she was doing, nor did she pause for any moment. Her legs moved, and carried her right in.

She looked back and forth as she walked. Her destination was straight ahead, but she could not ignore the horrid sight of the captive Shadowbolts. All of them had a magical aura lingering around them that shifted between a green and blue tone, the combined efforts of Luna and Bliss to sooth their suffering and slow the spread still working on them and buying them as much time as possible. The crystal formations set upon their bodies had not changed since Spitfire saw them this morning, but that didn’t stop it from being hard to look upon. Most of them had more than half their bodies covered, some with formations reaching all the way up to their head, one stallion had his eyes lost beneath the jagged crystals.

Spitfire noticed that the unicorns moving about were carrying ration boxes, it looked like she walked in right as they were being fed. Spitfire could only imagine how hard it was to keep them nourished, some of them were so weak that they had to be assisted, two or three unicorns putting their magic together to grind up the food, move the jaw of the patient, and induce swallowing.

It didn’t matter if they were the enemy. They were suffering. Spitfire was glad that nopony amongst their staff was showing any misgivings about helping them out. Though today’s events made Spitfire question who she should be calling an enemy. As if the encounter with Moon the day before wasn’t enough to pose the question, Nightshade’s intense reaction to her old wingmates raised more questions. It seemed like the Shadowbolts were not entirely in tune with each other… And Nightshade’s behavior suggested she wasn’t completely in control.

She’d think about that later though… because she was here for one very specific reason.

The lone Wonderbolt that was suffering from the crystal affliction beside the Shadowbolts, and it looked like Bliss was just about done renewing her magic around him.

Spitfire just wanted to see Wave Chill.

Bliss blinked and looked up as Spitfire slowly approached. After the initial surprise faded, Bliss took note of her demeanor. Spitfire was carrying herself strong, but her eyes were completely fixed on Wave and her ears slowly dropped to the sides of her head.

Bliss said nothing at first, letting Spitfire move all the way up to the bed before stopping just short as if afraid she would disturb Wave’s rest.

Bliss turned her body to face Spitfire and held a hoof out to Wave.

“Go ahead,” she said, causing Spitfire to glance at her. “He’s awake. We just finished feeding him and re-applying the magic.”

“Nothing will happen if I get too close?” Spitfire asked. She perked up as she saw Wave stir. His right eye slowly opened. The left held shut due to the small crystal bits stuck right beneath it. His right pupil moved around, as if the sound of Spitfire’s voice immediately caused him to confirm she was there.

Wave’s eye eventually found her. It widened slightly, as much as his pain allowed as he saw her.

And then his lips curled into a very weak smile, which almost tore Spitfire’s heart in two. He was clearly in an excruciating amount of pain, but the moment he heard her, he made the effort to find her.

“The magic isn’t affected by proximity, just be gentle if you intend to touch him,” Bliss explained before walking towards Spitfire, passing right beside her. She smiled and placed a hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder. “Talk to him. He hasn’t had much strength to speak, but when he has… my staff tells me he keeps asking if you’re around.”

Spitfire felt a pang in her chest. She bit her lower lip, her eyes nearly watering as Bliss spoke those words.

Wave kept asking for her?

They had grown so close recently, but Spitfire still wasn’t used to being so important to somepony else, at least on a romantic level. She stared down into Wave’s eye as his small smile refused to waver, her body moving the moment Bliss left. She shifted up close to the bed and sat down, reaching a hoof out towards Wave’s face.

Wave kept his eye trained on her the whole time, his smile edging slightly wider as Spitfire’s hoof touched his face. She smiled right back at him as she softly stoked her hoof down his cheek and under his chin, rubbing it in a gentle, caring way. Her touch seemed to comfort him, his eye closing briefly, but the smile remaining. He edged his head to the right as much as he could as if demanding more. Spitfire felt tingling warmth in her chest, her smile growing as she continued to give him light physical affection.

She perked up and her smile vanished for a moment as Wave suddenly gritted his teeth and started grunting quietly. She was less than an instant away from calling to Bliss, but her eyes zeroed in on Wave’s hoof shaking beside him. She watched for a moment, but then gasped when she saw Wave’s arm move an inch towards her, followed by him grunting a little louder.

He was trying to reach for her.

“Wave… Wave stop…” she reached for his face again and stroked a hoof against his cheek. “Save your strength…” she urged as he opened his eye and gave her a look that seemed disappointed. The look drew a pout onto her face. She couldn’t have that. “Let me,” she said simply as she reached for his hoof.

As he saw her move, his hoof twitched, but it looked like he was trying to edge it closer to her. Spitfire kept reaching her hoof towards his, but lifted her other to touch his face again, a smile returning to her face that she couldn’t hold back.

He wanted to give the affection back, and he wanted it badly.

“Shh… relax,” she said with a light giggle as she slipped her hoof over his and gave it a light squeeze. Wave’s smile returned instantly, the look of disappointment gone as his hoof weakly closed around hers as well.

With their hooves firmly locked together, and one hoof still on Wave’s face, the two simply stared at one another. Spitfire didn’t know why she thought for even a moment that visit could negatively affect her. This was what she wanted, exactly what she wanted. All the good feelings pouring through her body at this very moment were telling her that.

She had a lot of work ahead of her, and she was going to need all the support she could get. But no support to her, no matter how strong it may be, was as important as knowing that Wave, the stallion she loved, believed that she would save him. That was enough to motivate her to fly through a mile thick sheet of steel if that’s what it took.

It had only been a day… just one day without Wave at her side or among the ranks, and that one day without him was brutal, even if there was more to it. Had she had him around… maybe things would have gone better? She didn’t know… it was pointless to think about what could have been. But the one day without him felt like an eternity.

“I… really wish you could have been with me today…” she spoke up as she leaned her body forward, getting herself as close to the mattress as possible. “I needed someone to speak to as just another pony, not as a captain… you do that for me,” she continued. “Flashwind got to me eventually, but I have the feeling you could have prevented a lot of things before they happened. You just make me feel so level headed and focused when you’re around… I…” she trailed off for a moment, her ears drooping as he saw his expression turn to concern… Concern for her. “I think I really lost sight of things… I let pressure get to me and had nopony to lean on or reach out to me…” she took a deep breath sliding her hoof down his cheek to his neck, then his shoulder, taking care to avoid any crystals as she gave it a light squeeze.

“I’m glad you didn’t see any of it. I’m not proud of it,” she said while looking away from him. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever made such a blunder before in my life. I don’t think it’s entirely my fault, but I didn’t stop it either…” She perked up as she felt Wave’s hoof squeeze hers tighter. She looked directly at him, trying to read his face because he was clearly too weak to speak. But she didn’t need to understand his expression, just the pressure of his hoof on hers. Something about his grip strengthening despite his weakness told her he was trying to make it very clear to her that he was there for her.

Spitfire smiled down at him. He was putting in so much effort for her sake. In a gesture of silent understanding, she returned the grip, putting as much strength into hers, squeezing it right back.

She couldn’t hold back any more, she tipped herself forwards, keeping her hoof locked with his as she closed her eyes and gently placed her lips to his cheek, giving it a soft kiss. She could hear his weak breathing as she held her head down by his, but his strong grip showed he was fighting.

She pulled away, keeping the smile on her face and keeping in mind the strength he was showing in the face of weakness…

If he was willing to fight, then she’d fight twice as hard for both of them.

She’d do it for him.

Spitfire released her hoof from his shoulder and placed it on the mattress, turning her forearm in and resting her chin on it as Wave slowly turned his head to keep his eye on her.

She simply smiled at him, feeling no urge, whatsoever, to leave his side for a while. So she decided to fill him in on everything that happened. He was still one of her second commanders after all, and she wanted him to feel like he was still just as much a part of the Wonderbolts even though he was being kept down by the crystal infection.

Wave also deserved to know the unfortunate status of his squad captain…

“So… My mistakes aside, a lot of things happened today…”

“DASH!” Soarin called after Dash as he trotted after her into the lobby. Dash was stomping along, not making any effort to avoid anypony that was in her way. Several Wonderbolts and Renegades stepped aside, but the thestrals weren’t so willing to move out of the way. Dash pushed her way past a few of them as she turned towards the recruit barracks. She received a lot of glares and angry hissing, but she disregarded all of them. “Dash, WAIT!” Soarin called after her again, wincing and flinching as he avoided several thestrals who growled or hissed at him by association. Normally he’d hold his ground and not let another pony push him around, but catching up to Dash was much more important to him at the moment.

Soarin did his best to avoid everypony else in the lobby, trying to stay on Dash’s warpath as she kept moving and didn’t look at him, making her way to the recruit barracks doors with no intention of stopping.

“Dash, I said I was sorry!” Soarin yelled after her again, hoping to stop her as he cringed in embarrassment, more or less confirming to everypony watching that he had messed something up BIGTIME.

Dash had every reason to be angry at him. It didn’t matter why he did it. She was close friends with Little Star, that’s all that mattered. It had already been a stressful, hard day. And this little revelation, while nothing compared to some of the stuff that happened, was one last piece that wasn’t wanted or needed. He wanted to fix it immediately, but Dash was NOT having it.

Still, he had to keep trying.

“Dash! Please!” Soarin yelled as he followed her into the empty hallway of the recruit barracks. He was trying his best not to sound desperate, but he was bordering on it. He’d had a long day too, while this was entirely his fault, he didn’t want this either. “Dash, you still need to get looked at by the trainers!” he tried to convince her, picking up his pace. Dash must have heard his hooves pick up because she broke into a gallop. “Dash!” Soarin yelled again.

It’s not like he didn’t deserve the silent treatment, but did she have to do it now after everything else?

She reached the Foxtrot barracks door and stopped, placing her hoof on the door, but not opening it as if hesitating. Soarin saw it as an opportunity to catch up and quickly made his way up to her.

“Dash… please… you should—”

He reached for her, but right before he could touch her, she spun around and glared at him. Soarin shut his mouth and stopped right in his tracks as she set her angry eyes upon him.

But her eyes looked wet. She was giving him one of the harshest glares he had ever seen, but was she… crying?

Without a word to him, Dash turned around and pushed the door open, moving into the barracks and slamming the door behind her before Soarin could follow her.

Soarin sat still, his hoof still extended as he processed what he just saw.

Okay, he knew for a fact that she was miffed at him for what he did to Little Star, but crying? There was more to it…

Perhaps the day had been so rough that this last little thing pushed her over the edge? Knowing Dash, she didn’t want to be seen crying in public, she had too much pride for that.

At that moment, Soarin knew that turning around and leaving her be was not an option. If she really was on the verge of losing it, then she needed him. He didn’t care if she punched him in the face the moment he entered, he was going in and he was going to bring this horrible, horrible day to an end.

Soarin took a deep breath and reached forward, opening the door and walking in.

He moved quietly, projecting a gentle approach from the moment he started as he closed the door slowly. He looked into the room and immediately spotted Dash. She had hopped up on her bed and was sitting on it with her back turned to him.

Soarin slowly made his way over, making sure his steps made noise to signal his approach, the soft clip clop of his hooves the only sound in the room. He moved right up to the edge of the bed and placed a hoof on it, saying nothing as he stared at the back of Dash’s head. She was sniffling quietly, but barely moving.

Soarin sighed, waiting a moment or two before carefully reaching towards her shoulder. He braced himself, knowing there was likely going to be some form of harsh reaction the moment he touched her.

He held his breath… and placed his hoof on her shoulder. He shut his eyes, waiting for it…

But she said nothing. Soarin opened on of his eyes, keeping the other one squinted shut as he looked at her. She remained in place, and just sniffled again.

“D-dash…?” Soarin said her name quietly, but got no response. He weighed saying more, but then blinked in surprise as Dash suddenly leaned forwards and pushed her hooves sideways against the mattress, turning herself around.

Soarin stayed perfectly still as she turned, meeting him with the exact same teary glare she had given him outside the door. Soarin blinked, his eyes remaining open wide as he stared into her glare.

“Get on the bed and hug me,” Dash suddenly demanded.

“I… what?” Soarin wasn’t sure he heard her correctly.

“I said get your ass on the bed… and hug me, dammit.” Dash repeated as she gritted her teeth, her eyes narrowed and a tear slipped down from one of her eyes. “Just do it, you dick.” she added with another sniffle.

Soarin’s ears instantly flopped down, frowning as he looked upon her face. It was filled with so many visibly conflicting emotions. Anger, sadness, frustration, and who knows what else?

He couldn’t stand seeing that look. He had the feeling he wasn’t off the hook for Little Star, but she told him what she wanted, so he would provide.

She turned right back around after he took his hoof off her shoulder, so Soarin quickly did as he was told. He pulled himself up onto the mattress and scooted himself right beside her, gently draping his arm over her shoulder.

He felt her head move as he held his arm on her, so he looked down to see she was glaring up at him. He was doing what she asked him to, right?

“What’s this?” she asked sharply with a sniffle at the end.

“Uh…” Soarin’s mouth hung open a little.

“You call this a hug?” she said with a pout. “COME HERE!” she demanded as she suddenly turned, moved herself in front of him, and thrust herself into his body.

“Oof!” Soarin grunted and quickly opened his wings, angling them down to stop himself from tipping over and falling right off the bed.

“HUG ME!” Dash demanded as she buried her face into his chest and wrapped her arms around him as far as she could and squeezed him tightly. “Just hug me… that’s all I want right now. Please…” Her voice was harsh, but showed signs of faltering. Soarin frowned as he picked up that slight tone and quickly reached forwards, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her tightly, not sure what to say or if he should say anything…

So he didn’t.

He just sat there and hugged her as she began to shudder lightly. He tightened the hug, disregarding the fact that her nose was already pushing quite hard between his chest muscles. Dash turned her head to the side, letting her cheek push against his suit instead. She didn’t seem to like it, so she reached up and grabbed the frayed ends of Soarin’s suit by his neck and yanked it down. Soarin flinched as his suit ripped, but it was already damaged beyond repair so he let her do it. With a direct opening right to Soarin’s chest fur, Dash pushed her cheek into it, feeling Soarin’s fur softly bristling against her face as she released a noise that sounded like a sigh mixed with a groan. Soarin moved one of his hooves up to her head and stroked it against her mane, hoping to just let her relax and get her fill of the hug she demanded. She’d say something when she was ready.

“Mrph…” Dash eventually made a sound against Soarin’s chest, completely muffled with half her mouth pressed against his chest.

“What was that?” Soarin asked quietly as he kept stroking her mane.

“Mrghrph…” Dash made another noise. Couldn’t hold back a weak smirk.

“I agree,” he said while giving her head a soft pat.

“Frck yu.”

“Ow…” Soarin flinched as he felt a nip against his chest. He sighed as he looked down at her, a small bit of his fur feeling wet as she held her face to it, the wetness in her eye making the spot a little damp. “Did you bite me?”

“Yhff…” Dash mumbled before finally moving her head, but she didn’t turn it, she just rubbed it lightly against Soarin’s chest.

Soarin left it at that, going back to being silent since Dash clearly needed it. He didn’t take his eyes off her for several minutes, but she eventually moved again, removing her face from his chest. She released a sigh, Soarin feeling the breath upon his chest as she still sat with her nose very close to it.

“I needed this hug…” Dash quietly approved of the hug, but kept her eyes on his chest.

She still didn’t look happy, in fact, the glare had barely changed.

“Dash, I’m…” he began quietly, keeping his arms around her. “I’m really, really sorry about what I did to Little Star,” he apologized for what was probably the fifth time about it. He had lost count. “I wasn’t acting like myself, I was frantic about saving you and—”

“Shut up,” Dash cut him off abruptly while tipping forwards and bopping her forehead against his chest. “Just… shut up, I don’t want to talk about anything that happened today.”

Soarin’s mouth was still open from being stopped mid-sentence, but he closed it and frowned as Dash held her forehead against his chest.

“It was just too much…” she continued. “I just want to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow,” she continuously knocked her head against him. “Soarin, make the day end, please.”

“I, uh…” Soarin lifted his brow. Was Dash getting a little loopy on him?

“Mrph…” she grunted as she stuck her nose into his chest again.

“Okay…” Soarin grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to pull her off to look her in the eyes, but she resisted. He furrowed his brow lightly. “Dash… look at me please.”

“No,” she denied as she continued to fight back.

Soarin sighed and shook his head. She didn’t want to talk about it… but he was going to make her talk about it. If she wanted him to comfort her, he wanted her to let it all out, not hide in his chest fluff.

“Dash,” he clasped her shoulders harder. He pulled her away from his body, but she began batting at his chest with her hooves as he did. “Dash stop that.”

“No.”

Soarin let go of one of her shoulders and put his arm down to stop her hooves. Dash huffed and finally turned her eyes up to his, still glaring.

“Talk to me. Tell me what’s on your mind,” Soarin prompted her. She quickly shook her head.

“I don’t want to.”

“Yes, you do,” Soarin contradicted her while tipping his head. Dash immediately stopped struggling and blinked. She puffed her cheeks out, crossed her arms and turned her head away.

“Fine.”

Soarin chuckled as he shifted beside her and draped a wing and an arm over her, pulling her in closely.

“It’s been a rough day for all of us, let it all out,” Soarin instructed.

“I already told you I’m not talking about that,” Dash suddenly denied him again as she leaned into his side.

“Dash…” Soarin sighed.

“The only thing I’m talking about right now is what just happened.”

“Er…” Soarin gritted his teeth. So it was still about what he did? “Dash, I said I was—”

“Not about Star,” she cut him off. Soarin blinked.

“Oh…”

“No, you’re not off the hook about that, but that’s not it,” she reiterated, pressing herself harder to him.

“Then what?” he asked, hiding a slight bit of growing frustration that she was being so vague.

“I’m worried about you, dolt…” she said in a quiet, yet sharp tone.

Soarin’s eyes widened slightly, a silence forming between them for several moments.

Of course… the horn.

Soarin was so focused on being yelled at about Little Star he almost completely forgot about… the truth Luna was hiding from him.

“Of course I’m worried about my squad, about the elites, about everypony else… especially Silver. Yeah, I’m angry at you about Star, but that was just the last straw, what really shook me was hearing about the horn. I thought seeing Silver was the last thing I would have to deal with today, but then… mrrgghh…” Dash ended with a groan, spilling it all out and completely flopping against Soarin’s side, her plot scooting out beneath her as she sank down.

Soarin shifted his wing down to cradle her as she slumped, her cheek now pressed into his stomach.

“I just didn’t need to hear that. I had just gotten done reassuring myself that Silver was going to live and we would fight to get him to the Crystal Empire… and then that hammer was dropped on me. Then you decided to be a dick to Star, but that was nothing compared to this. I just needed to get out, I needed to get away, I’ve had it with today, and I’m just going to sit here for the rest of the night,” she stated adamantly, turning her head to press her face completely into Soarin’s hip and stomach.

Soarin reached down and stroked her mane when he was sure she was down. She released a heavy sigh right into his fur as he lightly rubbed her neck and shoulders.

“That’s fine by me,” Soarin agreed with her in terms of wanting the day to end, however… “But before we officially lock the door on the day, you should go get your injuries looked at,” he patted her on the head but she shook it.

“No, I’m fine. They need to focus on Silver,” she instantly denied, but Soarin wasn’t going to let her out of this one.

“Dash,” he reached down and tipped her up off of his stomach, immediately looking over all of the bruises visible on her neck, and one right beneath her jaw. There was still a little dried blood on her lip as well, but his eyes were drawn to the large, full-mouthed teeth marks that were left on her suit. It looked like they were still bleeding a little. It was a nasty sight. “Especially this,” he reached forwards to touch the spot near them, but the moment he tried, Dash pushed away from him.

“NO!” she yelled suddenly, almost ripping herself from his wing as her glare had turned into wide eyes. “I… this…” she quickly unfolded a wing and covered the marks. “I… don’t touch it… it…”

“It hurts?” Soarin asked, his ears flopping down as Dash tipped her head down shamefully. “Then you should get it looked at,” he repeated, but Dash just shook her head. “Why not?” Soarin pressed.

“Silver,” Dash repeated, offering no other explanation. “I don’t want to bother them when Silver is—”

“Silver is being treated,” Soarin pointed out, determined to get Dash help. “Witching Hour is taking care of him, the rest are available."

Dash stared up at him with eyes that nearly tore him apart. He reached forwards and touched a hoof to her wing.

“Dash, you really should get that looked at. It needs to be cleaned and covered,” he said worriedly as he pushed the wing away and got a better look at it, but she quickly shifted her wing to cover it again.

“I don’t even want to think about it. Or anything else. It just keeps reminding me of… her… and what she’s done today to me and my life.” Dash tried to dance around it, but Soarin wasn’t going to let her.

“Tell you what,” Soarin placed a hoof on her head. “I won’t force you to go see the trainers, but if you want me, and me alone to wash it and cover it up right here in the comfort of your own barracks, then I will do that for you, okay?”

The subject was shifting all over the place, first it was Soarin’s treatment of Star, then it was the horn, then it was Silver, now it was the bite mark. The whole moment was spiraling, failing to find a point of focus. It was almost fitting considering how much of a whirlwind of things the whole day had been.

“Please?” Soarin added as Dash looked him in the eyes.

“O…okay…” Dash nodded in agreement. “We have a medkit—”

“In the bathroom,” Soarin finished for her with a nod. “I used to live in these too.” He gave her a weak smile and a wink. “Come on, let’s take care of it,” Soarin scooted to the other side of the bed, but Dash stayed put. Soarin paused right before sliding off the edge, looking over his shoulder. She was still sitting with her wing covering the bite mark. Soarin just stared for a moment before slipping off the bed, turning to face her and patting his hoof on the mattress.

Dash blinked and stared at his hoof before scrunching her face towards him.

“What am I, a cat?” she asked with a huff while lifting an eyebrow.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” Soarin snickered as he continued, trying to add a little levity to the situation.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming…” Dash gave in, puffing her cheeks out as she shifted forwards and smacked Soarin’s hoof off the mattress.

Soarin draped his wing over her as she touched to the floor. The two slowly walked side by side towards the other end of the barracks, right towards the two bathrooms, since it was just the two of them, it didn’t matter which one they walked into, and they just needed one of the two kits and a sink. He guided Dash over to the mare’s room door and led her in.

Soarin reached for the light switch, but when he flipped it, the light didn’t turn on.

“What?” Soarin blinked as he flipped the switch on and off to no avail. “The other lights are working fine. Must’ve disconnected during the flight,” he said to himself as he glanced out at the light on in the barracks. He was about to guide Dash out, but she plopped her plot right down on the floor. Soarin glanced at her briefly before removing his wing. “One second.”

He turned around and stepped out, leaving the door open so as not to leave Dash in the dark. He was only gone for a moment.

“What? This one too?” his voice came from outside before he returned. “Both lights are out,” he said with frustration as Dash just continued to sit there. “Hmmm…” Soarin scratched his chin, then looked up at his horn… and stared at it for a moment.

They needed the facilities… so he didn’t have a choice, but he’d need help. He wasn’t going to risk it without some help.

“Dash,” he suddenly said as he walked around and sat in front of her. She looked up at him and blinked as he held a hoof out to her. “Help me here,” he asked.

Dash wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but after a moment she caught on and gasped.

“Soarin, no. No magic.” She quickly reached passed his hoof and poked him the chest. “Absolutely not, not with the way your horn is right now.”

“That’s why I’m asking for your help,” he explained as he moved his hoof in and placed it on her arm. “Because from the very beginning, even before I had this stupid thing on my forehead, I’ve always been able to completely control it with you at my side.”

Dash was prepared to deny him again, but what he just said was completely true.

“Dash, I’m not looking to cast any spells. I just want to generate some light,” he explained as she looked down and scrunched her mouth. “Besides, one of the most important things I learned from my magic lessons is that the will to help somepony important to me can directly affect my control of the magic. That, mixed with the control you give me just being you… I’m sure just activating it won’t cause any problems.”

“That hasn’t always worked that way,” Dash pointed out, trying to fight back against his determination, but he wasn’t having it.

“Dash, it will work,” he said back adamantly, driven by his desire to treat her wounds. “You’ll make it work.”

Dash looked right at him, her mouth still scrunched up and her ears folded back. His explanation wasn’t perfect, as she pointed out, but she could tell he was also pushing romantic buttons here, especially with his unyielding stance. His unwillingness to back down was always something she liked about him, after all. And it was for her…

Fine, she’d let him do it.

“Okay, but if anything doesn’t feel right, stop,” Dash demanded while pressing her hoof to his chest again.

“You have my word,” Soarin nodded before glancing around. “Where is that medkit anyway—ah, there it is.” He turned and opened a box attached to the wall opposite of the sinks. Inside was a white container with a red cross on it. Soarin placed it on the floor and opened it up, but he could barely see the contents. “Alright…” he said as he looked at Dash and reached his arms out. “Come here, I need you.”

Dash swallowed and nodded. She kept her wing over the bite mark, but she slowly moved forwards and into Soarin’s body as he wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. She rested her hooves on his chest, turning her head to the side to place her cheek in his fur as she hear him take several deep breaths.

Soarin closed his eyes, keeping his breathing steady as he concentrated and went back to basics, recalling the sensations of the magic as he felt the energy well up within him from the center. Lots of use had actually made him quite adept at this process at this point, so he skillfully and carefully let the magic flow very, very slowly through him and around him before directing it up towards his head.

“Hng…” Soarin groaned quietly as the magic reached the horn, discomfort immediately filling his head as he gritted his teeth, but held the flow steady. A few crackles and pops came from the horn as tiny sparks of blue and yellow started appearing around the horn, the many cracks glowing with a blinking pattern of the same colors.

“Soarin…” Dash said quietly as she felt her heartbeat pick up just a little bit. “Be careful…” she urged as she pressed her hooves against his chest.

“I’m fine…” Soarin assured her, sucking it up as a flickering aura surrounded the horn and a few tiny bits of energy began jumping from the horns surface before fizzling out. “You’re helping… a lot… I just… need to…” Soaring kept breathing in and out, in and out as he struggled to make the magic work. “Come on… work with me, dammit!” Soarin scolded the magic as he fought against the discomfort and the headache.

Dash kept herself firmly planted against him. She wanted Soarin to stop, but he was so determined to make it work so he could help her. While conflicted, she made sure that as much of her was touching him as possible. She didn’t know if that would make a difference, but if it did, she would do it.

“Hmm!” Soarin suddenly opened his eyes. One of them glowing blue and the other glowing yellow as faint streams of the colored light rose from both. The yellow and blue colors mixed together upon his horn, causing the flickering aura to stabilize and turn green as yellow and blue sparks and ribbons of magic continued to dance around the horn. The color mixing only lasted a moment before Soarin exhaled, the aura reverted to blue, but remained alight and steady, a gentle light holding steady within the cracks of the horn. The bathroom was now lit up with a tint of blue, and they could see all around them.

Dash blinked as Soarin finished. She saw it… she saw the magic combine into green just like it had when Soarin saved her from Angel and Shadow after her fight with Sin. Soarin was staring up at the glowing horn, he clearly noticed it too. Blue and yellow made green, that was basic color knowledge, but both of them had a feeling that little effect had other implications.

Unfortunately, whatever those implications were, it was a mystery, and they weren’t here to discuss mysteries or anything further that would cause confusion. They had had enough for the day in terms of unknowns and problems.

Without a word about the brief green aura, Soarin removed his arms from around Dash and slowly removed her from his chest, holding her a few inches from him as she looked up and the two locked eyes. Dash began glancing back and forth, at how his eyes were reacting, one blue and one yellow. The sight of the yellow magic always made her cringe. Not just because of what happened the first time the yellow magic appeared, but how it always surfaced when something bad was going to happen. Though here it looked calm and in control. It wasn’t the first time she had seen the different colored eye combination either, but still…

“See? All good,” Soarin said to her with a smile. She stopped glancing between his eyes and looked him straight on, finding comfort in his smile even if there was still a slight sign of discomfort in it. “Now, let’s get this taken care of,” Soarin tapped a hoof against her wing, which was still covering the bite mark. Dash’s smile disappeared, replaced with a flat mouth and wide eyes. Soarin frowned when he saw her reaction, but tapped her wing again. “Come on now, Dash… please?” he asked while tipping his head. Dash’s ears flopped down and she released a quiet whimper.

Soarin wasn’t sure what to do. Dash needed to have the bite wound treated, but she was being reluctant. He didn’t want to force anything on her, especially after how the day had gone. But then he got an idea.

“Dash, tell you what,” he removed his hoof from her wing and placed it on her shoulder. Now both hooves were on her shoulders and he was focused on her, not on the bite. “You don’t have to do any of it, don’t even look at, I will take care of the whole thing for you…” he began while speaking directly to her. “I just want you to relax, okay?”

Dash blinked as she processed his request, she bit her lower lip and tipped her head down a bit, but then nodded.

“O…okay…” she agreed, but kept her wing over the wound.

“All I want you to do is follow my instructions, and listen to my voice, okay?” he added with a comforting tone. Dash didn’t reply, but nodded subtly. “Okay… first, turn around.”

Dash swallowed and nodded. Soarin lifted his hooves from her shoulders as she shifted herself around without standing up. Soarin placed his hooves gently back on her shoulders after she was facing away from him.

“Now… back up, rest your back against me,” Soarin requested while giving her shoulders a very light tug. Dash nodded again, scooting back until her back and wings were snugly resting against Soarin’s chest and stomach. Soarin leaned forwards a bit, purposely adding a little bit of pressure to her wings so that she couldn’t use it to cover the bite wound again. “Good, be comfortable and at ease, I’m right here. Now just sit still, let’s get this off…” Soarin said as he rubbed a hoof against her arm, signaling he meant the suit.

Dash sat still, her eyes stuck open, but feeling at ease as Soarin reached around her and felt around for the well hidden zipper on Dash’s suit, finding the spandex flap that hid it right at the base of her chest. He slowly unzipped it, loosening the suit’s tight hold around her.

“Arms first,” he instructed her. Taking a suit on and off was second nature to all of them, but he was walking her through it as part of keeping her relaxed. He held the suit steady as Dash slipped her arms out from the sleeves, exposing some light bruises. “Good, now head. Let’s do this slowly…” He grabbed the spandex by the hood mask that was already bunched up down around her neck. Dash started pulling her head down, but she froze, cringed, and grunted as she did. Soarin glanced over her left shoulder and winced as he saw the spandex stick to her body around the bite marks. It looked like some blood had dried between her and the suit.

Soarin quickly lowered his head down, gently placing his chin atop her head and moving his right hoof so his arm was embracing her around the chest.

“This is going to hurt…” he whispered to her, moving his nose over to her left ear, brushing it against it affectionately. “Be still, be strong…” he encouraged her. “I’m right here, I’m right here, I’m right here,” her repeated to her quietly as he began to slowly peel the suit from her shoulder.

“Grh… ah… ow… ahhhhhh…” Dash gritted her teeth, slammed her eyes shut, and groaned painfully as Soarin did his best to remove it gently. There was a very uncomfortable, cringe-worthy noise of stretchy fabric ripping from flesh and fur. It was making Soarin’s eyes and ears twitch. He grimaced as he watch the suit cling to her shoulder, clear traces of blood on the suit and on her fur as the wound was fully exposed to the air.

Slowly but surely, Soarin worked the rest of it until it was completely free, Dash breathing a sharp sigh of relief followed by shuddering. Soarin gave her a tight squeeze with his other arm and nuzzled his head against the top of hers to quietly comfort her as she slowly came to grips with the pain.

“There, it’s free,” Soarin said to her quietly, feeling that perhaps part of her avoidance of treatment was what she just went through, but he was sure there was more to it. Dash wasn’t one to shy away from pain. “Over the top,” Soarin instructed while lifting the spandex further up. Dash ducked down, allowing Soarin to pull the top portion of the suit off before shimmying it down Dash’s body. “Wings,” he ordered next, Dash complying by straightening her wings and tugging them inward so he could get the suit off. With the wing holes now vacant, Soarin gently pulled the suit down around her waist, leaving the bottom portion on her and the top half crumpled around her sides.

Now with her entire top half exposed, he not only got to see the bite mark in full, but also got a good look at some very nasty bruises that were riddled all over her frame. Soarin cringed as he finally got a good look at her, some of the bruises were so dark they were showing right through her fur. She didn’t want to go anywhere, but he might have to go grab some more ice bags after they were done.

But what really caught his attention was the now exposed bite mark. He was glad that he convinced her to let him treat it, because the suit was concealing how bad it actually looked. Ponies didn’t have very sharp teeth, but due to the depth and severity of the wounds left behind… Nightshade must have really clamped down hard. The thought of how it all went down mixed with looking upon the result made Soarin shiver and his own shoulder twitch. Several of the wounds were still bleeding a little or maybe peeling back the suit ripped some forming clots free. Each mark had some swelling around them, and there were a lot of patches of dried blood in her fur, likely due to the suit being pressed over them.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Dash suddenly spoke, Soarin’s ears pointing straight up as Dash reached a hoof over to her opposite arm, hunched her shoulders forward, and shivered.

“It’s…” Soarin hesitated. There was clearly significance to this wound that he was missing. He had been trying to figure out her reluctance to be treated from the start, but now it was abundantly clear. Now the million bit question: should he cushion her? Be soft and tell her to not worry about it or not think about it? Or should he urge her to talk to him, let it out as he worked even though this day had already weighed heavily on them?

He had to answer, but his instincts instantly leaned him towards what was probably the best option.

“It’s pretty bad,” he described honestly, but to his surprise, Dash didn’t react, she just nodded.

“Had a feeling…” she said as she kept her eyes down. She was completely avoiding looking at it as he suggested. Soarin reached for the medical supplies, shifting them over beneath the sinks beside them so he would have the box and a source of water both within arm’s length. He shuffled around in the box, finding several sterile cloth packets and a bottle of disinfectant. He pulled what he needed to clean the wounds off, setting them all out near him. He decided to clean around the wounds first, opening one sterile cloth packet and unwrapping it fully before reaching for the sink.

“Wait… shit,” Soarin furrowed his brow when he realized the obvious. They had severed the temporary pipework when they took off. So the sink wouldn’t work at all… unless there was still some water in the pipes? It was worth a shot, but it meant he would have to clean around the wounds with minimal resources. He turned the warm water handle, but nothing came out. “Dammit…” he huffed as he looked around. His eyes landed back on the medkit, quickly spying another bottle tucked in the corner. He picked it out and got a good look at it, realizing it was, in fact, some emergency water for cleaning purposes.

Soarin shrugged as he twisted open the bottle and tipped it to the cloth. After all the effort they went through to get the magic started simply to use the bathroom, now it looks like they could have easily done it all outside where there was light. But since they were already this far, he just kept going.

Without waiting another moment, he soaked the cloth with water until it was dripping wet and and began dabbing it around Dash’s shoulder.

“Ah…” Dash quietly yelped as Soarin applied light pressure to the area around the teeth marks, but she held steady, only shivering slightly. Soarin made sure to make full use of the cloth, since he was sure he wasn’t going to get much more water. He took his time, but slowly cleaned up all traces of dried blood. He let the marks themselves be for the moment, but made sure to work quickly before the ones bleeding oozed any blood.

Soarin tossed the wet cloth aside, grabbing two more packets and tearing them both open at the same time using his hooves and teeth. Dash remained perfectly still, allowing him to work, but she began tensing as Soarin readied the next bit of treatment, knowing it was probably going to hurt… a lot.

Soarin set one of the cloths aside, placing the other in his hoof and reaching it gently towards the marks.

“I’m going to dab the blood on these now,” he announced to her. She remained stiff, but nodded. Soarin took a deep breath, and lightly touched the cloth directly to the mark that was bleeding the most.

“AH!” Dash bounced and yelped, but immediately slammed her mouth shut and held her breath as Soarin dabbed the marks one by one. They were going to start bleeding again as soon as he was done, but he was ready to quickly apply the disinfectant and wrap it up right after. “Rgggnnnn…” Dash growled as her shoulder kept twitching.

“Hang in there, hang in there…” Soarin encouraged as he worked quickly.

“HNG!” Dash suddenly rolled forwards a little, curling up slightly. Soarin reached out and stopped her.

“Hold still, I know it hurts, just please…” Soarin gritted his teeth as her motion caused some of the blood to smear on her fur. If this was going badly for Dash, the sting from the next part was most definitely going to be hard in terms of keeping her steady. She needed a distraction.

That brought him back to his previous thought. There was significance to this wound he did not know. It was obvious what had happened, but what did it mean for Dash? She had to let it out. Talking about it would not only get it off her mind, but it would take her mind off the pain a little.

“Dash…” Soarin spoke up as he continued to dab the wounds. “I wasn’t around yet when this happened. Can you tell me how it all went down?”

A lot of emotional discomfort rushed through him as he asked. He felt it was right, but how would she react? She made it clear she wanted to be done with the day already.

But Dash didn’t say anything for a moment. She sat there, still shivering, but then to Soarin’s surprise…

“I was… protecting Fleetfoot…” she started talking without protest, as if she wanted to let it out. Soarin listened, but also took advantage of the situation, working faster so he could get it all done as she was talking. “Nightshade had just knocked her out of the fight and… I was the only Wonderbolt left standing.”

Soarin finished dabbing the wounds. He quickly set the bloody cloth aside, grabbing the last one while also reaching for the disinfectant.

“Before I even joined the fight, Silver had pushed for me to stand firm and have no fear… but I was slipping. Nightshade was coming towards me and I didn’t know what to do…”

Soarin growled to himself as he fumbled with the bottle of disinfectant, reaching it up to his mouth to nip the plastic seal off the cover.

“My confidence was gone, but my resolve was still there. Even though I knew I couldn’t win I wasn’t going to let her scare me or humiliate me. That’s what I kept telling myself, but when I jumped at her, she… she…”

Soarin finally got the plastic loose and unscrewed the cap.

“She didn’t even try. After all I’ve done and all my training, she took me down in an instant and had me pinned. It hurt… the pressure she was putting on me was painful, but it was also humiliating.”

Soarin grabbed the sterile cloth he had set aside and pressed it to the bottle, dipping it back and forth while looking at Dash from behind, this was going to sting.

“Then she started taunting me, she taunted me while laughing and looking down at me…”

Soarin tipped the bottle back up and placed it on the floor before turning back to Dash.

“And then she…”

Soarin took a breath, quickly reaching one hoof around and holding onto her chest tightly… before pressing the cloth down on the largest of the bite marks.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Dash suddenly cried out, her head whipping back and pressing into Soarin’s chest. She reflexively reached her right hoof up and clasped it to Soarin’s arm around her. “RRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH… NNNNRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH…!” she gritted her teeth and slammed her eyes shut as she squeezed his arm, her body shuddering as Soarin dabbed the wound.

“Keep talking!” Soarin instructed as he moved to the next mark.

“And then… she… rgh… she…” Dash continued while tensing against the pain. “She… tortured me… with… lightning…”

Soarin flinched, his eyes widening as she mentioned the torture, but quickly refocused and moved onto the next mark.

“I thought… I’d be ready… but…” she kept taking long pauses, long sharp breaths hissing between her teeth and through her nostrils as she clamped her hoof down harder on Soarin’s arm. “I wasn’t… ready… I… was scared… afraid… and… AH!” she lurched forwards, but Soarin held her still as he shifted the cloth in his hoof and moved to the next wound. “And… and… and…”

“Hang in there, keep going!” Soarin said while leaning his head down and brushing his nose to her ear again.

“And when… she saw… how scared… I was… she… GRH!” Dash suddenly whipped her head back, smashing the crown of her head right into Soarin’s face. Soarin blinked and grunted, but stayed focused. He had cleaned off half the teeth marks, he was almost done. “She… picked me up… held me tightly to her body… and tripled the lightning charge… and…” Her neck was arched back, her face tilted up with her head pressed into Soarin’s chest. He could see her face… it was heavily contorted in pain, her eyes squinted shut and her expression completely scrunched, but she was not crying. She was fighting the pain.

“Almost done, Dash, almost done!” Soarin relayed as he moved onto the last three marks.

“And then she…! SHE! AH! SHE… BIT DOWN… GRH! AH!”

Two marks left.

“ON… MY SHOULDER! IT HURT… SO MUCH… I…!”

One mark left.

“I COULDN’T… EVEN… SCREAM!" Her body shuddered rigidly. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Dash shifted roughly to the side and dug her face into Soarin’s armpit. He held it firmly to her so she would remain upright.

“And…” Soarin dabbed the last bite mark as she continued to gasp and yelp. “DONE!” Soarin immediately tossed the cloth aside and threw his other arm around her, embracing her as tightly as he could while making sure to avoid the bite marks.

“AHHHH! Hggnnnnn… ohhhhhh… Ahhhhh….” Dash sputtered and wheezed as Soarin held onto her tightly. “Ahhhhhhhhh… ow… it… still… hurts…”

“Shhhh…” Soarin hushed her while rubbing a hoof up and down her side softly. “It’s going to hurt, but I’m here…”

He had to cover up the marks now that they were cleaned, but he would give her a moment after what she had just been put through. He thought on all the things he had just heard from her, how Nightshade had tortured, humiliated, and dominated her. He thought about how prideful of a pony Dash was, and how that pride was probably incredibly damaged by the encounter. Dash had come a long way since they had last faced Nightshade, but to have it seem like there was still no difference? And to have the same sadistic methods pushed right back onto her?

All of that piled on top of a day packed with struggles, hardships, a disconnect between friends and comrades, and the near death of her own mentor… Soarin couldn’t believe Dash hadn’t completely broken down. What he had gone through throughout the day seemed like peanuts compared to what she had… yet he had completely lost control of his temper and made horrible and clumsy choices as a result…

He felt that Dash was a stronger pony than he…

Perhaps he could learn a thing or two from her resolve, temperament, and control…

“Ooohhh…” Dash groaned again, but her body stopped shivering. Soarin noticed and shifted his nose towards her ear again.

“I have to cover it up now… okay?” he explained. Dash nodded her head weakly while panting quietly.

Without another word, Soarin released her from his grip. She remained sitting upright, but hunched her shoulders forwards, waiting patiently and still as Soarin reached back into the box and pulled out a large roll of bandages and another sterile cloth. He ripped the packet open and unfolded the cloth as wide as it could as he let some of the bandages roll onto the floor.

He hesitated for a moment, but gently reached the unfolded cloth towards Dash, and rested it over her shoulder. She twitched, but didn’t make a sound. Soarin gently pressed it down to make sure every wound from the bite was covered. He kept his hoof on her shoulder as he reached for the bandages with the other, reaching the end of the bandage up to his mouth, holding it in his teeth as he grabbed the roll and looked over Dash’s shoulder to figure out how he would place them.

Once he had his bearings, he placed the end of the bandages on a spot just above her back on her neck… and began wrapping up her shoulder, passing the roll back and forth between his hooves as he slowly covered the cloth and the injured area as a whole.

Dash sniffled as he worked, causing him to stop briefly and look at her, but again, she wasn’t crying. She just looked… sad… and vulnerable. He wanted to hug her again, but there would be plenty of time for that after he finished treating her.

“It was just… I don’t even know,” Dash suddenly spoke up again. Soarin paused again, tipping to his right to look at her, but decided to say nothing and let her speak. “The whole experience… I don’t even know how to describe it,” she went on, taking a long deep breath as Soarin continued to wrap her shoulder up. “I flew in with so much confidence. Silver had filled me with determination to push back against my fears and fight, but it all came crashing down. I know how Nightshade thinks. I know how she likes to do things. I thought that I could handle it this time, I thought I—” she shook her head. “All the confidence, all the training, everything I’ve gone through, everything Silver taught me… In the moment that Nightshade held me, tortured me… none of it mattered, I was no longer focusing on helping my fellow Wonderbolts.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I just wanted to get free, for the pain and the fear to end. She completely broke me, everything I had learned from Silver suddenly meant nothing to me, his most important lessons… gone… And when she bit into my shoulder, it felt like the finishing touch, I didn’t even wail or scream. I gave in. I accepted it. It was like she was silently claiming me. Her way of declaring ‘I own you.’”

Soarin almost couldn’t take it. It was bad enough to arrive late, get trapped, and be unable to make a difference… but he missed everything that happened before Silver stepped up to protect them. Soarin knew first-hoof what it was like to dive into something with confidence and then have it all beaten right out of him, but this was different, it was more. There was psychological warfare involved between Dash and Nightshade… Nightshade dominated her physically and mentally.

“And then… I was forced to watch… as Silver came forward and showed me what it really means to be a Wonderbolt. I thought I had made so much progress, I thought I was in striking distance… but I’m still so far from it. I let Nightshade utterly manipulate me and my fears… Silver brushed off Nightshade’s strongest advances and methods like they were nothing. He stood strong when he knew it was hopeless. What did I do? I gave in…”

“Dash, stop it,” Soarin finally spoke up, not able to take it anymore. He wanted her to let it out, and he was glad she was, but once she stared the self-degrading, he refused to let her do that.

“I…” Dash tried to speak again, but stopped and trailed off. She took a deep breath and released a long sigh, frowning and hunching over a little more as Soarin pulled the bandages tight with his teeth.

Dash winced a little as Soarin made sure the bandages were secure, before reaching for the box for some medical tape.

“Sorry,” Soarin said spontaneously as he found the roll of tape. “I… wanted you to talk about it, but don’t go beating yourself up…” Soarin paused and blinked, realizing that that was very hypocritical of him to say. He gritted his teeth as Dash’s ears twitched, knowing that she was thinking the same thing. “Leave that to me, you’re the one who was actually putting up a fight,” he added awkwardly, a snort coming from Dash.

“I’m glad you caught yourself. I was going to let you have it for that,” Dash said with a slightly lighter tone for a moment as Soarin applied the tap to her bandages and made sure it was smoothed down. “And… you’re right. I shouldn’t tear myself down, but—” she shook her head. “I really don’t think it could have gone any worse… and then Silver, who we were supposed to protect, ended up protecting us.”

“Maybe…” Soarin spoke up, but stopped. Dash waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t she turned and looked over her shoulder, focusing on Soarin as the light from his horn continued to splash against his face gently. “Maybe Silver… was showing us what we’re all lacking, not just you.”

“All…?” Dash tipped her head as she turned herself around. Soarin nodded.

“Nightshade took us all down, all of us fighting together. But Silver did it alone… his body half-broken and with no chance of victory. Did you see the way she reacted to him? How his rejection of everything she was selling drove her crazy?”

Dash looked down at Soarin’s chest, simply thinking about it as Soarin brought a different perspective.

Could Silver have sacrificed himself, not simply to buy time for Spitfire? Could it be he was confident in Spitfire’s arrival, and took the opportunity… to show them all how to defeat the darkest horrors their enemy could bring at them?

It seemed farfetched…

But then again… This was Silver Lining they were talking about.

“Mrph?” Dash suddenly squeaked as Soarin pulled her into a hug, smushing her face into his chest.

“Whatever the reason… Silver did it for us,” Soarin said as he held her. “I need to stop blaming myself. I was caught, and Silver saved me too. We’re lucky he’s alive, and we have to make sure his efforts weren’t for nothing,” he loosened his grip on Dash a little, allowing her to look up at him. “And in terms of you being a great Wonderbolt, let’s not forget the praise you just received from the captain of the Lunar Guard himself… or the fact that you convinced him to come along with us.”

Dash’s ears flattened and she sighed as she turned her head sideways and plopped it against his chest again.

“I… haven’t forgotten that. I don’t know if it entirely makes up for what went wrong… or… rgh…” Dash turned her face forwards and tucked her head down into the ripped portion of Soarin’s suit.

“Hey, get out of there,” Soarin said with a single chuckle as he leaned back slightly to pull Dash’s head free from inside his suit.

“My brain is all over the place right now,” she said, the first half of it slightly muffled as Soarin managed to get her free. “Things went from bad to worse, to relief, to dangerous, to good, to worrisome, to sad to… AUGH!” She tried to stuff her face back into Soarin’s suit, but he reached out and gently cupped her chin with a hoof to stop her.

“I know…” was all Soarin really felt he could say.

“We made it through the day, but now I’m worried about Silver…” Dash stated as she held her chin over the top of Soarin’s arm for a moment before turning her body and nestling into him, keeping her bandaged side facing away to avoid pressure on it. “Sure, I believe in him… P.L. believes in him… He’s Silver Damn Lining, tough as nails, endless willpower, all that good stuff…” she sighed and slumped. “But what if he does die?”

“He...” Soarin stopped short of reassuring her. Why? He wasn’t quite sure. It felt like nothing he said would help, but he wanted to say something so badly.

“He’ll fight it, I know he will, but what if he doesn’t pull through? I don’t want to lose him…” she pushed herself back upright, turned, placed her hooves on Soarin’s chest, and glared up at him. “I don’t want to lose him!” she said louder while pressing her hooves against his chest harder. Soarin replied by simply hugging her, bringing her closer as she kept her hooves on him. “And then there’s you… with the horn…” she paused and shook her head against his chest. “I… know what Spitfire said… But I want you to stay out of things…”

Soarin blinked before sighing. He didn’t like that the conversation suddenly shifted to something he was mostly against, but this wasn’t the time to argue with her… now if only he could say something to comfort her… he was still at a loss for words.

“Silver is already at risk…” Dash went on. “If I lose him… then lose you too, I don’t know what I’ll…” She seemed to be rambling a little now, but now she was being very negative again. Soarin decided to say something, unfortunately his eagerness to comfort her led to him saying the first thing that was on his mind.

“If you lose me, you’ll die too so I’ll…” Soarin’s eyes widened and his pupils shrank as he realized what he said. He instantly looked down to see Dash glaring up at him and gritting her teeth.

Smooth.

“RRGGGHHHH!!!!” she growled as she slammed her eyes shut and really dug her hooves against him. “YOU’RE… NOT… HELPING…!” she yelled as she butted her head against his chest three times. Soarin immediately reached a hoof to the back of her head to stop her before releasing a very heavy, long sigh.

“You know what?” Soarin said as Dash glared up at him again. “I’m just going to shut up… you’ve been through enough today, I don’t need to add my idiotic attempts at comfort you to make it worse.”

Dash just kept glaring at him. Soarin stared into her glare for a moment, noticing that she was shaking a little. Soarin got the message.

“Shut up and hug you… right?” he asked.

Dash, without breaking her glare, nodded twice.

“Yes, ma’am,” Soarin complied, leaning himself forwards and down so he could hug her while nuzzling his neck against hers.

It had been a long day… too long. And the longest days tended to be the ones you want to forget.

That could be said for both of them and even all the Wonderbolts.

Several members were hit with traumatizing experiences, either physical or mental. They had lost a few Wonderbolts during their flight. And then they almost lost one of the most important ponies to ever be a part of their family.

It had been an awful experience, but now it was done.

Over, and done with. And tomorrow was a new day.

…

But what they didn’t know… was that things were not well on the other side either.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Spitfire has put her hoof down... and has seemed to have figured out what she was doing wrong. She can't change the mistakes that have already been made, but she sure as hell is ready to make sure things go right. And her first act while back in control? Come back down to earth and remind herself that she has much to fight for. Wave is a trooper...

So Soarin knows... Will this cause problems? Maybe, maybe not... but now he too can take precautions to avoid any accidents. It's also better to know your best friend since colt-hood has your back again.

But of course, he had to face his little blunder, the little blunder called Little Star. Looks like it was the straw that broke the camel's back and made Dash just give up on the rest of the day... but it's a good thing he followed after her, because even though she ran off, she needed the support, HIS support and comfort.

She had to let it all out, and she needed medical attention. Dash, easily has just experienced the worst day of her life. SO many things just went wrong for her and so many things seemed way beyond her control. (not to mention Nightshade)

And now this long day has finally come to an end... yep, can you believe that the events of chapter 124-134... were all over the course of just ONE DAY?! oye vey i write too much...

Oh and the day isn't over, chapter 135 still has to happen... but i wonder what it will be about? :moustache::pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 135: Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 135: Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt

Night was falling over the canyons, the hot weather of the barren landscape slowly replaced with a cool breeze under the cloudless night sky. The setting was deceptively peaceful with a whole portion of the canyons scorched and damaged from the day’s extended conflict between the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts. While the canyons spanned much farther than from where the cacophony occurred, if the canyon biome were a living being, it would have a noticeable scar for the rest of its life.

While the Nimbus lay hidden somewhere in the deep canyons, the Shadowbolt fortress was right out in the open, resting on the ground for what was now half a day with no protective, natural barriers surrounding the mobile stronghold. With the darkness of the night now descending upon it, the large crystal formations were releasing a soft pink light that illuminated the area, the hallway lights from within barely able to reach beyond the windows as the crystals’ illumination snuffed their glow.

It was a quiet scene, and if not for who occupied the vessel, perhaps it would be a beautiful sight from afar… but within the fortress, the mood was far from peaceful and quiet.

“No, and don’t ask me again,” Blade snapped.

“But…” Rapidfire took a step forwards, but Blade’s crystals began to glow. Rapidfire flinched and backed away several lower ranking Shadowbolts behind him doing the same.

“I said no, now beat it,” Blade glared at the Shadowbolts standing behind Rapidfire. “ALL OF YOU!”

The Shadowbolts all immediately backed off and scampered away, but Rapidfire gritted his teeth, ready to step forwards again as Blade turned away from him and faced the main entry doors.

But before Rapidfire could speak or say anything else, his body completely froze in place, he couldn’t even blink. Pink blips of light were dancing around him as his body suddenly lifted up and floated towards the back of the lobby before he was set back on his hooves next to Moon as he casually paced back and forth. The moment Rapidfire was released, he ignored Moon and took one step back in the direction of Blade, only to be frozen in place again.

Moon cleared his throat as he turned Rapidfire around with his magic. Moon just shook his head, not even looking at Rapidfire as he released him again.

“Rgh…” Rapidfire grunted as he turned and ran face first into Shadow, who wasn’t really looking where she was going, her eyes locked on Blade. The two yelped, Shadow immediately pushing Rapidfire away from her.

“Watch it, punk!” she growled right in his face, but then the two were BOTH knocked aside when the door next to them was forced open and Void came storming through.

Moon, without any sort of change in his expression, activated his magic and stabilized both Rapidfire and Shadow before setting them back down.

The moment Shadow was released, she turned and glared at Void, but didn’t say or yell anything in fear of retaliation.

“Hmm…” Moon hummed to himself, getting a sigh in as he watched Void stomp all the way up to Blade, any nearby Shadowbolts immediately stepping aside as Void trudged along.

“BLADE!” Void yelled, but Blade kept looking out the doors. “HEY! I’M TALKING TO YOU!”

“Believe me, I can definitely hear you,” Blade said with a sarcastic grunt. Void stopped right behind him, standing a head taller and glaring down at the back of Blade’s head.

“Why the hell are we still here?!” Void pressed his case.

“Why do you keep asking?” Blade shot back while tapping his hoof.

“We’ve been holed up here since mid-day!” Void continued to shout angrily as he stepped around beside Blade. Blade only stole a brief, annoyed glance at him before snorting and whipping his tail about.

“And you know exactly why,” he reminded Void. Void gritted his teeth, growling quietly as he turned his head towards the doors.

“Well, I don't like it!” Void said with a loud snort, followed by a pause and then another snort.

“You can stop saying that too. What’s this, the fourth time you’ve stormed in here and started complaining? Quit your loud mouthed whining already,” Blade hissed, slowly losing his patience with Void. Void sharply turned to him and bared his teeth.

“You speak sharply, but you’re sitting here and doing NOTHING! Coward!” he yelled right into Blade’s ear, causing him to wince before scowling at Void.

“Will you please just shut your damn, loud trap already?!” Blade yelled back, finally raising his voice.

“Not while I’m being held back on a leash like a DOG!” Void pushed towards Blade, giving him a shove. Blade was not amused and got right back in Void’s face as the two continued to bicker.

Moon exhaled through his nose and shook his head subtly as he watched Void and Blade get at each other’s throats, the surrounding Shadowbolts avoiding any close proximity with the two commanders as they jawed back and forth.

“Grrrrrr…” Shadow started growling beside him. Moon immediately reached a wing out and tapped her shoulder with it.

“Shadow, just stay out,” Moon instructed. Shadow scrunched her face and glared at him, but Moon kept staring forwards. “You know it’s not worth it.”

Shadow kept looking at Moon for a moment, but then huffed, puffed her cheeks outward, and looked away as Moon’s ‘advice’ stuck.

“Maaaaaaaaaaan…” a new voice came from the same door Void burst through. Moon didn’t look, but Shadow blinked and turned her head quickly to the door as Sin stumbled out and blinked. Unlike the others, he was without any of his Shadowbolt uniform and had thick bandages wrapped around his forehead. He was rubbing a hoof on the bandage as he teetered over to them and almost fell on top of Shadow, who reached up to support him. “What’s with all the noise out here?” he asked groggily as Shadow flattened her brow.

“Sin… you’re supposed to be in bed. You’re still concussed,” she pointed out to him, but Sin just rolled his eyes and scoffed.

“Nah, I’m fine,” he said even though he was still mostly leaning on Shadow. “Been awake for six hours, I’m bored as shit. The hell is going on out here, anyway?” he asked as he looked towards Void and Blade.

“If you really want to disobey our leader then be my guest!” Blade yelled as he and Void butted heads.

“Maybe I will!” Void yanked his head back and turned around while standing with his chest puffed out and harrumphing loudly. Blade scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Just don’t come crying to me when she bends you over and gives you her own special ‘punishment’ after finding out!” Blade’s words made Void flinch and freeze in place. “I don’t know about you, but I like where all my innards and bowels are right now!”

Void turned around and opened his mouth to speak, but his voice cracked and he instead released an embarrassingly high pitched nicker, his eyes widening right after. Blade just lifted his brow as if quietly saying ‘I told you so.’

“You can call me a coward all you’d like,” Blade snorted and turned his back to Void. “But you’re nothing but talk! You always have been!”

“Shit…” Sin shrugged casually while rubbing his head again. “Which one of them was on top last night?”

Shadow’s eyes widened as she snickered and released her hooves from Sin. As a result, Sin toppled right over and fell right on top of her.

“OOF!” Shadow grunted as Sin’s weight pressed down on her. She instantly growled and began pushing at him. “Dammit, Sin!”

“Eeyai… whoops…” he said groggily as he rolled off of her and shakily stood up. Shadow immediately popped up and pressed a hoof to his chest.

“GO… BACK… TO… BED!”

“Sheesh, come off it already,” Sin nudged her away, but she didn’t back off.

Moon sighed and shook his head… again. He just kept his eyes on Blade and Void as the two continued to argue. Moon looked all around at the Shadowbolts all watching. He glanced off to the left to see Rapidfire was still in the room. He was holding himself steady, taking Moon’s silent advice not to try and stop the arguing commanders.

Not like he could if he tried. The only present pony who could possibly subdue the two was Sin, and he was too busy being a casual idiot. But what Moon was focused on was less just Rapidfire, and more the present Shadowbolts as a whole… and how they simply cowered as Blade and Void seemed on the verge of dueling. Moon didn’t like it any more than Shadow or Rapidfire did, but what was the point? Part of being a Shadowbolt had always been a healthy awareness and acknowledgement of those stronger and more powerful than you. There had always been scuffles, ponies got into fights, it wasn’t out of the ordinary to get the shit kicked out of you if you stepped out of line, but it was always contested, nopony backed down. Now there was just fear, plain fear of those in power with ponies scurrying away with their tails tucked between their legs if one of the commanders so much as coughed in their direction. The Shadowbolts weren’t the same anymore.

Then a loud, sudden slam echoed throughout the lobby from the direction of the front doors. Everypony in the lobby jumped, Blade and Void’s pointless argument stopping abruptly as they and everypony else turned to look towards the entrance.

It was Nightshade.

She had pushed the doors open so roughly that one of them nearly unhinged while the other swung back and smacked her in the side. She instantly punched at it, breaking it right off the hinges before it crashed and clattered to the ground.

“NNNNGGGGGHHH! GRRHHH!” Nightshade grunted loudly and painfully as she took a step forwards, her legs gave way, and she fell face first to the floor. “GRRAAAAAHHH!!!!” she yelled out as she pressed her hooves down and forced herself back up.

She looked like an absolutely disheveled mess. Her eyes were wide, she was breathing heavily, her suit was all scuffed up, and her magic was flickering repeatedly around her. The crystals floating with her were shuddering and blinking while making quiet screeching noises that sounded like tiny screams.

None of the Shadowbolts knew what to make of the sight, all of them looking towards Nightshade with a mixture of shock and confusion. Even Moon showed some surprise, even though it was considerably less than the rest.

“C…Captain?” Void spoke up, his previously booming voice pacified and hesitant.

“GRRRRHHH!!!” Nightshade growled as she stood all the way back up and began moving forward with heavy, shaking steps. “HHHNNRRGGGG!” her expression, while distorted by her flight mask, kept contorting and churning between those of anger, worry, and dread. Nopony was able to make a clear read on her, what she was thinking, or why she was acting the way she was.

Moon glanced to his right to see Rapidfire had emerged from the back corner. He was staring towards Nightshade with a look of concern, but he was hesitating like the rest. Moon examined the demeanor of all the Shadowbolts looking upon their captain and it was all the same: Hesitation. Nightshade had suddenly ordered them all to remain behind while she took matters into her own hooves, a move that seemed unprecedented after how things had been handled leading up to this point. None of them questioned her, but the moment she was gone the outrage over the lack of explanation spread immediately, the peak of which was showcased just now with Blade and Void arguing. Yet, now that she was back, not even the two of them could bring themselves to get in her way. It was one kind of suicide to confront and question Nightshade when she was in her normal state of mind, but now?

This was a completely foreign sight to the Shadowbolts. Nightshade, their brutal, sadistic, confident leader, barely able to stand and grunting in pain as if she was being stabbed continuously? If she was in such an unstable state, there was no telling what she was capable of.

Void and Blade remained still, standing side by side as Nightshade trudged towards them. She was not looking at either of them, her face still shifting between expressions erratically and her magic unable to keep a constant aura. As she drew within a few steps of the two, Blade found his voice.

“Captain… what the hell happened to y—,”

“NNNNNGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly cried out with a loud, ear piercing wail that echoed throughout the lobby. She forced herself forwards, pushing herself right between Blade and Void while forcing her wings out and shoving them aside. Both of them flinched in surprise as the force of Nightshade’s wings against their chests pushed them both up onto their back hooves.

“Hey!” Void grunted.

“Captain!” Blade also voiced his disapproval.

But it didn’t reach Nightshade. The moment she was past the two of them, she broke into a limping, awkward gallop, turning towards the west wing hallway.

Everypony in her path backed off in an instant as she stumbled and staggered. Her galloping hooves and the constant grunting and wailing echoed from within the hallway, slowly dying down until she was too far away from any of them to hear her.

For several moments, nopony in the lobby spoke, much less moved. A quiet, uncomfortable stir eventually made itself known as the Shadowbolts began looking back and forth at each other, anxious murmurs barely audible.

“What in the world…?” Void finally spoke, the first to say anything remotely loud enough to hear. Blade blinked a few times as he stared at the hallway before slowly shifting his expression to a glare, growling to himself.

“Void,” Blade called his name as he turned and looked at the larger commander. Void looked down at Blade. He stared into Blade’s glare for a moment, but understood, hardening his own face.

“Should we…?” Void trailed off.

“Come on,” Blade made a head motion towards the east hallway.

Without another word, the two turned and left the dumbstruck Shadowbolts behind, leaving into the east hallway unnoticed.

Or at least almost unnoticed.

While everypony else was still focused in the direction of Nightshade, Moon was not.

He noticed the very brief exchange between Blade and Void. It seemed a little strange considering the two were just at each other’s throats.

“Hey…” Sin suddenly spoke up, drawing Moon’s eyes back to the group around him. “Was she… crying?” Sin asked, wobbling a little as Shadow continued to prop him up. He looked back and forth between Shadow and Moon. “Did anypony else see that? I swear I just saw tears.”

“Nightshade? Crying?” Shadow said incredulously, grunting as she continued to hold Sin’s bulk. “Get real. I’d sooner believe Ruin wasn’t crazy.”

“She WAS crying.” Rapidfire suddenly cut in. Shadow blinked and lifted an eyebrow as she, Moon, and Sin all looked at him. Rapidfire was not looking at them, his focus entirely on the west hallway. “What… happened out there?” Rapidfire said to himself as he started making his way towards the hall.

“Wait, seriously?” Shadow’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Rookie, are you nuts? She’ll—” Shadow was cut off as Moon placed a hoof on her shoulder. Shadow flinched and glanced at Moon. He was shaking his head with his eyes following Rapidfire.

“Get this oaf back to bed,” he said while pointing to Sin before breaking away from them and following Rapidfire.

“Huh?” Shadow stared blankly, and then glared. “HEY! Why do I have to—WHOA!” she grunted as Sin suddenly lurched into her, and fell on top of her again. “DAMMIT, SIN!”

“Ugh… whoops…”

“RGH!!!!” Nightshade forced the doors of her room open, stumbling through and kicking the doors shut as hard as she could before slipping and falling on the ground. The doors slammed back against the frame, but only one of them caught, the other bouncing and remaining cracked open an inch.

Nightshade didn’t give any effort to get up at first, breathing heavily as she rolled onto her side, her crystals floating in circles around her and flickering along with the aura surrounding her. Nightshade rolled back and forth, grunting and groaning, holding a hoof to her chest as she wailed.

Outside the door, Rapidfire stopped several paces away, hearing all the noises of agony coming from within Nightshade’s room. He swallowed and continued on slowly, taking long, careful steps as he snuck up to the door, shifting himself to the left since it was the right door that was cracked open slightly inward. He reached the left door and slid his body up against it as he peered around and peeked in.

His eyes widened and he held in a quiet gasp as he saw Nightshade groaning and writhing on the floor. Her face turned towards the door, prompting Rapidfire to pull his head back and hold his breath, but then he heard sobs and sniffles.

He looked back in to see her eyes were slammed shut and tears were flowing from her eyes like a broken dam.

What the hell happened to her? What could have possibly caused a mare like Nightshade to break down so intensely? Neither he nor any of the Shadowbolts had ever seen anything like it, it was no wonder she tried to get away from them so fast.

Rapidfire flinched and stiffened as Nightshade suddenly lurched and rolled onto her stomach. Her wails turned into growls, angry growls.

“RRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly roared out, the aura shining brightly around her as she slammed her hooves to the floor several times, loud banging and heavy vibrations reverberating and making Rapidfire shudder as his hooves felt the floor shake. “AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!” Nightshade continued to yell as she reached her hooves up and grabbed the stretchy fabric of her suit. “RRRRGGGHHH!!!!!” she growled as she yanked hard in different directions, her suit tearing with a loud RIP as she pulled it apart. She continued to shout and growl as she tore her own suit, tearing it off her body, pulling on every end until it was in pieces and lying in a pile of shreds at her hooves, her scarred, muscular body now exposed. She swiped and kicked her hooves back and forth, scattering the shreds all around in one big mess.

Rapidfire didn’t know what he was seeing, and at this point he was starting to fear for himself. If for some reason, Nightshade suddenly turned and stormed out of her room, she’d run right into him… and based on what he just saw, he wasn’t sure if there would be much left of him after the fact. But at the same time, his hooves were refusing to move, refusing to take him away from the horrors he was witnessing as if the drive for answers outweighed his own safety.

“HHHNNNGGGGG… HHHHNNGNGGG!!!” Nightshade continued to grunt heavily as her body contorted and turned.

Rapidfire then saw something that he wasn’t sure what to make of. He had not seen Nightshade without her suit on for a long time. He was well aware that she was covered in scars… but when did she get one that large on her chest? There was one, huge, dark scar extending from the top of her chest, down between her pectoral muscles, and stopping just above the curve of her barrel.

Where and when did she get that?

The question was pushed aside as Nightshade suddenly fell to the floor, kicking up a weak gust that made the shreds of her suit nearby dance and whisk away from her. She pressed her head to the floor, groaning loudly and grabbed at her chest a few times before slamming her front hooves to the floor. She began pulling on the floor, dragging her body across it as her three crystals dropped onto her body and held themselves there.

She eventually reached her bed, which was a mess in itself, with the pillows on the floor beside it and a large mound under the wrinkled sheets.

But if the pillows were on the floor… what was causing the mound in the sheets?

Rapidfire’s jaw dropped as Nightshade grabbed the sheet in her teeth from the floor and gave it a hard yank. The room was suddenly brightly lit with an intense pink glow.

Under the sheet… was a large pile of pink crystals, more than Rapidfire had ever seen in the same place at once. There had to be at least forty or fifty of them, maybe even more. One or two of them rolled off the pile and clattered onto the floor as Nightshade removed the sheet, but she quickly grabbed them as she forced herself up. She tossed them back on the bed before she threw herself right into the pile, not caring at all about the sharp jagged edges of the crystals as she dove in. The pile was toppled, the crystals spreading out on the bed as Nightshade fit herself right in between all of them, grabbing several of them and hugging them tightly to her body as she curled up on her bed. Her breathing became more intense, nearly hyperventilating as the crystals glowed even brighter and many intense ribbons of magic began surging around her. Her body twitched, her muscles flexing and tensing uncontrollably as she surrounded herself with the crystals. Her eyes were stuck open wide, bloodshot and wet as her mouth was agape, deep wheezing breaths shooting in and out. She clung to the crystals like they were the only thing that could save her from a perpetual fear or pain that was creeping over her shoulder and slowly running sharp claws softly on her back in a taunting manner, never knowing when they would sink in.

Rapidfire couldn’t take it. So many conflicting emotions were surging through him. Should he stay and help, or should he run? Should he be worried about her, or afraid of what she might do to him? Should he tell somepony or keep it secret? He owed Nightshade a lot, but would taking action of any kind be her salvation or his demise?

He struggled to come to any sort of conclusion, but before he could… something happened.

He wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt a sudden shiver travel from the end of his ears to the tip of his tail. What gave him such a sudden, cold feeling? It felt like the way one would react to something that terrified them, that chilled them to the bone and made their fur stand on end, but what was causing it? He had already been looking at Nightshade and her broken state for several minutes, nothing new had come about to make him feel this way.

But then the light in Nightshade’s room began to darken… in fact, the light right outside suddenly darkened as well. The lights in the hallway were still working and the crystals in the room were still glowing. It was almost as if the shadows from the corners of the room and the hall were suddenly reaching out, creeping along the ground and gathering together. Rapidfire was frozen in place, his eyes positioned just far enough to continue peeking in, but something else was in there…

Something was in there with Nightshade.

The room grew darker and darker until the shadows managed to completely overpower the bright glow of the crystals, reducing them to a low intensity as if the light itself was afraid of the dark gathering together.

“Nightshade.”

“AH!” Nightshade yelped and flinched as a sudden deep voice with a slight sinister undertone called her name, a few crystals clattering off the bed and to the floor from her sudden movement. The voice did not seem to come from any one specific point. It came from every direction as if the room itself was talking to her.

Nightshade’s body curled up further, squeezing into a ball as tightly as she could. She clutched the crystals with all of her strength, some of the sharp edges digging into her, puncturing her skin and drawing blood. The room dimmed further, a swirl of gusts suddenly swishing around out of thin air. Each gust that passed Nightshade made her wail and cringe.

Rapidfire had no idea what he was seeing or feeling. The room had gone pitch black, everything completely hidden by the shroud of darkness… except for Nightshade. Nightshade was completely visible as if she was being surrounded and choked by a dark entity that had no form.

But then something else appeared.

Two, small, white circles appeared in the darkness and hovered over Nightshade. The dots grew brighter, but did not illuminate the room. They looked like two swirling spheres of magical energy. If the sight wasn’t already mysterious and chilling enough, the spheres suddenly shifted their shape and… blinked?

Slightly darker circles of a whitish grey color formed within the center of the lights and glanced around. To Rapidfire, it looked like a pair of eyes… and it wasn’t long before that suspicion was confirmed.

The two lights turned the darker circles down towards Nightshade, and they suddenly compressed into what looked exactly like a pair of glaring eyes.

“Unbelievable…” the voice echoed again, every syllable causing a cold chill to shoot down Rapidfire’s spine.

Who… or what… was this?

“NNNGHHHH!!!!!!” Nightshade groaned, keeping the crystals pressed tightly to her, the sharp points still digging into her body as if she would gladly take the pain she was inflicting on herself over whatever this… thing... was.

“What a pathetic sight you are…” the voice continued. “A ruthless warrior on the outside... and a broken, helpless filly hidden on the inside? Is this the real you?” The eyes floated down near her, Nightshade cried out and whipped her body around, rolling over and knocking several crystals off the bed, but a good number of them were stuck to her, the magic and flashes of pink light dancing about, only to be swallowed up by the darkness as soon as they jumped. “Don’t you think for a moment that I didn’t see that little episode you just had out there.”

Nightshade shivered, her eyes stuck wide open as the floating eyes glared into the back of her head. The voice released a scoff as the eyes hovered up and backed away from her a little.

“I’ve been observing your tactics for quite some time now…” the eyes looked away from her and began moving around as if they belonged to an invisible being pacing back and forth. “And I’ve been curious about your rather… indirect methods recently. However, you have a reputation of being the best, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Your track record speaks for itself, really.” The eyes stopped moving, facing away from her. “Nightshade, the mighty leader of the most powerful mercenary force in all of Equestria. A mare who is ruthless and unyielding… A heartless killer with a strong sadistic desire to inflict pain on others for her own satisfaction. A living, walking, flying nightmare to those unfortunate enough to face her.”

The voice paused as the eyes slowly turned back towards her.

“But that’s not who I saw… when THEY appeared.” A low growl accompanied his emphasis on the word ‘they.’ The eyes narrowed further as they started slowly hovering towards her again. “At first I thought your shift in tactics was just a different approach after your shameful defeat at the hooves of Soarin. But that’s not it, is it? No… that’s not it at all. After that battle… something changed for you. Or should I say… two things changed for you.”

Nightshade stopped shivering, her whole body freezing like a statue except for her ears and eyelids twitching.

“I could scarcely believe it when I finally put the pieces together…” the eyes suddenly shifted all the way around and moved right into Nightshade’s face. “You really are avoiding them… aren’t you?” the voice questioned, Nightshade’s pupils shrinking to tiny dots. “How… cute…” the voice snarled in an angered, condescending tone.

“Ah… Ah…” Nightshade began to gasp loudly, as she tucked her head back, trying to get away from the eyes glaring right in front of her. The voice grunted, pulling away from her before hovering up and over to the other side of her again.

“Perhaps… my faith in you has been misplaced,” the voice spoke as the eyes floated further away, but began to glow a little more. “Perhaps I failed to properly look into your past.” The eyes turned around as they remained across the room from her. “Or maybe… you’re nothing but a fraud?” one of the eyes opened wider, giving the appearance of a raised eyebrow. “Maybe you’re not really the feared, heartless mare you’ve built yourself up to be? Maybe you’re just a pathetic, pitiful soul who cannot stand on her own? Hiding your weaknesses behind a veil of viciousness?” the voice grew sharper as the eyes narrowed sharply into an angered glare. “Did you deceive me?! WAS I WRONG TO TRUST YOU WITH MY POWER?!” the voice grew louder as the gusts of wind swirling around grew intense. “MAYBE… I SHOULD JUST TAKE IT ALL BACK!” The eyes grew incredibly bright, almost blinding.

Nightshade gasped, her voice nearly cracking as she turned over. The crystals began shuddering and ripping free from her one by one.

“AH! NO!” Nightshade cried out as the crystals jumped from her body. She was sitting up immediately, throwing her arms out and trying to grab the crystals before they could fly away from her, but they jumped and danced away from her, avoiding her hooves and shooting towards the eyes. “NO, NO, NO! STOP IT!” She yelled, desperately trying and failing to corral the remaining crystals, but even those she had latched onto were ripping free from her grip.

“Why should I?!” The voice boomed and echoed as the crystals swirled and orbited around the eyes. “You consistently send out your INEPT underlings to do your dirty work without you! The contract I agreed on was for your services! NOT those undeserving of my power! I GAVE you the gift of magic! I GAVE you the chance to feel power and strength that nopony else can experience! I trusted this gift to YOU! I trusted that YOU would come through for me! Instead you cling to your force of ponies and give out the crystals like candy! THESE…” a few crystals clumped together and shot out, stopping just out of Nightshade’s reach as the last remaining few crystals around her began pulling free. “ARE NOT YOURS TO CONTROL! Yet you peddle the lie that you are free to decide who gets them and who doesn’t. I can see right through you! You have been using them as another way to spread fear and keep control, intimidating them and averting their eyes from your incredible weakness!”

Nightshade began shrieking, tears pouring down her eyes as she clung the last crystal to her chest, but it was no use.

“And then when you surprised me, and restored some faith by taking action on your own… you failed to deliver!” The crystal began pulling from Nightshade, she screamed as she held onto it with both hooves. “You finally made a move, you finally did what I wanted you to do in the first place, and what happened?! You got lost in your own pleasures, disregarding the contract to have a little ‘fun…’ Only to get turned inside out and deconstructed by an old, worn out soldier, matched head on by a pony without the gift of my power, and then when your old comrades appeared, you ran! YOU RAN AWAY FROM SOMETHING YOU CAN’T LET GO OF!” The crystal was ripped from Nightshade’s hooves, pulling her off the bed and onto the floor with a loud THUD. “You had the perfect opportunity to fulfill our contract and finally bring me what I desire… AND YOU SQUANDERED IT!”

Nightshade shuddered on the ground, grabbing at her chest as her body tensed. The final crystal floated up, joining the large collection now swirling in several, erratic, ring orbits around the eyes.

“I should take ALL of these away from you and the rest RIGHT NOW and let you ALL DIE!”

“NNNGGGGHHHH!!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly grunted, heaving her body up off the floor and slamming her hooves to the ground. “NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” Nightshade roared fiercely as she faced the eyes, her teeth biting down on her lower lip that it was turning purple. Her eyes were stuck wide open, but her eyebrows were strained downwards, giving off the expression of a crazed cornered beast. She spread her wings so harshly that multiple cracks and pops sounded out from her joints before beating them downward and leaping into the air right at the crystals.

Then an arm extended out from the shadows beneath the eyes, an appendage surrounded and distorted by the same shadows that filled the room. Nightshade’s whole body twitched as the air left her lungs, she immediately tumbled out of her flight path, crashing against the floor and sliding along until she came to a stop right beneath the eyes, the arm still reaching towards her.

“AH! AAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!! RRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!” She began grunting, groaning, and wailing as a bright pink glow appeared over her chest… specifically upon the large, new scar that extended down the middle of her chest. She grasped at her chest, writhing and rolling back and forth on the floor as her neck arched backwards, her mouth opened as wide as it could, slightly foaming in the corners with her tongue nearly straining out of it. She sounded like she was trying to scream and grunt, but she only managed sputters and gasps. A hissing, sizzling sound came from Nightshade as pink steam began rising from the glowing scar.

The eyes slowly lowered all the way down to Nightshade. They hovered right in front of her face as her eyes twitched and her voice continued to gag and choke.

“I don’t take kindly to my bidding being ignored, you know…” the voice began again, but its tone had returned to its calmed demeanor it had at the start. “You should consider yourself privileged that I would even allow you to have a taste of my power through these crystals. I gave you the freedom to do with them as you please, but I am not pleased with the way you have mismanaged them. If you keep taking my power for granted…” the voice paused as a single crystal floated down in front of Nightshade. She immediately reached out for it, grabbing and flailing at it, but it was just out of her reach. “Perhaps I should seek out OTHERS who would make better use of it? That wouldn’t work out to well for you now, WOULD IT?!” the light around nightshade’s chest scar intensified further, finally squeezing a blood curdling scream out of Nightshade as she slammed her head backwards against the floor.

“NO! PLEASE!” Nightshade suddenly found her voice, but it was squeaky, cracking, and several octaves higher than her natural tone. “I’LL GET SOARIN! I’LL DO AS YOU ASK! I’LL BRING HIM TO YOU! PLEASE!!!” she yelled as she suffered, the burning in her chest becoming so hot that it was unbearable.

“Hmmm…” the voice hummed as the eyes began slowly pulling away.

“I’LL DO ANYTHING! ANYTHING!” Nightshade added as she hugged her arms around her chest. “PLEASE!!!!!!!”

The voice said nothing. Staring down at Nightshade as it hovered above her. The eyes narrowed, angling sharply into a glare.

“Hmph…”

The light instantly disappeared from Nightshade chest. She gasped and cried out, rolling over as the pain subsided. She curled up and panted, sharp wheezing breaths shooting in and out of her mouth and nose. A single crystal dropped to the floor right beside her. The moment the soft metallic CLINCK of it touching the floor met Nightshade’s ears, she reached out, grabbed it, and clutched it to her chest. A soft pink glow surrounding her that barely managed to shine within the shroud of darkness engulfing the room.

“You’re lucky I’m even willing to consider it after your continuous blunders and your constant bending of my most basic guidelines for these…” the voice growled as the rest of the crystals remained floating around the eyes. “If not for my current situation and lack of immediate options, I’d search out other means in a heartbeat,” the eyes lowered towards her. “But that doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to… do you HEAR me?”

“I’ll… I’ll…” Nightshade’s tone was weak and helpless. “I’ll bring you… Soarin… I will…”

“That’s right, you will.” The eyes floated back up, staring down at her. “And from this point forwards, you will kill ANYPONY that stands in your way… understand?”

“Yes… I’ll do anything you ask… I swear…” Nightshade sounded completely broken, her eyes locked on the rest of the crystals still floating with the eyes that glared down upon her… as if they were hoping she’d say more. When she said nothing further, they narrowed and a low growl filled the room.

“Even Descent and Starry Skies.”

Nightshade suddenly flinched, her eyes going wide and a high pitched gasp escaping her throat.

“Wh-what? I…”

“EVEN. DESCENT. AND. STARRY SKIES,” the voice repeated as a snarl accompanied the growl.

“N-no…” Nightshade shook her head hard, tears whipping from her eyes. “Please, no… we can spare them, just let me—”

The arm reached towards her again, and the glow once more surrounded her chest. It wasn’t as intense as it was before, but it was enough to hurt, a little taste of the pain again to threaten and convince her.

“Ah! AH! AAAAAH!” Nightshade cried as she felt the burning sensation flare up in her chest again.

“WELL?!” The Voice yelled as the glow grew brighter and the sizzling sound resurfaced.

“AHHHH!!!! YES! YES!” Nightshade pleaded. “I’LL DO IT! EVEN THEM! EVEN THEM!”

“Good,” the voice snorted, the arm disappearing and the glow ceasing. Nightshade exhaled sharply and sprawled out on the floor, panting and sweating. A moment later, the rest of the crystals rained down on top of her, bouncing and ricocheting off of her and clattering out along the floor. Nightshade reached out with her arms and legs, grabbing as many of them as possible and pulling them into her body. She sniffled, twitched, and squeaked as the light around her grew larger, the comfort of the crystals back within her grasp.

“Nightshade,” the voice spoke as it the eyes backed away from her slightly. “I don’t know if I can make this any clearer to you than I’m about to. You have but one choice to make. Either you fully embrace my power and show me the ruthless mare you’re famed to be… or you cling to these pathetic feelings and emotions that make you weak. You seem to respect the traditions and code of the very force you lead. And to lead, you must be the strongest. This shouldn’t be a very hard choice for you.”

Nightshade didn’t look up at the eyes. She just remained on the floor, panting while clutching the crystals. The eyes remained fixed on her for several moments, but then the arm suddenly reached out again.

“How about I throw in some… extra incentive?” the voice suddenly suggested.

Nightshade flinched as the scar on her chest began to glow again, but it was different this time. It wasn’t painful at all.

She gasped as a tickling, tingling sensation suddenly spread out from her chest, moving all over her body.

“Ah…” Nightshade slowly un-tucked her body, a good number of the crystals in her grasp falling back to the floor as the glow extended form her scar and slowly engulfed her body. She rolled over and rested on her stomach, looking back, forth, and over her shoulder at her body as the tingling feeling started to feel warm and… satisfying. “Ooo… oh…” Nightshade began moaning, biting her lower lip softly as the sensation spread all over her. “Ah… AH!” she suddenly gasped, her neck arching back and her eyes going wide.

The sensations were starting to feel good… really good. Any trace of pain was gone, instead replaced by a feeling of intense pleasure. “Ooo! AH!” Nightshade began twitching as the sensations grew stronger, a smile slowly making its way onto her face as she continued to release borderline-sexual noises.

“Stop lying to yourself,” the voice spoke as Nightshade pushed herself up and inhaled sharply, her body shivering and tingling. “You love the feeling of this power.” The glow around Nightshade intensified. She yelped, caught off guard as her body began to shake with delight. Her body began to tense and relax rapidly. She turned her head and neck back and forth, humming to herself as she began to giggle sinisterly. Her joints began to crack and pop as her body continued to twitch all over, her muscles subtly swelling up as if a surge of magical energy was filling every sinew and fiber. “You love the strength,” the voice continued to coerce her. Her body was being filled with the same effect as when she boosted herself, only something was different about it. She wasn’t even using the crystals, this was coming from within. “You love how this makes you feel, like you’re invincible, like nothing can stop you.” The eyes circled around her as she continued to quietly laugh to herself, every inch of her body filling with power, veins visibly popping up over her scars where fur no longer grew.

“Ahhhhhhhh…” Nightshade released a long, loud sigh as the build-up finally stopped, panting as she continued to twitch, holding her mouth shut tightly, breathing sharply through her nostrils, and released periodic, uneven quiet chuckles.

“This is the REAL you,” the voice pointed out as the eyes hovered back up above her. “This is what you really want and you know it, you can feel it, and you can’t deny it.” The eyes narrowed as they continued to look upon the crazed, power-hungry expression that was solidly attached to Nightshade’s face. “There is NOTHING that your old, traitorous comrades can do for you that will ever give you this feeling or this drive.”

Nightshade suddenly blinked, clearly registering what the voice just said as she turned her head towards the eyes. Her eyes twitched for a moment, her expression faltering, but every time it looked like it would fall, the devious smile and the hissing, snickering giggle resurfaced, the lustful feeling that filled her was overpowering any of her previous resistance.

Part of her was still fighting. Part of her was still grasping at the thought of Descent and Starry Skies, but she couldn’t latch on, she couldn’t push aside what she was feeling right now, how the magic had surged into her, how strong and how powerful she felt right now. It completely blanketed everything else as she threw her head back and started laughing while arching her neck in different directions, the power tickling every fancy from every angle to the point where she just couldn’t help it.

“I’m glad you agree,” the voice said with a slight tone of amusement as the eyes turned away. “Since we are on the same page now… I’ll let you keep this extra boost of power. This is for you and YOU only, none of your underlings will ever know of what you feel now. And… if you come through for me, bring me Soarin and his inner power, I will give you even MORE as a reward.”

Nightshade’s ears pointed up and her eyes grew wide with delight at the thought.

More? She was almost overwhelmed by what she felt now. Her smile grew so wide that she almost strained her face.

“But DON’T test my patience,” the voice stated harshly as the eyes looked back at her and glared. “There are only so many more chances I’m willing to give you.”

The moment the voice finished, the eyes closed and disappeared. A loud WHOOSH echoed throughout the room and an intense whirlwind swirled around Nightshade, the crystals rolling and clattering along the floor as the darkness suddenly dissipated as if being sucked out of the room by an unseen force.

The rest of the room was visible again, leaving Nightshade alone in the center of the room, still giggling, snickering, and shivering with delight, crystals spread out all around her hooves on the floor.

Still watching from the door, Rapidfire found himself able to move again, pulling himself back from the door immediately and covering his mouth with a hoof as he released several muffled gasps and pants. The chilling feeling had disappeared, but whatever he had just seen was disturbing, frightening, and unsettling. Who was that? What did they do to Nightshade? Did he just accidentally catch a glimpse of the source of the crystals and their power? His single crystal rolled off his back suddenly, dropping to the floor. He quickly reached down and caught it before it could bounce, make noise, and give him away.

How did that happen? The crystal always remained attached to him when it wasn’t in use. As he stared at it, the crystal itself was shaking as if it was reacting to how uneasy he felt.

He looked back up at the door as the sound of Nightshade’s laughter again came from the slightly cracked door. He took a step forward and peered in again.

Nightshade was looking herself over, smiling wide with great satisfaction, she reached down and picked up several of the crystals, the light surrounding her growing intense as she added their power to that already within her. She laughed maniacally as the ribbons of magic danced around her, her body still twitching from her boosted strength and power as her laughter began to borderline what one would describe as a cackle. Ten of the crystals lifted up from the ground and began spinning around her as she turned and approached the wall mirror along the side of her room, moving away from the large cracked portion to get a full view. She hummed seductively at her reflection as she licked her lips as she looked at herself and reached a hoof up, running it up down and all over her strengthened body. She turned to the side, striking several suggestive poses as she looked over her muscles and shivered with delight.

She was already very intimidating in both size and musculature for a mare, but with the little boost she was just given, mixed with her adding the crystal’s power, she almost had the same amount of body bulk as Descent. But it didn’t look right, it looked artificial and unnatural.

It was a freaky sight for Rapidfire, seeing Nightshade so enthralled and hypnotized by herself even though it looked so wrong on many levels. Her body looked like it had literally been inflated, bulky to the point where it didn’t fit her frame correctly, like her joints were struggling to hold her together, yet she was enjoying it?

Rapidfire couldn’t take it anymore, self-preservation finally overtook curiosity. He feared what would happen if Nightshade just happened to glance over and see him. He looked down at his single crystal again as he began shakily backing away. He did so much, sacrificed everything for the power he held right there in his hoof, but at what cost? Did he just see what was destined to happen to all of them? Were the crystals not the boon they thought, but instead shackles?

And even if they were, could they even afford to shed them? Without the crystals… they…

With his thoughts swirling madly in his head, he swiftly turned around and readied to break into a gallop, but he ran face first into something. He flinched and gasped when he realized that he had actually run into somepony.

His eyes went wide as he stared directly into the calm, stoic eyes of Moon.

Rapidfire immediately panicked.

“Ah! I—” he frantically looked back and forth, looking back at Nightshade’s door. “I wasn’t—!” he completely froze as he took note of how loud he had just yelled out. And all the air left his lungs as he heard the sudden heavy clip clop of hooves approach the door from within Nightshade’s door. His instincts kicked in and he prepared to try and run from Moon, to put as much distance in between him and Nightshade as possible. But before he could, Moon reached out and clamped a hoof down on Rapidfire’s shoulder, his three crystals glowing as the pink sparks of Moon’s telekinesis surrounded him.

But it wasn’t Moon’s usual hold, it was strong, intense. Rapidfire had been subjected to Moon’s magic more than once in the past, but it was never this powerful… it was so strong that he felt completely paralyzed, he couldn’t even speak… or breathe!

Dread set in as Rapidfire assumed Moon was holding him in place for Nightshade… he was dead meat.

But then Moon huffed, his eyes glowing pink as a bright aura surrounded them both… and then he disappeared from sight completely. Rapidfire winced, his eyes shifting towards Nightshade’s door as her hoof clasped the edge of the door and her head poked out from within. She glared directly at Rapidfire, snarling, her eyes alight with magic, and veins popping from her neck connected to her shoulder muscles and upper body.

But then to Rapidfire’s surprise, Nightshade looked back and forth as if there was nothing in front of her at all. After a few seconds, her devilish smile returned, as well as the devious giggling. She turned and went back into her room, slamming the door behind her before more laughter came from within.

What just happened?

Moon suddenly reappeared out of thin air, the glow around them both fading as he also released his magic from around Rapidfire, placing a hoof over Rapidfire’s mouth in the process to prevent him from yelling out.

Rapidfire remained silent as Moon looked towards Nightshade’s doors and stared at them for several moments. He sighed before refocusing on Rapidfire, who was shaking in fear.

“Relax, I’m here for the same reason you are,” Moon explained quietly without a smidgen of similar anxiety that Rapidfire expressed visually.

“I… what?” Rapidfire was incredibly confused, blinking repeatedly as he tried to put together what was going on. Moon let go of him while taking a few steps forwards and turning his head and ear towards Nightshade’s door, listening as she continued to coo and cackle. Rapidfire kept his eyes glued to Moon the whole way as several other questions started popping up in his head. Did Moon follow him or was he curious like he said? Was Moon aware of everything he just saw? He sure didn’t seem quite as affected. How the hell did Moon prevent Nightshade from seeing him? “Did… you use an invisibility spell or something?” Rapidfire asked in a hush tone as that particular question found its way out of his thoughts and onto his lips.

“Yes,” Moon replied simply as he stepped back from Nightshade’s door and just stared at it.

“How?” Rapidfire pressed, keeping his tone down.

“Because I can,” Moon replied, looking down the hallway opposite of Rapidfire.

“But I thought…” Rapidfire tipped his head. “Didn’t Nightshade only teach one technique to each one of—,”

“You learned how to use your clones on your own, did you not?” Moon cut him off as he turned and faced down the hallway. Rapidfire froze midsentence and lifted his brow. “I simply expanded my abilities on my own, just the same,” Moon explained as he began walking. Rapidfire looked back and forth between Nightshade’s door and Moon as he began to leave.

“W…wait!” he called after Moon quietly, trotting softly after him. “What about Nightshade?”

“What about Nightshade?” Moon asked as he kept his eyes forwards and kept walking.

“You saw everything I just saw, right?!” Rapidfire exclaimed as he stepped in front of Moon, forcing him to stop as the two stood eye to eye.

“Yes, and?” Moon asked while lifting an eyebrow.

“You’re not the slightest bit put off by it?” Rapidfire pressed.

“What Nightshade does is none of my business,” Moon stepped around Rapidfire and kept walking. “I have more important things to worry about.”

“But she’s your leader!” Rapidfire growled while stepping up beside him. Moon grunted and shook his head.

“We aren’t the Wonderbolts,” Moon put flatly, drawing a hard flinch from Rapidfire.

“I… But… We…” Rapidfire sputtered, failing to form a full thought or sentence.

Moon said no more, leaving Rapidfire behind as he made his way down the hallway and around the corner.

As Moon walked through the halls of the fortress, he didn’t have a specific destination in mind, at least not yet. He was simply putting thought into everything he just witnessed. He didn’t lie to Rapidfire, what Nightshade did was her business… but she was clearly compromised. And while she did matter in terms of dictating them, giving them orders, and distributing their crystals, she wasn’t his main concern.

He was more concerned about what else he saw just now. It was no mystery to him that somepony else had been pulling the strings behind Nightshade’s moves, but he had never had the opportunity to learn about who it was… who had provided them with the crystals. While things were still in the dark, literally, Moon suddenly found himself in a bind. His personal safety from being controlled by this outside entity had always been one of his top priorities, but now it was clear that he was not dealing with something simple, or natural for that matter.

That shadow… those eyes… the manipulation of magic and the crystals. It was either something omnipotent or demonic, possibly from the pits of Tartarus itself. He had no idea what it could be, but it definitely wasn’t something he could hope to face or avoid without careful thought or planning.

Was this something he should pass on to the Wonderbolts? Perhaps, but he wasn’t sure. Should they know about something like this, they may become more passive. That wouldn’t help him. He needed the two forces to keep clashing. It was the only way he could keep moving towards his ultimate goal. He had made a promise, and he was going to do everything in his power to—

The moment Moon turned the corner he came face to face with Angel. The two came to an abrupt halt, Angel’s long mane flowing forwards slightly before once again resting on his chest and shoulders. Moon’s eyes widened, his usual calm expression fading immediately. Angel tipped his head down, looking upon Moon with a smooth, faint smile, lifting an eyebrow as Moon’s eyes slowly narrowed into a harsh glare.

The two remained still and silent, Moon’s hardened glare holding firm, his face contorting and twitching slightly with anger. Angel’s smile just grew slightly wider, tipping his head slightly as if he found Moon’s expression… amusing.

“Heh…” Angel released a single chuckle, shaking his head, his long mane swishing back and forth with it as he stepped forwards, bumping right into Moon and forcing him aside as he went on his way.

Moon didn’t retaliate, he just kept his eyes locked on Angel, glaring with all his might and gritting his teeth as Angel completely ignored him and slowly disappeared down the hall.

Moon released a sharp breath of air from his nostrils as he slammed his eyes shut and shook his head out. He took several deep breaths before refocusing and moving on as well, but—

“Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo… Hohohohohohoho…” a twisted, deranged voice came from directly above him. “Now wasn’t THAT quite the little standoff with Pretty-Mane right there?”

Moon stopped for a moment, blinked, flattened his brow, and grunted in frustration before he continued walking. He wasn’t even going to acknowledge the owner of the annoying voice.

“Oh, Moony-Moon, I’m hurt!” the voice continued, staying lined up with him as he walked. “At least let me see those WONDERFUL eyes of yours!” the voice taunted.

Moon kept walking, but knew he wasn’t getting away. He sighed gruffly as he glanced up. Ruin was floating right above him, literally just a few inches away, backward, upside down, and arching his neck all the way back while holding a silly grin. Moon’s eyes twitched, surprised at the proximity, but only for a moment as his stoic demeanor held.

“THEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE! Was that so hard?” Ruin chuckled as he puttered along above Moon, only fluttering the very tips of his wing feathers to stay afloat.

Not in the mood for dealing with Ruin, Moon sharply and suddenly turned down another hallway. But after his second step, Ruin popped up from the floor, right in front of him, bouncing his eyebrows. Moon stopped before running into him and sighed.

“Stop it,” Moon requested sternly, but without raising his voice.

“Okay, I’ll just talk to the other moon!” Ruin snickered while sliding around behind and staring directly at Moon’s plot. Moon snorted and just kept walking.

“Very funny, now please find somepony else to bother,” Moon said as he started walking again, only to stop as Ruin slid right back up in front without picking his hooves up off the floor.

“Oh, but none of them are as fun to bother as you,” he pointed out while tipping his head really far to the right and leaning towards Moon’s face. “And the rest of them are so boring! You’re full of mystery and plot twists!” he wiggled his plot. “And for the record, I’m not talking about your butt this time.”

“Dandy,” Moon said flatly as he stepped aside and kept walking, but much to his dismay, Ruin turned and trotted right beside him.

“Oh, come now Moony-Moon, you can’t really blame me for being interested! I mean, the way you glare at Angel is so precious. Careful, some of us might get the idea that you DISLIKE him or something!”

“How very perceptive,” Moon continued to speak flatly, but the mention of Angel made one of his eyelids twitch.

“I SAW THAT!” Ruin reached over and touched Moon’s cheek, but Moon immediately pulled his head away and grunted. “It’s too bad you can’t DO anything about it, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?” Ruin hummed with a faint giggle in the back of his voice as he leaned in closer.

Moon suddenly stopped in his path and slammed his front hooves to the floor, turning his eyes to Ruin and scrunching his face. Ruin opened his eyes wide and made a very cute face in a joking manner. Moon snorted and gritted his teeth beneath his lips.

“Are you just trying to get under my skin?” Moon asked with clear tone of anger building up. Ruin’s face shifted from cute to absolutely smug.

“Is it working?”

Moon suddenly lunged at Ruin, reaching out and shoving his hooves into Ruin’s side. Ruin yelped as Moon pushed him roughly, Ruin’s hooves skidding and slipping along the floor until Moon smashed him up against the opposite wall.

“OOF!” Ruin grunted as he hit the wall, his head whiplashing against it. “HO! HO! OHOHOHOOOO!” he laughed regardless of the position he was in, sneering at Moon. Moon was baring his teeth, growling as he applied intense pressure against Ruin’s body and pressed him hard to the wall, looking one more taunt away from throwing a punch. “I’ll take that as a yes!” Ruin cackled as he threw on a crazed smile. “Please do go ON! I’ve never seen THIS side of you before!”

Moon’s eyes widened as Ruin baited him further. He slammed his eyes shut and released his hooves from Ruin taking two steps backwards as he tipped his head down and shook it back and forth. He took a deep breath before looking back up, his calm expression back in place. He looked calm again, but his ears were folded back, staring flatly at Ruin’s disturbing smile for a moment before turning and walking again.

“Aw…” Ruin put on a pouty frown as he pushed off the wall and followed. “That’s it? You really got my hopes up there…”

“I’m not about to attack somepony who’s more powerful than me,” Moon explained without missing a beat. Ruin stopped in place and stared blankly for a moment as Moon kept on moving.

“Hm, well then,” Ruin shrugged while smirking. “I can’t argue with that, but WAIT!” he broke into a gallop to catch back up with Moon. “Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaaaaaaaaaaaaaait!” he repeated over and over in a silly tone as he got back in front of Moon, skidded to a halt, and pressed a hoof to Moon’s chest, putting on a rather creepy smile with narrowed eyes. “Please… tell me more about this little peeve you have with Angel!”

Moon scrunched his face, his calm demeanor being tested again, especially with the mention of Angel.

“Stop trying to push me, you already know exactly why!” Moon snarled at him.

“Oh, I do,” Ruin tipped his head and placed his other hoof to his lips before twisting completely around and balancing himself on his wings as he stared at Moon upside-down. “I just want to hear you SAY IT.”

Moon continued to glare at Ruin as he received inverted puppy-dog eyes in return.

But Moon said nothing. He just stepped around Ruin and kept going as Ruin shakily turned himself around, still balanced on his wings. Ruin’s lips curled into a devilish, mischievous grin as Moon tried to ignore him. He turned himself back upright and leaned against the wall casually.

“I guess I could always just ask Iris…”

Moon froze in place, but only for a moment. He was already taking his first stride as he turned around. He charged at Ruin without hesitation, his crystals up and glowing brightly as he roared out in anger. Ruin remained right where he was as if inviting Moon to attack him. And he did. But Ruin was clearly expecting it.

He shifted at the very last moment, allowing Moon’s hoof to pass right between his face and the wall. He immediately reached up and clamped his arm around Moon’s. His three crystals jumped up and smashed into Moon’s forcing them down and holding them to the ground. Ruin turned and threw Moon to the wall, pushing him up onto his hind legs and smashing his back against it hard. Ruin stood on his hind legs and slammed his hooves to the wall right over the top of Moon’s shoulders, completely reversing the prior positions as he forced all his weight against moon. He held his face an inch from Moon’s, a sinisterly crazed smile nearly breaking his face as his eyes turned black with white tiny dots for pupils.

Moon growled and struggled briefly, Ruin’s tongue slipping between his teeth and licking his upper lip as he snickered and giggled.

But it was over quickly, Moon didn’t fight for very long, stopping abruptly again and shutting his eyes tight. When he opened them, they were back to normal. He took several calmed breaths before staring stoically at Ruin again. He didn’t even react at all to Ruin’s little messed up trick he always pulled with his eye colors.

“My, my, my… what happened to not attacking those who are better than you?” he turned his head slightly, closing one eye as if taking a very close look at him. “That’s QUITE the hot button you have there, and all it takes is saying her name? You might want to get that looked at!” he said in a taunting manner.

Moon’s ears flopped down as he turned his eyes away.

“Just… leave me be,” he said with a long, fed up sigh.

“That wouldn’t be any fun now, would it?” Ruin’s eyes shifted back to normal, but his smile remained as he released Moon from the wall, the two placing all four hooves back to the floor. “Come on!” he opened his eyes wide while shifting his head down to right beneath Moon’s chin. “You can take me seriously!” he beckoned his hooves towards his own face. “I promise I won’t hold it against you,” he said in a slightly sassy tone.

“Believe me,” Moon shook his head. “I’d be much more willing to take you seriously if I knew what you are actually all about.” Moon turned and started walking again.

“Ooooooooh?” Ruin slid along the floor on his hooves, forcing Moon to stop again as he placed himself right in his path. “Elaborate.”

“You’re insane,” Moon immediately began with a completely straight face as Ruin burst out laughing right in his face. Moon waited patiently as Ruin guffawed, his eyes remaining open wide, never leaving Moon’s as he also sprayed tiny bits of saliva at him. Eventually Ruin stopped, coughed a few times, cleared his throat and leaned up against the wall beside him.

“Go on,” he encouraged calmly as he turned a hoof over in front of him.

“And you do everything just for the hell of it as far as I can see,” Moon continued. “I actually have an agenda, and many things I have to address and worry about, so I don’t have time to listen to you if you’re just doing it all for personal amusement. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Moon stepped around him and started walking again, but Ruin scoffed loudly, his lips vibrating as he held the scoff for several more seconds than necessary.

“Yes, yes, yes…” he waved an arm in the air sarcastically. “All that stuff that just happened to Nightshade, and the visit from our client, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, yoohoohoo, derby-doo… I guess that’s something.”

Moon stopped and immediately glanced over his shoulder as Ruin sat down and slowly tipped backwards, somehow going all the way down to the floor on his back very slowly and landing softly, his ears pressed flat against the floor as he grinned and lifted an eyebrow.

“What? Please tell me you aren’t really that surprised. I know EVERYTHING that goes on in this dusty old place!” Ruin snickered as Moon rolled his eyes and faced forwards.

“No, I guess I’m really not surprised…” He flinched as Ruin suddenly slid along the floor on his back until he was right beside Moon and popped right up, leaning against Moon’s side.

“But really, Nightshade? Pff, oh please… spare me,” he shrugged. “She’s a wreck… I haven’t been listening to a word she says for a long time now!”

“Nightshade isn’t the problem,” Moon pointed out, bothered by Ruin touching him, but he learned his lesson from past retaliation.

“Who, Kayn Ost? A real charmer, isn’t he?” Ruin chuckled as he pushed away from Moon. Moon furrowed his brow. “He sure has Nightshade on a leash, doesn’t he? That’s no easy feat! It’s not often you see the alpha become the pet.”

Moon looked Ruin over carefully, not sure how to read what he just said. Did any of it bother him? Was he worried, thinking about it, or did he just not care?

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Moon asked, taking a chance and grasping at straws.

“BAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! HOO! HAA! HEE! OOOOOH YOU ARE TOO MUCH!” Ruin absolutely lost it as he fell over and rolled around on the ground.

Moon blinked in surprise as Ruin got his laughs in before rolling right back up onto his hooves.

“DO anything about it?! WHY WOULD I? HAHAHAHAHA!” Moon flinched as Ruin suddenly disappeared completely, only to pop up on the other side of him, wedging himself between Moon and the wall. “Are you kidding me? This is the MOST fun I’ve ever had!” he continued to laugh maniacally in between thoughts, walking out in front of Moon and moving in a circle. “The Wonderbolts are in disarray, the Shadowbolts are in disarray, at this rate all of Equestria will be in disarray and I can’t get enough of it!” he floated up into the air, continuing his circular path right over Moon. “I could seriously eat this up forever… ahhhhhh, so much chaos everywhere! So much rampant bickering and jawing, so much emotional drama, and so much senseless violence!” He tipped down, floating upside-down and lowering his face down an inch from Moon’s. “It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to get up in the morning! I don’t give a damn what happens as long as we all keep it up! OH HO HO!” he did a back flip, turning right-side up and holding a cowbell in his hoof, he began shaking it, loud echoing clangs reverberating through the halls. “OH, RUIN! Breakfast is served nice and hot! I made some fresh pandemonium pancakes with some fresh squeezed juice mixed with the tears of crying nitwits!” He tossed the bell over his back and got right back in Moon’s face, snickering into his stoic visage. “Ya get me?”

“You’re naïve,” Moon put plainly.

“Oh, nonononononoNO! Please, I liked it much better when you called me insane!” Ruin turned his head and nearly touched his cheek to Moon’s, but Moon shifted aside, causing Ruin to nearly tip over forwards. Moon turned and faced Ruin as he stumbled, scrunching his face.

“You’re completely ignoring the bigger picture,” Moon began, though he wasn’t sure why. Ruin fell flat on the floor, but rolled on his side and held a suggestive pose as Moon talked. “Nightshade is in control of our crystal distribution, we can’t get them without her, and she gets them from Kayn Ost, whom you clearly just saw threatening to take them away from us if we don’t deliver on his contract.” As he talked, Ruin rolled over and somehow managed to hover up into the air, floating all the way up to the ceiling. “This is a problem for all of us. If you had half a brain, you’d be a little more concerned about what to do if he eventually turns on us.” Moon continued as Ruin turned himself upside down and rested his stomach against the ceiling while yawning. “If that happens, we’re done for.” Moon looked up at Ruin as he held a hoof in front of his face and turned it over several times, looking bored. “Unless you forgot what happened to Witch, Trance, and Devil when their crystals were no longer… ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!” Moon lost his temper, yelling up at Ruin as he continued to look uninterested.

Ruin blinked and looked down at Moon as he yelled, lifting his brow.

“Hm? Oh, cut that out… You’re not fooling me, Moony-moon.”

“You’re intolerable…” Moon growled as he decided right then and there that he was walking away and not looking back.

“Quit the loyalty talk, I can see right through it,” Ruin suddenly said, stopping Moon before he could take more than a single step. His ears stood up as Ruin snickered. He looked up as Ruin walked on the ceiling until he was standing right above him, looking down with a wide grin. “You don’t care what happens to Nightshade, and you sure don’t care what happens to any of us… or even yourself for that matter!”

Moon’s eyes widened as Ruin detached from the ceiling and slowly floated upright, landing right in front of him.

“In case you’re confused, let me lay this all out for you…” Ruin began as he started walking in a slow circle around Moon. “You don’t care about the Shadowbolts, you don’t care about the Wonderbolts, you don’t care about Equestria, and you sure as hell could care less about Kayn Ost…” he completed a full orbit of Moon, stopping right in front of him. “You’ve only ever cared about one thing… Iris!” He suddenly lunged forwards, slamming his hooves down right in front of Moon’s hooves as he leaned all the way in, his eyes turning black and white. “AND SHE’S GONE! OH HO HO HO!” He pulled his face back, his eyes reverting to normal, but kept his hooves on the ground right in front of Moon’s. “And now you’re simply out to satisfy one thing. How noble, how devoted, it’s so sappy I swear it’s giving me gas…” he taunted while blowing a brief raspberry.

Moon gritted his teeth and growled, causing Ruin to burst out laughing.

“Yes, YES! Go on! Growl at me! Snarl at me! I love knowing when I’m right! HOHO! HO! HOHOHO!”

Moon grunted before forcing his way past Ruin, stomping down the hall.

“That’s right! YESSSSS!” Ruin yelled as Moon moved. “Keep lying to yourself! Keep denying it! Hell, I’m not gonna stop you… but isn’t it refreshing to know somepony is in tune with you?”

Moon stopped, growling louder as he tried to contain himself. Ruin was clearly doing this to bother him, but he just couldn’t get away no matter how hard he tried. He lowered his neck down, slamming his eyes shut as he faced the floor.

“You…” he let slip out.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssss?” Ruin’s voice came from directly below him. Moon’s eyes shot open to see Ruin slide out from beneath him, right between his legs before spinning around and looking up, still on his back. Moon glared at him, but quickly averted his eyes quietly swearing under his breath, more or less admitting defeat. “That’s right…” Ruin giggled as he stood up and patted Moon on the head. “Be a good little colt and keep me entertained with your dramatic personal life, I’d hate to get bored here…” Ruin slid around, pressing his side to Moon’s and draping a wing over him in a buddy-buddy manner.

Moon was still looking away, shaking his head very subtly.

“At least… I have something to fight for…” he struggled to defend himself, Ruin tearing him and his demeanor down piece by piece.

“If you can even call it that,” Ruin nudged him in the side while snickering. Moon looked up, but not at Ruin.

“Talk down to me all you want… Ignore what’s right in front of you… I have a goal, and I’m going to achieve it. I refuse to go quietly,” Moon said adamantly.

“Oh for crap’s sake,” Ruin scoffed. “There you go again, acting like you have a real reason or actually care.”

“I’m doing this for more than myself… It’s what Iris would have wanted,” Moon’s voice became a little shaky.

“Sounds more like what you want,” Ruin chuckled while releasing his wing from Moon. “Iris never struck me as that kind of pony, but what do I know?! HOHOHOOOOO!” Ruin tipped onto his right hooves and bounced. “You don’t really know, do you? This is only what you want, but you justify it with her… what a simple excuse, I expected something more sophisticated from you! The way I see it, your so called revenge will be a dish served for one at a table set for two. And when you’re done, you’re only going to wonder if it was really the right thing to do! That is… of course, if the food doesn’t kill you first! It may not be high in fat, sugar, or sodium, but ooooo, is it filled with SMUG!” He tipped over on his other hooves and bounced right up to Moon. “But even if you do somehow pull it off… that will be it. You’ll have nothing left to care about. If Kayn Ost comes after us at that point… I doubt you’ll even try!”

Moon began to shake slightly, gritting his teeth, his eyes twitching.

“And YOU will?!” he spat back at Ruin. “He’ll kill you just the same!”

“Him?” Ruin tipped his head. “Kill?” He leaned back and pressed his hooves to his chest. “Moi?!”He scoffed and whipped his short mane around. “Don’t make me laugh…” he looked back at Moon with his expression completely blank for a moment before smirking. “Oh, who am I kidding?! I’LL LAUGH ANYWAY! OOOOOOH HO HO HO HO HO!!!!!!” he guffawed while nearly falling backwards. Moon just stared at him, no longer sure if he had much frustration left to feel. Ruin finished laughing and released a long, satisfied, sigh. “Ahhhhhhhhh… Oh, Moony-Moon… You are so one-track minded and fatalistic!” He reached a wing forwards and tapped the feather tips against Moon’s chest. “Don’t stop, it gives me the giggles,” he said in a deeper than usual tone while bouncing his eyebrows. Moon looked ready to retort, but Ruin slipped around, again pressing his side to Moon. “Sure, sure, sure… Kayn Ost may have control over Nightshade…” he reached his opposite hoof over and tapped Moon’s shoulder. “And the rest of you, but… Heh… heheh, hee heeeeeeee,” he started giggling as he closed his eyes. “But, believe me…” his voice was suddenly filled with a demonic echo. His eyes shot open, once again black with tiny white pupils.

"NOPONY..."

"CAN CONTROL ME!”

There was a sudden flash of pink light from his crystals. Moon winced and shut his eyes, blinking as they readjusted.

Ruin was long gone… but his laugh was still echoing in the hallway.

Moon stood still for a moment, his thoughts swirling as Ruin left him in a state of denial, shock, and confusion all in one small package that was overstuffed and tied too tight.

After a moment, Moon’s ears perked up.

“Rapidfire, you can come out now,” he said without looking behind him. All he heard was a yelp. Moon rolled his eyes as he turned around and faced a doorway not too far behind him. Rapidfire slowly poked his head out. “So you saw all of that?”

Rapidfire swallowed, but then stepped out as he noticed Moon wasn’t showing any signs of anger or retaliation.

“I… was… uh…” Rapidfire stuttered as he averted his eyes, but Moon only shook his head.

“Watch your back,” he began, drawing Rapidfire’s attention. Moon turned and face away down the hall. “If I were you, I’d take a good look around you.” He started walking away. “Don’t believe for a second… that anything you see or hear is as it appears…”

Rapidfire remained still, simply staring after Moon as he reached the end of the hall and turned the corner.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf, Neonspirit, and Penumbra

Well now... wasn't that interesting? :rainbowderp:

Chapter 136: Our Imperfections Make Us Real (Part 1)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
This chapter was edited by: Witching Hour

Chapter 136: Our Imperfections Make Us Real (Part 1)

Needless to say, everypony in the Nimbus was absolutely exhausted from a long day of action and fighting, sleeping in well past the usual rise the next morning. The memo from Spitfire to unwind and reconnect spread like wildfire before bedtime, and the Wonderbolts planned to take advantage of it.

The day started with a breakfast of the same damn ration boxes that some of them were really starting to get sick of. They didn’t have much of a choice, but they were at least happy to still have something to eat. The Renegades had brought in some emergency supplies from their hidden outposts, but they were being saved for when they finally ran out of Wonderbolt rations. In a way, some felt tortured. They didn’t care what they ate as long as it was something different, but Spitfire made the decision and that was final. In the end it may not even matter, even with the thestrals heavily increasing the number of mouths to feed, because if they stuck to their plan, they’d have Crystal Empire cuisine waiting for them in a couple of days.

After choking down their assortment of dried food, dehydrated fruit, and various tasteless nuts, Squad Foxtrot went right from the combat dome back to their barracks, looking to simply get off their hooves… or paws and talons, and rest.

Dash instantly flopped on her mattress and sighed, letting her aching body sink into the divot that recently formed due to her sleeping in the same spot every single night. The pressure on her shoulder near the covered bite mark was a little uncomfortable, but she was almost too fatigued to give a damn. Besides, if she was going to complain about her shoulder, she’d have to complain about the rest of her body as well. Bruised, beaten, and battered, Dash was really feeling the effects of tangling with Nightshade. If it hurt this much today, it was probably going to hurt more tomorrow. There was only so much Bliss and the medical staff could do for her with all the swelling, soreness, and tenderness of her muscles, joints, and nerves all over her limbs and body.

After plopping her face into the pillow for a few moments, she turned her head to the side, looking towards the rest of her squad. They were all banged up, covered in bandages and dressings to protect their healing wounds, all of them except for Twister of course… who didn’t do a damn thing and still owed Dash answers she would likely never get. So she, Squall, and Matteo were patched up, Little Star was technically an exception since her covered wounds were from protecting Squall from Devil’s magic, but whatever… they were all hurt and needed this rest.

Part of Dash wanted to be with Soarin, but she had a responsibility to her squad as well, she couldn’t just run off with her coltfriend every moment. They were also her friends too, she couldn’t just push them aside. She glanced around to assess them all. Matteo was sitting up against his bed, not on it, the sound of shuffling and clattering come from in front of him. He was probably checking on the wood carved figures of his family. Squall was sitting on his bed, but something had his undivided attention. Dash followed his eyes all the way over to Little Star, who was also on her bed, but facing away from all of them, holding a pillow under her chin and digging her head into it.

Dash frowned as she looked upon her small squadmate. She was still a bit shaken. She hadn’t shut down completely… and they finally managed to pry her off Squall’s arm the night before, but beyond that she was functioning minimally. She rode on Matteo’s back to get food, she ate without saying a word, and now she was back in her bed, still staying quiet. Her demeanor had changed after Soarin’s apology. She no longer looked afraid or scared. Instead she just looked very upset. Soarin admitted his wrongdoing, but it didn’t change the fact that he… more or less threatened to hurt her. Star had worked so hard for so long to become a Wonderbolt, having a senior officer threaten her like that must’ve been a hit to her confidence regardless of the scenario. Dash was certain she’d be back on her hooves soon. Star had proven on more than one occasion that she was a strong little mare. If not for the added strenuous circumstances, she’d likely have just brushed it all off by now. She just needed some space. The day of rest would help her.

Dash blinked and looked up above Star, immediately narrowing her eyes as she caught Twister slithering along the ceiling like a snake. He stopped directly above Star and turned his head all the way around while grinning at her.

“PSST!” Dash immediately hissed through her teeth, grabbing both Twister and Matteo’s attention, but as soon as Matteo saw Twister on the ceiling, he went right back to what he was doing. Twister’s head turned all the way back around and stared at Dash instead. Dash glared and made a very rough head motion before shaking it back and forth, clearly signaling for him to leave Star alone.

Surprisingly, Twister obeyed, but instead turned all of his attention towards Matteo, slithering above him instead. Dash readied to try and stop him again, but stopped. Matteo could handle him.

Dash looked around again as a loud SQUAWK, the sounds of struggling, and… something that sounded like a banjo being broken against a hard surface came from Matteo’s corner of the room. Dash just let it happen, instead focusing back on Squall. She was surprised to see Squall’s bed was now empty. After blinking, she glanced back and forth until her ears picked up the sound of hooves clip-clopping along the floor. She looked back towards Star just in time to see Squall slowly approaching her with very slow, hesitant steps and a mixed look of worry and discomfort on his face.

He stopped right behind her bed, looking at the back of her head as he stood still for several moments. After a deep breath he cleared his throat.

“H-hey…” he spoke, but Star didn’t move or react. Squall gritted his teeth, swallowing before trying again. “Star?” he called her by name as he turned and made his way to the side of the bed to at least get in her field of view.

Little Star slowly removed her chin from the pillow and turned her head towards him. He froze when their eyes locked, the two staring for a few seconds before she turned her head the other direction and laid it back down against the pillow. Despite her turning her attention completely away from him, Squall went on anyway.

“How are… you… doing?” he spoke awkwardly with painful pauses in between words, his voice shaky and nearly cracking as if it was the hardest thing he had ever tried to say. Unfortunately, Star did not respond, she just kept looking away. Squall was clearly hoping his efforts would be acknowledged, and what came next was what Dash expected, but made her cringe none the less. “Sheesh… fine!” Squall suddenly blurted out in frustration and turned around to leave, but he didn’t move from the spot. After a moment, he turned back around and stared down at her, his eyes glaring and his lips scrunched. He slammed his eyes shut briefly, opening them up to reveal a softer gaze. He reached a hoof up towards her, but stopped, hesitated, inching his hoof forwards and backwards several times before grunting, turning and taking three steps away from her. On the fourth step he suddenly turned back around, moving right back up to her. He opened his mouth to speak, but his lips clamped down shut right after taking a breath. His mouth jittered awkwardly as he glared up at the ceiling, then down at the floor, the sound of muffled, heavy-breath growling coming from Squall’s throat as he struggled.

That was about all Dash could take. She had to step in before Squall did anything he’d regret later. She grunted as she shimmied herself off her bed and started walking towards Squall as fast as her achy body allowed. But she stopped and blinked in surprise as Matteo, who had appeared to have dealt with Twister, suddenly moved in front and got to Squall before she could. His approach was much less subtle than what she had in mind.

“What the—?! HEY!” Squall yelped as Matteo grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away from little Star, his hooves skidding along the floor. Squall did not appreciate it one bit, and immediately began hurling obscenities as Matteo calmly moved the two of them away from Star. Dash just watched them go by before turning and following. “The hell are you—?!”

“You won’t get anything out of her,” Matteo said as he let go of Squall and sat down, looking upon him with his usual stoic eyes. Squall froze mid yell, lifting his brow and blinking twice as he tipped his head.

“What?”

“Best let Rainbow Dash handle her for now,” Matteo went on instead of addressing Squall’s confusion, but Squall forced the subject.

“Why?!” he demanded as he looked back and forth between Matteo and back at Star. Dash finally made it over to them and stood right beside them both.

“Because you’re a stallion,” Matteo ‘explained’ simply. Squall stopped glancing back and forth, his eyes locked on Matteo as they slowly narrowed into a face of completely annoyed bewilderment.

“What does THAT have to do with any of it?!” Squall questioned while throwing his arms out.

“PFFFFF…” Dash instantly threw a hoof over her mouth to block the laughter. She knew what Matteo was getting at. She glanced up, her eyes meeting a glare from Squall in response to her amusement. He pouted and turned his head back and forth, glaring at them both. Even though it was a gender question, Squall, for some reason, asked Matteo again instead of Dash.

“How in Equestria does that make a difference?” he asked again while pointing at Dash. “Dash was talking to her earlier! Why can’t I?” he pressed, Matteo slowly shook his head.

“She can connect with Star in ways we can’t,” he explained, but Squall gave him a demanding look. Matteo sighed and lifted an eyebrow. “The female mind is a strange beast, one that we as males cannot fully understand, predict, or deconstruct.” As Matteo spoke, Twister suddenly slowly rose up from behind Squall while holding his front hooves up. There was a sock puppet of Squall on one hoof and a sock puppet of Little Star on the other. “They have their way of going about things and we have ours. In times of deep understanding and emotional stress, the clashing of these gender differences can, at times, lead to rather unpleasant and sometimes painful results.”

Dash was doing her very best to not simply burst out laughing as Matteo explained his reasoning to Squall. She had never heard such a philosophical take on something that could have been easily explained with something as simple as ‘you’re a colt, she’s a filly.’ It didn’t help that Twister was slowly moving the noses of the Squall and Star sock puppets together with a completely serious and flat expression on his face. Squall’s eyes twitched as he processed everything Matteo said, completely unaware of Twister behind him as the noses of the sock puppets touched.

“Oh great…” Squall dramatically rolled his eyes as he looked away from Matteo and gritted his teeth. “A lecture about mares from the ‘honor warrior.’ If they’re such a mystery, what makes you an expert, huh?!” he lashed back.

Dash glanced over Squall to see pink hearts floating up between Twister’s sock puppets as his flat face turned into a silly smile.

Matteo looked down upon Squall, tipping his head slighting to the right as he held up his right talons and lifted the middle shank up to show the gold ring.

“I am married, you know…” Matteo reminded Squall as Twister suddenly started vigorously rubbing the noses of the sock puppets together while squinting his eyes, puckering his lips, and making loud sucking sounds. Dash quickly shifted and shoved Twister away, sending him spinning like a top away from them right before Squall could turn around and glare.

“And he’s married to one of the moodiest queens in history of the griffon race!” Dash added sarcastically, placing a hoof on Squall’s shoulder to take any attention away from Twister spinning out of control behind them while making blabbering and spitting noises. Squall turned his head to look at Twister, but Dash reached up, placed her other hoof beneath his chin and made him look at her. “Listen, Squall… I’m going to agree with Matty here,” she reasoned with him as he pouted again, clearly not happy with the direction it was all going. “Look, she’s not ignoring you, don’t take it that way,” Dash continued while giving him stern eyes. “She needs some time to herself, and if she wants it, some girl-talk. Give her some space. You can help her after she comes around.”

Clearly disappointed Squall looked over Dash’s shoulder towards Star, but his eyes suddenly narrowed and he growled. He pointed sharply towards her.

“Oh and HE’S allowed to?” he asked angrily with a growl as Dash’s ears picked up a very strange noise.

She turned around, following Squall’s hoof to see Twister in front of Little Star. He was standing up on his hind legs, wearing a clown nose, and with his mane puffed up in a globe to complete the clown look. He was holding an accordion in his front hooves and playing it loudly while bouncing back and forth on his hind legs, an open mouthed, silly smile plastered to his face as he kept his eyes locked on Star.

Star was staring at him, her chin still sunk into her pillow, but she was grinning. Her cheeks were puffed out as she failed to hold in several quiet giggles.

“Uh… I’ve got nothing…” Dash admitted as she turned back to Squall. Squall’s pout intensified as he glared harder at her. Dash snorted and held a hoof out to her side. “Okay Squall, fine. If you want to dress up as a clown and dance with him, be my guest.”

Squall opened his mouth, but froze, saying nothing as he blinked three times, his ears folded back and a high pitched nicker escaped the back of his throat.

“I thought so,” Dash gave a solid nod and patted him on the shoulder.

Twister suddenly popped up right between the two of them, facing Squall as he continued to dance and play. Squall’s face contorted sharply as if his brain was close to short circuiting, but before he could punch Twister in the face, Matteo reached over, placed a set of talons over Twister’s head, and pressed him all the way to the floor. Twister’s body flattened, making the sound of an awkward, wailing accordion that ultimately resembled the sound of a goose with a sore throat being strangled by a paint mixer.

Then knocking came from the door. Dash was turning and moving towards the door the moment she heard the first knock, taking the opportunity to remove herself from the shenanigans, Not that she wasn’t used to all of this by now. Storm was always a welcome change from her merry band of fools, assuming it was him at the door.

“Storm!” Dash said his name before she even saw him, relieved that she was right. She held a somewhat fake smile on her face as she greeted him. Storm pulled his head back slightly as he heard the strange tone from her, but once he looked over his shoulder and saw Matteo trying to yank Twister off Squall’s back as Squall flailed, he caught on and acted natural. “Come on in,” Dash offered as she acted like there wasn’t a shit show going on behind them. “What’s up?”

“Well… I’m as going to say I’m glad to get away but…” he chuckled as the door slowly swung back behind him. “Well, from silly to silly I guess.”

“Sorry…” Dash sighed and grunted as she puffed her cheeks and glanced at her squad.

“Honestly, its fine,” Storm reassured her with a smile. “I prefer this crazy honestly, I sometimes fear for my life around Macho Sa—”

He was cut off and the two of them flinched as the door suddenly swung back open before it could latch shut, slamming against the wall and stayed there as a hoof pressed strongly against it.

Everything in the room stopped, even the three stooges behind them as they all looked towards the door.

Starry Skies released the door and stomped into the room, her eyes locked on Storm. She didn’t glance at anypony else as if none of them existed. Dash looked between Starry and Storm, wondering what prompted the sudden, rather brusque entrance.

Noticing that Starry was glaring directly at him, Storm decided to break the silence as she approached him.

“Starry? What are you doing he—,” he was cut off as she suddenly leaned her head forwards and clamped down on his ear with her mouth, yanking his head down. “OW!” Storm yelled painfully as Squad Foxtrot all shifted backwards in surprise. “OW! OW! OW!” Storm continued to yelp as Starry forced his head down until he was low enough for her to grab him around the neck. She put him in a headlock and started dragging him kicking and screaming towards the door.

“I need you,” she said angrily as she pulled the door open with her free hoof and tugged Storm right out into the hallway.

“GAH! FOR WHAT?!” Storm questioned, but got no answer as the door swung shut, leaving Dash and her squad speechless and all staring at the door.

After nopony said a word or even moved for several seconds, Dash shook her head out, blinked, and looked back at the rest. Squall, Matteo, Twister, and even Little Star were all staring at her.

“Uh…” Dash swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll uh…” she got no further as she moved towards the door, hoping to follow and figure out what the hell just happened.

“Starry! Ow! What gives?!” Storm desperately tried and failed to get answers out of Starry as she yanked him right out of the barracks hallway, through the doors and into the lobby, drawing the attention of several Wonderbolts and Renegades present as they moved through.

Starry didn’t say a word or make any effort to explain herself. She wanted Storm for something, and that was clearly all Storm was going to get until they reached whatever destination she intended. But even after accepting that conclusion, Storm was forced to stumble and shimmy along as Starry kept her arm clamped over his neck.

Dash stuck a hoof out to stop the barracks door from closing, pushing it out and peeking around it. She waited, hoping to quietly pursue once there was enough distance between her and Starry. It wasn’t any of her business… but it was Starry’s fault for using very direct and somewhat violent tactics to lead away one of her friends. As soon as Starry was near the center of the lobby, Dash shuffled out of the barracks and discreetly made her way behind the nearest bolted-down couch. It was hard to be quick and quiet, her tender joints not fully agreeing with her movements, but she did the best she could. She looking out over the top of the couch as Starry stopped for a moment to wrestle with Storm and reset her grip on his neck.

“Okay! I get it! Can I at least walk on my—OW!” Storm tried to reason with her, but she ignored him and continued to force him down.

Dash waited for her opportunity to move, but then she realized something. The lobby was… surprisingly empty. There were some Wonderbolts and Renegades around but… where were the thestrals? They couldn’t have been outside, it was the morning and sunny. There was no way they had all packed into the infirmary with Luna. Did they go into the basements to get away from the light? Probably not with how much work Rivet and his crews were busy with. Had they just spread out around the Nimbus? If they did it was odd not a single one of them was in the lobby.

Dash came back to her senses as Starry began moving again, turning Storm towards the west hallway. Dash refocused and watched, waiting for the perfect moment to keep moving after them, but she was forced to drop back down as Starry lost her grip on Storm and turned around to grab him again even though he made no effort to get away.

Dash kept her back pressed to the backside of the couch as the sounds of grunting and scuffling met her ears. They weren’t making this easy for her that was for sure.

Dash blinked, her eyes moving towards the east hallway as Squad Three suddenly emerged. They were moving slowly, the Streak twins both limping with Surprise riding on Lightning’s and Misty leaning on Fire. They all stopped and blinked when they saw Starry and Storm.

“Sheesh…” Lightning scratched his head. “The new guy’s always getting all the action.” Lightning glanced at Fire as he received a flat look. “What? C’mon, why else would she be pulling him away?”

“I’d like to think Storm Front has the dignity to believe in consent,” Fire commented with a snort, even though it was clear Starry was the one doing all the forcing.

“So does Chiller,” Lightning snickered. “The captain sure asked him first, eh? Now I just gotta figure out what gets the mares to drag me away, throw me on a bed, and make me part of the mattress by the morning!”

“Pssst!” Surprise suddenly leaned forwards, grabbed on of Lightning’s ears, and whispered loudly into it. “You may wanna figure out how not to get punched in the dick first!” she explained as Fire snorted, earning a head tilt from his brother.

“She said it, not me… even though I was thinking it,” Fire confessed.

“Hey I got half of it right! I just gotta convince them to touch it a little softer, ya know?” Lightning said as he reached a hoof to his opposite arm and gently stroked it up and down with suave motions. Surprise gave him a comical glare and bopped a hoof over his head.

“Okay, let’s stop there…” Fire cut him off, but blinked as he looked towards Misty. “Misty?” Fire looked at her carefully. She was staring directly up with her eyes wide. “What are you…?”

The rest of Squad Three looked up and reacted with a mixture of yelps and flinches.

Curiosity struck Dash as well. She looked up and froze as her eyes stuck open wide.

Well… she found the thestrals.

The high ceiling of the lobby was completely hidden from view… because the entire Lunar Guard was hanging upside down from it, hundreds of thesrals densely packed together, wings wrapped around their bodies, and asleep. It was one giant mix of dark colors, save for P.L. who was dead center right beside the main propeller pillar, standing out like a black sheep… ironically. They were all without with armor except for P.L. who didn’t seem to mind the weight of his own as he slept.

Despite being on their side, Dash found the sight incredibly unsettling.

“Dude…” Lightning Streak spoke up while pointing towards the ceiling. “I am NOT okay with that…”

“Well…” Fire swallowed as his eyes remained locked on the sleeping colony above. “They are part bat, after all…”

“Uh, question,” Surprise spoke up while looking at her hooves. “How do they stick to the ceiling like that?” she asked, scrunching her lips as she looked between her hooves and the thestrals.

“You could always ask,” Fire shrugged, a little curious himself. Surprise shook her head quickly.

“No thanks! They’re bitey enough when I’m not talking to them…”

Dash looked away from Squad Three and back up, shuddering as her eyes scanned the thestrals on the ceiling. Talk about freaky… she was glad they were allies, because they were making it a habit of giving her the heebie-jeebies.

“OW!” Storm’s voice sounded out nearby… and it sounded like it was further away. Dash quickly refocused, remembering what she was doing in the first place as she peeked back over the top of the couch. Starry was on the move again, dragging Storm into the west hallway. Forgetting all about the freaky sight above her, Dash quickly shifted around the couch and gave chase, keeping her steps light and staying out of view as she closed in. She moved from cover to cover, couch, to chair, to table, always staying out of direct view of the hallway just in case Starry lost her grip on Storm and turned around again. When Starry finally got far enough down the hallway, Dash made her move to pursue, jumping out from behind her cover towards the west hall…

But right as she moved, she yelped as she ran into something… then yelped again as something big and heavy fell over the top of her, forcing her over onto her side before being squished.

“Oof!”

“Yikes!”

“Grh! Ow! Ow!” Dash cried out as intense pressure weighed down on her sore body.

But there were two other voices grunted along with hers, one male and one female.

“Oh… whoops!”

Dash immediately recognized that voice, even though her aching body was being painfully squished beneath the big doofus’ bulk.

“Soarin… get… offa… me…” she ordered in between uncomfortable grunts with her voice muffled. Soarin quickly rolled to the side, allowing Dash to gasp for air as she shook her head out and pressed her hooves to the floor. She blinked as she looked up, seeing Soarin first, but also seeing the other pony she ran into.

“Good gravy… how much do you weigh?” Lightning Dust whined, cracking her neck and back as she slowly stood up.

“Soarin? Dust?” Dash asked as she slowly and shakily stood up, but Soarin was pouting at Dust.

“Sorry, but sheesh, I’m not that fat am I?” he asked in a joking manner. Dust shook her body out while lifting her brow and looking him up and down.

“No, but apparently your muscles weigh a ton,” she commented as she continued to look him up and down. Dash quickly flattened her brow, forgetting her curiosity for a moment as she cleared her throat, and slid herself up next to Soarin, grabbing his arm.

“Mine,” she said sternly while giving Dust a slight glare. Dust couldn’t hold in a snicker as Soarin rolled his eyes.

“I agree, but…” Soarin patted Dash on the head before pointing down the hallway towards Starry as she continued to drag Storm further and further away. “I was following them. Can either of you tell me what’s going on over there?” Both Dash and Dust glanced over.

“I dunno, I was following Storm to find out.”

“I dunno, I was following Starry to find out.”

Dash and Dust blinked and glanced at one another as they answered in unison.

“Come on,” Soarin stood up and made a head motion towards the struggling duo down the hall. “Let’s go find out.”

Starry Skies pulled Storm Front all the way to the end of the hallway, stopping right outside the doors leading into the auxiliary gym.

Storm grunted and rubbed his neck as Starry finally let go of him. He shot her a frustrated glare as he shook his head out and snorted.

“Okay now are you going to tell me why you—,” he was cut off, Starry meeting his glare with one twice as intense that shut him up quickly.

“QUIET!” she whispered in a strong but hushed tone. Storm did as he was told, but didn’t let up with his eyes, silently demanding an explanation. Starry turned sideways and pointed at the doors to the gym. “Listen,” she began harshly, struggling to keep her tone down. “Descent is in there…” she said as her face contorted slightly, giving her expression an awkward appearance, one of her ears flopping down, and one of her eyelids twitching. Storm barely noticed though, picking up instead on the obvious.

“What? Dad?” he glanced over Starry at the door, then back at her as she shut her eyes and held her breath for a few seconds. Storm tipped his head curiously as she continued to behave oddly. “Uh… are you okay?”

Starry suddenly pushed him roughly, forcing him back a step as she hissed between her teeth and growled while looking away from him.

“He’s been avoiding us, ignoring and hiding from the rest of the Renegades since we saw Nightshade yesterday! I… I…” she barely managed to keep her voice down, noticing she was almost yelling and throwing her hooves over her mouth. She released what sounded like a muffled, angry yell before taking a breath and glaring at Storm again. “I need you to talk to him.”

“Me?” Storm blinked. He was Descent’s son, but the whole thing with Nightshade was a highly personal topic… and Starry had been friends with them for years… he had really only truly known who his father was for a little while. “Why do I have to? Wasn’t Nightshade one of your friends too? You three were your own little group, right? That’s what Dad told me at least. You understand this situation way more than I do.”

Starry gritted her teeth as Storm gave his logical reasoning. She snorted and scoffed, both sounding very forced and over the top.

“I already tried. I couldn’t get anything out of him,” she answered without any hesitation, adding a harrumph at the end of it, tipping her nose up and exhaling through her nostrils.

Storm looked her over carefully. Starry was acting… very strange. Something wasn’t right.

“Did you really try talking to him?” Storm suddenly asked.

Starry froze in place. Her nose still pointing up, but her eyes stuck open wide and her mouth scrunched up. That sealed it. Starry’s blunt and upfront way of talking made her a terribly obvious fibber.

“Starry…” Storm sighed as he looked right through her. Starry quickly turned around and looked down.

“I don’t want to… push him,” she said quietly, almost mumbling, but Storm heard it. Storm reached forward to put a hoof on her shoulder, but she suddenly turned around, her face scrunched into a look of anger. “OKAY?! I JUST DON’T!” she yelled loudly, shoving Storm backwards again. She immediately gasped and stuffed her hooves back in her mouth as her eyes locked on the gym doors. Storm managed to stay upright, but he didn’t lash back. He simply walked back up to her and placed his hoof on her shoulder as he first intended. She immediately shook it off while shooting him a look of utter disgust.

“Right, right… no touching,” Storm reminded himself out loud, but shook his head as he remained on topic. “Starry, you should talk to him,” he suggested. Starry’s ears flopped as she sat down and looked right down at her hooves, almost as if she was trying to ignore him. “I’d love to help, but this is a personal issue for him that you understand much more than I do,” Storm added.

Starry didn’t answer at first. She just kept looking down and began tracing circles on the floor with her right hoof.

“Because…” she sputtered, clearing her throat. “Because you’re his son,” she barely managed to get out, struggling every syllable. “You’re his real family, it’ll mean something to him… I’m just…” she trailed off. Going no further as looked towards the door and stared at it. Storm waited patiently for her to continue, but she suddenly reached up, grabbed her mane, and yanked on it a few times while growling. Storm leaned back slightly as her demeanor dramatically shifted, but he didn’t get far before she lunged at him, grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him over to the doors. “JUST TALK TO HIM FOR ME!” she demanded, pushing him by the plot up to one of the doors until he was pressed against it.

“Ah! Okay! Okay!” Storm caved as Starry pushed harder, squishing him between her and the doors.

“Dammit! GET IN THERE!” she yelled as she kept pushing.

“Ow! St-Starry!” Storm struggled to speak, his voice slightly muffled as he got more smushed, his right cheek completely pressed against the door.

“WHAT?!” she yelled as she slammed her eyes shut and pushed harder.

“These… are… pull doors!”

Starry immediately stopped pushing and blinked, glancing at the door and seeing the ‘pull’ label on it, complete with a handle. A bright red blush of embarrassment poked right through her fur.

She growled, yanked Storm back, and reached for the door without letting go of him. She opened the door and forced him in with a kick to the plot before slamming the door shut behind him. Her strategy of subtly was already falling apart, but it was long gone. Her physical solution likely alerted Descent and put Storm in an awkward spot, but at this point she didn’t seem to care as long as Storm ‘fixed’ things.

As Starry turned and slumped with her back against the door, her ears perked up and she quickly turned her head back down the hallway. Three heads suddenly disappeared into a nearby doorway, followed by whispering.

“Did she see us?”

“She totally saw us.”

Starry pouted, glared, and released a muffled growl.

“Yes, I saw you. Who the hell is it?” she demanded angrily.

“See I told you…” Lightning Dust said out loud as she sighed and stepped out, immediately cringing as Starry’s glare hit her right in the face. “Er… Hi…” she said awkwardly as Dash and Soarin also stepped out behind her.

“And just what do you three think you’re doing?” Starry asked, even though her own actions had easily sparked the curiosity of all three of them. Dash and Dust both hesitated, averting their eyes embarrassingly. Soarin swallowed, taking one for the team.

“Uh, well…” he began, trailing off as he tried to put together an explanation in his head, but before he could go any further Starry suddenly jumped up on her hooves and shuffled a few steps back, her eyes wide, but retaining the glare.

“WHAT THE…?!” she yelled as she appeared to look past the three of them.

“Huh?” Dash was the only one to verbally react as all three of them turned around… to see Matteo and Squall peeking out one door back from where they were hiding. Matteo was doing a lousy job of ‘peeking’ with his whole big head sticking out of the doorway. Squall tried to hide, but ran into Matteo in the process, tumbling out into the hallway before swearing.

“Guys?” Dash blinked as Matteo stepped out beside Squall, revealing Little Star softly nestled into the fur on Matteo’s back.

This was awkward… Dash, Soarin, and Dust got caught following Starry, only to catch Dash’s squad following them… while they were still trying to explain to Starry why they were following even though it was pretty obvious... Thankfully, Matteo broke the silence.

“Star was curious, so we followed,” he explained straight-forwardly as Squall huffed and got to his hooves.

“Oh, okay,” Dash quickly accepted that for an answer, anything that helped comfort Star was okay in her book right now, but she was curious. To be so close behind them, they had to have followed her nearly from the moment she left. “Okay, I know why I didn’t hear you, Matty,” Dash said as she glanced at his talons and paws, but then she shifted her eyes to Squall’s hooves before looking him in the eyes. “How did you move so quietly?”

Squall scrunched his face and glance to his left away from all of them.

“I don’t want to talk abou—”

“He also rode on my back,” Matteo diligently answered.

“GEE THANKS FATASS! NOW THEY ALL KNOW!” Squall immediately exploded at Matteo, turning and growling up into Matteo’s face. Matteo only glanced at him, not reacting at all to the anger being projected at him, but narrowing his eyes slightly.

“We’ve been over this. It's not fat, I have a lot of fur,” he pointed out calmly.

Dash didn’t pay any attention to the two as she walked towards them to get a look at Little Star, stopping right in front of Matteo before shifting to the side. Star wasn’t just riding on Matteo’s back, she also seemed to be clutching his fur rather tightly. She had a look on her face that seemed wary, maybe even a little afraid. She was looking directly at Soarin, nopony else. Dash sighed, knowing that Soarin probably noticed too, but they had to leave that subject be for the time being. Instead, Dash was surprised she almost failed to realize on particular member was missing.

“Where’s Twister?” she asked while moving back in front of Matteo, assuming he’d pop up the moment she asked, instead, Matteo turned away from Squall, looking down at Dash as he sighed and pointing to his chest feathers.

“He’s in there somewhere…”

Twister suddenly popped out of Matteo’s feathers with a completely blank look on his face, extending horizontally towards Dash until his whole upper body was visible.

“There he is,” Matteo moved his talon from his chest to Twister.

Twister said nothing as he held out a hoof towards Dash, a folded piece of paper in it. Dash lifted an eyebrow, but played along, grabbing the paper and unfolding it. She opened her eyes fully and blinked as she looked at it. It was a picture of Twister’s head, making an odd face gritting his teeth hard while squinting with his eyes pointing slightly away and off center.

Dash huffed and flattened her brow as she lowered the paper to see Twister making the exact same face as he held himself in front of her.

Without a word, Dash slapped the paper over Twister’s face and pushed him all the way back into Matteo’s feathers.

“At least we know where he is…” she said casually as she glanced at Squall. He was glaring towards her, but not directly at her. She didn’t even have to look behind her. She knew what he was doing. “Squall, stop glaring at Soarin.”

Squall immediately shifted his glare to her.

“Don’t glare at me either,” she ordered as she blinked and turned back around, remembering why she was there in the first place.

Starry.

Why had she more or less kidnapped Storm? They had followed but never got close enough to hear what she said before kicking Storm through the door. With many of them curious enough to follow, it was time to get to the bottom of it.

Starry Skies had moved back against the door and slumped down as she had before noticing all the ponies following her. Dust had approached her, but by the looks of things, Lightning Dust wasn’t getting much out of her. But Dash was quick to notice Lightning Dust’s first error, she wasn’t being firm enough, simply asking Starry what was going on to no avail without much demand in her tone. Knowing Starry’s position of authority over her and her sharpness, Dust seemed unwilling to push the envelope any harder. But because it involved one of Dash’s closer friends among the Wonderbolts, she was more than ready to put up a fight.

She approached, nudging past Soarin, and then Dust as Starry started grumbling to herself. Starry glanced up at Dash as she asserted herself, Soarin and Dust hovering behind her.

“Hmph…” Starry grunted as she lifted an eyebrow at them, glancing slightly to her right to see Dash’s squad approaching to partake as well. “Nice to know privacy is a thing around here,” she said with incredibly harsh sarcasm, rolling her eyes and scoffing. Dash tipped her head to the right and narrowed her eyes.

“You kind of barged your way into my barracks and hauled off one of our friends against his will,” Dash pointed out, prompting Starry to look away and puff her cheeks out. Soarin stepped up beside Dash, looking equally amused at her sarcastic statement.

“You’ve been around Fleetfoot this long and still think privacy is a thing around here?” Soarin asked, returning the sarcasm right back at her.

“Okay, okay, fine…” Starry growled, still refusing to look at them. “It’s an emergency, I don’t have time to play paddy-cake and explain to all of you why I’m…” she trailed off as her ears stood up and turned towards the door behind her. She immediately shot up onto her hooves and pressed the side of her face to the door, an ear slapped to it.

“Starry what’s—?” Dash moved closer, but Starry immediately threw out a hoof and shushed her.

“Descent,” she said without making any eye contact.

“What?” Soarin blinked. “What about—”

“I SAID SHUDDAP!” Starry hissed at them harshly even though she hadn't actually told them to shut up yet. But she clearly didn’t notice the verbal slip and went right back to listening. Soarin and Dash glanced at one another before Dash made a quick head motion towards the doors.

With the theme of privacy all but brutally murdered, the two stepped up beside Starry and placed their ears against the doors as well. Dust, Squall, and Matteo did the same, with Little Star shifted to listen while still upon Matteo’s back.

None of them knew what it was about, Starry refused to give any explanation aside from ‘Descent’, but they were about to find out.

“Grgh…” Storm grunted quietly as he removed his face from the floor, pushed himself up, and rubbed the now tender end of his nose. Starry couldn’t hide her care for his father or her eagerness to help him, but he would have appreciated a gentler approach. Being forced into a door the wrong direction, followed by being kicked through said door and landing on his face was not his idea of how to start an approach to his father.

Speaking of his dad, Storm quickly set aside his focus on his nose in favor of finding his dad. The lights were off in the auxiliary gym, but the window shutters were latched open, allowing weak rays of sunlight from the morning sun in from the outside, the west side of the gym conveniently facing east as well as the only real open area of the large canyon they landed in.

Descent was sitting on the floor about twenty yards from the entrance, bathing alone in the soft light that shone through the window closest to the doors. He was looking slightly down, a mixed expression on his face of anger, worry, and deep thought, his body casting a long shadow behind him that ultimately merged with the shaded majority of the gym area. Storm swallowed and took a step.

“Whoever it is, leave me be.”

Storm stopped cold, his father’s words devoid of any strict harsh tones, but the somber, serious tone of his voice almost had a stronger effect. He didn’t look sad, and in terms of sounding sad it was hard to pick out, but Starry wouldn’t have forced him in here if everything was alright. Storm cleared his throat.

“Dad…?” he called quietly, Descent’s ears immediately standing straight up. It remained completely silent, neither of them moving or speaking for several more moments before Descent released a very long, slightly frustrated sigh. Storm gritted his teeth as he continued walking, forcing himself forward despite his father’s request to be left alone. “I’d leave, but…” he began as he stopped a few paces behind Descent. “This was kind of forced upon me. I doubt I’d be let out if I tried.”

“Heh…” Descent released a single chuckle as he looked up towards the window, squinting his eyes slightly as they met the light. “Brutally honest. Let me guess, Starry put you up to this.”

“Uh…” Storm rubbed the back of his head as Descent sighed and shook his head lightly.

“She’s been hovering around me since we got back,” Descent explained, showing he had full knowledge of Starry’s desire for intervention despite her failed attempts to be quiet about it. With that question answered, Storm stepped around and sat down beside Descent, looking up into the light with his father.

“Then it’s probably obvious that she wants to talk to you,” Storm threw out there to get the ball rolling. Starry put the task on him, but he still believed she was more suited for the subject of Nightshade.

“She won’t,” Descent quickly answered as if he had it primed and ready. Storm blinked and looked at Descent as he tipped his head back down, relieving his eyes from the gentle light, shadows moving upon his face. “Believe me, this isn’t the first time she’s tried to step in when I’ve not been in the best mood. She means well, but she’s never been a soft speaker. She can’t retract her barbs, always harsh and blunt no matter what the circumstance. It makes her a great warrior, but comfort?” Descent smirked slightly. “You’d have better luck hugging an affectionate porcupine.”

Storm flinched and gritted his teeth awkwardly as he glanced over at the doors.

“She’s out there isn’t she?” Descent asked. Storm swallowed and nodded.

“Uh, yeah… she is,” he answered, his voice stuttering a little.

“Don’t worry, she knows her limits. It’s probably why she sent you in before saying a word to me,” Descent chuckled again, but each laugh sounded a bit forced. It died down quickly as he turned his head towards the doors, than away in the other direction. “But I’m glad she did… because I don’t really want to see her right now.”

“Huh…?” Storm was sent in to help Descent, but now he found himself just as curious as Starry. He already felt privileged that Descent was opening up a little, he had a feeling no other pony would have gotten this far. So he decided to press… lightly. “Why not?”

Descent remained quiet, looking away from Storm and saying nothing. A whole minute passed before Descent moved, slowly turning his head to look forward, the shadows creeping under his chin and across his jaw as he turned.

“I’m just trying to come to terms with some things right now. Seeing Starry will probably make it more difficult,” he paused exhaling through his nostrils. “She would only be more of a reminder of… Nightshade.”

Storm winced as Descent brought her up. He knew it was coming, but it was still hard to hear in conjunction with the clear difficulty Descent had just saying the name. He refocused as Descent released a loud frustrated grunt as he closed his eyes and growled. He shook his head lightly, the growl and slight scowl on his face fading into a calm demeanor.

“I’m not hiding from anypony right now… it’s pointless to dance around the reality of this. I just need time to absorb it all,” Descent went on, opening his eyes and staring at the ground in front of him. Storm quickly realized that he had been put in the position that Starry wanted. She was worried about Descent and didn’t know what she could do for him, but now HE was here, and Descent was, hopefully, opening up.

Even though Storm still felt Starry was much better suited to help when it came to Nightshade, he would not pass up the chance to give his father a pair of ears to listen.

“Nightshade’s reaction when she saw Starry and I…” Descent continued, just as Storm had hoped. “It was jarring. It was almost as if she was afraid to look at us. What does it mean? What does it imply?” Descent shook his head lightly. “I haven’t a clue, but… the encounter, what I saw… it has sent my thoughts into an extreme conflict.”

Descent turned his head to look Storm in the eye. Storm swallowed and nodded, giving Descent the gesture to let him know he was listening and absorbing it.

“From the moment I deserted the Shadowbolts, I was prepared to face Nightshade if it came to it. She had been blinded by the power of the crystals and was no longer in control, and I felt it was my responsibility as her friend and lifelong comrade to bring her down and save her from herself. Even after the ensuing fight when she disappeared in the explosion, I vowed to stay true to my decision should we discover she survived.”

Descent looked back towards the window, looking right into the light that shone through.

“There has always been a small glimmer of light that I’ve held onto. While I was determined to fight her, I was never happy about it. I never let my hopes get up, but maybe… just maybe…” Descent reached a hoof up, letting the faint rays of light shine upon it. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to kill her… maybe I could help her. It was a fool’s fantasy, but it was something to hold onto. Nevertheless… I was fully prepared for conflict. Nightshade is a mare of intense ambition and unwavering determination. If she wants something, she takes it by any means necessary. With how she is and with the crystals in the picture, I was more than certain no matter what happened I’d be fighting her to the death. My personal feelings would have to be put aside.” Descent put his hoof down. “At least that’s how I felt… until now.”

Descent remained still for several moments. Storm didn’t make a peep, not daring to interrupt his father in any way. Descent released a low groan from the back of his throat as he reached his hoof back up, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead and between his eyes. His groan sounded of frustration, the way his face and expression contorted and shifted slightly implied hesitation, confusion, and indecision.

“I have been on a path and I found her like I wanted, but seeing her again has caused the path to split in completely opposite directions… and I feel like I’m being torn apart trying to travel them both. I…” Descent pushed his hoof harder against his face. “I want to know more, I need more! I need to know why she reacted like that! The image of her face… of her eyes… it’s forcing itself against everything I have strongly followed throughout this long fight! When I landed there with Starry by my side, we arrived to the sight of our comrades all beaten and helpless, the kind of destruction she leaves in her wake… but her reaction to us, the way it all turned down such a different road we’re used to… it suggests she is suffering. Is she filled with regret? Is she troubled by her choices and terrified to even look us, her closest friends, in the eyes?”

Descent growled loudly and slammed his hoof back to the floor, causing Storm to flinch and lean away slightly.

“What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to feel? Which direction am I supposed to go? I once ruled out any hope of her being pulled free from her delusion, but her behavior yesterday is convincing me the Nightshade I know is STILL IN THERE! But she’s still the enemy, she almost killed my allies… do I fight her or do I help her? Where do I put my loyalties? I’m most certainly not about to even consider switching sides to stand beside my old captain, but she… she…”

Descent was shaking, gritting his teeth and glaring at the floor as he struggled to balance the two weights tipping back and forth on his shoulders. Dropping one weight would allow him the balance to hold the other, but neither of them felt right to abandon.

Storm saw an opportunity… perhaps one that he was meant to have. Not too long ago, his father had told him right to his face that Storm represented a side he rarely showed, a side he had but never wanted others to see. Storm felt that maybe… just maybe… he could also be the voice of that side, the side that was less stoic and rigid… the side that cared.

He scooted slightly closed to his father, carefully examining the angry, distraught look that trembled upon his face.

“She really means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” Storm asked. Descent ceased growling and sighed, nodding as his glare remained facing down.

“Indeed, as I have told you. She is a comrade and a friend, there is nopony else I think I’d call those things… beside Starry, of course,” Descent explained, recalling his previous talk with Storm on the subject of Nightshade. But Storm shook his head.

“It’s not that simple though, is it? No, there’s more to it than that…” Storm placed a hoof on Descent’s shoulder. “For both of the mares… isn’t there?”

Descent finally turned his head, his glare fading as he met his son’s eyes.

“There… is,” Descent hesitated, but said quietly.

“Please tell me,” Storm immediately encouraged. He wanted his father to let it all out. He needed to. Spitfire had ordered the Wonderbolts to all relax, reconnect, and recalibrate.

It certainly wouldn’t hurt his father or the Renegades to do the same.

“Nightshade and Starry Skies…” Descent slowly glanced back up at the light shining dimly through the window. “They both mean so much to me. Their significance in my life far outweighs anything related to the Shadowbolts. I never knew my mother or father, I was abandoned on the streets of Canterlot before I ever had any memory of them. Before I met Nightshade and Starry I was just a wild animal, no rhyme or reason, no direction or goal. Everything changed when they saved me from certain death. I was at their mercy, bloody and beaten, but they didn’t hurt me or kill me, they helped me. I had never been shown care in any form, but I was instantly attached to them and decided to never leave their side. They gave me a reason to live, something to look forward to and protect, nothing else mattered to me. Since then, they have been my life… they have always been there. We have a special connection, a bond. Not one forged through smiles, hugs, affection, or cheer… one of trust, respect, and loyalty stemming from our youngest days as the two fillies and a colt on the street when that’s all we had going for us. The bond grew so strong throughout the years that if any piece went missing… I felt broken, devastated.”

Descent turned his eyes away from the light, looking into the darkness opposite of Storm.

“Leaving Nightshade behind was one of the hardest choices I’ve ever made, but it was something I had to do. Starry and I had to escape before Nightshade’s corruption consumed us too. The gap left by Nightshade has been painful, It’s something I’ve learned to live with, but… I long to feel complete again.”

He turned his head back around to look at Storm.

“You saw what happened to me when Nightshade’s crystals shattered… when I thought she would meet the same fate as the fallen commanders. I was scared, terrified, and devastated. I couldn’t breathe, my legs buckled beneath me, and I cried out in horror. I thought she was going to die right there in front of me and be gone from my life forever. Prepared to fight her? Prepared to kill her? The way my body reacted to that sight showed me just how naïve I really am. She narrowly escaped her fate… Nightshade stayed true to her nature and somehow averted death again, but that’s when I no longer recognized myself. I wanted nothing more than to run to her, to take her back, to pull her in and fill the gaping space that she once filled and sealed us tight. That close encounter showed me and forced me to acknowledge just how important she is to me and my life. And when I came back here and found time to think it all over, I realized just how uncertain I really am. I can’t kill her… I just can’t… especially now that I know that she might be suffering.”

Descent reached up and grabbed Storm’s hoof, startling Storm as he pulled it off his shoulder and held onto it tightly, looking at Storm with eyes of desperation.

“She’s a part of me, Storm… and she’s a part of Starry too. I doubt Starry would ever admit it, but I know she feels the exact same way.” He slammed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth. “I would do anything to bring her back to us, but I just don’t know how, nor do I think I can… and if we are forced to fight… I don’t think I… think we could…”

Descent never finished, he just squeezed Storm’s hoof in front of his chest. The grip was tight, and a little painful, but Storm didn’t grunt or flinch. He stared at his father’s hoof. He stared at it for a long time before looking at his father’s pained face.

“Dad…” Storm shifted so he was sitting right in front of Descent and reached his other hoof up to clasp it against Descent’s. “I know exactly how you feel.”

Descent opened his eyes and blinked at he looked directly at Storm. Storm returned the grip on his hoof with equal strength.

“Nightshade is family to you… you would do anything for her, or for Starry, right?” Storm asked, but Descent didn’t reply, he just kept staring. “Dad, I know how it feels because you taught it to me.”

Descent’s eyes widened slightly and his mouth opened slightly, stopping just short of gasping. Storm smiled and gave a firm nod.

“You were the only thing I had going for me when I was young, you know. Before I made any friends, for the longest time you were the only thing that made me smile or feel cared for. Whenever you were gone, I felt like a huge piece of me was missing. It got worse when you started disappearing for longer periods of time and eventually all together, but by then I had grown up and learned to make the most of myself and what you had given me. I stayed strong and stayed true to myself because I always wanted to make you proud and show I cared whether you were with or without me. I wouldn’t even be here right now if it wasn’t for you, much like you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Nightshade and Starry… You’re MY family.”

Descent looked right into the eyes of his son, contemplating the words carefully and realizing, while the circumstances were very different, how many similarities he shared with his son and how his life was shaped. It was ironic, considering Descent made a vow to make sure Storm never lived a life like his. There were some distinct similarities after all, like father like son. Descent tipped his head down, closing his eyes and grinning as he released a single chuckle.

But then he shifted to his right, releasing Storm’s hooves as he looked into the darkness.

“Storm…”

“Yes?” Storm scooted up beside his father, sitting side by side.

“Please, tell me…” he slowly turned his head, glancing at Storm with the dim rays of light splashing against his face. “If things were different… if you were in my hooves and I was in Nightshade’s… what would you do?”

Storm blinked as he opened his mouth, but closed it quickly, not expecting such a question.

“If I was pitted against you, if I was your enemy despite all we’ve been through, but I appeared suffering from my own self-induced pain… what would you do?” Descent turned his head, the light slipping off of his face as he looked away. “Because I… have no answer…”

Storm looked down, the heavy question hanging over him by a small, unraveling thread. How to answer this? Could he? He had never had such a heavy choice put on him before… but… maybe that was it, maybe there was no way for him to answer. It had to be acknowledged.

“Well... that makes two of us,” Storm answered honestly. Descent looked back at him, but there was no look of disappointment or of annoyance or anything that would come with such a quick answer. Perhaps he knew Storm didn’t have an answer for him. Storm sighed as he looked away from his father. “I don’t really think… there’s any way to figure this out. I’ve never had to face a choice like that, but if I were to, I’d be just as lost as you. And even if I had some sort of plan, given what we’ve gone through I doubt there’d be any right way to approach it. Everything has been a split second decision, a reaction as we learn more and face more. Even when we’ve had a plan, none of it has gone smoothly.”

Descent faced forward just like Storm was, both of them with their heads tipped, their eyes pointing slightly downward as their minds spiraled through the dilemma together. Was there really a way to confront it? Or was it a lost cause? Not every problem has a solution, after all.

“Then…” Descent spoke up quietly. “I guess that—”

“Though…” Storm suddenly cut him off. Descent blinked and glanced at him. Storm turned to look as well. “I would never give up hope.”

Descent stared for a moment before flattening his expression and raising an eyebrow. Storm snickered quietly at the face his dad was giving him.

“Yeah, I know, I know,” he nodded. “I know that sounds real simple and doesn’t really solve anything, but if you were in danger like Nightshade… that’s all I’d have. Hope would keep me going. It would encourage me to fight because I’d never know if and when I’d get my chance to save you.”

Descent’s face shifted to slight surprise as he took in Storm’s words. He smiled lightly, but sighed.

“That’s an optimistic view, but… I’m not so sure I can be as positive about Nightshade, through both knowing her and what I’ve seen thus far. It almost feels foolish to hope.”

“But you never know,” Storm reached over and nudged Descent’s arm. Descent looked towards him and exhaled, his smile remaining.

“I suppose I don’t, do I?”

“Dad, think about it this way…” Storm turned a little more towards him, holding his hooves out. “You were gone from my life for a long time… several years, right? It got to a point where I stopped expecting you to show up, I came to terms with the fact that something had your focus and you were no longer able to see me. I finished growing up, I made a life for myself, and eventually I tried out for the Wonderbolts. But I never once gave up hope that I may one day see you again. Hell, I never shut up about you to my friends. Did it seem unlikely? I didn’t hold my breath… but I held on to hope anyway, and what happened? We were reunited in the most ridiculous, unlikely way imaginable.”

Descent’s mouth hung slightly agape as Storm ran through the scenario. Descent had never really put much thought into the circumstances that reunited them. After thinking about it… it was a bit ridiculous. Storm just happened to try out for and succeed in becoming an elite of the very force Descent and his Renegades were protecting in their quest to take back the Shadowbolts and defeat their puppeteer. What were the odds of that? It didn’t matter, it still happened. Perhaps… it was too early to rule out saving Nightshade… because… he never knew if he would get an unlikely opportunity.

“It never hurts to hope Dad… believe me,” Storm added.

“Heh…” Descent’s smile returned, and grew wider than it had before as he closed his eyes and shook lightly, the thought tickling him as he shook his head. “I guess hope is worth holding onto then…” he opened his eyes and lifted his brow, a smug look on his face. “But you’ll never hear me say that around my wingmates, I have an image to keep up, you know.”

Storm couldn’t hold it in, he laughed, putting a hoof over his stomach as he gave Descent a light jab in the side.

“Of course you can be cheesy around me though!” Storm shot back while slightly turning his head and shooting a smirk right back. “I mean, you only did it right to my face for most of my life!”

Descent shrugged as he continued to chuckle.

“Well, somepony had to,” he reached over and grabbed Storm’s opposite shoulder, shaking him lightly. “Your mother was such a bundle of joy, right…?”

Storm burst out laughing while trying to push Descent away from him, but Descent yanked him over into a headlock and gave him a rough noogie, messing up his mane. Storm grunted, but kept laughing as he struggled, Descent chuckling along with him.

Storm had done it, and he felt great. He didn’t think he was going to find any answers for his father… but that’s not what he went in there for. Starry tossed him in there to help, and now here Descent was, acting like he always had back when he used to visit him in Cloudsdale. It wasn’t the Descent Starry knew well, but it definitely lifted his spirits

Mission accomplished.

Soarin smiled as he heard the sound of laughter from the father and son through the door. He glanced down at Dash beside him as she did the same up to him. They both grinned as they continued to hear the banter and chuckling.

What started as confusion and a desire to know why Starry was being so rough with one of their friends turned into a rather heartwarming experience… and several of them got to partake in it. Dash was sure this would help lift Star’s mood, if only a little. Family was important to her, after all, with all her brothers and sisters and all the encouragement she got from them throughout her challenges. Maybe it would help Squall a little too, since he didn’t hold his family in very high regard for silly but somewhat justifiable reasons. Matteo, of course, valued family greatly. While that little detail about Descent killing his father still lingered, Dash was sure Matteo could separate that from the impact of what they just heard. Or maybe it made him feel sad? It’s not like Dash could ever read his emotions so she would never know. Then again, knowing the griffons, there may not have been much affection involved.

Twister? Hell if Dash knew, last time she asked Twister about family he claimed he was born in an unopened soup can that exploded in the microwave of a pony who forgot to open it first.

But most of all, Dash looked to Soarin as the two kept listening. Not too long ago they had a discussion about family… And Dash made him promise that he visit his family when everything was done. She still couldn’t stand knowing that he had failed to make time for them over the years. Obviously he was busy, but even he admitted that he felt like communication with them had fallen off. They were obviously not in a position for him to make such a trip, but she hoped he was still thinking about it, and hoped that was the first thing he’d do when they finally were free from this conflict.

Dash blinked as Soarin’s ears suddenly perked up and he turned his head towards Dash. Dash tipped her head slightly as Soarin gave her a slightly confused look, but he wasn’t focused on her, his ears were moving as if trying to find a sound.

Then Dash heard it too.

It sounded like… sniffling? Or at least something like it, it almost sounded angry. Dash picked up on the noise, shifting to the left to look around Soarin. The noise was coming from the doors beside them, around the large frame that separated the sets of doors leading into the gym. As she looked, Soarin turned, both of them shifting to the left to see what the noise was. They both stopped the moment they saw it.

Starry Skies and Lightning Dust were up against the other doors, but while Lightning Dust was still up and in a position to listen, Starry Skies was not. She had turned around, put her back against the door, and slumped down to the floor. She was shaking, her eyes quivering, stuck between a glare and wide open. The sniffling-esque noises were coming from her, but there was no sign of tears. Mixed with her body language and faltering expression, the ‘sniffling’ both sounded and appeared to be closer to grunting as if her body was reacting to something she didn’t like or brought her pain, but didn’t know how to show it.

Dash and Soarin both glanced at Lightning Dust. She still had her ear to the door, but had her eyes trained on Starry. She looked just as confused as the two of them. After the sounds of some shifting, Dash glanced behind her to see the rest of her squad had taken notice as well. What was happening to Starry? Was this her struggling to express herself just like she was just before with Storm?

“W-why…?” Starry suddenly spoke up, her voice broken and very shaky. All eyes went back to her quickly. She shook her head, squinting her eyes hard and gritting her teeth as she lifted up her hooves and looked at them. “Why can’t I help him like that?”

Realization hit Soarin, Dash, and Dust quickly.

“Why can’t I speak to him like he can?” Starry continued as she tipped her head down, her hooves shaking in front of her. “What’s wrong with me?!” she suddenly said louder, but keeping her voice down enough to keep Storm and Descent from hearing within. “Why…?” she reached up and grabbed her head, pulling her hind legs in and tucking herself into a ball as she continued to shake. She kept breathing heavily, grabbing at her mane as she remained curled up. There were no tears being shed, there was no hint of sorrow, it was almost as if she didn’t know how to express those things, her body reacting in ways she couldn’t define or control.

She just wanted to do for Descent what Storm just had with seemingly little effort… but she didn’t know how and she hated it.

Soarin immediately took action. The only one of them that needed to be there right now was Lightning Dust. For the rest of them, they had stumbled into something far too personal and had to leave.

Without saying a word, Soarin tapped Dust on the shoulder and then pointed at Starry. Dust quickly picked up on it, giving a nod in agreement before stepping beside Starry and sitting down with her.

Soarin turned around and sternly looked over Dash and the rest of her squad. They all flinched and automatically stood attention as they acknowledged the authority Soarin was expressing. Squall and Star stiffened up obediently, setting aside their current odds with Soarin to respect his rank. Even Twister popped out of Matteo’s feathers beside Starry and held still. Soarin twirled a hoof and pointed back towards the lobby.

“Come on, let’s go,” Soarin said quietly, earning a nod from all of them as they quickly turned, leaving Lightning Dust behind to stay with Starry.

Only Dash looked back as they parted, getting a good look at Starry as they moved.

Their views and approaches to things differed greatly, but in simpler terms, the Shadowbolts were just like them.

Comrades, friends, family, perhaps even loved ones…

Starry was not one to express personal feelings, but it looked like not even she could hide them. Not even a cold, blunt, harsh mare like Starry could escape the pressure of the situation. It really put into perspective just how difficult this battle had to be for her and Descent.

Dash wondered what it felt like… to be forced to fight against those you once trusted and flew beside through thick and thin.

To be torn between loyalties and ideals…

To look a friend in the eye and fight them…

Hopefully she’d never have to experience the pain they have.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf and Penumbra

Descent shows us more of that soft inside hidden by the incredibly hard outer shell... and Starry appears to have some struggles of her own. This mixed with what we saw from Nightshade last chapter... our original three villains have come a long way and shown us a lot over the course of the story, haven't they? Though you really have to feel for Starry... so stone cold that she more or less doesn't even know how to express certain emotions, her body can't even react correctly. The Wonderbolts aren't the only ones who's emotional limits are being tested, it seems.

Also it looked like the problem with where they would house hundreds of extra passengers solved itself, eh? Just how do the thestrals stick to the ceiling anyway? :rainbowderp:

And there we go, chapter 137 will pick up literally right where this one left off, with Soarin, Dash, and squad Foxtrot heading back down the west hallway. To repeat what i posted in a blog earlier, i broke up my outline for this chapter into two pieces because i felt the second part was going to completely blanket and overshadow everything you just read.

So the outline for chapter 137 is already complete since it used to be part of 136, that means after my usual 1 day off post chapter i will start work on it (But i'll take care of that Ciderfest blog first, seeing as how it's been over a month now since it happened.)

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 137: Our Imperfections Make Us Real (Part 2)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 137: Our Imperfections Make Us Real (Part 2)

“Squall… Stop glaring at Soarin,” Dash ordered as she glanced behind her. “Squall…” she repeated his name when he didn’t listen.

“Don’t worry about it.” Soarin shook his head as he led them towards the lobby. “I deserve it.”

“Yeah, no shit you do,” Dash retorted in a casually sharp manner as she turned her focus to him, some of her frustration with Squall venting out. “But we don’t need to hold grudges right now. RIGHT Squall?” she said without looking back at him.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted.

“Yeesh… brutally honest,” Soarin said with a light chuckle. It was quite a sudden turn around after the mood they were all in following Descent and Storm’s conversation. But Soarin knew the subject of his misguided threats to Star would be a touchy one for a little while.

Rainbow Dash shook her head out, trying to get her mind off of it for now as she remained at Soarin’s side. Her squad followed behind them as they made their way back towards the lobby and beneath the canopy of creepy, sleepy, ceiling dwellers above them. Dash swallowed as they stepped out beneath the hanging thestrals again, certain that she would never get used to such a sight, should they end up spending lots of time working with them.

It was impressive how heavy of sleepers they were though. Not everypony was being quiet in the lobby, whether they knew about the nightmare inducing visual above them or not, yet the thestrals were sleeping soundly. As if the sight wasn’t creepy enough, the fact that they hung there completely motionless and silent just added to their freaky presence.

One voice in particular among those in the lobby had caught Dash’s attention. It sounded like it was coming from across the lobby on the other side of the large bridge pillar. She couldn’t hear it quite clearly, mostly because a lot of her attention was directly up, but whoever it was seemed to not give a damn that they were speaking in their full voice with sleeping bats overhead. They either weren’t aware, didn’t care, or knew that they were sleeping regardless of how loud he or she was being.

“Huh?” Soarin stopped walking and reached his neck to the right. Dash finally ripped her eyes free from the thestrals and looked towards Soarin, stopping as well as his ears moved, picking up the voice. “Spitfire?”

Dash blinked, focusing on the voice entirely now. She wasn’t paying attention enough to deduce it earlier, but… that WAS Spitfire. And she sounded… worried?

“That sounds like Spitfire.” Soarin broke away from their path, making his way towards the pillar and taking an angle to walk around it. Dash instinctively followed with Squall, Matteo, Star, and presumably Twister all keeping pace with Dash.

Soarin stopped once he had a view of the other side of the lobby. Dash shifted and moved right up beside him, immediately finding Spitfire, but wondering exactly what she was looking at.

Spitfire was walking around quickly moving from pony to pony. She had one of their ration boxes, unopened and tucked beneath her wing. She was all the way over by the east hallway and her back was turned, so they couldn’t quite make out what she was saying as she stopped and pressed one of their earth pony security guards about something. The stallion shook his head and kept walking.

“What’s going on here?” Soarin asked out loud before moving again, starting en route to intercept Spitfire as she frantically looked around. Dash followed right behind Soarin, sharing his curiosity, but right before they could reach Spitfire, she turned and locked her eyes on Calm Wind as he and the rest of Squad Zero emerged from the east hallway, battered and bruised, but patched up and doing their best.

“Calm!” Spitfire turned and galloped over to them. Squad Zero all flinched and froze, Swift and Playbitz both running into Calm’s plot and falling in different directions. Shine Struck glanced between Spitfire and her ‘fallen’ squadmates as they rolled over and groaned. Since Spitfire seemed focused on Calm, she slipped behind his bulk to avoid Spitfire and help the other two instead.

“Er… yes… Captain?” Calm answered stiffly and hesitantly as Spitfire walked right up to him and stared up, poking a hoof against his chest.

“Have you—”

Once again her voice failed to fully reach Soarin and Dash with Spitfire’s back turned to them and with her lowering her voice once she was closer. Curiosity driving them forward, the two picked up their pace slightly, hoping to figure out what Spitfire’s deal was.

“W…what?” Calm blinked, a very faint red hue appearing over his nose. “Why are you asking me?” he asked, his voice almost cracking.

“Because you’re one of the usual targets,” Spitfire said casually as Calm scrunched his face and puffed his cheeks out slightly. He exhaled and shook his head, the light blush still visible.

“No… I haven’t seen her…” he answered.

Her? Who was her? There were a few obvious choices, but ‘mare’ didn’t exactly narrow it down. Dash was confused, but upon glancing up at Soarin he seemed to have an idea. Either way, they both kept moving, Soarin prepared to confront his worried captain.

“Hey, Spitfire, what’s up?” Soarin asked as they came within range. Spitfire’s ears stood up as Soarin spoke. She quickly turned around, completely freeing Calm from her gaze as the big doofus turned around to help Shine stop Swift from acting like a drama queen on the floor about how much pain he was in.

“Soarin!” Spitfire yelled his name, her eyes widening as she took a few very quick steps that immediately put her right in front of them both, forcing Soarin and Dash to stop in their tracks. Spitfire reached her hooves up, placed them on Soarin’s chest and got right up in his face with a worried expression. “Have you seen Fleet?!”

Soarin blinked, pulling his neck back slightly, but Spitfire just leaned forward to stay right in his face.

“Fleet…?” Soarin asked as he tried to process and gain control of the situation, but it was hard to redirect Spitfire’s eagerness.

“Yes! Have you seen her?!” she asked again.

“Uh…” Soarin glanced back and forth, turning his head towards Dash for a moment before returning his eyes to Spitfire. “I… haven’t, why?” he answered truthfully. He looked at Dash again, tipping his head slightly. Dash caught on, shrugging and shaking her head. Dash, in turn, turned to the rest of her squad, all of whom mimicked her shrugging gesture. She had been with her squad all morning, and hadn’t seen Fleetfoot last night either after they returned from… oh wait…

“Nopony knows where she is!!!” Spitfire yelled in Soarin’s face before finally stepping down from his chest. “I’ve looked all over! I even checked the rafters in all the gyms! Almost everypony I’ve asked hasn’t seen her since we returned last night! It’s like she just vanished!”

“Oh… that’s not good… She did come back with us though, right? She was flying right in front of—” Soarin gritted his teeth, but before he could look at Dash again, Spitfire reached her hooves up, grabbed him by the face and yanked his head down.

“OF COURSE IT’S NOT GOOD!” she yelled while shaking him lightly.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Soarin reached up his hooves, grabbed hers and pulled her arms off of him. “Spitfire, calm down!” he demanded sternly, giving her a light glare as she blinked, shook her head out and took a deep breath.

“Sorry, it’s just… after how she’s been acting and how she’s being so secretive…” Spitfire glanced at Dash. “I just want to know where she is.”

“Fleetfoot…” Dash said to herself, drawing Soarin’s attention she looked down at her hooves and briefly contemplated the whole scenario with Fleetfoot. She glanced at her wrapped up shoulder and wondered… if her wound wasn’t the largest one inflicted by Nightshade.

Soarin watched Dash for a moment before turning back to Spitfire, eyeing the box of food under her wing. He stared at it for a few seconds before his eyes widened in realization. He pointed at the box, and opened his mouth, but Spitfire cut him off.

“We have to find her! If nopony has seen her then I don’t think she’s gotten treatment or eaten anything since yesterday either!” Spitfire pointed out, which gave a little more insight to her frantic behavior, because those little facts made Soarin very concerned as well.

“Right, we definitely have to find her then!” he agreed with Spitfire. Dash quickly stepped up.

“Let me help, my squad can help too!” Dash asked, making it clear she was just as concerned for a friend. Plus, since she was sure it was all related to what happened with Nightshade, she made a promise to be there for Fleetfoot.

“Where have you already looked?” Soarin asked as everypony stood ready to help out, but Spitfire didn’t seem too confident.

“That’s just it. I’ve pretty much combed the entire place and haven’t found her!” Spitfire was clearly upset with this. Obviously if one was missing a friend there would be worry involved, but Spitfire was their captain. Her recently regained controlled demeanor seemed to be slipping, but under such circumstances it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Fleetfoot was a close friend before she was one of her officers.

“Oh, that’s not good…” Soarin said again, but held up a hoof before Spitfire could repeat herself. “Yes, yes, I know it’s not good, I’m thinking out loud…” Soarin calmed her, speaking a little harshly, but it was for her benefit as he thought about the possibilities. “You don’t think she left do you?” Soarin asked. Spitfire immediately gasped, but shut her eyes and shook her head, clearing her throat.

“No, she couldn’t have… she’s smarter than that,” Spitfire immediately denied that possibility as Dash stepped up beside Soarin to pitch in.

“I don’t think she’s in any condition to fly anyway,” Dash explained, earning a somewhat bewildered look from both of them. Dash quickly put up a hoof. “Just trust me on that one, okay?” She didn’t like keeping secrets about Fleetfoot from them, but that’s how she wanted it to be for now. Fleetfoot wasn’t quite as beat up on the outside, but her body was probably burning on the inside… both physically and mentally from what Nightshade did to her. “But… maybe…” Dash continued to think aloud. “She may not be able to fly away but she could be moving to avoid us…”

“Go on,” Spitfire coerced her. It didn’t matter who was talking as long as they may have an idea. Dash pointed right at Spitfire.

“I mean, you saw how she looked at you yesterday before I stepped in,” Dash remained her. The look on Spitfire’s face nearly broke Dash’s heart. Spitfire looked crushed, as if the thought of Fleetfoot avoiding her was a direct blow to the trust they had as friends. Soarin looked just as disappointed, but Spitfire was taking it especially hard, probably due to her already frantic search.

Something about that look made Dash think. Maybe it was wrong for her to keep Fleetfoot’s troubles secret… she would NOT go back on her words but… maybe she didn’t have to tell them. They had to find Fleetfoot, and once they did, Dash decided she had some convincing to do. Fleetfoot needed to stop running from them.

“Spitfire, I’ve barely gone anywhere in the Nimbus today, where are there the least amount of other ponies right now?” Dash asked, hoping to bring Spitfire out of her brief shock and back to reality. Spitfire blinked and dipped her head down for a moment, exhaling loudly before looking back up at Dash. She had shed the expression and was back in frantic search mode, which wasn’t good, but it helped their cause.

“The second and third floor,” she quickly answered. “I already looked up there, but… if Fleetfoot is eluding us, it would be much easier for her up there.”

“I agree,” Soarin nodded, looking towards the mangled stairwell. “There are lots of places up there to slip away and hide. Plus she’s always been small and sneaky, so…”

Dash flinched hard. She knew that Soarin meant absolutely no harm in that statement, but she hoped he would not repeat it once they found her… because the whole ‘small’ thing was… well…

“Guys,” Dash struck the thought from her head as she turned and faced her squad. “Spitfire, Soarin, and I are going to search upstairs, split up in pairs and comb the first floor, ask everypony you see about Fleetfoot, okay? And do your best to keep clear of the end of the west wing. Give Starry some privacy.”

Squall and Matteo nodded as Matteo reached up to his chest, intending to pull Twister out of his fur to join Squall. But after patting himself down, he couldn’t find Twister… even though he could hear ruffling feathers and constant sinister giggling. After several failed attempts to find him, Matteo gave up and instead reached over his back. Star squeaked, but didn’t resist as Matteo gently lifted her up and placed her on Squall’s back. Squall seemed, subtly pleased at being given Little Star, but—

“HURK!” Squall grunted as Star latched to his neck with all of her limbs, squeezing it tightly. “Star… too tight… too tight…” he complained, but moved anyway as they split with Matteo and Twister to ask around.

“Come on,” Soarin made a quick head motion towards the stairs. Dash and Spitfire both turned, following behind him quickly as they trotted and lifted off.

The search for Fleetfoot was underway, and with Dash’s theory that she could be moving around to avoid them, they split up again to cover more ground. Soarin and Spitfire stopped at the second floor to search the offices and meeting rooms that had been seldom used since takeoff. Dash kept going up to start searching the third floor, ready to comb the dormitories and check on the bridge.

Dash struggled a little as she made her way up, her wings aching as much, if not more than the rest of her body. Alas, she pumped her wings and made her way around the central propeller pillar and broken stairs. Her right wing was still disagreeing with her, the joints between the wing base and shoulder feeling a little strained from so much action. The more she moved about and tried to fly, the more she was convinced her role would be limited in the coming surge towards the Crystal Empire. But that went for the rest of the elites as well… how was that going to go for them?

At the moment it didn’t matter, and was not the problem at hoof. She would think about it AFTER they found Fleetfoot. Like Spitfire, Dash wasn’t about to entertain the possibility that Fleetfoot ran off, but in the unlikely scenario that she did… they had a serious situation on their hooves.

After making it to the top, Dash turned towards the bridge right behind her, grunting as she folded her twitching wings. She could hear voices inside. Probably Rivet and some others working on the Nimbus control mechanisms. She doubted Fleetfoot would be in there, but given her tendency to scoop up and non-consensually hug Rivet it didn’t hurt to look.

Dash pushed the door open and peered in. She squinted as a bright flashing light met her eyes. About a yard from the throttle, a floor panel had been opened and Rivet was sitting in it, wearing a large welding mask and thick hoof gloves as sparks flew up around him. Lucky was standing by the controls, waiting for Rivet to finish as Point Dex and Lead Runner worked with a few of Rivet’s unicorn staff to right the control station that had fallen atop Soarin.

“Okay…” Rivet spoke up, his welding mask muffling his voice as he shut off his blow torch and waved towards Lucky. “Try it now.”

“Right-o!” Lucky saluted casually as he reached for the throttle lever and pushed it lightly forward. A quiet whirring sound came from beneath the floor for a few seconds before a loud POP and a thick cloud of steam shot right into Rivet’s face. Thankfully, his welding mask shielded him, but…

“GAH! FFFFFFFF—TURN IT OFF!” Rivet demanded as he flailed.

Dash turned and let the door close behind her.

“Nope,” she quickly concluded as she made her way back around the top of the stairs and stopped in the center of the third floor hallway.

She looked left.

She looked right.

She had her work cut out for her. It was far from the first time she had seen the third floor dormitories, but she never expected she’d have to sweep through every single one. Where would she start? What was the most efficient way to do it? Fleetfoot could also easily move and elude her while she was in another room… if she was up here.

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed to herself as she kept looking back and forth, but then she stopped while facing left again.

Her eyes landed right on Fleetfoot’s door. She blinked as she stared at it for several seconds.

There was absolutely no way that Spitfire had not already checked Fleetfoot’s room. And if Fleetfoot was trying to avoid them, her own room was the last place she would go… or was it?

“Nah…” Dash looked away, but before she could take a step to the right, she stopped and looked back at the door again.

It didn’t hurt to look… Besides, Spitfire met them downstairs. Dash didn’t know how long Spitfire had been down there, maybe Fleetfoot came back or waited until Spitfire was gone.

She swallowed and turned towards Fleetfoot’s door and slowly walked towards it.

Plus, if Fleetfoot was really in there, the door would be locked. So…

Dash grabbed the doorknob and turned it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t locked, but Dash went on anyway. Why? She wasn’t sure. The door not being locked likely confirmed that Fleetfoot wasn’t there, but something kept her going. Maybe that’s what Fleetfoot wanted her to think? That the door being unlocked meant she wasn’t there? Or did she just forget to lock it?

Dash shook her head out quickly. She was thinking too hard. Just go in. Just look. If she’s not there, leave. It was as simple as that.

The door creaked very quietly as she pushed it open far enough for her to fit through. She stepped into Fleetfoot’s room and glanced around.

She had already been in Soarin’s room, so she knew the basic layout of the lead squad’s single rooms, but it was organized a lot differently… and by organized, not really organized. Fleetfoot’s room was a bit on the messy side. Her bed was pushed up against the wall instead of in the middle of her room like Soarin’s, creating a large space between it and the opposite wall. There were several Wonderbolt flight suits on the floor, most of them balled up as if they were just tossed aside after use. The shelves bolted to the floor were bare, but Dash guessed most of her personal belongings were secured elsewhere. Her desk was similarly completely clear of anything, her swivel chair in the corner of the wall, tipped over on its side. While the room appeared to not be very tidy, Dash also considered that they were flying the day before so there was a good chance some of the paraphernalia strewn about had been freshly thrown around.

Dash walked into the center of the room and looked around.

There was no sign of Fleetfoot. Even listening carefully, she couldn’t hear any signs of breathing, sniffling, or anything that would indicate her hidden presence. But she kept looking anyway, just to be sure.

One of the sliding doors to Fleetfoot’s closet was slightly ajar, catching Dash’s attention before anything else. Determined to check all hiding places, Dash stepped up and gently pushed the door open. On the off chance Fleetfoot was inside, she wanted the least hostile approach possible to keep Fleetfoot comfortable.

Dash blinked, her eyes widening slightly as she pushed the closet open. Soarin’s closet was filled with nothing but Wonderbolt flight suits and one or two formal outfits, but Fleetfoot’s was JAM packed. There were flight suits too, but they were smushed to the edge by numerous other outfits, some formal, some dressy, and many that were also skin tight like the flight suits… but they clearly were not flight suits. Dash guessed that these were from her modeling endeavors.

As much as Dash wanted to look at all the form fitting outfits ranging from badass to sexy… there was no sign of Fleetfoot and she was the top priority.

She stepped back from the closet, not bothering to close it as she looked around the room for any more hiding places. But her eyes landed on the bed.

The sheets were disturbed and there was a slight crease and divot in the mattress… Did that mean Fleetfoot was recently here? That was better than nothing. Dash walked up to the mattress, resting a hoof on the scrunched up sheets and pushing them slightly to look at more of the bed.

But then she felt something. She glanced at her hoof upon the sheets. It felt like there was something underneath it. She pushed it slightly further, uncovering the corner of a… photo? Without thinking twice, Dash grabbed the sheet and slowly pulled it all the way aside.

She froze. Her eyes grew a little wider. There wasn’t just one photo… there were a lot of photos underneath the sheets. Dash just stared at them at first, but as she examined them from afar, something was very similar about all of them. She reached down and swished her hoof back and forth among them, confirming her thought.

Every single photo was of Fleetfoot with Spitfire, Soarin, or both. They looked to be a wide assortment. Some of them were from sports photo shoots, some vacation photos, and some just silly pictures, but the common theme in every photo was that Fleetfoot was right up beside one or both them. The picture right on the top of the pile was the three of them at a beach. Soarin was taking up half the picture, making a silly face and flexing his muscles with Fleetfoot cracking up and Spitfire rolling her eyes in the background.

Dash stared at the fun photo for several seconds, then glanced around at all the others. There was no way these were already sitting out already with how much the Nimbus had moved and how the rest of the room looked as a result. These were recently put here… Dash bit her lower lip, her ears folding back as she started connecting the dots, thinking back to what Nightshade did to Fleetfoot and all the things Dash heard her say in her temptation. As all these pictures showed clearly, Fleetfoot was small compared to Soarin and Spitfire. She was smaller and sleeker, nowhere near as muscular, imposing, or physically intimidating as them. It was something that bothered her, that much was clear… and if these were out so soon after they returned…

Dash had to find Fleetfoot… she had to. She was clearly distraught and the presence of these pictures implied she was possibly getting down on herself as well. She had to find her before she inflicted any more damage.

Dash quickly turned away from the photos, but as she did, her hoof tapped against something beneath the bed, causing it to slide and poke out. Dash stopped, looking straight down.

A cardboard box? With an open top? And it looked like there were magazines inside. With her hoof already right beside it, Dash hooked the edge of the box and pulled it the rest of the way out. There were two stacks of magazines, but the motion of the box caused the large stack to tip and slide out onto the second stack. The toppled stack seemed to be a collection Sports Equestrian magazines, the most widely read sport magazine among the pony population of the land. With the stack toppled and several of the covers visible, Dash noticed that every one of them had Fleetfoot on the cover. She reached down and picked up the one on the top. It had Fleetfoot lounging in a beach chair in a very suggestive pose, tipping a pair of lavender sunglasses down and giving the camera bedroom eyes.

The moment Dash picked it up, she noticed that several of the pages were dog eared. She blinked and glanced down to see the rest of the magazines in the toppled stack had the same.

Dash couldn’t hold herself back. She as she slipped her hoof into the gap left by the first dog eared page, and she opened right to it.

It led directly to another picture of Fleetfoot, this one a shot of her from behind as she lay flat on a towel and looked over her shoulder with her back hooves crossed. Dash blinked and went for the next eared page. Then another, and another, and another. They all led to pictures of her… but why?

Then her eyes caught something on the fourth image. She looked at the top of the page and saw… writing? Fleetfoot’s hoof writing? Were these… notes?

Dash didn’t read what was on the particular page, she flipped back to the first eared page and looked around, finding there were notes scribbled there too. What did they say?

“Small… weak… you look so puny… so frail…” Dash whispered to herself as she squinted to make out the scribbled letters. Her eyes went wide and she gasped quietly.

Shaming? Self-shaming?

Dash revisited all the pages she had seen, each one boasting similar notes, all very negative towards the specifics of her body’s appearance. Then she flipped to one she hadn’t seen yet. But… it was completely different.

It was a picture of Spitfire.

She clearly did not look too thrilled to be part of the photoshoot, but was posed to stand with a hoof atop a beach ball, wearing her sunglasses and a whistle around her neck. The shot was from below, capturing a great angle that showed off Spitfire’s impressive athletic body.

And there were notes scribbled beneath it too.

“See how great she looks? She’s better than you in every way. You need to pick it the hell up. She’s bigger, she’s stronger, she’s a real leader, and she looks it too.”

The page went limp as Dash slipped her hoof out from beneath it, placing it over her mouth as her eyes grew wide. Her curiosity had propelled her this far, but she now realized that she had just pried heavily into something she shouldn’t have, going deeper into Fleetfoot’s secrets than she deserved to be. She had to stop… she had to put everything back where it belonged and get out of the room before Fleetfoot suddenly showed herself or something.

She closed the magazine, glancing at the door as she grew anxious she’d be caught. The script had completely flipped from her hoping to find Fleetfoot to her hoping Fleetfoot didn’t find her and see what she stumbled upon. She reached down to fix the pile that had slid over, shifting them all neatly back into place and reaching the magazine she had down to complete the stack…

But the second stack weren’t the same magazines. Dash stopped and blinked as she set down the Sports Equestrian magazine, looking closely at the top of the other stack.

It was a… fitness magazine?

Dash told herself not to, she told herself to stop, but… despite the risks she was already taking, something was propelling her forward. She already clearly knew more than Fleetfoot wanted her too… then on top of it discovered her self-shaming habits. She shouldn’t do it, but Fleetfoot already placed trust in her to keep it all to herself and not tell a soul, not even her best friends. Dash wanted to help Fleetfoot, and in order to help she needed to know as much as possible. It felt so wrong, but the need to understand was already causing her to lean back down towards the box.

Dash touched the top magazine and pushed it aside, revealing another behind it. Was this whole stack the same magazine, just like the other? Pushing a few more aside confirmed it, they were all a magazine called ‘Gym Pony’. Pretty straight forward. Every cover featured either a mare or a stallion that was in really damn good shape, well-toned, and very strong looking. And just like the other stack of magazines, they all had pages dog-eared.

The voice screaming at her to stop had been completely snuffed out as Dash picked up the first and flipped through the pages. The magazine featured several articles including advice for workouts, dieting, and overall gym lifestyle. Dash had read magazines like these before, but she wondered what Fleetfoot had marked exactly, flipping the pages until she landed on the first eared page. She blinked, as the page opened to reveal a workout plan focused on building strength and muscle mass, complete with a diet plan harsher than the one Dash followed after all the advice Soarin gave her. There were no notes or anything like on her modeling pictures, but several of the suggested workout plans were circled or starred.

But as Dash looked through them all and flipped to another eared page to see more of the same, she noticed how… physically demanding and time consuming the plans were. These required an incredible amount of commitment and would definitely never fit into a schedule like Fleetfoot’s. The time table of a lead squad Wonderbolt was very busy. Soarin found extra time to hit the gym hard, but Fleetfoot made a lot more public appearances, and also did all her modeling. She did the standard training like the rest, but she clearly wanted to do more. Could she not because of her schedule, or… was there more to it? Was it part of her anxiety? The fact that all of these magazines were stacked right beside several modeling magazines that featured her and were almost defaced with self-degrading notes was setting off all sorts of alarm bells in Dash’s head.

Just how long had Fleetfoot been keeping this all bottled up? HOW LONG? It all felt so backwards. Fleetfoot had always seemed like the living breathing example of confidence, a lead squad Wonderbolt, flirtatious, sassy, sexy, and not afraid to show it.

Everything Dash was seeing contrasted with that image so hard. She had already learned a little from Fleetfoot after Nightshade got a hold of her… but if this was how emotionally intense her personal anxieties were… then no wonder Nightshade was able get in her head and break her so effortlessly!

Then Dash flinched really hard as the sound of a doorknob turning met her ears. She gritted her teeth, her eyes widening as she turned towards the door, but the door wasn’t moving.

Then realization hit her. She had completely forgotten one specific detail about the lead squad single dorms… they had a personal bathroom.

Dash’s head snapped towards the corner of the room to the left of the door, her eyes landing right on the one spot in the room she had not faced since entering. Yep… there was the bathroom… and yes… the doorknob had turned and the door was opening. Dash froze, knowing there was absolutely nothing she could do to avoid being seen.

The door opened fully, giving Dash an angled view into the bathroom, but her eyes snapped directly to… Fleetfoot.

But Fleetfoot wasn’t looking at her or seemed to not notice she wasn’t alone yet. She was standing in the doorway, but looking down at the floor. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired. She looked like she hadn’t slept. Her mane was a complete mess and her fur was very uneven and split. Her bruises and wounds from the battle showing through her bright turquoise color.

Dash found it hard to look at anything else, but her eyes lifted briefly to see into Fleetfoot’s bathroom. The mirror was broken or at least had several large cracks in it. Were they made recently? If they were…

Dash wasn’t able to think on it any further, because the moment of dread arrived. Fleetfoot’s ears twitched, and her head shot up, her eyes locking with Dash’s.

Dash was speechless, there was nothing she could say or do, especially once Fleetfoot’s eyes began to dart.

Fleetfoot glanced towards the bed and the photos, then to the box of magazines on the floor, then to the magazine still in Dash’s hoof.

Her jaw dropped, her eyes growing as wide as her face allowed. Her pupils shrunk to tiny dots and her ears flopped to the sides of her head. She started breathing quickly, small, frail squeaks escaping her throat as her limbs began to shake.

Nothing could describe the wave of dread that passed through Dash as she saw Fleetfoot come to full realization.

She had just fucked up… SEVERELY.

Fleetfoot released a very weak, high pitched scream as she turned around, almost stumbling over herself as she dove back into the bathroom, slammed the door shut, and locked it behind her.

“FLEET!” Dash yelled as she dropped the magazine back into the box and shoved it back beneath the bed. “Fleet, wait!” Dash galloped over to the door and placed both hooves on it. “I didn’t mean… I wasn’t digging around your room!” she frantically tried to explain herself. “I was looking for you! I found them by accident!” she pleaded her case. “I’m sorry!” she apologized, adding it on for good measure, but got no response.

This was bad… and could get worse. Dash considered Fleetfoot to be a good friend at this point, but she was still technically a recruit… and she had just invaded the privacy of one of the highest ranking Wonderbolts…

Oh, who was she kidding? Rank had nothing to do with this! In fact, this was FAR WORSE! She was the one pony Fleetfoot trusted about all this and she probably just blew her chances of fixing it or approaching it softly.

“Dash?” A voice came from behind the wall. Dash’s ears perked up. It sounded like Soarin, and it sounded like he was right outside Fleetfoot’s room.

Thinking a mile a minute, Dash quickly turned, galloped out the door, and into the hallway, looking left, then right until she saw Soarin and Spitfire walking down the west wing of the hall.

“GUYS!” she yelled while waving her arms, the two of them looking over their shoulder quickly. Dash didn’t know what to do now… she felt like she pretty much ruined her chances to help Fleetfoot, so she was immediately turning to the next best thing, Fleetfoot’s oldest friends. If she could get them in there, maybe they could coax her out and Dash could fully explain herself. “She’s here!” Dash pointed at Fleetfoot’s door. “In her roo—”

Before Dash could finish, Fleetfoot’s door suddenly slammed shut, followed by a CLICK.

Dash squeaked, her eyes darting to the door.

“Aw… dammit…” Dash’s voice cracked as she turned and grabbed the doorknob, only to find it locked tight as the sound of galloping hooves approached her.

“Fleetfoot is in her room?!” Spitfire exclaimed in disbelief as she and Soarin skidded to a halt behind Dash. “But… I already looked here!”

“Then she really was moving around,” Soarin added as the two watched Dash tip the doorknob back and forth, failing to open it. Dash put her ear to it, tapping her hoof against it.

“Fleeeeeeeet!” she slurred as her heart sank. She felt awful. She completely stepped over the line. It didn’t matter if her intentions were good, she shouldn’t have done it out of respect. She wanted so badly to apologize to her, but the constant silence from within was tearing her apart. “Yipe!” Dash yelped as Spitfire suddenly grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back, stepping up to the door.

“Fleet?! FLEET!” Spitfire began knocking her hoof on the door. “Are you in there?!” she yelled frantically as Soarin moved up beside her and put his ear to the door before placing a hoof on it.

“Fleet! It’s us! Please let us in!” he echoed Spitfire’s concern. It looked like Spitfire’s worry had rubbed off on him. Dash had a feeling it would quickly. The three were like siblings, after all. It probably didn’t help that Dash had a look on her face that implied something was very wrong. The moment they turned and saw her and the way she motioned towards Fleetfoot’s door probably made them panic.

Dash sat behind Spitfire and Soarin, watching as the two pleaded for Fleetfoot to open the door, but as she watched… she started to think. She came down from her worry, she shelved the dread, she took a few deep breaths and thought. She had just made a horrible, horrible mistake. The worst thing she could do right now was lie down and wallow in it. So instead, she carefully thought through all of it.

She thought about what Fleetfoot had told her so far. She thought about everything she just saw in the room. She thought about the photos on the bed. She thought about self-shaming in the magazines. She thought about the marked workout plans. She thought about how disheveled Fleetfoot looked. She thought about the broken mirror.

Finally, she looked up at Spitfire and Soarin, and how directly they were trying to approach the situation.

This wasn’t going to work.

She messed up. She really messed up… but she was still the only one Fleetfoot had spoken to about her tightly locked away troubles.

She had to retake control of the situation.

“Guys…” she quietly addressed Soarin and Spitfire, moving beside them before pushing herself between them and the door. Both Soarin and Spitfire were forced to step back and look down at her. “Stop,” she requested simply as she shook her head.

“Dash,” Spitfire glared at her. “We need to get her food! This isn’t the time for her to hide and—”

“I know,” Dash cut her off. “And we’ll get her food, but please… let me do something first.”

It felt like slight déjà vu. And for a good reason, Dash had literally done the same thing yesterday to Spitfire, and she clearly wasn’t thrilled.

“Really? Again?” Spitfire added a pout to her glare, clearly not happy that Dash kept cutting her off from one of her closest friends.

“Just trust me?” Dash pleaded, knowing that she was, in fact, once again pushing Spitfire back. Spitfire didn’t budge, but Soarin suddenly placed a hoof on her shoulder. Spitfire sighed, rolling her eyes as she glanced up at him.

“Lemme guess…” Spitfire began while shooting him a flat look. Soarin was holding his mouth open, ready to speak but waiting for Spitfire to finish. “You’re gonna say… ‘Spitfire, let’s let her.’ Am I right?”

“Uh…” Soarin closed his mouth, his lips curling into a weak smile, realizing that this had become a normal occurrence.

“Fine,” Spitfire grunted, sitting her plot down on the floor and releasing a hard sigh. Soarin blinked and looked up at Dash, flashing her a brief grin before waving a hoof at her.

“She knows me too well. Go ahead,” Soarin acknowledged.

“Thanks,” Dash smiled back at him before facing Fleetfoot’s door and sitting down. She waited for a few seconds, taking one long deep breath before reaching a hoof up and gently knocking on the door. “Fleet…?” She waited. No answer. “It’s Dash…” Still no answer. Dash’s ears flopped down and she sighed, but she didn’t give up. “I’m seriously sorry. I’m telling the truth, I wasn’t poking around your room or your personal things. I stumbled upon them while looking for you, that’s all. I shouldn’t have looked at them, but when I saw them, my curiosity got the better of me,” she fully admitted fault.

Dash waited and listened, but there was no reply, not even any noise from within. Dash had no idea if Fleetfoot was hearing any of it, but she forged on anyway.

“Do you remember back when Soarin and I were not talking to each other? Right after the tryouts?” Dash suddenly asked, pausing briefly. “I wasn’t doing too well, and feeling down on myself for everything that I had done and said. I was afraid to speak to any of you. But then you walked right up to me and acted like nothing had happened. You still treated me like a friend. You have no idea how much better that made me feel, how much it helped me relax and take a weight off my shoulders. Now I want to repay the favor… I owe you for that, I really do. So please… believe me when I say I didn’t mean any harm, I wasn’t trying to invade your privacy.”

Dash felt like she was talking to a wall. Or in this case a door. She wasn’t going to bet on any of this working or convincing Fleetfoot, but she had to try, she had to at least go through with it.

“You can talk to me about anything, remember? I told you that yesterday and I meant it. I’m all ears, whenever you want. If you think anything I accidentally saw just now changes that, you’re wrong. Nothing is going to change that. So… please let me in? I’m not the only one worried about you. Soarin and Spitfire are worried sick, but I made them promise they’re going to wait out here.” Dash lied, turning and immediately glaring at both of them. Both Spitfire and Soarin expressed surprise as Dash dropped that on them. Spitfire narrowed her eyes and gave a pout of disapproval, but Soarin tipped his head and nodded, reluctantly agreeing as Dash pulled the fast one on them. “So, it’s just going to be me,” Dash continued, doing her best to project as much reassurance as possible. “So please…?” she asked one final time.

But no answer came.

Dash gave up, sighing as she leaned back from the door and turned to the side, looking down the hall.

It was worth a shot, but in the end she screwed up and ran right into a brick wall she built herself. What a stupid move, she should have kept her hooves to herself.

CLICK

Dash blinked, her head and eyes snapping back towards the door.

That sounded like the door unlocking.

She just stared for a few moments, swallowing before she reached for the door and touched the knob with her hoof. She gently twisted her hoof… and the doorknob turned with it.

She heard a brief clip clop of hooves behind her. Dash immediately turned around and extended a hoof, pointing at and stopping Spitfire right in her tracks. Spitfire blinked, quickly scrunching her face and huffing, but Dash shook her head. Soarin reached over and clamped his hooves atop Spitfire’s shoulders, pulling her back from the door before giving Dash a nod. He wanted to go in just as much as Spitfire, but after Dash’s promise of her coming in alone seemed to do the trick, he felt like they had to wait outside. Whatever was up with Fleetfoot, he didn’t want to overwhelm her.

Dash shot him a smile, satisfied that Soarin was seeing the situation from her point of view.

With everything set, and with a chance to make things right again, Dash took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.

It didn’t take long to find Fleetfoot. The moment Dash stepped through the door and closed it behind her, she turned her head to the left to see Fleetfoot sitting on the floor beside the door. She was hunched over, her posture as weak and broken as possible without tipping forward. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes locked directly on the box beneath her bed.

Dash couldn’t tell earlier since she was across the room, but now that she was closer she could see Fleetfoot’s body shaking. It was very subtle, small shivers with a harsh twitch here and there every few seconds or so. Dash wasn’t sure if it was an emotional reaction or if it was due to her body being sore. It was probably both. But Dash couldn’t even imagine how Fleetfoot’s body had to feel right now.

Dash swallowed awkwardly as she faced Fleetfoot and moved right up to her side.

“Hey…” Dash greeted, taking things one step at a time. Fleetfoot didn’t answer, she didn’t even look. She just kept staring at the box beneath the bed as her body continued to feel aftershocks from her nerves. Dash glanced over her shoulder at the box, her eyes moving to the photos on the bed as well. She had to be a little more direct, nothing pushy, just… not too soft. Fleetfoot needed to know none of this changed anything.

Instead of trying more small talk, Dash turned around and sat herself down right beside Fleetfoot, resting her back against the wall.

“If you want to talk about anything, I’ll listen,” she began, speaking forward instead of to Fleetfoot directly. She wanted to give the feeling of simply being a presence instead of something focused and bearing down on Fleetfoot. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. Either way, I’m just going to sit here for a while, alright?”

Dash glanced at Fleetfoot briefly. She still hadn’t moved or reacted beyond her current position and posture. Dash’s ears flopped down as she looked away, letting the silence encircle them for a few moments.

“I’ve said this like… four times now, I think, but,” Dash glanced at her again, but still didn’t quite face her directly. “I’m seriously sorry about seeing the pictures and the magazines. I came in here to look for you. I had no intention of digging through your stuff… My curiosity got the better of me when I stumbled upon them.” Dash waited for a response, but she knew she wasn’t going to get one. But then Fleetfoot suddenly released a muffled, weak squeak before tipping her head down, hugging herself, and curling up as much as her body allowed. Dash sighed as she watched Fleetfoot try and make herself as small as possible. “You don’t have to accept my apology, I don’t deserve it for being nosey, even if I didn’t mean to.”

Fleetfoot replied with another tiny squeak.

At least Dash was getting some kind of response now. It was a start. Fleetfoot was making no attempt to lash out or chastise her either, which she appreciated. It signaled that Fleetfoot was either not taking it personally, or that she was too distraught to retort. Sensing she was not going to get much or any resistance at all, Dash shifted closer to Fleetfoot, opening her wing and reaching it around to give some physical comfort.

Fleetfoot let it happen, remaining curled up as Dash’s feathers rested softly over her back.

Dash kept her eyes on Fleetfoot for a minute or two before looking over her shoulder at the door beside them. Spitfire and Soarin were no doubt listening in. She was surprised Spitfire had not barged her way in yet, but Soarin was likely holding her back. Dash had to find a way to get them involved. But how? They were part of this… that much was clear.

All she had for now was her presence. Fleetfoot didn’t seem to mind her being there despite everything that had just happened. She had to take advantage of it and provide comfort, but at the same time she had to get Fleetfoot to acknowledge Soarin and Spitfire.

“Fleet…” she began as she rubbed her wing gently against her. “I get why you’re hiding away right now,” Dash tried to shift the subject. She winced as she felt Fleetfoot tense up slightly, but she continued anyway. “I’m glad that you’re letting me in a little, but… after you’ve taken the time you need, don’t avoid your friends. Especially Soarin and Spitfire. None of us want you to be alone.”

“Mrph…” Fleetfoot made another sound as she suddenly tipped to her right and rested herself against Dash’s shoulder.

Dash took that as an agreement, at least for now. There had to be something else she could do. Normally, she’d give a pony their deserved space and give them time to work some things out, but this was not a normal case. Dash knew full well how deep Nightshade could scar a pony. Fleetfoot needed all the support she could get. She continued to ponder as Fleetfoot leaned against her, soft sniffling and hiccups coming from her as she nestled her cheek into Dash’s shoulder.

But then she suddenly tilted back up, lifting her head up from her arms and loosening her grip on herself. Dash perked up and glanced at her as she made the move.

“Well…” Fleetfoot spoke, her voice raspy, broken, and quiet. “You know it all now…”

“Fleet?” Dash blinked, turning all of her focus on Fleetfoot. Was she about to spill it all? To be perfectly honest with herself, Dash was not expecting it to happen, but if it did…

“Everything. You know everything,” Fleetfoot continued as her lips began to quiver and her eyelids began to twitch gently. She tilted her head back down, but only a little, looking straight at the floor. “Everything that Nightshade said… it’s all true. Every bit of it… and… and…” she sniffled loudly, her eyes beginning to look a little misty as she made a very weak head motion towards her bed. “And now you saw it too… the pictures… the magazines… and…” She suddenly flinched, shivering so hard that it made Dash jump slightly in surprise and lift her wing up from her. Fleetfoot groaned and stuffed her hooves over her face shaking her head as she held the groan for several seconds. Dash quickly put her wing back on her, rubbing it gently again. “I’m so selfish…”

“No you’re not,” Dash quickly tried to deny her self-judgment.

“YES I AM!” Fleetfoot suddenly blurted out, slamming her hooves down to the floor and pushing her body up. Dash flinched and tipped away in surprise as Fleetfoot stumbled away from her, wobbling towards the pile of Wonderbolt flight suits on the floor. Her movements were very stiff and shaky. Dash’s ears twitched uncomfortably as Fleetfoot’s movements were accompanied by many painful cracks and pops from her muscles and joints. Her body was rivaling Silver’s in terms of how much noise it could make, Fleetfoot grunting and gasping painfully as she slipped and fell face first into the pile of suits, but instead of landing softly, her slip up ended with a loud noise that sounded like a rock hitting wood. Fleetfoot yelped as she hit it, pulling her head right out and thrusting her hooves into the pile as Dash finally stood up and tried to follow behind her.

Dash froze in place halfway as Fleetfoot suddenly pulled the top end of a large, body length mirror out from beneath the suits, revealing several other outfits from modeling that were also apparently buried beneath. Stumbling and grunting, Fleetfoot pushed the mirror all the way up until it smacked against the shelf behind the pile. She turned around and thrashed her hooves back and forth pushing the pile of clothes in several directions, the outfits flinging and flying about with one of her Wonderbolt suits landing on Dash’s face. After Dash shook the suit off, she saw Fleetfoot standing on the floor with nothing around her, staring directly into the mirror at herself, her eyes traveling up and down her body.

“LOOK AT ME!” she yelled as she turned and displayed her body to Dash, turning to the side so she could see all of it. Dash blinked, her pupils shrinking and her jaw hanging open as Fleetfoot lost it. She wanted Fleetfoot to let it out, but this leapt way over the line faster than she could have anticipated.

Fleetfoot’s eyes darted over to her bed. She awkwardly moved towards the bed, nearly falling down twice as she placed a hoof on her bed, reached the other beneath the bed, and yanked the box out. She reached in and grabbed several of the magazines with her on the cover, gripping them so tightly that many of the pages crackled and bent. She stared at them, gritting her teeth and shaking.

“Fleet—!” Dash quickly moved and reached for her, but Fleetfoot turned and threw the magazines at Dash.

“LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!!!!!!”

“Ah!” Dash covered her face as the magazines flipped and flailed apart, the noise of flapping pages filling the air as the magazines went in all directions, some of them losing a page or two as Fleetfoot reached in, pulled out the rest of her modeling covers and threw those as well. “FLEET! STOP IT!” Dash yelled, lowering her arms to see the magazines strewn all over the floor, open, upside-down, bent, or torn. As Dash looked up, Fleetfoot held one of the covers right up to Dash, a picture of her on a bed, on her back, and in a seductive pose while biting her hoof.

“THIS IS ME!” Fleetfoot yelled as she swiped her arm across her body, flinging the magazine across the room, its cover smacking flat against the wall before falling. Dash watched the magazine fall before looking back at Fleetfoot as she touched her hooves to her body, to her chest, her shoulders, her legs, everything. “I SHOULD BE PROUD!” she yelled, her voice breaking down. “I SHOULD BE HAPPY!” she screamed, tears forming in her eyes. “BUT I’M NOT! I HATE IT! I HATE IT SO MUCH!” she yelled, pounding her hooves against the floor. She pounded her hooves twice, the second looked to be more than her arms could take as they gave out and caused her to flop face first to the floor. She gave no effort to stand, she just threw her hooves over the top of her head and grabbed her mane. “IT’S… IT’S…” Fleetfoot was almost hyperventilating. “It’s…” Her breathing suddenly calmed down, but she was shaking and sniffling. “It’s stupid… I have it all, but it feels like it doesn’t matter… It’s a distraction, it’s a reminder that I’ll never be… how I want to be.”

Dash was stunned. She stared at Fleetfoot as she shook on the floor. What the hell was she supposed to say or do here?

“This is why I’m selfish…” Fleetfoot wailed into the floor. “This is how messed up I am! We’re going through hell, we’re fighting for our lives, ponies have DIED… but despite all that, I’m still thinking about this! I’m still focused on myself!” she yelled as she bopped her head against the ground.

Fleetfoot looked like she was in so much pain, physically and mentally. Dash wanted to comfort her, but from what? And how? This had entered territory she was unprepared to handle.

But still… watching Fleetfoot on the floor, her body twitching and wincing every few moments... it was motivating Dash to do something, anything. She just had to THINK!

“It’s…” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke again, her voice slightly muffled by the floor as she turned her head to the side, pointing her face away from Dash. “It’s on my mind twenty-four seven. I can never get away from it. Nightshade pulled it right out of me so easily, she manipulated me with it, she put me on display… and…” Fleetfoot rolled over onto her side and curled up. “I’m lucky that’s all she brought out of me. There’s so much more… I’m such a fucking wreck...”

Dash couldn’t take it anymore. She had to act. It was going so far that she felt like she could feel Fleetfoot’s pain. Fleetfoot had to get everything off her chest. She had to. She clearly had so much bottled up it was a wonder she hadn’t exploded yet. If she didn’t have some kind of mass relief, she’d never get back on her hooves.

Dash swallowed and took a deep breath, walking up to Fleetfoot and lowering herself down beside her, placing a hoof on her back.

“Fleet…” Dash rubbed a hoof up and down her side gently, feeling the vibrations of her body as she quivered. “I want you to do something for me.”

Fleetfoot’s ears twitched. She rolled away from Dash onto her stomach and turned her head towards her, her eyes wet and tears dripping down her face from her bloodshot eyes. Dash quickly shifted to place herself right next to her again. She had her attention, she had to keep it up.

“I want you to tell me everything…” she asked sternly, but not harshly. “Everything from top to bottom. I want to understand this so I can help you. Everything, no details left out.”

“B…but…!” Fleetfoot looked shocked and horrified, her ears folding backwards as she slowly leaned away, but Dash reached for her shoulder and stopped her in place. She kept up a stern gaze, but kept the rest of her expression soft, the kind of face a friend would wear if deeply concerned and looking for a solution.

“I already saw what she did to you, remember? You don’t need to hide it from me, I just want the context,” Dash explained, but Fleetfoot started glancing back and forth between Dash and the door.

“But… Spitfire… and Soarin are…” she blubbered, biting her lower lip as she fixed her eyes on the door and whimpered. Dash quickly touched her face and pushed her head back to look at her.

“Fleet, have I judged you for any of this?” she asked. Fleetfoot only answered with a hiccup. Dash shook her head. “It’s the same with them. They are your friends and have been your friends for a long time. Don’t you believe for a second that either of them would suddenly dislike you, EVER, for any reason whatsoever.”

“But…” Fleetfoot still didn’t comply, trailing off as she looked at the door, but this time Dash didn’t force her to look back. She let Fleetfoot stare at the door that separated the two of them from Spitfire and Soarin.

“They want to help you just like I am,” Dash reassured her, but Fleetfoot’s ears shifted to the sides of her head as she lowered her chin to the floor.

“But… it has to do with them… they’re part of it. I can’t…” she covered her face with her hooves. “I could never look them in the eye and…” she trailed off, shivering as her hooves went further and flattened her ears with her hooves. Then Dash’s ears perked.

“Then don’t.” she said simply.

“Huh?” Fleetfoot peeked out from beneath her arms, her teary eyes looking through her fur towards Dash. Dash reached down and pushed Fleetfoot’s arm aside so she could look at her.

“There’s a door right there…” Dash pointed to the door. “Between you and them. You don’t have to face them, but you should still talk to them.” Dash encouraged, but Fleetfoot still looked completely reluctant. “They want to help you Fleet, just like I am. And they will listen like I am. If you don’t want to look into their eyes, then speak to their ears.”

“I…” Fleetfoot squeaked and shuddered, her eyes locked on the door. “Eep!” she yelped as Dash grabbed her arms and gently forced her to stand up.

“Come over here,” Dash turned and pulled her along, being wary of Fleetfoot’s sore body as she moved them over to the door slowly. Dash could feel Fleet’s body twitching and shaking in very sudden and uneven patterns. Nightshade hadn’t broken any of her bones or dislocated any joints, but it was clear Fleetfoot’s body was barely under her own control, her pain receptors sending unending jolts through her.

The two of them stopped in front of the door, Dash turning to Fleetfoot as she began to whimper.

“Sit down with me,” Dash ordered as she sat down and gently pulled Fleetfoot down beside her. They rested their backs against the door as Dash reached a hoof over her shoulder and knocked on the door twice.

Soarin and Spitfire both had an ear pressed to the door, the two of them leaning back slightly in surprise as two hard knocks rapped on the door from the other side.

They glanced at one another briefly, wondering what was being signaled to them.

“Guys,” Dash spoke through the door. “Sit with your backs against the door.”

She said nothing else, leaving Spitfire and Soarin with just that. Soarin quickly looked towards Spitfire, ready to reach out and stop her from an inevitable attempt to enter and take it all into her own hooves, but he was surprised when she simply stood there.

Though she did look like she was hesitating, but in which direction? Hesitating to jump in, or hesitating to do as Dash said? Spitfire turned her head to Soarin, their eyes locking. Soarin could see it. He could see desperation in her eyes. Spitfire was a strong, steadfast commander. Her limits had been tested in the recent days, but she eventually overcame it all. But this was different, this was personal and it wasn’t even about her. It was the same look she had in her eyes when they discovered Wave had been infected by the crystals. It was a look of extreme worry for somepony she cared about. But this time, she was keeping herself under control, she wasn’t trying to break the door down.

She was putting her faith in Rainbow Dash. It was quite a sight to Soarin, knowing that Spitfire was always one to grab hold of things and take control, but it was another testament to how much trust she had in Dash after all they had been through.

Spitfire clearly didn’t like being left on the outside, but she was bearing it.

Soarin wasted no time in doing as Dash said. He turned and sat down and tapped the floor beside him, signaling to Spitfire to sit down too. She swallowed and did just that, turning, sitting, and resting her back against the door.

Once both of them were in place, Soarin reached up a hoof over and knocked twice.

Dash grinned and nodded as the two knocks came in response. She reached a wing over Fleetfoot, resting it gently on her twitching body for a moment. She wanted Fleetfoot to adjust, to let it sink in that her two best friends were right outside.

“They’re listening, Fleet,” Dash began as Fleetfoot sniffled, looking down at the floor and hesitating. “Talk to us, let it all out,” Dash encouraged. “The four of us have been through a lot together. I may be new to the pack, but it feels like it’s been so long since we met in Ponyville for the first time. I’ve trusted you as a friend since… and can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate you trusting me on this topic thus far, but…” Dash tapped a hoof lightly against the door. “You’ve known them for years, I don’t nearly deserve that trust as much as they do.”

Fleetfoot sniffled and slowly picked her head up, turning her head away from Dash, but letting her eyes shift over to look at the door behind her. Dash gave her a light squeeze with her wing, touching a hoof to her arm as well.

“Forget about everything else for a moment. Forget about Nightshade, forget about the Shadowbolts, forget about what we’ve been going through. Right now, it’s about you. We’re worried about you.”

Fleetfoot looked back at the floor, shutting her eyes tight as her lips quivered.

“Hey, c’mon,” Dash suddenly nudged her, giving Fleet a wink and a grin as she turned to look at her. “You don’t need to be afraid of us,” she said, taking on a somewhat lighter tone, trying to add a casual vibe to reinforce the fact that she was among those who cared. Dash glanced at the door. “I bet Spitfire has plenty of things she keeps to herself that are embarrassing too!”

They both jumped in surprise as a loud knock, more like a THUMP slammed against the door. Dash chuckled and pointed at it.

“SEE?! She’s agreeing!” Dash giggled. The two of them nearly tipped forward as a loud WHAM, came from the door, complete with hard vibrations.

“Spitfire, stop…” Soarin’s voice came through the door, no further abuse of the door following.

“Yeesh,” Dash rubbed the back of her head as she and Fleetfoot rested against the door again. “What a grouch…” She quickly turned her focus back to Fleetfoot. “But you get me,” Dash rested a hoof on Fleetfoot’s shoulder, drawing her eyes back to her. “We don’t care what it is, we just want to help. It’s what friends do.” Dash gave her another wink. “You’d do the same for us.”

That seemed to do the trick. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened just a little, but it was a reaction. Her ears stood up as she looked at the door again. She sniffled, light tears still dripping through the fur on her face as her ears slowly flopped all the way back down. She took a deep breath as she turned around, and then exhaled long and loudly as she slumped her back against the door.

Dash placed both her wing and an arm over Fleetfoot’s shoulder, confident that she was about to let it all go. Dash had heard most of it from Nightshade, just not the fine details. Soarin and Spitfire needed to hear it, they were the ones that Fleetfoot really needed to tell. But either way, she needed to let it all out… just like Dash did the night before when Soarin was tending to her wounds. Fleetfoot could use the same relief that had done wonders for her.

“It’s… not very complicated, really…” Fleetfoot began, her voice weak, but loud enough for Spitfire and Soarin to hear beyond the door. “All it really boils down to… is that I feel small.”

She paused as the words sunk in to everypony listening. Dash blinked and tipped her head slightly, looking Fleetfoot up and down. Fleetfoot was about the same size as her, not as built, but sleeker and definitely more toned. She looked up as Fleetfoot glanced in her direction, catching Dash’s eyes as they scanned her. Fleetfoot shook her head lightly.

“Not like… actually little. I know I’m fairly average sized for a pegasus. I just, compare myself to others around me. It’s been like this my whole life and… I think it’s because of my dad,” Fleetfoot explained, piquing Dash’s interest.

“Your dad?” Dash went along, providing hoof holds and stepping stones to help Fleetfoot get through it. Fleetfoot nodded, as she looked down at the floor, pausing for several moments as she gathered her thoughts.

“Mom and Dad are a very odd looking couple. Mom is smaller than me, a little pegasus, about the size of Surprise, but Dad? Well… He’s the captain of the Sentinels in the Fillydelphia division of the royal guard.”

Dash’s eyes widened slightly. A Sentinel? But those were…

“You know…” Fleetfoot tipped her head slightly. “The large earth ponies recruited to guard the treasuries, royal visitors, or important shipments to Canterlot.”

Dash looked Fleetfoot up and down again. Fleetfoot’s father is an earth pony? Fleetfoot didn’t have a SINGLE trace of earth pony traits… but, maybe that was part of it.

“My dad is huge,” Fleetfoot continued. “Not as big as that farm pony you know back in Ponyville. What was his name again? Big Mac?” she glanced at Dash, who nodded while still trying to process it. “Yeah, him. My dad isn’t as big as him, but he’s pretty close. He’s definitely larger than Soarin, but you know how big some earth ponies can get. He’s really strong too, wears a full suit of heavy armor all day while on duty, but it barely fazes him. But even though he’s so big and intimidating, he’s such a big softy. He’s always been so gentle with my mother and I.”

It was beginning to take shape for Dash. Fleetfoot was really telling her everything, but from what she had heard so far, it wasn’t hard to draw a few early conclusions. Large father, small mother, being a filly and how things influence one when they are young… Dash knew how that worked.

“All through my fillyhood, I was in so much awe of him,” Fleetfoot continued. “He was so big and so strong, like a mountain and probably just as sturdy. He had such a commanding presence too, drawing respect from everypony around him for both his rank and his stature. He’d walk into a room and all eyes would go to him. It didn’t matter if he was around his sentinels or if we were in a family restaurant. Everypony would look, some would say ‘wow,’ and it filled my little filly head with so much pride. Everypony thought my dad was so cool, I wore it like a badge of honor. I bragged about him all the time at school, on the playground, and even at flight camps even though he wasn’t a pegasus. It’s needless to say, I won every argument about whose dad could beat up whose…” Fleetfoot cracked a small smile, but it looked like it was only a brief bliss of nostalgia poking its way into her current state.

Dash had no doubts now. Everything she saw and everything Nightshade said to her… there was a reason the temptation led to manipulating Fleetfoot’s body. She really did feel small. But there were still more details. Dash kept listening.

“It was so simple when I was a filly…” Fleetfoot’s grin faded as she looked up at the ceiling, a single tear gently dripping down her face. “Every day I looked up at him, and he smiled down at me with that friendly gentle smile of his… it made me puff my chest out and look forward to growing up. I always said to myself, every day of my life… ‘One day, I’m going to be big and strong, just like Daddy. I’m going to be a leader, just like Daddy. Everypony will look up to me in awe, just like Daddy…” Fleetfoot’s lip quivered. “Just… like Daddy…” she repeated.

Fleetfoot closed her eyes and slumped down.

“Well…” she continued, slowly opening her eyes and sniffling. “I grew up… I got older, but those little filly hopes and dreams faded quickly. I didn’t grow much… but I held on to hopes that I’d have some kind of spontaneous growth spurt long past maturing. But I was eventually forced to realize that I inherited more of my mom’s genes than my dad’s. When I turned eighteen and it finally hit me that it wasn’t going to happen… I was devastated. My whole life I had watched my dad and it was drilled into my little filly head that a great leader has to be big, strong, and imposing… I’m not stupid, there’s obviously so much more involved than that, but after believing it for so long? It hammered a belief into me that I would never be a leader like him.” Fleetfoot shook her head. “Both my mom and dad saw it coming. They both tried to encourage me to keep aiming high, but I didn’t have it, I rejected the idea, I even snapped at them a few times. It was so silly and immature of me, but it was there, it was solid and I couldn’t get rid of it. In my head I was a pipsqueak and would never have the image of a leader.”

Yet here she was, part of the lead squad of one of the most prestigious military forces in Equestria. Dash needed to know the rest. How did she get here? Did it continue? How had she kept it all hidden? She was sure Spitfire and Soarin were equally curious.

“Life went on,” Fleetfoot kept going. “But my approach completely changed. I still wanted to be great and do great things, I still wanted to be a part of something like my dad was, but I never wanted, no, I refused to put myself in a position of leadership. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t look at myself and do it. I didn’t fit my personal visual definition of a leader. I couldn’t bear to be what I didn’t believe in, so… I always aimed to be part of something rather than be the head of something.” Fleetfoot hugged herself tightly, curling up as much as she could beneath Dash’s arm and wing. “I’ve been doing it for years and I eventually came to terms with it all. I was normal, it’s what I believed, but something happened in the wake of it all. I suddenly had this… strange obsession left over from what I left behind. I found myself becoming jealous, but not in a bitter way. I envied those who were bigger and stronger than me, but I didn’t want to avoid them or shun them, I wanted to be closer to them. I had accepted that I would never have it myself, but the closer I got to a large or built pony, the more I unconsciously began to… visualize. It’s like a leftover, lingering desire from my lost fillyhood dreams trying to squeeze its way out of me even though I buried it.” Fleetfoot paused as a sharp twitch and shiver rushed through her, causing Dash to tighten her hold on her a little. “I competed against lots of ponies who fit that category in races, stunt shows, and other competitions, but I never befriended any of them. I was afraid that they’d… notice my odd fascination with them and be weirded out or disturbed.”

Fleetfoot stopped shivering, her body twitching once as she ceased speaking for a few seconds. She uncurled her body a little, but kept hugging herself.

“But then everything changed when I met Soarin and Spitfire…” she said as she turned her head and glanced at the door behind them.

“The youth flyer competition in Manehatten…” Dash thought out loud as Fleetfoot nodded and quickly looked away from the door. She hesitated, gritting her teeth as a quiet, barely audible wail sounded from the back of her throat. She knew they were listening. She was about to bring them into the picture and they were the ones she was avoiding in the first place. Dash gave Fleetfoot’s opposite shoulder a light squeeze, keeping her wing rested gently over her to provide as much physical comfort as she could muster, because this was likely going to be the hardest part for her.

“At first it was the same as everypony else like them…” she forged on, her voice shaking with a clear struggle in between her words. “Two ponies, both physically larger and stronger than me. I couldn’t hold it down, I gravitated towards them little by little, shivering as I looked them over and thought about what it’s like to be like that, but I kept enough distance, I never let them see just how much I wanted to get closer. It wasn’t enough to break my focus from the competition. I kept my mind on track and competed like I always do. After a heated contest, it was over and life was about to go on as always. I was ready to make a quick exit to avoid any awkward encounters, but I ran right into them. I had had a few chance encounters in the past, but always excused myself. It was a little harder this time though because they were just so… nice. I was so nervous as they stood there and talked to me. I had trouble controlling my eyes. They kept twitching and trying to move towards their bodies. Soarin was one of the biggest pegasi I had ever seen, but it was mostly…” Fleetfoot stopped and squeaked, her ears folding backwards as she hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder at the door, knowing that Spitfire was right outside, but she pushed onward. “I had such a hard time not staring a Spitfire’s body… she was such a strong looking mare, I almost wanted to touch her.” Fleetfoot fought to keep speaking. Dash could only imagine how hard this was to admit. Under normal circumstances this could have sexual implications, but it was actually something traumatic. “Thank Celestia they were so interested in me and kept asking me about myself, where I was from, how I trained, and other things among compliments towards my performance… because it was just enough to distract me long enough. And then… I was bailed out when Blazetail and Flashwind appeared.”

Dash remembered. The first time she ever spent casual time with Spitfire and Fleetfoot she learned all about their unlikely encounter with the two legendary captains. It was that chance encounter that put Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, and eventually Rapidfire on their road to becoming the youngest lead squad in the history of the force. But all of this with Fleetfoot… this view put such a different perspective on it all and Dash was sure Spitfire and Soarin agreed with her outside the room. All this time and she kept it all to herself?

“At first I didn’t mind…” Fleetfoot continued on. “The Wonderbolts were a perfect distraction, and with Spitfire in charge of our recruit squad and eventually low tier elite squad with Rapidfire I was content I’d never be in a position of command. But then, we were named the lead squad. We were entered into consideration by Blazetail and Flashwind, but I had no confidence that we’d be chosen. How could we compare to some of the top tier elites? Hell, we were competing against Silver Lining’s squad! I never thought we would get it… but somehow we did.”

Fleetfoot cringed and twitched, her body nearly bouncing off Dash as she groaned and shook her head.

“It all came rushing back, all my fears, all my worries, and most of all, all my expectations. We were the leaders, we were at the top, we were the head of the pack. We were everything I never wanted to be, everything I was afraid of being. I wasn’t the lead captain, but I was officially in a position of leadership as a first commander. I was in a position where, under certain circumstances, I’d have to take command and lead. It terrified me. I didn’t say a word during the transfer of command ceremony and I didn’t go to the after party. I slipped away without telling anypony and hid in my room. I was sweating, shaking, and hyperventilating. My heart was beating so fast, my legs could barely hold me up, my head was spinning. I felt sick, nauseous, and threw up everything I had just eaten at the banquet before the ceremony. I was so scared… I threw myself onto my bed and curled up into a ball as everything, everything from my fillyhood broke free from where I had kept it bottled up and it poured out over my head like ice cold water.”

She paused and shivered as if her own analogy made her feel cold.

“No. I couldn’t do it, I can’t lead, I’m small, I’m not strong,” she turned herself away from Dash, but Dash’s grip on her prevented her from tipping away. “It wasn’t right. I didn’t have what I needed. How could I be an effective leader? I had the skill and the speed, I had the capabilities to be named to the position, but it felt wrong. I was missing the two things that I felt I needed, Size and strength. I had believed that my whole life and now here I was where I didn’t want to be, lacking what I felt was required to even be there in the first place. It’s stupid, it’s unreasonable, but it’s permanently stuck in my head where I was completely conflicted with what I was comfortable with and it hurt… it hurt so much. It clawed at me.” She stopped trying to tip away, breathing heavily for a moment as she looked back towards Dash, but quickly averted her eyes. “And… it has ever since. I’ve never taken the reigns, I’ve always danced around my duties, and I’ve always deferred decisions to Spitfire or Soarin. Even now during all this crap I’ve frozen more than once when put on the spot. Silver had to step in and give orders at one point!” Fleetfoot suddenly smacked her hooves against her head, prompting Dash to quickly reach up and stop her.

“Fleet don’t—”

“AND WHY?!” she blurted out, not referring to Dash. “BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE MY BODY?!” She ripped her arms free of Dash’s hoof. “I’m a fucking Wonderbolt! I but I can’t give orders because I have body issues?!” She slammed her hooves on the floor several times, leaning down as she stopped to catch her breath, her body shivering from the strenuous motions. “See? See how stupid this all is? See what’s wrong with me? It’s all some self-made trauma that little filly Fleet never grew up to be like daddy! Now here I am, twenty fucking four years old and something like this keeps me down! I’m so dumb…”

“No you’re…” Dash began quietly, but stopped as Fleetfoot calmed down. She decided not to say anything and let Fleetfoot gather herself. She wanted her to get through everything and she was certain that wasn’t all of it. She had broken away a little and gone on a small rant about her unwillingness to lead, but that didn’t cover everything, especially with the body image.

But Dash was curious, something coming to mind as she waited for Fleetfoot to continue. There was one time that Fleetfoot was the highest ranking Wonderbolt around, that she could recall at least. When she and Soarin were captured during their initial confrontation and imprisonment in the Shadowbolt Fortress, Fleetfoot showed up with the entire force, engaging the Shadowbolts. Though there were some interesting circumstances there. Dash had only gotten details and not the full story, but Spitfire was around, just recovering, Discord had given them the instructions on how to find them, and Misty Fly was the one who led them to the flying fortress. Not to mention there wasn’t much in terms of orders or decisions to be made. It was about saving friends and everypony was probably on board with that without a single command. Fleetfoot was likely so focused on that that she didn’t realize she was more or less in charge.

Or was she? Again, Dash never got the full story aside from the specific details and never got Fleetfoot’s point of view. Dash was only told what had happened that eventually led to the battle. Who eventually made the calls? Silver? Fire Streak? Luna? Or did they just act on instinct to save them? That specific detail had been left out.

“Hmmmrrr…” Fleetfoot groaned as she tipped over and leaned her head on Dash’s shoulder, her eyes closed, and sniffling. Dash could feel the wetness of her eyes on her shoulder as she gently rubbed Fleetfoot’s opposite shoulder. “Sorry…” she apologized. “That was… a bit much.”

“No it wasn’t,” Dash assured her. “Keep going, you’re doing great,” she encouraged. Fleetfoot turned and looked right at Dash for a moment. Dash was surprised, but quickly threw on a warm smile to show Fleetfoot she wasn’t judging and was listening intently. Fleetfoot didn’t smile back, she just stared for a little while before looking forward and nestling herself against Dash’s side again.

“The shock… was awful,” she went on, her voice still lacking strength or confidence. “I didn’t know what to do or how to handle it. I thought I had put away my fillyhood issues for good, but in my new position they… all came surging back into me. The issues and dissatisfaction with myself were dangling above me all over again. And… with all the pressure bearing down on me, my obsessions seemed to grow, they grew stronger, got worse… I felt like I was losing control of myself. It got to a point where I was eyeballing and ogling anypony that had an inch of height on me or the slightest bit of muscle on their body, which… is kind of hard not to see among the Wonderbolts. And new oddities developed too, like also gravitating towards those that were smaller just so I could feel big. I hovered around everypony, I had to physically force myself to look away or stay back from others, but it didn’t always work. I would get close and stare, I would gawk. I was so embarrassed I thought I was going to explode… but I couldn’t stop it no matter how hard I tried.”

Fleetfoot reached up her hooves and flattened her ears.

“So… I didn’t and instead tried to find a way around it… a way to hide my obsession. And eventually, I decided to disguise it as… flirting, and purposely did it to a point where it became a norm and others expected it from me. That way I could get up close and personal, but ‘oh, that’s just how she is.’ It was the perfect smokescreen, I could let myself near anypony I wanted without fear of them suspecting something. Is it all fake? No, in fact, it’s not fake at all. My interest and fascination at times also led to… sexual desire. And to be honest… I eventually fully embraced it. I’ve come to enjoy being known as the ‘sexy’ Wonderbolt commander. It’s fun, I love being flirtatious, I love being sexy, I love interacting with other ponies, and I love physical affection… but being labeled a flirtatious sex symbol mixed with my base intentions for doing it… it makes me feel so dirty, like I’m exploiting ponies sexually for my own benefit. It also threw up another wall for me, fear of commitment, fear of getting too close to anypony. If I were to get into a steady relationship, I was afraid my cover up would be exposed. I’m too scared of everypony finding out. But… sometimes I wonder if I even care, if having somepony special means as much to me as fulfilling my own personal desires. There’s so much conflict, but I don’t risk anything. My cover up works, it hides my problem, it hides my insecurity… So I keep doing it and I never question it, but because of it… I’m stuck in this awful, endless cycle.”

She paused and glanced at the box, sniffling loudly.

“With my issues resurfacing and forcing me into all these different behaviors and cover ups… part of me wanted to do something about it,” she kept going, prompting Dash to also look towards the box of magazines, the second stack of fitness magazines still piled inside of it. “I knew I wasn’t going to get any taller, but I could get stronger, right? That was something I could do with the right amount of effort, so why not try? But… no matter how much I looked for extra workouts, I started to fear, before I even started, that they either wouldn’t be effective or others might start asking me why I was doing them. Time also became an issue. I had my regular training schedule, but no free time to do more. My fabricated flirtatious nature, while not always received positively, landed me the role as the sex symbol of the Wonderbolts like I said. And as a result, several modeling gigs above and beyond the typical photo ops started weighing me down. I was also booked to for other public appearances. If any Wonderbolts were going to be at an event, they had to have the ‘babe-bolt’ there too, after all ‘nothing sells tickets to stallions like the cover mare!’ It all effectively killed the little bit of free time I had as a lead squad Wonderbolt.”

Fleetfoot shook her head, her breaths becoming quicker, resembling hiccups as the dam holding back full blown tears seemed to be close to failing.

“So now I have a problem I want to get rid of, but don’t have time to… That I hide by acting like a slut, which makes me feel terrible, but now it’s basically become who others see me as and it’s fueled by something I’ve become known for… and… I just… I can’t…”

She started shaking, it wasn’t twitching or shivering, it was pure shaking like saying all of this actually had a physically painful effect on her. Dash tightened her grip, rubbing Fleetfoot’s shoulder as she nearly covered her whole body with her wing. Knowing how much Fleetfoot’s body was dealing with the aches and soreness, the shaking probably hurt like hell.

“None of this should matter,” her voice had a gentle vibration in it as she shook. “It really shouldn’t. I’m a top Wonderbolt, I have responsibilities and duties. I don’t like them, I’m afraid of them, but I have them and I need to fulfill them… yet, this won’t go away, I can’t get rid of it. I try to dance around it, but it’s always following me. With all the battles we’ve been fighting, with all the focus on survival and confronting the Shadowbolts, I came close… VERY CLOSE to focusing on what mattered for the first time in my life. But then Nightshade… Nightshade ruined everything, she made it all flood over and…” she started twitching heavily, squeaking and gasping. “Ow! OW!!!! Owowow!” she began crying out as she pressed her hooves over to her body, running them over certain spots as her body began having visible muscle spasms. Dash quickly turned and reached her other arm around Fleetfoot, holding onto her tightly as she tried to sit still. Dash could feel each twitch as they pulsed through Fleetfoot, the spasms were so strong that it felt like Fleetfoot was trying to wiggle free even though she wasn’t moving herself at all. Dash kept up the pressure, holding onto her until her body finally relaxed, the slight shaking remained, but the twitching died down.

Dash frowned as she lightened her grip. Fleetfoot was literally a wreck from every point of view imaginable, barely holding herself together.

“I’m so ashamed…” Fleetfoot shut her eyes tight, the dam breaking as tears started squeezing through her eyelids. “Ashamed of what happened out there. Not because you saw it though… because… because she…” Fleetfoot was choking in between her words.

“Take your ti—”

“MMMMMMMGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!” Fleetfoot cut off Dash, pressing her arms to her mouth and screaming into her own fur. Dash jumped in surprise, but refused to move, giving Fleetfoot all the time she needed to let it out with her comforting presence. “She… Nightshade… She really did give me what I wanted…” Fleetfoot admitted with heavy tones of dread and regret making their way in between her sniffles and hiccups. “She gave it to me and I… didn’t even try to resist her, I let her do it. The moment she picked my problems right out of my head, I seized up. The one thing I refused to ever tell anypony about me was suddenly being told to me. I lost all control of my body and I let her have her way. Suddenly nothing mattered to me anymore. I didn’t care that Nightshade was advancing on me, I didn’t care that all my friends were down and hurt. Somepony else was aware of something I kept locked away and it chilled me to the bone. I don’t even remember what I was thinking in those moments she approached me…” she began shaking again, lifting her head up from down by her arms and staring directly at the box of magazines. “Then she pushed the crystal into me and… made my body change. It was… it felt… incredible.”

Dash’s eyes widened slightly as Fleetfoot began the recount of the transformation. The last word, ‘incredible,’ had a slightly different tone to it, a tone of slight pleasure. Fleetfoot’s shaking turned into a shiver and she bit down on her lower lip. The sight sent a slight chill through Dash. It reminded her of the way Nightshade expressed pleasure while charging herself full of the crystal magic. Dash herself had never experienced the enhancements the crystals offered, but based on Fleetfoot’s slight shift here, it had to be hard to forget.

“It felt… perfect…” Fleetfoot went on, her voice mixing in conflicting tones of desire and regret as if she couldn’t separate the two. “I loved every second of it, like an intense warmth was filling up my entire body. And… when she showed me how I looked, it sealed it. There was this massive rush of euphoria.”

Dash suddenly began to worry, because there was a very subtle grin curling onto Fleetfoot’s lips.

“I was shocked on the outside, but on the inside I was in a state of unbelievable joy. The size of my body, the powerful muscles… I looked just as big and as strong as my dad!”

Dash breathed a sigh of relief as Fleetfoot’s slight grin faded, the look of pure dread returning to her face as she shut her eyes.

“It was a lost fillyhood dream come true…” she sniffled loudly as tears continued to squeak between her eyelids. “And… that’s exactly why I’m so scared right now.” She suddenly shifted roughly against Dash and hugged her. Dash exhaled as Fleetfoot squeezed her, but tightened her grip around her as well. “If it wasn’t for the unbearable pain that followed my body changing…” she began again slightly muffled, but then turned her head so her mouth was free from Dash’s side. “I don’t… I don’t think I would have… even hesitated to play along!” Her voice lifted an octave. “I was going to accept it! I was going to betray you, my friends, my family, EVERYTHING! All just because some stupid desire I gave up on long ago was suddenly real and right in front of me! I didn’t think once about fighting it or staying true to the Wonderbolts and everypony I love… Not once…” she pulled away from Dash, curling up as much as her body allowed while sitting. “And that’s not even the worst part…”

Fleetfoot paused for a long time. Dash remained quiet, glancing behind her at the door as she waited for Fleet to gather herself and continue. She wondered how Spitfire and Soarin were handling all this? That last point especially had to be jarring to hear, but these were the crystals they were talking about. After seeing Starry Skies completely break down for a day or two after being forced to control the Falcon’s crystal, it was clear they had a terrifying effect. Starry’s advantage though, was that it was not new to her. Fleetfoot had been floored by it and had never felt it before. Dash shuddered at the thought, hoping she could hold her ground in the future and never come under the temptations.

But honestly, Dash was more curious how Spitfire and Soarin were handling hearing about Fleetfoot’s secrets. They were both involved after all.

“The worst part is…”

Dash quickly turned back to Fleetfoot as she continued, her voice growing even shakier, but barely hanging onto a coherent pattern.

“I… I actually—” Fleetfoot was cut off as her body shook and shuddered. She hugged herself tightly as a helpless wail escaped from her throat. “I… want it again…” she admitted in between quiet grunts and gasps of pain. Dash bit her lower lip, wincing as Fleetfoot revealed that little bit of info. “Now that I saw what the crystal magic can do to me, there’s part of me that’s desperate to go to Nightshade, to try again, to face the pain so I can have that body again!” Fleetfoot threw her hooves over her eyes and whipped her head back, releasing a sudden, high pitched scream as if saying those words hurt physically. Dash’s ears twitched as Fleetfoot’s scream shot right through her head, but she held on.

Dash could remember watching Misty Fly when Nightshade tempted her with the gift of a voice and hearing… she remembered the look of pain on Misty’s face when she forced herself to reject the overwhelming temptation. Now Fleetfoot was going through the same thing. Both strong Wonderbolts, both turned inside out by Nightshade. Dash was sure that if Misty could talk, she’d have a lot to say about the experience and how much she wished she could have it back.

“What’s WRONG with me?!” Fleetfoot suddenly thrust her wings and arms out, jabbing Dash in the side with her left. Dash grunted but held it in, not letting go. “What the hell am I thinking?!” Fleetfoot grabbed her wings and pulled them around the front of her. “This is the magic we’re fighting against! It’s the tool of our enemy! It’s literally something that corrupts ponies!” She let go of her wings and stared at her own hooves. “Am I really that weak? Am I really that easily manipulated?! How selfish and vulnerable am I that I’m actually considering such a horrific thing?! Maybe I really only care about myself and everything else is just a BIG FAT LIE!!!!!!!!” she yelled, whipping her head back and forth so hard that her tears were jumping from her face and sprinkling on Dash. “The Wonderbolts are what matter! Soarin and Spitfire are what matter! I’m not really a big or strong pony! The crystals are just giving me what I can’t have!” she slammed her hooves to the floor, hiccupping and sniffling as she started slumping forwards slowly. “This is a no brainer, this isn’t a hard choice to make… so why… why am I…? Why can’t I just focus on what I know is right? Why can’t I shake the urge? It’s sickening… I’m such a horrible… awful… irredeemable pony…” She closed her eyes, the tears flowing hard now. “All of it, everything… everything about me… from growing up, to being a Wonderbolt, to this crap… it’s all wrong…all so very wrong…”

Dash didn’t know why, but the moment Fleetfoot finished and fell into a pile of sniffles, wails, and tears, she felt it was the right moment to finally say or do something. She wasn’t sure what had sparked it, but thinking over what she had just heard, perhaps it was right at the end when Fleetfoot exclaimed that there was something seriously wrong with her. She had avoided everypony because of that fact, she may argue it was more than that, but it was overwhelmingly because she felt there was something wrong with her.

It was time to show her she was wrong about that.

But now the question was say something or do something?

Dash blinked in surprise as Fleetfoot pushed herself up onto her hooves, her legs wobbling and joints popping as she stumbled a few steps into the middle of the room and plopped right back down, several of the magazines around them pushed aside by the slight gust of her motion, and her tears dripping from her chin and staining the floor beneath her.

“They don’t need me… Soarin and Spitfire,” Fleetfoot said with her voice on the verge of cracking. “They should leave me out from here on. If this is all I really care about then I’m unfit to serve. I’ll just pose a danger. They’ve never needed me… I’ve never done anything useful… I’m just the third wheel that’s spinning even though it’s on the verge of falling off. They’re better off without me…”

Dash’s answer: Do something. And there was only one thing to do at this point.

She stood up, turned around…

And opened the door.

Fleetfoot gasped and her ears stood up as the sound of creaking hinges surged through her ears. Her body had gone stiff, even holding down the shaking and spasms that had been plaguing her. She slowly turned herself around and faced the door.

Soarin and Spitfire were standing in the doorway, Dash standing aside to let them in. They both entered. Spitfire had tears in her eyes and Soarin wore a look of intense sympathy. The two of them looked around the room, spotting the magazines on the floor and the pictures on the bed, putting it all together with what they heard as well. Fleetfoot just stared at them as her ears folded back and she began hunching down, making herself smaller and twitching again as the two entered the room.

But before she could retreat any further, Spitfire lunged towards her. Fleetfoot squeaked and shut her eyes, but Spitfire grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into a very strong hug. Fleetfoot opened her eyes as her cheek pressed into Spitfire’s chest. Spitfire was shaking, but holding her in the tightest hug she had ever experienced.

“Fleet…” Spitfire spoke, her tone was firm yet caring. “Don’t you EVER say we don’t need you!” she exclaimed, nearly squeezing the air out of Fleetfoot as she held on tight.

“H-huh…?” Fleetfoot looked confused as she tried, and failed to turn her head to look at Spitfire, her face still firmly nestled in Spitfire’s chest. Dash smiled as Soarin approached Fleetfoot as well. Nothing stopped somepony’s crazy talk like a healthy dose of reality and how great their friends really were.

“Better off without you?” Soarin repeated her words as he sat down and placed a hoof atop Fleetfoot’s head. “Without you, we wouldn’t be… well… us,” he said with a smile as Fleetfoot’s eyes focused on him and widened.

Dash couldn’t believe Fleetfoot would ever think these two could get angry at her for something like this, but then again, she had been in her hooves before, letting emotions get the better of reason and saying things you don’t mean. She did the exact same thing after the tryouts.

“But… But I…” Fleetfoot began stuttering as she pressed her hooves to Spitfire’s fur. “I…” she sniffled, unable to get the words out.

“NO BUTS!” Spitfire yelled, squeezing Fleetfoot even more, forcing a hiccup and squeak out of her. Spitfire quickly realized she was crushing her and loosened her grip, but only a little, keeping the tight hug going. “You’re part of the family, Fleet. That’s final.”

Fleetfoot, finally with a little room to move her head, glanced at Spitfire as she lowered her head down to nuzzle her neck against hers. Then Fleetfoot looked up at Soarin sitting beside them. He kept up his smile as he shifted and bent down to join in hugging her.

Thoroughly sandwiched between her two closest friends, despite everything she had just revealed and was worried about…

Fleetfoot completely lost it. Crying and wailing as she slipped her arms around Spitfire’s body and hugged her back. She let it all out as Spitfire and Soarin embraced her.

Dash watched from beside the door, smiling. She remained still, not wanting to get in the way.

“Hm?” she blinked as she saw Soarin look towards her. Soarin made quick head motions removing a hoof from Fleetfoot for a moment to beckon her towards the group hug. Dash quickly put up a hoof and shook her head, again not wanting to get between something special, but Soarin didn’t have it. He firmly pointed at Fleetfoot, signaling that she had earned the right to be a part of it. Dash smiled weakly, giving into the fact that… these three, who were once idols of hers, had really become true friends. She did as she was told, walking towards them, finding an open spot and joining in embracing Fleetfoot. Dash dared Fleetfoot to think her friends didn’t need her now.

After a long hug that easily lasted several minutes with no talking and not a peep aside from Fleetfoot’s crying, Dash, Spitfire and Soarin all slowly let up. Soarin and Dash both let go of her while remaining up close, but Spitfire didn’t let go, holding Fleetfoot at arm’s length. Taking a moment to wipe the light tears from her own eyes before locking them with Fleetfoot’s. Fleetfoot sniffled, tears still falling, but she didn’t look away from Spitfire, she couldn’t.

“Fleet… I need you,” she said firmly before glancing at Soarin and Rainbow Dash. “We need you… we ALL need you. Don’t ever think that’s not true, you’re irreplaceable,” she explained in an adamant, urging tone. Fleetfoot just kept staring. Soarin suddenly comically scooted his plot along the floor and crashed lightly into Spitfire’s side, draping his arm over Spitfire’s head and letting his hoof hang down in her face.

“You’re damn right I need you, do you have any idea how bad Spitfire would be without you to even it all out? I think I’d be bald from pulling my mane out!”

Dash immediately threw a hoof over her mouth as Spitfire narrowed her eyes and shifted her head to look past Soarin’s hoof. She snorted as she lifted an eyebrow.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she hissed at him as Soarin lowered his head down and gave her a smarmy grin.

“Oh, don’t tempt me to go down that road…” Soarin cooed in response. Before Spitfire could fight back, Soarin shifted his focus to Fleetfoot, hoping the lighthearted comment would have an effect, but she was still only staring. Spitfire caught on and glanced at Fleetfoot also.

“But…” Fleetfoot barely managed to speak. “But… my problems… all of this… I’m not focused on what I should be…” Fleetfoot was still clinging somewhat to her previous case, but the way she delivered it suggested they were starting to break through to her. “I can’t… do this with everything going on in my head, I’m—”

“Then don’t run away from us,” Soarin cut her off, immediately throwing the offer out there. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened considerably as she looked up into the eyes of both Soarin and Spitfire. They both towered over her, but for some reason, her anxieties didn’t take hold. The concern in their eyes overpowered anything clawing at her. “Fleet,” Soarin continued while shaking his head. “How long have we been friends? How long have we flown together? Almost… six? Six years now? After everything we’ve been through together you really think we’d abandon you? You’re acting like we discovered you’re a serial murderer or something,” he ended with a grin, reaching a hoof up and placing it softly on her shoulder.

“Exactly,” Spitfire chimed in, also giving her a smile. “This is something you’ve kept hidden that you’re embarrassed about and that’s perfectly natural, Fleet. These are the kinds of things we want to be around you for! We’re here to help you through these kinds of things, not judge you for them. That’s why we’re friends,” Spitfire explained as she shifted over to Fleetfoot’s side and draped a hoof over her shoulder.

Fleetfoot’s ears twitched and she blinked twice as she turned and glanced at Dash. Dash smiled and held out a hoof, tipping her head to the side. It was a silent gesture, showing Fleetfoot that she was dead serious about everything she had said before and wasn’t just saying so to make her feel better. Soarin and Spitfire wouldn’t care one bit, they wanted to help her.

“In fact…” Soarin chuckled. “We all have personal things that bother us or make us trip up. It doesn’t matter what it is, none of us are perfect.”

“But…” Fleetfoot bit her lower lip and looked down. “But mine are so stupid and—EEP!” she squeaked as Spitfire reached up her other hoof and pressed it lightly against Fleetfoot’s forehead.

“Hush,” she shushed her while shaking her head. “No personal issue is stupid. Our shortcomings are part of what make us who we are, there’s no going around them and no ignoring them,” she paused, removing her hoof from Fleetfoot’s head and instead placing it beneath her chin, tipping her head up to look her in the eye. “What’s really important is figuring out how to benefit from them and how to learn from them. To be honest, based on everything I heard, your assessment of what happened with Nightshade is purely negative. You know what I heard when I was listening to you just now? I heard that you have a desire to be a great leader.”

Fleetfoot blinked, sniffling once as she stared wide eyed at Spitfire.

“There are some extra standards that you hold yourself to based on your fillyhood experiences, and you hate that you don’t have them. But aside from that setback that keeps you down, you’ve always wanted to be a great leader like your dad. Believe me,” Spitfire placed a hoof on her chest. “I completely understand the desire to be a great leader… it’s literally my job and it’s a very daunting task. I know how you feel when it comes to having high standards for yourself, it doesn’t matter what those standards are.”

Spitfire flinched as Soarin pounded his chest hard enough to make a loud THUMP sound throughout the room.

“And if you wanted some help working out and getting stronger… you should have said something to me! I’m an endless source for this kind of thing,” he explained while glancing and winking at Dash. “I would have been more than happy to help you out.”

“But… you heard why I…” Fleetfoot came close to diving right back in but Soarin quickly intervened.

“Fleet,” he tapped his head then pounded his chest again. “I’m a stallion and a gym rat. When I’m in the gym, I pick up heavy things and put them back down. I guarantee I wouldn’t have thought for a moment about any other hidden motives, or reasons for you being there. Rule number one of the gym: don’t think too hard about it, just pump iron,” Soarin ended with a grin and bounced his eyebrows. “I see you rolling your eyes over there, Spitty,” Soarin added with a chuckle as he pointed at her.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Spitfire haphazardly defended herself.

Fleetfoot glanced back and forth between them rapidly with her eyes stuck open wide and her fur beneath them stained from tears. The two of them had just completely rejected the notion that her problems would have any effect on them… and both offered counter views to some of the worst things that were bothering her. She abruptly stopped and stared at Dash as she approached and sat down near Soarin.

“See?” Dash said with a smile. “I told you that you shouldn’t be worried. It’s personal… sure, but…” Dash sat down and lifted her hooves towards Spitfire and Soarin. “You have GREAT friends.”

Fleetfoot was sold. At least that’s how it looked to Dash. She closed her eyes and leaned into Spitfire, stuffing her face into Spitfire’s shoulder fur. Spitfire draped a wing over her and pulled her in tight, just letting it all sink in for her. But as they all sat in silence and watched as Fleetfoot accepted their care and desire to help, Dash saw an interesting look in Spitfire’s eyes. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary, but it looked as though she was contemplating something. Then she smiled as if an idea had sprung to mind.

“Fleet, look at me,” Spitfire suddenly urged, allowing Fleetfoot a moment to regain herself and look up on her own power. “Let’s strike the iron while it’s hot, shall we?” Spitfire winked. “You revealed something your embarrassed about and some issues you deal with… so now we’ll tell you ours.”

Fleetfoot blinked in surprise as Spitfire looked away from her towards Dash and Soarin. She didn’t wait for their approval, she went right ahead.

“Want to know what I struggle with?” Spitfire began while returning her focus to Fleetfoot right beside her. “Control, and I’m not just talking about being captain, I’m talking about everything.”

Even if Soarin or Dash felt the need to protest, they struck the very thought the moment they saw Fleetfoot entirely focused on Spitfire. This was a brilliant idea.

“There’s nothing I find more embarrassing than making mistakes… that may be typical for most ponies, but it’s rather… extreme for me,” Spitfire continued. “I’m a perfectionist to a freakish degree, I plan and try to figure out a seamless way around everything I do, but when the time comes, if anything goes even slightly off the rails… I panic. But, there’s another problem. Instead of coming right out and admitting it, I try to roll with it and fix it before anyone can notice, but it tends to become one big mess. Over time I’ve learned to control it… mostly. My job demanded it. But it still happens. And… I hate to admit it, but there has not been a larger example of this than how I’ve been handling myself throughout most of this conflict.”

Spitfire shut her eyes and shivered as she brought up her recent blunders, but she was coming out with it entirely, not holding anything back to show Fleetfoot they were on even ground.

“But like I said, it hits me everywhere, not just with command functions,” she went on. “You saw me get hysterical when I was in heat. You saw me flounder and screw up constantly while coming to grips with my feelings for Wave. I kept trying to grab hold of the issues and kept telling myself it was all under control, but it just led to one embarrassing incident after another. Hell… not even everyday activities are exempt from this. Just ask Soarin,” she made a hoof motion to Soarin. “Soarin, remember the first day of our recruit training when I tried using the omelet maker in the mess hall?”

Dash and Fleetfoot both flinched in surprise as Soarin suddenly puffed his cheeks out, breath shooting from between his lips for a moment before he burst out laughing. Both Dash and Fleetfoot looked back at Spitfire as she rolled her eyes.

“He promised to keep it between us as long as he could always make fun of me for it,” Spitfire said with a chuckle as she turned back to Fleet. “There’s a reason I refuse to use any of the ‘do-it-yourself’ stuff in the mess hall.” She blushed lightly as she glanced away from them. “Let’s just say I… messed up on every step, but because I’m silly about this kind of thing, I tried to compensate and fix it mid steps instead of starting over or asking for help… and the omelet exploded out of the machine while Jet Stream was walking by right behind me… I’m just glad Blazetail and Flashwind found it hilarious, because I was mortified.”

“Spitty’s eyes were wider than dinner plates,” Soarin added as he tried to contain his laughter. “I wish you could have seen Jet Stream’s face, she looked utterly confused with egg and cheese dripping down her face.”

“But you get it,” Spitfire quickly focused her attention back on Fleetfoot, still blushing lightly as she recounted the humiliating blunder. “I hate acknowledging when things are going wrong, and I panic when things go wrong. That’s an awful combination and it’s gotten me into so many embarrassing situations, not to mention I let the tendency get the better of me recently and affected several ponies. You have no idea how hard it was for me to admit I needed to turn things around to Luna… I’m glad Flashwind nudged me in the right direction, who knows what the situation would be like right now if she hadn’t. Putting my hoof down was the easy part, I’ve learned how to do that effectively, the hard part was coming to grips with the fact that I’d been doing everything horribly wrong. This is a problem I’ve been dealing with my whole life. My track record on preventing its effect on my actions is far from perfect.”

Fleetfoot had stopped crying, she still had tear stains on her eyes, but her ears were fully turned to Spitfire and she was listening intently. Spitfire’s decision to even the playing field and share a vulnerability of her own was clearly having an effect.

“Well?” Spitfire glanced over at Soarin. “Soarin, your turn,” she said while waving a hoof at him.

“Nah,” Soarin shrugged while smirking. “I’m totally perfect,” he said jokingly, earning an immediate glare from Spitfire. “I’m kidding…” He waved off Spitfire while chuckling as Dash giggled along. “But, you’re probably already familiar with mine, it’s far from subtle,” Soarin began as Fleetfoot turned her focus to him. “You see it from me all the time, I’m hyper-reactive to towards anypony I feel is in any sort of danger, but my judgment on what ‘danger’ is… sometimes misses the mark by a mile. I have a reflex to be overprotective. It’s led to more than a few times where I’ve stepped in for something, only to find out there was either no problem at all or I get yelled at for not respecting the ability of who I jumped in to protect.” He chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t mean to make all this crap we’re going through sound good or anything, but… all the danger we’ve been in and all the fighting, it’s kind of… disguised it and justified it. I haven’t had to worry about it at all since, well… protecting my friends is a normal part of what we’re dealing with.” Soarin looked down and sighed. “But, honestly, it goes way deeper. I genuinely worry about things that I don’t have control over, especially if somepony important to me is not in my sight and I can’t come to their aid if something were to happen to them. I’ve more or less learned how to hide it completely, but I get very anxious. I hate it when I get separated from my squadmates or any group I’ve been assigned to. The thought of something happening to them even if I’m out of their range for a few seconds terrifies me. I get nervous, the fear claws at me, I fret over it, and if it’s over the course of a few days I lose sleep over it. And it can happen over something as simple as Spitfire and Fleetfoot going to a public appearance or meeting for a few days without me.”

“Gosh…” Dash suddenly spoke up, turning Soarin’s attention to her. “How many heart attacks have I given you then?” she asked with incredulous concern. Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

“Several thousand, but hey, I’ve only known you for what, a year? And you worry me as much as these two do,” he motioned to Spitfire and Fleetfoot. “So that should pump up your ego a bit.”

“Oh, stop,” Dash suddenly snorted, smirking while waving a hoof at him. “But wait…” she blinked. “When you visited me on the Apple farm… you know when Thunderlane had his wings tied to work for them, Spitfire and Fleetfoot left you there…”

“I was thoroughly distracted by you,” Soarin admitted while bouncing his eyebrows at her.

“Oh,” Spitfire cut in. “So we suddenly didn’t matter?”

“What?! NO!” Soarin quickly turned to her. “Of course not! You…” he trailed off as Spitfire snickered and shook her head.

“Soarin, I’m teasing you,” she clarified as Soarin blinked and looked away sheepishly.

“You’d think I’d know you well enough by now…” Soarin chuckled along with them before continuing. “But yeah, much like Spitfire, you all saw the worst of it just now. I was so worried about Dash flying out to meet the thestrals that I acted like a colt, harshly threatened one of our recruits, disobeyed direct orders, mishandled the situation entirely, and got myself caught in a trap. I had a vision of Dash falling… and it immediately put me over the top. I disregarded every smidgen of reason. It may have seemed justified in a crisis situation, I understand that orders are meant to keep order, not to hold me down if a life is in danger, but I still have to approach those kinds of things with a level head… and I didn’t. In short, I have a irrationally strong tendency to be a white knight in shining armor, but I rarely get a chance to use it when it’s actually necessary… in times of conflict it gets me into danger, and in times of peace it makes me do a lot of stupid things.”

“That’s for sure,” Spitfire chimed in again.

“Oh, shut it…” Soarin chuckled.

Both of them quickly glanced at Fleetfoot as she smiled and giggled softly. It was the first positive reaction they had gotten out of her so far. Every little victory mattered.

“Oh,” Soarin perked up as he focused on Fleetfoot. “And in a way, I can relate to you a little here, Fleet.” His words caught her interest. Fleetfoot stopped giggling, her eyes and ears focusing on him as he went on. “Because I also have a fear of not being strong enough. I know that sounds funny, considering I’m the strongest Wonderbolt or at least among the current Wonderbolts. But it really is something that worries me. I love to lift weights and all, but I'd be lying if I said I didn’t have more than one reason. It links right into everything I just mentioned. I’m protective, I have the desire to protect everypony, but what if I’m not strong enough to? I refuse to let that happen.”

“You’re also afraid of being the skinny rail you used to be,” Spitfire butted in again.

“Alright…” Soarin shot her a flat, yet humorous look. “I shut my mouth when you were talking…”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” Spitfire chuckled while flashing a wise-cracking grin, Dash holding a hoof over her mouth, muffling laughter. Fleetfoot was smiling again as well, wearing a look that suggested she was definitely happier and enjoying being surrounded by her friends.

“Wait a sec…” Dash put her hooves out in front of her and turned towards Soarin. “You? SKINNY?!” she asked as she looked his body up and down.

“Yes, but as you can see…” Soarin cocked an eyebrow and a confident grin. “Ten years in the gym has done me wonders, if I do say so myself,” he said in a forced sexual tone while flexing his chest muscles and making them bounce up and down.

“Oh god, kill me…” Spitfire made gagging noises as Fleetfoot erupted in giggles, leaning herself into Spitfire as Soarin did a few more poses to ham it up.

As the silliness and giggling died down… Spitfire and Soarin turned to Dash, Fleetfoot doing the same as her laughter finally ceased.

Dash glanced between all of them, blinking as she realized they were expecting her to go next. Despite knowing it was likely coming her way, she felt a little embarrassed and anxious. She wasn’t sure she wanted to reveal a certain fear to… well… her boss that had expectations under it, but this was for Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot needed full confirmation that there was nothing wrong with her. Dash glanced up at the ceiling.

“Oh, my turn, huh?” she asked smarmily, keeping the casual mood going. Soarin slowly leaned towards her.

“You bet you colorful butt you’re not getting out of this,” he said with a smirk as he poked her shoulder.

“I know you LOVE this colorful butt!” Dash fired back as she hopped up turned around and wiggled her plot at Soarin, bopping him back and forth across the face with her tail.

Fleetfoot got lost in a fit of giggles again, and that exactly what Dash wanted, but Spitfire turned a slight shade of red and puffed her cheeks out.

“Okay, okay, c’mon Dash,” Spitfire rotated her free hoof. “Hurry up and embarrass yourself before Mr. Leap-Before-He-Looks over here gets any ideas with his pelvis.”

“I bet she’d like tha—AH! HAHA! STOP!!” Soarin yelped as Dash suddenly grabbed his sides and roughly rubbed her hooves up and down them. Soarin pulled away, throwing a hoof over his mouth before staring wide eyed at Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

“The hell was that?” Spitfire asked while lifting an eyebrow.

“NOTHI—”

“He’s absurdly ticklish,” Dash cut him off, Soarin throwing his hooves up and clamping his mouth shut as he forced air out between his teeth and lips.

“Dammit Dash, you’ve doomed me for life!” he yelled comically.

“Alright, alright,” Spitfire laughed while snickering to herself. “I guess we’re learning all your secret’s Soarin, but you…” Spitfire pointed at Dash. “Out with it,” she ordered, while pointing at the subtly smiling Fleetfoot.

“Ah, right…” Dash cleared her throat as Soarin hunched over and hugged his legs while comically pouting and glaring at her.

Dash focused all of her attention on Fleetfoot and opened up just like the others had.

“Well… there’s nothing I’m more afraid of than disappointing others,” she began. “I have performance anxiety, MAJOR performance anxiety. Anytime I’m being held to expectations or am about to do something in front of an audience, large crowd, or whatever, I get really nervous to the point of shaking.” She motioned towards Fleetfoot. “You weren’t there, but I know Soarin and Spitfire remember,” she glanced at the other two. “Remember when you two and Misty Fly showed up for the flying competition in Cloudsdale?” She paused and smiled weakly. “You know… the one where my friend Rarity wore enough makeup to suffocate a full grown dragon and caused some trouble with her magic butterfly wings.” The moment she brought up Rarity alongside a flight competition, both Soarin and Spitfire winced hard.

“Oh god… that…” Spitfire smacked a hoof against her face and groaned.

“Yeah,” Soarin gritted his teeth, his eyelids twitching. “That was embarrassing. For being a pampered beauty queen she sure throws a mean right hook…” Soarin shook his head out, recalling how Rarity’s flailing hooves somehow clocked and dazed three of the toughest pegasi in Equestria. Surely that wasn’t good advertising.

“Yeah, that…” Dash nodded. “I still don’t know how I managed to both catch and carry all four of you…, it must’ve been the momentum… or I was geeking out so hard at you three that I forgot how heavy Soarin was.”

“Okay, now you guys are just trying to—”

“ANYWAY,” Dash continued as she cut off Soarin, reached a wing up, and batted him playfully in the face. “I was so nervous to go out and perform, especially in front of you guys, that I went as far as swapping numbers with the other competitors until I had the last number on my flank. I was super nervous before our show in Cloudsdale recently too, even though I was just doing an introductory fly-by with my squad. I guess a real big part of it is how much I want others to be proud of me. I always want to make you guys proud, make my friends proud, make my family proud… This is kind of like you, Spitfire,” Dash motioned towards her. “I’m afraid of screwing up and ruining my chance to show everypony what I can do,” Dash blinked and her ears tilted down slightly as she looked towards the floor. “Honestly, I never put this much thought into it, but I’ve recognized this and a lot of other things about myself because of Silver Lining. And believe me, after what I’ve been through with him, I think I was more eager to make him proud than any other pony. I think I’d probably fly five hundred laps around the Nimbus if it meant Silver would just pat me on the head and tell me ‘good job.’”

“I’m actually a little surprised,” Spitfire spoke up, drawing attention to her. “I mean, you…” she pointed at Dash, “Performance anxiety…” she glanced at Soarin and Fleetfoot. Soarin seemed to already know, he wasn’t reacting at all, but Fleetfoot looked just as curious as her. “You’re the last pony I’d expect to be nervous when showing off.”

“Heh… yeah, that’s why I keep it to myself,” Dash admitted. “I’ve got the image to keep up, y’know?” she said while running a hoof through her mane. Spitfire and Fleetfoot both chuckled, but Soarin tipped towards her with a mischievous look on his face.

“She’s a tough talker… She’s got the spunk where it counts, but…” Soarin bounced his eyebrows. Dash glanced towards him with a skeptical look, waiting for what she assumed would be something she could punch him for. “You’ve barely seen half of her, she’s got a softer, calmer side too… and a side that melts when I—”

“Go any further,” Dash quickly cut him off. “I’ll break off your horn… You know the one I’m talking about.”

“Then how would I give it to you?” Soarin shot right back, making Dash turn red. Fleetfoot snickered off to the side as Soarin kept leaning closer to Dash, turning his head to press his cheek to her nose. “HMMMM?”

“Soarin… choice of words,” Spitfire cut in. “Unless you want me to wonder how that ‘spunk’ got in her in the first place.”

“OH GOD!” Dash flinched and fell backwards. Fleetfoot burst out laughing, pressing herself into Spitfire’s side as she and Soarin watched and exchanged winks. As soon as Dash sprung back up and saw Fleetfoot giggling heartily, she let the comment go, this was all for Fleetfoot’s benefit and it was working. Laughing with friends was proving to be just what the doctor ordered.

But as they watched, Dash was suddenly struck with a thought… While she really wasn’t sure about revealing her fear of lighting to Spitfire, it was a fear that was exploited by Nightshade… much like how Fleetfoot had her fears exploited, at least in a way. How things played out were different, and while Fleetfoot was hit with temptation and Dash was simply tortured, they were both emotionally manipulated. So, she felt bringing it up would help a lot. Fleetfoot needed this a lot more than Dash needed a little secret.

“Actually,” Dash spoke up, drawing all eyes to her again. “There’s something else I’m afraid of. Deathly afraid of actually. And Fleet? You weren’t alone out there,” Dash explained, easily drawing intense curiosity from Fleetfoot. “After you got knocked out, Nightshade turned on me and exploited one of my worst fears. It’s more of a phobia, but still, she shifted from you to me and manipulated me as well.”

Dash paused, looked between all of them, and took a deep breath.

“I’m deathly afraid of lightning,” she admitted straight out.

Soarin didn’t react, but he knew already. Spitfire and Fleetfoot just stared in surprise, but… it wasn’t the kind of surprise Dash was expecting. She was expecting shock, but instead they looked confused. Then Dash caught on and quickly shook her head.

“No, no, not Lightning Streak. Like, ACTUAL lightning,” she explained.

“Ohhhhhhh…” Spitfire blinked and tipped her head to the side. “I was gonna say…”

Fleetfoot remained quiet, but Dash winced as she saw Spitfire narrow her eyes and examine her carefully. Dash knew this was coming.

“You’re afraid of lightning…” Spitfire repeated, but it wasn’t a question, it was more… strict? No not strict, Dash was turning it into that. It was more curious than anything. Spitfire turned and looked at Soarin, who gave a light nod.

“She’s told me,” Soarin put simply. Spitfire tipped her head back and forth while lifting her brow.

“Should’ve figured that…” she said as she returned her eyes to Dash, giving her a look that fell just short of demanding an explanation. Dash cringed as she received the look. Again, it wasn’t her first choice to reveal to her boss that she was afraid of something she’s regularly expected to handle, but it wasn’t like Spitfire would suddenly kick her out of the Wonderbolts or anything. So instead of fretting over it, Dash went right to explaining herself.

“It’s not something I’ve had forever, it’s very recent,” she began. “It happened back in Ponyville, when I first got to really spend time with you guys and when we first encountered the Shadowbolts.” She motioned to Spitfire. “After you saved me from Nightshade, I went after Descent and Soarin while they were grappling above us. Soarin had just pumped Descent full of lightning, but he was so far gone in rage that he pushed back against it, forcing the two to struggle while the powerful ribbons of electricity danced and surged through them. I rammed Descent from the side at full speed and sent both of us spiraling into the densely packed storm clouds they were saving up in the middle of the tornado to release over Ponyville. When we collided with the clouds, the lightning surging between us intensified and combined with the lightning stored in the clouds. The force of the energy was so intense that it pulled both of us in, I couldn’t get away. I wasn’t caught dead center like Descent was, but I was really close when the lightning exploded and shot in every direction. It gave me the strongest, most painful instant shock I have ever felt in my life and it knocked me out cold in an instant. I honestly don’t know how I survived it… or managed to come to so quickly. It had a lasting effect as well, I was jittering at random for weeks after you guys left. Since then I’ve had some… difficulty handling it, and get very nervous around it.”

Dash glanced up to see Spitfire’s expression had lightened post-explanation. Not that it was that bad to begin with, it was mostly in Dash’s head.

“Silver has been trying his best to shake me out of the fear,” she continued. “He’s been putting me through some basics and crash courses, starting from the ground up to get me back. He was apparently afraid of fire for a while after he got his burn scar, but eventually retrained himself, so I know it’s possible. It’s a work in progress, but I’m probably going to have to continue it on my own once I get the chance.” She couldn’t say the last part without feeling a little sad. She had gotten so used to training with Silver that training without him seemed unheard of.

Dash refocused on Fleetfoot, ready to connect the story.

“And… Nightshade easily pulled that fear from my head just like she pulled yours from you,” she explained. “She held me down and taunted me, using her magic to conjure each of the other three elements while acting like she was doing it by accident. The moment I caught on, I went from resisting her with all my strength to screaming and shouting in utter terror. I kicked, I struggled, but I couldn’t get free as she conjured the lightning and started… moving it closer to me. I was sweating, shaking, and gasping for air. Then she pushed her hoof over me and let the lightning surge through me. I had been reduced to a small, frightened animal. I wasn’t thinking at all about the situation. The only thing I thought about was how can I get away from it. Nightshade must’ve sensed my emotions because she reached down, picked me up, and hugged me tight to her body, turning up the energy and voltage so the shocks were stronger, more painful… she held me there and made me experience a nightmare while wide awake. Nightshade and lightning, the two things that I had come to fear in the recent past were now both upon me and I had no escape. And then to put the icing on the cake…” Dash pointed to her shoulder, covered in bandages. “Then she bit me… really hard. Mixed with the agenizing shocks from the lightning, it all hurt so much that my voice cracked and went silent even though I was still exhaling as hard as I could.”

Dash shivered as she recounted the story… again. It was quite a bit different from Fleetfoot’s but the concept was the same, Nightshade manipulating them, their fears, and their emotions. And if Fleetfoot’s face was any indication, the story had an impact. She looked both shocked and worried, showing focus away from what she was dealing with. Spitfire looked less shocked, but there was a visible cringe in her expression: Sympathy. Good, Dash was glad Spitfire was not viewing this from a captain’s standpoint. She kind of just revealed how she was greatly exploited by their enemy, but maybe there was a little more to it. Dash wasn’t the only one who got exploited after all, several of the Wonderbolts had been, to varying degrees.

Dash glanced at Soarin to see him giving her a weak smile, one that she quickly returned. He didn’t need to say anything, because she already felt it herself. Just the night before she was a complete wreck over what Nightshade had done to her, but here? She faced it head on and willingly to help out Fleetfoot.

“I can feel for you a bit here too, Fleet,” Spitfire chimed in while pulling Fleetfoot in closer and smushing her cheek to her shoulder. Fleetfoot blinked and shifted her eyes up to the warm smile Spitfire was aiming toward her. “Remember when Lightning Dust manipulated me with the magic? When Rapidfire defected.” Spitfire paused as Fleetfoot gave her a weak nod, her wet eyes wide and focused on Spitfire. “I was dealing with many deep emotions that I was trying to keep from everyone else, my feelings of loneliness and stress that were piling on top of one another. She used the magic on me and cracked them wide open, turning them against me and amplifying them until I became lost in uncontrollable rage against a pony I would never wish harm upon…” she slowly looked up at Soarin, her ears flopping down as she recounted how twisted and awful the experience was.

Soarin remembered it clearly as well… He would never forget the chilling moment when Spitfire pleaded for him to kill her and free her from the agony.

“It wasn’t through Nightshade… but I’ve felt the horrible effects of the magic just like you have,” she rubbed Fleetfoot’s shoulder gently with her wing, feeling the slight twitching and spasms that still coursed through her body. “So you’re definitely not alone here, just as Dash says. But you don’t have to hide behind us either. Everypony, every Wonderbolt is here for you, and don’t you ever forget it, alright?” Spitfire ended, her eyes looking a little misty themselves as she smiled down at Fleetfoot, and it was for a good reason.

Fleetfoot’s lip was quivering. She looked like she was about to burst into tears again as her sniffling returned, but it was different this time. While her face didn’t show it, her eyes certainly did.

Joy, relief, and comfort.

As her eyes let loose, she pushed her whole body against Spitfire, reaching her arms around and hugging her old friend as tightly as she could. She pushed her face into Spitfire’s side, turning her head and glancing at Soarin and Dash as the two smiled at her as well.

Fleetfoot sniffled loudly and swallowed as she closed her eyes tightly, several tears squeezing right through her eyelids as she held onto Spitfire like her life depended on it.

“You… guys… I…” she sputtered, barely able to get any words out as she hiccupped and blubbered through it. “I… thank you…” she managed to say, Spitfire exhaling in surprise as Fleetfoot squeezed her waist even harder. “For everything… I’m… I love you all…” she went on as she continued to let it all out.

Ignoring the intense pressure around her body from the vice grip Fleetfoot was applying, Spitfire reached a hoof up and gently rubbed the back of Fleetfoot’s head.

Soarin and Dash both scooted in to sit close and surround Fleetfoot with those she could count on.

The journey had been long, and the ponies had been pushed to the brink several times… but they refused to break. And if one of them cracked, the others would come in to patch it up. That went for every single one of them.

Now, on the verge of reaching their destination… all they needed was one final push before they could finally breath a much needed sigh of relief, and everypony was going to get there, no matter what.

“Fleet, are you hungry?” Spitfire ask as she rested her chin atop Fleetfoot’s head.

“Y…yes…” Fleetfoot immediately replied with a nod.

“We brought food,” Spitfire made a quick hoof motion to Soarin. Soarin was up and moving before she even finished the point.

“I’m… very hungry…” Fleetfoot admitted as Soarin quickly re-entered after grabbing the ration box from outside. He sat it down and slid it across the floor all the way over to Spitfire.

“Go ahead,” Spitfire released Fleetfoot, but not vice versa as Spitfire opened the box and moved it up to her. “We have the whole day to ourselves, we’ll stay here as long as you want.”

But for now? They could use a quick break. And Fleetfoot was about to chow down on their sub-par rations like it was fine cuisine. But it’s always nice to eat in the company of friends.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Poor Fleetfoot... It's when you grow up wanting to be just like a certain idol of yours, only to end up nothing like them. I know that feeling well. Not everyone is created equal when it comes to physical appearance, natural strength and stature, but it doesn't make you any less of a person (pony). Everyone has things that bother them and things they keep bottled up, but real friends will always be there for you regardless.

Fleetfoot has troubles, but so do Soarin, Spitfire, and Dash. And they were willing to put their own problems into perspective to help Fleetfoot see that she's not alone when it comes to personal inner battles.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

GOD, LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE BADASS FILLY!

Chapter 138: Screw It

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 138: Screw It

Soarin slept soundly. Something he had not been able to do for a long time. So soundly, in fact, that he had once more drifted into the ‘realm’ within his head without even realizing it. But even there, he slept despite the bright yellow image of the mare sitting to his right and staring down at him.

A very faint image of Rainbow Dash was snuggled up against his body, sleeping with her head resting on his chest as he lay on his back with his hooves up dangling in the air like a kitten rolled over on its back. It looked goofy, but based on what the mare was seeing, she could tell Soarin was feeling quite good about the position he was in, no doubt feeling very relaxed and warm while sleeping soundly beside the mare he loved.

The mare smiled, unable to take her eyes away from the two as they continued to stir slightly, and somehow managed to smush themselves closer together with every motion. The mare giggled softly to herself, unable to deny how ridiculously cute the sight was to her.

But as she stared at the two for longer, she found that the effect wore off quickly, instead her mind turning to something else. It was directly related to what she was looking at.

She slowly glanced over her shoulder, her eyes landing on the blue stallion sitting several paces away with his back turned to her. She glanced between the sleeping couple and the blue, glowing silhouette several times.

She sighed heavily, facing the sleeping couple once more, determining that it wasn’t even worth thinking about. He made it clear he wasn’t going to turn arou—

“Ah!” the mare suddenly gasped as her neck straightened out and stiffened. Her yellow aura surrounding her suddenly grew brighter. She shut her eyes and forced her chin down, grunting, groaning, and stirring as she quickly raised a hoof to her head.

She continued to shake, hunching herself over until she suddenly whipped her head back, her eyes opening as bright shining yellow lights shot forth from them. It lasted for about ten seconds before the light instantly dissipated. She lurched forwards, barely catching herself with her hooves in time before crashing right into Soarin and Rainbow Dash. She gasped and panted heavily as her eyes remained stuck open wider, both trained directly on the woefully damaged horn upon Soarin’s forehead. She blinked several times as Soarin suddenly stirred uncomfortably, his lips parting to reveal his teeth gritting while painful growls escaped his lips. Small flashes of yellow light squeaked through his closed eyelids, yet he remained asleep. As soon as Dash clutched him a little tighter, his grunting subsided and he relaxed once more.

“Hmph.”

The yellow mare flinched and turned around as the blue stallion suddenly walked up beside her and gave her an intrigued look. He examined her face carefully, taking note of the look in her eyes, the terror in her expression, and it was clear he noticed that she was looking at Soarin’s horn. A small grin began curling on his lips.

“Was that… a premonition?” he asked, his tone sounding sly with growing satisfaction.

“What? I…” The mare’s eyes darted back and forth between him and Soarin. “I…”

“It was, wasn’t it?” the stallion chuckled, his grin growing wider as he too glanced at Soarin’s horn. “It’s going to happen, isn’t it?”

The mare opened her mouth to shout in denial, but her vocal chords failed to produce even a squeak as all the air rushed out in a rough exhale. The stallion laughed, throwing his head back for a moment before smiling wide.

“Ah, your silence is music to my ears!” he taunted as she turned and faced Soarin, but the mare quickly moved in between them, using her superior size to tower over the stallion while also opening her large wings.

“NO!” she yelled down at him, finding her voice. “No… it… it wasn’t that, I…” she sputtered, failing to find any coherent thoughts. The stallion did not falter as she stared down at him. He simply shook his head and scoffed.

“You’re a terrible liar, Celes. There is nopony within the long existence of Equestria that knows you better than I do, not even your little sister. You opened up more to me than even her, you told me that yourself,” he glanced away. “I know how you react when you feel caught or defeated… and right now it’s written all over your face.” The stallion turned and walked around her. She made no effort to shift and block him as he approached Soarin and stared down at the sleeping stallion snuggling with the image of his lover. He scowled and hissed quietly as he looked at Rainbow Dash, her presence still being a major barrier, but if he was reading the mare correctly, it wouldn’t matter in the end. “Hmph…” he grunted as he looked back up at the mare to his left. “Game, set, and match. Now that your convenient godly powers have told me all I need to know, it’s only a matter of time until I have what I seek. And judging by your reaction, I’m willing to bet it’s going to be rather soon.”

“No,” the mare suddenly spoke up, shaking her head.

“Hm? Pardon?” the stallion lifted an eyebrow. The mare turned herself towards him as she continued to shake her head.

“I… I only saw one thing. I did not see how everything ended up,” she explained, forcing a defiant look on her face. The stallion did not look amused, his eyebrow still up as he looked her over carefully.

“And what, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?” he asked, switching eyebrows mid-question.

“It means… that I have hope,” the mare answered.

“Pfff…” the stallion barely held in a laugh. “Hope? What, hope that somehow I'm stopped after the fact? Don’t make me laugh, it’s nothing but a fool’s hope.”

“A fool’s hope is better than no hope,” the mare adamantly held her ground. The stallion flattened his brow and snorted.

“And… if this hope of yours fails? What then?” he pressed, determined to break her resistance.

“Then…” The mare looked down, pausing for several seconds. “I’ll do what I have to do. I’ll do everything in my power to stop you. EVERYTHING.”

“Feh,” the stallion turned his back, whipping both his mane and his tail as he completed the motion. “That’s very easy to say, but I wonder if you will actually go through with it,” he glanced over his shoulder to see the mare simply staring at him, the defiant eyes still in place. “I supposed we’ll just have to wait and see… but I doubt you will,” the stallion cracked a sure smile. “As I just said… nopony knows you better than I.”

The stallion turned himself sideways to her, sitting down and looking up. It was as if he took the position to rub it in, so she could see how smug and sure of himself he looked. The mare glared at him, unable to push any further. There was nothing she could do about his confidence, and she cursed herself for letting him see her experience a premonition, cursing herself further that she made it so obvious towards what it was about.

But it wasn’t like the situation already didn’t feel hopeless. She wondered why she was fighting back in the first place. They had already butted heads more than once and it was clear he wasn’t going to buckle or change his mind.

But… was that really all there was too it? Was there really nothing she could do?

“Is there… really nothing?” she suddenly spoke up again, drawing his attention as she gritted her teeth and stared down at her hooves. “Is there really, absolutely nothing I can say, nothing I can do to convince you?” She abruptly stood up, but kept her eyes down as she walked towards him, shifting her path slightly so she moved past him. “Nothing I can do to make you change your mind?” She looked up and turned her head towards him. The stallion blinked, her eyes had changed completely. They were no longer defiant, they looked… desperate. “Something?” She quickly moved up right in front of him. “ANYTHING?!” She lowered herself down, bowing her head to the ground at his hooves. The stallion blinked in surprise as she took the position of submission. “There must be! I refuse to believe there is nothing!” she started yelling as he looked up at him. “I’ve admitted to my mistakes! I’ve accepted my errors! I know an apology would never make up for it, but… but…” She shut her eyes tight as if she were about to cry. “I… still love you.”

The stallion didn’t move, but he looked down at her with a sharp gaze. His silence seemed to have a chilling effect on the mare.

“PLEASE! PLEASE TELL ME!” she yelled as she reached forwards and grabbed just above his hooves. “PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Am I truly seeing this?” the stallion growled as he glared harshly down at her, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Are you begging? Groveling?”

“Yes….” the mare didn’t hesitate to admit it. “I am.”

“And which one of us is the god here?”

“Stop it!” the mare yelled as her grip on his hooves tightened. “Just… please, don’t do this, please…”

“No,” the stallion abruptly held his ground. “I’ve already told you several times that you can’t sway me. I don’t care if you’re bowing to me and begging… though I admit, your desperation amuses me.”

The mare was about to plead further, but she gasped as the stallion ripped his arms free of her hooves with one solid step backwards. She shook, her hooves remaining in the air as if she was still holding onto him. He glared down at her and bared his teeth.

“It’s about time you learned that your actions have consequences your HIGHNESS. You and the rest of the high and mighty divine beings of Equestria have done nothing but make an ugly mess of things repeatedly. It’s high time Equestria had a god who understands the true struggles of the mortals they look down upon,” he said whilst standing above her and glaring down. Her hooves dropped to the ground and she let her face drop into them. “And this will be the first step towards achieving that goal. Congratulations, I owe it all to you.”

He turned around and started walking without another word, but the mare began to breath heavily, releasing heavy breaths between her teeth for a moment before taking a deep breath and calming herself.

“Please don’t make me do this…” she said as the stallion stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Please don’t make me destroy you… I don’t want to.” She looked up at him with all the determination she could muster… which was very little.

“You don’t want to destroy yourself,” the stallion glanced back at her again. “In the end, that’s what this is really about.” He faced her again… and suddenly moved towards her at a slightly quickened pace. She gasped as he reached a hoof down, grabbed her chin, and forced her to look directly into his harsh glare. “You’ve never understood sacrifice! You’ve never put yourself at risk!” he snarled at her. “How am I supposed to believe you’re willing to destroy yourself if you’ve never so much as put yourself in danger?!”

The mare’s eyes were stuck open wide, the stallion’s grip on her chin tightening as he forced her to look at him.

“Even during the Black Dragon Scourge… what did you do?!” he went on, yelling in her face. “You stood by your banners, wore your spotless, shiny, regal armor, and sent pony after pony to their death! You did not lift a hoof to battle a single dragon until you learned how to seal them away! You and Luna, two sublime, strong, powerful goddesses… standing atop pedestals while your mindless soldiers threw themselves into the flames for you one by one without a second thought! How many lives could have been saved had you two entered the thick of battle?! How many?!” he belted, his hoof almost shaking as he held on tight to her chin. “No… you didn’t risk it, you stood back and watched.”

“I…” the mare tried to reply, but his words were cutting very deep. Too deep.

“All while I charged headlong into battle… side by side with my soldiers, putting my body and life on the line every single day and night with them! Every life lost felt like a piece of me ripped away! Every life that that threw itself in front of me to shield me from a killing blow broke my heart in two! I remember every pony that died beside me… by name and by rank… and made sure they were rightfully recorded and never forgotten!” His grip loosened a little, but he did not pull away. “Did I question your tactics at the time? Of course not. When I laid my eyes upon you all those years ago, I saw what everypony else saw… a goddess. I saw you as a beacon of hope and our savior when you devised the spell to seal away the endless numbers of the black dragons for good…” He pulled her slightly closer, their noses almost touching as he snarled at her. “But after everything we’ve been through up to this point… I’ve had plenty of time to look back at it all and see you for what you really are.” He exhaled his face softening slightly. “Our love… was pure and true. That I will never deny, but…” His face instantly hardened again. “I have little sympathy for you and your pathetic begging. The shadows cast by what you left behind have finally caught up to you.”

The mare was frozen, unable to say anything or make any noise aside from a lame whimper that escaped her throat as the stallion let go of her. Her head landed in her hooves, staring forward at nothing. The stallion looked down upon her with sharp eyes as he exhaled through his nostrils.

“For an all seeing goddess, you’re naivety is truly stunning. You are unwilling to take the toughest steps and make the hardest decisions. The kinds of things that mortal ponies must do every day of their lives.” He turned around. “And that… is why I’m more than certain that you will do nothing to stop me… and I will get exactly what I seek.”

No more was said.

The stallion left her behind, walking back to where he sat before the entire exchange began. He reached his spot and sat down with his back turned to her.

The mare remained still, staring towards him, but with defeated eyes that had no real direction. With her strength failing her and her confidence shattered. She slowly glanced towards Soarin, still sleeping soundly with a smile on his face.

She could only hope that her confidence in Soarin would not be misplaced.

“Hmmm…” Soarin hummed softly to himself as he slowly awoke from his slumber. His eyelids parted slowly, but remained half open for only a second or so before closing again. He was awake, but way too comfy to even think about moving or getting up. It may have only been a nap, but this was the kind of relaxation he sorely needed and he wasn’t going to let his down time go to waste.

His eyes slowly opened again, not because he was reconsidering getting up or moving, but because he wanted to get a brief look at who was attached to his side.

Rainbow Dash was sound asleep against him, her head sideways with her cheek smushed upon his chest. She clung to him softly, her ears twitching and her lips slightly parted as she breathed steadily. She looked even comfier than he did.

Soarin just kept staring at her for a few moments, both the sight and the feeling of Dash nestled against him made him feel both very happy and relaxed.

After hanging out for a little while longer with Spitfire and Fleetfoot, Spitfire decided she wanted some time for one on one girl talk with her. Feeling pretty satisfied about the situation, Soarin and Dash had retreated to Soarin’s room for some alone time of their own. However, instead of what one might expect the two to do with lots of free time alone, the moment they got there, the two crashed onto Soarin’s bed and drifted to sleep, snuggling in the center of Soarin’s large mattress. Dash was out within seconds of nestling herself into Soarin’s body, and Soarin was a-ok with that, following shortly after. With all the crap they had been fighting through, their chances to simply spend time with each other like a normal couple would was very few and far between.

Soarin blinked as Dash suddenly stirred, released a high-pitched sigh while arching her back and straightening her arms. She nestled herself into him even more, taking a very satisfied, squeaky deep breath and exhaling as she rubbed her cheek into his chest.

Soarin thought his heart was going to explode.

“God, that was adorable…” he said quietly as the urge to give her an affectionate squeeze immediately overpowered him.

“Mrf…” Dash made a muffled noise as Soarin tipped himself to the side and hugged her tightly. “Erk… ow… ow… Soarin…” she grunted quietly as her eyes slowly fluttered open. “Hurt… hurt…” she said with little effort or gusto as if she was more concerned with remaining in the position.

“Deal with it,” Soarin replied defiantly as she grumble mumbled into his chest. “It’s what you get for making cute noises and being huggable.”

“I don’t make cute noises,” she claimed as she closed her eyes and turned, nestling her nose into his fur. Soarin lightened his grip, but was determined to win this debate.

“Yes you do—OW!” Soarin yelped suddenly as he felt a nip right below his chest. “Did you just bite me?”

“No.”

“Liar,” Soarin chuckled as he poked his nose against the top of her head and nibbled on one of her ears. Dash giggled and began poking him continuously in the side. “Oo! Ah! Hehehastaaaaaaahp!” Soarin snickered as Dash hit his ticklish spots. “I don’t want to hit you by accident!” he pleaded as she kept it up, forcing him to roll away from her and onto his back while grabbing his sides.

Before he could do anything else, Dash suddenly shifted over and pulled herself up, and flopping her body onto his and lying flat, chest to chest.

Soarin blinked as he glanced down, looking directly into a pair of sly eyes and a smug grin.

“What?” he asked with a bit of sarcasm, knowing the look she was giving him quite well.

“Oh… nothing,” she said as she paused to release a long, squeaky yawn. “Just getting comfortable…” she propped up her head with one hoof, tipping it to the side while the other hoof began gently tracing the outline of Soarin’s chest muscles with soft stroking motions. “Just enjoying my free time…”

“And enjoying the view?” Soarin bounced his eyebrows while grinning.

“The view’s okay, I guess… Could use some work…” Dash smirked as Soarin’s ears flopped down and pouted. She giggled, reaching a hoof forward and poking his nose roughly, causing Soarin to shut his eyes as his nose scrunched. “Nice try with that look, you know I’m joking.” She pulled her hoof back, but edged her face closer to him. “I wouldn’t just let any old average looking stallion THIS close to perfection,” she craftily talked herself up while waving a hoof in front of her face. Soarin snorted, his cheeks puffing out as he held in laughter.

“I guess I should be grateful then,” he said with a very sarcastic tone that made Dash chuckle as she dropped her head to his chest and rubbed the side of her face into his chest fluff. The two giggled it up for a few seconds before both taking deep breaths and breathing out. Dash kept her head touched to his chest as she tilted her chin up to get a view of Soarin’s face again.

“It’s been so long since we’ve done this… Just relaxed…” she spoke up as Soarin slowly reached his arms around her and held her gently.

“I know, right?” he agreed, making the effort to be extra gentle with his hooves right near her patched up shoulder.

“I don’t even care if we’re about to fly headlong into danger again, I needed this…” Dash explained as she turned her head over to rest the other cheek on Soarin’s chest.

But she only stayed there for a moment before she picked her head up and shifted backwards. Soarin let go of her as she made the move until she was at a comfortable position to look right at him again.

But…

She had moved just a LITTLE bit further back than she was before. And Soarin found himself subtly twitching and shuddering.

Dash was already more or less straddling his body, so it may not have been intentional. But her inner thighs were suddenly awfully close to the jackhammer. He definitely wasn’t relaxing anymore.

“I can’t wait to get to the Crystal Empire,” Dash went on, seemingly unaware what her current position was doing to Soarin. She stated it confidently in what appeared to be an effort to show her faith in their chances to him, but… Soarin was having a very hard time listening, his eyes darting between hers and down at her body as she spoke. “I’m hoping it’s finally a place we can call a safe haven. We need some real time off without having to check over our shoulders, and we have a lot of this to catch up on,” she said as she sighed happily and reached her arms down around him, hugging herself tightly to his body while closing her eyes and resting her head against his chest. But the moment her head was down, she felt his muscles tensing and his body shivering, in fact, his whole body was shuddering from the chest down. She opened her eyes and lifted an eyebrow as she glanced towards him. Soarin was looking directly at her, his eyelids twitching as he bit down hard on his lower lip.

Dash blinked, as she stared blankly for a moment, but quickly changed to a snarky look.

“What’s that look for?” she asked for the hell of it. She could tell what was on Soarin’s mind, but she asked it anyway. Soarin grunted and let his head fall backwards against his pillow for a moment before taking a deep breath that made both his chest and Dash rise up before he exhaled and quickly looked back to her.

“Gee, I dunno…” he began with heavy breaths in between words. “It might have something to do with how close your fun hatch is to the flagpole…”

“Huh?” Dash glanced over her shoulder to see Soarin’s pelvis shuddering and one of his back legs kicking. She snickered as she turned back around and gave him the most seductive bedroom eyes. “Wowee, Soarin, I wasn’t even trying.”

“Like you even… have… to… try…” Soarin continued to grunt, putting unnecessary emphasis on each word. He looked like he was seconds away from pouncing on her and she was eating it up. More amused by the sight than she felt she should be, she decided to push her luck and tease him a little more. While keeping a wide grin plastered to her face she edged her thighs a little closer to his pelvis. Soarin instant released a sharp gasp, a low-pitched nicker escaping his throat as he reached forward and grabbed her arms as he arched his neck back. She flinched in surprise, but chuckled as she felt Soarin’s incredibly strong grip. “DASH!” he yelled, his voice rising several octaves as he took deep breaths. “Don’t tempt me… I will pin you to this bed!”

In all honestly, Dash was surprised he hadn’t already, but it was probably the smart thing to do, considering they were supposed to be resting and not… well, wearing themselves out. But she just couldn’t resist the urge to tease him, she was evil like that.

“Sheesh,” she giggled as she glanced down at his shaking hooves gripping her arms. She was glad he decided to grab there and not her shoulders… because that would have been painful. “You must be really pent up.”

“You’re damn right I am,” he admitted instantly as he tipped his head back down to look at her while gritting his teeth. “After all the crap we’ve been going through? I think we’ve redefined and eternally inflated the definition of ‘stress’ in the workplace.” His comically wordy explanation was filled with sharp breaths and his grip tightening and loosening in a steady pattern on her arms.

“That’s putting it lightly,” Dash agreed, rolling her eyes with a brief upward exhale that made the bangs of her mane bounce. But she quickly returned her focus to Soarin. They locked eyes, and Soarin began subtly shaking his head as Dash slowly narrowed her eyelids into a seductive stare while licking her upper lip.

“Dash… as much as I want to, we’re—”

She didn’t let him finish. She inched her body a little to the side, turning as well so she could really exaggerate the curve of her back. She placed her hoof on the side of her chest and slowly moved her hoof down her body, over her waist, and onto her plot before moving it down towards Soarin’s body and touched a spot just below his stomach.

The instant her hoof made contact with his body, he stopped shaking, shuddering, and gritting his teeth. He simply flattened his brow and glared at her.

“Fuck it.”

“YeeeEEEE!” Dash suddenly shrieked, giggling as Soarin immediately rolled forwards and toppled Dash over onto her back. “Oof!” she grunted as her back hit the mattress, cringing lightly but only momentarily as she felt a soft tingle of pain in her shoulder and other injured parts of her body. But she played along, immediately sliding her arms behind her head. She looked up seductively as Soarin slammed his hooves down to the bed on both sides of her, lowering his body down but stopping just short of touching her. “Hey, hey…” Dash cooed, winking at him. “Careful there, I’m a little beat up, remember?”

“You have no one to blame for this but yourself,” Soarin shot right back, his nostrils flaring as he exhaled sharply through them. He let his body fall lightly against hers, both of their bodies erupting in jittery tingles as the passion grew. Soarin pressed his hooves down to the mattress, lifting the front of his body up to let his lower body press down a little harder on hers. Dash bit her lip, knowing that he was probably teasing her now. She reached a hoof towards him as he displayed his powerful chest muscles before her, touching a hoof firmly to them and shivering while biting her lower lip hard.

“Wow…” Dash said quietly as she felt her heart flutter with delight, sending shivers of pleasure through her body. “You really want it, don’t you?”

“Kind of,” Soarin replied simply with a smirk while holding the dominant position.

“KIND OF?!” Dash erupted in giggles, as Soarin lowered his body back down and rubbed his nose against her cheek. “Ow… oh… ah…” Dash grimaced subtly as Soarin’s weight pressed down on top of her. He didn’t flat out flop down and was mostly still supporting himself, but her body was very tender at the moment due to her injuries. She turned her head to face Soarin, locking eyes with him. He had a look of pure lust in his eyes. She bit her lip and inhaled quietly, her breath hissing as the look sent a few shockwaves of pleasure through her.

She had really charged him up with little effort… and now she was starting to feel the mood herself. They were already both in a pretty good mood after how well everything turned out with Fleetfoot, and they were enjoying a break from all the fighting… so it was really only a matter of time before this happened. If they really wanted to get some quality rest, they wouldn’t have spent time together to prevent the temptation. But why the hell would they do that?

“Eee!” Dash yelped again as Soarin suddenly reached down and wrapped a hoof around the curve of her back. Soarin didn’t hesitate, increasing the pressure of his body upon hers a little. “Urf…” Dash grunted again. Soarin’s other arm slid around her back, passing by her sensitive wing joints as he slid his chest up her body while reaching his head down and pressed his neck against hers, exhaling loudly as his body shuddered. But then his neck inched down and pressed against Dash’s patched up wound. Dash flinched, but held in any audible response.

Normally, the two of them had a habit of getting a bit… physical when things got hot and spicy, but her body wasn’t in the best condition to handle that. She looked down to see Soarin suddenly prop himself up and shift himself backwards, reaching down to grab her legs. But before he could go for the gold, she quickly reached up both her hooves and pressed them to his chest.

“Whoa there, Bronco…”

“What?” Soarin blinked, giving her a look of impatience. Dash chuckled at his eagerness, giving him a smirk.

“My body is already sore, I just got the shit kicked out of me, remember?” she reminded him. Soarin immediately flattened his brow and scrunched his face.

“Look me in the eyes,” he pointed to his face, letting her leg drop to the bed. “And tell me you don't want it.”

“Who said I didn’t want it, doofus?” she said, adding an extra seductive tone to her voice. Soarin’s face brightened, but he remained still as Dash reached up, grabbed his face, and slowly pulled him back forward and over the top of her until his face was even with hers again, barely inches apart. Soarin let her do all of it, his eyes slowly matched the passion in hers as they came together and their mouths met, their lips parting and locking together.

They both moaned sensually as Soarin reached his hooves up behind her head, both of them running their hooves through each other’s manes as they tilted their heads back and forth, switching from side to side as their tongues began poking out from between their mouths, sliding over each other’s lips and wrestling within. Dash clamped her hooves to the back of his head and pulled herself towards him, her back lifting up from the mattress as she pressed her mouth harder to his.

They both gasped as they released, panting steadily in sync as Dash remained slightly levitated, holding onto him as he kept his body firmly anchored. They stared at one another with lust drunk eyes as Dash smiled and slowly lowered herself back down.

“You bet your ass I want it.” She slid her hooves over his shoulders and slowly down his muscular arms. “Just… be gentle,” she requested, stroking her hooves up and down his arms while giving him the most lustful sex-stare she could muster. “And I feel like you’re a little further ahead… so you better rev me up first until I’m humming just as hard as you,” she demanded while slowly running her tongue over her upper lip.

“Oh? That sounds like a challenge…” Soarin sneered as he leaned down and placed his mouth right beside her left ear. “And I never back down from a challenge… or lose.” His warm breath splashed against Dash’s ear, giving her goosebumps as she shuddered with delight.

“Bring it on,” Dash beckoned with a seductive tone, grabbing him tightly around the neck before he could pull back and forced their faces together once more.

They locked lips again, Soarin leaning into it and forcing Dash’s head to the mattress. Dash released a long, muffled moan of satisfaction as Soarin forced her down, but did so slowly. Her back arched a little and her body tingled as it was gently pressed, the mattress creaking quietly as Soarin weighed her down. He had his whole body against her, but he was being soft, holding himself at the point of contact as his hooves explored her body, running his hooves up and down her, but taking care not to press down over any wounds or bandages. She tingled as his hooves bristled against her fur softly and he pressed lightly to massage areas that he knew were sweet or sensitive places.

Dash continued to moan periodically, mostly muffled due to their lips being stuck together in a battle of sloppy kissing, but a few louder ones escaped every time they parted for air.

“Nnngggghhh…” Dash bit her lip and pressed her hooves hard against his chest as Soarin pulled back and loomed over her. She was pressing with most of her strength but she wasn’t moving him, his position and body too strong for her to budge. She knew he was doing it on purpose, because he knew full well the things about him that really got her going.

Soarin reached down, slipping his hooves behind her back and grasping her gently. He slowly sat up, pulling her up with him. She giggled seductively, going limp in his grip as he hoisted her up, lifting her off the mattress as he sat back on his plot. Dash reached out and clamped her arms and legs around him as he placed her against him. She inhaled sharply as she put her face sideways against his chest and ran her arms up and down his back. She couldn’t even reach her arms fully around the barrel of his chest, his size and his muscles getting in her way.

“Ah! Soarin…” Dash gasped as he gently pressed his hooves above her wing joints and began slowly applying pressure up and down the entirety of the specific pressure points that always made her melt. She shuddered and clasped him tightly, letting out a moan so high pitched it nearly sounded like a squeak.

Wow, it didn’t take him long. She wouldn’t have minded if he went for it right here, but he wasn’t done with her.

“SOARIN!” she nearly yelled his name as he lowered his chin over her head and blew warm breath onto her ears, another spot he often attacked to push her buttons. Soarin grinned as he felt her shudder and twitch against his body, grabbing her earlobe gently in his teeth and nibbling on it while making playful growling noises. Dash started breathing a little harder, pressing her cheek into Soarin’s chest and nuzzling it as Soarin’s two pronged attack on her sweet spots was sending waves of physical glee through her. But the icing on the cake was when he slipped one of his hooves free and gave her plot a subtle squeeze.

Dash pushed off of Soarin, pulling her ear free from his teeth before glaring up at him, not because she was angry… because she was about to attack his face.

She leaned forwards, crashing her lips to his and knocking him over onto his back. The two grunted as Soarin’s back crashed to the mattress, but Dash was on him before he could even take a breath. He pushed her up slightly for a moment to turn his head to the side and take a much-needed breath of air, but the moment he turned back she grabbed his face, turned her head sideways and slid her mouth over his as far as she could, her tongue instantly finding his and tangling with it. She pressed her body down against him as roughly as she could, ignoring any slight pain from her wounds because screw pain, she had a stallion to screw.

Fully convinced that he had satisfied Dash’s request, Soarin quickly got into it himself, grabbing her by the waist and instantly flipping them both around so he was on top. Dash yelped as her back was put to the mattress, but stared right up into Soarin’s lustful eyes, his muscles flexing as he pressed his hooves hard into the mattress on both sides of her. She was loving every second of it, and wanted him… BAD. And he could tell she did, if the look she was giving him was any indication, she was seconds away from jumping on before he could make the dive.

She was already reaching up for him as he lowered himself down on top of her, not changing anything from the way he had done so before, but this time Dash didn’t complain about anything that hurt. She was too busy making out with him to complain and he was too far gone into a primal thought process to remember she was a bit beat up.

The two of them began making slightly involuntary movements as they continued, Dash’s back continuously arching as Soarin kissed her and randomly ran his hooves over her body and into her mane, Soarin flinching and shifting from side to side as Dash clasped the back of his head with a firm grip rooted in his mane.

Soarin’s horn began glowing as the pleasure between the two of them built, the blue and yellow lights swirling around it as they did the last time they pushed themselves like this. The effect on Soarin was drastic and quick, he felt his body go into overdrive, boosted by the magic as it began swirling around his body as well. His muscles twitched and flexed, his breathing became heavy, low growls and nickers escaping his throat as he and Dash continued the intense, fervid, foreplay.

Soarin suddenly pulled back, releasing a subdued, controlled growl that nearly resembled a roar as he pushed himself up, puffing his chest out as he looked down at Dash. Dash wheezed and panted, her now free hooves pressed to her chest and stomach, feeling herself over as she slowly opened her eyes, giving Soarin a seductive look that was free of smirk or smarm, it was a look that simply said ‘I want you.’

She noticed the magic swirling around him, and assumed it would come to her as well like it did before. The thought sent firecrackers off in her head as she recalled the unbelievably pleasurable sensations the phenomenon caused.

“Soarin…” Dash said up to him in a loving, yet very sultry tone as he towered above her with his body locked in a position of strength and dominance. “I’m yours.”

Soarin’s lips parted to reveal and eager, lustful smile, the magic swirling around him glowing brighter. Her invitation was the last push that sent him into over the top. With his body tingling like crazy, he backed up and reached down, grabbing Dash’s legs. She relaxed her body, giving Soarin full control as her heart pounded with anticipation.

She wanted this, and needed this badly.

But suddenly, something didn’t feel right. Her heartbeat grew faster to an uncomfortable degree.

“ARGH!” Soarin suddenly cried out, letting go of her legs and twitching as the light around the horn and his body began to pulsate, the cracks in the horn blinking and shining brightly. “AHHHH!!!!” Soarin grabbed his head and arched his neck back.

“Soarin?!” Dash was instantly filled with panic, a look of shock quickly replacing the one of lust on her face as she propped herself up and cringed. She placed a hoof over her heart to feel it thumping furiously.

“RGH! GRH AH! OW!” Soarin grunted and gasped as he scooted further back and bent down, pressing his face into the mattress as the aura surrounding him blinked and shined faster and brighter. Dash forced herself up, fighting against the tightening feeling in her chest, but before she could reach for Soarin he whipped back up, just barely missing Dash’s face with the sharp end of the horn as his body stiffened upright, his neck fully arched back. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” Soarin screamed as several pulses of magic erupted from the horn, some blue and some yellow. The shockwaves splashed against Dash, nearly knocking her over as beams and spurts of magic began shooting from the cracks in the horn as well as the base.

“SOARIN!” Dash yelled his name in horror as she shielded herself, peeking out between her arms as a few of the magic beams struck her, the rest flailing about and exploding against the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“GRRRRRRHHHHHH!!!!!! NO! ST-STOP IT!” Soarin yelled. “STOP IIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!! STOP!” he kept yelling over and over. “NO! NO! NOOOOOO!”

Dash could barely hold her ground as the pulses and beams of magic grew more intense, knocking her onto her back.

“Oof!” she grunted as she hit the mattress, but quickly propped herself back up while holding an arm out to shield her eyes. Soarin was still upright, but he was screaming and shouting in pain, magic shooting every direction and turning Soarin’s room into a warzone. He was flailing back and forth, cringing and groaning as flashes of blue and yellow squeezed out from between his eyelids and out his gaping mouth while sparks jumped and danced from the base of the horn.

Dash didn’t take another moment to wonder or speculate anything. There was one thing that helped Soarin control the magic more than anything else… that was her. She couldn’t stay down and protect her body from the out of control bursts of magic, she HAD to do something.

She pushed herself back up, a pulse of magic flooring her the moment she was up and a wayward beam striking her right in the gut, but she forced herself forwards, flinging herself right at Soarin. She grunted as more magic hit her, but brushed it all aside as she closed the gap between them quickly and threw her arms around his body, hugging him as tightly as she could right underneath his chest. She immediately felt zaps and shocks of the surging magic, but she held on firmly, refusing to let go.

“I’M HERE, SOARIN! I’M HERE!!!!!” she yelled desperately, setting aside any and all pain for his sake.

But it wasn’t working.

Dash looked up in horror as Soarin continued to struggle. Her proximity was supposed to help him control the magic, why wasn’t it working?!

Dash began to fear the worst, which wasn’t something she did often, but with how little they knew about the nature of Soarin’s magic… and how the only solution she could think of was what she was already trying…

Did they just… make a huge mistake? The warning given to Soarin was to be careful with intense emotions. They had only considered negative emotions… did it count for positive emotions too? But wasn’t it only supposed to make the horn vulnerable? She never touched it just now, or were the emotions so intense that the power poured over?

“RGH!” Soarin’s eyes suddenly shot open, light shooting out of them. He looked down towards Dash nearly blinding her as he looked, but he saw the terrified look in her eyes, he saw the look of hopelessness.

He had to get this under control… He couldn’t let a mishap like THIS take them both down!

Without taking his eyes off of Dash, Soarin reached down and hugged her tightly, returning the tight, desperate embrace she was giving him.

“RGHHHAAAAAAAAA!!!” Soarin yelled as he fought against the pain and the force of the energy pouring out of him. He did everything he could, used every lesson and every trick, skill, or strategy he had been taught by Fancy Pants and Luna to get a firm grasp.

With intense determination and his mare in his arms. He slowly… slowly regained control. The pulses and uncontrollable expulsions of magic ceased, the aura remaining strong and bright, but that too slowly began to calm. Soarin grunted and groaned as the magic receded bit by bit… until it all sucked back into the horn, ending with a loud POOF and a harsh trail of steam rising from its surface.

“AH! Ah…” Soarin cried out as it all finally ended, slumping forward limply. Dash tried to prop him up, but she was in a poor position to do so. Soarin fell forward, pushing her down with him and landing right on top of her. Dash grunted as she hit the mattress, Soarin’s weight smushing her into it, but she slowly shimmied her way out.

“Soarin!” she called to him frantically as he slumped flat to the mattress, panting and wheezing with long, heavy, painful breaths that made his back rise and fall while twitching. “Oh my gosh…” Dash quickly placed herself beside him and lied down, nestling her side into his and nuzzling his cheek. She held a hoof over her chest as her heartbeat remained rough and pressured, but had calmed down considerably compared to moments prior. “Are you okay?” she asked. He clearly wasn’t, but she just wanted a response, she just wanted him to say something.

Soarin didn’t speak for several moments, Dash pressed to his side throughout, but he eventually released a long, quiet, but clearly frustrated sigh.

“You’ve… got…” he spoke in a raspy tone, prompting Dash to remove her face from his so she could see him. “To be… kidding me…” Soarin growled quietly as his eyes squeaked open and looked hazy as if he was devoid of energy or hadn’t slept in days. He gritted his teeth and gripped the mattress. “Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!” he growled louder, but immediately flinched as small sparks jumped from the horn again. “Ah…” His chin plopped back down to the mattress and he sighed.

“Soarin, take it easy…” Dash urged him, not sure what else to say aside from slight guidance. Soarin shook his head subtly.

“So this is what it’s come to… huh?” he spoke, his breath calming down enough for him to get through full sentences without pauses. “Keep my emotions in check… don’t let them get out of control… it goes fucking both ways?” he shut his eyes and groaned. “I’ve put up with the headaches, I’ve put up with near heart attacks, I’ve put up with uncontrollable power spikes, blackouts, and all the other crap that this stupid relic and the damn magic has put me through…” Soarin started growling again. “But now…” he slowly turned his head to look at Dash. “Now I can’t even…” he paused, his eyes squinting into a frustrated glare as Dash continued to looking him over with concern. “This god damned horn is so far gone that I can’t even MAKE LOVE to you without putting us at risk?! That’s…” he slammed his eyes shut. “That’s the last straw, I can’t take this, I…” He ripped his hooves free of the mattress and slammed them down multiple times. “RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” He roared out, the horn flaring up again and sparks bouncing from it.

“Soarin! Stop!” Dash yelled as she grabbed his arm and forced him back to the mattress. The magic died down as he breathed heavily, but he did not resist, remaining in Dash’s grip.

Dash didn’t know what to do. It was frustrating for her too, but… she couldn’t imagine how hard it was on Soarin. She had been side by side with him from the start and witnessed first-hoof all the very inconvenient or woefully annoying issues he’d been putting up with. This was the thick, stale icing on the moldy cake. It had gotten so bad that Soarin’s own emotions put him in danger… and it prevented them from making love.

That was crossing way over the line. It was preposterous, unbelievable… but there was nothing they could do about it here and now.

“I’m done… I’ve had it…” Soarin spoke again as Dash held on tightly, squeezing his arm to offer up any physical comfort she could. “Enough is enough… I just want to get rid of this damn thing, I just want to be the pony I was before all of this was forced on me. This damn horn… this damn magic… THIS DAMN—”

“Soarin… just… stop, please,” Dash pleaded as cutting him off as she nestled herself against him. She snuggled up until there was no way she could possibly have more of her touching him. “Forget about the sex… Forget about the magic right now… Just…” she slowly turned her head towards him.

“How CAN I?!” Soarin raised his voice again. “This—!” He immediately stopped as he turned his head and saw how… crushed Dash looked. He stared at her as she turned away and pressed her cheek into his neck.

“Just don’t talk about it… the magic, the horn… Just don’t, please,” her voice was shaky. She wasn’t crying, but she sounded so sad, it was bringing him out of his fits of rage, and that was probably a good thing. He sighed as he looked forward at the wall and shifted a little to snuggle with her. “I just want to be close to you right now,” Dash continued. “Don’t be angry… I don’t want you to hurt yourself…”

And there it was, just as he thought. His emotions just came this close to causing a disaster… so it was better for both of them if he let it go, as much as he didn’t want to. He wanted to say more, to rant more, but Dash was right.

He’d rather focus on her anyway… but wow… talk about a massive buzzkill. So much for all the good stuff that happened earlier that day, this ruined it completely. He reached an arm over Dash and clutched her tightly. It was a little too tight, but Dash didn’t complain. All she wanted was for Soarin to relax and prevent further magic bursts. She’d gladly feel a little bit of pain if holding her tightly made him feel better.

And just like that… Reality wedged itself in between them and set in. All the good vibes that were very much welcomed and enjoyed after a terrifying confrontation with the enemy crashed and burned horribly.

So much focus had been put on the Shadowbolts and fighting their way through to the Crystal Empire, that Soarin’s dilemma had almost disappeared into the background. Everypony was so focused on reaching safety… and extra incentive had been pouring in with Wave, Silver, and their Shadowbolt captives all in urgent need of care.

But what about Soarin?

What about the danger he was in? Aside from Dash, Luna, Discord, and Spitfire, there had been little to no attention on Soarin. His condition was worsening by the day, new issues and new damage to the horn gradually piling up. He was now in a fragile state, barely under control of his power like a bomb ready to go off the moment the horn got nicked or he lost control of himself in any way.

Should they reach the Crystal Empire, what would it mean for Soarin? For both of them? This was as much of an issue for Dash as it was for Soarin, with their lives tied together and their souls connected to help contain the terribly powerful force within him. Was there anything that could be done? Could they finally rid Soarin of the magic, or at least fix the horn? The Crystal Empire had some well-known wizards, not to mention another Alicorn in Princess Cadence.

They wouldn’t know until they got there, but they weren’t going to hold their breath. One thing had become crystal clear throughout the whole experience. When it came to the magic and the horn, good news rarely flowed their way. They could hope, but it was a thin hope, barely enough to hold onto. They’d have to rely on each other, as usual. So with little hope in their grasp, they simply held onto one another for now as they let the mood come down from lust… it’s not like they could do anything with it anyway.

A great moment of passion lost… but perhaps it was for the better, if one could be dismal enough to see any good in what just happened.

Forced to be calm, lying on the mattress together, in a room now covered in small bits of damage from a nearly exploding horn…

It was an all too horrifying reminder of the danger they were still in, a danger much different and separated from the danger they faced from the Shadowbolts.

They would have to stay on their hooves, the journey to the Crystal Empire was going to be a rough one for the two of them.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by NorthernLights8 and Foxenawolf.

Oh im such troll.

No doubt a lot of people who often prod me to write sex again are gonna be coming after me with torches and pitchforks.

But fellas! This is not an M rated fic so you KNEW i was gonna cut it off before it got that far in some shape or form.

But i definitely toed the line hard enough knowing full well i was gonna make some people rage :rainbowlaugh:

now to serious stuff...

Quite the conversation in Soarin's head... and quite the close call with the horn! Soarin's lucky nothing happened right there, they almost couldn't get it back under control!. All too much of a reminder of Soarin's situation that seems to be growing worse and worse by the day as they fight for their lives.

Next chapter is also likely going to be short and the outline is already done, so hopefully the wait won't be too long.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 139: Iron Resolve

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 139: Iron Resolve

“Thanks Bliss,” Spitfire nodded while struggling to not show any signs of pain.

“Oh.” Bliss stopped before turning back towards the east hallways. “And how are you feeling?”

Spitfire quickly acted like she was looking over at something else in the lobby. Luckily, the lobby was already filling up with Wonderbolts and Renegades alike as she ordered. It gave her an excuse to look distracted and buy her a few moments to come up with a believable fib.

“Oh, sorry…” Spitfire feigned… poorly. “I’m doing alright, just a little sore,” she ended with a fake smile that was a little too happy looking. Bliss just lifted an eyebrow.

“Come see me if you need to,” she said professionally as she turned and started back towards the infirmary.

“She totally knows…” Spitfire said to herself as she held herself steady and waited for Bliss to be far enough away. She glanced back and forth to make sure that nopony was directly focused on her before exhaling hard. Her limbs buckled and shook. Her shoulders, chest, and back all twitched as she gritted her teeth and inhaled sharply, her breath hissing as she shuddered.

She had pretty much spent the whole day doing this so far. After taking Fleetfoot down to the infirmary late last night, she visited Wave briefly and then went right to bed to get a long night’s rest. She knew she was going to be sore in the morning, but WOW… she was sore. Half of it was from the blows she took from Nightshade two days ago, but the other half was the overexertion of her body. It had been a long time since she had used her mimicking prowess and every time she used it, it was a friendly reminder of why she didn’t do it often. Even with all the practice and precision she put into changing the abilities to perfect her own versions of them, the fact remained that most of the techniques were designed with the body of the creator in mind as well. Soarin’s accelerations were hard on his larger and stronger body… Silver’s full motion swings were so fine-tuned from so many years of use she could never get it 100% perfect… those were just a couple of examples. She had ways to make the moves her own, but it was still really hard on her body.

So all through the day, from morning all the way till midafternoon, she had been sucking it up. Her muscles were tight, her joints were sore, and every movement took extra effort. But she couldn’t show any of it, especially now. She was about to address the entire force and rally them before takeoff.

Rivet had confirmed they would be ready earlier in the morning, he was on his way now to give her his final report and it was all going as planned. Spitfire had purposely scheduled them to takeoff later in the day, right around sunset. That way, they could effectively surprise the Shadowbolts with the thestrals in their preferred fighting conditions or at least close, they needed to see too.

The clock was ticking, but they were on schedule. It was time to rally the troops and get them focused. She had a message for them, one that would put into perspective what they were up against and how they could most effectively fight it. Add a touch of guidance provided by Silver Lining’s sacrifice and she was sure they’d be raring for a fight.

“Ow…” Spitfire winced and nearly fell over, stumbling slightly to the right before quickly standing up straight and holding her breath.

Now she just had to keep her composure. She couldn’t let them see their captain hurting, especially during a strong rally call. Besides, she didn’t feel like she had any right to show pain, especially with how the rest of the top elites were doing. She didn’t take nearly as much punishment as her top Wonderbolts.

Spitfire blinked and quickly held herself strong and upright as Rivet and Lucky appeared in her peripheral vision. She glanced towards them as if just noticing them and gave the two a solid nod.

“Report,” Spitfire ordered the moment they her. Rivet reached a hoof back and dropped a clip board from his wing into it, bringing it forwards and looking it over as he began.

“I’ve done everything I can. It’s a patchwork job, but she’ll fly. We’re just running test cycles now to keep the inner workings oiled and loose, so just give us the word when ready and we’ll fire up the engine,” he explained. Spitfire gave him a satisfied smile.

“Magnificent. Thank you, Rivet,” she acknowledged with a nod.

“It’s nothing,” Rivet quickly interjected without looking up from his clipboard. “I just wish I had more to work with. Lacking the resources for a full blown repair job is making me cringe,” he grunted and released a frustrated nicker. Spitfire rolled her eyes sarcastically as Rivet dodged her praise.

“Will she fly?” Spitfire asked suddenly. Rivet looked up from the clipboard and lifted an eyebrow.

“I just said that.”

“Will she crash?” Spitfire pressed. Rivet flattened his brow.

“No.”

“Then job well done, Riv—”

“Unless,” Rivet cut off Spitfire while making a slight head motion to Lucky standing behind him. “Slippery Hooves over here decides to be a daredevil and gets us all killed.”

Lucky wasn’t paying full attention, his head was turned towards the east hallway as Princess Luna arrived with a slew of Renegades, but his ears eventually processed what Rivet said.

“What? Hey!” he pouted. “The Nimbus would be in worse shape if I didn’t land us cleanly, thank you very much!” he shot back as Rivet kept a completely straight face.

“Okay, you two…” Spitfire chuckled as she stepped in between them before any more banter could be exchanged. “It’s a job well done,” she repeated. “We owe both of you more than we could ever repay,” she complimented them, immediately turning Lucky’s focus to her.

“Aw shucks…” Lucky smiled sheepishly. “I just—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Rivet cut in, still staring at his clipboard. “I’m just doing my job.”

“Rivet,” Spitfire gave him a comical, flat look. “Shut up, we owe you one.”

“Fine, fine,” Rivet rolled his eyes and turned back towards the west hallway to get back to work.

“Lucky,” Spitfire turned to him. “I’m confident we can rely on you again?”

She waited for a response, but didn’t get one. He was once again not paying attention. She followed his eyes to see he was staring towards Luna, who was standing a few yards away with her side turned to them. Lucky had a silly, dreamy look in his eyes with a light blush on his face and his mouth curled into a goofy grin. Spitfire sighed, reaching forwards and grabbing Lucky by the chin.

“Lucky,” she turned his head to face her again. “Can we rely on you again?” she asked again as he blinked several times in surprise.

“Huh? OH! Yeah, of course!” He pulled back and did a few arm stretches before pounding his chest. “You can count on me! I’ll keep this baby in the air and moving!” he said with zeal. He looked like he was trying to cover up for the fact he was just staring at Princess Luna, but Spitfire let it be, she was holding up a charade right now herself.

“Good,” she said with a nod while placing a hoof on his shoulder. “Let’s meet up again after I speak to the entire force. We need to discuss the flight plan and how you’re going to be coordinating with Luna.”

Lucky’s eyes widened and his mouth opened for a few moments without saying anything. He shook his head out roughly.

“Wait, you said… with… Luna? I’m going to work with Luna?” he asked in a shaky voice while glancing over towards her again and… sweating.

“Lucky…” Spitfire grunted while flattening her brow. “Focus please.”

“Guh?” Lucky blinked as he quickly turned back to Spitfire.

“You can stare at our so very majestic moon goddess all you want after we’ve safely reached the Crystal Empire, okay?” She gave him a few firm taps on the forehead. “I need you to F. O. C. U. S… understand?”

Lucky just stared at her, saying nothing, so Spitfire reluctantly took a different path.

“You wouldn’t want to be responsible for us losing the princess now, would you?” she asked awkwardly, but sold it with a fake sad face often used by Fleetfoot to shame her. Words could not express how embarrassed she was to use it, but Lucky was a civilian, not one of her soldiers. After Fleetfoot’s unconventional persuasion methods worked last time with him, she took the dive and tried her best to follow her example. And it seemed to work.

“Uh, RIGHT!” Lucky swallowed and nodded vigorously. “I mean… YES MA’AM!” he proclaimed with gusto while giving a woefully silly salute that couldn’t have been further from proper Wonderbolt protocol. But as long as he got the job done, Spitfire didn’t care.

“Good, at ease. Remember, we’re meeting later,” she reminded quickly before he could turn and trot away filled with confidence.

Spitfire held herself steady until Lucky had pranced out of earshot.

“Rgh…” she exhaled and bent down slightly again. “Damn…” she took a few breaths and shook her head out. She felt like sitting down. She had plenty of strength to stand, but it was uncomfortable. Despite her body rebelling against her, she remained upright and distracted herself by surveying the slowly growing crowd of ponies entering.

Luna, Descent, and the Renegades had all made their entrance now. They were mostly accounted for. Thestrals were beginning to detach from the ceiling once Luna’s presence was known, one by one floating down. The Renegades and Wonderbolts were mostly clearing the way for them to land… mostly. Those that didn’t were hissed at, but with several figures of authority around, confrontations were not likely.

Spitfire looked over just in time to see Captain P.L. detach and glide down the moment he noticed Luna in the room. He swooped down and landed right beside her… but did so while almost landing right on top of Descent, forcing him to flinch and take a few steps back as the enormous thestral nearly took his head off. P.L. made no effort to look back at Descent as he lowered his head before Luna, making the near miss look completely intentional. Descent growled and looked ready to advance, but Blazetail and Flashwind quickly grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him back.

Well…hopefully the figures of authority would behave themselves too…

There was still no sign of the top Wonderbolt elites. Up until a few minutes ago, only Air Mach was out there with her, determined to be ‘stallionly’ and suck it up while standing by his captain even though he was easily three times more roughed up than her. It was kind of painful to watch too since he wasn’t doing a very good job of ‘standing strong’ so she sent him back to the infirmary to grab the rest of the top elites and Squad Foxtrot. They had all spent most of the day in the infirmary being checked out and getting any treatments Bliss could provide.

As if on cue, Spitfire perked up as she caught sight of Squad Three and what looked like the rest following behind them. She immediately cringed.

They were in terrible shape, she could see it from all the way in the center of the lobby. She had just gotten a rundown from Bliss, but now she was seeing it for herself. Fire and Surprise were out in front, both limping, but doing their best to help Misty Fly, who seemed to have trouble moving without grimacing or gasping. While Misty had, held up better than most Wonderbolts her age over time, she was still thirty-seven and her recovery rate was slower. Of course, it didn’t help that she was apparently engulfed in a nasty explosion from Nightshades magic, at least that’s what Spitfire was told in the report. Lightning Streak, Blaze and, High Winds were following close behind. Lightning looked like he was having an issue with his shoulders, every step shaky and ginger. High Winds was more or less guiding Blaze around. Blaze looked awfully fatigued, likely still not fully recovered from giving blood to Silver. High Winds was giving her all to help, but she couldn’t hide the fact that one of her strong wings couldn’t stay folded. It was half open and continuously twitching. They all paused for a moment after just barely entering the lobby to catch a brief respite.

This wasn’t good at all. Spitfire doubted any of them were in a combat ready condition.

Putting the thought aside for a moment, she glanced further, looking past the top elites as they struggled forth. Matteo and Squall had emerged with both Little Star and Twister following them, but no sign of Dash. She wasn’t exactly looking for squad Foxtrot though, she was looking for Air Mach.

While she had sent him to get the top elites in general, she specifically wanted him to get Fleetfoot out into the lobby. It probably would have been a better idea to let Fleetfoot rest, but she didn’t want her to miss the address to the force. She had requested… actually, more demanded that Air Mach keep his shenanigans to himself after what Fleetfoot had been put through. She even threatened to personally rip his head off if he did anything stupid.

Right as she was thinking about it, Air Mach suddenly emerged from the hall behind the top elites. He held himself upright and firm for a few steps before his legs buckled and he fell face first. He quickly stood, and adjusted his glasses while releasing a single hearty guffaw and proclaiming it was intentional. Spitfire only got halfway through rolling her eyes before Air Mach turned around and began making goofy beckoning motions while backing up. Spitfire perked up as Macho Savage suddenly emerged, the meaty, buff pony carrying Fleetfoot on his back with Storm Front limping behind him to make sure Fleetfoot didn’t fall.

Clever use of Macho Savage, his ridiculously wide back made for the perfect platform to carry Fleetfoot. But Spitfire’s attention was quickly drawn away from their strategy, and directly to Fleetfoot herself.

Fleetfoot looked worse than awful. She was all patched up now, but she was shaking and grimacing continuously. Macho Savage was taking great care to move her slowly and gently because it seemed like the slightest movement made her squeak or groan in pain.

After spending time with her the day before, Spitfire had passed Fleetfoot off to Bliss. She checked on her first thing in the morning and the painful aftershocks of what Nightshade did to her had visibly hit like a thousand tons of bricks. She was practically immobile, groaning and moaning with her body twitching involuntarily as Bliss and her assistants monitored her closely.

Bliss had given Spitfire the full rundown on Fleetfoot’s condition. It was an odd scenario for her because she had never helped or treated a pony who had been put under the conditions that Fleetfoot’s body had. She had concluded that Fleetfoot had several strained muscles all over her body, yet nothing was pulled or torn. Bliss’ theory based on the little they knew about the crystal magic, was that Nightshade’s magic had kept Fleetfoot’s body from tearing itself apart, allowing it to expand and grow in a way similar to how Nightshade boosted her own body with the magic without consequence. But once the magic was removed, and the protection was gone, her stressed nerves and joints caused several harsh strains as she reverted to her normal size… and now she was feeling the painful effects.

Bliss backed up her conclusion by comparing it to how one’s muscles swell up or get ‘pumped’ during a hard workout and then feel stiff or sore later as they repair and recover. Based on how Fleetfoot’s body was reacting, it was as if she was experiencing that sensation several hundred times beyond the norm.

Spitfire was well versed in how muscles worked. After a very hard workout it usually wasn’t the next day that she felt it the most, it was the day after. Considering that Fleetfoot had just had her muscles and body both stretched out and forcibly expanded to several times her normal size, she had no doubt the soreness Fleetfoot was experiencing right now was something right out the gates of hell.

Her recovery was likely going to take much longer than the rest, which was yet another problem because Spitfire already wasn’t willing to put Soarin in too much danger, not having their third best either only added to the mountain of issues they were facing.

She was about to look away, unable to stand the sight of Fleetfoot in so much pain for very long, but right before she could she noticed the last two ponies she departing the east hallway behind the rest.

Soarin and Rainbow Dash.

“We should tell them,” Dash said quietly as she brushed up against Soarin.

“No,” Soarin quickly replied without looking at her.

“Soarin…” she pouted, but he still didn’t look as they caught up with the rest.

“I said no and that’s final,” Soarin put with a harsher tone, one that Dash did not appreciate. She abruptly forced herself in front of him and jammed her hoof against his chest while throwing him a harsh glare.

“I know you said no, dammit. Now give me a reason!”

“SHHH!” Soarin quickly pushed a hoof over her mouth, forcing her to wince and scrunch her mouth as Soarin looked back and forth at a few looks sent their way by the other top elites. Dash immediately reached up and swiped his hoof away before standing on the tips of her hooves and getting right up in his face.

“Don’t you shush me!” said in a very scolding tone.

“Are you two married yet?” Lightning Streak’s voice caught their ears. “You sure sound like it.”

Dash swiftly turned her head towards him and gave him the angriest glare she could muster. Lightning Streak just blinked and nodded, putting up a hoof casually.

“Look of death, got it…” he said lazily as he turned and limped away. The moment Lighting left, Dash refocused on Soarin.

“Well? I’m listening,” she said as she sat down and crossed her front hooves, double clutching and switching which arm was on top after the first attempt made her shoulder whine at her a little. Soarin stared into her demanding eyes for a moment before sighing and pointing at the horn.

“Dash, come on,” he shook his head. “Is this really anything new?” he asked. Dash blinked, admittedly not expecting such a low-key response. “How many times now has the horn acted up like that? How was last night any different than when it happened, I dunno, the other five or six times?”

“Uh…” Dash glanced down, caught in a corner quickly after thinking she had the upper hoof.

“Exactly.” Soarin gave a single nod. “So why bother telling them? If we say anything to Luna she’s going to fumble about and act like she knows nothing and if we tell Spitfire she’s going to get on my ass about being careful again. I’d rather just not make them worry. It’ll save all of us the trouble.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Dash released an exasperated breath of air that made her lips vibrate briefly as her ears flopped down. At this point, what did it matter? All last night proved was that the horn still sucks. There really was nothing new.

“Look…” Soarin took a step forwards and placed a hoof on her good shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “I know you’re just worried about me… and yourself too since we’re connected and all.”

“Wait,” Lightning Streak suddenly shifted into view beside them. “Connected? When did you two tie the knot?”

“Lightning, I swear to Celestia…” Soarin growled and snorted as he glared at Lightning.

“I’m out,” Lightning quickly left again.

I don’t want to be locked away again,” Soarin continued. “Spitfire already said she doesn’t want to do that, but I don’t even want her to entertain the idea, okay?”

Dash didn’t reply, she wasn’t even looking at him anymore.

“Dash?” Soarin tipped his head to the side, ready to reach his other arm to her as well, but then she suddenly leaned forward and hugged him tightly, resting her good shoulder against his chest and pressing the side of her face into his fur.

“Just be careful, okay?” she said with her voice slightly muffled. “I’ve seriously lost count of how many times I’ve said that to you, but… please? We’re so close to safety, I just want this to work so we can figure out a way to help you.”

“I can’t make any promises, but…” Soarin reached down and hugged her back. “I will play it as safe as I can without taking myself out of the equation. With all the top elites hurt except for me, Spitfire is going to need my help.”

His words clearly did not reassure her, but he wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. Until they were safe and sound in the Crystal Empire, they had a rough push ahead of them. That was just the reality of the situation. Dash sighed and squeezed him a little tighter.

“Okay…”

“HURK!”

Soarin looked up to see Fire Streak dragging Lightning Streak away from them by the neck with his wing before he could interrupt them again.

“Thank you, Fire,” Soarin chuckled, but the hug was cut short anyway.

“Captain,” Matteo’s deep voice caused Dash’s ears to pop up and turn. She let go of Soarin and slowly turned around to face her squad as they approached. She wanted to hug Soarin a little more, but she had to check in with her squad. She had been more or less attached to Soarin since last night.

“Hey guys,” Dash said with a lack of enthusiasm as she turned to see all four of them approaching. She blinked and shook her head out. “I mean, sorry…” She cleared her throat and stood up straight, recomposing herself as Squall, Matteo, Little Star, and Twister stopped before her. “Squall, Matteo,” she began again with a much firmer tone. “How are you two doing?” she asked them specifically.

“Everything hurts like hell,” Squall spoke up, cutting off Matteo before he could speak. “I feel like I’ve been put through a spiked wringer,” he complained further. Dash blinked as Twister suddenly floated down and landed on Squall’s back, reaching an arm gently around Squall’s neck while stroking his mane with the other.

“Awwwww… poor colt…. Let Uncle Twisty take care of you!” he said in a voice several octaves lower than his usual tone. Little Star was in a fit of giggles before she could attempt to pull Twister off of Squall. But surprisingly, Squall didn’t move, he just flattened his brow and let it happen. He glanced at Dash, immediately noticing that she looked puzzled at his lack of physical response.

“I’m way too sore to give a damn,” he explained as he turned and glared at Twister. Twister suddenly punched himself in the face, his entire face caving in and swallowing half his arm, but when he removed it, his face had changed to a very feminine one with inch long eyelashes. He fluttered them in Squall’s direction. Squall just snorted. “I swear, as soon as I’m able, I’m tearing your whole mane out for not backing us up against the psycho bitch.”

“Baby you don’t mean that…” Twister’s voice octave had reversed to several times higher.

“MATTEO!” Dash turned to him swiftly to quickly change the focus and go back to checking on them. “How are you feeling?”

“Nightshade was a brutal opponent, but I am well enough to serve,” he replied flatly and dutifully.

“Oh, screw you Tons-o-Fluff!” Squall remarked while dragging himself back into Dash’s view. “Drop the tough act, you got your shit kicked harder mine!”

“Perhaps,” Matteo lifted an eyebrow. “I’m just not whining about it.”

“Why, I oughtta…” Squall growled at him, but cringed the moment he brought up a hoof. He was about to voice his displeasure, but realized Matteo was waiting for him to do just that. “Nice try Eagle-Cat.”

“I wish you would just call me by my name,” Matteo snorted while giving him a light glare.

“Enough, boys,” Dash slowly shifted up between them. “You can kill each other after we don’t die,” she said humorously while looking around for Twister. She only took her eyes off of him for a second when she focused on Squall, but knowing him, just blinking was hazardous.

“Twister!” Star’s voice turned Dash’s head around to spot Twister sitting on the floor behind her, holding Star in his lap like a kitten and petting her while staring towards Dash with an evil grin and a monocle fitted in his right eye. “Stop!” Star protested, but she had trouble resisting since Twister was apparently also ticking her with his other hoof, never taking his ‘evil’ eyes off Dash though.

One thing Dash finally noticed was that Star was no longer wearing her bandages… and seemed to be moving and walking just fine all on her own. Roles had reversed, Squall and Matteo now hurt with Star just fine, but Dash was sure Star was thrilled to not be separated from them anymore.

Alas, the current state of her squad made Dash wonder what their role was going to be going forward. Squall and Matteo were just as banged up as the top elites after all. There was no way they were going to be part of the fight, at least any direct confrontations. What did Spitfire have in mind?

“Dash,” Soarin’s voice came from behind her. She turned and glanced at him as he pointed towards the center of the lobby.

“Alright! Everypony gather in! Listen up!” Spitfire’s voice boomed forth. Dash quickly perked up with the rest and turned to listen.

Spitfire was perfectly able to fly, and usually addressed the force while hovering in the air, but in order to avoid her wings cramping up and to save her energy, she stood atop one of the many tables bolted to the floor in the lobby. This one just happened to be conveniently close to the central pillar. She wasn’t as high up as usual and only about a head higher than most of the larger ponies present, but it would have to do. The last thing she wanted to happen while giving a rallying speech was to fall flat on her face. She took a deep breath and exhaled as she looked left and right examining all the pairs of eyes on her.

It was time to set them on the right path.

“Wonderbolts, Renegades, and everypony else,” she began, her tone slightly different than her usual speech voice. Everypony noticed it immediately and were all instantly intrigued. “I know you’re all expecting me to get up here and yell like I always do… but I’m not gonna yell, I’m not gonna jump right up and shout ‘rah-rah, let’s go get ‘em’. Why? Because I don’t think that’ll make a damn difference. Instead, I’m going to look each and every one of you in the eye and talk about how things have been going, what we’re up against, and what we need to do. First, I want to express how grateful I am to the Renegades. I don’t think we could have gotten this far without you… but it’s time for us Wonderbolts to re-evaluate ourselves.”

She took a long pause to let her opening sink in, knowing that most, if not all of them were not expecting her to take the tone she had. Once satisfied they were ready, she continued on, focusing on the Wonderbolts… her family.

“Wonderbolts, we need take an honest look at ourselves and make an equally honest assessment of where we stand. For starters… we have not been doing well, we have not been performing at our best, and we have not lived up to the honor of being called a Wonderbolt. But… I’m not going to say that, without also saying that I, as your captain, have been making the most egregious mistakes of all. I have not been making good decisions, I have not been giving the right orders, I have been taking the wrong chances… and most of all, I have not remained composed. Nopony is perfect, and it’s not good to dwell on your mistakes, but it’s even worse to ignore them completely. Thanks to some humble guidance from our former captain, Flashwind, I took some time to step back and take a good look at everything… I realized that we were giving into fear, frustration, and anger… I realized that our emotions were running wild, that we were not focused, that we were forgetting the principles that I’ve tried so hard to implement. Everything became so hectic that I didn’t even realize just how far we were falling… and I’m glad that I assessed it all… because the final piece to figuring out the puzzle came when I sent our top elites out to meet up with the Luna Guard.”

She paused as all eyes moved towards the battered and beaten top squads. Spitfire had yet to formally address the force after what happened, and she was sure many of them had already heard, but she had to talk about it. It all tied in with the message she had for them.

“I’m sure most of you have already heard either from them, or those they talked to, but during their mission, the top elites ran into Nightshade.” She waited a moment as a few faces showed a clear reaction, but not all of them. It looked like the word had passed around some, but now they all knew. Those reacting showcased a mixture of shock and surprise. More surprisingly, the Renegades seemed to be reacting more than the Wonderbolts. Had neither Descent or Starry told any of them about it? “Yes, Nightshade, the same adversary we’ve faced more than once… and whose status, up to this point, was unknown. But for those of you who remember her…” Spitfire motioned towards the top elites. “You can understand how our best ended up like this.” She paused as everypony looked towards the top elites again, a new perspective being put on how they ended up to beaten and battered.

“Nightshade, by herself, did that to our best,” Spitfire went on, drawing all their attention back. “I managed to show up just in time to even the odds, but… even I did not escape without taking my share of blows, nor was I able to completely match her on my own. But I’m not telling you all this to scare you. In fact, the entrance of Nightshade, while adding a whole new level of danger to the enemies we face, provided a clear lense for me to see through the rest of our mistakes.”

She looked down and closed her eyes for a moment.

“When I arrived… everypony was already down, and had been down for a while. There was only one pony standing in between Nightshade and the grounded squads.” She glanced towards the east hallway.

“Silver Lining.”

Not a sound was made by a single Wonderbolt. While the news about Nightshade was new to a few, the condition of Silver was the first thing everypony saw two days ago.

“I did not see it for myself… but the recounts of the standoff I’ve heard from several of those watching told me everything I needed to hear. Nightshade had taken them all down using more than just her terrifying strength and power, she used fear, emotions, and negative vibes against them. She controlled the entire battle doing what she does best, exploiting each of them directly and baiting them into lowering their guard and focus. She’s a master of manipulation… but her tactics did not work on Silver. Why? Because he was the only one there that was in control of himself. Despite not being in fighting condition, he kept his cool, held his ground, rejected her advances, and by himself prevented the loss of our most skilled and influential leaders in the force… nearly at the cost of his own life.”

Spitfire nodded as several ponies averted their eyes, clearly in deep thought.

“We nearly lost Silver… And while I don’t mean to demean the lives he saved, I think you all agree that the loss of Silver would have been the ultimate crippling, devastating blow to our morale. With two disasters narrowly averted, and thinking over how everything worked out… how the top elites failed to match Nightshade, yet Silver survived one on one…”

Spitfire put on a weak smile.

“I think… Silver, in his efforts, has sent us a clear message. We can’t keep flailing in the dark, we can’t keep letting our emotions run amok, we can’t keep arguing amongst ourselves, and we can’t keep following that which we don’t believe in. The Shadowbolts thrive every time we panic or are disorganized, they deliver blow after blow to the force as a whole and we curl up deeper. Now with Nightshade confirmed to be among them, they are even more dangerous. With her ability to manipulate those she faces through fear and other emotions that break our focus with ease, she is the most dangerous of all…”

She nodded while hardening her gaze and expression.

“But Silver looked her in the eye and denied her. He did not give her the pleasure of manipulating him and in turn… she struggled to defeat him. He was outmatched in every possible way, but he took on the strongest our enemy can offer through his sheer force of will and his desire to protect what was important to him. He didn’t do it for himself… HE DID IT FOR US. And I think it’s time for all of us, me included, to take a long look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we are fighting for, what we believe in. Before the top elites left on their mission, there were clear rifts among us, disagreements, flaring emotions, boiling anger… and it almost killed them all.”

She looked back and forth at all of them, turning her head from side to side slowly to catch every pair of Wonderbolt eyes.

“The moment we are disconnected, we are all in danger. So we have to pull ourselves back together. From now until we reach the Crystal Empire, we are ONE. One group, one goal, one purpose, one battle, and only ONE outcome. Our unity will be the key as we make this final push.”

She suddenly stepped down from the table.

“Wonderbolts, gather in, come on,” she beckoned them. Some hesitated, but it was only initial surprise at the unexpected order. Being careful not to crowd those hurt, the Wonderbolts did the best they could to all squeeze in. “Everypony sit down,” Spitfire followed up, all of them obeying, save for Macho Savage in the back with Fleetfoot balanced on his back.

Spitfire remained standing, taking a moment to turn all the way from left to right at the semi-circle of Wonderbolts all looking up to her with the Renegades and Lunar Guard all watching behind them. The top elites were all near the front on her right, all of them playing along even though it wasn’t too easy for them to sit down.

“Don’t think about who we’re fighting anymore. They are irrelevant…. There are no Shadowbolts, there is no flying death machine, and there are no supernatural energy crystals… none of those things matter,” she paused, and then suddenly narrowed her eyes into a strong glare. “Instead, think about WHY we’re fighting!” she yelled, finally raising her voice to her usual motivational levels. “Everypony look to your left… and look to your right… look right into the eyes of the ponies sitting beside you,” she commanded, every Wonderbolt doing as they were told, eyes meeting from shoulder to shoulder throughout the ranks.

“You are fighting for THEM.”

A silence passed over the force as Spitfire purposely said no more for several seconds, the Wonderbolts kept looking around at each other.

“Wonderbolts,” Spitfire continued, drawing all eye back to her. “We are a new generation… And where does the strength of our generation come from? Our strength is that of the pony flying beside us. Strength drawn from our ties, from our connections… Strength from our brothers and sisters… The strength of a family. Use the strength of your comrades beside you, and repay them double in return.”

Spitfire turned and stepped back up onto the table, the Wonderbolts all rising as she did, several of them turning to help the top elites stand, wasting no time in practicing what was being preached.

“This is the first time we’ve been involved in an extended conflict, the first time I’ve had to lead you through these kinds of hardships… the first real test of our generation with the generation before us watching over us… waiting to see if we can live up to our uniforms,” she went on while looking towards the former Wonderbolts among the Renegades. “The last stallion of the older generation just put his life on the line to show us the path we have to walk…” she smirked. “Now I say we pay him back by making sure he lives to wake up and say, ‘I told you so.’”

Several chuckles and smiles passed around the group. There was obviously a lot more on the line than Silver. Wave Chill, the captive Shadowbolts, and several members of the Wonderbolt staff who were working far beyond what their job description ever included. Their own lives were at risk as well, several of their ranks in need of medical attention they couldn’t get until they were finally to safety and received full, proper medical attention.

But Silver was symbolic. Not just to the Wonderbolts, but to everypony on board the Nimbus. To the thestrals for his long-known history with their captain, and even to the Renegade Shadowbolts, who now stood in awe of how Silver was able to stand up to Nightshade the way he did.

Spitfire could tell her speech was sinking in, she could see motivation welling up in the eyes of everypony around, as tired, and fatigued as some of those eyes looked. They all knew what they had to do, and they wouldn’t back down.

“We’ll be taking off as soon as the sun begins to set!” Spitfire shifted to the technical points. “Until then, I will be meeting with each captain individually to get up to speed on the status of their squad, to meet any needs they may have, and to figure out where they will be in our flight and battle plans! We’re taking off the kiddy gloves, grabbing this bull by the horns, and flipping it right on its back!” she chanted, going into rah-rah mode even though she said she wouldn’t. “I firmly believe that if we take control, look the enemy in the eye, and take it to them, then we have more than it takes to push through to our destination! Gear up and start prepping, Wonderbolts! Let’s get crackin’!”

There were no cheers. There was no hooting or hollering. But the resolve was so thick one could weave a blanket with it. The Wonderbolts all started moving immediately, heading every which way to get with their squads before getting ready for their final push.

Spitfire smiled as she watched everypony, slowly stepping back down from the table with a few grunts that she failed to conceal, but she didn’t care about the pain, any of it at all. After what Silver had done for them, and the message he quietly left… she was just as determined as everypony else to see him safely to the Crystal Empire. They owed him that much, as long as they had a breath left in their bodies, they would move heaven and earth for the old Iron Horse.

Dash smiled as she watched Spitfire step down and viewed the commotion that followed right after. Leave it to Silver to motivate them all even when he was down and out.

“That was a hell of a speech,” Soarin chuckled, drawing Dash’s eyes to him. He looked down at her with a determined smirk. Dash returned it, but flinched as Spitfire suddenly called towards them.

“Soarin!” she called to him specifically as she moved, her eyes turning towards Macho Savage still supporting Fleetfoot off to the side. Dash and Soarin glanced over as well as Spitfire approached.

Fleetfoot was sitting up and clearly listened to all of it, but she looked like she was straining to do so, still visibly shaking. Normally they would have kept her in the infirmary, but Dash had a feeling Spitfire wanted Fleetfoot to hear her speak too. No pony able to be moved was left out, they all needed to hear it.

“Don’t go suit up just yet,” Spitfire spoke directly to Soarin, bringing their attention back. “I want to touch base with the top elites in a second, I just need to…” Spitfire trailed off, looking over her shoulder. “LUNA!” Spitfire yelled as she spotted Luna only a few paces away. She broke off and approached Luna, saying something to her about meeting elsewhere shortly before she broke off again to find somepony else.

Soarin and Dash both blinked. It was brief, but Spitfire was in business mode, it even left Luna in brief state of surprise as Spitfire hopped around to several ponies to touch base.

“Well, I guess you should go get ready then,” Soarin nudged Dash in the back. Dash perked up, looking towards her Squad. All four of them were looking at her, well, all of them but Twister, who was latched to the back of Matteo’s head with his chin placed atop it, eyes bugged outward and mouth open like he was an animal skin.

“Right,” Dash turned and nodded to Soarin. “But I’ll come right back oka—”

Dash was about to hug him, but she stopped and looked towards Luna. Soarin flinched, stopping midway into a hug as well, wondering what had gotten her attention. He followed her eyes and saw she was staring not at Luna, but beside her at Captain P.L.

“Dash?” Soarin tipped his head to the left and looked at her carefully. Dash suddenly looked directly at him and held up a hoof before turning to her squad and pointing at them.

“One second guys, I’ll be right back.”

Without another word and before any of them could ask, she turned and made her way towards Luna and her knight.

Rainbow Dash slowed her pace as she approached, her eyes fixed on P.L. as he stood dutifully by Luna’s side, his helmet sitting on the floor beside him. She had to ask now, she wasn’t sure if she’d get another chance any time soon, or if she’d forget.

Now if only it were easy to approach him. The fact that he had a heavy presence and was an old comrade of her mentor aside, he had several thestrals near him that were eyeballing anypony that came close to either him or Luna. There were six right up beside him, and more than Dash could count spread out around him.

As she closed in, Luna finished speaking to Blazetail and sent him on his way, she slowly turned back to P.L., but blinked and shifted her eyes towards Dash. P.L. didn’t move. She was already receiving glares from the nearby thestrals, but the six right near him turned around so fast, Dash was surprised their necks didn’t snap off.

All six of them instantly glared and hissed as their yellow eyes glowed. Dash stopped right in her tracks, scrunching her face. What was the deal with these grumps anyway? By now she felt they’d understand they’re all on the same team.

“Hold,” Luna said calmly, the thestrals instantly ceased hissing and took a step back, but kept glaring at her. “Let her through,” Luna ordered. The thestrals obeyed without hesitation, parting to let Dash move forward. P.L. still had not turned to her, and it seemed Luna assumed Dash wanted to speak to her.

“Yes? Rainbow Dash?” Luna asked as she toward her, but Dash respectfully shook her head while holding up a hoof.

“Actually, I… uh…” she pointed at P.L., not sure how to put it otherwise.

“Oh?” Luna blinked, glancing at P.L., still turned away from them. She glanced back at Dash curiously, but gave a warm smile. “Go ahead,” she nodded as Dash turned and approached P.L.

“Um…” She swallowed. “Excuse me…”

She got no response. Luna flattened her brow and tapped the back of P.L.’s armor.

“Captain, she’s talking to you,” Luna alerted him. P.L.’s ears stood up as he glanced at Luna first, then back over his shoulder at Dash. He blinked when he saw her, slowly turning around to face her.

“What?” he asked flatly as he narrowed his eyes and gave her a soft glare. Dash leaned her head back slightly, not scared, just feeling the harsh look she was receiving. She scratched the back of her head awkwardly, wondering exactly how she was going to go about this. She was curious, but… he wasn’t the easiest pony to talk to.

“There was… just something I, uh, wanted to ask while I had the chance,” she began honestly, but hesitantly. P.L. released a slightly exasperated grunt.

“And that would be?” he asked gruffly, his incredibly low toned voice resembling a growl. But otherwise he seemed a little curious, perhaps interested in her personally since she was the student of a pony he respected greatly. Dash took a long breath… and came right out with it.

“What does your name stand for? You know… the P.L.?”

Everything around her suddenly stopped. Dash blinked and looked around as every thestral near Captain P.L. stared at her wide eyed with the strongest look of shock she had ever seen in her life. A few gasps passed between them as well. Dash looked back and forth frantically, catching several pairs of yellow eyes as they all expressed terrified emotions ranging from fear, to terror, to panic. Dash turned to Luna to see she also had a look of shock on her face.

Then looked back at P.L. and saw that his face had scrunched up considerably. His lips began to shaking, parting to reveal his teeth grinding together so hard she could almost hear his fangs clicking in between the rest of his teeth.

Dash held her ground, but leaned back a little further as P.L.’s glare pushed against her, the thestrals and Luna all around him slowly backing away, drawing attention from a few Wonderbolts and Renegades nearby as they bumped into them, each other, and in some cases, fell over one another as they created as much distance between them and P.L. as possible until they were effectively out of immediate earshot. It got to a point where the thestrals were shivering and hiding behind other ponies, Luna had six of them clinging to her legs and hiding beneath her as she joined in staying away.

What did she just do?

Dash flinched as P.L. suddenly averted his eyes, growling for a moment before releasing a very long, very frustrated sigh. Dash’s ears folded back and she cringed awkwardly.

“Er…” she looked back and forth at the thestrals again, some of whom were still trying to push further away from him, every single one of them absolutely terrified.

“Silver put you up to this… didn’t he?” P.L. suddenly asked in a very sharp, very angry tone, his deep voice only adding to the effect. Dash blinked, forcing herself to lean back forward as she took a quick breath and nodded.

“Y…yes…” she confirmed.

P.L.’s eyes narrowed further and he snorted so hard and loud that it made Dash jump. He looked away, his eyes staring straight at the floor as he began to grumble loudly, but incoherently for several moments. Dash’s face went blank as she saw his odd behavior play out. Something told her that Silver had prompted her to ask a question that, had she not been Silver’s student, may have gotten her brutally and bloodily murdered. Or at least based on how the thestrals and Luna were acting.

It was, apparently, a very touchy subject, one that P.L. was not to fond of discussing. She almost regretted asking… and even began to wonder if Silver had purposely set it up this way, JUST to mess with him. Knowing Silver, she wouldn’t rule that out.

“Uh, should I…” Dash stumbled over her words a little as she looked away and rubbed her opposite arm. “Should I not ask?” she caved, ready to drop the subject. She winced as P.L. suddenly released a low, drawn out growl and shook his head, keeping his eyes to the floor.

“If I don’t tell you now… Silver will never let me hear the end of it…”

Dash wasn’t quite sure if he was actually speaking to her, or if he was just speaking his mind. He looked ready to burst, his face turning red with what Dash perceived as anger, LOTS of it. She had to back off, she probably should have asked at a better time, not when they were trying to get ready and get focused.

“Look, I can just, uh…” Dash held up a hoof and took a step back as P.L. stopped growling, but kept his glare pointed straight at the floor. “I’ll just tell Silver you told me or something, or—”

“Puppy Love.”

Dash froze, her eyes going wide as her ears perked up and twitched. She was certain she had just heard two words come from P.L. one that started with a P, and one that started with an L… but she was struggling to confirm that those were, indeed, the words she had just heard.

“Uh…” Dash tipped her head to the side as her pupils slowly shrunk. “Pardon?”

“Puppy. Love.” P.L. repeated slower, with more emphasis, and with his face growing redder as he began to growl again.

Dash’s brain came close to a full system crash. Her jaw dropped as she blinked several times and shook her head out.

“Wh… WHAT?!” she reacted, her neck tilting down and one of her eyelids twitching as she tried to process what she was hearing.

“The name my mother gave me… is PUPPY LOVE,” P.L. repeated one more time, his face growing so red that not a single trace of white remained on his face. It looked like steam was about to whistle out of his ears like a tea kettle in a mix of anger and embarrassment.

Dash was dumbstruck. It was… so ridiculous, so ludicrous and so… there were too many words to choose from to describe how she felt in the current moment.

“P… P… P… Puppy Love?” Dash struggled to say it. It was hysterical to think, but it was so backwards that it was as if she forgot how to laugh. He was literally the scariest, most visually intimidating pony she had ever seen in her life and his name was…

Dash’s head twitched twice as she tried to find something to say, but she was still trying to coax her brain off the train platform to catch the first ride out of town.

“T… that’s…”

“I KNOW.”

P.L. immediately turned his back to her, his face so red that Dash could see it reaching the tips of his notched ears as he stomped away, grumbling and growling as ponies, Wonderbolt, Renegade, and thestral alike, all cleared the way as he romped his way through. Red in the face and still growing redder, he disappeared down the west hallway, Luna and the thestrals all glancing back and forth between Dash and the hall as if surprised by how the situation played out.

Yep, that confirmed it. If not for her association with Silver, she probably would be in a lot of pain right now. That subject was clearly off limits.

But…

Puppy Love…

Seriously, what the f—

“What did you ask him?” Soarin’s voice suddenly brought Dash back to her senses. She looked over her shoulder to see Soarin stop behind her and place a hoof on her good shoulder. She opened her mouth, closed her mouth, opened it again, then closed it again. She turned her eyes back towards the west hallway and stared for a moment or two before shaking her head.

“Nothing,” she said in a monotone as her head continued to spin in disbelief. “Absolutely nothing,” she reaffirmed, earning a confused look from Soarin as she turned and started moving back towards her squad.

Best not repeat it. P.L. wasn’t happy about it, and clearly didn’t like others knowing about it. The way his thestrals and even Luna backed away so suddenly spoke volumes to how much he wished to not discuss it.

But… now that she knew, she couldn’t shake further curiosity. His mother named him Puppy Love… There had to be some interesting backstory to that. Did Luna know? He was her captain and her knight, but it had only been for a few years, with being banished on the moon for so long and all. Luna had to know, if there was one pony Puppy Lo— P.L. wouldn’t kill for asking it would be the lady he serves.

Dash turned to face her squad, refocusing on the task at hoof.

“Alright everypony, let’s head to the barracks, suit up, and get ready to do whatever Spitfire needs us to—”

She stopped, blinking as she looked past them towards the east hallway.

“Whatever Spitfire needs us… to…” she tried again as her eyes remained locked on the east hall. “To…”

“Dash?” Little Star spoke up with concern, Squall and Matteo showing similar curiosity as Twister sat cross-legged on atop Matteo’s head, his face mirroring Matteo’s usual casual glare. “What’s up?”

Dash bit her lip, her eyes remaining firm, not moving to any of her squadmates. A few paces behind, Soarin noticed where Dash was looking. He glanced between her and the east hallway before instantly putting two and two together. He made his way over to her and placed a hoof on her shoulder again. She didn’t look at him or say anything, but Soarin gave a quick nod towards her squadmates.

“Go on ahead, she’ll catch up,” he said as he gently rubbed his hoof back and forth on her shoulder. Matteo and Star nodded and turned to go, but Squall scrunched his face.

“Hasn’t she spent enough time with you already? She’s our squad captain you know,” he complained without hesitation. Matteo and Star both came to a halt, Star more abruptly than Matteo. Twister was still on Matteo’s head, stiff as a statue. Soarin narrowed his eyes at Squall, who simply glared right back. “You heard me,” Squall pressed. “For Celestia’s sake we almost never see her anymore.”

“Recruit Squall,” Soarin said in a stern, powerful voice that made Star squeak and shift backwards until she was pressed up against Matteo’s arm. Matteo quickly grabbed her shoulder gently to calm her down. “That is an order, not to mention an order from the lead captain. Rainbow Dash will join you, she needs to do something first. Now GO.”

Squall growled quietly, but surprisingly, did not push any further.

“Tch!” he scoffed loudly as he turned and trudged passed Matteo and Star. Little Star sighed in relief, quickly chasing after Squall as Matteo moved on as if nothing had happened… and is if there were no silly pony still sitting on his head.

Pleased that Squall decided not to press his luck, Soarin turned his attention back to Dash. She was still staring at the hallway as if battling conflicting thoughts.

“Well?” he nudged her. Dash blinked and glanced up at him, her ears flopping down.

“Sorry,” she suddenly apologized while looking towards her squad. “I probably should have handled that.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m no stranger to giving orders,” Soarin smiled. “Now—”

“He’s right though,” Dash suddenly admitted, cutting Soarin off. “I’ve been flying missions with them, but I feel like we’ve been a little disconnected. We spent nearly every moment together during our recruit training and for a little while after, but when everything got going…”

“That’s not your fault,” Soarin assured her. “None of us have had real time to do anything right now,” he said with a bit of a chuckle, stating the obvious. “Just keep being their captain, and when we get to the Crystal Empire, you can sit down and reconnect, I think we all plan on doing that.”

Dash only replied with a quiet nod, but then blinked as Soarin nudged her again.

“Now come on,” he encouraged.

“Huh?” she blinked, noticing that he was pushing her towards the east hallway even though she hadn’t said anything.

“Let’s go see him,” Soarin added.

Boy, did he know her.

“Yes, let’s…” Dash agreed as the two made their way into the east hallway and towards the infirmary.

As Soarin guided her, he quickly realized that he had ordered Squall to follow Spitfire’s orders, only to turn around and violate them by leaving the lobby, but he’d come right back, Dash needed him for a moment as they moved to the infirmary. She had remained silent, but Soarin couldn’t quite get a full read on her. She didn’t look sad, but she didn’t look like much of anything on the opposite of the spectrum either. ‘Blank’ was the best way to put it, but at the same time it lacked the emotionless look required for ‘blank.’ She simply looked like she wanted something, and Soarin knew what she wanted. That’s why they were in the infirmary after all.

Soarin quickly looked around the infirmary, scanning over the busy medical staff members until he spotted Bliss with her head stuffed in a cabinet not too far from them.

“Bliss!” Soarin called to her, waving a hoof in the air. Bliss’s magic surrounded the cabinet door as she stepped back and closed it gently. She glanced towards them as she heard her name, but didn’t show any visible reaction to noticing them, as if she knew they weren’t there for medical attention. Soarin nodded once her eyes met his and made a hoof motion towards the back room door. “May we…?” he asked, assuming she’d quickly figure it out.

“Go right ahead,” she said in a slightly sarcastic tone. “It’s not like they listened to me,” she said, turning right back to the cabinets and opening up the next one to her left before Soarin could acknowledge and respond. But Dash’s ears perked up.

“They?” Dash said to herself as Soarin turned and joined her in looking towards the door leading to the makeshift emergency room. They both quickly noticed that the door was ajar, ever so slightly.

Was somepony else visiting Silver?

Soarin almost yelped as Dash suddenly started moving, pulling his hoof along with her. He caught himself before falling and regained control, walking right behind her until the two of them reached the door.

Dash placed her hoof on it, took a long, gentle breath, and pushed the door open.

They took one step into Silver’s room… and stopped right in their tracks.

There WAS somepony else in the room…. Make that several ponies.

Bomber, Valkyrie, Pixie, Fairy, Comet, Steady Wing, and Cannon Ball.

All of Silver’s old friends and wingmates sitting around him in silence and looking down upon him with nothing but the gentle, slightly erratic beeps of the heart rate monitor filling the empty, soundless space. Soarin and Dash were left speechless. Had the Renegades not yet gotten a chance to visit him? Or were they there for the same reason the two of them were? Both of them began to worry that they had stumbled into a very personal, very deep moment.

Soarin was on the verge of reaching to Dash and suggesting they wait outside until they were done, but before he could, Bomber blinked and glanced towards them. His movement caught the attention of Valkyrie first, and then eventually the rest of them. Dash and Soarin stood awkwardly as the old generation of Top Elite Wonderbolts all turned to look at them.

“Sorry, we’ll come back,” Soarin quickly lifted a hoof and was about to grab Dash, but he stopped when Bomber shook his head.

“No, stay,” he said in his gentle voice while beckoning them in. Soarin and Dash weren’t sure what to do, but the rest of them seemed to agree, Comet, Steady, and Cannon shifting aside and motioning to the spot they opened.

“Come on up,” Comet offered, smiling towards them. Dash was still a bit hesitant. She was literally in the company several legends and she still felt like they had interrupted. Soarin was right behind her, but he patiently waited as she inched forward a step at a time. Steady turned to look at her and chuckled.

“Rainbow Dash, we don’t bite,” he said jokingly. “Besides, I’m sure if Silver were awake, he’d kick us all out to talk to you.”

Dash blinked as they all chuckled and giggled, agreeing with Steady, Bomber’s ‘heh heh heh’ continuing for a second or two after they stopped.

“What?” Dash blinked as she tried to process what they meant.

“He never stopped—

“Telling us about you.” Pixie and Fairy spoke in their usual pattern, Pixie starting with Fairy finishing.

“You’d think he was—”

“Your dad or something,” they went on, giggling in unison.

Dash’s pupils grew as it hit her. Silver? Talking about her nonstop? TO THESE PONIES? If not for the somber air of the moment, she probably would have squealed.

“So get up here before he wakes up and punches Cannon,” Valkyrie suggested gruffly.

“Why is it always me?” Cannon huffed.

“Because it IS always you,” Valkyrie added casually as Cannon grumbled.

Another chuckle passed around them all as Dash swallowed and glanced at Soarin.

“Come on,” Soarin nudged her lightly. “Don’t keep the old grump waiting,” he said with a wink. Dash smiled and rubbed the back of her head, saying nothing as she turned, took a breath, and moved up beside the bed, Comet, Steady, and Cannon all letting her right to the head of the bed so she could be close to Silver.

And then… the moment Dash sat down and locked her eyes on Silver’s face, everything around her seemed to vanish. She was no longer surrounded by living legends, she was no longer in an infirmary, her body no longer hurt… or at least that’s how it all felt in her head.

It was just her… and her mentor.

Why did she come here? There were some obvious reasons as to why. Silver was important to her, he was a source of motivation, and in a way… a source of comfort, but were those the real reasons she came right now? No, she felt like something else had drawn her here.

She had come to accept what was right in front of her.

This would be the first time since everything began… that she would not have Silver’s guidance, no words of encouragement from him, no assurance that he was either there, watching over her in some way, or rooting for her success from afar. She had been without him before, but Silver’s guidance was more than just a few words or his presence, it was something that stayed with her, something that helped every step she took, every flap of her wings.

Now she was about to fly into battle without him, without any of what he gave her. He was here and he was fighting for his life. She had motivation to fight for his survival, but the guidance and the wisdom were missing. She almost felt lost without it.

But that was the reason she was there… to acknowledge that she was about to walk without on him, on her own four hooves… and surprisingly, she felt calm, relaxed. While Silver was not able to give her a pep talk or point her to the right mindset, all the training and all the time they spent as mentor and student had paid off.

Silver had shown her, through both actions and words, what it truly means to be a Wonderbolt.

Silver was far from perfect, and on a base level he was far from impressive when compared to the younger Wonderbolts… and despite his nickname, Dash never felt that Silver was invincible.

But… that was how influential Silver was to her, and to all of them. Silver would do things that made one BELIEVE he was invincible, that nothing could knock him down or break him.

But now here he was… broken. It showed her, for all Silver was, he was still one of them, still vulnerable, still a life as fragile as any other.

Silver was a pony, like her, like Soarin, and like the rest of them… but he did great things. That meant they could all do great things too. There was no magic to it, no trick or instructions. They just had to follow his example and give it everything at every given moment.

That was what it meant to be a Wonderbolt.

Dash thought back to what Spitfire had just relayed to all of them in her speech, how she brought up Silver and how dropping his name alone seemed to have an incredibly profound impact on them.

That’s how important Silver was to them.

Dash glanced around at the old generation of elites around her, and how they had come to him like she had.

That’s how important Silver was to them.

Dash looked down at her hooves, and then at Silver’s face. She didn’t have his words, and she wouldn’t have him by her side. But… she would fight. She would do anything and everything she needed to do to get Silver to the Crystal Empire.

That’s how important Silver was to HER.

“So you’re here for the same reason we are, huh?” Valkyrie suddenly spoke up, Dash blinking and quickly glancing up at her.

“Huh?” Dash tipped her head slightly as Valkyrie shot her a smirk.

“The bastard has an effect, doesn’t he?” Valkyrie looked back down as Bomber giggled behind her. “You know him long enough and, well… He gets to you,” she continued. “It feels like your expectations for yourself shoot way higher when Silver’s involved.”

“Hardly surprising,” Comet chimed in. “He trained under Blizzard Strike after all. The two are one in the same, though Silver would never accept such a comparison.”

“Val is one-hundred percent right,” Steady chuckled. “He just inspires others. He doesn’t even have to try, he does it by just being himself. I’d kill to have that kind of effect on ponies. Hell, I’d kill to have a lot of things Silver has. The stallion is just… different.”

“I’d kill to kick his ass,” Cannon grumbled off to the side, but shook his head. “But I never could. Never did, and never will. Hell, if I tried now while he’s down he’d still probably win.”

“Seeing him again—” Pixie cut in.

“Has been amazing,” Fairy finished.

“It has been so long since—”

“We’ve felt his influence.”

“Bomber like Silver,” Bomber suddenly reached an arm around Valkyrie’s neck and yanked her towards him, hugging her by the neck as he pouted and stared at Silver.

“Ack… Bomber…” she grunted while blushing and angrily gritting her teeth.

“Bomber want to save Silver and hear him wisecrack more,” Bomber added as Valkyrie stopped struggling and sighed roughly.

Dash took in everything they had to say, looking back at Silver.

She had to get a move on, but being here, seeing Silver, and hearing how much he meant to so many both through Spitfire and to his old wingmates… It rekindled the flame in her heart, making it grow stronger than before.

Soarin flinched in surprise as he felt a warmth in his heart, looking down at Dash as if he could feel it coming from her. Their spiritual connection was reacting to how Dash was feeling, and Soarin was thrilled. The more determined Dash was, the stronger and more confident he felt.

Dash stepped forward, placing a hoof on Silver’s bed and moving it around until she found where his hoof was. She clasped it gently and stared at him as he continued to lay still. Alive, but knocked out.

“Hang in there, Silver,” she spoke as the rest remained quiet and listened. “You’ve done everything for us. Now it’s our turn to do something for you,” she paused, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes as she lowered her head down and tapped her forehead to his hoof. “We’re going to get you to the Crystal Empire so you can wake up and tell us off for taking so long. Honestly, I really hope that’s the first thing you do.”

Soarin glanced around at the old Wonderbolts and watched as they all smiled at her words, Dash knew him as well as they did.

“Sit tight… and hold still when Bliss secures you for takeoff,” she added with a smile. “We’ll see you when we arrive,” she finished, slowly letting go of Silver’s hoof, leaned back upright and stared for another moment before turning around and nodding at Soarin. She glanced back at the Renegades, looking each of them in the eye before her ears perked up and she smiled. “Well, what the hell are you all waiting for? Let’s get this show on the road!”

The initial reaction was one of shock, but then…

“Heh heh heh hehheh hehheh hehheh heeeeeeeehhhhhhh…” Bomber began bouncing as he giggled and shook Valkyrie with him.

He let go of her suddenly to hold onto his stomach, Valkyrie yelping and falling flat to the floor with a THUMP. “You sound like Silver,” Bomber said while pointing at Dash.

That did it. They all smirked and nodded at each other, Valkyrie doing the same after pushing herself back up.

“You heard the lady!” Comet pounded his chest. “We’ve got some Shadowbolt heads to crack!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf and Penumbraglow.

Time to get the show on the road. The Wonderbolts have been through a lot, their best flyers are battered, beaten, and bruised, but they are determined to succeed. All they need is one more push and they'll finally find some safety... not to mention finally get off the flying tub for a while.

And they'll do it with the help of the menacing, the powerful, the ruthless, the terrifying... Puppy Love...

Yeah it's no wonder he abbreviated it :rainbowlaugh: And for those of you wondering, YES, at some point in the future i will be addressing the backstory behind his name :pinkiecrazy:

But for real... it's time to reach for the finish line, the Wonderbolts are so close to pulling themselves out of the fire. What's Spitfire's plan? Will they make it? Will Silver survive? Can Wave and the captives hold on a little longer?

Buckle up, chapter 140 is gonna be a ride :rainbowdetermined2:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 140: Blazing a Trail

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 140: Blazing a Trail

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath as she walked into the bathroom of her barracks, her lower body already in her Wonderbolt suit with the rest rolled up on her back and her goggles tucked into her wing. She stopped in front of the mirror and looked herself over. Her bruises were fading, but still there. The only real reminder of the traumatic encounter that remained was the bandages wrapped around her shoulder and chest. She stared at them for a moment, giving them one last look.

It was time to put it behind her. She knew there was a good chance they’d be confronting Nightshade again right now, so she had to fight back the fear and anxiety. She didn’t know what was going to happen after they made it to the Crystal Empire, but right now, that was their ultimate goal and as a Wonderbolt, she couldn’t afford to let her personal struggles get in the way. Besides, she was doing this for Silver too. She’d fly through a mile thick sheet of metal for him if she had to.

She dropped her goggles onto the sink counter before slowly and gingerly shimmying the rest of the suit on, twitching and grimacing as it stretched over her tender body and rested upon her shoulder. She pulled her mask up over her face and fastened her goggles, resting them on her forehead. With everything in place she looked herself over again and gave her reflection a determined nod.

“Let’s do this.”

She turned and left the bathroom, finding Matteo, Squall, and Little Star all suited up and ready. Twister appeared to be… wrestling with his suit, the whole thing wrapped around him like a straightjacket as he flailed around before falling off his bed and crashing onto the floor.

“Let’s move everypony!” Dash ordered, completely ignoring Twister while twirling her hoof in the air.

“Nice of you to actually be here and give us orders,” Squall said sarcastically as he was the first to reach her.

“Not the time for this, Squall. Focus,” Dash quickly shut him down as Matteo and Star moved up beside her. “You guys all ready?” she asked them, Star giving a quick, eager nod.

“Yep! I’m—” she was immediately cut off as Twister popped up in front of her wearing a metal bucket on his head, fake, super thick eyebrows, and had a giant cigar in his mouth.

“I WAS BORN READY!” he yelled in a super gruff accent as he took a hard puff that made the cigar burst into flames and disintegrate. Star suddenly slammed down over the bucket, pressing it over his head and somehow the rest of his body into it, ending with a CLANG on the floor, the bucket skidding a few yards ahead of them with her on top of it.

“Were you ready for THAT?!” she asked as she tapped a hoof on the bucket.

“Yes,” Twister answered standing right beside her, his suit and goggles somehow suddenly on him and ready. Star blinked as she looked back and forth between the bucket and Twister until the rest reached them.

“Guys… focus,” Dash repeated as they left their barracks and made their way into the hallway towards the lobby, Star and Twister both falling in line quickly. Dash turned to Matteo as they moved, realizing he had not acknowledged her yet. “You’re quiet over there, are you ready or not?” she asked him.

“For what?” he asked, catching her off guard. Dash blinked and lifted an eyebrow.

“For… uh… for what we’re about to do?” she replied.

“And that is…?” he glanced a little towards her. Dash looked forwards and thought for a moment.

“To the Crystal Empire?” Dash added, but Matteo did not look satisfied. “What do you mean?” she asked. Matteo shook his head.

“What are we even ready for?” Matteo questioned. “Captain Spitfire did not lay out any specific plan during her speech.”

“I… uh…” Dash shrugged. “I guess she didn’t.”

“Then I’m not sure what to be ready for.”

“I was just asking generally, Matty,” Dash rolled her eyes. “She said she’d be meeting with all the captains personally,” Dash paused as they stopped in front of the doors and Dash reached for the handle. “I guess we’ll find out as soon as she finds me and—”

“RAINBOW DASH!” Spitfire was right outside the door the moment Dash opened it.

“GAH!” Dash jumped in surprise, the door swinging back shut as she let go. Before she could compose herself and open the door again, Spitfire pushed it open and pointed at all of them.

“Everypony out here! Line up! Eyes forward! Let’s go!” she ordered.

All five of them instantly obeyed without question, rushing out into the lobby and lining up in front of the doors. There was a heck of a lot of movement in the lobby, Wonderbolts, Renegades, and thestrals moving every which way in an organized fashion. Dash stood attention and awaited orders as Spitfire looked away for a moment, but in the brief pause, she noticed something interesting about Spitfire. She was wearing her uniform and her goggles were around her neck, but she was also wearing a one-ear headset with a microphone attached, currently pushed up away from her mouth. The headset was wired to what looked like a radio device clipped to her suit. Before Dash could ponder any further, Spitfire sharply turned back to them, wearing an all business no nonsense expression as she focused on her.

“Squad status! Give me the details! Chop-chop!” she ordered while clapping her hooves. Dash swallowed and quickly gave a salute.

“Uh… right!” Dash cleared her throat and nodded. “Two of us are in peak condition! The other three, including myself, are bit banged up, ma’am!” she explained. She knew Spitfire was already aware, but it was clear she was going through protocol. Spitfire nodded several times as Dash spoke, then glanced down briefly while in thought. She stepped to the right and motioned a hoof towards a group gathered off to the side that appeared to be mostly the top tier elites.

“Move over here with the rest of the Wonderbolts involved in the mission two days ago. Stand by for further orders,” she barely finished before turning away and moving on.

Dash and her squad remained still, standing attention for another moment or two before they finally relaxed and glanced around at one another.

“Well, it’s something,” Dash chuckled while looking up at Matteo. Matteo narrowed his eyes and snorted, clearly annoyed at the lack of clarity, but Dash was confident they’d get it soon. “Come on.” She motioned for them to follow, the five of them making their way over to the group that indeed contained everypony included in the confrontation with Nightshade. Dash’s eyes landed squarely on Soarin, who was conversing with the Streak twins, but her attention was quickly drawn to Storm as he broke away from the group to meet them upon arrival. Dash gave him a smile as he made his way over, and then took a moment to get a good look at everypony present in the group detached from the rest. Just like her, Matteo, and Squall, they all had fresh new suits on and were ‘ready’ to go, but they did not look battle ready. Most of them were leaning on one another for support or sitting down. Fleetfoot was also not present, probably being secured in the infirmary with anypony else currently unable to serve in any effective manner.

“So… uh, you’re one of those fancy high tier elite Wonderbolts,” Dash said smarmily as she turned her attention to Storm. “What are we doing exactly? Has Spitfire told you anything?” she asked. Storm chuckled at her remark about his rank, but shook his head.

“Nope, nothing,” he answered while looking around at all the top tiers and Macho Savage. “Spitfire keeps telling us to wait while she’s putting everything else together.”

“Hmm…” Dash hummed as Matteo released an intentionally audible grunt behind her. “Relax, Matty…” she said without looking behind her as Storm blinked and tipped his head. “Matt’s suit is feeling a little tighter around the crotch over Spitfire’s lack of orders.”

“My suit fits just fine,” Matteo interjected from behind, but Dash paid no attention.

“I see,” Storm snickered as Matteo grumbled behind Dash. “Well, I think it’s a little more complicated this time, maybe she doesn’t want to confuse us with too many pieces?”

“What do you mean?” Dash asked, her curiosity piqued. Storm shrugged.

“There’s been a pattern of her giving motivational speeches and describing our plans together, but this time she left the plan out,” he described the obvious, but then pointed around the lobby. “But I think it’s because a general speech wasn’t going to describe the specifics, she’s been walking around, back and forth between the Thestrals, Renegades, Wonderbolts, and even our earth pony and unicorn staff members. She’s also picking out the captains, and it looks like she’s not giving the same orders all around. I don’t know why we’ve been left out specifically, but I’m more than certain she’s trying to avoid confusion.”

Dash just stared at him for a moment as he finished.

“What?” he asked with a smirk.

“When did you become a detective?” she snickered, giving him a light jab in the shoulder.

“Huh?” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Just making an observation.”

“Sounds more like you’ve been spending too much time around Point Dex,” Dash joked as she looked back towards Spitfire. “Okay, detective,” Dash pressed on with the joke. “Any idea why Spitfire’s wearing the headset?”

“No, but…” Storm pointed over towards Luna. “The Princess is wearing one too.”

Dash quickly looked towards Luna. Luna was wearing her armor, despite it being all scuffed up and scratched from the pelting it took a few days before, but she was without her helmet. It was hard to see with her ethereal mane in the way, but she too was wearing a headset.

“Huh, she is…Okay, now you’re trying.” She nudged him again.

“No I’m not.” Storm pushed her away.

“P.L.!” Spitfire’s voice boomed, causing both of them to flinch as she quickly trotted past them and made her way towards Luna. P.L. was standing behind her, leaning against the pillar in the center of the lobby.

Dash cringed as she noticed Pup—… P.L. seemed to be brooding. Up until now he was always standing right beside Luna if she was present. He was further away than usual and keeping to himself. Even his own Thestrals seemed to not DARE go near him as if afraid to even look him in the eye. Dash hoped she didn’t mess anything up by asking him about his name. The moment Spitfire stopped in front of him, he pushed himself off the wall and glared down at her a little more harshly than usual. Dash and Storm were just within earshot hear the conversation.

At first Spitfire just stared into P.L.’s intense glare and lifted an eyebrow.

“I don’t know what lodged itself a mile into your ass, but pull it out,” she bluntly remarked, only earning a gruff, annoyed snort in return as P.L.’s scowl hardened further. Spitfire brushed it all off effortlessly while pointing at him. “I only have one question for you. That little ceiling trick you guys do—” she pointed up— “How strong is your grip?”

“It’s how we sleep,” P.L. answered simply, going no further. Spitfire blinked and gave a firm nod.

“Good answer.” She turned and beckoned him to move closer to Luna. “Then I assume that extremely powerful winds won’t be a problem and—”

That was all Dash and Storm heard before they moved too far away to hear clearly.

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed to herself, but didn’t get much time to ponder.

“You two ready to go?” Soarin’s voice made Dash’s ears perk up. Both she and Storm turned around to face him as he stopped before them and looked between them.

“As ready as I can be,” Storm answered as he touched a hoof to his neck and stretched it back and forth. “Whole body is sore.”

“Same,” Dash chimed in, not sure if there was any different way to put it than Storm had. But before Soarin could say anything else, Dash quickly took action. After all, if Spitfire had told ANYPONY what was going on, it’d be Soarin. “Hey, you.” She poked him in the chest. “Any idea what the battle plan is? I have a big feather ball over here who’s antsy to get his orders.”

Soarin looked up over her to see Matteo sitting nearby, clicking the edges of his beak back and forth as he continuously tapped a talon on the floor. Twister was sitting right beside him, completely mirroring him with Little Star in a giggle fit behind them and Squall just ignoring them.

“Spitfire hasn’t told me much,” he answered with a chuckle. “All I know is she’s trying to get all the pieces in place. She’ll tell us after that.”

“But if she’s talking to everypony but us, what does that mean we’re doing?” Dash pressed, giving him a look of disappointment as answers continued to elude her.

“Don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see,” Soarin said with a shrug.

“Excuse me,” Bliss suddenly appeared before them. “Where is Spitfire?”

“Oh, hey,” Soarin greeted as he turned to point. “She’s right over—”

“I’m right here,” Spitfire cut him off as she suddenly approached, Luna and P.L. moving in the opposite direction towards Descent, the Renegades, and a good portion of the Wonderbolts present. “Everypony secure?” Spitfire asked, apparently already aware of Bliss’ intentions.

“Silver is strapped in as tightly as I can make him without breaking him more. Fleetfoot isn’t being too cooperative, but I have secured her along with the rest of our wounded. Squad Zero’s assistance is proving to be very helpful, mind if I keep them down here for the flight?”

“Granted,” Spitfire quickly agreed. “They’re at your disposal, I want them to do anything they can to help you. They aren’t in fighting condition and I’m sure your staff is stretched thin between handling both the infirmary and our set up with Wave and the captives.”

“They are,” Bliss was quick to confirm. “So Zero’s help will be appreciated.”

“Good, prepare for takeoff,” Spitfire ordered, Bliss turning and leaving without another word.

With that, Spitfire turned and looked directly at Soarin. Dash and Storm both watched, hoping they’d finally get some answers, but then Spitfire also looked around at everypony else. With a brief glance over her shoulder, Dash realized that all of the top elites gathered around were looking to her. Spitfire gave them a brief nod before turning towards the windows.

The sun was just starting to set. It wouldn’t be dark for another couple of hours, but Spitfire seemed satisfied.

“Alright everypony!” Spitfire yelled out, gathering the attention of the entire lobby. “Let’s get this show on the road! Ready up and take your positions! Let’s move, move, move!”

In an instant the commotion in the lobby doubled, ponies moving every which way with a purpose… but she still hadn’t given any orders to the top elites and Dash’s squad.

Soarin quickly glanced at everypony in their separated group, taking note of the confusion on their faces. He decided to directly confront Spitfire and get them some answers.

“Spitfire,” he began as he moved up behind her. “What about—”

“All of you,” Spitfire cut him off as she turned and pointed at them all. “With me, up on the bridge, let’s go, on the double.”

“Uh…” Soarin blinked. “Okay.” He tipped his head back and forth as he turned and shrugged, following the rest as they all made their way over to the broken stairway.

“Um, ma’am?” Dash chimed in before she could move with them. “Us too?” she asked while motioning to her squad.

“You’re damn right, recruit. Your whole squad, let’s go!” She quickly turned to the rest as they moved. “ON THE DOUB—” she stopped short as she saw them huddling around the bottom of the broken stairs, taking their time as they struggled to stretch out their wings and loosen them up. “Or at least in a timely fashion,” Spitfire quickly lightened her tone as she approached them. “I know you guys aren’t feeling the best, but let’s make it quick if we can.”

Dash glanced up at Matteo as squad Foxtrot began moving to follow.

“Well, looks like we’re about to get some answers.”

After an effort to get everypony up to the third floor that seemed to take longer than necessary, Squad Foxtrot and the top elites plus Storm and Macho Savage made their way onto the bridge. Soarin whistled as they walked in, impressed with what he saw. The last time he was up in the bridge, the place was a mess, panels and control stations were toppled and nearly all the windows were blown out.

Everything had been put right back where it belonged, and they even had new windows in place. Soarin had no idea where they could have possibly gotten their hooves on new glass panes, not to mention properly fitted ones. But knowing Rivet, he likely found a workaround during repairs, not to mention Descent’s supply lines for the Renegades seemed to be well stocked with, well, anything they needed to a point.

As for Dash, she had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the bridge earlier when she was looking for Fleetfoot, but this was the first time she had really gotten a good look at it… and she was in awe. It was still such a shock to her that the Wonderbolt compound, or rather the Nimbus was really a functioning airship. The technology, while old, was stunning and impressive. It had to be incredibly powerful to lift up such a massive structure, and it was all controlled from this room. She couldn’t imagine how much of a task it was for Lucky to pilot something like this.

Once they were all in and gathered at the back end of the control platform, they sat down out of the way of the staff members moving about as they prepared the systems for takeoff.

Dash was actually a little giddy, and she was sure the rest of her squad was as well. They were going to get the opportunity to watch this big old thing lift off right from the bridge.

“Okay, standby,” Spitfire said to Lucky as she turned and walked back towards them all over the control platform. She stepped down off the metallic surface and back onto the floor while looking around at all the elites. They were eagerly awaiting an explanation. “Listen up, here’s the plan…”

“Better late than never,” High Winds said quietly to herself, earning a flat look from Spitfire. High Winds casually pointed at Blaze. “She said it.”

“Fuck you, Windy.”

“HERE’S THE PLAN…” Spitfire spoke over her half-sister as she clapped her hooves together. “The reason I didn’t give a full general speech is because there are several broken up and specific parts to it,” she started, Dash giving Storm a subtle nudge as she went on. “We have a set flight path, but we’re expecting the Shadowbolts to be ready for an intercept course. The Wonderbolts have been broken up into two groups. Interior defense and exterior defense on the main flight deck. The Renegades are going to be flying out in front of the Nimbus to act as a quick strike offensive force. Their goal is to hit them quick and see if they can give us an avenue of escape should we come under fire.”

“You’re putting the Renegades out in front again?” Soarin asked.

“Descent offered, Soarin, let me finish,” she explained without looking directly at him. “I’m sure you’re wondering how that’s any different than our last plan. Well, I’ve decided to try something since we have a goddess on board. The Shadowbolt fortress has a massive magical shield around it, right? Well… Luna once protected the entire compound with a magic dome. So why not copy them?”

Spitfire bounced her eyebrows confidently, hoping they’d be intrigued by the idea, but she was not getting the desired reaction.

“Uh, ma’am…” Fire Streak chimed in. “Luna was nearly struck down by the Fortress’ main cannon, won’t the same thing happen if we try again?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Spitfire placed a hoof on the headset she was wearing. “I am in direct contact with Luna… and will be directing her where to focus her shielding, using more compact, sturdier shields only where we need them instead of guarding the whole place at once. She is standing out there on the platform with a group of Wonderbolts and some of our earth ponies to keep her anchored, but she won’t be able to see everything from her center point. That’s where we come in up here,” she tapped her hoof on the floor. “I had a feeling almost all of you would not be battle ready, so I want you guys up here to help me keep a lookout from the bridge and help me direct Luna. Secondly, if worst comes to worst and a Shadowbolt gets up here, it will be up to us to defend the staff with Macho Savage and Soarin upfront since they are in top shape, and I guess Twister and Little Star will back them up,” she added at the end while tipping to look at Dash’s squad, but then sharply turned to Soarin. “And I know I don’t have to say it, be very careful with the horn.”

“Yes, yes…” Soarin rolled his eyes and grunted as Spitfire turned back to them.

“With the four of them handling whatever comes at us, the rest of us will spread out on the bridge and shield the staff members. We must keep this old tub in the air at all costs.” She nodded with satisfaction. “And that’s the plan. Risky? Yes. Maybe a little nuts? Definitely. But we won’t get anywhere playing it completely safe.”

“What about the Thestrals?” Soarin asked, realizing she had not brought them up. Spitfire smirked and winked at him.

“If we have to use them… you’ll see,” she chuckled, turning away as the elites all glanced about at each other, wondering what that meant. “Alright Lucky, get Rivet on the line and—”

Before Spitfire could give the order, the door to the bridge suddenly opened. Everypony, Spitfire included, perked up and turned around.

It was Calm Wind with Shine Struck walking right beside him, both adorning their Wonderbolt suits. But that wasn’t what had everypony’s attention.

Fleetfoot was riding on Calm’s back.

“What the hell…?” Spitfire glared as the elites parted to let her through and towards Calm.

“Uh…” Calm moved slowly and carefully, clearly taking care not to make any sudden movements for Fleetfoot’s sake. He cringed as Spitfire focused her glare on him remaining awkwardly silent.

“What’s this all about?” Spitfire demanded as she looked between Calm and Fleetfoot. She clung to Calm’s neck and held her eyes shut tight, her teeth grinding together as she fought back the pain.

“She—” Shine spoke up, but froze for a moment as Spitfire refocused her angry glare on her. She clearly did not want Fleetfoot anywhere near danger. “Uh… she demanded to be brought up here,” Shine explained. Spitfire’s face changed drastically, from anger to surprise in an instant. “We tried to stop her, but… once she was on Calm, she refused to let go, even Bliss gave up.”

Spitfire blinked and turned to look at Fleetfoot. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Let me… down…” Fleetfoot spoke in a very strained, broken tone. Calm obeyed without hesitation, slowly lowering himself down until he was resting on his stomach. Shine reached up to assist Fleetfoot as she let go of Calm, but she swatted Shine’s hoof away and did it herself. She groaned and cringed, taking several seconds to simply turn herself before slipping off Calm and falling to the floor, crying out in pain as she hit. Calm’s reaction was so fast, one could make an argument for him being part cat. He was up, turned, and reaching for her the instant she screamed, but he too was given a swift swat of the hoof as Fleetfoot refused to be helped. She rolled over and shakily pushed herself up off the floor.

Everypony watched and waited until Fleetfoot was up on her hooves and somehow standing despite how much of a wreck her whole body was.

“Are we… taking off?” she asked, her broken voice pattern unable to conceal a particular zeal and assumption that she was part of the plan. Spitfire immediately moved to dispel her intentions.

“Fleet, no, you shouldn’t be up here,” Spitfire shifted up to her and started reaching for her. “Go back to the infirmary, I want you—”

“NO!” Fleetfoot yelled right in Spitfire’s face, causing her to stop right in her tracks with wide eyes. “I don’t want to sit down there!” she stated firmly as her legs wobbled. Spitfire was feeling the pushback from her, but fought through it regardless.

“Fleet, no. It’s for your safety,” she tried reaching for her again, but Fleetfoot managed to lift a hoof and stop her.

“I DON’T care!” she yelled again, her eyes barely open as her face contorted with pain. “My friends are up here. So I’m staying here.” She demanded while grabbing Spitfire’s hoof. Spitfire looked down at it as Fleetfoot’s arm shook. She was determined and would not be denied. Spitfire could push her down, she could tell her off, but not when she was showing so much commitment to her fellow Wonderbolts. Fleetfoot was not going to budge.

She would have preferred that Fleetfoot stayed in the infirmary, but things had changed. Standard protocol had more or less been thrown out the window at this point.

Soarin watched closely from a few paces away. He knew Spitfire was not going to deny her, especially after the firm reminder she gave them earlier about where their generation found their strength. It was from the ponies they stood side by side with. Ultimately, having Fleetfoot present may actually help them.

“Okay… but…” Spitfire trailed off. Fleetfoot shook her head before she could continue.

“I’ll stay… out of the way,” she took a sharp breath and shuddered as she stumbled slightly. Calm quickly moved one of his hooves to her side to keep her from falling. Thankfully, this time she didn’t take a swing at it. She welcomed the support and forced herself back up. “I just want… to be with you all.”

There was no arguing with that. Spitfire smiled as she watched Fleetfoot look directly into her eyes and silently tell her that she was not taking no for an answer.

“Alright, Fleet…” Spitfire took a step forward and gently wrapped a hoof around Fleetfoot’s neck, moving herself forward and hugging her best friend gingerly. “I think… I’d rather have you where I can see you anyway,” she said, feeling awful as she felt Fleetfoot’s body shake and twitch. Spitfire pulled back, catching Fleetfoot’s attempts at a satisfied smile before she cringed and shut her eyes, groaning in pain as her legs fought to keep her steady. Spitfire turned to Shine.

“I take it Swift and Playbitz are still down with Bliss?” she asked. Shine quickly nodded.

Spitfire took a breath and put on a more serious expression as she sharply turned to Calm.

“You,” she pointed at him. Calm flinched, his whole body turning except for his hoof as he continued to support Fleetfoot. He blinked as Spitfire moved right up to him and reached her hoof as far up as she could. It looked like she was going for his nose, but when her hoof stopped below his chin, she poked him in the chest muscles instead. “Big fella, Fleetfoot is YOUR responsibility until we get to the Crystal Empire, understand?” Spitfire ordered. Calm’s head twitched and he nearly threw the goggles off his noggin as he shook his head out.

“M-m-ME?!” he asked frantically, completely caught off guard by the order.

“Yes, you, you walking ocean liner,” Spitfire poked him in the chest again. “Got a problem with that?”

“What? I…” Calm swallowed and blinked several times. “NO! I… Uh… Of course not!” he quickly affirmed nervously.

“Good,” Spitfire pressed her hoof against his chest, applying harder pressure. “Keep her comfortable. If things get bumpy, do EVERYTHING you can to keep her from moving too much. If we come under direct danger up here, you shield her from all harm, got it?” she ordered, pressing her hoof so hard against Calm’s chest that he was almost forced to take a step backwards.

“Y-yes ma’am!” Calm nodded dutifully as he swallowed. Spitfire kept her eyes on him for another second or two as if she really wanted to drill into his head that she’d kick his ass should harm come to Fleetfoot. But regardless, she knew Fleetfoot was in good hooves, Calm was more protective than Soarin, and that was hard to do.

Spitfire watched as Calm gently guided Fleetfoot away from the door, moving her a few yards away until she was completely out of the way and in a position where she couldn’t possibly obstruct anypony. As soon as Calm stopped moving her, she lowered herself down, nearly pulling Calm down with her. He lowered himself down with her, but stiffened up quickly as she nestled herself into him. She was only doing so to distract her from the pain, but she had her whole body against him. Calm had his orders and intended to follow them, but he avoided eye contact with her, mostly to hide how red his face was.

“Shine,” Spitfire turned to her. “You’ll join the ranks up here, have Dash fill you in,” she said as she continued to turn and make her way back towards the control platform.

Shine looked at Dash, confused but ready for whatever was about to be explained. Luckily for her, Dash was ready with the short version.

“If any Shadowbolts make it up here, defend Lucky and the staff,” she said with a smarmy wink. Shine blinked as she quickly absorbed it and chuckled.

“Sounds easy enough,” she said as she stepped up beside Dash, stealing a quick glance at Matteo, Squall, and Star behind them as they tried to remove Twister from Matteo’s chest feathers. She lost interest quickly as the three completely failed to stop Twister’s shenanigans, instead focusing on the same thing Dash was focused on. They were both looking right at Spitfire as she made her way towards Lucky.

Dash noticed Shine looking at their captain too, and wondered if she was thinking the same thing. They had yet to speak since they both witnessed… the third.

Shine ended up breaking the silence.

“So… it’s her, huh?” she spoke, drawing Dash’s attention.

“Hm?” Dash more or less knew what she was talking about, but she let her go on.

“Spitfire,” Shine made a head motion towards their captain. “She’s the third copycat?”

“You knew, huh?” Dash said even though she remembered she and Shine making eye contact when Spitfire and Nightshade were locked in combat. She couldn’t remember if Shine knew about the third mimicking pony, but this proved it.

“Silver told me,” Shine explained. Dash blinked and chuckled.

“Totally not surprised,” she smiled as Silver continued to be relevant despite being half dead. “Yeah, it’s Spitfire,” Dash nodded as both she and Shine remembered what they saw two days prior, how Spitfire worked the mimicked moves differently.

“Did you see how she did it all though?” Shine said as she and Dash looked at one another. “It was … so different.”

“Yeah,” Dash nodded. “Instead of copying them straight-up, she changed every move in small ways to fit her preferences and abilities.” She turned smirked at Shine. “Honestly, I never considered that approach.”

“Me neither,” Shine admitted without hesitation. “Making the moves our own? I was always so focused on copying exactly what I was seeing.”

“Yeah,” Dash nodded. “I know what you mean. From the start, I focused so much on mirroring move for move. I just assumed I’d have trouble since all the abilities of the Wonderbolts are so refined down to the body type and personal prowess of the user. Hell, the only reason I’m, able to use Soarin’s Sonic Blastoff is because I kicked my ass in the gym until my muscles were strong enough to endure the pressure and power. And even after that I still struggle with it, nor can my body handle two or three of them in a day. Spitfire can use it… but with her altered version I’d think she could get five or six uses. Her version seems easier, if only a little less powerful. But she’s also bigger and way stronger than me too. You ever seen her in the gym? She puts up more weight than some of the stallions.”

“It would be awesome if we could get some tips from her,” Shine wondered out loud.

“Heh,” Dash smirked. “As is I feel lucky enough to be trained by Silver Lining. I doubt Spitfire would have the time to personally teach us. Though…” Dash paused and looked towards Spitfire. “I think she may have already showed us what we’re doing wrong. She’s mastered her own versions of the techniques she sees… I guess that means we just have to do the same.”

“Easier said than done,” Shine shook her head. “If you think about it, every move works in a specific way… we have to figure out how make the same thing happen with different movements?”

“Hm…” Dash hummed to herself as Shine made a very valid point. She had made it this far by being hyper-observant and analytical, watching every move carefully and simply reproducing them. She had yet to ‘devise’ anything. “We’ll have to figure it all out then, but…” Dash turned and gave Shine a nudge. “Let’s live through this first, okay?”

“Agreed,” Shine nodded with a smile. The two perked up as they saw Spitfire turn away from Lucky and pace back towards the Wonderbolts. She reached a hoof up and pushed the microphone of her headset down to her mouth and tapped it.

“Testing, testing… Can you hear me Luna?” she spoke into it, but stopped, blinked, and turned back towards the front. “Luna, repeat, Luna, can you hear me?” she asked again as she reached the front windshield and looked out onto the flight deck below. She could see Luna standing in the middle about fifteen yards away from the captured Falcon still chained to the deck. She could see Luna was fiddling with the headset frantically. “I think you’re muted, if you can hear me, press the red button on the box.”

Luna must have heard because Spitfire saw her look back at the small black box clipped to her armor before touching it.

“How is this?” Everypony on the bridge heard Luna’s voice shout through Spitfire’s headset loud enough to make out exactly what she was saying. Spitfire cringed and pulled the earpiece away from her head for a moment.

“No need for the Royal Canterlot Voice, your Highness. These microphones would pick you up if you whispered…” she turned around and started walking back towards them again, but flattened her brow and sighed. “No, Luna, I don’t mean you need to whisper… talk normally please,” she explained as several Wonderbolts broke into chuckles. “Is everything ready down there?” she finally asked as she changed direction and began pacing in a circle around the control panels and staff members. “Good, good, good… okay, we’re going to take off.”

Spitfire altered her path and moved right back up to Lucky as she muted her headset and pressed the comm button to the engine room.

“Rivet, are we good to go down there?” she asked.

“HEY HOTTIE!” Lead Runner’s voice blasted through the speakers, nearly blowing Spitfire’s mane back.

“Why does he always answer first?” she said to herself as she glanced at the volume dial and huffed. “And who keeps turning this damn thing up to eleven?” she grumbled as she turned it way down.

“The engines are purring like a pussycat down here!” Lead Runner’s effeminate voice continued through the speakers. “Is yours?”

Spitfire’s left eye twitched and her jaw dropped slightly.

“Is my what doing… WHAT?!” she yelled as her yellow face turned bright red.

“Ha HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” Lighting Streak heartily reacted behind. Spitfire turned and glared at him, but he just pointed. “ZING!” he added before Fire Streak swiftly opened his wing to smack his brother upside the head.

“No, it’s not!” Spitfire quickly fired back at Lead Runner. “Put Rivet on, dammit!”

“Rivet! Hun-Hun!” Lead Runner yelled without letting go of his end. “Sexy babe on the line for you! Don’t keep her waiting, she’s all warm with a humming pu—”

“LEARUN!” Spitfire shouted while pressing her nose to the speaker.

“Rivet here,” Rivet’s voice came through, all business as usual with no audible indication he heard or cared about what Lead Runner was saying. Spitfire shut her eyes and puffed her cheeks out, releasing a muffled yell of frustration before exhaling, recomposing herself.

“We’re all clear for takeoff, are all systems go?” she asked, fighting the heavy embarrassed blush off her face.

“Just give the word and we’ll cut her loose,” Rivet quickly replied. Spitfire looked down for a moment, but then nodded firmly.

“Then cut her loose! Let the Nimbus fly!”

“Roger!” Rivet complied, immediately cutting the comm.

Everypony went quiet for a moment, Wonderbolts and staff members alike as all eyes went to Lucky.

Spitfire gave him a simple nod.

A loud and sudden WHOOSH sounded throughout the walls as the rush of steam roared through the pipes of the Nimbus. A low, quiet, echoing groan came from beneath the floor, behind the walls, and in the ceiling as the old gears, axles, and belts of the aged machinery creaked to life. The floor beneath their hooves began to rattle and vibrate, until the room was filled with a constant hum as the propellers outside began to turn.

They all waited patiently, all eyes on Lucky as he gripped the steering lever with one hoof and hovered the other above the throttle, waiting as the old mechanisms of the Nimbus picked up their pace, spinning the massive propellers faster and faster until they all felt a slight push from below.

The Nimbus was slowly rising once again.

As the view of the deep canyon outside began to move and the Nimbus began to lift itself up out of the massive crevice, Spitfire turned to face them.

“Wonderbolts…” she addressed them calmly as the whirring and clanking of the Nimbus grew louder and stronger. “Let’s take it to them.”

Luna braced herself as she and all those stationed outside were pelted by the initial gusts of the propellers. They anchored their hooves and held themselves steady as the Nimbus rose up. Large plumes of smoke burst upwards from the smokestacks as flames danced on the ends of them, the loud whooshing of the rotors becoming more constant as the large central propeller slowly matched their speed, pulling them up further and further until the edge of the canyon was in their view.

The ponies on deck shielded their faces as they peeked over the canyon, the sun meeting their eyes, glaring at them as it rested halfway down towards the horizon.

They were up and out of the canyon, the Nimbus slowly turning to line up their flight path.

“Let’s not push the altitude more than we need to,” Spitfire spoke up as the rest of the Wonderbolts made their way towards to the wrap around windshield to look outside and admire the view. “Keep us around forty yards up.”

“Uh… I don’t really know how high that is,” Lucky admitted as he looked at his display. “There’s no altitude gauge on this thing.”

“Best guess, then,” Spitfire simplified it.

“Roger,” Lucky acknowledged as he reached for the third lever near the throttle that allowed him to directly adjust the power of uplift.

Once they made it around the desired height, Lucky pushed the lever down, locking it in place halfway. The Nimbus stopped rising and held its altitude with a light jolt from the sudden halt in their ascent.

“Eee!” Fleetfoot quietly shrieked as the Nimbus’ path shifted. Spitfire turned around so fast that her tail nearly whipped Lucky right in the face. She glared towards Calm who was actively holding onto Fleetfoot as she cringed and shuddered beside him.

“Sorry, sorry, I, uh… wasn’t expecting that,” he explained.

“KEEP. HER. STILL!” Spitfire repeated harshly to him as Calm froze up and clamped his mouth shut.

“Alright, Spitfire,” Soarin quickly trotted over to her and stood in her line of sight towards Calm. “Let him do as you asked, don’t blame him for this old boat being a rickety clunker.”

Spitfire pouted at him, confirming what he already knew. She was just being a little frantic and overprotective of Fleetfoot.

“Come on, keep giving orders,” Soarin chuckled as he reached down and turned her back around to face forward. “Keep calm and carry on… Calm!” Soarin joked as he glanced at him and twirled his hoof in the air.

“Y-yes sir,” the big doof stuttered as he went back to keeping more of an eye on Fleetfoot than he ever thought he’d get.

“Alright… are we almost lined up?” Spitfire asked, refocusing on Lucky.

“Almost…” Lucky said as he eyed the compass on the display, slowly turning towards northwest. Spitfire stared at the compass, realizing she had a moment before they were ready. She turned and pointed about. “Wonderbolts, help out where you can, we need some lookouts and somepony on the periscope.”

“Ooo! Me! Me!” Surprise giddily spoke up before anypony else could offer. She hopped towards the periscope, the bounce remaining in her movements despite being a bit sore. She fluttered up towards the periscope and pulled it down, riding it all the way to the floor before sticking her face into it and turning in a circle. “I’m on the job!”

“Hey, I had it last time!” Blaze tried to protest, but High Winds held her back.

“No, you gave blood two days ago,” she said flatly as she yawned.

“Dammit, Windy, I told you I’m fine,” Blaze whined as she tried and failed to pull away from High Winds, only to suddenly get a dizzy spell.

“It takes fifty-six days to fully recover from giving blood,” High Winds suddenly went medical on her.

“SAYS FUCKING WHOOOOooooooo…” Blaze toppled against her.

“I asked Bliss,” Winds continued to look forward as Blaze melted into her side.

“The fuck did you have to go and do that for…?” Blaze grumbled as she gave in.

“I’ll keep a lookout from this side,” Fire Streak waved as he moved to the right, catching on that Blaze and High Winds were unable to assist. “Brother,” Fire Streak pointed to the other side of the room.

“Sure, I’ll get the other,” Lightning offered as he moved around to the left side.

Soarin watched as the twins split up, then glanced over his shoulder to see Storm, Shine, Dash, and her Squad all sitting still in the back. He smirked, figuring they were hesitant to get in the way at all, so he took the initiative.

“I’ll watch around up front,” he offered as he moved around Spitfire.

“No, I need you back to—”

“Defend, I know,” Soarin finished for her. “I’m literally a few paces away from being where I need to be in case of an emergency, besides…” He pointed at Macho Savage and Air Mach walking around between the staff members and flexing their muscles in front of each of them. “I think Savage is capable of lasting the two seconds it will take me to get in position.”

“Alright, fine,” Spitfire agreed. “SAVAGE! MACH! Quit bothering the staff!”

“Just showin’ them THUNDER and LIGHTNING, boss lady captain!” he yelled out while bouncing his chest muscles one at a time.

“The Shadowbolts may have magic cannons…” Air Mach flexed his arms. “But they ain’t got THESE cannons!”

“The mega, yeah, the mega, yeah, the mega POWER YEAH—!”

“Show them later!” Spitfire cut off Savage before he could force her I.Q. any lower. “I swear you’re all going to give me a heart attack,” she said to herself quietly as she touched Lucky on the shoulder.

“What are we doing to you now?” Lucky asked, picking up her whispering.

“Nothing, are we lined up?” she quickly redirected.

“We will be right…” Lucky gently tipped the lever to the left, causing the Nimbus to stop turning. “Now.”

“Then no time to waste!” Spitfire nodded as she pushed her headset mic back down. “Luna, deploy the Renegades, we are full steam ahead!”

“We’re moving!” Luna yelled as she pushed her headset up. She pointed forward as the Nimbus began to move. “RENEGADES TAKE FLIGHT!” she yelled louder, reaching the incredible octaves of her Royal Canterlot Voice.

“Renegades! Let’s move!” Descent yelled as the Wonderbolts on the platform moved aside. The Renegades strengthened their stances as they opened their wings and broke into gallops. Fighting against the harsh winds, the Renegades lifted off, pushing through the strong gusts and gales from the propellers as they took the lead ahead of the Nimbus. Lots of grunts and growling came from the group as they muscled their way to dominance over the air currents. All except for Lightning Dust, who used her prowess at negating wind resistance to her advantage, despite a few jabs from Starry Skies for showing off.

With the Renegades in the air, the Wonderbolts stationed on the platform formed a defensive perimeter around Luna, half of them standing guard while the other half paired up with the unicorn staffers who had bravely, and in some cases reluctantly, volunteered to help boost Luna’s magic with their own.

Luna surveyed the activity while also keeping herself steady, nodding to herself in satisfaction as everything took shape. But as she kept looking around, unease crept onto her face. She used her magic to push her headset mic back down.

“We worry for our guards… will they be alright?” she asked in a worrisome, almost motherly manner.

“P.L. told me it would be no problem,” Spitfire replied as she watched the Renegades take the lead from the window of the bridge. “He doesn’t bluff, they’ll be fine.”

“So…” Soarin took a step backwards from the window and tapped Spitfire on the shoulder. She pushed up her headset and glanced at him, lifting her brow. “Can you tell me what the Thestrals are doing now?”

“They are going to be the ace up our sleeve,” Spitfire quickly answered, but it was a blatant sidestep. “If the Shadowbolts put us in a bind out there, plan B will go into effect and we’ll surprise them with our new allies.”

“You dodged the question,” Soarin pointed out while narrowing his eyes and poking her in the shoulder three times.

“Stop that,” Spitfire pushed his hoof down while huffing. “Sit tight, princess. I don’t want to ruin the surprise,” she said with a smirk.

“Haven’t heard that one in a while…” Soarin rolled his eyes and went back to surveying the view ahead of them, knowing full well Spitfire wasn’t going to budge.

“I know I’ve said this about five times now since we got up here but…” Little Star said out loud as she continued to look around at all the machinery, the control panels, the Wonderbolts, and the staff. “But this is… incredible,” she stated, so distracted by what was going on that she hadn’t noticed Squall was no longer right beside her. She learned to her right and yelped as she nearly fell over on her side. She looked around and found Squall had moved to the other side of Dash and Matteo. She pouted for a moment, but then figured it was to get away from Twister.

“Careful there,” Dash chuckled as Star replaced herself beside her. Dash had, in fact, heard the other four times Star had expressed her awe, but she agreed every time.

“You know, seeing this thing fly in general was one thing,” Dash finally chimed in with an actual response. “But watching it actually work, see it be piloted and everything… makes it even more awesome,” she expressed as a subtle head shake from Matteo prompted her to look up at him.

“I am still in awe that such a large structure can fly,” he spoke his mind. Dash blinked and tipped her head slightly.

“But you knew about their Fortress before we had the Nimbus,” Dash pointed out. Matteo nodded in agreement but glanced down at her.

“The flight of the Shadowbolt Fortress can easily be attributed to the unnatural power of the magical crystals that adorn it, but this?” He made a subtle head motion. “Our entire base, being ripped free from its foundations and into the air by steam powered technology? It is truly a sight to behold,” he explained himself as Star suddenly shifted in front of Dash and leaned against her arm.

“Is there a lot of technology in the Griffon Kingdom?” Star asked, Matteo quickly shaking his head slowly.

“None. We are very traditional in both our way of life and trade,” he explained.

“Boy, THAT’S a surprise,” Squall suddenly commented, but despite the glare Star shot across the bow, Matteo simply ignored Squall.

“Technology is not foreign to us, we just choose not to use it in the homeland,” he clarified.

“Huh, you know,” Dash pondered. “I always wondered why I never saw any trains to the Griffon Kingdom on any departure boards or ticket booths at the major stations around Equestria. I take it there are no train stations there?”

“None,” Matteo answered simply.

“I guess I’m not surprised,” Dash continued to wonder out loud. “The one bad visit aside, I always wondered why Gilda didn’t visit too much. I guess it’s quite a trip.”

As Dash continued to think to herself and Star made her way around Matteo to bop Squall on the hoof for his little dig at Matteo. Dash suddenly blinked and looked back and forth, turning to look at the rest of her squad before looking forward and around the staff members.

“Oh hell no, WHERE IS TWISTER?!” she suddenly blurted out while reaching up and grabbing her mane. Squall, Matteo, and Star all perked up and started glancing about.

“He’s right here…” Storm spoke up from behind them. His tone sounded annoyed. Dash spun around to see Storm standing just outside her peripheral vision, a flat, unamused look plastered to his face as Twister clung to his neck and had his back legs latched to his waist. His lips were flapping, his eyelids peeling back, and his mane waving like crazy as if the movement of the Nimbus was threatening to send him flying…despite the current speed of travel being slow and steadily building up.

Dash glared harshly at Twister, bearing her teeth slightly as a quiet snarl slipped between them.

“Good!” she said gruffly as she stomped over to Storm, placed herself beside him and swiftly wrapped a wing around Twister’s neck. She turned, giving him a good yank meant to pull him off, but Twister’s body remained latched to Storm, his neck elongating as Dash pulled his head away. She was not looking and didn’t notice that his neck was extending like a noodle as she pulled him along by the head.

“Because if you disappear on me again I’ll…” She stopped about ten yards away from Storm, but she still hadn’t noticed his little neck trick. “You know what, I don’t know what I’ll do because I doubt anything will make a differen—” she looked down at him, finally noticing that only his head and neck had moved with her, but she only got a quick glimpse before his body suddenly detached from Storm and whipped towards her like a snapped cable. She braced herself for a hard impact, but Twister’s body slamming against her barely produced any force as he latched to her side instead.

“MOMMY! YOU KNOW ME SO WELL!” he cooed at her in high pitched, innocent voice.

“OFF.” Dash ordered sternly while pressing a hoof over his head and slamming him down to the floor.

“HEY!” Spitfire suddenly yelled from up front, making Dash flinch. “Cut the shenanigans back there!” she ordered without turning around.

“Yes, ma’am!” Dash quickly complied, but glared down at Twister as he lay flat on his back right below her. “And now you got me in trouble, jackass.”

Twister just puckered his lips and pressed his hooves to puffed up cheeks as he made quiet farting noises while making his eyes bulge outward.

The Nimbus eventually built up its full speed and was coasting along smoothly above the canyons with the Renegades pacing themselves out front.

Everything had gone smoothly so far. One would think that was a good thing, and they’d be right. But due to the nature of their enemy, lack of any contact quickly began to trouble Spitfire. Maybe it was a little bit of paranoia, but after all they had been through, something going THIS smoothly seemed suspicious. After several minutes of subtle pacing and tapping her hoof continuously, Spitfire finally broke the silence on the bridge.

“Report! Anything out there?” Spitfire suddenly asked as she turned and looked about at all the staff members. She got a mix of shrugs and head shakes. “Guys, anything?” she asked again while turning her attention to the Wonderbolts, specifically, Surprise and the Streak twins.

“Nothing off the starboard bow,” Fire Streak chimed in from the right side of the bridge.

“Nothing out… uh…” Lightning Streak blinked and scratched his head. “Moonboard?”

“Port, brother,” Fire Streak sighed. “Left is port.”

“I knew that,” he pointed at Fire while keeping his eyes on Spitfire. “Nothing on port… er, off port.”

Spitfire quickly shifted her eyes towards Surprise as she started spinning the periscope around in several circles, her hooves not touching the ground as she rode it with her eyes stuck into the eye hole.

“Nope! Nothing in all directions!” she clarified, her voice uneven and waving as she spun. She suddenly stopped, her back hooves touching down. “Wait… WAIT!” she suddenly jammed her head further forward, most of her face disappearing into the periscope.

“What?!” Spitfire pressed frantically.

“I CAN’T SEE DIRECTLY ABOVE US!!!!” Surprise yelled while squealing and flailing her arms. Spitfire blinked and flattened her brow before pushing her headset mic down.

“Luna, come in. Have either you or the Renegades spotted anything out there?” she paused as Luna’s voice could be heard quietly coming through the earpiece. “What about directly above us?” Spitfire pushed further. She listened to Luna’s reply, but nopony had to ask what she said, because Spitfire instantly growled and pushed her mic back up over her head. “Nothing… absolutely nothing…” she grumbled as Soarin turned away from the front windshield and made his way around Lucky to her.

“Is that a bad thing?” he asked rhetorically.

“No, but it’s worrisome…” she said without looking at him, one of her hooves scraping back and forth on the floor. “Stay alert!” she suddenly yelled to everypony. “Keep an eye out in every direction!”

“Let’s not get overly paranoid though,” Soarin tried to touch her shoulder, but she quickly pushed it away.

“Don’t start with me Soarin, it wouldn’t be the first time the Shadowbolts snuck right under our noses. I don’t think I have to remind you how—”

“I know, Spitfire. Rapidfire did it twice. It’s kind of hard to forget,” he looked at her sternly. “I’m not suggesting we’re safe, but we have some different circumstances here. They knew exactly where we were and were waiting for us last time.”

“That’s… true, but still…” Spitfire pouted and looked out front.

“No complaining here! I think I prefer this!” Lucky suddenly chimed in, having heard their exchange.

“Focus, Lucky,” Spitfire quickly quieted him down.

“Who knows?” Soarin shrugged. “Maybe things are working out for o—”

“STOP!” Spitfire jammed her hoof up and pressed it to Soarin’s mouth. “Don’t even say it!”

“Alright, alright,” Soarin chuckled.

“No breaks, no relief, and no relaxing until we arrive safely at our destination,” Spitfire said firmly as she put her hoof back down and shook out her mane. “If we happened to get a head start on them, good, that’s fine. But let’s remember they are a sneaky bunch… and their ship is a lot faster than ours. If they’re not being sneaky, they’ll eventually catch up anyway.”

Soarin couldn’t argue with that, but decided to stay put for a few moments instead of retaking his forward position. It wasn’t a very useful spot anyway since the Renegades were out in front and Lucky had his eyes forward already. Spitfire said nothing else, remaining silent for several moments, but fidgeting, tapping her hoof, and moving her chin back and forth. She was clearly uneasy. Soarin blinked as Spitfire suddenly turned and moved away from the front, weaving her way through the staff members and control panels and stepping down from the platform. She drew a few looks as she moved by, but eventually made her way towards the one pony who was unaware of her.

She walked right up to Misty Fly, who was patiently sitting near Fire Streak with her back turned to Spitfire. Spitfire tapped her on the back.

Misty perked up and glanced over her shoulder, quickly standing up and facing Spitfire the moment she saw her. Spitfire made a single beckoning motion before turning and walking to the other side of the bridge to a table that was bolted to the floor in the opposite corner. Misty followed obediently.

By now, Soarin’s interest was piqued. He turned and made his way over to the table as well, noticing Spitfire rummaging through a box of large rolled up papers that sat beside the table. She eventually pulled one out, found the edges, and unrolled them, giving them to Misty Fly. Misty quickly realized what Spitfire wanted and helped her place the paper on the table, unrolling the large print from end to end to reveal their flight path map.

Soarin was curious for two reasons. First, why was she looking at the flight map after giving Lucky his flight orders, and two… why did she go through the trouble of corralling Misty Fly for help when others were closer, not to mention she could have spoken to them? He knew Blaze and High Winds were preoccupied, but any member of Foxtrot, or say… Storm, Air Mach, Macho Savage, or even he could have helped.

“You know I could have easily helped with that,” he commented as he drew near.

“Yeah, but Misty doesn’t ask questions,” Spitfire replied bluntly as Misty helped her secure the map to the table with plastic flaps attached to the table.

“Why are you looking at the map?” Soarin immediately asked.

“See what I mean?” Spitfire shot right back.

“Oh stop,” Soarin scoffed as he moved around the table and looked down at the map, taking note of a circle drawn around the canyons with a line moving towards and arcing around the north west mountains, all drawn in pencil.

“I can’t take just standing around, I had to do something…” Spitfire reluctantly admitted as she grabbed a black marker and uncapped it. “We started here…” she started moving the marker along the already drawn path, pausing after tracing a small portion of it. “We need to get here…” she pointed to the Crystal Empire on the other side of the map past the mountains and over the snowy northern plains. Soarin blinked as he watched Spitfire effectively redraw a plan they already had in place.

“Didn’t you… already do this?” he asked with a light chuckle.

“Yes, quiet,” Spitfire waved at him without taking her eyes off the map. “I’m contemplating other options. We have a plan B for combat, but none for an alternative flight path.” She stopped tracing the pencil line with the marker as she reached the mountains. She eyed the mountains briefly before tracing a little more of the line and stopping as she was moving parallel to them. “This is our current path… The mountains out west are not as snowy as the ones out east, but once we get north enough, it’ll be déjà vu. If we keep on our current path we can avoid the mountains entirely, which I think we’d all prefer, but if it comes down to it…” She broke away from the pencil line, drawing a new line with the marker into the mountains. “I’m confident Lucky can navigate us through the mountains at a low altitu—”

They all flinched and stumbled as the Nimbus suddenly lurched and tipped. The jolt caused Spitfire to accidentally scribble the marker all over the mountains.

“Sorry!” Lucky called from the front as the Nimbus evened out. “Hoof slipped!”

Spitfire just stared blankly at the crazy scribbled line on the map as Soarin held his breath to hold back laughter. Spitfire sighed and clicked the cap back on the marker.

“We’ll only do it if we have to,” she grumbled as she unclipped the map and let it roll up, Misty Fly barely catching it before it fell to the floor. “Keep the throttle up for now, Lucky!” Spitfire yelled as she started making her way back to the forward window. “When the mountains come into view, throttle down and turn us parallel within fifty yards!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucky complied, but Spitfire already had her headset down to speak with Luna again.

Soarin remained by the table, sitting down as Misty Fly neatly replaced the map in the box and returned to Fire Streak’s side. Soarin perked up as he felt somepony brushing up against him. He looked down to see Dash pushing herself beneath his wing.

“Do you want something?” he asked with a chuckle as Dash forced his wing out and placed herself beneath it.

“I just don’t like this,” she said without going further.

“Don’t like what?”

“That we haven’t seen any sign of them yet,” she confirmed what he was already suspecting.

“You and Spitfire both,” Soarin said as he pressed his wing against her. “Who knows what’s going on, but hey, I won’t complain if we get there without any tro—OW!” he yelped as Dash jabbed him in the side.

“DON’T even say it!” she chided him as Soarin reached his hoof over and rubbed his side, releasing Dash from his wing.

“Jeez, I can’t catch a break…”

And…

The trip continued to be silent.

Half an hour passed with no sign of the Shadowbolts. No visuals, no contact, nothing. Spitfire even ordered a sweep of the entire compound at one point, sending the Wonderbolts stationed within the Nimbus on a wild patrol route for several minutes, but they found absolutely nothing. There were no signs of irregularities in their ranks, nopony acting suspicious, no Shadowbolts sneaking around.

Confirmation that all was indeed well would… again… normally be a good thing, but Spitfire was getting increasingly antsy about the situation. After all they had been put through, there was no way they’d simply be allowed to mosey on to the Crystal Empire without a single confrontation. She refused to believe it and she was starting to think she was going nuts.

“There are the western mountains…” Soarin spoke up beside Spitfire as the mountains came into view, the Nimbus reaching the edge of the dry canyons and flying over the open field plains that led to the base of the mountain range. Spitfire said nothing in response. She just sat on the floor, staring out the window while subtly rocking back and forth while tapping a hoof against the floor every few seconds. “Spitfire?” Soarin glanced down at her, but again, she didn’t reply.

“Throttle down, Lucky,” Spitfire ordered instead of answering Soarin. “Bring us in slow and turn us slowly to port. Fly us parallel, thirty yards.”

Lucky reached for the throttle and lightly pulled back on it, but then blinked and glanced at Spitfire.

“Didn’t you say fifty before?” he asked.

“Changed my mind,” Spitfire said flatly as she turned around and pushed down her headset. “Luna, we’re going to fly a little tighter to the mountain. Relay that to Descent.” She pushed the headset back up and took a long, deep, exasperated breath as she turned forward and walked around the controls to stand right in front of the window.

Lucky glanced at Soarin briefly, but Soarin only shrugged before rotating a hoof. Lucky did as he was told, pulling the lever with him slightly to the right before leaning his body into the lever, pushing it gradually to the left. The Nimbus tipped and turned on a soft curve as Lucky slowly lined them up with the edge of the mountain range, bringing them in a little closer than initially planned.

As the view of the mountains slowly moved to the starboard window, Spitfire’s eyes remained glued to them, her head turning until they were in line.

“So why the change?” Soarin asked, moving up beside her as she kept watching the passing mountains.

“Precautionary,” she replied simply as she looked over her shoulder. Her eyes scanned the whole bridge, her eyes landing on Fleetfoot for a moment as Calm continued to hold her steady. He looked on edge, but she was okay with that. She didn’t mean to intimidate him… much. But if he kept Fleetfoot as comfortable as possible, that’s all she wanted. As they completely lined up with the mountains and the Nimbus evened out, Spitfire glanced back out the window, her eyes moving back and forth along the mountains as they passed by one by one. “Lucky, drop altitude by half as well,” she ordered.

“Uh…” Lucky blinked “That’s going to put us really close to the ground and the mountains…” he pointed out nervously.

“I KNOW,” Spitfire said harshly as she turned around and placed her hoof on the top of Lucky’s control panel hard enough to make a quiet metallic THUMP. “Do it.”

“Y-yes, ma’am!” Lucky quickly caved, unlocking power control lever and pushing it down very gently, slowing the propeller rotation just enough to softly lower them closer to the ground. Again, it was Lucky’s best guess without an altitude gauge.

Spitfire gritted her teeth as she face forward, sitting down, then standing back up and tapping a hoof. Soarin just stared at her, lifting an eyebrow while waiting for her to look at him, but she didn’t. So he cleared his throat. Spitfire perked up and blinked before glancing at him.

“Sorry,” she exhaled while shaking her head out. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. I’m just a little on edge here.”

“You don’t say?” Soarin said sarcastically while switching to his other eyebrow, but Spitfire gave no notice to the remark.

“You said earlier that they were ready for us last time… I know you were just speculating, but I think that’s making me worry even more. While it’s possible they weren't, it’s also possible they were and are just waiting to spring a trap on us. Make us feel comfortable and then blindside us…” she explained. Soarin nodded, acknowledging that her worries were legitimate, but at least she also acknowledged what he said earlier. It really could be either-or. He joined her in looking out in front of them, his eyes on the backs of the Renegades as they continued to lead them.

“I wonder…” he started thinking out loud. “Do you think our little run in with Nightshade set them back?” Soarin blinked as Spitfire shot him a hard glare. Soarin quickly held up a hoof while flattening his brow. “Hey, I didn’t say anything about us catching a lucky break, did I? I think it’s a legitimate possibility,” he defended himself as Spitfire slumped her shoulders, let her head hang and she groaned quietly. “Silver tore her down, you beat her up, and then Descent and Starry made her panic. I’ve no doubt they are moving at her command. With the state she left in, who knows what might be going on in their fortress right now?”

“Maybe…” Spitfire sighed as she looked up and back out the window. “But I’m not going to make any assumptions.”

Spitfire wasn’t the only one on edge. Granted, they were all a little nervous, but Dash was getting a little jittery. She’s was fine with how smoothly the flight was going, but just like Spitfire, the ‘smoothness’ of their trip was exactly what worried her. This was way too easy, it was hard to sit still. She was beginning to wonder if she was maybe worrying too much… but she was sure the rest of them were thinking it too.

“Well this is boring,” Squall’s sudden comment brought Dash’s thought process to a screeching halt as her head tipped forward slightly. She blinked, and turned to him while lifting an eyebrow.

“You’d rather we be attacked?” she asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

“No,” Squall replied while sitting down. “But it’s still boring.”

Dash exhaled through her nostrils and shook her head. Maybe she was a little testy due to being anxious, but she didn’t want Squall to lose focus. She was about to retort, but Storm suddenly walked up behind Squall and gave him a strong nudge as he stopped beside him.

“You’d think you’d be a little more worried after Nightshade kicked your ass sideways,” he reminded Squall with a small smirk. Squall scowled at him.

“She kicked your ass too,” he shot back.

“And the asses of the best we have,” Storm pointed at all the top tier elites in front of them. He was about to say more but Twister’s butt suddenly popped up between them, his neck turned all the way around to be face up ass up.

“My ass is unkicked and feeling left out!” he said with a devilish snicker. “Can one of you do me a FAVOR?”

“I’m not touching your ass,” Storm quickly replied while leaning away, but Squall growled at Twister.

“Don’t tempt me, you crazy dipshit, I’ll…” Squall trailed off as his eyes widened and he blinked. Three seconds later her glared at Twister and leaned away as well. “Oh I see what you did there…”

“He ALMOST said it! Wahahaha!” Twister quietly cackled to himself. He suddenly flinched as a lout THWUP came from behind him. He yelped and shot directly upwards, his head lodging into the ceiling… somehow without causing any structural or collateral damage. Dash, Storm, and Squall all looked down to see Star standing with her back turned to them, with one of her legs outstretched… which was apparently used to give Twister a swift kicking in the ass.

“Happy now?” she asked as Twister dangled with his head stuck above them. Storm and Squall just blinked and shifted aside as Star put her leg down, cracked her neck to the right and shook her mane out before turning around and walking between the two stallions. “I guess… I wouldn’t mind some action…” she shrugged as she suddenly shifted towards Squall and leaned against him. He immediately flinched and tipped away, but she wouldn’t let him get away. “But maybe I’m just a little biased here, I’ve been left out for a while. I don’t want us to be in danger, but it sucked having to sit and wait while you were all out fighting.”

“Hmph…” Squall grunted as he averted his eyes and tried to play off the effect Star’s proximity was having on him. “At least somepony agrees with me.”

“I don’t think she was agreeing,” Dash chuckled as Squall tried to slide himself away, but Star just moved with him, continuing to use him to lean on.

“Why are you leaning on me?” he finally confronted.

“Because,” Star answer simply.

“Because why?”

“Because I feel like it,” she kept up while foiling any attempt he made to get free.

“Stop it.”

“No.”

Dash and Storm both snickered to themselves as the pair slowly shifted away from them small lengths at a time as both of them refused to give up.

“It’s like she never left,” Storm joked as Dash nudged him.

“At least they’re consistent,” Dash rolled her eyes before looking up at Twister. She flattened her brow and huffed as he remained in the ceiling above, but at least she knew where he was.

Somepony had been rather quiet though, more accurately, some-griffon.

Matteo was sitting near them, slightly to her left. Dash examined him for a moment, wondering what was on his mind. She stood up and turned to him, but as she did, her eyes suddenly landed on his face.

“Hm?” Dash tipped her head slightly as she looked him over. He was looking forwards towards the window at the front of the bridge, but it wasn’t a casual look, it was a strong, constant stare. And were his eyes squinting slightly? His neck was leaning forward a little bit too. It was normal for him to wear a hard, stoic glare, but his body language and the slight differences in his face… he looked troubled? “Matty?” Dash spoke up as she walked right up beside him. She got no response. “Matty, what’s up?” she asked again.

But he didn’t acknowledge her. No look, no verbal response, nothing. Dash blinked as she looked in the direction he was looking. All she saw were the top tier elites, the staff, and Lucky among the control panels and the windshield. She furrowed her brow as she walked around in front of him and reached a hoof up, waving it in front of his face the best she could from the ground, only reaching to the tip of his beak.

“Hello? Equestria to Matty!” she said a little louder, but he still didn’t turn his eyes to her. She grunted and unfolded her wings, flapping them until she gently hovered up and got her hoof level with his eyes.

But the instant her hoof was in his view, he reached up and roughly pushed her aside. Dash yelped and barely kept herself steady as she lowered herself back to the floor. It got the attention of Storm, Squall, and Star, but before she could give Matteo a piece of her mind, he stood up and started moving quickly towards the control platform.

“What the—, HEY!” Dash called after him. “Matty! What are you doing?!” She quickly chased after Matteo as he started forcing his way forward pushing anypony aside that got in his way.

All eyes turned to the control platform as Matteo a stepped up and kept moving until he was standing right at the front to the left of Lucky, his eyes locked on the window and staring out into the air ahead of them.

Spitfire only stared for a moment, but quickly regained herself as she was the first to react.

“What’s this all about?!” Spitfire reacted sternly, trotting right up to Matteo with a touch of anger in her stride. She was clearly not in the mood for anything startling. She stopped and glared up at Matteo, but just as with Dash, he did not respond. He just leaned forward and squinted his eyes further, his beak parting a little as he completely focused on the air before them. Spitfire glanced out the window, but all she could see was the platform below and the Renegades out in front of them just like everypony else. She turned and looked at Dash as she caught up behind Matteo, lifting an eyebrow as if silently demanding an explanation. Dash just shook her head and shrugged. Spitfire scrunched her face and grunted as she focused her attention back on Matteo.

“Recruit Matteo…” she said his name sharply. But both she and Dash flinched as Matteo suddenly held up a talon, jabbing it slightly in the direction of Spitfire.

“A moment, ma’am!” he exclaimed as he continued to stare and strain his eyes, reaching his neck further forward.

Dash joined Spitfire in looking out the window, wondering what the hell had Matteo so curious. There was nothing but the open air and Renegades.

“Eh? Misty?” Fire Streak’s voice caught their ears. Dash and Spitfire both glanced behind them, everypony else turning as well as Misty Fly suddenly galloped up to the left of Matteo, skidding to a halt and standing up stiff and straight. Her eyes were open wide and fixed out the window in the exact same direction as Matteo’s.

Then Misty started tipping her head from side to side very subtly, blinking frantically and… her ears were twitching?

Now with two of her more unique Wonderbolts acting strange, Spitfire made her way around to get a better look at Misty Fly, stopping beside her and watching her carefully. She instantly noticed Misty’s ears moving, which was more confusing than anything, but before she could get her attention and make any signs to ask her about it, Misty suddenly frantically turned to her. She grabbed Spitfire by the shoulders and shook her roughly, a look of terror on her face.

“Huh?! What?!” Spitfire reacted, trying to stop her. Fire Streak broke from his position and galloped over to assist, quickly grabbing Misty’s arm. He tried to give her some signals with his wings and just on arm, but she looked at him and shook her head, reaching up a hoof and pointing out the window repeatedly.

Spitfire and Fire Streak both looked at her curiously before staring out the window, but there was still nothing.

“There’s…” Matteo finally broke his silence, but trailed off.

“Huh? What is it Matty?!” Dash quickly pressed him as Spitfire broke free of Misty to listen.

“There’s…” Matteo squinted harder, straining his neck. “There’s something out there!” he exclaimed. A rush of surprise ran through everypony, but nopony spoke. They just kept looking back and forth between Matteo, Misty, and out the window frantically. “THERE!!!!!!!!” Matteo’s voice suddenly boomed as he pointed a talon towards the window, signaling towards their flight path. “There’s a distortion in the air! STRAIGHT AHEAD!!!!!!”

Everypony was confused. Nopony had the foggiest idea what he was talking about.

But Dash’s jaw dropped.

Matteo was a bald eagle griffon.

Half lion, half eagle.

Half eagle.

EAGLE.

And in the past they relied on something he had that they didn’t…

EAGLE EYES.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” Dash suddenly yelled out. Without a moment of hesitation and before anypony could question her, she LEAPED towards Lucky, grabbed the steering lever, and yanked it as HARD as she could to the left.

“DASH?! AHH!!!!” Spitfire and everypony else yelped and stumbled, the Nimbus creaking and groaning as the entire ship lurched, tipping sharply to the left and slowly turning. Everypony that could held on to the nearest railing or control station, those that couldn’t lost their hoofing and tumbled, Matteo barely managed to stay up by latching his talons to the metal floor. The only ponies who managed to keep themselves upright were Soarin and Macho Savage. Fleetfoot yelped as Calm held onto her, the two sliding along the floor as Calm fought to keep them from sliding. Blaze and High Winds were struck by Shine and Air Mach as they tumbled back. Little Star clung to both Squall and Storm as they were all thrown to the floor. Surprise screamed as she held on tight to the periscope.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Spitfire roared in rage as she held onto one of the railings, the Nimbus continuing to tip as they slowly moved off course. “WHAT THE EVERLASTING HELL ARE YOU—”

“SPITFIRE!!!!!” Soarin yelled, cutting her off. Spitfire sharply turned her head towards him as he braced himself against a station. Soarin’s eyes were wide and his jaw was nearly unhinged as he pointed outside. “LOOK!!!!!”

Not just Spitfire, but all eyes that weren’t tumbling turned to look out the window. They were turning, but something was happening in line with their previous flight path. The air and image of the sky and land before them began to bend and skew, bright pink sparkles began to shimmer in the air as the distortions suddenly became visible, and appeared to be a moving refraction or outline of something enormous.

Then, with a flash, a line of pink light appeared level with the Nimbus, widening and growing larger as it started moving down over the bent refractions…

The light kept moving down, slowly moving over, and revealing the Shadowbolt fortress as if out of thin air… on a direct collision course.

Outside, the Renegades were caught off guard, scattering in all directions to avoid running into the hulking ship as it careened towards the Nimbus, the clear sphere of its powerful shield shimmering.

“TURN, TURN, TURN!!!!!” Spitfire yelled as she and Soarin joined Dash and Lucky in pulling on the steering lever, the cables and spokes beneath it creaking, screaming, and groaning as they forced the lever as far over as the mechanisms would allow. Everypony hung on for dear life as the Nimbus tipped further, almost at a perfect forty-five degree slant as the inner workings of the Nimbus whined and clanked, the steering fin pressed to the port side of the aft bow as the ship struggled to turn its momentum away from the fortress.

More grunting and yelping filled the bridge as ponies slid and tossed about, the top elites reaching out to hold on and help out everypony as the Nimbus strained.

The Fortress grew closer… and closer… and closer…

But thanks to Dash’s initial action, the Nimbus managed to turn JUST enough to avoid an extremely narrow collision, the Fortress passing so close on the starboard side that they could see Shadowbolts in the windows of the Fortress.

“WE’RE CLEAR! EVEN OUT! EVEN OUT!” Spitfire ordered as She and Soarin pulled the lever back. Lucky managed to hang on, but Dash was thrown off and sent tumbling back-first into a control panel on the right, the top of her shoulder hitting the edge and digging into the bite wound.

“AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!” Dash grunted, but fought back the pain as she rolled onto her stomach and pressed her hooves to the floor to keep herself from sliding. Slowly but surely, the Nimbus evened out, everypony finding their hooves and popping up immediately, the staff rushing back to their stations and the Wonderbolts all retaking their positions. Spitfire stumbled but caught herself on the main control panel beside Lucky, cringing as the comm speaker screeched to life right next to her ear.

“What the hell was that?!” Rivet’s voice blared through it. “Are we under attack?!”

Spitfire slammed her hoof over the button.

“GIVE US AS MUCH POWER AS YOU CAN WITHOUT BREAKING THE SHIP!” Spitfire ordered.

“I’ll take that as a yes!” Rivet yelled back before the comm cut.

Spitfire pushed herself away, glancing back briefly at all the Wonderbolts and the staff as Surprise spun the periscope around and shrieked as she looked out behind them. Spitfire glanced over to see Soarin helping Dash off the floor, towards Calm Wind as he held onto Fleetfoot tightly, then over to Air Mach as was holding onto Macho Savage. She looked back and forth at the Streak twins as they held their positions on the port and starboard windows, then towards Misty as she made sure Blaze and High Winds were secure. Storm Front, Squall, and Star were all clinging to Matteo as he held them down, and Twister… still had his head stuck in the ceiling.

Everypony was accounted for.

“LUCKY! FULL THROTTLE! PUNCH IT! GO! GO! GO!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art int his chapter by: Foxenawolf

And here... we... go!

Not much to say, i think it was all pretty straight forward, but i'm happy to say im already 5000ish words into chapter 141 since it was broken off of this, so expect a faster update :moustache:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 141: Forces Collide

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 141: Forces Collide

“Stay on our path! Full speed! Give it everything you’ve got!” Spitfire yelled into Lucky’s ear as he winced and held his hoof firmly against the throttle, forcing it all the way forward while tilting the steering lever to line them back up near the mountains.

“I’m doing it, I’m doing it!” Lucky pointed out while tilting his ears down to prevent Spitfire’s yelling from making him go deaf.

“They’re turning around!” Surprise yelled, clinging to the periscope as everypony else braced themselves. The Nimbus lurched forward, the engines down below going full tilt as it surged ahead.

“Keep your eyes on it!” Spitfire ordered as she gripped the edge of the frontal control station. “Luna!” Spitfire yelled, pushing her headset down. “Standby! We’re kicking it into high gear!” she stepped forward and looked outside. “WHERE ARE THE RENEGADES!? … I don’t give a damn! Tell Descent to get their asses in gear and get after them!”

Back behind the control platform, Dash, Squall, Storm, and Little Star were all pinned beneath Matteo. He had his talons latched to the floor and was gently pressing down over them to keep them from falling everywhere. As the Nimbus finally stopped lurching, Matteo removed himself from over them, the four pushing themselves up with painful grunts.

“Well?” Dash asked as she turned to Squall. “Not bored now are you?” she asked with miffed sarcasm as if he just HAD to say it.

“Oh shut u—”

“EEEE! THEY ARE COMING UP BEHIND US!” Surprise cut off Squall as she screeched and flailed. “CANNONS! CANNONS! CANNONSCANNONSCANNONSCANNONS!”

“LUNA!!!!” Spitfire yelled into her microphone. “AFT SHIELD! AFT SHIELD! NOW!!!!!!!”

Luna scrambled to set her hooves, she and the rest stationed on the deck still recovering from the shifting and tipping of the Nimbus after the near miss and realignment. She had heard Spitfire loud and clear and was already gathering a large amount of alicorn magic into her horn as she rose and turned to face the doors leading inside. She had to be careful and use her magic in controllable portions. If she put too much power into it, she’d overload again and take herself out. She refused to let that happen again, especially now. But that was also exactly why she had the other unicorns out there with her. With them adding their magic to hers, she’d be able to push the boundaries a little more than usual.

“Wonderbolts! Brace us!” she yelled as she gritted her teeth, several Wonderbolts stationed near her gathering in and placing their shoulders to her limbs and her flank. “Unicorns! Ready!” she called out as the glow around her horn grew brighter and brighter. The unicorn volunteers stood ready, their magic shining from their horns as each paired with a Wonderbolt to hold them steady. “RRRRRRRRAH!” Luna roared as she whipped her head around and released the magic while flipping her head to the right.

A powerful beam of blue, divine magic burst from her horn, the whipping motion of her head and neck causing it to immediately bend and arc in a wide curve around the building to the back of the Nimbus. As it flung around and reached a central point of the Nimbus’ aft, Luna shut her eyes and took a sharp breath, puffing her cheeks out. The beam burst into four separate beams, extending to four points and erecting a large magical barrier that was wide and tall enough to completely cover the aft.

She was just in time too.

The Shadowbolt Fortress opened fire, a barrage of large blasts from the smaller magic cannons shooting towards the Nimbus. Most of them pelted and peppered against Luna’s shield with a few wayward shots flinging by to the sides and above.

“AH!” Luna grunted as the pressure of the cannon fire forced her shield back and slammed it right up against the aft of the Nimbus. The shield was smaller and sturdier than the dome she had placed around the entire compound once before, but that one was anchored to the ground. She also had to put effort into keeping this one in place in the air, and that was already proving to be difficult.

While it protected the Nimbus from harm, the shield pressed against it, forced to the aft surfaces by the pressure of the blasts and explosions as it was peppered by attacks. The Nimbus began to tip forward slightly, feeling the shocks of every impact. Luna shut her eyes, sweat beading up on her brow as she held firm. She needed more, but she was still worried about overloading.

But then she felt a boost of power. She opened her eyes to see the unicorns around her aiming their horns towards her, channeling their magic to join with hers.

“YES!” Luna yelled out confidently as she felt the effortless surge of magic, immediately pushing her own magic further without fear of overdoing it.

The shield fought back, removing itself from the Nimbus’ aft, but only a little. However, a little was all they needed to prevent the cannon fire from affecting the Nimbus’ flight path. Every impact and every explosion made the Nimbus shake and vibrate, but Luna’s shield held firm, the unicorns bolstering her efforts.

“Hold strong, ponies!” Luna encouraged as they all worked together, the Wonderbolts on deck holding both her and the unicorns steady as they worked their makeshift defenses.

“Come around! Regroup!” Descent yelled as the Renegades regained themselves, grouping back up after being forced to scatter. They avoided the stray cannon blasts that shot by the Nimbus, flying out ahead of the ship before making a sharp U-turn and heading back towards it. Starry Skies and Lightning Dust flew side by side with Descent, Blazetail and Flashwind coming up on their right as all the Renegades fell in line behind them. They flew on an intercept course with the Nimbus, using it and Luna’s shielding to avoid all incoming cannon fire. “Keep moving! Get ready to break right and fly around! We’re taking this fight right to the Fortress!”

“To the left!” Starry Skies yelled the moment he finished. Descent blinked and glanced towards the mountains. Shadowbolts were pouring over the peaks and gliding down the mountainsides, Blade, Void, Angel, Sin, and Shadow all in front, leading the charge down the mountain side and heading for the Nimbus.

“Renegades! We have incoming! Change course! Intercept!” Descent changed the plan on the fly, but…

“Descent!” Starry yelled out suddenly. “Falcons! Three O’clock!”

Descent blinked, his jaw dropping as he looked to the right. Ten… twelve… fifteen… at least twenty Falcons were inbound, flying in an arc from behind the Nimbus and veering back towards it to attack from the opposite side as the Shadowbolts.

“They’re trying to split us up!” Blazetail yelled out as he kept his eyes locked on the Falcons.

“Luna! They’re going after Luna! We have to draw their fire!” Flashwind added as the Renegades closed in on the Nimbus.

“Dammit!” Descent snarled. There was no time to think about it. Blazetail was right. They were trying to divide the Renegades. But they had no choice, the Wonderbolts on the deck couldn’t leave Luna or the unicorns behind to fight. “Renegades! Divide into two forces! Renegade Shadows, with me! We’re taking on the Shadowbolts! Veteran Wonderbolts, with Blazetail! Divert the Falcon fire away from the deck! Keep them off of Luna!” Descent looked forward to see they were moments away from reaching the Nimbus. “Whatever you do, don't stray too far from the Nimbus! Strength will be in numbers! GO!”

The Renegades reached the Nimbus splitting off to the left and right as they passed over the deck, Descent leading the charge towards the incoming Shadowbolts and Blazetail leading the other towards the falcons.

Just as they suspected, the Falcon cannons rained down upon the deck, their magic fire being directed right in the vicinity of Luna. Several unicorns broke away from Luna and worked together to erect a shield of their own. The Falcon magic crashed and burst all over their shields as well as over the surrounding deck. Explosions erupted around Luna and the Wonderbolts, scattering many of them around the deck while trying to avoid being hit. The unicorns did their best, but the strength of the Falcon magic was more than they could bear, cracks appearing in their shields quickly as they fought to protect Luna.

Just when it seemed the shields would shatter and leave them vulnerable, the Renegades swooped in and charged headlong into the incoming magic blasts.

“Fly right at them!” Blazetail yelled as they did just that. “Keep their focus away from the deck!” he ordered as they swarmed around the Falcons and started ramming their shields.

With the attention of the Falcons diverted and their paths thrown off by the Renegades, the unicorns released their shields for a breather, but they were unable to rejoin Luna. The ten or so that had broken off found themselves remaining in place, working together to intercept the attacks of any Falcon that broke through the barrage of Renegades.

And that posed a problem.

“OOF!” Luna grunted, grinding her teeth together as she held fast against the continuous pressure. While Luna still had the help of at least twenty unicorns, the loss of ten to handle the Falcons made a difference. With ten less sources of magic backing her up, Luna lost a bit of strength against the flurry of magic cannon fire coming from behind them, the Fortress’ attacks again pushing her shield back slowly until it was pressing against the Nimbus once more. She was able to push it forward every few seconds to avoid too much pressure against the flight path, but the Nimbus still shook heavily and violently with every hit.

The Wonderbolts on the bridge stumbled and held on for dear life as the Nimbus continued to lurch and sway. They were maintaining their flight path, but the continuous fire against Luna’s shield from behind was making it one hell of a bumpy ride.

Dash cringed as she held on to Matteo, who had once again taken it upon himself to be an anchor for her and her squad. The shaking was violent, the window panes were vibrating loudly with every impact, the control panels were all beeping and blinking, a few sparks flying up here and there as a few panel sidings fell off and exposed the control wiring within. The Nimbus was holding together for the most part and staying afloat, which confirmed that the Luna shield strategy seemed to be working, but that wasn’t stopping the Fortress from giving them hell. She could also see the Renegades outside engaging with the Shadowbolts and the Falcon ships, both of them coming in from opposite directions beside us. Spitfire’s plan details seemed geared towards expecting a frontal attack, yet out front was the one place they were not being attacked. They were being hit from every other direction.

Dash cringed again, gripping Matteo’s leg as the Nimbus rocked and shook again. Matteo grunted as his talons slipped, causing all five of them to slide with him until he dug them back into the floor with an ear piercing screech of talon to metal. They were nearly thrown out the door before Matteo managed to stop them, the high pitched, painful screams of Fleetfoot meeting Dash’s ears to their right as Calm Wind struggled to keep her steady among the violent shaking. There was no way Spitfire could get angry at him here. There was literally nothing he could do about it.

“Well THIS sure went to hell fast!” Soarin yelled towards Spitfire as he held onto the platform railing near the main controls. Gripping them even tighter as the Nimbus shook again, knocking Spitfire to the floor right beside him.

“ARGH!” She grunted as she rolled upright. “Then we go with plan B!” she yelled as she stood up.

“Which Plan B?!” Soarin asked as he followed her back over to Lucky, who was gripping the control lever so tightly his hooves were grinding into it.

“The second one!” she yelled.

“SOMEPONY PLEASE MAKE SENSE!” Lucky yelled hysterically as he fought to keep the Nimbus steady, another round of shaking erupting and knocking them around.

“The mountains!” Spitfire yelled right into his ear, making him lean away from her. “Veer us into the mountains! The Falcons and the Shadowbolts will follow, but if we’re going to lose the Blimp of Doom our best bet is the mountains!”

“Oh god…” Lucky slid down the lever slightly, but was instantly pulled right back up by Spitfire.

“Quit slouching and get to it! TURN RIGHT! NOW!” she yelled.

“WaitwaitwaitwaitWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT!!!!!!!” Surprise yelled, Lucky freezing in place right before pushing the lever.

“What?!” Spitfire asked as she spun around and saw Surprise upside-down and clinging to the periscope with all four limbs, her whole head nearly lodged into the eyepiece of the periscope as it slowly moved towards the starboard view. With one hard yank, she dislodged her head from the periscope and frantically turned her upside-down face to Spitfire.

“THEY’RE COMING UP ON THE RIGHT!!!!!” Surprise yelled, as she let go and crashed onto the floor. Spitfire gasped and blinked as she and everypony else realized that the shaking pattern had stopped for the moment.

“MY WORD!” Fire Streak suddenly remarked as he and Misty slowly backed away from the starboard end of the windshield. All eyes went towards them, and then to the window as the Shadowbolt Fortress slowly pulled up right beside them until it was flying perfectly parallel with them.

“They’re cutting us off from the mountains!” Soarin yelled as Spitfire looked out front. Their forces were entirely focused on the Falcons, the Shadowbolts, and protecting Luna. They had no other options they had to tough it out!

“LUNA!” Spitfire yelled into her headset while hardening her expression and glaring out towards the Shadowbolt Fortress. While she was sure Luna could clearly see the monstrosity pulling up beside them, she encouraged her anyway. “Starboard! Give it everything you’ve got!

“We see them!!!” Luna replied as she released her magic and quickly turned while building up her power once more. She stared in awe for only a moment as the massive airship pulled up beside them, but quickly refocused, keeping her mind on protecting the Nimbus. The unicorns turned with her, already aiming their horns towards hers, waiting to help once more as the rest continued to intercept any stray attacks from the falcons.

But something was off, Luna continued her buildup of magic, but noticed that the cannons mounted on the Shadowbolt fortress were not turning to aim at them, they were facing forward.

Regardless, she pulled back and thrust her neck forward releasing her mighty alicorn magic once more, repeating the process and erecting another shield to cover the starboard side. The twenty unicorns standing with her all released their magic as well, adding it to hers as they had before.

The massive wall of magic hung in the air, suspended between the two ships, but Fortress simply remained flying beside the Nimbus, the cannons still pointing forward. This troubled Luna. Why weren’t they attacking?

“AH!” Luna flinched and yelped as Descent and Sin suddenly crashed violently to the platform right in front of her, a few of the unicorns stumbling as they backed away from the impact. They bounced once ahead of Luna before they both rolled back up on their hooves and grappled. Sin got the drop on Descent, pushing as he was still rising up. The two locked arms and pressed their foreheads together as Sin pushed Descent back towards Luna. Luna’s eyes frantically shifted between the scuffle and concentrating on her shield.

“WOOOO! HAHA! YEAH!” Sin hooted and guffawed as he and Descent struggled, Descent finally stopping his push less than a yard away from Luna. “You still got it dude!”

“RGH!” Descent growled right back into Sin’s gung-ho smile. He glanced to the right to see Shadow screaming towards both of them. He tried to push Sin off of him, but they were deadlocked. He braced for impact, but at the last moment, Lightning Dust shot in and intercepted Shadow, the two getting tangled as they crashed and tumbled. “PUSH THEM!” Descent yelled as he refocused and began forcing Sin back a few inches at a time. He looked up to see the Renegades being forced too close towards Luna by the Shadowbolts. “PUSH THEM BACK! NOW!”

“HA-TAH!” Sin yelled out comically as he pulled back his neck and headbutted Descent.

“GAH!” Descent grunted as he stumbled backwards, planting his back hooves firmly just in time to avoid running plot first into Luna’s armored chest plate. He shook his head out and glared, noticing that Sin was slowly moving backwards while blinking several times, looking slightly dizzy.

“Whoa…” he said as he put a hoof to his head. “Okay, maybe that was a bad idea, still a little—OOF!” he was cut off as Descent rushed forward, putting his shoulder right into Sin’s chest and lifting him off the ground, roaring as he grabbed Sin around the shoulders. He kept driving his back hooves while pumping his wings, lifting off slightly before pile driving Sin right into the deck.

With the Renegades and Shadowbolts suddenly fighting much closer than she was comfortable with, Luna forced herself to remain focused on her shield. The fortress was still just flying beside them with no sign of attacking. But then something appeared in her peripheral vision. She glanced to her right to see Angel diving towards her, his crystals alight and his magic gathering in his right arm.

She gasped as he swung his arm outward, unleashing a deadly blade of magic that ripped through the air towards her. If she moved, she might lose her hold on the shield… but if she didn’t… she had been told all about what Angel’s magic blades were capable of.

She was seconds away from reluctantly breaking away and dropping the shield, but right before she made the move, Starry Skies swooped in, placing herself right below the flight path of the flying blade. She flicked her wrists and knocked her hooves against the flat edge, successfully turning and pushing the blade completely off course. But then she did one better, she manipulated it further, turning and giving the same flat edge a kick with her back hoof to make it arc around and fly right back at Angel.

“HMPH!” Angel gruffly harrumphed as his crystals came to life and he launched another blade right at the first. The blades collided and split each other apart, dissipating after the collision.

Both Angel and Starry remained on course, charging at one another, but as they pulled back to strike, a stray magic blast from a Falcon surged in between them, nicking them both and forcing them to the deck. Starry got the worst of it, crashing roughly on the deck near the beams impact, but Angel had twisted and glided to safety before being engaged by other renegades.

Starry quickly pushed herself up, gasping and shifting aside just in time as to avoid Sin as Descent choke slammed him on the deck right beside her.

“OOOOFFFFFFuck, man! You’re going all ou-GAH!” Sin’s banter never got off the ground as Descent punched him in the gut before heaving him onto his back, swinging him around and launching him into the air, right into Shadow, bringing them both to the deck surface.

Starry quickly flanked Descent standing side to side as they looked in opposite directions.

“Starry!” Descent spoke up as he scanned the fighting all around them. “Any sign of Nightshade?!

“I haven’t seen her!” Starry quickly answered as they both glanced at Luna, then at the Shadowbolt Fortress.

“That’s not a good sign! Keep an eye o—”

Starry turned when Descent abruptly stopped, but moved aside as Blade crashed down from above, Descent reaching up and catching his sword as he tried to hit Descent with a skull-splitter.

“About time you found me!” Descent yelled as he forced the sword away from him. Blade moved with it, spinning and sliding to a stop a few yards away. “It always has to be a surprise attack, eh? Coward!”

“I’ll make you eat those words!” Blade yelled, leaping at Descent, but he was suddenly shoved aside by… Sin?

“Yo, Blade! I ain’t finished with him!” Sin yelled casually while laughing and started rushing at Descent.

“SIN! BUZZ OFF!” Blade yelled as he quickly tried and failed shoved him back, the two now moving side by side and… arguing who was going to fight Descent.

Ignoring Sin’s idiocy, Descent made a very quick and swift hoof motion to Starry. Without any hesitation, Starry leaped forward and swung her arm around, hooking it around Sin’s neck. Taking him by surprise, she used his momentum against him, flinging him to the ground like a bull.

Descent was hoping to distract Blade, but it didn’t work. Blade immediately refocused on Descent and swung his sword again. Descent rushed right at him, knocking the sword aside, but shifting awkwardly as Blade swung a second sword around, hidden on his other hoof, it ended with the two grappling in unfavorable positions. Descent was stronger, but neither of them were stanced correctly to get any real leverage.

“Dammit!” Descent yelled as he stole a quick glance towards Luna. He looked up and saw Shadow hovering above her, her crystals glowing, readying her burst wave. Lightning Dust was en route, but was not going to get her in time. “PUSH…” Descent headbutted Blade to stagger him. “THEM…” he grabbed Blade by the arm. “BACK!!!!!” he whipped Blade into the air, his body crashing into Shadow. It prevented Shadow’s attack, but also made them collide with Lightning Dust.

“EEEYIKES!” Dust yelped as she flung out of control towards Starry and Sin, still on the ground. Starry was already on top of Sin, twisting one of his arms so he couldn’t get up, but it was difficult. He was way stronger than her, making it hard to hang on. But then Dust also landed on top of them. After several confused grunts, Sin opened his eyes and saw Starry and Dust both on top of him.

“Sheesh ladies, there’s plenty of me to go around!” he said with a hearty chuckle.

“UGH!” Starry grunted in extreme disgust, pushing herself off of him and kicking him so hard in the ribs that he began rolling across the deck. Dust yelped as she fell off of him, quickly putting some more space between her and Sin, still fearful of him from past encounters. Starry suddenly began hopping forward, her breath hissing through her teeth in pain as her back hoof and leg shook. “Ow! OW! Dammit! What is he made of?!”

“Shake it off and keep fighting!” Descent yelled into her ear as he rushed by them, taking off to meet Blade in the air.

Without a word, Starry and Dust looked around for targets and leapt up as well.

Luna blinked as sweat ran down her brow and nearly got into her eyes. The situation was a hundred times more heated than anything their plan entailed. They were holding their ground, but barely. The Shadowbolts were getting too close. While the Renegade Shadows were handling them, several Wonderbolts around her had been forced to spread out a little to engage. The Falcons were still getting shots off at her. She wanted all thirty unicorns helping with her magic, but ten were still occupied with shielding her from stray blasts.

And why, oh why… was the Shadowbolt Fortress not firing at them? It made no sense!

“What?” Luna blinked as the Fortress suddenly… tipped away from them slightly the moment the thought crossed her mind again, widening the gap between the two ships. “What are they—”

Her eyes shot open as the Fortress stopped… and then tipped back towards them and…

“PONIES! WONDERBOLTS!” Luna frantically yelled as the Fortress started edging towards them faster and faster. “HELP US! BRACE US! BRACE THE UNICORNS!!!!!!!!” The Wonderbolts turned and saw what was happening. There was no time to be alarmed, only time to act. The Wonderbolts broke towards Luna, gathering in tightly and bracing themselves behind her legs, on her flank, and piling up behind one another, at least fifteen of them all bracing Luna with the rest seeking out any unicorns that were unaccompanied. “HOLD! HOOOOOOLD!” Luna yelled.

The Fortress rammed the Nimbus, the pink shield smashing against Luna’s causing blue and pink flashes and flares of magic to shoot and dance everywhere.

“AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Luna cried out, slamming her eyes shut as she felt the unbelievable pressure of the heavyweight collision. Luna’s shield held, but was instantly pushed back and pressed to the side of the Nimbus, forcing it to tip and move as the Fortress pushed against it. “RGH!!!” Luna grunted as her magic flickered, sparks flying from her horn as her hooves slid backwards. The Wonderbolts pushed back against her with all their might, sliding with her as they fought back against a force several thousand times stronger than them, their hooves grinding and screeching against the decks surface. The unicorns did their part, holding strong and keeping their horns aligned with Luna’s. They also felt the pressure and force pushing right through their magic into their horns as they added their power to Luna’s.

Loud groans and creaks came from the Nimbus, the deck slowly tipping as it was pushed out of its flight path. The Renegades and Shadowbolts all flew away, creating distance between them and the starboard side of the ship to avoid being caught in the mayhem, the Falcons backed off slightly to avoid being struck by the Nimbus as it shifted off course.

The Wonderbolts roared and growled as they pushed back against Luna, all piled behind her and chanting to each other.

“PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!” They all yelled in unison, determined to keep Luna up as they were rocked by the continuous shaking. Luna’s shield began to crack and flicker… it looked like she may not be able to maintain it…

But the efforts of all those surrounding her was lighting a fire in her chest. Spitfire said to draw strength from those around her, and that was exactly what she was going to do!

“WE… SHALL… NOT… YIELD!” Luna yelled out in her full Canterlot Voice, casting aside fears of overloading her magic and pushing the limits of her divine powers. She pumped more of her alicorn magic into the shield, filling in all the cracks and bolstering its strength.

She had to take the risk. It was going to take everything they had to see this through. She couldn’t repel the Fortress, nor could she keep it from pushing against the Nimbus, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to let it crash into the structure.

The Fortress eventually let up, but only to pull away briefly before coming in for another collision as the Nimbus tipped and teetered.

“HOLD STRONG PONIES! SHOW THEM THEY CANNOT DEFEAT US!!!!” Luna rallied those around her as they braced for another hit.

“They’re going to hit us again!” Fire Streak yelled from the starboard window as the Fortress loomed outside, growing closer once more.

“HOLD ON!!!!!!!!” Spitfire yelled, everypony grabbing onto something or somepony to brace themselves.

The whole room shook violently as the Fortress struck the Nimbus again, pink and blue flashes shining up in front of the windows as the Fortress’ shield grinded against Luna’s. The shock of the impact threw several ponies off their hooves, ripping their hooves free from the railings and panels, throwing some of them painfully against the hard edges of the metal control boxes and one or two over the edge of the railings. Surprise was knocked right off the periscope, tumbling into Blaze and High Winds, the three sliding along the floor, and hitting the opposite wall. Calm hung on tight to both Fleetfoot and Shine, pressing himself up against the back wall, but still sliding a little as Fleetfoot cried out in pain beneath his wing. Fire Streak was the only pony who had not grabbed onto something before the hit, the initial shock sending him flying backwards and over the railing onto the control floor. Spitfire managed to hold on, but her body was flung sideways, knocking Air Mach into Soarin, who in turn lost his hoofing as he tried to keep them steady.

Soarin cursed as he and Air Mach ran directly into Lucky, causing him to completely lose his grip on the control lever… and accidentally pull the propeller power control lever all the way down.

“Ah!” Lucky yelped, realizing what he had done as he fell back from the controls, but the tipping of the Nimbus prevented him from getting right back up, instead making him tumble away. He flailed to get upright, but his hooves kept slipping.

“Are we going down?!” Dash yelled as she held on tight to Matteo and Squall. She felt a gentle uplift in her stomach, a slight feeling of falling. Upon looking outside… they WERE falling slowly. “WE ARE!” she exclaimed as she saw Lucky falling away from the controls. They were not dropping like a stone, but something was causing them to descend and it wasn’t the Fortress.

Matteo suddenly ripped free from them, digging his talons into the floor before ripping himself forwards, sliding his large body across the floor and grabbing Lucky by the arm.

“Yikes!” Lucky flinched in surprise as Matteo pulled him along, grabbing onto railings and panel sidings as he forced his way onto the control platform and to the main controls against the shaking and tipping that was throwing everypony else everywhere. With one last effort, Matteo shoved Lucky forward, his paws and talons loosing their grip right after and plunging beak-first to the floor. With the adrenaline pumping overtime, Lucky stumbled and caught the control lever, immediately slamming the power controls to the max to stop the steady descent. “PHEW!” Lucky exhaled as he got the Nimbus under control and it began tipping upright again.

“I don’t know how Luna is holding her ground against that thing, but holy shit!” Spitfire commented as everypony struggled back to their hooves. “Aw hell… HERE THEY COME AGAIN!!!!!!”

The Nimbus shook once more as the Fortress rammed them a third time. Yelps and screams resonated throughout the room, but the overall shock was lessened this time as Lucky made an effort to pull the Nimbus slightly away and cut the overall force of impact in half. Yet the shift to port nearly threw them around again regardless.

“We’re getting nowhere here!” Soarin yelled as they all held on against the continuous vibrations. He was yelling directly at Spitfire, but she was just staring out at the Fortress as it slowly pulled back, preparing yet another ram. “SPITFIRE!” Soarin yelled, but she didn’t look at him, she moved right over to Lucky while pushing her headset down.

“LUNA! IT’S TIME FOR PLAN B!” she yelled while turning to Lucky. “PLAN B, LUCKY!

“Uh… WHICH PLAN B?!” he asked, noting she had already used the term once.

“THE FIRST PLAN B! ASCEND! ASCEND! NOW!” she yelled.

“PLAN B!” Luna belted out into the air as she kept her eyes on the Fortress. “PLAN B!” she repeated, taking a moment to throw her head up and yell even louder to let her Canterlot Voice resonate through the air.

Nearby, Descent was grappling with Blade, the two of them falling towards the platform. Descent held the flat edges of Blade’s sword between his hooves as his ears turned to pick up the call from Luna.

“HRRRAGH!” Descent roared as he spun and threw blade away from him, the two evening out and gliding away from one another just before striking the deck. “PLAN B! PLAN B!” Descent yelled out as he made his way back towards the Renegades.

Lightning Dust broke away from Sin and Shadow, flying right towards the central propeller and folding her wings in, cutting through the strong gusts as they pelted Shadow and Sin behind her. Once free from her pursuers, she picked up Descent’s yelling and swiftly turned towards the Renegades engaging the Falcons.

“PLAN B! PLAN B!” she repeated, all of them picking up.

Every single Renegade, rogue Shadowbolt and veteran Wonderbolt alike, abandoned their fights and all dove in towards Luna, hundreds of hooves all slamming to the deck and screeching to a halt at once as they turned and looked up at their respective targets. It was if they were inviting them in.

Luna swallowed as she watched the Renegades gather. She knew what plan B was, but she was hoping they wouldn’t have to use it… because part of it left her briefly vulnerable.

As the Shadowbolts and the Falcons roared towards them… the Renegades suddenly ALL turned towards the Shadowbolts, lifting off and charging. The move caught the enemy off-guard, forcing the Shadowbolts to pull up or engage, none of the commanders able to generate clones in time to make up for the difference in numbers. The Renegades surged towards them, causing heavy collisions. But they didn’t fight. They instead pushed and pushed, forcing all of the Shadowbolts over the edge of the Nimbus platform.

“TAKE THEM DOWN!” Descent yelled as they all turned downward, plunging them over the side and towards the ground once they were far enough out to avoid the lower propellers.

The Shadowbolts were effectively taken out of the picture for the moment… but that gave the Falcons a completely clear path towards Luna.

Luna glanced between the Fortress and the Falcons, gritting her teeth and holding herself firm. Several more of the unicorns helping her broke away to join those facing the Falcons, adding their power to the shielding as Falcon cannon fire started raining down. At the same time, the Fortress began tipping towards them again.

With less help, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to hold the shield. She only had five unicorns helping now, the only other backup being the Wonderbolts still bracing her from behind. Not only that, but the unicorns facing the Falcons were struggling, they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long.

Luna slammed her eyes shut as she pumped more of her magic into the shield, putting herself at further risk for an overload as she waited for the Fortress collision…

But then she and the rest were nearly pushed to the deck as the Nimbus began lifting upward, the propellers turning faster and harder, causing the massive structure to ascend.

The Falcons were forced aside as the Nimbus also tipped left, moving it up and away from the Fortress. The two ships were close, very close, the Nimbus’ movements just barely keeping it away from the Fortress. The Falcons panicked, the ships frantically turning down to avoid running directly into the Nimbus. One of them was not quick enough, getting flat out smacked by the central propeller of the Nimbus, its shield shattering as it was catapulted away and sent tumbling to the ground with a trail of pink smoke streaming behind it. As for the rest that avoided the rising Nimbus, the crews suddenly found themselves evading again as their own Fortress came right at them after missing the Nimbus. Most of them managed to veer away, but two of them smashed right into the Fortress shield. Three more ran into one another while trying to avoid, one of them being flipped upside down, losing control and nose diving before crashing below. The fortress pilot was clearly not ready for the Nimbus’ rise, the Fortress moving right beneath the it, its momentum carrying it well past and out over the open fields away from the mountains as it struggled to regain stability.

Near the ground, the Renegades suddenly disengaged the Shadowbolts and took to the skies, flying up after the Nimbus. Descent looked left and right as his force kept up with him, then glanced towards the west to see the sun was hitting the horizon, the light levels dimming.

“Perfect timing,” he said to himself. “MOVE RENEGADES! MOVE! GET READY TO CLEAR THE WAY!” he ordered.

The Shadowbolts were right behind them, Void leading the charge with Angel and Blade right behind him.

“GET BACK HERE YOU COWARDS!!!!!!” Void roared as he pumped his wings harder, pulling out ahead of the pack. “DON’T YOU RUN FROM ME!!!!!

“Why are we going up?!” Soarin asked as he and the rest of the Wonderbolts braced themselves against the heavy uplift. “Won’t that just make us an easier target?!” he yelled to Spitfire beside him. But Spitfire was… smirking?

“Not when he have a nasty surprise waiting for them underneath!” she said while giving him a jab on the shoulder.

“Underneath?!” Soarin blinked. “What do you… Oh…”

“RIVET!” Spitfire yelled as she slammed her hoof over the comm button. “Cut power to the lower propellers!”

“Excuse me, WHAT?!” Rivet’s voice came back through.

“Cut the power to the lower propel—”

“I heard you!” Rivet cut her off. “But that’s kind of impossible to just do instantly!”

“Then get started! Slow them down as much as you can!” Spitfire pushed.

“But—”

“DO IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!”

The Shadowbolts kept surging upward, following the Renegades towards the underside of the Nimbus. They all fought against the intense winds of the propellers beating down upon them as the Nimbus cast a looming shadow over them, darkening their view.

Void was still in front with Blade and Angel trying to keep up behind him, Sin and Shadow followed suit with the Shadowbolts behind them and the Falcons bringing up the rear.

But as they followed the Renegades, the intense crosswinds suddenly weakened as the propellers beneath the Nimbus began slowing down, loud clanking and whooshing as they turned slower and slower, never fully stopping but decreasing speed in small increments until their blades no longer blurred. The Nimbus itself also stopped climbing.

“What the hell are they doing?” Blade yelled out as he continued to pump his wings.

“Ha!” Void guffawed. “They’ve only made it easier to…” he went no further his voice trailing off as the Renegades suddenly scattered, breaking in every direction away from the Nimbus and clearing the space between it and the pursuing Shadowbolts. “What?!” Void glanced in every direction, but the rest of the Shadowbolts were looking right at the dark underside of the Nimbus as the propellers turned very slowly.

“What… are… THOSE?!” Shadow remarked.

Bright yellow lights in pairs began appearing on the ventral hull of the Nimbus. Several hundred pairs to be exact.

Every single Shadowbolt stared in confusion as the strange phenomenon occurred… and then one very bright pair of red lights appeared in the very center.

“What the hell?! Are those… PONIES?!” Shadow added as they closed in, a few of the Shadowbolts beginning to hesitate.

“Uh…” Sin blinked as they closed in and got close enough to realize that… yeah… there were ponies on the Nimbus alright. “Ohhhhhh shit.”

Fully covered from head to hoof in his silver, enchanted armor, Captain P.L. threw his neck back and released and ear piercing bat screech that pulsed through the air and echoed for miles over the plains and throughout the mountains.

He and the Thestrals propelled themselves from the underside of the Nimbus, exploding from the underside and raining down towards the unsuspecting Shadowbolts as yelps and screams erupted from their ranks. The collisions were heavy, violent, and ruthless as the Thestrals surged down, baring their fangs, screeching and hissing as most of the Shadowbolts were immediately knocked right out of their flight path and sent tumbling uncontrollably through the air.

Even the five commanders up front could not hold their ground, once again unable to generate clones through a combination of surprise and lack of focus. Void was immediately swarmed by ten Thestrals, grabbing and biting him by the limbs, ears, neck, and anything they could get a hold of as he roared and flailed about. Angel was grabbed by the hair and yanked down as another three grappled Blade and preventing him from using his sword. Shadow was freaking out, screaming as she tried launching her burst wave in several directions, but her aim was erratic and way off as she eventually got swarmed and pulled down. The thestrals were attacking them like wild, untamed, bloodthirsty animals, suddenly turning the Shadowbolts from predators to prey.

The only commander that got free was Sin, who delivered heavy blows, severely denting the armor and knocking out five thestrals that came at him while laughing heartily.

“DUDE! I DUNNO WHO THE FUCK THESE GUYS ARE, BUT THIS IS AWESOME!” he yelled, wearing an adrenaline crazed smile as he looked for another target… only to see captain P.L. come screaming down from above right towards him. “Oh man, YOU look like fun!” he grinned wider as he turned his attention to P.L. and pulled back a hoof, rotating it around as he wound up a heavy punch. “COME ON! GIVE ME A FIGHT YOU—”

But instead of engaging Sin, P.L. pumped his wings harder, picking up speed and twisting to the side as Sin threw the wild punch, missing horribly over P.L.’s shoulder. He twisted and jammed his elbow into Sin’s neck, following up with a kick to the chest as he passed.

“GUH! GAH!!!” Sin choked and coughed as he flailed and lost control of his flight, suddenly unable to breathe as he reached for his neck and began coasting down.

P.L. had not looked at Sin once throughout the process, hitting precise, vulnerable points to disable him. He remained focused, staying on his course as he continued his sharp dive through the Shadowbolt ranks. Sin was simply in his way, he had his eyes on something else from behind the grate of his helmet.

The first Falcon behind the Shadowbolts.

He kept his vision on target, pumping his wings harder and harder, diving faster and faster as he collided with several Shadowbolts, their bodies bouncing right off his armor. He held his hooves forward, gritted his teeth and blew puffs of steam out of his nose that hissed between the spaces of his helmet. His wing-beats created a loud WHOOSH with every swing, generating strong winds that knocked and pushed against ponies in his wake.

With the distance between him and the Falcon closing at an incredible rate, he took a deep breath and unleashed a mighty roar.

“HHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!”

P.L.’s armored hooves smashed right into the Falcon’s shield, the impact created a loud POW with a fierce shockwave following. The Falcon tilted as if it had run directly into a brick wall, its shield splintering and shattering as P.L. pierced through it like tissue paper. His momentum undeterred, P.L. proceeded to plunge through the top of the Falcon’s armored fuselage, past the four terrified Shadowbolts within, and through several of the vital systems as he punched right out the bottom of the ship back into the open air.

The Falcon sputtered, shook, and violently exploded the moment he was through, a large eruption of pink light engulfing the Falcon, throwing its four occupants in different directions like ragdolls along with shrapnel and debris. A trail of pink smoke streaked behind P.L. in his wake as he evened out.

“HOLY SHIT!” Starry Skies yelled out, she and several other Renegades watching in awe as P.L. took down a Falcon BY HIMSELF in a SINGLE BLOW.

“Hmph… show off…” Descent grumbled to himself, trying not to look impressed as he and the Renegades came around to join the fray.

But their awe was short lived as P.L. found himself smack in the middle of the rest of the Falcons with no definitive second target. He was instantly forced onto the defensive, dodging cannon fire and bouncing off the shield of the next Falcon he tried attack at roughly half the speed he used against the first. While he made it look easy with the first Falcon he hit, without the speed and power of his initial dive he was completely at their mercy.

In one maneuver, P.L. proved exactly what they had been told about him. His strength was absolutely terrifying… but he had a habit of putting himself in bad situations. Descent quickly pointed towards the Falcons as P.L.’s armor began absorbing several cannon blasts.

“HIT THE FALCONS! BACK HIM UP!” Descent ordered.

“What about the rest of the thestrals?!” Lightning Dust asked as she formed up beside Descent and Starry. Descent shook his head and put a hoof to his ear. The sounds of Shadowbolts yelping and screaming filled his ears.

“I think they’re doing just fine. GO!”

Spitfire pressed a hoof to her headset, blinking several times before she reached forward and slammed the comm button.

“Rivet! The Thestrals have deployed! Push everything back to full power!” she yelled.

“Rog—” Rivet was cut off, Spitfire releasing the button before he could even reply.

“PUNCH IT LUCKY! Bring us back down and go full throttle!” she ordered, but they were already descending.

“Way ahead of ya!” Lucky replied as everypony held on. The Nimbus tipped down, as Lucky pushed the throttle to the max, the Nimbus rumbling as the machinery within the walls clanked and creaked. Using gravity to pick up a little more speed, Lucky lowered them back to their initial height before locking the uplift lever in place. Once again they were surging along, but what was going on outside?

“Surprise! What’s the situation out there?!” Spitfire yelled as she looked back over her shoulder, but Surprise wasn’t there. She looked around, but couldn’t find her. “Surprise?!”

“I’m on it, I’m on it!” Surprises voice suddenly came from one of the back corners. Spitfire shifted over to see her all tangled up with Blaze and High Winds, the three of them all on top of Lightning Streak as they groaned and rolled over after being thrown all about. “Hold on I’m sandwiched between the lesbos!” she yelled as she pulled her hoof out from the strap of Blaze’s goggles.

“Take your time, babe. I’m in no hurry,” Lightning Streak commented from the bottom of the pile and was coincidentally struck in the face by three hooves right after.

With one final effort, Surprise yanked her hoof free from Winds’ suit.

“YEEP!” she yelped as she tumbled away from them before getting right to her hooves. She galloped over to the periscope and slid to a halt, pressing her face into it as she spun it around. “Oooooo!” she suddenly bounced up and down on her back hooves. “The Batties and the Rennies are really beating them up!”

“Are we being followed?!” Spitfire pressed.

“Ummmmmmmm…” Surprise hummed as she turned the periscope back and forth. “Nope! There are no Shadowbolts following us! Looks like they are all caught up with… Oh darn…”

“What?” Spitfire questioned grinding her hooves into the floor anxiously.

“We still have some of their little shippies following us!” Surprise said as she pulled her face out of the periscope and bent her head all the way back to look at Spitfire.

“How many?!” Spitfire pressed, gritting her teeth and turning a hoof over, wishing Surprise would just give her the details so she could give orders. Surprise whipped her face back against the periscope with a loud PLAF.

“Looks like… One, Two, Three…” she turned the periscope to the right towards the port side. “Four, Five… YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!! LEFT! LEFT! LEFTLEFTLEFTLEFT!”

“WHAT?!” Spitfire blinked as she looked over to the port side. Lightning Streak pulled himself up from beneath Blaze and High Winds and peeked out the port side windshield.

“OH SHIT! MOONBOARD! MOONBOARD! OR WHATEVER IT’S CALLED! BOARD PORT! MOONSTAR! THIS WAY!” he yelled hysterically as he rapped his hooves against the window.

Before Spitfire could question any further, the Shadowbolt Fortress suddenly came into view from their blind spot, pulling up right along the port side of the Nimbus. They had shaken the Shadowbolts and most of the Falcons, but they STILL had the worst of the worst after them!

“LUNA! PORT SHIELD!” Spitfire yelled into her headset as she saw the Fortress cannons slowly turn and face them while glowing brightly. Everypony braced themselves, but right before the cannons fired, Luna’s shield appeared between them and the Fortress. Hooves held onto railings and panels, anticipating more shaking, but Luna’s shield held strong, completely negating any pressure from the cannons as their fire pelted against Luna’s magic. Without the Falcons coming down at them from above, it looked like Luna was back to having the full support of every unicorn on the deck. The Wonderbolts relaxed slightly as they watched Luna’s shield absorb all the cannon fire, never giving an inch as the cannons peppered it nonstop.

But they probably would have been wise to stay braced.

The Nimbus suddenly shook violently as several loud BANGS rang out and made the walls shake and shudder. The whole ship tilted forwards slightly as the rumbling and lurching knocked them all right back off their hooves.

“The Falcons!” Soarin yelled as he wobbled and fell into the side of Lucky’s control panel. “They’re hitting us from behind!”

“Shit!” Spitfire swore as she pulled herself up and looked out towards the Fortress. She was wondering why the Fortress cannons were simply firing into the shield… it was to keep Luna occupied!

“We have to launch the Wonderbolts!” Soarin suggested, but Spitfire immediately swiped her hoof to the side.

“NO! We can’t leave Luna and the Unicorns alone on the deck! We can’t abandon interior defense either!” she clarified.

“We don’t need to send all of them!” Soarin argued as the Nimbus rocked violently again. “Can’t we spare a few?!”

“We can’t take that chance! For all we know they want us to thin out ranks! There could be Shadowbolts waiting to launch from the Fortress the moment we send them out!”

“AH! INCOMING!!!!!!” Lightning Streak yelled from the window again. Soarin and Spitfire both looked up just in time to see the Fortress tip in and ram against Luna’s shield. While the shield held stronger than before, it was still pushed back against the Nimbus, causing them to lurch and tip to the right while also being hit from behind continuously. Everypony hung on for dear life as the fortress shifted away, the Nimbus teetering as the Fortress primed for another hit. Macho Savage ran up to the windshield beside Lightning Streak and pressed his face to the window.

“IS THAT ALL YA GOT BROTHER?! WE ARE THE ULTIMATE MANIACS AND THE ULTIMATE SURVIVORS, YEAH!” he yelled into the window as the Fortress tipped towards them again. “WE’RE RIDING ON THE EDGE OF A LIGHTNING BOLT, YEAH, AND THE MADNESS-”

“BRO! GET DOWN!” Lightning Streak reached up and yanked him down from the window as the Fortress rammed them again, the windows rattling as they were forced closer to the mountains.

“They’re trying to force us towards the mountains!” Soarin yelled as he noticed they were getting closer.

“I noticed!” Spitfire yelled back as she growled and held on tight, doing her best to not be knocked over. “Lucky! Since they’re inviting it, can you get us into the mountains?!”

“I don’t know!” he yelled as he forced the lever to the left just to even them out upright. “They’re also pushing us down! I don’t know what’ll happen if they hit us while I’m turning!”

Spitfire gritted her teeth and turned her eyes back towards the Fortress, moments after she was whiplashed forward with the rest as the Falcons hit them from behind again.

“Spitfire we HAVE to launch the Wonderbolts!” Soarin yelled, reiterating his point. “We don’t have much of a choice! If the Falcons keep hitting us, they might damage the propellers!”

“Dammit, DAMMIT!” Spitfire yelled as she slammed a hoof to the floor, weighing her options.

“HEY! HEY! HEY!” Air Mach suddenly yelled, sliding himself along the platform until he was up between the two of them. “GUESS WHO HAS AN IDEA?!”

“WHATEVER IT IS, NO!” Spitfire denied him before he even explained.

“YO! CHILL OUT!” Air Mach smirked and pointed at her. He pulled on his goggles until the strap snapped and they fell to the floor. He reached into the sleeve of his suit and pulled out his pair of enormous, ridiculous red sunglasses that had somehow fit and remained concealed within. He placed them over his eyes and pounded his chest. “I GOT THIS!” He immediately turned and ran for the door.

“AIR MACH!” Spitfire yelled, but he didn’t stop. “AIR MACH WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU—” She kept yelling but he was already out the door. “Oh, for the love of all that is holy—” she was cut short as the Nimbus shook, absorbing both a hit from the Fortress and more Falcon fire. “Just… JUST…” Spitfire growled, feeling out of options. “JUST KEEP PUSHING IT LUCKY!”

“Sweet Celestia, I’m trying!!!!!”

“Whoa! Whoa! WHOOOAAAA!!” Air Mach yelped as he tried to fly down the stairs. Either he was being brash or he forgot his wings weren’t feeling too well, but regardless he ended up falling and tumbling down the stairs, bouncing off nearly every broken step all the way down to the lobby. Luckily, after hitting the last step he just happened to turn upright and land on his hooves, blinking with his sharp glasses crooked on his face.

“HA!” He pounded his chest and pointed forward, ignoring the pain from falling down the stairs. “Perfect landing!” He claimed as a few of the Wonderbolts stationed nearby turned to look at him.

He was immediately thrown forward as the Nimbus shook and lurched. Wonderbolts all around yelped and stumbled, holding onto the secure furniture and bracing themselves against walls. No doubt the Wonderbolts spread out within the compound were wondering what the hell was happening. None of them, after all, had any view of what was going on outside other than the windows, and they hardly had enough field of view to capture any of the action.

“Whoa… WHOA! AYE YAI!” Air Mach slipped, slid, and tumbled as he was thrown about by the shaking. “Quit shaking, Nimbus!” he yelled at the ship itself as he forced himself up and pushed his way through the lobby. He moved towards the front doors, fighting against the teetering and tipping of the floor beneath him. “Help me out here and I‘ll help you!” He kept speaking, treating the Nimbus like it was a living thing. “Yikes!” he grunted as the Nimbus shook again, causing him to lurch forward and run face first into the glass doors, his face slid down it as he tipped over on his side. “Or don’t help me!” he yelled as he rolled back onto his hooves. “I’ll do it myself!”

He ripped open the lobby door only to be blasted by heavy winds.

“ACK!” He held on tight to the door handle, preventing himself from being pushed back while using his other arm to reach up and keep his glasses from blowing off his face. “HA! If it were that easy…” He pulled himself out onto the deck, leaning forward and digging his hooves into the floor as he pushed through the whirlwinds. “Every stallion would do it! AND I SURE AS HELL AIN’T EVERY STALLION!” he chanted to himself as he forced himself forward, bracing himself as the winds constantly threatened to knock him down.

There was one hell of a bright light coming from the center of the deck, and thanks to his sunglasses he was able to make out what was going on. Luna was standing strong in the center, surrounded by unicorns and braced by Wonderbolts as her magic flared wildly. She was maintaining the shield that held back the Fortress, but the Nimbus shook and lurched as the Falcon’s peppered it from behind, causing them to stumble and struggle to hold themselves in place.

But they were not his goal.

Air Mach grinned from ear to ear, adrenaline and excitement overpowering reason or clear thought as his eyes landed on… their captured Falcon.

“YEAH!” Air Mach cheered as he forced his way towards the small ship chained to the deck. “Why use water when you can fight fire with fire?!” He kept bantering to himself as he closed in, another hard lurch from the Nimbus nearly knocking him off his hooves. “There are times in a stallion’s life when he has to drop his balls lower and out-alpha the rest! It’s a glorious moment when the fire in his chest reaches critical mass and—” he paused as his glasses nearly blew off his face again. “Hey, you’re supposed to stay on when I’m monologuing!” he complained, disregarding the fact that keeping his flight goggles on may have made all of this easier. He finally made it to the Falcon and grabbed onto the side of it. “Go beyond the impossible!” He pulled himself up and crawled along the top of the fuselage. “Kick reason to the curb!” He found the hatch and ripped it open. “THAT’S HOW I ROLL!” he stood up and struck a pose.

But as he did, the Nimbus shook and lurched as the Fortress rammed it.

“WHOA!” Air Mach stumbled and fell, falling right into the hatch and landing on his back on the floor of the Falcon’s interior. He popped right up and punched his hooves forward twice. “Always enter in style!” He chuckled as he immediately moved to the pilot seat and plopped himself down in the chair. “Alright you much smaller bucket of bolts and gears! I hope you’re not too stiff from sitting out here so long, because we’re about to kick some serious ass!” he grabbed the levers and yanked on them, but they barely budged. “What? Aw C’MON! We already did this before! I thought we had something special!” he yelled at the control panel in front of him, pushing random buttons, but nothing was on, no lights, no indicators, the whole thing was dead.

He seemed to completely forget that simply yanking on the controls and yelling at it didn’t work last time either.

Regardless, he kept trying, yelling and screaming at the Falcons control panel and pulling on the controls until his arms hurt.

“WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR DEAL?!” he yelled and he growled. “WE NEED TO HELP EVERYPONY! GET WITH THE PROGRAM! GAH!” He yelped and was thrown from the chair as the Fortress rammed the Nimbus again at the same time as the Falcons fired on it from behind. The Nimbus was forced down, slowly descending to the point where they were getting dangerously close to the ground below. Air Mach pulled his face off the front windshield and blinked as his glasses slipped off his face. They fell onto the control panel and bounced, turning around with the lenses facing him as it rested on the controls.

He stared at them, gritting his teeth as sweat rolled down his face, but then his eyes widened as he saw a reflection in them. The panel was angled, and he was looking straight down… the reflection was of something in the Falcon behind the pilot’s seat.

Air Mach turned around and looked over his shoulder.

His eyes landed on the core of the Falcon, the open air, wired up, capsule shaped apparatus… with the pink crystal that was meant to power it simply sitting in the bowl shaped bottom, clattering and clinking around in it as the Nimbus continue to sway and lurch.

They had left the crystal there since they acquired the Falcon, nopony daring to go near it or touch it in fear of the ramifications. Luna in particular stated that it would be best to simply leave it until they had a better understanding of how they worked and how to safely handle them.

Air Mach stared at the crystal, his eyelids twitching as he realized the Falcon wasn’t going to move unless the crystal was powering it.

If he was going to make the Falcon work… then he had no choice.

It was him… or his friends.

To him, a risk always worth taking!

“HEY! YOU!” Air Mach yelled as he pointed at the crystal, reaching his other hoof back to grab his glasses. “You’ve got some NERVE, not working with me!” He slammed his glasses back on his face and stepped away from the pilot’s seat, standing up on his hind legs and crossing his arms. “WELL GUESS WHAT?!THAT ENDS NOW!” he yelled as he put all hooves to the floor and started stomping towards the core, never taking his eyes off the crystal. “You’re gonna make this thing fly whether you like it or not!” He stopped right in front of the core and snarled at the crystal as it sat at the bottom of the bowl.

“WHO THE HELL…” Air Mach pulled back a hoof. “DO YOU THINK…” He thrust his arm forward, reaching for the crystal. “I A—”

His arm suddenly halted an inch from the crystal. He flinched, his voice failing to finish his catch phrase as he was prevented from touching it, the sudden jolt causing his glasses to slip off his face and clatter to the floor below.

There was a dark blue hoof gripping his wrist, holding his arm still.

Air Mach blinked, frantically looking to his left.

It was Moon.

Their eyes met, Air Mach’s filled with slight shock, surprise, and bewilderment while Moon simply stared at him flatly with his goggled propped up on his forehead.

“I think you’re the biggest moron I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Moon bluntly.

Before Air Mach could react or retort, Moon suddenly yanked his hoof away from the crystal, forced him to turn around and shoved him back towards the pilot seat. Air Mach stumbled forward and slammed into the back of the seat, grunting painfully as he caught himself before falling. He blinked as his glasses suddenly slid along the floor, stopping right at his hooves.

“What the…?” Air Mach looked up and saw Moon with his hoof resting on the edge of the core capsule, his three crystals floating towards it as he reached in and grabbed the core’s crystal too. He stole a quick glance at Air Mach and made a simple head motion towards the controls.

“Drive.”

Moon picked up the core crystal and directed his three crystals over to it. They all pressed together, a bright flash erupting from them. Moon grabbed the four crystals and thrust them into the core, bright pink lights shooting along the wires and all around the interior of the Falcon.

With a roar and a rumble, the Falcon awoke with a start, loud beeping coming from the systems as panels lit up, airflows hissed, and the engine hummed.

Air Mach looked all around him in awe as Moon started up the Falcon, but the awe was quickly replaced by eagerness. He didn’t give a damn that Moon, their mysterious friendly enemy had just dropped in to help him while his comrades were bearing down on them all. Big deal! He had a ship to fly!

“Hahaha!” Air Mach laughed as he reached down and retrieved his glasses, putting them in place as he whipped around the chair and plopped down in it. “NOW we’re talkin’!” he cheered as he reached forward and slipped his hooves into the control levers, pulling them towards him with no resistance at all. He looked all over the control panel. “Say! Which one of these buttons makes it fly?!” he asked.

“None of the ones on your panel,” Moon commented as he continued to manipulate the core with his crystals.

“Why the hell is—?!”

“The Falcons are built for a crew of four. Just keep your eyes forward and get ready to fly and shoot, I’ll handle everything else from back here.” Moon explained while cutting him off, staying calm and collected as he reached to the side of the core and yanked a lever down.

The Falcon began to shake and vibrate, lifting up off the platform slightly, only being restricted by the chains holding it to the Nimbus.

“The propellers are rotating.” Moon relayed forward to Air Mach. “Just punch the throttle. The chains won’t be able to—”

He was cut off as Air Mach immediately pushed the throttle to the max. With a heavy surge forward, the Falcon shot from its resting position, ripping completely free from the chains launched, shooting right over Luna and the rest stationed on the deck. The loud BANG of the engines firing, followed by the rush of wind left behind in the Falcon’s wake caused them all to look up in shock. There was a pink stream of light and crackling sparks erupting from around the Falcon, the extra surge of power from Moon’s additional crystals nearly setting it ablaze as it flung through the air.

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOO HOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!” Air Mach hooted as the Falcon shot out in front of the Nimbus. “ZERO TO BADASS IN THREE SECONDS FLAT!” he hollered as he twisted the levers to the right to come around back towards the Nimbus.

“What the hell just flew off our deck?!” Soarin yelled as he held on and stared out the front windshield.

“What did what now?!” Spitfire questioned as she pulled herself away from Lucky and over to Soarin.

“There!” Soarin pointed to what looked like a pink comet streaking through the air as it turned back towards them. Both of them just stared as it came near, but any fears were quickly alleviated as it seemed to be turning to fly by the windshield over the top of them.

“Wait a second…” Spitfire blinked, “Is that… a Falcon?!” she wondered out loud as it grew closer, moving much faster than any of the Falcons they had seen thus far.

“Hold on, look! In the cockpit!” Soarin pointed as it grew closer. They could see a pony inside… it was hard to make out due to how fast it was moving, but something was very familiar about the pony’s eyewear. They both ducked as the Falcon shot overhead with a loud WHOOSH, causing the Nimbus to rattle slightly as it did. “Was that… Air Mach?!” Soarin asked as he frantically turned to Spitfire.

Spitfire turned to answer him, but before she could, her hoof shot up and pressed her headset against her ear.

“What?” she blinked as Luna spoke to her. “That was the Falcon… we had on the deck!?”

Spitfire and Soarin looked directly at one another, then turned to glance at everypony else as they stared blankly as well… all except for Surprise. She had spun the periscope around and was giddily tapping her back hooves against the floor.

“It’s heading for the other Falcons!” she exclaimed.

Spitfire’s jaw dropped, left speechless as she turned and looked back at Soarin. Soarin only shook his head and shrugged.

“Well…” Spitfire shook her head out, flabbergasted. “I don’t know how the hell he did it, but…” she turned and looked out the windshield down to Luna. “But let’s go with it! If he can keep them busy, then all we have to deal with is the other tub!” she called out as excitement seemed to refill her voice. “Surprise, are the Falcons disengaging us?!”

“YEP!” Surprise giggled, glancing away from the periscope. “They’re going after our Falcon!” She looked back through and cooed. “Oooo! Ours looks so pretty and sparkly!”

“Dammit, Air Mach, you glorious bastard!” Spitfire laughed out loud, drawing some slightly worried glances as the sudden change in the situation seemed to charge her up a little irrationally. “Lucky! Try to regain our lost altitude and keep us steady! Luna!” She pressed her headset again. “Keep it up! I’ve got an idea!”

“Are we going to like this idea?!” Soarin asked, voicing the slight concern appearing over everypony’s face.

“NOPE!” Spitfire said with a slight smirk. “But we’ve gotta use this opportunity while we have it! Based on how everything has gone so far… I think this might just work!”

“Well fuck, she’s lost her mind!” Blaze yelled from behind them as everypony prepared for something ludicrous.

“THIS IS AWESOME!” Air Mach bounced in the pilot seat as he twisted and yanked on the levers, causing the ship to twist and turn to avoid incoming fire from the Falcons chasing him. “YEEEEEHA!!!!” he continued to not take the situation seriously at all as the shield began absorbing cannon blasts, causing the Falcon to rattle and shake. He pulled back hard on the controls to turn the ship up into a wide somersault, taking the other Falcons on a wild goose chase as he seemed to be easily outmaneuvering them. “I knew I was badass, but I had no idea I was this badass!”

“For Celestia’s sake!” Moon growled as he used his magic to work the controls at the core and the other two stations of the Falcon all by himself. Everything warning light was flashing, every cord and wire attached to the core had pink ribbons of energy lifting from it and some of the panels were crackling and fizzling with pink sparks. “Shut the hell up and engage the other Falcons already! The ship’s mechanisms are not built to withstand the extra power I’m pumping into it! So make use of it now before it blows apart!”

“YES SIR!” Air Mach happily agreed as he worked the levers and brought them about. He executed a hard U-turn and faced the Falcons, his hooves twitching as they readied to squeeze the pressure handles that fired the cannons. “ORDER UP, DOUCHEBAGS! COMING IN HOT AND SPICY!”

“This was a mista—WHOA!” Moon yelped and hung on tight as the Falcon suddenly lurched forward, moving even faster as Air Mach squeezed the triggers while twisting the Falcon.

The powerful magic beams erupted from the barrels of the cannons. The ship visibly shook as the overcharged core nearly overloaded the cannons, incredible muzzle flash shining from them as streams of pink light bursting through the surface of the cannon surfaces. Large cracks split in the armor covering the cannons as if they could barely contain the output.

The blasts that hurled towards the other Falcons were enormous, brighter, and left trails of pink sparks in their wake. The Falcon at the front of the pack was struck head on. The shield protected it, but the impact brought it to a full stop, the Falcon flying behind it running directly into it, their shields clashing and bursting from the pressure of the hard collision before they crashed fuselage to fuselage. The second Falcon’s nose jammed right into the engine of the Falcon in front, tilting forward and causing their propellers to whip into one another, ripping them to shreds.

The crystals on their hulls cracked and broke as pink bursts of smoke shot from both Falcons, and the Shadowbolts inside immediately abandoned ship, all eight of them hightailing it out of there as their two Falcons plummeted to the ground and were engulfed in bright explosions.

“OH, I COULD GET USED TO THIS!” Air Mach cheered as Moon just stared in awe. He knew he was overcharging the core, but Air Mach was still the one driving and shooting. This was only the second time he had driven a Falcon and he was doing it more effectively than any of the Shadowbolts ever had through mostly improvisation? “C’MERE YA PUSSIES!” Air Mach yelled as he turned towards the remaining three Falcons that were trying to regroup. “We’re not finished till I’ve smacked you all with my dick!”

Or maybe he was just an overzealous idiot. Either way, it was working.

“HOLD ON!” Spitfire yelled as the Nimbus shook, the Fortress ramming them for the umpteenth time. Everypony braced themselves as the Nimbus tilted and lurched. Lucky once again managed to keep them afloat and steady, but now everypony was beginning to wonder. Spitfire said she had an idea, but since Air Mach pulled his little Falcon stunt, they had been rammed three times and Spitfire had still yet to reveal her idea. “Come on!” Spitfire growled as she glared out at the Fortress. “Aren’t they tired of doing that yet?!”

“Now would be a good time for your ‘idea’!” Soarin became the voice of what everypony was thinking.

“KEEP GOING LUCKY!” Spitfire yelled, ignoring Soarin and turning to Surprise. “Surprise! Are the Falcons still engaged with Air Mach?!”

“Uhhhhh I think so! They’re pretty far away now!” she replied as hugged the periscope.

“Good!” She glared back at the Fortress. “Keep flying, Lucky!” she repeated again.

“For the love of Celestia, I’m nervous enough as is! Stop telling me to do the same thing over and over!” Lucky suddenly retorted in an anxious outburst. “We can’t outrun them! We’re not fast enough!”

“I’m not trying to outrun them!” Spitfire suddenly threw out there. “I’m just waiting for—” Spitfire’s eyes suddenly widened and she smiled in a slightly unsettling manner. “YES! FINALLY!”

Everypony followed her eyes to the fortress to see that it had pulled back and the cannons were turning to face them again.

“It’s time to hit them back!” she turned and got in Lucky’s face. “NOW! RAM THEM!”

“Excuse me WHAAAAAAA—?!” Lucky’s jaw dropped.

“They’ve been ramming us! It’s time to ram them back!” she yelled as she pointed out the window, the cannons powering up and threatening to fire.

“Heh, kinky,” Lightning Streak remarked, still holding Blaze and High Winds steady, receiving two smacks right after.

“LUNA!” Spitfire yelled into her headset as Lucky continued to stare at her in disbelief. “Come in! Are you holding up?!” she asked, pausing to get a reply. “Good! Because I need you to give me two hundred percent here! We’re going to ram them right back!” she yelled, blinking and furrowing her brow. “No, I’m NOT crazy. Now nut up and shut up! Let’s GO!” She turned to Lucky and snarled at him as he continued to stare blankly. “LUCKY!” she reached forward and smacked him across the face. He winced and shook his head out.

“OW! What was that fo—?” he barely got anywhere as Spitfire grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked his face towards hers.

“When they start firing, take a HARD left!” she demanded.

“Oh god, you’re really being serious aren’t you!” Lucky shook as he stared forward, nearly turning his head and knowing on the lever.

“I WAS RIGHT!” Blaze yelled as she clung to High Winds. “SHE’S LOST HER FUCKING MIND!”

“Spitfire,” Soarin reached to grab her shoulder. “That’s too dangerous! We—!”

Soarin was cut off as the Nimbus rattled, the cannons firing and peppering Luna’s shield.

“NOW LUCKY!” Spitfire yelled, slamming her hooves down on the panel beside him. “HARD LEFT! LUNA’S DOING HER PART! NOW DO YOURS! HIT THEM!” She was screaming, her voice raising octaves as she gave the full-breath order.

Lucky slammed his eyes shut, growled to himself, and glared forward.

“SCREW IT! SCREW! IT! ALL!” he yelled as he pushed Spitfire away from him and took a hard step to the right, placing his left shoulder into the lever. “I’m tired of their pilot pushing me around!” he threw his body into the lever, putting all his weight into it as he forced it all the way to the left.

“HERE WE GO! HANG ON!” Spitfire yelled out, grabbing onto a railing with one hoof and pumping the other into the air.

Everypony grabbed on to something or somepony, a wide majority of them in disbelief that they were really attempting this. Everypony gritted their teeth, watching and bracing themselves as the Nimbus shifted hard to port, pushing through the cannon fire and surging towards the Fortress.

There was a loud, very audible BANG that rang out as the shields collided, the shaking and rumbling that ensued much stronger than anything they had felt yet. Several of them were thrown off their hooves, yelps and screams coming from the staff members as sparks jumped up from some of the control panels. A few cracks appeared in the windshield as they vibrated violently.

“AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! RRRRRGHHHH!!!!!!” Luna grunted, her eyes slamming shut and her teeth gritting as the Nimbus drove against the Fortress. The pressure was immense and nearly unbearable. Her hooves slid backwards, the force edging her backwards even with the Wonderbolts bracing her from behind.

But then she stopped moving, her eyes opening as she saw every single Wonderbolt on the deck rushing towards her. The Fortress was the only thing left to deal with, so all of them were making their way over and propping themselves up behind their fellow Wonderbolts, all of them fighting along with Luna to keep her in place as she held the shield up. Even the unicorns came together with her, grouping close together and leaning into her as they shared their magic with her, doubling their efforts, pushing their horns to the limit to give her every drop if that’s what it took.

They all pushed back, the Wonderbolts and unicorns chanting encouragement in unison as they dug their hooves into the ground and forced Luna back forward.

Radical flashes of blue and pink light were bouncing and dancing in all directions as the two magical forces collided, Luna’s shield grinding against the Fortress shield as she literally worked side by side with the Nimbus itself, the strength of the old machinery relying on her to protect it as it drove up against its much more modern and powerful counterpart.

The effort all around her was pushing Luna to the max, motivating her to seize control of her doubts and confidently push her magic well beyond levels she felt she could control. Her eyes disappeared as bright blue light shone from them both, she roared out as her magic surged, the beam connecting to the shield doubling in size. The shield grew thicker and brighter, adding an extra helping push that evened the odds, effectively springing an evenly matched power struggle of the Nimbus and an alicorn goddess against the incredible chaos magic fueled Shadowbolt Fortress. The two massive ships forced against one another in a battle of dominance.

“GRRRHHH!!!!!!” Luna winced as her magic poured forth. It was a struggle to maintain such a strong power output, painful even. Her head was on fire, her nerves all over her body pleading for her to stop, but she held strong, determined to work with everypony until her horn burst if need be.

“COME ON!” Lucky yelled as he his hooves slipped on the floor beside the lever. “COME ON!” he repeated as he kept pushing, forcing his whole body into the lever to keep it pushed as far over to the left as possible, bracing himself against the shaking and against the lever as it tried to force him back. “COME ON, NIMBUS!!!!” he spoke to the ship itself.

But despite his best efforts, the lever began inching back against him.

That is, until Soarin pulled himself over to the control panel and stood over Lucky, putting his shoulder against the lever as well to add his strength to Lucky’s, forcing it back as far left as it could go.

The rumbling and shaking continued, snaps and pops echoing throughout the room as panels sparked and the mechanical workings within the walls creaked. The windshield continued to form cracks, barely holding together.

Fire Streak pushed himself up from the floor, shielding his face from the electrical spasms erupting from the panels nearby as he tried to move towards the window. He met Misty halfway as she placed herself at his side to support him. They both peered out the damaged window and stared at the Fortress, squinting to protect their eyes from the blinding light show between the shields.

“LUNA’S SHIELD!” He suddenly yelled back over to Spitfire at the front. “Her shield is weakening!”

Spitfire quickly pulled herself over, fighting against the disruptive rumbling as she moved towards the window. Luna’s shield looked much larger. She was clearly pumping an incredible amount of power into it, but it was beginning to flicker and small tears were forming in it. Spitfire couldn’t imagine how hard Luna was pushing herself for the sake of this brash maneuver… could she hold it long enough? She quickly pushed her headset down.

“KEEP IT UP LUNA! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!!”

Luna cringed and gasped as she continued to push herself, giving it her all and more. But she was slowly losing her hold on her magic. She could feel her power reaching critical levels, if they didn’t repel the Fortress soon, she’d likely overload and the results could be disastrous. She had to take a risk, it wouldn’t win the day, but it would at least give the Wonderbolts a chance.

She snarled as she tipped her head slightly and tensed every muscle in her body, using intense concentration to abruptly halt the flow of her magic and cause an enormous buildup from within, intentionally letting the flow from the center of her body back up.

The stream of magic connecting to her shield disappeared, but the shield lingered, remaining as she proceeded with her plan.

Her body filled to the brim with magic, an intense light blue glow surrounding her and shining brightly, the surface of her body growing burning hot as the Wonderbolts and Unicorns surrounding her immediately pushed away from her in surprise.

Her armor began to creak and pop, her body pulsating, muscles expanding and receding, forcing against her armor as if the power was trying to force itself out of her body.

Then with a mighty roar, Luna whipped her head forward, letting the magic explode from her horn, a magical beam nearly five meters wide ejecting with small misfiring streams shooting in every direction. The Wonderbolts and unicorns yelped and shielded themselves from the backfire as Luna’s wild magic blast spilled over.

The beam hit the back of her shield, and shattered it, piercing right through and colliding with the Fortress shield. The beam flattened against the shield and split outward, magic spewing and splashing in every direction as it pushed against the Fortress.

The moment it hit, the Luna’s magic proved its power, pushing the Fortress back before propelling it away, the Nimbus and the Fortress separating. But it didn’t stop there, the Fortress was tilted away, and continued to be pushed until it was forced at least fifty yards away.

“AH!” Luna’s head whipped back, a bright blue explosion erupting from her horn as the magic flow ceased. Her headset was struck by the blast, snapping the plastic frame of the headband, but the wires held together, the earpiece dangling down by a wire beside her ear as she was thrown backwards and caught by the Wonderbolts behind her.

She groaned and panted as a trail of blue steam rose from her horn, but before the Wonderbolts could gently lay her down, she sat up and rolled forward, sitting on her plot and planting her hooves on the deck in front of her.

She refused to go down, she would not let her own power knock her out again. Her eyelids twitched, her head throbbing as she stared out towards the Fortress as her magic dissipating and their foe teetering at a distance.

She was not out… but she was certain she would not be able to do that again, at least not with that much power. She had created a momentary buffer of space between the two ships… whatever happened next was up to Spitfire.

“Luna knocked them back!” Fire Streak yelled as he kept watch outside. “But her shield is gone!”

Spitfire ran up to the window as Lucky steadied the ship. She peered out beside Fire Streak, seeing the Fortress struggle to steady itself much further away after whatever Luna had done to cause the bright blue flash. But just as Fire said, the shield was gone as a result and that troubled her.

“Luna! Luna, come in! I don’t know what you just did to slap them across the field, but are you alright?!” she yelled. All eyes turned to her, eyes of concern and worry knowing that Luna was more or less who had been keeping them alive. “Okay… Okay…” Spitfire nodded, but she didn’t look too convinced. “You’re voice sounds scratchy, is your headset damaged? Okay… You overdid it didn’t you?”

“I don’t like that sound of that…” Soarin said to himself as Lucky shook his head furiously.

“YOU don’t?! Try being the driver!” he exclaimed, not feeling so confident without a shield. Growing impatient, he turned to Spitfire after evening out the Nimbus and flying steady again for the first time since the confrontation started. “Captain, what do we do?!” he asked, taking a look towards the Fortress knowing there was nothing he could do to outrun them.

But Spitfire didn’t respond, she had a hoof on her headset, but there was no indication Luna was talking to her through it, Spitfire was just staring blankly, blinking once or twice as she stared at the Fortress as it continued to wobble. It looked like Luna’s attack had taken them by surprise and their pilot was struggling to get them under control.

Then… she started bouncing on her hooves. She suddenly looked back and forth between Lucky and the Fortress, a look of on her face of eager realization, or an epiphany. Either way, after what just happened, everypony got the feeling that she was about to suggest something ridiculous again.

“Note to self,” High Winds sleepily spoke up as she squeezed Blaze in the corner with both her arms and wings. “From now on, keep your sister away from copious adrenaline.”

“LUNA!” Spitfire suddenly yelled into her headset as she stepped forward and almost pressed her face against the windshield, looking out down towards Luna. “Do you have one more shield in you?”

“That’s it, we’re fucking doomed!” Blaze yelled out as she nearly got squeezed unconscious by High Winds’ strong wings.

“All I need is one more Luna!” Spitfire said to Luna as she looked towards the Fortress. “If you can do that and this works, we’ll be home free! I need you!” she pleaded. She must’ve gotten the answer she wanted because a smile spread across her face quickly. “You’re a trooper, Luna! Stand by!”

“So how are we going to kill ourselves?” Soarin asked with blatant sarcasm as he tried to pry into Spitfire’s idea, but she was too far into the zone.

“Somepony keep an eye on the Fortress!” she yelled as she pointed around the room and motioned towards the window. Without hesitation, Surprise whipped the periscope to the port side, Fire Streak retaking his position at the window as well. They didn’t know what her plan was, but did they have any other choice? It wasn’t like any of them had any ideas. Even if Spitfire seemed a little off her rocker, it was at least something.

Spitfire bounced over beside Lucky and slammed her hoof over the engine room comm.

“RIVET! Increase power to the central propeller! We need maximum uplift!” she ordered, the speaker scratching and tuning as Rivet picked up on the other end.

“I’m already giving her all she’s got!” he yelled back in a defiant tone.

“Well we need MORE!” Spitfire quickly demanded. “Just long enough to get us up quickly! MAKE IT HAPPEN!” she pressed her nose to the speaker, yelling in a tone that implied she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

“RGH! FINE!” Rivet angrily complied. “I’ll see what I can do! But don’t blame me if the whole engine room goes up in flames!” he raged before cutting off the comm immediately.

“Lucky!” Spitfire shifted over and bumped against him, nearly knocking him off the lever. Spitfire grabbed him over the shoulder and bent down to get in his face. “Take us higher and move us directly above them!”

“Right… above them?!” Lucky blinked, dreading whatever this plan of hers was going to ask of him.

“You heard me! GO!” she patted him on the back so hard that it nearly knocked the wind out of him.

“Gah, blargh!” he gasped as she shuddered from the overzealous pat on the back. “Oh, I’m going to regret this!” he said to himself as he pushed the uplift controls to the max.

The Nimbus rumbled, the extra power surging from the engine room reaching the central propeller. Everypony braced themselves as they felt the push from below, their forward view rising as they lifted up.

“REPORT!” Spitfire yelled to Fire Streak.

“The fortress is still evening out, but they aren’t following us up!” Fire Streak yelled as Misty used her whole body to help support him against the upward surge.

“GOOD!” Spitfire rubbed her hooves together in a scheming manner.

“Sweet lord, Spitfire,” Soarin yelled towards her as he trudged up beside her, his hooves feeling heavy as the ascent continued. “What are we doing?! Didn’t we already do this? We don’t have the thestrals!”

“When you’re driving something this big,” Spitfire turned and sneered at Soarin. “You’ve gotta THINK big!” she said with an unnerving snicker.

“You don’t look like you’re thinking at all! Have you outright lost your mind?!” Soarin tipped his head, a look of slight terror on his face as Spitfire dropped further and further into a state he had never seen before from her.

“Luna!” Spitfire yelled into her headset, but then her smile disappeared. “Oh, hell… Luna? LUNA?! COME IN LUNA!!!!”

Luna panted and wheezed, her head nearly spinning as she struggled to keep herself up. If not for the Wonderbolts surrounding her and supporting her, she was certain she’d be lying on her stomach. The sudden surge upward of the Nimbus was not helping, her head feeling like it was being forcefully dunked into lukewarm water and making her queasy.

“Luna! Luna!”

She could hear Spitfire’ voice yelling from the headpiece speaker as it dangled beside her ear by a single wire. With a solid effort and a painful grunt, she reached her hoof up and pushed the mangled microphone towards her mouth.

“We… are here!” she answered.

“What happened?! I lost you there for a second!” Spitfire yelled frantically. “Are you sure you’re alright?!”

“That last effort was most difficult. Our magic is taking a great toll our body, but…” She cringed as her body twitched and her head throbbed, but she forced herself to concentrate. “We’re not out yet!”

“Good, because we’re already executing the plan, I need you here Luna! Just one more push!” Spitfire expressed concern, but also detailed that there was no going back. “When I give the word, I need you to produce a shield covering ventral!”

Luna blinked as she glanced at the deck floor.

“V…ventral?!” she asked.

“You heard me, directly below us!” Spitfire repeated. “Can you handle that?!”

Luna took a deep, slightly painful breath. Her whole body, her muscles, her nerves, and even her insides were feeling tender from her reckless internal magic buildup moments ago. Alas, she exhaled and forced herself up, the Wonderbolts helping her stand.

“WE SHALL!”

“A shield below us?! Spitfire what the hell are we going to do?!” Soarin demanded to know, providing a voice to the rest of the Wonderbolts as they wondered what Spitfire was about to attempt.

“No time to explain! We only time to act!” Spitfire denied him, pressing a hoof to his nose and pushing him away. “FIRE! ARE WE OVER THEM YET?!”

“Not yet!” Fire Streak yelled back as he leaned up against the window, tipping up on his hooves to keep the Fortress in his view. “We’ll be over them in a few seconds! I can still just see them over the deck!”

“Are they still stuck?!” Spitfire pressed. Fire quickly shook his head.

“It looks like they just regained control! But I don’t think they’ve noticed we’ve gone up! They aren’t adjusting!” Fire yelled as he looked over his shoulder towards Spitfire.

Spitfire’s overzealous smile returned, her eyes widening giddily.

“Then it’s time to drop the hammer!” she yelled out, turning forward and reaching for her headset as Soarin blinked with a blank expression.

“Drop the—?”

“Luna! Stand by!” Spitfire yelled, her grip nearly crushing her microphone.

“I can’t see them anymore!” Fire yelled over.

“Perfect!” Spitfire rubbed her hooves together again before sliding over beside Lucky and pressing the comm button. “Rivet! That’s good enough!”

“Already reduced the power! That almost blew every damn steam valve down here!” he yelled back through the speaker angrily.

“Good, you’re already halfway!” she said with a smirk. “Now… listen carefully and do exactly as I say!”

“I already hate it!” Rivet threw sarcasm through the speakers.

“Don’t gimme any shit, shorty!” Spitfire rapped a hoof against the speaker. “On my mark… I want you to reduce ALL power to the engines and then be ready to turn them right back on!”

There was no response.

“A ‘yes, ma’am’ is what I was looking for!” Spitfire added.

“You’re actually serious…?!” Rivet yelled in disbelief.

“I don’t stutter!” Spitfire angrily growled. “NOW DAMMIT! WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO ARGUE!”

“You’re literally asking me to do something impossible!” Rivet argued anyway. “These engines are STEAM POWERED! They can’t just be flipped on and off like a light switch!”

“Okay, fine whatever!” Spitfire yelled back. “I don’t care what you have to do, just reduce the power enough to make the propellers slow and drop us like a rock!”

“WHAT?!”

“NOW, RIVET! NOW!” Spitfire belted through the speaker.

“GOD! FINE! I GUESS I MIGHT AS WELL KILL US ALL!” Rivet raged as he cut the comm.

“Ex-fucking-SCUSE me?!” Blaze yelled as she ripped free from High Winds only to stumble and fall flat. “You want Rivet to do WHAT?!” she yelled while grabbing her mane.

“She really HAS lost her damn mind!” Lightning Streak added as he grabbed onto a railing.

“Spitfire, this is insane!” Soarin yelled as he ran up, placed himself in front of her and grabbed her shoulder. “Snap out of it!”

“Soarin, BACK OFF!” she yelled into his face. Soarin snarled down at her, taking a moment to glance up around at everypony, at the elite squads and towards the back left corner where Squad Foxtrot and Dash had braced themselves along with Fleetfoot and Calm, holding on for dear life with terrified looks on their faces.

“You’re literally acting crazy! It’s my duty as a first commander to step forward and—” he was cut off as Spitfire ripped free of him.

“Throttle all the way down, Lucky!” she yelled right into his ear, making him cringe and lean away. Soarin ran up to the other side of him.

“BELAY THAT ORDER!” Soarin ran up to the other side of Lucky. “Spitfire is not demonstrating mental soundness!”

Lucky looked back and forth between them. There was suddenly a loud whirring and clanking as the mechanisms of the Nimbus slowed down and kept slowing down.

“THROTTLE DOWN!” Spitfire yelled again. “Rivet’s already easing the engines! Power down! NOW!!”

“DON’T DO IT!” Soarin yelled back as Lucky looked back and forth between them with an increasingly frantic look on his face.

“Uh… UH…!” he stuttered, completely at a loss of what to do.

Soarin’s eyes widened as he felt a slight sinking feeling in his gut. He looked outside to see the Nimbus was slowly beginning to fall. He frantically looked towards the comm button on the other side of Lucky. He shifted and moved around Lucky, ready to push past Spitfire, order Rivet to turn the engines back up, and take command.

But Spitfire stepped in his way, knocking Lucky out of the way at the same time.

“SPITFIRE!” Soarin yelled as he stumbled away, fighting to regain his balance as Spitfire reached for the throttle and uplift controls. “STOP!!!!!”

It was too late. Spitfire pulled the throttle back and the uplift lever all the way down.

Everypony flinched as loud metallic clanking and scraping came from within the walls and the floor. The engines were already powered down and now the mechanisms were grinding as they were forced to slow down as well. The Nimbus shook as the propellers screeched and wailed, the inner workings, gears, and axles groaning as their rotations grew weaker. There was little reaction as the Nimbus started to fall a little faster… because nopony in the room could actually believe that Spitfire really did it.

Then Surprise let out an high-pitched scream as they started falling faster and faster, causing everypony else to react and cry out as they held on, the feeling of falling hitting them all as the Nimbus started plummeting.

“NOW LUNA!” Spitfire yelled into her headset. “NOW! EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT! DIRECTLY BELOW US!”

“PONIES!” Luna yelled as everypony on the deck with her was rightfully frantic. With the height they were flying at, and the view moving up with increasing speed it literally felt like the world was falling around them. “ONE LAST PUSH! ADD YOUR MAGIC TO MINE!”

Amid the adrenaline and the hysteria, the unicorns listened to their Princess. With the Wonderbolts keeping them secure, the unicorns all channeled their magic, thirty separate flows of magic converging on Luna’s horn as she put forth one last valiant effort to call upon her own. Luna grunted and groaned, her head throbbing and burning as her own magic flow sputtered and struggled to move smoothly. But with the help of the unicorns and their magic she remained vigilant, successfully building up enough to create one more solid shield.

“RGGGHHHAAAAA!” Luna thrust her head down, the tip of her horn striking the deck.

Beams of her magic splashed outward, hundreds of trails shooting along the deck and running to the edges of the Nimbus. They remained attached as they disappeared over the edges, running down along the curved underside of the Nimbus, shifting and weaving as they moved around the propellers until they all collided at the very center of the ships ventral point.

Luna kept up the surge, pumping more and more magic into the deck floor the spheres of magical energy shooting along the trails and racing all the way to the buildup point beneath the ship. A large ball of light was forming, growing larger and brighter by the second… and every second counted as they fell faster and faster towards the oblivious Shadowbolt Fortress below.

“WE… SHALL… SUCCEED!” Luna yelled out as she took a deep breath and exhaled with her mouth closed, puffing out her cheeks. The magic buildup below exploded outward, creating an enormous bowl shaped frame of magic that widened and thickened until it covered the entire bottom half of the nimbus with a protective shell.

The Nimbus was falling like a rock… just like Spitfire had ordered.

And the Fortress floating beneath it clearly had no idea.

And by the time a massive shadow had appeared and expanded over the Fortress…

It was too late.

The Nimbus slammed down over the top of the Fortress.

A loud, tremendous BANG rang out, echoing throughout the surrounding plains and mountains, a forceful shockwave shooting from between the shields like the winds of a hurricane. Loud crackling and creaking erupted from the shields as giant ribbons and sparks of pink and blue magic shot in every direction.

While the Fortress shield held, the weight of the Nimbus immediately forced it down, the powerful engines and propellers of the Fortress unable to fight against the pressure.

With the shields grinding together and causing an epic dangerous lightshow of magical forces, the two ships moved closer and closer to the earth below.

Soarin and Spitfire both lost their hooves and were thrown to the floor, the Nimbus shaking as if a fault line had shifted within the ship itself. Every panel rattled, the glass windshield somehow stayed intact as cracks began spreading all over it from end to end, a few pieces chipping and sprinkling to the floor.

The staff members dove away from their stations as electrical surges bounced up from them, one station near the front suddenly exploded, the side of the metal frame ripping free from the nuts and bolts as the weak blast erupted from it, flames bursting upward.

Lightning Streak quickly grabbed Blaze from High Winds and thrust her towards the panel, Blaze quickly absorbing the flames around her arms to control their spread. Fire Streak followed his brother, pushing High Winds forward so she could snuff out the flames with a blast of wind. The two were up for only a moment, the shaking throwing them right off their hooves right after they contained the fire, but they were caught and gently brought back to the floor by Misty Fly.

Dash held onto Matteo’s arm tightly, Little Star latched to her back as they braced themselves. Squall and Storm were both ripped free of Matteo, tumbling away and bouncing off Calm as he shielded both Shine a screaming Fleetfoot from all harm or contact.

Surprise was latched to the periscope with both her arms and legs the periscope spinning out of control as she screamed at the highest imaginable pitch. The shaking was so violent that not even Macho Savage could keep his hooves, the bulky stallion getting tossed about and bouncing off everything he tried to grab hold of.

Twister was still stuck in the ceiling.

“COME ON!” Spitfire yelled as she kept trying to stand up beside Soarin. “OOF!” she stumbled and fell over Soarin’s back. “COME ON! GO DOWN, YOU BASTARDS! GO DOWN!”

The Fortress propellers spun madly, signaling an increase in power and an effort to fight back, but it proved to be fruitless as the Nimbus continued to drive it down. The new push from the Fortress slowed the fall… but it couldn’t prevent it, the bottom of its shield slowly being forced towards the earth.

Fifteen yards…

Ten yards…

Five yards…

Impact!

The spherical shield of the Fortress crashed into the earth, grass and dirt erupting upwards like a tidal wave as it began dragging through the ground, the forward momentum of both ships causing it to continue forward as it dug against the solid earth.

With Luna’s shield holding strong, the Fortress shield began to shake and flicker, the crystals littering the Fortress fuselage glowing brightly, screeching and shining as it fought to maintain it. Loud groaning and rumbling filled the air as the Nimbus weighed the Fortress down, the sparking and crackling between the shields becoming more and more intense as the Fortress was compressed.

Cracks began appearing in the Fortress’ shield.

They were small at first… then growing larger and larger, spreading all over the spherical surface.

Despite the awesome power of the massive crystals, the sheer bulk and crushing weight of the Nimbus was more than it could bear.

The shield shattered.

It burst like an enormous bubble as it completely capsized.

The Nimbus dropped, Luna’s shield smashing into the Fortress propellers, the metal blades crashing and snapping like twigs, the pillars that held them up bending and groaning as they ripped and broke from their bases. The Nimbus kept falling, crushing the upper structures of the Fortress, the higher crystals shattering and bursting, pink explosions erupting as they were tipped and toppled. The pressure forced the Fortress all the way down, the lower propellers slamming to the earth. The inner workings of the Fortress cried out with metallic groans and creaks as its lower rotors were crushed beneath its own weight. The Fortress underside crashed to the earth and tipped forward, digging violently through the dirt.

“RIVET!” Spitfire yelled as she yanked herself up and slammed the comm button. “NOW! FIRE HER UP! FULL POWER!” she yelled, but was thrown from the speaker before she could get a response.

She tumbled backwards, sliding along the floor until she ran into Soarin again. Soarin grunted as he rolled, doing his best to keep his horn from hitting anything, but as he tried to tip back up, he was inadvertently shoved down by Spitfire as she forced her body up. She trudged back over to the comm and leapt for the button, not sure if her order went through, but the shaking was too much, forcing her back to the floor.

In the end, she didn’t even have to check. A loud WHOOSH hissed through the vents, the Nimbus’ mechanical innards roaring to life. Lucky’s ears perked up when he heard the familiar noise and he quickly pulled himself over, grabbing the uplift controls and forcing it to maximum, reaching his other hoof to the throttle and punching it to full. The Nimbus came alive again, the shadows of the propellers spinning in their view from the cracked windshield, confirming that they had power again… but would they build up enough in time to regain flight? They were still descending slowly. The only thing that kept them from a disastrous collision with the Fortress was Luna’s shield.

“Ah! AHHHH!!!!” Luna began to shout in pain as the immense aura around her horn began to pulsate erratically. The unicorns around her began grunting and gasping as well as they all felt the extreme pressure Luna was fighting against. They were doing their best to share the burden, but they were all holding a shield that was literally being pressed between two behemoths.

The Wonderbolts held on tight to them, keeping them steady as the Nimbus continued to press down against the Fortress, causing the platform to quake endlessly. They had no idea what was going on from their vantage point and feared for their lives as the Nimbus continued to fall slowly.

But they had hope, hope that salvation was close as they saw the propellers start up again and once more blast them with heavy winds and cross breezes as they rotated faster and faster. But would it be enough?

“H-HOLD… ON!” Luna chanted as she strained herself, pushing her magic harder and harder to the breaking point. “WE… CAN… DO IT!!!!” she encouraged… but it looked grim. Her magic was beginning to flicker, and as her magic flickered, so did the trails of light shooting along the deck and over the edge.

Luna’s shield was failing, growing thinner as she and the unicorns slowly lost their grip on it. With the propellers turning above her, Luna knew they were trying to make an escape… she just hat to hold on a little longer… just a little longer!

“N…NO! AHHHH!” Luna’s eyes and mouth shot open, bright flashes of blue light shining through both before her horn fizzled and another blast of magic ejected from it. A loud POOF sounded from it as her head was thrown backwards and the flow of magic completely stopped.

The unicorns surrounding her all screamed as their magic was forced back to them, all hitting them hard and disorienting them to the point where they slumped against the Wonderbolts holding them.

The shield was lost.

With the magic no longer flowing to it, the shield began to crack and bend inward against the crumbling structures of the Shadowbolt Fortress. Fading and threatening to vanish.

But the very last moment… right before the shield disappeared for good…

One of the massive crystals upon the Shadowbolt Fortress went critical, the pressure and the breakages forming in it causing a chain reaction.

It exploded violently, the bright pink flash of energy erupting from its surface and crashing against the entire starboard side of the Fortress. A massive shockwave shot forth from the blast, pushing against Luna’s waning shield. The shield split and shattered upon impact… but completely protected the underside of the Nimbus on its last breath… the blast and following shockwave instead propelling the Nimbus from below, giving it a sudden boost upward and away from the Fortress.

“WHOOOOAAAAAA!!!!!!” Soarin yelled out as he and everypony else were suddenly roughly pressed to the floor, the intense upward force more than anypony on board could handle.

“We’re moving up?!” Spitfire remarked as she forced her head up, looked out the windshield, and saw that they were, indeed, moving up. “WE’RE MOVING UP!!!!!” she yelled again, pounding her hooves on the floor excitedly. “LUCKY!!! LUCKY!!!!” She frantically looked over to him, only to find Lucky had been forced off the lever and to the floor. “SHIT!” Spitfire tried to pull herself over, but Soarin was already yanking himself along the floor faster than her, reaching out to Lucky and stuffing a hoof beneath his stomach.

“GET UP!!!!” Soarin yelled as he called upon all the strength he could muster, pushing Lucky up onto his hooves against both gravity and the absurdly strong upward force. It got easier to lift him as he was doing it… and it was because the Nimbus was reaching the top of its arc. “GO LUCKY! GO!!!!” Soarin yelled as he and Lucky worked together to get him back on his hooves and he immediately grabbed the steering lever… right as the Nimbus stopped rising, and started falling again. The propellers were turning… but they were still not going fast enough to keep them in the air.

The Nimbus tipped down and started to fall.

With the throttle punched full tilt and a little bit of forward momentum built up, they tipped downward into a slow dive towards the ground, taking a thirty degree angle that slowly tipped further as they surged towards the ground below. The uplift lever was already locked at maximum, so all Lucky had left was to pull up and pray it was enough.

“HHHRRGGGGG!!!!!!” Lucky grunted as he pulled the lever back towards him as far as it would go. The Nimbus axles, rotors, and fins churned, lurched, and creaked as it continued to descend, the ship itself fighting to even out as the propellers built up their speed. “COME ON NIMBUS!!!!!!” Lucky yelled. “YOU GOT US THIS FAR! YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!” he yelled as he held on tight, his hooves sweaty, but refusing to let go.

Nopony said a word. Nopony even screamed or yelled. They all just stared out the front window as the ground grew closer and closer…

But their angle was improving.

Slowly but surely, the Nimbus began tipping back up. The bow was still pointing down, but it was getting closer and closer to even.

Soarin gripped the control panel beside Lucky. Spitfire clasped her hooves together, putting her head down against them as she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

The Nimbus grew closer to the ground… closer… closer…

The gap between the earth and the ventral propeller blades steadily closing… inching closer and closer…

“COME OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!” Lucky yelled at the top of his lungs, pulling so hard on the lever that he felt like his hooves would fall off.

Then one of the ventral propellers…

Sliced the very tip of a tall blade of grass.

“YES!!!!!!!!!!” Lucky yelled out as the Nimbus tipped upward and slowly started climbing back into the air. “YES! YES! YES!” Lucky yelled, but then held onto the lever a little too long, the Nimbus tipping up to the point where a few ponies lost their hoofing and fell backwards, a few tumbling and yelping in surprise as the Nimbus took back to the sky. “YESSSS!!!!!” Lucky yelled once more before finally realizing he didn’t need to pull back on the lever anymore, pushing it back forward to even out.

The Nimbus tipped back until it was flying evenly… and smoothly.

Soarin exhaled loudly as the Nimbus calmed. Spitfire opened her eyes and blinked multiple times as she saw them regaining their altitude. Several other sighs of relief began ringing out, but Spitfire did not relax. She refused to before making sure of something.

“SURPRISE!” Spitfire yelled as she whipped around and stared at Surprise, still clinging to the periscope. “What’s the status of the Fortress?!” she asked, causing all eyes to point towards her.

“OH!” Surprise let go, landing on the floor with a soft plop before standing up and sticking her face to the eyepiece. “Um…” she turned it back and forth before freezing in one direction behind them. “AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” she bounced up and down, her tail twirling in a circle.

“What? What is it?!” Spitfire demanded as she rapped a hoof on the floor.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! WE DID IT! WE DID IT!” Surprise yelled giddily, her tone of glee causing a wave of curiosity and pre-relief among the rest. She pulled her face away from the periscope and flashed a wide, hyper smile towards Spitfire. “The Fortress is a complete wreck! They’re stuck in the ground and all smashed up!” She stepped back and pointed at the periscope while giggling. “I can’t do it justice! LOOK!” she encouraged.

But Spitfire just stared blankly, as if trying to process the moment. Soarin glanced at her, lifting an eyebrow as he waited for her to move, but in the end decided to do it for her. He stepped forward, taking Surprise’s invitation to look through the periscope. He paused briefly to carefully tip his head up a little so as not to hit the horn against it, and peered into the eyepiece.

His jaw dropped as he looked out behind them. Surprise was not exaggerating.

The Fortress was on the ground with a massive trench dug out behind it. It was HEAVILY damaged, all the dorsal propellers either broken, bent over, or on the ground beside it. The structure of the hull was in ruins, most of the higher portions completely crushed, including the bridge. The crystals that rested upon it were in were smashed and mangled, broken chunks either on the ground or in the process of breaking off and falling. It was riddled with small fires here and there, plumes of black smoke mixing with plumes of pink smoke that rose up from the broken crystals. The entire ship was tilted slightly to one side and looked like it had just been hit by a meteor shower, a lot of damage on its starboard side from an explosion.

Soarin pulled his head back and blinked before turning to Spitfire.

“Yeah, uh…” Soarin chuckled, a flabbergasted smile appearing on his face. “We kind of… really messed them up.”

The whole room went silent, nopony saying or doing anything except for Surprise as she continued to bounce and giggle happily. Eventually Lightning Streak suddenly stepped forward and took a turn looking through the periscope. He kept his face against it for a few moments before pulling his head back, turning to face forward and taking a deep breath.

“HELL… YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!” he cheered while pumping a hoof in the air.

The silence immediately broke, all the Wonderbolts and staff members erupting in cheers, hooting and hollering as more of them came over to take a look through the periscope.

They did it, they actually did it.

Not only did they get past the Shadowbolts… they also took their ship down in the process!

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf. (And holy crap check out those first two images by her!) And Penumbraglow.

Annnnd cut off. A little abrupt at the end there, but i felt it would make it an easier read. I already have 6000 words written going on from here and i don't see it taking me very long to finish it so expect a very quick update, chapter 142 picking up literally right after Lightning Streak yells at the end.

But WOW... Spitfire you crazy mare...

That feeling when you use your massive ship to literally teabag your enemy's massive ship... :rainbowlaugh:

Lots of action, it's fun to wirte from the Nimbus p.o.v. in these confrontation, i feel like i'm writing ship battle scenes from Star trek or something :twistnerd:

Luna putting on the big girl pants to come through for the Wonderbolts! Literally shielding the whole compound like a boss.

P.L. is.. wow... he's strong as hell but... he really needs to work on his planning huh? Strength doesn't mean much if you get yourself killed. Good thing he has backup... and good thing Silver was down for the count or else he'd be getting an earful for that one.

What's Moon up to? This time he aided directly in helping fight against the Shadowbolts... just when you thought you maybe figured the guy out... At least he let Air Mach be Air Mach! :rainbowwild:

Spitfire... went a little nuts... :pinkiecrazy: I mean seriously... dropping the whole dang ship down on top of the other ship... i mean, it worked but YIKES SPITFIRE.:rainbowlaugh:

crazy stuff huh? And chapter 142 will pick up right where this left off with the Wonderbolts absorbing the fact that they REALLY DID just pull that off.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 142: Take a Deep Breath

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 142: Take a Deep Breath

As everypony started celebrating, Spitfire finally snapped out of her daze. She turned and faced the windshield and slumped forward onto the railing beside Lucky’s station. She took a long, deep breath and released the longest sigh of relief she’d ever let out in her life, casually unclipping her radio box and headset, tossing them both over her head gently.

Soarin was the first to notice Spitfire as everypony else went wild. He stared for a moment, still trying to wrap his head around everything that just happened.

He was suddenly overcome with an intense urge to apologize.

It was crazy as hell, but Spitfire’s plan worked. It actually worked. And while part of his brain was going nuts acknowledging how awesome it was, the other half was acknowledging that he tried to stop it from happening. It was part of his job to speak up when he felt the captain was making poor decisions, but Spitfire proved she wasn’t just throwing random dangerous ideas out there. She wouldn’t have given the order without thinking it through, considering several factors, and coming to a conclusion. If there was zero chance of success, she wouldn’t have ordered it. After this, if she was able to make something that ridiculous work, then Soarin would have a hard time speaking out against much of anything in the future.

Because seriously, holy crap.

“Hey Spitf—”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up, WAIT!” Surprise cut off Soarin as she suddenly garnered all the attention again. She was looking through the periscope, staring behind them. “EEEK!”

“What?” Spitfire jumped right up from the railing and turned around, the cheering and celebrating coming to a solid halt for a moment. “WHAT?!” Spitfire demanded louder.

“IT’S ANOTHER ONE OF THEIR…wait…” Surprise immediately calmed down. “Eheh…” she pulled her face out of the periscope and chuckled sheepishly. “False alarm… sorry…” she stuck her face back in and hummed to herself. “Hmmm… yep, that’s Air Mach. Saw the little ship, reflex reaction. CARRY ON!” she yelled as she let go of the periscope and fell backwards, flopping onto the floor on her back as celebrations recommenced. “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” she sighed loudly, her mane deflating until it was straight and sprawled out on the floor. “You know what I need right now?” she began as she pointed a hoof up in the air. “I need a cupcake, and a full body massage…”

Roughly half a second after she said it, Lightning Streak was standing above her, cracking his hooves.

“Comin’ right up!” he yelled eagerly, only to have his face smash right into Surprise’s hoof the moment he bent down.

“On second thought, I’ll just take the cupcake,” she amended her request as Misty dragged a disappointed Lightning away from her.

Twister’s head, with his body still dangling from the ceiling, suddenly popped out of a floor tile right beside her, resting his chin on the floor right next to her cheek. He smiled wide, his right eye remaining still but his left moving further left as he balanced a plate on his head that had a cupcake on it. It was yellow with white frosting and purple sprinkles.

Surprise glanced at him and blinked, taking a moment to look back and forth at his body stuck in the ceiling a little ways away and his head sticking through the floor beside her. Without asking questions, she grabbed the cupcake. The instant it was in her hoof, Twister’s head fell back into the floor and his body dislodged from the ceiling, a loud, ridiculous CRASH sounding out as if somepony had just dropped a bin full of silverware.

Surprise stared at the cupcake and shrugged.

“Eh… I’ll take it.” She let her head lay back as she stuffed the cupcake in her mouth ravenously. “OHM NOM NOM!!!!”

“And everything is back to normal,” Soarin said quietly to himself with a chuckle as he quickly surveyed the Wonderbolts and the staff. Most of them were celebrating, but there were a few that had simply dropped down and flopped over as victory set in. High Winds had just finished peeling Blaze off the floor after her first hop and cheer sent her into another dizzy spell. Shine Struck was clinging to Calm’s neck, still breathing heavily. Calm was still on the floor and had a hoof on Fleetfoot’s back. His eyes darted over Fleetfoot frantically as she shook and cringed, her tender body practically lit on fire by all the motion it was just put through. Soarin glanced a little further over and had to hold in a chuckle. Squad Foxtrot had taken a tumble. Matteo must have hit a sore spot from the encounter with Nightshade because he was on his side, grimacing as his opposite wing twitched in the air. But the best part was Dash, Little Star, and Squall all stuck beneath him, grunting and groaning as they tried to shimmy free. Storm had escaped Matteo’s girth, but was squatting down slightly, his tail caught beneath instead.

Twister was sitting on top of Matteo, wearing a blank face and holding a sign that read: ‘I’m indifferent to your suffering.’

Soarin felt a little bad for laughing, but Dash’s recruit squad had become known around the force as a constant source of amusement, and Storm seemed to always get caught in it too.

“Any orders ma’am?” Lucky’s voice caught Soarin’s attention. “Ma’am?” Lucky repeated.

Soarin turned around to see Spitfire slumped over the railing again, she lackadaisically waved a hoof in the air.

“Remain on course…” Spitfire said weakly, sounding like her body was relaxing to the point of getting sleepy. “Straight to the Crystal Empire,” she finished with a sigh as she stood up and stretched her body out, shaking her mane back and forth and taking a long, relaxed breath.

Soarin quickly remembered he was about to apologize before Surprise cut him off. Best get it over with before any more interruptions. He made his way over to her and cleared his throat.

“Uh… Spitfire?” he began awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his head. Spitfire’s ears stood up as she heard his voice. She shook slightly, a motion that resembled a quiet chuckle as she slowly started turning around.

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?” she hummed, her tone steadily growing higher and taking on a smug tone as she turned to reveal a very confident smirk. Soarin was a little surprised at first, but then remembered who he was talking to… and how she always did enjoy one-upping him. Some things never change.

“Sorry abou—” Soarin stopped short, flinching as Blaze suddenly leapt past him.

“GRAAAAAHHH!!!!!” she roared as she appeared out of nowhere, catching Spitfire off guard and punching her right in the cheek.

Soarin’s eyes widened as Spitfire grunted and stumbled slightly, her plot sliding across the railing as Blaze set her hooves down and snarled at her.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” she yelled, drawing some attention away from the celebrating, but not all.

“Ow…” Spitfire said casually, moving her jaw back and forth, but not reacting much more than that as she exhaled through her nose.

“YOU CRAZY BITCH! YOU ALMOST KILLED US ALL!” Blaze roared out irrationally, growling as she stomped her hooves.

“Blaze… simmer down.” Spitfire flattened her brow as her little half-sister raged. But Blaze did no such thing, leaping at Spitfire again and throwing another punch. With little effort, Spitfire lifted a hoof and caught Blaze’s arm. “Cut that out,” she ordered as she narrowed her eyes.

“FUCK NO YOU GODDAMN….AH! OWOWOWOW!!!!” Blaze yelped as Spitfire started twisting her arm down.

“You’re still a wreck from fighting Nightshade, don’t make me exploit it more,” Spitfire explained as Blaze cringed and tried to rip her hoof free.

“YOU SON OF A… a… aoooooowwwwwyow…” Blaze groaned as she suddenly got dizzy again. Slumping down as she still felt the effects of donating blood to Silver. Soarin blinked as High Winds trotted by him and approached Blaze from behind.

“Rein it in, Blazey…” she said as she gladly took over Blaze from Spitfire. “You’re sister’s insane, but we didn’t die, so give credit where credit is due,” she explained monotonously with a yawn at the end as Blaze latched onto her and completely slumped.

“But I wanna punch her again…” she said woozily as High Winds pulled her back over to the others.

Soarin didn’t know what to say or do for a moment as he and Spitfire were left alone again, his brain trying to process what he just witnessed. He glanced outside to try and find something else to focus on briefly. All he had time to notice was that they were starting to move north, snowy terrain coming into view, before Spitfire cleared her throat.

“Oh, right,” Soarin chuckled as Spitfire lifted her brow, her smug look returning, more or less confirming she knew exactly what his intentions were. “Where was I…?” he said with an awkward chuckle, but Spitfire suddenly lifted a hoof and shook her head.

“Don’t worry about it Soarin,” she answered before he could even say it. Soarin’s mouth remained open for a few seconds before he closed it and blinked.

“So you’re assuming that I’m about to—”

“Yes,” Spitfire cut him off again, her smirk growing more mischievous.

“Am I that easy to read?” Soarin snorted, but couldn’t hide a smirk of his own.

“Yes, but again, don’t worry about it,” she repeated. “It’s part of your job to not follow me blindly. The first commanders are supposed to question my decisions if you feel it’s right to do so.” She made a head motion towards Lucky. “I was taking one hell of a risk, I’m not surprised you did.” She turned around and stared out the cracked windshield, looking out over the fields of snow that extended forth as they continued on to their destination. “But… you want to know something?” she asked, the smug tone disappearing. “As everything was going to hell and I stood there with no idea what to do… I remembered something that a certain veteran of ours yelled in my face the first time we took flight in this ship…” she paused, a smile curling on her lips. “Wake up, Spitfire. This is no time to play things safe. Either we take chances, or we all die.” She turned back and faced Soarin. “You were out during that whole ridiculous escape, but you have one guess who said that to me.”

“Silver,” Soarin answered immediately with a chuckle.

“Yep,” Spitfire nodded. “And right after he proceeded to lead a small team out against two Falcons and bury them under an avalanche… with a half functioning wing.”

“Sounds like Silver alright,” Soarin nodded as he walked up and stood beside Spitfire, both of them looking out the window.

“We really can’t afford to always be careful with what we’re up against… I guess this is just another part of my little self-evaluation. If I want to play the game, I have to take a few risks.” She paused for a moment. “Heh… You know what? Sometimes I wonder…” she glanced at Soarin. “Silver told me that he’s not angry anymore about me becoming the captain over him… that he feels I was the right choice for the job but… Something tells me he prefers the role of mentor over leader, directly and indirectly. Of course there’s Dash, but I doubt there’s one Wonderbolt in the force right now that hasn’t been affected by him in some way. I know I wouldn’t be in my current state of mind right now if not for him… that’s for sure.”

“I doubt he’d ever admit he actually likes all of us, that or he’d find a way to spin it into a back-hoofed compliment,” Soarin added, the two of them sharing a quiet laugh. Soarin glanced back briefly to see the Wonderbolts still celebrating, Lightning Streak putting Fire Streak into a headlock and giving him a noogie, only to immediately be ripped off by Misty after Fire’s painful reaction to it. “Oh and speaking of your current state of mind and how I… you know… accused you of being insane during your whole plan…” he trailed off.

“Mmhmm…?” Spitfire hummed, glancing at him with her smug smirk returning.

“Would it be weird if I suddenly did a complete one-eighty and start gushing about it since it actually worked?” he asked with a goofy look on his face. Spitfire snickered and waved a hoof at him.

“I guess I’ll allow it.”

“WOW.” Soarin got right in her face. “You absolute MAD-mare!” he exaggerated while throwing his hooves up. “I can’t believe that actually worked! Hell of a job, Captain, you’re one of a kind!” he kept going over the top intentionally. Spitfire giggled and pushed him away.

“Oh, stop it. I’m sure you would’ve come up with something if you were in my position,” she humbly tried to play it down, exaggerating a little herself with the shift away from her initial smugness.

“Seriously?” Soarin lifted his brow and shook his head. “After all those crazy-fast, split-second decisions you made including the risk we ultimately took? No chance I would have done any of that, hence my protest. After how much we’ve been blundering up to this point, that was a top-notch, A-plus performance.”

“Yowza, Soarin,” Spitfire turned her head away, her face turning a little red in embarrassment. “Don’t come onto me too hard or anything, I’m already taken,” she joked. “But if you’re trying to stroke my ego until it’s raw, you’re doing a good job.”

“Spitfire, come on,” Soarin snorted and rolled his eyes. “You’re acting like you didn’t just use our twenty fuck-tillion ton airship as a big fat sledgehammer to smash another airship to the ground. Look, I know the Wonderbolts exist to both be unconventional and handle the unconventional,” he leaned over and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her lightly. “But good lord, I think you just completely transcended our definition of ‘unconventional,’” he chuckled as he let got and winked at her. “Ten out of ten, I’m sure it would have given Silver a hard on.”

Spitfire flinched awkwardly and scrunched her face.

“Okay, you were doing fine until you brought up Silver’s dick,” Spitfire stuck her tongue out and shook her head out. “Thanks for that unwanted mental image…”

They looked at one another and both burst out laughing, guffawing for several moments as the high of their success remained strong along with the rest still having fun behind them.

“I need a nap…” Spitfire said to herself as she sighed and slumped back down against the railing. “Are we there yet?”

“I know, right?” Soarin agreed quickly as he leaned against the railing as well, the two of them going quiet for a few moments as they just relaxed and took a load off.

“So…” Spitfire spoke up again. “I wonder how Air Mach got that Falcon moving anyway…?”

“Uh…” Soarin blinked then flinched, his ears pointing straight up. “Wasn’t that thing powered by one of their crystals?”

They both locked eyes, jaws dropping.

“You don’t think he…?”

“WOOHOO!!!!!!” Air Mach cheered as he continued to pilot the Falcon, kicking the throttle up and picking up speed to catch up with the Nimbus. “The mighty Animak prevails and delivers swift, stallionly justice upon his foes!” he guffawed happily to himself. “Say… buddy!” He started turning around to face Moon. “Last time was a little rough, any tips on how to land this thi—”

He froze.

Moon was gone.

The crystal was flickering, and slowly lowered back down into the bowl of the core with a soft CLINK.

Warning lights began blinking, loud beeping came from every station, the power cords were no longer glowing, and loud hissing of all the systems powering down filled the cockpit.

Air Mach’s jaw dropped as he turned back around and noticed that the levers had locked… but the Falcon was still gliding and heading straight for the backside of the Nimbus… quite quickly.

“Well darn…”

“No… not even he’s that stupid!” Spitfire argued as a few others started glancing towards her and Soarin.

“But…” Soarin shook his head. “How else did he get it to move?!”

“UGH!” Spitfire smacked a hoof over her eyes and groaned. “Just when I thought everything went well for once!” She pulled her hoof down her face and blew air between her lips, making them vibrate. “There’s no other way he could have gotten it to move… I hope he’s at least okay, because, I mean, he did end up helping us…”

“Slightly related question…” Soarin chimed in. “I heard the landing went poorly last time, can he land that thing while the Nimbus is mo—”

KA-THUNK

Soarin was cut off and everypony flinched hard, a few stumbling and falling as a loud noise resembling a crash echoed throughout. The walls and floor shook and vibrated and the Nimbus tipped forward as if it was just struck from behind. Everypony gasped and yelped, grabbing onto each other or any solid surface as the sudden shock resonated throughout the ship, all of them looking around frantically as Lucky quickly regained control.

“What the HELL was that?!” Lucky yelled out.

It didn’t take long to get an answer.

The doors to the bridge suddenly swung open, almost instantly hitting the walls beside them with loud BANGS as Air Mach’s body flung back first through them and over the top of several ponies near it. He luckily fell before hitting the periscope, just missing Surprise as he hit the floor, tumbled, and landed on his face, a loud, ear wrenching squeak sounding out as his face dragged along the floor, stopping at the base of the control platform with the rest of his body tipped up in the air over him.

His body tipped over as he stopped, his back landing against the step of the platform as his limbs flopped to his sides. He was covered in bruises, there was a big red line on his face and his glasses rested unevenly with one eye exposed, but the glasses themselves were somehow completely undamaged. He slowly slid off the step and onto the floor.

Everypony just stood silently and stared at him, only the doors making noise as they swung shut and bounced.

A weak, forced smile made its way onto his face as he slowly lifted a hoof into the air.

“Nailed it!” he yelled, his voice cracking as his hoof flopped back down to his body.

Spitfire blinked and looked between Air Mach and the door, wondering what the hell just happened as Lucky had voiced earlier. She got her answer as High Winds moved over to the door and pulled it open to get a look out into the hallway.

Everypony that could see it stared blankly into the hall. The Falcon was… well… IN the Nimbus. More specifically… it was sitting right across the hall… in Spitfire’s room.

It had completely destroyed the outer wall and had caused the wall separating her room from the hallway to completely collapse. It had dug far enough into her room that the wings had likely caused damage to the rooms to the left and right of hers as well, the propellers on the wings completely bent and snapped off, laying on the floor in front of it.

“Looks like he parked in your bedroom,” Soarin was the first to speak, not sure if he was supposed to laugh.

“Uh… he…” Spitfire’s eye twitched. “I guess he did…” Spitfire started moving closer to Air Mach, a slightly frustrated nicker escaping her throat, but she flinched as Twister suddenly popped up between them.

“SIR!” Twister yelled at Air Mach, wearing a police helmet. “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO PARK YOUR VAN ON THE DIVING BOARD!”

Spitfire flattened her brow, but Soarin tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey Twister!” Soarin yelled while picking up a metal rod that fell off one of the consoles. “Go get the stick!” he added, waving the rod back and forth before tossing it across the room. Twister immediately threw off the police helmet and barked like a dog as he bounded after it.

Spitfire blinked and stared after Twister as he leapt behind a control panel before looking back at Soarin.

“Learned that from Dash,” Soarin explained simply with a shrug.

“Uh… right…” Spitfire quickly let it go, giving no attempt to find an explanation. She quickly noticed how confused everypony looked. Not surprising since Air Mach just crashed through the wall and one of their recruits was acting like a dog. She decided to retake control of the moment and focused on Air Mach.

She cleared her throat loudly to bring all the attention back to her before she stepped up and stared down at Air Mach, giving him a glare as he continued to wear his weak, silly smile on the floor.

“Heya Captain… how’d I do?” he asked as he slid one of his arms back and forth beside him. Spitfire examined him carefully, looking him over for any signs of damage from using the crystal… but there didn’t seem to be any, bringing the only question she had to the fore.

“How the hell did you get that thing to move?” she asked bluntly. Air Mach continued to smile, as if he was too beaten up to do anything else before letting his arms flop up and down again.

“Moonbro dropped in and started it up for me,” he explained. “Put it into overdrive for me too, had a hell of a time blowing the shit outta the other ships,” he said while chuckling weakly and letting out a long, loud, content sigh. “It was badass… just like me.”

“Moon?” Spitfire’s eyes widened as she repeated the name. She glanced over at Soarin, but he was equally surprised. “Huh…” she refocused on Air Mach.

“Left me hanging at the end though… up and disappeared, so the landing was a bit… rough,” Air Mach explained, trying to tip up, but he failed miserably.

“And that explains that…” Spitfire said with a slight grunt as she considered the current state of her living quarters. But then her lips curled into a smile as she looked down upon him. “You know what, Air Mach? You’re a damn moron, but you’ve got it where it counts. Nice improvising,” she complimented. A few chuckles sounded out around them, the Wonderbolts relaxing again as they absorbed the explanation and wholly agreed with Spitfire’s assessment. Air Mach strained himself to lift his arm and point upward.

“All in a day’s—!”

“But if we have to make any emergency, overnight landings before we arrive,” Spitfire cut him off. “You’re sleeping in the lobby. It’s what you get for parking in my room.”

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww mannnnnnnnnnn…” Air Mach groaned as his arm flopped down against his chest, the Wonderbolts and staff all losing it, bursting out laughing as the good cheer recommenced. The Streak twins came over to help Air Mach off the floor and hold him up as several others came around to ask him about piloting the Falcon, but he was almost knocked completely out cold as Macho Savage gave him a pat on the back that was way too hard.

Spitfire was feeling too good about their success to be angry about a big hunk of metal lodged in her room. She was also considering that they’d be in the Crystal Empire by the end of the night. She assumed the Nimbus was going to undergo repairs while there, so she wouldn’t need her living quarters anyway. She turned and moved to the front beside Lucky, basking in the relief as everypony did the same behind her.

Now that he had gotten his ‘apology’ out of the way, Soarin turned his attention to the other mare in his life, the more personal one. It looked like Rainbow Dash and her friends had finally removed themselves from beneath Matteo and were letting everything sink in though Matteo was still on the floor, looking rather uncomfortable as his wing continued to twitch and shudder. His wing didn’t look broken or anything, but it had to be one hell of a cramp or stinger if it was still bothering him. Then again, Soarin was sure most of them had lingering injuries from fighting Nightshade, something he couldn’t claim.

As he approached, Little Star plopped on the floor and rolled over on her back.

“That’s enough excitement for me, thanks!” she yelled, pointing all four of her hooves up into the air and groaning. “Guh… my head hurts…”

“Okay,” Squall grunted as he cringed and shuffled up between Star and Dash. “Maybe boring wasn’t so bad after all…” he walked back his prior complaint while shaking his head out. Star suddenly rolled towards him and latched to his leg.

“SQUALLLLLL!!!!!” she wailed. “MAKE THE ROOM STOP SPINNING!”

Squall flinched and glared down at her as he lifted his leg and tried to shake her free, but she didn’t let go.

“That’s not helping!” she added, her voice shaking as he whipped his arm back and forth.

Soarin chuckled as he watched the small scene unfold, but when he turned to focus on Dash, she and Storm were both on the move, placing themselves on opposite sides of Matteo to assist him.

“Everyone alive over here?” Soarin asked as he approached them.

“I’m still alive,” Storm chuckled, Dash focusing entirely on Matteo as they helped him tip and roll over. “I think everypony else is t—” Storm stopped, all of them blinking as Matteo rolled over to reveal Twister beneath him, completely flattened to the floor like a pancake with a smashed wavy grin on his face.

“Wait, what?” Soarin blinked, glancing back over to where he threw the metal rod. “Didn’t I just—”

Dash didn’t wait for Soarin to finish. She sighed, reached down, and casually peeled Twister off the floor. She spread out her hooves on him and roughly flapped her arms, whiplashing him like a bed sheet freshly removed from a dryer. With a single whip, Twister retook his natural form, Dash instantly letting go of him as he fell face first on the floor. He quickly tilted the top half of his body up, holding a bright orange bottle of laundry detergent.

“If it’s gotta be clean, it’s gotta be RIDE!” he said in a generic, salespony tone while waving a hoof in front of the bottle and the word ‘RIDE’ appearing on it with a saddle behind it.

“Yep,” Storm quickly turned back to Soarin. “Situation normal, sir!” Storm shrugged while giving a goofy salute.

“No doubt,” Soarin agreed, snickering as Dash took Twister’s laundry detergent away before dragging him off kicking and screaming.

It looked like Dash was going to be busy for a moment, so why not check on the third mare in his life? The one that drove him insane, but couldn’t live without.

But it looked like Spitfire had beaten Soarin to the punch. She was already over by Calm Wind and Fleetfoot as the big oaf tried to get up to give Spitfire room to check on her, but he was restrained. Fleetfoot was grasping his arm and refusing to let go, not out of fear, but it looked like her body just hurt that much that she had to squeeze something, her eyes slammed shut and her teeth grinding together.

The situation would have been completely serious if not for the fact that Shine Struck was still latched to the back of Calm’s neck.

From where they were positioned it looked like Calm had done a pretty darn good job of making sure they didn’t move too much. They had only shifted a little ways away from where they started. Or who knows? Spitfire probably spooked him to the point where he was afraid to be anywhere else when she checked again.

“Uuuuugggghhhh!!!” Shine struck groaned as she continued to cling to Calm’s neck. “Can somepony let me know when we land so I can throw up?!” she wailed as she let go of Calm and slipped off his back, flopping onto the ground and lying flat on the floor. Spitfire ignored her, her focus completely on Fleetfoot as she bent down to check on her.

“Fleet… we made it, are you okay?” she asked, touching her very gently and feeling her body quake. Fleetfoot didn’t respond, she just slowly opened her eyes, locked them with Spitfire’s, and nodded very weakly while still holding onto Calm’s leg with most of her body pressed against his. Spitfire smiled weakly back at her, gently brushing a hoof against the back of her neck in a comforting manner. “You can relax now, we’re safe,” she assured her before turning and smiling contently at Calm. “Good work Calm,” she nodded, but he didn’t look at her or acknowledge her. “Calm?”

She blinked and tipped her head, noticing that he was stiffly frozen and looking up at the ceiling, his face completely red beneath his mask. Spitfire glanced back down at Fleetfoot, and too note of how much of her was pressed against him. No explanation needed.

“You massive goofball,” she rolled her eyes and chuckled before crouching back down towards Fleetfoot. “Hey, when you get the chance, make sure you thank your big strong anchor here.”

It looked like Fleetfoot wanted to say something, but she ended up cringing again before clinging even tighter to Calm’s arm.

Spitfire was surprised that Calm’s mask didn’t burst into flames.

Knowing Calm would keep an eye on her regardless of his inability to move, Spitfire turned her focus from Fleetfoot to Shine as she remained on the floor, on her back, wheezing as if she was going to hurl.

“You going to be okay, Shine?” Spitfire asked, giving her a light tap on the side.

“I’ll be up in a minute…” Shine replied shakily while haphazardly lifting and waving a hoof in the air.

Content with the simple response, Spitfire looked around until she found Soarin, catching his eyes watching her.

“What’s that look for?” she asked as she trotted up to him. He shrugged and pointed towards Dash as she continued to deal with Twister.

“Just waiting for her to get her squad together,” Soarin answered with a nod.

They both watched as Dash hung Twister over one of the nearby railings like a wet towel before turning her attention to Matteo. He was rolling over with the help of Little Star, or at least as much as she could help. Dash joined her, both of them assisting Matteo as he grunted and grumbled something about his right wing that quickly became inaudible. Dash and Star moved to his right after he was on his stomach and grabbed his wing, helping him slowly stretch it out.

“You know…” Spitfire began as she and Soarin watched the recruits. “Foxtrot never ceases to surprise me.”

“A fun bunch aren’t they?” Soarin added, but Spitfire shook her head.

“Yeah, but I’m losing track of how many times they’ve been very useful in the moment,” she explained with a proud smile. She walked towards them, Soarin following behind her as they approached. “Rainbow Dash, Matteo,” Spitfire spoke their names, but Dash was clearly distracted. So Spitfire cleared her throat loudly.

“YIPE!” Dash jumped in surprise, letting go of Matteo’s wing. It whipped back towards his body and slapped against his side.

“ARRRGHHH!!!!! GRRHHHHH!!!!” Matteo groaned in pain as his wing twitched.

“Ah! Sorry! Sorry!” Dash immediately shifted up to Matteo, wincing as he rolled onto his side, almost flattening Star in the process.

Spitfire and Soarin stared at them blankly as Dash quickly whipped around and threw on a very forced smile while Matteo continued to cringe and groan behind her, cursing in barely audible tones. Squall, Storm, and Little Star backed away from Matteo as his razor sharp talons began extending and retracting, twitching as he dealt with the cramping pains.

“Relax, Dash,” Spitfire waved a hoof at her. “Let’s give him a second.”

They both waited until Matteo finally stopped cringing and rolled back onto his stomach, remaining on the floor while taking slow, careful breaths. Regardless of his position, he was still taller than Spitfire.

“You alright?” Spitfire asked him, Matteo simply nodding in response.

“I’ll live,” he stated, earning a smirk from Spitfire.

“Perfect answer,” she said as she glanced between the two of them. “Good work, both of you. If you two didn’t act, we’d have had a head-on collision. I don’t think we’d be flying right now… or even alive right now,” she complimented them, but then looked towards Matteo and tipped her head. “How did you see it, anyway?” she asked. Matteo swallowed and exhaled as he fought back reactions to his aching wing.

“I just saw it,” he explained. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, then glanced at Dash.

“Eagle eyes, remember?” Dash reminded her.

“Oh, right,” Spitfire’s eyes widened slightly. “I mean… I knew griffon eyes were good, but… wow that’s beyond impressive,” she smirked at Matteo, but he simply stared back as if it was only natural. “And Dash…” she squared up to Dash and gave her a slightly hard glare. Dash squeaked, but stood attention quickly. “Quick thinking with the lever, that’s one hell of an instinct you have… but don’t get too carried away.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Dash smiled while rubbing the back of her head. “I will, it was nothing really…”

“You’re not fooling anyone with the humble act,” Soarin suddenly spoke up while making his way around Spitfire and giving Dash a nudge in the side. Dash flinched, then pouted up at Soarin, meeting a smarmy look from his eyes.

“Oh, shut it…” she huffed as Spitfire turned away from them and made her way back towards Lucky.

Dash watched as Spitfire left, but then took a deep breath and exhaled for a few seconds, letting her body relax, if only a little. She leaned up against Soarin, who immediately reacted by gently draping an arm over her shoulder as she pressed into him.

“I’m a little curious though…” she spoke up before Soarin could drape a wing over her too.

“Hm? About what?” he asked. Dash looked around the bridge, her eyes searching for a specific pegasus mare.

“I know how Matteo saw the fortress before it appeared, but…” she paused as she found her target. “What was up with Misty Fly?” she asked while pointing across the bridge. Soarin followed her hoof, both of them looking towards Misty as she sat on the floor beside Fire, leaning against him in relief. “How did she know it was there? And did you see her ears moving?”

Soarin opened his mouth, but no words made their way out. He blinked, lifted an eyebrow, and tipped his head slightly. He watched Fire make signs to Misty, asking if she was doing alright. She smiled and nodded at him before giving him a big, tight hug that made him grunt unexpectedly.

“Uh…” Soarin finally managed to speak as he ran it all through his head and realized that it didn’t make any sense at all. “That’s… a good question…”

They glanced at one another, both completely stumped.

“Rivet,” Spitfire’s voice nearby caught their attention. “Is everything alright down there?” she asked, finally touching base with the engine room.

“Aside from a few dozen heart attacks, everything’s peachy. Nothing is catching fire or threatening to blow up down here anymore so I’m assuming we’re alive?” Rivet replied in a slightly monotonous, annoyed tone.

“You’re as bluntly sarcastic as ever, Rivet, but yes,” Spitfire replied with a slight chuckle. “It was a bang up job, but we left them in the dust and in the dirt. Keep her running steady, I’ll let you know when we’re near the crystal empire,” she finished, letting go of the comm button and leaning forward against the panel. After a long, content inhale and exhale, she glanced at Lucky too. “Have I said you did a great job yet?”

“Er…” Lucky flinched, clearly concentrating on flying straight as he started navigating the Nimbus over some of the snowy lowlands, staying on path as they flew over the least dense area of the northern mountains. “No?” he finally answered, giving her a quick glance before putting his eyes back forward.

“Hell of a job, then,” Spitfire complimented him with a smile. “You’ve earned your pay for the week.”

“I’m getting paid for this?” Lucky suddenly perked up, his eyes widening.

“It’s just an expression, but you will be eventually if you keep this up,” she said with a chuckle. “It all depends on what happens going forward and what we do with this old clunker, but I guarantee you it’ll pay better than organizing our mail.” She blinked and noticed the Nimbus was shifting slightly. Lucky was staring at her with wide eyes and his jaw almost unhinged. “We’ll talk about that later. Eyes forward.” She pointed.

“Ah, right, right…” Lucky swallowed and refocused, putting the lever back in place to fly straight. “Oh, should I slow down for the Renegades and thestrals? What was the meet up plan again?”

“No,” Spitfire shook her head. “Push on, they’ll catch up. If they’re having too much fun and spend more time harassing the Shadowbolts, then they’ll meet us at the Crystal Empire.”

“Will they be alright?” Lucky pressed, feeling a little responsible for them since he was in control of the Nimbus.

“They’ll be fine,” Spitfire reassured him. “They played the role of ‘surprise attack’ perfectly, if the Shadowbolts somehow managed to take the fight to them, Descent is in charge of their getaway plan. Trust me… he knows a thing or two about eluding enemies.”

“If you say so…” Lucky gritted his teeth. Spitfire noticed and caught onto his worry.

“Just focus on driving.” She patted him on the back. “Your job is to worry about flying this ship. It’s my job to worry about our allies.”

Lucky simply nodded as he kept his eyes forward. Content, Spitfire turned around and looked towards the floor, her eyes scanning until she found her headset. It had slid to the edge of the platform after she had tossed them aside. She was touching base with her non-Wonderbolt helpers and was almost surprised she had nearly forgotten the obvious one.

“Luna?” she spoke into the headset as she slipped it back over her head and pushed the microphone down. “Come in, Luna,” she spoke while turning around and pacing back towards the rest of the Wonderbolts. She looked up and blinked. “Luna, do you re—” she stopped as she reached the edge of the platform, one hoof hovering over the edge before she could take the step down. “Oh? Who’s this?” she asked as a different voice came through. “Is Luna alright?” she kept speaking as she moved towards Soarin and Dash, noticing that the two were observing her. “Ah, I see,” she smiled. “Let her rest.”

She pushed the microphone back up and removed the headset again, placing it on the panel beside her before approaching Soarin and Dash.

“What’s up with Luna?” Dash asked, concerned, but Spitfire just smiled and shook her head.

“Nothing, apparently she decided to take a nap right on the deck. She’s fine,” she explained, but quickly turned her attention to Soarin… who was snickering as he tried to stifle laughter. “What?”

“You told a goddess to ‘nut up and shut up,’” he pointed out as he let a few chuckles go. Dash instantly puffed her cheeks out and giggled at his side as several nearby Wonderbolts overheard, remembered she had said that in the heat of the encounter, and started laughing too.

“I did, didn’t I?” Spitfire sighed and rolled her eyes, but cracked a weak smile.

“Ballsy move…” High Winds began with a yawn. “Oh, ball-less captain,” she finished before lowering herself to the floor to take a nap of her own. Blaze tried to nudge her awake, but instead was grabbed and pulled down roughly to be sleepily snuggled with.

“I’ll say!” Lightning Streak agreed as he approach from the other side. “But damn if we don’t owe those invisible nuts of Luna’s some respect! Did you see her keep those shields up?”

“YEAH!” Surprise leapt up on his back and pushed his head down as she leaned towards Spitfire. “That was amazing!” She turned to Soarin. “But who do you think has bigger balls at this point? Spitfire or Luna? YEEP!” she yelped as Fire Streak stepped up beside her and pulled both her and Lightning’s neck down.

“Can we stop talking about the non-existent privates of our captain and the princess?” he asked with a grumble.

“Unclench bro, I can hear the vacuum of your ass from here,” Lightning retorted casually as he was put beneath the pressure of both his twin and Surprise.

Laughter echoed all around as the air of relief continued to float among them, and Spitfire was enjoying every second. After everything they had gone through with the force as a whole, it was about time something went right. Aside from the rescue of Wave, it had been one disaster after another. They weren’t safely at their destination yet, but… they earned some light hearted cheer.

“Everypony…” Spitfire spoke up, lifting her voice a little to grab everypony's attention, Fire Streak dropping his other two squadmates immediately to find and translate for Misty Fly beside him. “Good work… and—”

“Um, sorry to interrupt!” Lucky suddenly yelled from the front.

“Something wrong?” Spitfire blinked, quickly turning around with wide eyes, hoping that she didn’t just jinx the situation.

“No, no… just a question about the flight path and the mountains,” Lucky confirmed, causing Spitfire to nearly drop to the floor as she exhaled.

“Careful there…” Soarin poked her in the side in a teasing manner. “What were you telling me earlier about saying anything implying we’re home free?”

“At this point I don’t give a damn,” Spitfire chuckled as she got up and made her way back towards Lucky.

“Heh,” Soarin chuckled as he watched her, then perked up as Dash suddenly left his side and started moving towards the port side window. With Spitfire looking like she had a moment or two before she continued her address, Soarin broke from his spot and followed behind Dash. He watched her carefully as she sat down and stared out the window, the sunset nearly complete, the twilight just waiting to wash over the orange and red of the horizon.

“Something wrong?” he asked as he moved up beside her and sat down. “Or are you just thinking about what we mentioned before?”

“No…” Dash said weakly, but with a tone that seemed… troubled. “Something else I can’t shake from my mind. I dunno… that seemed…” she kept pausing as if trying to find the right words. “That seemed way too easy.”

Soarin’s eyes twitched and he furrowed his brow, trying not to chuckle awkwardly.

“That’s your definition of EASY?” he asked with slight sarcasm.

“Okay, maybe that’s the wrong word for it,” Dash huffed, pouting at her faint reflection in the cracked window. “I guess… I feel… I don’t…” Dash started trailing off every time. “I dunno, I don’t think I want to bring it up.”

“Out with it, missy,” Soarin gently poked her in the arm. Dash groaned and pulled her ears down.

“Where was Nightshade?”

Soarin’s eyes widened as the name left her lips. He stared blankly at her as she let go of her ears and let them flop back up before puffing her cheeks out and flattening her brow as she glared at him slightly. No wonder she didn’t want to bring it up.

“That’s…” Soarin turned and stared out the window. “That’s… a very good question. Oh god,” Soarin gritted his teeth. He was so distracted by the action and intensity of the confrontation that the thought never crossed his mind. There was a lingering fear of Nightshade slithering in all of their minds, but it wasn’t hard for that bit to be lost in the back of his mind when their too massive airships were clashing and crashing together. “I hope she wasn’t out there when we broke free… Or else… Descent and P.L. are—” he started turning to look back towards Spitfire with the preemptive intention of bringing this up, but he stopped halfway when somepony else showed up right behind them.

“Um…” Storm Front hummed as Dash turned to see him as well. “Hi.” He waved sheepishly. Soarin and Dash glanced at one another briefly.

“Eavesdropping?” Soarin asked in a tone that was half blunt, half sarcastic. Storm flinched a little, but shook his head.

“I didn’t listen in until I heard ‘Nightshade.’” he admitted. “I don’t think the Renegades or Thestrals are in any danger, at least from her,” he assured them rather pointedly.

“Why? Oh… wait…” Dash questioned, but came to a realization shortly.

“You know where I’m going with this,” Storm nodded as he motioned to Dash and looked at Soarin. “Remember what happened when she saw my dad?

“Oh, right…” Soarin recalled. He was there too, after all. It didn’t seem likely she’d directly confront Descent and Starry after how it went a few days ago. “But that doesn’t explain where she is now…”

“Maybe she was giving orders in the Fortress?” Storm suggested. “You know, just like Spitfire was?” He put forth the possibility as they continued to contemplate. “But either way, she didn’t look too… stable after what we put her through. Silver tore her apart emotionally, then her fearful reaction to my Dad, and her crystals almost killed her… I dunno, she looked like a mess.”

“Maybe…” Dash tipped slightly to lean into Soarin. “I just… won’t feel comfortable until we’re there…”

“Alright Wonderbolts, Where was I?” Spitfire made her way back down, earning a few chuckles as she looked to resume her little address. Dash, Soarin, and Storm all shifted their focus away from speculation and back to their captain. “Good work. Fantastic job…” she paused briefly as she got a few odd looks. There was some confusion since those present had not really done much of anything just now, aside from Air Mach, or at least compared to what everypony else had done. “No, I’m not just talking about right now,” Spitfire explained, looking around and meeting the eyes of everypony present. “I’m talking about everything we’ve done to get to this point. It’s been long… it’s been hard… and it’s been brutal, but you’ve all come through. I want to thank you all here specifically, the leading squads of the Wonderbolts. We’ve had some rough spots along the way, but our leadership and a little help from our allies is what paved the way through the bumpy roads.” She paused and flashed them a confident smile. “It’s about time we’ve had the wind at our backs, eh?”

Dash cringed and latched to Soarin’s arm. Soarin grunted uncomfortably as she squeezed it tightly, Spitfire sounding a little cocky right after Dash just expressed her unwillingness to relax until they had arrived.

“At ease, Wonderbolts! Take a breather, sit down, get off your hooves for a moment, we’ve earned it!” Spitfire added.

“Dash… Relax,” Soarin whispered to her as he cringed within her ridiculously tight grip.

“I can’t,” she immediately replied, but Soarin chuckled and shook his head.

“No, I mean… stay calm, I understand your staying vigilant, just don’t be frantic,” he clarified.

“Phew!” Spitfire exaggerated as most of the Wonderbolts laughed along with her. “I’m still trying to wrap my wings around it, eh? We REALLY took down their ship!” she pumped them up a little, getting into it.

“WHOOOO! YEAH!” Lightning Streak hooted near her, Macho Savage and Air Mach joining in as much as he could.

“Score one for the Wonderbolts! Our burning flames of desire will never be snuffed ou—ow my arm…” Air Mach was cut off from his own celebration, pointing upward causing his arm to cramp up.

“THE BEAT GOES ON! OOOOOOOOOH YEAH!” Macho Savage continued for him, the Wonderbolts and even some of the staff members joining in on cheering.

Soarin glanced down at Dash as he felt her grip loosen on his arm. She was smiling weakly now. There was no way she couldn’t enjoy this at least a little. Even her squad was getting into it a bit, at least Star and Twister were. Matteo was still being his usual stoic self and Squall was… well… being Squall.

“My sister is fucking crazy, but it’s the good kind right?!” Blaze blurted out, somehow up with High Winds still asleep and latched to her. Spitfire scoffed and rested an arm atop Blaze’s head.

“A few moments ago you punched me in the face for it!” she pointed out, causing more roaring laughter to erupt.

“Yo BRO!” Lightning Streak yanked Fire over by the neck as he slid them along the floor in between all the Wonderbolts. “Don’t leave us hanging!”

“No comment,” Fire tried to get out of it.

“Aw, c’mon ya party pooper!” Surprise yelled as she pushed herself against the other side of Fire. “Have a little fun!”

“You’re letting High Winds sleep, but I have to speak up?” Fire grumbled, but failed to hide a smirk. “Okay fine, we did quite well.”

“I’LL TAKE IT! YEEEHA!” Lightning Streak pumped a hoof into the air, more hoots and hollers erupting as Fire gave his ‘two bits.’ Misty Fly smiling and bouncing up behind them, probably unaware of what was being said, but she could clearly tell it was lighthearted. She pushed her way right up beside Fire Streak and tilted her head towards him to boop her nose into his cheek softly as she quietly giggled. Surprise hopped up onto Misty Fly’s back and threw her hooves up into the air while squealing.

“WE SHOULD ALL GET SMASHED WHEN WE GET TO THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” she cheered, earning lots of nods of agreement… and a slight eye roll from Spitfire.

“Bravo! Bravo!”

Everypony kept on cheering for a moment, the last voice that cheered mostly blending in with the rest, but one or two Wonderbolts blinked and glanced back and forth.

Then Misty Fly suddenly froze, flinching so hard that Surprise fell right off her back.

“EEEP!” she squeaked as she fell to the floor. “Huh?” she glanced up at Misty to see her ears twitch… and then turn towards the starboard windows.

“Whoa!”

“What the…?!”

The Streak twins quickly moved aside as Misty started thrashing herself forward, pushing anypony in her way aside until she had a clear view of the starboard window.

The cheering and celebrating stopped instantly, all eyes and focus going to Misty Fly for a moment before turning to look where she was looking…

“Bravo… Bravo…” A familiar voice was accompanied by the sound of clapping hooves. “Brav-O!"

Everypony gasped and froze with all eyes stuck on the right side of the bridge.

Floating in midair without flapping his wings… Reclined in a sultry pose… with his crystals floating around him and a pink glow surrounding him… while wearing a sinister smirk…

Was Ruin.

--To Be Continued--

Author's Note

Well shit. A wild Kefka Pony appears. :pinkiegasp:

Art in this Chapter by: NightyScribbles, Colorstrike, and Foxenawolf. (I really love the picture of Spitfire and Squad three, the first time ive ever had a group shot with the four characters that really sent me down the path of creating my diverse cast.

Chapter 143: Kibitzer

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 143: Kibitzer

Within seconds of spotting Ruin, everypony whipped around and set their hooves firmly in defensive positions. All but two of them were not in any fighting condition whatsoever, but their Wonderbolt instincts kicked in as they scrambled. Soarin and Macho Savage placed themselves in the front of the pack, pushing Misty Fly back behind them as they stood defensively between Ruin and their weary comrades. Calm Wind had quickly grabbed Fleetfoot and Shine, doing his best to not squeeze Fleetfoot too hard as he moved them around to keep them behind the rest.

“That was quite a performance!” Ruin commented as he continued to float in the air. “Such a good show, I definitely got my bits’ worth!” He stretched out and flipped over so he was ‘lying’ on his stomach. “Really, I have to admit, your battle plan was brilliant,” he complimented as he flipped a hoof around. “This ship is vastly inferior to ours by every measure, but you made do with what was available. And that stunt you pulled at the end? That was a killer finale!” He snickered as he twisted around a few times before shifting again so he was facing away from them and looking out the window. “I can only imagine what my fellow Shadowbolts are thinking right now! I bet their heads are spinning trying to figure out how they got beaten so soundly… And those thestrals!” He turned back over and shifted slightly towards them, making them all flinch. “I was wondering how you were going to use them… Oh, I loved it… the look on Void’s face was priceless! OH HO HO!!!!!” He turned over and grabbed his stomach while cackling.

He continued to laugh for several seconds as everypony else remained completely silent and tense.

“Oh ho… ho ha… ha ho ho ho…” He turned his eyes towards them all, scoffing. “Oh, you’re all so cute… Relax, already,” he flipped a hoof towards them as he slowly lowered his hooves to the floor and leaned against the wall, crossing a front hoof over the other as he stood in calm repose.

“If I was here to fight, I would have already attacked you,” he said casually as he looked off towards the front of the bridge. A few of the Wonderbolts blinked and glanced back and forth, but Soarin stomped a hoof hard against the floor.

“Nice try, FREAK!” Soarin yelled, refusing to break focus and internally screaming at himself for getting too comfortable and letting something like this happen. He was sure Spitfire was thinking the same thing. “How the hell did you get in?!”

“Why, the same way everypony else does!” he rolled his eyes and shrugged without dropping his wide smile. His crystals came to life and eight spheres appeared around him. Everypony gasped and readied themselves… but the spheres suddenly all morphed into miniature doors that started opening and closing. “Doors aren’t very complicated. It’s easy, you put your hoof on the door and push if it goes in, or you grab the handle and pull if it opens out. Take notes, this will be on the test! OH HO HO!” He threw his head back and placed a hoof over his eyes as he laughed again briefly. “Ahhhhhhhh I’m so witty…” he claimed with a sigh as his crystals calmed down and the little doors vanished. He replaced his hoof on the floor crossed over the other and looked back out at all of them. “What, seriously?” he huffed quietly as he examined their body language. “Come on, I told you I’m not here to fight…” He tipped his head down a little, pursed his lips into an exaggerated pout and gave made wide puppy dog eyes. “I’m hurt… You let Moon walk around in here all he wants! Why so much love for him, but none for little old me?”

“We don’t LET Moon do anything!” Spitfire suddenly blurted out as she pushed her way in between Soarin and Savage, the two of them parting slightly to let her stomp forward and glare towards Ruin. “And pardon ME… for not having much LOVE…” Her words were harsh, sharp, and intense as a loud snarl began escaping her throat, her nose wrinkled up as her eyes narrowed into a fierce glare. “For the one who tortured a stallion who is very important to me and infected him with some freakish crystal disease!!!!!” she yelled, her voice steadily rising all throughout.

Ruin blinked when she mentioned Wave. His smile vanished for a moment as he turned his head to the side and tapped a hoof to his chin.

“Oh…. That’s right…” his lips curled back into a smile as his pupil slowly moved back over to Spitfire.

“That was my doing, wasn’t it?” He sneered as a taunting tone slithered its way through his words.

“YOU SON OF A—” Spitfire lurched forward, but Soarin quickly reached out and grabbed her, anticipating her move.

“SPITFIRE!” he yelled as she forced him forward slightly with her motion. His hooves skidded a few inches along the floor before he pushed down over her back to stop her. He was on edge too, but they couldn’t have Spitfire making any moves she’d regret. As he held her still, he could feel her body shaking, but it wasn’t from any soreness or pain. She was angry, seething… and it was no mystery why. Ruin was the one who infected Wave… she had every right to want to rip his head off.

“Oh, come on… COME ON!” Ruin cackled as he reached a hoof out and made beckoning motions. “Let her come at me!” he suggested as he shook with laughter. “It’s not like it would work… or solve anything.” His voice became slightly condescending as he pushed himself off the wall. He didn’t advance towards them at all, but the motion alone made half the ponies in the room flinch. “I don’t mean to toot my own horn here, but…” he reached a hoof up, exhaled on it twice and rubbed it gently against his chest. “None of you could land a hoof on me if you tried, and that’s even if you were all in fighting condition. I have to say, Nightshade sure did a number on you all!”

“Nice bluff, you skinny beanpole!” Soarin shot back as he continued to hold Spitfire steady. “If you’re so damn strong than cut the shit and prove it!”

“Oh, don’t tempt me…” Ruin immediately retorted smoothly while licking his lips.

“Soarin…” Dash quietly spoke up behind him. “He’s not bluffing…” she alerted him as Soarin blinked and tried to keep his glare steady. Fire Streak shifted up beside her subtly.

“Sir, she speaks the truth,” he supported Dash. “During our rescue operation he single hoofedly took us all down with seemingly little effort.

“Rgh…” Soarin reluctantly acknowledged them, gritting his teeth as his glare twitched slightly.

“He’s right you know,” Ruin pointed towards Fire Streak, both him and Dash flinching since Ruin somehow heard them despite their soft whispering. “Listen to those who’ve had some quality time with my hospitality… I can be very SWEET, but I’m told I follow with quite a SOUR aftertaste,” he said creepily while tipping his head down slightly and bouncing his eyebrows.

“Then…” Soarin grumbled as he fought for options. He felt like he was at the forefront with Spitfire still in his grip and not quite in a stable state to speak for them. “Why?” he asked simply, wondering the same thing everypony else was and afraid to ask. Unlike Moon, Ruin had already proven to be dangerous. So why was he not attacking them?

“Why would I?!” Ruin blurted out while rearing back and throwing his arms out to his sides. He took a step towards them, balancing perfectly on his back legs like a bipedal being, his signature cackle slipping through constant snickering.

“I haven’t had this much fun…EVER!” He continued to giggle as he fell back down onto all four hooves. “You’re all such a great source of entertainment. It would be such a shame if it ended so soon. Have you ever heard of anypony that’s happy when their favorite show ends? I sure haven’t, so why would I willingly end my own? Come on, I’m not that crazy… but I might be close, OH HO HO!!!” He tipped over and fell on his side, holding his hooves up in the air as he kept his eyes on them and kept laughing.

Everypony just stared, stiff and uneasy as Ruin continued to completely control the air of the moment. He kept laughing, eventually grabbing his stomach and rocking back and forth for almost a minute as everypony continued to watch and wait for him to try something.

“Haaa… Hooo… Heee… Ho ho, ahem…” He cleared his throat, a pink glow surrounding him as he slowly rose up until he was casually standing upside-down on the ceiling. “Excuse me, I tend to get the chortles when I’m excited, but let’s be serious right now,” he said… while upside down. “I’m not about to RUIN my own fun. Besides, if I tried anything right now I doubt I’d be successful.”

Soarin blinked, tipping his head slightly as the rest had similar reactions, a wave of confusion sweeping over them.

“Yes, yes, yes, I know, I know…” said Ruin as he detached from the ceiling and slowly turned right side up while floating to the floor. “I just claimed I could kill you all easily, and really… I could, I want to be crystal clear about that,” he snickered as his crystals quickly orbited around his neck. “Alas… there’s just one problem…”

The moment he trailed off, everypony’s ears perked up at a loud noise. It sounded like loud scraping, as if something was being pushed along the metal floor. After looking around in several directions, everypony eventually found the source.

Behind them all… was a cardboard box. A cardboard box that was moving in very slow increments, a few inches at a time. It slowly shifted forward, inch by inch, pushing its way through the gathered Wonderbolts as they all stared down at it blankly.

As it moved past them and started inching towards Ruin, Dash glanced around at all of them before sighing heavily and gently bumping her hoof against her face. She knew exactly what was in the box. Rather… who.

The box finally reached Ruin after two full minutes, moving right up to his side as Ruin ignored it and stared forward with a flattened brow. After stopping, the box suddenly spun repeatedly, making loud swishing noises before it abruptly stopped, revealing writing on the front of it that read: “One Abundant Assortment of Ass-Mad.” Ruin released a long, frustrated sigh.

“It’s because of—”

Ruin was immediately cut off as loud revving noises came from within the box resembling somepony pulling the starter cord of a lawn mower or a chainsaw. Shortly after, a loud roar of a motor filled the room. A tiny chainsaw blade roughly the width of a ruler poked out above the words written on the box and made an unholy amount of noise as it began cutting through the cardboard.

BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV...

Everypony except for Ruin cringed and winced as the little chainsaw slowly carved out two holes. When the shape was complete, the chainsaw shut off and a green hoof pushed the carved pieces out. Twister’s eyes appeared inside the newly carved eyeholes, poking a little further out than should be possible before his pupils slowly glanced up at Ruin. Some shuffling came from within the box for a moment before two green ears flopped out of the top of the box right above the eyes.

“It’s because of—”

BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV...

The chainsaw cut him off again, this time slowly cutting out a small circle on the right side of the box. Ruin furrowed his brow and scrunched his mouth up as he waited impatiently for the chainsaw to stop again.

With the circle complete, it went completely quiet again, save for the soft plop of the carved circle falling off the box and hitting the floor. Twister’s hoof and arm reached out of the box, moving very slowly towards Ruin before it gently poked him in the side and remained there. Ruin exhaled and stared towards the rest of them with the most unstable look of frustration and unamusement they had ever seen.

Ruin lifted a hoof over the box and pointed down at it sharply.

“It’s because of HIM,” Ruin finally managed to say with an audible growl in the back of his throat. “I’m not really in the mood to for being tricked into making silly faces right now, nor being beaten over the head with coffee cups.” Ruin flinched awkwardly as Twister began gently tracing circles on Ruin’s flank with his hoof. Ruin took a quick step to the right to get out of reach, but Twister immediately shifted with him and kept doing it. Ruin sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m all for a little cacophony, but I’m not stupid,” he continued as he kept all of his focus on the rest of them. “I don’t know where the hell you found this moron, but his resilience and inexplicable ability to beat me senseless is absolutely infuriating.” He paused again and scowled as Twister’s box started rubbing up against his shoulder affectionately.

With a loud growl, Ruin glared at the box and slammed a hoof down over the top of it as hard as he could. The box completely collapsed and flattened to the floor, making a loud wheezing noise followed by an incredibly sexual and feminine “Oh baby…” Before Twister suddenly crashed through the ceiling above Ruin, and landed on his back.

Ruin flinched, but only flattened his brow, turning his attention back to the Wonderbolts. He ignored Twister completely as he began making monkey noises and picking through Ruin’s mane with his eyes open wide and pointing in different directions.

“See what I mean?” Ruin huffed, a loud burst of air shooting from his nostrils as he snorted. “No matter what I do he’ll just—” Ruin’s eyes went wide and he flinched as Twister started rubbing his plot against the back of Ruin’s neck. “Oh, come on! That’s just inappropriate!” Ruin turned and glared at Twister, taking his eyes off the Wonderbolts.

“SAVAGE!” Spitfire suddenly yelled from within Soarin’s grip. “NOW!”

“OOOOOH YEEEEEEEAH!!!!!!” Macho Savage yelled as he suddenly charged, startling all of them.

“WAIT!!!!” Dash yelled, reaching forward as her and Fire’s warnings were ignored, but Matteo quickly grabbed her by the shoulder and held her back.

Savage’s hooves pounded against the floor with heavy steps as he surged headlong at Ruin, leaping into the air and pulling back both of his front hooves.

“SNAP INTO A SLIM JI—”

Before he could thrust his arms towards Ruin, a bright light shone from the three crystals, surrounding Ruin with an intense pink glow. Savage ran smack into some sort of invisible force as if he was being held just out of reach by a net. Savage began growling, opening his wings and pumping them hard, strong blasts of wind propelling behind him and crashing into the Wonderbolts as he tried to push through whatever held him back while swiping his arms out at Ruin.

Ruin slowly turned his face towards Savage, not even blinking as the strong arms and hooves swished back and forth inches from his face. Ruin’s eyes had turned black, his pupils small white dots as he smirked at the struggling bruiser reaching for him. His crystals began orbiting him furiously, a bright pink aura wrapping itself around his right arm as he casually reached it towards Savage…

And tapped it to his forehead.

A loud POW rang out as Savage catapulted backwards. The Wonderbolts shrieked and yelped as Savage’s massive bulk flung towards them, Lightning Streak, Surprise, and High Winds were unable to move aside in time with the rest. All three of them were roughly knocked aside as Savage flew by and ran back first into the control platform railing. He flipped over it, a few hiding staff members scattering as the bulky pony landed on the other side with a THUD.

The Wonderbolts immediately made several moves, Fire Streak and Misty Fly quickly checking on Lightning, Surprise, and High Winds as the staff members moved to see if Savage was okay. Savage was rocking back and forth on the floor, swearing up a storm, but otherwise seemed only shaken. The other three weren’t so lucky, Fire Streak and Misty Fly quickly moving all three of them together and standing in front defensively as they groaned and shuddered on the floor. With Savage knocked back, Soarin quickly forced Spitfire behind him and set himself at the front, glaring and snarling at Ruin.

Ruin exhaled, putting his hoof back to the floor.

“Anypony else want some?” he asked with a demonic echo resonating from his voice.

Nopony moved, and those who were focused on him were clearly hesitant to make any advances. Nopony saw it, but Spitfire must’ve made a few silent signals to Savage, throwing the strongest and most battle ready Wonderbolt they had on deck at Ruin… but Ruin swatted him aside like a fly with his magic. They were all quickly realizing that Dash and Fire were NOT exaggerating… Ruin was not like the other Shadowbolts at all.

“Indeed, I thought not,” Ruin said with a light chuckle as his eyes returned to normal and the glow receded from both his body and crystals. But before he could say anything else he sighed and rolled his eyes as Twister began slowly licking his left ear up and down. “Are you done?” he asked with an annoyed grunt.

Soarin’s eyes twitched as he struggled to keep his glare up. He was so conflicted… Ruin was clearly powerful on a seemingly supernatural level, making him dangerous beyond any measure. He had talked himself up, then proved it with Savage…. But he also admitted he could not touch Twister and was seemed to be telling the truth about that too through his unwillingness to engage. There was no bluffing about him, no dishonesty. It was pure, unfiltered confidence and control of the situation. It was similar to Nightshade, but… When Nightshade did it to them it felt like an effort, like she was trying to get in their heads and would apply any extreme methods needed to do so. Ruin was doing the same thing if little to no effort at all. He was doing it naturally, just by being himself. It was unnerving.

And that’s what truly bothered Soarin. It felt like Ruin was in here now… just because he wanted to be. As if to display his ability to do as he pleased. But there was no way it could be that simple.

“Out with it…” Soarin spoke up, but Ruin was busy looking over his shoulder and glaring at Twister. “I’M TALKING TO YOU!”

“And I’m listening,” Ruin calmly replied, waving a hoof towards Soarin as he continued to glare and try to shake off Twister to no avail. Soarin’s face scrunched further, but he kept himself steady. He had to keep his emotions in check for the horn’s sake.

“If you’re not here to fight, what the hell are you here for?” Soarin demanded. “Just to taunt us?”

Ruin reached a hoof over his head and gently grabbed Twister by the mane, pulling him over his head and holding him out in front of his face by the mane. Twister just smiled and held out a tin can of almonds.

“Yer gonna love my nuts!” he said as he started shaking the can loudly.

“Yes, yes…” Ruin grabbed the can and threw it over his head. “I’m sure I will,” he said as he slowly compressed Twister until he was scrunched into the shape of a ball. Something Twister did not resist with one ounce of effort. Ruin placed the Twister ball on the floor and gave it a soft nudge, sending him slowly rolling back over to the Wonderbolts until he passed right beneath Soarin’s legs and ran up gently against Dash’s hoof.

“Honestly, it really isn’t all that complicated,” Ruin began, addressing Soarin now that he had ‘dealt’ with Twister. “You’re still acting like I’m here to cause trouble or harm, but the only aggressor so far has been you.” He smirked while waving a hoof towards Macho Savage slowly picking himself up off the floor. “But in truth… I go where I want, when I want, and however I want. Who needs a reason?” he leaned back against the window behind him. “Reasons are overrated, believe me!” he snickered. “Life’s a lot more fun if you don’t put that much thought into it! OH HO HO!” He threw his head back to let go of a few hearty guffaws before bouncing off the wall and walking a few paces.

Nopony took their eyes off of him as his crystals followed behind. He moved until he was close to the bridge door, stopping about a yard from it and sitting down on the floor.

“Really, I don’t know why you all stopped celebrating. You have every reason to after what you pulled off! I have no intention of spoiling your fun. Honestly, I don’t! Have I given any of you reason to doubt me?” he asked with a wide smirk, a loud growl coming from Spitfire as he looked back and forth. “Aside from her, at least. I feel like I’ve rightfully earned her ire,” he chuckled before casually resting his back against the wall and letting his front hooves dangle out in front of him as he sighed. “Well, go ahead! Carry on! Keep having fun! Pay no mind to the pony in the corner! OH HO!” He tipped his head back, sighed contently, and then turned his head slightly towards the door. His left ear turned to the door and he leaned slightly towards it, his smile growing wider. “I’m just here to watch.”

Despite wanting to keep his emotions in check, Soarin did not accept the vague response.

“Answer the damn question!” Soarin demanded again. Ruin just stared with a calm, confident smirk.

“I just did.”

“Wait…” Fire Streak suddenly spoke up, drawing some of the attention away from Ruin. “Does anypony else hear that?”

Everypony glanced at him as he finished, ears tilting back and forth as Fire hinted there was a noise reaching his ears. It was deathly quiet in the bridge, not a sound being made aside from the clanks and whirrs of the Nimbus’ inner workings. The staff joined in, listening for something out of place, Lucky doing the same while keeping one eye on the sky in front of them.

There was a noise… it was very faint and didn’t fit with the tone of the Nimbus’ gears and axles. It sounded like… voices?

“Are those…” Spitfire spoke up as everypony continued to listen closely. “Screams?!”

“Ah!” Lucky suddenly jumped in surprise. “There’s some commotion on the deck!” he yelled back as he looked out over the controls and down from the windshield. “Some of the Wonderbolts are heading inside!”

“Those are screams!” Soarin gasped as he and Spitfire quickly looked to each other, looks of shock and surprise shooting between the rest as well.

“Like I just said,” Ruin chimed in as he relaxed against the wall and grinned. “I’m not here to fight…”

Everypony jumped in surprise a very loud noise came from right outside the bridge doors. Everypony’s eyes shot towards the entrance to the bridge as a very bright pink light began shining around its edges, seeping through the cracks, hinges, and in between the doors. The light grew brighter and brighter and the doors began to rattle and shake.

“GET DOWN!” Soarin yelled instinctively, shifting backwards, opening his wings and arms, grabbing as many of his fellow Wonderbolts as he could before pushing them all down. Those left out of his grip quickly followed, and did so just in time.

A violent explosion erupted from right outside the bridge. The doors were instantly blown open, ripped right off their hinges, and sent hurtling towards the Wonderbolts. They shouted and yelped in surprise as the doors ran into them, one of the doors smacking right off Soarin’s back, the other striking Matteo’s arms as he threw them up in time to protect his face. The doors flew aside after ricocheting, clattering and sliding to a halt on the floor near the control platform.

Everypony looked up slowly in horror, staring into a large plume of pink smoke leftover from the blast as a large, powerful looking silhouette of a pony appeared and started moving closer… and then leapt out into the open.

Four light blue hooves slammed to the floor before them, grinding into the metal with loud screeches as they slid to a halt. Ferocious growling and snarling followed, with small trails of spittle dripping to the ground.

“Oh… crap…” Soarin managed to say, gritting his teeth as his eyes went wide.

It was Nightshade.

Everypony shared Soarin’s reaction. A mixture of shock, disbelief and… confusion?

It was Nightshade, there was no doubt about that, but… what the hell were they looking at?

Nightshade was not wearing her uniform or her goggles, her large, powerful, heavily-scarred muscular body completely exposed. Her eyes were completely hidden behind shining pink lights that completely covered them. Her body looked like it was… larger, expanding and receding in an unnatural manner with every breath she took, every muscle in her body twitching and flexing erratically. She was wheezing, grunting, or snarling continuously, her mouth open and bearing her teeth as trails of saliva dripped down her chin and lingered off the end of it. Six crystals slowly floated in from behind her, all of them glowing, flickering, and shaking with sparks dancing around them in ways none of them had ever seen before. The aura around her was very thick, its slow rise from her body was ooze-like and resemble slow burning flames that dripped upward from her as opposed to a simple glow. Her nostrils flared, blowing smoke from them as she began scraping her hoof against the floor, her hidden eyes locked on the Wonderbolts standing before her.

It was an absolutely terrifying sight, mixed reactions rushing through the Wonderbolts. Many of them standing up immediately and taking defensive positions, fighting back the shock, but dreading what was to come due to their injuries and lack of battle readiness. Some stayed down and started scooting back, in pure disbelief and stricken with fear. The staff members all immediately ducked behind their consoles, Lucky gripping the control lever harder as his mind raced. Fleetfoot was shuddering and wailing with fright, clinging to Calm tightly as she stared towards Nightshade, horrible memories of what happened to her flooding in as Calm rushed to move her behind the consoles with the staff.

Ruin snickered, letting a few laughs escape between as he slowly closed his eyes… then opened them wide very suddenly, revealing his black eyes with small white pupils again.

“I’M HERE TO WATCH!”

Nightshade released a loud roar that sounded like a painful scream mixed with a battle cry, her crystals all screeching and shaking harder as she launched herself forward. Soarin immediately shoved his wings and arms back, pushing all those he was protecting away as he willingly stepped forward, set his back hooves and thrust his arms out. Nightshade squared up when Soarin put himself out in front and rammed her shoulder right into Soarin’s chest.

“GAHGHRRR!!!!!” Soarin grunted as he immediately grabbed Nightshade by the shoulders and slipped his arms beneath her armpits to catch and grapple her. A flash of pink light burst out from between them upon impact, an invisible force rushing against the rest as Soarin’s hooves began skidding backwards towards them. Nightshade roared, thrusting herself forward with every step she took, each one sending an additional force outward behind Soarin that smashed into the Wonderbolts and the rest. Only the larger and stronger Wonderbolts managed to hold their ground, the smaller and the staff thrown right off their hooves and punted backwards by the rushing surge.

Lucky was struck in the back by the invisible force, causing him to yelp and lean forward into the lever. The Nimbus began tipping down slightly with each rush, but he lowered himself to regain his ground and pulled back to keep the ship from falling.

Dash watched Soarin take on Nightshade, her legs visibly shaking with her eyes wide and her jaw nearly unhinged. A fresh wave of terror was rushing through her, one that was to be expected from Nightshade but the sudden nature of her entrance made it even worse. She had her back up against Matteo’s fluffy chest, unconsciously pushing herself backwards into him as her eyes remained locked and trembling on Nightshade.

No… they had just barely survived her when all of them were all at full strength… what were they going to do now? Even more, how did she turn around and come back after them so fast? She knew she was right to be fearful… but there was something else amiss. Nightshade was not in her attire and looked… monstrous… possessed… like she was completely out of control.

But she couldn’t cower, not now… not beneath such a drastic turn of events. Thinking of Silver’s guidance, the sacrifice he made for them, and the speech Spitfire gave them earlier… Dash forced her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, steeling her will, forcing her fears aside, and removing herself from Matteo. She opened her eyes and refocused just in time as things began to happen around her.

The Wonderbolts had sprung into action, those still up immediately moving to help those who had fallen and to secure any staff members who were in the line of fire. Soarin was holding Nightshade in place with every ounce of his strength, but he was struggling despite being in top physical condition. Aware of Soarin and the risk to his horn, Spitfire was quick to take command.

“LUCKY! KEEP HER STEADY!” she belted out as she and the rest began securing their goggles over their eyes. “SQUAD THREE! SQUALL! STORM FRONT! LITTLE STAR! DASH! SECURE THE STAFF AND DEFEND LUCKY! HIGH WINDS, SHINE STRUCK! GET BLAZE AND AIR MACH BEHIND THE CONSOLES! MATTEO! CALM WIND! MACHO SAVAGE! WITH ME! ENGAGE NIGHTSHADE!”

Without a single question or any hesitation, they all started moving. The only one who flinched was Dash as she stole a quick glance towards Soarin before making her move towards the back. Nightshade was overpowering him, slowly pushing him down and forcing his back hooves to lose traction. Even Soarin’s strength couldn’t withstand the pressure of her crystal boosted might. Dash winced as Matteo, Savage, and Calm rushed by her and forced herself to rip her eyes away from Soarin, putting faith in him and the others to keep Nightshade occupied while she played her part… she just hoped it would be enough. Things went from looking good to very bad quicker than she could blink.

“SOARIN! HOLD HER!” Spitfire yelled as she rushed forward with the three bruisers keeping up right behind her. “CALM! WITH ME! MATTEO, SAVAGE! OTHER SIDE!” she yelled as they split apart and turned to flank Nightshade. Calm and Matteo were clearly struggling, their injuries catching up with them, but with the adrenaline flowing, they pushed through, following behind Spitfire and Savage.

Soarin growled, forcing himself back up onto his back hooves with extra effort. He clamped his arms down, holding onto Nightshade as tightly as he could as she continued to apply extreme pressure against him while roaring and snarling in his face.

“HIT HER FAST AND HARD!” Spitfire yelled as she charged in, the other three doing the same.

Spitfire, Savage, Calm, and Matteo unloaded on Nightshade, throwing the heaviest blows they could muster to her head and body. Soarin twitched and lurched as he struggled to keep her in place, keeping his head leaned back to avoid getting hit by any of the incoming strikes of his comrades.

But Nightshade… didn’t seem to be affected by any of it. She continued to snarl and growl towards Soarin, every punch thrown into her garnering no reaction, not even a grunt or wince. It was like she couldn’t even feel it… or she didn’t care.

Matteo and Calm both disengaged, stepping back as their bodies twitched and complained, stiffness overtaking willpower briefly as their injuries left tingling pain all over. But Spitfire and Savage kept up the barrage, despite the lack of visible effect.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHH!” Nightshade suddenly threw her wings out, knocking both Spitfire and Savage away from her. It didn’t look like such a heavy attack, but the swift movement of her wings also released a burst of magic that propelled the two of them right back into Matteo and Calm, both pairs tumbling to the floor.

“My, oh my, OH MY! HO HO!” Ruin cackled as he floated down behind Soarin. Soarin found himself stuck alone with Nightshade again as she ripped her arms free of his grappling grip and gained leverage, pushing him towards the ground while roaring in his face. “Just LOOK at her!” he tipped forwards, slithering over Soarin’s shoulder and slinking down beside Nightshade, rubbing his chin as he moved his face within inches of hers and looked her over with a wide smile.

He quickly pulled back as Nightshade pushed forward, causing Soarin’s back hooves to slip and lose traction. His hoofing swept out from beneath him and his plot hit the floor as she thrust both her hooves forward.

“OOF!” Soarin grunted, slamming his eyes shut as her hooves struck his chest and sent him sliding backwards, colliding with the Streak twins as they were moving up to assist. The twins caught him and kept him from falling backwards, but Lightning yelped and shifted away as Ruin appeared right in between him and Soarin.

“She looks positively BURSTING with crystal magic!” he said while leaning his head right into Soarin’s face. “Oh dear!” He moved aside again as Nightshade rushed at Soarin. Spitfire leapt on Nightshade’s back, trying to grab her around the neck, but Nightshade reached back, grabbed her, and threw her right over her head towards Soarin. Soarin reached his hooves out and caught Spitfire, but he was in already in an awkward position, the force knocking them both over as Fire Streak was unable to hang on.

The Streak twins quickly moved back in to help Spitfire and Soarin get up. But the moment they were on their hooves, Soarin gasped and threw his arms and wings out, knocking Spitfire and the twins aside as Nightshade surged forward, slamming her forearms into his chest as she rammed her shoulder into his neck.

“GRCK!” Soarin choked as Nightshade’s shoulder slammed into his throat, her arm jamming into his lower chest and expelling the air from his lungs from his lungs. With little to no breath left in his body, Soarin’s back legs buckled, skidding along the floor until they struck the step up to the platform. He bent backwards, his hooves sliding out from under him as Nightshade thrust him down, planting him hard on his back and painfully sandwiching his wings between him and the floor as she pushed him along. Soarin’s eyes shot open as he realized the direction he was moving in. The horn was out in front and on a collision course with the control panels.

His awareness saved him from certain disaster as he forced his chin down, and managed to lift his shoulders slightly just in time. The back of his head and his neck slammed into the flat metal siding of the first control panel, a quiet, breathless grunt of pain shooting from his mouth as Nightshade pressed into him and clamped her hooves around his neck. The metal panel to creaked and popped, bending inward from the pressure with sparks and crackles coming from within.

Soarin was up against the wall, literally. He was being held down and Nightshade was straddling his stomach while squeezing his neck. He could barely breathe, and needed to get free before the lack of air knocked him out. He grabbed her arms and tensed his muscles, pulling as hard as he could, but it was having little effect. He had no breath to gather his strength and her magic had made her frighteningly strong.

“GET OFF OF HIM!!!!!!” Spitfire yelled as she charged. The Streak twins following behind her as the rest of the Wonderbolts began vaulting over the control panels and railings. Surprise, Misty Fly, High Winds, Matteo, Savage, and Storm all hurled themselves towards Nightshade, fighting through the pain of their injured bodies and wailing joints that hindered their every step.

“GRAAAAAH!” Nightshade roared, saliva sputtering from her mouth and splashing all over Soarin’s goggles as bright shockwaves of pink magic ejected from her body, smashing against the Wonderbolts before they could close in. The smaller Wonderbolts were immediately thrown backwards. Surprise, Storm, and High Winds tossed right off their hooves and through the air as the twins and Misty Fly buckled and tumbled backwards. Matteo roared out in pain, his legs sweeping out from beneath him as he crashed to the floor and skidded to a halt, but Savage and Spitfire managed to fight through.

Nightshade’s head snapped towards the two of them, snarling as her eyes glowed brightly. Spitfire gasped and instinctively ducked to the floor. Nightshade roared out, two powerful beams of magic shooting from her eyes and hitting Savage right in the face. His head whipped backwards, his goggles shattering to pieces as he fell over on his side like a wrangled bull.

Spitfire kept her eyes on target, pushing herself right up and setting her hooves firmly into the floor. She saw that she had Surprise and High Winds back up and inbound from the other side of Nightshade and she was sure either the twins or Misty Fly were behind her, so she had to act fast and get Nightshade off balance… and more importantly off Soarin.

She was roughly eight to nine yards from Nightshade… but she didn’t care if it was dangerous, she needed to hit her with everything she could muster. Her body was incredibly stiff and sore from using her mimicking abilities two days before… but Savage was down and Soarin was stuck, leaving her as the most battle ready Wonderbolt. She had to take action.

Pushing her body to comply, she mimicked the pullback motion of Soarin’s Sonic Blastoff. She whipped forward, taking her extra steps, bringing her even closer as she slammed the final step, propelling her forward at point blank. She cried out in pain as shocks of agony shot through her tender nerves, but the motions worked, Nightshade roaring out in synch as a loud sonic boom and shockwave propelled throughout the bridge, the whole room shaking violently and several of the windshield panes shattering.

A bright pink flash erupted from Nightshade the moment Spitfire catapulted at her, causing a second rush of gale force winds that blew everypony around them backwards.

Dash, Squall and Star were crouched behind a panel, holding on as the rushing winds whirled throughout the bridge. Dash gasped and looked up as Surprise suddenly hit their panel really hard and bounced over the top, landing on Squall before tumbling off of him and crying out in pain as her wings and body twitched. She hugged her body, rolling as the strong forces rushed forth. Dash immediately pushed herself away from the panel to help Surprise, but was instantly struck by the rushing gusts, nearly knocking her off her hooves before she could lower herself to the ground. The Nimbus began teetering, tipping down and up slightly as Lucky held on tight to the control lever amidst the forceful winds. Dash turned and looked out towards Nightshade and Spitfire, her jaw dropping in awe.

Nightshade was roaring at Spitfire, the bright glow rising from around her like an inferno with all six of her crystals shining with a blinding light. Spitfire was flying in place, pumping her wings as hard as she could as if she was pushing against an invisible force that tried to push her away from Nightshade. Spitfire was screaming, her face contorting with pain, but her eyes glaring forward as she forced every wing beat, trying to put mind over body. The combination of Spitfire’s mimicked blastoff, her strong wings pumping hard, and the forces ejecting from Nightshade’s body had everypony struggling to keep themselves from being blown away. The Streak twins and Misty Fly were all caught close by, their hooves slipping as they tried to steady themselves. Savage had rolled across the room and was pressed up against the wall, still light headed from the hit he took to the face. Matteo had dug his talons into the floor, but was grunting painfully as his body and wings continued to cramp. Dash couldn’t even find High Winds, but Surprise was now being blown further from her, screaming as her body started rolling towards one of the broken windows.

Dash quickly refocused on Surprise, using one hoof to keep her mane out of her eyes as she pushed forward. As much as she wanted to get to Soarin and help him, there was no way she was getting close to them, and if Spitfire was struggling, she’d be tossed aside just like the rest. With a solid effort and a hard push, Dash, slid herself along the floor and grabbed Surprise’s hoof, stopping her before she could get any closer to the window. But all of Dash’s efforts to anchor herself immediately failed, her hooves simply slipping along the rough metal surface of the floor. Her eyes widened as she and Surprise slipped closer and closer to the windshield, closing in on a pile of broken glass shards that littered the floor in front of the paneless window. The continuous tipping of the Nimbus only sped up their approach.

“Got you!” Squall’s voice met her ears as a hoof grabbed her by the arm. Dash turned to see Squall reaching towards her, Little Star hanging onto his neck for dear life. He slammed his other three hooves down, and the two together managed to stop them. Dash winced as Surprise continued to scream and wail in pain, one of her wings twitching and making cringe worthy clicking noises as it moved. With no other option, she and Squall worked together to keep Surprise still as they looked on.

Spitfire was still shouting, still flying, and still pumping her wings, showing an iron-clad endurance and mental resistance to pain as she forced herself forward, but she had not moved one inch closer to Nightshade.

Still feeling the pressure rushing against her, Dash frantically looked towards the staff members and the controls. The staff were huddled together in shuddering groups behind the panels, working together to keep themselves steady with Fleetfoot stuck in the middle of one of the groups, all of them yelping and screaming as the cacophony went wild around them. The Nimbus suddenly evened out and ceased teetering. Dash glanced over to see Shine Struck holding onto both Lucky and the control lever to help keep them from moving wildly off course.

Then there was a sudden BANG that sounded like an explosion followed by one strong rush of air that forced them to shift a yard further and sent the shards of broken glass nearby up into the air and out the windows. Dash and Squall shut their eyes as they were smacked by the force, but…

“LOOK OUT!” Star suddenly yelled from Squall’s back. Dash and Squall both looked up, gasping as Spitfire’s body flung towards them limply.

“AH!” Dash yelped as she immediately turned and used her body to completely cover up Surprise and tense her arms to hold herself still. Dash yelped in pain as Spitfire’s body slammed into hers, pressing her wings right down to her back, but she held herself still, keeping Surprise free from harm. Spitfire gasped and grunted as she bounced and tumbled to a halt close by. Dash’s whole body shuddered from the force it just absorbed, every nerve and joint twitching, but the gale force winds had stopped. She looked up as she squinted and gritted her teeth, forcing her body to move, leaving Surprise to Squall as she made her way over to Spitfire.

Nightshade’s roars continued to fill the room, Dash quietly praying that Nightshade wasn’t right behind her as she quickly reached Spitfire and placed her hooves on her body, pulling to help Spitfire turn over onto her stomach.

“GRHHHHHH… RGHHHHH!!!!” Spitfire suddenly twitched and grunted loudly, causing Dash to flinch and let go for a moment, but she quickly reached for her again and helped her roll over. Dash began to panic as a thought set in. Spitfire was thrown this way… so Soarin was still being held down. But what could she do?

Something seemed wrong here, very wrong, and not just because Nightshade had only just appeared. This wasn’t Nightshade, it didn’t feel like Nightshade. It felt like a demon was rampaging in the bridge, thrashing and crashing about while roaring and yelling. No sly actions, know mind games, no violent sexual harassment… none of it fit Nightshade.

“What the hell is this?!” Dash asked out loud as she kept a hoof on the struggling Spitfire, peering over her body as she looked back towards Nightshade. “What’s happened to her? She’s like a monster!”

“A monster you say?”

Dash nearly choked on her own yelp as Ruin’s voice slithered through her ears, feeling his nose touch her outer earlobe. She quickly leaned away and turned her head to see Ruin also leaning on Spitfire, casually resting his shoulder against the back of her head as she grunted and struggled to find her strength. Squall immediately pulled Surprise away from them to get both her and Star to safety.

“What a crude way of describing it…” he said in a condescending manner as he casually tapped a hoof on Spitfire’s back. “If you ask me, it looked like she’s just having fun! Look at that smile!” he pointed towards Nightshade. Dash blinked, quickly glancing between Ruin and Nightshade. “Oh, go on and take a closer look… I already told you I’m just here to watch.”

Dash gulped and looked back towards Nightshade, she was growling and snarling down into Soarin’s face as he struggled on the ground, sputtering and gasping for air… but Ruin was right. Nightshade’s movements and actions were like that of a wild beast, but the ends of her lips were curled up. Upon listening closer, some of her roars almost sounded like… forced or harsh exhaling as if she was laughing wildly and uncontrollably.

“And why wouldn’t she be having fun? So much power, so much strength… it’s enough to make anypony go a little loopy…” Ruin continued, twirling a hoof next to his ear as Dash glanced back at him, but she blinked and tipped her head to the side, raising an eyebrow. Twister was on Ruin’s head, his back hooves pushing hard against the back of it as he held a string of dental floss in his hooves, the floss around Ruin’s neck as Twister yanked on it. He was gritting his teeth and straining as if pulling as hard as he could, but Ruin didn’t budge. “I know he’s there, I’m ignoring him.”

“HHRRRRAAAAAH!” Spitfire suddenly shouted as she forced herself up, her eyes wide open and filled with rage as both Dash and Ruin slid off. She immediately turned and swung a right hook around towards Ruin’s face. Her hoof struck Ruin, but he didn’t budge. A bright pink flash of light exploded around Spitfire’s hoof, halting it in place. “HHRRRRGGG GRRRHHH!!!!!” Spitfire grunted as she pushed her hoof against the pink veil of light that prevented her from touching him, but it was hopeless. Ruin just tipped his head towards her and lifted his brow.

“Look, I know you REALLY want to disembowel me, but…” he snickered and pointed towards Nightshade. “I’m the least of your worries right now!”

“AH!” Dash suddenly flinched as her chest began to burn. She tipped over, placing a hoof on the floor while reaching the other one to her heart. It was beating faster and faster, her breath quickening as a tight feeling grew from her center and spread to her shoulders and abdomen. Spitfire stole a glance at Dash, but the moment she did she suddenly tipped forward, yelping as Ruin vanished and no longer held her in place. Spitfire quickly pushed herself back up and looked in every direction.

“Over heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!” Ruin yelled from near Nightshade and Soarin, pointing down.

Dash looked up as well, the two of them noticing blue flashes rising from the floor where… Soarin was being held down.

“No!” Dash yelled as she grunted and started pulling on the floor, dragging herself forward. “SOARIN! DON’T!”

“HRRGGGHH!!!! GRAAAAAH! HAAAAHAHAGHRRRR!!!!” Nightshade let go a sudden guffaw amid her roaring as Soarin gripped her arms tighter. So tightly that it was delightfully painful to her.

Soarin’s eyes opened and he gritted his teeth, a blue aura was rising from the horn, streams of light seeping out of the cracks as he glared at Nightshade above him. A soft blue glow emitted from his eyes as he growled… and slowly began pulling Nightshade’s hooves off his neck. Nightshade just continued to grunt and salivated as Soarin began overpowering her, his body surrounded by an unstable, flickering blue light as he pulled her hooves further and further away from him.

“GET… OFFA ME!” he yelled out, his voice accompanied by an echoing effect as he threw his arms outward and kicked his back legs up, knocking Nightshade right off of him and sending her skidding backwards, back off the control platform. Soarin immediately stood up and set his hooves, glaring angrily as he took deep breaths, the air hissing between his teeth. But then a bright flash shot from his horn, eyes, nose, and mouth all at once, followed by a loud POOF as an explosion of light ejected from the horn. “GUH! AH!” Soarin collapsed forward, barely catching himself on his hooved before landing face first. His head was throbbing painfully as bits and several small fragments chipped off the horn, sprinkling to the floor below him.

“OW! OWWWW!” Dash cried out and fell over on her side as her heart painfully jumped several times. She shuddered on the floor, curled up as she grunted cringed. Spitfire looked over her only briefly, reluctantly returning her focus to Nightshade as she eyed Soarin and began moving towards him again.

“WONDERBOLTS! KEEP HER AWAY FROM HIM!” she yelled to any of them that could still fight as she forced her legs into a gallop, wheezing and wincing with every step.

But the response was less than she hoped. The only Wonderbolts who were able to attack were the Streak twins, Calm, and Storm. Misty Fly was already on the attack before Spitfire gave the order. Otherwise, Surprise, High Winds, and Matteo were down, Squall and Little Star were protecting Surprise, Shine was protecting Lucky, and Macho Savage was still delirious. Fleetfoot and Blaze were obviously not in any shape to take action whatsoever and Air Mach was still down from his crash landing. On top of that, those up and charging looked like they were straining to move, their injuries from two days ago catching up to them fast. Spitfire herself was feeling hindered too. The fact that she just used her mimicking ability again certainly didn’t help the stiffness she was already dealing with.

They had been thrown headlong into the situation she was specifically trying to avoid by having the top elites on the bridge, which begged the question…

Where was the rest of the interior defense force? Nightshade was making A LOT of noise, there was no way they couldn’t hear it from down below. The stationed high and low tier Wonderbolts were not as skilled or strong as the top tiers, but even with all her strength, Nightshade would not be able to handle around thirty or so Wonderbolts in a small space. So where were they? Were there other Shadowbolts in the Nimbus?

She couldn’t afford to dwell on it. One of the worst possible scenarios was at hoof and they had to face it! They were too close to salvation to give up now!

Misty was immediately thrown aside, taking a back hoofed swipe to the neck that sent her careening violently into the wall beside the bridge doors. She caught herself on her hooves as she slid down, but immediately fell to the floor and struggled to stand back up.

Nightshade threw her head back, invisible shockwaves ejecting from her as she released several wild noises that sounded more and more like laughter as the confrontation went on. Whatever was powering her seemed to be growing stronger, her body twitching and muscles flexing harder as she started foaming in the corners of her mouth.

Fire Streak and Lightning Streak desperately dove at her from behind, Fire grabbing her around the neck and Lightning Streak going low to hang onto her hind legs. Nightshade immediately began thrashing, picking up and slamming down Lightning Streak to the floor and knocking the back of her head against Fire Streaks face as the two held on for dear life. Calm galloped towards her from the front, his hooves pounding against the metal floor as he charged. His speed was visibly diminished, his face scrunching in pain with every step.

But before he could reach her, Nightshade planted her front hooves to the floor and swung her whole body around, whipping Lightning Streak around with it. Lightning shouted in pain as his hooves ripped free from her legs, sending him crashing directly into Calm’s legs and sweeping his stride right out from beneath him. Calm yelped and fell face first, he and Lightning Streak getting their legs completely tangled as they tumbled painfully. But the moment Calm hit the ground, Storm Front sprang up from behind and launched himself towards Nightshade as she finished her swing around. Despite Fire Streak still holding onto her back, she focused completely on Storm, grinning wide.

She was ready for him, but he stayed on course without hesitation, showing a strange amount of confidence despite the circumstances.

And it became clear why quickly.

Misty Fly suddenly vaulted up onto Nightshade’s back, slamming herself down to add her weight to Fire Streak’s. They forced Nightshade to lean forward, her legs buckling slightly as the extra pressure weighed her down.

“HIT HER HARD, STORM!” Spitfire yelled as she leapt up behind him, pumping her wings to follow up.

Storm turned as he hurled towards Nightshade, lining up his back hooves and making them slightly uneven.

“HRRRRRAGH!” Storm yelled out and he kicked both hooves down rapidly, executing his surface tap technique right off Nightshade’s face. He immediately changed direction, his technique shooting him up and clumsily crashing into the ceiling before falling to the ground, but he was right on target. Nightshade’s head whipped back, her front hooves lifted off the floor and her back hooves skidding along, nearly throwing Misty and Fire right off her back.

Spitfire pumped her wings harder, pulling back her right hoof as Nightshade remained vulnerable. She hoped to deliver the strongest punch she could muster and knock her right out the bridge doors.

But right before she could, Nightshade reached both of her hooves back, letting out a primal roar as she grabbed both Fire’s and Misty’s hooves with an iron grip that made them both wince in pain. With one mighty heave, Nightshade ripped them both free from her back, swung them both right over her head and slammed them down like a hammer over the top of Spitfire, driving her right to the ground with them. Spitfire cried out in agony as her wings joints took the brunt of the hit, Fire screaming as well as he slid off and landed right on his shoulder. Misty bounced and skidded over towards Storm Front, who just stared in horror as Misty Fly rolled over, her mouth open but no sound coming from her as she held her eyes shut and silently winced in pain.

Storm shivered and scooted backwards as Nightshade locked her eyes on him, smiling as she turned and squared up to him. Storm’s eyes shifted for a moment, noticing Soarin slowly rising from the floor, grunting and gasping as smoke rose from the battered horn, but his attention was only caught for a second. Nightshade was already right in front of him. He yelped as Nightshade grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him up, laughing as the aura around her hoof seeped onto storm, causing a burning sensation that began to singe and rip at his suit.

“AH! GAAAAH!” Storm cried out as his neck burned with pain as if on fire, grabbing Nightshades arm with his hooves desperately as the neck of his suit slowly dissolved.

“HA! HAHA! HARRGHH!!! GAHAHA!” Nightshade continued to twitch as she laughed, drunk with power. Past experience suggested that she’d hold on and continue to torture Storm as long as he was in pain, but Nightshade did not seem to be even conscious to her actions. Instead she turned and threw Storm towards the control panels. He slammed back first into the panel right beside Soarin, crying out in pain as he bounced over the metal surface and fell towards squad Foxtrot. Squall looked up as he and Star tried to help Dash, cursing as he let go and threw himself out in front of them, taking the hit as Storm’s body slammed into his and forcing them both to the floor.

“SQUALL! STORM!” Little Star yelled as she stayed glued to Dash’s side. Dash cringed, gritting her teeth as she pressed a hoof over her heart. The pain was subsiding a little, but it was still there. She glanced up towards Squall and Storm, the two of them rolling off one another and groaning as they tried to force themselves up.

But her attention was quickly drawn away as a loud metallic ripping noise came from nearby. Her eyes shot towards a nearby control panel, the staff members huddled beneath it all yelping and screaming, diving away from it as Nightshade grabbed it and ripped it right out of the platform, several sparks and electrical spasms crackled and popped as the wires snapped and the metal splintered, a few plumes of steam shot up from broken tubes as she dislodged the panel and tossed it aside. She smiled as she heard a few screams among the loud clanging and crashing of the panel bouncing and falling apart. The buzz of alarms on nearby panels, flickering lights, and painful creaks of the broken machinery screeching throughout as Nightshade continued towards squad Foxtrot as if she simply went through the panel for the hell of it instead of around it.

“RGH!” Squall immediately pushed himself up and shifted over to put himself in front of Dash and Star. Nightshade kept walking as if she couldn’t even see him, her eyes locked on Storm Front as if she wasn’t done with him yet.

“SQUALL! WAIT!” Dash yelled towards Squall as he leaned back and launched himself forward. Sucking it up and fighting through the pains in her chest and all over her body, Dash ripped her arm free from Little Star and forced herself forward. Squall didn’t stand a chance by himself. Star quickly galloped right up beside her as they followed behind.

It was as useless as expected. Nightshade surged forward with a low stance, ramming her shoulder right into Squall’s chest and rearing back to both strike and force Squall onto his back hooves, she followed up with a strong jab to his stomach, sending him flying backwards and knocking both Dash and Little Star aside like bowling pins.

“AURGH!” Dash cried out as she tumbled, rolling backwards before landing hard on her stomach and sliding along the metal floor. She twitched and growled as she teetered back and forth, immediately pushing her hooves to the ground, but failing to move herself up at all. She looked up and forced her eyes open, seeing Nightshade moving towards her, but on a slightly skewed path. She blinked, realizing that she had fallen near Storm Front and Nightshade was still focused on him.

What the hell was she supposed to do? Forget that, what they hell were they all supposed to do? What the hell was even HAPPENING?

Dash’s mind raced and raced in circles as everything about the current situation swirled like mad in her head. The appearance of Nightshade was so shocking and so sudden that none of them even had a chance to put together a comprehensible explanation or a plan of action. Not to mention something was seriously wrong with her… which was something considering who they were talking about here. It was like they were flailing against an unstoppable force and an immovable object!

But then an idea smacked Dash right in the face.

Nightshade was in some sort of twisted, out of control state…

But was she free from what she feared?

“HRGH!” Dash slammed her hooves to the floor and pushed herself to the right, turning her body around as Nightshade stomped right past her. Dash locked her eyes on Storm Front shuddering on the floor, his back turned to them as he curled up and twitched in pain. “GRRRRAAAAAAAGH!” Dash roared, fighting against every burning and screaming inch of her body as she forced herself up and flung herself forward, quickly falling right back to the floor, but sliding along past Nightshade and grabbing Storm. He flinched and cried out the moment her hoof gripped his side, but Dash immediately grabbed with her other hoof as well. She glanced over her shoulder quickly to see Nightshade just a few paces away. “TURN OVER!” Dash yelled as she yanked on Storm, pulling them closer to Nightshade, but forcing Storm to roll over as he grunted and kicked his legs. Using one hoof to shield her face from Storm’s hooves, Dash pulled herself towards him and grabbed his goggles. With a solid yank, she pulled them off his face, the strap snapping and whipping her arm. She tossed the goggles aside and grabbed the flaking ends of his Wonderbolt mask where they had been burned on his neck. She tore the mask right off of him.

Nightshade stopped right over the top of them, and lifted a hoof to stomp down hard, laughing as drool dripped from her mouth and bright pink lights flashed and danced all around her and within her eyes. Her crystals rapidly orbited around her.

With one mighty shout and giving it her maximum effort, Dash grabbed Storm’s head and pulled him around, turning his face and pointing it right up towards Nightshade. Storm gasped as he was painfully forced around… but then his eyes opened wide, looking directly into Nightshade’s.

Nightshade froze.

She stopped moving, she stopped growling, and her lips parted slightly. Her eyes widened considerably, but they remained completely hidden behind the light. Her crystals stopped orbiting around her, freezing along with her.

Storm just stared, powerless to do anything due to his injuries mixed with the awkward position Dash was holding him in. His green eyes shuddered as he stared into the face of their enemy, afraid to make a sound as the bright pink pair of eyes stared right back at him.

“GRK…” Nightshade’s teeth slammed shut and her face scrunched up. “GRH! HRRRRGH!” she began growling as her eyes narrowed and her hoof slowly lowered to the floor. “GAH! HRRGGRAAH!” Her body shook as she took a step back, her eyes shutting tight as she violently whipped her head back and forth. Her crystals reacted as well, vibrating and screeching as they pulled back behind her. She continued to grunt, gasp, and sputter, the light rising from her body flickering.

“Oh…?” Ruin suddenly appeared beside Dash, casually moving forward and looking over Nightshade. “What’s thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis?” His voice took on a smooth, tone as he rubbed his chin and slowly turned his head back over to Storm.

Dash remained still, putting every bit of strength she had into remaining firm and keeping Storm’s face pointed towards Nightshade’s. She could still clearly see Descent in Storm’s face, even with her eyes and mind clouded. Dash gulped as Ruin focused on them, but she feared any break from her current position would let Nightshade free.

“Hm…” Ruin leaned close to Storm’s face. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…?” His left eyebrow slowly lifted as he hummed. Storm’s eyes began to feel dry, but he feared even blinking. “Oh?” Ruin’s right eyebrow joined the left. “OH!” He pulled back and a large grin slid onto his face. He held his hooves out and in front of him and squinted. “Those eyes! That face!” He threw his hooves up onto his head. “Oh HO HO! WHAT A TWIST!” he yelled out, cackling as Twister’s head slowly rose up behind his. Without looking, Ruin lifted a hoof and casually pushed Twister back behind him. “Not that kind of Twist,” he said calmly before scooting back up to Storm’s face again. “I didn’t see THIS one coming at all!” he glanced back at Nightshade and snickered as she shook and struggled. “This really IS the best show ever!” Ruin laughed as he shimmied in a circle around Nightshade and struggled to hold back obsessive snickering. He slid right back up to Storm and patted his head. “By the way… your face is just as hard to look at as daddy’s. OH HO HO!” He slid backwards, putting himself right next to Nightshade. “I JUST…” Ruin threw a hoof up to his head and bounced on one hind hoof a few times. “CAN’T BELIEVE IT!”

Dash’s teeth grinded together as her eyes darted back and forth between Nightshade and Ruin. She mostly ignored Ruin, now wondering where she was going to go from here. The Wonderbolts were all straining and groaning, trying to compose themselves, could she hold Nightshade like this long enough for them to recover?

“HHHHHRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!” Nightshade suddenly growled, rushing forward towards them as she pulled back a hoof.

“Oh my!” Ruin ducked back, just barely getting out of her way in time as she surged. Dash and Storm both flinched and yelped, but Nightshade stopped right in front of them, her raised hoof shaking in place as if stuck. Her crystals had not followed her, still floating behind her, all huddled together. She started roaring and wailing in painful tones, looking like she was trying as hard as she could to pull on invisible restraints.

She really couldn’t do it.

Was Nightshade’s conscious still in there somewhere?

“YOU!” A very deep voice caused Dash’s ears to perk up. Matteo’s arm suddenly shot in front of Dash, slamming into Nightshade’s neck and wrapping around it in a headlock. “STAY AWAY FROM THEM!”

With a mighty pull and follow through, Matteo yanked Nightshade away from Storm and threw his weight into her, shoving her backwards so hard that she stumbled and fell onto her plot, rolling onto her back as he legs kicked up in the air.

Wincing with breath whistling furiously through the holes in his beak, Matteo dug his talons and paws into the floor, his wings cracking and popping painfully as he spread them all the way out. He gasped and grunted, his face contorting as his wing joints wailed. But he forced them to work with him, leaping into the air and pounding his wings down hard to execute his Air Burst technique. Dash let go of Storm, the two shielding themselves as a loud POW rang out and a blast of wind rushed against them. Matteo shot towards Nightshade as she was swinging herself back upright. Matteo rammed his shoulder squarely into her chest before she could put her front hooves to the floor. He wrapped his arms around her stomach and continued to pump his wings, causing her back hooves to scrape and screech along the metal floor as she tried to push back. Dash gasped as Squall and Little Star both took flight from behind her, the two of them throwing themselves at Nightshade as well. The two of them shifted up, Squall flying right over the top of Matteo and grabbing Nightshade around the chest as Little Star flew over his back and grabbed her by the neck. All three of them shouted out together, pushing as hard as they could in unison. Nightshade’s back hooves picked right up off the floor, Matteo, Star, and Squall driving her through the air… and right towards the open door of the bridge.

Dash stared in awe, the rest of the Wonderbolts looking on as well as the three pushed Nightshade right out the door, but the moment they were clear, one of Matteo’s wings cramped up on him. He roared out in pain and tilted to the left, pulling the whole group down… right as they passed over the staircase outside.

Squall reacted quickly when he realized where they were falling. He grabbed Little Star and lunged his body to the right, throwing them both off. He pulled Star in and clutched her to his chest as his back hit the floor, the two flying apart and yelping the moment of impact.

Matteo and Nightshade crashed painfully hard into the central propeller pillar, both of them grunting loudly as they fell, hit the stairs, and began tumbling while grappling all the way down towards the lobby.

“MATTY!” Dash forced herself up, all four of her limbs trembling as she fought to find her strength. Storm had also risen behind her, both of them moving as quickly as their hooves could carry them towards the doors. If not for the adrenaline pumping like mad through their bodies, they’d easily be down for the count.

But as they approached the door, both of them suddenly screeched to a halt, flinching as Spitfire tore past them, her hooves pounding against the floor as she gave chase and leapt into the air, fighting against the burning pain in her body and the motion of the Nimbus as she dove down after Nightshade and Matteo.

“MOVE IT!” Soarin’s voice boomed before the two could make any moves, both Dash and Storm looking over in time to see Soarin barreling towards them as well, a clear amount of discomfort in his eyes and steam still rising from the horn.

“SOARIN! HOLD ON!” Dash yelled as she saw the smoke rising from the horn, and the even more damaged condition it was in. “STOP!” she tried to get in his way, but Storm pulled her aside as he charged right through, lifting off as well and following after Spitfire.

Alarms were ringing in Dash’s head. Screw pain, screw her body, hell… screw Nightshade! She had to follow Soarin and make sure nothing more happened to the horn! It had already taken some damage. If he took just one hit directly to it…

“OH YES! OH YESSSSSSSSSSSS!” Ruin cackled as he happily bounced past the two of them and out the door. “OH HO HO HO! I LOVE IT!” He hopped up on the railing hanging over the stairway and stood up on it with his hind hooves. “MORE FUN!” he spread out his arms and slowly tipped backwards. “MORE CHAOS!!!!” he cackled as he gracefully fell down the stairwell… presumably to follow.

Dash narrowed her eyes and glared, her mind springing into action even if her body didn’t want to. Squall and Star were already out the door, Storm was with her, and they all looked somewhat able to still fight. She looked back to see if any of the Wonderbolts left could do more… but it looked unlikely. The Streak twins and Misty were struggling to just roll over. High Winds was dragging herself along the floor over to Blaze, and Surprise had not moved from where Squall and Star had pulled her to. Savage was on his hooves, but he was stumbling a little. Calm was twitching on the floor and Shine was rushing around trying to help them all. Savage was up… but he looked a little shaken.

Sizing up the situation quickly, Dash went into captain mode… without much thought.

“Savage! Stay here and keep an eye on them!” Dash yelled, instantly flinching when she realized she just gave a direct order to a superior officer… a very superior officer. But she was quickly relieved as Savage shook his mane out and gave a wobbly salute.

“WILL DO!” he yelled before falling over and grunting.

She hoped he could… because she needed to focus entirely on what she was about to dive into. Hurt, injured, broken, and tired… this was not the ideal situation, but they weren’t dead yet! Soarin needed her help!

“Come on, Storm!” she yelled as she took a step and stopped, looking straight down at the floor. Twister was lying on his back, his body spotless and free of injury and bruises, yet he lay still with his mouth hung open, his eyes wide behind his goggles, and waving a white flag. Dash didn’t give a moment of thought to him. She simply reached down, grabbed him by the face, wound up and chucked him out the door. Twister let out a very high pitched scream as he flung into the hallway and immediately fell down the stairs. “Star! Squall!” she yelled as she ran out the door with Storm in tow. “Come on! Let’s move!”

None of them gave a single word of protest. Squall and Storm followed Dash’s example, all three of them forcing their bodies into action, knowing that this was a matter of life and death and they didn’t have time to whine about their injuries. The three of them were hurt, Matteo was probably already taking a heavy beating, and of the two of them that were fine, one was an idiot and the other was the size of a filly. Not the best situation, but Spitfire and Soarin were going to need all the backup they could get.

Soarin worked his wings as he spiraled down the staircase behind Spitfire, skillfully keeping his flight path steady and taking into account the motion of the Nimbus as they dove. He still had a slight headache, but his body had loosened up, the discomfort from the slight magic reaction fading fast. He was thrilled that he regained control of his body so quickly, but he was also wary of the horn’s condition. He didn’t know what caused the magic to rise up. He was not concentrating or even trying to use it. Perhaps it just activated out of desperation and gave him the strength to pry Nightshade’s hooves off, but it was not without cost. The horn clearly took some damage and that was not good considering the state it was already in. Maybe this was what Luna meant when it came to his emotions, because in the moment of being held down he was simply angry and the magic reacted.

He cleared his head and readied for a fight. It was easy to get lost in his emotions in the heat of battle, but for his sake, for Dash’s sake, and hell, for everypony's sake… he needed to keep himself under control. He was the only top tier elite in physical fighting condition, if he could keep the horn in check and avoided any hits to the head, he was their best bet to fight Nightshade. Especially with Spitfire flying in front of him, grunting and wincing in pain. She was not fully recovered from the fight two days ago and had already taken a beating just now. Soarin couldn’t see her holding her own.

Soarin pulled up as he saw Spitfire doing the same, the two of them reaching the lobby and shooting down towards the floor for hard landings. Spitfire slammed her hooves down and skidded to a halt with a clear effort to disguise how much it stung. Soarin landed right beside her less than a second later.

But the moment the two of them touched down, they both flinched in surprise and ducked as Matteo was sent hurling right over their heads. His massive body flung towards the stairs and his side slammed into the pillar, bending slightly upon impact with the curvature of the central structure before he slid down and fell to the ground while roaring and wailing. Soarin looked back at Matteo with worry, but his attention was short lived.

“What the hell…?” Spitfire’s voice was quiet and filled with shock and disbelief. Soarin blinked and turned back, finally getting a full look at the lobby. It was now clear why the Wonderbolts stationed inside had not come to their aid on the bridge.

Nightshade was standing before them, a few yards away. Her aura burning brightly and her six crystals shimmering and shaking about her still… but the scene behind and around her was absolute chaos. Clones of Nightshade were everywhere, engaging with the Wonderbolts in one massive brawl that lacked any direction rhyme or reason. Some were engaged in flight, others on the ground. Battle cries and screams of pain echoed throughout the Nimbus as the fighting raged, Wonderbolts fighting Nightshade clones no matter what direction one looked.

The clones were easy to distinguish from the real Nightshade, all of them looking perfectly normal and chillingly stoic, none of them making a noise even if they were struck. But they seemed to be slightly unstable, most of them flickering or parts of their body seemingly dissolving or distorting as they moved and fought. Just like during their first encounter, the clones were incredibly strong, easily holding their own against the Wonderbolts… only there were so many. Neither Soarin nor Spitfire was around when the Wonderbolts engaged Nightshade and her clones two days ago, but they had gotten the run down from the others. Nightshade seemed to trade quantity for quality when it came to her clone projections, but that was not the case here, at least on the quantity front.

Spitfire and Soarin just stared with their jaws agape for a moment or two before Spitfire growled and slammed her hooves to the floor, focusing every fiber of her attention on the real Nightshade snarling and laughing before them. Soarin quickly readied himself as well. If they could take her down, the clones would disappear. She was priority one. They had to trust their fellow Wonderbolts to hold their own long enough.

Spitfire stole a quick glance at Soarin, her eyes widening slightly when she saw the horn. It was still in one piece, but the cracks had grown slightly larger and small bits had been chipped off. Soarin glanced down at her, immediately noticing where she was looking.

But neither of them had time to argue. Nightshade let out a roar and sprang towards them, seemingly aiming between them to go after Matteo. Spitfire and Soarin pushed any thoughts of the horn aside, Spitfire trusting Soarin to be careful instead of holding him back because she knew she couldn’t do this alone. They simply had no choice.

The two of them charged forward side by side, lowering their inner shoulders and ramming Nightshade right in the chest. They took advantage of Nightshade’s lack of focus, turning her momentum all the way around and pushing her back as she dug her back hooves into the floor.

“RGGHHHAAAA!!!!” she growled, swiping her right hoof out and knocking Spitfire to the floor. Spitfire grunted and rolled, pushing herself up quickly but flinching and falling to her haunches as her muscles twitched and had brief spasms. Soarin quickly swung his other arm around, grappling Nightshade beneath the shoulders and tilting her down to take advantage of her slanted positioning. He growled right back at her, more of a motivating growl as he pushed while making sure not to let anger rise.

Nightshade thrashed and shouted in his face yanking him back and forth as she tried to get free, the two of them slipping and sliding until they had moved all the way to the center of the lobby. They ran sideways into the central pillar, Soarin taking care to keep his head away from the collision. He flinched in surprise as Spitfire suddenly charged in and rammed her whole body into Nightshade, crushing her against the pillar. Nightshade exhaled loudly, but immediately pushed off, unfazed. She reached over to grab hold of Spitfire’s arms, but Soarin reached down and grabbed her arms as well. All together, the three pushed off the pillar and began struggling, Soarin trying to get Nightshade off of Spitfire as Nightshade refused to let go.

Soarin pulled his head back as Nightshade began whipping her head around. She ended up pulling back and headbutting Spitfire twice right in the face repeatedly. Spitfire cried out in pain, the third hit crushing the left lenses of her goggles and drawing blood from her nose. She stopped struggling and dropped as she felt dizzy.

Soarin growled, squeezing his hooves tighter around Nightshade’s hooves as she brutally attacked his best friend.

“STOP IT!” Soarin yelled as a sudden flash of blue light shone from his eyes and he managed to rip Nightshade off of her, he turned and threw Nightshade roughly to the ground, causing her to bounce and tumble. Soarin growled as he took a step to follow, but quickly stopped and shut his eyes tight. He had to keep his emotions in check! Was it really that hard to do? “OOF!” he grunted as Nightshade kicked him right in the center of his chest. Soarin stumbled backwards and refocused, not expecting her to be up so fast. She charged at him and Soarin reached up to grapple with her again, the two stuck in another power struggle as the cacophony raged around them.

Soarin was getting annoyed. The conditions he was fighting in were extremely far from ideal. And it wasn’t just because of his horn and his emotions. He felt constrained by his surroundings as well. There were Wonderbolts everywhere, on the ground and in the air struggling to fly straight with the Nimbus moving. He felt like there wasn’t enough space for him to fight effectively and he was worried about getting others hurt in the process. Part of him also wanted to get Nightshade away from Spitfire. She was a better fighter than he and was holding her own, but her body was not in top condition. Watching her struggle and take a beating was more than he was willing to take.

If only he could get Nightshade outside…

Soarin grunted and glanced to his left, eyeing the windows and front doors near the lobby entrance, but his eyes went wide. There were clones outside too… and the Wonderbolts out with Luna had their hooves full protecting both her and the unicorns. Luna’s little nap definitely got a rude awakening. How could Nightshade keep control of so many clones at once? He had seen the other Shadowbolts do it, but those clones were shabby and weak. These were incredibly powerful!

“HRAHH!!!!” Spitfire leapt up on Nightshade’s back and put her in a headlock, grabbing her chin with the other hoof and yanking back on her neck. Nightshade snarled and shook back and forth, but Soarin took the opportunity to start pushing back harder. Nightshade’s hooves screeched against the floor as Soarin tried to move her towards the doors, but it was difficult. Could he get her outside? “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” Spitfire yelled as she snorted a chunk of blood from her nose. “HIT HER WHILE I HAVE HER!”

Soarin gritted his teeth. It looked like his plan wasn’t going to work quickly, so he did as he was told.

“RAAAH!” Soarin roared as he pulled one arm back, keeping ahold of Nightshade’s shoulder with the other as he started planting right hooks across Nightshade’s face. He struck her several times, unloading five heavy punches across her face, but after each one she simply turned her head right back and snarled. “COME ON!” Soarin yelled as he threw another punch. “GO DOWN ALREADY! WHAT DOES IT TAKE?!”

Nightshade finally reached up her right hoof and blocked Soarin’s next attempt, roaring as she lurched her body to the side and forced Soarin’s hooves right out from underneath him. He shouted in surprise and grunted as he was wrestled over, hitting the ground hard and rolling onto his back.

“Shit!” he yelled as he saw Nightshade shake Spitfire off, grab her by the neck and slam her whole body to the ground. “SPITFIRE!” he yelled as he rolled up, but he wasn’t quick enough. Nightshade unloaded several hard punched into Spitfire’s stomach, causing her to cough up a spurt of blood. Nightshade pulled her up, spun around and threw Spitfire, sending her flying and bouncing along the ground towards the stairs and Matteo. “NO!” Soarin rose up and took a step in her direction, but was caught in the chest by a swing around buck from Nightshade. “OOF!” he grunted as he held himself upright but was sent skidding and stumbling backwards towards the east hallway.

“Matty!” Dash yelled as they came around the last turn of the stairs and saw their large feathered friend sprawled out on the floor. She immediately made a sharp turn to land near him, but gasped and pulled up as Spitfire’s body hurled in out of nowhere and crashed right into Matteo. Spitfire bounced off of him, struck the pillar, and hit the ground hard causing both to let out painful shouts from the collision.

Dash’s eyes went wide as she looked down upon Spitfire and Matteo, but the noise and commotion within the lobby quickly drew her attention away, her pupils shrinking and her mouth hanging agape as she landed and took in the sight.

Shivers ran through her body, up and down her spine as Nightshade clones zipped to and fro, fighting the Wonderbolts stationed within the Nimbus and turning the whole building into a chaotic warzone. The Nimbus was flying straight and steady, but the scene within hardly matched the smoothness of flight that Lucky was managing.

“Sweet Luna!” Storm Front yelled out as he and Squall landed near her, placing themselves in front of Matteo and Spitfire defensively as they looked in every direction. Dash quickly moved beside them as Little Star instantly went to Matteo and Spitfire’s side. Squall and Storm immediately looked to her as if quietly demanding orders, neither of them sure how to think or even how to comprehend what they were looking at.

But Dash wasn’t sure what to tell them, Nightshade’s sudden appearance was already almost more than she could take or understand. The shock was so sudden she almost didn’t have time to be properly shocked. But that seemed to be the strategy here, catch them off-guard and throw them into disarray… it certainly had done that. It didn’t help that Ruin was just there either… as if he knew Nightshade had some plan to unleash on them, but he had no part in it… or did he? Nightshade did not seem to be in a mindset that was fit for planning or executing such a fine-tuned-surgical strike. Dash was too confused to try and connect the dots, she could only know what was right in front of her.

Nightshade had somehow acquired a massive boost in power, one that allowed her to generate her stronger clones in numbers on par with the Wonderbolt force itself, but at what cost? Nightshade seemed completely out of control, not even herself, overwhelmed by her own power…

Interestingly… Dash was beginning to notice a difference in her reaction to Nightshade. Part of it was definitely the grilling Silver gave her about being scared and running away, but something was missing from Nightshade in this state.

What she feared most about Nightshade was her ability to psychologically damage her opponents… without that, it was more like they were fighting a ferocious monster than the mare they had come to fear. Not that it made the situation any better. It just didn’t feel like they were fighting… her.

And it was at that moment of thought that Dash began frantically looking around the lobby among all the craziness. Regardless of the state Nightshade was in, they were still fighting her. And if Spitfire and Matteo were down over here, that meant Soarin was fighting…

“Soarin!!!” Dash yelled out as her eyes drifted towards the east hallway, catching a glimpse of Soarin and Nightshade grappling and struggling through the cacophony of Wonderbolts and Nightshade clones.

She immediately broke into a sprint towards them, paying no mind to the action around them. Storm reacted quickly, following behind her out of desire not to let her go it alone, but Squall froze in place, not wanting to leave Star behind.

Dash and Storm barely moved ten yards across the lobby when a Nightshade clone suddenly swooped in and zoomed right over Dash, reaching its arms out and tackling Storm. Storm grunted loudly, gasping and shouting painfully as he and the clone tumbled and bounced on the floor.

“Storm!” Dash reacted the moment she heard Storm grunt, skidding to a halt and looking over her shoulder. Her body stuck in place for a moment as her brain told her to go help Soarin, but her eyes told her to quickly help Storm as he was pinned down on the floor. That moment of hesitation cost her.

“AHHH!” Dash cried out as a Nightshade clone plunged down from above and slammed into her back, instantly pinning to her to the floor and smashing her nose to it. “RGH!” Dash grunted as a dribble of blood oozed from her nostril, but she regained her senses fast, slamming her hooves down and trying to force herself up. It proved to have little effect as the clone forced its weight down upon her. With panic setting in, Dash growled and thrashed, desperately trying to get free so she could help Soarin. She forced her wings up repeatedly and pushed her hooves back and forth until she finally got some leverage, but only enough to tip them over. “OOF!” Dash gasped as she landed on her back, the clone keeping its balance, standing up and pressing its hooves down on Dash’s shoulders.

Dash glared up into the eyes of the clone, and was somewhat surprised at what she saw. When they fought the clones two days prior, they held completely still, icy glares devoid of all emotion or thought, but there was something off this time. They were already not wearing the uniform or goggles like the real one, but it looked like the clone was having a hard time holding itself together, its image continuously distorting as if it could dissolve or blow apart at any moment. Paired with the odd physical state, it wore an expression of pain, discomfort, and slight despair as if its unstable state was unbearable and it just wanted it to end.

There were now more questions rushing through Dash’s head than she could stand. Something was clearly seriously wrong with Nightshade… and the fact that she was thinking that at all made the situation just that much more confusing

But questions could wait… the top priority was helping Soarin!

Dash continued to growl, thrash and lurch, ignoring the burning sensations of pain all over her body as her mind overpowered her physical limits, but despite all her efforts, she could not budge the clone. Desperation setting in, Dash roared out, throwing her head back and opening her mouth wide before thrusting her head up and clamping her teeth down on the clone’s arm, biting it as hard as she could.

The clone did not seem to like that.

Dash yelped, released her mouth and tried to curl up as the clone began punching her in the face, Dash was unable to defend herself as she took three hits to the cheek, before the clone began hitting her chest and stomach as well. In between painful grunts, Dash caught glimpse of the clone’s face. It still held the look of despair and anguish as it unloaded on her.

After taking the brief beating, the clone grabbed her by the neck and swung her around, letting go and sending her sliding and tumbling along the floor, eventually slamming her back into a nearby couch. She ricocheted off the couch and rolled a few yards away from it before ending up on her stomach and cringing.

She forced her eyes open slowly as her body tingled with jolts of pain, but the clone did not follow her. It simply looked around and followed the next Wonderbolt to pass it.

“Hnnngggg…. Rnnngggggg… gah, hah… ow…” Dash squirmed on the ground as she tried to focus. Her body was screaming at her, but she refused to give up. Her heart was starting to beat harder again, and it wasn’t because she was overexerting herself. It was the feeling she knew well, the feeling of Soarin in danger and his magic becoming unstable.

She looked up towards the east hallway and saw Soarin with his back pushed up against a wall, Nightshade pinning him as the two stood upright and she snarled in his face. Soarin was glaring at her, faint shimmering rays of blue light seeping between his teeth, from his eyes, and from the cracks in the horn as he tried to push back. It looked like he was aware of it too, his expression constantly changing as if he was trying his hardest to not let his emotions take over.

Dash shut her eyes as two Wonderbolts shot by very close to her with two clones following behind them. Another Wonderbolt and a clone struck the floor right nearby, grappling and pushing against one another before taking back into the air.

She couldn’t stay down. She couldn’t stay on the ground when all the Wonderbolts and Soarin were fighting for their lives, even if her body was wailing at her to give up.

Her hooves skidded and slipped, her arms and legs shook and buckled, it was a constant struggle just to move, but she would find the strength.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hahaha! Hohoho! Hee heeeeeeeeee!”

Dash’s eyes snapped open as she heard the unwelcome chortling. Still on the ground and struggling to even begin standing, she looked up and saw Ruin among the pandemonium.

He was casually walking with a happy sway in his steps, bobbing his head back and forth and humming to himself as if he were taking a casual stroll through the park. He was slowly approaching Dash, but his eyes were taking in all the sights around him, Wonderbolts and Nightshade clones shooting in every direction around him. Some of them came within less than an inch of striking him, but he never once flinched or broke his light hearted gait as he reached Dash and sauntered right by her.

“Such a wonderful day for a walk, wouldn’t you say?” he asked her as he passed in a relaxed, comfortable tone. A Wonderbolt stallion flew above him and was intercepted by a clone. The stallion cried out in pain as it was blindsided and sent flying. “The birds are singing…” Ruin commented while putting a hoof to his ear. A Wonderbolt mare suddenly crashed to the ground nearby and slid to a halt right in front of Ruin. He reached down and gently brushed his hoof into her mane as she twitched and cringed on the floor. “The flowers are in full bloom…” he dipped his nose into the hooffull of mane and gave it a long sniff. He turned and faced Dash, stepping towards her as a Nightshade clone shot by, causing a powerful blast of wind in its wake. “And the breeze is just right…” he made his way around front of Dash, turned, and lowered himself down so his face was right in front of hers. “And such crisp, clean air too!” He took a long, deep breath and exhaled while slowly sitting down in front of her. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… It really makes you feel alive, doesn’t it?”

“RGH!!!!!!” Dash slammed her hooves down, Ruin’s taunting boiling her over as she forced her body up and dove at him. He disappeared the instant she grabbed for him, her hooves slipping through air as if he was never there. She yelped and crashed right back to the floor, grunting as her body absorbed the shock of impact.

“Hmmmmmmmm…” Ruin hummed comfortably, his voice now coming from behind her moved beside her, lied down on the floor right next to her, and casually rested his chest across her back while draping a hoof over her side. “And feeling alive is such a wonderful thing…”

Dash’s body twitched and shivered as she felt Ruin slowly slide himself up her back until his nose brushed against her earlobe.

“Sometimes… it’s hard to get that feeling…” he whispered to her before glancing up into the air as several Wonderbolts and clones zipped around above them. “At least for me…” he said with a soft grunt as he lifted up a hoof in front of his face and examined it back to front. “But on the other hoof… that feeling tends to remind me why I’m here in the first place.” He snorted as his voice dropped the soft tone and took one of slight frustration. “Not that I could forget that if I tried.”

“RRRRRRAAAAAAGH!” Dash roared, forcing herself to stand up. It hurt like hell, but she did it. She found her balance and managed to stand, panting and wheezing as she looked back and forth, her eyes darting about to find Ruin, but he was no longer there… again.

“But no need to dwell on that!” he suddenly yelled to her as he strolled by five yards away from her with a very wide smile on his face. “Why spoil a good mood?!” he asked, tipping his head back and fluttering his eyelids as he continued walking. A Nightshade clone and a Wonderbolt suddenly spiraled down, out of control from above him. The two of them collided head on with Ruin, but a bright pink flash erupted from him the moment of impact. The clone and the Wonderbolt were sent flying in different directions without Ruin budging an inch. “OH HO HO HO HOOOOOOOOO!!!!” he cackled as he slowly disappeared into the chaotic gaggle of Wonderbolts and clones everywhere.

Dash panted and gasped, her legs wobbling, but holding her steady as she fought for focus.

“Come on!” Dash yelled at herself, pushing Ruin from her mind. “COME ON!” she yelled at her body as her legs slowly stopped wobbling and fought back against the pain in her joints and muscles. Ruin was toying with her, she knew he was. He was sick and twisted and the fancy show of theatrics he just displayed to her would not distract her from the task at hoof!

“Dash!” Storm Front hobbled up behind her, suit in tatters and covered in bruises after taking punishment from the clone he fought and apparently got away from. Dash only glanced at her for a moment before Squall suddenly joined the two of them, skidding to a halt and quickly lending a hoof to support Dash. Dash looked over her shoulder to see both Matteo and Spitfire slowly getting their bearings as Star watched over them.

Feeling a little more confident with two comrades, Dash returned her focus to Soarin…

But he wasn’t in the lobby anymore.

“Oh, by the by…”

Dash yelped as Ruin’s voice slithered into her ears again. Her head snapped towards Squall to see Ruin resting his arms and hooves on Squall’s back, slowly lifting his brow as his eyes and smile grew wider in synch.

“I think Soarin needs your help,” Ruin said with a snicker as he lifted a hoof and pointed towards the east hallway.

Before Squall could freak out, Storm took the initiative and slid around Dash, throwing a punch right at Ruin. Ruin vanished in the blink of an eye, Squall yelping and ducking just in time to avoid Storm’s hoof striking him right in the face.

“HEY! WATCH IT!” Squall yelled angrily as he stumbled back, but Storm paid no attention to Squall, looking all around instead.

“Shit! Where did he go?!” he glanced at Dash, but she was no longer there.

Dash was galloping towards the east hall with uneven, limping strides.

“DASH!” Storm yelled, both he and Squall making haste to follow behind her.

The two caught up with her, flinching and wincing as Wonderbolts and clones flung about around them, coming dangerously close to hitting them. But Dash did not pay any mind to the chaos. The only thing hindering her was her slight limp as she pushed herself along. She slid on her hooves, drifting slightly as she made the turn into the east hallway, her eyes locking on target as she immediately spotted Soarin and Nightshade trading blows several doors down the hall. There were a few Wonderbolts engaged with clones in their way, but with easy shifts and swerves, Dash was easily able to avoid them and keep her focus. They made it into the clear, Squall and Storm galloping up on both sides of her as they charged down the hallway.

Dash’s brain sprang into action, glancing back and forth at Squall and Storm as they closed in. They didn’t stand a chance against Nightshade if they just dove in, so she quickly considered all options. It didn’t take her long, because their best option was running right beside her.

“Storm!” Dash yelled as they ran. “She’s afraid of your eyes! Make use of that!”

Storm only got halfway through a nod of approval before Twister suddenly leapt up from behind them and landed on Dash’s back softy. He ripped off his goggles and mask, revealing very thick eyebrows, a strange mane style that looked like two spikes, enormous sideburns and a giant cigar in his mouth. He whipped his hooves out, sporting three plastic knives on each, attached with masking tape.

“WHICH ONE OF YOU BUBS WANTS TO THROW ME?!” he asked in a very gruff, raspy voice.

“Twister!” Dash growled without looking back at him. “GET SERIOUS AND—”

“Gladly!” Squall cut her off, grabbing Twister by the neck. He wound up and threw Twister as hard as he could, sending him careening towards Nightshade as she had her back turned to them.

Twister started swinging his arms in rotating motions as he fired like a rocket towards Nightshade. But right before he struck, Nightshade pushed Soarin off of her, apparently sensing Twister coming as she immediately turned around and threw a heavy, crushing punch directly into Twister’s face. His body coiled up like a spring before catapulting back in the other direction. Dash and Squall both yelped and ducked, but Storm Front was not so nimble. Twister struck him right in the face, the two of them crashing backwards as the six plastic knives clattered and bounced off of Dash and Squall.

Twister continued to bounce along the ground all the way back into the lobby and… into the west hallway, but Storm was down… and looked to be barely conscious as he twitched and groaned.

“Oh, son of a…” Dash growled as she glared at Squall.

“What? He literally asked for it!” Squall scowled, deflecting blame for what happened to Storm.

“Screw it!” Dash shook her head out as both of them continued on towards Soarin and Nightshade. “Just… HELP HIM!” she yelled with a slight tone of desperation. To hell with a plan of action, she just wanted to save Soarin!

Dash forced her pace faster, Squall keeping up behind. Soarin had re-engaged and had forced Nightshade to the wall, but he was struggling to keep her there as she snarled and thrashed. Dash’s eyes remained squarely on Soarin’s horn as Nightshade whipped her head back and forth. Soarin was leaning his neck back to avoid it being hit, but she was still coming dangerously close to smacking her head against it.

“GRH!” Soarin grunted as he lost his grip on one of her arms, his body lurching forward and slamming into her shoulder as she thrust forward. The two stumbled back into the center of the hallway, Nightshade turning Soarin and throwing his arm off while lifting her front hooves into the air. Soarin kept his back hooves firmly planted, allowing him to lunge right back at her, but she slammed her hooves to the floor, roaring out as a powerful shockwave ejected from her body. The nose band of Soarin’s goggles snapped, his goggles falling from his face as he was thrown onto his back. The force also slammed into Dash and Squall, slowing them down considerably. “AH!” Soarin yelped as a flash of light erupted from the horn, his hooves immediately rushing to his head, covering his eyes as he cringed and rocked back and forth on the ground.

“OW! SOARIN!” Dash yelled as she felt her chest tighten, but she didn’t hesitate or let up. Both Squall and Dash leapt towards Nightshade, their momentum slowed from the shockwave, but making use of the opportunity while her back was turned.

But it wasn’t until after they had left the ground that Dash remembered… Nightshade had more or less sensed Twister behind her just moments ago.

“RRRRRGGGAAAAHHHH!!!!!” Nightshade looked over her shoulder as she bucked her back legs towards them. With a solid effort and quick reflexes, Dash thrust out her wing, slamming it against Squall and causing the two of them to push away from one another. Squall avoided Nightshade’s hoof altogether, but Dash did not. The edge of Nightshade’s other hoof scraped over the underside of Dash’s suit, grabbing a large chunk of it and ripping the fabric as Dash felt the glancing blow. She and Squall both hit ground roughly, tumbling upright immediately, if not a little clumsily. Dash’s legs buckled, causing her to stumble right after managing to reset herself, but Nightshade had turned her attention to Squall first.

Squall stared her down, planting his hooves firmly as he glared and flared his nostrils. He jumped right at Nightshade, pumping his wings down to turn his body up as he took his signature martial arts stance.

“HORRR—” he began his battle cry, but was cut off as Nightshade surged forward, reaching both hooves towards his neck.

“SQUALL!” Dash yelled as she struggled to steady herself, but Squall did not falter, he kept up the motions, willingly throwing himself right towards Nightshade’s hooves in a manner befitting his lionhearted resolve…

But as he began a double jab motion, he feinted, instead swinging his arm across his body to whip his shoulders and head to the left and just barely squeak out of the way, Nightshade’s hooves missing his neck and slamming together with a loud CLACK.

Now right beneath her arms, Squall had her in a vulnerable position with a clear point blank view of her ribs and stomach. Without hesitating, Squall immediately took his stance again.

“HOOOORYAAAA!!!!!” Squall yelled out as she delivered the one-two punch, adding five additional punches right after all zeroing in on Nightshade’s underbelly. Dash’s ears perked up, her eyes widening as Squall pulled off the move and she watched Nightshade’s body flinch and lurch with every hit. Squall ended the flurry of punches, wound up both of his hooves and thrust them right into her stomach as hard as he could.

But as he held his hooves forward, his arms suddenly stung and tingled with pain following shortly after. Squall blinked and slowly looked up to see Nightshade’s glowing, empty eyes glaring down at him, saliva dripping from her lower lip and dribbling onto his goggles. The tingling and stiffness hit his shoulders, causing him to flinch and break his focus.

Nightshade ripped a hoof back and thrust it forward, delivering a low strike right into Squall’s stomach, the same place on him that he was hitting her… only he did not have the luxury of her sturdiness.

Squall choked, his neck and head straining forward and his tongue poking right out of his mouth as all the air left his lungs. Nightshade didn’t follow through, she just stood there as Squall went limp, draping over her arm and grabbing his stomach as he shuddered and tipped over, coughing and hacking with a small trickle of blood dripping down his chin. He curled up on the ground at her hooves, his body quivering as all of his strength seemed to drain out of his body, barely able to breath after such a heavy blow to his gut.

“NO!” Dash yelled out, forcing her hooves against the floor and shakily propelling herself towards Nightshade. But before she could even get close to touching her, Nightshade whipped around and grabbed Dash by the neck. “GRK!” Dash gasped as Nightshade lifted her slightly and pushed her backwards. Dash’s back hooves kicked and scraped against the floor until Nightshade slammed her back against the opposite wall, painfully pinning her wings flat to her back. “GAH! AHHHHHH!!!!!” Dash cried out, the pain shooting through her already battered body was so intense that not even Nightshade’s grip could keep her screams from escaping her throat. She forced her hooves up and clamped them onto Nightshade’s hooves, but her body felt broken. She was running on willpower and desperation, she had little to no strength to call upon. Her eyes squinted as she stared directly into Nightshade’s ferocious face, gritting her teeth as she tried with any and all might she could muster to free herself, but it was hopeless. Nightshade began shouting and roaring into her face, Dash’s ears ringing as Nightshade’s booming voice pierced through her ears.

Eventually Nightshade stopped roaring, instead just growling into Dash’s face as she kept her vice-like grip on her neck and pushed her hard against the wall.

But as Dash slowly opened her eyes again… Ruin was leaning against Nightshade.

“You look like you’re having a real hard time here,” he said casually while tipping his head slightly and lifting an eyebrow.

Before Dash could fire anything back, Nightshade suddenly pulled her off the wall and slammed her hard against it again. Dash screamed in pain, her neck arching back as her body burned with agony.

“Oh, come on now…” Ruin stepped forward, turned, and leaned his side against the wall right next to Dash. He lazily waved a hoof towards Nightshade. “She’s just one Shadowbolt! How is she taking on your whole force?” he asked, moving the hoof over to Dash’s chin and brushing his hoof beneath it as she continued to gasp, pant, and struggle. “How shameful… for a bunch ponies that have so much pride, it must hurt.”

“GET OFF OF HER!” Squall suddenly yelled, his voice weak and raspy as he leapt up from behind Nightshade, grabbing her around the neck as he landed on top of her. Nightshade roared, immediately dropping Dash as she staggered backwards and began thrashing. She bucked and lurched about, trying to throw Squall off of her as Dash dropped to the floor, coughing and sputtering.

Dash gasped for air, holding one hoof to her neck as she rolled onto her back to get more out of each breath. But as she rolled, Ruin appeared to her right, also lying on his back with his hooves hanging up in the air cutely. He slowly tipped his head towards her, a smirk crawling onto his face as his eyes landed on her.

“But I’m not being very fair about this, am I?” he snickered. “It’s not like she’s just any Shadowbolt, after all…”

Dash’s teeth shut together and the edges of her mouth scrunched as a subtle snarl escaped in between the hissing of air through her teeth.

This was a crisis. This was a disaster of the worst possible kind, and Ruin’s lighthearted commentary while she was fighting for her life was making her absolutely furious. She rolled away from him onto her side, but he was suddenly on the other side of her, still on his back and meeting her eyes with his again.

“Still… I imagine it’s all been quite a buzzkill,” he continued to taunt. “You all pull off such an epic escape against all odds and then BOOM!” he edged his face closer to Dash suddenly and cackled to himself a few times. “You get your butts kicked by one mare. Even if it IS Nightshade, that’s gotta sting!”

“SHUT… THE… HELL…” Dash forced her arm out. “UP!” she took a swing at him, but he slid backwards, just out of her reach without moving a muscle. Dash cringed and groaned as the effort caused her arm to twitch, she groaned and slowly put a hoof to her head. The pain was starting to overwhelm her. The mixture of the tightness in her chest, the stiffness from her previous injuries, and the beating she was taking now were all adding up… and she was starting to feel a little lightheaded. She slowly opened her eyes back up to see Ruin pouting at her.

“How brusque…” he huffed as he glanced up at the ceiling and shook his head lightly to get a strand of his mane out of his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re getting all angry at me for… I’m not the one that’s aimlessly flailing around, beating all of your PRECIOUS friends senseless.” He lifted his brow while pointing behind him.

Dash flinched as Nightshade suddenly slammed Squall to the floor right behind Ruin, holding him down and unloading several punches to his body. Dash tried to force herself up, but failed miserably, gasping in pain and sprawling right back to the floor on her side. Ruin shook his head back and forth while sighing.

“I haven’t laid a hoof on a single pony here since I arrived,” he said while gently placing a hoof atop her side. He blinked, his eyes opening wider for a second as he looked down at his hoof. “Or at least with the intent to do harm,” he added with a low, creepy giggle as he gingerly slid his hoof back and forth along Dash’s suit. Nightshade roared, grabbing Squall and tossing him over them. Dash’s eyes followed Squall as Nightshade stomped after him, stepping right over Dash and Ruin as if they weren’t even there. Dash immediately tried to roll over, hoping to get up and help her squadmate, but Ruin held her in place, reaching his other hoof to her chin and pushing her face back towards his. “Why am I guilty by association, but Moon isn’t?” He put on a very fake frown, his pupils growing large. “You’re all so NICE to him!”

He let go of Dash, allowing her to roll over and see Squall sprawled out on the floor, Nightshade standing over him, but no longer hitting him as she simply snarled and drooled over his twitching body.

Ruin stepped over Dash and stood one pony-length away, glancing over his shoulder down at her.

“Seriously, what do I have to do around here to get the same treatment?” He glanced over at Nightshade, then put his head down and started snickering. He suddenly spun around and lowered himself down to get in Dash’s face. “I’m a flexible and adventurous, but if it involves having a strong gag reflex… I think I’ll pass.”

“GRRRRRRRGH!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly spun around and glared towards the two of them. Dash’s eyes shot towards Nightshade, immediately locking with hers as Nightshade roared and started galloping towards them.

“Somepony’s eager…” Ruin rolled his eyes and took a casual step to the left, allowing Nightshade to rush right by him. She lifted her hooves up in the air and drove them down towards Dash.

Dash somehow found the strength to move, lurching her body and rolling free from Nightshade’s stomp as her hooves slammed to the ground. The impact caused a pink flash and a faint pulse of pink magic ejected from her arms.

Dash was sent rolling along the floor, turning over several times before she finally reached out an arm to stop herself on her stomach.

“AH! RRRGGHH!!!!” Dash yelped and gasped, a hoof going right to her chest as the tightness suddenly became worse than the constant stinging pains all over her body. She looked up and past Nightshade, noticing Soarin a little further down the hallway. He was trying to force himself up, his hooves continuously slipping on the floor as he struggled to stand. Faint blue light was shining from his eyes, the horn was sputtering and small blips of light were oozing out.

No… she couldn’t let this continue. Dash couldn’t let Soarin harm himself. If this kept going the way it was, Soarin’s horn was going to break. There was no question of if, it was only a question of when. She had to get up and fight for his sake!

“Ahhhh… AHHHH!!!!!” Dash pushed her hooves down. She couldn’t ignore the pain, there was just too much to push out of her head, but that didn’t mean she was going to let it keep her down. The tightness in her chest made it even more difficult, every pang and heartthrob threatening to sap the strength out of her legs and send her right back to the floor. She felt like the room was spinning, her head feeling half unscrewed as the room seemed to rock back and forth. But it wasn’t the Nimbus… Lucky was somehow managing to keep them steady, her body was just that beaten up and fatigued.

But if an old, broken, half-functioning Wonderbolt veteran could resist the cries of his body… then so could she! She had no excuse, not when her mentor made it work under much worse conditions!

Nightshade was focusing on her… that was good. She didn’t care as long as she was not attacking Soarin. Was help on the way? Did she have some sort of backup? She didn’t know, but she’d put everything on the line for Soarin. Just like how Silver put everything on the line for her and those he loved.

Like teacher, like student…

It was her… working at roughly a fourth of her full capacity… against a deranged, magic pumped monster that resembled Nightshade.

“Tell you what…”

And one real pain in the ass.

“I’ll prove it to you!” Ruin sauntered up behind her. “Prove that I can be a nice guy too! Then you can trust me just like you trust Moony-Moon!”

Dash completely ignored him, or at least tried to. She shuddered as he suddenly slid his hooves over her shoulders and rubbed them gently.

“Listen carefully…” he spoke quietly as he leaned his nose right up to her ear. “And do EXACLTY as I say… and none of Nightshade’s attacks will connect, okay?”

Dash’s blinked, lifting her brow a little as Ruin made the sudden proposal. Nightshade was snorting and snarling, scraping her hoof against the floor like a bull ready to charge. Dash knew she was about to be attacked, that was not in question. But she thought she was going crazy… was she actually considering what Ruin just put forward? She must’ve taken too many blows to the head, there was no way he was being sincere. She had no reason to trust him. He was probably just trying to get in her head… again.

“She’s going to charge… and throw a hard right hook towards your head. I suggest you duck… and then slide out of the way before she stomps.” Ruin whispered into her ear.

Before Dash could tell him to screw off, Nightshade roared and charged… pulling back her right hoof as she closed in.

She really was coming in with a right hook.

Dash didn’t think about it, she just ducked preemptively, causing Nightshade’s swing to miss horribly overhead. Then she remembered the other half of it, shoving her hooves forward to push herself along the ground, sliding out of the way as Nightshade’s hooves slammed down to the floor.

Dash shuffled her hooves furiously, pushing herself up and stumbling until she was leaning against the wall, panting and wheezing as she stared towards Nightshade. Nightshade was looking back and forth on the ground as if wondering where Dash had gone.

“Now…” Ruin appeared out of thin air, resting on the wall right beside Dash. “I wouldn’t stay here too long if I were you. In about three seconds, she’s going to fly at you with her hooves outstretched.”

Dash’s jaw dropped as Nightshade’s head snapped towards her and she leapt into the air, pumping her wings and shooting towards her with her hooves out in front. Dash pushed off the wall the moment Nightshade took off, diving out of the way as Nightshade’s hooves struck the wall so hard that they lodged into the wall.

Dash tumbled along the ground, wheezing loudly, nearly hyperventilating as she pushed her body to work so hard under pain and pressure. She forced herself up onto her hooves, backing away from Nightshade in small steps, her chest heaving with every breath. She flinched and yelped as her plot ran directly into Ruin’s chest behind her.

“So far, so good, eh?” He bounced his eyebrows. Dash quickly shifted away from him, almost falling over herself as she glared at him sharply. He had to be setting her up. She didn’t like this at all. “You may want to keep your eyes on her,” Ruin snickered. “She’s about to come at you with a roundhouse buck!”

Dash quickly looked towards Nightshade to see her still stuck in the wall by the hooves.

“Just give her a second or two,” Ruin said as he strolled past Dash.

“RAAAAAAAGH!” Nightshade ripped her hooves free, plaster and bits of chipped paint sprinkling to the ground from the wall. She turned her head and glared at Dash.

“Get ready to duck!” Ruin said as his head poked in front of Dash’s field of view for a moment before pulling right back.

Nightshade pushed off her right legs, throwing her sideways towards Dash. As she came near, she planted her front left hoof and spun herself around, her back legs swinging… just like Ruin said she would.

Dash ducked and dove forward, sliding her body along the floor beneath Nightshade as she went flying over her head. Dash tried to put her hoof down to stop herself, but she placed it awkwardly, causing it to be pulled beneath her, forcing her onto her side and turning the slide into a painful log roll that pressed her already sore and tender wings to the ground twice.

“GRH!” Dash gritted her teeth and pushed her hooves down, stopping the roll and shooting back up, but the fast motion nearly knocked her out, feeling light headed from the stinging pains that followed.

“I’m quite impressed to be honest,” Ruin was standing right beside her as she cringed and wobbled. “For a low ranking Wonderbolt, you’re quite gritty. All the pain must be a real… well… pain! HOHO!” he guffawed briefly. “But I expect no less, especially since you’re the catalyst keeping Soarin intact,” he said casually, but Dash’s ears stood straight up.

She glanced at him as he bounced his eyebrows at her. That was twice now… twice Ruin had spoken about her and Soarin’s connection. How did he know about it?

“But hey, now isn’t the time to speculate about this silly pony,” he placed a hoof on his chest and winked. “We’re far from done here!” he chuckled as he draped an arm over her shoulder. “Now listen, next she’s going to…”

Dash’s eye slowly drifted over her shoulder, checking on both Squall and Soarin. Soarin was still struggling to stand, up on his hooves, but panting and coughing. His body was riddled with fresh bruises and s small trickle of blood was dripping from his nose and lip. The horns was glowing, but it had calmed down a little, the light still flickering in his eyes. Squall was still down, but moving, struggling to turn himself over.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Ruin grabbed Dash’s chin and forced her head back towards him. “Pay attention now!” He sneered while making a head motion towards Nightshade. She had locked her eyes on Dash again, her body shaking as her muscles twitched and flexed. She started taking hard, heavy steps in Dash’s direction, ready to launch towards her once more. “She’s going to use the right hook again, so… dodge left, okay? You ducked last time, why not try something new?”

Something in Dash’s head clicked. Regardless of Ruin’s honesty over the past few attacks, she couldn’t shake that he was leading her on and setting her up. He guided her in the right direction three times… but would he do it a fourth? She decided to take a chance and trust her own instincts instead of getting comfortable with his.

Taking a play right out of Descent’s book, she watched Nightshade’s chest as she launched. Any movement to attack started with the chest… and thanks to Nightshade’s very muscular body it was easy to see chest movement.

Dash set her hooves and watched carefully as Nightshade careened towards her… waiting for the cue.

The left side of Nightshade’s chest moved first.

Dash’s eyes widened as she saw her pick up her left hoof… NOT her right.

Ruin lied this time!

So instead of dodging to the left to avoid a right hook… she started inching right instead.

But then Nightshade slammed her left hoof down to propel herself slightly upward… before pulling back her right.

Dash’s eyes widened as she misread the action, and was already too far into her motion to correct it. She could only watch in horror as Nightshade’s right hoof careened towards her face.

Ruin was being honest.

Nightshade’s hoof struck Dash’s cheek with so much force that Dash was instantly spun around, her goggles were knocked right off her face, and a good portion of her mask tore apart, loosing it from her face and dropping the flaked ends around her neck. She hit the wall nearby, her head whiplashing against it as her side slammed into it. Her body remained upright, leaning against the wall as her pupils jittered, her ears rung, and her equilibrium felt like it had been pile driven into a cement block. She started slumping, a queasy feeling filling her throat as her vision got fuzzy. She was surprised she didn’t throw up on the spot, but the fact that she was already being held around the neck helped prevent that.

She was in a state of complete shock, dizziness, and grogginess one step short of being concussed somehow… and Nightshade had already followed up, Dash’s airways tightening as Nightshade squeezed her by the neck, turned her body, and slammed her against the wall again.

“Ahhhhaaaaaaaaa…” Dash gasped weakly as her brain fought for stability. She blinked repeatedly as her vision slowly corrected, only to look directly into Nightshade’s face inches from hers as she snorted, snarled, and growled ferociously. Dash’s body regained feeling, but still felt incredibly weak as she reached up her shaking hooves and weakly grabbed Nightshade’s arms. She could barely muster the strength to pull on them, but she tried regardless, and it didn’t help that she could barely breathe.

“Oh Rainbow Dash, I’m offended…” Ruin’s voice suddenly met her ears as he slowly shifted in and leaned against the wall right beside the two of them. “For a moment I really felt like we had something going there… like you really trusted me,” he said in an exaggerated, defeated tone. He let his ears flop down to the sides of his head as he turned and leaned in, resting the side of his head against Dash’s as Nightshade continued to snarl in their direction. He lazily waved a hoof towards Nightshade. “Y’see, if you had just given me a chance, you wouldn’t be in this predicament here.” He tilted his head slightly to get Dash’s struggling face into his view. “You almost did, you THOUGHT about it, but no. NO!” He bounced off of her and did a slow pirouette, stopping as he faced her and leaning his face back in close to hers. “No, no, no, NO! It’s much too risky to trust ME, right?” he asked while tipping his head to the right and smirking.

“But eh, who am I kidding? I’m not surprised you’re skeptical.” He pointed to his face. “I don’t have a very trustworthy face…” he grinned incredibly wide while snickering. “I have a hard-on for anarchy…” He leaned forward, sticking his nose right between Nightshade and Dash’s faces. “And I just can't keep my NOSE out of everypony’s business! HOHO!!!!” he laughed briefly before Nightshade suddenly leaned further forward, almost head butting Ruin before he could pull back.

Dash winced and turned her head slightly as Nightshade roared right into her face, her ears burning as spittle sprayed all over her face.

“I almost lost my big nose there!” he snickered. “Oh, and get ready, she’s about to throw you through that door over there,” he suddenly said while taking a step backwards and pointing to the door opposite of them.

Dash choked as Nightshade’s grip suddenly tightened, cutting her air off completely for a moment as she felt her body suddenly being yanked from the wall. Knowing there was no escape from whatever was about to happen, Dash simply shut her eyes and tensed her body as Nightshade whipped her around and threw her. She hit a solid surface that immediately buckled and shifted from the impact Dash squeaking as air rushed back into her lungs, looking for air to expel as she bounced on the floor, gasping in pain.

Her eyes opened as she suddenly heard several screams. The ceiling above her was different, but familiar. She had no idea where she and Nightshade had been exactly in the east hallway… but now she knew.

It was the infirmary ceiling. She rolled over and looked around frantically, noticing she had slid to a halt right beside Bliss’ desk. She looked down into the infirmary to see Bliss, Swift Justice, and Playbitz all moving quickly, grabbing any injured ponies off the beds and moving them towards the back.

Nightshade stomped through the door, never taking her eyes off of Dash as she approached, but regardless causing more yelps and yells of horror from those present who were unable to defend themselves. Dash quickly forced herself up, stumbling and falling back against Bliss’ desk as she struggled, but it did the trick. Nightshade did not look at anypony else but her. Dash glanced to her left to see Bliss erect a shield that cut them off from the rest of the infirmary.

But it didn’t really seem to matter because regardless of any commotion, Nightshade was entirely focused on Dash. Dash tried to ready herself, she tried to set her hooves and fight, but it was hopeless. Her body was almost devoid of feeling, unable to react as Nightshade rushed forward and delivered a strong blow to her chest.

Dash’s eyes bulged out, grunting loudly as she was knocked backwards, bouncing over Bliss’ desk, sending papers and materials everywhere as she flew backwards… and through another door.

She yelped and coughed as she bounced along the floor before sliding to a stop. She sprawled out on her side, cringing and groaning as she began to roll back and forth. It was hopeless, completely hopeless… what was she supposed to do? Her body was barely responding to her now… She had the drive and the desire to fight, but that wasn’t the problem. She felt like she had never been more beaten up in her life, her injuries from two days ago stacking with the ones she was sustaining now. Her wings were cramping and twitching, her eyes could barely stay open from the pain coursing through her. She was sure Silver probably fought his way through more than she was experiencing right now… but that didn’t mean she knew how to fully handle it. The pain felt like she was being brutally stabbed from every direction continuously with no sign of letting up.

How did the situation go from so perfect to so wrong? The answer was obvious, it was named Nightshade, but she found herself asking the question anyway. It didn’t seem like this was supposed to happen… as if somepony stepped in to screw it all up.

“Are you having fun yet?” Ruin’s voice caused her to flinch and her eyes to shoot open. He was standing right over her, looking down as she lay on her back. “Because I’m having an absolute blast!”

The door had been slowly moving shut since Dash crashed through it, the hinges squeaking as if they desperately needed oil. But right before it closed, Nightshade kicked it open, breaking the door right off its hinges and sending it flying towards Dash.

“AHHH!” Dash simply screamed and covered her face as the door flew at her, but the moment before it hit, it was surrounded by a pink glow and stopped in its place. Dash slowly peeked out from her arms to see one of Ruin’s crystals conjuring the magic.

“Ooooo! That was a close one!” Ruin cooed while slowly moving the door aside and letting it rest on the wall beside them. “Aren’t you glad you have a pal like me looking out for you?” he asked as Dash shifted and struggled to stand. “Come on now, get up! You can’t fight when you’re on the floor…” He reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling to help her up, but she immediately growled and yanked her arms free from him, standing on her own as she stumbled slightly away. “Okay, fine, fine… you can do it yourself,” Ruin huffed and rolled his eyes.

Dash shook her head out and glared towards Nightshade… but only for a moment.

Her eyes widened as two thoughts collided in her head like oncoming trains.

She had been knocked into the infirmary… then knocked back through another door across from the entrance…

She… began to recognize the room they were now in.

Nightshade was growling and snarling towards her, but Dash’s focus was suddenly completely changed… and for very good reason.

They had been thrown into the emergency room… and the soft ‘beep…beep…beep…’ of a heart monitor met her ears.

Dash’s jaw dropped and her pupils shrank as she slowly glanced to the bed on her left… and the stallion unconscious upon it.

Silver.

--To Be Continued--

Author's Note

Oh dear, this can't be good...

Kibitzer:

noun, Informal.

a spectator at a card game who looks at the players' cards over their shoulders, especially one who gives unsolicited advice.

a giver of uninvited or unwanted advice.

a person who jokes, chitchats, or makes wisecracks, especially while others are trying to work or to discuss something seriously.

Ruin is... quite fun isn't he? Just when we thought the Wonderbolts were in the clear, WHAM, plot twist that i'm sure wasn't too surprising after a few minutes, considering you all probably expect me to throw drastic sudden bad things in all the time... but is it ALL the usual? it certainly doesn't seem normal, does it?

We are, after all, in a situation involving Ruin. Nightshade is rampaging and is completely out of control. Is Ruin involved or not? you'd think so, but why is he 'helping' Dash if he's behind it? Unless it's just his brand of crazy, but who can say? :ajsmug:

And i think i should be a little worried... Ruin was directly inspired by my favorite video game villain ever, Kefka, from final fantasy 6. And... I'm having a little TOO much fun writing him... halp...

But back to the here and now... of all the places tobe forced into... Dash was forced all the way back into Silver's emergency room... what will happen? well you wont have to wait nearly as long. I'm not only getting back on track, but a good chunk of chapter 144 is already done. So im getting right to work on it, no outlining process required.

(Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf and Penumbra If you're wondering where all the penny art at the beginning came from, i showed a few of my followers a teaser and penny immediately began to art x3)

Twister references in this chapter:

and

And no, "the bird's are singing" was not a reference to Undertale. No one is getting dunked on.:pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 144: Over the Edge

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 144: Over the Edge

Silver was still out cold, strapped in his bed securely, and hooked up to the machinery that was thankfully also bolted down. His bed and surrounding area had mostly remained intact during the intense motions of the Nimbus. Most of the non-essential materials were strewn all about the room.

“Hm?” Ruin hummed suddenly, causing Dash’s ears to point straight up. “What are you looking at?” he asked while glancing over at the bed, leaning back and forth since Dash was in his way.

Dash panicked. As if the situation could not get any worse…

Her brain immediately disregarded her own wellbeing and surprisingly, also Soarin for the moment as it all completely shifted to an intense urge to get the hell out and get Ruin and Nightshade away from Silver. Nightshade had not seemed to taken notice of Silver, but she was also in Dash’s way, cutting her off from the exit.

She couldn’t risk fighting in here… what was she going to do?!

Then it indeed got worse.

Nightshade suddenly and sharply turned her head towards the bed. Dash gasped, her legs shaking as her mind raced…

But something happened.

Nightshade immediately stopped growling, snorting, and snarling. Her eyes widened and her body froze as she stared towards Silver.

“Eh?” Ruin stopped trying to look past Dash and blinked as Nightshade suddenly became a statue. He pushed off the wall and casually walked over to Nightshade.

Dash just remained still, her legs trembling and her eyes stuck open as her pupils darted back and forth between Silver and the two Shadowbolts.

It was almost like the reaction she had to Storm, but… it changed quickly.

“Uh… UGH… ARGH!!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly grunted and shouted. “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

Ruin flinched and leaned backwards, his lips parting and tipping his head to the side as Nightshade cried out, her expression changing from ferocious to… afraid? The light around her began to pulsate, her crystals began to shake and screech, the light in her eyes began to dim, revealing the faint outlines of her pupils shaking.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! AH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Nightshade shifted backwards, her body slamming into the wall roughly and lifting a leg up across her body as she screamed. She began heaving with heavy, hyperventilating breaths, her eyes opening wide and closing tight repeatedly as her face grew from afraid to absolute horror. Her crystals all clumped together and pressed to her back, shimmying themselves between her and the wall as if to hide.

Ruin walked right up to her, rubbing his chin and lifting his eyebrows up and down as he got really close to Nightshade’s face and looked it all over.

“Hmmmmmmm…” he hummed as he looked over his shoulder towards Dash for a moment. He saw her stealing glances at the bed, prompting him to turn his eyes towards it as well. He could see a pony in it, but had yet to get a good view. “How odd…” he turned, leaving Nightshade behind to wail, thrash, and scream in fear as he slowly moved towards the bed. Dash bit her lower lip, still stuck in place despite her brain yelling at her to do anything and everything to protect Silver. “Descent and Starry aren’t here… Daddy’s little colt makes sense, but…” Ruin looked back towards Nightshade for a moment as he approached the bed, getting one last look at her. “Who could possibly be causing such a—”

He stopped right in his tracks as he turned his head back around and looked down upon Silver.

He stared with a blank expression.

No smirk.

No smile.

No sneer.

Not even a snicker.

He just stared in silence, his eyes growing slightly every second.

Then his right eyelid began to twitch, his teeth closed and gently ground together as his eyebrows angled down into a glare. He looked over his shoulder at Nightshade for a moment, and then back down at Silver.

Even the overwhelming power that was coursing through Nightshade seemed unable to suppress the emotional devastation Silver had wrought upon her.

But Dash was confused… that seemed to… anger Ruin? Why? When Nightshade was stopped by Storm he seemed thrilled and treated it like an amusing plot twist. What was different about Silver?

“You again…” Ruin suddenly spoke in a lower tone with a slight rasp. “Why…?” he growled as his legs began to shake. “Why is it always… You and your DAMN…!” He trailed off as his crystals suddenly sprang up and orbited around him, glowing fiercely as multiple spheres of pink magic conjured around him. His eyes turned black and a loud growl escaped between his teeth.

Dash gasped in alarm, forgetting all about Nightshade as Ruin seemed primed to attack Silver.

The spheres shook, his crystals emitting steam. Ruin’s nostrils flared and his breath hissed between his teeth.

“Kill… them…” Ruin suddenly said, his voice deep and echoing. “Kill them, kill them, kill them…” he began repeating, steadily saying it faster and faster as he held a hoof out. The spheres edged towards Silver. “KILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEMKILLTHEM!” he began yelling as an aura similar to Nightshade’s began rising around him, one that oozed and trickled upward.

Dash was frozen. Her brain was screaming at her to do something, but she felt like she couldn’t move a muscle. It was like something was holding her down.

“KILL!!!!!!!!!!! THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Ruin yelled out at the top of his lungs.

But nothing happened.

Ruin didn’t budge another inch forward, nor did his spheres advance any closer to Silver.

He slammed his eyes shut and shook his head out. He quickly turned around and exhaled.

“No,” he said with a snort, his voice instantly returning to normal. His crystals calmed down, his aura slowly vanished, and the spheres shrunk until they disappeared, their light absorbing back into the crystals. “Not yet…” he slowly opened his eyes. They were normal again as well. “Or at least not here or like this. This is not a fitting stage, nor are the props properly set. It would hardly give me the required satisfaction… or make up for what you’ve put me through. You deserve much worse… BOTH of you…”

He stood there, looking out into space, directly at the wall that separated Dash and Nightshade, holding his eyes still for several moments as Dash remained quiet and Nightshade continue to cry out. Ruin’s nose slowly scrunched up, eventually forcing his lips to part slightly and reveal his teeth pressing together. His face kept twitching and scrunching up until he quickly looked over his shoulder, glaring down at Silver. He growled, his body shaking again, but he forced himself to look away before he could go any further.

“BAH!” he huffed as he stomped away from Silver, walked all the way to the wall separating Dash and Nightshade and sat down, crossing his hooves and sulking.

Dash just stared at him, completely confused about what she just saw.

This was the first time the two had come into contact. Silver was out with them when they chased Rapidfire disguised as Wave Chill, but Ruin engaged Fleetfoot and Twister.

Yet now… seeing this…

Did Ruin… know Silver? It clearly seemed that way. What had Silver done that made Ruin so angry? And what did he mean by ‘both of you?’

“The hell are you staring at?” Ruin’s sharp snap broke Dash from her thoughts, causing her to flinch and yelp slightly. Ruin was glaring at her as he sat on the floor, snorting as he tipped his head back and forth. “Well, COME ON!” He threw a hoof out and rotated it. “Do something interesting already! Give me something else to think about!” he demanded.

‘Confused’ was too weak a word to describe the way Dash felt now. Everything was already in disarray with Nightshade appearing, Dash was constantly being pestered by Ruin, she was fighting for her life, her body was half working, she barely felt conscious, and the only thing that was keeping her going was a mixture of adrenaline, willpower, and desire to survive and protect Soarin and her friends. Now to add another spark to the roaring inferno… She was forced into the emergency room where Silver was resting, only to have Nightshade freak out at the sight of him and Ruin show a strange annoyance to Silver’s presence as well as evidence of acquaintance.

She was trying to process so much at once that her head was starting to hurt on top of everything else hurting.

So… she stopped thinking about it.

There was obviously more going on than she understood, but there was no point in trying to put together a five thousand piece puzzle while also trying to avoid a hammer swinging down over her head. She could finish the puzzle after avoiding the hammer.

She pushed everything out… and focused on the one pony that was breaking everything, locking her eyes on Nightshade as she forced her body to tense up and prime itself. Nightshade was still against the wall, pushing against it in a mindless attempt to create distance between herself and Silver when there was nowhere else for her to go, her fear stricken screams and wails still piercing through Dash’s ears. She was stunned, shocked, and her guard was down… Dash had an opening.

Then it hit her…

Before the takeoff, Dash had taken it upon herself to visit Silver and come to grips with the fact that he wouldn’t be there to help her this time.

Yet here…

Leave it to Silver to find a way to save her ass even when he’s unconscious and on life support.

“HRGH!!!!!” Dash grunted as she forced her wings out and leaned back, ready to leap as her joints cracked and popped. “HRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHH!!!!” she roared out as she launched herself towards Nightshade. The effort was strong but her body’s response was weak. She didn’t even make it all the way over to Nightshade with the jump, but she landed right in front of her, putting her where she wanted to be anyway.

Mustering every ounce of strength she could and keeping the thoughts of her teacher fresh in her mind. She placed her back hooves and wound up her shoulders, readying Silver’s Full-Motion Strike.

Nightshade did not move or make any effort to get away from Dash, the entirety of her focus still on Silver as Dash swung her hoof around, and caught Nightshade right in the jaw.

Nightshade coughed, the blow to the face cutting off her screaming and forcing her a step backwards towards the door. A tingling shot of pins and needles pain coursed through Dash’s hoof and arm. Nightshade’s head was just as sturdy as the rest of her, but she ignored it in favor of not dropping the opportunity.

The hit definitely got Nightshade’s attention, but she was off balance and her focus was still split. She stole a glance or two at Dash, but her expression did not change and her eyes kept shooting back towards Silver.

Silver had her trapped… so Dash was going to hit her with everything she had left!

Dash surged forward, bringing her front hooves up and leaning towards Nightshade. She wound up and delivered another strong blow across the face, then another, then several heavy jabs to the chest. She didn’t focus on balancing, she kept her weight forward and just kept stomping step by step with her back hooves as she unloaded blow after blow into Nightshade’s face and chest.

Nightshade slipped and stepped backwards, never responding to the hits as Dash slowly forced her towards the door. Dash shouted wildly, yelling out as she delivered every single punch, throwing a few blows beneath the chin and to Nightshade’s arms to spread out the attacks. Every punch she threw hurt, Nightshade’s powerful body was as hard as a rock, but she only had one thing on her mind: get her away from Silver.

Her efforts were yielding fruit. She almost had Nightshade through the broken door frame. As long as her attacks kept the process going, she’d hit her until her arms fell off.

As Nightshade slipped backwards and her plot reached the door, Dash leapt forward and drove her shoulder into Nightshade’s chest. Nightshade grunted, her back hooves skidding into the small metal piece at the bottom of the frame. The backs of her hooves got caught on it and her legs briefly hyperextending before they buckled. Her lower body fell back, causing her front hooves to lift up and put her in a vulnerable position.

“GET… OUT!” Dash yelled as she punched both of her hooves forward into Nightshades stomach. Several cracks and pops sounded from her joints as her hooves connected with Nightshade’s solid stomach, but her positioning and the force of Dash’s attack caused her to roll back. Nightshade tried to slam a back hoof down, but the effort only threw her more off balance, causing her to elevate as she tipped over backwards. She flew back and landed on Bliss’ desk, the wooden legs creaking as Nightshade landed on her back. “HRAAAAAAH!” Dash roared as she jumped and pumped her wings down, propelling her out of the back room and up over Nightshade. She turned herself sideways and drove her elbow down, brushing against Nightshade’s swinging hooves as she jammed her arm right down into Nightshade’s chest.

“GRHHA!!!” Nightshade coughed and grunted as Dash slammed down into her. The combination of their weight and Dash’s bold attack caused the desk to collapse, the top face of it bending and splintering as the four legs snapped. The desk crashed to the floor and slid forward, Dash immediately pushing off and rolling up onto her hooves as Nightshade flailed and kicked on the broken desk. Dash stumbled the moment she was back on her hooves, her adrenaline pumping faster than her body could respond. She tipped back and landed on her plot, immediately rolled back up, and stumbled forward as Nightshade scrambled back on her hooves.

Nightshade had her side turned to Dash, her neck bent down and her chest heaving as she gasped and growled, taking very heavy breaths as her crystals finally caught up to her and orbited her body while flashing. Her aura rose up from her more vibrantly as the glow returned to her eyes, but it looked like she was still struggling to fight back whatever the sight of Silver had done to her.

“GRH GAH GUH!!!!” she grunted repeatedly as she failed to stand up straight. Dash didn’t wait for her to recover, she didn’t think about Ruin still in the room behind her, and she didn’t even look to see if Bliss, Playbitz, and Swift were still holed up in the back of the infirmary. With Nightshade’s side exposed, Dash unloaded on her again, letting out a fierce battle cry as she began landing several jabs into Nightshade’s side.

Nightshade began crossing her hooves one over the other again and again as Dash’s attacks pushed her further, stepping off the wreckage of Bliss’ desk and slowly moving towards the door back into the hallway.

Dash never felt more focused in her life, she never felt more drive to take just one more step… to throw just one more punch… to do everything she could to keep up the fight. Did she think she was going to win? Of course not, but the longer she dragged this out and the more she staggered Nightshade… the better her chances of being saved by somepony more capable of dealing with Nightshade. Silver gave her an opportunity and she wasn’t going to waste it.

Fighting desperately with everything she had with no hope for victory on her own...

Every movement was painful, every blow hurt her hooves and body, every step forward a struggle…

But it was for the Wonderbolts, for her friends, those she cared about…

Was this how Silver felt when he protected them all from Nightshade?

Nightshade was now only a step from the door. Dash rushed at her, her will feeling stronger than ever.

“HRRRRAH!” Dash spun around, winding up Silver’s signature motions before thrusting her hoof forward, and punching Nightshade right in the cheek with the full force of the Full-Motion Strike. The execution never felt so clean, the connection never felt so precise. Dash was seldom able to fully recreate the moves she mimicked, but just now… she felt like she had perfectly replicated Silver’s move, as if Silver himself had guided her hoof.

Nightshade’s head whipped around, her body following as the blow sent her skidding and stumbling all the way to the door and right into it. The hinges broke as they were forced the wrong direction and the door capsized, slamming to the floor into the east hallway. Nightshade fell right out into the hall along with the door and Dash immediately charged out after her.

All the way back in the makeshift emergency room, Ruin was still sitting against the wall with hunched shoulders and a scowl on his face as he stared towards Dash and Nightshade. He slowly looked back over to Silver and narrowed his eyes, releasing a loud snort before getting up and turning towards the door.

“I suppose that will do,” he said to himself as he slowly started walking to follow. “No need to let you spoil the fun… again,” he snarled quietly as he left Silver behind.

Nightshade rolled onto her hooves and stood up, only to be body-checked by Dash in the side the very next moment. Nightshade was forced all the way across the hallway opposite of the infirmary door, still grunting and growling. Despite her magic reigniting, it seemed like there was a conflict going on in both her body and mind, as if the magic was trying to retake control while her body was still reacting to Silver, her conscious seeping through as the power tried to wrestle it back down.

Whatever the hell was going on in Nightshade’s head, Dash didn’t give a damn. She was entirely focused, completely on target. She didn’t take a single glance to the left or right as she launched herself across the hall towards Nightshade, not giving a single thought to anything else going on in the Nimbus as she slammed her hooves into Nightshade’s side and shoved her against the wall. Dash bounced back, but immediately stepped up as Nightshade tried to turn and square up to her.

Dash continued to shout, yell, and roar savagely, putting every ounce of strength and effort into hitting Nightshade as hard as she could, as many times as she could. Nightshade was never able to move away or set herself, her body pinned to the wall as Dash unloaded strike after strike to keep her off balance.

But despite Dash’s drive, every movement was a challenge, every wind up and swing made her body ache, every strike against Nightshade’s solid, muscular body made her hooves hurt more and more. She could hardly keep her hooves straight with how little feeling was left in them.

But she wasn’t letting up, not while there were Wonderbolts all over the place that could come and pick up after her strength gave out. Spitfire, Soarin, any of her squadmates, or any of the Wonderbolts… she knew they were near and she had faith they would come.

Or at least she hoped.

“Look at you go,” Ruin’s voice suddenly slid into her ears as she kept up the barrage of attacks. She gritted her teeth a little harder as he slipped in beside her, but she refused to pay any attention. Nightshade was the only priority, Ruin was only being a distraction, she didn’t care how confusing or mysterious all of his actions and antics had been. “Your resilience is impressive, but I’m sure you’re really starting to wear down.” He continued to taunt as stepped forward, not budging or flinching despite several of Dash’s attacks coming very close to glancing off of him. He stopped beside Nightshade, turning and facing her as Dash unloaded and kept her pinned and off balance.

Ruin glanced back and forth between Nightshade’s body and Dash’s face, taking in the grimaces of pain that scrunched over her expression every time one of her hooves connected. A smile crept onto his lips.

“She has quite the solid body, doesn’t she?” Ruin said with a sly snicker as he reached up and touched a hoof to Nightshade’s chest on the side pressed to the wall. “Hard as a rock, eh?” he added as he slid his hoof up and down the pectoral muscle. “I wonder how much training it took to gain such a powerful physique. Years, I’d wager. Years of hard work, life of combat… And knowing the desires and pleasures that drive her, it’s no wonder she pushed herself so hard to attain it.”

Dash was trying REALLY hard not to throw one of the punches his way. But she knew he was trying to bait her, she wasn’t going to fall for it.

But something did seem slightly different. Ruin was verbally prodding her again, but he seemed a little less enthusiastic, slightly less creepy, and not quite as sly. It was probably from what happened with Silver.

“You’re no slouch yourself!” Ruin cooed as he slid back over to Dash.

Okay, so it was a little less all around, but still enough to be annoying.

“You’ve clearly put in the time in the gym,” he said as he leaned in but stayed just far enough away to not be hit by Dash’s endless attacks on Nightshade. “Something I’m sure you’re very proud of! But I hate to break it to you… You are far weaker than Nightshade in just about everything.”

Dash’s eye twitched between her attacks, but she didn’t react. Tell her something she didn’t know. It’s not like that was news to her.

“It makes you wonder…” Ruin’s tone grew very sly. “If those little punches of yours are actually doing much of anything to her… hm?”

He was not right up beside her, but his voice seemed to get closer to her ear anyway.

“I’d be careful… she’s about to bite back!”

Two seconds passed before Dash’s eyes widened. She pulled back a hoof to throw her next punch, but her mind raced elsewhere… Ruin’s words finally penetrating her focus.

He hadn’t lied to her yet.

Dash suddenly hesitated her strike, pausing very briefly.

“HHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!” Nightshade immediately pushed off the wall, her aura igniting and flaring out as her eyes once again completely disappeared behind the bright pink lights. Her motion was not aimed at Dash, but she bumped into her roughly, catching Dash off balance and causing her to slip and stumble.

Before Dash could regain her balance, Nightshade quickly turned her head to her, reached out and clamped her hooves around Dash’s neck.

“GRRRK! Dash choked as Nightshade yanked her down and slammed her to the floor really hard. Enough to make Dash gasp, her voice squeaking and a burst of expelled breath squeezing out of her throat despite the vice-like pressure being applied to her neck. Nightshade did not roar or yell in her face, but she leaned all the way down, her teeth grinding together, saliva foaming in the corners of her mouth, and a low, continuous growl elevating from the throat as she pressed her hooves both down and around Dash’s neck.

It wasn’t like earlier when she was being held against the wall. This time Nightshade had her weight added to the pressure as well.

She couldn’t breathe. Her airways were completely cut off.

“I saw that you know…” Ruin slid along the floor on his stomach until he was lying right beside her, his nose just inches away from her cheek. “That brief moment of realization…” He sighed dreamily, fluttered his eyelids and looked up at the ceiling as Dash continued to choke and sputter desperately. “Ahhhhhhhh…” he rolled onto his back and held his hooves up in the air cutely. “You know, it may not have been much, but it was really, really thoughtful of you to acknowledge me like that,” he placed a hoof over his chest and turned his head to Dash as her eyes stuck open and her tongue stuck far out her mouth, her choking becoming louder as she failed to draw in any breath at all. “That was very nice of you, touching really…”

Dash’s vision was becoming blurry. She was suffocating and losing consciousness fast. Ruin turned back onto his stomach and tipped his head to the right, placing a hoof on his cheek.

“Honestly, it’s making me consider helping you here… hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” he hummed and flattened his lips, blowing air between them and making them flap for a moment. “What do you think? I already helped you once. Do you think you deserve a second? Maybe if you ask me, real nicely! OH HO H—!”

He didn’t finish his signature laugh, his ears perking up and his eyes widened as they looked past Dash.

“WHOA-HO! INCOMING!” he yelled suddenly as he quickly shimmied his body away.

Dash’s eyes were slowly closing, her ears were ringing, her strength was nearly gone, and her body was losing all feeling.

But she could feel one thing…

She felt something in her chest. It was a warmth in her heart, a mixture of strength and pain that were separate from her body. Then a sudden jolt surged through her body. Her eyes opened wide and her back arched as she felt the shock rush through her.

And then a light blue hoof shot into her field of view… and absolutely clocked the hell out of Nightshade, right in the face.

Dash instantly gasped and coughed as Nightshade’s hooves ripped free from her neck. Nightshade whipped around, her hooves skidding as she stumbled and fell, rolling over while grunting and growling.

Dash reached for her neck, patting it softly as she took heavy, desperate breaths, filling her lungs with air. She wheezed, her chest rising and falling fast as she slowly regained focus, her vision becoming clear again as somepony else stepped over her protectively.

“KEEP YOUR DAMN HOOVES OFF OF HER!!!”

Dash looked up, as she continued to fight for air.

It was Soarin.

But while she felt relief, the sight did not put her at ease. Something was wrong, very wrong. Soarin’s eyes were glowing very brightly, the blue light rising from his eyes like flames. The horn was shaking, blue light pulsating from the cracks as a similar flame like aura rose from it. The chipped edges looked larger, the fractured surface physically moving as if it was struggling to contain the magic. Soarin’s body was twitching, in fact his muscles were flexing and twitching in a manner similar to Nightshade’s. Blue light began to emit from his body, growing brighter by the second as Soarin gritted his teeth, veins appearing in his neck and over his muscles as he ground his teeth together, harsh breaths hissing through them and rushing from his nostrils.

“AND I’VE HAD ENOUGH… OF YOU HURTING ALL MY FRIENDS!!!!!!!” Soarin yelled at her, a sudden force or rush of air expelling from around his body. Dash winced as it smacked into her, several of the windows nearby formed cracks.

Dash could still feel the extreme warmth in her chest, but it didn’t feel right, it felt unnatural. Soarin was not in control, he was angry and his emotions were running wild.

She had to stop him!

“S…Soarin…” Dash’s voice was incredibly quiet and raspy as she failed to draw enough breath. “No… S-Soarin…!” She reached for his arm… but he was already moving.

He stepped forward, placing himself in front of Dash and between her and Nightshade. Nightshade was up and squared up to Soarin, setting her hooves and growling loudly. Her aura flared up, the pink lights swirling around her body erupting to match the intensity of the magic output rushing from Soarin. Her crystals orbited around her fiercely as she began taking heavy steps towards him.

The moment she took her first step, Soarin set his hooves firmly into the floor and pulled back with his wings forward.

“Soarin… NO!!!!!” Dash tried to yell, but it wasn’t loud enough.

He went through the motions.

Front hooves...

Back hooves…

Front jump…

Back jump…

And forced his wings backwards hard.

Dash immediately shielded herself, knowing what would happen, but it ended up being much more than she expected.

Soarin launched from full stop to full speed, successfully executing his signature move flawlessly, but more than a simple sonic boom was left in his wake. A large pulse of magic, a massive blue shockwave shot outward from around him, slamming into Dash.

She yelped as her body was sent skidding backwards at least ten yards down the hall. The whole Nimbus shook, the windows stretching across the hallway shattering and the fragments of glass shooting outward onto the deck.

Soarin immediately slammed into Nightshade, a stream of blue light streaking behind him as he planted his shoulder into her chest and forced her body up, putting her weight on her back hooves. Soarin wrapped his arms around her waist, latching on before she could bounce off of him.

Nightshade grunted loudly as Soarin picked her right up off the ground, his wings pumping hard as he forced both of them right out into the lobby at full speed. Wonderbolts barely reacted in time, shifting and moving out of the way as Soarin shot out of the east hallways with Nightshade, a few of the clones were hit and instantly exploded as they got in their way.

With a mighty shout and a strong heave, Soarin turned them left. He didn’t lose an ounce of speed as they narrowly avoided the central pillar… and shot right towards the large hangar window above the front doors.

Soarin had had enough. He was taking it outside.

The two crashed right through the massive window, the large panes buckling and shattering loudly as the Wonderbolts nearby screamed and yelped in surprise. Large chunks of glass hit the ground surrounding the front doors, each piece breaking to smaller pieces and clattering all around. The Wonderbolts all turned their focus away from the Nightshade clones, all those in the air landing quickly as they shielded their faces with their arms or wings from the glass pieces flying everywhere. It was not moving fast enough to be dangerous, but none of them took the chance as the bits and pieces sprinkled all around.

But then odd noises caught their ears. The Wonderbolts slowly peeked out from their arms and wings as Soarin and Nightshade flew out over the deck.

The Nightshade clones had all fallen to the floor. They were screeching, shaking, and convulsing on the ground, bright pink lights shooting from their eyes and mouths as steam rose up from them.

The Wonderbolts watched in horror as bits and pieces of their bodies began to flake, rising up from their bodies as is slowly and painfully disintegrating. The further away Soarin and Nightshade became outside… the faster they disappeared. It was nothing like how the clones usually disappeared upon being hit in their weak point. They usually just exploded in a bright flash of light, this was… unnerving. It was almost like they were melting or burning away.

All of them continued to screech until they disappeared completely, not with a bang or a flash, but with a whimper as the last of their light faded and disappeared.

Free from the fighting, several of the Wonderbolts immediately slumped or fell over, taking care to avoid broken glass as they caught their breath and cringed in pain from injuries. But several others also advanced towards the lobby doors, looking out the lobby doors towards Nightshade and Soarin as they slowed down and began fighting overhead near the edge of the deck.

Back in the east hallway, Dash didn’t pay any attention to the horrifying fate that befell the Nightshade clones. She saw exactly what happened and was already struggling to stand, and move. She frantically pulled herself through the hall towards the lobby with weak wobbling steps after seeing Nightshade and Soarin leave the Nimbus. She had no strength left, her energy had never felt lower, but the burning in her chest, the warmth she felt from Soarin’s magic going haywire was pushing her along. Just like before, the strength did not feel like her own as her heart beat furiously. It was more like a warning. A warning that she had to go to his aid or else something terrible was going to happen.

She stumbled along, one hoof at a time and never in a straight line, and never paying any mind to anypony or anything she passed. She heard her name called out not once, but twice, eventually spotting Squall and Storm hobbling up beside her.

They kept calling her name, but she did not look, nor acknowledge them. She couldn’t even put together what they were saying. Aside from her name, all she heard were jumbled collections of noises and something about her being okay or not.

She was NOT okay. She was far from okay and she wouldn’t be okay until she found a way to fly to Soarin’s side. Squall and Storm tried to grab and hold her in place, but she flailed her arms back and forth every time, quickly ripping free and continuing on until she finally tripped and fell face first upon entering the lobby.

Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t focus. It felt like the room was spinning even though everything she saw remained in place. A third voice joined Storm and Squall’s as Dash saw Little Star land in front of her and quickly reach for her face, asking the same questions the other two were, but again she did not hear it. Or was she choosing not to hear it?

Her heart was beating uncontrollably, her breathing was uneven, and her chest was so hot she was surprised the remaining shreds of her suit had not burst into flames. Dash looked around, looking past her friends and wingmates into the lobby at all the Wonderbolts as they began moving to and fro, some of them looking outside, but hesitating to do anything more than that.

Why were none of them helping Soarin?!

Were they afraid? Or were they not sure if they could do anything about it?

The voices pelting Dash from all sides suddenly stopped. Her wingmates all perked up and looked into the lobby with her as Spitfire suddenly launched into the air, ignoring the rest of the Wonderbolts as they called to her.

Seconds later, a few of the top elites touched down near the broken stairwell. High Winds, Misty Fly, Fire Streak and Lightning Streak all hit the ground running, or at least they were trying to. Failing to mask several painful grunts as they moved, they made their way around the central pillar, forced their wings out and took to the air, following right behind their captain, just as desperate as she was to get out there and help Soarin.

That seemed to do the trick.

No orders had been given. No guidance had been laid out. There was only one thing filling the minds of the Wonderbolts…

Soarin was in grave danger.

Any Wonderbolt that still had strength left in their body took to the air, all of them shooting out the broken hangar window and following behind their captain.

Without another thought, Dash reached out, grabbing both Storm and Squall by the neck suddenly.

They both grunted as she pulled them down and took heavy breaths.

“I NEED… TO GET… TO SOARIN!!!!!!!!” she yelled, instantly letting go of them as she cringed and threw booth of her hooves over her heart. “AAAAAAAAHH!!!!! GRRRRHHH!!!!!” she groaned, falling roughly to the floor as she cringed and squirmed.

Squall and Storm looked at each other with wide, uncertain eyes, both of them briefly turning to Star who was only hesitating as much as they were, but they all flinched and looked up as a shadow was suddenly cast over them.

Matteo was standing over them, his eyes squinting and his body twitching. The edges of his beak clicked back and forth as he did his best to hold strong against the pains of his battered body. He wheezed and groaned as he opened his large wings. He gave them one, hard, determined flap, and then stared down at all of them.

“What are you all waiting for?! Get her on my back! We have to move! NOW!”

Soarin was through being careful. He was through worrying about the horn. If he held himself back and his friends all died as a result, what the hell would it matter?

If he had stayed back and let Dash die, he would have died too. The warnings of their so called ‘gods’ be damned. As far as he was concerned, this was what he had to do.

He had gotten Nightshade away from them all. He had pushed her out of the Nimbus and now the two were grappling over the deck, fighting for dominance in the air and moving in tandem with the Nimbus as their magical auras smashed against one another.

Soarin felt supercharged, beyond supercharged. He knew that probably wasn’t a good thing, but again, it didn’t matter to him. He was done keeping his emotions ‘in check’. He was angry, angry at Nightshade and he was going to use that anger against her, even if it meant putting himself at risk.

Soarin pushed off, the two of them releasing one another for only moment before they both lunged forward and began pelting one another with the heavy blows all over. It was an all-out brawl of intense attacking and no defending, each impact of hoof to body caused bright flashes of pink and blue light and sent pulses of the two colors in different directions.

Both of them roared out loudly, Soarin’s magic within his eyes and around his body now glowing with the exact same fierceness and intensity of Nightshade’s as the two unleashed relentless assaults on one another.

Soarin felt strong, but he was out of control, his anger and rage running wild as he focused every ounce of it towards Nightshade and answered every attack she landed with one of his own. The two moved further and further over the deck, slowly moving out over the edge as their speed became slightly faster than the Nimbus.

It was a brawl between two magically charged, unstable warriors. A concerning and terrifying sight for all those within range.

The Wonderbolts were pelted by unseen forces. It was mixture of harsh winds from the Nimbus rotors and the magical pulses that were rushing out of Nightshade and Soarin.

Spitfire was far ahead of the rest, completely focused on her best friend as she unknowingly led a charge behind her.

Fire Streak had taken over directing the Wonderbolts, barking out orders and getting them to spread out as the rest of the elite Wonderbolts caught up with him and the rest of the struggling top tiers that managed to drag themselves out of the bridge and take flight.

Dash, Squall, Matteo, Star, and Storm brought up the rear. Dash was sprawled out on Matteo’s back, holding onto his neck tightly with Little Star pressing her tiny hooves to her back to keep her steady. Storm and Squall flew out in front, keeping an eye out ahead to make sure Matteo had a clear path.

They had to get Dash to Soarin. The situation was out of control and going more haywire by the second, but they had not forgotten the connection Dash and Soarin shared. Matteo’s quick response after her desperate plea quickly spurred them into action. Soarin was in grave danger in more ways than one, meaning Dash was as well. They would move heaven and earth to get their captain and friend out there to him.

They kept on course as Wonderbolts stationed on the deck began springing up around them, joining the Wonderbolt charge. They passed over Luna as well, who was in the process of finding her hooves and readying for takeoff.

The Nimbus was remaining on course, moving along with them as they flew over its deck. Lucky was doing everything in his power to not hinder their efforts.

Far in the lead, Spitfire was closing in. She winced and tensed her body as she was battered and blasted by the wind and the pulses of magic that seemed to grow stronger as she closed in on Soarin and Nightshade. She could see how heavily the two were beating on one another, and just like Soarin watching her, she couldn’t stand the sight of her best friend being brutally pummeled.

She roared out with determination as she forced her way through the rushing waves trying to slow her down. Nightshade had her back turned to her, and she planned on giving her the most unpleasant surprise she could muster. She got closer… closer… closer…

But right before she could get within range to intercept, Nightshade unleashed an ear-piercing shout filled with intense rage, throwing her wing and arms out.

A visible burst of pink magic shot outward from her. It smashed into Soarin, catapulting him backwards and sending him flying over the edge of the Nimbus. He grunted and flailed as he tried to balance himself, but he fell over the side. The Wonderbolts screamed and yelped in surprise, all of them getting struck HARD by the magic blast starting with Spitfire and shooting all the way back through the ranks. It sent every single one of them tumbling to the Nimbus platform and even caused the Nimbus itself to tilt and lose nearly half its speed, the rotors creaking and groaning loudly at the sudden shift.

Matteo roared out in pain as he was hit, but unlike the rest of the Wonderbolts, he managed to keep control as he fell, refusing to go down as he reached out his arms and legs. He slammed his paws and talons to the platform and pushed himself back into the air. Little Star was blown away, but Squall pushed himself right back up the moment he hit the deck and caught her, the two running into Storm as he sprang up and braced them both. All three of them paid little mind to the shock of the crash. They quickly took right to the air again to rejoin Matteo as he continued to force his way forward with Dash in tow.

Matteo looked back and forth for Soarin, no longer seeing his target. But the moment Nightshade turned and dove over the edge of the Nimbus platform, he knew to follow.

Foxtrot had steamed ahead, making their way to the front of the pack easily as the rest took a moment to regain themselves. Spitfire, the Streak twins, High Winds, and Misty Fly all joined them as they headed towards the edge. Luna suddenly joined them as well, rising up from below and forming up behind them.

Spitfire pointed to the edge of the Nimbus, yelling to all of them desperately to help Soarin as they reached the end of the platform and all dove down, following after Nightshade as Soarin crashed to the snow covered ground far below.

Dash peeked around Matteo’s neck, barely able to focus with how much her chest hurt. Her heart was thumping harder than it ever had before. She felt like she was having a heart attack. She saw Soarin hit the ground below and bounce several times painfully with Nightshade far ahead of them and already about to engage.

She had to get to him… she had to help him… she hoped and prayed that Matteo and the Wonderbolts could get her down there. Soarin was breaking and she could feel it!

Soarin cried out in pain as he his back and wings took the full force of the collision. His body bounced and slid along the ground, kicking up chunks of snow that got in his eyes and smeared his suit and fur. He rolled and dug his hooves hard into the snow the moment he stopped moving and forced himself up, throwing his wings out and grunting loudly as he shook the snow from his face and mane.

The blue aura swirling around him rushed outward as he looked up and focused on Nightshade diving from above. The snow surrounding him was slowly whisked up and blown about as it reacted to his magic. He placed his hooves firmly and glared, ready to take her on as she closed in.

But then Nightshade suddenly whipped her head back and thrust her face forward, two large beams of magic ejecting from her eyes. Soarin was not expecting it, and found himself completely vulnerable without time to deflect them or throw up a shield, if he even could with how badly the horn was damaged. He covered his face with his arms, the beams exploding as they slammed into his arms and chest. He was thrown right over onto his back and tumbled through the snow again.

Nightshade hit the ground and broke into a gallop, snarling and snapping her teeth as she charged towards him. Her heavy hoof steps kicked snow in every direction.

Soarin rolled onto his side and tried to stand up, but before he could get halfway, Nightshade wound up and threw a hard punch right into the side of his stomach.

Soarin choked, his aura flickering and the light fading in his eyes for a moment as he took the hit and stumbled backwards. He tried to turn and face her, but she followed up with a hard hit to his jaw that spun him right around, stumbling away. He growled, his magic flaring up again, the light rising from his eyes growing stronger, more vibrant as his aura grew larger and regained its full strength.

He spun around and reached his hooves up, grabbing Nightshade’s as she tried to reach for his neck. He stopped her in place, his back hooves sliding backwards through the snow as he pushed against her.

His ears perked up briefly as he looked up into the sky and saw the Wonderbolts approaching, but he shouldn’t have broken his focus. Nightshade head butted him right in the face, just barely missing the horn as the crown of her skull smashed right between his eyes.

Soarin gasped and released her hooves, wobbling backwards as his vision blurred and his equilibrium was thrown way off. He blinked as the blue glow in his eyes wobbled along with his vision. He could see her charging, but he couldn’t zero in on her. He put up his hooves desperately to block any incoming attack, but he missed horribly. Nightshade’s arms shooting right past his as she began wailing on him, hitting him with heavy blows repeatedly in the chest and face.

Every hit caused Soarin to lurch back and forth, pushing him back step by step. He couldn’t do anything in response. Nightshade’s assault was relentless and every hit he took sent his focus flying way off course.

He was in trouble and he knew it. The Wonderbolts were on their way, but they wouldn’t reach him for several more seconds. He was taking too many hits to the head, and he if she landed one more perfectly placed punch to his face or head in general, he’d be concussed, knocked out, or worse.

His vision was blurry, his magic aura was fading fast, the light in his eyes had already vanished, unable to maintain its luster as his concentration continuously broke… But Soarin blinked as he saw Nightshade spin around suddenly, planting her front hooves in the ground.

She was readying to buck with both of her back hooves… and she was aiming right for his face.

Soarin needed to move, he needed to dodge… There was no physical attack from a pony that was stronger than a double hooved buck and her hooves were heading right for his eyes. With every ounce of effort he could muster, he forced himself backwards, and tipped his head up.

It was going to be close, but it looked like he was going to make it. He strained his neck as he leaned…

And barely… just barely edged his head out of the way as Nightshade’s hooves began passing by his chin.

But then he felt something.

Did something just…

Nudge him in the back?

Soarin inched forward as a faint voice slowly whispered into his ear…

“Whoooooooooooooooooooooopsie…!”

Nightshade’s hooves struck the horn…

And it instantly shattered.

Dash’s eyes widened as everything around her suddenly went dead silent and seemed to slow down. Her neck arched up and her body stiffened as if she had just been kicked in the face really hard.

She could only hear two things. Her breathing, and her heartbeat, and both of them were very loud and echoing.

Then both of them picked up the pace, her breaths becoming short and quick as her heart began to beat faster and harder. The ringing in her ears grew louder and a sharp stabbing pain filled her head. She could not move, or react to it, but the pain grew stronger and stronger… spreading down from her head into her chest and becoming particularly strong around her heart as it beat furiously.

It was unbearable, as if she was frozen in time and being eternally tortured… and then suddenly…

Everything resumed, she could feel the wind in her mane again as she rode on Matteo’s back.

But the next instant, an enormous shock surged through her body, breaking the ringing sensation in her ears as it literally sounded like something in her head snapped.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Dash screamed out as a bright blue light suddenly surrounded her.

Everypony flying close by flinched, but before they could turn and look, a burst of blue light ejected from Dash’s body, smashing into everypony nearby and literally propelling Matteo straight down, crashing roughly to the snow below.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Spitfire yelled out as she and the rest of the Wonderbolts were floored by the sudden shockwave and either crash landed or barely evened out. She watched as Dash’s body fell to the ground, landing on and bouncing off Matteo before she hitting the snow on her back and screaming as loud as her voice could manage. Star, Squall, and Storm immediately found their hooves and galloped over to her, squinting as the blue glow around her shone incredibly bright.

Every Wonderbolt was confused, some quickly looking back and forth between their destination and Dash.

But Spitfire suddenly gasped as her eyes landed on Dash’s chest.

While there was a glow surrounding Dash’s body, there was a large collection of light like a ball packed right in the center of Dash’s chest… over her heart. It was making a loud sizzling noise and steam was rising from it as Dash screamed, twitched, and rolled back and forth with her eyes stuck open wide.

Spitfire spun around and looked hard towards Nightshade and Soarin. Nightshade had spun around after throwing a kick… but…

There was no horn on Soarin’s head.

“Oh my god, NO!!!!!!!!!!”

Nightshade snarled and growled as she finished the motion. She bounced back and glared at Soarin… but Soarin was frozen in place.

His body was stiff. Every inch of him was shaking from the tips of his ears to the end strands of his tail. His eyes remained stuck open, his pupils jittering as they remained locked up. He stared at where the horn used to be as the pieces, shards, and dust of its structure sprinkled down and bounced off his face. The base and damaged metal band slowly slipped off his forehead, falling gently into the snow at his hooves.

The air around him was deceptively calm, not a trace of blue light to be seen around his body or within his eyes.

Nightshade roared out, scraping a hoof into the snow and snorting ferociously. She charged headlong at Soarin, closing the gap between them in an instant and lowering her head to ram…

But the moment before she touched him… a small, blue dot of light appeared on Soarin’s forehead.

Nightshade struck Soarin… but she was instantly catapulted backwards, her hooves picking right up off the ground and her body flung into the air like a flailing ragdoll. She was sent several yards away, landing on her back and bouncing through the snow as she grunted and growled angrily.

The dot on Soarin’s forehead grew brighter… then larger as a blue glow appeared around his body as well.

And after a brief lull of silence… a loud noise likened to an explosion rang out from Soarin, an invisible force expelling from his body and causing a powerful blast of wind that sounded like thunderclap as it blew all the snow away from him.

Soarin felt a sudden rush from the center of his body, the same kind of rush that he felt when calling upon the magic many times before. But it was different, it was forcing itself through him, surging faster and harder than it ever had before and shooting right up to his head, his neck lurching forward as the magic pushed its way all the way up into his head… causing the most painful, skull crushing sensation Soarin had ever felt in his life.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Soarin broke his silence, crying out in agony and dropping to his haunches as the aura surrounding him grew three times its size. He immediately slammed his head to the ground, his eyes stuck open as wide as his face allowed as he screamed into the dirt below him.

Several more pulses of magic began shooting out from his body, knocking Nightshade down every time she tried to get near him. She tried and tried again and again, but every mindless attempt was fruitless, ending with her rolling backwards in the snow.

Soarin lifted his head up off the ground, arching his neck back and screaming up into the sky as beams of light shot out of both his eyes and mouth, swirling clouds of magical energy began appearing around him and swirling like a tornado, a constant force shooting from his body, creating winds that resembled a hurricane.

He threw his hooves up, slamming them down over the spot on his forehead where the horn used to sit. It felt like something was stabbing him right in the skull, but it felt like it was from… the inside? He lurched back and forth, keeping his hooves pressed to his forehead as something began protruding, poking up from spot.

The Wonderbolts were all forced to land as the hurricane winds began shooting out, about, and all around from Soarin. Even overhead, the Nimbus was visibly pushed by the gales as Lucky turned it to stay near them.

“Damn, what’s going on?!” Lightning Streak yelled as he was forced down, High Winds crashing beside him and rolling backwards.

“Soarin’s magic is going haywire!” Fire Streak added as he shielded himself, his hooves sliding backwards. Fire Streak flinched as somepony frantically tapped his arm. He looked up to see Misty Fly bracing herself beside him. She wore a panicked expression as she frantically pointed towards Soarin and then tapped the same hoof to her forehead multiple times, her eyes wide behind her goggles. “What…?” Fire looked back out and looked carefully, his eyes landing on Soarin behind the swirling magical forces. There was no sign of the horn. Fire immediately glanced around. “Captain?! CAPTAIN SPIT—”

“GUYS! HELP ME OUT HERE!” Spitfire was directly behind him, causing Fire to jump in surprise and nearly be blown over by the winds. Spitfire was glaring hard and gritting her teeth as she made harsh hoof motions towards Dash. “WE NEED TO GET RAINBOW DASH TO SOARIN! NOW!!!!!!!!!!” she yelled directly in his face.

Nopony argued. Fire didn’t even answer. They all immediately did as they were told, all the Wonderbolts gathering in towards Dash as Matteo, Squall, Storm, and Little Star struggled to help Dash up.

Squall and Storm were constantly pulling back. Dash’s body was burning, so hot that it was painful to hold onto her. But Spitfire pushed through them, reaching down and immediately grabbing Dash. She hoisted her up onto her back, her face immediately scrunching as the burning sensations seeped right through her suit and into her body, but she didn’t give a damn.

“GIVE ME SOME COUNTER WINDS! NOW! NOW! NOW!!!!!!” Spitfire yelled to the others, the surrounding Wonderbolts quickly nodding and taking to the air the best they could. Some of them were immediately blown backwards, but a few of the stronger fliers managed to hold themselves steady, pounding their wings forward in attempt to break up the winds pushing them back from Soarin. High Winds pushed her way in front of the rest, grimacing as she forced her battered body to hold firm. Using her powerful wing muscles, she shouted as she beat her wings forward, several audible bursts of air rushing forth to reinforce the Wonderbolts’ efforts.

“RAAAAAH!!!!!!” Spitfire growled loudly as she began taking hard, strong steps. She leaned forward to brace herself against the winds, still strong despite the counter efforts from the others. Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, Matteo, Storm, Squall, and Little Star all gathered in behind Spitfire, clumping together and pushing from behind.

With the joint team effort, they moved forward at the pace of a slow trot, all of them shouting and breathing in unison as they pushed their way through the whirlwinds.

“GO! GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! COME ON!!!!!!!!” Spitfire chanted to all of them, desperate to get Dash to Soarin. The horn was gone, but there was no point in sitting still and being shocked. Dash’s presence was the one thing that Spitfire knew for a fact was able to calm Soarin’s magic down. She wasn’t sure if at this point it would make a difference, but she was sure as hell going to try!

Hopefully Dash would last that long… because it looked like she was having a combination of a heart attack and a seizure as Spitfire bared the superheated burden on her back, steam now rising from all over Dash’s chest as the sizzling sound continued.

The will was strong, but the closer they got, the harder it became to move forward. The Wonderbolts in the air eventually were forced to land as they continued to generate counter winds, not even High Winds and her unbelievably strong wings could hold herself against it.

The group found themselves slowing down, no longer getting any closer as the pulses grew stronger, continuously forcing their hooves to skid back after each step.

“NO! NOOOO!” Spitfire yelled out as she refused to give up. “NO!”

“STAY STRONG, PONIES!”

Spitfire blinked as Luna suddenly pushed her way in front of them, her eyes alight and her horn glowing with a powerful collection of her divine magic.

“KEEP PUSHING!” she yelled back to them as she pointed her horn forward. She cringed and grimaced, her horn emitting sparks and wayward flashes of light as she struggled to keep her hold on it. With a mighty shout, her magic shone forth, creating a shield around them.

But within seconds, cracks appeared in the shield and it shattered, pushing Luna right back into them. Luna cried out in pain as the aura around her horn flickered and pulsated.

“GRRRR!!!!!” she growled as she pushed forward again, bearing her teeth as she pumped magic into her horn again. She pointed her horn towards Soarin again, but this time, instead of a shield Luna simply let her magic rush forth, giving it no form or function. She simply let it pulse outward, creating an opposite force much like the wings emitting from Soarin. “COME ON!!!” she yelled to Spitfire and the rest as High Winds and the other Wonderbolts joined Luna’s side and added their wing power to her magic.

It wasn’t a shield, but Luna’s magic was doing enough to get them closer. With Luna leading the way, they continued on, coming within ten yards of Soarin.

As they grew near, Matteo suddenly dug his back paws in, willingly placed his stomach over the top of Dash’s burning body, and clasped his talons around Spitfire’s shoulders.

“HRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Matteo roared as he pushed his paws into the earth and beat his wings down, forcing him, Spitfire, and Dash forward suddenly. Matteo continued to roar, half as a battle cry, half in pain as Spitfire caught on and forced her hooves to the ground as well, the two of them surging away from the rest and past Luna.

They closed the small gap that remained, coming within ten yards… five yards… closer and closer, but slowing down fast as the winds became the fiercest yet so close to the source.

Matteo kept on, driven by the screams of his captain.

Spitfire forged ahead, driven by the wails of her best friend.

All the rest looked on from behind, watching and praying with every ounce of their being that they would get Dash to him, and that Dash would be able to save him.

But it was no use.

They got within a yard of Soarin… and were struck by an enormous shockwave.

Matteo and Spitfire were propelled up into the air, thrown backwards into Luna and the rest of the Wonderbolts. Those trying to fight the winds were toppled instantly, and they all slid and rolled backwards roughly, barely stopping themselves and hanging on.

Spitfire looked from the ground in horror as she held onto the ground for dear life, Dash screaming behind her as she was pushed up against Matteo.

“NO!” Luna yelled from nearby. She tried to stand, but was forced right back down. Her horn simply flickered and sparked with no more aura to be seen.

“WE—AUGH!” Spitfire tried to stand as well, but she was quickly thrown backwards into Matteo, landing face to face with Dash as she screamed, eyes will stuck open wide.

It was hopeless…

They couldn’t do anything.

Spitfire slowly looked back towards Soarin, her lips quivering and her eyes watering as it seemed inevitable now…

But as she looked forward… she realized somepony… or more accurately… something… was standing before her, accompanied by an oddly shaped shadow casting over them and surrounded in a distorted purple glow as the newcomer braced themselves against the winds.

“D… DISCORD?!” Spitfire shouted, several others looking up as the god of chaos suddenly appeared in front of them, holding his arms in front of his face as he squinted towards Soarin.

“RGHHHH!!!!!” Discord grunted angrily, his eyes twitching and his snaggletooth rubbing against his lower lip as he glared towards Soarin.

Without a word to any of them, Discord gathered his frightening magic. The distorted purple glow grew larger and more irregular, strands of it lashing outward in a manner that was nowhere near similar to the way magic usually behaved at all.

Luna reached towards him, her mouth open as if to shout something, but she remained quiet. At this point, not even Luna cared what was done as long as it was stopped, even if it meant resorting to Discord’s dangerous magic.

Discord suddenly launched from the spot, stretching his body out straight as he fired himself directly towards Soarin. The start was fast, but he ran into something none of them had seen yet. When he got within ten yards of Soarin, a dome of blue light suddenly expanded forth from Soarin’s body.

Discord collided with it, the dome quickly bending and sinking inward like a net, or a sturdy bubble.

Discord growled, his strange aura growing larger as he pushed against the blue barrier, inching closer and closer to Soarin as it tried to repel him back.

Slowly but surely, Discord came within reaching distance of Soarin. He thrust his arm forward, trying his hardest to push it through the straining barrier. He came close several times, grabbing at Soarin’s head twice, but missing both times. Discord yelled out as he thrust the other arm forward… and managed to get it close enough to touch.

“I think not!”

A voice suddenly echoed in Discord’s head. He blinked and looked up above Soarin.

The swirling magic around Soarin had gathered, and the very faint outline of a pony’s head appeared.

The next thing Discord knew, he was hurtling backwards, his eyes wide in disbelief as he was repelled.

He crashed roughly into the snow, sliding to a stop right between Luna and Spitfire. He immediately propped himself up on his elbows and stared towards Soarin with his jaw nearly unhinged.

He quickly reached both arms out, his magic appearing around them. Several odd pulses emitted from his arms. They were barely visible, but seemed to bend reality, distorting the image of what they passed as they traveled towards Soarin. Discord kept it up, sending several of these dimensional bending waves towards Soarin.

But even his reality bending powers failed. Each wave reached Soarin and instantly broke apart.

“WHAT?!” Discord yelled out in disbelief as he let his arms fall to his sides. “That’s… not possible! Why is none of my magic working?!”

All eyes were on him as he stood up and leaned forward, never taking his eyes off of Soarin.

But instead of trying again… he fell to his knees and hunched forward, placing his hands on the ground as he kept staring towards the chain reaction.

“No…” he said quietly. “NO!” he yelled as he looked over his shoulder at Dash. She was still screaming, her voice becoming raspy from the continuous use and endless need for it. “I…” He looked back towards Soarin and pounded his fists into the ground. “I CAN’T BELIEVE I LET THIS HAPPEN!!!!!”

Nopony knew what he meant, and Spitfire was too shocked to make heads or tails of what Discord was saying…

But Luna forced herself over to Discord, stumbling and falling with every step until she was right up next to him.

“DISCORD!!!!!” she yelled, but he didn’t move or reply. “DISCORD! WHAT’S GOING ON?!” her voice boomed. “WHAT DID YOU LET HAPPEN?!” she demanded.

“YES!!!!! IT FINALLY HAPPENED!” the male voice boomed in Soarin’s head as the blue stallion’s image began to grow larger before him. “THE HORN IS NO MORE! I AM UNBOUND!”

“NO!” Soarin yelled as he lay flat on the ground, twitching as he tried to push himself up, but an intense visible pressure kept him down. “I… I WON’T LET YOU!” he shouted towards the ever expanding image of the stallion as the space around them slowly turned from white to a dark shade of blue itself. “AAAAAUGH!” Soarin screamed in pain as the stallion loomed over him, his silhouette disappearing as is joined with the blue shade of light taking over every inch of Soarin’s mind.

“STOP!” the yellow mare yelled as she held her hooves firmly behind Soarin, bracing herself as the forces rushing from the stallion intensified and threatened to push her back. Her image was flickering, her form streaking as if the blue light surging towards her was trying to wipe her out. “STOP IT! DON’T DO THIS!” she urged desperately, her tone already filled with defeat as if she knew it was inevitable.

“IT’S USELESS TO RESIST!” the stallion’s voice boomed, echoing as if it came from every direction. Blue streams of light reached up from below Soarin and began wrapping around his legs and body. “WITHOUT MY SHACKLES, YOU CANNOT CONTAIN ME ANY LONGER!” the stallion yelled triumphantly as the outlines of two enormous eyes appeared over Soarin from within the surrounding light.

“GAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” Soarin cried out in pain as he was restrained and forced to the ground. Blue flames erupted around him and surrounded his entire body as the streams began pulling him down, forcing him into the light.

“SOARIN!” the mare yelled as she twitched and winced, her hooves sliding backwards. “YOU HAVE TO FIGHT! YOU MUST—” the mare was cut off as something suddenly shot by her. A white streak of light sped right towards Soarin and passed right through him, breaking all of the streams that were pulling him down and snuffing out the blue flames around him.

Soarin gasped, immediately pushing himself up as he panted and wheezed. He blinked and looked up as a bright white glow before him caught his eyes.

It was the image of Rainbow Dash, the fragment of her spirit that had already protected him once from the blue stallion. She stood firm, glaring right back at the face that glared down at them both.

“YES!” the mare yelled in slight surprise.

“YOU AGAIN?!” the stallion roared with discontent as the eyes shifted from Soarin to the image of Dash, glaring down at her as she stood loyally between him and Soarin. The rush of magic was suddenly weaker, rushing against Dash and being held back as if her very presence weakened it.

No longer deterred, the yellow mare stepped up and stood beside Dash’s spirit, putting herself between Soarin and the stallion as well. She looked small, a complete reversal from before where the mare stood at least a head taller than the stallion.

The eyes moved forward, a large, blue outline of the stallion’s head appearing along with them and reaching towards them both. The eyes narrowed as a loud growled echoed all throughout.

“You will NOT succeed!” the mare yelled up at the stallion, the appearance of Dash’s spirit and her strong retaliation giving the mare hope. “Even with the horn gone, we will not let you! I may have failed, but you will not defeat them and their bond! It’s stronger than you! It’s stronger than me! As long as they hold you back, you will never have full control!” The mare turned to Soarin as he remained on his hooves, taking heavy breaths as his legs wobbled. “SOARIN! Stay strong!” she encouraged him. “Focus your will! Steel your spirit! Rainbow Dash is here to fight beside you! Join her and don’t let him break you!”

Soarin shook his head out, gritted his teeth and growled as he glared towards the enormous head and pair of eyes looming over him.

“HHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!” Soarin roared as he threw his wings outward, tensing up his body and refusing to be pushed back. Several white pulses began erupting from Soarin’s body, passing through Dash and the mare harmlessly, but smashing against the stallion’s face, pushing it away from him. The stallion grunted angrily as he was nudged away, the unending blue light surrounding them all was flickering, and blinking.

“YES, SOARIN!” the mare encouraged as Soarin stepped up between her and Dash. “Hold him back! Don’t give him what he wants! Draw strength from your connection! Add her willpower to yours!” she looked back towards the stallion. “I know you won’t let him win!”

The mare’s confidence and encouragement rang clear as Soarin edged himself closer to the image of Dash. Yet, he could not feel anything from her. He wasn’t sure what the mare meant by drawing strength from Dash, but all in all, it only seemed to be confidence in him and his willingness to fight. He didn’t need to draw any strength or anything like that. Seeing Dash’s spirit beside him was all he needed. Knowing that she was fighting it with him was more than enough to motivate.

But then a large grin appeared below the stallion’s eyes. The pulses continued to smash against him, but he halted, no longer allowing them to nudge him away. The surrounding blue light stopped flickering and became solid, growing a deeper shade of blue that darkened their surroundings, casting a shadow over them.

“Celes… if only you could see yourself right now,” the stallion suddenly spoke in a rather condescending tone.

“What…?” the mare blinked, her ears perking up as the stallion’s head began moving closer to them again, the pulses form Soarin simply bouncing aside.

“This is such a familiar situation to you, isn’t it? You could end this right now, you have the capability… yet you’re putting it on the shoulders of those who have no chance. You’re simply standing beside them and ‘guiding’ them instead of taking matters into your own hooves.”

The mare took a hard step backwards, her image shuddering. Soarin stole a quick glance at her, but otherwise remained focused.

“STAY BACK!” Soarin yelled a stronger pulse ejecting from his body. It slammed into the stallion, but didn’t push him back at all. “I MEAN IT!” he yelled, but the stallion did not shift his focus, he kept looking towards the mare.

“So, spare me the pathetic hope and all the rah-rah cheering from the sidelines, my dear…” the stallion said down to the mare as she remained frozen in place.

Suddenly the image of Dash roared out beside Soarin, her effort matching his as an even stronger burst flared forth, striking the stallion and forcing him an inch back, but again… he didn’t even look at them.

“You really think that these two alone can stop all that I have become? You think they stand any chance at all without that infernal artifact holding me down? Perhaps if I was still the stallion you betrayed they could…” he slowly glanced at Soarin and Rainbow Dash as they continued to hold firm. “But that stallion is long gone.”

The light around them turned even darker, no longer resembling light… but more likened to shadows as it began to swirl around them violently.

“You really thought I’d be the same? You really thought I’d simply sit on my hooves and wait all this time? As if I’d ever be so lazy… as if I wouldn’t learn from the power that once drove me mad! You even used to praise me for my ability to learn and absorb! It’s like you don’t even know who you’re speaking to!”

The empty space around them was now pitch black, but the three of them were illuminated as if standing in an endless void. The stallion’s face and eyes remained a dark shade of blue that stood out like an ominous glow in the darkness, looming over them like a nightmare.

“You think this ONE little mare…” The eyes suddenly turned towards Dash and blue streams of light began swirling before them. The lights slowly darkened, turning nearly as dark as the area around them like dark clumps of shadows. “WILL DO ANYTHING TO STOP ME?!”

The shadows shot towards them, both of them slamming right into the spirit of Dash. She was whisked right up into the air, kicking and screaming as the shadows clamped down onto her and began spreading all over her body.

“SHE IS SIMPLY IN THE WAY!” the stallion laughed as the image of Dash lurched and writhed, the light around her flickering and her very image distorting.

Soarin’s focus broke.

He completely let his guard down and turned all of his attention to Dash, watching as the image of her was thrown up into the air and mutilated by the shadows. The sight was too much to bear… and it brought back an eerily familiar memory of a nightmare he had the night he spent with her at the royal ball.

Two shadow figures…

Hurting her as he was stuck on the ground.

“DASH!!!!!!!!!!” Soarin yelled desperately as he turned.

“SOARIN! NO!!!!” the mare yelled as he took his eyes off the stallion.

“YOUR BODY…” the image of the stallion’s head began to capsize, turning into a single, thick stream of blue light. “IS MINE!!!!!!!!!”

The stream of light rushed forward…

And surged into Soarin.

Soarin was blown backwards, his body remaining stiff and upright, with his hooves sliding until he came to a halt a few yards back.

Everything immediately felt wrong, his body no longer responding to his attempts to move it. But worst of all, it felt like something had just physically made its way into the center of his body and was tearing him from inside out.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Soarin cried out, his neck arching back and his eyes stuck open wide as blue light began shooting out from all over his body. He was immediately surrounded by a blue aura that flared up and grew larger quickly.

“NO! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” the mare cried out as she shielded her face, the magic rushing from Soarin surging against her. “I WON’T ALLOW IT! I WON’T!!!!” she yelled as she forced her hooves forward, taking slow steps through the rushing waves of magic. Her image again flickered and flaked, but the yellow aura surrounding her fought back against the blue.

She slowly grew closer to Soarin, but as she did, the aura around Soarin began to take shape, slowly taking the form of the blue stallion, growing larger and larger around him. The stallion’s head tilted down as his image grew, looking down upon the mare as she reached forward and grabbed Soarin’s shoulder. She screamed in pain as the blue light lashed against her, poking holes in her very image as she held firm.

The mare gritted her teeth, opened her wings and roared out, her aura expanding and pushing outwards against the stallion’s image, but she could not push him away.

However, it seemed like he could not remove her either. She remained locked in place, holding Soarin’s shoulder as she glared up into the eyes of the stallion’s massive silhouette.

“As long as I have enough power to fight back, you cannot have him!” she yelled up. “Even if the two of us have to sit here and struggle for the rest of eternity! I will not let you run free!”

“You have nopony to blame for this but yourself, Celes!” the stallion’s voice boomed down over her. “You could have killed me at any time, snuffed me out forever, but you chose to hang onto me for such petty, selfish desires. And now… you will face the consequences!”

“I REFUSE!” the mare yelled back, reaching up her other hoof to grab both of Soarin’s shoulders. “Let’s see who is bluffing now! I’m the only thing standing between you and Soarin and I WILL NOT let go! If you want him, YOU’LL HAVE TO KILL ME!”

The stallion said nothing at first.

The mare thought she might have actually gained leverage.

But his barely visible lips curled into a smirk.

“Oh Celes… As if I would ever do such a thing to a beautiful mare like you,” he said in an oddly soft tone.

The mare gasped, her eyes widening as if his words sparked a memory.

Then her aura began to shrink around her.

She perked up and yelped, trying to pull back from Soarin, but her hooves were stuck, blue streams of light wrapped around them and holding them there.

“You’re underestimating me again,” the stallion spoke calmly as the mare’s aura shrunk all the way down, just leaving her image and silhouette as she struggled against his hold. “You think I don’t remember? You only have a fraction of your power here. The rest of it is locked away because you feared it would kill us all.” He leaned his head down, nearly lining it up perfectly with Soarin’s as he stared into the yellow mare’s eyes. “And look how you’re acting now. You talked tough, and claimed you would never let go, yet here you are trying to rip yourself away from the very stallion you JUST swore to fight for…”

The mare looked down at Soarin, he had stopped screaming, his body had become completely still and frozen as the stallion’s image engulfed him.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” the stallion spoke down to her. “You know what you must do to prevent this! You said you would do anything to stop me, right?” he prodded her as she shuddered and stared blankly up into his face.

“I… I… Ah…” the mare stuttered, completely failing to respond. She was suddenly completely surrounded by the blue light, ripped free from Soarin, and slammed to the ground in front of him. “AH!” she cried out as the blue light weighed her down.

“Last chance to prove me wrong, Celes! Have you learned you lesson?! Are you willing to do whatever it takes?! UNLEASH YOUR FULL POWER! DESTROY US BOTH! KILL SOARIN AND RAINBOW DASH!” he roared down at her. “IT’S EITHER THAT… OR YOU SET ME FREE INTO EQUESTRIA AND I DO AS I PLEASE!”

The mare slowly forced her eyes opened and stared towards the stallion, looking all over his massive image that continued to grow bigger around Soarin before looking him right in the eyes, with a desperate, pleading expression of defeat.

“Feh…” the stallion scoffed. “Once more… you are unable to act. You are unwilling to make sacrifices. You are more worried about yourself than those who look up to you filled with hope and awe. What a PATHETIC ‘god’ you are!”

A sudden surge of blue light slammed down over the top of the mare, she screamed and wailed as her head was forced to the ground by the pressure.

The stallion stood up tall and thrust his head high into the air.

“I…” he looked down… And all at once, the darkness surrounding them, the blue lights swirling all around, and the image of his body rushed inward… everything surging into Soarin. “AM FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“DISCORD!” Luna yelled right into his ear as she braced herself against the harsh forces of magic pelting her from the side. But Discord remained on the ground, simply staring in a uncharictaristic state of broken disbelief

Luna looked back over at the Wonderbolts, all of them staring towards Soarin with no idea what was going on and no idea what to do. Squad Foxtrot was holding their ground near Dash, fretting over their captain as she continued to glow and her chest continued to sizzle. She was still screaming, her voice becoming weak from constant use, but clearly in more pain than one could even fathom.

Luna blinked as she noticed Dash’s hooves suddenly rush to her forehead, pressing down over the center of it as she lurched back and forth. Luna quickly refocused on Discord and boldly grabbed him by the neck, yanking him close to her face as she growled at him.

“SPEAK! DISCORD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” she demanded.

“I… haven’t done anything…” Discord replied quietly as he slowly pointed towards Soarin, his figure barely visible behind the swirling lights, and incredible magical forces surging all around him. “All I had to do was… keep this from happening and…”

Luna looked towards Soarin quickly, but froze, her eyes widening as she watched.

It was a hard to see it clearly, but Soarin’s body was… changing.

What was left of his suit slowly burned away, dissolving into little flakes that vanished into the air above him.

Every wound on his body instantly healed. Every bruise vanished and every cut or gash closed up.

His mane grew longer. Lowering down past his shoulders and becoming fuller, wilder.

Then his body began to grow, his height slowly increasing until he was nearly twice his normal size. His muscles expanded immensely as well, filling up his new frame to scale with his old and then bulking up some more, giving his body a frighteningly powerful physical appearance.

He had remained silent throughout the transformation, but then suddenly cried out in pain. The lights swirling around him brightening and caused everypony around to shield their eyes. Luna squinted, doing her best to keep a visual on Soarin as his body became nothing but a shadow silhouette within the shining blue aura.

Soarin screamed and wailed, pure agony rising from his throat as the tone slowly became deeper, his voice changing…

And then… an unholy noise that sounded like a sharp object splitting flesh rang out.

Luna gasped as Soarin lowered his head… and revealed a curved horn in the center of his forehead.

“When… Celestia restored Soarin’s body…” Discord suddenly spoke up, ripping Luna’s attention back to him. “She… didn’t use magic devised by Sombra.”

“WHAT?!” Luna’s jaw dropped as her head snapped back to Soarin, the light slowly losing its brightness and slowly revealing…

Soarin?

No… it was Soarin’s colors… but it did not look like Soarin. Luna felt all the air leave her lungs as she recognized… somepony else she knew from a long, long time ago.

Soarin’s body and features had completely changed. He was a little larger than her with enormous wings and a body filled with large, powerful muscles. His long mane rested upon his neck, curling around it with curved split ends that frolicked and danced as it was caught up in his aura.

But what sealed the look and confirmed what she was looking at…

Was a bright red, curved horn that resembled a crystal jutting out of his skull. Blood trickled from the base of the horn and down his face like a freshly opened wound. The blood slid down past his eyes, hidden behind blue lights that hid his pupils and flared up like flames. His lips parted, revealing sharp ferocious looking fangs. A burst of mist expelled from his mouth as he released a deep exhale that had the undertone of a snarl.

“She put…” Discord continued slowly. “Sombra IN him!!!!!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Uh oh...

(Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf and Colorstrike)

Chapter 145: Unbound

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 145: Unbound

From the very beginning… it was the one problem that had been constantly present, the one issue that had never gone away, and the one piece that had connected everything that had happened.

It all started with an unlikely encounter when the Lead Squad confronted Nightshade, Descent, and Starry Skies. The battle left Soarin at death’s door, only to have his body healed and restored through intervention by Princess Celestia herself.

It was a blessing and a curse, increasing Soarin’s physical potential and endurance at the cost of sleep and control over his body’s natural functions. Something he learned he could put back in place by simply being with the mare he loved.

But it only grew worse… and eventually he found himself stuck with a false horn on his head, complete with never-ending headaches, outbursts, and voices in his head. Turning his life into a living hell of maintenance, lectures, barriers, and lessons meant to be taught to unicorns.

Soarin never once took his second chance at life for granted, but as time went on and the ‘truth’ unraveled. He began to wonder exactly what had been put inside of him and what it was all for.

And now… one of those questions was answered… but at a terrible cost.

Sombra.

The name slipped from Discord’s lips and sent a second wave of shock through any that were close enough to hear.

Every pair of eyes trained on the sight of Soarin before them were strained as wide as possible, jaws were locked open and limbs were stiff.

Spitfire found all the air escaping her lungs as she looked upon the monstrous image, not sure if she was still looking at her best friend or not. Aside from the familiar light blue fur and dark blue mane color, it did not look like Soarin. She was having trouble processing it, just like everypony standing behind and around her as they held themselves against the rushing winds and waves of magic, the Wonderbolts looking on as their first commander and beloved wingmate… had transformed into a beast of enormous proportions.

The only Wonderbolt not staring in utter shock and disbelief… was Rainbow Dash.

She was lying on the ground at the hooves and talons of her squadmates. Her body was completely stunned, showing no movement as her eyes remained open wide and stared into the dusk sky above. She was alive, but felt broken and numb as if her very soul was ripped from her body and torn to pieces. A soft blue glow was still encircling her body, pulsating with a subtle, steady pattern as very faint plumes of steam continued to rise from the center of her chest.

Her ears were ringing, not a single sound of her surroundings reaching them. She could only hear the slow, uneven beating of her heart… and something else. It was hard to make out with the constant ringing of her ears, but as she listened, she slowly realized that it was a faint scream of agony.

But it wasn’t her voice… it sounded like… like…

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!” a roar echoed from nearby, but it wasn’t Soarin. The Wonderbolts briefly broke their focus, glancing over to see Nightshade rip herself off the ground and glare at Soarin, holding herself strong despite being closer to the intense pulses of magic that everypony else.

But the Wonderbolts barely took notice, all looking back at Soarin and only able to see Soarin as he stood in the snow with the enormous auras swirling all around him. The only other thing in their view was the Nimbus turning behind him, coming around to stay in the area as Lucky fought to keep it in the air against the hurricane winds.

It was almost like Nightshade didn’t exist. She was still in her overcharged, out of control state, but she seemed insignificant now compared to what they were all looking at.

Soarin was slowly tipped his head up, his mouth closing, hiding the sharp fangs as his eyes turned towards the Wonderbolts.

There was an odd air about him. His body was still, his breaths were heavy, the aura around his body was fierce, the lights in his eyes were rising like strong flames, and his powerful muscles flexed and tensed, but otherwise he looked… calm.

He licked his lips lapping up some of the trails of blood that trickled down over his nose from the base of the horn, snorting and shaking his head out, releasing a loud, low nicker as his long wild mane swished back and forth. He looked up into the sky as the Nimbus came around into his view, but only did so briefly before returning his eyes towards the crowd of Wonderbolt staring at him.

His eyes landed on Luna first, but his expression did not change. He only tipped his head subtly.

But then he looked at Discord… and the reaction was completely different. His lips instantly began parting to reveal his gritted teeth, his fangs grinding together and his nose wrinkling as a snarl and growl escaped his throat. The aura around him suddenly grew larger and fiercer, erupting upwards and outwards like a canister of oil had just been tossed onto a bonfire. His eye never leaving Discord as the very sight of him seemed to make Soarin… or Sombra… enraged.

But then Nightshade roared out, launching towards him while he was looking away. She pierced right through the winds, closing in and pulling back a hoof to strike. The closer she got to him, the smaller she seemed. Nightshade was not a small mare, but she wasn’t even half Soarin’s new, unbelievable size. Yet his new imposing presence did not deter her mindless attack. She thrust her hoof forward and planted a heavy punch right into Soarin’s cheek.

The blow was fierce, a bright flash of pink and blue erupting from the impact. Soarin’s neck lurched and his hooves skidded slightly. He took a few steps to the right, but it was not a stumble. He remained completely in control. His head turned to the left as well and angled down slightly as the force of the punch rushed through him.

But he did not fall, falter, or even grunt in pain.

There was a bruise left on his cheek, but it disappeared seconds later.

Nightshade bounced back and landed firmly on her hooves, immediately setting them for another leap.

But as she shot through the air towards him again, Soarin slowly looked up and towards her, his face returning to its calm controlled alignment as he focused his eyes on Nightshade. He turned, standing upright with his chest puffed out as the curved, red horn suddenly surged to life, a bright blue light shining around it as she grew close.

“GRRRHHHHHAAAAAA!!!!” Nightshade roared as she pulled back both of her hooves and thrust them forward.

“HM!” Soarin exhaled sharply through his nose as he reached his left arm up and crossed it over his face. The light burst from his horn and shot around his arm, instantly expanding into the shape of a kite shield. Nightshade’s hooves slammed into it, her momentum forcing Soarin a few inches backwards, but he instantly set his hooves and held firm. Nightshade roared and pumped her wings, pushing as hard as she could against it, but Soarin did not budge another inch.

He looked over the shield from behind it, seemingly ignoring Nightshade as he instead examined the magic itself. The shield was holding, but seemed unstable, shaking and flickering despite how solid it proved to be.

Soarin cracked his neck back and forth, shaking out his other three limbs as he continued to effortlessly hold back Nightshade. It looked like he was testing the waters… feeling out how the body worked and felt. He looked only slightly satisfied as he returned his eyes to Nightshade.

“HRAH!” Soarin suddenly swiped his left arm out, turning Nightshade’s force back on her and propelling her back. She hit the ground and rolled, flailing and snarling as she got right back up on her hooves…

Only to find her nose planted right into bottom of Soarin’s chest.

She yelped in surprised and back up, looking up as Soarin stared down at her and continued to calmly advance.

Soarin’s magic was dancing wildly on his horn, several swirling lights collecting around him and separating into six groups that bunched together and began taking shape. One of them turned into a long, thin javelin. Another became a hefty, double bladed battle axe. The third became a short bow with several arrows circling around it. The fourth became a heavy, three pronged trident. The fifth took the shape of the kite shield he had just used. And the sixth… hovered right down in front of him, slowly forming into a sword with a long blade and a hilt of very unique and specific shape, the cross guard angled up and extending a few inches from the base of the blade with a clover design on the ends that rested five to six inches out from the hilt. The sword was about as tall as he was, and it hovered in front of his eyes as the other five weapons orbited around him.

Nightshade didn’t seem to take notice to any of it, she simply stood back up and began scraping her hooves on the ground, ready for another attack.

Soarin snorted as he looked at the blade before him. The sword and the rest of the weapons looked to be as equally unstable as the shield had been, sturdy enough to be solid and effective, but too shaky to keep their edge.

But that didn’t seem to bother him, the sword lowering to his side as Nightshade charged headlong at him once more. He did not take a single step forward, letting Nightshade come to him as the sword slowly flipped behind him.

He shifted right the moment Nightshade thrust her hooves at him, letting her pass right by him as he wound up the sword and swung it down. The blade smashed against the back of Nightshade’s neck, the image of the sword pulsing and bending slightly as Nightshade was sent directly to the ground face first before rolling forward and skidding to a halt a few yards away.

Despite the strength of the hit and the immediate wipeout, Nightshade pushed herself right back up, snarling as she turned and leapt at him again. Soarin calmly turned, bringing the shield around to absorb a swinging buck and several punches before his javelin swiftly swung down and swept Nightshade’s hooves right from beneath her. She fell sideways, her body completely vulnerable as Soarin swung the battle axe downward. The axe crashed into Nightshade’s side, again having more of a bludgeoning effect due to the lack of sharpness. Nightshade hit the ground so hard that she bounced right back up, exposing her underside to Soarin. He thrust the large trident forward, the three prongs failed to keep their shape as they struck Nightshade, but the force spoke for itself. Nightshade’s body whiplashed as she was propelled backwards.

Soarin quickly followed up by swinging the bow forward, notching and firing three of the magic arrows in quick succession. All three were on target, exploding as they hit Nightshade before she could touch the ground. She was sent rolling so far back that she skidding into the snow, clear of the area that had been initially cleared by the magical forces swirling everywhere.

“GRAH!!! GRH… UGGHHH!!!!!” Nightshade grunted as she rolled back and forth on the ground. But the tone had changed. She still had the monstrous tone, but there was a clear sign of pain in her voice. She tried to stand up, but her body twitched and shuddered. Her crystals shaking as pink smoke rose from both them and from all around her body.

She suddenly coughed violently, lurching back and forth as her head tipped down. Her growls began to resemble groans as a trickle of blood suddenly ran from her lip and dripped to the snow below. Her aura grew weaker, the bright light growing dimmer and revealing several large, nasty bruises that ran over her fur and scars. Nopony among the Wonderbolts were able to so much as leave a mark on her, but Soarin had just beaten her black and blue in a few attacks.

That wasn’t Soarin’s power. It was something much fiercer.

The Wonderbolts looked on, trying and failing to fully absorb what they were watching. They were all paralyzed, some still in shock about what happened to Soarin, others in disbelief at how easily Soarin had just beaten Nightshade down to the point where she was clearly injured, despite her being in a frighteningly powerful state.

Even Luna, for all her power as a goddess, was in a state of incredulity at the showcase of strength Soarin was displaying. She had forgotten all about Discord or questioning him, as the god of chaos simply remained on the ground, not even trying to get up or do anything about it.

Soarin kept his eyes on Nightshade, his weapons orbiting him with the exception of the sword, which he planted into the ground beside him. He simply waited at first to see if Nightshade would get up and attack again, but as the seconds ticked by, it looked like that wasn’t going to happen.

Nightshade fell to her haunches, groaning and coughing. Her roars began to resemble wails as her neck strained left and right, her body twitching rapidly. The sharp pains shooting all over her from the ever darkening and spreading bruises overpowering her beastlike mental state. Her aura was slowly growling smaller, three of her crystals pressing to her body and shining light over the bruises, but the other three remained right above her, shaking as they tried to move with the others, but couldn’t.

When it became clear Nightshade wasn’t getting up, Soarin casually uprooted his sword and placed it at his side, the rest of the magic weapons continuing their orbit as he started walking towards her slowly.

But he stopped after taking five steps, his ears perking up. Soarin looked over his shoulder.

The Wonderbolts all flinched… but Soarin wasn’t looking at them, he was looking above them.

The only Wonderbolt that dared to look away was Matteo, and his eagle eyes spotted…

“Shadowbolts!” Matteo yelled as he looked back down. “It’s the…” but he trailed off when he realized that the only ponies to look up were the rest of his squad and Storm. The elite Wonderbolts did not seem to care. All of them were still focused entirely on Soarin as if the Shadowbolts were an afterthought.

Soarin did not show much of a reaction as his eyes followed the Shadowbolts. Blade, Angel, and Void flew in front, with Shadow and a visibly struggling Sin flying close behind them. They were all beaten up, none of them had their goggles, their suits ripped and torn, several wounds including bruises and cuts exposed with blood stained spots on their fur. Sin’s wing flaps were uneven, his chest heaving as he fought for breaths while also dealing with a very precise mark on his neck that was left from P.L.’s attack.

There were no other Shadowbolts with them and no sign of Falcons behind them. The combined efforts of the Renegades and the Lunar Guard definitely had the desired effect. The five of them had gotten free, but clearly not without taking a beating first.

They all shot towards Soarin, their eyes locked on him as they finally came close enough to make out his new features, but before any of them could register the changes, they found themselves caught in the swirling crosswinds. Blade and Angel were immediately blown off course and sent spiraling to the ground below. Void managed to steady himself, but the moment he stopped, Sin and Shadow crashed right into his back, the three of them falling right down beside the other two.

They had landed twenty yards away, falling to a point about halfway between the Wonderbolts and Soarin. Void, Blade, and Angel all scrambled to their hooves, planting them firmly and shielding themselves as the magical forces pummeled them. Their crystals sprang to life, encircling them with a bright pink glow as they tried to fight against the magic with their own, but it proved to have little effect.

“What the hell is going on?!” Void yelled out as he struggled to hold steady, he, Blade, and Angel all looking towards Soarin. “Did he get bigger or something?! He looks bigger!”

“His horn!” Blade pointed as they fought to keep their eyes open against the winds. “LOOK!” all three of them stared towards Soarin the best they could, Angel and Void’s jaws hanging agape as Blade pointed out the red horn. From the looks on their faces, it seemed that they knew what would happen if the horn broke. Shadow and Sin behind them, on the other hoof, looked incredibly confused.

“Wait a minute!” Void yelled. “Weren’t we supposed to get him WITHOUT this happening?!” He asked, looking back and forth between Angel and Blade.

“Such a majestic demeanor… Such royal form… Such a powerful presence…” Angel spoke softly before Blade could answer. “What an unbelievable display!” Angel seemed to talk to himself as his eyes grew wide with wonder and he shivered subtly.

Void gave Angel and odd, slightly disturbed look, but Blade didn’t pay attention to him at all. He was staring directly at Soarin, his eyes twitching and his teeth grinding together. He looked worried, slightly scared, reactions that seemed to tie in with Void’s question about preventing what he was seeing. But before he could contemplate their situation further, his eyes landed on Nightshade.

“What the…?!” he blinked. “CAPTAIN!” he yelled as he turned and tried to take off, but was almost blown right over. He quickly folded his wings and galloped over to Nightshade as she shuddered and groaned on the ground, growls fitting their way in between her pained grunts. Blade hesitated slightly as he got a good look at Nightshade, specifically her heavily boosted body, her lack of a suit, and the fact that she had six crystals with her. “Captain, where the hell have you been?! He yelled as he approached, the rest simply looking on from where they landed. She did not respond. Blade flinched as she picked her head up and glared towards Soarin. He noticed her glowing, possessed eyes and the way she snarled like a wild animal. “What the hell is WRONG with you?! Did you destroy Soarin’s horn?!” he started yelling at her, trying to pry answers from her. “We were supposed to—”

“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly roared out, forcing her body up and throwing her wings out. Her right wing smacked Blade right in the face and sent him tumbling over onto his back. He grunted as he hit the ground and quickly propped himself up while blinking continuously.

“Captain!!!!” he yelled angrily as he bared his teeth, but shielded himself as several pulses of magic shot out from around her. Three of her crystals were still pressed to her, easing the pain from the heavy bruising as her aura flared up around her again. She charged towards Soarin, yelling and roaring wildly, but her additional three crystals did not follow her, they remained still over where she started, shaking and screeching as they flickered.

Soarin glanced away from the rest of the commanders and towards Nightshade again, scoffing as he slowly turned to face her once more. He rested the sword over his shoulder, the other five weapons locked in place, remaining steady in the air around him.

And this time… he didn’t wait for her to attack first.

Both the Shadowbolts and the Wonderbolts looked on with a mixture of shock, awe, and horror as Soarin unloaded on Nightshade.

It started with a mighty swing of his sword that struck Nightshade right across the face, bringing her momentum to an abrupt halt and spinning her all the way around. With her upright and dazed, the weapons went to work, dancing around Soarin as they swung and thrusted forward, every hit forcing Nightshade to lurch and grunt. Soarin stepped into every strike, moving with her as he pounded non-stop. Every impact was accompanied with an ear-wrenching CRACK that resembled a lightning strike as Soarin’s magically formed weapons struggled to hold their form, flashing, bending, and flickering with every hit.

Blade’s jaw dropped and he frantically backed up as Soarin pushed Nightshade all the way back towards him, Nightshade’s grunts and gasps slowly changing their tone until they resembled shrieks of pain.

After nearly a full minute of beating Nightshade senseless, Soarin stopped, holding his sword over his shoulder in a ready position for a swing. Nightshade was still on her hooves, but barely holding herself up. Her body and face were covered in bruises, some of which were so severe that the skin had broken and blood oozed out over her scars and fur. Her head was bleeding, one large stream slowly trickling down between her eyes and over her nose, which was also bleeding.

She took heavy, painful breaths. Her face contorted heavily in pain, forcing her expression between the ferocious glare and one of pure agony. Her aura receded again, this time quickly, lowering all the way down to her body until it was simply a soft, weak glow that surrounded the outline of her body. She looked like she was about to collapse.

“Hmph,” Soarin grunted as he looked her up and down and subtly shook his head… before swinging the sword right off his shoulder and delivering a bone crushing hit to Nightshade’s jaw.

Everypony watching gasped as Nightshade’s face absorbed the hit, the flickering sword crashing into her and causing sparks of blue magic to splash in every direction as its blade shattered to pieces. Nightshade whipped around and fell flat to the ground. Her body twitched and shuddered, but she made no effort to get up.

Soarin brought the hilt of the sword up to his face scowling at the broken magic blade. His horn shined a little bright for a moment until the sword reconstituted, paying no more attention to Nightshade as she groaned and gasped on the ground before him.

If there was any hope for the Wonderbolts that they were still looking at Soarin, they had just been dashed.

No matter who he was fighting against, Soarin would never have delivered such a cruel finishing blow to an opponent that was already on the verge of falling.

Nightshade’s three active crystals quickly shifted down and pressed to her again, but the other three above her that hadn’t moved began to spark and pop, shaking harder and screeching louder than they already had been. They began to chip, small flakes breaking off as cracks appeared in their surface as well and slowly spread.

Soarin glanced at the crystals over Nightshade and lifted an eyebrow, his eyes focused with his pupils still hidden behind the bright blue light that rose up from them like flames. He looked between them and the struggling Nightshade a few times before snorting and shaking his head.

“D…DAMN IT!” Blade suddenly yelled as he sprung to his hooves and galloped back over to the other commanders who met him halfway. Soarin calmly looked towards them, watching as the five of them nearly stumbled over one another while regrouping. Blade kept his eyes trained on Soarin, but the other four were quickly glancing back and forth between him and Nightshade, still trying to register just how easily he beat her down.

Blade stole a quick glance over his shoulder at them and growled.

“Forget about her!” he yelled. “We have more important things to worry about!” His remarks drew a split reaction. Void and Angel both quickly refocused, training their eyes on Soarin. Sin and Shadow both blinked in slight surprise. “We still have a job to do regardless of Soarin’s state! Take him down!” he ordered while bringing his crystals to his hoof and extending his sword from it.

“What?!” Shadow shook her head as she stepped forward. “Are you crazy?! Did you see what he did to Nightshade?! We can’t—”

Void and Angel shifted aside slightly as Blade whipped around and held his sword to Shadow’s neck, his eyes narrowed into an intense glare while baring his teeth and growling.

“ONE MORE TIME, SHADOW!” he yelled in her face as she froze and her eyes went wide. “QUESTION ME ONE MORE TIME AND YOU’RE LOSING YOUR HEAD!”

“Dude!” Sin stepped forward but stopped as he coughed and pressed a hoof to his neck. Shadow didn’t say a word as she felt the edge of Blade’s magic sword touch lightly to her neck.

“Let her cower,” Angel spoke up softly with a scoff as he placed a hoof on Blade’s shoulder. “She’s useless, we don’t need her help.”

“Feh!” Blade grunted as he pulled the sword away and turned around, stepping up with Angel and Void as Shadow backed away slightly. Sin furrowed his brow at the three of them, but remained quiet as saying anything hurt with his injured throat.

“I don’t know what’s going on with our supposed ‘leader’,” Blade began as he, Angel, and Void all readied their magic, eyeing Soarin as he continued to simply watch them as if waiting for them to make a move. “But she is not in control of herself… No matter how strong a mindless beast may be, it can be slain with skill. We may not have her strength, but we have our skills and there are three of us! GO!”

Blade and Angel launched skyward as Void galloped forth, stopping hallway towards Soarin and roaring as his crystals came to life, orbiting around him fiercely as he conjured his spiral winds. With a bright pink flash, his magic went full tilt, the winds swirling around him clashing against those being generated by Soarin.

But Soarin only lifted his brow, watching as Void’s efforts did absolutely nothing. The magical forces expelling from him swatted down the winds generated by Void as if it were a hurricane versus a light breeze. Regardless Void kept trying, roaring out as if he refused to see how useless his efforts were.

Soarin looked up to see Blade and Angel diving down from above. Angel was ahead, his arms glowing with pink light as he swiped them outward several times, sending thin, deadly blades of light shooting towards Soarin.

Soarin looked at them carefully as they approached, his magic glowing brighter around his horn, causing his sword to lift up in front of him and glow more intensely than the rest of his weapons.

“HM!” Soarin quietly grunted as the sword swung back and forth in front of him, releasing sword beams that looked nearly identical to Angel’s. He fired five, all of them perfectly aimed to intercept the five flying towards him, each of them perfectly perpendicular to their counterpart. They collided head on with one another, splitting the beams in half and dissipating the magic as they flew apart.

“Did he just… copy my technique?!” Angel asked with a mixture of awe and disbelief as he stopped midflight and stared wide eyed.

“You can be impressed later!” Blade yelled as he continued on, forcing his way through the hurricane winds as he pressed his hooves together, doubling the size and width of the sword as he plummeted down. “HHHRRRRAAAAAAAAH!” He yelled as he swung the sword down towards Soarin’s head.

Soarin simply held his own sword flat over his head.

Blade’s sword struck Soarin’s… and the large pink blade shattered, Soarin’s unstable sword only bending slightly as Blade’s jaw dropped. His momentum made him crash right to the ground in front of Soarin. He coughed and pushed himself up frantically, only to stare wide eyed at Soarin’s massive hooves. He slowly tilted his head up to see Soarin looking down upon him, his enormous body casting a shadow that covered him entirely.

“HEY!” Void yelled as he continued to try and counter the winds with no luck at all. “HOW DARE YOU NOT FACE ME!” he belted angrily. “I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO INSULT ME! I WILL DEFEAT YOU AND—”

Without even looking at Void, Soarin’s horn glowed brighter. His bow turned, notched an arrow, and fired.

The impact was nearly instant, the arrow traveling the distance between Soarin and Void in the blink of an eye as it struck Void right between the eyes and exploded violently, sending Void right off his hooves and flying backwards, tumbling several yards before he stopped right in front of Sin and Shadow. He groaned and twitched, kicking his legs in the air as he rocked back and forth on his back.

“Hmph,” Soarin snorted as he stole a brief glance at Void.

The instant he looked away, Blade forced himself up, formed a new sword and swung it right at Soarin’s neck. But Soarin’s sword suddenly thrust down, its tip jamming into the ground as Blade’s sword clashed against it and halted in place. Blade froze and slowly glanced up to see Soarin looking down at him again.

Before Blade could make another move, Soarin’s kite shield swung around from behind him, the flat surface smashing right into Blade’s face. The angle was low, the shield tilting up at impact and sending Blade up into the air before arcing back down and bouncing painfully on the ground.

Right after the follow through, Soarin’s head quickly tilted up, bringing the shield up over his head as three more of Angel’s sword beams rained down. Each one of them struck the shield and split apart.

Angel hovered in place above, once again showing more awe than fear as Soarin effortlessly handled his deadly attacks.

“So strong…” Angel whispered to himself as he watched Soarin looked back and forth at his wings. “It’s… unbelievable…”

Soarin moved his wings in and out, watching them with interest as they folded and unfolded.

“It’s…” Angel began to shiver.

Soarin looked up at Angel and extended his wings.

“It’s…”

Soarin crouched down and leapt into the air, flapping his enormous wings down and propelling him towards Angel. With only three heavy wing beats that caused audible bursts of wind, Soarin reached Angel in the air, the weapons all following him with the battle axe lifted over his head.

“Magnificent…” Angel said as his crystals generated a shield. But the effort was lax… as if he knew it wouldn’t do much of anything.

Soarin swung the battle axe down, the edge smashing into the shield and instantly breaking it. The axe slammed over his head, the edge bursting into flickering lights as it hit, but the force sent Angel spiraling down to the ground. He crashed right into Blade, the two of them crying out in pain as Angel bounced off of him and landed in the snow, still conscious, but barely able to move while twitching and… smiling?

Soarin looked down as he began to fall back towards the ground. He held the wings out, but struggled to catch a glide, forcing him to flap the wings lightly as he descended rather rapidly. His hooves slammed to the ground roughly, causing loud THUMPS as they dug into the earth. He snorted as he looked back and forth at his wings before trying to fold them back up, only getting it right after the third try.

All badly beat up and humbled more than they ever had been in their lives, Blade, Angel, and Void all managed to look up and stared towards Soarin in disbelief. Angel still wore a slight smile on his face, but couldn’t hide the shifting fear in his eyes.

Angel and Void both frantically looked to Blade.

“We… We…” Blade stuttered. “We have to…”

“Shadow?! UGH! W…WAIT!” Sin suddenly yelled out, his voice broken and raspy.

Blade, Void, and Angel frantically looked back at Sin to see him looking up. They followed his eyes to see Shadow in the air, flying high above Soarin as her crystals glowed brightly.

She looked angry, very angry, perhaps the threat from Blade and the insult from Angel fueling her rage as she arced down and sped towards Soarin. She dove with her hooves outstretched, her crystals floating ahead of her as her aura grew brighter and her magic packing together in front of her.

Soarin looked up, locking his eyes on her, but he did not make any moves, waiting to see what she would do.

Shadow let out a fierce growl and a battle cry as she fired her Burst Wave, the constant stream of magical energy rushing forth, the speed of her dive increasing the speed of the wave itself as it plummeted down towards Soarin.

Soarin again didn’t move, he simply moved his kite shield over his head, his horn glowing brightly as it gave the shield the same intensified glow he used on the sword prior. The shield expanded stretching and growing until it was large enough to completely cover him.

The Burst Wave crashed against the shield, its surface flickering and bending, but it held together, remaining solid as the wave of magic splashed and scattered in every direction. The rest of the Shadowbolts shielded themselves as scattered pieces of the wave flung towards them, landing nearby, some landing on them and causing them to yelp in surprise.

Shadow did not let up, she kept pumping her wings harder, diving faster as she forced every ounce of magic she could muster into the beam.

But it had no effect, and by the time she noticed, she was too close to slow down or stop. She tried to pull up, but failed to make any shifts as she slammed headlong into Soarin’s shield. Her flow of magic ceased the moment of impact as she bounced off the shield and landed on the other side of Soarin, rolling head over hooves several times before her face dug into the ground and tipped her over on her back.

“Rgghhhh…” Shadow growled as she pushed her hooves down and slowly lifted her chest off the ground. She shook her head out, slightly shaken and dizzy from the head on collision. She grunted as she forced herself to turn over, landing on her plot and nearly tipping backwards as she looked back towards Soarin. She blinked as her vision tried to center and even out.

“Hmmm…” Soarin hummed quietly to himself as he turned at faced Shadow, bringing the shield down in front of him and turning it over to look at the flickering surface and the pink steam rising off its blue hue. He glanced from the shield to Shadow, snorting as he took all of his weapons and stuck them all into the ground around him, the bow and shield included.

He set his hooves firmly in the ground and tilted his head up, pointing the red, curved horn to the sky. The blue aura surrounding him grew stronger, the flame like effect doubling as the horn disappeared into a blinding, bright light. His aura began swirling, spinning around his body and seeping towards the horn, collecting an incredible amount of magic all to a single point at the tip of his horn.

Shadow shook her head vigorously, finally getting her focus back, only to have her eyes land on the enormous magic buildup going on nearby… with Soarin’s eyes still trained on her. She froze, realizing that whatever Soarin was preparing… it was meant for her. Her mind screamed at her to move, but her body showed little response. She was already beat up before they arrived, she put an incredible amount of effort into her attack, and then suffered a painful collision. She did not have the strength to get out of the way… and she was too fatigued to command a decent shield from her crystals.

Back over by the Shadowbolts, Sin shielded his eyes from the light. He peeked out over and under his arm as he raspily fought for every breath he took. After a quick shift to the left, he found what he was looking for.

Shadow.

But she was down, with weak posture, barely holding herself up, and staring in fear at Soarin. Sin’s eyes widened as he stole another quick glance at the buildup of magic around Soarin that was both blinding and causing the hurricane winds to go wild.

“H…hey!” Sin yelled as he looked towards Blade, Angel, and Void. “Guys, HRK! GUYS!” He coughed as he yelled to them. But all he saw was the three of them backing off, only looking at Soarin… and none of them even giving Shadow a glance.

Sin frantically looked back to Soarin, then to Shadow…

“Oh… son of… grh… a BITCH!” he pounded his chest, and hacked up a wad of blood, coughing heavily again before punching the ground twice. “RGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!” he growled loudly as he forced a heavy breath through his throat and broke into a gallop, taking a curved path as he tried to keep some distance between him and Soarin.

His hooves pounded into the ground, pushing aside any traces of snow left around them as he wheezed and heaved, keeping his eyes on Shadow as he closed in. His crystals jumped up and orbited around him as he grew closer, building up their magic.

Sin stole a quick glance at Soarin as he came within a few yards of Shadow… and looked just in time to see Soarin whip his head forward…

An enormous beam of magic shot from the horn. It resembled Shadow’s Burst Wave, only it was at least three times the size and appeared to be pure and solid as opposed to a translucent wave of energy. The lower edge of the beam dug at least three inches into the ground as it careened forth. Shadow’s crystals huddled behind her as she ducked and covered her face, unaware that Sin was nearby.

Sin didn’t blink or hesitate. There was no way he could move her out of the beam’s radius, so he did the only thing he knew he could. He skidded to a halt in front of Shadow and released his magic, the crystals forming a shield around both of them.

The beam smashed into the shield, immediately pressing it to Sin’s face and chest and forcing his hooves to skid back. He slammed his back hooves into the ground in front of Shadow, anchoring himself as he reached his front hooves forward and pushed them against the inside of his own shield, using every ounce of his strength to aid his magic as the dome covering them was completely engulfed by the blast.

Sin released a raspy roar as his muscles flexed, fighting for his life and Shadow’s against the ungodly amount of power being unleashed upon them.

But it quickly became apparent that they were facing a force unlike anything they could ever imagine.

Sin was holding his ground, but his shield was failing, the surging magic punching holes in the shield within seconds. Sin winced and squinted as slivers of the beam began slipping through and hitting him, burning into his fur painfully. The holes became larger and more plentiful, Sin yelling out in pain as he was suddenly being hit in several spots on his chest, arms, and face. He opened his eyes wide and looked back and forth, noticing that his shield was not only forming holes, but heavy cracks. His crystals were screeching and shaking, failing to hold against the pressure.

The shield was going to fall. He couldn’t stop it.

With the shield on the verge of collapse, Sin turned, put his back to Soarin, and grabbed Shadow, shielding her with his body.

The shield collapsed.

The full force of the magic blast rushed through.

All Shadow felt was somepony grab onto her, followed by a violent lurch and her back hitting the ground.

When she was sure she had stopped moving, she slowly opened her eyes and looked directly into the face of Sin. His eyes were wide, his pupils tiny, his jaw was hanging open and he was shuddering. His body was surrounded by a weak, flickering pink glow.

Before Shadow could react, Sin fell forward right on top of her, a whimpering, weak wail of pain escaping Sin’s injured throat as he twitched on the ground. Shadow immediately pushed herself out from beneath him and her crystals spread out from behind her. Her eyes stuck open in shock as the light around Sin disappeared, and his crystals hovered above him, all three of them missing several large chunks as they sparked and popped, almost completely devoid of light. It looked like his crystals tried to protect Sin, but they were unable to stop most of the damage. Sin’s suit was completely gone, save for shredded rags that lay on the ground next to him. His wings and back were utterly burnt and bleeding all over, his wing feathers mangled with some missing.

Shadow frantically glanced at Soarin, a large plume of blue smoke rising up from his horn, but otherwise showing no sign of fatigue as if the enormous power output didn’t even make him break a sweat. In fact, he had an odd look on his face, almost impressed as he kept his eyes on Sin.

But Shadow’s focus was immediately drawn back to Sin… as all three of his crystals sputtered and shattered into dust.

“SIN!!!!!!!!!!” Shadow instantly broke from her shock, forcing herself up and rushing to Sin’s side as he began to cringe and writhe. Crackling noises coming from his body. Shadow placed her hooves on his side and looked back and forth, almost hyperventilating as she noticed tiny crystal formations appearing all over him. “NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Without his crystals, Sin’s body began reacting the same way Devil’s, Witch’s and Trance’s did. Crystals were rapidly forming all over his body, and once they covered him…

Blade, Void, And Angel held their ground, remaining in place as they kept their eyes on Soarin. None of them looked towards Sin, nor did they seem to care what was happening. Void and Angel kept glancing to Blade as if waiting for orders or at least an idea of what they should do.

But Blade had no plan. He too was at a loss, overwhelmed by the power they were up against. But the next course of action was decided for him, when Soarin suddenly looked away from them and up into the sky.

Blade took the chance and followed Soarin’s eyes.

The Renegades and the Lunar Guard, coming in fast and hard.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a setback. But with the current situation completely out of control, Blade instead saw it as an opportunity. With Soarin’s attention and interest drawn to the large force of pegasi and thestrals incoming, Blade quickly turned to Void and Angel.

“Let’s get out of here while we can!” he yelled to them, Angel immediately nodding, but Void lifting an eyebrow.

“What about our orders?!” he asked with clear hesitation. Blade furrowed his brow and snorted.

“We can’t accomplish our mission if we’re dead! We’re not properly prepared for this! We have to retreat!” He repeated as he turned and broke into a gallop towards Sin and Shadow, Void and Angel following right behind.

Shadow looked up at them as they approached, immediately hoping that they intended to help as Sin continued to be covered by crystals… but Blade grabbed her arm and yanked her off of Sin.

“We’re leaving!” he said bluntly, not even stealing a glance at Sin. Shadow showed immediate shock.

“What?! What about Sin?!” she demanded, trying to yank her arm free, but Blade didn’t let go. He bared his teeth and snarled as he got right in her face.

“LEAVE HIM!” he roared.

“NO!” Shadow retaliated, pulling her arm free from Blade’s hoof.

“Shadow, I’m WARNING you!!!” Blade growled as his crystals began glowing around him, but she held her ground, shaking her head furiously.

“How many more, Blade?! HOW MANY MORE?! Trance, Devil, Witch… How many more of us need to die before you start giving a shit?! Warn me all the hell you want! I’M NOT LEAVING HIM BEHIND!”

Blade snarled, his right eye twitching as his crystals clasped around his hoof, but stopped just short of forming the sword.

“Pathetic,” Angel said quietly as he tapped Blade on the shoulder. “Let her stay here and die. One less weakling to foal-sit.”

Blade glanced at Angel as he turned and took off, Void following right behind. He glared at Shadow once more, then looked back over towards the struggling Nightshade, still in the spot she fell and still failing to stand as the three additional crystals above her began to form cracks and chip.

“Feh…” Blade scoffed to himself, turning his back on both Shadow and Nightshade as he followed Angel and Void, leaving them behind.

Shadow turned back to Sin the moment they were gone. She knew the Renegades and thestrals were incoming, she knew that Soarin was still nearby, but she didn’t care, she just wanted to save Sin.

“What the hell is with this wind?!” Lightning Dust yelled as she flew beside Starry and Descent. She was using all of her usual techniques to negate wind resistance, but it was having little effect. “My moves aren’t working!”

“I don’t think this is wind!” Starry grunted as they grew closer, everypony pumping their wings harder as they were battered by invisible forces.

Descent didn’t respond to either of them, he kept squinting from behind his red goggles. The sun was almost completely set, but the whole area was illuminated by a radical display of blue light below. He knew the light was associated with Soarin, but something wasn’t right, he could feel it.

“Look! Shadowbolts!” Blazetail yelled as he and Flashwind pulled up alongside them.

Descent immediately blinked and followed Blazetail’s hoof, spotting Shadow and Sin on the ground.

“Over there too!” Flashwind added, motioning further back. Descent looked up to see Blade, Angel, and Void flying away.

Descent tried to process what was happening, but there was too much going on. He could see somepony else, but they were hidden behind the bright shining light… and was there somepony IN the light too? It had to be Soarin.

“Something is wrong!” Captain P.L. exclaimed, his voice echoing from within his helmet as he rushed forward and formed up beside them all. “We have to land! These are magical forces! If they’re pushing us this hard this far out then—”

He never got to finish.

Several yelps and grunts of surprise passed through everypony as the hurricane-esque forces suddenly intensified, blowing them all off course and into one another. There was suddenly a massive collection of ponies plummeting straight to the ground, too many collisions causing a chain reaction that only spared a few as the Renegades and the Lunar Guard crashed landed near the Wonderbolts. Those lucky enough to avoid the cacophony quickly dipped down, bracing themselves as they landed and shielded their faces from the rushing winds.

Descent immediately rolled to his side, removing himself from atop Starry and Lightning Dust before pushing himself right up.

He glanced to his left and saw all the Wonderbolts huddled together. He quickly spotted Luna as well and… Discord?

P.L., of course, immediately noticed Luna, calling out to her as he held firm against the winds, but she did not look… nor did any of the Wonderbolts seem to even notice that they had landed. They were all fixated on the blue light.

Now that they were closer, Descent finally took a good look at the center, expecting to see Soarin and maybe whoever the other pony was.

Descent’s jaw dropped and he pushed up his goggles as his eyes landed on Soarin, immediately noticing his sheer size and the magical weapons hovering around him.

“Is that Soarin?!” Lightning Dust remarked as the Renegades and the thestrals began to make him out as well.

But Descent quickly noticed the one obvious difference.

“What the… HIS HORN!” he pointed. “What happened to it?!”

“DESCENT!” Starry suddenly yelled, drawing his attention away. She was standing a little to his right and leaning over, pointing frantically. “BEHIND HIM!” she yelled.

At first he thought she was talking about Sin and Shadow, but after shifting over to Starry, his eyes grew incredibly wide.

“NIGHTSHADE?!” he yelled out loud, drawing the attention of every Shadowbolt Renegade. But before he could make any moves, they were all forced to shield themselves as an incredible shockwave suddenly rushed forth from Soarin. He had turned to them and was glancing between them and the Wonderbolts as he began advancing slowly towards them.

The moment Soarin began moving. P.L. turned and galloped towards Luna, his helmet protecting his face and eyes from the intense whirlwinds as he skidded to a halt, almost stepping on Discord as he reached for Luna.

Luna blinked and turned to him, the look of disbelief still plastered to her face, but P.L. didn’t even ask, he only had one objective on his mind.

“My lady!” he yelled as she immediately looked away and back towards Soarin. “We must leave now!” he suggested, but she gave no reply. “MY LADY! WE MUST—”

He was cut off as the winds grew even stronger, some of the Wonderbolts forced to the ground behind him as he grabbed hold of Luna and braced them.

P.L. looked up to see Soarin slowly growing closer, step by step, finally getting a good look at his size, the weapons, and the sheer output of power rushing from him.

“Heavens above…” he said to himself. “What is happening here?!”

Shadow glanced towards Soarin for a moment, noticing that he had moved away and was focusing on the Renegades, Wonderbolts, and Lunar Guard. But she only took brief note of it, immediately turning her focus back to Sin as her heart filled with more and more dread by the second, watching in horror as his body was slowly being eaten alive by ever growing crystal formations.

What was she supposed to do? Could she do anything to save him? There had to be something! But… what?

“No…” She gritted her teeth and her lip quivered. Watching as Sin lay on his side, twitching and gasping in pain. “NO!” she reached down and wrapped her hooves around Sin’s neck, hugging him tightly as if hoping she could get in the way of the crystals and stop them from spreading. “NO! NO! NO! DON’T DIE!!!!!!” she yelled frantically.

But then an idea crossed her mind. She blinked as her eyes stuck open in realization. The only thing that could stop this was the crystals.

She had three.

Without any hesitation or any thought towards how it would negatively affect her, she brought her three crystals forward, grabbing one of them right out the air and pressing it to Sin.

But nothing happened. The crystal’s light was still glowing in connection with her. She growled and pulled the crystal back, bringing it right up to her face. She glared at it, staring right into her own reflection in its surface.

“LISTEN TO ME!” she yelled at the crystal. “FORGET ABOUT ME! I STILL HAVE TWO!” She glanced past it at Sin. “JUST HELP HIM! NOW!!!!!!!!!” she yelled, the crystal shaking and glowing brightly, a light extending from the crystal to her.

She cringed, her face contorting in pain as she felt a pulling or ripping sensation within her body.

“HELP… HIM!!!!!!” she yelled again. “AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” she cried out as the light extending between her and the crystal detached. She lurched forward, wheezing and wailing in agony for a second before immediately placing a hoof on the ground and keeping herself steady. The crystal was no longer attached to her, her aura receding by half as her other two crystals immediately illuminated brightly and spun around her as if trying to figure out what just happened.

She immediately thrust her detached crystal to Sin, pressing the flat surface to his chest. The crystal flashed brightly, its aura immediately reaching up to Sin and gently bathing his body in its light. The spread of the crystals over Sin’s body abruptly slowed down, but did not stop, crystals now covering almost half his body as the spread continued at a much slower pace. Small crystals began to appear on Shadow’s body as well, but every one that appeared crackled and broke seconds after popping up. Even just the lack of her third crystal seemed to start the horrendous process, but while she looked to be in great pain, the crystals growths could not maintain themselves, her two crystals keeping her stable as her third fought to help Sin.

“Come on… COME ON!!!!!” Shadow yelled as she watched the crystals still slowly build up over Sin. “I’M NOT LETTING YOU DIE!!!!” she yelled desperately.

Fan Art by: Nightalein

But as she stared down at Sin, her ears suddenly perked up as they caught an audible noise beside her. She frantically looked to her right to see a soft pink glow that slowly became an outline of a pony. The outline filled out, taking a very familiar shape until the light dissipated… and Moon was standing beside her. He was completely unscathed, his suit fully intact and his goggles placed over his eyes.

“Moon?!” Shadow reacted, surprised at his sudden appearance. But she only looked at him for a moment, saving any questions about his whereabouts and his apparent ability to cloak himself for later as her focus instantly returned to Sin.

The crystal formations had slowed down, but they showed no sign of stopping. It wouldn’t be long before Sin’s body was completely covered.

Moon stood over both of them, his eyes remaining on Sin as his fellow Shadowbolt slowly suffered. He glanced at Shadow as she fretted over Sin, seeing the intense desperation in her eyes. She suddenly looked to him again.

“Moon! HELP HIM! PLEASE!” she pleaded, her voice nearly breaking.

Moon didn’t say a word as his eyes locked with Shadow’s.

He took one more, brief look at Sin…

Before grabbing one of his crystals out of the air and holding it out, just like Shadow did. He went through the same process, gritting his teeth and scrunching his face as the light between the crystal and his body began to pulsate and stretch, grunting loudly as the light ripped from his body and snapped into the crystal. He quickly pushed the crystal down upon Sin right beside the one Shadow was holding, it’s light joining with the other’s as small crystal flakes began popping up and breaking upon Moon’s body as well.

The crystal spread on Sin halted and began to chip away.

“YES!!!!” Shadow cried out in relief, but Moon quickly placed a hoof on her shoulder while keeping an eye on Soarin.

“We can’t afford to wait. Keep the crystals on him, but help me get him moving,” he said with purpose, but without breaking his calm demeanor. Shadow blinked, looking between Moon and Sin.

“Uh… RIGHT!” she quickly came to her senses.

Moon used his telekinesis to keep the crystals pressed to Sin, though it was quite difficult to sustain with only two active crystals. The two of them reached down and worked together to lift up Sin’s bulk. Sin grunted and coughed painfully as they worked, the pressure against his body intensified by the grinding of the crystals upon his skin.

They got him up and were ready to move, but Shadow froze when she glanced back to Soarin. He had returned his focus to them. Moon stopped when he realized Shadow wasn’t moving and also looked towards Soarin.

But a sudden pulse rushed over them, followed by bright flashes of pink light. The force nearly knocked them over, but to their luck, it pulled Soarin’s attention away from them. Moon and Shadow both looked over to see where the pulse came from… it was Nightshade.

Nightshade was still down, mindlessly pressing her hooves to the ground over and over again despite her efforts repeatedly failing. Her body did not have the strength to stand anymore, but she had no sense to stay down. Three of her crystals were pressed to her body, but the other three were still hovering over her. They shook violently, streams of light shooting out of cracks as bits and pieces fell from their surface, visible dents and chunks riddling their surfaces as they screeched louder.

Despite the intense buildup, the crystals ended with a whimper. They broke apart, pieces shattering into smaller pieces until they turned to dust and were whisked into the wind.

Nightshade’s body froze in place for a moment as her eyes went wide. She grunted, her body slowly lowering to the ground as a very bright glow surrounded her.

“GRRRRR… GRRRAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” she roared as a large collection of pink magic suddenly ripped free from her body. The magic pulsed and flickered, rising up over her as her body immediately reverted, the overly pumped look fading from her muscles, the constant bright light fading from her eyes, and the flame-like aura disappearing entirely.

The collected magic overhead began to pulse faster and faster before shooting up into the air and exploding violently.

The force of the explosion was enormous, flinging Nightshade backwards and knocking over Shadow and Moon. The Wonderbolts, thestrals, and Renegades all braced themselves against the rush, but Soarin held firm, only taking a step backwards as if he was gently nudged.

It was powerful, but quick, the explosion quickly dissipating as the forces rushing from Soarin regained their dominance. He kept his eyes on Nightshade as she twitched on the ground.

But then Nightshade suddenly flinched and released a loud, terrified scream as she rolled and sat up, nearly hyperventilating and looking around frantically as if she had just woken up from a nightmare. Her eyes were open wide, her pupils visible again as they darted around, her face wrought with fear and confusion as she was battered by the harsh winds whisking every which way.

The state of her body caught up with her before she could take in everything around her. Her eyes slammed shut and she groaned loudly and painfully, clutching her body as the agonizing bruising and other injuries made themselves known. She gasped several times, her body shaking as she looked herself over, examining every bruise she could see.

“I… I…” she spoke, her voice broken and shaking. “What… happened? Where am I?!” she asked frantically as she slowly tipped her head up…

And her eyes landed on Soarin.

She gave no verbal reaction at first, her eyes simply growing wider before she eventually released a weak, breathless gasp. Her eyes darted all over Soarin’s body, taking in all the changes, taking note of the surging magic, the floating weapons, and of course spotting the lack of the fake horn with the red one in its place.

What she was looking at didn’t seem to require an explanation.

“W…WHAT?!” she finally spoke, tipping back and barely propping herself up as her jaw hung open and her pupils shook. “How did…?!” she suddenly held her hooves up in front of her, noticing spots of drying blood on them as her eyes darted between them, Soarin, and his horn. “Did… Did I…?!” she could barely form a sentence, never going further than a word or two every time she spoke.

Her bottom lip began to quiver and her body shivered all over as Soarin started walking towards her slowly, the weapons smoothly orbiting around him save for the sword, the tip dragging along the ground as it rested at Soarin’s side.

“No…” Nightshade shook her head as she scooted backwards. No, I… I… NO!” she broke down further. “I didn’t mean to… I… didn’t even know I was…” she kept rambling to herself as if she was trying of put an explanation to something. “NO!!!!!!!” she yelled again as her hooves slipped and skidded on the ground. Soarin continued to walk towards her, slowly closing the distance between them. His sword picked up and twirled once beside him before holding upright and straight at his side. Nightshade just kept slowly tilting her head as he closed in until he stood over her and stared down, his massive body looming over her, belittling the presence of a pony that usually held unfaltering command of the air around her.

“DESCENT?! WAIT!!!!!!!”

A familiar voice shot through Nightshade’s ears. There was only one thing that could have possibly drawn her attention away from Soarin… and made the moment even worse for her.

And it just happened.

The sound of Starry Skies’ voice pierced through her ears, causing her head to turn towards it abruptly as if she had just been smacked in the face.

Only she did not see Starry. All she could see was Descent.

He was forcing his way forward, galloping with heavy hooves as he pushed through the hurricane winds and harsh forces of magic swirling in every direction.

Soarin slowly glanced over his shoulder, seemingly losing interest in Nightshade as Descent entered the fray. He was the only pony among those watching that had dared to move, charging in alone as everypony else remained in place, shock uncertainty, and fear keeping them from following. There was clearly one thing that was important to Descent right now, and it wasn’t what had been unleashed from within Soarin.

The only other pony to take action was Starry Skies. After several moments of hesitation, she broke into a gallop as well, her desire to help Nightshade and Descent taking over as she charged. But she quickly found herself lagging further and further behind as she lacked the strength to push through the winds as effectively as Descent.

Nightshade’s ears remained folded to the sides of her head. Her eyes were wide and her pupils had become small dots as she saw not only Descent, but also Starry Skies both charge towards her.

She had awoken from one Nightmare only to find herself in another.

Soarin turned and faced Descent as he closed in, crossing the blade of his sword in front of his chest and floating the rest of the weapons behind him as he waited.

Descent locked eyes with Soarin. His goal was to get to Nightshade, but Soarin was in his way. He didn’t care about Soarin’s state, he didn’t care about his new size, or the weapons. He just moved forward. Soarin could take any form he wanted, Descent had faced him twice in the past and he’d face him again!

He would get to Nightshade no matter WHO he had to go through!

Descent opened his wings and pumped them down while pushing hard off the ground with his back legs. The motion propelled him into the air towards Soarin as he pulled a hoof back to strike.

But the moment he was in the air, Soarin moved as well.

He shifted forward, effortlessly moving his size and bulk forward in the blink of an eye, taking a path to the right of Descent while spinning the sword around his body from his left side around the back to his right. Descent never saw it coming, the movement much faster than he thought such a large body would be capable of…

The moment of impact put Descent into a brief state of shock where it felt like time had literally stopped for him. The sword had struck him square in the stomach, the blade itself bending and flickering as the blow landed. It felt like his gut had crashed into a steel beam mid-flight, his arms and legs extending forward as his body whiplashed.

The next thing he knew, he was flying in the other direction. He hit the ground hard and bounced several times before sliding to a halt.

“DESCENT!!!!!!” Starry yelled out, pausing in her tracks for a second as it took her eyes a moment to register the absurdly quick sequence of events. She immediately shifted in her path, breaking towards Descent as he rolled over on the ground and groaned loudly in pain, holding his hooves to his stomach as he gasped for air.

There were many things that were sinking the hopes of those watching… but a large weight had just been added on top of it all.

They had all just watched Soarin take on the deranged Nightshade and the Shadowbolts, but throughout those conflicts it looked like Soarin… or the conscious possessing him, was warming up or testing out his body. This was the first move he had made that looked like a full on effort… and he had just taken down Descent, one of the strongest and toughest warriors among them, in a single attack.

“GGRHHH…. ARRRGGHHHHHH…!!!!” Descent grunted loudly as he ripped his hooves free from his stomach, rolled over, and tried to force himself back up as Starry Skies placed herself defensively between him and Soarin.

Fan Art by: Nightalein

But what was she going to do? Descent was her superior in strength and ability and that didn’t help him one bit against this monster facing them down. She backed up, her plot touching to Descent’s side gently as her mind raced, but Soarin did not advance, he just stared at Descent, much like he had to Sin, with a calm, impressed look.

And with Soarin focused on them… it gave two other ponies the chance they were waiting for.

“Shadow, come on!” Moon quickly tapped her shoulder as he stood up from behind Sin’s body.
Now’s our chance!” he reiterated as the two of them once again hoisted Sin up off the ground. But as they stood and Shadow looked up, her eyes landed on Nightshade.

“Moon, what about—”

“I’ve got it covered,” Moon cut her off while making a head motion. “Now MOVE!” he ordered.

“What do you mean?!” Shadow asked, but moon ignored her as they started moving Sin. She glanced back as the two of them lugged Sin’s bulk along. “Huh?” she blinked as another outline of pink light appeared next to Nightshade, exactly like the one that Moon appeared from.

Nightshade was still staring at Soarin, Descent and Starry now right in the same view as she sat still and shook. She didn’t pay any attention to the pink flash beside her, but she yelped in surprise as she felt something touch and grab her.

She looked down… and saw an orange hoof grasping her arm.

“Hey, snap out of it!”

The voice of a stallion caused her ears to twitch as she slowly looked to her right.

It was Rapidfire.

“Quit sitting around! We need to leave!” Rapidfire exclaimed as he pushed his goggles up to let Nightshade look him in the eye.

But she still did nothing. She just sat there and stared at him, confused, scared, and hurt… her brain unable to process everything going on as if absolutely nothing was right.

Rapidfire gritted his teeth as she gave him no reply, but pulled on her arm. She gave absolutely no resistance, almost falling on top of him as she was pulled.

“Alright, come on, get up!” Rapidfire quickly took control, leaning back and forcing her up onto her hooves. She stood right up and leaned into him, her eyes staring forward, not at him as he propped her up on his shoulder and leaned her weight against him. She was bigger than him, but was as limp as a ragdoll as he got her into place, her crystals all huddled together on her back. “Dammit…” he cursed to himself, but he had her and was ready to move. He looked over to see Moon and Shadow approaching him with Sin in tow.

Moon quickly brought his two crystals forward, and placed them near Rapidfire’s, giving him a nod. Rapidfire quickly nodded back.

Shadow looked between the two of them, not a clue what was going on or what the two stallions had planned, but then she noticed a pink light surrounding all five of them. They clearly had a plan and she didn’t so she just played along.

“You’re late,” Moon said calmly to Rapidfire as the light grew brighter around them.

“I only have one crystal, remember?” Rapidfire grunted as he snapped back, the light slowly engulfing them.

Moon went no further, simply glancing back out at Soarin for a moment before the light completely surrounded them, and slowly vanished.

All five of them disappeared with it.

Soarin briefly glanced over his shoulder as the five Shadowbolts disappeared. He snorted, mist shooting from his nostrils as he realized they were gone before facing Starry Skies and Descent again.

Descent was struggling, trying and failing to push himself up as he continued to cough and hold one hoof to his stomach. Starry remained in front of him defensively as close as she could stand without touching him and hindering his efforts. She wanted to turn around and help him, but she was afraid to take her eyes off Soarin. Her posture was strong and her expression was fierce, but her body was shaking.

She was afraid. She couldn’t hide it no matter how hard she was trying. Descent was her superior in every way and the monstrosity she was facing down had just put him on the ground in a single blow. Her loyalty to him was the only thing keeping her from retreating.

She quietly gasped as Soarin began moving towards them, taking long, slow strides as his weapons followed behind him and his sword rested over his shoulder. Starry’s hooves skidded slightly as her body instinctively inched back, her plot touching to Descent again as grunted and struggled behind her. Descent groaned and fell flat to the ground again, causing Starry to glance back at him and get another good look at what Soarin was capable of in his current state.

But she didn’t dare look for more than a moment as she returned her eyes to Soarin and swallowed, her legs shaking more and more as Soarin grew closer.

But Soarin wasn’t looking at her. And his path actually diverged slightly, his route shifting to move past them instead of directly towards them. His eyes were on the larger group, the Wonderbolts, Renegades, and thestrals. Specifically, he was looking at the front of the pack, at Luna and Discord.

Regardless, Starry did not relax. She kept her eyes glued on him, and continued to fight back any signs of fear. But she audibly squeaked as Soarin passed less than a yard in front of them.

Soarin stopped in his tracks as his left ear turned to Starry. Her eyes went wide as he slowly turned his head and looked down at her. Starry felt short of breath, her lungs barely filling with every expansion of her chest. Soarin’s glowing eyes bared down on her, piercing right through her.

But she held her ground. Her body was visibly quaking, her breath was short and quick, but she did not falter, she did not fall, and she refused to step away from Descent.

Soarin lifted an eyebrow as Starry displayed her unwavering commitment and resolve to protect Descent despite her clear understanding of her chances. He observed how she held herself against the rushing forces that continued to expel from him despite the proximity. Soarin stared at her for a moment, glancing at Descent as well. A smirk crept onto Soarin’s face as he refocused on Starry.

Then his sword suddenly swung from his shoulder and right towards her face.

“AH!” Starry yelped as she saw the sword come around, but it was so fast that she couldn’t react.

She shut her eyes… but all she felt was her goggles loosening from her face.

Her eyes shot open to see her goggles fall to the ground, the nose strap sliced in twain as the two lenses fell apart and landed. She glanced up and flinched again as Soarin’s spear shifted forward from among his weapons, circling around the other side of his body and reaching in front of his chest, the pole resting against it as the bladed tip of the spear thrusted towards Starry’s neck. She tensed her body as the tip touched to her neck, but Soarin did not apply pressure, he just held it there.

Starry was frozen in place, but even after Soarin’s sudden moves, she did not give into fear. She just swallowed, her Adam’s apple brushing against the tip of the spear as she inhaled sharply and glared as hard as she could right up at Soarin.

“Hmmm…” Soarin hummed as his smirk grew wider. The bladed tip of the spear slowly moved up Starry’s neck until the flat edge of the blade touched to her chin and gently tilted her head up.

She was shaking, and she knew he could tell, but she kept glaring, gritting and baring her teeth at him as he stared right down into her hardened eyes.

The stare down continued for several seconds…

“Heh…” Soarin released a single, deep toned chuckle, before removing the spear from Starry’s chin and floating it back behind him.

Without another motion towards Starry, he refocused on the larger group and continued walking towards them.

Starry didn’t dare move from the spot. He could have killed her at any moment, but he didn’t. She simply stood still, still staring up at where Soarin was just standing as Descent appeared to give up and just stayed down, gasping and wheezing to simply get his breath back first.

But now it was time for the others to finally face what they were still trying to comprehend.

Soarin slowly advanced towards them, each subgroup showing mixed reactions.

The Renegades were frantically looking between one another, looking for guidance with their leader down, many of them defaulting to Blazetail, but he had yet to find any words or directions he felt fit what they were looking at.

The thestrals were growling and snarling, advancing slightly as Soarin drew closer, intent on protecting Luna the moment P.L. gave the order as he stood beside Luna protectively.

The Wonderbolts were a mixed bag of shocked, broken, and scared. Shocked at what they were seeing and trying to comprehend what was happening to their dear friend and first commander. Scared because they were not anywhere near in top fighting condition and were being approached by a power unlike anything they had ever seen. Broken… in different ways.

Spitfire was sitting, her jaw hanging open, and her lips and eyelids twitching as her eyes and brain clashed. She didn’t want to believe that she was looking at. She wanted to believe she was still looking at Soarin, but her brain was telling her to get up and focus. Soarin was compromised… he was possessed. They had failed to save him and now they were ALL in danger. She had a duty as captain to guide the Wonderbolts, especially in times of confusion or disarray, but her priorities were clashing, rendering her unable to do anything until she wrapped her head around everything going on.

Rainbow Dash was still down on her back, staring straight up into the air. Her body was devoid of feeling, her strength was completely gone. She couldn’t feel or hear anything. And with her squad huddled around her she couldn’t see anything. But despite all that… she knew. Somehow it was all playing out in her head. She knew Soarin had just beaten down Nightshade and the Shadowbolts. She knew that Soarin had almost killed Sin. She knew that he had caught Descent off guard and defeated him with one mighty strike.

It was as if she could see, hear, and feel everything that Soarin could… and it scared her. Everything Soarin was doing was frightening. She wanted to stop him, but she couldn’t move. It was like she was being held down, and tortured, forced to watch as Soarin’s body was wrest from his control and manipulated.

Every inch of her being wanted to turn over, to get up, to go to him, but it was hopeless.

If only she could see him with her own eyes… if only she could find a way to reach out to him…

“HALT!” Captain P.L. suddenly yelled, causing many of them to jump. He stepped up in front of Luna and spread his wings, his red eyes showing brightly through the small slits in his helmet as a growl echoed from within it. But Soarin did not stop, nor did he even flinch. He kept moving towards them slowly, one large step at a time. “I SAID HALT!” P.L. yelled again as the thestrals started stepping forward, pushing themselves in between the Wonderbolts and the Renegades. They started snarling, setting their armored hooves firmly as they crowded near Luna and their captain, showing their absolute loyalty to their princess and not giving a single thought to the power Soarin was displaying.

Blazetail blinked, glancing back and forth as he saw Lightning Dust, his wife, the Renegade Shadows, and the Veteran Wonderbolts all looking to him. He gritted his teeth and looked down for a moment before glancing about at the Thestrals moving into place.

“Renegades!” He yelled. “Take defensive positions!” he ordered, but they just stared at him.

“What’s that going to do…” Lightning Dust reacted a little sharply while making hoof motions towards Soarin. “Against THAT?!”

“The hell if I know!” Blazetail growled as he growled at her. “Just do it!” he yelled. “ALL OF YOU!” he shouted as he turned and faced all of them.

Hearing a legendary former captain of the Wonderbolt Gold Squad grasp at straws did little to reassure them all, but what could he say? What else could they do? If they retreated, not only would they be leaving several ponies behind, but they’d be letting a monster roam free. There were too many ‘what ifs’ and the thestrals were already showing signs of fighting back… they couldn’t just leave.

The veteran Wonderbolts ended up leading the motions, Valkyrie encouraging the rest to ‘listen to the damn captain’ and spur them to rally the others. The Renegades began moving, taking up positions behind the thestrals but keeping in tight around the Wonderbolts to protect the injured younger generation.

But they barely got into place…

Before Soarin got too close for a certain captain’s comfort.

“LUNAR GUARD!” P.L. yelled out. “TAKE HIM DOWN!” he pointed towards Soarin.

Before Blazetail or anypony else could voice their concern, they cringed and were forced to cover their ears as the thestrals released ear piercing screeches. With P.L. staying back to protect Luna, the thestrals launched towards Soarin, spreading out and circling as they fought against the strong whirlwinds.

Soarin perked up, taking his eyes off Luna and Discord as the thestrals approached and surrounded him. He glanced back and forth as they flew every which way, swarming like bats freshly awoken from slumber.

But the hundreds of hissing and screeching thestrals did not seem to faze him. Soarin simply snorted, his eyes narrowing as he continued on his path. At first it seemed like he was ignoring the thestrals even though they were seconds away from bearing down on him, but as he moved, the rest of Soarin’s weapons hovered forward, orbiting around him and glowing brighter as the aura surrounding his horn became larger and more intense.

Then all at once, the thestrals charged inward. Soarin immediately disappeared from view as hundreds of bodies clumped around him, the thestrals showing absolutely no fear as they shot towards him, some of them getting pushed out of the way or stuck behind one another as the bared down.

“HM!” Soarin suddenly thrust his neck down, pointing the horn right at the earth beneath him. The magic collecting around his horn ejected and slammed right into the dirt before bouncing and causing a powerful shockwave to expand around him. The thestrals were thrown in every direction, grunting, yelping, and screeching as they collided and tumbled to the ground, the endless clanging of armor against armor ringing out around them as they fell into piles.

Soarin did not advance on any of them. He simply stood back up and kept walking, keeping his eyes fixed on Luna and Discord as his weapons fixed themselves in place around them, all of them tipping slightly outward.

The thestrals did not give up. Within seconds of landing, they began shooting up and charging Soarin with no organization, rhyme or reason.

Soarin began whisking his head back and forth, his weapons shooting and twirling around him elegantly and smacking down the thestrals one by one as they reached him. They stood absolutely no chance, their individual efforts even less effective than when they all tried to jump him at once.

Creaks and pops of steel armor breaking and splitting filled the air as every thestral that came near Soarin was sent flying and flailing while screeching in pain. It looked like a swarm of gnats trying to attack a dragon… a flock of sparrows taking on a tornado.

“Dammit!” Blazetail yelled as he glanced between Soarin and P.L. It was clear that P.L. was not going to stray from Luna’s side despite his own soldiers being beaten senseless. “We have to help them!” Blazetail yelled while turning to the rest of the Renegades. “Renegades! Listen up! This is far from anything we’ve ever handled! Spread out and close in! Attack pattern Tornado! Don’t approach him outright! Make use of your unique skills!”

The veteran Wonderbolts all nodded the moment Blazetail mentioned ‘attack pattern Tornado’, but Lightning Dust and the Renegade Shadows just stared in confusion. Blazetail quickly addressed them.

“Just follow our lead!” he yelled to them as he turned, Flashwind stepping up beside him with the rest of the Renegades readying to launch. There was clear hesitance, but only towards their target. Once Blazetail gave the word, they would be loyal to their captain. “RENEGADES! LAUNCH!”

Leaving the Wonderbolts, Discord, P.L., and Luna behind, the Renegades took to the air, immediately spreading out. The Wonderbolt veterans led the way, the Renegade Shadows following close behind as they swarmed around Soarin in a way similar to the thestrals. But there was a clear difference. They were much more organized, in formations, and all flying in the same direction.

The thestrals continued to throw themselves at Soarin, still several hundred left despite the hundreds already down on the ground, either knocked out or groaning in pain.

Blazetail watched carefully, waiting to give his next order the moment they had a clear shot without the thestrals getting in the way.

Soarin turned his head slightly, looking about as he noticed the Renegades surrounding him now as well. He simply huffed and shook his head lightly, seeming not pay them much attention just as he didn’t with the thestrals. He quickly refocused on Luna and Discord, and kept walking forward, tilting his head back and forth slightly to guide his weapons as they continuously repelled the thestrals.

Soarin slowly grew closer to the Wonderbolts and the two stunned gods. P.L. was holding firm, but looked ready to take action if Soarin got too close to Luna.

Left behind and still trying to comprehend what was happening… were the Wonderbolts.

They were in an intense and vulnerable situation. They didn’t have anywhere near their full force, they were hindered by injuries, and they were watching their powerful allies get pushed and thrown around with seemingly little effort.

Wings were sore, bodies were tender, and fatigue was heavy… They thought they were home free, they thought they were in the clear… Only to have THIS happen, and it didn’t even have anything to do with the Shadowbolts.

The Renegades and the thestrals were fighting hard. Perhaps a bit blindly, but they were fighting, taking on this unknown force coming at them, but the Wonderbolts were devoid of any resistance. It was as if this incident and the horrific sight of Soarin had completely drained them of any energy they had left. They had pushed and pushed to follow after him and Nightshade, they had forced their way through insanely powerful winds to try and get Dash to him. And the moment they failed was absolutely crushing. Barely any of them were moving and those that were looked to Spitfire for guidance.

But Spitfire was in no mental state to give any. She was just as shocked as the rest of them if not more and if anyone felt the failure of their efforts the hardest it was her. She was not broken, she was not shedding tears, nor was she collapsing under the emotional weight involved. Perhaps that would come later, perhaps not. Right now she was simply staring towards her best friend and frozen in unparalleled disbelief as her thoughts continued to swirl and conflict between shock and the urge to give her wingmates some sort of guidance.

She and the rest watched as the Renegades engaged Soarin. They came in hard and fast, using flight patterns and maneuvers that heavily contrasted with the thestrals’ approach, but it made no difference.

The Wonderbolts sat and watched as the Renegades met the same fate, one by one. Not even the veteran Wonderbolts could get by Soarin’s weapons.

Pixie and Fairy were instantly knocked down with a single sweep of his spear.

Comet was struck right out of his fast, white streak path with an arrow from his bow.

Cannon Ball was batted right out of the air with a hefty swing of his axe.

Steady Wing was slammed across the back with his shield and sent face first into the ground.

Valkyrie was stopped dead in her path, sent tumbling backwards as his trident smashed into her chest, the prongs breaking and reforming after connecting with her chest.

Bomber proved his resilience… And was the only pony who came close to matching Soarin’s new size. He quickly proved his resilience by remaining up after Soarin broke the blade of his sword over the back of Bomber’s neck. Soarin looked towards him with surprise as Bomber got back up, casually batting aside a few more Renegades as he smiled at Bomber and reconstituted his sword.

But in the end… Bomber met the same fate as the rest. It just took four hits instead of one, Soarin focusing on him briefly to deliver the three additional crushing blows that sent the juggernaut to the ground.

It was hopeless. Nopony could touch him. The only pony to lay a blow on Soarin thus far was Nightshade in her crazed, boosted state and it didn’t even leave a bruise on him. Now here he was, knocking aside the best they had to offer one after the other.

The Wonderbolts were already filled with dread, but it became increasingly clear that they would soon be the only ponies standing aside from P.L. This prompted some of them to snap out of it and try to ready themselves, but Spitfire did not move. She simply kept staring as she watched Blazetail and Flashwind get knocked out of the air, the numbers between the thestrals and the Renegades dwindling as Soarin left a trail of battered, twitching bodies behind him.

“Captain!” Fire Streak ran up beside Spitfire with Misty Fly in tow. “What are your orders?!” he asked, staring at Spitfire desperately as Misty Fly came up on the other side of her, grabbed her shoulder and lightly shook it.

Spitfire just kept staring.

“Captain!!!!” Fire yelled louder, prompting Spitfire’s ears to twitch. She slowly glanced at Fire, but only for a moment before her eyes turned right back to Soarin.

“I…” Spitfire’s voice was shaky and very quiet. “I… don’t know…”

Fire Streak’s ears drooped down as he looked past his captain to Misty Fly. She was looking at Fire’s face, studying his expression. She bit her lip and tilted her eyebrows up, indicating she understood what Fire’s face meant.

None of them knew what to do. None of them were prepared for this… not even Spitfire.

The sounds of fighting and constant smashing suddenly stopped.

Fire Streak quickly turned his eyes to Soarin and saw what he feared he would see.

Soarin was advancing towards them still… and in his wake, every single Renegade and thestral. His sword was lifted up in the air over his head with Lightning Dust’s twitching body draped over the flat edge of the blade.

Soarin grunted, lowering the blade and dropping Dust’s body to the ground as he continued advancing towards them.

“You…”

Fire’s ears perked up, Spitfire’s attention was briefly drawn away as well as Captain P.L. suddenly spoke up.

“You will go NO further!” he yelled as he dug his hooves into the ground and extended his wings outward to completely block Luna. He glanced over his shoulder at the two gods. Luna was still standing beside Discord. She had barely moved from when she tried to force answers out of him. She looked plagued by a mixture of magical fatigue and shock. Discord was still on the ground, in fact he had slumped even further as if he had given up entirely.

P.L. gritted his teeth beneath his helmet and began growling as he returned his eyes to Soarin. Despite his ‘threat’ Soarin had not slowed his pace one bit.

“NO FURTHER! I’M WARNING YOU!” P.L. belted, his helmet creaking as his jaw pressed against it.

All those watching wondered why he even bothered. Soarin had yet to be deterred in his path in any way.

P.L. was incredibly strong, even stronger than Bomber. He had proven that earlier when he destroyed a Falcon, shield and all by himself.

But was it enough? Was anything enough against such overwhelming power?

Then Soarin suddenly stopped.

P.L.’s eyes widened slightly behind his helmet as Soarin halted his advance twenty or so yards away.

For a moment it was quiet, the only noise present was a mixture of the whistling winds and the painful moans and groans of the hundreds of ponies felled behind Soarin.

P.L. remained set, ready to charge at any moment’s notice.

But Soarin remained still, the two staring into one another’s eyes.

“Stand aside,” a deep voice suddenly echoed, Soarin’s eyes glowing brightly, but his lips not moving as the voice seemed to come from every direction and rush into the minds of everypony present.

The Wonderbolts glanced among themselves, Luna’s ears perking up as the low voice swirled in her head.

“That voice…” she said quietly to herself, blinking as she glanced at Discord. “It really is… him…”

“Out of the question!” P.L. responded loudly, startling everypony. He didn’t seem to care at all about the strange nature of the voice, his loyalty to Luna taking precedent.

“Fledgling, I will not repeat myself,” the voice echoed again. Soarin’s eyes narrowing as they continued to glow brightly.

“And neither shall I!” P.L. shot back as he leaned forward slightly, two puffs of steam shooting from the grate of his helmet. “I am a knight of the Lunar Guard! If you wish to harm my lady, you will have to face me first!”

“You fool,” the voice huffed as Soarin released a loud snort, his chest expanding as he took a heavy breath and his front legs parted slightly. “Your loyalties are misplaced and naïve.” His sword suddenly lifted up in front of him and pointed directly at P.L. “You understand little about those you have sworn your life to protect. A knight? You are nothing but a pawn in their game. I wonder if your loyalties would remain if you’ve seen what I have?”

“ENOUGH!” P.L. yelled as he took a few steps forward and bent back, his wings pumping twice. “My loyalties are my own! I’ll make you eat those words!”

Without another word, P.L. leapt up and pumped his wings hard, shooting towards Soarin as he accelerated quickly.

“So be it,” the voice echoed as all of the weapons except for the sword and shield clumped together behind Soarin and jammed into the ground. The sword twirled and rested on his right shoulder as the shield hovered at his left side, his body remaining upright and relaxed as P.L. picked up speed and closed in.

Soarin waited patiently, not making a single move towards P.L. as he shot along, staying near the ground as the tips of his wings brushed against the ground.

The moment P.L. was within range of his sword, Soarin swung the sword from his shoulder, bringing it down to smash P.L. into the ground.

P.L. suddenly twisted, his left wing smacking to the ground beneath him. The move pushed him right out of the sword’s swing, the blade crashing to the ground. P.L. immediately slammed his hooves to the ground and propelled himself up towards Soarin’s face, pulling back a hoof to strike. Soarin’s shield instantly swung around to block…

“HHRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!” P.L. released a ferocious battle cry. His hoof struck the surface of the shield… and went right through it. The flickering surface of the shield immediately buckling and capsizing, breaking into magic shards as P.L.’s armored hoof shot right through and caught Soarin right in the cheek.

Two loud POWS rang out, the first from the shield impact, and the second from the blow to the face. Soarin’s head lurched away as P.L. followed through, his hooves picking up as he stumbled a few steps away.

But before he could tip, he slammed his front left hoof down hard, bracing himself and stopping. His neck and head remained turned for a moment as P.L. landed and skidded to a halt.

“Hmmm…” the voice chimed in again as Soarin slowly turned back, revealing a smirk. “Not bad,” it continued as Soarin cracked his neck back and forth and the shield reconstituted in front of him. “I did not fathom that warriors of your caliber could still exist in this age.” Soarin glanced at his shield for a moment, the pieces all attaching together and reforming it entirely. The moment it was full again, he replaced the sword and shield back in their ready positions. “Tis a shame…” Soarin snorted as his eyes narrowed into a glare. “To have a warrior like you wasted through misguided chivalry.”

“What do you know of my motivation?!” P.L. yelled as his growl echoed from within his helmet. “What do you know of my devotion?!”

Soarin’s eyes narrowed further, the blue light glowing brighter from them as the flame like auras expanded around them.

“More than you could EVER know…” the voice said quietly.

P.L. flinched in surprise as Soarin suddenly rushed at him. He had no time to move, taken by surprise at the sudden advance.

But Soarin did not attack. The tip of Soarin’s sword halted less than an inch from P.L.’s helmet. P.L.’s eyes remained fixed on the sword for a moment, before tilting up and looking into Soarin’s eyes as their auras burned like an inferno.

“In more ways than you could EVER imagine!”

P.L. didn’t hesitate, he swung one of his hooves up to bat the sword away, but it moved long before he could finish the swipe. His motion put him off balance as Soarin swung the sword around his body and landed a crushing blow right into the side of P.L’s helmet.

Loud, ear wrenching creaks and pops sounded out as the enchanted steel plating of the helmet bent, splintered, and broke. The straps holding his helmet in place instantly ripped, the helmet lifting right off of P.L.’s head as he was thrown to the ground.

“GAH! GRRGH!!!” P.L. grunted as he tumbled, but growled, and slammed his hooves down the moment he rolled onto his stomach, popping right up. “Ahhhhhh…” he shuddered and groaned, his ears ringing as he blinked and shook his head out, bits and chunks of broken steel falling from around his neck and mane. He looked down to see his helmet on the ground near him, no longer even slightly resembling it’s normal shape as it lay still… in several pieces.

He snarled, the ringing in his ears fading as he turned and glared at Soarin with his head now exposed.

Soarin was smiling again, apparently further impressed that P.L. did not fall after such a heavy attack. But he definitely felt it, a burning aching sensation making its way into his face and neck as he set his hooves, ready for another charge. He wasn’t done yet.

Soarin held firm, letting P.L. come to him again. P.L. bounced back and forth, taking an erratic approach angle to not give Soarin a clear look. He eventually kicked off the ground, launching himself towards Soarin from the left and pulling back to strike. Soarin brought up the shield again, but this time angled it, meeting P.L.’s hoof, but parrying. P.L. was spun around and immediately forced to lift his right hoof, guarding his face as the sword came swinging around.

A loud CLANG rang out as the sword struck the steel gauntlet, the armor splitting and breaking as P.L.’s arm was forced right to his face.

“GAH!” P.L. grunted as he nearly fell over on his side, but steadied himself and pushed right back towards Soarin, only for his nose to meet the shield. “GRGH!” he grunted again as he stumbled backwards and shook his head out, blood trickling from his nose.

He planted his hooves firmly to stop his back peddling, glancing briefly at the dented and broken gauntlet on his right hoof before quickly refocusing on Soarin and snarling.

Soarin advanced towards him, moving at a slow pace. His shield was positioned in front of his chest, with the sword resting on top right corner, its tip pointing towards P.L.

P.L. roared, charging forward despite his heavy-hooved steps causing bursts of pain to flow through his right leg. He slammed his back hooves down and pumped his wings as he drew close, shifting to the right to avoid the sword while pulling back a hoof. Soarin did not move the shield, leaving it in place even though P.L. already proved he could break it head on.

“HRRRAH!” P.L. shouted as he threw a left haymaker into the shield, his hoof going right through it again, but the moment the shield broke to pieces, P.L. realized he had been lured. Soarin was standing at least a yard further back… and was winding up his sword.

The sword swung forward, and slammed hard into the chest plate of P.L.’s armor. P.L. exhaled loudly as the chest plate snapped and broke, the decorative jewel on the front shattering into thousands of tiny pieces.

He was sent flying backwards, hitting the ground on his back and bouncing over onto his stomach as he skidded to a halt. He immediately forced himself back up, his body twitching as additional broken pieces of his armor slid off.

“Dammit!” he cursed as he glanced over his shoulder, noticing that he was being pushed right back towards Luna. But he had little time to think of his lady as the sound of heavy, galloping hooves thundered towards him.

P.L. took a step back as he glanced up towards Soarin, his defensive instincts kicking in over the offensive as protecting Luna at all costs became the top priority over striking down the enemy.

The sword was already in motion as Soarin closed in, swinging around in a low sweeping arc.

P.L. hopped back to avoid, stealing a quick glance back at Luna again and gauging the distance. There was at least twenty yards between them. He couldn’t keep dodging, he had to try and hold his ground.

The sword came right back around for a second swing. P.L. put up his other arm while leaning back. The gauntlet took the hit.

“AHHH!!!” P.L. gasped as his arm was forced across his body, the gauntlet barely holding together as the straps and metal plating ripped. The sword stopped halfway through the follow through, the hilt thrusting in the opposite direction and striking P.L. in the side. He was knocked off balance, but quickly took a few more steps back while remaining between Soarin and Luna.

He refused to go down, but what could he do? He was not a blind colt with delusions of invulnerability. He had struck Soarin once… and it did practically nothing. Soarin had landed a few blows on him, and each one was devastating, his enchanted armor caving and buckling as if it were made of paper. He had lasted longer than anypony thus far, but how much longer could he last? He initially attacked with the intent of going on the offensive, only to find himself now completely on the defensive.

Soarin continued forward, swinging the sword skillfully with powerful strokes, P.L. either dodging or trying to block them. He kept backing up inch by inch, giving up the space he was determined not to, moving closer and closer to Luna.

Soarin managed to land a few more blows along the way, P.L.’s armor becoming more and more damaged. As his hooves began losing feeling, he started sacrificing his wings as well to block incoming strikes, doing everything in his power to keep up the fight.

But it was hopeless.

P.L. was slipping. He was eventually forced all the way back to Luna, who simply watched with horror as her steadfast, unbreakable knight was worn down right before her very eyes.

Curiously, as P.L. grew weary, Soarin lightened his attacks. The swings were weaker and slower, his glare had eased a little as well. It was if he had no intention of striking down P.L., and was trying to make a point.

When P.L. was forced back less than a yard from Luna, Soarin stopped.

“Gahhhh…. Haaaaaa… grggghhhh…” P.L. gasped and panted for air, covered in his own blood and bruises. He teetered back and forth, barely able to stand as his eyelids twitched and his body shuddered.

Luna’s eyes were wide and her jaw was agape as she looked upon P.L. Her breath was quick and short, near hyperventilating as she was forced to watch with no way to help him. Her magic and strength were both completely spent. Even if she had a little left, her focus had been broken by the events unfolding before her.

But regardless of his state, P.L. did not fall. He remained up, unwilling to move, his loyalty to Luna overpowering all the pain and fatigue.

“Hmph…” Soarin’s eyes brightened again as the deep voice huffed. “Your dedication is commendable.” Soarin slowly lifted the sword up, moving the blade right up beside P.L. “If only those you serve had the same dedication to those they lead.” He slowly pushed the flat edge of blade against P.L.’s side.

The pressure was light, but as soon as the blade touched him P.L.’s legs gave out. He tipped over and fell to the ground in a heap, gasping for air as he lay broken and defeated. Soarin’s eyes did not follow P.L. as he fell. They remained forward… and the moment P.L. was out of the way, he was staring directly into the eyes of Luna.

Luna gasped as her eyes locked on Soarin’s. Her pupils twitched to the left several times, concern for P.L. tugging at her heart, but the danger before her held all of her focus.

Soarin took one step toward her.

She yelped and scooted backwards, shifting five yards back and nearly ran right into Spitfire sitting behind her. Luna shuddered, her eyes remaining stuck open as her legs wobbled. The Wonderbolts all looked on from behind as Luna seemed to be just as lost as Spitfire.

Or at least at first glance. Spitfire was no longer looking at Soarin. She was looking at the ground and blinking continuously, her hooves were pressing into the ground and her teeth were grinding together. Some of the Wonderbolts noticed, but most were too distracted by Soarin.

Soarin did not move any closer, snorting as he held his sword out and pointed it towards Luna, the rest of his weapons uprooting and floating up behind him.

“Luna,” the voice spoke suddenly, causing Luna to freeze up. Soarin slowly moved the sword until it was pointing at P.L. on the ground. “What does he mean to you?” the voice suddenly asked.

Luna’s eyes twitched again, but they only glanced at P.L. for a second before returning to Soarin.

“He was willing to stand between the two of us until every ounce of his strength was spent. I could have killed him at any moment once fatigue started winning over his body, but he didn’t care. He was willing to die for you.”

The sword moved back, pointing at Luna once more as Soarin started walking towards her slowly.

“Would you do the same for him?” he asked as he approached.

But Luna did not respond. She just stood completely still, her mouth agape as she took weak breaths. Soarin stopped when the tip of the sword rested an inch from the breastplate of Luna’s armor. He slowly glanced to his left, his eyes landing on Discord for a moment. His lips scrunched and parted slightly, revealing the sharpened teeth and front fangs, a quiet snarl squeezing through before he returned the sharp glare to Luna.

“ANSWER ME, LUNA!” the voice yelled. “ANSWER!”

But she didn’t. Luna’s ears just slowly drooped down as she heard the question loud and clear, but was too afraid to make a sound.

Soarin’s glare remained, but he closed his lips, hiding his teeth, but one of the fangs remaining out over his lower lip.

“Why am I not surprised…” the voice continued, Soarin’s nostrils flaring as a sharp exhale shot from them. “After all these years, you haven’t changed at all… you learned nothing from the scourge…” the sword moved closer and the tip touched to her armor, applying slight pressure. “You’re just as pathetic as your sister!”

“STOP!”

Everypony, Soarin included, perked up and turned to look…

As Spitfire suddenly pushed her way forward beside Luna. Soarin immediately moved the tip of the sword to Spitfire, stopping her right in her tracks.

But Spitfire was not showing any fear. In fact, she was glaring, her expression hardened with no sign of hesitation or doubt even with the tip of a large magic sword poking to her chest.

The Wonderbolts had mixed reactions to their captain’s sudden shift in demeanor and advancement. Perhaps her state moments before was one of contemplation, or maybe she was accepting reality, either way it seemed she had come to her senses… maybe. The Wonderbolts didn’t know for sure, but Spitfire had definitely gotten their attention.

Soarin lifted an eyebrow as he stared down at Spitfire, taking in her strong posture and expression, her mane blowing wildly in the wind as she stood right up against the harsh forces of magic still swirling around.

“Speak,” the voice beckoned, taking on a curious tone.

“Shut up,” Spitfire immediately fired back, surprising everypony. “I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to Soarin.”

Everypony immediately turned their attention to Soarin. He blinked, furrowing his brow, but the voice gave no reply.

“Soarin…” Spitfire reached up and willingly grabbed the blade of the sword. “Stop this right now. I don’t know who this is speaking for you, but I know you are in there. I know you can hear me.” She tightened her grip on the sword, causing the magic to flicker as it grinded against her hoof. “Stop getting pushed around!” she yelled. “Get a hold of yourself, dammit! You’ve come this far, I don’t care if the stupid hood ornament you’ve been wearing is gone! YOU CAN STILL CONTROL IT!”

A tense silence followed, neither of them speaking as Spitfire and Soarin glared at each other, neither giving an inch as the magic surface of the sword sizzled against her hoof.

“Heh,” the voice suddenly chuckled as Soarin smiled. “Luna, I hope you are paying attention.” Soarin’s head slowly tipped up to look over Spitfire, his eyes locking with Luna’s again. “Do you see this?” Soarin made a slight head motion at Spitfire. “This is a leader.”

“Soarin, stop it.” Spitfire tried to interrupt him. But Soarin didn’t look at her and his eyes kept glowing as the voice spoke all around them.

“She is standing in the face of danger for the sake of one of her own,” the voice went on. “Have you ever done such a thing?”

“Soarin, STOP IT!” Spitfire yelled, snarling under her breath.

“You haven’t. And until you do, you do not deserve to lead anypony! THIS is leadership, THIS is devotion!” the voice kept booming as Soarin’s eyes remained on Luna. “She is injured, hindered! Yet she is standing firm for her soldier! You cower when your most loyal knight lies beaten! DO YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE?!”

“SOARIN!!!!” Spitfire gripped the sword even tighter and pulled on it, causing it to drop down a little before Soarin halted it. He slowly looked back down at her and released a sigh through his nostrils.

“As for you…” the voice continued as Soarin slowly lowered his head down towards her. “Let’s stop using that name, shall we?” He stopped his face right in front of hers and the light slowly disappeared from his eyes. Spitfire gasped quietly, her eyelids stretching as she looked into a pair of eyes that were not Soarin’s.

Soarin’s green eyes were gone…

In their place… a pair of bright red irises surrounding the pupils.

“Soarin is gone forever,” the voice echoed. “You are only speaking to ONE stallion right now… Sombra!”

If there was any doubt running through the Wonderbolts about Discord’s stunning admission, it had just been squashed.

They didn’t want to believe it, they didn’t want to believe that they were no longer looking at Soarin. But that was the reality. Soarin’s body was no longer his.

They were looking at Sombra. The Mad King.

Spitfire did not give an order… but Fire Streak did.

Not all of the Wonderbolts reacted, but those who had steeled themselves just in case all charged.

They were hurt, beaten, and broken, but the danger was clear… and they had to look past Soarin.

But the moment they rushed forward, Sombra’s eyes darted back and forth, instantly seeing the incoming attack.

“HRRRMMMM!!!!” Sombra’s voice echoed as he threw his head back into the air, his eyes regaining the bright glow as an enormous collection of magic swirled around his horn. A moment later, the magic exploded. Not a single Wonderbolt was ready for it, an enormous burst of magic expanding outward and smashing against all of them, Discord and Luna included. Everypony was thrown off their hooves, bludgeoned by the magic as if struck by an oncoming train.

Screams and cries of pain rang out, the Wonderbolts and their battered bodies flung backwards, running into one another and piling up on top of each other here and there as they landed roughly and tumbled further. The bodies of the Renegades and thestrals were also hit by the wave, thrown away from Sombra and rolling along until the rushing force ceased.

Eventually the wave faded, groans and moans of pain coming from all around Sombra as he lowered his horn and looked around him.

“Hmph…” he grunted as he scanned the Renegades, the thestrals, the Wonderbolts, Luna, and…

His eyes landed on Discord nearby. He was practically laying on his back when the wave of magic was released, so he did not get pushed nearly as far as the rest. He was already sitting up and staring with his jaw nearly unhinged, his eyes widening as they met Sombra’s.

Sombra’s lips immediately parted and scrunched as they revealed his sharp teeth gritting together. A low growl escaped his throat as he brought his sword forward, planting the shield and the rest of his weapons into the ground behind him.

He started walking towards Discord, twirling the sword in front of him before resting it over his right shoulder.

“YOU.” Sombra spoke, his voice harsh and filled with anger as he approached.

Discord suddenly stood up and gathered up his magic into his arms, purple distorted auras encircling them as a look of sheer panic spread all over his face. He thrust his arms forward, the chaos magic erupting from his hands and shooting towards Sombra in an irregular, uneven path.

Sombra quickly swung his sword from his shoulder bringing it down vertically into the beam as it reached him. The magic splashed in every direction, before splitting perfectly in half, the cut in the beam shooting all the way back to Discord.

“AH!” Discord yelped and stumbled backwards as the rip in his magic reached him and the aura around his arms exploded in his face.

“I do believe I owe you some much deserved pain,” Sombra continued, his voice growing sharper by the word as he continued his steady pace towards Discord, dragging the tip of the sword along the ground beside him.

“RGH!” Discord pulled his arms back, the air around them distorting before he thrust them forward. Sending the same reality bending waves towards Sombra that he had already tried… but he got the same result.

Sombra’s horn simply generated a blue dome over him and Discord’s reality bending magic bounced right off of it, dissipating.

Discord’s ears drooped, his arms falling limply at his side as he saw all of his efforts fail not once, but twice.

“And I plan…” Sombra replaced the sword on his shoulder as he continued forward. “To pay you back for ALL the pain you caused me, TEN FOLD!”

But Sombra had yet to notice something.

His magic blast had knocked everypony away… except for one.

Rainbow Dash.

She was still lying on the ground, right where she had fallen the moment Sombra had taken over Soarin’s body. Sombra’s magic blast touched her just like it had everypony else, but it did not budge her… as if his magic had no effect on her at all.

“Hnnggg…. Nnnnggggghhh…” she quietly groaned as her eyes remained open wide.

Sombra was walking towards her.

Her eyes were still pointing up, but she could feel him closing in. He was focused completely on Discord, and didn’t seem to notice at all that Dash was lying on her back, right in his path.

She could feel pain as he drew near… and it wasn’t hers. It was a sensation that crept up through her body as if she was feeling the aftershocks of agony coursing through somepony else’s body.

Was it Soarin…? Was this his pain?

She was still staring straight up, but she could feel every move Sombra made. She knew he was looking right at Discord and she could feel his intent to harm… no… the intent to torture and kill.

No more.

It had to stop.

Sombra had already brutally beaten so many of them… and he was doing it with Soarin’s body.

Dash could feel him. She could feel Soarin. He was still in there, he had to be. He was scared and mortified. Scared that he was not in control of his body and mortified that his body was moving and hurting so many.

Sombra was wrong…

Soarin couldn’t be gone because…

She was still alive.

Dash suddenly felt a surge in her chest as Sombra was one step away from her. Her eyes finally moved, darting up slightly and taking in the new form of Soarin’s body with her own eyes for the first time.

He was massive, his hoof stepping over her was easily three to four times the size of her own. Her eyes locked on it as it moved over her.

Her arms suddenly moved. She had no strength but her body moved anyway.

She reached up and grasped the massive hoof before it could pass.

Sombra stopped. He froze right in his tracks and flinched hard, startled as he suddenly felt something touch him.

“What the devil…?” he immediately looked straight down, holding his hoof steady.

His eyes widened slightly as they landed on Dash. He hesitated and blinked, as if confused.

“Y…YOU?!” he exclaimed, but he did not move his hoof. He quickly looked up and all around at everypony that had been blown away by the magic blast he unleashed moments ago. Some of the ponies were starting to get up, but they were all struggling. “How did…?!” He quickly looked back down at Dash. “Wait… how are you still alive?!”

“Soarin…” Dash spoke quietly as her hooves remained on his gently. “Soarin… please…” Dash’s voice was weak and raspy, but she stared right up into the blank eyes hidden behind the bright blue lights. “Please stop…”

“This is impossible,” Sombra’s voice growled. “I completely destroyed Soarin’s soul, how are—” Sombra’s eyes suddenly widened further as his body began to quiver. “What!? WHY CAN’T I MOVE?! I—”

The voice was cut off. His body was stuck, his neck bent down and looking at Dash, the sword still resting over his right shoulder.

The blue glow of his aura suddenly extended… and surrounded Dash as well.

“Ah… ahhhahhhh…” A noise suddenly came from his mouth. The first audible thing to do so since the transformation as opposed to an echoing voice that seemed to occupy all the space around them. “R… Rrrrrr…” The light in his eyes began to fade slightly…

Revealing Soarin’s eyes.

They were barely visible at all, but Dash could see them.

“Rrrrrr… Rain… bow… Dash…!”

“Grhhh…. GRRRRHHHH!!!!!” Soarin’s eyes instantly disappeared behind the light again and he started grunting and gasping. His body began moving again, lurching slightly back and forth, but his hoof touching Dash remained completely still.

“What…?!” Sombra’s echoing voice came back. “What’s going on?! I’m supposed to be in control!!! AHHHH!!!”

“AAAAAAAAH!” Soarin cried out, his voice and Sombra’s voice both groaning loudly in pain as a battle suddenly seemed to rage within.

All while Dash simply held onto his hoof.

“WHAT IS HAPPENING?!” Sombra yelled out as the large blue silhouette of his body pulsated and flickered. The light that completely filled the void around them began pulling back to him as well in small increments. He forced his presence back out, refilling the void, but every time he tried, it would start pulling back again. “I’M SUPPOSED TO HAVE CONTROL! THIS IS PREPOSTEROUS!”

He glared down, noticed a faint outline appearing within this form. It struggled to hold its shape, but there was a form of another stallion standing within him.

“RAINBOW DASH!!!!!!!!” a garbled, distorted voice echoed from the faint silhouette.

Sombra’s eyes shot up, looking past the image of the yellow mare being held down on the ground…

The image of Rainbow Dash was right behind her… and dragging itself along despite the dark shadows clinging to her and trying to hold her back. Her image was flickering, sporting several tears and holes, but there was a look of pure determination on her face as she pressed her hooves into the ground and heaved herself forward one pull at a time.

“SOARIN!!!!” Dash’s image yelled, her voice just as broken and distorted as his. “HOLD ON!!!!”

“This…” Sombra’s voice went quiet as he watched the scene unfold. He looked down to see Soarin’s silhouette gain form, revealing him in his entirety though still faint. “This is…”

“DASH!!! WHERE… ARE YOU?!” Soarin yelled as he pushed forward suddenly.

“ARGH!” Sombra suddenly grunted as his image was forced a step forward with Soarin. “Unbelievable!”

He looked down as Dash grew closer, the shadows almost completely consuming her bottom half, but she kept pulling herself along. Sombra yelped again as Soarin took another step forward.

“I’M HERE SOARIN!” Dash yelled as she pulled herself right up to Sombra and reached out.

“DASH!” Soarin yelled back toward her… and thrust his arm right out of Sombra’s image.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!!!!!!” Sombra cried out in pain as Soarin’s hoof broke the edge of his silhouette. His eyes stuck open wide as he watched Dash and Soarin’s hooves grow closer and closer…

And then they hooked together.

Sombra’s image suddenly began to flicker madly, the aura rising around him grew intense as his image began shaking.

Sombra just stared for a moment as he felt an incredible amount of pain shoot all over him, his control and focus over everything suddenly felt drastically hindered. His eyes shot over to the yellow mare, still shackled by the shadows down below.

She was looking right at him. She was visibly in a lot of pain.

But she had the faint hint of a smile on her lips.

“It looks like this time…” she began, her voice pained, but with a tone of confidence. “You underestimated… me.”

Sombra’s eyes narrowed into a glare as they darted between the mare and the two souls coming together below him.

“Why do you think… I chose them?” she added with a soft, smug chuckle.

“You…” Sombra’s teeth parted as her growled and roared out. “YOOOOOUUUUUU!!!!!!” He threw his head back, yelling into the air above him as his aura exploded out, the magical forces intensifying. He lurched his head back and forth, grunting as he tried to retake full control, but no matter how hard he thrashed or how much magic he poured out… he could not rip the hooves of Soarin and Rainbow Dash apart.

“Ahhhhh… AHHHHH…!” Soarin continued to groan as the aura around him pulsed and flashed. The light streaming from his eyes kept brightening and fading, each time revealing a different pair of eyes.

His eyes flashed… and revealed Sombra’s eyes.

They flashed again… revealing his eyes.

It continued over and over again as his body shook and his neck strained from side to side.

Rainbow Dash just held on to his hoof, unable to move anything or anywhere as she just watched Soarin fight back against a force within his own body.

“NO!” Sombra’s voice echoed around them. “NO! NO! NO! I WILL NOT… AH!”

Soarin suddenly coughed hard, a burst of blue smoke erupting from his mouth followed by a trickle of blood dripping down his lip. His sword flickered and vanished, the shield and rest of the weapons meeting the same fate behind him.

“Gahhh! Hraaaagh!” Soarin wheezed as he coughed up blood that sprayed to the ground beside Dash. “RGH!” his body suddenly lowered, moving closer to the ground as his hoof remained in Dash’s grasp. Several bursts of blue magic suddenly erupted around his body, each one of them leaving a dark bruise followed by a sizzling trail of smoke.

“ENOUGH! STOP THIS!” Sombra yelled. “STOP!” he demanded, his voice filled with anger.

“AAAAHHHH!!!!!” Soarin whipped his head back, a few beams of magic shooting out from the horn, dancing around and dissipating as more bursts of magic erupted around him. His back legs buckled, the hooves sliding out and forcing him down onto the side of his plot as his free front hoof remained anchored.

As Soarin’s other hoof lowered with his body, Dash slid her hooves further up and hugged herself to his arm, saying nothing as she shut her eyes and pressed her cheek to his fur.

“D…Dash! DASH!” Soarin yelled as his large head began lowering towards her.

“I’m… here Soarin!” she yelled back, barely finding enough breath to reply.

Dash tilted her head towards his.

She moved her face closer.

She let go with on hoof and reached to clasp his cheek and bring their heads together… But then Sombra’s eyes appeared within the light.

“RRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT GIVE IN!” Sombra roared out.

The aura swirling around the horn expanded briefly before shrinking down to the horns surface… and then exploding outward. The magic passed right over Dash with no effect again, but the shockwave that followed upon it hitting the ground crashed against her.

“AH!” Dash yelped as her hoof was ripped free of Soarin’s arm and she was sent tumbling away from him. She bounced and flipped backwards, landing flat on her stomach, instantly looking back up at Soarin the moment she stopped.

“GRH… HRGH… AH!” Sombra’s voice continued to grunt and sputter as a few more explosions erupted on Soarin.

Soarin’s enhanced body, standing strong, tall, and intimidating moments before, was now in a heap on the ground, only one hoof propping him up as the rest of him was sprawled out. The aura had grown weaker, barely a few inches from his body as several streams of blue smoke rose from all over his body, including his mouth. His face was a frightful sight, now covered with both the blood trickling from the horn as well as the fresh stream dripping from his mouth and nose.

All Dash did was touch him… And Sombra’s control over him was completely crippled.

“Nggggh… RGHH!!!!!” Sombra’s voice groaned as the light in his eyes dimmed and completely revealed the bright red irises. “I… I… GRAAAAAAH!!!!”

Sombra forced Soarin’s body up, roaring in pain as his legs shook and his body shuddered. He turned around, showing a clear limp as he faced away from them all.

He forced his wings out… and with a mighty shout laced with pain…

He took off, pumping the wings harder than he needed to fly as he propelled upward and shot away from everypony as fast as he could manage with a very wobbly and staggered flight path.

Dash’s heart absolutely sank, or at least as much as it could as it began beating rapidly and painfully again.

Her eyes remained glued to the sky…

Watching until Soarin was completely out of sight.

Silence followed. The whole mountain base plunged into twilight as snow began to whisk and blow back over the areas that had been cleared, the blue glow no longer illuminating the area as the dusk sky appeared overhead. Dash heard absolutely nothing else around her, even though her senses seemed to have returned. The only noise present that of the Nimbus puttering a safe distance away from where it all just happened.

She found that she could move again, barely, but some of her strength had returned along with the rapid heartbeat. But she didn’t try using it, not while her eyes were still locked on the sky in the last place she was able to see Soarin.

Faint moans and groans began coming from all around her, the Wonderbolts, the Renegades, and the thestrals all slowly recovering, pushing themselves up and looking around in utter disbelief and confusion.

Luna was already on her hooves and instantly made her way over to P.L. with shaky, limping strides, but Discord remained still simply staring into the sky just like Dash was.

Spitfire finally got to her hooves, but found she could barely stand. She dragged herself forward, following Dash’s example as she looked skyward and thought about everything she just saw.

It crushed her.

It absolutely crushed her that she was unable to get through to Soarin, but that was not important right now.

She really just saw her best friend fall prey to something they had fought so long to prevent.

She couldn’t find any words… neither could Dash.

Fire Streak slowly slid his hooves forward with the help of Misty Fly as the two placed themselves right beside Spitfire and Dash, looking up into the sky.

Eventually all the Wonderbolts looked skyward, as did the Renegades.

Storm Front, Squall, Little Star, and Matteo all made their way towards Dash and followed her eyes as well.

“My god…” Fire Streak finally broke the silence as he shook his head softly. “Now what do we do?”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

What do you do, indeed Fire... what do you do?

Because things sure went from bad to what the actual f--k is going on?

This sure threw a wrench in between of everything!

Though there seems to be much more to this than they know, after all, SOmbra only seemed to target one thing. More accurately, two gods.

What don't we know here? :moustache:

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Again, sorry for the longer wait,

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 146: Treason and Tribulation

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 146: Treason and Tribulation

“Careful… careful…” Surprise grimaced as she and Blaze slowly slipped around the pillar, taking it one crumbled step at a time. They were making their way down the broken stairs that wrapped around the central propeller pillar in hopes of reaching the lobby.

“This fucking blows without wings…” Blaze huffed as she carefully moved her hooves from broken edge to broken step, she and Surprise leaning together as they helped each other down the stairwell of the now stationary Nimbus.

The moment Lucky turned them around and landed, the two mares wasted no time in trying to get down and figure out what happened. Blaze was groggy and Surprise was badly beaten up, but when they finally came around and realized that the top elites had all vanished from the bridge they needed to know what happened. Fleetfoot and Air Mach were still there, but where had everypony else gone? What had happened to Nightshade?

“FFFFFF-SHIT!” Blaze suddenly cursed as her hoof slipped. She and Surprise yelped as the two suddenly skidded down the last flight, the two of them hitting the floor of the lobby, but somehow remaining upright as their hooves awkwardly slammed to the tiles, a wing pressed to the other’s body and one arm locked, saving each other from a nasty stumble and spill.

The moment the two stopped twitching from the impact, they looked up and took in the horrible state of the lobby, as well as the view of what Nightshade left in her wake. Wonderbolts were strewn about, moaning groaning, propped up or helping one another out. Thankfully, none of them were dead, at least as far as they could see, but they were all high tier, low tier, and recruits… where were the rest? It was only about half of the force, but none of the missing top tiers were there.

“Holy shit…” Blaze blinked as her jaw dropped. She looked back and forth around the lobby and took it all in. “What the fuck happened in here? Did Nightshade do all of this?!” She slowly shook her head as Surprise’s ears drooped down and her hair deflated slightly.

“Ooooooooh…” She shivered as she lifted an arm across her body and grabbed her shoulders. “I hope everypony is okay…” she thought out loud as she frantically looked back and forth for any sign of the top tier elites, especially her own squad.

Then her ears stood up as several of the lobby doors at the front suddenly opened. She and Blaze both stared towards the entrance… as Renegades and thestrals began shuffling in.

They were not a pretty sight. The Renegades were leaning on one another, several unicorns from Bliss’ staff making haste towards the doors to assist as they poured in from the east hallway with medical kits and a few stretchers.

The thestrals looked even worse, their armor badly bent, broken, or dented. They hissed at any unicorns that tried to assist them, quickly removing themselves from around anypony aside from their own as they started gathering off to the side.

Both Blaze and Surprise remained perfectly still, supporting one another as they prayed that soon their friends would follow behind, all the while also wondering what had caused such brutal wounds and bruises to both of the allied groups. Did the Shadowbolts do this to them? That didn't seem likely after how hard the thestrals rained down on them. There were too many questions and no answers coming at them, and it was driving them both nuts.

But then much to their relief, Wonderbolts began shuffling in among them, high and low tiers alike.

“AH!” Surprise suddenly squeaked, moving forward and ripping her wing free from Blaze. Blaze immediately teetered and fell over, not expecting the rug to be pulled right out from beneath her hooves.

Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, and Misty Fly had just appeared among the injured, all three of them clumped together to help each other stand. Both of the Streak twins wore blank, distraught expressions as Misty Fly kept looking between them both. She seemed more worried about the two of them than herself.

“GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!” Surprise yelled out desperately. Every step she took was wobbly as she pushed her way toward them. The twins looked up as she approached, prompting Misty to look as well. They gasped as Surprise lost her hooves, tripped and fell flat on her face right in front of them. But before any of them could reach down and help her, she sprang right up and launched herself at Misty, hugging her tightly around the neck. Misty immediately used one of her arms to return the embrace, but it only lasted a moment as Surprise let go and frantically shifted back and forth, first looking Fire up and down then moving over to Lightning and doing the same.

The twins both sat down as Surprise examined them, both tired, and a little nauseous from the amount of shock that had just been forced through them over the past hour. Their faces telling half the story as they held mostly blank expressions devoid of energy. Misty seemed to be faring better than them, refusing to sit down as she continued to keep tabs on them, but it didn’t matter, Surprise sat in front of Lightning and looked back and forth at all three of them with her eyes incredibly wide and an enormous sad pout on her face.

“Oh… thank Celestia you’re all okay…” she managed to say, but her voice was very shaky and squeaky. She looked like she was about to cry.

As the three looked upon her, Lightning tipped his head from side to side slightly, noticing that SHE looked pretty beat up herself. She looked worse than they did, having taking a severe beating from Nightshade up in the bridge.

“Babe, are you okay…?” he asked as he nearly wobbled and tipped over, his voice completely devoid of its usual laxness and filled with fatigue instead.

“No…” Surprise instantly answered as her eyes seemed to grow wider and the pout more intense. “I couldn’t keep up with you guys.”

“Surprise,” Fire spoke up as he placed a hoof on her head. “Believe me… you were probably better off in here,” he explained vaguely. In reality, he wasn’t sure if he could really explain to her what happened, or if he was ready to. He just stared down into Surprise’s absurdly sad expression, perking up slightly as he felt something soft brush against him. He glanced to his left to see Misty sit down and lean into him, releasing a long, tired sigh as she finally took a load off.

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” Surprise hummed in a wobbling tone, her head tipping down. She reached out, grabbed Lightning’s arm, and pulled herself into it, pressing her face into his shoulder as she started making muffled mumbling noises.

Lightning took a deep breath and exhaled, just repeating the gesture of his brother by placing a hoof gently on her head. Fire and Lightning both turned their heads and locked eyes for a moment, the two stallions still trying to grasp if everything that just happened… really just happened. What were they supposed to do… or even think? While there were mysteries and questions around every corner, one thing had been consistent.

It was them against an enemy, Wonderbolts and their allies against the Shadowbolts.

And now there was suddenly something jammed right in the middle of it.

“ALRIGHT ASSHOLES!!!!!” Blaze suddenly yelled from nearby as she growled and pulled herself towards them one labored step at a time. “What actually happened out there?! And where the hell is—”

Blaze instantly cut herself off as High Winds suddenly shuffled around Lightning Streak, reaching a hoof out and touching him for balance as she blinked and tried to remain upright.

“WINDY!!!!!!!” Blaze somehow found the strength to leap, hurling herself right at High Winds, but she got light headed halfway and ended up crashing into her instead of grabbing onto her. The two fell into a heap on the ground, but Blaze instantly clamped to her. “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU LEAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?!” she yelled, nearly screeching as her voice cracked several times.

“Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazey…” High Winds whined as she visibly twitched. "My body already hurts enooooooooough…” she groaned as Blaze refused to stop squeezing her.

Fire sighed heavily to himself as he turned to look at Misty, but she was already moving from his side. She turned and faced him, positioning herself directly in front of him. She placed her hooves gingerly on one of his arms and moved it up and down. She brought her head in close to examine his injuries and took care not to touch anything that looked bad. Fire sat still, just watching her as she slowly slid her hooves from his arm, to his chest and did the same there. Eventually she was examining his other arm before suddenly standing up on her back hooves and leaning forward, placing her front hooves on his chest as she looked over his shoulder to examine his wings and back.

He didn’t move a muscle at let her do as she pleased, knowing she was going to worry about him either way. She eventually let herself down, sat right in front of him, and gave him a sad look that nearly crushed his soul. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they were trying to contemplate the current situation, Misty was making his heart sink even more. Though at the same time, it comforted him to see her prioritizing him despite the massive distraction currently looming overhead.

He quickly reached for her and gently pulled her into his chest. She pushed her hooves on his chest and stopped him briefly, making sure she wasn’t going to apply pressure to any of his injuries before letting him complete the motion. He wrapped his arms around her as she pressed her cheek into his chest and brought his wings around to fold them over her as well.

Again, Fire looked to his brother and Lightning looked back at him. It was a relief to have their squad together once more, but that's where the relief ended. They only hoped they’d get some guidance soon… because as things currently stood, they were completely lost.

Fire blinked as Lightning suddenly turned and looked elsewhere, back towards the doors. Fire followed suit, turning to look over his shoulder as he gently rubbed a hoof up and down Misty’s back. His eyes landed on Matteo pushing his way through the doors, Squall and Storm at his sides propping him up as he carried Rainbow Dash in on his back. Little Star was sitting on his back behind Dash, keeping her little hooves pressed to Dash to hold her steady. Rainbow Dash still looked devoid of energy. She was clearly alive and breathing, but she looked spent, her body just barely a step from limp. She looked pale, her blue color appearing slightly lighter as she breathed steadily with a hoof pressed over her heart. The rest of them were in a similar beat up state that graced the bodies of just about everypony else slumped around the lobby. Little Star was the one exception, one of few lucky to escape with little to no injuries at all.

They were quickly engulfed into the crowd as they entered, but they slowly made their way into the center of the lobby, Matteo’s head sticking up over the top of the rest as they weaved through.

Fire turned back just in time to see Calm Wind approaching from the direction of the stairs. He took slow, heavy steps as he moved towards them, carrying both Shine Struck and Fleetfoot on his back with Air Mach and Macho Savage limping by his side.

Shine’s ears stood up as she looked towards the east hallway and saw Playbitz and Swift Justice emerge, helping the medical staff roll in a few stretchers. She quickly shimmied off Calm’s back, falling and accidentally landing right on Air Mach. He collapsed into a heap on the floor as she bounced off and hobbled over to the rest of her squad, leaving Air Mach behind to groan on the floor. Macho Savage stopped with him, reaching up a hoof and flagging down Lead Runner and Point Dex as they appeared from the west hall, emerging from the lower levels to see what was going on.

Fire’s eyes were quickly drawn back to Calm as he suddenly groaned, his legs buckled, and he slowly lowered himself to the floor. He lied flat, resting his chin on the floor, and sprawling his legs out as he released a long, fatigued breath.

Fleetfoot squeaked in surprise as Calm hit the floor gently. Her eyes had been fixed on squad two and three, but she immediately looked at him once he finally stopped. She cringed as she pushed herself off his back and yelped quietly as her hooves touched down and the pressure of holding herself up sent shocks through her sore body. She hobbled up in front of Calm and looked him over with concern, but the moment he saw her doing so, he lifted up a hoof and nonchalantly waved it back and forth, signaling he was fine. He was just tired… and likely sucking it up. He knew what she wanted to do and didn’t want her to worry about him.

Convinced he was alright, Fleetfoot immediately turned to the top elites gathered together and started dragging herself towards them, one step at a time with her hooves barely ever leaving the ground. Every movement looked labored, every muscle in her body twitching painfully, but she kept on regardless. She whimpered and her lips quivered continuously as she forced herself along.

Fire couldn’t stand watching it, so he quickly tapped Misty on the shoulder, removing his wings and arms from around her in the process. Misty lifted her cheek slightly from Fire’s chest to look up at him as he pointed over her shoulder. She followed his hoof, quickly seeing Fleetfoot as she struggled to reach them. No signals were needed. She knew what Fire wanted her to do, but…

Misty looked back up at him briefly with concern as her eyes darted up and down from his legs to his chest. Fire caught on quickly. Her continued consideration of his wellbeing made him smile weakly, but he reached a wing to his chest, placed the end of one feather in the center, and spread the rest of his feathers out, the sign for ‘I’m fine’.

Of course, he really wasn’t fine. None of them were, but he wasn’t the one struggling to simply move at the moment. Without a dash of protest, Misty slowly pulled away from him, her hooves lingering on his chest until she was beyond arm’s-length before she limped over to Fleetfoot.

Misty got to her just in time, Fleetfoot nearly collapsing into her as Misty turned and offered her side to help Fleetfoot stand. Misty reached a hoof down to help prop her up as she slowly guided her along. Fire and Lightning both watched as Misty eventually brought Fleetfoot before them. Her head was down the whole way over, but she slowly tipped her chin up. Her face scrunched in pain and her eyelids were only half open as she looked up and glanced back and forth at the twins, taking notice of Surprise as well as Blaze and High Winds sitting up on the floor beside them.

She tapped Misty’s side, slowly letting go as she took control again, sharp heavy breaths hissing through her teeth as she dragged her hooves and moved up to the Streak twins. She stopped a pace or two away from them as she continued to look around, to their left and right and between them. She stopped and perked up, drawing the twin’s eyes to follow and look behind them.

Spitfire had just come through the door, stopping right after she entered to scan her surroundings and everypony else. Fleetfoot’s eyes remained locked on her captain, but she was looking for somepony else… that didn’t follow Spitfire in.

“Wh… where…? Fleetfoot barely managed to say as her voice squeaked. The Streak twins both looked back to her as Surprise pulled herself off Lightning’s arm to look at Fleetfoot as well.

Fleetfoot began looking around quicker, more frantically. She caught a glimpse of Matteo as he emerged from the crowd with Storm and the rest of Foxtrot. Her eyes widened as she saw Dash lying limply on Matteo’s back.

Her pupils began to shake slightly as she leaned forward and glanced to and fro with a look of dread creeping onto her face.

“Where…? WHERE IS…?! AH!” she suddenly lost her balance and fell forward. Fire, Lightning, and Surprise quickly reached out and caught her before she could collapse, propping her up. She gritted her teeth and slammed her eyes shut as her body shuddered. “Where…?”

“Miss Fleetfoot?” Fire spoke quietly, part of him already sure what she was trying to ask.

“Where is… he…?” Fleetfoot managed to elaborate as they got her fully upright and she opened her eyes and focused on Fire.

The twins both flinched, Fire averting his eyes.

“Where…?!” she demanded, turning to Lightning.

But he did the same as his brother, avoiding eye contact.

“WHERE IS SOARIN?!” she blurted, her voice choking as she looked between the Streak twins desperately.

Fleetfoot’s demands prompted Surprise and Blaze to perk up as well. Blaze quickly turned to High Winds… to see a sad look in her eyes too.

Surprise quickly took note of the expressions the twins wore. She spun around and saw Misty looking away from them as well, seeming to understand what was being asked.

“Wh… what…? Surprise stuttered, her hair deflating further as she began putting it together.

“Wait, wait…” Blaze pushed herself up and placed a hoof on High Winds’ shoulder. “Hold the fuck up… Where is Soarin?!” she asked, getting no response from High Winds. She turned and looked at the Streak twins, her eyes narrowing into a glare as she growled and bared her teeth. She looked around the lobby, seeing Spitfire slowly moving towards them, but failing to find the one particular member of their force. “HEY!” she yelled as she reached up and grabbed Lightning Streak’s shoulder, drawing the attention of several others nearby. Lightning glanced towards her, but didn’t change his expression. “WHERE THE FUCK IS SOARIN?!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

“He’s not here.”

Blaze froze for a moment, before sharply turning her head and locking her eyes on Spitfire standing behind her.

“What?! What do you mean?!” Blaze demanded as she released Lightning and wobbled while planting her front hooves back on the ground. Spitfire held a serious, hardened look on her face as she looked down at her sister.

“The horn broke.”

Spitfire said nothing more. She simply looked left and right at Surprise and Fleetfoot as their eyes stuck open and their jaws both dropped, a weak gasp escaping Surprise’s throat while Fleetfoot couldn’t even muster the breath for one.

Everypony else who had been out there and already knew remained quiet. There was nothing they could add to the explanation. That’s what happened, and they all knew what it meant already.

“He… What…?” Fleetfoot finally sputtered, her lips quivering and her eyes watering as it sunk in, visibly reacting as Blaze and Surprise both remained still in shock. “No… nononoNO!” Fleetfoot suddenly leaned forward, nearly falling over herself as she reached for Spitfire. Spitfire lifted a hoof and grabbed her arm to support her. “NO! Where is he?!” she asked in disbelief and denial as she grabbed Spitfire’s arm and clutched it tightly. “WHERE IS SOARIN?!”

“Fleet,” Spitfire reached her other arm around and rested it gently on the back of her head. “Calm down." She suggested as Fleetfoot sniffled and tears began leaking down her face.

“Ah!” Surprise suddenly yelped drawing Spitfire’s attention over to Blaze as she pushed past Surprise, her eyes battling between a glare and a look of horror as she grabbed Spitfire’s arm.

“FUCK CALMING DOWN!” Blaze yelled loudly, causing Fleetfoot to scrunch up and shudder. “ANSWER HER DAMN QUESTION!!!!!!!” she demanded, her voice starting to sound choked up and raspy as she belted.

But before she could demand any further, she found herself completely frozen. Spitfire was glaring at her, but it wasn’t an intense or intimidating glare. It was a calm, incredibly sharp glare that silently asserted her over Blaze like she was telling her to calm down or she would make her calm down.

“Thank you,” Spitfire spoke up as Blaze went quiet, confirming Spitfire’s intentions with the look. It was strange to those who were out there.

Fire Streak in particular noticed that Spitfire seemed unaffected by everything they just saw. He absolutely doubted that she wasn’t affected at all by what happened to Soarin, but if she was, she was hiding it or holding it back.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Spitfire began, all ears and eyes turned to her as she continued to cradle Fleetfoot gently with one arm. “But the horn broke… and he was possessed by his magic, or… if I’m to believe what I heard from Discord, by an entity that Celestia actually put inside of him that was the source of the magic…” she trailed off for a moment and flattened her brow. “Who… if I’m also to believe Discord… actually happens to be the soul of the Sombra the Mad King.”

She paused to let that much sink in. Fleetfoot, Blaze, and Surprise all just stared as if the information came right out of left field and smacked them upside the head. Spitfire was expecting it and shook her head slightly.

“Yes, the Mad King Sombra. The one from ancient history that we learned about in textbooks in history classes, the one from the legends, fairytales, bedtime stories, etcetera,” she continued on with a snort. “Don’t ask, because I don’t have a single damn detail right now. All I know is that that’s who Discord said he was… and that Soarin’s body is now completely under his control. We engaged him, but I’m sure you can tell how that went,” she said as she motioned to everypony around them, the Renegades and thestrals included. “No, this wasn’t done by Nightshade, it was all by Soarin. It was the most one-sided scenario I have ever been a part of in my life and he took off right after.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know where he is, where he is going, or what to do about this yet, but…” she looked over towards Squad Foxtrot as Storm Front helped them slide Dash off of Matteo’s back and place her gently on the floor sitting up. “I know Soarin is still alive. Dash would be dead if he wasn’t.”

She frowned briefly, something none of them noticed as she thought about how her attempt to reach Soarin completely failed, yet Dash simply touching him nearly brought him down. She knew why… but it still bothered her.

“But…” Fleetfoot spoke up, sniffling and shivering against Spitfire’s arm. “But…”

She was cut off and her body settled down as Spitfire lightly placed a hoof on her shoulder.

“Fleet, I want to tell you not to worry, but that’s not gonna make this any better.” She slid her hoof down to Fleetfoot’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “But I’m not going to sit down and give up. I fully intend to get to the bottom of this and figure out what we can do.”

She paused and looked towards the doors. Starry Skies and Lightning Dust had just made their way in, the two of them both supporting Descent as he teetered, hacked and coughed. He was holding his stomach with one hoof, the other placed over Starry’s shoulders for balance. Everypony around Spitfire followed her eyes, all looking just in time to see Luna slide through the doors while helping Captain P.L., several thestrals helping support him with a few carrying in broken pieces of his tattered armor.

Blaze, Surprise, and Fleetfoot barely had time to register the broken state of Captain P.L. before a door near the edge of the entryway suddenly pushed open…

And Discord dragged himself through. He did not look at or talk to anypony. He simply pulled himself along the wall until he was not near anypony and slumped down with his back against the wall, looking straight down with a blank look on his face.

“Once everypony has gotten aboard and has had a chance to catch their breath…” Spitfire began again as she slowly narrowed her eyes, her pupils shifting back and forth between Luna and Discord. “I intend to interrogate Discord and Luna,” she said with her voice growing harsh. Everypony looked back at her, hearing her tone loud and clear.

They particularly took note of a word that seemed specifically chosen… ‘Interrogate’.

“And they better tell me EVERYTHING… or else I intend to tear both of them a pair of new divine assholes.” Her lips parted as she finished, revealing her teeth grinding together and a snarling hiss escaping through her nose and from deep in her throat.

The Wonderbolts didn’t say anything. Some swallowed, others shifted, and some of them backed away slightly.

Spitfire was ANGRY.

But it was a different kind of anger. They had seen her mad in the past, but this was different. It was never this sharply focused, nor did it have such a foreboding air.

Soarin had been compromised… and once again, it looked like there were certain things that the gods had kept from them. It was more of the same even though Spitfire had recently made it perfectly clear to them she wouldn’t take that from them anymore.

But this time, she wasn’t going to let them talk themselves out of it. No more, even if it meant she had to hit them back in some way. They earned it after all.

“Fire,” Spitfire spoke up again, causing Fire to flinch, but quickly compose himself.

“Yes, ma’am?” he sat upright and nodded.

“Can you do me a favor and grab somepony to take a headcount of the Wonderbolts?” she asked, still not looking at him as she slowly released her soft hold on Fleetfoot. “I want a full casualty report.”

“Yes—” Fire only got halfway through a weak salute before Spitfire turned and started making her way towards Descent. “Ma’am…”

“Dude…” Lightning Streak slowly shook his head. “She is downright pissed.”

“I can’t say I blame her,” Fire sighed heavily as the two watched her move, everypony in her way quickly moving aside as she walked with strength and determination through the crowd.

Spitfire approached Descent, never taking her eyes off of him despite her thoughts being focused on the two gods that were both nearby. She moved with a purpose, fighting back any pain from her injuries as she strode right up to him while projecting her presence.

Descent was sitting on the floor, one arm around his gut as he hunched over and took long, heavy breaths. His goggles and bandana were both off and on the floor before him. Lightning Dust sat on one side of him, her hooves pressed to Descent’s arm to help support him as he heaved and heaved to get air into his lungs. Starry Skies was on the other, facing him with a hoof hovering up in front of her. She was inconspicuously hesitating to reach out and touch him like Dust was. She clearly wanted to express worry, but per usual, she was afraid to show it.

Starry was the first to notice Spitfire approaching and quickly took note of her demeanor. Instinctively, Starry got up and stepped in front of Descent, placing herself right in Spitfire’s path and glaring.

“Buzz off, he can’t talk right now,” Starry demanded as Spitfire kept moving forward, not stopping or taking a single step to the left or right. Starry held her ground, her head tilting to look up at Spitfire as she slowly loomed over her, but she never once looked at her. Spitfire casually reached up, placed a hoof on Starry’s shoulder, and roughly pushed her aside. “HEY!” Starry yelled as she grabbed Spitfire’s hoof and resisted, but she was already out of the way. Spitfire kept her attention completely focused on Descent as she opened a wing and sandwiched Starry between it and her arm, holding her at bay beside her.

“Descent,” she said his name. But aside from a brief glance and a scowl, he said nothing, looking back down as he continued to gently press his hoof to his stomach. “Fine, don’t talk to me,” Spitfire went on quickly and very firmly as she kept her arm and wing outstretched, Starry growling and trying to pull herself free to no avail. “But once you get a nice hold of your head, pull it out of your ass and get somepony to do a headcount of all the Renegades. I want to know any and all casualties.”

Descent snorted at her blunt words, but still said nothing.

“Spitfire,” Blazetail’s voice came from behind them. He hobbled up beside Lightning Dust after catching the exchange. “I’ll get somepony to do it,” he said with a nod.

“Thanks,” Spitfire replied simply as she let go of Starry, almost causing her to fall forward, but thanks to Starry’s lack of injuries she had no problem catching herself. Spitfire was already turned and on her way elsewhere before she could retaliate though, leading Starry to grumble and return her attention back to Descent instead.

Blazetail kept his eyes on her as she left though, taking note of Spitfire’s demeanor and the way she was carrying herself. From one lead captain to another, he could tell she meant business. It was a good thing too. As much as he wouldn’t want to admit it, he had no clue what their next course of action would be. This was even beyond anything he had handled during the last Griffon-Drake war, perhaps not in scope… but definitely in complexity.

Spitfire continued on her course, now bringing her towards the thestrals. They had detached themselves from the rest of the group, more or less claiming a good portion of the west side of the lobby to sit down and catch their breath. The moment Spitfire crossed into their territory, several of them began glaring and hissing in her direction.

She shrugged off every pair of glowing, glaring yellow eyes directed at her and paid zero attention to their attempts to intimidate her. She didn’t have time for their typical behavior. She wanted to have a word with their captain and the goddess they served.

She made her way through, none of them making any aggressive moves towards her despite their actions, but they did not break their focus, not while she was in proximity of Luna and carrying an assertive air with every step she took.

She stopped right in front of Luna and P.L. the two of them hidden in the back of the group as Luna quietly fretted over P.L.

Spitfire focused on P.L. first. She wanted to prompt him to headcount his soldiers, but as she took in his demeanor and his injured state, she decided not to ask him. His posture resembled Descent, only his pain looked to be all over, hunched over as he sat. His front hooves were planted on the floor and wobbling as he gritted his teeth and cringed endlessly. His eyes and face were wrought with a mixture of anger and shame, glaring at the ground as his injuries forced him to think about the beating he just received. The pain reminding him constantly that he just utterly failed in his duty. It didn’t matter that no harm came to Luna, he failed to stand and protect her. With his armor in shambles and several pieces sitting on the floor around him, he was the clearest possible image of a broken knight.

But Spitfire still needed somepony to do roll call for the thestrals.

“Luna,” Spitfire spoke up in a harsh tone that made Luna flinch and slowly look at her. The hissing of the surrounding thestrals grew louder for a moment, prompting Spitfire to flatten her brow and shift her eyes back and forth for a moment, but she ultimately ignored them. She instead, got a good look at Luna’s face, noticing that it looked incredibly defeated and devoid of any motivation… about on par with many of them right now.

But to hell with it.

Spitfire didn’t care how Luna was feeling and she certainly had no sympathy for her right now. Not after just what happened, confirming that once again… there were things that she had been kept in the dark about. She had made it clear that the last time this kind of thing was pulled on her that it was the last straw and they were doing things her way. Yet here they were once again.

She had effectively lost all trust in anything Luna said, but she wanted some answers so she was going to at least give her a chance to explain herself, while strangling her if need be. That went doubly for Discord… but she’d get to him in a moment.

“Get one of your guards to do a roll call for me. I want a full report on casualties.” Spitfire demanded, offering no ‘please’ or respectful addressing. It wasn’t a request, it was a demand. The harshness of her words infuriated the surrounding thestrals, and several of them started approaching her while hissing and snarling loudly.

Spitfire furrowed her brow and stomped a hoof on the floor loudly and suddenly.

“CUT. THAT. OUT.” She forced each word through her throat harshly, emphasizing each one greatly with a brief pause in between them. The thestrals all stopped in place, their snarls and hissing fading slightly, but their glares remaining as Spitfire turned her back to Luna, not giving her any time to reply, not that she was expecting her to. “And Luna,” Spitfire spoke again with her back turned. “When you’re done getting that taken care of, I’m going to meet with the top elites, and all senior leadership over by the central pillar in ten minutes. That means you too.” she glanced over her shoulder just far enough for Luna to see one of her eyes glaring harshly. “I have some questions for you.”

Luna remained quiet, not saying a word from start to finish all through the brief encounter.

Good. Spitfire was glad she didn’t have to spell out just how furious she was right now.

But she had one last individual to address…

And she was probably angrier at him than anypony or anything else…

Discord.

Just thinking about him at this very moment made her right eyelid twitch as her closed lips concealed how hard the thought made her teeth grind. Princess Luna had kept things from her, sure, but Discord had been more secretive than her… far more secretive. And unlike Luna, Discord was constantly slipping in and out, never giving her a chance to really get in his grill and beat the whole truth out of him.

But for some reason he had slithered his way back to the Nimbus with them. She assumed he would just vanish without a word, leaving them in the dark like he always did, but he didn’t this time. There had to be a reason for that, and it probably wasn’t good thing. But it was good enough for her and she wasn’t going waste the chance.

She finally made her way out from the crowd of thestrals, her eyes immediately scanning for and finding Discord on the other side of the lobby, in a space all by himself with nopony going near him.

Even before she got closer she noticed his demeanor. He was slumped against the wall with his eyes staring blankly at the floor in front of him, his pupils shifting back and forth continuously.

It wasn’t quite the same as a majority of the looks around the lobby. There was an additional vibe from it. He had the look of someone who just really screwed something up, which might explain why he decided to come back with them and not go gallivanting off per usual.

But honestly, Spitfire didn’t give a damn. In fact, she gave even less of a damn about how he was feeling than how Luna was feeling… if that were even possible. If Discord came back just to mope about a grave mistake, fine. He could mope all he wanted, but since he was here, she was going to grill his ass.

“YOU.” Spitfire spoke towards him harshly as she stopped right in front of him, standing over him with a looming presence that flipped the script on their usual interactions. Discord glanced up at her, stared for roughly three seconds, shorted quietly and looked back down while shaking his head. “Look at me!” Spitfire yelled the moment he broke eye contact.

Surprisingly, he obeyed, looking up again as she leaned forward and got down in his face.

She said nothing at first, holding a harsh glare as she hovered her face an inch from his. Discord gave no similar look in reply, but she wanted to make it very clear that she was not pleased. She didn’t expect him to be intimidated or to care, but she wanted to do it anyway. In her opinion, she deserved to stand over him and be larger than him for once. If not for the secrets, but also as a little bit of payback for the crap he put her through with the Wave Chill earlier on. She wanted him to get a good look at her and understand that the time for his crap was over, whether or not he agreed.

“Ten minutes,” she spoke up harshly. “We’re meeting over by the pillar with senior leadership and you’re going to be there too.” She paused, reached a hoof forward and poked it hard against his chest. “And I expect some answers… so you better have one HELL of a good explanation for all of this by then. Understand?”

Discord didn’t answer.

And she went no further.

She simply held her position for almost a full minute.

Then she turned her back to him and walked, leaving him behind to think.

To say that the Shadowbolt Fortress was a mess was an understatement. Aside from having been sandwiched between the Nimbus and the ground beneath it, it had also been dragged through the dirt, leaving a massive dug out trench and several mechanical bits and pieces in its wake. The crystals that had splintered and broken off shattered and turned to dust the moment they hit the ground. Any Falcons that returned from the confrontation with the Wonderbolts were parked outside, all of the entrances to the hangers either crushed or inoperable.

It was a wonder that the place was still somewhat in one piece. It was tipping slightly on its side, several propellers bent and mangled, the large crystal formations were cut down to size and several fires had broken out all over. The Shadowbolts that had been stationed within were rushing every which way trying to put them out. Sparks and pops flashed from electrical boxes, wires hung from the walls and ceilings, numerous windows had been broken and some areas had caved in. Every time the Shadowbolts tried to fix something, it seemed like something else would fall or break. Some of them were beginning to wonder if the fortress could be fixed at all, arguments breaking out between those trying and those admitting defeat.

And it didn’t help that only a third of the Shadowbolts were capable of working as the place slowly fell apart more and more.

The wide majority of the force had just returned from fighting, and they had taken a severe beating from the combined attack of the Renegades and the thestrals. They were bruised and battered, slumped, slouched, and sprawled out on the floor in the main lobby of the fortress. Barely any of them were moving, most of them were just lying still as they groaned and gasped, their single crystals hovering close to them and gently shining their light over their wounds.

As if their injuries weren’t bad enough, they were confused too. For starters, they got the crap kicked out of them. Then… they struggle to get home, only to find their fortress completely wrecked and crashed. They stumble in regardless to find all commanding officers and Nightshade are gone.

And then only three of the commanders returned…

Blade, Angel, and Void.

They were huddled together and whispering to one another in a corner. Anypony that approached them and demanded answers was yelled at or forced back. One of them was even given a black eye by Void for refusing to step away.

Everything was just wrong and the bulk of the Shadowbolt force was feeling it, the sting of uncertainty as painful as the wounds they were trying to treat.

And the whole time… Ruin was perched high above in the rafters, slowly sliding his body along his spot until he was lying with one hoof dangling down like a cat up on a wall or window sill. His smile grew wider by the second as he examined the state of the Shadowbolts below, failing to hold in a few quiet giggles as he shivered and took it all in.

Then a sudden THUMP came from the entryway.

Ears perked up as the Shadowbolts sitting around all looked towards the doors… to see the center double doors open and close… but nothing came through them.

“Right on schedule,” Ruin mused to himself as he turned and got comfortable, keeping his eyes on a particular spot a few yards from the doors.

But nopony could see anything, leaving them all to wonder why the doors had just swung open. Even Blade, Void, and Angel broke their huddle to look, but they too saw nothing.

That was at least until a few gentle pink flashes of light started appearing near the doors.

The flashed became more rapid, eventually revealing the outlines of three ponies, forming into silhouettes that slowly filled in… until a loud POP echoed out and revealed Moon, Shadow, and Sin.

“GRHG!” Moon grunted as his magic ceased, his crystals falling and bouncing off the floor in front of him before they quickly picked right back up and shifted to his side. Using only two crystals to perform his magic had proven to be quite difficult and taxing, but they had finally made it back. He and Shadow were both struggling, small crystals constantly appearing and shattering all over their arms and bodies. Sin was still by far in the worst shape, but all the crystals that had formed on him were not spreading, held back by the spare magic from Shadow and Moon. The two carefully lay Sin down on the floor, before Moon turned and sat down, exhaling loudly as Shadow immediately focused her attention on Sin not giving a single thought to her own state.

The reaction among the observing Shadowbolts was mixed. In fact, it was roughly split right down the middle. Half of them, upon registering who it was, went right back to paying attention to themselves or slumped back down to rest, appearing not to care. The other half forced themselves up and started moving towards the three arrivals, showing a mixture of surprise, relief, and concern.

Some of them hesitated, quickly remembering how they were treated when approaching Blade, Angel, and Void. But most of them moved forward without a thought, knowing well that at least Moon and Sin weren’t ones to randomly lash out.

“I’m fine!”

Shadow on the other hoof…

“I SAID I’M FINE!” Shadow barked, pushing away the first stallion to reach her and offer to help. “I’m… “ she turned and slumped down, quickly propping herself up and pulling herself back up to Sin, placing a hoof on his back as he wheezed on the floor. “I’m going to be fine, if you’re going to help anypony, help HIM!” she demanded snarling at anypony coming towards her while pointing at Sin. “Make yourselves useful! Go find us a third crystal for him or something!” she demanded in an odd tone that sounded half angry and half pleading as if she couldn’t pick one.

But her demand was a bit of a stretch, the Shadowbolts near her looking back and forth at one another while hesitating.

Go get a crystal? Only one pony was allowed to give out the crystals and they knew how strict she was about it. There was no way any of them would ever dare raid Nightshade’s room.

“Go to my quarters,” Moon suddenly spoke up, sitting nearby but not looking at anypony in particular. “I have an emergency stash in there. They’re in a box under my bathroom sink in the corner. The one labeled ‘soap’.” He kept explaining as if it was all normal. But everypony within earshot was staring at him with shock, including Shadow. Moon glanced around at them and shook his head calmly. “Don’t worry about Nightshade. She’s having problems of her own right now. Go grab us three, and ONLY three,” Moon instructed strictly. “If I go back later and some of them are missing, we’re going to have a problem.” He added, making his voice as harsh as possible within his usual tone.

After a moment of inaction, a few Shadowbolts broke away from them and started hobbling towards the hallways to do as he asked.

Moon turned slowly towards Shadow, but did not get up. He sat still as he looked upon both her and Sin, taking slow steady breaths as his two crystals continued to fight back the crystal affliction. But Shadow was staring directly at him, one hoof still on Sin’s shoulder.

“What?” Moon asked casually.

“You’ve been hoarding crystals?” she asked with a clear incredulous tone.

“If by hoarding you mean the six I’ve hidden in case of emergencies, then yes,” Moon answered sarcastically without changing his tone. But Shadow kept looking at him with an expression that screamed more questions.

“But…” she scrunched her eyelids slightly as if she was trying to wrap her head around something. “But haven’t you been tempted to… you know… increase your power?”

“No.” Moon answered her immediately. She just stared blankly, blinking several times.

“How the hell have you resisted the urge? I don’t think I’d be able to go a few seconds without caving!” she asked in disbelief, breaking eye contact with Moon briefly and putting her other hoof on Sin’s back as he groaned in pain. Moon simply shook his head.

“I have more important things to worry about than getting high on fake power,” Moon explained himself as he glanced towards Blade, Angel, and Void, his eyes landing specifically on Angel. “I have a choice between getting drunk on the crystal power and being killed for doing so… or doing what I must to achieve what’s ultimately most important to me. That’s an easy choice for me to make, I don’t have anything else.”

Shadow slowly looked back towards Moon, looking him up and down carefully as he slowly reached up and removed his goggles and placed them around his neck, shaking his mane out before returning his focus to her.

“And I know you aren’t blind either,” he suddenly said, causing Shadow to perk up in surprise.

“What?” she tipped her head slightly and her ears twitched.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Moon said with a quiet huff. “The Shadowbolts are not all on the same page…” he trailed off momentarily as he saw Blade, Angel, and Void approaching them. Blade looked furious, but Moon wasn’t even looking at him, he was glaring at Angel. “You’d be wise to start considering your personal survival,” Moon finished, prompting Shadow to also turn and see the three approaching commanders, her teeth gritting subtly as they grew closer.

But right before the three reached them, Moon blinked and his eyes widened slightly. He glanced over his shoulder briefly and sighed.

“Great timing…” he said to himself with slight frustration.

The three commanders froze in place, several pairs of eyes all moving to the front doors as they once again opened… and revealed nothing, swinging shut as if something had just come through them.

Just as they had with Moon’s entrance, all the Shadowbolts stared at the door, this time assuming something would appear. And something did.

In the exact same manner that Moon appeared to them all with Shadow and Sin in tow, another collection of soft, pink flashes began shining near the door. The flashes grew brighter and more rapid as outlines of two more ponies appeared until it eventually revealed… Rapidfire with Nightshade limply leaning against his shoulder, a dejected, empty look on her face.

The Shadowbolts near Shadow, Moon, and Sin all jumped in surprise, some gasping, others retreating, and some even hiding, peeking out from behind pillars or other Shadowbolts. Even those who had outright ignored Moon’s entrance found themselves staring towards Nightshade, her presence looming large despite her current demeanor.

But none of them were given the opportunity to react or say anything before Blade’s anger spilled over.

“What the hell?!” Blade blurted out as he continued towards them, leaving Angel and Void behind briefly as they continued to take in the sight. Blade kept glancing continuously between Moon, Rapidfire, and Nightshade, a low growl escaping his throat as he proceeded. “MOON!” he yelled, stomping right up to Moon while failing to hide the limp in his steps. Blade’s eyes did a quick take of Moon’s whole body, quickly noticing that his uniform was spotless and there wasn’t a single injury on him, save for the self-inflicted crystal reactions.

Moon did nothing as Blade approached, partly because he was fatigued and weakened from only having two crystals, but also because he did not fear him. He concentrated on breathing in and out as his body and two crystals fought against the minor crystal affliction. Blade stopped right in front of him, tipping his head down slightly in a blatant attempt to assert himself physically despite not being that much taller than Moon. He said nothing at first, as if assuming Moon would acknowledge him, but Moon’s silence just made him angrier.

Blade reached up and grabbed a wad of Moon’s suit by the neck and yanked at it, but Moon held his ground, Blade’s strength clearly taxed and unable to force him.

“You saved them?!” he growled at him while glancing at Shadow and Sin, following up by pointing angrily at Nightshade. “AND HER?!”

“Yes,” Moon answered while holding his calm demeanor.

“WHY?!” Blade stomped his free hoof on the floor. “Nightshade is a broken mess, Sin was dying, and Shadow was being insubordinate! We don’t have time to deal with those who destroy themselves! Why did you bother?!”

“Because I felt like it,” Moon again replied calmly, keeping his eyes locked on Blade’s and showing no sign of being intimidated and it was clearly annoying Blade.

“You felt like saving two morons and our increasingly ineffective so-called leader?!” he yelled out despite Nightshade standing only a few paces away. Several Shadowbolts surrounding them reacted to the clear questioning of Nightshade, but Blade seemed to know he’d get away with it. If Nightshade’s current look was any indication, not even standing on her own, much less paying attention to anything, she wasn’t even listening. She was broken and staring into space as if the world had just ended.

“HEY!” Shadow yelled, forcing herself off of Sin and taking an angry, wobbly step towards Blade. But she was halted in place as Blade’s crystals clamped to his free hoof, the sword extending until the tip stopped half an inch from her neck. Shadow stumbled backwards and fell on her plot, barely remaining upright as she leaned forward and panted.

“What are you trying to pull?!” Blade grilled Moon further as he retracted his sword, edging his face closer as he glared as hard as he could.

But Moon lifted one eyebrow and tipped his head subtly.

“Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said without breaking eye contact. Blade opened his mouth to yell, but did so pre-emptively before he processed Moon’s words. His eyes widened a little and only a small exhale released from his throat. “What, thought I wouldn’t put two and two together? You haven’t been subtle about it, you know.”

“What are you getting at?” Blade lowered his tone as his eyes quickly darted around at those standing nearby and around. Moon released a long sigh through his nose, the breath hissing as he shook his head slightly.

“Why always so eager to leave behind those who don’t see things the way you do? Why so quick to abandon our leader when she is still clearly the strongest among us?” Moon questioned, turning the tables on Blade a little.

“I don’t need to give a damn about them!” Blade shot back, dancing around the questions. “The Shadowbolt code is clear about those who dig their own graves!”

“The code?” Moon almost released a scoff. “Don’t start acting like you care about our code or actually believe they are rules. The code is a set of base guidelines, they give us a general direction to walk in, nothing more… besides…” Moon narrowed his eyes a little. “If you really cared about the code, you’d respect and follow the authority of the leader… Several times, you’ve tried to abandon fellow commanders. This time you tried it with Nightshade herself. How about right now? Trying to leave behind Nightshade and two others who might be able to challenge you? I’m sorry, but that’s blatantly convenient.”

Blade had been silenced. He was still angrily glaring and growling, but he did not give any words of retort.

“It wouldn’t happen to be…” Moon continued. “Because you desire to become our leader, would it?”

A harsh silence shoved its way into the room and nestled itself between Moon and Blade. Everypony else was already keeping their lips sealed and dared not speak as the two commanders faced off eye to eye.

“Again… if you cared about the code and felt you could do better, you’d challenge her to a duel to the death. Trying to slip around that? Afraid to face Nightshade head on?” Moon pressed on as Blade’s teeth ground together so hard Moon could hear them clattering.

Moon’s words did not fall on deaf ears. A good number of the Shadowbolts slowly looked to Blade as Moon’s questions sunk in. Eventually, Blade lost the stare down, breaking eye contact and looking back and forth while catching the eyes of several Shadowbolts looking towards him. The eyes ranged from shocked, to confused, to alarm, to… approval? Perhaps to the thought of a leadership change? It spoke volumes to how branched apart the mindset of the Shadowbolts as a whole was.

Blade turned his head the other way and looked upon Nightshade. She had not moved from her spot since she arrived with Rapidfire. She was sitting on the floor, hugging herself and twitching as her face held a blank stare devoid of any emotion. Her crystals were clumped together and nestled between her wings on her back. Rapidfire was still holding his hooves against her, keeping her upright as even her basic motor skills seemed to take a back seat to whatever had her perpetually spooked.

“You call that…” Blade pointed sharply at Nightshade, dodging Moon’s question of his willingness to challenge Nightshade while turning his eyes back to Moon. “A leader? You know nothing!” he yelled as he suddenly pulled a hoof free and started walking away from him slowly. The sudden movement was odd and unnatural, suggesting that Moon’s words were getting to him and he was trying to save face.

“I know that if you were to become our leader, it wouldn’t change a thing,” Moon went on, despite Blade’s retreat. Blade froze in place, but did not look back. “After all, you’d just be taking her place as Kayn Ost’s lapdog.”

That did the trick.

Blade spun back around so fast that he almost lost his balance on his wobbling legs. He tossed yet another harsh glare towards Moon as the surrounding Shadowbolts began backing away slightly… just in case. But they did not do so without trying absorbing everything they were seeing and hearing.

Blade kept up the glare, his mouth scrunching up, but he kept his teeth concealed. Moon simply shrugged it off, keeping his demeanor straight and cool per usual.

“Am I wrong?” Moon added for good measure, causing Blade’s lips to part slightly and release a snarl, but he didn’t advance towards Moon.

“If you believe that to be the only role our leader serves now… If you believe that’s the direction she’s taking us in… Then why don’t you challenge her? Why did you think it was worth it to bring her back?!” he angrily pointed at Nightshade. “WHY DID YOU SAVE HER?!” he yelled out, startling everypony… except for Moon.

“I already told you, I felt like it,” Moon repeated calmly.

Blade released a loud snort and a low angry nicker from the back of his throat. He kept his glare fixed on Moon as he tried time and time again to break through him, but it wasn’t working.

Then Angel suddenly stepped up beside Blade, slinking out from behind him and sauntering up while hiding any indication of pain in his steps. Moon’s eyes immediately shifted to Angel and widened slightly, his lips curling downward at the edges as Angel scoffed confidently and smiled.

“Oh spare us, you simpleton,” he tipped his head his long mane swaying slightly over his face as he put on a condescending smirk. Moon’s eyes twitched and instantly narrowed into a harsh glare. “Don’t let him twist your words on you, Blade,” Angel tapped Blade’s shoulder lightly as he slowly moved forward. “Moon likes to believe he knows what’s best, but his story has always been the same.”

Moon was suddenly struggling to keep himself composed at all. His body was almost visibly shaking and he nearly bared his teeth as Angel grew closer.

“He is simply… soft,” Angel stopped right in front of him and looked down, standing over him in a condescending manner that matched the smirk and he smoothly stared down at him. “When you look behind that blank stare, you can see right through him. He clings to naïve hopes, he lets his feelings and emotions drive him away from power…” he paused, slowly lowering his face in front of Moon’s as if daring Moon to try something. Moon’s lips and eyelids twitched slightly, the edges of his mouth scrunching and parting slightly as he fought to hold it together. “If I had to venture a guess…” Angel continued as his smirk grew wider. “He saw what was happening to Sin, Shadow, and Nightshade… and decided to help them out of sentimental sympathy, nothing more. I even bet he’s wondering why he saved them… after all, he always has… ‘better things to worry about.’” Angel imitated Moon’s voice to the best of his ability, adding a pathetic tone to it that seemed to strike every nerve as Moon continued to just barely hold himself back. Angel could see Moon was about to snap, so he leaned in again and got as close as possible. “Am I right… Moon?”

“YOU SON OF A—” Moon forced himself up on all four hooves and readied to leap at Angel.

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOHOO!”

But then Ruin popped up right in between them.

“HAHAHA!” he turned and laughed directly into Moon’s face. “HOHOHO!” he turned and laughed directly into Angel’s face. “HEHEHE!” Then he put both hooves over his chest while gasping and panting. “HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

And fell over onto his back, his legs sticking up into the air with his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he continued to gasp for air.

Moon was still glaring at Angel when Ruin dropped between them, but the moment Ruin intervened, he calmed down, pulled back, and looked away. He quickly composed himself, forcing his body to stop shaking as he fought back the anger.

Angel just stared flatly at Ruin on the floor, miffed that he was interrupted.

“And what are you laughing at, clown?” Angel asked harshly as he glared down at Ruin, leaning his head down towards him to the point where his long silver hair touched the floor.

“Oh, nothing!” Ruin said as he tipped his head up and grinned from ear to ear. He suddenly shifted over and rolled his head into the ends of Angel’s mane, wrapping it all the way around his face until he was wearing it like a bonnet. Angel did not retaliate. He just flattened his brow as Ruin made an outfit out of his mane. “I was having fun just watching the reality show, but when you and Moony Moon got so hilariously dramatic I simply couldn't hold in my laughter any longer! OOOOH HOHOHO!”

Angel grabbed his mane in his hoof and yanked it away from Ruin. Ruin spun on the floor three times before rolling in between him and Moon again. He popped up between them glancing back and forth while snickering before catching Blade glaring at him.

“I love you too, honey,” he winked at Blade before cracking up and falling over on his back again.

“Enough of your idiocy…” Blade grunted as he moved towards him and readied to slam his hoof down over Ruin as he spun on the floor, but the moment he reached him, Ruin sprang up and draped a hoof over his shoulder.

“Alright, alright, let’s not be more violent than usual, shall we?” he said as he continued to snicker, Blade scowling to the limits that his face allowed. “But honestly… REALLY…!!!” Ruin waved his free hoof around as he let go of Blade and sat down in between the three of them, placing his hooves on his waist and spun in a circle on his plot. “What am I even listening to here?” He stopped abruptly and grabbed the ends of his ears with his hooves, pulling on them as he leaned down and slowly swayed his body about to look at Blade, then Moon, then Angel. “Humor me… you ALL just saw what happened out there… right?!” he sneered. “And what’s the first thing you do when you get back? You bicker like one giant polygamous marriage!” He suddenly slid up to Blade again, earning a glare and a growl. “Hate to break it to you, but you’re a few sizes too small to wear the pants in this relationship.”

Ruin tipped backwards and fell over laughing as Blade tried to swipe at him with a hoof.

“This is all too rich, I LOVE it! The things you guys focus on, it’s hilarious! You’re all living in a little bubble!” Ruin guffawed as he continued to roll end over end even though his body was straightened.

“IF YOU HAVE A POINT, GET TO IT!” Blade roared after him, Ruin halting on his head and balancing on it upside down.

“If you say so!” Ruin spun on his head before bouncing on it all the way over to Nightshade and Rapidfire. He turned upright and stood up as he reached them, Rapidfire quickly stepping in front of Nightshade and growling at him. “Oh, that’s cute,” Ruin cooed as one of his crystals instantly generated one of his wild spheres and whipped it around, slamming into Rapidfire’s side.

“GAH!” Rapidfire grunted as the sphere exploded on him, knocking him aside, stumbling. Rapidfire quickly regained his balance and turned sharply back to Nightshade, but stopped when he saw Ruin simply leaning against her as if casually resting against a wall. Nightshade gave no visible reaction to Ruin.

Unsure that any aggressive approach would end well for him, Rapidfire held his place, but glared at Ruin along with the rest.

“Let’s review, shall we?” Ruin began as he motioned his opposite hoof towards Nightshade. “There’s only one topic: Nightshade’s little oopsie!” he said with his smile growing wider and wider. “Our dear leader here… lost control of herself and engaged the Wonderbolts all on her lonesome… leading to a head on confrontation with our main objective… Soarin!” He slowly waved his hoof outward away from his body, bringing it in a full circle and back around towards his head. “And because neither she… nor Soarin… had any real control over themselves… oh boy, did it get nasty! And… in the heat of the moment…” His hoof tapped to his forehead. “She broke the false horn on his head… and unleashed a force unlike anything we’ve ever seen! The very force we were told not to let loose before capturing him!”

He suddenly removed himself from Nightshade, nearly causing her to fall over as he slid across the floor on his hooves all the way up to Blade and Angel.

“AND NONE OF YOU…” He turned and looked at Moon as well. “Seem to be the least bit concerned about that!” He pressed his hooves to his cheeks so hard that his lips puckered and smushed outward as he slowly tipped over backwards and made the noise a balloon deflating. “That’s the sound my brain makes when it’s trying to comprehend your priorities!”

Ruin sat right back up, but paused and blinked. He glanced around the fortress lobby as the rest of the Shadowbolts showed several frightened reactions to what he just said.

“Wait, you didn’t even TELL the rest about that yet?” He looked Blade in the eye and started shaking as he giggled. “AND YOOOOOOOU WANT TO BE OUR LEADER?! WAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHOHO!!!!!!!!!”

“RRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!” Blade suddenly growled loudly as his crystals shot to his hoof and he brandished his sword. He roared with anger as he brought the sword up over his head and swung it down over the top of Ruin.

But Ruin vanished into thin air the moment the sword touched him, the blade smashing to the floor and instantly shattering. Blade’s crystals flew from his hoof and clattered to the ground as he gasped and fell forward, barely propping himself up with his hooves as he wheezed on the floor.

“Our mission has become quite a bit tougher now, hasn’t it?” Ruin’s voice came from behind him as he suddenly sat down and leaned his back against Blade’s while he struggled.

“AND YOU… JUST SAT BACK… AND WATCHED?!” Blade growled at him.

“And get my suit dirty? Please, I only have so many of these lovely outfits,” Ruin said with an overly dramatic tone that couldn’t shake the mischievous charm. Blade grunted furiously, but Ruin just kept applying just enough pressure to keep his fatigued body pinned in place. “I guess I could have done something… but looking at you now, I don’t think it would have mattered. Quite the monster has been unleashed, eh? But what is a good story without twists, turns, and challenges to overcome?” He turned over and rested his stomach on Blade’s back, keeping the light pressure on him. “I wonder…” He patted the top of Blade’s head. “How will we EVER overcome THIS one?! HOOOOHOHOHO!”

“DAMMIT, GET OFF OF ME!” Blade yelled out as he shook himself hard enough to move Ruin. Ruin didn’t even flinch as he casually slid of Blade’s back and stepped right onto his hooves, sauntering around in front of Blade as he forced himself up. He smiled as he glanced back and forth between Blade and Angel, both glaring at him. He tipped his head up to see Void scowling at him from further back as well. “OKAY THEN, SMART ONE!” Blade belted at him with mounting frustration in his voice, drawing Ruin’s eyes back to him. “If you’re so happy about how this is all going… then what should we do?!”

“Sorry,” Ruin winked and stuck his tongue out. “I’m not the leader around here!” he snickered while motioning a hoof towards Nightshade. “I’d hate for anypony to think that I’m… Oh, I dunno…” he slid right up to Blade and got right in his face. “TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE SHADOWBOLTS!”

Blade said nothing as Ruin proceeded to laugh in his face with his eyes stuck open wide, saliva splattering on his face.

Ruin laughed and laughed with no end in sight, he didn’t even stop to take breaths as every other Shadowbolt around shivered at his endless, maniacal cackling.

“Oh?” Ruin suddenly stopped abruptly as he stood up on his hind legs, placing a hoof above his eyes as he peered over the top of Blade and Angel. Void perked up as he saw Ruin look towards and past him, causing him to turn around and look as well.

The Shadowbolts that Moon had sent to grab the three additional crystals returned and they were carrying the three crystals within an aura, taking care not to touch them. It was a show of loyalty by some of them, a show of fear of punishment by others.

The moment Void eyed the crystals though, he snorted and stepped out, blocking their path with a hard stomp.

“NO!” he yelled as they skidded to a halt and froze in front of him, their eyes darting between his face as he loomed over them and his three shining crystals. “These fools do not deserve to be helped! GIVE ME THOSE CRYSTALS NOW!” Void barked at them.

But he flinched and tipped down suddenly as Ruin landed hard on his back and scuttled up his back until he was resting his chin on the top of Void’s head while wearing his same old smile.

“Says the big bumbling fool who follows Blade like a little puppy!” he teased, sparking immediate growling from Void. Ruin stayed quiet for a moment, letting his words sink right into Void to the point where his teeth were grinding together and his face was turning bright red with anger. “C’mon!” Ruin scoffed as he reached a hoof out, his crystals coming to life and snatching the three spare crystals right from the other Shadowbolts. “Let’s let the kiddies have their candy!” he said cheerfully while softly rubbing a hoof into Void’s mane… like he was a dog. Void did not retaliate at all, showcasing how fatigued he was as well. He simply stood there and pushed the limits of how angry a pony could look.

Ruin slid down Void’s back and landed on the floor, trotting over to Moon, Shadow, and Sin as he floated the additional crystals along with him. He stopped in front of Moon and held a smarmy smile as he moved the crystals out in front of him towards Moon.

Moon had not moved nor spoken since Ruin had shown up. He was holding himself back completely, not pleased with his reaction towards Angel. He looked through the crystals and the aura holding them up, locking his eyes with Ruin and simply staring, trying to figure him out.

“Well, Moony?” Ruin snickered as he bounced his eyebrows. “Go ooooooooooon! You stuck your neck out for them…” His neck suddenly extended, unnaturally growing longer for a moment so he could see over the crystals and look down at Moon. “Better finish the job!” he giggled quietly to himself as his neck snapped back down to normal size.

Moon moved his eyes from Ruin to the crystals, and then glanced over his shoulder at Shadow and Sin. She had her hooves resting on Sin’s back as she stared towards Moon and Ruin. She had several other Shadowbolts gathered around, also looking towards Moon as if waiting for him to help.

“Hmph…” Moon grunted as he reached forward and grabbed one of the crystals for himself first. He closed his eyes, concentrating as the crystal’s light ran up his arm and eventually surrounded him. “Haaaaa…” he exhaled, his fur standing on end as the power of the crystal joined his other two and sent shivers through him. With a sudden twitch the light around him flashed and the small, subtle crystals creeping over his body all broke and sprinkled to the ground. He opened his eyes, a pink glow shining from them briefly as he regained his full power. He looked past the two remaining crystals, staring at Ruin again for a moment before he took control of the aura holding the other two.

“Hmmm? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?” Ruin motioned his hooves towards Sin and Shadow. “As much as I enjoy watching Shadow prove she’s more than a constant stone block of anger, I think Sin has been through enough. Let’s relieve him, hm?” he said with a wink.

Moon scrunched the right side of his mouth briefly before shaking his head.

“What?” Ruin broke into chuckles while sneering. “WHAAAAAAAT?” he pressed while holding a hoof to his stomach, but Moon had already turned, quickly making his way over to Shadow and Sin.

Ruin lifted himself into the air with his magic and reclined sideways, resting his cheek on his hoof as he watched Shadow spring up and hobble towards Moon.

A sudden quiet grumbling caught Ruin’s ears and made them twitch. He subtly glanced over his shoulder to see Blade storming off while swearing under his breath, heading for the halls.

Angel watched Blade for a moment, glancing back at Moon, Ruin, and everypony else before scoffing and turning to follow.

Void watched both of them leave, his face still bright red as he seethed.

“I’m…” he grumbled. “Not a puppy…” he said to himself quietly as he turned and stomped after Blade and Angel, almost falling over himself as his he failed to address his own fatigue through his anger.

Ruin slowly spun himself in midair, looking around at the mixed reactions of the Shadowbolts all around him. Just as before, it was nearly split evenly. Some of them followed Blade and or left in a similar manner. The rest stuck around, either watching Moon and Shadow, worrying about Sin, or just remaining near because they wanted to see what happened.

“Ah… a little chaos goes a long way…” Ruin sighed and shivered as he snickered and slowly rose up into the air to get a better view of Moon, Shadow, and Sin.

Moon moved the crystal out to give them to Shadow, but she only grabbed one, frantically turning back towards Sin. Leaving Moon behind with one extra crystal, Shadow slid to a halt at Sin’s side, the nearby Shadowbolts backing away as she lowered herself to the floor and pressed the crystal to his body.

The crystal’s light oozed onto Sin, joining the two spare crystals already working on him. A bright pink light surrounded him entirely… and his pain began to subside. His heaving breaths stopped, replaced by steady, gentle breaths. His groans quieted, and he stopped shaking.

Shadow did not react. She just stared directly at the large crystal formations that were still attached to Sin’s body. She grinded her teeth together and didn’t move a muscle.

Then crackling noises came from the formations. It was slow and steady, but the large crystals began to chip away. It looked like it was going to take a while… but it was working.

Sin was going to be okay.

When Shadow realized that they weren’t going to lose Sin, she released a long, tired sigh of relief as she slumped down and draped her body over the top of his.

Sin’s eyes squeaked open, revealing intense look of fatigue on par with the look of not sleeping in days or months. He glanced around slowly and weakly, taking note of Shadow’s arms and head to his left within his field of view, but he did not speak or try to move as the crystals worked on him. He could feel his pain subsiding little by little, and aside from seeing Shadow, he had little clue what else was going on around him.

But then his eyes twitched and he looked the other way to see Moon moving towards them with four crystals. Moon looked down at Sin, their eyes locking momentarily before Moon moved the additional crystal over to Shadow and pressed it to her back, starting her re-energizing process for her since she seemed more concerned about Sin than herself.

Despite the crystal power refilling within her, Shadow did not move. She twitched and groaned slightly as the small crystals dissolved from her body. She shivered as her crystal power filled her, bringing her back to normal, but otherwise she didn’t seem to care. She just remained on Sin’s back breathing in and out slowly as if she was still trying to recover from the unending worry of losing another comrade.

With Shadow taken care of, and the small lingering crystals on her body ceasing entirely, Moon looked back down at Sin, his eyes still trained on him.

Moon said no words. He simply gave Sin a nod of acknowledgement.

“Heh…” Sin raspily managed to chuckle. “Th… thhhh…” he tried to speak, but sputtered and coughed. “Th…anks…” he said to Moon, but Moon shook his head.

“Thank Shadow, not me,” Moon said, turning away from him. “I only finished what she started.”

Sin briefly glanced at Shadow’s face to his left as she held her eyes shut and breathed in and out. But before he could turn back and attempt any sort of reply, Moon was already walking, moving towards Nightshade and Rapidfire.

Surprisingly, there were some Shadowbolts among those present who were brave enough to approach Nightshade. None of them were close enough to touch her, but they showed great concern for her. Her current state was ghostly. She had not moved, nor spoken as if her body was lifeless. The only Shadowbolts who dared get close enough was Rapidfire. He sat beside her, facing her, and had a hoof lingering in the air as if he wanted to help but didn’t know what to do.

When the Shadowbolts around Nightshade saw Moon coming, they backed off slightly, but Moon lifted a hoof and shook his head, signaling to them to relax.

These were Nightshade loyalists and he knew each and every one of them by name, including Rapidfire. And while Moon was walking his own path, he knew they were technically on his side as opposed to those who leaned towards agreeing with Blade.

He moved towards Nightshade, but stopped when Rapidfire turned to him and met him halfway.

“So what do we do now?” Rapidfire asked him with an eager tone that made Moon raise an eyebrow.

“Why are you asking me?” Moon asked while flattening his brow. Rapidfire scrunched his face and folded his ears back.

“Oh, now you’re not giving me orders?” Rapidfire asked with a snort of frustration.

“I requested your assistance, that’s all. You’re not suddenly my underling.” Moon shook his head. “You can do whatever you want.”

“Okay fine,” Rapidfire snapped at him. “If you’re going turn around on me like that, then tell me what you're going to do. Then I can ‘do whatever I want’!”

Moon looked Rapidfire over carefully, but held his expression firmly.

“I’m going to bide my time,” Moon answered truthfully, but Rapidfire quickly retorted.

“Bide your time?!” He stomped a hoof. “For what?! This is getting ridiculous!” he yelled in Moon’s face. “We can’t carry on like this!” He pointed at Nightshade. “Nothing is right!” he pointed at Shadow and Sin. “Backstabbing and deserting is happening constantly and nopony seems to care about it!” he stepped forward and bumped his chest against Moon’s, getting right in his face. “Blade is clearly planning a coup! He’s going to pit us against one another eventually and—”

“Rapidfire,” Moon cut him off with a harsh tone. Rapidfire froze mid-sentence and his voice nearly cracked. “If you want to go take on Blade, then be my guest.”

Rapidfire blinked, leaning back from Moon and hesitating.

“But…” he stuttered. “But I…”

“Look around you,” Moon took over as he motioned a hoof slowly outward. “Do you really think you’re the only one who feels this way? That something is wrong?”

Rapidfire followed Moon’s motion, slowly turning around and looking at the Shadowbolts still present. They looked tired, weak, defeated, but most of all, they seemed confused and uncertain. The optics had changed drastically within Rapidfire’s memory. When he joined the Shadowbolts, while there was some stable foundation, it was a wild and untamed environment of ponies always bickering or fighting, dominance and factions, assertion and brutality.

Yet here he was watching as Shadowbolts struggled. They struggled to the point where they were coming together, some were helping others. Some were simply sitting in nooks and crannies while clutching their crystal. It was a swamp of desperation and weakness, the Shadowbolts wading through and pleading for help, some clinging to others as they tried to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

At least that’s how it looked among this crowd. Rapidfire had seen the other side of it just as Moon had, the side that looked to Blade, Angel, and Void. They disregarded the state of the others, and looked to those three as the path forward… leaving their fellow Shadowbolts behind.

There was no more strength or energy. It was a choice between weakness and blindness, an ugly pair of choices.

“If we had the means and the will to fight back, perhaps I’d consider it among my options,” Moon continued as Rapidfire slowly turned back to him. “But we don’t, and worse, Blade isn’t even the main problem. You’d be a fool to think these Shadowbolts here have the will to fight, much less face the tyranny that has us trapped on a corrupted lifeline.” He added as he slowly lifted one of his crystals in front of his face and peered into it.

“But…” Rapidfire hesitated, drawing Moon’s attention back to him. “You’re not even going to try? Forget the others, what about you? You have power.” he asked. Moon exhaled through his nose as he shook his head.

“Blade, Angel, and Void are all superior to me in power, skill, and ability,” Moon quickly answered as if he was expecting the question. “I don’t fight battles I can’t win.”

“Well, yeah not by yourself!” Rapidfire grunted while throwing a hoof out to the side. “But what about organizing us? You’re a commander! What about Shadow and Sin? What about Nightshade? They don’t seem on board either! If we work together we can—”

“Rapidfire, you’re doing it again,” Moon cut him off. Rapidfire froze as Moon narrowed his eyes at him. “You keep acting like we’re the Wonderbolts.”

Rapidfire instantly leaned backwards, biting his lower lip and folding his ears back as he caved beneath Moon’s gaze.

“Shadow and Sin are just as lost as the rest…” Moon pressed further. “And I doubt Nightshade even cares,” he added while stealing a very brief glance in her direction. “We are mercenaries and warriors. Not Soldiers. The only bond that has ever held us together in anyway was a silent sense of brotherhood, that we’re all on the same page regardless of how we feel about one another. That bond is currently in tatters. It’s split down the middle, those filled with doubt are looking for answers, and those who are blind believe they are following the only rule we have: That the strongest lead. That is our basic code. It’s what we live by.”

“I… I know that,” Rapidfire answered in a snapping manner that was filled with weakness. Moon shook his head.

“Then why do you keep ignoring it?” Moon shot right back while lifting an eyebrow. “We stand on the side of those who are lost and broken. No amount of motivating speeches or gung-ho cheering will fill them with the will to stand against the others.”

Rapidfire just looked down, gritting his teeth as Moon laid the truth thickly over his head.

“If you can’t accept the reality you stand in, perhaps you should go back to the Wonderbolts. Here, your ideology has no weight,” Moon snorted quietly as he put the final touches to snap any rash ideas out of Rapidfire’s head. “I’m going to bide my time, and you’d best do the same,” Moon repeated. “It’s pointless for any of us to take substantial risks unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Oh COME ON, Moony moon!” Ruin suddenly dropped down from above. Slamming his hooves to the floor beside Rapidfire and putting him in a headlock, rubbing his hoof into Rapidfire’s mane.

“ARGH! HEY!” Rapidfire grunted as Ruin nearly rubbed static into his head.

“Why so sheepish? Why so gloomy?” Ruin pouted towards Moon as he continued to noogie Rapidfire. “I think I like this kid’s idea!” He suddenly let go of Rapidfire.

“Ah!” Rapidfire yelped as he fell flat to the floor, Ruin sliding along the ground over to Moon and turning his head sideways as he got right in his face with one eye.

“GO FOR IT! Take a pot shot at Angel! Sucker punch Blade! Kick Void in the balls! It doesn’t matter, just strike the flint stone! It only takes one spark to start a fire that grows into one hell of an inferno!” He narrowed his eyes and let his sneer grow all the way across his face. “It’ll be so much fun to watch.” His sneer remained as the top of his head suddenly caught fire with a quiet POOF.

Moon remained stone-faced all throughout, and furrowed his brow just a little bit as Ruin licked his hoof and ran it through his mane, dowsing the flame in the process. Moon released a quiet, annoyed nicker from the back of his throat.

“Didn’t you just belittle us for losing focus of our mission?” he asked, his eyes widening slightly as Ruin suddenly reached a wing towards him, extended a feather and pressed it against his nose.

“You’re paying attention! Good job, have a gold star!” Ruin turned and tapped a hoof to Moon’s chest, placing a gold star sticker on it. Moon didn’t move, or look at the star as Ruin leaned in and rubbed his chin while mimicking the face Moon was making, but with the mouth flipped to be a smile instead. “You’re right, I did…” he went on. “But you don’t give a damn about the mission, riiiiiiiight?”

Moon’s composure finally showed a crack. His mouth and face remained still, but his eyes narrowed into a glare. Ruin snickered, unable to hold his altered replica of Moon’s face.

“Oh yes, YESSSSSSS! HOHO!” Ruin pulled back as he guffawed. “I love when you give me that look! Go on, GO ON!” He hovered up and tilted forward, hanging vertically in the air, upside-down as he pressed his forehead to Moon’s. “DO IT! TELL ME I’M RIGHT!” he pleaded while slowly lowering back down and placing all four hooves on the floor. “You know it makes my legs tingle!” he said with a subtle slur in his voice.

Moon’s right eye visibly twitched hard and he tilted his head uncomfortably as Ruin stared at him nearly point blank and shook his plot back and forth jokingly. Ruin nearly lost it when he saw Moon’s reaction, but he held it down to subtle snickering as Moon turned his head to the left and snorted.

“That’s just… inappropriate…” he said with an angry grunt as he turned and pushed Ruin away from him with his wing. “You’re disgusting.”

“Ha!” Ruin fell backwards, but his magic caught him and lifted him into the air as he pulled out a sheet of paper that unrolled and fell to the floor. One of his arms retracted into his suit sleeve and came back out with a ridiculously large feather quill. “Disgusting! Adding that to the list of wonderful and charming things you have called me!” He dropped the paper and quill on the floor, both of them vanishing in a dim pink flash of light the moment they touched. ”Ahhhhhh… he floated backwards, reclined on his back in the air. He passed right in front of Moon, who simply moved his eyes as he watched him go by. “This just keeps getting more fun by the hour…” He stopped and sneered at Moon. “By the minute, even!” He lowered himself down beside Moon. Moon released a long, frustrated sigh through his nostrils and leaned away as Ruin inched into him. “And something tells me…” He looked towards Shadow as she remained by Sin’s side as he slowly recovered, her chin rested on his back while holding a look of relief, yet confusion on her face. “We might have a few more pieces on the board soon!”

Ruin removed himself from Moon’s side, hovered right past Rapidfire, and set his hooves on the floor right beside Nightshade. Any and all nearby Shadowbolts immediately backed away as Ruin approached.

“But remember, the queen must remain upright!” He motioned to her, stopped, blinked, and tapped his chin. “Oh, wait, that’s the king actually… OH WHATEVER! We can make an exception here!” He reached a hoof towards Nightshade…

But the moment his hoof came near her, she finally moved. Her head snapped towards his arm, her eyes fixing on his hoof as her pupils shrunk several sizes.

“AUUUUGH!” Nightshade suddenly wailed in an almost deranged tone as she swiped her hoof out and slapped Ruin’s hoof away from her.

All eyes present instantly went to Nightshade as she stood up abruptly and took two very shaky steps away from Ruin, lifting a hoof in the air and crossing it over her body defensively as she stared at him. Everypony froze in place as their fractured leader suddenly sprang up and moved, those near her not daring to move a muscle or even blink. Further back, some were slowly sliding backwards, some were diving for hiding places.

“Oooooo…?” Ruin cooed as he stepped back and tipped his head, unfazed by Nightshade’s sudden spasm. She had definitely surprised Moon, but he remained still himself. Sin was too weak to look, but Shadow had perked up and had turned her head towards her, yet she remained at Sin’s side.

Only one other pony dared move.

“Nightshade?!” Rapidfire called her name, quickly moving past Ruin, who watched Rapidfire and slowly smirked. “Are you alright?!” Rapidfire asked as he tried to reach for her. Her eyes shifted from Ruin to him, her pupils shaking almost as much as her injured limbs and body.

She didn’t respond, or make any other noise. The moment Rapidfire reached for her, she whipped herself around, her tail swatting Rapidfire in the face before she broke into a gallop, if it could be called that. With uneven, painful, heavy steps, she rushed through the lobby and turned down the hall that lead to her personal quarters.

She was already gone by the time Rapidfire had shaken his head out and recovered from the unexpected whip across the face. He just stared, his ears drooping as he kept his eyes fixed on the hallway in the back to the left.

“My, my, my…” Ruin’s voice came from over Rapidfire’s shoulder as he slowly slinked his way up beside him and draped his chin over Rapidfire’s shoulder. “I wonder what could possibly be going through her head right now! HO HOOOOOOOO!” he guffawed, rising up into the air and leaving Rapidfire to himself as he sat down and looked straight at the ground.

Moon also had his eyes on the back hallways, and kept them there for several moments before breaking away and looking forward at nothing in particular… as he began to think.

He thought about everything he just saw, both out in the field and right now in the broken down fortress.

He thought about what happened to Soarin, and how he would have to rethink a lot of things going forward, taking this new development into account..

He thought about his grilling of Blade, and how it displayed to everypony present a split down the middle of all the Shadowbolts, not just the commanders.

He thought about his small confrontation with Angel, how he lost his temper AGAIN… and he knew exactly why. He had to keep control of himself.

He thought about Ruin. Did Ruin drop in… not to grandstand, but to stop him from fighting Angel? Why? Likely to keep his ‘entertainment’ going. Ruin was right about him not being interested in Kayn Ost’s ‘job’ for them, but Ruin didn’t care either, he wasn’t fooling Moon.

He shook his head out before scanning around him, catching a glimpse of Ruin as he hovered around Rapidfire. He looked over towards Nightshade’s exit, but his eyes stopped when they landed on Shadow and Sin.

Specifically on Sin.

Honestly, he was surprised that letting go of a single crystal led to only minor consequences that were easily fixed. After seeing what happened to Trance, Witch, and Devil, Moon was reluctant to test any sort of ‘detachment’ of any of their crystals in fear of the potentially dangerous consequences. Shadow’s desperate sacrifice of one of her crystals for Sin and her only slightly ailed state thereafter was a discovery for sure… one he would keep in mind. Not to mention they were able to halt Sin’s demise and keep him alive long enough using their two spare crystals. The more he could put together about the crystals the better. The knowledge would keep him alive.

As for the Wonderbolts…

Moon’s thoughts stalled right there for several moments. He looked up to the ceiling, then down to the floor, and quickly made up his mind. He took a deep, slow breath… and slowly backed away from everypony else for a few steps before casually walking towards the doors, placing his goggles over his eyes as he reached for one of the doors.

He grabbed the handle, taking one last look over his shoulder before opening it.

He froze in place the moment the door was open.

Ruin was standing right in the doorway he just opened, leaning against the doorframe with one hoof crossed over the other.

“And where are you going, Moony-Moon?” he asked in a sly tone.

Moon didn’t break his composure. He just stared down at Ruin and huffed.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied flatly. Ruin snickered and tilted his head until it was sideways, keeping his eyes on Moon as his smirk grew wide.

“Of course it doesn’t!” He giggled as Moon let go of the door and it swung shut right in Ruin’s face. Moon stepped two doors down and opened another door, revealing Ruin in the exact same position he was in the first. “But when have I ever tried to stop you? C’mon, ol’ pal, you can tell me! What’ll it hurt?”

“Don’t you already know?” Moon put flatly as his brow flattened to match his tone. “It doesn’t matter what I say, you’re going to follow me anyway.”

“Actually, I’m not,” Ruin bounced his eyebrows at him as he suddenly backed out and stepped aside. Moon blinked, his eyes opening a little in surprise as Ruin extended his arm outward like a chauffeur. “I just wanted to hear you say that is all. I already know where you’re going… AND... what you’re going to tell them. You’ve already got it all figured out, why should I intervene?”

Moon remained still, his eyes twitching beneath his goggles as he looked Ruin square in the face and did everything in his power to see if he could read a bluff.

But then he remembered who he was looking at and talking to.

“Well, go ooooooooooooon!” Ruin beckoned him with his outstretched hoof, whisking it into the air outside the door.

Moon took one step into the doorway, but Ruin suddenly shifted right into his face incredibly quickly. Moon flinched and halted as Ruin’s squeaking laughter hissed into his ears. Ruin’s eyes opened wide, turned completely black, and his pupils became small white dots.

“DON’T LET ME GET IN YOUR WAY!”

And the next instant… Ruin was gone, vanished without a trace, the warped, demonic voice ringing in Moon’s ears as he remained still. All he could hear was the sound of Ruin’s laughter echoing outside the fortress.

Moon didn’t dwell on it long. He had to just get moving. It didn’t matter where he went or how long he waited.

Ruin had a bead on him. And he wasn’t getting out of it.

Moon stepped outside and spread his wings, his crystals lighting up and surrounding him with a pink glow as he took off. His magic slowly cloaked him and he disappeared into thin air.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Things have gone to hell... but it looks like it's gone to hell on BOTH sides this time. What's happened to Soarin seems to be one giant failure for both the Wonderbolts and the Shadowbolts... which makes you wonder where things are going from here.

It's clear the situation within the Shadowbolts is beyond FUBAR. Nopony seems to know whats going on in there... well, maybe except for ONE...

But once the devastating shock fades among the Wonderbolts... what will go down with them? All this time they had been fighting together with a destination and goal in mind... but that goal has been 200% compromised. What sort of effect is this going to have on them? (Hint: Oh patience is being lost FAST :pinkiecrazy:)

So originally this was only half of my chapter outline, but i split it for obvious reasons, the next half is already underway (started it after sending the proofed chapter to Kestrel). Once again, i'm sorry for the long wait, life got in the way of both Kestrel and I this chapter.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

(Art in this chapter by Penumbra)

Chapter 147: The Real Enemy...? (part 1)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 147: The Real Enemy…? (Part 1)

There was no word Rainbow Dash could find that described the feeling coursing through her right now. There was no way to characterize it, no way to really detail how it felt. Nothing felt the way it should. She was alive, but didn’t feel like she was. Her body was under her control, but she felt like she could barely move. Her body felt heavy, like every ounce of her strength had been drained right out of her.

Worst of all, it felt like her thoughts were not entirely under control. No matter where she looked or where she tried to focus, part of her mind was locked on replay, constantly seeing the moment Soarin was torn away from her and transformed into the monstrosity that now ran free out there somewhere.

Perhaps there was one word that could be used to describe it, though it was the most general word possible.

Wrong.

Everything just felt wrong and she had no idea what to do about it. The feeling filling her body, the feeling of having zero strength and barely able to move her own limbs without any numbness or pain, it was so confusing and frightening. She felt like a dead mare walking.

Was this part of her connection with Soarin? Was this part of everything Discord told them a while back? She never once dared to put thought to what it would feel like to be killed through a soul connection, but she was willing to bet she was hanging on a thin thread near it right now, teetering on the edge.

Soarin was out there, and he was clearly alive, but if she felt like this then he had to be just barely hanging on… and part of her was in there with him.

Was she going to die?

The thought passed through her head again as it had several times in between the traumatic flashbacks to Soarin’s possession. She had no control over that either.

She was alive, and that meant Soarin was alive… but how much longer could he hold on? Aside from the moment he was right beside her with his hoof clamped in hers, it looked like he had no influence on the power controlling his body.

What was going to happen to them? She felt absolutely powerless.

“Rainbow Dash… Rainbow Dash, honey, look at me.”

Dash blinked, her eyelids struggling to complete the motion as she slowly realized there was a pair of little hooves lightly pressed to her cheeks.

“Dash, please.”

Dash recognized the voice as it worked its way through her ears and fought to grab her attention. She slowly tipped her head down, her eyes eventually landing upon the face of Little Star.

She had her mask and goggles pulled down around her neck, standing on her hind legs as she reached for Dash and held her face close to hers. She wore a look of incredible worry, her motherly tendencies coming out in full force as Dash continued to sit and stare into a space like an empty husk of her usual self.

“Please say something, Dash,” Star asked quietly as she rubbed one of her hooves up and down Dash’s cheek gently.

Dash heard the request loud and clear, but she found she could barely focus on it.

“Ahhh…” Dash’s voice squeaked as her lips parted and she tried to speak, but she could barely form any words.

Dash swallowed and twitched as she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. She wanted to reply, but it was so hard. Everything was so hard to do. She had so little control over herself.

“St…Star…” Dash managed to say as she forced the word out, gasping right after and taking a few heaving breaths.

“Yes, it’s me… we’re all here,” she spoke very quietly.

“All…?” Dash managed to say as she cringed and looked up a little. Storm and Squall were both sitting behind her. They looked battered and beaten from their injuries, but they were sitting up and were focused on her. They showed varying levels of concern. Storm looked nearly just as worried as Star as he looked on from behind. Squall showed less, but he was likely more worried than Storm, just not showing it in full.

Then Dash realized that she was, in fact, sitting back slightly against something soft. She immediately concluded that it was Matteo as she tried to look up and see. Her head began to spin as she looked straight upward, so she couldn’t hold the position long, but she looked just long enough to see a beak and pair of eagle eyes looking down towards her.

“Nnngh…” Dash winced, her ears flopping to the sides of her head as a noise likened to a swirling wind filled her head her body shaking as the sudden rush of nausea almost made her vomit.

“Easy… easy Dash…” Star continued to soothe her as she moved her hooves to Dash’s shoulders and applied gentle pressure.

Dash slowly opened her eyes as she rocked forward and backwards, her jaw hanging slightly agape as she took weak breaths. Squall visibly moved closer, but his expression remained the same, almost a little forced as if he didn’t want Dash to notice his reaction out of concern.

“Dash talk to me…” Star suddenly encouraged. “What are you feeling? What hurts?” Star threw out the questions, hoping to get any sort of information on her status.

“S…” Dash’s voice cracked as she tried to speak. “Soarin…” she said the only word that was on her mind.

Star blinked and glanced over her shoulder at Squall and Storm. Storm bit his lower lip and exhaled. Squall just looked away the moment Star turned.

“Do you want me to get Bliss?” Star asked, returning her focus to Dash, trying to find something to help. She could tell there was something internal, something to do with Soarin that they had no control over, but Dash was physically hurt too. “Does anything else hurt?”

“Ah…” Dash slammed her eyes shut, trying as hard as she could to focus her thoughts. Nothing in her head was lining up correctly, but she felt like she was slowly putting something together. “Ow…” she cringed as she did her best to focus on Star’s question.

Her body did hurt. Her brain was just not registering the pain as much as it should.

“That’s enough,” Matteo suddenly spoke from behind her. Star’s ears pointed straight up as she looked up at Matteo with extremely wide eyes. But Matteo only shook his head as he gently placed his talons on one of Dash’s shoulders. “She is struggling to gather herself. Let’s just keep her comfortable until she’s ready.”

Little Star frowned and released her hooves from Dash, her ears drooping as far down as her head allowed as she sat down and slid back. She really wanted to help, but Matteo was right, Dash was having a hard enough time seeing and thinking straight. She needed some time to sort out the hurricane in her head while also trying to find some strength in her body… if there was any left.

Squall exhaled as he watched Little Star plop down on the floor and hang her head. He started reaching for her, but flinched as Matteo suddenly looked up abruptly. Both Squall and Storm saw his eyes widen a little and both turned around.

“Ah!” Storm and Squall both turned and tried to sit up straight, but both regretted it as their nerves sent shocks through them, the pain and soreness catching up to them.

“At ease.”

The two of them took instantly relaxed, or at least tried to as they looked up… and right into the eyes of Spitfire standing before them. Her voice caused Star to briefly snap out of it as well as she turned around and faced her.

Spitfire looked them over, her eyes passing over them several times as she lifted an eyebrow.

“Where is…?” she started asking, but stopped. “Never mind,” she quickly cut herself off. Star, Storm, Squall, and Matteo quickly put together what… or who she was about to ask about, but she clearly concluded what their answer would be before even asking. It didn’t matter anyway, Dash had all their focus and worry for the time being.

Spitfire’s eyes landed on Dash and she looked at her for several moments, the other four staying quiet as she examined her. Dash was not looking at her. Her head was tipped down and she was breathing weakly, but steadily.

Dash knew Spitfire was there, but just like with her friends, she had no means of responding. She was slowly regaining some focus, but she was afraid any attempt to speak would completely throw it off, thoughts of Soarin and images of his horrific transformation still running circles in her head, threatening to derail any train of thought. She almost felt like she could see him, every rush of thoughts showing her a faint image of Soarin in pain and struggling as if Soarin’s own thoughts were intermixing with hers.

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed to herself, Dash’s friends and squadmates watching as she slowly turned her side to them.

They took note of Spitfire’s demeanor. Her behavior and movements starkly contrasted from nearly everypony else around them. She was standing up straight, holding herself strong, and showing no signs of fracture or weakness. There wasn’t a sliver of defeat in her eyes. It gave off an incredible air of strength. It surprised them. Soarin was one of Spitfire’s lifelong friends. Yet despite what they all just witnessed, she was remaining calm and focused.

“Can she move?” she suddenly asked, motioning to Dash.

They all looked at her. The answer was obvious.

“I don’t think so,” Storm answered first as the rest kept looking at Dash. “At least not on her own…she can barely speak as is.”

Spitfire nodded as Storm explained, returning her eyes to Dash for a moment.

“Can you guys move her?” Spitfire pressed further, looking right at Matteo as he continued to support Dash from behind.

“I can,” Matteo quickly replied with a subtle nod.

“Good,” said Spitfire before Star could protest, Squall placing a hoof on her shoulder and holding her in place to avoid a clash with Spitfire, no matter what her reasons were. “I want you to bring her over here. I’m meeting with all senior leadership right now.”

They all blinked in surprise, glancing at Dash before back at Spitfire.

“She’s very much a part of this, and will likely be the most important piece of the puzzle towards solving this whole debacle,” she spoke sternly, catching them all by surprise. She sounded as if she already had a plan in place. Or was this just part of her remaining on task? “And from this point forward, until further notice, I’m placing her in your care, all four of… five of you, make sure Twister knows when he decides to show up again,” she explained with a straight face, understanding how the stooge of the group operated. “I’ll give you more details later, but don’t take your eyes off her, got it?”

Squall, Star, and Storm all hesitated, not sure what to say, but Matteo, again, answered quickly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said simply.

Spitfire said nothing more. She just gave them a head motion to follow.

The three ponies turned to Dash and Matteo, perking up when they saw Dash looking up, with her eyes locked on Spitfire.

She didn’t say anything or make any moves, but if they didn’t know any better, she was signaling that she wanted to get moving and do as Spitfire asked.

“Come on, let’s get her over there,” Squall spoke up, reaching forward to help while nodding to Matteo.

The rest joined in as they slowly helped Dash stand, and slowly led her towards the central pillar where the others were gathering.

With the last participants of her meeting following behind her, Spitfire strode through the lobby, making her way towards the central pillar where ever member of senior leadership either awaited or was arriving.

Starry Skies and Lighting Dust were both helping Descent move as they joined the group. He was breathing heavily with each step, cringing and grunting raspily as he continued to hold his arm over his stomach as he had earlier. Blazetail and Flashwind were already there, the two of them leaning on each other for support. Luna and P.L. were already present as well, but sat opposite of the rest. P.L. was hunched over but balancing on his own power as he sat. Luna was beside him with a hoof on his shoulder, but with such a soft touch it was a wonder if P.L. could even feel it.

Every available top tier elite Wonderbolt had been there from the moment Spitfire told them earlier. Fleetfoot, Air Mach, Blaze, High Winds, Surprise, Misty Fly, and the Streak twins. They sat near the Renegades, but had formed their own little circle as if they wanted nothing to do with the other two groups at the moment.

And it took a moment to find him... but Discord was there. He was the only one not at least within or around the group, standing off to the side with his back up against the pillar. He looked to be sulking, slumped down as he refused to look at any of them, using his own definition of ‘included’ to show that he had shown up as asked.

Spitfire grunted to herself as she kept moving towards them, Wonderbolts and Renegades alike all turning to look at her as she moved by. Her strong posture and movement had been catching their attention from the moment they returned, but they still looked to her regardless. The situation was grim and unknown with a stench of failure wafting from every corner of the room, but Spitfire continued to push right through it as if it wasn’t even there.

What was in her head? How was she so calm and collected? How was she holding so strong? Nopony could figure it out… but it was probably the one beacon of light in the room penetrating the fog and shadows.

She was their leader, and in the wake of such a pulverizing blow to morale she remained standing while the rest of them fell. Did she know what to do? Could she point them in the right direction? Every pair of eyes that followed her pleaded to know.

And Spitfire could feel all the eyes on her. Every look cut deep, but not deep enough to weigh her down. The weight of what she had just witnessed and gone through was heavy enough. As their leader, she could not afford to let herself be dragged down any further.

She had no plans to lie down and surrender. Not while there were still so many things she didn’t know or had not been told. This whole experience had changed her, or at least her line of thinking. So many things she once thought impossible were happening all around her at an alarming rate. With reality and common thinking as she knew it tossed into the wind, she was going to bite and scratch for every possible action they could take to save Soarin. And until she had a better understanding of the situation… she wasn’t going to take ‘we can’t’ as an answer.

But she knew, especially looking at the top tiers as she approached, that it was going to be an uphill climb. Not just with questioning the gods, but also getting everypony to see it the way she did.

Because with the initial shock of what happened to Soarin wearing off, emotions were flying in wildly different directions. She didn’t take notice of the Renegades, P.L. and Luna, or Discord. As she closed in, she took careful note of her own wingmates.

They were a very mixed bag, judging by their expressions. Just looking at them showed Spitfire several things at once. Fear, anger, confusion, doubt, frustration… all spread among them.

Only one of them stood out differently, and Spitfire definitely noticed.

Misty Fly was the only one looking towards her as she approached, and… she looked ready to go. She was holding herself similarly to Spitfire, waiting dutifully with a hardened expression as if she was simply waiting for orders, ready and eager to go after Soarin just like she was.

The sight made Spitfire grin for a short moment, reminding her that she could always count on Misty Fly no matter what the situation, but now the challenge that remained: the rest of them. As far as she could tell, they were all over the place.

But could she really blame them? Had Spitfire not been guided by the urge to lead her force, she was sure she’d have choked somepony to death by now. Preferably Discord.

She finally reached them… and said nothing. She sat down where all of them could see her, the top tiers opening up their little circle and turning so they could all see her too.

Spitfire glanced over her shoulder and waited patiently for Foxtrot to reach them, Storm out in front as Squall and Little Star stayed beside Matteo carrying Dash upon his back.

As soon as they filled in some empty space within their big circle, Spitfire took a long, hard look at all of them. She took a few quiet breaths as she collected her thoughts…

But she wasn’t the first to speak.

“So…”

Spitfire blinked and glanced towards the top tiers as Lightning Streak broke the silence. The rest of them all looked to Lightning as well as he sat up straight and… glared towards Spitfire. His face was scrunched, sporting a brand of serious that differed from hers. He looked angry and annoyed.

“This sure as hell took a nasty turn, huh?” he said as one of his front hooves grinded lightly against the floor. Spitfire narrowed her eyes slightly as she heard his tone, taking note of the rest at the same time. Surprise and Fleetfoot both tipped away from him as they heard his tone. Blaze wore a similar look of frustration. Air Mach and High Winds seemed indifferent, tired and fatigued. Fire held a stoic expression, looking at his brother carefully as he slowly turned to start translating for Misty. “I mean… seriously… What the hell?” Lightning continued, throwing a hoof out to his side as his lips parted and showed his gritted teeth. “What are we gonna do now? Wasn’t this our mission? Soarin’s magic? This wasn’t supposed to happen, right?!” he raised his voice at the end, the others stealing glances at one another as he his frustration boiled over and vented out. It startled some of them, but his change in usual demeanor did not overshadow the fact that he was asking the questions that were on all their minds. “We’re done, aren’t we?” Lightning continued while shaking his head. “Mission failed?”

“No,” Spitfire immediately replied calmly while locking her eyes on him. “Soarin was only part of it. They want us dead too.”

“That’s not what I gathered,” Lightning did not back down, crossing his arms and snorting. Everypony else remained silent as the two stared each other down. “They were coming after us to get Soarin, right? That’s what they said,” Lightning pointed to both Luna and Descent. “To get what was in him. We were just in the way.”

“Brother…” Fire Streak suddenly stopped translating for Misty and turned, reaching a hoof for Lightning, but Lightning quickly pulled his arm away and snarled at his twin.

“LAY THE HELL OFF, BRO!” he snapped, causing several to flinch. Surprise and Fleetfoot both squeaked behind him and froze as they stared up at the twins.

“Lightning…” Spitfire narrowed her eyes and growled quietly. He quickly turned back to her and threw his hooves out.

“What, you’re gonna tell me I’m wrong? The hell have we been listening to all this time?!” He stood up and stepped towards her, stopping just short of getting in her face as Spitfire calmly stood up to meet his advance. “What are we even fighting for at this point?!”

“We have plenty of reasons to keep going, Lightning,” Spitfire retorted, doing her best to remain collected, but Lightning was already testing her patience. This was not how she wanted this to start and it only got worse as Blaze stood up and forced herself forward, standing beside Lightning and glaring at her equally as hard.

“Like fucking what?!” she yelled as Spitfire sharply turned her eyes to her half-sister. “Oh, I’m sorry!” Blaze began rolling her eyes sarcastically. “I couldn’t quite hear you over the sound of our faces being dragged through shit for the twelve-hundredth time!” she yelled while pointing towards the door, adding her anger to Lightning’s as the two faced down Spitfire. “What are we going to do now? Circle up, hold hooves, and sit through another motivational speech before diving head long into MORE shit?! It SURE worked the past I-don’t-even-know thousand times!”

Spitfire let them vent, waiting for them to get it out as she readied her response, but Fire was not so patient.

“BLAZE! LIGHTNING!” Fire Streak pushed up between the two of them. “Stop this at once!” he demanded, but the moment he stopped between them, Lightning whipped an arm around and grabbed a heavy hooffull of Fire’s suit by the chest and yanked on it while nearly butting heads with him.

“THE HELL ARE YOU KISSING UP FOR?!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Fire did not hesitate for a moment as he grabbed Lightning’s suit by the chest and pulled on it in a similar manner while actually butting their heads a little.

“YOU THINK YOUR SENSELESS WHINING IS ANY BETTER?!” Fire shot back at him as it looked like the two were seconds from coming to blows.

Spitfire furrowed her brow as she watched the brothers growl at one another, taking quick note of how others were reacting around them. Fleetfoot and Surprise had moved closer together and had shifted slightly away as the two fought. Misty was looking between the two of them and towards others, perhaps looking for someone to translate for her what the hell the two were yelling about. Blaze looked like she was about ready to wallop Fire just as much as Lightning was. High Winds just backed off, unwilling to get between them, and Air Mach was just sitting, not moving or budging despite being near them as he cared more about how beat up he was than the twins fighting.

The optics were not good for those sitting near either, and it wasn’t just for Dash’s friends, the Renegades, and Luna. Ponies all around the lobby began looking in, some curiously, some frightened as the Streak twins, two top tier Wonderbolts bickered angrily and looked ready to take each other’s heads off.

Enough.

Spitfire wasn’t going to stand for this. She understood the anger and frustration, but she didn’t care how much they had been through. It was no excuse for this behavior, not with their rank.

Spitfire quickly lifted a hoof to get Misty’s attention. Misty perked up and looked between the twins towards Spitfire. Spitfire made a non-specific grabbing motion while yanking on her opposite hoof, then pointed at Fire Streak. Misty understood, focusing on Fire as Spitfire moved towards Lightning.

“High Winds!” Spitfire yelled as she started reaching for Lightning. “Sit on Blaze!”

“Kay…” High Winds sleepily replied as she stood up.

“Excuse me, WHAT?!” Blaze reacted as she blinked and glared at Spitfire, but less than a second later, High Winds grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her back, pushing her to the floor before sitting her plot right down on her. “OW! WHAT THE FUCK, WINDY?!”

“Captain’s orders…” she replied with a yawn as Misty and Spitfire continued towards the Streak twins.

“I OUGHTTA RIP YOUR PROPER LITTLE SKIRT OFF! GROW A FUCKING DICK ALREADY! I KNOW YOU’RE TIRED OF ALL THIS TOO!” Lightning yelled as he and Fire began grappling with each other. Fire snarled as the he tried to rip Lighting’s hoof free of his suit, but failed.

“SO WHAT IF I AM?! DID YOU FORGET YOU’RE A WONDERBOLT?! OR DO YOU SUDDENLY NOT LIKE BEING ONE WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH?!” Fire balled up more of Lightning’s suit in his hoof and nearly tore it. “AND YOU SAY I’M WEARING THE SKIRT?!”

“THAT’S IT… I’M GONNA—” Lightning pulled back a hoof to throw a punch, but Spitfire caught it before he could, throwing her other hoof around his waist. At the same time, Misty suddenly thrust her arms up beneath Fire’s armpits and hooked them over his shoulders.

Before either of the twins could react, they were pulled apart, a loud rip coming from Lightning’s suit as Fire’s hoof yanked a good chunk of the chest off with it.

“HEY!” Fire yelled, looking back and forth over his shoulder. “WHO IS—?!” he stopped instantly when he saw the cream colored arms and hooved around his shoulders, knowing his protesting was literally falling on deaf ears.

“I’M NOT DONE WITH HIM!” Lightning yelled as he looked over his shoulder to see Spitfire, his eyes widening more with anger. “OH, FINE! YOU WANT SOME FIRST?!” he yelled as he forced himself around, ripping his arm free from Spitfire’s hooves and turning himself around. With his arm already pulled back.

He threw a punch.

Everypony gasped. Even Fire and Blaze both flinched in shock as Lightning’s hoof slammed right into Spitfire’s cheek.

But Spitfire did not stumble or back off.

She let him.

Her body lurched a bit to the right, her eyes closed as Lightning’s hoof pressed to her face, but went no further, Lightning’s strength not even close to all there due to fatigue.

Spitfire opened her eye above his hoof and focused it on him with a flat expression as he kept grinding his teeth together, his hoof shaking as he struggled to keep his arm up.

“Well… do you feel better now?” Spitfire asked, her voice slightly distorted by her face being pressed into.

“Ah…” Lightning exhaled painfully as the harsh motion slowly reminded him how beaten up and tired he was. His hoof slowly slipped off Spitfire’s face.

“Well?” Spitfire pressed as she kept her eyes firmly on him. Lightning snorted and looked up at her, anger still present in his expression, but faltering as he panted. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Spitfire said as she reached for him again, grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to sit down.

“OOF!” Lightning released a breathy grunt as his plot hit the floor and he almost tipped over backwards. He continued to wheeze as Spitfire got right in his face with a sharp gaze.

“Sit down…” she said at an octave just above a whisper. “Shut up…” she narrowed her eyes further. “And think about the fact that you just punched your captain in the face,” she ended with a subtle snarl that was only loud enough for him to hear.

Typically that would have ended it. But Lightning didn’t cave. He continued to glare back defiantly, tension flaring beyond what Spitfire’s usual rhetoric and authority could contain.

“Well then… CAPTAIN…” Lightning Streak hissed at her, ignoring her tightening grip on her shoulders. “Got anymore bright ideas? Anymore ass-insane split second moves that almost get us all killed? I know, how ‘bout you play some motivational tunes and give a big speech?”

Spitfire slowly scrunched her face up as Lightning repeated Blaze’s attack on her past attempts to keep them united.

“Face it, Cap,” Lightning went on, his face contorting slightly in pain as Spitfire’s grip tightened further. “I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re sick of this shit. We’ve kept going and going. We’ve gotten our asses beat over and over. Some of our buddies are dead or close to it…” He shook his head. “But we kept going. We had a goal. Soarin was the key to all of it. Keep him safe, we get to the empire, and then we hit them back hard. That’s why we’ve been fighting, am I right? Is there any point now?”

“Oh,” Spitfire rolled her eyes finally breaking the battle of glaring daggers. “So you’re just going to give up. Screw trying to get to safety? Screw everypony else?” She snorted right in his face. “I’m sure your ‘buddies’ love hearing this coming from your mouth right now THIRD COMMANDER.”

“I bet they are all thinking the same damn thing,” he fired back, but this time calmly. “How about you look them all in the eye, and tell them why the hell we just tried so hard for?”

Spitfire opened her mouth but stopped. She exhaled as they continued to glare at one another. He did have a point. She didn’t like the way he was framing it, but Lightning was right. They had rallied over and over around the idea that Soarin was the key, he was the enemy’s target and they were fighting to get both him and everypony else to safety so they could regroup and fight back. Without Soarin here… the situation had completely changed.

“WELL?!” Blaze suddenly chimed in from nearby. Spitfire glanced over at her as she remained beneath High Winds. She was no longer struggling to get free, but she remained defiant despite being pinned to the floor. “Let’s hear it, sis! We all gave a damn and busted our fucking asses because of Soarin! We’ve been fed the same shit over and over again about how we need to get him to the Crystal Empire and how that’s the first step in winning, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yaaaa-fuck-all! Well congrats! He’s gone now and we’re out here with NOTHING!” She slammed her hooves on the floor, causing High Winds to bounce and nearly lose her balance on top of her. “Are the Shadowbolts even gonna come after us? Wasn’t the whole point to use Soarin’s power eventually?” She pointed at Spitfire while grinding her teeth. “Yes, I’m being a bitch about this! Somepony has to fucking do it!” She pointed at Luna. “After everything we were told over and fucking over again by Luna and Discord about what we were fighting for, it feels like this just sent it all to hell and we’re downright screwed!”

Spitfire let go of Lightning, stepping back from him as she turned her focus to Blaze. Just as she had with Lightning, she did her best to contain any anger or hostility.

But it was hard. She had put forth so much effort to keep her head high and face this new situation head on, and she was being dragged down. Worse, it was by the hooves of her own, not the ponies she thought would be doing it.

“They have a point, Spitfire.”

Spitfire almost snapped on the spot the moment she heard Descent’s voice. Her lips parted and revealed her teeth as she sharply turned and pointed at him.

“Oh no you don’t…” Spitfire turned and stomped right up to him, earning a glare from Starry as Lightning Dust inched slightly back. “Don’t YOU start with me right now!” she growled, the anger venting out, reaching her hoof up towards him and stopping just short of jabbing him in the chest as she came to a halt in front of him.

“I will start with you,” Descent shot right back, narrowing his eyes, reaching his free hoof up and pushing her hoof down as he kept his other arm wrapped around his gut. “By addressing something your fellow Wonderbolt just mentioned.” He placed his free hoof back on the ground with a light grunt. “The main objective of the Shadowbolts has been to capture Soarin. That is the primary reason they have been after you from the start. Elimination of your force has always been secondary.” He suddenly forced himself up, gently pushing Starry and Dust off of him as he stood on three, his arm still holding his stomach and refusing to let go. The motion was clearly difficult and strenuous, taking him a moment or two to complete it.

“And your point is…?” Spitfire sharply questioned.

“The primary mission of the Renegades is to liberate the Shadowbolts. The Shadowbolts have been coming after you to capture Soarin, so naturally, our objectives aligned,” Descent explained while glancing at Luna. “It was the reason we agreed to work with Luna in the first place. Now that Soarin is no longer here, the main reason the Shadowbolts were pursuing you… is now out there.” He made a subtle head motion towards the entry doors. “It is safe to assume that they will continue to focus on their primary objective. So the way I see it… we no longer have a reason to be here.”

His words sent shockwaves through those present and any within earshot. The Wonderbolts were caught completely off-guard by it, even Lightning and Blaze breaking from their angered thoughts for a moment. But none of them looked quite as shocked as Storm.

Not even Starry and Lightning Dust seemed prepared for it, but the most sudden movement among them, came from the one who brought them all there in the first place.

“WHAT?!” Luna suddenly sprung up, breaking her silence. She pried herself away from P.L.’s side and stepped forward. “No! Descent, you can’t!” she yelled to him, but he did not take his eyes off of Spitfire.

“Dad…” Storm Front was frozen in place beside Matteo, all the others except for Dash looking to him.

“Descent,” Spitfire growled. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

“That’s not up to you.” Descent quickly turned and glared at Luna as she took another step towards him. “OR YOU,” he said harshly, stopping her in place as he turned back to Spitfire. “As the leader of the Renegades, from the very beginning my mission has been to liberate and restore the Shadowbolts. I was willing to work with Luna and her plans because our missions coincided. Now they don’t. Soarin is lost, but we can still pursue our goal.”

“Did you get your brain knocked out along with your bowels with that hit?!” Spitfire let her anger out. She was done playing calm, it was clearly not working. “LOOK!” She pointed towards Rainbow Dash as she sat in front of Matteo, lightly bobby back and forth as she tried to find her balance. “She’s still here! That means Soarin is NOT lost! He’s still alive!”

“SO WHAT IF HE IS?!” Descent growled right back at her as he leaned forward and got in her face. “Did you forget what you saw out there?!”

“And did you…” Spitfire reached up and grabbed the neck of his suit, forcing a painful grunt out of him as she yanked on it and pulled him down slightly. “Completely miss the effect Dash had on him?! His magic couldn’t touch her! Just being near him made—”

“WHAT DIFFERENCE IS THAT GOING TO MAKE?!” Descent yelled, cutting her off and snarling into her face as he pushed back and forced her to let go of his suit. “We’re not dealing with something we understand! That wasn’t some mindless raging monster out there! His skills were sharp and his attacks calculated! That is a highly intelligent being controlling him! Do you honestly believe we’ll be able to just walk right up to him and wave Rainbow Dash in his face?! You don’t think he won’t take that into account now?!”

Spitfire had no response for that. She kept glaring and snarling right back, but everything Descent said was right. She refused to give in though. She simply couldn’t. Descent could see her unwillingness to back down, even after that. He scoffed and shook his head.

“Face it, Spitfire…” he lowered his tone, but continued to growl. “Your mission is over. It’s a failure.”

Spitfire flinched as the word ‘failure’ slipped in one ear, but she quickly pushed it out the other. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” she tipped her head and flattened her brow. “You’re going to just walk away and act like life goes on when there’s a massive threat to Equestria walking free out there? On TOP of the one we’re already dealing with!?”

“And I’m supposed to care about the rest of Equestria?” Descent scoffed. “I only care about the Shadowbolts. And even if I did care, you’re talking as if we stand any sort of chance against this demon! I’m not an idiot Spitfire. Nightshade is one thing. She is defeatable. THIS?!” he snorted and shook his head again. “None of us so much as put a scratch on him. He incapacitated me in one hit. He beat the tar out of P.L. for the love of Celestia!” He pointed out with a slight head motion towards P.L. still silent in his shame. “There is no way we’re getting near a warrior like that. Especially if he really is the spirit of the Mad King! Anypony that knows anything about King Sombra’s ruthless reign would be foolish and asking for their own death if they were to confront him head on!”

Spitfire let him rant, she let him get every word out. She had no counter argument, and frankly, she believed most of what he said. MOST… of what he said. Not all of it. She just couldn’t believe she was hearing words of retreat and surrender from Descent of all ponies.

With Descent finished and taking deep, hissing breaths in front of her. Spitfire exhaled and readied to respond.

But...

“He’s right you know…”

Spitfire’s ears perked up, her face nearly turning red with anger as simply the tone and the source made her blood boil.

Everypony, Spitfire included, turned and glanced over towards the pillar as Discord decided to finally say something.

“But…” he shook his head as he focused on Descent. “You’re a fool to think you can simply walk away from this like it’s not your problem.”

Descent furrowed his brow and huffed, rolling his eyes.

“Nopony asked for your opinion, you distorted snake.”

“It’s NOT an opinion, it’s a FACT!” Discord suddenly snapped as his body coiled off the wall and pushed him forward. He stomped right up to Descent, extended his body upward so he could loom over him, and glared straight down at him. “There is no running from him. He’s free and he’s more powerful than ever before. It’s all over for all of us. It’s only a matter of time before he destroys every last one of us.”

Everypony glanced around at one another as he went on his odd rant, his body language contradicting his message as if he was trying to force Descent to accept they were all doomed.

“Discord!” Luna reacted, turning to him and readying to say more, but she flinched and froze as Discord quickly turned to her.

“Oh, WHAT?!” He threw his arms out to his sides. She froze mid step and glared at him. “WHAT Lulu?! What are you going to do?! Just lie to them again like you did before?!” he yelled as he turned square to her and pointed at her. “Let’s face it! You saw what happened out there! Not even MY magic had any effect on him! ME!” he pressed his fingers to his chest while extending his head all the way towards Luna and nearly head-butting her. He looked her right in the eye at point blank and snarled. “Had Soarin kept control of the magic, we could have used Sombra’s power to defeat Kayn Ost and then dealt with the pompous regal windbag ourselves! But guess what?! That didn’t happen! Sombra has full control of him now. FULL CONTROL! We literally gave him a body so he could walk Equestria again, not to mention it’s a powerful one that adds to his own physical ability! He’s added Soarin’s strength and size to his own. He’s added Soarin’s unbelievable willpower to his already annoyingly steadfast spirit. Oh, let’s not forget he also now has wings… and worst of all he… he…”

Discord suddenly trailed off, his teeth still grinding, his face twitching, and his arms shaking.

“RGH!!!!!” He grunted in frustration, a sudden, weak shockwave rushing from his arms as a faint distorted aura appeared and disappeared quickly. He turned his back to Luna and shook his head. “We’re done for. We made a major gamble and the odds did not turn out in our favor. We’ve created a force beyond sublime proportions. That may have been Celestia’s intention from the start, but it’s officially gone off the deep end. Kayn Ost is the least of our problems now. There’s nothing we can do.”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Spitfire suddenly pushed by Luna and stomped up to Discord. She tried to walk around him and get in his field of view, but Discord kept turning to avoid looking at her. She stopped, growled, and stomped a hoof to the floor hard. “Discord! Turn around and look at me!” she yelled, already not amused by the first time he tried this.

Discord sighed, reluctantly looking over his shoulder to glance at her.

“ALL. THE. WAY!” Spitfire demanded, not putting up with anything less than his full attention.

Discord grumbled incoherently as he did as he was told… surprisingly. He turned and faced Spitfire, keeping his hands rested on his hips as if telling her to hurry up and get it out. But she was the one in control here, not him, and she intended to make that very clear.

“While I have several questions for both of you…” Spitfire began, stepping closer to Discord while shooting a quick, sharp glance at Luna. “I’m going to assume that you know more than she does,” Spitfire put bluntly as she returned her sharp gaze to Discord. She reached up and poked him right in the stomach. “I want you to look every single one of us in the eye and tell us everything about what’s going on. EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. THING. Don’t leave one detail out and don’t try to weasel your way around anything. We have been through too damn much, and suffered so much damn pain through all this. We ALL deserve the TRUTH! Nothing less! You give it all to us clean, right here, right now!”

Discord’s expression remained flat from start to finish. He did not flinch or waver no matter how many times she poked him or yelled.

He looked up and glanced around him, seeing all the pairs of eyes focused on him. Some were demanding, some were confused, but all of them wanted answers.

“Feh… fine…” he scoffed as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. “It’s not like it’s much of a secret anymore anyway…” he said while rolling his eyes and tapping a finger against his arm.

“Don’t pull a muscle while telling the truth or anything,” Spitfire said as he delayed. Discord snorted and glared at her, but did not retort. He sighed and looked off into a corner of the ceiling. Deliberately avoiding eye contact as he began.

“This may be hard for you to grasp, but I’m not the one who’s been keeping the most secrets,” he began flatly. “At first… even I was left in the dark, convinced that Celestia merely used a powerful forbidden magic. I even taunted her a little, making light of her act and how it would force her to retreat to her halls for a while to restore her drained power.” He grunted as he shook his head. “But then I began to notice something, just as Luna had. What was taking her so long? Celestia’s magic is beyond anything in this world, volumes upon volumes more powerful than Luna, or even me if we were to compare side by side, but it only should have taken her a month at most to restore her enormous magic reserves. As more and more time passed I considered taking a closer look, but what really pushed me to dive in and see for myself… was after Soarin had his lesson in offensive magic with Fancy Pants.”

He looked away, gritting his teeth slightly and grumbling.

“I volunteered to be a target for that lesson. I did so out of confidence that there was absolutely no way Soarin could damage me, as a god and as a master of chaos magic. But then… one of his attacks… hurt. And before I could figure out what was going on, his magic power grew tenfold and put me through the back wall of the throne room. Soarin snapped. His magic went haywire. He was attacking everything that moved… if not for his own display of skill, Fancy Pants could have easily been killed. Had I not pulled myself from the rubble and subdued him, Soarin might have destroyed the entire royal palace.” He growled to himself as he looked back at all of them. “But that was just it… it took effort, a lot of it. I had to use everything I had to push through and stop him. Me, a deity, nearly blown away by a mortal,” he said with a tone of disbelief as he pressed a hand to his chest.

“It was at that point that I knew something wasn’t right. I was aware that the magic forces within Soarin were strong, but strong enough to hurt me? To challenge me? While being cast by a stallion with no previous knowledge or experience in controlling magic? If it were Celestia or Lulu casting it, I’d understand, but Soarin is not a divine alicorn. He isn’t even a unicorn for heaven’s sake! It made no sense… and I don’t like things I don’t understand!” he said while clutching his fists, chaos auras appearing around them briefly before calming down. “I needed answers and I needed them immediately…” he paused and glanced around, taking a deep breath as if anticipating a certain response. “So… I decided it was time to question Celestia.”

He held his breath as the collective shock spread around everypony, just like he thought it would. Spitfire was halfway through a deep breath to yell, but Luna suddenly pushed past her.

“WHAT?!” Luna threw her wings out as she stopped right in front of her. “MY SISTER?! SHE’S—?!”

She was silence as Discord placed a finger on her lips and shook his head.

“No Lulu, she’s not around.” He quickly turned to the rest of them, absorbing looks of all kinds as he focused on Spitfire’s angered glare. “And NO… I can’t take you to her,” he dispelled what he assumed was the question on their minds as he tapped a finger to his forehead. “Telepathy and proximity to her divine aura. Don’t ask. It’s not something you can comprehend.”

“Now listen here you piece of shit…” Spitfire advanced around Luna, the two of them seemingly battling over who got to be angry at Discord.

“Forget about it,” Discord quickly cut her off with a snort. “I can do that, you can’t, end of story. It’s not what’s important right now. What IS important… is that I confronted her and demanded the truth.” Discord released a long sigh, his ears drooping down and his eyelids flattening. “And believe me, when I finally pried it out of her… I was beyond shocked.”

He paused for a few moments, turning and looking over everypony towards the lobby doors. He stared out them as they waited for him to continue.

“As you heard me say when we were out there,” he made a halfhearted hand motion towards the doors as he looked over his shoulder at them. “Celestia did not use a magic devised by Sombra… she literally put the living soul of Sombra himself into Soarin. She—”

“Pardon me, but let me try to wrap my head around this so far,” Spitfire cut him off suddenly as she pressed a hoof to her head. “Before I even ask why she thought something like that was a good idea, can I just say, WHAT THE HELL?!” she raised her voice so suddenly that many around her flinched in surprise. “I’m just gonna step back and put these pieces side by side,” she sat down and held her hooves out in front of her. “Princess Celestia…” she put her hooves to her right. “Took the soul of an ancient, evil monarch…” she put her hooves in front of her. “And stuffed it into my best friend’s body?!” she put her hooves to her left. “I can’t believe you can say something like that so casually!” She threw her arms out to her sides. “And even better… Celestia just happened to have King Sombra’s soul lying around or something?!”

“Do you want me to keep going or what?” Discord snarled at her as he crossed his arms. “Don’t start getting angry at me for this either, or at least this part. I had absolutely no idea she was harboring the soul of that heathen in her body either. And believe me, I immediately let her know how crazy she was for even giving such an act a thought!” he looked away, but continued to grit his teeth whenever he wasn’t speaking. “But by the time she told me all of this, the deed was done. Sombra’s soul had already fully rooted itself into Soarin’s body. There was no way for me to remove him at that point without killing Soarin in the process… and I’m sure that was exactly her intention.”

“Okay, I’m going to let all this bullshit go for a moment and ask one simple question,” Spitfire pressed on. “WHY?! Why did Celestia do this?!” she demanded.

“Because…” Discord began immediately, but paused for several second. He looked down at the ground and exhaled. “Because of Kayn Ost.”

Everything went quiet as the odd name left Discord’s lips. Perhaps it was out of anticipation? The name had come up a lot, and was always synonymous with the enemies they were facing, but it always seemed so unknown and out of reach.

“Kayn Ost is…” Discord started up again, but visibly winced. He paused looked down, groaned to himself quietly, and huffed before looking back up. “A… threat of unknown proportions…”

He was speaking slowly and the random noises and movements right before it had a few ponies glancing at each other, but their curiosity was quickly curbed by their desire to hear more.

“While I do not know what he is fully capable of, he presents an unconventional danger that threatens even us gods. He is an enigma that is constantly avoiding sight and we have no solid read on him. The damage he has already caused and his ability to create these magic chaos crystals aside, there is nothing more ominous about him than his ability to elude even us gods. That may not sound like much to you, but believe me… The only way to completely elude the gods is to be on par with them. Meaning… there is a possibility that he is an immortal. Celestia herself has no idea what he’s capable of, and… because she wanted to avoid another major catastrophe, she did… this.” He waved a hand out into the air.

“Elaborate,” Spitfire spun a hoof in the air, verbally nudging him.

“I’m getting there,” he snapped at her with a snort while lowering his face all the way down to hers. “I’m already telling you more than I’ve ever wanted to. Don’t keep whining when you’re getting what you want.” He stood back up straight and kept his arms crossed, tapping a finger against his arm. “With no way to tell just how powerful Kayn Ost may be, Celestia decided that she wanted to create a champion that could take on such a being, but obviously, no such pony exists. She was already the most powerful entity in Equestria, but she feared it would not be enough. So…” Discord released a long, exasperated sigh. “She decided she wanted to make one… using the soul of one of the fiercest warriors in the history of Equestria. Sombra’s soul is… unique. His spirit is so powerful that it even retained his physical attributes. Completely integrating his spirit with a living pony would give their body every drop of strength and ability Sombra wielded on top of their own. With his soul, she truly could create something unlike anything Equestria has ever seen. She did this in hopes that whoever she chose would be able to keep control and work together with Sombra upon the two wholly becoming one.”

He furrowed his brow as Spitfire tipped her head slightly, her eyes widening yet her eyebrows still pointing down to create one of the most outrageous mixes of disbelief and infuriation he had ever seen.

“Don’t you give me that look,” Discord hissed at her. “I wasn’t the one who chose to do this, nor do I feel Celestia had all her marbles organized when she thought it would work. She went ahead and did it without saying anything to me, Lulu, or anypony. She kept her ideas to herself and waited until she found one whom she believed would be able to house and contain Sombra’s soul. You’d think… she’d look for a unicorn or something since magic was going to be involved,” he paused and slowly glanced over at Descent. “But apparently, when she saw Soarin’s tremendous willpower during the Ponyville tornado incident, she decided he would be the one. And when Descent nearly killed him and put him in the hospital, it gave her the perfect cover to walk in and make the transfer under the guise of a noble, selfless act.”

Spitfire blinked and shook her head out.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she held her hooves out in front of her. “Hold on, back up… Run that by me again?”

“You heard me. She used Soarin’s hospitalization as an excuse to do this,” he repeated as Spitfire’s left eyelid twitched and her mouth hung open.

“W…wait…” Fleetfoot suddenly chimed in, drawing attention to her as she sat with Surprise. High Winds shifted aside so Discord could see her. She looked just as shocked as Spitfire, the two of them reacting more than most because they were in there with Soarin when it all happened. “Didn’t Celestia say she had a premonition?” she asked weakly, her tone much softer and reserved than Spitfire. But despite the tone, her question made Luna visibly twitch and bite her lip as she slinked backwards towards P.L. Spitfire sharply glanced towards Luna, but Fleetfoot didn’t notice. “She said she saw Soarin fighting in the future,” Fleetfoot went on. “That she wanted to make sure he was there… as her vision foretold… right?” she asked looking at Spitfire. But Discord grunted and shook his head.

“It was a bold-faced lie.”

A painful silence followed, only the sounds of several gasps erupting all around and looks of shock making their way onto the face of everypony within earshot. Luna shut her eyes tight and looked down, not daring to look up in fear that many were staring at her after the stunning reveal that she already knew… but never told them about.

Surprisingly… Spitfire was the only one who managed to hold herself steady. Instead of acting shocked, the moment she heard Discord’s words, she simply flattened her brow and stared grumpily at him.

“You know…” Spitfire broke the silence and exhaled harshly through her nostrils. “If you gods haven’t been lying to me left and right already, I think I may have actually been surprised. Congratulations! You’ve effectively killed my trust in all of you! Or at least the little bit I had left!” Spitfire said loudly with immense sarcasm as she bobbed back and forth and rolled her eyes in the widest arc she could manage.

“Don’t you start with me on that again,” Discord growled at her. She stopped her odd motions and shook her head, crossing her arms as she sat upright and steady.

“I won’t.” Her tone went right back to business, but with undertones of frustration. “But only because you haven’t finished giving me all the details yet.”

“No, that’s all there is to it,” Discord claimed as he turned his side to her and flicked his snake tongue at her briefly. “She wanted an unbeatable warrior, she chose Soarin as the base, and she put the soul of Sombra in him. After that, we did everything we could to make sure he remained contained until Soarin could handle it, but in the end, her foolish plan failed… and now we have an unstoppable monster on the loose.” He ended with a harrumph and turned his back to her.

“What did I tell you about trying to weasel out of this?!” Spitfire immediately stood and stomped closer to him. She stopped after two steps as Discord abruptly spun back around and extended towards her, angrily pressing a finger to her chest as his eyes narrowed into a harsh glare.

“I’m NOT trying to weasel out of ANYTHING!” he yelled in her face. “That’s what you asked me about. I told you EVERYTHING!”

“That’s far from the whole story and you know it!” Spitfire stood on the tips of her hooves to even their heads out. Discord immediately pulled higher to remain above. “How about you explain why the hell you didn’t tell us about any of this?! Why did you leave us in the dark for so long?!”

“BECAUSE…!!!” Discord went quiet, he held his glare and his teeth were grinding together, but he hesitated hard. “Because…” he quieted down and pulled away from Spitfire, averting his eyes. “Because Celestia wanted me to keep it quiet,” he admitted reluctantly.

“AND YOU LISTENED?!” Spitfire growled while sitting down, grabbing her mane, and pulling on it like she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Yes,” Discord repeated.

“WHY?!” Spitfire pressed, her breath hissing in and out of her nose and between her teeth.

“I have my reasons, and they’re personal,” Discord continued, speaking flatly as he refused to look back down at her.

“Okay, fine!” Spitfire let go of her mane and slammed her hooves back to the floor. “Then how about you tell us where Celestia is?! You seem to know!”

“I can’t tell you that,” Discord quickly denied, but his lips were parting to reveal his teeth gritting as if holding in anger.

“Oh, how FUCKING convenient!” Spitfire threw her arms and head back. She stood up, forced her wings open and hovered up to Discord. He blinked and turned to glance at her, but was forced to turn all the way as she grabbed his neck and pulled his whole body over. “WHY. NOT?!” She screamed at point blank as her face started turning red.

“Because she said not to tell that either!” Discord reached up and tried to pull her arms off him, growling as his eyes began to glow. Spitfire shook her head furiously and tightened her grip.

“I thought you said nothing mattered anymore! If that’s the case, why are you being so difficult?! Why all the loyalty to Celestia if you keep saying how messed up her plan and decision was?! TALK YOU FREAK!!!!!!”

That did it. Discord suddenly roared, his chaos aura erupting around him. Spitfire was thrown off of him and sent tumbling to the floor, everypony around them shielding themselves as the bright distorted light and magical forces rushed outward from him. Spitfire grunted as she rolled up, but was barely able to sit up as Discord stomped right up to her loomed over her and jammed a finger into her face.

“NOW YOU LISTEN TO ME, YOU INSIGNIFICANT WINGED IMP!” his voice was echoing, his eyes barely visible from the streams of chaos magic rising from them. “AFTER WHAT CELESTIA AND I HAVE BEEN THROUGH AND THE THINGS I’VE DONE TO HER, I’M A LITTLE LESS THAN WILLING TO DEFY HER WISHES!”

Spitfire bent backwards as Discord pushed his finger further forward and jammed it against her chest, everypony bracing themselves around them as they watched in confusion and horror. The entire lobby, Wonderbolts, Renegades, thestrals, and staff alike were all holding their ground, watching as magical forces danced and rushed all about.

Everypony except for Luna… who instead heard Discord’s words and looked down, biting her lip as the rushing winds pushed her ethereal mane about.

Discord pulled back slightly, but held his arms out in front of him, hands balled up in fists as the rushing magic weakened, but the aura around him remained alight and bright, glowing stronger within his eyes, around his horns, and around his arms.

“Okay, sure, fine, I get it!” Discord continued, pounding his fists against the air with every word. “Look at me! I’m the god of chaos!” he said in a mocking voice as he snapped his fingers. A bright flash filled the room and it was suddenly filled to the brim with pigs with bull horns that were quacking. “I can do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want, however the hell I please!” he snapped his fingers again and it started raining in the lobby, umbrellas sprouting like flowers from the floor tiles and unfolding to cover everypony in the room. The pigs grew wings and began floating up into the air. “But GUESS WHAT?! It doesn’t mean I’m incapable of respect, humility, and dignity!!!!” He threw his arms out and all of the random things disappeared instantly, putting it all back to the way it was. He thrust his finger back into Spitfire’s face. “And there are things I’ve done that I regret! I bet you didn’t see THAT one coming, huh?! HUH?!” he lowered his face into Spitfire’s. “How could silly old DISCORD be capable of such things?! Of decency?! Of shame?! NO WAY, NO SIR!”

His aura instantly dissipated, disappearing completely as he held his face and finger in place. He huffed and puffed with heavy, heaving breaths, his chest expanding and retracting visibly as the breath hissed in and out between his teeth.

Spitfire just stared at him with her brow scrunched, her eyes narrowed, her head tipped a little, and her mouth slightly agape.

Discord’s breathing calmed down, but he blinked as he saw the look Spitfire was giving him. His pupils darted back and forth before he turned his head from side to side.

The entire lobby had gone dead silent and all eyes were on him. Discord’s teeth parted, allowing him to breathe normally as his eyes slowly grew wider. He suddenly pulled away from Spitfire and stood up straight, he took several deep breaths while placing his hands on his head and rubbing them back and forth around his horns before running them slowly down his face. He groaned into his hands as they passed over his eyes and mouth, wiping them all the way down and grabbing his beard as they slipped off his chin.

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as Discord went through the odd sequence, but before she could speak Discord released his beard and held his hands out to her.

“I…” he said quietly, his voice squeaking. He paused for several moments before turning away and letting his arms droop at his sides. “Look… I’ve told you what happened and what Celestia’s intentions were. Isn’t that enough?” he glanced back at her slowly. Spitfire blinked in surprise as Discord’s expression changed drastically. He almost looked… sad. “Don’t push me in other directions,” he went on. “I’ve told you everything relevant to this.” He turned his back to her and waved a hand weakly in the air. “Go on… go ahead. You can all do whatever you want. I had one job in all this. I had one thing I was supposed to protect and watch over, and I completely failed. As far as I’m concerned, I have lost any reason to care…” he trailed off, once again leaving the lobby in silence as now more or less every single pony in the lobby was now completely focused on the group in the center.

Nopony said anything. They all just stared at Discord, not sure what to say or think.

But then the sudden sound of shuffling hooves came from nearby.

All eyes turned to Misty Fly.

She was up on all four hooves, the shuffling apparently from a sudden shift from sitting. She was staring at Fire Streak with a look of surprise on her face that was quickly shifting and showing different emotions as he continued to translate everything that was just said for her. But eventually, as Fire continued, her face suddenly locked on one very clear expression: Irritation. LOTS of it.

As the cross look suddenly crossed her semblance, Fire Streak paused and tipped backwards slightly, as if he knew what the look meant. Misty lifted a hoof and rotated it, urging him to continue. He obeyed and finished translating.

The moment he finished, Misty’s lips scrunched into a mixture of an angry frown and a pout that formed beneath her narrowed eyes.

She stomped a hoof and turned to Discord, Fire leaning back further to avoid her tail as it nearly whipped him in the face.

Spitfire was sitting between Misty and Discord, but the moment she saw the look on Misty’s face, she simply stood up and stepped out the way, clearing the path as Misty began stomping forward with Discord in her sights.

Everypony was watching her now, but she didn’t look at a single pair of eyes trained on her. Misty kept her focus on Discord as she moved roughly along the floor and right up behind him. Despite her heavy, stomping steps, Discord did not turn nor look at her. She stopped and stared at his back for a moment before reaching up, grabbing the tuft of his tail in her hoof, and giving it several hard, downward yanks.

“Ow!” Discord flinched as he felt the tug. He turned around with his mouth open to scold whoever he saw, but the moment he saw who he was looking at, he didn’t bother. He closed his mouth, and lifted an eyebrow as he stared directly into the hard, silent glare he was receiving. After a moment he reached over, grabbed his tail and yanked it free from her hoof while narrowing his own eyes into a glare to match hers.

Misty kept her hoof in the air, instead turning it over and making a beckoning motion towards her face.

Without question, Discord lowered his head down, using her ‘invitation’ to get closer and glare harder while trying to figure out exactly what she wanted.

Turns out… he already did what she wanted.

The moment his face was within the desired range, Misty punched Discord right across the face, walloping him in the jaw. It was not gentle, it was not a ‘come-to-your-senses’ type strike. It was a full wind-up and full follow through that belted him so hard it spun him around.

Nopony saw it coming, even Spitfire was surprised. She trusted Misty, and always knew when to let her handle a situation, but she wasn’t expecting that.

Discord’s neck nearly twisted in a full circle as his body was forcefully elongated and he stumbled backwards. His chest and face hit the pillar behind him, causing his form to awkwardly coil up before the rest of him caught up and he nearly fell into a heap on the floor.

One of his arms shot up, catching the pillar before he could fall, the talons of his eagle arm instantly jamming and digging into the pillar.

A furious growl escaped his throat as he forced himself off the pillar and whipped back around. He looked livid, his eyes glowing brightly and a distorted purple light encircling him as he ground his teeth together, his snaggletooth nearly piercing his own lip.

“THAT… DOES IT! I DON’T NEED THIS OR—” he was yelling towards Misty, or where she was at least. He stopped dead mid-sentence as he blinked and looked down. Misty had moved with him, and was right in front of him, trapping him between her and the pillar behind him. Before he could shift his anger, Misty suddenly reached out and grabbed the bear paw of his other arm, yanking it forward and pressing it to her forehead, never taking her glare off of him as she forced him along.

Discord stared down at her for a moment as she held his hand to her head. He hissed through his teeth, exhaling as the glow around him faded and he closed his lips, scrunching them angrily as he calmed down.

Everypony else was confused about what Misty was doing, but Fire suddenly perked up, the situation seeming awfully familiar.

Discord released an annoyed snort as a soft aura illuminated around his arm, slowly extending to surround Misty’s head.

“Fine!” Discord suddenly spoke while staring at Misty. “What is it?! And what was THAT for?!” Discord suddenly questioned her as everypony looked on curiously.

Misty’s eyes twitched subtly as they remained in a glare.

“It’s called being HONEST!” Discord yelled down at her.

Misty narrowed her eyes further.

“I just told you why!” Discord threw his free arm out to his side before sharply pointing at Fire Streak. “Did your little colt friend over there get too distracted by your flank to translate properly!?”

Misty’s eyes widened without losing their sharp gaze. She reached up and coiled her hoof in his beard, gripping it and pulling him down until his face was level with hers. She leaned forward and scowled at him with one of the most terrifying expressions any of the Wonderbolts had ever seen her make.

They remained in that position for several seconds, Discord’s eyes slowly growing wider.

“I’m a… WHAT?!” Discord blinked. “Is that even a word?!”

Misty parted her lips to show her teeth jammed shut. Discord’s jaw dropped and his eyes twitched, giving her a very disturbed look.

“You’ll… do what?!” his face suddenly contorted, wincing to the point where his eyes almost crossed. “That’s… absolutely horrifying! What kind of sick and twisted imagination runs through your head?! I…” he winced harder. “NO! I DON’T CARE IF I’M A DRACONEQUUS! I DON’T BEND THAT WAY EITHER! Can we stop talking about this!? You’re going to make me vomit!”

Spitfire remained quiet, her eye twitching slightly as she watched Misty… apparently tell Discord a few things that were disturbing enough to make him cringe. She turned and glanced at Fire Streak, who wore a blank look on his face as he watched Misty make him wretch. Spitfire made a casual hoof motion towards Fire Streak while tipping her head curiously. Fire glanced at her, stared for a moment, and just shrugged while shaking his head.

“OOF!” Discord grunted, his beard coiling up and smacking him several times in the face like a whiplashing window shade. He lurched backwards, but didn’t move very far as Misty gripped his arm and made sure it stayed on her forehead. “RGGH! Are you done?!” Discord growled as she kept glaring at him.

Misty’s eyes slowly opened, her glare slowly fading into a simple serious look.

“If you’re going to be this way, I’m leaving! I don’t see what this is going to accompli—”

Discord suddenly froze, his eyes going wide and his mouth hanging agape.

“What…?” he said quietly as he blinked and kept his eyes trained on her.

Misty’s face had softened, but she was now staring at him sternly.

The Wonderbolts began glancing back and forth between the two of them. Getting only one side of the conversation was confusing, but they were locked in regardless. What did Misty just ‘say’? Why did Discord react the way he did?

Discord remained quiet for several moments as Misty Fly slowly lifted one of her eyebrows.

“B…Because…” Discord stuttered. “I can’t. I already tried and it didn’t work. You were out there, you saw it. My magic flat-out failed.”

Discord flinched in surprise as Misty huffed loudly and puffed her cheeks out.

“You keep putting it that way, but I’m only being realistic,” Discord shook his head.

Misty reached forward and poked him in the stomach.

“What?”

She poked him again, a little harder.

“What about Sombra?” he suddenly asked in a frustrating tone, his face scrunching up.

Misty tipped her head slightly to the left.

“I…” Discord’s expression softened right up, his ears flopping down as he sighed. “I don’t know,” he said as he looked away.

Misty flattened her brow.

“I said I don’t KNOW!” Discord suddenly snapped at her, whipping his head back towards her and glaring. Everypony else was startled by his sudden shift in tone, but Misty didn’t budge. “She decided to keep him I guess! It’s not like I get to decide what she does or who she keeps hidden away inside her body! You’d have to ask her why she did it, I certainly have no idea!” he slurred the ‘I’ for two whole seconds as he threw out his free arm and rolled his eyes in a very exaggerated manner. “He was nothing but a simpleton!” he ranted on as he lowered himself into Misty’s face and poked a finger towards her chest. “I NEVER understood her fascination with him! We probably would have been better off if she had just—”

Discord stopped abruptly, his voice cracking, his eyes sticking open, and his pupils shrinking to little dots. He quickly looked up, once again seeing all eyes, every single pony in the lobby staring at him as he realized he was blurting several things out emotionally.

Misty remained still, but felt his arm shaking as his hand remained on her head.

“I…” Discord’s voice squeaked. “I have to go.”

He quickly pulled his hand away and held it up into the air. Misty jumped in surprise and quickly reached out to grab him again. But before she could touch him, he snapped his fingers. Misty shut her eyes and covered them with her arm as Discord vanished with a bright flash of light.

Misty blinked as she slowly peeked over her arm. The moment she noticed Discord was gone, she took a deep breath and released a loud breath that sounded like a grunt of frustration while shaking her head. She turned around… and stopped in place, looking back and forth as all the eyes of the lobby were now trained on her.

Spitfire wasted no time.

“Fire,” she said while twirling a hoof in the air without looking at him.

“On it,” Fire quickly complied as he walked by Spitfire and approached Misty. Misty was already sitting and lifting her arms to begin by the time Fire reached her. Fire gave her a nod and she began making quick hoof and wing motions, faster than most of them could decipher, if they knew the sign language at least. Fire watched her carefully, taking in every motion.

Storm Front suddenly twitched.

“Oh… sweet god…” he said quietly as Little Star and Squall glanced at him.

“What?” Star asked him curiously as she remained leaning against Dash. Storm shook his head.

“You don’t want to know,” he quickly diverted as his back legs moved closer together. Star and Squall looked back towards Fire, noticing that he was twitching uncomfortably as well.

“Um…” Fire pulled his neck back slightly, wondering how Misty was keeping a straight face. He glanced back at Spitfire. “So… the first part was her chastising him for giving up so easily. She also gave him the business about not telling us of Celestia’s whereabouts. When he got testy with her she used some…” he trailed off, shutting his eyes and scrunching his mouth briefly. “Some… colorful and imaginative language to get her point across,” he framed it the best he could before turning back to Misty and nodding.

Misty proceeded, continuing her hoof and wing signals. Fire watched and nodded until he got more information, putting up a hoof to signal a pause.

“When he abruptly calmed down, it was because she asked if there was any other reason he gave up,” Fire continued. “She didn’t find his answer to be sincere, like it was a dodge. He had already mentioned that his magic had no effect. All he did was reword it, so she pressed him on it.”

He looked back to Misty again and she continued eagerly before he could nod. Fire let her go on until she was done. She finished with a huff and stomped her hooves down to the floor, causing Fire to flinch before he glanced back towards Spitfire again.

“And that last strange outburst he had was after she asked why Celestia would keep the soul of King Sombra around if he was so dangerous. Misty thinks that his reaction implies there’s something more personal going on there,” Fire explained as he faced Spitfire and sat back down.

“That was pretty clear…” Spitfire rolled her eyes and sighed as she reached up and rubbed a hoof on her forehead.

So much for putting pieces together, Discord finally talked but she still felt like they didn’t get very far. With one god gone… it was time to turn her attention to the other.

She turned and looked around until she found Luna. She had backed up and replaced herself beside P.L., who was still looking down and not showing any sign of paying attention as his body twitched. Luna was not even looking at him, she was looking off into space as if hoping to avoid being pulled in to the conversation.

“Luna,” Spitfire called her named as she turned and slowly made her way over. Luna flinched, but held her head steady, only glancing briefly before averting her eyes. Spitfire snorted, flattening her brow as she picked up her pace slightly. P.L., surprisingly, did not move or react to her aggressive approach, still lost in his thoughts of shame so it seemed. “Care to explain any of that?” Spitfire asked as she stopped in front of her and made a subtle head motion over her shoulder. Luna stayed quiet for a moment, but when Spitfire started tapping her hoof loudly, Luna slowly turned to look at her.

“Discord… already told you everything we know. More than we knew, actually,” she admitted.

“I already had a feeling that was the case,” Spitfire acknowledged, recalling Luna’s surprise as Discord spoke. “But I’m not talking about the facts. I’m talking about the details,” Spitfire pressed. Luna blinked and tipped her head curiously. “Level with me here, Princess,” Spitfire motioned a hoof towards her. “He clearly didn’t want to answer one question. Why in Equestria would your sister keep the soul of such a powerful, dangerous monarch from the past around and store him away in her body?” She paused as Luna looked down. “I get the whole ‘crafting a champion’ thing, as crazy as the idea is, but she didn’t just suddenly call him forth. The Wrath of Sombra occurred over a thousand years ago, she’s had him in there for that long… why?”

Luna continued to look down, staying quiet for several seconds.

“Luna…” Spitfire pressed, flattening her brow.

“We…” Luna finally spoke up, but paused again. “We believe we know why, but…” Another pause.

“Spit it out, Luna,” Spitfire pushed, losing her patience.

But then suddenly, Luna looked up and hardened her expression into a stern gaze.

“No,” she replied simply. Spitfire froze, her eyes wide as she took a moment to register the response and make sure she heard her correctly. She was fed up to the point where any sort of retaliation from Luna or Discord was unthinkable. When the light shock faded she instantly growled and glared daggers at her, but Luna shook her head. “Stop, we do not believe it is relevant to the situation at hoof,” Luna explained herself, but Spitfire was having none of it.

“You have exactly one chance to convince me why it isn’t!” Spitfire sharply fired back while pointing a hoof up towards her face, but Luna didn’t budge. Whatever this was about, Luna suddenly found the strength to stand firm after moping for the past few hours. But that only made Spitfire more curious about what she could be hiding.

“This has nothing to do with our sister’s failed plan or what we currently face,” Luna began. “And if we speak, we believe you will be quick to link it to why she took the chance today. We’d rather not besmirch our sister’s name with unneeded, false speculation before we know more on the subject.”

“Luna, I am NOT in the mood for this!” Spitfire stood up on her hind legs and jammed a hoof against her chest. Several ponies flinched and glanced at P.L., nearby thestrals began hissing, but also noticed their captain staying put.

“AND NEITHER ARE WE!” Luna suddenly yelled out in her Royal Canterlot Voice, startling everypony, causing the walls and floor to rumble and thestrals to drop and shudder briefly. Spitfire squinted as her mane was blown back slightly, but held firm, the two glaring at one another as Luna pulled back for a moment and cleared her throat. “Captain Spitfire, the fact of the matter is that our Sister tried to create a champion with the resources she had available and it backfired. We should be focusing on what to do next, not why our Sister had Sombra to begin with. That is currently irrelevant.”

“Is it REALLY irrelevant?! Or do YOU think it’s irrelevant?” Spitfire shot back quickly. “You were awfully quick to find your confidence just now to defend Celestia! Don’t expect me to think that’s a coincidence!” Spitfire kept yelling.

“It IS irrelevant!” Luna harshly snapped back. “And we request that you treat it as such!”

Everypony glanced back and forth, all speechless, some scared, some curious, but most of them confused as Spitfire and Luna continued to go at it, one searching for answers while the other held strong.

Spitfire gritted her teeth, growled and went back down on all four hooves. She let her head hang for a moment and released a groan of anger and dissatisfaction.

“Fine, Luna… Fine!” she slowly lifted her chin, showing a flat expression with hints of anger seeping through. “Then answer me one question… TRUTHFULLY.”

Luna looked at her carefully, before exhaling through her nose.

“Speak.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me…” Spitfire pointed to her eyes. “Did you know that Sombra was within Celestia or Soarin?”

“No,” Luna answered without even taking a breath.

The two stared at one another for a long, painful, ten seconds before Spitfire scrunched her face and released a muffled grumble. She sighed heavily as she turned her side to Luna and folded her ears back.

“Well… okay then!” Spitfire yelled up into the air while throwing her head back. “Uuuuuuggghhhhhh…” Spitfire suddenly groaned while sticking her neck forward and opening her eyes wide. It looked like she was trying to vomit. “I literally CANNOT believe I’m about to say this after all you’ve put us through… but I’ll take your word for it…” she trailed off as she looked up and saw everypony reacting around her. She knew that wasn’t what they wanted to hear, she knew they wanted answers just as much as she did, but it was clear she was not going to get any further.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t apply a little more pressure.

“BUT…!” she suddenly spun around and pointed at Luna, her eyes once again narrowing into a glare. “This is not the end of this conversation. I agree that we need to focus on the here and now and how to proceed. But if we get out of this alive, I’m getting the full story. You owe it to ALL of us. Got it?!”

“Understood,” Luna replied simply with a nod and a huff as she looked away and snorted.

“I’m glad we agree for once,” Spitfire said sarcastically while rolling her eyes.

With that taken care of, Spitfire slowly began turning back to her Wonderbolts, but before she could say anything else…

“Now then…” Descent spoke up, seeing his opportunity to steal the spotlight and forcing his way in. “That was all very interesting, but this is your problem now,” he turned to Starry Skies and Lightning Dust while still holding an arm over his stomach. “I’ll see about us departing.”

Everypony flinched and quickly remembered the bombshell Descent had dropped on them before Discord stepped in and knotted everything up a bit more. Descent spoke so casually about it just now, almost as if he was trying to take action before anypony could tell him otherwise. Again, both Starry and Dust stared at him in surprise.

But Spitfire did not hesitate for a moment.

“Nice try Descent,” she quickly spoke up before Descent could give any orders. He stopped in place and growled as Spitfire made her way back towards him. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

“You have NO authority over my decisions,” Descent retorted fast while keeping his back turned to her.

“You think you’re clever by hiding behind all the crap we just had to absorb from Discord, but you’re not getting off the hook that easily,” Spitfire sat down and crossed her hooves, driving a stern gaze directly into the back of Descent’s head.

“Off the hook? Don’t twist my reasoning into cowardice,” he answered calmly, but with a slight growl beneath his tone.

“Your ‘reasoning’ is stupid,” Spitfire put bluntly, causing Descent’s ears to stand up. He snorted and finally turned around, or at least far enough to look over his shoulder at her.

“Excuse me?” he hissed as he took in Spitfire’s body posture and expression. She was looking at him and speaking to him like a mother catching a teenager in a poorly fabricated lie.

“You heard me, but let me analyze this anyway, where everypony can hear me loud and clear,” she continued, her tone remaining constant and annoying Descent further as she held her hooves out in front of her. “If I have this straight… You claim that you were only here because our missions intertwined, correct?”

“That’s right,” Descent growled at her, still not facing her fully. Spitfire preferred that he turn and face her fully, but she was beginning to wonder if it had something to do with him constantly holding his stomach. In the end, she didn’t care as long as he wasn’t ignoring her. “And now they are not. I’ve no more reason to risk the Renegades here.”

“For starters,” Spitfire quickly went on. “You’re going to be cutting your force in half. Do you honestly think the Wonderbolt veterans within your ranks will up and leave us behind?”

“They can stay and die if they want,” Descent said as he narrowed his eyes. “I only accepted their help when they offered and bear no alliances to them. The Shadowbolts among my ranks are all I need." Spitfire broke eye contact with him for a moment and glanced at Starry and Dust behind them. Lightning Dust was glancing between Descent and Starry, but Starry was just staring at Descent with an awful lot of conflicting emotions written all over her face. It was as if she wasn’t sure she agreed, but agreed anyway because Descent was saying it. “Now if you’ll excuse—”

“Secondly…” Spitfire quickly cut him off before he could try to escape again. “You do realize that I intend to go after Soarin… and the Shadowbolts will be going after him too, right?”

Descent opened his mouth to fight back, but said nothing, slowly closing his mouth back up and diverting his eyes.

“Not intertwining, huh?” Spitfire added while lifting an eyebrow. Descent glanced down at the floor, his mouth scrunching up and the ends of his lips shuddering to remain closed as he growled within. “If you’re going to make excuses, at least put together a believable one first. Face it, Descent, your argument is trash. Why are you trying to run away?” Spitfire kept laying it on as thick as possible, and the moment she turned up the heat, it struck every nerve dead center.

“I do not run away!” Descent turned and pounded his free hoof on the floor before pulling himself over to Spitfire. “And I am NOT a coward!” he yelled out, his eyes wide with fury as he got in Spitfire’s face.

Spitfire remained perfectly still, her face still unchanged as Descent bared his teeth and growled into her face.

All she did was lift an eyebrow and glance down a little, her eyes scanning his chest and moving further down.

“How’s your stomach doing by the way?” she asked calmly.

Descent froze, breath meant for a yell expelling from his throat as the question hit him like a ton of bricks. Spitfire smirked, but only briefly because she was waiting to bring it up. She quickly tipped her head slightly to get a better view of his arm that was still clutched over his stomach, examining it carefully as Descent remained still.

“You think I didn’t notice you holding your arm there the whole time? That’s right where you got hit, right?” she asked. She blinked in surprise as Descent abruptly shifted backwards and turned his side to her, grunting and sitting down as he kept his arm wrapped over the spot.

“That’s enough,” he said quickly and gruffly.

“Descent…” Spitfire flattened her brow. “Are you afraid of—?”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!!!!!” Descent suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs. “Ahhhhh!” he groaned loudly in pain right after, his body twitching as he stuck out his free arm and lurched forward. His hoof slammed to the ground and scratched loudly against it, supporting him as he hacked and coughed.

“Descent!” Starry yelled, nearly catapulting from her spot the instant Descent physically broke down. Lighting Dust flinched, narrowly avoiding a wing to the face before she followed behind.

Spitfire sat patiently and watched as Descent struggled to remain upright. Starry and Lightning Dust scrambled to his side, both reaching out to support him. Lightning Dust kept her hooves on his arm as he finally sat up, but Starry pulled back quickly. His mouth hung agape as he huffed and puffed for air, his whole body shaking as his arm clamped harder to his stomach.

“I knew it,” Spitfire nodded. “You are a hell of a fighter, Descent. But you’re a lousy liar.” Spitfire completely ignored the death glare Starry was shooting in her direction as she waited for Descent to say something.

“I…” Descent sputtered as he coughed again. “I am… only looking out… for my family…”

Spitfire blinked, her eyes opening slightly wider. She wasn’t expecting that. It seemed that neither was anypony else. By now, just about everypony in the lobby was listening in or had gathered closer to hear what was being talked about. The reaction from the Shadowbolts was very noticeable, all of them perking up at Descent’s words. It took Starry Skies a moment to react, her angry glare towards Spitfire fading once the words finally registered and she looked up at him. Spitfire glanced briefly towards Storm Front, the first thing that came to mind when Descent mentioned family, but after a moment of thought, she quickly remembered.

Descent slowly looked up at Spitfire, his eyes squinting and his teeth stuck shut as he twitched and winced. But he wasn’t just showing pain on the outside, his eyes were filled with pain as well. Hesitance, uncertainty, worry… they all showed through.

“You saw him,” Descent went on, struggling. “You saw what he did to me…”

All eyes were suddenly drawn to his arm over his stomach as he finally moved it. It was covering a flap of torn spandex that was still attached to his suit. He cringed as he removed his arm from it, but slowly reached his hoof towards the ripped flap, and pulled it back.

Everypony within range either gasped or flinched in shock, some breathing in as they slammed their teeth shut, their eyes twitching. Beneath the flap of torn suit, among the scars on Descent’s stomach, was an enormous, nasty bruise. It was so harsh and discolored that it showed right through his dark fur, bits and pieces of fur actually missing around it as if they were torn off by the impact itself. It looked like he literally had a dent in him, the bruising extending up towards his ribs, sporting several places where the skin had broken from hard trauma and was speckled with bits of blood.

“I have never taken a more painful hit in my life,” Descent continued, Starry Skies frozen and speechless at his side as she stared at the bruise. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I have some fractured ribs,” he coughed and dipped forward slightly, but managed to stay up with both his hooves now on the ground. “He did this to me and…” he paused and made a weak motion towards P.L. “Just look at what he did to P.L. I loathe to admit it, but P.L. is the strongest, most battle hardened warrior we have here, and he’s broken, in shambles with his armor ripped to shreds.” Descent shook his head. “And you saw those weapons, right? They weren’t even stable. What if he gains full control and those are sharp? I’d be dead right now. What do you expect us to do against power like that? This is out of this world, out of this dimension, something we can’t even comprehend!” Descent paused and grimaced, wobbling side to side as he took a few heavy breaths. “Do you honestly expect me confidently throw my mares and stallions into battle against something so dangerous?” He shook his head again. “No. I can’t do that. I want to focus on saving the rest of my family, the Shadowbolts who are still trapped under the hooves of Kayn Ost. If I can do that without confronting the monster that Soarin has become, then I will.”

“And that’s… where I’m going to stop you.”

Spitfire perked up as a familiar voice of authority met her ears. She turned and looked over her shoulder, all eyes following hers as Blazetail stepped out from the surrounding crowd and slowly made his way towards them.

Descent blinked and tipped his head up, his eyes locking on Blazetail as he walked by Spitfire and gave her a quick tap on the shoulder. Spitfire nodded and yielded the floor to her predecessor.

“You know your way around the battlefield like old farmer in a cornfield, kiddo. But you’re still new at being a leader,” Blazetail said as he stopped in front of Descent and sat down. “You’ve got a lot of heart for your fellow Shadowbolts. That’s commendable.” He shook his head. “But as a leader, you can’t walk around brick walls. Danger is the name of the game.”

“Don’t talk down to me,” Descent snorted towards him, his breath hissing between his teeth as he put up a defense. “My whole life has been wrought with danger, but after all the Shadowbolts have been put through thus far, I’m a little less than willing to send them to their certain deaths. Not that I’d expect a Wonderbolt to understand that.”

“Son,” Blazetail flattened his brow and released a loud huff. “How do you think I felt during the last Griffon-Drake War?”

Descent went silent. He kept glaring at Blazetail for a moment, but he had no rebuttal. Blazetail was nearly fifteen years his senior and had, in fact, fought in a war as a leader.

“The Wonderbolts were on the front lines of every major battle,” Blazetail continued. “I had to send some of my most cherished brothers and sisters headlong into the thick of things on countless occasions. Every single time I worried that it would be last time I ever saw their faces. And… every once in a while, that was the unfortunate case.” He paused and took a long, deep breath, sighing. “And wouldn’t you know it, but I hesitated all the time. I thought just like you are now. My hesitation was out of concern for those I held responsibility for, but you know what? Sometimes my hesitation led to problems, sometimes even deaths whether it be allies or my own Wonderbolts. I even had one old veteran that branded me for it,” Blazetail smirked and chuckled. “He’d tell me to pull my head out of my ass and get my shit together. Hell, sometimes he even gave split second orders in my place. Back then the Wonderbolts tended to listen to him more than me anyway.”

“But there is plenty of certainty here…” Descent cut in, shaking his head. “We can’t face something so powerful.”

“Are you so sure about that?” Blazetail asked as he stepped aside and motioned a hoof behind him. Descent and everypony else slowly followed his direction… their eyes landing on Rainbow Dash. She still had a ghastly look about her, but she was upright and balancing on her own. She was staring towards Descent, her ears up and turned to listen despite her state.

Descent remained quiet as Blazetail kept his arm extended towards Dash. Eventually, Blazetail tipped his head slightly and lifted his brow.

“If you ask me, it seems like there’s a lot of uncertainty here. I was thinking just like you until I saw what happened between Rainbow Dash and Soarin. I haven’t a clue how it works or what it means, but I’m not throwing in the towel until we know more. You have to at least try, Descent.”

“Again, he won’t just let us near him with her!” Descent tried to argue his previous point again. “So she has an effect… That doesn’t lessen the risk,” Descent exhaled as he shut his eyes and tipped his head down.

“I never said it did,” Blazetail stepped back in front of him. “I know how you are, Descent. I know you never want to show fear in front of your fellow Shadowbolts, but it’s okay to be afraid. A leader that doesn’t fear the worst possible outcomes has no heart.”

Descent opened his eyes and looked at Blazetail carefully as he turned his side to him.

“Always fear for those you lead, but don’t let that fear overpower the trust you have in them. I know you don’t really want to leave, and I’m going to bet your followers don’t want to leave either. Don’t go trying to create reasons to,” Blazetail smiled at him. “I’m not asking you to listen to this old stallion ramble on and take it as sage advice without question. Just think about it. Put it in perspective. You’re part of all this one way or another. It’s up to you to decide what kind of leader you want to be for your wingmates.”

Descent listened carefully to every word with Starry and Dust still at his sides. The two looked up at him as he sat and absorbed it all, but said nothing as Blazetail turned and walked back towards Spitfire.

Blazetail blinked as Spitfire shot him a smirk.

“What?” he asked as he reached her and stopped.

“I’m not worthy,” she said with a quiet chuckle and bowed a little towards him. “You’ve still got it.”

“Oh, cut that out,” Blazetail rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide a smirk. “I just did what I had to do. I agree with everypony else around here… no motivational speech or rah-rah hoot and hollering is going to get us up and moving here.” He shook his head. “I just told him what he needed to hear. To be perfectly honest, I’m just as conflicted as he is. But I’m not about to skedaddle with so many unknowns still unknown. So we can’t have him leaving, we’re stretched thin as is.”

“Sheesh old-timer, how about you just step in while you’re at it?” Spitfire said jokingly… Maybe half-jokingly. The whole sequence she just witnessed was painfully reminding her of how much she missed having Silver around, even if he didn’t do anything besides kicking their asses in the right direction every once in a while. Blazetail lifted an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t think so, kiddo. I chose you for a reason, you know,” he suddenly turned and pointed a hoof at her, tapping her on the chest. “It’s your turn. I tied down the bull, now you need to direct the troops,” he spoke in a more serious tone as he hardened his expression. “You intend to go after Soarin no matter what the cost, correct?”

The question caught Spitfire off guard. The answer was definitely yes, but… at the same time it was a more complicated situation than that. It took her a moment or two to just notice she was hesitating, something Blazetail clearly noticed as well.

“Yes, that… and…” Spitfire began slowly. “I intend to stop the threat he currently poses if… if we can’t…” she had no idea why she was having such a hard time saying it all.

“Misgivings?” Blazetail cut in, his hoof poking into her chest. Spitfire wasn’t sure if he was suddenly testing her too, but she decided to assume he was… because he used to do this to her all the time before he retired. So she came right out with it.

“Of course,” she said with a firm nod. “Soarin is my friend. He’s my best friend. There are emotions in play for me that shouldn’t be, but I can only acknowledge them or ignore them. I’m acknowledging them. I want to save him no matter what, but… if we can’t, we have to do what’s best for Equestria. Our duty as Wonderbolts is to fly into the face of the irregular and unknown,” she reached up a hoof and gripped Blazetail’s on her chest. “If we can’t save him… then we will do what we must,” she glanced at Dash. “Even if it comes at a high price.”

“Hmph…” Blazetail slowly smiled. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” He moved his hoof from her chest to her shoulder, giving it a pat. “Go talk to your Wonderbolts. Grab this nonsense by the balls and set things straight. They’ll follow you.”

Spitfire smirked at his choice of words. Blazetail was just like Silver in some ways. While he lacked the bluntness, he knew how to stay calm and say the right things when everything was going wrong.

With the words of her predecessor swirling in her head, Spitfire turned and made her way back over towards her top elites.

Their ‘meeting’ had more or less broken apart by now. There were so many confrontations and strong words being thrown around that everypony had been thrown into a tizzy. But even within such disorganization, they still managed to break off into organized groups. The Wonderbolts sticking with Wonderbolts, the Renegades sticking with Renegades, and so on.

The top elites and squad Foxtrot were still all together as well, signs of lingering animosity still hanging between them. The twins were on opposite sides of the group, and Blaze was sitting in front, her arms crossed and grumbling to herself, no longer trapped under High Winds’ plot.

But from the moment Spitfire turned and started approaching them again, they all perked up and glanced towards her. All except for Dash, at least.

Spitfire kept Blazetail’s words in mind as she closed in.

Set things straight.

Easier said than done. She hoped she wouldn’t have to grab any balls, but if Lightning Streak pushed her any more she might just have to.

She locked eyes with Lightning the moment she stopped and sat down before them. She only stole a quick glance at Blaze a moment or two later before going right back to Lightning. But neither of them were the first to speak.

“Spitty…?” Fleetfoot’s voice squeaked from within the group. High Winds blinked and shifted aside as Fleetfoot stood, wobbled, and gingerly stepped towards her. Spitfire quickly broke eye contact with Lightning and instead looked upon her good friend with concern. She held a hoof out as Fleetfoot stumbled towards her. She quickly reached out and grabbed it, supporting herself as she looked up into Spitfire’s eyes pleadingly. “We’re… going after Soarin right?”

Her voice made Spitfire’s heart ache, and she was sure the rest could feel it too. There was a tone of pure, weak despair in Fleetfoot’s voice as if she knew there was nothing she could possibly do. She wanted Spitfire to tell her they could do it. Fleetfoot’s state and voice seemed to send a sudden rush of calm through the group, Lightning Streak and Blaze both relaxing a little, both looking away as the thought crossed their minds as well.

“We can save him…right?” Fleetfoot pressed, her light grip on Spitfire’s arm tightening as she bit her lower lip and looked at her with wide eyes.

Spitfire stared into Fleetfoot’s eyes for a long moment before slowly closing hers and releasing a long breath.

“Fleet, I don’t know,” she answered truthfully, immediately seeing the dejection in Fleetfoot’s eyes nearly double. She quickly put her other hoof on Fleetfoot’s shoulder. “That’s the truth of it. I’d only be giving false comfort if I said otherwise. But…” she gave Fleetfoot a strong nod as she kept her eyes locked on hers. “I’m not going to sit here and worry. I have no idea if we can save Soarin or not, but I sure as hell intend to try,” she paused, glancing up and giving a quick sweep of the rest of the group with her eyes, making sure they could all see how serious she was about this. “And I expect everypony here to share that mindset. I understand that you’re all tired of this, I am too. But if we lie down and curl up, we’re not living up to what we represent.”

It didn’t take long for her to notice those words had little effect. Those who were worried still looked worried and those who were angry were still angry.

“If I could give you a better answer I would,” she quickly continued while shaking her head subtly. “But all we can focus on right now is what we know. Until we have a better grip on the situation, we shouldn’t forget that we were reaching for our destination with more than Soarin in mind. We have several injured that need medical attention beyond what Bliss can provide, let’s not forget a lot of us owe Silver for even being alive right now,” she put heavy emphasis when speaking about Silver. That seemed to do the trick. The top elites seemed to perk up at the mention of Silver. “We also need to get help for our captives, not to mention Wave Chill. He’s been holding on this long, we need to deliver for him too.”

Spitfire watched as the looks in every pair of eyes changed. There had been so much focus on Soarin that other things seemed to momentarily slip through the cracks. Spitfire had a feeling they would come to their senses after the brief reminder. She didn’t want them to keep going for her. She wanted them to keep going for those that really needed the help right now. Soarin was important, but he wasn’t the only Wonderbolt in need.

With the visible change sweeping through them, Spitfire took the opportunity to go further. She wasn’t going to try and rouse them with a motivational speech, but they needed direction and she was going to give it.

“I know you’re all worried about Soarin… or all wondering what the hell’s going on. I’m just as shaken by this, believe me,” she began by bringing herself down to their level, making sure they didn’t see her as standing over them. “But there’s more at stake than him. We need to focus on what we can control right now. We need to keep moving to the Crystal Empire so we can help Silver, Wave, and everypony else that needs it. They are just as much our responsibility as Soarin,” she reiterated. “That goal is within reach, so that will be our first move.”

She was pleased with the looks being sent her way. While there were still some emotions clearly stretching in different directions, they seemed to agree with her thought process.

“Once we have all that taken care of… we can figure out what to do about Soarin,” she went on, finally letting go of Fleetfoot and planting her hooves back on the ground. “Because where we stand right now, we know far too little to do anything about it. We don’t even know where he is or where he may be headed. We—”

“Your destination is one in the same.”

“WHAT THE—?!” Spitfire nearly leapt into the air as a voice suddenly came from directly behind her. All the top tiers and Squad Foxtrot jumped in surprise as well as the voice seemed to come out of thin air. Several ponies looked over, Descent’s ears popping up as the voice met them.

“That voice!” Descent blinked, grunting as he turned around too quickly and almost fell over.

Spitfire spun around as a faint, blinking pink light appeared behind her. She slid backwards, almost knocking over Fleetfoot and a few others as her heart jumped in her chest.

The light slowly grew brighter… and started creating the faint outline of a stallion. Everypony in the lobby was already on edge. Whatever this was didn’t help it. But when Spitfire finally regained her focus and shook her head out, she realized who the voice belonged to. And as the silhouette began to fill in, she snorted and glared.

With a bright pink Flash… Moon appeared. He was standing calmly right in front of the central pillar, and stepped forward to speak, but…

The lobby was suddenly thrown into uproar. Gasps and screams blared throughout as ponies who had yet to encounter him either backed up or stepped forward to protect the injured. The thestrals forced themselves up, hissing and screeching as their eyes glowed bright yellow. Even P.L. finally seemed to snap out of it, standing up in surprise as a Shadowbolt appeared so close to Luna. He fell right back down the moment he tried, but he kept trying to get back up. Moon lifted his brow as everypony reacted to him. His eyes widening slightly and his crystals lifting up in front of him as several around him began to show signs of hostility.

“EVERYPONY STOP!!!!!!!!!!” Spitfire yelled at the top of her lungs as she jumped into the air and threw her arms out. “STOP! STOP! STOP!!!!!!!!” she yelled louder, taking heavy breaths as everypony halted in place and stared towards her in confusion. “RELAX DAMMIT!” she yelled as she huffed and puffed. “Moon… is not hostile…” she quieted down as everypony went silent. “Just, trust me okay, this isn’t the first time he’s done this.”

She slowly lowered herself down, everypony surrounding them completely and utterly flabbergasted with no clue what was going on here. The hostile projection ceased, but everypony was now focused to the center again, wondering what the hell one of their enemies was doing in the Nimbus.

Moon scoffed as he looked about at all the pairs of eyes trained on him.

“Nice communication,” he commented with a faint tone of sarcasm. “You haven’t told your force about me?”

“How long have you been standing there!?” Spitfire ignored him, stomping up to him and jamming a hoof in his face. Moon stayed still, not even flinching.

“Long enough to—”

“You’ve got some nerve always waltzing in here like you own the place!” Spitfire cut him off, her anger getting the better of her patience. Moon furrowed his brow.

“I don’t adhere to your—”

“I’m the one doing the talking here!” Spitfire cut him off again, getting into his face and grabbing a hooffull of his suit neck, yanking it forward. “And I’ve got several questions you better answer!” she yelled, the air of the surrounding ponies relaxing as they slowly noticed Spitfire’s control of the situation, and how this clearly wasn’t a first encounter. “What the hell is going on? What happened to Nightshade?! Did you know about Sombra being inside Soarin?!” she fired off the questions rapidly.

The edges of Moon’s lips curled downward ever so subtly, but he remained calm in his usual manner regardless. His eyes emitted a faint pink glow and the sparkling flashes of his telekinesis surrounded Spitfire’s hoof, slowly removing it from his suit. He glanced briefly at Descent and Starry Skies both glaring at him as Spitfire tried to resist his magic, but ignored them and grunted.

“I’m working on figuring that out, I don’t know, and no,” he answered all three questions as quickly as they were given to them. “Now don’t ask any more questions, I’m not here for you to pick my brain,” he stated firmly, but Spitfire was not having it.

“You don’t show up here and tell me what to—” Spitfire stopped suddenly, blinking as she looked down at where she was previously holding Moon’s suit. “Why do you have a gold star on your chest?” she asked out of the blue, lifting her brow as her eyes landed on the gold sticker.

Moon’s eyes widened as he glanced down at his chest. His face scrunched and he grumbled to himself as he quickly reached up and ripped the sticker off, crumpling it up and tossing it aside.

“I said no more questions,” he repeated in an annoyed manner.

“Then out with it already,” Descent suddenly hobbled forward with Starry following close behind. He snorted as Moon calmly glanced towards him. “Why are you here this time?”

“I’m here to offer my advice,” Moon began quickly, implying he was not going to dawdle further. “It’s up to you whether or not you wish to follow it.” He nodded as he turned his attention back to Spitfire. “If you still intend on reaching the Crystal Empire, I’d advise you to do so immediately. You have a clear opportunity to arrive there unimpeded,” he explained as he turned his eyes back to Descent. “The Shadowbolts are in complete distress and disarray for the time being, but I wouldn’t bet on them being down for long. You’d best move while they are still gathering themselves,” he turned back to Spitfire. “I have not caught word of our next move yet, I’m about eighty percent certain they will target Soarin before you, but that’s not a chance I’d take. You have an opening, take it.”

“That’s it?” Spitfire tipped her head and huffed. “That was already what we planned on—”

Spitfire flinched and yelped as Descent suddenly pushed her aside and placed himself in front of Moon. She almost reflexively shouted at him, but stopped, deciding to let it go as she watched him narrow his eyes and glare at Moon.

However… Moon kept his eyes on Spitfire, purposely avoiding eye contact with Descent.

“Moon,” Descent addressed him gruffly. Moon didn’t look. “Dammit Moon, look me in the eye!” he pushed. But again, Moon didn’t look. Descent growled for a moment, but eventually exhaled and let up on the sharpness a little. “I’m not going to ask about your intentions. I just want to know more about the Shadowbolts.”

Moon’s ears twitched slightly before he finally turned and looked Descent in the eye as he asked him to. He stared for a few moments before briefly glancing beyond Descent at Storm Front sitting a little ways behind him.

“What about them?” he complied as he returned his focus to Descent.

“First, please tell me… Is Nightshade okay?” he asked with a great amount of concern in his voice. “You got her back safely?” The moment he posed the question, Starry scooted up beside him, her interest in the subject clear as day as she leaned forward and her ears were turned.

“Yes, Rapidfire brought her back in one piece,” Moon began, both Descent and Starry visibly relaxing a little the moment he said it. “But she ran off shortly after we returned. I have not spoken to her or examined her myself so I have no idea how she’s faring, but she is clearly not well,” he explained as Descent and Starry seemed to tense right back up. Descent gritted his teeth and his ears drooped down as he listened closely. “To be honest, since her battle with Silver Lining, she has not quite been herself,” Moon went on. “Before she faced off against him, she was just as she had always been… Brutal, sadistic, intimidating, and overly assertive with her sexuality. Since the battle, it’s been like looking at a different pony. She’s evasive, rarely speaking to us beyond threats and orders. There have been several instances where she radiates a sense of panic or desperation, sometimes personal urgency. This is also all coincides with a recent visit from our enigmatic ‘client’ that I managed to catch ear of. He’s becoming impatient with her and warned her that he’s only willing to give her so many chances.”

Moon paused as he watched Descent and Starry process it all, becoming progressively more worried as it all sank in.

“I’m no psychologist, but the writing on the wall is pretty clear,” he continued. “Things are growing wildly out of control and she is terrified of the consequences of constant failure,” he paused and watched as Descent looked down, narrowing his eyes and growling to himself. “As for what happened to her just now, I haven’t a clue. She knows the risks of overusing the crystals, yet she appeared here with six crystals and lost all control of herself as it overwhelmed her. Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t kill her outright. While I was listening into her meeting with our client, he did give her some sort of potent dose of magic I’m unfamiliar with. Perhaps that allowed her to handle more without dying. It’s, frankly, pointless to speculate much further because I have no facts, only observations,” he paused as he glanced to his left and saw the crumpled up sticker on the floor near him. “And before you ask me about Ruin accompanying her here, don’t bother. I have no idea if he was actually involved or not,” he finished with a faint snort.

“Nightshade…” Starry spoke softly as she pondered Moon’s words. She glanced up at Descent, unsure of how to express herself. She was worried, obviously, but just like dealing with Descent, she didn’t quite know how to show it. Descent on the other hoof, was clearly distraught with anger slowly creeping onto his face. He suddenly lifted a hoof and slammed it to the ground, hiding a twitch of pain as the vibration made those around him jump with surprise, save for Moon.

“DAMMIT!” he yelled towards the floor, his upper lip twitching split between pain and the feeling of powerlessness. “We have to get her out of there before it’s too late…”

“If things continue to spiral out of control the way they are, she may be gone before you have the chance,” Moon suddenly said. Descent’s eyes widened, his head snapping up with his eyes locked on Moon.

“What?!” he reacted with shock and slight confusion. “What was that?!”

“I’m certain you heard what I said,” Moon huffed and flattened his brow. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s dead, or killed, or something along those lines soon.”

Descent suddenly forced himself forward, a ferocious look in his eyes as he reached a hoof towards Moon’s neck. Not even Starry saw it coming as she was nearly knocked aside by the sudden advance. Moon did not move, but his crystals brightened, his telekinesis activating and stopping Descent’s hoof right before he could grab a hooffull of his suit.

“Enough grabbing the suit, please,” Moon requested flatly as Descent growled and strained within the magical force.

“What does that even mean?!” Starry Skies asked as she shifted herself up beside Descent. Moon left her alone as she showed no sign of touching him. Instead, he kept his eyes on Descent and exhaled through his nostrils.

“Assuming she isn’t destroyed by our client first. There are… factions forming within the ranks,” he explained. Descent stopped struggling in an instant, a quiet gasp escaping his throat as he registered Moon’s words. Moon quickly noticed the change in demeanor. “Is it safe to assume this was your other question? About the current state of the Shadowbolts as a whole?” he asked as he released Descent from his magic.

“Yes…” Descent confirmed as he completely simmered down.

“I have never seen us more divided,” Moon immediately laid out. “Nightshade’s leadership was the last knot keeping the Shadowbolts in line. But with the knot quickly fraying, loyalties are being challenged and tempers are being pushed. Half of the force is blindly loyal to our client’s mission and acquiring more crystals. The other half are caught wondering what we’re actually trying to accomplish and why,” Moon shook his head. “You know better than anypony how the Shadowbolts are meant to operate. We are mercenaries who take on odd jobs and contracts without asking questions. But the longer this endless, drawn out campaign has run on and the more it wears on us… it’s forcing us to ask questions, but none are being answered.”

“There’s been a lot of infighting?” Starry asked, speaking what was on both her and Descent’s mind.

“That barely describes it,” Moon glanced at her briefly and nodded. “It’s nothing like the usual gangs and squabbles that have always happened around the fortress. This is serious and real. And I’m more than certain that Blade… is planning to overthrow Nightshade.”

“WHAT?!” Descent blurted out with a look of disbelief on his face.

“Uh… is he NUTS?!” Starry cut in throwing a hoof out to her side. “There’s no way he’d be able to kill Nightshade. I don’t care how messed up she is right now, she’d still rip him to pieces!”

“Blade has long abandoned the Shadowbolt code,” Moon continued as Descent and Starry stared at him with mixed confusion. “He knows he can’t defeat her head on but he doesn’t care. I wouldn’t be surprised if he concocts other ways or means to get rid of her.”

“I can’t believe this…” Descent shook his head. “Not even our own code matters anymore? And… others are following him in this madness?”

“Indeed they are,” Moon answered simply. “And all of this is splintering the commanders as well. Angel and Void are following Blade’s direction without question. Shadow is beginning to open her eyes to the reality around her and I’m sure Sin won’t be too far behind… assuming he recovers and actually takes a moment to use his brain.”

“And you…?” Descent asked as he fought to understand everything he was being told.

“I am indifferent,” Moon narrowed his eyes a little. “Nice try, but I’ve no desire to discuss my motivations,” Moon added sharply, but Descent showed no sign of pushing him on it.

“What about Ruin?” Starry decided to ask. Moon just lifted an eyebrow in response. “Or... Should I even bother asking?” she added.

“I have no idea,” Moon answered while rolling eyes. “He’s treating the whole ordeal as entertainment.”

“Dammit…” Descent suddenly grumbled to himself, prompting Starry and Moon to look towards him. He had his head down, his teeth were jammed together and his hooves were digging into the floor. His arms were shaking, and it was clearly not because of his physical pain. “Blade… Angel… Void…” he shook his head. “Why? Why has it come to this? Is there no reason or honor left among them?”

“Desperation is a game changer, Descent,” Moon spoke up as Descent remained still. “When it all breaks down, you can’t cling to hope that level heads will prevail. This has gone to hell and beyond, you’d best rethink your ambition to save all of them. It won’t happen, not with the way things are. The sooner you recognize this, the less sleep you will lose over it.”

“Do you have to be so defeatist?!” Starry snapped at him, speaking out because Descent wouldn’t.

“I’m only being realistic,” Moon quickly replied. “It’s why I’ve chosen to pursue my own goals instead of worry about the Shadowbolts.”

“Don’t you throw that ‘I don’t care’ bullshit at me!” Starry spat as she growled at him. “I’m not blind, I saw you help Nightshade and Sin!”

“I only helped Sin because Shadow wanted me to. Rapidfire saved Nightshade not m—”

“Oh I’m SURE that’s it!” she cut it off. “I don’t care what the hell your personal goals are, but I’m not going to let you just tread on ours!”

The two went silent. Moon staring into Starry’s glare as Descent remained behind, still looking down. Moon took a deep breath and exhaled, both through his nostrils. He shook his head lightly.

“Oh, what? Got something to say to me?!” Starry hissed while edging slightly closer to him.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about Blade’s intentions in the immediate or short run,” he suddenly shifted, catching both Starry and Descent by surprise as they both perked up, Descent finally prying his eyes off the ground. “There are still many Shadowbolts who are loyal to Nightshade and the code. If he were to attempt a coup the way things currently stand, it wouldn’t be easy and he knows it. I stand by what I said before, I believe Nightshade’s days as the captain are numbered, but there is still a little bit of time before I see any of the possibilities materializing.”

It certainly wasn’t reassuring, but it wasn’t what they were expecting. Perhaps Starry’s verbal attack made him rethink and walk back a little, though there was no way he’d admit such a thing.

“But this is all the more reason why you have to get moving now,” Moon quickly continued, turning his focus away from the two of them and back towards Spitfire, advancing towards her as if purposely trying to get away quickly. “The Shadowbolts are without a ship, many are injured to the point where even the crystals will take a little while to heal them, and the heightening divisions are putting up barriers to a quick reorganization. The sooner you can get to the Crystal Empire, the sooner you can make your next move and beat them to Soarin.”

Spitfire watched him carefully, taking a moment to look past him towards Descent and Starry. She didn’t completely follow what was exchanged due to lack of information, but it wasn’t important right now. Descent had been locked in and she didn’t want to give him a chance to think twice.

“Agreed,” Spitfire gave Moon a quick nod. “I just hope we can figure out where Soarin went.”

Moon stopped suddenly and lifted an eyebrow.

“Did you not hear me when I arrived?” Moon asked quizzically as he tipped his head a little. Spitfire snorted and flattened her brow.

“I heard you say something, but your whole spooky, appear-out-of-thin-air act kind of distracted everypony,” she said sarcastically.

“I’m honestly a little surprised here,” Moon went on as Spitfire’s sarcasm bounced right off. “His eventual destination should be quite obvious.”

“I’m not in the mood,” Spitfire waved a hoof in front of her face. “Just spit it out.”

“Where are you about to go?” Moon persisted with the indirectness anyway. Spitfire scrunched her face, reluctantly playing along.

“We’re going to the Crystal Empire.”

Moon said nothing. He just stared directly into her eyes.

“What?” Spitfire growled quietly. Moon sighed.

“Who once ruled the Crystal Empire?” he asked condescendingly.

Spitfire blinked twice. Then her eyes shot open and held open stiffly as her mouth slowly opened just a little bit.

“Oh… OH!” she sat down, the blank look of epiphany stuck to her face through the whole motion. “Oh my god… duh…” Spitfire groaned as she smacked a hoof against her face and shook her head as everypony around her seemed to catch on as well. “That… makes all kinds of sense. I can’t believe I didn’t think about that. It’s been a long day…” she paused, but then gasped and looked up quickly, her ears standing straight up. “Wait! Then… hell, we need to—”

“Get moving quickly,” Moon finished her thought for her. “I’ve no doubt that the Crystal Empire is heavily fortified and not in immediate danger due to your letter to Princess Cadence, but I’d still waste no time.”

“Wait,” Spitfire shook her head out. “How did you know about the letter?”

“Not important,” Moon replied, earning a quick look of frustration from Spitfire, but she let it go. As Moon said to them often, she had better things to worry about.

“Well, that simplifies things then,” Spitfire stood up. “If the Princess got my letter, then I’m sure they’ve already prepared for anything. Besides, based on the state Soarin was in before he flew away, I’d say Dash slowed him down a bit. He didn’t even take off in the right direction.”

“Perhaps,” Moon nodded. “But I stand by my prediction that he will eventually return to the Empire. A fallen King’s goal is always to return to his throne.”

Spitfire quickly turned back to the top tiers as Moon finished.

“Alright everypony, let’s make use of this window. As soon as we finish with roll call, we’re taking off and crossing the finish line. I know we’re all tired and beaten to hell, but we can rest AFTER we get help for Silver, Wave, our captives and anypony else that needs it.”

She received some nods of approval, but mostly just looks of acknowledgement. Either way, there wasn’t much else they could do, and if there was one thing that they could look to for motivation, it was getting help to those in need.

But Moon stared at Spitfire’s back, his eyes open a little wider. He thought about her exact words just now, specifically about the Shadowbolts. He stole a very brief glance at Starry Skies and Descent as Lightning Dust rejoined their side, the two mares once again looking over Descent. He thought back to Starry berating him a moment ago.

He had finished what he had come to do. They all had their backs turned to him. He should be making his exit, but something was preventing him.

He slowly looked down at the floor, one of his crystals floating up to his face. He stared into it, locking eyes with his reflection as he thought for several moments.

“Spitfire,” he suddenly spoke up. Spitfire blinked, turning away from the others as she heard him call her name. She looked at him carefully as his head remained tipped down, his eyes still on his crystal.

“Yeah?” she asked, curious. Moon slowly looked up, the emotion within his eyes different. Subtle, but different.

“Before… I leave,” his words were drawn out with pauses, like he was forcing it or trying to find the words as they came out. “The Shadowbolts… can I… see them?”

The question caught her off guard. But it wasn’t just her. Descent and Starry heard the request. The top tier Wonderbolts heard it too. Spitfire glance back and forth at them, noticing that Luna and P.L. had moved away from them. It seemed their curiosity was just as piqued as hers by his request.

“Uh… sure,” Spitfire answered before allowing herself to think too hard. Only one thought crossed her mind before the decision. Did Moon know a way to help them… and could he help Wave? “Follow me,” she motioned to him, as she walked by and started moving towards the doors to the recruit barracks.

Moon followed right behind, the two leaving the rest speechless.

It didn’t take long for Descent to force himself up and follow, both Dust and Starry immediately telling him to take it easy as they chased.

Soon… Misty fly grabbed Fire Streak by the arm and pulled him along.

“Ow! Ow!” Fire yelped, eventually finding his hooves as he was pulled along. Lightning Streak grunted, still clearly frustrated, but curious nonetheless. He got up and followed, Surprise quickly doing the same, not wanting to be left behind from her squad.

“Winds, can you help me?” Fleetfoot hobbled over to High Winds.

“Fuck off, she’s mine,” Blaze grumbled, just blurting out the first thing that came to mind, but High Winds yawned and nodded to Fleetfoot.

“Sure… grab on…” she opened a wing and offered it to Fleetfoot, Fleet grabbing it with a hoof as Winds began leading her.

“HEY!” Blaze yelled, wobbling as she followed. “The fuck did I just say?!”

Storm and Squad Foxtrot just stared, watching them leave on by one, save for Air Mach who had… fallen over on his back and nodded off, snoring. Storm clearly wanted to follow, but he didn’t want to leave the others behind. Squall, Star, and Matteo shared the same mindset, but two things were holding them back. They weren’t sure if Spitfire’s invitation to listen in extended to this too. They didn’t want to overstep their bounds, but they also wanted to keep an eye on Dash. She seemed to be slowly coming to her senses, but she was still very out of it as she sat with her back against Matteo.

“Ow.” Matteo suddenly spoke. They all looked up at him. “Ow, ow…” His eyes were twitching and the ends of his beak clicking. “Rainbow Dash… that hurts…”

“Wha?” Star blinked and glanced down. One of Dash’s hooves was grabbing and pulling on one of Matteo’s talon shanks. “Dash?”

Rainbow Dash was staring towards the group moving away from them. Her other hoof slowly lifted up and pointed weakly.

“I think she… ow… wants to… gah… follow them,” Matteo grunted as he tried to resist the unusually strong grip and pull Dash was putting on his shank. Star blinked and looked towards the group, wondering if she should make a judgment on it, but she perked up as Squall moved next to her, already reaching for Dash. He paused as he grabbed one of Dash’s arms, glancing at Star.

“Well, come on,” he said with a snort, earning a slightly flat look from Star. She pushed his attitude aside as she gently rested her little hooves upon Dash’s hoof until she coaxed it off of Matteo’s talons. With his arm free, Matteo joined them in helping her stand.

Storm Front could hear the commotion from all of them, but was still staring towards the barracks.

“Hey,” Squall’s voice caught Storm’s attention. Storm blinked and glanced at him. He quickly saw that they had Dash up on all four of her hooves and ready to move. “You want to follow daddy or what?” he asked bluntly as they moved by.

Storm didn’t know what to say, staying quiet as they all slowly moved along, leaving him behind. After a moment, he shook his head out and snorted.

“Jerk…” he muttered to himself as he stood up and gave chase.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Pro-tip: Never cross Misty Fly.

Lots of info in this chapter eh? Dash ios very out of it, and is constantly getting flashback trauma visions of Soarin, that cant be good. The Wonderbolts are getting fed up it seems, can you blame them? Though Lightning, control your temper. Discord finally opens his trap, but what else is going on in his mind? He always acts like he has everything figured out, but is he just as conflicted as everyone else? Descent once again showing a side of him he likes to keep hidden, and for all her 'i don't give a shit' attitude, Starry sure lets the fact that she does 'give a shit' slip through pretty hard from time to time. Blazetail is showing some Silver-esque style here, but while it's effective, we all no he can't quite match the master of motivation. Hmmm i wonder why Moon decided to see the captives? the answer may be obvious, but Moon always has personal reasoning he wont talk about, i guess we'll find out soon.

The next chapter will pick up right after this moment, had to seperate them because this could have easily gone on to 30-40k words.

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 148: The Real Enemy...? (Part 2)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 148: The Real Enemy…? (Part 2)

“Ah… AH!” Dash suddenly lurched forward, nearly collapsing on the floor in front of her. If not for Matteo quickly reaching out and scooping his talons beneath her stomach, she would have landed face first.

Hooves skidded to a halt, Squall, Storm, and Little Star all stopping quickly and looking to Dash as Matteo gently picked her back up, supporting her as she held both of her front hooves to her chest and twitched. She was sweating, her eyes were slammed shut, and her breaths were quick and short.

“Dash!” Star called out her name and turned. It was the third time she had rushed up to Dash since they entered the barracks hallway. Squall and Storm both remained still, Squall glancing over his shoulder briefly to see the last of the group they were following enter the last room where they were keeping the Shadowbolts.

“Ow…” Dash managed to vocalize as she winced several times, her eyes squeaking open. She slowly removed one of her hooves and placed it back on the ground, trying to find her balance again. Star touched Dash’s hoof gently, just in case she needed help, but the look in her eyes broke her heart.

“Maybe… we should take her to bed so she can lie down instead…” Star suggested, looking up to Matteo. But before Matteo could agree or disagree, Dash grabbed his talons on her stomach with her other hoof and slowly tugged on them while keeping her eyes locked on the other end of the hallway.

“Her mind seems made up,” said Matteo, as Star pouted at him.

“Matty, drop the loyalty act,” she huffed. “We can’t let her exert herself like this.”

“Then you take her,” Matteo answered unemotionally. “I’m only following her desire.”

“But…” Star blinked as she looked to Dash. “She… we… hrrmmmmm…” she hummed, frowning and groaning with dissatisfaction.

“Can we get moving?” Squall suddenly chimed in. “I don’t want to miss any of this.” He motioned to the back of the hallway.

“Squall, really?” Star spun around and glared at him. She blinked and glanced at Storm, who was conspicuously averting his eyes. “Storm… you too?” she asked incredulously as she stared at the two of them.

“And now she’s pulling me,” Matteo spoke up, Star yelping and quickly stepping aside as Dash suddenly growled, and tried to throw herself forward. Her hooves weakly scraped against the floor as Matteo moved with her. Star tilted her head and lifted an eyebrow.

“Matty, you weigh like, six hundred pounds, she’s not pulling you, you’re letting her,” she pointed out. “Don’t tell me you’re agreeing with these guys too!”

“I admit I do wish to know more,” he confirmed while letting Dash pull him along. “And I only weigh four hundred pounds, thank you.”

“Fine…” Star sighed as she fell in behind, moving up beside Dash to keep her steady as Matteo continued to assisted her.

Obviously, there was a lot of focus on Rainbow Dash. None of them knew what was wrong with her, or the extent to which she had been ‘damaged’ so to speak. She seemed ghostly, weak, and frail, but still functioning to a certain degree. She had improved a little since they had returned, walking a little on her own, but there was clearly something wrong with her head. She kept muttering Soarin’s name in between grunts of pain, but never answered their prompts for what she was seeing or feeling.

But as they moved closer to the end of the hall, Storm suddenly looked back and glanced between every member of Foxtrot.

“So none of you are even the slightest bit curious…?” he asked as he got looks from Matteo and Star, but not Squall.

“About what?” Star asked. Storm flattened his brow like it should be obvious.

“Where is Twister?” he asked anyway, expecting some sort of reaction, but it wasn’t what he expected. Star only sighed and flattened her brow. Matteo just kept looking as he helped Dash along. “Nopony?” Storm tipped his head slightly, looking between the two of them.

“I couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried,” Squall spoke up gruffly. “I don’t need to deal with that dumbass right now.”

“Sheesh, Squall,” Storm snorted. “Tell us how you really feel.”

“If I do, he’ll probably pop in out of nowhere and annoy the crap out of me,” Squall grunted. “And he better stay away until I’ve had a nap or something because this all blows enough without him.”

“He’s not wrong…” Star chimed in. “He does this all the time, and frankly… I’ve stopped thinking about it. He lives by his own rules… and his own reality.”

“He’ll show up eventually,” Matteo took over. “He always does…” Matteo trailed off, his eyes opening slight wider for a moment. “Wait… is he in my fur… or on my back right now?”

Star quickly glanced over her shoulder while stepping back from Dash, looking Mateo’s body over.

“Nope,” she answered simply.

“That’s a first…” Matteo grunted.

“Stop talking about him please,” Squall growled. “The more we do, the more likely he’ll surprise us out of nowhere.”

“Well then…” Storm found himself unable to hold in a chuckle. “That’s some tough love…”

They stopped as they reached the end of the hallway, Storm and Squall standing in front of the door and waiting for Star and Matteo to bring Dash forward.

Dash was staring right at the door, not giving Squall or Storm a single look as her silent desire to go through and see what was going on spoke for itself.

Matteo gave Storm a nod and Storm opened the door.

Spitfire kept her eyes on Moon as he walked forward, separating himself from the others and slowly pacing around. Members of Bliss’ staff glance up and moved aside, some confused, some worried as a Shadowbolt suddenly walked among them.

The initial worry had passed the moment they saw him walking with those they trusted, but they were not sure what to think otherwise. He wasn’t being restrained, and now he was walking free among them.

Spitfire let him take his time as he stopped in the center and glanced about. Her interest was clearly set on one particular occupant of the beds, but Moon had walked right past Wave near the entrance along with a few of the other Shadowbolts before he started looking around.

The rest of the top tier Wonderbolts were all gathered behind Spitfire, Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust sitting further forward with her. Spitfire perked up as she heard the door open behind them all. She looked over her shoulder to see Squall and Storm walk in, followed closely behind by Star and Matteo carrying Dash.

They all froze as Spitfire’s eyes landed on them.

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, quickly understanding. She gave them all a subtle head motion to come in before returning her focus to Moon. She didn’t mind having them along. She made it clear Dash was a part of this.

“So…” Moon finally spoke up as he turned around and made his way back towards them, glancing back and forth a few more times as he moved. “This is what you’ve been keeping back here. I assumed they were all killed or deserted during your escape…”

Spitfire watched his eyes carefully. They remained stoic, but there was some emotion, some feeling in them. None of it made it into his face or expression, but he couldn’t hide it. He clearly recognized several faces, and the Shadowbolts who were able to see well enough clearly recognized him. The crystal formations growing upon all their bodies had gotten worse, some of them were almost completely covered by at least small crystals with large pieces jutting out here and there. Some had their eyes covered, some were hooked up to portable respirators to help them breath. Some were hooked up to IV tubes due to their mouths being covered.

Spitfire wondered why Moon suddenly asked to see them now. She had brought them up briefly the last time he was here, after all. What changed? Or did he not even pay attention? Based on his words just now, it sounded like he didn’t even know.

“They’re lucky—” Moon suddenly added as he stopped in front of them again, floating his three crystals around and clumping them together as he looked into their opaque surface. “—If this was all they got for losing a single crystal.”

Spitfire furrowed her brow, not quite sure how to feel about his comment, but Descent made his thoughts clear quickly.

“That’s a rather disgusting way to put it,” he snorted while glaring at Moon. Moon glanced away from his crystals towards Descent while tilting his head slightly.

“Do you disagree?” he asked as his crystal returned to orbit around him. “Perhaps I should ask Trance and Witch?”

Descent immediately flinched, pulling his neck back as his eyes went wide and he gasped. Everypony else looked to him quickly, all caught off guard by Moon’s harsh bluntness.

“HEY!” Starry Skies yelled out loudly as she immediately rushed in front of Descent. “SERIOUSLY?!” she glared as hard as her eyes allowed while snarling. She took a harsh step forward and shoved a hoof into Moon’s chest. He slid backwards an inch, but halted in place as a pink glow surrounded him. He completely ignored her as he kept his eyes locked with Descent’s. “That was absolutely uncalled for!” she kept yelling in defense of Descent.

“That doesn’t change the fact,” Moon calmly replied, still not looking at her.

“Ugh!” Starry tried to push him backwards, but he held in place, her effort pushing her back slightly instead. “You’re such an asshole! None of us knew that would happen!” she pointed at Descent. “Do you have any idea how much it hurt him?!” Starry Skies continued to speak out for Descent, surprising a few of them around her. They knew her loyalty to him, but this was twice now in a short period of time and it sounded very personal.

Moon glanced between Starry and Descent a few times, but continued to show no emotional response.

“Then I hope he learned his lesson,” Moon added.

The look upon Starry’s face was akin to embodiment of fury itself as her eyes grew wide and she lifted her hooves to strike Moon. But she was stopped in place as Lightning Dust quickly rushed forward and hooked an arm with hers to hold her in place.

“Starry! Stop!” Dust pleaded as she barely held against Starry’s superior strength. “Not in here!” she grunted as she jammed her back hooves into the ground, the members of Bliss’ staff backing away as the quarrelling continued in the center.

“LET GO OF ME!” Starry yelled at Dust without breaking her eyes from Moon. “I’m going to rip that stumpy mane right off his head and shove it up his ass!”

Spitfire, also fearing an escalation in close quarters among the wounded, decided to lend Dust a hoof, moving up and grabbing Starry’s other shoulder.

“Starry, calm down,” she said sternly.

“FUCK YOU!” Starry snapped as she whipped her eyes from Moon to Spitfire, baring her teeth and glaring so hard that her eyes were twitching. She suddenly shifted her weight, pressing a hoof to Spitfire’s chest instead as she nearly yanked Lightning Dust right off her hooves. “What the hell do YOU know?!” she barked, Spitfire squinting as bits of saliva sprayed from Starry’s mouth onto her face. “How about you go and do it?!” she pointed at the group of top tier Wonderbolts sitting behind them. “Go on! Surprise and Blaze?! Misty or Fleetfoot?! How about you make it even and pick the twins?!”

Spitfire’s eyes went wide as Starry got right in her face.

“WELL?! GO ON! GO KILL TWO OF YOUR OWN WONDERBOLTS AND SEE HOW IT FEELS!”

“Starry Skies.”

Starry flinched and exhaled loudly, expected words from her mouth becoming nothing but a harsh breath followed by the loud hissing of air in between her teeth as she continued to heave in an out angrily.

“That’s enough,” Descent ordered as he placed a hoof firmly on her back, causing her to stop shaking the instant he applied the pressure. All eyes except for Starry’s went to Descent as he held her steady. He looked disturbed, but not shaken as he held a serious look on his face. “I appreciate you defending me, but Moon is right. That’s how it happened. I killed them. Whether I meant to or not is not important.”

Starry’s back legs slowly lowered her plot to the floor as she came down from the peak of her anger. She eventually sat, grumbling to herself as she looked down at the floor.

“Dammit, Descent… can I just… punch him please?” she asked among the mumbling.

“No,” Descent quickly put it to rest as Starry continued to sulk in place. Descent returned his focus to Moon as he once again began glancing about, this time taking in the view of those afflicted behind them, closer to where they came in.

He suddenly stopped and blinked as he looked to the right of the door.

“What…?” he tipped his head curiously. Spitfire perked up as she realized who was behind them. Moon was already moving by her, but she turned and looked, as did the rest, as Moon made his way over to Wave Chill.

Everypony’s interest was quickly piqued. The way Moon moved and his initial reaction suggested… confusion. Everypony shifted to watch, but Spitfire got up and followed behind him.

Moon stopped and stared down at Wave Chill, the soft blue glow of Luna’s magic encircling him as he took long, labored breaths, the crystals covering half his face and a good portion of the right side of his chest down his stomach. Moon looked back and forth, examining Wave up and down.

“How… did this happen?” Moon asked quizzically. Everypony exchanged glances as Spitfire slowly moved up beside him.

“He’s the one you guys captured, remember?” said Spitfire as she stopped beside him, looking over Wave Chill and holding strong the best she could.

“I know that,” Moon shook his head. “But how does he have the same affliction?”

Spitfire felt a weight in the pit of her stomach as Moon expressed confusion. Her hopes that he may be of some help began to fade, but she clung to it just in case.

“Ruin was torturing him,” she explained.

“I am aware of that as well, but…” Moon looked over Wave very carefully. “What happened, how did this come about?”

“He was exposed to the crystals, right?” Spitfire asked as she looked over her shoulder towards Fire Streak. “Fire, give him the details,” she ordered. Fire stood up and dragged his hooves as he moved towards them, stopping on the other side of Moon.

“He was restrained to a wall and had a few crystals hovering around him,” Fire recalled the horrific sight. “The crystals were emitting concentrated beams of light that were burning his skin and fur.” He pointed to the crystal formations. “The placing of the crystals shows where the beams of light were concentrated, they almost looked like they were drawing lines on him, leaving precisely placed and painful looking burn scars.”

Moon listened carefully, his ears tipping back and forth as Fire gave his recount of their infiltration that he helped them with. But he showed no signs of understanding what Fire was describing.

“That’s… strange,” Moon spoke up as Fire and Spitfire glanced at one another. “Just being exposed to the light shouldn’t have caused this, at least… I’ve never seen it have this effect before.” One of his crystals floated up in front of his face and he stared into it. “This doesn’t make any sense… and I’ve just about figured out everything these are capable of…” he trailed off and looked down upon Wave again. “Wave Chill was in no way dependent on the crystals, which is a requirement for this negative effect to happen,” he spoke his thoughts as he glanced at Starry, Descent and Lightning Dust. “How?” Moon asked nopony as he looked back down at Wave. “How did Ruin do this?”

It was at that moment that Spitfire lost any hope. She sighed as she looked away from Moon and down towards Wave, the sight drilling a hole right through her as she watched him struggle to breath. Every moment he suffered, she suffered too. She cared for all of her Wonderbolts, but on a deeply personal level all she wanted was to help him, to save him. Was she wrong to hope Moon could simply fix everything?

She looked up to see Blaze and High Winds help each other over to the other side of the bed. Blaze resting her chin on the mattress as High Winds gently rubbed her shoulder. Both of them had their eyes locked on Wave.

It was just as hard for them as it was for Spitfire. Perhaps worse. For all their bickering and bluster, Blaze and High Winds were still tightly knit with their squad members… with Wave and now Silver down too, they had to be feeling lost.

“Hm…” Moon hummed, drawing Spitfire’s attention back to him as he turned and began walking away from Wave. “Hmmmmm…” he hummed louder and longer as he looked around at the rest of the afflicted, at the magic helping stabilize them, and at all the staff members rushing about trying to make them all comfortable against something they didn’t understand. He stopped when he reached the middle of the room, then glanced over his shoulder back at Wave for a few moments.

Spitfire watched him carefully, as did the rest as Moon paced about, deep in thought. They were all desperate to know what was on his mind. Something… anything… they just wanted to know whatever he knew.

Moon did not make eye contact with a single Wonderbolt or Renegade. He only looked into the eyes of the afflicted Shadowbolts staring at him or at least those whose eyes were uncovered. Every pair of eyes pleaded to him, they reached out with desperation in the only way they could. He slowly brought the crystal floating by his head in front of his face again, lowering it and looking down into it. The surface shimmered as it gently emitted its soft pink glow. The glow grew softer, clearing until he could clearly see his own reflection in its surface. He stared into his own eyes as he remained lost in thought.

“Look into your own eyes…” he suddenly whispered quietly. All ears turned to him, but were barely able to make out any of it. “And ask yourself… if…” he trailed off, slamming his eyes shut and taking a long, deep breath.

Everypony flinched in surprise as the glow surrounding him grew brighter, Moon’s lips parted revealing his teeth as he released a soft growl. The light surrounding his crystal grew incredibly bright, a stream of light appearing between him and the crystal. His growls turned to groans as he grabbed the crystal and began pulling it away from him, the light connecting the two of them straining and thinning as the crystal began to screech and shudder.

“RGGGHHHH-AHHHHH!” Moon cried out, a loud noise similar to a snap mixed with a shatter echoed throughout the room, a very weak pulse of air ejecting from his body as the light connecting the crystal to him ripped in two. “Grhhhhh… ahhhh… hrghhhh…” Moon gasped and panted as he lurched forward and nearly fell, the crystal dropping from his hoof and clattering to the floor.

“MOON?!” Descent spoke out as everypony else reacted with confused shock. None of them knew what he just did, but it looked painful. The confusion was quickly replaced by alarm… as small crystal flakes began appearing on Moon’s arms and legs, slowly reaching up his body. The formations shattered before they could grow much, but it sparked horrific gasps nonetheless.

“What are you—?!” Starry tried to start, but Moon stood right up, visibly struggling, but holding strong none the less as his two other crystals began circling him fiercely. A clearly weaker version of his telekinesis appeared around the crystal on the floor and slowly lifted it into the air.

“Everypony…” he spoke, his voice raspy and filled with pain. “Please step back from them.”

Nopony moved, but Spitfire felt her heart jump in her chest. She quickly looked back at Wave and then around the room at the entire medical staff.

“Do as he says!” she ordered suddenly and eagerly. “Now!” she added as she backed away from Wave, Fire, Blaze, and High Winds doing the same. The medical staff instantly complied, ceasing their use of magic and backing away from all the Shadowbolts, most of them making their way past Moon and over to where the Wonderbolts sat in fear of what was going to happen.

Moon slowly lifted the free crystal into the air, his body shuddering and legs buckling as he fought to hold himself up against the small formations creeping upon him. The crystal spun slowly in the air, the light around it growing brighter as it shuddered harder. Moon briefly glanced around him in a full circle, taking note of every single Shadowbolt, including Wave. He refocused on the crystal, his eyes glowing brightly as his other two crystals stopped orbiting him and pointed their tips towards the detached crystal.

A focused beam of pink light fired from both, shooting towards the detached one. The light encircled the crystal, a loud screeching noise coming from it as it began to chip and crack, leaving openings in its surface.

Everypony watched with interest as slow, oozing streams of light began to seep out of the chipped openings in the crystal, the streams extending outward from it and reaching in several directions across the room. At first it seemed like the streams were moving at random, but as they kept going, everypony slowly realized that each stream was reaching out towards one of the afflicted pegasi… Including Wave Chill.

Spitfire’s mouth hung slightly agape, her eyes following the stream of light that slowly hovered right by her, turning her head to follow it until it touched Wave.

The pink light joined with the blue of Luna’s magic, passing right through it and encircling Wave. Spitfire blinked, quickly glancing about as the same thing happened to the Shadowbolts.

Everypony’s eyes widened as the formations upon the Shadowbolts… began to crackle and chip. They all held their breath in anticipation as they began to crumble very, very slowly. The Shadowbolts began to gasp and twitch, sighs of relief or comfort releasing from their throats as pieces of crystal began to fall off and shatter.

Spitfire spun around and stared at Wave Chill. She felt all the breath leave her lungs as she lifted onto the tips of her hooves.

The crystals on Wave’s body began to chip and break just like the Shadowbolts. Her heartbeat quickened with excitement, the corners of her lips turning up as a large chunk of crystal that was covering half of Wave’s face broke off, revealing his face in full.

The crystals kept chipping away and shattering, the affliction slowly receding to the point where nearly half of what had grown was gone.

But… before they could all get too excited…

“AHHHH!” Moon cried out, falling to the floor with his crystals dropping with him. The single detached crystal above him broke in half, the two pieces vaporizing as its energy exploded around it and turned it to dust that sprinkled down to the ground before disappearing without a trace.

Just like that, the streams of light faded and the pull back and breaking of the crystal affliction upon the ponies halted.

They were not free from the horrific spread, but they had all been rid of at least half of what was upon them, if not more. The collective sighs and breaths of relief filled the air, passing around all of the Shadowbolts as if a great weight and pain have been alleviated.

“AH… ha….” Moon panted as he pushed himself off the floor, the clinking and clattering of crystal bits falling from his body ringing out as the formations failed to cover him.

Spitfire was glancing back and forth between Wave and Moon. She quickly rushed towards Wave, putting her hooves up on the bed and frantically looking him over. She could see so much more of him, he was breathing normally, and he looked comfortable, the pain gone from his face as he slowly opened his eyes and glanced towards Spitfire. A smile immediately curled onto his lips as he saw her.

There was still crystal formation on him, but they were only on his body, not on his face, and they were considerably smaller.

Spitfire quickly reached out, touching a hoof to Wave’s cheek and gently brushing it against his face. He sighed as he felt her soft touch, but didn’t speak, likely because he was still getting his breath back.

Words could not describe how happy Spitfire suddenly felt, she almost forgot all about Soarin for a moment. It was such a shock to her system that her thoughts were colliding at high speed. The top tier Wonderbolts all flocked to Wave, surrounding his bed quickly and all putting their hooves up on the mattress. Blaze and High Winds nearly knocked Spitfire right out of the way as they hopped up, both of them staring in awe. Spitfire stepped back, letting them all take a look as Wave visually acknowledged all of them, and even gave a weak wave with one of his hooves.

Spitfire wanted to stay beside him, but she let the Wonderbolts all share the relief of seeing improvement in Wave.

So instead, she shifted her attention to Moon, who was still standing and catching his breath. Descent and Starry both thundered past him to see the effect Moon’s magic had on the Shadowbolts up close. Only Lightning Dust stopped to check on him, but he waved her on the moment she tried to help.

Spitfire reluctantly pulled herself away from Wave to approach Moon.

“What did you just do…?” she asked. She meant to say ‘thank you’ first, but her curiosity and excitement overpowered her manners. Moon struggled to turn, his face and body twitching as he slowly faced her, prompting Spitfire to also wish she had asked if he was alright first.

“I… used one of my crystals to ease their pain a little. I can’t stop what’s happening to them, but this should make them more comfortable,” Moon explained as he exhaled and let his head tip down, taking long, harsh breaths.

Spitfire looked him up and down, taking note of the tiny crystals that were building up and breaking upon his body. The sight made her shudder, reminding her of the shocking sight of Wave Chill the first time she saw the crystals on him.

“Moon…” Descent’s voice caught their ears. They both looked up to see Descent approaching with Lightning Dust beside him, indicating she had pulled him away to make sure Moon was fine. Starry was still moving among the Shadowbolts behind them. “Are you… going to be alright?” Descent asked out of concern as he too took note of the crystal formations creeping and crackling about his body.

“I will be fine,” Moon answered, unable to hide a painful tone. “Thanks to Shadow… I learned that we are able to survive with two crystals. It isn’t pleasant, but it still works.”

“That still seems dangerous…” Descent also looked upon the formations, bad memories surfacing. He would never forget watching former wing mates suffer the gruesome fate… as Moon reminded him just a moment ago.

“I’ll live, I just need to get back and obtain another to stabilize it,” Moon explained calmly. “It’s a small price to pay. This should buy them more time while you figure out a way to rid them of the crystal dependency.”

Spitfire looked around at all the Shadowbolts again, thinking about Moon’s explanation just now and the magic she witnessed. She blinked as realization hit her.

“Wait… so…” she tipped her head to the side. “You basically just gave them MORE?” she asked with concern. She was definitely pleased by the results, but… how was giving them more going to help the problem? Moon shook his head.

“It was either that or let them suffer,” he put bluntly. “I’m sure you’d rather they don’t go through that, especially your commander.” He made a brief head motion towards Wave. “It may not be ideal, but they WILL last longer.”

Spitfire definitely didn’t like the means… but Moon’s logic made sense. She glanced over her shoulder towards Wave her eyes widening slightly as she saw the top tiers moving apart, giving Wave a line of sight to her as he turned his head and smiled.

“It’s just a cushion for them,” Moon added as he took another deep breath. “I’ll leave figuring out the cure… up to you.”

“Thank you, Moon,” said Descent gratefully, showing his gratitude as Starry Skies finally pulled herself away from the Shadowbolts and made her way up beside him, giving Moon a curious look. Her demeanor had done a full one-eighty, calm and relaxed after being so hot headed and angry just a few minutes ago.

“So… why did you decide to do this?” she asked. “You’re always talking about your own agenda. How does this line up with it?”

Moon looked away from her as the question caught the interest of the rest. She had a point. Moon NEVER gave any indication that he was doing anything for anypony but himself and his own goals. This was quite a sudden shift.

“I… have my reasons…” he dodged the question entirely. Starry flattened her brow.

“Reasons you can tell us or more of your mysterious crap?” she asked rather sharply.

“Starry…” Descent gave her a flat look while pressing a hoof to her shoulder. Moon paused as he glanced back at the two of them.

“It’s nothing important,” he dodged the question again as he turned and his two remaining crystals began to glow and circle him. “It’s not only about what I want…” Everypony around him perked up as a pink glow began to surround him and glow brighter. “It’s… what she would have wanted.”

Descent’s ears stood up and his eyes opened wide.

“She?!”

Moon said no more as the pink light surrounded him entirely.

“Moon, wait!” Descent tried to reach for him, but he never had a chance. Moon vanished entirely, everypony shielding their eyes as a bright pink flash of light filled the room before fizzling out.

Spitfire and Descent slowly uncovered their eyes and looked around, realizing that Moon was long gone. Their eyes met for a moment, both processing what they had just heard before he vanished, but before any words could be uttered or anything else could happen, the doors to the barracks swung open.

“Captain~!” Lead Runner’s voice met their ears as he sauntered in, Blazetail and Flashwind following behind him. “We finished roll call!”

Spitfire perked up. While her interest in Moon and what he had done was readily present in her head, she could not deny the importance of the situation at hoof.

“We have finished ours as well,” Flashwind chimed in. “And Luna gave us her report to pass to you.”

“Good, good…” Spitfire turned to them as many of the top tiers managed to tear themselves from Wave’s side to listen in, squad Foxtrot, who had been quietly watching everything, also moved forward, bringing Dash up close.

“What the…?” Blazetail blinked as he looked around and noticed all of the Shadowbolts and Wave. “What happened in here? How did—?”

“I’ll explain later, sir,” Spitfire quickly addressed him. “Now please, report,” she stated while glancing at Lead Runner, but she also wanted to know about the rest. Descent sat beside her, very interested in the state of his own force as well.

“Captain, I’m VERY pleased to tell you,” Lead Runner bowed his head slightly into a faint nod. “That we suffered no casualties. Everypony is accounted for.

Spitfire blinked.

“None?” she asked, hoping she heard him correctly. Lead Runner nodded again, a little more enthusiastically.

“Zero, zip, nadda,” he confirmed, a rush of relief passing through not only her, but also the rest of the Wonderbolts.

Spitfire was admittedly shocked. Nothing had ever hit them as hard as Sombra controlling Soarin… not even Nightshade or the Shadowbolts. To know that they had all survived such incredibly powerful hits was a miracle.

“I’m… relieved to hear that,” Spitfire said with a loud sigh, speaking for everypony among her ranks. “Captains? What about the rest?” she asked as Descent listened closely. But it took them a moment, perhaps because they too were reacting to the news of no Wonderbolts going down.

“Uh… Wow…” Flashwind chuckled.

“What?” Spitfire blinked, tipping her head.

“Then we got out of it without a single death…” she elaborated.

Spitfire’s jaw dropped, everypony else sharing similar shock.

“Wait…” Spitfire lifted a hoof. “You mean… nopony died?”

“Correct,” Blazetail nodded. “All Renegades are accounted for, and the Lunar Guard is still all with us.”

Silence washed over all of them.

Spitfire was still trying to wrap her head around it. She was relieved that Nightshade’s solo assault had not taken any Wonderbolts from them… but she couldn’t believe, despite having power beyond anything they had ever seen… Sombra, the Mad King of legend, did not kill any of them? She saw how hard he was hitting them. She took a blow herself. He was fierce, ruthless in his attacks…

Or was he?

“He didn’t kill any of us?” Descent spoke out, showing similar disbelief while holding an arm over his injured midsection. “Really?” he added as he looked around at everypony, sharing their confusion.

“That’s… unbelievable…” Spitfire spoke her mind. “How? I thought for sure, after what we saw him do, that we’d lose some ponies. But none?” she was happy about it for sure, but again, it was hard to fathom.

The top tier Wonderbolts made their way up to Spitfire, all sharing her thoughts as they processed it all. Fire Streak stepped up and sat down beside Spitfire.

“Did he hold back…?” he asked, looking around, his eyes stopping on Descent as he cringed hard.

“I don’t know if that makes me feel any better…” Descent grunted in slight jest, rubbing his stomach gingerly.

Nopony knew what to make of it. Nopony except for Starry Skies who thought about what happened to her specifically.

“I don’t think he wanted to kill us…” Starry suddenly chimed in, drawing all eyes to her. The room went silent for a moment, everypony giving her varying looks of surprise or confusion. “If he did, I’d be long gone,” Starry went on. “I stood right between him and Descent after he took him down, but he didn’t attack me.”

“I… remember that,” said Spitfire as she recalled the exact moment, looking Starry Skies up and down and taking note of how she was without any new injuries. “Didn’t he swing his sword though?”

“He did,” Starry nodded, her jaw and chin twitching lightly. “But he didn’t hit me, he stopped it right in front of my face and tilted my head up with the tip of the sword. I didn’t move a muscle, who knows what he would have done if I did.”

“You didn’t move a…” Spitfire suddenly trailed off, blinking several times as her eyes grew wide and her jaw slowly dropped.

“What?” Starry tilted her head slightly as everypony else looked to Spitfire curiously.

“Hold on… hold on…” Spitfire suddenly took a step back while holding out a hoof. “Just… give me a second here,” she waved her hoof in a circle before suddenly breaking eye contact and walking in small circles.

“What are you—?”

“SHUT IT!” Spitfire snapped at Descent, cutting him off before returning to her thoughts. “Hmmm…” she thought back to everything that happened after Soarin was taken over. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…” she hummed as she recalled every detail she could. They were scattered due to the shock of the outcome, but she slowly fit pieces into place, remembering everything she saw little bits at a time.

She suddenly stopped mid stride, looked up, and glanced back and forth as if looking for somepony. Everypony else looked about as she did, but little did they know, she was looking to see if somepony was NOT present.

Spitfire stopped when she realized that Luna had not followed them. Something that should have been obvious due to Luna’s noticeable presence, but she was too distracted to notice before.

“Hm…” she hummed again, this time a quick, short hum as she nodded and turned back to Descent and Starry. “You know what? I just realized something,” she began, everypony perking up and listening closely. “He never attacked preemptively.”

She paused to let that sink in, or better yet, to see if she wasn’t the only one who noticed. She received several confused looks.

“Pardon?” Fire Streak asked as he took a step up beside her. Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“He didn’t initiate any of it… Everypony he attacked… attacked him first. He only responded,” she explained.

“That’s awfully speculative,” Descent grunted.

“But that’s exactly what happened,” Spitfire shifted to him. “I’m not just trying to make excuses here because he’s using my friend’s body. He only fought back,” she laid out her thoughts as she pointed at Starry. “He attacked everypony that attacked him, but when Starry put herself in between the two of you defensively, he didn’t harm her.”

“He… actually smiled at me,” Starry explained while gritting her teeth, showing slight anger. “And laughed, or chuckled. It was as if he liked what I was doing.”

“See?” Spitfire lifted her brow at Descent. He still didn’t seem convinced, but before he could speak up again, Spitfire continued.

“That’s not all,” she pointed at Descent again, prompting him to close his mouth and scowl slightly. “Did anypony else notice? Once he knocked somepony down… he left them alone. He didn’t go for any kills. He left you,” she jabbed her hoof towards Descent again. “He left P.L. after he fell, and he didn’t go after any of us once we were out of his way.”

“He nearly killed Sin, Shadow would be dead if that attack hit her, and he brutally beat Nightshade to a pulp!” Descent snapped at her, but Spitfire didn’t flinch.

“Yeah, but one, she was attacking him, and two, she was refusing to go down. Once he smacked her to the ground, he didn’t continue. See what I mean? Don’t look at this with tunnel vision, Descent. He did not attempt to kill her. He didn’t peruse the Shadowbolt commanders either. And if I recall, he was responding to Shadow attacking him. Also… Sin’s crystals almost killed him from blocking the attack.” she detailed as Descent looked away and grumbled to himself. “In FACT…” Spitfire quickly continued. “I don’t know if anypony else noticed this, but he only seemed interested in one thing… Or more accurately… two.”

She paused as everypony stared at her in silence. At least, until Fire Streak perked up.

“The gods…” he said as Spitfire quickly pointed at him and nodded.

“Bingo! Discord and Luna,” she waited as the thought dawned on everypony else. As they took a step back and put it into perspective, they realized she was right, he did not make any advances towards anypony else on his own.

“They were the only two he seemed to care about,” Spitfire explained while looking around at them all. “And… from his words, it was clear he wanted to hurt them, or at least Discord. Which begs the question, why them and none of us?” she posed the question while her eyes darted about, to make sure she was engaging everypony’s thoughts. “Was it that we didn’t matter? Was it because we weren’t worth his time? Was it because we were simply in the way?” She paused. “Or could it be that he had no desire to harm us at all?”

“Now you’re just grasping at straws,” Descent growled as he returned his focus to her and snorted. “You can’t accuse me of tunnel vision and then put forth such ridiculous ideas. I was going for Nightshade when he attacked me, how does that line up with your argument?”

“Descent, you leapt right at him,” Spitfire said while flattening her brow.

“And?” Descent scrunched his face, scowling harder.

“If a scary looking, scarred up stallion leapt at me, I would’ve smacked the hell out of you too,” Spitfire put very bluntly. Descent blinked.

“Scary looking?! What’s that supposed to—”

“You LEAPT AT HIM… Descent. You decided to go through him to get to her, am I wrong?” she tipped her head and lifted an eyebrow. “I know exactly how you think, especially when it comes to Nightshade.”

“No you DON’T,” Descent hissed at her. Spitfire sighed and gave him a look.

“You were determined to save her, and Sombra was in your way. It probably didn’t help that you were also going towards Soarin’s body… old battles and pride get in the way a little bit there too, hmmmmm?” she hummed loudly, while slowly tilling her head to one side.

Everypony looked towards Descent as his lips curled down and quivered as if trying to scowl and pout at the same time. His left eye twitched and his nostrils flared in and out. But beyond that, he did not reply.

“I should get paid for being right,” Spitfire added with a slight grin. Descent instantly turned his back to her, sat down, and grumbled loudly to himself. “SO…” Spitfire turned back to everypony else. “Does anypony disagree with me?” she asked, looking between her Wonderbolts, Starry and Lightning Dust, and Blazetail and Flashwind. “Good!”

“So…” Blazetail stepped up to her. “Sombra has a vendetta with the gods, but not us,” he laid out his thoughts as he approached, standing beside her. “So what does this mean? This is the Mad King Sombra we’re talking about. Something doesn’t seem to add up here.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Spitfire agreed with him.

“Perhaps we should ask Luna about this?” he suggested.

Spitfire blinked, saying nothing for a moment as Blazetail nodded at her and turned to move towards the door.

But then Spitfire quickly reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

“WAIT! Wait…” she gripped his shoulder tightly as he looked over his shoulder at her. “Blazetail… hold on…” she shook her head. “Does something here seem off? Am I the only one thinking this? I hope I’m not.”

“What do you mean?” Blazetail asked as he blinked.

“You just said it yourself,” she let go of him. “Something doesn’t add up here.” She glanced around at everypony. “Let’s back all the way up for a moment. We all went to school, and I’m sure those of us who didn’t fall asleep in history class remember being taught about the Crystal Empire and how it was ruled by an evil tyrant who had gone mad with power and enslaved his ponies…” she rotated a hoof as she went through the general details. “And how he was sealed and banished by the crystal heart, etcetera, etcetera. Now…” she stood up and began pacing back and forth. “History is written by the victor. This is a basic fact of information. But there are a few things I’m questioning now based on what we’ve learned in the past few hours.” She stopped and sat down again. “For starters… if Sombra was banished and sealed away… he wouldn’t have been in Celestia’s body all this time. Secondly… and more importantly…” She turned and looked towards Rainbow Dash. "When the Crystal Empire reappeared after a thousand years… who did the Elements of Harmony battle and destroy? If Sombra was inside Celestia for so long, how could he also be out and trying to retake the empire at that time?”

“Sis… you’re making my fucking brain hurt,” Blaze suddenly complained.

“But you can’t deny there are contradictions here, right?” Spitfire asked Blaze.

“I don’t fucking know,” Blaze grumbled as she pulled her ears down with her hooves.

“Anyone?” Spitfire asked with a slight grunt. She received nods from several others. “Okay good, I know I’m not going crazy here.”

“What are you trying to imply here?” Descent asked, admittedly curious, but only turned halfway around.

“History is written by the victor,” Spitfire repeated. “All we were ever told, all we were ever taught, was that Sombra went mad and was destroyed, and the victors, in this case, were the gods. Celestia, Luna, and Discord have done nothing but lie to us over the past year about everything going on. Why does somepony lie?”

She paused, and waited for someone to answer. And Fire Streak did.

“To… cover up the truth,” he said quietly, but caused everypony’s ears to perk up.

“Exactly,” Spitfire pumped a hoof into the air briefly. “And history… fails to explain several things that have happened here and now.”

“I fail to see how this changes the situation at all,” Descent chimed in, now fully turned and ready to debate. “Soarin is still possessed, and you plan to go after him, no?”

“The situation doesn’t change… but the approach might,” she winked at him. “We don’t know anything about Sombra besides what we’ve been force fed… perhaps there’s more to this than we realize.”

Spitfire reclined as Descent suddenly burst out laughing, but only briefly as he clutched his stomach and grunted painfully.

“This is unbelievable… what are you going to do? Walk up to him and ask nicely if we can have Soarin back?”

Spitfire furrowed her brow and rolled her eyes.

“Sure Descent! That’s exactly what I want to do!” she said very sarcastically before shooting him a glare. “Will you cut it out already?!” she snapped as she hissed towards him. “I don’t see you analyzing the situation at all, Mr. Protect-My-Family!”

The two glared hard at each other, but Blazetail stepped right between them.

“Enough… enough…” he said with a frustrated nicker as he tried to keep Spitfire focused. “I’m intrigued by your viewpoint here, Spitfire… but does this lead to anything? Any plan or something we can do?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Spitfire quickly replied while keeping her eyes on Descent for a few more seconds. “As I said, this doesn’t change the situation, but it does change the approach. Obviously I’m not so naïve to think I can walk up to Sombra and ask for Soarin back… but maybe we can approach him passively, maybe he can tell us more. He clearly does not like the gods, perhaps he’s willing and eager to explain why,” Spitfire sharply turned to Descent as she heard him snort. “AND MAYBE…” she began loudly refusing to let him derail her thoughts. “Should we figure out a way to save Soarin, we can form a plan around that… maybe distract him. We still don’t even know if that’s possible, but if worst comes to worst… and saving Soarin is impossible, then we can at least learn more. And I’m sure everypony is sick and tired of having no clue what to think.”

“I sincerely doubt Luna will approve of such a plan,” Blazetail stated the obvious, but Spitfire chuckled… and smirked at him.

“Who said we’re going to tell her?”

Everypony perked up as Spitfire cleared her throat.

“Everypony listen to me closely… It’s time we turned the gods’ own game against them. I hereby order everypony in this room not to repeat a single word of this discussion to Discord or Luna. Understand?” she paused and looked at all of them strictly as they gave her looks of surprise. “They’ve been keeping detail after detail from us,” Spitfire continued. “I believe it’s time we give them a taste of their own medicine. I don’t want either of them catching wind of this discussion and then trying to force us or influence us in a different direction. It’s obvious, or at least very possible that Sombra has absolutely no intention of bringing anypony harm… or at least not yet. The target of his ire is clearly the gods themselves. I don’t want to declare war against him without knowing more, even if I have to hear it directly from him. So let’s use this to our advantage and keep them in the dark.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Descent spoke up again, Spitfire slammed her teeth shut and groaned loudly through them.

“MUST you go against everything I say?!” she yelled towards him.

“I’m just asking,” Descent stayed calm, perhaps trying to come back down to earth and be part of the discussion. Spitfire noticed and calmed down as well.

“Would you rather let the gods guide us after all this?” she asked. Descent stared for a moment and shook his head.

“No,” he answered with simply and honest.

“My point exactly,” Spitfire smiled with satisfaction at Descent’s quick agreement. She didn’t know if he really was seeing things her way, but she was glad he stopped fighting her.

As for the others, it looked like Spitfire had firmly planted her points into their heads. Everypony looked to be contemplating and wondering… just how much did they not know? Was Sombra truly what they had always known him to be? Were the gods trying to cover something up for all this time?

It seemed a bit crazy, but say they were able to find Sombra, and if he is actually willing to speak to them… what secrets would be revealed? Freeing Soarin from his grasp was the top priority by far, but there were so many new questions that were begging to be answered. Could they be given to them by… Sombra himself?

Everypony looked at her curiously, especially Blazetail. After the detailed analysis she put forward, he was admittedly curious as well.

“Alright everypony, here’s how we’re going to do this,” Spitfire quickly gathered their attention again. "First things first, spread the word that we had zero casualties. There’s nothing we can do about Soarin being on their minds, but nopony dying should lift their spirits a little. Second, spread the word about what we talked about here, but be quick and discreet. I’m going to mark this as highly classified, and for the ears of the Wonderbolts and Renegades ONLY. Do not, under any circumstances, allow Luna or the thestrals to catch wind of this, and when I say make it quick I mean it. We’re lucky that Discord decided to buzz off, but he’s never gone for long and is always listening in on things that are none of his business. Once everypony has been informed, report back to me. We’re going to take off as soon as we’re ready…”

She paused and looked around the room, her eyes scanned all the Shadowbolts, but stopped when her eyes landed on Wave. He was smiling at her. She smiled right back.

“We need to get these ponies and Silver the help that they’ve been waiting for,” she nodded, receiving nods of approval right back. “Assuming this all goes well and the Crystal Empire is not under attack right now… We’ll meet with Princess Cadence and begin plans and discussions on how to go after and whether or not we can save Soarin, but do not let her in on this either. We’re going to lead them all on for a bit, I want to be able to draw up our own plan for approaching Sombra without any other authority trying to butt in. Play along with what they say, but only follow MY orders, none from Luna, Discord, or Cadence. We’ll do this our own way if we have to. And lastly…” She paused and looked towards Dash. “Stay positive on Soarin. We don’t know if we can do anything right now, but I’m not about to let some long lost king get away with my best friend’s body without a fight. As long as we have Dash… I’m confident there’s a chance we can save Soarin and make all this right again.”

She looked around. Nopony was protesting. Nothing from Blazetail or Flashwind. Nothing from Descent. And her Wonderbolts all looked eager to get going.

It was one big longshot into a great, big unknown… but it wouldn’t be the first time they had taken a long leap of faith.

Spitfire rapped a hoof against the floor.

“Let’s get moving, our next mission starts right now!”

It was as if lightning had struck in the middle of the somber mood. While the start was rocky and filled with speed bumps, after bringing them all together and putting things into a new perspective, Spitfire’s hopes of lighting a fire inside them all seemed to work. They didn’t have an answer, they didn’t know how things would go, but they wanted to move forward. They wanted to push on and see it through.

There were a lot of unknowns staring them all right in the face, but at the same time, there was a possibility of answers they all wanted. The thought of speaking to Sombra seemed crazy, but based on everything Spitfire put forward, it wasn’t entirely a hopeless scenario. They had no idea if they could save Soarin, but should they be able to, they’d do anything to achieve it, even if it meant something crazy like passively approaching the power that was just unleashed.

But maybe it was simpler than that, perhaps the idea of going behind the backs of the gods and poking them in the eye was giving them some drive as well. After all, the gods seemed to put them through lie after lie, ordeal after ordeal, and act like there was little consequence. Frankly… they deserved some retribution.

The concept of who to trust and who to fight for had become a muddled mess, but there was still an end goal in sight. And it started with them reaching the safety of the Crystal Empire.

Slowly but surely, the Wonderbolts and others present picked themselves up and helped each other on the way out. Honestly, most of them wanted to stay and spend some more time with Wave Chill, but they had their orders, and were eager to discreetly spread the word of their plan.

Spitfire was in the same boat, but she knew they had to get moving. Duty called and she needed to get everypony moving. But…

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Spitfire froze and blinked as Flashwind’s voice met her ears from behind. She turned to see her former superior walk up beside her and place a hoof on her shoulder.

“I know what you want to do,” she winked at Spitfire. “Let us handle spreading the word.”

“But, I…” Spitfire tried to protest as she glanced back at Wave, but found herself unable to go any further.

“No buts,” Flashwind went on while shaking her head. “We’ll report to you once everypony is informed. Stay here and spend some time with your commander. It will help you relax for what’s still to come.”

Spitfire took a deep breath and exhaled.

“O…okay,” she agreed hesitantly. “You sure you can handle it?” she asked, her eyes widening right after as Flashwind lifted her brow and smirked. “Right, right, I forgot who I was talking to.”

“Go, talk to him. He looks eager to see you,” Flashwind finished with a smile before moving on and following the others out.

Spitfire watched everypony exit the room, leaving her alone with the bedridden and Bliss’ staff.

“Heh…” Spitfire smiled. Flashwind knew her too well. The ‘loss’ of Soarin was weighing heavy on her and it would throughout their entire plan going forward. She needed to loosen up and relax and there was only one stallion who could do that right now. She turned and faced Wave, who was still smiling at her. He looked relieved, free from a lot of the pain he had been experiencing, not to mention with roughly half the crystals spread on his body.

Spitfire smiled warmly back at him as she slowly made her way over.

“Hey… Captain…” Wave spoke as she closed in. Spitfire’s ears perked up, surprised that he spoke. He had been unable to for such a long time, it was so nice to hear his voice again. With her smile growing wider by the step, she nearly released a squeal of delight that she barely held back as Wave slowly moved his arm up and gave her a weak salute. She chuckled and shook her head as she reached the bed.

“At ease… Commander.”

The Wonderbolts made their way through the barracks hallway and back towards the lobby, their misgivings and worries being held at bay by new orders and new goals…

But one pony was still struggling to remain on the same page as the rest of them, the one pony who was connected to whom they were all worried about.

Rainbow Dash was moving on her own now, but still not without assistance as Matteo kept his talons gently on her back to guide her. She was aware of everything she just saw and everything that just happened. She had heard every word that Spitfire had said, but she could not focus enough on it to feel the drive that was flowing through the rest. Her body still felt weak and her brain felt scrambled, but between her headaches she began to put together exactly what she was feeling in her head. Among the shocking replays of the horrific transformation, she swore she could hear Soarin’s voice. He wasn’t speaking, there were no words… it sounded like painful grunts and groans. She could not feel any pressure on her own body, but her brain was registering pain anyway.

Was she feeling Soarin’s pain?

That had to be it, they were connected through their souls after all.

They paused at the end of the hall, waiting as the group in front of them filed out of the doors into the lobby. With a moment to spare, Dash weakly reached a hoof up to her chest and placed it over her heart.

She felt her heartbeat, it didn’t feel any different than it usually did from without as it gently thumped against her hoof, but each thump felt harder within her, fuller, and slightly painful as if she could feel the beating of two hearts within her own… and one was struggling.

“Soarin…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

(Art at the end of the chapter by: Scootafail/Chiwee )

Don't worry... *Pulls CowgirlVK off my back* You are all going to get some Spitfire/Wavechill fluff in chapter 150. Chapter 149 is going to be the next scene that i wanted to be detached from all of this info and then we're going to circle right back to literally the moment after chapter 148 ends. So chapter 149 is going to be short, expect it quickly.

But looking at what we have here...

Moon seems to be fighting a few battles of his own within. What got him to turn around and do something that wasn't part of his own agenda? Or has his 'agenda' evolved over time? :moustache:

And Spitfire with the analytics. Sombra, in fact, did not attack any of them unless he was attacked first. Sure, he wailed on them after being attacked, but he never initiated it, and did not go for any kills (At least intentionally.)

Several pieces of what they've always known about Sombra are not adding up, particularly when Discords explanation is involved. The most baffling of which is easily the case of the Crystal re-emerging and coming under attack. If Sombra was in Celestia all this time, who attacked the Crystal Empire at the beginning of Season 3?

History is written by the victors... and more often than not, the victors tend to sweep a few things under the rug. Based on how 'trustworthy' the gods have been up to this point... who knows what's hiding behind the curtain?

Perhaps there's only one stallion they can ask :moustache:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 149: The Real Enemy...? (Part 3)

Chapter 149: The Real Enemy...? (Part 3)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 149: The Real Enemy…? (Part 3)

A crisp, cold wind blew along the snowy plains nestled in between the large northern mountains. Gentle flurries of snowfall danced about in soft whirlwinds as not another sound graced the peaceful air.

But that peace was disturbed as loud, uneven flaps of large beating wings created powerful rushing gusts accompanied by loud, painful grunts.

“RGHHH!!! AHHHH!!!!” Soarin failed to stay even, his body not under his own control as he twisted out of the air from above and crash-landed. He roared out in pain as his front legs buckled and dragged beneath him, his chest smashing into the snow as his massive body tipped forward and turned sideways, ungracefully tumbling over himself several times before landing on his stomach and skidding to a halt with an uneven trench of disturbed snow dug out behind him.

He did not move for several moments, his body jittering with trails of steam rising from his frame and a flickering blue glow surrounding him. His face was down, his nose jammed into the snow with the red jagged horn sticking up through the top. The glow slowly faded, the steam trails dissipating as well.

“Hrrrgggg…” he eventually groaned, his neck tensing as he slowly pulled his head and face free, looking up into the distance with nothing to see but the flurries of snow and foggy expanse. He gritted his teeth, his long heavy breaths hissing in and out. Within his eyes were the red pupils of Sombra, but they shook vigorously, the very faint sign of Soarin’s eyes hiding like a shadow behind them.

The blue flares of light began rising from his eyes as he narrowed them and shook his head slightly to shake the lingering snow from his face.

“Unbelievable…” Sombra’s voice echoed as Soarin’s eyes glowed.

“Absolutely unbelievable…” Sombra repeated as he looked down within his own image at Soarin.

Everything around him indicated that he had control. Every inch of the space within Soarin’s mind had been turned to a dark shade of blue. Soarin was engulfed within his aura, his very image was flaking and splitting, but always reconstituted before it could rip apart at the seams.

The image of Rainbow Dash remained nearby. They were no longer touching one another, but no matter how hard the shadows tugged and pulled on Dash’s image, they could not move her away from Soarin.

“I… I…” Soarin sputtered, huffing and puffing as he pushed his hooves to the ground and tried to force himself up. He could not, but his willpower was clearly intact and Sombra could not fathom how. “I won’t… let you… control me…” Soarin forced out, showing strength despite his soul literally being crushed and split every moment he struggled. He was speaking to Sombra, but his eyes were locked on the soul of Rainbow Dash that was struggling along with him.

“Hmph…” Sombra grunted as his eyes shifted back and forth between the two of them. “This won’t stop me,” he said as he slowly turned his head over the image of the yellow mare being held down by the shadows close by. “You know that, don’t you?”

The mare chuckled weakly as her chin rested on the floor. She slowly shook her head.

“It may not stop you…” she said in a pained tone. “But you will never free yourself from these bindings. This is the very reason I chose these two… they are stronger than you realize and loyal to one another beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Not even you can break this bond,” she groaned painfully and tilted her head slightly to the side, resting it on the floor. “It may have gone south… this may have not ended the way I wanted at all… but you were foolish to believe I had not considered a failsafe.”

“Did you?” Sombra asked with a growl. “I seem to recall absolute desperation pouring from your lips as you knelt before me and begged me to stop.”

“Soarin’s willpower and resolve are of unheard of proportions for this day and age,” she went on, ignoring his jab. “And with Rainbow Dash at his side, it grows ever stronger. I will admit that I did not believe he’d be able to hold you back without the horn… but it seems that I have underestimated him a little bit myself.”

“This is nothing but an annoying setback,” Sombra snorted as he glared down at Soarin beneath him. “Your efforts are wasted, Soarin. You may be holding together somehow, but your body is mine. You cannot get it back, accept your fate!”

“N…” Soarin suddenly looked up and glared right into the large blue silhouette of Sombra’s face. “No…”

Silence penetrated the stare down as their eyes remained locked. Soarin could not make out any specific features beyond the basic shapes drawn by the swirling light, but he looked where the eyes would otherwise be.

“Fine!” Sombra snarled down at him. “Then suffer by your own doing until your willpower finally gives out!” Sombra ripped his eyes away, the image of his head turning and facing away from both Soarin and the mare.

“Rgh… Ah…” Soarin stopped trying to push himself up and let his body rest on the floor. He continued to grit his teeth and cringe as he felt his very being ripped and torn at. It felt hopeless, but he refused to simply give in. If he was truly lost forever, he’d hold on for as long as he could to help his friends.

But at the same time, he found himself curious. So many things had been a mystery, especially when it came to the two voices in his head. With no idea where his life was headed now, he saw no reason not to pry it out of them.

“Just… tell me…” Soarin forced out as he stopped exerting himself and took a few deep breaths. Sombra and the mare both perked up, Sombra turning his head enough to glance back down at Soarin. “What’s really going on here?” Soarin picked his head up, leaving the rest of his body pinned. “Who are you…?” Soarin asked, looking up at his captor first. “Both of you?” he added while looking back down at the mare.

Sombra glanced towards the mare, her yellow image remaining still before looking away. Sombra’s image suddenly flinched and he grunted quietly as Soarin lifted a hoof and slammed it down.

“DAMMIT! JUST TELL ME!!!” he yelled, causing the dark blue light that filled the area to flicker and pulsate.

Sombra looked down at Soarin for a moment, taking note of how he just forced him to feel something with that effort, but he dismissed it as he quickly noticed the mare still not speaking.

“Really?” Sombra chuckled as he shook his head at her. “Really, Celes? Even now, you keep your lips sealed? What good is keeping secrets now?” he asked, pausing for a moment. “Or is it truly that hard for you to tell others the truth?” he added sharply, causing her to wince.

Soarin blinked.

“Wait…” his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Celes…?” he stared in disbelief at the yellow mare. “No way… are you kidding me…?”

The mare slowly turned her head back towards Soarin, meeting his incredulous stare. She took a long, deep breath in, followed by an equally long exhale.

The glow surrounding her grew brighter, and her silhouette began to pulsate.

Slowly… the silhouette began to fill in with faint color.

White… green… blue… pink… each color becoming more and more clear until it eventually revealed…

“P…Princess Celestia?!” Soarin barely got the name out, his voice almost breaking out of shock.

It was indeed, the divine alicorn goddess herself. She looked tired, spent, and disheveled with the shadows holding her to the floor. Her mane was a mess, lacking its ethereal flow, she had bags under her eyes as if she had not slept or rested in ages, and the tired look only added to an expression of powerlessness she wore across her face. It was a look Soarin had never seen upon the visage of the typically elegant and powerful leader. But he could care less how she looked at the moment, he was still trying to figure out why she was even in his head in the first place.

“You sound surprised,” Sombra chuckled. “It truly never occurred to you?”

Soarin stared at Celestia, his bottom lip quivering as his jaw remained locked open.

“I…” Soarin glanced at Dash. “I…” he noticed the similarity in Dash and Celestia’s images, how they appeared as a slightly see-through shadow. The effect was the same… and a part of Dash’s soul was within him, did that mean the same for Celestia? “I thought…” Soarin managed to continue. “That maybe I had some of her magic within me…” he explained as his thoughts struggled to remain gathered, thinking of the yellow magic that he had little control over. “I thought that maybe she was speaking to me indirectly through it, that it might be her voice. I was never sure, but…” he shook his head, locking his eyes on Celestia again. “But it’s really you… isn’t it? Just like Dash here?”

Celestia averted her eyes. Showing no strength or resistance as the shadows held her down.

“Yes…” she answered simply, her voice filled with noticeable shame.

Soarin’s eyes twitched.

‘Yes?’

Was that really all she could say to him with all of this happening. Soarin began to shudder, pressing his hooves down to the ground beneath him. Sombra glanced down, feeling a sudden pressure as Soarin gritted his teeth, anger squeaking through.

“Why…?” he barely managed to say, his voice shaking. “WHY?!” he yelled out, the blue glow surrounding the area pulsating again. “What’s going on?! What is happening?!”

Sombra glanced around blinking as Soarin’s burst of emotion again caused a disturbance in his control. He growled, but didn’t let Soarin see it. He quickly sought to divert attention back to Celestia.

“Well…?” Sombra chimed in, causing Celestia to glance up at him briefly. “Are you going to explain yourself? Or do you want me to go first?” he asked sharply.

Celestia ripped her eyes from Sombra quickly, gritting her teeth slightly as she looked at the ground, ashamed to look Soarin in the eye.

“I’m… sorry, Soarin,” she said in a clearly forced manner. “I had my reasons for being secretive.” She sounded like she was about the burst into tears, as if every word was painful. “But, there is no point keeping you in the dark any longer… especially now that everything has taken such a horrible, horrible turn for everypony.” She finally looked at him, and forced herself to look into Soarin’s eyes. There was an intense mix of confusion, anger, and discomfort within his eyes, eyes that stabbed her right in the heart and demanded answers.

“Oh, this should be good…” Sombra said with an amused snort.

Soarin’s head snapped upward, his eyes locking on the large blue silhouette that had engulfed him.

“Okay, how about we start with him?!” Soarin asked angrily. “Who is this?! Who did you put in me?!” he demanded. Celestia did not take her eyes off of Soarin’s as if accepting his daggered glare as punishment.

“The soul… of King Sombra,” she answered, the wave of shock that immediately passed over Soarin’s face sending uncomfortable shivers through her.

“Y…You…” Soarin was almost speechless. “You put the soul… of the fabled Mad King Sombra… into my body?” He said every word as if he couldn’t begin to comprehend it. It was bad enough that the subject had suddenly shifted to an insane tyrant he had only known in legend and history, it was worse that he got his answer and it didn’t make a lick of sense. “That’s what you did to me when I was in the hospital?!” he started raising his voice as his anger built up. Sombra winced as he felt the pressure build again. “You lied to everypony?! You just happened to have the soul of the Mad King laying around and you forced it into me?!”

“Rgh…” Sombra grunted quietly as the dark blue light surrounding them pulsated more. He glanced back and forth, hoping neither of them noticed Soarin causing such a disturbance. Though most of his focus was fixed on something Soarin had just said. Something that he had not heard before.

“What I did was to save your life…” Celestia tried to explain, trying to salvage anything she could, but Soarin was not having it.

“But you never told me?!” he blurted out, his eyes wide and shaking.

“Mad King…” Sombra suddenly said out loud as the thought became vocalized and escaped his lips.

Both Soarin and Celestia broke eye contact and looked up at him as his silhouette looked off.

“Is that what they call me now?” he said to nopony as he scrunched his lips.

Soarin blinked, not sure what to immediately think about Sombra’s demeanor and reaction just now.

“Are you surprised?” Celestia spoke up. “Especially after how your reign ended?”

“FEH!” Sombra scoffed and he glared down at her. “As if it was entirely my fault,” he said sharply before averting his eyes. “It’s just… the first time I’ve heard it from another pony’s lips…”

“Can we just not get off topic here for a moment?!” Soarin forced his way in, causing them both to look at him. “I want answers here!”

“She already lied to you once,” Sombra immediately said as his silhouette made a motion that resembled eye rolling.

“I did not!” Celestia desperately contested. Soarin was about to chime in again, but stopped and flinched as Sombra let out a single loud guffaw.

“That is so rich!” he chuckled and shook his head. “You did and you’re believing your own lies! Have you been looking in the mirror and gas-lighting your own reflection for so long that you can no longer separate you own fiction from fact?! Spare us your charade! Save his life? You used his near death as an excuse to hide your true intentions!”

Soarin was looking up at Sombra as he spoke, but as he went through all of that, he slowly looked back down at Celestia.

“Soarin, you are nothing but a tool,” Sombra went on as Soarin kept his eyes locked on Celestia. “Just a pawn in a game played by the so-called ‘gods’.”

“Sombra, stop it!” Celestia suddenly burst out, shifting forward slightly but failing to move much at all as the shadows remained tight around her. “Do you think I’m without any heart at all towards the ponies I watch over?!” she yelled, her voice shaky and desperate.

“You only have ‘heart’ for your subjects as long as it fits your agenda,” Sombra put very bluntly, causing Celestia’s lips to quiver.

“I’m not so cold!” she retorted, her body now shaking along with her voice. Sombra lowered his head down towards her, looming above Soarin.

“Then why did you keep him in the dark for so long?!” he pressed. “Why did you torture him with so much pain and hardship without ever telling him why?!”

“I SAVED HIS LIFE!” Celestia screamed, slamming her eyes shut.

“FOR WHAT?!” Sombra’s voice boomed down over her. Celestia’s eyes hot back open, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“For…” she stuttered. “For… I…”

“Hmph!” Sombra grunted, pulling back from her and looking down at Soarin. “Forget this self-serving liar, Soarin… She’ll never give you the full truth. She is incapable of explaining anything without spinning the facts to her favor and hiding her own faults,” he paused and glanced towards Celestia as she stared up at him, barely holding back tears. “And she will never speak of what happened before this, what truly led to all the events transpiring today… Will you, Celes?”

Celestia was breathing quickly, with short, quick breaths that resembled hiccups. She said nothing, her eyes shifting from glares to despair over and over.

“I thought not…” Sombra snorted and shook his head. “Because it would reveal how weak you really are. And what kind of all-powerful god is weak? You can’t even bear to have one pony witness it,” he made a subtle head motion towards Soarin. “That would be one pony too many, wouldn’t it? Unless they all believe you are perfect, you cannot keep up being seen as the ‘god’ you should be. Is that it?”

Celestia froze, her body no longer shuddering, but her look of despair remaining. She was utterly defeated.

Soarin looked up as Sombra’s silhouette suddenly stepped off of him, his long strides taking him completely away from him in only two steps and placing himself where Soarin could see his form completely. There was a thick stream of light that remained between them, keeping Sombra’s aura over Soarin and holding him down. Sombra turned and faced Soarin as he stood where both he and Celestia could see him. Sombra’s silhouette was not filled in like Celestia’s, Soarin could not see his eyes, but he felt like he was looking directly into a pair of eyes anyway.

“Soarin… allow me to tell you the true story. The story that you will never hear from Celestia or any place that has been touched by her word of law. And then you can decide what to believe…” he slowly glanced at Celestia. “Wouldn’t that be a nice change? Especially after how long you’ve been led along and never allowed to think for yourself?”

Soarin remained silent for a few moments, looking back and forth between Celestia and Sombra. He ended up simply shaking his head several times before finally speaking.

“I don’t really give a damn who says what anymore… just start talking already!” Soarin demanded, tired of all the bickering and crossing half-narratives.

“Very well,” Sombra nodded in agreement, taking a long look at Celestia before his silhouette stepped in front of her, placing himself directly between her and Soarin. He snorted, looking down at Dash beside Soarin for a moment before focusing back on him and clearing his throat.

“Over a thousand years ago,” he began. “Equestria was a land of several kingdoms and widespread royal families. It was an age that had extended for centuries, only to be brought to a swift and abrupt end over the course of a few months by the wings, fangs, and fire of the black dragons. These dragons were beasts unchained from Tartarus with power and ferocity that challenged the power of the gods themselves. Kingdom after kingdom fell to their fury until only the strongest and most powerful were left to challenge them. It was when the Crystal Empire stood in their path that I led the mares and stallions of my royal army into battle to face them.”

Sombra paused and glanced towards Celestia.

“But as we rushed forth into battle, I was surprised to find allies already in pursuit of the dragons. It was there on the battlefield, that I for the first time laid eyes on two mares that I had once only believed to be a myth. Celestia and Luna, divine alicorns actually before my very eyes, deities among mortals that faced the dragons with their Canterlot armies. I did not hesitate to join my military with hers, and with the might of our kingdoms combined, we stopped the Black Dragon Scourge at the doorstep of my kingdom. The war was long, the casualties were many, but eventually a spell was discovered that could seal away the near sublime powers of the black dragons, and combining my willpower with Celes’ divine magic, we locked the black dragons away, sending them back to whence they came from the pits of Tartarus with new, unbreakable bonds chaining them to their fate.”

“The war was won, those who had survived the wrath of the black dragons mourned the many losses, but rejoiced at their salvation. Celes and I finally met not as warriors, but as a king meeting a goddess. I had so many things to ask her, but was silenced as she spoke of how hard it had been to watch so many die, to see so many kingdoms disappear as she fought to subdue the dragons.”

Sombra turned away from them both.

“It was hard for me to hear, hard to take. Celes was heartbroken, barely holding in tears as she told me of the great losses and how, as the goddess watching over Equestria, felt as if very pieces of her had been ripped away. It was more than I could take, I refused to watch such a beautiful mare voice her despair and misgivings. So I invited her to remain in the Crystal Empire for a time, so that I may be a gentlestallion and treat her as a distinguished guest for a while. She accepted… and I personally saw to it that she experienced every comfort and luxury that my kingdom would offer.”

Sombra snorted, exhaling as he scrunched his nose.

“But perhaps it was a mistake for me to be so hospitable…” he slowly looked over his shoulder at Celestia. “Because no more than a week into her stay, Celes defied her very own rules and morals of godhood. She fell in love with me and pursued me.”

Celestia looked like she wanted to speak, to shout out denial or a counter, but she flinched as shadows popped up in front of her and grabbed her chin, cupping it and tipping it up as Sombra turned towards her and lowered his face down toward hers. She stared into his formless image, her eyes remaining open as if looking into his.

“No amount of restraint, no amount of conscience could have prevented me from caving to her advances in a heartbeat.” He edged his face closer to hers. “Who was I to deny this flawless image? This peerless beauty?” he asked as Celestia whined and averted her eyes. “It was something only a fool would reject. What sort of stallion would say no to the lust of a perfect goddess? It was something once only felt in dreams… but the dream had come to me while awake. I clung to it in an instant, and never let go,” he explained as he pulled away and the shadows let go of her. Celestia’s head plopped back down softly between her hooves as her lips quivered.

“But it turns out I was the fool all along. While the emotion and pleasure I felt with her was immeasurable, I had walked myself into a dead end. She is omnipotent… and I was just a mortal. As time went on through our frequent visits to one another, I slowly aged and grew older as she remained perfect, flawless, and youthful. It slowly destroyed me from within every single day as I felt the inevitable approaching. But I cared not for myself. We had been so deeply in love for so long that I could not stand the thought of dying and leaving her alone.”

Sombra pulled back, but kept his eyes on Celestia as his image moved all the way beside Soarin.

“So I began to wonder… what if there was another way? The day I met Celes was the day that I saw true immortality for the first time with my own eyes. It existed… it was there… could it be obtained? What if I could reverse my aging and live forever like her? Magic is a wondrous and powerful force with possibilities beyond our wildest imagination. And the general rule of magic… is that as long as you can overcome the challenge of discovering the means, anything is possible.”

Sombra motioned a hoof towards Celestia.

“I already knew it was possible… I just had to discover the means. Perhaps I was not created as a divine alicorn, but who was to say I could not become one?”

Sombra let his hoof fall, but curled it up before stomping it down, startling Soarin.

“But no matter how hard I looked, or how much I pushed my scholars to research, we found nothing. No trace to follow, not even a starting point to achieve such a thing. And I began to lose hope. Years kept passing and I watched in a mirror every morning as my face aged and my mane turned grey. Celestia remained loyal, she stayed by my side, but with every passing day it became harder and harder for me to look her in the eye. And the day she finally dropped her guard and admitted how much it pained her to see me growing old… I told her. I told her what I had been working on in secret, what I had been studying to find so that I may become like her. I expected her to be impressed, I expected her to be happy… but again, I was a fool to be bemused by such delusions.”

Sombra paused for a few moments, his legs and body visibly shaking with anger.

“I will never forget the look in her eyes…” Sombra’s voice grew angered, a low growl in the back of his voice. “She looked at me with such shock, as if she couldn’t believe I had said such a thing. Why? Why did it shock her so? I was so confused and perplexed. She gave me no room to explain myself, no matter how many times I said I was doing it for her she yelled and shouted ruthlessly, condemning me for the mere thought of trying to break the plateau of mortality and ascend higher. She loomed over me, looking down upon me with such disgust and disdain, with so much hate and malice, things that I had never once seen grace her flawless image. It was as if suddenly nothing the two of us had shared over the years had mattered at all.”

Soarin’s eyes slowly moved back to Celestia as he saw her bury her nose between her hooves, her eyes shut tight with her ears pinned to the side of her head.

“She left that night,” Sombra continued as he turned his back to her. “She left me behind… and didn’t come back. My old, aging heart was cleaved in twain by her cruel words. The things she called me… ‘Monster’… ‘Heretic’… ‘Heathen’… ‘Abomination’… This was the mare who loved me? This was the mare I shared my most personal moments with? And it was all because of something I wished to do for her. I just wanted to make her happy. How could she not see this? Was her love conditional all this time? Was it ever real?”

“I turned away all my servants and guards that night. I locked myself in my study and sat on the floor among the mess of papers and parchment of all my efforts. On the west wall… there was a wall length mirror. I turned… looked into my old, aging eyes… and took a long look at myself. And through my eyes, took a look at the whole world around me, thought hard on all the things I had seen and felt and slowly… slowly… began to feel that I had been living a lie my whole life. I thought about everything… everything that had to do with Celes and with us all the way back to the very first moment I saw her. And I began to see and recognize things I had never given thought before.”

Sombra took a long hard look at Celestia as if he was reliving the very moment he was speaking of.

“Celes is a goddess… An omnipotent being who has watched and ruled over great portions of Equestria from the throne of Canterlot Castle for eons… I thought her only to be a myth when I was young and had not ventured far outside my kingdom, but when she finally stood before me I felt so small, as I’m sure most kings and queens of the land felt in her presence, the regal status meaning nothing when faced with a Goddess whom they saw as even above them in all things,” Sombra paused and grunted. “But while this awe of her sublimity cast her as a leader above all leaders… what kind of leader was she truly? This is what I began asking myself as I looked back over my life under the shadows of what little I had left. I had been so blinded by her omnipotence, her beauty, and my own happiness to ever really scrutinize her,” Sombra growled. “And the more I thought… the more I reached back and remembered without my vision fogged… The more things became clear to me.”

Soarin watched as Sombra slowly inched towards her again, his shadow looming over her slowly.

“Once I stripped away the immortality, her godhood, and looked upon her as one would an equal, everything changed. I realized how her actions were often self-centered, how she rarely took the reins in difficult situations, how she’d dump responsibility on others to avoid risk of failure, how she would divert blame of consequences away from her and her sister, and now how she apparently was so attached to personal beliefs that even decades of love and trust didn’t seem to matter to her at all after one disagreement.”

His shadow fully loomed over her.

“But most of all… I looked back to our very first days, battling the dragons as allies… and realized that she was never willing to put herself into harm’s way for the sake of others.”

His shadow darkened as it lowered itself. Celestia tucked her head down as if trying to hide from him.

“Never had I had an epiphany so strong as I thought back to the Black Dragon Scourge and analyzed our vastly different approaches to it. When I was young and charging into battle, I never questioned the fact that I rarely saw Celestia on the front lines. She stayed back… she gave orders, she only ever engaged if the dragons got close or ambushed us and would quickly retreat. Despite all her power, all of her incredible divine magic, she’d back away and her soldiers would jump headlong into their own graves for her sake. At the same time… I was always in front. I stood among my captains, my knights, and even my lowest ranking soldiers as we clashed with the dragons. There was more than one occasion where I was gravely injured, and several of them came from efforts to protect my soldiers from the roaring flames and deadly claws of our enemy. Had I been killed, my army would have been devastated and lost the will to fight, but I never once felt it proper to simply stand back while my soldiers fought on. They were there to protect me, I was there to protect them, and we were ALL fighting for the same cause, regardless of rank and standing.”

Sombra snarled down at Celestia as she flinched and shivered, her eyes shut tight as she draped a hoof over her nose.

“Celestia was more content to sit back and wait… and did not make any forward moves until we found a way to seal the dragons away. She cried to me about lives lost after the battle was won… but to this day I wonder how many of those lives could have been saved had she been there on the front lines with me and put her godly powers to better use.”

He slowly back off, his shadow pulling back and uncovering Celestia as she whimpered and took short quick breaths.

“And… through these thoughts and revelations, I found myself pondering. If Celes, or any of her fellow gods for that matter… really deserved to be our leaders. Did they really deserve our worship? The legends and tales that spoke so highly of them? What about their immortal status? Was it truly deserved if they did not give an ounce of their endless existence to truly understand those who groveled at their hooves and paid them endless respect?”

Sombra stomped a hoof, causing Soarin to flinch and gasp in surprise as he felt a pulse rush through him.

“Look upon the gods as if they are normal ponies, would they ever be forgiven or praised for their actions? No, they would be shunned, condemned, and rejected. They did not deserve to be gods, they did not deserve to stand above us. So, regardless of Celes’ harsh words and criticism, I continued my research. Only… I no longer felt the need to respect ethics or limits. My reason and drive had been stripped of me, I no longer cared if I destroyed myself in the process, my ambition overtook reason. If Celes would not help me or accept me as a god… I would become one anyway and prove to her I was worthy of it. Petty? Perhaps, but could never understand how strong my desire had become to simply spite her and everything she claimed to be.”

Sombra looked off into nowhere, the projected image of his mane whisking as he shook his head back and forth.

“I threw restraint into the wind as I began exploring alternative methods, dark magic, forbidden magic… anything and everything I could get my hooves on. Time kept passing I kept aging and the older I became, the more desperation crawled onto my back. Eventually I stopped trying to find a full spell, I began casting twisted spells on myself, cursing and bewitching my own body in hopes that something, anything would work. I caused myself unbearable pain, my mind was damaged and slowly degrading, I became corrupted through my own means, but I was old, weak, and no longer cared. Time was running out for me… and nearly all of my scholars had fled my presence, fearing that I was falling too deep into forbidden arts, terrified by the wear and tear I was putting on my already old and aged body. And eventually… one of them sent a letter to Canterlot, and alerted Celes.”

Sombra looked down at Soarin.

“I caught word that she had been alerted, but strangely… I didn’t care. I had come to a point where all my efforts had been in vain, I was nothing but a shriveled, wrinkled shadow of my former self. I had no doubt that Celes would destroy me the moment she arrived, so I simply hobbled to my study and stood among my research. It was done, it was over. My life had gone from everything to nothing. It was all gone and now death was fast approaching by the hooves of the very mare that began this downward spiral for me. But before Celestia could arrive… I glanced into the mirror that I had the day she left me and gazed into its cracked and chipped surface… But what I saw startled me. It was my reflection… yet it was me when I was young, in my prime… when Celestia and I first fell in love. And I was startled once again… when my reflection spoke to me.”

“‘How much do you wish to obtain what you’ve sought?’ it asked me. ‘What would you give to prove Celestia wrong?’ I did not know what to say, and I shrieked as my reflection stepped right out of the mirror and approached me, a sly smile on its face, eyes alight with a distorted magical glow. ‘How much do you desire to be a god?’ It pressed me… and with nowhere else to turn and nothing left to live for, I answered truthfully. ‘I would give everything,’ I told it.”

“My image laughed and cackled as it’s voice changed until it was no longer mine. It stood up on its back legs, upright with its chest puffed out as he slowly morphed into a hideous amalgamation of animal parts. It was the god of Chaos… Discord.”

“Discord…?” Soarin said he name as he blinked in surprise. The whole story had been deep already, but it kept going deeper. Soarin wasn’t sure if he was prepared for what was to come.

“Yes… Discord,” Sombra growled loudly. “That slimy, deceitful snake. He had been jealous of me from the very moment I stepped into Celes’ life. The fact that I, a mortal, had won her heart enraged him, infuriated him to no end. If not for his endless infatuation with her and his childish desire to never do her wrong in any way, he surely would have forcibly removed me from the picture with his powers. I had a blanket of safety from him, but Discord is a vengeful animal… and me simply dying wouldn’t be enough to satisfy his grudge against me. He wished to smear my name for all eternity… and in my old, broken, and shunned state… he took his chance.”

“He offered to give me what I wanted… he offered me the chance to become a god. I never trusted Discord, as one never should… but I was so far gone. I didn’t care who it was that was offering… I accepted it without hesitation. Had I have been of clear mind I would have seen through the charade. Discord, like the rest of the gods, finds the thought of mortals breaking the barrier of immortality to be an act of blasphemy, there was no way he’d allow me to become one of them. But not a single fiber of my being entertained the thought. I only wanted one thing and my desperation led me to reach out… even if it was Discord. And… I suffered the consequences.”

“Celes arrived just in time to witness it. Discord unleashed his magic upon me. Chaos magic is wild and dangerous, a natural phenomenon within the world of magic itself that is never to be wielded by mortals in fear of its unpredictability. It rushed into me, immediately corrupted me, and took control of me. It reversed my age, my horn exploded as a curved red spike jutted out from my head to replace it, and I gained monstrous features as the power rushed and took complete control of my mind.”

“With my body corrupted by chaos, I charged at Celes. Right there within my own castle, I engaged in a battle with a god with more power rushing through me than I had ever dreamed. I cared not who I was trying to hurt, I did not hear a word she shouted at me, the power was so intoxicating that I only wanted to use it. I fought Celes… and I defeated her. I defeated a god and it felt unbelievable. She was forced to retreat… and soon after I descended upon my kingdom and plunged it into a state of fear, corrupting many of my citizens with my new powers and forcing the empire into a brutal state of slavery and forced warfare. Discord’s magic had completely overtaken me, and I liked it. I was a god, I was unstoppable… and I soon sought to conquer and rule the land with my newfound power.”

“But…” Sombra exhaled, letting a quiet nicker escape. “It was a short-lived reign. My actions quickly attracted the ire of all surrounding lands. It didn’t take long for Celes to ally all of them against me. It was the one time in Equestrian history that all species fought together, even the Griffons and the Drakes. I was one kingdom against the world, and despite my belief that I had become more powerful than the gods, I was eventually pushed all the way back to my empire with my forces decimated. It all ended with Celes and I facing off once again, but as we fought I slowly learned that I had not truly become a god. My power was not limitless and I had no mastery over it. After a long struggle, Celes struck me down, unleashing her power in ways never seen before… but I refused to be defeated, I never stayed down, and my corrupted magic was never fully snuffed out. So… Celes sealed me away. She used the very same spell that we used to seal the Black Dragons to lock away my power beneath the Crystal Empire itself. She went further, sacrificing the entire kingdom, locking it away with me. The Empire itself was my prison, bonds meant to hold me down for all eternity with the crystal heart to keep it locked tight.”

Sombra looked back at Celestia, furrowing his brow.

“Or so… that’s what she told everyone she did. There is one particular detail she has always left out.”

Soarin too locked his eyes on Celestia as she remained still and showed no sign of fighting a single word Sombra was saying. It was an alarming sight… she, Celestia, the all-powerful, all-seeing goddess cowering like a filly caught in a fib. Was the story that had always been told about the Mad King really nothing but a spin? A fabrication? And there was even more to come?

“Although Celestia had sealed away my corrupted body and the magic that ran free within it… She quietly and discreetly removed my broken soul that had been torn asunder by Discord’s magic before she placed the lock and seal of the crystal heart. As the dust was settling, she absorbed my soul into her body and pieced it back together until I became what you see now… and stored me away within her body.”

“But…” Soarin suddenly spoke up as he was trying to process it. “Then when the Crystal Empire re-emerged…?”

“Feh,” Sombra scoffed. “That was not me,” he quickly cut Soarin off. “It was my body, but it was nothing but an empty husk without a brain or a soul being driven wildly by chaos magic like an effigy. The real me, is right here, and has been inside Celestia all along.”

Soarin’s jaw dropped as he kept his eyes glued to Celestia. Sombra snorted as he too looked to her.

“Why? I wondered, with my mind put back together and trapped within her… Why would she spare my soul? As it turned out… Even though she branded me an abomination for even thinking I could become a god… she never could let go of me. She has kept her little secret quiet for over a thousand years. Knowing her shortsightedness, she probably thought that all this time locked up inside her would give me time to think about what I had done before she could find a way to release me.”

Sombra paused for several moments before releasing a growl and a loud snort of frustration.

“Oh, I’ve done PLENTY of thinking… but it’s not the kind of thinking she likely desired. No… I did not look towards regretting my actions, that wasn’t it at all. My formless thoughts have only had one thing in mind since she stored me away: Can I still achieve my goal?”

Sombra looked down at Soarin, a shadow whipping up from the ground and pushing Soarin’s head up to look at him.

“And that brings us to here and now,” he pointed at Celestia while forcing Soarin’s head back down to point his eyes towards Celestia. “Celes had been waiting… for a very long time to find what she believed is the opportune moment to set me free… in hopes that I’d learned my lesson and that I can ‘redeem’ myself. And those are her exact words, there is no speculation here. She wants me to ‘come back’ and ‘right my wrongs’ as if everything that happened and led to my demise was my own doing. Let’s all just smile and be on our way,” he said sarcastically. “Pathetic… I doubt she can even spell ‘consequence’!”

Soarin listened carefully… until a thought struck him so hard in the face he almost had physical whiplash. His eyes went wide, his jaw dropping as he blinked several times.

“Hmmm…” Sombra suddenly hummed as he lowered himself and examined Soarin’s face carefully. “I like that look in your eyes. Are things becoming more clear? Are you seeing beyond the curtains towards what lies behind the lies?”

Sombra shifted over and stood near Celestia as she continued to remain silent.

“What did she tell you, hm?” Sombra asked while keeping his eyes on Soarin. “That she had a premonition? That she saw you fighting? That she wanted to make sure everything was ‘right’ to handle a ‘threat?’ Don’t make me laugh… every bit of that is a bold faced lie. I’ve been the focus of her intentions from the start, it’s all she’s cared about and she was foolish enough to believe I’d be on board with her plans. Threat? WHAT threat? Do you know? Have you even seen it? Does it even exist?!” Sombra raised his voice. “The gods don’t talk about it do they? Too much going on? Distracted? When have you ever had visual proof of this danger?! Better yet…”

The shadows gathered around him and forced Celestia up off the ground. She yelped and wailed as they squeezed her painfully.

“Why would she need you to take care of it? Or me?! Isn’t she an all-powerful god?! She should have no problem facing such things on her own! If there really is some sort of threat, then this is the same old story all over again. She’s looking for somepony to do something for her so she doesn’t have to worry about it herself! She just wanted an excuse to bring me back, and tried to hide her selfish feelings for me behind a guise of my ‘redemption’ so she could send me to handle something for her in the process. She never gave a single thought to my ambition, she never considered that it was her own actions that changed me, she never thought I’d be determine to still fulfill my goal even after all this time!”

Soarin was visibly stricken as Sombra continued to drop more and more realizations on him.

“Y…you mean…” Soarin barely got out. “Her premonition… everything was all a lie?” That much was clear, but Soarin was simply vocalizing his disbelief as every word from his lips seemed to make Celestia shiver. Sombra let her go and the shadows pulled her back down to the floor roughly.

“Premonition?” Sombra scoffed. “Let me ask you something, Soarin… if Celestia is so good at seeing disasters before they happen… Then why didn’t she act to prevent the tornado in Ponyville?! WHY DIDN’T SHE STOP IT BEFORE YOU WERE PUT AT DEATH’S DOOR?!”

Soarin’s pupils shrank, a weak gasp escaping his thought as the breath left his lungs.

“It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?!” Sombra leaned in towards Soarin. “She wouldn’t have been able to start this whole charade without you! She let you almost die so she could pursue this goal!” He slowly moved out of the way so Soarin could look directly at Celestia. “Now do you understand… Soarin? Do you understand what drives me to pursue godhood?” He pointed sharply at Celestia. “Is this the kind of ‘god’ who deserves to be the leader of all Equestria?! The ‘beacon of hope’ you all look towards for guidance?! This is how your gods truly think! This is how they act! They haven’t a clue what it’s like to be one of us and they couldn’t care less! They don’t care about you, they don’t act in your interest! They only care about themselves!”

“STOP IT!” Celestia suddenly screamed, tears bursting from her eyes as she yelled. “PLEASE, SOMBRA! STOP!” she pleaded, wailing as streams slid down her cheeks.

“Ah, she finally speaks?!” Sombra got right into her face. “Does the truth really hurt so much?!” he yelled, causing her to wince and attempt to pull back within her binds.

“You still don’t understand what you are trying to achieve!” she yelled at him in between hiccups and sniffles. “You’re insane! It will overwhelm you and you will only be a threat to Equestria!” she yelled desperately and nearly incoherently as if it were the only words she could think or muster.

“A threat to Equestria?!” Sombra pulled back and burst out laughing. “A THREAT?!” He shook his head at her. “You speak as if I intend to destroy it!” He quickly leaned back down towards her while stomping a hoof down. “I intend to save it… from YOU!”

Celestia’s eyes opened wide, but she did not retort, she simply continued sniffling as the tears fell steadily down her image. Sombra pulled himself away from her and refocused on Soarin. He was looking down at the floor, his eyes wide and his mouth agape.

“Soarin,” Sombra spoke directly to him. “You are strong. Your resistance and willpower are beyond anything I ever imagined… but perhaps you should take a look at the situation you’ve been put in,” he paused as Soarin slowly looked up at him. “You’ve lost everything, but now you’re in a position to make a choice about the future of those you love and fight for.” He pointed at Celestia. “Think about who did this to you and why… and ask yourself…”

Sombra paused again as Soarin slowly looked down at Celestia.

“Who is truly your enemy?”

Everything went completely silent. With nothing else to say, Sombra turned his back to both of them, his aura flowing forth as he forced himself back into control of Soarin’s body without.

Soarin remained still, his eyes locked on Celestia as Sombra slowly started moving his body again. His eyes remained locked, but only for a few moments before turning his eyes to the image of Dash near him.

His whole world and everything thought he knew… turned upside down.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

BEFORE ANYONE SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT IT...

When i wrote the outline for PTH: May 2014

When Sombra's origin story in the MLP comics appeared: September 2015

A few people have brought up Sombra's specific origin from canon over the past few chapters. Please keep in mind that this story was planned before the canon origin of Sombra was released, so it will be completely different here in PTH.

Also, yes, the good king Sombra mirror world comic came out in april 2014, but i had not seen the comic nor read it until long after i had finished the outline of PTH, it had no influence on story planning.

As a reminder, PTH and the Wonderverse in generalonly acknowledges the mlp cannon through the end of season 3. Anything thats happened in the show or comics since then has not happened in my timeline and characters from season 4-present will not be appearing.

Just wanted to clear that all up :twilightsmile:

Now onto the usual note:

Well now, this is sure to rustle a few jimmies over in the theory vault! Celestia has been revealed, but at the same time she and the rest of the gods have been put into perspective... at least from Sombra's point of view. Can he be trusted? He makes several very clear and valid points... but does his crusade towards his goal really put him in the right?

I guess we'll know more if Soarin's curiosity remains strong going forward :moustache:

As a reminder, chapter 150 is going to pick up right where chapter 148 ended. 149 technically takes place side by side with the events of 148. So yes, im going right back to where 148 ended for some fluff :moustache:

And of course, Art in this chapter is by: Foxenawolf

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 150: Bittersweet

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 150: Bittersweet

“Wow…” Wave Chill blinked as he turned his head away from Spitfire, nestling it further into his pillow and stared straight up at the ceiling. Spitfire had just finished giving him all the details of their escapades since she last had a chance to visit him. “Well… that certainly explains all the shaking,” he said with a light chuckle as he turned his head back to her. Spitfire was resting her arms up on the mattress and was leaned in close to him.

“Sorry about all that,” she said as she looked away and her ears flopped down. “Probably didn’t help your pain at all.”

“Heh, It’s not like I’m expecting a pleasure cruise,” Wave quickly reassured her as she looked back at him. “We’re Wonderbolts, we don’t do anything the easy way,” he said with a wink. Spitfire giggled and tipped her head a little.

“No… I suppose we don’t…” she trailed off as the two of them locked eyes. Spitfire edged herself a little closer and reached a hoof up to his head, gently running a hoof through his mane. “So… how are you feeling now?” She asked while looking over the exposed portions of his body at the much smaller blemishes and crystal bits. “That’s… the third time I’ve asked that, isn’t it?” she said while gritting her teeth and wincing comically.

“Fourth,” Wave said with a smile, shaking lightly from quiet chuckles.

“Oh jeez, sorry…” Spitfire let her nose fall and smush into the mattress.

“You’re fine,” Wave said as he tipped his head to press it against her hoof lightly. “Same as I feel the other times you asked, but I have to say, whatever Moon did… it feels good. There’s a feeling of euphoria clashing with the pain. They’re kind of canceling each other out.”

“Euphoria…” Spitfire said with concern as she picked her face back up out of the mattress. “I don’t know if I like that. I’d rather you not get exposed to any more of that messed up magic.”

“I’m not planning on running off and joining the Shadowbolts if that’s what you’re worried about,” Wave quickly replied, pulling her right out of her concern and drawing out a smirk.

“Good,” she nudged him in the shoulder with her other hoof. “I’d have to kick your ass if you did.”

Wave burst out laughing, or at least he tried. He cringed here and there, the guffaws obviously not feeling the best with the state of his body. Spitfire winced as she saw the slight grimaces on his face, but they couldn’t hold back a big smile, or his laughter.

“Careful… sorry, I shouldn’t make you laugh like that,” Spitfire kept tapping his shoulder, hoping he’d stop quickly, but he kept chuckling before smiling at her again.

Just seeing his smile did wonders for Spitfire. It felt so good just to see Wave in better spirits. She had no idea how much she needed this little interaction. Flashwind was right… again.

“Well,” Wave began as he calmed down. “What was used on me aside, I feel better. And at this point I’ll take it.” He shrugged weakly. “Plus I get to actually talk to you again. I really hated seeing you and not being able to talk,” he said with a warm smile that brought a faint blush across Spitfire’s cheeks.

“It’s great to hear your voice again, at least in full and not struggling,” she explained as she continued to stroke a hoof through his mane, moving it behind his ear and giving it a gentle rub. She sighed, her smile slowly turning down as she continued to look at him. “I’ve been doing my best… But not having you up there with me has been rough.” She blinked as Wave suddenly moved a hoof over to her and rested it against her arm.

“Hey, you’re the Captain Spitfire, you can do anything,” he said with a completely straight face. Spitfire failed to hold in a giggle as she rolled her eyes.

“Oh, stop that…” she reacted assuming he was trying to butter her up, but when she looked back down, he was still looking right at her with a straight face.

“I’m serious,” he added, causing Spitfire to go quiet and stare blankly at him. Wave lifted his brow. “We’re about to reach the Crystal Empire, right?” he asked. Spitfire blinked, still caught by surprise by his demeanor.

“Uh… yes,” she quickly answered. “If everything goes smoothly for the next few hours, yeah.”

“Are we still alive after all we’ve been put through?” he pressed.

“Y…yes?” Spitfire tipped her head furrowing her brow as she tried to figure him out.

“And who is in charge?” Wave added with a slight smile. Spitfire blinked again and then sighed with her ears drooping down.

“You’re giving me way too much credit,” she deflected as she caught on.

“When have you ever known me to exaggerate?” Wave stopped her before she could say any more. Spitfire turned to reply quickly, but stopped with her mouth open slightly. She remained quiet for a moment before exhaling through her nostrils.

“Never…” she answered, but still felt like she was getting too much praise and he gave her a strict look as if he could tell that was exactly what she was thinking.

“Spitfire, if it were anypony else in charge, I probably would have given up hope by now. You know how to make impossible things happen. You’ve done so over and over again and nothing is a better example than what we’ve gone through and survived thus far. I’m not saying you did it alone, but you are the one in charge. Why do you think you were named the captain? It wasn’t an accident. You’re a miracle worker… that’s what’s been keeping me going. I didn’t care how much my body hurt or how nasty my infliction became…” He paused and smiled. “With you in charge, I’ve never once doubted my chances of living through this.”

“Wave…” Spitfire’s bottom lip was quivering as she smiled very wide and her face was turning bright red. “Stop it…” she slowly slid an arm over her nose to hide her face as she avoided eye contact.

“No,” Wave denied. “I’m going to tell you how lucky of a stallion I am until your face explodes.”

“Wave!” Spitfire said as she began giggling loudly and pressed her chin down into the mattress. She covered her face with her wing now also, but her nose and mouth remained exposed from beneath, showing a wide smile.

They shared a good chuckle for a moment before Spitfire eventually pulled her arm away. With their heads perfectly level, her chin on the mattress and his head turned to the side, they stared into one another’s eyes, absorbing each other’s look and enjoying every millisecond.

Spitfire couldn’t take it anymore. She slowly reached a hoof towards his face and gently touched his exposed cheek, doing her best to avoid touching any small crystal flakes that remained near and around. Her eyes narrowed a little as she moved in, her look changing from bright and cheerful to slightly lustful as she leaned in to kiss him, but stopped halfway, hesitating and wondering if she was being selfish.

“Why did you stop?” Wave suddenly asked, causing Spitfire’s eyes to open wide. He was comically pouting. “You’re not gonna hurt me, now quick, don’t leave me waiting.”

“Pff…” Spitfire scoffed and chuckled. “Oh, shut up you…”

Spitfire continued, leaning all the way towards them until their lips met. She instinctively reached one of her wings forward to block them from view as they locked their mouths. It was nothing rowdy or intense, it was soft, it was quiet, and it was satisfying. Spitfire forgot about all the aches and pains about her body as they were all replaced by a tingling feeling of excitement.

Flashwind wasn’t just right… she was so right. This in no way offset all the awful things that had happened and needed to be addressed, but it was a brief distraction that gave her body and mind something it sorely needed.

They slowly parted after holding together for several seconds, keeping their eyes on one another as they pulled no further than an inch away from one another. They both wore very content smiles, basking in the presence of the other without a care in the world for the moment.

At least until Spitfire decided to take a quick peek below her wing.

“Oh jeez…” she blushed as she quickly put her wing back down to block them from members of Bliss’ staff staring. “They’re all looking at us…” she said as her face grew so red that Wave swore he could feel the heat from it.

“I don’t care,” Wave said calmly as he smiled at her. “I really needed that.”

“Oh… this is so embarrassing…” Spitfire kept blushing hard, never one to be for public displays of affection. She needed it just as much as Wave, but it was still—

“Excuse me, Captain.”

“GAH!” Spitfire flinched hard and yelped right into Wave’s face, her body pushing up onto the mattress until her back hooves came off the ground. She pushed her front hooves down, reacting to the sudden shift, but without her base, she slipped backwards and fell into a heap on the floor.

Spitfire immediately rolled over and stood up quickly, turning around with wide eyes and an unhinged jaw.

Fire Streak and Misty Fly were standing right behind her. Fire was smiling awkwardly and avoiding eye contact, but Misty looked like she was absolutely melting. She was clinging to Fire’s arm, her head pressing hard into his shoulder as she wore the goofiest, giddy look on her face. Her plot was wiggling back and forth against the floor, the tip of her tail bouncing up and down excitedly. She nuzzled her cheek into Fire’s shoulder while staring at Spitfire and Wave Chill. Based on her expression, if she had a voice to use, she’d easily be squealing loudly.

“F…Fire…” Spitfire stuttered as her ears flopped down. “How long have you two been there?!” she asked desperately.

“Erm…” Fire hesitated while glancing down at Misty. “For a few minutes,” he explained as Spitfire’s jaw slammed shut and her pupils enlarged. Fire quickly pointed to Misty. “I apologize, but… Misty insisted that I not interrupt…”

Spitfire looked at Misty and pouted, trying her best to hold back the blood rushing to her face, but it wasn’t working. Misty looked directly at her, reaching a hoof up and pressing it to her cheek, cutely squishing her face as she further melted against Fire.

Spitfire’s eyes darted back to Fire a she flattened her brow.

“With all due respect, Captain,” Fire spoke up quickly. “Have you ever tried saying no to her?”

Spitfire blinked… and sighed. Fire was definitely not wrong there.

Misty suddenly pushed forward, dragging Fire with her over to them. She somehow detached herself from Fire and rested her body on the mattress, placing her arms and hooves atop it as she looked over Wave with worry.

Wave smiled as he saw Misty silently express her concern. He reached a hoof towards her, tapping her arm gently and giving her a nod to reassure her he was doing alright. She smiled weakly back at him as Fire Streak approached and stood beside her.

“How are you feeling, sir?” he asked while giving a brief salute.

“Not quite a million bits, but at this point I’ll take whatever I can get,” Wave answered with a smile.

“That’s good to hear,” Fire nodded as he placed a hoof gently on Misty’s back. “Sorry it’s taken us so long, but hopefully we’ll have you back on your hooves soon.”

As the words left Fire’s lips, Spitfire perked up.

“Wait, Fire,” she stepped up beside him, her face still a little red. “If you’re here, does that mean…?” She trailed off, but Fire knew exactly what she was curious about. He gave a decisive nod.

“We are all ready to go. The plan has been spread discretely to the Wonderbolts and the Renegades. Luna and the thestrals have been left in the dark.”

“Wow…” Spitfire blinked. “That was quick.”

“I think it’s safe to say that we’re all ready to take control,” Fire explained. “I saw quite a bit of excitement towards the idea of subverting Luna and Discord.”

Spitfire chuckled as she absorbed Fire’s words, shaking her head lightly.

“I never thought I’d hears those words in that particular order. Feels like the whole world’s been turned upside down.” She shrugged. “But I’m glad we’re all on the same page. Good work.”

“Shall we prep for takeoff?” Fire quickly asked, showing some eagerness of his own.

“Yes,” Spitfire pointed at him. “Gather up the top elites on the bridge again, Rainbow Dash and her friends too. Tell Rivet and Lucky to get ready, we’ll leave as soon as I’m on the bridge.”

“Right away, ma’am,” Fire saluted and turned to Misty, patting her on the back. She looked up at him and he gave her a simple head motion towards the door. Misty looked at him and at Spitfire, reading their expressions and putting two and two together. She reluctantly slid herself off the bed away from Wave and turned to leave with Fire.

“Fire,” Spitfire suddenly spoke up before they could get very far.

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“I want Luna and P.L. on the bridge too,” Spitfire ordered. Fire almost complied immediately, but hesitated, cocking his head to the side. Spitfire had anticipated the reaction. “We have to act like everything is working as usual, she has to believe that we’re still under their watch. Let’s just hope our acting skills are all on par with your squads’.”

“Understood,” Fire gave her another nod. “I’ll see you on the bridge.”

Spitfire remained upright and professional as Fire and Misty left, but the moment the two of them were out the door, she sighed and slumped a little.

She wanted to get moving as much as everypony else… but she was feeling so good with Wave and didn’t want to leave just yet. It was written all over her face as she turned back to Wave, he noticed immediately.

“Gotta go?” he asked, trying his best not to sound disappointed as she placed a hoof on the mattress and failed to hide her own disappointment.

“Yeah…” she replied quietly as she lowered her face down towards him again and placed it on the mattress near his. Unable to stand the look on her face, Wave mustered the little strength he had to moved his arm all the way over, lift it slightly, and touch her cheek gently.

“Hey, I’m not going anywhere,” he reassured her, a smile slowly making its way back onto her face. “Go do your thing. I look forward to being saved,” he said with a wink. Spitfire felt her heart flutter, quickly leaning in. They shared another brief kiss, this time not caring about who was watching.

“You’ll be better before you know it,” Spitfire assured him as she hooked her hoof with his.

They said no more as Spitfire slowly began pulling away, keeping their hooves locked for as long as possible until she had to let go. Spitfire walked backwards for the first few steps, turning around and making her way to the door. She stopped as she placed a hoof on the door, looking over her shoulder. She smiled at Wave, who smiled back before Spitfire turned, took a deep breath, and made her way out into the barracks hallway.

It wasn’t long before Spitfire was up on the third floor and making her way towards the broken bridge doors. She could feel the nip of the cold air as she approached, shivering as she furrowed her brow and tensed her body against the chilly air. She visibly shuddered as she entered the bridge.

“Yikes! It’s freezing in here…” she said to herself, drawing the eyes of several ponies as she entered. She looked around and noticed that several of them were wearing blankets or huddled together. “Did the vents break or—?” she stopped and looked towards the front. “Oh… right…” she quickly remembered that Nightshade’s magic had blown out the forward windshields. That was sure going to make the rest of the trip pleasant. They didn’t have much of a choice, there was nowhere else to have the ponies gather and direct travel at the same time, not to mention the P.A. controls were on the bridge. Everypony had shed their flight suits and goggles, not expecting any more resistance on the way to the Crystal Empire. Though she doubted they would have provided much warmth, Spitfire was subtly wishing she had kept hers on.

There was no way around it, they just had to suck it up. Spitfire made her way through the bridge, quickly noticing that all the top tier Wonderbolts had already arrived. They were all huddled near the back of the bridge, as far away from the front as possible. Blaze and High Winds were right beside the door, sharing a blanket. Squad Three was on the other side of the door, Misty pressing against Fire for warmth with Lightning sitting right beside them. Surprise was completely wrapped up like a bun, shuddering on Lightning’s back with only the silly bangs of her mane poking out the front. Calm Wind had somehow made it back up to the bridge, both Fleetfoot and Shine struck pressed to his large body for warmth. He seemed to have gotten used to it, more worried about staying warm then the fact that two mares were attached to him. Aside from Silver and Wave, the only top tier member missing was Air Mach, who was down in the infirmary after his… graceful attempt to land the Falcon. And obviously Soarin…

Spitfire’s ears dropped as Soarin crossed her mind again. She felt like there was a gap in her chest without him there. Her squad had remained mostly intact throughout all the hardships. Now that it was finally splintered, it hurt, not to mention her best friend was missing and out there somewhere.

Spitfire blinked as she heard a new set of hooves behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see Descent, Starry Skies, Lightning Dust, Blazetail, and Flashwind all enter, Dash and her friends were still not present, but the main group of those aware of their secret plan were now all present. Now they just needed Luna and P.L. before they could take off, but Spitfire decided to get the process rolling before Luna showed up, just in case. She only hoped Discord really was hiding away, and wasn’t sneaking around.

Spitfire steeled herself against the cold air as she made her way towards the front, approaching Lucky who was wrapped head to hoof in four or five blankets as he shivered beside the main controls, only his nose poking out.

“Lucky, are we ready to go?” Spitfire asked, trying hard to not shudder.

Lucky suddenly stopped shivering for a moment, sniffling before his head popped out from the blankets.

“Huh?” he blinked, his ears quickly pressing to the top of his head as if he was hugging his mane with them.

“Are we ready to go?” Spitfire repeated, succumbing to the cold as she reached an arm to her opposite shoulder, hugging herself as her body jittered. She perked up as one of their unicorn staff members suddenly came forward with a thick blanket, offering it to her. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, Rivet told me he’s just trying to get the heating system fixed up to give us some extra warmth up here, then he’d be ready.” Lucky explained. Spitfire glanced up at the vents near the ceiling as she clutched the blanket to her body. The open windows would suck the hot air right out, but it would provide some balance at least.

“I guess that will help some,” Spitfire shrugged. She glanced around at several broken panels and stations around them. “These won’t be a problem?” she asked. Lucky shook his head.

“The basic driving controls are all still intact. Rivet checked everything out when he was up here and admitted that most of the panels still had no function, he hasn’t had time to get a full readout or blueprint of the systems. He said we wouldn’t need them and the main flight controls would be enough as long as we don’t get attacked again.”

“Let’s hope we don’t then,” Spitfire nodded, confident in their path being clear. “As soon as we hear from Rivet, we’re leaving.”

Lucky sniffled again and nodded before diving back into his blankets.

Spitfire turned her focus to the P.A. system nearby. She looked it over and quickly saw that the lights were still on around the control panel. With time to spare, she decided to address the force, approaching the panel and leaning towards the microphone. She pressed the button, a loud chime sounding from speakers around the Nimbus as she cleared her throat.

“Attention everypony,” she began as she heard her voice echoing throughout. “We’re just about ready to take off…” she trailed off momentarily as she looked directly out the broken windows in front of her, taking note of how dark it had gotten outside. It was not pitch black, there was a little bit of twilight, but it would be hard for Lucky to navigate without assistance. “Any Wonderbolts who are able to fly without difficulty, grab a headlamp and get out in front of the Nimbus, it’s getting dark and we’ll need forward navigators. The bridge windows are broken, so just fly on up here from outside once you’re ready.”

She released her hoof from the button and leaned back from the microphone. There was not much else to say at this point, she wanted to keep it simple and get everypony focused. While headlamps probably weren’t as ideal as the night vision function on Rivet’s experimental tactical goggles that also had the x-ray, they only had so many of those and she wasn’t going to bother Rivet right now while he was priming the Nimbus for takeoff. Every Wonderbolt had at least one or two headlamps that they kept in their quarters to take on night missions, so it would have to do.

Spitfire’s ears twitched as she heard a new set of hooves clip clop into the room, steps that were much further apart. She glanced over her shoulder to see Luna enter the bridge with P.L. following dutifully behind her. P.L. was not wearing his armor, all pieces that were left intact had been discarded, revealing his very muscular, but incredibly scarred body that was riddled with nasty bruises from his encounter with Sombra. Spitfire wondered why he left himself unprotected for a moment, but then remembered it was nighttime and he wouldn’t have to worry about the sun harming him.

Luna visibly shivered the moment she stepped in, but didn’t have to wait long before several staff members handed her a few blankets to drape over her larger body. A few of the unicorns also offered blankets to P.L., but he refused them, hissing loudly at any of the unicorns that came near him. It was hard to tell where his mind was. His mannerisms fluctuated, suggesting both shame and anger that still hovered over him despite nopony believing ANY of them would have had a chance against Sombra. His pride was shattered and it was causing him to refuse even the simplest comforts. It likely seemed silly to most, but to him it was everything. Luna looked like she wanted to console him, but aside from a few glances she left him be as if knowing exactly what was going through his mind.

Spitfire’s eyes subtly shifted about towards the Wonderbolts and Renegades present. A few of them were glancing between one another and some of them looked a little uneasy, but none of it was obvious and they were holding character. Spitfire quickly took action to distract Luna and allow the rest to completely compose themselves.

“Princess,” Spitfire spoke up, drawing all of Luna’s attention to her as she turned and made her way over. “Ready to go?” she asked simply, keeping her eyes locked and not making a single glance to the left or right at the others. Luna sighed and nodded.

“A much as we can be,” she replied in a very subdued voice, lacking enthusiasm. Spitfire briefly lifted an eyebrow, glad that their resident divine alicorn goddess was not in charge of rallying the troops, because she couldn’t have made her tone any more depressing.

“Good,” Spitfire didn’t falter, blinking and looking up as she heard a faint hum suddenly come from the vents above her. It looked like Rivet did, in fact, get the heat operating. It wouldn’t be much with the windows blown out and the air rushing in once they moved, but it would keep the immediate area warm, especially in the back. Several of the ponies present were already flocking towards the back of the bridge. “Then as soon as we get the word we’ll…” she paused and glanced around again. “Wait, we’re still missing—”

She cut herself off as she looked past Luna just in time to see Squad Foxtrot making their way through the door and into the bridge. Storm Front was walking up front, leading them in with the others following close behind. To Spitfire’s surprise, Rainbow Dash was actually walking on her own power. She was a little wobbly, but she took it slowly, one step at a time with Matteo hovering close behind her in case she stumbled.

Spitfire made her way around Luna and towards Storm Front, lifting her brow and quietly demanding why it had taken them so long after everypony else got there so quickly. Storm didn’t hesitate, answering before Spitfire’s stern eyes stabbed too hard.

“We decided to stop at the infirmary before coming up,” he explained while giving a salute. “Figured we’d get her checked out… we didn’t want her suffering from any injuries she can’t feel at the moment.”

Spitfire listened to Storm, but didn’t answer. She hummed as she turned her eyes to Dash, a gesture that Storm assumed meant she was okay with it. Instead, Spitfire moved beside Storm, passing by him and stopping in front of Dash as she sat down right beneath one of the heat vents. Spitfire looked her up and down carefully. Dash looked just as weak as her movements, her eyes were half open, her posture was poor, and she couldn’t quite hold still… but the look on her face regardless still screamed of stubborn determination that they all knew her for. It was like she was half there, but still fully focused on moving forward.

“Are you with us, Dash?” Spitfire asked, gently placing a hoof on her shoulder. It took Dash a moment to react, much less look up at Spitfire. She exhaled loudly and nodded weakly.

“I… yeah…” Dash forced out, her voice showing improvement from before. She was getting actual words out. They were still raspy and showed signs of struggle, but it was a start. “I’m okay… I think…” she added.

Spitfire kept her eyes on her. She heard Dash loud and clear, or at least as loud and clear as she could manage, but she found her mind shifting. She wanted to remain focused on moving forward, but right now, she was looking at the only thing, the only confirmation that her lost best friend was still alive out there.

“Dash…” Spitfire continued, keeping her hoof on her shoulder and gripping it lightly. “Can you… feel Soarin? He’s still there, right?” she asked, drawing attention from everypony around. Spitfire knew Soarin was ‘alive’. Dash would be dead if he wasn’t. But she wanted to ask anyway. Dash only stared into Spitfire’s eyes for several moments before she swallowed and nodded again.

“He’s… there,” she managed to say as she began to wobble. “Ugh…” she groaned as she reached a hoof over and braced herself against Matteo, sweat dripping down her brow as she took a few deep breaths. “But… it hurts… he’s hurt…” she added as she tipped her head down, shut her eyes, and reached her free hoof up to her chest, pressing it lightly over her heart.

Spitfire’s ears dropped for a moment as she wished she could know more about Soarin, but her ears shot right back up as she heard what sounded like wing flaps behind her. She quickly looked over her shoulder to see several Wonderbolts hovering right outside the broken bridge windows with headlamps strapped to their foreheads. They waved and saluted as Spitfire refocused, turning and facing them. Not one of them belonged to the same squad. Six, Eight, Thirteen, Seventeen, Twenty… Spitfire couldn’t see the few others who were out further and waiting, but regardless it showed how fragmented their ranks were right now. One of them landed in the bridge as Spitfire glanced about.

“Where’s the map I asked for earlier?” Spitfire asked as she saw Fire Streak drop a small folded piece of paper out of his wing and flipped it towards her. “Thanks.” She caught the map in her mouth and walked it over to the window, giving it to one of the Wonderbolts. “Once we’re up in the air, lead the way,” she ordered. The Wonderbolts saluted again, silently acknowledging their orders before turning and flying out of the way to get ready. Spitfire watched them leave, standing right in the face of the cold air blasting into the bridge for a moment before turning back to the rest.

Everypony had their eyes on her as she showcased solid, renewed focus, setting aside her emotions so she could lead them the way she had to.

“Alright everypony,” she said with a stern tone. “Let’s get to the damn Crystal Empire already.”

Spitfire had been hoping for a smooth ride, and for most within the Nimbus it was. Too bad the lack of windows ended up being much more annoying than any of them on the bridge had anticipated.

The takeoff was smooth, the Nimbus operating as efficiently as it had before they were forced to land despite the interior damage. All propellers were functional and Lucky had no barriers to full control… except for the fact that snow was constantly pelting him in the face and the constant whipping of the propeller blades outside wasn’t the most pleasant sound to the ears.

Spitfire took quick action when she realized how annoying the flight was going to be. There wasn’t much of anything she could do about the somewhat loud whipping of the propellers. It wasn’t too loud so long as one stood at least halfway into the bridge, Lucky would just have to deal with it. The real issue was the snow blowing in through the window frames. It wasn’t coming down any harder than a light flurry, but their forward movement and propeller gusts were enough to cause a good amount to fly in. It was already hard enough to see with how dark it was getting outside. Spitfire didn’t want Lucky to have to deal with snow in his face on top of it. She quickly called up a few of the staff members and some free Wonderbolts to push out the snow with a mixture of wing gusts and magic.

With Spitfire up front trying to keep everything in order, the rest of the top tier elites, Renegades, Luna, and Foxtrot remained huddled near the back, wrapped in blankets. The heat coming from the vents above was helping a little, but barely offset the cold air blasting through the front windshield, sneaking by the Wonderbolts and unicorns working on the snow.

“Ugh…” Dash groaned as she sat on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket all the way to her chin. She reached an arm out from the blanket and touched it to her forehead, rubbing it back and forth. She had slowly improving over the course of the past hour… everything was far from better, but she certainly didn’t feel worse. Her headache was gone, but she still felt weak, most of the pain replaced by fatigue. She couldn’t quite tell what was going on. Her heart had calmed down, her brain no longer felt scrambled, she felt more in control of herself and was able to piece together clearer thoughts, but everything was still a bit off and she could still feel what could only be described as ‘external pain’ that wasn’t hers.

“How are you faring?” Matteo suddenly asked from beside her for what was easily the tenth or eleventh time. She wasn’t sure if her answer was any different, but she appreciated his concern, all of their concern.

Dash removed her hoof from her forehead and slowly turned to look up at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped, blinking. If she wasn’t currently occupied by her bizarre internal struggle, she probably would have burst out laughing.

Matteo had refused blankets when they arrived, pointing out that he had more fur than all of them and the blankets would be better used on others instead of his large body. Dash didn’t know that meant he was going to go full bird-mode. He was sitting beside her with all of his fur and feathers puffed out to the point where he almost looked like a large ball of fluff. It was easily one of the goofiest things Dash had ever seen, and it didn’t help that his eyes and face remained the usual serious and stoic that they always were… or that Dash could see Little Star nestled deep into his fluff, only her head and tail visible near the surface.

“I still feel like crap…” Dash said as she sighed, looking away from the collaboration of humor sitting next to her. “I don’t feel better, but the worst has passed.”

“You’re talking normally too,” Matteo pointed out, his fluff shifting as he repositioned himself, Little Star squeaking from within and nestling further.

“Yeah, there’s that…” Dash nodded. “And I can walk now too, but that’s about it. I still feel very weak all over,” Dash finished as she looked away from Matteo and to her other side. Both Squall and Storm were looking right at her, listening to her explanation. Squall, again, looked away the moment she glanced to feign lack of interest, but she noticed regardless.

She looked between Storm and Squall, and looked back at Matteo and Star. They had all been fretting over her non-stop, even Squall despite his efforts to hide it. She felt a little bad that they were worrying so much about her without her expressing similar concern for them yet. Obviously, her situation was quite drastic, but they were out there with her, they had gotten beaten up a little too. It was her job to be concerned for them… well, all of them except for Storm, but he was a good friend regardless of rank. She was feeling kind of better now, so it was her turn.

“What about YOU guys?” Dash asked as she tucked her arm back into her blanket. The question clearly caught them all by surprise, or at least Squall, Storm, and Star as she poked her head out of Matteo’s fluff. Matteo just remained poofed. “I’m a mess right now, but that doesn’t mean you guys don’t matter,” she explained herself as Storm smiled, the first to react.

“Heh, that’s nice of you to still be concerned,” he complimented with a nod. “I’m—”

“I’mfine.” Squall cut him off, speaking so fast they almost couldn’t understand him. His odd, quick speech immediately caught all of their attention and invited further examination. Squall wasn’t looking at any of them and was sitting stiffly while staring straight forward. He looked very uncomfortable… and his mannerisms only added fuel to the fire.

“Squall?” Star was the first to speak, Squall acting weird unironically being what finally got her to finally remove herself from Matteo’s fluff slightly. “What’s wro—”

“Nothing,” Squall cut her off too, causing her to flatten her brow and pout. Dash looked him over carefully, she couldn’t tell if he was acting tough and hiding an injury, or if he was trying to avoid a particular topic. Either way he was hiding something and as usual, was being brutally obvious about it. Dash decided to take the safe route first.

“Are you hurt or something?” Dash asked him as she turned her body to face him. “We were just with Bliss, you should have—”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” he interrupted. “I’m perfectly fine,” he added quickly.

“Alright buster…” Star fully removed herself from Matteo’s fluff, a few stray strands of black fur and a white feather sticking to her blanket as she got free and shimmied her way over to Squall without losing any of her blanket. “Why are you being so weird? Spill it!” she demanded.

“No,” Squall answered quickly and simply. Star narrowed her eyes, but Dash reached out and placed a hoof on her head.

“Leave him be, Star. If he’s being stubborn, then he is just fine. It’s not like he’ll ever tell us anything,” she put bluntly and honestly, earning a glare from Squall. “What, am I wrong, tough guy?” she asked while tipping her head and lifting her brow.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted, turning away from all of them and scrunching his mouth. Dash quickly diverted attention away from him by patting Star on the head.

“Star? What about you?” she asked, moving on to keep checking on them. Star sunk into her blanket and mumbled to herself in a somber tone.

“I barely have a bruise on me… don’t worry about me,” she explained with a disappointed tone.

“And that’s a bad thing?” Dash asked.

“It isn’t,” Star shook her head as she flipped her head, causing the blanket to flop over her ears and rest over her mane. “I just don’t want you guys to think I’m not trying…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Storm suddenly chimed in as he approached the two of them and sat beside Star. “You were with us the whole time, luck was just on your side here. I wish I could have gotten out of that without any pain,” he chuckled. “If being as small as you means it’s easier to not take a beating, I think I’d prefer it!” he added in a very lighthearted tone, but Star suddenly shook the blanket off her head and glared harshly at him.

“No, you WOULDN’T,” she snapped at him in a very sharp tone, causing Storm to flinch and recline slightly. “NOTHING is good about being this small,” she added, her tone growing harsher by the word.

“Wh…whoa, Star, I didn’t mean to…” Storm fumbled to respond, but Star huffed, stood up with her blanket and stomped back over to Matteo before stuffing herself back into his puffed up feathers so far that she almost vanished within them. “Uh…” Storm winced as he slowly looked over to Dash, but she looked just as surprised. She knew Star was sensitive about her size, but that seemed like a little much. She knew Storm meant well, but perhaps it wasn’t the right time and place. She decided to quickly change the subject.

“You doing alright, Storm?” she asked. “You got a little beat up.”

“Er…” Storm blinked and refocused away from Star. “Yeah, but I’ll be fine. I didn’t get beat up too badly in all honestly. I think the worst hit I took was when Twister crashed right into my face.”

Dash perked up when he mentioned Twister. Normally, she would have acknowledged what Storm had just said, but she found herself thinking back to the exact moment he mentioned instead. Squall threw Twister… Twister got walloped right in the face… And rubber-banded right back towards them, smashing right into Storm’s face and taking him out in the process. Just thinking about it made Dash roll her eyes, but then she also realized that that was the last time she saw Twister to this very moment.

“Speaking of Twister…” Dash diverted as she looked back and forth around the lobby.

“DON’T!” Squall suddenly piped up very loudly, drawing a few glances from around the room.

“Come off of it Squall,” said Dash as she kept looking around. “He’s still my responsibility.”

“If he shows up and annoys the hell out of you, don’t blame me,” Squall snorted as he turned back around and continued to avoid all interaction.

“Has anypony seen him?” Dash asked as she grunted in frustration. “I know he’s probably just fine, but he usually shows up by now.”

“I haven’t seen a trace of him,” Storm shrugged.

“He’s not in here,” Star’s muffled voice came from within Matteo’s fluff.

“How unfortunate,” Matteo added less than a second after Star spoke up. Dash scrunched her mouth and glared up at Matteo.

“That’s enough from you too,” she pointed at him before looking between him and Squall. “He’s a member of our squad whether you two like it or not.”

“Haven’t seen him,” Matteo quickly went back to the question.

“Where is he?” Dash huffed. “I don’t care if he’s goofing off, but I’d like to at least know where he is… he better not be bothering anypony, I don’t want to hear it from Spitfire later…” she spoke her thoughts for a moment before looking back up at Matteo. “So what about you, big guy?” she asked him. Matteo glanced at her briefly before looking forward again.

“What about me?”

“Hurt at all?” Dash pressed.

“I’m well enough to serve,” Matteo answered quickly with a typical dodge. Dash wasn’t satisfied.

“Okay, on a scale of one to ten.”

“Less than o—”

“On the normal scale, not the Matteo scale,” Dash clarified while cutting him off. Matter flattened his brow, his fur and feathers puffing out slightly more and he exhaled and whistled breath through his beak nostrils.

“I’m not hurt,” he insisted.

“I’ll take that as a six or seven,” Dash nodded. Matteo snorted and narrowed his eyes without looking at her.

“I find that insulting.”

“Too bad,” Dash shrugged and turned to face forward with him, smirking a little as she heard Matteo grumble to himself.

“Well, then what about you?” Matteo suddenly asked her. Dash blinked and tipped her head slightly before looking up at him.

“Matty, you literally just asked me that,” she reminded him, but he subtly shook his head.

“Not how are you feeling, I’m more curious what you are feeling,” he clarified.

Dash wasn’t expecting that. At first she missed the difference in his question, but realization hit and she wasn’t ready. She glanced at Squall and Storm, seeing both of them looking towards her with interest. After some quiet shuffling, she looked back and saw Star had popped out of Matteo’s fur as well.

“You are in a state we cannot comprehend,” Matteo continued. “We have reason to fear for your survival within bounds we cannot control. What are you feeling? Can you actually feel Soarin?” He asked.

They were all there when Spitfire posed the same question, but this was different. She wasn’t speaking to her captain, she was speaking to her friends, it was more on a personal level. With all of them looking at her and listening, she slowly slipped a hoof over her heart, feeling it beat with the strength of two hearts as it had been since the tragedy.

“It’s… very weird,” she began. “I’m not really sure how to explain it. It feels like I have two hearts beating in my chest at once. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels twice as strong as my normal heartbeat, like it’s filling my chest with every thump,” she shook her head lightly. “I think… I can actually hear Soarin too. It’s so strange, it sounds like he’s muffled right beside me, but when I look around he’s not actually there. It’s as if I can feel his presence without him actually being present…” she looked up at all of them, soaking in their reactions. Star was listening with ears forward and wide eyes. Storm had his head tipped, clearly trying to process it. Matteo looked the same as always. Squall though… just had an eyebrow raised.

“That’s fucked up,” Squall put bluntly, immediately earning a look of surprise from Storm and a glare from Star.

“Squall, really?” Star huffed, but Dash shook her head.

“Honestly, I completely agree with him,” she said with a weak shrug. “I’ve never felt anything like this before. I don’t know what’s happening to my body. But… while it’s a bit unnerving, it’s also reassuring at the same time. I can feel Soarin struggling, I can feel him fighting back. He’s alive and he’s not giving up,” she looked between them all, flashing as much of a smile as she could muster. “I feel very weak… it’s hard to just move my body. But if he’s not giving up, I’m sure as hell not. I don’t know what’s going on inside me, or what’s happening to him… but it feels like Soarin is right here with me and that’s all the motivation I need.”

As Dash finished, the rest said nothing. They had sought to understand what was happening, but not even Dash knew for sure. If anything, the fact that Dash managed to find some comfort among the danger gave them pause. It wasn’t like they knew much anyway, and that went for everypony, not just them. In the end it was nothing new, at this point little surprised them anymore. The situation had become one giant knot with no loose string to tug on and they had accepted that that’s how it was going to stay until they learned more. And hopefully they would learn more once they made it to…

“Is that what I think it is?” Blaze’s voice suddenly came from nearby.

Dash and her friends all perked up, glancing towards Blaze first. She was staring straight forward, her eyes widening and her mouth slowly opening. She wasn’t the only one. Nearly all of the top elites had similar growing expressions.

Curiosity immediately took over, Dash looking towards the front of the bridge and the others doing the same right behind her.

Out on the horizon… in the middle of the night…

Lights.

Something very bright was shining in the distance as they passed around a mountain at the edge of the range and flew out over an open snowy field.

The entire bridge went silent, the lights growing brighter as they flew towards them. Ponies began standing up, a few dropping their blankets as they moved up to get a better look. Despite her weakened state, Dash forced herself up and hobbled forward, her friends following right behind.

Eventually… the glare of the bright lights cleared… and an actual shape became visible among them. They were still several miles away, but small details became visible quickly.

Streets… Architecture… and a large palace.

There was no mistaking it.

Fan Art by: Dusk Writer

It was the Crystal Empire.

Based on the collective reaction around the room, one would think that they had discovered some mystical, unknown land. Nearly all of them had already seen or been to the Crystal Empire, it wasn’t a new sight by any stretch of the imagination. But regardless of who had been to the city and who hadn’t, they all reacted the exact same way.

It was a destination they had all struggled so hard to reach. They had been dragged through hell and back to make it this far. To finally see the finish line just ahead… was almost overwhelming.

It was the Crystal Empire alright, there was no doubt about it, none of them were dreaming.

As they grew closer they could see what looked like an enormous magical shield surrounding the whole city, and as they grew closer still they could see no sign of battle, wear or tear, not even in the surrounding area. There had been some fear in the back of their minds that the Crystal Empire would be a prime target, but the Shadowbolts really were only going after them it seemed.

It really, truly began to sink in.

Since they were first attacked by the Shadowbolts it had been one hardship after the other. They discovered their home could fly and escape, but were plunged into hiding, they survived for weeks without most necessities and pushed through endless brutal battles…

And they had finally made it.

The silence was finally broken as Spitfire took a long, deep breath and exhaled. Relief and excitement filled her as she was sure it was filling everypony else. They still had work to do, but a much needed victory had been achieved.

“Well what do you know…” Spitfire said out loud as she smiled weakly. “We actually made it…”

A large, collective sigh passed around everypony as the feeling of relief swelled and filled the room in an instant. A few of the ponies slumped down, their bodies giving way and relaxing upon seeing their salvation ahead. Several hugs were exchanged, all very tired and lazy hugs leaning into one another. Brief, quiet comments of relief sounded forth in exhausted tones.

They made it, they really made it.

“Look alive everypony,” Spitfire spoke up while glancing over her shoulder and twirling a hoof in the air. “I’m relieved too, but we still have some work to do before we can relax.”

“Captain,” Fire suddenly waved at her, drawing her attention. “Crystal Airborne Guard approaching,” he said while pointing. Spitfire perked up and quickly turned back. She peered out into the night sky all lit up by the Crystal Empire in the distance. She quickly spotted a large squadron of pegasi approaching, all wearing the signature armor of the Crystal Guard.

“Ah…” Spitfire smiled, happy to see friendly forces. She had gotten too used to a flock of pegasi approaching being an enemy force. It was a VERY welcome change. She reluctantly shed her blanket for a more professional look as she stepped forward into the blasting cold air. She shook her mane out and held herself firm, gazing out toward the approaching force. Several shouts and calls came from outside, the Wonderbolts leading the Nimbus signaling the Crystal Guard and the guard responding in turn.

A few of the leading Wonderbolts flew out to meet them, leading the guards towards the Nimbus. As they closed in, a small detachment of three Crystal Guardsmen kept on course towards the bridge with two Wonderbolts as the rest of the Guard did a wide U-turn and joined the Wonderbolts leading the flight.

Spitfire waited patiently, stepping out beside Lucky and watched the three pegasi approached, them along with the rest of the force appearing as normal ponies this far out from the Empire’s magical field. She quickly recognized the orange stallion in the lead, an old friend of Prince Shining Armor and the captain of the Crystal Airborne Guard.

The two Wonderbolts landed first, quickly standing aside as the three guards landed. They looked around before saying anything, taking in the interior and the machinery of the Nimbus with awe. Spitfire was confused at first, but they had been stuck in this clunky old machine for so long that she forgot how impressive it was as a whole. Once the pegasi got their fill, the orange stallion stepped forward and removed his helmet, revealing a dark blue, swept back mane. He smiled and nodded towards Spitfire. Spitfire nodded back.

“Captain Flash Sentry,” she said as she stepped towards him. “Long time no see.”

“Captain Spitfire,” he greeted as he reached a hoof out, the two sharing a firm shake. “Glad to see you guys finally arrive. The Prince and Princess have been worried,” he said as he looked around the bridge, giving a quick wave to Luna and P.L., neither of whom returned the acknowledgement in any way. Flash didn’t seem to notice as Spitfire nodded to him.

“It’s… been a very rough trip,” Spitfire explained hesitantly as she glanced behind her at all of those present. Flash Sentry peered behind her, examining everypony as well. He cocked his head to the side and blinked.

“Where is Commander Soarin?” he asked.

The question sent jolts through everypony. Spitfire winced as the name passed through her ears. She quickly looked back at him, failing to stop her ears from drooping down.

“Is… he hurt?” Flash asked as he quickly noticed the reaction. “Or…?

“NO!” Spitfire shouted before he could say it, Flash and the other two guards flinching in surprise. “No… sorry…” Spitfire sighed and shook her head. “It’s… way too complicated to explain in brief. There are more pressing matters at hoof.” She quickly recomposed herself. “We have several wounded and injured, a few very severe. We need to get them help before we do anything else.”

Flash quickly cleared his throat, refocusing as well as he nodded.

“Understood. We got your letter about your unique form of transportation,” he began as he looked about the bridge. “We have prepared a large landing area in Crystalline Park just north of the palace. It should be large enough for you to land, we weren’t quite sure of the dimensions, but…we think it will fit. It’s the largest open area in the city by far.”

“You got that, Lucky?” Spitfire asked, glancing towards their heavily blanketed pilot. Lucky swallowed as he glanced at them both briefly. “Think you can handle that?”

“As long as I’m not blamed for any accidents…” he said as she shivered.

Spitfire gritted her teeth before looking back at Flash and giving him a nervous grin.

“Er… normally I’d look for a safe way, but…” she made a head motion towards the back. “We’re at the end of our rope here. You don’t mind?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Flash shook his head and smiled. “We’ll have several pegasi out there to help direct you to the cleanest landing we can manage. If anything gets damaged, we’ll fix it later. The situation is more important than a little collateral damage.”

“I appreciate it,” Spitfire nodded with a sigh of relief. She looked over Flash’s shoulder and at the shield surrounding the Empire as they slowly approached. “So… what’s the deal with the shield?” she asked with slight concern. “It looks very… solid.”

“Fly right through it,” Flash nodded with a light swipe of his arm.

“Pardon?” Spitfire blinked and tipped her head.

“We’ve come a long way with our shield magic thanks to our scholars and wizards constantly poking into the secrets of the Crystal Heart and its endless magic reserves. Our most recent shield spell is cast directly onto the Crystal Heart by Princess Cadence herself and emits an impenetrable shield that lasts as long as she wishes up to seventy-two hours. It only requires roughly a third of the magic required to power compared to our original spell, giving the princess well more than enough time to fully recover before having to reset it. You’ll have to ask our scholars about the specifics, but I’m told it only repels negative energy and forbidden magic. So anything good is let in and anything evil is kept out.”

Spitfire opened her mouth to reply, but said nothing for a moment as she absorbed all of it and closed her mouth again. She stared blankly at Flash for a few more seconds before she bounced her brow once.

“Neat,” she finally said, not quite sure how else to describe it. Granted, after all they’d been through she wasn’t sure if she’d ever question anything again.

“Pretty nifty, huh? Sure has made our job stress free recently,” Flash added with a chuckle.

“Okay then,” Spitfire nodded. “Just lead the way and we’ll follow.”

“Got it,” Flash gave a quick nod before turning and twirling a hoof in the air, the two guards at his sides moving with him as they made their way back over to the window. The two Wonderbolts that led them in waited for Flash to give them a signal as well. Flash stopped and glanced back and forth between the two Wonderbolts, looking directly at their headlamps. “Cool flashlights guys!” he randomly commented before spreading his wings and taking off, his two fellow guards sighing, shaking their heads, and following after him. The two Wonderbolts glanced at one another, shrugged, and took off as well to rejoin the rest outside.

Spitfire watched as they left, she held her body still, but was shaking very subtly. Lucky glanced towards her from the controls.

“Captain, aren’t you co—”

“Yes,” Spitfire cut him off as she snatched her blanket off the floor and quickly wrapped herself tight in it. “Jeez it’s cold!” she said while shuddering and clutching the blanket. But she only remained still until she had found a little bit of warmth. She still had to update the rest of the Nimbus. Without shedding an inch of her blanket, she shuffled towards Lucky, reaching for the P.A. controls again as she tipped towards the microphone.

“Listen up everypony,” she began, trying to hide the subtle shaking of her voice as she shivered. “Prepare for landing. I want all medical personnel on standby for immediate transfer of our injured to the Diamond Point Hospital. We’re landing in Crystalline Park, so if you don’t know where the Hospital is from there, ask somepony that knows NOW. Top priority is Silver Lining.” She paused, looked down, and thought further. “Bliss, if you’re listening, please select a group among your staff to handle the afflicted Shadowbolts and Commander Wave Chill. I want them taken to the Crystal Palace, not the hospital. That’s all for now, be ready. I’ll be out on the platform to give further instructions if needed once we land.”

Spitfire slowly released her hoof from the button and jammed her arm back into the blanket, releasing a shaky sigh as she slumped down and hugged the blanket to herself for a moment.

“Please, for the love of Celestia…” she said quietly to herself. “Let this all go smoothly. I need a damn break…”

Rainbow Dash sighed in relief along with everypony else or at least in relief toward what she just overheard from the conversation up front. It was already a rush of euphoria to see them so close to safety, and it doubled upon seeing members of the crystal guard.

Despite most of her mind and body being locked on Soarin, there was still a large part of her that was focused on her OWN situation with the Wonderbolts. She had to give both time in her thoughts, focusing entirely on Soarin would be pointless if she didn’t survive long enough to find him.

Their destination was straight ahead, the Crystal Guard was guiding them, and soon they’d be within the boundaries of one of the strongest, most well defended kingdoms in Equestria. A victory was a victory, even with the task of finding and saving Soarin still weighing heavy on them all.

“Hmmmmnghhhh…”

Dash blinked and glanced to her left, Star, Storm, and Matteo all looking in the same direction at Squall as he grumbled loudly. He was hunched over, his ears were pressed back to his head, his mouth was scrunched, and his eyes were squinting.

Dash flattened her brow.

“Squall… what is it?” Dash asked, wondering if she’d actually get an answer this time.

“Ngh,” Squall released a quick grunt and didn’t look at any of them. Dash’s brow went from flat to furrowed as she snorted.

“Squall, seriously?” she prodded as the others remained curious, Star doing her best to hold back and let Dash pry it out of him.

“Nnnnnngggghhhh…” Squall repeated the grunt, holding it out longer as he somehow managed to contort his face further.

“Do you have to take a dump or something?” Dash asked sarcastically, not really in the mood for his secretive behavior.

“NRRRRRYYAAAAAAAH!” Squall groaned loudly while tipping away from her, nearly falling over as he tried to shift away from them and stopped just short of slamming into Storm.

“Is that a yes or no?” Storm asked, smirking a little as Squall turned his head and shot him a very brief glare before refocusing his eyes forward.

Dash noticed the motion immediately. Squall had already been looking straight ahead towards the front. And that was an awfully quick glare he gave Storm before turning back. Squall always held his glares for more than a few seconds, even longer towards Storm whenever the two of them got into one of their little spats.

What had him all flustered and so distracted that not even getting the best of Storm held his focus for very long?

Curiosity guided Dash’s eyes as she looked towards the front, staring out towards the Crystal Empire as it grew closer and closer. They were getting particularly close to the enormous shield surrounding it and were seconds from passing through it.

Then realization hit. Dash blinked and quickly looked back at Squall, his eyes grew wider and wider as they closed in on the shield.

“Oh, wait…” Dash tipped her neck forward, staring directly at Squall. “Didn’t you say your family are descendants of—”

Before she could finish, an odd noise likened to the hum of a unicorn’s horn only much, much deeper came from outside. They all looked out the window to see that the front of the Nimbus had touched the shield and was smoothly moving right through it like Flash Sentry had said it would. The hum was being emitted from the shield itself, the shield’s surface remaining still and passing over the platform as it moved towards the bridge. Bright flashes erupted outside, all of the Empire guards crystallizing the moment they touched the shield. A few of the Wonderbolts out front with them crystallized as well, confirming some crystal pony blood in their heritage.

The shield eventually reached the bridge window, everypony keeping their eyes on it as it moved in and passed right over Spitfire and Lucky as if they weren’t even there. It moved towards the back touching the unicorn staff and transforming a few of them… but then headed for the rest sitting in the back.

Dash and several others squinted and covered their eyes as the shield moved past, bright flashes erupted among them. Dash shook her head and blinked several times, looking towards the top tiers and Renegades.

High Winds, the Streak twins, and Shine Struck had all crystallized…

And so had Starry Skies.

Before she could show surprise like several others, Dash quickly looked back towards Squall, but he wasn’t there, only his blanket was on the floor.

“No!” Squall’s voice came from further back. Dash and her friends all looked behind them to see him desperately scooting backwards on his plot along the floor. His eyes were wide, his pupils shaking as they remained locked on the shield edging towards him. His hooves skidded and slipped, pushing him all the way back until he was pressed against the back wall of the bridge. “Nononononononononononono!” he shut his eyes as he hit a dead end, turning his head away as the shield finally touched him.

He remained completely still, his eyes remaining shut for several seconds. He could hear the commotion and conversations starting among the others nearby, but he didn’t hear a single voice from his own squad.

He slowly opened his eyes… and saw Dash, Star, Storm, and even Matteo looking at him in surprise. He looked down at his body and saw the surface of his body was glistening and shimmering.

He had crystallized.

But what had Dash and the others so mystified? They already knew he was a crystal pony, or at least Dash, Matteo, and Star did. And if they had forgotten this was just a reminder.

“Whoa…” Dash blinked as her eyes moved up and down. Star was still nestled against Matteo, but her head and neck were sticking all the way out of her blanket and out of his fur, her eyes were incredibly wide and her jaw was almost unhinged.

Squall immediately scowled and groaned quietly to himself as he watched the two mares stare at him in awe. Storm and Matteo were looking too, but they were just observing with interest.

“Holy hell Squall…” Dash chuckled. “You look amazing!” she said with clear awe in her voice. “Why do you keep acting like such a grouch?” she added as she glanced at Star and snickered at Star’s face. “You keep finding different ways to look hot!”

“Sh…Shut up…” Squall grumbled, his face starting to turn a little read as he quietly fumed. But he soon turned back and his eyes grew wider as Star suddenly shed her blanket and walk towards him, her head tilting up to keep her eyes on his face as she moved in. Squall went completely silent as Star started moving her eyes up and down him, taking in all the effects and changes in his appearance due to coming within range of the Crystal Heart’s magic.

Squall’s body had retained its grey color, but the crystallized effect brought spots of different shimmering hues. Some were lighter, some were darker, but they all reacted to light, twinkling like actual crystals. His mane had shortened and changed into a razor sharp looking mohawk style with jagged splits. The most notable and most interesting change however, was his scar. It still rested down his face, but it’s shape had changed slightly to resemble a deep cut into a gemstone or a fissure within a rock, the pink, fleshy color of the scar had turned bright red and shimmered brightly like a polished ruby. He was a sight to behold for sure.

“Squall’s a crystal pony?” Storm asked out loud, but didn’t get an immediate answer as Dash and Star kept staring. He looked over to see the others that had changed too. “And some of them are too?” He added while blinking. “Is that possible?” he kept asking questions, but wasn’t getting answers, so he eventually just looked up at Matteo. “I knew Squall was from there but…” he tipped his head slightly trying to get his facts straight. “Didn’t the Empire only re-emerge a few years ago or something? Was Squall asleep with the rest of them? Anypony?” he looked around again as Matteo finally glanced down at him.

“Descendant,” Matteo answered simply to get Storm’s attention back. “Those who have crystal pony blood in their family experience the same effect.” He explained, earning a curious look from Storm.

“Uh… okay, but how do you know that?” he asked, feeling it odd that a Griffon would be aware of such a thing.

“Squall told us about it some time ago,” Matteo confirmed. “I was just as skeptical as you until seeing it here and now. So I’m assuming what we were told is accurate.” Matteo over explained as Storm slowly looked back to Squall, only to have his attention drawn to Dash by the sound of her snickering. He lifted an eyebrow and smirked.

“What?” he asked while leaning towards Dash. Dash shook her head lightly and motioned a hoof towards Star and Squall.

“Look at them,” she said quietly as Storm followed her eyes.

Squall was slowly turning redder and scowling harder as Star kept invading his personal space, getting way too close for comfort as she walked and hovered circles around him with her eyes wide and her jaw nearly unhinged. Squall looked ready to yell at her or demand she stop, but as usual, Star seemed to get a pass. But he was nearly pushed to the edge, barely holding in a growl as she began curiously touching his body.

“I’ve never actually seen a crystal pony before…” said Star, she seemed completely oblivious to his discontent as she touched his body again, poking him in the shoulder. “You look hard as a rock, but it still feels like you have fur, how does that even work?”

“Stop touching me,” Squall grumbled quietly, but loud enough for her to hear.

“Do you feel different?” Star asked, the demand going in one ear and out the other as she hovered in front and touched his chest. Squall’s face scrunched up further, but it twitched, hardly holding as he watched Star so close to him.

“I said stop it…” he repeated, but in a slightly more defeated tone. He flinched and his eyes widened as Star suddenly floated right up to his face, reaching her hooves up to his mane and tapping it with her hooves.

“Even the mane…” she said to herself, completely distracted by Squall’s crystallization.

“Are you even listening to me?!” Squall suddenly blurted out.

“Yes, now stop yelling while I’m looking,” Star suddenly glanced into his eyes and flattened her brow. Squall’s face went completely blank, his mouth flat and his eyes stuck open at Star’s simple, yet solid retort. “You look…” Star inched back a little, reaching up and touching a hoof to her mouth gently as her eyes scanned over his face, over the scar shimmering in the center of his visage, and over the rest of him as his body shined and glistened. “You… look…” Star looked away, her hoof covering a little more of her face as a slight hint of pink filled her cheeks. She turned briefly, glancing at Dash. Dash tipped her head and lifted her brow, holding a slightly devilish smile on her face as she saw the look in Star’s eyes. Star quickly turned back around, her cheeks flushed as she tipped her head down slightly, but kept staring at Squall. “Yowza, Squall… Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more attractive…”

Squall flinched, glaring at her as he gritted his teeth and looked like his head was about to blast right off his neck.

“What…What’s that supposed to mean?!” he asked angrily, his voice nearly cracking as he felt more and more embarrassed.

“Squall,” Dash caught his attention as she held a hoof out and turned it over a few times. “You’re a hot stallion. Deal with it,” she said while chuckling. Squall’s eyes widened as he looked back at Star, she was hovering closer to him again, and inching her neck forward, looking directly at the glistening scar in the middle of his face.

“Oh… Oh…” Squall stuttered as his expression grew increasingly uncomfortable. “OH, COME ON!” he blurted out, whisking his head and neck to the left, a motion that would have usually thrown his mane in front of his face to hide it, but the sleek, solid form his mane took in crystal form prevented the desired effect.

“What?” Dash chuckled more, staying just short of bursting out laughing. “Haven’t we already been over this? We reacted the same way when we saw your scar the first time too. And did you forget about Photo Finish absolutely GUSHING about your face?”

“Frgnggghhhhhhnnnnnn…” Squall grumbled loudly, leaning back as Star continued to swoon and inch forward as if she wasn’t already close enough to look at him.

As the silly scene kept unfolding before her, Dash quickly remembered that she saw other ponies transform before Squall pulled all her attention away. She turned around and took a look about the rest of the bridge, taking note of all the others who had changed. The reactions were interesting as well. Some were surprised, others seemed unfazed as if they already knew.

Near them, both Calm and Fleetfoot were observing Shine Struck in her crystal form, but it was no mystery that Shine was from the Crystal Empire, it was in her record.

Dash looked over to Blaze and High Winds. Blaze’s jaw was nearly unhinged and her eyes were wide and almost bulging out of their sockets. Surprisingly… High Winds also looked surprised, as if she had no idea she had some crystal heritage. Her fur had gained a milky, white shimmer and her mane had grown a deeper glistening blue. The number of curls in her mane had decreased, larger bunches of curls replacing them and looking smoother in style. She looked herself over curiously.

“Huh…” she eventually said. “Imagine that…”

“The fuck, Windy?!” Blaze blurted out, throwing her hooves out to her sides. “Since when…?”

“I dunno…” High Winds answered simply as she shrugged and yawned, the intensity of the shimmers over her body increasing and blinking brightly for a moment as she yawned, causing Blaze to squint.

Dash turned her head further, her eyes landing on squad three next. The Streak twins had both crystallized. Their appearances had not altered too much. Their manes retained their general shape, only not sporting rough and squared edges. Otherwise, their colors remained constant, adding a similar pattern of lighter and darker colors that shimmered as Squall’s body had. Misty was focused entirely on Fire Streak, her eyes wide and starry and her mouth stuck open in a wide smile as she looked him all over with delight. It was less a look of shock and more a look of anticipation?

“Whoa, whoa, WHOA!” Surprise suddenly hopped up on Lightning’s back. “Hold the Nimbus!” she yelled as she clambered up his neck and onto his head, bending her until her head was upside down with her eyes glaring directly into Lightning’s usual lazy stare. “You two have crystal ancestors?!” she yelled into his face while poking a hoof to his nose.

“Yep,” Lightning answered as if it was no big deal, causing Surprise’s glaring eyes to widen a little.

“Our mother’s side,” Fire elaborated. Surprise pulled her head back up, sliding down and latching to Lightning’s neck as she glared and pouted at Fire. She shifted her eyes to Misty as she propped her arms up on Fire’s back and curled her neck around, resting it on his opposite shoulder and biting her lower lip as she blushed and looked at him eagerly.

“Did she…?” Surprise pointed at her as her angry pout intensified.

“She knew,” Fire confirmed.

“AND YOU GUYS NEVER TOLD ME?!” Surprise whined angrily, keeping her eyes glued on Fire as she jammed her hooves into Lightning’s mouth and pulled the edges open.

“Bruh…” Lightning said nonchalantly with his mouth being held open.

Dash found herself snickering at squad three while balancing her amusement with general awe at how cool the Streak twins looked. But before she could get too enthralled with their crystal states, she remembered there was one more notable pony that had transformed.

She slowly turned until her eyes landed on the Renegades… specifically Starry Skies.

Starry was frozen in place as she wore a blank expression with her eyes wide. Her eyes darted back and forth between those near her as they looked on with surprise.

Her fur was glistening, her windswept, two toned mane was now smooth, longer, and draped down over her neck and shoulders, resembling Flashwind’s long mane more than her own. The two usual colors of her mane had merged to form one that sparkled with a dim, elegant shimmer.

While her appearance was stunning and the reveal of crystal heritage surprised Dash… what surprised her even more was one specific reaction to it. It made sense that Blazetail, Flashwind, and Lightning Dust were new to this apparent part of her origin… but Descent looked surprised too?

When Starry Skies finally decided to break her forward stare, she looked at one pony and one pony only. Her head turned right to Descent, her eyes looking up and locking with his as he stared back very curiously. Starry blinked as she watched him scan her all over, examining the drastic changes in her appearance. It was well known that a crystal transformation altered a pony’s stylistic appearance slightly, but in Starry’s case, it was drastic. She almost looked completely different, her usual tough and rugged look replaced by one that could be described as pretty or beautiful.

Starry could not see herself, but she felt the eyes on her, none of which felt so heavy as Descent’s. She didn’t know what to do.

“Starry…?” Descent said her name quietly as he tipped his head, clearly not sure what to make of it while also very confused. His tone of voice confirmed to Dash that he, in fact, did not know about it.

“Hrmmm…” Starry’s ears flopped down and she averted her eyes, turning her whole head away to completely avoid eye contact.

Dash was conflicted as she watched the two of them. It seemed strange that Descent would be unaware of something like this considering how long the two had known one another, but then again… Descent kept the fact that he was a father from her for so long, so maybe this time she had a little secret she had never mentioned?

“Focus everypony!” Spitfire suddenly yelled from the front, breaking Dash’s thoughts and drawing everypony else’s attention to the front. “We’re landing shortly!”

Dash glanced towards the closest window, but noticed that they were only just reaching the edge of the suburbs. They weren’t actually close to landing, but it looked like Spitfire wanted them to stop goofing around and act professional as they closed in.

Dash suddenly noticed that she no longer felt cold at all. It was suddenly warm, and it had been growing warmer since they entered the shield, she just hadn’t noticed. Then she realized she was one of the few that was still wearing a blanket. She let it drop off her shoulders and onto the floor before looking towards the port side windows again. With the cold air no longer surging through and the taller buildings of the empire coming into view… Dash slowly stood up and shuffled towards the window.

Storm and Matteo quickly joined her side as they saw her drag herself over, all three of them stopping a few inches from the broken panes and gazing out. Eventually Star and Squall joined them, the five of them all looking out at the lively, brightly lit city below. It felt foreign, as if they had not seen civilization for years, the mere sight of a bustling city causing a rush of calm through their bodies.

And then they flew by the Crystal Palace, an enormous, beautiful structure built of pure crystal with walls and spires that reached high above the flight path of the Nimbus itself. Several others had come over now, all looking out towards the palace as Lucky slowly navigated around it, the Wonderbolts and Crystal Guards waving their arms and flying backwards as to direct him.

The sight of the palace was almost overwhelming for everypony that laid eyes on it. It was one thing to see the Empire itself, it was another to see the sovereign structure at its center. With Canterlot in disarray and after the ordeal of fleeing in a makeshift ancient airship, seeing the heart of a powerful nation still intact doubled, maybe even tripled the feeling of relief.

The warmth… the palace… the surrounding civilization… the safety… it all felt so comforting, and it wasn’t until now that they all truly realized how much they needed it.

Now Dash only wished that she could have felt and shared this feeling with Soarin. If not for the most important piece of the puzzle missing, this would have been one of the most perfect moments of her life. While everypony else was certainly focusing on their salvation and their much anticipated opportunity to not be on edge… Dash just couldn’t get quite as into it. Without Soarin, it just felt like a hollow victory to her, no matter how much that victory meant for the rest. She felt bad that it seemed that way to her, there were ponies she cared about that really needed them to succeed here. She had a pony that was like a second father to her on the verge of death in the infirmary below and now he had a chance to be saved, but she was still only thinking about Soarin.

Sure, her life was tied to his and all that, but she felt so selfish.

“Something wrong?” Storm suddenly asked Dash. Her ears perked up, but she didn’t look at him.

“No…” she lied. “I’m fine.”

Storm did not have a chance to ask further as the hum of the propellers changed, everyone looked towards Lucky as he pulled down on the throttle and began working the rest of the levers. They could all feel the shift through the floor as the Nimbus began to slowly descend…

Several citizens of the Crystal Empire were staring up into the sky in awe as the Nimbus passed overhead, it’s frame casting a shadow as it eclipsed the glowing lights of the Crystal Palace. The loud swooshing of the propellers created powerful gusts. Window shutters flapped and clattered, crystal trees shook back and forth, their solid leaves winging like wind chimes as the forces of wind rushed past them.

With the Crystal Airborne Guard out in force in front of it, they slowly directed the Nimbus towards Crystalline Park, a large wide open park north of the palace that was a frequent destination for friends and family. A massive, sturdy platform of thick crystal and metal had been erected in the center, taking up nearly the entire open center of the park. It was elevated just enough to be above any playgrounds, trees, and picnic areas in hopes that damage to one of their most cherished destinations was avoided.

Slowly but surely, the Nimbus descended, the Wonderbolts and Airborne Guard coordinating and passing along signals from below the Nimbus all the way up to the bridge window to give Lucky precise instructions. Lucky had already proved he was capable when he landed the Nimbus in a canyon with the systems suffering from damage, so this felt like a breeze.

All eyes were still on the enormous flying ship, citizens from all over the Empire watching with curiosity and awe as the Nimbus descended slowly. The swooshing of the propellers growing quieter and the gusts growing weaker as the engines eased, the lower propellers shut off entirely and the makeshift landing gear extended. The Nimbus’ descent slowed to an inch by inch crawl, going lower… lower… and lower until a loud yet gentle THUMP echoed throughout the city.

The Nimbus had landed.

“We’re really here…” Dash spoke her thoughts as she stepped out onto the platform, the rest of her friends following behind her, stepping through the lobby doors and out into the open. They all stopped for a moment as the first thing they saw was the Crystal Palace looming large before them. It was a little ways away with them in the middle of the park, but it extended up like a skyscraper, easily many times taller than the Nimbus.

Even outside, Dash still felt the warmth. The perfect temperature generated by the Crystal Heart and protecting the ponies within its range from the harsh cold of the northern snowfields.

It was still sinking in, the fact that they had actually made it to their destination.

“Hey, one side!” Blaze’s voice suddenly came from behind them.

Dash flinched, Matteo, Storm, Squall, and Star all perking up as they realized they had stopped the moment they had gotten out the doors and were blocking the way. They quickly moved out of the way and made their way out onto the platform, joining the Wonderbolts, Renegades, and thestrals as they made their way out into the open and took in the sights around them.

It was great to be on the ground, the unique surroundings of the Crystal Empire keeping their attention as they all finally felt able to relax. The Empire was always a unique sight. The surrounding nature in between the buildings and within parks all had a shade of blue as opposed to green. Everything seemed to shimmer elegantly, the glowing lights of the castle bouncing off every surface and refracting through every prism, bathing the night time surroundings in beautiful colors that moved as the crystal trees and their solid leaves swayed naturally.

Several ponies were also still in awe of those among them that had crystallized. Roughly a fourth of all those present had transformed into crystal ponies, including some of the thestrals, which was a fairly odd sight considering their vastly different anatomy and bat like characteristics. Dash glanced at her friends as they moved out of the way of the doors and sat down to rest, her eyes landing on Squall again. He still looked stiff and a bit annoyed, though it was probably because Star just couldn’t seem to leave him alone. She was still getting close and looking him over in awe. If it were anypony else, they would have been yelled at or maybe even punched. It was almost as if he liked it when Star harassed him. Dash wouldn’t be surprised if Squall didn’t even know how to smile and the scowl was just the reaction he threw on despite the situation.

One thing she had noticed was that Squall’s cuts and bruises that he had sustained from the confrontation with Nightshade and Sombra were gone. His scar was still there, but his battle damage had disappeared. The same could be said for the rest who had crystallized. They were all still limping and looked to be in discomfort or pain, so it was easy to assume they weren’t suddenly better, but it was still interesting. Was it just an illusory appearance? Star mentioned that Squall still felt soft as opposed to stone like. Dash herself had never touched a crystal pony, and during the brief period she and her friends transformed when the Crystal Heart was replaced she was too busy feeling awesome to really examine herself.

Dash’s eyes were drawn away as she noticed a large group of able Wonderbolts and Crystal Guards work together to secure a huge ramp on the end of the Nimbus platform. Several others were watching as well, confirming that they, along with her, were eager to finally get off the old tub. But before any of them could make a move…

“Out of the way, OUT OF THE WAY!” Bliss’ voice came from near the lobby doors. “MOVE!” she yelled as Dash and everypony else perked up and quickly turned their eyes towards her.

Dash gasped, her ears drooping down as she saw Bliss and several unicorns galloping out of the lobby, all of them using their magic to both wheel and stabilize a stretcher across the platform. Another keeping the portable respirator beside it and one more was hovering an I.V. bag.

On the stretcher… was Silver Lining.

He was strapped firmly to the stretcher, his broken wing and arm being propped up with gentle magic auras, and he was still unconscious.

“GO! GO! GO!” Bliss yelled as several Wonderbolts and crystal guards landed near the edge of the Nimbus platform and quickly flagged them down.

Everypony went completely silent. All eyes, Wonderbolt, Renegade, and Thestral alike watched as Silver was wheeled by. Seconds felt like minutes as they all took in the sight, watching as the Wonderbolts and Crystal Guards took over, airlifting Silver and carrying the unicorns with them as they slowly rose up into the air and turned in the direction of the hospital.

Everypony was praying. Praying that Silver would hold on long enough so their efforts to save him would be rewarded. He deserved it.

Dash refused to look away, keeping her eyes locked on the stretcher as the group rose further into the air and got their bearings. Just as she was starting to feel selfish for only caring about Soarin, it got completely turned on its head. The sight of Silver tipped the scales, and now she found herself only thinking about him, Soarin fading to the back of her mind. The feeling was unbearable, but perhaps she was looking at it the wrong way. She wanted to worry for them both, but both held such a heavy separate impact. It nearly felt impossible to carry it all in her heart or on her shoulders. Both Soarin and Silver meant so much to her. Their impact on her life was completely different, but she cherished them both.

Now neither of them was there. Soarin was lost and Silver was barely alive and unresponsive. Her two main sources of guidance and comfort were out of her reach. They had reached the Crystal Empire, but could that truly make up for the two of them?

Nothing could.

There was nothing she could do about Soarin right now… And she had done all she could in her part to help Silver. Now she could only watch, wait, and hope… that one of the two most important ponies in her life would soon be saved.

“Hang in there… Silver…” she said quietly, a new tightness in her chest, one of anxiety as she hoped that Silver would stay true to the name Iron Horse… and hold on just a little bit longer.

Spitfire emerged from the lobby, taking a deep breath as she looked up just in time. Her eyes locked on Silver’s stretcher and she watched as the makeshift group of Wonderbolts, guards, and medical unicorns carry him off towards the hospital.

They had done all they could for Silver… now she hoped the renowned hospital and doctors of the Crystal Empire could do the rest. She kept looking up even as they disappeared from view, Silver lingering on her mind as she recalled everything she owed him. He deserved to live… he had to live…

“Captain Spitfire!” Flash Sentry’s voice met her ears. Spitfire blinked and looked down as Flash landed before her. “We’re at your disposal, what do you need?” he offered.

Spitfire didn’t say anything else at first, her attention drawn away as others from the infirmary were gently wheeled by, including Air Mach who was trying to grandstand even though he was thoroughly strapped and held down to his stretcher. None of them were nearly as badly wounded as Silver, but she was glad they were going to get help as well. However, the sight quickly reminded her of the special case she had to address.

“I have a specific group of sick ponies that I need to be taken to the palace instead of the hospital,” she quickly explained.

“Pardon?” Flash blinked curiously. Spitfire shook her head.

“Their sickness is magic related, magic we don’t quite understand. Doctors are not what we need here,” she elaborated. Flash still looked curious, but he saved his questions.

“Understood,” he nodded. “I’ll send word to the princess to have our wizards and clerics ready to receive them.” As he mentioned Cadence, Spitfire decided to ask.

“Why hasn’t the princess or prince come out to greet us?” she asked, twitching slightly. “I’m… I mean, I’m not complaining that they aren’t, I just know how friendly and always eager the two of them are,” she corrected, hoping not to sound demanding. Flash chuckled and shook his head.

“No, you’re definitely right about that, they are actually pre-occupied at the moment. We had other guests arrive earlier today,” he explained.

“Other guests?” Spitfire cocked her head to the side, but spoke quietly, not prompting a response so Flash did not answer, instead he pressed her again.

“Is there anything else you need? We’ve been instructed to provide maximum assistance.”

“Hmmm, well…” Spitfire looked down and thought for a moment. She glanced over her shoulder and up at the Nimbus. She wasn’t sure how needy it was going to sound… but she knew that the Wonderbolts were absolutely TIRED of the Nimbus for a while. She wanted to find them better temporary quarters, not to mention there was a Falcon currently occupying her own room… thanks to Air Mach. “Our living quarters are a bit… wrecked. And our increased numbers over our journey have made it a bit cramped. I hate to ask but—”

“Already taken care of,” Flash answered, cutting her off. Spitfire froze mid-sentence, her mouth remaining open as she lifted an eyebrow. “The princess has already ordered several hotels near the palace to be vacated for your arrival,” he explained.

Spitfire’s jaw went from open to almost unhinging for a second.

“Uh… near the palace?” she asked, blinking. “Aren’t all the hotels around this district… Five star resorts?”

“That’s right,” Flash smiled. “The princess made it very clear that she wanted the most comfortable accommodations based on the situation. And we’ve gone a few steps further. When our scouts reported you were in range, we had chefs begin meal preparations and we called in several doctors from around the Empire to set up and be ready in the hotels to meet anypony who doesn’t need to be hospitalized. Everything is ready and waiting for you.”

Spitfire stared blankly at Flash for several moments before smirking and shaking her head.

“Well sheesh, I’m sure as hell not going to say no to that…” she gave Flash an eager nod of approval. “I’ll make sure to thank the princess personally for thinking of everything and making this so easy for us.” She paused for a moment to think if there was anything else. “I guess… then we just need help directing our forces to where they need to go to get some rest. Other than that, I’d like an audience with the prince and princess along with a few of my ponies here. Unless… her other guests are currently occupying her of course.”

“Won’t be a problem,” Flash quickly reassured her. “The guests are actually here to see you.”

“What?” Spitfire inched her neck back slightly, her eyes widening slightly before narrowing. She tipped her head a little and her ears twitched as she tried to think about who it could possibly be, but she was too tired to think too hard about it. “That’s… uh… convenient…” she managed to say as her thoughts swirled in confusion, but they stopped the moment she remembered one last detail. “Oh, wait… Once we’ve spoken to the royals, I would like to send word out to the reserve Wonderbolts and call them all here for duty. Our means of communication are constrained, could you…?” Spitfire trailed off while rotating a hoof and winced slightly as she felt she was asking for a lot.

“We can help with that,” Flash quickly assured her. “We have mail trains that travel to all the major cities of Equestria, and can send out messengers to more rural and out of the way locations. Just draft up your notice when you have the chance and we’ll make sure it’s copied and sent out.”

“Thanks, sorry about asking for so much,” Spitfire sighed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Flash chuckled. “The prince filled all of us in right after your first letter reached us. You guys have been through enough. Setting up a warm welcome is peanuts by comparison. Put up your hooves and take a load off,” he suggested with a smile.

“I… well… okay…” Spitfire stuttered slightly, but nodded, her ears flopping down as her thoughts slowly wandered back to Soarin. She was thrilled for them to finally reach safety, the issue of Soarin was still weighing on her shoulders.

“Is this… a bad time to ask about Soarin again?” Flash suddenly asked as if reading her thoughts. Spitfire blinked and looked up quickly, wondering if he had done just that, but she wasn’t surprised he was asking so much. Soarin was always one to befriend the captains of local military forces. With the exception of Captain P.L., Soarin was on a first name basis with a lot of them, including the prince of the Crystal Empire back when he was the captain of the Royal Guard in Canterlot.

“Sorry,” Spitfire said while looking away. “Again, it’s too complicated to explain it all here. I want to see the royal family and take care of business before I even begin to try.”

“Fair enough,” Flash sighed slightly, but he didn’t fight it. “I’ll let the royal family and the guards know that you’re on your way. Take your time,” he said as he nodded and began to turn, but he stopped and blinked. “Oh, right… anything special you want us to do with… this?” he asked while pointing behind Spitfire. She slowly turned around, wondering what he meant, quickly realizing that he was pointing at the Nimbus as a whole.

“Oh…” Spitfire’s expression went blank for a moment as her mind followed suit. She really had not put much thought into what to do with the Nimbus. Obviously she was hoping to be able to use it, so repairs and such were a given, but at this very moment? She was so focused on just reaching the Crystal Empire. “Hmmm…” she tried to think quickly on the matter as she faced Flash again. It would be easy to just say ‘fix it’ but it was obviously not that simple. She’d have to coordinate efforts between Rivet and any help the Empire could offer… that and did any of them know how to handle the machinery? The Crystal Empire was known for its magic teachings more than anything else, they weren’t the most industrial or mechanically savvy city. There may be some in the city that could help, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.

Plus, there was the subject of the Falcon currently lodged into her room. She wanted the small craft to be removed and studied along with the crystal that remained in their possession within it. While Discord refused to speak much on what he recognized within the crystals, Spitfire was confident the wizards and clerics of the Crystal Empire could help them figure out what they were up against. Letting them actually see one of the crystals would help move the process along.

“Uh…” Spitfire slurred as she gritted her teeth. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how to frame all of that in short. It was a task that needed to be addressed, but at the moment she was much more interested in getting her Wonderbolts medical attention, meeting with Cadence, and getting the ball rolling on finding and possibly saving Soarin. The Nimbus could wait. “Just… let it sit here for now,” Spitfire finally said. “There are much more pressing matters we have to attend to first. Keep an eye on it for us for now, especially the weird looking aircraft that’s lodged into the back of the third floor. Make sure NOPONY goes into it, or touches anything inside of it. It must be kept untouched for later.”

Flash tipped his head curiously, prompting a fear in Spitfire that he’d press her further. She had no problem explaining, but she really wanted to get moving.

“Fair enough, I’ll assign a few guards to keep watch,” he agreed. Spitfire quietly sighed in relief.

“That’s all we need, thanks again for everything,” Spitfire thanked him. He gave her a nod back as he turned, spread his wings, and took off.

Spitfire watched him leave and looked down to see Wonderbolts, Renegades, and thestrals slowly making their way towards the ramp leading down from the Nimbus platform. Or at least some. Several were still slumped down and sitting still, probably still taking in the initial moment of respite.

Among those who remained were the top elites, Dash and her squad, the Renegade leaders, Luna, and P.L.

Perfect, that was everypony she needed and they were all conveniently around the same area. It saved her the trouble of gathering them up, and at this point she’d accept anything that simplified things.

“Hey…” Spitfire said as she made her way towards them, but it took her a moment to realize that she had barely spoken up at all. None of them even looked at her. She really was tired. She cleared her throat. “Attention!” she yelled out, drawing more looks than she anticipated. She quickly glanced around and twirled a hoof in the air. “No, not everypony, sorry. Just you guys over here!” she quickly clarified while motioning to the desired group.

She made her way over to them while the rest continued on minding their own business. She got a good look at all of them, passing right by the top elites as she made her way between everypony. She looked her best wingmates over, taking a slightly longer look at the Streak twins and High Winds with their crystal forms. She knew the Streak twins were crystal descendants, but not High Winds. That was just as much of a surprise to her as it was to the rest. High Winds yawned as she moved by, her body suddenly blinking and shimmering brightly as she inhaled and exhaled squeakily. Everypony winced and squinted as the bright lights hopped forth from her until she was done yawning.

That was the second time that happened… so every time High Winds yawned, her body lit up and sparkled like a fireworks show… Lovely. Spitfire made a mental note to not share a room with High Winds if she could avoid it. She’d be avoiding it anyway. Blaze would be with her by default and she was not rooming with her half-sister.

As Spitfire continued to the middle, she didn’t grace Luna or P.L. with a glance she also stole a look at the Renegades. Most of the high ranking Renegades had left already, only the gold squad captain and the Shadowbolt leaders remained.

Starry Skies’ transformation had her intrigued. If ponies had a crystal form, the appearance differences tended to be subtle. What was up with Starry? The changes were drastic. Descent looked beyond confused, and was still examining her. She clearly did not like how much she was being looked at, but she looked hesitant to say anything.

Spitfire didn’t want to waste any time trying to pry information out of a brick wall, so she left it be and stopped, her eyes resting on the most important pony going forward.

Rainbow Dash.

They had reached their destination and those in need of help were being tended to. They finished their primary objective, now it was time to focus on Soarin. Dash was their living Soarin indicator, maybe even a detector. Spitfire didn’t know the extent of their connection, but Dash was the only thing that let them know he was still out there and alive. Spitfire had no idea what the deal was with the Shadowbolts right now aside from Moon’s assurance that they were broken and flailing, but she was determined to figure out what to do and execute whatever plan they devised before the Shadowbolts got their hooves on Soarin. Dash was going to be the key to all of it.

Dash looked better, she was no longer in need of constant support and handling. She still looked weak, but was aware, and holding herself. Though Spitfire could see it… she could see the worry in her eyes and she had no doubt what Dash was thinking. She was worried about Soarin, just like they all were… but she was also worried about Silver. Soarin and Silver were both very important ponies in Dash’s life… just like they were very important ponies in Spitfire’s. Perhaps Spitfire couldn’t feel all of her pain, but she could feel some of it. And hopefully… everything would work out and everypony would be alright… Wave too.

“Alright everypony…” Spitfire nodded to all of them. “I know you’re all tired, but before we can rest, we need to go meet with the royal family. I need all of you with me,” she asked of them, not receiving any protest. She hated dragging them through this one last bit, but she wanted all those relevant to leadership and the situation that could be there to be there. “Let’s get this over with,” Spitfire finished as she turned. Without question, they all rose and propped one another up, ready to follow her.

There was much to do still… but at least they were finally safe.

Rainbow Dash had been to the Crystal Empire more than once, and being best friends with prince's little sister often landed her in visits to the Crystal Palace every time she was there.

That was definitely not the case with most of them though. With the exception of Spitfire, Fleetfoot, the Streak twins, Misty Fly, the former Wonderbolt captains, and obviously Luna and P.L., everypony else had their eyes up and moving around with their mouths hanging open as they made their way into the palace and took in the beautiful foreign architecture.

Everything in the Crystal Empire was built with… well… crystals. So the architecture in general was very pretty, but the palace was beyond words. While it was a pleasant sky blue, the inside was adorned with crystal formations of multiple vibrant colors, pillars and archways that all had their own color patterns of crystals magically welded to other crystals. Every inch and corner of every hall and wall seemed to be their own work of art, not to mention the statues, suits of armor, tapestries, curtains, and all other decorations that only made it more stunning.

Canterlot Castle paled in comparison… something that those in awe never thought they would say. Every step they took brought new wonders to behold, the crystal guards stationed at every door and corner only adding to the look, almost appearing to be decorations themselves as their crystal bodies shimmered beneath the decorative armor.

Dash couldn’t hold back a light smile as she saw her friends take it all in. It was enough to break Matteo’s stoic gaze, his eyes wider than Dash had ever seen them. Star finally wasn’t gawking at Squall, instead gawking at her surroundings.

There wasn’t much variety among those who had never been there before, causing those who were moving more casually to catch Dash’s attention. Blazetail and Flashwind weren’t even fazed, much like Spitfire. Dash was certain the old veterans had been here more times than they could count. The two of them often showed up at Wonderbolt events and fundraisers. There had no doubt been several since the Empire re-emerged, being a ‘new’ venue and all. The Streak twins and Misty had clearly been there at least once already, but perhaps not often since they still seemed to be taking in the sights. Spitfire carried herself much like her predecessors, but it was likely for professional reasons. Luna and P.L. were no brainers. Luna was one of the divine sisters and P.L. followed her everywhere like a… Dash snorted quietly to herself before completing that thought.

That only left Fleetfoot, who looked to be more worried about putting one hoof in front of the other. Dash was surprised to see her moving on her own, well… mostly on her own. She was limping, grimacing and propping herself against Spitfire as she walked. Dash was certain that Fleetfoot was still in an incredible amount of pain, but she clearly didn’t want to be left behind or be considered a burden.

Eventually, after a few turns through the entryway and outer halls, they emerged in the main hall of the palace, an enormous room that led towards the inner sanctum with a large, room width set of stairs in the middle of its vast length. While they were all still in great awe, there were two very recognizable ponies waiting for them at the base of the stairs, speaking to and looking at each other as the group approached.

Princess Cadence… and Prince Shining Armor. The princess shimmered elegantly in her crystal form.

Spitfire put on a smile when she saw the royal family and took a breath to speak, but before she could say a word, Cadence perked up and turned her head towards them. Her eyes widened and she gasped as a very large smile spread across her face.

“Auntie Luna!” Cadence yelled as she turned and galloped over to them. Spitfire shut her mouth and swallowed the breath. She winced, a muffled cough coming from her throat and her cheeks puffing out as Cadence ran right by her and nearly launched herself at Luna, hugging her around the neck. “You’re okay!” she added excitedly, receiving a hug back from Luna.

Spitfire quietly cleared her throat, regaining her breath and earning a chuckle from Blazetail and Flashwind as she shook her mane out and shrugged. She waited patiently for Cadence to finish with Luna, glancing to her right briefly to see Shining Armor approaching as well. Spitfire swallowed, a slight bit of anxiety trying to creep into her head that she quickly fought to keep down and out of her expression. Her eyes shifted a little, taking note of each and every one of them with her as everypony watched Cadence and Luna greet each other.

She hoped they were all up to the task of holding their little charade. Cadence and Shining Armor would no doubt remain perfectly loyal to Luna throughout. If they wanted their little plan to work, they had to keep it all under wraps.

Spitfire squinted as High Winds suddenly yawned again, her body flashing and blinking brightly again as she did. Okay, so maybe not all of them. A few of her Wonderbolts weren’t really capable of being any different.

But no matter how nervous any of them might have felt, none of them felt as nervous as Rainbow Dash.

Dash had been very out of it over the course of the past few hours, but she had heard the plan loud and clear. While it was a challenge they all had to take part in, the consequences were double for her. She agreed with Spitfire’s conclusion, that they had to make their own approach to Soarin. She was just as tired of being lied to and wasn’t about to trust anypony too close to the divine sisters. But it was going to be hard to treat Cadence and Shining Armor as ponies she could not trust. They were directly related to one of her best friends, but these were extreme circumstances.

“We’re sorry for worrying you,” Luna said comfortingly as she and Cadence pulled back and smiled at one another. Shining Armor stepped up beside Cadence and nodded.

“We’re just glad to see you’re safe,” he added while glancing towards P.L. “Good to see you too Big Dog,” he said towards him, but P.L. snorted and looked away. “Nice to see you too,” Shining added jokingly with a chuckle.

Dash felt a knot in her stomach as she heard Cadence and Shining’s voice. This was going to be really hard, she had been around the two of them so many times. She felt little short of breath, but remained in the back as Spitfire stepped up to them.

“Sorry we took so long. To say we had a few setbacks is a gross understatement…” Spitfire explained. Cadence quickly turned to her and placed a hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder.

“I can only imagine,” she said with a sympathetic tone. “We didn’t know what to do when we received your letter, and when it took so long for you to arrive we began to fear the worst.”

“We didn’t make it without some casualties unfortunately,” Spitfire admitted as her ears drooped down slightly. But she kept her smile on, giving Cadence a nod. “But thank you so much for having everything ready for us… and giving us more than I could ever think to ask for.”

“Oh, it’s nothing at all,” Cadence smiled cheerfully. “I don’t think it would be possible to spoil anypony who’s gone through what you’ve been through, and I haven’t even heard half of it yet!” she said in a reserved tone, clearly trying not to sound too cheerful about their hardships.

Dash felt sick.

It had nothing to do with the strange burdens weighing down her body either. Her distrust was aimed squarely on Celestia and Luna. Not Cadence… Not Shining Armor…

She envied the rest for them as she watched Spitfire handle the situation with a straight face. None of them were close with the two royals.

“I heard that you had other guests?” Spitfire suddenly asked. “And they are here to see us? Sorry if we interrupted any meetings.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Shining Armor chimed in as he stood beside Cadence. “Your timing is perfect actually.”

The knot in Dash’s stomach kept tightening and tightening. She was a very loyal pony. It was her Element of Harmony for crying out loud. Now here, she was looking at two ponies she felt loyal to. It was different than being loyal to Celestia and Luna. It was the personal kind of loyalty, the kind one shows to a friend that’s laced with a bond of honesty and trust. And now she had to put up a façade, right in their faces. She had to lead them on and flat out lie to them as they pursued their own method of going after Soarin. The only way this could get any worse was if—

“They’ve been waiting for you too!” Cadence suddenly added.

Dash’s eyes suddenly snapped open wide and her jaw dropped as she saw movement at the top of the stairs behind them.

Five ponies appeared at the top and began making their way down towards them.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot both perked up as well.

“Golly! Look who finally showed up!”

“Darling, be polite… they all look so exhausted!”

“Um—”

“THEY MADE IT! WE SHOULD THROW A PA—”

“No, no… I think they’ve had enough excitement for now…”

Dash felt her heart simultaneously lift and sink as the ponies reached the bottom of the steps.

Things just became much more complicated for her.

It was all her friends from Ponyville.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Fug :0 Looks like things just got very complicated for Dash. As if worrying about Soarin and SIlver wasn't already enough on her shoulders... now she also has to look her friends in the eye and not tell them a thing about the Wonderbolts' plan? The other Wonderbolts may be basking in relief for the time being, but Dash still isn't catching a break.

SEE i told you there's be some precious Wavefire time :rainbowlaugh: Maybe they can finally get Wave back too. We all miss our super stiff soldier Wonderbolt with a soft inside for our captain.

We FINALLY made it to the crystal empire... and now we know who among our favorite characters has some Crystal Pony in their family line. But what's up with Starry Skies? Looks like Descent might not be the only one keeping a secret or two.

AINT SQUALL PRETTY?! Star sure seems to think so :ajsmug:

Captain Flash Sentry sure seems to like flashlights... (Before you rage at me, please take a quick look at my story: "That's Not Quite How It Works" for the gag's origin.)

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

GRIFFLOOF

Chapter 152: Those Who Lead

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 152: Those Who Lead

“Rrrrr…RARGH!” Sombra growled as he forced Soarin’s body along, reaching a hoof up and jamming it into the snow. His hoof plunged right through the densely packed flakes and grinded against the rocky mountain surface as he pulled and tugged himself another few inches upward. He repeated this motion with the other front hoof, his back hooves kicking and slipping as they tried to assist from below. He snarled as he was pelted in the face by icy winds and the rushing flurries of snowfall around him, but kept on moving, one hoof at a time, one inch at a time.

Until he slipped and skidded down a yard or two. With a solid effort, Sombra jammed Soarin’s hooves into the snow until he halted before grumbling to himself. He shook his head out, removing a buildup of snow in his mane from the whirling winds and gusts before snorting and glaring upward. He took a deep breath and continued up the mountainside, barely able to see where he was going, but at least knowing he was ascending.

“Blasted… feathered… appendages…” he began saying to himself as he continued his struggled climb. He grunted and stopped as he began to skid again, but barely an inch this time, gripping the rocky surface beneath the snow tightly. “How do these even work?!” he suddenly blurted out and he glared over his shoulder at Soarin’s wings. He tried to move them but they flexed separately, not together, not to mention they moved in different directions. He had gotten them to work in his desperation to get away from Rainbow Dash, but that seemed to be an instinctive reflex, and once he was out of danger and in the air, he lost all control and flew like a meteorite through the sky until he crash landed. After that he hadn’t gotten them to work at all.

Before continuing, he gathered a collection of magic into his horn, the curved, red surface lighting up and glowing brightly. He was attempting to illuminate the area around him, but it had little effect with the snow rushing every which way. It at least gave him a better view of what was immediately around him and he used the extended vision to find better hoof holds. Slowly but surely, he kept climbing up the mountain as his body was battered by harsh winds.

Inside his conscience, Soarin’s spirit remained on the ‘ground’, still bound by the shadows that lurked and crept within his mind, moving freely to and fro as they passed between him, Celestia, and Dash’s spirit, all flowing from the large silhouette of Sombra. There was no longer any pain coursing through him. Perhaps it was because he was no longer struggling to free himself. The bindings only tightened and squeezed him if he tried. He had accepted that he was currently not able to move, instead focusing mostly on the image of Dash beside him that seemed to be locked down even closer to the invisible floor than he was. The image had her cheek pressed to the ground, her eyes closed as she breathed steadily, but otherwise appeared not to be in pain like him. Sombra still loomed over him as well, a trail of light connecting Soarin to the unfilled silhouette of the old king as he remained in control of his body.

Soarin had not said a word since Sombra finished his tale about his life and Celestia. He was still trying to process it all… and deciding whether or not he believed all of it. But he was definitely considering it all seriously, because Celestia had not said a word since the story either. She made no immediate effort to defend herself against Sombra’s story, and looked incredibly distraught. If it weren’t true, would it really hurt her as much as it seemed? Sombra’s words seemed to completely silence her, a state Soarin never thought he’d see from the usually radiant and powerful goddess.

The only pony to speak since was Sombra, but it wasn’t to them. It was basically him cursing and grumbling to himself as he moved Soarin’s body, struggling with the wings and from time to time showing a lack of total motor control.

But what was especially odd to Soarin, was that he could still ‘see’ through his eyes. He wasn’t sure how to identify it, maybe he was still feeling sensory activity. The same went for the rest of his senses. He could feel the cold sting of the blizzard winds against his body from without, he could taste the icy gusts with every breath, he could hear the whistling winds. It was as if he was still connected to his brain, just had no control over his body. He knew exactly what Sombra was doing with his body, he could see the mountain extended above him, he could feel the cold touch of the snow with every effort Sombra made.

Where was Sombra going? Knowing who they were dealing with, Soarin assumed Sombra would head straight for the Crystal Empire, something that worried him because of his friends heading there too. If that were his destination… why scale a mountain? Especially with the inability to use the wings and a clear lack of full control? Whatever the reason… Sombra was not giving up on it as he tugged and pulled his way up little bits at a time. The peak was not in sight, so who knew how much farther Sombra was going to struggle.

Soarin found himself unable to remain silent. And before he knew it…

“Why are you climbing this mountain?” he spoke up, his curiosity getting the better of him. The ears stood up on Sombra’s silhouette, but he didn’t look or acknowledge Soarin. Soarin waited in hopes of a response, but never got one. “Sheesh, never mind…”

“You’ll know when I reach the top,” Sombra suddenly answered. “If your blasted wings were cooperating with me, you’d know sooner,” he added with a sharp tone.

Soarin furrowed his brow as he thought about biting back, but really, what was the point? It’s not like arguing with Sombra would make the situation any better. He felt his time, or however long he may really have left was better left trying to understand everything he absorbed from Sombra’s story. Everything he thought he knew about certain points in Equestrian history as well as everything going on right now was being challenged. It was forcing him to take a serious look around him and consider all he had been through up to this point from a very different perspective.

But… as baffling as it all was, he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. Especially since he had only heard one side of the story.

He glanced at Celestia lying bound a few yards away. She was still looking away from them both. Soarin wasn’t sure if he’d get much out of her. If he had asked her first, he likely would have been told everything he already knew… or at least thought he knew. But now with Sombra’s story out there… would she be willing to tell her version of it fully and honestly without any spin? Soarin wasn’t about to label her a liar without first hearing why she changed the story or what changed the story, assuming Sombra was to be believed.

He had to know.

“Hey, Princess…” he called to her. Celestia flinched, but she didn’t look at him. Instead she turned her head further away. Soarin furrowed his brow. “I’m talking to you,” he added in a sudden, sharp tone. It clearly caught Celestia off-guard as her whole body visibly twitched. But she did not retort. She slowly looked at him, acknowledging him this time, perhaps feeling that his tone was rightly justified. Soarin waited until she was facing him before continuing. “Can you tell me your angle on this?”

The moment he asked he felt his body stop moving. He glanced up to see Sombra’s silhouette looking over his shoulder at them. Soarin took no notice and returned his focus to Celestia.

“I want to hear your side of the story,” he elaborated to her, but quickly earned a loud scoff from Sombra instead.

“Don’t even bother with her,” Sombra said with a snort. “I already told you everything you need to know.”

“I WASN’T talking to you,” Soarin growled at Sombra, glaring up at him as Sombra lowered his head down closer to Soarin. There was no face and no eyes to glare back at Soarin, but he could feel it anyway.

“She is incapable of telling the truth or admitting fault, she will only waste your time,” Sombra hissed.

Soarin just kept glaring for a moment, pretty much the only way he could fight back with his body being held down, but then he softened his eyes and lifted his brow.

“Wasn’t it you who just told me to listen and decide what to believe?” he asked in a slightly smug way. Sombra didn’t reply. He just stared, his lack of face likely hiding the reaction to Soarin turning his own words against him. “I want to hear her side too!” Soarin took advantage of his silence. “You wanted me to make a choice right? To join you and help you ‘save’ Equestria from her and the gods? Well if you want me to take you seriously, I’m not going to make that choice without hearing both sides of the story!”

Sombra just kept staring as Soarin returned to his glare, reaching his neck out a little more in a gesture to show he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Feh…” Sombra scoffed and turned back around. “As you wish.”

Without a moment of hesitation, Soarin turned his attention back to Celestia.

“Well?” he asked without repeating his question. She knew damn well what he wanted to know.

“There…” Celestia spoke finally, but her voice was raspy. She paused and swallowed, clearing her throat quietly before shaking her head lightly. “There isn’t much more I can tell that hasn’t already been said…” she trailed off in an awfully pathetic and defeated tone that instantly ran contradictory to Sombra’s claims of her honesty and admission. But Soarin didn’t back down.

“You agree with him?” he asked while making a sharp head motion to Sombra’s shadow. Celestia looked up at Sombra, keeping her eyes on his back as he continued to focus on climbing the mountain with Soarin’s body.

“Not entirely… no,” she admitted, but did not seem to have much resolve.

“Then let’s hear it,” Soarin pressed her regardless of her lack of enthusiasm.

Celestia remained quiet as she looked down. Soarin wasn’t sure if she was avoiding the subject again or collecting her thoughts. He was ready to tear her a new one if she tried to wiggle out of it again, but thankfully she didn’t.

“As you’ve already been told,” she began. “The Black Dragon Scourge was when Sombra and I first crossed paths. The Scourge was not the first time I had encountered the unholy beasts, and when they showed themselves again I was determined to bring them down for good after they had destroyed everything I had once known and loved.”

Soarin blinked. Sombra glanced at her as well. Soarin noticed Sombra’s curiosity along with his. Second time? If Sombra didn’t know what she meant either, this predated even him.

“Everything you once…?” Soarin repeated her words, trailing off. Celestia quickly shook her head.

“That’s a story for another time… if we live through this,” she quickly diverted while looking towards Sombra. “What matters is that I had a score to settle with the beasts… And Luna was just as eager as I to bring them down.”

“Just not on the front lines,” Sombra suddenly cut in. Soarin growled under his breath as he shot Sombra a glare.

“Okay, that’s enough from the peanut gallery. Let her speak!” he shouted at him.

“Hmph…” Sombra huffed as he turned back around again. Celestia stared towards him for a moment, but said nothing before continuing.

“Though it went against our rules as gods… we revealed ourselves in full to the world,” she paused and blinked as if feeling she already hit a snag that required explanation. “Before the scourge, I had never been among mortals. Luna and I lived high up in the sky upon clouds out of reach, higher than any Pegasus dared to fly without risk of either losing consciousness or being repelled. Our existence had been known… or rather, theorized for some time. Our record of remaining out of sight was not perfect. We sometimes traveled to the world below, always to unpopulated places to keep our exposure limited, and we never shed our divine light so if anypony stumbled upon us, the glimpse would be brief before they had to shield their eyes. Some claimed to have seen us high up in the sky. These stories, these sightings… though unintentional led to us being worshiped and spoken of in legends and prayers, giving the mortals below true belief that they were being watched over by higher powers that controlled the natural forces of the world. It was something we gods reveled in as we watched over the world below, but we had never fully stepped out or descended down into the world of the mortals or placed ourselves among their communities. We felt it for the best, as we were higher powers they could not fully comprehend.”

“But we had no choice, Luna and I saw no other option and refused to hide away as the dragons turned their ire away from us and towards the world below and ravaged kingdom after kingdom. Everypony bowed to us without question and we took command, using our influence over them to organize a collective effort to fight back. The battles were hard fought, and for months we never had any successes that could truly be called victories. It was very different from when the gods faced them. With the mortals it was like throwing wood into a fire, the dragons swatting them like flies as we threw armies at them. The constant death we witnessed began to wear on Luna and I. We were goddesses, we were powerful, we were revered… but we had already fought the dragons once and failed… even with several other gods fighting by our side. It hurt so much to see all the ponies around us… looking up at us with pleading eyes, begging for us to save them, seeing us as saviors and obeying our every word as if we had to be appeased to bring them victory. But we were already doing everything we could. The black dragons were just that powerful… powerful enough to destroy gods. Yet their faith in us remained, the mortals saw us as their salvation no matter how difficult it seemed. But we feared it was only a matter of time until our efforts proved to be ultimately fruitless. Were the black dragons the apocalypse that would destroy everything as we knew it?”

Celestia paused and took a deep breath, sighing loudly as if it was very difficult for her to speak about it.

“But then… we heard of a kingdom far to the north. A kingdom that was holding the dragons at bay on their own without the help of allies… or two goddesses. We wasted no time, as soon as we heard of this phenomenon, Luna and I made haste to the northern mountains with a detachment of our armies in hopes of seeing with our own eyes this powerful army challenging the dragons. With a force like that on our side, it may be just enough to defeat these fiends.”

“As we drew near, I began to recognize where we were headed. The Crystal Empire had always been a beautiful sight from the sky, a place where Luna and I once dreamed of seeing up close… But we never expected a place of such beauty to also be a kingdom of unparalleled strength. When the Empire came into view, we landed atop the mountains… and observed. Chance would have it that a trio of black dragons were approaching the empire at the same time we were. A large force of crystal ponies of all three races met them halfway, halting their advance towards the empire and engaging them fiercely. Luna and I were speechless… we watched in awe as this army fought with thrice the strength and ferocity of our own, every single one of them showing the heart of a lion as they fearlessly attacked the beasts… defending their kingdom from the mythical dragons that the very gods of Equestria had struggled against. I was in awe… as was my sister, both of us wondering how such a thing was possible…”

Celestia paused again.

“But then we saw… him.”

She slowly glanced at Sombra. Sombra’s ears twitched, but he made no effort to turn around.

“The battle was raging very close to us in an open field of snow at the base of the mountains. No less than a hundred yards from us, a black dragon spread its massive wings and rose up into the air. It looked like it was trying to fly over the fighting. But as it lifted itself up, an explosion of blue light erupted from the ground below… and something shot up into the sky. From our vantage point it was hard to make out exactly what it was, it almost resembled a shooting star. But as it peaked and arced back down, I could see something within… It looked like the shape of a unicorn within the enormous flickering aura. The image within became clearer and clearer as it fell towards the dragon. It was a stallion… a large, dark grey stallion with a long, flowing black mane, donning a set of heavy, polished silver armor. His horn was shining as bright as the sun, a large sword formed of his own magic growing larger and larger above his head until it was at least three times his size. The dragon locked its eyes on him and roared fiercely, the stallion nothing but a small speck before it… But then the stallion unleashed a mighty roar of his own and surged downward, swinging the massive magic blade and smashing it right into the dragon’s face. The massive bulk of the dragon proved no obstacle, it’s head and neck whiplashed downward as if it had been hit with something its own size. Its whole body was pulled down with it as it plunged and slammed to the earth, the very ground we stood upon shaking as it crashed.”

Celestia’s voice had changed slightly as she described the moment. Soarin noticed it clearly, she almost sounded a little excited as she relived the memory. He stole a quick glance at Sombra and noticed that he had tilted his head down a little. Perhaps he was reliving it too?

“The stallion slammed to the ground,” Celestia continued. “He cushioned his landing with a powerful magic burst before planting his hooves and glared directly at the dragon, showing no fear as he stared it down. The beast was not defeated, it pulled its head from the snow, an inferno building within its maw. It unleashed its fiery breath upon the stallion… but the stallion did not move. The flames careened towards him, I gasped and spread my wings instinctively, ready to launch down and save him. But then his magic came alight… and he erected an enormous shield before him. It was not the typical dome shield unicorns are taught, it was shaped like a shield one would pair with a sword. Its surface was angled in two directions, the mighty stream of fire splitting in half as it struck the surface. His hooves dug through the snow, his powerful body holding strong as the mighty force slammed against his shield. My wings still outstretched, my own body twitched, my instincts telling me he was doomed if I did not help, but after what I had seen, I could not help but feel he did not need my assistance. And I was right… he was only distracting the dragon. A force of at least a hundred strong crystal ponies suddenly leapt forth and descended on the dragon striking it with magic and weapons alike as it roared out in agony. Eventually the dragon forced itself into the air and retreated, leaving the soldiers cheering victoriously. But they only celebrated briefly before they turned to take on the other two dragons nearby.”

“But while everypony with me watched the dragon leave… I could not take my eyes off the stallion. He stood stoically as his soldiers cheered, simply pointing a magic sword towards their next target before they charged again and left him behind to catch his breath. ‘How?’ I asked myself. How could such a powerful mortal exist? It was unthinkable… these dragons had destroyed gods and leveled entire cities with little effort.”

“It was then that he suddenly looked over his shoulder… and spotted us in the mountains. Only I saw him look, Luna and our army still watching the rest of the battles raging on. The moment his eyes landed on me, I was moving. My wings were pumping and I was in the air, flying down the mountain. Luna called out to me in vain as I glided towards the warrior, his eyes never leaving me as I approached. I had to see him face to face… I had to look him in the eye.”

“I landed before him… and slid to a halt no more than a few yards away. I was at a loss for words as I took him in. His form was so majestic… his body looked so powerful, his eyes were so deep and sharp. What was most staggering was that he was almost as large as me! The top of his head reaching right to my chin. And he was a unicorn? Unicorns are not known for physical strength or stature… but he was larger and more muscular than any earth pony I had ever seen. His armor looked incredibly solid and heavy as well, yet he wore it without an ounce of difficulty in his posture.”

“He looked… surprised. His eyes widened slightly with curiosity as he looked me up and down, but despite his more controlled nature I could still see it. The same look deep within his eyes that every other pony had given me the first time they saw me. It was the look that acknowledged he knew perhaps not who I was… but what I was. He knew I was a goddess.”

“But… unlike everypony else… he did not suddenly turn and bow to me. Perhaps it was because we were in the heat of battle, but at the time I felt that he was simply that strong willed. He was looking at a god, yet he did not fear me. He did not cave beneath the pressure of my presence.”

“Feh…” Sombra suddenly scoffed, drawing Soarin’s eyes for a moment. He was definitely recalling the moments as Celestia spoke. But again, he did not turn and withheld his comments.

“The moment was brief, and neither of us said a word,” Celestia went on. “As soon as the next roar of a black dragon filled the air, the stallion turned his focus back to his soldiers… showing more concern for them than the curious sight before him. He charged headlong back into battle. I did not hesitate. I saw everything I needed to see. A warrior of his caliber would be an ally without equal. I called my army down from the mountains and we joined the fray… successfully fighting back the dragons and even managed to kill one, a feat we had yet to accomplish up to that point. It felt like the first real victory of the entire scourge. It was a clear turning point, not only for discovering a new ally, but also exposing that the Black Dragons were not invincible. I doubted we could destroy them all, but knowing that we stood a chance was a morale boost unlike any other.”

“As our armies celebrated, I eventually made my way through the crowd towards the stallion. I barely made a sound of cheer despite our victory, my mind completely focused on him. I wanted to introduce myself formally and to get his name as well. Everypony I passed from my army froze in place and bowed as I moved by them… but his soldiers did not, nor did he again as I stood before him once more. He faced me with the same strength and posture as he had in the heat of battle. His gaze had softened slightly, but remained firm, not giving an inch to my sublime presence.”

“I asked his name first… perhaps forgetting my manners for a moment, but I was just too curious about him for proper etiquette. He did not seem to care… and answered. His deep, smooth voice was intoxicating to my ears, the moment he spoke I was so distracted by his impressive vocal tone that I almost missed what he said.”

Soarin blinked as that one sudden detail came out. He lifted an eyebrow and glanced towards Sombra. But he showed no reaction to it. Soarin didn’t disagree that Sombra had a well refined, powerful voice, but what exactly did that have to do with the story? Celestia’s demeanor had changed a little more as well, showing faint signs of eagerness. In general, her approach so far seemed to be quite different from Sombra’s. Sombra was straight to the point and didn’t dilly dally in the details… Celestia was being very specific, diving into the fine points of how it all happened and going back further into the origins. Soarin didn’t care as long as he got the story, and anything was better than listening to them go back and forth with the he said she said.

“I was shocked to learn that… that he was actually King Sombra, the ruler of the Crystal Empire himself. I could scarcely believe it, a king out on the front lines with his army? I had encountered several kings, queens, and monarchs among the mortals… but thus far, not a single one dared to join the front lines in fear of what their demise would mean for their kingdoms… not that any of them could be considered warriors in the first place. With that revelation in place, I revealed to him who I was… what I was… and where I came from.”

Celestia glanced up at Sombra, the changed look remaining on her face, her eyes almost lighting up a little compared to the somber, dejected look they had held since she had revealed herself.

“But even after I revealed it all, he did not bow or grovel. His soldiers didn’t budge either, following his example. I can remember the gasps… the outrage shown by some of my higher ranking generals and knights. The celebratory air faded quickly into calls of hubris and blasphemy, into demands that they bow and pay proper respect to my divine presence. Luna was particularly peeved. Perhaps she had let the way others had treated us go to her head a little. Luna had always felt strongly about where we stood as immortals and believed we deserved the worship, at least much more than I ever did. But unlike the rest, Sombra’s actions failed to strike me as insulting. There was nothing within Sombra’s eyes that hurt me, there was nothing about his adamant poise that I found distasteful. I did not see his failure to worship me at my hooves as a challenge. I saw it as strength, both physical and mental.”

Celestia grinned weakly.

“I was impressed. Something I had not felt towards any mortal yet. He was the first to walk in my presence without crumpling and lowering their head, humbly begging I be merciful. And after seeing the way he fought and the punishment he solely brought down upon a black dragon… I was not surprised in the slightest.”

“But the surprise was yet to come. When I asked him to give me command of his army and for him to fight under my banner… he refused without hesitation. It was another rush that I was not expecting. A sharp inhale shot through my lungs and my body shivered. I could barely hear the second burst of outrage from all those under my command.”

“No? He said no? It may seem simple but… you have to remember, I had spent my entire time in the mortal world thus far never being denied as if I’d pass vengeful judgement and strike down any who questioned me. Nopony dared to, as I was seen as a deity. Luna was in his face, standing eye to eye with him and screaming at him for his apparent disrespect as she angrily pounded a hoof against his armor. He did not budge, but drew another round of gasps, when he reached up and grabbed Luna’s hoof. Luna froze… as did everypony else. But he did not show any sign of anger… or malintent, he simply held her hoof in place and calmly repeated his refusal, making his choices clear. He would not give us control of his army, but he would gladly fight by our side to end the wrath of the black dragons. And then he let go of Luna, never once gripping her arm or squeezing it, but she was visibly shaken. Luna was clearly not seeing him the same way I was, her body language and expressions showed disgust and shock while mine showed awe and interest.”

“I had never had a stronger impression left on me in my life. From the moment I had laid eyes on him I had been entranced. Strength and courage radiated from every fiber of his being. His stalwart air… his unwavering eyes. I was not prepared for him… I could not even begin to describe the feelings rushing through me the longer I remained in his presence. I almost felt like I was looking at a fellow god, but perhaps that was why I was so impressed… so awe inspired. Because he wasn't a god. And he wasn’t trying to be one either, he seemed like one through his natural behavior. What an incredible discovery… what a specimen… what a… a…”

Celestia suddenly trailed off as her breath became audibly different, and a faint, rosy tint appeared across her nose and cheeks, just visible enough upon her translucent image. Soarin was beginning to wonder if she was actually reliving the moment… she was really getting into it after all and it seemed odd considering the situation… and the fact that she was apparently trying to convince him that Sombra was… well… evil.

“What an astounding stallion… he was too much. The tables had been completely flipped on me, I was looking at him the same way everypony else had been looking at me. It was no wonder that his army was so strong and fought so valiantly against such impossible odds. A leader like him… a figure like him brought out the best from those around him, from his highest ranking knights to his lowest ranking soldiers.”

Sombra finally moved. Soarin instantly glanced at him as he looked over his shoulder at her. Soarin glanced between the two of them, Celestia was staring at his silhouette with an odd twinkle in her eyes. Soarin couldn’t read it completely, but from his interactions with those of the opposite sex, it almost reminded him of the way Fleetfoot swooned over hunky stallions. What they hell was Celestia doing…?

Unless… Was she using her turn to speak to her advantage? He recalled some of their past conversations before Sombra took over… how she wanted to give him a second chance to clear his name and be remembered as the ‘great stallion he once was’. She was supposed to be convincing Soarin to believe her, but was she trying to convince Sombra instead? Was this why she was going through the small details of a single moment instead of the broader story?

Soarin wasn’t sure how to feel about that… it was pulling him in two directions. On one end, it was definitely contradicting with Sombra’s argument that she would never admit weakness. She just admitted flat out that her initial meeting with Sombra made her legs wobble like jelly and probably caused her ass and maybe the sun itself to briefly blink on and off. He made her feel like she was with a god. That’s quite a high mark from Celestia herself…

Yet on the other hoof, if she really was focusing on Sombra instead of him, it proved Sombra’s point that she intentionally sacrificed Soarin for no other reason than to create a vessel for Sombra’s soul and give him his second chance… regardless of how Soarin felt about it.

Or maybe Sombra was a stallion and Celestia was a mare… brains are wired differently, thought processes and the way events are recounted and what’s believed to be important differed greatly between the sexes… this was something he knew well too. Just common knowledge Soarin had obtained from hanging around with a bunch of weirdos with different hormone balances.

Soarin stopped thinking about it and decided to just let Celestia go on. He had a feeling her eagerness to dive into the details may make it take a while, but he needed to hear both sides, no matter how differently they were told, before coming to any conclusions.

“Call me overconfident,” Celestia kept going, seemingly oblivious to her change in demeanor and the fact that both Soarin and Sombra had noticed. “But the day we met Sombra the Great, King of the Crystal Empire, was the day I knew we would win the war. It took quite a while to calm down my subjects and Luna towards him and his choice to forge his own path instead of bow to me, but if that’s what would allow him to fight the way he did, then that’s exactly what I wanted.”

“My overconfidence was brazen, but he proved it was well placed… because just as I thought, the addition of Sombra and his army made a world of a difference. We suddenly stood a fighting chance and we took the fight directly to the dragons themselves. After the gods had failed to defeat the dragons themselves, I had never dreamed an effort by the mortals would yield fruit, but Sombra was no mere mortal… he proved to be so much more.”

“Though we had victories, though we managed to kill a few more… once we had figuratively evened the conflict, we found ourselves stuck. It became a never ending stalemate where they would push us… and we would push back. And if we pushed them, they would push back. It became clear to me quickly, that there would be no end to the war and death if this continued. But eventually, I looked to my heritage. I looked back into my knowledge and studies of my power and the extent of my magic to devise an alternative solution. Divine Alicorn magic is a mysterious force of unparalleled power and possibility. It has all the means and properties of regular unicorn magic, albeit hundreds of times more powerful, but it has one factor that Unicorns do not. It is capable of absolutely anything the user can imagine… As long as the user can come up with the means to make it happen. More importantly, if one does not fully understand the nature of what they are trying to cast and have not mastered the process through careful trial and error, it can severely drain or even destroy the user. I discovered a method… a sealing magic, one which I could make as powerful as I wish as long as I did not lose control of it. It was risky, and I did not have time to spend the years to centuries it usually took my father and fellow gods to create and control such powerful magic.”

Soarin flinched as a few of her last words replayed in his head.

“Father?” he repeated out loud. Celestia shook her head.

“Again, another story for another time,” she deflected despite both Soarin and Sombra showing intrigue. That was the second time Celestia had deflected from her life before the scourge and had also brought up other gods again. She claimed it wasn’t important… but that didn’t stop Soarin from wishing she’d elaborate. Celestia had a father? There used to be more gods? All he could put together was that she said the scourge was the second time she faced the black dragons. She had never elaborated, but she implied that the first time… the black dragons destroyed the gods. Did that include her father? He assumed that’s what she meant when she said ‘everything she loved’ earlier.

“I knew the dangers, but I had to try,” Celestia continued before she could be pressed. “And at this point I was willing to do anything to save another life.”

Soarin’s eyes widened slightly as soon as she phrased it that way, ‘I was willing to do anything to save another life.’ Before she could continue he instantly turned to Sombra, who as expected, was staring at Celestia, leaning towards her slightly, and just starting a very angry growl.

“DON’T!” Soarin yelled at him, causing Sombra to stop tilting, but he kept growling. “I already know what you think about that!”

“FEH!” Sombra huffed as he whipped back around and continued to focus on moving Soarin’s body, grumbling to himself. Celestia’s ‘excitement’ had faded a little, Sombra’s little advance clearly hitting her, but she went on.

“I was scared when I cast it… and I felt a pressure on my mind unlike any other. But as I unleashed the spell upon the dragons, Luna joined my side, risking herself as well as she added her magic to mine to help ease the pressure. It allowed me to control the spell without worry… and I sealed the Black Dragons away, they were plunged into the earth, pulled down into magical crevices that split along the ground, enormous ethereal chains hauling them in as if they were being pulled down to Tartarus itself. They disappeared, the seal shutting tight and not a trace of them remained.”

“As we arose victorious… Equestria celebrated, free from the disaster and death wrought by the dragons. But it was not without mourning. So many lives had been lost, and as the one who led the charge… I felt wholly responsible. And I barely had time to let it sink in before I found myself faced with a new task. Luna and I were no longer hidden from the rest of the world… and the population of the world revered us as gods and saviors. They specifically focused on me, praising me for devising the magic that defeated the dragons. Before I knew it, I was sitting on a throne in Canterlot Castle, the most central location of all the pony kingdoms… and all at once, the kings, queens, and monarchs of all kinds were gathered before me… lying their crowns at my hooves, proclaiming me the true ruler of all Equestria. I was hesitant to accept it all at first, but it became clear how the mortals felt about me, and I accepted the role as their leader. I felt it was for the best, I know that may sound like my heart was not in it… but during my time out of sight I had seen many things below… and one I never enjoyed was conflict. If all ponies saw me as their one true leader, perhaps I could be a beacon of peace. I would gladly wear the crown for that.”

“But... again. There was one royal who refused to give up his crown, despite the shock of all those his equal,” she glanced at Sombra. “He was scorned and branded a heretic… again. He stood in the center of the hall, still wearing his crown upon his head. He did not budge as the kings and queens of Equestria hissed and hurled insults at him… but he only scoffed at them, shaking his head as he stood over them and held his ground.”

“And…” Celestia smiled. “I did not care. I quickly silenced those berating him and gave him my blessing to continue his reign as he wished. The moment the words left my lips, all those scorning him turned and bowed their heads, afraid to speak out against me.”

“Sombra simply smiled, thanked me… and left. I watched him from the moment he turned. I took in his every step as he walked through the crowd, standing tall as everypony else hunched over and bowed. I could not take my eyes off of him. He had left me in awe on the battlefield, and was once again leaving me in awe here. He was so much to take in, and the way he stood tall and strode through the bowing crowd was so symbolic, so breathtaking. His pride… his elegance… how every step he took was filled with strength… it made my fur tingle… it gave me goosebumps… It intrigued me to no end. He was just so different than all the other mortals. Every other mortal I looked upon felt just like that… a mortal, a pony less than what I was and it was only reinforced by how they caved to my every whim and decision. He was so strong willed and so assertive… even to me! He was a maverick, unwilling to bow his head and give up his life as a king and leader. Call it strange… but his willingness to say no to me made my heart flutter, it filled me with excitement. Perhaps it was because despite me being a goddess… he treated me like an equal? All I knew was that I liked it…”

“I… had to know more about him. I had to look deeper. I had only seen him on the battlefield, and he had left me speechless there. What was he like in times of peace? I was so curious, so interested… it scared me. Luna quickly noticed. Just days into my role as the ruler of Equestria, I could not focus and I would not stop bringing him up. My subjects and advisors constantly spoke of the Crystal Empire and Sombra with disgust, and urged me to consider forcing him from power, but their words fell flat. I would do no such thing… I had no desire to tear down a figure that had me so infatuated. Luna eventually expressed her concern for my interest in him. She pointed out how I would brush aside my advisors when it came to him, yet I listened to them and acknowledged them with everything else. She asked me of my emotions, of my feelings, pointing out that my face would light up and sometimes change color when talking about him.”

“I knew of everything she spoke of, and tried to change the subject quickly, but she wouldn’t have it. Luna tried to remind me… to warn me of the philosophies and ethics once preached by our father in order to keep the balance of all life… including rules about coexisting and mingling with the world below… We had already broken most of those rules, but merely the general rules. In our role as rulers, leaders, we could still uphold most of the more specific of morals and obligations we carried as immortals.”

Soarin forced himself to stay quiet. She brought up her father again. All his life he had been convinced Celestia and Luna were eternal deities, beings that had always existed together and stood above all. What was this about a family and other gods? Were they also divine alicorns? This little revealed tidbit of her origin wasn’t helping her case to convince him of honesty and transparency, especially since she refused to go into it.

“More than anything else… our father had warned us to never fall in love with a mortal. It was an emotion destined to bring us pain… and bring pain to the mortal involved as well. I knew exactly what she was talking about… Luna had always been more wary and strict of our father’s wise words than I had… and I had always listened to her.”

“But… this time I did not. I even dismissed her concerns and lied right to her face, claiming that I had not forgotten our morals as immortals and would never go against the words of our father. I was interested, but not in love. And at the time… I think I believed that was the case. I was more interested than I admitted to Luna, but I don’t think I had yet realized exactly what my interest meant. I had only been in love once before in my immortal existence, and it was feelings I felt towards a fellow god, though nothing ever happened between us. I thought I understood it… I felt very different towards Sombra and assumed it wasn’t the same. But I was a fool… the feeling was simply much stronger… many times stronger.”

“And before I knew it, week later I found myself taking a brief leave of absence from Canterlot under the guise of a diplomatic trip to the Crystal Empire. It was easy to deceive my subjects and Luna, all I had to say was that I wished to hold a serious talk with him about his cooperation as a king. Luna seemed suspicious, but I held up the façade and appointed her to take charge while I was away. I felt bad being deceptive, but I had to do it… I had to visit the Crystal Empire. I could not get Sombra off my mind.”

“This is pathetic,” Sombra finally broke his restraint. Soarin glared at him again, but couldn’t get a word off as Sombra loomed right over him, the silhouette bearing down towards Celestia. “What are you trying to pull here? Use your wide eyed, feminine charms to soften me up?” He made a sharp head motion towards Soarin. “Or are you trying to soften him up and draw him to your side with all this fluff and romantic talk?”

Celestia glared at him, for the first time showing anger and defiance towards Sombra.

“He wanted MY side of the story!” Celestia said firmly. “And I’m GIVING it!”

“Such a waste of time,” Sombra brushed off her harsh words, growling and turning back around. He glanced down at Soarin, snorting before returning his focus outside again.

“Hmph!” Celestia huffed at his back, glaring for a few more seconds before continuing. “So AS I WAS SAYING…” she continued, putting herself back in the moment. “I traveled to the Crystal Empire, with a small escort of guards. The Crystal Airborne division received us as we drew near, sending word ahead of my arrival. I was not prepared for the welcome. Sombra had worked quickly upon hearing of my visit. When we landed on the castle approach there where lines of knights and soldiers standing on both sides of the path, holding banners as Sombra himself walked forth to receive me. His expression was soft, he looked delighted to see me, a stark difference from his demeanor in the heat of war. He greeted me, not with a bow, but with a kiss on the hoof like a gentlestallion, welcoming me to his kingdom as a mare, an equal, a fellow ruler. The greeting alone was enough to send waves of excitement through me. I finally got to see him face to face in times of calm. I wanted to see more of the softer side, the gentler side that he had just used to greet me. And the way he greeted me… it felt like I was being treated like a friend, not as a goddess. It was heartwarming, it made me feel comfortable the moment I arrived…”

She was beginning to trail off again, her voice starting to sound dreamy.

This was too weird. Soarin couldn’t understand it. It felt like Celestia didn’t understand the situation or was completely ignoring the severity of it… or how he felt about it… OR… the fact that she was trying to convince him of the dangers Sombra presented? This was not the manner of explanation he was expecting at all, nor the one he wanted. Maybe Sombra was right… was she trying to butter him up?

“Princess, I don’t mean to interrupt…” Soarin spoke up. He paused for a moment as Celestia glared at him too, as if she was trying really hard to relive a moment in her life and was miffed that she kept being interrupted. Soarin didn’t let the look phase him, he was fed up with gods trying to intimidate or control him, even if this case was very different as a whole. He was going to make his opinion on her whole ‘fairytale’ style explanation loud and clear. He glanced up at Sombra, then back down at Celestia. “If you’re trying to convince me that we’re dealing with an evil and dangerous foe here… you’re not doing a very good job.”

Soarin flinched as Sombra suddenly burst out laughing, guffawing heartily. Soarin could feel his body outside jolting as well, as if it was laughing along with him. Celestia flattened her brow, looking very miffed as Sombra laughed at her expense.

“Again…” she said with a harsh sigh. “You want to know everything, and I’m giving you the FULL story, I’m not leaving out key details like he did.”

“I could do without knowing how much his well-endowed, super alpha-male masculinity made your plot wiggle and shake like a paint mixer.” Soarin added sarcastically with an eye roll.

They had to pause again as Sombra, once again, burst out laughing to the point where Soarin’s body outside lost his hold on the mountain side for a moment and slid down several yard.

“Blast it… heh… hahaha…” Sombra cursed, but kept chuckling as he refocused on climbing. “Wait, what’s a paint mixer?” Sombra suddenly asked, but neither of the other two took notice.

“I’m telling you what I think is important, okay?” Celestia grumbled as she glared at Sombra, her face turning a little red out of embarrassment.

“Okay,” Soarin shrugged as much as he could from the ground with the shadowy bonds. “But you’re clearly not selling the story we were all taught in history texts.”

“I’ve accepted that your common knowledge and education on Sombra is very incomplete. It was purposely designed that way, but you already know more than I ever wished anypony to know. I am no longer trying to defend that version of the story. If you wish to know the full story…” she glanced at Sombra again. “And why I still believe he is dangerous, then you will let me tell it in full.”

Soarin gave Celestia a hard, impatient look. Now he was getting a little confused. Several points kept contradicting… The one that perplexed him the most was… Did she want to give him another chance and save his name, or did she want to contain him?That single point felt like it was being punted back and forth. Did she really know what she wanted or was she grasping at straws? The more he heard the more he felt Sombra was being more consistent… he wasn’t really considering trusting Sombra over her… was he? Though despite her long drawn out story and slight confusion, she was being much more specific, Sombra’s story was much more general, if anything Soarin would hear more of the fine points with Celestia… and Sombra had only spoken out against her clear tone difference, he had not spoken up to challenge any of those points… yet. For now, he just nodded and let her continue.

“Sombra gave me a full tour of the Crystal Palace,” Celestia went on before Soarin could get another word in. “I was in awe every moment, taking in every corner of the beautiful architecture and listening to him explain every function and significance of its halls. It was all very formal, very proper with a few of his guards as well as mine in tow. There was not a misstep in his language or his words. It was all of refined polite manner. Our last stop on the tour was the highest balcony of the central spire that overlooked the northern expanse of the Empire. It was a breathless sight, even more so than everything I had seen thus far. Both the palace and the kingdom itself were much more than I could have ever imagined, seeing them for the first time up close.”

“He then surprised me by bidding our guards leave us alone, and leading me over to a table already set up with tea. Now with just the two of us and the fresh, sweet aroma of crystal herb tea, he quickly dropped the formalities and spoke freely. To my surprise, he expressed just as much curiosity about me that I had about him. You’d think I would have seen it coming. He was, after all, staring at a goddess once only spoken of in legends and fairytales by mortals. But it flattered me nonetheless, perhaps because he actually was asking me in a conversational fashion and not bowing to me without hesitation like the rest. Truth be told, I was not prepared for his fascination with me. He wanted to know about me and my life as a goddess, but he asked and spoke as if I was just another pony… it was charming. I was a little embarrassed.”

“I told him many things, at least the parts about myself and godhood that I felt comfortable speaking about. And then in turn, he told me of his life as a king, and shared many fascinating details that were so different than my knowledge of typical rulers. We spoke for a long time, but I barely noticed the time going by. It had been so long since I had spoken to somepony normally, not even Luna had provided me with much in the ways of casual or personal conversation. It almost felt like he knew I needed it. His perception was unmatched, and he’d likely put it together during the tour of the palace. I had grown accustomed to being formal and stiff, but it was tiring, and I had no doubt my frustration with it showed a little. I never speak of this, but that afternoon we spent on the balcony may have been the first time I realized the power of friendship and the effect it has on an individual. Sombra knew I was a god, but could see how much I needed a friend over another groveling subject.”

“But… then the subject of the black dragons came up… I…” Celestia looked down, hesitating. “I lost my composure. Everything had been happening so fast, I was suddenly the ruler of Equestria and had many duties and decisions forced before me. I had nearly forgotten what had gotten me there in the first place. Being in his presence, feeling comfortable and relaxed for the first time in ages… I felt intense emotions rush over me. I began thinking about everything I saw… and everything I had lost to the dragons, both during and before the scourge. I felt so ashamed, shedding tears in front of a stallion who had fought so bravely alongside me, but I couldn’t help it… I couldn’t hold them back. He looked surprised, clearly not expecting it. Maybe it was because he made me feel so comfortable and so normal that I let down every guard and opened up my heart, but I told him everything. I told him about how hard it had been to be the ‘beacon of hope’, how difficult it had been to shoulder the burden of being a goddess yet being powerless to stop the dragons on my power alone. It hurt so much to see so many die while those who lived to fight another day looked up and reached out to me with pleading eyes… hoping and believing that I would save them all, bring them salvation… when I knew it was impossible for me to really do so on my own. I’m a goddess, and with the dragons gone, I was technically an all-powerful being. But that was not a status I could claim during the scourge, even with the mortals treating me like I was. I even went as far as to say I did not deserve the praise and status the mortals bestowed upon me once victory was achieved.”

“I thought for sure he found me weak… What kind of leader lets her emotions pour out? What kind of goddess cries in front of a mortal? It was a horrible first impression, or at least first personal impression. It went against the very air I put on while leading my armies, it made me feel fake.”

“But he quickly moved to reassure me that he understood exactly what I was feeling. He acknowledged that I was a goddess and reminded me that I had just recently come down from the clouds and inserted myself into the world below that I had once only known from afar. Just because I saw it from up there, didn’t mean I knew what it was really like. He did not expect me to know, or understand the burdens I immediately put upon myself, the hardships and dangers of a common life, though commended me for keeping my composure as I led the charge against the dragons. His words did not strike me as condescending, nor did they feel they were meant to label me as naïve. It felt like he understood… something I did not expect to feel from anypony.”

“He then told me of his own experience during the Scourge. How despite how he looked and how he held himself, that didn’t mean he enjoyed it… or was used to it. Every life lost was like a knife stab in the chest. He cherished every soldier and every knight no matter the importance or rank, because in the end they fought for him just as much as they fought for the rest of the empire. He felt personally accountable for every death. And once the war was over, he personally delivered the armor and weaponry of the fallen stallion or mare to the home of their family. He did so without regalia or anything that marked his status as the king. It was his way of showing each family that he was speaking not as a king, but as comrade, to be one warrior speaking about another as he praised the fallen soldier for their bravery and courage to defend all they hold dear.”

“He also told me of how my situation of being thrust into a leading role reminded him of his, how his mother and father were both killed in a war and he was forced to take the throne before he was even halfway through his teenage years. It became his duty to lead the armies to victory despite his youth and inexperience, but he held strong and did everything he could to fill the shoes of his parents. He was forced to go above and beyond, discarding all he once knew and understood about the world, training both his mind and body to become a king unlike any other… one that would make his parents proud.”

“His recollection touched me in a way I never thought I’d feel. Perhaps it was because I too had lost my mother and father, only to the black dragons… but the loss forced Luna and I into action, forcing us out of the sky and into the world below and lead the fight. Though Luna and I were not immediately thrown into a duty like his, it only made me admire him more for accomplishing such a feat.”

Soarin’s ears twitched. Again, divine alicorns aside from Celestia and Luna being brought up. She had already mentioned a father, this time a mother too. She made it clear she wasn’t going to elaborate, but there had to be more significance around it.

“Upon having our heart to heart, Sombra expressed that he did not wish for me to leave so soon… and invited me to stay in the Empire for a short time if my duties allowed it. He wished to show me all the comforts and luxuries his kingdom had to offer so that I might be at ease and put my mind at peace. I did have duties to attend to… I pretty much left Luna to deal with my schedule until I returned… but I accepted immediately. Why did I do such a thing? I had misgivings the moment I accepted, speaking faster than I was thinking. I felt like I was neglecting my responsibilities. But… being in his presence had been such a unique and enlightening experience. I never expected to feel so… comforted, so normal. The way he treated me was so charming. I wanted to stay with him. I wanted more.”

She was starting to get the dreamy look in her eyes again. And Soarin could hear Sombra grumbling to himself, though it did not sound like an angry grumble, more of an exasperated or a frustrated one. Soarin assumed he wanted her to stop digging so deep into the details and just get to the point… just like he did. But maybe he was missing something? Soarin had developed theories as to why she was making the story so long and drawn out… and most of them did not shed a positive light on her, but now throwing Sombra’s current reaction into the mix, he wondered… Was she also trying to remind Sombra of it? Sombra’s story was clearly focused on how he felt wronged and the major events that led to his demise. Celestia’s thus far… had focused on what a great stallion Sombra was. One side of her intent in this whole situation was his redemption after all. Despite Sombra’s insistence of knowing how she really felt about everything, was she trying to convince him otherwise? She was not dancing around her weaknesses either, like he so adamantly claimed she would. It was an interesting tactic, if this was her intention, but again, Soarin felt like she was forgetting that he was tucked in the middle of this and had been used for her ambition. She had yet to refute that. Either way, he was definitely stuck listening to the fluff and romance… and he assumed that’s exactly where she was going with this.

“Words cannot describe how delightful my stay was,” Celestia went on with a content sigh. “Sombra treated me to every bit of pleasure and entertainment of his land. I had never had so much fun in my life, and I mean my ENTIRE long life. And had never felt so welcomed by normal ponies, it was so much different than Canterlot. He showed me everything and everywhere we went we were welcomed right in. Nopony bowed to him, nopony knelt or groveled. He was greeted like a guest at every venue… and I was given the exact same treatment. They all followed his example in making me feel like a welcome guest and not as a messiah. Nopony blinked when they saw a mare roughly three times their size and taller than their own king walk in. He took me to restaurants, theatres, parks, libraries, spas, museums… Things I had never experienced, though I knew they existed in Canterlot. Yet my duties simply never allowed me time to enjoy myself, nor did I expect to be treated the way the crystal ponies did.”

“I had always wanted to see the entirety of the Crystal Empire… and it was as if he knew. And throughout the whole ordeal he continued to treat me as an equal, never once bringing up or alluding to the fact that I was a goddess. He acted like a gentlestallion, chivalrous and polite. Treating me and pampering me like a lady. Everything he did felt designed to detach me from the drag and strain that had been put on me with my new duty on the throne of Canterlot and give me the freedom to enjoy myself, if even for just a short time. And the more time I spent with him, the more my heart fluttered with delight. I began to notice that it wasn’t just the experience that was making me feel so good… it was HIM too. He made me feel so good. There was no doubt I would not feel the same if it were another pony simply leading and showing me around. I was spiraling… every word he said to me and every step he took infatuated me, enamored me. I began hiding my face from him every few moments because he made me blush so easily.”

“On the final night of my stay, it was the night of the Crystal Ball. Something I’m sure Sombra took into account when he proposed my stay. It was an annual event, one that typically took place a month from then, but it had been moved forward to celebrate the defeat of the black dragons. It was unlike anything I had ever seen or experienced. I had watched celebrations from afar up in the sky, I had heard the joy and laughter and always wondered what it would be like. It was beyond my wildest dreams. The entire empire participated, there was music and dancing in every direction, out into the streets in one large, nation-wide festival that spread forth from the castle courtyard where all were free to come and go, to eat and drink, dance and sing. Sombra and I remained at the castle, but I must’ve seen every single citizen of the Empire at least once, as ponies came and left, many approaching Sombra happily and he greeting them warmly like family.”

“We enjoyed the festivities, and Sombra eventually offered me to dance. I had wanted to from the start, but I declined nervously. I had never danced before and was… well… larger than everypony else. I was worried I’d draw attention to myself or break something. But… Sombra insisted. I think he saw right through me and knew I really wanted to. He led me out despite my misgivings. I was very clumsy, but once he got me to relax he led me gently and gracefully despite me being larger than him. It allowed me to flow with his lead, and once I understood that he was in control and all I had to do was follow his steps, it was easy. And it was so much fun, his strong, yet soft touch guiding me as the ponies around us parted, clapped, and cheered for us as we danced. But I barely noticed any of them, our eyes were locked on one another the whole time. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to look away.”

“Hmmmmm…” Sombra suddenly hummed quietly. Soarin quickly glanced towards Sombra, but he was still facing away. His head was tilted down, his whole silhouette glowing dimly.

“You remember that night, don’t you?” Celestia asked him, drawing Soarin’s attention back to her. She was looking towards Sombra with eyes that contained a mixture of pleading and longing. “You remember our dance?”

“Enough…” Sombra shook his head, remaining turned away. “I don’t want to remember it.”

“I remember the look in your eyes…” Celestia continued despite his request.

“Stop.” He raised his voice slightly, but it remained hushed.

“I remember my heart beating with glee as we danced… The look you were giving me was making me melt, I felt like putty in your hooves.”

Sombra’s silhouette was shaking. He wasn’t making a sound, but he looked like he was struggling with something.

“You told Soarin that it was I who pursued you…” Celestia suddenly brought Soarin into the conversation. “And that is true. I do not deny that I fell head over hooves for you. But can you really claim that you were not trying to woo me?”

“Enough…” Sombra repeated, this time with an angered growl laced within his breath as Soarin glanced between the two of them.

“You see, Soarin?” Celestia turned to him. “Perhaps it was a blunder of mine to fall in love, perhaps it was wrong of me to ignore the implications… But the reason I’m telling you all of this right now is so that you understand,” she paused and looked back towards Sombra. “We both had a role to play in it.”

“I SAID ENOUGH!!!!” Sombra suddenly roared, spinning around as the dim glow surrounding his silhouette erupted into a bright blue flash. “That does NOT free you from your own sins!” Sombra growled, leaning right over Soarin and presumably glaring at Celestia. “Do I have to remind you which of us is immortal?! You keep referring to yourself as a goddess, but your whole story thus far has been nothing but an attempt to put yourself on the same level as those who are not! You accepted a role that put you in a position of power above all and immediately acted irresponsibly, exploiting what you were for personal desires! I knew what you were! But I was not aware of your principles and you never stopped me!”

“I didn’t fall in love with any mere mortal! Are you not aware of what you were compared to the rest?!” Celestia fired back, cringing slightly as the shadowy bonds that held her down seemed to tighten. “You were so much more! You were beyond description! Everything you did was beyond the curve, it set you far above all others! Can you blame me for being so drawn in?!”

“Oh! So now I’m guilty for being ambitious?!” Sombra snorted. “Guilty for seeing limits as a challenge instead of a bookend?! Am I also guilty of being hospitable?! YOU were the one who made the first move! You were the one who initiated the personal visit while hampered by mare-ish romantic delusions!”

Celestia glared hard as Sombra’s silhouette as he hovered his featureless face inches from hers. It was different from the glares she had given him thus far. It wasn’t one of defiance, or the glare one would give an enemy. It was a glare of dissatisfaction… a glare of disappointment… a glare of disapproval as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying, or trying to claim.

“Sombra,” she said sharply, her breath hissing through her nostrils. “Look me in the eye… and tell me that you felt nothing for me. Tell me that you did not find me beautiful before that one specific night!” She made a quick head motion towards Soarin. “Look Soarin in the eye and tell him that you had no desires flowing through you! That your treatment of me like a lady was nothing but protocol! That you never thought of courting me and stealing my heart!”

“I… I…” Sombra stuttered, his silhouette shaking and his growl still just as fierce… but he struggled.

“You are guilty of being ambitious… but being ambitious is NOT a sin. You always wanted more, you never backed away from any challenge,” Celestia continued. “Perhaps the reason you had no queen was because you felt none would satisfy? But a goddess!? No mortal had ever had such a chance!”

“I…!” Sombra tried to answer again, but ended up just growling very loudly while nudging his face closer.

“ALRIGHT! ENOUGH!” Soarin suddenly yelled out,

“AGH!” Sombra grunted and twitched hard as a sharp pull yanked him away from Celestia followed by the entire area of Soarin’s mind flickering and buzzing. Sombra frantically glanced down at Soarin, again wondering how Soarin still seemed to have some grip on his mind, even if it was just on a mental level.

“Celestia, keep going,” Soarin demanded as Sombra recoiled and tried to hide what he felt. “And don’t stop to take any more personal jabs at him!” Soarin added. Celestia was still angrily pouting at Sombra, but she huffed and refocused on Soarin with an odd, calm expression on her face with her eyes slightly narrowed.

“Fine… We eventually left the party behind,” she went on with a quicker, fed up tone, her eyes darting to Sombra and glaring every moment or so. Soarin flattened his brow. She was going to go at him again, right after he asked her not to. “We retreated into the empty halls of the castle together and into the inner courtyard. He pulled me along, the two of us laughing as he led me in and we started dancing by ourselves to the tune of the hushed music from outside. He was no longer trying to lead me in step, we both moved clumsily like two little foals jumping and giggling as we stumbled and teetered our way in between the thick brush of crystal bushes and trees. We slowly disappeared from view, even from the few guards patrolling outside that remained dutiful and let us have our fun…”

Her tone did not change throughout. And the more she spoke, the less she focused on Soarin and the more she focused on Sombra, never dropping her flat expression or annoyed tone. Soarin cocked an eyebrow as he began to put together where this was going. Sombra suddenly turned back around as well and stared at her silently. He had no face nor any expression to read, but based on his quick reaction to the direction of the story, Soarin could tell this was simply meant to get under his skin.

“He showed me to a particular spot that completely hid us among the crystal bushes… He threw himself to the grass, pulling me down with him, we playfully wrestled for a moment, still laughing and giggling. I eventually used my size to my advantage, pinning him down with my longer arms… but after giving me a smirk, he put his great strength to use, and had me on my back before I could blink.”

“Are you kidding m—?!” Sombra tried to speak up but Celestia kept going.

“The moment became ours!” she yelled over him, lifting her brow towards Sombra as his chin extended, suggesting his jaw was nearly unhinged. “We could only stare into one another’s eyes so long before we shared our first kiss!” she kept yelling while staring right at Sombra, her eyes narrowing further, clearly trying to stick it to him. He kept trying to cut in but she wouldn’t let him, Soarin’s eyes twitching as he realized he let it go this far without stopping her.

“Uh…” Soarin managed to say, but was not heard at all.

“It became so passionate! It was the most perfect moment of my life! And it wasn’t long before he was dragging me to his bedchamber!”

Sombra’s silhouette was shaking with anger while turning back and forth between her and Soarin.

“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR M—?!”

“And when we got there we made—!”

“WHOA! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOA!” Soarin finally yelled out as loudly as he could. “OKAY! I. GET. IT! Will you stop it already and get to the part that matters?! You’re clearly just trying to get to him! I don’t need him going postal in my own body for crying out loud!”

“You asked for my side of the story! HMPH!” Celestia shot back in a haughty tone and huffed, turning her head away.

Soarin wanted to pull his mane out, but his arms were still bound. What the hell happened to the dangers of Sombra?! It didn’t seem like Celestia was being serious about this at all, at least not in the way he thought she’d be. Was he possessed by the soul of an insane monarch or just an old ex-coltfriend of hers?! This felt like it had turned into a bad marriage counselling session. Celestia seemed more interested in sticking it to Sombra than getting him the facts. He had never seen her act this way before. Was this what she was like outside official business?

“Let me finish this part for you,” Soarin spoke up. “The two of you went to his bedroom and made whoopee. I think I can piece that together without you giving me all of the details. I don’t need a play by play of you two having sex!” He yelled, but Celestia didn’t look at him, she kept her head turned away, it looked like she was subtly shaking too.

“Made… whoopee…?” Sombra suddenly spoke up. His voice filled with confusion. He clearly understood what they were talking about, but he had never heard that before. Soarin blinked and sighed, realizing he was using modern slang and terms in front of a being that had been sealed away for over 1000 years. And that was only one of the many new words for it he had learned from Fleetfoot… and Silver.

They were getting way off topic, he had to refocus both of them, Celestia specifically.

“I don’t get why you’re going through so much of your first meeting with him. It’s all very interesting, but you’re taking forever to get to the part that matters!” he demanded as Sombra continued to mumble to himself about words he didn’t understand.

Celestia remained quiet for a moment, not looking at Soarin, but her expression slowly turned glum and she sighed.

“It… matters to me…” she said in a sudden, choked up tone. Soarin blinked, the swift emotional change catching him off guard. “But… it apparently doesn’t matter to him.” She said with a sniffle.

Silence suddenly stretched between them.

Soarin had no idea what to say. He looked towards Sombra, who was facing Celestia. But again he had no visible features, so Soarin had no expression to judge a reaction.

But it seemed the silence spoke all on its own, side by side with the quiet sniffling from Celestia. Sombra had not hesitated to lash out at anything Celestia had said thus far. That left two possibilities. Either it didn’t matter to him, and his silence was an agreement… or he was unable to speak, because he did not want to cave and admit that the events Celestia spoke of meant just as much to him.

Either way, Soarin found himself in the middle of it. He suddenly felt a little bad for pushing her to this point… but only a little. He was still determined to get the rest of the story, but maybe with a little softer approach.

“Okay, look… sorry,” Soarin began, softening his words but keeping a strict tone. “You’ve made your point… you loved him. I understand that completely. And…” Soarin looked back at Sombra. “He loved you too.” Sombra flinched and quickly turned back around, remaining silent as Soarin refocused on Celestia. “I’ve learned some things from this part of the story and it has been an enlightening look into the past, but… I’m more interested in your point of view around when everything went wrong. If I’m going to decide what to believe… I must have your side of it.”

The silence returned once he finished. Celestia sniffled once more before sighing, turning her head back to Soarin without letting her eyes move to Sombra at all.

“Very well…” she agreed reluctantly. “Our love was strong… and only grew stronger as time went on. He was so much more than any other mortal around him.” Her voice sounded shaky, but she didn’t break down. “I was drawn to everything he was, everything he stood for. Years passed by, and our bond never weakened. Though it never really became public, rumors and whispers about the two of us swirled year after year. Some spoke of it romantically with starry eyes like a fairy tale of two rulers who fell in love… some spoke of it harshly, saying it would be improper. I never acknowledged any of it, and neither did he. But honestly, the rumors and whispers never surprised me… though we both kept it under wraps, I was horrible at concealing my admiration for him. It was likely my fault that the rumors were there in the first place.”

Sombra suddenly made some faint grumbling noises, but seemed to be paying more attention to moving Soarin’s body.

“But… as the years went on and turned into decades. I slowly began to realize why my father always warned us not to fall in love with mortals.”

Celestia paused, swallowing. She looked like she was trying to hold back tears and not let herself get all choked up. Soarin couldn’t tell if this was left over from her emotional shift, or if this due to where the story was going.

“Sombra was aging… and I stayed the same.” There was a slight slip in her words that sounded like a vocal crack or a hiccup, but she held it down. “He never lost his charm or demeanor… but his face was growing older, his mane was turning grey, his eyes were becoming softer… I… I was at a loss. I could see what was happening right before me, but I was unwilling to face it or accept it. But It wasn’t long before I could see it in his eyes… Sombra was no fool. He knew what was happening too and no matter how many times I gave him the same smile he always drew from me, he could tell that I was not at ease. He could tell there was pain growing in my heart.”

“I was filled with dread… I knew he still had many years left, but the days of his youth were gone while mine were eternal. The fire, the passion, the lust between us… it had all dwindled. We could not enjoy the pleasures we had once indulged in. It did not matter to me… he meant more to me than simple pleasure… and I did not believe it mattered to him either. We were in love, that would not change. He was still the stallion I fell in love with. But I knew it hurt him. I knew his waning strength and body damaged his pride.”

“It got to a point where I could no longer hide it from those around me. There was a sharp decline in my demeanor that coincided directly with Sombra growing older. It wasn’t long before Luna took notice. She knew very well of my fascinations with Sombra… and knew of the gossip as well. But… she had never suspected the two of us were actually romantically involved. She was one of my most adamant defenders against those who suspected. Luna believed in me… and always told me she knew I was smarter than that… that I would never go against the teachings of our father. Oh… how innocent and naïve she was… and how dishonest of me to lead her on for so long.”

“I will never forget the look on her face… her reaction when I finally told her the truth. She stared at me in shock. She was speechless, staring as if she didn’t even know who I was. All she did was turn and run off. It resembled the reaction of a young filly learning of a grave secret that ran contrary to everything she knew and… that’s more or less exactly what happened. I expected her to react that way… While we had been settled in for years now, living amongst the mortals was still new to us compared to how long we had spent only amongst our own kind. Luna had remained far more attached to our old life… and had never attempted to fully assimilate, feeling that we had to remain different, that we had to remain above in order to keep our status as higher beings. She had stayed firm to the teachings of our father and true to the belief that we had to keep ourselves above as immortals… I… had not.”

“Luna avoided me for quite a long time after that... as if she could no longer trust me or believe I was the sister she had always known. So now I had my cherished little sister at odds with me while also worrying about Sombra. And… while my commitment to Sombra did not falter, I began wondering about Luna… and if my failure to follow my father’s words like she had was a grave mistake that caused this situation. I felt torn in two directions by two ponies I loved. The weight in my heart was now so heavy that I no longer cared about being secretive. I refused to accept the consequences of either side and stuck to what I believed. I began traveling to see Sombra more and more, often pushing aside some of my duties to do so. My paranoia about him and his waning years was taking hold of me. I wanted to stay by him… stay loyal to him, I could not tear myself away from him.”

“And then one night… I finally snapped. What was yet another regular night in Sombra’s presence took a dramatic turn as I lost all control and burst into tears before him. I cried and cried while hugging him tightly and poured out everything I was feeling, telling him how afraid I was to lose him, how much it hurt to see him grow old while I did not change at all.”

“He kept his composure, even as I, a goddess, clung to him in tears. Even in his age he showed how much stronger he was than me as I let my weakness pour forth. But as my tears slowed down, and I eventually became comforted by his embrace… he asked me to follow him. I was surprised… I thought he’d simply continue to comfort me… and we were already in his bedchamber. What did he wish to show me?”

“There was a sudden light in his eyes, one that I was unsure how to read. Was it eagerness and excitement? That’s what I thought at first, but something was strange… something was off. It seemed unnatural, unlike him but I wasn’t sure why. He had my curiosity, but it was laced with plenty of worry as he pulled me along through the halls.”

Celestia looked down and shuddered, preparing herself to go forward.

“And then he showed me his study.”

There was a long pause. Soarin felt his body stop moving outside as well. He glanced towards Sombra, but he did not turn around. He remained facing away, but was definitely acknowledging the current point of her story.

“I was speechless… breathless,” Celestia went on. “What he showed me caught me completely off guard. He had been looking for a way to become a god.” She shook her head harshly. “And this had been going on for a long time, he had been hiding this from me, loose papers were everywhere, books were stacked high, incantations and magical equations had been written on book covers, on the drapes, even scratched into some of the walls. The unnerving state of his study and the research marking every corner… mixed with the look he had in his eyes as he showed it all to me… it terrified me. His face was lighting up with excitement that seemed normal on the surface, but when paired with what I was looking at, it sent my thoughts into a maelstrom.”

Soarin blinked as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Sombra had turned to look at her. Celestia saw him but averted her eyes from him.

“I know he will never accept me saying this now, but… at the time, at the moment, he could never have known what was going through my mind, he could never have known the thoughts and the memories that pounded through my head. The disconnect returned… I found myself thinking of what I had done by falling in love with him, the situation I had created by ignoring his wisdom. I thought about Luna, and the way she reacted to knowing I had committed such a wrong within the teachings of our kind. I looked around at the room with words written on the very walls, the obsession towards a sinful goal that Sombra was showing me. I shook as I found my memories reaching even further back… I could almost hear my father’s words in my head about our significance to the world… how he believed that we were created immortal for a reason, and that it was our duty to adhere to strict morals and protect everything we stood for. It was this very reason that my father, Astron, led the Alicorns against the Black Dragons when they first appeared. For he feared that their great power and ability to challenge the gods made them a threat to all existence. And that was when… All Luna and I knew and loved was destroyed… by beings that were as powerful as the gods.”

Astron. She finally dropped a name as well. Something both Soarin and Sombra noticed, but they knew she wasn’t going to elaborate, much to their dismay.

“Sombra was doing it for me, those were the words that left his lips… but I did not acknowledge them. All I could hear, all I could think of… Were the screams and cries of my family from the past as they were destroyed by beings with power that should not be allowed to exist. It drowned out everything and suddenly, I did not see Sombra before me… My vision had become plagued, clouded by past trauma. All I could see now was a pony that was trying to obtain a power that matched the gods… The same kind of power that the black dragons had.”

Sombra snorted quietly. Turning around sharply. Celestia visibly cringed as Sombra reacted, reinforcing her claim that he would not accept it, but she went on anyway.

“I lost control of myself. All the emotions I had been weighed down with, all of the misleading, the lying, all of the memories of my father and his guidance I had ignored, my questioning of my own actions… Had I been of stable mind I would have confronted him with concern. Instead… I snapped and it all came pouring out in the form of anger, frustration, fear, every possible negative emotion erupted from me as I lashed out at him. I condemned him for blasphemy, loomed over him and berated him for hubris, using words and concepts I had barely given a thought… the very words I once had to stop my own subjects from hurling at him."

"He backed away from me with a look of shock in his eyes that I completely failed to feel anything for as I unleashed on him and called him all sorts of horrible things. There was not a single bit of struggle or remorse in my voice, my base instincts as a goddess overpowering my conscience in ways I had never let happen before. I had fallen in love with him because he reminded me of a god, reminded me of those among my kind and my family that I had lost. Despite being a mortal, he was godlike and wasn’t even trying to be, it was just who he was. It always had me in awe, always had me enamored… But all it took was that one small shift… From naturally… to an actual attempt. It ran contrary to everything I loved about him and it caused my composure to collapse, the straw that broke the camel’s back along with everything else that had been on my shoulders. I knew it was impossible for a mortal to become a god, it just wasn’t universally possible, but I was not thinking logically and accused him of a crime of thought, a crime of consideration, a crime of attempt as if it was suddenly my duty to pass judgement on him.”

Celestia went silent for a moment, her body shaking a little as she swallowed and glanced over at Sombra.

“Sombra is absolutely right… At that moment, I did forget everything we had. I had strayed from the old ways of my fellow immortals, but it had clearly lingered in the back of my mind, erupting forth and stabbing at him beyond my control. I erupted with rage, blind to what my actions and words were doing to him, blind to the look of shock and pain in his eyes, deaf to his attempts to calm me down and explain himself. To me… at that moment… all I could see was a mortal committing what I still believed was a grave sin, and in my erratic and irrational anger… I thought nothing else of it.”

“I turned and left… I left him there and flew home without looking back. I did not think about what I had just done for a single moment the entire way. I was so angry, consumed with uncontrollable emotions from the moment I turned my back on him to the moment I landed back on the balcony of my chambers back in Canterlot Castle.”

“I stormed through the halls, my guards and subjects all frantically moving aside as my heavy steps nearly shook the entire castle. My mind was only set on the anger flowing through me, no rational or complex thoughts about the situation could squeeze their way in. But when I ran into Luna… she did not move aside like the others… and the look in her eyes confused me. We had not spoken at all since I revealed the truth about Sombra and I, but… her expression was filled with concern. She asked me what was wrong, but I ignored her and kept on past her. But then she asked… ‘Why are you crying?’”

“I was crying? How could that be? I was filled with anger, I was so focused on what I had seen and the weight of everything giving way and crashing down upon me that I completely failed to notice the wetness on my face, the droplets dripping from my chin after running down my cheeks. Luna’s words reached deep within me, the words and concerns of a fellow goddess grabbing hold and pulling my conscience and reasons free from my outburst… but it was not a relief. It was a hard slap to the face, an intense rush of realization.”

“I said nothing to Luna as she stood right in front of me and held her face close to mine, looking over me with deep concern as the tears continued to fall. I could not bring myself to say anything to her, about what had happened, about what I had done. Because I had finally broken away, stepped back and looked upon everything I had just done… and could not believe how I had acted. The tears were real, very real… my body was reacting without my mind, knowing what I had done before I could even think about it. And now I was crushed… in pure disbelief…”

“I had just said so many awful things and made so many baseless accusations to the pony I love. I had hammered down judgement without trial or explanation. His endeavor was impossible, but I did not even think to put that logic in play. Instead I crushed him verbally and emotionally, labeled him corrupted and twisted despite the fact that I knew he couldn’t really do it.”

“I left Luna in the dark. No matter how many times she asked me, I gave her no response. I locked myself away and remained out of sight for days… weeks… months. My subjects were alarmed, Canterlot was in disarray with their ‘leader’ refusing to show herself, but I didn’t care. I was devastated about what I had done, but I was…”

Celestia suddenly trailed off, she pulled her eyes away from Sombra, shut them tight, and cringed hard.

“I was afraid… t-to admit… my m-mistake,” she forced out. Soarin blinked. It looked like Celestia literally had to push the words out, force them as if it was incredibly painful to say. Sombra suddenly turned, noticing as well, but his movement was accompanied with a low growl. Celestia took a long, deep breath and continued.

“I was afraid to face him… afraid to hear what he’d say if he saw me again. I had gotten so used to being accepted and loved by the mortals, to never being questioned. The mere thought of being lashed out at, questioned, berated, rejected in any way… it scared me. Or perhaps it was because it was him specifically? Either way, it felt like I had made such a critical, irreversible blunder… and I did not want to face the consequences… I was a coward. I had let my emotions get the better of me, I let old memories and traditions take control in my confusion and I lost my grip on what actually mattered to me. How was I going to fix it? Could I fix it? No… I didn’t know and didn’t even try. I simply remained locked away, feeling I had already done too much damage and trying to right the wrong would only make it worse.”

“Eventually I emerged and continued my royal duties, but with a clear lack of gusto. And I never looked back. Out there in the Crystal Empire, I had left an old, aging King Sombra… the love of my life, in likely irreparable pain and emotional suffering, and had pathetically concluded that any effort would only yield more pain. I let it stew for years… the days ticking by without a single ray of joy ever gracing my face. None dared to ask what was ailing me, but many noticed that my trips out of the kingdom had ceased completely. Luna, try as she might, was never able to pry it out of me. She knew it had to do with Sombra, but beyond that she had nothing.”

“Not a moment passed that I did not think of him, and every second that went by my heart hurt more and more. With each passing day, the weight in my chest grew heavier… and as the days grew to years I felt like my heart was going to burst from the guilt as it continued to build and build. And the longer I remained away from Sombra, the less and less I felt it would make a difference if I were to actually act. Why? Why did I refuse to go to him? Why was I so scared? I was a goddess… ruling over mortals… yet the troubles of the mortal world really terrified me this much? My father was wise to keep us detached from their world in the clouds far above… nothing could have ever prepared me for this.”

“But then…” Celestia looked up at Sombra, who was still looking at her. “One day after several years of not seeing him… a wizard from the Crystal Empire suddenly arrived in Canterlot and demanded an immediate audience with Luna and I. The news of his arrival took me by surprise, and I quickly set aside all other duties to accept his request. My heart was beating quickly as he entered the throne room and for the first time in years I showed eagerness. I could not explain why. Was it because it was a visitor from the Crystal Empire? A messenger? Though I was shamefully unwilling to seek out Sombra… was he sending word to me instead? How childish of me… for a moment I believed that he had solved my problem for me… after years of no contact? I believed it, but how foolish I was…”

“He did have a message… but it was not what I had hoped. In fact, it shook me to my core. Sombra had not stopped his search for immortality after I left him behind years ago. And worse, he had lost all sense of restraint. He had been hurting himself, manipulating himself, casting forbidden art on himself, all in the desperation of unlocking the secret to eternal life. He had turned his studies on himself, becoming his own test subject.”

“At first my reaction was the same as all those around me. Shock… disbelief… fear… breathless gasps filling the room with every word spoken. This was Luna’s first time learning of his push for immortality as well, the look on her face spoke volumes, reminding me of my initial reaction. But then something happened to me. While I was just as stricken by the message of the wizard, nopony else in the room knew Sombra like I did and none of them were around for that moment, nor did they know of how the two of us separated. My heart jumped, a rosy, hopeful case of realization filling me from head to hoof. Had he continued because of my harsh words…? Or was it because he could see through my impulsive tirade and knew deep down that I was still afraid of his death? It was a heavily misguided fairytale of a thought… but at the time, I forced myself to see it as a glimmer of hope. I did not know the extent to which he had damaged himself, but perhaps… just perhaps… this would be my last chance to go to him… stop him… and fix all of it. I had fallen into a hole that I felt insurmountable, and this was a rope dangled just within my reach. I had to go to him, to tell him how I truly felt about it all with a level head and free of the base instincts planted within me through my father’s teachings. I did not know if Sombra was long for this world… or if there would be much of him left to apologize too, but if I did not take this chance and he died before I could make amends, I would be filled with sorrow for all of my eternal existence.”

“I had not heard the entire second half of the wizard’s message, I had gotten lost in my delusional hopes and leapt up from my throne, galloping right by everypony. I ignored all calls to stop as I spread my wings and flew as fast as I could all the way to the Crystal Empire, not slowing down for a moment as I pierced through the air like an arrow freshly loosed from a bow. I had let it go for far too long… possibly long enough that it would mean nothing… but regardless I was eager for this chance to face my shame, to look it in the eye and understand what I had done… so that I may never harm myself or anypony else again.”

“But… I was also worried for him… worried for what my words had driven him to do to himself. I did not know what I would see when I arrived. Would there be any trace left of the Sombra I once knew and loved? Or would I simply see an empty husk of his former self? An empty shell with a broken mind? I did not know, but I had to find out… I had to try and make things right, I didn’t care if it was a pathetic attempt… I needed to do it.”

Celestia stopped right there. She just stared right at Sombra in silence. Sombra stared right back, or at least Soarin assumed he was without features to show it. He had also stopped growling. This was the part of the story Soarin was waiting for, and from the silence he felt as if the two were reliving it quietly, something he’d never be able to fathom.

“But when I arrived…” Celestia went on, her voice shaking for a moment as she started. “I witnessed something that haunts me to this day. I flew right to the Crystal Palace, evading all calls by the Crystal Airborne Guard as I rushed by. They did not try to halt me, they knew me well, but the manner in which I approached alarmed them. I shot directly towards Sombra’s study, assuming he’d locked himself up in there. My heart pounded as I got closer… and when I saw an odd glow shining through the window, anxiety crawled beneath my skin. I landed on the balcony and forced the door open, breaking its lock and tearing it right from its hinges as I charged in and… froze.”

“Sombra was right there… it was the first time I had seen him in years. He looked very old and weak… almost too old, as if his experiments had caused him to age further, but that was the least of what caught me off guard. He was not alone.”

“Discord was there… He was standing before him, his arms outstretched and his chaos magic flowing from him into Sombra. There was a maniacal look in Discord’s eyes. A crazed, delightful expression on his face. I gasped and yelled towards them.”

“Discord’s head snapped towards me, his face instantly changing to a wide-eyed look of shock. I did not think about it for a moment. I had known Discord for eons and had never turned my magic against him with the intent to harm… but all I could see right now was his unstable, dangerous magic rushing into the stallion I loved. My magic was alight upon my horn and I was ready to unleash it upon Discord… but he disappeared in the blink of an eye as if he was never there.”

“With Discord gone, I came to my senses, suppressed the magic buildup in my horn, and desperately rushed towards Sombra… but it was too late, the damage had been done.”

“At the time, I had no knowledge of how chaos magic worked or how to repel it, so I was powerless and forced to watch as the chaos magic enveloped Sombra and… twisted him. My body filled with dread as it corrupted him. His aging reversed, his face growing young and his old, withered body once again filling up with powerful muscles. His horn shattered, a bright red, curved spike jutting forth from his skull. He grew fangs, his eyes glowing green with purple magic vapors endlessly rising from them. He grew larger, matching my size, but the pressure of his presence made him feel like a giant looming over me.”

“When the transformation ceased… I was now looking upon a monster that was once the stallion I loved with all my heart. I did not think of my own safety. Instead, I began calling his name. My words were shaky and laced with wails as tears rolled down my cheeks. But no matter how many times I called to him, he did not answer. He fixed his eyes on me, snarling and growling like a wild beast and… he attacked me. He unleashed his newfound power upon me.”

“It was a one sided battle. I could not fight him. I could not focus. I simply defended myself as I continued to say his name, begging him to stop and hear my words. Something within me refused to believe he was gone. I believed he was still in there, and could still hear me. But my hopes nearly got me killed. Sombra almost destroyed me, his ruthless attacks pelted me over and over as I hesitated to return fire. He roared and… laughed as he struck me again and again. It was insane, out of control laughter. It chilled me to the bone… and dashed all of my hopes.”

“I was crushed emotionally… I was hurt physically… I had to get away. So I fled.”

“Upon my return to Canterlot, my strength gave out before I could make it to my tower chambers. I fell out of the sky and crashed in the courtyard, falling right at the hooves of a large force that Luna was about to launch to go after me. I was swarmed by my subjects and Luna immediately. I was pressed from all directions on what happened to me but… I was too stricken to speak. I simply requested that I receive medical attention first. My subjects demanded I explain, but Luna forced them all aside, and helped me to my room, I lost consciousness halfway there. I did not come to until a day later, and despite my alicorn magic, it took a few days for me to fully heal. It spoke volumes towards the kind of power Sombra had acquired. I did not speak up during those days I was bedridden… but it did not matter.”

“News quickly reached Canterlot of King Sombra going mad, a strange, unknown power corrupting him. Refugees were already arriving from far north, speaking of how Sombra had plunged the Empire into a state of fear, slavery, and tyranny. He was already attacking nearby villages, and threatening nearby kingdoms with war if they did not submit to him.”

“Upon hearing of all this from a very frantic Luna, I rose from my bed and made my way down to the throne room, enduring questions from her every step of the way. I got exactly what I expected when I entered the throne room. I was bombarded from all sides, everypony turning to me for some insight, for an answer on how this happened, because it was known Sombra and I were ‘acquaintances’ and some had already put together that I was likely injured by him. The fear and worry in their eyes was palpable. They did not question my power, they were fearful of a power that could hurt me, showing just how faithful they were in me as a goddess.”

“But…” Celestia sighed, stealing a quick glance at Sombra as if knowing what she was about to say was part of his criticism of her. “I did not tell them exactly what I witnessed.” She paused, and as expected, Sombra grumbled to himself for a moment. “Why? Perhaps I was foolishly believing that, despite what I had seen and encountered, that Sombra was still there? Maybe it was because I didn’t wish for them to press me on how it all came to this point? Or… could it have been that I was reluctant to tell them that this had been caused by a god? By Discord? Would that harm their trust in me?”

“I saw no benefit to any of those scenarios. This was a mess caused by the gods and it was now a problem for the mortals… so as a goddess, I felt it more important for us to act. How we reached this point was in the past, there was no changing it, and no use explaining it. I had to do something about Sombra before he wreaked havoc all across Equestria and beyond.”

“So I struck down their questions, and took on a commanding air. I called upon all my advisors and military captains to meet with me immediately. It was clear they were confused, but I… reluctantly… used my status as a goddess to force their questions aside and convince them to heed my word.”

“As Sombra mentioned before, I sent word out to all kingdoms within our reach and created a massive coalition. The news of Sombra had already reached far and wide, well beyond the borders of Equestria, and they were all eager to come to the table and discuss what had to be done. The mightiest militaries all came together to fight. Even the Griffons and Drakes, for the only time in their long bloody history, set aside their wars to join us and fight back.”

“Throughout the process of gathering our allies… the reality of the situation really began to sink in. I began to understand and realize where I stood… and that there was really nothing I could do to save Sombra. I saw with my own eyes what had happened to him and I knew of no way to reverse it. It hurt, it tore my heart in two, but I had to be strong. I could not choose a twisted, possessed lover over the rest of the land. I was a leader… I had to make the right choice.”

“Ha!” Sombra suddenly guffawed, turning and chuckling to himself while shaking his head. Soarin glared at him, but Celestia’s lack of response prevented him from telling Sombra to shut it. Her lack of rebuttal and the look on her face signified that she knew exactly why he laughed. One of his themes of his side of the story, after all, was that Celestia was never really the ‘leader’ she claimed to be.

“Our coalition outnumbered Sombra’s armies nearly ten to one,” Celestia shrugged it off and continued. “But regardless it was not easy. Sombra’s army was relentless, the same warriors that tipped the scales against the dragons were now facing us head on. One would think being forced to fight would cut into their motivation and efficiency, but in his crazed reign, Sombra had forced the families of every soldier, knight, and captain into captivity and threatened to kill them if they disobeyed. The motivation and drive of Sombra’s soldiers was replaced by desperation. They fought like animals in fear of losing what was most dear. It was a horrid sight, but we had no choice. We eventually forced Sombra and his military all the way back to the Crystal Empire, boxing him in from all sides as the superior numbers of our force eventually overcame the skill and prowess of his.”

“It was there in the very streets of the Crystal Empire, on the road approach to the palace, that I met Sombra on the battlefield. And this time… I did not hold back. I had prepared myself for this moment. I knew it was coming and had steeled myself. For the first time since confronting the black dragons, I fought with all of my might. I can remember all of those around me… both armies had stopped fighting and turned to watch as the two of us clashed in the very heart of the battle. They were left frozen in shock and awe as their leaders collided. Sombra’s powers were greater than I ever imagined, forcing me to unleash my divine power to an extent which I never had before. The area around us was pounded, shredded, buildings collapsing and roads turning to dust as our magic flung wildly, rushing and smashing together, deflecting and sending wayward beams and blasts everywhere. But even pushing myself this far… Sombra was able to keep up. He had become exactly what my father had always feared… a mortal with the power to challenge the gods. My body strained and burned as I was forced to harness the very powers of nature I possessed… the power of the sun itself.”

“But… even though his power nearly matched mine, there was one difference that was ultimately his downfall. I was immortal… he was not. And as the fight went on, it became clear that his body could not sustain such a constant flow of awesome power. He also lacked mastery, overusing energy with every attack. He was imprecise and his execution sloppy. He did not understand the power he wielded and in his crazed state, could not see that he was hurting himself. Eventually, his power began to wane… and I finally had an opening. I struck him down, and he lay twitching on the ground, groaning in severe pain.”

“But then my heart began to twist, my chest felt tight… as I watched him slowly roll over and push himself back up. He was covered in his own blood, riddled with burn marks, his erratic magic seeping upward from his body and horn as he grunted and panted. My body tensed up, but I did not falter, I struck him down again. But despite the intense punishment, he stood up once more. So… the process repeated, I knocked him down over and over again. Each time hurt me more… because what I was looking at, what I was seeing… it reminded me of our first encounter… it reminded me of what I saw when we fought side by side against the black dragons.”

“He would not give up, he refused to stay down no matter how many times I delivered what would have been a decisive, fatal blow to anypony else. Eventually his eyes appeared behind the fading glow. They were still crazed, still the eyes of the beast he had become, but they were filled with nothing but unwavering determination. And all the preparation I had done, all the focusing I had forced myself through to be ready for this moment, it was all for naught.”

“I felt tears welling up in my eyes, despite holding a firm expression. The thought that held me back before was returning… was I looking at him? Was he still in there somewhere? Despite the eyes, what I was looking at reminded me of everything, of his will, of his strength, of everything that made him so special, everything I fell in love with. It made me incredibly conflicted and it was clear that no matter how many times I hit him, I would never extinguish his fighting spirit…”

“But that did not change the situation, no matter how much it pained me. He had become something that I could not allow to exist. In his current state, he possessed a forbidden power that was a danger to all. I came to the conclusion… that I would have to seal him away. I saw no other option, no other way around it.”

“But would I be able to? What would be the cost on me? It was not so simple. The black dragons, they were strong, they were intelligent, they were powerful… but Sombra was different. It didn’t matter that the black dragons were enormous, and that they were many. That was not the core of how the sealing spell operated. Sombra had something the dragons did not that would be a challenging roadblock… Unbreakable willpower and unyielding determination. A sealing spell is only as powerful as the mind of the caster… and if the target is also one of strong heart and will, they can resist it. Divine alicorn magic is also dangerous, as I already mentioned. If I was forced to push beyond my limits, beyond safe levels, I could destroy myself trying. But there was no other solution… so I had to use what was available to me, even if it meant taking drastic measures. Failure was not an option, so I was forced to make a bold, heartbreaking move to ensure success.”

“As I conjured the spell and gathered my magic, I also drew forth the magic of the Crystal Empire itself, using its very spirit to hold him down and support me. Unfortunately, this method meant that I would be sealing the Crystal Empire away with him… and since the Crystal Ponies shared such a strong spiritual connection with the kingdom… they would be dragged down too. I felt it tyrannical of me to commit such an act, the citizens of the Empire were not to blame for Sombra’s actions… but without the Empire and its magic, I felt I could never had ended it. It was a necessary sacrifice of few… to save many.”

“So with a heavy heart… I cast the spell. A bright light shot along the ground from my hooves, spreading forth until it expanded to cover every inch of the ground surrounding the Crystal Empire. Tears fell down my cheeks as I watched the Crystal Empire… slowly sink into the light. Sombra’s enslaved soldiers cried out and screamed as they were pulled down and drawn into the light with it. But even as the vacuum tugged at him, Sombra resisted. He sank down slowly, but was not pulled in like the others.”

“As the light reached the middle of his legs, he halted, growling and straining, still refusing to go down despite the enormous pressure. Not even his magic could escape, the vapors rising from his eyes turning down as the very power he possessed was sucked out of him. His very aura was being yanked from his body as he struggled to stay up… but again slowly sank in.”

“But then I gasped, my eyes widening immensely… because I saw something. As the light reached his chest and his magic continued to be pulled in faster than he… His eyes changed. The possessed eyes wrought by the chaos magic… they were faltering, flickering, and slowly vanishing to reveal… the eyes I knew.”

“It was him. It was my Sombra.”

“I could not stop the seal… but in the brief moment I saw his eyes, right before his body gave out and he was pulled under. I did something, an impulse… a reflex… I cast another spell quickly without a moment of thought or even thinking about which spell it was as if it were an instinct. It was automatic.”

“The light beneath me vanished. The Crystal Empire was gone… the Crystal Ponies were gone… And Sombra no longer stood before me. The leftover residue from the seal soaked up and gathered in front of me… and before me floated the Crystal Heart. Mere seconds after it appeared it shot down and plunged into the earth below and disappeared from sight.”

“As the dust cleared and the empty, open expanse where the Crystal Empire once stood appeared before me… Our coalition of armies cheered and celebrated. Several commanders and Luna all landed near me and rushed up to me with delight.”

“But I did not know what to say to them… because none of them knew what I had just done. I smiled and nodded nervously as they praised me, several of them, or at least among the ponies, bowing and acknowledging my might as a goddess and telling me they never doubted my power. But it was a complete façade on my part. Not even I was sure if I could explain what I had just done. I was still trying to put together in my own thoughts what had caused me to cast the second spell before the seal was complete. It wasn’t even a spell I had thought could do what it had just done. It was a nature spell… a spell meant to draw forth spiritual forces from living things… and I had just used it here on instinct, a reflex. It was only meant to harness spiritual power… but the matter in which my body cast it, the amount of power that was forced into it… it took ALL of it. All of… him… right out of his body.”

“And now… I had the soul of another pony stored within my body… Sombra’s soul. It was in tatters, a broken spirit, but it held together by some unseen force. Perhaps it was his will to live, holding his soul together despite not even having a physical body. That brief glimpse of his old eyes before he was gone, it was all I needed to see to know there was still a trace of his old self in his possessed body… and in that split second, I managed to extract it and keep it on a whim. For the moment… I did not know what it meant nor what I was going to do with it… but as several groveled at my hooves and praised me for ending the tyrant Sombra had become… I knew that I would have to keep it a secret. No amount of convincing would sway everypony, not after what we just faced.”

“For all I knew, there was nothing I could do with it… but if nothing else, I would always have a piece of the stallion loved with all my heart inside of me forever.”

Celestia released a long sigh.

“There was much celebration after the defeat of Sombra, and I played along with all of it. Songs were written of our battles and triumph, lore was written in texts… and as time went on, it became clear I would have to keep the presence of his soul to myself. Sombra was always a subject of scorn amongst those in powerful positions. His unwillingness to submit to me drew great ridicule… and this mindset was reflected in history writings and archives. I wanted so badly to speak up, to refute their words and set the record straight, but I did not know what to say. I did not know what it would do to their perception of me if they knew my role in all of it. So I kept my lips sealed and was forced to watch over time as Sombra’s name slowly became that of a villain. His true legacy tarnished and forgotten."

“I thought he was lost for good. That the only truth about him would live on in my thoughts and a small sliver of his being would be dormant in me forever… but I was wrong. As years passed… hundreds of years… as several events in history transpired… Discord’s first wrath… Luna’s banishment… several Griffon Drake Wars… I began to notice something. Sombra’s soul was not docile, and to my great awe, over time it eventually completely reconstituted itself. It was whole again. I could scarcely believe it! I could not speak with him… but he was all there, I could feel his entire presence. Even after all this time… even with no body, Sombra was proving, yet again, just how incredible he was. He had reconstituted his spirit, pieced back together his conscious, and hold himself together without a body through sheer force of will. No mortal pony was supposed to be able to do that, I always believed holding an ethereal, spiritual form without a physical presence was only something gods were capable of.”

“But he had done it… and now I had the whole spirit of Sombra, a fire that never seems to die out, stored with me.”

“And…” Celestia locked her eyes on Soarin. “That is how we got here… to the events that you know today. I felt that having Sombra’s soul free from the chaos magic would bring him back to his senses… but over time as his thoughts became clear in my mind, I noticed that he still sought the power of the gods. At first I felt I could possibly return him to his body… but when the seal on the Empire broke free and his empty body rampaged… I was afraid to approach it, afraid what the reaction of his spirit inside me would be. That’s why I sent Rainbow Dash’s friends to take care of him instead of going myself. But even after his body was destroyed… I still felt there may be a way… I did not know why, but I felt determined to redeem him regardless of his vengeful thoughts, of his desires to still find the power of the gods that led him to insanity. I wanted him to be whole again in some way so that I may face him and bring him back to his senses. I did not trust giving him a new body… but I felt maybe, there could be somepony that could keep him at bay within their own… somepony with a strong will and unbreakable spirit just like his. Finding such a pony seemed like an impossible task, there was no pony like him."

"And that’s where you came in. You know the rest. My reasons for putting him within you were just as he said, but my intentions were never to harm you… I had faith that you’d be able to control him. But it looks like I underestimated him again… And now everything has gone horribly awry. We’re both trapped in your body and he’s in control, still being driven by the desire of acquiring forbidden power that he does not understand nor can he control.”

Soarin stared blankly as she finished.

That was… A lot to process… but she had complied, that’s what he wanted to hear and he got it, even if it was a bit drawn out and full of details he didn’t really need to know.

But before he could say anything, Sombra suddenly loomed over him again.

“What a pathetic recount…” Sombra growled towards Celestia as she kept her eyes on Soarin. “You twisted it into a tear-jerking sob story,” he harshly criticized as she slowly looked up at him, her eyes remaining calm.

“I told it from my heart… Sombra,” she said in a gentle tone, only to be scoffed at.

“You’re trying to win him over with sympathy!” he snarled. “You’re putting yourself in a favorable light instead of admitting you were in the wrong and—”

“She DID.” Soarin suddenly cut him off, causing Sombra to freeze and turn his head down towards him. Soarin was glaring harshly right back at him. “Unlike YOU.”

“I beg your pardon?” Sombra hissed towards him, narrowing the gap between them. Soarin shook his head slowly.

“I wanted to hear both sides of the story… and I did. You both told the same story from very different points of view.” He pointed at Sombra. “Yours was very eye opening… it revealed many things I had never considered, but you told it with anger, with a clear vendetta, a thirst for revenge.” He pointed at Celestia. “SHE… told hers with regret. And several times admitted fault in her actions. That doesn’t quite line up with your claim that she would never speak poorly of herself. In fact, she did several times. And I’ve never seen her act this way before in my life.”

“Perhaps the truth laid forth compelled her to!” Sombra shot back. “Are you truly foolish enough to be swayed by beauty and long eyelashes laced with tears?!”

“You cannot blame me for all of your actions.” Celestia suddenly cut in. Sombra sharply turned to her.

“Yes I can, and I WILL!” he barked in her face, causing her to wince and turn away. “None of this would have happened if you had adhered to your laws of godhood you so like to cite often to others! And perhaps you can elaborate on this apparent father of yours you keep bringing up so perhaps we can understand just how far you strayed from his wisdom?!”

Celestia shuddered and frowned, shutting her eyes tight and whimpering as Sombra brought up her father again. Soarin snorted loudly, trying to keep Sombra focused on him.

“You really believe she’s to blame for all of it?” Soarin spoke up, immediately drawing Sombra’s attention back to him.

“With every fiber of my existence,” Sombra confirmed without a moment of hesitation. Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“You don’t feel you are at fault… in any way in this?”

“It all happened because of HER!” Sombra pounded a shadowy hoof on the ground between them, causing the surrounding light to jolt and flicker, but Soarin didn’t even flinch.

“ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!” he yelled, the flickering lights freezing as Soarin projected his voice, his words echoing throughout. Sombra did not move, he just kept his head angled towards Soarin. Soarin was getting tired of not being able to see his face, but there was nothing he could do about that. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but YOU were the one who invited her to stay in the Crystal Empire. I recall both of your stories included that. And it was also YOU… that treated her to the comforts of your kingdom.”

“She is a goddess!” Sombra tried to cut in. “She should have—”

“Okay, I’m sick of this too, is she a goddess or not?! You can’t seem to decide!” Soarin cut him off, causing Sombra to shift back slightly in surprise. “One moment you tell me she does not deserve to be called a goddess, the next you’re citing and acknowledging the fact that she is one as part of your argument against her. WHICH IS IT?!”

Sombra did not reply.

“Don’t talk to me about her twisting her story when you’re contradicting yourself!” Soarin continued to press. “And in this case, I don’t think it really matters. You want me to look at her and judge her as a normal mare? FINE! If you ask me, any mare would have fallen head over hooves for some big shot, ‘god-like’ king who personally treats them to every pleasure available to him. Or were you really not as great as she claims?”

Sombra kept silent.

“You two danced together in a festival and ended the night lap smacking! And you expect me to bend over backwards and assume the situation was entirely her doing?! I don’t care how old you are or what time period it was! Stallions will be stallions!”

Even Celestia was speechless as Soarin laid out his thoughts on the whole matter.

“Grghhhh…” Sombra growled, but still did not retort. Soarin looked between the two of them, giving them both harsh glares.

“Falling in love isn’t a one-way street, and if you want me to look at this without the labels of ‘king’ and ‘goddess’… then all I see is a mare and a stallion in a romantic, yet tragic course of events. As far as I’m concerned… you are both equally responsible for how this all began, and neither of you can say that the end result was entirely because of the other. You both made missteps!” He turned sharply to Sombra. “And you know what? She admitted she made mistakes and came clean.” He narrowed his eyes as he paused. “Anything you want to admit?”

The two stared at one another, Soarin’s glare piercing right through the translucent silhouette of Sombra. He remained quiet for several seconds, very faint grumbles and grunts could be heard as he seemed to be stuck in a corner Soarin had forced him into.

Then Sombra suddenly and quickly turned his back, moving away as he refocused on controlling Soarin’s body. Soarin flinched and blinked as he felt his arms and legs move outside again.

“Hey!” he yelled, “I’m waiting!”

“You are a fool…” Sombra finally said quietly. “Just like I was.”

Soarin gritted his teeth.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said harshly, but Sombra only shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter. I have control of your body, and I will have full control eventually. I’m only giving you the choice between the process being painless or painful. This is just another goal in my life that I will figure out and surmount. You are nothing but an obstacle. And you will be dealt with.”

Soarin exhaled sharply through his nose as he kept glaring at the back of Sombra’s head.

“We’ll see about that, tough guy…” he said mostly to himself, knowing Sombra was no longer listening to him. Sombra was beginning to annoy him, an odd way to describe something that had control of his body, but that’s truly what the situation had become. Instead, he looked to the resting image of Rainbow Dash’s soul, still lying beside him. If anything, seeing her would be enough to calm him down.

“Soarin…” Celestia suddenly spoke up. Soarin blinked and looked to her. She was smiling weakly. “Thank you…”

“Princess, save it.” Soarin harshly snapped at her. Celestia gasped and Soarin felt his body stop moving. Sombra was glancing back at him again, his ears up, perhaps surprised? “I appreciate you giving me your side of the story, but… Is what he said true?” Soarin asked while making a head motion towards Sombra.

“Wh-what?” Celestia asked, still stiff from surprise. Soarin kept a serious gaze on her.

“Did you purposely not intervene or warn of the Shadowbolt tornado attack on Ponyville… so you could go through with this?” Soarin elaborated.

“I…” Celestia shuddered and looked away, her lower lip quivering.

“Princess… where were you that night?” Soarin pressed, not letting up and not letting her fragile state hold him back. Sombra thought her charms and delicate mannerisms swayed him? He was about to prove him wrong. “Answer me,” Soarin kept on. “And be honest. Give me a reason to believe your side of the story.” He made every word sharp and stern.

Soarin could not see it, but Sombra was watching him very carefully.

“I… was…” Celestia struggled, swallowing as she paused. “Yes… I knew it was going to happen.”

“And?” Soarin pushed. Celestia shut her eyes tight and sniffled.

“And I… was watching from afar.”

Silence.

Soarin felt a tightness in his chest. He was remaining level headed… but what he just heard… it made him angry. So it was true… she really was there… and she watched as Ponyville came under fire, and as Descent almost killed him. All because she wanted a smokescreen to transfer Sombra’s soul to him… and apparently a piece of hers as well.

“Hmph,” Sombra suddenly grunted. “She admits it.”

Soarin narrowed his eyes as he slowly looked towards Sombra.

“You’re right,” he said to him, getting Sombra’s attention as he glared defiantly at him. “She did admit it. Now how about I ask you again… is there anything you want to admit? Or are we just going to stick with your angry story and thirst for revenge?”

Sombra inched backward, remaining quiet.

“You want to ‘save the world’ from the ‘gods’ and replace them?” Soarin snorted. “I don’t know, how am I supposed to believe you won’t go mad with power… like you already did? Discord gave you his magic huh…? Sounds like you already had a chance to control some godly power and failed miserably!” Soarin yelled. Sombra was clearly caught off-guard. And Celestia was as well. Soarin was continuously pressing them both, and wasn’t letting anything slide. He was poking holes in their narratives, pointing out the faults and wringing them for answers.

“Y…YOU…!” Sombra roared while moving his head down towards Soarin.

“YEAH?! WHAT?!” Soarin extended his neck forward as far as his bonds permitted. Had he been free, he would have definitely butted heads with Sombra, regardless of his lack of physical form. “Who made you the judge of what’s best for Equestria?! You can’t assume the same thing won’t happen!”

“YOU don’t know me!” Sombra barked right back. “I learn from my mistakes! I adapt! I conquer all of my weaknesses!”

“And THEN what?!” Soarin didn’t let up. “You’ll destroy the two icons that all of Equestria loves dearly and expect them all to just fall in line?! ‘Oh goody!!’” Soarin suddenly took on a sarcastic tone. “‘The beautiful princesses of Equestria were just killed by this crazy guy that we all thought was dead and are all convinced is an evil tyrant! But that’s okay! We love him now! Happy days!’” Soarin slammed his teeth shut and snarled at Sombra. “You haven’t even thought about what happens after that, have you?! You just want to get back at the gods! To crush them under your hoof for doing you wrong! Is that it?!”

Sombra kept inching forward, each time taking a breath, but never saying a word back.

“WELL?!” Soarin yelled right into his face.

Sombra inched forward one more time…

But then suddenly pulled all the way back.

“E…enough…”

Soarin’s ears perked up and his eyes widened. Celestia noticed it too. Sombra’s tone had done a complete shift. He turned away from them… and Soarin felt his body moving outside again, climbing once more.

“You could never truly understand what I’ve been through… The course of my life, the fall into despair, consumed by a power I could not control… and then locked away, my legacy forever tarnished, my deeds as king forgotten, and little to no hope of ever regaining my purpose again.”

Soarin was speechless. Had he actually… cracked through Sombra?

“What…?” was all Soarin managed to say.

“Purpose… Soarin. We are nothing without it.” Sombra went on as he faced away from him. “Everything I was, everything I knew and stood for… My purpose is over a thousand years gone… yet here I stand now, a soul within a borrowed body, given a chance to walk Equestria once more. I did not expect a second chance. I did not believe Celestia would be so naïve to set me free. I lay dormant for centuries, thought over my entire life millions of times over… and now here I am.”

He paused for several seconds, then shook his head as he turned and looked at Soarin.

“My purpose had always been to protect my kingdom, my ponies, and any of those I could consider a friend. My world might be long gone, but that belief has not changed. And after what I’ve been through, after what I’ve seen and experienced… I feel it is my duty to stand against the gods who have abused their position, neglected their followers, and ultimately brought me to my end and erased my legacy. I will stand against everything they are, even if it scares those who stand beneath me. They may never know why I stand above them, they may always scream and run from me… But I don’t care. I’m doing this for them. And—”

He suddenly stopped and gasped, turning abruptly.

“Huh…? Soarin blinked.

Soarin redirected his thoughts and fixed his focus on his body, specifically his eyes as he ‘felt’ what was being seen through them on the outside. Sombra had made it to the top of the mountain, or at least a small plateau near the peak. He had stopped, frozen in place as the wind and snow continued to whistle and rush around him.

But there was something distinctly different. It was night… and yet something was lighting up the area as if it were bright as day.

It was the Crystal Empire in the distance.

Soarin joined Sombra in looking out and viewing the Empire from afar. It was glowing beautifully beneath the large magic dome that surrounded it, the snowflakes glistening as the light of the Empire touched them.

Soarin quickly noticed Sombra’s behavior through the position of his own body. He was standing still, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape, simply staring towards the beautiful sight far below.

Soarin was briefly distracted as he noticed the Nimbus parked near the castle. It stood out like a sore hoof compared to the unique architecture of the rest of the city. He felt a huge wave of relief wash over him, knowing that the Wonderbolts had made it safely to their destination, even though it was without him.

But what was going on with Sombra? He had not moved, nor spoken since he reached the summit. He was just staring.

“My…” Sombra’s voice suddenly squeaked out, instantly catching Soarin’s attention. “My kingdom…” His voice sounded choked up. Soarin could feel his lower lip quivering slightly, his eyes felt misty, and one of his hooves dug harder into the snow. “It’s… just as beautiful as I remember it…” Sombra continued.

“It was sealed away with your body,” Celestia suddenly spoke up from within. “And was only released recently. So it’s only aged a few years since—”

“Celes, I know,” Sombra cut her off. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t laid eyes on it… in over a thousand years.”

Soarin felt wetness in his eyes. And a tear rolled down his cheek.

“Perhaps…” Sombra’s voice was almost shaky. “My world is not completely gone after all…”

Soarin didn’t know what to make of the situation, and it was going back to Sombra opening up a few moments ago. While he wasn’t sure who to believe, he had concluded that Sombra was thirsty for revenge, somewhat fitting Celestia’s narrative about how he must be stopped. But here… and in the moments before. His heart was showing through.

A king, sealed away for over a thousand years… looking out and seeing his kingdom for the first time since he was locked away… and the sight had moved him to tears. Soarin could feel Sombra’s emotions flowing through his own body.

“Well… there it is,” Celestia suddenly spoke up, butting in on his moment and surprising Soarin. “Your throne sits right where it used to be, and it’s occupied.”

There was a sudden sharpness to her tone that Soarin noticed quickly. Ironically, it was the same kind of tone Sombra used when he claimed she was trying to draw sympathy. The roles had reversed.

“You have the body you wanted… and I have no control. Soarin said it himself… do you honestly think you can just waltz right back in? What are you going to do? Attack it?”

“Of course not,” Sombra replied calmly without any animosity. “It is my own kingdom. And those are my ponies walking the streets… Some of whom were alive and sealed away with me all those years ago.”

Celestia went quiet. That was clearly not the kind of answer she was expecting. Soarin felt like his brain was going in circles with how the roles seemed to suddenly switch between who was being harsh and who was being calm, but he was too curious to let it bother him. Instead he focused on Sombra.

“Is this why you climbed the mountain?” Soarin asked, stepping in before Celestia could say anything else.

“Yes,” Sombra answered without hesitation. “This used to be my favorite spot to look out upon my land.”

Soarin remained quiet for a moment, simply looking out at the Empire as well, joining Sombra in taking in the sight.

“So… what are you going to do now?” Soarin added.

For a long moment… Sombra did not answer, the whistling winds filling the void of silence as he reached up a hoof and wiped the tear streak from his face.

“I… don’t know.”

Soarin did not press further. And Celestia remained quiet as well, both of them caught off-guard by Sombra and the way the sight of the Crystal Empire seemed to completely pacify him.

“I think… for now…” Sombra went on. He slowly lowered Soarin’s body, lying down in the snow, but keeping his head upright and his eyes focused on the Empire. “I just want to remain here.”

And he did just that, leaving Soarin to his thoughts as he continued to observe… and try to piece together everything he knew and everything he wanted to figure out.

But obviously, what he was seeing right now was the most fascinating. King Sombra, a stallion from the depths of history that had always been portrayed as an insane, evil villain, sitting before him calmly in a moment of reflection and calm. Obviously, his common knowledge of who Sombra was had been completely thwarted over the course of all of this, but it didn’t stop it from being enlightening.

Soarin was starting to notice a pattern with Sombra. Whenever it came to discussing the gods, Sombra lashed out, became vicious and angry to an alarming extent, at times circling and contradicting his own arguments as he raged. But when things became personal… a softer side showed. Celestia’s mention of the night they fell in love clearly moved him, despite his demands for her to stop, but nothing gave Soarin a better view of it than right now as Sombra looked out upon his kingdom. He was completely lost in the sight of his home and the ponies he once ruled, a sight that he had been deprived of for so long. Not to mention he climbed a mountain with a body he could not fully control just so he could see it from his favorite perch.

But Sombra was not the only one Soarin was learning about here. He was getting a closer look at Princess Celestia than he had ever gotten before. Whenever he had seen her or met with her in the past, it had been all business with rare bits here and there where some mischievousness poked through. But now he was diving so deep into personal feelings that he barely recognized her. She had been all over the place emotionally as well. Her story shifted from a starry eyed romance to a teary eyed tragedy and at one point was clearly trying to make personal jabs right at Sombra. While her story and thoughts remained steady, her emotional state was hilariously inconsistent, making it hard for Soarin to tell if anything was being exaggerated or avoided. Sombra tried to call her out on embellishment, but in the end it was Soarin himself who caught her in a corner and forced her to admit she had willingly sacrificed him. It convinced him that she was being honest, but it didn’t excuse her from the act. And just when Soarin thought he had figured her part of the story out, she suddenly became testy once Sombra reached the peak and stared out at the empire, Sombra becoming emotional as they completely flipped who had which mindset.

Soarin got what he wanted, he got both sides of the story, but in the end he still didn’t know who to believe. Instead… he found himself wondering something else. The more he heard, the more he began to wonder what this was really all about. It seemed like both of them were focused on themselves directly, and neither of them brought up the situation going on with the Shadowbolts and their mystery puppeteer Kayn Ost.

This was a personal conflict. Nothing more. An argument between a Goddess and an ancient king. Celestia didn’t even bother addressing her supposed ‘plan’ to face a ‘threat’ after going through the whole story. But Soarin didn’t want to jump to conclusions because that wasn’t what he specifically asked. Either way, this had everything to do with the two of them being at odds with one another… and felt like it had practically nothing to do with what Soarin was worried about… His friends and the fight against the Shadowbolts.

Did Celestia really know about the Shadowbolts and Kayn Ost? Or was his appearance simply convenient to her goals? Did she really believe Sombra would see things her way? Or was she simply desperate to have him back? Would she really go so far just for a love interest? And what was all of that about her father? Other gods? Soarin had never once heard or read of there ever being other gods aside from those known to Equestria: Celestia, Luna, and Discord. Was there a whole separate history of their world and the forces that watched over it that was never told?

His curiosity aside, it really wasn’t important to the situation, just a juicy bit of detail… for now. There was something else Soarin had noticed as he thought back on both of their stories.

There was one particular part that neither of them elaborated on… Discord.

Where did Discord fit into all of this? Both Sombra and Celestia seemed so intent on proving which one of them was to blame between themselves. The moment Discord used his magic on Sombra, at least to Soarin, seemed like an incredibly important detail. Why did they not say more? Why didn’t they give it more focus? Was it so personal between them that they felt Discord was just an afterthought, an irrelevant piece? That couldn’t be it. Sombra used harsh words when speaking of him and Celestia described how she more or less was ready to blow him away with her magic when she found them.

Discord clearly played an important role… But Soarin decided not to press them on it for now. Especially with Sombra currently so lost in the past.

Instead, Soarin brought his thoughts back within his body, and stared at the dormant image of Rainbow Dash lying beside his spirit. He’d learn more later. He wanted to learn more. He didn’t know what good it would do in all honesty, but even though he told Sombra to let him ‘choose’ to help him or not, he wasn’t going to just let him have his body as long as he could resist in some way. It was just a way to get him to shut up. But how long would he last? He’d hold on for as long as he could.

For Spitfire…

For Fleetfoot…

For ALL the Wonderbolts…

For everyone else too…

But especially for Rainbow Dash.

As Soarin remained trapped in his own body, stuck there with Sombra as the old king looked down from the mountain, he began to wonder how everypony else was doing. That was definitely the Nimbus parked north of the castle. He was sure everypony was worried about him and already planning what to do… but strangely… part of him hoped that they were simply relaxing for the time being, finally within safe bounds after so much hardship.

He wasn’t going anywhere, that was for sure… so hopefully… just hopefully… they were all getting some much needed and much deserved rest.

“Ah… ah… aaaaaahhhoooooooo…” Spitfire couldn’t hold down the enormous yawn, stopping in place with her hoof attached to the hotel door handle. Her head tilted backwards and heaved forward slowly as she released it, shaking her head out and shuddering lightly. “Hnnngggg…” she groaned as she pulled the door open and shuffled her hooves through, barely picking them up as she dragged them into the lobby.

Was the day over yet? She was pretty sure the day was over, but she couldn’t tell. Either way she was done, if anything else came up, it would have to wait. Her steps were wobbly, she teetered as she moved, and her eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each as she struggled to keep them open. She was so tired that she didn’t even acknowledge the illustrious and luxurious interior of the resort hotel lobby she was walking through. There were incredibly comfy looking couches and chairs all over the place beneath beautiful crystal chandeliers that emitted a soft comforting glow, providing mood lighting that dimly glistened off every crystal surface. But Spitfire didn’t want a couch or a chair, no matter how soft they looked. She wanted a bed and a pillow. Nothing else.

Despite reaching the safety of the Empire, she did not have the same luxury as the rest of the force. After she sent the last of them to the hotels, she had to stay behind in the palace to talk with captains and commanders of their military, talk administrative needs for the Wonderbolts, and run some more fine details past the other princesses and the prince. It was all taken care of, everything. And with the Crystal Airborne sending out multiple scout teams to track down both Soarin and the Shadowbolts to keep them in the know, she finally… FINALLY… felt like she could relax without worry… or at least immediate worry. It was a feeling she felt like she hadn’t experienced in long time.

Her body was sore, all of her muscles and joints felt like they were going to fall apart. Her brain was shot, burned out with all her thoughts turning to mush. She was absolutely exhausted in every possible way imaginable. So exhausted that she didn’t notice Fire Streak approaching her until he was roughly two steps away.

“Captain?” he spoke while tilting his head, as if it wasn’t the first time he said it. Spitfire blinked once sluggishly, keeping her eyes shut for a second before opening them again.

“Hm?” she hummed in response as she kept moving towards the reception desk where she could see a large board with names on it. She assumed it was the room assignments. Fire turned and walked beside her.

“I did a routine check and roll call with every squad. Everypony is accounted for,” he reported, sounding a little sleepy himself, but not nearly on the level of Spitfire.

“Hm,” Spitfire hummed again, not even looking at him.

“Well, actually,” Fire scratched the back of his head. “Everypony except for one member of recruit squad Foxtrot, but… I’m not sure if we should count him since he’s—”

“SIS!!!!!!!” Blaze suddenly shrieked from nearby. Spitfire didn’t react, but Fire grunted as Blaze forced him aside and rushed up to her.

“Hm?” Spitfire stopped, bumping into Blaze’s nose with her chest as she got in front. She took another step before stopping, effectively pushing Blaze back a little. But Blaze didn’t seem to care, she was more worried about freaking out.

“Who the FUCK organized these room assignments?!” she demanded frantically and angrily.

“Hey babe!” Lighting Streak’s voice suddenly came from a nearby hallway and he stepped out, bobbing back and forth as he sauntered with a smirk on his face. “Why you gotta run from me? Just give me one night and you’ll wake up bi!”

Spitfire heard every word, but didn’t show a single sign that she gave a damn about Lightning’s behavior.

“GAH!!” Blaze whined as she quickly ran around Spitfire and hid behind her from Lightning.

“Hm?” Spitfire hummed.

“Windy isn’t even on the same floor as me!!!” Blaze continued to complain, flinching as Lightning Streak spotted her and chuckled as he approached. “And why was I paired with LIGHTNING STREAK?! They didn’t even separate them by gender! FIX THISSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!” Blaze cried while grabbing Spitfire’s shoulder form the side and trying to shake her.

“Blaze, I don’t care who you have sex with,” Spitfire replied, swaying slightly as she fought to stay awake.

Blaze’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped, but she winced hard and growled as Lightning Streak slide up beside her and draped a wing over her back.

“Too bad babe, looks like you’re stuck with me!” he said jokingly as she struggled beneath his wing.

“GET THE FUCK OFFA ME!” she raged at him as she tried to get free.

“Just sleep with whoever you want…” Spitfire said sleepily, seemingly unaware of how silly and unrelated to the issue her answers were.

“Yes ma’am!” Lightning Streak chuckled and tightened his wing’s grip on her.

“FUCK YOU!” Blaze roared at him. “SIS! MAKE HIM STOP!” she whined.

“Brother…” Fire Streak sighed, knowing Lightning was just taking advantage of the situation to mess with her… mostly. Spitfire’s exhaustion was clear as day, so he tried to get a hold of the situation, but this was his twin brother he was dealing with.

“Which room did they put me in?” Spitfire asked with a yawn, completely ignoring the scuffle as she dragged herself the last few steps to the reception desk.

“HEY!” Blaze yelled towards her as she managed to yank free from Lightning. “ARE YOU EVEN—MRPH!” she was cut off as Fire Streak pressed a hoof over her mouth.

“Blaze, just go rest wherever you like,” he said, as Blaze released muffled whines. Lightning suddenly appeared on her other side and put his arm around her, pulling her away from Fire and pressing her face right into his chest.

“Best bed in the house is right here babe!” he snickered while rubbing his other hoof through his chest fur. “And maybe a little further down, come to papa!”

The look on Blaze’s face was comparable to getting punched in the gut while sucking on a lemon as her face contorted and she twitched.

“Fucking EW! Quit it, asshole!” she demanded while trying to punch him, but did not have a favorable angle to land any direct hits. “Stop touching me or I’ll break your fucking crystal dick off!” she snarled.

“Might be a tough job, babe! It’s literally rock hard now!”

“Brother, enough…” Fire glared at Lightning sternly. Lightning shrugged, throwing his brother a smarmy grin.

“Sorry bro, Captain’s orders!” he chuckled. “Isn’t that right Cap—” he looked towards Spitfire, but she was already gone, heading right for the elevators and slumping into the first one that opened. “—tain?” he finished, both he and Blaze staring towards where they last saw her despite still being locked together.

“The hell is up with her?” Blaze asked, still stuck under Lightning’s arm.

“That’s enough, both of you,” Fire scolded them calmly, glancing towards the elevators before stepping in front of them. “Leave her be.” He ordered, looking back again.

He had never seen Spitfire so tired before in his life.

Fleetfoot was awake… tired but awake as she rested her head on her pillow. It was so soft and comfy, just like the bed. She wanted to sleep, but she was still in a bit of shock over Soarin. They made it to safety, they finally could rest, but without Soarin it felt like an empty victory. She wanted her missing best friend back and it was keeping her from dozing off.

If nothing else, she was at least comfortable. She had seen the doctors upon making it to the hotel, they cleaned up and treated all of her external bumps and injuries. Now she was just trying not to move at all. Her body was still incredibly sensitive and tender from being… forcibly stretched out and blown up by Nightshade, so the less she moved while it healed, the better.

But her ears perked up when she heard the doorknob turn, and the door behind her open. She moved as little as possible, turning only her head and neck.

It was Spitfire.

“Oh… Hey Spitty,” Fleetfoot greeted her solemnly, assuming she was just as worked up over Soarin, but she blinked when she saw the blank, exhausted look on her face.

“Hm…” Spitfire hummed as she dragged her hooves, slowly moving towards Fleetfoot.

“You’re finally back… What did they say? Are they looking for—”

“Hm…” Spitfire hummed again before she could finish. Fleetfoot tipped her head slightly.

“Spitty?” she said as Spitfire moved in between the two beds and began patting her hoof on the other mattress.

Before Fleetfoot could ask anything else, Spitfire weakly and awkwardly climbed onto the bed, almost falling off a few times as she stumbled into the center of the large soft mattress. The moment she was centered and the pillow was right beneath her head… she dropped, falling flat onto the bed, her chin landing on the pillow with a soft plop.

Despite the difficulty, Fleetfoot lifted her head up extending her neck as much as she could as she looked across to the other bed, examining Spitfire.

Spitfire was breathing steadily.

She was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.

Completely out.

Considering the amount of stress that had been on her shoulders up to this point, Fleetfoot wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

Her ears drooped down and she sighed. She shakily turned over, wincing lightly until she found a comfortable position, and put her head to the pillow again, trying to follow the lead of her captain.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Well then... that sure was a lot to take in. Celestia has let it all out, but where does this put Soarin? He's now caught between two version, two narratives of the same events... and in the end... it's nothing but a personal problem between the two of them? Where does all of this fit in with what's going on with the Shadowbolts? Soarin didn't ask about that specifically, so it looks like he might have to dig deeper, Celestia already admitted to purposely not helping him with the tornado... and as the all seeing goddess she is she MUST have known the tornado's origins... and therefor MUST have known about Kayn Ost... Did Kayn Ost's appearance prompt her to seek out a vessel for Sombra? Or was Kayn Ost's appearance a convenient coincidence that gave her the excuse to? (Also who the hell is Kayn Ost anyway? Am i dick for keeping the villain faceless for so long...? Or have I?:trollestia:)

As for Sombra... it looks like the 'evil tyrant' has a bigger heart than most would suggest... Who is Soarin to believe or Trust? And is there really anything he can do to stop Sombra?

But why don't we point out the obvious... why didn't either of them elaborate on Discord when he was clearly a key factor in the sad twist the story took? There is still more to be delved into... you can bet Soarin isn't done.

As for Spitfire... man she sure needed that bed, didn't she? Not even blaze and Lightning causing a scene in a public area was enough to snap her out of her exhaustion.

And Fire... who from squad Foxtrot is missing...? Oh i think we all know :pinkiecrazy:

First image in this chapter by: Penumbraglow

Second and third images by: Foxenawolf

Once again, sorry that it took so long for me to get going into the new year on this. I can't guarantee the speed of updates anymore with how many things are going on in my life right now (not bad things, just busy things), but it's definitely not going to be due to a lack of effort. I'm still very much interested in writing this story, that won't change.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 153: Outside The Box

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 153: Outside the Box

“Uh…”Spitfire blinked and tipped her head to the side. “Run that one by me again…?” she asked the cleric in front of her. “Crystal… dew?” The little mare smiled and nodded, the hood of her white, red triangle pattern rimmed robes falling over her horn and eyes as she completed the motion. She hummed in discontent as she pushed it back up before answering.

“Yes! Crystal dew baths,” she repeated.

Spitfire opened and closed her mouth, tipping her head to the other side and lifting an eyebrow. She glanced around at the medical room that had been set up in one of the hotel’s large convention rooms. Last night she didn’t have a chance to stop by before wobbling to her room and falling asleep. Come morning, she limped her way there after grabbing some breakfast and… wasn’t expecting what she saw.

She assumed it would be a set up similar to the makeshift infirmary that Bliss had put together in the Nimbus with tables and beds everywhere with several doctors present. There were some doctors present, but while there were some beds set up, there were only a few. The rest of the room was littered with these strange glass tubs… or maybe they were made of crystal. They were small, not quite big enough for two ponies, at least not without being cramped, and they were all filled with a strange, blue, opaque liquid. Wonderbolts and Renegades alike were occupying said tubs, and they all looked incredibly relaxed and comfortable.

“And what exactly do these do?” Spitfire inquired curiously.

“It’s a medical breakthrough that we discovered and harnessed over the past year,” the little cleric explained cheerfully as her hood began to slip down again. “We collected and studied the magical residue from crystals that we use to store and amplify magic—EEP!” she squeaked as her hood fell over her eyes again. She quickly pushed it up over her horn again. “For ages, nopony ever thought to collect it, assuming it was merely condensation on the crystal’s surface, but we’re sure glad we did! Its healing properties are astounding!”

“Huh…” Spitfire looked around the room again, but quickly noticed something. The only ponies using the baths were those who did not have a severe injury of some kind. Only those who could be simply be described as ‘beaten up.’ Anypony who had a larger issue, something fractured, broken, etc. were over on the beds with actual doctors from the hospitals addressing them instead of the clerics. Most notably, Descent was lying on one of the beds, grunting and cringing as two doctors felt around his heavily bruised midsection to assess the damage. “But there’s a catch… isn’t there? Nopony with a harsh injury are using them.” Spitfire asked and pointed out as she turned back to the cleric. The little mare nodded, her hood falling over her eyes again.

“Oof, this stupid hood…” she quickly fixed it and bunched the end up over her horn. “Yes, it is ineffective in treating major injuries like joint tears or strains, muscle pulls, broken, fractured, or dislocated bones… It can’t cure illnesses,” she explained as her hood began to slowly slide again. “It also does not have revitalization effects, it can’t alleviate mental or physical fatigue, normal bodily needs like rest and sleep must still be met. But…” she smiled as her hood barely stayed up. “It can completely relieve minor injuries, pain, soreness, and physical stress from the body. As long as it’s not a significant or hindering injury, these baths can wash it away in roughly half an hour.”

“That’s… nifty,” Spitfire commented, slightly impressed as she looked around at how comfortable all the Wonderbolts and Renegades looked in the tubs. “So it’s useful for anypony that’s been roughed up, but not severely injured…” she thought out loud. She scanned the room a few times… and blinked, perking up as she quickly turned her head back to the cleric. “Question.”

“Ye—” the cleric’s hood fell again. “Ah…” she pushed it back up and actually held it in place this time. “Yes?”

“So if I were to categorize what these pools can treat, it would be ‘minor injuries…’” she began. The cleric nodded. “Would ‘minor injuries’ include… say… muscle fatigue?” she asked. The cleric didn’t say anything at first, slightly tipping her head.

“Um… what do you mean?” she asked, curious where Spitfire was going with it.

“As in soreness from a workout,” Spitfire specified to differentiate the term from regular fatigue. She lifted one of her slightly arms and flexed her arm muscles a little. “Muscle recovery. Repairing micro-tears in muscle fibers… you know, how they grow bigger, stronger, and sturdier through training. Does that count on the ‘minor injury’ spectrum? Would it speed up muscle recovery?”

The cleric stared at her blankly.

Spitfire did her absolute best to conceal her bewilderment. How could a ‘cleric’ not understand a basic bodily function? Then again… clerics studied healing MAGIC… apparently it was not the same knowledge set as one who was a medical student. The areas of expertise seemed to be further apart than Spitfire thought even though the doctors and clerics worked hoof in hoof here in the Empire.

“I… would assume so, yes,” she finally answered, not sounding too sure. She let go of her hood and it immediately fell over her eyes. She sighed and didn’t even bother to push it back up. “I need a smaller robe…”

“Do you think you could confirm that and get back to me?” Spitfire requested as she reached forward and held the mare’s hood up for her.

“I will,” the mare nodded.

“Thank you,” Spitfire smiled, letting go of the hood. It fell right back over the mare’s face. “Oh… sorry.”

“No, it’s fine… I’ve given up,” the cleric turned and made her way back towards the baths with her hood draped over her nose.

Spitfire chuckled as the cleric left before looking around for an open tub. Might as well give this stuff a shot. After a little bit of searching she spotted Fleetfoot in one of the tubs, who had eluded her sight before. It was probably because Fleetfoot was nearly sunk all the way into the dew. There was an open tub right next to her, so Spitfire made her way over to it. She kept her eyes on Fleetfoot as she approached, lifting an eyebrow as Fleetfoot seemed to be in some sort of dreamy trance.

She stopped in front of the vacant tub next to Fleetfoot’s and peered in at the bright blue, slightly sparkling liquid. She curiously reached an arm into the tub and dipped her hoof into the dew. It felt no different than water and reacted as such when her hoof touched it, causing light ripples.

“Hop on in,” another cleric encouraged her as she walked to the other side and tapped her hoof on the edge of the tub. “We just cleaned and changed this one, it’s ready to go.”

“Uh… thanks,” Spitfire replied, but the cleric had moved on.

She took another moment, just staring at the ‘crystal dew’ before glancing at Fleetfoot again. She looked unaware that Spitfire was even there.

“Well… why not?” Spitfire said to herself as she gave in and climbed right in.

The moment her body was submerged in the crystal dew, she immediately felt a warm, tingling sensation all over her body. It surprised her at first, but after a few seconds, it began to feel really soothing, really comfortable.

“Huh…” Spitfire said to herself as she felt her body relax, the aches and pains all over her body subsiding. They didn’t just vanish alltogether, but it felt like they were receding little by little, as if slowly being ‘washed away’ as the cleric had put it.

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” Fleetfoot suddenly hummed squeakily. Spitfire glanced over at her and saw that she had sunk even further into her tub, only her face visible above the dew as she wore the goofiest, content look Spitfire had ever seen.

“Feels that good, huh?” Spitfire asked with a smirk.

“Mmmmmmyeeeeeeah…” Fleetfoot sighed dreamily, remaining completely submerged in la-la land.

“Heh…” Spitfire chuckled as she leaned further back, and let the comforting, warm tingle envelope her, relaxing. She was expecting general medical treatment, not a spa… but after such a long trip full of hardships, this wasn’t so bad. She still had a lot to do… and plenty to worry about, but for the moment, she relaxed and let her mind wander as the dew caressed her body and flushed the pain from her beat up, aching body. But her mind didn’t wander very far.

The small cleric seemed uncertain about what she asked regarding muscle recovery. So she wasn’t sure IF she’d get a response, let alone a very firm one. Maybe she’d experiment on her own with it. Though in the end, she was only curious at the moment. It wasn’t like they’d have a chance to take advantage of any benefits this would grant them before they went after Soarin. But assuming they were able to get Soarin back… or if the fight to get him back extended into the future and became a long term conflict against the Shadowbolts… She’d take advantage of anything she could find. And if this worked the way she thought it could… it would be a major advantage.

Say these pools really could speed up the muscle repair and recovery process… What if it could cut down the body’s recovery time by half… or even less? If it worked… Spitfire wondered if she could put the Wonderbolts on a rapid, constant, high intensity training schedule. If she could utilize these pools and cut the needed recovery time way down… just imagine the progress they could make! She could train, sharpen, strengthen, and pump them all up a bit over a very short period of time. If it really worked, she could push their limits to the max and beyond on a daily basis, maybe more than once daily without fear of injuring anypony. Increasing everypony’s strength, speed, and endurance suddenly would be a very satisfying shock to the Shadowbolts.

That is… of course… assuming it even worked, and there were no glaring drawbacks. The cleric DID mention that mental stress and overall fatigue could not be treated by the dew. It was an exciting thought, but she’d have to be careful and make sure she had every detail ironed out before she attempted to do anything risky.

Spitfire glanced at Fleetfoot.

She could do little more than just be curious for now, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t observe a little. Maybe she would be a good starting point to figure this out. Fleetfoot’s body was in an odd state compared to the others that were hurt. Her body and muscle fibers had been forcefully stretched and expanded by Nightshade’s magic, putting her in a condition where her entire body felt like an extremely sore muscle, not to mention the delayed onset soreness had to feel like she had a vice attached to every inch of her, tightened to the max. She had to be on the very edge between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ injuries. If these pools sped up Fleetfoot’s recovery, it would answer Spitfire’s question. At least the recovery part, whether or not it had the effect Spitfire desired, or if there were any downsides to it would require some careful analysis.

From there, she could test it a little more on herself, or maybe a stallion or two. It wouldn’t be hard to convince a couple of her male counterparts to take part. If some of the more reasonable stallions had reservations, all she would have to do is tell Lightning, Air Mach, or Savage that they’d get more ripped and they’d sign up before even asking what they were doing.

As Spitfire’s mind continued to wander around with no real destination, she found herself wondering what Bliss thought of the crystal dew baths? Spitfire hadn’t caught up with her head trainer since they landed, but she had no doubt she was likely a little peeved. Spitfire chuckled at the thought and even imagined the look of grumpy displeasure on her face that she had become known for when dealing with so many stubborn Wonderbolts. She worked so hard to earn her medical license, worked her way to becoming one of the most well known in the industry, landed a job with the Wonderbolts and now suddenly some local magic was doing something none of her expertise could do. Or at least just for the lightly wounded. For all the other fun stuff, the fractures, contusions, sprains, broken bones, and the like… they’d still need the doctors. Spitfire could still hear Descent grunting and groaning from across the room as the doctors worked on him. His massive bludgeon mark on his abdomen would need a little more than some tingly magic rock residue to take care of.

Spitfire sighed as she felt more and more relaxed by the second, the dew soaking against her body was soothing more than just her cuts, bruises, and aches. It felt like it was calming her nerves and putting her in the most relaxed state she had ever been in. She let her head hang back for a moment before turning it to one side.

But chance would have it that the natural motion caused her eyes to point right towards one particularly colorful prodigy of theirs. Spitfire blinked as she saw Dash over in the corner, sitting alone in one of the baths with several empty ones around her. She was probably saving them for her squadmates, but that wasn’t the thought that began to cross Spitfire’s mind.

This… idea, this plan of hers to use the dew to boost training capacity and muscle recovery… While she was hesitant to risk experimenting on a top prospect for the future of the force, she couldn’t help but feel Dash would be a perfect candidate to test it out. For a full analysis, she’d need a pony willing to work incredibly hard… and Dash was easily their hardest worker… aside from Soarin of course. There was nopony currently among them that Spitfire felt was more willing and dedicated to becoming better, faster, and stronger than Rainbow Dash. Silver chose her as his pupil for a reason, after all.

Nopony would be more perfect candidate to see if quick results were achievable… alongside herself of course, she wasn’t going to try this on anypony without including herself in the test. Perhaps she’d look to the newer members for a stallion as well. She’d want to test it on both sexes, plus stallions gained strength and muscle faster than mares so that would help accelerate the experiment. But who would she choose? At the moment, she could only think of one… that stallion that Soarin had been working with, Descent’s son, Storm. He was showing promise and drive as well. That would work, if she recruited Dash into this project, having a training partner she was already friends with would be perfect. And if this all worked out, again assuming it was possible, she could sell the idea to the rest of the force and push them all beyond their limits. It would be—

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt, her eyes catching a scene unfolding as a few familiar Wonderbolts entered the room.

High Winds was walking casually with her usual sleepy sway. Blaze was riding backwards on Winds’ back, holding onto and squeezing Winds’ plot while literally hissing like a cat at Air Mach and Lightning Streak following close behind them.

“Oh god…” Spitfire sighed, her ears folding back as she watched Lightning and Air Mach mess with Blaze.

“So…” Lightning began while nudging Air Mach. “How was last night bro? Eh? Ehhhhh?”

“HA!” Air Mach stood on his hind legs and pointed into the air triumphantly. “I got the best sleep a stallion could imagine and had a glorious dream about how awesome my piloting of the Falcon was! The rush of satisfaction was so intense that not even High Winds’ loud ass snoring could wake me and interrupt the epic vision!”

Lightning Streak lifted an eyebrow, staying completely silent for a moment as they kept moving.

“That wasn’t even close to what I meant, dude…”

“GOOD!” Blaze yelled as she pointed at Air Mach. “AND DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE COME NEAR HER EVER!”

Lightning snickered and was about to keep poking fun, but had to pause. He and everypony else in the room shielding their eyes as High Winds released a loud, squeaky yawn, her crystal body shining and shimmering brightly.

“C’mon bro…” Lightning nudged Air Mach again, while stealing more glances at Blaze becoming progressively more pissed off. “You didn’t even think about it?” he asked with a smirk while motioning towards High Winds’ plot and making several curved hoof motions. “That fiiiiiiiiine piece of sleepy ass lying right in the bed across from you and—”

“SAY ONE MORE FUCKING WORD!” Blaze shouted, by now drawing just about as much attention to herself as possible. “AND I’LL—”

“And dare betray my devotion to Fleetfoot?!” Air Mach cut her off, pounding his chest and holding his nose high. “As a true stallion, I would never do such a thing to my princess!”

Spitfire glanced away from the slow motion train wreck as Fleetfoot released a quiet groan.

“Noooooo, he’s going to ruin my good mood…” Fleetfoot slurred as she remained as far sunk into the tub as she could manage without going under. “He doesn’t see me… he doesn’t see me… he doesn’t see me…” she repeated to herself as Spitfire reluctantly turned her attention back to the shenanigans.

“But…” Air Mach suddenly turned to Lightning and jabbed him in the shoulder. “If she were a mare in need of a good stallion to satisfy her, it would betray my instincts as a stallion to deny. I would have happily spread her—”

“THAT’S IT!” Blaze stood up on High Wind’s back. “YOU—AH!” She yelped as the force of her motion caused High Winds to sway a little more. The sudden shift caused Blaze to tumble right off and fall towards the tub they were passing… that happened to have Surprise in it.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEK!” Surprise yelped as Blaze landed right on top of her and sent them both under with a splash. Lightning and Air Mach burst out laughing as High Winds continued on without taking notice of anything. Surprise and Blaze both emerged from the dew, coughing with their manes completely drenched.

“Heeeeeeey…” Lightning chuckled as he placed his hooves on the edge of the tub. “Now THIS looks like an invitation!” He lifted himself up to climb in despite how little space was left in the tub, but was immediately met with resistance in the form of Surprise and Blaze flailing their arms and slapping at him as they remained in an unfavorable position. Blaze was hurling as many swear words she could think of, and possibly making up a few as Surprise just repeated “NO!” over and over again. But Lightning took the hits like a champ, leaning further forward while bouncing his eyebrows at them both.

“CANNON BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!” Air Mach’s voice suddenly came from above. Blaze and Surprise both looked up with their eyes growing as wide as possible. Lightning quickly put it together, but had no time to move.

“Ah shi—”

Air Mach landed ass first right on the back of Lightning Streak’s head, forcing him face down into the dew and teetering his body over the edge of the tub, falling in as Air Mach’s impact ended in a massive splash and lots of yelps from ponies nearby. The amount of dew in the tub more or less halved as a large amount of it flung into the air. Several clerics nearby frantically activated their magic to catch as much of the dew in auras before it could splash on the floor.

Only Air Mach could be seen over the top of the tub, looking up and laughing to himself with his glasses somehow still resting firmly on his face. It didn’t take long for Lightning to force his hooves up and throw Air Mach right out of the tub. Air Mach landed face first on the floor, but tucked and rolled before standing up.

“Ha! Perfect landing again!” he exclaimed with his fur dripping.

“Damn, give a dude a warning next time…” Lightning groaned as he sat up in the tub and rubbed the back of his head. The tub was only half full now as Lightning sat in it, but it didn’t take him long to realize that Surprise and Blaze were to his sides, pushed against him due to the lack of space, both bent over with their heads barely above the dew level and coughing up bits of dew as they tried to come to their senses. Their plots both just happened to be up in the air and flanking Lightning’s head. Lightning blinked and looked back and forth at the mare butts before shrugging. “Guess this ain’t so bad!” he chuckled while putting his arms around their plots like they were shoulders.

Lightning was lucky that his twin brother had good timing. Fire suddenly yanked him out of the tub right before Surprise and Blaze could kick him in the face. Lightning sprawled out on the floor, looking up at both Fire and Misty.

“For heaven’s sake, brother…” Fire sighed as Blaze and High Winds both turned upright, moved to the side of the tub and glared down at Lightning Streak on the floor. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I? Behave yourself for once!”

Lightning smirked as he looked up at both Fire and Misty glaring at him on the floor.

“That’s no fun, bro.” he pointed up. “Unclench your ass cheeks already, the sucking sound they make is waking the dead—OW! OW!” Lightning yelped as Fire grabbed him by the tail and started dragging him away.

Misty watched him the twins leave before turning and giggling at Surprise and Blaze all wet.

“Huh? Hey, where did Windy go?!” Blaze suddenly whined, her ears flopping down. A loud yawn sounded out across the room accompanied by bright flashing lights. “WINDYYYYY!!!!!!!” Blaze leapt out of the tub and ran in the direction of High Winds as Surprise pouted, her tub ruined.

Spitfire put a hoof over her eyes and shook her head.

“I swear I’m in charge of a bunch of fillies and colts…” she mumbled to herself. She was too relaxed to scold anypony right now so she just ignored it and leaned back again. But the moment her head rested against the tub…

“SPITFIRE!” a very loud, angry voice suddenly yelled from across the room.

Spitfire blinked. That wasn’t one of her Wonderbolts…

She recognized the voice though, and looked up to see exactly who she thought she heard.

Valkyrie was angrily storming towards her with heavy steps that were making the whole room shake. Comet was sauntering along right behind her, his body shimmering elegantly in a crystal form.

This was a new one… Valkyrie looked pissed off, and judging by Comet’s demeanor, he was the problem.

Spitfire’s eyes widened.

Oh no… was Valkyrie going to complain about the rooms too? She was already dealing with at least nine different complaints about the room assignments that she had NO say in making… And why come to her? Why not go to Blazetail and Flashwind about it?

“I need to change rooms!” Valkyrie demanded while slamming a hoof on the edge of Spitfire’s tub.

Bingo.

Spitfire flattened her brow and sighed, looking up at her large, former comrade and wondering why not even the older veterans couldn’t seem to figure this out on their own.

“Val, why are you asking me?” Spitfire asked firmly with a loud sigh.

“Because you’re in charge here!” she added, never losing the harsh undertones in her voice. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow.

“I had nothing to do with the room assignments. You’re the tenth pony to ask me about it this morning.” Spitfire explained flatly. Valkyrie paused and just glared at her. “What?”

“Then FIX it!” she demanded.

Spitfire gave her an odd look. Valkyrie was acting a little strange. She seemed to be half angry and half frantic. Spitfire leaned to the side slightly to look past her just in time to see Comet slide up and lean against the tub rim while bouncing his eyebrows at Valkyrie.

“Angel! Princess! Darling! Please calm yourself!” He said in a very dreamy, flirtatious tone. Valkyrie shot him the hardest death glare Spitfire had ever seen a pony make, but this only made Comet smirk. “Oh, don’t give me that look… You should be thrilled you’re rooming with me! Blazetail was supposed to be your roomie… I ended up with his wife. He switched with me so he could be with her!”

“I’m sure that was the only reason…” Spitfire said quietly to herself as she rolled her eyes.

“So be happy! It was either me or an old, over the hill stallion. I call that an improvement!” Comet flashed a toothy grin and one of his teeth sparkled brightly.

“NO!” Valkyrie suddenly grabbed him by the crystal mane and dunked his head right into Spitfire’s tub, his face and nose being shoved dangerously close to Spitfire’s nether regions.

“Whoa! Okay! That’s enough!” Spitfire yelled, as she angrily pushed Comet’s head out of her tub. He laughed as he was flung out, despite being all wet, and crashed to the floor. Spitfire was at her rope’s end with all this. And this particular situation was annoyingly similar to Blaze and Lightning Streak… only the roles were flipped in that Valkyrie could probably squash Comet’s head into a fine mist if he pushed her too far. “Val, you clearly put up with him last night, why is this a problem now?”

“I was too tired to give a damn last night,” she growled.

“I wasn’t!” Comet said from the floor with a chuckle. Valkyrie’s eyes grew so wide it could have easily been accompanied by the sound of glass breaking. She reached down, grabbed Comet by the neck and hoisted him into the air, her arm and chest tensed, muscles flexing as she held him off the ground and squeezed with the clear intent to hurt him.

“DID. YOU. TOUCH. ME. LAST. NIGHT?!” she demanded with a nearly demonic deep tone in her voice.

“GRGH! N-NO!” Comet struggled to reply.

“Val…” Spitfire said her name and nothing else, showing little concern for Comet getting the literal life squeezed out of him. Valkyrie dropped him back on the floor and glared at him, the scene garnering lots of attention from the clerics moving about the room as they began actively avoiding the area.

“Sheesh!” Comet said as he sat up and caught his breath while gently prodding his neck. “You should consider anger management. I didn’t touch you, but can you really blame me for being tempted?” he asked while flashing a smirk and eyeing her up and down as if he learned absolutely nothing from just being choked by her.

Luckily for him, Valkyrie only shot him another scowl before looking back to Spitfire.

“Fix this,” she repeated.

Spitfire exhaled loudly, hoping to fully express her exasperation to as many ponies around her as possible.

“Val,” she pointed a dripping hoof at her. “For Celestia’s sake, is it really that hard to just find somepony else and swap rooms? Just find another stallion paired with a mare and switch. Why do I have to do it for you? Blazetail already did. It’s not like anypony brought their personal belongings with them that need to be moved and transferred. I don’t see how this is so difficult.”

“There are only so many ponies I’m willing to associate with,” she quickly replied with a snort.

“Good grief, Val, really?” Spitfire groaned and let her head hang back.

“Steady and the twins are already comfortable. Pixie and Fairy somehow landed a room with each other. I don’t know how Steady is putting up with Cannon, but he’s fine right where he is. If I have to spend one more minute in the same room as Comet, I might just kill him!” Valkyrie explained her reasoning.

But she noticeably left one Renegade out.

“What about Bomber?” Spitfire quickly asked, bringing her head upright.

“I…” Valkyrie immediately flinched and hesitated. “No…”

“No what?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with Bomber? I’d take him as a roommate over Comet or Cannon any day. Is he rooming with a stallion?” she asked. Valkyrie didn’t reply. “Have you even checked?” Spitfire pressed.

Valkyrie suddenly growled quietly and flipped her head, causing a large portion of her long flowing mane to swing over and cover half her face. But the move failed to conceal the fact that she was turning red with an angry blush. Spitfire noticed Valkyrie’s reaction and rolled her eyes as she quickly figured out what the ‘issue’ was pertaining to Bomber.

“Val, if you’re going to be that picky, then you’re stuck with Comet. It’s your choice, either put up with his flirting nonsense or put up with the giant innocent softy who thinks you’re cute and likes to hug you.”

Valkyrie’s growl grew a little louder and her face turned completely red, the color running down her neck.

“Easy choice, eh, sweetheart?” Comet chimed in as he leaned back against the tub and ran a hoof through his crystal mane.

“FINE!” Valkyrie suddenly blurted out while keeping her face hidden. “I’ll put up with…” she trailed off, pausing as she released a long sigh, the anger vanishing as she hung her head, her eyes were covered by her hair but her flushed face and nose stuck through. “I mean… I’ll… ask Bomber’s roommate if we can switch…" she said quietly and very quickly as she turned and scurried off with much lighter and quicker steps than she used to enter.

That left Comet alone with Spitfire as he watched Valkyrie leave in a hurry. He blinked and shrugged.

“Eh… maybe one of these days,” he said with a chuckle. Spitfire gave him flat look.

“With your track record, I wouldn’t count on it…” she said to herself as Pixie and Fairy suddenly walked by side by side, their stride in perfect sync as they looked for a pair of vacant, adjacent tubs. Comet immediately zeroed in on them and pushed away from Spitfire’s tub.

“Lllllllllllladies!” Comet called to them as he sauntered after them, they both stopped and turned in unison. “How about the three of us share a tub?” he suggested. The twin mares made the exact same face of disgust as they both reclined while remaining perfectly parallel.

“Ew…” they both said at once.

“Get…” Pixie said first.

“Bent!” Fairy completed as they both turned and started moving faster to get away, but regardless, Comet followed after them.

“Sheesh…” Spitfire sighed as she sunk further into her tub. “And I thought Lightning was a hassle…” she said to herself.

“Captain Spitfire, how is the—”

“JUST SLEEP WHEREVER YOU WANT!!!!!!!” Spitfire suddenly blurted out, lifting her hooves out of the tub and yanking on her mane.

She flinched and blinked, looking to her left to see a cleric frozen in place with eyes wide.

“Uh…” Spitfire gritted her teeth. “Sorry,” she apologized and sunk into the tub, embarrassed. “It’s been a morning…”

The cleric smiled and shook her head.

“It’s okay, I just wanted to know if the dew temperature was alright. It’s not too warm or cold? Its healing properties work best when it’s right in between.” She asked

“Um…” Spitfire blinked and looked down. She wasn’t sure exactly what constituted as just right for this stuff. “It feels just fine, I guess. Thank you,” she tried to be as polite as possible after accidentally blowing up at her. The cleric smiled and nodded before turning and walking away, but there was clearly a slight jitter in her step from being spooked.

“A little quick on the draw this morning?” Fire Streak’s voice suddenly came from nearby. Spitfire’s ears perked up and she sighed in relief. Finally, somepony she didn’t have to scold or yell at. She turned to see him occupying a tub nearby. He had apparently slipped into it while she was busy dealing with Valkyrie and Comet. But before she could say anything she leaned over, seeing Lightning and Air Mach a few tubs down. Lightning catcalled every cleric that passed and Air Mach caused splashes of dew while posing that the clerics frantically tried to keep from wasting. “I gave up on them,” Fire said with a sigh.

“I don’t blame you,” Spitfire agreed with a huff as she leaned back.

“Perhaps we should just follow commander Fleetfoot’s example for now,” Fire suggested with a smirk as he looked away.

Spitfire glanced towards Fleetfoot and had to hold in laughter. She was completely leaned back and sunk so far into the tub that the dew was up to her chin, only her eyes, nose and mouth were visible. Her eyes were nearly rolled back into her head, and mouth was stuck open with her tongue hanging out the side and dipped into the dew. She was making this constant, faint, slow whinny sound. With how good the dew felt against her own body, Spitfire could only imagine how good this felt for Fleetfoot, who had more or less been in constant pain since her dustup with Nightshade.

“I don’t think I could ever be that relaxed…” Spitfire chuckled.

“That’s a level beyond relaxing,” Fire added. Spitfire glanced back towards him, but perked up as she saw Misty sneaking up behind him with a devilish smirk on her face. She quietly and subtly climbed up Fire’s tub as he remained focused on Spitfire. “What?” Fire asked as he noticed Spitfire’s look. “WHOA!” he flinched in surprise as Misty slid over him and fell into the tub. She emerged a second later with a wet mane and placed her chin on Fire’s chest, smiling cutely.

“I dunno, Fire,” Spitfire snickered. “You might have some help getting there,” she said as Misty snuggled into Fire and sighed contently.

“Erm…” Fire looked up from Misty. “In… what way?” he asked nervously as he noticed a few looks were coming their way. Spitfire snorted and giggled.

“Not that I would put it past her,” she motioned towards Misty. “But you know what I mean.” Spitfire joked as she left the two to their fun, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

But despite her best efforts, the constant pounding of the rooming ‘situation’ made it stick around in her head. Of course it didn’t help that she could hear Blaze swearing at Lightning Streak from across the room.

How in Equestria were the Wonderbolts and Renegades failing to handle this situation on their own? Unless suddenly being in a safe haven after being under siege for so long was throwing them a little off and they were still expecting her to make all the decisions. At least… it looked like the Wonderbolts were getting some rest and letting themselves relax for the moment despite the dangers looming in the near future and the horrible situation regarding Soarin. She had no doubt Soarin was constantly on their minds, just like hers, but she didn’t want them stiff and tired. Some very brief downtime as all the planning and preparations came together would be beneficial towards success. It would help them iron out all the aches, kinks, and pains so they’d be a little fresher and physically able to handle what was just ahead.

Now she just wished they’d leave her alone and let her rest too. At least the thestrals weren’t complaining… to her knowledge. But then again, under P.L. she doubted any of them would dare to. She had actually not seen any of them since they landed last night… probably because it was broad daylight outside. Her best guess was that they were hanging from the ceiling of a basement somewhere and hissing at anypony that happened to stumble upon them.

Whatever… she didn’t care about them, they weren’t her responsibility, and it had to stay that way for now considering their plans to mislead Luna.

Spitfire blinked as a very distinct figure walked in from the hallways. She looked over, seeing Matteo instantly. It was kind of hard to miss the large griffon among ponies in any setting. Storm Front, Squall, Little Star, and Thunderlane were all with him too as they made their way towards Dash and the empty tubs around her.

Speaking of their plan… And one very large and specific part of it…

Dash sighed, feeling comfortable as the crystal dew caressed her body and slowly washed away the aches and pains of her tight, sore muscles. Any and all tightness and leftover tenderness were disappearing steadily as she soaked, allowing her time to relax… and think about her current situation.

Soarin was on her mind more than anything of course, but right now she was confused. Her heart was calm… incredibly calm and almost felt better than usual. Whenever Soarin was in pain caused by his magic, her heart would throb and beat, shooting pain through her own body to match what he was feeling. When Soarin was being possessed and taken over, she was struck with the most agonizing feeling she had ever felt in her life, but right now? Where did it go? And if her heart was calm… what did that mean about Soarin?

Right behind Soarin… was Silver. She had asked around in the morning if any word had come from the hospital on Silver’s status… but nopony knew yet. It was driving her nuts that she knew nothing about how Silver was doing, they had fought hard to help keep him from an untimely fate… and now suddenly they had no control over it.

Part of what made the current scenario so hard for her was because of these very two stallions she was thinking about. Whenever she was uneasy or troubled, all she had to do was go to Soarin or Silver and they’d make it better or reassure her. Right now, she had neither of them. She had never been in this situation before since she had become a part of the Wonderbolts. She never realized just how important the two of them had been in her development.

And now she was in a situation that dealt with facing ponies she couldn’t lie to… while under orders to pretty much lie to them. Now that she had had time to relax and think about it, she wasn’t sure what course of action she should take…

At least the crystal dew was helping her relax. She couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t tense. She was so relaxed that even the shenanigans of fellow Wonderbolts around her were failing to catch her attention.

But she perked up when her eyes caught a familiar group approaching. She smiled and lazily waved a hoof as Matteo, Storm, Squall, Star, and Thunderlane all approached.

“Hey guys…” she called in a lax tone as they waved back. “Saved some tubs for you.” She let her arm wobble around, motioning towards the empty tubs before letting it drop back into the dew. She blinked and scanned them as they drew near. “No Bulk or Derpy?”

“Bulk went to the gym with his dad,” Storm explained as the group reached her and began examining the tubs.

“Of course,” Dash rolled her eyes and chuckled.

“And Derpy was with us earlier, but she decided to stop by a friend who lives here, I think she’ll join us later,” Storm continued as he waited for a cleric to fill his tub with crystal dew.

“She will,” Dash said with a confident smirk.

“Hm?” Storm tipped his head.

“C’mon, Storm… with how hard she was squeezing you last night, I know you’re the MAIN reason she’s here. I’m surprised she didn’t fight your roommate to stay the night with you.”

“Heh… I guess,” Storm shrugged, but his smile didn’t lie.

“Hop on in,” a cleric motioned to Dash’s friends as they continued dumping urns of dew into the tubs.

Squall approached the tub set aside for him and cautiously peered at the dew.

“The hell is this stuff?” he asked as he glanced in the direction of Matteo. “Wha…?” he blinked. Matteo was already sitting in his tub while the clerics continued to fill it.

“It feels good,” Matteo said simply, his fluffy bulk just barely fitting in the tub.

“You weren’t even curious beforehoof?” Squall asked, clearly a bit skeptical of the magic treatment.

“Squall, get in the tub,” Dash ordered with a snicker as Storm climbed into his.

“Mrgh…” Squall grunted as he swallowed and slowly climbed up onto the rim of the tub, hesitating as he stared at the dew.

“Squall… what the hell? Just get in,” Dash pressed. Furrowing her brow.

“Is this magic shit… safe?” Squall asked, balancing on the edge of the tub.

“Do I look like I’m catching fire in here?” Dash said sarcastically. “It’s not going to kill you.”

“Hgn…” Squall continued to hesitate.

“Oh, get in already!” Star suddenly yelled as she hovered up behind him and pushed him in the back.

“AH!” Squall yelped as he tipped forward and fell in face first. Everyone except for Matteo erupted in a fit of giggles and chuckles as Star landed on the edge to the tub. “GUH!” Squall coughed as he emerged and glared daggers at Star. “What was THAT for?!” he yelled, but Star didn’t budge.

“For being a weenie,” she said bluntly before waving her hooves out. “Now move over.”

“Wait, what?!” Squall linked, wincing as Star hopped in and made a tiny splash.

“Ahhh…” Star cooed as she floated and rested against the edge of the tub. “This does feel good!” she looked towards Squall. He was pressed to the other side of the tub, literally as far as he could be away from her without getting out. “What?”

“Why are you in my tub…?” he asked nervously with a slight growl.

“Because I fit,” she replied, with subtle jest as she jokingly stuck her tongue out at him and winked.

“There are two empty tubs right over there!” Squall grumbled as he looked away and swayed his head, again forgetting his crystal form didn’t allow his mane to act as a cover.

“I felt like sharing,” Star added casually as Squall continued to squirm. Squall was about to protest again, but before he could there was a sudden sound of swishing and light splashing.

They all looked over to Matteo.

He was remaining in place and still had his usual, serious, stoic expression, but his feathers were fluffed out and his wings were swishing about in the manner identical to a bird in a garden birdbath. Everypony just stared in silence and watched as he continued to swish and splash without ever breaking his serious gaze. He even began swishing his head about quickly and dunked it once before returning upright. Eventually he stopped and his feathers smoothed down. After he stopped he glanced back and forth at all of them.

“What?” he asked, but was met with dead silence. “It’s a natural reflex.”

Nopony said a word.

“Uh…” Dash finally chimed in while trying to hold in laughter. “Right.” She said with a smirk as she turned to see Storm snickering to himself with his cheeks puffed out. She followed his eyes to see Squall still squirming. He was compressing himself as far to the edge of the tub as possible as Star continued to act like there was absolutely nothing wrong with where she was.

Her eyes veered off and landed on the two empty tubs.

Two…

Dash folded her ears back and she exhaled through her nostrils. When she came in early after hearing about this neat magical treatment, she reflexively asked the clerics to save five tubs for her, her squadmates, and Storm coming in behind her. Star would have been in one of the two vacant tubs if she wasn’t with Squall. But the other…

Where the hell was that crazy bastard?! Twister had been gone for far too long. This didn’t fit his usual pattern at all. It wasn’t like she could expect anything from him… doing so was pointless, but why had he been away so long? By now she would’ve thought he’d be back, if for no other reason besides messing with all of them again.

“Hmmmmmmm…”

A hum broke Dash from her thoughts, her ears standing back up. She turned to see Thunderlane resting his chin on the side of her tub. Up until the hum, he had been completely silent, save for a few laughs shared. Dash was still getting used to having him around again, almost forgetting he was there. He looked very distraught, his eyes not focused on Dash as he sighed heavily. Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“It’s like you’re blatantly trying to get my attention,” she said with a chuckle. “What’s up?”

Thunderlane’s eyes shifted to her, taking on a slight puppy dog look.

“I really can’t say anything to Applejack?” he asked.

Dash blinked… and sighed. Her ears flopped down and she shook her head. This was the third time he had asked since they filled him in on the entire situation.

“No, Thunderlane. Sorry. We have our orders,” she repeated with some clear reluctance.

“That’s easy for you to say…” Thunderlane said with a huff. “You’re not the one dating the element of honesty. I don’t think I’ve even thought about telling a lie to her once.”

“Thunderlane…” Dash flattened her brow. “I’m the element of LOYALTY…How do you think I feel about misleading my oldest friends?”

Thunderlane’s eyes widened for a moment before he looked away.

“I…. guess you’re right…” He really couldn’t argue with her on that one. But Dash wasn’t blind to how he felt… She had had some time to view the situation with a more level head after getting some rest.

“Look, I don’t like it either,” she shook her head. “I fact, I hate it. I haven’t had enough time to fully think it through. I’m…” she paused and sighed. She stole a quick glance back and forth, noticing Spitfire sitting in one of the tubs among the Wonderbolts. She leaned closer to Thunderlane and lowered her voice. “To be perfectly honest, I’m a little torn about Spitfire’s plan and orders. I agree with circumventing Luna and confronting Sombra our own way… But my Ponyville friends showing up has thrown a wrench into all of it…” She rubbed her temples. “I trust them with every fiber of my being, but now they’ve been caught in this mess…” She let her hooves fall back into the dew. “I appreciate that Spitfire is at least acknowledging my sudden shock of them showing up, but…” she trailed off and looked down.

“But what?” Thunderlane pressed.

“I don’t know…” Dash shook her head again. “This is one big knot of crap. My friends are loyal to Celestia and Luna, so I understand why Spitfire wants them included among who we’re tip-hoofing around, but part of me… hell, my common sense is telling me that we shouldn’t be roping them into it so quickly.” Dash glanced over in the direction of Spitfire again.“They would listen to me… I think… at least.”

“So we can tell them?” Thunderlane inched forward, his ears standing up straight. But Dash only shook her head. “What?” He furrowed his brow. “What did you just say then?”

“Look, Thunderlane…” Dash grunted, sending his look right back at him. “It’s more complicated than that, which is exactly why I haven’t just gotten up and blurted everything out to them yet. I believe they would listen to me and hear me out… but what I’m worried about is what would happen after that. I’m also considering how each of them would react individually. Fluttershy and Rarity probably won’t do anything. Twilight and Applejack on the other hoof… They might feel the need to tell Princess Luna… and if not her, they might tell Cadence or Shining, both of whom would definitely tell Luna. It wouldn’t be to spite me, it would be out of concern, at least for Twilight. For Applejack… element of honesty, ‘nuff said. And who the hell knows what Pinkie would do?”

“Okay,” Thunderlane sighed. “I guess if we’re being really honest, Applejack definitely would not be willing to misguide but… Twilight?” Thunderlane tipped his head. “Let’s forget Applejack for a moment, Twilight doesn’t strike me as the impulsive type.”

“I get where you’re coming from, but…” Dash shook her head. “Twilight would be the biggest gamble of all,” she paused and groaned. “See why this is so complicated? It’s making my head hurt…” she took a deep breath and exhaled. “Twilight would definitely listen to me, and she would even acknowledge my reasoning, but the hard part would be convincing her not to make a case of her own and present it to Luna. Twilight would insist on a compromise… and probably would reveal it all to Luna in hopes of all sides coming together. She hasn’t been under all the circumstances we have though, and likely wouldn’t pick up the full reasoning for Spitfire’s plan. She is extremely loyal to the princesses… I don’t think she walks blindly behind them, but she still might…” Dash trailed off, let her head back and groaned loudly, drawing looks from the rest of her squadmates.

“Okay, okay…” Thunderlane gave up. “I see what you mean… I guess I’m just not happy about lying to Applejack.”

“Sorry…” Dash apologized as she kept her head leaned back. “I need more time to think about it… For now, I’m just going to follow Spitfire’s orders. I don’t agree with it entirely, but I agree with the goal. So I’m going to do things her way for now.”

“If I may…” Matteo suddenly spoke up. Dash tipped her head back down as she and Thunderlane turned their focus to Matteo and blinked.

“Forgive me for eavesdropping,” he apologized while keeping his stoic expression frozen in place. Dash shook her head, curious.

“No, it’s fi—” she stopped as Matteo started fluffing up and splish-splashing in the water again. “Snrrrk…” she snorted and puffed her cheeks out. Matteo didn’t acknowledge her suppressed laughter as he stopped and smoothed his feathers back down.

“Your friend, Twilight,” he began. “You have spoken of her before. She is quiet intelligent and intuitive, is she not?” he asked. Dash tipped her head.

“Y… yes?” Dash nodded, wondering what he was getting at.

“Perhaps we should also consider that she may formulate her own opinion about what’s happening around her?” he suggested. “You said yourself that she is loyal, but not blind. Perhaps if you explain to her our side of the story and back it up with some observations she may have already made… she will be sympathetic to our cause. And perhaps she may even help us.”

Dash’s eyes widened a little. Matteo… had a point. Twilight overanalyzed everything. She was working right now to help the crystal afflicted ponies, and had no doubt already discussed what was going on in full with Luna. Luna likely laid out everything from her point of view… and was probably harsh on several subjects to an unreasonable degree… something Twilight might pick up on. Dash wondered if Twilight would be willing to take a deeper look… should she decide to tell her. But…

Dash was suddenly distracted as Matteo started swishing his feathers and splashing again. She managed to hold it in, but Storm lost it, bursting out laughing.

“What is so amusing about this?” Matteo asked while narrowing his eyes further.

“It’s just so damn goofy looking!” Storm admitted as he nearly fell all the way into the dew, Thunderlane failing to hold in chuckles as well. “I’m just picturing you in a garden bird bath doing that and I… can’t…” Storm fell in, re-emerging seconds later and leaning forward on his tub, still laughing as Matteo huffed and kept going despite the laughter.

Dash thought it just as amusing as the others, but found herself more interested in what she just heard. She leaned back in her tub and continued thinking about what Matteo put forward.

Twilight was no slouch… and as he said, very smart. It wouldn’t be farfetched to assume that she had already done some of her own investigating. She was in a frantic mode when they showed up, but it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. She was known to freak out a bit when stressed or in need of answers she couldn’t find on her own. Maybe… she would put together that something wasn’t as it seemed. She was loyal to Luna, but she was also loyal to her. Twilight likely wouldn’t come to a conclusion about what’s going on without getting her side of the story first. She was a natural researcher. She wouldn’t dare make an incomplete hypothesis. If any of her friends were to notice something was off… it would be Twilight. Now the only questioned that remained was Luna’s influence. Would Twilight be willing to alter her conclusion based on the word of the princesses? Twilight was not the type to cave easily, but this was an odd circumstance where, not having lived it as they had, would likely not allow Twilight to make a full, concrete conclusion… at which point she was known to seek out guidance from the goddesses. Would that happen here? That’s what Dash had to determine…

But… Dash wondered. Say she told Twilight, and she decided to play along… to not tell Luna, or even Cadence or her brother. Then she’d also have to keep it from Spitfire that she, well, disobeyed orders and…

Dash’s back slipped and she fell into the dew. She emerged, only putting her eyes and nose above the dew and grumbled with her mouth submerged, blowing small bubbles. She pushed herself up and looked around. All of her squadmates were looking at her, except for Squall, who had his head hanging over the edge of his tub as if he was barfing over the railing of a boat as Star rested against his back.

She had been in the tub long enough, her body felt much better.

“Ugh…” she grunted. “I need to go for a walk,” she proclaimed as she rose out of the dew and climbed out of the tub. She was immediately approached and surrounded by several clerics with towels who helped her dry off. She felt good, the dew doing exactly what the clerics said it would. Her body still ached in specific spots like her shoulders, chest, and wings, but those were what hurt the most before she took the plunge. The rest of the minor aches and pains had disappeared. Too bad she was so distracted by her predicament to enjoy the warm, tingly, comfort of the tub. “I’ll catch you guys later for some lunch. I need to do some thinking…”

Without another word and before any of them could say something, she made her way towards the exit.

No matter how many times Dash took a deep breath and tried to clear her thoughts, it just didn’t work. Not even going for a walk was helping. Typically, she’d fly, but two things were stopping her. For starters, while the dew bath had made her feel better all together, one of her wing joints was still super tender. It would probably be just fine with some rest, but she didn’t want to push it. The other, and more important reason, was she was sure her Ponyville friends wanted to track her down. Up in the sky is the first place they’d expect her to be. She wasn’t ready to confront them… yet.

So she walked… and walked… and walked… taking it one step at a time through the streets of the Crystal Empire’s royal district with no real destination in mind, but she couldn’t rid herself of her anxiety. She kept thinking about her friends. She was shocked to see them when they arrived and had been sticking with the Wonderbolts to avoid them, but she was terrified… dreading how she would have to lie to them. It didn’t seem right, but did she have a choice? They were all still enveloped in a world she no longer believed in, a world she felt she could no longer trust in full… but would they be blind? They would listen to her, right? She was their friend!

Matteo had a very valid point. If there was any hope to gain their attention and sway them, it would have to be through Twilight… but she still wasn’t sure. Matteo was right that Twilight was intuitive, but Dash knew her better than he did, and the possibility of her going right to the princesses about it was a clear and present danger. If Twilight went right to Luna, it was all over. She showed a frantic devotion to the goddesses the night before, which was nothing new, but…

“Hgn…” Dash groaned to herself as she slowly weaved her way through crystal ponies.

Her head was beginning to hurt. Or… scratch that, it already hurt from everything, now it just hurt more. She didn’t like it, but she was slowly coming to the conclusion that there was just way too much risk and Spitfire’s plan was the best course of action. She had to keep it all under wraps… for her sake as well as Soarin’s. But still… deep down, she still wondered.

She had had some rest and enjoyed the relaxing recovery magic. It had allowed her some real time to think about it and was now trying to separate every point to try and make some sense of it.

Her friends were clearly loyal to the goddesses.

This made her reluctant to confront them, but was she not giving them enough credit?

There was a measured amount of risk to each one of them… and despite her slowly believing Spitfire’s orders were the best course of action she was still thinking there might be a way to handle this. Ultimately… she had no idea how to feel about any of them aside from Twilight. Applejack… Rarity… Fluttershy… she wasn’t sure what they would do. There was no point in trying to predict Pinkie.

“Hrmmmm…” Dash hummed as she turned a corner and once again found herself micro-analyzing the possibilities with Twilight, hadn’t she already done this? Too late… she was doing it again.

The night before… Twilight was in a state Dash had seen more than once. It was Twilight’s usual frantic, emotional reaction when things were completely out of her control. It had a tendency to happen when she was confused and couldn’t figure something out… and Celestia was not readily available to give her a quick opinion or some guidance. With Celestia missing on top of it… Twilight’s usual spazz out thoughts were probably going haywire right now, or at least they clearly were last night. Maybe she would calm down? Like Matteo said… once Twilight had had some time to relax and absorb what was going on around her… maybe she’d be able to let her in on it? But what if it backfired? She’d kill their chances and would have disobeyed a direct order from Spitfire with nothing to show for it, not to mention it would cause an uproar between those loyal to Luna and those not.

Dash stopped in place and looked up, blinking.

“OOF!” she grunted as somepony ran right into her plot.

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t see you stop…” a crystal mare apologized, moving around Dash.

“Uh… no worries…” Dash sighed as she watched the mare go by before looking around her. She had walked a full lap around the castle, around the entire royal district of the empire without even noticing it.

She shut her mouth and released a muffled growl, growing frustrated with her continuously contradicting conclusions in her head. She turned down a street that moved away from the royal district and towards the high end market district just south of the castle.

It was just a short walk down the road and over a bridge that crossed a river before she found herself in the busy marketplace. It was lively, but not hectic with tents and stalls set up all over with actual shops and stores on the outer rims of the wide open plaza. For a moment Dash just soaked it in, her ears catching all the calm hustle and bustle, her eyes scanning the interesting… and mostly expensive contents of every shop, tent, or stall. This was definitely a market for those with deep pockets for sure. But this close to the royal district, she wasn’t surprised. It was little more crowded, but there was plenty of space for her to walk right down the center, the road mostly staying clear while becoming more bunched up the closer one got to the merchants. But not even the calm noises of the market mixed in with merchants shouting to possible customers could pull her away from the thoughts that kept yanking her right back to where she started.

Would she JUST… MAKE UP… HER MIND already? She was walking, but it felt like her head was flying, or spinning in circles. She’d think about one end of the situation and conclude that Spitfire’s plan needs to be followed, then think about the other end and five minutes later think telling Twilight would be a good idea!

She was going nowhere with this, she had to stop before she went insane on the spot. She decided to push it all aside and think about something else for a while.

So… she turned her thoughts to other important things on her mind. Namely, Soarin and Silver… not that those two really put her mind at ease right now. She had already thought about them earlier, but went through it again anyway to part from the subject of her friends and their orders for at least a moment.

She had no idea what was happening to Soarin, and the fact that her heart was in a calm despite Soarin’s current state both intrigued and worried her. If she was not feeling anything… it meant that Soarin was not feeling any pain. What did that mean? He was clearly still alive because she was too…

Then of course, there was Silver. Not one word from the hospital yet… and that terrified her. Granted, they hadn’t even been there for a full day yet, but if he had been there that long without word… There was no good outcome. If he was fine and resting, they would have contacted them already. Either they were still working on him and trying to save him… or…

Dash shivered and flinched hard, her teeth grinding together as a horrid thought passed through her head.

No. Don’t even consider the possibility.

Well, this walk was officially a failure.

She wanted to place herself in a low key, relaxed environment and put her mind at ease, but in the end she was only thinking about more things that worried her.

She stopped just before reaching the center of the market and planned on going back to the hotel. Maybe after some food she’d—

“Rainbow Dash!”

Dash’s body froze, going numb for a moment as her ears shot up.

Oh no… no no no… that was not the voice she thought it was… was it?

“There ya are!”

It totally was.

Dash’s head snapped towards the voice, her eyes instantly growing three times normal size as they landed on Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity. They were standing in front of a jewelry stall, all of them looking in her direction except for Rarity, who was trying on a large crystal necklace and flirting with herself in a mirror.

Applejack immediately started towards her with Pinkie pronking along right behind her. Fluttershy softly poked Rarity a few times.

“What?” she blinked and looked towards Dash. “Ooo!” she quickly turned to the merchant. “I’ll take it,” she dropped a pile of bits on the stall before quickly trotting up behind. “Darling! We’ve been looking all over for you!” Rarity added, the ridiculously large necklace jingling as she caught up.

Dash’s pupils shrank. She was still registering that she was not imagining this. She went for a walk to think ABOUT this… not to confront it! But now that it was happening… what the hell was she thinking?

How had she not considered this? She had just willingly walked into the busiest area in the district… near where the friends she was trying to avoid were staying.

Nice going Dash. Tip top job.

She had to think fast, she was not ready and Applejack was closing in fa—

“HEY!” Pinkie Pie suddenly popped up right in front of her, causing Dash to yelp and squeak, leaning back a little as her eyes tried to open wider, but were already at their limit. “You didn’t tell us anything back at the palace!” her head leaned forward, her neck stretching as her body stayed in place. “It’s almost like you’re keeping secrets or something!” she continued jovially as Dash scrunched further away to avoid their noses touching. “Wouldn’t want to do that to your BESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST friends now, wouldjya?” Her grin grew wider with a quiet SQUEE. “If you don’t, I bet there’s going to be a silly chase sequence where you run away and we try to follow!”

Dash swallowed. This was the worst case scenario. Not only did she unexpectedly run into her friends before she had figured things out… but to make matters worse, the one pony she wanted to possibly talk to WASN’T there. No Twilight… probably still busy at the castle. Instead she was being harassed by Pinkie while looking into the glare of Applejack that screamed ‘Ya better start talkin’’.

They eventually reached her, Dash’s eyes darting between all four of them as they stood less than a yard away. Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie P—

Dash’s eyes suddenly glanced down. Fluttershy was standing right in front of her, head tipped up, ears flopped down, and giving her the biggest puppy dog eyes she had ever seen.

“Um—”

“GOTTAGO!”

Dash blurted out as she dipped down and propelled herself upward, leaping right over Rarity and breaking into a sprint the moment she landed. She quickly realized that she was NOT going in the direction of the hotel, but it didn’t matter. She just had to get away for now, and they would likely go looking for her anyway.

“OH NO YA DON’T!” Applejack yelled as the heavy thumps of her strong hooves began to come from behind.

Dash frantically glanced over her shoulder to see Applejack on a warpath, crystal ponies moving aside as she thundered along. Pinkie Pie was holding onto Applejack’s tail with her teeth, holding a silly smile as her body flailed about like a wind sock.

It looked like only Applejack and Pinkie Pie were pursuing. Rarity and Fluttershy were just standing in shock. Typical of Rarity, probably didn’t want to chip a hoof, that or she refused to risk her new necklace. Dash couldn’t even see Fluttershy, she probably curled up, spooked by Dash’s sudden moves.

So she had to elude Applejack and Pinkie Pie… Applejack would be easy, she was all muscle and no finesse. Point A to point B. It was PINKIE she was worried about…. One does not simply avoid Pinkie Pie. She was almost as random as Twister.

But first things first… the easiest way to lose Applejack would be flight… She hoped her wings were rested enough, they were still—

“OW!” Dash yelped the moment she tried to spread her wings quickly, her shoulder muscles and wing joints on the right side instantly cramping up fiercely. “Oh, COME ON!” she yelled in frustration. Looks like the dew baths had their limits, the rest of her felt fine and mostly restored, but that wasn’t the case for her right wing. Just like during the pre-recruit trials, it had been more beaten up and strained than the rest of her. It felt like it was a stressed joint issue more than a muscle issue. Talk about the perfect time to act up. Now she was stuck on the ground and had to deal with them both.

She had no real sense of which way she was going, she didn’t bother to get her bearings before leaping over Rarity and was only focused on going one direction: away from them. She glanced over her shoulder briefly. She knew she could quickly weave through the crowd, but that didn’t give her much of an advantage because everypony was moving aside as Applejack pounded along on a warpath.

Wait… Pinkie wasn’t on Applejack’s tail anymore.

“Hey! Where are you going?!”

“AH!” Dash yelped as Pinkie appeared in front of her, her hooves skidding as she turned her body and pivoted, changing direction and taking off down a street that went behind the shops. “Scuse me! Pardon me!” Dash yelled at the startled crystal ponies as she weaved through them and into the surprisingly pristine and clean back alleyway.

“GET BACK HERE!” Applejack yelled, cutting the corner and keeping up.

“Rgh…” Dash grunted as she desperately looked for a way to escape. The alleyway was curved, Applejack was behind her, but she was pulling away due to being faster, she just had to get far enough away before making a move.

She kept glancing over her shoulder, keeping tabs on Applejack and waiting until the exact moment she was just far ahead in the curve that Applejack was out of sight. The instant she was, Dash turned and rammed through the back door of the bakery, closing the door behind her just as fast.

Two crystal ponies yelped upon Dash crashing in on them, one of them dropping a tray with two cinnamon buns on it. Dash quickly turned and shushed them, hiding next to a box and peeking through the window next to the door.

Applejack went right by, galloping as if she was still following Dash.

“Phew…” Dash sighed, and turned to apologize to the two bakers, but froze. Pinkie Pie was standing right between the two ponies, holding the tray up and inspecting the cinnamon buns.

“Tsk Tsk, Dashie! You almost ruined a perfectly good pair of buns! By the way, you should stop running from us!” she said in the most cheerful mood imaginable.

“AGH!” Dash yelled, running right out the door and back into the alley. She lost her hoofing and slid into a pile of boxes across from the door, but before she could figure out which way to go…

“THERE YA ARE!” Applejack’s voice boomed.

“Crap!” Dash saw Applejack coming right back towards her. She turned and galloped back the way she came.

This wasn’t good, she was heading right back to the market. If Rarity had come to her senses and followed, she could use her magic to trap her. She couldn’t take that chance… what were her options?

She looked up, trying to ignore the rapid, heavy, THUMP THUMP THUMP of Applejack’s hooves close behind her. The back alley was a narrow path… on one side, the back sides of several shops, on the other, a high wall that had many boxes, containers, and trash bins. The wall was just high enough that Dash was confident she couldn’t jump high enough to reach it... but…

She wasn’t out of ideas… maybe a conventional jump wouldn’t do it. She knew one thing that might work. With little time to think, she took a short hop into the air, positioning her front and back hooves so one was slightly higher than the other. She had never tried this while not being in flight… so she hoped it would work! The moment her lowered hooves touched, she slammed the other two down, using Storm Front’s surface tap method.

She yelped as she propelled upward, easily reaching a height higher than she could through jumping alone… but it might have been a good idea to put herself at more of an angle first. She was up in the air, but not close enough to reach for the top of the wall. She flailed and swiped her hooves, afraid to open her wings for just one pump after they had cramped up.

“What the hey?!” Applejack’s surprised voice reached Dash’s ears. She had clearly surprised her pursuer, she just had to finish the attempt! But… she wasn’t close enough.

But chance would have it that she was passing right over a stack of crates that was stacked unusually high. She blinked as she looked down. She was certain that those boxes weren’t there before she jumped. But she didn’t have time to think about it. She reached her hooves down, and repeated the surface tap motions off the boxes, propelling herself again… way higher than she wanted.

“Whooooaaaaaa!!!!!” Dash kicked her hooves in the air as she arced right over the wall and…

She probably should have thought about what was on the other side… It was the outer rim of the market plaza… and she had crossed a bridge to get in…

“AHHHH!” Dash yelped and galloped in midair, resisting her pegasus reflexes and keeping her wings folded as she plunged right towards the river that separated the royal district from the market.

Several crystal guards atop the wall watched with blank, confused expressions as Dash flung over them, arced down, and plunged right into the river with a loud splash.

“BLARGH!” Dash grunted and coughed as she rose above the water and looked around frantically. Well… she got away. It wasn’t pretty but—

SPROOOOOING

Dash’s eyes widened as she heard what sounded like a large springing noise. She looked up to see Pinkie Pie shoot up over the wall and fly over the increasingly confused guards.

“LOOK OUT BELOW!!!!!!!” Pinkie yelled, giggling as she tucked her body and plunged down.

“AHHH!!!!” Dash yelped trying to swim to the other side, but she was a flyer, not a swimmer, and barely moved much at all before Pinkie landed in front of her with a loud SPA-LOOSH.

Dash winced, shielding herself as the water splashed against her face. When she regained her senses, Pinkie was right in front of her, wearing sunglasses and relaxing in an inner tube, drinking some iced tea.

“Pool’s closed, Dashie! Can ya tell us now?!” she said while tipping her sunglasses down and giggling.

“DAMMIT!” Dash frantically swum around her.

“Well? Tell us tell us tell us tell us!” Pinkie pressed, never physically reaching for Dash, but repeating the demand over and over again as Dash grabbed a ladder on the other side and furiously climbed out. She immediately set her hooves and shook herself out violently.

“STOP RUNNIN’ YOU!”

“You’ve gotta be kidding…” Dash gritted her teeth as she looked and saw Applejack crossing the bridge down the road and turning towards her again.

She turned and broke into a gallop again, ignoring her not quite dry fur and mane as she continued to run. What was it going to take to shake these two?!

She blinked as she heard a puttering, rumbling sound. She looked down into the river next to the road and saw Pinkie standing on her back hooves on the inner tube… which now had a motor attached to it, pushing it along and keeping up with her. Pinkie has giggling and pointing forward as if she was racing Dash.

This was getting her nowhere… If it were just Applejack, she’d have gotten away by now, it was Pinkie that was continuously foiling her escape. Together the two were a formidable team, Pinkie cutting her off at every turn and allowing Applejack to keep up despite being slower than her.

Now back in the royal district, Dash didn’t know where she was going to go, it was smaller, and there were few places to hide. She broke down a side street, passing by several high end houses, turning and weaving down every small street she could find, but the result was always the same.

As soon as she lost Applejack… Pinkie would slow her down long enough for Applejack to catch up.

Where could she go? She could hide from Applejack all she wanted, but Pinkie would find her no matter where she hid… unless she was anticipating Dash’s moves… you could never rule out anything with Pinkie…

Dash turned down another street, once again losing Applejack for a moment… and her eyes landed on a particular building.

The Royal District Library.

At first it was just another building, but before she could pass by it… Dash found herself having… a strange thought.

For some reason… Dash felt like this would be the place that would be her salvation.

Why the library? It made no sense, how was it any different than the rest of her hiding spots? Pinkie found her every time.

But some strange hunch… a feeling she couldn’t describe, told her to try it.

So with Applejack still not around the corner, she cut left and ducked into the library.

Several ponies turned and looked as Dash rushed in, but Dash didn’t bother addressing them. She just turned and looked outside.

Applejack ran right by.

Okay, that was normal, but… Dash covered her eyes and slowly turned.

“I know…” she said to herself with a sigh. “She’ll be right behind me…”

She turned… and removed her arm from her eyes.

“Are you okay, Miss?”

Dash blinked as she stared into the eyes of an old, scruffy unicorn stallion. She looked around to see all eyes in the library on her.

Pinkie was nowhere to be seen.

“Uh…” Dash gritted her teeth and blushed a little in embarrassment. “Yeah… sorry, I’m fine.”

The old stallion shrugged and turned to back about his business, as did the rest. Dash kept glancing around, not moving from her spot for a moment. Pinkie wasn’t anywhere… did she… actually elude Pinkie?

“Hmm…” Dash hummed. She refused to be so sure, it was never that easy, so she began quietly walking through the library, keeping her eyes peeled, but no matter where she turned… no Pinkie Pie.

Dash found this very strange, and not just because she actually managed to lose Pinkie. It was the fact that she felt drawn into the place by some unknown feeling… while also losing Pinkie in the process. She felt like she was guided here.

She decided not to think too hard about it. If she actually got away, she’d hide in here for a while until making an attempt to escape, so she looked for a nice, secluded area.

She stopped when she saw a door marked “reading room”. She stared at the door for several seconds.

Why not? If she was going to wait, maybe they had some Daring Do books. She reached for the door and grabbed the doorknob. She looked over her shoulder, taking her eyes off the door as she opened it, turned around, and slowly backed into the room. Better to be safe than sorry, right? She kept her eyes darting back and forth down the halls until she closed the door behind her.

But the moment the door clicked shut. She blinked.

Something just happened. It was only for an instant, but she swore as soon as the door shut and her eyes closed and opened, something changed around her. Was it dimmer? It was bright as day when she initially looked in.

She spun around… and stared blankly into the room.

It was suddenly dark in the room. There was a window on the opposite wall and… it was night time outside? There were no lights on, the only light being cast into the room was a large fireplace, spreading a flickering glow into the room. The room itself was a large rectangular space, every wall covered with large bookshelves save for the middle of the left side, which had the large fireplace, and a space to sit and read in front of it.

“Uh…” Dash uttered. “Wha…?”

Then it hit her.

Sudden, random, scenery change…

Nothing seemed right compared to what she expected to see…

Whenever she found herself in a situation that made absolutely zero sense, whether it be complete environmental changes or situational what-the-fuckery…

There was only ONE pony that did this.

She blinked.

And in the instant she blinked, something else appeared by the fire. It was a wheelchair… and a bald pony was sitting in it, wearing what looked like a black robe. Dash’s ears perked up as the noise of a choir chanting a somber melody suddenly filled the room.

The more weird stuff that happened, the more Dash flattened her brow. She started walking towards the pony, and as she grew near, the colors of the pony became clearer against the flickering light of the fire.

Green… and even though he didn’t have his mane, there was a blue tail sticking out the back of the wheelchair.

As if there was ever any doubt…

It was Twister.

“Well it’s about damn time,” Dash said as she approached him, paying absolutely no mind to the weird scene around her or the odd ambient singing that filled the room. She walked around to the other side of him, looking at him carefully. He was staring into the fire with a very serious expression. Dash snorted and furrowed her brow. “Just where the hell have you been?”

“Funny…” Twister suddenly spoke, causing Dash’s ears to stand up. He didn’t look at her, he only sighed. “I can look back on a life of silliness… Pranks played… Jokes executed… Chuckles incited… I’ve accomplished more than most silly ponies without the use of my brain…”

Dash looked towards the fire and back at him, never losing her unamused expression. She wasn’t getting out of this, was she?

“What…” Twister swallowed. “What MAKES… a silly pony, Rainbow Dash?” he asked her. Dash only lifted an eyebrow. “Is it being prepared to pull the right gag? The right parody? Whatever the jest? Isn’t that what makes… a silly pony?”

Dash snorted, already fed up.

“That and another pony that wants to pound you flat,” she replied sharply.

Twister didn’t say anything for a moment, but tipped his head down a little.

“You’re joking, but…” he sighed. “Perhaps you’re right…” he paused. “One to annoy… one to amuse. But… the one I used to make laugh… She…” Twister sniffled quietly. It sounded like he was choking up. “She was the light of my life…”

Dash blinked for a moment, she wasn’t thrilled with this, but that one line reminded her of how he always found a way to bring up this lost love interest of his.

“Are you surprised at my tears, Dash?” Twister asked, breaking her from her brief thoughts. “Silly ponies… Also cry…” he sniffled and looked down. “Silly ponies… also… cry…”

“Twister, are you done?” Dash asked with an annoyed grunt. She flinched as the fire went out, plunging the room into darkness. The lights suddenly came on, a metal shutter slammed closed over the window, and Twister’s chair had changed from a wheelchair to an incredibly comfortable looking swivel chair. The rest of the room looked exactly the same, and Twister was still bald, but his black robe had been replaced by a beige pantsuit.

The chair turned towards Dash, and Twister faced her, smiling. He had a scar going down the left side of his face through his eye. In his lap, was a small red fox sprawled over his legs with its front legs and paws hanging over the side. It looked… slightly odd, with a head of hair and an expression on its face like it was having a serious case of sensory overload mixed with intense confusion as Twister gently stroked it like one would a cat.

“I have been waiting for you, Ms. Dash…” Twister said in a smooth, sinister voice that resembled a cliché, recurring villain from a series of super spy movies.

“Twister…” Dash growled, bearing her teeth slightly. “Cut it out and let’s go. I don’t know what the hell you were doing all this time, but we have an important mission coming up. I need to catch you up on everything happening and—”

“Ms. Dash, you underestimate my information network,” Twister grinned as he started petting the fox a little faster. The fox squeaked and started squirming, biting his leg and scratching at him, but Twister didn’t react as the fox more or less shredded the leg of his pants. “I have eyes everywhere, not one detail goes missing.”

“That’s it,” Dash grumbled and reached for him.

“Quite unfortunate about Soarin, yes?” he said before she could touch him. Dash stopped in her tracks and her eyes widened.

Twister chuckled as he let the fox go. The moment it was free, it leapt off him and scurried away. With a loud metallic CREEEEEEEAK, the pantsuit opened like a door and Twister stepped out of it. He rubbed his face, wiping the scar right off as he placed all four hooves on the floor and bounced his eyebrows at her as the pantsuit closed behind him with a loud SLAM.

“Let’s see…” Twister began in his normal voice as he began walking in a circle around Dash. Everything about him was back to normal… except his mane was still gone. “After I skillfully blocked Nightshade’s hoof with my face and saved Storm Front from being subjected to any more punishment… You and Squall bravely engaged Nightshade to help Soarin… Soarin didn’t like that you were being beaten, so he took a fatal risk and pushed Nightshade out of the Nimbus… You all followed, but despite your best efforts, Nightshade broke the horn before you could reach him. Matteo pushed you with all his might, but you were not able to touch him in time… and his body was taken over by the spirit of the Old King Sombra…”

Dash stared blankly as Twister continued to walk around her.

“Sombra proceeded to show you how overpowered he is compared to everypony in this day and age… smacking around everypony that was dumb enough to attack him as he made his way towards the only one he actually wanted to attack… but you touched him, and it somehow gave Soarin enough of a hoofhold to hold him back! That was pretty impressive by the way. Now he’s gone, but you don’t know where… You all had a little powwow and discussed several things that you haven’t been told because the gods are filthy liars… and now Captain Spitfire’s plan is to mislead them so you can all approach Sombra without them, taking note that he didn’t really seem to want to hurt any of you! That sure doesn’t fit the history books, but at this point, what does? For all you know, ol’ Somber Womber might be a swell guy!”

Dash’s jaw was slowly dropping as he went on. She didn’t know why she was surprised, Twister had pulled this in the past, but… it was so elaborate, as if he was never gone.

“But PLOT TWIST!” he briefly turned and wiggled his butt in her face. “Your old friends from Ponyville are here! And you have no idea what to do about it. You decided to avoid them because you aren’t sure if they’ll be willing to listen to you about Luna, their loyalty to her and their attachment to your old world casting a cloud over your trust in them.” He stopped in front of her and grinned wider. “By the way… you should thank me for the stack of boxes…”

“Wha…?!”

“And the strange feeling you felt in your gut when you saw the library…” He looked up and tapped his chin. “And for misdirecting the silly friend of yours to a candy shop with her favorite chocolates… Oh, and I hope your number one apple enthusiast friend likes the pear garden she fell face first into while chasing a shadow of you.”

“Y… you did those things?” Dash asked in disbelief.

“I had to step in, it was getting hard to watch!” he snickered. “But…” he leaned towards her and looked her directly in the eye. “Let’s be perfectly honest here… Should you really be avoiding those who, deep down, you truly believe will listen to you and trust you?”

Dash stared silently, her mouth agape.

“And you believe ALL of them will listen, not just Twilight. Don’t kid yourself. You really think all the time you spent defending Equestria with them suddenly doesn’t mean a thing?” He suddenly lifted an old telephone to his ear. “555-COME-ON-NOW…”

Dash reclined slightly, her eye twitching as she closed her mouth and swallowed.

“Hold on… how did you know all of that?!” she demanded. She had spoken to Thunderlane about Twilight, but she had yet to express vocally, in any shape or form, that she had a slight feeling that they would all listen. She hadn’t given it much thought, but it was there, in the back of her head, being overpowered by the other possible outcomes. It was as if Twister had stuffed his hoof into her mind and rummaged through the rest until he found it.

“I have my ways of knowing!” Twister giggled as he dropped the phone, he suddenly shot up right in front of her and sniffed several times. “Might be the way you smell.” He disappeared and popped up on the other side of her, jamming his nose against her cheek and taking a long, loud whiff. “Ah… you smell like the freshly printed pages of a Mane Austin/Yakish soap opera crossover novel written in a basement by a desperate fanfiction author…”

“Uh…” Dash went back to furrowing her brow, his weirdness pulling her right out of her shock.

“By the wayhow…” Twister suddenly pulled back and slid back in front of her. “I’ve noticed something… and it’s starting to bother me a little…” he said while rubbing his chin. “As we’ve shared our little adventures… I’ve seriously begun to wonder why you’ve never been curious… You never ask me to explain myself!”

Dash scrunched her nose.

“I ask you that nearly every day, Twister, and you never give me a straight answer,”
Dash replied sharply.

“Nonononononononono!” Twister shook his head and hooves so fast that they were blurry for a moment. He stopped and rushed forward, smushing their noses together lightly. “You ask me WHAT I’m doing… not HOW I do it!” he clarified. Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m pretty sure I have…”

“DON’T BOTHER ME WITH THE DETAILS!” he barked before appearing beside her and draping a hoof over her shoulders. “ASK… ME…” he demanded as his eyes gained a soft glow and his wide, toothy grin glowed along with it. Dash ignored the random light effects and sighed, giving in.

“Okay, how do…” she paused for a moment as Twister’s eyes suddenly started moving in opposite directions and his mouth became a flat line. “How… do…” Dash’s face scrunched as his face kept rearranging itself. “You do… what… you… do?”

The instant she finished the question, Twister suddenly whipped away from her, spinning so fast that he looked like a green tornado while making a sound that resembled a vacuum cleaner making love to a power drill.

He stopped a few yards away, standing upright on his hind legs with his back turned to her. He was wearing a black suit and pants. He swiftly turned around and faced her, causing Dash to take a step backwards in surprise at the odd sight. Along with the black suit, he sported a red tie and a white shirt underneath, but the weirdest thing of all… was that his face was gone… completely gone. No eyes, nose, or mouth. He still had his ears, but his head had become a featureless oval… and there was a big blue question mark in the middle of it. He kept one arm folded around his back, holding the other one out with the bottom of his hoof turned upright.

Be me.

Be pony.

Have a few screws loose.

So loose that an orangutan couldn’t tighten them with locking pliers.

All around me are oblivious to my inner workings.

Regardless, I am still able to perceive my fellow componiets.

Still able to realize that the synapomorphy nature of bilateral symmetry implies a shared hereditary history between myself and the others.

Without we are the same, yet within we are not.

Our bodies are of similar natural build, yet our minds are entirely apart.

Realize these little things intrigue me despite grand wonders on a scale far beyond the space between us.

On a clear night one with a keen eye can distinguish a Quasar from a star.

An active galactic nucleus of very high luminosity believed to be powered by accretion of material into supermassive black holes in the nuclei of distant galaxies making these luminous versions of the general class of objects known as active galaxies on scales we can never truly comprehend.

Yet I’m more interested in why the mare behind the shop counter decided to charge me five and a half bits for a gallon of milk instead of four two weeks ago.

My almonds have been activated.

Spaghetti explodes from my saddlebags as I begin to acknowledge things far beyond the basic understandings of time and space.

Trigonometric relation between the sun zenith and shadow cast by surrounding objects confirm Aristopony’s hypothesis that the world is round.

Furthermore this solar position confirms that it is not the proper season in which stallions engage in sexual diddles.

Either way being stiffed an extra bit and a half for a gallon of milk confirms that this fiscally assertive mare shall not suffice.

Realize that a mild-mannered female of my own species will not be sufficient to allow the true strength of the nut.

But I digress.

Almonds are beyond activated and on the verge of becoming cashews.

Contemplate and hypothesize my own existence is contingent on absurd cycles of matter-exchange driven by the fusion of hydrogen into increasingly complex atomic assemblages and free fundamental particles.

The plane between my mind and the greater forces of reality merge.

Cashew transformation is complete and now evolving into walnuts.

I break free of my chains and the bigger picture of who dictates all things begins to paint itself.

Realize that my life is merely a tale told by a moron writing a story that's over a million words with chapters long enough to fill a whole book each and make M.A. Larson flip him the bird.

Twister remained in place, but went no further. Dash stared blankly at him, her eyelids twitching unevenly as she tried to keep her brain from blowing apart.

“Twister…” she threw her arms out. “What… the… FUCK?!”

Twister suddenly vanished, but the suit remained, falling into a pile on the floor. The next instant he was beside her again, his face was back, but he was still missing his mane.

“What?” he chuckled. “You mean to tell me you didn’t understand that? I couldn’t possibly have made it any simpler!” He placed his arm over her shoulder again and Dash just let it happen, she knew she was stuck until he was done. “Y’see, Dash…” He poked her in the chest. “You have a problem. Oh, but don’t worry, it’s a common one! One that everypony else in the world has.” He suddenly forced both of them to turn and face a wall. He threw a hoof out in front of them and his eyes lit up as if he was pointing to a horizon even though there was only a wall roughly five yards away. “You are trapped in this little prison called… reality. It’s the base of all things, the rules of the world and how you see it, choose to see it, or are taught to see it.” He turned his head and glanced at Dash. “How do I do all these things that I do? Why, the same way your friends Pinkie and Surprise do! Only… there’s one, little difference.” He snickered. “It’s just something they do naturally. It’s who they are, they don’t know how they do it, they just do. I actually know how to do it…” His eyes narrowed and he snickered. “And I do it on purpose.”

“H…huh?” Dash perked up. She had to admit, she wasn’t expecting this.

“You’ve always wondered, haven’t you?” Twister went on. “How does Pinkie Pie just appear places, change her shape, eat enough cupcakes to gain five hundred pounds in a week and be just fine? How does Surprise execute all those silly entrances, like popping out of Big Bird’s fur, appearing out of thin air, or stretching her neck comically?” He sneered. “How do I… Do all this?” He waved a hoof around the room. The metal shutter over the window opened, the lights went out and the fire roared to life again.

Dash glanced all around as the room changed instantly all around her.

“Oh no, you don’t even have to say it,” Twister chuckled. “Your eyes say it all! You’ve always wondered, you just never thought it was worth it to ASK.”

“Uh…”

Dash yelped as there was a sudden, incredibly loud thunderclap outside accompanied by a bright flash of lightning. Right after the flash, everything had changed again. The fire was out and the lights were out. All the books and bookcases had vanished, leaving behind empty dusty walls. The room had been plunged into a murky, barely lit state, and two living room chairs facing each other with a small table in between were now on the rug that sat before the dead fire place. On the table, was a glass of water and two round pieces of candy still in their wrappers. One was red, one was blue.

She looked over to the window to see it was pouring rain outside, rumbles of thunder and flashes of lighting accompanying the raindrops. Twister was standing right next to the window. He wore a black, long trench coat and a pair of dark, circular sunglasses over his eyes. He was still bald.

“At last…” Twister said in a suddenly very deep and refined voice. “You finally gave it a thought."

Dash blinked several times. Now feeling like she was completely at his mercy.

“Please…” Twister motioned to the chairs. “Sit.”

Dash didn’t move at first, but realized Twister wasn’t moving and still pointing to the seat. She swallowed and played along, moving to one of the chairs and sitting down. While she wasn’t a fan of his shenanigans… every time he had done something like this, it felt like he was trying to lead her closer to understand who… or what he was. It was a little annoying, but she was always curious about him, especially now that he seemed to be intent on explaining himself to her a little more than usual. So she went with it, besides, she owed him for misdirecting Applejack and Pinkie Pie for her and… she was definitely intrigued in what Twister was talking about, more than she’d prefer to admit.

Twister didn’t sit down immediately, he paced around a little, moving over to another window that was not there before. He stared out into the storm before turning to Dash and walking towards her. She could see her reflection in the dark circular lenses of the glasses.

“I imagine… that right now,” Twister began. “You’re feeling a bit like… you’re on the edge of a cliff. You can see over the edge and it makes you nauseous… But you keep looking because you are curious. There is no bottom in sight, just darkness below.” He looked like he was moving towards the seat across from her, but at the last moment, he turned and kept pacing. “Is the view of the endless fall… making you dizzy?” he turned and looked at her, grinning. “Or do you find it thrilling?”

Dash looked at him carefully as he kept pacing.

“Are we talking about the situation, Soarin, or you?” she asked.

“Why specify?” Twister quickly replied. Dash’s eyes widened slightly and she looked down away from him. “I can see it in your eyes…” Twister continued. “You have the look of a pony who accepts what she sees… what she knows… how she believes everything is and should work… And always expects everything to do as it should.” He stopped behind her chair. “Do you believe… that you understand your world?”

Dash hated to admit it… but she was actually humoring him. He was clearly trying to explain something to her in a strangely serious manner… or whatever Twister’s version of ‘serious’ was. She thought his question over carefully… and was surprised at the conclusion she came to.

“Lately…?” she looked up as he came back around towards the other chair. “No.”

“Why not?” Twister pressed as he stopped by the other chair.

Again, Dash paused to put together a serious answer.

“Because…” she took a deep breath and tucked her front hooves closer to her body. “I’m questioning the word of ponies I used to follow without hesitation. I keep seeing things that I once thought were impossible, I…” she paused and shook her head. “Everything I used to know and accept seems so far away now. It’s all long gone, like my whole world is a lie.”

Twister pointed at her.

“I know EXACTLY… what you mean,” he said with a smile as he finally sat down across from her.

There was a long pause as the two of them just sat and stared at one another.

Dash found herself curious… very curious. Normally she didn’t give a damn about Twister’s shenanigans, but... For some reason, after all they had been through up to this point, she wondered if Twister was trying to send her a message. Each time it ultimately felt like he was trying to get her to see something that the rest couldn’t. It seemed ridiculous, Twister acted like a moron 24/7, save for these moments, these… alternate realities where he always seemed very, very different. And it kind of scared her… but these events Twister put her through were almost beginning to seem normal when placed side by side with how topsy-turvy her world had become.

Twister suddenly smiled wide.

“What?” Dash cocked an eyebrow.

“Let me tell you why you’re curious,” he suddenly prompted.

Dash gasped, her pupils shrinking. That was twice now, twice that he had pulled something out of her thoughts in the last few minutes.

“You’re curious because you’re aware,” he went on. “What you have seen, you can’t explain… but unlike the rest around you, you want to know more. You won’t just let these new ‘impossible’ things happen without wondering how they happen, without demanding to understand them. You feel it when the others don’t, that something is wrong with the world you know. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there… like an itch you can’t quite scratch. Driving you nuts.”

“It’s because of your curiosity… because of your desire to understand what’s happening… that I decided to take a little bit of time out of my own agenda to talk to you here and now.”

Dash’s ears twitched. Did he say… agenda?

“Haven’t you wondered…” Twister continued before she could think on it further. “Why I pull you aside and nopony else? Have you thought about my reasoning? You are not like the rest… you question everything you see… you wish to understand all that you witness. You don’t settle for what you see in front of you. And you won’t accept quick and simple explanations. You want to know all. You want to understand all. You reach for every possibility and seek to master every step.”

Dash blinked. Every possibility… every step…

“You noticed… The one time I brought somepony else in… The time included Soarin, he made no effort to understand. He sat there, confused, and remained confused as you continuously told him not to question it. Do you remember?” Twister asked with a smirk. Dash’s eyes widened slightly. “It really was a test… I wasn’t just being silly. I wanted to see just how much you had fallen in. I wanted to compare you side by side with somepony who would never understand what he was seeing the way you had come to.”

Dash didn’t know what to say. She immediately thought of the time Soarin was with them during Twister’s teacher act… So there was a point to that after all. He wanted to see her accept what was happening while another squirmed without question or thought.

“Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you understand… why you intrigue me so?” Twister asked.

Dash stared, unsure of what to say for a moment, but after hearing everything here, and putting it up against how messed up everything had become, she came to a quick conclusion.

“Yes.” She replied seriously. Twister’s smile grew.

“Do you want to know… Just how little you understand about everything around you?” he added.

“Yes,” Dash answered again, this time without a moment of hesitation.

“Then you really are ready…” Twister leaned back in his chair and put his hooves together under his chin. “How I’ve waited for this…”

He paused, the two staring at one another quietly for several seconds as the quiet thunder rumbled outside with the soft pitter-patter of rain against the window sill.

“Your world as you know it…” Twister began. “It surrounds you… it follows you wherever you go. Ponyville, Canterlot, the Nimbus, the Crystal Empire. Everywhere,” he emphasized he reached a hoof out beside his head and tipped it up. “You assume you understand what you see, what you hear, smell, touch, taste… It’s how everything is supposed to be. You don’t question it. These are things you come to understand as you grow from a foal to an adult, and they never leave you… yet, they are not what they seem. These things… they are a blindfold we put on willingly. We cover our own eyes and never question or wonder if there is more.”

“More?” Dash tipped her head. Twister leaned forward again.

“Much more… Beyond what makes sense, beyond what you believe is supposed to work. You are a slave to what you believe.” He pointed at her. “You desire to look further… but you have yet to look far enough.”

Twister paused, keeping his hoof outstretched and letting those words sink in. Dash remained focused, her eyes fixed on him. She was really listening. She was really trying to understand. Twister leaned back in the chair, clearly pleased.

“Unfortunately… I can’t simply tell you what to look for. I can’t change your world or your mentality… how you see with your own two eyes. I can only tell you that there is more. It’s something you have to look for and discover yourself… Something you have to understand and accept… A feat only a select few have ever truly managed.”

Dash stared, her right eye twitching slightly, telegraphing confusion, but a confusion laced with curiosity.

“I know that look,” Twister snickered, causing her to flinch. “Tell me, Rainbow Dash… You are a pony that takes pride in watching, remembering, and recreating. You watch those who know more than you and strive to learn how they do what they do. You have no signature to call your own, yet you can watch and learn… you can make what you see your own.”

Dash swallowed as Twister began smiling again, his teeth slowly showing as the edges of his mouth curled upward more and more.

“Have you ever wondered…” Twister released a loud hiss of breath between his teeth as if he could hardly contain himself before continuing. “How I do… what I do?”

Dash gasped. Her eyes shot open and her ears stood up. It was the question he demanded she ask of him at the start.

“The Spiral Turn? Oh please…” Twister scoffed. “That’s merely something I threw together for fun… What about the REST of what I do? Have you ever taken a good, long look at how I go about my life?”

Dash was at a loss for words. Her eyes were wide with curiosity. Was Twister implying… that she could do…

“Of course I can’t judge you,” Twister continued suddenly. “You’re not as awake as I am. You still see the world, to some degree, the same way as those around you. All of my antics and behavior probably just seem silly and random to you, but I assure you… there is much more to it.”

Dash blinked.

And in the instant she blinked… the thunderstorm was gone, the chairs they were sitting in were gone. She was standing, no longer sitting. The fire was back, but it was daylight outside, the room returning to its original state with the walls lined with full bookshelves. The only difference was the time of day out the windows. She looked around frantically. Twister was nowhere to be found. She spun around, looking in the back corners of the room before turning back… And Twister was standing right in front of her. His glasses and coat were gone. He took a deep breath and stuck his hoof in his mouth, blowing hard. His mane popped out of his head, sitting on his head as if it were never gone.

“What I do…” he smirked as he spoke. “ANYPONY can do. It’s all just a matter of perspective… and whether or not you accept the reality placed before you. All the inexplicable feats, all the unexplainable acts… They don’t have to be as weird and silly, it’s ALL doable. I just like to be weird.”

At this point, any remaining thoughts Dash had towards being miffed at him in any way were completely gone. She forgot all about how he had been gone for too long and was pissing her off. She was refocused, and much more interested in everything Twister was saying and doing.

“Ah, Rainbow Dash…” Twister sighed while closing his eyes. Dash yelped as a mirror popped up in between them. And even though Twister was standing behind the mirror, his reflection was standing beside hers. “I simply must ask… How long are you willing to torture yourself by always thinking inside the box?” he asked as his reflection reached out and tapped a hoof against the edges of the mirror within the mirror.

The moment he stopped tapping what appeared to be solid edges, he turned and walked right out of the reflection, appearing from behind the mirror and stepping in between Dash and the mirror…

He did not cast a reflection.

“Step OUTSIDE of the box. Way outside of it. Whenever your world is spinning out of control…” he twirled a hoof in the air as he turned and bumped against Dash. Dash was still staring into the mirror and wondering how Twister did not appear in it. “You can always let it spin… and barf over the railing…”

He suddenly swung his hoof down and hit her right over the head.

“OW!” she yelped and was seconds away from retaliating, but when she looked up, her reflection was gone too.

“Or you can leap on its back, take control…” Twister suddenly lunged forward, grabbed the mirror and threw it to the floor, smashing it into thousands of pieces as Dash stepped back in shock. He turned and grabbed her, spinning her around and forcing her to face the window. It was suddenly sundown outside with the sun just above the horizon. “And ride off into the sunset!” he laughed happily as he let go of her and slowly paced around until he was right in front of her, the dim rays of the sunset shining around him.

“So tell me, Dashie Poo… After everything you’ve seen on this journey, everything you’ve been put through…Do you really want to just keep marching in lockstep with those giving you orders? With those who clearly haven’t thought to question the world as finely as you have? Do you really want to keep accepting the restraints of reality? Do you want to keep walking with a blindfold over your eyes? There’s so much MORE to everything!”

Dash’s mouth hung slightly open, her eyes stuck wide. She took in every word Twister said as the dim sunlight outlining him from behind became brighter.

“Come on, Dash!” Twister threw an arm out. “QUESTION it! Question ALL of it!” he suddenly started hovering into the air without flapping his wings. “Wonderbolts… Goddesses… Reanimated souls… How much of your world is real? How much of it do you understand?!” He laughed to himself, shaking his head and sighing as the light from the window grew brighter, forcing Dash to squint as Twister slowly began to disappear into it. “The possibilities are endless, but only if you accept them to be so! The only pony standing in your way is YOU! If you simply stay on course with the way things are now… You’ll never get anywhere, plain and simple.” He smirked, quietly giggling to himself as Dash could barely keep her eyes open in the intense light. “Take control! Conventional thinking will never set you free, and you can bet it won’t solve your current problems. You want Soarin back? It’s not gonna happen. Not unless… you do it your OWN way!”

Dash was speechless, she almost didn’t care about the intense light shining in her eyes. There was so much Twister was talking about that she was trying to understand, but those words, more than any of the others, were loud and clear.

“Do it your own way.”

“But what do I know?” Twister suddenly added with a hearty laugh as his fading image turned upside down. “After all… I’m just a wee bit… CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY!”

The light grew so bright that Dash was forced to close her eyes.

When she opened them, Twister was gone, the light outside was back to normal day. It was just her, the room, and the crackling fire.

And… a note at her hooves.

Dash quickly reached down and picked up the note. It read: “Btw, Spitfire is going to pass outside the library in roughly 47 seconds, looking for you.”

The number written was actually ticking down, changing to 46… then 45.

Dash looked up and around the room briefly, taking a couple of those precious seconds to think about what she just saw… and heard. She suddenly found herself thinking about everything going on a little differently. Twister was making an effort to open her eyes, and while there was a focus on concepts like reality and not accepting everything around her… he had tied it to her current situation as well. Was all that talk of what lies beyond what she believes his way of encouraging her in the moment? Was he giving her a taste of a bigger picture to help her understand how to handle the here and now?

She didn’t have time to nail it all down. She’d think about it more once everything died down. What he said to her and showed her helped her in the moment, in the here and now, and that’s what mattered. The number on the note was still ticking down to when Spitfire was apparently going to be outside and at this point, after all that, she wasn’t going to doubt Twister.

She visibly twitched, never thinking she’d put the words ‘never doubt Twister’ together in her head, but she dropped the note and turned, quickly making her way out.

She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. A crystal unicorn stallion was walking by, pushing a cart of books along with his horn. His head snapped towards Dash and he blinked in surprise.

Dash locked eyes with him and shot him a curious look.

“Um…” the stallion glanced behind her, then back at her. “Why were you in the broom closet?”

Dash’s eyes widened. She turned around and looked at the door.

It was, indeed, labeled ‘broom closet.’ She quickly opened the door again, and inside was definitely a broom closet. Dash flattened her brow and growled.

Of course…

Even after all of that he’d still find a way to pull some kind of cheap prank on her. She turned and gave the stallion a very weird, sarcastic smile.

“AHAHAHA! GET IT?!” she forced, her eyebrows pointed down with her eyes wide as she leaned towards the stallion, keeping a very forced smile plastered to her face. “JUST CAME OUT OF THE CLOSET! GUESS I’M GAY NOW! BETTER NOT TELL MY COLTFRIEND! TOODLES!” Dash turned and started stomping down the hall. “FuckingTwisterthinkshe’ssofunny…” Dash grumbled to herself, leaving the stallion behind with a blank stare.

“What?”

Dash stepped out of the library and to her complete lack of surprise, Spitfire was walking by right outside. Spitfire stopped the moment she saw Dash, and without questioning what Dash was doing in the library, immediately turned and trotted up to her.

“Dash! There you are!” she exclaimed as they met at the bottom of the front steps.

“You were looking for me?” Dash asked, hiding the fact that she technically already knew that.

“Yeah,” Spitfire nodded, her expression remaining completely serious. “I just got word from the hospital…”

Dash’s ears perked up and gasped. Spitfire nodded again.

“They want to talk to us about Silver.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Well wasn't that just an adventure?

For starters, looks like the Crystal Empire is providing a little more than some rest, maybe these recovery pools will come in handy... but lets not jump to conclusions just yet...

Dash just cant make up her mind, and even runs from her friends... But Twilight... will she tell Twilight?

Maybe she will, but only because a certain crazy green clown finally reappeared, if only for a short moment, to aim her in a different direction. He said a lot of things that Dash couldn't understand or grasp, but he had a clear message for her in terms of what is currently happening... now she just has to act on it.

And it looks like... next chapter we are going to find out about our stubborn old Iron Horse...

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

So lets break down those references, shall we?

The first: The Big Lebowski:

Hence my blog hashtag: "BummerMan"

Second... No, that is not Dr. Evil for those who were thinking that. For those who don't know, Dr. Evil is actually a parody of Blofeld, a recurring villain in the older James Bond movies:

And the hashtag: "TheRightIdeaButTheWrongPussy........Cat" is a reference to one meeting between bond and blofeld, where bond only has one shot left in his gun, and there are two Blofelds (one is a body double) Bond throws the cat between them, and the cat jumps to one of the blofelds, Which Bond shoots. But then a second cat appears and goes the one still alive. Blofeld: "The right idea, mr bond!" Bond: "But the wrong pussy..." (for those who have not seen older bond movies, the sex jokes are almost every other line at times)

And yes... this is a feral version of Foxena's fursona:

I couldn't resist the opportunity.

The third... is 4chan's mascot 'Anonymous'. Though he takes many forms, the most common is a blank green man with a question mark where his face should be, wearing a suit and red tie:

And if you're wondering about the green text, that's 4chan's way of telling personal stories.

Lastly, i'm sure most of you picked up on it, the first Matrix movie (the only good one):

I felt it would be the perfect parody for Twister to pull, given the kinds of things he was putting out there.
Hence the hashtag: HeKnowsMoreThanYouCanImagine

Thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 154: Making the Tough Decisions

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 154: Making the Tough Decisions

Where was he going now?

Soarin was a prisoner in his own body… but the one in control just seemed to keep wandering and wandering, going everywhere except for where he was expecting him to go. Sombra simply continued to walk with seemingly no particular destination in mind.

After they had scaled the mountain and taken in the incredible view, Sombra had drifted to several unique and scenic locations. First, a foamy waterfall with crystal formations that glistened as the water rushed over them. Second, a beautiful cave that was alight with crystals of every color one could imagine. Third, which they just passed through, was a field of crystal flowers that appeared hard as rocks, yet they were soft to the touch with velvety petals.

And now… he was walking towards a large, dense forest of crystal trees. Soarin watched through his own eyes as they entered the forest. The trees, like everything else around the empire, were pure crystal in appearance. The trunks, branches and leaves, were all a deep blue color with a somewhat reflective, opaque surface. Interestingly, they had no basic shape, the trees resembled trees of all kinds from around Equestria as if they were crafted works of art. The leaves glistened and twinkled as they swayed, every ray of light elegantly bouncing off of them to cause the pretty effect. It was easily one of the most beautiful sights Soarin had ever seen, every tree of every size shimmering from top to bottom and their blue shine mixing elegantly with the white snow covering the ground around them.

Sombra stopped walking after a few minutes, looking up into one of the trees. His magic came alight on the curved horn and surrounded the tree right in front of him. The tree suddenly shook back and forth, a few leaves coming loose and fluttering to the ground despite looking like solid crystal. But then several small objects fell out of the tree, plopping into the snow softly. Sombra turned his magic down, gathered them up and lifted them towards him.

Soarin looked the objects over carefully as Sombra drew them in… were those… some kind of fruit? He couldn’t tell, it looked like fruit, but appeared to be shaped like… an onion or something, Soarin wasn’t sure. But once again… it appeared to be crystal, having the shape of an onion if an onion had corners and flat surfaces. There were six of them in Sombra’s aura.

“Are you hungry?” Sombra suddenly asked, catching Soarin completely off guard.

“Huh?” was all he managed as Sombra made Soarin shake his head.

“I may be in control, but it’s still your body. You haven’t eaten anything since I took over.”

Soarin growled quietly to himself. Sombra had just said that so casually, like he expected Soarin to have accepted the fact that he’s no longer in control.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Sombra said calmly, taking Soarin’s growl as acknowledgement as he lifted one of the crystal fruits towards Soarin’s mouth. One of the… very solid looking… crystal fruits.

“Whoa, wait!” Soarin called out as he felt his mouth open. Whatever the fruit was… it looked solid enough to break his teeth on.

But then to his surprise, Sombra made him bite down and his teeth sunk into it like it would any other fruit. The flavor burst over his taste buds as Sombra made him take a bite and chew, then swallow.

Soarin was quiet for a moment.

“Okay, that didn’t go as expected…” he said as Sombra continued to let him eat.

“What were you expecting?” Sombra asked as if there was no cause for alarm.

“To be looking for my teeth in the snow right now,” Soarin answered sarcastically.

“It’s a crystal fig, a local favorite,” Sombra explained, not acknowledging Soarin’s confusion.

“How does everything around here look hard as stone, but they aren’t?” Soarin asked.

“Have you never been to the Empire before?” Sombra inquired as he had Soarin take another bite.

“I have but… I’ve never eaten anything here or taken my time to examine every flower and tree,” Soarin explained as he began to notice how good the crystal figs tasted.

“What a waste, you are missing out. The magic of these lands does not make all you see turn into something solid as rock. It gives beauty to all you see, touch, and feel. It’s part of what makes my land unique,” Sombra explained. “To have such a place sealed away for a thousand years is a crime.” Sombra added with a slight growl, clearly taking a jab at Celestia, who kept her lips sealed.

Soarin listened, but he found himself focusing on the delicious taste of the figs.

“Okay… maybe I was a little hungry…” he admitted, feeling the physical satisfaction of a meal despite having no control. “These are good.”

“Of course, these were always my favorite,” Sombra added as he kept walking, helping Soarin eat the figs as he kept walking, looking back and forth to take in the sight of the forest as they moved.

Soarin appreciated the food, but was beginning to wonder if Sombra was ever going to head to the Empire itself. Not that that was a bad thing, conflict was sure to follow that move. Sombra had expressed that he was unsure how to proceed. He wanted to return… but didn’t want to bring any harm to his home or its citizens. He KNEW that confrontation was inevitable. Was he biding his time to come up with a plan to retake the throne? Or… did he not have a clue how to proceed and was struggling to maintain an air of having control of the situation?

Or maybe he was just taking in all the old sights from his memories? Soarin was at a loss.

Sombra’s intentions were clear. He wanted to retake what was his, he wanted to destroy the gods, and he wanted to ‘save’ everypony, lead them to salvation from beneath the rule of the gods. But all this sightseeing… all the wandering…

Perhaps his nostalgic nature walk and warm recollections were now the greatest deterrent against his extremely overzealous and oversighted goals. If anything it was definitely buying Soarin’s comrades time they would need. Assuming they were making plans, of course. He would be surprised if Spitfire wasn’t.

Sombra popped the last piece of fig into Soarin’s mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

“Ah…” Soarin let out a content sigh as he finished, flinching as he did since he didn’t mean to. But Sombra didn’t seem to notice, he just kept on walking.

This was… odd. Soarin was finding it harder and harder to effectively judge Sombra. He didn’t entirely disagree with his opinion on the gods, especially with everything that was being revealed to him, but he completely disagreed with Sombra’s solution. It was incomplete, not thought out, and clearly driven by anger and a thirst for revenge. It didn’t matter where his heart was or what his intentions were, his goals were dangerous and he showed no signs of being flexible or reconsidering.

But that’s what made this hard. Sombra had completely shed the designation of ‘evil’ in his mind, separating himself from how the history books described him in every way. He wasn’t a mindless tyrant, he was hesitant to dive in and cause harm despite his ultimate goal being obstructed, and now here he was taking a peaceful nature walk and offering Soarin food. His body needed nourishment anyway for both of their sakes, but still.

And making it even more complicated… was how Soarin’s view of Celestia was being twisted and smashed against views that he still somewhat believed.

He was having the polar opposite problem with Celestia. He still felt a sense of comfort with her there, and he still viewed her as the kind, loving goddess that all believed her to be. But he never dreamed she’d be so reckless on top of how selfish her actions leading up to this moment were. While Sombra was slowly becoming a different pony, one that was much better than he was led to believe… Celestia was moving in the opposite direction, showing a ‘bad’ side to her actions that thought little of possible consequences with only her personal gain in mind. She had made some harmful decisions intentionally and deliberately for her own ends… while desperately clinging to her kind, gentle, and caring image.

It was getting to a point where the two were on an equal level in Soarin’s mind, and that was only making the situation harder to judge. He was struggling to put everything together, straining to figure out who did what to who, who was to blame for what, who was more trustworthy to believe, and if any of it was relevant to what HE cared about. Obviously there was a biased slant against Sombra for possessing his body, but it was Celestia who put him there so that evened it out a little.

Was this all part of the conflict Soarin had been fighting in? Was this just a personal squabble caught in the crossfire? Or was it something more entirely? He needed more from them both to find the answers he was looking for, but what else could he get beyond what he had already heard? He had already been pumped full of enough information to make a veteran scholar jump off a balcony. At this point he really could only ask for fine details in hopes of understanding things a bit more.

Fine details…

Had he waited long enough? Yeah he was sure it had all sunk in by now. It was time to ask about… him.

Sombra continued walking through the forest, stopping at several trees to bathe in their glow and admire their beauty. He probably wasn’t going to like being pressed while neck deep in his nostalgia-fest, but Soarin didn’t care, there was a piece of the puzzle he wanted more clarity on.

“So… question…” Soarin spoke up, returning his focus to within his mind and looking back and forth between the image of Celestia and the silhouette of Sombra as his focus returned to inside his thoughts.

Neither of them answered.

“Hello?” Soarin snorted. “Anypony there?”

“Are you talking to me or her?” Sombra gruffly asked, clearly miffed his trip down memory lane was being interrupted.

“Both of you,” Soarin clarified with a somewhat sharp tone. Sombra grunted and gently whisked his head back slightly.

“Then ask her,” he grumbled. Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“What happened to ‘wasting my time’ with her?” Soarin said, using Sombra’s own words against him. Sombra said nothing for a moment.

“Hmph,” he grunted to himself, remaining facing away as he kept moving Soarin’s body.

“Guess I’ll just get her opinion first th—”

“What do you want?” Sombra cut him off, clear frustration in his voice.

Hook, line, and sinker. Soarin knew that would get his attention.

“I do want to ask both of you, though,” Soarin made clear as he looked between them.

“What is it?” Celestia suddenly spoke up, breaking her silence.

“There’s something I was hoping I could get some more color on,” Soarin began. “I was wondering about—”

“Yes, my thoughts exactly!” Sombra cut Soarin off again, but threw all his attention at Celestia. “Why don’t you tell us about your father, Astron… and all of these supposed other gods that nopony has ever been told of? Were they all as disgustingly dishonest and deceiving as you?” He pressed sharply, Celestia gasping and reclining as he drove the verbal needles in.

“HEY!” Soarin shouted at him. “Enough! That’s not what I want to know about!” He growled as Sombra’s silhouette growled and leaned towards him.

“I DARE you to claim you’re not curious about that,” he hissed at Soarin.

“I am,” Soarin huffed right back. “But she’s clearly not willing talk about that right now, and… you just want to pry into her more. What I want to know right now concerns YOU too. It’s something neither of you elaborated on in your stories.”

Sombra didn’t budge. He had no eyes to glare with, but Soarin knew he was being glared at, so he glared right back. The silence extended for several moments… before Soarin threw the knockout punch.

“Neither of you elaborated on Discord.”

The reaction was instant. Celestia flinched and froze. Sombra suddenly pulled back.

“He clearly played a pretty big role in how everything went to hell,” Soarin pressed, confident the stage was his. “But you both skimmed right over it like it didn’t mean a thing and just kept pointing a hoof at each other. What gives?”

More silence. Soarin shook his head.

“Why? What’s his part in the whole story?” Soarin kept pressing, determined to squeeze it out of them if need be. “Hello? Anypony home?” Soarin added to pressure them harder.

But all he got was an annoyed grumble out of Sombra and silence out of Celestia.

“Are you two not telling me somethi—”

“He was an annoying, meddling scamp,” Sombra cut in with a very harsh and sharp tone. “He was jealous that I, a mortal, had taken ‘his mare’ and he hated me for it. He constantly pestered me. Every time he showed his face I wanted to smash it in. It wasn’t my fault he lacked the testicles to woo Celes before I did. If a mortal can put out for a goddess more than a god can then it’s not my fault, it’s his.”

Soarin stared with wide eyes.

“Uh…” he blinked once. “Wow. Tell us how you really feel…” he said as he tipped his head curiously. “Wait a second, what happened to you claiming you had no hoof in wooing Celestia?” Soarin asked, citing a strong claim he tried to make earlier. Sombra growled loudly as he got down in Soarin’s face.

“Okay, FINE!” he snarled. “You’ve made your point on that front. I did it, okay? There was a damn goddess swaying her plot in halls of my castle to the point where I could not contain myself and had to explain to my furnishers the next morning why my bed frame was broken in two!” He admitted, clearly very irritated by the subject to the point where he didn’t care what he said. Celestia’s ears stood up and her face flushed as she quickly looked away with wide eyes. “But that’s beside the damn point!”

“Yikes, this sure set you off…” Soarin commented as he reclined as much as his binds allowed, Sombra’s grumbling silhouette still directly in front of him.

“I don’t blame him,” Celestia spoke up as Sombra snorted and turned away from them both.

“Hm?” Soarin turned his attention to Celestia. She was still a little red in the face, but Soarin’s question was clearly sparking some memories.

“Discord was always very persistent…” she trailed off.

“Care to elaborate?” Soarin pressed quickly, taking advantage of the fact that Sombra was still snorting and growling to himself off to the side.

“It’s…” Celestia frowned and sighed. “A tough subject for me…”

“Oh, SURE!” Sombra suddenly blurted out, glancing over his shoulder at her. “It’s harder to talk about your first than it is me?”

“What the, first?” Soarin’s head snapped back towards Celestia, but she suddenly lurched forward, causing Soarin to flinch as she moved only a little before her bindings yanked her right back down.

“Discord and I have NEVER been together!” she yelled, sounding… angry? Soarin was so confused. “You would still spout such nonsense?! Even now after all this time and what we had?!”

“BAH!” Sombra offered no retort, he just scoffed and remained turned around.

“Uh…?” Soarin failed to find words to express his bewilderment.

“Ignore him and… listen… to me…” Celestia’s words were broken up, twitching as she relaxed and her binds stopped squeezing her. “The two of them could never give an honest assessment of one another, it was all hatred.”

She took a deep breath, never taking her eyes off Sombra as she prepared herself. Soarin waited patiently… hoping this tale wouldn’t be quite so long.

“Discord and I have a long history,” Celestia explained. “I can’t remember a time he wasn’t a part of my life in some way. If we don’t count the times he went rogue and were forced to fight against him, Discord has been one of my closest friends for as long as I can remember, even back to our creation… and before he took the form he has today.”

Both Soarin and Sombra perked up, Sombra quickly turning halfway around to look down at her.

“I was never sure what drew him to me…” Celestia continued, looking down and pausing while recalling her memories.

Soarin and Sombra glanced at one another. They had both heard and were curious about the same thing, but she had already adamantly refused to speak further of her past life pre-descent from the heavens. So neither of them pressed and let her speak, despite it becoming annoying that she kept bringing it up in subtle ways.

“Perhaps it was because I always thought he was so funny,” she went on. “While the other gods often shooed him away and expressed annoyance… I loved his antics and pranks. He could always make me smile, giggle, or laugh out loud at a moment’s notice. And that seemed to make him happy. He never left my side as a result, and the two of us were rarely apart. Luna couldn’t stand him, always barking at him to get away from me only to get herself caught in his pranks while doing so. She was jealous that I seemed to pay more attention to him than her, but we were best friends. He was also always breaking the rules… he made many trips down to the mortal world, using his unique magic to hide his sublime form and take on the image of a mortal pony. He was berated and scolded constantly for doing so, but he was always let off the hook because he never tampered with the lives of mortals, he just played harmless jokes on them. He actually got caught and roughed up by the mortals a few times, but he still kept his powers in check and would only get back at them by playing more pranks… he knew the rules of godhood, he was only bending them, not breaking them entirely. I loved listening to his stories about the mortal world, before I was forced down from above he was my only source of knowledge of the world below. It was fascinating… he was fascinating. There was never a dull moment, he made my life interesting.”

Soarin’s eyes were drawn away briefly as Sombra mumbled and grumbled just loud enough to hear, but Celestia paid no attention to him at all as she continued.

“This is how things were for us... for centuries, millennia, eons. Our endless lives were carefree, secluded from the outside world far above the clouds. Every day brought new antics and new fun. Discord could make any situation unique and I never got tired of it. But…” Celestia huffed and glanced at Sombra. “And I’m sure he’s going to jump at me the moment I say this… But there was a point between Discord and I, sometime before the first appearance of the black dragons, where he made an unexpected advance.”

Sombra snorted very loudly, but he did not interject. Celestia rolled her eyes and continued.

“It was shy and playful, nothing more than a sudden hug that he held for a little longer than he ever had, accompanied by a nuzzle. I did not expect it, he had never shown more than simple, platonic affection before, this was a little more intense and it made my heart flutter a little. I did not know what it meant. I had never experienced love beyond that of my family, so I wasn’t sure how to respond. It ended awkwardly, with me sheepishly pushing him away, but I didn’t forget it and it left me curious.”

“That would not be the last time he tried. He made more advances as time went on, never anything definitive, but he grew slightly bolder. He hugged me more, he became more protective of me, he spent even more time by my side and I often caught him staring at my face. I will admit, I was incredibly flattered and I warmed up a little to his actions over time, but I was never really sure how I felt. My curiosity got the better of me though, and I ended up kissing him… just once. I thought returning the affection in full would help me make up my mind, but in the end it backfired. I felt silly, like I did it just to make him happy and not because I actually wanted to… and he suddenly got the idea that I wanted more from him. I regretfully had to come clean with him about it soon after before it could get out of hoof. He wasn’t too happy about it, but I was more comfortable with what we already had… our friendship was what I cherished, I didn’t want to force it into becoming something else.”

“He backed off, respecting my choice, but I could tell it bothered him. But I had made up my mind on the matter. I wasn’t sure if I was okay with it and didn’t feel like it was what I wanted. He was funny, charming, and always putting me first, but isn’t that what friends already do? His subtle, romantic moves were different… but they were never strong enough to convince me there was more to be found. I didn’t want to just accept it without understanding my own feelings.”

Celestia sighed.

“And then the black dragons appeared and… ravaged everything. Luna, Discord, and I were the only gods who survived their onslaught. But we wouldn’t have survived if not for Discord. He made an incredible sacrifice to save us and…”

She trailed off and looked away, remaining silent for several moments.

“Nothing was the same after that. The three of us were suddenly on our own without the guidance of the older gods to show us a way beyond what we already knew. Our carefree days were gone, the forces of nature were left without guides to move elegantly with them, reducing them to simple, natural states, the beauty of our omnipotence was damaged… and the mortals below never knew what caused the sudden changes in the air around them. The three of us were left to wander the skies and simply… exist. Luna and I still did our part, giving the sun and moon beauty for the mortals to admire… but our happiness was gone. Discord still tried to make me smile… but I seldom found reason to. And what’s worse… we had little time to adjust to our new situation, because while Discord’s efforts had fought the dragons back… they soon returned and turned their attention to the world of mortals below.” Celestia exhaled. “And you know the rest from there.”

Soairn flinched as Sombra suddenly turned and growled at her.

“No, he doesn't know the rest!” he barked at her as she averted her eyes.

“We already told him everything from that point…” Celestia argued half-heartedly, but Sombra wasn’t having it.

“He’s asking you about DISCORD. Do you want to continue, or should I take it from here?” Sombra suggested as his breath hissed. Celestia shut her eyes and quivered. “I could simplify it for him, you know,” Sombra said with a slightly sarcastic tone. “But since you are such ‘good friends’ with Discord, perhaps you’d like to go on before I give my very personal point of view,” he finished, the sarcasm flowing by the end.

“F…fine…” Celestia sighed, shaking her head and refusing to look at him. “When Sombra entered the picture, everything changed. I still saw Discord as a friend, but the feelings and emotions that rushed and poured forth when I met Sombra completely crushed and dashed the teetering uncertainty that I had always felt around Discord. But let’s look further back first… before I met Sombra. You’d think Discord would come forth and fight with us after he single-hoofedly fought the dragons back the first time, but he was afraid to fully reveal himself to the mortals. Despite already having snuck around among them for ages, he did not follow the lead of Luna and I down from the heavens. He disappeared, I did not see him for quite some time as we battled against the dragons. But the day I met Sombra… that night as I paced around in and contemplated everything the sight of Sombra had done to me, Discord suddenly appeared before me when nopony else was around. I was shocked, I had not seen him for a while and was about to ask him where he had been, but I could barely get a word out. He grabbed me by the shoulders and nearly shook me as he began speaking a mile a minute, telling me all sorts of reasons why I shouldn’t trust Sombra. I was so confused… he looked so frantic and desperate. I had never seen him in such a state before, it was almost frightening. And it didn’t help… that I was completely naïve to what he was getting at. I simply told him to relax and not to worry, assuring him that Sombra would be a key ally in defeating the black dragons for good. I was completely oblivious to his reasons for confronting me.”

“He had been watching me. He saw the whole interaction between Sombra and I. He saw my body language, he saw the look in my eyes… the way I stared at him with intense fascination and awe. Discord was jealous. The signs were so obvious and right in front of me, but I could not see it in that moment… that’s just how distracted I was by Sombra’s radiance and how drawn I felt to him.”

Celestia paused and looked down.

“But after the defeat of the dragons… as time went on and things calmed down, I eventually caught on, especially after my first visit to the Crystal Empire… Everypony was so confused when I trotted giddily through the halls of Canterlot Castle upon my return. I looked like a little filly that had just gotten her cutie mark. I bopped and swayed, hopped and giggled my way through the hallways, past the guards and my subjects as they all stared. When I reached my room, I kicked off my shoes and tossed aside my regalia, flopping onto my bed and hugging myself as I continued to giggle, blush, and sigh. The euphoria… I had never felt it before, every second I thought of Sombra made my body tingle.”

Soarin’s eye twitched and he glanced at Sombra. It was hard to make out, but Sombra had a hoof smacked against his face. She was at it again… was this going somewhere or was she taking another victory lap around dreamland?

“But then I suddenly sensed another presence, I glanced to my right and… for a moment, I swear I saw Discord. I was rushed back to reality as I sat up and blinked. But he was gone the moment I was up. It was a good thing too, because Luna suddenly burst through the doors and began berating me for being gone so long… I didn’t listen though…” Celestia shook her head. “I saw him for a moment… and that’s all I needed to see. I knew how Discord operated… he probably saw the whole thing from my arrival, Sombra’s hospitality, the Crystal Ball, the way I looked and reacted through it all, everything. I felt uneasy for a moment… but set it aside and went about my business, first addressing Luna still barking at me.”

“And… soon I was confronted by Discord… often. He was fully aware of what was going on, more so than anypony else. He could see it all, he could see the love that blossomed between Sombra and I and I knew he hated it, I knew how he felt about me. Facing him was completely different than facing my subjects about the topic of Sombra. Everypony else was so concerned about his maverick personality, about how he refused to bow to me and still ran his own kingdom. To them… it was all about worshipping a god, what would be proper for him to do, and who should rightfully lead all ponies…”

Celestia went quiet for several seconds.

“For Discord… it was none of those things. It was personal. Over time… his jealousy began to weigh on me. I began to implore him not to push me on the subject because I valued him as a friend, but he continuously tore into Sombra… which hurt to hear. I had fallen in love with Sombra. I had experienced rushes of feelings, emotions, and lust with him that Discord had never even come close to spurring within me. I couldn’t even begin to count how many times I made this point clear to him while trying to remind Discord that my love for Sombra did not mean I no longer regarded him as a friend. That had never changed for me. But Discord wouldn’t have it. It ate at him, it stabbed deep into him. I often worried that he would do something rash as a result. I often ran into him murmuring and grumbling to himself, cursing and uttering Sombra’s name in ways that suggested he was not mentally sound. Discord, after all, was an incredibly powerful god that wielded a very dangerous form of magic… and my fears were pushed further when he began appearing before Sombra and I on more than one occasion. But… to my relief, he never turned his power on Sombra.”

“But either way… I did not like the direction Discord was heading… and I eventually confronted him after several of his appearances that ruined romantic moments. But… it only ended up crushing me a little more. He revealed to me that, despite his intense jealousy and his hatred for Sombra, he could not ignore how happy I was. And in the end, he could not bring himself to turn his powers against something that brought me so much joy. He was thinking of me despite everything… I was so torn it made me want to cry.”

“You sure did well to believe him THERE!” Sombra suddenly interrupted with a loud snort. Celestia suddenly glared harshly at him.

“He meant it… Sombra!” she yelled towards him.

“Oh really!” Sombra whipped around and growled. “I assume that’s why he turned me into that monster then?!”

“You were already heading down a dark path and we were at odds. The only reason Discord made his move was because it had appeared I abandoned you,” Celestia explained calmly, but neither Soarin nor Sombra shared her demeanor.

Soarin blinked and pulled his neck back slightly in a mixture of shock and surprise, but his reaction was nothing compared to Sombra, who’s silhouette twitched and shook his head several times.

“Are my ears deceiving me?!” Sombra yelled out in an incredulous tone. “Are you REALLY defending his actions?!” He stomped his hooves. “And now you're suddenly accepting blame for something?! When it has to do with HIM?!”

“Don’t twist my words on me!” Celestia yelled back defiantly. “I already stated my actions and abandonment of you were incorrect, but I did not make you delve into the dark arts!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay!” Soarin interjected quickly, noticing a trend. “Now you’re both walking around the subject and just going for each other’s throats again!” he pointed out as the two continued to growl at one another, but then Soarin turned all his focus to Celestia. “But… Sombra has a point here, why shift attention away from Discord? Are you really not going to hold him accountable for any of it?” he asked.

Sombra stepped back, forcing himself to remain quiet and doing his best to not show complete agreement. Celestia looked away from them both, trying to force her glaring expression to remain as her lips quivered slightly.

“If Sombra and I had never had our spat… Discord would have never taken the chance,” Celestia explained weakly, her tone contradicting her look.

“And that excuses him?” Soarin immediately pressed.

“No… he…” Celestia hesitated and shut her eyes.

“Which is it?” Soarin grunted. “I get that he’s an old friend, but you can’t play both sides here! He turned your lover into a monster and you are just letting that fly?!”

Celestia didn’t answer. She sniffled and kept her eyes jammed tight as if holding back tears.

“Why are you defending him?!” Soarin pushed harder.

“Because… because…” Celestia’s voice was shaking. No tears fell, but she sounded like they could break free at any moment. “This is all my fault. If I had remained disciplined and not fallen in love, none of this would have ever happened!” she forced out, shouting the last few words.

Soarin and Sombra both stared at her, Soarin looking as if he didn’t know what her arguments even were anymore. One moment she defended things that shouldn’t be defended, the next she was saying it was all her fault. Why was everything with Sombra his own fault, but everything with Discord her fault? She was running him in circles and he was getting REAL tired of it.

“Oh, for the love of…” Soarin rolled his eyes and growled loudly.

“What?!” Celestia retorted angrily as if Soarin wasn’t acknowledging her emotions.

“Nothing…” Soarin snorted. “I just… can’t fucking believe this!” Soarin cursed while glaring at her. “What the hell am I hearing here?! So much relevant history of Equestria was written on the back of petty drama, love triangles, bickering, and he said, she said blame games?!”

“DISCORD IS…” Celestia suddenly blurted out, but stopped dead in her tracks.

“IS WHAT?!” Soarin pressed, yelling right back at her.

Celestia looked angry, her eyelids twitching and her breath hissing through her teeth. But her eyes did not match. Her pupils were shuddering, showing anxiety amongst the rage. She slumped, her binds smushing down gently with her as she let her chin rest on the ground.

“You know what? Fine… I can’t defend it,” she suddenly caved, sounding tired. “Discord did it, he used his magic on Sombra and turned the stallion I loved into a monster. I’m just trying to tell you that I could have prevented it… but I failed. Is that so hard for the two of you to accept?! I didn’t just let it go… but do you have any idea how hard it was for me in the aftermath?! The stallion I loved was gone, and the only other friend I had was to blame!”

Soarin and Sombra remained silent as she ranted. It seemed like they finally loosed her tongue on the subject.

“Discord had miscalculated. He was not expecting me to suddenly show up and witness his act,” she suddenly dove back into the past. “After all was said and done and Sombra was sealed away, Discord disappeared without a trace. But regardless, I never forgot what I saw. I knew it was my actions that led to the incident, but I could never forget that it was him who tipped it over the edge! It wasn’t until a few years later… that he suddenly appeared before me. He appeared in my bed chamber, in private, with no guards or subjects around to witness. I was not expecting to see him again… and when I saw him, anger immediately welled up within me. All I could think of was the sight of him in front of my now lost lover, his magic alight and corrupting him, turning him into a ferocious beast that I myself had to put down.”

“Discord did not say a word as my anger seeped out. He looked distraught, crushed… he crumbled beneath my glare, backing away a little with every step I took towards him. And then he tried to apologize to me. His voice was shaking, his tone was weak, and the words barely made it out of his mouth. He resembled a child who knew he had done a great wrong… and doubly knew that his apology was not going to be enough.”

“And it wasn’t. I refused to accept it, and frankly, I was insulted that he’d think I’d simply let something so drastic go. In my rage, I yelled at him. I ordered him to get out of my sight… and told him that I never wanted to see him again. I effectively cast him out, shunned him from ever being a part of my life again.”

“But… that proved to be a misguided blunder on my part once again… because it wasn’t long after that that he went mad, unleashing his power upon Equestria,” she suddenly went further, explaining some events that Soarin already knew about. “He distorted reality all around him until the world was nearly irreversibly changed. We were forced to hunt him down… but during our efforts, the chaos became so potent that only Luna and I were able to hold our physical forms within the distortions. Long story short… we discovered the base spirits of the land were still intact, whittled down to their pure form by the cacophony swirling all around them. Luna and I called forth these spirits and used them to craft the Elements of Harmony. And with them, we sealed Discord away in a prison of stone.”

“And… until he broke free many centuries later, I was forced to look upon his statue every day…” she kept going further on. Soarin listened, but Sombra was starting to grumble and tap his hoof. “Just another reminder that my own actions had destroyed everything I had left from my previous life. Not to mention I ended up banishing Luna to the moon not too long after… over a dispute that was not worthy of using the Elements’ power. Another mistake that poured salt on the wounds and also caused the Elements to reject me as their wielder.”

“Okay, this pity party had gone far enough!” Sombra cut in. Celestia looked like she was going to say more, but she immediately stopped, not looking at either of them. Soarin watched as Celestia instantly caved under Sombra’s words, before sighing and turning to Sombra.

“Alright, let’s hear your ‘very personal’ version,” Soarin said mockingly, but Sombra didn’t give his remarks any notice.

“Snake-breath had millions of years to win her over and stick it between her thighs, but he didn’t and threw a crying tantrum when he lost her to a mortal with an actual pair of testicles.”

“Sombra…” Celestia suddenly glared at him and huffed.

“What? Am I wrong?!” Sombra scoffed. “I didn’t even know he existed before the two of us got romantically involved. He had no one to blame but himself for his lack of bells! If a stallion wants a mare and has enough confidence to put his bits where his mouth is, then he goes and gets her! He doesn’t sit back with his stallionhood tucked between his legs, waiting and hoping that she’ll notice him and come around to his feelings. What did he do?! He had you swinging that shapely rump in front of him for eons and instead of taking it for himself, he just enjoyed the view?! That’s so pathetic I can almost still hear the sound of his sack turning inside out a thousand years later! What was he waiting for?! Was he expecting you to suddenly back up to him with your tail up while innocently requesting that he take your virginity?! I’ve heard of adolescent wet dreams that are less pathetic than that! If he didn’t spend so much time sucking air through his rudder and actually gave you the pounding he kept daydreaming about then maybe I wouldn’t have crushed his tiny walnuts and taken you from him with ease in a single night!”

Soarin stared wide eyes and blinked once.

“WOW.” He said to nopony as Sombra laid it all out as harshly as possible. Celestia clearly didn’t appreciate it.

“That’s such an unbelievably crude way to put it,” she commented while giving him a displeased look.

“I do not mince words when it comes to the truth,” Sombra hissed back at her. “Why do you think you fell for me so quickly after being so confused about how you felt for him? Because I did not beat around the bush. I saw you, I wanted you, I went for you, I made you mine, and then you stayed with me because you loved it.” He subtly glanced at Soarin. “I’d like to think that’s still how a real stallion asserts himself to find a mate in the current day and age. It’s nothing more than basic nature. The alpha prevails over the beta. He held no right to you over me. For heaven’s sake, he’s a GOD. He had omnipotence going for him over me and I still came out on top!”

He quickly turned to Soarin, not giving Celestia a chance to reply.

“You see why I don’t consider him a significant part of it all? He’s just a sniveling coward who thought I stole his lover and took advantage of a moment of weakness between us. He is lower than low, I respect the worms in the soil under my hooves more than that gutless pile of filth!” He continued to use the sharpest words he could muster. Soarin furrowed his brow.

“Okay… but what about what he did to you?! I get how you feel about him, but you can’t act like he has no blame! Why are both of you dancing around this?!” Soarin demanded.

“I JUST TOLD YOU—” Sombra angrily began but Soarin cut him off.

“And I think you’re just avoiding saying what you really think because you're more interested in pinning blame on HER!” he yelled while pointing at Celestia.

Sombra stayed in place. He kept edging forward slightly, but ended up staying silent. He then turned away.

“Oh no you don’t!” Soarin quickly stopped him. “You’re not getting out of this one!”

“This conflict was ultimately between Celestia and I,” Sombra said calmly as Soarin groaned and smacked his face once against the ground. “Discord was merely one piece that was only able to do what he did because of how the situation unfolded,” he glanced back at Soarin. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like Celestia. I harbor an intense hatred for Discord and he will pay dearly for what he did to me. But his one action does not acquit those who set the stage.”

“You know…” Soarin picked his face up off the ground and scrunched his face. “That’s funny, you blew up at Celestia for remotely suggesting the same thing you just did about Discord not carrying much blame. What changed in the past five minutes?”

“What?!” Sombra flinched. “I… we…” he stumbled over his words, growling as Soarin caught him in the corner.

“I swear,” Soarin sighed and he looked back and forth between them. “Neither of you can keep your stories straight… you both say one thing and then manage to say the opposite later! Do either of you even know what you really want?”

Celestia didn’t reply. Sombra merely let out a very loud, annoyed huff.

“HMPH!” he exhaled as he kept his back turned.

There was a bit of a pause, Soarin hoping one of them would kindly acknowledge his observation, but neither of them did. Instead, Sombra slowly began to look over his shoulder again.

“Though… I must admit, it’s funny…” Sombra suddenly started again in a tone that suggested he was NOT answering Soarin’s question, but he was focused on Soarin. “Everything that has happened leading up to this point aside, and despite my urge to tear him limb from limb, I do owe Discord for this opportunity I have right now.”

Both Soarin and Celestia looked at him curiously as he chuckled.

“If not for him using his magic on me then… I would not have the grip I have on you now.”

“What?” Celestia quickly spoke.

“Why that look?” Sombra glanced at her. Soarin wasn’t sure what to make of it, remaining quiet as the two conversed.

“What… does that mean?” she pressed.

“Have you not taken a look at what’s happened to Soarin’s body? That spike on his head should have been the first indication that… or are you just not being observant?” Sombra pointed out as he focused on her. “My soul locking itself in place had granted him my physical size and strength, but without a horn, my full potential would be hindered. So… I used the same technique Discord used on me to further possess his body and create a horn to use for magic.”

Soarin blinked in surprise as Celestia gasped.

“You… used chaos magic?!” She exclaimed, but then shook her head. “No, you couldn’t have. I watched all of it, your aura never gained the distorted presence, nor the lavender glow!”

“That’s because I can’t use chaos magic,” Sombra explained simply. Celestia blinked, at a complete loss for words. “I simply figured out how to create the same effect of this particular spell with my own magic.”

“What? That’s…” Celestia tipped her head. “How is that possible?”

“Ha!” Sombra guffawed once and shook his head. “Once again, you forget who you’re talking to, Celes. I’m a fast learner, I spent years in battle, turning spells of my enemies right back at them once feeling them against my body and understanding the effects, the force, and the prerequisites for conjuring it through the looks and emotions in the eyes of those throwing it at me. It doesn’t matter if it’s the magic of a god. I can easily deduce and create my own version of it as well.”

“I was blinded by madness when it was used on me in the past,” he went on. “But I was not without my conscience. I felt every bit of Discord’s power as it surged through me, felt every change it made with me, every inch of corruption that spread. I felt it grip my soul, I felt it take me over… I felt and committed all of it to memory, even before I was fully possessed and went on my rampage. One of the things I had time to ponder while I was locked away within your body… was if it would be possible to harness and mimic such power, using it against the body of another to loosen their grip on their own body… and insert my soul and conscience in its place, holding them down with my own spirit the same way Discord’s magic held me down. It looks to have worked… Soarin’s body resembles mine when I was possessed, the jagged horn sitting atop his head, the wild fangs and the ferocious eyes… All is as it should be, except…” he glanced at Soarin and growled. “If not for Soarin’s tremendous willpower and resistance, I would have full control and the sight would be spectacular.” He looked back at Celestia. “I likely could have taken over without it… but I doubt my grip would be as firm without it, so why settle for less? We have Discord to thank for some additional techniques that have helped me thus far. Now YOU…” he snarled at Soarin. “Just have to let go.”

“Nice try you blank-faced ass-clown,” Soarin suddenly retorted. “You completely changed the subject!”

“Did I?” Sombra replied, unfazed, even ignoring the name calling. “See that look in her eyes?” he pointed at Celestia.

Soarin looked over to see Celestia’s face was wrought with awe, her eyes were wide and her jaw was slightly agape.

“That’s a look I remember well,” Sombra said with a quiet snort. “That’s the same look she used to give me whenever I showed her my knowledge or prowess in any situation. Is it any wonder why she fell for me and not her limp-wristed, inept immortal counterpart?”

Celestia flinched and shut her mouth quickly as Soarin gave Sombra a flat look. Did he go on that little detour just to continue the dick measuring circle-jerk against Discord?

“Wow, okay, I get it…” Soarin groaned, annoyed. “You won Celestia over Discord because you were a sexual dragon and were better at swinging your tube-steak around. You’ve made that CRYSTAL clear so let’s stop that before we start talking in actual inches. But you’re still not being any better than she is about this! Neither of you seem to give a damn about his role in causing the mess between you two! It’s like he doesn’t even matter even though he clearly does!” Soarin said angrily, he was nearing the end of his rope.

“It wouldn’t have—”

“She still—”

“STOP!” Soarin yelled over the two of them before they could start bickering again. His shout was ferocious, the dark blue light of the area flickering briefly as Sombra winced and grunted. Celestia froze in place, shutting her mouth quick. “I don’t even know what the hell I’m listening to anymore!” Soarin kept yelling, his eyes alight with anger as the bindings that held him down began to shudder as if reacting to his rush of emotion. “I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong! I don’t know who caused what, who carries the blame, or who I should trust!” Soarin shouted as loud as he could, pouring out his frustration.

Sombra held himself steady, thankful that his expressions and movements were mostly hidden in his silhouette image. He was feeling pressure from all directions as Soarin began unloading.

“Honestly, I’m glad I asked about Discord!” Soarin kept going, not realizing the effect his anger was having on the area around him or on his bindings. “It’s proven just how irresponsible and ridiculous all of this really is! Everything I know is wrong, and it’s all because of some damn love triangle?! This is what my life has been sacrificed for?! THIS is what my body has been tampered with for?!” Soarin kept yelling, slamming his hooves on the ground as Sombra and Celestia looked on in silence. “What about everything else that’s going on?! What about what my friends and I have been fighting so hard for?!” He looked at Celestia and hardened his eyes into a fierce glare. “You said this was about stopping a threat to Equestria! But all along you were more concerned about reviving and ‘redeeming’ a lover from the past?!” He turned his glare towards Sombra. “And YOU… you say you are so concerned about saving Equestria, but all you really want is to get back at the gods for some personal revenge! You don’t even know how you’re going to do it! You’re just trying to make it sound like a noble cause!” He shook his head and snorted. “Neither of you are aiming for anything that really has the sake of the world in mind! There’s a conflict going on out there and both of you are using it as an excuse to reach towards your own selfish goals! It’s all personal! You're both so locked in that you're pointing hooves and bickering over who is right and wrong and completely ignoring everything else!”

Soarin paused, air hissing through his teeth and he pressed them together so hard they made audible grinding noises.

“My life…” he glanced at the image of Dash that remained peacefully silent on the ground before him. “And Dash's life have been torn in two and thrown into turmoil. AND FOR WHAT?!” he suddenly thrust an arm forward, ripping it free from the shadowy bind that held it in place. He pointed it at both of them. “There are ponies out there that I love and trust… they’ve been fighting for their lives! Some have DIED! And now I learn that in the background, while we’re hanging on and fighting our hardest… the goddess I’m supposed to revere and look up to…” He turned to Celestia. “Could care less about all of it!”

Celestia gasped, breaking her silence as a look of shock and pain spread over her face.

“NO! Soarin, that’s not true!” she said shakily.

“THEN PROVE IT TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Soarin roared, yanking himself towards her. Sombra gasped and huffed as Soarin’s bindings nearly all broke off. Sombra planted his hooves firmly and tensed his body, just barely holding Soarin down as the dark blue light surrounding the area flashed and flickered harder.

“Soarin… I…” Celestia shuddered, her body shaking under the pressure of Soarin’s anger.

“I don’t care WHO you are!” Soarin cut her off. “This has all gone way too far! My life has been played with! Used as if it were expendable! If you really cared about all the ponies you watch over, you wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice one and use their body for your personal pet project!”

Celestia was frozen, unable to speak as Soarin suddenly whipped around, pulling the bindings with him again as he focused on Sombra.

“I’m fed up with this… so guess what, big guy? My answer is NO! I’m tired of being led along and told what’s good for me, what’s good for the world by two morons who claim to know better! You want my body?! You’ll have to pry it from me! I’m not giving in, neither of you have what I care about in mind!”

Sombra stared down at Soarin, saying nothing as Soarin continued to glare and pointed at him.

“Like you… I have ponies I want to protect! I have every reason to keep fighting to my last breath! I have reasons that push me to stay strong! Sound familiar?! Celestia fucked this all up and gave you my body… but I’m not just going to hoof it over without a fight, PERIOD!”

No words were spoken for several moments, Celestia becoming an afterthought as Soarin glared as hard as he could at Sombra to let him know his intentions were clear.

“Hmph…” Sombra grunted and looked away. “Your efforts are meaningless.”

“ARE THEY NOW?!” Soarin belted without hesitation. “Then what’s stopping you from taking me over completely right now?!” Soarin pointed out, causing Sombra to flinch.

“If our goals are the same—”

“WE ARE NOT THE SAME!” Soarin cut him off. “AND IF YOU—”

Soarin suddenly froze, his eyes widening. Sombra’s ears perked up.

Both of them looked above as their focus shifted to outside.

Soarin’s head turned upward, looking into the sky between the crystal trees. Sombra quickly shifted, moving Soarin’s body underneath the nearest tree, hiding them beneath the sparkling crystal leaves. Sombra magic lit up upon the curved horn, surrounding Soarin’s body with a glow that resembled the soft glow the trees gave off, blending them in completely.

From that spot, Soarin and Sombra both peered through a small opening between the branches and leaves.

“What the hell is this place?” a gruff, annoyed voice came from above. “I can’t see anything down there!”

Soarin blinked. He knew that voice. It wasn’t a good one.

Then they appeared right overhead.

Shadowbolts. Specifically Void and Angel in the lead with several lower Shadowbolts following behind them. Their crystals were alight, shining wide beams below them like searchlights. They swept to and fro, scanning the area.

“Feh…” Angel shook his head, echoing Void’s frustration. “These crystal trees are bothersome… our crystal light can’t penetrate their glow… It’s bouncing right back at us.”

“Great… he could be down there and we have no idea?!” Void growled. “This forest is huge!”

Soarin’s body remained still as the Shadowbolts kept flying.

“Hmm…” Sombra hummed as the glow around them faded and they stepped out, watching as the Shadowbolts slowly moved away from them. “So they’re looking for me…” he said to himself as Soarin remained silent, simply focusing on the Shadowbolts.

Sombra quickly took notice of Soarin, taking into account everything he had just said in his angry outburst where he laid bare why he’s resisting and what was important to him. There was long pause of silence as the two kept their eyes on the Shadowbolts moving away and Sombra thought.

“Soarin,” Sombra suddenly spoke. Soarin perked up.

“Huh?” he acknowledged Sombra without taking his focus off the Shadowbolts.

“You are correct.”

Soarin blinked and turned his focus away from the Shadowbolts. Sombra was still looking at them as they moved further and further away.

“You have been thrust into a situation that you have no control over, separated from what matters to you and stuck into the center of a personal dispute,” he acknowledged. “I cannot deny any of that… it is a fact.”

Soarin listened to him carefully, trying to figure out what Sombra was getting at.

“I also cannot deny your resolve,” he went on. “As a fellow stallion, I commend you for holding so true to what you hold dear and your desire to protect what you love and cherish. Perhaps you are right… my actions right now are a bit clouded by my thirst for revenge… but I completely understand the way you feel.”

Soarin didn’t know what to say, remaining quiet as he assumed Sombra was going somewhere with this.

“However… fate has brought us to this moment,” Sombra exhaled. “Regardless of what happened before and who is to blame, we are now in a predicament. We both have our desires, we both have our goals, and we both have something we wish to fight for and protect… Yet we are two souls within one body, fighting over who should have control. We both have our reasons to stay strong, keep fighting, and not give in. We’re at an impasse.”

He paused for several moments.

“So… I have a proposition for you.”

Soarin blinked. A quiet gasp from Celestia met his ears, but he didn’t focus on her.

A… proposition?

“Soarin, if you allow me to take control of your body…” Sombra continued. “Before I pursue any of my objectives… I will destroy the Shadowbolts.”

Soarin’s eyes widened.

“And then I will turn my attention to whoever is controlling them, and destroy them too,” Sombra went further. “I will do everything in my power to ensure the safety of all those you care deeply for and wipe out everything that is threatening them. Then, and only then, will I turn my attention to my own desires. I will not lay a hoof on, or bring harm to a single one of your peers. And if they try to stand in my way, I will show them mercy. Then, once my goals have been achieved, I will reach out to them, explain to them everything, as well as inform them of your sacrifice to the cause of restoring peace and order to the world.”

“NO!” Celestia’s voice suddenly yelled forth. “Soarin, you mustn’t listen to him!”

“This is HIS choice to make, Celes!” Sombra shouted her down quickly, she yelped as he bonds tightened and pressed her down.

Soarin was in a state of shock. What Sombra had just suggested was…

“This is my promise to you, Soarin,” Sombra refocused on him. “You have my word as a king… as a knight… and as a stallion. In return for giving me the means to achieve my goals… I will ensure the safety and salvation of all you hold dear. You’ve been pulled around and manipulated long enough. It’s only fair that your wishes are fulfilled.”

Soarin remained quiet as the words repeated in his head.

He thought long and hard over the offer in conjunction to his current situation and what his options really were. He was no longer in control of his body and wasn’t sure if he could ever retake control… and if he were to refuse, he wasn’t sure how long it would be until he lost control for good and was consumed completely…

But then he turned his thoughts to Dash.

His mind traveled back within his conscience and he stared at the image of Dash, laying still on the ground, a piece of her soul locked and trapped there with him.

He gritted his teeth as he thought about the offer again. But… was it really the right way out?

Soarin began to think further back. He thought about his life, thought about what was important to him. He thought about everything that he had experienced before he was thrown into this ridiculous back and forth between two beings older than him a thousand times over and more. He thought about the broader situation and put it up against what Sombra was suggesting… and there was something wrong with it. The situation out there that Soarin cared about, it wasn’t so simple as ‘us versus them.’ The Shadowbolts themselves were under control by a power that they couldn’t refuse, fighting within themselves.

He thought about Descent, about how their rivalry over time had led the two of them to see each other from different perspectives, to understand what drove them both and how they weren’t very different. Descent wished to save the Shadowbolts… his family. Much like how Soarin wanted to rush to the aid of the Wonderbolts… his family. If he accepted such an offer he would be ignoring that understanding.

Then he wondered how all of his friends would feel. Sombra said he would let them know of his sacrifice… but what would it say about him if he just gave in for the greater good? And that’s assuming Sombra was even capable of doing everything he promised. He couldn’t ignore what he meant to his friends. He was important to them too, and couldn’t ignore that. Also…

What would that mean for Dash? She was roped in this with him. What would happen to her if he surrendered to Sombra? Her life was not his to gamble with… he would NEVER do that to her.

Finally… if he were to be successful, what would Sombra do after achieving his goals? He had given Soarin his word… but once all is said and done, wasn’t his goal to still pursue the power of the gods? What was to say that would go smoothly? What if he went mad again?

No.

There was too much at stake. Soarin could feel the sincerity in Sombra’s words, but… There was too much ground to cover with a simple compromise and Sombra was speaking out of confidence in himself, not in certainty of the outcome.

From where Soarin stood, there was no quick and easy way to solve everything. He had too much to fight for, and... he had those he loved and trusted that he wanted to protect with all his heart. Especially the one who was stuck in this mess with him. He’d never give in as long as Rainbow Dash was fighting alongside him every step of the way.

“No,” Soarin finally answered.

Sombra didn’t say anything. He simply stood still as he took in Soarin’s rejection.

“I can’t accept your offer,” Soarin continued. “I appreciate that you’re recognizing what matters to me, but… it’s not that simple, you cannot cover everything that’s going on… this situation is larger than any one pony. Even you.” Soarin shook his head. “I can’t give in to you. Listening to both of you here has changed my world drastically, but it’s STILL my world.”

“Hmph…” Sombra sighed quietly.

“I’m not doubting your word, but it’s not enough. I have too much to live for and fight for… and I won’t give up. I refuse to make a compromise to achieve your personal view of the greater good.”

“That’s a pity…” Sombra spoke up, shaking his head slowly. “I’m guaranteeing you a sound, definitive conclusion to what you are fighting for. I’m giving you a chance to complete what you desire despite being in a hopeless position. Does that no appeal to you?”

“You’re not me,” Soarin held his ground. “You told me your purpose drives you, and how your desire to regain your purpose kept you from letting go of what you believe in… Well, what would it say about me if I gave up on my purpose?”

Sombra flinched.

“If I just gave it up to you to reach goals only in the short run… that sounds like the easy way out. Not to mention it hardly addresses everything going on. I can’t just pass the mantle to you and expect you to make it all better. Would YOU ever consider doing something like that?” Soarin pressed.

He waited for a response, but Sombra gave none. He had had his own words used against him, there was no argument.

“So no,” Soarin shook his head. “I have a purpose too… one that reaches further than you could ever understand with what little you know about me. I won’t just give it up.”

“I see,” Sombra finally replied, his voice calm. “Then we are right back where we started. I will simply have to pry your body away for myself. And when I do… your purpose, even in the short run, will vanish. Is that really what you wish?” Sombra threatened, but Soarin didn’t have it.

“That’s assuming you can, tough guy,” he shot back defiantly.

“I can and I will,” Sombra grunted.

“Then why haven’t you yet?”

Sombra went quiet, and Soarin immediately noticed. He had been waiting to drop that one… to see if he could call a bluff.

In the midst of his railing against Discord, he had bragged about how he had used his own magic to emulate Discord’s… claiming that it was the same powerful spell used against him that allowed him to have ‘complete control’ over Soarin…

And yet… he didn’t.

If he was so sure of himself, what was taking him so long to get it over with? Could it be that Sombra didn't actually have the means to finish the job? That he couldn't? Because his magic was not that of a god’s… was the spell less effective? The effects not nearly as powerful as they were meant to be? If that was the case, all his constant claims of ‘eventually taking control’ were just tough talk, bluffing to try and convince Soarin that he had no hope.

Soarin didn’t know for sure… but if that was the case, he would keep resisting even though he didn’t know if there was a way out.

“Hmph…” Sombra grunted. “Everything else aside… I can see why Celestia chose you,” he said as he began moving Soarin’s body, continuing their walk through the forest. “You remind me a lot of myself.”

They all went quiet, Sombra continuing on his path with the Shadowbolts out of sight.

Soarin noticed that Celestia had gone completely silent. It seemed as though she felt she had no right to speak after Soarin broke down his view of everything.

And despite being under his control, Sombra was intriguing Soarin. His offer was interesting, showing an understanding from one stallion to another. He saw where they stood after Soarin had let loose on them and tried to shift from a demand to a compromise, acknowledging what Soarin wanted and offering to help in return for control.

But Sombra was still thinking more towards himself and his goals. Soarin would not give in. He lasted this long and now was beginning to see through some of the cracks. Sombra’s talk of his inevitable victory over him were becoming stale, and now were resembling an intimidation tactic. Soarin didn’t know what he could do from his current position, but as long as he still had the will and a reason to resist, he had hope and would hold his ground.

But hope could only take him so far. He needed to figure out something soon. He did not feel Sombra’s actions were evil… just misguided by an intense personal vendetta. He had no doubt there would be a conflict… he just didn’t know when, where, or how it would go down.

Soarin looked within himself, and gazed upon the image of Dash again… wondering how she was doing… how she was feeling with her soul twisted and tied in here with him. He hoped she was alright… and he hoped everypony else was also well. And most of all, he hoped they were ready for whatever was going to happen soon… Dash, Spitfire, Descent, everypony… he prayed that they would make it out unscathed.

“Go to the end of the hall and follow the signs,” the receptionist explained to Spitfire while pointing. “You’ll find the waiting area for the emergency room. It’s hard to miss. I’ll let Doctor Mercury know you’re here.”

“Thank you,” Spitfire nodded calmly before glancing over her shoulder at Dash, who looked anything but calm. “Come on, let’s go.”

Dash swallowed and just followed Spitfire with her eyes for her first few steps before quickly turning and trotting after her. She had not listened to a single word that the receptionist said. Well, she heard her talking, but she didn’t register any or the words. She was too shaken up. She thought she’d be ready for this, and didn’t even feel this way as she and Spitfire made their way through town. But the moment her eyes landed on the hospital, she felt like she was punched in the gut and could barely breath. Her whole body was tense, her fur was tingling, and her heart was beating fast. She had never felt so anxious before in her life, as if the news they were about to receive would split the world in two if they heard the worst case. She had never once in her life felt this nervous, not even with all the expectations she faced in the Wonderbolts, nor any of the life or death situations she had stared down thus far.

Silver Lining was a whole different level of important… and not just to her.

She kept pace behind Spitfire and took note of her captain as they moved. She looked so calm and collected. Dash had no idea how she was holding herself so steady. It was a testament to her control over her nerves and her ability to stay professional under any circumstance. She basically looked like the polar opposite of Dash right now. Dash was certain she was visibly shaking next to the smooth strides of Spitfire. There was a visible sway in her vision as she struggled to just walk straight and she felt like she was going to throw up. There was a lump in her throat and a tightness in her chest that felt like they were trying to catapult themselves out.

“There…” Spitfire said to herself as they turned a corner and the waiting room they were looking for came into view. Dash swallowed again, the tightness in her throat making it sound more like a hiccup as her legs almost stiffened. Regardless, she kept following Spitfire… and they entered the room.

They weren’t the first to show up.

Fleetfoot, Misty Fly, Fire Streak, Blaze, and High Winds were already there. It took all of them a moment to even notice that Spitfire and Dash had arrived, all of them completely focused on Silver as they waited impatiently to hear about their old comrade. Dash didn’t know where to go, suddenly surrounded by superior officers, so she just stuck by Spitfire as the two of them moved up towards Fleetfoot, who was sitting on the floor closest to the short hall that extended towards the emergency room doors.

“Did you let the others know?” Spitfire asked Fleetfoot quietly. Fleetfoot’s ears twitched, but she didn’t look at Spitfire.

“I sent Air Mach to go get them…” she answered, her voice incredibly shaky. As Dash moved up beside her and sat down she noticed Fleetfoot was subtly shivering. She almost looked more worked up than Dash.

Spitfire nodded, saying nothing else as she sat down on the other side of Dash. And unlike everypony else, Spitfire did not look towards the doors. She looked around instead, still remaining calm.

Dash watched Spitfire some more, wishing she knew how to calm herself down like that. But it looked like she wasn’t alone. One sweep around the room showed her that Spitfire was the only one able to keep her demeanor under the pressure.

Fire and Misty were sitting together. They were both staring towards the doors with Misty nestling herself firmly into Fire’s arm and shoulder, per usual.

Blaze looked far and away the most worked up, which was saying something considering how Dash and Fleetfoot looked. Blaze was hugging herself with her wings as she sat on the floor, her eyes were stuck open wide and she was breathing so heavily that everyone could hear little gasps and wheezes coming from her direction. High Winds was doing her best to keep Blaze comforted with a wing draped over her shoulder, but looked very nervous herself. Dash had never seen Winds look so awake and alert before, and she had a hoof placed on her chin, her nervous habit of nibbling the ends of her hooves taking over as she waited.

Dash figured there were more on the way, Air Mach apparently sent to gather up others, but for now they were all Dash could see. She figured there was still a little bit of time before the doctor addressed them, probably to give time for others to arrive. Dash decided to make good use of that time, stuck between the calm, stoic Spitfire and the shaking, whimpering Fleetfoot.

She had to mentally prepare herself. She had no idea what they were about to hear, but she knew it was either going to be the best outcome, or the worst. There was no in between. She had to calm down, she had to follow Spitfire’s example, she had to—

Her ears stood up and several gasps sounded out around her as the door of the emergency room suddenly pushed open gently and a rusty red unicorn stallion wearing scrubs, a cap, and a mask started making his way towards them. They assumed it was Doctor Mercury.

Dash immediately panicked as her heartbeat quickened, and this time it wasn’t because of Soarin. So much for time to mentally prepare herself.

The doctor removed his mask, revealing an aged face, hard and tempered from what one could only assume was built by years in his line of work. He kept focused on the Wonderbolts as he slowly made his way towards them, wearing a face that was hard to read. It was simply serious, not tipping in either direction of good or bad, which didn’t help any ponies that were looking for initial signals about the news they were seconds from receiving.

While everypony else stiffened and waited with bated breath, Spitfire barely reacted. She simply turned to see the doctor approaching and stood up, ready to speak to him.

It felt like ages. To Dash it seemed like the doctor was moving in slow motion. The short hallway from the doors to the waiting room was barely twenty yards long, but Dash’s extreme fear of what was to come made it feel like hours for the Doctor to cross such a small distance. Her ears twitched, she briefly glanced behind her as the noise of several hooves suddenly came from behind at varying paces.

Her eyes widened as they landed on an approaching crowd. Air Mach, Lightning Streak, and Surprise were up front, and following behind them? Numerous Wonderbolts from all squads. Among the crowd, Dash easily picked out Matteo, and saw that Squall, Star, Storm, and Thunderlane were all packed together with them.

But that wasn’t all, behind the Wonderbolts followed the veteran Wonderbolt Renegades. Blazetail and Flashwind were in the lead with all of Silver’s former wingmates and other old acquaintances in tow.

It was suddenly incredibly cramped in the room, filled from corner to corner and some stuck in the hallway behind as they all flocked to this one location… to hear about a stallion that was very important to them. Silver had had an impact on all of their lives… and they hoped to hear good news.

Dash turned back around and gulped when she saw the doctor was a lot closer, only he had stopped briefly to take in the fact that he was suddenly approaching quite a large crowd. But it didn’t faze him. He continued towards Spitfire without a second thought, despite having hundreds of pairs of eyes on him.

“Well?” Spitfire’s voice made everypony tense up as she acknowledged the doctor. “What’s the word, Doc?” she asked without a smidgen of fear in her voice.

The doctor said nothing as he stood before Spitfire, looking her right in the eye and not giving a single glance to the rest.

But then he took a deep breath and exhaled, his head tipping down and closing his eyes.

Dash’s pupils shrank. She wasn’t an expert on body language, but… that didn’t look good. She thought her heart was going to rip right out of her chest as the doctor opened his eyes and held a very serious look on his face.

“He’s going to live.”

Everypony’s ears stood straight up, jaws dropped but not a breath was drawn in for several seconds as the words reverberated and shot through everypony’s thoughts.

Dash ‘s head twitched and her voice cracked as it tried to release a noise.

Silver…

ALIVE.

The was a sudden rush of air as an enormous, collective sigh of relief surged in the direction of the doctor. The feeling of relief was so strong that it was a wonder the whole building didn’t deflate. Several ponies fell back onto their plots, some of them simply lowered themselves and lied down. A few verbally expressed the euphoria that instantaneously pumped through them. There were no shouts or cheers of joy or glee. It was just pure, heavy, unfiltered relief. The only pony that stood out was Blaze as she cried out and crashed to the floor, hugging one of High Winds’ legs as tears flowed. But they were tears of joy as if she just heard about the survival of a direct family member.

Dash was suddenly on the floor herself. She was hit so hard by a relaxing feeling of release and relief that she didn’t even realize she had lowered herself. Simply hearing that Silver was not dead and their efforts to save him were successful had turned her into a liquid. The giant knot in her stomach had just been undone with one mighty yank, and she was surprised the uplifting feeling surging from her center didn’t pick her up and float her away.

But then Dash noticed something…

Spitfire had not reacted. She remained standing upright and firm, her face had not changed one bit. At first glance, Dash assumed it was just her remaining professional… but that wasn’t it. She was looking the doctor over carefully, taking note that his expression was remaining hard and serious.

“Give me the rundown,” Spitfire suddenly asked. All eyes and ears suddenly going back to her in surprise and curiosity as the reaction almost instantly died down. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?” she asked a question that no one had thought of… and frankly, no one wanted to ask. The doctor exhaled briefly through his nose.

“Do you want the good or the bad first?” he asked straightforwardly.

The room went so quiet that a pin drop would have been classified as a ruckus. The flow of relief halted as everypony’s attention was once again stuck towards the doctor as if a valve had turned and completely shut off the good feelings that they had all been rushing.

Dash felt like the knot instantly retied itself in her stomach. There was more… and there was some bad? Why couldn’t it have just stayed the way it was going?! This was too much for her to bear.

Spitfire glanced behind her at the rest briefly, taking in their eyes as they were strapped into a rollercoaster of conflicting emotions.

“The good first,” Spitfire said, taking into account her peers.

“For starters, you got him to us just in time. He had several severe internal injuries, but nothing was more dangerous than the heavily disrupted and obstructed blood flow. I doubt he would have lasted another hour if we had not started working on him immediately, especially since his provided medical records notified us of his stressed heart, frequent bouts of hypertension, and risk of heart attack that require medication. I’d ask why he was still being allowed to fly and fight alongside the rest of you, but that’s none of my business. In the end, based on what I’ve read, been told, and have heard, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did before you brought him to us.”

“I’m not,” Spitfire suddenly added. The Doctor lifted an eyebrow, but only briefly at her statement, he didn’t press.

“We had to perform several surgeries,” he continued. “While several internal organs were badly damaged, none of them were beyond repair or to the point of requiring transplants, which is a miracle considering the amount of damaged and broken bones he had around them. We ended up having to perform complete reconstructive surgery on his right arm. The bones were severely broken. It was difficult, but we were able to remove all the smaller bone shards and inserted several metal plates and screws to rebuild them. He won’t be able to walk on it for quite a while, but it will heal and regain motion in time.”

Dash cringed as she processed every word, her body twitching as if she felt a pinch of pain in every part of her body the Doctor described. That was a lot of operations they had to perform… Silver already was pretty scarred up, no doubt it would be even worse now. She was sure everypony else had just as hard a time hearing about all of it as her… but she also know that everypony agreed with Spitfire’s small interjection during the explanation.

The doctor was the only pony in the room who was surprised that Silver had lasted as long as he had. To everypony else, it was simply par for the course. Silver Lining was tough as nails, tougher than anypony in Equestria, hooves down. He didn’t survive this long because of some miracle. He survived this long because he’s god-damned Silver Lining. There was no scientific or medical explanation that could refute that.

But the tension in the room remained. Because the doctor had only told them the ‘good’. And the good was painful to hear regardless of the operations being successful and being positive overall. They still haven’t been given the ‘bad’.

“And the bad?” Spitfire asked the question on everypony’s mind. The doctor glanced down briefly, but wasted little time.

“First, his right eye was damaged beyond repair. He will be blind in it.”

There was lots of quiet gasps and collective wincing.

Lost an eye… Dash cringed at the thought, reflexively closing her right eye as the thought sunk in. But honestly, she and the rest were not quite so shocked by this news. It was hardly a surprise based on what they all saw as they flew him back to the Nimbus. There was a river of blood flowing from it as they rushed him to Bliss. They had already put two and two together about that one long before the Doctor confirmed it, that amount of blood pouring from an eye suggested there was nothing left to repair.

The doctor didn’t go on… was that it? Dash didn’t want to downplay losing an eye but if that was the only bad thing—

“What about his wing?” Spitfire suddenly asked.

Dash swallowed. The left wing… the one Nightshade had trampled… she had forgotten about that. She bit her lower lip as she watched the doctor remain quiet. He never broke eye contact with Spitfire as they stared at each other seriously.

“We had to amputate it.”

Dash went numb.

Unlike before, there were no gasps. Just silence.

Dash could not move. Her stomach didn’t just twist… it felt like it had been compressed into a little ball so thoroughly that it nearly ceased to exist. Her lungs felt like they disappeared too as if the air rushing out of them also forced them out of her body. She couldn’t breathe… or maybe she was breathing, but just couldn’t feel it. Her brain was telling her to scream, but her body wasn’t responding, stuck in its place and forced to stare at the doctor as the words he just said continued to beat her over the head mercilessly. Everypony else around her was in the same, silent state of shock. Even Spitfire finally broke form a little, her eyes growing a little wider and blinking.

For several moments, not a sound was made, not a word uttered. The only noise that slowly came forth was a meek, whimpering sound from Fleetfoot as she began to shake.

“Y… you… you…” she tried to say as the Doctor glanced at her. He kept his expression firm and professional as he stared into her broken eyes. And she wasn’t alone… the Doctor was in a room filled with pegasi. And from the looks of things, he understood the reaction he was getting. “Y…” Fleetfoot sputtered, unable to go further.

“YOU WHAT?!?!?” Blaze’s voice suddenly roared forth, causing everypony to flinch. Several ponies between her and the doctor moved aside as she forced herself up and rushed forward, dragging High Winds along the floor with her. “WHAT?! WHY!?” she yelled as she continued to yank High Winds along and draw closer. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!” she belted as everypony else remained too shocked to say anything or stop her. “WHY?! WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!”

“BLAZE!!!!!!!” Spitfire turned and grabbed her half-sister by the neck, pulling her free of High Winds and forcing her around so she was now between her and the doctor. She held Blaze in place so firmly that she could barely move despite her struggling to get free. She gave Blaze the hardest glare she could muster and bared her teeth. “STOP!” she yelled right into Blaze’s face, causing her to freeze. Blaze’s pupils shrank to tiny dots and her ears flopped to the sides of her head. Tears welled up in her eyes as her lips quivered and she hiccupped a few times.

Then, despite the rough hold Spitfire had on her, Blaze reached out and hugged Spitfire. She slumped down, not crying or wailing, but shaking as she squeezed Spitfire as hard as she could and sniffled quietly. Spitfire instantly softened her expression, watching as he half-sister collapsed into a heap. She loosened her grip on her, and instead softly touched Blaze’s shoulder, giving it a gentle rub. She looked up to see the looks on everypony’s face. They all looked petrified. And… if not for her doing her best to remain focused and not let her emotions get to her, Spitfire was sure she’d be doing the same thing. The words struck her hard too… because for a pegasus… losing a wing was…

“It was the blood flow…” Spitfire spoke up as she looked over her shoulder at the doctor. “Wasn’t it?” she failed to hold down a shaky tone in the back of her own voice.

“Correct,” the doctor answered calmly, still completely unfazed by the intense reactions around him, he didn’t even flinch when Blaze yelled him either. “His circulation was under intense pressure, several vital organs around his body were on the brink of failure due to lack of complete blood flow. It didn’t take us long to pinpoint the obstruction in the vessels traveling through his left wing. The wing itself was already in an irreparable state, every joint was severed, every bone was crushed, and all the muscles were mangled and torn. The veins and arteries running to them were smashed and distorted, most of them snapped and disconnected. Again… medically speaking, he should have died considering how much overall damage there was to his body and that goes double for the fact that his circulation to his weak heart was already nearly cut in half. He was dying… And our best chance at stabilizing him and preventing that was to first fix the blood flow. We were forced to remove his wing so we would only have one spot to repair in the remaining nub. And once we did that, his heart rate returned to normal and we were able to do the rest of our work and repair as much of his body as we could. If we had not taken quick and decisive action, he surely would have died.”

Dash felt like every word the doctor said was like having a needle pushed into her body. She wanted to cover her ears, she wanted to collapse and hope it all went away, but she remained frozen in place.

“Hm…” Spitfire hummed, taking it all in and looking down as the doctor shook his head slowly.

“If there was another way, we would have taken that course, no question,” the doctor went on. “But in the urgency of the situation and the options we had before us, it was the only operation available that ensured 100% survival if we were quick enough. Every other option we had required preparation and testing before we could be even close to confident in performing them, things we did not have time to do. Besides…” the doctor shook his head. “Even if we hadn’t removed the wing, there was no way to repair it. With how much damage it had sustained, it would have been a limp, dead limb anyway. We did what we had to do and we did it quickly to ensure he lived. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

The doctor paused, taking in all the blank looks of disbelief that were still plastered on everypony’s face. He sighed through his nostrils and refocused on Spitfire.

“I know very well how important wings are to the identity of a pegasus, but… It was that or his life,” he gave Spitfire a definitive nod. “I’m certain you would not have wanted us to flirt with such a risk.”

Spitfire quickly shook her head as she slowly moved Blaze back over to High Winds, giving her a pat on the head as she freed herself and moved back towards the doctor.

“No, I would not have,” she agreed. “He made a great sacrifice for us and in return we promised to make sure he lived to remember it… and feel our gratitude.” She looked the doctor in the eye, forcing her serious, professional expression back onto her face. “And… he’s alive. That’s what matters. He means the world to us, whether it’s on the ground or… the sky.” Spitfire couldn’t conceal it, she almost choked on the last few words.

Looked like Silver wasn’t kidding…

He was notorious for always saying that he’d keep on fighting and flying as a Wonderbolt no matter how hard it was… and the day he retired was the day his wings fell off…

He finally reached the end of his career. No amount of Spitfire declaring him unfit for duty was enough to really bring it to a halt. In the end… he finished his service the way he wanted to.

The mood in the room was a very confusing mix. Most of the silent reaction to the news about Silver’s wing seemed to be a mixture, not standalone. Opposite emotions were clashing, causing everything to cancel out. On one hoof, everypony was overjoyed that Silver was alive. On the other… was the obvious despair they felt for their fellow pegasus… and important, influential one… losing the gift of flight. It was what defined a pegasus over anything else… the common saying was, ‘even if there is nothing that makes a pegasus special… they can still fly high in the sky above.’ It was the core of what a pegasus was. It wasn’t a knock on ponies that lacked wings, but it was something irreplaceably important to a pegasus.

Though nopony found the means to really express how they felt. There was no way anypony felt as crushed as Dash, except for maybe Blaze. She kept staring at the doctor, a maelstrom of thoughts pelting every corner of her mind as she tried to find her way through the storm.

Her teacher… her mentor… her father figure among the Wonderbolts was alive, but now cursed to remain grounded for the rest of his life. She thought there would be no ‘in between’… the news would be, he’s alive, or he’s dead. But she was wrong. There was an in between. Silver was alive, but a core factor of what defined his life… had died.

While Dash’s head pounded with emotions she couldn’t express, the rest of her body felt empty, like a void. And that emptiness was clear and present in her eyes as her mouth remained ajar and her pupils jittered.

Despite ALL the Wonderbolts and Renegades wearing heavy, unsure looks on their faces, Spitfire only found one face was truly effecting her. She couldn’t stand looking at Dash. She felt for all of them, obviously, but something about Dash… perhaps knowing how much she had connected with Silver, was drawing out her emotions in ways she could not hold back.

Spitfire quickly looked away from Dash, slammed her eyes shut, and shuddered for a moment as she shook her head out. She glanced at Dash again… only to feel the same feeling well up again. So she quickly turned to the doctor.

“Doc…” she spoke, glancing at Dash. “Do you think…?” She trailed off.

“Hm?” the doctor blinked and tipped his head. Spitfire looked at Dash again, and thought for sure she was going to shed a few tears. She held them back and quickly looked back at the doctor. “Could we see him?” she asked, her eyes once more darting back to Dash. She quickly shut them and lifted a hoof to cover her face.

The doctor took notice and glanced at Dash. He could tell Spitfire was asking for her and could easily see the level of depth in Dash’s eyes over the rest regarding the situation. But… he sighed.

“I’m sorry, but not now,” he declined to Spitfire’s dismay. “We are going to be monitoring him carefully for a while, but…” he looked back at Dash. “We will send word again when he’s well enough for a visit.”

“Thank you,” Spitfire said while forcing herself not to look at Dash.

The doctor said no more. He simply gave Spitfire a silent nod before turning around and heading back to the doors while replacing his mask over his nose and mouth.

The room was packed to the brim with ponies, but it was dead silent. Nopony moved and inch or made a sound for several moments after the doctor went back to continue his work. Eventually… looks were exchanged, but no words were spoken.

Should they be happy? Or sad? They had succeeded in saving Silver, he would live to remember his final act and sacrifice in the field. But losing his wing was a devastating development. The joy and the shock were repelling one another, neither able to take hold as the conflicting, mixing emotions tore into everypony’s mind.

It was interesting how this one development changed their reaction entirely. Silver had been beaten and broken so badly that there was already a question of whether or not he’d be able to fly again. At least if both of his wings had made it through there was a chance he’d be able to take flight once more, difficult as it may be. That hope had been preventing them from assuming he’d be grounded for good.

But the loss of a wing sealed it. Silver would no longer fly… ever. And that resonated through them all as fellow pegasi.

Nopony knew what to say or do. Some had felt like Blaze at first, angry that the Doctor took that course of action, but after hearing it wouldn’t have made a difference, that feeling had been pushed away. Nightshade was the one who did this to him… and it was a price Silver paid to save the core of the new Wonderbolt generation. His wing was a casualty, and now he was grounded. There was no way to look beyond that fact and hope or wonder if there was a way it could be fixed. It had happened. It was done. Silver would no longer fly. So eventually, one by one, ponies began to turn and leave. Everypony needed time to process it all.

The crowd in the room shrank further and further until only a few remained. Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Dash, High Winds… and in the back near the hall leading out, Dash’s squad plus Thunderlane and Storm.

It remained quiet… except for Blaze, who was still sniffling against High Winds. For all the barking and yelling she did at Silver, she was really letting it show how much she cared about him. High Winds couldn’t hold it in either, she was holding onto Blaze and had a few tears dripping from her eyes as well. It was a crime that Wave Chill could not be with them… he had been locked out of so much regarding his squad and no doubt was worried sick about his old captain as well. If nothing else… his presence would have helped comfort Blaze and High Winds right now.

Fleetfoot suddenly stood up after not having moved a muscle for several minutes. She shuddered after the quick movement, her body still tender despite the treatments. She shook her head, still not saying a word as she turned and quickly left, wobbling the whole way.

Spitfire watched Fleetfoot leave as she remained beside Dash. She looked down at Dash for several moments, sighed, and gave Dash a soft pat on the head before turning and following after Fleetfoot. She glanced towards Blaze and High Winds as she moved, but the two were firmly planted in place, showing no signs of leaving as they held onto each other.

Spitfire stole one last look over her shoulder at Dash before she made her way out.

Dash now sat by herself, staring down the hall towards the emergency room doors. She was still in disbelief as she thought about how this had all turned out.

Silver wasn’t dead… but to a pegasus, the ability to soar the skies was everything. Losing the gift of flight for good was almost worse than death. It meant everything, it defined them as a race, and the mere thought of a fellow pegasus losing it was like a stab in the heart, especially if it was a close friend, a loved one or… family.

Dash slowly stood up, still not sure what to think or feel as she turned. She wasn’t sure why she decided to move, she didn’t know what she was doing or where she was going. Before she could even think about why she stood, she was walking, moving towards the opposite hall.

She slowly passed by all her friends. Storm, Thunderlane, Squall, Star… none of them said a word to her, because they all felt the same shock she had, just perhaps not as severely due to her strong connection to Silver. But even Matteo appeared to understand. He may be a griffon, but he was perceptive and easily put together how they felt despite not being one of their culture.

Dash didn’t look at any of them, and none of them tried to stop her as she just kept walking… and walking… and walking… with no destination in mind. The weight of her worry for Silver had been completely lifted, but although the heavy feeling pressing down on her had been removed, it had been replaced by a stabbing feeling in her chest.

This was it… that sealed it…

She would never have the comfort of Silver by her side in the heat of battle… ever again. It was only now that she was realizing just how much he had helped her through the difficult times, through the hardships, and through her fears… He made a huge difference, he made her feel confident, he made her want to give everything her all and then some… Now she would have to try and do all these things without him?

What if Silver had not been around?

Would she have become the fighter she is today?

Would she have learned the importance of pride?

Would she have learned how to face her fears?

Would she still be blaming herself for the death of Midnight?

Would she have survived her confrontation with Sin?

Would she have been saved from Nightshade?

There HAD been times that he was not around, but there was always this feeling in her heart that he wasn’t very far away, that he would find a way to reach her in a moment of peril. He even saved her hide once while out cold and in a coma!

Reality was hitting her in the face, it was hard to accept… She couldn’t count on him to be there anymore and she wasn’t ready for that.

Or…

Was she?

Was she really not prepared for it? She knew this day was coming, after all. Silver was old, at the end of his career with or without this outcome. It was scary at first, but after thinking about it, she felt… strangely calm.

She looked up and blinked.

She was outside. She had walked all the way out of the hospital without realizing it and had already made it several yards away from the main entrance. She was only a few paces from the road perpendicular to the path. There were crystal ponies moving to and fro along it, going on with their daily lives so carefree and likely oblivious to just how much was going on in the world around them.

Dash looked up into the sky and stared. The magic dome shielding the empire was in the way… but she could still see through, see the snow landing on its surface, and see the cloudy sky up above.

Silver had devoted himself to teaching her, passing on his knowledge, his expertise, and his wisdom. She was his successor… he had chosen HER to be the one to replace him as a defining member of the Wonderbolts. She WAS prepared for this moment… because this was exactly what all of his effort was for, to prepare her for when he could no longer be with them.

Her thoughts began to rush… her memories of all the time spent with him flowed forth. She thought about all the lessons she had learned from him and all of the experience she had gained under his careful watch. She thought about observing him… the influence he had on the Wonderbolts, how he’d act decisively if need be, and how his split second choices would make a world of a difference in any given situation.

As she stared up into the sky… she suddenly wondered…

She couldn’t see him right now, and he was not awake to speak to her, but…

“What would you do?” Dash said out loud to herself as she kept looking up into the sky. She was confronting one of the toughest dilemmas of her life at the same time that her mentor wasn’t there to offer her advice. She had to put herself in his mind, she had to see through his eyes and think with his wisdom. “If you were here right now, with me and my situation… what would you do? What would you say?”

She paused… as if she was waiting for an answer.

But then she cracked a small grin and chuckled.

“Heh… knowing you. You’d probably scoff, grab me by the neck, get in my face and ask if you wasted your time training a pussy,” she kept chuckling as she imagined it. “You’d go on and on about how you’re not my mom and are not going to hold my hoof while we cross the street… maybe launch into a story about a time Blizzard gave you a swift kick in the ass over a clifftop with your wings tied behind your back or something crazy like that until you’ve had your fill of slapping me across the face with memories of your glory years and how things used to be. Then after all that, you’d probably just tell me to stop being a little bitch and do things my own wa—”

Dash abruptly froze and her eyes grew wide.

The possibilities are endless, but only if you accept them to be so! The only pony standing in your way is YOU! If you simply stay on course with the way things are now… You’ll never get anywhere, plain and simple.

Dash looked down at the ground, her jaw hanging slightly ajar as her pupils darted back and forth.

Take CONTROL! Conventional thinking will never set you free, and you can bet it won’t solve your current problems. You want Soarin back? It’s not gonna happen. Not unless… you do it your OWN way!

Everything that Twister had said to her earlier… It lined up perfectly with the kind of advice Silver would likely give her. And… it made sense.

Silver was never a pony who just went along with what he saw… accepted things without skepticism… or followed orders he didn’t agree with. Dash could only begin to imagine how Silver would be acting right now if he were aware of the full situation. The amount of alliance twisting and knots being tied between who to believe and who to tell what would be driving him absolutely up the wall. He’d have strong words for Spitfire... and Luna. Or he’d figure out a different way to approach it all together, declaring that ‘everypony has lost their god damn mind’ or something along those lines.

Whenever things got out of hoof, Silver didn’t panic, he took control. He was quick and decisive, he made unconventional moves, and he never doubted himself.

Silver always thought… outside the box.

He did things his own way.

Dash shut her eyes and thought hard. She thought… and thought… and thought… and… realized something.

She was sick and tired of everything spiraling out of control around her.

She was sick of simply hanging on and watching as things happened, playing along and hoping things would go right.

The moments were few… but there had been some instances in the recent past where she had dared to step out of bounds and take action because she thought it was right. And so far, each time, it had been successful.

So why hadn’t she taken that as a cue? Why wasn’t she taking hold of things now?

The only thing standing in her way… was her and her own doubt.

It was time to cast it out… and take a firm step forward, to do what SHE thought was right and what she believed was the right course of action.

Just like Silver would.

Dash took a deep breath and shook her head out rapidly, her ears making flapping noises as they whipped back and forth. She threw her head back and exhaled, reaching a hoof up and smacking it against her head a few times.

She set her hooves firmly on the ground and looked up. From where she stood, she could see both the hotel where the Wonderbolts were staying… and the Crystal Palace.

She looked back and forth.

At the hotel.

At the palace.

At the hotel.

And at the palace.

She stared at the palace, narrowed her eyes into a serious glare and nodded.

She briefly looked at the hotel one more time and shot a loud burst of air from her nostrils.

“Sorry, Spitfire,” she said as she turned towards the palace… and started walking.

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked as she and Cadance stepped out into the hall. “I’m doing just fine, I can still help.”

“Twilight, you’ve been at it longer than all of us. Have you even eaten today?” she asked with concern. Twilight averted her eyes and fidgeted.

“Er… no…” she admitted. Cadance gave her a firm nod.

“Take a break,” she ordered as she nudged Twilight out. “We’re way ahead of schedule on the research thanks to you already. Rest for a spell and grab a bite, I don’t want you to overstress yourself.”

“O…okay…” Twilight sighed. “I’ll come right back.”

“We’ll still be here, so don’t worry,” Cadance gave her a nod and a hug before turning and moving back into the library to rejoin the scholars looking for clues towards a cure to the crystal affliction.

“Hmmmm…” Twilight hummed grumpily as she turned and started walking slowly through the hall, dragging her hooves. She WAS hungry, but she hated being interrupted in the middle of work. But… Cadance was right, she needed to take care of herself too. No sense in her neglecting her own health while addressing the health of sick ponies counting on—

“Twi.”

Twilight yelped, her alicorn wings popping open with a loud FWOOMP as she hopped in the air and floated softly back down. Her eyes and body jittered briefly, startled by the sudden voice, but she quickly found her hooves, closed her wings and looked back and forth, looking for the source of the voice.

She gasped as she looked over her right shoulder.

Rainbow Dash stepped out from behind the pillar beside her… with a very serious look on her face.

“We need to talk.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh man... she's gonna do it... :pinkiegasp:

So it looks like Soarin is starting to see through both Celestia and Sombra... after all this time... all this struggling, the two of them are completely focused on themselves, neither seem to really have the world in mind. Celestia claims to... and tries to label her actions as part of it, but she has too much of her own interests in the mix to be genuine about it. And Sombra... just wants to break his hoof off in a few sublime asses. And there seems to be a bit of a shift in the nature of the situation... is Sombra really a threat or... is he just a new factor in the bigger picture, stumbling around without full control and being hunted?

As for Silver... well... he lived, but he's missing something important now. Will he care? probably not, but that doesn't make it any less of a downer for the rest. Silver almost made it through his brutal career with his whole body intact, and ended up sacrificing a wing in his final act.

It's time for Dash to stand up straight and take up the mantel. It may be a bit pre-mature for her liking, but... when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And for her first act as Silver's successor, she says screw it to all the crap going on around her and decides to make a move of her own.

Now let's hope it doesn't blow up in her face.

Art in this chapter by: Penumbra and Foxenawolf

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 155: Subverting Subversion Subversively

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 155: Subverting Subversion Subversively

“Son of a…” Shadow growled with her head jammed in between the wires and pipes of the exposed ceiling. She was repairing a spot that was right in the frame of one of the hallways attached to the main lobby. Her back hooves jittered as she barely managed to balance them on the questionably sturdy step ladder. “Are we out of bolts again?!” she complained as she tried to pull her head out of the tangled mess, only to hit her chin on a metal girder. “OW!” she yelped, a few tools dropping and clattering to the floor. “Who the hell is passing out the supplies?!” she kept complaining as she rubbed her chin and stepped down.

Sin was sitting nearby wearing a large wrapping of bandages that covered most of his midsection. He had not done much aside from hoof tools to Shadow since he was very stiff and still in pain from, well, nearly being killed by Sombra. The crystals had done well to heal most of his wound and alleviate the pain, but he was REALLY stiff. Moon was focusing a crystal on a cracked crystal formation jutting from the wall, using his own magic to repair it.

“Did they even try?! Did they walk in, grab a hoofull of random shit and drag their ass around giving them out? No wonder these repairs are taking forever!” She looked around for someone to answer her as if it would make a difference, but Sin wasn’t looking at her, and Moon was focused. The only one looking at her was Rapidfire standing beside Moon, holding a toolbox in his mouth.

“Uh…” Rapidfire looked away. He was the one that was passing around repair supplies.

“It’s you, isn’t it?!” Shadow snarled at him. “How about you—”

“SHUT UP OVER THERE AND GET BACK TO WORK!” Nightshade’s voice suddenly boomed.

Shadow flinched and shut her mouth. Any and all noise around the entire lobby went dead silent as Nightshade’s voice echoed throughout, everypony working on the repairs scared stiff. But it only lasted a second, everypony getting right back to work in fear of Nightshade turning her rage on them.

Moon was the only one who kept working throughout. He only glanced briefly towards Nightshade once, taking in the way she paced around. ‘Pacing’ was probably not the best way to word it, she was stomping, every step could be heard as she romped her hooves against the floor. She was randomly glaring about at the Shadowbolts and continuously growled and grumbled to herself, her teeth gritted and lips parted as she talked to herself in inaudible mumbles and grumbles as if she’d lost her mind… or at least more than usual.

Moon went back to his work as Shadow returned to her step ladder with the stolen toolbox from Rapidfire. He was shuffling behind her, but he made no attempt to get it back as she opened it and began noisily digging through it.

“This is horseshit…” Shadow started complaining again. “You’d think by now we’d have some members that actually know how to repair shit, but noooooo… whenever crap breaks we have to fix it ourselves…” she kept grumbling, her voice muffled as it was stuffed in the toolbox. Moon just sighed and subtly shook his head as he continued to focus his magic light on the cracks in the large crystal before him.

“Man…” Sin suddenly spoke up as Shadow climbed back up the step ladder. He was looking out towards Nightshade. “You ever wonder what the hell we’re even doing?” he asked.

Moon blinked, his magic halting momentarily as he glanced at Sin.

“Quit talking to yourself and pass me a wrench,” Shadow snapped back angrily as she stuck her head back into the cacophony of wires and pipes.

“I’m—OW!” Sin winced as he tried to turn, only to have pain flare up in his side. He took a deep breath and sucked it up as she scooted his plot to turn his whole body instead, looking up towards Shadow. “I’m serious.”

Shadow stopped moving, staying still for a moment with her head still hidden above and sighed heavily. She pulled her head back out, carefully this time, and moved her hooves down one step so she could turn and look flatly at him. The elevation of the step and Sin’s larger size put them at eye level as she gave him a look that projected her wish for him to shut up and make himself useful, but Sin didn’t read it that way.

“What?” he snorted as he narrowed his eyes a little. “I know I’m not the only one who’s—”

Shadow suddenly gasped quietly and her eyes widened as she reached her hooves forward and forced Sin’s mouth shut, silencing him.

Sin’s eyes went wide for a moment, but Shadow wasn’t looking at him, he glanced in the direction her eyes were pointing and saw Nightshade move right by them. She didn’t look at either of them as she continued to growl and grumble to herself. As soon as she was out of earshot, Shadow relaxed, but before she could pull her hooves free, Sin reached up, grabbed both of her arms with one of his large hooves and pulled her hooves away from him.

“Cut that out,” he said sharply, giving her a glare. “I don’t give a damn if she hears.”

Shadow yanked her arms free and glared right back.

“You seriously don’t give a shit about getting yourself killed, do you?!” she hissed in a hushed tone. Sin only lifted an eyebrow.

“Like that didn’t save your life, or anything…” he reminded her. Shadow blinked, inching forward as if she wanted to retort, but ultimately pulled back, scrunched her face, and puffed her cheeks out as she looked away from him.

“Hmph…” she huffed as her only response.

“I usually don’t give a damn where we go or what we do,” Sin continued, shaking his head. “As long as I get a good fight out of it, I’m game. But what the hell was that… thing we ran into out there? That wasn’t normal.” He shrugged. “There’s no point in a fight if my opponent can just fry my ass from a distance with hell knows what kind of magic.”

“Again, why the hell are you bothering?” Shadow found her voice, turning her focus back to him. “What are we gonna do about it? Any ideas, smart guy?”

“Why do you think I’m asking?” Sin rolled his eyes. “I haven’t a damn clue.”

“Urgh…” Shadow groaned in annoyance, rubbing a hoof to her forehead. “You know, Sin, for a moment I thought you were actually giving thought to something. Guess I gave you too much credit.” She threw an arm out and turned around so fast that her hair whipped. But she stopped when Sin exhaled sharply through his nose, a loud hiss rushing forth as a low nicker rumbled in the back of his throat.

“Don’t be like that,” he said gruffly as Shadow subtly glanced back at him as if she didn’t want him to know she was listening. “I know I ain’t a complicated guy. I’m here to throw punches, not think about who I’m throwin’ ‘em at. But even I can see shit where there’s shit.”

Shadow blinked and slightly turned away, but flinched as Sin gently grabbed her shoulder and turned her around. Her eyes widened a little as he looked down at her with a very serious look.

“Everything has changed. Trance, Witch, and Devil are dead. Blade, Void, and Angel have gone full asshole instead of half asshole. And what the hell is up with Nightshade? She’s all jittery and angry twenty-four seven. And it ain’t no coincidence that the change started when we got these crystals. And why the hell have we been on the same job for so long? I thought our game was to take care of business quickly and get paid. That sure changed out of nowhere. I don’t remember our thing being broad daylight brawls and blowing shit up. The captain won’t say jack shit to us about what’s going on and she’s gone completely off her rocker… way more than usual.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it. And I don’t like my buddies being caught in it either.” He leaned a little closer to her. And pointed to his face. “Look me in the eye and tell me everything’s fine. You know it ain’t.”

Shadow stared blankly at him, not saying a word as Sin held his hard gaze. Off to the side, Moon just kept looking and listening, taking in everything he just heard from Sin.

Shadow eventually glanced down. Her body subtly quivered for a moment before she sighed and shook her head.

“J…just…” she stuttered as she turned her side to him. “Just forget it already…” her voice was hesitant and shaky. “It’s not like we can change anything…”

Sin looked ready to tell her otherwise. But before he could, ears perked up and heads started turning as the sound of the lobby doors sounded out. Everypony nearby turned and looked to see several Shadowbolts entering with Angel and Void up front, removing their goggles and masks.

Nightshade sharply turned and stomped towards them quickly, shoving aside a few Shadowbolts that were in her path. Any others in her way quickly moved aside.

“WELL?!” she barked, immediately getting in Void’s face. All the Shadowbolts standing behind him froze, thankful that Nightshade’s focus was not on them. Void blinked and glanced at Angel. Angel calmly cleared his throat and stepped forward. The instant he moved, Nightshade turned and got in his face instead, holding a death glare that could pierce through steel. Angel only flinched slightly as she made the move, but he kept a calm expression.

“We haven’t found him yet,” he began. Nightshade’s glaring eyes grew wider, causing the Shadowbolts behind Angel to quickly disperse, but Angel didn’t falter. “But there’s still a lot of ground out there to cov—”

He was cut off as Nightshade suddenly thrust an arm forward and grabbed him by the neck. She roared as she forced him backward, his hooves squeaking along the floor all the way to the wall. She slammed him hard against it, pressing the side of his face to the wall.

“GUHARGH!” Angel grunted in pain.

“THEN WHY DID YOU COME BACK?!” Nightshade yelled at him at point blank, spraying bits of saliva on him as she raged. The rest of the Shadowbolts made their escape, moving as far as they could from her and mixing in with the rest watching. Void had moved up behind her, but hesitated to do anything since he’d probably end up in the same position. “I TOLD YOU TO FIND HIM!” she shouted, her eyes straining as she held the fierce glare.

“We’ve… been out there… since… last… night!” Angel gasped as he tried to reply. “We… need… some rest…!”

“I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR FUCKING EXCUSES!” Nightshade barked as she pulled him back slightly and slammed him against the wall again, a trickle of blood dripping from his nose as it smashed against the wall. “NOW GET YOUR SORRY ASSES BACK OUT THERE AND DON’T COME BACK UNTIL YOU FIND HIM!” She shouted as a soft pink glow surrounded her body, trails of pink light rising from her enraged eyes.

“Hey! We’re trying, okay?!” Void suddenly spoke up from behind her. Nightshade’s ears twitched. She threw Angel to the floor roughly before turning around quickly and projecting her anger towards Void instead. He felt the pressure of her gaze immediately, stopping him in his tracks a few yards away as the glow around her slowly intensified.

“There’s this damn forest we ran into that our crystal magic couldn’t penetrate, okay?” he tried to explain. “We couldn’t see through any of it, he might be there, but the forest is huge!”

Before Void could say another word, three crystals shot out around Nightshade. Her eyes glowed brightly and the crystals came to life. She used Void’s own technique, the spiraling vacuum wave rushing forth from her. Yelps and gasps sounded out from the surrounding Shadowbolts as the sudden strong winds filled the entire lobby, knocking several over and tossing tools and repair supplies everywhere. Shadowbolts clung to one another and the floor as Void was yanked directly towards Nightshade. She reached up and grabbed Void by the mane, the vacuum wave ceasing the moment she had a hoof on him.

“ARGH!” Void cried out as she tugged on his mane, pulling his neck painfully to the side as she leapt up and got enough leverage to pull his entire bulk sideways and slam him head first to the floor. Shuffling hooves and the clattering and clanging of tools and parts sounded out around them as the Shadowbolts tried to recover from the sudden force of the magic winds.

“Sounds like just another dumbass excuse to me, you useless fatass!” she picked up his head and slammed it down two more times as Void kicked and flailed, his large size meaning nothing as Nightshade kept an iron grip on his mane.

Behind her, Angel slowly forced himself up, grunting and gasping in pain as he sniffled repeatedly, the blood dripping from his nose now passing over his lips. His eyes focused on Nightshade and narrowed into a bloodthirsty glare. His breath was hissing through his gritted teeth, his usual calm demeanor completely gone as loose strands of his long mane dangled in front of his face. He snarled quietly towards Nightshade as his crystals floated up beside him, glowing as his magic began collecting around his hooves.

“Angel.” Nightshade suddenly said without looking at him. Angel flinched and froze in place. Nightshade turned her head very slowly to the left, but stopping before she could see him in her peripheral vision, her eyes glowing so brightly that her pupils were nearly hidden. “Are you challenging me?”

Angel didn’t move a muscle, remaining completely still even though his magic was still alight.

“If your crystals are still glowing when I turn around… your head will be on the ground next,” she threatened as she bared her teeth. “But it WON’T be attached to your body anymore.”

Angel’s magic ceased on the spot.

“Hmph,” Nightshade grunted before turning her focus back to Void and giving his head one more slam to the ground for good measure.

Angel kept glaring at her regardless of how easily she just intimidated him. He continued to internally seethe, but then blinked as he glanced passed her. His eyes landed on Blade, who was standing across the room and watching from a distance. He was directing a stern look right at Angel and subtly shook his head.

“Tch…” Angel hissed and looked away from Nightshade to regain his composure.

Nightshade finally let go of Void’s mane and stood over him, glaring down at him as he twitched on the ground.

“So let me get this straight,” she began in an irate, condescending tone. "The two of you came across a forest you couldn’t see into from the sky…” she paused and snorted. “And instead of, I don’t know, LANDING and looking around on hoof, you just flew on? Bullshit you need rest…” she gave Void a hard kick to the chest.

“GRH!!!” Void grunted and lurched to the side. Nightshade leaned down and snarled at him.

“I hope you’re enjoying the floor, because that’s all the rest you’re getting! Now get the fuck up and get back out there!” she yelled right into his ear before sharply turning to Angel. “And this time, if you come back without finding him, I’m going to personally tie you both down and remove the specific parts of your body that make you a stallion… with my TEETH. UNDERSTAND ME?!” she roared out, causing everypony to shudder.

Neither Angel nor Void replied. Nightshade looked like she was about to blow her top.

“WELL?!” she barked at them. “DO YOU—”

She cut off abruptly as her ears suddenly shot up into the air. Her crystals were blinking rapidly. The glow in her eyes and surrounding her body vanished and the look on her face made an incredibly drastic change in an instant from angry to… scared? She quickly bunched all of her crystals together and hovered them in front of her face. She stared into them with wide eyes, her pupils shrinking considerably and shuddering. After a moment of complete silence, she quickly tucked the crystals beneath her wing and her eyes darted about. She pointed at Void and Angel.

“GO!” she yelled out, her voice had changed too. “FUCKING GO! NOW!” she shouted frantically as Void and Angel looked at her curiously. “And I mean it! WITH MY DAMN TEETH!” she repeated the threat, but the strength behind her voice seemed halved. “And if you’re not gone by the time I’m back out here, I’ll get a head start!” she added before turning and galloping out of the lobby, passing right by Moon, Sin, Shadow, and Rapidfire as she rushed away, leaving behind a giant mass of very perplexed Shadowbolts.

Nopony moved for almost a full minute, the silence finally broken by Angel as he growled to himself and stepped away from the wall he had been plastered against. He glanced around to see the scouts he and Void were in charge of all approaching quickly, looking very eager to get moving. They were all afraid of Nightshade’s threat, even the mares, despite it only being directed at the two commanders.

Void gritted his teeth, his breath hissing in pain as he finally managed to pick himself up off the floor. But he was barely up for a moment before Angel walked right up to him… and punched him right across the face.

“OW!” Void yelled as he stumbled backwards, the scouts flinching and backing off slightly. “HEY!” Void growled, glaring towards Angel. “What was THAT for?!” he demanded as Angel got in his face and glared right back.

“I told you not to say anything about the damn forest!” he berated him. Void snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Well sorry! And you’re welcome!” Void retorted sarcastically, pressing a hoof to one of his nostrils and shooting a wad of blood out of the other that splattered to the floor. “It was MY face she was beating to the floor instead of yours!” He added while poking a hoof to Angel’s chest. “So be grateful, you pampered, pretty bitch!”

Angel’s eyes immediately narrowed into the same death glare he had given towards Nightshade.

“Would you like to rephrase that?!” he snarled, his crystals coming to life as Void’s did the same.

“Enough.” Blade suddenly stepped in between them and pushed them both apart. “Just get going already.”

Void pulled back and his magic deactivated, but Angel didn’t back off. He turned his glare right to Blade.

“How much longer?!” he demanded. “How much longer are we going to put up with all of this?!” he demanded. But his glare bounced right off Blade, who only gave a stern look in return.

“Angel… go.” He said firmly, but Angel did nothing. “NOW.” Blade’s face scrunched. Angel flinched, but kept glaring. “That’s an order.” Blade suddenly added.

Those words did not go unnoticed, and the fact that Angel suddenly stopped and seemed to comply only made the moment stronger. Moon picked it up instantly, but Sin, Shadow, and Rapidfire, like the rest, were stuck trying to figure out what they just heard and saw.

Blade just gave Angel an order as if he were in command… and Angel followed it.

“Feh… come on!” Angel suddenly directed to Void and the rest of his scouts. Without another word, they all prepped to leave again.

With Angel and Void moving, Blade turned around to return to repairs, but stopped and glanced around when he saw all eyes focused on him. He snorted and bared his teeth.

“What the hell are YOU all staring at?!” he yelled out, causing them all to flinch and quickly return to their work despite all the confusion spreading around. Though… motivation was clearly even lower than it was before as the creaks and clangs of repairs started up again, Shadowbolts moving about to pick up all the tools and pieces that had been tossed about by Nightshade’s vacuum wave.

But Moon didn’t make an effort to continue. He turned away from the crystal chunk he was repairing and started walking down the hallway in the direction of Nightshade’s room.

“What the…" Shadow blinked and looked towards him. “Where the hell are you going?” she asked. Both Sin and Rapidfire glanced as Moon started passing by them as well. But he said nothing. “I’m talking to you!” Shadow barked, but Moon ignored her.

But as he passed by Sin he paused after taking one step by him.

“You’re not alone,” he said. Sin blinked.

“Huh…?” he looked over his shoulder at Moon. Moon gave a slight head motion towards Shadow.

“Keep an eye on her for me,” he said before he started moving again.

“Wha…?” Shadow tipped her head curiously.

“Wait, I’ll come…” Rapidfire tried to follow, but Moon’s telekinesis instantly surrounded him and stopped him in his tracks.

“No.”

Without another word, Moon left, disappearing down the hall. His magic held Rapidfire in place until he was out of sight.

“What the hell was that all about?” Shadow asked, scratching her head, but then she blinked and looked towards Sin. He had turned and was staring right at her. She furrowed her brow. “Stop that.”

“Nah,” Sin shook his head and smirked. “He asked me to,” he said jokingly with a shrug. Shadow huffed and glanced away from him.

“Y…you idiot…” she stuttered. “Quit looking at me like that…” she halfheartedly complained as she got back to work.

Neither of them noticed that Rapidfire had left too.

Moon slowed his pace as he caught eye of Nightshade. She was heading to her room, but something was odd. She should have been there by now. Upon looking closely, she was… swaying, her steps wobbly as she bounced back and forth off the walls. Her breathing was so fierce that he could hear it clearly from a distance.

Despite her clearly being distracted by whatever was going on, Moon didn’t want to take any chances. He brought forth his crystals, their glow gently surrounding him before he cast his unique cloaking spell. When his body was completely invisible to the naked eye, he lightened his steps and continued after her.

Slowly but surely, Nightshade continued wobbling and straining with every step until she was finally in front of the double doors to her room. Her struggling seemed to cease in an instant and she grabbed the door handle. Moon kept walking, but froze in place as Nightshade suddenly looked directly towards him. For a moment, he panicked. After all, she just sensed Angel’s magic without looking at him. Did he just make a terrible blunder? But after a few seconds, Nightshade gave no indication that she could actually see him. She looked like she was hesitating and looking around. She frantically pulled the door open and dove inside, the door lingering open for a moment.

Moon blinked and rushed forward as quietly as he could. It was risky, but if he could get in and see what happens up close…

But something stopped him. The door was still slightly ajar and slowly swinging shut, but the moment he got close enough to reach for it, he felt a cold chill run down his spine. He froze in place, remembering that he had felt this once before. Every instinct in his body told him to go no further. So he didn’t. The door shut in front of him, and he put his ear to it instead.

“I… I’m here…” Nightshade’s voice sounded from within, stuttering and weak.

Moon felt the chills pulse through him again. There was no mistaking it. The last time he felt this was when he was hiding behind Rapidfire listening into Nightshade’s room… and that meant…

“You’ve sure made a mess of things, haven’t you…?”

A low echoing voice… It was Kayn Ost. Moon swallowed and listened carefully.

“I… don’t…” Nightshade started speaking, but barely got any words out.

“Yes?” Kayn Ost pressed. “You don’t what? I’m listening…”

“I don’t know what happened!” Nightshade suddenly blurted out. “I was giving the order to attack, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in front of Soarin! Sombra had already possessed him! I didn’t do anything!” she sounded like she was pleading.

Moon blinked as he pulled his ear away. He thought for a moment as he grabbed one of his crystals and stared into it. After a bit of pondering, he pressed it gently to the door, his eyes glowing a little more before he closed them and concentrated. His vision was dark for a moment, but then suddenly a projection of inside the room began to form in his head. He wasn’t sure it would work, but it did… and now he could see into the room.

But… there wasn’t too much to see. Nightshade was in the center of the room, shuddering. Surrounding her was a dark shadow that snuffed out all sources of light in the room, yet she remained illuminated. Two small, white dots were focused on her, Kayn Ost’s eyes, just like they had appeared before. But once again, he had no solid form, nothing Moon could make out to identify him.

“Your weakness is pathetic. You really don’t remember a single detail? You can’t recall the chaos you left in your wake both here and out there? Astounding…”

Nightshade gasped and backed up a little as if his words terrified her greatly.

“Unbelievable…” The eyes floated closer to her and narrowed. “Fine, let me spell it all out for you. I gave you a tremendous boost in power that I trusted you would use wisely since you are so quick to physically punish misuse among your subordinates… but you proved me wrong.”

Nightshade squeaked and shuddered, edging back a little further.

“Your self-control wavered quickly… and mere moments after you sent your underlings into battle, you let the power unleash and gave in to its temptation. You became drunk on it instantly, let it surge through every inch of your body without a care, your personal pleasure overtaking you. You retreated here, to your room, ripped off your suit and spent an hour admiring your body as it brimmed with power, indulging in self-pleasures… and even pulling in an unsuspecting stallion passing by your doors. With the entrance to your room still ajar, his screams echoed into the hall as you satisfied your surging drive on him until he was unconscious and broken. At that point, you had become so stimulated and corrupted by the rushing power that you lost all traces of sentience, acting like a mindless animal foaming at the mouth as you smashed your way out of the walls of your own fortress and attacked the Wonderbolts all on your own. I admit that I was impressed by the amount of damage and disarray you caused over there single-hoofedly… but your mindless flailing ended up unleashing the very power I wished to attain.”

Nightshade shook in her spot, tipping over backwards and falling onto her plot as he eyes stuck open wide and her pupils jittered. Small, frail squeaks came out of the back of her throat as she took in everything Kayn Ost had just said.

“So now you’ve gone and made this all so much more difficult for me,” he said with a clearly annoyed tone. “Extracting Sombra’s power would have been much easier if he were still being held down by that ridiculous artifact on Soarin’s head…” he paused and a low echoing growl filled the room. “You have failed on an astronomical level…”

Nightshade shook harder, her breathing becoming quicker and labored.

“So…” Kayn Ost’s eyes suddenly opened wide and became brighter. “Tell me…”

“AAAHHH!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly screamed, both her hooves going right to her chest as a sizzling noise suddenly came from it. “AAAAARGH AHHHH!!!!!” she cried out as pink steam began rising from the center of the large scar in the center of her chest.

“How should I punish you?” Kayn Ost asked as the eyes began floating around her slowly in a circle. “I feel like I’ve given you more simple slaps on the wrist than you deserve…”

Nightshade continued to kick and scream, tipping over onto her side as she writhed and arched her neck about in extreme pain. Kayn Ost’s eyes turned towards her bed and the pile of crystals that still remained on them.

“Perhaps I should take these?” he said casually as they suddenly elevated from her mattress and began floating towards him.

Nightshade’s eyes shot open, immediately focusing on her crystal pile.

“NO!” she shouted in a broken voice. She somehow forced herself up despite the searing pain in her chest, but fell right back down on her face. “NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!” she repeated as she struggled, reaching a hoof up towards the crystals as Kayn Ost tauntingly passed them right over her.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” he asked her as she continued to grunt and groan.

“It’s… not over!!!” Nightshade yelled as she pushed herself up again, and this time held herself up despite the burning in her chest.

“Oh?” Kayn Ost narrowed his eyes. Nightshade shook her head roughly, the steam from her chest making its way around her neck and face as she gritted her teeth and breathed heavily.

“I can still do it! I can still bring you Sombra!” she shouted, her eyes stuck open wide, bloodshot with pain, but fiercely glaring regardless.

“Really now?” Kayn Ost snorted. “Despite your power raging out of control and pushing you to levels never seen before… Sombra still struck you down like you were nothing. How am I to believe you stand any chance at all?”

“I CAN DO IT! ARGH!” Nightshade’s legs buckled. She stumbled a little, but held her ground and took a firm step towards him. “I WON’T LOSE CONTROL THIS TIME! I can… I can… still…” her eyes began to roll back, but she fought it, barely keeping herself conscious among the unbearable pain. Her body lowered, but she refused to go down, forcing herself to stay up.

“Hmph…” Kayn Ost’s eyes moved in a way that depicted an eye roll. “You are if nothing else, tenacious… I can’t believe you are able to stand.”

Nightshade’s chest suddenly stopped sizzling.

“AH! Haaaaaaaaaa…” Nightshade fell right to the floor, panting and wheezing with her chin resting between her sprawled out arms.

“You’re lucky that I find you to be such a fascinating specimen… I’m actually curious to see if you can make good on such a bold claim.” The crystals floated back over to her bed and plopped down, a few falling off the pile with soft plinking noises before resting softly on the mattress. "But don’t test my patience further.”

“I… can do it…” Nightshade repeated as she cringed on the floor. “I can… I know I can…” she slowly rolled over and struggled to push herself up. “Just give me… that power again. I will control it this time, I won’t waver!”

“No.”

Nightshade’s immediate rejection caused her to flinch and look up at him in disbelief.

“You do not make demands of me,” he said harshly as his shadowy presence loomed over her. “I gave you a chance to wield further power and you squandered it on self-pleasures and sexual desires before letting it consume you. I’d be a fool to believe you’d do differently this time.

“But… But…” Nightshade stuttered, her confidence buckling. “Without it, I…”

“So now you can’t?” Kayn Ost pressed and snorted. “What happened to your confidence from a moment ago?

“I…” Nightshade just stared at him, unable to respond.

“Or are you truly that weak? So weak that you can’t rely on your own power? Hm?” Kayn Ost’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Perhaps Silver Lining was right about you.”

Nightshade’s ears dropped to the sides of her head, her jaw dropped and a very faint squeak barely escaped the back of her throat. Her eyes were open as wide as they could go and her pupils shrinking until they nearly disappeared. Kayn Ost watched as she nearly crumbled right in front of him and released an amused hum.

“Such a fierce reaction to that name… That old stallion really left a mark on you… didn’t he?” he taunted, a sound resembling an echoing chuckle filling the air.

Nightshade looked right at the floor as she shook, Kayn Ost’s demonic laughter filling her ears. She gritted her teeth, narrowed her eyes and growled loudly while shaking her head out.

“NO!” She suddenly yelled out, looking back up fiercely. “I CAN do it! I don’t need the extra power! I’ll prove to you I can!” she yelled, as she fought back the memories of her encounter with Silver. Any given moment she thought about Silver and what he did to her made her angry… angry that she couldn’t defeat him, angry that she had been deconstructed and put in her place so skillfully. Kayn Ost may not have meant it, but bringing up Silver, while it shocked her, it also brought out a suppressed anger and motivation.

“Hmph… you better hope you can,” Kayn Ost grunted as the echoing laughter stopped. “Because your time is running out.”

“Huh?” Nightshade blinked, her focus breaking free of the sudden welling anger.

“Heed my warning, Nightshade,” Kayn Ost snarled. “You have one month.”

He paused, Nightshade’s ears standing straight up as his voice gained a strength that sent shivers through her.

“If Sombra is not within my possession in one month’s time… then there’s going to be some major changes around here…” He paused, his eyes growing larger. “And YOU… won’t be a part of it.”

Nightshade stiffened, the threat reverberating through her entire body. Kayn Ost had been lenient so far… but she could tell that this was it. Every word he spoke in his threat felt like a shock sent through her. She heard him loud and clear.

“But…” Kayn Ost suddenly went on as his shadows began to slowly recede. “If I were you… I wouldn’t be so confident that you have that much time…”

Kayn Ost’s eyes suddenly shifted…

And he looked in the direction of Moon standing outside the door.

Moon froze and swallowed a gasp that tried to shoot out of his throat. Kayn Ost was looking right at him, looking into his eyes even though he was seeing it through a magical projection through a door. He didn’t move a muscle, fear gripping every inch of his body.

But Kayn Ost did nothing.

“You have already lost the confidence of many whom you lead…” Kayn Ost spoke again as he looked back at Nightshade. “I’d watch your back.”

“Wh…what?!” Nightshade blinked, glancing between Kayn Ost and the direction he had glanced in.

But Kayn Ost was gone. His shadows had vanished and the light of the room returned to its natural state.

Moon frantically stepped back from the door and stood completely still against the wall as Nightshade suddenly got up and charged for the doors. They flung open and Nightshade’s head poked out, looking back and forth, alarmed.

Moon didn’t dare breathe. As if Kayn Ost looking at him didn’t spook him enough, now again he was wondering if Nightshade could sense him or not.

But luckily for him, Nightshade again didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she turned and galloped down the hall as if she was running away from something.

Though free from danger, Moon didn’t budge for several moments. He swallowed, his body sweating as he began breathing again.

There was no mistaking it… Kayn Ost knew he was there. He knew he was watching and listening. Even more, he clearly knew of the dissent in the ranks, perhaps both sides of it.

He suddenly felt very, very uneasy to the point where he felt sick to his stomach. He thought for sure that not a soul knew of his actions, maybe aside from Ruin. But now, after all he had seen… how could he have assumed that? If a nonsensical, jovial jester like Ruin could catch him in the act… what was stopping Kayn Ost from doing the same? A shadowy, elusive entity with unknown power? Had he woefully miscalculated?

Moon slowly turned, but didn’t take any steps. He was still invisible too, but he didn’t feel like releasing the spell as if he still had to hide from something. He wasn’t sure what to think now. Did this change anything? Or should he just keep going as he had been?

Was this all part of some plan by Kayn Ost? If he knew about Moon and his actions, then why hadn’t he moved to destroy him yet? This didn’t make any sense at all…

He took a deep, yet quiet breath and lifted a leg. He felt stiff, but standing here and worrying wasn’t going to accomplish anything. He had to get away from Nightshade’s room and think about what he had just witnessed and where to go. He took one step, and was prepared to take a second…

But then he felt a tap on his shoulder. His eyes shot open and he turned his head to the left.

“BOO!”

Ruin was right in front of him, making a silly face.

Moon flinched HARD and reclined so fast that his whole body flung into the wall. The impact and his shock instantly caused the invisibility spell to break and he reappeared in full, staring with wide eyes into Ruin’s.

“AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOOOO!!!!!” Ruin guffawed and keeled over, grabbing his stomach and cackling to his heart's delight. Normally Moon would glare at him or give him a flat look, but he was too shocked and flustered, unable to show anything on his face except for a blank, wide-eyed stare with his jaw agape.

Ruin spun around twice on the floor before popping up and getting right up into Moon’s grill.

“Oh, the absolute LOOK on your face! That just made my day!” he exclaimed as he continued to giggle, backing up as he held onto his stomach and started rolling around on the floor again.

“H… how?” Moon managed to say as he slowly began regaining his composure. “How did you…?”

“What? See you sneaking around?” Ruin rolled onto his stomach, propped his head up with a hoof and tilted his head to the side, a wide, toothy sneer growing over his face. “Pffffffshhh…” he blew air between his lips and waved a hoof nonchalantly. “Oh please, Moony-Moon… you call that invisible?” he snickered as he suddenly floated into the air without moving his wings and twisted until he was upside down at eye level with Moon. “I’ve seen howler monkeys riding elephants through priceless antique shops that draw less attention. Probably doesn’t help that I can smell you from a mile away.” He paused and took three long, raspy sniffs towards Moon, hacking and coughing after the last one and falling flat to the floor on his back. “That broody, musky scent that follows you everywhere… it’s so strong, how am I to BREATHE within a ten-foot radius of you?!” he continued to sputter cough and wheeze on the floor as Moon finally regained his composure and scrunched up his face, narrowing his eyes into a displeased glare.

Ruin eventually ceased his fake coughing and looked up into the face Moon was giving him. He couldn’t contain himself, bursting into a fit of laughter.

“OH HO HO HO HAHAHAHA!!!!” he cackled as she rolled upright and immediately got to his hooves, holding a hoof to his stomach as he continued to guffaw. “Boy, your buttons are so easy to push!” He instantly slid up to Moon and pressed his shoulder against his. “And you wonder why I like to follow you around!”

“I’m thrilled that I amuse you,” Moon said sarcastically as he took a step to his side, but Ruin moved with him as if stuck to him. Moon flattened his brow and snorted. “I assume you saw what happened in there too?” he asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject and attempt to actually discuss something relevant with Ruin.

“What of it?” Ruin asked casually as he slid away from Moon and leaned against the opposite wall, crossing his hooves and relaxing. “It’s not like it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know. I was the one that guided Nightshade over to the Wonderbolts you know! It would have been a shame to let all that wild energy of hers go to waste, and she didn’t disappoint! It was quite funny actually. She was so aroused, all I had to do was wiggle my sexy pair of buns back and forth and she kept following like a puppy! She wanted to get a hold of me so bad,” he snorted, barely able to contain his giggles. “I don’t blame her! I may not be the biggest oaf around here, but I’m still hung like a—”

“I GET IT.” Moon cut him off, but found his focus drawn to something else, the little tidbit Ruin revealed. Not the… sexy buns part, the guiding part. He personally directed Nightshade to attack the Wonderbolts? He had had a hunch that was the case, but wasn’t expecting Ruin to flat out admit it.

“But more importantly, you should have seen that stallion she wrecked before she left! My word Nightshade’s libido might just be the deadliest weapon we have! Screw the crystals! She could break a dragon with those thighs” he shifted the subject and snickered uncontrollably, snorting as he tried to keep talking. “I’ve never seen grown stallion cry like such a bitch before in my life! I was in stitches! HAHOHOHO!!!! OOF!” he grunted as his shaking laughter caused him to slide down the wall and land on his side, but he reclined as if he meant to do it and held a sultry pose while bouncing his eyebrows. “Ya dig?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” Moon raised his voice a little, knowing that Ruin was purposely skating around the point, but Ruin just pointed at him and winked.

“And you know I don’t care, so why are you asking? We’ve already been over this, I don’t give a damn about that shadow-fart-cloud with eyes,” he said without a trace of seriousness in his voice that was driving Moon nuts. Moon struggled to hold his composure as he let a quiet growl escape his lips. He sharply turned his back to Ruin, but Ruin appeared directly in front of him. Moon flinched and reclined. “You oughtta relax, Moony!” He poked Moon in the chest. “What isn't appealing about my lifestyle?! Can’t you see how much FUN I’m having?!”

“I lack the mental instability to see things your way,” Moon verbally jabbed as he stepped to the side and started walking.

“Oh! Ah! Oh!” Ruin held his hooves over his chest and wailed dramatically as Moon moved by him and didn’t stop. “Your words! They hurt me!” he couldn’t hold in his snickering. “Oh and how it hurts so GOOD! HOHO!” He turned and bounced after Moon, all fours outstretched with his hooves making comical BOING BOING BOING noises as he caught up to Moon and bounced beside him. “Do it again! Make me squirm, daddy! I deserve to be punished for all the trouble I cause!” he begged with a fake sad tone in his voice.

Moon halted and flattened his brow, keeping his eyes forward.

“Cut it out,” he demanded. Ruin leaned and tipped his head to the side, moving it right into Moon’s view less than an inch from his face.

“Nuuuuuuu.” He denied in a silly, slurred tone while making a goofy face.

“I don’t have time to argue with an ignoramus,” Moon’s breath hissed through his nostrils. “Unlike you, I have actual things to worry about.”

“Oh joy, this again…” Ruin rolled his eyes and shifted backwards. “Right, right, right, you have you’re liiiiiiiiiiittle escapade and soft mutiny to attend to, buuuuuuuuuuut…” his sneer slowly creeped back onto his face as he fixed his eyes directly on Moon. “You look a little flustered! I mean, I’ve never seen you jump so hard when I pop in randomly, even if I was trying to scare you…” he slid a little closer, turning his head to the side to show his smile reaching as far as his cheekbones would allow. “And your temper’s a bit shorter! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve mistaken me for Angel!” He reached up and smacked his hooves against his head. With and elegant shake of his head, his mane suddenly extended, growing very long until it was draped down the sides of his head and touching the floor. “Though I could hardly pass for him, I don’t know how to clench my ass that hard.” He scrunched his face and blew at stray strands of hair as they got in his face. “Oo! How does he deal with this all day?!” he complained as the hair suddenly all fell off and to the floor, restoring his normal mane length.

He looked back at Moon and noticed that he had not moved, and was still staring flatly at him. Ruin began snickering as he continued to absorb Moon’s expression as if it were satiating him.

“If you’re done, I’ll be leaving,” Moon snorted, scrunching his face further. But Ruin tipped his head slightly, not breaking his devilish smirk.

“You know I’m not, otherwise you would have left already,” he paused as Moon’s eyes lids subtly twitched. “You never know what I’m going to say, and it fascinates you! That or you expect me to say something that will help make your decisions…”

“Then get on with it!” Moon suddenly snapped. Ruin shuddered delightfully

“Oooooohoohoohoo! Extra animosity today! It must be my birthday!” He suddenly zoomed forward and got within a yard of Moon. “Okay, let me tell you what I see right now when I look deep into those eyes that you try to make look emotionless…” his eyes grew wide as his snickering got louder. He didn’t say anything for a moment, but Moon waited, knowing he didn’t have a choice. Ruin’s eyes eventually reached the limit of how much he could open them, but he kept his eyebrows tilted down, holding a very unnerving expression. “I. SEE. FEAR.”

Moon blinked, his expression softening slightly and body shifting backwards an inch as Ruin’s voice made him shudder.

“And I know exactly what’s causing it!” Ruin continued, a sly, droning slur accompanying his voice as he slid through every word. “You are lost… and you don’t know which way to turn…” His voice caused Moon’s ears to twitch uncomfortably as if he was prying directly into his mind, uninvited. “You have no idea what to do next…” Ruin’s lips curled back, revealing his teeth in full as they pressed together within the terrifying smile. “Because Kayn Ost totally eyed you up while you were eavesdropping!”

Moon froze, his eyes widening as he felt a lump in his throat. It only lasted for a moment though as he averted his eyes and began quietly growling to himself.

“HOHOHO!” Ruin did a quick pirouette before reaching up his hooves and placing the tips atop his head. “Sure adds a little extra spice to the chili bowl, eh?!” he said as he continued to cackle to himself. “Kayn Ost knows you’re there, and even knows what you’re doing!” he suddenly popped up right beside Moon, facing the same direction as him as he leaned into his side. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Why is he letting you do your thing if it’s clearly against his chosen puppet?!” he dropped to the floor slid right beneath Moon’s legs and popped up on the other side, leaning into Moon again.

“Rgh…” Moon turned his head away again, frustration gripping him as Ruin’s taunting continued.

“How does it feel?” Ruin suddenly asked while draping one arm over Moon’s shoulders. Moon grunted and turned his head to glare daggers at Ruin, but he flinched as Ruin held a hoof an inch from his face. “You think you have something that resembles control over your situation, but then this happens!” he snidely laid out the facts as he slowly twirled his hoof near Moon’s forehead. “But in the end, it’s almost as if you’re just another piece in a big board game! And if he’s letting you live…” Ruin suddenly retracted his hoof, leaning his face forward. His eyes had turned black with the tiny dot pupils. “YOU MUST BE A VALUABLE PIECE!!!!!” he yelled with the echoing demonic tone that always accompanied the eye change.

But Moon didn’t react, he didn’t even flinch. With a single blink, Ruin’s eyes returned to normal.

“SNRK…” Ruin snorted humorously as he let go and backed away a little. “WOW! That used to scare you shitless!”

“I’ve never been scared of you,” Moon defended himself while furrowing his brow.

“Whoa there, Bronco, don’t lie to me too hard, I might make a mess…” he said in an inappropriate tone as Moon flinched in disgust. “But at least you’re finally getting used to little ol’ me!” he added happily as Moon rolled his eyes.

“As if I have a choice,” Moon said sarcastically as he tried to turn, but stopped as Ruin appeared directly in front of him again.

“OH HO HO!” He laughed directly into Moon’s face. “How right you are!” he added as he walked right past Moon and smacked him HARD on the back. Moon grunted and flinched, but just kept facing forward as Ruin started walking away behind him. “That’s plenty of harassing you for now, I suppose,” he said as Moon patiently waited for him to go away. But then the hoofsteps suddenly got louder and Ruin walked by him again in the other direction with his head tipped back and his eyes looking towards Moon upside-down as he passed. “I’d hate to get in the way of my own entertainment! So go on!” he encouraged as he slowly kept moving. “Keep doing your little thing! You can start right here and now!”

The moment he finished he stopped, twirled in place three times and thrust his hoof out towards the wall to his left.

“BOOP!”

“AH!” another voice suddenly shouted.

Moon’s ears shot straight up and his eyes grew wide as Rapidfire suddenly appeared, his body becoming visible as a pink light ran down it in the exact same manner Moon’s did to hide and reveal himself. Rapidfire stood as still as a statue, a look of shock on his face as Ruin’s hoof pressed against his nose.

“What the—” Moon began to voice his shock, but was abruptly cut off as Ruin burst out laughing, his head tilted back again as his mouth stuck open and eyes as wide as possible.

“HOOOOO HOHOHO HAHAHA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” he guffawed maniacally as he started prancing down the hallway in a stride that eventually became bouncing, sometimes on his hooves, sometimes on his back, sometimes on his plot, and sometimes on his head. “I absolutely LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this! WHOOPS!” he suddenly bounced the wrong way and landed face first on the ground, the moment of impact causing a bright flash of pink light before he vanished into thin air, his creepy, sinister giggling still echoing in the halls for a few seconds. The giggles grew louder and seemed pass right between Moon and Rapidfire and slowly moving down the opposite direction before dying down and disappearing.

Moon and Rapidfire were alone in the hallway. They stared at one another, but their faces held different emotions. Rapidfire was scared out of his own suit, but Moon was still wondering about how he just saw Rapidfire use his own self-devised cloaking magic spell.

“How did you use my cloaking magic?” Moon suddenly broke the silence. Rapidfire flinched hard, but said nothing as his eyes darted back and forth.

“I… uh…” Rapidfire kept acting like he was about to get his face beat in, but Moon had no urge to do so, not that he was the type anyway. He was much, much more curious about what Rapidfire had just done. He kept glancing between his three crystals and Rapidfire’s single crystal. It took all of his crystals to keep the invisibility stable, how did Rapidfire do it with only one? “Er…” Rapidfire continued to babble. Moon came back to reality and shook his head.

“Stop. Who do you think I am, Blade?” he asked calmly as Rapidfire stopped shuddering and swallowed. Moon decided to focus on the task at hand, thinking over everything he had just seen, and everything Ruin had said to him. “I take it you saw and heard everything… both out here and in there?” he asked. Rapidfire glanced away once, but then quietly nodded.

“Yes…” he said in a very hushed tone as if paranoid others were around.

“I see.” Moon acknowledged before turning and slowly walking away. Rapidfire perked up and looked towards him, but didn’t know what to say or do. “Stay on your guard,” Moon suddenly continued as he kept moving with his back turned to Rapidfire. “Things have taken a drastic turn. We might have to make a move sooner than anticipated.”

Rapidfire just stared, not sure what to make of it. Moon had not budged from his stance of waiting patiently and biding their time for so long.

“I have a few others I need to talk to, I’ll find you later,” Moon added before he picked up his pace, moving with a purpose in his step as he made his way down the hall and out of sight.

“Rainbow Dash… Where are we going?” Twilight asked as she followed Dash right out the front gate of the castle. “Hey!” she called out as Dash suddenly picked up her pace a little, forcing her to canter just to catch up. “Dash!” she tried to get her attention as she caught up and trotted right behind her.

“Somewhere private,” she said sternly without breaking her focus. Twilight blinked and tipped her head as they crossed the bridge over the castle moat and started moving down the streets of the royal district.

“What is this about?” Twilight asked, her curiosity beginning to frustrate her since Dash wasn’t giving her any reasons or specifics.

Dash just ignored her for a moment as she contemplated what would be a ‘private’ place. Because there needed to be no, none, zero, nada other ears around. She didn’t want even the smallest chance of anypony else hearing and maybe spreading it around regardless of if they were involved or not. She spotted the library as Twilight said her name again. She heard it, but didn’t reply as she thought to herself.

The library where she had just been led on another silly scenario by Twister. Why not? It was here at the library where her revelations began, so this was where she would take action. Plus, she couldn’t really think of anywhere else to avoid the eyes and ears of other ponies. The reading rooms… the REAL reading rooms were soundproof. Not to mention this would put Twilight in her element. She’d probably be much more comfortable and clear minded if—

“DASH!” Twilight suddenly yelled loudly right into her ear. Dash flinched and jumped a little, but quickly shook her head out and blinked. “Please tell me!”

Dash furrowed her brow and growled.

“Ok, now you listen to me!” Dash suddenly turned and glared hard at Twilight. Twilight’s eyes grew wide and she shied away a little as Dash got right in her face. “STOP. ASKING.” She said in a very hard tone. “I’ll tell you once we’re out of sight. UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes.” Twilight immediately responded, her voice cracking several octaves higher. As she remained perfectly still under Dash’s strong gaze.

“Good. Now come on,” Dash broke away quickly and walked up the library steps, but Twilight was stuck in place. Dash glanced over her shoulder as she grabbed the door handle and lifted an eyebrow. “Well, come on! Do you want to know or not?”

Twilight swallowed and nodded before doing as she was told. She was nervous and had no idea what was going on.

The two of them entered the library, and Dash immediately started turning down specific halls with Twilight in tow… but then she came to an abrupt stop. She realized that she was walking towards the janitor’s closet. The ‘reading room’ Twister had her in wasn’t even real.

“Twi.”

“EEP!” Twilight squeaked loudly. Dash glanced over her shoulder and tipped her head. Twilight was sitting on her plot behind her, her hooves clasped over her mouth, her cheeks puffed out, and a raging embarrassed blush over her face. Dash sighed and gave her a flat look.

“I’m not going to beat you up, Twi. I’m just being serious,” she said sarcastically. Twilight slowly removed her hooves from her mouth, but pouted, still embarrassed that she let out such a high pitched noise. “You’ve been here before, right?” Dash asked.

“Y…yes,” Twilight answered as she stood back up. “I come here every time I’m visiting.”

“Figured,” Dash looked forward and around the hall. “Where’s the most private study room? Preferably one that’s soundproof.” She asked, all business and no nonsense in her tone.

“Um…” Twilight looked back and forth to get her bearings. “This way, follow me.” She walked past Dash and took the lead. Dash kept her eyes firmly on Twilight as they moved. Twilight kept nervously glancing over her shoulder at her. Each time, Dash did not change her firm, serious expression and every moment their eyes met, Twilight flinched and went back to finding her way to her favorite spot.

When she glanced for the fifth time, Dash scrunched her face.

“Do you have something you want to say?” she put out there. Twilight flinched and halted in place. Dash kept striding until she was half a pony length away from her.

“Um…” Twilight struggled. “This won’t take too long… will it? I still have a lot of work to do and need to get back to—”

“This is more important than anything else going on right now,” Dash cut her off, the strength of her voice once again completely dominating Twilight’s composure. She just stared, her eyes growing slightly wider.

“What?” she tried to find words, but wasn’t sure what to say or ask. “What do you mean?”

“Keep walking,” Dash said plainly, causing Twilight to recline slightly and wince. She was clearly uncomfortable with how assertive Dash was being, but Dash was not willing to approach this any other way. This WAS important. Twilight didn’t know half of what was going on. And the sterner and firmer she was about the importance of it, the more convincing she would be, especially to a pony as naturally curious as Twilight.

“O... okay…” Twilight swallowed and turned, continuing on her path. Dash kept pace right behind her, keeping herself together with every step.

After one more left turn down a hall, Twilight motioned towards a door only a few yards away. It had a window on it, with two windows flanking it side by side, but there were shades pulled over them, allowing for even visual privacy. It looked perfect.

“Here… I always use this room when I come to study,” she explained as they approached the door.

“Then let’s go in,” Dash quickly took over as she walked right past Twilight and reached for the door. Twilight flinched as Dash muscled her way right by her, but kept up behind as Dash opened the door and the two peered in.

It was a small room, roughly twelve by twelve. On the back wall were a few half-filled shelves with books piled on them to be re-shelved later. A desk was dead center, but enough to seat one, maybe two on each side. There were a few chairs at the desk, but only three, one seemed to have been borrowed at some point. Aside from that, there was nothing else, just bare walls… and a stallion sitting at the desk with a small pile of books who was looking at the two of them curiously as they looked in.

“Oh,” Twilight perked up as she spotted the stallion. “Looks like somepony is already—”

“OUT.” Dash suddenly said harshly towards the stallion as she moved into the room and glared at him. The stallion froze and stared wide eyed up at Dash from his seat.

Twilight gasped as Dash suddenly bore down on the confused stallion, glancing back and forth between them. They were of similar size, but he was skinny, his body not even close to the strong, athletic build of Dash. He gulped and sunk into his seat a little as Dash continued to lean over him and cast a shadow, giving him the firmest look she could manage.

“Dash!” Twilight stepped in and tried to approach from behind. “You can’t just—”

“NOW!” Dash suddenly yelled, slamming a hoof down on the desk right between the stallion’s books.

The stallion yelped, quickly gathering up his books and scurrying out. His chair tipped back too far as he jumped out of it, but Dash caught the back of it before it could fall to the floor. Twilight’s jaw dropped as far as it could go as she watched the stallion run for his life. She quickly shot Dash a look of disapproval.

“Rainbow Dash, that was uncalled for!” she scolded, but Dash paid no attention to it. She walked around the chair before placing all four of its legs back on the floor and shooting a glare towards Twilight while pointing at the chair.

“Close the door and sit down.” She ordered.

Twilight was stunned as Dash brushed off her scolding like it was nothing. Dash’s assertiveness and demeanor were completely overwhelming and overpowering her. She had never seen this from her before and had no idea what to think. So she did as she was told. With a nervous look and curiosity killing her from within, she closed the door before making her way over and sitting down.

Once she was in the seat, Dash slowly walked to the other side of the table, but she didn’t sit down. She didn’t say anything for a moment, just stared at Twilight as she looked back with roughly a fourth of the strength as the gaze being force on her.

She couldn’t take it anymore.

“Rainbow Dash…” she spoke up. “What in Equestria has gotten into you?” she asked with concern. “First you were all hesitant when you arrived, you almost couldn’t look us in the eyes… and now suddenly you’re—” She stopped abruptly as Dash took a firm step forward and slammed both of her front hooves on the table, making Twilight jump slightly. Twilight’s eyes remained open, not blinking once as Dash’s gaze seemed to become even stronger. Dash pushed herself up, putting herself much higher than Twilight and looking down. She was completely at her mercy.

“Twi, before I tell you anything…” Dash began in a very serious tone. “I want to ask you something.”

Twilight finally blinked as her eyes started to feel dry. She was still feeling intimidated, but Dash’s voice was coercing her to play along.

“Y…yes?” Twilight hesitantly replied, her curiosity nudging her forward. Dash gave a single, firm nod.

“Do you trust me?”

The question caught Twilight completely off-guard. The question confused her, because it felt like the answer was obvious. But now the question floating in her head was, why was Dash asking such a thing?

Dash watched Twilight’s reaction carefully. She could tell the question blindsided her, but that’s exactly what she was going for. She knew Twilight trusted her, but she wanted to ask regardless to drive home that the situation as a whole… was NOT normal. Twilight continued to stare at her as if she wasn’t sure how to answer, but then she twitched, shook her head out and gave Dash a look that almost seemed hurt.

“Of course I do!” she replied with a hint of passion. It was the response Dash was looking for, but she wasn’t done.

“How much?” she pressed.

Direct hit. Twilight almost audibly gasped and looked completely taken aback.

“What kind of question is that?” Twilight fired back as she leaned forward and placed her front hooves on the table. “You’re one of my best friends! Why wouldn’t I trust you?”

It was exactly what Dash wanted to hear. Now that she had Twilight adamantly defending their friendship, she could start digging in. She looked Twilight right in the eyes.

“Because I’m about to throw a lot of crap at you and I want you to promise me to hear me out… ALL of it,” Dash put out there, but Twilight kept inching forward in her seat.

“Rainbow Dash, what in CELESTIA’S name makes you think I wouldn’t trust you?!”

Dash’s eyes narrowed. She finally lowered herself back down, placing her hooves on the floor, but never breaking her gaze.

“You just said it,” Dash pointed at her.

Twilight’s face went blank as if something just flew right over her head.

“Uh… what?” Twilight blinked several times as she quickly tried to pick apart everything she had just said in her head for an indication of what Dash meant, but she turned up empty hooved…

Because she hadn’t a clue what Dash had been through.

“I really wish I had time to tell you everything I’ve been through since I sent you my letter. Every detail is important and so many things I thought I understood or trusted have now been ripped to shreds. But… it would take hours to pick it apart piece by piece and I don’t want to keep you too long in case anypony gets suspicious.”

“What’s… going on?” Twilight’s voice suddenly sounded a little shaky. “Is something wrong?” she asked simply as if trying to understand what Dash was getting at.

“EVERYTHING, Twilight,” Dash said firmly. “Everything is wrong.” She paused to let that sink in first, because she knew what she said next… was going to really set off a few alarms in Twilight’s head. “But none of it is as bad as the fact that I don’t trust any of the gods anymore.”

As expected, Twilight’s eyes grew so wide that it was a wonder they didn’t pop right out of their sockets.

“What?!” Twilight said in utter shock.

“You heard me,” Dash calmly added. Twilight just kept staring for a moment.

“You don’t mean…” she struggled, trailing off. But Dash nodded.

“I mean Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. I guess you can include Discord in there too, but it’s not like I trusted him much to begin with.” She leaned forward, not giving Twilight time in case she was about to rebuke Dash impulsively. “The Wonderbolts and I have gone through hell and back to get here. And all along the way we’ve been constantly finding out about things we were never told or were purposely kept from us. And Luna was by far the biggest culprit of doing so. She has done nothing but mislead us from start to finish, and every time we’ve caught her and pried the truth out of her, she kept doing it as if never learning her lesson or feeling we couldn’t handle the full truth. I know you were shocked when you heard Luna and Spitfire had traded barbs, but I don’t blame Spitfire one bit. Luna undercut us over and over again and constantly left us in the dark.”

Dash took a breath and watched as Twilight more or less stiffened with her ears turned forward. She was listening. That was good, now she just hoped she didn’t let her loyalties get in the way.

“It started before I sent you my letter.” Dash continued. “She hired the Renegades without informing us and led us on a campaign of confusion where we had no idea who they were or if they were Shadowbolts, and on top of it, they were fending off the real Shadowbolts without our knowledge, leading up to one hell of a nasty and unpleasant surprise when we were caught off guard by them. Regarding Soarin and his magic, she constantly walked around issues and never gave us the full story on his condition or the risks posed to him. And it wasn’t until after the letter that at some point Discord revealed to Soarin and I that we are bound by our souls, a piece of me left within him when he was revived after the Ponyville tornado. We are so strongly linked that I can feel his pain whenever it is related to the magic, and if either of us were to die, the other would go down too. That’s right, Luna kept that from us… and don’t even get me started on how she constantly avoids answering questions about Celestia.”

Twilight was locked in place. Not even the big egghead seemed to be able to process all of this without breaking a sweat. She just stared with wide eyes and her mouth slightly agape. Dash hoped she was listening with an open mind… because she was already halfway to the moment of truth and there was no backing out now.

“Discord has been even worse. I know that may not sound like much, but this very much relates to my point too. Why? Because whenever we find out he’s hiding something or keeping us in the dark, his reasoning is always… that he’s doing so because Celestia told him to.”

She paused as Twilight released a quiet gasp without changing her expression. Dash had a feeling it would hit her even harder once the subject turned to her mentor.

“The story never changes, Celestia apparently told him not to reveal a great number of things and he refuses to disobey her. And by the time we discover a secret he’s been keeping under wraps, it’s already too late, the damage that could have been prevented has been done. It’s as if there’s something they don’t want us to know, but they’re terrible at keeping it all hidden away.”

“But…” Twilight finally spoke, her voice hushed. “Celestia would never…” she trailed off as Dash shook her head.

“I hate to break it to you Twi, but Celestia is far and away the worst offender of them all,” Dash dropped the hammer, and Twilight’s reaction was visible even though she remained silent. “Guess what? Every single word she said to us while we were in the hospital after the tornado? Everything she said she saw and the actions she wanted to take to restore Soarin? It was all a blatant lie.” The sound of Twilight’s chair lightly scooting on the floor met Dash’s ears. Her wings had opened slightly in surprise and made the chair budge a little. Dash shook her head, not letting up. “She looked us in the eye and fed us full of crap,” Dash continued. “You’ve been paying attention. You’ve been listening to everypony here. Have you tried asking how Sombra even got into Soarin in the first place? Celestia PUT HIS SOUL into Soarin! She had it dwelling inside her all this time, separated from the shell of his body we faced together, and she used her fake story to cover her while she used that weird ritual to transfer him to his body. And why?! I don’t believe a word he’s saying either, but Discord claims she wanted to create some kind of unstoppable warrior by using Soarin’s body and Sombra’s soul, but she didn’t think of the possible consequence, and apparently didn’t give a damn about sacrificing Soarin… and ME too, putting us both in extreme danger for her little idea.” She paused and pointed to her eyes. “I know you’re probably flipping in your head right now, but look at me. LOOK. AT. ME!” she said, trying her best not to speak too loud. “This is what I’ve seen. This is what I know. Celestia lied. She made up the premonition. She used Soarin’s hospitalization as an excuse. For all I know she could have been waiting for it to happen! And now Soarin is at the mercy of a thousand-year-old king… and I’m sitting here with a connection that allows me to feel him and his pain. I can know if he’s near, I know if he’s far away. How do you think I feel being a living Sombra detector? With the way things are going I’m surprised nopony has forced me to do it yet.”

Twilight looked like she had just run into a visible brick wall. Her face had gone blank. Dash couldn’t read it aside from the fact that she looked like she had short-circuited. But as she sat there, her pupils suddenly enlarged as she continued to stare. Dash took it as an indication that she was speechless, but still listening.

“Oh, speaking of that…” she went on from her last comment. “Now I know this probably already sounds beyond screwed up… but it doesn’t even end there. We’re suddenly not sure if Sombra is actually evil.”

Twilight flinched and nearly fell out of her chair, suddenly moving as she placed a hoof on the table to support herself. The look she gave spoke volumes. Twilight was a pony of facts. And Dash just said something that ran 100% contrary to something she thought to be true from books and historical texts.

“I know why you’re giving me that look,” Dash acknowledged her. “And you’re going to have a hard time believing me, but I know what I saw, and many others saw it too. When Sombra was released and took over Soarin… he didn’t attack any of us without provocation. He struck when attacked first, but did not lay a single hoof on anypony who remained out of his way.”

Twilight’s eyes changed abruptly from shock to heavily curious. Dash took it as a good sign and continued.

“He never went out of his way to purposely harm us. What’s more, we sustained heavy injuries from the encounter, but he didn’t kill a single pony. He subdued all who attacked and moved on. He only showed animosity towards Discord and Luna. All of his anger and might, all of his focus was on the two of them as if he was thirsty to get revenge for something they had done to wrong him.” Dash paused and tipped her head. “Aside from his anger towards the gods… that doesn’t sound at all like the Sombra we know, does it?”

Twilight glanced down at the table, but still said nothing as she processed it. Dash could see small beads of sweat forming on Twilight’s brow. Was she panicking? Did she not know what to think of this? Dash felt good if that was the case, it meant she was thinking it over.

The groundwork had been set… now it was time. Dash mentally prepared herself, because she was about to blatantly disobey a direct order.

“Something isn’t right here,” she began again as Twilight’s eyes darted back to her. “We keep finding out about lie after lie being spoon-fed to us by the gods like they have some sort of agenda… like they think they know what’s best for us and keep things from us for ‘our own good’. But we’ve been pushed past the tipping point, Twi… I’VE been pushed past the tipping point,” she paused and took a deep breath. “So listen… Spitfire has held secret meetings with us. And we’ve decided that we’re not going to follow Luna’s orders, we’re going to approach this situation our own way.”

Dash subtly winced as Twilight’s eyes suddenly grew wide, and it wasn’t a look of surprise, it was a look of shock. Dash could tell she immediately didn’t approve, but it was too late to walk anything back, she kept going.

“We have been given secret orders and have been instructed to keep them from Luna and anypony associated or close to her. Spitfire’s plan is to acknowledge Sombra’s passive behavior, approach him in a non-threatening manner, and engage in dialogue before we do anything else. In the past we have been told by Celestia and Luna that Sombra was simply a monster and an insane tyrant, but Spitfire isn’t convinced that’s the whole story. We are going to assume he won’t attack us if we don’t attack him, and if we discover the means to separate him from Soarin, we’ll spring it on him there. And… even if we can’t separate him through our own means, Spitfire wants to speak directly to him and figure out what’s going on with a slim glimmer of hope that an understanding between us and him can lead to some kind of resolution and maybe the release of Soarin. Spitfire’s not convinced that will work or even be a possible case, but simply attacking him has already proved useless. Instead of blindly throwing ourselves at him for Luna, this is the course of action Spitfire plans to take. Right now, she’s placing our bits on the assumption we find a spell to separate them.”

Dash stiffened. She forced her presence to remain dominant over Twilight, but this was it… she was about to find out if this was the right course of action or a grave mistake.

“Wait! NO!” Twilight suddenly stood up, a frantic, alarmed look on her face. “You can’t do that to Luna!” she blurted out. Dash’s eyes twitched, but she remained firm. “Why is Spitfire trying to undercut her?! We can’t solve this problem if we’re working against one another! Luna’s one of the divine goddesses of Equestria! You can’t just—”

“TWILIGHT.” Dash raised her voice, speaking so forcefully that Twilight halted mid-sentence. “Sit down, and let me continue.” Dash asserted her will, holding strong despite getting the reaction she feared. Twilight was still standing, and had her hooves pressing hard to the table as her eyes remained wide and locked on Dash.

“But… but…” she stuttered, her body shaking. Dash shook her head.

“Who said I agree with Spitfire’s plan?” Dash threw out there, catching Twilight completely off guard. She stopped shaking and stared blankly.

“Huh?” she tipped her head curiously and slowly sunk back into her seat.

“Spitfire also gave me a direct order not to speak to you or any of the others about this. She doesn’t trust you either because of your close relationship with Celestia and Luna. You’re a princess. As far as Spitfire is concerned, you are just as guilty as them.”

“What…?” Twilight looked crushed and confused.

“And,” Dash gave her a firm nod. “I don’t like that. After thinking about it, I feel like Spitfire has become overly paranoid. I understand that she wants to rip control of our fate away from Luna, but she’s going too far. I wasn’t sure about Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity, or Applejack… but I knew deep down that you would hear me out. I’ve known you too long to think of you the same way Spitfire is right now.”

Twilight looked down, averting her eyes as she tried to piece it all together.

“So… like I said, hear me out.” Dash continued, causing Twilight to look right back up. “I know how much you revere the divine sisters, but I want you to hear me loud and clear. From the moment Celestia ‘saved’ Soarin up until now, they have done nothing but lie to us… lie to me. They keep secrets from us, and the secrets only get revealed after the damage has been done and we’re feeling the consequences. Spitfire no longer trusts them, I no longer trust them, and I’m sure nopony else within the Wonderbolts trusts them anymore either. If it were just one secret or one lie, maybe I’d find it in my heart to forgive them and hear their reasoning, but after the fourth or fifth time my faith isn’t so strong… or naïve. But… at the same time I don’t believe Spitfire has the right idea either. What if things go south and we end up clashing with Luna and her thestrals? How are we going to pull off a passive approach to Sombra when Luna would definitely oppose the idea under her authority? And if we do get to Sombra, then what?” Dash threw a hoof out to her side. “Spitfire wants to have a chat with him, but what good will that do? I get that she wants to spring a trap on him if possible, but that’s her plan regardless of whether or not we have the means? Sombra may not seem like the Sombra we thought he was, but I highly doubt he’d just agree to let Soarin’s body go.”

She sighed and let her head hang down for a moment, taking a few breaths as Twilight just continued to stare. Dash gathered herself and looked Twilight in the eye, shaking her head slowly.

“This is why I felt the need to come to you and be upfront. I feel like this is spiraling out of control and I have no say in how either side goes forward. On one side, we have Luna acting like she’s the supreme leader who feels she knows what’s best while the shadow of her sister and the lies they have both told loom over us… suggesting that we deal with Sombra as if we’re taking on the greatest threat to Equestria despite what we’ve already been fighting against. On the other side, Spitfire has turned this into a tight-lipped stealth operation where we’re frantically trying to keep things under wraps and every glance towards Luna or somepony associated with her makes us stiff and uneasy. This is going to end poorly, PERIOD. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

Dash leaned forward and placed a hoof gently on the table.

“This is why I came to you, Twi. I want to break away from this mess and figure out what we should really do. And I need your help to do it.”

She left it right there and kept her eyes glued to Twilight. Twilight looked very distraught. Her expression was mostly blank, but it didn’t stop the look from creeping into her eyes. Dash felt a wave of sympathy rush over her all of a sudden. She didn’t regret this, but she had just pounded Twilight with all sorts of information that she was no doubt not ready for, nor expecting. She had to do something here, but the only other thing in the room aside from Twilight was her… and she was one of Twilight’s best friends. She didn’t have to remind Twilight of that, but she felt compelled to for the sake of cushioning the sudden drop.

“Look, Twi…” Dash spoke up again in a much softer voice. “I know Celestia is your teacher and like a second mother to you… and I know you regard Luna just as highly, but please…” she gave a single, reassuring nod. “I have no reason to lie to you. You know that. I swear on my element, on my loyalty, and our friendship that I’m being one hundred percent honest.” She shook her head. “Enough is enough. We need to do something about all this.”

Unfortunately, her addition did not have the desired effect. Twilight’s expression didn’t change, she just looked down at the table. Dash’s ears flopped and she gritted her teeth. She thought it was going well… but at this point she was hoping Twilight would be more responsive.

“I… actually…” Twilight suddenly spoke up. Dash perked up and waited anxiously for her to continue. Twilight folded her ears backwards and looked to the side, shutting her eyes tight as if trying to force something out.

“Yes?” Dash gently pressed. Twilight shook her head out and groaned, letting her face fall and bopping her nose lightly to the table.

“Okay, I…” she exhaled. “Okay, look,” she suddenly narrowed her eyes at Dash. “I don’t like this one bit. I can’t doubt Celestia or Luna. Especially Celestia.”

Dash froze, but did her best not to show it. Was she wrong to think this would work?

“It’s wrong!” Twilight put some strength into her voice, placing a hoof on the table. “She’s my teacher!” She suddenly wasn’t looking at Dash as she went on. Dash blinked, noticing the odd behavior. “I’ve learned everything I know from her!” she kept going as if she wasn’t yelling towards Dash at all.

Was she… talking to herself?

“I can’t just… suddenly… UGH!!!”

Dash flinched as Twilight suddenly slammed her forehead to the table, her horn scratching against the wood surface and leaving a mark.

“Ow…” she said quietly as she lifted her head up slightly. “That… wasn’t smart…” she said in a muffled tone as she brought her hooves to her forehead and groaned.

“Twi…?” Dash tipped her head curiously as Twilight kept rubbing her forehead.

“I… believe you,” Twilight said very weakly and still a little muffled with her arms in front of her face.

But that was all Dash wanted to hear. The uplifting feeling in her chest was indescribable.

She did it… it actually worked. Okay maybe she was getting a little ahead of herself, but still. Just hearing those words from Twilight was already more than a victory.

“And…” Twilight sighed as she sat up, leaned back in her seat, and let her hooves fall to her sides. “I believe you because…” she paused and shook her head. “Since you’ve all arrived, something about Luna has seemed… off.”

Dash nearly lifted herself onto the tips of her hooves. She knew it… she knew Twilight would notice something.

Twilight looked to her left, and then to her right as if searching for a window to look out, forgetting that they were in a soundproof reading room. When she found nothing to gaze through, she just kept her head turned as if there were.

“Luna hasn’t been acting like herself. She’s usually so upright and proper, very traditional in the way she carries herself compared to Celestia. But her behavior over the past day has been so strange. She’s been overly demanding, unrealistically strict, and seems frantic. At first I thought it was just a byproduct of what you’ve all been through, but in the past, even in times of stress Luna has kept calm. It didn’t feel right at all.” She turned back to Dash. “And then on top of that, while she’s helped a little with the research into the cure for the crystal affliction… she hasn’t helped at all with figuring out possible ways to separate Sombra from Soarin. She even called it a waste of time.”

Dash flinched, her eyes widening as her ears stood up.

“Wait… what?!” Dash blurted out, a look of shock and disgust rushing onto her face. Twilight simply looked into the forming glare on Dash’s face with shame in her eyes.

“That’s not all…” Twilight continued, causing Dash to brace herself for more. “The worst of it was last night. I didn’t know what to think of it at the time, but… after hearing all this from you, I have no idea what to believe.”

“What happened last night?!” Dash demanded as she slammed a hoof on the table. Twilight didn’t budge, she took in Dash’s fierce stare as if she felt it was completely justified. She took a deep breath.

“While I was gathering my materials to begin the research for exorcism spells, I had an epiphany. I was excited because my mind had immediately turned to something that could easily solve the dilemma and allow me to join the search for the crystal cure instead. I dropped my books and happily rushed right up to Luna… and told her that the Elements of Harmony were capable of the task. I cited our very first feat as the Element bearers, when we used them to free her from the Nightmare Miasma that turned her into Nightmare Moon.”

“Oh!” Dash’s ears stood up. She had completely forgotten about that! The last times they used the Elements of Harmony were to seal, then unseal Discord. The day she and her friends all met and became the Element bearers was so long ago that she forgotten all about how they used them on Nightmare Moon. She smiled to herself, a rush of confidence pouring in. They had the means to do this all along! She wished she had remembered this sooner. It would have saved her a lot of anxiety.

“But…” Twilight sighed, scooting her chair back a little as she lowered herself and rested her chin on the table, her nostrils flaring as she blew a rush of air from them and wore a conflicted expression. “Luna cut me off abruptly. She forcefully shut my mouth with her magic and yanked me aside.”

Dash’s sudden high vanished quickly, her ears falling down slowly as she began putting together what Twilight was going to say before she even said it.

“She kept tugging me along until we were out of earshot of anypony else… and began scolding me harshly. She berated me and ordered me not to bring it up again.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Dash said quietly, shaking her head as her face scrunched in disgust. Twilight shook her head, rubbing her chin back and forth on the table as her eyes looked up at Dash.

“I didn’t let it go. I was shocked that she was so quick to dismiss likely our best chance to save Soarin. As soon as I had my senses about me, I pushed her on it, I demanded to know why. But she only scolded me again and told me I did not fully understand the extent of Sombra’s power, claiming that the only way to be sure was to seal him away. I understood the sealing part, so I pushed her about first separating them and then sealing his soul away, but she pushed back again. She cited that Sombra was adaptive, and if we used the elements once, he would not get caught twice. She is confident that we will only have one shot and didn’t want to waste it on separating them.”

Dash was speechless. Luna had lied to them once again. She had NO intention of trying to save Soarin, she was only worried about taking care of Sombra.

Luna was prepared to sacrifice her as well. There was no indication of what would happen to Dash if Soarin was sealed away… but Luna wasn’t even attempting to find out. Now she felt just plain betrayed.

“She didn’t let me say anything else,” Twilight went on as she sat back up. “And demanded that I go about my business and not speak a word of it to anyone else, or face consequences. I’ve never felt threatened by either of the princesses before, it was heartbreaking. I did as I was told, but felt so conflicted. I didn’t know what to do or think, I tried to rationalize it and mark it up to how the elements require everypony to be of one mind and spirit in order to use them, but who am I kidding? Part of me kept screaming to just go with it because Luna knew best and I shouldn’t doubt her, but…” she trailed off and sighed.

“Unbelievable…” Dash said as she just stared at Twilight, still trying to come to terms with how upside-down everything had become… if it could flip any more than it already had.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight suddenly apologized. “I should have done something right then and there. It was wrong, but I let her talk me down.”

“No… don’t apologize,” Dash quickly stopped her before she could get any more down on herself. Twilight blinked and looked up. “This is exactly why I decided to talk to you,” she said with a smile. “I know you, Twi. And I knew that if something didn’t look right, you’d be the first to notice.” She snorted and looked off to the side. “I just didn’t think Luna would go this far… she’s still deceiving us, even now. And she’s not even considering separating Soarin and Sombra as an option.” Dash turned her body away and started pacing forward. “She’s so afraid of Sombra that she’s going as far as to completely sacrifice Soarin… and maybe even me. She’s acting like it’s the only option.” She paused and growled as she reached the wall. “I’m sure Discord would completely agree with her too… Would Celestia do the same?” Dash shook her head. “I’ve never seen them so scared. They’re disregarding everything else just to prevent Sombra from existing, even if it kills some of us. I feel like I don’t even know who they are anymore…”

“So what are we going to do?”

Dash blinked, her ears standing up as Twilight spoke. She quickly turned around.

“You’re on board then?” Dash asked, making sure she heard Twilight correctly.

“Of course I am…” Twilight said without hesitation, but she didn’t look happy about it. “I don’t like what’s happening here. It’s bad enough that Celestia isn’t around, and now worse to know that she and Luna have been lying to us to pursue their own agenda.” She shook her head and sniffled, visibly quivering. “It goes against everything I’ve learned from them… why would they do this?” She shut her eyes, beads of tears appeared in the corners of her eyes, but she quickly shook them off, remaining strong. She opened her eyes and held a serious expression. “I’m not going to just let this happen. This is wrong.”

Dash felt a warmth in her heart. Deep down, before she took this chance, she knew she could trust Twilight. That trust proved to be well placed.

“Thanks, Twi,” she walked towards her, coming around the table and placing a hoof on her shoulder as Twilight smiled weakly in return.

“So… I guess I should meet up with Spitfire then?” she asked, curious about what Dash had in mind. “We can tell her about the other Harmony spell and—”

“No,” Dash quickly cut her off. “We can’t get the Wonderbolts involved, maybe aside from my own squad.”

“What?” Twilight blinked.

“I told you,” Dash shook her head. “I’m already defying Spitfire’s orders by talking to you about this. We won’t be changing her mind. If we go to her, she might do something drastic. I’m not taking that risk.”

“Doesn’t that just make things even more convoluted?” Twilight argued. “I thought we were trying to unravel this situation, not tie it tighter. Doesn’t Spitfire want a way to separate them? We can do that with the Elements.”

“Twilight, she doesn’t trust you. I already told you that,” Dash reminded her. Twilight stood up, her seat scooting backwards as she looked annoyed.

“Why though?!” she asked passionately. “What have I done to deserve that? I’m not the one who’s been telling lies!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dash replied calmly, looking right into Twilight’s peeved glare. “You’re guilty by association. Spitfire has lost all faith in the goddesses and is hell bent on defying them. She doesn’t believe they have any interest in mind besides their own and is doubling down. She’s convinced that the gods have been trying to keep us blindfolded, and she’s become overly paranoid that anypony outside of our recent experience still has the blindfold tied tight. She is under the assumption that you will blindly follow the word of the gods, and I’m willing to bet my whole damn salary that she won’t believe you’re on our side if we try to talk to her. The same would go for Cadence and your brother… and the rest of our friends too. I doubt even Applejack could convince Spitfire she’s being honest.”

“Guilty by association…” Twilight repeated Dash’s words as she looked down and gritted her teeth. “She really wouldn’t give me a chance at all?”

“I highly doubt it,” Dash doubled down. “But it isn’t your fault. I may agree with Spitfire in not trusting the gods anymore… but I think she’s taking it way too far.” Dash took a step forward and grabbed Twilight by the shoulder, gently turning her to look her right in the eye up close. “But she doesn’t know you like I do. She hasn’t been your friend for years. You may be Celestia’s prized student, but you’re not stupid and you’re definitely not blind. I knew you’d recognize something wasn’t right. That’s exactly why I decided to defy my orders and talk to you.”

Dash could tell that Twilight felt heartened by her words, but she still looked unenthusiastic as she looked away and sighed. Dash gave her shoulder a light rub as she went on.

“We aren’t going to change Luna’s mind and we aren’t going to change Spitfire’s mind. We aren’t going to solve this with any friendship lessons, Twi.”

“I…” Twilight hesitated. “I wasn’t going to suggest that, but still…” she trailed off and groaned.

“I know how you think, Twi,” Dash quickly reassured her. “And if I thought we could find a way to all come together and tackle this, I already would have suggested that. But we’ve been through so much crap that both sides have dug in and neither side is going to budge. This is going to be complicated, but the only way I see us stopping this from being a disaster is to wiggle our way in between these conflicting plans and handle it our own way before it goes from bad to worse.”

Twilight looked into Dash’s eyes and seemed to find solace in the look of pure determination. She nodded weakly.

“I understand. I don’t like it, but I guess we don’t really have a choice…” she said reluctantly, but at least she wasn’t fighting Dash on it.

“So the Elements of Harmony…” Dash began as she stepped back from Twilight. “I completely forgot about how we used them the first time. That will work, right? It pushed the Nightmare Miasma right out of Princess Luna.” Dash asked, getting right down to business.

She stayed quiet and waited… because Twilight put a hoof to her chin and narrowed her eyes, humming to herself as she rubbed her chin back and forth.

The Twilight thinking face. Dash didn’t want to get in the way as that big brain of hers worked.

“In… theory… it should work,” Twilight said as she continued to rub her chin. That wasn’t exactly what Dash wanted to hear.

“In theory?” Dash tipped her head. “Is that a good or bad thing?”

“It’s neither,” Twilight quickly answered. “I’ve done lots of research on the power of the Elements since we obtained them, I have an understanding of their power and the spells they can cast, but only on an informational level. Obviously, we’ve only used them three times, and each time we used them in a different way, so it’s not like I’ve experimented with them and logged enough findings to form an intelligent hypothesis.”

Dash blinked. Twilight looked up and noticed Dash was giving her a blank look.

“Uh…” One of Dash’s ears flattened for a second before moving back upright. “Can you explain that in not-nerd words?”

Twilight flattened her brow and pouted.

“What I’m saying is… it should work, but I’m only going off the fact that we were able to separate the Nightmare Miasma from Luna,” Twilight tried to simplify it. “There are a few key differences between that situation then, and this situation now. The Nightmare Miasma was a mindless cloud of negative energy, a parasite that latches to and controls a host willing to succumb to its power. Based on what you’ve told me about Sombra’s soul and your encounter with him controlling Soarin’s body, this is entirely different. Sombra is a conscious entity, and from what I’ve gathered, it’s an incredibly strong willed conscious that is also free thinking and intelligent. Since he is an entity that has possessed a body, the Elements SHOULD be able to force him out all the same, but because of his sentience and immense willpower, he might be able to fight back and resist.”

Twilight grunted as Dash’s befuddled look remained.

“Okay, think of it this way,” she tried one more time. “It wouldn’t be a simple ready, aim, and fire like it was with Nightmare Moon. Sombra’s soul is strong and smart, he’s a mortal being with a strong enough willpower to hold his mind together in a non-physical form. Once we’ve hit him with the blast, it will probably turn into a battle of wills between the six of us and him. The real question is whether or not all of us can overpower him.”

“There,” Dash pointed. “That made sense.”

“I’m glad…” Twilight said as she forced a smile and failed to conceal a slight head twitch.

“So it’ll be tough,” Dash nodded. “But it’s still better than the other option. And if it’s effort you want, you’ll get it. You know how strong our connection is. I don’t care who we’re going up against, I know you and the rest won’t give in just because of a little pressure.”

“Even Rarity and Fluttershy?” Twilight asked bluntly.

“Yes, even them,” Dash failed to hold in a snort of amusement. “We’re not asking them to do any heavy lifting. I don’t think concentrating hard is going to chip Rarity’s hoof. And Fluttershy? Just tell her my life depends on it and she’ll give a hundred and ten percent.”

“Fair enough,” Twilight nodded as Dash kept up despite falling a little behind her long, scientific explanations. “But now the question remains… how will we pull this off? Luna is expecting us to cooperate and seal them."

“How the hell will she know which spell we’re casting then?” Dash winked. “Just tell her we’re going to use the seal and then use the other instead. I don't remember them being visually different.”

Twilight blinked and rubbed her chin, furrowing her brow. Dash shrugged.

"It's not like she can SENSE which spell is being used. She won't know until we've fired it."

“Oooooh…” Twilight groaned as her ears flopped down. “I don’t like lying.”

“Aren’t we technically already doing that by not playing along?” Dash asked as she tipped her head.

“Yeah, I know but, I don’t like looking somepony in the eye and lying, especially to one of the princesses. And good luck getting Applejack on board with that.”

“Applejack can suck it up and deal with it,” Dash flattened her brow and shook her head. “I don’t like lying either, but this isn’t a time to act like morals will win us out. Taking the high road is gonna run us right off a cliff.”

“But what are we going to do about Spitfire?” Twilight asked. “If we ‘agree’ to help Luna, what will she do?”

“I’m going to tell her I lied to Luna about agreeing to use the elements,” Dash put forth casually. Twilight growled and placed a hoof on her forehead.

“So you’re going to lie about a lie… Celestia, help me, this is going end poorly,” Twilight said to herself.

“Don’t be that way,” Dash quickly butt in. “I’m only considering these things because this is what it’s come to, okay?” Dash stepped towards Twilight again.

“Spitfire is the lead captain of the Wonderbolts,” Twilight explained as she held a hoof out in front of her and tipped it back and forth. “I don’t know her personally, but I’d say that means she’s no slouch. Assuming she doesn’t piece together that there’s something going on right under her nose, when we make the move and start the spell, won’t she try to stop us?”

Dash opened her mouth, but paused. Twilight had a very good point there. Granted, she hadn’t thought that far forward yet, but it was a good thing to consider. Spitfire was in a state of extreme paranoia, but it didn’t stop her from being the most dangerous obstacle to this plan. Powering up the Elements of Harmony was not an instant process, and Dash had every reason not to doubt Spitfire’s reaction time after the beat down she put on Nightshade.

But there was one thing…

“That’s a good point, but… I don’t think Spitfire will be suspicious of me.” Dash tapped a hoof to her chest. “She knows about the connection between Soarin and I, she won’t suspect for a second that I’d be willing to risk sealing him away and possibly affecting myself in the process. I think all we’ll have to worry about is the moment we take action.”

“Hmmm…” Twilight didn’t disagree, but still looked puzzled.

“Look, let’s not think too hard about the plan right now. I don’t have the full details of the larger game plan from Spitfire and I’m going to guess Luna hasn’t laid out her plans to you yet either.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Twilight confirmed. Dash nodded.

“Then for now we just need to play along. I’ll keep my ear to Spitfire, you keep an ear to Luna. Once we know what both sides plan to do in full, we can figure out what we’ll do. If I had to wager a guess right now, part of the Wonderbolt plan will include restraining Luna at some point… maybe even engaging her guard. There will be a point where all hell breaks loose, and if that happens we can use that moment, but let’s wait and see what else we hear.”

Dash blinked as Twilight stared at her blankly.

“What?” Dash asked while tipping her head.

“This is going to be messy… and it keeps getting more complicated.” She shook her head and mumbled to herself for a moment. “So… I’m going to act like I’m helping Luna, you’re going to act like you’re helping Spitfire, but we’re going to be in contact under both their noses, so neither of them will know what’s going on, then when Spitfire tries to spring her plan, we’ll spring our plan, slip free, come together and try to banish Sombra from Soarin’s body while also fending off Spitfire and not using the spell Luna thinks we are using…” she trailed off as Dash glanced back and forth before tipping her head to the other side.

“Er… yes?” She didn’t know what else to say, she thought she had a good idea of what they had to do, but Twilight made it sound more complicated than she thought it would be. Twilight looked directly at Dash like they could be way in over their heads. The moment Dash saw the look in her eyes, she moved to dispel it. “Look, like I said, let’s not try to iron out a solid plan right this moment. I just wanted to bring you up to speed and confirm that you were on my side. That’s done. For now, let’s keep our ears to the ground. We have a few other things to take care of anyway.”

“Like what?” Twilight asked curiously.

“For starters,” Dash pointed at her. “I need you to gather up the others and explain everything to them. And I swear to god, FORCE Applejack to comply if you have to. We don’t have time for bare naked honesty right now. While you do that, I’m going to gather a few helpers of my own.”

“From the Wonderbolts?” Twilight asked, wondering who she had in mind after Dash’s determination to undercut her own force.

“Yeah, my squad will follow me, I have no doubt about that. Thunderlane will definitely help and… I’m on the fence here, but I think I may be able to get Storm Front on board as well. He was elevated to elite level and may have some misgivings, but he trusts me. I’ll figure that out.”

“The more we have helping, the better chance we have,” Twilight nodded in agreement. “What will they do?” she asked. Dash smiled, pounding her chest.

“We’re going to need some ponies to protect us while we power up the Elements, right? They definitely won’t be able to stop Spitfire or the other top elites for long, but they’re gritty. They’re definitely capable of holding out just long enough. If we can get Big Matty to sit his fat ass down on Spitfire, that will take care of half the danger for us.”

Twilight looked back and forth, processing and contemplating. But she didn’t look too confident.

“Okay…” she answered with a lack of gusto.

“You sound hesitant,” Dash quickly pointed out with a slight grunt. She didn’t want Twilight doubting herself. Twilight shook her head.

“I’m just thinking it over. We’re taking a huge risk here. And If it doesn’t work…” she trailed off.

“No,” Dash rapped a hoof on the table, causing Twilight to jump a little. “Don’t even think about that. You know how the Elements work. We need full focus and confidence in both each other and our objective or else the connection won’t be complete and the spell will lack power.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Twilight nodded, remembering what happened when they first tried to reseal Discord. “It’s just a longshot, that’s all.”

“I know it is,” Dash continued. “But this is our duty. I’m tired of all the backstabbing and lying. As the Elements of Harmony, it’s up to us to take control and restore order.”

That seemed to do the trick. Twilight flashed Dash a smile as she cited their role in keeping order and stability in Equestria. They had never faced a situation so messed up before, but that didn’t change who they were or their purpose as the Element Bearers. They could do this.

“It’s settled then,” Twilight moved towards Dash. Dash watched her for a moment, but quickly reacted when she saw Twilight extend an arm for a hug. She followed suit, the two sharing a quick embrace. “Thanks for telling me all of this, Rainbow Dash. And thanks for trusting me too.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” Dash chuckled as she reached up her other hoof and ruffled Twilight’s mane a little. They separated and exchanged confident looks. “We can do this Twi.” Dash lifted her hoof and held it out. “Let’s do what we have to do and meet up later. I’ll come find you when I have my end worked out.”

“Sounds good, watch your back,” Twilight nodded, lifting her hoof as well and bumping it against Dash’s.

“You too.”

Dash could not begin to describe the relief flowing through her. They still had a lot of things to figure out, but she had taken a drastic step and it had worked out just the way she wanted it to. She didn’t particularly like the fact that she was defying Spitfire’s orders, but what did Silver used to tell her? Not to be a mindless puppet and to say something or do something if you don’t like the direction things are heading.

She did something alright, and she had no idea it would feel so good. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she had some control over her fate. They had one hell of a task ahead of them, but she had newfound confidence to take it on.

Now with Twilight on board, one piece of the plan was taken care of. Now she hoped the rest would go just as smoothly. Compared to what was yet to come… this was the easy part.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Hmmm...

That glare looks awfully familiar...

Looks like SIlver is really rubbing off on her, huh? :rainbowlaugh:

So it seems taking the risk paid off, and Dash was 100% correct. Twilight could tell something wasn't right, and hearing the full story from one of her best friends has confirmed her fears. Obviously she didnt want to hear that the two deities she's looked up to her whole life are being irresponsible, but Luna's strange behavior was more than enough to give Dash's story weight.

So Dash has her old friends on her side (Presumably, Twilight is going to have a hell of a time convincing Applejack to follow a subversion plan.) Now Dash just has to get her Wonderbolt friends on board. Should be much easier............... right? I guess we'll find out.

As for the Shadowbolts... Moon find himself in an odd situation. Has Kayn Ost been aware of his actions the WHOLE TIME? And if so... why is he letting him continue? To what ends? Is he nothing but a puppet? Or as Ruin put... just another piece in one big game?

Who knows... but Moon likely wont wait to find out. Looks like he wont be stalling much longer... whatever his full intentions are. But hey, at least he know knows one of the more powerful commanders is seeing things from his side. No doubt Sin's help would be a huge boon should the dissent within the ranks turn into a conflict.

We are drawing closer to a very definitive clash... But the more the stage becomes set... the less there seems to be any solid unity. Both sides are fragmented... and the centerpiece is a stallion under the control of what continues to seem more and more like an innocent, lost spirit.

How chaotic...

How chaotic indeed. :twistnerd:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 156: A Tangled Mess

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 156: A Tangled Mess

Three days.

Dash was definitely not expecting the next step to be so elusive.

It had been three days since Dash had had her breakthrough meeting with Twilight and she still hadn’t had an opportunity to gather up her squad and other reliable Wonderbolt friends. What was stopping her? She kept hesitating, but it wasn’t hesitance out of cowardice. She was suddenly feeling the weight of her actions. She did not regret the direction she was taking things, but she wasn’t expecting how tense it would make the situation for her. She was determined to continue, but now she was suspicious and wary of everything around her. She was working a subversion campaign under the nose of another subversion campaign, so she had twice as many eyes and ears to worry about.

She wasn’t willing to take any chances as long as there was any chance that somepony around her would overhear her plans… and so far the right moment had not arisen. She had to keep up the air that she was playing along with the Wonderbolts, so she couldn’t make it look like she was sneaking off at any point. She had not once had a moment where there was not some kind of Wonderbolt presence around her and also had not had a moment where her group had been all together. She needed both of those factors to be met to pull this off, or at least have the Wonderbolts distracted enough to make a move. With Spitfire and the rest on high alert to sneak around Luna, it was hard to find a moment where they wouldn’t notice her making moves.

She had also been cut off from Twilight and had no idea how her end of the plan was going. Had she had a chance to gather up and speak to the rest of their friends yet? She hoped things were going smoothly for her as well, because at some point they needed to all meet up again. How that would work, Dash hadn’t a clue, but they couldn’t wait much longer. It was only a matter of time before Sombra was found and everything was set into motion.

But after these three days… she may have just gotten her chance.

Dash wore a wet towel around her neck as she threw open the shade covering the window of her hotel room. She had just finished showering after a quick, light workout and emerged from the bathroom to the noise of lots of shouting and whistling coming from outside. She blinked and her eyes widened slightly as she looked through the glass and up into the sky.

Wonderbolts?

Lots and LOTS of Wonderbolts… And Dash didn’t recognize a single one of them. For a moment she just stared, confused as she tried to figure out what she was looking at. It went beyond the fact that she didn’t recognize them, there were just so many. The Wonderbolt force was made up of eighty elites of different tiers, the few recruit squads and…

Reserves.

“Ooooh…” Dash quickly realized. Of course, the reserve Wonderbolts! She remembered hearing Spitfire mention bringing them in, but she had completely forgotten it amongst everything else happening.

But then she began to wonder… they were just flying in? With the Shadowbolts out there somewhere?

There was only so much she could determine from looking out the window, they seemed to be coming in for a landing near the hotel.

“What’s going on?” Little Star suddenly asked as she poked her head out of the bathroom and looked towards Dash. “WHOA!”

Dash stayed put as Star hovered towards her, her little eyes wide as she landed beside Dash and nearly pressed her face against the window.

“Are those the reserves?” she asked as her pupils grew large in astonishment. She glanced up at Dash when she didn’t get an answer and blinked. “Dash?”

Dash had narrowed her eyes slightly as if lost in careful thought. Star looked back and forth between her and the large number of Wonderbolt reserves coming in for a landing.

“Earth to Dashie…” Star poked her in the arm, but still got no response… at least for a few seconds.

“Come on,” Dash said as she suddenly dropped the towel from around her neck, picked up Star around the stomach like a puppy, and turned towards the door.

“What the, HEY!” Star squeaked and flailed as Dash carried her along.

“Let’s go see what’s going on,” Dash suggested without elaborating.

“But I haven’t showered yet! I’m all smelly!” Star whined as Dash opened the door.

“You smell better than Matty ever does, you’re fine,” Dash said in a flat tone as she continued to force Star along.

She continued to protest, but Dash paid no mind. She saw a possible opportunity here. She wouldn’t know until she was down where the reserves were gathering, but she had to get there first. If she was right... she’d need her protesting filly-sized friend there too, smelly or not.

“This way, this way, line up!” Spitfire’s voice met Dash’s ears before she was even within view.

“Dash, can you put me down now?” Star asked with a pout as Dash stepped around the corner. She heard Star, but she was immediately distracted as she entered the lobby and stared in awe. There was a huge crowd of reserve Wonderbolts, some already suited up, some not and carryign bags slung over their shoulders. Some had appeared to have flown in, those with baggage likely had taken the train from further off locations. Though it was still odd to think they had made it in so easily, unless the Shadowbolts really were so focused on Soarin and Sombra that they didn’t even bother addressing the arrival of new combatants, or they didn’t notice… which seemed highly unlikely.

Spitfire was yelling directions to them, trying to get them to line up neatly. It appeared to be a bit of a task though, as the crowd of reserves extended well out the front doors. The Streak twins and Misty Fly were present, doing their best to help Spitfire get them organized, and pushing a few of them back outside so they could form a smaller, organized line that would allow Spitfire to address them one by one.

“DASH!” Star yelled. Dash flinched.

“Oh, sorry,” she finally let go of Star.

“Jeez, what was that for?” she demanded with her pout remaining. Dash didn’t answer, she kept staring. Star scrunched her face and blew air through her closed lips, making a funny noise as they flapped before turning. “Seriously, I need to shower.”

“No,” Dash stuck out a wing and turned her back around. “You’re staying right here.”

“Why?!” Star whined as she grabbed her ears and pulled on them. “I think this is cool too, but what’s so important?”

“Just wait, okay?” Dash hardened her tone as she shot her a quick glare. It caught Star off guard, causing her to flinch and stare slightly wide eyed.

“O…okay…” she agreed, wondering what this was all about.

Dash returned her focus to the lobby, stepping out slightly to get a better view. She didn’t want to give off the air of sneaking around, so she stepped out to show visible curiosity to all those who could see instead. There were several more elite Wonderbolts present. Fleetfoot was standing with Spitfire, Surprise was hovering about. Blaze and High Winds were not there, but others were present from both high tier and low tier elite squads.

“HO! THE CAVALRY’S HERE!”

Dash flinched as Air Mach suddenly yelled from RIGHT behind her, trotting in with his chest puffed out and adjusting his sunglasses. “THIS SHALL ONLY MAKE OUR STALLION SPIRIT STRONGER!” he yelled as he moved towards Spitfire.

“Shut up, Air Mach,” Spitfire said casually as she continued to try and direct the organization of the reserves into a tidy single file line.

“Yes ma’am!” Air Mach saluted and stood attention near her with a wide grin on his face.

Dash shrugged and kept observing, the reserves slowly moving into place, several now back outside as a line slowly formed.

“Come on…” Dash said quietly to herself. "Seriously, I know you guys are curious, where are yo—”

Right as she was saying it, her ears stood up as she caught a glimpse of something large moving in from the opposite hallway.

Matteo. He stepped into the lobby and immediately took in the view, blinking as he tipped his head back and forth.

There was one… Now she was hoping the rest would show.

Dash was betting on this being a moment she could use. No doubt the arrival of the reserves would distract the Wonderbolts, and at the same time it would definitely spark curiosity, drawing others to the lobby to see what was going on. Matteo was the first of her friends to show and she already had Star there with her, now she just needed the rest to show up.

“Whoa… looks like the rest made it!”

Dash quickly glanced over her shoulder to see Thunderlane walk up behind her. Her eyes lit up subtly as she noticed he wasn’t alone. Bulk Biceps was with him, and appearing behind him once he moved his massive bulk aside was Derpy, who had Storm Front in tow. They all moved up near Dash and Star to view the large influx of reserves that were now neatly lined up with Spitfire’s top tier helpers making a few final checks to keep them organized.

“Fire, did we finalize arrangements with other lodging locations nearby?” Spitfire asked.

“They weren’t happy about it, but yes,” Fire replied, peeking up over the line of reserves.

“They can deal with it. Send a few elites to notify them their ‘guests’ are here,” Spitfire said with slight sarcasm.

Dash kept her eyes peeled, looking over those who had joined her, keeping an eye on Matteo sitting across the room with a few other curious ponies, and getting an idea of just how occupied the Wonderbolts were.

This was perfect so far. Everything was going exactly how Dash had hoped. Now there was just one piece missing…

Where was Squall? He wasn’t with the group behind her and she couldn’t see him with Matteo. Come on, he had to be curious. It would be normal if he just said ‘whatever’ and didn’t bother, but Dash needed him there.

“Name and hometown,” Spitfire asked the first reserve in line.

Dash briefly turned her attention back to Spitfire as she began addressing the reserves one by one. She heard some of the responses, listening more to the locations than the names. As expected, some were near and some were far, those near were mostly the ones already geared up and those far were mostly those carrying bags. She leaned a bit to get a look at the line and realized that Spitfire was going to be busy for quite a while. With the reserves all lined up neatly it looked like the line extended for a mile, at least around the street corner with several elites making sure they stayed organized.

Dash was well aware that the reserves existed… but she never really put much thought towards how many reserves existed. Then again, considering that fifteen of the twenty ponies in each recruit class became reserves by default, and recruits were brought in more than once annually, it made sense that there were so many. Some young, some older, but all had earned the right to call themselves Wonderbolts. Not at as high of an honor or rank as those based in the compound, but they earned it nonetheless. The reach of the Wonderbolts extended all over Equestria through the reserves it seemed, and with these numbers…

No, superior numbers didn’t necessarily mean they would trounce the Shadowbolts. She had no doubt the reserves could handle themselves, but there was a reason they were reserves, they didn’t quite match up to the rest. And the Shadowbolts commanders could create an army of clones of themselves. They had mostly refrained since the elite Wonderbolts had been taught how to quickly dispatch the clones with a well-placed blow to the forehead between the eyes, but it would be reckless to assume the reserves would be as adept as the elites in this regard.

The numbers at least gave them an edge over how they had been approaching it all thus far, and the greater numbers would no doubt provide a confidence boost. They needed every bit of morale they could muster to address everything going on.

But what was going on in front of Dash gave her more confidence that this was her chance to make the move and talk to her friends. Spitfire was going to be busy for a while with this, and would have to enlist many of the elites to help spread the plan and drill it into their heads that Luna was not to be trusted during the operation. Perfect, she had a window.

Now where the hell was Squall?! He seriously wasn’t curious at—

Dash blinked as she glanced towards Matteo again.

Speak of the devil. As she was looking over the reserves and thinking about them… Squall had appeared beside Matteo.

Without a moment to loose, Dash stole a brief glance towards the line of reserves. All the top tiers present were occupied, most importantly, Spitfire was dead focused on them.

With her chance secured, Dash lifted a wing and waved it while staring towards Squall and Matteo. She knew Squall wasn’t going to notice, but nothing got past Matteo’s eyes.

In less than a second his head turned towards her. As soon as Dash locked her eyes with his from across the lobby, she pointed at Squall and then made a subtle head motion to her left, hoping he understood that meant ‘get over here’.

Matteo seemed to catch on, quickly nudging Squall. Squall flinched and glared at him, but looked towards Dash when Matteo pointed.

With both of them looking, Dash repeated the head motion. They both nodded and started moving across the lobby. Neither of them knew what Dash’s intentions were, so the movement looked completely natural.

“Guys,” Dash quickly glanced at the rest. “I don’t know if any of you have plans right now, but…” she said quietly as she looked at them all carefully, easily catching their attention. “I need to talk to all of you, in private. And yes, this is important. More important than anything else going on right now.”

“What could be so important?” Matteo suddenly asked as he and Squall reached them. Dash glanced over her shoulder and looked back and forth at him and Squall. She made one last peek towards Spitfire before hardening her gaze into one that rivaled Matteo’s natural look.

“I can’t tell you here. All of you, come with me,” Dash said and started walking past them into the hall before any could ask or protest. None of them moved for a moment. Dash stopped and looked back at them. “Well, come on.” She exhaled through her nose and kept walking.

Curiosity gripped all of them, which was exactly what Dash wanted. She couldn’t say a thing with other Wonderbolts so close by, so she planted some confusion with a promise to elaborate if they cooperated.

And as she thought, they all started to follow. Now she just had to quickly cycle through her options on where to speak to them. She couldn’t leave the hotel with a large group following without drawing attention. The only place she felt comfortable taking them was back to her room, despite it being so close to the elites. But this was a five star, luxury resort hotel. The rooms were well insulated well enough from noise, so it was unlikely anypony would hear them unless they were within a few yards and actively trying to hear what was going on. And with the Wonderbolts distracted, the hallways were likely to be empty anyway.

“Dash…” Storm suddenly whispered as he moved up right beside her.

“Hm?” Dash hummed, but didn’t look at him.

“Is this about Spitfire’s plan?” he asked. Dash’s ears twitched, but she didn’t react. She kept up her demeanor.

“And if it is?” she asked in a slightly sharp tone. Storm blinked at her tone, but pointed at Bulk.

“Spitfire didn’t give us authorization to tell him.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Dash answered without any hesitation.

Storm stopped dead in his tracks, speechless with his mouth hanging slightly agape. But Dash didn’t even look back at him. She just kept walking and the rest kept walking too. The only one that looked at him as they passed was Derpy.

Storm shook his head out and swallowed before following, not sure what else to do. Dash had an ear turned to make sure she heard the sound of his hooves moving again, and once she heard it, she just kept moving, nearing the stairs to make their way up.

“What’s that stench?” Squall suddenly asked as they made the turn towards the stairs. Dash blinked and immediately scrunched her face to stifle a snort. “Seriously, am I the only one that smells that?” he asks as he sniffed the air. “It smells like sweat.”

“Hrmmmmm…” Little Star quietly groaned right behind Dash as the group started up the stairs.

Once in her room, and four or five checks up and down the hall later… Dash had them all gathered together.

And… she told them everything.

It was the scenario with Twilight all over again, but she spoke with much more confidence, assuming that she didn’t have to convince any of them her intentions weren't misguided. They all knew her, and despite the many looks she received as she explained, she could tell they were all giving it deep thought.

Obviously Thunderlane, Bulk, and Derpy all looked incredibly confused, but that was to be expected. All three of them had been safe in Ponyville as all of this happened, but they were different from Twilight. None of them had a deep connection to the goddesses, they just knew and respected them like the good little ponies they had always been taught to be around them. But Dash wasn’t worried about them, they all trusted her, and they all had gone through part of the Wonderbolt experience with her, even if it was just the tryouts for Derpy and Bulk.

As for the rest, they had experienced everything, they all saw everything that caused Dash to make this decision. So overall, this felt so much easier than it did with Twilight. She felt like she didn’t have to do any convincing, they were already aware of everything she was talking about, everything she was using for her reasoning, even with regards to Spitfire and her disagreement with her plan.

And that made it go smoother as well, she was relaxed throughout all of it, didn’t hesitate or think about a single word. She was locked in now, everything was being set into motion.

“And…” Dash gave a firm nod. “That’s where I currently stand.” She hardened her eyes into a sharp glare, aimed specifically at her squadmates and Storm. “And if any one of you tries to tell me that you don’t understand where I’m coming from, then you’re full of shit. I know you’re just as tired of this as I am and feel like nopony has control of this situation. I don’t care how hard Spitfire is trying, she has no idea what to do. At this point she is only hell-bent at undercutting Luna, beyond that she is flying blind. The reason I went to Twilight and told her everything is because I DO have a possible solution, but I knew Spitfire wouldn’t approve. So now we have this plan… and if it’s to work we need your cooperation.” She finished with a loud blast of breath through her nostrils, making them flare as she locked eyes with each one of them for a couple of seconds. “So? Are you all with me?” she asked, expecting to get a quick and definitive response.

But she may have been a bit hasty, not because they might say no, because they looked a bit… shocked. And it likely had to do with Dash’s demeanor. She was being much firmer and stern than she had ever been before, more or less trying to emulate the way Silver always took control of situations, but none of them had experienced yet. So she gave them a moment to soak it all in.

“She is right,” Matteo broke the silence, causing a subtle grin to crawl onto Dash’s face as the rest looked towards him. She had no doubt he’d be the first to follow her lead, but she also appreciated him speaking up. It would help set them on the right course. “I am not one to question higher authority, but it is as she says,” Matteo said stoically while nodding. “I have been watching the situation closely, and I find it harder to agree with both the gods and Captain Spitfire. Princess Luna is constantly trying to force us in line with her desires, and the Captain seems to be giving orders based on Luna’s actions instead of trying to grasp every bit of the situation.” He folded his crest feathers back and gave a firm nod. “I am following Dash, this has gone on long enough.”

Star and Squall didn’t say anything, but they were looking at Matteo in a manner that implied deep thought, not hesitance. If both Dash and Matteo gave similar observations, any doubts that may have been forming in their minds were suddenly becoming clearer. Thunderlane, Derpy, and Bulk… Dash wasn’t expecting them to fully understand everything from the get go, she wanted them to just soak it in for now.

“Is… this a good idea?”

Dash flinched. Her eyes widening for only a moment before her serious expression forced its way back into place. She slowly turned her head towards the source of the voice as everypony else did the same.

Her eyes locked on Storm leaning against one of the beds as he wore a conflicted look.

“If you do this, it will be defying direct orders!” he continued, adding strength to his voice as he stepped forward, moving a little closer to Dash. “Forget about whether it works or not for a moment, what will happen to us after that? Captain Spitfire is going to be furious!”

Dash suddenly felt a lump in her throat and tried her best to swallow it as she held firm and kept a glare trained on Storm.

She… didn’t expect this.

She had not thought for a moment that she would get any resistance from any of them. After Twilight, she assumed those she was closer to within the Wonderbolts, who had actually been through all of the cacophony with her wouldn’t hesitate to agree.

Was she wrong to believe they’d all simply fall in line? Or was Storm a case she had not thoroughly evaluated? His situation was slightly different than the rest of them, being a member of the elites and all. While some minor internal panic began to rush within her, she kept her cool. She still had control of the situation. She may have just made a drastic slip-up, but if she did… then she just had to fix it.

But to her surprise… somepony else spoke up first.

“Are you not tired of what’s happening around you?” Matteo addressed Storm. Causing Dash to hold off and step back to let him speak.

Storm furrowed his brow and tipped his head.

“Well, yeah, but how does that justify us ignoring orders? Don’t the Wonderbolts exist to handle messed up situations like this? That’s our designation!” he argued. Squall and Star continued to remain quiet, now focused on Matteo and Storm as they began exchanging opinions. Dash kept a close eye on them. It was good that Matteo was defending her, but on the off chance they felt Storm had a point, she had to be ready.

“So you’re going to walk blindly behind the leader even when you believe something isn’t right?” Matteo questioned him.

“How do we know what Spitfire wants is wrong?” Storm threw a hoof out.

That was Dash’s cue. She was curious if Matteo could handle it for her, but once Storm questioned her views on Spitfire’s actions, she couldn’t stay quiet.

“Spitfire has no clue what’s going on,” Dash stated as she stepped towards them.

“And YOU do?” Storm quickly fired back at her. His tone was hard to read. While he was pushing back, he didn’t sound like he was trying to assert himself. It was as if he was trying to convince, not refute.

“I never claimed I did,” Dash said with an angered snort. “But Spitfire is just pulling ideas out of her ass. It’s gotten to a point where we’re keeping secrets from allies and constantly surrounded by a tense, nervous environment with no idea how it’s going to turn out. Not to mention her ‘master plan’ for Sombra after we finish clenching our plots through this shitshow equates to nothing more than ‘let’s see what happens.’ Do you want to dive headlong into the unknown again after we just got done doing that for so long?!”

Storm stayed quiet, but his expression did not change, he still had a look of concerned defiance.

Good, because Dash wasn’t done with him.

“What I’m proposing is something that has a definitive goal in mind, using logic from past experiences that is being rejected by Luna, and using methods that Spitfire is going to be anal about us even suggesting. There’s a reason I’m looking to defy orders here, because I KNOW this has a chance of working. That’s a hell of a lot better than not having a damn clue what will happen and hoping for the best.”

Dash kept her eyes glued on Storm, looking right through him as he gritted his teeth and averted his eyes. Dash did not assume victory, she kept her eyes on him and kept glaring hard. Storm had expressed dissent against her plan and she was not going to risk only half convincing him. She had come too far in this effort to have him ruin it.

“Storm…”

Dash and Storm both turned their heads as Little Star suddenly spoke up.

“You gotta admit it… she has a point,” she said as she approached, joining Dash and Matteo in facing Storm. “I get where you’re coming from, but after all we’ve been through?” She shook her head. “I’m following Dash. She has always come through for us as our squad captain, so if she thinks this is the best course, I’m on board.”

Dash couldn’t suppress another grin as Star vouched for her. Storm’s resolve looked weakened. He had taken a step backwards and the strength in his eyes had halved.

“Well?” Star spoke again as she looked over her shoulder at Squall sitting silently by himself. He lifted an eyebrow.

“Well what?” he asked in a flat tone. Star pouted at him.

“Oh, stop that. You know what I mean. Are you with us?” she asked as if speaking the very words Dash was thinking. Squall scoffed and flipped his head, again forgetting that his crystal form did not allow his mane to flip and flow.

“What are you even asking for?” he asked with a slightly annoyed tone as he made a subtle head motion towards Dash. “I’ve stuck with you guys this far, why wouldn’t I now?” he stated as if they never had to doubt he was with them.

“Good!” Star smiled and clapped her hooves together once.

“No, no, NO! Stop!” Storm suddenly blurted out, drawing all attention to him again. He turned around and shook his head out, swallowing as he took a few breaths. “Just… THINK about this for a moment, will you?!” he said loudly as he turned back around, his teeth grinding together as his opened wide. He looked frantic. “If we’re going to go through with this we can't do it behind Spitfire’s back!”

“Storm…” Dash scrunched her face, bared her teeth and began to growl quietly.

“I’m serious!” Storm continued as his eyes darted between all of them. “This plan of yours will only complicate things further! Isn’t it all bad enough already?!”

“So you’d rather stick with something complicated that has no destination in mind…” Dash growled louder as she stepped right up to him, their noses nearly touching as they stood eye to eye. “Than push it a little farther with a chance to solve it all?!”

“You THINK it will!” Storm didn’t back down despite Dash holding much more strength all over. “But you don’t KNOW if it will! You’re masquerading here like you know better than the damn LEAD CAPTAIN of the Wonderbolts!”

Everypony flinched as Dash suddenly thrust a hoof forward, pressing a hoof into Storm’s chest and pushing him backwards. His weak, leaning posture made it easy for her to get him off balance. His hooves slipped and skidded until she slammed him against the wall. Nopony else moved, even Matteo’s eyes widened a little as she made the move. Derpy gasped, but Thunderlane instinctively grabbed her shoulder to hold her back.

“NOW YOU LISTEN TO ME!” she yelled into his face. Storm’s eyes opened wide as she glared at him and forced him a little further down the wall so she was standing over him. Dash opened her mouth to yell again, but then remembered to be wary of where they were. She gathered herself and lowered her tone, but didn’t intend to lower her pressure on him. “Spitfire not only has no idea what she’s dealing with, but while she’s shutting out Luna and other authority figures, she’s also shutting out those who might actually help us!”

Respect of rank be damned. Dash didn’t care if Storm was technically elite Wonderbolt. And while the fact that they were in the same cadet class made her a little bolder, she probably wouldn’t have approached this any differently if it were Fire Streak or Fleetfoot, or whoever.

“Spitfire has become paranoid to the point that anypony who has any sort of relationship with Luna is guilty by association. This includes my oldest friends from back home, whom I know are not just blind followers! I’ve already let Twilight in on this, she has seen Luna’s odd behavior for herself. I’ve told her about Spitfire’s lack of trust, and she agrees with me that we need to take this matter into our own hooves. She’s meeting with my old friends the same way I’m meeting with you all now! They can help us in ways the gods can’t, but Spitfire doesn’t trust them!” Dash kept her voice down the whole time, but emphasized nearly every word.

Storm, however, did not cave. He forced himself back up and grabbed her arm that she held against him.

“Then why not go to Spitfire and tell her that?! What do we have to lose there?” he asked, doing his best to counter Dash’s verbal strength.

“Storm…” Dash held steady despite him pushing against her. “My LIFE is on the line here, and from my observations of her, if we tell Spitfire about this, there’s a good chance she’ll flip shit and completely bar us from action. It could ruin our chance to even try this plan.”

“Why risk it?!” Storm continued to fight back. “Why not take the chance with her?! If this plan has a better chance of saving Soarin as you say, what makes you think she won’t be interested?!”

“I’m risking it because I need to, Storm,” Dash lowered her tone, but kept her glare hardened as she spoke calmly. Storm was caught off guard by her shift in tone as her pressure against him lightened as well. “There is no way to play this safe without it potentially crashing down over our heads. I’ve made the choice to defy our orders because I DON’T AGREE with them and I think they’re WRONG. It is our duty, as Wonderbolts to follow orders, but it’s also our duty to recognize when our orders are misguided or unjustifiable… and to take action if need be.” She slowly removed her hoof from his chest, but didn’t step back. “Until this is all over, I’m done following hesitant, careful orders that get in the way of us actually solving this mess of problems. I don’t care if Spitfire kicks me out of the damn Wonderbolts for it, if I simply follow her lead into a dead end, it will mean absolutely nothing. I have to do this for my sake, and for Soarin. He means more to me than any rank or status as a Wonderbolt ever could.” She paused and pointed at Storm. “Now… are you with me? Or are you not?”

Storm just stared, not sure how to reply. Dash wasn’t sure how to take his silence, but if anything he was thinking about what she just said.

“Heh,” a quiet chuckle suddenly came from behind them. Both of them glanced to see Thunderlane smiling. “Well, you can definitely count me in,” he said as he moved forward, passing by Matteo, Star, and Squall as everypony locked eyes on him. Storm’s expression completely changed. The glare he was holding towards Dash was replaced with a bewildered look trained on Thunderlane.

“I don’t have a full understanding of everything going on… I feel like I’ve been thrown into some weird sci-fi action movie,” Thunderlane joked with a shrug. “But…” He smiled at Dash. “I’ve known Dash for a long time. She can be a bit brash, and she kicks my ass a lot for no reason, but if there’s one thing that’s always been true about her, it’s that she never flies blind.” He turned his eyes to Storm and the two stared at one another for a few seconds. “Look, Storm… I get what you’re worried about. Of all of us here, you’re the lucky one. You got elevated from cadet straight into the elite ranks of an organization most pegasi can only dream of being a part of. You have a lot of pressure on your shoulders, and you’re not taking your opportunity for granted.” Thunderlane touched a hoof to his chest. “By comparison… I’ve barely touched a fraction of what you’ve achieved. I almost made it to where the rest stand,” he motioned to Dash and her squad. “But I fell one step too short. I’m a Wonderbolt, but I’m a reserve. I sit back and watch over my comfy little hometown and only get involved with the rest of you on the off chance I get called upon.”

Thunderlane took a deep breath, looking down for a moment.

“But…” he slowly tipped his head back up, looking Storm in the eye again. “I’m still a Wonderbolt. And Wonderbolts are trained to take action in extreme circumstances, right? You just said that yourself. I’m not afraid of being punished if I do what I’ve been given the right to do. I also trust the ponies Dash is talking about just as much as she does. I think it’s wrong that the captain wants them locked out when they have had no hoof in the way things have gone for you all thus far.” Thunderlane nodded decisively. “So I’m following Dash. And if you trust her, and I know you do… you should do the same.”

“YEEEEE—” Bulk began to yell in agreement with Thunderlane, but instantly stopped as Dash shot him a glare. He remained frozen in place, mouth open and flexing his muscles as he glanced back and forth. “—eeeeaaaah!” he finished much quieter. “I ain’t no reserve, but you can count me in!” he agreed as he trotted up to Thunderlane and smacked him on the back so hard he grunted and fell flat to the floor.

“Ow… thanks…” Thunderlane gasped as he pushed himself back up and teetered a little.

Storm averted his eyes from everypony, eventually looking down and thoroughly examined the floor as his gritted teeth parted and he blinked several times.

“Storm…”

Storm flinched hard as a quiet, innocent voice met his ears. He glanced up, nearly gasping as Derpy moved towards him, Dash moving aside to let her pass. Her ears were drooping down, her crooked eyes were wide and she looked up at Storm as if silently pleading for him to listen.

“Please… help Rainbow Dash,” she asked him quietly as Storm remained stuck in place, his eyes wide and pupils shaking slightly as Derpy softly confronted him. “I have no idea what’s going on, but I know that she’s in danger and needs you…” she gently placed a hoof on his chest. “Please help her?”

Storm’s mouth hung slightly agape as he stared into Derpy’s eyes. He frantically looked up and saw everypony else staring at him. He looked cornered and put on the spot. Derpy’s words had a clear effect on him, but to what extent?

“I…” he shut his eyes and began to shake. “I…” he suddenly exhaled loudly and sat down, his head and neck drooping. “Fine… I’ll… I’ll help…” he clearly forced the words out, and Dash immediately took notice. Everypony else seemed to react positively, but Dash… she wasn’t so sure. “I don’t like this at all, in fact I HATE this, this is wrong, but… fine…” Storm growled to himself. “I’ll help… Just…” he trailed off.

“Just what?” Dash snapped at him, catching the rest by surprise as she stepped up beside Derpy. Derpy flinched and shied away from Dash as she came forward. She and Storm once again stared eye to eye, both of them holding strong looks that clashed.

“Nothing…” Storm looked away with a huff. “I’ll help.”

The room was suddenly filled with silence. As she stepped back, Dash’s skepticism seemed to spread to the others a little. While they did not project it quite as hard as she was, Storm’s agreement did not seem completely committed, nor genuine.

Dash herself wasn’t sure what to think. Storm had just ‘agreed’, but to what end? What else was on his mind? She had never considered meeting resistance from within those she thought she could trust. She was one hundred percent sure they would all be on her side without question. But it appeared that there were some factors she had not considered with Storm. Most notably, his rank as an elite. He had spent more time among the higher ranked Wonderbolts and undoubtedly had formed a bit of a connection with them just like Dash had built one with her squad. Not to mention Thunderlane was spot on, he had been given the opportunity of a lifetime and didn’t want to screw it up, regardless of the situation, he had that pressure on his back as well.

But it went deeper than that. Dash found herself considering factors that she probably should have thought about long before bringing him along. Thinking about it now… this plan of hers happened to go against the plan that HIS FATHER was on board with. Sometimes she completely forgot that his long lost daddy was in their extended ranks and expecting Storm to move against him without question was a stretch.

She refused to show it, but a few worries began to bubble up in Dash’s stomach. While Derpy had lent an unexpected hoof in getting Storm to agree, just how much weight did her request hold for him? Would Storm really do it just because she asked? It didn’t seem like the sturdiest foundation to rely on. But say he was on board… he clearly didn’t want to be. So what if he went walking around now looking conflicted? She wasn’t worried about Spitfire noticing with all the Wonderbolts she had to watch over… but Descent? A father has a knack for noticing when his son looks put off. Then what?”

“GOOD PLAN! HOPE IT WORKS!”

Dash’s eyes went so wide it was a wonder they didn’t pop right out of her head. Gasps and yelps of surprise rang out from around all of them as the familiar voice met their ears. Dash spun around along with everypony else.

Twister was lying upside down on the bed behind all of them. Dash’s voice nearly leapt out of her mouth.

“WHAT THE F—”

“OH SHIT!” Twister rapidly turned upright and gripped the bedsheet so hard that it completely untucked from the bed and spun until he had rolled himself into a ball within the sheet. “I GOTTA USE THE BATHROOM, CLASS DISMISSED!” he yelled and immediately catapulted himself backward, taking the whole bedsheet with him as he crashed through the window, shattering it to pieces.

But as Dash rushed forward to look out the broken pane, all the shards suddenly all shot back into place, reconstructing the window and sealing solid as if it were never touched.

Dash just stood still, staring at the rebuilt window with a mixed look of shock and disturbed on her face. Nopony else said anything, nor moved either for at least half a minute.

“At least he didn’t stay,” Squall finally broke the silence.

“I… SWEAR…” Dash growled as she bumped her head against the window, air hissing loudly from her nostrils as she gritted her teeth. “I have had it up to HERE with that insane asylum reject!” Dash grumbled as she lifted a hoof above her head.

Everypony blinked and stared towards Dash as she slowly began turning away from the window.

“If he keeps pulling this crap with me, I’m going to bury my hoof so far into that little shit-faced grin he always wears that he’ll be seeing out of his own ass!” she finished as she turned around… and met all the blank stared of the others. Dash paused and lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

Everypony glanced between one another, but Star broke the silence with a giggle.

“Just how much time have you been spending around Silver anyway?” she asked as she continued to giggle. Dash blinked, her eyes widening slightly. “Seriously, I could totally hear all of that in his voice.”

“Uh… eheh…” Dash could barely contain it as several more of them cracked grins as well, even Matteo. She was trying to be serious about this situation, but it was hard not to be thrilled about being compared to her mentor. She had to suppress the welling feeling of giddiness in her stomach and regain her composure. She cleared her throat and shrugged, taking control, but unable to get rid of the smile. “Well, I bet Squall agrees.”

“I do,” Squall almost replied before she finished.

“As do I,” Matteo added before Dash could speak again. She flattened her brow and rolled her eyes.

“I was being sarcastic,” she said with an amused snort.

“About what you said, or about us?” Matteo asked, tipping his head slightly.

“About you,” Dash pointed.

“Now I’m just confused…” Squall furrowed his brow. Dash waved a hoof towards them.

“Okay, okay, enough…” she said with a slight chuckle, more or less ignoring the sudden appearance of Twister in favor of getting back on track. “You all know what the current plan is, and we’ll iron it out once I hear more details from Spitfire. When the time is right, Twilight and I will gather up both groups so we can share what we know and figure out exactly what to do,” she gave them all a firm nod. “Now we better get back out there and act casual so we don’t attract any suspicion. Keep a low profile for now and keep your ears in the air for anything new. Got it?”

Everypony nodded back… except for Storm. Dash’s eyelids twitched as they instinctively began to narrow.

“GOT IT, STORM?” she repeated with a harsher tone. Storm averted his eyes for a moment and exhaled through his nose. After a few seconds he looked back at Dash and nodded. “Good. Now let’s get out of here.” Dash motioned.

They began moving without another word, but Star quickly shifted and turned towards the bathroom instead.

“I’m showering first!” she yelled as she turned, pointed, and glared at Dash.

“Good because you smell bad,” Squall added nonchalantly.

“HNNNNRGGGGG!!!” Star growled and pouted at Squall. “Bleh!” she stuck her tongue out at him before slamming the door shut, earning a few select giggles from some of the others.

But as they began shuffling out, Dash locked her eyes on the back of Storm’s head. She couldn’t help but feel she had made a major mistake by including him. Her success with Twilight had gone to her head and she didn’t foresee any of the others she wanted to involve resisting. She wasn’t entirely convinced that she managed to sway his clear dissent and now she was worried that she had unwittingly added a snag to her own plan. She had to keep tabs on him, but how? She had plenty of other things that required her attention regarding their way forward, she couldn’t afford to split her focus.

She suddenly felt a nudge to her side as they left the hotel room and began walking down the hall. She glanced to her left… and up at Matteo as he suddenly grabbed her shoulder and stopped her in place, allowing the rest to walk a little further before he bent down toward her ear.

“I’ll try to keep an eye on him. You worry about everything else,” he suggested. Dash was surprised, but only for a moment. Matteo was as perceptive as ever.

“Thanks big guy,” she replied quietly with a nod as they continued on. She was glad she could rely on him without even saying a word.

They had to make this work, they were already too far down the path to turn back. She wasn’t going to let Storm’s misgivings get in the way.

The group dispersed as they made their way out, going separate ways, some leaving the hotel, some going back to their rooms. Dash, with her mind still on her own goals, found herself wandering back towards the lobby. She slowed her pace as she neared the end of the hallway, the sound of Spitfire’s voice met her ears, but… she was saying the exact same words she was saying when they left.

Dash hugged the right wall and stopped less than a yard from the end of the hall. She leaned forward and peeked around. Spitfire was, as she heard, still addressing reserves. Dash didn’t know how long she had been with her friends just now, but it wasn’t just a few minutes. Spitfire looked like she was trying her best to hold a firm expression as her monotonous, repeating orders for every single reserve in line seemed to weigh on her. ‘Name, hometown, report to hotel down the road.’ Over and over and over. Though it looked like Fire had stepped in to help split the identification duty as the other present top tiers handled leading them back out the door and in the right direction.

Despite the fact that it was still going on, it looked like they were almost done. The end of the line was now in the lobby, with only a few late arrivals showing up and joining the line as the task neared its end.

Seeing no reason to hide, and to avoid looking suspicious, Dash detached from the wall and casually walked out. Fleetfoot and Surprise looked towards her for a moment as she made her way over to one of the couches and sat down, but they quickly went back to work assisting the reserves. Spitfire didn’t even glance, she was too busy.

The couch Dash sat on was not entirely facing the activity, but it was turned far enough that she could glance and act like she was just observing the reserves. In reality, she was keeping an ear up for anything said once the last few in the reserve line had made it through.

By the time she sat down there were only about fifteen reserves left in line. They split between Fire Streak and Spitfire, Dash waiting patiently as the two repeated what had been said to the rest. Then finally… the last reserve turned away from them and was directed back out by Lightning Streak.

Spitfire took a deep breath, that was likely going to end in a sigh, but at the last moment one more reserve burst through the doors, an older stallion who looked to be in his late thirties. He gasped and panted as he hauled a large duffle bag towards Spitfire and saluted.

Spitfire swallowed her breath and quickly threw her serious expression back on.

“Name and—” she suddenly twitched and coughed. “Pardon me. Name and hometown?” she quickly regained herself.

Dash held in a snort as Spitfire nearly choked on her own words, clearly tired of saying the same thing over and over again.

The stallion nodded as Spitfire mentioned the hotel down the road, and he was led out by Surprise.

“I think that’s it,” Fire Streak said as the stallion left and turned to Spitfire. Spitfire exhaled loudly and sat down.

“Unreal, I didn’t know we had that many reserves,” she said as she shook her head out. Fire chuckled.

“Don’t you have a list of them in your office?” he asked as Lightning Streak, Fleetfoot, and Surprise approached. Blaze and High Winds were still not there. At some point Air Mach had left too, Dash couldn’t see him anywhere.

“I do, but I’ve never counted them,” Spitfire said with a shrug as she stood back up. “I mean, I didn’t even know most of their names. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that last guy before.

“Oh, him?” Fire pointed over his shoulder. “He was called in once for a mission when Lightning and I were recruits. His name is…” Fire suddenly trailed off, his eyes widening and blinking. “Brother, what was his name again?”

“Huh?” Lightning tipped his head. “Hell if I know.”

“Never mind then…” Fire said, embarrassed as he turned back to Spitfire.

“Well… they are never around…” Fleetfoot said somewhat awkwardly. “Should we know their names? I feel kind of bad that I don’t.”

“No, enough,” Spitfire shook her head. “Don’t feel bad about it, they are here to fulfill their duty. We should be happy that they showed like we asked. We just have to direct them,” she paused, getting serious as she narrowed her eyes and nodded towards the rest of them. “We need to relay our plans to them.” She turned to Fire. “Get together with the rest of the elite captains and organize an effort to efficiently and discreetly inform the reserves of everything that’s happened up to this point and how we plan to move forward… and BE VERY CLEAR about WHY we are circumventing Luna. I don’t want any of them even thinking about mutiny. Threaten them with discharge if you have to, I won’t have any dissenters.”

Dash flinched as she heard that, recalling Storm’s concerns and now thinking about herself since she heard it right from Spitfire’s mouth.

Discharge, huh… if she went through with her plan and failed… would she be kicked out of the Wonderbolts?

Dash blinked and lightly shook her head out.

No. That wasn’t important. If she didn’t take action there was a good chance she wouldn’t even be ALIVE to BE discharged. This was a risk she had to take.

Dash perked up as the others left, leaving Spitfire and Fleetfoot alone.

“Should I go help them?” Fleetfoot asked. Spitfire was not looking her, but suddenly blinked and looked up.

“Oh, uh…” Spitfire looked towards the lobby doors. “Yeah, go help them,” she said with a weak nod, turning back to Fleetfoot. “I’m going to stick around for a few more minutes in case any others show up.”

“Okay,” Fleetfoot started to turn, but she barely made it ninety degrees before Spitfire suddenly reached out to her.

“Wait! Wait…” she said frantically at first, but calmly second. Fleetfoot flinched in surprise as Spitfire’s hoof came near her, but didn’t touch her. “Sorry,” Spitfire apologized for starling her while shaking her head out. “I’ve been meaning to ask…” she paused as she sat down, still looking down towards Fleetfoot due to their difference in size. “How are you feeling? Your body I mean. Have the crystal dew treatments helped?”

Fleetfoot looked surprised again, but for a very different reason, mostly because of how much Spitfire’s tone changed from moments before. It was much softer, and full of worry. She turned to face Spitfire directly while taking a moment to test the motion of her limbs, moving different part of her body. She tensed and released her chest, rotated her shoulders, opened and closed her wings, and hopped up and down a little. A very faint grimace appeared on her face as she tested every movement she could think of. Spitfire noticed, but didn’t say anything, waiting to hear from Fleetfoot herself.

“Well…” Fleetfoot sighed as she finished and sat down slowly and gently. “I can still feel it… it’s not really painful any more, but everything is a bit tense. Like I did a ton of full body workouts in a row for a whole day.”

“Hm…” Spitfire hummed quietly, nodding as Fleetfoot explained.

“But, overall I feel a hell of a lot better. Those weird crystal dew baths they have here have helped a lot.”

Spitfire perked up.

“Before I started hopping in those, it was much worse…” Fleetfoot blinked as she saw Spitfire’s sudden look of interest. “What?”

“Nothing,” Spitfire shook her head. “Just made me think of something on my mind before.”

Fleetfoot kept staring.

“Nothing secret, just about the baths,” she clarified. “I’m glad they’ve worked wonders for you. Especially since you were in far worse shape than most of…” Spitfire’s eyes grew a little and her ears drooped, her voice trailing off before she could finish the sentence.

“Spitty?” Fleetfoot frowned as she noticed the shift. Spitfire looked down quickly, but before Fleetfoot could say anything else, Spitfire reached towards her and clasped a hoof on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Eventually, she just looked down again.

“Sorry, I just… this is all…”

Fleetfoot’s lips quivered, her ears drooping down as well as she read exactly what Spitfire’s demeanor meant. She quickly scooted forward, reached up, and hugged Spitfire as far as her arms could reach around her large body, planting the side of her head into Spitfire’s chest.

“I miss him too…” Fleetfoot said quietly, her voice muffled against Spitfire. Spitfire wasted no time returning the hug, wrapping an arm around Fleetfoot as she kept the other hoof planted to the ground.

“It’s so hard without him…” Spitfire shook her head. “The three of us… we’ve always been in it together. It’s hard.”

Off to the side, Dash continued to listen… but she had purposely sunk down into the couch to hide her presence.

Soarin… They were talking about Soarin. It was suddenly making her sad too.

“I hope we can get him back…” Fleetfoot said as she continued to squeeze Spitfire the best she could.

“I hope so too…” Spitfire lightly pushed Fleetfoot away so she could look her in the eye. “But… if worst comes to worst… and we can’t save him… please watch yourself,” she pleaded. Rubbing Fleetfoot’s shoulder as they stared at one another with eyes that seemed just a few steps away from tears. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

“I will,” Fleetfoot quickly assured her while touching a hoof to Spitfire’s. “Same goes for you.”

Spitfire smiled weakly, leaning down and giving Fleetfoot another hug.

The two parted and nodded to one another.

“Go on,” Spitfire gave a gentle head motion. “I’ll catch up with you all later.”

Fleetfoot flashed her own weak smile as she slowly turned and walked out. Spitfire sighed heavily, sitting in the middle of the lobby. She, nor Fleetfoot had cared that they were not alone in the lobby, resort employees moving about and several at the reception desk.

Dash suddenly felt trapped in her spot. She didn’t want to get up immediately because she was sure the moment just now was incredibly personal for Spitfire.

But she didn’t feel like moving, because said moment was helping put things into perspective. She had spent so much of her recent time plotting against the word of Luna, and more specifically the orders of Spitfire, it had gotten to the point where she had been somewhat painting Spitfire as an antagonist to those she needed help from.

But this just brought it all back around… reminding her of who Spitfire was… who Fleetfoot was… and how she was acting against those she really did care for.

It hurt… but… she wasn’t doing this because she thought it was going to be easy. She was doing this because she had to. Sympathy for Spitfire wasn’t going to change her view on Twilight, nor change her reaction if Dash were to try and convince her to do things her way.

Instead of hesitating, Dash decided to frame it differently.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot wanted Soarin back… but they didn’t know if anything they could do would work. She did. So… even though she had to work against them, she had to do it for them too.

She groaned quietly as she placed a hoof over her forehead. There was so much at stake here. She had never felt so much pressure before in her life. She felt great about the strides she had made, but… how did Silver do this so… effortlessly? At least it seemed like it was effortless. Did he ever have to make decisions that ran against those he really cared about? Did he ever have to sit and listen to ponies who trusted him while working behind their backs?

Now she was just overthinking it… She couldn’t assume that Silver was simply a badass that just knew how to do everything by default. He probably had several situations like this… where he had to simply go by his gut and make the choices he felt were right.

If he were in her hooves right now… he probably wouldn’t be doubting himself.

Dash glanced towards Spitfire again, and she couldn’t look at her without imagining the sight of her and Fleetfoot embracing while hoping the best for their missing best friend.

Dash slumped back into the couch and narrowed her eyes, staring down at the couch cushion between her legs.

“Just do it…” she whispered very quietly to herself. “Do it for yourself… but do it for them too… do it for everypony…” she kept going, coaching herself. That was the best way she could look at it.

While she was working behind the backs of other ponies… she wasn’t doing it for selfish reasons.

She could do this.

“Captain Spitfire?” A voice suddenly caught Dash’s ears. She perked up and glanced over again. Spitfire was sitting upright, all traces of worry and weakness in her body language and expression gone in an instant as… Princess Cadence walked in?

The resort staff all stopped what they were doing and bowed as she walked in and moved towards Spitfire.

“I see the reserves have arrived,” she said as she approached, but there was a clear lack of… brightness in her voice. She wasn’t smiling either. Keeping her gaze firm, Spitfire nodded.

“Yes, we just finished sorting through all of them,” she answered politely, but quickly shifted focus. “Is there something wrong?” she addressed Cadence’s lack of gusto.

“Well…” Cadence stopped in front of her and sighed while looking down. “We have a bit of a problem.”

Spitfire’s ears stood up, her eyes widening a little. She was afraid to ask what immediately came to mind, but forced it out anyway.

“Is it about Sombra?” She paused and swallowed. “Or… the afflicted?” she asked, holding her breath. Cadence looked her right in the eyes for a few moments.

“The afflicted.”

Spitfire visibly flinched, but otherwise held her demeanor. Dash’s ears stood up as she heard as well, and even though she was sitting a little ways away she could see the cracks in Spitfire’s armor, subtle signs of emotion poking through as she tried to keep her professional air about her.

“Come with me,” Cadence said nothing more as she turned and started walking towards the lobby doors. Without hesitation, Spitfire followed close behind.

Dash just stared for a few seconds as the two of them made their way through the doors and out into the street. And after a few moments of thought… she rocked forward, sliding off the couch and planting her hooves on the floor. Part of her was telling her it wasn’t a good idea to follow… but the other part said it would help her cause. She had to be a part of what was going on, and it wouldn’t look suspicious to Spitfire if she showed a willingness to be involved in everything happening. If she asked, she just happened to overhear them.

She wanted to be around as much as possible to absorb everything, the more she knew about the situation as a whole, the more she could plan her own moves.

And admittedly… she wanted to know what was going on with the afflicted Shadowbolts and… Wave Chill.

To appear casual and inconspicuous, Dash kept just enough distance behind Spitfire and Cadence to ensure they didn’t know she was following them. She knew what their destination was, so even though she lost sight of them once or twice she was able to stay on the right path. Her plan was to enter the room about ten to twenty seconds after they did to give the likely appearance that she noticed them going towards the castle and curiosity motivated her.

She kept this up as they entered the castle, pausing around corners to make sure she didn’t get too close. She drew a few looks from guards, but never paused long enough to give off the air of sneaking. Eventually she neared the door leading to where they were keeping Wave and the rest of the afflicted, waiting to hear the door open and close before she turned the corner and approached the door herself.

The guards posted outside the door didn’t even blink as she approached, and made no indication or effort to block her from entry, so she let herself right in, quietly opening the door and slipping in.

She immediately took in the sights, a tightness gripping her chest. It didn’t matter how many times she saw them. Even though Moon’s efforts had bought them some time and comfort, those suffering from the crystals spreading over their bodies were always such a hard thing to look at. The room was a bit different than when she last saw it. New tables were everywhere, and they were stacked with books and notes. Crystal Empire scholars and clerics were everywhere, wearing green and white robes respectively. There was a lot of communication going on, the scholars speaking directly to the clerics as their magic worked on the afflicted. It appeared they were simply casting magic to help soothe the pain for the time being, because nothing they were doing was affecting the crystal growths.

Dash flinched as the door closed behind her with an audible thump, but quickly steeled herself as Spitfire glanced over her shoulder and spotted her. They made eye contact… and stared at one another for a moment, but Spitfire made no objections and seemed to buy what Dash was hoping to sell, that she simply followed out of curiosity. To stay inconspicuous, Dash made her way forward, moving up beside Spitfire as if everything was normal.

She had to keep it that way. Spitfire was as perceptive as a hawk. If Dash showed any imbalance in expression or body language, she’d notice.

As she took her place and stayed quiet, she noticed a few others in the room. Luna was there… as well as Twilight. Twilight looked up briefly when she saw her, but true to their plan, did not have any visible reaction. She went right back to speaking to Luna and now Cadence as Dash and Spitfire waited patiently. Dash stole a glance at Spitfire and noticed that she was looking exclusively at Wave laying in a bed near them, but both of them quickly refocused as Twilight, Cadence, and Luna approached them.

Dash held her breath… and was sure Spitfire was doing the same, albeit not noticeably. None of the three alicorns had a very reassuring look on their face.

“We’ve…” Cadence began, pausing and look down. “We’ve hit a bit of a dead end.”

Dash thought she could almost hear something inside Spitfire snap. The tightness in her chest grew stronger, but her thoughts had instantly turned to Spitfire the moment Cadence revealed the news. Dash stole a glance. Spitfire’s ears were standing straight up, her eyes had opened a little wider and her mouth was slightly agape. Her pupils were jittering as if she was hit so hard by the words that she didn’t know how to properly react.

But barely three seconds passed before Spitfire suddenly hardened her gaze and locked her eyes on Cadence.

“Elaborate,” Spitfire stated in a very strong tone, sounding ready to jump on any sign of something off due to a certain goddess standing behind Cadence being involved. Cadence sighed.

“We have no means within our current possession to reverse what has been done to them,” she explained further.

A certain few words stuck out to Dash, and she had no doubt Spitfire had zeroed in on the exact same words. Twilight came forward as before anything else could be said.

“We’ve read every spell book and scripture from the palace archives twice over, front to back and back to front. There is no place in Equestria that has a more complete information database on crystals and their magical properties than what we have here. And we were unable to find a cure for their current—”

Dash flinched as Spitfire suddenly rushed forward and reached towards Twilight. Twilight yelped as Spitfire poked a hoof to her chest hard enough to force her a step back.

“You said ‘currently in your possession’!” she yelled into Twilight’s face. “What does that mean?!” she pressed. Twilight was unable to speak, caught off guard by Spitfire’s advance. Dash wanted to move in, but didn’t want to blow her cover. When Twilight didn’t answer, Spitfire shifted her attention to Cadence. “Explain! NOW!” she yelled as she removed her hoof from Twilight and was about to press it to Cadence, but she stopped Spitfire’s arm in place with her magic.

“Captain Spitfire, please!” she spoke up loudly, but kept a tone of sympathy. “We wanted to be upfront and honest with you FIRST. We have concluded that we have no means to save them here and now, but we do have some… theories on what can be done. We simply don’t possess the means to act on them.”

“SO WHAT ARE THEY ALREADY?!” Spitfire barked, forcing her arm forward against Cadence’s magic. She grunted in surprise as Spitfire’s strength pushed her magic back towards her.

A magic aura suddenly shown forth from Luna’s horn. Two magical barriers appeared between Cadence and Spitfire, pushing them both apart. She stepped forward as the barriers vanished while staring towards Spitfire. Spitfire growled and pointed a hoof sharply towards Luna.

“I don’t like that look you’re giving me PRINCESS…” she said as she began to grit her teeth hard. “SPILL WHAT YOU KNOW! And you better not be hiding anything, because even for YOU that would be LOW!”

Luna looked completely taken aback, her eyes widening but angling into a glare.

“How dare thou accuse us of such a thing!” she snapped back at Spitfire, but Spitfire didn’t back off.

“It’s your own damn fault that ‘I dare!’” Spitfire growled as she turned her eyes to Twilight and Cadence. “What did she say to you, huh?” she asked them while waving a hoof in Luna’s direction. “What sort of bullshit has she been feeding you?” she slammed a hoof to the floor and redirected her glare back to Luna. “Has it been as good as the crap she’s been feeding us?!”

Dash kept her lips shut tight. She wasn’t expecting a confrontation. But then she made very brief eye contact with Twilight again. If Twilight had any reserves about what Dash had told her about Spitfire, it was being laid bare for her right now.

“That’s enough!” Cadence interjected while moving in front of Spitfire to block her view of Luna. “Luna did NOT head the research into the affliction. Twilight did!”

Spitfire focused on Cadence for a moment, her eyes filled with a seething anger that she struggled to hold back. She slowly looked towards Twilight, just barely keeping herself under control.

“Please,” Twilight began softly while approaching, her body posture relaxed and her ears folded back as if trying to appear as non-threatening as possible, likely to try and diffuse the growing tension of the moment. “Let me explain.”

“I’m LISTENING.” Spitfire said in a very harsh tone. Twilight swallowed, clearly intimidated by Spitfire, but going on regardless. She cleared her throat, standing upright again as she prepared to speak.

“As Cadence said, we don’t have the means within our power to undo their affliction, but we know of two forces that might be able to do the job,” she explained.

“Go on…” Spitfire verbally nudged as Twilight paused, eager to pry it all out.

“They are, unfortunately, two forces that nopony here currently possesses, nor can use. The first is… well… chaos magic.”

Dash perked up, something was coming back to her as she thought about that, but she couldn’t quite remember. Spitfire seemed to have the same reaction, her head tipped to the side and her eyes narrowed. It wasn’t a threatening expression, it was a doubtful one… because she was certain this was something they had already heard.

“The crystals themselves were caused by heavy exposure to some sort of chaos magic,” Twilight continued, not noticing the looks being given by Dash and Spitfire. She also couldn’t see Luna looking away behind her. “Chaos magic has wild and unpredictable properties that make it invulnerable to other magic and in general breaks the natural laws of existence that the rest of the world and mystic driven forces are built on. One of the only things that can break chaos magic… is chaos magic itself. So if we were to find Disc—”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option.”

The new voice in the room startled everypony, causing them all to flinch and look around to locate the source. Eventually all eyes turned to a nearby wall that was completely bare less than an instant prior.

Discord was leaning his back against the wall, arms crossed, and holding a neutral expression that was impossible to read.

“You’re wasting your breath, Twilight. I have already had this discussion with them.” He continued as he gently pushed off the wall and started walking towards them.

“YOU!” Spitfire yelled angrily as she turned towards him and pointed. “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU—”

Discord waved a hand nonchalantly and a purple band of magic that resembled a rope wrapped itself around Spitfire’s mouth, forcing it shut and tying itself off in a neat bow.

“Busy,” Discord answered her without looking as he kept moving towards Twilight. Spitfire grunted and yanked on the binding rope, but it didn’t budge. She exhaled heavily through her nose and gave in, content to just glare at him until Discord removed it. “I didn’t come here to get yelled at again. You’ve done enough of that,” Discord said as he came to a halt and glanced over his shoulder at her. “So be a good little mare and shut up.”

“But where hast thou been?” Luna asked, causing Spitfire to glare harder because Discord didn’t do a thing to stop her from asking. He sighed and looked up towards the ceiling.

“Doing some much needed thinking… and looking for a reason to give a damn,” he said in a manner that resembled talking to himself before looking around at all of them. “I effectively lost all reason to care about what happens after Sombra gained control of Soarin’s body. It was my one task, my one real priority… to make sure that didn’t come to pass because such an event would create a being that not even I could stand up against… among other things…” he trailed off for a moment, but when he noticed he was getting a few confused looks, he quickly shook his head. “Your little ‘plan’ is cute… and I guess it technically should work, but I don’t think any of you truly realize what you are up against,” he looked towards Luna specifically. “Not even YOU.”

He turned his back as Luna blinked in surprise.

“If you want my one hundred percent honest opinion… it’s all just a waste of time. My magic had no effect against him. It bounced right off like it were nothing. You just said it yourself, Twilight. There is little to no other force in existence that should be able to affect my magic, but everypony that was out there with me saw it happen. My magic operates outside the bounds of what is supposed to be possible, if it didn’t work against Sombra, there is no reason to believe the Elements will.”

“Then…” Twilight furrowed her brow and tipped her head. “Why are you even here?”

The question seemed to be the obvious one, but regardless it looked to catch Discord off-guard. It was also a little surprising that Twilight was the one to ask, Dash assumed Spitfire would be the one to press him since they had been through so much crap with him too.

After a quick glance, Dash quickly remembered that Spitfire’s mouth was currently bound shut. That explained it. It looked like Discord wasn’t expecting anypony else to press him.

“You said ‘among other things’ regarding your goals, what did that mean? What else were you trying to protect?” Twilight kept pressing. Dash couldn’t conceal a slight smirk. Twilight was working him over, nothing got past her.

“Because…” Discord turned back to her, glaring down, but he paused. He blinked several times before looking towards Luna. Luna tipped her head curiously as they made eye contact, but Discord only gritted his teeth. He turned away from them both, but didn’t turn his back again. “I have my reasons,” he dodged the question while crossing his arms.

“Which are?” Twilight rotated a hoof in front of her.

“My own,” Discord shot back in a slightly harsher tone.

Dash perked up as Spitfire began to audibly growl loud enough for it to get through her muffled lips. Discord glanced at Spitfire, meeting her harsh glare head on. He just stared at first as her growl and glare both grew more intense. He sighed and snapped his fingers. The magic rope vanished, freeing Spitfire’s mouth.

“QUIT YOUR BITCHING YOU GODDAMN ANIMAL AMALGAMATION! IF YOU KEEP BEATING AROUND THE BUSH, I’M GONNA TIE YOUR ASS INTO A DOUBLE KNOT AND—”

Discord snapped his fingers again and the rope reappeared, once again forcing Spitfire’s mouth shut.

“Honestly, I don’t know what I expected,” Discord said while rolling his eyes.

“MMMMRRRPPPPHHHH!!!!!” Spitfire released a noise that sounded like an enraged roar muffled by a pillow. Discord huffed and gave her a stern look while placing his hands on his sides.

“Look, I’m only letting you talk again if you have something to say besides how much you hate me, deal?” he offered.

Spitfire stopped making the noise and flattened her brow, but visibly calmed down.

“Good,” Discord twirled a finger in the air and the rope vanished. Spitfire exhaled loudly, closing her eyes and tipping her head down to calm herself before looking back at him again.

“Okay… let’s just forget about Sombra for a moment…” she motioned to the afflicted Shadowbolts and purposely held her hoof out longer as it landed in the direction of Wave. “He’s NOT what we’re focused on at this moment so—”

“You should be,” Discord cut her off abruptly. Spitfire immediately lost her cool.

“WILL YOU—!”

Discord held his hand up with the finger together, ready to snap them. Spitfire shut her mouth and puffed her cheeks out, holding in the urge to yell at him again.

“Indoor voice, please. Let’s be civil about this, okay?” he said in a slightly condescending way as he put his hand back down. Spitfire let the comment slide, forcing herself back to the topic.

“Look,” she tapped a hoof on the floor. “You’ve already made it clear that you’re giving up because you tried to hit him… JUST ONCE, I might add, and he smacked you aside.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” Discord said while furrowing his brow. Spitfire shook her head.

“I don’t care, that’s what I saw out there and you’ve already curled up and wussed out. So stop trying to explain yourself,” Spitfire somehow managed to keep her tone normal while saying some very choice words she had for him.

“Feh…” Discord snorted, glancing away as he did his best to practice what he was preaching about tone of voice.

“But again, let’s talk about them first,” Spitfire continued, again motioning to the afflicted.

“Did you already forget what I told you not so long ago?” Discord asked while swaying his head a little.

“Tell them,” Spitfire pointed to Cadence and Twilight.

Discord turned, but he didn’t even look at Cadence, he only stared at Twilight. She had an intense curiosity in her eyes that he knew, from experience, meant that she would demand to know more if he didn’t start talking.

“You can’t use your chaos magic to help them?” Twilight pressed, proving his very thought correct. “Why?”

Discord kept his eyes locked on her for a moment before exhaling through his nostrils and looking towards the wall nearby instead.

“This doesn’t fall under your reformation restrictions,” Twilight went on as she trotted around to get in his view again. “There’s nothing reality bending about dispelling chaos magic that’s already in form.”

“I don’t follow those rules to begin with,” Discord said with a scoff. “And frankly, it’s laughable that you think I do or would.”

Twilight’s eyes went as wide as possible and her ears stood up. Her mouth remained shut as she quickly looked towards Luna as if Discord just admitted to doing a great wrong, but Luna only rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“But that’s irrelevant, and none of your business,” Discord went on, re-catching Twilight’s attention. “The possibility of me handling this has already been brought up once before, but I declined. It isn’t wise to handle chaos magic of unknown origin, even by me. If it were cast by me, it would be a different story… I know every inch, fiber, property, and capability of my powers. I haven’t a clue where this magic came from and it could be wildly different for all I know.”

He paused and looked towards Wave Chill, who had one eye open and was looking and likely listening too. Discord slowly walked over to Wave and stood over the bed, prompting the rest to instinctively follow. He reached a hand over Wave, but kept it at least an inch from touching any of the crystals.

“I can feel their energy… it’s definitely chaos magic and I’ve no doubt I could seamlessly yank it all from his body right now if I tried, but what happens the moment I do is unpredictable. The possibilities are endless. It could save him, it could kill him, it could slip right out of my grip and cause a massive distortion, it could make this whole castle vanish, it could kill everypony around me… Any good or bad scenario you can imagine is possible.” He pulled his hand back and turned back to them. “And while I’m able to clean up my own messes caused by my magic, I likely would not be able to fix anything caused by an adverse reaction by this magic.” He turned and looked at all of them. “Given all those risks I just laid out, I’m certain none of you want me to try it. You’ll have to scratch that option off the short-list.”

Silence spread between them all, save for Twilight humming to herself as she looked down and rubbed her chin, thinking. Spitfire took the moment to glance towards Wave, her eyes widening slightly when she saw him looking right at her… and reaching a hoof out. She quickly shifted over and placed a hoof on the bed, hooking it with his as she waited for more to be said.

But the silence extended, Twilight still humming to herself. And Spitfire got fed up with waiting, pushed on by the hoof squeezing hers.

“Okay, okay…” she spoke catching everyone’s attention as she held tight to Wave’s hoof. “Now that everypony is up to speed on how Discord is useless, what’s this other option? It’s definitely not something I’ve heard about yet.”

Discord glared as everypony else was brought back to attention, but he said nothing. He crossed his arms, looked away, and shifted backwards, releasing a quiet hiss from his lips as his snake tongue poked out between and flipped up and down.

All eyes went to Twilight, but she was still humming and looking down.

“Princess,” Spitfire said slightly louder.

“Huh?” Twilight looked up and noticed all eyes were on her.

“The other option,” Spitfire specified simply, her grip on Wave’s hoof tightening.

“Oh, right, right…” she cleared her throat again. “If Discord isn’t an option… then the other option is… The Elements of Harmony.”

For a moment, Dash became completely unaware of everything around her as those three words rang in her head. Her ears stood up and she blinked, quickly coming back to reality as Spitfire’s head instantly turned and she locked her eyes on her for a second.

“Go on…” Spitfire encouraged Twilight using a much calmer tone than her previous push as she looked back to her. Dash glanced about and saw that Luna looked surprised as well. Not so much ‘shocked’ but that she wasn’t expecting the suggestion. Looks like Twilight really had done work on this on her own. It was reassuring that she was trying to keep independence.

“Well, to be honest this is more of a theory than it is a solid option,” Twilight continued. “But… Discord has been sealed away more than once by the elements. That means they can hold down Chaos magic.”

She paused as Discord released a quiet grunt, a few glances went his way, but all the attention went right back to Twilight.

“From their ability to hold down the embodiment of chaos magic itself, we can reasonably conclude that the Elements are one of few, specific forces that can be used against chaos magic in general. But, while they can seal it away, I am not certain if they can dissipate it.”

“So…” Spitfire slowly tipped her head and scrunched her brow. “What does that mean?”

“Well… I don’t know, that’s just it,” Twilight admitted, earning a flat look from Spitfire. “I’m not saying it won't work, I’m saying that based on past evidence it might. It’s an educated hypothesis and it definitely wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!” Spitfire blurted out while gripping Wave’s hoof tighter and looking down at him again.

“It won’t work,” Discord cut in. Twilight’s voice squeaked as she opened her mouth preemptively, but had yet to form a thought to retort with. The rest just stared blankly as Spitfire glared.

“Okay, wise guy…” Spitfire did her best to keep her tone at the ‘inside voice’ level. “Why not?”

“Don’t get smart with me,” Discord hissed at her as he kept his body turned slightly away from her. “I’m serious. It won’t work. Are you going to argue with the only one here who actually knows what chaos magic’s properties are? Twilight is right that chaos magic can be frozen, but the Elements of Harmony still abide by the rules of reality while chaos magic does not so they can’t simply cancel it or push it aside. The elements are one of the most powerful forces in Equestria, but in your possession their uses are limited, at least to perform what you are suggesting.

“Wait, what did you just say?” Twilight stepped closer. “In the way we’re suggesting…?”

“If you wanted any sort of chance to get the elements to go beyond what you and your little friends can make them do… you are missing a key piece. And no, it isn’t friendship. That only lets you use them.”

“Then what are we missing?!” Twilight pressed. Discord sighed and shook his head, holding a hand out in front of him.

“There are only two forces that exist… or that are allowed to exist… that are powerful enough to fully dispel chaos magic.” His slight shift didn’t go unnoticed, clearly again referring to the encounter with Sombra. “I will admit that I’m impressed you were able to identify at least half the second.” He bounced his hand and a puff of purple smoke shot up from it, revealing a miniature version of himself dancing in place. “You’re looking at the first, but we’ve already been over why I’m not risking it. It’s not MY chaos magic so I’m keeping my hands off. The second…” He closed his fist around the tiny Discord, a loud POOF sounded from his hand. Purple smoke dissipating above it as bright yellow rays of light began seeping through his fingers. “The elements are simply the medium required to trap and stabilize the unpredictable and reality bending nature of chaos magic. They cannot act beyond that with the power you currently have access to. A power source is needed to… ‘supercharge’ them if you will. A power that would flow through the elements as they are being used by the bearers and make them strong enough to push further and ultimately break the chaos magic apart. Think of it like focusing sunlight through a magnifying glass to burn ants on the ground. And… there only exists one source of power that’s more potent on an energy output level than chaos magic.”

He paused, his hand still glowing with the yellow lights seeping through as he held it out in front of him. But he only had blank looks staring back at him.

“Oh, come on. Is it really that hard to figure out?” he asked sarcastically.

Twilight’s ears shot up.

“Celestia!” she blurted out, all eyes shooting to her and Luna audibly gasped.

“Precisely…”

Discord opened his palm and a small, elegant silhouette of Princess Celestia made entirely of yellow light stood up and whisked it’s mane around. “Alicorn magic is the only force that is capable of overpowering chaos magic.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Spitfire sarcastically spoke up. “EXCUSE ME?!” she yelled as she slowly motioned a hoof towards the three Alicorns in the room.

Twilight blinked and looked at Cadence.

Cadence blinked and looked at Luna.

Luna suddenly realized all eyes were on her. She frantically looked back and forth before whipping her head to the side and hiding her face a little with her mane.

“Do you mean to tell me…?” Spitfire went on, a growl building in the back of her throat. “That we had the means this whole time?!”

Discord narrowed his eyes and extended his head and neck towards Spitfire.

“You really don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked with an annoyed tone.

“You DON’T make it that hard!” Spitfire snapped back.

“Look, you...” Discord extended his body all the way over the bed and over Wave’s body to poke Spitfire in the chest with his other hand. “Did you listen to a word I just said? If it were that simple I would have suggested it from the start!” he said as he held the small image of Celestia out right in front of Spitfire’s face. “We need CELESTIA!” he waved his other hand towards Twilight and Cadence. “Those two are useless. They have access to alicorn magic and enhanced power reserves, but they are mortals, simply blessed by Celestia’s magic. And…” he shifted his hand towards Luna. “Don’t expect Lulu to put out the kind of power Celestia is capable of. Why do you think Celestia is the one sitting on the throne?! It’s not just because she’s better looking, more charming, and has a bigger, more shapely rump.”

“Hey!” Luna yelled and took a step forward, but a purple rope tied her mouth shut. Her magic flared up on her horn, but a cork appeared and wedged itself onto the point of her horn with a loud creaky squeak, effectively preventing her from speaking, or retorting with magic. She just glared and puffed her cheeks out.

“Only Celestia is capable of putting out the kind of power you need to seamlessly and safely dispel this affliction.” Discord explained and left it at that.

Nopony moved or spoke for a moment, Luna sat down behind them and looked down, free from anypony’s gaze. The rope around her mouth and the cork disappeared as if Discord could sense her soaking in the reality of what he just said.

“Okay, then…” Spitfire narrowed her eyes and stared directly into Discord’s as she finally let go of Wave’s hoof. “Knowing that… how about we shift to something related?” she pointed at him harshly. “YOU... know where she is, right? You told us you do so don’t try denying it.”

Discord’s eyes opened wide as she pressed. Twilight visibly flinched in Spitfire’s peripheral vision as well.

“I don’t care if you promised her to keep your mouth shut about it… now is not the time. And I’m going to call you out now before you contradict yourself again. Your mouth keeps saying it’s all over and nothing matters anymore and then your ass says you have to respect her wishes and you stand firmly by it. If you circle on us like that one more goddamn time I will bend you backwards all the way around and feed you your own ass!”

“WHAT?! CELESTIA?! WHERE IS—” Twilight freaked out on the spot, but was instantly silenced as she earned her turn with the magic rope tying her mouth shut. She continued to make muffled squeaking noises as if determined to speak regardless. Cadence looked ready to speak up as well, but quickly held back to avoid the same fate as Twilight.

Discord growled angrily, scowling at Spitfire and shaking his head as he completely ignored the two mortal alicorns.

“You have this really bad habit of assuming that I’m hiding some miracle solution to all of our problems.” He threw and arm out. “So what if I’m honoring a promise? Don’t blame ME for HER actions. I’M not the one who took a risk and cut themselves off from being ready and available. Even if I did tell you what I know about her whereabouts, it wouldn’t change the fact that she CAN’T help us!”

“You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that? Have I ever told you that? If I haven’t I should do it more!” Spitfire throttled him with as much sarcasm as she could muster. “Forget everything else… you know where she is! If ‘nothing else matters’ as you keep putting it so eloquently then what the hell is it going to hurt?”

“You must be really charming at parties,” Discord hissed into her face, his snake tongue batting her nose as he fired the sarcasm right back. “Yes I do know where she is, but… forgive me, I need to rewind here!” he pulled out an old cassette tape player and smashed his finger on the rewind button so hard that it broke off and the tape eventually self-ejected, launching across the room and making the sound of glass breaking where it landed. Discord threw the player right over his shoulder, grabbed Spitfire by the face, yanked her forward until his forehead was pressed to hers and opened his eyes as wide as he could without breaking his glare. “SHE. CAN’T. HELP.”

Spitfire reached up and shoved his arm away from her head, taking a step back and scrunching her face up, visibly holding in all sorts of anger that was just screaming to be let loose.

“You’re not getting out of this one, snake-breath…” Spitfire stomped a hoof on the floor. “How about we reframe the question then? Is there anything you can tell us? I mean, come on! If you can’t tell us where she is, how about you tell us why she can’t help? That would be nice to know too! And don’t go telling me you made a promise not to reveal that either. If you do, you’re full of shit.”

The sound of Discord’s teeth grinding together was so loud that the surrounding ponies cringed as if hearing a hoof being scratched on a chalkboard. But before he could shoot anything back at Spitfire, there was a sudden noise that sounded like a bump, a table scooting on the floor, and few books falling over. Everypony instantly looked towards Luna, who had shifted uncomfortably to the point where her plot had bumped into the table behind her.

Luna’s eyes went wide as she realized everypony was staring at her… and Spitfire didn’t miss a beat.

“Do YOU know?! She asked while quickly disengaging from Discord and pushing her way right past Cadence and Twilight. “This can’t be a hard question your HIGHNESS,” Spitfire pressed, pointing a hoof up at her. Luna was visibly uncomfortable, which only hardened Spitfire’s resolve. “Does this have anything to do with what happened in Ponyville after the tornado?! You know, that freak witch-doctor magic crap she pulled that I was involved in? You were there too! Answer me!”

“Stop pressing her,” Discord suddenly spoke up in defense of Luna, his voice calm as he faced away from all of them. All the attention went right back to him as Spitfire turned and glared at him. “Celestia’s power…” Discord slowly turned, holding a very grumpy expression. “Is currently separated from her spirit.”

Silence filled the room, and it was no surprise that the whole conversation had now attracted the attention of all the scholars and clerics present as well. All ears were on them now, probably even the afflicted that were awake.

“Come again?” Spitfire broke the silence, lifting an eyebrow. Discord crossed his arms and released a loud huff and scoff, appearing to be angry at himself for caving.

“Where her mind and spirit currently resides… she doesn’t even have a fraction of her magical power within her. Keep in mind, that fraction is still more potent and powerful than any mortal being, but it is nothing, at least compared to her full power.” He shifted and looked towards the wall. “The rest of her enormous reserve of power is currently locked away in a location that IS accessible, but is completely hidden and unknown to all save for two guards that she posted outside of it for some odd reason… and me, because she can’t hide from me if she tried.”

Everypony just stared at him.

Spitfire’s mouth opened slightly, her right eye twitching.

“I’m… going to pretend I understand what you’re talking about for a moment to I can ask a question,” Spitfire admitted while lifting a hoof. “You said… accessible. She’s not available, but can her power be used?”

“Again,” Discord pointed to himself. “Do I look like a miracle worker?” he asked with a slightly sarcastic tone. “No. It isn’t simply a matter of taking and using her power like it’s some sort of tool anypony can use. There is, listen to me closely here, there is NOPONY, no existing being that can control Celestia’s power. Even a tiny sliver of her energy would likely make an average unicorn’s head explode. And even if they could handle it, they would be overwhelmed. The power would consume their mind, twist them into an uncontrollable state of euphoria. Eventually the pressure would destroy them from inside out, not to mention that they would eventually be floored by the burdens to come with her power that even she struggles to bear at times.”

Discord paused and shook his head.

“Anypony that would attempt to use her power, especially to create the amount of force that’s required to do what you want to do here…” he made a nonchalant motion around the room at the afflicted. “Would not last. And before you ask, that includes Lulu… and me too. Even we would be destroyed by it if we tried.” He paused and exhaled. “And to give even a deeper perspective, that unholy monster that was created by Sombra taking over Soarin’s body? I doubt even he would be able to control it. That’s just how powerful Celestia is. It’s immeasurable and unquantifiable. And even she would admit that its strain on her can be taxing, but that should be obvious by now since she nearly blew herself apart reviving Soarin with a spell she didn’t fully understand. Her power isn’t something we can just take and use without something going terribly wrong.”

He looked back at all of them briefly, his eyes landing on Luna as she sat down quietly and tried not to draw attention to herself. She wore an expression of shame, Discord’s words about Celestia’s vast superiority to her sinking deep.

“Oh, I give up…” Spitfire suddenly said with a loud, annoyed groan.

“What?” Discord glared at her. “I answered you question, didn’t I? What else do you want from me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Spitfire rolled her eyes. “This is just another thing I have to add to our long list of things that would have been nice to know from the start!”

“I don’t see how this is much different from what I’ve already revealed to you,” Discord snorted and flicked his snake tongue at her. “So I added one insignificant detail. Has the situation changed at all? No.”

“You aren’t helping me trust you or the gods, though,” Spitfire hissed right back.

“Stop… please just stop,” Luna suddenly spoke up, breaking her long silence. “That’s enough, we aren’t getting anywhere.” Her tone caught Spitfire off-guard. She sounded defeated. “It’s clear that what we need is not in our grasp. We can’t dwell on what we can’t solve without further searching.” She turned to Cadence and Twilight, glancing between the two of them. “Is there anything else we can do to help these ponies for the time being? We must focus on the threat at hoof, but if there is something we can do to ease their pain for now, please do so.”

“SEE?!” Discord cut her off abruptly, throwing his arms out towards her. “At least Lulu gets it! Nothing you do for them here or later will mean anything if we can’t stop Sombra! So I suggest you stop grilling me for useless information and get on that instead!” He jammed a finger into Spitfire’s face. “I know your little lover is in play here,” he said with a brief head motion towards Wave Chill. Spitfire’s eyes shot open as he brought him up. “But take my advice. If you want him to be cured and wake up in a world that still exists, you’d best get your priorities straight!”

Spitfire looked like she was about to let all of her pent up anger loose, but Luna rapped a hoof against the floor.

“Discord. Stop. Don’t bring her personal matters into this,” she asked calmly.

“Feh!” Discord scoffed and turned his back to everypony, crossing his arms and tapping a finger impatiently against his arm.

“Spitfire understands the situation,” Luna added simply. Spitfire immediately held in anything and everything she wanted to say and played along. If Luna really believed what she just said… then she had to play along for the sake of her plans. “Cadence? Twilight?” She turned to them. “We assume your research turned up more than just solutions?”

The scene continued to unfold, and several included had no knowledge of just how knotted it all really was beneath everything being discussed.

While Twilight was aware of how deep the rabbit hole was going, she had only just tipped over the edge and was still caught on the front of the stage.

Rainbow Dash… had been sitting quietly and observing. She was watching and listening very carefully and doing her best to keep her expressions and body language consistent with what was being said and done.

She was looking at Luna carefully… and… wasn’t buying her sudden quiet tone. This was what it had come to. Luna looked visibly stricken by what Discord had said, but Dash could not bring herself to believe she felt the way she looked. Stripping the emotions out of what was going on, the situation spoke for itself. Luna was putting on a false air quietly agreeing with Discord that Sombra was more important. Now she was asking if there was anything they could do to ‘help’ the afflicted until after Sombra was dealt with… Not only that, but there was the inconvenient fact hiding from the stage lights. Luna’s plan to stop Sombra might very well sacrifice her. And without her… they wouldn’t be able to use the Elements of Harmony to save the afflicted. She was sure Twilight had put together the same thing, but was holding back all the same.

The gods really were putting Sombra ahead of everything else and were hoping that nopony would notice the holes that kept popping up in their stories and reasoning. It was making Dash sick to her stomach. She wasn’t about to try and understand what Discord had just explained about Celestia either, but she didn’t care. For all she knew he let that cat out of the bag just to provide another distraction to cover for what was really going on. She was too pissed to think about it anyway… and was doing everything in her power not to let it show.

“There is something we can do,” Twilight’s voice caught Dash’s attention, turning her ears and turning her mind away from all the crap for a moment. “Cadence? This is your expertise.” She as she stepped aside and motioned to Cadence.

“Yes, well…” Cadence cleared her throat. “It’s not a solution by any means, but we have discovered a way to keep them preserved and alive without getting worse while we search for more options. And it’s something that my magic is capable of by itself.” She turned to Spitfire, who was staring at her blankly like she didn’t know how to feel. “I can freeze them in crystals.”

Spitfire’s face contorted and her eyes visible twitched. Cadence quickly caught on what her concern was, she was actually expecting it.

“No, it’s nothing even remotely similar to what’s already happening to them. Not the same kind of crystals,” she reassured her. “It’s a crystal spell I learned while delving into the spells and wizardry of my ancestors. It can completely encase an object within a large, transparent crystal. Anything inside is frozen solid, protected, and preserved in the form it was in when the spell was cast.” She paused and glanced down. “I admit that I… have never used it on a living being before, but if our theories are correct, they will be in a state of near complete stasis, and all bodily and nervous function will be ground to a dragging crawl. It won’t save them, and won’t halt the spread of their sickness, but it will dramatically slow down their infection nearly ten to twenty fold, giving us plenty of time for additional research outside of the empire.”

No words could describe the look on Spitfire’s face as it seemed to change at a moment’s notice, it looked like her own emotions were fighting one another while she tried to listen carefully and remain serious. Cadence clearly took notice, as did others, but they didn’t say anything.

“One thing I’m also not sure of…” Cadence went on as she tapped a hoof to her chin and looked towards Wave Chill, being the closest of the afflicted. “Is how it will affect them mentally. They will be completely shut out, like they’re trapped in a moment in time with no knowledge of the world moving on outside of their state. I’m worried that if they remain inside like that for too long, it could have traumatic effects when they are released.”

Spitfire flinched so hard that her hooves shifted hard against the floor.

“They’ll be fine,” Discord spoke up suddenly before Spitfire could say whatever denial she was about to throw at Cadence. Cadence looked at him curiously, but Spitfire kept staring at Cadence, her teeth gritted and her face stuck in a wide eyed, half shocked, half worried expression. “Take it from one who’s been in that kind of situation,” he put a hand to his chest as he turned around and faced them. “It’s like waking up from a nap.”

“You’re a god, though,” Cadence quickly pointed out. “I’m sure you would have been just fine regardless. Also, this isn’t the same. You were sealed in a stone statue.”

“It’s not like you have another option,” Discord added with a shrug as he sighed. “I’m just giving you my two bits so we can hurry up and focus on, oh I don’t know, figuring out how to make sure that all these soon to be crystal popsicles have a world to wake up to.”

Dash couldn’t believe that Spitfire was somehow managing to hold herself steady. She was visibly stricken, and shaking a little. How she was not breaking down right now was beyond Dash. She knew that Spitfire was a professional, and constantly proved how well she could hold that air, but considering the circumstances? She was more or less informed that her efforts, her determination, everything she had done to save the pony she loved… ended in a stalemate. It wasn’t a failure… but it certainly was very far from a victory and not what Spitfire was hoping with all her heart… That their arrival at the Crystal Empire would lead to freeing Wave Chill from his pain and bringing him back into their ranks where he belonged.

In a way… it was ironic. As much as they had all gotten sick of the gods, Dash was certain that Spitfire sure wished they had Celestia right now. Every second Dash kept her eyes on her, she thought Spitfire was going to break. Her composure was faltering and her emotions were trying to erupt. It was incredible that she was keeping it all held down.

“Sp… speaking of Soarin…” Spitfire stuttered briefly, but forced her voice into a serious tone as she tried to shift the subject, both to refocus and because she was curious. Dash perked up, obviously the subject of Soarin catching her ears.

But before she could go on, Luna cleared her throat loudly. It was sudden and abrupt, like she was trying to cut off Spitfire.

“We had a feeling you would ask,” she began. “We have been personally overseeing this search and seen to it that no stone is unturned. We are nearing the end of our research with the help of the Crystal Empire scholars, but… we have turned up empty thus far.”

The reaction was instant, no sooner did Luna finish uttering the last syllable did Spitfire begin to stare her down, narrowing her eyes into a glare that seemed to gain strength from her bottled up emotions. Luna did not hesitate to return the glare.

“Do NOT give us that look,” she replied sharply. “We are doing exactly as you requested and also wish to find a solution. But we cannot make one out of thin air. As Discord said, we are not a miracle worker! We can’t drag this out any longer either. The longer we do, the more danger we put ourselves in!”

Spitfire just continued to glare as if Luna’s words held zero weight to her.

Dash swallowed, expecting this to escalate, but as the brief silence between the two leaders drew out, Dash found herself glancing towards Twilight.

Twilight was glancing at her too.

Dash couldn’t believe it… what Twilight said was true. Luna really WAS ignoring the exorcism spell the Elements of Harmony were capable of.

Why?

WHY?!

It was infuriating. Dash found it harder and harder to keep her expression neutral as it all sunk in, stabbing her right in the chest.

What was it about Sombra that made the gods act so irresponsibly?! Did they really fear him that much? Was there no price too high to pay to be rid of him?

“Do you wish to say something to us?” Luna broke the silence as Spitfire refused to drop her skeptical glare.

“Luna, I want you to look me right in the eyes…” Spitfire leaned forward and pointed to her face. “And tell me that you REALLY looked through all the possibilities!”

“We did!” Luna snapped back, baring her teeth slightly as her lips parted and twitched in anger.

“Did you TRY?!” Spitfire pressed. “Or are you just fast tracking the process so we can do things your way? You’ve made it clear how high priority eradicating Sombra is to you!”

“Do not be so crude!” Luna stomped a hoof, but remained in place. “We gave you our word that we would look into it and our findings have not been optimistic!”

“You better not be pulling my wing…” Spitfire hissed as her wings twitched. “Because I’m not too happy with the only solution you’ve suggested ‘thus far’.”

“You mock us…” Luna snorted as she looked away briefly and huffed. “But this is the reality we face! We have searched, we wish to part Soarin from Sombra if we can, but as we near the end of our research, our original plan remains the only feasible solution! Sealing him away is the only known way to effectively contain him! He is powerful! He is dangerous! And he presents a great threat to all living things!”

“But at the expense of Soarin?!” Spitfire blurted out, her wings flaring outwards and she shook with anger. “And maybe even Dash too?!” she added while throwing a hoof backwards towards her.

Everypony in the room flinched as Luna stood up and slammed a hoof to the floor again, but this time it caused a loud booming, echoing crash that made the tables and beds surrounding them shake.

“IF IT COMES TO THAT…” she yelled in the Royal Canterlot Voice. “YES! THIS IS A PROBLEM THAT IS MUCH LARGER THAN TWO PONIES!”

Dash’s jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide. She was glad nopony was focused on her because her goal was not to show much of any reaction to everything. But how could she simply let that one slip by? There was even an audible gasp from Twilight that went unnoticed by Luna.

Spitfire was giving Luna the most disturbed look that had ever graced her face. She didn’t even know what to say and one glance at Discord proved that he completely agreed. His posture, face, and look had not shifted even the tiniest bit as Luna dropped that line.

“You clearly do not fully understand and are wholly underestimating the threat we face!” Luna went on, ignoring the looks she was getting… and equally ignoring Discord’s brief point earlier that she didn’t fully understand it either. “We would not suggest, nor resort to such extremes if it were not necessary!” She looked down, gritting her teeth. “A folly of our sister’s has created this mess, so it is we who must bear this burden and take the necessary steps and actions whether we like them or not!” She looked up and focused her attention towards Rainbow Dash. She noticed her look of shock, but did not seem affected by it. “If there were another way without these unknowns, we would take it. Alas, as of now, we have none!” Luna shouted adamantly as Discord subtly nodded in approval off to the side.

At this point… Dash couldn’t hide her shock. She was glad that her expression fit the situation, but it was for entirely different reasons.

It took everything, everything in her power and every ounce of her self-control not to come forward right then and there and give Luna a piece of her mind. The urge was so great that Dash had to avert her eyes just to keep the urge from boiling over. She looked at the one thing, the only pony she could think to look at during that moment. Chance would have it that Twilight was also looking at her again. Actually, it was no chance… they were both likely thinking the same thing, because Twilight looked just as put off as Dash did.

Luna had just completely and blatantly lied through her teeth right in front of all of them, and with Twilight sitting right behind her no less. Luna was fully aware that Twilight knew she was lying and she still did it. Twice now, TWICE Luna had willingly acted as if the exorcism spell of the Elements didn’t exist in favor of sealing Sombra in stone instead. She was openly suggesting that they sacrifice Soarin, and her too… an ELEMENT OF HARMONY… while knowing full well there was another way. It didn’t matter if this way had a higher chance of success, it wasn’t worth the consequences… but Luna didn’t seem to care, it was more important to ensure that Sombra was dealt with regardless of the cost.

Everything Twilight had said was true… It was so unnerving.

Twilight looked so ashamed, and rightfully so. Dash could imagine how she felt, having trusted and respected the royal sisters for so long. At this point Dash was relieved she had taken the steps she had so far and put her faith in Twilight, because all of her fears were coming true right before her very eyes. Luna was blatantly lying, and Spitfire’s rage against Luna, while justified, reinforced Dash’s commitment to stick to her plan.

Dash was on her own. She could not expect greater help from the Wonderbolts. Spitfire would not trust Twilight, not with her connections to Luna and this ongoing conflict between her and Luna.

Spitfire suddenly let out a very loud, frustrated groan that was almost a shout while throwing her hooves into the air and turning her back on Luna.

“You know what?! No! This is bullshit!” she yelled. Luna blinked and furrowed her brow.

“We beg you par—”

“NO! SHUT UP!” Spitfire turned back around and pointed at Luna angrily. “WE STILL HAVE TIME! I refuse to accept this outcome while we still sit here waiting! KEEP LOOKING!” she demanded outright, and turned to Cadence before Luna could retort. “And please, Princess Cadence, or Twilight, or whoever is in charge with this god damn half-assed mess…” She paused and motioned to Luna and Discord. “Set aside your commitment to these liars for a day or two and be THOROUGH!”

Cadence gasped and covered her mouth as Spitfire flat out called Luna a liar.

“Why did you have to rope me into that?” Discord spoke up as he lifted one of his crossed arm and held his palm up. Spitfire rolled her eyes and gave him a very flat look.

“Because you’re just as much of an asshole!” she said bluntly, her usual professional air dropping completely as she began hurling insults, yelling in an unhinged tone that slowly began to eerily resemble her half-sister. “This crap keeps going on and on, and now on top of it I learn that after all the HELL I went through to reach the Crystal Empire, I couldn’t outright save the stallion I love!” She yelled louder and louder, her voice cracking once or twice as her eyelids twitched madly. “I’m in a SHIT mood! I didn’t think it could get any worse, but it just fucking did!” she yelled without restraint, several ponies present backing away with wide eyes as Spitfire started letting it all pour out. “So I’m going to leave now!” Her voice began to get shaky. “Before it gets even worse!”

Dash could hear Spitfire’s voice slipping, she was breaking down fast. She stole a quick glance over at Wave Chill, he was awake and watching Spitfire with a sad look of concern. Dash could only imagine how much it hurt him to hear Spitfire breaking like this and being unable to do anything about it.

“This isn’t over!” Spitfire yelled, pointing towards Luna. “I’ll have more choice words for you when I’m not tempted to punch you in your damn face!” her voice was nearly screeching now. Dash had never heard Spitfire let loose so uncontrollably before.

But before she could think further Dash flinched as Spitfire swiftly turned around, her eyes narrow and her teeth grinding together as she stomped towards her and forcefully pushed her out of the way, storming right out the door.

The room was left in complete, painful silence. Nopony said a word and only glances were exchanged between them all.

“Hmph…” Discord suddenly grunted and disappeared in a dim flash of purple light.

Luna grumbled quietly to herself, turning around and walking to the other side of the room.

Cadence was frozen in place, completely at a loss for words… with Twilight keeping her mouth shut beside her.

Dash and Twilight exchanged looks one more time, very briefly. They just saw all they needed to see. If there was any doubt left about their plan, it was gone, all justified by what they just witnessed. Dash quickly decided there was no need to stick around. She turned and started moving towards the door herself as she tried to process all the upfront confirmations of everything she had heard and learned from Twilight.

She pushed the door open and stepped out… but before the door even closed she was suddenly grabbed by the arm and yanked aside.

“AH!” she yelped in surprise, her head whipping around as she tried to regain her balance. By the time she was upright again, the door had shut, and she found herself staring right into the slightly bloodshot and wet eyes of Spitfire, glaring at her.

“Come with me. Right now,” she ordered, the shaky tone still in the back of her throat.

Dash blinked, caught completely off-guard, but Spitfire gave no indication that it had anything to do with her or suspicion of her.

“Yes, ma’am,” she agreed without hesitation.

The only thing Dash could do was wait quietly and patiently. It was just her and Spitfire alone in her hotel room she shared with Fleetfoot. She dared not say anything as Spitfire paced back and forth, never once looking at Dash as the steady pace of her hooves against the floor repeated in Dash’s ears over and over again. Spitfire’s face was constantly scrunching and her eyes constantly changing. No one emotion seemed to remain constant, at least that Dash could read, but could she blame her? After what they had just went through at the palace, it was a wonder Spitfire wasn’t breaking everything she passed by.

Now hopefully Dash was right and Spitfire suspected nothing of her… because if she were to find out about her plans to circumvent the Wonderbolts as they circumvented Luna, she was sure that would put Spitfire right over the edge.

As soon as they had arrived at the hotel, they had run into the Streak twins in the lobby. Spitfire instantly grabbed them and sent them to find and gather up the rest of the top tiers and the lead Renegades. She didn’t acknowledge any questions and they did as they were told. It was going to be a tight fit. The rooms were luxury, but they weren’t designed for twelve or more. But it was happening either way, and Dash wasn’t sure what was going to happen once they arrived. All she could do was wait.

She had nothing to say to Spitfire because they saw and heard everything with Luna and Discord. But even though neither of them trusted the gods anymore, Dash was still shocked that the gods so clearly and blatantly lied right to their faces. Obviously, the gods were under the impression that they were completely in control of the narrative, but it was still jarring. Thanks to her steps taken with Twilight, everything was being exposed to Dash from top to bottom.

The situation was becoming beyond twisted though… Because Spitfire didn't know what she knew and wasn’t aware of the extent of the lying. She was angry for different reasons. If the circumstances were different, more aligned, she would readily share with Spitfire everything she knew to help calm her down and get a better idea of exactly what was going on but…

That was obviously not an option. It sucked, but that’s how it had to be. Dash was running her own show behind Spitfire’s show behind Luna’s.

It was bad enough that she and Twilight were forced to sit and keep their lips sealed tight during the whole exchange that just took place. Now Dash was stuck in silence, alone in a room with one of the ponies she was actively trying to deceive. The air of the room was incredibly tense, and Dash was hoping she didn’t start sweating. Would the Streak twins hurry up? How hard was it to find the top elites? It’s not like they were going anywhere. Thank goodness Spitfire was completely preoccupied by her own anger and likely the emotions regarding Wave Chill as well… because again, Spitfire was incredibly perceptive. If not for her current state, Dash was sure Spitfire would have noticed something off by now.

Twilight was right about all of this becoming extremely convoluted, but she had no choice. It was this road, or walking blind. And she was DONE walking blind.

“Hm?” Dash’s ears perked up and Spitfire froze in place as the sound of the doorknob turning met their ears. Spitfire instantly turned and focused on the door as it opened.

Fire Streak was the first to enter with Fleetfoot, Misty Fly, and Surprise in tow. He gave Spitfire a simple nod as he came in, but looked back as the door was propped open right before shutting on its own.

Lightning Streak pushed the door back open and had Blaze and High Winds with him.

Fire blinked and leaned to look behind them, but the door closed with nopony else following.

“Where is Air Mach?” Fire asked. Lightning shook his head.

“Dude is standing on boxes and preaching about how big his dick is in the market a few blocks down,” Lightning explained with a completely straight face. Fire’s eyes twitched.

“I’ll… assume that’s slang and not what he’s actually doing…”

“I dunno bro,” Lightning shrugged. “It sure sounded like it was going in that direction. I just didn’t bother, figured this was serious. I heard the last time the captain was mad and he spewed his usual crap, she cold-cocked him in the face.”

Fire blinked and glanced over his shoulder at Spitfire. She wasn’t listening, simply glancing around at them. He turned back to his brother, tipped his head for a moment, and nodded.

“That’s… probably for the best actually,” Fire admitted as he took a brief look around. His eyes landed on Dash for a brief moment, but he and the rest were suddenly distracted as the door opened again.

Descent was the first to appear. Lightning Dust was right behind him with Blazetail and Flashwind following right after.

As they walked in, the Wonderbolts all looked towards Spitfire, expecting her to quickly start talking, but she didn’t. She turned around and started pacing again. They glanced amongst themselves for a moment before Fleetfoot turned her attention to the Renegades and looked between them.

“Where’s Starry?” she asked curiously. All eyes went to Descent as he took a deep breath and released a heavy sigh.

“Truth be told…” he began while subtly shaking his head. “I haven’t seen her since she ran off during our arrival meeting.

“Pardon?” Fire asked as he lifted his brow.

“She’s completely vanished,” Descent continued. “I’ve even had a few of my best scouts comb the city for her and they’ve all come up empty.”

“I’ve had no luck either,” Lightning Dust chimed in with a frown.

“Why would she up and disappear like that?” Fleetfoot asked, tipping her head and pouting.

Descent averted his eyes, as if the subject was hard to address. Dust glanced up at him, quickly noticing he wasn’t going to say anything.

“I’m guessing it’s her crystal form,” Dust answered. “Even before the meeting, she was acting all weird from the moment she changed.”

“Huh…” Fleetfoot looked down. “Well… There’s definitely something different, did you see how drastically her appearance changed compared to the others? Do you think that has something to do with it?”

“Enough,” Descent spoke up harshly, causing both mares to flinch. “Let’s just leave her be for now,” he turned his attention to Spitfire. “Let’s focus on the more pressing matters.”

Dash could hear it clearly, and she was sure the rest could too. There was a very distinct lack of the usual strength in Descent’s voice. The issue with Starry was clearly weighing on him and he couldn’t hide it.

“Spitfire,” Descent called to her after she didn’t acknowledge his previous words.

Spitfire paused and looked up at him, but looked right back down and kept pacing, grumbling to herself.

“Uh…” Descent blinked and tipped his head. “Excuse me…”

Dash quickly cleared her throat and stood up, drawing Descent’s eyes.

“We didn’t have…” she looked at Spitfire as she passed by her, turned and passed back. “The best meeting with Luna just now.”

“Care to elaborate?” Descent asked with a quiet snort, not amused that he was being ignored. Dash rubbed the back of her neck and gritted her teeth.

“Well… it’s kind of complicated,” she admitted. There was WAY too much to repeat in short. “It was mostly more of the same with a few more details.”

She paused and everypony flinched as Spitfire suddenly released an angry growl and punched the mattress of the bed on the other side of the room, causing the sheets to untuck and the pillow to bounce into the air. Fleetfoot scooted backwards and bumped into Blaze and High Winds as they all stared with wide eyes.

“Uh…” Dash blinked and looked back to everypony else. “I think she has a plan now since she called everypony here, but…” she shrugged. “She hasn’t said anything since we got here.” She was doing her absolute best to keep up her own charade, acting like there was nothing beyond that.

“But why the extra anger?” Descent asked, picking out that this was uncharacteristic by Spitfire’s standards. It was no mystery to Dash, though. She sighed and shook her head.

“On top of Luna and Discord keeping up with all the stuff we’re tired of, we also got some bad news regarding the sick Shadowbolts and Wave Chill.”

They all perked up instantly, but all verbal reactions were cut off by a sudden shriek from Blaze.

“BAD NEWS?!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, nearly throwing both Fleetfoot and High Winds to the floor. High Winds quickly pushed herself back up and covered Blaze’s mouth with her hoof, knowing well that they were still in an operation that required secrecy.

Dash quickly held out her hooves and shook her head.

“Let me explain,” she quickly cut in, glancing at Spitfire briefly, but she was still over on the other side of the room. “They haven’t found a way to save them, at least a way we have access to. And before you ask me what can save them, don’t bother. It’s related to the gods and it’s something we can’t do without Celestia. So Cadence is going to use her own crystal magic to freeze them in solid crystal rocks… which will apparently keep them from getting worse while they eventually find another way.”

They were all staring at her blankly.

“Don’t look at me,” Dash rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I understand it all.”

Blaze and High Winds looked devastated, the rest just looked shocked. Descent didn’t seem to take it very well either. Dash sighed and shook her head again.

“So… Spitfire is beyond pissed right now, especially over Wave. She thought, hell we all thought we’d find an answer to this here, but that’s not the case. She blew up at them pretty hard, and stormed out. Now we’re here.”

Dash finished, everypony looking back at Spitfire as she still had her back turned to them. Her body was visibly quivering, quiet, audible grumbles coming from her as her head bobbed a little.

Then she suddenly whipped around and looked at all of them, her face holding a glare that didn’t seem to be directed at anyone or anything in particular.

“Okay, everypony listen to me carefully…” she began as she moved towards them, but Descent didn’t hold his tongue.

“Spitfire, what else happened with Luna and—”

“Shut the HELL up and let me talk!” Spitfire suddenly snapped at him, catching everypony off-guard. Descent’s eyes widened briefly before narrowing into a glare of disapproval. But he didn’t say anything, he wasn’t in the mood to butt heads with her.

Then in a very sudden shift… Spitfire blinked and stepped back as her expression twisted on itself, her lips curled and her face scrunched as she looked away from everyone, spinning back around and putting a hoof to her face. She took several deep, uneven breaths, looked down at the floor and shook her head back and forth so hard that her ears made whipping sounds against her head.

Everypony just stared as her odd behavior continued, not sure what to say.

“Sorry…” Spitfire said as she turned back around, facing them as she tried to force a look of control over herself. It wasn’t working, she looked disheveled and the pain in her eyes was clear as day. “I’m in a terrible mood…” she admitted as she came back towards them and took a few more deep breaths. “Before I start… what’s going on out there? What have you all been seeing?” she asked, her voice failing to hide a slight shaken vibe as she looked between them all.

“Well,” Blazetail came forward first, a serious look in his eyes as he clearly examined her and her demeanor. “We’ve been utilizing our veteran Wonderbolts to keep an eye on the activity of the thestrels,” he explained without saying a word about Spitfire’s clear emotional state. It seemed like he was being respectful, honoring her request for information instead of making an issue out of it.

Spitfire blinked and tipped her head as she thought over what he had just said.

“At night,” Flashwind added for him.

“Ah,” Spitfire nodded as she cleared that up, Blazetail taking over again.

“Flashwind and I felt it would be a good idea to keep tabs on them in case Luna is trying to pull anything behind our backs as well. If that were the case, the thestrels and P.L. would obviously be the ones leading the charge. Call me crazy, but I don’t think she fully trusts the Crystal Guard. That or she’s concluded they don’t know enough about what’s going on to be as useful.” He pondered aloud while rubbing his chin. Flashwind stepped forward and leaned against him subtly.

“We are cycling who is in charge of watching them,” she explained, whisking some loose strands of her mane out of her face. “We’re even planting a few ‘fake’ groupings around to make casual passes so they don’t zero in on any particular ponies and suspect anything. But…” she shrugged. “So far nothing out of the ordinary has been reported. P.L. is often spotted speaking to Luna, but nopony has gotten close enough to hear what’s being discussed. Otherwise… the thestrels are just being their usual, angry, quick-to-bite-you selves.”

“I see…” Spitfire glanced down as she absorbed it, but it wasn’t long before she looked up and towards Fire, curious about her own Wonderbolts. “Fire? What have you been hearing? I know you’ve been around the castle a lot since we arrived.”

“I have been,” Fire nodded and tilted his head slightly. “Though admittedly, I haven’t heard much beyond what we already know. Even if Captain Blazetail’s theory about the Crystal Guard is correct, they are moving in full lockstep with Luna, just as Princess Cadence and Princess Twilight Sparkle are.”

Dash’s ear twitched and she froze in place. Thankfully, she didn’t make a sound and nopony looked at her.

“I thought to watch and see if I could spot any sort of confusion or dissent,” Fire went on as Dash held her composure. “But my exposure has been limited, and from what I’ve been able to see, there’s been no sign of them looking beyond Luna’s word. We weren’t expecting any help from them and it’s safe to assume we won’t be doing any convincing.”

Dash was struggling. She suppressed the urge to step forward despite it clawing at her from within. For a very brief moment, the fact that Fire had made an attempt to look for something off among those around Luna made her believe she could reveal Twilight… but thankfully it was brief and she held her tongue. She had to stick to the plan.

Her hoof slipped as she shifted and made a scraping noise against the carpet.

Spitfire suddenly turned and glanced at her.

Without missing a beat, Dash acted like the shift was intentional and sat back down on the floor while reaching her hoof to her eye like something had gotten into it. But when she finished the false movement and looked back forward, Spitfire was still looking at her.

Though she internally panicked as if she had just blown her cover somehow, she kept her cool. She only blinked and tipped her head, feigning curiosity as Spitfire stared at her. The other ponies were now looking at her too, wondering why Spitfire held her gaze for so long on Dash.

Then as if it meant nothing at all, Spitfire turned away.

“Descent, what about you?” she went right on.

Dash was so confused. Why did she stare at her like that? It seemed very out of place considering Spitfire’s current emotional state. But at the same time she did it right after Twilight was brought up. She had no idea what to read from it.

“I’ve been seeing you moving about,” Spitfire went on, still addressing Descent. “Anything to share?” She continued questioning, the volatile emotional tone never truly hidden as she tried to do something that should be routine.

“I was mostly looking for Starry,” Descent answered.

“Mostly? Is there more?” Spitfire pressed.

“I also instructed Astral and his scout team to assist the Crystal Guard search parties for Soarin,” he went on, remaining stoic as Spitfire sat down and listened, nodding occasionally. “I figured they would do a better job, and it gives off the air that we are on board with Luna’s…”

He suddenly trailed off and lifted an eyebrow as he looked Spitfire in the eyes, staring.

The rest quickly noticed, shifting their focus from Descent to Spitfire. She was holding a firm, professional expression, but her eyes…

They looked misty, watery. One of her eyelids was twitching too as if holding the face was a struggle.

“What?” Spitfire asked, looking back and forth. The motions did the trick, losing some of the buildup and a single tear trickled down her face, over her cheek.

“Are you… crying?” Descent asked.

Spitfire’s ears pointed up and her eyes shot open, the serious look vanishing in an instant. She frantically touched a hoof to her face, feeling the wetness and wiping the tear away vigorously. She turned around, slamming her eyes shut and raising an arm to rub against them.

“I’M FINE!!!!” she shouted, her voice cracking slightly. “I’m…” she kept her back turned to all of them, releasing a loud sniffle. “I’m okay…”

The Renegades were staring… But the Wonderbolts all averted their eyes. They all knew exactly why Spitfire was crying. And honestly, they were surprised she had held herself together this long.

It was because of Wave Chill.

Spitfire was trying to stay on topic, but she couldn’t hide how hard the news about Wave had hit her. She had to swallow the fact that she fought so hard for a temporary pseudo-solution to a VERY personal problem.

Blaze let out a few sniffles of her own, High Winds barely keeping herself in check as well as she held a wing around Blaze. First Silver, now Wave… their squad was like family… an odd family, but family nonetheless. Being forcefully separated for so long was really beginning to hurt.

“Ig…Ignore…” Spitfire suddenly spoke up, putting her head up into the air and taking a deep breath. “Ignore this…” she said as she turned and motioned to her face, which had lost all sign of control and now looked like a sad mess with bloodshot eyes and quivering lips. “I’m fine,” she lied as she shook her head out and swallowed, shutting her eyes tight for a moment before forcing the serious, professional stare back onto her face.

They all wondered why she bothered, it was obvious she was stricken… but Spitfire was determined to try regardless.

“Okay, listen…” Spitfire continued despite her crumbling state. “Dash and I were just speaking with Luna and Discord, and this whole situation is more ridiculous than I thought. They claim that they’re struggling to find a solution to separating Soarin from Sombra… and that they don’t expect to.” She paused as they all reacted, Fleetfoot nearly squeaking as her ears flopped to the sides of her head and her eyes grew wide. Spitfire quickly shook her head. “But, obviously, I’m not convinced at all that they put forth the effort and neither should any of you be. The gods clearly fear Sombra, but it’s to a frightening degree. They are not budging, claiming that their proposed method of stopping him is the only way, despite the risks it poses to Dash and not knowing what will happen to her.” She explained as she made a subtle head motion towards Dash.

“What?!” Fleetfoot stood up. “What do they want to do?!” she asked frantically as she looked between Spitfire and Dash.

“Exactly what Princess Twilight mentioned when we first arrived,” Spitfire reminded them. “They want to seal him in stone using the Elements of Harmony… trapping Soarin in there with him.”

Dash held perfectly still as Spitfire naturally framed it as Twilight’s idea. More reason for her to simply hold her tongue.

“Luna even outright expressed that the possible risk to Dash due to her spirit connection with Soarin was irrelevant and not as important as stopping Sombra,” Spitfire added. She waited a moment as she got the exact reaction she was expecting. Gasps and looks of shock spread around the group. Fleetfoot froze on the spot, like the words hit her upside the head.

“But… But…” Fleetfoot stuttered, her lower lip quivering.

“You heard me,” Spitfire went on. “Luna believes that the threat of Sombra to Equestria is bigger than the lives of two ponies we value and care about. She has completely taken ‘the greater good’ approach. And… I’m sure you’ll all agree with me when I say that’s utter bullshit. Especially after what we’ve already been through with them. They are so afraid of Sombra that it’s clear they are not giving us the full truth and what his existence means to them. They are neglecting EVERYTHING they should stand for just to take him down.” She shook her head. “So… it’s settled. We need to get to the bottom of this… we need to talk directly to Sombra. Either we take this risk, or we take theirs. And I’m not playing by their rules anymore.”

Dash continued to remain still, looking down to keep her eyes from looking about.

“This…” Fleetfoot’s legs began to wobble. “I can’t…” She looked down, confusion and dejection wrought all over her face and body posture as she slowly sat down.

“I know, Fleet…” Spitfire sighed. “But this is what things have come to.”

“What do you propose?” Descent spoke up, getting right down to business. Spitfire just stared at him for a moment, somehow sticking to the subject at hoof despite her state.

“I… have a plan,” she began. Dash perked up quickly, but did her best to tame her own reaction midway through. “A two tier plan, part of which you’ve already started for me,” Spitfire went on while looking at Descent.

Dash focused and listened carefully. This was it. Spitfire was about to lay out her plans.

“I have?” Descent asked, curious.

“Yes, your scouts,” Spitfire nodded. “You’re having them ‘help’ the Crystal Guard, correct?”

“Yes, but they’re already out there, I can’t give them new orders immediately,” Descent explained.

“Well, assuming they don’t find him tonight, will they be returning here?” Spitfire broadened.

“Yes,” Descent answered with a nod.

“Then give them new orders when they return,” Spitfire began laying it out. “Have them appear to ‘help’ but have them conduct their own in depth searches outside of the Crystal Guard scope. Based on what I’ve seen of your lead scout team, they are likely better and much more thorough than anything the Empire’s common military has at their disposal. I want them to discreetly broaden their search and find Sombra first… then report to us without telling Luna.”

“That’s quite a gamble to have as our key starting point…” Descent pointed out while furrowing his brow.

“But am I wrong about your scouts?” Spitfire asked with a tip of her head.

“No,” Descent answered without hesitation. “Astral and his team have no match when it comes to gathering intel.”

“Then let’s trust them to get the job done.” Spitfire quickly turned to the rest before Descent could say anything more. “So… assuming that we get the information first, we will organize an operation to sneak out under the guise of a ‘training exercise’ to get the reserves organized. The whole force will be right outside the empire where they can be seen clear as day. We can have most of the elites stay right out there with them to give the appearance of an organized scene with drills and the like while we…” she motioned to the top tiers, “Slip away during the commotion with maybe three or four other elite squads as backup. While the rest hang back and keep up the spectacle, we can approach Sombra.” She looked towards Dash. “Your squad is going to be included in that small group, Dash. You had a unique effect on Sombra last time. I’m going to guess it has to do with your connection to Soarin.” She pointed at her. “Should things go south, you’ll be our trump card.”

“Alright,” Dash nodded, but said no more as she took it all in and processed it. She was holding off trying to formulate any of her own plan until she heard every tidbit and detail.

“What about the Renegades?” Blazetail spoke up.

“I’ll leave that up to you guys,” Spitfire answered as she turned back to them. “But it would probably be good to have some high-end representation from your ranks as well so Sombra can see that we’re both outside the jurisdiction of Luna. So do what you must to have a similar diversion to ours and have a select group of your best to meet up with us once we know our target location and can set up a rendezvous point.”

“We can do that, right?” Flashwind agreed while quickly passing it to Descent. Descent blinks and snorted.

“Yes, I suppose we can, but…”

“Good,” Spitfire cut him off. Descent glared for a moment, but Spitfire wasn’t even looking at him. She was already focused on the group as a whole again, and appeared to be rushing things along. “Now ideally… we want to make this all happen smoothly right underneath Luna’s nose, but should we end up having to confront her for any reason…” she paused and exhaled. “I guess… I don’t know actually.” She shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we need to. I don’t have a good plan off the top of my head for fighting against a god.” She turned quickly before anypony could react to her non-answer solution to that particularly scenario. “Now Dash…”

Dash blinked, holding herself extra steady. Spitfire already mentioned their squad being involved… there was more? Did it have to do with that look she got earlier?

“Yeah?” Dash acknowledged quickly and steadily.

“Look…” Spitfire suddenly stepped forward and placed a hoof on her shoulder, looking Dash right in the eyes.

It was a strange experience, definitely not the first time Spitfire had done something like this to speak directly and get a point across… but she looked so sad, it was sending mixed emotions through Dash. Nothing that would change her plans, but it was very unpleasant to see the lead captain of the entire force in such a wrecked, barely holding together state.

“I know this whole situation has been particularly difficult for you. Your life tied to Soarin’s notwithstanding, we’ve also asked you to act against some old, trusted friends of yours, but…” she trailed off for a moment.

But Dash suddenly saw an opening. The window was small and sure to close any second, but this could be her chance to solidify some trust.

“Spitfire,” Dash spoke up before she could continue. She threw on a look of determination and even reached up to place her hoof on hers. “This is for Soarin. My friends from home are involved, but that’s not going to stop me from doing what I have to do. I have no other choice with my life on the line.” Dash held her expression, despite feeling like she probably could have put that better. She felt like it was a little forced, but Spitfire seemed to be convinced. While her face didn’t change much, Spitfire nodded.

“Good… because I have a special job for you.”

Dash blinked and lifted an eyebrow.

“Special job?” she asked.

“Yes,” Spitfire said and cracked a small grin that didn’t really fit the overall state of her expression. “We’re going to add an extra layer of subversion here.”

Dash remained perfectly still, doing everything in her power to remain that way.

“In order to gain trust in Luna and make her feel like she has full control… I want you, at some point, to tell her that you’re on board with her plan to use the Elements of Harmony.”

“Uh…” Dash slurred. She heard Spitfire loud and clear, but her reaction was more geared towards the fact that Spitfire had NO CLUE that this was technically already part of Dash’s own plan, at least in part.

“You heard me,” Spitfire went on, completely oblivious. “I’m asking you to lie to her face. Tell her you’ve come to understand the situation and… I don’t know… say something related to how you’re an Element of Harmony and your duty as one to Equestria means more than anything else. Hell, if we happen to be present when you do it we can use that to our advantage too and ‘acknowledge’ your decision.”

Dash felt like her head was going to explode. The tangled mess was only becoming more tangled. She was now getting orders to lie to Luna’s face. And to keep up her own charade… she was about to lie to Spitfire’s face. But, she didn’t let the whirlwind knock her off balance. This was another opportunity to dig her hooves in and set up an extra screen for her own plan. Spitfire had to be convinced just as much as Luna that she had nothing going on in the background.

“Won’t she suspect funny business though?” Dash asked, keeping up the act. “The two of you have not been all smiles and sunshine recently, you know. She might think it’s a trick.”

“True,” Spitfire nodded. “But you’re a smart spectrum of colors. Use every mean at your disposal to convince her, like your friends for instance. All of you used to answer directly to Celestia and Luna. I’m sure she’ll think you have a strong reason to stick with them… plus you’re the Element of Loyalty, right? Swear by it to her while giving us a reason to ‘agree’ right after.”

“That’s… a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” Dash scrunched her face to give the appearance of deep thought and hesitance.

“Hey,” Spitfire smiled again, giving her firm pat on the shoulder. “You’re Silver Lining’s chosen student. I’ve no doubt you’ve picked up some of his habits and approaches to things. Put that experience to good use and you’ll figure it out."

It took every ounce of effort not the fall backwards as Dash heard those words come out of Spitfire’s mouth. The irony levels had reached critical mass. If only Spitfire KNEW… that she was already doing exactly that, just not in the way she was asking.

“Okay then…” Spitfire turned back to the rest and exhaled. “That’s pretty much all we can do for now.”

“Hold on a minute,” Descent quickly cut in. “‘We’ll cross that bridge when we need to’ isn’t going to cut it with Luna. We need a solid plan for that scenario, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked, knowing that nopony got to speak up when she brushed it aside before. Spitfire simply looked at him flatly.

“Well, what do you suggest?” she asked with a hint of sarcasm. “How exactly to we ‘plan’ to fight a god? Maybe more than one god should Discord decide to pull his head out of his own ass?”

Descent opened his mouth, but said nothing. His mouth remained agape for about ten seconds before he closed it and snorted.

“Point taken…” he said grumpily as he flattened his brow.

“Let’s just break for now… I’ve had a rotten day and need some time to…” Spitfire trailed off as her eyes landed on Fleetfoot. She looked incredibly sad, on the verge of tears while all hunched over and nearly curled up. “Fleet… don’t give me that look…” Spitfire said as the shaking tone in her voice returned. Fleetfoot sniffled loudly and her lips quivered.

“I just want all this crap to end already,” she barely managed to say in a blubbery tone. “I want Soarin back… I want to go back to Canterlot… I want us to be in control of things… right now it’s all wrong.” She forced every word out, sniffling several times.

“This is part of our duty, Fleet,” Spitfire said in a very unconvincing tone.

“Being backstabbed and lied to is our duty? Being chased by enemies we don’t know much about in some ancient flying building is our duty? Having a best friend stolen by some freak spirit of an old king is our duty?! Spitfire I’m losing my mind here!”

“Commander, enough of that…” Fire Streak suddenly detached from Misty and stepped over to her.

“Fire, let her be,” Spitfire ordered before he could touch her, approaching Fleetfoot herself and pressing a hoof lightly into her mane atop her head. “She’s right. This is far outside what we’re supposed to be dealing with. We handle abnormal threats… but it’s disheartening when those threats… seem to be from our own side too.” She slid her hoof down to Fleetfoot’s shoulder and pulled her into a light hug, looking around at the rest. “Let’s hope… that whatever happens here will be the end of it. Period. For all we know, everything we’ve been through up to this point has really only been about this… secret personal goal of the gods.”

“Hrmmmmmm…” Fleetfoot groaned, digging her face into Spitfire’s chest fur.

“We’re not going to know anything for sure until after the fact… and that’s assuming this all works and we live through it… and from there…” she looked down. She bit her lip and her body subtly shook, she inhaled sharply for a moment and shut her eyes, quickly lifting her hoof from Fleetfoot to rub them. She turned her back to all of them again. “That’s… that’s all for now,” her voice had fallen back into its emotional tone, her words jittery as she reached up and rubbed her eyes again.

It was easy to conclude that Wave was on her mind again, but Wave alone was not the only thing weighing so heavily on her. The rest felt just as burdened.

“Let’s get things started tonight,” she glanced briefly over her shoulder and waved at Descent. “And we’ll see where it goes.”

She immediately returned to her position, facing away and shaking, clearly trying to hold in bottled up and battered emotions that were trying to get loose.

It seemed like an abrupt end to a very important conversation, but Spitfire was clearly done and didn’t look like she was going to hold up much longer.

Descent was the first to move. He had more he wanted to discuss, but could tell Spitfire wasn’t in the right state of mind to do so. He made a head motion to Lightning Dust, Blazetail, and Flashwind. Flashwind didn’t budge at first, staring at Spitfire, but Blazetail gave a light tug on her shoulder, shaking his head. The Renegades all left, leaving just the Wonderbolts behind.

Fire Streak sighed quietly to himself, motioning to his squad towards the door and doing the same to the rest. Misty resisted, pointing at Spitfire with a very determined and worried look on her face and shaking her head at Fire every time he tried to make her leave. Fire eventually had to give her a stern look and spell out ‘leave her alone’ in sign language before she reluctantly obeyed. High Winds ended up having to pick up Blaze and carry her out. She wasn’t resisting, but didn’t seem able to move.

That left only Dash, Fleetfoot, and Spitfire in the room.

Dash felt it best that she leave. She had a feeling Fleetfoot was going to stay. The two of them really needed each other at the moment with everything going on, especially without Soarin there. While she had become good friends with them… this was much deeper and more personal, a lifetime connection they had that Dash wasn’t really a part of.

She got up from her spot and slowly made her way towards the door…

But she was only halfway there when Spitfire suddenly whimpered and sniffled loudly. Dash came to an abrupt halt and looked over her shoulder.

Spitfire was sitting on the floor, her hooves over her eyes, and her body shaking. She was sniffling loudly, quick, jittering hiccups jumping from her throat as her shoulders bopped up and down.

She suddenly wiped her arm against her eyes and shook her head back and forth, tears whipping from her face and leaving small droplet stains on the carpet. She sharply turned to her right while tilting her head back and taking a long, heavy breath…

“AAAAUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!!” Spitfire cried out as she threw her head forward.

She slammed her hooves to the floor a few times before crumpling, falling forward onto her stomach with heavy, heaving breaths as she started to full on cry. Everything was pouring out at once.

Fleetfoot was up in an instant. She rushed right up to Spitfire and nearly slid on her hooves as she quickly bent down in front of Spitfire. The moment Spitfire looked up and saw her, she reached out and hugged Fleetfoot as tightly as she could. Fleetfoot squeaked and gasped as she was grappled, but quickly pulled her arms free to hug Spitfire right back.

It was… difficult for Dash to watch. She averted her gaze, her lips scrunching as she closed her eyes, the sound of Spitfire crying filling her ears and hitting her hard in the gut.

She had to get out… not just to let them be alone, but to also stop herself from feeling so much unhinged… sympathy. It was hard enough to be carrying out this risky plan behind Spitfire’s back… seeing Spitfire in such a broken and fragile state over everything going wrong was only making it harder.

Dash moved quickly, pushing her way out the door and shutting it softly behind her. She stepped away from the door and moved far enough down the hall until she could no longer hear even the slightest hint of Spitfire’s crying.

The moment it was dead silent, Dash slumped against the wall and let out a long, uneasy sigh.

This was going to be much more difficult than she thought… She had no qualms undercutting Luna, but Spitfire? She cared about Spitfire. And both before in the lobby and just now in her room, Spitfire was unconsciously reminding Dash that this was a comrade, a partner, and a friend who trusted her that she was plotting against. Spitfire trusted her… and she placed her trust in her while all these other things were crashing down over her head, reducing the strong, stoic, captain of the Wonderbolts to a crying heap on a hotel floor.

“Hgn…” Dash suddenly groaned as she sat down and placed her hooves on the sides of her head. She purposely grinded them a little roughly against it before shaking her head out.

No.

She had to stay strong.

She couldn’t back down.

Seeing the real side of Spitfire and how all this was affecting her was painful… but that didn’t change the fact that Dash’s plan was their best chance at success. And once they had that success, Spitfire could focus on saving Wave again. One thing at a time… Soarin was kind of important for her own sake too.

She had the plan… or at least the meat of it. It was time to really put some serious thought into the greater details of her own. And she hoped that she would have the time to relay it to the rest of those involved. With so much security and so many eyes and ears around, how was she going to get her Wonderbolt and Ponyville friends in the same place without drawing suspicion?

That would have to wait. For now, she had to actually come up with the plan. With Descent’s scouts shifting their objective, there was no telling how soon it would be before they were forced into action.

Dash took a deep breath and exhaled, focusing her eyes down the hall as she started walking.

At this point… there seemed to be only two possible outcomes to all of this.

Either it was all going to come together and work out…

Or it was going to fall apart at the seams and crash hard.

Hopefully… it would be the first.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

(Art in this chapter by: Foxena)

Well doesn't this just keep getting rougher? And not just for Dash. Spitfire now has fight and coordinate knowing one of her two significant goals has been crushed. And its not like the other one is going well either. She has a lot of pressure on her shoulders and its so taxing that she can barely hold in her emotions. One of her best friends and her lover are now both in a state of uncertainty, and on top of it she's still dealing with the the ever growing mistrust in the gods and their inability to fully justify their actions without something feeling very off. Thats enough to break the best of us... and she couldn't hold it back long enough to be alone with Fleetfoot.

But Dash can't let the heart wrenching sights get in her way. Shes doing this for Spitfire as much as shes doing it for everything else. Shes doing what she must and taking control true to the way her mentor would handle the situation... but looks like Storm Front may be a thorn in her side that she wasn't expecting. Can he be trusted? Can Matteo keep a close enough eye on him?

The knot is pulled ever tighter. Hopefully Dash can unravel it all in one fell swoop.

Wew then... It feels like a long time since ive updated, that small hiatus for my test took a lot out of me, but it's good to be back and writing again. Hoping to get things back on the usual pace now. I will be making a blog at some point in the near future to give some insight into where we stand story and plot wise as well as a few plans going forward.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

O_o I think Fleet is following me...

Chapter 157: Overburdened

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 157: Overburdened

“Hmmm…” Sombra hummed to himself as he looked up into the sky between the dense crystalline leaves.

From within, Soarin perked up as Sombra made the noise, focusing to see through his eyes for a moment, but once he saw nothing but the sky and crystal trees, he relaxed, going back to doing… well… nothing. Aside from gazing upon the bound, ever slumbering image of Dash’s soul beside him he really couldn’t do anything else. Sombra hadn’t said anything for the past few days, barely making a sound even, but it looked like it was nothing more than a sigh or a passing thought.

The silence was starting to annoy Soarin, ironically. He had gotten sick of Sombra and Celestia constantly bickering in his head, but now the silence was mind numbing. But he wasn’t really sure which he preferred more. Either way there was nothing he could do. They had both made their cases to him very clearly and he felt trapped between the wills of two others.

But he wasn’t willing to succumb to either. Neither of them had given him a reason to play along or trust them and neither of them seemed to fully consider how they were using him and barging in on his life to meet their own ends. Ultimately, they were intruders in HIS body and all he really wanted was be rid of them. Instead he had to sit still and put up with conflicting stories and pressure from two sides that he was more than infuriated with at the moment.

He felt like he was being used, like he was just a pawn in two grander, conflicting schemes and that really pissed him off to no end.

“They saw us,” Celestia suddenly chimed in, breaking the long silence.

It took Soarin a moment to register what she had just said. ‘They saw us’. He quickly refocused to look through his eyes again, but still only saw the sky as Sombra kept his head tilted up.

“I know,” Sombra replied calmly.

“What? Who?” Soarin frantically asked, the sudden development catching him entirely off guard.

“They were behind us,” Sombra answered. “Just took off. Purple and black suit with a thin yellow lightning bolt pattern. Red headband and red goggles.”

“A Renegade?!” Soarin was too surprised to say more, much less look for where Sombra saw them fly or wonder why he just sat there and did nothing.

“I’ve no doubt both parties have been looking for us,” Celestia spoke up as Soarin continued to process it. “I’m glad the side that stands for good found us first.”

Sombra released loud snort.

“Listen to yourself… ‘The side that stands for good.’ What a farce.” He commented harshly.

“There is no argument to be made here,” Celestia adamantly defended her statement, but Sombra had none of it.

“There very much is,” Sombra said with a scoff. “You merely call them that because they are sided with your sister. To me, and those who have opened their eyes…” he paused and Soarin felt a sudden extra presence, as if sensing that Sombra was looking at him. “They are just another part of the world you control.”

“By that logic,” Celestia hissed back at him. “They are a part of a world that you personally think is wrong.”

“Okay, no. STOP.” Soarin cut in quickly, already missing the silence he was just scorning. “We all know where this is going to go. Just shut up before I have to hear you two endlessly bitch at one another again.”

“TCH!”

“Hmph!”

The two went quiet again. And Soarin was surprised they actually listened. At least they both felt the same way he did about their arguing. It never went anywhere and just spun in circles because neither of them were willing to give an inch when it came to who was in the right. But with them quieting down, it gave Soarin a moment to think about what had just happened.

They had been found. Considering how quickly and discreetly they had come and gone, it was probably a member of Descent’s skilled scout team. This was changing his perspective on the situation… even if just a little bit. And now he felt that there may be some things that neither Sombra nor Celestia were considering. Specifically, they didn’t understand how his friends think and were both framing the situation as good vs. bad as if everypony in the Crystal Empire was on the same page.

And… Soarin one hundred percent knew that wasn’t the case. If a Renegade saw them and flew off, he had every reason to believe that Spitfire and Descent had some sort of plan in the works. There was no way, after all the revelations and everything they had been dragged through… that his best friend and his respected rival would bend over backwards and accept whatever story was fed to them by Luna after he was consumed.

“So…” Celestia spoke up again, causing Soarin to grimace and prepare a rebuttal if she started any more shit. “You’ve been spotted. What will you do now?” she asked.

Soarin held his tongue. Frankly, it was a good question and he was curious too.

But… Sombra didn’t answer.

“Well…?” Celestia pressed. “Or are your plans thrown off now?”

Sombra still didn’t answer.

“If you had a plan of attack, you can say goodbye to your element of surprise,” Celestia added, beginning to sound like she was verbally jabbing at him.

Which seemed to coax a reaction because Sombra slowly began to growl quietly.

“I swear you don’t even make an attempt to listen to me,” Sombra finally spoke up. “I already made myself clear about this, yet again you assume that I’m willing to devastate my own kingdom? I’m not the mindless monster you fought a thousand years ago and it’s pitiful that you keep acting like I am… you’re not going to convince Soarin that I am either, so keep that royal mouth of yours closed before you utter any more nonsense.”

“I’ll speak as I please,” Celestia shot back sharply, grunting as she shifted and her bindings tightened on her. “If you didn’t want my opinion than you should have bound my lips as well.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Sombra snarled.

“If you’re so sure of yourself, then where is your reason? What is your goal? You’ve been pacing about out here for days and now you’ve been spotted, never once making a move towards your supposed target. You think we don’t notice? You think we’re blind to your hesitation? Who are you trying to fool?!”

Sombra went quiet for several seconds. He sounded like he was murmuring something to himself.

“My goal hasn’t changed…” Sombra finally answered in a slightly hushed tone.

“You don’t know what to do,” Celestia threw out there adamantly. “Just say it, Sombra.”

“I’M TAKING BACK WHAT’S RIGHTFULLY MINE!” Sombra lashed out.

“Kind of hard to do that when you’re hiding in the Crystal Forest,” Celestia added.

“I…” Sombra was on the defensive. Soarin was intrigued, so far, most of the time the script had been the other way around. Come to think of it, Celestia was on to something here. Why was Sombra spending so much time out here? He made the case that he was taking in old sights at one point, but after several days?

“Out with it, what’s stopping you?” Celestia pressed onward. Sombra again, held a lengthy silence. Soarin had purposely passed up several chances to tell Celestia to cut it out, and at this point he was hoping Sombra noticed this too. He was equally intrigued and Sombra was stuck with their curiosity. And for once… he wasn’t in a position of verbal dominance.

“I haven’t made my move yet… because my current state is not ideal.”

Soarin and Celestia both perked up in surprise. Not ideal? Did Sombra just acknowledge a weakness?

“I’m no fool, Celes,” Sombra went on. “When I was first released and seized control of this body, I thought that was it. I thought I had full control, that I was untouchable… and I asserted my will over your sister and that detestable snake as if it was my chance to end their pitiful reigns as ‘gods’ for good. My immediate plan was to show them how helpless they were before me, to make them feel and taste fear at my hooves before destroying them both and moving on to reclaim my throne. From there… to begin a new era in Equestria.”

He paused and shook his head.

“But then before my moment of triumph could arrive… Soarin fought back. I did not think it possible, I did not believe his will could challenge mine, much less even remain. But it wasn’t simply him being strong… he had help. Help from that one mare…”

“Dash…” Soarin perked up, shifting his focus within his mind to peer down at the image of Dash bound beside him.

“She was… invisible. Or was she?” Sombra went on. “I had no idea what had happened. I don’t know how I could not sense her so close to me. My senses were fine tuned to every presence, I could have easily counted how many ponies were around me, but she slipped right by. And then even more troubling, my magic passed right through her with no effect. I had used a pulse to blow away all those coming at me, yet it did not even touch her. It was like she wasn’t even there, like she was completely immune to all of my power. It has to be because of the connection they share… This, piece of her soul that’s present with us. I cannot say I know for sure, but whatever it is, it crippled me. It drained me of my strength and clouded my focus. I was forced to flee, it was an effect I could not comprehend. All she did was touch me… and Soarin suddenly had unimaginable strength and will power to fight me from within, to challenge me for control.”

Soarin stared at Dash as Sombra readily acknowledged everything that happened. But Celestia didn’t waste any time chiming back in.

“Hmph,” she huffed. “So now you understand why—”

“I know that’s why you did it, Celes. That much is obvious,” he cut her off, but added an extra snarl as his silhouette inched towards her. “And you disgust me… using two ponies who share such a strong connection to meet your ends. Who gives you the right to make such decisions?”

Any smugness and confidence Celestia had been exhibiting faded instantly as Sombra inched even closer.

“This connection through their souls you have forced them into… I have felt its strength first hoof and have broken down how it works,” Sombra released a loud snort of discontent. “It’s only as strong as their love, their care for one another. Am I right?”

Sombra paused as Soarin glanced up from Dash towards Celestia. She was staring into the featureless silhouette with her eyes wide and her mouth shut tight.

“It would not work if they were at odds or did not feel strongly for each other. The pain that shot through me when she touched me… I have never felt more spiritual pressure before in my life. My great power and tremendous strength meant nothing, it felt like mountain had been dropped right on my back, crushing my entire body.”

He made a sharp move forward, causing Celestia to flinch and lean back as far as her bindings let her, gasping as the movement caused the restraints to tighten once more.

“THAT… is how strong their connection is,” Sombra hissed in a low, angered tone. “THAT is how important they are to one another. THAT… is the power of true love. They have an unbreakable collective will to stay strong for the sake of the other no matter the pain or cost. And you should be ASHAMED of yourself for intruding in this wonderful romance of theirs and twisting their joyful lives into an endless chaotic mess!”

Celestia was frozen as Sombra used the harshest words imaginable to put her actions into a very different perspective for her.

“Feh…” Sombra pulled away and shook his head. “But what’s done is done and you’ve gotten what you’ve wanted, right? Rainbow Dash… is the reason I haven’t made my move. She is a threat to my goals that I currently have no answer for.”

Soarin immediately looked down at the image Dash and stared at her for several moments.

So that was it? Sombra was afraid of being caught in a confrontation with Dash involved.

No… afraid didn’t seem to be the right word.

“And because of that…” Sombra went on. “I’m hesitant. I know they all saw what happened when she touched me. I’ve every reason to believe that they will try to use that against me. If I advance carelessly, I’m setting myself up for failure, or worse.”

Definitely not afraid. Sombra was being smart about it. And… the more Soarin thought about it, the more it made sense to him too, but from a different angle. They did have a weapon to use against Sombra… it was Dash. Could she… possibly be the key to him regaining control of his own body? Was she his ticket to ending this mess and pushing Sombra out of him?

“But I must admit… I envy you, Soarin… greatly,” Sombra suddenly continued. “Having felt the strength of your connection with Rainbow Dash… what a frighteningly powerful bond…”

Soarin flinched in surprise as Celestia gasped just loud enough for him to hear.

“To know that such a strong love can exist…” Sombra droned on.

“Stop it.” Celestia spoke up sharply.

“I can only imagine how great it must feel…”

“Sombra, STOP IT!” Celestia shouted, the bindings tightening severely as she made an actual effort to move. “AH!” she cried out in pain as the bindings squeezed and forced her to stay put. Soarin furrowed his brow as Sombra’s silhouette casually flowed over to Soarin and bent down without fully facing him.

“Please, Soarin… tell me. How good does it feel? Because I wouldn’t know.”

“Knock it off,” Soarin quickly shot back, causing Sombra to shift away a little as Soarin gave him a harsh glare. “Again with this crap? Drop it. I’ve had my fill of you two and your melodramatic romance problems. At this point I’ve heard enough to write a damn tragedy musical complete with a half hour encore repeating the Free Bridle guitar solo twice.” He said very sarcastically, but Sombra didn’t make any real moves, he just turned his head away slightly and looked down.

“Free… Bridle?” he muttered quietly in confusion, but Soarin didn’t give him time to think further.

“You’re damn RIGHT I don’t like how she messed up my life and caused this severely screwed situation, but right now it’s also keeping your ass from kicking me out of my own body. That doesn’t excuse her, but right here and now it’s sure as hell helping. So cut out the petty personal attacks, both of you! It always goes nowhere so just shut it!”

“Hmph, fine…” Sombra replied and turned his back to Soarin. Celestia just remained quiet, pouting as she turned her head away from them both.

But they only all sat still for a moment, Sombra suddenly moving a little further away.

“Enough talking then,” he said as he looked up, returning his focus to Soarin’s body and shaking his head. “A moment of confrontation no doubt approaches and I am unsure of how to proceed. We’ve said all that has to be said… the rest is up to you, Soarin.”

“Pardon me if I haven’t already heard that a few dozen times too,” Soarin said sarcastically in response. “Are we really going to go through this again? How many times do I have to tell you to eat shit?”

“My offer still stands,” Sombra pointed out while ignoring Soarin’s crude comments. “There is no doubt that there will a conflict. There is no compromise in sight, we have three parties with differing views and nopony is giving an inch. All I can offer you is a solution from my perspective, and my word as a fellow stallion. If you allow me to take control of your body, I will personally make sure that this all ends without a single drop of mortal bloodshed.”

“What about Dash?” Soarin interjected. “Suddenly have an answer for her? That was quick, enlighten me.”

“I will FIND a way around her… even if it means going through your friends,” Sombra shot back. Soarin blinked, his eyes growing slightly. “I don’t want to hurt them, Soarin. But if you continue to resist and they get in my way… I will be forced to. If I’m tied down and have no choice but to act, for my own sake, I cannot ensure I will pull punches. So again, that’s up to you. It’s your choice.”

Soarin went quiet for a few moments, but it didn’t take long for him to shake any doubt from his mind and hold his ground.

“Your offer still stands, huh?” Soarin repeated Sombra’s words and snorted. “Well, guess what, my ‘go fuck yourself’ hasn’t budged either. You can bait me all you want with sympathy for my friends, but I will never give up. And if you knew my friends, that’s what they’d want too.”

“Hmph…” Sombra huffed. “Very well…”

Soarin steeled himself for Sombra to make another statement about his lack of foresight or something else he could shoot down as more grandstanding, but surprisingly, he said nothing and left it be. Soarin looked towards Celestia as he felt his body moving again, but she looked silenced, likely stricken by Sombra’s ‘true love’ jab at her moments ago. Despite their bickering, it was clear that there were still some strong feelings lingering between the two of them, and Sombra’s words might as well have been a stab right to the heart.

But Soarin could care less, he was more focused on the here and now… including these new developments. He felt a strange wave of confidence all of a sudden, likely due to being found by a Renegade scout. It gave him hope that something was in the works, and he had no doubt it was a plan separated from Luna. If Spitfire and Descent decided to listen to Luna now, then he would actually question their sanity.

But on the flip side, he also had a new worry… Sombra’s recognition of the threat Dash posed to him. He had given no indication that he knew what to do about it, but after being around Sombra and learning about his intuition and resourcefulness, there was no reason to believe that he wouldn’t figure something out. Either a clever way around it or… a way to remove her from the equation? No, that was thinking too far. He wasn’t even able to touch her without ramifications and his magic apparently didn’t work on her. And even if he found a way… what would happen if he killed Dash?

Soarin shook his head out, immediately striking the idea from his head. If it were any other adversary, that would be something to worry about, but Sombra? This Sombra? No. He had yet to kill anypony and made it clear that he didn’t want to kill anypony, aside from the gods at least. He wouldn’t even entertain the thought. Soarin had no way of knowing what would happen if Sombra got desperate, but Sombra seemed intent on staying true to his morals, if for no other reason to prove to those he wished to lead that he was not the mad king the history books painted him as. But even if he had the bloodlust to do so… there was no knowing what would happen if he killed her. Soarin was still a part of their conscience. If Sombra killed Dash… and Soarin died as a result, who knew what would happen? With only a partial grip on Soarin… maybe it would destroy Sombra too? There was no way Sombra hadn’t thought about that, assuming he considered that a possibility.

Soarin exhaled through his nose and decided to stop speculating. Who knew what was going to happen? He was stuck here and could see nothing going on in the background. Either way, a clash was approaching. All he could do was hope that Spitfire and Descent had some sort of plan in the works behind the scenes… because the usual senseless, mindless conflict would not be a solution to this and should it turn into that… it could easily be the worst case scenario for all parties involved.

“Are we all ready?” Cadence asked after taking a long, deep breath. She looked back and forth between Luna and Twilight. Twilight glanced around as the clerics continued to check on the crystal afflicted ponies. The wizards and scholars had moved on, joining the efforts of the rest focusing on Sombra as the clerics worked to prepare the afflicted for the stasis spell.

“I believe so. They’ve all been stabilized and the pain soothing magic has been refreshed,” Twilight explained. “If our theories are correct, it will diminish at the slowed rate once they are sealed inside, just like the spread of the sickness. That should help them last even longer.”

“We are ready to assist with the spell,” Luna cut in and nodded. “It is well within our ability and will greatly lessen the burden on yourself.”

“Oh, it isn’t that hard of a spell,” Cadence smiled. “I know it’s alicorn magic, but I’ve gotten used to the pressure. I appreciate it though, Auntie. It’ll be nice to go without the headache.” She perked up as a cleric approached, pulling down her white hood and nodding.

“The last one is ready to go,” she stated.

“Good… now we just…” she trailed off as she glanced around, her eyes landing on Wave Chill.

“She isn’t here yet,” Twilight spoke up as soon as she saw where Cadence was looking. Cadence frowned slightly and sighed.

“Then we wait,” she stated adamantly. “We’re not doing this until she has had one last moment with her beloved.”

Twilight looked down, her ears flopping down as she thought about it. Luna’s expression did not shift, but she looked away, as if trying to hide cracks in her demeanor.

There had been strains in trust, there had been arguments and fights… but none of that prevented her from having sympathy towards this situation. As the Princess of Love, Cadence was representing her designation flawlessly and it made Luna happy to see.

Everypony in the room perked up and turned as the sound of the doors opening filled the room.

Spitfire had arrived.

She looked… blank, no real recognizable or distinguishable expression on her face. It was as if she was tired, emotionally drained, but doing her best to set it aside. She had done her share of wallowing already, tears would be pointless here. It was time to be real and face the facts and she looked like she was doing everything in her power to hold that mindset through her emotions.

She stood in the doorway for several moments before taking a deep breath and turning towards Wave. The three alicorns said nothing as they watched Spitfire move towards him, staying on the sidelines and allowing it to play out at her pace.

The door slowly swung shut behind her, but right before it could close completely, it was thrown open again. Blaze and High Winds came through quickly, Blaze more or less riding on High Wind’s side as she clung to her. The door barely began to move again before the rest of the top tiers came through as well.

Fleetfoot led the way with Air Mach and squad three close behind.

Spitfire suddenly stopped a few paces away from Wave. He was looking at her, but she had a sudden tightness in her chest. She swallowed a few times, trying to loosen the knot, but it was taking quite a bit of effort. The rest of the top tiers came to a halt and waited a moment, but when they saw Spitfire was locked in place for more than a few seconds, they continued on, gathering around Wave. He looked at each and every one of them as they circled his bed and smiled weakly.

Spitfire looked down, her eyes narrowing and her teeth gritting as she tried to rid herself of the choked up feeling in her throat, but she perked up and blinked when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Cadence was right beside her and gave her a reassuring nod.

“Take your time,” she encouraged, and said no more as she turned and made her way back over to Twilight and Cadence.

Spitfire blinked, looked back down, and shut her eyes tight. She held her breath for a moment or two before exhaling and shaking her head out. She looked up and forced herself forward making her way towards Wave and the rest, but stopping outside the ring they had formed around him… because it looked like they all wanted a chance to see him.

The first to move was Blaze, who ripped free from High Winds and almost flopped her whole body onto the bed as she reached out and gave Wave the biggest hug she could without hurting him. The Wonderbolts all flinched in surprise, but calmed down when they saw Wave slowly return the embrace with one arm, patting her back lightly as she shook.

“You’re gonna be fine!” she yelled, sniffling. “I don’t care what any of these fucking wiztards, scowlers, cleardicks, or whatever the fuck you call them says!” she belted out, sniffling again as she looked Wave in the eye with a face that was half angry, half sad, with tear droplets in the corners of her eyes and her lip quivering. “As soon as this shit’s done, we’re gonna fix you and get you out… I promise!” she said as her quivering lips scrunched into a pout. “You’re not allowed to kick the bucket, you hear me? If Silver’s old ass survived, you better fucking do the same…” she trailed off and buried her face into his shoulder almost scraping her cheek on a crystal formation in the process.

“Heh…” Wave chuckled weakly as he gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks, Blaze…”

“What she said…” High Winds spoke up as she walked up behind Blaze and pressed a hoof atop her head, causing Blaze to squeak quietly. Winds stared at Wave, she opened her mouth to yawn, but cringed and gritted her teeth to suppress it. Keeping her usually lidded eyes open as she fought back her usual state. “We’ve got your back. You’ll be out of there and back with your wifey in no time,” she said as she made a head motion toward Spitfire. “Come on, Blazey,” she gave a light tug on Blaze’s shoulder, but she clung to Wave.

“NO!” she whined, but Winds eventually pulled her free.

“Come on, let’s let everypony else have a chance,” she said as Blaze whimpered and flailed her hooves towards Wave to no avail.

Squad three made their way forward, Lightning Streak stepping out first and giving Wave a light jab on the shoulder.

“Hang tough, Chiller… keep it together bro, we’ll be back for you,” he said simply as Fire Streak joined his brother’s side.

“We’re fighting for you just as much as we’re fighting for Soarin, commander. You’ll be in our thoughts as we take flight,” he reassured Wave. But before Wave could say anything, Surprise hopped up onto the bed and flopped down, grabbing and hugging Wave’s hoof.

“I promise we won’t take long!” she wailed as she stared at him with watery eyes. “Then we can get you out, make you better, and I can make you smile again! I’ll be ready the moment you’re out!” she whimpered as she reached forward and gave him a hug. Wave grinned and patted her on the head.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said as she looked up to him and tried to smile through the sadness. “And I look forward to it.”

She sniffled and nodded quickly several times before sliding off the bed and plopping on the floor with her chin just barely reaching high enough to stay rested on it.

Wave’s attention quickly turned as Misty squeezed her way past the Streak twins and placed a hoof on the bed, wearing an intense look of concern on her face as she locked eyes with Wave. Wave looked at her carefully and then reached a hoof up to his mouth, swiping it back and forth while smiling.

Misty blinked as she watched, but understood what he meant. She swallowed and turned her frown into a smile, doing her best to hold it even though her eyes were still sad.

Wave nodded as soon as she smiled, placing his hoof over his mouth before slowly moving it in her direction, giving her the sign for ‘thank you.’

The gesture sent visible jitters through Misty, she covered her face for a moment as she shook in place before reaching forward and giving him a big hug, rubbing her cheek into his shoulder. Wave reached his hoof up to return her embrace before lightly patting her on the head and back.

When she finally let go, she pulled away and stared at him with a determined look. She nodded several times vigorously, reaching out and giving his shoulder a firm pat. Wave smiled, understanding it was her way of reassuring him, giving her a nod of acknowledgement before she stepped back.

Air Mach came forward next, looking surprisingly serious.

“Chiller, dude…” he began in an uncharacteristically soft tone. “I know I ain’t really a top tier Wonderbolt…” He paused and slowly removed his glasses, the rest of the Wonderbolts staring in slight shock at how serious he was being. “But that doesn’t stop us from being brothers. I got a chance to fly with the best of the best, and that chance has made me respect you guys more than I ever have.” He pounded a hoof on the mattress. “I swear to you, bro… on my honor as a stallion. Once we know how to fix you, I’m personally going to kick your crystal to pieces to let you out.”

Wave chuckled weakly and nodded.

“Just give me a head’s up before you do,” he said jokingly with a wink. This seemed to charge up Air Mach as he slammed his glasses back over his eyes.

“Now that’s what I like to hear!” he stepped back and pointed victoriously at Wave. “You’re burning fire of passion isn’t going out… not while WE have anything to say about it!”

“Alright, calm down,” Fleetfoot groaned as she yanked Air Mach back and stepped forward, reaching up and placing both of her front hooves on the bed.

She just stared quietly for a moment, not giving much of an indication of how she was feeling, but it definitely wasn’t happy. Her face seemed to slowly slip in that direction the longer the silence went on.

“I’m… going to be quick here.” She shook her head. “Because we all know who needs you the most,” she said as she glanced over her shoulder towards Spitfire. Spitfire had her eyes averted, as if she couldn’t stand watching the whole scene. “But…” Fleetfoot turned back to Wave. “We’re going to save you. We’re going to make everything normal again. That’s all I want… and you’re very much a part of that.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Wave said in the most dutiful voice he could muster while giving a light nod. Fleetfoot’s ears twitched and she smiled weakly.

“Even like this you’re being formal…” she sighed and swallowed, trying to hold back tears. “Thanks for… still being you,” she said in a shaky tone as she looked over her shoulder again. “Now I’ll get out of the way. Spitty!”

Everypony turned as Fleetfoot called to her. Spitfire perked up and blinked, looking towards them and seeing all the eyes trained on her.

“What are you doing? Get over here,” Fleetfoot demanded while tapping a hoof on the mattress.

For a moment, Spitfire didn’t move, she sighed and looked about the room.

She noticed they weren’t the only ones that had arrived. Descent had shown up at some point while she was distracted. He was going around and taking a moment to speak to each of the Shadowbolts. But… there was a clear difference between him and her. Descent wasn’t showing emotion, nor did he look stricken in any way. He was handling it like a champ, despite having to go and face so many more who were counting on him than she was. They weren’t loved ones… but to Descent, they were family. So it was probably a very hard thing for him to do and he wasn’t shying away from it.

Something about it struck Spitfire with some inspiration. She looked back at all the Wonderbolts waiting for her. Fleetfoot had moved aside, allowing Wave to see her to. She took a deep breath and tried to balance her emotions. She had to keep them in check… no more outbursts, she had done enough of that. Wave didn’t need to see tears… he needed to see confidence, he needed her reassurance.

After another deep breath, Spitfire made her way forward, the rest moving aside so she could come right up to the bed. When she reached him, the two just stared deep into one another’s eyes as if that would do half the talking for them. But it wasn’t long before Spitfire leaned down, placed her chest on the mattress and got down really close to him, letting out a sigh as they enjoyed the close proximity.

“I hope you didn’t cry too much,” Wave spoke first. Spitfire froze in place.

“I wasn’t—!” she shut her mouth quickly looked down and sighed hard. “Okay, maybe I did a little… or a lot, but I was, um…”

“I know why,” Wave shook his head. “It’s not the outcome I wanted either, especially after how hard you worked for my sake.”

Spitfire looked up and locked eyes with Wave. Her lips quivered for a brief moment, but she held steady and slid her hooves closer to him.

“We’re going to save you, Wave,” she said with strength in her voice that sounded forced, but she was trying to sound as determined as possible. “Once we’re in the clear, I’m not going to rest until you are out of this spell, cured of these damn crystals, and back on your hooves.”

“You know…” Wave smiled and chuckled weakly. “Even if you didn’t say any of that, I would’ve assumed it anyway,” his soft words and tone made Spitfire’s heart throb as if every word touched her. “You’ve gotten me this far already. It’s no miracle, it’s you. You’ll do it. I know you will.”

Spitfire felt her strength dwindle. Her ears began to droop down and she couldn’t stop her lips from quivering. Wave slowly reached a hoof towards her, but was only moving it for a second before Spitfire reacted, reaching out and grabbing it. She squinted her eyes, fighting as hard as she could to keep any tears from welling up. She took several short breaths, her head twitching as she held back any signs of sadness.

“No… no no no,” she said out loud as Wave stared at her curiously. “I’m not crying, I refuse to cry right now!” she berated herself as Wave caught on and smiled, Spitfire whipping her head back and forth and giving him a serious glare. “It’s time to shape up and focus. To hell with these dumb emotions, you’re my motivation, not a burden!” She clasped both of her hooves around his, giving it a tight squeeze. “They better keep you nice and comfy in that crystal, because once you’re out, if there is so much as one new scratch on you, I’m going to kick every sparkling crystal ass in this room.”

“Hehe…rgh… heh…” Wave bounced slightly as her words made him laugh, cringing a little as the jittery motion caused some pain. But he quickly smiled at her again. He looked happy… and that warmed Spitfire’s heart.

But the smile she returned only lasted briefly, a look of distraught trying to make its way back onto her face as if all her strong words were still struggling against the reality of the situation for her.

It didn’t take long for Wave to notice, and the pressure on his hoof made it all too clear.

She didn’t want to let go of him.

Spitfire’s ears stood straight up and her eyes widened a little as she felt a light tug on her hoof. Wave was trying to pull her closer. She quickly saved him the trouble and leaned forward, resting her chest and stomach on the mattress and putting her face up close to his. Once she was within range, Wave let go of her hoof and reached his around her head, slowly sliding it through her mane and to the back of her neck, never breaking eye contact as he touched her softly.

“Stay strong, Spitfire…” he whispered to her. The softness of his voice sent shivers through her. “I’ll see you soon.”

Spitfire couldn’t contain herself. She immediately reached forward and cradled his face, leaning in and kissing him. She didn’t care that it was in front of everypony this time. She was so upset about Wave only to have him pull her out of it himself. She felt put at ease… and it was the exact kind of feeling she was looking for to help her confront this situation and the approaching challenges.

The kiss was as passionate as she could make it without going overboard, and lasted just long enough to keep the line drawn between love and lust. But even once they pulled away from one another, they remained very close, practically nose to nose.

They stared at one another for a long time, neither of them saying anything because they knew this was the last chance they’d have for a while. It would feel like an instant for Wave, frozen with his last thoughts of her. But for Spitfire, it would feel like an eternity.

“I love you,” Spitfire said strongly, keeping sliding her hoof on his shoulder and gripping it tightly.

“I love you too,” Wave replied with a smile, softly sliding his hoof down the back of her neck and to her shoulder.

Spitfire flashed a grin in return, the warmth felt by those words poking through the heavy emotions that she was fighting to keep at bay. She lightly brushed a hoof through his mane, leaned back in and planted a light, quick kiss on his cheek.

“Sleep well,” she said softly to him as she slid her hoof down his arm and gripped his hoof. Wave simply smiled in return as they pulled away from one another VERY slowly. Spitfire did not let go of his hoof until she was physically out of reach, their arms remaining extended towards one another for a moment even as they let go.

As Spitfire backed away and joined the rest of the Wonderbolts. Cadence approached Wave, looking like she was trying her hardest to hold back an incredibly wide smile. She looked between the two of them.

“Are you ready?” She asked Wave. Wave let his head lean back and he closed his eyes.

“I could use a good nap,” he replied casually.

Cadence stole another glance at Spitfire and saw that she was smiling. The Princess of Love could barely contain the starry look in her eyes. Not even the weight of the situation could stop her from recognizing the strength of their feelings for one another.

“Very well,” she said with a nod, keeping focused.

Cadence stepped back and made her way to the center of the room. All of the clerics cleared away, moving to the front of the room where the Wonderbolts stood. Descent joined them as well, but he didn’t say a word nor did he look at anypony. Twilight and Luna joined Cadence in the center, their magic alight on their horns and ready to assist with the pressure as they waited for Cadence to begin.

Cadence took a deep breath, setting her hooves firmly as she lifted her horn into the air. The light blue aura of her magic gently surrounded it and grew brighter as she closed her eyes. She grunted quietly as she tipped her head down and thrust it upward, opening her eyes to reveal they had been engulfed in the same light as her horn. The aura growing larger as she tapped into the alicorn magic reserves gifted to her by the gods.

Twilight and Luna tipped their heads towards her, the auras around their horns extending outwards and touching the pulsating form of Cadence’s magic. It caused her flow of power to calm down, remaining large, but appearing smoother and steadier as if Luna and Twilight were soothing it and allowing Cadence to work more comfortably.

The Wonderbolts began shielding their eyes as the light from Cadence’s horn grew brighter. The light grew so intense that they could no longer look directly at the alicorns. Then several streams of magic shot outward, each one reaching towards an afflicted pony and surrounding them in the same light blue glow.

But while most of them focused on keeping the bright light out of their eyes… Spitfire squinted and kept her eyes focused towards Wave as she did her best to shield the rest with a hoof beside her face.

She felt a lump in her throat as she saw the magic surrounding him, all sorts of thoughts running through her head. He was about to be frozen… locked in place at this very moment in time. Something about it felt so wrong, like it was unnatural and maybe even harmful, but they didn’t have a choice. This was their best bet to preserve him until they knew how to fix him. But how long would that be? She hoped with all her heart that it was not long.

Then her heart skipped a beat… as Wave tilted his head towards her… and smiled.

A single tear fell from Spitfire’s eye, the only one that managed to escape.

A flash of light exploded forth from the alicorns, forcing everypony, even Spitfire to completely cover their eyes.

And then just like that, in an instant, the magic had ceased.

Slowly, everypony moved their arms and hooves away from their eyes, blinking and squinting as their eyes readjusted. Spitfire felt the faint wetness on her face and instantly wiped the one tear clear of her face, looking up frantically towards Wave as her eyes strained and fought to refocus.

And when they did… she found herself staring at Wave… encased in a big, clear crystal. The sight caused her to freeze, as if she wasn’t ready for it despite all she had just done to ensure she was.

The Wonderbolts all sat still as well, every one of them silent as they slowly adjusted and stared towards Wave with Spitfire. None of them uttered a sound as Cadence exhaled and wobbled slightly, both Luna and Twilight moving to support her. But she quickly shook her head.

“I’m fine… Check them, quickly!” Cadence ordered, while looking towards the clerics. She pushed free of Luna and Twilight, joining the clerics as they rushed forward, all of their horns alight and waving them over the crystals that now contained frozen ponies.

The Wonderbolts all held their breath as the process unfolded, but Spitfire still had not moved, or so much as taken a breath.

Cadence sighed loudly, drawing attention to her as she stepped back from one of the crystals and her magic ceased. Several clerics began disengaging as well.

“They are stable,” she said with a tone of relief. “At least this one is, anything wrong with the others?” Cadence asked as she looked around. The clerics began nodding one by one as they finished checking the others.

The Wonderbolts kept their eyes locked on the cleric examining Wave, and a collective feeling of pause rushed over them as she turned and nodded to Cadence as well.

“Good…” Cadence said as she looked around. “Then we can declare this a success. I want half of the clerics here to remain to regularly monitor them and the rest to join the efforts of those researching a separation method for Soarin. Right now we should be…”

She went on to give more orders, but the Wonderbolts stopped listening. Spitfire was breathing again, but she still hadn’t moved. Fleetfoot was about to reach up and touch her, but right before she could, Spitfire suddenly rushed towards Wave’s crystal. She slid to a halt in front of it, peered in…

And… stood there. She stood for a very long time, just looking at Wave frozen within. Reaching up and placing a hoof on it as her lips turned into a small frown and her ears drooped.

But… Wave was smiling. It was the same smile he flashed to her right before he was frozen. Despite the look on her face, his smile brought warmth to Spitfire’s heart. He looked comfortable… and had been frozen in a moment where he felt good, a moment of happiness in seeing her.

She found herself putting up a different perspective in her thoughts. The last thing Wave saw made him smile… and Spitfire decided that the first thing he would see when he was released would also make him smile. They would find a way to fix him, they would find it quick… and then they’d let him out. She’d be the first thing he saw when they did.

The rest of the Wonderbolts approached to look too, but none of them got as close as Spitfire. They didn’t want to interrupt her moment. But after a few seconds, Spitfire took a deep breath, exhaled, and turned to face the rest.

“As long as he’s alive… I have hope,” she said with new determination in her voice. “And while Wave is waiting for us… we have another friend that needs us.”

The silent reactions she got from them all were mixed, some stronger than others, but they all agreed one hundred percent. Thanks to this spell, Wave was going to last until they knew how to help him. For now… it was time to help Soarin.

Spitfire started walking, and didn’t look back at Wave. She moved right between the Wonderbolts and they all turned to follow.

Cadence blinked in surprise when she saw them leaving and furrowed her brow. They weren’t going to thank her?

But Luna tapped her shoulder, drawing her attention.

Luna simply shook her head.

Rainbow Dash perked up and looked towards the doors as they opened. Her squad and numerous other Wonderbolts were present in the large hallway around her, all doing the same as the doors opened.

Spitfire and the top tier elites emerged.

Several ponies stood up, many of them moving quickly towards the elites and firing off questions about Wave. Dash found herself stuck in the back, unable to get close with how quickly the rest had mobbed them.

“Hrm…” she groaned before looking to her right. “Matty, come here.” She motioned to Matteo, who did as he was told, shifting towards her.

“What is i—” before he could finish asking, Dash hopped up on his back.

“Hold still,” she said as she climbed onto his head and looked over the top of the crowd to see the top tiers in the middle of the crowd.

“Don’t you have functioning wings?” Matteo asked with a grunt as he was used as a stepping stool.

But Dash didn’t reply. She could have just hovered, but she was enjoying resting her wings for a spell.

While viewing the elites, she noticed an odd mixture of emotions among them. There were varying degrees of sadness mixed in with what appeared to be confidence and drive. And judging by the way they were smiling and nodding to the questions about Wave, it was safe to assume the stasis procedure went well, which was more or less what she wanted to know. And judging by Spitfire’s strong appearance, she assumed she had a chance to get a moment with Wave too.

It made her happy to think about… even though she was basically working behind their backs. She still cared about them, nothing would change that.

As the crowd slowly began to dissipate, Dash hopped down onto Matteo’s back, but didn’t slide off to the floor right away. Her eyes caught something else.

Storm Front was moving back and forth around the crowd. He was probably looking for Descent. She stared at him for a moment… because no matter how many times she saw him since the little episode with their planning, she always had a bad feeling. She couldn’t get into his head, couldn’t figure him out or get a grip on what she should do about him. Would he play along, or would he back stab her? That was the question that never faded.

“Are you done?” Matteo suddenly asked, turning his head around to glare at Dash while puffing out his feathers. Dash blinked and turned to him, rolling her eyes when she met his harsh glare.

“Surprised you’re not used to this by now, ya giant fluff ball,” she said as she slid off his back.

As she touched her hooves to the ground, she could mostly see through the slowly dissipating crowd. She blinked in surprise as she saw Spitfire staring directly at her, focusing the look of determination her way.

What was she giving her that look for?

But it didn’t last long. Descent had just emerged behind her a moment prior and his sudden halt near Spitfire drew her attention to him. Out of curiosity, Dash looked in the direction Descent had turned.

It was Astral, Descent’s head scout. He had just turned the corner, but stopped briefly as the odd looking changeling member of his team suddenly rushed over to him.

“What?” he asked, sounding a little frustrated. “Make it quick.”

Dash looked back and forth between Astral and Descent, noticing that Spitfire was staring now too.

“Alright, alright, now get going!” Astral ordered, the changeling quickly nodding and scurrying off.

At this point the rest of the Wonderbolts had noticed as well.

“HRM!” Spitfire suddenly cleared her throat loudly. With a brief glance, Spitfire made a small head motion away from Descent. The Wonderbolts all fell into line, and moved with her as she stepped away, moving towards some of the other Wonderbolts that were still lingering.

Catching on, Dash averted her eyes as well, motioning for the rest of her squad to do the same even though they were not ordered to.

Once they were all acting casual, Dash subtly kept her eyes on Spitfire instead.

Spitfire waited patiently, periodically glancing at Astral and Descent as they spoke. She was too far away from them to hear any of it, but that probably wouldn’t have mattered because Descent was slightly bent down and Astral appeared to be whispering. Spitfire looked about subtly at the guards posted around the hall, but they looked much more focused on staring straight forward than listening in on conversations. The alicorns were still in the room with the frozen afflicted too, so they appeared to be safe.

Spitfire’s eyes shifted back to Descent as he sat up straight, appearing to have finished receiving the report and remaining still for several moments. Spitfire began lightly tapping her hoof on the floor as she grew impatient, trying to keep an air of casual conversation among her and the other Wonderbolts. She was hoping they’d hurry up so she could get the information before they began to appear suspicious. Some of the guards were starting to glance around, one of them was staring at Descent and Astral.

“Good,” Descent spoke, Spitfire’s ears catching his voice. “See if you can figure that out. Otherwise, monitor and keep me updated as much as you can.”

“Will do,” Astral nodded, turned, and left quickly.

With Astral gone, Descent turned and slowly made his way towards the Wonderbolts, or at least somewhat towards them. His path was angled so that he would pass by them. But he and Spitfire locked eyes briefly, and Descent made a very faint upward head motion.

Spitfire broke away from the group of Wonderbolts, but could clearly see some of the guards still looking in Descent’s direction. This wasn’t going to look good, how were they going to—?

“I trust you shared a moment with Wave Chill?” Descent spoke up suddenly as they came together, his voice was slightly louder than usual, but not to a very noticeable degree. Spitfire blinked in surprise. She wasn’t expecting that at all, but went along with it.

“Uh, yeah…” she replied naturally. “It was hard, but I got to talk to him one last time.”

“I’ve no doubt, but that’s good,” Descent replied, his volume still a little elevated and went quite as he continued to look on her.

Suddenly, Spitfire caught on, he was making casual conversation within earshot of the guards. Spitfire didn’t look directly, but a few had already stopped looking their way.

“What about you?” Spitfire asked, playing along. “I saw you going to all of the Shadowbolts.”

“I could only give them my assurance that I would be back for them, and that they were the highest priority once we took care of business here.” Descent sighed quietly. “It would have been easier to handle if Starry was with me, but you know…”

“I get you,” Spitfire quickly nodded, stealing another glance around. All the guards had gone about their business or had stopped paying them mind. Spitfire looked back at Descent, tipping her head very subtly. Descent cleared his throat and lowered his voice.

“Astral has informed me… that Soarin has been located,” he said in a very hushed tone. Spitfire’s ears perked up briefly, but she quickly forced them back into their natural position to avoid drawing attention. “He is in the crystal forest a mile north of the city bounds.”

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed casually, holding herself steady despite the major revelation.

“But,” Descent went on. “He’s not out there alone. The Shadowbolts are actively searching for him. However, according to observations by Astral’s team, it appears that their crystal magic cannot penetrate the dense brush. But they have no idea why. It’s forcing the Shadowbolts to look for him conventionally and their reliance on their crystals has dulled their efficiency.”

“That’s… interesting,” Spitfire pondered quietly. “Is there something special about that forest and magic?”

“I’ve asked them to look into it. One or two of them are probably already at the library or in the archives looking it up. I expect to hear back from them quickly. Otherwise, I have asked them to keep tabs on Soarin and to update me on his location accordingly in case he moves.”

Spitfire nodded, and two went quiet. They stared at one another for several moments.

“So I guess this is it, huh?” Spitfire broke the silence, glancing to her right very briefly as Rainbow Dash walked by a few yards away.

“It would appear so,” Descent answered with a nod of his own.

“Then we have no time to lose.” Spitfire tapped a hoof on the floor and hardened her expression. “It’s time to get the plan rolling. I’ll handle the Wonderbolts. Get the Renegades up to speed and we’ll meet once more after everypony is organized.”

“Very well,” Descent acknowledged.

But while both of them agreed it was time…

Off to the side, Rainbow Dash’s eyes were wide as her ear turned away from the two conversing leaders. She started to internally panic. Her subtle pass by them was successful, she just wasn’t expecting to hear that it was going to be show time soon.

This was bad… She had not had a chance to touch base with Twilight yet. She swallowed as she looked over her shoulder to see Spitfire making the rounds, quietly ordering the Wonderbolts present to spread the word, await further orders, and be ready to suit up at a moment’s notice.

She had to think… she had to remain calm. She had gotten this far by staying cool and handling things as they came up. She had to—

“Dash?”

Dash flinched and blinked, looking up as Spitfire stood beside her with an eyebrow raised.

“Did you hear me?” she asked as she tipped her head slightly. Dash shook her head out.

“Yeah, sorry,” she lied. She didn’t actually hear Spitfire’s words, but she knew it was the same thing she was saying to everypony else. “Just a lot on my mind.”

“Understandable,” Spitfire nodded, but instead of turning and leaving like Dash had hoped, Spitfire stayed put and placed a hoof on her shoulder, leaning in to whisper. “Don’t forget what we discussed. I have some matters to attend to quickly and then I am planning to meet with Luna again to pick up our meeting that ended prematurely two days ago. We need to set up the façade of your cooperation with her before we do anything else. So don’t go far, stay on the palace grounds, but KEEP CASUAL. I’ll have a guard sent to find you when we call the meeting… and act surprised when you’re requested.”

It was a hell of a lot for Dash to absorb at once, but she heard her loud and clear, and she did remember what she had discussed with Spitfire. It was a key part of her own double-double-misdirection play, but the irony made it hard to forget regardless.

“Yes, ma’am,” she answered quickly with a very non-descript and monotonous tone, but Spitfire seemed more focused on her tasks than analyzing Dash. All she did was give her another tap on the shoulder and a quick nod before turning and trotting off quickly.

And Dash was glad she left because she needed to think, and think fast. The amount of time available to properly put all of her own pieces in place had suddenly hit a brick wall. She had to get to Twilight quickly. She had a small window of time here. Her own squad was still here and Storm was still around too… surprisingly. She assumed he would try to follow Descent, but he had stayed put. Now she just had to hope Twilight was in a position where—

Her thoughts were cut off and she quickly looked over her shoulder as the large doors opened again. A few clerics stepped out and dispersed, but they were followed by Luna, Cadence, and Twilight. Luna and Cadence were conversing, the two pausing after a few paces away from the door. Twilight sat with them, but then casually looked about and locked her eyes with Dash.

Dash glanced back and forth between Twilight and the other two princesses. This was absolutely no time to say anything, not with Luna RIGHT there. This only made her grind her teeth harder, to have what she needed so close yet inaccessible.

But then Twilight suddenly turned and began walking towards her, at least that’s what it looked like at first.

Twilight didn’t even look at her as she moved, and her steps took her on a slanted path that passed near Dash, very similar to the way Descent had approached Spitfire.

Unsure of what was going through Twilight’s head, Dash turned and looked towards her squad instead, paying no mind to Twilight save for a glance or two. To keep the air free of suspicion from other pairs of eyes, Dash looked her squad over instead. Little Star appeared to be trying to pry something out of Squall, but he wasn’t having it. Matteo was… of course he was keeping an eye on Storm. He was sitting upright as Star nagged Squall in front of him, appearing to look straight forward, but his smaller, yet powerful eyes allowed him to keep a subtle gaze towards Storm over with some other Wonderbolts.

And of course hell if she knew where Twister was. She hadn’t seen him since his library stunt.

Dash perked up as she heard what sounded like the soft jingle of a magical aura. Before she could turn and glance at Twilight moving by, she felt something press against her wing and shove in between her feathers. She didn’t react to the sudden push, but she DID look very briefly at Twilight just in time to see a very faint aura dissipate from around her horn.

Dash played it cool, waiting about a minute before she shifted her wing and reached a hoof beneath it.

A note fell out.

Dash blinked, glancing around as she moved toward her squad.

“I’m just saying,” Star’s voice hit Dash’s ears. “I’ve never had a raspberry pie better than my mother’s! I wasn’t trying to one up you!”

Dash lifted an eyebrow as she closed in.

“Why are you always so confrontational?! I’m sure your grandma made great pie too, it’s called having a conversation! It wouldn’t kill you to loosen up!”

“Hnnnnnggghhhhh…” Squall groaned, gritting his teeth and looking away, turning his head every time she tried to move into his view and seemed to be putting up with her poking him.

Dash blinked and shrugged as she kept walking, noticing that Matteo was paying zero attention to the random argument, if one could even call it that. Matteo noticed Dash as she passed by him, but before he could say a word, she grabbed one of his wings and pulled it all the way around her, effectively blocking herself from anypony’s view.

“Why?” Matteo asked simply with a grunt, her use of him as a stepping stool still fresh in his mind.

“Shush, just give me a second,” Dash quickly denied as she looked down at the note and opened it quickly under the cover of Matteo’s massive wing.

Her eyes widened.

North side of the castle.

Fifteen minutes.

I’ll bring the others there.

Bring everypony from your end.

-Twilight.

Dash did not give it a moment of thought. She quickly crumpled up the paper and held onto it.

“Guys.” She emerged from Matteo’s wing.

“Why are you still like this after all this time? It’s not like I can get conversation out of Matty,” Star whined to Squall with a pout.

“Leave me out of this,” Matteo snorted.

“GUYS!” Dash snapped in a harsher tone, but remained hushed. They all flinched and looked at her. “Follow me, and don’t ask questions…” she paused and blinked as they all nodded. “Matty, get Storm, you’re the least likely to get resistance.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dash quickly turned and motioned to Squall and Star.

“Where are we—?”

“I said don’t ask questions, Squall!” Dash hissed without looking at him.

“Well, sheesh! Everypony’s on my ass right now…”

“I wasn’t even—rggghhhh!” Star grumbled and rolled her eyes.

Dash paid them no mind as she moved, and she was confident Matteo was dragging Storm along if need be. They didn’t have time to lollygag.

Luna turned another corner, making her way through the halls of the palace. She was making her way into the west wing of the premise, towards the entrance to the underground levels where the thestrals had been staying during daylight hours. It had become a little bit of a pain to constantly go back and forth to keep Captain P.L. up to date on everything going on, but this was how the Lunar guard operated.

She entered the west wing, turning into a large, open, high ceiling hallway. Her eyes shifted, locating the doors halfway through the long hall that led to the descending stairs.

But she had not even taken three steps into the hallway… when she sensed something abnormal. She blinked, her eyes widening slightly as one by one… every single guard posted and patrolling throughout the long hallways suddenly vanished in flashes of light. She looked back and forth as she was suddenly alone… but she wasn’t alone for very long.

“So…” a familiar voice came from high above. “Any actual bright ideas?”

Luna instantly calmed down and looked up.

Discord was standing upside-down on the ceiling directly above her, arms crossed and wearing a serious look despite his positioning.

“Or are we just going to keep acting like we know what we’re doing?” he added, not budging as Luna just stared up at him blankly. Discord snorted and started walking across the ceiling towards the wall. “And don’t look at me like I have an answer,” he said with a light growl as he reached the wall, stepped onto it, and started walking down the wall towards the floor. “Well?”

Luna looked away and towards the ground as Discord continued his way down the wall.

“We… are going forward with our current plan. That is all we can do,” Luna answered, but she did not sound sure of herself at all. Discord stopped in his tracks, standing halfway between the floor and the ceiling.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said with a loud snort of disapproval as he turned around and faced upward. “Why did I even bother asking?”

“We are going to TRY!” Luna suddenly yelled, staying just outside the range of her Royal Canterlot Voice as her head snapped up and she shot him a harsh glare. Discord glanced over his shoulder down at her. “The way he batted your magic aside was a development with terrifying implications, but we must exercise all options!” she stated adamantly as Discord turned back around, facing her as he remained on the wall. “We refuse to lay down and let that fiend walk Equestria. We’d very much rather he be destroyed, but if we lack the raw power to do so, then sealing him away is our next best option. We just need to make Rainbow Dash understand the severity of the situation, and with her help—”

She was abruptly cut off as Discord scoffed loudly and shook his head.

“What?!” Luna demanded angrily as Discord started moving down again.

“Just listen to yourself…” Discord sighed as he reached the floor and turned upright, moving towards her. “You’re assuming you can convince Rainbow Dash to do something that she believes could not only potentially end her own life… but end her lover’s life as well?”

“But…” Luna stuttered. “We must not assume that will happen…”

“Listen Lulu…” Discord reached her and bent down, narrowing his eyes as he stared into hers. “I suggest you take a better look around you, because you seem to be pushing along without considering just how frustrated the Wonderbolts and Renegades have become with us. You can tell them all you want that everything will be fine, but don’t expect them to take you at your word. We’ve lost their trust many times over.” He pulled back and shook his head. “If you want my honest opinion, you should be keeping a much closer eye on them… and should expect some funny business.”

Luna’s eyes widened and her ears perked up.

“They… they wouldn’t!” she denied weakly.

“They definitely would,” Discord snorted and turned his back to her. “And you certainly aren’t doing yourself any favors.” He waved a hand in the air. “Don’t even get me started on what you did to Twilight Sparkle.”

“What?! You saw…” Luna was caught off-guard.

“I haven’t been sneaking around the castle keeping tabs on everything, but I just so happened to be around to catch that little scene,” Discord explained as he turned and faced her again. “Now… don’t get me wrong. I absolutely agree with you that the sealing spell is more powerful and our best option, but do you HONESTLY believe Twilight took your words, your frantic outburst lightly? Let’s frame this from an outside point of view, shall we?” Discord leaned back and used his hands to make a box with his index fingers and thumbs, it was uneven with his hands being different shapes, but it still worked. “You scolded the prize student of your own sister, a pony who has earned the right to access alicorn powers through her highly successful studies into the strength of friendship… demanding she forget thinking about a less dangerous alternative when the life of one of her best friends is on the line…” Discord parted his fingers and slowly shook his head. “You haven’t thought this through one bit, have you? Do you even know Twilight? She didn’t earn her wings by following the careful route, you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if she took the issue directly to Rainbow Dash, and maybe even Spitfire too.”

Luna stayed completely still as Discord finished and waited for her to say something.

But she said nothing.

“Well, am I wrong? Or do you actually believe you still have some semblance of control?” he prodded. He blinked as Luna abruptly turned around, but remained standing upright as if she didn’t want him to see her face. Discord lifted an eyebrow as he watched her stand stiffly, or at least try to, but she couldn’t stop herself from shaking lightly.

“W…we…” she spoke up in a broken voice pattern, clearing her throat. Discord crossed his arms and waited patiently as she found her words. “We are only doing what we must. We have made missteps, that is very clear to us, but we MUST do this!” she turned around and looked Discord right in the eye, her expression was all over the place, not one single emotion dominating as she seemed unable to pin any of them down. “We don’t care if we lose their trust forever! Sombra MUST be stopped no matter the cost! His very existence at this point defies all order and balance in the world!”

“I don’t disagree with you,” Discord remained steady as Luna remained off balance. “But say we succeed… have you thought about what happens after that?” he asked, causing Luna to freeze again. “Have you thought about the distrust and anger you’ve sown in those who are supposed to believe in us as the gods of this world? These are very influential ponies that we’ve pulled through our quagmire of secrets, this isn’t just going to go away.”

Luna quickly shook her head out and forced her eyes into a glare.

“Whatever may happen… we care not. It won’t be as bad as Sombra taking over everything.”

“Pfft…” Discord scoffed and smacked a hand against his forehead, rubbing it harshly down his face and tugging on his beard. “You’re no better than your sister…” He turned and threw his arms out. “Just be glad I plan to babysit you when you take the dive into this pit of broken glass. I doubt we can stop him, but like you said… we at least have to try.”

Luna’s ears perked up.

“Wait, you are helping?!” she asked, caught completely off guard. Discord let his arms fall to his sides and his head drooped down.

“Yes, yes, yes…” he mumbled with a lack of enthusiasm and released a long sigh. “As long as you don’t tell anypony beforehand. I have a reputation to consider outside of this mess. Or whatever’s left of it.” He suddenly turned around quickly and stomped right up to Luna, getting into her face and poking her in the chest. “But this is my choice and I’m doing it my way. So don’t expect me to start snooping around here for you to figure out who’s doing what behind your back. This is your mess, not mine. My problem is out THERE, not HERE. So I’m focusing entirely on that.”

“But…” Luna tipped her head. “Why? Why the sudden change?” she asked.

Discord held his position, still up close to her and glaring as he slowly removed his finger from against her chest. His right eye twitched a couple of times as his snaggletooth visibly pressed into his lower lip. Then he suddenly grunted, leaned back, crossed his arms, and looked away.

“I still have a few… debts to honor. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I just let go of them. Besides, I don’t think…” he trailed off for a moment and exhaled through his nostrils. “I don’t think your sister would like it very much If I just laid down and quit without at least giving it another effort…” his lips parted, revealing his gritted teeth as he released a quiet snarl. “Not to mention I’ve been internally boiling since Spitfire called me a coward…” he grumbled quietly as if he didn’t want to admit it.

But he didn’t have to worry, because Luna didn’t focus on a single word after he finished talking about a certain somepony.

“Our sister…” she spoke softly as Discord continued to grumble, but his ear turned as she spoke, catching her words. “Please…” Luna stepped up to him, causing Discord to turn his head to her. “You must tell us.”

“Tell you what?” Discord asked as his left eyebrow slowly elevated.

“Our sister!” Luna emphasized, reaching a hoof up and grabbing Discord’s arm, her eyes growing wide in a pleading manner. “You must tell us her whereabouts! She could change everything! She could fix all of this! She—!”

“For crying out loud, Lulu… Do I REALLY have to repeat it, AGAIN?!” Discord abruptly cut her off and roughly grabbed her hoof. “I feel like I've explained this at least ten times now? I don’t know, I’ve lost count! Is nopony listening to me?”

“Thou clearly stated she could not hide from you!” Luna yelled as she ripped her hoof free from his grip and replaced it on his arm with more pressure. “And you only ever told us where her power resides! WHERE IS HER SPIRIT?!” she demanded.

Discord glared down at her, his face scrunching up as he felt her hoof shake against his arm.

“Discord, PLEASE!!!!!!!” Luna yelled, reaching her other hoof up and lightly pounding it against his body. “TELL US!”

Discord didn’t move and his eye didn’t falter. He just lightly shook his head.

“No,” he said as he took a step back, causing Luna’s hooves to fall to the floor, the look in her eyes a mixture of rage and desperation. But Discord bared his teeth and scowled at her. “I refuse.”

Luna’s eyes widened greatly in shock.

“R…refuse?” she sputtered.

“You heard me,” Discord doubled down. “I refuse.”

Luna stood speechless, unable to formulate a response, but she didn’t need to. Discord turned to the side but kept his eyes on her, his arms folded and his scowl remaining.

“Don’t give me that look. I have chosen to not say,” he stated firmly. Luna took a step forward, but the instant she moved, Discord thrust an arm out and pushed a finger against her nose. “And before you try to give me any business for it… I’m refusing to say for your sake… as well as the sake of everypony else involved.”

He slowly removed his finger from Luna’s nose and was met with a long, confused stare. She looked as if she had never been denied so harshly in her life. Discord stared into her eyes, and suddenly found himself feeling uneasy. He quickly turned his back to her to avoid showing it.

“I have nothing else to say on the matter…” he began as he looked down. “It already weighs enough on me as is. I’m not going to burden anypony else with it.”

Luna blinked, her eyes losing their quizzical haze as she tipped her head curiously.

Discord glanced over his shoulder briefly, but the moment his eyes met Luna’s he turned right back and waved a hand in the air nonchalantly.

“Just… go, go on… go meet with Puppy Hugger. That’s where you were headed, right? I’ll be around.” He suggested, his tone turning soft.

Luna looked down and sighed, accepting that she was going to get no answers out of him. She did as he suggested, slowly turning to leave.

As she started moving, Discord glanced over her shoulder again. He stared at her back for several moments.

He turned his head and looked towards the hall she came from.

Then back at her.

Then back at the hall.

He looked down, closed his eyes, and took a long deep breath, letting the air slowly escape between his lips.

Then in the blink of an eye, he teleported from his spot and appeared directly in front of Luna. She came to an abrupt halt, just barely stifling a yelp as he popped up in front of her. He looked right down at her, but his expression had completely changed, it had no anger or frustration in it. It was neutral… but serious.

“You know…” he began slowly. “You might be able to do it.”

Luna blinked, staring blankly at him.

“Do what?” she asked.

Discord kept staring at her for a moment, then pointed over her shoulder towards the path she came from.

“Save the afflicted ponies.”

Luna’s ears shot up and she leaned back slightly as if the words smacked her right in the face.

“We… What?!” she blinked and looked at him with cautious curiosity. “What dost thou mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Discord stated firmly as he placed his hand on his sides, but Luna could not get read on him at all.

“But, before in our meeting… you said that we would not be able to handle our sister’s power!” she pointed out. Discord nodded.

“Yes, that is what I said… but I was speaking candidly based on my own understanding of her power. Could I use it?” he placed a hand on his chest. “Most definitely not, my body and my mind are not built to even begin comprehending her power or how to use it. It would either drive me mad or destroy me outright… but you…” he reached up to her head and lightly tapped a finger against her horn. “You are her sister, both goddesses of the same kin… both daughters of Astron.”

Luna flinched hard, and scooted backwards. But Discord huffed and placed his hands back on his sides.

“How do you think Celestia became as powerful as she is?” Discord asked her as he stepped forward to be directly in front of her again. “It’s not just because ‘she is’. She became that powerful over time through her own effort… her own pain… her own resolve. She did it because she had to, because she needed to become the god, the icon of hope for Equestria. She may not have the power once touted by your father, but I’ll be damned if I don’t recognize that she has come within reaching distance. So what say you?” Discord asked as he began slowly walking a circle around her. “Astron… had great power. Demetra… had great power. Celestia followed both of your parents and mastered her divine spirit to gain great power herself. I think you can see where I’m going with this.”

Luna just continued as Discord made a full circle around her and stopped before her again.

“You are capable. If your family line has anything to say about it, you are VERY capable. The very power Celestia unlocked within herself is also within you. The question is whether or not you have the will to try… and if you’re willing to take the dive?” He asked.

But Luna stayed silent.

“Can you handle the stress as your sister has? Can you bear the burdens she has?” He went on.

But Luna again stayed silent.

“Need I remind you, that this isn’t a question of whether or not the power will destroy you… but a question of whether or not the power will make you destroy yourself…?”

But Luna… stayed silent.

Discord pulled back and crossed his arms, angrily tapping a finger against his forearm as he looked her up and down carefully. He shook his head and pointed a thumb over his shoulder.

“You don’t believe they will turn on you? You don’t believe they have a reason to take action against our wishes after what we’ve put them through? That’s naïve, especially if you are still clinging to illusions of control. We’ve lost their trust and now we face something that threatens all we stand for… with nopony outside of our closest subjects believing in us.” Discord snorted loudly. “Want to get them back? Want them to believe in you? Want them to trust you? A sacrifice like this would be the perfect way to start, taking on something that is dangerous to you for the sole purpose of saving those in need, including the lover of a captain who currently wants your head on a pike if she gets the chance.”

Luna flinched as Discord stepped forward, slamming a hoof to the floor.

“NOT… TO… MENTION… it would easily grant you the power to handle Sombra… probably all on your own! Perhaps it could provide you insight on how to successfully separate him from Soarin while we’re at it. I can’t even begin to tell you what possibilities might lie before you if you were to also successfully absorb and wield the power your sister left waiting!”

He got right down in her face, her blank expression was starting to annoy him.

“All you need to do… is TAKE. THE. RISK.”

Luna’s pupils began to shake as her eyes remained stretched open, but when she finally spoke…

“You…” her voice was weak and raspy. She swallowed and shook her head. “You are speaking as if… our sister is not coming back…” she pointed out. Discord’s eyes twitched briefly, but he did not lighten his gaze one bit, keeping the pressure on her.

“If she isn’t,” he narrowed his eyes further. “What are you going to do about it?”

Luna inched backwards as he turned the question around and put her on the spot.

“Please!” she demanded frantically. “Answer us! Why are you saying she won’t—?”

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?!” Discord yelled loudly, interrupting her and causing her to freeze.

One could’ve heard a pin drop as silence overtook the space between them and the whole hallway. Luna did not budge, nor show any signs of answering the question. And once several moments had passed, her head began to tip down, her shocked expression never shifting as her eyes eventually met the ground.

“Feh…” Discord scoffed as he turned away from her. “Spineless…”

“We… are not…” Luna shakily tried to deny, but Discord quickly turned back to her and pressed a finger to her nose.

“You are,” he stated firmly. “And you always will be as long as you keep hiding from everything Celestia put herself through to become what she is… shying away from what you’re truly capable of. If you were still young I would understand your struggle, but you have no excuses Lulu. You’ve had thousands of years to figure this out, but you’ve always defaulted, always backed off and let Celestia take the lead. Even now you’re pleading that I reassure you about her as if she’s going to come back and take care of things for you!” He looked down upon her with disgust. “And you wonder why I never pitied you for the Nightmare Moon incident. You demand the same respect and recognition as your sister without doing a fraction of the work.”

Discord turned his back to her and snorted. Saying nothing for a moment as he just shook his head.

“I should have known you’d cower, you never change.”

“Sh… shut up…”

Discord blinked, his eyes widening slightly.

“Ex-CUSE me?” he said sharply as he turned around and met a faltering glare from Luna.

“You… YOU…!” she gritted her teeth. Discord just lifted his brow and waited.

“Well? Have something to say?” he said condescendingly, prompting Luna to angrily point a hoof at him.

“You have NO RIGHT to criticize us for our shortcomings!” she said sharply as he face contorted and scrunched into the most angered expression she could manage. “And do not invoke the names of our parents when thou does not truly understand what he speaks of!”

“I understand enough,” Discord huffed, but Luna stomped a hoof angrily.

“THOU DOST NOT!” she roared, the Royal Canterlot Voice finally booming forth. “YOU are not US! YOU cannot comprehend what holds me back from what you claim I’m cowering from!”

Discord looked away and scrunched his mouth as Luna continued to press him.

“And thou cannot act as if thy own part in all of this is not as significant, if not more! Don’t tell US what is expected of us!” she narrowed her eyes and snarled. “Lest we remind thee… that Sombra would have never been a problem in the first place… had it not been for YOU!”

Discord’s eyes lit up with anger, his lips parting and revealing his teeth pressing together so hard they were making grinding noises. His horns came alight with a distorted purple glow, his hands clenching into fists with the same aura surrounding them.

But… he didn’t lash out. He quickly turned his back to her and tensed his body. His magic slowly dissipated and he exhaled.

“You know what? Forget about it… fine.” He waved a hand in the air. “I was only making a suggestion… I don’t want to turn it into a he said, she said.”

Luna blinked, her expression lightening as the tone in Discord’s voice changed rapidly, the strength fading so fast it was like anger had flipped off like a switch.

“I said what I came to say,” he continued as he started floating up. “I guess I’ll see you out there when the time comes. We’ll do this your way,” he kept going as he lifted further and further upward. “But I don’t want to hear any complaints if it all crashes and burns.” He stopped as he reached the ceiling, his voice quieter and echoing down from above. “The choice is yours, Lulu. Better start making the important ones…”

And before Luna could say another word, he phased through the ceiling, disappearing.

Luna just stared for a few moments, mixed emotions waging war within her head after all that was just exchanged.

She flinched and blinked in surprise as several flashes of light filled the room and all of the guards reappeared right where they had vanished, those patrolling still in stride as if nothing had happened. One of them strolled right up to Luna and looked at her curiously.

“Princess Luna, is everything alright?” he asked, completely unaware.

Luna looked at him, sighed, and shook her head.

“No,” she answered as she started walking and moved right by the guard.

The guard watched, following her with his eyes as she made her way towards the doors to the stairs. He shrugged and kept patrolling.

“So that’s what’s happening now,” Dash nodded. “We know where Soarin is and Spitfire has already started the clock.”

Dash looked around, meeting all the eyes in the room as she spoke. He squad, Storm and her Ponyville friends, including Thunderlane, Derpy, and Bulk who were all brought in with them. This was the first time she had faced her Ponyville friends since her meeting with Twilight. She could see mixed feelings in their eyes, but she didn’t have time to address their misgivings or explain herself, she figured… no, she knew Twilight had already filled them in and explained the reasoning for everything.

Dash was trying to be quick about it. Obviously it was risky to be speaking about this at all while still on the castle grounds. Twilight had pointed her towards the furthest north room in the castle, a wing that was mostly used for entertainment and hosting, so it was usually empty compared to the rest. But who knew what could be lurking around? They were in a small banquet room and there were no guards posted outside, but it would be unwise to relax.

“We probably won’t get another chance to meet after this,” Dash continued. “So we need to put our heads together right now and come up with our measures before I’m pulled away again.”

Everypony present looked around at each other as she finished, but Dash focused on Twilight, who was not sitting among the rest. During the whole explanation, she had been circling the room and shining her magic towards the walls and doors to keep tabs on activity outside the room. Twilight was being just as careful as Dash was, ensuring that nopony was within range or even close to walls at the risk of their cover being blown.

Satisfied that Twilight was keeping the surrounding areas in check, Dash took a moment to examine everypony else as they absorbed everything she had just said. While they all had their own personal ways of quietly expressing their thoughts on the matter, nopony looked off in terms of how Dash expected them to react.

But there it was again… that slight feeling of something being off. It was from the same source it had been from the moment Dash realized her possible mistake.

Storm. He was the only pony looking at her. Even with a clearly nervous Derpy at his side. Dash couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or not, but that look of subtle disapproval was slapped across his face again as it had been since Dash pressured him into playing along.

She was getting real tired of his shit. She shot a glare in his direction, which he noticed as he lifted an eyebrow. It was time to tear him a new one again. This time, she would do it in front of the rest of them to really nail down who was top dog. But before she could…

“I don’t like it.”

Dash flinched in surprise, but the moment the voice registered in her head she quietly sighed and rolled her eyes. She turned to see Applejack sitting on the floor with her arms crossed and an angry, pouty look on her face.

“Why do we gotta go leading everypony on like this? It’s wrong,” she voiced her frustration.

“Applejack…” Twilight spoke up as her magic ceased and she walked towards them. “We already had this discussion.”

“I hate lyin’.”

“We know.” Both Dash and Twilight said at the exact same time. The two of them looked at one another. Dash waved a hoof towards Twilight to let her speak.

“This is a unique case, Applejack,” Twilight went on as she came around in front of all of them, focusing her eyes on their stubborn friend. “There is nothing straightforward about what we’re dealing with. We’re not misleading others because we want to. We have to in this case, especially with what’s at stake and with how other parties are behaving.”

“That don’t mean I gotta like it,” Applejack grumbled and snorted as she looked down and continued to mumble to herself.

“For Celestia’s sake, A.J…” Dash spoke up and shook her head. “This isn’t the time to be so stiff about your morals. Morals have been thrown right out the window everywhere else.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna do it,” Applejack looked up, the heavy pout still on her face. “But I still don’t like it.”

Dash blinked, realizing that Applejack was, well… just being Applejack. This wasn’t a case like Storm at all, this was just how she operated. She could still count on her. She rolled her eyes and blew air through her nostrils.

“Then focus, please,” Dash asked. “We can’t have you fuming over this in your head while trying to use the elements or else it won’t work properly.”

Applejack nodded, but kept grumbling. Dash flattened her brow, turning her eyes to Thunderlane standing right beside her. Thunderlane glanced between Applejack and Dash a few times. He eventually stopped his eyes on Dash, chuckled, and shrugged.

“Okay, okay…” Dash tipped her head back and forth. We all know Applejack is just being herself…” she paused as she looked at the rest of her old friends. “I’m assuming all of you are okay with it?”

“Of course, darling!” Rarity instantly spoke up out of nowhere with lots of gusto, catching Dash and the others slightly off guard. “I simply REFUSE to let such a beautiful romance disappear! I’m behind you one hundred percent!”

Dash lifted an eyebrow and looked at Rarity carefully.

“Don’t want to lose a line of gossip, is that it?” she asked sarcastically.

“Absolutely!” Rarity answered with zero hesitation. “Motivation, dear! One must always have it!”

Dash looked at Rarity blankly, her mouth hanging slightly ajar.

“Are… any of you taking this seriously?” Dash asked while looking at Pinky and Fluttershy.

“Um…”

“YOU BETCHA!” Pinkie abruptly cut off Fluttershy as she popped up right in front of Dash’s face. She didn’t even flinch though, she had had lots of practice with this kind of behavior as of late. “I’ve always wanted to be part of an organized insurgency!” Pinkie stated excitedly while bouncing up and down.

“Wha…?” Dash’s eyes twitched.

“It’s on my bucket list!” Pinkie went on, pulling a bucket out of her mane and turning it over. A long list started dumping out of it… and kept going as the seemingly never ending piece of paper began to pile up on the floor and spread out towards everypony else.

“I, um…” Fluttershy tried to speak up as the paper began to pile up around her, reaching up to her chin. “I want to…” she trailed off as she tipped her head up, slowly sinking into the paper.

“THERE!” Pinkie yelled as the flow of paper suddenly halted despite the bucket still being turned over. Pinkie giggled as the front tip of her mane reached forward and pointed at an entry on the list. “Take part in an organized insurgency! It’s right between skydiving without a parachute and force feeding Applejack pears!”

“What the hey—?!” Applejack flinched, but before she could say anything else, the paper suddenly zipped back into the bucket at twice the rate it dumped out, making the noise of a cash register ringing up as it all shot back in. Pinkie tossed the bucket over her shoulder and it landed right on Applejack’s head with a hollow, metallic BONK, followed by a muffled yelp and cursing.

“So count me IN!” Pinkie sat back and pounded a hoof against her chest.

“Can I please…?” Fluttershy tried to cut in.

“BLAH!” Applejack grunted as she pulled the bucket off her head, some of the paper hanging out.

“Um…”

“Darn it, Pinkie!” Applejack suddenly blinked as her eyes landed on the piece of the list hanging out of the bucket, her eyes widening. “TEACH FLUTTERSHY AND BIG MAC HOW TO PROPERLY F—?!”

“WHOOPS!!!” Pinkie zipped over to Applejack and yanked the bucket away from her, frantically stuffing it back into her mane. “You weren’t supposed to see that one, heheheh…”

“Oh my…” Fluttershy turned bright red, hiding her face behind her wings and mane.

Dash came very close to smacking a hoof over her eyes, but halfway through the motion, she stopped and thought about it. A smile slowly crept onto her face.

“You know, actually…” she turned to Twilight and chuckled. “Never mind, this is exactly how I want it,” she started motioning to each one of them. “Applejack being stubborn, Fluttershy being sheepish, Rarity fishing for gossip, and Pinkie Pie being… Pinkie Pie.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Twilight smirked and giggled. “The elements are tied to us. As long as we’re all still being ourselves, they’ll work like a charm.”

“Mmhmm,” Dash nodded. “And I may be breaking a few loyalties here, but I’m remaining committed to what I feel is the right cause to help everypony… and of course, you’ve still got a really big head.”

“Hey…” Twilight furrowed her brow, but Dash’s attention was drawn away as Little Star hovered over to her.

“Okay so…” she shrugged. “How exactly are we going to do this? And what are they going to do?” she asked while motioning a hoof towards Derpy and Bulk.

Acknowledging Star, Dash scanned the room as she put her brain to work. That was a very good question. Thunderlane would be out there with them already, or at least among the Wonderbolts as a whole, so what would she do with Derpy and Bulk? Neither of them were trained in combat like they were, but there had to be something they could do. There was no such thing as having too many assets to make use of in a life and death situation.

But as she looked about, her eye were once again drawn to Storm. His expression had not moved an inch since they last locked eyes. Still scowling, still not thrilled, and still disapproving. Dash gritted her teeth, but stifled a growl. He was becoming a thorn in her side. He hadn’t done anything wrong yet, but his attitude was driving her up the wall.

“Indeed!”

Everypony flinched, and a few yelped. Dash immediately broke her focus from Storm as a voice she didn’t immediately recognize spoke up.

“What is the plan of action, then?” the voice went on, seeming to come from thin air.

“Wait, that voice!” Rarity suddenly spoke up as everypony looked around frantically. “Is that…?!” she trailed off as she kept looking with the rest.

“Correct, Miss Rarity!”

Dash nearly broke into an instant sweat, her eyes and the eyes of everypony else snapping to the same spot nearby as a faint yellow light the shape of a cylinder began flickering. Once the cylinder was fully visible, it began to sink, falling like a veil or shade. It slowly rolled down…

Revealing Fancy Pants, Big Macintosh, and Braeburn.

“I must say!” Fancy stepped forward, looking completely relaxed and wearing a smile. “Quite the situation we have on our hooves, wouldn’t you agree?” he asked, looking directly at Dash, but she was too shocked to muster an immediate response, her mind was racing in circles. Twilight was blinking with wide eyes and her jaw hanging open.

“How?!” Twilight demanded while taking a step back. “How did I not…?! How did you…?!” Her pupils darted around the room.

“You weren’t easy to elude, Princess,” Fancy chuckled. “But I have my ways.” Fancy sounded like there was nothing about the situation that bothered him or put him off. Behind him, Braeburn was holding his usual, casual smile and Mac was just stone-faced, staring straight forward like he always did.

But Fancy’s friendly tone did not sway Dash. She was staring wide eyed and was struggling to properly read the situation.

She had been caught… apparently spied on and caught by somepony from outside those she was comfortable including in her plan. What were they sneaking around for and to whom were they aligned with?

Though honestly, she had not given a single glance to either Big Macintosh or Braeburn. She didn’t know what to think of their presence, but they were at least related to Applejack.

One hundred percent of her attention was on Fancy Pants. What were his intentions? She suddenly forgot all about Storm Front because a much larger problem was brewing in her head. She only knew one thing about Fancy’s involvement throughout all the recent events… that he was called in by LUNA to teach Soarin how to handle his magic. If that didn’t raise a red flag to the moon, then nothing would.

“That look you’re giving me, Miss Dash…” Fancy suddenly spoke up, causing Dash to lock up and her eyes to twitch. He still wore a friendly expression. “It screams of curiosity.”

Dash bit her lower lip, her eyes shakily narrowing into a glare as she forced herself to remain composed. She was caught off guard, but what would Silver do?

What would Silver do?

What would Silver do?

What would Silver do?

…

Well he wouldn’t panic like a wuss. And she was doubtful that everything always went perfect for him.

Dash stopped struggling, her face naturally scrunching into a serious glare that she aimed directly at Fancy.

“You’re damn right I’m curious…” she said harshly back to Fancy. “And you have exactly one chance to convince me not to knock all three of you into next week!” she threatened, inciting a few gasps from her Ponyville friends.

“HEY!” Applejack took one step forward, but was unsure what to do.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity spoke up, her voice filled with shock. “Fancy is—!”

“Applejack, Rarity, SHUT UP!” Dash swung a hoof towards them without taking her eyes off Fancy. She firmly set her hooves on the floor and spread her wings. “MATTY! SQUALL! ON ME! NOW!”

Dash’s old friend’s looked on in horror as Dash’s two squademates did not even hesitate. They had both moved to her side and readied themselves within a second of her giving the order.

“Whoa, whoa, WHOA!” Braeburn suddenly winced and scooted backwards. “N… now hold on a darn minute!” he stuttered nervously as Squall scowled at him fiercely.

Beside Braeburn, Big Mac didn’t even move or change his usual neutral expression even though Matteo was sending the sharpest battle glare he could in his direction. Mac just blinked, his pupils shifting once to Matteo before passing the string of wheat to the other side of his mouth and looking away again.

“Now TALK!” Dash demanded, keeping her eyes glued to Fancy Pants. But despite her best efforts at intimidation, Fancy still held the friendly smile on his face… it was beginning to annoy Dash.

But then his smile began to edge a little bit, turning into a smirk as his eyes seemed to light up. He began to chuckle quietly, his magic lighting up dimly and removing the monocle from his eye.

“Now this… looks fun. You’re definitely tempting me,” he said smoothly, the monocle sliding into a pocket on his suit before his magic lit up brighter and he too set his hooves.

Dash swallowed, doing her best to remain composed. What was this? She was expecting him to back off the moment she threatened him, but… he took it as a challenge? This wasn’t good. She didn’t doubt her chances, but she didn’t know much about him.

But that wasn’t the main problem. She didn’t have TIME for this! She was already stretched thin!

But it looked like there was no avoiding it.

“I’m warning you!” she yelled towards him, trying to figure out her next move, but then his horn suddenly flashed brightly. And before she knew it, something had grabbed her legs and had yanked them out from right beneath her.

Dash yelped, as her body flipped over. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw that both Squall and Matteo were in the process of falling as well. All three of them landed roughly on their backs, grunting on impact.

“Tempting… but we have more important matters to discuss,” Fancy suddenly said as the three of them opened their eyes and blinked as the magic holding their limbs vanished. “After all, it would be unproductive to fight against those who see things the way I do!” Fancy added with a hearty laugh.

“Wha…?” Dash expressed her confusion as she slowly rolled upright and stared towards Fancy. By the time the three of them had turned over, Fancy had made his way towards them and stood right before them.

“Might want to watch your hooves!” Fancy said as he reached a hoof up and tapped his horn. “There are countless clever uses for magic in combat, you know,” he said as he offered a hoof to Dash.

Dash blinked, staring at him very carefully, but he had piqued her curiosity to the point where her skepticism couldn’t overpower it. She flattened her brow and snorted, feeling slightly embarrassed at how he threw all three of them off balance so easily. Temporarily concluding that Fancy was indeed there not to fight them, Dash reached up and accepted his hoof, allowing him to help her up.

“Okay… what are you on about?” Dash asked, fairly certain that he had just expressed some form of agreement with her. Fancy smiled, not letting go of her hoof after she was up.

“Why… I’d say it’s exactly what you're ‘on about.’” He said with a chuckle, giving her hoof a light shake before releasing it.

“Uh…?” Dash tipped her head, lifting an eyebrow. Fancy’s magic came alight again, lifting his monocle out of his coat pocket and gently replacing it over his eye. Once it was in place, he shot Dash a smug look.

“Why the confusion? I’m well aware of what you’ve been up to,” he explained, bouncing his brow once. Dash’s eyes twitched as she tried to piece together exactly what was happening.

“I’m confused,” Dash looked him up and down as she narrowed his eyes. “Have you been… watching me?” she asked, still treading carefully. Fancy smiled wider, but the somewhat smug look remained.

“Perhaps I have…” he said smoothly as he slowly began walking in a circle around her, but Dash turned to keep her eyes on him. “But… only because I found good reason to.” He stopped after walking a half circle around her and turned to look about at everypony there. “I could tell something was amiss the moment I arrived here. Something was wrong. Something was… off.” He explained. “Obviously I was quite shocked to hear everything that had happened, but once I was brought up to speed I began to take a look around and I noticed some things.” He paused and looked down, adjusting his monocle. “I know many of the ponies here in leadership roles very well, call it part of being a business pony and knowing my way around the block. Princess Luna, Captain Spitfire, Big Puppy, the old Wonderbolt captains, and yes… even Discord. I’ve had my fair share of time around all of them. And let me tell you,” he removed the monocle, but held it in his hoof. “All of their behavior? Perhaps the best it can be best described as… unfocused, derailed, wandering… unstable.” He put the monocle back in place. “If it were just one or two of them having a personal moment or crisis… I would not have batted an eye, but all of them? All at once? Forgive me for my nosiness, but that sparked my curiosity.”

Not just Dash, but everypony was listening intently as Fancy went on, but there was some slight confusion. As Fancy took a moment and looked up at the ceiling, Dash felt a light nudge in her side. She glanced down to see Star beside her.

“Who’s… Big Puppy?” she asked very quietly. Dash blinked, looking up as both Matteo and Squall were looking towards her as well.

A snort forced itself out of her nose too quickly for her to repress, she quickly covered her mouth and shook her head, waving a hoof in the air.

“Don’t worry about it,” she deflected as she refocused.

“This odd pattern of behavior spreading around intrigued me,” Fancy went on. “It pushed me to look deeper and it wasn’t long that my observations revealed some dissent. The Wonderbolts… they were not on the same page as the gods, the Crystal Guard, or the Lunar Guard. Separate plans were being made… defying those in power due to reasons that I had not properly experienced to rightfully judge… but then,” he smirked and looked towards Dash. “Something else caught my attention… A little rainbow moving about all on her own in curious ways that appeared to diverge on a different path.”

Dash’s eyes widened slightly as Fancy winked at her.

“Don’t look so shocked. You can’t blame me for following you around. I was desperate to know what you were up to and why!” he spoke in a flamboyant manner as if becoming absorbed in his own story. Dash began to narrow her eyes little by little. “Why would a young fledgling forsake not one, but two authorities in pursuit of a goal?” he went on. Dash gritted her teeth, his showmanship seemed to be taking over and she was starting to get at the end of her rope. She wanted an explanation not a dramatic recount. All it took was one glance towards Rarity and her starry eyed expression to see the kind of audience Fancy was used to playing to. “I had to follow, I had to understand! The more I looked, the more I learned, and the more I learned, the more I—”

“Is this going somewhere, Money Bags?!” Dash abruptly cut him off loudly while smacking her hoof against the floor. Her sharp, sudden words drew looks of surprise from more than a few present. “Because I don’t have the time or patience to hear about you getting off on personal detective work!” Her words seemed to grow harsher by the syllable.

Fancy blinked, his mouth stuck mid word, but it didn’t take long for his smile to return. In fact, he started laughing lightly for a few moments.

“Well then, I can definitely tell you’re Silver’s protégé,” he said as he lightly shook his head. Dash’s eyes snapped open wide.

“Y…you know…?” she stuttered, but stopped as Fancy placed a hoof on her shoulder.

“Listen,” he lowered his tone, sounding a little more serious. “Forgive my sporty way of conveying my endeavors, I am very much one for mystery and adventure… but I’ll cut to the chase,” he gave a firm nod. “I know everything you’re doing… and I’ve been keeping tabs on Princess Twilight as well as everypony else around here…”

As he paused, Dash’s eyes caught something. She blinked, glancing past Fancy for a moment to see Storm… and he looked like he was nervous? Fidgeting? He was still glaring, but his eyes were open a little wider and he was staring at Fancy instead of her.

“From what I’ve seen,” Fancy went on, re-catching Dash’s focus. “I’m very much inclined to believe that you are taking the right course of action. And… I spent a good amount of time helping Soarin learn proper use of magic, I’d hate to see my efforts go to waste.”

“Come again?” Dash asked. She heard what he said, but… wanted to make sure she heard him correctly.

“You heard me correctly,” Fancy chuckled giving her another pat on the shoulder. “And you don’t have to explain anything because I’ve been listening in to all of your conversations,” he revealed. Dash’s eyes grew slightly, and she felt a little… invaded. She had been stalked? She had been so careful to avoid revealing anything, how did she never once notice she was being watched? Or was Fancy just that good at being stealthy? “Sorry if that seems like a bit much, but as I said, I couldn’t resist a mystery, and once I put it all together, I decided it was in my best interest to come forward. And I even brought some muscle along to add to your efforts,” he explained while motioning to Big Mac.

Braeburn leaned over, hoping to be included in that designation, but Fancy made no effort to point to him too.

“That’s me too right?” he asked while jokingly leaning against Mac, his head just barely reaching Mac’s chest.

“It wasn’t that hard to convince them,” Fancy went on, paying no mind to Braeburn. “With a sister, a cousin, and a romantic interest involved, neither of them hesitated to agree.

“Eeyup,” Mac finally spoke, saying no more. Braeburn furrowed his brow and lifted an arm up, flexing it to show off a muscle that was tiny in comparison to Mac’s bulky mass.

“Seriously! Come on! I have muscle too!” he whined, pounding his chest.

“So I will ask again,” Fancy went on, drowning out Braeburn. “What is the plan?”

“Confound it…” Braeburn grunted and pouted as he sat down.

“As I’ve said, I’ve listened in enough to piece together everything going on, now we just need the final touch. If the lovely Elements of Harmony are involved and putting themselves on the line, then the three of us are at your disposal.”

Dash opened her mouth to speak, but paused… and stared. She licked around the inside of her mouth and closed it, narrowing her eyes and looking at Fancy carefully.

Did he make a good case? Yes. Did he sound sincere? Yes. But… that didn’t change who he was, who he was connected to and the fact that she was not very familiar with him as a whole. It almost seemed too good to be true… a knowledgeable pony like him appearing out of nowhere and offering to help? Then on top of it flat out agreeing with her without her explaining anything, claiming he already knew what was going on, and then adding a quick line about Silver on top of it? Not to mention he made sure to bring up his training of Soarin. It felt like he was trying to be very convincing.

She was skeptical again, the feeling rushing forward and knocking the curiosity right back down. Could this be a ruse? Could he be a spy of some kind? She had no doubt that Big Mac and Braeburn were helping purely for their sake, but could she trust Fancy? For all she knew he could be using the assistance of the apple stallions to lull her into complacency… much like how he dropped Silver’s name.

She didn’t know him personally, but it was hard not to know who Fancy was from an outside perspective. He was a famous billionaire and business pony… a contractor whose name was easy to find on many construction and investment projects all over the land. He was a very well connected and very important stallion, on a first name basis with many other big names around Equestria including the Wonderbolts, royalty, and the gods themselves.

So it begged the question… Why put such an illustrious career on the line? Why risk such connections? Such power? Such influence? There’s no way he couldn’t see the risks to his station should he follow their lead against a ruling power.

But… then again, this was not the very first time she had met Fancy, and while she did not know him personally, she had heard more than her desired share of praise about him from Rarity here and there when she was in one of her starry eyed, fawny moods.

From what she had heard… Fancy was a unique individual among the rich and elite in Canterlot. And he definitely was not known as the kind of pony who swindled and pulled the rug out from underneath others for personal gain. He also had a reputation of being casually blunt, up front, to the point, and having a knack for finding hidden gems among common ponies… which could possibly explain how he picked her out among the rest of the situation…

As she recalled further, Rarity also splurged about Fancy’s thirst for excitement and adventure, which lined up with his dramatic monologue a moment ago. Hardly seemed like a good reason for him to risk everything for something he had little involvement in, but again… this was just what she had heard.

She wasn’t sure how to frame this. She felt like she had equal reason to both accept and deny him… But in her eyes or at least on the surface, the benefits of an alliance outweighed the costs… especially with how smart Fancy was.

So… for the moment, what would be the benefit of having Fancy along? She quickly thought over what she had going so far and searched for holes in the plan, or for factors she had yet to consider. And it didn’t take long for her to realize there was a very important part she had yet to figure out.

Back up, a safety valve.

Should some things not work out, she needed some ponies who’d be able to leap in and handle certain situations. Two possible situations in mind were either Dash failing to reach the Elements in time to link up, or the banishment spell failing all together. Derpy and Bulk were already at her disposal, but again, they didn’t have combat training. Braeburn wasn’t quite on the same rough and tough level as his cousins, so she wasn’t sure about him either. But Mac? Dash had seen him literally vaporize a timberwolf. He was all the muscle and silent brawn anypony could ever ask for. And while she didn’t remember exactly, she recalled Rarity mentioning that Fancy was impressively adept at magical combat, something Soarin said too when he talked about his training sessions. With Mac and Fancy involved, it would be easier to figure out how to use them as a whole.

“Okay,” Dash nodded and held out a hoof suddenly. Her squad behind her all blinked in surprise as she seemed to so easily decide. “I trust you.”

“Brilliant,” Fancy smiled cheerfully and started reaching his hoof out to hers. “I’m glad that we—”

“FOR NOW.” Dash sharpened her tone considerably, projecting strength through her voice and glaring at him as she pulled her hoof back a little before he could touch it. Fancy’s eyes shot open in surprise, the first look of slight shock to grace his face since they appeared. “You can thank Rarity for talking about you too much and giving me a smidgen of a reason to believe and trust you…” She scrunched her face and scowled at him. “But don't press your luck. If I see, or even SMELL the slightest stench of funny business coming from your direction, I will personally make sure you sleep soundly for the next week. And I WILL have more than one pair of eyes watching you.” She pointed a hoof at him harshly, stopping it an inch from his nose. “Do I make myself clear?”

Dash couldn’t see it, but the looks on her Ponyville friends, save for Twilight, were that of shock, awe, and confusion. Twilight had already gotten a good dose of this earlier, but now the rest of them were witnessing a very different Rainbow Dash from the one they knew.

Fancy just stared, his smile had yet to return. But as a few moments passed, a grin crept back onto his face.

“Silver’s student indeed…” he said with a light chuckle. “Very well. You have my word that there will be no funny business, and believe me… in my world? My word is what’s brought me success. I won’t be breaking that habit any time soon.” He edged his hoof forward.

“See to it that you don’t,” Dash added for good measure as she reached forward and actually shook his hoof this time. “Because if what I’ve heard about you is true… you could really help us out.”

“I’m all ears,” Fancy nodded as he stepped back. “And I’m sure the rest are as well,” he spoke, motioning to the very eager looking group assembled. Dash looked around, taking in the waiting looks… and nodded.

“Okay…,” she exhaled and tipped her head down. “Give me a second to think here…” she said as she ran through everything in her head. “We know the plans from both sides, but as it stands… the Wonderbolts currently have a head start and are planning to get the drop on Luna…” she turned and started pacing. “Following the Wonderbolts out there will be my ticket to getting close to Soarin. My squad will be with me, but Thunderlane will be with the reserves should Spitfire feel the need to call the whole force down on Soarin or anything that goes south…” she paused and looked at the ceiling. “So what we need still… is an effective way to get the rest of you out there while making sure it doesn’t hinder my side of the plan or… hmmm… how are we going to pull that off?” she turned and started pacing again, but stopped after two steps as her eyes landed on Storm briefly.

He still looked uneasy, and a bit miffed. His body posture and facial attitude continued to convey that he was being forced to do this against his will. And now his eyes were darting between her and Fancy.

Dash turned away and sat down before Storm could figure out he was being specifically stared at. She looked down and rubbed her chin as she found her thoughts turning to Storm again when she was supposed to be focused elsewhere. She hadn’t heard anything from Matteo yet about him. So either nothing had been seen, or he was just being a grouch as he had been. She had enough on her plate. She didn’t have time to worry about whether or not he’d stab her in the back and tip off Spitfire to her—

Dash’s eyes widened and she perked up as she was struck with an epiphany. All eyes were locked on her as her body language indicated an idea coming.

Tip off…?

Tip off!

“That’s it!” Dash proclaimed while clapping her front hooves together, standing up quickly and turning to face all the eager eyes pointing in her direction. “To make this work, what we need is a situation where the Elements of Harmony can get together without either side interfering. That sounds like a difficult task… but not if we purposely turn it all into an absolute mess!” she said with a somewhat devilish look in her eyes. Her tone and eagerness suddenly put off a few of those listening.

“You have me worried already,” Twilight spoke up as she furrowed her brow. “What are you suggesting?” She asked as Dash quickly turned to her while rubbing her hooves together.

“Think about this for a second, Twi… we have two major parties at extreme odds with one another. They may not be expressing it directly, but I’m sure we’re only one little spark away from lighting one hell of a fire. We need to use this to our advantage.”

“Oh Celestia help me…” Twilight sighed as she sat down and rubbed her forehead.

“What, are you getting cold hooves on me all of a sudden?” Dash asked with a pout.

“No… no… I’m just not real big on purposely starting conflicts,” she flattened her expression and waved a hoof. “Let’s hear it.”

“Ok, so…” Dash quickly got back to it. “The Wonderbolts will likely be leaving in a few hours to put up the guise of training exercises for the reserves, right? And while that’s going on, the small group I’m a part of will be sneaking off to confront Sombra.” She pointed at Twilight. “At that point… we need somepony to tip off Luna about that plan about twenty to thirty minutes into the operation. It will force Luna to order the launch of the Lunar and Crystal guard to come after us with you guys in tow! Based on how Spitfire and Luna are butting heads, I’m pretty sure the two sides will start fighting. With both sides thoroughly occupied… we can make our move and carry out our plan and my squad me can help ensure I reach the elements unhindered. Hell, if the Shadowbolts show up even better! It will get even crazier and nopony will be focusing on us!”

As she finished she was met with silence. Everypony in her direct line of sight was looking at her like she had lost her mind.

“That…” Squall spoke up, his left eye twitching. “Sounds like a terrible idea.”

“I must agree,” Matteo nodded beside him. “That’s quite a gamble.”

“Guys,” Dash narrowed her eyes and lifted her brow. “I haven’t gotten this far by being careful. So I’m not going to start now. We need a knockout punch, not a light jab. If you have any better ideas of how the hell we’re going to get all the pieces in place, I’d love to hear it.”

“Hmmm…” Fancy hummed, drawing her attention. “It does sound awfully risky, but I can see the method to the madness.” He nodded, glancing at Squall and Matteo. “Based on how the factions are behaving, it would ultimately give us free reign once they are intent on bludgeoning the other.”

Squall blinked, but Matteo nodded.

“Perhaps it is a good plan then,” Matteo suddenly agreed. Squall’s eyes widened as he turned to Matteo and glared.

“Are you kidding me? You’re such a kiss ass,” he said with a snort. Matteo glared back at him.

“I do not kiss butts,” he clarified while looming over Squall. Squall furrowed his brow and growled lightly to himself.

“Well Squall?” Dash asked while crossing her arms. “Let’s hear your idea then.”

Squall’s eyes widened as he felt put on the spot, but after a few seconds of silence he looked away and gritted his teeth. He really didn’t have a better idea.

“Ngghhh, whatever—ow!” he yelped as Star poked him in the side and hushed him. But he continued to grumble to himself.

“Anyway, this is perfect… because we can have Twilight do the honors of informing Luna,” she motioned to Twilight, her eyes growing as Dash made the suggestion. “Luna is under the impression that Twilight would never turn on her or doubt her word. Am I right to assume that?” she asked.

“As far as I can tell, yes,” Twilight nodded hesitantly. “I didn’t put up much of a fight when she scolded me.”

“Perfect,” Dash nodded. “You can tell her that you pried it out of me. With the way Luna has been stumbling around the issue of Sombra, I’m sure she’ll be quick to leap in instead of asking questions and we’ll have our clash primed and ready to cause carnage.”

“I’ll do it,” Twilight nodded, sounding anxious, but agreeing. “Just give me a sign of some kind when everything is underway on your end and I’ll time it accordingly. I’ll make sure everypony else is in tow and is brought along with Luna when she makes her move.”

“Good,” Dash nodded as Fancy took a step toward her.

“So what would you have the rest of us do?” he asked curiously.

“I’m glad you asked,” Dash quickly turned to him. “You have perfect timing because you’ve effectively solved one last part of the plan I had left to figure out. I need a group to be ready in case a plan B situation unfolds.” She looked over at Derpy, Bulk, Braeburn, and Mac. “Obviously… this is a very risky operation, and while I’m confident it has a higher chance of success than anything Spitfire or Luna have suggested, I’m not about to act like it’s guaranteed. Should something go wrong before we can cast the spell, or if the spell doesn’t work…” she motioned to her Ponyville friends. “I need ponies to help get my friends to safety. Applejack and Pinkie Pie will probably be fine, but I’m more worried about Rarity, Fluttershy, and Twilight. Should anything happen such as… Them coming under attack or any of them being knocked out. I need you guys to jump in and get them away from the fighting as quickly as possible. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do after that, but I don’t want them caught in it.”

“Um, okay…” Fluttershy suddenly spoke up, or at least was heard from behind Rarity. “I was going to ask…”

“Much appreciated,” Rarity agreed with a nod. “I’m not much for violence,” she said with a grimace.

“That’s a good idea,” Twilight added. “Especially since using the elements will leave us exposed, and also maybe a bit drained from the concentration.”

“Exactly,” Dash smiled. “I can’t have you guys in danger if it all goes to hell, now…” she sharply turned to Fancy, hardening her expression and looking him up and down. “I’ll put you in charge of them, you’re clearly the most experience at handling pressure situations. Don’t mess it up,” she added on the end for good measure with a snort.

“I’ll be sure not to,” Fancy agreed, following along and letting her give the orders. “Consider it done.”

“Good,” Dash tapped a hoof on the floor. “Now then, I think… that should do it. Anything I haven’t covered?” she asked Twilight.

“Um…” Twilight looked up for a moment and blinked. “Nope, we’ve been through the situation, the plans, and now our plan. That’s everything.”

“Awesome,” Dash smiled. “Everypony understand their role?”

She looked around carefully as everypony nodded…

Everypony but Storm.

Dash held back the urge to blow the top right off of her head. Would he just STOP killing her confidence high already?!

“Storm…” Dash said his name with a growl, everypony turning to him. “ARE. WE. CLEAR?”

Storm blinked and quickly realized that everypony was looking at him. That was exactly what Dash wanted. Nothing like also showing all the newcomers her displeasure with his behavior.

Storm averted his eyes and bit his lips, grunting quietly before nodding.

“Good…” Dash snorted breaking her focus from him and looking around again. “Now we better break this up. We’ve been gathered here long enough as is, last thing we want is a stray guard to come by and hear anything. Everypony here that isn’t a Wonderbolt… stay calm, stay cool, and wait to hear from Twilight. Everyone here that IS a Wonderbolt, she shot a very quick look at Storm. “Be ready… Spitfire is going to be giving orders soon, I just don’t know how soon. Apparently she wants me to meet with Luna again to quickly finish up a discussion that was cut off very abruptly two days ago, but I don’t know how long that will last, and she’ll probably give the word right after. So… just act natural until you receive orders.”

She took a deep breath and looked into the center of the group.

“Alright, let’s disperse.”

And no other words were said, Twilight quickly checked around the walls near the door with her magic, and once she gave a signal, they began leaving in small groups. Her Ponyville friends left first, followed by Fancy leading out those who weren’t Wonderbolts. Dash held the rest for about a minute before they exited as well.

“Split up, don’t bunch together too much,” Dash ordered, her squad, Storm and Thunderlane nodding as they broke into different directions and turned down different hallways. But Dash stuck with Matteo as they rounded the second corner and broke away from Squall and Star.

“Matty,” Dash spoke quietly as they walked through the halls, guards slowly appearing again as they entered more active parts of the palace. “Has Storm been behaving himself?” she asked broadly, but Matteo understood.

“Aside from appearing to talk to himself angrily a few times…” he trailed off as they passed a guard on patrol. “He has not done anything.”

“Talking to himself?” Dash blinked and tipped her head.

“Cursing, grumbling, barely anything audible. He appears to be really put off by everything you’re doing,” Matteo theorized, but Dash just rolled her eyes.

“Oh, he’s made that crystal clear,” she said sarcastically.

“I am more curious as to why you placed your trust in that fancy pony,” Matteo suddenly shifted the subject. Dash blinked, caught off guard, but she quickly composed herself and tapped him on the arm.

“I only considered it because he’s a close associate of my friend, Rarity… I know a few things about him because she splurges about him all the time, especially when she’s drunk.”

“Romantic rambling was your premise?” Matteo narrowed his eyes. Dash quickly shook her head.

“No, no, no… he’s a married stallion. I’m sure Rarity wishes he wasn’t, but if you knew my friend… she showers praise over anypony she finds fashionable… but anyway, I’ve also met him in person before and he’s the one who taught Soarin how to control his magic, so… let’s just say there was just enough there for me to trust him even though I’m a little pissed that he stalked around. I’m not going to tolerate any crap from him though. His late entrance will keep him under scrutiny.”

“Fair enough,” Matteo nodded as they turned into the outdoor courtyard to continue their stroll.

“Anyway, going back to Storm… has he gone anywhere suspicious?” she asked. Matteo shook his head.

“No. He hasn’t been moving about too much and I have yet to see him go to the palace on his own aside from today… at least while I’ve been watching him, and I’ve been watching him quite a lot.”

“I appreciate your commitment,” Dash said with a nod of approval, the two of them stopping beside a crystal fountain on the courtyard path. Matteo blew air through his beak holes.

“A griffon always gives it his all,” he said with a hint of pride, lightly rapping his talon shanks against his chest. Dash lifter her brow and smirked.

“Yeah and that’s why you have two kids with a third coming, am I right?” she asked with a light sneer.

“Pardon?” Matteo tipped his head. Dash snickered and shook her head, waving a hoof at him as her comment soared way over his head.

“Nothing, nothing… thanks for helping out and keep it up. I’m counting on you,” Dash glanced around. “Alright, let’s split here… when I see you guys again, it’s probably going to be go time. Be ready.”

“I shall,” Matteo said with a quick nod before the two turned away from one another and walked in opposite directions.

But Dash had barely gotten ten steps in before a guard suddenly rushed up to her.

“Miss Rainbow Dash?” the guard said her name.

“That’s me,” Dash nodded, lifting her brow and tipping her head as if she didn’t know what he was about to say.

“Your presence is requested by Princess Luna and Princess Cadence in the main hall,” the guard said dutifully. Dash blinked.

“Is Captain Spitfire there too?” she asked, just to be sure.

“Captain Spitfire is already on her way,” the guard replied, his expression never changing beneath his sparkling helmet.

“Okay, I’ll head there now, thanks,” Dash nodded.

The guard turned and hurried away.

“Well… the countdown begins…” Dash said quietly to herself as she started walking in the direction of the main hall.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

(Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf)

So looks like everything is is in place and its about to get started. (Or at least it will after this last meeting scene that was supposed to be in this chapter but would have made it way too long) <---but once that's over, it's time to go right? Is Dash ready? or will the pressure start to really start pressing down on her? I guess we'll find out.

Sombra knows what's coming... but he's aware that Dash is an obstacle... what will he do? If anything? One might think, 'just kill Dash' but if only it were that easy, not to mention he is clearly not a cold hearted killer.

Spitfire sure has been put through a lot of crap huh? While this wasn't a loss, it certainly wasnt a victory. But she was able to have her moment with Wave, and her gave her his reassurance that he had NO DOUBT she'd come through for him. Seems to have lit a fire within her.

What the hell was all that With Discord and Luna? Astron? ( Astro = Greek referring to the stars or study of (with a N added to make a name)) Demetra? (Greek name for 'of the earth'). Not the first time the parents of the sisters have been mentioned, but now we have names hmmm? And it looks like Luna is a little behind in terms of masting her true capabilities, but is it because she is afraid of it? because she can't? or because of something else? Discord tried to take her to task for it... only to be berated for claiming to know what Luna truly fears about it... and to have his own missteps brought to the fore. The gods are a mess, huh?

The other Wonderverse stallions enter the fray! Bit unexpected, but it seems Fancy was not done being a part of the action after helping out Soarin. But can Dash trust him? He makes a good case, but she can't get careless, not to mention she already has Storm to worry about.

Anyhow... the meeting scene coming up is not going to be long, and it isnt going to be 'oh look ANOTHER scene like this' because i dont want the story to get repeditive, but it will literally pick up from the moment Spitfire stormed out. There's not much left to say, but after everything that happened in this chapter, who's to say it will simply be more of the same?

And the scene after that? The one i've been hyping up without giving details? Oh you'll have to wait and see. :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! And sorry for the extended wait, next chapter should be out much faster.

Chapter 158: Rule Number Six

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 158: Rule Number Six

“Dash, over here.”

Spitfire’s voice reached Dash’s ears as she drew near the throne room doors. She perked up and looked over to the wall opposite of the doors. Spitfire and Descent were sitting beside a pillar a safe distance away from any of the guards stationed or patrolling. Spitfire casually beckoned her over, and Dash obeyed, turning in her path to move towards them.

“Okay, this is it,” Spitfire said in a slightly hushed tone to Dash as She and Descent stood up. “Are you ready?” She asked.

Dash swallowed, but did so subtly to avoid appearing slightly anxious. She wasn’t sweating with shaking legs, but she WAS about to pull a three-faced act. She had to get this right. She felt confident that she could, but that didn’t mean it was going to be a cake walk. She gave Spitfire a firm nod, keeping her expression steady and serious.

“Alright, let’s do a quick review,” Spitfire went on while looking at them both. Dash blinked and tipped her head slightly as she noticed Descent’s face. He looked… slightly annoyed? “We know where Sombra is,” Spitfire began. “And Luna doesn’t. But regardless, I’m going to keep my pressure on her as if nothing has changed,” she paused and poked Dash in the chest. “And this is where we need to add a little extra layer to the curtain. If we speak about the Elements of Harmony, and I’m sure we will, you need to take a chance, come forward, and accept ‘your responsibility’ or something along those lines. Give her some crap about your duty to Equestria being important regardless of the situation and how you’re ready to help if need be. I’ll fight you on it and I want you to argue me down, okay?”

Dash blinked. She remembered what the plan was, but last time she heard it sounded a lot less complicated… or rushed.

“Uh… okay? I’ll try,” she couldn’t conceal that she was slightly confused, but before Spitfire could question her on it, Descent released a loud snort.

“I still don’t think that’s a good idea.” He grumbled just loud enough for them to hear.

“Not now,” Spitfire immediately replied, furrowing her brow and shooting him a look.

“We will talk about it now,” Descent shot back, reaching out and grabbing her by the shoulder as she tried to turn back to Dash. Spitfire stiffened her body, preventing Descent from forcing her around. “I think you’re being way too gung ho about this and you keep adding more unnecessary steps,” he stated as Spitfire turned and faced whim without breaking her expression. “Luna may be irresponsible, but she is still a goddess with more insight than you’re giving her credit for. I have yet to see you consider that she might be starting to piece a few things together.”

“Descent,” Spitfire hissed at him in a sharp tone. “I’ll do whatever I damn well please. And Dash is not yours to command.”

Descent scrunched his mouth and face intensely, looking as if he wanted to roar right in her face, but he merely scoffed and looked away.

“Have it your way. But I think you’re being extremely careless. You’ve stacked up a swaying tower of facades that’s already on an unstable foundation. There’s no point in adding any more. At this rate, you run the risk of toppling it all over before we even begin.”

“You are more than welcome to say ‘I told you so’ if it does, but it won't,” Spitfire said firmly.

“We’re pressing our luck,” Descent went on despite the harsh glare he was receiving. “As is, we’re not even sure if any of this will even yield a desired solution. I think you’re propping up way more straw ponies than we need given how little we actually know.”

Dash glanced back and forth between them, her pupils darting as the two were quite obviously at odds. This was unexpected. Did the two of them have a conversation at some point while she was away with her team? They must’ve… Descent was questioning Spitfire’s methods and even pointing out a few of the very reasons Dash was taking things into her own hooves. Specifically: the lack of a clear endgame.

“That’s wonderful,” Spitfire said sarcastically as she sharply turned back to Dash. “Dash, stick to the plan.”

Dash blinked and quickly got back into character.

“Yes, ma’am,” she nodded dutifully as Descent grumbled to himself.

“Good, now let’s get this over with,” Spitfire said as she turned and started moving towards the throne room doors. Dash hesitated for a moment, her eyes locked on Descent as she continued to process the small spat she just witnessed. But she quickly glanced away when Descent looked towards her and made brief eye contact.

She quickly played it off as incidental, turned, and followed behind Spitfire. She heard Descent’s hooves behind her less than a second later as all three of them made their way to the doors, and were let in by the guards.

The moment the doors were open, the three of them were met by several pairs of eyes. Luna, Cadence, Twilight, and Shining Armor were all there. Dash was surprised to see Twilight. Either she returned directly to the throne room or was also summoned right after they met. Dash felt slight relief, and she was sure Twilight did as well if they managed to complete their own preparations in just the nick of time.

Dash quickly refocused as Spitfire and Luna locked eyes on one another. She took a few quiet breaths to calm herself. She was feeling lots of pressure as she readied to hold up two false faces at once… then add a third somewhere in the middle of it.

“Princess,” Spitfire said simply as they reached the group waiting for them.

“Captain Spitfire, Descent,” Luna replied in the same manner, nodding at them both. “Rainbow Dash.” She added after a pause.

The room went silent, both parties just staring at one another for a few tense moments. The tension of their last time meeting in the throne room was still fresh. Eventually, Luna cleared her throat.

“We wish to put our past arguments behind us for a moment,” Luna suggested.

“Hm?” Spitfire hummed as she lifted an eyebrow.

“It is important that we speak a little more frankly about the situation and what is going on,” Luna continued. Spitfire scoffed softly.

“I’ve been speaking very frankly with you already, Princess,” Spitfire cut in. “It’s you who keeps trying to yank me around on a leash.”

“Captain, enough,” Luna replied, keeping her tone down. “Please hear us out.” She asked.

Spitfire looked Luna over carefully, but she showed no signs of being combative.

“Hmph… fine,” Spitfire agreed, but kept her harsh tone.

Luna looked away from them for a moment, but her face remained the same the whole time. There was a serious look in her eyes, free of excess emotion, a look that had been foreign to her for a while, at least from the Wonderbolts’ point of view.

“We have been at odds with one another about many things,” she began as she continued to look away. “But something we both have to acknowledge is that a conflict of some kind approaches and we do not benefit from being torn apart within. So we realize that if we are to work together to face the challenges before us, then some compromises must be made.” She turned and looked Spitfire right in the eyes. “With the afflicted ponies preserved for now, we have decided to shift all available resources to the immediate task. For the time being, the search for a cure will be put on hold, and all those available for research will focus on a way to release Soarin from Sombra’s hold.”

Spitfire blinked, her eyes widening a little. She was caught off guard… Luna suggesting a compromise?

But… The reaction did not reciprocate with Dash standing right behind her. Because there was a factor here that Spitfire did not know.

Dash had to try as hard as she could to hold steady. She didn’t know what was worse, Luna lying to their face again, or trying to disguise it as a compromise to win over Spitfire?

Seriously, she didn’t know how much longer she could hold back because this was pissing her off to no end. Luna already knew another way… who was she trying to fool? Spitfire apparently… and she was clearly assuming Dash hadn’t considered it either. Dash glanced subtly towards Twilight, and as expected, her old friend looked stiff and uneasy, but was holding firm. This was just more of the same from their point of view, but how else would this play out? The two of them were trapped within the boundaries of the two parties they were undermining and new developments could take place. They had to watch closely.

Dash turned her head slightly and sniffled once to play off her glance towards Twilight, but as she shifted her eyes back, she saw Descent looking at her again. He only had his eyes shifted towards her, but as soon as she saw he turned them away, expression never changing.

“We wish for you to see for yourself that we are making a serious effort about this, because we know you have had your doubts about our goals.” Luna went on as Dash continued to grind her teeth underneath her closed lips. “And in return, we wish for you to hear us out and understand what has to be done in the event that no other solution is found.”

Spitfire’s eyes were still open slightly wider, and she said nothing as Luna spoke.

“So please,” Luna gave her a nod. “Let us talk about that. We will not acknowledge this as the true plan of action until the additional research is complete or in the case that he is found by the scouting teams and is in a threatening position.”

Again, Spitfire stayed quiet, but she didn’t remain still. She turned to the side and looked down briefly… but then turned her eyes towards Dash and Descent, specifically at Dash.

Her eyes said all that needed to be said. It was clear she did not and would not suddenly accept Luna’s apparent attempt at compromise. She gave a very quick and subtle wink to Dash before turning back around.

The show goes on.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but okay.” Spitfire said sarcastically as she stepped forward. “I don’t see how this hurts, but first things first. Don’t you have scouts combing every inch of the surrounding area?” she asked. Both Dash and Descent watched and listened carefully, unsure of where she was going. “I mean… Sombra’s destination is clearly right there,” she said while pointing to the throne behind the alicorns. “I’m not going to go as far as to say your scouts suck without asking first. Assuming he’s nearby, how hasn’t he been found yet?”

Dash and Descent held themselves very still. Spitfire was clearly putting on an act, but to what end? They could only watch. Luna calmly turned to Shining Armor, who looked slightly irked by the crude comment about his scouts.

“Shining Armor, would you care to explain?” Luna asked as Shining stepped forward and quickly cleared his expression back to normal.

“Our scouts have been working around the clock to locate Sombra, and thanks to Descent offering up his Renegade scout team, our efforts have been much more efficient,” he explained as he looked towards Descent and nodded.

“Hmm,” Descent nodded back with a hum.

“But while we’ve covered a lot of ground,” Shining continued. “We’ve yet to spot him. It’s odd, considering we’ve combed at least ninety percent of possible territory, but we also can’t assume he’s standing still. That doesn’t really explain why he hasn’t made any moves towards the Empire yet, but that’s our best theory for now as we keep searching. Unless…” he trailed off and glanced away.

“Unless?” Spitfire pressed.

“Well,” Shining sighed, sounding slightly frustrated. “There is one place he could be hiding that’s problematic. If we can’t find him anywhere else, then it’s safe to assume he’s hiding in the Crystal Forest to the north.”

Spitfire, Descent, and Dash all did their best not to flinch in surprise. They all kept their ears up and listened very carefully.

“I saw that forest when we flew in,” Spitfire quickly spoke up, playing dumb. “What’s up with it?”

“Well,” Shining scratched the back of his head and looked up at the ceiling briefly. “It’s a scout’s worst nightmare, really. It’s impossible to see into from the sky and a real pain to navigate on hoof. You can land in it from above, but only if you’re extremely careful. There isn’t much room for error among the rock solid, densely packed, jagged branches. I’ve been hesitant to send my scouts in there and only a few detached units have combed the outer edges of the forest for the time being. The last thing I want is a smaller team to be caught off guard and have little room to retreat. But… we have already covered nearly all the ground we can within range of the Empire and the magic shield and we haven’t found him anywhere. So if we turn up nothing by tonight, I’m planning on forming a new plan to comb the forest. Risks aside, it’s the only place we have left to look at in full and I’ll be more confident with larger teams searching. A few flybys are not enough to cut it.”

“Why haven’t you done this already? Is there something significant or special about that forest?” Spitfire kept pressing, feigning ignorance as Dash and Descent continued to listen closely.

“It’s a very unique anomaly,” Cadence suddenly spoke up as she stepped forward and stood beside her husband. “It’s considered to be one of the most beautiful sights in all of Equestria and despite the trees appearing to vary in shape, size, and type, they all grow the same fruit, crystal figs. They are a popular local delicacy,” she explained as Spitfire looked eager for her to get to the point. “But there’s more to it than meets the eye… And if Sombra is hiding within, it’s a very smart and calculated move on his part.”

Spitfire did not take her eyes off Cadence as she spoke. Dash and Descent both had their ears turned, making sure to not miss a single detail.

“The crystal trees and leaves have very odd properties. While most crystals like those here in the empire can be used to absorb and store magic, the crystal surfaces of the forest do just the opposite. They repel and reflect magic, like shining a light on a mirror. If a unicorn were to fire a beam of magic at one of the trees, it would ricochet right off, or bounce right back at them,” she paused and nodded. “Now consider that that forest is densely packed with very thick brushes of leaves pointing in all directions… all of which share these very properties.”

Spitfire blinked.

“Magic would bounce all over the place,” she pondered out loud.

“Or even worse, the beam could split an indefinite amount of times on the thin surfaces. A single beam of magic could easy turn into hundreds flying in all directions with nowhere to dissipate unless it hits the ground. So… As you can probably imagine now, if Sombra is hiding in the forest, I’m sure he’s considered that. There’s no doubt he’d use that to his advantage if confronted. Our numbers will mean nothing if he can disperse everypony with a single, basic magic beam.

“That… would definitely complicate things…” Spitfire voiced her thoughts again, but did so while concealing her additional wonder. They were getting the exact answers they were looking for on a subject they didn’t even expect to address.

“But that also means the Shadowbolts won’t be able to use their crystals in there either, at least those who used ranged attacks,” Descent cut in, adding his two bits to conceal his own thoughts much like Spitfire had. “Should they make an appearance, it will be advantageous for us. They’ve become too reliant on their magic.”

“But let’s not worry about them right now.” Shining Armor took over. “We’ve kept an eye out for the Shadowbolts too, but we haven’t spotted them around. For now I just want to make sure we find Sombra first. When the scouts return tonight, I’ll work on re-assigning them. We’ll get to the bottom of this as quickly as we can. And if we find him in the forest, we’ll figure out the best way to approach him.”

Spitfire stole a quick glance back at Descent, lifting her brow subtly.

Maybe the Crystal Empire’s scouts really did suck. They knew the Shadowbolts were around. Either that or the Shadowbolts were being elusive and the Renegade scouts were just that good.

Spitfire exhaled through her nose as she turned back to them, she gave Shining a flat look at first, but quickly ceased doing so. She knew he was just speaking dutifully, he definitely didn’t mean to say they’d rush and forget searching for a solution to Soarin was still part of it.

“Okay then…” Spitfire looked back and forth at the royalty, but looked no further when her eyes landed on Luna. “With that out of the way, let’s cut to the chase and talk about what you have proposed.”

Dash and Descent held themselves still, knowing that Spitfire was just putting on an act. Dash in particular readied herself, remembering the plan for this particular moment. She had to wait for the right time and speak up… or do whatever she needed to ‘agree’ on her participation.

“Should we be forced to move before we have a solution for Soarin… Is sealing them both together with the Elements of Harmony really the only option we have?” Spitfire asked, pouring a little bit of emotion into the question for good measure.

Luna looked Spitfire right in the eye… and nodded.

“As far as we can see, yes. We’d like to remind thee that we wouldn’t hesitate to use an effective alternative method if we knew of one,” she said with a straight face.

Dash’s eye twitched hard. She was glad nopony was looking at her because she was sure it was very noticeable.

Lies.

Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies. LIES.

Dash didn’t know how much longer she could stand hearing that exact same fib over and over again from a figure that was supposed to be a leader.

Though Dash did notice something. Luna had chosen her words carefully. She claimed that she knew of no other effective alternative. Spitfire did not pick it out, but she definitely did. Was Luna simply bending her words to avoid an undesired solution? She seemed hell bent on this method. Was it seen as a more punishing method? Did she want to cause Sombra harm? He sure wanted to cause her harm, there could be much more to this than she knew. Or was it simply because the sealing spell was stronger than the banishing spell? Or it was the only one she was sure would work?

Whatever it was, Dash held her tongue. The last thing she wanted to do was have an emotional outburst and blow their cover before they even started.

“Are you SURE that’s the only option?” Spitfire pressed, giving Luna a hard, harsh look.

“We just said so, we’re sorry but—”

“Luna, let me ask you something,” Spitfire cut her off abruptly. “Have you considered, I don’t know, an alternative approach?”

Dash blinked.

What was that about her giving the plan away? Because it sounded like Spitfire just set the stage to let something slip. Dash quickly glanced at Descent, his eyes had grown a little wider and his mouth had shrunk slightly. Was he thinking exactly what she was thinking?

“I’ve been on edge for the past few days,” Spitfire went on, stepping closer to Luna. “And admittedly… so focused on your suggestion that Soarin might have to be sacrificed that I’ve hardly been able to think elsewhere. But I’ve had some time to think things over since we last met, and there’s something that honestly has me very curious. I noticed something while we were out there getting our asses handed to us by Sombra.”

Luna looked caught off guard. She didn’t falter, but she tipped her head and appeared confused.

“And maybe you can clear this up and help me out with understanding it…” Spitfire narrowed her eyes a little, giving Luna a razor sharp gaze. “He only seemed interested in two very specific individuals.”

Luna’s eyes shot wide open.

“He didn’t attack any Wonderbolts,” Spitfire went on. “Nor did he attack any Renegades, or even Shadowbolts… without being attacked by them first. He made no preemptive moves. He only fought back.”

Dash was stiff. Spitfire just… openly and blatantly pointed out one of the key factors to her plan. She frantically glanced at Descent. His eyes were open, his pupils were twitching, and his body was jittering like he was doing everything in his power to hold himself back.

“He walked right by Starry Skies without harming her. She was holding a defensive position over Descent to protect him and Sombra didn’t lay a single hoof on her.” Spitfire kept pressing as Luna looked more and more put on the spot. Shining and Cadence looking at Spitfire with great alarm. “He was clearly only interested in YOU… and Discord. He did not actively target anypony else, and we had zero casualties… he delivered no finishing or killing blows. And you especially cannot deny that one, Princess… you saw it yourself, watching your most loyal and faithful knight fall to him… and Sombra spared his life.”

Luna looked frozen in place. If not for the flow of her ethereal mane, she would have appeared to be a statue. She just stared, her eyes remaining wide throughout Spitfire’s words.

“Now…” Spitfire tipped her head up slightly and gave Luna a skeptical look. “Is there anything you’d like to say about that?” She pressed as she stepped a little closer. “I can’t help but notice contradiction surrounding him too. One moment I hear he’s a mindless monster, and the next you say hiding in the crystal forest is a ‘smart’ and ‘calculated’ move? You keep saying he’s dangerous, and he’s a threat to all living things, but is that really the case?” Spitfire pointed a hoof at Luna. “Or is he only a danger to you?”

“He’s a danger to us all.”

Everypony perked up as a different voice answered. Dash, Descent, and Spitfire all spun around. The alicorns and the rest all flinched in surprise and looked up.

Discord was standing right behind Dash and Descent in a spot that was completely empty a blink of an eye ago.

Luna looked surprised to see him, but it only took Spitfire a moment to flatten her brow and snort loudly. Discord stepped around Dash and Descent, walking right up to Spitfire with his arms crossed, his eyes sharpened into a glare to repel any look Spitfire shot his way.

“You’ve made an interesting observation, but you’re overlooking a very important part of it,” he went on as everypony was still recovering from his sudden, unexpected entrance.

“Enlighten me,” Spitfire said sarcastically, the only one who seemed to shake Discord’s appearance off like it was normal.

“His desire to destroy the gods is really all you need to know,” Discord explained in short. Spitfire stared at him as if waiting for him to go on, but he didn’t.

“And…?” Spitfire rotated a hoof in front of her while scrunching her face in frustration. Discord slowly shook his head.

“And this is exactly why we’re at odds. I shouldn’t have to say anything else,” he made a head motion towards Luna. “You DO understand who we are and what we represent? Set aside the missteps and our quarrels for a moment and think about it. Sombra wants to destroy us and replace us. We represent balance, a proper scale of order and chaos… the very building blocks that the world you live in exists upon. He wants to knock us down like he knows better, like he understands what he has to shoulder if he succeeds. The fact that this doesn’t put you off is, frankly, concerning.”

“You’ve only yourselves to blame for that,” Spitfire exhaled sharply through her nostrils and flattened her brow. “But we’ve been over this already, let’s stop while we’re ahead.”

“Then why did you even bring it up?” Discord threw his arms out and glared down at her. Spitfire shook her head.

“I think you’re dodging the question,” she narrowed her eyes into a thin gaze. “Now answer me… is there more to this than the two of you are willing to acknowledge in front of us?”

As she listened… Dash didn’t know what to do, or what was happening. She felt like Spitfire was giving them away. If she let the cat out of the bag here… then her plan crashed and burned too.

“What the hell is she doing?!” Descent quietly whispered to himself, catching Dash’s attention. He was grinding his teeth together, his body tensing so much that veins were starting to pop up on his muscles. Dash swallowed as she turned her attention back to Spitfire. She and Descent were powerless as the scene unfolded before them.

“Have you thought about…,” Spitfire went on. “Oh, I don’t know, approaching him?”

Dash flinched as Descent’s hooves scratched against the floor beside her. It was only getting worse.

“Out of the question!” Luna suddenly blurted out, finding her voice. Spitfire spun right around and pointed at her.

“Oh, I’m questioning it! Actions speak louder than words, Princess. You keep framing him as evil, ruthless, and dangerous, but I know what I saw!” Spitfire kept up the pressure as Discord made his way around to stand near Luna. “He beat the crap out of us, but I have every reason to believe he wouldn’t have if we had stayed put and not attacked him. He wasn't mindless. If he was, I’m sure we’d all be dead. He clearly had a goal that was more important to him, and he was focused on that.” She shook her head. “That’s not the actions of a killer. It makes me wonder if there’s a different way to handle this. If there’s a way to speak to him? Maybe if we figure out what he wants… and maybe speak to him about giving Soarin back to us.”

Everypony flinched as Discord burst out laughing. He stumbled and bumped into Luna, pressing a hand down on her shoulder to prop himself up as he clutched his stomach with the other.

“Oh now THAT is a good one!” Discord managed to say in between hearty guffaws. “You should really take up comedy, that’s the best joke I’ve heard in eons!”

But Spitfire was not amused.

“Alright wise guy… please tell me how anything I said isn’t a valid observation,” she said with a flat look.

“Oh, no, no…” Discord shook his head as his laughter died down to a few chuckles. “Your observations make perfect sense!” he smiled at her. Spitfire blinked in surprise and tipped her head. But then she flinched and took a step back as Discord suddenly bent down and thrust his face right into hers, extending his long neck to almost press their noses together. “Maybe from YOUR point of view!” he yelled harshly while growling loudly. “The problem is you do NOT know him like we do! And I’m getting REALLY tired of you trying to force your lack of understanding on us as if you were around a thousand years ago!” he pulled back, but stepped forward, placing his hands on his sides and scowling at Spitfire. “Say we do what you’re suggesting and he somehow manages to hold back his rage libido towards Lulu and I…” he threw an arm out. “You really think you can convince him to just give up his new body?! To abandon his ultimate goal?”

Spitfire opened her mouth to retort, but Discord cut her off.

“THIS… is why you should be listening to us!” Discord continued. “It’s clear that we have vastly different opinions on what needs to be done, but yours lacks the upfront experience of dealing with him in the past! Sombra is a stubborn asshat who NEVER gives up on what he seeks! And he most certainly won’t just give Soarin back to us! Besides… Soarin’s soul may still be in there and somehow resisting,” he paused and glanced at Dash. “But his body is effectively no longer his own. Sombra has planted himself in his place, and Soarin’s soul, no matter how strong it might be, could never push back against an entity as powerful as Sombra’s spirit. At this point, unless we find some miracle solution, you’re just going to have to accept that you are NOT getting Soarin back!”

The room went dead silent as Spitfire and Discord just glared at one another.

Dash held still, the silence feeling like hours as Discord’s words played over in her head.

She didn’t want to admit it, but he made sense. It was hitting her from a different angle… almost as if all the ideas about what was going on and who was right were beginning to clash and get tangled in her head. All of the absurd posturing and plan debating aside… what Discord just said about Sombra did not sound like something he made up on the spot. There were words in there that were harsh and emotional, almost confirming Spitfire’s charge that there was more between them than they were telling. So if Discord was being genuine about how he felt towards Sombra… Was he also being genuine about just how strong, stubborn, and powerful he was? She didn’t want to admit it, but some misgivings were about to set in. Would the banishment spell of the elements be strong enough to push him out?

NO. STOP.

Dash subtly shook her head out. She couldn’t think twice about it now, it was way too late. Besides, what other option did they have? It was not like they could suddenly change course, they had already dug in and she wasn’t going to back down… then why was she suddenly feeling this way?

She had to stop, this was just doubt creeping through while she was forced to sit and watch a thin ice situation. Silver wouldn’t freak out… Silver would keep his cool… Now she just hoped Spitfire backed off before accidentally spilling all the beans.

“Rgh… FINE!” Spitfire suddenly threw her head back. Both Dash and Descent blinked, hoping she would fold and stop before it got any worse. “I’m still not wholly convinced that Soarin is lost, I don’t care how many times you say it,” she pointed at Discord, but then huffed and sighed. “But forget it, I’m not here to restart our dead end arguments. So let’s just move on here. I understand what you want me to do… but I still have a very important concern that has yet to be fully addressed,” Spitfire turned her eyes to Luna.

There was a long pause between the two of them, and before she spoke again, Spitfire looked over to Rainbow Dash.

“What will happen to Rainbow Dash if we seal him?” she asked while slowly turning back to Luna.

Dash’s eyes widened slightly as Spitfire brought up the subject. She had almost forgotten all about that, mostly because her plan diverged from them even attempting it. Her friends from Ponyville had already agreed to use the banishment spell instead… but she was curious regardless. After all, the answer would likely effect Spitfire in some way, and she needed to see and know all of Spitfire’s moves to be properly prepared.

“I’m not too happy with how you so casually expressed your willingness to sacrifice her the other day,” Spitfire added for good measure as she waited for a reply.

Luna kept staring, but said nothing, at least for the moment. Eventually she looked down, then looked towards Discord as if she had no answer and was silently punting the question to him. Discord blinked and lifted an eyebrow as Luna stared at him.

“What?” he asked with a huff.

“Can you answer that for her?” Luna asked. Discord rolled his eyes.

“Do I have to do everything around here?” he said sarcastically with a grunt. Luna flattened her brow.

“This is not something we would know,” Luna said with a snort. “You’re the only one here who has been sealed in stone by Elements.”

Discord lightly shook his head, releasing a low, growl-like sigh.

“Well?” Spitfire shifted the pressure to him. But Discord didn’t answer her. He wasn’t even looking at her. Spitfire slowly furrowed her brow. “I’m waiting,” she added harshly. Discord lifted a finger and a small blip of purple light pulsed from it. Spitfire flinched in surprise as a small stop sign appeared above her and roughly bopped her on the head with a metallic BONK. “OW!”

“And I’m thinking, so shut up,” Discord snapped back at her without raising his voice.

Spitfire pouted angrily, but did as she was told, waiting patiently as Discord pondered, twirling a finger in his beard.

“This is only a theory, but if you want my honest opinion for some form of reassurance… I think Dash will be just fine.”

“You think?” Spitfire immediately voiced her discontent. Discord rolled his eyes and grunted.

“I’d rather we just kill Sombra and solve all our problems, but after our last encounter that’s clearly not an option. His power has grown too strong,” Discord trailed off course.

“Answer the question!” Spitfire shouted impatiently.

“I’m getting there,” Discord snarled as his body coiled around and leaned towards her. He stood back upright and crossed his arms. “The sealing magic will turn Sombra to stone, preventing him from running free, but… if we’re going by my experience, all entities within will remain intact and aware, which should include Soarin’s soul since he’s still holding on,” he turned to Spitfire and placed a hand on his chest. “I know I’m immortal and that may have been key in everything remaining together, I don’t know if it will be the same for souls that are finite. So honestly? I don’t know what will happen to Dash, if freezing Soarin’s soul will harm her, or if she’ll lose all contact with his soul as a result, I simply don’t know. But if the only requirement for her staying alive is for Soarin’s souls to remain intact, then she should be fine…” he paused and looked about at all the eyes on him. He flattened his brow and snorted. “There, I answered. Now that’s enough questions, I’m not in the mood.”

Spitfire wasn’t having it, and she opened her mouth to let him have it, but Discord pointed at her quickly.

“Ah, ah, ah! No,” he cut her off abruptly while wagging a finger. “I know what else you want to ask me, but I’ve already answered it. Save your breath,” he narrowed his eyes into a glare. “At this point, it is unlikely that we will find a way to save Soarin. Luna has graciously ordered the scholars to shift all resources and give it one last effort. I’m surprised she has, but despite her sympathetic compromise to try and mend some divides, I doubt it’s going to go anywhere. Nothing new is being looked at, they are just going through all the same material again to make sure they didn’t miss anything. It’s not definitive yet, but I suggest you view and approach this situation under the assumption that Soarin is GONE. His soul may be alive and struggling to resist, but he will never regain his body. See this as an opportunity. Sombra is likely unable to tap into his full potential because of Soarin’s resistance. The Shadowbolts and Kayn Ost have nearly been driven out of the picture by this accidental development, but they are still a threat and still need to be dealt with swiftly. You want to get back to dealing with them? Don’t pass this up. Soarin is doing us a favor by holding on. We need to put an end to this so we can go back to focusing our time and energy on what led to this whole debacle in the first place.”

Spitfire didn’t respond, she just held a sharp gaze on Discord as the two locked eyes.

Behind them, Dash was grinding her teeth beneath her lips. She was getting tired of things being overlooked… and definitely on purpose. Discord even tried to bring up the Shadowbolts and Kayn Ost as a deflection. And while she agreed that their enemies still needed to be dealt with, it wasn't going to work on her. She was still not fully convinced that they couldn’t save Soarin, she wouldn’t be until her own plan potentially failed. But here Discord was walking around a fact, something that Luna seemed to forget too… and she wasn’t sure if Spitfire had considered or not.

The fact that she nearly crippled Sombra’s control on Soarin by just being near him and touching him. From the beginning… even before Soarin had the false horn on his head, Dash’s proximity to him had always strengthened his grip on the power within him, it always made him feel stronger and in control. There was no doubt that was connected to what happened when she touched him and forced Sombra to flee.

But before she could think further on it, Discord suddenly turned away from the glaring match and looked towards Luna instead.

“Lulu? I believe there is something you need to ask,” he said while making a head motion towards Dash.

Dash blinked in surprise as Luna suddenly focused on her. Her and not Spitfire?

“Yes…” Luna cleared her throat. “Yes there is…”

Dash watched curiously as Luna suddenly approached her, moving right by Spitfire. She suddenly had a feeling she knew exactly what was about to happen. And it was a good thing realization hit her too, because she had not really given it all that much thought.

“We… understand what we are asking of you…” Luna began slowly.

Bingo. Dash saw it coming. She was sure Spitfire was primed and ready, she just had to think quickly. What was the best course of action here?

“But we also understand that if you are not emotionally sound about it, the Elements will fail to channel their power properly,” Luna continued, completely unaware of Dash’s racing thoughts as she spoke.

Dash knew what Spitfire wanted her to say, but she took a very brief moment to consider how she could twist this into her favor of her own plan. She wasn’t about to take a hilariously brazen risk like Spitfire had… but how could she do what Spitfire wanted… while also putting on a show of her own?

“This is a choice you have to make,” Luna nodded. “No matter how much we tell you it’s right, we can’t force you… and obviously it won’t work anyway if we tried to.”

Luna’s tone was different. It was soft and persuasive. But Dash had seen and heard too much to be persuaded by anything she said. Instead, she came up with an act as quickly as she could.

“Will you lend yourself to the objective?” Luna requested.

It was quick…

It was risky…

But Dash didn’t have anymore time to think about it. In fact, she was already going with it despite only thinking it over once.

Dash glanced briefly to see Spitfire standing behind Luna, looking directly at her. Nothing had to be said, she knew what Spitfire was waiting for.

So she went for it.

“I’ll do it,” Dash said with a nod… and instantly screamed internally. For some reason she came right out and said it… with a straight face and a bland voice. In her head she thought showing some hesitation would work wonders in setting the mood, but for some reason she skipped right over that part when she opened her mouth.

But… Surprisingly, it looked like the horrendously bland tone in her voice sailed right over Luna’s head. She smiled, looking pleased to hear Dash accept as her soft demeanor remained.

Dash quickly fell into character. She couldn’t believe it worked, but hey, it worked. So she had to go with it.

“Thank you,” Luna said with a nod. “We are happy that—”

“Rainbow Dash, no,” Spitfire abruptly cut her off and stepped around Luna to get between them. She pressed a hoof to Dash’s chest, holding a very stern look in her eyes.

She was playing it up really well. Even though it was fake, Spitfire held her usual glare perfectly. Behind her, Luna stepped back in surprise, her eyes slightly wider as Spitfire nudged her way in.

“Absolutely not,” Spitfire went on, leaning forward and forcing Dash to inch her head backwards. “I’m not letting you put yourself on the line without concrete evidence that you’ll be fine post-process.”

Dash played along, holding a combative look but a weak position as Spitfire loomed over her.

“But…” She tried to edge forward, only to have Spitfire rap a hoof against her chest.

“NO,” Spitfire repeated loudly and shook her head. “Enough. You’re not doing a damn thing.”

Was that enough? Dash hesitated slightly since she already jumped the gun once… but she felt like it was time to push back.

“Spitfire, STOP!” she suddenly yelled while grabbing Spitfire’s arm, forcing her hoof from her chest. It took Spitfire a brief moment to properly react, but thankfully it wasn’t obvious. It looked like she wasn’t expecting Dash to bite back so quickly, but she went along. “I don’t like it either!” Dash continued, stepping right up to Spitfire. “But… if it comes down to it…” she lowered her tone and shook her head. “I have to do the right thing. I don’t have to tell you how much I want to save Soarin, I think that’s obvious to everypony. But if we… can’t pull Soarin free…” she injected some extra emotion. She felt like she had it right this time, it didn’t feel forced. “I’m not going to sit down and be sad about it. I’m going to do my duty to Equestria as an Element of Harmony. There’s still more to be done, the Shadowbolts and Kayn Ost are still out there and threatening Equestria. I might take myself out of the picture, but they can’t be dealt with while the Wonderbolts and Renegades are stuck dealing with Sombra. Besides… do you think Soarin would want Sombra to walk free and maybe eventually do harm using his body? I doubt it.”

It was a good thing that none of the royalty or gods could see Spitfire’s face, because for almost a full second she looked very impressed, not expecting Dash to sound so compelling with her fake case. But she quickly fell back into character.

She scrunched her face and looked down while grumbling.

“I… rgh…” Spitfire turned away from her and gritted her teeth. “Fine… I can’t… disagree with that, especially when you put it that way,” she put forward in a tone of defeated disapproval followed by a long sigh. “But I still don’t like it…” she added quietly, just loud enough for the rest to hear.

With Spitfire “beaten,” Dash turned back to Luna and gave her a firm nod.

“I’ll do it,” she said adamantly.

But she felt a spark in her chest. Not a physical spark or heart pang or anything like that… for some reason getting in Spitfire’s face had lit a fire underneath her… and as Luna approached, she couldn’t stop herself, she suddenly felt VERY bold… and didn’t take the time to think about it.

Luna approached her again with the same smile replaced on her face.

“Thank y—”

“But I’m not doing it for you,” Dash spoke over her suddenly and harshly. Luna froze in place, her eyes widening and her pupils shrinking as Dash threw the sharp verbal jab in her direction. “I’m doing this for myself, for Soarin, and for Equestria,” Dash went on, her confidence taking over with no brakes applied. She thrust a hoof towards Luna, pointing and glaring. “I’m going to help clean up the mess you and the rest of the gods have made!”

Luna was frozen in shock, unable to say a word as Dash pressed onward. Gasps came from around the room from others present, mostly the guards and Cadence. Shining Armor looked like he was battling the urge to jump in and say something. Discord just remained quiet and looked her over carefully. Twilight was strategically standing far enough back so no one could see her. She knew what Dash was doing and didn’t want to chance her expression being seen as forced or fake.

Dash didn’t let up.

“So yeah, I’ll do my duty as an Element of Harmony… But don't expect me to take any cues from you. This is my choice, not yours. And I plan to do it my way!”

The room went completely silent as Dash put her hoof down, but kept glaring at Luna.

“V…” Luna struggled. “Very well…” she barely managed to as as she looked down, defeated.

Dash glanced at Spitfire, still feeling a bit of an adrenaline high to realize how far she went. But any rising doubt in her actions faded as she caught a brief smirk from Spitfire.

She looked impressed, very impressed.

Perfect… Her extra push and acting seemed to really lock Spitfire into place. She was definitely convinced Dash was along for the ride against Luna. Only… not the way she thought.

If only she knew Dash was playing both of them. She made a risky move on instinct, but it definitely gave her some much needed breathing room.

“In that case…” Luna spoke up again, her voice slowly finding its normal strength. “Here is the plan,” she began as Spitfire and Dash both turned to listen.

Luna was trying hard not to show it, but Dash’s act had a clear effect on her. It was likely the line about the gods that did it.

Dash was pleased, Luna’s shaken state would only further Spitfire’s impression of her standing in this whole matter. She was beginning to feel like she had a better grasp on this situation, a new push of confidence washing through and fighting back the sudden misgivings she was plagued by a minute ago.

“It’s quite straightforward,” Luna went on. “Should we have to act, we must find a way to corner or surround Sombra. Or … distract him.” Luna’s explanation did not start on a high note. Spitfire blinked and tipped her head slightly as she took in the very general description. “All you’ll need to worry about is activating the spell,” she went on, looking specifically at Rainbow Dash. “We will have numbers, he won’t be able to focus on all of us at once. So as long as we keep the Elements hidden and ready to act when the time is right, then it should all work out fine. We can lure him or direct him towards the Elements once they are ready. He won’t have time to realize what’s happening.”

Dash felt good… but it didn’t stop the internally boiling rage that tried to force its way out every time Luna gave ‘details’. She didn’t even mention the sealing spell by name this time, she was just talking about it. She wanted so badly to finally let it all out, to confront them about not bringing up the banishment spell. But she held it at bay. Spitfire’s risky move may have had some inspiration in her own bold move, but she wasn’t about to start blurting things out about her own plans. She couldn’t afford to take the chance, especially since she was still certain Spitfire wouldn’t trust any use of the Elements, or her Ponyville friends.

She waited for Luna to continued…

But… she didn’t. Dash swallowed and glanced at Spitfire. Spitfire blinked.

“Uh… and?” Spitfire spoke up, lifting an eyebrow.

“That’s the plan,” Luna said with a nod.

“That’s it?” Spitfire reacted in slight disbelief. Dash shared her reaction, as did Descent.

“That’s it,” Luna repeated.

“Really?” Spitfire flattened her brow. “That lacks any sort of details, coordination, or maneuvers. Did you just come up with that now?”

“We… this was our plan from the start,” Luna looked away.

“You make it sound so simple, have you considered all possible scenarios? What about the Crystal Forest? We just established that numbers will be useless if he’s hiding in there. Your plan would fall flat on its face if he’s discovered in there.”

“Um…” Luna scrunched her mouth and turned to Shining Armor.

“It’s more complicated than she makes it sound,” Shining quickly approached. “I have already met with my top generals and discussed how to organize our troops when the time comes based on situations. It will need some tweaking if we discover him in the forest though. So for the time being, the way she put it is all we can say before all the circumstances are finalized.”

“So it’s a work in progress?” Spitfire snorted. “What the hell is this meeting even for then? You have no actual plan ironed out?”

“Look, I get it,” Shining Armor furrowed his brow. “I’m a captain too, you know. I know what you’re looking for because I wish I had it too. But at this point in time, it’s still a bit open and up in the air. But it’s not because we are unorganized, it’s because we’re dealing with an unknown.” He made a head motion towards Luna and Discord. “Not even the gods know what to expect. They may know him from past experience, but they have never faced him in his current state.”

“It is as Captain Armor says,” Luna cut in, her tone sounded somewhat eager as if she wished to regain some confidence. “Even once we are ready to move, there are many unknowns that we cannot predict. We know how we wish for this to go, but how we get there will not be known until we are face to face with him. We’d rather not have to improvise, but unless we are forced into that position, the goal is simply to keep him from controlling the situation. We must keep the pressure on him. If there’s one thing about Sombra that we are for sure has not changed… it’s his wit and versatility. As long as we are dictating his moves and not the other way around… it will work in our favor.”

“There you go again contradicting the mindless monster talk…” Spitfire grumbled quietly to herself, knowing it wasn’t worth arguing over. “So… on the fly coordination,” Spitfire said simply, hunching over slightly as she stared at her with disbelief. “For something this significant? Shining, you really can’t do better than that?”

Shining gave her a look of disapproval, but aside from a snort he didn’t show any animosity.

“Spitfire… You’re the captain of the WONDERBOLTS. Your function is not the same as a national military force. This may seem like another day at the office for you and all the crazy stuff you guys are called in to handle, but for us it’s different. We aren’t trained or equipped to handle the unknown, so give us a little slack here. We’re doing the best we can, and before you point at Luna,” Shining cut in as Spitfire tried to turn to her. “We’ve been working together to put together the best solution, acting on what we know and what she knows. She’s not shouting orders at us without seeking our input and letting us make use of our resources first. I’m being one hundred percent honest when I say we don’t have a true read on the situation. And I would hope you’re not acting like you do either, Wonderbolt or not. You can’t cite your prestige here.”

Spitfire and Shining sat still and sharply stared at one another. Spitfire was clearly not thrilled with Shining pushing back on her, but to those watching, it felt like Shining had reason to. He was the captain of the Crystal Guard after all. Even Dash and Descent understood his stance. He may have been one of the many they were deceiving, but he wasn’t taking kindly to Spitfire’s heavy criticism of his force.

“Fair enough,” Spitfire suddenly turned. “This was a waste of a meeting then.”

Everypony blinked in surprise as Spitfire abruptly cut off discussion. Cadence looked like she was trying to reach out to her husband, but she was hesitating.

“Hey!” Shining called after her. She paused, but looked over her shoulder and glared.

“Enough,” she said with a grunt. “I heard all I needed to hear. But I’m not really surprised because this was already a shit show long before now.”

“Man, what is your deal?” Shining pressed while throwing an arm out. “What more do you want from us? Do you have a better plan?”

Dash flinched as she heard Descent’s hooves scrape against the floor again. She looked to see him sitting stiffly and biting down on his lower lip hard. Dash swallowed as she turned back, was Spitfire going to spill the beans again?

But she only shook her head.

“No, I don’t. Just tired of everything being a mess,” she said while keeping her sharp tone. “You said you’re planning on shifting the patrol focus tonight, right?” she suddenly asked.

“Yeah,” Shining huffed and nodded, looking unsatisfied with her shift.

“In that case I’m going to make sure MY forces are ready,” she drew out the emphasis, sending a verbal shot that clearly hit Shining as he growled quietly. “If you need me at all over the next few hours,” she shifted her eyes to look at Luna as she spoke too. “I’ll be right outside the city walls with the reserves. The elites and I need to run them through some basic drills to make sure they are focused. We’ll stay inside the boundaries of the shield, so we won’t be far.”

Luna glanced at Shining Armor, but he said nothing, so she swallowed and nodded to Spitfire.

“Very well. Thank you for cooperating,” Luna said in a friendly tone.

“Yeah, sure, whatever…” Spitfire said as she turned away and started walking with heavy, stomping steps towards the doors. She didn’t even look at Descent or Dash as she passed, but the two quickly followed, only Dash glancing back briefly and making eye contact with Twilight once before they were out the door.

Nopony said a word for a few moments once the three were gone.

Shining Armor cursed to himself as he turned around and stormed past the others, going right around the thrones and through a door in the back of the hall. Cadence opened her mouth to say something to him, but left him be, sighing in frustration. Twilight quickly made her way over to her and began conversing… leaving Discord and Luna apart from the rest.

Luna was looking at the floor… but Discord was staring right at Luna, his arms crossed. He stared at her for a minute before turning and slowly pacing towards her. He stopped right in front of her, but she kept looking at the floor.

“Still think they won’t try anything?” he asked.

Luna looked up. They locked eyes.

But she said nothing.

Discord furrowed his brow as the silence grew longer. She glanced over at Twilight trying to speak to Cadence, then looked back down at Luna.

“Feh…” he turned his back to her and vanished.

As soon as the three left the throne room, Spitfire made a subtle head motion for them to follow her. She led them over to the wall across the hall away from any stationed guards.

Dash didn’t say a word as they moved, but could hear what sounded like hissing breaths coming from Descent, his chest visibly moving with each one.

As they came to a halt beside the wall, Spitfire turned and immediately smiled proudly at Dash.

“Dash that was a hell of an act. More than perfect,” she chuckled and nudged her in the shoulder. Dash blinked, still able to hear Descent’s breathing behind her. “I think I saw the exact moment it smacked her right in the fa—”

Dash flinched and yelped quietly as Descent suddenly shoved her aside and pressed a hoof so hard into Spitfire’s chest that she skidded backwards and ran her into the wall.

“What the HELL is wrong with you?!” he hissed at her with the sharpest hushed tone he could manage. Dash scooted backwards as Descent confronted Spitfire, her eyes wide as she fell back onto her plot. Spitfire winced when she hit the wall, but she never once showed surprise. She was definitely caught off guard, but there was no shock or even a gasp. “You just held up a big fat sign in front of their faces that screams dissent!” he pressed, both verbally and physically. “I don’t care how eager you are to stick it to the gods. Do you want us to be successful in this operation or not?!”

Spitfire didn’t flinch once, nor did she waver at any of the harsh words spat at her. She shook her head lightly and exhaled through her nostrils.

“I didn’t reveal a thing to them,” she said in a calm, serious tone, but Descent wasn’t having it.

“You sure as hell revealed our line of thinking! Something they clearly didn’t expect us to consider! You flat out suggested that Sombra isn’t the dangerous being they’ve been leading us to believe! Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that the very reason we started this whole charade in the first place?! If they didn’t suspect anything of us, they sure as hell do now!” he barely managed to keep his voice down.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion on my methods, Descent,” Spitfire continued to remain cool despite Descent’s outburst.

“Well you’re getting it!” Descent went on. “I only agreed to your plan because it was supposed to be discreet! What’s the point of being subversive if you’re going to recklessly raise red flags for no other reason than it gets you off to see them squirm?!”

“You’re more than welcome to pull the Renegades out of this if you want,” Spitfire reached up and gripped Descent’s arm gently at first. “If you really want to look like a coward, then be my guest. I’m going forward regardless…” she slowly tightened her grip, causing Descent’s eyes to twitch. “And we’re doing this my way.”

Dash remained perfectly still, her eyes darting back and forth with nothing to say. Descent bit his lower lip too, Spitfire’s very strong grip on his arm was clearly painful, but he was adamantly trying not to show it. Eventually he removed the pressure from her chest and pulled his hoof back. Spitfire let go the moment she felt him shift.

“You’ve lost your damn mind… AGAIN!” he snapped, keeping his glare locked firmly on her.

“Have anything else to say to me?” Spitfire lifted her brow, still not acknowledging his harsh criticism of her actions like he had way to convince her she was wrong.

“Tch!” Descent swiftly turned his head away and gritted his teeth. “I don’t. I’m just amazed that you haven’t completely blown our cover yet,” he shook his head. “So what now? Are we going to get this underway or are we going to wait till you’ve had a chance to send them a letter explaining our plan step by step?” he said very sarcastically.

“Enough already,” Spitfire snorted and rolled her eyes. “And yes. It’s time to move.”

Dash twitched.

“We have a window here. Shining isn’t going to reassign his scouts until tonight…”

Dash opened her mouth, but it felt like the air had rushed out of her lungs.

“Dash, get suited up and…” Spitfire paused and blinked. “Are you alright?”

Dash’s eyes widened considerably. Spitfire was looking at her curiously.

Something about Spitfire’s words… or no… it was what she said…

‘It’s time to move.’

For some reason, Dash’s body had an incredibly unexpected reaction. Her chest felt tight, she felt short of breath, and she felt like she was losing feeling in her legs.

What was happening? It wasn’t anything to do with Soarin, it was coming from her!

“Dash? Dash!” Spitfire kept her voice down as she waved a hoof in front of her face.

Dash quickly snapped out of it, shaking her head out and staring into Spitfire’s perplexed stare.

Not good… she had to play it off quick.

“Sorry, I…” Dash blinked, then a thought up a really quick fib. She reached up and pressed a hoof to her chest. “I dunno… I suddenly felt a jolt, it might be Soarin…” she lied, keeping the look of shock on her face purposely to make it believable. Spitfire quickly reached forward.

“Is he okay?! What is it?” she asked frantically. This wasn’t quite what Dash hoped would happen, but she kept up the charade.

“I don’t know… I’m still alive, but it was very weird and sudden…” she threw out the first thing she could think of.

“All the more reason for us to get moving then,” Spitfire nodded, hardening her expression as she patted Dash’s shoulders. “Get your squad, get suited up, and meet in the courtyard in two hours. I’m going to go meet with the rest of the elites and let them know the operation starts now.”

Dash felt her chest tighten again as Spitfire said it again, but this time she forced herself to not show it.

“Descent?” Spitfire turned back to him quickly, but he was facing away.

“Hmph,” he replied with a simple grunt.

“Cut that crap out. Get the Renegades organized and figure out how you’re going to join up with us when we break off from the drills. Let’s meet quickly before the Wonderbolts launch to make sure we have it all finalized,” she explained.

“Fine,” Descent said in a grumbly tone, turning and leaving immediately after. Spitfire huffed and shook her head, letting him go to do his part. Instead, she turned back to Dash.

“Get going, Dash… Two hours. Don’t be late,” she ordered. Dash didn’t reply immediately, but by the time she swallowed and found her voice…

“Y-yes—”

Spitfire had already turned and was walking away. Dash held her mouth open until Spitfire disappeared around the corner of the next hallway.

“… —Ma’am,” she finished and slumped down.

She sat still for several moments, looking down at the floor as she felt her heart beating quickly. She lifted a hoof towards her chest, her movement felt weak, her arm felt heavy as if her strength had been drained.

She touched her hoof to her chest. She instantly felt the fast thumping, her heart beating forcefully against her chest.

She closed her mouth and tried to lick her lips, her tongue dragging as it touched several dry spots.

She had to take a few deeper breaths, the lack of air making her wheeze slightly.

Quick heartbeat… dry mouth… short on breath…

This was a feeling she knew better than she wanted to admit.

Nerves… she was nervous, anxious, and afraid.

Up to this point she had felt so sure of herself and her actions. She was so proud of herself for setting aside her misgivings, that she put her hoof down and forced herself forward. She had taken the hard steps needed to take control and do what she believed was right, to follow what she knew to be truths when others involved would never consider them.

But now that it was all about to happen?

She had prepared, she was sure she was ready… but here was the all too familiar anxiety. Were her show time nerves coming back to haunt her? No… it wasn’t so simple and definitely not as trivial. It was the same feeling as those nerves, but this was a life and death situation. She never had real consequential weight on her shoulders during a simple show. She was about to find out if her chosen path was right… or incredibly wrong.

It was all coming down to this point… and she could never have predicted how much pressure she would feel when the moment finally arrived.

She shut her eyes tight, she slammed her teeth together and tensed her body.

She HAD to fight it… she couldn’t let this happen, not here, not now. She had to keep pushing on with the strength she had used to get this far.

Why wouldn’t it go away? Why did this have to come up now? She couldn’t shake it! She…

She needed to get this off her chest. There was no way she was going to be able to concentrate with this looming over her suddenly. She had two hours, but…

Where would she go and who would she talk to?

Her options were obviously limited. The Wonderbolts were off limits because… duh, she was working against them. Her squad and group she was leading? No way, she could not show weakness to them after how hard she pushed to get them all on her side. And the two ponies she most often confided in? Soarin was the one they were trying to save, and Silver was…

Dash perked up, her eyes opening wide as she sat up straight and her ears twitched.

She blinked several times as she sat completely still, gears turning rapidly in her head.

She relaxed, glanced down for a moment, and then looked around the surrounding hallway. There were guards walking around on patrol, none were coming near her, but a few glanced in her direction.

She looked back and forth.

Back and forth.

Her eyes kept landing on the hall Spitfire disappeared down…

And towards a hall that was the first turn if she wanted to head for the front gate of the palace.

She stopped looking around and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Two hours…?” she said quietly to herself as she opened her eyes and locked them on the hall leading out. “Yeah…” she stood up and started walking towards it. “I have plenty of time…”

“Um… can I help you?” the mare working the front desk of the hospital asked as Dash leaned her chest against the counter with a hoof firmly placed on it.

“I’m here to see Silver Lining,” she said in a strong tone while subtly standing on the tips of her hooves to elevate herself just enough to be at least a head higher than the mare.

She stared up at Dash for a moment, blinking twice before slowly looking down and pulling out a scheduling book. She flipped through the pages, glancing back up at Dash a few times. Dash held her position and kept her eyes locked in a serious, no nonsense expression. Each time the mare looked up, she her pace quickened, flipping through the pages faster. She eventually stopped and slid her hoof down the page.

“He’s not scheduled for any visits right now…” the mare looked up and leaned back slightly as Dash continued to stare at her. “Uh…” her eyes darted back and forth. “Are you family?” she asked.

Dash’s eyes widened slightly, but only for a moment.

“I’m…” she paused and hardened her expression again. “Yes. I’m family,” she furrowed her brow and sharpened her glare.

The mare tipped her head curiously, looking more and more uncomfortable with every passing second.

“B-but…” she stammered. “We have no family visits scheduled until…” she looked down and scanned the page again.

“LISTEN YOU!” Dash suddenly reached out and grabbed the mare by the shoulder, pulling her forward and pressing her nose to hers. The mare yelped loudly, drawing attention from other employees and ponies nearby. “LET. ME. SEE. HIM.”

The mare was frozen, her eyes so wide they nearly took up her whole face.

“What’s going on out here?”

Dash instantly turned her head to look towards the new voice that spoke up. It took Dash a second to recognize him. An old, red unicorn stallion with a stone-faced, hardened look…

It was the doctor that gave them the news about Silver.

“D…Dr. Mercury…” the mare stuttered as he approached. “We…” she glanced between him and Dash. “Um…”

She yelped as Dash suddenly let go of her and turned to Dr. Mercury. She stomped right up him.

“You,” Dash said sharply. “I need to see Silver.”

Dr. Mercury lifted an eyebrow, staring right into Dash’s glare.

“No,” he said without hesitation. “He’s resting, medicated, and being monitored right now. So—”

Dash forced herself forward and got right in his face, determined to not be denied.

“I NEED. TO SEE. SILVER!” she yelled.

But then she ran into a brick wall… because Dr. Mercury didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink.

Dash held herself firmly, but internally she was caught off guard. She was beyond determined to get to Silver… and thought she could use Silver’s likeness to muscle her way in much like how she had gotten through all of her escapades so far.

But it bounced right off Dr. Mercury like it was nothing. This was the first time the Silver tactics didn’t work and she didn’t know how to proceed.

“Are you related to him?” Dr. Mercury suddenly asked.

“YES!” Dash fired off before thinking about it. She had already said it once, but this time it was a nervous, hair trigger response. It was too late, she had to run with that now.

Dr. Mercury looked her over carefully, still remaining in place even though Dash’s face was only about an inch from his.

Dash wasn’t sure what to do. She clearly wasn’t fooling him, but she pressed on regardless.

“Are you blind?” Dash asked as she pulled back. “Can’t you see the family resemblance?!” she said as she waved a hoof in front of her face. Her voice almost cracked as she said it… this wasn’t working. And she felt her body tense up as he narrowed his eyes into a glare that rivaled hers.

Come to think of it, she was with the Wonderbolts when he gave the report on Silver. He definitely saw her then and he was adamant on not allowing them to see Silver at the time. He wasn’t budging… and he could see right through her. She could feel his eyes piercing hers like it was nothing. She swallowed as the standoff continued, afraid that she was about to be denied.

Behind her, the mare at the desk was slowly reaching for a button beneath the desk to call security. But Dr. Mercury suddenly lifted a hoof and pointed it towards the mare, shaking his head.

The mare stopped, and just held still as Dr. Mercury sighed.

“Fine,” he said in a tone that sounded annoyed. Dash’s eyes widened, unable to keep herself in character as he suddenly… agreed? “Come with me,” he said as he made a head motion towards the hallway doors and turned.

Dash didn’t say a word, she just eagerly followed as Dr. Mercury started walking and pushed through the doors.

That… was not the outcome she expected. After he denied the push for them to see Silver earlier and then barely budged when Dash clearly failed to intimidate him… how did he just suddenly cave? It was clear he wasn’t buying her bullshit about being related to Silver.

Dash decided not to dwell on it. The curiosity was killing her, but she got what she wanted so why press her luck? She just kept up behind him.

Dr. Mercury didn’t look at her once as he led her through the hallways. And as they walked… Dash suddenly felt tense. Not the same kind of tenseness that she felt when staring down the doctor… it was the tenseness she felt before, that made her come here to the hospital in the first place.

Why? She was just going to see Silver!

But… maybe that was it. She was going to see Silver. She was feeling nervous for different reasons. She had not seen him for a little while and a lot had happened since then. She was looking for confidence, but would the sight of him do that or the opposite?

She started having second thoughts, she wasn’t sure if the sight of Silver would actually help her at all. She went in thinking talking to him, regardless of whether or not he could reply, would be helpful, but now…

She shook her head out. She was here, and she was about to see him. She made this choice for a reason and all these misgivings were starting to annoy her. Misgivings were the reason why she was here… because she had to get rid of them.

Dash almost ran right into Dr. Mercury’s plot as he stopped in front of a door.

Her eyes widened and she swallowed as Dr. Mercury looked back at her.

“Here we are,” he said calmly as he reached up and turned the door knob.

The amount of time it took for the door to open and for the two of them to walk into the room was only a few seconds, but Dash felt like she was moving in slow motion.

From the moment she stepped into the room, to the moment she heard the beeping of the heart monitor, to the moment Dr. Mercury stepped aside to let her by… to the moment her eyes landed…

On Silver Lining.

Dash just stared, everything else in the room seeming to disappear as she focused on Silver with one hundred percent of her attention. She didn’t see Dr. Mercury, and she didn’t see the nurse that was currently tending to Silver.

It was just her, and Silver… and it stayed that way for several moments. She was across the room from him, but couldn’t muster the strength to take a step forward, that or she was still trying to find it. From where she was, she could only make out so much. Silver was lying on his back, he had several machines beside him and was hooked up to an IV. His body had been completely cleaned of bloodstains and he had been re-bandaged neatly, but the few parts that were exposed sported harsh bruising and some very nasty scars. She was sure the visible scars weren’t even the worst of them… considering he had just undergone some major surgeries around the covered areas of his body.

“Doctor…?” the nurse said simply, sounding surprised. Her voice brought Dash back to reality, shaking her head out and blinking as Dr. Mercury motioned a hoof towards Dash.

“Finish up your checks, he has a visitor,” he said, prompting the nurse to go back to work despite looking confused.

Dash, now out of her own head, stared at Silver for a moment.

“He’s…?” she spoke up, but lost the rest of the words.

“Sedated,” Dr. Mercury finished for her. “His body has been experiencing nerve shocks and muscle spasms so we have him medicated to help him rest.”

Dash’s ears drooped.

“So he’s out…” she said solemnly. She wasn’t expecting Silver to be awake and aware, but she had hoped for the possibility regardless.

“Correct. And we had to give him the strongest stuff we had. Saying his body is a wreck is an understatement. We fixed everything that was broken, but I saw many things that could have warranted additional surgery unrelated to his injuries.”

“Sounds… like Silver alright…” Dash said with a sigh, knowing first-hoof how broken down Silver’s body was even before he faced off against Nightshade.

“He has been unconscious the whole time we’ve had him here, and will likely be out for a little longer post-surgery,” he shook his head as Dash quickly looked at him. “But rest assured, his body is functioning beyond the state of a coma, it’s just recovering very slowly. He’s been through more than most ponies could take, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

The room went silent for a moment as the nurse finished up her checklist and nodded towards Dr. Mercury. Without a word, the nurse walked by them and left the room. Dr. Mercury placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder without looking at her.

“Take your time, but not too long. We need to keep monitoring him,” he said. Dash swallowed and nodded.

“O…okay, thanks,” she thanked him. Dr. Mercury said no more and turned to leave the room, but, “Um…” Dash suddenly found herself turning and looking at him before he could get to the door. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her.

“Yes?”

“N… nothing,” Dash shook her head and looked down. Dr. Mercury exhaled.

“What is it?” he pressed with a flat look.

Dash looked back at him and locked eyes. She couldn’t help it… it was killing her.

“Why did you let me through?” she asked him. Dr. Mercury just stared, saying nothing. “Look,” Dash turned and fully faced him. “I know I’m not fooling you with the family thing. So why?”

Dr. Mercury only kept his eyes on her for a few seconds before turning away and facing the door again.

“Griffon-Drake War.”

Dash’s eyes shot open, her jaw hanging halfway agape.

“Listen…” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know what your relation is to Silver… but there’s no mistaking it,” he pointed a hoof over his shoulder, directing it at Silver. “I only know one damn pony who’s given me that same glare before.”

Dash was at a loss for words.

“Anyway, again… be sure to inform somepony when you leave. I’ll get fired if we leave him unattended for too long. But knowing this stubborn piece of metal, he’ll probably be just fine regardless.”

Dash felt helpless, she wanted to ask so many questions, but was too shocked to say anything.

Dr. Mercury… knew Silver before this? He was older too… a veteran of the last conflict between the Griffon and Drake Empires just like Silver… was he a combat medic? He was a crystal pony though… but maybe his situation was the same as Squall’s family, moving back once the empire reappeared for ancestry reasons.

But before she could even form a single coherent word, Dr. Mercury had already left.

Dash was left alone in the room… Just her… and Silver. It was the two of them and the steady rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor, nothing else.

Dash faced her broken mentor, still standing in the same spot she had been since she entered. It was time to move… it was time to get closer, and it was time to do what she came here to do.

Slowly… one slow step at a time… Dash made her way over to him, taking in the sight as she moved.

She froze for a moment as her eyes landed on something she wasn’t ready to see.

The nub left over from his removed left wing. It was covered in bandages, but… the wing was gone, it was really gone. It hurt to see, she almost felt queasy looking at it, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She cringed as the noises of the bones snapping beneath Nightshades hooves played over again in her head.

She shut her eyes and looked away while holding her breath.

She had to get a hold of herself. She had to toughen up and take it in. She wasn’t here to grieve for him… she was here because she needed his help, awake or not. She turned her head back to him, released her breath and opened her eyes, staring directly at his wing nub until it was bearable sight. Or at least somewhat bearable.

With that etched into her mind… she looked at Silver’s face instead. Asleep, breathing… most importantly, alive. And it didn’t matter that he was asleep, simply being right in front of her was what she needed most.

She sat down facing the bed, leaned her chest against it, and rested her shin on the mattress, sighing.

She looked at Silver’s face from her position… and smiled weakly.

“Hey old geezer…” she finally spoke, pausing as if he would reply even though she knew he wouldn’t. She blew air through her nostrils as the smile slowly faded. “I’m alive. A lot of crap has happened, but… I’m still alive.” She said, her eyes refusing to move from him. “But man… it’s been hard without you out there. I’m not just talking about me… Everything is a mess.”

She paused again, but picked her head up from the mattress and turned around, sitting comfortably with her back against the bed to feel casual as she spoke to him.

“I really don’t know if you’d be able to fix any of it, but… you’d sure be a big help right now. There are a lot of asses in need of a good kick, but no one is tough enough to kick ‘em.”

She looked over her shoulder and stared at his face again for a moment, but eventually turned her back again.

“Anyway… I came here for a reason, even though you can’t hear me. You’re probably gonna call me a pussy, but I don’t care…”

She paused to collect herself. She was about to let her worries off her chest. It didn’t matter that Silver was out, she was treating it like he was awake and listening.

“I… took a chance,” she began. “A pretty big one too. Up until this point I’ve been pretty sure it was the right thing to do…” she trailed off and paused, her eyes widening a little as she looked at the floor. “No… wait…” she shut her eyes and shook her head out. “No… forget I said that. It was the right thing to do. It’s what you would have done. You wouldn’t have put up with all this bullshit. But…” Dash blinked. “But you would have…” she stopped short and sighed. “Actually, now that I think about it, you probably would have confronted Spitfire directly and convinced her instead of going behind her back… and being all sneaky…” Dash suddenly felt a tightness in her chest as she thought it over. “Am I… doing this the cowardly way?”

She flinched and rapped a hoof against her head, groaning loudly.

“Gah! No! No, no, no. Listen to this crap I’m saying! I don’t know what you would have done… and who says I have to do everything the way you do?! I know you wouldn’t care as long as I recognized a problem and took action against it. Just…” she sighed again, nickering quietly. “Just now that it’s about to happen, I’m… feeling anxious.”

She shook her head, glancing back at him again, but only for a second as she looked down at her hooves.

“Soarin isn’t here to help me calm down… and you’re stuck here, fast asleep. So you can’t give me a swift kick in the ass, but… I wanted to come see you anyway. I wanted to at least say something to somepony I know understands me and understands what I’m trying to do… I don’t care if you’re asleep, I needed it.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I guess I’m just afraid that this is all going to blow up in my face. Hell, I don’t know if this will even solve anything! I thought following your example would help show me a light and point me in the right direction, but it feels like there is no right direction. I’ve taken control of my path, but now I have more weighing on my shoulders than I bargained for.”

She let her chin tip back down until she was staring at the wall across from Silver’s bed and released a long, frustrated sigh.

“I… I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you so calmly and confidently push back, how you always know when it’s the right time to go against orders, when it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know how you execute without hesitation. You make it look so damn easy. I don’t know if it’s just my lack of experience or the instinct or what. I know you’re an old relic that’s been at this for longer than I’ve been alive, but it’s incredible…” she glanced back at him. “Amazing… even. You can just do this so calmly every time.” She took a deep breath and turned away again. “I… want to be like you, but I feel so unprepared. I thought I knew how to handle this, like all of your guidance got me this far. But look at me…” she grunted. “What the hell is this? I’m short of breath and my legs are shaking? It’s pathetic!” she stomped a hoof on the floor and paused for several moments.

“Maybe… I just need to experience it in full first. This isn’t just my first time taking a big risk and going my own way… this is going to be my first time out there without you. For real, I mean… you won’t be close by or anything.”

Dash sat still, slowly tilting her head down and closing her eyes, her thoughts swirling.

“I guess… I’m about to find out if I really have what it takes to be your protégé…”

“Quit whining.”

Dash’s eyes never opened faster or wider in her life.

“I can almost hear the sound of your tail getting sucked into your ass.”

Silver was awake.

“WHAT THE--?!” Dash almost fell forward, her hooves slipping and skidding on the floor as she frantically tried to stand up, failing and falling face first once before she finally managed to get up, spin around and stare directly into the open, bloodshot eye of Silver. Her heart was beating so fast that she might as well have been scared to hell and back. “UH… WHA… HUH?!” she continued to babble incoherently.

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, but you’ve set a new standard for talking like a weenie without getting to the point,” Silver kept talking, his voice weak and a little raspy. His red, damaged blood vessels in his eye only made the singular glare look that much more intimidating.

Dash’s back legs were still shaking while her front half was frozen, body, face, and all. Her back hooves eventually slipped and she yelped as she nearly fell backwards on her plot. She quickly pushed herself back up, but her back legs were still shaking like she had seen a ghost. She wasn’t imagining this, right? Silver was awake… right?

Silver’s eye moved up and down, scanning her carefully as she remained in a state of shock. He specifically noted the way her back legs were wobbling and shaking before making eye contact with her and lifting his eyebrow.

“You got a fire going in your lady garden or something?” he asked gruffly, pushing his voice to work for him despite how difficult it sounded. “I didn’t know caretaking tickled your hot box. Back off, I’m married.”

Silver’s wisecracks sailed right over Dash’s head as she tried to find where her brain scurried off to. She clearly wasn’t dreaming. Whatever the ‘strongest medication’ was they gave Silver apparently wasn’t strong enough to knock him out, and Silver was throwing his blunt one liners at her like everything was normal.

It was kind of hard to process it all at once while her brain was missing in action.

“B…but… but…” she stammered as she tried to focus and speak up.

“But what?” Silver asked with a snort.

“The doc said you’ve been out for days! And that you were sedated on top of it!” Dash blurted out, regurgitating her confusion since she didn’t know what else to say. Silver blinked, and released a light chuckle as he rolled his eye.

“Oh please,” he said with a sigh. “This weak shit couldn’t knock out Blaze. I’m about as sleepy as a mare after spending the full six seconds in bed with Lightning Streak.”

Dash felt a light tingle in her throat. Laughter, she was chuckling a little. It was just hard to register because she was still caught in between trying to find her head and naturally reacting to Silver’s typical roasting of his wingmates. She couldn’t see her own face, but she was sure she had on an odd, goofy look that was half hysterical and half smiling.

But whatever look she was giving him, it didn’t seem to have any effect on him as his eyes once again locked on hers and narrowed.

“Now what’s with all the limp-wristed moaning and groaning coming out of your yapper? You lose all of your backbone while I’ve been out?”

Dash finally came to her senses, blinking as her legs stopped shaking and her thoughts straightened out.

Silver was awake… she was looking right at him and he was talking. But… as she looked at him, something else was still visible. She felt a lump in her throat, her ears flopped down, and she looked away.

“What?” Silver prodded, causing Dash to flinch.

“Um…” she slowly looked back towards him, a somber look on her face as her eyes moved to the leftover nub where his wing used to be. Her eyes moved from the wing nub to his eye, then quickly looked away again. “Your…”

“My wing?” Silver finished for her, his tone not changing. “It’s gone, I know.”

Dash flinched, her eyes widening a little at how casually he said it.

“Uh…?” She failed to utter any full words as she tried to measure his response. She expected him to be a little more emotional about it. Okay, maybe just a tiny bit emotional, this was Silver she was talking to. Although... He nearly broke down completely when Spitfire first informed him that she was retiring him from duty… how was he being so casual about this? Unless… because he preferred it this way? Going until he could physically no longer perform? She thought she recalled him saying something like that at some point.

“She-demon-bitch crushed it, you think I don’t remember?” Silver spoke very frankly. “Bones don’t make noises like that and then get better later.” He snorted and looked straight up at the ceiling. “Don’t expect me to get all worked up about it cause I ain’t gonna miss it. Glad that son of a bitch is finally gone. It hurt like hell on a daily basis before it got stepped on. Too bad she didn’t take the other while she was at it.”

Dash was dead silent with a flat expression and wide eyes.

“I… uh…”

“WHAT?!” Silver suddenly belted as he turned his eye back to her, coughing and groaning lightly for a moment right after. Dash winced as she heard him overexert his voice, but then shook her head.

“I guess I was expecting a different reaction…” she explained herself.

Silver looked her right in the eyes and blew a whistling breath through his nostrils.

“Look, Dash…” he began slowly, his voice taking on a more serious tone and pace. “I wasn’t expecting to get out of that fight alive. I went in knowing full well that I wouldn’t last very long and would probably die before Spitfire got anywhere near the battlefield.” He paused and smiled. “What better way to end my career as a Wonderbolt? Fighting tooth and nail through the stiffness and pain of my old, broken body not just for my life… but for the lives of the future generation? I put everything on the line in hopes that it would be enough… that I could buy you amazing kids just enough time for a chance to survive.” He looked away from her. “Even I’m surprised I’m alive, Dash…” he shook his head, or at least tried to, barely able to move his head as he shifted his eye back towards her. “I was ready… ready to say goodbye to everything, ready to leave it all behind for a good cause. My life… my family… you… everything. So if I only lost an eye and a wing? Then I consider myself damn lucky. This was the defining moment of my life as a Wonderbolt, my final battle. And I sure as hell don’t mind being alive to remember it… and be proud of it.”

“Silver…” Dash was being put on a roller coaster. One moment Silver was insisting there was nothing for him to be emotional about, then he gives her a thoughtful recount of what was going through his head at the moment of his near demise? She wished he’d make up his mind and stick to a tone.

“But enough about me, dammit,” Silver suddenly grunted, his sharp tone once again piercing through the rasp. Dash blinked, smacked right back across the face in the other direction as he shifted again. “So I’m broken, what else is new?” he said sarcastically. “Now what’s all that crap you were belly-aching about earlier?”

Dash was caught off guard. Silver was moving a mile a minute despite being immobile and now was suddenly demanding an explanation. Where to begin…? There was so much… She looked down as she tried to collect her thoughts, but Silver released another snort.

“Everything went straight to hell the moment I went down, didn’t it?” Silver asked. Dash looked back up at him and blinked, tipping her head to the side a little.

“Pretty much,” she answered simply, unable to argue with his inductive reasoning.

“Figures…” he scoffed. “You damn kids can’t do anything right without me,” he released an exasperated sigh. “Well? While I’m still young.”

Dash paused for a moment, scrunching her brow as she blinked.

“First we’re ‘amazing kids’ and a few seconds later we can’t do anything right without you?” she asked while lifting an eyebrow. “That praise sure lasted long.”

“What, you want a hug and a kiss to go with it? Don’t make me come over there and smack your shit. I can’t feel a thing, but I’ll damn well give it my best shot.”

Dash blinked, her lips quickly turning up.

“Heh…” she let a chuckle slip as she smirked wider.

“What?” Silver grunted.

“Nothing,” Dash shook her head, finally moving closer to him and sitting down on the floor right next to the bed. “It’s just great to hear you talk again,” she said honestly, Silver’s voice along making her feel… normal. Silver’s eye widened suddenly, clearly not expecting that. He couldn’t have averted his eye from Dash faster if he tried.

“Yeah, yeah…” he said quietly while looking at the ceiling. “Sure, whatever… now what’s going on out there?” he asked, his voice growing quieter while trying not to show any cracks in the armor.

“Well…” Dash began, sighing as she rested her chin on the mattress. She looked up as Silver’s eye returned to her. “It’s a long story…”

“And then I came here,” Dash said, pausing as Silver looked up at the ceiling, listening carefully and processing everything she had just told him. “And…” Dash continued with a sigh. “I came here because I’m nervous. I thought seeing you would help me calm down.” She looked up to see his eye had finally shifted back to her.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Dash nodded.

“Okay, and?” Silver quickly asked. Dash blinked, pulling her head back slightly.

“And… what?”

“You still didn’t answer the first goddamn question I asked you,” Silver sharpened his eye into a glare. “What the hell are you whining about?”

Dash’s eyes widened, not only at the question, but at how harshly he put it. She instinctively opened her mouth to retort, but… found she had nothing to say in response. She just sat there, with her eyes in a half glare and her mouth hanging slightly ajar.

“I’m waiting,” Silver pressed with a snort.

Dash slowly closed her mouth, her eyelids shaking for a moment as she looked down.

“I…” she shook her head lightly. “I don’t know why.”

“That’s because you shouldn’t be,” Silver verbally jabbed. “So cut that crap out.”

Dash locked her eyes on him and furrowed her brow, but… she pulled back and calmed down, tipping her head a little bit to the side. She wasn’t sure what to say… or if she had to say anything because… it wasn’t like she disagreed with what he said. He was one hundred percent right, her ‘fight back’ reflexes were just egging her on.

“Sounds like everything is working the way you want it to,” Silver went on. “So don’t you go tuck your tail between your legs right before taking the damn stage.”

Dash picked out a few specific words there. ‘Working the way you want it to.’

“But… actually… that’s not entirely true,” she began as she released a frustrated sigh. “Not everything has gone smoothly. Just now before I came here, we were found out by ponies I didn’t want involved. Luckily, they were on our side… or so they claim. So I’m worried about that, but…” she furrowed her brow as she shook her head. “But Storm is easily my biggest mistake. I didn’t consider all of his circumstances and just threw him in with the rest I trusted. He wasn’t on board when I first confronted everypony and has even fought me on the whole idea more than once.”

“I hope you broke your hoof off in his ass for it,” Silver commented bluntly. Dash’s eye twitched, but she didn’t react otherwise.

“I did… kind of,” she said half-heartedly.

“Kind of?” Silver snorted. “Did you, or did you not push his shit in? I want some confirmation.”

“Okay, fine! I did!” Dash rolled her eyes.

“Good,” Silver smiled weakly, satisfied.

“But it didn’t really fix the issue!” Dash groaned. “He’s still scowling in the corner every time we meet. I have Matty watching him, but I have no guarantee Storm’s really on board. He hasn’t ratted us out or anything… yet.” She shook her head. “But he’s clearly against it and it’s apparently bothering him to the point where he’s grumbling and talking to himself.”

“Then kick his ass again,” Silver suggested casually. “Sometimes one hoof up the ass isn’t enough. Some morons need a friendly reminder with another, preferably harder and with a hooffull of nails. I guarantee you they won’t cross you after that.”

Dash felt her whole body twitch as Silver so calmly gave his ‘suggestion’. She huffed and shook her head out, eager to move on since ‘kick his ass’ was probably the only response she was going to get regarding Storm.

“I’m also just… unsure in general,” she continued. “About the whole thing, not just what I’ve done just now,” she shook her head and sighed, holding the breath out for several moments. “I think I have an idea of what’s going on, but I don’t know how much of it is right. And what I have in mind is constantly being punted around by everything else I’m hearing from Spitfire, from Luna and Discord, from others… It’s almost impossible to stay focused. One moment I’m under the impression that my plan will work, it will be successful… The next moment I wonder if I’m jumping the gun and if what I’m hearing from Spitfire or whoever might be better to follow. There are some things I heavily disagree with, but it’s all out there and all swirling!” She grunted and started bobbing back and forth while pressing a hoof to her head. “Ugh… there’s so much conflicting information. The gods say one thing, Spitfire rejects it and puts her hoof forward… Both are saying things I don’t agree with so I’ve tried to break away, it’s barely been a week but it feels like it’s been going on for months at this point and… and… but… ffffffffrgh…” She rubbed her hooves through her mane.

“It’s a dumpster fire filled with ten thousand pounds of hammered dog shit,” Silver chimed in. “I’ve already put that together.”

“And then there’s Soarin on top of it! And…” Dash tried to continue, ignoring Silver’s comment entirely, but trailed off. Silver huffed and lifted his eyebrow.

“What about Soarin?” he asked after she paused for too long.

“I…” Dash tipped backwards, stopping just short of flopping onto her back. “I don’t know…” she finally said with a loud, annoyed grunt.

“Spit it out before you choke on it,” Silver demanded gruffly, his voice finding ways to remain sharp even though it was still weakened overall. Dash’s face contorted slightly, drawing a clear picture in her head of Silver’s choice of words.

“I don’t know if it’s even possible to save him,” she admitted while looking directly at Silver. He had his eye locked on her, but he said nothing, expecting her to go on. “My plan is to use something we’ve seen work on something that’s… kind of the same? I don’t even know if it’s really comparable, or if the Elements can actually affect his state. I keep hearing that Soarin’s body has been taken over completely, that Sombra’s soul has suppressed his and made Soarin’s body his own. That wasn’t the case when we used the spell on Luna. She was being corrupted by a spirit, the spirit didn’t flat out replace her. AUGH!” she threw her hooves up in frustration. “I don’t know! And the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced there’s really nothing we can do about it!”

Silver kept staring as she ranted, her breath heavy as she paused. He looked her up and down, keeping his expression calm.

“Why?” he asked simply.

“I have no answers!” Dash fired at him instantly. “Only ideas! That’s not enough! I can’t feel confident like this!” Dash’s outburst continued.

“Why not?” Silver pushed again, furrowing his brow slightly. “What’s stopping you?”

“How can I?!” Dash slammed her hooves to the floor. “It doesn’t help that the more I hear about him and what’s happening to him, the less I understand! Not just now, going all the way back to the start when this crap was forced on him all the way up to where we are now! I also don’t know a thing about Sombra aside from some shadow of him I fought with my friends a while back! Luna and Discord know so much more about the real him than we do, I don’t fucking know, maybe they are right?! Maybe what they are saying is really what we should be doing and everything I’ve done is just a waste of goddamn—”

“For crying out loud, will you LISTEN to me?!” Silver suddenly shouted, or at least tried. It was followed by coughs, cringing, and jittering as he grunted and groaned. Dash froze, her eyes widening and rushing forward as Silver looked in pain. But the moment she got close enough to touch him, his eye opened back up and pierced right through her. “I don’t give a damn what Loopy and Dickface say!” he had lowered his tone back down, but his voice still had strength. “I’m asking YOU dammit! Why do YOU think you can’t?!” he threw the question right into her face.

Dash closed her mouth and blinked as his words smacked her right upside the head.

“You’re not sure it will work?” Silver went on. “WHO CARES?! Is that going to stop you from trying?! Is that going to end this moment where you believed in yourself over their nonsense?!”

“I… what?” Dash stuttered.

“So the gods know the jackass, big deal! That means they’re right?” Silver snorted. “What part of the crap they’ve dragged us through makes you believe they are all seeing and all knowing?! Are you circling back on me here? What the hell happened to all that moxy that pushed you to take charge?!”

“But…” Dash continued to stammer.

“You already kicked them all to the curb because you thought they were wrong,” Silver kept going. “And not just them, but Spitfire too. I’m proud of you, dammit! Proud of you for recognizing the need to break away and take control. I’m lying here half mummified and pumped full of enough painkillers and sedatives to rub my ass on the gates of heaven, but I have just enough feeling in my crotch to acknowledge the academy record hard on that went up when you said you told them all to get bent! So don’t you dare ruin this moment for me by shoving your head between your legs and checking the weather up your own ass right before following through!”

Dash’s left eye twitched.

“No answer, huh?” Silver grunted. Dash sighed and groaned.

“Sorry, I forgot what you asked when you brought up your dick,” Dash grumbled sarcastically.

“And I’m going to make a serious attempt to slap you across the face with it if you don’t answer me,” Silver shot back without missing a beat.

“I don’t know, okay?!” Dash rubbed her hooves against her head and turned her back to him. “I think… Maybe I’m just anxious and it’s getting to me. Maybe I’m thinking way too hard.” She turned back to him. “But this is exactly why I came here. I felt perfectly fine right up to the moment I realized it was all about to start. I didn’t want to go forward like that. I needed to let it out to some pony even if they were—”

“Well, cut that out,” Silver cut her off abruptly. “If you’ve gone this far, then you’re in deep shit if you start pussy-hoofing now.”

“I’m nervous, okay?!” Dash lashed out. “No, you know what!? I’m also scared! VERY scared!” She pointed a hoof at Silver. “There, I said it! I’m scared about what this means for me too! Soarin’s soul still exists in his body, but for how long? What if it eventually gets destroyed? What if it weakens and fades? What if Sombra finds a way to push him out completely?! A part of me is in there too, connected to him! If he disappears, will it take me with it?! Will I just keel over and die?! This is very serious for me! You’re not the one with your life on the line here!”

Dash’s eyes grew wide and she pulled back, gasping slightly the moment she realized what she said. She wasn’t wrong… but… even if the contexts differed…

“I…” Dash shook lightly as she scooted backward. Looking directly into Silver’s eye as he narrowed into a sharp gaze. “I’m sorry, I…”

“No. Stop,” Silver spoke up quickly, causing Dash to freeze. “Don’t even start apologizing or going all soft. I’d rather you misspeak with passion than apologize weakly. But, forget it, you made it clear that you’re nervous, I get that’s what you’re trying to say.” Silver brushed her poor choice of words aside. But then he shook his head. “But Dash, come on, really?”

Dash remained still and just blinked once.

“Soarin? Weaken and fade?” he lifted his brow. “Sweet mother of hell, do you even KNOW your own husband?”

Dash almost immediately forgot her mistake, her eyes shooting open and her body springing back into a jittery motion.

“HUSBAND?!” she blurted out, caught off guard.

“Oh give me a break,” Silver snorted. “With how frequently you two do the slippery pole bounce on one another regardless of what’s going on around you? You might as well be married with twelve children already.”

Dash stared at him blankly.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t bang at least once after I almost died.”

“Er…” Dash’s face turned bright red and she looked away.

“Did you actually?” Silver stifled a chuckle. “Hell, I’m always right, even when I’m joking.” He looked away and let a few snickers out.

Dash reached up and yanked a chunk of her mane down over her eyes. She and Soarin didn’t get that far because of his magic interrupting, but… Silver wasn’t wrong.

“Okay, enough, stop blinking like a Heath's Warming tree,” Silver ordered, his voice getting serious again. Dash let go of her mane and tried her best to hold the blood from rushing to her face. “Alright, listen to me, Dash…” Silver began, but trailed off, staring at Dash. “What are you leaning back for?” he suddenly asked. “Get over here and turn those ears this way so you can hear me loud and clear.”

Dash swallowed, nodding and obeying. She shifted forward and leaned down slightly so Silver could look her right in the eye at close range. His eye was sharpened into a very serious look. He waited until he was satisfied with her proximity.

“You’re talking about Soarin?” he began again. “You’re worried about him holding himself together?” Silver released a quick, sharp breath from his nostrils that made a slight whistling noise as is blew past the breathing tubes stuck inside of them. “Why do you think I respect the guy more than anypony else among the Wonderbolts? Even more so than Spitfire?” He asked. Dash stared for a moment and tipped her head.

“Why?” she asked, too focused on Silver to come up with an answer herself.

“He’s strong,” Silver went on. “And I don’t say that because he’s a bulky muscle head. He’s strong where it counts, in everything. He may lose his way from time to time and need to have his ass kicked in the right direction, but once he’s facing the right direction, you can bet he’ll see it through. He’s unbreakable, he never lets anything stop him once his mind is set. Spitfire may have the raw skill, strength, and ability on freak-of-nature levels, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that she still has cracks in her armor. She still hesitates and questions herself from time to time.” He shook his head very lightly. “Not Soarin. Soarin doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t waiver. I rarely feel the need to nudge him along when shit hits the fan because he’s usually taking the leap himself. Sometimes he leaps too quickly, or right into a brick wall, but he never waits. And… aside from some of the unnatural magic crap that’s been out-of-control mind-banging him recently, to this day I can’t remember a time I’ve seen him give in to pain, fatigue, stress, or hardship of any kind. He’s hard as a rock and he’s a bull. Nothing can hold him down. He gets himself into shit often, sure… but he has it where it counts most.” He lifted his eyebrow slightly. “Want my absolute honest opinion? If he had the same pure, natural ability and commanding presence of Spitfire… I’ve no doubt he would’ve been the one selected to lead the Wonderbolts.”

Dash had gone completely quiet, her eyes wide and her ears turned just as Silver had instructed, listening and taking it all in as he reminded her exactly who her stallion was. Though it was interesting to hear Silver speak of Soarin this way while also thinking back to how Soarin described his life as a Wonderbolt. It was pretty consistent. Soarin didn’t praise himself the way Silver was, but Soarin always acknowledged that he had a hard time figuring out which way to go… Spitfire ultimately encouraging him to work hard with her until they became Wonderbolts. And he definitely worked hard from there, especially considering the success that followed.

“So… after all the jargon, hullabaloo, and who-knows-what I’ve heard here, let me take a crack at this,” Silver said with a bit of annoyance in his voice. “Soarin’s body has been possessed by some asshole king from a thousand years ago, but his soul is persisting inside of it regardless? You being alive means he’s still in there somewhere, right?”

“Yes…” Dash nodded quickly.

“I don’t even know how the hell that’s supposed to work…” Silver grunted and rolled his eyes. “But… That sounds like just the kind of thing Soarin would pull off, even if he has no idea how he’s doing it. Name one other pony you know with a will strong enough to make something that ridiculous sounding happen,” he narrowed his eye. “And don’t be a smart ass and point at me while I’m laying here in a heap of broken bones and missing pieces.”

Dash looked down… and blinked a few times as she thought it over.

And the more she thought… the more she felt… dumb? All the moaning she had just done about Soarin, it was almost as if she forgot who she was talking about. Her own stallion, the one she was deeply in love with to a hysterical degree… had she really forgotten just how strong he was? It was part of what made her so crazy about him after all. She almost felt ashamed that Silver had to tell her this… it seemed like it should be a given.

“Dash,” Silver said her name and she looked right back up at him. “Soarin is one of the few Wonderbolts around these days that truly strikes me, in full, of what the Wonderbolts are supposed to be. He has many of the same qualities of some of the greatest Wonderbolts I’ve had the privilege of serving with and I do my best to let him know that as much as I can.” He paused, never taking his eye off her. “Now, I want you to listen to me carefully… because there’s something you need to hear.”

Dash’s ears stood up straighter than they already were. Something she needed to hear? She didn’t have time to think about it, focusing hard as Silver cleared his throat.

He looked away from her, staring at the ceiling…

“We are ponies of great pride…”

“We are not run of the mill…”

“We are the chosen few…”

“We fight to the bitter end, tooth and hoof…”

“Blood sweat and tears…”

“In the face of the enemy…”

“We stand firm…”

“In the face of death…”

“We smile…”

“Wonderbolts…” Silver looked at her again and sharpened his eye. “NEVER die…”

Dash just sat still with her mouth hanging open slightly. The words Silver had just chanted, or at least tried to chant with his weakened voice, didn’t swirl in her head, they stuck into her head. She didn’t know what to say.

“Many of the old Wonderbolt traditions have faded,” Silver spoke up again. “That chant I just recited? It used to be the words we all lived by and swore by. Blizzard drilled those words into our heads when we were young and green, and made me recite it before every mission we flew together once he took me on as his disciple. While those words have been all but lost in this new generation… I feel they still apply even if they go unspoken. The Wonderbolts may have changed since I was young… but their spirit hasn’t. And our spirit… is what ultimately makes us stand out, what makes us stronger even when we’re outclassed by our enemies in every way.” Silver shook his head. “Are we invincible? No, far from it, just look at me. But… does it hurt to believe that we are? Hell no. Words are just words, Dash… You can say them over and over again to kingdom come, but they won’t mean a damn thing if you don’t believe them. That belief… is what makes the difference.” He exhaled and nodded gently. “I know that Soarin believes it… and the best part? He doesn’t even know the chant. Hell, he doesn’t even think about it. He does it naturally. It’s just who he is. He knows that he’s the strongest among us and he fights like it, believing in his strength with every move he makes… he believes he’s invincible, and that he needs to be for the sake of his wingmates.”

He paused. And he held the pause for a long while, staring at Dash as she stared right back. He could tell she was processing it all, it was the same look she always had when he was speaking about something important.

“Dash…” he began again. “I can’t tell you what to do or what to think from here. If that’s why you came here, you wasted your time. I played my part, I sacrificed my body so you could forge on. It’s now up to you to clear your vision and take charge. But hear me out…” he furrowed his brow. “This isn’t about the Wonderbolts. This isn’t about the Shadowbolts. This isn’t about the gods. This isn’t even about Sombra…” he held a sharp glare on her, snorting. “This is about YOU.”

Dash finally blinked, pulling back slightly as that one sentence smacked her right across the face.

“It’s about what you want and what you choose to believe in,” Silver went on. “You are trained to follow orders, to be the Wonderbolt you’ve worked so hard to be, but… No matter what your orders are, no matter what the plan is, no matter what a couple of so called ‘gods’ say is right or wrong… follow what you believe is right. With how convoluted, desperate, and fubar all sides and minds of the situation have become… you owe yourself that much. Don’t fall into the mess. Break free of it… and never stop looking through your own two eyes.”

Dash’s pupils grew as her eyes remained open wide. A feeling of confidence rushed into her. She wasn’t ready for it… it caught her off guard and she was having trouble processing it.

They just continued to stare at one another. And it looked like Silver wanted her to say something. Dash swallowed and tried to find her voice, but it was nowhere to be found.

“Hello?”

Both Dash and Silver flinched in surprise.

A new voice in the room.

But while Dash didn’t react much beyond the initial flinch, Silver’s eye shot wide open and his ears stood up so fast it was a wonder they didn’t launch off his head and through the wall behind him.

Dash didn’t notice Silver’s extra reaction, instead turning to look towards the door…

Three ponies were standing just inside the doorway. An earth stallion and a unicorn mare that looked to be around her age… and an older earth mare. The young unicorn mare had snow white fur and a long, wavy brown mane with a grey stripe running through it. Her facial features were nearly identical to the older mare, just more youthful. The older earth mare shared almost the exact same colors and hair style, only sporting a darker shade of brown in the mane stripe as opposed to grey. The earth stallion was taller than them both, sporting a strong looking body and frame. He was light grey with a dark grey mane that had a familiar looking shape… come to think of it, his eyes and overall facial features had the same familiarity. They all stared towards Dash and Silver, their faces wrought with concern.

For some reason… Dash couldn’t take her eyes off of them, even as they continued to look at them and the atmosphere became somewhat awkward.

The words ‘who are you’ were stuck on the tip of Dash’s tongue, but they refused to fly. Why? Because something in the back of her mind was telling her that she knew them. But that was crazy, she had never met these ponies before in her life… then what was causing this? Who were they and why did she get the feeling she had seen them befo—

Then realization swooped in and smacked her right across the face.

She had seen these three ponies before.

Only… in a picture frame next to Silver’s medicine cabinet.

His son, Piston.

His daughter, Magic Touch.

And… his wife, Serenity.

“I sleep,” Silver suddenly said loud enough for only Dash to hear. Dash blinked and glanced over her shoulder at him?

“Huh?” she blinked as she looked him over. Silver had his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open, making a very fake snoring noise.

“Silver?” Serenity spoke up, causing Dash’s head to whip back around. She swallowed as Serenity came forward and she immediately stepped aside to let her by.

But even as Serenity leaned her chest against the bed, Silver continued to lie with his eyes closed and let his mouth hang open, snorting once as he kept fake snoring.

Dash just held perfectly still, too caught off guard to really get a good read on what was going on.

“Silver,” Serenity said his name again, her voice sounding slightly harsher, but her concerned expression remained. But Silver continued to act like he was asleep, his son and daughter coming forward to join their mother. After a few more seconds, Serenity released a long sigh and flattened her brow. “Honey, I heard you talking.”

“Noyoudidn’t,” Silver said very quickly in between snoring.

Serenity shook her head lightly before reaching a hoof towards his head and lightly flicking it back and forth against the tip of Silver’s ear. He began to twitch and his ear flopped about vigorously to try and avoid her hoof.

“Ah, oo, gah, okay! Stop it,” Silver snorted, giving in as he opened his eyes and slowly looked towards his wife, sighing in defeat. The reactions of his family were mixed when they saw his eye all red with damaged blood vessels. Magic touch visibly winced and reclined. Piston reacted similarly, but in a much more controlled and subdued manner. Serenity on the other hoof, didn’t bat an eye. Dash was surprised at first, but then remembered she is… or at least once was a nurse. So it probably wasn’t the first time she had seen such an injury.

That or this was normal, just another visit to her husband who liked to almost get himself killed on occasion.

“Good to see you’re just fine,” Serenity spoke with a slight tone of sarcasm, shaking her head and sighing. “They told me you were sedated, but I wasn’t going to believe it until I saw it myself. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t catch you trying to escape.”

“Hrmph…” Silver grunted as he looked away from his family and up towards the ceiling.

Yeah, this was definitely another day at the office for her. Dash couldn’t believe how casual she sounded with her husband half dead right in front of her. But… She had to be really something if she could put up with Silver regularly.

Magic Touch continue to lean back and avert her eyes, still visibly stricken by the state of her father, but Piston came forward, standing beside his mother and smiling at Silver.

“Man, Pops…” he said as he looked Silver up and down. “This is pretty rough… even for you.” He looked towards Silver’s face, catching his eyes looking at him briefly before Silver quickly looked back at the ceiling. “What did you fight? A train?”

“Hrmmmmmmmmmmmrghhh…” Silver harrumphed, holding it out to the point where it almost sounded like a groan. Piston was about to say more but he was suddenly roughly pushed aside by Magic Touch. She had finally gotten over her initial shock and was frantically looking Silver up and down, leaning over him with her hooves on the mattress. Her eyes widened and her pupils shrank when her eyes landed on the nub of his missing wing.

“Your wing…” she said quietly, placing a hoof over her mouth. She said no more as Serenity reached a hoof up and placed it gently on her daughter’s back. She too, stared at the leftover wing nub, but judging from the subdued reaction, they were already aware of it. Dash had a feeling they had been informed before they even made the trip.

“So you finally did it, huh?” Serenity spoke up again, the light sarcastic tone now completely gone and replaced with a softer one. Silver briefly locked his eye with hers before looking away again. “‘I’m not going to stop until my wings fall off…’ That’s what you always said. Or ‘wing’ in this case. Never thought you’d take it seriously, but here we are.”

“I did what I had to do,” Silver said quickly, still staring at the ceiling.

“Of course you did…” Serenity said with a slightly annoyed sigh, but after a brief pause, smiled weakly. “But…” she removed her hoof from Magic and moved it over to Silver instead. Silver shut his eye and stiffened as she gently touched the back of his head, stroking it into the exposed portion of his mane. “I’m glad you’re alive… that means you didn’t break our promise.”

Silver’s eye slowly opened as she said those words, the hardness of his expression fading slowly and the corners of his lips turning down. He shifted slightly and moved his eye to look at her and took in her smile. He visibly quivered for a moment before averting his eye shamefully.

“I don’t deserve that look,” he said with his voice shaking. “I did break our promise. I was expecting to die.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” Serenity quickly added.

“Hrmph…” Silver grunted again, but this time much more softly than he had before.

“Why do you do this?!” Magic Touch suddenly fumed, nearly pushing Serenity aside as she stopped just short of grabbing her father. “We barely get to see you as is, and half the time we do you’re either beat up or in a hospital!” she whined, letting her head fall until her chin plopped onto the mattress. Silver slowly looked towards her as she pouted.

“Oh, cut that out,” he said while giving her a flat look as his usual demeanor crept back in. “I don’t tell you how to do your job, do I?”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t worry me sick…” Magic huffed, puffing her cheeks out and glaring at him as small, emotional tears balled up in the corners of her eyes. “I’ll never get how Mom is just okay with how this always happens.”

“This was what your father—” Serenity began.

“—looked like the day I met him,” Magic cut her off and finished for her. “I know, Mom. You say that every time, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I don’t like it either, honey,” Serenity said flatly. “I’m just used to it.”

“I’m not,” Magic continued to whine, then yelped as Piston suddenly pressed to her side and draped an arm over her shoulder.

“Aw, come off it, Touchy!” he said with a lighthearted chuckle. “Dad’s a hardass. I mean, come on. He doesn’t even die when he said he was supposed to!”

“You’re a heartless jerk,” Magic shot back at him as she tried to push up from the mattress, but couldn’t because her brother was too heavy.

“And you…” he gently rubbed a hoof into her mane. “Are acting like we’ve never seen Dad in a hospital bed before. Right Dad?” he asked while turning to Silver, who was looking at the ceiling again.

“Hrmmmm…” Silver mumbled.

“See? Normal,” Piston chuckled.

Magic’s horn suddenly lit up, her aura wrapping around Piston’s arms and forcing him off before she turned around and forced his head down, nearly butting heads with him.

“He’s missing an EYE and a WING!” she snapped at him. “That’s NOT normal!”

“Hey! Ow! Stop!” Piston grunted as he tried to pull free form her magic and pushed her back.

“Enough, you two,” Silver spoke up. The two of them froze in place and let go of one another faster than Dash could blink. Dash had to hold in a snort of amusement. Silver’s son and daughter were definitely programmed to freeze when Dad stepped in between them. “What’s done is done,” Silver went on. “I don’t regret a damn thing that led to me being here right now, and I don’t regret the loss of my wing or my eye. It could have been much worse, and…” Silver slowly moved his eye towards Dash. “The outcome was worth the sacrifice.”

Dash’s ears stood up and her eyes grew wide as Silver’s family suddenly all looked towards her. It wasn’t like they didn’t know she was there, but she felt put on the spot and wasn’t sure what to say as Silver suddenly made her a part of the conversation.

But while Piston and Magic just stared, Dash noticed Serenity was looking her up and down, her eyes landing specifically on her mane. She stared at it for a moment, then smiled as she turned to face Dash squarely.

“You must be Rainbow Dash,” she said in a warm tone.

Dash’s pupils shrank slightly. She swallowed and nodded meekly, still not sure what to say or do. This wasn’t just any mare addressing her, this was Silver Lining’s WIFE.

“I had a feeling,” Serenity giggled, staring at Dash’s mane while pointing to her own. Then she started moving, Dash stiffening further as she slowly approached. “Silver has told us all about you in letters. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Dash blinked several times.

Silver had been writing home to his family… about her? Or at least included her in the letters?

“Uh…” Dash slurred before swallowing and forcing a very awkward smile, reaching out a hoof as Serenity closed in. “Nice to meet—”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Serenity kept moving forward, reaching both of her arms right past Dash’s extended hoof and gave her a big hug. Dash froze again as she found herself in the sudden embrace. “You’re getting what you deserve, sweetie.”

“Buh…?” was the only noise Dash could muster, her brain spinning in circles as she kept stepping into moments she didn’t know how to handle.

“Thank you so much for keeping an eye on him for me,” she thanked Dash as she slowly pulled back and smiled, keeping her hooves placed on Dash’s shoulders. Dash just stared blankly at her.

“Hrmph…” Silver quietly harrumphed again in the background.

“Silver has a bad habit of always worrying me sick,” Serenity went on. “But… after all he’s told me about you, it put me at ease. It was comforting to know he had found a young pupil to look after him and keep him focused.”

Dash finally broke from her blank stare as Serenity’s words made her curious.

Look after him?

Keep him focused?

Those sounded more like the kinds of things he was doing for her, not vice versa.

“Silver has always enjoyed working with younger Wonderbolts, and—”

“No I don’t,” Silver cut in suddenly.

“Yes you do, dear,” Serenity fired back calmly without even turning to look.

“Mrgh…” Silver began mumbling and grumbling, turning his head away as much as he could.

Was he embarrassed? Dash was still trying to get a full read on everything going on and being said to her, but she was figuring out Silver’s behavior shift. He was trying to keep his tough guy air, but his family was bringing out a soft side and he clearly didn’t want her to see it. It was amusing.

“When he first told us about you, it made me so happy,” Serenity continued on, finally letting go of Dash’s shoulders and simply standing in front of her. “I’m sure you’ve heard him go on and on about old traditions and the ‘lost art’ of being a Wonderbolt,” she said while tipping a hoof up and down in front of her. “It may be a bit of a broken record, but it really does mean a lot to him. So knowing that he found a student worthy of passing his knowledge onto meant he was going to give it his all. And… if you knew him like I do, that meant he would make an extra effort to take care of himself to ensure he saw it through,” she looked back at Silver. “And here he is, surviving something that I assume would've killed him otherwise… if he wasn’t tremendously motivated to succeed.”

Again, Dash didn’t know what to say… but this time it was for different reasons. She was speechless because of what Serenity was talking about. And she was indirectly implying that Silver was alive because of her. And… he very well may be. She was sure he had more motivation than just her, but after all the time they spent together and all the lessons passed on? It was easy to see what Serenity meant.

But there was more to it than that… All this time Dash followed, admired, and tried her hardest for Silver… She never really considered that Silver was possibly doing the exact same for her.

He helped her stay motivated and focused, and she helped him stay motivated and focused.

“Hrm……hrmph…” Silver kept making groaning and huffing noises.

“Oh, don’t let his silly harrumphing fool you,” she rolled her eyes and shook her head as she looked back at Dash. “I know he’s beyond happy about this… and you. He’s just trying to act tough.”

“Heh…” Dash finally managed a slight verbal response, unable to hold in a chuckle at her calling out Silver. But she still couldn’t think of anything to say, she felt overwhelmed.

“But truly,” Serenity nodded. “Thank you for watching over him, and…” her smile slowly faded. “I wanted to ask you… what exactly happened?” she suddenly prompted Dash. Dash blinked, her eyes widening slightly. She wasn’t expecting this either, but this was a little different. “We were told he sustained great injuries, and were informed about his wing and eye before we even left home, but other than that the details are sparse…” she glanced back at Silver. “And I know he won’t tell me, so… please?” she asked as she looked back to Dash.

“Hrm…” Silver groaned, but it was slightly louder. And when Dash looked past Serenity, she saw Silver looking directly at her, his eye narrowed into a harsh glare. It was as if he was silently demanding that she keep her mouth shut, but…

But Silver did just tell her not to blindly follow orders if she felt it wasn’t right, so she was going to follow that advice. Serenity, Piston and Magic were all staring at her, waiting eagerly to hear about how Silver ended up here like this. She decided that it would be wrong of her not to inform his family.

“Well, the fine details are really confusing, but…” Dash began, rubbing the back of her head as she briefly glanced at the floor. “We were on our way to meet up with some allies, allies that have… trust issues. Silver was still recovering from a very rough fight, but we were forced to bring him along since he was on a first name basis with the commander of our allies. He fought alongside him in a past conflict and would easily help us get over the trust obstacle. My squad and I were in charge of transporting Silver out there, following behind the top tier squads of the Wonderbolts, or at least the members that were available and without the lead captain.”

Dash paused as she noticed a few looks of confusion, she quickly picked out what it was.

“I have a stupidly huge griffon in my squad, he carried Silver on his back,” she clarified.

“Ah, that explains it,” Serenity nodded.

“Hrmgh.”

“Hush, honey,” Serenity shot Silver a brief look with an eyebrow raised as Silver scrunched his face.

“Anyway,” Dash continued. “As we made our way to the designated meeting point… we were attacked, caught completely off guard by a very dangerous enemy that we were not expecting, nor knew was still alive. Silver hid himself as we engaged, but even though the enemy was flying solo, we were all beaten down… fairly easily, I’m ashamed to admit.” She paused to let it sink in, because all three of them reacted visually to that fairly unbelievable point. All the top Wonderbolts being beaten down. “Like I said,” Dash shook her head lightly. “Very dangerous enemy. She’s armed with powerful magic, can create false clones of herself made of pure magic, and uses intense mind and emotional games to demoralize and break her opponents… What’s worse, gets intense pleasure from causing others pain, mental or physical… and I mean sexual pleasure,” she explained as Silver’s family all reclined in slight disgust. “She also picks out and tries to amplify desires, breaking apart a pony’s will by drawing out and forcing them to face the worst of their fears or secrets they don’t wish anypony else to know about. During the encounter, one of our top flyers was mentally broken to the point where she’s still recovering from it, not to mention her physical appearance was temporarily altered painfully. It’s not really something I can describe…” she shuddered lightly and gritted her teeth, closing her eyes as she tipped her head down. “You’d have to meet her to understand. And I hope to Celestia you never do.” She sighed and looked back up. “Eventually, we were all grounded and being tortured by her magic slowly and painfully. And…” Dash slowly looked towards Silver. “It was at that point that Silver stepped out of hiding… and took her on all by himself despite the state of his body.”

Silver sighed loudly and looked away as all eyes in the room went to him.

“He was outmatched in every way. Strength, speed, endurance… every factor you can imagine, she had the upper hoof… by a lot,” Dash continued, drawing all the attention back. “But... it didn’t matter,” she smiled subtly. “Because Silver beat her at her own game. He turned her own emotional mind games right back at her and broke her from within, resisting all of her attempts to corrupt or scare him like they meant nothing. All the while, he pushed back on her. It only stalled the eventual beating he took, but in the end, even as he lay broken and helpless like this…” She motioned to Silver. “His efforts paid off. She couldn’t bring herself to deliver the final blow. He had torn her down and gotten her to see herself in the same light she tried to force others to see. Killing him would only prove every fine detail and shortcoming he had pried out of her and forced her to acknowledge. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I had fought this mare three times now, and she scares me more than anything in Equestria, but Silver had her wailing, crying, and shouting madly while standing over him like she couldn’t comprehend what he had done to her.”

“And at that point,” Dash exhaled. “Silver had held out just long enough for Spitfire to arrive… and she took care of the rest. So effectively,” Dash paused and looked towards Silver. “Silver saved us all. And I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you right now otherwise. Hell, none of us would be. We all owe him our lives.”

“Hrmmmmm…” Silver groaned as he shut his eye.

But Serenity smiled as Dash finished, the story warming her heart. Piston and Magic both turned to Silver first.

“Damn, Dad…” Piston chuckled. “You’re a real piece of work,” he said as Magic touch just looked away. She didn’t look satisfied, but probably couldn’t speak out about it after hearing about her father’s heroic actions.

“Sounds exactly like something he would do,” Serenity said as she turned back to Silver and approached his bed again. Silver kept his eyes shut, but opened it as he felt Serenity touch his arm gently. He glanced towards her and took in the warm smile.

“Don’t look at me like that…” Silver grumbled as he averted his eye.

“I’ll look at you any way I want, thank you,” Serenity countered as she leaned down and planted a light kiss on his cheek. Silver’s eye widened and he flinched.

“Hrghmrgggghhhh…” he grumbled again as he turned his head away as far as he was able. Serenity giggled and shook her head, still smiling.

“Never giving less than a hundred percent and never backing down even if the outcome is uncertain,” she sighed, but stroked her hoof up and down his arm gently. “You never change.” She slid her hoof up his arm and touched his face, caressing it as Silver looked back up at her. “And please don’t.” She added. Silver blinked… and finally smiled.

“Hmmm…” he hummed, not grumbling at all.

But behind them, Dash’s eyes were slowly growing wider as her ears pointed up.

Never giving less than a hundred percent…

Dash blinked.

Never backing down even if the outcome is uncertain…

Dash stared at Silver and his family, the words of Serenity echoing in her head.

Silver said he couldn’t tell her what to do… and he was right. He didn’t have to. She just heard everything she needed to hear from an unexpected source. It seemed trivial and simple… and given for that matter. But… watching those words used by somepony else to describe the very pony she was trying her hardest to be like? It was a heavy reminder… especially the way it was being presented.

Silver Lining… being praised by his family for the very qualities he worked endlessly to drill into her head… and make her believe. Things that came naturally to him.

Dash felt light, like all the doubt had suddenly lifted from her shoulders and vacated her chest. Her heart was no longer beating nervously, not even in the slightest. She felt calm… at ease… and ready.

She still had a bit of time before she had to report. And honestly… she wanted to talk to Silver more. But she felt like it was a good time to go. She had gotten what she had come here for, rekindled confidence and a better perspective both from Silver’s own mouth… and meeting his family. Besides… Silver clearly didn’t want to show his soft side with her present. So she would get going and let him be with his family.

“I should probably get going,” she spoke up as she moved towards them. “Spitfire wants us ready to go soon and I still have to gather my squad,” she said as she stopped close to all of them and glanced around. “It was nice to meet you all, and…” she looked at Silver specifically. “Thanks for talking to me, Silver,” she said with a nod.

But Silver just stared at her, saying nothing as his family said their goodbyes to her. Dash was curious at first, but paid it no mind. They had already said all that needed to be said. It was time for her to go. She turned to leave.

“Rainbow Dash.” Silver’s voice froze her in place for a moment. She looked over her shoulder at him. Silver had narrowed his eye and had locked a sharp gaze on her. “Come here,” he demanded. His voice was similar to the way he gave orders. His family noticed the stern look in his eye and backed away to give them space as Dash turned and walked up to the bed, Silver never taking his eye off hers.

“Yes, sir?” she responded professionally.

But Silver said nothing for several seconds, the two just remained still and stared at one another. However… Dash didn’t question any of it, nor did she even think about asking him what it was about. He was getting there, she knew how he worked.

“Rule number six.”

Dash’s eyes opened wide.

“When everything is on the line… there is no ‘I can’t’ only ‘I will.’”

Dash’s lips parted slightly, her body completely stuck in place and her ears turned as Silver spoke.

“There is NO pain. There are NO injuries. Fight EVERYTHING trying to hold you back. REFUSE to back down. Let nothing tell you it can’t be done. Not even your own body.”

Dash had never listened to something more intently in her life, the words instantly ingraining themselves in her head as they left Silver’s lips.

“Don’t see failure as a possibility… See it as a choice.”

Silver narrowed his gaze further, Dash’s pupils growing within her irises.

“A choice… you should ALWAYS reject.”

The whole process felt like the world had ceased to exist and it was just Silver speaking to Dash with nothing else around them. The two remained silent, Silver’s eye meeting Dash’s eyes and the two holding firm.

Then Silver nodded.

“Good luck, Skittles,” he snorted. “And I better see you in here tomorrow morning, or I’ll die, follow you to hell, and kick your ass. Got it?!” he added strength to his voice, the rasp still present, but the effort pushing through it.

Dash smiled, holding a determined look on her face as she nodded. She started to turn.

“Yes si—AH!” she took one step and yelped loudly, her back hoof slipping right out from beneath her and falling face first to the floor. Silver’s family gasped in surprise, but before they could move to help, Dash quickly propped herself up, blinked in a state of surprise and shock…

And looked at her back leg.

Silver’s I.V. tubing was slung around it.

“Awareness, Dash,” Silver said as he shook his arm and freed her leg from the tube.

Dash flattened her brow, a brief look of disbelief and frustration colliding on her face. She pushed herself up, turned, and glared at him with a scrunched up expression.

“What the hell are YOU staring at?!” Silver barked at her.

A smile began creeping onto Dash’s face. She absolutely could not contain it.

“QUIT EYEBALLIN’ ME!” Silver yelled, pausing to cough once as his voice rasped. “Get your ass out there and PROVE THEM ALL WRONG!”

At this point, Dash was smiling so wide that her lips had parted slightly too. Now she was really fired up.

Without saying a word, she turned around and took a step.

But she froze and quickly checked her back legs.

She heard a snicker from Silver behind her, but she didn’t look back. She chuckled along with it and started in stride towards the door.

It was time to do this... And she was feeling more confident than ever before.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

(Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf)

Time to move. Dash needed a good old fashion kick in the ass and she got way more than she bargained for. Looks like not even almost getting himself killed is enough to stop Silver from being Silver... and it sounds like he has no regrets, ending his career as a Wonderbolt the way he wanted as opposed to being told he had to stop. It also looks like he's a big softy around his family and tried his darnedest to not let Dash see it. We finally got to meet Serenity as well, the one and only, wife of the Iron Horse. Definitely must be something is she can handle him every day and REALLY something if she can make such a hard pony turn to mush with little effort. She's so in tune with his behavior that the we finally see the mighty Silver Lining fall. :rainbowlaugh:

But what about the meeting we saw before Dash's visit? Is Spitfire going loony again? Descent sure thinks so. This only adds to the pile. As if there weren't enough fractures among the groups to begin with, now there appears to be one within Spitfire's own group. Will this affect the mission? Dash's mission? Or is Descent just voicing his discontent with her behavior? Only time will tell.

But... Dash is ready to go. Silver has passed on the last lesson of his master onto her. Why didn't he do t sooner? Where was this final rule for so long? Well... only Silver really knows for sure :moustache: Now Dash just has to make it happen. And you can bet she's going to give it her all and then some.

We've finally made it to the finale of Arc 3. As i've said several times, in hindsight i feel like arc three should have ended at chapter 100 and up to this point should have been arc 4 because the final story arc approaching will likely not be as long as 3 has been. (But you know me...). I also want to apologize if this particular part of the story feels likes it's dragging. I had no idea it would take this much space to get through the buildup to the arc 3 finale.

I have also realized that recent chapters have become quite long. My plan for the finale is to split it into however many chapters are needed, capping them at 15kish words apiece. And then when we get into the final story arc, im going to try my best to keep that cutoff point so i don't drawn you guys too much with these very long chapters.

Anyhow... I plan to nail down the finale in FULL in an outline format before i begin writing each section of it, so it will probably take me slightly longer to get the next chapter out, but once i start posting them, they will come quicker.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 159: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 1)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 159: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 1)

“Good, good,” Spitfire nodded to the small gaggle of captains from the low tier elites reporting to her. “Ready up and await further orders. Keep the reserves focused, we’re launching in twenty minutes,” she explained, earning nods and salutes from the captains before they turned and dispersed.

Spitfire exhaled quietly as they turned away, looking down and taking a few breaths as she shook her head out. It had been a long time since she had to manage a force this large. It wasn’t hindering her at all, but the extreme increase in numbers to command with the addition of the reserves felt slightly overwhelming.

She looked up and around at the hundreds of Wonderbolts all gathered with her right inside the eastern gate of the Empire. They were mingling, stretching, and warming up their wings. Some were still arriving, cutting it very close, but she didn’t have time to go around and scold all of them. She just hoped they would be up to the task. The reserves were meant to be used in emergencies that required larger numbers… she hated to admit it, but she really only had immediate confidence in the abilities of her eighty elites and recruit squads that she regularly kept tabs on.

She tried to clear her mind, looking up into the sky… or at least into the shield projected overhead. It was late afternoon… the sun was beginning to set, but had a ways to go before it got dark. She wanted to get started sooner rather than later… since the later it got, the more effective the Thestrals would be if they were found out and Luna took action.

It was also a little foggy or misty inside, or at least a little ways above them. There was a light flurry of snow falling outside the shield, the flakes that passed through it quickly melting into a thin mist due to the controlled climate within.

“Spitfire.”

“Hm?” Spitfire blinked, her attention drawn back down to earth as she turned to see Descent walking towards her. “Ah, Descent.” She turned to face him as he stopped before her. “Are you all set?” she asked.

“In terms of being organized… yes,” Descent answered. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow.

“What does that mean?” she voiced her curiosity, preferring a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But Descent just grunted in frustration, furrowing his brow. “Well?” Spitfire pressed, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Are you still bellyaching over how I talked to Discord and Luna? Cause if you are, cut that crap out already,” she said sharply. Descent scowled harshly at her.

“Pardon me for not having the time to fully explain how stupid you’ve been acting over the past few hours.” He shot back in a grumbling tone. Spitfire rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Okay, okay, enough… we’re not doing this now. Just answer the question,” she quickly redirected. Descent blew a long, hissing breath through his nostrils as he looked away.

“We’re ready to go, but…”

“But?” Spitfire pushed as he trailed off. Descent sighed in frustration.

“I have no idea where Starry Skies is.”

Spitfire blinked, her eyes widening slightly.

“Wait, she’s still missing?” she asked in disbelief.

“I think it’s safe to assume she is no longer in the Empire,” Descent went on, clearly not thrilled to talk about it. “Not even she is capable of eluding our best scouts and I’ve had them comb the whole place up and down more than once in the past two hours.”

“So… she deserted?” Spitfire’s ears flopped down slightly. “That’s…”

“Something she would NEVER do,” Descent strongly cut her off abruptly, but it was undeniable that he felt that way too as he looked away and shook his head again. Spitfire tipped her head as she thought about it carefully.

“It’s got to be something with her… unique crystal form, right?” Spitfire pondered aloud.

“That much is obvious,” Descent quickly agreed. “But for it to affect her this harshly? And to think she never once said a word about it before we arrived here…? But she KNEW we were going in this direction…” Descent suddenly slammed his eyes shut and grunted loudly. “Enough… we don’t have time to wonder about her. She is not here, so we’ll just have to do this without her.”

“Alright…” Spitfire nodded reluctantly, curious herself. “Just keep an eye out for when we break away from the rest of the group an—”

“Follow with our detached group,” Descent cut her off. “I remember.”

“And…” Spitfire trailed off as Descent abruptly turned her back on her and trotted off. She left it there and just watched him leave, huffing in frustration as Descent somewhat snubbed her. But she could tell it was about Starry and not her. She trusted him to do his part, but hoped he would stay focused and not think about Starry too much. Then of course… there was the possibility of Nightshade appearing as well… she hoped Descent would keep his head on straight.

She was about to look back towards the rest of the Wonderbolts, but something caught her eye as Descent neared the corner.

Rainbow Dash and her squad plus Thunderlane turned from it and nearly ran right into Descent. They both stopped and stepped aside from one another, but Dash and Descent locked eyes, watching the other briefly as they passed.

But Spitfire paid little attention to the random stare down, instead furrowing her brow because of Dash’s… timing.

After passing Descent, Dash kept her eyes on the corner he disappeared around for a moment, wondering why she got the long look, but pushed the thought aside as she continued on with her squad in tow. She was holding a serious expression as she moved, and didn’t even flinch as her eyes caught the somewhat harsh glare from Spitfire.

“Cutting it a little close, are we Dash?” Spitfire asked sarcastically as Dash approached. Everypony behind her seemed to stiffen a little, but Dash didn’t even blink.

“Sorry, ma’am. Had something important to take care of,” she said in a dead serious tone, never breaking eye contact.

Spitfire immediately noticed the look in her eyes, she could see the strength in her gaze. So she found no reason to question it, but then she looked beyond Dash back and forth at her squad.

“Where’s Twister?” she asked, prompting Dash to immediately flatten her brow. “Is he still not around?” she asked, her tone much different than when talking to Descent about Starry. Much more annoyed.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s around somewhere,” Dash answered sarcastically.

“And that means?” Spitfire asked.

“Don’t bother asking,” Dash shook her head. “Even if I explained, it wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Can it be explained in a minute?” Spitfire asked while tipping her head slightly.

“No.”

“Then forget about it,” Spitfire said with a snort. “Ready up, we’re leaving soon…” She paused and glanced over at the rest. “And keep your ears open, I’ll have more specific instructions for you specifically while we’re out there and moving about.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dash replied, but Spitfire was already turning and walking away. Spitfire seemed to be understanding Twister a little more like the rest of them did. It didn’t really matter that he wasn’t here at this very moment because for all she knew he would just appear out of nowhere at some point once everything got started.

Though she still had no idea why he was dragging this particular disappearing act for so long. He made his one surprise appearance only to her in the library, but not including that, he had been gone for quite a while. His little stints tended to last a few hours at most or maybe a day. This wasn’t normal.

Well… not that anything about Twister was normal to begin with. Still, there had to be a reason, but what?

As much as it was eating at Dash, now wasn’t the time. Twister was clearly doing this for a reason, and whatever the reason may be… she had no doubt it was for their benefit. His shenanigans were a pain… but they had a funny way of helping them out more often than not. She had much more important things to focus on. In particular…

Dash scanned the crowd of Wonderbolts as her squad and Thunderlane made their way in. It didn’t take her long to find who she was looking for… because squad seven was nearly front and center. Storm Front was sitting with his back turned to her, but his head was turned to the side just far enough for Dash to notice how uncomfortable he looked. Fortunately, Lead Runner, and Point Dex didn’t seem to take any notice… and of course Macho Savage didn’t either due to being more interested in flexing his muscles.

She had done enough worrying about Storm to give her at least three heart attacks, but they were too locked in now and too close to launch for him to have the balls to try anything… or at least she hoped. She spoke with him not too long ago… after she met with Silver and he wasn’t combative at all. It seemed a little strange, but her boosted confidence WAS having a bit of an effect, she didn’t give him a chance to give her any crap.

“Oh, I need to group up with the reserves,” Thunderlane suddenly spoke up, drawing Dash’s attention away from Storm. She gave him a quick, but firm nod.

“Get going,” she said simply, but Thunderlane hesitated.

“Sorry that…” he paused and glanced back and forth, quieting his tone. “I might not be much help. I’m going to be stuck here when you guys move.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dash gave him a light pat on the shoulder and a subtle smile. “Play along, I know you’ll have our back when shit hits the fan.”

Thunderlane just stared at Dash for a moment, then returned the smile. He gave them all one more glance, followed by a simple nod before he turned and made his way over.

“Hope we see him out there,” Star suddenly spoke up as Dash turned around. “It’s been so long since we’ve had him around. It sucks that we have to be separated right before it all goes down.”

“Agreed,” Matteo said simply with a nod. Squall didn’t seem to pay any mind.

“We’ll see him out there,” Dash quickly reassured them. “I’m not letting anything stop us from following through… and when we do, he’ll be there. He may stumble a bit, but he’s reliable.

“Yeah, like how he shat himself over a fake dragon?” Squall grumbled from the side.

“Like you weren’t,” Dash didn’t even hesitate to shoot back.

“I didn’t run away,” Squall huffed. Dash just shrugged.

“And because of that, you’re in a recruit squad and he is a reserve,” she cocked an eyebrow. “Doesn’t stop me from trusting him like I have over the recent years, so come on, Squall… and don’t act like you didn’t miss him. Because I know you did too.”

“Whatever…” Squall mumbled as he averted his eyes. Which basically meant Dash was right.

Dash took a deep breath, clearing her thoughts as she glanced up and towards the crystal palace at the center of the Empire. She blinked as her eyes were quickly drawn to a speck of color that didn’t quite fit with the shimmering light blue surface.

Purple? It was on the balcony. Was it Twilight?

Whoever it was, they left quickly. But the thought alone made Dash think back to just before they arrived. She had met very briefly with Twilight to make sure everything was set. And it was, at least what they could control. The trickiest part of all this was going to be the timing… because they basically had to do this part blind. They had agreed on forty-five minutes. Twilight would wait that long after the Wonderbolts launched to ‘break the news’ to Luna and start everything into motion. They decided on that because Dash was assuming that Spitfire would wait no longer than about half an hour to have their group break off to find Sombra. Time was a factor to Spitfire as well, the later it got, the worse visibility would get, and Dash was sure Spitfire had thought about the Thestrals and how they became near unstoppable at night.

There was no way for Dash and Twilight to communicate exact timing, so they would just have to believe in Spitfire’s efficiency and planning for this one.

She turned back to her squad for a moment, but noticed that they looked… nervous? At least Star and Squall did. Matteo just had his usual stoic glare plastered to his face. Squall was trying to hide it, but he looked uneasy. Star was like an open book. This wouldn’t do.

“Well guys,” Dash spoke up quietly. “It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for.” She paused for a moment and shook her head. “But before we go, I just want to… thank you.”

“What for?” Squall asked flatly, trying to conceal his nerves, but Dash didn’t falter.

“For sticking with me through all of this,” she replied while keeping her eyes on Squall. Squall blinked, not expecting her sincerity with the tone he took. “You didn’t have to do this for me,” she continued while scanning her eyes past Star and Matteo as well. “You didn’t have to put your careers on the line or risk your own well-being for me, but you are. You have no idea how much that means to me, I appreciate it.”

Matteo’s expression didn’t budge but Star’s ears flopped down and her pupils grew as a warm smile fluttered onto her face.

“Aw, Dash… why wouldn’t we? What are friends for?” she said in a very genuine tone. “I wouldn’t even be here without you… so I’d never think twice about helping you through anything. I don’t care about my career if it means abandoning you.”

“You are my captain,” Matteo spoke up dutifully. “I would not accept you as such if I did not trust you… nor felt obligated to assist you in your troubles if you were not a friend.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever… fine… I guess…” Squall mumbled in a manner that was impossible to fully read, but his expression did the talking for him, his cheeks slightly puffed and a tinge of embarrassed redness on his face. Dash just smirked at him, his attempts to hide his own appreciation amusing her. She looked between them all again and sighed in frustration.

“Now if only our last squad member wasn’t being an absolute butt and would actually show up,” she grumbled out loud.

“Knowing him,” Star chimed in as she floated up beside Dash and shrugged. “He’s probably waiting for the right moment or something to make one of his famed ‘entrances’ right?”

“Less talk about that moron, please…” Squall spoke up harshly.

“I concur,” Matteo quickly agreed. Dash flattened her brow as she looked at them both and rolled her eyes.

“I love how you two suddenly become best buds whenever it’s about bashing Twister…” she said with a chuckle she couldn’t hold down.

She decided to leave it there, feeling good about the approach her squad was taking to this. The last thing she wanted them to feel was like they were being forced into this situation, but from the start they never pushed back, showing extreme loyalty to her. And she knew a thing or two about loyalty… even though… well… this scenario was an exception.

She perked up as she saw Spitfire emerge from the crowd, looking about at all the Wonderbolts. Dash turned her full attention towards her as the rest of the top tier elites emerged, some with her, some from other parts of the crowd. They all huddled together.

She didn’t want to look like she was eavesdropping, but Dash turned her ears to see if she could make out what was being said.

Spitfire was holding a hard, serious expression as the eyes of the top tier elites focused on her. Air Mach seemed to be missing, but she could hear him chanting somewhere in the crowd so she just left it be. She gave each one of them a brief look, trying to gauge their readiness. But she found it difficult to really pinpoint it. Nothing was getting in the way of her view, just like everypony else around, they had their suit hoods pulled down and their goggles hanging around their neck. Aside from small differences between the owners of each face, they were all neutral, doing their best to hold a professional air. Even Lightning Streak and Surprise were being serious. But she knew they were nervous… hell, she was nervous.

“Well, this is it,” she nodded, keeping firm despite the uncertainty in hopes of inspiring them. “Are you all ready?” she asked.

Spitfire waited, and blinked…

She got no response. The top tiers all looked back and forth at one another, but eventually all looked back at her, their faces hardly changing.

Then Fleetfoot suddenly took a step towards her, lifting a hoof in the air and giving her a worried look complete with very concerned eyes.

“Are you?”

Spitfire felt her face go numb and tingly for a moment as the words left Fleetfoot’s lips and smacked her right in the forehead. She was not expecting that. Her stoic demeanor melted in an instant as her eyes slowly grew wider.

“You have your patented serious face on, but…” Fleetfoot’s ears flopped down and she frowned. “Are you really doing okay?”

“I…” Spitfire stuttered, biting her lower lip. “Um…”

“How have you been holding up?” Fire Streak spoke up as he stepped up beside Fleetfoot, he wore a similar look of concern, just without the absurdly cute frown. “What you’ve been put through is no mystery to us. And per usual, you’ve been shouldering so much. This whole plan, Commander Wave, and of course Commander Soarin.”

Spitfire kept her eyes on him as he laid out, perfectly, everything that was weighing on her. She sighed heavily and let her head hang.

“Guess I can’t really hide it, can I?” she said in a weak tone as she looked back up and glanced between the two of them slowly. “As if I could ever fool you guys, I should know better.”

“Hey, at least we’re all in the same boat, y’know?” Lightning Streak came forward. “I mean, shit, I’m not talking about Wave or anything like that, but everything else? I sure as hell don’t know how any of this is gonna go. You don’t have to act like you do, lady captain.”

Misty Fly suddenly pushed passed him after Surprise finished translating everything being said to her. She walked right up to Spitfire and placed both her hooves on her shoulders, showing great concern. Spitfire smiled at Misty’s typical quick concern for her, placing a hoof on one of her arms and nodding.

“Sis…” Blaze’s voice sounded out from behind Fleetfoot and the Twins, slightly muffled with her face pressed against High Wind’s side. “Do you really think this is going to work? I mean… do we even know what the fuck we’re doing?” she asked.

Spitfire looked around at all of them as she pondered Blaze’s questions. And… her questions were much more relevant than Spitfire wanted to admit. All she could do was shake her head.

“Would any of you even believe me if I said so?”

There was a slight stir among them. Spitfire was usually the motivation machine so it was odd to see her like this. But at the same time, the stir was for no other reason beside that. Seeing Spitfire in such an uncertain state wasn’t a morale back-breaker, because they all understood. She was only being honest about the current situation. The lack of confidence was from uncertainty, not in their ability to execute.

“No,” High Winds broke the silence, answering Spitfire bluntly. Spitfire didn’t budge, but the rest turned and glared at her. “What?” she asked as she yawned.

“You’re not helping!” Surprise fumed at Winds, pouting so hard that her face released a noise that sounded like a low pitch SQUEEEEEEE. High Winds blinked once very slowly, her left eyebrow lifting slightly higher.

“Isn’t that what she was implying?” she added, yawning again.

“Winds is right,” Spitfire spoke up, bringing all of their attention back to her. “And… there really isn’t any reason for us to dance around it. But… I’m pretty sure this isn’t really a surprise to any of you. I know you’re not brainless idiots.”

“Well, most of us aren’t,” Fire said quietly to himself, but was within earshot of his target.

“Why ya gotta be that way?” Lightning said back casually as Spitfire went on.

“This plan,” Spitfire exhaled and rubbed a hoof against her head. “It’s got no endgame in mind. I can say we want to save Soarin all we want, but how the hell are we going to do that? Don’t look at me, because I haven’t a damn clue.” She threw a hoof out. “But you know what? Forget it. Soarin is the most important part of this, but he’s not the only part.” She tapped a hoof on the ground. “This is about the TRUTH.”

She paused, her serious expression returning as she let it sink in.

“We all need to figure out what’s going on here, that is very much one of the reasons I went through with this. And… if we can figure that out first, maybe then we’ll have some sort of idea of how to proceed regarding Soarin. I simply don’t trust a single word from Luna or Discord anymore. I’m tired of flying with my eyes half shut… we need answers, real answers, and the real story…”

“None of us would argue with you there,” Fire added with a nod.

Spitfire didn’t say anymore for a few moments, but nopony else spoke after Fire as she looked to be thinking. Then she looked towards Fleetfoot.

“So am I ready? No. I’m not. No one is, and no one will be. From the moment I hatched this plan I never once believed that we can just walk right up to Sombra and ask him nicely to give Soarin back. But… where else can we go? Nothing here, where we stand, is being given to us straight. It’s gotten so backwards and messed up that I seriously believe the most reasonable course of action is to go meet with Sombra face to face and talk things out before anything else. And if you had told me those exact words just came out of my mouth a few weeks ago I would have thought I’d officially gone insane. But… I think you all would agree with me when I say I’m fed up and want to know what’s really going on.

She examined the looks being thrown her way. There were varying emotions, but they all looked to agree wholeheartedly.

“I mean…” Spitfire relaxed her face slightly and tipped her head back a little. “Seriously. We went through all that crazy, mindless fighting… butting heads with the Shadowbolts around every corner… and then suddenly it turns out the Gods have better things to worry about? Everything we did before has barely been mentioned since we arrived! What happened? What about the Shadowbolts?! What about Kayn Ost, or whatever his name was again?! Nightshade?! Moon?! That FUCK-face who hurt Wave Chill?! It’s all just gone? Suddenly Sombra is the one we need to worry about according to Luna and Discord? They barely even bring up Soarin! It’s all Sombra, Sombra, Sombra! Whenever I mention Soarin they tell me to forget about him or unsubtly imply I should!”

Spitfire growled and clenched a hoof.

“No, NO! It’s just wrong and insulting that they think we should just go along without question! It’s as if they used our fight, OUR conflict to forward an agenda of their own. And I’m not okay with that!” she paused, visibly shaking with a mixture of emotions and breathing heavily. Then her ears flopped down. “And… ponies have died… We nearly lost Silver… Wave is barely alive… and my best friend…” she visibly faltered.

Fleetfoot wasted no time in coming forward and giving her a tight hug. Spitfire quickly reached out and hugged her back instinctively.

“We’re all in this together,” Fleetfoot reassured her quietly. Rubbing the back of Spitfire’s neck affectionately as she kept up the tight embrace.

“Sorry for that little rant…” Spitfire apologized, sniffling once and ONLY once, determined not to let herself lose it. “I just…”

“Hell, Captain,” Lightning cut her off, shaking his head. “You think we disagree with any of that?” he said with a light hearted snort a Spitfire looked towards him. “Everything shifted gears in like… an instant. It wasn’t smooth at all. Shit was blatant.”

“Yeah!” Surprise popped up in front of Lightning. “Fight the Shadowbolts!” she said as she punched the air with her hooves. Then she turned and faced Spitfire, placed her hooves on her forehead and made a goofy POOF noise with her mouth as she slowly moved her hooves away from her head. “OOPS! There goes Soarin’s forehead willy!” She scooted up to Spitfire and leaned against her and Fleetfoot. “Wait, who are the Shadowbolts again?” She turned and pressed her face against Spitfire’s shoulder. “DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT! SOMBRA BAD!” She slowly slid down Spitfire’s shoulder while blowing air through her vibrating lips as she comically ended up on the ground like a deflated balloon. She rolled over onto her back and stuck all of her hooves into the air. “COME ON! I’ve seen seafood joints that are less fishy than that!” she exclaimed as she flipped over onto her stomach and groaned loudly. Fire moved over to her and gently pressed a hoof on her head, Surprise squeaking quietly as the gentle pressure stopped her groaning.

“Believe me, Captain,” Fire shrugged. “If any of us had a problem with the direction you’re taking this, we would’ve spoken up by now.” He looked over at Misty as Lightning translated for her. He made his way over to her and slung a wing over her as she kept her eyes on Lightning’s hoof and wing motions. “You know Misty would have spoken up by now if it didn’t feel right,” he said with a wink.

Misty waited for Lightning to finish the signs, and the moment she had everything, including what Fire just said, she instantly looked at Spitfire and started nodding vigorously.

Spitfire looked at all of them again, taking in their words and thinking about each one of them. It could only make her smile.

“Thanks guys,” she said with a nod. “It’s… really good to hear that we’re all on the same wavelength. I was worried I was overstepping a little bit.” She paused, fully acknowledging how good it felt… and fully acknowledging how important it was to hear it from them. All the ponies she trusted more than anything, those she led. Her friends. Her family. She looked down at Fleetfoot, whom she was still embracing. Fleetfoot looked at her curiously as Spitfire’s eyes seemed to be filled with concern.

Then Spitfire suddenly strengthened her hug, squeezing Fleetfoot very tightly.

“MEEP!” Fleetfoot squeaked as her face got smushed against Spitfire’s chest.

“Now… I want all of you to promise me,” Spitfire began, looking up as she unwittingly crushed Fleetfoot against her. “That you will all take care of yourselves. We’re walking right into the unknown. It’s our job but…”

“Spitty… can’t… breathe…” Fleetfoot sputtered, but Spitfire was too focused.

“Your safety and well-being is just as important to me as Soarin. So watch your backs. It’s already hard enough that we have to take this on without Soarin, Silver, or Wave flying with us. No one else is allowed to go missing from our tight-knit group, got it?” she said adamantly as Fleetfoot continued to struggle in her grip.

“Yes, but…” Fire lifted an eyebrow and released a single chuckle. “Perhaps we should start by not squeezing Commander Fleetfoot to death?”

“Huh?” Spitfire looked down. Fleetfoot’s eyes were opened wide and her cheeks were puffed up large. Her face was turning bluer. “Oh!” she immediately let go.

“GAH! HAAAAAAAAAAH!” Fleetfoot nearly crumpled to the ground and stumbled backwards slightly, taking deep breaths as she patted a hoof against her throat and chest. “JEEZ!” she pouted at Spitfire as she continued to wheeze. “I love you too, but watch your strength there, Miss Muscles!”

“Heh… sorry,” Spitfire sheepishly scrunched up her mouth. She rubbed the back of her head and stuck her tongue out playfully. “Guess I’m practicing for when I wring Soarin’s neck later. That doofus has really outdone himself this time, worrying us.”

Fleetfoot eventually stood up straight, taking a few more breaths. But she smiled at Spitfire’s mention of Soarin. So they weren’t sure if they could really save him… but it didn’t hurt to still believe it was possible.

“So… we gonna go get that loser back, or what?” she asked with a grin. Spitfire smirked right back at her.

“Yeah… let’s get a move on,” she said as she looked at all of them one more time. “Soarin is waiting for us.”

Dash quickly turned her head back towards her squad mates as Spitfire and the rest dispersed.

She heard the whole exchange… and again felt slightly conflicted. It sucked that she had to do things this way, she was only a recruit, but each one of the top tier Wonderbolts had done so much for her. It hurt to deceive them, but she was doing what she had to do.

“Everypony get lined up!” Spitfire’s voice suddenly rang out. Dash looked over, as did everypony else as Spitfire floated into the air and yelled out. “We’re launching in five! Let’s go! Get into your groups so we can get the drills started the moment we get out there!”

The words were misleading, grandstanding for any other ears other than Wonderbolts. But they all knew what was happening.

Dash quickly turned back to her squad. Squall, Star, and Matteo all focused on her.

She said nothing, simply giving them a quick nod. They all nodded back before Dash turned and led them towards the rest.

It felt the same as usual… but at the same time, a little different.

By now, the Wonderbolt launch sequence had become routine for Rainbow Dash and her squad. It was such a tense experience the first time it was sprung on them during Silver’s hoodwink ‘Test’ that ultimately landed them their status as recruits, but now it felt natural. The chant, the responses to Spitfire’s commands, the motions, the takeoff… all in a day’s work.

So why did it feel so different this time?

Numbers.

Holy hell there were a lot of Wonderbolts flying with them as they all lifted off and rose into the sky. Dash was in awe at flying with so many pegasi at once. She was also used to being in the tail end of the formation, flying behind the elites. Now she was smack in the middle with the reserves organized and flying in a large square formation behind them. It was hard enough for her to comprehend that she technically ranked above all of the ponies flying behind her, the fact that she could look in any direction and not see where the formation ended just added to it.

The same, yet different… it was almost a perfect bookend to the already tense emotions she was experiencing with her plan quietly in motion.

She stayed focused, and kept her eyes forward as they all flew through the slightly odd mist conditions presented by the snow falling through the shield and melting. Her goggles were a little fogged up from the moisture, but she didn’t let it phase her, playing along as Spitfire led them all out to a wide open field close to the edge of the Empire shield’s reach.

“Wonderbolts, all stop! Hover!” Spitfire yelled out.

Dash immediately stopped on cue, as did all the elites in front of her. But then several loud yelps of surprise came from behind her, and before she could look, she was shoved in the back by a reserve running directly into her. She managed to stay afloat, but there was a comically clumsy accordion effect happening behind her as the reserves proved they weren’t used to quick commands.

“What the…” Spitfire floated up to observe the less than graceful display. “HEY! GET ORGANIZED BACK THERE!” Spitfire barked from the front as the reserves scrambled to reposition themselves.

Dash blinked as she watched them all frantically move back into place.

Well… they had earned their title as a Wonderbolt… but it was clear why they were a reserve force. They probably had the ability… but the lack of fine-tuned finesse was easy to see. Dash remembered Silver telling her something about how the reserves were only called in every month or so for a tune up to make sure they were still combat-able, but the elites and recruits were razor sharp from the constant training and daily motions. So it didn’t surprise her that the reserves were a little off cue.

“Everypony listen up!” Spitfire yelled out once the reserves had steadied themselves. “We’re going to warm up with a lap around the Empire while hugging the edge of the shield! Low tier elites up first! One squad at a time! Recruit squads will follow! Reserves, organize yourself into groups of ten! The high tier’s will bring up the rear!” She pointed down at a large willow tree over a pond below them. “Start and end point are right here above this tree! This is not a race, give fifty to seventy-five percent effort to loosen up! I don’t want anypony cramping up or sucking wind before we start flying actual drills! If any of you reserves back there get tired on me right off the bat we’re going to have to re-evaluate your off site training commitments afterward!”

Dash heard a few murmurs and stirs behind her. No-nonsense, not even with the reserves. She’d have to ask Thunderlane about these supposed ‘off-site training routines’ later. He had to be doing them, because he looked like he’d manage to stay in shape since he was sent home.

“GO!” Spitfire yelled out as the high tier elites hovered up a few yards, allowing squad eleven to accelerate and lead the way. Dash focused and patiently awaited her squad’s turn as the high tiers floated overhead to get behind the reserves.

Now she just had to play along and wait… and she hoped Spitfire wouldn’t wait long or else Twilight would jump the gun and it would all be for naught.

“Alright! That’s enough of that!” Spitfire yelled out as they finished their second drill. “Everypony gather in, but STAY WITH YOUR GROUPS!” she called out.

Dash led her squad around, joining the massive crowd as Spitfire hovered up to look them all over. All present members of squad two and three were with her as well.

She had broken a light sweat, but it was just from getting some good movement in. They had only done two formation flight pattern drills since the warm up. She could hear a good number of the reserves panting harder behind her. They looked and sounded like they were trying hard not to show it. They were all taking Spitfire’s threat seriously.

“Okay time for something different!” Spitfire called out as she scanned the crowd. “We’re going to do some low gliding drills! But we’re going to use larger, scrambled rank groups! You never know who you’re going to be flying beside in the heat of combat! So pay attention, elites will come around to group your current squads together randomly!”

Dash perked up as a few high tier elites began moving about the crowd. Mixing it up? Dash had a feeling that something was going to happen here. If she had this right… whoever came around to group her up ‘randomly’ was going to point her right to—

“Yo, COLORS!”

Dash perked up as Air Mach hovered by her sideways and pointed both his hooves at her with his body bent awkwardly. It was a wonder he could stay afloat in such a position.

“Head on over to the boss! Your squad’s with us!” he said as he twisted and pumped a hoof in the air before moving on.

Dash blinked. Talk about perfectly reading the situation.

She turned and made a head motion to Matteo, Star, and Squall, not saying or doing anything more to remain as inconspicuous as possible. She knew they were thinking the same thing as her.

They made their way through the shifting crowd of hovering Wonderbolts, slowly making their way towards the lead squad. She spotted Thunderlane briefly, making eye contact with him as he shuffled around, but was moving in the opposite direction of her. Looks like they were really going to be separated from him, but Dash was expecting that to happen. At least she knew she had ONE pony among the crowd she could count on for emergency backup if anything went wrong going forward.

Eventually, they made it to Spitfire. She only gave Dash a glance before returning her attention to Fleetfoot, discussing something that Dash couldn’t quite hear. Dash led her squad right up to them.

Spitfire turned to her briefly, looked her squad over, and nodded. She said nothing as she looked around for whoever else was joining them.

“Hm… good,” Spitfire said to herself, prompting Dash to turn around and see who else would be involved.

It wasn’t long before the rest of their group had gathered… and it wasn’t a very subtle group.

The lead squad, as complete as it was going to be once Air Mach returned. Then… squad two, squad three… four, seven, eight, and… zero? Dash stared for a few moments as squad Zero arrived. Shine Struck, Calm Wind, Playbitz, and Swift Justice… she had not seen much of them lately and furthermore was surprised that Spitfire was bringing them along for this mission. She wasn’t knocking their ability… they were pretty awesome in that manner, but their lack of true experience seemed like a no go for this. Hell, she didn’t even know they were out here doing drills.

But squad zero aside, Dash wondered about the composition of the group. All three top tier squads were just going to up and leave? She knew the entire force was in on the plan, but that seemed like an easy discrepancy to spot. She didn’t know any of the Wonderbolts from squad four or eight very well… but seven… Storm was being brought along. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She would have to keep an eye on him. If he was left behind she wouldn’t have to worry about him snitching, but now she could keep an eye on him… whatever good that would do if he blabbed.

So there was twenty nine of them total including twenty one elites since Wave, Silver, and Soarin were missing. That seemed like a lot for a detachment flying a covert mission, but there were still fifty-nine elites left behind among a cloud of recruits and reserves. If anypony was spying on them, it was going to be hard to notice anypony had left… unless they noticed Spitfire was no longer the one giving orders.

“Hey, everypony huddle up real quick,” Spitfire spoke up, drawing Dash’s thoughts back to the task at hoof. She did as she was told, as did the others. All twenty-nine of them packed in as tight as they could as the rest of the force continued to shuffle about around them, several elites shouting orders to recruits and reserves.

Spitfire looked each one of them in the eye briefly as if silently communicating to them that it was all about to get started. Once she had exchanged the looks, she turned to Fire Streak.

“Report,” she said simply.

“It would appear we are in the clear,” Fire answered quickly as the rest listened. “I’ve had a different Wonderbolt scout the area during each drill and there is nopony around within believable eyesight to notice a small decrease in our numbers.”

“Is there anypony around at all?” Spitfire pressed.

“Other than guard patrols spotted quite far off, none,” Fire clarified. “And their patrol routes are no different than those we observed over the past few days.”

“Perfect,” Spitfire nodded quickly before looking at the rest of them again. “Alright, listen up everypony. This is the group. I’ve hoof-picked each one of you because I’m confident you’re the best for the job… or you work best with those I want on the job,” she began, confirming that this was, indeed, the start of the plan.

Or her plan at least. Dash was glad she was getting things started because this would solve the timing worry.

“We’re going to casually take part in these low flying glide drills. The drills are going to be two large groups at a time, so around sixty. On our third turn through the drill, we are not going to pull up at the end when the rest do, we’re going to stay low… and I mean LOW… as we break towards the east and exit the shield. I mean it, if any of you are flying more than five yards above the ground I’m going to break your neck,” she threatened. A few of those present swallowed, some twitched. Spitfire wasn’t messing around. “Once we’re outside the shield, form up tight and follow behind Fleetfoot and I. We have a specific route we’ll be following, east far enough to away from the shield, then north. While we turn north, we will be meeting up with the Renegade detachment. Once they are with us and we’re past the northern edge of the shield, we will be easing to the west until we hit the forest. Everypony got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dash said instinctively as the rest said it at nearly the exact same time as her… except for squad zero, who fumbled and all said it a good two seconds after everypony else.

Spitfire narrowed her eyes and looked at the four members of the experimental squad.

“Get it together, you four,” she said sharply, all of them flinching. “Don’t make me regret bringing you along.”

“Y…yes, ma’am…” Shine Struck was the only one to reply, appearing to shake slightly. Dash couldn’t tell if it was fear of Spitfire or nerves. Probably a little bit of both.

“Alright,” Spitfire said with a strong burst of air from her nostrils. “I’m going to start the drill now. I’m not going to say a word to initiate the break, so don’t forget… our THIRD TURN! GOT IT?!”

Everypony nodded, some very vigorously.

“Good…” Spitfire backed away from the huddle. “Let’s do this.”

“Next up! Next up! Let’s go!” The captain of squad five yelled from up front, directing the two groups in front of Dash’s to begin their third run. Everypony in the groups tipped down and tucked their wings in, free falling to start their run through the low altitude glide drill.

Dash swallowed as she moved up behind Spitfire and the rest of their group. They had at least half a minute delay until they were signaled to begin. This was it… their third run. They were lined up with the same large squad they ran the first two passes with… this time they would be breaking off as the other pulled up. Dash focused, trying her best to clear her head and remain calm. She was a little nervous, but it was a natural kind of nervous, not the dreaded showtime nerves haunting her. This was the culmination of all her preparation, she’d be surprised if she wasn’t a little anxious.

She looked towards the captain of squad five, Captain Sunfire, as she awaited his signal for them to start. Spitfire had hoofed over direction duty to him… and Dash quickly realized why. He was a stallion, but he had visually similar colors to Spitfire. Yellow fur, and a red mane. The logic was easy to deduce. If they were being watched from afar, it would be difficult to tell him apart from Spitfire at a distance among the entire force.

“Next up! Ready!” Sunfire yelled.

That was faster than Dash expected, but she didn’t let it phase her. She steeled her nerves and shifted up with the rest, knowing Squall, Star, and Matteo were right behind her. A few seconds of silence passed… just enough time for her to briefly glance through the group… at Storm Front.

“GO!”

Instincts took over. Dash froze her thoughts as she tipped down with the rest, pulled her wings in, and began the freefall. Gravity worked its magic, the two groups falling fast towards the ground. They fell faster and faster and faster, the wind rushing against them, blasting against Dash’s face and goggles.

“GLIDE!” Spitfire yelled out.

All of them extended their wings, all positioned perfectly to be at wing’s length even compensating for those with larger wingspans like Matteo. They pulled up hard to even out, Dash feeling the g-forces push at her neck as they became parallel to the ground and shot along less than five yards above it.

“Shift!”

There was one… Dash stayed in formation and kept her eyes forward as the group swerved right.

“Shift!”

Two. Dash swerved left.

“Shift!”

Three… it was almost time…

“AND PULL UP!”

Without a single doubt that she would mess something up, Dash took a hard right, the other twenty-eight members of her group doing the exact same thing, perfectly remaining in formation as the other half of their drill group pulled up and made their way back normally.

Not a single word was spoken. It was all executed exactly the way Spitfire had asked them. Even squad zero didn’t falter as they kept up and brought up the rear. They zipped along, not moving an inch to the left or right as they continued to hold the glide and use the built up momentum from their initial freefall. The edge of the shield was approaching fast, they would pass through it in a matter of seconds.

“Once we’re outside the shield, steady wing beat! Keep the pace at our current speed!” Spitfire yelled. They all had mere seconds to acknowledge it as they reached the edge of the shield… and shot right through it.

In an instant, the drop in temperature hit all of them, the comfortable climate from within the empire’s magical bounds replaced by a blast of icy wind.

Several bright flashes of light shone from within the group. The Streak twins, High Winds, Squall, and Shine Struck as well as everypony else sporting a crystalized appearance all reverted to their normal look.

Dash’s goggles fogged up instantly as the built up heat turned to a chilly cold. She wiped them down with her arm quickly and set her gaze forward, the grassy plains zipping by below them now covered in snow, and a light flurry of snowflakes bouncing off the surface of her goggles.

She began to beat her wings as ordered, everypony else doing the same as they stayed low and kept up their pace. They reached the edge of the plains and began flying along the base edges of the eastern mountain ranges. The rocky terrain rife with rocks and boulders forced their path to wind, but they did not pull up, shifting and turning as a group as they continued on their path.

Eventually, they took a hard left, turning north just as Spitfire described in her details before the drill. It was only a matter of time before they hit the forest now… and Dash felt a fire light in her heart.

This was it… it was happening… and she was ready. There was no going back. There was plenty of cushion for Twilight’s timing of the next phase as well. Her confidence was high, just the way she wanted it.

“To our left,” Fleetfoot suddenly spoke up calmly, prompting Spitfire and several others to look, including Dash.

“Perfect timing,” Spitfire said with a nod as Dash spotted a small group approaching. Purple suits and red headbands. The Renegades had caught up with them, flying low altitude as well as they slowly veered towards the Wonderbolts and formed up with them. Descent was in front with Lightning Dust and three other former Shadowbolts behind him. Blazetail, Flashwind, and the other leading Wonderbolt veterans were in tow, keeping up behind. Even Bomber was moving pretty swiftly… though eventually Dash noticed that Valkyrie and Steady Wing were pushing him from behind.

There were fifteen of them, bringing their total numbers up to forty four.

The Wonderbolts didn’t lose a step, continuing on course as the Renegades matched their pace. Descent made his way forward and formed up beside Spitfire.

“Any speed bumps on your way out?” Spitfire asked him while keeping her eyes forward.

“No. We slipped out unnoticed,” Descent replied with a nod, keeping his eyes forward as well.

“Good. Astral’s waiting for us, right?”

“I dispatched him and his squad back to the forest right after we met with Luna,” Descent explained. “It was close, they were almost on their way back out, but we caught them in time. They’ll be there and will have an update for us when we arrive.”

“Excellent,” Spitfire said with a quick smirk.

From a little ways back into the group, Dash had her ears turned to listen in. Nothing said was of much interest, but it didn’t hurt to be sure. But as the two up front finished speaking, a sharp movement beside her caught her attention. Dash glanced to her left to see Matteo looking over his shoulder.

“Huh? Matty?” Dash spoke up in confusion.

“NO CHATTER, DASH!” Spitfire barked from up front. “EYES FORWARD!”

“Captain!” Matteo suddenly yelled out despite the order. “We are being followed!”

“What?!” Spitfire looked over her shoulder as did everypony else as they kept moving.

There was something… or somepony approaching at high speed. And before any of them could get a good read on who it was, the pursuer shot up right passed all of them before slowing their pace and slowly backing up towards them.

It was a Renegade… and once they were close enough it only took Descent a second to notice who it was.

Purple fur… Lavender streaks in the mane…

“St…Starry Skies?!” Descent exclaimed in surprise as Starry formed up beside him and joined the formation. She was in her normal form, just as the others with crystal pony genes were. She kept her eyes forward, a slightly scrunched look on her face as she seemed to try and ignore Descent.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Descent demanded, his voice a mixture of anger and worry. He got no response. Descent waited a few seconds, but flattened his brow as she remained silent. “Answer me.”

“No.” she finally spoke.

“Starry…” Descent growled quietly.

“Save your damn breath!” she snapped at him sharply as she finally glanced at him. “I’m not here to talk about anything. And I know what our mission is, so shut up!”

Descent blinked, one of his glaring eyelids twitching as he held back the urge to retort, it just didn’t seem worth it. He stared at her for another moment before turning his head to glance at Spitfire.

“What are you looking at me for?” Spitfire asked while lifting an eyebrow.

“Hmph…” Descent harrumphed as he turned his head back to Starry. “Fine…” he grumbled before leaving it be and refocusing.

Forty-five now with Starry… Dash was curious where she had been too, but now wasn’t the time to think about it. It wasn’t like her presence changed any of her own plans so it was nothing more than an addition to the force she was trying to sneak under.

“Shift west!” Spitfire yelled out, catching Dash’s attention.

The forest was in view. They reached the edge of it quickly and slowly turned to fly parallel with it at least forty yards out.

The crystal forest… Dash finally got to see it up close. Cadence wasn’t kidding, it really was quite a sight. All of the trees looked like, well, crystal. Both branches and leaves had this aesthetic, but it was hard to see much of the branches due to the incredibly thick foliage and brush. The trees themselves, from what she could tell, looked to be all unique, all varying in shape and resemblance to trees from around Equestria from one to the next. It extended for miles, so far that Dash could not see the other end of it as she looked across its expanse, the only indication that it ended at all were the mountains in the distance. The reach of the brush rose as it went further in, the trees becoming larger and almost giving it the appearance of a dome, it made her wonder just how large some of the trees were at the center.

But one thing was for sure, Shining Armor was spot on about it being a nightmare for a scout. Dash was good at picking out fine details of things as she flew over them, but she could not, for the life of her, see any opening or safe passage into the forest from above. If the branches were as sharp and dangerous as Shining claimed, trying to dive in from above was a one way ticket to be shredded to pieces. If they were going to go in, they would be grounded, or at least forced to fly very low. And if the trees had the reflective magical properties Cadence claimed… then this really was a smart move by Sombra. Everything about it was to his advantage over them.

“There’s Astral,” Descent spoke up as they shot along the outer edge of the forest, pointing ahead. Dash faced forward, quickly reacting as Spitfire directed them towards Astral. The whole group slowed down and touched down as they came within twenty yards, skidding through the snow to a halt.

Astral waved to them as they approached quickly on hoof. His odd, blue, dragon winged changeling squad mate was standing with him, the rest of the squad a few paces into the forest and keeping watch within.

“Anything to report?” Descent asked, wasting no time as the group stopped before Astral.

“He’s still in there,” Astral replied simply.

“Location?” Descent went on.

“He’s been in the center of the forest since we reported last time. Hasn’t moved from the general spot. Search me as to why, he looks like he’s there to stay,” Astral pointed up. “I’m sure you noticed the forest reaches further upward near the center?”

“Yes,” Descent nodded, exchanging a glance with Spitfire.

“The further you go in, the more the forest opens up and the larger the trees become. There’s a very large clearing in the dead center. I can’t give an exact number, but the forest overhang is at least forty to fifty yards high. There’s a small lake, or pond, whatever you’d call it there too. That’s where he is.” Astral gave the full details.

“Hmm…” Descent nodded again. “We’ll keep that in mind. Good work.”

“Also, don’t bet on being able to sneak up on him,” Astral suddenly added and snorted. “He caught us.”

“Wh…what?!” Descent shook his head out and his eyes widened. His quick, shocked reaction catching Dash’s attention. The rest of the Renegades present looked shocked as well. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow at Descent’s reaction, wondering what the fuss was about. “He… spotted you? With cover like this?” Descent motioned to the forest.

Astral rolled his eyes and grunted angrily, as if the fact hurt his pride a little. He said nothing though, instead looking to his squad mate beside him.

“You tell him, Talon,” Astral grumbled. “I’m still pissed about it.”

“Uh…” Talon looked back and forth, all eyes landing on the changeling. “Well, he… definitely has unnatural senses,” he began in his peculiar echoing tone of voice. “We were using our standard covert methods to keep an eye on him, and he saw right through it even though he appeared to not be paying attention to his surroundings. During our last check, I was disguised as a rock on the edge of the lake while the others took up positions at least ten yards into the forest from the clearing. Less than five minutes after I got into position he looked directly at me and told me to stop sneaking around… adding that went for ‘the rest of my friends’ too. I was out of there as fast as I could move… and the rest made tracks right behind me. He didn’t follow us, but I think it’s safe to say our cover is blown… if we really ever had any to begin with.”

“I’m…” Descent blinked. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he commented, turning to Astral. “I’m not so sure you should be writing this up as a blemish on your record, Astral. What we’re dealing with here isn’t normal in any sense.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it…” Astral sighed as he kept his eyes averted. “Anyway,” he waved a hoof while he remained faced away. “That was about an hour ago. If he hasn’t moved, he’ll still be in the heart of the forest.”

Descent chuckled briefly at Astral’s disdain for even the slightest slip up, but quickly got serious.

“Report back to the others,” he ordered. “Let them know we have entered the forest and to be ready to move at any sign of trouble or movement by the Empire’s forces.”

Astral didn’t say anything or even look at Descent.

“Round up! We’re heading out!” he yelled out, the other members of his scout team emerging and joining him as they broke into a canter, spread their wings, and lifted off, heading back to the Empire.

Dash watched them leave… and swallowed as she slowly turned to face the rest. But none of them were looking at her. Everypony was staring into the forest.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Spitfire said casually as she started walking. “Let’s get a move on,” she added as her pace slowly picked up to a fast trot. One by one, the Wonderbolts followed behind her. The Renegades took a few steps, but stopped when Descent didn’t move. Dash paused, her Squad stopping with her as she looked over her shoulder at them.

“So are you going to tell me where you were?” Descent was facing Starry. She scrunched her face up.

“Are you deaf or something? I said NO!” she spat at him as she started moving past him. But then she was halted in place as he reached back and grabbed her shoulder.

“Why?” he asked, keeping his tone controlled. Starry tipped her head down and started shaking, a low growl escaping her throat. But instead of exploding, she took a deep breath and exhaled.

“None of your business…” she said in a hushed tone as she shook her shoulder free and began moving after the Wonderbolts. Dash watched as she approached and started passing by, but she paused and shot a glare at Dash. “The fuck are you looking at?”

Dash blinked and furrowed her brow as Starry moved on, the Renegades and Descent eventually moving as well.

“Sheesh, she’s got her ass cheeks clenched harder than usual…” Dash commented as she made a head motion to her squad. “C’mon…” she said casually as she broke into a canter, hoping to catch up with the Wonderbolts instead of being stuck behind with the Renegades.

But it took longer than expected to catch up. Not because they were moving too quickly though. Dash was having a hard time not staring in absolute awe at her surroundings as she moved into the Crystal Forest.

She already recalled Cadance’s words once. But inside the forest? ‘Most beautiful sight in Equestria’ seemed like an understatement.

It was so… awesome.

Everything was made of shimmering blue crystal. EVERYTHING. The trees, the leaves, even the grass. There wasn’t much room for the light flurry of snow to get through the thick canopy. Only a few flakes managed to slip through at a time so there was barely any sign of snow. Not that it would be noticeable with all the crystal surfaces shimmering everywhere. Though it was strange, walking through the crystallized grass felt no different than walking through normal grass, its blue appearance was only cosmetic? It looked as hard as a rock. Dash wondered if the leaves were the same, crystal in appearance but like ordinary leaves to the touch. Though one thing was for certain. The trees were definitely rock hard. She even tapped a hoof on one as she passed out of curiosity. Her hoof made a loud CLACK sound as it rapped against the surface. That wasn’t the sound of wood. It was solid, and probably just as dense. That doubly reinforced the reason they couldn’t fly in from above. The branches of the trees were thickly packed and tangled together overhead, and they looked razor sharp. Just like from outside, where the trees appeared to resemble those from all over, it was even more apparent within the forest. All the trunks were hard crystal, but all were shaped different ways.

More spectacular than anything else though was the elegant shimmer that surrounded them as any small sliver of light that touched the surfaces of the trees and leaves bounced in every direction. It caused a beautiful sparkling effect that never ceased. The luminosity of every surface rendered the thick overhang moot, like the forest itself made its own light that kept the forest floor bright even once the sun went down.

Dash almost didn’t notice when she finally caught up to the Wonderbolts, she was too enthralled with what she was seeing. She clearly wasn’t the only one either. The rest of the Wonderbolts were taking in the sight as well as they moved and weaved, stepping over crystal roots and watching as a freshly loosed crystal leaves fluttered to the ground.

“Everypony focus please,” Spitfire spoke up as they kept moving, the density of the trees appearing to gradually open as they kept on. “I know it’s a sight, but if you want to gawk you can come back and do it later,” Spitfire ordered, but kept her tone serious.

Dash swallowed and did as she was told, noticing the slow expanse of the available space around them. It was just as Astral said, the further they moved in, the more open it became. They were still in a ‘cramped’ part of the forest at least by movement standards, but it was noticeable… they definitely still had a ways to go before they reached anything resembling the ‘open air’ Astral had described. She wondered how much farther they—

“Ah!” Dash suddenly gasped and came to a halt, placing a hoof over her chest as she felt a jolt run through her body.

Everypony came to a halt, Spitfire abruptly turning before anypony else could even glance over their shoulder. Though there wasn’t an immediate look of an incoming hush and orders to keep moving. Because the moment Spitfire saw Dash’s hoof on her chest, she stepped through the group so quickly that she almost knocked over Fleetfoot and Blaze.

“Dash?” she said as the rest moved out of her way to let her through. “What is it?” she asked as she forced her way right into Dash’s personal space and grabbed her by the shoulder. “Is it Soarin? What’s wrong?”

“Hey, whoa!” Dash leaned back and put a hoof up. “No, nothing is wrong, I just…” she looked down and blinked.

“Just what?” Spitfire pressed.

“I just haven’t felt this for a few days is all…” Dash explained as she rubbed her hoof against her chest. “This is usually normal, a simple warmth. But it’s been gone since… Soarin lost control and left us.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened slightly.

“So that means…?” Spitfire tipped her head.

“It means he’s close,” Dash nodded. “He’s definitely here.”

“Feel anything else?” Spitfire asked again, even though Dash already made it clear, but Dash thought about it for a moment.

“No, but… now that you mention it, there has barely been any problems with the connection as of late.”

“What do you mean?” Spitfire asked, Dash catching her attention.

“Remember when we lost him briefly? When he crashed into the mountains and damaged his horn?” Dash explained as Descent and the Renegades caught up.

“What’s the hold u—,”

“Go on,” Spitfire spoke over Descent.

“I was in pain very often, his pain from the damaged horn and his magic going haywire shooting through me too,” Dash shook her head. “Despite where he is right now? I haven’t felt any pain… not one bit.”

“Huh?” Spitfire perked up, several of the Wonderbolts behind her catching on as well. “What does that mean?” Spitfire asked… again. Dash held her tongue at how hard Spitfire was poking at her. She knew why, but… she was the one who just told them to focus and she wasn’t really practicing what she preached.

“Hell if I know,” Dash shrugged. “But…” she stared at her chest and gently stroked over the center of it. “Assuming our connection is still the same… it means he is at ease, and not in pain.” She looked up at Spitfire. “That’s… really all I can say.”

Spitfire just stared for a few moments before looking to the side.

“Well… if anything that lends itself to the very reason we’re going out of our way to do this. If he isn’t killing Soarin, or if Soarin is strong enough to still be in there.” She turned and faced the rest. “More importantly… You feeling this means he’s still here. Let’s move,” she ordered, not bothering to wait for any response as she moved right to the front of the group and kept on, the rest slowly picking up to follow.

Dash kept her eyes on Spitfire as she started moving as well with the Renegades in tow. There was no sign at all that Spitfire had any suspicion of her. That whole exchange confirmed it, or at least appeared to. She was laser focused on Soarin, prying at her the moment something related to Soarin came up.

Dash’s eyes drifted to Storm walking a little ways ahead of her with Macho, Lead Runner, and Point Dex. He had no readable expression on his face. The goggles kind of blocked her view of it, and he was turned away from her, but still… it looked neutral. He hadn’t blabbed yet, so she hoped it would stay that way. Unless he was waiting for the right moment. Part of her felt bad that she was doubting him so much, but she created this speed bump in her plan, so she had to own it and keep an eye on it.

“Spitty, have you noticed something?” Fleetfoot spoke up as they kept moving, causing Dash to refocus.

“Hm?” Spitfire hummed, not breaking her forward gaze.

“Where the hell are all the animals?” Fleetfoot asked.

“Animals?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, but kept her eyes forward.

“You know, wildlife,” Fleetfoot elaborated. “This is a forest. But I haven’t seen a single wild animal.”

Dash blinked and glanced about. The amount of space they had to move was increasing further, giving them more room to maneuver and making their path around trees less winding. But with the less claustrophobic surroundings, the forest began to feel… empty. Fleetfoot was right, it was a bit eerie that there seemed to be nothing despite the enticing beauty of the scenery.

“Cadence said this is a unique forest,” Spitfire suggested with a shrug. “Maybe it doesn’t have any animals.”

“I saw plenty of birds flying over it while we were gliding in,” Fleetfoot pointed out. “And I’m sure I saw some deer outside the forest—.”

“I don’t know Fleet, it’s not really important,” Spitfire cut her off abruptly and a bit sharply.

“Okay, okay…” Fleetfoot huffed. Spitfire’s ears drooped.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “I just want everypony to stay focused,” she said while finally glancing at Fleetfoot, receiving a slightly pouty look from her as they made eye contact. Dash scrunched her face but held her tongue. Yeah, focused… just like she was a moment ago.

“It is a little odd,” Descent spoke up as he made his way forward. “Perhaps Sombra’s presence here scared them away?” he thought out loud as his eyes shifted about the passing radiant trees.

“Who knows?” Spitfire shook her head. “But enough, let’s please just—”

Her pace suddenly slowed as she looked around. The rest slowed their pace with her, all looking about.

“Huh?” Dash blinked as she found herself doing the same.

The trees… the leaves… everything. They were suddenly glimmering slightly brighter. Some of the trees had a subtle, pulsing glow of white and blue light emanating from them.

“What’s this?” Spitfire said to herself as they all looked around.

Dash’s eyes widened as her hoof went to her chest again. The warmth within her was growing stronger.

“We’re getting close,” she spoke up, everypony glancing back at her. She looked up and nodded. “Soarin is near… I can feel it,” she said as she felt the heat.

“Then this glow…?” Spitfire said as she began walking again, slowing the pace down as she and the rest kept looking around at the odd effects of the light against the trees.

“Do you think it’s reacting to him? His powerful aura?” Descent suggested. Spitfire shook her head.

“Let’s just say yes…” she said with a sigh, shaking her head out. “With all the ridiculous magic and crap we’ve been exposed to recently I think that’s a safe bet,” she said with some slight sarcasm. “But let’s slow down a bit,” she suggested even though they already had. “The density of the forest is widening… Based on Astral’s intel, I’m guessing we’re near.” She turned and looked at everypony. “From this point on… no chatter. Let’s move quietly.”

Everypony nodded in agreement, and all lips shut tight.

They continued on, the clearing growing wider and wider, the trees becoming larger and larger. Soon the trunks of the trees they were passing were enormous… the size of great greenwood trees only found near the Griffon Empire. They were at least five to ten yards in diameter, branches starting high above before becoming the same tangled mess they were around the rest of the forest. They had enough room to fly if they wanted to now, but it still wasn’t ideal.

But despite the more open air of the forest floor this far in, now they were walking around massive crystal tree roots of the trees that jutted out from the ground. Some were so large and lifted so high that they were able to walk underneath them like an arch. The trees had become larger still, now resembling enormous, hulking trees Dash never knew existed. She began to feel so small, as she was sure the rest did as well. The trees had become so large that they felt like they were in a different world, one populated by giants as she felt like an ant next to the monolithic crystal trunks. Not even the greenwoods in the griffon empire were this large… they were up to twenty yards from end to end and the roots reaching out from the base were larger than a house.

And with the size, came a more intense glow, the glare of the light bouncing off the incredibly large surfaces making the surroundings seem even more luminous than it already was. Their eyes had to fight to adjust, the lights glowing from and bouncing off of every crystal surface was causing the illumination of the area to constantly grow bright and dark in uneven, pulsing patterns as if they were in a cave full of glinting gemstones of all the same color.

But they forged on… and as they did, Dash felt the feeling of warmth in her chest grow and grow as they moved.

He was here…

Soarin was here…

And he was very close.

Then Spitfire suddenly came to an abrupt halt and threw out a hoof to her side.

Everypony stopped and froze in place, not moving a muscle. Spitfire leaned to her right, extending her neck as far as it could go as she looked over a root that was about ten yards in front of them.

Everypony else followed her eyes… there was something strange ahead.

Most of the glowing effects that had been battering them as they moved inward were a mixture of blue and white… but ahead, past the tree and large roots that was directly ahead of them, the glow was only white and it wasn’t pulsing. It was rising up into the air and appeared gentler than the shimmering of the crystal surfaces. It was as if something beyond the tree was causing it.

Spitfire looked over her shoulder, her eyes shifting among the group. She put a hoof to her mouth, making a hushing motion that was the silent signal for the Wonderbolts to go full stealth. The Wonderbolt veterans recognized it too, and Descent and the Shadowbolt Renegades caught on quickly.

They moved very slowly. Each step taking two to three seconds to assure their hooves gingerly touched the ground without making a sound against the ground. The ten yards between them and the tree in question felt like it was miles away as they approached it at the slowest and quietest pace they could manage.

Dash felt short on breath, the anticipation killing her. She could feel it… she knew it. He was here… he was so close it felt like she could reach out and touch him.

They finally reached the tree. Spitfire held out a hoof and they all stopped. She turned and pointed at Fleetfoot first then pointed at her side. Fleetfoot nodded and quietly slid up beside her. Spitfire pointed at the rest and made a motion towards her plot, a silent signal for the Wonderbolts to follow right behind her and do exactly as she did.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot stood right up against the tree, pressing their sides to the trunk, Fleetfoot standing no less than a yard behind Spitfire as they shuffled along. The rest of the Wonderbolts followed, pairing up and moving along the trunk.

Dash quickly and subtly pushed herself forward, unintentionally leaving her squad at the back of the group as she ended up with Shine Struck at her side. She was four pairs back from Spitfire and Fleetfoot, slowly moving along.

As Spitfire and Fleetfoot neared a root extending out from the tree that was on the smaller side, but at the perfect height for cover. She made a sideways arcing motion with her hoof, directing Fleetfoot to get in front of her and move further forward towards the smaller end of the root. She pointed to the groups behind them and made a sweeping motion with her arm slightly extended. Air Mach and Fire streak nodded, leading the rest of the pairs as they lowered themselves and slid along, taking up positions three yards from the root and making sure they stayed behind it, leaving Spitfire and Fleetfoot as the only two up against it.

Spitfire waited until five pairs were in position and then held her hoof out, stopping the rest where they were behind the tree. Descent was with Starry at the front of the pairs still behind the tree. He furrowed his brow and made a harsh head motion towards Spitfire, as if signaling her to get on with it already.

Spitfire ignored him, giving a nod to Fleetfoot as the two of them faced the root and placed their hooves on it, slowly lifting themselves up to peer over.

But as Dash sat low with the five pairs behind them… she knew…

Spitfire and Fleetfoot were about to see it too… but she already knew what they were going to see… because she could feel it.

Feel him.

The two slowly peered over the root… and squinted a little as they were met with a gentle white glow.

It was just as Astral said… a body of water, somewhere between the size of a lake and a pond surrounded by the largest trees in the forest.

And in the center of the lake… standing on the surface of the water…

Was Soarin.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

And so it begins...

Been a while since i've had a chapter this short, but that was the plan. The Arc 3 finale will be coming out in parts to make updates faster and make the word count less of a strain on the readers.

Chapter 160 is already outlined. So i just have to get started on it. I will detail this in a blog later, but i have a whole week off from work for the holidays starting tomorrow and im not sure if I will be very productive during it (gotta let my brain rest). So i likely won[t be starting on chapter 160 for a week. It's probably the smallest snipped from the greater outline for the arc three finale though, so it wont be too detrimental.

And just a reminder... this is NOT the end of PTH we're approaching here. A lot of people have been confused by what i mean when i say 'arc three finale'. I don't mean arc three as in the third story (PTH) i mean the arc of PTH that began at chapter 71. (Jesus this has been a long arc. I stand by my comments that it should have been split in half around chapter 100) There is still one more whole story arc planed after this. So no, PTH is NOT ending, we've got a ways to go still :rainbowwild:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 160: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 2: Face to Face)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 160: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 2: Face to Face)

Soarin flinched as he felt a jolt. He picked up his head and looked around, blinking. He glanced at Celestia, then towards the silhouette of Sombra.

“What the…?” Soarin said to himself as he continued to look about. Whatever he felt, it was a familiar feeling. Though with how much pressure his mind and spirit had been put through recently he was having trouble recalling exactly what it was.

“You feel, her, don’t you?” Celestia suddenly spoke, drawing Soarin’s eyes to her. “She’s near.”

“She…” Soarin’s eyes widened. He suddenly remembered. This feeling… it was the same way he felt when…

“Sombra,” Celestia spoke as she turned her head to him.

“I know, I sensed them coming,” Sombra replied very casually as he kept himself turned away from them, or at least it appeared that way, Soarin still had a hard time telling which way he was facing with just a shadow of his head to go by. But a word stood out to Soarin.

Them.

The feeling surging through him, there was no doubt it was Dash. But…

“Them?” Soarin tried to pry, but neither of the other two seemed to be paying attention to him.

“What are you going to do?” Celestia asked Sombra.

“I’m going to finish drinking first. I’m thirsty,” Sombra replied again, seemingly uninterested in whatever or whoever was approaching.

“Who?! Who’s there?!” Soarin demanded. He could feel Dash nearby, but who else? He could only see out of his body’s eyes, and at the moment they were closed as Sombra drank from the lake.

“Your friends are here,” Sombra said as he continued to act nonchalantly. “I can sense about… forty of them.”

“My friends? Can you elaborate?” Soarin demanded as Sombra sighed in frustration.

“Your fellow pegasi who like to wear form hugging clothes. Some blue, some purple with very bright red headbands that are easy to see for miles in this very blue forest.” Sombra spoke almost sarcastically.

Soarin slowly processed what he meant, even though it was pretty obvious. Wonderbolts and Renegades?!

“They are trying to hide behind the tree roots to our right, but they’re not very good at it,” he added.

“What?! Let me see!” Soarin kept prodding.

“Quit whining, I will in a moment,” Sombra huffed as he went back to drinking.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot held very, very still as they looked out towards Soarin… or Sombra… standing on the surface of the lake. The moment was as tense as it could possibly get, with the rest remaining in place and waiting for some sort of sign from the two lead Wonderbolts.

But Spitfire and Fleetfoot found themselves observing the image before them in a way they were not expecting.

There was something very soothing about it. Sombra was standing in the middle of the lake, his blue aura causing the water to glisten, the light bouncing from the surface and gently shimmering against anything and everything around the body of water and all the way up to the think brush that hung high above them. Small pulses of magic were extending from his hooves, likely from whatever was allowing him to stand atop the lake as he bend down to take a drink.

He was also completely surrounded by wildlife. Fleetfoot wanted to know where the animals were? They found them. Deer had waded into the shallows, rabbits were hopping around the edge of the lake, and squirrels riddled the trees. Birds were flying all over, some large as hawks, some as small as little finches. The small birds were singing, little cheerful tweets filling the air as they flew overhead, landed in the trees or on the antlers of the deer. There was aquatic life present as well, frogs hopping in and out of the water, small fish visible just beneath the crystal clear surface.

All of these animals seemed to have the very same characteristics of the forest, their coats, feathers, scales, and skin all a light blue color as if they had grown and evolved within the forest itself.

A few of them had moved upon seeing Spitfire and Fleetfoot, but those within reach of Sombra did not move as if not paying any mind to him… or as if they felt like he belonged there with them.

A bird fluttered over to Sombra and softly perched on the tip of his curved horn. The aura from his horn caused the bird’s feathers to sparkle radiantly as it chirped innocently. Sombra finished drinking, but opened his eyes and turned his ears towards the bird before making any moves. He slowly lifted his head, looking up at the bird and listening to its song, smiling as he eventually stood fully upright. He took a deep breath and sighed, the bird flying off.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot were speechless.

It looked so… peaceful. Almost hilariously so considering who they were dealing with, or at least who a certain goddess claimed they were dealing with. It looked too damn nice and relaxing to be associated with any sort of ‘Mad King’. If they were going by Luna’s description of him, he’d have probably bitten the bird’s head off and turned the water to blood for the hell of it.

It was hard to look away… not because of the stunning visual before them, but because it also was just so—

The two of them flinched hard as Sombra casually turned his head and looked directly at them. They both dropped behind the root as fast as they could.

“SHIT!” Spitfire cursed quietly as she and Fleetfoot pressed their backs to the large root with their eyes stuck wide open.

“What the hell?! He looked RIGHT at us!” Fleetfoot said in disbelief.

“QUIET!” Spitfire hissed as she gritted her teeth and met all the confused eyes of the rest. But her expression said it all.

Everypony laid perfectly still. It was dead silent and several of them assumed Sombra was going to appear over the root at any moment.

But… nothing happened.

Spitfire swallowed and glanced at Descent. Descent was glaring at her and made a slight head motion at the root.

Spitfire turned around as quietly as she could and slowly peered over the top of the root again.

Only to look right back into Sombra’s eyes still pointing in her direction. She flinched and dropped back down instantly.

“DAMMIT!” she said as she stiffened and her mind raced.

“Your attempts at stealth leave much to be desired,” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from the center of the lake.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot both opened their eyes wide and slowly turned to look at each other.

Neither of them had the foggiest idea what to do next. Spitfire looked around at everypony else… but they were all looking at her for an answer.

Sombra knew they were there, hell he just spoke to them. But he couldn’t know how many of them were there, he only saw Spitfire and Fleetfoot, maybe—

“Just come out already, ALL of you,” Sombra added.

Fleetfoot’s jaw dropped as she stared at Spitfire.

Spitfire just stayed still for a few moments.

But then she looked down and blinked a few times.

“Well? I’m waiting.” Said Sombra. “Don’t make me come over there.”

Spitfire looked up, her eyes back to normal as she looked around at all the petrified stares from the rest.

“Well… I guess that’s that,” she said as she stood up.

“SPITTY?!” Fleetfoot reacted in a hushed tone as Spitfire turned and placed her hooves on the root.

“Everypony at ease,” Spitfire said calmly as she jumped right up onto the root, completely exposing herself to Sombra and locking eyes with him.

Nopony knew what to say or do, they all just stared in disbelief as Spitfire willingly placed herself in Sombra’s line of sight.

She hopped down and started walking towards him. As soon as she did, everypony began frantically scrambling for a position to peek out.

“What the hell is she doing?!” Descent growled as he nearly stepped on Fleetfoot trying to look over the root. Several heads poked out, all of them trying to remain hidden best they could, but it was clear Sombra could see them.

Spitfire kept walking, each step one at a time and without hesitation as she slowly approached the edge of the water. She was staring directly at Sombra and his hardened gaze with every step. But she eventually stopped and looked over her shoulder.

“I said AT EASE!” she yelled back to the Wonderbolts and Renegades still trying to be discreet. “Come out already!”

Spitfire’s order was heard, but the reactions varied. The Wonderbolts and veteran bolts within the Renegades all started moving, but the Shadowbolt Renegades did not. The result was a cluster of ponies bumping into one another clumsily and causing a bit of a backup as they started moving. Descent waved a hoof in the air to get his Shadowbolts to move too, but the damage had already been done, and Rainbow Dash found herself stuck behind a large group as they started climbing over the roots.

“Well?” Sombra spoke up, glancing at Soarin as he kept Soarin’s body turned towards the emerging Wonderbolts and Renegades.

Soarin’s eyes were wide, a mixture of surprise and confusion.

“Spitfire! And… Fleetfoot! Fire, Lightning… Descent… and…” he struggled to remain coherent as he saw so many familiar faces emerging and moving up behind Spitfire. He was relieved to see them, but… “What are they doing here?” Soarin thought aloud.

“You tell me,” Sombra snarled at him. Soarin immediately picked up on Sombra’s tone and threw a very harsh look in his direction, tugging on the shadows binding him down as he blew a hiss of air from his nostrils.

“Don’t you DARE hurt any of them!” Soarin growled right back, but Sombra only snorted.

“Why would I?” Sombra immediately said back as he turned and refocused on who they were looking at. Soarin went silent, but held his glare. “Something is amiss here…” Sombra went on, causing Soarin to blink. “I do not sense any supernatural beings nearby… they are here without the gods.”

“What…?” Celestia chimed in, Soarin glancing at her briefly.

“How curious,” Sombra tipped his head. “I wonder what they—”

Sombra’s silhouette suddenly flinched and froze.

Soarin noticed immediately, and upon focusing back on his own eyes, it didn’t take long to figure out why, because Sombra was directing Soarin’s eyesight right at what had apparently spooked him.

“RAINBOW DASH!”

As the Wonderbolts and Renegades slowly emerged behind her, Spitfire began walking towards Sombra again. She kept her same confident stride as before, one hoof ahead of the other, no hesitation and plenty of strength in her posture and body language. She eventually made it to the edge of the lake, her hooves dipping into the shallows. Those following behind her stopped at the edge of the lake, none of them willing to get any closer while worrying that Spitfire was being too rash.

Spitfire’s lone approach easily caught Sombra’s attention. As she closed in, he turned and faced her squarely. Several of the ponies behind Spitfire quickly hunched down into battle ready stances, Descent even throwing his wings open as if ready to launch. Spitfire heard the shuffle behind her and glanced back again.

“For the love of…” she threw a hoof out. “AT! EASE!” she yelled with an annoyed tone. “Don’t make me say it again!” she added very sternly.

Reluctantly, the Wonderbolts obeyed. Descent growled and flipped a hoof to calm down the Renegades.

Dash reached up and gently pushed her goggles onto her forehead, looking towards the drastically enhanced body of Soarin… occupied and controlled by Sombra. The sight was jarring. It was him, it was Soarin, yet it was not. It gave her such and odd mixed feeling. She was frozen in her spot, swallowing as she watched Spitfire turn back to Sombra and move a little closer. After a few more steps into the shallows, Spitfire came to a halt and a tense, silent stare down began between the two.

Dash’s body was still, but her heart was racing. Some of it was the anxious tension of the moment and knowing execution of her counter-counter plan was close at hoof, but the rest of it was definitely because of Soarin being so close.

Her heart was beating fast, but it felt… strong. She didn’t know how else to describe it. It wasn’t painful or causing pressure, it felt like it was energizing her. The feeling gave her pause about Soarin. If she felt this much strength then it meant Soarin was still holding on within, and perhaps feeling exactly what she felt right now. Did that mean he knew she was there too? Could she see him from within his body even though he wasn’t in control? If her very presence was helping his own strength grow, then it made feel more confident about her plan. There’d be no doubt his will would be a key factor in the separation once they used the Elements of Harmony on—

Dash’s thoughts were cut off and a cold chill ran down her spine, a tremendous sense of dread smacking her right in the face as she realized… Sombra wasn’t looking at Spitfire… he was looking at her. His red pupils were fixed on a point staring right over Spitfire’s shoulder.

She shuddered and took a step backwards. That sealed it, Sombra was most definitely being wary of her after what happened last time.

Spitfire suddenly looked over her shoulder. Dash blinked as she shifted her eyes, seeing Spitfire staring right at her.

Dash’s pupils danced back and forth from Spitfire to Sombra several times.

With a deep breath and a long exhale through her nostrils, Spitfire returned her eyes to Sombra.

“Now.”

Dash gasped as she suddenly felt something press hard into her back. Her goggles flew off the top of her head as she lurched forward and was forced down.

“WHAT THE—?!”

“ACK!” Dash yelped as she hit the ground. Her eyes opening wide in horror as the Streak twins pressed their hooves down on her back and pinned her to the ground.

She frantically looked back and forth.

Matteo squawked in surprise as Bomber, Calm Wind, and Valkyrie grabbed him and forced him down.

“HEY!!!!” Squall yelled as Macho Savage and Air Mach tackled and held him to the ground.

“EEP!” Little Star squeaked as High Winds hooked her in a headlock and held onto her tight despite her immediate flailing.

What was happening?!

Dash instantly began to panic, caught completely off guard and thoroughly pinned to the point where she could barely move. Her strength was no match for the combined strength of the twin stallions.

Sombra blinked, lifting his brow slightly as the odd scene of a scuffle within the group played out before him. No doubt because the pony who was able to weaken him was being restrained.

Spitfire turned her back to Sombra, facing Dash directly and narrowing her eyes into a glare while shaking her head.

“You know, Dash… part of me had confidence in you. Confidence that you would recognize the situation and understand what had to be done, why we decided to take this approach…” She started moving back through the shallows and towards Dash. “But I had to face the facts. You were compromised the moment your old friends showed up. Did you really expect me to believe you’d accept my orders and keep quiet? I know how you are.”

Dash’s pupils slowly shrank as Spitfire got closer.

“But honestly?” Spitfire went on. “While I expected us to be at odds… I didn’t expect you to have the balls to go through with it. Yet here we are. I’m glad I took extra precautions.” Spitfire slowly glanced away from Dash.

Dash was in complete shock as she slowly followed Spitfire’s gaze and saw… Storm. He was not being pinned down like the rest. He was just standing there, staring at her.

She couldn’t believe it, he actually did it… he backstabbed her.

Or… wait, did he? What did Spitfire mean by ‘extra precautions’?

“Right after your friends showed up,” Spitfire continued. “I assigned Storm Front to keep a close eye on you and keep me informed.”

Dash’s eyes snapped back to Spitfire and widened considerably. Storm averted his eyes from both of them.

“But he didn’t really have to try all that hard. You did his work for him, pulled him right in and spilled it all,” Spitfire explained.

Dash could barely process it. Storm… was ordered to watch her?

“Look Dash,” Spitfire growled as she stopped in front of Dash and glared down at her. “I get that you’re Silver’s special little protégé and all… He always has his nose in my ear, questioning my orders and decisions more times than I can count. I don’t want my Wonderbolts to follow me blindly, I encourage them to keep an open mind and to speak out if they feel something is wrong. But this…? In this particular case, there is a very big difference between you and Silver.”

Dash nearly squeaked as Spitfire bent down and got right in her face.

“SILVER. ISN’T. A ROOKIE!” she yelled, causing Dash to squint. “His experience speaks for itself, so he has more space than anypony else to come forth and speak out. His opinions on my choices hold more than enough weight for me to fully acknowledge and consider what he has to suggest without an ounce of hesitation. Having the gall to think you can do the same with so little experience under your belt is absurd. It really doesn’t help that you tried to be sneaky about it. You weren’t sure if I’d listen so you decided to go behind my back? Unbelievable, do you really think Silver would have done that? No. He would have come right up to me and made his objections clear. If you had done that, I would have given my objections right out, and I wouldn’t have had to put you in this position right now. Your subversive approach is both cowardly, and insulting!”

Dash felt like the world was crashing down on top of her as Spitfire berated her. Even though what she just said, in a way, contradicted with what Silver himself had said to her earlier.

Spitfire pulled her head away and stood up, keeping her strong glare beating down on Dash. She started to turn, but stopped.

“Oh, and don’t expect your friends to show up,” she added. Dash gasped. “Yeah, that little plan to tip off Luna and lead her out here? It’s not happening. I’ve already addressed that too. I’m NOT letting you mess this up with so much at risk!”

“W…WAIT!!!” Dash suddenly found her voice, panicking to the point of shaking as she tried to squirm, but couldn’t get free. “Just listen to me!” she pleaded. “We can—!”

“SHUT UP!” Spitfire barked down at her, cutting Dash off abruptly. “We can what?! I know what your plan is already, why do you think you’re being restrained?! You expect me to trust ponies who have no idea what we’ve been through and have no idea why we’re acting against the gods they are aligned with! I don’t care what you said to them to ‘convince’ them. I made it clear you were not to speak to them due to the risks of their association and you did it anyway! You disobeyed a direct order and attempted to undercut our mission on top of it!”

Dash was perfectly still, silenced as a feeling of complete powerlessness rushed through her.

Spitfire turned her back to Dash, but looked over her shoulder on more time.

“If we live through this… you and I are going to have PLENTY to talk about.” She said no more as she started walking, making her way back out into the shallows and towards Sombra.

No. No. No. No. NO! Dash was not going to accept this. She quickly looked up at the Streak twins.

“Fire! Lightning! Guys! Listen to me! You gotta let me go!” she pleaded.

They didn’t listen. Lightning looked down at her briefly, but Fire cleared his throat and shook his head.

Dash’s pupils darted around. No, there had to be somepony that was unsure about Spitfire’s plan. She refused to believe they were all going along with her.

“BLAZE!” she yelled, Blaze just glancing at her. “Silver was in on this! He agrees with me and—Blaze?”

Blaze turned and walked away.

Dash panicked even more. She looked over towards Squad Zero. Shine Struck was looking towards her, but wore a look of hesitation, averting her eyes as Soon as Dash looked. Hopelessness starting to creep in, Dash turned her eyes to Fleetfoot.

“FLEET! PLEASE! C’mon Fleet, you have to hear me out!” she yelled. Fleetfoot visibly shuddered and her ears drooped down. “Fleet! You gotta believe me! I know what can fix this!”

Fleetfoot turned her head and looked towards Dash with a very solemn look in her eyes that made Dash’s heart drop.

“I’m… sorry Dash…” Fleetfoot said weakly as she turned away.

Dash lay still in utter disbelief.

Not even Fleetfoot was willing to listen. If she wouldn’t… then…

They were all behind Spitfire, one hundred percent. She was alone.

It was over.

All that planning. All that work. All that built up confidence through steeling her nerves and the motivational meeting with Silver.

All gone in an instant.

She thought she had executed it perfectly. She thought she had led Spitfire on just as well as the rest! But in the end… Spitfire was one step ahead of her the whole time.

She thought Storm was a problem that she had created for herself, but Storm was planted there as a mole from the start?! But he had tried to talk her out of it… Were his attempts to convince her otherwise his way of trying to steer her away from this outcome?

All of her grandstanding and acting… Was it all an act from Spitfire too? Constantly asking her to cooperate as if she had no idea what Dash was doing… Asking her to speak out to Luna in their meeting… set up a fake guarantee of her support to Luna… falsely argue with her about it in front of Luna… and then compliment her later on a job well done? Spitfire did ALL OF THIS… while aware of her plan?

Just how hard had Spitfire played her here?! She had been completely outmaneuvered.

It was no use. The Streak twins had her pinned and her squad was restrained. Storm was clearly not on her side and now apparently Twilight was going to be barred from her part of the plan too.

It was over before it ever started.

She was now forced to sit still and watch, completely at the mercy of Spitfire and powerless to stop her from believing her dead end plan had any chance of success.

“Fleetfoot,” Spitfire beckoned her to follow. Fleetfoot swallowed and shakily fell in line behind her. “You guys too,” Spitfire motioned to Descent, Blazetail, and Flashwind. “Come on.”

The three did as Spitfire asked, Starry following behind Descent too.

Sombra eventually shifted his focus from Dash to Spitfire as she and her little band of leaders made their way out into the shallows, once again coming towards him.

“What are they doing?!” Soarin yelled as he stared at Dash being pinned. “DASH! Spitfire, what the hell?!”

“Be quiet!” Sombra hissed at him.

“She nearly crippled your hold on Soarin last time…” Celestia thought aloud. “Why would they…?

“DAAAAASH!!!!! Soarin yelled again, trying to pull free of his bindings.

“I said SHUT UP!” Soarin snarled as Soarin’s bindings yanked him down. “If you don’t want me to accidentally kill one of them then be silent!” he threatened.

Soarin didn’t believe he would, but he couldn’t keep his eyes or mind off the sight of Dash being held down against her will by his own comrades.

As Spitfire and the group brushed their hooves through the shallow waters, Sombra grew wary of their advance. His horn lit up and conjured his sword at his side.

Fleetfoot, Descent, Starry, Blazetail, and Flashwind all came to a quick and sudden halt… but Spitfire kept moving forward. The water slowly reached further up past her hooves, slowing her pace slightly as the water now nearly reached all the way up the lower half of her legs.

Sombra grunted and his sword suddenly shot outward, careening towards Spitfire. Spitfire stopped and held still… and the tip of Sombra’s sword halted less than an inch from her face.

Spitfire didn’t flinch, nor did she blink. She kept looking in the direction of Sombra as if his sword were not even there. She slowly reached up and removed her goggles, dropping them into the water beside her. Then she removed her mask, freeing her head and shaking her mane out. She took a long deep breath and gave a determined gaze towards Sombra.

“Sombra,” she said his name with strength in her voice. Sombra's sword inched backwards slightly as he blinked. “I’m here to speak to you,” she said in a formal tone.

Sombra lifted an eyebrow, saying nothing for several moments before his sword pulled away from Spitfire’s face and slowly vanished. He narrowed his eyes, looking Spitfire over carefully.

“Then speak,” his voice echoed towards her, Soarin’s eyes lighting up, but Soarin’s mouth not moving as his words met her ears.

“Before I do,” Spitfire pointed to her face. “I want you to look at me.” She requested. Sombra look confused.

“I believe I already am,” he said with slight annoyance.

“I just want you to understand what you are seeing,” Spitfire added. Sombra tilted his head slightly. “I am here, standing before you right now… as the captain of the Wonderbolts and nothing more.” She held out an arm to her side. “I am not here upon the request of Princess Luna or any other sovereign authority. I stand before you independently and have brought along several of the finest ranks I represent, all of them ordered to stand down as a sign of good faith. Furthermore, I remove my goggles, and mask worn for combat and duty so nothing stands between your eyes and mine.”

“And…?” Sombra growled, a loud snort shooting from his nostrils.

“We come seeking the truth,” Spitfire emphasized while slamming her hoof into the water.

“Hm?” Sombra lifted his brow slightly. Spitfire kept it together, he looked interested or at least curious and that was exactly what she was hoping for.

“Am I right to say you are aware of everything that’s been happening around Soarin up to this point? Regarding our conflict against the Shadowbolts through the moment you were released?” she asked.

“I would not say that I have been fully invested in your personal struggles, but I am aware of them. Your fight means nothing to me. My time and energy has been focused inward.” He explained sharply.

“But you know of it at least,” Spitfire pressed.

“That is correct. I know you have an enemy,” Sombra specified.

“Good enough, I’ll get right to the point then,” Spitfire nodded. “We’re here right now…” she paused, narrowing her eyes. “Because we have lost faith in the gods.”

The air between them went deathly silent.

Sombra did not visibly react to her words aside from narrowing his eyes very slowly and giving Spitfire a long hard look. Spitfire let her statement sink in before taking a step forward.

“We’ve been fighting a battle… and it’s been a long battle. The Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts have been at war, bringing carnage to the point where we’ve willingly detached ourselves from civilization to ensure no one else is drawn in. They’ve wanted something from us at the word and command of a leader who we believe is being controlled by an unseen force we have yet to find out anything about or even see… and we have been fighting to prevent them from obtaining it. From the start… their goal has involved Soarin, or now I believe it may have been you all along… but that’s beside the point. We have been fighting for Soarin and each other, the Shadowbolts are seemingly hell-bent on killing us all and we have endured. But we have endured with the Gods at our side the whole time. And through our time with them, they have given us sympathy for our goals, and have offered their best aid. But over time… We have come to the realization that they are trying to direct us along, and if we question anything they believe is right we are met with scorn. One of them knew you were within Soarin all along, but never revealed it to us… and the moment you were set free they have shifted their stance and are acting like our battle with the Shadowbolts never mattered. Not to mention the Shadowbolts have shifted their priority target to you, making us feel as if we were never really an important part of it all.”

Sombra’s face slowly scrunched up as Spitfire spoke. She didn’t know what to make of it, but didn’t let it bother her as she got her words out.

“Now despite their word not always ringing true and constantly testing our trust, they are telling us to believe their word when our very own eyes are telling us a different story. So we wish to cast aside our allegiances for a moment and—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…” Sombra suddenly cut her off. “Spare me while you’re ahead.” He said with a loud huff. Spitfire froze, her mouth still open mid-sentence. “Such forced formality and rehearsed lines… Did you practice this in front of a mirror? You think your unnatural tone will help me believe this drivel you spout? Enough. Nopony in this age speaks this way.”

“I…” Spitfire blinked. “What?”

“Feh,” Sombra grunted. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but if you expect me to believe you’re not here on the word of your ‘beloved gods’ then you take me for a fool. Stop wasting my time. Leave.”

“No! I…!” Spitfire reached up, but then paused. She slammed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. “Okay… okay…” she released a low, annoyed nicker as she opened her eyes. “You know what, fine. I was under the impression that I was addressing ancient royalty that would respect a formal tone, but if you’re going to be like this, then forget it!”

Spitfire’s sudden shift from formality to rough talking made everypony else feel a little uneasy. Was it really a good idea to give such a strong rebuke to a being that was very capable of hurting them… a lot?

“If you’d prefer I just be upfront and speak my mind, then I will. I’m here to talk to you because I think the gods are damn liars and I’m sick of them leading us around like we don’t have a choice. Is that better?” she explained in a very harsh tone as Sombra watched her, listening with ears fully turned. “If you want me to use more colorful language, I can,” she added. “Because I have some choice words for them, ESPECIALLY for Discord!”

Sombra’s eyes twitched just once as she brought up Discord, a low hum coming from him as his eyes glowed softly.

“You have my attention…” he said, trailing off as he tipped his head. Spitfire perked up, but tried not to show it.

“Good, now can we—”

“BUT…” Sombra cut her off again. “What proof do you have to claim your independence?”

Spitfire froze, her mouth opened, but she had no answer to give him.

“You speak in words that align with my thoughts, but…” Sombra narrowed his gaze. “The gods are a snide lot… Something I once learned the hard way. So unless you can provide me with some solid evidence… I refuse to make the same mistake twice.”

Spitfire closed her mouth and stared with her eyes fully open.

“Well? I’m waiting,” Sombra pressed.

“I…” Spitfire looked down and sighed. “I have no proof other than my word,” she admitted, hoping honesty would carry weight. She looked back at the others briefly too. “And the fact that we’re here on our own accord.”

“So you have said,” Sombra narrowed his eyes as the blue fumes of magic slowly rose from them.

“But…” Spitfire leaned forward, but nothing else to say came to mind.

“Be gone,” Sombra made a head motion to his side. “I will not entertain your nonsense any longer,” he said definitively and began to turn. Spitfire’s eyes widened, a feeling of desperation gripping her. She wasn’t going to let this end so easily.

“Hey!” she yelled and splashed a hoof into the water. Sombra turned all the way around, but didn’t move. “Don’t you turn your back on me!” she demanded. Sombra remained still for a moment before glancing over his shoulder.

“Give me one good reason not to.”

“Just listen to me!” Spitfire spat as she took a few steps forward, the water reaching a little higher up her leg. Everypony watching flinched as she made the move, brazenly putting herself closer to him.

Sombra’s horn lit up with magic, but none of his weapons appeared as if simply warning her not get too close.

“Fine,” Spitfire huffed as she flattened her brow. “I don’t have any proof. I probably should have anticipated your skepticism, but I didn’t and there’s nothing I can do about that now,” she fully admitted. “But you said you were at least aware of our situation right? Have you been seeing our disagreements with them? Have you seen the way they’ve misled us? I’m not lying about what I said about you. We were told all along that Soarin was simply dealing with some kind of messed up magic inside of him, not a full blown spirit of another pony! They kept that from us and lied to us about it over and over again, yet they still expect us to believe them and follow them without question! You clearly don’t think we’re capable of questioning them, but after what we’ve been through how could we not?”

Sombra stood still, listening.

“Since you’ve been released they’ve gone on and on about how we must destroy you and how you must not be allowed to exist and all kinds of crap like that. They don’t bother to elaborate, if we question them they just insist it has to be done, change the subject, or shout us down. They refuse to address our interests in the matter. It’s all about what they want. It’s nothing but Sombra, Sombra, Sombra, evil, evil, evil, yadda, yadda, the world will end if you sneeze!” she added sarcastically at the end.

Sombra remained silent.

Spitfire shook her head vigorously.

“But you want to know why we’re here? Why we’re not buying their crap? Because what they say about you… and what’s been written about you in history books…” she paused and pointed at her eyes. “None of it lines up with what we’ve seen with our own eyes!”

That did it. Sombra slowly turned to face her again.

“Actions speak louder than words!” Spitfire went on, the passion in her voice never wavering. “And if you’re the ruthless, cold-blooded killer the gods keep claiming you to be, then why didn’t you kill any of us during our last confrontation?!”

Sombra’s ears stood up and his eyes opened wider.

“You never struck first!” Spitfire kept pressing. “You only fought if you were attacked, and once a pony was down, you left them be!” She paused and looked over her shoulder at Starry Skies standing beside Descent, pointing a hoof towards her. “Starry Skies here stood firmly between you and her comrade to protect him after you struck him down… and you didn’t lay a hoof on her! You were clearly only interested in turning your power on the gods! And since we witnessed all of that… the gods have only been interested in coming after you!”

“Hmmm…” Sombra hummed as he glanced down.

“Look, I get it,” Spitfire faced him again and huffed. “You don’t think much of us, or ponies of ‘this age’ in general. That much has been clear. But if you were speaking to us before any of this happened? I think I’d completely agree with you. None of us ever really questioned the word of Celestia or Luna. But right here? Right now? After all of this and all we’ve been through? We’d be mindless drones if we didn’t question it.” She shook her head. “We feel betrayed, led on, and lied to… and as I’ve said, the worst part of it all is how they keep going like they’ve done nothing wrong. They can drag my face through the mud only so many times before I start to wonder why I’m just letting them do it.”

Spitfire paused and looked Sombra over carefully. He was still glancing down. Was he thinking about it? Was she getting through to him?

“I want to know what they’re keeping from us,” she narrowed her eyes and growled quietly. “They have used us and our struggles to advance their own agenda behind our backs, and even though we’ve realized this and called them out on it, they keep on going as if we’ve never mattered while persistently keeping us in the dark. I want to know why we’ve really been fighting… I want to know what all our effort has really been for, because up to this point it seems like it’s all been one big fat lie.” Spitfire snorted. “I’m done being their pawns… I want the damn TRUTH…” she pointed a hoof at him. “And I want to hear it from YOU!”

A long pause stretched out between them, Spitfire keeping her hoof extended as Sombra looked up and locked eyes with her. Nothing was said for several moments, all those standing behind Spitfire breathless with anticipation.

Rainbow Dash had conflicted feelings from what she was seeing. She was still convinced that Spitfire wasn’t going to get anywhere… but the way she had just laid out everything in front of Sombra seemed very convincing, much more so than she expected her to be. She didn’t agree with Spitfire’s approach, but it was clear she wasn’t going in blind. What was going to happen? How was Sombra going to react?

“Interesting…” Sombra finally spoke, everypony perking up. “How very, very interesting. Perhaps I have misjudged you.”

Spitfire tried to hide any sort of visual reaction, but it was hard to. Sombra tipped his head slightly.

“Your observations and conclusions about the situation are impressive. You are right to assume that I believe you are mindless followers, but that belief is being tested. Or… maybe you’re just a very good actor, though I doubt it after your less than stellar attempts to sway me with formality.”

Spitfire’s eye twitched, but she held down any retort. This was going better than expected and she didn’t want to ruin it.

“But determination isn’t something that can be faked. Your eyes are filled with strength and your words are heavily weighted. There isn’t an ounce of falsehood within them and that never gets past me. You’re not going to back down, I can see that much.”

“Damn right I’m not,” Spitfire added instinctively. Sombra snorted, but smirked at her, appearing to be impressed by her moxie.

“As for what the gods ultimately wished to achieve with me and this scenario…” he began, everypony leaning forward to listen as he suddenly went the direction they were hoping. “There actually isn’t much of anything I can tell you.”

There was almost an audible collective, short exhale as everypony heard it. It wasn’t quite what they were hoping for. Sombra shook his head.

“But that’s because there likely isn’t one answer. It would depend on which of the gods you ask,” Sombra added.

“Huh?” Spitfire blinked.

“Feh,” Sombra gritted his teeth. “You think they only lie to you? You’d be surprised how much they lie amongst themselves as well.”

Several glances passed around the Wonderbolts and Renegades. They weren’t sure how to react to that, especially Spitfire. She assumed the gods were mostly all on the same page, but they were shortchanging each other as well? How much farther did the rabbit hole of deception go? Spitfire swallowed and made a hoof motion towards Sombra.

“O…okay, that’s great to know,” she said with slight sarcasm. “Now what about you? What do they really fear about you? How did this all start?”

Everypony refocused as Spitfire posed the question. This was the real meat of the information they sought, and it was Spitfire’s gateway towards their real objective.

But Sombra didn’t say anything for several moments. He remained still and silent, keeping his eyes locked on Spitfire. Though they eventually began to narrow slowly, Spitfire feeling as if he was looking right through her.

“Let me ask you something,” Sombra finally spoke. Spitfire flinched subtly, but collected herself, tipping her head to quietly signal her curiosity. Sombra looked her up and down, his eyes remaining sharp. “Say I believe you… say your words have given me pause and I feel I can trust you… say I tell you everything I know about the gods and how they have bent the narrative about me to favor their own ends…”

He paused and snorted.

“What do you stand to gain from it?” he asked. Spitfire’s ears twitched, a response coming up quickly and without any hesitation.

“We’re tired of being lied to!” she restated. “We want—”

“The truth. I know, you’re just repeating yourself,” Sombra finished for her. “Do not dodge the question… what comes after that? What is your goal?” he pressed.

Spitfire froze in place, gritting her teeth with her eyes wide as she struggled to figure out what he wanted to hear from her. She stared directly into Sombra’s eyes, a slight panic setting in as his sharp gaze pressed an undeniable weight on her.

“You are putting forth a strong dialogue…” Sombra spoke. “But… you can’t hide it from me.”

Spitfire flinched.

“What? Hide what?” she asked, but her tone of voice had clearly changed.

“Spare me,” Sombra rolled his eyes slightly and snorted. “You say you’re here because you want to know the truth against the lies of the gods… that is noble and worthy of my respect to be sure. Perhaps that really is part of the reason you’re here. But…” Sombra glared harshly at Spitfire. “The strength in your eyes is telling me something… it’s telling me you want something. And if I had to wager a guess, it’s something that is NOT to my benefit.”

Spitfire was sunk. She had no idea what to say from here. He had shifted the subject directly to her ultimate goal before she even got halfway through the progression. But she felt even more pressure when Sombra suddenly smirked.

“Do you take me for a fool? I know why you’re here. I know what you’re after,” he said as he shook his head lightly to accompany the smirk. “You’re here for Soarin.”

Spitfire winced hard, she had been fighting to show much physical reaction, but there was no hiding that one. And Sombra clearly noticed.

“Ah… there it is,” he said as he shook his head. “You really thought I wouldn’t put that together? I told you that I was at least aware of your struggles. Do you know whom I owe that to? Soarin of course. I’ve no doubt you share the same care for him that he shares for you.”

“I…!” Spitfire tried to force herself forward. She tried to force herself to respond.

“Shame on you,” Sombra spoke over her as she struggled. “Shame on you for trying to hide your intentions behind something that would catch my attention. What an opportunistic sneak you are. You’re no better than the gods.”

Spitfire’s ears twitched hard and her eyes instantly narrowed into a glare.

Something about that… something about how he just compared her to the gods…

It really pissed her off.

“WAIT!” she took a few steps towards him, splashing into the water as she moved and stopped. “Wait…” she repeated and sighed, scrunching her mouth and trying to hold down an outburst that pried at her lips, desperate to tell him off for the comparison he put forth. “FINE!” She threw a hoof out and rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine, FINE! You caught me!” she said harshly as she nodded. “That is the real reason I’m here. But I’m NOT lying about us wanting to know the truth! Discovery was always part of the plan here so don’t go calling me a sneak when I decided to address something else first!”

“And what reasons have you given me to believe you? Did you not just lead with that in hopes of softening me up?” Sombra asked while lifting an eyebrow. Spitfire bit her lip and a quiet growl escaped her throat. “If you were being genuine you wouldn’t have felt the need to.”

Spitfire exhaled through her nose, a strong rush of air rushing from her nostrils as she fought to keep her cool.

“Okay, look…” She held out a hoof. “The subject of Soarin isn’t a secret. I was going to bring him up eventually, but these are not separate issues. And if you’re looking for honesty, YES… I did purposely lead with the other point! Would you have preferred I just walked up to you and demand Soarin? I’m willing to bet you would have clocked me over the head with one of your magic weapons if I had tried that!” Spitfire huffed.

“Perhaps…” Sombra agreed while tipped his head slightly.

“I wanted to be clear of our position first, how does that sound?” Spitfire sounded like she was losing her patience. It was causing the tense air around everypony watching to tighten further. Some were having trouble deducing whether Spitfire’s current flow of words and thoughts was bravery or insanity. “I wanted to establish our doubt because you clearly have a goal… a goal tied to a version of the story WE don’t know. Soarin is caught in this! He has been forced into this position against his will… and if you don’t enlighten us, then you’re forcing us to believe that you are simply using our friend’s body for your own ends.”

“I don’t see how recounting my life story to you would change the circumstances in any way.” Sombra held his ground adamantly, shaking his head. “Because in the end, to achieve what you seek would mean to take from me the very thing I require to carry out my purpose.”

“Look, there has to be something!” Spitfire took another step forward, the water slowly reaching further up her legs with every step taken. “We came here to talk, so let’s talk. Tell us your story! We won’t get anywhere if you leave us in the dark! Tell us how this all came to be, tell us what your endgame is. From there, maybe we can come to some sort of agreement and—”

“HA HA HA HA!!!!” Sombra suddenly burst out laughing, Soarin’s mouth remaining shut, but his head tipping back as if he was letting out a hearty guffaw. Spitfire’s fur stood on end, an uneasy shiver pulsing through her body as Sombra continued to laugh for several seconds. “AGREEMENT?!” Sombra managed to say as he continued to chuckle. “An agreement!” he repeated as he shook his head and snickered. “Cease thine jests… what is there to agree on? You want me to ultimately hoof over the vessel I have acquired? You might as well ask me to off myself.”

“No!” Spitfire leaned forward, but then tipped back. “That’s not—!” she hesitated and stammered.

“And what exactly do you expect me to do?!” Sombra went on. “Trust you, come with you, and meet with the gods? Talk it over with the very fiends who destroyed me, my kingdom and everything I ever lived and fought for?! Nonsense! Insanity and nonsense!”

Spitfire really didn’t know what it was… but just the very mention of the gods, once again, lit a fire in her chest. She steeled herself and took yet another step forward.

“There has to be a way for us to reach a compromise!” she yelled towards him, refusing to back down. “And I mean with US! Between you and the Wonderbolts! NOT the gods! Stop bringing the gods into this like I’m doing work for those assholes!” she splashed a hoof into the water. “What’s really going on!? Tell us everything! Tell us what you’re after!”

She took another step forward, putting the Wonderbolts and Renegades really on edge. She was getting dangerously close to him now, all sense of spacing in case of a conflict being thrown out the window. Descent was inching forward, grinding his teeth together, but Blazetail was gripping his shoulder encouraging him to let Spitfire keep up the pressure.

“Tell us what you want in return for Soarin!” Spitfire proposed. “What is it?! At this point I don’t care what it might be! We will help you do it!” she threw out there. “We will do ANYTHING to get him back!”

A wave of shock rushed over the spectators as it more or less sounded like Spitfire suggested a complete mutiny. Dash was losing her mind. Spitfire had started strong, but was starting to tip over the edge of the cliff. Whether she was being serious or not was hard to deduce and the very reason Dash made her alternate plan in the first place was on full display. She looked left and right at her squadmates. Squall was thoroughly pinned just like her. Matteo was constantly wiggling to get free, but it was no use with Bomber among those on top of him. And there was definitely no way Star was getting out of High Winds’ head lock, she was much stronger than her.

Dash’s head snapped towards Storm, anger boiling within her the moment she laid eyes on him. She didn’t care if he was given orders before they even started, she didn’t care if he appeared to make efforts to dissuade her… he still went through with it… this was all HIS fault. He didn’t have to follow Spitfire’s orders… but no. He just couldn’t help himself, he just couldn’t do something without telling his daddy, huh?

She didn’t have time to dwell on it, at this point the silence between Spitfire and Sombra had caught her attention. Neither had said a word for several moments.

Sombra narrowed his eyes. Spitfire was just close enough for him to effectively look down upon her even though she was still not right up against him. After another moment of silence… he shook his head.

“The fact that you are asking me such a thing only proves how little you know,” Sombra snorted. Spitfire’s eyes widened, but her angered expression remained. “You clearly do not understand the conflict you are trying to force your way in between,” he explained. “Furthermore, you are treating my possession of Soarin’s body as if it was my own choice. I did not take it. And it is not something I can simply return without giving up that which I desire to accomplish or without detriment to my own existence. I was simply put into a position where commandeering this body was possible… and you can thank your gods for that. This is the result of their work.”

Spitfire’s ears began to droop.

“You have demonstrated perceptiveness in examining my movements,” he went on. “You have done well to recognize that I wish no harm on anypony tied to the puppet strings of the gods. You have offered a compelling perspective, showing awareness and wariness of the omnipotent and their misdeeds… however…” He glared. “That perspective is still clouded by your short life in the very world controlled by that which I seek to destroy. You want to help me? You want to do something in return for Soarin? My goal is to face down the gods… destroy them… and replace them!”

Spitfire flinched, a burst of air escaping her throat.

“I do not believe you would be so willing to carry out such a task, would you?” Sombra scoffed. “No. You cannot help, you will not help, and that’s why there will be no agreement, no compromise! I will break all of Equestria free from the grasp of the gods! There is nopony else who can do this, and nopony that exists who has the courage to stand with me! So you will have to accept that I need this body! I will not let this chance pass… a chance I should have never had in the first place. Yet here I am now with a golden opportunity thanks to the foolishness of Celestia.”

Nearly everypony perked up at the mention of Celestia, but Sombra did not go any further. He turned his side to Spitfire.

“You have made a valiant effort, but you’re blind to what’s at stake. There is nothing you can do or suggest to convince me otherwise.”

“T-Then…!” Spitfire stuttered. “Then tell us!” she yelled desperately. “How are we supposed to understand it if you won’t give us the story?! That’s why I’m asking you to—!”

“Leave,” Sombra cut her off harshly. Spitfire’s pupils shrank. “You already have my answer on Soarin. Since that is what you seek, there is no reason for us to speak further.”

Spitfire began to shake. It was a visible movement of twitches, flinches, and tremors as she stared at Sombra with her eyes stuck open wide. He remained turned to the side, but looked away from her.

“If you are truly against the gods as you claim to be, then you will take heed of my words and stay out of my way. If you do not, then you prove my skepticism and your words are empty. Now be gone.”

He turned his back to her.

And something in Spitfire snapped.

“RRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

Everypony gasped. Sombra’s eyes widened slightly as he looked over his shoulder.

Spitfire was screaming, slamming her hooves into the water, splashing herself all over. Some of the forest animals that had remained present at a safe distance scattered, the rest looked in her direction.

“NO!” NO, NO, NO!” she yelled as she continued to throw a tantrum. “DON’T YOU TURN AWAY FROM ME! GIVE HIM BACK! GIVE HIM BACK!” her eyes were filled with rage, her ears were folded back against her head and her teeth were grinding so hard together that they made noise. “GIVE ME MY BEST FRIEND BACK! NOW!!!!!!!”

Sombra turned slightly back towards her, keeping his eyes locked on her as they narrowed.

“FORGET IT! I don’t care about you!” Spitfire shouted, heavy heaving breaths wheezing from her throat. “I don’t care about the gods or whatever the hell went on between you! Everything was perfectly fine until you all decided to get us tangled in your crap! And my best friend has been suffering through ALL of it! ALL OF IT!!!!!”

Everypony watched in horror as she rushed forward, her body sinking deeper into the water as she pushed herself towards Sombra. Sombra didn’t move, nor did he call forth his magic. He let her come towards him, remaining in place with his hooves floating on the surface of the water as she waded right up to his front left hoof and grabbed it, gripping it as hard as she could.

“So give me a fucking answer already! What will it take for you to give him up?! What do we have to do?! TELL ME!” she shouted while trying to shake his large hoof. Tears were rolling down her face as she bent her neck back and glared directly upward, past his massive chest and into his eyes glaring back down at her.

But a look of disgust rolled onto his face.

“What is this whining I’m hearing?” he asked with a tone that matched his expression. “Such an undignified tantrum. You claim to represent this…force?” he made a small head motion towards the Wonderbolts and Renegades. “You are a commander and a leader? How pathetic… spare me the childish theatrics. You have my answer, I will hear no more of this.”

“You will hear me you son of a bitch!” Spitfire brushed off his comments and gripped his hoof tighter. “Forget about who I represent! Forget about being official! This is PERSONAL! Especially for me!” she shouted up to him. Sombra’s ears twitched as she phrased it that particular way. “Soarin means more to us! He’s not just some random pony who flies under a title! He’s PART of us! Part of our FAMILY! Not one member of the Wonderbolts is expendable or taken for granted! We’ve already lost a few from our ranks as we’ve fought and each loss felt like a piece of us had been torn away! But Soarin also means more to ME! Without him, I wouldn’t be the pony I am today! He’s been with me my whole life and I’d DIE before giving up on him! I would give up everything, rank, status, fame, you name it! EVERYTHING… for him! So you can call me childish, whiney, or whatever you want… I’m NOT going to be civil while you’re walking around in his body and using it for your own personal revenge!”

Sombra’s expression began to soften slightly, the disgust disappearing as he listened. His eyes opened a little wider as she spoke as if something within her words caught his attention. Spitfire began rocking a little as she tried to shake his leg even though she couldn’t make it budge.

“You want me to prove I hate the gods?! I hate the gods because one of them decided it was okay to fuck up the life of my best friend and use him as a means to an end! I hate the gods because even after they pulled that crap, they keep trying to yank me around like I should just kneel at their hooves and accept their word as law! I hate the gods because they’ve dragged me and everypony I care about through the mud while constantly revealing that they’ve been keeping secret after secret from us, shifting their reason why we should care about what we’re doing!” She sniffled hard, tears streaming down her cheeks, but the look of pure anger and rage never leaving her face. “I hate the gods so damn much that I’ve gone out of my way to go right behind their backs to come see you without them! I don’t trust them or anypony that has even the slightest connection to them!” She removed a hoof from his and sharply pointed towards Rainbow Dash being pinned. “Not even one of my own recruits because she’s an Element of Harmony and could have ruined all of this! She even tried to! I’m having her restrained to get this chance! A chance to talk! To convince you… to give… my friend… BACK!” she ended with heavy heaving breaths in between words.

Sombra stared down at her… and stared for a long time. He didn’t move for what felt like minutes.

Eventually he looked up and towards Rainbow Dash being pinned by the Streak twins. There was no doubt he was acknowledging that the pony among them who had the power to cripple his control was being held back.

Sombra looked back down at Spitfire… and sighed.

“Your passion for those you care for is commendable and honorable… and your view towards those you command reminds me of how I once treated my own knights and soldiers. So I refuse to not acknowledge the strength in your words…”

He paused, but suddenly narrowed his eyes into a glare. He lifted his arm, yanking his hoof free from Spitfire’s grip.

“But you have yet to acknowledge the strength in mine.”

Spitfire flinched, her eyes twitching as Sombra stood over her.

“You have thoroughly convinced me that you are speaking from the heart. You appear to be sincere. But despite your different motivations, you are making the same fatal mistake as the gods when judging my actions.”

Spitfire remained motionless as Sombra lowered his head to look her right in the eyes up close.

“I am NOT doing this for myself. That which I seek is for the benefit of the world… for ALL living beings.” He said harshly, each word felt like a surge of pressure down upon Spitfire. “The suffering and sacrifice of your friend is a sad tale, one I’ve already heard directly from him. His spirit persists within me and is still fighting me, holding me back from taking full control.”

Dash watched as several ponies reacted to the mention of Soarin. It wasn’t the first Sombra had mentioned of him, but to hear directly from his lips that Soarin was still in there was unexpected. Of course Dash knew this from the start… she’d be dead if he wasn’t.

“If you are woven of the same cloth as he,” Sombra continued as he remained bent down towards Spitfire. “Then your passion and desire to fight for what you believe in is something I’m very familiar with already. But you will not sway me from what I believe in.” He slowly pulled his head back and stood upright once more. “There is a great danger to your world, and it has persisted for a thousand years since they exposed themselves to the world… Since the day your gods first descended from the skies… the inhabitants of the lands have been oblivious and blind… foolishly comforted by sweet lies and sublime appearances. Their true colors are those of deception, and betrayal, thinking only for themselves and how they might exploit us mortals while hiding their shortcomings and flaws behind a veil of being omnipotent. They are forever living amplifications of the worst sins any being can exude… Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride… I have seen it all and experienced it all with my own two eyes and the expense of my own body. They would never hesitate to protect themselves, even if it meant throwing every living pony into the fiery pits of Tartarus just to save their own hides! But you know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? Why else would they keep lying to you, if not to protect their own interests?”

Spitfire’s pupils shrank as Sombra remained fixed right in front of her face.

“They are a scourge, a disease, a fallacy. And I intend to bring the whole charade to an end! I must… I am the only one who truly knows of their hubris. And I believe I can be the one… who stops it. The circumstances I have been provided may not be ideal to you, but at times drastic change requires extreme measures. While it is unfortunate, the sacrifice of your friends by the gods has, in the end, given me the chance to forever ensure that no other pony is ever manipulated by them. If you wish for no other pony to ever share his fate, then you will heed my warning to stay out of my way and not interfere.”

That sealed it. There was no way any amount of talking or convincing was going to work. Rainbow Dash couldn’t see Spitfire’s face from her position, but she had a feeling it was wrought with defeat.

“So I shall repeat myself one more time,” Sombra snorted. “My answer remains the same. It was not taken by my hoof, but Soarin’s body is now mine. And it shall remain mine so I might free Equestria from the disease that is these self-proclaimed gods.”

Spitfire was gritting her teeth, her body subtly shuddering as she felt stuck and unsure. She had been relying on hope… hope that there was something that would come from this, no matter how small. But now? A harsh realization was washing over her… they had wasted their time and effort. While they confirmed that Sombra was indeed passive and not exactly what the gods claimed him to be… that was only the surface. They did not get any information, no color, and no direction to turn.

And most of all… not even a smidgen of possibility of getting Soarin back.

Her thoughts swirled madly, around and around as she desperately searched for what to do next, but she flinched and shifted backwards as Sombra took a step towards her, water splashing and rippling from her sudden movement.

“Now don’t make me say it again. LEAVE,” Sombra growled. “And do not—”

He stopped abruptly. His eyes widening and his horn illuminating with his magic as he looked up and frantically glanced around.

Spitfire blinked, everypony else noticed as well.

Suddenly, all the forest animals that were still around bolted, fleeing the scene quickly. Everypony heard shuffling and whisking noises that were growing louder. The noises were close, and getting closer, much closer than they should have been before they noticed, but they were distracted by Sombra.

“SPITFIRE!” Descent yelled as the Wonderbolts and Renegades all turned in random directions and set their hooves.

By the time Spitfire had turned around… it was already too late.

Crystal Empire soldiers…

Lunar Guard thestrels…

They were everywhere, popping out in every direction, emerging from the trees surrounding the lake. Pegasi and thestrels quickly took to the air, making use of the high ceiling over the area, unicorns aimed their horns with built up magic, and behind them all earth ponies armed with crystal spears and shields picketed escape routes.

They were surrounded, completely surrounded.

Spitfire looked in every direction, baffled and confused.

How? This wasn’t supposed to happen. She had specifically assigned a few Wonderbolts to discreetly apprehend Twilight Sparkle!

Rainbow Dash on the other hoof… was pleasantly surprised. Spitfire had said she had taken care of it, that she took precautions to prevent Twilight from alerting Luna… but it progressed anyway, the Crystal and Lunar guard were here! Her head was spinning with curiosity. There was no way Twilight stood a chance against a group of Wonderbolts… and even if she did have her friends around, the only pony who might put up a fight was Applejack… unless Pinkie did something.

Either way it didn’t matter… Dash suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline. Confidence filled her once more. But at the same time, how were things going to play out from here? After all, the next part required her and her squad to not be… well… pinned to the ground.

“Spitfire… Descent…” Luna’s voice suddenly sounded from the forest near where the Wonderbolts and Renegades were gathered.

Luna emerged from the trees, elegantly flying over the large roots into the opening and landing in front of a group of thestrels. Captain P.L. was right behind her in full armor, landing by her side. Close by, Shining Armor and Cadence emerged, stepping out from behind a large tree trunk. Luna was holding an icy gaze towards Spitfire and Sombra, Shining Armor was glaring harshly, and Cadence looked as if she couldn’t decide if she was angry or disappointed, maybe a bit of both.

But the thing that caught Dash’s attention the most? Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were behind the crystal royalty. Each of them was wearing their Element of Harmony, the Element of Loyalty hovering in the air beside Twilight within her magic.

They were all here… Dash’s heart began to pound with anticipation. She wasn’t prepared for this turnaround and the adrenaline was flowing.

She made eye contact with Twilight. Twilight did not give any motion, signal, or nod, but the look in her eyes was all Dash needed to see.

The plan was still on… now everything just had to go south for the other parties involved. And based on the tension in the air, Dash had a feeling that was going to happen soon. Hopefully… when that moment came, she’d be freed.

“We are shocked, to say the least…” Luna began, a very harsh tone laced within her voice as her stoic stare hardened into a glare. “It was clear that there was doubt, but betrayal?!” Luna raised her voice. “Unthinkable… we cannot believe you would be so foolish as to not heed our warnings of Sombra!”

Spitfire remained in place for several moments as she stared towards the lakes edge. Eventually, she looked over her shoulder at Sombra… and Sombra looked down at her.

They made eye contact, Spitfire giving him a long, hard look.

She snorted, turned, and started wading her way through the water in the direction of Luna.

“Betrayal, huh?” Spitfire spoke as she moved. “That’s awfully ironic coming from you, Princess!” she said sarcastically as she reached the others and stood beside Descent. “After everything you’ve put us through, did you really think we’d still listen to you?” she put sharply.

“How DARE you!” Luna growled. “Have we not admitted fault? We have acknowledged our missteps and even reached out to compromise on our differences!” She stomped a hoof and motioned to Sombra. “Yet this is how you decide to act? All of our discussions not yet even a day old were charades?!”

“Acknowledged?!” Spitfire scoffed loudly. “With what?! More lies and pats on the head? More guarantees that you know what’s best when you clearly don’t?!” She shook her head. “Face it Luna, you… and especially Discord have both used up our patience. There’s a little something you should look up in the dictionary called HONESTY! It’s something required for trust, and if you test it enough and start taking it for granted, it gets real hard to believe in you!”

“ENOUGH!!!!!!!!” Luna’s voice boomed, the Royal Canterlot Voice pouring forth causing the water to ripple and the tree leaves to rustle. “You speak critically of us, but in your doubt you decided it was moral to approach this heretic?!”

“‘In my doubt’ I decided I had enough of your crap!” Spitfire retorted. “And decided it was time to do things my own way!”

“You do not understand who he is and what he represents!” Luna shot back while pointing a hoof towards Sombra.

“So what if I don’t?!” Spitfire threw out a hoof to her side. “What you’ve claimed about him doesn’t match up with what we’ve seen for ourselves! You tell me how I’m supposed to think about that after we’ve caught you lying several times before this!” She moved her hoof to point at Sombra. “And if everything you keep saying about him is true, then why didn’t he kill us before you got here, huh?! Why did he hear me out?!”

Luna flinched, her harsh glare and gritted teeth holding persistently, but her eyelids twitching. Several ponies near her including Shining Armor and Cadence glanced towards her. There wasn’t a shred of doubt evident in their faces, but Luna’s lack of an instant rebuke caught their attention.

Spitfire didn’t let the opportunity go to waste.

“How about it, Luna? Want us to trust you again?” Spitfire pressed. “How about you start by telling us the truth?!” She made a head motion towards Sombra. “This stubborn lunkhead doesn’t think it’s worth the trouble, but, but maybe you do?!” She turned and glared out towards Sombra. “Who is Sombra really?!” She swiftly turned back to Luna. “What really happened between him and the gods a thousand or so years ago?! Why are you so concerned about his existence that Soarin has literally become an afterthought for you?! Why do you really fear him?! Or do you just hate him for some other, personal or trivial reason that’s just too embarrassing to admit?!”

At the center of the lake, Sombra was listening carefully… and he lifted an eyebrow as Spitfire barked at Luna.

“And most of all,” Spitfire continued. “WHY have you dragged our lives into this?! Why did you and the other gods think it was okay to use us and our own conflict as a means to deal with something that’s only significant to you?!”

“WE DID NO SUCH THING!” Luna roared, her eyes snapping open wide as she slammed her hooves to the ground and cause the ground to shudder.

“BUT YOUR SISTER DID!” Spitfire fired right back and pointed a hoof at Sombra. “GO ON AND TELL ME THIS ISN’T THE BODY OF MY BEST FRIEND! GO ON AND TELL ME SOARIN WASN’T USED FOR HER PERSONAL ENDS! WELL?! HOW ABOUT YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT?!”

“SHE SAVED HIS LIFE!” Luna’s voice nearly blew back those standing near her.

“DID SHE NOW?!” Spitfire didn’t back off as she swung both her hooves towards Sombra. “THAT SURE WORKED OUT WELL FOR HIM, DIDN’T IT?!”

“SILENCE!!!!!!!” Luna shouted, but her voice failed to reach the Royal Canterlot decibel, audibly falling from the levels it was at just seconds before. In fact, her voice cracked slightly, and sounded broken. Her body was also shaking, but it was hard to tell if it was anger or something else. “BE SILENT!” she repeated forcing strength back into her voice as she noticed the break in her tone. “You have committed TREASON! You are in NO position to make demands of us! You are surrounded and outnumbered!” she was shouting wildly, the look in her eyes lacked any reason or control… yet the military forces did not seem to notice or were just that loyal. “Surrender at once!” Luna demanded and pointed a hoof towards Rainbow Dash and the Streak twins. “Release Rainbow Dash and step aside so we may deal with this menace once and for all!”

Spitfire held herself firmly, the Wonderbolts and Renegades were all looking at her, waiting for some sort of sign or order.

But Spitfire blinked, her eyes widening slightly as she glanced around.

Then she smirked.

“On the contrary, Princess…”

A loud stir suddenly passed through the military forces in the area, several of them turning and looking about frantically.

The rest of the Wonderbolts, the reserves, and the Renegades had arrived. They shot out from behind the trees, some whisking by the military forces to enter the opening, others scattered about behind, surrounding the forces that were surrounding Spitfire and her initial force.

Luna looked around in shock, Shining Armor and Captain P.L. began shouting orders to hold steady as there soon became no real direction for one force to face the other. The military had them surrounded, yet they now had enemies loosely dispersed around them as well.

The arrival of cavalry didn’t completely even out the numbers, but the new arrivals scattered about and forcing the military to focus every which way certainly neutralized the situation. Now neither side had a clear cut advantage.

“I’d say the situation is a little more even than you’d think!” Spitfire finished with a confident smirk towards Luna. Luna looked panicked. She was forcing herself to hold her glare steady as her eyes darted about.

“CEASE THIS AT ONCE!” she demanded. “You don't know what you’re doing!”

“My offer stands, Luna,” Spitfire said calmly as she lifted a hoof in front of her. “Tell us the truth about Sombra… and maybe I’ll consider it.”

Luna said nothing, she looked stiff and unsure. Definitely not good optics for those following her lead.

“But,” Spitfire shrugged. “If you’d prefer not to, then we could always do this the hard way,” she said as she smirked and cracked her neck and hooves. Luna gasped.

“You… You wouldn’t DARE!” she stammered. Her shock only made Spitfire’s smirk widen.

“Try me,” Spitfire reached her hoof forward and made a beckoning motion.

At this point the air had become very tense. The Wonderbolts and Renegades were in stances and ready to scrap while the two military forces held their ground, awaiting orders.

Dash was holding her breath, glancing several times towards her pinned squadmates and her Ponyville friends.

Never in her wildest dreams did she believe she’d ever wish for a situation to go south, after so many months of praying for something to go smoothly to boot. But here… all she needed was for one pony out here to make a move and send it into chaos. And then hope it caused those pinning her and her squad to free them.

Luna had no answer for Spitfire, she clearly thought there was no way the situation could be turned on them, but here she was. Her eyes were shifting between Spitfire, Rainbow Dash, and Sombra.

“Well?” Spitfire spoke again. “What’ll it be, Princess? Who’s going to make the first move?”

No more words were spoken and nopony moved. A silent, tense standoff.

A full minute passed and still nopony moved. It was almost as if there wasn’t a single pony willing to start what would become complete carnage, a sense of order being preserved through what little common sense remained among them…

Luna had her eyes fixed on Spitfire

Spitfire had her eyes fixed on Luna.

Everypony had a target locked… but nopony budged.

“Perhaps I will.”

Ears perked up, eyes widened, and heads turned quickly… to Sombra.

He had a large buildup of magical energy swirling around his horn.

Without moving his head or neck… he launched the beam of up into the air, the energy screaming upward and towards the crystal canopy above him. As it grew closer to the ceiling of foliage, the beam scattered and split into hundreds of smaller beams, all reaching towards separate points.

“EVERYPONY GET DOWN!!!!!!!!!” Spitfire yelled out.

The beams struck the canopy… hundreds of loud PINGS and PANGS echoed from above as the magic struck the crystal surfaces of the brush above and began wildly bouncing and splitting in every directing, raining down bursts of magic from above.

All hell broke loose, ponies shielding themselves and throwing themselves to the ground as Sombra’s magic showered down upon them and pelted against them. All pegasi that were airborne thrust themselves down, some splashing into the water as small explosions erupted everywhere. Beams that didn’t go right to the ground hit the tree trunks and leaves of the surrounding forest, splitting and bouncing further until everypony was being hit from all directions. Dash shut her eyes and yelped as the Streak twins threw themselves down, keeping her pinned as they got low to minimize the hits they took.

Everypony was pinned now. The spray of magical slivers was so densely packed that there was no other option than to lay low and guard. Any attempts to navigate or dodge would just be more painful. Though as she got hit, Dash noticed that the magic bursts were not particularly damaging, it felt like she was being punched and jabbed… well, punched and jabbed hundreds of times per second. It was constant pressure, not giving anypony any moment to gather themselves or retaliate.

And then it stopped.

The madness ended suddenly and abruptly. A few seconds passed before everypony began looking up slowly and looking around. Everypony was exactly where they were when it started, no pony looked hurt… but there was one particular individual missing.

Sombra.

Ponies frantically got to their hooves. Spitfire was up faster than anypony else and looking in all directions.

“THERE!” Luna’s voice suddenly boomed. Spitfire’s head snapped towards Luna to see her pointing towards the edge of the open area. Spitfire followed her hoof and saw him. Sombra had entered the forest and was running and he had already made it passed all those gathered around. “AFTER HIM! NOW!” Luna ordered.

But Spitfire sprang into action.

“WONDERBOLTS! STOP THEM! GO! GO! GO!” She yelled out.

And in an instant… all hell broke loose.

The surrounding Wonderbolts leapt at the Crystal soldiers and thestrels, the flow of soldiers following Luna’s orders intercepted by the Wonderbolts and causing a cluster of collisions and yelps.

But while the clash caused a massive back up and several fights, Luna slipped through and shot in the direction of Sombra.

“PROTECT HER HIGHNESS!” Captain P.L. ordered, following behind her with any thestrels that managed to break free.

“PURSUE! GO! GO!” Shining Armor yelled to his soldiers, he and Cadence following P.L.

“GO AFTER THEM! GO AFTER THEM!” Spitfire yelled, several of the elites and reserves turning to give chase as the surrounding scuffles continued.

Dash got the chaos she wanted… but she was still being held down. The Streak twins still had her pinned, dutifully holding their ground. None of the top tiers had moved either, all sticking with Spitfire as she barked orders. Dash gritted her teeth as she looked around. Her squadmates were still down too, but… her Ponyville friends were still present. They had backed away from all the fighting breaking out, all huddled against one of the many large tree trunks, Applejack standing in front of all of them protectively.

“Fleet, Blaze, Storm! Ready up!” Spitfire yelled and made a motion to Misty Fly as well, drawing Dash’s attention. “Blazetail, Flashwind! We need our best! We’re going after Sombra! We can’t let them get to him first!”

Fleetfoot, Blaze, Misty Fly and Storm Front hopped up beside her, Blazetail and Flashwind doing the same while calling up Silver’s former comrades, or at least those not currently holding anypony down. Spitfire sharply looked towards Dash, glancing at her Ponyville friends briefly too before pointing at Dash and her squadmates.

“KEEP THEM DOWN!” she ordered. “Don’t let them try anything!” she ordered while turning to Descent. “Alright, Descent, let’s go! We can still…”

Spitfire trailed off. She blinked a few times.

“D…Descent?”

He was looking right at her. His eyes were narrowed into a thin glare. Spitfire tipped her head, getting no read whatsoever from his expression.

But then he held up a hoof and twirled it.

“NOW!” He yelled.

Without warning, there was a massive amount of activity from the Renegades. Veteran Wonderbolts were gasping and turning abruptly as their former Shadowbolt ranks suddenly began disengaging from their side and launching towards Descent and Spitfire. Spitfire gasped, unable to process what was happening as Descent’s followers began ramming and tackling those holding down Dash’s squad mates.

Bomber roared as six or seven piled on top of him. Valkyrie was forced to let go as she was attacked from three sides. Matteo was up in and instant, throwing Calm Wind off of him. Squall was easily freed as Macho and Air Mach were overwhelmed. High Winds was blindsided, freeing Little Star. And then Starry Skies and Lightning Dust came out of nowhere, knocking the Streak twins off of Dash.

She didn’t get up immediately, but Dash propped herself up and looked around at her squad, all of them looking just as confused and surprised as she did. Renegade Shadowbolts shot by in front of her, grabbing and grappling with Fleetfoot, Misty, and Blaze as well as Silver’s former squadmates. Storm had shifted out of the way, tumbling to the ground and looking up in disbelief as he stared in shock towards Descent.

“DAD?!” Storm yelled towards Descent as Spitfire glanced every which way in horror.

“WHAT’S GOING ON!? WHAT’S—AH!!!” Spitfire yelped.

She grunted loudly as Descent tackled her from behind, catching her completely off-guard and wrestling her to the ground. He pressed his weight down on her, using his larger body to his advantage.

“DESCENT?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” Spitfire roared out from beneath him.

“Disagreeing with you!” Descent proclaimed as he glanced towards Dash. “Rainbow Dash! GO!” he yelled.

Dash’s mouth hung open, her eyes wide.

“Gather your friends! Carry out your plan!” Descent added. “It may be our only real chance we have to get Soarin back!”

“DESCENT!” Spitfire shouted as she thrashed beneath him. “YOU GODDAMN TRAITOR!!!!!!”

“GO! RGH!” Descent yelled as he fought to keep Spitfire down. “NOW!!!!!”

Dash didn’t hesitate. She didn’t have the luxury of time to understand what was going on. All she knew was that Descent apparently agreed with her plan… meaning he was present when Storm revealed it.

Storm’s mission to spy on her… had blown up in Spitfire’s face.

Dash was up and on her hooves in an instant. She didn’t even bother picking up her goggles. She pushed all other thoughts from her mind as only one thing mattered… Soarin.

Her squadmates were at her side without a word from her as she rushed towards her Ponyville friends.

“Guys! It’s showtime!” Dash yelled to them as she skidded to a halt in front of Applejack. “Let’s go!”

They all nodded, springing into action without saying a word. Twilight stepped out and quickly slipping Dash’s Element of Harmony onto her neck. The moment it was in place, Dash turned to Fluttershy and bent down so she could climb up on her back. Squall did the same for Twilight as Applejack jumped onto Matteo’s before helping Rarity climb up as well. With the four loaded up and Little Star ready to fly with them, Dash frantically looked about.

“Where’s Pin—”

“LET’S DO THIS!”

Pinkie was strapped into a simple pipe-frame go-kart and was revving the engine loudly, the sputtering ripping noise of the exhaust causing Dash to wince as it shrilled through her ears. Before Dash could say anything, Pinkie slapped a helmet on her head and threw a red, white spotted mushroom that appeared to have eyes over her shoulder. It touched the sputtering engine and a burst of orange flame shot out of the exhaust pipe with a loud BANG.

“YAHOO!” Pinkie yelled launched forward, her helmet flying right off her head as the go-kart sped right over the surface of the water and shot into the woods in the direction Sombra escaped, leaving tracks of flame lingering behind her.

“That works too, I guess,” Dash accepted without question as she turned to the rest. “C’mon guys!” They all spread their wings. “LET’S GO!”

And they took flight.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Looks like the plans behind plans behind plans went so far that not even Spitfire's brilliant scheme to catch Dash was enough, not when Descent was ready to flip on her the moment he heard something he liked better. Storm did his job... unwilling to go against his dad, but in the end his dad was the one who decided Dash had the better idea. MR. BONES I WANNA GET OFF THE RUSE CRUISE :applejackconfused::derpyderp2:

But who stopped the Wonderbolts from apprehending Twilight? Perhaps we'll find out soon.:moustache:

Either way, Dash has gotten the shit-show she wanted... now its up to her to execute the rest, but she can't relax yet... With the stunt that Descent just pulled, how many directions is the fighting going to go in? And lets not forget one other certain faction hasn't shown up yet...

But man oh man... Sombra can really let us know how he really feels when he doesnt have Celestia there to counter him, huh? He sounds really dead set on going through with it, not backing down from what he believes in without a shred of doubt in his mind. But we as the readers have experienced the back and forth arguing and bickering between him and Celestia... and we have seen much more than the Wonderbolts here have had time to.

And why did he run? He seemed to defeat them pretty handily the first time, perhaps he feels the threat of Dash is too risky, especially when surrounded by much larger forces. Where is he heading? Probably to his 'goal' even though he has yet to really lay out how he wants to approach it or what he intends to do beyond 'i must destroy the gods!'

IS THERE ANYONE... 100% IN THE RIGHT HERE?

No?

Of course there isn't :pinkiecrazy: Don't ya love it?

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 163: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 5: Judgement)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 163: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 5: Judgement)

“Why?!” Soarin yelled out. “Why is Spitfire attacking Dash?! What the hell is going on out there?!”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care!” Sombra growled as he focused on galloping. “Your little wench is a thorn in my side. If your friend is trying to stop her then I’m all for it!”

“I wasn't asking you!” Soarin barked at him, growling as he forced himself against his bindings. “And if you call her that again, I swear…!”

“GRH!” Sombra suddenly grunted, his silhouette twitching and flickering as Soarin tugged at the shadowy limbs keeping him in place. “Then shut your trap! Unless you want to distract me and put us all in danger!” he spat back, trying to hide his discomfort at Soarin’s resistance.

Soarin gasped as the bindings pressed down on his back, pushing him back down. But he wasn’t deterred, he was too curious about Sombra’s intentions… which were still a mystery overall. He had yet to give a full reason or any clarity for his direction, even now as conflict raged around them.

He also desperately wanted to see what was going on with Dash, but Sombra’s eyes were glued to the Crystal Empire and he was so focused that he had barely looked at him or Celestia. He didn’t even turn while rebuking Soarin just now.

“Sombra…” Celestia suddenly spoke up. “What are you even doing?”

“Getting away from HER!” Sombra furiously replied while suddenly snapping his head around, his featureless silhouette pointing towards the restrained image of Dash beside Soarin.

“But…” Celestia tipped her head. “If you’re trying to get away then why are you running towards…”

Soarin blinked as she trailed off. That was an interesting observation. If Sombra was trying to ‘escape,’ then why was heading towards the Crystal Empire?

“I KNOW where I’m going!” Sombra fired back, his voice sounding somewhat forced. “And I’m going to get there before they can use her against me!”

There was a pause after his proclamation, a very long one. Soarin and Celestia both glanced at one another.

That didn’t make any sense at all.

Did Sombra really know what he was doing? Or was he trying his hardest to make it seem like he did? Something was off… and whatever it was, Sombra was either trying to hide it, or ignoring it in favor of something else.

Soarin perked up as he saw movement beside him. He glanced down to see the image of Dash gritting her teeth and fidgeting. Her eyes squeaked open briefly, looking directly at him before shutting again as she continued to move from side to side. Soarin shifted his eyes, catching Sombra’s silhouette glancing over his shoulder at her. He immediately played it off and refocused.

He couldn’t hide it from Soarin. There was nopony out here that could stop him… nopony except Dash, and that terrified him. She was already part of what was keeping Soarin conscious and alive as Sombra controlled his body. Now she was threatening him from without as well.

She was giving it her all, and she was coming for him. Knowing that Dash was never giving up gave Soarin hope… he just didn’t know what he could expect from that hope.

Now all that remained… was the question of what exactly Sombra was trying to do? Because at the moment, it seemed like he didn’t have a clue.

“GO! GO!” Dash encouraged her squadmates as they pumped their wings and sped swiftly along the ground.

The Shadowbolt arrival had been an unexpected boon, distracting Spitfire just long enough for her to slip out from beneath her and launch with her squad. Her body was aching, her entire side on fire from the blow she received from Spitfire to knock her down. It was so tender that even the barely significant pressure of Fluttershy on her back was causing it to sting. But she sucked it up and kept focused. She wasn’t the only one beat up. Matteo was still grimacing and clutching his arm as they flew. It was bad enough that it was probably fractured, it likely didn’t help that he was just using it to anchor himself down. If he was powering through pain, then so could she.

The cacophony around them had worsened… if that were even possible. Everypony was already fighting everypony, and the Shadowbolts just added more fuel to that fire. It was right back to square one, but now with pink crystal magic flying everywhere on top of it. An unorganized, unyielding melee that had no direction nor any end in sight.

Which was what exactly what Dash wanted. Nothing went right at the start, but in the end, she got her mayhem. She wanted crazy? She got crazy, probably a little more than she bargained for. But now she had the perfect cover to continue her plan.

She wasn’t about to act like it was in the bag though. For the moment, they had lost Spitfire in the mess of fighting around them, but Dash knew where her captain’s mind was set. Spitfire was locked on her and on Soarin. She wouldn’t bother to stop and fight Shadowbolts, not when there was something this personal on her mind. It didn’t matter if her point of view was skewed, her passion sure wasn’t faltering.

All they could do was keep moving. Any attempt to slow down and locate Spitfire would only help her potentially gain on them.

Dash struck Spitfire from her thoughts. She was the biggest obstacle to her success, but until she was in her way only one thing mattered.

Soarin.

And they were slowly catching up to him. They could see Sombra in the distance. They still had lots of ground to cover, but they were gaining fast. It helped that he was still on hoof, and seemed to be fending off incoming attacks from what appeared to be Shadowbolts. A mix of light blue and pink lights were flashing and dancing around him, but he was clearly more interested in running than fighting. His path was set towards the Crystal Empire without a single step to the left or right as he forged along.

But then another problem arose. As they continued to close in, Dash got a better view of Sombra and the activity around him. Low ranking Shadowbolts were being shot right out of the air by Sombra’s magic, thrown and punted about as they tried to attack him, but a formation of four began heading in his direction. Dash squinted as she focused on the four as they flew overhead, but she saw familiar colors… very familiar colors. They were cutting through the mass of fighting quickly, outpacing Dash and her squad despite their advantage low to the ground. There was too much in the way for her to make out who they were.

“MATTY! I need an I.D. on those four! Are those commanders?!” she pointed. Matteo took a hard breath, his beak grinding and clicking as he looked up without releasing his cradled arm. He blinked and squinted, focusing his eyes upward as the group kept pulling ahead of them.

“Blade… Angel… Void… and…” he trailed off.

“And?” Dash pressed as they pitched to avoid a tangled clump of Wonderbolts, Renegades, and Shadowbolts all crashing into the snow in front of them. Matteo grunted as they all evened out, shaking a wad of snow from his face before looking towards Dash.

“You’re not going to like the last one!” Matteo finished as he glanced at Dash. Her ears twitched, but she looked forward.

“Nightshade… great…” Dash bit her lip. “Damn… we gotta pick up the pace!” she yelled to them. “We can’t let them get to—”

“Captain!” Matteo cut her off, Dash quickly turned back to him. “One of them broke off! They’re heading this way!”

Dash’s eyes widened and she frantically looked up.

It was Void. He had broken formation with the other three and was heading towards them. Before Dash could bark any further orders, he suddenly pitched down hard and slammed to the ground, placing himself right in the line of their path as they surged towards him. Dash only hesitated for a moment, her eyes on Void for a second before she suddenly shifted and lifted herself over Matteo. She reached down and hooked her arms around Rarity, picking her up off Matteo’s back by the stomach.

“Ooo?” Rarity cooed in surprise as she was suddenly grabbed and hoisted up.

“MATTY!” Dash yelled loudly, causing Rarity’s eyes to twitch and her ears to shudder. “TAKE POINT! DON’T LET THAT FAT ASSCLOWN GET IN YOUR WAY! GO RIGHT THROUGH HIM!” she ordered confidently as she pulled up with Rarity in tow.

“Whoa, WHOA! What the hay?!” Applejack looked up and watched as Dash lifted Rarity away, but left her on Matteo’s back. “WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE!”

“You’ll be fine!” Dash brushed her off. “GO MATTY! FULL POWER!”

“WHOOOAAA NELLY!” Applejack pressed one hoof to her hat and clung to Matteo with the other as Matteo began using every ounce of strength in his powerful body to pump his wings as hard as he could. He accelerated using his Air Burst technique several times in a row, multiple blasts of air exploding behind him with a loud BANG BANG BANG as he moved faster and faster.

As Matteo grew closer, Void shifted all of his focus to the incoming battering ram. He snorted as his three crystals floated up around him and began orbiting him, a pink veil of light surrounding him as his magic went to work. Blips of light began appearing in front of him, several extending out in a line between him and Matteo. The blips expanded, turning into quickly conjured barriers. There were about twenty of them in total and they extended outward, placing themselves five yards apart each. They didn’t look very thick or sturdy, like Void had opted for quantity over quality.

But Matteo did not hesitate for a moment. He let go of his hurt arm, letting it dangle below him as he crossed his good arm in front of him, clutching the talons and tensing it as he charged forward. Matteo let out a fierce battle cry as he smashed into the first barrier and shattered it like a thin pane of glass, not losing any momentum as he struck the second with the same result.

Each collision let out a shrill shattering noise that echoed through the air over and over again as Matteo continued to surge forward and break through them one by one with Applejack hanging on for dear life through each jolt.

After breaking through half of them, he began to slow down. He still broke through the next five with the momentum he had left, but he continued to lose speed. By the time there were only three left between them, Matteo slammed into the furthest one, growling as he bounced off, but he refused to yield. Matteo huffed and puffed, pulling his good arm back and roaring as he punched his balled up talons through one, then pulled back and punched through the next. He gasped, his arm twitching and shaking as he approached the last, but he hardened his gaze and pulled back one more time, knowing that Dash and the rest were right behind him.

“HRRRRAAAAAAHHH!!!!” he yelled as he lunged forward, punching through the last barrier and keeping his arm extended as he forced his way towards Void.

But Void reached up and caught Matteo’s punch, the force weakened by both his fatigue and going through a solid surface right before.

“I don’t think s—” Void tried to taunt, but Matteo lunged forward and head-butted him right in the forehead. Void stumbled backwards and blinked as he tried to regain his hoofing. The extra effort took everything Matteo had left in the tank. He lurched downward, barely supporting himself with his good arm as he gasped and wheezed for air after over-exerting himself. He was wide open to attack, but before Void could gather himself…

“YEE-HAW!” Applejack swung over the top of Matteo’s head, spinning around and delivering a heavy double back hoof buck right into Void’s face, shattering and snapping his goggles, the power of the strike forcing him up and onto his back hooves. He began tipping backwards, his back hooves stepping lightly.

But before he could keel over, Void’s back legs tensed. He grunted angrily and slammed his hooves to the ground, glaring at the two.

“RGHHH!!!!!” He growled as he glared. Fixing his eyes on them as Applejack charged at him again.

“C’MON YA BIG OAF! I’LL GIVE YA ANOTHER RIGHT IN THE KISSER!” Applejack shouted as she galloped.

“APPLEJACK!” Dash yelled from behind as the rest closed in. “LOOK OUT! HE—”

“GRAH!” Void roared, his crystals shining brightly. A strong pulse exploded from his body, slamming right into Applejack and sending her tumbling backward and falling against Matteo’s cushy fluff beneath his suit with her hat falling over her face.

“What in tarnation?!” Applejack blinked as she tipped her hat up and blinked at the magical aura growing brighter around Void, his crystal orbiting faster and faster around him.

“SHIT!” Dash cursed as they came within a few yards of Matteo. “He’s going to—!”

But it was too late. Void’s magic exploded around him and his rushing spiral winds surged from around him. But something was different. Dash was expecting to be yanked along and thrown about similarly, to how they had been just before with Sombra, but Void was directing the winds precisely. Before she knew it, they were all forced to the ground, the winds rushing down upon them from above like a hurricane was falling from the sky.

They all grunted and tumbled as they were pushed down, Dash and her squad trying to get to their hooves quickly, but they felt very heavy. There was no squeezing pressure, not a crushing feeling from all directions, but it was so hard to just stand up as if they all had spontaneously gained two hundred pounds, every movement requiring and exhaustive amount of effort as they tried to rise and fight against it.

Most of Dash’s Ponyville friends and Little Star were helpless, stuck flat to the ground with no means of moving. Applejack and Squall were able to stand, but Matteo was still trying to catch his breath. Pinkie was… holding onto a windsurf board that had its front tip jammed into the ground, clinging to it for dear life.

Dash forced herself forward, taking hard heavy steps with Squall doing his best to keep up behind her. Applejack was already on the move ahead of them, forcing herself towards Void.

Void held his ground as Applejack reached him and tried to punch him in the chest, but the winds pressing down on her weakened her motion, her hoof harmlessly bopping against his chest like a filly jabbing at a full-grown stallion.

Void growled at her attempts, his eyes glowing beneath his goggles as he thrust an arm out and pushed Applejack to the ground.

“LOOK OUT!” Dash yelled to her as she propped herself up and saw Void’s eyes shining brightly.

“ONE SIDE!” Squall yelled as he spread his wings and beat them backwards, grabbing Dash’s shoulder within the motion to propel himself forward and shoot in front of Applejack. Pink beams of magic fired from Void’s eyes, Squall forcing his arms up against the downward pull to intercept and deflect, but his timing was way off due to the winds. The beams were altered and angled outward, but both of them remained in enough for half of them to hit Squall’s shoulders, just barely missing his wings. “GRH!” Squall grunted painfully as small explosions erupted from the points of contact, throwing him backwards into Applejack.

Dash quickly made her way up and placed herself in front of them both as Void prepared to fire another shot, clearly intending to assault them with basic offensive magic while they were held down by his artificial winds. Dash tried to put up her hooves, but just like with Squall, the downward force made it much more difficult than she expected. Worse, she tried too early, and found her arms lowering as Void continued to build up his next attack.

“DAMN!” Dash cursed as she shut her eyes and turned her head, her hooves not even close to being in position as Void fired another pair of beams.

But a blast of magenta colored magic shot directly over Dash’s shoulder and met Void’s magic head on, the collision resulting in a loud POOF and a cloud of smoke that was quickly whisked away by the winds.

Dash opened her eyes and blinked as she glanced over her shoulder. Twilight was up and being supported by Rarity, Little Star, and Fluttershy. She was gritting her teeth, barely keeping her head up beneath the force as her magic surrounded her horn.

Without a second thought, Dash quickly lowered herself to the ground, pushing both Squall and Applejack down with her beside Matteo.

“LET HIM HAVE IT, TWI!” Dash yelled.

Twilight focused, her body and legs buckling as the other three struggled to keep her up. Her eyes glowed brightly, silver swirls of light encircling the magenta aura of her horn as she called on her reserves of alicorn magic. With a loud, echoing shout, she tipped her head forward and fired, a wide beam ejecting from the tip of her horn that sparkled brightly, blue and white lights dancing within the natural magenta color of her magic. The power behind the blast caused a strong kickback, Twilight’s hooves sliding backwards a few yards and dragging her yelping supporters with her.

“Whoa!” Dash gasped, flattening her ears and ducking down as the beam surged directly over them, the top of Matteo’s suit tearing and flaking a little from proximity alone despite the beam being a few inches away from him.

Void grunted in frustration, throwing up a thick spherical shield to take the blast head on. A loud, shrill noise that sounded like a reverberating crackle rang out as Twilight’s magic struck Void’s shield. He was instantly pushed back, digging his hooves in as his crystals orbited around him quickly, maintaining both the shield and his gale force trap.

He eventually managed to anchor himself, Twilight’s magic pounding against his barrier. It slowly started punching a few tiny holes in the shield, slivers of magic zipping inside and poking against Void, but failing to break through it as a whole. The beam was mostly splitting in several directions and dissipating behind him.

Dash shielded her eyes as she watched the power struggle. This wasn’t good, she knew how mentally taxing alicorn magic was. Not from her own experience, but from watching Twilight use it in the past and how much it took out of Luna. She couldn’t have Twilight exhausted, they needed her more than anypony else to focus the Elements of Harmony!

As the bright flashing and magical struggle continued, Dash perked up as she caught something out of the corner of her eyes. There was still all sorts of action and mayhem going on all around them, but a few ponies suddenly shot by outside the range of Void’s magic, and it was hard not to pick out who they were.

Spitfire.

The initial sight caused Dash to freeze, but it was only for a moment… because Spitfire kept going, not even glancing in their direction. As she processed that, Fleetfoot, Misty, and the Streak twins followed right behind her. Blaze, High Winds, and Surprise were bringing up the rear, but suddenly diverted as they caught the attention of a few Shadowbolts, disappearing into the chaos of fighting.

But Dash barely paid mind to the other Wonderbolts. She thought Spitfire was hell-bent on chasing her down, but it appeared she was more hell-bent on chasing down Sombra… or… for crying out loud, who knew at this point?! Spitfire didn’t have a single reasonable thought going through her head right now, it was like she was acting on instinct. It was highly possible she thought she was chasing Dash and just didn’t see her caught up with Void.

Dash blinked as three more familiar faces shot by. Descent, Starry, and Lightning Dust. No doubt, they were still trying to stop Spitfire for her sake. They cut right through the cacophony, staying determined and on course.

“Shit… SHIT!” Dash swore as Twilight’s beam of magic began to fluctuate unstably right above her. This was counterproductive, and now they were falling behind on top of it. And if Twilight kept this up too long—

“AH!” Twilight suddenly shrieked the beam dissipating. Dash looked over her shoulder to see Twilight wobble and fall, Rarity catching her as she gasped and panted. Dash looked back at Void and gritted her teeth. He was unaffected, his shield full of holes, but mostly still intact. His magic showed no signs of slowing down as the crystals continued to swirl and generate the winds.

They couldn’t waste any more time! But how were they going to get out of—

BOOM

Dash shut her eyes tight as the ground shook and chunks of snow suddenly smacked her and everypony else in the face. Amid the slapping sounds of snow pelting her face she thought she heard shattering crackles.

When the barrage of snow finally ceased, the first thing Dash noticed was that the weight of Void’s magic was gone in an instant. Without a moment of hesitation, Dash forced herself up, snow sliding and falling off her face and body as she stared in the direction of Void.

But when the dust and mist finally cleared, she was looking at…

Sin?!

She just stared as the others stood up, Squall and Applejack helping Matteo stand as he shook himself out. Twilight was shakily getting to her hooves behind them with the help of the others. As the view became clearer… Dash’s ears perked upright as she saw Void laying in a heap on the ground beneath Sin, whose right hoof was surrounded with his magic.

“WOOOOOO, MAN!” Sin chuckled as he shook his head out and his magic dissipated. “You know, I’ve always wanted to do that!” he kicked Void lightly. “Ya big jackass.”

Dash and the others were speechless, did Sin… just…?

“For real?!”

They all flinched and looked up to see Shadow coming in for a landing. She smacked Sin upside the head as she lowered herself, but he didn’t even flinch.

“I’m pretty sure plenty of Shadowbolts just saw you do that!” she complained at him. Sin rubbed the back of his head where she hit and lifted an eyebrow.

“And I bet plenty of ‘em would do the same thing given the chance,” he said casually while waving a hoof towards Void on the ground. Shadow opened her mouth and blinked, saying nothing for a second or two.

“Well, okay yeah. But you know what I mean, idiot!” Shadow huffed as she jabbed a hoof against his chest, grimaced and shook the same hoof out right after.

“Eh…” Sin shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll just tell them I missed or slipped or something.”

“And killed Void?!” Shadow barked at him while angrily pointing at Void, who still hadn’t moved.

“Oh, come on, he ain’t dead,” Sin chuckled as he grabbed one of Void’s arms and lifted it up. He let go of it and it flopped to the ground. Sin blinked and scrunched his mouth. “I think?”

“He’ll live.”

Everypony, Sin and Shadow included looked up as Moon glided in for a landing with… Rapidfire?!

Moon only gave Void a passing glance as he turned his attention to Dash, but Dash had her eyes locked on Rapidfire. She just stared, as if she was expecting him to say something, but he didn’t say a word, and she couldn’t even see his eyes behind his goggles.

“Rainbow Dash,” Moon spoke up, bringing her back to reality. “Go,” he said simply as he made a head motion. Dash followed the direction of his head tilt… he was motioning towards Sombra in the distance, who was now far ahead, but likely engaged with Blade, Angel, and Nightshade, not to mention Spitfire and the Wonderbolts trailing him as well. But she was still thoroughly confused by what was standing right in front of her. She knew Moon was playing both sides, but…

“Uh… what just happened?” She looked at Rapidfire again, and this time he immediately turned his head away.

“I said…” Moon spoke up, his crystal shining brightly.

“Huh?!” Dash and everypony else yelped as his telekinetic aura suddenly surrounded each one of them. They were all effortlessly hoisted into the air, even Matteo. The elements of Harmony were all pushed right to the member of Dash’s squad carrying them before they ran into Void. Dash blinked, her eyes widening as she stared at Moon. His face was scrunched into a slight glare, which was more emotion than she had ever seen him show.

“GO!” He yelled as he whipped his arm around, bursts of light erupting from his crystals.

In an instant, Dash felt the wind in her face. It happened so fast that it took her a few moments to realize what was happening… that or they were moving so fast that she was having trouble focusing. Did Moon throw them with his magic? That had to be it. There was no other explanation for how they were suddenly screaming through the air faster than any of them could physically fly on their own power.

It was hard enough for her to keep her eyes open normally without her goggles to protect her eyes. Dash felt like the wind was going to tear her face off at their current speed, just barely squeaking her eyes open to get a blurred view of how fast they were going, not to mention snowflakes were bouncing off her face so rapidly that she couldn’t even count them.

She could feel pressure on the back of her neck. Fluttershy was definitely still on her back. She could also hear grunts from her squad mates and Rarity screaming like she was being stabbed in a stage play. Assuming everypony was accounted for, Dash wasn’t going to let this go to waste. Moon’s motives were not entirely clear, but one thing was for sure. He knew what her plan was, and he apparently wanted her to succeed, otherwise he wouldn’t have just broken the laws of physics to give her band of ponies an insane speed boost.

The ground they had lost while caught up with Void was vanishing quickly. They had to gain control!

“GLIDE! GLIDE! GLIDE!” Dash yelled repeatedly as she forced her wings out. “LEVEL OUT! GET CONTROL!” she added as Matteo, Squall and Star all followed her lead. They had a tremendous amount of momentum to make use of, each of them holding their wings straight out to their sides stiffly as they rode the air. The falling snowflakes practically disintegrated against their bodies and faces as they surged by, visible streams of air flowing past their wings as they cut through the wind. Their low altitude prevented them from being caught in the fighting above, the snow parting beneath them like the wake of a boat in water as they hurled along.

One by one, they caught up to those who had overtaken them and left them in the dust. First they overtook Descent’s group, and soon after they flew right by the Wonderbolts. Spitfire only had a moment to glance at them before she was forced to shield herself. A blast of wind and a surge of snow kicked up in her face as Dash and company traveled like an arrow freshly loosed from a bow.

The force of their wake caught every wing, propelling both Descent and Spitfire’s groups up and into the fighting. Dash couldn’t turn her head to look, but her ears picked up the faint sounds of grunts from familiar voices as they were forced to suddenly engage within the cluttered melee overhead.

In seconds they zoomed so far ahead that the bulk of the fighting was left behind, nothing in their way as they locked on Sombra. Their momentum had dwindled slightly, but they were still traveling at a ridiculous pace, all them now beating their wings to try and keep their assisted pace going. All the elements were accounted for: Fluttershy clinging to Dash, Applejack and Rarity holding tight to Matteo, Twilight nearly strangling Squall with her grip, and Pinkie flailing like a windsock while holding onto Star’s tail with her teeth.

Dash could not have asked for a more favorable swing in circumstances. They were moving at an unnaturally fast pace, Spitfire had been hindered, they had outrun the chaos, and they had Sombra in their sights. Now they just had to execute the rest of the plan.

Two things had to happen. She had to get the elements in place and then ensure that Sombra remained in their line of fire. He was currently moving in an erratic path due to being attacked by Angel, Blade, and Nightshade. It was helping them catch up, but there was no guarantee they would get a clean shot if he was constantly shifting course. She had to remain with the elements, but they were going to overtake Sombra shortly. As soon as they got some distance, she could have them land and split up, getting the elements the rest of the way on hoof and send her squad to distract Blade, Angel and…

Dash blinked as she stared towards Sombra, her eyes darting about at his pursuers.

Blade… Angel… And…?

Where was—?

Before she could complete the thought, Dash felt like she was punched in the gut from directly below. There was a blinding flash of pink light beneath them followed by an ear-wrenching explosion. None of them had a chance to protect themselves, taking the full force of it and singeing the bottoms of their suits as they were catapulted upward.

Dash’s eyes remained stuck open, her whole body numb from shock as she and all of her friends were flung in an arc over Sombra. They tumbled and flailed like out of control ragdolls as the momentum remaining from Moon’s launched propelled them along. As they began to descend, a couple flashes of magenta and blue began to spark around them. Twilight and Rarity’s magic was popping and crackling, but they were clearly struggling to focus. With no feasible way of evening herself out and her visions a blurry, tumbling mess… Dash had a faint hope that her magic-minded friends were trying to conjure protection…

But as soon as she heard the magic activate, she caught a glimpse of how close they were to a nasty crash. She shut her eyes tight.

Dash grunted painfully as she hit the ground. The snow was soft, but did little to fully cushion the shock as her body bounced roughly against the solid ground beneath. She heard grunts and cries from her friends nearby as they all roughly bounced and rolled constantly, the momentum given to them by Moon not so welcome at this moment as no end to the rough landing was in sight.

Alas, eventually friction won over. Dash stopped bouncing and slid along the slippery snow-covered ground on her side. One of her wings cramped up as it got yanked beneath her, squeezing a yelp and growl from her as she arched her neck back and grit her teeth.

When she finally came to a halt and opened her eyes, she immediately tensed her body, Matteo’s bulk slamming right into her as he continued to slide a little further.

“GRH!” Dash gasped as Matteo’s weight pressed into her, pushing her along with him until he finally stopped as well.

The moment she was finally at rest, she quickly rolled over and stuck her neck out, her eyes wide and heavy breaths coming through her nose as her right wings twitched and jittered, the muscles on her back pulsing as they tightened from the painful cramp post-hyper extension.

“Ahhh AHHH!” Dash finally forced it out with a few painful CRICKS and flopped flat onto her stomach, gasping and wheezing as her vision continued to wave up and down, trying to find equilibrium.

She could hear the moans and groans of her squadmates, the sound motivating her to force herself up and place a hoof on Matteo for support as she quickly made her way around to take a look, dizzily holding an arm up near her face to prevent snow from getting in her eyes.

Squall and Applejack were both down, rolling on their backs as they tried to find their hooves. Rarity and Twilight were both tending to them, looking completely unscathed. It appeared they managed to throw up shields, but apparently only enough to protect themselves. Dash spotted Pinkie’s tail sticking out of the snow. She was probably fine. But where were… Star and Fluttershy?

The sound of frightened whimpers came from nearby. Dash quickly looked about, her ears turning until she located the sound. It was coming from… Matteo? She looked over as he remained still. His eyes were shut and the breath hissing through the holes in his beak was sharp and filled with pain. He had his arms tucked tightly into his body, no doubt feeling lots of discomfort from his injured arm, but as he rolled to his side, he slowly opened his arms, revealing both Star and Fluttershy tucked into his body, completely untouched. Fluttershy was rolled into a near perfect sphere with a pink mane, shuddering as she whimpered. Star instantly jumped out of Matteo’s arms and started looking him over.

With everypony mostly alive, Dash frantically looked up and glanced back and forth. She eventually spotted Sombra drawing near, but as soon as he saw them in his path, he broke off, drawing Blade and Angel with him.

“Dammit!” Dash swore as she pushed off Matteo, but almost stumbled and fell. “Get up! Shake it off! We need to—”

She was abruptly cut off as something slammed into the snow nearby so strongly that the ground around them trembled for a brief moment. Snow shot up, Dash and those who could shielding themselves as the large chunks rained down on them.

Dash sputtered and shook her mane out, brushing the snow off her face and… looked up.

As the mist and cluttered snow chunks fell and visibility slowly returned, Dash slowly began to make out the shape of a pony. They were standing in the spot of impact and… as the shape became more clear, Dash’s eyes slowly grew wider.

A mare…

Light blue fur…

Purple flight suit…

And bigger than her…

“Son of a bitch…” Dash said quietly to herself as she quickly put two and two together. The rest of her squadmates reacted in kind as the debris cleared and only the constant snowfall remained.

It was Nightshade.

Dash and Star were already on her hooves, but the moment Matteo and Squall saw who stood in their path, they forced themselves up, gritting their teeth and bearing the pain from the crash. Matteo could barely support himself with only one good arm, but he kept the injured one to the ground anyway as if afraid to show any weakness that could be exploited.

Dash blinked as Matteo got up in front of her, her body instinctively shifting and slowly moving out to see around him.

She flinched hard as Nightshade came back into her view… because apparently she was what Nightshade was most interested in.

Nightshade’s eyes were locked on Dash. They were barely visible beneath her yellow tinted goggles, but the glare was so harsh that Dash swore she could feel it. It was as if her squad and her friends weren’t even there.

Nightshade’s body was surrounded by a faint pink aura, and she had three crystals floating nearby. Her loud, heavy breaths were audible, her muscular chest visibly expanding and contracting beneath her suit as her lips parted and revealed her teeth jammed shut.

Dash was quick to note the number of crystals, the state of her body, and the lack of beastlike body posture. She was in control, not anywhere near the deranged state she was in the last time they saw her… but she didn’t know if that was better or worse. Nightshade was much more dangerous with her wits about her.

This was bad. Unexpected and unfortunate. Dash hadn’t considered what would happen if her group was singled out. That much was made clear by their struggle with Void. But of all ponies who would get in their way, she never once expected Nightshade to do so personally.

But in this tense moment… With Dash looking upon her most dangerous adversary…

Something… was different.

As soon as the initial shock of Nightshade appearing before them faded, Dash wasn’t sure how to describe how she felt.

She was looking at a pony that was capable of causing great pain and agony, a lot of which she had experienced herself. What’s more, she was looking at her in a state where she was more than capable of doing all those things, just as she had before.

But as she stared out and looked Nightshade right in the eye… something else, something different, a new factor had emerged.

The last time she saw Nightshade like this… was when she was fighting Silver.

Dash’s perception slowed to a crawl as thoughts came flowing back to her. Her nervous, jittering comrades and her terrified friends vanished from her mind, all of them disappearing until it was just her and Nightshade. Images and recollections of the battle began flashing in her thoughts, the battle that she was forced to sit and watch in a crippled state as her mentor desperately fought to save them all…

How he faced down Nightshade without an ounce of fear, denying everything she was… and breaking her from within.

No fear.

That was the key to beating Nightshade… the key that Silver sacrificed his body to leave behind. He completely rejected Nightshade’s intimidation. No matter how hard she tried to break him, Silver just looked her right in the eye and threw it right back in her face.

Dash blinked.

Her heartbeat was calm.

Her body was at ease.

Her nerves were relaxed.

She… wasn’t afraid of Nightshade.

“You…” Nightshade suddenly spoke, breaking Dash from her thoughts. Nightshade was still staring at her, growling as her crystals began to glow brighter and orbit around her. “I’ll make this QUICK!” she shouted as the magical buildup continued.

Dash’s ears stood up, her eyes shifting around Nightshade’s body. She recognized this… the buildup, she had seen it before! It was the same magic Nightshade had used on them before Silver stepped in to save them! The magic that turned their negative emotions into pain!

Dash frantically looked around at her squad and her friends.

Fear… Anger… Anxiety… it was a strong mix of all three coming from the group, not to mention her Ponyville friends had no idea who they were dealing with. That was more than enough for Nightshade to work with!

“RRAAGH!” Nightshade suddenly roared. “STAY OUT OF MY WAY!” she yelled as the orbit of her crystals sped up, her aura grew brighter, and a surge of pink light shot out from her body.

Dash didn’t even think about it. Her body just moved.

She rushed past Matteo, placed herself in front of everypony else, and locked her hooves in place.

“NO!” Squall reached out, but was hindered by the aftershocks of the crash.

“DASH!” Star yelled, but was locked in place by her fear of Nightshade.

All of Dash’s squadmates recognized the magic. It was a nightmare they’d never forget and Dash was stepping right into it!

The surge of light hit Dash head on. She took all of it, the entire beam flowing into her before it could split apart. Nightshade perked up in surprise.

“Oh, you want it that badly, huh?!” Nightshade growled. “FINE!” She pushed her magic harder, pumping more power into the beam, causing it to grow larger and brighter.

Dash tensed her body. She felt the force surge into her as she tipped her head down and gritted her teeth. She held her ground and…

“What…?” Nightshade blinked, lifting an eyebrow as Dash remained in place, the pink magic engulfing her entire frame and shining brightly.

Dash exhaled as the magic flowed freely through her. She kept her body relaxed and slowly began to tip her head back up.

By now all the cries of concern from her friends had ceased and Nightshade was no longer growling.

Dash stood upright, her eyes closed as she took a few more relaxed breaths.

She threw her neck back, pointing her nose to the sky and throwing her wings out.

With a loud crackle and pop, Nightshade’s magic was thrown from her body, shooting everywhere and fizzling out. Nightshade pulled back, the flow her magic ceasing as she stood completely still, just staring at Dash.

Dash remained still, her head still facing up as she took another long, relaxed breath. She slowly brought her head down, keeping her eyes closed until her head was once again level.

“Heh…” Dash chuckled to herself, her eyes still closed. “It’s not that hard, Spitfire.”

She opened her eyes and hardened them into a glare, directing it right at Nightshade.

Nightshade flinched, her eyes widening beyond the edges of her goggles as she took a step back. Dash noticed Nightshade’s hesitance, but was too zoned in to be curious about it.

“What?” Dash spoke up while staring towards her. “Am I too much to handle?” She asked confidently, drawing odd looks from her friends as if she had lost her mind.

Something happened to Nightshade. Her body suddenly contorted and she lowered herself slightly as a low, jittery growl escaped her throat. She stumbled slightly, wobbling to the right and then back to the left while placing a hoof on her head.

“Rgghhhh… RRRRGGHHHHH!!!!!” Nightshade uttered as she slammed her hoof to the ground and shook her head out. She snapped her head up and glared at Dash, the look was so fierce it was a wonder it didn’t shatter the lenses of her goggles.

But Dash remained firm. She didn’t budge an inch and kept her eyes hardened.

She could do this… Nightshade wasn’t going to end her plan, she was just in the way!

“Squall, Matty, Star!” Dash suddenly called back to them as Nightshade continued her apparent inner struggle. They all perked up, but she didn’t turn to look at them. “Get the rest of my friends to the shield ahead of Sombra! I’ll handle this… and meet you there!”

Matteo, Squall, and Star just stared at first, not sure if they should protest or not. There was something about the order, the way she gave it… that was preventing them from saying no. Something about this was different… something about it was personal.

Dash was not on the same level as Nightshade, but their better conscious was telling them to trust her.

Without a word, they got to work, gathering up the elements again while pushing through their mounting injuries.

“Wait! Rainbow Dash!” Twilight spoke up, slipping free from Squall’s grip and galloping up to her. “What about…?” she looked down at the Element of Loyalty on Dash’s neck.

“I SAID GO!” Dash turned and yelled into Twilight’s face. Twilight leaned back and froze, giving Squall a chance to grab her and drag her along despite her protest. “Matty! Flex the old pipes when you’re in position, I’ll keep my ears up!” she added while pointing to her throat, looking right past Twilight’s worried face and getting a nod from Matteo.

With them all mounted up again and Star placing Fluttershy snugly between Applejack and Rarity on Matteo’s back, they followed their orders. Squall, Star, and Matteo took off, only Dash’s Ponyville friends looking back as they sped off and left Dash behind… to face Nightshade.

For a few moments there was nothing more than the whistling winds and the snowfall surrounding them. Nightshade had gathered herself, but was slightly crouched, baring her teeth, and glaring as her crystals silently orbited around her.

Dash exhaled through her nose and started slowly moving towards her.

One step at a time, the soft crunch of her hooves pressing into the snow joining the soft ambiance surrounding them.

She walked all the way to Nightshade, and stopped just one yard away from her, the two pressing their glares forward in a silent battle of intimidation.

Dash did not flinch, blink, jitter, or shudder. The memories of her last encounter with Nightshade had hardly faded, but she fought them back, keeping her fears at bay as she looked one of her greatest foes right in the eye.

This was it… this was the test. And not some fake grandstanding projection of an ancient monster, it was the real test. When it mattered most, when everything was on the line… would she run and hide or would she fight?

She was a Wonderbolt, and it was time to prove it.

When Silver stared down Nightshade to protect them all, he didn’t care that he was outmatched. He looked her right in the eye and held strong… so she would too!

And wouldn’t you know it? The longer she stared at Nightshade, the more Dash really felt like rearranging her face.

“HRAH!” Dash lunged forward, making the first move. She wasted no time in channeling Silver as she pulled back and wound up the Full Motion Strike. Dash was overcome with the desire to punch Nightshade in the face as hard as she could for what she did to Silver… so she’d give it to her with his own move!

Every motion, maximum efficiency, and follow through!

Dash’s hoof struck Nightshade’s face.

But… Nightshade didn’t even budge.

Dash’s body began to shudder, her face scrunching in pain as she felt like she had just punched a solid brick wall. Pink sparks were erupting from Nightshade’s cheek, a very thin aura of magic protecting her from Dash’s attack. Dash swallowed, her eyes remaining in a glare, but twitching madly as prickling pain and numbness crept up her arm, Nightshade’s hissing breath splashing onto her face as she began to growl.

All right… maybe she was just a tad overzealous with that one.

Not waiting for Nightshade to move, Dash kicked back, and whipped her almost limp arm in front of her face along with the other. As she expected, Nightshade roared and threw her own punch. Dash’s guard intercepted it, but she quickly turned her head to the side as her arms were pressed right to her cheeks, the amount of force behind Nightshade’s wallop reverberating through her as she was lifted off the ground and sent flying backwards.

“GRGH!” Dash grunted as she felt knocked silly for a few moments, blinking frantically and regaining her focus just in time to backflip and land on her hooves, skidding to a halt in the snow. “Ahhhh… gahhhh…” Dash exhaled loudly, reaching up and moving her jaw back and forth. The amount of force behind Nightshade’s punch went right through her guard and made it feel like she had taken a lick to the jaw regardless.

She quickly looked up and pounded her wings down, catapulting herself upward as Nightshade slammed down hard over where she was just standing. A loud BOOM echoed out followed by all the snow around the impact zone blowing away to reveal a large divot.

“Shit!” Dash cursed, twisting around and pumping her wings, hoping to create some distance, but she barely got very far before realization hit her.

Taking her eyes off Nightshade? NOT a good idea!

She spun around just in time to reach out and lock arms with Nightshade, grappling together, but the difference in strength and size instantly worked against Dash, Nightshade pushing her skyward.

Dash growled, trying with all her might to move Nightshade’s arms, but who was she kidding? Nightshade was bigger than her and it was a wonder her flight suit could contain those muscles.

She had to THINK! She had to be SMART! Silver didn’t survive by out flexing her! He outplayed her!

Dash reached her neck forward and snapped her teeth toward Nightshade’s face, but got nothing. Dash grunted, and pulled herself forward into Nightshade’s arms to get closer.

Bad idea.

Nightshade quickly wrapped her arms around Dash’s torso and clamped down as hard as she could, squeezing with all her strength. Their upward movement completely stopped as Nightshade hovered and focused on clamping Dash’s body like a vice.

“GAH!” Dash gasped, immediately feeling the pressure as Nightshade pressed all her strength against her, but she didn’t falter. She wanted to get closer and a little squeeze wasn’t changing her plan!

Dash growled, reaching her neck forward again and getting right into Nightshade’s face, opening her mouth and clamping her teeth down on the strap between the lenses of her goggles. With a sharp backward motion, she pulled Nightshade’s goggles back, the band remaining wrapped around her head as it stretched out. Nightshade blinked in surprise as her goggles were removed, but barely had a moment to wonder what the hell Dash was doing before…

SNAP

“GRAAAAAH!!!!!” Nightshade cried out in pain as her goggles snapped back to her face awkwardly, smacking against her and the rim of the right lens jamming right into her eye. She let go of Dash instantly, her hooves reaching for her face as she curled her body down and struggled to readjust the goggles.

Dash wheezed and grabbed her midsection briefly as Nightshade released her, but quickly sprang into action, whipping around behind Nightshade and grabbing her by the neck while she was dazed.

With a loud grunt and heaving her whole body, Dash yanked Nightshade’s body until it was upside down and began pumping her wings, making use of Matteo’s Air Burst to propel them along with multiple blasts of wind.

Nightshade growled and thrashed as they began diving. The brief effect of Dash’s sly maneuver wearing off as she threw her body around. Dash cringed and winced, the cumulative pain and fatigue from the whole ordeal thus far beating her over the head as she struggled to keep a hold of Nightshade. She was so ridiculously strong. Dash felt like she could be tossed aside with every movement, but she held on for dear life. The ground grew closer and closer, Dash hoping to Celestia that she could hold on long enough to drive Nightshade face first into the ground.

But moments before impact, Dash’s eyes shifted, catching a glimpse of Nightshade’s crystals floating up behind her and glowing.

Dash tried to let go before it happened, but the moment she loosened her grip she was pelted by beams of pink magic. She gritted her teeth and grimaced as she and Nightshade shot apart, both of them hitting the snow covered ground at mostly harmless angles. Dash bounced a couple of times, but quickly righted herself and slammed her hooves to the ground, glaring towards Nightshade as she did the same.

She could do this! She could get the better of Nightshade just like Silver did! She just had to…

Dash blinked and took a quick deep breath.

She had to remember what her goal was here. A part of her wanted to beat Nightshade senseless for almost killing Silver, but she knew that wasn’t realistic. Also… she had to keep in mind that she was buying time. Her goal was SOARIN, not Nightshade.

Facing her down had gotten her all riled up as if it were time for revenge, but that wasn’t why she was here. Nightshade had let her friends go because she was focused on her. That alone was a victory, now she just had to figure out how to last long enough until everypony was ready.

She’d need an escape route eventually, but until that time she just had to hold out long enough. She could see the shield from here. As soon as she heard Matteo’s freaky eagle scream she’d be on her way… hopefully figuring out how to ditch Nightshade in the process. Her friends could always keep her at bay while they charged the elements, but she’d rather not throw them at Nightshade if she didn’t have t—

“HRRRAAAAAAH!” Nightshade roared, her crystals flashing and three more appearing around her. Dash quickly focused and blinked, watching as the new crystals joined and her aura surrounding her expanded.

She watched carefully, wary of what the absorption of multiple crystals did to her last time. But she didn’t start foaming at the mouth, flailing, or stomping about… she kept them in control similarly to how she did against Silver.

Again… Dash wasn’t really sure if that was good or bad, especially with the massive energy wave hurling towards her.

“GRH!” Dash grunted as she dove and rolled aside, getting out of the way of the superheated wave often used by Shadow. The moment she was in the clear she had to kick off the ground into a backward trot to avoid small spheres of magic raining down from above. There was Trance’s move… and soon after, Witch’s small needle sized bursts began streaming towards her. She turned and broke into a gallop, spreading her wings and taking off into a fast glide to outrun the stream, turning her head towards Nightshade above.

She was going all out with the magic. She could see beginnings of the other spells too. Devil’s globes, energy around an arm like Sin, the other had magic around the tip of her hoof like Blade…

But what was Nightshade doing? Dash quickly arched around, easily avoiding the incoming attacks and began weaving as the globes began popping up and exploding.

This was… easy. She was approaching Nightshade with barely any extra effort. She was being wary of a trap, but what trap? Nightshade was throwing everything and the kitchen sink at her like no tomorrow.

But maybe that was it… it all felt so unrefined. Like she was just throwing the magic at her. Dash turned up and shot towards Nightshade, batting aside more spheres as they whipped towards her. It was all so unfocused. She easily recalled how deadly her attacks looked when she fought Silver, this was nothing like it at all.

Dash pulled back to strike, but was suddenly halted in place, her eyes widening.

She was surrounded by pink sparkles… Moon’s telekinesis.

Before she could even struggle, Nightshade lunged forward and grabbed her out of the magic, whipping Dash around and throwing her towards the ground.

A throw? Dash easily righted herself and pumped her wings down to slow her descent, landing softly as Nightshade slammed to the ground a few yards away.

Dash stared towards Nightshade curiously. She could have easily thrown and heavy haymaker right to her face or used a devastating magic attack in that moment. But she threw her instead? And she did so immediately. She didn’t stop to taunt, flirt, or sexualize the moment in any way.

“RRRRAAAAAH!” Nightshade growled again, charging forward on hoof. Dash set her hooves carefully and glared.

Rule #1: Never be afraid of your opponent.

Dash kept her eyes locked on Nightshade’s chest, taking a page from Descent’s book. Every movement in forward combat started with the chest. Nightshade threw a heavy hook right to the side of Dash’s face, but she was backpedaling before Nightshade even threw it.

A clean dodge, eyes back on the chest. Nightshade tried again, simply lunging forward and throwing another heavy punch.

Duck, shift, eyes back on the chest. Dash made no effort to fight back, she wanted to get a sense of Nightshade’s tempo first. Nightshade was projecting her attacks big-time, and thanks to her flight suit stretched taut over her very built chest muscles, every starting movement of each attack was clear as day.

But even here something felt off. Nightshade was throwing knockout blows… and only knockout blows. Nothing in between. She was making no attempt at subversion, no tricks, and even her magic had stopped.

Also, where were the mind games? Where was the sexual projection? Where was the intimidation? The sadism?

It was all missing.

All of that being gone and the way Nightshade was fighting made Dash feel like she was trying to rush the fight, like she was… desperate? There was no other way to explain it.

The Nightshade that she watched beat her mentor within an inch of his life was absent. Was she trying to hurry things along because she needed to be elsewhere? Dash felt like she was fighting somepony that wasn’t even looking at her.

Dash blinked as her back hoof suddenly hit a rock and halted her backward motion.

“AH!” She yelped as she threw up her hooves, forced to take the full brunt of one of Nightshade’s hooks. Dash was thrown right off her hooves, landing in the snow nearby as the shock of the hit made her shudder, her left arm twitching as a bruise appeared instantly on the spot that was hit. “Ahhhh ow!” Dash whined as she rolled over, but she flinched as her eyes widened.

Rule number three: never go to the ground!

Dash forced her body into a log roll, moving out of the way as Nightshade slammed her hooves down, magic surrounding her hooves similar to Sin as it ejected and caused a forceful shockwave. Dash was tossed into the air, with chunks of snow batting her in the side, but she opened her wings and evened herself out, landing on her hooves.

“Haaaaa…” Dash groaned again, picking up her leg as the newly acquired bruise throbbed. She did her best to keep her eyes on Nightshade as the pain offered a rough distraction. Nightshade was breathing heavily, breath hissing through her gritted teeth and nostrils as she sharply turned her eyes towards Dash.

Nightshade’s behavior was odd… but that didn’t change the fact that she was fighting… well, Nightshade. She was frighteningly strong and very dangerous regardless of her state of mind. The pain in her arm had to wait, Nightshade was already charging at her again and she was hardly in a favorable position.

Dash ducked and weaved, Nightshade’s attacks picking up in speed, but never losing their force. Dash was forced to put up her hooves, suppressing her hesitation after feeling how hard Nightshade could hit. Even the glancing blows sent shocks through her as she began deflecting.

No fear, NO FEAR! She had to keep it up! Rule number two! Intimidation will always win! That went both ways, she would not let Nightshade scare her or she’d surely fall. But simply playing defensively wasn’t going to work either. Nightshade was clearly in a hurry and picking up the pace of her attacks. Even if the blows were just glancing, she couldn’t let them wear her down!

Dash growled and took a chance, leaning in as she shifted to dodge a punch directed at her face. She grabbed Nightshade’s arm and thrust her elbow forward, aiming it for the same eye that got jammed by her goggles before in hopes of dazing her again.

Nightshade tried to dodge, but Dash’s movement was too swift. Her elbow smashed right into the goggle lens, a loud crackling noise sounded out from them complete with a sharp pain shooting through Dash’s arm. She winced and grimaced, but forced herself forward, bending Nightshade’s neck back.

“HHRRRMPH!” Nightshade exhaled loudly, digging her back hooves into the ground. Dash perked up as Nightshade halted all of her momentum with a single effort, her elbow moving slightly further and shattering the lens of Nightshade’s goggles.

It did not have the intended effect. Nightshade was not staggered at all. Her eye was wide open beneath the now broken frame, glaring hard at Dash.

But Dash glared right back. She was finally looking Nightshade right in the eye.

It wasn’t anything like before. There was nothing in Nightshade’s gaze that scared her. She looked angry and nothing more. The intimidating, seductive stare was nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately, the moment of curiosity caused her focus to falter. Before Dash knew it, Nightshade had swung her other arm around and pulled Dash in, remaining on her back hooves and squeezing Dash again.

“GAHHH!!!!” Dash cried out as she once again felt the pressure of Nightshade’s grip, her body completely immobilized against her strength. Dash flailed and growled, trying to get free, but the pressure was so intense that she was quickly losing her breath. She squeaked her eyes open, trying her hardest to keep her glare focused.

Again… this position? It was so odd for Nightshade to have Dash like this and to not take advantage of it. No cooing, no lip biting, no humming, and no pleasure. Nightshade was just trying to kill her… or injure her to the point of being knocked out? It was hard to tell, she was simply being violent.

It didn’t make her any less dangerous… and Dash wasn’t sure what to do. She was stuck, she couldn’t hope to overpower Nightshade and that was really the only way she was getting out of this.

“AHH!” Dash cried out, tilting her head back as Nightshade’s grip grew stronger. The compression was unbearable, her sore body and already beaten up ribs were on fire.

“JUST PASS OUT ALREADY!” Nightshade suddenly yelled in her face. “OR DO I HAVE TO BREAK A FEW BONES FIRST?!”

Dash opened her eyes.

What did Nightshade just say?

‘Pass out?’

This coming from the pony who came close to killing so many of her friends without a passing thought? What was going on?

Dash turned her eyes down, looked Nightshade right in the eye, and hardened her glare again.

“I refuse,” Dash hissed at her, Nightshade visibly twitching as if the manner of Dash’s voice struck a nerve.

“Breaking bones it is!” she snarled, taking a deep breath. Dash felt Nightshade’s chest expand against her, and she tensed her body, knowing this would hurt. With one solid effort, she wiggled her wings free, spreading them out before Nightshade could— “HRAAAAAH!” Nightshade roared as she tightened her grip fiercely.

“AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!” Dash screamed right into Nightshade’s face, her wings flapping as she swung her neck back, but she quickly slammed her mouth shut and growled loudly instead, her eyes shooting open wide while somehow still keeping her eyebrows angled down. Some very faint cracks and pops came from Dash’s body, followed by sharp pains shooting through her, but her expression did not falter, she just kept glaring at Nightshade. “IS THAT… ALL… YOU’VE GOT?!” she yelled right into Nightshade’s face.

“What the hell is with you?!” Nightshade roared, forcing her voice so much that saliva sputtered onto Dash’s face. “Just fucking go down already and get out of my way!”

“In your way huh?!” Dash yelled back, pressing her nose to Nightshade’s. “Get used to it, you angry slut! You can’t tell me to do jack shit!”

Nightshade’s grip did not weaken one bit, the intense pressure remaining as Dash fought back the pain, getting right into Nightshade’s face and staying there to get her point across.

But then something caught her ears.

In the distance… it sounded like… an eagle’s cry.

Dash’s thoughts filled with every swear word she could think of, including the ones she had heard recently that she was pretty sure Silver made up. She frantically glanced down at the Element of Loyalty she had nearly forgotten was still around her neck.

Her friends were in place… right when she was in a very unfavorable position.

Or was she? She was thinking one-dimensionally again. She was stuck in Nightshade’s strong grip, but her wings were free!

“What the hell are you smiling at?!” Nightshade yelled into her face. Dash didn’t even know she was smiling. Either she was going a little nuts or she enjoyed the thought of hitting Nightshade enough to grin through the pain.

She didn’t say a word, instead opening her wings out as far as she could. Nightshade blinked, looking back and forth as Dash’s wings tilted down and cupped slightly.

“Going… up?” she sneered.

With one strong motion she thrust her wings down, using Matteo’s movements mixed with High Winds’ wing positions to cause an Air Burst with twice the propulsion. A loud BANG sounded out as the burst of air expelled and smacked the ground right beneath them. Nightshade yelped as her hooves were lifted right off the ground, sending the two of them into the air, but her grip on Dash remained.

They began tilting as they floated up a few yards from the ground, slowly placing Nightshade between Dash and the ground below. The snow was all pushed away from the surrounding ground, leaving a nice hard looking spot of solid earth right beneath them. Dash gritted her teeth, resisting the pain of Nightshade’s grip as she spread her wings again… and cupped them in the opposite direction.

Before Nightshade could put together what was happening, Dash repeated the movement in the opposite direction, a burst of air ejecting upward and propelling them right back to the ground… with Nightshade’s back turned to it.

“RGH!” Nightshade growled, letting go of Dash the moment the air pocket exploded. She turned her body and tucked her wings in, roughly slamming to the ground on her side. Dash rode her to the ground, quickly sticking her elbow out the instant she was free to jam it into Nightshade’s arm.

But despite the extra force and gravity on her side, she felt like she barely put a dent in her, a vibration jolting through her as Nightshade hit the ground, traveling through her elbow and making her dizzy for a moment. She rolled off Nightshade and shook her arm out.

Nightshade’s shield wasn’t even up that time and it still felt like hitting a solid rock. Was it even possible to have a body that hard? That couldn’t be natural.

But the arm jitters quickly became an afterthought. Dash was up and on her hooves, and Nightshade was still in the process of gathering herself… with her back turned.

This was her chance. She needed a moment to create an escape route and she had it. If she could get one good solid hit on her face when she turned around before she could throw up a shield she was sure to knock her for a loop long enough to get a head start and leave her in the dust. Nightshade’s dense musculature couldn’t protect her from being clocked right between the eyes.

She was moving before she even finished the thought. Rushing forward and pulling back a hoof the same way she did at the start of the fight, but this time confident she’d land the hit without anything getting in her way. She gritted her teeth, her confidence building as she closed in and Nightshade hadn’t even started turning around.

Dash kept her mouth shut, she wanted to let out a fierce roar as she let it fly, but she didn’t want to give Nightshade any clues. Nightshade turned around, her eyes shifting towards Dash… just in time to see the hoof an inch from her face.

Boy… did it feel good.

Dash’s hoof made contact, colliding with Nightshade’s face head on. There was no sudden stop or sharp pain this time, no magical shield to stop Dash from putting all the force her body could muster into the swing. There was a loud crackle as the collision destroyed the frame of Nightshade’s goggles and snapped the nose strap. A loud whip and snap followed the blow as the elastic band of Nightshade’s goggles constricted, the goggles flying off her face as her head and neck were forced backwards.

“HRAAAAGH!” Dash released the built up roar, vocalizing her strength as she pushed through the entire motion and into the follow through. She felt Nightshade cave to the force, a grunt of pain escaping her lips as Dash pushed the full force of Silver’s technique directly into her face.

As Dash’s hoof slipped off, Nightshade was spun all the way back around, her head and mane whiplashing further as she stumbled back, but didn’t fall.

Dash twirled around once, the amount of strength she poured into the strike creating so much momentum that her body wasn’t having it any other way. But the moment she was facing Nightshade again, her eyes locked on her and widened.

Nightshade had stumbled and had crumpled slightly to the ground. She had one front hoof planted, but the other arm was bent and resting flat on the ground. Her back legs were both crouched. She was growling and shuddering slightly, all of her crystals flickering and orbiting around her as she growled and violently shook her head out.

With the position she was in and with her wings open and draped on the ground… Dash was staring right at her back. It wasn’t at a flat or stable angle… but…

It wouldn’t be the first time she had used the Sonic Blastoff on uneven ‘terrain’.

Dash didn’t waste a second, the thought alone immediately became the plan… to launch herself while planting Nightshade firmly in the ground at the same time. She ignored her injuries and she disregarded the pain all over from the fighting. She couldn’t let any of it distract her or else she’d mess up the motions.

After a short gallop to close the small distance, Dash hopped up, moving her legs right into the starting position to begin the precise motions the moment she touched her hooves to Nightshade’s back. Every millisecond felt like ages, Dash praying that Nightshade didn’t turn around or else this maneuver would be an instant dud.

Dash felt her already rushing adrenaline surge as her hooves touched to Nightshade’s back. Her eyes widened, remaining on the back of Nightshade’s head for a moment as it stayed turned.

No more thoughts, no more worries, and no hesitation. She focused entirely on the motions while using Nightshade’s back as a surface… and as she always did, thought back to the word by word explanation when Soarin first taught her the move.

Front hooves…

Back hooves…

Front jump…

Back jump…

And… force wings!

Dash felt a surge, the familiar rush of the extreme acceleration following successful execution as a wave of triumph rushed through her…

For all of a fraction of a second.

Something happened. The surge of speed was followed by an instant, violent halt. Her body whipped forward, the heavy inertia nearly ripping her in two as every part of her lurched forward… except for her back right leg.

A very loud and painful CRACK came from her hip, a jolt surging through her leg followed by complete numbness as if her leg had actually been pulled off her body by the amount of force going in both directions. Her eyes widened, her pupils shrank, and a squeaky, high-pitched gasp escaped her throat.

Nightshade had grabbed her leg.

The loud POW of a sonic boom rang out and Dash did surge forward, but any speed generate was instantly dissipated, the loud crunching of Nightshade’s hooves pressing into the snow sounding out behind her as she was dragged along until they stopped ten yards from where they started.

Dash was barely able to register what had just happened, but one thing was certain… her right leg was dislocated and the pain that was about to follow post shock never got a chance to arrive.

Nightshade roared, swinging Dash by her limp leg all the way over her and slamming her to the ground. Dash arched her back, her eyes stuck open wide as she bounced against the solid ground, pain shooting through her back and wings that clashed with the pain rushing forth from her leg.

Before she could even touch the ground again, Nightshade swung her back over her and slammed her to the ground on the other side.

And she didn’t stop.

Dash was completely powerless as Nightshade swung her around like a ragdoll, slamming her to the ground again and again until the multiple shocks to her body and head nearly knocked her out. Eventually Dash could barely feel anything beyond the jolts of the impacts repeatedly hitting from a different spot every time. She quickly lost count of how many times Nightshade had picked her back up and smacked her against the ground, putting every ounce of effort into barely clinging to consciousness.

Then Nightshade finally let go, whipping and flinging Dash through the air. She could barely vocalize her gasps and grunts as she bounced along the ground and rolled to a stop in a helpless heap covered in snow.

“Rgh… Haa…. Gah…” Dash’s voice barely squeaked out as she remained still, twitching. Pain began creeping in, but she barely registered it. Her brain was in a state of shock, the amount of pressure, blunt force, and impacts she was just exposed to had knocked her nearly senseless, barely able to form a coherent thought.

She could barely feel anything sitting still, but the slightest move lit her nerves on fire. She gritted her teeth and her breath hissed through them as she tried to just tip over a little. There was no way there wasn’t severe damage all over. Several parts of her body felt fractured or broken with sharp pains shooting randomly through her body as if her nervous system couldn’t figure out where the worst pain was coming from.

She made a solid effort to at least roll over, but as she did and landed on her stomach, a sudden rush surged through her throat. She placed a hoof to her mouth, but gagged and coughed violently, blood spraying from her mouth into the snow. She quickly pressed down on her mouth, coughing a few more times while a trickle of blood seeped between her lips and ran down her chin, dripping into the snow.

She gagged again, removing her hoof from her mouth and spitting, trying to get the blood out of her throat. Her limbs twitching as they propped her up, feeling like they could fail her at any moment.

“Hrrrrnngggg…” she groaned as she tried to move her body, pain shooting all over. She slowly flexed her wings, moving them all the way out and all the way back in. Surprisingly, her wings felt better than the rest of her, but that was the problem, the rest of her was an absolute mess and…

Dash’s eyes grew wide, and without further thought she forced her body to move, grunting in pain and nostrils flaring as her body cried out for her to stop. She turned herself around, her lower body remaining on the ground as she relied entirely on upper body strength.

“GAH!” she gasped as she finally finished a half turn, her arms giving way, her chest and chin falling into the snow as her eyes slammed shut and she continued to breath heavily. She had no idea what inside of her caused her to cough up blood, but whatever it was, it now hurt like hell to breathe. Every effort was a chore and made her chest tighten.

She forced her eyes open slowly, her vision blurry for a moment, but eventually the shape of Nightshade cleared up. She was still standing in the same spot with the snowfall obscuring Dash from getting a full view.

She started pacing towards Dash. The moment Nightshade began moving, Dash thrust her arms down again, trying to stand, but failing in every effort. She gritted her teeth as they were stained with her blood. Her body twitched and lurched, but she couldn’t make it work. Too much hurt, there was too much pain holding her down and her constant sharp grunts and gasps were making that audibly clear.

She ended up falling right back down, yelping as her chin and nose stuffed back into the snow. She couldn’t move herself…

But then her ears turned towards Nightshade, the crunching of her hooves in the snow was suddenly accompanied by something else…

Was Nightshade… giggling? That was the first sound that came to mind, but it sounded a little off. Dash picked her face out of the snow and looked up, forcing her eyes open again. Nightshade had stopped just a few paces away and Dash eventually got a clear view of her face.

With the goggles gone, it was easy to see Nightshade’s expression. The blow from Dash had also torn the middle of her mask a little, exposing part of her face.

What Dash saw was strange. The angry, desperate demeanor was still there, but it looked unstable. The corners of her mouth kept trying to curl up into a grin, but were being hindered by the perpetual scowl. Her giggles were in short bursts, as if whatever was trying to force its way forward kept running smack into her current mood as a whole. It was unnerving… but the brief blips of a smile, the quick shifts and twitching eyes…

Every brief change was a face Dash was very familiar with. The very same face Nightshade wore when filled with personal pleasure. Pleasure from inflicting pain on others… her uncontrollable sadism. If this dominant side of her personality was struggling to come forward, then Dash couldn’t imagine what else could possibly be on her mind to hold it back. But it didn’t matter how strong her current motivation was… Nothing could hold back Nightshade’s true personality completely.

Part of Nightshade was enjoying this. Enjoying seeing how broken Dash was after the brutal pounding she just gave her.

And to Dash… that alone was enough to piss her off.

Every brief glimpse of Nightshade’s sadistic smile made her angry. And the more she saw it, the more the anger built. An anger that managed to bother her much more than the pain strangling her whole body.

Absolutely not. She was NOT going to have it.

Dash slammed her teeth shut, suppressing every instinct to grunt, groan, or gasp as the current state of her body demanded of her. She shut her eyes tight and held her breath, telling herself over and over again that there was no pain… there was only damage. The pain was all in her head! She was letting it keep her down!

She WOULD NOT give Nightshade any pleasure out of it! She refused!

Dash growled, pressing her front hooves to the ground. Her right leg was completely limp and numb, but screw it, she still had the left! Harsh stabbing pains pinched and clawed at her nerves all over her body, but she disregarded all of it as she slowly began to rise, grunting loudly not out of pain, but with determination.

Nightshade visibly twitched. The smile stopped appearing instantly as she watched Dash struggle… but continue to rise.

With only three working limbs and burning sensations all over, Dash let out a roar, shaking spastically as she made it further than any of her previous attempts to lift herself up.

“HHHHRRRRRGHHHHH!!!!!!” Dash vocalized as her eyes remained shut so tight that her face felt like it was going to collapse on itself. Then… as she continued to shake, her eyes shot open wide, her eyebrows angling into a harsh, crazed glare that locked onto Nightshade. “HHHRRRRRGGGGHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!” Dash roared out again as she gave one last hard effort…

She stood up completely, wheezing with heavy breaths. Her eyes stayed wide for a few moments, but as soon as Dash felt stable… she narrowed them into the solid, serious glare that she had been sporting since this whole operation began.

The moment Dash’s eyes formed the glare, Nightshade flinched hard, taking a full step backwards and reclining her neck. Her eyes grew very wide as she froze in place, her pupils shaking madly as they remained fixed on Dash.

But Dash barely took notice, she couldn’t even see Nightshade very well at the moment. Her glare was holding steady, but her vision was slightly blurry, feeling lightheaded from the amount of exertion she just put on her battered body. She was ignoring it… all of it. None of the screaming from her body was going to get the better of her, but what the hell was she going to do from here?

Nightshade was practically unfazed and she was a broken mess. She ordered her friends to get in position and Matteo had given the signal, but there was no way they were coming back to help her. She had to hurry and get to them, but she couldn’t out fly Nightshade in her current state. Her wings were still working, but how fast could she fly if she was also fighting back all the pain from her body? The Sonic Blastoff came to mind, but that wasn’t happening with a dislocated hip.

“NO!”

Dash flinched and blinked as Nightshade suddenly yelled towards her, but she kept holding the glare.

“NO NO NO!” Nightshade yelled angrily, gritting her teeth as she thrust a hoof forward and pointed. “STOP! STOP THAT!” she demanded while pointing directly at Dash’s face.

Dash just stared. Stop what?

“STOP THAT RIGHT NOW! ARGH!” Nightshade growled, shaking her head out frantically, stumbling and wobbling in place slightly. “I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!” she yelled while pointing right back at Dash. “IT WON’T WORK!”

Dash had no idea what Nightshade was talking about. All she was doing was barely holding herself steady while glaring.

“You’re NOT him!” Nightshade spat at her.

Dash blinked.

Him…?

“You’re not! You’re not! YOU’RE NOT! ARRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Nightshade suddenly grabbed her head and collapsed to the ground. “RGGH! RRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!” She started groaning loudly while grabbing her mane and tugging it so hard that she was lurching her head back and forth. She stuffed her nose into the snow and released a muffled roar that continued as she pulled her head out, stood back up and shouted directly into the sky.

All the while Dash hadn’t a clue what she was talking about… unless…

“YOU! ARE! NOT! HIM!” Nightshade repeated, shouting each word individually. “AND I’LL PROVE IT! I’LL PROVE IT RIGHT NOW!”

Without another word, Nightshade launched at Dash. She surged forward while pulling back a hoof.

Dash could only watch as Nightshade closed in. She didn’t have anywhere enough strength to both react and get out of the way in time.

Nightshade yelled loudly, thrusting her arm forward in a haymaker that would most definitely either break Dash or knock her right into next week.

But as her hoof neared her face, Dash stopped thinking about Nightshade. She stopped thinking about being hit. All of her focus and all of her thoughts shifted to the most important thing on her mind.

She was thinking about her friends.

She was thinking about Soarin.

And she was thinking about doing whatever it took to get to them and do what she had to do.

Right now her goal to reach her friends and save Soarin were all that mattered to her. She couldn’t have cared less about Nightshade.

And she would do anything…

Absolutely ANYTHING…

To not let them down. To not let Soarin down.

Ah, Rainbow Dash… I simply must ask… How long are you willing to torture yourself by always thinking inside the box?

She closed her eyes.

Step outside of the box. Way outside of it. Whenever your world is spinning out of control. You can always let it spin and barf over the railing… Or you can leap on its back, take control, and ride off into the sunset!

Dash gritted her teeth.

The possibilities are endless, but only if you accept them to be so! The only pony standing in your way…

Dash’s eyes shot open, Nightshade’s hoof an instant away from impact.

IS YOU!

The next instant Dash was staring into nothing but a black void. There was a very odd sensation surrounding her… like she was moving but she was doing nothing to make herself move. She tried to look back and forth, but her neck budged at a snail’s pace, only moving in one direction the moment she tried at a hilariously slow pace like she was trying to swipe her head through a pool of wet cement. She noticed and tried to stop, but her head kept moving to look over her shoulder like she was trying to do in the first place, moving only half an inch every second or so.

“Ah, Dashie… I’m so proud…!”

That voice…?

Twister suddenly walked into her view as her head continued to turn. He was standing upright on his back hooves with one arm tucked behind his back, holding a wooden bat in the other. He stopped and turned to face her, standing on nothing in the pitch-black space as he smiled.

“It wasn’t graceful, nor do I believe intentional, but… you did it! I knew you had it in you!” he said cheerfully, tipping the bat in her direction as Dash’s head continued to turn… and she suddenly saw Nightshade.

Nightshade was behind her, still in the position she was in an instant away from delivering the knockout blow. Dash’s head finally stopped, stuck looking over her shoulder as Twister kept walking and started moving towards Nightshade, still upright in bipedal fashion.

“Now… do try to remember how this feels. I doubt you’ll be able to just do it again easily, but… we all have to start somewhere riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight?” he slurred as he bent all the way over to look at her upside down. “Now then…” he snapped back upright, lifted the bat, and tapped it in his other hoof. “You have something important you have to do. After all… your desire to succeed no matter the cost or means was the very reason you managed to pull this off! It would be a shame if you failed despite this meaningful first step into a whole new world…”

He walked right beside Nightshade, turned his head to Dash. Dash kept staring, her head still locked in place, unable to speak and afraid to try moving anymore in case she got stuck in another slow motion.

“So… run along now!” Twister grinned devilishly. “This one’s on me!”

He quickly lifted the bat over his head and swung it down, clocking Nightshade over the head with a loud POW!

The instant the bat connected the black void was gone and Dash was gliding through the air. Nightshade yelped and slammed face first right to the ground roughly, her body twisting over the top of her as her face was dragged along the ground.

Twister was nowhere to be found.

Dash didn’t think about it. She did… something. Maybe she actually managed to do what Twister was prodding about, but if she did, she had no idea how. Nor did she understand what Twister had just done for her or how. All she knew was she was moving and Nightshade was mid-crash.

“HHHNNRRRGGGG!!!!” Dash grunted taking her wings out of the glide and pumping them as hard as she could. Pain flared up all over, half of her body hanging limply as she put every ounce of strength and effort she had into pounding her wings against the air. Cracks and pops erupted from her joints and muscles around the wings, her fur stood on end as shocks and shivers crawled all over. “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Dash shouted with determination, shooting along as fast as she could manage towards the Crystal Empire shield. Nothing else was going to get in her way!

“BLAH!” Nightshade grunted, spitting out mouthfuls of snow as she forced herself up, but the unexplained hit to her head was catching up to her, the quick upward motion making her dizzy as she clambered and tried to get to her hooves. She barely managed to turn around without falling again, but as she focused and held a hoof to her head, she instantly noticed that Dash was not there anymore. “WHAT?!” Nightshade gasped as she frantically looked about, her ears eventually picking up the noise of Dash’s yelling… in the distance.

She frantically snapped her head in the direction of the noise and saw Dash flying, way ahead of her and nearly out of sight with the snowfall distorting her view.

“NO!” Nightshade yelled. “NO! NO! GET BACK H—”

Before she could finish she suddenly felt something ram her in the back. She gasped, abruptly cut off as whatever hit her put a tremendous amount of pressure on her. She was driven right back to the ground, crashing into the snow and surging forward through it. She tried to pick herself up, but her attacker proved to be really strong. There was a hoof placed on the back of head, and she was roughly pushed back towards the snow. She turned her head just before it smacked against the ground, grunting on impact.

“Hrrgggnnngghhh!” Nightshade growled as she forced her head to turn just enough to open one eye and look up. Her eye grew wide, glaring with rage. “YOU!!!!!!”

Spitfire was on her back, digging a leg and a forearm into Nightshade’s tailbone and between her wings. She had her other hoof pressed to the side of Nightshade’s head, holding her down. Spitfire snarled at her, gritting her teeth as she bent down to get closer.

“You just couldn’t stay away, could you?!” she snapped at Nightshade. “Always gotta stick your nose in our business!”

“FUCK YOU!” Nightshade shouted back up at her.

“SHUT UP!” Spitfire grabbed a chunk of Nightshade’s mane, yanked her head up and slammed it back down, making sure to turn it a little so her nose and entire face was stuffed into the snow, holding it still as Nightshade thrashed and let out muffled roars. Her crystals suddenly popped out of the snow and began glowing, pointing towards Spitfire.

But she didn’t have it. Before the crystals could do anything, Spitfire repeated the process. Picking up and slamming Nightshade’s head down. The crystals squeaked and fell harmlessly back to the snow.

Spitfire glanced up as Nightshade continued to grumble beneath her. She squinted, seeing Dash becoming smaller and smaller in her view as she flew towards the shield. She looked a little to her left and saw the bright blue flashes of Sombra’s magic erupting into the air. She looked behind her at the battle still raging behind her between all the factions, the never ending carnage slowly moving in her direction.

“Rgh…” she growled to herself as the rest of the top tier Wonderbolts started approaching her, several of them sporting damaged suits or missing their goggles. Fleetfoot and Fire Streak waved for them to glide in low. None of them could actually see WHO Spitfire had pinned beneath her. Spitfire looked back towards Dash as they swooped in, but they slowed down as they heard her growl loudly.

She suddenly pulled Nightshade’s head out of the snow, Nightshade coughing and sputtering as she spat out some snow. The Wonderbolts came to an abrupt halt, hovering in place and a few edging backwards in surprise.

“GRRAGH!” Nightshade grunted as Spitfire yanked on her mane and forced her neck back while pressing the rest of her weight down against her body.

“You’re lucky I have BETTER things to worry about!” Spitfire snarled at her.

Without a moment of hesitation, Spitfire reached down and forced Nightshade up, turning her head around awkwardly by the mane. She wound up her other hoof and punched Nightshade across the face really hard. Nightshade’s head whiplashed to the side, but was forced right back as Spitfire kept her grip on her mane. Spitfire punched her three more times, each time with the same brutal force until the fourth whipped Nightshade’s head so hard that the chunk of mane Spitfire had in her hoof ripped right from her head. Nightshade spun around and fell on her side. She flailed her arms and legs as she tried to get up, but every attempt was awkward and clumsy, her hooves slipping and body never getting more than an inch off the ground.

Spitfire trudged right up to her and gave her a hard kick right in the ribs, Nightshade gasped as she rolled along the ground, her crystals instantly shooting towards her and pressing to her as if reacting to her struggles. Despite their assistance, she remained on the ground and continued to sputter and grunt angrily while failing to stand.

Spitfire snorted, walking by Nightshade and spitting on her before turning her attention towards the Crystal Empire. She gritted her teeth and sharply looked over her shoulder at the Wonderbolts. They were all staring at her wide-eyed.

“FORGET ABOUT NIGHTSHADE!” She yelled towards them before pointing in the direction of the Empire. “WE NEED TO STOP RAINBOW DASH! GO!”

She turned and launched from her spot without waiting for any acknowledgement, rocketing in the direction of the Empire as fast as she could fly.

The Wonderbolts just stared for a few moments, a few looking towards Nightshade as she grunted and struggled on the ground. They exchanged a few glances, but ultimately did not dawdle, following behind Spitfire and leaving Nightshade behind to struggle.

“Hrnngggg… grrrrnngggghhhhh… arrrrghhhhh…” Nightshade continued to groan as she struggled to get her bearings. No matter how strong she was, one too many blows to the head had her vision scrambled and her equilibrium missing the mark constantly as she tried to focus. She sniffled and snorted with strong raspy breaths, shooting small wads of blood from her nose as she heaved.

Eventually she managed to at least roll onto her stomach and slowly pick her head up, holding a hoof to her head and blinking to try to steady her focus.

“RRGH!” She snarled stretching her neck forward and pressing her head to the ground for a moment, the cold of the snow cooling down the burning headache as she took several deep breaths. Her head finally calmed down, but when she looked up…

“NIGHTSHADE?!”

She froze, her body stiffening save for her eyes growing large and her jittering pupils growing smaller.

Hovering in the air no more than ten yards away…

Descent and Starry Skies. Lightning Dust was nearby too, but had just finished coming to a halt as if surprised the other two had stopped.

Save for his wings keeping him afloat, Descent had completely frozen as well, his eyes locked on Nightshade and his jaw hanging open. Starry Skies was in a similar position, only she kept glancing back and forth between Descent and Nightshade as if waiting for him to say or do something.

An uncomfortable, unnerving, and stomach churning dramatic silence filled the void between them. Clear conflicting priorities tearing into Descent so hard it was a wonder they weren’t taking a solid visible form. Starry looked just as uncomfortable, but was more animated about it than Descent. Both of them looked like they wanted to immediately land, but…

“GUYS!” Lightning Dust suddenly flew over to them and waved her arms. “We don’t have time! We need to help Dash!” she reminded them, trying to inject reality in between personal desires pouring forth.

Descent’s ears twitched hard as Dust chimed in, he glanced down and blinked several times before looking out in the direction the Wonderbolts had flown.

He proceeded to look between them and Nightshade over and over again, gritting his teeth more and more with every glance. Starry stared at him, the look on her face slowly morphing into desperation as if she was so conflicted that only he could decide what to do.

Descent shut his eyes and scrunched his mouth, his body quivering for a moment before he forced himself to look away from Nightshade. Without saying a word, he made a quick head motion towards the Crystal Empire. He reluctantly turned away and pumped his wings hard, accelerating as fast as he could to give chase. Starry hesitated, but quickly followed behind him with Lightning Dust in tow.

They left Nightshade behind.

She was frozen in place, and had not moved. The chance encounter had temporarily shocked her to the point where she was struggling to regain her senses. She shut her eyes and growled, shaking as she dug her hooves into the snow, her crystals began glowing brightly, a bright pink light surrounding her as they tended to her.

“RRRRGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” she growled loudly as her eyes opened and were engulfed by the pink light. She wasn’t down and out just yet.

Dash just kept pumping her wings. She had little time or energy to focus on anything else. Save for checking once to make sure her element was still around her neck, and looking behind her once to see if she was being followed. She didn’t think Twister’s little noggin knocking intervention would keep Nightshade down for long, but she was nowhere behind her. So every ounce of effort was being poured into flying as fast as she could against the pain coursing through her brutally battered body.

She was getting closer and closer to the shield, keeping her eyes peeled for wherever her friends were set up and waiting. She knew at least one of them would be in the air waiting to flag her down, but she still wasn’t quite within visual range. The snowfall was blocking her view just enough even though she was growing closer by the second.

Bright flashes of light blue light were perpetually shining from her left. She couldn’t tell from where exactly, but Sombra was clearly nearby and likely still fending off Angel and Blade. She knew she was going in the right direction because she told her squad specifically to place themselves somewhere they could get a clear shot at Sombra when the time came. As long as the flashing lights were in her view, she was on the right track.

Now she just had to make sure she made it there. Her wings were doing their best, but she was getting little help from the rest of her body. Her wing joints and muscles were working twice as hard as she was used to. The other parts of her body that usually helped in the effort were either non-responsive or hurt too much to use effectively. She was putting twice the pressure on her wings as is and parts of her body being dead weight or limp put even more on them. She felt like her wings might cramp up or strain at any moment, but she forged on as if the threat of injury was nonexistent.

Then she saw something in the air through the snowfall. It was big, waving its arms, and didn’t look like a pony.

Matteo!

Dash quickly adjusted her flight path, turning towards Matteo and pushing her body past its limits, keeping one eye shifting back and forth between them and the direction of Sombra’s magic flashes.

Eventually the view in his direction became clear as well. She slowly began to make out the moving image of Soarin’s body… Blade and Angel still swarming above and attacking him. He was moving quickly as well, and at this point it was a race between the two of them, unbeknownst to Sombra as he closed in on the same point as her destination. She had to keep moving, she had to get there and get ready before he was in range! It was going to be close.

But then he suddenly stopped. Dash’s eyes widened as Sombra swiftly turned Soarin’s body around and faced his two attackers.

It looked like he finally got fed up with Blade and Angel… his magic coming to life and a loud roar echoing throughout the fields.

Dash’s heart began beating quickly with excitement. Luck was on her side. Blade and Angel had annoyed him just enough for him to finally turn his wrath on them. He would make quick work of them, no doubt, but this brief distraction was everything she could ask for. She now had a clear window to get to the shield before him.

The moment was fast approaching… she could do this! They could do this!

She closed in, Squall and Star becoming visible and waving their arms with Matteo. Dash did not return their signals, saving as much energy as she could as her flight path shift and movement towards them would have to do. Eventually the ground area near the shield became clearer as well, all of her friends from Ponyville gathered and waiting to begin the spell with hundreds of crystal guards becoming visible just inside the Empire shield.

But this wasn’t the first time during the scenario that confidence had clouded her awareness. She swallowed as she thought about checking behind her one more time, but… she was afraid to look over her shoulder. She was afraid that she would look and Nightshade would be reaching for her. Nightshade was not behind her before, but in Dash’s head, Nightshade might as well be supernatural, like a nightmare she couldn’t shake even if she was just able to throw off the fear and face it. She almost didn’t want to look on the off chance that simply thinking it was possible would make it happen.

But this wasn’t the time to be superstitious… this was serious. Better to be safe then sorry.

She took a quick peek.

“Oh…” Dash blinked. “For the love of…”

Right idea, but the wrong problem.

Spitfire was behind her.

Dash’s eyes twitched as she focused on her sudden pursuer. Spitfire wasn’t close. The snowfall was distorting her view a little, but that was definitely her. There was no sign of any other Wonderbolts with her, or at least within visible range. She had a solid lead on her and more than enough of a buffer to reach her friends before Spitfire caught up, but that wouldn’t account for the process of charging and firing the Elements. She was approaching fast, the distance closing at an uncomfortable rate that quickly pulverized Dash’s steadfast confidence that she was in the clear.

But her eyes instinctively narrowed into a glare. A harsh, iron glare that could slice through a solid rock as her eyes fixated on Spitfire.

“Will she… just…” Dash growled loudly as she forced her wings to pump harder despite the pain. “GIVE UP ALREADY!” Dash growled, keeping in mind the distance and rate of Spitfire’s approach as she forged on. The excitement was gone, but it was replaced by a fire of rage. She would NOT let Spitfire stop her. She would NOT let her delusion ruin this chance!

Spitfire may be her captain… but in this particular instance?

She was no different than Nightshade… and possibly even more dangerous. So Dash framed it in her mind the very same way she did while facing Nightshade.

No fear, no hesitation, and no giving in!

A bright flash of blue light came from her left. She glanced quickly, noticing that Sombra had already incapacitated Angel and Blade, but was still standing over them. Assuming he wouldn’t be there for long, Dash quickly turned and decided she was close enough for her friends to hear her.

“Guys!” Dash yelled as she closed in, her head physically hurting as she forced her voice to its limit. Matteo, Squall, and Star stopped waving, their ears turned to her as she closed in. Her Ponyville friends were all looking at her too. “START IT UP! START THE ELEMENTS!” she yelled, coughing violently and wobbling in her flight path for a moment after. “RRGGH!!!” She grunted, stabilizing herself and forcing herself along.

At first she wasn’t sure if they heard her or not, but the worry was quickly put to rest as Matteo dropped down while yelling something to her old friends. A moment later, a glowing white aura began surrounding Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Twilight. They slowly began lifting into the air, their eyes filled with a bright white light as the Elements on their necks flashed brightly.

Dash glanced over her shoulder again. Spitfire had gotten closer. She still had a solid lead, but the snow no longer distorted the view. There was still no sign of other Wonderbolts with her. She had either left them in the dust or left them behind. At this point, with how nuts she had gone, Dash wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

Would they have enough time to fire off the spell? Or would she have to stop and fend her off first?

That definitely wasn’t happening, not in her current state. And after Nightshade messed her up pretty badly, she was pretty sure Spitfire would easily do the same, or worse. That settled it. She had to gamble on it. As long as she kept up the pace she firmly believed they’d have enough time to activate the spell, especially with her friends already starting it.

Dash suddenly felt a surge in her chest, a sharp breath drawing forth from her lungs as she felt the power of the Element of Loyalty come to life within her. The red lightning bolt jewel on her necklace began to flicker and shine as all of her friends lifted higher and higher into the air and began to spread into their formation with Dash’s spot vacant.

Dash pitched up, keeping her pace the best she could. She blinked in surprise as she sped up. It was not through any effort of her own, it was as if the element itself was helping her, tugging her towards her spot in the formation. Whatever it was… it was just what she needed. The faster she reached her friends, the less of a chance Spitfire had to stop her. She pushed on, riding the force tugging at her as the familiar feeling of the Elements’ magic continued to grow and swell in her chest. It had been a long time since they had used them, but she knew the feeling well.

She grew closer and closer, eventually feeling lighter as the white glow slowly encompassed her as well, drawing her in. Her eyes filled with light, the power of her element surging through her body.

When she came within twenty yards, she shifted, turning her body around and upright while throwing her wings out to put on the brakes so as not to overshoot them. She slowed down faster than she wanted, but the element took care of the rest, shifting her right into her place in the formation. No sooner did she reach her spot did the ribbons of rainbow colored light begin to reach out from every element, slowly reaching towards herself and her friends. Dash slowly turned around, making brief eye contact with Twilight in the center. She looked concerned, they all did. Dash was bloody and beaten, but they all recognized the look on her face. They could worry about her later, right now they had a job to do. Twilight flashed her a smile, acknowledging that they were ready and it was time.

Dash turned all the way… ready to focus on Sombra…

“RAINBOW DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!”

Dash’s eyes widened. Her jaw dropping as her eyes quickly darted towards… Spitfire.

She was a hell of a lot closer than she should have been. She had sped up?!

After both checks over her shoulder had led Dash to estimate Spitfire to be at least a hundred plus yards behind her… She was now less than thirty yards away and closing in. At some point she had accelerated, presumably using one of the countless techniques at her disposal. Dash had completely forgotten to take that into account.

The elements were nowhere near close to being fully charged!

“STOP! NOW!!!!!!!” Spitfire roared as she shot directly at Dash.

Dash was speechless. She quickly glanced at all her friends, but they were all, staring in shock as well. The Elements of Harmony were charging, if any of them moved or tried to intervene the spell would fail. If the spell failed, they would miss their chance.

They had… no options.

Dash felt utterly powerless as Spitfire careened towards her and—

It happened so fast that Dash nearly missed it. She had even accepted that she was screwed, so the fact that… something just ran into Spitfire took several seconds to register.

Something grey had shot in out of nowhere and slammed into Spitfire’s side.

It looked like… Derpy Hooves?!

“GAH!” Spitfire yelped in surprise as her trajectory was altered just enough. She sped right by Dash, wobbling and flailing as she struggled to balance herself both from the shock of the collision and the fact that something was clinging to her and weighing her down. With her balance offset, her spastic movements caused her to turn away and pitch down, spiraling towards the ground. She tried to open her wings, but Derpy reached up and grabbed one of them, clamping it down to stop Spitfire from regaining flight.

Dash stared at Spitfire as she fell, watching Derpy cling to her for dear life despite them plummeting toward the ground. She quickly turned her head, glancing about in the direction that Derpy had come from.

There were four ponies… all just outside the shield. Four stallions to be more specific and a moment later she realized who it was.

Fancy Pants, Braeburn, Big Mac, and Bulk Biceps, who was still spinning with his arm extended in a follow through.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAH!” Bulk roared triumphantly as he stopped spinning and flexed his biceps. “DIRECT HIT!”

Dash’s mouth hung agape, but this time for a different reason. The backup plan for her Ponyville friends. She had nearly forgotten about them! But they were only supposed to be there in case the spell failed… unless…

Fancy stepped out in front of them and gave a salute towards Dash.

Apparently, Fancy decided to take a few liberties within their plan… and his timing couldn’t possibly have been better!

Dash smiled, refocusing and looking forward with the rest. Derpy wouldn’t be able to hold Spitfire for long, but it was more than enough time for them to charge and fire! Now all that was left was for Sombra to…

Dash blinked in surprise… and she was certain her friends all shared her sudden shock.

Sombra was already there.

He was close by, on the ground, and looking up at them. The manner in which he was standing still suggested he had been there for a short while already.

For a brief moment, Dash was worried that he would attack them, but… he was just standing there. His horn was dormant, not even a blip of a magical aura upon it.

Dash stole a quick glance at Twilight, only to see all five of them glancing at one another as Sombra just stood still with his eyes on them.

What was he doing? He was just staring at them, a look of curiosity on his face as he tipped his head back and forth. Was he trying to figure out what he was looking at? Curiosity overpowering urgency?

Did he… not know what the Elements of Harmony were?

Dash gritted her teeth and grinned.

“Come on guys! We have him!” She yelled as the rainbow ribbons finally connected and the aura around them grew brighter. “NOW! WHILE HE’S IN ONE SPOT! DO IT!”

All of them focused their eyes on Sombra, heeding Dash’s words like the leader she had become.

The power of the elements grew and grew, focusing towards Twilight and her jewel fixed on the Element of Magic as they concentrated. All of their minds were set on the spell of banishment to ensure it had the desired effect.

“What is this…?” Sombra spoke his mind as he focused Soarin’s eyes towards the six mares above.

Soarin stared with him, just as curious. He saw Rainbow Dash among them… recognizing all of her Ponyville friends as well. Were they using the Elements of Harmony? Soarin was well aware that Dash was one of the fabled six who could wield the mystical power, but… beyond that he knew nothing about them. They were going to use them on Sombra? On them? What was going to happen?

He stole a quick glance at Celestia as the two were forced to watch from their bindings. But Celestia looked… excited? That was the best way he could describe the look on her face. Her eyes were darting back and forth between Sombra and the Elements.

She knew something… and it appeared to be good. Sombra apparently didn’t know what he was looking at, but if Celestia’s demeanor was anything to go by… whatever was about to happen wouldn’t be good for Sombra.

He could only wait and see… and hope.

“RGH! GRAH!” Spitfire roared as she crashed roughly to the ground with Derpy in tow, the snow somewhat cushioning their landing as they bounced. She quickly rolled upright and reached over and grab Derpy. She only looked briefly at who it was, completely disregarding her a moment later as she pulled Derpy off of her by the arm and flung her aside.

“EEP!” Derpy squeaked as she curled up and tumbled, quickly burying herself in the snow and peeking out at Spitfire cautiously.

But Spitfire wasn’t even looking at her, she glared right back up at Dash, her teeth grinding together angrily.

“NO!” She shouted as she quickly altered her stance to start up her own version of the Sonic Blastoff. “I WON’T ALLOW—”

She was abruptly cut off, her eyes widening as she felt a physical jolt from several directions.

“AH!” Spitfire grunted as she was quickly forced to the ground with multiple weights piling and holding onto her. She frantically looked back and forth, her eyes growing incredibly wide.

Fire Streak, Misty Fly, and High Winds had tackled her to the ground and were restraining her. Her head snapped forward, her breath quickening with harsh quick gasps escaping her throat as Lightning Streak, Surprise, Blaze, and Air Mach all landed in front of her as well, standing ready while focused on her.

“WH…WHAT’S GOING ON?!” Spitfire asked frantically, her eyes darting between all of them.

She flinched as Fleetfoot landed right in front of her, but didn’t look down at her.

“Keep her down! Don’t let her interfere!” Fleetfoot ordered, encouraging the pile on top of Spitfire.

“FLEET! RGH!!!!!” Spitfire growled, the panicked look on her face turning into a glare as she began thrashing beneath them, but they had a firm hold on her. She couldn’t get free. “WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?!” she yelled, nearly screaming.

Fleetfoot looked down at her, her goggles slightly fogged up and preventing Spitfire from seeing her eyes. She let her head droop, but only for a moment, taking a deep breath as she reached up and pulled her goggles down, hardening her eyes into a serious glare as she looked Spitfire in the eye.

“What Silver would have done.”

Spitfire froze on the spot, ceasing all efforts to get free in an instant. She went stiff, her eyes stuck wide and her jaw slowly hanging open. She remained completely still as Fleetfoot turned around, staring at her back and unable to formulate any kind of response as if the words had stabbed her right in the heart.

Fleetfoot shut her eyes the moment she had her back to Spitfire, her lip quivering briefly as she inhaled sharply through her nose. Lightning and Blaze moved towards her, Lightning placing a hoof on her shoulder.

Fleetfoot looked down, held her breath for a moment, and quickly cleared the visible unease from her face. She gave a nod to Lightning and Blaze, the two of them stepping away as she stared up at Dash.

“Do it Dash…” she said to herself. “We believe in you!”

Sombra just continued to stare. The manner in which he was examining the process was one of intrigue, but he did not simply stand idly for long. He could see all six of them looking at him and set his hooves, as if waiting… or daring them to try whatever they were doing.

And Dash, along with her five oldest friends… were about to take that dare.

No hesitation.

No second thoughts.

No holding back.

Dash felt a surge from within her, all of her friends feeling the same as the power reached its peak, all the energy flowing to the center and gathering around Twilight.

They all shouted vigorously, rather five shouts and a maximum effort ‘ah’ from Fluttershy, each throwing their right hoof skyward.

The Elements of Harmony fired, shooting its signature rainbow stream of magic up into the air above them with tremendous force, the beam widening considerably as it erupted into the sky and began to arch.

Sombra’s eyes widened, holding his ground but tipping his head to watch as the enormous rainbow beam soared high overhead.

With another loud shout, the Elements pointed their extended hooves down towards Sombra.

The rainbow plunged out of the sky, surging down towards him as its area expanded even further, guaranteeing that there was nowhere for Sombra to run to avoid it if he tried.

Sombra gritted his teeth, glaring towards the incoming massive blast as his own magic flared to life.

“HRAH!” he roared as his magic swirled fiercely around his horn and a powerful beam of magic ejected from it. It careened towards the rainbow, but passed right through it. “What the…?!” Sombra blinked, ceasing the output the moment he noticed its ineffectiveness. With no other option and the magic seconds away from slamming down upon him, he grunted and threw up a spherical shield around himself instead.

The beam grew closer…

And closer…

And closer…

And landed.

The rainbow magic thrust itself down upon Sombra, passing right through his shield as if it wasn’t even there.

“AH!” Sombra yelped in surprise as the powerful surge flowed right through his own magic, the rainbow light slamming into him and pushing into his body.

Dash felt her heart jump in her chest, uncontrollable excitement pouring into her as they landed a direct hit.

The full force of the Elements were surging against him! Now they just had to keep it up until they pushed Sombra’s spirit right out of Soarin’s body! And then…

Dash stared.

They all stared.

The magic was flowing… it was clearly pouring out full force and it was clearly in full contact with Sombra.

So…

Why was nothing happening?

Sombra blinked, looking himself over slowly as the surge of rainbow light continued to plunge down upon him, flowing over his body.

But he felt nothing. It was weightless and had no strength or force behind it at all.

He spent a moment or two lifting his limbs, looking at his body and wings as he was bathed in the rainbow light.

“Feh…” he scoffed, lifting an eyebrow for a moment before standing upright and looking back into the sky. He stared directly at the Elements of Harmony as the magic continued to run by him with absolutely no effect.

“I don’t believe it! It’s happening! They are using the elements!” Luna yelled as she hobbled, supporting Discord on her shoulder as the two dragged themselves along and away from the fighting behind them. They had been struggling through the snow, trying to make their way away from the chaos and after Sombra. “Look! Discord look!”

“Rgh…” Discord groaned, holding a hand to his head as he leaned against Luna, still incredibly disoriented from the beating he received. “They… they what?!” he opened his eyes, registering Luna’s words. With the way things had gone, neither of them had expected the Elements of Harmony to get a shot.

“Quick! We must…” Luna began but as the two of them moved closer to get a view… They both saw exactly what the others were seeing and froze in place.

Sombra was standing there, taking the magic of the Elements head on with nothing happening.

“What…?” Discord’s said quietly in an astounded tone of disbelief, but Luna didn’t hear him. She was too busy looking up and down between Sombra and the Elements as if immediately demanding an explanation. Then she took a good look.

“The spell!” she gasped. “They are using the wrong spell!” she exclaimed, recognizing it was the spell used on her as Nightmare Moon. “WHY?! We told them it wasn’t as powerful! Why would they—” she turned to Discord and abruptly cut herself off.

The look on Discord’s face. It was filled with pure defeat. He began to slump against her as his eyes remained wide and his jaw hung agape.

“Discord?” Luna blinked.

“Lulu… look at him…” He pointed at Sombra. “It doesn’t matter…”

“What?” Luna’s eyes snapped back to Sombra.

“Hmph…” Sombra grunted, his patience growing thin as he continued to be bathed in the rainbow light. “What a farce…”

“What’s going on?!” Dash yelled frantically towards Twilight while keeping her focus on sustaining the magic.

“I don’t know!” Twilight replied while shaking her head. “We’re not doing anything wrong!”

Dash glanced around at all her friends in the formation. Just as Twilight said, there was nothing wrong. None of them were goofing off or out of place. Everything was the way it was supposed to be.

Then why?! WHY WASN’T IT WORKING?!

Her eyes widened as the ribbons of rainbow light connecting them began to squeeze and flicker. They were already projecting the power of the Elements for longer than they ever had before and it was beginning to fade.

“Enough of this…” Sombra snorted as his eyes began to glow brighter beneath the blue fumes rising from them, his magic swirling around his horn and gathering at the tip. He held his head high into the air, an aura building around him and glowing brighter as more and more magic flowed through his horn. The ball of light on the tip grew and grew until it was larger than his head, pulsing and jittering as if it was being forcefully contained. “HRM!” he narrowed his eyes into a glare and a pulse of magic shot from around his body into his horn.

The ball of magic exploded, popping like an overfilled balloon and sending an incredibly strong shockwave outward in all directions.

The snow around him was blown away.

Star and Squall were thrown into Matteo, who barely kept upright.

Fancy Pants and his crew were tossed right off their hooves.

The Wonderbolts nearby were nearly blown away.

Discord and Luna were both knocked right over.

Dash gasped as the shockwave passed right by her, Sombra’s magic again not even touching her, but she couldn’t say the same for her friends. They were all pushed right out of the formation, a loud unholy screeching noise coming from the Elements of Harmony as the ribbons of rainbow light connecting all of them ripped and tore like tissue paper.

The giant flow of magic flickered and dissipated, the beam of flowing light vanishing into thin air as the torn rainbow connections shot back towards the elements and into the jewels.

Dash’s eyes shot open as she felt a massive shock, like a thousand volts of electricity had just been pumped through her as the reversal of the magic flow slammed directly into her. She and the rest of all cried out in agony, everypony grabbing their heads as splitting migraines tore through their heads while violent crackles and sparks of unstable magic danced all over their bodies.

It felt never ending. Dash grabbed and touched her head all over, jerking her neck back and forth while screaming. It hurt so much, much more than all the physical pain all over her body as the backfire ripped at her mind and just wouldn’t stop, it felt like her head was going to rip itself off her body.

Then loud BANGS rang out, explosions of light erupting from all the elements.

All six of them were thrown downward. The torture had stopped, but Dash’s body had gone completely numb as she and the rest fell helplessly through the air towards the ground with trails of smoke in their wake.

They crashed to the ground one by one. Hitting the solid earth hard and painfully due with the cushion of snow blown away.

Dash lay still, her eyes stuck open. She was awake and aware, but a screeching ringing noise was filling her head and she couldn’t move her body. She could see the blurred image of her squadmates running towards her, they were yelling, but she couldn’t hear a word they were saying. Their voices simply merged with the ringing. She felt sick, like she could just throw up if she even tried to move, the world spinning as if she had just spent an hour in the center of a tornado and it just abruptly stopped.

Her body tipped over, flopping onto her back and tilting her head in the other direction. Though her vision was blurry she could make out the colors and shapes of all her Ponyville friends. They were all twitching, the sounds of their groaning echoing and reverberating in her head like it was coming from all directions. They were all in a similar state as her, steam rising from the Elements they wore.

Suddenly her body moved. She saw a set of talons supporting her. Squall and Star in front of her as she was helped, but the moment Matteo supported her with his good arm she gagged and heaved forward. Star and Squall backed off as Dash vomited, leaning forward and almost ripping free of Matteo’s grip as her neck extended and everything came out. She coughed and gagged, twitching as it ended. Matteo quickly moved her over and tried to put her in a more comfortable position, but it didn’t matter. Dash felt nothing, all movements and reactions of her body were automatic. She was tipped back and her head was supported, she could see Star in front of her fretting over her with very concerned eyes. Past her Dash could see the Crystal Empire’s barrier. The guards stationed inside were all staring in shock.

What… just… happened?

Off to the side, Luna had just finished picking Discord back up. She looked back and forth frantically, but her eyes kept returning to Discord, whose look of defeat remained.

“Discord… what’s going on?! What is it?!” She asked while nearly shaking him. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?! They used the wrong spell!!!”

Discord sighed, slumping down against her again, slowly looking at her for a moment before staring towards Sombra again.

“The Elements of Harmony…”

Sombra slowly started moving towards the shield.

“Not only judge those who use their power…”

Sombra walked right by the fallen Elements of Harmony, Star, Matteo, and Squall all watching cautiously as he ignored them.

“But those who they are used against…” Discord’s ears flopped to the sides of his head. Luna’s pupils shifted back and forth before her eyes widened and her ears stood up, as if realizing what he was getting at.

Sombra stopped in front of the shield and stared at it. All the guards inside were holding their weapons at the ready, but visibly shaken and anxious.

“And the Elements…” Discord placed a hand on his forehead and looked down “Have judged…”

Sombra walked right through the shield, its magic ward letting him in without any resistance.

“That Sombra is not evil…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this Chapter by: Foxenawolf

The Elements pass judgement before taking effect, eh? So in the past they have rejected Celestia, worked on Luna, and worked on Discord... but they don't work on Sombra? Ooooooooooohhhhhh the implications. :pinkiecrazy:

Also, Alternate title for this chapter: "Rainbow Dash gets her shit pushed in"

Seriously, i didnt realize until i was reading it over later that i put Dash through a literal wringer in this sequence. SHE'S A TOUGH GAL, SHE'LL LIVE.

But what the hell was up with Nightshade? Something is clearly bothering her, she wasn't being anywhere near as creepy as usual, though part of her behavior suggests Silver left a real lasting effect.

And lets give a round of applause to Fleetfoot. She recognized that Spitfire was not in the right mind and overcame her fear of being in a leading role to make sure it was set right. Seems she and the rest of the top Wonderbolts recognized Dash taking matters into her own hooves and her efforts to rescue them all during the clash between Discord and Sombra proved she had her priorities straight and her head screwed on right. Spitfire has had nowhere to turn since her attempt to talk to Sombra failed and it had only been going downhill. Dash really is filling a certain gap left by one absent old pony.

But... the Elements didn't work. Despite Dash scratchign and clawing to the point where her plan was executed in full, they had no effect at all. And now Sombra has walked right through the shield that repels evil.

What the hell are they going to do now?

Guess we'll find out, won't we?

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Also... cause i just love to keep doing it:

Chapter 164: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 6: A Somber Return)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 164: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 5: A Somber Return)

The moment Sombra left the magical veil of the shield behind him, his eyes were locked in place. He stopped just inside the barrier and stared straight towards the sight that lay before him.

The Crystal Empire… clear as day… shimmering brightly and lighting up the surrounding area, its vibrant glow producing its own light that shone elegantly, even with all traces of the sunset outside obscured by the whirling blizzard.

Within the shield, there was no more snow in his way, no more flurries to block his view. He felt the warmth of the controlled climate, his skin and fur tingling as it came within contact with the comfortable temperature… but it was not the only source of a tingling sensation.

The Empire itself was before him in full view, and so close now too. He was at the edge of the barrier, but he was now the closest to it he had been yet. His eyes slowly grew wider as he took in the sight, his breaths quick and light, inhaling sharply every few seconds as rushes of awe and excitement filled him. The way his body jittered and how his jaw refused to close, one would think he had felt he’d never get this close to it again… and he hadn’t even started moving yet.

Inside his mind, Soarin’s spirit was torn between two focuses. He had a frantic worry for Dash pouring through him. Something had clearly gone wrong with the Elements, but Soarin didn’t really give a damn about some mystical stones or their lack of effect. He only cared about Dash and how said stones appeared to leave her in a heap on the ground with her squad supporting her. At this point he knew there was nothing he could do to help. He was at Sombra’s mercy. But beside him he could see the image of Dash, the piece of her soul stuck with him… she was twitching and grimacing in pain, eyes shut tight, little sign of energy or drive as it inched back and forth beneath the bindings. He wanted so badly to look back and make sure Dash was okay, but he could no longer see her… because Sombra had their eyes locked on one thing and one thing only.

Soarin suddenly noticed that Celestia had gone completely quiet. Considering her connection to the Element bearers, he thought she would have more of a reaction to what just went down. Interestingly, she hadn’t made a peep, nor had she appeared to budge from her spot. Her strange reaction almost made Soarin wonder if she wasn’t surprised at the result, even if it was unexpected?

One thing was clear, she was focused on Sombra’s silhouette and no doubt seeing his reaction from the outside as well.

Sombra just kept staring, as if the sight itself was more than he could fathom.

“I…” he suddenly spoke. “I…” he repeated, but apparently couldn’t find the words. His mouth finally closed, his eyes narrowed slightly. “It’s…” his eyelids began to twitch and his lower lip quivered. Emotion was beginning to show. “It’s so…” he kept trying, but to no avail, words were failing him. He was so lost in his thoughts that he wasn’t paying any mind to any of the crystal guards who were standing nearby, a few divisions all shaking in their armor with their weapons pointed towards him, not sure what to do after seeing Sombra walk right through the shield they were told would repel him.

Sombra suddenly blinked, looking down and all over Soarin’s body, looking back and awkwardly moving a wing as he examined himself.

He did not crystalize.

Sombra’s eyebrows tipped up in dismay, quickly realizing that the body he controlled did not meet the prerequisites to have the crystal effect no matter how much he wished for it. Soarin, after all, wasn’t a crystal pony. Sombra’s soul alone wasn’t enough to make it happen.

He sighed, exhaling through his nose as he accepted it reluctantly, instead returning his attention to the Empire.

Without a word… he started walking. The moment his hoof inched forward to take the first step there was a very frantic and audible stir among the nearby guards. The clanging and clattering of armor and weapons running into one another as those in front backed right into those behind them.

But Sombra kept his eyes on the Empire, paying no mind to the guards at all.

“Move up! Hold your positions!” A voice yelled from among the guards. Those in front lurched towards him, but none of them went very far. Weapons were drawn, crystal ponies of all three races edging forward. The earth ponies digging tower shields into the ground with a spear pointed. The unicorns behind them with spears lifted in their magic, and pegasi hovering slightly above with spears in their hooves. They kept leaning as if ready to charge, but never made any moves.

“HALT!” One brave voice yelled from the crowd.

Sombra did not.

“Don’t take another step!” Another yelled.

But Sombra did and kept doing so.

And then one finally snapped.

“HRYAAAA!!!” An earth pony up front hooked his shield on his back and charged with his spear in his teeth, leaping towards Sombra while passing the spear to his hooves in midair.

Sombra finally looked down, seeing the guard mid-jump. In an instant, his magic came alight and the earth pony halted in midair, surrounded by the blue aura.

He blinked as the rest suddenly charged as well in an unorganized manner, in clumps as only a few found the confidence to move at a time.

“No.” Sombra said aloud, his horn glowing brighter and surrounding the first group to approach with his magic. They all halted in place, their hooves moving, but going nowhere. Sombra floated the earth pony down to join them and then gently moved them aside, continuing on his path.

One by one, the small groups of four to six at a time rushed at him. Sombra generated a shield in front of him, a kite-style shield that had angled edges. It expanded to cover both himself and a five-yard radius outward on both sides. The guards ran right into the shield one right after the other. The impacts were soft, the surface of Sombra’s shield bending inward slightly as they threw themselves into it before the angled surface pushed them aside and out of his way.

As they were forced aside, several tried to slide off and flank Sombra, charging again, but the results were no different. Sombra used his magic to generate large sweeping veils of light that resembled panes of glass but bent like rubber as they swooped around and pushed the guards away harmlessly.

Sombra’s eyes either remained up at the Empire or down at the ground as he continued this process, unable or unwilling to look into the eyes of the guards as they tried to stop him with every ounce of effort. He kept taking one step at a time, the Empire growing closer and closer.

As he moved, the guards continued to fail. Some of them ceased attacking, instead looking on curiously. Eventually nearly all of them had stopped except for a determined few. Perplexed and bewildered, they began following instead, weapons still drawn, but very much noticing that Sombra was not playing rough, his methods of fending them off were gentle and lacking any kind of violent force.

By the time Sombra was well on his way to approaching the northern gate, all attacking had stopped, every last one of the guards present realizing that nothing they were trying was working. While feelings were mixed, they were not blind. Sombra did not hurt any of them and there was no way it was unintentional.

Yet even after leaving the guards to wonder what was going on, Sombra found himself standing before the large northern gate of the Empire. Waiting for him was a whole new group of guards, much larger than the first. They all pointed their spears at him, several more running out to join before the gate closed behind them. Lots of yelling and ordering could be heard from within, some orders being shouted down to them from peepholes in the wall above, others being shouted to guards stationed inside the gate itself.

Sombra looked around at all the pairs of battle ready eyes locked on him… and sighed again.

This was going to be how it was… wasn’t it?

None of them would lay a hoof on him, much less a spear, but they were all convinced he was an evil monster. Those he had made his way through were still behind him, following and wary, not even his display of mercy completely convincing them, or so it appeared.

Sombra looked up, taking in the sight of the large gate behind the guards, a sharp exhale of breath hissing through his nose as he wished they would just stand aside and let him in.

But the slight barrier to entry quickly became an afterthought… as a bright flash of distorted purple light came from his left.

Sombra and all the guards flinched and turned their heads to see Discord fall face first to the ground. He looked just as beaten and worn out as Sombra had left him earlier as he gasped and wheezed flat on his stomach. Standing behind him were Shining Armor, Cadence, and a very stricken, disheveled looking Luna. The prince and princess of the Empire immediately made their way towards the guards, but something didn’t look right about Luna, as if she had just seen a ghost. Her body was jittering, her expression was shifting through a mess of unrecognizable emotions, and her mane look frazzled, its normally elegant ethereal state all over the place.

Sombra kept his eyes locked on Discord and Luna, narrowing them considerably into a glare as he completely disregarded Shining and Cadence running by towards the gate and sliding to a stop in front of the guards.

They both set their hooves, taking defensive positions and glaring towards Sombra, but Cadence looked over her shoulder, her head moving as if counting the number of guards.

“Shiny, go to your guards! We’re going to need more!” she yelled. Shining blinked and looked right at her like she was nuts.

“I’m not leaving you out here alone!” he exclaimed with great concern, but Cadence quickly shook her head.

“I’ll be fine! But neither of us will be if we face him with such a small force! GO!” she demanded. Shining Armor gritted his teeth and growled to himself, but quickly did as he was told. He quietly agreed with his wife 100% despite his concern for her safety. He ran right towards the gate, the guards behind them parting slightly to let him through. The gate opened just enough to let him through beneath it before slamming back to the ground.

With Shining doing his part, Cadence turned to face Sombra, but was surprised to see him looking away. In fact, he had turned away from her and was facing the two gods as Discord slowly peeled himself off the ground and stood up, wobbling.

Sombra snorted loudly, Cadence and all the guard flinching even though he wasn’t looking at them.

“Unbelievable,” Sombra spoke up with a growl. “You two just don’t know when to quit, do you?” he snarled. “All of your tricks and games have failed and even those around you are questioning your word. Now begone!”

“Never…” Discord said quietly as he held a hand to his head and shook his head out.

“Hmph…” Sombra harrumphed. “You lack the right to take that tone with me, scoundrel. Or do I have to break your nose a few more times to make that clear?”

“DON’T lecture me… mortal!” Discord barked at him as he struggled to remain upright. “I will never yield to the likes of you!”

Sombra’s eyes narrowed and he started walking towards them.

“And what will you do?” he asked as he approached, his eyes shifting periodically to Luna, wary of her somewhat concerning appearance.

“The Elements…” Discord’s voice shook slightly. “They… NO!” her gritted his teeth as he glared at the approaching Sombra. “The Elements are WRONG! They are misguided in their judgement of you! I will—!”

He was cut off as Sombra reached up, grabbed Discord by one of his horns, and slammed him head-first to the ground. Discord released a muffled yell of pain with his nose practically jammed into the grass. Luna instantly backed away and a stir of alarm came from both the guards and Cadence.

Sombra bent down and placed his mouth right beside Discord’s ear.

“You… will… do… NOTHING!” he hissed.

“Discord!” Cadence yelled as her magic sparked to life on her horn, her natural aura flaring up with silver swirls of light encircling it as her reserves of Alicorn magic rushed forth as well. Her eyes shined brightly with white light as she tipped her horn forward, a loud crackling screech filling the air as a large beam of magic fired from her horn. It was concentrated, roughly a yard in diameter with white streams encircling it that looked like solid crystal.

Sombra’s magic lit up, forming a kite shield that jammed into the ground beside him. The beam slammed into the shield. It tipped up, the shield’s angle causing the beam to split upward and shoot in several directions, fragmenting into the air harmlessly. The impact made a loud shattering noise, like a crystal smashing against a solid surface as it broke apart and shot into the air.

“RGH!” Cadence winced after a few moments, the Alicorn magic taking its toll on her from extended surging use. She pulled back as the silver light surrounding her natural aura flickered and vanished. “GAH! Haaaa…” she coughed and wheezed, holding a hoof to her head as she stepped back and a few white sparks jumped from her horn as her own aura remained. She blinked and looked up, several mouths slowly hanging open among the guards behind her as the dust cleared and Sombra’s shield remained with not even a crack, dent, or smudge on it.

Sombra was still glaring at Discord while holding him down.

“This does not concern you, young Alicorn,” Sombra spoke up as his shield dissipated and he slowly turned his head to look at her, keeping the pressure down on Discord’s head. “If I were you, I’d—”

Sombra suddenly stopped and blinked, staring at Cadence. Cadence reclined, her eyes going wide as she saw his focus, his eyes looking her up and down, scanning her face, her mane, and her whole body.

“Are… are you…?” he trailed off, tipping his head curiously.

“LU…LU…!” Discord’s voice suddenly came from below. Sombra’s head quickly shifted back, glaring down to see Discord had slipped just far enough to free his mouth. “DO… IT… NOW!”

Sombra perked up, his ears standing straight up and turning back and forth, as his eyes shot right to where Luna was standing before.

She was gone.

Sombra frantically looked about, his eyes eventually catching an unnatural light coming from his peripheral vision. He looked the other way and saw Luna, standing several yards away, but with so much magic pulsating from her horn that her aura was rising higher than anypony could see from the ground.

“LET… IT… GO!” Discord yelled.

Luna stood up on her back hooves and pulled her head back, the rising light from her horn bending and flowing with her movements. Her eyes lit up with intense white light and her whole body was surrounded by an undulating dark blue aura.

Luna shouted, if it could even be called that. It sounded like an unnerving scream of agony that echoed in every direction as she lunged forward and thrust her horn towards Sombra.

A large beam of dark blue light filled with white shimmering sparkles ejected from her horn. It was easily ten times larger than the one Cadence had just attempted, the power output in line with her supernatural powers.

Sombra immediately took his eyes off of her and the rapidly approaching blast, instead looking around at all the guards nearby.

“NO!” Sombra yelled, his magic flaring up quickly. “HRRRAGH!!!!!” he yelled, conjuring two shields that widened considerably upon materializing. He slammed one down in front of himself and threw the other one over to the guards.

Sombra grunted as Luna’s magic slammed into his shield, multiple cracks immediately forming on its surface. Yelps and cries of desperation erupted from the guards. Sombra’s eyes widened as Luna’s magic began punching holes through the shields.

Something was different, she was forcing her magic to a point he had yet to see, possibly explaining its odd darker appearance as well.

He did not waver. He dug his hooves in and pressed his shoulder to the shield, anchoring it in place and using his own body to support it while using a majority of his efforts to strengthen the shield protecting the guards.

Sombra’s ears perked up as he caught the sound of screams behind him. He gasped and looked over his shoulder. Cadence was behind him, but not close enough to be completely shielded from the wildly out of control magic and scattering split edges of the beam.

“HRMPH!” Sombra attached his shield to his arm, shrinking it down and leaping backwards, his body feeling the burning rush of the magic slam against it as he heaved himself and the shield all the way back to Cadence. The moment he was directly in front of her, he expanded the shield again and anchored it once more, protecting her from further harm.

A few explosions rang out from above. Sombra looked up to see a few wayward splinters of the beam slamming into the walls of the Empire, a few making it over and threatening damage to the buildings just within.

Without a second thought, Sombra pushed his magic further, conjuring several bows that launched magic arrows into the sky. Each one intercepted the out of control split beams with perfect accuracy.

“HRGH!!!!” With an extra effort, Sombra conjured a spear and narrowed his eyes towards Luna. He was not going to let this continue. He pulled the spear back, locked his eyes right on her head, and—

“AAAAAAAAARRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Luna suddenly roared in pain, the same unholy echo filling the air. A large blue explosion erupted from her horn, her magic instantly ceasing as she was thrown backwards and fell to the ground.

In an instant, it was quiet again. Sombra still had his shields up, the bows floating above and the spear ready to throw near his shoulder. But the moment he saw Luna on the ground, he snorted and lowered the spear, eventually letting it vanish along with everything else.

“Overwhelmed by your own power…” Sombra said to himself, shaking his head. He glanced back at Cadence. She was on the ground, covered in magic burns, and twitching, but she was moving, slowly trying to support herself.

Sombra’s face began to scrunch up slightly.

He looked over to the guards he had protected. Most of them looked okay, but there were a few being tended to who were unfortunate to be struck by the slivers that made it through the shield.

Sombra growled, his lips parting to reveal gritted teeth as breath hissed through his nose. He angrily glared towards Luna.

“YOU!” he yelled, his voice filled with rage as he stomped towards her with fast, heavy steps that nearly shook the ground. Luna was on the ground, curled up in a ball, and shivering with her eyes stuck open wide, a constant sizzling noise coming from her horn. Sombra reached down, grabbed her by the neck and yanked her into the air. She did not yelp or scream. She only exhaled loudly as Sombra hoisted her up. “YOU WOULD SO RECKLESSLY CAUSE HARM TO YOUR OWN?!”

Luna was limp in his grip. She simply stared up, neck bent back, eyes still wide, and said nothing.

“FEH!” Sombra scoffed, letting go of her. She fell into a heap at his hooves. He turned quickly, but froze in place. The guards who were up and ready were all facing him, and had their weapons drawn cautiously.

Sombra opened his mouth to speak, but promptly shut it. He was angry with Luna, but… that little reaction likely didn’t help their perception of him.

“What the…?!” Sombra blinked as a flash of purple light and a crackle came from nearby. He quickly looked towards where he had left Discord… he was gone. He then heard another crackle behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Luna gone too, and the brief remnants of Discord’s magical aura flickering before they vanished.

They were gone.

He was caught off guard by the escape, but his next reflex was to look towards Cadence and…

They had left her behind, still on the ground and struggling to stand.

Silence spread among all those around, nothing but the light clatter of crystal weapons and armor from the guards, some showing interest in making moves to help Cadence, but mostly remaining still with Sombra nearby.

Sombra’s mouth began to twitch, a look of disgust forming on his face as he looked back and forth between where Luna and Discord last were and the guards. He growled to himself, doing his best to stay calm amidst his extreme disdain for the actions he just witnessed. As he did, Cadence finally got to her hooves and dragged herself over to the guards. A few guards went out to grab hold of her, supporting her as she moved. But as they got close, she suddenly wrestled herself free from the guards and forced herself out in front. Several of the guards called to her pleading for her to stand down, but she did not. She glared towards Sombra as he continued to stare at the spot he dropped Luna.

“Hmph… Cowardice… nothing but cowardice…” Sombra grumbled to himself as he struck Luna and Discord from his thoughts. Instead… he refocused and started walking towards the gate again.

He lifted an eyebrow as he approached, noticing that Cadence had gotten to her hooves and stood protectively in front of the guards.

He couldn’t help but smile.

“Hm… now that’s a leader…” he said to himself as he kept approaching. The guards shuffled around, pointing their spears forward. Cadence steadied herself and growled, forcing her magic into her horn, but it lacked any sign of alicorn power.

Sombra walked right up to her and stopped, looking down at her calmly as she glared up at him, her magic flickering.

The stare down lasted several seconds, but none of them noticed that Sombra’s eye was twitching slightly.

“SOMBRA! DO NOT LAY A HOOF ON HER!” Celestia yelled, startling Soarin beside her as she suddenly yelled after being quiet for so long. “IF YOU DO I WILL—”

“Listen you…” Sombra growled as Celestia’s binds suddenly tightened and squeezed the breath out of her. She wheezed and was nearly flattened to the ground. Sombra’s silhouette turned all the way around and got right into her face. “Are you daft? I just protected her from YOUR SISTER. And you have the gall to suggest I’d just punch her in the face for my own amusement. I’d sooner do that to you for being so uppity in here!” He snorted and pulled back, turning his head around to refocus. “Now silence… don’t ruin this for me.”

Soarin blinked as he watched Celestia’s bindings ease up on her a little, and then returned his eyes to Sombra.

‘Don’t ruin this for me?’ Was Sombra really going somewhere with all this?

The stare down between Sombra and Cadence continued, Sombra looking her over as he had before as Cadence remained poised, yet faltering. She couldn’t stop wobbling and her magic was beginning to flicker, the aura on her horn visibly weakening. The guards behind her appeared unsure, they were tipping forward with weapons drawn, but they hesitated. Protecting Cadence was their duty, but whether or not Sombra would harm her was the question of the moment. Were they to judge him by his actions against Discord and Luna? Or by his passiveness towards Cadence?

“Ah…” Cadence suddenly lurched her neck forward, releasing a sputtering gasp as her magic flickered and faded. She just barely remained upright, her body bending down, yet remaining on her hooves.

“Move aside,” Sombra suddenly ordered as if he was waiting for her efforts to give out. “I have no qualms with you,” he stated calmly. Cadence growled and forced her head back up, glaring at him despite her injured state.

“Well, we have plenty of qualms with you!” she shouted passionately, but her legs wobbled and she fell to her haunches the moment she got the last word out, gasping and shutting her eyes tight while gritting her teeth. “NO!” she yelled as her attempts to rise all failed. “I… will protect my…”

“Look at me,” Sombra cut her off while reaching down and placing a hoof on her chin. Cadence froze and an audible reaction came from the guards as he touched her. She remained perfectly still with her eyes wide, but Sombra only gently lifted her head so she could look right at him, his head bent down to get a closer look at her. The magic fumes disappeared from his eyes, revealing his red pupils gazing deep into her eyes, examining them thoroughly while also looking her over once more.

As he was occupied with Cadence, the gate to the Empire suddenly creaked and lifted up just enough to let ponies through. Guards poured out from beneath it, it was impossible to count them. So many of them flowed and spread out that the small group that was already there quickly became a small army, encircling Sombra completely at a ten-yard radius with a depth of at least ten ponies going front to back. Shining Armor’s voice came from within the crowd, shouting directions and orders as all of the guards got into place. Sombra was now completely surrounded by hundreds of crystal guards, but he stayed focused on Cadence.

“CADENCE!!!!!!!!!” Shining yelled out as he forced his way through the guards, placed himself in front and ground his hooves into the ground, snarling towards Sombra with his magic alight on his horn, the bright magenta light shimmering off the surface of his armor. “GET YOUR DAMN HOOVES OFF MY WIFE!” he roared, forcing his voice to its limit as he aimed the harshest glare he could muster towards Sombra.

Sombra didn’t look at him.

Shining growled, his magic gripping the hilt of a sword dangling from his waist. He pulled it so harshly from the scabbard that the belt keeping it in place snapped and fell to the ground. Shining brandished the longsword and held it out in front of him, pointing its tip at Sombra. The sword looked to be made of solid white diamond.

“NOW!” Shining added.

But again… Sombra did not look at him.

Shining had had enough. Without another word, he charged towards Sombra, twirling the sword around and placing it at his side with the blade turned out. He leapt into the air towards him and used his magic to swing the sword’s blade right for Sombra’s neck.

Without looking, Sombra’s magic lit up on his horn and a kite shield expanded between him and Shining. Shining’s sword slammed into the shield, immediately repelling from its surface. Shining had enough time to gasp and see his sword go flying away from him before he ran face first into the shield and fell roughly to the ground.

He quickly rolled backwards and onto his hooves, his helmet falling off as he whipped his head around and snatched the sword off the ground with his magic. Remaining on the ground this time, he charged again, roaring as he slammed his sword against the shield again and again, the sword simply bouncing off of it each time. He eventually grabbed the hilt with his hooves and poured all of his physical strength into a swing, but the result was the same. The sword was repelled, flying right out of his hooves and knocking him backwards, his hooves sliding along the ground until he came to a halt, panting as his magic grabbed the sword again. He looked about at all his soldiers as he gritted his teeth.

“WHAT ARE YOU ALL STANDING AROUND FOR?!” he yelled at them. “ATTACK!”

Sombra perked up, finally looking up from Cadence as the guards suddenly charged, closing in on him.

“HMPH!” Sombra threw his head up, a ball of blue magic quickly collecting on the tip of his horn before it exploded, releasing a powerful shockwave that slammed into all the guards. Yelps and gasps rang out as the guards were forced right back in the direct they came, slamming into one another and toppling over like dominos as the clings and clangs of armor pieces colliding filled the air. Shining Armor anchored himself, throwing up a shield around his body to withstand the blast.

When the dust cleared and Shining removed his shield, he noticed Sombra had gone right back to looking at Cadence. The guards were moaning and groaning, but as they got up they all began to realize they were unscathed. The blast was nothing but a strong force. It had caused no harm.

“Remarkable…” said Sombra as he slowly removed his hoof from Cadence’s chin, but she kept her head up and her eyes on him. “You look just like her…”

“What…?” Cadence barely uttered, her voice raspy and weak.

“Thank you for watching over our home, she would be proud of you,” he added as he finally turned away from her and started in the direction of the gate again.

But the moment he moved, Shining was up and in front of him again, brandishing the sword once more.

“Tenacious, aren’t we?” Sombra said as he looked down at Shining, looking at his armor in particular.

“Not one more step!” He yelled up at Sombra. Sombra blinked and lifted an eyebrow, a smirk crawling onto his face.

He took a step forward.

“HRAH!” Shining roared as he lunged forward, making good on his threat as he brought the sword around in his magic. Sombra immediately generated his own sword, bringing the blade of the large magic claymore around and meeting the sharpened diamond edge. A loud CLANG rang out, followed by sparks as the diamond sword struck the surface of Sombra’s and ground against it.

“Ah… so you don’t make empty threats, I like it,” Sombra commented. He forced his sword forward, pushing Shining back and causing him to stumble and fall. He got right back up and charged again. Sombra’s lips parted, revealing a smile.

He met every strike, Shining swinging the sword skillfully, but never getting past Sombra’s guard. Sombra’s magic swordplay was on an entirely different level, the swift movements seeming effortless compared to the intense movements of Shining.

After allowing Shining to throw several blows, Sombra took a step back and wound up his blade. Shining noticed his stance shift and quickly crossed the diamond blade in front of his face to guard. But Sombra’s sword twirled, stuck into the ground behind him and dug through it, breaking and cracking through the earth as he forced it through and towards Shining. Shining winced, gritting his teeth as the blade swung up from the earth, Sombra’s sword striking his blade from below. A bright flash forced Shining to shut his eyes, but he felt no force. He opened his eyes and stared at his sword, his jaw dropping as he stared at the blade.

The top half of the blade was gone, cut clean off. A quiet THUNK came from nearby as the top half of the blade jammed into the ground nearby. Shining’s pupils shrank as he looked between what was left of his sword and the rest of it close by, unable to wrap his head around how Sombra had just cut cleanly through solid diamond.

“You are skilled,” Sombra spoke up, drawing Shining’s eyes to him. “But there is no weapon, no matter how finely crafted, that can be as strong as your own force of will,” he said while tapping a hoof of his horn and bringing his sword around. “I commend your effort, alas you—”

Sombra blinked, caught off guard as Shining tossed the sword away and charged headlong at Sombra without a weapon. Shining leapt into the air, pulling back a hoof while a large collection of magic shot from his horn to the hoof, collecting into a ball made of pure magic aura. Sombra quickly hardened his gaze and generated a shield, placing it between them, but the moment it was down, Shining teleported, disappearing and popping up a little to the left, flying right past Sombra’s shield.

Sombra’s eyes widened. Shining was already throwing the punch with all his magic poured into it. With no other option, Sombra lifted his own hoof.

A loud POW and bright flash rang out, the guards forced to shield their eyes as a shockwave followed, not nearly as powerful as the one Sombra released, but it startled them.

When the bright light faded, Shining was still in the air, and his hoof was grinding against Sombra’s hoof, crackling with the aftermath of the magic buildup. There was no magic around Sombra’s. He had caught it with his bare hoof, but he was grinning from ear to ear, as if he was enjoying himself.

Shining fell to the ground, landing on his hooves gasping and panting.

“Not bad…” Sombra complimented while looking at his hoof as it jittered slightly. “You have the makings of a fine warrior…” he said as he bent down to get a look at him, but he quickly took note that Shining was not crystalized, something that he had overlooked due to the captain’s armor he was wearing. “Hm…” Sombra hummed to himself as Shining looked up and glared, still catching his breath. “I don’t recognize you… and yet…” Sombra glanced around at all the guards. “Perhaps I should not be surprised by your skill… you appear to be the new captain of my military.”

“NOTHING here is yours!” Shining defiantly shouted into Sombra’s face, forcing himself back up. Sombra did not flinch, simply standing up tall and looking down on Shining.

“Perhaps not from your point of view,” Sombra said calmly as his magic receded and his sword and shield disappeared. Shining blinked and tipped his head. “But that is a tainted view, one fed to you by your gods.” He said as he looked towards the Empire.

“I’ll believe ‘MY GODS’ over you any day, you monster!” Shining barked, remaining in Sombra’s way. Sombra kept his eyes fixated on the Empire for another moment, but then looked back down at Shining.

“Really?” Sombra asked while lifting his brow. “The very same gods who were so quick to abandon you just now?” he motioned an arm around. Shining glanced back and forth, just now realizing that neither Luna nor Discord were present. Sombra then moved his arm towards Cadence. “The same gods who cared not for the safety of your wife and your guards just now while you were absent?”

Shining blinked, his eyes widening and his mouth opening a little as his eyes darted to Cadence, still on the ground and looking towards them.

“You would do well to ask her who inflicted those wounds she bears… it was not I,” Sombra took a step to the right and Shining didn’t move to block him. “You would also do well to ask her who put himself in harm’s way to protect her… or maybe any of your guards who were here before you returned.” He took a step to place himself beside Shining. “We’ve no reason to cross blades further… your wife is hurt. Go to her.”

“N... no…” Shining suddenly found his voice, turning to face Sombra and his magic flickering. “I won’t be fooled… You will not run rampant!”

Sombra sighed, looking down and shaking his head before glancing at Shining.

“Run rampant?” he repeated while making a head motion towards the gates. “In my own kingdom?”

Shining was speechless, so many conflicting thoughts running through his head as nothing about Sombra here matched anything he knew about Sombra. Sombra was not attacking any of them. He even treated Shining’s attempts to stop him like a friendly duel. All the guards had lowered their weapons as well, all of them watching curiously as Sombra continued to have presence without any signs of aggression.

Sombra turned away from Shining and stared at the gates.

“I just want to go home…”

Sombra said no more as he began slowly moving towards the gate. Shining Armor just watched, making no effort to get in his way. He shuffled, keeping his eyes on Sombra as he moved towards Cadence, still not sure what he was looking at.

What’s more, while the guards kept their weapons ready, they moved aside, willingly letting Sombra through as they stared with curiosity. Even those who had just arrived with Shining stayed their blades.

A path opened in front of Sombra, giving him an avenue right up to the gate. When he reached it, his magic lit up. A few guards flinched, but relaxed when the magic surrounded the massive gate and effortlessly lifted it, pushing the large barrier all the way up until it locked into its safety latches at the top with two loud CLANGS.

The main road through the center of the Empire was now stretched before Sombra. He stared into it for a moment, standing right outside the gate and staring at the line that marked the boundary of where the walls of the Empire extended and the fields without began.

He took a deep breath… and took a step inside.

Chills ran through his body as his hoof touched down inside the walls of the empire, touching the ground within the city bounds. A chill that Soarin felt just as much within his mind as he continued to feel everything Sombra felt.

But no sooner did he take that step did the sound of shouting and pounding hooves fill the air along with a few gasps and yelps of shock and surprise.

Sombra looked up to see citizens of the Empire running away and a large division of guards rushing forward to meet him.

Sombra flattened his brow and sighed as the guards amassed and pointed their spears at him, Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth ponies alike standing their ground dutifully.

“This is becoming tiresome…” Sombra said aloud as his magic lit up again. The guards all braced themselves, but were caught by surprise as every single spear in their possession was suddenly surrounded by the bright blue aura of Sombra’s magic. The spears were ripped right out of their hooves or unicorn telekinesis. Several of the guards stepped back, alarmed. Some of them shielded themselves, expecting to have their own weapons used against them.

But the spears were turned flat and lowered to the ground, resting at their hooves.

“Enough,” Sombra spoke to them as he started walking. “I shall not fight with my kinsmen any longer.”

Shocked and confused, the guards watched as Sombra approached them, and as with those outside the walls, they stood aside as Sombra moved. Every step was peaceful, not a glare nor threatening gesture present at any time. His pace was slow and steady, and his eyes were wandering towards his surroundings as if he was taking it all in.

There was a pause among the guards, then suddenly some movement. Several looked around as some of them began following Sombra. Those who remained still watched in confusion as their colleagues moved, some very eagerly… and without retrieving their spears from the ground first. Names were called and some tried to physically stop them, but they refused, pushing aside any resistance to keep up with Sombra, albeit at a safe distance.

Sombra was too lost in thought to notice. He was walking right down the main street of the northern side of town, looking back and forth, noticing that everything looked just as he had left it. Though as he moved… the surrounding citizenry devolved into immediate panic.

Sombra blinked and looked down as screams of terror rang out, the sound of frantic galloping hooves all around him.

Crystal ponies, civilians, all turning and running as they saw Sombra moving down the street. He paused, stopping in his tracks as he watched them all run from him, and it made his heart ache. No doubt they had been informed of what was going on… they must’ve been told they would be safe behind whatever barrier was surrounding the Empire.

That… or his legacy had been so tainted that the mere sight of him struck fear into their hearts, like he was a nightmare given life.

Yet this did not entirely come as a surprise to him. His appearance, the way he was controlling Soarin’s body, gave him a similar appearance to his short reign as a brutal dictator. The curved, red jagged horn, the fangs… the only real difference was Soarin’s fur and mane color. Everything else was the same as his twisted body in the past.

He knew it would be pointless to speak. They would not listen, not with what they had been led to believe. The only way he’d be convincing was through action, showing them that he was not there to hurt or enslave them.

So he kept walking down the street slowly, instead taking in the sights and paying no mind to the citizens’ fear. Guards began popping out of side roads and buildings, rushing forth to confront him. But every time they drew near, Sombra simply erected shields to nudge them aside.

Some of the guards tried taking a second shot at him with the same result, but ultimately stopped once Sombra did not attack them. Sombra himself did not bother to look and see why, but the guards were taking notice of other guards following behind him since his entrance. It was a peculiar sight, of which many of them did not understand, but just as before, there were some who broke off and joined the group shadowing him.

Sombra felt a tightness in his chest as he continued and drew closer to the Crystal Palace. Consequently, Soarin could feel it too from within as he watched every move Sombra made. Soarin swore he could almost feel Sombra’s thoughts as well, that or he could understand how he felt. It didn’t matter how many ponies he encountered, or how many times he walked by without threatening a single soul. Everypony just kept running from him, every guard rushed forward to confront him. Feeling such hostility within the walls of one’s own home… Soarin could imagine the pain, and feel it to an extent within.

But then among the cacophony, Sombra stopped as a family unwittingly stepped out in front of him. An earth mare and stallion. The stallion was pulling a cart with a very young colt sitting in it amongst their belongings. They were clearly in a hurry due to seeing other ponies run and scream, though they likely did not know why.

The two parents froze on the spot, turning and staring up at the looming giant casting a shadow over them. Sombra gritted his teeth beneath his lips, feeling a lump in his throat as the looks on their faces turned to pure terror in seconds.

They both screamed, turning quickly to run away. As they turned, the cart lurched, several of its contents spilling out onto the ground… including their son. The colt yelped as he felt, landing roughly on his side on the crystal road.

It took the parents a moment to realize what happened, and they were already twenty yards or so away when it dawned on them. They both screeched to a halt, staring wide eyed in horror as their son lay on the ground at Sombra’s hooves.

The colt whined, rolling over and sniffling as he grabbed his side, reaching up and rubbing a spot he had bumped his head as well. Sombra stared down at the colt, blinking in surprise. The colt had to be no more than four years old, crying and calling for his mother as he rocked back and forth on the ground.

“STEP AWAY FROM THE CHILD!”

Sombra looked up, quickly noticing that he was surrounded by guards. They were all angrily pointing their spears at him.

“NOW! DO NOT LAY A HOOF ON IT!” a guard demanded as they kept edging forward.

But Sombra did not listen to them, instead looking past them and seeing the father of the colt holding onto the mother tightly as she shook in fear, tears in her eyes as if expecting their son to meet a terrible fate.

So that was how much he was feared? Sombra almost couldn’t take it. Was he seen as so diabolical that a mother and father would make no effort to save their child in his presence? The guards were even hesitating!

No. He would not stand for this.

He looked down at the crying colt, his magic coming to life on his horn and surrounding the child. Sombra winced as the colt’s mother screamed, the guards yelling more empty threats his way as he lifted the colt off the ground and up to eye level. The colt had stopped crying the moment he had been picked up, his eyes wide in confusion as Sombra turned the colt upright and two looked each other right in the eyes.

Sombra stared at the child, the child staring right back at him, frozen and clearly scared. Sombra tuned out all the yelling and screaming as he gently turned the colt to see the bruises on his side and on his face. The colt didn’t move, holding completely still.

“Hmm…” Sombra examined the minor injuries and shut his eyes. A moment later they opened, engulfed with the light blue light of his magic and vapors rising from his eyes. Everypony stepped back, the shouting ceasing quickly.

Sombra’s magic shone… the light focused on the colt’s bruises. They slowly disappeared, healing on the spot.

This got the colt’s attention quickly, no longer frozen and quickly touching hooves to his face and side curiously, no more pain or tears.

Without a word, Sombra floated the colt over towards his parents, his magic cradling the young tyke gently through the air and right past the bewildered guards. Their weapons remained pointed at Sombra, but their eyes followed the colt as he was slowly flown back over to his reaching mother.

The moment the colt’s mother grabbed him, Sombra released the magic. Despite being squeezed tightly by his mother, the colt looked over his shoulder, back at Sombra with fascination.

Sombra spotted the little pair of eyes looking towards him and smiled. Glancing around, he noticed that the commotion had drawn a small crowd. The guards were still surrounding him, but behind them many crystal ponies were peeking around corners and staring from doorways and windows.

They had all just seen what happened. The only screams and yelling that remained were in the distance from those who had already run away.

But what Sombra was looking at here in this spot was exactly what he wanted. More accurately, it was what he hoped the reaction would’ve been from the start, but it was clear the past had been rewritten. Even now, with his gentle handling of the colt, he could still see confusion in the eyes staring at him. There was no certainty or epiphany to be found, a degree of caution ever present with a mixture of fear lingering in the back.

Sombra wanted to call out to them. He wanted to speak out and declare his return. But that wouldn’t do any good.

So he just started walking instead. The guards flinched, their weapons still pointed at him, but Sombra did not care. They were locked in pace, letting him right by as he moved and continued down the street. They turned, their eyes following him as he strode, not a single one of them barking any more orders to stop or cease.

Sombra glanced to and fro as he walked. Every time his eyes met those of a crystal pony watching from afar, they quickly ducked and hid, but several peeked right back out, curious enough dare risk eye contact again.

The reaction seemed to spread. Ponies began noticing that those in locations further out were not running from him, simply being cautious. It was like a stranger from a strange land had arrived and was walking casually through the streets, heads poked around corners and peered through drapes. Pegasi looked down from the safety of rooftops as unicorns and earth ponies observed from the shelter of buildings.

Perhaps it was becoming clear that Sombra was not there for destruction, but Sombra was unaware of the real reason. His eyes were forward with no intention for a look or step back as he moved closer to the palace. Yet behind him, a number of guards were following, a few more breaking away here and there with each encounter. Just as before, those following left behind those who remained still, surprised by the moves of their colleagues.

This was what was truly causing the calm as he grew closer. The citizens were seeing a group of their own Crystal Guard following behind who they were told was the very threat they were being protected against. They were confused, unable to comprehend what was playing out. What’s more, why was this group following? What drove these individuals to move while the others stayed still?

None of them knew, and Sombra didn’t even know it was happening. He was too enthralled with his surroundings, too focused on the palace growing closer and closer as he made his way forward. The brief moments of time he looked away from the castle were growing shorter and shorter. He was thrilled to see the market, thrilled to see the high end streets as he came closer, he was thrilled to see many places he once visited often still remain, both here and throughout his entire walk, at least on this end of the city. But every glance away only lasted an instant as his eyes kept snapping right back to the palace.

Soon he neared the bridge over the canal, and on the other side was the approach. By now, his eyes were set and moving nowhere else. His chin was tipped up and his lips were slightly ajar.

Soarin could feel it. A sudden surge of emotion and a tingly feeling all over. The way one would feel as if they were closing in on the one thing they’ve wanted most all their life. It felt like his heart was swelling up with anticipation, tightness in his throat. It was coming from Sombra and at this moment he could feel all of it in his own body.

From without, it was no mystery to those watching cautiously what Sombra wanted. His red pupils were so wide that everypony could see them clearly behind the magic vapors rising from them.

His eyes were filled with longing, not hostility. No amount of altered history could hide that from onlookers.

And then, a moment that felt thousands of miles away despite being just across a bridge came to fruition.

Sombra stood before the gate that led into the Crystal Palace courtyard.

It was open.

The guards standing outside of it were frozen, staring at him. It was clear both by their expressions and the status of the gate that this was not an encounter they expected. They had weapons nearby, but none of them made the move to grab one as Sombra stopped right outside the opening of the gate and stared through it. The guards following behind Sombra came into view, and the stationed guards relaxed a little, tipping their heads in confusion. Instead, simply focusing on Sombra as he stood directly before them.

Sombra was looking right through the gate and at the Palace, now in full view before him, the courtyard path stretched out from the gate all the way to the doors into the main hall. The beautiful crystal grass and trees sparkling along with the natural shimmer of the gorgeous Crystal Palace architecture.

Sombra stared at the palace for a long time, not taking another step for several minutes as the guards remained in place, not sure what to say or do. Sombra’s posture was strong, upright, and leaning forward slightly.

Soarin remembered this. He had felt it before. It was the same posture Sombra had when he viewed the Empire for the first time from afar, high up in the mountains. Only now, his eyes were filled with twice the awe and wonder.

Sombra’s jaw relaxed, his mouth open and drawing short, quickened breaths. His body was shivering, his eyelids jittering as they turned up with his eyebrows. He looked like he was about to cry.

The guards kept watching, noticing all of it. The guard that was standing with one hoof on the lever controls for the gate slowly let go and lowered his arm back to the ground.

With nothing in his way, and his mind swirling… Sombra took a step.

And then another.

And another.

And was well on his way into the courtyard without a single pony trying to stop him.

His pace quickened as he moved along the path, his steps quickening into a trot and eventually a light canter as if he couldn’t take another moment of seeing the Palace from the outside.

He reached the front doors. Large, looming crystal doors front and center that led directly into the main hall of the palace. His pace slowed quickly, coming to a gentle halt in front of it and staring up at the doors.

He looked down to see two guards standing outside.

Both of them looked shocked. It was a reaction that he was becoming accustomed to, but…

One of them relaxed mere seconds after, staring into Sombra’s eyes. Sombra couldn’t see the guard’s face very well. The helmet was obscuring his face, but when they made eye contact, it looked as if the guard was seeing something the other wasn’t.

Then the guard suddenly turned and shifted towards the doors, his colleague still frozen.

CLUNK

The frozen guard perked up and frantically turned around.

Sombra blinked in surprise.

The guard had unlatched the door and put his shoulder to it, grunting as he forced the left half of the enormous door to open with a loud creak and crackle of crystal grinding against crystal.

The guard exhaled as he finally got the door open wide enough. He stepped back out, stood aside, and motioned an arm towards it.

The other guard was holding onto his helmet with his jaw nearly unhinged, looking at his fellow guard as if he had lost his mind.

But to Sombra, it looked like just the opposite.

This guard… was the first to do this. The first to sense the lack of hostility outright. He looked carefully through the guard’s helmet and into his eyes. But he didn’t have a clear view… the only thing he could discern… was that the eyes looked aged.

“Thank you…” Sombra said to the guard as he eagerly looked forward, but he quickly composed himself, getting a hold of his emotions and standing up tall.

A king had to be dignified within the halls of his castle.

He stepped into the main hall.

The instant his hoof touched the crystal floor within, he inhaled sharply, shivers running through his body to the point where he had to bend his neck down and slam his eyes shut.

“Sombra…” Celestia spoke up, but Sombra did not reply. “Sombra…?”

Still no reply.

She looked at Soarin, but Soarin was staring in silence.

“I…” Sombra spoke up. “I… It’s…” he stuttered. “My…” he swallowed. “I’m… home…”

Soarin’s eyes shot open as he felt the pressure holding him down ease up. He quickly looked back to see the shadowy bindings holding him were receding, sliding away and slinking back into the dark blue surface beneath them.

Soarin stood up, unable to tell if it was intentional or not.

He looked over to Celestia to see she was still being held down, but the look on her face had brightened, as if excited? Soarin just stared at her, trying to read what the look was for. Was she expecting him to do something?

Her look slowly began to fade as Soarin did nothing, her eyes darting back and forth between him and Sombra, whose back was turned to them. At least he assumed his back was turned. There was no way to really tell with just the silhouette. Based on his behavior, Sombra’s focus was only in one place right now.

Soarin tipped his head curiously as Celestia began making head motions towards Sombra.

Then he put two and two together.

Was she expecting him to attack Sombra? Use his freedom from the bindings to try and get his body back? That was really all he could think of and based on her continued odd actions, he assumed that’s what it was.

But first of all… How? What could he even do?

And second of all… why?

Soarin surprised himself a little with that one. He actually asked himself why. The obvious answer would be to get his body back, but at this point after everything he had seen, heard, and learned?

Soarin glanced at Sombra, closing his eyes for a moment and focusing. He saw through his eyes as Sombra began moving through the castle, he could now feel his emotions even stronger than before. Throughout this whole sequence it had felt as if he and Sombra had formed a connection. He didn’t know if it was intentional or not, perhaps Sombra’s intense focus on the Empire had caused a bit of control to return to Soarin, if only just feeling and spiritually. He was being subjected to the very euphoria and anticipation flowing through Sombra. But most of all… at this point…

Soarin opened his eyes and gave Celestia a stern look. He shook his head subtly and looked away from her. Celestia’s jaw dropped, her ears flopping down as she watched Soarin turn and move towards Sombra.

At this point… Soarin wanted to watch Sombra and see for himself.

He walked right up beside the silhouette of Sombra. Sombra flinched and turned his head quickly towards Soarin, the shadow’s movements enough for Soarin to know he was being looked at.

But Sombra did nothing, reading Soarin’s movements as he placed himself beside him and returned the look. The look in his eyes said everything Sombra needed to know. Soarin gave him a simple nod, not a glare or growl coming from him as he looked forward, and closed his eyes to focus on what was being seen through his body’s eyes.

Sombra examined Soarin, looking him up and down. He looked over his shoulder to see Celestia staring in shock.

“Hmmm…” Sombra hummed to himself as he glanced at Soarin again. He stared for a few moments before leaving Soarin be and returning his focus without. Soarin was unbound, but Sombra was still in control and Soarin was making no moves to push back.

If Soarin wanted to experience this moment alongside him, Sombra wasn’t going to stop him.

Sombra was in no hurry. His slow, invigorating first steps into the palace were quickly replaced by an evenly paced, gentle yet dignified stride, turning down the first hall to explore rather than heading right to the throne room.

Guards placed about the halls were constantly caught by surprise, Sombra’s sudden appearance startling them. Yet Sombra’s lack of malice gave them a strange sense of pause that washed over them as unexpectedly as Sombra’s appearance. They held their place, simply watching as he walked by without so much as glancing at them.

The servants were not so at ease, all of them turning and running the moment they saw Sombra. Some called for guards, but were alarmed to see them all standing still. Sombra paid them no mind. They were afraid of something he once became, something they had been warned of, and taught of. Falsely taught of… but that’s just how things currently were. He did not feel it worth the trouble at this moment to try to explain himself.

He was too distracted by the beautiful interior architecture and elegant decorations. He walked through the halls in a manner similar to a king observing the condition of his castle.

He made several stops, peeking into almost every room he came across, just to see what was inside and if it sparked any memories. Sometimes he only gave them a glance, other times he paused as if recounting a moment of his life from within.

He slowly combed the outer edge of the castle’s eastern wing, peeking into a large dining room. A servant standing right beside the door shrieked at the top of her lungs as Sombra’s large head poked through the door. The stack of plates she was carrying flew into the air and scattered as she broke into a gallop. Sombra quickly grabbed all the plates in his magic, looking towards the servant just in time to see her slam the door opposite of him.

“Hmmm…” Sombra hummed quietly as he stacked the plates and placed them gently on the ground before he turned his attention to the long table in the center, his eyes locking at the two chairs placed at the corner. He huffed, disapproving of the chairs not being properly placed on both ends, but stared at the other side, looking at it for a long moment.

Soarin felt something as Sombra stared, a feeling similar to a heart pang or ache. Something about the table evoked a physical response from Sombra.

Sombra forced himself to look away while gritting his teeth. He shook his head and moved on, making his way through a large library. He stopped about halfway through it, examining a particular shelf and shuffling some of the books around with his magic. But he scrunched his mouth as he flipped around the titles, apparently not finding what he was looking for. He did not take any notice of the librarian sitting behind the counter, staring with his glasses slowly slipping off his face and clattering on the desk as his jaw nearly hung unhinged.

Sombra shook his head again, grumbling to himself quietly as he stopped sifting through the books and walked right by the frozen librarian, making his way into the hall and making a turn to head further inward.

Soarin wondered where they’d go next, but quickly saw an opening at the end of their current hall, leading outside. A few moments later, they emerged in the large outdoor garden courtyard. Sombra continued forward with his steps leading off the crystal path and into the grass, making his way towards the beautiful crystal flower arrangements, the multiple fountains and other varieties of crystal brush, trees, and plants. Everything was glistening, shimmering as he moved by.

Nearby guards held their place and palace gardeners quickly vacated the area, most of them dropping their tools as they sped off in fear. But Sombra’s eyes were locked on one spot as he made it to the center. He was looking at a particularly thick arrangement of tall bushes located beneath some of the taller trees strewn about, his path veering towards them.

Sombra did not stop as his body pressed into the bushes, continuing forward and forcing aside the branches in his way. After forcing his way through, he emerged in a clearing hidden in the center of the arrangement. A spot that was roughly six yards long and wide with the tall bushes completely surrounding it and the thick leaves of the trees above dousing the spot in a cool shade. The grass was a little longer, and not as well taken care of, likely due to it being out of sight.

Sombra stopped the moment he was completely inside, staring at the ground. Soarin watched and wondered what sort of significance this spot had. Sombra was just wandering the halls of a royal castle, yet he chose to come here as well?

“Hmmm…” Sombra hummed, closing his eyes for a moment. “At least… this spot is the same.” He said to himself, a hint of annoyed sarcasm present.

“Sombra… why did you…?” Celestia’s voice suddenly chimed in. She trailed off, sounding surprised and a little flustered.

Sombra snorted as he heard her speak.

“Not everything here is about you,” he said simply as he turned, lowered himself down, and lay on the slightly unkempt grass, releasing a heavy sigh and closing his eyes.

Soarin remained quiet as Sombra kept his eyes closed. This must have been some sort of private spot. Maybe it was a place to read or perhaps to relax? Based on Celestia’s reaction, maybe it was also a place they often snuck away to. Whatever it was, it was significant enough for Sombra to return and even lie down. Without a peep coming from outside, it did have a very natural, peaceful feeling to it.

Maybe that was it. Sombra was once a king after all. Maybe this was his place of respite when needed. One would never think to look for the king hiding in the courtyard bushes.

But something else had caught Soarin’s attention and he continued to think about it as Sombra slowly rose back up to his hooves. ‘At least this place is the same.’ That’s what Sombra said, finally breaking his silence that had persisted from the moment they entered the palace. It sounded disappointed and underwhelmed. He looked unsatisfied with the state of some of the rooms they had visited so far.

Was the current state of the palace displeasing him, or was it something else?

Sombra pushed his way out of the bushes and back out into the open. He blinked as multiple gasps and audible shuffling came from nearby. He looked over to see guards backing away, several of them near the bushes. Some of them turned and ran, but others held their ground, just staring.

Sombra only gave them a quick glance before he turned and made his way around the thick brush and into an open area of the courtyard, leaving them behind without a thought. Instead, he approached a long field of grass extending all the way to a large staircase and three sets of large double doors, all of which led directly into the large hall right outside the throne room.

But as Sombra stepped into the field, something changed and Soarin quickly noticed. His pace slowed, his steps became light, and his breathing became stronger. Soarin felt heat in his head, the kind of feeling one gets while… angry? A feeling of emotion or adrenaline flowing.

Soarin focused on the field, and thought carefully. Sombra’s shift in emotion and the field in front of them put together caused him to think back to Sombra’s story. The hiding spot was a mystery, but the open field in the courtyard wasn’t.

This field… This was where Sombra and Celestia fought each other before the Empire was sealed away. The spot where they not only clashed, but also where she made the move to remove and absorb his soul…

That explained Sombra’s sudden reaction to the area, he was remembering everything that happened right in this spot and Soarin could feel it.

Celestia was deathly silent. Soarin figured she had nothing to add to where they were. She knew full well what was going through Sombra’s head right now.

How ironic that the spot where they met in battle was so close to a spot they presumably shared tender moments.

“Rgghhh…” Sombra began to growl as he continued to trudge through the grass. His eyes were locked on the doors growing closer, but his thoughts were being tugged at by the past.

Soarin said nothing. He didn’t need any explanation, but the moment Sombra stepped off the grass and onto the crystal steps, the heat vanished in an instant. Sombra stopped with one hoof on the first step and looked down, exhaling loudly as if gathering himself. He shook his head out a few times before looking up and staring sternly at the middle set of double doors.

“Enough…” he said quietly to himself as he climbed the stairs, making his way right up to the doors and pushing through the center archway. The doors creaked and groaned as if they hadn’t been used in ages, at times resisting Sombra’s push, but he forced them open.

The royal hall, normally filled with servants, attendants, and guards, was completely empty save for two very nervous looking guards standing near the door to the throne room. By the looks of things, the news of Sombra being in the castle had spread and most had fled.

At this point, Sombra almost felt that was for the better. He didn’t want any more distractions, all he wanted was what was through the last set of doors in front of him.

He drew close, one of the guards visibly shaking while the other held still. Sombra stopped in front of the doors and slowly looked at the shaking guard. The moment he made eye contact, the guard lost his cool, screaming as he threw his spear to the side and broke into a gallop, turning the corner and vanishing in seconds.

Sombra gave no reaction, slowly turning his head to look at the one frozen on the other side. The guard’s eyes were wide, he was sitting down, and he was clutching his spear as hard as he could. Upon closer inspection, the guard was whimpering, his eyes were bloodshot and wet as if he was holding back tears. He was holding his post as his duty dictated, yet he was looking at Sombra as if he was about to be killed and there was nothing he could do about it.

Sombra’s expression softened. For some reason, this one hurt more than any of the others. This guard looking at him, he was staying at his post as he should, but the fear in his eyes told Sombra that he was afraid to die. Perhaps he had a family? A wife and children? There was something he was scared to lose and it was written so fully over his face that not even his helmet could hide it.

“Go,” Sombra suddenly spoke, the guard flinching so hard his helmet tilted crooked on his head. “I can’t bear you looking at me like that,” he said while making a head motion towards the doors he came through.

The guard did not speak, but his eyes had changed slightly to be open wide. Without taking them off Sombra, he started scooting on the floor. He shifted subtly at first, but as he inched away he eventually got up and broke into a gallop, charging right for the open door to the courtyard and leaving.

And now it was only Sombra… and the doors to the throne room.

He didn’t waste time mulling over it. He put a hoof to the door… and pushed it open.

Sombra inhaled sharply, a weak gasp escaping his throat the moment it came into view.

Through the door, down the carpet, up the small set of stairs that extended from one side of the room to the other. At the other end…

His throne.

The crystal throne. The very same one he once sat in.

Sombra eagerly stepped into the room, the door shutting behind him with a soft thump that echoed from one end of the long room to the other.

The room was completely empty, not a soul in sight as Sombra stood at the entrance and gazed towards the throne. His eyes shifted, looking about and taking in the great crystal windows, the banners, the pillars and architecture. The crystal lamps alight with blue flame that caused nearby surfaces to glow and shimmer.

His eyes returned to the throne, stuck open wide. His lower lip twitched as his mouth hung slightly agape. His breaths were short and uneven, his body tingling all over as shivers coursed through him.

Soarin felt it all, it was by far the most intense physical reaction he had felt through his body yet.

The feeling persisted as Sombra began to move slowly, walking at a slow pace through the throne room. The quiet pat pat pat of his hooves against the carpet was the only sound present, quietly echoing within the silence of the room.

He reached the small set of room length stairs at the center of the approach. He was tall enough to see over them, but he took the steps two at a time to quickly scale them.

Sombra paused for a moment at the top, now on level ground with the throne and halfway across the room towards it.

He broke into a trot with steps so quick that he was nearly forced into a canter. Soarin watched through his eyes, the view bobbing up and down as the throne grew closer and closer and closer and…

Sombra slowed down, stopping five yards from the throne and staring at it, his eyes darted up and down, examining every inch of it.

He took the final few steps one at a time, slow with anticipation.

He reached the throne, lifted a hoof and placed it on the arm.

But he tipped his head blinking, lifting his hoof off and staring at it. He inhaled sharply, swallowing the breath before he placed the hoof on it again. He shut his eyes and shook his head out.

Without a word, he turned himself around… and sat on the throne.

And…

Did nothing.

He simply sat, staring directly ahead into the empty court. The silence was eerie as he sat still. Not even the commotion of the battles around outside of the empire could be heard, completely drowned out by the walls.

Soarin didn’t say a word, nor did Celestia. Soarin himself was waiting to see what happened next. Sombra was sitting on his throne, this was where he wanted to be, this was his destination.

So now what?

Nothing was happening. Sombra was just sitting there.

Soarin tipped his head, surprised. He glanced at the silhouette of Sombra within his mind, yet it was perfectly still as well. He looked back at Celestia’s spirit. She was staring, apparently waiting just like he was.

“Huh…?” Soarin perked up. His attention snapped back forward. He shut his eyes to focus on his body.

He could feel his body jittering… and…

He felt something on his face.

His face felt… wet.

Tears?

Sombra was… crying?

“S…Sombra?” Celestia’s voice chimed in.

“What… am I doing?” Sombra spoke, his voice weak and shaking. He tipped his head down and slammed his eyes shut, a few tears squeaking through. “This is…” he gritted his teeth. “This… is…”

Soarin was speechless. This was the last thing he expected.

“Why am I here…?” Sombra shook his head again. “What did I hope to gain?!” he raised his voice a little, rapping a hoof against the arm of the throne. The clack of his hoof against the crystal echoed throughout the empty chamber.

A long pause dragged out. Soarin and Celestia remained silent as Sombra began to sniffle, the silence and emptiness of the room extending before him.

“Is this what I wanted?” he continued. “Is this where I’ve been going? I thought returning here would show me the way… I thought it would restore my faith… I thought it would fill me with purpose as it once had… yet I feel nothing.” Sombra opened his eyes, gritting his teeth and glaring at the ground as the tears dripped down his face. “I feel no pride, no power, no drive, nor any… satisfaction.” He slowly looked up and started straight ahead. “None of it is right. None of it feels the way it once did. I’m sitting exactly where I belong, but the hall is empty, my court is absent, my knights are not by my side, and I just watched my very citizens scream and run from me in fear and confusion… not one of them saw beyond the monster I became. Everything I accomplished, everything I once was has been erased from history, it’s gone.”

He looked down and scanned his body, lifting his arms up as his eyes darted over them, over his chest, legs, and back. He grunted loudly and shook his head out.

“For heaven’s sake! My body isn’t even crystalized!” he yelled into the empty room as he let his hooves fall back down. “Because… it isn’t even mine…”

He looked up again, scanning the room as a heavy sigh escaped through his nostrils. His head turned slowly, his eyes examining every inch of the throne room.

“The castle… it appears the same. I don’t care about a few books or some new décor. It’s ultimately just the way I left it, but…” he let his head hang. “The world has changed.”

He paused for a very long time. A few minutes passed in complete silence with neither Soarin nor Celestia finding any words, not with Sombra unexpectedly breaking down before them. His strength and poise had vanished, as if they were looking at a completely different stallion.

“Over a thousand years have passed…” he finally spoke again. “I might as well be in a different universe now.” He slowly looked up, staring straight ahead again into the empty throne room. “After all the time trapped, after all the mulling, after the conclusions, the goals, and the persistence… I finally return… and feel like this? I… I can’t… I don’t… I…”

A soft pitter-patter sounded from the carpet at the base of the throne. Tears were streaming down his face and dripping from his chin, his eyes hardened into a glare as he tipped his head down and gritted his teeth.

“Why…? WHY?! WHY DO I FEEL THIS WAY?!” he yelled angrily. “Why does it all feel so wrong?! Why don’t I feel the strength within me I once did?!” He slammed his eyes shut and growled, whipping his head back and forth as heavy breaths escaped from his lips. “My passion to save the world… it burns within me…” his tone had lowered, growing weaker. “But does it burn for this world… or my world?”

Sombra slumped back, his back pressing into the throne. He slid down slightly, his posture collapsing into an undignified, shattered position as his tears began to drip into Soarin’s fur. His glare remained fixed to his scrunched up face, his anger constantly struggling for control against his despair as everything he hoped for crashed down.

He said no more. He simply sat on the throne, his body shivering while staring blankly into the empty court.

It didn’t feel the same, yet he did not remove himself from the throne.

He had nowhere else to go.

CREAK

Sombra perked up, his ears pointing up and his eyes shifting to the doors at the other end of the throne room as they suddenly made noise.

The door slowly opened, but it was hard to see who had opened them with the elevated floor on his end of the room.

As he listened, he began to hear the sound of hoof steps and the clattering of armor. What started as just the sound of a few hoofbeats quickly multiplied until Sombra was sure several were pouring through the door.

But he didn’t care. He let his body rest back against the throne, remaining slumped. If they were the guards coming to confront him… again, so be it. It would be a useless attempt. None of them could hurt him and if any of them tried, he’d make sure they understood that he wanted to be left alone, by force if necessary.

His suspicions were confirmed quickly. Crystal guards began emerging over the small flight of room length stairs, stepping onto the elevated floor. Sombra only glanced at them before averting his eyes, sulking to himself as the number of guards present began to match the number of hooves he heard earlier. A hundred or so guards, perhaps a little more, were stepping up over the stairs and moving towards him. They were all clad in full armor, more and more appearing as those at the front moved towards him, doubling the number present. But…

Sombra blinked as he glanced at them again.

None of them had weapons?

“What…?” Sombra said to himself as he sat up, looking at the approaching group curiously. He began examining their posture and movements. There wasn’t a threatening gesture or advance among their steps. It was a peaceful approach. There was also no sign of fear, the group slowly growing closer and closer without a moment of hesitation.

Then the group abruptly stopped, the ponies in front standing roughly ten yards away from the throne.

Sombra looked them all over. His face was still wet from the tears, but the flow stopped. They were all staring at him. The helmets covered their faces, but the eyes told the story themselves.

Curiosity… with the guards? How could that be? Sombra saw with his own two eyes how his presence was treated from the moment he stepped into the Empire, all the way to the castle. Though, this was nowhere near the full force, just a hundred or two… why had these ponies come forward?

Sombra’s attention was drawn as one pony stepped out from the group. It took Sombra a moment, but he quickly recognized him as the guard who had willingly let him into the castle.

The stallion slowly strode all the way up to him, stopping right in front of the throne while never taking his eyes off him.

He removed his helmet.

Sombra’s eyes grew wide.

It was an old, viridian stallion. He looked to be in his late fifties, perhaps early sixties with a silver mane that was cut extremely short. He was missing an eye, the lids shut and sealed tight with a large, wide scar traveling down from the top of his head through it, and down to his chest. Its distinct shape implied it was caused by a very large claw of some sort. Several other battle scars littered his face and body as well.

Sombra and the pony stared at one another, the pony swallowing as he opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated.

“My… Liege…?”

Sombra’s body stiffened, a loud gasp escaping his throat as the words met his ears. Within, Soarin felt a shock. Sombra’s strong reaction sending a jolt through his spirit.

Then unexpectedly… Soarin felt something in his mind. It felt like a memory or recollection, but it was not something he was familiar with. Was Sombra recalling something? Was the rush so intense that Soarin himself could picture what Sombra was thinking?

It wasn’t a clear image, but Soarin could feel it…

Sombra’s vision tumbling, grunting and gasping as the loud clatter of armor rang out around him.

A sharp movement, Sombra’s eyes pointing towards a large dragon with black scales descending towards him with an arm pulled back to swipe. It’s massive, razor sharp claws extended.

Then suddenly, a pony clad in a unique set of crystal armor rushes in front to protect him.

A loud scream…

A broken helmet flying off his head and landing at Sombra’s hooves as the pony flies backwards into him.

The pony’s blood splattering over Sombra’s face…

The pony lands before Sombra, screaming in pain as blood spills from the wound over his face.

The colors are blurred, but Soarin can make out viridian fur and a silver mane.

Sombra sets the stallion down and quickly rises, roaring towards the dragon with rage as he conjures his sword and leaps at the dragon…

Then in an instant, the images faded, and Soarin was once again looking through his own eyes as Sombra kept his focus on the old stallion before him.

Sombra pressed himself against the back of the throne, his eyes widening as he continued to look at the pony in shock and amazement.

“A…Adamant?” Sombra spoke the name shakily.

Soarin quickly put two and two together.

This pony standing before them… once fought beside Sombra? Fought black dragons? How could that be? Unless…

Sombra remained silent, utterly speechless. His eyes darted up as the rest of the ponies began removing their helmets. Sombra frantically looked about, his breaths short as all the faces were revealed. They were all old, not a youthful face among them, but… they were faces he knew… all of them. He looked back down at Adamant standing before him. Adamant reached a hoof towards Sombra, an astonished look in his eye.

“Is it truly you…?” Adamant asked.

Sombra began to shake as the familiar eyes all looked up to him. Slowly, names began returning one by one. Sombra pressed a hoof to his chest, his expression going soft as if the sight was overwhelming him.

That sealed it. Soarin could feel everything Sombra was feeling and there was no doubt about it. All of these aged ponies had fought beside Sombra during the scourge of the black dragons. The visions of Sombra’s memory implied they were young stallions at the time... they grew old as he did… and suffered under Sombra’s brief rule as a twisted tyrant before being sealed away with the Empire for a thousand years.

Could they remember? Could they tell it was the real him even in his borrowed body that showed similar signs to his twisted state?

Sombra gathered himself and quickly leaned forward. He stood up from the throne, barely holding himself steady as he looked down at all the aged ponies. His sudden movements did not get a single reaction out of them. They all remained still and looked up at him calmly.

“It…” Sombra started, but his voice nearly broke. He swallowed and tried again. “Yes… It is I.”

There were no words Soarin could find to describe the way all the old faces lit up upon hearing Sombra say it. The smiles were bright upon their weary faces, growing from ear to ear with joy all around.

“My King!” Adamant yelled. Several others exclaiming the same. They started moving forward until they were all as close as Adamant, gathered tightly near Sombra at his hooves. “It’s you! It’s really you!” Adamant exclaimed as several other voiced their delight as well.

But they suddenly all stopped very abruptly, as if something about their reaction struck them all at the same time. They went silent, putting their excitement in check…

All at once, they knelt and bowed at Sombra’s hooves, showing respect.

Sombra felt a tightness in his throat, as if he would choke up at any moment, but for entirely different reasons this time.

They DID recognize him. The REAL him. That explained the slightly mixed reaction as he moved through the Empire. Among the guards were old veterans who noticed the way he carried himself, how he showed no interest in conflict, how he viewed the beauty of the empire, sought out the castle, wandered the halls, and returned to his throne.

They knew…

They knew he was Sombra the Great.

From within, Soarin watched the scene with awe. However, Celestia averted her eyes. Soarin quickly took notice of her behavior. Something was different about it. She looked defeated, yet not quite the way she had before. It looked like a silent admission of defeat as she kept her eyes away. As if what Soarin was seeing right now would vindicate Sombra.

Or perhaps she felt it proved she was wrong about him? That she was wrong to push her narrative about Sombra as if she truly believed he was a danger to the world? That he would misuse the power he now wielded within Soarin’s body? She had her reasons for speaking out against him, but with what Soarin was seeing right now, the truth of who Sombra really was could not be denied.

Now all that remained on Celestia’s shoulders was the burden of the mess she herself had created.

“My knights…” Sombra spoke as he stepped down from the throne and towards the bowing ponies. “My soldiers… my… my brothers, I… please… I beg of you… rise and let me see your faces!” Sombra implored them.

They all obeyed, standing up and looking at him again as Sombra reached them, and looked down at Adamant.

“Adamant…” Sombra says his name again as if he still couldn’t believe it, gently placing a hoof on the old stallion’s shoulder.

“My King,” Adamant nodded with a smile.

“You still guard this realm? Even now?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, my liege,” he replied dutifully while placing a hoof on the hilt of a sword that dangled from his side. “It is my sworn duty.”

Sombra’s eyes grew slowly as Adamant said those words without a hint of remorse or reluctance.

“You were gone when we awoke from our long slumber, but… the Empire is still here,” he shook his head. “As long as the Empire stands, so will I to protect it.”

Sombra’s jaw dropped as Adamant looked over his shoulder at the rest of the ponies.

“We will all stand to protect it,” he spoke, receiving nods of agreement from every single one of them. “As long as we still live.”

Sombra’s hoof slid from Adamant’s shoulder and back to the ground. His back legs grew weak and he tipped backwards, sitting down.

“The… Empire is still here…” Sombra repeated Adamant’s words, looking at the floor. “As long… as the Empire stands…” he slowly looked up at all of them. He tipped forward, pushing himself back up onto his hooves. He placed a hoof on his chest, blinking several times as if he felt something new in his chest. Soarin could feel it as well. It was a warm, tingling feeling.

Without a word, Sombra moved forward, walking right into the group of old guards. They parted to let him among them, all smiling, and looking up towards him.

Sombra made several stops, taking his time to address several of them by name and recall fighting beside them, their feats and honors, things long forgotten to time. Each one looked as if they never wanted to hear anything else in their life as Sombra spoke to them. Everything said was foreign to Soarin, and a bit overwhelming. Sombra was discussing events that were over a thousand years old with ponies who were actually alive at that time. The tables had completely turned, suddenly Soarin felt like he was in a different universe as he listened with great curiosity.

All of them were part of the past, much like Sombra. And just like Sombra… they were all still here, persisting far beyond their time.

Sombra suddenly stopped moving about. His eyes grew wide as he reached up and placed a hoof on his chest. The warmth had grown stronger.

“This…” he spoke out loud. “This feeling…” he smiled as all his old knights remained close. “This was what I was looking for…” he said with a dash of excitement hidden in his voice, but he quickly gathered himself, shutting his eyes tight, forcing the smile down, and opening his eyes to reveal a strong, stoic expression befitting a king.

He looked up and exhaled.

“The world has indeed changed… but…” he looked down and around at all his old, faithful knights. “A small part of my world was still here, waiting for me…” he looked towards the doors, the throne room extending far beyond the gathered group. He hardened his eyes, a look of determination filling them. Soarin could feel the shift in Sombra’s emotions. It was strong and steadfast. “And that part…” he started moving, the guards parting to let him through as he started towards the doors. “Makes it all worth saving.”

“Dash! Please! Get a hold of yourself!” Little Star pleaded as Dash twitched, her neck bent backward and her eyes twitching as Matteo supported her. “Are you alright? Please give us a sign or something!” she pressed.

“Enough!” Matteo scolded her as Squall pulled her away. “Yelling at her isn’t going to help!” he snarled as he was suddenly forced to cover up Dash, Squall pulling Little Star down with him as Fleetfoot and Angel shot by right overhead, grappling in midair.

Squall and Star were blown over by their wake as they passed, Matteo bracing himself before looking up and growling. They were no longer ahead of the fighting, the time they had spent trying to get some sort of coherent response out of Dash allowed the mass of conflict to reach them. It also didn’t help that top tier Wonderbolts and Shadowbolt captains were dueling directly above them. What’s worse, the blizzard had picked up, visibility was poor. There was carnage nearby but they could only hear it. Collisions and clashes, roars of anger and pain, the screeching of thestrels… All despite the fact that the reason they were all fighting was long gone through the Empire shield.

It was nothing but a pointless brawl at this point, and Dash and the Elements of Harmony lay groaning and twitching on the ground right beneath it.

“Get offa me!” Star yelled as she tried to wiggle free from Squall. “We need to do something to help her!”

“What the hell are we supposed to do?!” Squall barked at her as he held her back, finally snapping. “Look at her!” he yelled while pointing Star towards Dash, laying limply in Matteo’s arms with a very weak and nauseous look on her face. “She’s been like this since they used the Elements! Nothing has changed!”

“But… but…” Star’s lip began to quiver.

“LOOK OUT!” Matteo yelled, protecting Dash again as the Streak twins both crashed nearby. They both frantically tried to rise, but were both in an unfavorable position as Blade rushed down from above with his magic sword pulled back to strike.

Before he could reach them though, Descent charged out of the blue, tackling Blade and sending them both in another direction. Misty Fly and High Winds landed beside the twins, quickly helping them up before they all took to the air again.

“This is just GREAT!” Squall growled as Little Star clung to his side, peeking out to see if it was safe. “Dash is out, her friends are out…” he glanced over his shoulder, seeing the rest of Dash’s Ponyville friends sprawled out much like she was. They were all flopped over, some holding their heads. Applejack was trying to stand, but every attempt ended before she even got an inch off the ground, her hooves going back to her head. Twilight was on her back, her neck arched and a constant painful gasp escaping her throat as her sizzling tiara remained fixed to her head. Pinkie was face down in the snow, her flank in the air and her tail dangling over like a deflated balloon. “Sombra went right through the shield, and now we’re stuck here under this shit show!” he blinked and looked up, the winds growing stronger. “And the blizzard is getting worse!”

“Enough whining!” Matteo shouted at him as he picked up Dash in his arms, her limbs dangling limply and her mouth stuck open as she uttered a quiet groan. Squall shot him a glare, but he ignored it. “Dash isn’t going to get up on her own right now! We need to gather them together, and get them all to safety!”

“Safety?!” Star threw her arms out. “WHERE?!” she asked sarcastically while motioning around them.

“Not here would be a fine start!” Matteo quickly rebuked. “Fancy and the others haven’t shown up to help them, so it’s up to us, ARGH!” he grunted, shielding himself and Dash as the winds suddenly rushed and howled.

The snowfall intensified, swirling madly for a few moments before calming down, leaving behind a thick, dense mist that nearly cut off all visibility for them, save for the Elements of Harmony. Yet regardless, the sounds of fighting persisted all around them, the loss of visibility doing nothing to deter the chaos.

Matteo looked around frantically, showing a more alert reaction that Star and Squall as they stared, confused. Something about that sudden shift wasn’t natural.

“Well, well, well… welly welly welly well…,” a familiar voice echoed around them from several directions at once. “Ooooo hoo hoo hoo… what do we have here?” The voice’s location seemed to shift, the tones gathering together at a single point nearby until a silhouette of a pegasus appeared in the mist… moving towards them.

Matteo quickly shifted forward, shoving Dash into Squall’s arms as he set himself firmly in front of them. Squall and Star both peeked around as the silhouette grew closer and…

Ruin appeared.

He stepped out of the mist, grinning from ear to ear, and looking around at all of Dash’s friends. Strangely, he wasn’t wearing his Shadowbolt suit, nor did he appear to have any crystals.

Star yelped, throwing her hooves over her mouth. Squall tensed up, turning Dash away protectively as he kept his eyes glued to Ruin. Matteo held firm, standing in front defensively as strong hisses of air shot from the holes in his beak.

Ruin wasn’t paying them any mind, though. He was daintily stepping around Dash’s friends, slinking up to each one of them and getting uncomfortably close as they lay powerless to say or do anything.

He stopped at Rarity first, cooing as he touched a hoof to her face and softly slid it down her cheek to her chin.

“Ah, what an exquisite beauty…” he said snidely as he shifted towards Fluttershy, reaching down and twirling a hoof in her long mane, tipping his nose down to smell it. “Hmmmm… A fresh aroma of nature…” he disengaged and slid over to Applejack. “Oooo…?” he tapped a hoof against her shoulder and ran it down her built physique towards her flank. “This one’s extra solid!” he giggled to himself. He hummed casually as he walked past Pinkie Pie, stopping only for a moment to use her dangling tail to scratch an itch on his flank.

He shot a glance towards Dash’s squad, all of them flinching as his eyes met theirs. He paused for a moment and looked them over carefully. His eyes shifted about, but whatever he was looking for wasn’t there.

“Pffft, don’t look so tense over there,” he said snidely while bouncing his eyebrows. “You’ve caught me in a really good mood.” He threw his head back and closed his eyes. “Ahhhhh… the sweet, sweet noise of uncontrollable madness. I have to hoof it to you morons, you really stirred the pot with this one! So much backstabbing and double-crossing… And all without me lifting a hoof! I couldn’t have done it better myself. Color me impressed, I don’t think I’ve ever been more entertained!” He shivered with delight as he grinned wide and stared towards them again.

But he quickly averted his eyes, looking towards Twilight on her back.

“And the icing on the cake…? Look at all these lovely mares all in one place… the legendary power sure has good taste in choosing its wielders!” he said snidely, lifting a hoof to his lips and licking it once slowly as he sauntered over to Twilight with a very exaggerated sway in his hips. He stood over Twilight, staring down at her with a VERY creepy smile on his face. “Ah… they are a sight to behold…” he shut his eyes briefly, opening them up to reveal the pure black eyes with tiny white pupils.

“The Elements of Harmony!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Alternate title to this chapter: "I Swear This Story Is Still About The Wonderbolts" :derpytongue2:

Well how about that... Sombra felt all his efforts were fruitless, only to be surprised by the very thing he was trying to find. What is a king without those who follow him, after all? Just another stallion. The presence of his faithful knights still standing in the name of their land has given him a reason to act... but what will he do? After this, it's clear he had no idea what to do and was planning on gaining some clarity by returning to his throne. The reappearance of his knights doesn't simply fix that. I guess we'll find out soon.

And oh boy... Ruin...

Paging Twister, PAGING TWISTER! NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME!:applejackconfused:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 165: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 7: The Jester’s Game)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 165: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 7: The Jester’s Game)

“Hnnnggg” Dash groaned, her head spinning a mile a minute. Every time she tried to open her eyes, her vision was so intensely blurry and wavy that she was forced to immediately slam them shut. Even just a moment of the visual delirium made her feel sick to her stomach, moans and groans of discomfort continuously escaping her lips as she tried and failed to pull herself together. It wasn’t just her head that hurt, her whole body felt like it was on fire.

She had already been dealing with physical trauma from her scuffle with Nightshade, including her still-dislocated back leg, and now she had just had a massive amount of supernatural magic forced through her. It felt like something had exploded within her, every inch of her body was being stabbed by a thousand needles both inside and out.

She saw what happened, but amid all the pain she kept trying to focus while asking herself… what the hell had happened? Why did it happen? Where was Sombra? Where were her friends? Where was Spitfire? What was going on around her? Who was holding her?

Her ears were ringing, the noises around her just as muffled and blurred as her vision. She tipped her head over and tried to open her eyes again as she looked skyward. Again, she could only hold them open for a moment, but it was long enough to see blurred images of pegasi shooting every which way overhead. All she could make out for sure were colors and even those were a little blurred together. Blue, purple, black, a little red, some shimmering blue and lavender, some colors darker.

There was no mistaking it, the carnage they had left behind to make their move had caught up to them. Wonderbolts fighting Shadowbolts fighting thestrels fighting Renegades fighting each other fighting guards… what was even going on anymore? How long had she been down? More and more questions kept adding to the pile, but she was powerless to find answers.

A loud roar pierced through her ears, muffled and painful. Dash cringed opening her eyes slightly as she felt something move her. She didn’t know which direction she was looking, but two ponies were in front of her… Spitfire and Nightshade? They were grappling, close enough for her to make out their features with a little difficulty. They were pushing against one another, and neither was looking at her. Dash was forced to shut her eyes, the queasy feeling in her stomach nearly surging right into her throat as whoever was supporting her whisked her away from the two of them. She thought she could hear familiar voices, but she wasn’t sure, she was being pressed into something soft and it was obscuring the already muffled noises even more.

She didn’t know what was happening or where she was, but the only questions that were constantly coherent in her head were… Where is Sombra? Where is Soarin?

The soft surface she was being pressed against was suddenly released, and her ears picked up the voices nearby again. They were close enough that they were mostly coherent, and it sounded like… Little Star and Squall? Were they bickering? It sounded like some kind of argument. Did that mean Matteo was holding her? That would explain the soft surface. She felt like she was regaining a little bit of focus as she was held still, but her head was still pounding, her ears were still ringing, and her body was still on fire. It was still so bad that she was having a hard time even figuring out what was happening right next to her.

But as she kept trying to open her eyes and get an idea of what was happening, the blurry visions of ponies above and all around suddenly faded. She couldn’t quite tell, but it looked like they were being surrounded by a thick fog, all sight of the fighting vanishing.

“RnngggRGN!!!” Dash groaned and winced, slamming her eyes shut and tipping her head back and forth as she desperately tried to gain control of her senses. Why wouldn’t they cooperate?! What was causing all this odd pain? What was causing her head to compress so harshly? What the hell did the Elements’ magic do to her?! It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before and it just wouldn’t stop!

“Well, well, well… welly welly welly well…,”

Dash’s eyes shot open.

“Ooooo hoo hoo hoo… what do we have here?”

Dash’s ears twitched like mad. A voice? She could hear a voice. And it wasn’t muffled or drowned out by the ringing of her ears like everything else around her. She could hear it clear as day… and it took less than a second to recognize who it belonged to.

That was Ruin’s voice. She was still facing up, her head leaning back. She couldn’t see him, but that was definitely Ruin’s voice.

“Ah, what an exquisite beauty… Hmmmm… A fresh aroma of nature… Oooo…? This one’s extra solid!”

How? What was this? Why could she hear him so clearly? Dash grunted, shutting her eyes and forcing her neck to turn slowly. She didn’t care how uncomfortable it was, that was Ruin for sure! She groaned quietly, forcing her eyelids to open just a little bit as she dealt with the discomfort, but all it took was the brief glance.

She could see him too.

He was right there. Everything around him was a blurred, waving mess, but he appeared just as clearly as she could hear him… And he was looking right at her. He was smiling creepily… looking at her squad mates? Why wasn’t he wearing his flight suit and goggles?

“Pffft, don’t look so tense over there. You’ve caught me in a really good mood. Ahhhhh… the sweet, sweet noise of uncontrollable madness. I have to hoof it to you morons, you really stirred the pot with this one! So much backstabbing and double-crossing… And all without me lifting a hoof! I couldn’t have done it better myself. Color me impressed, I don’t think I’ve ever been more entertained!”

What was going on? Dash could hear him and see him without any difficulty! Like his presence alone was something materializing in her mind. She couldn’t even clearly see her squadmates right beside her, much less hear them.

“And the icing on the cake…? Look at all these lovely mares all in one place… the legendary power sure has good taste in choosing its wielders! Ah… they are a sight to behold…”

Dash gasped.

“The Elements of Harmony!”

He was standing over something purple… it had to be Twilight! That meant the other comments he made… they were about her friends! Dash squirmed slightly, but couldn’t find any strength. A sense of dread filled her from head to hoof as Ruin clearly had his attention on her friends… and the Elements of Harmony. But it also felt like it was coming directly from him, something radiating from him. Was it related to her ability to see and hear him while everything else was a blurred or muffled mess? That alone was enough to tell her something was off.

A sense of urgency pushed itself in beside the dread. She focused with every ounce of effort she had, ignoring all dizziness and pain. Her efforts made the blurriness clear up slightly. Not much, but enough to start making out some features instead of just colors. The safety of her squad and her friends pushed her through, taking priority over her own wellbeing.

But the first thing she noticed was that Fancy Pants and the detached group, her insurance policy, were nowhere to be found. They probably got sucked into the fighting, or they were forced to retreat so as not to put the more vulnerable of their group in danger.

And… of course… the one weapon they had that could answer Ruin… was still absent.

This was not good. Not good at all.

Ruin smiled wide as he reached a hoof towards Twilight.

Dash flinched as Squall suddenly yelled something nearby. Her ears picked it up, the ringing had lessened just enough for her to make out what was being said.

Ruin blinked, his black eyes reverting to their normal color as he glanced back towards Squall.

“Pardon?” he asked with a snicker.

“I said don't touch her!” Squall repeated, glaring while forcing strength into his voice.

“Oh?” Ruin turned slightly, keeping his eyes on Squall with a smarmy grin plastered to his face. “Why not?” he asked.

Squall gritted his teeth and inched forward, but his hooves remained anchored in place. He didn’t say a word, holding his position and scowl.

“Well?” Ruin chuckled, tipping his head. “What are ya gonna do if I touch her, hm? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?” he taunted.

Squall didn’t move.

“BOOP!” Ruin cutely exclaimed at he reached down and poked Twilight’s nose gently. She shuddered and rolled over. “Okay! I’m waiting!” Ruin stood upright and tipped his head back slightly, closing his eyes and bopping his head back and forth.

“Grh…” Squall growled.

Ruin blinked, looking back down towards Squall.

“Hm… that’s odd, nothing happened!” He tapped a hoof against his chin while looking back at Twilight again. “Maybe I gotta do it some more!”

He turned around and started poking Twilight repeatedly.

“Boop, beep, bap, bop, boop, bap, beep!” he giggled as Twilight cried out in discomfort, curling up. “Whoop!” Ruin threw himself to the ground beside her, landing on his side and shimmying his body on the ground until his back touched her, rubbing it against the point of her horn and the pointy tips of the Element of Magic. “Oo, OO! Right there! That’s the spot!”

Squall began shaking, his scowl growing harder. Star was glancing between him and Ruin, gingerly reaching her hooves towards Squall, but never getting close enough to touch.

“Okay, NOW!” Ruin popped back up and assumed the same upright position as before.

But again, Squall didn’t move.

After a moment, Ruin opened one eye and pouted.

“Aw, nothing? Really?” he sighed, puttering his lips as he shook his head. “What a let-down…” he said as he started slowly moving towards Dash’s squad, his path lined up with Squall. “Quite the tough talker, aren’t we?” he asked in a sly tone, his smirk growing and his eyes narrowed into a creepy stare as he grew closer. “Please don’t leave me hanging like that. If you’re going to threaten me…”

Squall didn’t budge, but he began leaning back subtly as Ruin showed no sign of stopping.

“You’d better back it up…” Ruin moved right up to Squall, getting right in his face with less than an inch between their noses. He locked his eyes on Squall’s, smiling very wide. “Or else… hee heeeee! Or else I’ll just assume you’re a coward.” He mocked while bouncing his eyebrows.

“HORYAA!!!” Squall pulled back a hoof and threw a punch. His hoof struck Ruin right in the face, but a veil of pink light shone around Ruin’s body the instant it connected. Several painful sounding cricks and pops came from Squall’s hoof. “ARGH!!!” Squall pulled his hoof back and stumbled, bending down slightly and tucking his hoof in towards his chest as pain shot through his arm.

“Aw… did that hurt?” Ruin asked in a condescending tone while tipping his head. “Sorry, did my smile get in the way of your hoof?” he asked as his grin somehow got a little wider. “Don’t blame me, it tends to do that!” He snickered while reaching out and placing a hoof on Squall’s shoulder. A crystal appeared next to him and began glowing brightly.

Bright pink sparks began erupting from Ruin’s hoof, Squall’s eyes widened, his body stiffening.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!!!” Squall cried out as intense pain shot through his entire body. He immediately crumpled, falling to his haunches as his legs gave out. “AHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” Squall screamed as his body twitched and jittered.

“SQUALL!!!” Star cried out, instinctively jumping out from behind Matteo and leaping at Ruin. Without looking, Ruin reached his other hoof out, grabbing Star right out of the air by the neck of her suit so abruptly that the rest of her body whiplashed forward. “GHRK!” She choked as she halted, immediately grabbing at Ruin’s arm with her little hooves. She lurched her body around, but couldn’t get free.

“Easy there, Short Stuff,” Ruin glanced at her, snickering under his breath. “There’s only so much of me to go around, please wait your turn,” he said in a frighteningly calm tone as Squall continued to scream in pain beneath his other hoof. Star’s eyes grew wide with worry, locking on Squall.

“STOP IT!” she yelled desperately, never taking her eyes off Squall.

“Hm?” Ruin blinked and cocked an eyebrow, noticing where she was looking. “Why? He punched me first! Hee hee!”

Star shifted her eyes to Ruin and glared at him harshly.

“STOP HURTING HIM!!!!!!!” She yelled angrily, slamming her hooves against his arm.

“Hmmmm…?” Ruin looked back and forth between Star and Squall. “Oh! OOOOOH!” his face lit up. “HO HO! So that's how it is, eh?” he made a cute pouty face and his pupils grew wide. “How cute, I think I’ll fart out a few puppies.” He stuck his plot out to the side and made a short poot noise with his lips. “In that case, here… you can join him!”

Ruin whipped Star around and pressed him to Squall. The sparks around Ruins hoof began leaping onto her body as well. In an instant she was screaming right beside Squall as the pain jumped between them both.

“Ah, how lovely,” Ruin tipped his head back and sighed happily. “A duet always sounds better than a solo.”

“STAR!” Squall suddenly yelled, drawing Ruin’s attention back down to them. “NO!!!”

“Quiet you,” Ruin huffed and pressed his hooves down harder on them both. “Keep singing.”

Ruin tipped his head back up and hummed to himself, swaying back and forth before blinking and turning his head to Matteo.

“Oh, I nearly forgot you were there,” Ruin chuckled. He looked Matteo up and down, he was not making any moves to help as he kept Dash’s head supported. His expression was but a stoic glare, showing no sign of emotion. “I’m surprised you’re just sitting there,” he sneered, making a subtle head motion towards Star and Squall screaming beneath his hooves. “Your friends don’t sound like they’re enjoying themselves down here, you know,” he taunted, grinning wide. Ruin’s eyes shifted, looking at Dash lying limply in Matteo’s arms. “Or are you afraid I’ll get to her the moment you come for me?”

“I do not fear you,” Matteo stated adamantly.

“Pfffft, right, right, right,” Ruin turned to face Matteo while casually leaning against Star and Squall, the magic still flowing from him into them as they twitched and groaned in pain. “I’ve read this script before.” He waved a hoof about in the air. “You say that, and then I’m supposed to say something like…” he puffed his chest out and waved a hoof in front of his face, his facial features becoming jagged and overly sharp. “Well you should!” He waved his hoof back, his face returning to normal. “Or something utterly cliché like that.” He winked and pointed at Matteo. “I gotta hoof it to ya, you almost got me to say it, HO HO! But really now, how many times have we heard that? Variety is the spice of life, we ought to change things up around here once in a while!” he continued to act casual as his torture of Star and Squall went on unchallenged.

Matteo’s glare hardened slightly, which Ruin noticed.

“By the way, that look you’re giving me,” he leaned forward a little, resting his body on top of Squall’s. “I like it, but try as you might, you can’t possibly be as much of a stiff ass as a certain pony I regularly bother,” he tipped his head, resting his cheek in his hoof while grinning and giggling under his breath. “If you really want that look to get through to me, you’ll need to clench your ass a little harder and call me names.”

Matteo stayed silent. Ruin pouted.

“That was a demand, not a suggestion,” he snickered. “I have standards, you know!”

Matteo didn’t take the bait.

“Hrm…” Ruin hummed and huffed. “You’re no fun. I guess not just anypony can be as rigid as Full Mooney! HEE HEE HEE!”

“RRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Squall suddenly growled from beneath him, reaching a hoof up and grabbing Ruin’s hoof pressed to him.

“Ooo?” Ruin looked down at Squall. His magic was protecting him, but he could see how hard Squall’s arm was tensing. But he quickly noticed Squall wasn’t even looking at him. His head was turned towards Star pressed into his shoulder, his eyes locked on her face as it scrunched and grimaced in pain. Squall’s teeth were grinding hard, his eyes were angled into a ferocious glare, his breaths were sharp and hissing. “Ooooooooooo?” Ruin cooed as he examined Squall’s demeanor devolving into a near feral state. Ruin’s eyes grew wide with delight as he felt pressure against his hoof… Squall was actually starting to force him back. “Now THIS is more like it!”

“HHRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!” Squall roared as he put his whole body into it.

Ruin sneered and let up, allowing Squall to force his hoof away. He stepped backwards bouncing on his hooves giddily.

Squall nearly fell flat on his face as he stumbled forward. He managed to stay upright, grinding his hooves into the ground and glaring at Ruin as hard as he could. His breaths heaving. Pink sparks were still weakly crackling about his body, but he was clearly beyond caring.

“Ooooooo hoo hoo hoo…” Ruin edged forward. “Now THAT’S a look that makes me all tingly!” He started slowly moving towards Squall again. “It’s not often somepony pushes back against my magic… it takes more than physical strength to do that,” he stopped and slowly turned his head towards Star. “I wonder what gave you the motivation, hmmmmmmmmmm?”

Squall instantly shifted, putting himself in between Ruin and Star, his angry breaths hissing louder between his teeth and from his nose as he lowered himself slightly to completely conceal her from Ruin’s view.

“BINGO!” Ruin sneered, and pointed. “I had a feeling that was it, ho ho ho!” He started moving towards Squall. “Ah… to be so enthralled… to feel like you have… hmmm… a purpose.” He stopped right in front of Squall, just a yard away, examining him carefully and looking over Squall’s shoulder to see Star. “Pbbbthpth, yuck,” he held his nose and waved a hoof in front of his face. “The things ponies become attached to… clinging to such trivial desires like they mean something. I’ve never seen the appeal.” He shrugged. “Or maybe I’m just numb to it.” He turned to his side and sneered. “But, oh what FUN such things are… to manipulate!” He twirled a hoof in the air.

“AH!” Star shrieked as she was lifted into the air and pulled right over Squall’s shoulder, shooting right into Ruin’s hoof.

“NO!” Squall shouted, rushing forward.

“Up, up, up!” Ruin reached out and tapped a hoof against Squall’s forehead. Squall froze on the spot, his eyes open wide and his mouth stuck agape. He was surrounded by pink sparks similar to before, but he felt completely numb with all sense of touch cut off as if he was frozen in time.

“Good luck getting out of that one, I tried a little harder this time,” he taunted as he held up Star by the neck of her suit. She gasped in pain and grabbed his arm, but no matter how hard she tugged, she couldn’t get free. Ruin looked her up and down carefully. “Interesting choice,” he shrugged and looked back down at Squall. “You walk around in a group full of some absolutely juicy pieces of tail and you went for the midget?”

Squall looked like he was trying to glare, but his head and face were stuck just like the rest of him. Ruin noticed and snorted, holding back a laugh as he waved a hoof in front of Squall’s face. The bit of magic surrounding the top half of his head vanished, and Squall’s eyes and instantly hardened into the harshest scowl one could imagine, which looked a little comical with his mouth still frozen open.

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFT HOO HOO HAHAHA! Oh that’s rich…” He looked at Star again, shaking her lightly in his grip to make her squeak. “Eh, I guess everypony has their thing I guess?” He looked at Squall again, noticing his mouth jittering. He twirled his hoof to release the magic holding the rest of his head and—

“PUT HER DOWN YOU FUCKING FREAK!”

“Whooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Ruin leaned back with his eyes wide, blinking and sneering as he pointed at Star. “Do you kiss her with that dirty mouth of yours? Shame, shame, SHAME!”

“PUT HER DOWN! NOW!” Squall belted, pushing his voice as hard as he could.

“Oh boy, here we go again…” Ruin rolled his eyes. “Fine, you want to do this one more time, hm? Then we will,” he got right into Squall’s face, holding up Star right beside them both. Squall’s eyes kept darting back and forth between Ruin and Star. “Tell me then, tough guy… What will you do… if I don’t?” He grinned, two more crystals appearing beside him that both pointed at Star.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” Squall shouted right into Ruin’s face without any hesitation, forcing his voice so hard it nearly cracked.

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” Ruin surged forward, pressing his face to Squall’s. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” Ruin dropped Star on the ground as he continued to press his face into Squall’s while laughing maniacally. Star instantly curled up, hugging herself and twitching as the pain from earlier still lingered. “HAHAHA! HOHOHO!” Ruin fell over backwards to the ground and kicked his legs into the air. “OH MY MY MY!” He rolled upright. “KILL ME?!” He vanished into thin air and appeared right next to Matteo, jabbing him comically in the side with his elbow. “You hear that?! Kill me! HOHO!” He vanished again and reappeared right in front of Squall again.

Ruin cleared his throat, paused, and cleared his throat again. He blinked, and patted a hoof to his chest. He coughed, grunted, and cleared his throat very loudly, drawing it out for ten seconds before leaning towards Squall with a smarmy smile on his face.

“Good one.”

Squall growled in response, but Ruin rolled his eyes.

“Oh stop that, you’re about as menacing as a welcome mat embroidered with a rainbow,” he dismissed Squall, waving a hoof. “You couldn’t hurt me, let alone kill me, in a million years… and something tells me you already know that… but, ah… Let’s get back to the interesting part.” He turned and sauntered over to Star curled up on the ground, turning to face Squall as he stood right beside her. “Let’s talk about how you made that threat anyway… because of her.”

“Ah!” Star squeaked as Ruin grabbed her by the back leg and held her up in the air, dangling her upside-down. She tried to punch at him, but his hoof sparked, shooting pink pulses over her that caused her to curl up and yelp in pain.

“What is she to you, hm?” Ruin taunted holding her towards Squall. “What does she represent?” he asked as he moved closer to Squall. “I jest about romance, but I can’t help but be curious…” he looked over his shoulder towards Dash’s friends. “We have something incredibly important to the world like the Elements of Harmony in danger with no one to protect them… You spoke up when I was harassing them, but it was nothing… nothing like the response I got when I threatened HER.” He held up and gave her a gentle shake.

Squall gritted his teeth, holding his scowl, but never taking his eyes off Star.

“Oh, I like this…” Ruin got really close, holding Star up at eye level beside them as he remained less than an inch from Squall. “I really like this! HEE HEE!” He backed off slightly to bring Star forward and dangle her right in front of his face. “When ponies act like this, that means it’s personal. And when things get personal, things get interesting. It opens up a nice view into what others may never see or know about them… it exposes them. It shows the world what they really are, what they covet, what they fear, what really motivates them… what makes them DESPERATE.”

Ruin snickered loudly, his grin growing wide as he held up Star beside him and pointed his crystals at her again, watching carefully as Squall’s expression grew harsher and harsher the closer he moved them towards her.

“That last one is my favorite,” he said with a pleasurable sneer. “Y’see, desperation… It’s…” he put his free hoof to his chin. “It’s like… a wild card. It’s always a gamble, always a mystery. You never know what a pony will do when it kicks in because it depends on the pony who’s playing the card. Will they reveal and sacrifice all for what they desire? Or is the pressure too great to risk exposing themselves… even in a moment of life and death?”

He paused, stared at Squall, and snickered.

“Oh right, there’s another word for that… it’s coward,” he taunted while leaning into Squall’s face again, giggling as Squall’s face twitched with anger. “So… what kind of pony will you be, hm?” he pulled back a little and motioned to Star. “What is she? Are ya gonna tell me?”

“I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t let go of—”

Ruin abruptly cut off Squall by pressing his lips together and forcing air through them so hard it sounded like an elephant trumpet.

“WHAT?! HUH?!” Ruin tipped his head and pointed an ear into the air. “SORRY! COULDN’T HEAR YA! YER ASS MUST’VE BEEN TALKING AGAIN!” In the blink of an eye he was right in Squall’s face with a very flat look. “No. Answer the question.”

Squall said nothing. He just held his angry glare.

Ruin grinned.

“Or…” he giggled. “Do you want me to tell you?”

Squall blinked, his eyes widening slightly.

“Oh please don’t make me do this…” Ruin pouted, taking a forced, saddened tone. “I’m giving you the opportunity of a lifetime! A chance to be an open book! To tell all the truths you never thought would see the light of day…” he tipped his head all the way to the side. “What are you afraid of? You’re not scared to say it, are you?”

Ruin’s voice was becoming frighteningly sly as he taunted. Squall desperately glanced at Star, Ruin’s words digging into him. Star was still cringing as she was pricked by the magic volts, but she could hear what Ruin was saying too and was staring at Squall.

“Five…”

Squall blinked, his eyes darting to Ruin.

“Four…”

Squall frantically looked back and forth.

“Three…”

Squall shut his eyes.

“Two…”

Squall opened his eyes, glaring angrily at Ruin.

“Don’t you look at me in that tone of voice, young stallion…” Ruin cut off the countdown and snickered. “You think I’m bluffing don’t you?” He sneered. “Famous last glare!”

Ruin let go of Star. She squeaked as she fell to the ground.

“ONE!”

Ruin reached forward and grabbed Squall’s by the face, getting so close that their noses nearly pressed together. Ruin’s eyes turned black again, the tiny white pupils staring directly into Squall’s eyes, sending chills through him the instant they appeared.

“Your whole life you’ve been playing the same act,” Ruin began, his voice filled with an unsettling demonic echo. “Sometime around your teenage years you began to despise the perpetually happy and utterly embarrassing escapades of your mother and father. You hated the absurd physical affection because you felt it was empty. You thought they just wanted to be loud and rambunctious, and like a normal red-blooded teenage colt, you thought they were ‘uncool’ and wanted nothing to do with them.” He backed up slightly, Squall’s eyes now stuck open wide as he went on. “But, ah… sometimes habits stick, don’t they? You grew into an adult, but you had gotten so used to being a broody loner that it became who you are. Always scowling, always uninterested, always feeling as if others were not worth your time… they were just in your way. How many friends did you make with that kind of attitude, hmmm?” Ruin slowly inched back towards Squall. “Not one… and that’s the way it remained. Then you went on to join the Wonderbolts to kill two birds with one stone. Get away from your family, and become a member of the most elite pegasi without anypony’s help. But then…”

Ruin stepped back and looked up into the air. He said nothing for several seconds and then cleared his throat.

“Hm… he missed his cue…” Ruin scratched his head as he glanced around. “OH! There he is!”

“AUUUGGHHH!!!” A shout of pain suddenly came from overhead and a pony came spiraling down from above, cutting right through the mist surrounding the area and crashing hard to the snow. He bounced roughly several times, before sliding to a halt right beside Ruin.

Before any of them could make out who it was, Ruin reached down grabbed him by the neck of his suit, and hoisted him up.

It was Storm Front. His suit was badly ripped and damaged, his goggles were missing a lens, and he had minor magic burns all over his body, as well as several bruises and scratches. He gasped and wheezed as he dangled limply in Ruin’s grip.

“Nnnghhh…” Storm slowly opened his eyes, struggling to lift an arm to grab Ruin’s as he tried to focus. He was clearly knocked for a loop and trying to regain his senses. “Huh…?” he groggily glanced back and forth. “Sq…Squall? Star…?” His eyes moved to Ruin, instantly opening wide.

“Hush, you have no lines,” Ruin shushed him, his hoof sparking and sending the magic pulses through him that were afflicting Star.

“ARGH!!!” Storm cried out, twitching and cringing as the magic stabbed at him.

Ruin sneered again, looking back at Squall and making a head motion towards Storm in his hoof.

“Enter daddy’s little golden boy!” he said cheekily as the demonic echo lingered. Squall’s eyes twitched as they locked on Storm, Ruin’s smile growing wider by the second. “When you got to the Wonderbolts, you ran headfirst into this particular stallion and he was instantly everything you hated! Or… was he everything you wanted to be? I bet you couldn’t decide. He was well spoken, friendly, and made lots of friends quickly, commanding the kind of meaningful affection you always wished you had. His family background was unfortunate, but he spoke highly of his father, for whom he had the utmost respect for… Then he went on to ultimately beat you and everypony else out to fill the vacant spot in the elite Wonderbolts! But all of that… was trivial wasn’t it? Hee hee heeeeeee!” Ruin patted Squall on the head with his free hoof. “There was something about him… something that bothered you far more than ANYTHING else!”

Ruin suddenly backed away and thrust Storm forward, putting his face right in front of Squall’s.

“HE. WAS. HAPPY.” The echo in Ruin’s voice grew intense as he peeked around the back of Storm’s head, sneering from ear to ear. “He had things so much worse than you ever did. Unlike you, he had a reason to act the way you did, but he didn’t. He refused, he was better than that… better than you!” Ruin pressed his cheek to Storm’s as Storm continued to grimace in pain. “It bothered you, it clawed at you. It made you hate him, hate him so much that just seeing him smile set you off on the inside. You lashed out at him, projected your anger towards him, and made it known that you disliked him while never telling him or anypony else why. And then… Huu huu…” Ruin switched sides, ducking behind Storm and popping up on the other side, pressing his other cheek against Storm’s. “The moment of truth arrived. Your happy-go-lucky parents, the ones you tried so hard to cut from your life for such trivial reasons, showed up to your graduation banquet in all their glory. You were exposed, any façade you were trying to hold up to excuse your behavior came crashing down!”

Ruin let go of Storm. Storm grunted as he hit the ground at Squall’s hooves, rolling over as he twitched. Squall stared down at Storm, his eyes stuck open and his jaw slightly agape.

“And what did he do?” Ruin asked while Squall had his eyes on Storm. “Why, he did what anypony in his position would have done!” Ruin grabbed Squall’s chin and forced him to look into his eyes. “He threw it in your face! He let you have it for always jumping on his back about him and the way he chose to live. You had no right to berate him as you had… and ironically, you had what he wanted! But who was the one throwing shade all the time, eh, ehhhhhh?” Ruin let go of Squall and looked down upon him as Squall’s eyes looked aimlessly forward into Ruin’s chest. “It was a pathetic sight… and you deserved every bit of it. One would have to be crazy to step in and defend you in that moment, but…”

Squall’s eyes shot up as Star suddenly yelped. Ruin had grabbed her off the ground by the back of her suit and held her up.

“Ah… what’s this? There’s another player in this equation! She defended you when no one else would, she understood why you were getting a mouthful, but she refused to let it get out of hoof for your sake… how nice of her to do so!” Ruin turned around and backed up until he was standing side by side with Squall, holding Star out in front of them both. “Why would she do that? Well… let’s back up a little here and talk about what makes her so special.”

Ruin moved her closer to Squall. Their eyes met, the pain in her eyes torturing Squall as the rest of him was held in place.

“She’s a tiny pony who’s much older than she appears and she has tried to become a Wonderbolt so many times that she might as well be a veteran by now,” Ruin moved close to put his face right beside Star’s. “But this isn’t about what she is, is it? This is about her approach to you.” Ruin tapped a hoof to Squall’s forehead. “You treated her just like you did everypony else. You ignored her, you dismissed her, you scoffed at her, and you constantly used your ever-so-predictable reply of…” Ruin suddenly scowled, mimicking a face Squall often made. “Whatever…” His face shifted back instantly. “You tried to push her away as you always had, but something was different, something was off… Where others had backed off, where others had given up… she persisted!”

There was a visible twitch and shift in Squall’s expression. Any sign of strength had vanished from his eyes and was replaced by weakness and subtle panic.

“She refused to back down!” Ruin inched forward, tipping his head to partially block Squall’s view of Star. “She wanted to know why you were the way you are! Your broody act bounced right off of her! You yelled at her, you growled at her, you put up all of your best fronts, but she never went away! But you want to know the best part?” Ruin narrowed his eyes into a sly star, his lips closing into a smug grin as he bounced his eyebrows. “You LIKED it.”

Squall exhaled. It sounded like a weak gasp as if he had just been punched in the gut. Star’s eyes grew wide as she noticed Squall’s reaction, the pain caused by Ruin’s magic seemingly just weak enough so she could fully focus on Squall as Ruin continued to pry into him.

“Oh ho ho ho HO!” Ruin leaned right into Squall’s face, wearing a goofy expression that completely clashed with the frightening sight of his black eyes. “How you secretly ENJOYED it! You relished the attention she gave you! You loved the way she always came right back! You finally met your match, a pony you couldn’t push away, and it made you feel things you never knew you craved. You grew ATTACHED to her…” he moved Star closer to him as the two stared at one another. “You grew PROTECTIVE of her…” Ruin gently tipped her back and forth in front of Squall in a taunting manner. “You put yourself in harm’s way for her several times without a second thought... And when she repaid the favor? When she sacrificed her little body to protect you?”

Ruin suddenly slammed his hoof against Squall’s shoulder. Squall jolted, his eyes widening and filling with pink light. He gasped loudly as a very vivid image of Star shooting in front of him to save him from Devil’s immense magical attack replayed in his mind. It felt real, as if he were actually reliving the moment. His body felt chills as the momery of Star screaming in pain resonated through his head.

“St-STAR!” Squall yelled out instinctively as Ruin quickly removed his hoof from Squall and the light vanished from his eyes. He instantly showed signs of traumatic shock, his pupils had shrunk and were shaking. His mouth was stuck open and his breaths were heavy. All with his eyes locked on a now very alarmed Star. Ruin pulled her back and got in Squall’s face again.

“Your anger exploded! Your rage boiled over as you leapt at the one who hurt her and attacked him relentlessly! His superiority to you meant nothing in the face of your fury! You threw yourself forward and beat him senseless until he could no longer sustain his own power… and met a rather gruesome end.”

Ruin slowly tipped back, letting Squall look directly at Star. He looked completely broken, and Star was now ignoring any pain she was feeling in favor of the intense worry that was filling her.

“How touching…” Ruin cooed, turning his attention to Star. “It’s too bad you were knocked out, if only you could have seen it! The immense effect your selfless act of heroism had on him. He didn’t care that he was outmatched, he wanted to kill Devil for hurting you! Had Devil not been a dumbass and killed himself beforehoof, I’m pretty sure your dashing knight in shining armor here would have torn him limb from limb. All for you, isn’t that romantic?”

Ruin’s head turned all the way around to look at Squall without his body moving.

“And while she was recovering…” his body finally turned to follow his head. “You completely let your guard down. You stayed by her side like a lost, little colt… watching her closely and hoping, praying that she would be alright so you could feel the way she made you feel again. Luckily for you, she recovered just fine, but when she did you went right back to putting on your usual act, hoping nopony would notice.” Ruin shrugged. “I hate to break it to you, Sunshine, but everypony saw it… Everypony knows now! You can’t hide it anymore.”

Squall just kept staring at Star, which Ruin noticed. He sneered as he started moving Star back and forth, snickering as Squall’s eyes followed her everywhere she went.

“SO!” Ruin shifted over, putting himself directly in front of Squall. “Now that I’ve reminded you… Let me ask because I’m just dying to know…” He paused for an uncomfortably long ten seconds, his smile slowly changing from sly to sinister.

In a very swift and sudden motion, he let go of Star’s suit, and roughly grabbed her by the neck. Star squeaked and gasped in surprise, sputtering uncomfortably as Ruin suddenly put pressure on her throat.

Squall flinched hard, a look of shock smacking him in the face.

“What would you do…” Ruin’s voice got deeper and echoed ominously. His hoof gripping Star suddenly lit up, a loud sizzling noise filling the air complete with steam rising from it. Star’s body jolted and she cried out in pain as a faint pink glow surrounded her. His three crystals floated near her and all pointed their tips at her. "IF… I… KILLED… HER?”

Squall’s eyes changed in an instant. The look of shock vanished, replaced by a mixture of fear, anger, and desperation.

“No, NO!” Squall yelled out, lurching his head back and forth as he struggled to move his body. He subtly shifted, his motions forcing against Ruin’s magic, but he couldn’t break free. “NOOOO!” he repeated louder. Ruin was snickering so loudly that his teeth were parting to release uncontainable chuckles.

“Hee! HEE HEE HEE!!! OH I LOVE HOW THIS—oh!” Ruin looked away very suddenly, his eyes flashing brightly. Matteo’s balled up talons slammed right into a pink magic shield conjured just an inch from Ruin’s face.

“RGH!” Matteo grunted, pumping his wings and trying to push forward to no avail.

“HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! I knew you wouldn’t let that one go!” Ruin guffawed as he watched Matteo struggle. He stared through the shield giddily as Matteo pushed with all his might, his eyes landing on Matteo’s other, injured arm tucked in to his body, clearly favoring the other arm to push with. “Ah fun times…” Ruin suddenly flattened his brow. “But sit down, fatty.” One of Ruin’s crystals flashed, a magic aura surrounding Matteo’s tucked arm. The magic forced the arm out, bending it awkwardly as it tugged hard.

“RRRRRRGGAAAAAHH!!!!!” Matteo slammed his eyes shut, howling in pain as he was yanked to the side, spun around, and thrown to the ground, landing right on top of Storm. The magic sparks appearing on his body, pricking at him as they were with Storm and keeping him down.

“The show must go on!” Ruin chuckled as Matteo rolled over, grabbing his arm and shuddering. He turned back to Squall, smiling even wider as he examined the look in Squall’s eyes. Squall was losing control of himself, instincts taking over as a crazed look of hatred flared up uncontrollably. “Yes, yes, YESSSSSSSS!” Ruin encouraged, the giggling under his breath becoming unnerving. He moved the crystals closer to Star as she continued to wail in pain. “SHOW ME!” Ruin encouraged Squall, inching closer to him with Star in tow. “SHOW ME MORE!” He demanded, backing off slightly to shove Star in his face, the sizzling noise and her cries of agony torturing Squall just as much as her. “I’ll do it! I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her! HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!” Ruin cackled madly, his breaths hissing wildly through his toothy smile as he watched Squall’s anger explode.

“HGRH! RGGGH!!!!! RRAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” Squall lashed about, his body starting to jostle within the magic hold, gaining more and more movement the more enraged he got as if his surging emotions were the key to fighting against Ruin’s magic.

“HOO HOO HOHOHO!!!!! MY GOODNESS!!!!” Ruin yelled into his face. “YOU’D BETTER HURRY!” He tightened his grip on Star, she flinched hard, her voice cracking and her eyes sticking open wide as the pain intensified. “MY HOOF IS STARTING TO SLIP!” He taunted as Star arched her neck back and screamed even louder.

Squall’s pupils suddenly twitched, his head flinching sharply… and his mind snapped.

“GRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Squall surged forward, roaring like a wild beast and ripping completely free of the magic hold.

The instant he was free he began throwing wild punches. Every single swing landed a hit directly into Ruin’s face, but Ruin didn’t budge an inch. Each punch met the same thin veil of light that protected him before. But Squall didn’t stop. He kept roaring out and throwing punch after violent punch with the force of a killer instinct behind every blow. Cricks and cracks kept sounding from his hooves and arms. Eventually his hooves started bleeding at their base, little droplets of blood flying from them as he ignored it and kept up the assault as if he was trying to punch through a brick wall.

But despite his intense emotions pushing him onward, he was overexerting himself. After nearly half a minute of throwing everything he had at Ruin, he began to slow down little by little. His punches weakened, his strength faded, and eventually his attempts to attack Ruin were little more than light taps against the protective magic.

Then his body gave way. Squall collapsed in a heap at Ruin’s hooves, gasping, wheezing, and groaning as his arms went limp, twitching as blood trickled from around his hooves.

Ruin looked down at Squall, shivering with delight as he sneered. He sighed contently, moving his crystal away from Star as the sizzling from his hoof died down. Star blinked, opening her eyes as the pain’s intensity died down considerably. Her body cringed and twitched with aftershocks, but the source of the pain faded alltogether. Her eyes darted about, quickly locking on Squall in a broken heap on the ground. His eyes were stuck open wide, his pupils were small and jittering, his arms and hooves were bloody, and his breaths were heavy, labored, and uneven.

“Hooooooooooooooooooooo…” Ruin blinked, his eyes returning to their normal state. “That was…” he tipped his head back and took a deep breath. “So pathetically pleasing… You know what?” he snapped his head back down and grinned goofily. “I think I’ll laugh hysterically now! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” He dropped Star. She landed on the ground with a surprised yelp as Ruin tipped over onto his back, gripped his stomach and kicked his hooves into the air while guffawing. “HO! HA! HEE! WAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

His hold on Storm and Matteo suddenly vanished, the prickling sparks fading. The two instantly rolled over and propped themselves up, Matteo still favoring one arm as they stared towards Ruin, unsure how to proceed.

The moment Star gathered herself from the fall, she rolled over and darted over to Squall.

“Squall!” She slid to a halt in front of him, gently grabbing him by the face and turning his head to look at her, but his expression was lifeless, his eyes holding a vacant, broken stare. It cut right through Star. “SQUALL!!!!!” she yelled his name again, shaking him lightly. “AH!” she yelped as Squall suddenly reached out and grabbed her, pulling her into his body and hugging her tightly. Star’s face was smushed to his neck. She quickly shifted and pushed back a little to see the look on his face hadn’t changed, but she could feel the uneven breaths and his body shaking and jittering

He looked utterly physically and mentally broken. Star covered her mouth with a hoof, inhaling a few times as the sight shook her.

All the while, Ruin was still laughing behind her.

Star’s eyes hardened into a glare. She hugged Squall’s neck tightly while turning her head and angrily growling towards Ruin.

“YOU!” she shouted as Ruin kept laughing. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

“HOHOHO! HAHAHA! HOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo…” Ruin finally stopped, holding out the last laugh like a long exhale. He rolled onto his side, facing the two of them while taking a sultry pose. “With me? Absolutely nothing,” he smiled smugly and rotated a hoof in front of his face. “Just look at this face. It radiates innocence!” he said while bouncing his eyebrows.

Star scowled harder, to which Ruin replied with puppy dog eyes and batting his eyelashes. He shifted over to lie on his stomach, lifting his back hooves and twiddling them in the air.

“Oh, come on, why all the hostility? You should be thanking me!” he pointed at her and winked. “How much of that about him did you actually know, hm?”

Star flattened her brow, taking care to keep her emotions in check after what she just witnessed.

“That look in his eyes when I threatened you…” Ruin went on, focusing his eyes on Squall. “That desperation… It filled him with anger, with strength, with a desire to destroy me, to KILL me… all just to protect you.” He slowly rose into the air without any magical assistance, or using his wings. “If I were a stinker I’d suggest you owe him a few smooches and some loving, but ah… there’s something else about this that simply gave… me… CHILLS!” He shuddered, twisting once in the air before floating forward so he could look down at them from above.

Star looked up at him, fighting back the urge to yell at him as he held tightly to Squall. Ruin sneered as he cast a shadow over them.

“YOU.” He pointed at Star. “Have become his purpose.”

Star blinked, her expression softening slightly.

“You are the reason he tries,” Ruin went on. “You are the reason he fights, the reason he sticks around. He’s made you into his motivation for everything, ABSOLUTELY everything… That is what you represent for him! And when I threatened to take you away from him, he completely lost his mind!” Ruin flipped over, holding the exact same position, only upside-down. “Ah… touching, isn’t it? But a sappy excuse for a love story is hardly the reason I squeezed it out of him.” He sneered. “I put it all on the line for him…” he slowly began turning upright. “I took his purpose and his reason… and I dangled it out in front of him where he couldn’t reach it… and threatened to destroy it… I wanted to see just how far he’d go to protect it… and boy, he did not disappoint!” Ruin ended upright, grinning slyly down at them.

“That’s… You’re…” Star stuttered, a look of disgust on her face as she glared at Ruin. “That’s so cruel!”

“Oh, whatever,” Ruin flipped a hoof at her while rolling his eyes. “Isn’t that what he says all the time? Whatever.” He tipped his head and rested his cheek on his hoof. “You can’t blame me for being so fascinated by what drives a pony to such lengths. After all… having a purpose… finding a purpose… Isn’t that what life is all about?”

He lowered himself to the ground standing on all four hooves again.

“Being denied such a thing…” Ruin suddenly shot towards them, stopping right in front of Star’s face. She flinched and squeaked as Ruin’s head began to rigidly tip to the side as he held a creepy smile. “Can really make one SNAP! HEE HEE!!!!” he shifted, lowering himself down to Squall’s face while humming happily to himself as he stared into Squall’s jittering, empty eyes. “Purpose… and desperation… Ah, it’s moments like these when ponies reveal who they really are. All shields, fronts, and secrets come crashing down. You get a glimpse into their strongest desires and their greatest fears that linger within and out of sight,” He sneered and slowly turned his head to Star. “What they worry about themselves, how they cope with their flaws, and what they cling to…” he tapped a hoof to Squall’s arm gripping Star. “In order to keep their sanity or validate their existence. When it’s all exposed, when it’s staring you right in the face…” Ruin looked back to Squall, looking eye to eye once more. “There is no escape. No matter how hard you try, the one thing in life you can never run from… is yourself.”

Ruin instantly backed off, throwing his head back and laughing into the air with his eyes open wide. He started walking in a circle, guffawing to his heart’s content.

Suddenly, loud sounds of struggle came from nearby. Everypony except for Ruin yelped and ducked as a grappling clump of Wonderbolts, Shadowbolts, and Renegades fell into the mist, crashing to the ground and bouncing in different directions. One of the Shadowbolts bounced off Ruin, but he didn’t even flinch. Ruin turned and began slowly prancing back towards Rainbow Dash as the group of pegasi all got right to their hooves and all charged at one another, clashing wildly. It was completely uncoordinated, all of them fighting without any sense of direction, taking aim at both of the other two groups and at times accidentally hitting their own. Ruin tipped his head up and laughed even harder as a few more pairs of pegasi and a few thestrels fell in from above, bopping his head back and forth as he freely moved in between the chaotic mess, as if reveling in it.

Matteo had pushed away from Storm and slid to a stop over Dash, covering her up to protect her from any collateral damage. He used his wings to push away any of the ponies that got near as they continued to clash and strike one another. Dash’s Ponyville friends all yelped and curled up, protecting themselves desperately as all the movement and commotion around them only made their migraines worse. A Wonderbolt and a Renegade slammed together right in front of Matteo and Dash, grappling and pushing against one another. Neither seemed to be aware of their surroundings, nor seemed to care about how they had suddenly entered an area with no visibility.

Ruin placed himself right beside them, sticking his head near theirs and laughing with his eyes wide, staring right between them towards Dash. It was frightening how the two didn’t seem to notice Ruin at all, remaining completely focused on fighting one another.

Ruin suddenly reared up on his back hooves and threw his arms out. His crystal flashed brightly, magic auras surrounding all the ponies that had just fallen in.

“WA HAHA!” he cackled as all the ponies yelped in surprise, all of them launching in different directions until they were all thrown back out into the fighting. “Ahhh…” Ruin touched back down. “Purpose… what a thing it is!” he continued on, picking up exactly where he left off as if nothing had happened. He made his way towards Dash again, Matteo leaning over her protectively. “Sometimes it’s defined, sometimes it’s found… but I have to say, the times when it’s defined for you can be a blessing and a curse.” He stopped abruptly two paces away from Dash, spun around to face the other way and looked towards the Elements of Harmony. “Hooo hoo hoo…” he chuckled as he started walking towards them.

As he slowly sauntered with his back turned, Storm quickly shifted over, moving past Star and Squall over to Matteo and Dash. He was still processing what he had been dragged into.

“Matteo!” he called out quietly as he approached, keeping his eyes on Ruin. “What should we—” He stopped on the spot and flinched, reclining backwards as his eyes met an intense glare from Matteo. Storm shut his mouth and swallowed. He didn’t have to ask what the look was for.

“The Elements of Harmony…” Ruin spoke up, drawing their attention back to him as he paced around Twilight. “One of the most powerful forces in existence…” He stopped and lowered himself down to the ground, lying flat right in front of Twilight’s face. She was trying to turn over, her ears twitching at Ruin’s voice, but she could barely move herself an inch. “They’re fascinating, aren’t they?” Ruin tapped a hoof to the Element of Magic, causing Twilight to stir and groan. “A power so strong that it’s split into six pieces and cannot manifest itself without the help of vessels it deems worthy to wield it. A power whose judgement is so absolute that not even a goddess can wield it without its consent!” Ruin’s hoof slid off the tiara and he edged his face closer to the star jewel piece. “Surely there is no force more powerful! I can’t imagine the burden of being a chosen Bearer! It must be… IT MUST BE…!”

Ruin paused for several seconds, holding a crazed face as his eyes remained locked on his reflection in the jewels surface.

Then he blinked, his expression flattening. He stood up, scoffed, and stuck his tongue out in disgust.

“It must really suck, to be honest,” he tapped a hoof to his nose and held out his arm, shaking his head. “Who the hell wants to put up with that kind of crap their whole life?” He tipped over, landing on his side in his sultry pose right in front of Twilight, narrowing his eyes and examining the tiara carefully. “What the hell does magic have to do with harmony or friendship, anyway? The rest of them make perfect sense, but it sounds like the power ran out of ideas when they got to the last one.” He shrugged and reversed the motion, tipping right back up without any physical effort. “But I digress…”

Ruin turned back to Dash and Matteo. Storm instantly shifted, moving away from the two of them as Ruin approached. Matteo held his ground, steeling himself defensively over Dash while resisting the urge to preemptively attack. Ruin’s crystals began to glow and he lifted a hoof in the air.

“Move over, Fluffasaurus,” Ruin said with a light chuckle, gently flipping his hoof to the side. Matteo squawked as he was pinched all over by small blips of light and effortlessly yanked aside, tossing him to the ground and rolling to a stop.

With Dash uncovered, Ruin moved right up to her. She was on her back, staring up with her eyes open halfway and her breaths labored. Ruin sneered as he saw her eyes looking directly at him. Dash groaned and struggled to roll over, turning to her side to look away from him. Ruin watched with amusement, waiting for her to finish turning over.

“So, Rainbow Dash, tell me…” Ruin turned around. “How does it feel to be an Element Bearer?” he asked as he sat his plot down right on her side.

“OOF! GRRrrrgh…” Dash grunted and groaned.

“That good, huh?” Ruin glanced back at her. “Personally, it doesn’t sound too appealing, but it’s not like I know,” he spoke casually while lifting a hoof and turning it over, blowing on it lightly as he examined it. “If I were you, I’d have told the Elements to get bent and find somepony else to do their bidding…” he let his hoof fall and exhaled through his nose. “Alas… I’m sure that thought never crossed your mind,” he snickered, turned and patted her on the head. “LOYALTY is your strength, is it not?” His tone became condescending as he jokingly rubbed his plot back and forth on her back. “You simply radiate it! So much so that you stabbed your own captain in the back!”

Ruin blinked, a blank look on his face.

“Wait… that doesn’t sound right…” he scratched his chin, unable to hold in a devious snicker. “But I’m sure you had your reasons! HEE HEE!”

He scooted off of Dash and made his way over to the rest of the Element Bearers, humming to himself as he approached Rarity.

“The chosen wielder of Generosity… hmmmmmmmmmm…” he stopped in front of her and lowered himself down to the ground, lounging on his stomach and staring at her inches from her face. “The act of being selfless, not hesitating to do something for another even if you gain nothing from it…” he stared a little more, watching as Rarity let out very gentle and lady-like noises to voice the discomfort of her splitting headache compared to the grunts and groans of her friends. “Hmmmmmmm…” Ruin hummed, smiling happily as he looked her face all over. “I have to say, she’s real generous on the eyes too!” He stood up and started pacing around her, examining her all over while remaining uncomfortably close. “Such a sleek figure, curvaceous and voluptuous…” he blinked and sniffed the air twice. “WHOO! A little heavy on the perfume though!” He sneered as he touched a hoof to her side near her flank and slowly slid it along the curve of her waist all the way to her shoulder and neck. Rarity shivered and whined at his touch. “Such effort into your appearance… Such devotion to being visually pleasing… So many hour spent in front of a mirror… Somepony clearly wants to get noticed, but to what end, eh?” He suddenly bent down, nearly touching his nose to her ear. “Something tells me you like to be real ‘generous’ in other ways too…” he whispered into her ear. He pulled back and sneered. “Though you’d think with the good looks you so adore, you’d have gotten something out of it by now… you HAVE… haven’t you?”

Rarity’s eyes open suddenly. They were bloodshot and shaking, unable to focus. They snapped to Ruin, but she shut her eyes quickly, groaning as her whole body shuddered.

“Hooooo hoo hoo, oh my…” Ruin turned away from her, making his way over to Pinkie Pie… who was still face down in the snow with only the lower half of her body sticking up out of the snow. “The wielder of Laughter!” Ruin called out in an exaggerated tone as he stopped in front of her and made a forced goofy face. Three seconds later his expression turned completely upside down into a scrunched, annoyed look. “Though I’m hardly laughing.” He flicked Pinkie’s tail back and forth with a hoof. “What are you, really? Just a pudgy pink pony who’s addicted to spontaneity and overindulges in sweets. How long can you keep up the act? What happens the day that wears out?” He sat down and leaned back, using her as a back rest.

He shook his face rapidly, his features blurring. When he stopped his face and mane looked like Pinkie’s.

“Don’t be silly! That would never happen!” he mocked Pinkie’s voice. “I’ll just find new ways to make everypony smile, smile, smile! PBTHBTPBTH.” Ruin blew raspberries as his Pinkie-style mane deflated back to normal and his face instantly reverted. “Spare me. When does silly become annoying? I bet you’ve never considered that,” he said as he jabbed an elbow into Pinkie’s back. “Take it from me, Sugar High, I’m in your shoes all the time. Ponies have limits and unless you like to test them like I do, you’re in for a rude awakening. You love being the way you are, but you fear the day you can no longer crack even a subtle giggle out of a pony…” Ruin lifted an eyebrow and cracked a grin. “What would your precious Element think of you then?” he asked in a condescending tone. “You certainly wouldn’t be laughing anymore, would you?” he asked while grabbing her tail and tugging on it once.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…

Ruin blinked and let go of her tail.

“Neat.”

Ruin stood up and started moving towards Applejack. His eyes narrowed and a sneer formed on his face as he grew close, watching as she, unlike the others, was constantly giving maximum effort to pick herself up. She failed over and over again, but she was stubborn and persistent. Ruin licked his lips as he watched her give it her all.

“Honesty, honesty, honesty…” he said smoothly as he stopped in front of her. She turned her head and glared, pain and discomfort hidden in her strong expression. “HONESTLY!” Ruin pressed a hoof to her head and forced her back down.

“AH!” Applejack yelped and fell flat.

“Just how honest can a pony be?” Ruin cooed as he lied down on his side with his arm on top of Applejack’s mid-section, treating her like an armrest. “How does one even qualify for this element, anyway?” he asked, scratching his chin. “By never telling a lie? WHEW!” he tapped the back of his hoof to his forehead and draped himself over her in a fainting motion. “What a stiff way to live!” he yelled out while upside down. “How can you stand it?!” he turned over resting his stomach and both arms on her. He paused, blinked, and poked the side of her chest and shoulder once before resting his cheek on his arm. “Though maybe it’s a little more specific, I’m sure the contract doesn’t cover little fibs or bending the truth to be nice about something… though you strike me as the blunt type.” He switched which cheek he was resting, noticing that Applejack was scowling and trying to open her eyes to glare at him. Ruin sneered. “It must be that angry scowl you’re giving me right now while struggling, HEE HEE!” he reached over and patted her on the head, earning a loud growl that he completely ignored. “But let’s be… HONEST… for a moment. Have you really never told a lie?”

“HHHHRRRRRGGGNNNNHHH!!!!!” Applejack suddenly roared. Ruin flinched in surprise as Applejack suddenly forced herself up, nearly throwing him to the ground. She wobbled, turned, and swung at him, but was completely off the mark. Ruin simply leaned a little, letting her miss and fall right back to the ground, groaning.

“WHOA HO HO!” Ruin chortled as Applejack hit the snow and rolled onto her side. “You’re definitely the rough and tough one of the bunch. I’m impressed you can move with your brain scrambled as it is,” he pointed to his head, his eyes spinning in a circle once as he snickered.

Ruin paused, staring at her as she continued to struggle, going right back to her efforts to move and stand. His eyes scanned her all over, his grin widening by the second.

“Dear me, I can’t help it!” He leaned down and poked her shoulder again, tapping his hoof over her muscles. “PHEEEE YEEEW!” he whistled loudly as he shook his head. “Somepony get this workhorse a cart to pull. Farm work sure pays off, doesn’t it?” He ran a hoof along her chest, down her side and stopped at her flank, tapping his hoof repeatedly against her cutie mark. “Sheesh, I bet you could crush a head like a walnut with these thighs…” He blinked and smirked. “Actually I know some ponies who are into that, should I call ‘em up?” He snickered while holding one of his crystals to his ear.

“NGRRRHHH!!!!” Applejack growled while glaring at him.

“No?” Ruin pouted, then shrugged. “Eh… HONESTLY, that’s too bad! HOOOO HO HO HO!!!!” he turned his back to her and locked his eyes on Fluttershy. “Talk about a shift, hee hee…” He chuckled as he sauntered over to the little yellow ball with pink hair shivering and whimpering in the snow. “Going from the big, strong, and burly to the small, weak, and utterly adorable…”

Fluttershy squeaked as she heard his voice grow closer, curling up tighter on the ground. Ruin stopped right over her and made an exaggerated pouty face.

“Awwwwwwww… would you look at this…” He bent down and poked his nose against her back. Fluttershy yelped and shivered. “What a pwecious wittle Pegasus…”

“YEEP!” Fluttershy yelped as Ruin suddenly scooped her up off the ground and nuzzled his check against her body.

“She’s so itty bitty, shy, and scared.” He rocked her back and forth. “How perfect for the Element of Kindness! You must be a complete pushover that gets taken advantage of all the time!” he taunted while sticking his nose uncomfortably close to her ear.

Fluttershy stiffened briefly before whimpering and sniffling loudly.

“Ohhhhhhh sweetie pie, don’t cry!” Ruin continued to baby talk her. “Don’t let a big old meanie like me get you down! I only call it as I see it... OOPS!” He burst out laughing, Fluttershy freezing in fear as his laughter rang through her ears. He suddenly let go, dropping her back to the ground with a quiet yelp. “Sorry, Element of Honesty must’ve rubbed off on me, HOHO!!!!!”

Fluttershy shuddered on the ground, still curled up and shaking as she started crying. Ruin scoffed and shook his head as he looked down upon her.

“What a joke…” Ruin shrugged. “All of you,” he looked around at the Elements, then back down at Fluttershy. “Makes me wonder if this supposed great power has a brain or if it’s just some mindless mass of bullsh—”

Ruin blinked, cutting himself off as a large shadow suddenly loomed over him. He casually looked up, a very large, red hoof was directly above him… and plunged down.

There was a loud crash, followed by a flash and purple sparks flying everywhere.

Ruin had not moved an inch, the large hoof grinding against a thin veil of light surrounding Ruin.

“Well now…” Ruin’s body turned around without any physical effort. “Is that any way to say hello?” Ruin blinked in surprise when he noticed he was looking at a stomach. He slowly tipped his head up… and further up. “Well now… aren’t you a big fella?”

It was Big Macintosh.

Dash blinked, noticing a blur of red in her vision near the clear sight of Ruin. More colors began moving nearby, she couldn’t see them well, but the colors were familiar.

Ruin looked back and forth from beneath Mac’s hoof as Thunderlane, Braeburn, Derpy, and Bulk Biceps all moved in. They all looked a little banged up, some bumps and bruises, but for the most part appeared to stay away from the major fighting. Thunderlane was the one exception, his suit torn and his goggles damaged, but still in top form it seemed as he rushed right to Applejack’s side. The other’s moved about to the Elements as well. Braeburn tried to uproot Pinkie. Derpy and Bulk Biceps made their way towards Dash, putting themselves in front of her and Matteo.

“Hm?” Ruin glanced up at Mac who was glaring and still trying to push down on him, looking completely unfazed by the fact that his strength couldn’t budge him. “Oh right, the tagalongs!” Ruin mused. “What took you guys so long?” He snickered as he turned around again, barely paying Mac any mind.

He watched briefly as Thunderlane gently helped prop up Applejack, a clear tenderness in his touch. Braeburn had finally uprooted Pinkie Pie and was shaking her lightly to get a response out of her. Ruin looked down at Fluttershy, who was staring up at Big Mac.

“Well, isn’t this romantic?” Ruin rolled his eyes. “Look at all the knights in shining armor coming to save their damsels in distress. Hold on, I need to eject my lunch.” He slammed a hoof to his chest, making loud, forced coughing and gagging noises, lurching from side to side and crumpling down, Mac’s hoof going with him.

Mac’s glare hardened further, the large muscles in his chest and arms tensing and flexing as he pushed harder. But he still couldn’t move Ruin even a smidge.

“Ahhh… Needed that…” Ruin sighed contently. “Alright let’s see here, we have…” he sat down and crossed his arms, Mac still pressing down to no avail. Ruin made a casual hoof motion towards Thunderlane. “A stallion that got laid by accident and later ran away from a fake dragon like a wuss.”

Thunderlane flinched hard as Ruin motioned to Braeburn.

“A Brokeback Apple that everypony wants to take a bite out of… apparently…”

“Say what now?” said Braeburn as his eye twitched. Ruin glanced over towards Derpy and Bulk.

“A blowhard that skipped leg day… The unintentional mascot of an unexpected fandom…”

Derpy blinked and tipped her head in confusion. Ruin turned and looked up at Big Mac, shifting slightly to see past his hoof.

“And an enormous hulking brute with the conversational capacity of a rock.” Ruin sneered. “Oh what fun! It’s like my own personal stage show of rejects!” Ruin giggled to himself as he looked around again and his eyes landed on Rarity… unprotected. “Hmm… wait…” he taped a hoof to his chin. “Now hold on,” he pointed at her. “I swear there was one more of you, I know Miss Princess Friendship over there is a different case, but… where’s your stallion protector? We’ve got the others covered and Dashie poo’s boo boo is, well, busy, hee hee!”

Ruin sneered, glancing up briefly and rubbing his hoof against Mac’s arm before looking at his hoof and blowing on it briefly.

“The hot apple rejected from his home, seeking a new life with the help of a silly pony… A blundering Pegasus breaking what doesn’t belong to him… earning back respect through work and bagging a mare that could break him if he’s not careful…” Ruin’s eyes shifted down to Fluttershy on the ground.

He paused, his face going blank and his eyes growing wider. He glanced over his shoulder at Big Mac.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIT…” he turned and faced Big Mac, holding his arms out towards him for a moment. He slowly turned, moving his hooves over to Fluttershy. “You…? And her…?!” Ruin’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me right? How in the world do you two even…” He trailed off and started making hip thrusting motions. Mac’s calm, yet stern glare finally snapped, his face scrunching up with anger. “That’s just preposterous!” Ruin placed the back of his hoof on his forehead, chuckling to himself as a smile crept back onto his face. “How has she not disintegrated from the pressure yet?” he held his hooves towards Fluttershy, crudely measuring the size of her body with his hooves before motioning them towards Mac’s crotch. “She's practically the same size as your—whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA, WHOA!!!!!!!”

Ruin suddenly reacted, flailing his arms slightly as he realized he was starting to sink into the snow. Mac was actually forcing him down, his breaths hissing through his nose, his muscles in his arms and chest bulging and popping veins as Mac pressed down with so much force that he was moving Ruin’s magic.

Ruin’s other two crystals quickly darted around to join the other, both shining brightly to bolster the magic already flowing. The veil of light around him grew brighter and he stopped sinking.

“WOW!” Ruin stared in awe at Mac. “That shouldn’t even be possible! You are no slouch, eh? Ho ho ho!” He sneered as Mac grunted and growled down at him, trying to push even harder. “All that bulk ain’t just for show, eh? You’re a genuine power house!” Ruin glanced over his shoulder towards Bulk Biceps. “Hey, you. Meat Slam Chops, take notes.” He motioned towards Mac. “This is what muscles are for. Maybe if you did more than yell and scream in the gym you’d be more than just a pony filled with overinflated balloons.”

Without making a sound, Mac suddenly picked up his other hoof and slammed it down to double the pressure.

“WHOOOF!” Ruin grunted as he was immediately flattened into the snow. With a brief bright blip of light, he teleported out from beneath and appeared one yard away, giving Mac a flat look. “Alright, that’s enough of that, Tiny. You’ve made your—”

Mac quickly stepped up in front of Fluttershy and reared back on his hooves, a low pitched nicker roaring from his throat as he thrust all his weight down, his hooves plunging towards Ruin.

A blinding flash of pink light shone forth as Mac’s hooves connected. Everypony blinked, several gasping as Mac flew backwards, landing with a loud thud and rolling to a stop in the snow several yards away.

“I said that’s enough,” Ruin snorted, his aura calming down. “Now, come on… Where’s the brains of this outfit?” Ruin asked while looking towards Rarity again. “The one of you I’m actually interested in didn’t even show up!”

Mac quickly picked himself up, snorting like a bull, chest and nostrils flaring as he charged towards Ruin. Thunderlane shook his head out, deciding to follow Mac’s lead as he spread his wings and launched. Bulk yelled out, encouraged by the charge and made a move as well with Braeburn reluctantly following behind.

Ruin sneered, instantly sensing all of them coming. His three crystals lit up.

But before they could get halfway to him, several yellow magic walls popped up in their paths. They all abruptly stopped, Thunderlane landing and the rest skidding to a halt.

“Stop,” A new voice came from nearby. They all turned and looked, Ruin included, to see Fancy Pants emerging from the mist and walking towards them, horn alight as he maintained the barriers. Unlike the others, he looked completely untouched, his suit and mane in perfect condition despite the mess of fighting all around them. “Don’t waste your energy,” Fancy added calmly as he dropped the shields.

“Ooooooooo?” Ruin cooed as he faced Fancy and grinned. “There you are!” he mused as he looked Fancy up and down.

“His magic is not to be taken lightly,” Fancy continued to address the others. “A physical altercation would not be to our advantage,” he explained as he placed himself in front of Thunderlane, Braeburn, and Bulk, motioning past Ruin for Big Mac to step back.

“But… he…” Thunderlane stuttered, still not quite sure how to approach the situation. Fancy shook his head.

“Did you see what he did to Macintosh?” he asked, glancing back at Thunderlane. Thunderlane bit his lip and took a step back. “You would be wise to analyze your opponents more carefully.”

“Hoooooooo hoo hoo hoo…” Ruin started slowly pacing towards Fancy. Thunderlane gulped and shuffled back further as Ruin came forward. “Interesting… Is that why you didn’t come forward with the rest? Stayed back to get a good look at lil’ ol me, eh?” Ruin’s voice slithered, but Fancy kept calm as he faced him.

“Perhaps…” Fancy replied as Ruin stopped just a yard away.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Ruin tipped his head, opening his eyes wider and sneering. “Smart move… but then again, I can’t say I’m surprised. The way you eluded and mislead those elite Wonderbolts away from these mares…. Thanks to you, the subversion plan was successfully executed despite Spitfire’s attempts to shut it down. That was some fancy hoofwork and advanced trickery. Color me impressed.”

“You saw that, eh?” Fancy chuckled. “You’ve been watching this whole event unfold, haven’t you?”

“Oh of course!” Ruin exclaimed joyfully, throwing his hooves into the air. “This is the kind of carnage I live for! And it’s not often it goes this far without me pulling a few strings, so this has been an especially delicious treat,” he snickered while licking his lips very slowly.

“Indeed,” Fancy smiled. “It has been quite thrilling, hasn’t it?”

Ruin blinked in surprise. The others all quickly looked towards Fancy in confusion.

“Pardon?” Ruin blinked again, his ears twitching. He slid forward, turning his head slightly and closing one eye as he got really close to Fancy’s face. Fancy didn’t budge as Ruin looked him hard in the eye. “You’re enjoying this?”

“Why, of course I am…” Fancy smirked, grabbing his monocle with his magic and wiping it with a cloth. “How often does one get a chance to take part in a justified insurgency?” he asked as he replaced the monocle on his face.

Ruin shifted back a little, looking Fancy over carefully with a clear bit of skepticism.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Fancy went on. “A chance for a kind of excitement I doubt I’ll ever find again. It would be a shame to simply let it pass, and so far I’ve not been disappointed.” He nodded and placed a hoof on his chest. “I’m a stallion of sport, my friend. Yet, there is only so much one can find among the motions of everyday life. The unknown… the unexpected… the unnatural… taking on these moments are what complete me. I relish anything that challenges me in new and interesting ways… and what a better time to take advantage of than all hell breaking loose like this?”

By now the rest of Fancy’s group and Dash’s squad were staring wide eyed at Fancy, perplexed. Ruin remained quiet for a moment, only to have his unnerving, deceptively jovial expression suddenly return in an instant.

“HA!” He leaned back. “HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!” he guffawed heartily, but abruptly cut himself off and cleared his throat, quickly leaning forward and resting a hoof on his chin. “You know what, I like you.” He poked Fancy in the chest. “You’ve got good taste.”

“So I’m told…” Fancy bopped his head from side to side. Ruin sat back and crossed his arms, grinning with a troubling interest in his eyes.

“The way you frame it is interesting. It’s the same as me, yet very different at its base. I love causing a ruckus, but it’s for my own visual entertainment. You on the other hoof… You don’t create the mess, but when one presents itself, you partake? For the hell of it?” Ruin held a hoof to his ear. “Stop the presses and call the cops! We could be partners in crime, hee hee hee!”

Ruin lifted into the air and leaned sideways into his favorite sultry pose.

“But enough chummy chit chat…” he chuckled while scratching his plot. “You’ve made this much more interesting. You’re the first pony…” he suddenly paused and scowled. “SANE… pony… around here to recognize that hostility towards me typically doesn’t end well.”

“I never said I’d—”

“Stop. You’re not going to attack me,” Ruin abruptly cut Fancy off. Fancy did not waver, but snorted quietly. “What?” Ruin snickered. “You thought you had something like that to hide up your well-dressed sleeve? You’re not the only observant one around here, you know. You know you can’t beat me like that.”

“I suppose not,” Fancy admitted as Ruin began to hover around him.

“And I find that fascinating…” Ruin snickered as he slowly moved behind Fancy. “You wouldn’t believe how rare a find this is… Hell, some of the dingbats among the Shadowbolts still haven’t pieced that one together. But you… YOU!” he floated back around in front. “This is the first time we’ve met, and you’ve already caught on. You’re a rare one for sure.”

Fancy cocked an eyebrow as Ruin floated before him, grinning from ear to ear.

“You speak as if whatever my intentions are… that you’ve already won,” Fancy pointed out.

“Win?” Ruin closed the gap between them in an instant, getting right into Fancy’s face. Again, Fancy held his ground. “What’s here to win or lose?”

Fancy and Ruin held eye contact for several seconds. Then Fancy glanced away, his eyes shifting between all the Elements of Harmony. Ruin noticed and followed Fancy’s eyes.

“What… those?” Ruin stated flatly while motioning towards the Elements and Dash’s friends. “Them? That crap?” He pointed to his neck and forehead. “Spare me, I’d rather get a rub down with hooves full of nails.”

“Hm…” Fancy hummed briefly to himself, tipping his head slightly. “Interesting… Then consider my analysis flawed.”

“Oh?” Ruin tipped his head too to line up with Fancy’s.

“I observed you speaking condescendingly to the Element Bearers,” Fancy began. “You jested at what they all stood for and showed disrespect towards the power they represent. You also hid the area in a misty fog,” Fancy motioned a hoof above. “Which, but the way, I am at a loss as to how you did such a thing, but that’s beside the point. I had come to the conclusion that you wanted something with or from the Elements of Harmony. Perhaps their power for yourself… or to destroy them.”

Ruin stared as Fancy finished. His head slowly began to tip to one side with his smile inching wider as he leaned.

“Boy… did you get that one wrong, HAHAHA!” he threw an arm out towards the Elements. “Take them? Destroy them? For what reason? Why would I remove key pieces from the board while the game is still in full swing?” Ruin mused, giggling to himself the whole way through.

“Then perhaps—”

“No.” Ruin suddenly popped up less than an inch from Fancy’s face. Fancy flinched, startled and taking a small step backwards. “I’m going to stop you RIGHT there, Mr. Flashy Chaps.”

“Fancy Pants.”

“Lavish Leggings,” Ruin giggled as Fancy flattened his brow. Ruin poked him on the shoulder. “Wear it and live with it. Now listen closely because I’m onto you!”

Ruin sneered very wide, but Fancy played it cool.

“Do tell.”

“Oh I will…” Ruin giggled creepily into Fancy’s face before pulling back an inch or two. “You’re calm and collected. You’re clever and tenacious. You act all suave and have a smooth tongue, but allow me to show you just how OUTMATCHED you truly are here.”

Fancy subtly flinched as Ruin leaned in again, nearly touching their noses together. He opened his eyes very wide, staring directly into Fancy’s.

“You started with a passive approach. You did so to pique my interest. You then voiced pleasure in the situation in an attempt to put us on agreeable ground.” He pushed his hoof against Fancy’s suit collar. “You then tried to misdirect by framing out little meeting here as a battle of wits and minds, one to be won or lost. You used that as a means to segue and poke into my intentions with the Elements of Harmony even though your prior observations from a distance should have been enough to conclude I don’t care!”

Fancy’s eyes twitched and widened subtly.

“And from there…” Ruin tapped a hoof against Fancy’s cheek while chuckling. “You acted as if you made a flawed conclusion to throw up false curiosity, prying into my intentions in hopes that your attempts to butter me up beforehoof would make me careless and spill all the beans!” Ruin tipped his head all the way sideways and puckered his lips a little. “Well? On a scale of one to ‘holy shit,’ how hard have I blown your mind?”

Fancy just stared at Ruin, a calm look of surprise stuck to his face as his lips parted, but he said nothing. His mouth simply hung slightly ajar.

“Ho ho ho!” Ruin turned his head upright and pressed his hooves into his cheeks. “That look on your face says it all!” He leaned back slightly and crossed his arms, a sly grin forming on his lips. “You fancy yourself a clever pony… but with me, you’re sticking your nose into a whole different world. One you could never be prepared for,” he taunted while tapping his hoof against the tip of Fancy’s horn. “Let’s see… after getting me to talk, you were going to propose something to keep me occupied. Perhaps a competition, or a game? You’d use your wits to keep my interest on you while your hench ponies behind you whisk the Element of Harmony to safety. Perhaps if you were right about my intentions and I were a sucker that would have been a very solid plan. But…” Ruin floated into the air and lay flat, keeping his face at eye level with Fancy. “If you’re trying to play mind games…” He slowly twisted until he was upside-down, his smile growing larger and creepier as he rotated. “You picked the WRONG pony to play them with.”

“I…” Fancy stuttered as Ruin kept turning until he was upright, but the new expression remained. “My word…” Fancy smirked nervously as Ruin landed and inched backwards. “You are far more dangerous than I presumed…”

“I aim to please…” Ruin bowed, tilting his head up as he reached the bottom of the motion, holding the wide grin still. “…myself. SO!” He popped right back up and stepped around to stand side by side with Fancy. “Now that I’ve firmly put you in your place,” He casually leaned and rested an elbow on Fancy’s shoulder. “What’s your next move, hm?” he stared at Fancy, who was still staring straight ahead. “A pony of your keenness undoubtedly knows how to improvise.”

Fancy swallowed, his eyes shifting away, but Ruin popped up on the other side of him.

“Think quickly and carefully…” Ruin’s voice slithered as he snickered. “Wouldn’t want to fall short of daddy now, eh?”

Fancy gasped, flinching as his eyes grew wide and his monocle fell from his face.

“OOPS!” Ruin shifted away from him and placed a hoof over his mouth. “Pardon me, that slipped out… I suppose most don’t know about that one, eh? EH? OH HO HO!” Ruin laughed to himself as Fancy looked down and gritted his teeth. “Tell you what, I’ll make that one up to you,” Ruin suggested as he sauntered around and faced Fancy again. “You weren’t completely wrong, actually… just mostly.” He snickered as he bent down to get into Fancy’s field of view. “The Elements of Harmony are technically part of all of this, but… in reality…” he slowly turned and looked towards the others. “I really only care about one of them…” his eyes landed on Dash.

Matteo quickly turned and shifted a wing to cover up Dash and get her out of view. But Ruin refocused on Fancy, who was still looking down silently.

“Why, you may be wondering? That’s for me to know,” he said slyly while giving Fancy a single condescending pat on the shoulder. “And you’ll have to live with the fact that I’m a mystery you’ll never solve no matter how hard you try.”

Fancy shuddered lightly as Ruin spoke those words, as if his voice was chilling him inside out. His head remained down as Ruin stood up and took a step to the side.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me… I have things to do,” Ruin nodded contently as he started moving towards Dash.

Fancy remained still as Ruin left him behind. Matteo quickly put Dash down behind him and took a defensive position. Bulk, Derpy, and Storm all stepped in front as well. Matteo glanced briefly at Storm, but quickly returned his attention to Ruin. Ruin grinned wide as he saw Dash’s protectors take their places, his crystals hovering along with him and glowing as he drew closer.

“Heh… heh heh…”

Ruin paused, glancing over his shoulder as he heard the chuckling behind him. Fancy was… shaking?

“Ha… Haha…” Fancy looked up into the air. “HAHAHA!!!!” he laughed in a somewhat unnerving manner.

“Was it something I said?” Ruin lifted an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?” he asked as he turned around to face Fancy again. Fancy himself whipped around, a big smile on his lips as he lifted the monocle back onto his face with his magic.

“Remarkable… simply remarkable!” He said with excitement. “You are a challenge unlike anything I’ve ever faced! I’ve never once found myself so soundly beaten at a game of wits… this is exhilarating!” he said, chuckling to himself.

“Whoa there, don’t relieve yourself while you’re at it…” Ruin looked him up and down. “That looks like an expensive suit.” Ruin snorted, locking his eyes on Fancy’s and examining them carefully. Hmmmmm…” He hummed to himself before changing course and approaching Fancy once again. “Fine… I’ll bite. If this really is making you pop a stiffy in your cummerbund then you must have your next move in mind… and I’m just stupid enough to think you’ll keep me entertained.” Ruin smirked as he stopped a yard away from Fancy, tipping his head in a taunting manner. “Well, lay it on me… What will a clever pony backed in a corner do?”

“Me?” Fancy smirked right back. “Why, I’ve done all I can,” he said very calmly. Ruin stared for a moment before flattening his brow.

“Look here, Bourgeois, I can make this much worse for you if you’re just going to feed me full of bullsh—”

“At least…” Fancy cut him off.

“By myself.”

Ruin’s eyes shot open as his ears turned. Everypony else flinched and quickly glanced around. That was Fancy’s voice but… it came from a different direction. Ruin’s eyes snapped to his right… as another pony emerged from the mist.

It was…

Another Fancy Pants?

Everypony glanced back and forth as a second Fancy Pants leisurely strolled into view, moving towards Ruin until he stood before him a little ways to the left of the first Fancy.

But despite the bewilderment rushing through the others, Ruin immediately scrunched his face and scoffed.

“Really?” Ruin rolled his eyes, looking at the first Fancy and motioning his arm to the second. “That’s it? THIS is your next move? A magic clone?” Ruin stated in a monotonous tone.

Both of the Fancys just kept smiling. Ruin’s face suddenly puffed up.

“PAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HAHAHAHA!!!!! OOOOOOOH HOHOHO HOOOOO!!!!!!” Ruin fell over and rolled on the ground. “Hooooooooooooooo…” His laughter died down as he lay on his back, staring straight up with his les in the air. “How… unimaginative.” He hovered into the air and turned himself upright, standing on all fours again. “And here I was actually interested in seeing what you might try. Guess I really was stupid enough to believe you’d impress me.” He shook his head and shrugged. “Well thanks, that’s a large dollop of disappointment my jimmies most certainly didn’t need. This is such an elementary visual trick. All it takes is finding the one made of pure magical energy. And if you really thought I’d be incapable of sensing such a simple thing, then I’m insulted.”

Both the first and second Fancy just continued to smile.

“Alright…” Ruin sighed and grinned. “Let’s see, the real one is…” he looked closely at them both.

But his grin disappeared quickly. He blinked, his expression going neutral as he glanced back and forth between them. He squinted really hard, pink light glowing from his eyes and his mouth scrunching up. His lips parted, revealing slightly gritted teeth as he snorted and brought one of his crystals around. He held it up in front of him and looked through its translucent surface, once again shifting back and forth between the two Fancys.

This continued for several seconds, Ruin’s eyes growing slightly wider with each glance.

“What…?” Ruin suddenly spoke up. The glow around the crystal grew brighter. “What?!” he repeated, a little more frantically. “WHAT?!” He jammed his face against the crystal, his head turning back and forth over and over. “You’re…” Ruin’s jaw hung open as the crystal fell from his face, revealing two wide, confused eyes. “You’re both real…?”

“Indeed…” said the first Fancy.

“I am,” finished the second Fancy.

Ruin stared at the two of them with a blank expression while everypony else sat completely still, too confused to even begin to figure out what they were looking at. Both Fancy’s chuckled at the same time as Ruin looked completely perplexed.

“You were saying something about…” said the first.

“This being elementary?” the second finished.

Ruin flinched and blinked, suddenly shaking his head out rapidly before taking a long, deep breath. He looked at both Fancys with a flat expression before a slight smirk grew on his face.

“Alright… alright…” he said with a subtle snicker. “I must admit, this is a very cute trick.” He sat down and leaned back, taking a very casual position while crossing his arms. But the smirk faded quickly, his mouth scrunching up. After a few seconds he shut his eyes and held his breath, puffing his cheeks out. Eventually he let the air out, puttering his lips as he released a heavy sigh. He pouted, and stared at the two of them with a frustrated glare. “How did you do it?”

“The tables have turned, haven’t they?” the first Fancy said with a chuckle.

“Can’t resist something you don’t understand?” the second Fancy added with an identical chuckle.

“There is NOTHING I don’t understand!” Ruin suddenly lashed out, growling under his breath. “There is no trace of manipulated magical force within either of you. Neither of you has the properties of being magically generated,” he explained, sounding very annoyed. He motioned a hoof towards both of them. “This… Isn’t possible. You can’t create a living, breathing copy of yourself out of thin air. Not even with magic. And if one of you were a different pony that would have been even easier to detect.”

“And yet…” said the second Fancy

“Here I am,” finished the first.

Ruin’s eyes twitched as the Fancys switched which one of them spoke first.

“Alright, cut that out.” Ruin pointed angrily. “I only need ONE of you talking at a time.”

“No,” both Fancys said at the same time. Ruin clenched his hooves, shut his eyes, and bit his bottom lip while inhaling sharply through his nose.

“Okay… okay…” Ruin exhaled and stared at them grumpily. “Congratulations, you have my attention. Now what?” he tapped one hoof against the ground.

“How about a little game?” asked the first Fancy.

“Figure out which one of me is the true Fancy Pants?” added the second.

“Not interested, I have better things to do.” Ruin quickly stood up and turned around.

“Why the hostility? It’s because you can’t, isn’t it?” The first Fancy asked before Ruin could take a step.

“Does it bother you?” the second added with a smirk.

Ruin flinched, shutting his eyes tight.

“What…” he started to turn. “Did you…” his eyes opened to reveal the black eyes with white dot pupils. “Just say…?”

“You heard me,” the Fancys said in unison.

Ruin snarled in their direction, his nose scrunching up. But a moment later, he quickly shut his eyes and mouth.

“No,” he said as he opened his eyes and they were back to normal. “Not one bit.” He faced them and cracked his neck from side to side. “Because I can and WILL figure this out. It’s just some neat trick I haven’t seen before, nothing more.” He pointed at the second Fancy. “You, Mr. Fashionably Late, get over here and stand next to your early bird twin.”

The two Fancys looked at one another and exchanged confident grins before the second Fancy did as Ruin asked, strolling over to the first and standing right next to him. The moment he was in place Ruin got right up in their faces, getting very close and shifting back and forth between them. His eyes darted rapidly, examining their faces all over as he looked for anything off. He rubbed his chin, humming to himself and scrunching his face as he tried to pick up anything, ANYTHING that set them apart.

He spent a while looking. Seconds turned into minutes, or at least it seemed that way. All those watching from further back were nearly holding their breath wondering what was going to happen. None of them, not even those from Fancy’s group had any idea how Fancy had apparently duplicated himself. They knew he was a skilled pony in more things than just magic, but how did he pull this off? This wasn’t part of their plan.

Eventually signs of frustration started creeping onto Ruin’s face. No matter how hard he looked, both of the Fancys did, in fact, appear to be perfectly identical.

“Rnngg…” Ruin growled quietly to himself as he kept trying.

“Having trouble?” the second Fancy asked.

“No,” Ruin instantly replied and kept looking.

“Your face says otherwise,” said the first.

“Quiet!” Ruin snapped at them. “There needs to be something here! Something that lets me see through this blatant façade!” He pointed back and forth angrily. “No trickery is without strings attached, especially for a run of the mill, regular, normal unicorn like you!”

“Perhaps I’m not as normal as I appear,” the first Fancy said as both of them bounced their eyebrows.

“Does that bother you?” the second added.

“STOP… asking that question!” Ruin growled, visibly seething as he took a step back and continued to glance back and forth. Both Fancys looked at one another and chuckled.

“Shoe’s on the other hoof now, eh?” the first Fancy said to the second.

“He was so confident in himself earlier,” the second said to the first.

Ruin snarled quietly, but ignored them.

“It’s hard to be confronted by something you can’t understand, isn’t it?” the first asked Ruin.

Ruin’s eyes twitched.

“Wouldn’t want a ‘normal’ pony to best you now, would you?” the second taunted.

Ruin scowled hard, but refused to make eye contact with them as he kept focused.

“Does it make you mad?” the second Fancy asked.

“Does it bother you?” the first repeated. Ruin suddenly shifted forward and got right in the first Fancy’s face.

“Say it one more time…” he snarled, jabbing a hoof against his chest. “I dare you to say it ONE… MORE… TIME.” He emphasized while glancing at the second Fancy.

Both Fancys looked at one another and smiled devilishly.

“It bothers you,” they said in unison.

Ruin’s eyes twitched twice.

“And you’re holding back,” they continued to speak together. “Because if you hurt me…. If you kill me… then you’ve lost.”

Ruin flinched, his eyes growing very wide.

“And…” both Fancy’s lifted their outside eyebrow. “You’ll have to live with the fact that I’m a mystery you never solved no matter how hard you tried.”

“THAT’S IT!” Ruin shouted, leaping backwards as his eyes turned black and his crystals shined brightly. “I WARNED YOU!” His wild spheres seeped up from the ground around him, darting about and multiplying. “AND YOU BLEW IT!” The spheres doubled, then tripled, hundreds of them flying in erratic patterns around him.

All at once the spheres shot towards the Fancys, but neither of them budged. Everypony else gasped and shielded themselves as the barrage of countless magical spheres struck home, causing rapid explosions that rang out and flashed brightly. Ruin roared wildly as more spheres appeared and followed behind the first wave, not letting up for a moment until he was firing blindly into a cloud of kicked up mist and snow.

But he eventually stopped, ceasing in an instant. He stared at the mist as it slowly began to dissipate, everypony else peeking out and staring in dread at where the two Fancys were standing…

But as the mist vanished and the last of the snow debris fell… The two Fancys were still there! For a moment everypony just stared, but as the sight became clearer… The second Fancy, the one who had entered later, was untouched. He had a shield of his own magic generated around him holding together, but fractured from the amount of punishment it had taken. The first Fancy was still there too, but there was no shield around him. His suit and monocle had been completely blown away. Both of them were still smiling.

But then the first Fancy… began to melt?

White his colors appeared to start running, droplets appearing on his body, white from his fur and blue from his mane dripping down. His moustache and horn began to droop and his mane began to wither and flatten out. But the whole time he didn’t drop the smile and the second Fancy didn’t seem to react.

“HA!” Ruin pointed, his eyes returning to normal and a triumphant expression plastered to his face. “Called your bluff!” he pointed at the first Fancy. “The first one was fake the whole time! Clever, but you never said I couldn’t force the answer out! Bet you didn’t think I’d hold back enough to make sure you lived to see me beat you!” He grinned from ear to ear, shooting a condescending look towards Fancy as he casually lowered his shield and brushed himself off. “So there!” Ruin pointed his nose into the air. “I figured it out. Your little game was pathetic, your plan failed, how do ya feel?” He asked with a sarcastic smarminess, seemingly unaffected by the horrific sight of the fake Fancy literally melting beside him, a sight that had the rest staring in horror as one half of the fake’s features began to literally ooze away and lose form like melting ice cream in summer heat.

But Fancy just chuckled as he continued to brush off his suit, smiling towards Ruin as the fake beside him became more horrifically deformed by the second, half its face literally about to fall off as it just kept smiling.

“I’m terribly sorry, but you must be mistaken,” Fancy smiled and adjusted his monocle. “This was never MY plan.” He made a slight head motion towards the melting clone.

Ruin blinked several times.

His eyes frantically snapped to the fake Fancy, his pupils shrinking as the drooping half of its face finally gave way and fell off…

Revealing Twister underneath, a crazed smile and eyes stuck to his face.

“HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! BUDDY! YA MISS ME?!?!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Enter the Silly One! :pinkiecrazy:

But sheesh, what took him so long? Poor Squall.

Betcha all thought Fancy was gonna come in and be overpowered again. :trollestia: Mr. Witty may have bamboozled Discord earlier in the story, but Ruin doesn't mess around... too bad the only one who can throw it back in his face just made a grand entrance :rainbowwild:

As i mentioned in my blogs, this is only HALF of my chapter outline i originally had planned. So if it feels detached from the way the previous chapter ended, thats because it was SUPPOSED to be followed up. But on the flip side, ive already started work on the second half of this original chapter plan, so we'll get it sooner than usual. :twistnerd:

Thanks for Reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 166: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 8: All the Pieces on the Board)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 166: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 8: All the Pieces on the Board)

Everypony held still as Twister stood directly in front of Ruin, holding his crazy face an inch from Ruin’s, whose eyes remained open wide with shock.

It was completely silent for nearly half a minute, nopony moving or saying anything.

Twister suddenly held up a filled balloon in his hoof, the open end pinched off. The word ‘tension’ was written on it. He slowly released pressure from the pinched end, allowing the air to start squeaking out.

PHEWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…

Twister’s pupils shrunk smaller and smaller as the balloon deflated until they were just tiny dots.

Ruin shut his eyes and held them closed for a moment, took a few steps back, shook his head out, and started smacking his hooves against his head.

“No.” He turned his side to Twister. “No no no no… nuh uh, nope…” he repeated, exhaling loudly. “You know, I don’t know why I didn’t suspect you right off the bat. I should have known something was off the moment you didn’t show up immediately to help your little pals,” he snarled. “You’re the only jackass out there who can throw me for a loop like that. There was no way Snooty Boots over here could have done something so unrealistic on his own and…” he looked back towards Twister, but he wasn’t there. “Hey! Where did you—?!”

“MATTEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

Ruin turned to see Twister shoot right over the top of Squall and Star towards Matteo. He latched onto Matteo and hugged him tightly around the neck as Matteo leaned back and shot him a look of disgust.

“YOU’RE OKAY! OH MY GOD, I WAS SO WORRIED ABOUT YOU!!!!!” Twister wailed with tears falling from his eyes like streams. Matteo just gave him a very flat, unamused look. “I mean…” Twister held Matteo at arm’s length, wearing a look of exaggerated worry and eyes as large as he could make them. “You’re such a fragile, delicate flower!” He turned his head and dramatically held a hoof to his forehead. “If anything…” He sniffled loudly. “If anything were to happen to you, I… I—”

He was completely cut off as Little Star came out of nowhere and angrily punched him as hard as she could, right in the face. She hit him so hard that her hoof sank into his face and comically stretched out the back of his head.

“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!” She demanded, pulling her hoof out of his face, grabbing him by the neck, and shaking him.

“Ah, she loves me!” Twister’s voice came from inside his caved in head, muffled and nasally. Star just kept shaking him.

“And what took you so long?! Why didn’t you show up at just the right moment like you always do?!” She forced his sunken face to turn towards Squall, who was still slumped down, looking emotionally stricken. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge that Twister had arrived. “You couldn’t have shown up, like, I don’t know, TEN MINUTES SOONER?!”

Star squeaked as Twister latched onto her and started tumbling in midair so fast that they were both lost in a cartoonish dust cloud with whirling noises and limbs randomly sticking out.

When they stopped, they had switched places with Twister holding her by the neck, albeit gently.

“WHAT?!” Twister’s nasally voice continued. He shoved a hoof in his mouth and blew hard until his nose shot out of his face with a loud, low-pitched HONK. “And interrupt the shipping fuel?!” He dropped her on the ground and pressed his hooves to his face, pulling on his cheeks while holding a look of dread. “Do you even know which fandom we’re a part of?! I’d have been CRUCIFIED!!!!” he yelled into the air while grabbing and pulling on his mane. Star stared blankly at him.

“… What?”

“NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!” Twister scooped her off the ground and tucked her under his arm like a hoof ball. She yelped as he zipped over to Squall. “YOU TWO START KISSING, I’LL HANDLE THIS!” He shoved Star into Squall’s arms.

“HEY!” Star yelled, but Squall had already clamped down on her again. Twister turned and shot through the air towards Matteo stomach first with his head, arms, and legs flailing behind him like streamers.

“COMIN’ THROUGH!!!!!” he yelled out as he literally passed right through Matteo like he wasn’t even there.

Matteo blinked, looking down at his body before turning to look over his shoulder. Twister was leaning over Dash, tipping his head down towards her ear.

“Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst, hey you.” Twister tapped a hoof lightly against her head.

“Rgggghhh…” Dash groaned, turning over until her head was pointing towards him.

But Dash’s eyes snapped open the moment they were lined up.

Twister. She had already heard him near, but… she noticed that she could hear him clearly. She could also see him clearly. Just like Ruin!

“You with me?” Twister asked her as she looked him over. She also noticed that he too was without his suit or goggles. “Good!” Twister snickered. “Pay attention now!” he gently cradled Dash’s head and made a hoof motion towards Ruin. “I’m about to end this pony’s whole career!” Dash blinked as several faint Twister voices suddenly went “Ooooooooooooooooooh!!!” Barely visible images of more Twisters popped up behind him and started jumping and hollering, one of them grabbing his face and falling past Twister as his eyes rolled back.

“Excuse me!” Ruin suddenly called over in an annoyed tone, all of Twister’s shadows vanishing from Dash’s sight in an instant. “Will you quit wasting my time and get over here already?”

But Twister did not look at him, his face suddenly turned strangely normal. He smiled and winked at Dash.

“Leave this to me.”

Dash’s eyes widened slightly, but before she could say anything else, Twister’s hooves detached from the ground, his body remained stiffly in a neutral standing position as he flipped backwards through the air over the top of Matteo, Star, and Squall while making a loud WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP noise like a slide whistle.

His body never once changed position, flipping wildly through the air before landing directly in front of Ruin, holding a wide smile.

“You RANG?” he asked, bouncing his eyebrows twice. The second time his left eyebrow kept going up, detaching from his face and leaving. Ruin’s eyes followed the eyebrow until it disappeared into the mist above before exhaling through his nostrils and refocusing on Twister.

“So… here we are again,” Ruin grumbled as he sat down, spread his arms out, and shrugged. “What’s it going to be this time, hm? What sort of insufferable shenanigans are you going to put me through? Or…” He crossed his arms and scrunched his face. “Are you just going to sit there and stare at me until I try something?”

Twister’s eyes looked in opposite directions.

“I know if I try anything, you’ll just find some incredibly annoying way to throw it back in my face,” Ruin continued. “So why don’t we approach this a little differently this time?”

Twister’s eyes crossed.

“I’ll admit that my curiosity is getting the better of me when it comes to you. There’s nopony out there in the world who can best me in such a direct manner. I’ve known my share of shrewd, smooth operators who have entertained me with some quick thinking. I’ve known some random weirdos who could surprise me a little here and there with their antics, but you?” Ruin snorted.

Twister’s eyes started to spin slowly.

“You’re an insane ignoramus who’s so far out there and spontaneous that I can’t do a thing when you go wild… and I just don’t get it.” Ruin shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. Even ponies that do what you do should be restricted by SOME rules to a point. I struggle to wrap my mind around how you operate, or how you can even exist as if reality doesn’t apply to you at all.”

Twister’s eyes spun faster.

“But what you are aside… What I want to know more is why.” Ruin pointed a hoof at him. “These things you do, the way you intervene at certain moments, the way you remain out of other moments… These are not the actions of a mindless idiot with no plan. You play the fool, you are not alone in that game. I fancy that act myself…” he narrowed his eyes further. “What are you really? What role are you trying to play? What’s your endgame? Your goal? Your…”

Twister’s eyes were spinning so fast that they were making a low pitched buzzing noise. Ruin flattened his brow and scrunched his lips.

“Are you even listening to—”

Twister’s missing eyebrow suddenly plunged down from above engulfed in a fireball upon re-entering the atmosphere. It crashed back to his head from above, smashing Twister’s head down and stuffing his face into the snow. His body whiplashed, his hooves lifting from the ground, body flailing upward into the air as his entire head sank into the snow, even though it was roughly an inch deep.

“BOY I LOVE THE SMELL OF ATTEMPTED EXPOSITION IN THE MORNING!!!!!” Twister’s muffled voice came from within the snow.

“You know what?” Ruin snarled and turned away from Twister. “I’m just wasting my time here. You—”

Twister suddenly surged towards Ruin, dragging his head through the snow until he was directly in front of him, and ripping his head free from the ground. He suddenly had a perfectly groomed and smooth beard and a very generic smile on his face.

“SILLY HAYES HERE!” Twister yelled as he pressed his nose to Ruin’s.

“GAH!” Ruin tried to pull back, but Twister grabbed him by the neck and held him in place.

“IF YOU’RE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH HARD WATER BUILDUP, SOAP SCUM, RING AROUND THE TOILET…”

“GET OFF ME!” Ruin demanded, but he couldn’t pull free. The more he struggled, the harder Twister pressed their faces together.

“CALCIUM LIME, AND RUST STAINS. THEN YOU NEED KABLAM!” Twister pulled his face back slightly and held up a nondescript spray bottle of cleaning fluid. Ruin was arching his neck back and gritting his teeth as he pushed against Twister, but he was immovable. “SPRAY KABLAM ON A SHOWER DOOR AND IT GETS THE TOUGH STUFF THAT THE OTHERS LEAVE BEHIND!” Twister started spraying the fluid right into Ruin’s eyes.

“ARGH! OW! STOP, IT BURNS!!!” Ruin shouted as he slammed his eyes shut and covered them with his hooves.

Twister sprayed every last bit of the fluid onto Ruin’s face and threw the empty bottle over his shoulder. It exploded violently behind him. He pulled a black towel out of his mane and started rubbing it vigorously on Ruin’s face. Ruin’s arms flailed as he let out muffled grunts and growls.

“KABLAM!” Twister hung the towel around his neck and held up a mirror in front of Ruin. “AND THE SOAP SCUM IS GONE!”

Ruin blinked as he looked at his reflection. All of the white spots on his fur had vanished from his face. He flattened his expression as he saw his exact white spot patterns now on the towel on Twister’s neck.

“Alright, listen here you—”

Ruin was cut off as Twister’s head suddenly smashed right through the mirror and got right in his face again.

“IF YOU GOT A SHOWER HEAD THAT’S CLOGGED WITH HARD WATER DEPOSITS…”

“ENOUGH ALREADY!” Ruin roared as Twister grabbed him again.

As Twister continued to harass Ruin, Fancy Pants had quietly and discreetly made his way over to Rainbow Dash and the other’s. He flagged down and directed the rest with his hooves to avoid the silly side-show as they approached. He didn’t have to do much convincing. Several of those present were unfamiliar with Twister and had no urge to get even remotely close to what they were seeing.

With all of them converged, Fancy motioned for Big Mac, Braeburn, Thunderlane, Bulk Biceps, and Derpy Hooves to all huddle up with Dash’s squad and Storm. Star and Matteo did their best to bring Dash and Squall in while Storm just sort of hovered, not sure what to do.

“Alright, listen carefully,” Fancy began as he looked around at all of them. “Now is our chance to secure and move the Elements of Harmony to safety. We can easily move the smaller of the mares with Mac alone. Bulk, Derpy, help load them on his back. Thunderlane and Braeburn, secure Miss Applejack. I shall assist Miss Rarity.” They all listened and acknowledged, turning to carefully locate and move towards the mares.

“Very well,” Matteo nodded in agreement as he reached for Dash. “We’ll follow with Dash right behi—”

“No,” Fancy’s magic lit up, stopping Matteo’s arm. “She is staying here, and so are you.”

“Huh?” Star perked up as she tried to pry herself free from Squall’s grip. Matteo narrowed his eyes.

“Excuse me?” he gave Fancy a look of disapproval. “She is just as much in danger as the others. We must remove her from the battlefield.”

“I’m afraid I must insist,” Fancy said firmly as he released his magic from Matteo’s arm. “It was your funny friend who requested that you stay,” he said while motioning to Twister.

Matteo and Star both blinked, looking towards Twister. He was sitting on top of Ruin and rubbing what looked like a giant wad of adhesive putty on Ruin’s neck as Ruin yelled and flailed.

“Twister… requested we stay?” Matteo said aloud, unsure how to feel.

“Well…” Fancy tipped slightly to the left. “He did while rambling about a collection of other topics that made very little sense to me, including something about ‘additional payoff’ to somepony named ‘Chekhoove’ and a firearm hung on a wall?”

Fancy was met with blank stares. He shook his head.

“Search me for what that means, but…” He pointed at Dash. “Among all the hullabaloo he expressed a desire for Dash to remain and for you three to do the same to protect her from harm. He was very clear about that, I’m sure the rest was just… him doing what he does.”

Matteo and Star glanced at one another. Even Squall showed a slight reaction, finally glancing out of his weakened stare in Twister’s direction.

“Uh…” Star scratched her head with her hoof that wasn’t pinned to Squall.

“Very well,” Matteo spoke before she could say anything else. Star blinked and quickly looked up at him.

“Matty!”

“Star, look me in the eye and tell me,” Matteo turned and focused his stoic gaze own towards her. “When has Twister ever put forward any sort of specific request, surrounded by idiocy or not?”

Star stared up at Matteo, opening and closing her mouth as realization slowly dawned on her.

“Never,” Star answered.

“Which is exactly why we’ll do it,” he said with a nod as he reached down and gently cradled Dash’s back and head. He removed the flickering Element of Loyalty from her neck and reached it towards Fancy. “Get the others out of here, we’ll stay behind like he wants.”

“Oh, this is not right at all…” Star complained despite having no real argument against Matteo’s observation.

“Godspeed to you all,” Fancy said with a nod as he stashed the element in his suit pocket and started turning towards Rarity. But he stopped halfway and looked down. “Because I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen now.”

He turned his back and his magic came to life, gently supporting Rarity as he made his way over to lift her off the ground.

But before Matteo or Star could turn their attention back to Twister, Storm Front suddenly stepped into their view. Both of them froze and looked right at him, Squall not acknowledging him at all as he was still struggling to regain himself.

“Um…” Storm swallowed, taking a step towards them. “I…”

He winced as Star and Matteo both shot him very hostile glares. With the writing on the wall, he averted his eyes, looking towards Dash in Matteo’s arms instead. He stared, his ears flopping down.

“I’m sorry.”

He turned and moved quickly towards Derpy to help her uproot Pinkie Pie from the snow.

“Hmph…” Matteo grunted as he and Star turned their focus to Twister. Fancy and the others moved quickly and efficiently, and moments later the group was out of sight.

Dash turned her head as well, her eyes drawn to the two abnormal ponies both clear as day in her view with everything else fuzzy. Twister had Ruin covered in the putty wad, which seemed to have tripled in size, and was using a rolling pin to spread it out over the very annoyed Ruin.

“WILL YOU...” Ruin yelled out as he struggled. “JUST… STO—”

“Ah, what a surprise!” Twister’s voice suddenly came from nearby. “I wasn’t expecting company at this hour!”

Ruin forced himself up off the ground. He quickly examined himself, noticing that all the putty was gone and the white spots on his fur had returned. He quickly looked around for Twister, but he didn’t have to look far. Twister was to his left, sitting at a fancy, artistically crafted wooden roundtable sized to seat four. There was a random patch of wooden floor with a brick wall and fireplace behind him like a cozy living room despite being outdoors and surrounded by snowfall. The snow itself seemed to shift course to avoid the setup, keeping it perfectly clean. Twister’s mane was smoothed out and he was wearing a robe, a cocoa mug in his hooves.

Ruin scrunched his face and stood still not taking one step towards Twister’s setup. Twister smiled warmly.

“Would you care for some hot cocoa?” Twister offered. Ruin’s right eye twitched hard.

“Oh no… no.” He pointed a hoof at Twister while gritting his teeth. “I’m not falling for the coffee mug thing again.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Twister asked with a chuckle, keeping up the act.

“When you splashed coffee into my eyes and smashed the mug over my head,” Ruin sat down and crossed his arms. “I’m not taking one step near you.”

Twister tipped his head to the side and set down his mug.

“Mug? Didn’t I hit you with a pan?” his voice returning to normal and his mane unsmoothing with a quiet POOF.

“No, it was a mug,” Ruin snorted.

“I’m pretty sure it was a pan,” Twister smiled and bounced his eyebrows.

“It was a MUG! Like the one you’re holding!” Ruin pointed at the mug.

“Was it a pan shaped like a mug?”

“For the love of…” Ruin leaned back and clenched his hooves in front of him.

“Was it this pan?” Twister held up a spaghetti pan.

“It was a mug!”

“This pan?” Twister held up a wok.

“It was a—”

“This pan?” Twister held up a frying pan. Ruin growled loudly under his breath.

“IT. WAS. A—”

“KAIO-PAN!”

“Kaio-what?”

Twister suddenly appeared behind Ruin surrounded in a red aura. He wound up and smacked Ruin in the back of the head with the frying pan. A loud BONG rang out as Ruin flew forward, his whole body tipping forward with his face smashing to the ground. His momentum dragged his face through the snow all the way up and onto the wooden floor, ending with a loud painful squeak as his face skidded over it. He tumbled over onto his back, landing right next to the chair sitting opposite of Twister’s spot.

“Oh!” Twister’s voice came from the other side of the table as Ruin looked skyward with a scowl and a mark on his face brighter than his red fur. “You decided to join me!”

Ruin angrily hoisted himself up and glared at Twister across the table.

“Please, sit down!” Twister snickered as he motioned to the chair.

Ruin slammed a hoof on the table, lifting the other up while opening his mouth to yell, but he froze, blinked, and looked around. His eyes darted about until they landed on Dash and her crew. Sitting nearby. He flattened his brow and snorted, looking back at Twister and crossing his arms.

“You know, I was wondering why you came at me randomly like that,” he shook his head. “You were distracting me so the Elements of Harmony could be taken to safety.”

“Who…me?” Twister yanked off his fancy robe and threw it into the fireplace. “NEVER!” He reached up and poured the contents of his mug over his head, the hot cocoa and melting marshmallows sizzling on his fur as it streamed down his face and body.

“But…” Ruin glanced at Dash again. “You kept Rainbow Dash here,” he looked at Twister very carefully. “Is this your way of telling me I’m right?”

“Please explain, I’m in an excruciating amount of pain at the moment,” Twister asked, smiling, but his eyes and body were twitching hard as the hot cocoa continued to sizzle all over him.

“This was the set up you wanted,” Ruin pointed out, ignoring Twister’s dramatic antics. “You did this deliberately, timed it specifically, and removed pieces from the board.” He pointed at him. “Are you going to look me in the eye and say you don’t have a plan?”

“Yes,” Twister said immediately, suddenly not bothered by the hot liquid and looking Ruin right in the eyes with one eyebrow raised. Ruin flattened his brow. “No?” Twister flipped, switching which eyebrow he had up. Ruin’s flat look turned into a harsh scowl. “Which answer did you want to hear? We’ll go with that one.”

“WHICH ONE?!” Ruin pounded his hooves on the table.

“You tell me!”

“RRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!” Ruin grabbed his mane and tugged on it.

Twister suddenly spun really fast, making a buzz saw noise as the hot cocoa flew off of him and splattered in all directions.

“GAH!” Ruin shielded himself as several hot droplets splashed against him.

“Tell ya what!” Twister stopped spinning, leaned back and slammed his upper body down on the table, chin resting flat on the wood surface. “Every time we meet I make an ass of you, and honestly I feel kind of bad.”

Ruin blinked and flinched as a massive white sign with red, blinking lights mounted all over it popped up behind Twister with a loud WHOOP. The sign had the words ‘NOT REALLY’ written in large thick letters on it. Two seconds later Twister kicked a hoof back to knock the sign over.

“So how about we do something a little different this time?!” Twister smiled wide and his eyes blinked like flashlights.

“Oh joy…” Ruin rolled his eyes as he wiped the hot droplets off of his face. “What could you possibly suggest that doesn’t come to the exact same conclusion?”

“By making it fun for EVERYONE!” Twister exclaimed as he sat up and started twirling an arm in the air. He turned and threw his arm out as if throwing a lasso towards Dash, Matteo, Star, and Squall. The four yelped as they were all suddenly pressed together. Twister yanked back, falling off his chair in the process and crashing to the floor. The four of them skidded through the snow, sliding to a stop at the edge of the wooden floor. They all fell into a pile with Dash conveniently landing on top of Matteo.

Ruin had his eyes on them for all of a few seconds until Twister popped back up onto the chair and plunged his hooves into his mane.

“I never go anywhere without all my board games!” He started pulling his hooves out of his mane slowly, gritting his teeth and grunting as if it was difficult. Then out of nowhere his hooves yanked out, hundreds of flat boxes exploding out of his mane and flying everywhere while making a comedic barfing noise. The boxes somehow all remained shut as they flew every which way, both clattering to the wood floor and getting stuck in the snow.

Ruin just stared at Twister as the raining boxes finally ceased.

“Board games…” Ruin said flatly, holding a blink, unamused look. Twister’s head popped out of a pile of games that had landed on him.

“Yes, board games!”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“No, but I can if you want.”

“NO! No…” Ruin shifted back and turned slightly and he glared. “Rgh… alright, what are you trying to do here?” He threw an arm up and pointed into the air. “There’s a literal war with nopony knowing who is supposed to be against who going on above us. Chaos and disarray to manipulate and bask in to our heart’s content… and you suggest we play a board game?”

“Yes.”

The others all looked up as Twister held a silly smile while Ruin just stared. Ruin rubbed his lips together while narrowing his eyes skeptically.

“And you REALLY expect me to believe that anypony could play a decent game of…” he paused and motioned a hoof towards all the boxes spread around. “Anything… with you involved?”

“Nope!” Twister quickly replied, all the boxes piled on him falling off to reveal him sitting cross legged and leaning forward with his chin rested on a hoof. Ruin put his hoof down and lifted an eyebrow.

“Well, at least you’re honest.” He turned his back to Twister. “I refuse.”

“No ya don’t,” Twister quickly refuted him.

“I’m pretty sure I do,” Ruin said without turning back.

“Then I guess you don’t want to know a seeeeeeeeeeeeeeecret,” Twister’s voice suddenly changed. Ruin’s ears perked up and he quickly looked over his shoulder. “One that I promise to tell you… if you win.”

Dash’s ears twitched too. That voice… it was the same tone and pattern as all the times he had pulled her into one of his random side shows and spoken to her normally.

Ruin slowly turned around, never taking his eyes off Twister.

“Interested now?” Twister snickered. Ruin narrowed his eyes, looking Twister up and down.

“And how exactly would I ‘win’ when you won’t follow the rules?” he asked.

“And you will?”

Ruin blinked as Twister’s smile grew wider, making a squeaking noise as it challenged the limits of his face. Ruin shut his eyes and grumbled.

“I honestly, cannot believe I’m doing this…” he moved towards the chair opposite of Twister. “It’s like I never learn.”

“Curiosity ALWAYS kills the cat!” Twister exclaimed, his regular, silly voice returning as he bounced up and down in his chair with loud HRNK HRNK HRNK noises coming from his butt.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure,” Ruin rolled his eyes and sat down. “Let’s just get this over with.” He took a deep breath and sighed, glancing at all the boxes. “What are we playing?”

Twister rapidly slammed his face to the table, immediately looking back up with a pair of reading glasses balancing on the end of his nose. He held his hooves out in front of him and looked between them.

“The unwritten rule book of breaking the rules states that the one who suggested a game of rule breaking must yield the decisions of which game to break the rules of to the party of who he challenged to break the rules.”

Ruin stared blankly at him. Twister slammed his hooved together like he was closing a book and the reading glasses automatically tipped up onto his forehead.

“That means it’s your choice,” Twister sneered as he made a motion towards the fireplace as if he was tossing something and the fire puffed up briefly like something had been thrown in.

“Of course it does…” Ruin grumbled as he played along and looked around. There was a small pile of boxes nearby. He lifted them all up with his magic and hovered them over to take a look. “No…” He tossed one aside. “No…” He tossed another aside and blinked at the next one. “This isn’t even a board game!” he turned it around and held out the box of Operation. But he leaned back and stared wide eyed as he noticed the top of Twister’s head was about ten times larger than normal and shaped like a giant brain hanging down behind him.

“PERHAPS NOT TO THE SMALL BRAINED.”

“No.” Ruin flattened his brow and tossed it aside, looking at the last one. “Eh… fine. Simple enough and very easy to manipulate.” He turned the box around to show Chutes and Ladders. He quickly opened the box and dumped the contents out. But a bunch of numbered cards and colored pieces fell out. “What the…?” He reached down and opened the board. It was the board for SORRY! “This isn’t Chutes and Ladders!”

“SORRY!” Twister yelled as he grabbed the table and flipped it, sending all the pieces, cards, and board into the air.

“GAH!” Ruin tipped back and shielded himself, but when the table fell back down, it landed perfectly upright. The board for SORRY! fell flat on the table, all the pieces landed on the starting spots and all the cards fell neatly into Twister’s hooves. He started shuffling the cars, his hooves moving so fast that they became a blur.

“HRK!” Twister grunted as his arms halted abruptly, tied in a knot as the cards landed perfectly on the board face down. He released a high pitched scream as he placed a back hoof onto his knotted arms and began pushing until they snapped apart and he fell out of his chair. Ruin ignored him, looking around at the four player spots.

“But this game is so pointless with only two pla—”

“GOT US COVERED!” Twister’s voice came from beneath the table. His arms extended out from beneath it, grabbing Dash and Matteo. The arm holding Dash gently carried her over, placing her in the seat and resting her chin on the table as she groaned in discomfort.

Matteo, on the other hoof was yanked over and forced underneath the table that he most definitely did not fit under. With a frantic squawk and a loud POOF with feathers flying everywhere, he was pushed out the other side and into the other vacant chair. He wobbled and shook his head out, holding his head as his plucked feathers floated to the ground near him. Matteo looked back and forth as soon as he got his senses back, but Twister had laid out on the table towards Dash and was pressing her cheeks.

“Awwwww… Dashie isn’t feeling too well…” he cooed as he smushed her face. Matteo looked down at the SORRY! board and scrunched his face.

“I don’t even know how to play th—”

SQUUUUEAK.

He was cut off as Twister smacked him across the face with a squeaky hammer.

“YOU WILL NOT SPEAK UNTIL IT’S YOUR TURN!” he yelled into Matteo’s face, but in the blink of an eye was back in his seat and smiling towards Ruin. “You go first!”

“Right, right…” Ruin sighed, glancing at the death glare Matteo was giving Twister briefly before reaching for the card pile. But he stared for a moment before grabbing it, keeping his expression perfectly neutral as he subtly used his magic to make sure the first card was a number two.

But then he picked up the card and it was a generic five of clubs.

“Do you have any fives?”

Ruin blinked and looked up to see the SORRY! Board was gone and Twister had cards in his hooves. Dash and Matteo had cards too, Dash’s propped up on a little stand in front of her on a miniature music stand and Matteo just looking confused.

“What the hell? I thought we were playing…” Ruin looked down at all the cards. “This is a CARD game!”

“I ain’t gonna repeat myself buddy,” Twister leaned forward, his eyebrows extremely thick, a bowler hat on his head, and a very fat cigar sticking out the other side of his mouth. Ruin scrunched his mouth and went along with it looking right at the five of clubs he just picked up.

“Go fish,” he lied.

“HA!” Twister slapped his cards down, showing a ten, jack, queen, king, and ace. All spades. “ROYAL FLUSH! PAY UP!”

Ruin’s eye twitched.

“Wait, that’s Po—”

“BULLSHIT!” Twister cut him off, throwing all the cards on the table into Ruin’s face. Ruin covered his face with his arms until the cards had fallen.

“I thought I was the one choosing the…” Ruin trailed off as he slowly looked up higher and higher at a Jenga tower that was rising so high into the air that it disappeared into the overhead mist. “You have an interesting definition of ‘board’ game.”

“SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Twister shushed him, his mouth and teeth randomly three times larger as he made the noise before shrinking back down. “DON’T… MOVE…” He reached for a layer that only had one block left on it, a center piece that was balancing the rest of the teetering tower. “I GOT THIS…”

Ruin watched as Twister started shimmying the block out… somehow. If it were anypony else the tower would have instantly fallen over. Instead of waiting for him to finish something that definitely wasn’t usually possible, Ruin glanced up at the tower and glared, his eyes flashing very faintly.

The tower tipped towards Twister… or at least it appeared to. Ruin blinked as the entire setup, including the chairs, table, and wood floor tipped with the tower… him included. Ruin held on to his seat as everything balanced at a forty five degree angle, the tower somehow not collapsing as if gravity had been bent with it.

“NAILED IT!” Twister yelled triumphantly as he pulled the block out and the rest of the tower fell by one layer. Twister tapped his hoof against the tower and the entire set tipped back down, Ruin grunting as the wood floor and everything else crashed back to the snow. “Your turn!”

“Uh…” Ruin gritted his teeth, doing his best to focus instead of being distracted by the antics. He reached for a block that looked easy to loosen. He narrowed his eyes at the block, stopping just short as he examined it carefully to make sure there was nothing off about it.

“POW! GOES PERFECTION!” Twister suddenly yelled, slamming his hooves to the table and causing the tower of blocks to disperse and fly into the air, raining down from above.

“THAT’S A DIFFERENT GAME!” Ruin complained as all of the blocks seemed to gravitate towards, and fall on top of him. He grumbled and growled, whipping his arms about in the air as he was buried beneath the blocks.

“Why am I still here?” Matteo spoke up as he watched the blocks pile on Ruin.

“Because we’re clearly playing Scrabble!” Twister said sarcastically.

Ruin quickly dug himself out from the Jenga blocks and blinked as he saw the Scrabble board on the table. Matteo and Dash once again included with their own letter trays. Ruin tossed the stray blocks aside while grumbling.

“Am I crazy? Or is all this not going anywhere at all?” he asked with a snort.

“Which question do you want me to answer first?” Twister asked while bouncing his eyebrows.

Ruin scrunched his face and let out a frustrated nicker as he refocused and looked down at the Scrabble game. The board already had several words on it, but they were ordered particularly.

‘Silly pony positioned across from me enjoys getting bumfu’

Ruin flattened his brow and glared across the table at Twister.

“DRAT!” Twister pounded the table. “The E is right there and I have the K, and D, but I ran out of C’s!” he whined, swiping the last incomplete word off the table. “WELP! It’s your turn!”

Ruin glanced down at his tray of letters, but he only had letter Q’s spread across his entire tray.

“Where did you get all these Q’s?”

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT,” Twister cut him off, his neck extending across the table to get in Ruin’s face before instantly pulling back.

Ruin growled, but quickly took a deep breath, smirking at Twister.

“F-10,” he suddenly said as his eyes flashed, his magic swatted the scrabble board away and whisked Battleship onto the table with half a game already set up. Twister grabbed and yanked on his mane with his hooves and screamed.

“YOU SUNK IT!” he slammed his head down face first on the table so hard that it went through it and he fell to the floor below.

“Too bad!” Ruin chuckled, not hesitating for a moment. “Let’s see, let’s go with G—”

“Hold on there, Sonny!” Twister suddenly popped up, the broken part of the table instantly putting itself together. Before Ruin could get a good look at him, Twister hit him over the head really hard with a cane.

“GAH!” Ruin yelped as he grabbed his head and shuddered for a moment before glaring across the table. Twister suddenly looked very, VERY old, all wrinkled with white hair, missing all his teeth, and balancing six pairs of glasses on his nose. “I’m figurin’ out if I can invade The Griffon Empire!”

“You what—” Matteo was cut off, letting out a loud squawk as Twister bounced a large bottle of prune juice off his beak.

Ruin looked down to see Battleship was gone and Risk was set up instead. But despite having the entire map of Equestria, there wasn’t a single piece of a different color within any of the territories currently held. The board was also very dusty.

“Dang nabbit!” Twister slapped the table. “I just don’t know anymore. I was ready to make a move, but we’ve been playing this game for the past two hundred sixty four years!”

“Uh…” Ruin blinked and Risk was suddenly switched out for Monopoly. But instead of letting it surprise him, he quickly grabbed the piece shaped like a butt, assuming it was his, and moved it a few spaces.

“WHOOPS!” Twister shouted. Ruin looked up to see Twister was back to normal, only wearing a tuxedo and top hat with bits falling out of them. There were large, round bags filled with bits sitting all around him. “Looks like you landed on the strip club!” He jammed a fancy cane against the space Ruin’s piece was on, holding up a card that had ‘Strip Club’ written on it in black marker. “I own it. Pay up bucko. Also show me your I.D. This is a family friendly establishment!”

“Strip club?” Ruin tipped his head to the side, eyes twitching. He quickly reached out and swiped the card right out of Twister’s hoof, turning it over. “Oh come on, you wrote that on the back of Park Place.”

“DID NOT!” Twister spat back, turning to the side and hugging a large bag of bits while giving Ruin a scowl and an exaggerated stink eye.

“By the way…” Ruin’s eyes flashed. “Does he have any green fur?” He asked, swapping out Monopoly for Guess Who. But Twister spun around and kept up quickly.

“NOPE!” he shouted, his fur and mane colors spontaneously switching.

“Hmph…” Ruin snorted, losing his patience. He looked down at the panels and started flipping them down without even checking which ones he was moving. But the moment he glanced back up, Twister was standing on the table and leaning down right in front of his face. His normal colors were back, but he had long sideburns, and afro, and a moustache.

“DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?!”

“GAH!” Ruin fell backwards, his chair tipping over and crashing to the floor with him. But he landed on something that did not feel like wood. It almost felt… rubbery?

“RIGHT HOOF YELLOW!”

Ruin frantically rolled over, but stopped short of pushing himself up as he noticed he was laying on a mat with blue, yellow, red, and green dots. He rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Oh ha… ha… ha… I get it…” Ruin groaned as he looked up to see Twister contorted into a tangled mess even though he was only touching blue and red side by side.

And for some reason Little Star was stuck in the knot his body had tied itself into.

“Ow! Hey! Leave me out of this!” She demanded as she flailed and kicked her arms and legs.

“This isn’t a board game either, can we please at least set that—” Ruin was cut off as Twister’s neck extended again and pressed his face into Ruin’s.

“I SAID… RIGHT… HOOF… YELLOW.” He ordered in a very strict voice.

Ruin exhaled sharply through his nose as he shifted his right hoof an inch over to place it on the yellow dot beneath him.

“LEFT HEAD COQUELICOT!” Twister yelled, a slightly orangish-red dot appearing on the wall over the fireplace. Twister’s neck extended once more, shooting his head towards the spot far away from the mat at a hysterical speed. “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Twister screeched as his lips and eyelids got pulled back by the g-forces, his head crashing right through the stone above the fireplace.

Ruin just watched calmly as Twister’s head went right through the stone wall, but then flinched as the green dot beside him suddenly opened up with a loud metallic CREAK and Twister popped out with an air raid warden helmet on.

“Pssst, hey buddy, you got a match?” he asked.

“No I…” Ruin blinked and glanced at his wing, there was a lit match wedged between some of his feathers.

“PUT OUT THAT LIGHT!!!!!!” Twister yelled, his warden helmet flipping off his head into his teeth before he swung it around and smacked Ruin across the face with it.

“SON OF A…!” Ruin coughed as his neck whipped around, but when he looked back, Twister’s head was gone and his neck was making a noise similar to a fishing rod reeling in as his neck tried to pull the rest of his head out of the wall. Ruin quickly looked over to the table, shifting over and sitting down as his eyes flashed. “Hey! It’s brown’s turn!”

Twister suddenly spun wildly, creating a twister over the Twister mat that sucked up the spinner, mat, and box before flinging Little Star back over to Squall.

Twister himself shot out of the tornado and landed face first with a loud HONK in the chair opposite of Ruin. He flipped upright, looked down at the board, and his face went blank. It was a Backgammon board. Twister blinked and looked up.

“How exactly do you play this game again?” he asked in a strangely normal voice. Ruin looked down and stared for a moment.

“You know what, I don’t know either,” he admitted as they both looked at the board. “This always came boxed with checkers but no one ever bothered to—”

“I FIXED IT!” Twister yelled out as he flipped the board over to reveal a Checkers board. “WHOSE TURN IS IT AGAIN?!”

“Mine,” Ruin answered as he reached for a black checker quickly. “Jump, jump, jump, jump…” He began jumping his checker over reds all the way to the other end of the board. “King me!”

“Oh gosh darn,” Twister shrugged. “I guess you got me this ti—HA!” he slammed his hoof against the board, it folded up and turned into a Connect Four grid with the pieces arranged the same way. Before Ruin could protest, Twister slid a red checker into one of the slots. “Connect four! I win!”

“Okay, LOOK!” Ruin suddenly slammed his hooved to the table and stood up from his chair. “This is going NOWHERE!” he growled, swiping his arm out to knock the Connect Four grid away, but it only fell over and turned back into a Checkers board. Ruin glanced down at the board briefly before glaring at Twister again. “I am legitimately curious about this supposed secret you promise to tell me… but so far you’re just wasting my time!” He pointed at Twister, who just held a cute face with his tongue blepped. “If you’re really making a serious wager here, we need to draw the line SOMEWHERE! I’m all for allowing tricks and manipulation, but how about we choose ONE GAME and STICK WITH IT?!”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” Twister slowly tipped to one side, touching a hoof to his lips as his smile grew wider and wider. “OKAY! Then let’s play—”

There was a loud KA-CHUNK followed by everything going pitch black like someone had turned off stage lights. Everything around them plunged into darkness even though they were outside.

“What the… OW!” Ruin yelped as something pushed against him, forcing him backwards a few steps. He glanced about the darkness, all the noise from the rushing winds and fighting outside the mist slowly died down and disappeared. The cold chill of the air vanished as well.

CLICK

Ruin blinked. As he looked around, his eyes landing on a single light, generated by a lightbulb hanging from above. It was illuminating a small area around the table they had been playing games at, but aside from the chairs, the rest was gone, the floor and fireplace had vanished and everything was sitting on a formless void.

Ruin looked around at the area, noticing that Rainbow Dash was still there. She was lying on the ground nearby, but Matteo, Little Star, and Squall were gone.

Dash’s eyes opened, blinking a few times as she sat up abruptly. She looked herself over and over. The pain… it was completely gone. No more headache, no more pins, needles, and stabbing from her injuries. She saw Ruin nearby, but the moment her eyes landed on the table, her body suddenly locked up and couldn’t move. She could move her eyes, but the rest of her had been paralyzed on the spot.

Ruin tipped his head curiously as he saw Dash and examined her state, moving his eyes back to the table.

Twister suddenly appeared in the chair across the table, but he was reclined casually with one arm draped on the back of the chair. His usual silly expression was gone, replaced by a wickedly mischievous one.

Ruin glanced down at the table and his eyes shot open wide.

There was a Chess board on the table. It was set up for a game with black on his side and white on Twister’s.

“Well…?” Twister spoke up, his voice taking a different tune. “What do you say?

Dash’s eyes grew slightly. There was the voice again, Twister’s seldom heard serious tone.

“Shall we do this… the right way?” Twister asked, his lips parting to show a toothy grin.

Ruin looked up, locking eyes with Twister and giving him a slight glare, but it was one with lots of curiosity beneath the surface. The glare bounced right off Twister as he held his sneer.

Without a word, Ruin walked up to the chair across from Twister and sat down. He never took his eyes off of Twister as he leaned forward, rested his arms on the table, and gave Twister a firm, serious look.

“Your move,” Ruin said with a slight nod, Twister snickering with delight as he shifted in his chair and reached for his first piece.

Dash’s pupils shook slightly as she watched the two. The game of chess commenced but… it looked like a normal game of chess. All the antics, trickery, and spontaneity had vanished without a trace. Twister moved a piece, then Ruin moved a piece. Neither said any words and they stared directly at the other in between moves.

Something about it felt off… something felt wrong. It wasn’t because the surroundings had become a void of nothing, that Dash suddenly alone watching them, or that her body was frozen.

It was the two of them.

She didn’t know what she was looking at, but as she watched them… it suddenly felt like she wasn’t watching Twister and Ruin. She didn’t know why it felt that way, but it made her feel very uneasy.

“Watch carefully, Dash.”

Dash’s ears twitched. That was Twister’s voice! But… she was looking right at him. He did not turn and look at her, nor did she see his mouth move.

“You desire to conquer every mountain. That desire gave you a slight glimpse into a new realm of understanding earlier. Whether it was a mistake or not is irrelevant… you made it happen and got to see it with your own eyes.”

Dash’s jaw hung slightly agape as Twister’s voice continued to echo in her head.

“Now observe and take notes…”

Dash didn’t know what she was feeling. It felt like Twister was looking at her even though his eyes were locked on Ruin.

“I can’t show you the way… but I can help you see just how much higher this mountain reaches.”

Dash shut her mouth and held a breath in for a few moments. Her eyes shifted from Twister to the game of chess. She dared not look away… not even for a second.

The large doors leading out to the Crystal Palace inner courtyard swung open, forced aside by Sombra as he stepped outside. He kept walking, stopping at the top of the steps overlooking the open field that stretched all the way to the decorative garden. He did not look away, he did not snarl or glare at it. He looked directly at the field… the field where he and Celestia clashed a thousand years prior. Soarin took note of his demeanor. It was completely different than the inherent emotional response the mere sight of the field seemed to incite during their first trip over it. There was something on Sombra’s mind, and he was focused on it.

“Sombra…” Celestia’s voice met both their ears unexpectedly. Soarin glanced over his shoulder towards the bound spirit of Celestia, but Sombra did not acknowledge her at all as he kept looking out at the field within the palace walls. “Sombra, what are you doing?” she pressed, her voice audibly shaken. No doubt knowing that her efforts to sway Soarin had been abruptly dashed by everything he had just witnessed within the throne room. But Soarin himself was still watching carefully.

“Something that does not concern you,” Sombra finally answered sharply, never taking his eyes off the field as his old knights began to emerge from the castle behind him. They remained at a slight distance, observing their king and anxious to see what he was going to do.

Sombra moved down the stairs step by step, making his way out into the grass. He took his time, walking slowly as his knights made their way to the top of the stairs behind him, watching as Sombra approached the center of the field.

But a few paces away from the very center, he stopped, staring down at his hooves and slowly moving his eyes out along the grass to a spot a couple of yards from him.

“Soarin,” Sombra suddenly spoke. Soarin’s ears perked up and he glanced at Sombra’s silhouette beside him. “Look right here.” He pointed to the ground before them.

Soarin focused on where his eyes were looking. But… it looked like nothing more than a patch of grass.

“This is where it happened,” Sombra went on as Soarin stared. “I was standing in this exact spot when Celestia and I faced each other in battle. And right in front of us… is where we clashed,” Sombra explained. Soarin’s eyes grew slightly. “A god… against a twisted creation of the gods. This is where we fought, and this is where the fate of my kingdom… my world… was sealed for a thousand years.”

Soarin blinked, letting the thought run through his head as he tried to visualize the moment Sombra spoke of. A point in time a thousand years ago where something occurred that was of great importance to the course of history as he knew it. It was hard for him to picture, much less comprehend.

Sombra looked over his shoulder towards his knights watching with interest from the back at the top of the steps. The knights came into Soarin’s view through his eyes, Sombra holding the position for several moments to allow Soarin the opportunity to both picture the moment in time, and observe those who were there to live it.

Eventually, Sombra looked to the sky.

“After all that you have seen and been exposed to,” he began. “I want to ask you one more time, Soarin.”

“Huh?” Soarin blinked, glancing at Sombra’s silhouette as it turned to face him within his mind.

“Will you join with me?”

Soarin’s eyes widened slightly.

“Let our souls become one. Let your body become the vessel of hope… Allow me the chance to change this world forever.”

Soarin just stared, his expression neutral as Sombra lifted a hoof towards him.

“You have now witnessed with your own eyes that my words have not been empty. You have gotten a glimpse into my world through those who once stood beside me loyally, those who supported me and revered me for what I stood for. I was a king, a leader, one that rejected the surrender of my kingdom to the control of the gods for the sake of my citizens… so they would still be under the watchful eye of whom they trusted, not whom they were told deserved it. They would still be in my world… their world… not the world of the gods.”

Soarin blinked, his ears turned and listening as Sombra spoke.

“You have also witnessed the frailty of those so-called ‘gods.’ You have seen their intentions, their dishonesty, and their desperation to protect themselves regardless of the effect on mortal lives,” Sombra paused for a moment, nodding at Soarin with his hoof still outstretched. “We are unique, Soarin. None have experienced this the way we have. None have had their lives torn asunder the way ours have been. Are you willing to let them get away with it? Are you willing to let this continue? To let the gods go free without consequence and repercussion?” Sombra reached his hoof slightly closer. “Or will you join me and ensure that nopony will ever share our fates again? Together we can end this farce. We can bring about a new era of salvation to Equestria. We can free everypony from the gods and their eternal grip!”

Soarin stared at Sombra silently.

He looked down at Sombra’s hoof for a moment.

Then looked back at Sombra, staring him right in the eye, a neutral expression on his face as Sombra waited.

But then Soarin flattened his brow and exhaled.

“No.”

Sombra visibly flinched, startled as he pulled his hoof back slightly. Celestia perked up as well, forced to watch from beneath her bindings.

“‘My world’, ‘my world’, ‘my world’,” Soarin repeated as he scrunched his face up. “You keep saying that. Have you noticed you keep saying that?” he asked sharply. Sombra didn’t move or speak. “You’ve mentioned it over and over like that’s all that matters… as if there’s something wrong with mine.”

Sombra put his hoof down, but remained silent, tipping his head as if he didn’t follow. Soarin shot him a glare.

“How much do you know about the world as it is now?” Soarin suddenly asked. “Well?”

“It’s a world led astray by the—”

“NO! Stop.” Soarin swung a hoof out as he turned to face Sombra squarely. “Can you answer the question without bringing up the gods?”

Sombra stood still… and said nothing.

“You can’t, can you?” Soarin snorted, pointing a hoof at Sombra’s face. “Because that’s really all this is about, isn’t it?”

“Do not trivialize my struggle,” Sombra growled, but Soarin quickly shook his head.

“I GET your struggle!” Soarin put his hoof down and made a backwards head motion. “I don’t doubt a word you’ve said, you don’t need to prove anything to me! I heard your story, I watched you show mercy, I watched you walk the halls of your castle, and I saw your knights and their respect for you. You’ve been vindicated, I believe you are exactly who you say you are, but I’m going to ask you again! How much do you know… about this world? About my world?”

Sombra stared. After a few moments, Soarin pointed a hoof at his face again.

“And THAT’S why I said no. Your personal vendetta against the gods and your clinging to the past… that’s what you care about. You want to change the world? WHAT world?!” Soarin started raising his voice, and Celestia was watching with eyes growing wider as Soarin stood up to Sombra, shifting forwards and nearly standing chest to chest with him, looking up to show he wasn’t afraid of the slight size advantage Sombra’s silhouette had on him. “Can you tell me which world that is? Do you even know?!”

“I…” Sombra tried to speak, but went nowhere.

“You don't know my world!” Soarin got into Sombra’s face, reaching his neck up and imagining he was looking directly into the eyes of the shadowy outline. “You don’t know it at all! You’re just assuming that since the ones who did you wrong are at the top that we are under some kind of tyrannical hoof?” Soarin narrowed his eyes. “So our world isn’t perfect… So we have some leaders at the top who haven’t been completely honest with us… but there’s a hell of a lot more to the world than them, and you aren’t even bothering to take a look for yourself. When I hear about you wanting to destroy the gods and become one yourself, do you know who I begin to think of? Everypony else! The ponies this world belongs to! We don’t line up outside Canterlot castle every morning and receive marching orders for how to go about our day. We are free to choose how we live each day of our lives, and occasionally one of the Princesses will ride through on a fancy-looking chariot to smile and wave at us!”

Sombra remained quiet, glancing at Celestia briefly as Soarin went on.

“So the gods messed up MY life,” Soaring went on, giving a slightly angered glance at Celestia that she definitely felt. “Am I pissed off about it? You bet your ass I’m pissed off about it. But you know what they aren’t doing? They aren’t getting in the way of everypony else’s lives! My case does not speak for how they’ve treated others! They aren’t flying overhead and picking out random ponies to tamper with! They’ve stayed out of our business and let us be ourselves, and now you’re standing here telling me that you know better? That how they’ve been doing things is wrong? That getting rid of them and putting yourself in their place will be some sort of gift to us and change our lives? What will it change?! What will you offer us that we don’t already have aside from tearing down what we’re used to and have grown accustomed to?! A thousand years ago you took pride in rejecting the call to usurp all rule to the gods like the rest of Equestria did, and you did it to preserve the way of life your citizens enjoyed… so I find it very ironic that you’re basically asking us to do just that!”

Sombra visibly flinched, a growl escaping his throat as he inched his head down slightly towards Soarin’s glare.

“That is NOT what I’m suggesting!” he rebuked, but Soarin just glared harder.

“I’m pretty sure it is! You’re not even considering that angle or how we might see it!” Soarin spat right back.

Sombra suddenly backed off slightly, taking a step back and looking away. Soarin held his ground, keeping his firm glare locked on Sombra and giving it all his might.

“Yeah, I’ve been listening, buddy,” Soarin grunted. “I’ve been listening very carefully. Better believe it. Want to know the most important thing I’ve taken away from all of this?” Soarin shook his head harshly. “You don’t have a damn clue what you’re doing! Do you honestly expect me to believe you have the confidence in your ability to achieve godhood after I just watched you cry to yourself on your throne and question your own actions out loud?”

Sombra took another step back and looked down.

“You wanted me to make a choice, right? Well, the choice is pretty clear to me. The choice is between the world I know…” Soarin stomped a hoof. “And my world put in danger by an old king seeking revenge who once lost control of himself and plunged Equestria into chaos?”

Sombra abruptly looked towards Soarin.

“The GODS did that to me!” he snarled, but Soarin did not waver.

“I don’t care how it happened!” Soarin shot right back. “What matters is it did. How can I be so sure that you seeking out power will end differently than having power forced into you? YOU aren’t even sure of it!”

“I don’t repeat my mistakes,” Sombra said, his voice losing a bit of strength, but Soarin had heard that one already.

“You’re full of shit!” Soarin yelled right in his face while stepping up to him again.

Sombra growled, the shadowy bindings that once held Soarin down reaching for him again, but they stopped short and receded as if he couldn’t bring himself to do it out of anger alone.

He let Soarin speak.

“I don’t care how much of a badass you apparently are or used to be! That’s not a chance I’m going to take. You want me to decide on something that could have a drastic effect on everypony else in the world, that’s NOT how the world works! I don’t have the right to make that choice for them!” he stepped back, letting that one sink in before continuing. “There’s too much here and now that I cherish, and too many ponies I’d never dream of making such a choice for. Screw the gods, want to know how much of a role they’ve played in my life? None. Zero. Take away this crap they pulled that put me right here and they’ve been an afterthought. You keep framing it like we’re slaves to them, like we bow and submit to their will without question! If you pulled your head out of your own ass for one second and took a good look around, you’d see just how backwards your assumptions are!”

Both Sombra and Celestia were staring in silence. There was no way to make out the look on Sombra’s face, but Celestia was staring in awe, as if she never expected such a determined, resolute rebuttal from Soarin.

“You don’t know a thing about this world or how it works,” Soarin shook his head lightly. “And frankly, when all is said and done, I’m not sure I find your vision of how things should be very appealing, nor would anypony else. I don’t fight for the gods, I don’t care what they want and they’ve never asked anything of me. The reason I get out of bed every morning is on the ground around me and in the sky beside me. I work hard and I fight my battles for my friends, my family, my wingmates and other comrades… it’s for them! For them and myself! I would die for THEM! The gods never once told me to think that way, it’s MY choice! MY motivation!” Soarin thumped a hoof to his chest.

“So as far as I’m concerned, you’re trying to take that from me,” he pointed sharply at Sombra. “You’re trying to convince me something is wrong with my life and the way I’ve lived it up until now. There was never anything wrong with it! You want one thing!” Soarin pointed to his face. “You want to take my body for your own selfish reasons. You want me to lay down and give in so you can reach your goals. You don’t care what happens in the process as long as things end up the way you want them.” Soarin threw his arm out to the side. “So you can forget my cooperation. As long as I have the will to resist you I’m not budging an inch! I refuse to simply let you do as you please.”

There was a long pause as Soarin kept his eyes locked on Sombra. Celestia’s jaw was agape as Soarin’s unexpectedly strong words resonated deeply.

“An impassioned speech…” Sombra finally spoke up. “Filled with glowing words and heroic undertones.” He shook his head. “Yet misguided, arrogant, and trite. You shout at me as if I’m some sort of villain who wishes to crush the world with undeserved power. Perhaps it was too much for me to assume you’d understand.”

“I understand you clearly, you son of a bitch,” Soarin growled. “Or are you just not used to somepony talking back to you? Hate to break it to you, but there are plenty of others like me who will do the same, YOUR MAJESTY,” he said sarcastically.

“You are in no position to lecture me,” Sombra spoke down to Soarin as he inched closer.

“Then do it,” Soarin quickly shot back. Sombra stopped and went quiet, tipping his head slightly. “DO IT!” Soarin yelled, stepping up and getting into Sombra’s face. “Take control of me then! If I have no right to lecture you then put me in my place!”

Sombra growled, the bindings appearing again, but just as they did before, they simply hovered nearby, not actually going for Soarin. Soarin looked around, noticing the bindings creeping about.

“Well? I’m waiting, Mr. Cast Iron Balls!” he taunted. “If you’re so damn tough then get on with it already!”

Sombra grunted, the bindings receding and vanishing. Soarin watched them vanish and snorted.

“How stupid do you think I am? If you really had such a tight grip on me you would’ve gotten it over with by now! You wouldn’t have wasted time trying to convince me to let go! So go on, tell me again I have no right to give you a piece of my mind! You have some control over me and my body, but how much?! Think I haven’t noticed you wincing every time I push back? Think I haven’t noticed you struggling to control certain things?” Soarin threw an arm out. “I know! Try using my wings again! That was the most amusing part so far!”

Sombra sharply looked away, growling.

“Forget it,” Soarin rapped his hoof on the ground. “I’m here to stay. Better yet, how did you put it to Spitfire? ‘I acknowledge the strength of your words, but you have yet to acknowledge mine.’” Soarin mocked his voice as Sombra slowly looked back at him. “Time to practice what you preach, buddy.”

Soarin finished with a narrow eyed, skeptical stare, as if daring Sombra to deny any of it.

Sombra said nothing for several moments, but eventually sighed.

“So be it,” he said and turned his side to Soarin, looking out at the spot on the courtyard again. Soairn blinked, expecting more than that.

“Hm?” Soarin hummed quietly and lifting an eyebrow, trying to coax more out of Sombra.

“I must commend you,” Sombra nodded, keeping himself turned. “Not only have my efforts to sway you failed… by my efforts to hide my weakness have failed as well. Or…” he glanced towards Soarin. “You are much more perceptive than I gave you credit for. Either way, from the very start I have underestimated you and you continue to prove just how strong you truly are. I’ve tried several times, perhaps you haven’t even noticed some of them… but I can’t break your willpower. It is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Try as I might I cannot make a dent in your spirit. You’re anchored, showing that your resolve is natural, not forced… Your spirit is unbreakable, even in the face of insurmountable odds. To find a stallion of your caliber a thousand years past the ages of knights and kings is shocking, to say the least. You have everything I once looked for in a knight both inside and out… had you lived in my time as king, I would not have hesitated to deem you one of my most trusted knights.”

Soarin’s glare subsided as he listened to Sombra confess weakness and acknowledge him. He wasn’t expecting it at all. He kept his eyes on Sombra as he turned to face Celestia, who flinched when she saw Sombra focus on her.

“For a time I believed that your resistance was something Celestia had calculated… that she chose you as the vessel for her misguided scheme because she knew this would happen.” He shook his head. “But the longer this has gone on, the more I’m beginning to believe that even she, despite her power of foresight, could not have predicted this,” he faced Soarin. “I saw it all myself… the defeat… the horror on the god’s faces when I was released… They thought that was it right then and there, that all was lost. Then you fought back… and their moods swung the other way, showing some hope out of thin air. And since then, especially from her…” he made a head motion towards Celestia. “They’ve swung back and forth from passion and confidence, to despair and tragedy over and over. They are terrible at concealing their emotions. They had no confidence in you… they expected this to be over the moment the false horn was broken. Isn’t that right, Celes?” Sombra asked as both he and Soarin looked towards her.

Celestia’s eyes widened. She bit her lip and winced, clearly showing without any doubt that Sombra was spot on. Soarin blinked as he watched her reaction, looking back at Sombra.

“No,” Sombra shook his head as he refocused on Soarin. “This has been you alone… and you have taken notice. Your surges in emotion have caused me discomfort. Your perseverance has tugged endlessly at my hold on your body. Every effort you give has strung and pricked me, and we already know what happens when she gets involved,” he motioned a hoof towards Rainbow Dash’s image, still held down and immobile nearby, grimacing as she felt what Dash was feeling elsewhere. “I’m sure the gods weren’t expecting your connection with her to be so lethal to my grip either. It’s all happening beyond what they imagined.” Sombra sighed. “I did not mean to release you from your bindings when I entered my castle, but by then it felt pointless to hold you down. Perhaps that was a blunder on my part, but I also hoped it would present a chance to let you see things for yourself and shift your perspective.”

Sombra paused, releasing a long hiss of breath from his nostrils.

“But now it’s clear to me that you won’t be swayed. You’ve seen through my attempts to assert my dominance and you’ve held strong to what you believe in, regardless of the situation you’ve been thrown into…” Sombra chuckled. “We may not see eye to eye, but perhaps we’re not so different after all.”

Soarin listened carefully, ears turned forward and eyes locked on Sombra. He held himself firm, taking in everything that was said and making sure not to let his guard down.

“You have a world you will fight and die for.” Sombra nodded. “And I have a world I would fight and die for.” Sombra turned and looked out towards the field again. “The way I see it… there is only one way for us to settle this. And… if I’m right about you, I believe you will find it agreeable.”

“Oh?” Soarin perked up, but kept his firm stare. “Do tell.” He said sharply as he turned to look out as well.

“Combat.”

Soarin blinked, and one of his eyes twitching.

“Wait, what?” he asked as he quickly glanced at Sombra.

“Combat,” Sombra repeated as he glanced at Soarin as well. “Stallion to stallion. Yelling back and forth will not solve this. A fair contest is the only way for us to come to a decision. A wager on our abilities, with both our worlds watching.”

Soarin stared at Sombra, his expression becoming more humorously skeptical by the second.

“Uh…” Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“What?”

“How in the hell are we going to do that?” Soarin asked. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but we’re not exactly solid here.” He motioned to himself, the subtly opaque form of his spirit. “Not to mention you’re been a literal shape with no features since we started.” He pointed out, reaching a hoof out and watching it pass right through where the outline of Sombra’s silhouette began.

“Leave that to me, I can set this up for us with my magic,” Sombra explained casually. Soarin let his jaw hang open slightly, but said nothing for several moments.

“You can do what now?” Soarin finally managed to say.

“I can create a mental simulation for us that will use our souls to create perceived physical manifestations, allowing us to battle as if we’re meeting across time.” Sombra explained further.

Soarin just kept staring, his expression flattening further the more he tried to process what Sombra was suggesting.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sombra asked, clearly not expecting Soarin’s reaction.

“Okay, look…” Soarin reached an arm out in front of him. “I’ve seen plenty of weird-ass unexplainable magic up to this point, but… this is the most ridiculous by far. You are suggesting… you can create… an imaginary fight?”

“A mental simulation,” Sombra clarified. Soarin threw an arm out.

“How’s that any different? That doesn’t make it sound any less… impossible. How is this not just another attempt to get me on board with something?” Soarin pressed. Sombra snorted.

“I wasn’t just a king, I was a warrior,” Sombra grumbled. “During war, my place was in battle with my knights, not cowering in my chambers. I could not afford to be lazy during times of peace and lose my battle senses.” Sombra pointed to his head. “I worked with my court wizards to devise a unique spell. One that would allow me to create near perfect mental battle simulations… And to ensure it had the intended effect, I purposely drew energy from my own soul, my own life force, to create my image within it… doing so allowed me to feel everything happening to me, my body feeling every injury or wound I sustained, so that I would keep my senses sharp and be ready at all times for battle. It is a dangerous spell that can cause extreme mental agony if one’s image were to die within the vision. Naturally, all my court wizards protested, but if you were alive in Equestria a thousand years ago… the risk was worth taking to ensure I never lost my edge.” He nodded. “The capabilities and possibilities of magic are endless as long as you can figure out exactly what is needed to meet your ends… wouldn’t you agree, Celes?” he glanced at Celestia, who was just staring, but showed no signs of confusion like Soarin did. “See? She knows.” He motioned towards Celestia. “You’ve been listening to my story, it was those endless horizons that once led me to my quest for immortality. Something like this is small in comparison.”

But Soarin was still staring blankly at him.

Sombra growled and turned away.

“Oh for goodness sake, I’ll just show you,” he grumbled to himself as Soarin just kept staring.

Sombra stepped back and focused on Soarin, his silhouette gaining a dim glow around its edges. Soarin perked up, snapping out of it as the glow grew brighter and the gentle light surrounding Sombra began to reach towards him. Soarin took a step back, hesitant to let the glow touch him.

“Hold still,” Sombra ordered. “Do you want to see, or not?”

Soarin halted, furrowing his brow as he held his ground and allowed the light to touch him. It surrounded him entirely, but he felt nothing. No sting, prick, or pain. He relaxed as the light began shifting up and down his body, as if it were scanning him.

“What are you doing?” Soarin finally asked as he watched the light move about his body.

“Be at ease, my magic needs a moment to get a full read of you for this to work properly, unless you want me to put you in the simulation with a few limbs missing,” he kept talking casually as if nothing about it was odd. Soarin opened his mouth to speak, but he felt like more questions would lead to more confusion.

So he let Sombra continue without a word, patiently waiting to see what would actually happen.

Eventually, the light finally receded and Sombra remained quiet for a few seconds.

“Yes… I see,” he said to himself while nodding. “This should be interesting indeed…”

Soarin watched Sombra carefully as he turned away, glancing at Celestia as Sombra looked down, appearing to be contemplating something. His magic was still swirling around his silhouette and he nodded over and over.

“Perfect. With this, I can project a perfect replica of you in peak condition,” he went on, appearing to ramble without addressing Soarin directly. Soarin blinked and furrowed his brow, clearing his throat. Sombra glanced at him and snorted. “Impatient, are we?”

“Just wondering when you’re going to get to the point,” Soarin huffed.

“Alright, here.”

Soarin flinched as the light surrounding Sombra suddenly rushed outward, immediately surrounding Soarin and wrapping around every part of him.

“What the—” Soarin shut his eyes as the light flashed brightly.

But he didn’t feel anything… at least at first. Something felt different, but he wasn’t sure what. As he slowly opened his eyes and looked around, he immediately wondered what had changed because everything around him looked exactly the same. Then he soon noticed that any and all discomfort he had been feeling over the course of the scenario had vanished… in fact he felt normal and… solid? He looked down at himself and blinked several times, reaching up and touching a hoof to his chest, the fur bristling against it. He then looked himself all over. Every inch of his body had lost its faint glow, and the faintly translucent appearance of his body had vanished completely.

It was as if he himself was standing right there inside his mind, taking on a perfectly solid form. But was such a thing possible?

“What… did you do?” Soarin asked as he looked up and felt his forehead. The horn wasn’t on him in spirit form either, but it had been ages since he felt the spot above his eyes in such a state.

“Did you not hear me before?” Sombra tipped his head and sighed. “I have created a perfect mental simulation of you in prime condition. My magic has enveloped you and replicated you based on what it read from your soul.”

“That’s…” Soarin looked down at his hooves. “That can’t be possible, you can’t just do that!” Soarin refused to believe it.

“No, you are correct,” Sombra agreed, causing Soarin to look up. “A thousand years ago, when I used my magic to create these mental simulations, there were two things I had to do that were more difficult than the battle itself. I had to concentrate inward, and effectively remove my perception of the world around me to look deep within my mind. I also had to create my adversaries from scratch, remembering battles of the past and generating my best impression of them from memory alone.”

Sombra motioned an arm around.

“Here, those things have been taken care of for me. We are already within your mind and all sharing it… and your soul is directly in front of me to use as a base, much like how I created the image of myself using my own soul. In that state, you will be able to feel everything as if you are really here within your head. Every impact of attack, every pain of taking a blow, it will all feel real. Your soul will feel the pressure. And…” he glanced back at Celestia. “Because we all share your mind in here, we are seeing exactly what you’re seeing.”

“This is incredibly messed up,” Soarin voiced his thoughts as his eye twitched.

“Enough already. You’ve made it clear you don’t understand it… but we will solve this dispute,” Sombra grumbled as Soarin kept questioning it. “Our words have failed, all that’s left is competition… combat. And you need to believe me when I say… that this will allow us to do so.”

“So what…?” Soarin threw his arms out. “Am I going to be punching your shadow now?!” Soarin belted, sounding a little frantic as he struggled to comprehend what was happening.

“Of course not,” Sombra calmly assured him. “Because… now it’s my turn.”

Soarin blinked and Celestia perked up as Sombra’s silhouette began to glow again, this time… the light never leaving his frame. He tilted his head up as the magic scanned him up and down, the same slow process that had happened to Soarin.

Soarin couldn’t take his eyes off Sombra. He watched intently, his focused shifting completely away from himself as Sombra went through the motions.

If the magic had turned him into a solid, believable copy of himself… did that mean that Sombra…

“Hmmm… yes…” Sombra nodded as his magic faded. “The fire still burns… I will never forget it.”

Soarin and Celestia shielded their eyes as the magic shone brightly around him, just as it had around Soarin. The bright light lasted several seconds before the intensity slowly lessened.

“It’s time to cast aside everything…” Sombra spoke from within the light.

Soarin peeked out from over his arm and saw the faint shape of a body within the light.

“It’s time to finally shed our incomplete forms we’ve been forced to wear…”

Soarin lowered his arm and stared with wide eyes.

“It’s time for us to look each other in the eye…”

Soarin’s jaw hung slightly agape.

Celestia gasped quietly off to the side as Soarin’s eyes locked on the sight before him. Was this… Sombra standing before him? The actual Sombra? Though it was to be expected, this Sombra did not even remotely fit the common perception of the Mad King all had come to know from tales and history books. But regardless, he was an impressive sight.

A tall, very large and incredibly muscular dark grey unicorn covered in battle scars all over. His stone cold stare was complimented by a majestic, long flowing black mane that hung over his shoulders. His red eyes were oddly shaped, his pupils and irises appearing angular instead of round, a unique trait Soarin had never once seen before… though there was plenty about what he saw that was uncommon. Soarin had never seen a unicorn so large or built before. Unicorns were typically thinner and sleeker, even compared to common pegasi. But here it felt like he was looking at a genetically superior earth pony that just happened to have a horn. A normal horn at that, there was no curved red crystal jutting from his skull, though Soarin had hear prior that the curved red horn was a product of possession…

“Soarin,” Sombra spoke, breaking the silence. “I challenge you to a duel. We fight until one of us yields to the other. Winner takes all.”

Twister and Ruin were moving the chess pieces slowly and carefully, clearly playing a full and serious game. The way they stared at one another in between moves suggested they were watching for any slight of hoof or cheating, but neither attempted such a thing. It was a normal, legitimate game. A piece being taken here or there and set aside.

“I’m surprised you haven’t tried anything yet,” Twister suddenly spoke up as he moved a knight. Ruin locked his eyes on Twister’s hoof until it lifted from the knight and returned to the table.

“I could say the same to you,” Ruin said as he pushed a pawn forward two spaces.

“I’d say… you’re fine with it just like this,” Twister chuckled as he moved a bishop.

“And I’D say… You’re just waiting for me to try something,” Ruin snorted while pausing to shoot Twister a firm look.

“Oh?” Twister lifted an eyebrow and grinned. “What makes you say that?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, you already know.” Ruin glanced down at his pieces, examining them. “You wait for me to try something… then you hit me back twice as hard.” He moved one of his rooks halfway across the board and glanced about the other pieces momentarily before looking back up at Twister.

“You say that as if I need tricks to do such a thing,” Twister sneered, grabbing his queen and moving it diagonally through a crowded diagonal path across the board to take the rook. Ruin flinched in surprise, his king directly in the white queen’s path after the move. “Check.”

“Rgh…” Ruin grunted, scrunching his face as he scanned the board. “Good move.” He started reaching for a piece.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” asked Twister. Ruin paused as he touched a bishop.

“What is?” Ruin moved the bishop to block the Queen with a knight in range to protect it. Without hesitation, Twister reached out to move the Queen all the way back to safety.

“How this game…” Twister motioned to the board. “Is simply a metaphor.”

Ruin glanced at Twister. Twister was looking him right in the eye. They stared at one another for several moments, the game grinding to a halt for nearly half a minute.

“I don’t follow,” Ruin finally said as he pushed a pawn forward.

“Oh, you do.” Twister leaned forward a little as Ruin kept his eyes down on the board, scrunching his face as if ignoring Twister. “And it’s funny you think I wouldn’t understand.” Twister went on as he moved a bishop to take the pawn.

Without a word, Ruin quickly used his own bishop to take Twister’s, setting it aside and keeping his eyes on the board.

“Especially right now,” Twister leaned back. “You’re strangely silent about how I’m acting.”

Ruin finally looked up, holding a firm gaze towards Twister, his posture stiff in contrast to Twister relaxing.

“Maybe I’ve suspected this from the start,” Ruin rested his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hooves. “Something was always off about you. Your aimless randomness is not an acceptable explanation for your ability to soundly defeat me time and time again. Even the silliest ponies have limits and rules. Somehow you don’t. I was beginning to wonder if I was missing something.”

“A hidden method to my madness?” Twister tipped his head and bounced his eyebrows.

“Perhaps…” Ruin trailed off as he moved his king one space.

“Or maybe…” Twister started tipping his head in the other direction very slowly. “Maybe I’m just that craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy…” he slurred until his head was tipped all the way to the other side.

“Either way… you knew,” Ruin said while looking down at the chess board.

“Oh, this?” Twister’s head zipped upright as he reached out and moved a pawn.

“You knew I wouldn’t say no,” Ruin locked eyes with Twister. “The moment the chess board came out, my suspicions were confirmed. There’s far more to you than meets the eye. There’s only one pony who knows this about me… and you can’t be him because unlike you, I can sense his presence… and he’s sneaking around nearby.” Ruin huffed while rolling his eyes subtly. “Which means… you are something different entirely. So this proposed ‘secret’ you claim to tell me if I win…”

“Assuming that’s what I intend to tell,” Twister cut him off. Ruin’s eyes hardened into a glare, but Twister just leaned back and started laughing, smacking the table once as he grabbed his stomach to contain chuckles. Ruin flattened his brow and snorted, looking back down at the board.

“Now… Metaphor…” Ruin exhaled. “Fine, I can’t say I disagree.” He reached for his rook, but paused and pulled back. “But up until now, I wasn’t aware I had an opponent.” He slowly looked up, locking eyes with Twister. “Unaware… that there was another kibitzer, somepony else playing the same game I am.” His eyes hardened into a strong stare. “Somepony else… sneaking around and doing as they please. It’s you… isn’t it?”

“Who, me?” Twister placed a hoof on his chest and made an exaggerated cute face.

“Yes, you.” Ruin flattened his brow. “I’ve been having a blast, poking at the morons around me and pushing them in directions for my own amusement. They’ve been clashing and fighting, waging battle after battle against one another. It’s been a war of attrition, neither side giving way. In some cases the reason behind it all has vanished. Many of them no longer understand why they’re even fighting in the first place… or they have forgotten and are desperate to find it again.”

Ruin leaned back in his chair, resting his hooves together in front of his mouth.

“The situation is rife with fractured emotions. To me it’s been like an all-you-can-eat buffet. The Shadowbolts are a mess with no direction, crippled with an addiction fed to them by something they can’t even see. The greater majority of the Wonderbolts are unfamiliar with such a long, intense conflict… breaking down from within as their precious family atmosphere is put in harm’s way, working against them as every loss hurts far more than just a simple casualty ever would. I have had free reign to stick my nose in between it all, manipulating, nudging and prodding everywhere… watching with glee as my actions shape the outcomes… at times taking it further and steering the path of a situation in my preferred direction for a desired outcome. Effectively… playing god.”

Ruin released a long rush of air from his nostrils as he narrowed his eyes towards Twister, the chess game effectively paused as Ruin spoke and Twister listened with a sneer ever plastered to his face.

“But something kept happening… to my confusion… and amusement,” Ruin tapped his hooves together lightly. “The Wonderbolts… Despite what they’ve been put through and the fractured state of their spirits, they have yet to break. The Shadowbolts outclass them in every way, strength, speed, killer instinct, everything. They even have artificial magic at their disposal to give them a further edge. They are slaves to that power. They have their sights set on the Wonderbolts and they are fighting for the sole purpose of retaining that power, getting more of it for the sake of their survival. They are desperate, and mentally weak, shackled to a purpose without form. I twist them, shame them, charm them, and exploit them… I cut deep into them and turn them loose, send them screaming towards the Wonderbolts expecting a grand show of chaos and violence… and I’ve been doing so under the assumption that it would be quick and satisfying, eventually forcing me to find something else to direct their ire towards once the Wonderbolts were ground into a thin paste. But the Wonderbolts keep surviving…” Ruin paused and suddenly scowled.

“There is… one stallion among them who I’d expect such resilience from. But all of them?” His scowl twitched, slowly turning into a smile. “They keep pushing back, they keep holding their ground, they even destroyed three top ranking Shadowbolts despite their huge disadvantage… they just keep winning, the show keeps going!” He sneered, shivering subtly. “And it’s been magnificent! I couldn’t figure it out, but I didn’t care. It’s like a gift that keeps on giving… my fun has been endless! If it were anypony else, the Shadowbolts would have run them over by now.” Ruin paused, his smile slowly vanished into a serious, narrow eyed stare. “But eventually… I began to wonder if they were really that tough… or if they had some help. Tell me…” he tipped his head slightly, lifting an eyebrow as he looked Twister hard in the eye. “Do I have you to thank for that?”

Twister’s face scrunched slightly as if he was trying to hold in a laugh. His lips parted to reveal a large grin that he simply couldn’t contain.

“Heh… hee hee!” Twister looked away as Ruin kept staring. “Well… I don’t think I’m the best pony to ask that,” he said in between stifled chuckles. Ruin snorted.

“And who else could I possibly ask when you’re clearly sitting right in front of me?” Ruin pressed. Twister looked back towards Ruin, holding a rather creepy grin.

“How about we ask the game?” Twister motioned to the board.

Ruin blinked, his eyes widening as he quickly looked down at the chess board.

The pieces had changed. None of them had been repositioned, but…

Ruin’s pieces had become figurines of the Shadowbolts.

Twister’s pieces had become figurines of the Wonderbolts.

Ruin’s lips parted as his eyes darted about, examining the pieces carefully. The major pieces looked like Shadowbolt commanders. The queen was a figure of him. The king... was just a formless dark mass. He scanned over the rest of the pieces, his eyes locking on a small figure Nightshade… who was among the pawns, the rest of whom looked like nondescript Shadowbolts.

On Twister’s side, certain Wonderbolts from Squad One through Three were the major pieces. Dash was the queen and Soarin was the king. Three of the pieces Twister had taken resembled Trance, Witch, and Devil.

Ruin looked up to see Twister giving him a sly, mischievous smile.

“Well…?” Twister flipped a hoof towards him. “It’s your move.”

Ruin stayed still for several moments, glancing between Twister and the new pieces, his eyes narrowing as he became lost in his own thoughts. But eventually he reached out, hovering a hoof over his pieces as he took note of who was where. His eyes locked on the Nightshade pawn as he noticed it was one diagonal space away from Twister’s knight… that resembled Silver Lining.

Ruin looked up and gave Twister a hard look, but Twister was still just smiling, tipping his head. Ruin couldn’t tell if the move in front of him was intentionally set up… or if Twister was daring him to do it. But he took the bait anyway, grabbing the Nightshade pawn and taking the Silver Lining piece, moving it off to the side.

“Hm… I see.” Twister said with a chuckle as he watched Ruin set Silver aside. But he didn’t reach for the board, he just sat back in his chair.

“It’s your move,” Ruin reminded him.

“Is it mine?” Twister asked while lifting his brow. “Or is it theirs?”

Ruin tipped his head curiously, but then blinked and looked down as he saw something move. His eyes widened as the Rainbow Dash queen moved on its own, taking one of his other pawns. Twister reached over and removed the pawn from the board.

“Your move,” he said slyly, grinning towards Ruin.

“What is the meaning of this?” Ruin growled towards him.

“Why are you asking me?” Twister chuckled as he glanced towards the real Dash. “That was her, not me.”

Ruin glanced towards Dash, still frozen in place and observing the game. Ruin snorted and looked back down at his pieces. He reached for his remaining rook, a figurine of Moon. But as his hoof got near, the piece edged and tipped away.

“Oh?” Twister snickered. “Would you look at that! That one doesn’t like you!” Twister cooed while resting a hoof on his cheek. “Better move one that’s less stubborn, eh?”

“Hrmph…” Ruin huffed as he reached for the bishop shaped like Void instead, moving him a few spaces. The moment he let go of it, the Spitfire rook moved by itself, putting itself in position to block Ruin’s Blade knight and Angel Bishop from a path for strategic position.

Ruin stared at the Spitfire piece, then back towards the Dash piece, then looked over all of Twister’s pieces again.

He decided not to question it and played along, moving his pieces every time it was his turn while Twister didn’t move a muscle. His pieces kept making their own moves without him lifting a hoof. Some of them made mistakes, at times exposing other pieces. Some of them made moves specifically to save other pieces, but rarely put themselves in a position to get taken without consequences to Ruin’s moves, making him hesitate.

But as the game went on, the number of pieces on the board began to dwindle… eventually coming down to a small hooffull of pieces on both sides with the kings and queens remaining, very few major pieces, and a small amount of pawns, including the Nightshade pawn.

“Interesting game, wouldn’t you say?” Twister final broke the silence, still reclined in his chair.

“What are you trying to pull here?” Ruin growled as he scowled across the table at him.

“You’re still trying to figure that out?” Twister chuckled and let his head hang back. “Why are you so focused on me? I’m quite literally doing nothing.”

Ruin opened his mouth to snap back, but froze, blinking a few times before looking down at the board again.

“You’ve got one thing right…” Twister continued, drawing Ruin’s attention back to him as he slowly leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “I am on the other side of the board, but…” he grinned very wide. “I’m not pulling any strings.”

Ruin’s eyes widened, but before he could say anything, Twister suddenly reached out.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there!” he placed a hoof on the Dash queen as it started to move directly into a dangerous position. He looked up and chuckled nervously as Ruin flattened his brow. “Okay, so MAYYYYYYBE I’m intervening here and there…” he turned the Dash piece in a different direction and let go of it, allowing it to move elsewhere on its own. “But otherwise… your assumption is wrong.”

Ruin suddenly stood up and slammed his hooves on the table, growling towards Twister.

“Come on! You say I’m pulling strings but it’s different with you?! Don’t give me that!” he snapped but Twister remained perfectly calm, staring up at Ruin.

“It’s different.”

“No. It’s. NOT! Don’t try to make it something it isn’t!” Ruin pressed.

“How many of your pieces have moved on their own?” Twister suddenly asked. Ruin blinked and looked down. “You’re underestimating the Wonderbolts. You’re assuming that the only way they could possibly survive in your game is by having somepony else just like you directing them from behind. But they aren’t alive because I’m moving my side against yours… They’re doing it all themselves.”

Ruin listened, but his eyes were still on the board. Then he realized… Even though Twister was letting his pieces do as they pleased, he was losing… his Shadowbolts he had left on the board were at a disadvantage.

“Do you want to know why I didn’t show up right away this time?” Twister suddenly asked. Ruin’s eyes darted up, his eyelids twitching as he gritted his teeth. “Because sooner or later… I believe they won’t need me to confront you.”

Ruin flinched, inching backwards as his eyes widened.

“You…” he growled as Twister grinned wider.

“Sooner or later…” Twister sat back in his chair again. “I can sit back and watch as they stand against you on their own legs and deny you your satisfaction.”

“Shut up…” Ruin’s glared, his body shaking lightly.

“It wouldn’t be the first time… would it? What did that ONE guy always used to say?”

Ruin’s lips parted, releasing a sharp gasp of air.

“Does it bother you?”

Ruin leaned forward, a hoof raised and his mouth open to shout, but he stopped himself, blinking as he calmed down and gave Twister a hard look.

“What?” Twister asked, chuckling as Ruin looked him over carefully.

“You’re ‘intervening here and there’ hm?” Ruin scoffed. “That’s the way you like to put it?” He sat down, moved a pawn, and crossed his arms. “Here and there… right…”

“Your sarcasm only makes me stronger,” Twister joked while bouncing his eyebrows.

“I can’t possibly say it without sarcasm,” Ruin snorted. “Because… All the times things have been steered without my direction… Which I’m assuming was you…” Ruin glared at him while trailing off without finishing the thought. Twister shrugged.

“I only make moves when I have to,” Twister placed a hoof on his chin, made a cute face, and batted his eyelashes at Ruin. “I don’t waste my time messing around. You said you like to play god? Well, you’re doing it wrong. Endlessly tugging on strings for your own amusement will just saturate the field. And while you’re so busy doing that…” He tipped a hoof out to the side. “You’ll miss your chance to make a big move… something that can completely change the course of events in a meaningful way.”

There was a long pause, Ruin’s ears turned towards Twister as the two stared at one another for several moments. Ruin glanced down at his pieces. The Nightshade pawn was two spaces left and two spaces down from the Soarin king.

He locked his eyes on the Soarin piece.

“Change the course of events… in a meaningful way…” Ruin said as he glanced up at Twister. “So..."

They both went silent for several moments.

Ruin shifted his eyes to the Soarin piece.

He glanced up and down from Twister, to Soarin, to Twister, and back to Soarin.

After staring for a few moments... Ruin pointed at the Soarin piece.

“I suppose... That’s why you pushed him in the back?”

Dash’s pupils shrank and her ears stood up, a sharp gasp escaping her throat.

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooopsie!

Ruin slowly shifted his eyes back to Twister.

“Well…?” he pressed, as Twister looked up into the air and whistled.

“Come now… me?” he said in a very deceptively innocent tone. He looked down at the board, leaned forward, and slowly nudged the Soarin piece one space to the left. Ruin blinked and noticed the positions of his pieces. “Now why would I ever do something like that?”

Ruin quickly reached down and moved his Angel bishop, staring at Twister, but Twister sat back, allowing on of his pawns to move on its own. Ruin’s eyes lit up, he grabbed the Nightshade Pawn and moved it forward one space, placing it diagonally from Soarin.

Ruin slowly looked up at Twister.

“Checkmate. I win.”

“WHEW!” Twister exhaled, bopped a hoof against his forehead and spun his eyes once. “Good gracious! Ya got me! Ha ha!”

“Now SPILL IT!” Ruin stood up and rapped a hoof against the table. “WHO OR WHAT ARE YOU?!”

CLICK

The light shut off, plunging everything into darkness.

“HEY!” Ruin yelled. “I DON’T THINK SO! WE MADE A DEAL!”

CLICK

“AH! Arrrghhhh!” Dash groaned as all the pain suddenly returned, her splitting headache coming back out of nowhere as well.

“Huh? What just happened?” Little Star said as she and Matteo looked around. All the board games were gone, so was the table and Twister’s little set up. “What happened to all that stuff?” she asked in confusion as Matteo reached down to support Dash, looking around himself as he tried to deduce what had happened. Squall was still in a heap on the ground with Star tucked under one of his arms.

Ruin was frantically looking around for Twister, glancing towards Dash and her squad as well.

“WOOOOOOOOO!” Twister suddenly whooped while popping up right beside Ruin.

“GAH!” Ruin jumped straight up into the air and stumbled while turning to look at Twister.

“YA SURE GOT ME! YESSIREE!” Twister yelled in a silly voice as he walked by, upright on his back hooves while holding a folding lawn chair over his shoulder.

Ruin watched as he passed, narrowing his eyes and growling as Twister sauntered, swinging his hips and humming to himself.

“Alright, you nincompoop!” Ruin trotted over and got in twister’s way. “SPILL! IT!”

Twister turned his back to Ruin and tipped all the way back to look at him upside down.

“But then I’d have to refill it!” he said in a whiny voice while pouting.

“CUT THE CRAP!” Ruin grabbed him by the upside down neck and shook him. “You just showed me the real you! We made a wager and you lost! NOW TELL ME!”

“Dunno what you’re talking about broskie, I’m always like this!” Twister grinned wide and turned himself upright. Ruin yelped as the motion turned him upside down and he fell to the ground on his back. “You get hit on the head or something? By maybe, say… a pan?” Twister snickered. “You might want to get that checked!”

Ruin stood right up abruptly and pressed his face into Twister’s, audibly seething as hisses of breath escaped his nose.

“But… hmmm…” Twister tapped his chine casually despite his nose being pressed to Ruin’s. “Actually I do recall saying something about telling you a secret…” he rubbed his chin, then rubbed Ruin’s chin, causing Ruin to pull back slightly. “I forgot, which game did you beat me at again? Was it scrabble? Those damn X’s always screw me over…”

Ruin flattened his brow as Twister continued to think to himself.

“Ah well!” Twister shrugged. “A deal’s a deal, I guess. So I’ll tell ya!”

Ruin’s eyes widened and his ears turned forward.

“The secret is…………………” Twister paused while slowly inching closer to Ruin. “We just had some time to kill!”

Twister turned and kept walking upright with his chair as Ruin’s face went completely blank.

“……………………………WHAT?” Ruin finally found his voice as his eyes followed Twister.

“It would have been boring if we just sat there and didn’t do something fun!” Twister giggled as he twirled the folded chair in his hoof, and gave it one hard shake, causing it to completely unfold before putting it on the ground.

Ruin looked like his head was about to explode as he stomped towards Twister and clenched a hoof.

“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME—”

“SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Twister suddenly jammed a hoof over Ruin’s mouth and shushed him. “Quiet down!” he snickered with a sneer. “Pull up a chair!” he offered as he sat down in his and pulled out a box of popcorn. “The real show is about to start…” his eyes flickered, his serious expression and voice suddenly returning. “Trust me… You DON’T want to miss this!” he said while motioning into the air, the mist suddenly parting above them to reveal the skyline of the Crystal Empire.

Ruin perked up, hearing the shift in tone again. He instantly pushed aside his anger and looked towards the Empire attentively.

But he immediately winced and cringed as Twister blew a vuvuzela directly into his ear for fifteen seconds straight.

“WOOOOOO!!!!!” Twister cheered, his silly voice back. “GO TEAM GO!!!!!”

Ruin shifted away from Twister, grumbling to himself as he returned his focus to the Empire.

Nearby, Dash’s squad had all turned to look as well, far beyond trying to understand what was happening at this point. The two ponies in control of the situation were now focused on the Empire, so they did too.

Dash was still groaning in Matteo’s arms, already missing the brief respite she had from her splitting headache while in Twister and Ruin’s chess match. She wanted the migraine to just go away already. It was impossible for her to focus and with so much happening around her, it was infuriating that she could barely focus on any of it. Aside from the chess match she only had bits and pieces of it all clearly in her head, and now on top of it something was about to happen and she was still trying to process that one little point she heard during the chess match.

She felt so helpless and she was sick of it, but then… she felt something. It felt like a tap on the shoulder and it wasn’t from Matteo. She forced her head to turn, opening her eyes to see Twister and Ruin clearly among the blurry visuals surrounding her.

Twister was looking right at her… and Ruin didn’t seem to notice.

“Get ready, Dash…” Twister’s voice sounded in her head without him moving his mouth. “It’ll be your move soon!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Well now... that just happened didn't it?

Looks like Soarin and Sombra are about to clash! Ahah... but im sure Soarin isn't done questioning exactly what Sombra has done just yet. Should Sombra convince him his ye olde Holodeck trick is legit, we've got quite a fight on our hands...or hooves... Should be interesting, no? Of course, there may be more to it than it appears... perhaps some extra motivation will be included. Sombra's magic seems o be capable of some interesting things, and if he's serious about having a duel at their best, a few other things may yet be in order.

But either way we have the ACTUAL final chapter of arc 3 coming next... but one has to wonder... Soarin and Sombra are about to cross, but what in the HELL did we just witness between Ruin and Twister? I wonder :pinkiecrazy:

So, anyway, in terms of the next chapter. This will be a finale chapter, just like chapter 27 and Chapter 70, i will allow myself to go past my usual word cut off if need be. I purposely ended this chapter right at this point because the oultine portion i have left is roughly the same size as the one for this chapter, I just anticipate it being a little longer due to what has to happen and how much space i believe it will take.

Now here's the kicker, i have lots of end of year days off work coming up, but those of you who have been following me for a while know that i tend to shut down during that time and not be productive at all. Work on the next chapter will begin shortly, but it will likely extend into the holidays due to it being an arc finale. But we shall see, I'm not going to hold any specific timetable.

For now, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

(Oh man, i actually breached 2 million words, its no longer a joke, it's real :twilightoops:)

Chapter 167: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 9: Our World)

MLP: FiM

Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 167: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 9: Our World)

“Now hold on just a minute…” Soarin held out an arm. “This smells. You’re telling me, that we’re going to fight based on ‘realistic depictions’ of each other… using your magic? Seriously?”

“That is correct.” Sombra stated, quite oblivious to Soarin’s concern. He glanced back and forth while sniffing the air. “What exactly are you smelling?”

“Are you kidding me?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “How can I expect this to be a ‘fair’ fight if it’s something you have generated yourself? I know what’s on the line here, and I know you’re desperate for it!”

“You would DARE accuse me of cowardly antics?” Sombra instantly blew up in a very defensive tone, snarling at Soarin. “As if I’d be so petty to commit such a dishonorable act in front of my loyal knights!” he scoffed and snorted angrily. “You would be wise to listen to my words and think about what this would mean during an age of honor and chivalry. A knight, no less a king, would never make a formal challenge with the intention to fix the match.” Sombra strongly defended himself, then shook his head. “You are a full manifestation of yourself in peak form, as you were before my magic and spirit were wrongly forced into you.” He touched a hoof to his chest. “And I am a manifestation of myself in my youth… my prime. I do not have the extra blessings of strength and ability of yours that were added to my own upon being freed… and I’m sure Celes remembers the vision standing before her. This was how I appeared when we first met.” he said while glancing back at her.

Soarin followed Sombra’s eyes, looking towards Celestia on the ground. She had a hoof placed over her mouth, a breathless look of emotion on her face. It was as if the sight of Sombra was stirring up memories and nearly bringing her to tears.

“No,” Sombra shook his head. “You are as you were, and I am as I was. Nothing more, nothing less. I cannot force you out of your body and you cannot force me out of your body. If we want to solve this, I want it to be on equal ground, as ourselves. As if the two of us are meeting face to face across time.”

Soarin listened carefully, and looked down at himself again. Something felt slightly off, but… the more he stood there in this supposed imaginary body, the more he began to realize that it wasn't off… it was just back to normal. He had been dealing with the magic trapped within his body for so long that he had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be without it. The slight energizing boost was gone, but so was the slight discomfort, two things he had become numb to over time.

But… he felt his skepticism was still very justified.

“What guarantee do I have?” Soarin asked while looking up at Sombra and narrowing his eyes. Sombra gritted his teeth and scowled, but Soarin didn’t budge. “I’m not about to agree just by your word alone. And don’t give me your chivatious, chivalarious, or whatever bullshit from ye olden days again, because that’s not enough.”

Sombra growled, but eventually calmed himself and released an exasperated grunt.

“Fine…” he snorted. “Strike me.”

“Pardon…?” Soarin blinked.

“If it’s confirmation you desire…” Sombra pointed to his face. “Then strike me.”

“Uh…” Soarin’s left eye twitched, not sure what to think.

“I’m waiting…” Sombra grumbled with a hint of sarcasm. Soarin furrowed his brow, picking up on his tone as if Sombra saw this as an annoyance. “Well? Get on with it before I change my mind!” he barked.

Soarin shook his head out and glared, setting his hooves firmly.

“FINE!” he yelled with a growl.

He crouched down and assumed the ready position to execute the Sonic Blastoff. He swiftly executed each movement perfectly and launched from the spot.

His eyes twitched as a sudden, unexpected jolt rushed through his body. It wasn’t anything that could throw him off, but the execution felt… difficult? He pushed the thought from his mind as he shot towards Sombra, pulling back a hoof and shouting as he lunged his body into a punch.

His hoof cracked Sombra square in the jaw with every ounce of strength he could muster, backed up by his momentum.

“RGH!!!!” Sombra grunted loudly as his head was whiplashed around. He was knocked right off his hooves, but remained upright, turning with the direction of his head and slamming his hooves down, skidding to a halt a few yards from where he started.

“GAH!” Soarin twitched as shocks of pain traveled from his hoof, all the way through his arm and to his body. He hit Sombra right in the face, but it felt like he had punched a thick sheet of metal. He sucked it up, leaping back and resetting himself as he focused on Sombra.

“Krgk…” Sombra choked quietly, his body twitching as he shook his head out and slowly stood upright to face Soarin again. Soarin looked Sombra over carefully, his eyes landing on his mouth as a small trickle of blood slipped from between his lips and ran down his chin. Sombra reached up and wiped the blood from his mouth, looking at his hoof briefly before pushing his jaw back and forth with a few subtle cracks. He finished by spitting out a wad of blood and glaring towards Soarin, just as he was before. “Well?” he asked. “Does that satisfy you?”

Soarin just stared at first, but his attention was suddenly drawn away by his own body. He felt… slight fatigue? Physical fatigue, as if he needed a moment to rest and catch his breath too. He placed a hoof on his chest and felt a fast heartbeat.

Yet this wasn’t real? It was a projection? If so, Sombra wasn’t kidding about his ability to make it feel as real as possible. And if Sombra really did base him on how he was before being injected with the magic… then this was accurate. The Sonic Blastoff was never a move he could use consecutively, it always put a lot of strain on his body.

This was definitely him… this was real. And Sombra was real as well, his punch definitely hit a face… a very solid face, but it was there. Soarin light shook his hoof off as he tipped his head.

“You’re serious about this, huh?” Soarin said as he found his voice, panting lightly as he caught his breath and stared towards Sombra. Sombra rubbed a hoof against his jaw one more time while scrunching his mouth before nodding.

“Indeed I am. This is the only way I can see us coming to a conclusion. We have played our hooves in words and ideals and neither of us will give an inch. When words fail, there are two ways to solve something. Conflict… or competition.” Sombra said as he stepped closer to Soarin. “And the way I see it…” he stopped ten paces away. “Conflict won’t solve anything either. Both of our spirits are strong and are firmly dug in. We’re playing tug-of-war with solid walls propping us up from behind.”

They held eyes on one another for a few moments as Soarin caught his breath and stood upright. Sombra gave him a reassuring nod while looking him up and down.

“You strike me as a stallion of sport, one who relishes overcoming obstacles and challenging your limits. So I’m presenting you a formal challenge, a competitive duel. We fight using only our natural abilities, with no extra powers or enhancements attached.”

Soarin listened carefully before looking down at his hooves.

“Stallion to stallion… equal ground…” Soarin spoke aloud.

“Indeed,” Sombra nodded. “There shall be no tricks, for I have no reason to use them,” Sombra spoke naturally, but Soarin blinked and perked up, lifting an eyebrow as he looked into Sombra’s confident eyes. “I will not lose.”

Soarin’s eyebrow twitched as he shot Sombra a miffed glare. But he ignored it for a moment, looking down at his hooves again.

“You know…” he began with a chuckle. “This is outrageous but… By now I’d believe anything is possible.” He lifted one hoof and shook it out. “And your thick head proved you weren’t lying. Fine… let’s do this.”

“Not yet,” Sombra turned, leaving Soarin staring blankly. “There is one last touch required…”

Outside, Sombra turned Soarin’s body towards the center of the Crystal Palace, facing the direction of the throne room and looking up towards the high spires that reached into the sky above. After staring for a moment, he tilted his head to point the tip of the curved horn towards the structure.

Magic slowly began collecting from around his entire body, making its way towards the horn. It gathered softly into a glowing ball of soft blue light. The light grew larger and brighter as the flow continued, growing until it was as large as him and still expanding further. But it was not intense, nor was it unstable, it was very controlled and very soft despite the enormous amount of power being poured into it.

Then, with a simple flip of his head, the magic shot forth into a large beam that careened towards the palace. The light struck the crystal surface of the structure, but there was no impact effect. The palace began to absorb the light, the crystal architecture softly glowing as the magic flowed into it, as if resonating with Sombra’s power.

All those nearby, including Soarin within watched with great curiosity as the light swirling about the center of the palace began flowing upward towards the spires. It eventually began gathering at the very tip of the highest spire… in a manner nearly identical to the way magic gathered on a unicorn’s horn.

The process indeed worked as it appeared, the magic eventually launching skyward as if fired from a horn. The enormous pillar of light shot higher and higher, going right through the protective shield, and surging through the clouds. The glow that radiated forth from the beam illuminated the twilight, surrounding the empire in a gentle blue glow.

The magic eventually stopped rising and expanded, creating a large cloud of energy high above that could be seen from practically everywhere, both inside and outside the Empire.

Soarin glanced about as the dark blue tint of his inner surroundings began to shine brightly, forcing him to shield his eyes. It wasn’t an overwhelming light, but it was bright enough to obscure his view of anything happening around him. It was short lived, quickly dimming down to reveal a much lighter sky-blue tint to his surroundings. Soarin blinked as he looked all around him to see if anything else had changed. At first glance it appeared nothing had, but the new tint of blue appeared to be… opaque? Opaque and borderline translucent. He could definitely see something beyond the blue, but he couldn’t make it out. The light was distorting, morphing, and moving constantly as if trying to come into focus.

Eventually the distortion began to fade. Soarin flinched at first as it appeared the very ground beneath him was fading, but he still stood upright, his hooves against what felt like a solid surface. But as soon as he calmed down he got a good look at what was being revealed, and the realization only shocked him further.

The Crystal Empire? No, not just that, it was everything! The palace, the expanse of the city, the entire battlefield, the mountains and forests… all of it. He could see the ponies clashing as well, but all the fighting and commotion abruptly stopped after the vision appeared.

Soarin couldn’t see them too well from so far up, and he appeared to be massive in comparison to them as well, but… could they see him? There was no other reason for the raging battle to come to such a sudden halt unless something drastic drew their attention.

“Everypony will watch us settle this,” Sombra spoke up, immediately confirming Soarin’s speculation. Soarin did not look up, but Sombra did not wait for him to ask for an explanation this time. “The Crystal Palace is a magnificent achievement of architecture, one that resonates well with magic forces given the proper manipulation and casting. I’ve turned it into a beacon that will project our battle high into the sky for all those here to see. For we are the titans who will clash to decide their fate.”

Soarin finally looked up from the sight below, his eyes meeting a stern gaze from Sombra.

“We both have worlds we wish to fight for,” Sombra continued. “This is what is driving us… propelling us forward and giving us strength.”

Soarin looked back down, drawn back to the sight with awe. If what Sombra said was true, then they were a massive image suspended over the empire. Every Wonderbolt, Renegade, Shadowbolt, Thestral, and crystal guard below were all frozen in shock, looking up into the sky.

“Both of our worlds are watching us. I wish for you to be at your best, so those you care for shall bear witness to your efforts. Likewise, those I care for are watching…” Sombra said while glancing towards the Empire, his small group of knights still gathered outside near Soarin’s body. “They may be few in number by comparison, but I owe them every ounce of effort I can give. I will fight to honor them, and to restore my own.”

Soarin heard every word, but his eyes were still locked down below.

He could see them.

Picking out the blue and yellow details from above.

Wonderbolts.

He couldn’t pick out who each one was specifically, but they were down there. Which meant Spitfire was down there. It meant Fleetfoot was down there. Blaze, High Winds, Fire Streak, Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, Surprise, Air Mach… all of them. And… he hoped Dash was down there too.

If they could all see him, and the rest of the Wonderbolts could see him…

“All else has been cast aside.” Sombra kept on, drawing Soarin’s attention back to him. “Now… it will simply come down to who is the better stallion. You as a pegasus… against me as a unicorn. No tricks, no catch, and no strings attached. Just combat. We are perfectly replicated to be within our natural limits and our own given skills and abilities… so whoever yields, concedes defeat, or is knocked out first… will forfeit all control, allowing the other to possess your body.”

Soarin just stared, all of Sombra’s words were strong. He could not sense a hint of mal intent in his voice, and after getting to feel it for himself…

Soarin glanced towards Celestia briefly to see her vigorously shaking her head ‘no.’ But Sombra quickly noticed as well and shifted over to stand between the two of them while shooting her a glare.

“What say YOU?” Sombra pointed. “This is YOUR choice to make!”

“Don’t… please… he’s…” Celestia’s voice feebly wailed quietly from behind Sombra, but Sombra released a low pitch nicker from his throat to drown her out.

But the effort was needless… because Soarin was already thinking it over on his own. He didn’t want, nor did he need Celestia to tell him what to do.

He had come to a conclusion himself.

“Fine… I accept,” Soarin answered with a firm nod. Sombra cracked a brief grin as Celestia gasped behind him. He stepped away from her, revealing her once more to Soarin. Her eyes were open wide, but she looked crushed and helpless beneath her bindings, as if she had nothing left, not even her word to sway Soarin in any way.

But Soarin didn’t look at her, he kept his eyes on Sombra as he stepped out and around to prepare himself.

“So…” Soarin spoke up while watching Sombra carefully. “That means if I win…” he pointed at Sombra. “You’ll give my body back?”

“You won’t win,” Sombra casually shot back, catching Soarin off-guard for a moment. He scrunched his face and was ready to retort, but Sombra shook his head and body out, stretching out his legs and cracking his neck. “And if you believe you will…” His magic came to life, conjuring his sword and pointing it towards Soarin. “Then you truly don’t understand who you face, Sombra the Great, Warrior King of the Crystal Empire, Slayer of Black Dragons.”

Soarin lifted an eyebrow. He couldn’t stop his mouth from scrunching up, as if the way Sombra put it sounded a bit… silly? His tone of voice mixed with all the big talk gave a feeling of sportsmanship. He really was trying to make this a competition. Soarin couldn’t help himself as he snickered to himself.

“Want to add ‘Rutter of the Sun Goddess’ while you’re at it there?” Soarin asked with a smirk as he relaxed his body. Sombra snorted, but couldn’t hide a smirk of his own.

“I suppose we could…” he agreed with a slight tip of his head.

“That’s a lot of big talk,” Soarin said with a nod. “But guess what pal? You don’t know me! Let’s see… I’m Soarin of the Wonderbolts, Lifter of Heavy Weights, Tripper of Wet Floor Signs, Rider of Rainbows, and Wearer of Ironically Named Ancient Artifacts. I’m not in the business of losing either, tough guy, so you better not underestimate me!”

“We’ll put that confidence to the test then!” Sombra conjured his shield as well and readied himself. Both still smiling at one another as they held themselves steady.

Neither of them moved for a moment.

Sombra’s grin eventually faded and he exhaled.

“I won’t lose,” he repeated, but this time in a more serious tone. “This battle will be for all those whom I have loved and cared for.”

Soarin held firm, but nodded.

“Likewise,” he agreed.

“I failed them once… and I will not fail them again,” Sombra added, returning Soarin’s nod. “May the best stallion win,” Sombra gave a single nod.

And without another word, they charged at one another, fire alight in their eyes and ready to prove their strength to the other.

Perhaps… this really was the best way.

“Oh my word…” Ruin’s eyes were stuck open wide as he stared at the sky in complete awe. His pupils slowly grew larger as he examined the massive projected image of Soarin and Sombra above.

“YEAH!” Twister cheered and whistled loudly, stuffing a massive hooffull of popcorn into his mouth. “Thank Celestia I paid for cable!” Twister’s voice was heavily muffled with his mouth full of popcorn. “This would have taken fifty years to download and stream!” He paused to swallow, a massive lump starveling down his neck as all the popcorn went down at once. “Hey! We should record this! I can put it on laser disks and sell it for 19.93 a pop!”

“How…?” Ruin said out loud, completely ignoring Twister. “How did they do that?” he looked completely enthralled, not paying attention to anything around him while overcome with curiosity. “It’s like they are in their true bodies…”

Ruin perked up and looked around. The misty area that had been hiding them was now completely gone, revealing all around them, but everything had come to a complete halt. All the cacophony and brawling had stopped. Everypony was looking up into the sky in shock and amazement. Some were still grappling, some were trading blows just moments ago, but every ounce of attention was drawn to the marvel in the sky.

Despite his thirst for disarray and chaos, Ruin did not seem to care that his wonderland of violence had vanished without a trace. He looked right into the sky, enthralled by the same sight that had caught everypony else.

“What kind of magic is this…?” he kept asking himself questions. He wasn’t expecting answers from anypony, his curiosity was just too strong to hold in.

Off to the side, Dash’s eyes were as wide as Ruin’s. Though her pupils were shaking and her eyelids twitching. Her head was still stuck in a scrambled tizzy that simply refused to fade. She could see the distorted images of her friends beside and around her, but they were all looking up while she continued her struggle.

But her heart was beating fast.

Without any outside influence or any sort of nudge or catalyst, she suddenly felt a sense of worry overtake her, as if her quickened heartbeat was a bad omen. A sense of dread washed over her and despite not knowing what was causing it, something within her was telling her what it meant.

“Soarin…” she spoke, her voice shaking.

Soarin was in trouble, Soarin needed her. That’s what the feeling was telling her.

She cringed as she tried to move, barely able to release audible grunts from her throat as she struggled to move herself. But her body just wouldn’t listen. Despite her worry for Soarin tugging at her heart, her body just didn’t have the strength or the balance to move.

Her friends took no notice despite being right beside her. Something had their attention. Dash didn’t know what, but it didn’t matter. There was something pushing at her from within, telling her that she had to do something and right now that was all she could focus on.

“HRAH!” Soarin yelled out as his hoof slammed against Sombra’s shield. Sombra tipped backwards slightly, but his hooves did not budge, his sword held back behind him as Soarin bounced off and jammed his hooves to the ground. Without hesitating, Soarin leapt forward again, throwing two more punches into Sombra’s shield, but the result was no different. He bounced to the side after landing before rushing once more at a different angle, but Sombra’s shield came right around, blocking another hit, Soarin twisted his body, trying to kick over the shield, but the shield thrust forward, slamming into his chest and knocking him back.

Soarin grunted as he landed on his side, but quickly bounced up, setting his hooves to continue.

It didn’t take long for him to notice… his body felt a little sluggish. But it was to be expected after his first attempt to use the Sonic Blastoff. He was no longer blessed with the boost of his magic. It was quite a shift back to reality and it put him in a slight bind. He was suddenly afraid to use the Sonic Blastoff again. The last thing he needed was to tire himself out, but at this point it appeared a careful approach wasn’t going to be effective.

But there was something else he noticed… Sombra was only defending. Soarin had been keeping tabs on Sombra’s sword, but aside from the first charge, Sombra had kept the sword held at the ready behind him.

Was Sombra gauging him? He had to be. There was no way his frontal assault didn’t afford Sombra any chances to throw attacks of his own. But he didn’t make any offensive moves and any punches that Soarin didn’t whiff ran smack into Sombra’s shield… and damn, it was solid.

Soarin bounced back, but tried to catch Sombra off-guard by launching forward again the moment his hooves hit the ground. Sombra had already lowered his shield, but shot it right back up in front, Soarin’s quick attack forcing him to hold it right in front of his face as Soarin body slammed it, putting an arm and shoulder into it. The sudden hit and Sombra’s imbalanced block forced him to pick up a back hoof and slam it down to avoid tipping. Soarin pumped his wings twice, powerful gusts bursting behind him, but he could not move him further, Sombra’s powerful muscles tensing as he held himself firmly in place.

Soarin glared at Sombra through the shield as his hooves touched the ground and he held himself against it, keeping the pressure against it. Sombra stared back calmly, nodding to Soarin.

“You’re good,” Sombra said as they kept their eyes locked with the shield in between. “Powerful and aggressive… and just as strong as you appear.”

“Gee, thanks.” Soarin grunted sarcastically as he kept pushing with little results. His eyes shifted to Sombra’s sword behind him, but it hadn’t budged. “GRGH!” Soarin grunted as Sombra forced his shield forward, pushing Soarin right off of it.

He stumbled backwards, but repeated the attack, kicking off his hooves again to strike instantly. Sombra brought up the shield again, but this time angled it to the left. The moment Soarin’s hoof struck the surface, Sombra forced the shield out to the side, parrying the blow instead of blocking it. Soarin yelped as his weight and momentum forced him to stumble past Sombra. Soarin glared at the ground, forcing his hooves down and turning the moment he had control of himself again.

But as soon as he was facing Sombra again, all he saw was the pommel of Sombra’s sword directly in front of him.

“GAH!” Soarin cried out as the pommel struck him right in the face between the eyes. He was knocked onto his back and rolled onto his side, forcing his eyes open despite the burning sensation in his face. His eyes widened as he saw Sombra’s sword already in full swing, looking to sweep down low and catch him before he could get up. Soarin popped up and leapt up over the sword as the swing flew underneath, nearly brushing the bottom of his hooves. He forced his wings back, propelling him directly at Sombra with a hoof pulled back, but Sombra took a hard step forward and head-butted Soarin, his horn brushing by the side of Soarin’s head as their skulls clashed, but Sombra clearly had a thicker head.

Soarin was knocked onto his back again, this time bouncing twice before rolling to a stop. He grabbed the spot on his face, this time unable to push the pain aside so quickly. Regardless, he tried to force himself up, stumbling and shaking his head out as he finally got up. But when he looked out, Sombra was simply standing at the ready with shield in front and sword resting over his shoulder.

“Lacking finesse, however,” Sombra added.

Soarin blinked, staring blankly for a moment before growling and setting his hooves again.

“There’s a fine line between a warrior and a brawler,” Sombra continued as he lifted the sword from his shoulder and held it out to the side.

“I don’t need instructions, thank you!” Soarin yelled as he rushed forward again. He lunged at Sombra with both hooves forward, but it was heavily telegraphed.

Sombra simply stepped aside as Soarin reached him, and delivered a hard chop to Soarin’s back with his sword.

Soarin exhaled loudly as he landed face first on the ground, skidding along on his stomach until turning sideways and rolling to a stop.

It hurt like hell, but as Soarin turned over, he blinked in realization. Sombra just hit him with his sword, but it felt like he was hit with a metal bar. There was no wound, the sword wasn’t sharp. The only thing sharp was the stinging sensation in his back that was definitely going to leave a bruise.

“Keep fighting like that and this will be over quickly,” Sombra said with a snort as he turned and faced Soarin.

Soarin sat still for a moment, scrunching his face and glaring as the lingering stinging from the hit didn’t seem to bother him as much as Sombra’s attitude.

“Come on!” Sombra yelled, bringing his sword around. “UP! You can do better than that!”

Soarin blinked as he forced himself up, his expression shifting to one of slight curiosity.

‘He could do better?’

Part of him was miffed at what Sombra said, but the other part took heed, preventing him from simply rushing forward again. He had to remind himself that Sombra was a stallion of a different era. What sounded like taunts to him could easily be well meant encouragement, especially with how eager Sombra was for this. This was far from being a simple duel for Soarin, but Sombra was looking for a fight and he expected Soarin to be capable of much more.

Soarin set himself and eyed Sombra carefully, his eyes darting all over Sombra’s body position, stance, and weapon placement. Sombra held the same stance he had every time. He stood with a slightly diagonal angle with his left shoulder in front, head turned towards Soarin. The shield was placed in front, the top an inch below chin height. The sword was elevated over Sombra’s right shoulder, the blade reaching past the top of the shield and held towards Soarin.

So far Soarin had been charging while favoring an angle on the opposite side of the sword, which seemed like the right approach. But he was getting nowhere fast.

It seemed like a bad idea, but the other way wasn’t working so Soarin went for it, breaking into a gallop while shifting approach on the same side as the sword.

Sombra’s eyes twitched slightly wider, scrunching his mouth up as he read Soarin’s movements. He dipped his head, pulling the sword over the top into a wide rotation around the opposite side for a momentous swing. Soarin quickly reacted, shifting a little further out to bait Sombra into a wider swing.

Sombra did not falter, shifting his stance to make sure his sword would reach far enough, but that’s what Soarin was betting on.

The moment Sombra shifted his body, Soarin ducked, spread his wings out and pumped them hard backwards. A large burst of wind propelled behind him, pushing him along the ground, skidding on his hooves underneath as Sombra’s sword whooshed by overhead.

In an instant, Sombra was suddenly at a disadvantage, the momentum of his swing carrying his sword out of the zone, his shield not properly placed, and Soarin shooting up from below directly in front of him with a hoof pulled back.

Soarin went right for a thundering uppercut, packing as much power into his arm and hoof as his body could muster and thrust upward.

“NGH!!!” Sombra grunted loudly as he slammed a hoof down and forced his neck backwards, barely shifting his head out of the way in time as Soarin’s hoof came so close that he could feel it brush against his cheek.

Soarin immediately flinched when he realized he had missed the mark, but had no time to dodge as Sombra’s shield came around and swiped down from above, slamming into Soarin’s shoulder and roughly forcing him to the ground. Soarin yelped as he bounced on his side, ending up on his back with Sombra standing over him. His eyes widened as he saw Sombra bring the sword around, whirling it into a mighty downward swing towards him.

Soarin guarded himself, tucking his head in, taking a deep breath and tensing his body as he shielded his face.

But… nothing hit him.

Soarin opened one eye, keeping it squinted as he only saw the fur on his own arm. He opened the other eye, slowly moving his arm to peek past it. He blinked and exhaled as he saw the blade of Sombra’s sword halted barely an inch or two from his face. His eyes shifted, looking along the length of the sword and up into Sombra’s eyes as he stared down from above.

“That’s more like it,” Sombra said with a satisfied grin as he pulled the sword back and rested it over his shoulder. He then reached out a hoof towards Soarin.

Soarin lifted an eyebrow as he relaxed his body and stared at Sombra’s hoof.

“Come on, now…” Sombra bounced his hoof up and down, keeping it in front of Soarin.

Without giving it any more thought, Soarin reached up and grabbed Sombra’s hoof. With a strong tug, Sombra helped Soarin get back on his hooves. As soon as he was upright, Sombra nodded and turned his back, casually pacing away from Soarin.

“You baited me to attack a certain way and took advantage of my momentum. I left the zone in front of me wide open and you moved in for the strike,” he said as he stopped and turned, letting his sword down from his shoulder, the blade thumping against the ground beside him. “You couldn’t have accomplished that without recognizing my guard patterns, and the flow of my sword swings. Very perceptive of you.”

“Why?” Soarin sharply asked, scrunching his face. Sombra tipped his head.

“Why what?” he asked. Soarin pointed at the ground and lifted one eyebrow. “Why didn’t I hit you?”

“And help me up?” Soarin added in a demanding tone. Sombra shook his head.

“This is a duel, not a death match,” Sombra answered calmly while lifting his sword and pointing it towards Soarin. “The deciding blow will be dealt with you on your hooves in the midst of battle. Striking you whilst you are defenseless on the ground would be unbecoming and without honor.”

Soarin just stared blankly at Sombra. He had been taking this completely seriously from the start, assuming it to be a life or death situation no matter how much Sombra dressed it up as a competition. But… apparently Sombra meant it.

“Do you still doubt me?” Sombra asked, still holding his sword out. Soarin looked down at himself, quickly thinking over all of it. His form, Sombra’s form, his doubts… Sombra was telling the truth and he was serious about them fighting stallion to stallion. Even if he didn’t see it that way, Sombra was treating it that way. It was… strangely reassuring. Sombra spoke confidently in his abilities, that he could not possibly lose to Soarin, but he was giving Soarin a chance either way.

“No, I guess not,” Soarin nodded, glaring towards Sombra as he set his hooves and readied himself to continue.

“Come!” Sombra yelled as he pulled his sword back. “We’ve only just begun!”

Soarin did not wait another moment. He charged once more and engaged Sombra again, the duel continuing on.

Dash gasped, her body churning as she kept trying to force it into motion. She simply could not make her body listen to her no matter what she did, but she kept trying regardless.

Something had changed, she could feel it.

There was an intense amount of pressure in the air, magical pressure that spewed forth from the Crystal Empire. It pressed down from above like an invisible weight on everypony present. But while the powerful forces felt like a burden to everypony else, to Dash it felt like a gentle, caressing touch.

She didn’t know what to make of it, but new sensations were filling her alongside the odd sense of dread that had already taken hold. Her heart was beating in an irregular pattern, as if reacting to exertion or strain that wasn’t even her own. As if… she was feeling the heartbeat of another who was giving their all.

The urge to move only grew stronger, but every attempt continued to be futile, caught between a rock and a hard place. She exhaled and gasped for air as another attempt failed, squeaking her eyes open and looking about. As before, she could see Ruin and Twister directly ahead, otherwise everything was still blurry. She could still make out her squad beside her, but any attempts to see further found nothing. Her vision was too wobbly to tell if ponies were moving or not, but one thing she was able to make out was that everypony she could see… was looking up.

“Rnnngggghhhhh…” Dash groaned, shifting her efforts from trying to stand to rolling over instead. She managed to push just hard enough to tip herself until she rolled to her right, her body stopping just short of being on her back thanks to the cushy fluff of Matteo right beside her.

But it was all she needed, she forced her eyes open to look into the sky.

And her jaw dropped.

Up in the sky…

Two ponies who were clear as day… just like Ruin and Twister were. And one of them was…

“S…Soarin…!” Dash forced the name out, but her voice was broken and extremely quiet. She forced a hoof out, reaching for the sight of Soarin as if he were right there, only to have her hoof swipe at nothing and fall back to the ground.

Her eyes remained open wide, watching as Soarin darted and moved… fighting another stallion. Was that Sombra? It looked similar to Sombra, but not quite the way she knew him. It had to be though, who else could it be?

It was at that moment that Dash felt her heart beating again, and this time… the way it quickened and relaxed was lining up perfectly with Soarin’s movements.

She was feeling Soarin’s heart… watching him fight Sombra in the sky with everyone else. She could not see the extent of the spectacle, she did not know that they were a massive image projected into the sky that was so awe inspiring and immense that the chaotic fighting among everypony had completely ceased.

She just saw Soarin. And she just saw him struggling. She didn’t care about anything else.

Then a movement caught her eyes, something she could see clearly nearby. Her eyes quickly shifted away to see Ruin moving. He was taking slow steps forward… moving in the direction of the Crystal Empire as the uneven steps slowly turned into an even stride. His eyes were fixed upward, a look of extreme fascination on his face as if some unseen force was pulling him along.

Twister’s lawn chair scooted along the ground behind him, but Dash didn’t even notice. Alarm bells were going off in her head as Ruin began moving towards the Empire. And in her heart she knew… that’s where Soarin was.

Soarin was fighting, but he didn’t appear to be winning in any sense of the word. He was throwing himself at Sombra again and again, but it always ended up the same way. Sombra remained unscathed as Soarin took the full brunt of his attacks. He was struggling… and the last thing he needed was Ruin to stick his nose into the situation.

She had to move, she had to! All of her efforts so far had failed, but that just meant she had to double her efforts! Ruin and Twister were already out of sight, they had a head start and the longer she stayed down, the less of a chance she had to… well… she didn’t know what the hell she was going to do, but anything was better than being stuck on the ground in a broken heap.

Then suddenly, she felt something… like a breeze or breath brush past her ears.

She ignored it, grinding her teeth and forcing her eyes open as she put all of her focus into pushing herself up.

The breeze whisked by her again, this time stronger.

Again, she paid no mind, but those around her noticed.

“What was that?” Matteo asked, blinking as he looked over his shoulder.

“What was wha—?” Little star was cut off as a very strong blast of wind suddenly rushed into them.

“ARGH!” Matteo grunted and shielded himself as both Squall and Star were instantly shifted by the gusts.

“Whoa, WHOA!” Star yelled out, Squall clutching her tightly. “AH! MATTY!” She yelped as both she and Squall were suddenly picked up and blown away. Matteo turned to look, but his vision was suddenly distorted by what appeared to be fog, but then snow began to fall, quickly picking up. He held his ground, looking down at Dash and noticing that she was not being affected at all by the wind, but before he could do anything else, the winds tripled in strength.

Matteo squawked loudly as he was lifted right off the ground and pelted by snow, the roaring winds tossing him about like a leaf.

And Dash was left alone.

The winds continued to blow and swirl, the snowfall spun and whisked about, but it seemed to be centered around her. The wind and snow was encircling her, as if caressing or hugging her gently.

She could feel it, but she couldn’t see what was happening. Her vision was bad enough, and now it was misty or foggy again, she couldn’t tell. Her eyes were stuck on the ground anyway, her nose pressed to the thinly snow covered dirt as she tried to find the strength in her limbs.

A little ball of white light floated down towards her, blending in well with the snowfall. The snow seemed to swirl around it much like it was around Dash.

It remained above her for a moment, waiting patiently as she continued her efforts, but a few moments later it shifted away slightly and grew larger, brighter. The snow and winds whipped around the light as it began to take a form, its shape expanding outward until it resembled a stallion. The stallion placed his hooves on the ground as the rest of it took shape, revealing wings, but stopping short of defining any facial features besides the mouth. There was a gentle shimmering sparkle around it, a warm glow constantly emanating from its body.

The figure watched as the blizzard swirled around them both, staying silent as Dash struggled and struggled with every ounce of her being. She had yet to look up at the glowing image.

“Rainbow Dash…” a ghostly, refined voice came from the image. “You have to get up. You can do it…” he spoke quiet words of encouragement.

Dash heard the voice, but gave no reaction.

“Soarin needs you,” the stallion went on. “You are his only hope.”

Dash shut her eyes tight, the strain on her body was nearly unbearable.

“At this moment…” the voice grew closer. “You are the only one who can turn the tide in his favor. Only you can end this. Soarin will undoubtedly hold on with all his might and fight with every last ounce of his strength, but it will not be enough to overcome this challenge. Without you, he will eventually fail.”

“Ah!” Dash’s limbs buckled, the slight amount of elevation she had gained in her efforts began to fall once again, her body inching back towards the ground.

“But… you know that don’t you? You know exactly what’s at stake.” The stallion’s voice was right beside her now. “Rule number six. When everything is on the line, there is no ‘I can’t…’ only ‘I will…’”

Dash tensed her body, halting her slow descent before her stomach could touch the ground again.

“There is no pain,” the stallion went on as he paced around her. “There are no injuries,” he stopped beside her. “Fight everything trying to hold you back!”

Dash started pushing herself up again, but got stuck in the same spot, barely a few inches off the ground, shaking her head as she groaned and grunted loudly.

“Refuse to break down! Let nothing tell you it can’t be done! Not even your own body!”

“RRRNGHH!!! “Dash grunted louder, her eyes squeaking open as she managed to push herself further, slowly rising once more.

“Don’t see failure as a possibility! See it as a choice!” the voice yelled as the stallion reached a hoof towards hers, ready to offer it as support. “A choice you should alwa—”

“SHUT UP!” Dash suddenly yelled, swinging her hoof out and swatting his away.

The stallion flinched, pulling his hoof back and leaning away.

“I CAN DO IT…” Dash slammed her hoof to the ground, tipping her head up, her eyes wide with determination. “MYSELF!!!!!” she yelled out, looking directly at the stallion spirit, but the haziness in her shaking pupils suggested she either was ignoring him, or not registering he was even there. Her actions were driven by instinct and determination.

The stallion did not try to reach for her again. Instead, he took a step back and watched.

“HRHRRRRAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!” Dash roared, pushing down with every ounce of might, searching for whatever strength she could find as she slowly rose up from the ground. She got stuck several times, pausing for several seconds, but she refused to go down again.

The stallion watched with fascination, a smile growing wider on his lips every time Dash managed to inch a little higher, defeating her limits to reach her goal.

With one final effort… Dash was up. She remained in place stiffly for a moment, her pupils shaking and her body wobbling. But she stared towards the Crystal Empire, grinding her teeth together as she slowly began forcing herself forward. One step, then another step, then another, and another, she had to brace the rest of her body to avoid falling with each stride, wobbling heavily as she compensated for her dislocated leg, but she was on the move. She was going to reach Soarin, everything else be damned.

“Heh…” the stallion chuckled to himself as he watched Dash move all on her own. “Quite the gem you’ve found here, Silver…”

He turned and followed behind her.

“URGH!” Soarin gasped as he took a hard hit to the side, Sombra’s sword slamming right into his ribs. He landed on his hooves and skidded to a stop, but was unable to hold himself up. He shuddered, grabbed his side and dropped down a little.

This wasn’t working. Nothing was working. No matter what he tried or how close he got, he couldn’t land more than a glancing blow on Sombra, if any at all. Yet he was taking heavy hit after heavy hit. At this rate…

“I would hope you’re not done yet,” Sombra’s voice stabbed into Soarin’s ears. Soarin growled and glared towards Sombra waiting patiently with his sword and shield in their ready stance.

“Get… bent…” Soarin hissed back at him as he forced himself up, huffing and puffing. “I’ve got plenty left!”

“At this rate, one may wonder,” Sombra shot right back with a snort. Soarin’s right eye twitched.

“How about I come over there…” Soarin growled and broke into a gallop towards Sombra. He spread his wings and got airborne, gliding along with both hooves pulled back to strike. “And feed you your goddamn royal ego?!”

Sombra did not move a muscle as Soarin shot towards him. He simply held his calm expression as a swirl of magic jumped through his horn and fired a simple magic beam. It shot right past Soarin’s head and struck the joint between his wing and back on the left side.

“Ah!” Soarin yelped as he felt his wing tense up, the shift in balance forcing him to turn and crash, skidding along the ground until he stopped right at Sombra’s hooves. Soarin grunted and rolled over onto his back, extending his wing to stretch and shake it out as the tingling, prickling sensation traveled up and down all the muscles attached. He opened his eyes to see Sombra’s sword pointed in his face, still resting on his shield lowered to shift the stance accordingly.

“You were saying?” Sombra asked while looking down on him. Soarin looked right past the sword into Sombra’s eyes. “How many times are you going to try that?”

Soarin blinked as he scooted himself back and stood up.

“By now you’d think it would make sense to try something else,” Sombra added, his voice starting to sound a little condescending. Soarin was doing his best to keep his cool, letting emotions get the better of him would not be helpful right now.

“I’ll fight you however I want, thanks,” Soarin huffed while still flexing his wing in and out.

“And where has that gotten you?” Sombra quickly replied while lifting an eyebrow. Soarin just shot him a flat look in response… because… he really didn’t know how to argue against that. “I have felled dragons many times my size,” Sombra went on while tipping his sword up and resting it over his shoulder. “So charging headlong at me, on an even plane no less, is going to accomplish what exactly?”

Soarin opened his mouth to yell, but… stopped as he thought carefully. Sombra shook his head.

“You’re not going to bait me into over shooting you again. You found a gap in my guard and got into my defense zone once. Don’t expect it to happen again with the same tactics. I learn from my mistakes, and it’s about time you did too or else I’ll be claiming your body as mine shortly.”

Soarin glanced down, gritting his teeth.

“Far be it my responsibility to make the obvious clear,” Sombra went on, pointing his sword toward Soarin. “But are you not a pegasus?”

“Eh?” Soarin blinked, tipping his head as he looked back up.

“You’re throwing yourself at me like a wild animal,” Sombra explained with a huff. “You have wings and yet you’ve done nothing but hover a few inches off the ground with them. The gift of flight is a natural advantage you possess, yet you have yet to actually make use of it, it’s confounding me.”

Soarin’s eyes widened slightly.

“Use your advantages! You’re no novice, so stop fighting like one!” Sombra readied his sword and shield. “Give me a challenge I know you’re capable of! Make me earn this!”

“Earn… this…?” Soarin repeated while angrily hissing breath through his teeth, his muscles tensing as his anger boiled. “You… son of a…” Soarin’s body shook slightly as he failed to contain himself. He was getting really tired of Sombra talking down to him to try harder in one breath and then claiming his victory was assured in the next. “Fine!” Soarin shouted, throwing his wings out. “You want it that badly?! Then I’ll give you everything I’ve got!”

Brushing aside his worries of overstraining his body, Soarin crouched down and flawlessly executed every motion required for the Sonic Blastoff. He launched forward with a burst of instant speed, gritting his teeth to bear the shocks sent through his body as the desire to wallop Sombra in the face overpowered any stress and pressure on his body.

Sombra had his sword and Shield at the ready, but he did not move, watching carefully as Soarin took an angle and shot right past him. Sombra turned, watching Soarin as he pitched up and went into a wide loop, rising higher and higher as he came around into a hard dive back towards Sombra like a meteor heading for impact.

But Sombra did not wait for him. He smiled as he watched the display of flight, magic lighting up on his horn. Soarin saw the buildup and was ready to dodge any incoming beams, but the magic was not directed at him. The magic flowed from Sombra’s horn down beneath him, pooling beneath his hooves.

“HRM!” Sombra jumped into the air, and the moment he did the magic erupted below him, exploding violently and propelling him into the air.

In an instant Soarin went from anticipating magic flying at him to having Sombra himself flying at him, but… he did not hesitate or slow down, his eyes locking on Sombra’s sword as he wound it up to swing the moment the two came together. He had roughly half a second, but it was enough time to see the position and angle of the sword.

“HRGAH!” Soarin forced his wings at an angle, shifting his body and twisting the moment Sombra swung the blade. The sword whisked by Soarin’s back and he passed right by Sombra, completely avoiding him instead of going for an attack of his own. Sombra tried to swing his shield around, but Soarin was moving too fast for him to intercept, missing by a few inches.

“Ah!” Sombra grunted in surprise as he missed both attempts to strike Soarin… and was left coasting through the air with no control. He grunted and tried to whip his body around, but his momentum was still carrying him and he was at the mercy of gravity.

He clearly wasn’t expecting Soarin to dodge, and as a result had put himself in a disadvantageous position. Soarin wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Soarin leveled out as he approached the ground, slamming his hooves down and skidding along, his hooves screeching against the surface as he turned. His body ached all over from the Sonic Blastoff, but the moment he had enough grip on the ground, he thrust his wings down and propelled himself back into the air towards Sombra.

Sombra was helpless in the air, his body tipping up and his back facing Soarin. He looked over his shoulder to see Soarin fast approaching, glaring as his horn lit up. With no other option, his Sword and Shield swung around behind him from both sides, attempting to smash Soarin in between them or at least deter Soarin’s advance.

But Soarin sped up, moving in faster and as he got within range of the incoming weapons…

“RRRGHHH!!!!” Soarin growled loudly throwing his arms out to his sides and parrying the sword and shield. The collisions sent tingling sensations through his arms and into his shoulders, but he tipped his head down and pumped his wings, launching a head butt right into the middle of Sombra’s back.

Sombra gasped and arched as the blow connected, the force pushing him further up and tipping him over, but as he flipped upside down, he snarled and released a burst of magic from his horn the moment it faced opposite of Soarin. The burst pushed him back towards the slightly shaken Soarin, pulling his sword back for another swing, but Soarin was ready for him, shifting aside to avoid the slash and getting above Sombra as he started tumbling through the air towards the ground.

Soarin dove, pumping his wings for extra speed as he shot towards Sombra, both hooves extended forward. Sombra was falling, unable to control the motion of his body. But he had enough of his senses about him to see Soarin closing in. With one solid effort, Sombra whipped his head, forcing his shield around and in front over his chest as Soarin drove his hooves into it.

Sombra grunted, the shield pressed to his chest as Soarin kept driving. Soarin beat his wings harder and harder, the two of them picking up speed as they careened towards the ground. They glared at one another through the surface of the shield, Sombra trying to push back, but Soarin’s strength combined with his speed and gravity were overpowering him.

Mere moments from hitting the ground, Sombra suddenly dispelled his shield, causing Soarin to lurch forward and crash into him. With a heavy swipe of his hoof, Sombra smacked Soarin off of him, while turning his head and shooting a burst of magic at the ground directly below. The burst of magic forced the two of them apart, shifting their momentum to hit the ground at a more horizontal angle, followed by several grunts as they bounced, skidded, and rolled to a halt.

“Rgnghhhh…” Soarin groaned as he finally stopped rolling, but quickly shook his head out and tipped over onto his stomach, panting and wheezing as the stress he just put on himself caught up to him. His muscles ached and his joints twitched, the effects of the Sonic Blastoff only making it worse as he tried to get a grip and suck it up.

“That…” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from nearby.

Soarin’s eyes shot open, looking over to see Sombra casually roll over and stand up. He cracked his neck back and forth before turning around and smiling towards Soarin with satisfaction.

“That was extremely impressive,” he complimented Soarin while returning his sword and shield to his side.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Soarin said to himself as he continued to catch his breath. Sombra looked barely fazed from all of that, he couldn’t believe it.

“You truly are unique,” Sombra went on as Soarin tried to force himself up. “I’ve met more than my fair share of pegasi in battle and I’ve never seen one utilize such a unique mixture of strength and raw natural ability alongside flight and speed.” His smile grew wider. “There is a great warrior sleeping within you…” he readied his sword and shield. “Up! I want to see more of it!”

“Ugh… damn it all…” Soarin finally stood up, his legs wobbling a little as the aches lingered, but he shook his head out and steeled himself against the pain and doubt, glaring and snarling towards Sombra. He could do more… and he refused to back down while he could still stand and fight. “You want more?! FINE! Here I come!”

The two went at it again… And while the spectacle was being shown for all to see around the Empire, one particular goddess continued to watch from up close.

Celestia’s eyes were stuck open wide. She felt helpless as she watched the confrontation between the two of them, forced to remain down in a form that barely held a tiny fraction of her power as Soarin fought to stave off a fate that she brought upon him.

But despite the wondrous sight of a significant stallion from her past… she could not take her eyes off of Soarin as he got knocked down again and again… but kept getting back up.

Something about it was causing a surge of revelation… but for the moment, she wasn’t sure about what exactly. The feeling was hitting her faster than she could understand it.

So she kept watching… very carefully.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure how she hadn’t fallen yet. Every step she took felt like it was going to end with her face first on the ground, but she somehow kept upright, powering along while fighting back the urge to vomit with every additional wobble of her vision.

Her body hurt, she had little strength, and she couldn’t see straight, but she was being guided by instinct and an intense urge to help Soarin. She didn’t care about anything else.

As she stumbled along, she bumped into several ponies, none of whom seemed to acknowledge her, and if they did, she was already stumbling away before they could do anything. She was moving and hobbling like an aimless wandering drunk being pulled by an invisible rope in one particular direction.

There were two things she could see among the blurs and fuzzy shapes shifting around her. The image of Soarin and Sombra in the sky, and Ruin and Twister… though she was too delirious to notice that she was gaining on Ruin and Twister, or wonder why exactly they had slowed down.

She just kept stumbling forward, one shaky hoof in front of the other.

The sound of grumbling and harsh tones came from in front of her. Hissing words and snapping retorts.

It sounded like Ruin. And as Dash drew closer to him, the vision became clearer. It looked like Twister’s lawn chair had been tied to Ruin by several ropes and Ruin was trying to shake them off to no avail.

Whatever had led to Twister’s antics, Dash could care less, in fact she didn’t stop, nor look at them as she grew closer and began moving by them.

Ruin suddenly flinched and sharply turned to Dash as she moved by.

“What the, what do you think you’re—” he started, but was suddenly cut off.

“OH. NO.” Twister blurted out as his lawn chair suddenly lifted up into the air with him still in it. “AN INCONVENIENT GUST OF WIND.”

“What the—GAH!” Ruin yelped as Twister, without moving an inch from his recline position in the chair, blew away and yanked Ruin off his hooves with him. Several frantic bouts of cursing and swearing slowly disappeared into the distance as the two flew away.

Dash ignored the entire thing, keeping her eyes forward on the only thing left she could see. She was closing in on the Empire shield. It wasn’t all that far from where she had started, but her slow, sawing pace made it seem much farther away.

She just had to get through, get to the empire, and—

“AH!” Dash yelped as something suddenly slammed to the ground in front of her. She was knocked right off of her hooves and sent tumbling backwards. After several frail grunts and a few rolls, Dash quickly turned upright, her dizziness amplified by the sudden shock as she blinked and tried to re align herself. “Rgh…” Dash let her chin hit the ground, but gritted her teeth and pushed down again.

Unfortunately, only her front hooves found strength, and after a hard, stressful effort, she managed to at least sit up.

But when her vision stopped spinning, or at least returned to the degree it was spinning before, she saw ponies in front of her.

Three ponies to be exact. They were close enough for her to make out their features.

Blade… Angel… and Nightshade.

As soon as Dash picked out their identities, something inside her sounded the alarm and she forced her back legs to cooperate, struggling to stand completely upright. She eventually managed, but as soon as she was up, Nightshade was already stomping towards her… and she looked angry.

Angel and Blade remained still behind, glancing at one another periodically as Nightshade made her way right up to Dash, glaring down at her and snarling.

But Dash wasn’t looking at her.

Dash knew who was in front of her, but… not even Nightshade could break her thoughts from the only thing that mattered to her at the moment. She was looking right past Nightshade, her eyes fixed on Soarin and Sombra in the sky.

Nightshade blinked when she noticed Dash’s eyes were not fixed on hers. Her expression went blank for a moment before she looked over her shoulder and glanced at the fighting images in the sky.

A low growl began escaping her throat before she even started turning back around, but when she finally had her eyes trained on Dash again, Nightshade looked even angrier, as if being ignored by Dash pissed her the hell off.

She reached a hoof out.

Dash did nothing. She just kept looking at Soarin.

Nightshade’s hoof moved towards Dash’s head, but right before she could grab her by the mane, Nightshade flinched and her eyes shot open.

Fleetfoot and Fire Streak suddenly shot right by them both, the two top Wonderbolts fiercely ramming and tackling Blade and Angel at full speed.

Dash’s reaction was delayed, feeling the rush of wind blow past her before realizing that Blade and Angel were no longer behind Nightshade.

And then there was a flash of yellow as something rushed in front of her. It nearly pushed her over in the process, forcing her to lean and barely catch herself as the sounds of fighting and grunting started coming from all around her.

When she finally got herself stable, she looked up to see Spitfire and Nightshade grappling right in front of her. She stared, surprised, but didn’t have enough energy to vocalize it. Her eyes lazily shifted back and forth as she saw four others zipping about, eventually realizing Fleetfoot and Fire Streak were there.

Fire was taking on Blade, moving defensively due to the lack of the usual support from his brother as he focused on parrying and eluding Blade’s attacks.

Fleetfoot was using her speed and… appeared to be using Angel’s ridiculously long hair to her advantage, making quick passes to avoid his dangerous magic attacks that took a moment for him to fully materialize and launch. She was grabbing his mane in her mouth and yanking on it with each pass, which wasn’t sitting well with him at all as he seethed and swore at her.

Dash’s attention was brought back to the clash right in front of her as the sound of Nightshade grunting continuously reached her ears. Spitfire had gotten one of Nightshade’s arms bent in an awkward position and was delivering several hard punches to her side. Dash flinched as Spitfire turned and swung Nightshade over her shoulder, slamming her to the ground right in front of Dash.

“FIRE!” Spitfire yelled, Fire Streak immediately angling his path to direct Blade’s movement in her direction. As soon as Spitfire had a clear shot, she swung Nightshade around and flung her towards Blade, the two colliding and sending them both tumbling several yards away.

Blade shoved Nightshade off of him and quickly rose, but the moment he was up Fire Streak caught him in the face with a heavy right hook, pressing his assault before Blade could gather himself.

Nightshade was left on the ground, snarling and grabbing her side as saliva dripped from her mouth. For the moment she appeared to be stunned for the repeated hits to the ribs.

But Spitfire didn’t press her attack.

She turned and faced Dash.

Dash froze.

For the first time since she started her trek towards Soarin, something had stolen her attention away. She and Spitfire had locked eyes, Spitfire looking at her with a hard, serious expression. The relentless pursuit was still fresh in Dash’s mind… did she find Spitfire to be more of a threat than Nightshade? Was that what had come of all the infighting?

But then Spitfire exhaled as she looked Dash up and down, watching her wobble, barely clinging to consciousness, and stare at her with what was clearly fear. She watched as Dash’s eyes shakily shifted between her and away from her.

Spitfire looked over her shoulder, first towards Nightshade growling on the ground, and then looked up into the sky. She watched Soarin for a few moments as he continued to fight Sombra and take unbelievable amounts of punishment.

Then she looked back at Dash, the two staring at one another for another moment.

“Go,” Spitfire finally spoke as she shifted aside and made a head motion towards the Empire.

Dash blinked and stared.

Spitfire sighed as she saw Dash’s confused face.

“Look, Dash…” Spitfire huffed as she looked away and her ears flopped down. “I’m not happy with you, but…” she slowly looked back at Dash, her expression showing some slight regret. “I don’t think I’ve been any better.”

Dash just kept staring.

“It turns out neither of us was right,” Spitfire went on, looking up into the sky at Soarin again. “And… as a result, I haven’t a damn clue what’s going on anymore.”

She kept watching Soarin fight for a moment before turning back to Dash.

“All I know is I can see my best friend fighting for… something up there. Maybe for his life? I don’t know… and there’s nothing I can do to help him.”

She stepped forward and placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. Dash flinched momentarily, but the look in Spitfire’s eyes was one of confidence.

“But if there’s anything I’ve learned from all this magic crap he’s gone through… it’s that maybe you can, and it was short sighted of me to not believe in that from the start.” Without taking her hoof off Dash’s shoulder, she stepped aside and stared towards Soarin, Dash looking into the sky with her. “So… get your ass moving. Soarin needs you, now more than ever.”

Dash stared up at Soarin, Spitfire’s words only adding to the fire that was already keeping her up and moving, but then a loud growl from Nightshade brought her eyes back down. Nightshade was up and gasping for air, glaring towards the two of them.

“Leave this harlot to me,” Spitfire said while giving Dash’s shoulder a gentle pat. “Get to Soarin!” she stepped out in front of Dash protectively. “GO!”

“RRAAAAAHH!” Nightshade roared, launching herself towards them. Spitfire immediately reacted, rushing forward and clashing, the two pressing their hooves together.

“Over here, bitch!” Spitfire barked in her face as she clasped down on Nightshade’s arms and forced her away… giving Dash a clear path.

Dash didn’t hesitate one bit. She was still delirious, but Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Fire Streak were giving her the chance she needed to forge on.

One step at a time. She resumed her struggle towards the Empire, the shield close enough for her to see its tint through her shaky vision.

She grunted, almost tipping over as Fire and Blade shot right past her, but Fleetfoot swooped in and propped her up.

“Keep going Dash!” she encouraged. “Bring our big doofus back!” she gave Dash a brief hug before leaping up to intercept Angel coming in for a pass.

Dash wobbled as she left, but kept on.

Spitfire and Nightshade hit the ground hard right in front of her, the two wrestling and snarling at one another. Dash came to an abrupt halt and started tipping backwards.

“Allow me!” Fire said politely as he slid up from her left and grabbed her arm to put her back on all four hooves. “Don’t delay, Miss Dash!” Fire gave her a confident nod before rushing forward and ramming the grappling duo, forcing them out of Dash’s way.

Almost there… almost there… the shield was so close.

“AH!” a yelp came from nearby as Dash neared. She did not look, but Spitfire had just landed hard on her back behind her. She grunted and rolled over, her body tingling as she stretched out her wings to stop post impact numbness.

Nightshade was in the air, her breath hissing through her grinding teeth as she quickly turned her focus to Dash.

“NO!” Nightshade yelled, her voice filled with anger. “NO NO NO NO NO!” She dove towards Dash, taking an angle to intercept Dash in her path.

But Dash had already reached the shield. She stepped right through it, the veil of light letting her through without any resistance.

Regardless, Nightshade did not change her angle, careening towards the shield without ever taking her eyes off Dash.

Then she reached it.

Her hooves went through it.

Her head went through it.

But…

The moment her chest reached the shield, it slammed right into the light, loud crackling and popping sounding out from the surface as Nightshade’s eyes shot open. A gut wrenching scream of agony ejected from her throat as her neck strained forward, her lower body whiplashing underneath her. Every part of her body was allowed through except for her chest.

Her three crystals bounced right off the shield, falling to the ground below as she began to slide down the shield itself, a loud screeching noise like hooves against glass ringing out as her body fell down its surface with crackling sparks left in her wake.

She hit the ground at the base of the shield and quickly rolled away from it towards her crystals. She grabbed and clutched her chest with a hoof, groaning in pain with heavy, heaving breaths as her eyes remained open wide and spit oozed from the corner of her mouth.

“Hgnnn… HRGNNNN… HAAAAAAA…” Nightshade’s state went unnoticed, or… was ignored by Blade and Angel as they continued fighting Fire and Fleetfoot, leaving Nightshade to fend for herself as she slowly rolled over, her eyes locking on Dash beyond the shield. “N… no… NO… PLEASE NO! ARGH!!!” Nightshade winced and grabbed her chest again, coughing and gagging as she lay on her side for a moment before desperately rolling onto her stomach. Her eyes were locked on the ground in front of her, her teeth were jammed together as she repeatedly shook her head.

But then there was a bright light in front of her.

She froze on the spot, her pupils shrinking as she saw what looked like a hoof on the ground in front of her. She slowly moved her eyes up, and saw… a ghost? An apparition? A stallion made of light?

She was spooked beyond belief. She couldn’t tell if she was hallucinating from the pain or what was in front of her was real. But she was also chilled… because the way the light danced around the image… it looked just like the way the strange light danced around Silver when she fought him in the canyon.

She could not see the eyes of the stallion, only his mouth… which curled into a smile briefly before the stallion turned and passed through the shield as well, following behind Dash. The moment it was through, it vanished, condensing into a tiny ball of light that floated along.

Nightshade lay completely still, the excruciating pain within her body meaning nothing in the face of the sight that was just before her. She just kept staring at the shield and at Dash as she slowly disappeared from sight.

Then the sound of mumbling and grumbling came from nearby.

The constant murmuring and muffled cursing grew closer until Ruin suddenly moved up right beside her with a tiny Twister attached to the top of his head with his mouth latched to one of Ruin’s ears.

He stopped and looked down at Nightshade, lifting an eyebrow.

“Hmph…” he snorted at her. “I’m surprised that didn’t kill you,” he said while rolling his eyes, a tone of frustration in his voice as the tiny Twister continued to bite his ear while making quiet, high-pitched nomming noises.

He looked at the shield, moving right up in front of it while looking it up and down. He reached a hoof towards it and tapped it against the surface. The shield crackled, reacting to his touch like a solid wall.

“Hmm…” Ruin hummed as he continued to tap his hoof around the shield before just holding it against it, the surface sizzling as his hoof pressed into its surface. “Hmm, hmm, hmm… right.”

Without any visible effort, an enormous burst of pink magic ejected from Ruin’s hoof, loud popping and crackling filling the air as his magic tore the shield open, leaving a hole large enough for him to walk through. Without a word, he stepped through, small ribbons and sparks from the ripped edges of the shield reaching out as if trying to stop him, but he brushed them aside.

His crystals, however, were halted. The tiny strings of magic that tried to stop Ruin were lashing at the crystals, pushing them away from the opening and preventing them from following him in.

“Eh?” Ruin looked over his shoulder to see the crystals being repelled, crackling and sizzling noises coming from them as the broken magic of the shield slowly attempted to force itself back together. “Oh fine, whatever,” Ruin rolled his eyes and whipped a hoof around in the air.

His crystals shuttered, screeched, and fell to the ground beside Nightshade.

Ruin turned… and kept walking, the lack of crystals having no adverse effect on him whatsoever as the ribbons of light from the shield linked and pulled the tear shut, once again completing the protective veil of light.

“Wh… WHAT?!” a voice echoed from out of thin air.

There was a flicker of pink light, an image of a pony outlining and distorting until Moon appeared. He pushed his goggles up and stared wide eyed through the shield at Ruin, glancing down at the crystals he left behind. “How did he…?”

Moon trailed off, his jaw agape as Ruin slowly moved away from them towards the empire, completely at a loss. He looked down at Nightshade, but she was just staring at the shield with her eyes stuck open. It was like she didn’t even know he was there.

“Nightshade!” Another voice came from nearby as Rapidfire appeared using Moon’s cloaking technique. He rushed past Moon and crouched down beside Nightshade. “Hey… HEY!” he grabbed her shoulders and shook her lightly, but she didn’t look at him, she looked mentally frozen. “What’s going on with you!?” he looked up at Moon, but Moon was more interested in the pile of crystals at his hooves and the one who dropped them without consequences.

“Moon?!”

Moon perked up, blinking as he looked over to see Spitfire galloping towards them. But she only focused on him for a second, her eyes instantly moving to…

“Ah! YOU!!!!” Spitfire yelled, her eyes hardening into an intense glare and her voice filling with anger.

Rapidfire flinched, his eyes ripping away from Nightshade as he heard Spitfire. He only had a moment to lock eyes before Spitfire spread her wings and launched, shooting towards him with her hooves outstretched. But Moon quickly focused and his eyes flashed.

“GAH!” Spitfire grunted loudly as she came to an abrupt halt, locked in place by shimmering pink lights all around her.

“Come on,” Moon quickly reached down and grabbed Rapidfire as his magic held Spitfire in place.

“What?” Rapidfire frantically looked between him and Nightshade. “What about…”

“Leave her,” Moon ordered flatly.

“B… but…” Rapidfire kept staring at Nightshade with great concern as Moon gripped his arm tighter.

“RGH!” Moon twitched, his crystals shaking slightly as Spitfire growled and tried to rip herself free. “NOW!” he yelled into Rapidfire’s face, both of them cloaking and vanishing from sight.

Shortly after, Spitfire was released from Moon’s hold.

She quickly stretched her hooves out to land on the ground, but instead of looking around for wherever they went, she took a deep breath and exhaled for several seconds, shaking her head out. Seeing Rapidfire made her rightfully angry after what he had pulled on her with Wave, but she had already let her emotions get to her and she was done letting that control her.

Instead, she looked towards the shield, keeping in mind what was currently on the line.

Dash was already out of sight, she couldn’t see anything else besides the fight high up in the sky. She felt like there was nothing she could do and it tore at her. Her best friend was fighting for his life against something she couldn’t understand and she was powerless to do anything about it. This wasn’t a new feeling in regards to the situation. Everything was a longshot from the start and almost all hope had been lost… unless Dash could do something.

And she hoped Dash could do something, because she wanted to punch Soarin in the face for making her worry so much.

“Godspeed, Dash…” she said to herself as she stared for another moment.

But then she looked down at Nightshade.

“As for YOU…” she cracked her hooves. “I’ve got a hell of a lot of pent up anger I need to let out somewhere before I do something I regret again. Want to help me with that?” She reached down and roughly grabbed Nightshade by the neck, hoisting her up off the ground.

The shock of the movement seemed to wrench Nightshade from her daze. She coughed, wincing at the pressure on her throat as she blinked a good ten times. Her eyes snapped to Spitfire, and the moment she saw who had a hold of her, the look of shock vanished completely as if nothing had happened.

She growled loudly, slamming her back hooves to the ground as she grabbed Spitfire’s arm and ripped it free of her neck.

“YOU!” she snarled as Spitfire held steady. “I’ll KILL you! I’ll kill ALL of you!” she yelled wildly while wheezing heavy breaths. “Everything is ruined and it’s all YOUR FAULT!” she went on.

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, but wasn’t interested in whatever the hell Nightshade was going on about.

“Oh yeah?!” she pushed back against Nightshade. “TRY ME, BITCH!”

Dash no longer had any sort of sense of direction. As she reached the Empire and began weaving her way through the city, she was simply going wherever her instincts were telling her to go. The only things she could fully process was the sight of Soarin and Sombra above, she couldn’t tell which way she was going or turning otherwise, at times turning down a road or street for a moment before something unseen made her realize it was the wrong way.

It had to be her connection with Soarin, the piece of her soul that was in there with him as he struggled. She was being guided by it, pulled towards it slowly like a magnet. She knew what being near him could do. She knew that her presence lifted him up and made him stronger. She didn’t know what was going on or how the visual of the fight or the fight itself came to be, but something was telling her she was the only one who could make a difference. And she believed it.

Stumbling and hobbling, supporting herself against walls and any citizens she randomly bumped into. She drew a few looks as she came by, but many had their eyes locked on the sky just like all the rest. She ignored all those who asked her if she was okay or needed help and any who gave her attention didn’t give it to her for long, the next clash or flash from the sky drawing their eyes right back.

The stallion spirit was still following behind her, compressed into a tiny ball of light to avoid drawing attention. It stayed above her, watching her every effort and move with great interest.

Without knowing how far she had gone or how far she had left to go, Dash eventually found he way to the castle. She reached the same doors Sombra had been let through, the door now unattended and open. She rested for a moment in the doorway, leaning against it. Her body was burning but her passion was burning stronger, and the strength that pushed forward only seemed to grow as she grew closer.

She was close now. So very close. The urge to move forward and rush to Soarin’s side had grown so powerful that all of her senses went numb, replaced with one thought and one motion. Without knowing the layout of the castle all that well, she hobbled from room to room, no longer making any wrong turns or mistakes, until…

She found the inner courtyard.

She squinted as the bright light met her eyes. The very same light being generated by the image in the sky, only it was many times brighter.

It was him… it was Soarin. He was out there in the field. Her heart was pounding even harder, beating strongly in tandem with Soarin’s as he fought and fought.

Everything around her seemed to vanish. As she let go of the wall and started moving into the grass, her vision lost the sight of the palace, everything turning into a blur as she focused on the shining light in the center of the grass.

Her will was strong, but her steps wobbled. After several paces forward she grunted, teetering and falling onto her side.

“RGH!” she growled as she hit the ground, rolling up and pressing her hooves down to sit up. Her head hung down as she gritted her teeth, ready to force herself back up.

“Magnificent…”

Dash froze for a second. Then she quickly looked up, her eyes opening wide.

Ruin was sitting in front of her… but his back was turned to her. He wasn’t looking into the sky, he was looking towards Soarin’s body generating the spectacular magic power.

And Twister was latched on his head, in a small, blob-like form.

Dash’s mind raced as her thoughts were drawn away from Soarin to wondering how Ruin had gotten there. She thought Twister had led him away, but even if Ruin had somehow gotten back on track how did he get here before she did? Unless she was just so delirious and off-kilter that he got by while she was wandering the streets.

The two of them were still crystal clear in her vision despite how her mind had seemed to block everything else out aside from the grass she was sitting on. Her eyes darted, looking him over, but she noticed he had no crystals with him?

“Hm?” Ruin’s ears suddenly perked up. Dash held her breath as Ruin slowly looked over his shoulder and down at her. “You? … Hmph.”

Dash didn’t move a muscle. She stared into his eyes, yet he appeared uninterested as he simply looked her up and down. Twister was extremely out of place, chewing on Ruin’s head in a shrunken down, miniature version of himself.

“Still stumbling around like a drunkard with your head in a vice?” he asked in a flat tone. “Do you even know where you’re going, or are you just aimlessly stumbling towards what’s left of your precious burly sweetheart?” he asked condescendingly.

Dash said nothing, her eyes darting between him, Soarin, and the projection in the sky.

“Ah, love…” Ruin scoffed, blowing air between his lips. “There’s nothing out there that drives one towards their own demise faster. It makes you forget yourself, pushes you to not be who you are or utterly reject it in favor of what… a tickle and thrust? Puh-leez.” He held his nose and stuck his tongue out in disgust. He paused and stared at her, unable to tell if she was listening with the look stuck on her face. “What a waste of time.”

He turned and looked towards Soarin, then up into the sky at the image.

“But I can’t help but wonder…” he glanced over his shoulder again. “What do you even think you can do here?” He lifted a hoof towards Soarin. “Do you even understand what’s happened to him?”

Dash swallowed, but still said nothing. Twister shrunk further to the size and shape of a mouse and began skittering and squeaking all over Ruin’s body, but he ignored him.

“Soarin was doomed the moment Sombra took control. He’s… somehow persisting in there to a degree, but I don’t know if that’s because of his willpower, his stubbornness, or if he’s just too stupid to know how pointless it is to hang on. Sombra’s complete reincarnation has merely been stalled.” he snorted, looking into the sky. “This is an amusing display… Sombra appears to have offered a fight, duel, something, something, something, whatever you want to call it for… some…thing? What the hell is that going to accomplish? Is it a compromise? To what end? Even if Soarin were to ‘win’ this apparent fight, which, by the way…” he pointed up while glancing towards Dash. “Is CLEARLY going well for him right now… I doubt Sombra would actually be so dumb as to willingly relinquish control of Soarin’s body, though it wouldn’t be the first time he’s done something really stupid.” Ruin paused, and started snickering. “I mean… I have to wonder… does he even know how to give it back?” he suddenly added, giggling to himself. “I bet he doesn’t! I wonder if he admitted that to Soarin beforehoof? Is it all a charade to convince Soarin to give in? Or is he just doing this for kicks? He always had a hard-on for competition… a regular meathead…” he shook his head. “Bah… what a farce.” He snorted. “That body is a prison… and both of them are locked in it. Whether they like it or not.”

Twister clambered up to Ruin’s ear and began blowing tiny, high pitched raspberries into it. Ruin immediately reached up and grabbed Twister by the neck, holding him at arm’s length. Twister’s head began to slowly inflate with a quiet hiss as the rest of his body remained tiny.

“Soarin had a chance, you know… While he was still in control, he was in a position to conquer what lay within, given time and enough work. He… might have been able to win it all over.” He spoke to Dash again. “But…” he turned to face Dash. “That chance is long gone now.” He slowly held out Twister’s inflated face towards her. “And guess who you have to thank for that?”

Dash blinked, remembering the chess match between the two of them. But before Ruin could pull Twister away from her, his face suddenly returned to normal…

And he winked at Dash.

Ruin dropped Twister, a hole opening in the ground and swallowing him up, but a hole opened up in thin air right above Ruin. Twister dropped out of it, back in his minimized state, landed on Ruin’s head and began chewing on it again.

“But, enough about that…” Ruin turned his back to her once more and stared out towards Soarin’s body. “The smarts or reasoning of who is involved here barely matters right now… how about we focus on exactly what has been created by this debacle, hmmmmmmmm?”

Dash blinked as Ruin leaned forward a little, his ears twitching.

“I almost wonder if… either of them realize it. This… half-finished product. Sombra’s lack of full control with Soarin still parked inside. The two of them are so focused on each other that they don’t realize… hee… hee hee hee…!”

Ruin tipped forward on his hooves, his pupils growing larger.

“Even now as this visual is being projected and maintained, do they not notice?! So much power output for such a simple projection, and the flow seems endless! I can understand Soarin not having a clue, but how has Sombra not noticed? Surely he’s seen the power he wields now… or… does he believe he’s not at his full potential with the possession unfinished? Was his sound defeat of Discord and Luna not enough to get it through his thick head?” Ruin began snickering and giggling to himself. “My oh my, how misguided… he ALREADY has power beyond his wildest dreams, more than any mortal unicorn has ever wielded, but he is completely blind to it!” Ruin’s teetered back and forth, biting his lip as he breathed heavily, with an unstable undertone as his eyes took a sinister look. “A fusion of a mighty king who once challenged gods and the strongest of the Wonderbolts…” he shivered. “It has created a monster… the likes of which I have never seen… It’s so… FASCINATING!”

Dash blinked as Ruin’s tone changed completely.

“I…” Ruin paused and stood up, his teeth chattering as he took a step forward. “I must see more… I must!”

He started walking. And just like that Dash snapped back to reality. She had no idea what Ruin’s intentions were, but she would not let him hurt Soarin!

“N-NO!” Dash yelled with all the voice she could muster as she forced herself up and lunged towards Ruin.

But the moment she got near him, something struck her. It felt like a burst of magical energy but it was so sudden that she couldn’t see it. And… he had done it without crystals?

Before she knew what was happening, Dash was launched backwards, her body hurled through the air until she smashed into a pillar near the courtyard walls.

She released a sharp gasp, her back arching after impact as her eyes stuck open wide and her pupils shrank down. Shocks resonated through her body… and everything went completely numb.

She fell face first to the ground and didn’t move.

Ruin kept walking and sighed, shaking his head lightly.

“Now if only that would work on this moron…” he said in an exasperated tone while glancing up at Twister on his head.

He returned his focus to Soarin’s body, watching with great interest as his body shivered.

“I can’t believe how calm and focused he is with so much power pouring forth… Does that mean there’s far more power within that I can’t see? Even the most powerful of unicorns would have shriveled and sputtered out a hundred times by now!” he slowly shook his head. “It’s like I’m watching an alicorn…” He licked his lips. “Perhaps not the scope of Celestia, but far beyond anything Luna could do! And he’s clueless! He has no idea!”

He snickered endlessly to himself.

“I must see more… I must KNOW more! It can’t be so simple… What is it about these two that created such a powerful being?! There’s something I’m missing! Something I don’t understand!” He started inching forward just short of breaking out into stride. “Such untapped potential… such elusive knowledge and unknowns…” he froze and gasped. “Oh… oh my. If they were to stop bickering… if they were to… cooperate…” his mouth slowly curved into a very deranged smile. “Just how powerful would they be?!”

Ruin broke into a full stride, but two steps later he felt like he ran face first into a springy finishing net, squinting and tensing up in surprise as he was forced backward, his hooves skidding along the ground.

“Oo? OOOHOOHOO!” he burst into a fit of giggles and ground his hooves into the ground. He broke into a gallop, charging headlong into whatever pushed him back, but he instantly felt the pressure again, his advancement quickly slowing to a halt just a little further than he made it before. “Oop Oop NOPE! YOU CAN’T KEEP ME OUT FOREV—” he was cut off a large, blue ribbon of magic whipped around and smacked against him, lifting him off his hooves and forcing him back. He landed upright, but stumbled several yards back with a look of unstable shock and pleasure on his face. “OH HO HO HO!!!! I just can’t BELIEVE it! These forces are incredible! I can’t even get remotely near him, ME!” he pressed his hooves to his chest. “HEE HEE HAHAHA HAHA HA—”

Ruin blinked, his laughter instantly cut off as his pupils shrank.

Twister was ahead of him, standing roughly ten yards further than how far Ruin had managed to push into the magic field.

“What the—?!” Ruin grabbed his mane as Twister stood up on his hind legs, threw his hooves out to his sides and began bouncing back and forth.

“OH SHIT. OUT-FUCKING SKILLED!”

“GGRRHHHHH!!!!” Ruin growled loudly.

But then another ribbon of blue magic lashed out and struck Twister in the back of the head really hard. Twister was instantly whipped right out of the field and sent screaming over the top of Ruin with a loud WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP noise as he tumbled end over end.

Ruin stared blankly as Twister shot by him and dramatically crashed behind him with several unneeded sound effects including clanging metal, breaking glass, some angry yowling cats, and a few explosions.

“Pfff…” Ruin failed to hold in a slight chuckle as he returned his focus to Soarin’s body and the incredible display of magic, still lost in awe at— “Eh?” Ruin perked up as he felt a tug on one of his back legs. He quickly looked back and down.

It was Dash. She was on her stomach and sprawled out, her hooves clenching his leg as she heaved heavy breaths and remained face down.

“Really now? You dragged yourself all the way back out here?” He sighed and shook his leg a little, but she wouldn’t let go. “What a nuisance, why are you even bothering?” he asked while motioning an arm towards Soarin. “If I can’t push my way through these forces, there’s no way you—”

Ruin stopped mid-sentence as he noticed multiple gentle shimmering lights in his field of view.

“What in the…?” he blinked and quickly looked to his left, glancing around as white sparkles and… snowflakes began to dance around. As the lights began to gather together, Ruin’s face twitched and changed rapidly as if something had just hit him directly in the face. “WAIT!”

He shut his eyes as a bright flash shined right in front of him. He kept them shut for a second, opening them quickly as soon as the shine was gone.

The image of a stallion, a spirit of white light.

“Y…YOU?!” Ruin reacted while flinching hard.

A smile became visible on the otherwise featureless face of the stallion. He then shook his head, flipping his mane about… and for a very brief moment, a pair of eyes became visible, looking very satisfied as if he had gotten the better of Ruin.

“How did… where did you… HOW DID YOU SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT?!” Ruin demanded.

But then his eyes grew even wider as he realized he couldn’t feel Dash’s hooves on his leg anymore. He quickly looked down to see she was gone, his eyes darting about for any sign of her nearby, but there was none. Then he looked towards Soarin.

His eyes landed on Dash. She was wobbling and stumbling in the direction of Soarin and…

She was already much farther into the magical field than Ruin had managed. The strong pulses of magic were not touching her. The ribbons of magic that had collided with Ruin were slipping right past her, either avoiding her or bouncing off of her.

“BWUH?!?!” Ruin’s jaw dropped. “How is—” he quickly turned his head back towards the spirit stallion… but he was gone, not a trace of him or any of the light or snow accompanying him left. Ruin’s ears flopped to the side of his head as his eyes snapped back towards Dash, his pupils shrinking. “Wait… she… OH!” he smacked his hooves against the sides of his face. “The connection! Sombra’s magic hasn’t been… Oh for the LOVE of—!!!” He lunged forward, trying to push his way into the magic field again, but just as before, he got forced out before he could make any progress. “RGH!!!!”” he growled while pounding his hooves on the ground. “Son of a BITCH! It’s not fair!!!” he yelled as he glared towards Dash slowly approaching Soarin. “I want to see it up close!!!!” he whined childishly.

He flinched hard as Twister suddenly popped up right in front of him, sticking his face directly in front of Ruin’s while bobbing his head back and forth.

“MAN, YOU ARE SO BAD AT THIS!” he shouted in Ruin’s face. “WHAT R U, CASUL?! UNIRONICALLY GIT GUD, SCRUB!”

Ruin thrust an arm out and grabbed Twister by the nose, clenching it so tightly that it let out a loud HRNK. Whipping his body around, Ruin slung Twister’s whole body along with him before launching him skyward.

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAA HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO!!!!” Twister screamed goofily as he disregarded gravity and kept shooting into the sky until he disappeared with a twinkle in the sky.

“Hmph…” Ruin grunted and pouted as he stared towards Dash again, knowing full well that he was stuck while she kept stumbling along.

He blinked and looked down to his left. There was a rock the size of a watermelon on the ground roughly a yard away. He sighed heavily as he flattened his brow and stared at the rock.

“I know… You’re right under that rock,” he said flatly.

“NOPE!” Twister’s voice came from the other direction, about ten octaves higher than normal. Ruin’s head whipped around, his eyes wide and expression blank as he stared down at a very tiny Twister crawling out from beneath a little pebble on the ground. “Under THIS one!”

Ruin looked back towards Dash as quickly as his head could turn, angrily holding his breath as he ignored Twister and glared out, his ears folding back against his head so hard that they made a quiet slapping noise.

Ruin was powerless, and clearly not happy about it.

But at this point Dash had stricken him from her mind. She didn’t look over her shoulder to see if he was following her or not. She desperately forged on, her head so scrambled that she kept reaching out trying to touch Soarin before she was close enough to do so.

She stumbled and tipped forward, reaching out again and again as she kept moving forward, hoping that at some point her endless efforts would finally put her close enough to actually reach for him.

And she was close.

Just a little longer…

Just a little further…

“GRH! GAH!” Soarin grunted as he was struck twice, sent tumbling to the ground. He flipped over and slammed his hooves to the ground while pounding his wings, sending him into the air.

Sombra held his ground, keeping his eyes on Soarin as he arced around in the air and came in for another pass.

Soarin was grimacing hard, his body screaming at him as the damage was piling up. Harsh stinging sensations all over, painful bruises, some bleeding, and a jostled focus were hindering him. All the while Sombra was still relatively unhurt. He had a few nicks and scratches, but Soarin had not once landed a solid blow on him

Sombra was too fast, too strong, and too perceptive. Every time Soarin came close to catching him, Sombra’s warrior instincts prevailed and he either blocked or dodged most or all of the attack. After every failed attempt, Sombra locked down that avenue of attack. Nothing worked more than once, Sombra instantly learned from his mistakes and adapted to recognize any repeated motion.

Soarin was running out of ways to approach, but he refused to give up. At this point he stopped trying to come up with complicated ways to get close, and was completely making it up as he went along.

He dove in at an angle he had once before and waited for Sombra to swing. Soarin turned and reached his hooves out, the hard surface of his hooves meeting the blade. Soarin twitched as the shocks traveled up his arms and into his body, but he rode the motion of the sword and kicked off, throwing himself roughly to the ground. He landed on his hooves and spun around to catch Sombra from the side before he could finish his follow through, but…

“GAH!” Soarin yelped as Sombra’s shield connected with his face. He was knocked over, rolling on the ground to a stop. He shivered and shuddered, his body rebelling on him as he tried to move, but he eventually forced himself back up, gritting his teeth and coughing as blood dripped from his lips. His body was swaying, stumbling a little away from Sombra as he struggled to remain upright.

“Hmmm…” Sombra hummed as he lowered his sword and shield.

But the moment he did, Soarin glared, spun his body to face Sombra and quickly executed the Sonic Blastoff. Sombra’s eyes went wide, realizing he had fallen for an act. He brought up his shield the moment before Soarin connected, both hooves jamming into the shield and pressing it to the side of Sombra’s face as he grunted and his hooves skidded back.

“GRRRRRRAAAAAH!!!!!” Soarin roared, putting everything he had left into pumping his wings and pushing… but his strength had dwindled.

It was mere seconds before all power from his signature acceleration faded. Soarin’s eyes stuck open and his pupils twitched madly as his body felt like it lit on fire from within. He was barely able to exhale as his back hooves touched the ground, all strength in his push fading as the strain on his body caused him to go almost completely numb. He tried to glare at Sombra through the shield, his hooves still placed on it, but he had nothing.

Sombra pushed forward, Soarin’s hooves slipping and skidding along with no resistance.

Sombra kept his eyes on Soarin, no malice or ill will in them as he calmly pushed forward. An additional flash of light shone from his horn, a wall of blue magic popping up behind Soarin.

“AH!” Soarin cried out as Sombra forced him into the wall, pressing him between it and his shield. Sombra scrunched his face and gave it one hard push. “GUHHHHHAGH!” Soarin grunted in pain before Sombra lessened the pressure again.

“That was for that little trick,” he said with a snort.

Soarin’s eyes shot open, focusing on Sombra and shooting a harsh, defiant glare at him through the shield, his teeth jammed together and heavy hissing breaths coming through them.

Sombra looked into Soarin’s eyes carefully, not returning the glare.

“What… the hell… are YOU staring at?!” Soarin forced out, coughing and gagging right after.

“Unmatched tenacity…” Sombra said out loud. “Your fire burns bright… but your eyes cannot hide your pain or fatigue.”

“BITE ME!” Soarin snapped, barely waiting for Sombra to finish before he lashed out.

“An odd request, I decline,” Sombra replied obliviously.

“HRNGH!!!” Soarin suddenly pushed back, forcing his body around to place both hooves on the shield surface. Sombra watched quietly as Soarin began pushing, but was unable to move him. Despite the lack of success and waning strength, Soarin kept pushing, glaring at Sombra with endless determination. Soarin grunted and groaned, his body shaking as he continued his fruitless push, but he roared out, pulling back one of his hooves and punching at the shield in rapid, continuous succession. Each strike sounded more painful than the last, the solid surface of the shield holding strong as his hoof crashed and crashed against it, crackles and pops coming from his arm. His final attempt was nothing more than a frail tap at the shield before his hoof slid off and his arm hung limply. Despite the discouraging result, Soarin thrust his head forward, head butting the shield twice before his third attempt became a slight lean that pressed the side of his face to the shield. Huffing and puffing, panting and wheezing, blood trickling down his face, but his eyes refused to change, still glaring through the shield.

Sombra watched every move he made. As Soarin finished his valiant efforts and rested against the shield… Sombra frowned slightly, his brow lifting as he looked into the tired yet true eyes of Soarin.

“Incredible…” he said with a sigh. “Your toughness and valor are beyond compare… and you’ve the stubbornness to bolster them,” he shook his head lightly. “But I’m beginning to wonder which of those traits are in charge. Do you not understand whom you are up against? You are fighting a battle you cannot win, facing an opponent tested and forged through countless battles in an age many times harsher than your own.” He brought his sword around and jammed it into the ground beside his shield, Soarin’s eyes shifting to it briefly before returning to his focused glare. “I gave us a chance to fight on equal ground, you accepted my challenge, and you have been defeated. I want to honor my promise that this is a duel… and there will be no honor in inflicting further pain on you.”

Sombra gave Soarin a calm, yet firm gaze, looking right through Soarin’s glare.

“I’m going to let my shield up. And when I do… I request that you yield.”

Soarin’s eyes widened, his glare gone in an instant.

“There is no point in continuing this. I’ve proven my point and do not wish to harm you anymore. Accept defeat, and allow me to take hold of your body.”

Soarin looked down, his breaths still heavy and pain still sharp all over his body.

“You have not lost, you have shown me more than I could have imagined. You say there are more like you? That gives me hope. Hope that my words will be heeded upon ascension, that many will have the strength to seek the truth and the courage to become my knights.” Sombra nodded. “Your comrade who confronted me in the forest. Spitfire, was her name? She will be the first I seek out.”

Soarin shut his eyes tight, his breaths becoming heavier.

“Do not continue this senseless struggle,” Sombra’s voice became sympathetic, Soarin felt the pressure of the shield lighten. “Please… join with me. Help me take the first step into a new age.”

Soarin said nothing and a long silence extended between them.

Short breaths escaped Soarin’s throat, his body twitching as his eyes remained close.

“N…no…” Soarin’s voice barely squeaked out.

Sombra tipped his head down as Soarin finally spoke.

“It’s… not over… yet…” Soarin continued, his voice shaking.

“Then it truly is the stubbornness in control,” Sombra shook his head. “You CANNOT defeat me. Don’t be foolish and let this go on any longer!” Sombra added harshly, but did not press any harder with his shield. “Give up.”

Sombra glared through the shield, but Soarin just continued to shake with his eyes closed.

“I… can’t.” Soarin rasped as his body continued to twitch along with his short breaths.

“Why?” Sombra asked simply while keeping his eyes locked on him.

“Because…” Soarin slowly opened his eyes, revealing his glare once more, but… there were small tears dripping from them, slowly running down his face. “I don’t know how…”

Sombra stared. There was a slight twitch in his eyelids when Soarin said it, but he said nothing.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do my entire life… is not let others down…” Soarin struggled to speak. “I’ve felt so strongly about it that there was a point in my life where I avoided all risks. It scared me when I became a Wonderbolt, and I was terrified when I became one of their leaders. Because… now my greatest fear was staring me right in the face.” Soarin gritted his teeth as his tearful glare pierced right through Sombra’s shield to meet Sombra’s eyes.

Sombra listened, letting Soarin speak.

“But at the same time… the very friends who got me there are the ones who I’m afraid of failing the most. I’ve spent every day, every damn day of my life doing whatever it takes to ensure I’ll never let them down. I’ve pushed myself hard, I’ve trained my body past its limits. If the ones I love are not strong enough, I will be their strength. If they can’t defend themselves, I will be their shield. They can always rely on me. I will always be there for them and I will never fail them. I refuse to fail them. And to give up now… would go against everything I’ve ever tried to be…” Soarin slowly lifted a hoof and pressed it against the shield. “Because… I’d have let them down.”

Sombra stared, his eyes shifting from Soarin’s hoof, then back to his eyes.

“So you’re right,” Soarin continued. “I’m stubborn. But I don’t care. Look me in the eye and tell me I have no reason to be. You’ve gone to hell and back for what you believe in. If staying true to my motivation is foolish… then I’m a damn fool, and so are you.”

Sombra’s eyes widened for a moment and he quickly turned his head away, looking towards the ground. He kept his shield still, glancing over towards Celestia, who had her eyes locked on Soarin in admiration.

“I…” Sombra slowly looked up. “I cannot deny any of those words.” He turned his head back to Soarin, a reluctant look in his eyes. “You are making this truly difficult.”

“If we switched places right now… would you give up?” Soarin asked. “In front of your knights?”

“No.” Sombra answered almost immediately. “I suppose not…” he paused and exhaled. “Were the circumstances different, I truly believe our understanding of each other would benefit us both. Unfortunately, here and now… We do not have the luxury of compromise.

“HRK!” Soarin grunted as Sombra suddenly pressed his shield into him hard.

“If you will not yield, then I’m sorry… you leave me no choice. I could break your every bone and smash your body to a pulp, but it’s clear that I cannot break your spirit. If blow after blow only ends in you rising on willpower alone… then I am forced to end this through submission.”

“AAAAAAAAAAGH!” Soarin cried out as the shield pressed harder and harder against his body, squeezing him between it and the magic wall behind him.

“No pony, not even you, can withstand constant physical pressure forever,” Sombra’s tone remained calm as Soarin wailed beneath the shield. “Eventually you will lose consciousness, and then victory will be mine as our terms agreed.”

“Not… if I… can… GAH!” Soarin tried to push back, but the pressure just kept increasing. Sombra was too strong. The compression against his body was becoming unbearable, he could barely breathe.

“It will be over soon.”

“Ah!” Dash yelped as she reached out, certain that she was close enough to touch Soarin, but as with every other attempt she was further away than she perceived.

She fell over, landing flat on her stomach, groaning as she squirmed on the ground. She tried to push herself up, but despite her drive still burning strong, her strength was giving out. She gasped and panted as she lay still for a moment, trying to shift and lurch her body, but she had little luck.

Eventually she rolled over onto her back and sprawled out, taking long heavy breaths as she felt her heart beating faster. Something felt wrong, she felt like her body was being compressed, shortening her breath and making it harder to move.

Then she heard a scream. Her eyes shot open as she recognized Soarin’s voice. Her eyes darted to the image in the sky directly above her. It wasn’t easy to see while so close but… she saw it. She saw Soarin being crushed by Sombra.

No.

She was NOT going to let this happen.

With a solid, hard effort, she forced herself to roll over and look towards Soarin. The bright lights pouring forth did not bother her, she did not squint as the power rushed around her.

“Hnnnnngggggggg…” she groaned as she put her hooves to the ground, her arms and legs shaking uncontrollably. She couldn’t completely tell how far away he was, but she could tell that he was close. SO CLOSE! “COME ON!” Dash yelled to herself, growling as she summoned all the strength she had left. She couldn’t need more than one or two more hard efforts! “GRAAAAAAHHH!!!” she found just enough to push down. She could not stand, but she lunged forward and thrust her wings down to give herself a small boost.

She extended her arms…

But before she could grab anything, her face smashed right into Soarin’s leg. It wasn’t pretty, but that hardly mattered. Without a moment of thought further, Dash clamped down, wrapping her arms around Soarin’s massive arm.

There was a very sudden, and very visible undulation in the flow of magic and the expansive aura with a quiet POOF as a burst of wind rushed out of Soarin.

Sombra twitched, his entire body flinching hard.

“HNG!” he grunted as if something had just jabbed him in the side while he was pushing against Soarin. “What was—?!”

There was a bright flash from nearby.

Sombra blinked and quickly turned his head towards Celestia. But the light wasn’t from her. In fact, she had her attention drawn away as well.

Sombra’s eyes darted to her left.

The faint image of Rainbow Dash was glowing brightly. Her body became clearer as the light brightened further.

Soarin’s eyes snapped open, he inhaled sharply as he felt a rush within his body. He had no idea what it was, but two words suddenly shouted in his head.

PUSH. BACK.

Soarin made no noise. He did not roar, nor growl. He simply fixed his eyes on Sombra’s shield and pushed. He gritted his teeth, his eyes squinting as he put every ounce of effort into moving what was holding him against the wall.

Sombra perked up, his eyes darting back to Soarin as he felt a shift. The moment he saw Soarin pushing, he didn’t ask why or how, he just braced himself, locking his hooves down and leaning into the shield with all his weight and strength.

“What…?” Sombra uttered quietly… as his efforts to anchor himself did nothing.

Soarin was pushing him back.

Sombra gazed through the shield in awe as Soarin eventually got off the magic wall behind him and leaned into the shield, pushing his hooves to the ground while pressing himself into the shield.

“Hngg… hrgnhhg…” Soarin began grunting as he forced himself forward. He had no idea where he was finding the strength because he had none left, all he could feel was a sensation flaring up within him, and a voice in his head yelling PUSH. PUSH. PUSH.

Sombra’s hooves skidded and screeched against the ground, he tried to hold against Soarin, but it just didn’t work. His mind raced as he contemplated how it was possible, but then he noticed something… something about Soarin. There was a very faint white glow surrounding him… the very same light that was shining from the image of Dash.

Sombra had had enough, he backed off, pulling his shield away and leaping backwards. Soarin yelped, stumbling forward, but catching himself before he could fall, standing on all fours but with his head and neck hunched down as he panted and wheezed.

Sombra slid to a stop and held his sword and shield at the ready, carefully examining Soarin and the light surrounding him. His ears turned as the sound of tearing came from nearby. He whipped his head to the left to see the image of Dash… standing up. She was forcing herself against the shadowy bindings that had been holding her down, her eyes were open and her teeth were jammed together as she glared at the ground beneath her. Her body was filling in more and more, not becoming solid, but no longer as transparent. Celestia was staring at Dash with wide eyes and jaw agape as if she was watching the unthinkable, Dash’s spirit breaking free of the same shadowy limbs that she had failed to make even the slightest dent in.

With a hard, solid effort… the image of Dash ripped free from the bindings, spreading her wings out and tilting her head back as if she were roaring out.

“What is the meaning of this?” Sombra asked with a growl as he turned his head halfway, his eyes darting between Soarin and Dash and confirming the glowing was synchronized. He watched as Dash started walking towards Soarin. As she got closer to him, the glow surrounding them both intensified. The light began to sparkle and dance about them in particles as she grew near.

“She…” Sombra blinked. “She must be near… She’s…”

Sombra closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment.

“Ah!” His eyes shot open. “She is there!” he exclaimed after taking a brief glimpse outside.

Dash moved in, and turned, standing right beside Soarin. Soarin smiled, the look of fatigue on his face quickly reviving the determination it held just prior.

“Dash…” he said without looking at her. “I can feel you there…” he said in a warm tone.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Dash’s voice rang out in his head, her image neither looking at him nor visibly speaking.

Soarin’s smile slowly turned into a sly grin.

“What the hell took you so long?” he joked, turning his head towards her.

“Sorry…” Dash flipped her mane back and forth, countering his sly grin with a smug one. “Was busy kicking ass and taking names.”

“Madness!” Sombra suddenly shouted towards them while jamming his sword into the ground and pointing a hoof. “How is she having an effect on you?! This is a simulation… We are detached from all outside interference, including from each other!”

“Heh…” Soarin chuckled. “Everything looks normal to me, buddy.”

“No!” Sombra uprooted his sword and pointed it towards them. “This is between YOU and ME! That’s what we agreed on!” he shouted angrily.

“You don’t understand a thing about me,” Soarin said calmly as he lightly shook his head. “This is exactly what we agreed to.”

“… Elaborate.” Sombra asked simply, a hint of curiosity sneaking into his voice.

“You made me the way I was before your power was forced into me right?”

“Correct,” Sombra answered quickly.

“Well… guess what?” Soarin smirked. “She pushed her way into my life before that happened.”

Sombra blinked, his eyes widening slightly, but saying nothing.

“She became a part of me, well… more accurately she forced her way in. I was a stubborn dick about it at first, but she got right in my face and got into my mind. I didn’t understand just how much she had changed me, but when that tornado hit the town… when the Shadowbolts emerged… I fought for her while on death’s door. I was beaten within an inch of my life. My body was broken and I could barely breathe, but when she came crashing through and put herself in harm’s way for my sake, it lit a fire in me. A fire that raged and gave me the strength to do things I never thought possible. Things I shouldn’t have been able to do in my state.”

“Hm…” Sombra hummed to himself as he listened, but Soarin wasn’t done. He pointed towards Sombra.

“So guess what, pal?!” He grinned. “You made a mistake. You thought it was your power that made me stronger through all of this? No… it was her.” He set his hooves firmly on the ground, his look of determination refusing to fade. “She IS… a part of me.”

Sombra watched as Dash took the exact same stance as him, as if she were his shadow.

“With her at my side… I can do ANYTHING!” Soarin cracked his neck back and forth. “You want me at my best? You’ve got it right now!”

Sombra shut his eyes tight and tipped his head down rather suddenly.

Soarin flinched at Sombra’s sudden sharp move, but looked towards him curiously.

Sombra’s lip was quivering… and what sounded like quiet grunts were squeaking through. Upon looking more closely, Soarin noticed Sombra’s body was shaking a little.

“Heh…” Sombra let out a single chuckle, his lips turning upward into a grin, but it didn’t look like a stable one. “I see…”

Soarin tipped his head curiously as Sombra slowly opened his eyes. He looked shaken.

“You are correct, I was mistaken.” Sombra tipped his head up, his weakened gaze fixed on Soarin. “But my mistake was to not consider her from the start.” He let out a heavy sigh. “A strong connection with another…” Sombra went on. “One that inexplicably bolsters one’s might at the mere thought…” he briefly glanced towards Celestia. “I know exactly how that feels, because I once had that too. I envy you.”

Celestia flinched hard, inhaling sharply as if she was just stabbed through the heart.

“But it is not the time for me to dwell… because I am thrilled,” he hardened his eyes and released a sharp breath through his nostrils as he readied his sword and shield. “You say she will bring out the best in you? Then our battle continues! SHOW ME!”

Sombra charged towards them, his eyes locked on Soarin. He brought his sword around, winding it up into a hard swing from the left. He purposely projected it, waiting to see how Soarin would move to adjust, but…

Soarin held his ground, he tipped his opposite side towards the sword while bringing his arm around. His hoof met the sword’s flat edge, before pushing up, using Sombra’s own momentum against him and bouncing the swing up and away harmlessly. Without a moment of hesitation, Soarin leapt forward with his other arm pulled back. Sombra’s eyes widened as Soarin’s hoof careened towards his face with no time to lift his shield.

“RGH!” Sombra tilted his head just in time, Soarin’s hoof brushing against his face and whisking through his mane. Sombra snarled and brought his shield around to smash it over Soarin, but Soarin spun, bringing his arm around and struck Sombra right in the throat with a reverse lariat.

Sombra coughed loudly, his eyes open wide as Soarin landed his first solid blow. He grunted, swinging his shield around and catching Soarin with the edge. It forced them apart, Sombra backing up and shaking his head out, blinking with wide eyes. Soarin stumbled and fell, but rolled over and instantly stood up, the image of Dash mimicking every single movement he made while remaining right next to him.

Sombra held his shield at the ready, the sword resting flat atop it from over his shoulder. He peered over the top, staring towards Soarin and Dash as they stood upright and at the ready. He hardened his gaze and charged, keeping his sword and shield in defensive positions. Soarin did not move, bracing himself and throwing up his arm as Sombra reached him, the shield crashing into him. His hooves skidded backwards as Sombra pushed. After several yards, Sombra forced his shield out, shoving Soarin away from him and bringing his sword down from above.

Soarin’s eyes locked on the sword, swinging his body to tilt himself away. The sword caught him on the shoulder, but thanks to his turning motion the power of the strike was lessened. He was forcefully twisted around, but used it to his advantage, slamming his front hooves to the ground, spinning on them into a double backward buck, his hooves catching Sombra right in the chest.

“OOF!” Sombra grunted as Soarin’s hooves connected and stumbled backwards a few steps, the tip of his sword striking the ground and dragging along with him. He quickly placed the sword at his side and brought his shield around, but again, Soarin did not pursue. He found his hooves and stood at the ready, Dash still attached to him like a shadow.

Sombra lowered his shield a little, examining Soarin again.

That was twice now. Soarin had landed another direct hit. Both of them were by no means damaging, more reactive in nature than packed with power. Yet up until now, Soarin had never managed to land a solid blow.

But what had changed? That’s what was puzzling Sombra. With Dash now in the mix, Sombra was watching Soarin’s movements carefully, but there was no noticeable difference. He wasn’t stronger and he wasn’t faster or quicker. There was no apparent change in his ability, nothing that indicated Dash was enhancing him. He was still Soarin, exactly the way Sombra had projected him into their simulation, not to mention he was heavily beaten.

If none of those things could explain it… then all that was left was effort, determination and drive.

Sombra couldn’t hold back a small grin as he charged again, eager to see if he was right.

And he was.

The fight continued, Soarin continuing to land a hit here and there while finding ways to dodge or lessen the blows he was receiving. Sombra watched with great interest as he engaged, not letting up one bit as he observed.

Every charge, every clash, every traded blow… Soarin’s movements were magnificent. He appeared sluggish and hurt, but he was being patient and smart, putting surges of effort into movements when they counted and pushing himself through moments of weakness. Where he buckled and fell before, he strained and held strong. Where his strength waned and his movements suffered earlier, he forced through to finish them. Was this all simply Dash’s presence? Did she really bring out so much in him by just being there?

It was as if the battle had begun anew. Sombra was eager to continue, pushing harder and harder, but Soarin always had a response.

Sombra rushed forward, smiling as he galloped towards them. Soarin had his eyes locked and wings spread at the ready. Sombra twirled the sword over his head and brought it in for a low sweep. Soarin instinctively leapt up and pumped his wings down. Dash still shadowed him perfectly.

But it was a feint. Sombra jumped into the air after him, using his momentum to spin around in the air and come around for another swing as he got level with Soarin in the air.

But as his eyes turned to focus and land the hit, Soarin suddenly slammed his wings back, a loud POW ringing out as he was thrust forward with a hoof pulled back. Sombra’s eyes grew wide, unable to dodge, and unable to protect himself.

“HAH!” Soarin shouted as he thrust his hoof forward, catching Sombra square in the cheek with an extremely heavy hit, throwing all of his weight, motion, and strength into it.

“RGH!” Sombra grunted as he was sent to the ground, crashing on his back and bouncing once before quickly forcing himself upright onto his hooves, skidding on them a little and jamming his sword into the ground to stop himself. His neck was arched to the side, still stretched by the harsh whiplash from the punch.

“GOT YOU!” Soarin cheered as he fell and nearly landed face first on the ground, quickly stabilizing himself and standing upright with a subtle wobble.

Sombra slowly straightened his neck and shook his head lightly, but… there was a smile on his face. A smile complete with a small trickle of blood dripping from his lip and a bruise on his cheek.

“This…” Sombra chuckled. “This is what I wanted. This is how things should be!” he exclaimed as he readied his sword and shield. “She has drawn out the warrior sleeping within you… the one I’ve desired to face! Not even the wear on your body is hindering you!”

“I’ve got plenty left in the tank, tough guy!” Soarin cracked his neck back and forth. “Not such a sure thing now, is it? You’re not about to go back on your word, are you?”

“I’d never dream of it,” Sombra smirked. “But I’m still going to win!”

“We’ll see about that!” Soarin shot back.

“Kick his ass!” Dash encouraged from the side.

“Yes ma’am!” Soarin surged forward, galloping on his weakened legs as if they were at full strength. Sombra charged as well, the battle continuing.

Soarin took to the air, making use of flight to even out the advantage of Sombra’s weapons. Sombra remained grounded, knowing both of his attempts to get airborne ended poorly for him. But he dug in, making all the shifts and movements needed to meet Soarin’s attacks or launch his own.

Soarin was surprising himself. He had never felt more focused in his life. He was fighting with the weight of the whole world on his shoulders already and yet the singular presence of Dash had lit a second fire within him.

Was she strengthening him? No. Was she guiding him? No. Was he… just trying to impress her? Probably. Whatever it was, it was helping. Hell, he was just happy she was there. Maybe that’s all he needed, to have her by his side.

Soarin and Sombra continuously clashed, trading blows back and forth. The fight was no longer one sided. It had evened out into a match between Soarin’s airborne combat skills against Sombra’s masterful magic swordplay. Sombra was clearly superior to him in every way, but the full emergence of Soarin’s willpower and pure grit appeared to close the gap.

And they were enjoying it.

It was the perfect battle. A legendary warrior king who relished a worthy opponent against a stallion fighting for his life who’s too stubborn to ever lay down and accept defeat.

It went on with no end in sight. They were going at one another with everything they had, but neither side seemed to waver.

Celestia could not believe what she was seeing as she watched Soarin push back, tipping the scales on the insurmountable odds. She knew Sombra’s battle prowess better than anypony, and yet with the support of Dash, Soarin was forcing him to fight with all his strength. The battle was becoming a sight she had trouble comprehending, even for her. It shouldn’t be possible, but she was witnessing it nonetheless. The combined effort of the two, the determination of Soarin bolstered by the presence and encouragement of Dash… was matching the full force of Sombra’s might.

Could the two of them… actually prevail? Celestia felt as if such a hope was false and ignorant, but she could not deny what she was seeing. A battle that should very much be a mismatch had become a standstill with neither side having a clear advantage.

Celestia was not the only one who was witnessing the extraordinary circumstances.

Outside, both within and without the walls of the Empire, nopony could take their eyes off of the sky. The magical pressure surging forth had grown more immense as the intensity of the projected battle grew. Even the small skirmishes that had broken out amid the initial confusion had ceased.

Fleetfoot and Angel were floating side by side, staring up at the battle.

Blade and Fire Streak were still mid grapple, their arms simply resting on one another as their focus had been completely drawn away.

Not even Spitfire and Nightshade were fighting, their eyes stuck upwards with Nightshade lightly held in a headlock under Spitfire’s arm.

Everything had stopped, absolutely everything. It was as if they were being drawn to the sight, like they were witnessing something more important than anything else in their lifetime. None of them knew why, all of them had different motivations as to why they were even there in the first place. But this took priority over everything. At this point, they were all just spectators to something much larger than themselves.

The pony with the best seat in the house was left utterly speechless. Ruin too, was staring up into the sky and watching as Soarin turned the tide of the battle from a hopeless effort into an even match. The edges of his lips were quivering, a crazed smile trying to fight its way onto his awe inspired expression as the conflicting emotions endlessly clashed. His thoughts were split down the middle between watching something truly amazing and wrapping his mind around what it all meant. How the simple addition of Dash caused such a shift, how Soarin’s willpower proved to be more powerful than any could have imagined, to the point of facing down an opponent such as Sombra. All of that… currently packed into a single body.

“Heh… hehehe heeeeee…” Ruin twitched, his body jostling lightly as the giggles forced their way out of his throat.

Twister was sitting behind him. He was no longer messing around or playing jokes on Ruin. He simply looked into the sky, a smile on his face as he focused primarily on Soarin with Dash right beside him in the battle.

Again and again. Strike after strike. Clash after clash.

The battle raged on with neither side letting up. For every blow Soarin took he returned his own and vice versa, Sombra smiling wide with endless satisfaction as they continued to trade hits.

All of it happening… right in front of Celestia, whose chest felt tighter by the second as she watched. The longer this went on, the more it hurt. She was not feeling pity for Soarin… he did not need it. He and Dash were acting on their own and… fighting a battle that she felt was really hers.

Soarin’s words to Sombra were echoing in her head. Everything that he said about protecting his world, how he spoke about all the ponies’ lives and how special each one is…

Those sounded like words that she should be saying, yet here they were at the conclusion of a wild ride that began because she neglected that ideology in favor of achieving a personal, selfish goal.

She couldn’t possibly feel more ashamed of herself, and it tore at her the more she thought about it. Soarin was fighting to correct her mistake. She brought this all upon him and yet here he was giving his all to make it all right.

Soarin was in a position of uncertainty, a proverbial dead end. He was putting everything on the line to fight regardless of knowing whether or not he’d come out of it intact or even alive.

He was showing strength, determination, and tremendous willpower in the face of helplessness…

Him… a mortal…

While she lay bound and powerless, stuck in a position that could have been avoided if she had simply taken the steps to fix the mistakes she had made up to this point. Instead she had hesitated in fear of her own demise.

Sombra’s taunts were justified. He had rightly rubbed salt in the wounds, branding her a coward for not summoning her separated power she had locked away to destroy him. He called out her fear of destroying Soarin’s body from within, destroying herself and everything inside in the process.

She had been quietly denying it in her head, but Sombra was right. He had laid bare her weakness and now she was feeling every inch of the knife being twisted within her.

She claimed stopping Sombra was all that mattered, that he presented the greatest danger to the world she watched over. Yet if that were the case, then she should be willing make the greatest sacrifice. She was a fool, she was weak… Sombra was right and Soarin was only proving how right he was.

And that…

Celestia averted her eyes, slamming them shut and gritting her teeth.

That was wrong. This was wrong. This was all her fault and she wasn’t taking responsibility for it.

Her eyes shot open, and stared towards Soarin, locking on him and the image of Dash tethered to him, pushing themselves far beyond what they should be capable of. All for the sake of Equestria.

They were staying strong to what they believed in…

So what in the world was stopping her from doing the same?!

A fire lit in her eyes and she glared towards Sombra.

Enough is enough… she would not sit by any longer and watch as mortals fought a battle that was hers… that she was scared to truly take on.

The battle appeared to be even, but there was no knowing how long Soarin and Dash could keep it up. She had to act now while she had the chance.

She did believe that Sombra and his ambitions were a threat to the world and she would prove it by doing what was necessary to quell it as a god should! No matter the cost…

She had to get free! She could not focus her energy while still bound, they would only tighten and prevent her. If she could get out… then she could do what had to be done!

“HNGH!!!!” Celestia grunted as she pressed her hooves down, forcing her body against the shadowy bindings, but as before they tightened harshly the moment she moved. “AH!” she yelped as she crashed back to the ground. “No! I… MUST!” she encouraged herself as the battle continued to rage before her. “No more running! No more hiding!” she forced out as she pushed again. “If Rainbow Dash… freed herself… then so can I! I’ll prove him wrong! I’ll … I’ll…” she wheezed as the bindings squeezed her arms and legs, wrapping around her body and two pulling her down hard by the neck. She cried out as she hit the ground hard again, gasping, panting, and twitching as the bindings constricted her further, punishing her for trying to escape.

With the side of her head flat to the ground, she forced her other eye open. Her pupil shook as she watched Soarin take several hard hits all in a row, ending with a sword directly to the face. It looked like a clean knockout blow, but he somehow managed to stay on his hooves, charging right back into Sombra’s range as if nothing could knock him down.

“RGH!!!!!!” Celestia growled, thrashing about again despite the tightness gripping her. “I CAN! I WILL!” she grunted and wheezed as she tried to force her way out again. The sight of Soarin continuously reminding her that she had no excuse to be held down.

Soarin charged headlong at Sombra with Dash at his side. Nothing about his body or the skill of his opponent deterring him from his only goal, pounding Sombra flat. He had landed several blows on Sombra now, making sure to pay back every hit he took. His determination and Dash’s support were pushing him forward, giving him the desire to fight on and give it his all, picking out all the fine details of Sombra’s movements, working around the pain coursing through him, and fighting as if everything was on the line… because it really was.

Sombra was smiling, and the more Soarin fought back, the wider the smile became. He felt each strike that landed on his body, he gave extra efforts to attack and defend, and he was pushing his own limits to meet this unexpected challenge of a desperate Soarin.

But was Soarin really desperate? Sombra was beginning to feel that wasn’t the case. Desperation implied fear, it implied succeeding no matter the means and becoming reckless, unhinged.

That’s not what he was fighting. Sombra could feel it in the very blows that connected to him. Soarin was fighting to win. He was fighting for everything he cared about.

Sombra was happy, so very happy. He was lost in the moment and was thrilled that Soarin showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Soarin was not smiling… and neither was Dash. They were not enjoying this fight, but they were not backing down from it… no chance in hell. Together they forced forward into Sombra’s barrage of attacks, together they brushed aside any pain from Sombra’s strikes, and together they launched an assault of their own. Dash’s presence was pushing Soarin past every limit, making him go further than he ever thought he could, not even Sombra’s magic had ever given him this feeling or drive. It was strength he could never find alone. His desire to succeed for Dash and for everything he cared for in this moment was stronger than anything he had felt in his life. Not to mention… he had a very strong urge to release all the pent up frustration gained over everything he had been forced through recently, and boy it felt good.

Two goals, two desires, two stallions clashing head to head for everything they believed in.

The two slammed headlong into one another, Soarin’s hoof connecting to Sombra’s face as Sombra’s sword struck him square in the chest. They were sent flying apart, both falling to the ground and tumbling to a stop before they simultaneously rolled right back onto their hooves.

Both took stances to continue, but for a moment the combat ceased. Heavy breathing, huffing and puffing as the two caught their breath and stared at one another.

“Astounding…” Sombra spoke up, shaking his head lightly with a great big smile still plastered to his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive before… so… engaged! This is everything I could have ever asked for… you are the most worthy opponent I’ve ever crossed blades with!” his voice was oddly patterned, it almost sounded hysterical as if he was being driven by personal euphoria.

Celestia perked up, a light gasp escaping her throat as she felt her bindings… weaken? She glanced down to see them growing thinner, quickly looking back towards Sombra. He was utterly lost in the moment, his pupils were shaking as he smiled with pure delight. Was his focus on Soarin sapping power from the magic that held her down?

“I’m not done yet…” Soarin growled, cracking his neck and spitting out a wad of blood. “And I’m not giving in no matter how hard you hit me!” he stated adamantly, the image of Dash copying all his movements and mannerisms.

“Good!” Sombra chuckled loudly, slamming his sword to the ground beside him and holding a hoof out. “I want this to go on! This is a once in a lifetime battle! It would be outright shameful for it to end so—”

“HHHHHNNNNGGGRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!”

Sombra was cut off, both he and Soarin flinching in surprise and looking up just in time to see Celestia force herself up, the thinning bindings tearing to pieces as she thrust her wings out and yanked her limbs free. The instant she was out, she glared towards them, her spirit’s transparency becoming more opaque with a thin yellow glow accompanying it.

“ENOUGH!” her voice boomed, as a pulse of energy shot from around her and made the two stallions stagger slightly.

“What?!” Sombra blinked as he quickly steadied himself and snarled. “I don’t think so!”

Large shadows extended forth from beneath him, sliding beneath Celestia as the shadowy limbs popped up again, reaching to grab her. But Celestia whipped her neck around, another burst of force rushing from her spirit, knocking them all away.

“Ah!” Sombra shielded himself as he was hit by the second shockwave himself, the shadow retreating back to him. “What do you think you’re doing?!” he yelled towards her. “DON’T interfere! This is between myself and Soarin, by his acceptance!”

“What am I doing?” Celestia scrunched her face, keeping her glare set on Sombra as her eyes glowed faintly. “I’m accepting responsibility… and doing what I must.”

“Excuse me?” Sombra scoffed in a condescending tone while lifting an eyebrow. But Celestia ignored him, looking towards Soarin instead.

“Soarin… your determination to stay strong has moved me…” Her voice was filled with strength but there was a hint of regret. “You are fighting to protect our world from a threat that I created… and forced upon you. I have no right to ask for your forgiveness, but I am deeply sorry to have put you through such pain.”

Soarin blinked, staring at her while unsure what to think as Sombra continued to scowl, as if she was wasting her breath.

“I do not feel I was wrong to save your life… but I was wrong to use my own agenda as justification. And now it’s time I stopped running from the truth.” She slowly looked back towards Sombra. “I made this mess…” she hardened her eyes into a glare and yellow light shone brightly from them. “And it’s high time that I clean it up!” she shouted as the light surrounding her slowly intensified.

“Whoaaa ah…” Soarin suddenly swayed and shuddered as he felt a prickling sensation build all over him. “Wh… what are you doing?!” Soarin asked, slightly frantic as the sensation grew stronger as the light around Celestia grew brighter.

“What I should have done before everything went wrong… before you lost control and had your body stripped from you by this misguided relic of the past!” She stated as a subtle echo started accompanying her voice. “I’m going to recall my magic reserves to my spirit here… and restore my power in full! So that I may END the threat of Sombra once and for all!”

“HA!” Sombra let out a hearty guffaw followed by several loud chuckles. “Laughable! Absurd! You will do no such thing!” He lashed out at her condescendingly.

“YES I WILL!” she shouted back, the echo in her voice becoming louder as the light continued to brighten. “I owe this to all those I’ve wronged, all those who have been caught in this childish romantic fantasy of mine! It’s all because of me! You still live because of my weakness! And now… I will make amends by destroying you! I will ensure those in this world can live on without your ambition threatening their livelihood! It is MY duty to protect them, and I WILL protect them!”

“You expect me to believe your gutless drivel now?!” Sombra took a hard step towards her, pointing his sword in her direction. “That you’re suddenly willing to destroy yourself after your endless cowardice towards the very thought?! Spare me the theatrics!”

“THEN WATCH ME!” Celestia roared, the light rushing forth and a burst of magical pressure exploding out from around her.

“AH!” Soarin crumpled down slightly, his legs wobbling as the prickling sensation suddenly turned into pain. Sombra was nearly blown off his hooves, his sword and shield jostling as the pressure threatened to push the magical manifestations apart. He blinked as he braced himself against the force, staring towards Celestia blankly.

“You cast me as a villain!” Celestia snarled. “As a plague upon a world that YOU envision! The world before you is only wrong in YOUR eyes! You will NOT tamper with that which I’ve come to hold so dear!”

Sombra’s eyes grew wide as he looked around, the blue tint of the area flickering.

“I will not let Soarin fight this battle for me any longer! Let me show you what this world means to ME!” The light shining from her began to overtake the blue tint of the area. “Let me show you… what I’d sacrifice for it!”

“RGH!” Sombra grunted as he was nearly forced to the ground, tensing his legs to keep himself upright. His sword and shield slammed to the ground, their forms buckling as they struggled to hold together. He forced his head up, his eyes wide and his pupils shaking as realization set in. “What…? You’re…?!”

“That’s right, Sombra!” Celestia shouted, spreading her wings out. “I’m going to prove you WRONG! Your thirst for power ends here and now!”

“You’re mad!” Sombra yelled frantically, his tone completely changed. The shift in Sombra’s voice made Soarin panic. If Sombra was losing his cool, then… “You’ll destroy us all!” Sombra added, forcing his voice as the pressure continued to grow.

“SO BE IT!” Celesta yelled, throwing her neck back.

Back in Canterlot…

Down within the hidden depths of the vaults beneath Canterlot Castle…

A lone unicorn guard was asleep on duty outside an enormous pair of magically sealed doors that gave off a faint yellow glow.

The guard had been warned not to get caught sleeping on duty. Ever since Discord casually let himself through the doors they were threatened with harsh consequences if it happened again… as if stopping Discord was ever a possibility.

But stuck so far below the castle on guard duty for hours… with no knowledge of what he was actually guarding… in a place nopony ever goes to? The guard was asleep anyway.

Unbeknownst to him… the soft glow of the doors was brightening.

“Grph… mrgle…” the guard stirred as shifted his head away as the dim yellow glow intensified into a yellow shine. It showed no signs of stopping, the guard reaching up and sleepily pushing his helmet to cover his face.

A quiet, shrill screeching sound started to come from the doors. The sound grew louder and louder, eventually stirring the guard awake.

“Bwuh… Huh…?” he tipped his helmet up and was nearly blinded by the light. “AH! WHAT THE…?!” He shut his eyes and covered his ears as the light and the screech became too much to bear.

The doors flung open, smacking right into him and throwing him against the opposite wall.

He curled up and protected himself as a stream of bright yellow light ejected from the doors, shooting into the halls of the vaults. Rushing winds accompanied by the outpour extinguished all the torches and knocked over every ornament and wall dressing, even tearing up some of the carpeting. The cacophony lasted for several seconds before the light vanished completely, gone as quickly as it appeared.

The guard peeked out from his arms, and lit up the magic on his horn to create some light.

He rolled over and stared at the massive doors, now open with absolutely nothing inside.

“Aw hell… the captain’s gonna kill me…”

Alas, the guard did not know what had been willingly unleashed.

The entirety of Canterlot Castle had illuminated in the night. Ponies all over the city turned and stared as the centerpiece of the kingdom lit up like a beacon, glowing brighter and brighter like the sun itself. Those nearby sought shelter from the blinding rays.

Those brave enough to look peeked out, barely able to see as they shielded their eyes.

But the light did not remain there for long.

It slowly rose into the sky, lifting from the castle like the sun rising over a horizon and illuminating the dim twilight sky as if it were the middle of the day. Anypony looking out was eventually forced away, afraid for their eyes as the glow was becoming as powerful as the sun itself.

But then with a loud screech and a bang similar to a sonic boom, the light shot out into the distance, stretching like a shooting star across the sky as it left Canterlot behind, plunging it back into the darkness of the night.

Ponies all over the city peered out, blinking as their eyes slowly readjusted to the night.

But none of them had a clue what had just happened.

All ears pointed up and all eyes glanced around. Outside the walls of the Crystal Empire, something was happening, something strange enough to pull everypony’s eyes away from the projected battle in the sky.

A shrill screeching noise that was growing louder by the second… and the sky growing brighter, the blue hue of Sombra’ magic from the Crystal Palace being overtaken by something much brighter.

Then a bright, blinding flash came from the direction of the mountains. All eyes turned, yet were instantly shielded as an enormous sphere of yellow light hovered above the highest peak. The Thestrels hissed painfully, all of them ducking for cover behind others and anything they could find as the light shined down upon the realm.

The overwhelming brightness only lasted a few seconds, the light growing gentler, calmer… and then began to change. The sphere moved, turned, and began to morph like an amoeba, growing outward unevenly, but growing larger and larger… much larger. What started as a globe the size of the largest mountain was slowly expanding and looming large over the entire mountain range, a massive changing shape that no pony could look away from, in both awe and fear of what it could be.

The growing light began to take on an actual shape, certain parts of it stopping as others continued to reach out, slowly forming coherent shapes until it began to appear… as a pony? No, not a pony, something larger than an average pony.

When the body completed its shape, harsher light shone from the head and the back, creating wings and a long horn. With one final bright flash, a colorful array of lights extended from the head, running down its neck, back and shoulders.

At that point there was no mistaking it.

The light had taken on a massive depiction… of Princess Celestia. One that stood so tall and large that she dwarfed the mountain range, the peaks barely reaching the length of her hooves as she stood tall in the cloudless sky.

Without a sound, the massive form of the light took a step, a slow, gigantic step that covered half the distance between the mountains and the Empire itself in a single stride. Ponies yelped and shielded themselves as the hoof plunged down from above, but they were surprised when it passed right over them gently, feeling nothing more than the warmth of the light as they were bathed in its presence.

Nearby, a certain beaten and bruised amalgamation of animals poked his head out from behind a tree, feeling the sudden, highly unnatural surge of power nearby. Discord glanced back and forth before perking up and seeing what was literally right in front of him. He gasped loudly, stirring Luna who lay on the ground beside him, still twitching and delirious from unleashing her divine powers.

“Discord…?” she asked groggily. “What are you…?”

Luna froze as well, her eyes shooting open as she saw exactly what he was seeing, both gods left utterly speechless for a moment.

“S… Sister?! Is that our sister?!” Luna exclaimed, her shock negating her dizziness for a moment. She looked at Discord, but he looked… terrified?

“Oh no… she’s…” Discord grabbed his chest. “No… she’s not seriously going to…” Discord grabbed his head and shook it furiously. “No, no, NOOOO!!!!”

“Ah!” Luna flinched as Discord propelled himself high into the air, shooting towards Celestia at an alarming speed. Discord zipped into the path of Celestia’s image, her massive body moving towards him as she started her second step forward.

“Stop it, please!” he yelled as he thrust his arms out, but she passed right over him. “STOP!” he repeated, grabbing into the light desperately as if trying to deter her, but it was no use.

Celestia now stood directly over the empire. The empire itself appeared tiny in comparison as she loomed large, completely overtaking the projection from the Crystal Palace. She looked down at the Empire below, positioned directly over Soarin, who appeared as a tiny speck compared to her massive form.

Her image began to undulate and flicker, becoming blurry and scratchy.

“TIAAAAAAA!!!!!!” Discord cried out. “DON’T!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The colossus of light capsized, compressing and began turning into a bright, shining stream of energy that slowly pulled at the image like a string unraveling a sweater. The stream shot down towards Soarin, compressing and growing brighter and brighter as it squeezed down… and surged directly towards the curved red horn on Soarin’s head.

“NO!” Sombra yelled as he forced himself against the pressure. “I will-AH!” he shuddered, but held himself firmly, he growled as his horn lit up brightly, pumping more power into his sword and shield to steel them against the magic trying to rip them apart. “I WILL NOT LET YOU!” Sombra roared. “I WILL NOT BE DESTROYED! NOT EVEN BY YOU! I REFUSE!”

He charged towards Celestia, shield in front and sword pulled back ready to strike her.

But as he brought the sword around to swing… Celestia’s magic struck Soarin’s horn from the outside.

Soarin felt an enormous jolt, like he had just been hit over the head by a heavy, blunt object. The light around Celestia burst outward, her form becoming solid as energy shot in every direction.

Sombra’s sword struck her…

And it shattered to pieces. Sombra roared out in pain as he was floored by the surging energy, his shield breaking to pieces as well as he was launched backwards.

He tumbled to a halt, right in front of Soarin, groaning in agony as his body twitched and stirred.

Yet Soarin only had a moment to register what he just saw, because there was suddenly… pressure. It was different from that which was already surrounding him. It felt like it was coming from inside of him and growing at an alarming rate. Rapid shocks of pain started shooting through him from head to hoof, spreading through him and growing so strong that it began overwhelming him in seconds.

“Ah… AHHHHHHH!!!!!” Soarin screamed, dropping to the ground as his body shook violently. The image of Dash beside him fell down right beside him, also writhing. It felt like his mind, his very conscience was being crushed in a vice.

“I’M SORRY, SOARIN! BUT I CANNOT LET HIM HAVE HIS WAY!!!!” Celestia called out, keeping her eyes locked on Sombra as he struggled to regain himself.

“Rgh… RGGGHHH!!!!!!” Sombra grunted loudly as he rolled over and slowly forced himself up, his great strength barely managing against the intensity of Celestia’s divine energy. He gasped, ears standing up as he looked down at himself. His solid simulated image was buckling, he was feeling sharp pins and needles all over. Yellow cracks began forming in him, as if Celestia’s magic was trying to force his very spirit apart. He looked over his shoulder frantically, noticing the same thing was happening to Dash and Soarin, the two of them cringing and shaking as the magic ripped through their forms.

“NO! I WON’T! ARGH!” Sombra wobbled, barely able to stay standing, but he glared as hard as he could towards Celestia. “I WILL NOT FALL! I WILL NOT LET YOUR POWER OVERWHELM ME!”

Sombra firmly set his hooves and forced as much magic as he could muster through his body, his horn lighting up brightly and his body surrounded in a blue glow.

“I WILL CONTROL IT!” he yelled adamantly. “I WON’T FAIL AGAIN! I WON’T BE OVERWHELMED! THIS TIME I CAN… I… I… ARGH!” he tipped back and forth as Celestia’s magic pushed hard against his. “I CAN!” he exclaimed, some of Celestia’s magic starting to swirl around him and jump to his horn as his body struggled to hold together.

Dash didn’t know what was happening. She was clinging to Soarin’s arm, never letting go. One moment she had a view of what was going on inside of him, the next she was back in her own head and surrounded by an intense light that was pouring out from Soarin’s body. There was an excruciating amount of pain coursing through her. It felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside, every inch of her body on fire as if she had been thrust into the sun.

It was Celestia, wasn’t it…? It was her power? The question of Celestia’s whereabouts and how she was suddenly there with Soarin would have to wait. She only had a glimpse of it on the inside, but that had to be what was happening. It felt like her very life force was being crushed, compressed and ripped to shreds.

It was killing her… killing both of them. The sudden surge was so powerful and overwhelming that she already felt like she was slipping. So this was how powerful Celestia was? A mortal body stood no chance.

If this kept up… they were going to die. There was nothing that suggested otherwise. The pain and pressure were already unbearable and it was only growing stronger, the yellow aura of Celestia’s magic engulfing them slowly and brightening the entire courtyard. It was shooting up like a beacon, a pillar of light many times taller than the crystal palace and piercing sky.

Dash wasn’t one to give into pain, but… what was this?! This wasn’t pain, this was something she couldn’t comprehend! It was so extreme and so unknown that she felt utterly powerless. She had become familiar with sensations of magic, its pressure, and the effects on the body up to this point, but this was so far above anything she could have ever imagined. It felt like she had been impaled, and forced to wait as her body expired.

She slowly tipped her head to look towards Soarin as the feeling set in. She felt lost, and broken, slowly losing herself. If this was really it, she refused to go without seeing Soarin beside her, the two of them facing this together. There was no place she’d rather…

Dash blinked as her eyes landed on him.

Soarin was looking down at her, his large head tilted to meet her eyes.

The eyes that met hers? They weren’t Sombra’s red eyes… they were his. Soarin’s eyes were looking down upon her, but they were not like hers. His eyes were not broken, stuck, or filled with realization.

Soarin was glaring and gritting his teeth. His muscles were tensing as he reached his other arm towards Dash and grabbed her around the back, holding on tightly.

“NOT… YET…!”

Dash gasped, her pupils enlarging as Soarin spoke in his own voice.

“I’M… NOT… THROUGH… YET…!”

“DON’T UNDERESTIMATE ME!” Sombra yelled as Celestia’s magic swirled around him, several of its rays being drawn into Sombra’s horn. “I WILL PROVE—AH!” he lurched as more cracks appeared on his body and a yellow glow began appearing in his eyes. Suddenly a loud BANG rang out from his body and its solid form shattered. His spirit remained in the image of his youthful form, holding onto it as he forced himself forward, inching towards Celestia. “I WILL PROVE TO YOU… THAT I CAN… CONTROL…”

His aura began to expand as he took in more, a yellow glow shining from the edge of the blue. But as the flow continued, the blue light halted and only the yellow light extended, eventually pushing back, compressing his aura down. He stopped in his tracks a few paces from Celestia, unable to push any further. Eventually the yellow light reached him, snuffing out all of the blue… and his eyes shot open, his neck arching back.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” he cried out in agony. “ARGH!!!! GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” he crumpled to the ground before Celestia, yellow light shooting from his eyes and mouth as the energy he attempted to absorb ejected from his body, spraying in all directions from his horn as he writhed. “IT’S… TOO MUCH! STOP IT! STOP IT, PLEASE!!!!!” he suddenly begged desperately.

“SO NOW YOU SEE?!” Celestia roared out as her power continued to build up without an end in sight. “NOW YOU ADMIT YOUR NAIVETY?!” she stomped a hoof, a loud FWOOSH and a burst of force ejecting from her as her aura only grew larger. “FEEL THE POWER YOU THOUGHT YOU UNDERSTOOD! THAT YOU SOUGHT TO USURP! HOW FITTING THAT YOUR DEMISE IS BY THE VERY THING YOU WISHED TO WRONGFULLY OBTAIN!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” Sombra continued to wail as he grabbed his body, curling up and shaking while rolling back and forth. Celestia’s body grew larger, her entire presence expanding as she moved closer, standing directly over Sombra and towering over his pitiful state.

“FEEL IT! FEEL ALL OF IT!” she roared down at him as her magic slashed and jabbed at him, still pouring out of his body as he screamed in pain. “KNOW HOW FOOLISH YOU REALLY ARE! SEE WHAT DANGER YOU WOULD HAVE BROUGHT UPON THE WORLD! I WILL PROTECT THEM ALL FROM IT! I WILL PROTECT THEM ALL FROM YOU!!!!!!”

She glared down at him, Sombra’s image being slowly torn apart, more cracks forming in his body as his screams began to echo.

Celestia kept up the pressure. She used every ounce of power, which was STILL flowing in, to demonstrate just how much Sombra didn’t understand what he claimed was his right.

“I’M…”

Celestia perked up.

“NOT…”

She glanced over towards Soarin.

“DONE!!!”

Celestia’s eyes widened as she saw Soarin slowly standing from the ground. The image of Dash remained down, but Soarin kept rising.

“I… WON’T… DIE!!!!!” Soarin shouted out.

Celestia’s expression had shifted completely from rage to awe. She had Sombra, the powerful Warrior King of ages past in a broken heap on the ground below her, but Soarin… who was being subjected to the same power… was standing? His body was still in a solid state too.

Sombra’s eyes shot open, his heavy breaths shaking his vision, but he too could see Soarin. He watched in disbelief as he stood, withstanding the very same punishment and yet remaining strong.

When Soarin was fully upright, he forced his head up, glaring towards Celestia despite the pressure crashing against him from all angles and the cracks running all over his body.

“YOU!” he yelled directly at Celestia, his voice echoing as yellow light flickered from within his mouth and eyes. “I’VE HAD IT WITH YOU!” he shifted his eyes to Sombra. “AND WITH YOU!” he buckled briefly, the magic lashing at him. His solid form shook and jostled just like Sombra’s had, but it remained intact. “THIS… IS… MY… BODY! MINE!” he roared at them both. “AND I’M DONE PUTTING UP WITH YOU TWO! IF YOU’RE GOING TO STUFF ME FULL OF YOUR DAMN MAGIC, THEN…”

He paused, looking around in every direction as Celestia’s magic kept expanding, the very reaches of his spirit flickering and crackling like it was being filled to the brim and forced apart.

“DASH!” Soarin yelled, reaching down and grabbing the cracked image of her. She was not solid, but he somehow managed to touch her and pull her up. Dash’s eyes shot open, blinking as she looked up at him. “I NEED YOUR HELP!”

Dash felt a surge through her body, as if something was flowing from Soarin’s arm wrapped around her. She could feel him again, she could see inside of him again.

Most importantly, she could hear his voice in her mind, and it was demanding her help.

She gripped his massive arm tightly.

“I’m here Soarin! I’m here!”

The image of Dash stumbled a step away from Soarin, but anchored herself and stood up tall, just like he was. She quickly shifted back to him, standing side by side as a bright glow surrounded them both, glowing brighter than the yellow auras swirling and thrashing about.

“I can… I CAN DO THIS!” Soarin exclaimed, at first sounding no different than Sombra, but then he turned to Dash. “WE can do this! Just like we did after the tornado in Ponyville! You saved me, Dash! You pulled me out of the dark, but this time…” he glared towards Celestia. “This time I’m not sleeping while you do all the work! I’m here! I’ve seen it all! I haven’t been put through all this crap to curl up and die here and now!” he reached a hoof out to Dash. “You’ve been through it all with me! You’re a part of me! And I say it’s high time we tell it all to go to hell and push back! You get me?!”

“I get you!” Dash spoke, her voice reaching through her spirit as she grabbed Soarin’s hoof and gave it a squeeze. “Let’s do this!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Soarin nodded. “Follow my lead!”

The two set their hooves on the ground, Dash lending every ounce of willpower and focus she could to Soarin.

Soarin closed his eyes…

And went back to square one.

He was taught how to use magic. Fancy Pants did a great job at giving him a full rundown. All he needed to do was follow the basics. Who cares what he was trying to control? Who cares how much there was? It was still magic right? Then he’d do it!

First he cleared his mind, forcing all thought of the pain or pressure from his body. He ‘relaxed’ so to speak, making sure he remained firmly upright, but focused on calming himself.

He let Celestia’s magic flow through him, let it course and whip about on its own without letting its wild and unhinged pulsations deter him. He just had to find the right spot, he had to let it surge freely before he could do anything else.

He began to visualize. His goal was to take on the very magic tearing him apart, clamp down, and control it. There would be a moment where he would strike, like a predator stalking prey, allowing the magic to keep surging into him as he waited… and waited…

THERE!

“HNRG!!!!” Soarin thrust his neck down, his body tensing harshly. The aura around him flickered violently as if it had been struck by something. He had it, Soarin had a hold on the magic flowing inside of him.

Now… the sensations… remember the sensations. He had to focus on the flow within him, and allow it to gather at the very center… and from there…

He could draw it all in!

“HRAH!!!!” Soarin threw his head up as the aura began to react as if it was his own, pulsing as he shouted, growing as he held it.

Celestia blinked and looked down at herself. Numerous rays of yellow light that were dancing and encircling her began to pull away. Soon there was a sudden shift in force, a suction of sorts that was drawing magic towards Soarin. What was left of Sombra’s receding aura was being tugged towards Soarin as well.

“What…?” Celestia uttered quietly as her pupils grew larger.

“ARGH… AH!!!!!” Soarin cried out as the curved horn erupted with light.

Dash looked up, still holding tightly to his large arm. Her eyes went wide as the pillar of Celestia’s magic began to surge towards the horn, condensing and plunging into the tip as Soarin roared in pain. She could feel his body tensing and twitching, his hoof pressed into her back.

She grunted at the sudden compression, but she could feel it too, her body was jittering all over, feeling as if it was being filled up, but Soarin was trying… he was trying as hard as he could and he wasn’t giving in.

“I’M HERE SOARIN!” Dash yelled up to him as his neck lurched back and forth. “WE CAN DO IT!”

Soarin suddenly coughed harshly, a broken, gut wrenching rasp escaping his throat. He gagged, a small spray of blood ejected from his mouth.

“Auuuughhhhh AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Soarin groaned in agony, the seemingly endless stream of magic surging into him. “I… CAN!!!!!!!” he yelled, his voice shaking.

“YOU CAN! SOARIN! WE CAN!”

“What… is this…?!” Sombra voiced his disbelief, as the magic that was being forced through him had completely changed course, surging into Soarin instead. “What’s happening?! Ah!” he yelped in surprise as his body was yanked a little towards Soarin. “RGH!” he rolled over and slammed his hooves to the ground, loud skidding and scraping coming from them as he slowed the movement to a halt.

Sombra looked over his shoulder towards Soarin, his jaw agape and eyes wide as he looked upon the spectacle. Soarin’s eyes were filled with yellow light, streams of Celestia’s magic were dancing and swirling around him, being drawn in. The yellow glow that was filling the whole area was coursing towards him as well, as if he had become a black hole. There were yellow cracks littering his body as it pulsed, his muscles expanding and contracting unnaturally as if the power was trying to get free. It looked like his body was going to explode, but regardless he held himself up and… was absorbing Celestia’s magic.

“This… cannot be…” Sombra said quietly as he stared in utter disbelief. “How is he…? How…?”

“AUGH AHHHH!!!!!” Soarin suddenly yelled out, his body wobbling and stumbling. The image of Dash quickly pressed to him, grabbing him and helping him remain up. “HHHNNNRRGGHHH!!!!!” Soarin forced himself up and kept concentrating, some golden dewy droplets seeping out from the cracks, magic leaking from his body. He forced it all back in, shouting as the process threatened to tear him apart. How much more could he withstand? How much more could he hold? He looked like he might burst at any moment.

He was at a point where he had taken in many times the amount that had caused Sombra to break and beg for his life.

“He…” Sombra released his hooves from the ground. “They…” he looked towards Dash as he got drawn towards Soarin again. “These two…”

Sombra gave no more restraint, his spirit got swept into the vacuum of energy coursing around and into Soarin.

“They have bested me…” Sombra chuckled, his spirit slowly breaking apart as it swirled around and surged towards Soarin.

“HEY!”

Sombra’s eyes snapped open as Soarin reached out.

“GRKH!!” Sombra choked as Soarin’s hoof grabbed him by the neck, ripped him out of the swirling magic, and slammed him to the ground beneath him.

Sombra’s spirit was in shreds, barely together, but he stared up at Soarin with a wide, blank stare.

“Where the hell do you think YOU’RE going?!” Soarin barked down at him, saliva dripping from his mouth as heavy breaths hissed in and out. Sombra could not see his eyes behind the yellow light and his teeth were jammed shut in between words. “You’re gonna feed me full of your crap, talk endlessly about how long you’ve waited, and now you’re just gonna CLOCK OUT?!”

Sombra continued to just stare, his mouth slowly opening, but no words coming out.

“GET UP!” Soarin snarled. “Pull yourself together!”

Sombra’s eyes widened.

“I can’t keep this up much longer! If you want to survive as badly as you claim, then you’ll suck it up… and HELP ME!”

“I…” Sombra sputtered, his pupils shaking as his spirit slowly filled in the torn bits. “I…”

“NOW, DAMMIT!” Soarin pounded a hoof. “NOW, BEFORE WE’RE ALL SCREWED!”

Sombra only hesitated for a moment.

“Do… not…” His eyes sharpened into a glare as his spirit pulled itself together. “Do not order me around!” he yelled up at Soarin before rolling over and slamming his hooves down. “You’re… nothing but a show off!” he forced himself up, bracing himself as he placed himself on the side opposite Dash. “I won't let you outdo me!” he exclaimed, setting his hooves and turning his focus to Celestia.

His words were combative, but… he did exactly as Soarin suggested.

Soarin inhaled sharply. A sudden surge of might coursed through him. So far Dash had been adding her willpower to his, putting her spirit on the line… but now…

He felt another… And it was immeasurably strong.

“HRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” Soarin roared out, his voice triple echoing with two other vocal tones deep within it. An intense blue light shining forth and pressing into the yellow. The surging aura lashed out, forcing itself into Celestia’s energy as if it was not just pushing, but fighting it as well, grabbing hold, and restraining it as it tried to reach for Soarin.

“AH!” Celestia yelped as she suddenly lurched forward, bending down slightly to brace herself as her hooves scraped and skidded on the ground. She frantically looked at herself and around her, the yellow streams of her energy being rapidly pulled from her and drawn towards Soarin in large amounts at a time. It was even pulling at her own aura surrounding the frame of her body. “What?!” she exclaimed as she began struggling, unable to stop herself from inching towards him while bending herself down a little. “What’s happening?! My power is…” Her eyes stuck open as she felt herself losing her grip on her own energy, all of it surging into Soarin suddenly. “How is he doing this?! He…” A look of dread spread across her face as she was suddenly confronted by a completely unexpected scenario. “Soarin!” she yelled desperately as her aura dwindled, her spirit flickering as her energy was pulled into the vacuum. “SOARIN WAIT!”

She lost her hooves from beneath her, falling to the ground and sliding along her side towards Soarin. She thrashed and rolled, trying to stop herself, but she couldn’t. She looked towards Soarin, her eyes filled with terror.

“STOP IT! STOP! YOU’LL—AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!” she screamed as her entire spirit was trapped in the same swirling suction as the rest of her magic, every ounce of her aura surging into Soarin along with herself. All the yellow light was pulled in, stripping it all from the reaches of Soarin’s mind… and plunging into his spirit…

Three voices yelling… as they fought against the divine powers surging within.

“RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!”

Then all at once… in a bright flash… the last bits of Celestia’s yellow aura had entered Soarin.

The massive pillar of light extending above the Crystal Empire capsized completely, every last smidgen of energy that made up the tower of divine power surged into Soarin’s horn.

The glow surrounding Soarin grew brighter and brighter as it rushed in, the energy densely packing together.

The light had become blinding, not even Ruin could see through it, shielding his eyes as he eagerly watched from a safe distance. Every attempt to look out just met a painful bright light that forced him to look away.

The projected image above the empire pulsated, flickered, and burst, following the surging energy right into Soarin’s horn. The Empire itself was glowing bright yellow, its natural blue hue drowned out by the intense magical energy at such a close proximity.

“RRRRAGH! GAAAHHH!!!” Soarin grunted and groaned painfully, a sharp, unnerving echo in his voice as his body pulsed and trembled. Dash could feel every erratic twitch as she held on tight to his arm, her own body feeling the surges of energy. She knew what was happening within, she could feel it and feel the pressure that was coming from it. She looked up to see his neck arched back, shining lights erupting from his eyes and mouth as the energy continued to funnel into the horn. Yellow cracks were appearing on the surface of the red crystal horn. Dash flinched as the muscles in Soarin’s arm stiffened and expanded slightly. She looked him over frantically to see it happening all over his body, veins popping up everywhere with the swelling and turning yellow. The horrific sight made it appear as if his body was being overstuffed with power, its limits being pushed further as the energy forced itself in.

“YOU CAN DO IT, SOARIN!” Dash yelled as she held on tight. “YOU CAN-AH!” Dash yelped as sharp pains shot through her. She looked down at her body as a tremendous amount of pressure suddenly built up inside of her. The same thing was happening to her, her body twitching and tensing madly. Her joints and muscles felt on fire, burning sensations all over as yellow veins appeared on her as well.

It hurt… it hurt a lot. It made her want to scream out in pain, but she didn’t have time to. She gripped Soarin tighter, refusing to give in as long as he stood.

“YOU CAN DO IT!” She yelled again.

“I…” Soarin tipped his head down slightly. “WON’T…” The strong echo in his voice rang out. “GIVE…” He thrust his head back up. “UP!!!!!”

The remaining energy shot down, entering the horn all at once.

When the last trace entered the horn, everything went quiet.

The whooshing and whirling of the magical forces had ceased. All of the light, including the yellow aura that had been surrounding him had vanished.

Soarin was standing perfectly still, his eyes stuck open, his pupils small and shaking with his jaw agape. His body twitched lightly, the yellow veins still adorning his slightly swollen body as he stared directly into the sky.

Dash didn’t say a word, she just stared, holding her breath.

Then she felt something welling up inside of her, something building, growing stronger and stronger, but before she could focus on it at all…

Soarin screamed.

He threw his neck back and shouted into the sky, the echo in his voice nearly stronger than his own voice as his vocal chords released the loudest shout of pain Dash had ever heard in her life. Her eyes widened as she looked to his forehead.

The red crystal horn exploded.

A stream of yellow light shot out of his head.

Shortly after, his body shone brightly with a light that appeared to be coming from inside of him. Dash’s eyes were suddenly bombarded by an extremely bright glow. The light appeared blinding, but she looked directly into it without trouble, her eyes filling with shock as Soarin’s body began to pulsate and spasm, slowly disappearing into the brightness. The divine energy packed inside began shooting out of his eyes and mouth in uneven flashes and surges just as intensely as it was pouring from his forehead. A pillar of light once again shot skyward, waves of energy expanding outward from its surface as it pierced the heavens above.

A loud explosion rang out from Soarin’s body, his form disappearing into the light completely as a massive shockwave ejected from him. Dash released Soarin, guarding herself as she was thrown from him. What was left of her Wonderbolt suit was torn to pieces, blown apart by the force as she was tossed right to the ground and tumbled several yards. Ruin was launched from his spot, not even having time to yelp as he was imprinted in the opposite wall of the courtyard in a millisecond.

The Crystal Palace’s structure rumbled and jostled, every single stain glass window shattered into tiny pieces. The wave shot through the entire empire, rooftops, windows and doors were ripped off several buildings. Anypony that was on their hooves was knocked right to the ground. The force ripped right through the protective shield around the Empire, the strong energy tearing apart like tissue paper and dissipating.

All those outside on the battlefield were tossed about, anypony unlucky enough to be airborne thrown roughly to the ground as pony piles popped up all over.

And then once again… there was silence.

Tranquility.

All remaining clouds had been blown away and the night was being bathed in a warm, gentle light.

Everypony remained completely still. Wonderbolt, Shadowbolt, Renegade, and guard alike all frozen as they stared towards the Empire.

Spitfire propped herself up, staring with wide eyes towards the Empire as everything around her remained eerily quiet despite there being ponies everywhere. But she didn’t stay frozen for long… because her eyes were fixed on the Empire. The light was being generated by something glowing at the center of the Empire.

At the Crystal Palace.

Spitfire had Nightshade on the ground right beside her, also staring in shock, but even with her arch nemesis within punching distance, the thought didn’t even remotely cross her mind. Only one word was shooting through Spitfire’s thoughts… one name.

“Soarin!!!” she yelled as she quickly got to her hooves, spread her wings, and took flight towards the Empire.

Her movement broke several from their daze. Some began moving, but most stayed still, just staring at the Empire in awe even though many of them were sitting right beside those they were fighting relentlessly against not too long ago.

Only one group was really making any organized move. The Shadowbolts.

The moment Spitfire had taken off, Nightshade had stumbled to her hooves and took off in the other direction, retreating in desperate fashion. Several Shadowbolts turned tail and followed the moment they saw their leader getting the hell out. Those who didn’t move immediately were gathering up those still laying around to make sure they got away while they could.

None of the Wonderbolts, Renegades, or guards tried to stop them, in fact none of them paid any mind at all. They all just sat still, glancing about and wondering what had just happened.

The only other ponies to get up and move with a purpose were the top tier Wonderbolts, following behind Spitfire with the same idea in mind.

What happened to Soarin?

“Unbelievable…” Ruin uttered quietly to himself as he stood in front of the Ruin-shaped imprint in the wall behind him. He stared out towards the shining light at the center of the courtyard, looking directly into its bright rays in complete awe. “Of all the ways this could have played out… I never imagined…”

He paused, his eyes narrowing as they darted back and forth. He looked left, he looked right, he looked over his shoulder, and he looked beneath him.

There was nothing else around him.

“But… Did you know? Is this why you made your move?” he said as he glanced up. “Or perhaps… you’re surprised by this as well?” He looked around again and scoffed. “No that’s just ridiculous, you couldn’t have known.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if you’re still there… but I dare you to come out, look me in the eye, and tell me this was planned.”

He stared into space… and there was no answer.

He slowly looked down, focusing on the light again. He stared for several moments before a subtle grin crept onto his face.

“To change the course of events in a meaningful way…” he started snickering to himself. “Heh… how utterly brazen… and brilliant.” He tipped his head down and closed his eyes, his lips parting to reveal a gentle grin as he continued to snicker. “To think… all this time I thought I was uncontested… heh… HEE HEE!” The soft grin grew rapidly, quickly turning deranged. “This…” he stared with very wide eyes towards the light. “This changes everything!” He swiftly turned around, giggling to himself. “Not only do we have a new piece on the board… but I have an opponent as well!” His smile grew unnervingly wide, his head twitching as it tipped to the right, his eyes filling with bright pink light. “Oh how much more FUN there is to be had! The game… it goes on!!!! Heh heh… HAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!”

He walked towards the wall, his body slowly vanishing into a gentle pink glow before disappearing. The echo of his laughter lingered for a few more seconds before it too was gone.

Dash lay on her back, staring straight up into the sky with wide eyes. For a moment her mind felt completely blank, but after blinking a few times, she regained her senses and immediately wondered what had just happened.

The last thing she remembered was an explosion of light, and then she was suddenly on her back as if the moment between the burst and the fall never happened.

…

“SOARIN!” Dash sat up in an instant as she suddenly remembered who the explosion came from, but her eyes were met by an extremely harsh light like a star sitting in the middle of the courtyard right in front of her.

Normally such a light would have forced her to look away, but for some reason… she was able to stare directly at it, her eyes feeling no pain or sensitivity to the brightness.

But… where was Soarin? She could feel him, he was definitely there, but she couldn’t see him.

After staring for a moment, she quickly stood, up never taking her eyes off of the light as she took a few steps backwards to get a better view. Yet as she moved, she felt a little… light headed? There was an odd feeling coursing through her that was taking a moment to fully register and…

Wait a second, did she just stand up quickly with no trouble at all?

Dash looked down at her body, her eyes widening.

All of her injuries were gone. All traces of battle damage, scrapes, bruises, and blood wiped clean from her, and… her leg was fixed?

She looked back and moved her previously dislocated leg around… it was most definitely fixed.

But as she put it down, the feeling within her turned into a massive rush that coursed through her entire body, it made her twitch and shiver.

“Ah… ahhhh!” she gasped as sensations rushed through every inch of her, goosebumps all over as she blinked in surprise. The surge was euphoric, it felt incredible. She lifted an arm and looked at her hoof, turning it over and over, then clenching it tightly. Her entire arm flexed with little effort, her grip feeling incredibly strong with little strain felt on her body.

Her body was brimming with strength… lots of strength, as if she had been completely renewed or reborn in perfect condition, but it went even further than that… she had never felt so strong before. What happened to her? Was it because…?

She looked towards the light again, still unable to see Soarin.

She stepped back further, doing her best to contain the tingling feelings that pulsed through her. She reached up and rubbed her eyes, as if that would make a difference. It didn’t, but as she lowered her arm she brushed it against her chest and stopped on the spot.

She looked down at her chest, then at her shoulder and down her arm. Two things had caught her attention that were now clearer after backing away from the light a little.

First, there was a faint yellow glow surrounding her, appearing and vanishing over and over in a soft, gentle pattern.

Second…? She tapped her hoof against her chest. So she wasn’t just ‘feeling’ stronger. Her body felt firmer, tougher, and sturdier as she poked herself in several spots, running her hoof over her opposite arm and shoulder, back to her chest. There was also a subtle, but noticeable increase in tone and mass resembling how she’d look with a nice pump from a heavy gym workout… but she was at rest?

“Huh… Oh! Whoa! Whooooaaaa!” Dash jittered as another euphoric rush pulsed through her, causing her eyes to roll back a little and stumble a bit.

This was getting weird… she liked it, but… what the hell? What was happening to her? Where the hell was Soarin? Was he in the light or not?!

“WHERE’S SOARIN?!” A voice suddenly shouted from above. “WHAT’S—AH!”

Spitfire landed roughly behind Dash, shielding her eyes from the bright light.

“Dash?!” she exclaimed as she squinted. “What happened here?”

But Dash didn’t answer. She just kept staring towards the light.

“Hey!” Another voice came from above. “Why’s it so bright over—WHOA!”

Fleetfoot nearly crashed, running right into Spitfire’s plot as she skidded to a stop

“Gah! What the hell is that?! The sun?!” she whined.

Dash said nothing.

Several others began flying in. The rest of the top tiers following behind Fire and Misty all made their way to the ground, blinded and complaining about it the moment they were in range. Sombra’s old knights had made their way forward from the other side, struggling to face the light as well. Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust all appeared shortly after… and not far behind them were a cautious Discord and Luna, the two slipping in almost unnoticed as they moved into the group, shielding themselves from the light.

“What… What happened?” Luna asked as she turned to Discord.

“Good question!” Spitfire chimed in, turning her ire towards him as well, but Luna cut her off.

“Discord, was that our sister just now?” she asked as Discord slowly lowered his arm and stared into the light curiously. “Discord! Where did she go?!” Luna demanded.

At this point all eyes besides Dash’s were on Discord as if he could tell them what was happening, but he was just as confused as the rest of them, or so it appeared. He was eyeing the light carefully, trying to piece together what he had seen and what was happening.

Then his eyes grew wide and he gasped, everypony perking up as they looked his way.

“No… he couldn’t have… could he…?” Discord mumbled.

“Could he WHAT?!” Spitfire lashed out, her short fuse with the gods already alight.

“Ah!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelped and pointed towards the light, barely able to look out. “What’s that?!”

Everypony turned to see something appearing within the shining rays. It slowly became more visible, taking on the shape of a stallion.

The silhouette continued to take shape, the body slowly appearing with the same size, frame, and musculature that Soarin’s body sported after being taken over by Sombra. But the formation seemed to hesitate, stopping short of completing itself around his back and near the top of his head.

“HE DID!” Discord suddenly shouted, grabbing his head. “You… You’ve gotta be… I can’t believe it! How? HOW?!” He grabbed his horns, yanking them right off and holding them in front of his chest.

“Will you shut up and make sense?!” Spitfire snapped at him. “What the hell is happening?! Who are we looking at?! What the hell was all that magic in the sky?! Where is Soarin?! Where is Sombra?!”

Discord’s hands slowly opened, dropping his horns on the ground as his arms slumped to his sides.

“He’s right there…” Discord said in a tone of utter disbelief, his eyes stuck open wide.

“Who’s right there?!” Spitfire pressed.

“Soarin.”

Everypony went silent, all eyes shifting back to the silhouette as the missing parts began to fill in.

Luna suddenly jumped, gasping sharply as her body jittered all over and her ethereal mane flow became erratic for a moment. A few glanced at her as she bent down, panting and blinking.

“Wait…” she spoke, her jaw dropping. “This… this sensation! That energy!” She frantically looked towards Discord. “That means… he’s…” she trailed off. Discord said nothing, he just slowly nodded his head while holding the same blank expression. “No! That’s…!” Luna inched back a little. “That’s impossible…!”

Dash wasn’t listening to a single word, and unlike the rest, she was still gazing directly into the light without trouble. Her eyes were fixed on the large form of the silhouette that continued to form up, yet there was no sign of his wings, nor any sign of a horn. And once the frame was complete, additional bright lights began shining from four specific places.

Two on his back where the base of his wings would be. Two on his head, one where his mane should be and the other… right above his eyes, on his forehead.

These lights grew extremely vibrant, everypony except for Dash yelping in surprise, barely able to keep their eyes towards it. The lights were accompanied by a very loud, shrill screech that shot right through every ear present, causing them all to cringe and twitch as they struggled to keep watch.

And still… Dash remained upright, her eyes fixed forward on the stallion body within.

The light grew brighter and brighter.

The noise grew louder and louder.

An immense amount of magical pressure suddenly rushed forth from the light. It passed through Dash, but pressed into everypony else, forcing them to brace themselves.

The shrill sound’s octave kept rising higher and higher to the point where it was inaudible, all sound drowned out with everyone seeing it all, but hearing nothing.

-FIZZ-

-POP-

-blip-

After what was quite possibly the most anti-climactic finish to such an extreme form of energy buildup ever recorded in the history of Equestria, it all halted in an instant like a tiny cough and sneeze into the wind.

Everypony just stared, the looks upon every face drastically different depending on who it belonged to and what their first thought was after the fact.

Soarin was standing in front of them.

Yep… it was definitely Soarin.

None of them doubted it was Soarin.

Those were Soarin’s colors.

Those were Soarin’s eyes.

That was Soarin’s face, but…

Uh…

.

His body was still as large as his possessed form.

His mane was extremely long and had an ethereal flow.

And he had a very long horn on his head.

He had a completely blank, bewildered expression frozen on his face with tiny pupils in his eyes.

Likewise, everypony else just stared, not a single word spoken.

“He’s…” Luna spoke up in an uncharacteristically quiet and soft tone of voice.

“A divine alicorn…” Discord finished for her.

Nopony moved.

Spitfire didn’t move.

Discord didn’t move.

Not even Dash could break away from the stiffened state of shock.

Soarin remained still, his eyes remaining stuck open and his jaw remaining agape.

And that’s the way it remained… for roughly two minutes.

“Okay, you know what? No.” Surprise suddenly crossed her arms in front of her face. Nopony looked at her but she shook her head out and slowly tipped over onto her back, spreading out her arms and legs. “I’m done.” She exhaled sharply. “I’M DONE!” she shouted while grabbing her mane. “This was all stupid enough! And now this? THIS?!?!? AAAUUUUGH!!!!! NO!” she sat up briefly and glared at Soarin. “For crying out loud! I’m drawing the line RIGHT here and leaving THIS on the other side of it! BLAAAAAAAH!” she flopped onto her back again and began turning end over end on her stomach then onto her back over and over. “NO! NO! NO!” She kept it up while moving in a circle around everypony. “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”

---Piercing the…---

“Seriously?! You just HAD to go there, didn’t you?!”

---Piercing the Heavens A…---

“I hope you’re ready for the can of nerd rage you’ve opened up over this! You know that’s gonna happen, right?! The fandom takes no prisoners over this stuff!”

---Piercing the Heavens Arc Thre…---

I got a GREAT idea! Let’s have him go Super Soarin Four in the next arc! He can scream for three chapters straight! We can turn him black and red too! That’ll REALLY light a fire in some asses! ARRRGH! GOD DAMM-HURK!”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”

“If anypony asks…”

“It wasn’t me!”

---Piercing the Heavens Arc Three End---

To be continued in: Piercing the Heavens Arc 4:

For the full resolution of the poster see here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q8ngko9e73uysb7/The%20Burdens%20We%20Carry.PNG?dl=0

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf
The incredible coverart for Arc 4 was done by: Nightyscribbles

Oh gosh diddly darn it, i left the door to the rage dimension open again.

Well... there you have it. The internal struggle between Soarin and Sombra ended with... Celestia trying to kill them all, but instead her intervention led to Soarin being turned into an Alicorn. Though he clearly wasn't able to do it by himself... Sombra's help was easily the catalyst that made the difference... something definitely happened to Dash as a result... but what? How did all that lead to Soarin taking on this form? Not to mention an apparently godly form? And what the hell is going to happen now? Why don't we ask Discord? Oh wait, he didn't sound like he had a damn clue. :twilightoops:

Boy this sure won't be a problem or anything! no siree.... NOT... ONE... BIT! And there certainly isn't anything nefarious going on in the background that this situation will benefit or play into. NOPE, WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM, SOME SORT OF JACKASS? NOTHING EVER GOES WRONG IN THIS FIC, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! ITS ALWAYS SMOOTH SAILING! EVERYTHING IS AWESOME... RIGHT?! :pinkiecrazy::pinkiecrazy::trollestia:

Okay, on a serious note now. Arc three is finally complete, and we stopped just short of it being 100 chapters long. As ive mentioned in several blogs, in retrospect this definitely should have bee separated into two arcs, probably somewhere around chapter 100, alas i was too far in to change it (and the cover for arc 3 had Nightshade on it already).

But hey, here we are! We made it to this point and i can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you all so much for your continued reading, interest, and support. You are all very much a reason i continue to do this despite my life being much more busy and packed than it was when this all began. And the best part is, we're not done yet! There is still lots of story left to be told in arc 4 and plenty of adventures and fun our characters have yet to encounter. I look forward to beginning the concluding arc of this long story and i hope you will enjoy it too. :eeyup:

As for right here and now, im not going to fill up this section with my plans. I will be doing a blog soon that will detail exactly what i intend to do in terms of a brief break and what will happen between now and when i start production of arc 4, so look out for that :twilightsmile:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 168: (Arc 4: The Burdens We Carry)

Tell me… what are you afraid of?

What is it that worries you?

That makes you anxious?

That gives you chills?

Take a moment right now and think about that for me.

Pick it out and focus on it.

…

Done?

Now imagine you are facing that fear right now.

Imagine that it is overwhelming you.

That you are unable to fight back.

That you’re only able to run and hide from it.

You run and run and run and run… and… you get away from it.

What was it you were afraid of?

Something scary?

Somepony who wishes harm on you?

Oh, what does it matter?

You got away right?

You can go on your way… right?

Now tell me what you were running from. I’m all ears I’m listening.

What are you most afraid of? Say it aloud.

…

Thank you for the answer, but guess what?

It’s wrong.

You heard me… wrong.

What are fears really born from, hm?

What is required for a fear?

An individual, and a cause.

You notice… that’s two things. You cannot have one without the other.

And a fear of something around or nearby you, well… that splits it into two halves, and gives you the chance to stay clear of it.

What’s so scary about something you can avoid?

Now…

Let me tell you what you’re really afraid of…

What everypony truly fears the most… even if they don’t know it.

You fear… when the two halves… are one in the same.

When you are the one… and the cause.

You cannot run from you.

You cannot hide from you.

And the more you ignore it… the worse it becomes until it consumes you whole.

Your shortcomings, your missteps… your flaws.

They are all a part of you and you cannot escape them.

There is nothing you can fear more…

Than YOU.

Piercing the Heavens

Arc 4: The Burdens We Carry

Chapter 168: What in Equestria Happened?

“Oh come on!!!” Dash yelled as she glared up into the icy stare of Captain P.L. “It’s been two weeks!” she yelled while pointing to the double doors behind him and the group of Thestrals and crystal guards on duty. Twilight Sparkle stared quizzically at Luna’s guard captain as Dash growled angrily.

“By the order of Princess Luna—”

“Nopony is allowed to enter!” Dash finished for him, mocking his voice while tipping her head back and forth before pressing a hoof over her head, crossing her eyes, and blowing raspberries.

“Rainbow Dash…” Twilight placed a hoof on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. P.L. narrowed his eyes at her, but she shot a glare right back as she hovered into the air to get eye level with him.

“What, don’t like my impression of you? Tough shit, Count Buckula! Get one of the gods out here to give me answers or I’ll imitate the sound your ass makes whenever Luna asks you for a back rub!” she threatened while slowly rising higher to look down at him.

“Honestly, I don’t get what you’re after,” Discord’s voice suddenly filled the air. He appeared out of thin air, leaning and resting an arm on P.L.’s head. The thestrels with P.L. hissed loudly at him, but with a snap of his fingers, Discord summoned small spray bottles labeled ‘hissy horse water’ that started spritzing them in the face. They flinched, backed off, and covered their faces with their wings as the bottles advanced on them.

Dash instantly shifted her anger to Discord, nearly pressing her nose to his.

“YOU.”

But before she could say anything, Discord lifted a hand and clamped his fingers over her lips, making a comical squeak noise.

“I don’t know how many times I have to explain this to you,” Discord casually rolled his eyes as he pushed her away from him. Dash grabbed his arm and yanked her mouth free.

“I’m about to let my hoof start asking the questions if you don’t start telling me what’s happening in there!” she demanded. Discord sighed.

“For the millionth time, WE DON’T KNOW," Discord said flatly.

“Then let me see him!” she demanded. Discord snorted.

“For the million-oneth time, WE DON’T KNOW. That’s why we’re keeping him isolated!”

“What the hell does that even mean?!” Dash threw her arms out, Discord reached up and pressed a finger over her head, slowly forcing her down.

“It means we have a very fragile situation with a regular stallion that suddenly became a god, who is undoubtedly in a state of extreme traumatic shock while his mind is likely being overwhelmed by things he cannot comprehend, and should never have been able to comprehend. It’s been two weeks, but Lulu and I still haven’t figured out how this happened or what we could possibly do about it. This is something we have never encountered before and we need to understand it before we try anything else. This kind of power is not to be taken lightly, you know.” He explained as he pushed Dash all the way down until her hooves were on the ground. “Is that better? I don’t know what else I have to say to get through to you. This is a dangerous situation and because it involves the power of a god, you’d think you’d want gods to handle it!”

Dash growled at Discord, but was stuck underneath his hand. Twilight made her way forward and grasped Dash’s shoulder, trying to calm her down. Discord released her and huffed, crossing his arms and shaking his head as he leaned on P.L.’s head again. The thestrels were darting about and hissing as the spray bottles continued to chase them, the Crystal guards present just standing still and watching cautiously.

“Set aside our past disagreements for a moment and think about what we’re dealing with here. You were there when he freaked out. You were there when we struggled to put him in stasis, and you were there when we made the choice to quickly get him away from anypony else. Yet you persist like I’m keeping secrets from you! If Lulu and I don’t understand what happened, that should worry you… a lot! And you should appreciate that we’re trying our damnedest to figure it out for you.”

Discord stood still as Dash just kept glaring at him. Discord sighed and shrugged. The spray bottles were now bopping the thestrels over the head after running out of water.

“Or, you know we could let you in, you might disrupt his sleep, and he’ll start screaming and start shooting magic beams everywhere every time he blinks again. Does that sound better? Let’s just add more expenses to Princess Cadence’s repair bill for the palace.”

“FINE!” Dash yelled, grumbling as she landed and turned her back on him. “Screw this!”

“Dash!” Twilight tried calling to her, but she stormed off.

She and Discord watched her leave. Twilight glanced up at Discord. P.L.’s face was beginning to turn red with anger as Discord continued to use him as an armrest.

“What?” Discord asked as Twilight just stared. The thestrels leapt at him again, but a garden hose appeared and floored them with a large stream of water.

“The two of you, truly haven’t figured anything out?” she asked calmly. “Not even you?” She added. Discord didn’t say anything for several seconds.

“I hate to say it, but yes,” he glanced over his shoulder at the door. “This is… unprecedented. Completely unknown and unexplored territory. For all the time I’ve existed and all the things I’m capable of… I really don’t have a damn clue how this happened or what we can possibly do about it.”

Dash quietly grumbled to herself as she trudged down the halls of the Crystal Palace. She wasn’t walking in any particular direction, she just walked and everypony that came near her steered clear as if she was a wrecking ball.

She had had it up to here with this. It had been two weeks since Soarin apparently turned into a divine alicorn. It was an unexpected conclusion to a massively confusing and painfully twisted scenario. And since then Discord and Luna had locked him away in a chamber with no windows and hadn’t allowed anypony in to see him. And for what?! To study him? To prod and poke at him? To…

Dash stopped for a moment and looked out a window towards the palace’s inner courtyard. She stared at the torn up grass, the ruined garden arrangements, the damage to the surrounding structure of the palace, and all the local workers that had been called in for repairs that were slowly moving along.

She exhaled loudly.

Okay, so maybe she couldn’t quite deny everything Discord said. There was actually a bit of an incident. After Soarin’s transformation, he… immediately lost control of himself. But it wasn’t anything like his magic woes of the past. When the initial shock had worn off he stood there shaking, his eyes darting all about. He barely moved an inch and a surge of magical energy expelled out of him, knocking everypony back. He gasped and tried to hold still, but any movement, any slight twitch caused another burst. He tried turning his head and a beam of yellow magic shot from his horn, blowing a huge hole in the courtyard wall.

Dash remembered the look in Soarin’s eyes. He looked afraid, he looked overwhelmed, as if he was a ticking time bomb and any jolt would hurt everypony around him. But the way his eyes shook, the way his breaths were short and his gasps and wails shot out rapidly suggested something was happening to his mind. The way his eyes and body twitched was uneven and unnatural. Something eventually snapped because he suddenly screamed in what sounded more like fear than pain. Magic ejected outward from him, tearing up the courtyard, breaking chunks out of the palace’s crystal surfaces. Everypony was forced to take cover as the powerful pulses lashed out. Anypony hit was thrown back, some so hard that they flew all the way back to the courtyard walls.

Soarin’s screams had disappeared behind a shrill screech that accompanied the light shining brighter and brighter around him. The flow of energy wouldn’t cease, thrashing and flowing around like a beast let loose from a cage. But in her head, Dash could hear his voice, she could hear him grunting and wailing. And right before Discord and Luna rushed in to contain him, she swore she heard him say…

“Help me.”

It took both Luna and Discord together to encircle and suppress Soarin. Not even Discord’s chaos magic could handle it without Luna supporting him. Sombra was one thing, the focus and execution of his power gave him the aptitude to face and repel them. But this was simply an uncontrolled outflow of power, and watching two gods struggle to simply hold something like that down was concerning. But as soon as they had him unconscious, they whisked him away before anypony else could do anything. And since then they had been keeping him confined.

So maybe… Discord and Luna were doing the right thing right now. Their recent track record gave her every reason to be biased against them, but after what happened to Soarin…?

Dash growled in frustration, turning away from the wrecked courtyard and continuing on her way, albeit much more calmly and without the stomping.

Figuring out what happened? That she agreed with.

Still no word from them two weeks in? Would it hurt them to tell her something? Anything at all about it? At least let her see him? The way they were handling this only made her feel like they were hiding things from them… again. But based on Discord’s initial reaction after the transformation… was there anypony who knew what happened?

“No, they still won’t let me in,” Spitfire’s voice came from around the corner. Dash came to an abrupt halt and blinked. “If they don’t tell me something soon I might just use P.L.’s head to break down that door.”

Dash swallowed, slowly peeking around the corner to see Spitfire talking to Fleetfoot.

“Why won’t they tell us anything?” Fleetfoot said with a pout.

“I don’t know,” Spitfire said with a snort. “I tried talking to Princess Cadence and Twilight Sparkle about it, but they haven’t been told anything either. Shining Armor doesn’t even know what’s going on in there despite his own detachments being assigned to stand guard.”

Fleetfoot held her breath, her cheeks puffing out briefly before the air released with a quiet fwoosh between her lips.

“Can we like, kill Discord please?” she suddenly asked while tipping her head back and groaning. “I just really want to snap his long squiggly neck. Am I allowed to do that? You think anypony would hold it against me?”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t…” Spitfire agreed with a huff. “Luna could use a swift kick in the ass too.”

“I don’t give a damn about Luna, honestly.” Fleetfoot scoffed. “Have you seen the two of them work together? She doesn’t do anything without Discord patting her on the head and calling her a good little moon.” Fleetfoot rolled her eyes. “She won’t even fart without asking him if it’s what Celestia would do first.”

“I can’t disagree with any of that, but I just don’t know.” Spitfire sighed. “I’m so tired of them, but under the current circumstances? I guess we’ll play this their way for now since… well… if Soarin really did trip and fall into becoming a god, if there’s one thing they are better at understanding than us, it’s the whole god thing. But if they keep us in the dark much longer then I’m taking matters into my own hooves.”

Dash flinched and quickly pulled back as Spitfire turned slightly in her direction. She placed herself up against the wall and waited. She heard the sound of hooves, but they faded, suggesting Spitfire did not go in her direction.

Dash slumped down and sighed.

She had been avoiding Spitfire. The situation with Soarin was one big fat question mark on everyone’s minds, but it didn’t erase the crazy situation that unfolded leading up to it. The Wonderbolts made it out of the chaotic clashing alive and Spitfire even admitted during the process that she had gone too far, but… Dash DID subvert her… and they did clash. It made her feel awkward around her, like there was a big elephant in the room every time they crossed paths. They hadn’t spoken at all over the past two weeks.

“Dash?”

“YIKES!” Dash launched upward, her wings opening to catch herself in a hover as she looked down. Fleetfoot was standing below her, looking up quizzically at the spooked Dash. “Oh… hey…” Dash exhaled as she lowered herself and landed beside her. “Sorry…”

“Are you okay?” Fleetfoot asked, but blinked and shook her head. “Never mind, stupid question,” she said with a sigh. “Did you just try to force your way in to Soarin too?”

Dash turned away and leaned her head against the wall.

“Yeah, but you have one guess as to how that went,” she said exasperatedly as Fleetfoot shifted beside her.

“The sexy stiff ass roadblock, eh?”

“And the snaggledouche,” Dash snorted as she started walking.

“Wait, Discord said something to you?” Fleetfoot asked as she trotted up to follow alongside.

“Not really, he’s just been telling me to go away each time,” Dash grumbled. Fleetfoot lifted her eyebrow.

“So he’s been coming out when you go there? Sheesh, he pulls his head out of his ass for you but snubs me and Spitfire…” Fleetfoot perked up, noticing Dash flinch slightly when she mentioned Spitfire. “Hey, are you two okay by the way?”

“No, I want to soak him in water, wind him up, and rat tail him against a concrete wall,” Dash snorted.

“Not Discord,” Fleetfoot snickered. “Spitfire.”

Dash stopped, keeping her head down as Fleetfoot took a few more paces and turned around.

“I’ll take that as a… no?” she asked, tipping her head.

“Hrmmmm…” Dash groaned and rubbed her face with a hoof. “No, I…” she started and paused. “Fleet, I straight up disobeyed her orders. We literally fought each other while chasing after Sombra. I don’t regret my choices, but come on. How’s that make the ‘Element of Loyalty’ look?”

Dash looked up to see Fleetfoot’s eyes pointed away from her, rubbing the back of her head.

“What?” Dash asked.

“I mean, kind of bad but… I dunno. It’s not like any of us are doing much better right now. Spitfire hasn’t issued an order since the battle. I haven’t said anything to her but we’re all just sort of floating around and waiting for her to say something. It made sense when it was two or three days and we were all exhausted, but now we just don’t know what’s on her mind.”

“All of the Wonderbolts?” Dash blinked in surprise.

“Pretty much. I don’t know, maybe she feels a little awkward about it too. We did kinda sorta turn on her too at one point. She hasn’t brought it up, but I can tell she’s not happy with herself or how any of it went. Plus, you know she’s still dealing with the Wave Chill situation too.” Fleetfoot rubbed the back of her head while frowning. “Nopony came out of that for the better. The entire thing was a mess that she had a hoof in making, and now she’s got a force that’s both very confused about the situation and wondering what got into her. All the while dealing with the rest of our merry band of factions all at each other’s throats… The Renegades haven’t been very talkative lately and I swear I haven’t walked by a single Thestrel without one of them nipping at me since then…” she blinked. “Well, not that that’s any different from how they usually act.”

“I haven’t really talked to many other Wonderbolts since…” Dash admitted. “I didn’t really think about it that way with Spitfire.”

“Don’t worry so much about it, I’m doing what I can for her for now.” Fleetfoot assured her. “And it’s not like we’ve all been out and hopping about. Everypony’s been a bit… out of it.”

“I’ve just been scared to face her I guess. Hell, maybe I’ve been afraid to talk to any of you,” Dash added.

“Hey, you’re talking to me!” Fleetfoot smiled, batting her eyelashes comically.

“It’s hard to be afraid of you, Fleet,” Dash said with a weak smile.

“Some might beg to differ,” Fleetfoot winked, but then put on a serious look as she placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “Look, let me handle Spitfire. She’s at just as much of a loss as the rest of us. We’re all trying to get out of this funk, but don’t ever worry about talking to me. We’ve been through too much crap together to start avoiding one another.”

“Thanks, Fleet,” Dash nodded, sighing lightly as they turned down the hall to leave the palace.

“And… hey,” Fleetfoot continued. “While we’re at it, keep me informed about anything else you hear about Soarin from Discord, will ya? Seems to think you’re worth talking to and that’s more than anypony else is getting right now.”

“Doubt I’ll get much, but I’ll try,” Dash nodded as the two passed through the front gate and started towards the nearby hotel where the Wonderbolts were housed.

“By the way, do you ever have the urge to bend him all the way backwards and force feed him his own ass?”

“Huh?” Dash blinked as her keycard didn’t work. She stared at the hotel room door for a moment before trying it two more times. She scrunched her face when it refused to work and pounded her hoof on the door.

A moment later it opened, Dash immediately started forward but ran face first into High Winds, almost full-blown head butting her accidentally. Dash flinched in surprise and quickly stepped backward.

“I love you too, you need something?” High Winds asked sleepily.

“I SAW THAT!” Blaze suddenly leapt up on High Winds’ back and jammed a hoof in Dash’s face. “FUCKING BACK OFF WHORE! I’M NOT SHARING! By the way hi, what the hell do ya want?” she instantly shifted down a gear, asking out of curiosity. Dash stared for another moment, she and Blaze both squinting as High Winds yawned, causing her crystal form to shimmer brightly.

“Uh…” Dash glanced up at the door number. 622. “Oh… wrong room.”

“You sure?” High Winds asked monotonously as Blaze traced circles on her back with a hoof. “Thought you finally came around.”

“Came arou—” Dash twitched and her face turned red. “No, no… Just wrong room, I’ll let you two get back to… the mid-morning grind.”

Dash quickly grabbed the door and shut it.

“Fgdfgs…” Dash verbally shuddered and shook her head out before shifting one door over to 624. “Pay attention, Dash…” she said to herself as she used her keycard and the door immediately unlocked with a soft click. She had no idea when it had happened, but at some point Blaze and High Winds ended up occupying the room right next to them a week after the battle. Some interesting noises had been testing the soundproofing of the hotel walls the past few nights.

She opened the door to her room, the sound of commotion quickly meeting her ears. She had split from her squad after breakfast to try and force her way in to Soarin.

“You’d feel the same way if you had trouble fitting through doors,” Matteo grumbled angrily as Little Star giggled to herself. Dash walked in, turning to sit on her bed as Matteo glared down at the laughing Little Star on the bed beside hers. Squall was sitting in a chair in the opposite corner, staring out the window.

“It’s safe to say I’ll never have that— oh, hey Dash,” Star leaned over. “Any luck?” she asked with concern, completely ignoring Matteo leaning further over her and glaring down harder.

“Hrm…” Dash hummed unenthusiastically.

“Guess not,” Star pouted with a quiet snort as Matteo leaned further over her and glared harder. “Feels like we’re back to square one—what?” she turned and giggled as Matteo continued to try and push the definition of the word ‘looming’ to new heights.

“It’s actually a problem,” Matteo insisted.

“Just shimmy! At least a fifth of your girth is fluff and feathers!” Star snickered more as Matteo leaned so far down that his beak was pressing down on her head.

“Hrm…” Dash hummed again as she thought about Star’s comment and ignored the amusing scene.

Back to square one? Maybe, though she wasn’t so sure she entirely agreed. In terms of Soarin, power forced into him, and his apparent inability to control it? The gods being tight lipped and secretive? Yeah, that was familiar ground.

But otherwise… there were several things that had Dash convinced it was a whole different ball game. For starters, the way the gods panicked and hid him away. When Soarin was first dealing with magic inside of him they had a quick solution and were on top of the situation. That clearly wasn’t the case here.

Hissssssssssssss

Sombra’s magic was forced into him by an outside source. What happened out in the courtyard was willingly done by Soarin.

Hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Lastly, what was going on with her? She still felt like—

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Dash flattened her brow and tipped over in the direction of the noise. Her eyes widened at a massive red balloon directly behind her.

POW!

She winced as the balloon popped right in her face. Matteo squawked, Star shrieked, and Squall nearly fell out of his chair.

“RIGHT IN THE KISSER!”

Dash opened her eyes to see Twister directly in front of her where the balloon was a moment ago. His lips were puckered and he was making loud sucking noises, his face slowly collapsing inward as if he was sucking his own face into itself.

Matteo and Star simply rolled their eyes and went back about their business.

But Dash glared hard at Twister as his face vanished into itself.

And then there was this…

Dash lifted a hoof and jabbed it against Twister’s stomach. His face instantly unsucked itself, his nose re-extending with a loud TWANG. He blinked as he saw Dash glaring at him and instantly threw on an extremely wide smile.

“So are you going to come clean with me?” she asked him in a serious tone.

“Ah… alas… I must,” Twister turned sideways and tipped his head back dramatically. “I celebrated Cinco De Mayo on the twelfth of October! I have dishonored my family, I must commit Sudoku!” Twister fell onto his back, pulled out a magic marker and started drawing grids and numbers on his stomach.

Dash was rolling her eyes the moment he started speaking. In the past Twister played off his out of character moments of serious discussion or intervention and she just went along with it. But if he thought he could do the same after… the chess game with Ruin, he had another thing coming.

Her squadmates had no idea what she had witnessed with him, but she hadn’t told them because she wasn’t sure they’d understand. Twister had always left them out of their private interactions and if she tried to talk to them about it, they may think she’s lost her mind for thinking Twister could do anything serious.

No, this was between her and Twister… he had specifically engineered it that way and it had to be for a reason. She clearly wasn’t going to get a straight answer, but she was onto him. There was more to him than meets the eye. She had felt that way since he started his shenanigans with her, but it appeared to go much deeper than she could have ever imagined.

What was the deal between him and Ruin? How did they fit into this whole mess? She saw and heard everything, but they seemed so out of place, as if they were sitting outside of reality. The way they spoke of influencing and ‘nudging’ the course of events as if it were some kind of competition? She just had no clue what to think or to believe. If not for the situation currently before her she’d give this much more thought, but as of right now it was too… out there to piece together any sort of picture.

But, as for Twister himself, for the moment she was convinced that he was committed to aiding her. She felt like she was being gently pushed into seeing the world around her in a different light. She was beginning to believe things, starting to question things. Not just about things that were happening to her and to those around her, but things outside the box too. Twister already had her thinking before the battle broke out, but when she managed to avoid Nightshade by… well… breaking through reality the way Pinkie Pie would apparently by sheer force of will alone, she was really starting to think hard about it. It felt like Twister was slowly trying to make her aware of more, and that made it clear he was in her corner, whatever that may mean for them… or him. Without any clear answers she could live with that… at least for the time being, not that she was certain the answers could possibly make any sense. But eventually she would seek answers from him, perhaps if she found ways to uncover more about him. Because for all the help he had given her, she refused to just let it be… especially after Ruin revealed Twister’s actions that unleashed Sombra.

There was a method behind the madness. But there was no indication to what ends. Who or what was she dealing with in Twister? Hell if she knew. But until she learned more, she was fine with him as long as he kept contributing to her and the squad.

And maybe… now that she understood him and the way he operated more… maybe she could make use of him in ways that she had never considered prior. It was certainly something to keep in mind.

Dash blinked and Twister was gone. She turned back over to see him bouncing around the room on a double base like its stand was a pogo stick. He went right up to Squall and started serenading him.

“IS YOU IS…”

“Shut up.” Squall growled.

“OR IS YOU AIN’T…”

“Cut it out.”

“MY BABEH!”

“I SAID—”

Squall was cut off as a pie came hurling in from out of nowhere and slammed into Twister’s face, but it was accompanied by a loud metallic CLANG. The pie burst and fell apart to reveal a clothing iron was hidden in it, slowly sliding off twister’s face to reveal completely flattened features.

“I see I’m attracting a rather sophisticated audience!” Twister commented as the bass shrunk down and he started vigorously wiping the remainder of the pie from his flattened face.

“Twister, leave Squall alone,” Star appealed to Twister as he began shaking and screamed, falling over as he failed to get any of the pie off his face. Star looked up to see Squall staring at her, but he quickly looked away, back out the window. She stared at him for a moment before sighing and shaking her head.

“GAH!” Matteo grunted in surprise as Twister suddenly popped up right in front of him with a giant fluffy moth sitting on and covering his entire face.

“Excuse me, do I have something on my face?” he asked in a muffled voice.

“For crying out…” Dash grumbled, rolling off her bed and groaning. She couldn’t hear herself think. She moved towards the bathroom door and yanked it open hard.

CRUNCH

The room went completely silent. Dash stared down at the doorknob in her hoof… then looked at the hole in the door where the doorknob was a second ago.

Right… this was a thing too.

“Again?” Star asked as she, Squall, and Matteo all looked over towards her. “How do you keep breaking the—”

“DON’T WORRY MA’AM!” Twister popped up in front of Dash wearing a construction helmet and a tool belt that was so long that it was laid out three yards along the floor behind him. “I’LL HAVE IT FIXED IN A JIFFY!”

Dash paid little attention to Twister as he pulled out a jackhammer, started it up and jammed it into the bathroom door. The door literally exploded, sending pieces of wood flying all over the room. Dash flinched and turned her head slightly as she was battered by the woodchips. Twister grabbed the doorknob out of her hoof, followed by loud banging and drilling noises.

Dash just kept staring at her hoof, furrowing her brow.

“All in a day’s work!” Twister cheered. Dash looked up to see the door completely fixed. Twister jammed his face into hers and made his eyes as wide as he could. “NOW STOP BREAKING SHIT.”

Dash quickly pushed Twister aside and opened the door, this time carefully, entering the bathroom. Little Star and Matteo just glanced at one another as the door hovered shut, but stopped short of closing completely.

Dash placed herself in front of the mirror, putting her hooves on the counter and staring directly at herself. She blinked a few times before running some cold water and splashing it on her face.

This was the other thing… strange stuff was happening to her too. The surge she felt when Soarin transformed never went away, she could still feel it. It was another checkmark in how her days had gone the past two weeks. Wake up, demand to see Soarin, get rejected, and try to go about her day without… breaking anything. No, she wasn’t being violent out of anger. It was just happening.

Her spirit was connected to Soarin. And Soarin was now apparently a god thanks to taking on Celestia’s magic. There had to be a connection between that and what was happening to her, there was no other explanation. She couldn’t really explain it, but there were some clearly noticeable things… one being a sudden increase in strength. That was the fifth time she had broken a doorknob. The other day she punched a stone wall after getting frustrated with Discord and left a visible divot in it. She accidentally bumped into sompony the other night and they were thrown to the ground as if she rammed them.

She shook her head out, whipping the excess droplets of water from her face as she stepped back from the mirror. She stared for several moments, her eyes scanning her body over. She turned to the side as she continued to look herself over, bobbing her shoulder back and forth, reaching over and running her opposite hoof over it. She bent and flexed her legs and flank before turning back to face the mirror, brushing a hoof over her chest.

There was no doubt about it. She knew her own body quite well from several, ahem, self-admiration sessions in the past. There was clearly an increase in mass and tone all over her body along with the strength. Not that she was complaining or anything, but it definitely wasn’t normal to suddenly gain a physique that probably would have taken several months of extremely focused training to get otherwise… But it also wasn’t normal to inadvertently rip off doorknobs.

She sat down on the floor as she continued to look at herself.

Curiosity got the better of her. She looked down at her arm. She took a deep breath and clenched her hoof, tensing her arm as she bent it across her chest, flexing it as hard as she could. The cords of muscle in her arm bunched up and swelled beneath her fur to an impressive size. But surprisingly, no matter how hard she squeezed… it felt like there was no strain on her joints. She exhaled and released the tension, staring at herself in the mirror again with a somewhat concerned look.

That wasn’t natural at all. None of this was natural. It had to be because of her connection with Soarin. With their spirits connected, she had constantly felt things that had been affecting him directly. Sometimes things happened to her too. So the power flowing through Soarin was likely the cause of this little ‘boost’ she was experiencing.

But…

Dash blinked as she stared at herself for a few more seconds and bit her lip. She looked down and flexed her arm again, staring at it for a moment. Her lips curled into a smile as a slight tingling sensation crawled through her. Her vision was filled with a subtle, barely noticeable yellow tint as she touched her opposite hoof to her arm. She looked up and swayed slightly as she flexed both her arms, bouncing her eyebrows as if it was just another morning in front of the mirror for her. She was so focused on her body that she did not see the very faint yellow glow in her eyes.

“This is… kind of awesome I guess…” she said with a satisfied nod.

“Are you okay in here?”

Dash abruptly put her arms down, slamming her hooves to the floor as she stiffened in surprise. The soft glow in her eyes vanished as she glanced to her right. Little Star was peeking through the door with an eyebrow raised.

“Uh…” Dash’s eyes darted back and forth.

“Were you checking yourself out? You looked pissed a minute ago.”

Dash grabbed her mane and pulled it down over her face, grumbling in frustration as she turned pink with embarrassment.

“Is there a gym in this hotel?” she suddenly asked. Star blinked and tipped her head.

“Yeah?”

“What floor?”

“Third floor.”

“If you need me I’ll be there,” Dash got up and quickly pushed past Star, pausing briefly by the door to make sure she didn’t tear out the doorknob before she left.

Star stared for a moment before turning and looking back into the room. Squall had Twister on the ground and was repeatedly punching his face in, accompanied with a comical squeak with every hit, but Matteo was looking towards the door. Star just shook her head and shrugged before moving to pull Squall off of Twister.

Matteo, however, narrowed his eyes, clicking the tips of his beak back and forth. He got up and left the shenanigans behind, leaving the room himself.

“Huh…” Dash blinked in surprise as she scanned the small hotel gym. “Better than I thought it’d be,” she said to herself as she stepped in and let the door close behind her. They were staying at a nice hotel in the middle of the Crystal Empire’s royal district, but it certainly wasn’t a luxury establishment. Regardless they had some decent equipment for being a standard hotel gym, enough to give her a decent workout at least.

The place was spotless and looked like it hadn’t been touched in days, but with the Wonderbolts recovering and occupying the entire building, she wasn’t surprised. She needed this though. She was stressed out and frustrated, and breaking a good sweat always helped her clear her head. And... Guess she could test out her new strength while she was at it. It would be a nice distraction.

Don’t think, just lift. Don’t think, just rep it out. Don’t think, just work it. Have some fun.

Dash kept repeating it to herself as she got down to business. But even as she laid back on the bench press and focused on pushing the dumbbells up and down, she still thought of Soarin. It wasn’t so easy to strike him from her mind, especially when his status was so uncertain. Her conversation with Fleetfoot had also put forward something new to think about. Why was Discord going out of his way to confront her whenever she showed up and not with anypony else? That couldn’t be a coincidence, there were no coincidences with Discord.

He kept saying the same thing to her. Something about Soarin being unstable, something about him being in a fragile state, something about him being overwhelmed. All things that Dash was willing to believe after what happened after the change, but… maybe she’d stop ‘bothering’ him if he’d be a little more informative about what was going on in that room.

What exactly were Discord and Luna doing in there with him? What warranted keeping him completely hidden away for two weeks now? Discord said they were being extremely careful, but what did that mean? What were they doing, poking him with a stick from behind sandbags and seeing what happens?

But, on the flip side, what if they really were trying to figure it out… and two weeks later they still had nothing? As much as Dash had come to distrust Discord and Luna recently, that was a fair point to consider. But regardless they couldn’t at least tell her anything?

Dash blinked as she pushed the dumbbells up and held the top of her rep.

Uh… how many was that? She wasn’t paying attention. She was using forty pounds in each hoof, and typically she could only get around six to eight reps before putting them down. She counted to three before all those thoughts just went through her head and was pretty sure she just did at least ten or twelve more, and felt like she could do another three at least.

She abruptly set the dumbbells down and sat up, blinking as she looked down at her hooves. Her eyes slowly shifted over to the dumbbell rack. They only went up to sixty, being a hotel gym and all, but… she had to try.

She hoisted the sixty pounders off the rack, immediately noticing that she was able to, one in each hoof with some difficulty. Last time she tried to pick up one of these she needed both arms. She heaved them over to the bench and laid back carefully.

She took a deep breath as she lowered the dumbbells on the first rep… and exhaled, pushing them back up. Her eyes widened in surprise as she managed to press them up and had plenty of strength left to do more without question. So she did more. Each rep was harder than the last, and by the fourth rep she was starting to struggle. But she managed to force out two more before letting the dumbbells go, the rubber edges bouncing against the padded floor with soft THUMPS.

She sat up abruptly again, panting slightly as she looked at her hooves again. She rotated her shoulders and shook out her arms, and was surprised that the burn from the reps only lasted a few seconds before her body felt ready to go for another set. Without hesitation she picked the dumbbells back up and did another set for the same amount of reps, and when she finished the same thing happened, as if her recovery time in between sets was roughly a fraction of what it typically would be. And there was no increase in difficulty in between, like every set was her first set.

She looked herself over curiously after finishing a third, but moments later the curiosity was overtaken by some mild excitement. The fact that it was unnatural didn’t seem to be sticking in her head as much as ‘what else can I do?!’ was.

Dash got right up off the bench and began making her way around the gym, going from lift to lift, from equipment to equipment, purposely setting and lifting weights higher than she typically could… because she could. All of her personal records were out the window in an instant. She wasn’t putting up numbers like Spitfire, Soarin, or most of the elite male Wonderbolts, but the increase in her numbers was too noticeable to ignore.

The more she did, the more she enjoyed herself. She started enthusiastically bouncing around in between sets.

“Aw yeah, get after it! Looking good!” she chanted to herself, chuckling as she went from one thing to another, keeping her eyes on herself in the mirror as she moved about. The workout high was rushing harder than it ever had before and to top it off, she had a great pump going with very little strain or fatigue that typically came from getting further into a workout. Every hard push and strain from a heavy set was gone within ten seconds. She started feeling it a little bit as she kept going, but it barely slowed her down at all. It was like she could almost work out forever.

For the moment, everything she had been worrying about was gone from her mind… which was what she was trying to do, but it had nothing to do with relaxing. The more she did, the stronger the rushes of euphoria got. All sense of her surroundings and all sense of caution had gone out the window. She started trying to recklessly lift weights that were clearly too heavy for her, but she didn’t care, she wanted to try anyway. She was having fun, she felt amazing, and she didn’t want it to stop.

Before she knew it she was back where she started, on the bench with the heavy dumbbells, pushing out as many reps as she could while yelling like Bulk Biceps in between each. When she finished the set, she literally threw the dumbbells to the floor, sat up and immediately tensed up her body while laughing.

“WOOOOO! Yeah! Ha ha!” she got up and turned to flex in the mirror. “This is so awes—”

Her eyes widened and she gasped loudly at her reflection.

Her eyes were glowing yellow, and there was a yellow light surrounding her.

“AH!” she backed away from the mirror and nearly tripped over a dumbbell on the floor, stumbling and falling onto her plot with her back propped up against the bench. She stared at her reflection, panicking for a moment before she started frantically brushing her hooves over her body as if trying to swat the light away, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to do the same.

When it didn’t work, she steeled herself, took a deep breath and closed her eyes while rubbing her hooves against her temples.

“Calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, CALM DOWN!” she said over and over to herself, holding her eyes shut and taking several deep breaths.

When she opened her eyes, the glow was gone, both from her body and eyes. She slumped down and sighed in relief.

“What in the world was that?” A voice suddenly came from off to the side.

“BWUH?!” Dash perked up, her eyes widening and darting about until she spotted… Matteo in the mirror. She turned around and propped herself up on the bench, staring at Matteo sitting near the water fountain… which… was on the opposite wall of the entrance. Dash looked back and forth between where he was sitting and the door several times. “How… long have you been there?!”

“A little while,” Matteo answered simply.

“How did you get over there without me seeing you?!” she added.

“I walked.”

“…right.” Dash sighed and let her face drop against the padding of the bench. She was so entrapped in her own pleasure that she didn’t see a giant Griffon walk right past her? “I forgot you’re the thick fluffy ninja with those paws and talons… You’re a master at giving me heart attacks.”

“That’s what my wife tells me too,” Matteo stood up and made his way towards her. “So, care to explain what that was just now? That didn’t look very normal.”

“Ugh…” Dash groaned as she sat back down on the floor. “Well, I’ve been keeping this to myself mostly, but the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?” She shook her head as Matteo came around in front of her and sat down. “Ever since Soarin transformed, I’ve been—”

“Acting strange, looking at yourself in the mirror, and tearing out doorknobs,” Matteo finished for her. Dash looked up and stared at him with a flat expression. “As far as I’m concerned, only the third one is new.”

“Gee thanks,” she huffed.

“You’re welcome.”

“Son of a… anyway,” Dash grumbled. “Okay so you’ve noticed a thing or two. But something happened to me after Soarin transformed and it hasn’t gone away. I think it has to do with our spirit connection. Whatever is in him is flowing through it into my body and… giving me one hell of a charge. I don’t know what else to call it.”

“And you thought going to the gym would help,” Matteo suggested.

“I guess I did? But… what I saw just now has me worried,” Dash admitted.

“Lighting up like a streetlamp is problematic, yes.”

“No you dingbat,” Dash grunted as Matteo continued to stare stoically. “It hit me the moment I saw the glow, two specific things came to mind, one of which you weren’t around for, but both of which were not good things.” Dash looked down at her hooves and over her body. “Back before we met, before the tryouts or anything and before Soarin had that silly horn strapped to his head… he was dealing with the magic inside of him unaided and it had positive and negative effects. The most obvious effect was that he was able to work hard and exert himself without ever getting fatigued and tired. But it wasn’t a good thing because he couldn’t sleep and constantly had headaches. I haven’t had trouble sleeping or anything yet, but…”

“But his magic was blue and belonged to Sombra, did it not?” Matteo pointed out.

“Yeah that brings me to the other…” Dash shuddered. “You remember when… Soarin suddenly showed up one day and started strutting around, flirting with every mare, and looked like he was high on his own adrenaline at all times?”

“And beat Silver senseless,” Matteo added.

“Yeah and almost forced himself on me later like a wild animal,” Dash took a moment to grit her teeth as she recalled the incident. “That’s when we discovered the yellow colored magic within him, which we now know belongs to Celestia. It turned him into… something he wasn’t. Made him weird, crazy, and lose control of himself through his own pleasure. I can still remember how scared he was after he came to. He was so worried that he could have really hurt me or somepony else.”

Dash took a deep breath as she looked up at Matteo.

“I don’t know if that’s what just happened to me or what. It never got revved up until now when I tried to work out and started getting excited about how much I could lift.” She shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the new strength, the extra muscle, the endurance, recovery, and whatnot, but… I don’t want to lose control of myself like Soarin. That scares me.”

Matteo said nothing, he just kept staring.

“Well, say something,” Dash pushed, looking for confirmation that he was listening.

“Come here,” Matteo said simply as he stood up and walked over to the gym’s single power rack set up opposite of the dumbbells.

“Huh?” Dash blinked as she watched him set the barbell down to bench press height and pull the attached bench out underneath the bar.

“Come here,” Matteo repeated while pointing to the bench.

“No, I think I’m done for now,” Dash quickly shook her head when she saw him reach for the weight plates.

“You have interest in seeing your strength, do you not?” Matteo asked as he slid the first plate on and went around to the other side. “Then come over here. We can test it as we did during the cadet tryouts. I’ll spot you so you can keep your eyes on me and focus on the lift instead of the high,” he suggested while twirling a talon beside his head.

Dash stared blankly at him, then down at the barbell, releasing a heavy sigh.

“Okay, you’re right… I kinda want to see,” she stood up and made her way over slowly, still a bit spooked by what happened to her. But with Matteo there she could focus on him instead of herself like he suggested. “I did this for two reps during the tryouts,” she said pointing to the barbell with a 45 pound plate on each side. “Can probably do mo—”

Before she could finish, Matteo pulled 35’s off each side and slapped them on. Dash froze and stared at the extra weight on the bar.

“205?” she said while raising an eyebrow. “Matty, I’m just a little stronger, I didn’t steal Macho Savage’s questionable protein stash.”

“That was also before you became a Wonderbolt, worked with us, and got personal training from Silver Lining. That should be taken into account as well,” Matteo explained as Dash scrunched her mouth.

“Well, alright, but just over two hundred pounds may be a bit much,” Dash said as she laid back on the bench and placed her hooves on the bar.

“Less talking, more heavy lifting. I won’t let it fall on you, just push it up.”

Dash took a deep breath, trying her best to not get… excited as she pressed her hooves to the bar and Matteo helped her unrack it. She immediately felt the pressure on her body as Matteo released his talons and let her take it. Dash felt a slight rush as the weight pushed down on her, but she kept her eyes fixed on Matteo glaring down at her and concentrated. She lowered the bar slowly, her arms and body shuddering as she controlled the descent, breathing in as she halted the bar just an inch from her chest.

“HUP!” Dash exhaled as she pushed with all her strength. There was a slight edge, the bar moving up about an inch before stopping in place.

“Come on!” Matteo yelled down to her. “Up!”

Dash gritted her teeth and put everything she had into it, the bar slowly edging upward again. And after it got past a certain point, Dash was able to thrust upward with a loud gasp.

She did it. It was really hard, but she did it.

Her eyes were wide with surprise as Matteo grabbed the bar from her and placed it back into the rack. Dash immediately sat up and just stared forward, her jaw agape.

“Whoa…” she said quietly to herself, taking a moment to look herself over cautiously, but thankfully no sign of the yellow light was around her. “That was like…” Dash looked over her shoulder at the weight on the bar. “That was Spitfire weight! I mean…” Dash turned and sat sideways on the bench. “Okay, she probably would have pushed that for another three or four, but still!” Dash chuckled to herself as her body tingled for only another moment before it felt like it was recovering again. Though she noticed it was slightly slower this time. Perhaps it just took much more to tire her out now, but it was still weird.

“Impressive,” Matteo commented as he put away the weights for her. Dash blinked and scoffed, giving him a smug look.

“Oh please, that’s not even a fraction of what you can do Mr. LiftAllTheWeight.”

“Still impressive,” Matteo insisted as he came around and sat in front of her again.

“Yeah, I…” Dash frowned suddenly. “I mean I guess. It’s kinda weird now that I think about it. It’s cool and all but… feels like I’m cheating. Doubt I could have done that without… this.”

“You speak as if that’s a bad thing.”

“I like to earn things, Matty,” Dash clarified.

“I’d say you deserve a little extra after what you’ve been through.”

Dash blinked and glanced towards the mirror at herself as Matteo made that particular point. She briefly scanned her body again before her lips curled into a small smile.

“Well, I guess I can enjoy it a little bit,” she chuckled. “So long as I keep myself from getting weird.”

“That would be advised,” Matteo nodded in agreement. “Now that we have that settled, answer me something.”

“Huh?” Dash glanced up at him. “What?”

“Soarin,” Matteo said simply.

“Soarin? What about him?” she asked.

“You’ve been frustrated and complaining for two weeks about the gods not letting you see him. What are you going to do about it?” he asked bluntly.

“What am I what?” Dash tipped her head, then flinched as Matteo poked her in the chest.

“You want to see him, and you keep letting them say no to you. What are you going to do about it?” he pressed.

“What am I…? Uh… I can’t do anything about it, Matty,” she said with a huff.

“Why?” Matteo asked simply. Dash opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say. “Where did this passiveness come from? What’s stopping you from sneaking in there?”

“Matty, I can’t just…” Dash trailed off, her expression going blank as she realized what she was about to say.

She had literally just taken matters into her own hooves against Spitfire and the entire Wonderbolt force two weeks ago during the battle over Sombra.

Matteo was right. What the hell was stopping her? Discord and Luna could shove it, she wanted to see Soarin!

“You know what? Screw it,” Dash stood up, shook out her head and cleared her throat. “TWISTER!”

“He’s back at the—AH!” Matteo squawked as Twister popped out of his chest fluff and extended his neck until his head was right in front of Dash.

“I heard my name!” he exclaimed cheerfully. Without looking at him, Dash grabbed him by the neck and yanked him out of Matteo’s fur.

“Come with us. We’re doing this right now.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf
As mentioned last chapter, the title poster is by: Nightyscribbles (Full resolution: right here)

And off we go! Soudns like things did not go so well for Soarin the moment he broke from his thousand yard stare... and as a result he's been hidden away to be... studied? But do Discord and Luna even know what they're doing? Sure doesn't sound like ti... this ought to be an interesting situation.

Looks like Dash is feeling pretty darn good with Celestia's power shooting through her indirectly from Soarin... maybe a little too good, we all remember what happened when Soarin first experienced that. :derpyderp2:

And now, it looks like Dash remembered that she just told everyone to get bent not too long ago, so it's time to do it again. If they wont let her see Soarin, she'll let herself in!

So you may have noticed this is quite a short chapter. Thing is, i made it a point in my arc 4 outline to be much more organized with my ideas, when things occur, and where i can have reasonable cut off points. We may still have some longer chapters, but only if the certain scene or progression calls for it. I tried my best to learn from my mistakes in arc 3, would be a disservice to all of you if you stuck with me this long and i didnt try to improve along the way. :eeyup:

Next chapter is already in production :scootangel:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! It's good to be at it again!

Chapter 169: "Observation"

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 169: “Observation”

Rainbow Dash carefully peeked around the corner, looking towards the large set of doors separating her from where Discord and Luna were keeping Soarin.

Matteo peeked out above her.

Twister peeked out from the other side, looking directly into Dash’s face.

Matteo promptly reached around and snatched him up with his talons, stuffing Twister into his fur. A moment later a periscope slipped out from Matteo’s chest feathers, a large blinking eye visible in the lens looking out with them.

“Dammit,” Dash grumbled. “Puppy Sucker is still there…”

“Who?” Matteo blinked and tipped his head slightly.

“Luna’s lapdog,” Dash motioned towards P.L. standing guard dutifully with several crystal guards behind him. “Long story,” she added.

“He appears to be the only thestrel,” Matteo observed as Twister’s periscope turned to look directly at him instead. “Just crystal guards otherwise.”

“Good,” Dash nodded. “That takes one factor off the table.”

They both perked up as the large doors opened. P.L. didn’t budge, but the crystal guards turned to see Luna emerge from the room and gently close the door behind her.

She walked up beside P.L., finally breaking him from his forward stare once he noticed her.

“We shall be right back. Please remain on guard,” she asked.

“Yes, my lady,” P.L. replied flatly with a slight bow and looked directly ahead once more. But Luna didn’t leave. She stared at him for another moment. He glanced at her again. “Is something wrong, my lady?”

“N…no…” Luna quickly shook her head. “We are fine…” she turned quickly down the opposite hall.

“Lapdog is too nice of a term. Did he forget to wear his collar this morning?” Matteo commented flatly, earning a quiet snort from Dash as she focused on the guards again.

“Talk about timing, if Luna is gone then I have a real good chance here.”

“But what if Discord is present?” Matteo asked.

“If Discord is in there I’m screwed either way,” Dash admitted. “But I’m going to at least try. The real challenge here is going to be P.L. But first, what should we do about the…” Dash turned to look at Matteo, but the moment she did, Twister’s periscope zipped back into Matteo’s fluff.

Dash blinked.

“OH. NO.” Twister’s voice suddenly came from out in the hall. Dash frantically turned around and looked out to see Twister standing DIRECTLY in front of the P.L. and the crystal guards. He reached behind his plot and pulled out what appeared to be bright pink lingerie with Cadence’s cutie mark on it and a bridle with fuzzy buckles adorning the harness. “LOOKS LIKE I RAIDED PRINCESS CADENCE’S SEXYTIME WARDROBE!” He rapidly spun in a circle, distorting his image for several seconds. When he stopped he was wearing all of it. “WOULDN’T IT BE A SHAME IF SOMEPONY WERE TO WEAR IT INTO TOWN AND SHOW EVERYPONY HOW NAUGHTY SHE IS?!”

“Hey!” one of the guards yelled as they all instantly abandoned their post to approach Twister. P.L. didn’t budge, nor look at him.

“LOOK AT ME!” Twister turned and wiggled his ass at them. “I’M THE LOVE-BUTT NOW!” he took off and the guards chased after him. “WHERE”S SHINING ARMOR!? I NEED A YANK, STAT!”

Dash and Matteo watched as Twister turned the corner and all the crystal guards followed, leaving P.L. behind by himself. Dash’s mouth hung open in disbelief as Matteo simply lifted his brow and nodded.

“Not bad,” he commented simply.

“Sometimes I love that crazy bastard…” Dash said with a slight chuckle. “But… we still have to deal with P.L.”

Dash rubbed her chin as she stared out towards P.L. He had not budged from his spot since they arrived. Based on past experience and the way he didn’t even flinch during Twister’s antics right now, it was clear his loyalty was 150% committed to guarding Luna. How in the world were they going to lure him away? Or even just distract him long enough?

“Got any ideas Matty?” Dash asked, looking up at him. She quickly noticed that Matteo was looking slightly up and away from P.L. She followed his eyes to a window that was nearby. The sunlight was shining through, casting a large square of light roughly three yards away from where P.L. was standing.

“Thestrels dislike light, correct?” Matteo asked. Dash glanced between him and the window.

“I’ve seen them hiss at it often, yeah. Why?”

“Wait here,” Matteo said as he stepped out and started walking in P.L.’s direction before Dash could say or ask anything. She swallowed and did as she was told, watching as Matteo casually walked down the hall.

When he crossed P.L.’s line of sight, he turned and looked directly at him.

P.L. locked eyes with Matteo, but didn’t move.

Matteo stepped into the sunbeam and sat down.

Dash stared blankly, slowly flattening her brow as P.L. and Matteo proceeded to have what appeared to be a silent stoic staring contest for nearly half a minute.

But then Matteo suddenly lifted up an arm, holding his talons up sideways.

P.L.’s eyes shifted to his talon shanks briefly, but returned to Matteo’s eyes right after, lifting an eyebrow.

Matteo suddenly twisted his wrist quickly. The light from the window hit his wedding ring, its smooth shiny surface bouncing a small beam of light directly into P.L.’s eye.

“GRAH!” P.L. winced hard, stumbling and throwing his wings over his face as he turned and bent down, hissing loudly in a rather unnervingly lower tone compared to the other thestrels.

“Wha…?” Dash’s eyes widened as she watched P.L. struggle, glancing at Matteo just in time to see him look in her direction and make quick head motions towards the door. “Oh!”

She darted out from behind the wall without hesitation, keeping an eye on P.L. as he continued to lurch and cringe while facing away and covering his face. Matteo shifted forward, grabbing the handle of one of the large doors and discreetly opening it just enough to let Dash slip through.

Dash shimmied through, turning around and glancing at Matteo through the cracked door briefly as he nodded and quickly closed it.

Dash hoped that he made tracks right after, because P.L. was likely going to be pissed the moment he recovered. But Matteo was a big col—er… eagle? Fledgling? Cub? Whatever the young male griffon term that fit into the saying was. He could take care of himself…

What mattered was that she was in.

She turned her back to the door, taking care to step lightly so her hooves wouldn’t make any noise against the hard floor. A large pillar was directly in front of her roughly ten yards away, marking the ‘welcome area’. The room was a large gathering hall, typically used for meetings with delegations outside of the throne room, large and circular with several similar pillars along the outer edge. Though it appeared to be stripped clean of tables or any sort of congregation furniture.

Dash swallowed, tip-hoofing her way forward and pressing herself to the pillar. She carefully edged towards one side and peeked out towards the left side of the hall.

Nothing.

She turned and slid across the pillar’s surface and checked the right side.

Still nothing.

She put up her ears and listened carefully for anything, but aside from the faint sound of a magical aura she couldn’t hear or see anything, at least from those angles.

Was Discord absent? There was no sign of him yet, but she was being extra careful.

If he was where she couldn’t see him, she was screwed one way or the other. So she decided to just go for it, taking a deep breath…

And made her way around the pillar.

She immediately came to a halt, her eyes widening and her lips parting to inhale softly.

Discord was nowhere to be seen, but even if he was there, she doubted she would have acknowledged him.

Because in the very center of the hall, suspended a few inches off the ground within a softly sparkling blue aura…

Was Soarin.

Dash just stared for a few moments. It was what she expected to see, but it was a sight to behold regardless. She had already seen him in the Alicorn form, but she was filled with awe regardless as her eyes took in his form. He was floating, eyes closed, presumably asleep if he was still under the stasis spell Luna and Discord had cast on him two weeks prior.

Her eyes remained locked on him as she slowly made her way forward, and the closer she got the more she was reminded how large he was. He had appeared to shake off Sombra’s possession, but the increase in size it had caused remained when he reappeared as an Alicorn. Such a physical presence made Discord’s proclamation that Soarin had become a ‘divine’ Alicorn more believable. It was likened to how large Luna and Celestia were compared to the rest of them, only… Soarin was already a large stallion, so in a form like this he was massive. She felt smaller and smaller the closer she got, but she was too awe stricken to look away.

She briefly stopped and glanced to her left as she passed by a few tables placed near him. They were littered with scrolls and papers that appeared to be adorned with freshly written notes. Several tomes were neatly stacked beside the table as well. Dash didn’t bother reading any of it, but there appeared to be a lot of notes, including three waste baskets spilling over with crumpled up papers nearby. Were they all written by Discord and Luna? Did it all have to do with Soarin? Maybe there was some truth behind what Discord was saying to her after all. She had assumed they were just being difficult and secretive and that keeping him locked away for so long was unreasonable. But… the mountain of notes suggested they really were working around the clock. And the amount of discarded and crumpled papers suggested they were indeed struggling with it. But would it have killed them to be a little more transparent about it?

But whatever it all meant could wait. Dash swallowed as she refocused on Soarin, taking in his massive, slumbering form. She took two steps closer… and suddenly gasped.

She shuddered, tingling sensations rushing through her as bursts of warmth traveled up and down her body. She twitched and looked down, panting lightly as the surging sensation subsided. She blinked and stared at Soarin, taking another step.

“Ah!” she gasped as it happened again, her body trembling as a euphoric feeling swirled inside of her. What was going on? Was their connection causing a reaction in her based on their proximity?

She took another step and the same thing happened, the rushes getting stronger the closer she got, but she gritted her teeth and tried to keep her thoughts in check. It felt very similar to what she felt working out in the gym just prior. She wasn’t glowing… yet, but it was clear what made her get weird in the gym was acting up now. Was… this why Discord was discouraging her? Was there a reason he personally was making sure she stayed away?

It didn’t matter because she couldn’t stop. She kept moving forward one step at a time. Getting closer and closer to him, the rushing feeling getting stronger every step until she was glowing yellow… but she took no notice of it. She was too distracted by him.

But then the hall door opened with a loud CLANK.

Dash perked up, her eyes widening considerably as she heard Luna’s voice.

“Shined a light in your eyes?” she spoke to P.L.

“That griffon in the Wonderbolts, yes,” P.L. replied with a growl.

Dash frantically looked back and forth.

“And the other guards?”

“Chased some vagabond who claimed to have raided Princess Cadence’s wardrobe.”

Dash’s eyes landed on the pillars around the edge of the hall. She turned to gallop towards it, but only got two steps away before she inhaled sharply and came to an abrupt halt, grabbing at her chest. She choked quietly as the tightness filled her throat, hunching down and blinking. It felt like something was tugging at her, restraining her, as if her body was rejecting her attempt to move away from Soarin. She began to sweat as her eyes darted towards the entrance.

“We… uh… we see…” Luna sounded confused. “Please continue to stand guard.”

Dash slammed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, forcing herself onward and pushing against the nearly unbearable urge to stay near Soarin. It felt like her insides were burning as she lurched forward, ripping herself free from whatever was trying to hold her back and quickly sliding behind a large pillar on the left side of the hall. She instantly buckled, falling down onto her side and panting, her body jittering with pins and needles as she struggled to roll upright.

She quickly threw a hoof over her mouth to muffle her heavy breaths as the echoing sound of Luna’s hooves filled the hall.

The burning sensations in Dash slowly subsided, her body relaxing. She exhaled quietly in relief as the odd effect didn’t last, but she didn’t take time to wonder what it was all about. For the moment she was hidden from Luna, while she had no way out, this was a chance for her to see what was actually going on in here, which was just as much a reason she snuck in as seeing Soarin.

She slid along the pillar, taking care to peek out only little bits at a time until Luna was in view. She pulled back briefly when she first saw her, but Luna was not looking in her direction, so Dash peeked out as far as she comfortably could to watch.

Luna was standing beside the table, looking towards Soarin, scanning him over. She approached him, her horn lighting up with magic that remained present as she examined Soarin closely, walking in a circle around him and stopping a few times here and there. Dash could see her eyes lit up as well. Was she checking the stasis magic or him? She couldn’t tell, but eventually Luna made her way all the way around and strode in front of him.

Again, Soarin’s massive size was a sight to see. Luna, like her sister, was larger than most ponies and he made her look small in his current form. Not as tiny as Dash felt beside him, but it was a stark comparison. He was floating a little off the ground, but if he were to be standing on all four hooves he’d be at least a head taller than her, maybe even two. He was definitely larger than Celestia, recalling the last time she had stood next to her a while back.

Dash flinched and pulled back slightly as Luna turned away from him, but she only turned towards the table, using her magic to shuffle through the papers on the table until she found a blank piece. She sighed and rubbed a hoof on her forehead below her horn as she picked up a feather quill in her magic and began writing.

She did this for several moments, glancing towards Soarin a few times.

At one point she looked towards him and stared for at least ten seconds. She appeared to be completely still throughout it, Dash was too far away to see otherwise. With another heavy sigh, she looked back at the paper, finished writing, and began shuffling around the papers on the table again.

As Luna picked up several other papers and floated them side by side with the one she just wrote on, Dash felt like this confirmed her thought moments ago. They really were trying to figure this out, though it appeared to be not going so well. It was odd to see Luna, a goddess, struggle with something like this. Though recently exposed for lack of understanding and a disregard for how life works outside of their personal world, if there was one thing Dash knew the gods understood well, it was magic. Though it was one thing to see Luna at a loss, Dash found it hard to believe that Discord was in the same boat. But if he truly was, then maybe he wasn’t just blowing it out of his ass every time he had confronted her recently.

Dash perked up as Luna suddenly growled, her eyes darting about the papers floating in front of her before she gritted her teeth and smashed all of them together. Crumpling them up angrily and throwing it roughly towards the waste baskets. The crumpled paper bounced off the contents and fell to the floor.

Dash blinked as Luna groaned and she slumped down on the table, pushing several of the papers aside and several of them fluttering to the floor.

Yeah… it definitely wasn’t going their way.

A few moments later Luna pushed away from the table, sitting down and rubbing her hooves to her temples, she let her arms fall and she hunched forward, looking defeated. At this point Dash wasn’t sure what to do. She doubted she could get out unnoticed, but at the same time she wasn’t sure if leaving was what she wanted to do. Could she wait for Luna to leave again? She did want more time alone with Soarin, but that seemed unlikely. If Discord came back, she’d be found immediately.

But her thought process halted for a moment and she looked back out towards Luna. Luna was still hunched forward, but… she had her head turned and was staring at Soarin. After a few moments, she glanced down, reaching an arm across her body and rubbing her opposite arm, appearing to shiver slightly before looking at Soarin again.

At this point Dash would have gone back to considering her options, but then Luna stood up and faced Soarin, standing still for several seconds before looking back and forth and over her shoulder. She swallowed, one of her back legs crossing over and brushing up and down against the other.

Dash lifted an eyebrow, tipping her head as she watched curiously.

Luna slowly began approaching Soarin, pausing every couple of steps, but eventually standing right in front of him with her magic alight on her horn again. The magical field surrounding Soarin grew slightly brighter before it lowered him a little bit, his large hooves limply touching the floor as he was moved to just a few inches above eye level with Luna.

Dash lifted an eyebrow and leaned out a little further to get a better view.

Luna looked over Soarin’s face, up at the long horn, tipped her head back and forth to look at his large wings, and then began scanning his body. She lifted a hoof, but held it still in front of her.

Dash couldn’t see much more with Luna’s back turned, but her curiosity outweighed her desire to be careful. She quickly and quietly darted to the next pillar over, sliding along and peeking out to get a better view.

And as soon as she looked out again, she froze, her eyes growing very wide.

Luna had her eyes fixed on Soarin’s chest… and had her hoof pressed to it. She was biting her lip, her face flushed, and her body shivering.

Dash’s jaw dropped and her eyes quickly sharpened into a shocked glare as Luna began running her hoof over Soarin’s chest muscles, up to his shoulders and up and down his arm. Her tail flicked about as her back legs kept switching which was crossed over the other. Her hoof eventually ran back up past his shoulder, over his neck, and up to his cheek where she paused and caressed it. She stared longingly at Soarin’s face, her breaths quickening and the shaking of her shivering body becoming more intense.

Then she slowly leaned forward, her eyes closing as she inched her lips towards Soarin’s.

Something inside Dash snapped.

“HEY!” Dash shouted as loud as she could as she stepped out into the open.

Luna flinched hard as if she was just smacked across the face with a wet towel. Her eyes shot open and she instantly pulled away from Soarin, tripping over her hooves as she lurched backwards, her wings flapping erratically as she fell onto her back. She frantically turned over, looking in multiple directions until her eyes landed on Dash.

Dash was stomping towards Luna, simmering with rage that grew stronger with each step. She was snarling, her breath hissing loudly through her teeth as she closed in.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, all restraint gone.

Luna’s eyes filled with dread, the look on her face morphed from surprise to pure panic in seconds.

“SO THIS IS WHAT YOU GODS CALL ‘OBSERVATION?!’” Dash belted as she grew closer, a faint yellow glow beginning to shine around her body. “HE CHANGED TO THIS SO NOW YOU THINK HE’S YOURS?!” she got right in front of Luna and jammed a hoof in her face “I DON’T THINK SO, MOON TRAMP!” she yelled as the yellow glow got brighter.

Luna’s eyes darted about, she jittered and began gasping for air as if she couldn’t breathe. She pressed a hoof to her chest as her face scrunched up and tears began squeaking out of her eyes.

“We… we…!” Luna’s voice was broken and cracking, rasping uncontrollably. “I’m…!” she suddenly dropped the old Canterlot speech. “I’M SORRY!!!!!!” She yelled as a burst of magic erupted from her horn, pushing Dash away from her. She immediately forced herself up and broke into a gallop towards the entrance, wailing uncontrollably. As she vanished behind the pillars, the noise of the doors being forced open, followed by Captain P.L. calling Luna by name reached Dash’s ears.

But Dash hadn’t moved, she was simply glaring in the direction Luna had run in, her teeth jammed together and her chest heaving with heavy angry breaths as the sight of Luna’s advances on Soarin refused to get out of her head.

“GRH…RGH!!!!” Dash began grunting, her eyes twitching as the yellow glow around her grew brighter, the light beginning to rise out of her eyes. “Son of a… THAT… DAMN… RGH!” She lurched, stumbling as the anger refused to subside. She put a hoof to her head, as her body began to pulsate uncontrollably. Her joints and muscles tensed and twitched against her will.

Then Soarin began to stir.

“Hrng…” Soarin suddenly groaned quietly as a yellow glow appeared around him. The magic field holding him brightened considerably as Soarin began to twitch and shudder.

Dash stumbled and turned to face Soarin, breaths hissing in and out between her teeth as she stared at him. The stronger the anger got inside of her, the more Soarin cringed and winced.

“Ahhh… GRAHHHH!” Dash slammed her eyes shut and growled as the feeling refused to subside.

Something was wrong. Something was really wrong, but… she couldn’t stop it!

“You.”

Dash flinched in surprise as she heard the familiar voice, followed by something pressing down over her head.

She blinked and she was suddenly no longer in the hall. In fact she was no longer in the palace. She was in an alley behind the hotel the Wonderbolts were staying, and whatever was pressed to her head was still pressing to it.

“CALM. DOWN.” The voice commanded. Dash was still too entrapped in her emotions to recognize the voice. She also couldn’t do what it asked no matter how hard she tried. “Fine, but don’t blame me if you have a headache after this.”

Dash suddenly felt a burst of pressure forced through her body.

“GAH!” she gasped as the rush of her emotions was quickly flushed out and the yellow glow surrounding her vanished completely. She fell forward, just barely propping herself up on her hooves as she panted, her head spinning for several moments as she blinked and tried to regain her senses.

“You’re a real piece of work.”

Dash’s ears stood up as she finally recognized the voice.

“There’s a reason we’ve been keeping you away from him! You’re lucky I showed up when I did!”

Dash narrowed her eyes. She stood up and turned around, glaring up into the miffed gaze of Discord. He was standing over her with his arms crossed like a disappointed parent, but Dash was having none of it.

“Okay, no!” Dash hovered up to get into his face. “I’m done! You let him out of there right now!” she demanded. Discord blinked.

“Let him out? Really now? Yes, that sounds like a great idea,” he said sarcastically and rolled his eyes. “Might want to evacuate the entire empire first, it will probably be wiped out the moment Soarin sneezes. How about we—”

Discord stopped mid-sentence and leaned to the left slightly as Dash’s hoof swung towards him. He threw up a veil of magic, catching her hoof less than an inch from his face.

“Let’s be civil about this, okay?” he said frankly with a snort.

“I’m not gonna be civil if Luna’s going to be rubbing herself all over him while you keep me out!” Dash yelled.

Discord perked up, his expression going blank for a moment. He pushed Dash away from him gently and released a heavy, exasperated sigh while rubbing a hand against his forehead. Dash backed off, but looked at him quizzically.

“Again? For heaven’s sake Lulu…” he grumbled aloud. But the only word Dash picked out was ‘again.’

“Again? AGAIN?!” she grabbed him by the neck and shook him. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN AGAIN?!?!”

“Gah! Ow! Stop it!” Discord huffed as he grabbed her by the tail and pulled her away from him. “Settle down and tell me, what did you see in there? Was she advancing on him?” he asked in a perfectly serious tone mixed with some disappointment.

“Advancing?” Dash growled. “The way she was touching him, she would’ve split her biscuit on him if I didn’t step in!”

Discord’s eyelid twitched before he let go of Dash’s tail and shook his head.

“I guess I have to lecture her again…” he grumbled.

“Lecture her about what?! Taking what’s not hers?!” Dash snapped at Discord, but he reached down and poked a finger to her nose.

“If you understood exactly what’s happening to her you’d…” Discord trailed off as Dash gave him a flat look, as if he couldn’t come up with anything to say after that. “It’s a long story…”

“Oh sure, is Luna’s leg-clenching heat going to be another secret you’re keeping from us?” Dash threw her arms out. Discord lifted his brow and tipped his head.

“Fine, here’s the short version. She’s thousands of years old and unlike her sister is very strict about the archaic rules and traditions of her kind including the fact that it is forbidden for the divine to caboodle with mortals, if you catch my drift.”

Dash blinked as Discord pulled back and lazily held a hand out to his side.

“Not to mention Divine Alicorn Stallions were already rare when they still existed. If you had over a millennia of morally pent up sexual desire built up within you and something that resembles what’s allowed suddenly appears, you’d have a hard time controlling yourself too.”

“And…” Dash slowly held her hooves out in front of her. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?! Soarin suddenly qualifies for her hot box so it doesn’t matter that he’s taken?! That’s the most sorry-ass excuse I could imagine!”

“Don’t shoot the messenger, please,” he hissed at her while sticking his whipping snake tongue out at her and batting her in the nose with it. “Don’t mistake that as justification for her behavior, I’ve been trying to keep her focused,” Discord sighed. “I was hoping to keep her at bay and keep YOU from knowing to make this whole process easier, but that cat’s out of the bag now, obviously. I need her help to figure out what’s going on here. If I tell you I’m doing everything I can to keep her off of him, will you be satisfied?”

Dash just glared at him.

“I don’t even know why I asked,” Discord huffed.

“I don’t want her around him PERIOD! End of story!” Dash demanded, but Discord shook his head.

“I can’t do that, and before you try to punch me in the face again, I’ll have you know she’s half the power that’s keeping our stasis spell in control of him. And we need to keep control of him.” He placed a finger on her head before she could start seething. “I know it’s a tall order, but for a moment I want you to think about what happened in there aside from Luna’s moon blinking like a firefly. Think about your anger and how you couldn’t control it. You saw how Soarin started reacting.”

Dash’s expression softened for a moment. She had barely focused on that at all for obvious reasons, but now that she thought about it…

“Now do you get why I’ve been keeping you away from him? You are connected to him and his transformation had an effect on you too. I was afraid to get you two close to one another for exactly what happened just now. Your emotional outburst started to disturb his rest despite our spell. And frankly, I have no idea what would have happened if I hadn’t stepped in and gotten you away,” Discord explained.

Dash looked down, her eyes shifting back and forth as she thought about it.

“Everything was fine before Luna came in,” she tried to appeal, but Discord looked at her hard.

“Was it?” he asked sharply.

“I…” Dash blinked, recalling how it went. “Okay maybe it wasn’t.”

“Go on.” Discord pressed.

“I felt drawn to Soarin. The closer I got the more I felt really good. And when Luna arrived it physically hurt to pull myself away,” Dash admitted, staring up at him.

Discord stayed silent for a moment, curling a finger in his beard as he thought.

“I see. Well you saved me the trouble of trying that later. Now stop trying to barge in,” he abruptly turned his back to her.

“Hey, HOLD ON! NO!” she quickly grabbed his tail. “I’m serious about Luna!”

“And I’m serious about how I need her there with me!” Discord grunted while grabbing his tail and yanking it free from Dash. “You’re just going to have to deal with it! Right now I need to go tear her a new one for listening to her pelvis instead of her brain so we can get back to work for everypony’s sake! Who knows, maybe you catching her in the act will get her to think twice from here on! There’s really nothing else I can do about it. When we figure something out, you’ll be the first to know!”

Discord’s voice was becoming defensive and annoyed, balling up his fists as he loomed over Dash and yelled directly down at her.

“I know you don’t trust us and honestly we deserve it, but everything we were keeping to ourselves before was about Sombra, Celestia, and that disaster of a situation that now has us HERE. We’re dealing with unknowns now, I’m keeping nothing factual from you and I don’t plan to! So if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work on YOUR friend to make sure he won’t explode and kill everything within a hundred mile radius!”

He turned his back to her.

“If I were you I’d stop trying to interrupt our work and focus on the other problems that are still out there! How about you tell Spitfire to get on that?! Maybe you could have Fleetfoot coax her with an affectionate full body massage! Tell Descent to stop fretting over his angry crystalized wing mare and do more scouting!” Discord grabbed his beard and yanked on it so hard that his face stretched and snapped back up into his forehead. “ARGH!” He grunted as he turned back around and held his hands out towards Dash, a strange, unhinged look in his eyes. “Do something for the love of Celestia! Make yourselves useful instead of bothering us! It’s bad enough that we’re struggling to figure any of this out! Soarin isn’t the only issue we’re dealing with! Now beat it! I need to go strangle Luna harder than I did last time!”

Discord disappeared the moment he finished speaking.

“HEY! WAIT!” Dash yelled, but Discord was gone. His odd loss of control at the end of his rant barely phased her, because she was still just… so… MAD.

She lifted a hoof to slam on the ground, but stopped before bringing it down. After the way her anger swelled out of control moments ago, she thought twice about it, simply clenching her hoof and gritting her teeth instead, shaking her head out as she tried with all her might to stay calm about what she just saw Luna do to Soarin.

She snuck in there to see Soarin and get some answers, but it only made things worse. She growled and held her breath as she turned and made her way out of the alley and around in front of the hotel.

“Friggin, fraggin, moon fuggin harlot…” Dash mumbled and grumbled to herself as she approached the front of the hotel, but still hadn’t really decided to go in or keep walking.

Storm Front suddenly emerged from the hotel, his eyes immediately landing on Dash as she trudged.

“Oh! Dash, I…” He spoke in a hesitant tone while holding up a hoof. But he trailed off, shutting his mouth as Dash stopped and sharply turned her head to glare at him while somewhat sucking her bottom lip into her mouth. “Um…” Storm inched backwards slightly as he got the strange look as if Dash was holding in gas.

Dash’s eye twitched as she pulled her eyes away from Storm and kept stomping along. She was already pissed off about Luna, she didn’t want to deal with the backstabbing daddy’s boy on top of it. So instead of taking it out on him she just kept going, turning the corner into town and leaving the confused Storm behind. One issue at a time, being very angry was clearly not a good thing with her current state so the less that would make her mad the better.

She kept grumbling to herself, not really aware of how loudly she was speaking. She drew looks from ponies as she made her way into the marketplace, several conversations stopping and pairs of eyes following her as she made her way forward, not shifting an inch to the left or right as ponies moved out of her way.

She was trying to relax, trying really hard to relax. But she was angry with Luna for trying to bang her stallion, she was angry with Discord for being himself, and Storm just reminded her that she was angry with him too for double crossing them two weeks ago. She looked down and blinked, swallowing hard as she noticed a very faint tint of yellow around her body.

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…” Dash turned and galloped towards the decorative fountain in the center of the marketplace, slammed her hooves on the edge and dunked her head into the water.

Nearly the entire marketplace looked on as a muffled, gurgling scream came from the fountain with lots of bubbles floating up and popping on the surface of the water.

“…UCK!” Dash yelled as she pulled her head out, gasping and wheezing as her sopping wet mane stuck to her head and dripped down her neck and chest. “Haaaaaa…” she exhaled as she slumped down against the fountain and turned over to rest her back against it. She felt a little better, not quite so filled with rage, and the glow had vanished. This was going to be a problem, wasn’t it…? She spent two weeks pretty much relaxed and undisturbed while also wondering what was happening with Soarin… and now after getting riled up in the gym and getting extremely pissed off…? Yeah… she had a problem. Her connection with Soarin was going haywire.

She spent all that time under pressure and in intense combat with the Wonderbolts to reach safe haven here at the Empire, then after dealing with Sombra they finally had it… But of course she just had to find a way to make it anything but relaxing for her. Story of her life, she just couldn’t catch a break and it was her own doing.

She blinked, perking up as she noticed everypony in the market was standing still and staring at her. Her face turned bright red as she realized how publically she was expressing her emotions.

“Ah… haha…” she nervously chuckled as her eyes darted about the onlookers. “I was… uh… I’m just not a morning pony! I get real weird before my coffee! I was on my way to get some now!” She glanced up at the clock tower in the square and her pupils shrunk. “At… noon…”

Before her face could turn any redder, Dash stood up and cantered towards the road leading out of the market, slipping behind the first building she came across and leaning into the wall. She released a heavy sigh as she whipped her head about to shake some of the water from her mane, but it still stuck to her like a wet towel.

“It’s official, I’m losing my mind,” Dash said to herself as she sat down against the wall. She stared blankly at the ground for a moment. “If I have any more of it left to lose…” she kept talking to herself, adding a sarcastic tone as she swayed slightly back and forth. “Stupid… Luna… rubbing herself all over MY Soarin… Stupid Discord… making excuses…” she grumbled under her breath. It didn’t matter what Discord said or how many times she replayed his words in her head. Now not only was Soarin being kept away from her, but now she felt uncomfortable having him in there with Luna, and didn’t feel confident that she and Discord were getting anywhere with him. That on top of running into Storm… and acknowledging that she might have some major issues of her own…

She blinked and looked up. Déjà vu? She was pretty sure she was just seething about this a minute ago. Now she was just going in circles.

She had to do something to get her mind off of it… no… that wouldn’t work, and she had already tried working out. She had to talk to somepony that would listen to her, that understood her on a deeper level, that would know what to say to her and—

“Silver.” Dash said out loud, looking up in an instant. With Soarin unavailable he was the best option, no question.

Without another thought, Dash stood up and made her way out onto the city road, but she came to an abrupt halt, her eyes growing wide and her pupils shrinking.

“I better see you in here tomorrow morning, or I’ll die, follow you to hell, and kick your ass. Got it?!”

It had been two weeks.

“Aw hell, he’s gonna kill me…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Luna, what the f:yay:k?

Boy THIS sure wont make things really awkward or anything. But if Discord's behavior is any indication, this really is something the gods are struggling to find answers for, while apparently also dealing with an extremely horny Moon and a very persistent Dash. Probably would have helped if he had been up front about everything, but by now we know he wont bring about things if he thinks they can pass without a fuss.

Though Discord did make an effort to point out that there are other things that need to be addressed, and it seems hes not happy that the rest are just laying around while he tries to handle Soarin.

Well, Discord, tough luck. Maybe everypony wouldnt be so stubborn if you hadnt led them on for hundreds of chapters prior.

As for Dash, seems to have a real issue doesnt she? Looks like the connection she shares with Soarin will be a real challenge going forward.But for the time being... she has something else to worry about...

How hard Silver is going to kick her ass from the comfort of his hospital bed when she shows up two weeks later instead of right after like he asked.

GODSPEED DASH... :rainbowderp:

This was a real quick update and short chapter, but i cant say for certain this will be the new norm. My approach to structuring my outline changed for arc 4 and i have a lot more clear and defined cut off point in between events and circumstances to keep things more organized and to avoid lazily merging one scene to another like i had several times in the past. There will likely still be longer chapters in the future, just depends on where i am in the outline and whats happening at the given point.

thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 170: The Wise Grump

MLP: FiM

Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 170: The Wise Grump

“Hey, sorry, I know you said to come by the next day but…” Dash said out loud to herself as she walked into the hospital waiting room. “Hrm…” she shook her head. “I would’ve come earlier but Soarin… gah, no…” she grumbled as she walked right by the front desk, drawing the attention of the receptionist. “Yeah, you told me to come by, but…” Dash tried again, but grunted and sighed as she made her way towards the doors leading towards the hall.

“Um… Miss?” the receptionist tried to stop her, but Dash kept walking.

“Hey, ya old fart! Some really weird stuff happened, so I wasn’t able to… dammit…” Dash groaned as she pushed the doors open.

“Miss, you can’t go… um…” the receptionist trailed off as Dash let herself right in without checking in and started down the hall towards Silver’s room.

“I’ve been preoccupied by Soarin, you see he turned into an Alicorn and the gods…” Dash stopped and blinked. “Oh, who the hell am I kidding…?” she said with a heavy sigh as she tipped her head back. “He’s going to rip my head off no matter what I say,” she admitted to herself as she turned down the hall.

She forgot, plain and simple. Yeah, other things happened, but Silver was important to her too and she felt ashamed that she didn’t go see him right after the incident ended like he asked. She was going to get an earful, but it was well deserved. He was probably bored out of his mind too, so he was going to be extra grouchy.

She turned the final corner, her eyes landing on the door to Silver’s room only a short way down. She took several calm breaths, preparing herself for the verbal ass whooping she was bound to receive.

But she stopped when she came within a few paces of the door.

It was slightly open… and she could hear voices. She picked out Silver’s voice as she got closer, lightening her steps as she approached.

“And… that’s where we are now.”

Dash flinched and froze when she heard the voice.

That was… Spitfire’s voice.

“Are you feeding me full of crap?” Silver’s voice came from inside as well. Dash swallowed, shifting closer to the door.

“Nope. That’s what happened.” Spitfire said as Dash stopped short of the doorframe, remaining out of sight.

“There was a big ass fight, the gods got flattened, Sombra got shot with a rainbow that did nothing, everypony got front row seats to a televised boxing match in the sky, Celestia pulled her head out of some unseen ass in the sky, and Soarin’s now an alicorn?”

“That, uh…” Spitfire paused. “Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.”

“He knew we were joking when we called him a princess, right? That wasn’t a suggestion. He didn’t go the full nine miles did he? He still has his d—”

“YES... yes, he’s still a guy. Silver, come on,” Spitfire groaned.

“Just checking, I didn’t know male Alicorns were a thing.”

Dash clasped her hooves over her mouth to completely stifle a snicker. She was trying to focus on the fact that Spitfire was there, but Silver was making it hard to stay on point… per usual.

“I just don’t know…” Spitfire suddenly went on as Dash gathered herself and listened closely again.

“About what?” Silver asked.

“How I handled the whole thing,” Spitfire clarified quickly, causing Dash to perk up. “It was a very poor display, I’m still trying to figure out how things got so out of control.” She sighed in frustration. “I was so sure of myself too. I didn’t know if talking to Sombra would do anything, but I was thoroughly convinced it was the best course of action.”

“And it wasn’t, plain and simple.” Silver quickly stated. “What are you wallowing for? You made a judgement call. We all make mistakes.”

“I’d hardly call it a mistake, it was a disaster,” Spitfire said with a sigh. “I wasn’t considering any flexibility. I was set on course, I didn’t seek any guidance or other opinions, but maybe I was discouraging it with my attitude towards the gods or… I don’t know… but I clearly didn’t have the confidence of the force. And then Rainbow Dash went and—”

“Grew a pair of huge walnuts and tried to do things her own way.” Silver finished for her. Dash flinched.

“Wha—?, how did you…?”

“She came by beforehoof and told me she was doing it,” Silver said without hesitation as Dash awkwardly winced.

“You were awake before?” Spitfire asked quizzically.

“Yeah, these weak-ass meds they give me don’t knock me out at all. She came by to whine at the seat of my bed like you are now. She gave me the rundown and I told her I would’ve done the same thing.”

Silence. Dash did not dare peek in, but Spitfire didn’t say anything at first. Then she groaned, releasing a long sigh.

“If I had known you were awake I’d have…” she trailed off, rapping a hoof on the floor. “Dammit… If you were out there with us none of this would have happened.”

“Enough, cut that crap out,” Silver quickly shot back at her. “You honestly think I would have known what to do? I don’t know jack shit about Sombra or whatever the hell he was doing swinging another stallion’s dick around like he owns the place.”

“But you wouldn’t have let me go in the direction I did. You would have told me off for going overboard, kept me grounded like you always do.”

“Sounds like I didn’t need to, hm?” Silver stated with a hum. “Dash went ahead and did it for me.”

“No she didn’t,” Spitfire huffed. “She tried to sneak behind my back. You would’ve gotten in my face and—”

“You don’t know that,” Silver cut her off.

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not. If I thought the best way to handle the situation was to backstab you, I’d have done the same thing,” Silver said very casually. Dash winced as he put it that way. “You’re not going to get me with that look, my wife does it way better.”

“Stop trying to defend Dash’s methods. I know you, Silver. You would have told me off directly and I would have listened. That’s your method of keeping us focused and it works, it’s effective. It would have been different and there’s nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.”

“And?” Silver simply replied, followed by a pause.

“And what?” Spitfire asked.

“Sooner or later you’re gonna have to cross the street without big daddy Silver Lining holding your damn hoof and reminding you to look both ways.”

“Could you… PLEASE… never refer to yourself as ‘big daddy’ ever again?” Spitfire asked in a tone that was clearly accompanied with cringing.

“Well what in the fuck should I call myself when you say something stupid like that?” Silver snorted. “I’m not the captain of the Wonderbolts, you are. If you’re seeking out my seal of approval on everything then you’re doing something wrong.”

“I know that!” Spitfire suddenly raised her voice. “I’m just… I mean…” she stammered, paused, and released a long sigh. “Who am I trying to fool…? I rely on you way too much, and since you got your clock cleaned by Nightshade things have gone south because I haven’t done MY part to fill that void. It’s my responsibility to adjust.”

“‘Clock-cleaned?’ I feel like I’ve been insulted,” Silver grunted.

“What do you want me to call it?” Spitfire asked. “A spanking? A drubbing? You look in a mirror and tell me what happened.”

“She beat me black and blue, but not before I swung my big iron balls in her face and knocked her blinders off. At least acknowledge that,” Silver demanded.

“I’m not acknowledging your balls,” Spitfire groaned.

“You will be in a second if you keep talking like a weenie.”

At this point Dash was surprised she hadn’t given herself away yet, clutching her sides as she tried to be serious about the situation.

“That’s it, I’m drawing the line on the references to your penis RIGHT there,” Spitfire shouted in a flustered tone. “Just… listen to me will you?! You’re right! And I know what I’m supposed to do, but it’s… harder than you think.”

“What’s so hard about being captain?” There was a pause. “Quit looking at me like I’m flirting with Wave Chill right in front of you, I want you to tell me in your own words.”

“It’s…” Spitfire looked down, going no further. “I…”

“That’s enough,” Silver abruptly cut her off. “You know why you didn’t answer right away? Because there is no way to put it into words aside from exactly what it is. You’re carrying a lot on your back and everypony looks to you for guidance. But that guidance is something you have to balance very carefully. You’ve never relied on me… you’ve trusted me, and trusted me to give my honest opinion on more situations than you can remember. But I’ve never forced you to see things my way, I’ve only encouraged you to think carefully. Have you usually done exactly as I’ve suggested? Yes, you have. But I’ve never given my two bits expecting full compliance in return.”

There was a long pause. Dash glanced towards the door frame and leaned, but froze as Silver continued.

“A good leader keeps everypony’s eyes forward. A great leader… also looks through the eyes of those they lead. They guide their followers while also taking into account everypony when they make decisions and confide in those they trust to weigh all possible options. You’ve been doing it right all along, you just didn’t know you were and were too focused one point. You believed it was something else and it led you astray here. I wasn’t keeping you in line, I was helping you make a choice. All of the Wonderbolts can do that for you…” he paused. “Okay, maybe not Air Mach, but generally speaking all of them are capable of giving their firm opinion. They all earned their rank, they are all capable. You just need to trust them the same way you’ve always trusted me. You can’t see that I’m gone and harden up like you need to fill a leadership gap I left behind. That’s probably what kept them from speaking out. I doubt it was your anger at Luna and Discord because I’m pretty sure they all felt the same.”

“Then… it really is a delicate balance,” Spitfire sighed. “Only you and Soarin would’ve had the guts to stand up to me and neither of you were there.”

“But the others did eventually step in to stop you, didn’t they?” Silver reminded her.

“Yeah, they did…” Spitfire said quietly.

“And why do you think they did?” Silver pressed.

“Because…?”

“Somepony else had the guts to stand up to you. They weren’t direct about it, but because of her, they were able to see what they had to do… and they stopped you from going overboard.”

Dash swallowed, knowing that Silver was talking about her.

“I think you’re missing what’s come out of this situation that’s good,” Silver went on. “You’re here, right now, acknowledging that it was all wrong. I don’t give a damn if it was a potentially life-or-death situation. You are young, and the leader of the new generation of Wonderbolts. You were thrown into a chaotic scenario and were well outside of your comfort zone… and not just you, all of them were. Luck has it that you all survived, so what are you going to do now? Keep on about how you messed up or take a good look at what happened and learn from it? You got to see what happens when things go awry with your own two eyes. Now what are you going to do about it?”

Spitfire remained silent again, waiting for several moments.

“I wonder…” she suddenly began again. “I wonder if Dash saw all of this? I assumed she just wanted to save Soarin her own way because she’s headstrong like that, but… now that we’re talking about this,” she released a long breath. “Did she see that something wasn’t right? Did she see that I wasn’t being reasonable? Did she know that her actions would spur the rest of the Wonderbolts to come to their senses and do something about… me?”

“My bits are on she didn’t think that far ahead and she just wanted a sure way of saving her source of rowdy rough ramming,” Silver suggested bluntly. Dash’s eyes widened and her mouth scrunched up, but she kept quiet. “But she has a way of having her head in the right place and making the right thing happen, whether it was intentional or not. She may have been thinking of Soarin or maybe she felt her connection with him gave her a better chance of solving it. Who knows, really, but she did so against what she felt was the wrong move that she couldn’t work around. In the end the other Wonderbolts caught on, and did what they had to do for your sake as well as theirs.”

“I…” Spitfire took a deep breath. “I really should talk to her… shouldn’t I? I came here because I thought talking to you would help me acknowledge my missteps, but maybe… maybe the one I have to face is her. I’ve been avoiding her, honestly.”

Dash perked up, barely holding in a gasp.

Spitfire had been avoiding her too?

“Well, you can do that right now,” Silver suddenly suggested. Dash flinched and held still.

A quick exit suddenly sounded like a good idea… if Spitfire found out she was right there the whole time…

“I’ve… well. No, I can’t, not right this instant.” Spitfire mumbled. “I’ve felt awkward about the whole thing and—”

“No, you’re going to do it right now,” Silver repeated. “Isn’t that right, Dash?”

Dash froze, her pupils shrinking.

“I said…” Silver growled. “Isn’t. That. Right. Dash?”

Dash didn’t move a muscle.

“GET YOUR FUCKING POT OF GOLD ASS OUT HERE DAMMIT! YOUR SIX FLAVOR TAIL’S BEEN STICKING OUT FOR THE PAST TEN MINUTES!” He suddenly belted.

“Wait, WHAT?!” Spitfire reacted in surprise.

Fan art by Valentine_x

Dash slowly glanced down at her tail. It was, indeed, sticking out past the door frame. For how long, she had no idea.

“Shit…” Dash muttered to herself while pressing her teeth together.

She slowly and reluctantly stood up, turned around, and shifted over to come into view. She saw Silver first, giving her a one-eyed glare from his bed. He wasn’t nearly as mummified or wired to as many machines as when she last saw him, but he was still very patched up including his lost eye, his smashed arm, and missing wing all thoroughly wrapped or encased. As she entered the room she also saw Spitfire, staring in shock as Dash appeared.

“Uh… hi…” Dash said very sheepishly, blushing slightly in embarrassment.

“Pop quiz, Skittles!” Silver broke the silence quickly, causing Dash to flinch. “How many hours are in half a day?”

Dash blinked.

“Half a day? Twelve ho—”

“WRONG!” Silver cut her off, yelling at the top of his lungs and causing Spitfire to jump in surprise. “From now on half a day is THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SIX HOURS LONG! We’re gonna tell time your way from now on!”

“Oh…” Dash looked down with a blank expression. “Yeah… that… uh…”

“What’s your excuse?” Silver added, narrowing his eyes at her as Spitfire continued to stare.

“Well, I—”

“Bullshit, you forgot and left me to rot in here,” Silver finished for her. “I see how it is.”

“NO!” Dash quickly moved towards him, a very concerned look on her face. “I mean, yes… THAT I FORGOT! Not that I left you to…”

“I know I know, I’m just giving you a hard time,” Silver chuckled as his tone softened. Dash blinked, skidding to a halt on her hooves before she could reach the side of his bed. She pouted at him.

“That’s… not funny,” she said in a slightly shaky tone with a quivering lip. Even she was a little surprised how much the thought alone put a lump in her throat. Silver quickly noticed her reaction.

“Alright, alright, relax. I was kidding around. Sheesh, did you forget who you’re talking to?” He appealed to her as she sniffled once and shook her head out.

“Please don’t joke about that,” Dash said with a sigh. “Not after you almost…”

“Too soon, I get it. But really, I had my wife here nagging me nonstop, so it wasn’t like I was alone. But enough about me. You’ve got great timing. Somepony here needs to talk to you,” he said as he glanced towards Spitfire. Dash twitched, she had almost forgotten that Spitfire was there.

“I do?” Spitfire said impulsively while looking at Silver. Silver only gave her a flat look. “I mean… yes, yes…” she shook out her head. “I, suppose I do, but…” she looked away and exhaled, her body jittering slightly. Dash nervously averted her eyes as well. Silver looked back and forth between the two of them while lifting an eyebrow.

“For crying out loud…” Silver grumbled as he focused on Spitfire. “You faced down a possessed Stallion three times your size, but you’re shying away from a frank conversation with a recruit? What is this, a middle school dance? You’re shaking like a dog trying to shit a peach seed.”

“You’re not helping!” Spitfire yelled at him.

“Then say something, dammit!”

“No, stop,” Dash spoke up, catching them both by surprise. “She doesn’t have to. We both know what happened. I did what I thought I had to do, plain and simple.” Dash sat down, took a deep breath, and looked directly at Spitfire. “I knew she wasn’t going to like it, but I really didn’t see any other choice. In the end, neither of us were right, but we both came out of it alive and Soarin survived… so maybe it’s best that we just say it happened and move on.”

Silver gave her a look of disapproval, but he kept his mouth shut. He slowly looked towards Spitfire, examining her expression as she stared at Dash. It quickly changed.

“Wait. No,” Spitfire suddenly stood up and stepped towards Dash. Silver smiled as she moved. “We can’t just move on, we need to talk about it.”

“Atta-girl,” Silver commented.

“Oh shut it,” she turned and huffed at him. “We don’t need to hear from the peanut gallery.”

“If things get sappy, you’re hearing from it,” Silver chuckled.

“This is hard enough for me as is, please don’t commentate. And this is serious. Nothing sappy about it,” Spitfire argued as Dash failed to hold back a smirk.

“Oh, believe me,” Silver pointed at Dash. “She can be real sappy, let me tell you.”

“Hey…” Dash pouted, but Spitfire looked at her and shook her head.

“Ignore him, I… we…” she sighed. “We’ve put this off long enough. We need to have an honest discussion about what happened out there.”

Dash turned from Silver and looked Spitfire right in the eyes. It was hard to read her face. She looked extremely conflicted, as if there was a battle between regret and resolution in her head. But the resolution seemed to be winning over, Spitfire collecting herself as she stared right back into Dash’s eyes.

“We were both wrong, but it still happened, and as captain, I need to acknowledge why.” She placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “We need to be frank and honest about our actions. It was not right for you to undercut me, but I also doubt I would have listened if you had been upfront. When I think about it from your point of view, I can understand why you felt the need to do it that way, and it’s my fault for putting you in that position. I put everypony in that position, and it wasn’t until you made your move and stuck to your plan that the rest of the Wonderbolts came around and realized they had let me go astray. Your actions helped them realize that they needed to reign me in and put me back on the ground to see what I had done. I… need to thank you for that. And now that I think about it… had they not followed your lead, I might have stopped you from reaching Soarin. Things may have ended up completely different.”

Dash blinked, her eyes wide as she listened to Spitfire, but she quickly touched a hoof to Spitfire’s outstretched arm.

“I can’t let you say you’re entirely to blame,” she began with a familiar serious gaze that struck Spitfire. She wanted to glance at Silver, but she kept her focus on Dash. “Maybe I wouldn’t have convinced you, but if I had been upfront, then maybe I could have convinced the others to confront you right away. Instead I took the other approach and they didn’t follow my lead until everything was going to hell and back,” Dash shook her head. “We both went in head strong and both made mistakes. I dragged others into my plan both willingly and unwillingly. One ended up outing us and the situation between us became hostile. I sure as hell didn’t want to fight you out there, but that’s what it led to and I refuse to say I had no fault in that.”

They let go of one another.

“I guess you’re right then… we can’t just move on from this. There’s too much to take away from it.” Dash continued. “Nopony was right, but we need to learn from it.” She gave Spitfire a firm nod. “I promise that I’ll never go behind your back again when I disagree with you… I should have done what this asshole would have done.” She made a head motion towards Silver.

Spitfire briefly glanced at him with a somewhat smug look on her face. Silver looked away and made an exaggerated shrug.

“And I…” Spitfire nodded. “Need to put the same trust in everypony else that I used to reserve for Silver. I used to take his word like it was the only one that mattered, like it could overrule mine because he was a longtime veteran and just knew better than I did, but… that was wrong. I need to lead the Wonderbolts, I need to be strict about our goals and how we reach them, but I also need to be open to hearing all suggestions and takes. I’ve always been in favor of the Wonderbolts becoming more of a family than a force… It’s time we faced our challenges like one.”

“I can get behind that,” Dash nodded with a smile.

“And Dash, I…” Spitfire suddenly awkwardly swayed and glanced down, her mouth scrunching up.

“You okay?” Dash asked, blinking.

“Yes, I’m… oh hell with it, come here…” Spitfire suddenly stepped forward and hugged Dash. Dash froze with a blank look on her face.

“Er… Spitfire?” she said as she glanced at Silver. Silver repeated his exaggerated shrug.

“Is this weird?” Spitfire asked without letting go. “Please tell me it isn’t weird,” she stated as Dash’s eyes darted back and forth.

“Um… maybe a little? Just not what I expect from…”

“You see I don’t like that,” Spitfire sighed, still remaining clasped to Dash gently. “This is something I regret. You wouldn’t bat an eye if Fleetfoot did this to you.”

Dash perked up, the surprise vanishing from her face.

“We’re… friends, Dash. Let’s forget rank for a moment,” she released Dash and held her at arm’s length. “How much have we been through together? Since Ponyville I can’t even remember it all. You and Soarin have become so close, you and Fleet are close. You have a good friendship with Squad Three… and with Silver… what happened to us?”

“Spitfire…” Dash wasn’t sure what to say, Spitfire sounded legitimately upset on the topic.

“I know that we have a professional standing, I’m the highest ranked Wonderbolt and you’re still a new recruit, but that didn’t stop Soarin and Fleet, or any of the other top elites who have gotten to know you well. I don’t care if I’m the lead captain, that’s really no excuse. Then there’s what happened to Wave… Silver nearly died… Soarin was taken away from me… I just… oh, what am I saying?! Those are just more excuses! That didn’t stop me from confiding in Fleetfoot!”

Spitfire paused and turned away.

“And then, out there, among all the things I screwed up, I attacked you. I physically harmed you. It’s like nothing between the two of us mattered. I didn’t hesitate or think twice!” Spitfire’s voice sharpened. “What… what the hell is wrong with me?!” she asked while glaring at the floor and stomping.

“Hey! No…” Dash quickly stepped up to her and placed both hooves on her shoulders. “Stop that, right now!” she said while tightly gripping her shoulders. “We are friends, Spitfire. I’ve always felt that way. Don’t let one crazy instance convince you otherwise!”

“Hrnggg…” Spitfire groaned, reaching up and pressing a hoof to her forehead. “I can’t confidently say I’ve held up my end of that, Dash. I really can’t… and that bothers me. It’s nice to hear you say it, but if that’s the case then I haven’t been a very good friend.”

Dash opened her mouth to retort, but quickly shut it. She wanted to tell Spitfire she was wrong, to deny her self-criticism, but… this was how she felt. She was convinced that her duties led her astray from other things that were important to her. And if she was acknowledging that, it was a good thing.

So instead, Dash hugged her. Spitfire quickly hugged her back.

“I don’t hold any of it against you, Spitfire. At least know that,” she let go and put Spitfire at arm’s length. “And we’re still here, we’re still alive. There’s no time like the present. I’ll be here for you just like Fleet or Soarin would be. Things can still be like they were back when we first got to know each other. If you want to do something about it, I’m not going to say no.”

Spitfire just stared at her for a few moments before putting on a weak smile.

“I appreciate that, Dash… I really do… thank you,” Spitfire nodded.

“Pthhhhhhhhpthbphtbpthbtphbtphbphpthbbhpthbpthpbhtphpbtbpphbhtpbtphhtpbhbbbbtthhh…”

Both Dash and Spitfire lifted their brow and turned to look at Silver. He was staring at the ceiling and blowing endless raspberries.

“…thpbhpthbtphpthphbptbhptphbTHP.” He stopped and turned his head to look at them. “What?”

“Just couldn’t resist, could you?” Spitfire asked while flattening her brow.

“Sorry, all that sap made my blood sugar spike. Made me all gassy,” he commented flatly while releasing a soft belch.

He glanced back and forth between the two of them as they both stared flatly. Eventually he looked back up at the ceiling and chuckled.

“Okay, cut that out,” he said while looking back at them with a smile. “I’m proud of you both.”

Both of them blinked, the flat stares quickly replaced with surprised ones.

“You know… if everything you’ve told me about happened to me and the bolts back when I was still a young hotshot… I seriously doubt any of us could have done what I just saw the two of you do. With all the pride and self-righteousness that ran rampant throughout the force, it would take months for anypony to acknowledge mistakes or to let bygones be bygones… much less actually learn anything from it. If Blazetail spent a whole sequence beating the shit out of Cannon Ball over lack of agreement, that would be it, they’d never speak again. But here we are two weeks later and the two of you just had a frank conversation about what occurred, you both admitted mistakes, and you even addressed something important to you both that these very events have thrown a wrench into.”

Dash and Spitfire glanced at one another as Silver smiled wider.

“That was very impressive and mature of you both, and Spitfire? It’s a testament to your push to focus on the force as a family. You need to know that.”

“But…” Spitfire looked down. “You always used to say…”

“I know what I always used to say, and you can chalk it up to me being an old, grouchy mule,” Silver said with a grunt. “Yeah, the discipline isn’t as strong… the organization is not as strict… Sometimes you all get too emotional… but let’s be honest, when it comes to the functions of the force, nothing has actually changed there, only the approach. And after watching us go through all this, seeing everything go nuts to the point that it caused ruptures to order within… and to come out of it reasonably? Pinch me, either I’m dreaming or the culture you’ve brought into the Wonderbolts has the potential to make us more than we’ve ever been.”

Spitfire didn’t know what to say, and she kept staring at Silver with wide eyes even as Dash looked towards her. A slight tint of red appeared on Spitfire’s cheeks as she cracked a smile and looked down. The sight made Dash feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. She knew exactly what it felt like to get praise from a pony like Silver Lining, and by the looks of things Spitfire was getting a full dose.

“Now could one of you PLEASE scratch behind my left shoulder, it itches like hell and I’m about to lose my goddamn mind,” Silver suddenly asked while twitching.

“PFFFFT!” Spitfire immediately blew air between her lips and started laughing. “You are TERRIBLE!” she said as she clutched her stomach. “You just can't let a good moment linger, can you?!”

“I’m serious, somepony help! I’m about to flip this whole bed!” Silver feigned a raspy, struggling voice. “GIVE ME SOME LOVE! QUICK!”

Dash rolled her eyes, smiling as she moved forward, reached under Silver’s shoulder and moved her hoof up and down.

“Ooo, ahh… aaaaaaaaahhhh…” Silver grunted in satisfaction.

“There, how’s that?” Dash tipped her head slightly. “That enough ‘love’ for you?”

“Actually the love’s a little to the left,” Silver leaned slightly.

“Oh, come on…”

“LEFT! I SAID LEFT, DAMMIT!” he demanded. Dash sighed and moved her hoof left. “YEEEEAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhhh right there…”

“Happy?” Dash asked. Silver looked up at her, then past her to see Spitfire sitting, facing them, with a smile on her face.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Silver said with a nod as Dash looked over her shoulder to see Spitfire as well. “Now then…” Silver suddenly bobbed his head towards Dash. “We’ve had enough kissing between the two of you to summon Blaze and Winds by the smell of lesbian alone. Now that we’ve got that taken care of…” he trailed off slightly to take in the flat looks he received from them both, smirking to himself before training his eyes on Dash. “Must’ve been a reason you came here, right? You didn’t come here to eavesdrop on Spitfire. What have you been doing for the past Rainbow Dash style half-day?”

Dash’s eyes widened and her mouth flattened as she quickly remembered. Spitfire tipped her head slightly as she read Dash’s expression.

“Oh, huh… if you two want some privacy, I’ll just—” She started to turn, but Dash quickly extended a wing into her path.

“No, honestly I think you should hear this too,” Dash said with a long sigh. “Some of it has to do with Soarin.”

Spitfire’s eyes grew the moment Dash mentioned him and Silver hummed with interest.

“Hm? This should be good,” he said as he lifted his brow.

“I mean…” Dash sat down and scratched the back of her head. “Part of the reason I came here is already taken care of. Hard to be mad after all that, but… yeah some crazy things have been happening. I need to get it off my chest and…” she looked towards Spitfire. “Fleet already asked me to keep her up to date on Soarin since Discord was personally coming out to turn me away, but I can go ahead and take care of that with you.”

“Discord was…” Spitfire blinked. “He was actually coming out of the room? P.L. kept turning us away.”

“You’re letting the old moon humper boss you around?” Silver asked with a snort.

“You want to try getting through him?” Spitfire asked frankly. “While he’s backed up by his pointy teeth hissmates, crystal guards, and a massive locked door?”

“Ask Dash about the easiest way to get his balls twisted in a knot later,” he said with a smirk. Spitfire looked towards Dash quizzically.

“I’ll tell you later,” Dash deflected with a slight smile. “If I tell you now you’ll laugh yourself out of the hospital.”

“Fair enough.”

“But anyway…” Dash refocused. “Discord was coming out himself to deny me entry, even though I probably wouldn’t have gotten by either way. I didn’t know that was a thing until Fleetfoot told me you guys hadn’t seen Discord once.”

“That means something, there are no coincidences with that amalgamasshole,” Silver grunted. “I hope you did something about it.”

“I did, but we’ll get to that part,” Dash confirmed.

“Good,” Silver nodded in satisfaction. “Continue.”

“I eventually did something, yeah, but the reason I did was because of what’s been happening to me personally since Soarin transformed. After I learned Discord was only showing up for me I really started to wonder about it.”

“Strange things? What sort of strange things?” Spitfire asked, interested and concerned.

“It would take forever to explain it all, but…” Dash began. “Short version. Soarin’s apparently been turned into a god and since I’m spiritually connected to him… I think I’ve been… enhanced?” she paused and looked at them both. They were just staring as if it sounded silly. “That’s, honestly the best way to put it. I didn’t really see it in full until just now today. I have increased strength, endurance. When I was lifting weights, there was no fatigue or tension in my body until I had gone hard for way longer than normal. Also it’s all been to a ridiculous degree. I ripped off a few door handles completely by accident recently and I’ve clearly gained some muscle mass too.”

Spitfire blinked and leaned her head down.

“You have? I haven’t really—”

Dash took a quick breath and puffed out her chest, tensing her muscles. She turned and bent her arm inward, flexing her arm as well. Spitfire’s eyes widened.

“Whoa, okay…” she agreed while looking Dash’s body over. “That’s… a pretty impressive increase.”

“Matteo followed me to the gym and helped me test it out. I was almost able to lift as much weight as you do,” Dash explained while relaxing her body.

“So far this sounds pretty good,” Silver said bluntly. “Extra strength and endurance? Would be nice if my wife could do that for me. I only get headaches and lectures from her.”

“Oh, stop,” Dash snorted. “It hasn’t been… all good,” she continued while glancing away and rubbing a hoof up and down her arm. “When I was working out I… lost control of myself. I got overly excited and started acting all weird.”

She paused and stared for several seconds at Spitfire, then at Silver.

“And when I finally looked in the mirror, I was glowing yellow.”

Silver blinked, quickly looking at Spitfire as her ears stood up. Dash saw them both react and was relieved they both seemed to immediately remember the same thing she did.

“Yellow…” Spitfire spoke. “As in, like Soarin did that one time?”

“That’s what it looked like,” Dash said with a nod.

“Hrmnmm…” Silver suddenly groaned under his breath and looked away. It wasn’t a good memory for any of them, but in Silver’s case it was hard to think about a time he got beaten senseless. Or, well… another time he got beaten senseless.

“That’s troubling, does that mean Celestia’s magic is… in you now? Or…” Spitfire asked and trailed off as Silver continued to grumble to himself.

“Hell if I know,” Dash shrugged. “Maybe it is, maybe it’s an indirect, but it’s eerily similar in effect. I pretty much went wild and became unhinged. I was dancing around the gym, flexing like I was posing for a show, and talking to myself. But I was at least able to pull out of it. As soon as I saw the yellow light it shocked me right out of how good it felt.”

“Great, so you’re filled full of libido energy and scooting your thighs all over the gym equipment,” Silver suddenly chimed in with a grumpy tone. “Just don’t come near me when you start ripping doors off hinges again. I can’t really defend myself at the moment.”

“I’m not going to start punching you, Silver.” Dash assured him. “I know what I’m dealing with here, and the memory was enough to break me free. Soarin was blindsided by it and had no idea what was happening to him.”

“Terrific, can we skip to the part where you told Discord to get fucked? That’s the story I want to hear,” he tried to push away from the topic.

“Well that leads into it. Matteo found me after it all happened, and after helping me test my strength, he convinced me to sneak in to see what’s actually going on with Soarin.”

“Sneak? Come on…” Silver moaned in discontent.

“Let her speak, please,” Spitfire rapped a hoof against Silver’s mattress. “You tried to sneak in? Did you get in?” she asked eagerly.

“Had some help, but yeah. I got in and neither Discord nor Luna were present.” She glanced down and paused. “And I saw him.”

“Soarin? You saw Soarin?” Spitfire stepped towards her, the look in her eyes growing more concerned by the second. “Is he okay?”

“I… don’t know,” Dash said with a sigh and a shrug. “Discord told me that one of the main reasons they had him holed up in there was the safety of everypony else. Naturally I thought he was full of shit and keeping things from me, but after going in there… I might actually believe him.”

“What?” Spitfire pulled back slightly. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“Easy now, Spitfire,” Silver spoke up. His expression had changed, he was looking at Dash very carefully, and she knew exactly why. “You’re telling me Discord ISN’T filling us full of shit about something? You better convince me right now that you haven’t lost your mind.” He demanded, his eye narrowing considerably as he spoke.

“I didn’t say I trust him,” Dash clarified. “But in this case I think I believe him.”

“Start talking,” Silver pushed, keeping his gaze firm. The look bounced right off of Dash as she crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow.

“Are you ready? ‘Cause this is about to get extra weird,” she warned.

“Try me,” Silver snorted.

“Soarin was encased in a large bubble of light, I was pulled towards him like I had swallowed magnets, I nearly threw up while trying to hide when Luna came back, Luna thought she was me and tried to suck on his face, I rightfully raged at her, I couldn’t control my anger as she ran off, Soarin started to sound like he was passing a kidney stone as I got angry, and Discord whisked me out of there before it could get any worse. I yelled at him, but he fired back with a bunch of hysterical, unrelated topics, criticizing everything from Luna to sliced bread while telling me to leave and not bother him again until he actually knows what to do.”

Dash sat still as Spitfire started with wide eyes and Silver’s expression twitched.

“Excuse me, what?” Spitfire stuttered. “Soarin… bubble… Luna sucking… sliced bread… huh?”

“Okay, now what really happened?” Silver asked with a snort.

“I didn’t make any of that up,” Dash huffed. “Okay, I made up the sliced bread part.”

“Start over please,” Spitfire quickly demanded. “And give us more detail.”

Dash sighed.

“Soarin is in some sort of stasis,” she began again. “The closer I got to him, the more entranced I became, the more I filled with euphoria. It felt so good to be near him, unnaturally so. When Luna came back I had to hide, but it physically hurt to move away from Soarin. Luna looked him over and shuffled through a bunch of notes they had on a table. A few seconds later she was moving towards him with bedroom eyes, she touched him all over, and probably would have kissed him had I not—”

“Hold the hell up…” Silver cut her off. “You are being serious?” He asked. Dash stared at him quizzically.

“What part of ‘I didn’t make any of this up’ didn’t you get?” she asked.

“The part where I thought you weren’t being serious there either. That really happened with Luna?” he asked, genuinely sounding curious. Dash pushed aside his previous comment and nodded with an angered grunt.

“Better believe it,” Dash snarled quietly to herself, but did so only at the thought to avoid the same effects as before. “She walked up to him, eyefucked the hell out of him, ran her hooves over his body tenderly, and leaned in to put her grubby lips on his. I’m surprised I lasted that long, honestly. When she went in for the kiss something inside me rightfully snapped and I didn’t give a damn about staying hidden anymore.”

“WOW.” Silver looked up at the ceiling and shook his head chuckling. “Just when I thought she couldn’t possibly be any worse! How do they do it? The gods keep finding ways to look like morons! It’s pretty damn impressive, to be honest.”

“That’s disgusting…” Spitfire said angrily with a clear cringe. “She’s taking advantage of him? Here and now of all times? Where the hell did that even come from?! I don’t want her touching my best friend like that!” she trailed off, growling quietly. She glanced at Dash, who was staring at her. “No, Dash, stop. If I had a problem with you, you’d know it by now.”

“Okay, good,” Dash snickered.

“I honestly refuse to let them refer to themselves as higher powers ever again,” Silver exhaled. “Come on, the moment something her size and model pops up she goes from holier than thou higher power to horny hip swaying harlot like she hasn’t had any in a million years?”

“Discord tried to use that as an excuse for her actually,” Dash pointed out with a shrug.

“HAAAAAAAAAAAA-ahem… he would,” Silver commented while containing his reaction.

“Alright, so…” Spitfire tried to bring it back on track. “I have another reason to hate Luna, thanks. What happened after you jumped out?”

“Please tell me you slapped her shit sideways,” Silver asked. “I want every detail down to the angle of the wind up, the trajectory of the swing, and the speed at impact. The more you describe how much her face contorted and how many cracks her jaw made, the larger my erection will be.”

“I told you to cut it out with the dick references,” Spitfire huffed at him again.

“Don’t act like you’re not impressed.”

Spitfire shuddered and rubbed her hoof on her forehead.

“Gee thanks LIGHTNING STREAK… You must be real bored in here if you’re this eager to talk about it. I thought your wife was visiting you?”

“She is, and the cocktease isn’t giving me any. If you were a stallion, carrying my goods, and going through that too, you’d understand wholly.”

“I’m very glad to say I’m not experiencing any of that… Dash, go on,” Spitfire pleaded quickly as Silver wiggled himself back and forth in the bed.

Dash snorted to herself. This was exactly what she needed. She had things she wanted to get off her chest, but Silver and Spitfire had completely flipped her mood, allowing her to speak clearly about it. Especially Silver. He seemed more loosened up than normal. It was either because he was somewhat high on whatever medication they gave him or… he had come to a point in all this where he was just done giving a shit altogether.

“I’m sorry to disappoint your supposed young and spry libido, but no, I didn’t punch her in the face, or hit her at all,” Dash explained.

“Aaaaaaaaand limp,” Silver commented, flinching as Spitfire gave his bedframe a hard kick.

“I rushed out while yelling at her,” Dash continued. “I was so angry that I almost didn’t recognize my own voice. I was definitely considering hitting her but I never got the chance. She looked terrified, like a little filly caught eating cookies before dinner. It wasn’t long before she broke down, turned, and ran away while crying her eyes out while apologizing.”

“Apologizing?” Spitfire blinked.

“Yeah, like she was scared of anypony seeing her do such a thing, but never expected to actually be caught, much less by ME while she advanced on MY stallion. Based on the look on her face I’m pretty sure she broke on the spot, or at least it took her a moment to believe that she wasn’t hallucinating and I was actually there. That’s the best way to picture it. But then… that’s when something went very wrong.” Dash swallowed as she recalled it. “My anger… wouldn’t stop growing. It just kept getting stronger. I quickly got light headed and could barely stand up straight. I was glowing yellow again, I could see it, but this time I couldn’t do anything to stop it. My emotions and my anger at Princess Luna were going haywire, completely out of control. Soarin must’ve been feeling it too. I was having a hard time focusing but I could hear him grunting. I could just barely see him cringing and stirring from his rest.”

All joking had been cast aside, both Silver and Spitfire listening carefully.

“And then the next thing I knew, Discord moved me way outside the palace, and when I couldn’t get a hold of myself he pushed a wave of magic through me or… something, and it forced the surging rage right out of me… at least until I came to my senses.”

“And then you laid a hoof into an immortal face, right?” Silver cut in.

“I did actually try this time, yeah,” Dash confirmed with a chuckle. “But it didn’t work, I think he was ready for it considering how I was laying into him about Luna’s behavior. But all of his ‘I told you so’s’ about keeping me separated from Soarin aside, the interesting part was his reaction to Luna. He pressed me for details on what she did, then voiced frustration about her and her behavior towards Soarin. Apparently she had done this more than once.”

“She what?!” Spitfire slammed a hoof to the floor, Dash rolled her eyes.

“Pretty much what I said,” Dash snorted. “But Discord went on to rant about how he’s lectured her over and over, but is still having trouble keeping her focused, he then started firing off random criticisms of how the rest of us were conducting ourselves, ironically losing his cool in the process and sounding like he was downright losing his mind over his inability to figure out what happened to Soarin. Then he left before I could say anything else. After dunking my head in a public fountain, I came here.”

“What a fuckin’—” Silver grumbled, but Dash cut him off.

“I know, Silver, but… Something was different about this, about Discord,” she explained.

“Finally, we’re at the convincing part. This better be good,” he said firmly, but Dash shook her head.

“I kind of just said it. You’d have to have seen him to believe it. He actually sounded flustered and angry, as if nothing was going his way. The way he strayed from the subject and ranted about things unrelated to him… he was deflecting from his inability to figure something out,” Dash held a hoof out to Silver. “You know how the gods are, especially Discord. He likes to act like he knows everything and then keeps things from us ‘for our own good.’”

“Do I ever, and he hates me because I was there when Blizzard turned his world upside down,” Silver nodded with a smile as he remembered.

“Exactly,” Dash pointed at him. “Isn’t that what happened with Blizzard too? He was something Discord couldn’t beat or understand and it drove him nuts, right?”

“Oh… hm…” Silver blinked, considering the possibility. “You know… that actually makes sense.”

Spitfire blinked and looked towards Silver.

“Blizzard? As in Blizzard Strike?”

“Don’t you know it!” Silver chuckled. “The stallion who bested Discord at his own game.”

“How and when?” Spitfire asked.

Dash was genuinely surprised. Silver had told her the story about Blizzard confronting Discord… and was sure he had told Soarin too. How did Spitfire not know?

Silver shook his head.

“You remember how Blizzard was,” Silver said with a smile stuck to his face. “He was never one to soak up attention, not even after pulling off such a thing. I’ll have to tell you the full story someday. But what Dash said is all you need to know. If Discord is spouting random nonesense and going off the rails in frustration, then it’s because of something he can’t understand.”

“He was angry and shouting a bunch with the Sombra situation,” Dash added as she came around into their view. “But it was at least focused entirely on stopping Sombra himself. Nothing like what I saw.”

“I’m willing to believe it then,” Silver agreed while turning to a surprised Spitfire. “Don’t look at me like I suddenly like the ugly, back slapping schmoe. I still think he’s full of shit, but if he says he doesn’t know what to do and then goes off like that? I’ve seen that before clear as day. Chances are he’s being honest.” Silver blinked and cringed, his cheeks puffing up briefly. “And I hope I never have the words ‘Discord’ and ‘Honest’ in the same train of thought ever again. I just about tossed my breakfast.”

Spitfire sighed and sat down, letting her head hang a little.

“Talk about mixed feelings…” she mumbled as she looked up. “Nice to know Discord might ACTUALLY be telling the truth for once, but if it’s because he really has no idea what’s happening…” she trailed off, looking away from them both. “That just makes me more worried about Soarin, especially considering what happened when you were near him and got angry. If Discord of all… things… really can’t figure anything out, then who can?”

“He gave me assurance that I’d be the first to know if they had any breakthroughs,” Dash explained. “Whatever good that will do,” she added with a huff.

They both looked at Silver. He glanced back and forth at them.

“What?”

“Awfully quiet for one with such a strong opinion of snakebutt,” Spitfire said curiously.

“I got nothing else to say,” Silver said with a light shrug. “The one time you can see the true face of that asshat is when he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing. That tears away the veil and shows how hard it is for him to handle an actual problem.”

“What should we do then?” Spitfire suddenly asked, Silver lifted his brow.

“What are you asking me for?”

“I’m just thinking out loud,” she groaned. “Maybe all we can do is hope they uncover something.”

“Problem could solve itself too,” Silver pointed out. “Maybe the only one who knows what’s happening to Soarin right now is Soarin himself…” he looked towards Dash. “The way these two are connected, maybe he’ll send her a sign at some point while the gods keep spinning their square wheels on a ride to nowhere.”

Dash perked up as Silver’s words hit her. She glanced down and placed a hoof on her chest over her heart. It was a normal beat, nothing irregular or strange. She hadn’t really thought of that… maybe it was a bit of a stretch, but at this point who knew? Discord certainly didn’t.

“Then for now I can be pissed at Luna and be content with that,” Spitfire grunted. “At least Discord appears to be trying... for whatever that's worth.” She leaned back and rested her arm on a countertop. “I guess then… if there’s nothing else we can do I should really start doing my job, shouldn’t I?” she said somewhat sarcastically.

“That sounds like a good place to start,” Silver commented.

“Right,” Spitfire stood up and shook her head out. “Right, right, right…” she tapped a hoof against the side of her head. “It’s been two weeks and I haven’t said a damn thing to any Wonderbolt beside Fleetfoot, I need to fix that… at least let them know the state of things and…” she trailed off and stared at Dash for a moment, looking her up and down. “And maybe take care of a few ideas I’ve been simmering in my head for a while.”

Dash cocked her head to the side curiously. Why did she look at her when she said that?

“Ah, and this is the part where you leave me here and go about your fun days,” Silver said sarcastically.

“Oh stop, I’m sure they’ll let you out of here soon,” Spitfire chuckled.

“Not if my wife has anything to say about it. That’s the problem with being married to a nurse, she can flash her credentials at doctors and tell them how long to keep me tied to a bed,” he grumbled.

“I’ll come visit you again,” Dash promised him while stepping forward. “And I’ll bring the whole squad too.”

“When?” Silver narrowed his eye.

“When do you want me to?” Dash asked.

“Preferably not three hundred thirty six hours from now.”

“Oh for the…” Dash snickered and rapped a hoof against his bed frame. “I promise I won’t do that again. “

“See to it that you don’t,” Silver nodded, satisfied.

“See you around, old timer,” Spitfire gave him a wave as she turned. “Dash… walk with me,” she added suddenly.

Dash blinked and watched as Spitfire moved towards the door.

“Well?” Silver spoke up. “Don’t keep your captain waiting.”

Dash smiled and nodded, backing up to stay facing Silver for several steps before turning and leaving to follow Spitfire.

She was already waiting several paces down the hall when Dash emerged. She shut the door and quickly trotted up to Spitfire.

“What’s up?” Dash asked casually, feeling at ease after the talk the two had just moments ago.

“Dash, I…” she sighed, taking a deep breath and placing a hoof on her shoulder. “Thanks. I’m glad we were able to talk. Thank Celestia for Silver, I doubt I’d have sucked it up without him to nudge me.”

Dash smiled and nodded.

“Likewise, sorry for avoiding you. And… I mean it, Spitfire. When the orders start rolling you will be the captain and I’ll be the recruit, but when we’re not in action mode, we need to make up for lost time.”

“About that…” Spitfire suddenly hardened her gaze.

“Eh?” Dash’s eyes widened slightly as Spitfire’s expression turned serious.

“I’m still ironing out all of the details and have to do some experimenting, but I have a special training program in the works that will utilize some of the… unique properties of Crystal Empire magic and medicine. If everything works the way I’m hoping, then depending on the amount of assistance the clerics are willing to provide, I’ll be selecting a certain number of Wonderbolts to partake. It will include the top tier Wonderbolts and as many High Tier elites I can pack into it… But no matter how many there are…” She clenched Dash’s shoulder. “I want you and your squad to take part in it.”

“Huh?” Dash’s mouth hung slightly agape. “Me? My Squad? With the Top and High tiers?”

“You heard me,” Spitfire nodded. “From the beginning you and your wingmates have proven time and time again that you are not just run of the mill recruits… and while your actions in the battle for Sombra may have been a bit out of bounds, you were the one who ultimately got us to this point, and there’s no doubt your squad played a crucial role in getting you to Soarin. In my eyes, as Captain of the Wonderbolts… you’ve all earned the privilege.”

“I…” Dash trailed off. She didn’t know what to say. “Oh my gosh…”

“And after seeing this,” Spitfire shifted her hoof down and gave Dash’s arm a squeeze. “And telling me about how Soarin’s state is affecting you…” she smirked. “If I have a potential secret weapon in you, I want to see just how far I can push it. I’d be dumb to pass that up.”

“Eheh…” Dash looked away and chuckled nervously. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but… Spitfire seemed to be showing confidence in her and her ability to figure things out. If she could control her new strength and energy… then who knows what she could be capable of? Spitfire was definitely curious.

“I see this as a way to get you more involved with us as well. You have some good connections going with several of the top Wonderbolts already. Camaraderie like that is something we need more of. They all like you, Dash. I want you around them more.”

“Aw… shucks…” Dash wasn’t sure what to say, the thought alone made her feel fuzzy.

“But let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Spitfire released Dash and turned. “I need to make sure this training method even works first, until then—Dash?”

Dash was looking back towards Silver’s door.

“I’m fine…” she sighed. But the look Spitfire was giving her screamed that she didn’t buy it. “Okay, I feel bad that I didn’t come visit him. After all he’s done for me you’d think I’d remember.”

“Oh, don’t let him get to you about that,” she assured her as they started walking. “I’ve no doubt he was happy to see you either way. He probably just wanted to show off his math skills.”

“Yeah I know, he’s always the instigator,” Dash agreed. “But still, I wish I could do more for—”

“SILVER! NO!”

Both Dash and Spitfire flinched and perked up as they heard a nurse yell behind them. They both quickly turned around to see several nurses wrangling Silver… who was laid out on the small cart with wheels from beside his bed. His arms and wing were drooping over the edges with his back hooves firmly planted to the floor, trying to push himself down the hall.

“How do you keep getting out of the bed restraints?!” A nurse angrily asked.

“I need a goddamn drink,” Silver grumbled as the nurses got his legs up and started wheeling him back towards his room.

Dash and Spitfire stared blankly as the nurses pushed Silver back into his room, the sound of scuffling from within coming soon after. A moment later they both snorted, Spitfire chuckling as Dash held a hoof over her mouth to stifle laughter.

“I dunno, Dash…” Spitfire said while shaking her head. “I think Silver’s going to be just fine.”

“I think you’re right,” Dash agreed as the two turned and made their way to the doors leading into the waiting room.

“By the way… What did Silver mean about P.L.?” Spitfire asked. Dash blinked and puffed her cheeks out. “Knowing Silver, it’s something good,” Spitfire added as she noticed Dash’s reaction.

“Do you know what the P and L stand for?” Dash asked with a smug look on her face. Spitfire’s ears stood up.

“You know, I was always curious about that…”

“His real name is Puppy Love,” Dash said outright as they reached the waiting room doors. Spitfire froze on the spot, her eyes wide with a hoof resting on the door.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“His name is Puppy Love,” Dash repeated. Spitfire’s mouth slowly opened. “P.L. Puppy Love,” Dash said one more time.

“Noooooooooo…” Spitfire shook her head as her mouth quivered into a smirk. “Oooooh no no no, you’ve gotta be pulling my leg.”

“I heard it right from his mouth,” Dash explained while snickering. “He owned up to it when I said Silver told me to ask.”

“I… uh…” Spitfire blinked several times. “That’s so damn funny I can’t even laugh, I just… WHAT?”

“Now you know!” Dash chuckled as the two went through the doors. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“My lips are sealed,” Spitfire snorted, holding a hoof over her mouth as she giggled to herself.

But the moment the two stepped into the waiting room, there was a bright flash in front of them, forcing both of them to shield their eyes.

“What in the—?!” Spitfire yelled out, but was cut off as both she and Dash were suddenly picked up and squeezed.

“HELLOOOOOOOOO my fellow componiots!”

Dash’s eyes shot open and she looked down to see a bear paw and eagle talon attached to the arms that were hugging them.

“D—Discord?!” Dash yelped as Discord let go, dropping both of them on the floor.

“That’s me! Haha!” Discord stepped back and threw his arms out, confetti popping out from behind him. The receptionist tried to shush him, but he snapped his fingers and a raincloud appeared above them, drenching them in seconds.

Dash and Spitfire just stared from the floor, wide eyes and parted lips stuck to their incredulous expressions.

“How are you two lovely ladies doing this fine day?!” Discord asked cheerfully, smiling very wide as he bent all the way down to get in their faces.

Spitfire glanced at Dash. Dash’s face scrunched up.

“What in the hell…?” Dash managed to say as she looked him over quizzically.

“I’m doing well! I’m so glad you asked!” Discord answered a question nopony asked. He turned around and started twirling as he bounced about the room, all ponies present backing away as the raincloud continued the deluge atop the receptionist.

“Uh…” Spitfire looked at Dash as the two stood. “Didn’t you just say…?”

“I saw him literally an hour ago and he was a hysterical angry mess,” Dash confirmed with a nod.

“But I’m feeling much better now!” Discord shot up between them, leaned down, and draped his arms over their shoulders. “In fact, I couldn’t feel better!”

Dash and Spitfire narrowed their eyes at him, both looking confused and disturbed. Discord continued to smile in their faces, making his eyes innocently wide.

“Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “This is the part where you ask me why I’m so happy!” he said while bouncing his eyebrows. Dash released a long sigh.

“Okay… I’ll bite. Why the hell are you—?”

“I’m so glad you asked!” Discord cut her off, lifting them both up around their stomachs and tucking them under his arms. They both yelped in surprise and struggled to get free, but he had them locked in place with magic. “No time to waste! Off we go!”

Dash blinked.

They were suddenly in the Crystal Palace. In fact, they were right outside the hall where Soarin was being kept.

“Last stop, everypony off!” Discord chanted as he dropped them both on the floor, again. They quickly looked up and around.

Dash scanned the room, first noticing Descent, Lightning Dust, Blazetail, and Flashwind were present and standing near the door with P.L. and his thestrels.

“Captain? Rainbow Dash?” Fire Streak’s voice came from behind them. They both turned around to see the rest of the top tier Wonderbolts, at least those available. All of Squad Three, Blaze and High Winds, Fleetfoot and Air Mach. All looked confused as well.

“Huh…” Spitfire hummed as she looked around. “Did Discord bring you all here too?” she asked, getting a nod from Fleetfoot.

“Snatched me up in the middle of lunch…” Fleetfoot pouted. “I was enjoying that sandwich.”

“He did the same to us,” Descent’s voice reached them as they turned to see him and Dust approach, Blazetail and Flashwind remaining over by P.L. “I was in the middle of setting up our next patrol routes,” he grumbled in frustration. “Why in the world is he so happy?” he asked as they all looked to see Discord dancing about and humming to himself.

“Search me,” Spitfire huffed. “Dash saw him an hour ago and he was being an irritable sourpuss,” she said while looking at Dash, who nodded in agreement.

“Everypony wait just one moment!” Discord called out cheerfully. “I have to get a few more!” He twirled and vanished.

“Yeah this is like…” Dash scratched her head. “A full reversal compared to how he was acting an hour ago. We were yelling at each other and he was raging about us not being useful while he tries to figure out what’s wrong with Soarin.”

“Not being useful? We’ve been looking for signs of the Shadowbolts for days while he hides in there, what the hell is he talking about?” Descent grunted as he looked towards the door. “Still… that’s curious… considering how he’s acting now.”

“Where’s Starry?” Fleetfoot suddenly asked. Descent flinched and mumbled quietly to himself.

“She… I don’t know,” he admitted with a sigh.

“Eh?” Fleetfoot blinked, the rest all looking to him too. “Still? Where has she been this whole—?”

“ALRIGHTY THEN!” Discord popped back in.

Everypony looked over, Dash and Spitfire both reacting in surprise.

Discord had brought Shining Armor, Cadence, Twilight and the rest of Dash’s friends from Ponyville. But he also brought…

Luna.

In an instant Dash glared while Spitfire shot a somewhat less powerful gaze of disapproval. But before either of them could say anything, Discord appeared right next to Dash and clasped her head tightly with a hand.

“Enough. You can settle this with her later,” he said in a slightly strict tone that failed to hide the continuous enthusiasm.

“I’ll do whatever I want, thank you very much!” Dash grabbed his arm and tried to yank it off, but couldn’t.

“No, you won’t,” Discord said firmly as he reached out and grabbed Spitfire’s tail to prevent her from advancing towards Luna. “I gave her a good talking to after we parted about what happened.” He explained. Luna promptly turned and faced away from Dash in embarrassment. Dash pouted angrily, fixing her eyes on Luna with her glare growing harsher, but Discord shifted to get in her line of sight. “I’ve thoroughly shamed and berated her, but that’s hardly important right now because something extraordinary happened right after… and I… well… WE have you to thank for it!”

Dash and Spitfire both stopped their ire towards Luna, turning to Discord immediately.

“We?” Spitfire blinked. Dash tipping her head to the side.

“As in you and Luna?”

“Nope!” Discord chuckled as he vanished and reappeared next to P.L. Resting his arm on his head. P.L. grimaced, holding back his urge to attack as the Thestrels hissed at Discord. “Everypony… come on in!” Discord motioned towards the doors.

Nopony moved at first, but once Luna started slowly shuffling towards the doors, Dash, Spitfire, and the Wonderbolts all looked between one another curiously. Without a word they began moving, everypony else falling in line and walking towards the doors as Discord held a hand against it, waiting for them.

Twilight caught Dash’s attention at one point, their eyes meeting as Twilight motioned to Discord with a confused look on her face. Dash just rolled her eyes and shrugged.

As they drew near, Spitfire glanced at P.L.

She puffed her cheeks out and held a hoof firmly over her mouth, doing her best to stay focused as she walked towards the doors behind Dash.

Dash kept glancing at Luna as they moved forward, but Luna did everything in her power to avoid eye contact.

“Ready…?” Discord cooed as they all stopped in front of the door. “Behold!”

He threw the door open and held his arms out.

But they all just stared. They couldn’t see anything because the first large pillar that lined the outer edge of the hall was directly in the way.

Discord blinked and quickly looked in.

“Oh, right… silly me!” he chuckled as a rope dropped from above and dangled beside him. He gave it a hard yank and the pillar shot up towards the ceiling like a stage curtain.

But absolutely nopony paid attention to the solid crystal pillar behaving like a big piece of cloth.

A large, collective gasp passed through everypony looking into the room.

Soarin was still there, elevated within the aura of magic… but…

“Hello everypony…”

“It’s good to see all of you.”

A translucent image of Princess Celestia stood beside him.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Oh... :rainbowderp: Look who it is. :trollestia: wont this be an interesting encounter? And i wonder what Discord meant to Dash by "we have you to thank for it?" We'll find out, i guess!

But ah... Silver... Ever the voice of reason and instigation. Never change. Though here it looks like he provided the perfect avenue for Dash and Spitfire to come together and have an honest talk. Looks like they were both looking to get the words out to one another and Dash just had really damn good timing.

And poor Spitfire, sounds like all her responsibilities as captain has been keeping her from connecting with others the way she'd like. She knows how much Soarin and Fleetfoot have gotten to know Dash and is ashamed that she hasnt made the same effort. These four have been through the thick of it from the start, afterall. I wonder what this training program Spitfire has in mind down the line is? sounds interesting :rainbowdetermined2:

We're moving along! It feels great to get out of the action and back into the characters! :eeyup:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 171: Sunrise

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 171: Sunrise

“PRINCESS CELE—?!” Twilight Sparkle tried to exclaim, but was abruptly cut off.

“SISTER!!!!!!” Luna charged forward, her eyes wide as she galloped.

“Wait, wait! Lulu!” Discord called out, but Luna was set on course.

Celestia quickly stepped to the right, veering Luna’s path away from Soarin’s direction.

Luna leapt at Celestia with her arms outstretched, but she went right through her, yelping in surprise as she tipped forward and hit the ground face first. After sliding on her face a few yards, her horn stuck into the ground and flung her body all the way over, landing roughly on her back with a painful yelp and a loud THUD.

Everypony cringed and winced at the extremely graceful display.

“That had to hurt…” Discord commented as Luna rolled over and groaned, rubbing her hooves to her head.

“Sorry, Luna. I’m not very… solid, I’m afraid…” Celestia said as Twilight and Cadence came forward at a much calmer pace. Celestia smiled weakly at them both as Twilight swiped a hoof through the image and pouted. Celestia turned and briefly glanced at Luna twitching on the floor. Luna sat up and shot a sad look towards Celestia, like she was a little filly denied an ice cream cone. But as Celestia turned back to everypony else, they were all just staring at her. Luna’s epic crash only held their attention for a few moments.

There were varying degrees of expressions coming her way.

Shock.

Surprise.

Confusion.

Frustration.

Anger.

Rainbow Dash was struggling to hold just one of those, her expression scrunching and failing to hold one reaction for more than a couple of seconds.

Though she seemed to be in the minority in this case. Several of them had very distinct reactions. And a majority of the negative ones were coming at her directly from the Wonderbolts. Spitfire in particular had a harsh glare in her eyes, as if Celestia simply popping up and saying ‘hello’ was insulting.

Celestia scanned all the looks she was receiving, her smile faltering and averting her eyes.

“I… well…” she swallowed and tipped her head to the side awkwardly. “I assume you all have… many questions…”

“Now isn’t THAT the understatement of the century?” Spitfire sharply spoke up as she stepped forward. “I not only have questions,” she sat down and started pounding one hoof into the other. “I have complaints, demands, and frankly, some choice words for you, your highness!”

“Alright you…” Discord suddenly shifted in front of her. “It’s a wonder that we can ever have nice things around here. Let’s not get hostile, do you have to make everything about you?”

There was a very visible and audible stir among the present Wonderbolts as those particular words came out of Discord’s mouth. Spitfire looked like she was doing everything in her power not to break his neck.

“Did… you… really just say that? REALLY?!” Spitfire growled up at him. She pointed past him towards Celestia. “After all that’s happened to the world, to us, and to Soarin… because of her actions?”

Fleetfoot stepped up beside her and glared at Discord.

“Yeah, all the shit that you played along with? Don’t you talk to us about being selfish, you snake-breath prick!” she hissed.

Discord snorted and flattened his brow.

“Okay, perhaps that was a poor choice of words…” he admitted, but the rest of the Wonderbolts were already advancing, the rest hanging back, still showing mixed surprise. Twilight and Cadence had stepped back, both wary of how things were quickly escalating.

“Most definitely a poor choice of words,” Fire Streak spoke up with a stern glare. “We are owed answers and we are owed them now.”

“Don’t start acting like everything here is happening because of her!” Discord adamantly defended Celestia. “Last time I checked she isn’t in charge of the Shadowbolts.”

“Sure, she ain’t,” Lightning Streak stepped up beside Fire. “But they weren’t what put our asses through a wringer two weeks ago. Though I dunno, at this rate I’d believe she had a part in that too.” Lightning lifted an eyebrow as Discord snarled at him. “Oh what up, D, can’t handle the heat?” he bobbed his head back and forth. “Give me one good reason not to think that. If she wants us to be happy, she better start talkin’,” he added. “I ain’t one to get my balls in a knot over stuff, but this shit’s been brutal. We’ve lost ponies, come on, man.”

“Hmmmmm?” Spitfire hummed towards Discord, tipping her head towards Lightning Streak as if to signal that if he of all ponies was demanding an explanation then there was no wiggling out of it.

Discord looked around as Misty, Blaze, High Winds, and Surprise all stomped forward, all glaring at him. Surprise half turned towards Misty, ready to translate for her while angrily pouting at Discord. He looked past them at Dash. She had remained in place, but her face spoke for itself.

Discord sighed, leaning back and crossing his arms.

“Look…” he began, huffing in frustration. “Fine, I get it… perhaps you have some things you want to ask of her, but don’t pile on her right out of the gate. For heaven’s sake, it’s like none of you even took a moment to think about how much of a blessing this is!”

“Sorry if we’re just a BIT… FUCKING… BITTER.” Blaze spat. “Being lied to and led on a fucking personal goose chase in the middle of dealing with edgy mercenary fuckwad wannabes doesn’t make me very civil. Want the right hoof or the left? I guarantee I can hit you as hard as I fucking can with both!”

“Goodness, do you kiss your half-sister with that mouth?” Discord asked, motioning to Spitfire as Blaze lobbed the foul language at her.

“No… just mine,” High Winds clarified casually and yawned, her body shimmering brightly. “But I agree… start talking, bitch.” She said while leaning to look past Discord at Celestia.

“Okay just listen to me!” Discord thrust his arms out, a faint barrier of magic pushing out and forcing them all back. “Look! It’s Princess Celestia!” he motioned to her multiple times. “You know, a very valuable individual whom we could REALLY use the assistance of right now! And who, without a doubt, will help in figuring out what the hell happened to your fellow Wonderbolt you all just tried so hard to save from the clutches of an arrogant tyrant hell-bent on achieving the power of a god!” Discord snarled. “Sheesh, I saw this as an opportunity for us to solve several problems and all you ponies can think about is how much you want to tell her off! Is anypony being real about the current situation?!”

The Wonderbolts all glared. Fleetfoot grabbed her mane and yanked on it.

“An ‘arrogant tyrant’ that SHE STUFFED INTO HIM! Good gravy, are you even listening to yourself right now?!” she pushed her way into Discord’s half-baked magic barrier and jammed a hoof into his stomach. “You are… SUCH… a piece of SHIT!” she yelled. “And you know what?!” she pointed past him at Celestia. “SO IS SHE!” She pointed towards Luna. “HER TOO!”

Discord quickly looked towards Spitfire. But Spitfire just lifted her brow at him, letting Fleetfoot vent.

“We’ve been through hell! For some of us, worse than hell! And then BOOM! One of our best turns into a big ass wrecking ball that we’re forced to go after! And you want us to be happy?! You fucking kiss-ass white knight! Own up already! You’ve done nothing except enable her and your own selfish ambitions at the expense of the rest of us!”

“That’s an unfair way to put it…” Discord growled.

“It’s plenty fair! Now SAY IT! OWN IT! Actually all three of you! Come on! Go on! I wanna hear it from all of your mouths!” Fleetfoot continued to yell, now hovering up into Discord’s face. “I’m waiting!”

Discord gritted his teeth, his aura appearing around his frame as he clenched his fist. He started lifting it towards her. Everypony else present in the room had been effectively silenced. Nopony moved a muscle as the Wonderbolts took over the situation.

“Stop.”

Discord froze in place as Celestia stepped up beside him. Her head was tilted down, a somber look on her face.

“That’s enough… I didn’t want…” she paused and hid her eyes with her mane for a moment, swallowing. “I don’t want my first time seeing all of you again to become volleys of hostilities.”

Discord’s aura vanished and he relaxed his hand, sighing as he looked to the other side of the room.

“I was happy,” Discord said with a snort. “They ruined it.” He said in a rather childish manner as he crossed his arms and turned his nose up and away.

“They have every right to be upset with me, Discord. Let it be,” Celestia said plainly.

Spitfire blinked and Fleetfoot shifted back with her eyes growing wider. That was the last thing they expected to hear come out of her mouth after putting up with Luna and Discord’s stubbornness for so long.

“I will gladly talk to them about my actions… my reasoning and the mistakes I made that led to this, but before I do… I want to put them at ease about somepony else,” she said as she glanced towards Soarin.

Dash audibly gasped, drawing attention to herself. She stood up and stepped forward, pushing her way through the Streak twins and moving up between Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

“Soarin! Is Soarin okay?!” Dash demanded. Both Spitfire and Fleetfoot eagerly looked to Celestia as well.

Celestia gave them all a smile and nodded.

“Soarin is fine,” she assured them. “He’s… scared. But alive and well.”

“Scared?” Dash’s ears flopped down.

“Indeed,” Celestia said with a frown as the others began gathering around to listen. “And it should not come as a surprise, considering what’s happening to him right now. He’s being exposed to something that no mortal should be able to experience.”

“Well, we have many questions,” Spitfire spoke up. “But since this is definitely the most important, we can start with this one. What exactly happened to Soarin? Is he really a divine Alicorn?”

“One of those I can answer, the other I cannot,” Celestia admitted. “Yes, he has taken on the form of a Divine Alicorn, much like myself and Luna…” she paused and looked towards Soarin’s floating form. “The tell is the ethereal, flowing mane. Simply becoming an Alicorn does not make one an immortal,” she explained as she motioned to Twilight and Cadence. “It is a sign that Soarin’s form and its luster are indeed a product of my power flowing within.” She looked Soarin up and down… more than once. “And it is quite a spectacle to say the least… I have not seen a divine alicorn stallion in, well, far longer than I can recall.”

Everypony looked amongst themselves curiously. That statement alone raised other questions, but Celestia, Luna, and Discord had existed for eons after all.

“And considering Soarin was already a very impressive stallion on his own…” Celestia continued as she kept staring. Spitfire and Dash both perked up quickly. “Becoming one of the divine has created quite a spectacular form. Though that might be—”

“OKAY… okay…” Spitfire cut her off, pressing a hoof to Dash’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “Let’s just continue please. We’ve already had some… issues with where you’re going with that,” Spitfire said while looking towards Luna. Luna’s eyes grew very wide and she quickly turned her back to everypony else.

“Eh? What?” Fleetfoot blinked and glanced back and forth.

“Oh, yes I… am aware of that,” Celestia said, causing Luna to freeze and whimper quietly to herself. “I won’t speak for Luna, but I can’t say I blame her,” Celestia said with a slight chuckle, glancing at Soarin again.

But when it became clear that neither Spitfire nor Dash found it funny, she cleared her throat and continued.

“Ahem, yes… he has become one of the divine, but… as for how? I’m afraid I have absolutely no idea,” Celestia said with a heavy sigh. “I saw what he did, and I saw how it occurred, but I am at a loss as to how he was able to.”

“Woo!” Fleetfoot hooted sarcastically while turning to Discord. “She can’t tell us anything! Boy, we sure are happy!”

“Okay, can you at least walk us through what you saw or felt?” Spitfire asked Celestia as Fleetfoot stuck her tongue out at a growling Discord. “You were right there, it’s your power.”

“I was…” Celestia nodded. “At any point in time while I was within Soarin I could have called my reserves of power to him to end it once and for all. However I was hesitating because Soarin’s body was that of a mortal, and my magic reserves would… or now I guess I’ll say should have destroyed his body from within, taking him, Sombra, and even myself with it. As I watched Soarin fight for his life against Sombra, I finally came to the conclusion that in order to right my great wrong, I had to set aside my fear and make the ultimate sacrifice. I called my power and was prepared to destroy us by overloading Soarin’s body with my divine power for the sake of stopping Sombra. Sombra himself tried to absorb my power, but he was overwhelmed quickly. I stood over him and used the moment to pay him back for his actions and all the things he thrust upon me verbally while in control of Soarin. I wanted to make him see how foolish he was for seeking godhood as the very power he desired destroyed him.”

She paused and glanced towards Soarin.

“I… had completely ruled out Soarin being able to do anything. But while Sombra failed and broke, Soarin refused to lay down and die and attempted to absorb the power himself. I did not expect him to even know how to do such a thing since he’s a Pegasus, but I clearly underestimated his resolve. Perhaps his time with the horn and things he had learned about using magic also allowed him to come to a workable conclusion… which seemed to involve leaning on the support of Rainbow Dash, and even Sombra himself to take on the endless flow.”

She shook her head as she looked back to them.

“But even with their support, he should not have been able to contain it all. The limits of my magic reserves are incomprehensible to even a skilled unicorn, nor Alicorn,” she said while looking towards Twilight and Cadence. “It requires immense willpower, intense spiritual energy, and a level of mental capacity well beyond what a mortal can perceive to even begin to understand. Yet Soarin managed to pull it all into his body and then keep it in there long enough through determination and sheer force of will alone. The support of the other spirits likely helped him hang on, but he was still the one taking it in. He held it together long enough until… the power accepted him and embedded in his body, physically changing him into something that the power saw more fitting to exist within.”

They all looked towards Soarin.

“Saw more fitting…?” Spitfire said while tipping her head. “You’re talking like your magic itself is its own being.”

“The nature of my power and its depth is… different. Simply being a god or an alicorn does not make one worthy of it. My power chose me through a great sacrifice I made many centuries ago. What Soarin did here… was not unlike what I had to do to obtain it,” she continued. “My great power was not something I was blessed with. I once, to fill the gap left by those who came before me, took a risk and opened my mind to the endless possibilities of divine magic. I was subjected to extreme pain as the power surged through me and my body was nearly destroyed, but I held on long enough for the power to accept me in its full form. I speculate… that Soarin’s actions did the same, whether he meant it to or not.”

“So he did it by accident.” Spitfire said flatly.

“That is the most likely explanation,” Celestia agreed.

“Typical…” Spitfire sighed.

“And if this is what he’s experiencing… then I’ve no doubt he is also being subject to the horrors I was when I first became what I am,” she explained, shuddering slightly. “And I had the ‘luxury’ of already being a divine Alicorn and experience with the magic in its more subdued form. With some effort I was able to adjust over time since I was already familiar with its properties. But Soarin… is a Pegasus, his experience with magic has been brief and the power he has wielded was not even natural to his body. I can remember how it felt for me and how scared I was when my eyes were first opened. I can only imagine how terrifying it must be for him right now… the visions he is seeing, the perception of things that greatly differ from everything he has known… All things no mortal should ever have to bear witness to being forced through his mind… I would not wish it upon anypony…”

Everypony just stared silently as Celestia trailed off briefly, several looking towards Soarin floating in the aura, looking peaceful and resting.

“Soarin…” Dash said quietly to herself, holding a hoof over her heart. Perhaps there was some truth to Discord’s concerns over Soarin. If what Celestia said was true, Soarin would no doubt be in an extremely unstable mental state. Would he be able to get out of it? And if he did, would he even be the same stallion after?

“That…” Spitfire looked between Soarin and Celestia. “Okay, that was a lot to process and there’s clearly a few things in there that require a lot more detail, but you can explain it to us later. He’s alive, and he’s stable, right?”

“Mostly, yes,” Celestia nodded while glancing at Discord, who only grunted to himself.

“Mostly? Is he at risk of randomly… say… going boom?” Spitfire pressed.

“I would say no,” Celestia assured her. “The risk of total catastrophe ended when the power imprinted itself in him. What I would be worried about now is his mental state. He’s unwittingly been put into a position that, well, I never thought was actually possible. He likely will have little to no control over anything he’s capable of for some time. Resting will likely help the adjustment, there is no safer state for him to be in right now.”

“Is there a way to… get him back to normal?” Dash suddenly asked, a long pause following as Celestia just stared.

“It’s… impossible to know at this point,” Celestia admitted, knowing it was not what any of them wanted to hear. Dash’s ears flopped down and she backed away slightly, but Misty and Fire both rested hooves on her back to comfort her.

“I…” Spitfire sighed as all the Wonderbolts looked him over with concern. “We’ll take your word for it on that one. I’m just happy to hear that he’s mostly fine and still in there…” Spitfire said with a sigh as she slumped, placing a hoof on Fleetfoot for support as she sat down. The Wonderbolts all perked up as Spitfire seemed somewhat faint, but she smiled. “That takes a load off my shoulders. The big idiot is always giving me heart attacks, but this is way out of bounds,” she exhaled and looked towards Celestia again. “So I have to ask… what took you so long to get out here?”

“Ahah… well…” Celestia awkwardly tipped her head to the side. “This may sound odd, but… you have Luna and Rainbow Dash to thank for that.”

“Eh?” Dash blinked, Luna perking up and glancing over her shoulder.

“First let me explain,” Celestia continued. “I’ve been trapped. The moment the power jumped from my control and jumped to Soarin, I was crushed beneath it, held down and forced to watch as Soarin’s soul was bombarded by it and… nearly went insane. It was not a pleasant sight. I’d rather not detail how painful it looked.” She glanced towards Dash. “I could not move and could not help. And as I said, it was at that moment that risk of catastrophe was high. The power decided to accept him, but he still had to hold on long enough for it to imprint. Though I assume he would have become completely unstable on the spot had it not been for Rainbow Dash here.”

“Me?” Dash blinked.

“Indeed,” Celestia smiled. “The piece of your spirit persists within him still… You helped his spirit resist breaking apart as my magic let itself into his life force and I believe it is helping Soarin’s spirit manage the adjustment now, easing the weight on his shoulders as he grows used to its presence. I wouldn’t be surprised if your spirit was exposed to some of the power as well.”

“Oh…” Dash looked down at her hooves and over her body. “Well, I guess… that explains that.”

“Explains what?” Celestia asked curiously.

“I’ve been randomly glowing yellow recently,” Dash said with a flattened expression. “I’m also stronger, have random surges of excitement, yadda yadda, it’s your power I’m feeling, isn’t it?” Dash said with some slight sarcasm.

Celestia stared blankly at her.

“Your… connection with Soarin is quite powerful if you are being affected by my energy that much through a spirit connection alone,” she said, impressed.

“I dunno if you’ve heard…” Fleetfoot leaned on Dash and lifted her brow. “But the two of them are kind of a thing. I hear it’s pretty serious.” She giggled as Dash playfully nudged her off.

“Okay, so I’ve got a buff bod and some extra oomph out of it… could you tell me what LUNA has to do with it?” Dash sharply demanded. “Because so far I’m not too happy with how she’s been ‘involved’ with this situation.” Every word was harshly directed in Luna’s direction and Luna tucked herself in more with each jab as everypony started looking towards her. Only Dash and Spitfire knew exactly what was being talked about after all.

“Again,” Celestia quickly interjected while shifting to block Luna from view. “I won’t speak for her, but… it was her actions, and your response to it that set off a slight chain reaction.”

“A… what?” Dash tipped her head.

“When you caught my sister and your emotions surged, the power inside of Soarin reacted with you. It did not risk overloading or overwhelming him, but it threw a thinly held balance into a bit of a jittering fit. The shift in the power gave me a small window to shimmy my way through, and just enough time to scoop up a tiny bit of my power back into my spirit. I’m now able to fool the magic into believing I’m simply part of it, and can now move freely within.”

“Huh,” Spitfire lifted her brow. “Who would have thought a 1000 year libido would be the key to letting you show yourself?” she said sarcastically, making Luna cringe and whimper again.

“Okay, can someone explain this to me?” Fleetfoot suddenly asked, looking between Spitfire and Dash. “There have been too many references to sexytime being thrown around here that I don’t understand and that’s a problem.”

“Later,” Spitfire quickly shot down the request.

“Aw…” Fleetfoot pouted and crossed her arms.

“So what does this mean? You can wander freely? Are you disconnected?” Spitfire asked.

“Unfortunately no,” Celestia shook her head. “My spirit is still very much tethered to Soarin and the power within. I can use the little bit of magic I managed to grab to do things like project myself outside of him. I can also…” she looked up at her horn and took a breath. A yellow glow appeared around it, a magical aura taking form on its surface briefly before she released it. “I seem to be able to project it using this image as a focal point too. But I’m still tethered to Soarin, I can’t suddenly fly this projection all the way back to Canterlot. I doubt I can go far from him before the image fades or I’m pulled back within range. I’m also only able to use the power in my grasp right now because the majority of it is at rest. If Soarin were awake and aware right now I’m unsure if I could keep this up.”

“This is fucking weird,” Blaze randomly chimed in from behind.

“I think Blaze speaks for all of us,” Spitfire agreed with her half-sister. “But… here we are, here is Soarin, here you are… and we’re not dead. So, I guess we’ll do as Discord says and make the most of it.”

Celestia smiled warmly.

“Thank you, I appreciate that—”

“WHICH MEANS…” Spitfire abruptly cut her off as she stood up and jammed a hoof in Celestia’s face. “Now that the subject of Soarin has been addressed… We can start with you EXPLAINING yourself… THOROUGHLY.” She demanded. Discord’s eyes narrowed into a glare and he started tapping a finger to his arm, but he held back. “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Because you completely lied to us about Soarin after our Shadowbolt confrontation in Ponyville… and then your stooges,” she motioned to Discord and Luna. “Ran with the lie, or maybe they didn’t know about it, or maybe only one of them knew about it? At this point I’m willing to consider any of those after what we’ve been put through. You owe us some explanations… so start talking.”

“Don’t let them talk to you that way!” Discord suddenly remarked, turning to Celestia. “Are you just going to bend down and let them walk all over you?!”

“Oh this is rich, are you going to act like we have no reason to be angry and bow at her hooves with formality? Back off, she can speak for herself,” Spitfire snapped at him, but Discord growled and placed himself in front of her.

“Not if you’re going to disrespect her like this!” he huffed. “I won’t allow it.”

“Wow Spitty, check out P.L. 2.0 over here!” Fleetfoot jeered. “So if I become a divine princess do I get a personal ass kisser too?” She turned and wiggled her plot at Discord. “Pucker up, silly snake! You’re not sucking hard enough! C’mon, praise the sun like you mean it!” she egged him on while rubbing her hoof over her butt.

Discord clenched his fists and ground his teeth together, but… Celestia giggled behind him.

Discord looked at her with his ears flopped down and his eyes wide.

“Sorry…” Celestia continued to chuckle. “I thought it was funny…”

“You know what, I’m just going to stand over here…” Discord said flatly, grumbling to himself as he took a few paces towards Luna and turned his back to all of them.

“I appreciate you trying to stand up for me, Discord,” Celestia said to his back as he shook his head, mumbling. “But I’m not going to sugarcoat it for my own benefit, and neither should you. After all…” she looked towards Spitfire. “With how this has all played out, I’ve left myself no room to really make any excuses. I’ve already tried and…” she looked down.

She glanced towards Soarin briefly before sitting upright and clearing her throat.

“I lied, yes,” she admitted outright. “In fact, I lied the moment I stepped into the hospital room where Soarin was in critical condition.”

The Wonderbolts all looked around one another. Twilight and Cadence gasped, the rest of Dash’s friends all reacting in kind. Applejack in particular looked like her brain broke.

“I have the power of premonition,” Celestia explained. “And I made the claim in the hospital that I saw a future conflict that Soarin was a key part in solving. I made that up, or at least half of it. I did see the conflict and I did see the Wonderbolts. But… Soarin was not among them.”

“Huh?” Spitfire blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Soarin was supposed to die in the hospital, succumbing to his injuries at the hooves of the Shadowbolts.”

The room went completely silent. Dash was frozen in place and the rest of the Wonderbolts weren’t very far behind her, but Spitfire and Fleetfoot looked the most shocked. Fleetfoot placed a hoof over her mouth and stared directly at Soarin… while Spitfire looked over her shoulder right at Descent sitting in the back with Lightning Dust.

While Descent did not look surprised, he was clearly caught off-guard by it, staring towards Celestia with his lips slightly parted.

“I decided… to change a moment in history, altering the vision I foresaw,” Celestia said in a heavy tone of voice. “But I did not do it entirely for Soarin, or for the sake of what I saw,” she explained, sounding like she was trying to hold it together. “I also used it as an… opportunity to do something that I had, until that point, had no real solution to for a very, very long time. Something that was clearly very personal and very selfish, all the while convincing myself that I could not go wrong, and that it would all work out in both my favor, and the favor of those risked in the future. With Soarin’s life force fading, only the life force of another could have restored him to health. I completely made up the story about a spell I knew, and even crafted a narrative of it being one devised by Sombra, assuming you all considered him a tyrant through the known history of Equestria. But what I really did was—”

“You stuck your old fling inside of him, we know,” Spitfire stated flatly. “Discord let us in on that part.”

“Yeah, ya know… he told us after he got loose and kicked everypony’s asses,” Surprise added while reaching up and draping herself across Misty Fly’s back. “You really shouldn’t put angry ex-coltfriends in other ponies’ bodies.”

“Sombra’s role in this is very obvious to all of you now and I’m not going to act like it was the right choice, but…,” Celestia gave a firm nod. “I want you all to understand what my intentions were. There’s no reason to keep secrets anymore.”

“That’s a refreshing thought…” Fire mumbled while leaning towards Spitfire.

“Mmhmm…” Spitfire nodded and hummed in agreement while shooting a brief glare towards Discord and Luna. “We’re listening, continue.”

“Do we REALLY need to talk about Sombra?” Discord suddenly interrupted. “He’s been taken care of. Why bother?”

“Go back to staring at the wall, please,” Spitfire hissed at him. “I want to hear it from her.”

Discord murmured several things to himself as he did just that.

“I had preserved Sombra’s life force after I faced him in battle a thousand years ago,” Celestia went on. “I don’t know exactly how much Discord has told you about the history of Sombra and I, but what matters is that I was ignorant in my belief that the outcome would be the preferred. As a precaution I temporarily placed a large portion of my consciousness within Soarin, quickly hiding myself away afterward so I could transfer my mind entirely. I wanted to make sure Sombra’s spirit fully repaired Soarin’s and the two became what I wished. It was my goal to not only craft a warrior of incredible power and ability to face the coming conflict, but also to give Sombra a chance to redeem himself. I believed that he would jump at the opportunity, that he would be thrilled at another chance to join the fray and be the warrior he once was, fighting for a just cause.”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaand that sure went as planned…” Discord grumbled loudly behind her, drawing attention briefly.

“In the end I was blinded by my own hope and lingering feelings for him,” Celestia admitted. “The moment Sombra’s spirit regained its conscience, he revealed a harsh bitterness born from the circumstances of his demise, the actions of both Discord and myself, and the way in which his good name had been tarnished.”

A few ponies looked over as Discord made very exaggerated quotation signs with his fingers when Celestia said ‘good name’.

“I quickly realized that I had created a potentially drastic situation. Nothing I could say swayed Sombra, he was dead set on using the opportunity I gave him to achieve his own goals instead. But regardless… I decided to keep my spirit within Soarin in hopes that there was something I could do, or perhaps something Sombra could see from the eyes of Soarin that would turn him… that would bring back the Sombra I thought I was getting back. But it never happened. His anger never wavered, he brushed aside everything Soarin experienced. He didn’t care for your conflict, for Soarin’s experiences, nor for his tender moments. A few cracks showed in his anger from time to time… but the fire would not die out. He was determined to get revenge and retake what he had lost. His honor and his pride that he held dear dashed, and history written to denounce him instead of acknowledging the stallion he truly was.”

Celestia trailed off, looking away from them all. Spitfire tapped a hoof on the ground, holding a flat expression which she held against what she felt was currently a play at sympathy. The other Wonderbolts seemed to feel the same, though Dash glanced towards Discord briefly, examining his back as he continued to grumble and tap a finger against his arm as if he wanted to say something, but decided to let Celestia speak.

“I could have left at any time. I could have removed myself from Soarin and returned to my power, then handled the situation… but I couldn’t do it. I was compelled to stay, compelled by my heart that I could reach his. And even if I did leave and return to all of you, I doubt I would’ve been able to destroy Soarin to stop Sombra. I was too emotionally attached to him, too hopeful that there was some way to turn him from his path. I was unwilling to face anypony about such a grave and childish mistake. The goddess of the sun, a being looked up to by all ponies, trapped in a scandalous lie over an attempt to bring back an ex-lover.”

Discord snorted and walked further away, still grumbling loud enough for others to hear.

“And because of my hesitation, eventually… he was freed. And once he was, I was trapped within, much like Soarin. I let it go too far and it was my own fault. At that point, the only option I had left was to remotely call my power reserves to Soarin’s body… unfortunately, that would destroy Soarin along with Sombra… and since my spirit was within, it would obliterate me as well. Sombra knew this… and he knew that I was afraid of death. He openly invited me to do it, but when I couldn’t bring myself to do it, he punished me by binding my spirit painfully, forcing me down and breaking any form of focus I had left, making it impossible for me to do it if I wanted to. From there… He mocked me, jeered me, and rubbed my nose in the mess I had created and my unwillingness to face it. But… perhaps it was all well deserved. Nopony has ever shamed me for my mistakes, but everything had become so far gone that I felt I deserved everything he said. There was little I could say to argue against it… and it hurt even more coming from a stallion that once meant everything to me.” Celestia looked up towards the Wonderbolts. “It would not shock me if you were to be skeptical of my words after all that’s happened as a result of my actions, but… Sombra already forced my eyes open to accept everything I had done wrong. You will hear no protest from me towards criticism.”

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, not sure how she was supposed to react to that. It didn’t sound natural, genuine, or sincere, but whether it was or not didn’t seem to be the question. Celestia sounded like she didn’t know how to express such a thing, which added a whole new layer to how Spitfire and the others had come to perceive the gods. Was it really that hard to admit they were wrong? And if what Celestia said was true, was it still hard for her to do after taking an extreme verbal beating from Sombra that she claimed to be humbled by?

Celestia exhaled and looked down.

“Perhaps, in a way, we owe Sombra…” she started again. Discord visibly twitched, but said nothing. “His harsh words mixed with Soarin’s display of will and determination were what pushed me to do what I couldn’t before… He had laid my weakness bare before me and Soarin showed me how to fight against it. It may not be the outcome I was expecting but…” she glanced towards Soarin. “We are here now… and I’m able to finally speak to you.”

“And that really makes everything better,” Spitfire suddenly said sarcastically. Celestia picked up on the tone, wincing as she watched Spitfire roll her eyes. “Forgive me if I’m not dry humping you like Discord right now, but… This whole scenario, Sombra and his personal vendetta against the gods and what not… has been an extreme pain in the ass and caused us great internal hardship at a time when we have our own problem to deal with. So you’ll have to excuse me if I have literally zero sympathy for you.”

“I…” Celestia awkwardly looked down. “I’m sorry, I was not trying to gain any sympathy.”

“Coulda fooled us…” Fleetfoot snorted.

“Sombra is an emotional subject for me, is all,” Celestia tried to explain, but Spitfire rapped a hoof on the floor.

“An emotional subject that nearly caused a complete and utter disaster. And you know who got hit the hardest by it? All those involved not named Celestia,” Spitfire snapped harshly. Discord spun around, holding up a hand with his teeth gritted, but held his breath and turned his back again. Twilight tried to come forward with a look of concern on her face, but she froze as Dash shot her a stern look.

But Luna suddenly could not sit still, overcoming the jittering that came with all the prior jabs to her recent actions as she took several steps towards Celestia, staring towards Spitfire with an expression that failed to be intimidating at all.

“Have you no appreciation for what she has done for you at least?!” she belted towards the Wonderbolts as they all harshly glared at her. “Would Soarin not be dead if she had not done something?!” she added while throwing a hoof towards Soarin.

“Enough, Luna,” Celestia spoke up before Spitfire could unleash on her. “I received their thanks when I committed the act. Perhaps I did save his life and return him to those who hold him dear… but I lied about exactly what I did and never told anypony about it. Discord wouldn’t have even known had he not figured it out himself.”

“Grblrbghrgh… I still owe Mr. Pantaloons a drubbing for using me as target dummy…” Discord grumbled to himself.

“And he proceeded to not tell us, or tell Luna, am I right?” Spitfire asked while tipping her head towards Luna.

“We… um…”

“I didn’t because she asked me not to,” Discord said while pointing a thumb over his shoulder at Celestia.

“And the suckin’ power just got stronger,” High Winds commented sleepily as Discord shot steam out of his nose and tapped his fingers on his arm faster.

“Indeed, I did…” Celestia admitted without protest. “I refused to admit that the situation was far gone and kept assuring myself, and later Discord, that I knew exactly what I was doing. So much for all the lessons in friendship I had taught and read about from my faithful student all those years, he simply didn’t budge, but I couldn’t let it go…”

Celestia paused. She took a long, deep breath and sat up straight, giving Spitfire a serious look.

“I was wrong. My actions were my own, but they were inconsiderate, not well thought out, and rife with wishful thinking. I hijacked your problems for my own personal gain while believing nothing could possibly go wrong. And when it did I refused to believe it and held on despite all the problems that arose for many others, and all the pain that it may have caused. I will not ask for your forgiveness because I do not deserve it. That was made clear to me by the very stallion I was casting everything else aside to persuade. Right here and now where we stand I will do all I can to help figure out what has happened to Soarin and what to do about it. It’s the least I can do.”

“Huh…” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow while turning to Discord and Luna. “See? Was that so hard? The two of you gush over her so much, you ought to take notes.”

“Oh… shut up…” Discord grumbled.

“Well, Celestia,” Spitfire returned her eyes to her. “You’ve got one thing right. You are NOT getting anything even remotely close to forgiveness from us. This is the cherry on top of all the other red tape we’ve been forced to wade through to get anything resembling straight answers from Discord and Luna on anything related to you, Soarin, or whatever the hell is going on around us. Don’t expect us to be very eager to work with you, this won’t be going away any time soon.” She glanced back at all the Wonderbolts. All of them appeared to share the thought through their angered expressions alone. Even Air Mach, who had surprisingly obeyed her order to keep his mouth shut, had his glasses removed to make sure Celestia could see his discontent as well. “If you want us to ever trust any of you again… then you have a lot of work to do to earn it back.” She hardened her glare further. “And don’t expect it to come to come back any time soon.”

“Very well,” Celestia held herself strong despite the verbal lashing. “I just…” she sighed and shook her head, sounding frustrated. “I had really hoped that this would have worked out in everypony’s favor. Had Sombra cooperated from the start, perhaps much of the hardship could have been avoided.”

“But would you have told us?” Dash suddenly stepped forward, catching Spitfire by surprise. “Would you have admitted that you put Sombra in him?” she said angrily while pointing at Soarin.

Celestia looked towards Soarin, scanning him up and down.

“No, I don’t believe I would have…” she said honestly. Dash scoffed.

“So how would that have been any better? I’m not going to act like you didn’t save Soarin’s life, but to use his body for your own secret project? That’s—”

“Unethical, unnatural, appalling,” Celestia cut her off, swaying her head back and forth and holding a flattened expression as she spoke. Dash blinked and her eyes widened. “Shameful, despicable, disgraceful, disgusting, unheard of, selfish, scandalous, arrogant, self-serving…” she paused and looked down at Dash. “I wasn’t kidding when I said Sombra shamed me thoroughly. I could probably continue for several minutes.”

“Geez!” Fleetfoot chimed in while scrunching up her face. “Did you two have angry sex in Soarin’s brain too while you were at it?”

Celestia just stared blankly at her.

Fleetfoot’s eyes grew extremely wide.

"NO. FFFFFFFFFFNO. OH GOD, WHY DID I ASK?!" she cried out while turning, pressing her face to Misty Fly’s body and letting out a muffled scream. Misty jittered and flinched as Fleetfoot’s voice buzzed against her.

“OH!” Discord suddenly threw his arms up into the air. “HEY!” he suddenly coiled his body around towards them, his legs following only after his body stopped. He had a very forced and exaggerated smile on his face. “I JUST REMEMBERED!” He clasped his hands together and batted his eyelashes. “Even though you’ve effectively ruined my good mood, I was wondering why I was still very happy!”

“Oh, this should be good…” Dash groaned as she turned her back to Discord, but he reached down and forced her to turn back to him.

“Oh but my dear, Rainbow Dash, you should be happy too!” he turned and pointed at Soarin. “You know, Soarin is that way because HE… was the one who absorbed the power! You know who DIDN’T absorb the power?” he flattened his brow in an instant and snorted. “Sombra…” he said with a low pitch growl, but his face returned to cheerful as he let go of Dash and stood up right. “He’s gone, poof! No longer in control of Soarin! He got what was coming to him and it was well deserved! Walking around in somepony else’s body, going on and on about things he could never begin to understand like it was his right to take our place PFFFT PLEASE!”

He flopped down and laid out in front of Celestia, looking up into her eyes and lifting his brow.

“Turned out to be quite a dick after you kept him alive for so long, huh? Isn’t that a shame, such an unappreciative brat. So you know what? How about we PLEASE stop talking about him now! Pretty please, before I start vomiting assorted chaotic colors all over everypony!”

He rolled up and stood upright, pointing a finger towards Spitfire.

“So you tried your best to ruin my mood by turning sour on Celestia and making her talk about that big headed buffoon she used to bang, but…” he backed up and crossed his arms, nodding firmly. “I… for one… am still HAPPY because that son of a bitch is gone for goo—!”

“Ahem…”

Discord flinched so hard his chaos magic accidentally made the sound of glass breaking.

His eyes slowly opened wide.

His ears flopped to the side of his head.

His lips stiffened as his teeth ground together.

.

An image of Sombra was leaning against the pillar behind him.

“As if you could get rid of me that easily.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

whoopsie daisy! :pinkiecrazy:

Better learn to check behind you before you start badmouthing other, Discord... cause it looks like the 'arrogant, big-headed buffoon' of a 'tyrant' is still very much your personal problem :trollestia:

But really, come on now, did you all really think i'd spend that much time developing my own personal version of Sombra and just have him go poof? Oh ho ho no... he's not going anywhere :moustache:

So both Sombra and Celestia are stuck inside Soarin's body? Wont that make things interesting :twilightoops:

And finally... the Wonderbolts got to vent a little, and it appears Celestia was aware it was coming. Interesting to see her sit and take it as opposed to fighting back like Discord and Luna. But we all saw how thick Sombra laid it on her inside Soarin's head before this. Looks like he got through to her. But its doubtful the Wonderbolts will give her the time of day without some SERIOUS effort on her part.

For now, we wait to see how Sombra is received... considering what happened in the last moments before Soarin's transformation, one has to wonder how he feels right now.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Art in this Chapter by: Foxenawolf

Chapter 172: The Missing Piece

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 172: The Missing Piece

Discord Spun around, his pupils shrinking as his eyes met the flat, unamused gaze of Sombra. His ghostly appearance was nearly identical to Celestia’s, but more subtle with a dim, soft blue glow as opposed to a brighter yellow.

A lot of gasps and shuffling came from everypony. The Wonderbolts and Renegades didn’t move, but Dash’s friends nearly tripped over themselves stepping forward. Twilight stood in front of Celestia protectively as Shining Armor instantly shifted in front of Cadence with a shield generated in front of them, glaring through it.

Sombra casually glanced about at all of them and lifted an eyebrow, sighing and shaking his head as he remained in place. After a few moments of silence, all those who had frantically stood at the ready relaxed, looking about at one another in confusion.

“No, Discord…” Celestia spoke up. “He’s still in here with me.”

Discord twitched hard, quickly lifting his hands towards Sombra. A white arrow materialized above Sombra. It made a loud CLICK noise followed by passing diagonally across Sombra while generating what appeared to be a box with dashed lines expanding with it. When the box completely surrounded Sombra, a giant white, square shaped button with the word ‘DELETE’ on it appeared beside Discord. He punched his fist into it as hard as he could, the rest of him remaining stiff as a white light flashed and loud BLIP sounded within the area of the box.

But Sombra was still there.

“This is an apparition, you raggabrash twit.”

Discord grabbed his ears and yanked them right off his head before smacking his hands over his eyes and releasing a high pitched scream. His body turned to stone from the ground up, holding the form for a second before cracks appeared all over it. He shattered into tiny pieces, his eyes remaining in the air as the rest of him fell into a pile of pebbles on the floor. His eyes fell and landed on top of the piled, still staring wide at Sombra.

Sombra lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Having fun?”

“NO!” Discord yelled as the bits and pieces of his body quickly put themselves back together and he de-stoned. “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!” he threw a tantrum while stomping. “Why?! Why won’t you just go away?!”

“You’re asking me?” Sombra lifted his brow while making a head motion towards Celestia.

Everypony glanced at Celestia. She scrunched up her face and blushed in embarrassment as she looked to the ceiling.

“Celestia!” Discord rushed over to Celestia. “You have some control of your power, right?! You need to find him in there and obliterate him! NOW!” he pointed angrily at Sombra. “If he’s still active, then he will keep trying to take control! We just went through this! You have to prevent it!”

Dash swallowed and stepped forward, but Spitfire held out a hoof and stopped her. Dash blinked and quickly looked towards her, but Spitfire didn’t even glance at her. She just shook her head subtly. Dash bit her lip and refocused on Discord and Celestia.

“I…” Celestia looked past Discord at Sombra. “I… don’t know if…”

“Save your breath, snake,” Sombra spoke up, causing Discord to snap around and stare at him with his mouth jammed shut and his lips slightly sucked inward. “I have no intention of the sort,” he snorted as he whisked his mane and looked away from all of them. Discord blinked rapidly for ten seconds.

“Oh yeah, sure!” He threw his arms out and snarled at Sombra. “You waited a thousand years for your moment and now you’re done? Give me a break!” He stared at Sombra, glaring for several moments, but Sombra just snorted again, his lips parting slightly. Discord paused for several moments, his expression lightening when he realized Sombra was not giving him any lip or harsh comebacks. “Whoa… wait a sec… are you telling me…” he lifted a finger with a blank look on his face.

Sombra kept his eyes averted, his face contorting so much that he looked like he had bad gas and was holding it all in.

“You can’t?” Discord finished.

“Grrrgh…” Sombra swished his mane around to block part of his face as he quietly snarled.

Discord’s jaw hung open for a moment before turning and looking at everypony else. He looked like he was at a loss, too many reactions conflicting for him to say or do anything as if they all cancelled out.

“Okay, Dash… now go,” Spitfire motioned to her.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and glanced at her.

“It’s time to start asking the questions around here, and I think you should go first,” she suggested. Dash was caught off guard, but… Spitfire was right. Sombra appearing filled her with questions, and since she was clearly a part of what happened…

Dash stepped forward, several eyes fixing on her as she moved past Celestia, walking slowly up to Sombra. Sombra perked up and turned his head slightly to see Dash coming closer, but he huffed and looked away again.

“So you too huh?” Dash stated casually. Sombra blinked and looked directly at her. “Both you and Celestia are trapped in Soarin?”

“I’m not trapped.” Sombra huffed.

“What do you want to call it then?” Dash added, lifting her brow. Sombra glanced at her briefly, but puffed his cheeks out and blew the air out through his lips.

“I’m not trapped, I’m… stuck,” he weakly argued.

“Pffffffffff…” Fleetfoot nearly burst out laughing, but Spitfire quickly bopped her on the head.

“Fine, we’ll go with that,” Dash sat down and crossed her arms. “So what exactly is stopping you from trying?” Dash asked.

“Trying what?”

“Taking over,” she clarified. Sombra narrowed his eyes at her. He looked up and around, his eyes landing on Luna, Celestia, and Discord. He then glanced at Soarin.

“I don’t owe you any explanation,” he turned his back and sat down.

“So it’s just, ‘you can’t’ then?” Dash asked.

“I… Rgggggggh!” Sombra growled angrily. He shot a glare over his shoulder, but Dash didn’t budge. “Feh…” he slumped down slightly, shaking his head out before turning only halfway back around. “Fine, I can’t… is that what you all wanted to hear? I’m stuck inside Soarin between his Spirit and Celestia’s power!”

Dash smirked as he angrily snapped at her. She was able to pry something out of him after all.

“I can’t do anything to Soarin! He has the power of a god welling within him!” he looked away and appeared to calm down a little. “Besides… even if it was within my power to try. I won’t do it. I’m a stallion of my word.”

“Huh?” Dash blinked, then perked up as the sound of a quiet gasp came from behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see everypony glancing at Celestia, whose eyes were wide and had a hoof over her mouth.

“Stallion of your word?” Dash asked. “What do you mean?” she prodded as Sombra’s eyes widened.

“No, enough.” He turned away from them again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well what the hell did you come out here for then?” Spitfire asked as she stepped up behind Dash. “Or was Discord’s voice just that annoying to you?”

“Mostly that,” Sombra didn’t hesitate to say as Discord harrumphed.

“Well I hate to break it to you, your majesty, but you can’t just pop out of my friend as a ghost and expect us not to be curious. If you didn’t want to talk, you should’ve stayed in there.” Spitfire said while pointing at Soarin. “Well?”

“Meh…” Sombra half-heartedly replied.

“Not so tough when you can’t intimidate us with power, are you?” she added.

Sombra spun around and glared at her, his lips parted to reveal gritted teeth.

“Yes, yes, you’re big and scary,” Spitfire said sarcastically.

“And pretty damn sexy…” Fleetfoot dreamily added from the back.

“Look, you’re not fooling me or anypony,” Spitfire took a step towards him. “If you can show yourself out here, you can just as easily go back in. You’re choosing to stay out here. So are you going to talk to us about anything? Or were you just lonely or something?”

“My vote’s for him going back in and staying there…” Discord muttered quietly.

“I heard that,” Sombra snarled towards him.

“Oooooo! Such a tough guy!” Discord slithered up into his face and gave him a one-eyed glare. “What are you going to do, project yourself on me?” he snapped back as Sombra flattened his brow and snorted. “Say, how are you doing this anyway?” he asked while pulling back and rubbing his chin. “Celestia I can understand, but you?”

“I still have my own magic, nitwit,” Sombra grunted while pointing to his horn, a very soft glow appearing upon it. “Please, if she can do it, then so can I.”

“All of your magic? Or just a little bit?” Discord smarmily cooed at him. Sombra scrunched his face. “HA! Thought so!”

“Okay, okay…” Celestia suddenly moved forward. “That’s enough…” she said as she stepped in between the two, but faced Discord as she sat between the two of them. “Sombra is inside Soarin with me… we are both in the same situation, able to move and exist freely thanks to our magic reserves being present, but unable to rip ourselves free. Sombra’s magic is likely still accessible by Soarin, but it’s being held in place by my own power,” she explained, keeping her eyes on Discord. “So he’s telling the truth… you don’t need to worry about him trying anything because he can’t.”

“Hrmph…” Sombra huffed.

“And…” Celestia glanced back at Sombra. “I firmly believe he doesn’t intend to try.”

“Terrific…” Discord turned to the side and crossed his arms. “So much for my good mood.”

“To hell with your good mood, I’m glad to ruin it,” Sombra snorted at him.

Discord turned to snap back, but Celestia threw her wings out.

“I said that’s enough! Both of you!” she said sharply as the Wonderbolts looked on. “Discord, this isn’t the time! Right now we need to figure out how to stabilize Soarin. Look at it this way, Sombra will be a big help in getting him figured out.”

“I have no intention of helping you,” Sombra quickly retorted. Celestia blinked as her eyes grew.

“I could have told you that was coming,” Discord said while shrugging. Celestia quickly turned to him.

“Sombra! Why? You’re just as stuck here as I am!” she demanded, but Sombra shrugged.

“I’m not the one who got us all into this now, am I?” he said while tilting his head. “This is YOUR mess. YOU clean it up.”

“Why are you being like this?!” Celestia pouted and stomped a hoof angrily.

“Sheesh, Spitty…” Fleetfoot moved up between Dash and Spitfire as the two continued to bicker. “It’s like watching a married couple.”

“Hrrrgggnnn…” Spitfire groaned, rubbing a hoof to her forehead. “I can already tell this is going to be LOADS of fun.”

Dash watched as Celestia and Sombra continued to go back and forth at one another. Discord was standing close by, staring flatly at the two of them. With a quick scan around the room, Dash found the rest to be just sort of there. The rest of the Wonderbolts had been silenced. Descent was still in the back with the Renegades, her Ponyville friends along with Shining Armor and Cadence just continued to stare, and Luna looked mortified.

“Wow,” Fleetfoot went on as Celestia started looming over Sombra, using her slight size advantage. “Makes me wonder what the make-up sex is like. There’s no way he’s on top.”

Spitfire winced as Dash let a chuckle escape her lips.

“Fleet, you find the weirdest times to think about these things,” Spitfire said with a sigh.

“It’s a talent,” Fleetfoot giggled. “For real though, what if he’s the one in control? Man, how good is he if he can get an eternal goddess going beneath the sheets?”

“Fleet, stooooooooop,” Spitfire threw her head back and groaned.

“Say, Dashie, when they got down and dirty in Soarin’s head, did you feel it?” she asked. Dash ignored the question, but lifted an eyebrow.

“Weren’t you grossed out by that a second ago?” she asked.

“After giving it more thought it sounded kind of kinky,” Fleetfoot shrugged and bounced her eyebrows.

“Okay, FINE! How about this?!” Sombra suddenly yelled, catching their attention again. “I’ll consider helping you…” he narrowed his eyes at Celestia. “If you… give them the last detail!”

Everypony just looked on as he said it, not sure what he meant. But Celestia…

Her ears perked up and she stiffened.

“You heard me!” Sombra pressed as he leaned towards her. “That was a fine little explanation and admission of guilt, but you left one particular tidbit out! What, afraid it will completely ruin your standing with them? That is, if there is anything left to salvage.”

“What is he going on about?” Discord asked. “Celestia?”

Celestia was frozen in place. Everypony else was focused on her as well.

“That look should tell you she knows exactly what I’m talking about. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? And did you really think I’d let you get away with that one?”

“Whoa, hold on…” Spitfire stepped forward when she noticed Celestia’s demeanor. “Oh for crying out loud, don’t tell me you flat out lied to us right here!” she asked angrily.

“Oh she didn’t lie…” Sombra stood up and started pacing around her. “She just didn’t tell the whole truth. Go on, Celes… you can’t wiggle out of this now.”

Celestia suddenly blinked hard and took a deep breath, exhaling.

“You’re right… I can’t,” she said firmly, surprising Sombra slightly. “And I’m ashamed of myself for trying to. But… if that’s what it will take to get your help, fine. I’m done running away from this.”

She turned and faced the rest of them, even Discord looking curious.

“I said that I saw a vision of the future…” she began. “And it was without Soarin, leading me to use his critically injured state as a front for my goal.”

She paused, taking note of how Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Dash all specifically hardened their gaze as she once again spoke of something they were all very much a part of. Celestia swallowed, but did not falter.

“I saw his demise… long before the tornado incident in Ponyville,” she swallowed again. “And… I was there when it happened.”

There was a brief pause.

“Wait, wait, wait…” Fleetfoot held her hooves out. “What do you mean you were there?!”

“I was watching from afar…” Celestia admitted, glancing up to see even Discord staring at her with slight surprise. “I let Soarin almost die so I could go through with my transfer of Sombra’s spirit.”

The room went completely silent. Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot all staring with wide eyes as Sombra smirked behind Celestia. Spitfire sat down, the look on her face changing to disturbed.

“I… what…? You…?” Spitfire’s face twitched as if she didn’t know what to say. The admissions before had satisfied her but something about this one bit left out was digging in really deep.

“That’s just…” Fleetfoot looked back and forth between Soarin and Celestia. “What in the fuck is wrong with y—?”

“For crying out loud…” a voice from the back interrupted. Dash perked up and looked over her shoulder to see Descent moving towards them with a frustrated look on his face. “WHO CARES?!” he belted while shaking his head. “How long are we going to spend on this?” he asked as he stepped right by Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot. He placed himself between them and Celestia, looking back and forth. “At this point, what the hell does any of it matter?!” he exclaimed as he held a hoof out. “Soarin this, Soarin that… he said, she said, he did, she did… We’re picking through one small part of events that happened a year ago!” he exclaimed while turning to look at Spitfire. Fleetfoot’s expression lightened and she tipped her head slightly.

“It’s only been a year? It’s felt way longer…”

“I really don’t give a damn how Soarin was infused with Sombra or what led up to the moment he was,” Descent went on. “None of this has to do with the Shadowbolts. We attacked Ponyville on Nightshade’s order, I engaged Soarin in combat, and we almost killed each other. It happened, it’s over, and it’s done with. We’re sitting here pointing hooves and throwing accusations when we should be more worried about what’s still out there here and now!”

“But…” Celestia bit her lip. “The Shadowbolts targeted Soarin after I transferred Sombra to him. That is what your focus became, isn’t it?”

“And what would be different had you not?” Descent snorted as he lifted his brow at Celestia. “Our benefactor sent us after Soarin because of Sombra’s power. Had you not transferred it, we could have come after you for all we know. Or…” Descent put a hoof out to his side. “Knowing the nefarious nature of what’s taken hold of my family… for all we know our orders to attack Ponyville were given to us knowing of what you intended to do. We cannot rule that out.”

“Now you have others making excuses for you, Celes… how convenient,” Sombra cut in.

“Don’t start talking like you know anything about this,” Descent sharply turned to Sombra.

“I beg your pardon?” Sombra huffed.

“The one pulling the strings of the Shadowbolts has made one thing clear… they are after YOU! They completely disengaged the Wonderbolts when you took over Soarin’s body for crying out loud!” Descent sharply jabbed his hoof in Sombra’s face. “And as far as I’m concerned, nothing that has happened in between matters, because that would still be the same. The Shadowbolts would still be under control and still be a threat,” he turned to Celestia. “So how about we stop all this senseless mudslinging and start worrying about the only part of this mess that has affected us all?”

Spitfire stared for a few moments, her face still somewhat showing signs of disgust at Celestia, but…

“I… hhrmmm…” she sighed and hummed. “Descent… I’d really like to tell you to shut the hell up and stay out of our business, but… why the hell do you have to make so much sense?” She looked up, her eyes looking tired and done for the moment, glancing back and forth at Fleetfoot and Dash. “As much as I want to stick my hoof as far up Celestia’s ass as possible and tear all of her heavenly insides out, we need to be real about this. We all need to be real about this. We had our disaster situation with Soarin and Sombra, but here we are on the other side of it. The circumstances just got really weird…” she trailed off as she looked between Soarin, Celestia, and Sombra. “But that doesn’t change the fact we still very much should be spending our time and energy on dealing with the Shadowbolts. We just now have to work with what we have… and we can start,” she pointed at Soarin. “By solving this problem. So why don’t we handle this first. Anypony disagree?”

Dash perked up as Spitfire turned and looked directly at her, as if she was asking her specifically. But the look in Spitfire’s eyes said more than words really could. She looked exhausted and extremely frustrated.

Dash found herself at odds as well. She wanted to be angry, but even before Descent spoke up she felt strangely unaffected by Celestia’s admission. Perhaps Descent spoke what was on her mind. At this point, what did it really matter? She didn’t like it, but there was no time to dwell on ‘what if’s. Celestia came out and admitted that she had been wrong in her actions so what did one more piece on the top of the pile matter? They were here. This was now. The Shadowbolts would have been around regardless. That didn’t mean they were suddenly going to be fine with Celestia, or any of the gods for that matter, but none of them had to say that… it was a given at this point.

Dash watched as the Wonderbolts came forward, congregating around Spitfire with concern as they sensed the slight distress of their captain, but she tried her best to not let it show.

“Good,” Spitfire said with another exasperated sigh. “Get to work on him, please,” Spitfire whisked a hoof towards Celestia and Discord.

“I… yes, we will,” Celestia looked away from her. “Come now, Sombra. We have much to—”

“I’m not doing anything,” Sombra abruptly cut her off, drawing everypony’s attention.

“What?!” Celestia exclaimed. “I confessed! Now help like you said!”

“I said I would CONSIDER helping you, I never said I would,” Sombra explained.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Celestia fumed at him, as Discord sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling.

Descent glared at the two of them as they started bickering once again, but Dash reached forward and grabbed his shoulder, shaking her head as he looked back at her.

“Let them figure their part out,” Dash suggested.

“Such a clown show…” Descent grumbled as he followed Dash back over to Spitfire and the rest of the Wonderbolts, Lightning Dust lingering behind them.

“Hey, Descent…” Spitfire spoke up as he approached. “Thanks for handling that, I… ugh…” she grunted.

“I just want us to stay on point. I couldn't care less how we got here because the real problem has never changed,” he said with a snort.

“Maybe for you,” Fleetfoot huffed. “This part of it is a bit more personal for us,” she stated with several of the others nodding in agreement behind her.

“It is personal for us,” Spitfire agreed with her. “And we’ve made that crystal clear to them, so there’s no need for us to push it any further. All I want right now is for Soarin’s situation to be worked out and that’s something only they can do. Our energy is best focused elsewhere. Speaking of…” she turned to Descent. “We haven’t touched base in a while. You’ve been sending out scouts, right?”

“Yes, but I have nothing to share,” Descent said with a snort. “I’m not about to believe that the Shadowbolts have run away, but there has been no sign of them. That’s with a large expansion in our covered ground, by the way. Not even the Fortress has been spotted anywhere. Wherever they are, it’s not within a hundred mile radius of the Empire.”

“That’s… I’m not sure how to feel about that. But I guess there’s nothing else we can do about it. If anything, it’s clear they can’t get through the shield.”

Dash perked up when she heard Spitfire mention the shield. They couldn’t get through the shield? Part of her wanted to speak up about Ruin but… her memory of his involvement was hazy at best. Something held her back… she didn’t know what, but… it was almost as if she no longer considered Ruin to be one of the Shadowbolts. He was with them, sure, but something about him was entirely different.

But also… they had an answer for him. If he was the only one who could get through, so long as they had Twister they would be fine. Dash had seen enough to understand just how hard Twister smacked him in the face for doing anything against them… and frankly, Ruin seemed to dislike Twister to the point of avoiding him at all costs. So… as long as Twister stayed put and didn’t pull another vanishing act, all would be well.

“That isn’t an excuse to relax,” Descent stated firmly.

“I’m not gonna argue with you about that right now,” Spitfire said with a sigh. “I just need a few things to be set in place before I consider anything else…” she said while looking at Soarin, but her eyes were drawn towards Sombra and Celestia STILL arguing. “Uuuuughhh… I’m done here,” she turned back to the Wonderbolts. “We’ve wasted enough time with…” Spitfire froze in place. “With… with… whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Everypony looked at Spitfire curiously as her speech suddenly got really strange and her eyes started to grow wider.

“Whhhhhhh… Celestia… image… magic… Celestia… we need…” she started rambling, her eyes growing wider and wider and her ears pointing up as straight as possible.

“What in the fuck has gotten into her?” Blaze asked as everypony else stared with concern.

“Spitty? Hello?” Fleetfoot waved a hoof in front of her face as she and Surprise looked her over carefully.

Dash looked at Spitfire as she continued to babble, slowly tracing her line of sight towards Celestia and Sombra bickering as Discord and Luna looked on.

“CRYSTALS…!” Spitfire shouted, smacking her hooves against the side of her head. “SPELL…! CELESTIA…! WE NEED… AAAAAAAAAH!!!!!” Spitfire suddenly rushed forward, crashing right through Fleetfoot and Surprise.

“WAH!” Fleetfoot yelped as she was thrown to the ground.

“WA—oh, wait…” Surprise halted mid-fall and pulled out a small bed that she placed beneath her. “WAH!” she also yelped as she landed on the bed with a POMF.

“Captain! What in the world are—” Fire Streak called after her, but Spitfire galloped towards Celestia, putting on the brakes and sliding right through Sombra’s image to stand directly in front of her.

“YOU!” she yelled in a frantic tone. “You… you said you can control some of your magic, right? RIGHT?!” she asked in a desperate tone.

“My… magic?” Celestia blinked. “Oh, yes. I can focus it through this projection a little,” she looked up at her horn and focused, the light appearing on it. “Why do you ask?”

“TWILIGHT!!!!!” Spitfire leaned over and yelled. “THE SPELL!”

“Huh?” Twilight Sparkle perked up, surrounded by Dash’s Ponyville crew as Spitfire called to her. The Wonderbolts were still confused, but then it hit Dash… and she gasped.

“The spell to cure the crystal sickness!!!” Spitfire yelled to her.

A massive rush of realization shot through all the Wonderbolts, ears turning up, eyes widening, and jaws hanging open.

Wave Chill.

“Celestia is here! She can use her magic! Where is the damn spell?! Where did you put it?!” Spitfire demanded. At this point it had hit Descent as well. His demeanor had completely crashed and became eager as well at the thought of helping the afflicted Shadowbolts.

“Oh!” Twilight remembered, Princess Cadence visibly reacting as well. “I… uh…” Twilight looked back and forth. “I don’t have it here with me…”

“What are you sputtering about?” Sombra grunted, glaring down at Spitfire for interrupting. Spitfire spun around and jammed a hoof in his face.

“YOU SHUT UP!” she shouted at him before immediately turning back to Celestia as Sombra leaned back and blinked a few times.

“I’m sorry, what is this about?” Celestia asked as Sombra listened in curiously. Spitfire sharply turned to her with an anxious look on her face.

“We have several ponies in medical confinement right now who are suffering from a sickness caused by the chaos magic the Shadowbolts’ crystals are imbued with,” Spitfire spoke a mile a minute but Celestia’s ears flicked back and forth, listening. “Most of them are Shadowbolts but there is one VERY IMPORTANT member of our force suffering from it as well. We found a spell that we think will cure them that requires the elements of harmony but we also need—”

“I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you,” Discord leaned into Spitfire’s view. “Did you forget our conversation before? If it was possible with so little power we could have had Lulu do it. We need Celestia for the spell, but she barely has any of her power under her contro—HRK!” Discord choked as Spitfire violently grabbed him by the neck and pressed her face into his.

“Listen here you slimy SHIT!” she hissed into his face. “I haven’t been able to have nice things for a long time now so if you try to pour cold water on my head when I finally have some hope, I’m going to tie the back end of you to a metal pole, tie the front end to the Crystal Express, and tell the engineer to punch the throttle all the way. After you’re completely stretched out as far as your silly body can manage, I’m untying the back end so it can whiplash all the way back to you so hard that your ass shoots out of your goddamn mouth!”

Discord just stared blankly at her, the whole room silent after her extremely elaborate threat.

“Can we try that anyway?” Sombra asked quietly.

“Let me see the spell,” Celestia calmly asked, looking towards Twilight.

“I got it,” Discord said in a higher pitched tone, Spitfire’s hooves squeezing his neck as he snapped his fingers and a scroll dropped out of the air at Celestia’s hooves. She reached down to pick it up, but her hoof passed right through it.

“Oh… right,” she chuckled nervously as her magic lit up and the scroll hovered up to her within her yellow aura, turning and opening. Spitfire dropped Discord on the ground, eagerly turning to Celestia as the Wonderbolts made their way forward to join her. Dash stayed with them, glancing briefly to see Twilight make her way towards them and place herself beside Celestia.

And then they waited. They waited and watched as Twilight began pointing to parts of the scroll and conversing with Celestia, who nodded and hummed along as they examined it. Spitfire kept tipping forward little by little, eventually getting to a point where the Streak twins both reached out to stop her from falling forward on her face.

“Hmmm…” Celestia suddenly hummed, her eyes narrowing slightly as she stared at the scroll.

Dash bit her lip, that didn’t sound good. The moment the idea of Wave being cured came up she felt excited for Spitfire. If anypony needed something to go right for them, it was her.

“I’m… not sure,” Celestia spoke as she rubbed her chin.

“Not sure of wha—Yee!” Spitfire squeaked as she tripped over herself, falling directly against Misty Fly. She caught herself, but eagerly stared at Celestia.

“I’m not sure the amount of power I can control will be enough, but…” Celestia continued to rub her chin as Twilight looked up towards her.

“But what?!” Spitfire bounced off Misty and stepped forward, barely able to see Celestia behind the scroll.

“But I can at least try,” she said as she closed the scroll and smiled at Spitfire. Spitfire’s pupils grew large as Celestia proposed it.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Discord asked. “The amount of power you control is barely a fraction of what you’re normally capable of. No doubt you’re having trouble keeping it within your grasp with the rest of it so close by. Is it worth risking being trapped beneath it again?”

Spitfire was about to launch herself at Discord again, but Celestia quickly shook her head.

“If you discussed this before and power output was the issue, you’re mistaken,” Celestia explained. “It’s not the amount of power that matters here, it’s the properties of divine magic. More specifically, awakened divine magic and the caster’s ability to shape and focus it. The Elements of Harmony need more output from within to make the spell work, but it’s less about how much power I pump into them and more about finding the sweet spot that will convince them to go the extra mile, and pushing my magic against it.”

Discord blinked.

“I was… what—OOF!” he grunted as Spitfire pushed him to the ground out of her hooves and clasped her hooves together towards Celestia.

“I didn’t understand a word of that, but will it work?” she asked.

“As I said, it’s at least worth trying. And as for the potential risk to myself…?”

She gave Spitfire her a firm nod.

“You said I had work to do to earn your trust back… I’ll start with this, here and now,” she said adamantly.

Spitfire didn’t know what to say. She swallowed and nodded in return.

“T…thank you, you can move a little from the body right? Come this way…” she beckoned Celestia and started moving to the door.

The rest all followed right behind, but Dash blinked and glanced over her shoulder.

Sombra had not budged, but he was staring at Celestia, his lips subtly parted as he watched her follow Spitfire out. He caught Dash looking at him and quickly averted his eyes, turning away as everypony else left. Dash shrugged and did the same.

Spitfire eagerly pushed the doors open, both of them swinging all the way around and hitting the wall with loud BANGS as she rushed in, fairly far ahead of the others. All the clerics in the room froze and quickly turned to look as Spitfire’s eyes landed on Wave Chill, still frozen in his containment crystal on his bed. The clerics glanced back and forth between one another, some of them with horns still alight performing a simple routine check before they were interrupted.

Spitfire spun around, blinking when she realized that none of the others had kept up with her.

“Hey! Come on!” she yelled while impatiently tapping a hoof on the floor.

“Yikes, sis, calm yer fucking tits,” Blaze commented as the rest made it to the doors.

“We can’t do anything until Twilight brings the elements,” Dash added, looking back at the rest of her Ponyville friends in tow, minus Twilight.

“Mmmmmfffgggmmggg…” Spitfire held her breath, puffing her cheeks out as she turned her back to them and stared at Wave.

“Well she better hurry up,” Descent grunted as he quickly trotted past everypony and started looking over all the Shadowbolts. He pushed aside any clerics in his way as they started looking over all the frozen Shadowbolts with concern. Lightning Dust followed behind.

“Sorry,” Dust apologized to the flustered clerics, who started actively getting out of Descent’s way as he made the rounds.

But the surprises were not over for the clerics. They all gasped suddenly, turning and facing the doors with their eyes wide as Celestia walked in with Shining Armor and Cadence in tow. Cadence quickly lifted a hoof to signal all of them.

“We’ll explain later,” she said calmly to them, which didn’t seem to work. They all just kept staring in surprise.

“Hmprh…” Discord slinked in behind Celestia with his arms crossed, pacing forward and stopping right beside the Wonderbolts as Spitfire continued to mumble to herself and teeter back and forth while looking over Wave Chill. “We don’t even know if this is going to work, you’d best calm down.”

Spitfire spun around and glared at him, her face scrunching up with anger.

“Oh, stop that already!” Discord threw his arms out. “I’m being realis—YEEEEEEEOOOW!!!!!" Discord yelped and flinched violently as Misty Fly suddenly slammed a hoof down over his tail as hard as she could. Discord quickly reached back and grabbed his tail, blowing on the spot that was stepped on. He glared down, but blinked when he saw Misty Fly shooting him a look of disapproval. He flattened his brow and placed a hand on her head, the chaos magic lighting up. “Really? You can’t even hear what I’m saying!” he growled. Misty simply lifted one eyebrow. “You ASSUMED I said something to deserve it?! Oh, come on!” Discord ripped his hand free and trudged away from them, leaning against a pillar and grumbling to himself.

The Wonderbolts all snickered to themselves as Misty put Discord in his place, but Dash perked up as she saw Fleetfoot moving towards Spitfire. She turned her ears to listen.

Spitfire had turned back to Wave, still mumbling to herself and pouting. Fleetfoot moved beside her and placed a hoof on the side of her arm.

“Don’t let that jackass get you down, Spitty…” she said in a soft, comforting tone while rubbing her hoof gently on Spitfire’s shoulder. “I hope this works too.”

Dash’s throat felt tight as she saw Spitfire struggling. She couldn’t hold back, feeling compelled to go to her as well. Spitfire had just finished expressing how much she wanted to re-establish their friendship. It was time to make good on that. Without another thought, she made her way forward to join the two of them.

“Yeah, screw Discord,” Dash said bluntly, and clearly loud enough for Discord to hear as she nudged Spitfire from the other side. “I think he’s just mad that he isn’t part of the solution.”

“Hardly…” Discord mumbled off to the side, but was ignored.

“Look, I get it…” Dash stepped in front of her and poked a hoof to Spitfire’s chest. “Hell I know exactly how this feels, I’ve been through it several times with Soarin.” She explained.

“Hrmmmm…” Spitfire hummed, looking Dash in the eyes for only a moment.

“I’ll do my part in the spell for you, not just Wave, okay?” Dash promised. “Just leave it to us.”

Fleetfoot smiled, exchanging a nod with Dash as Spitfire jittered and sat down, releasing a heavy sigh.

“I just… want him back… so badly…” she said shakily, reaching a hoof over and grabbing her opposite shoulder. “I need him…” she nearly whispered as she shivered.

Fleetfoot about broke on the spot, quickly hugging Spitfire tightly, turning her head to the side as her cheek nestled against Spitfire’s chest. She glanced towards Dash as she held onto Spitfire, she said nothing, but the look in her eyes was one of pleading, as if begging Dash to make this work, even if she was just a small part of it.

Dash nodded, determined to succeed or at least do everything she could to make sure it did. And right on cue… Twilight trotted into the room with the box containing the elements.

“I’m here! Sorry for the wait!” she exclaimed, drawing all eyes to her. “I’m hoping the elements are stable…” she said nervously as she placed the box on the floor.

That little bit didn’t go unnoticed though. Dash’s ears twitched as she turned from Spitfire and made her way towards the elements with the rest of her friends.

“Stable?” Dash asked as she tried to look past them, but couldn’t see the elements until she pushed by Applejack and Rarity. But when she stared into the open box, nothing looked out of the ordinary.

“Didja already forget?” Pinkie suddenly asked as she popped up beside Dash. “We all got our minds blown!” she exclaimed while placing her hooves on her forehead and making a fwoosh noise with her lips while slowly moving them away.

“Oh… right,” Dash gritted her teeth, but regardless…

“They look fine t’me, what’s the hold up?” Applejack asked.

“They didn’t really look fine for several days after all the fighting,” Twilight explained with a pout. “They were still steaming three days later… and the gems only stopped flashing a few days ago.”

“Oh my…” Fluttershy quietly said as she took a step back.

“You were up and about in three days?” Rarity groaned as she rubbed her head. “My headache didn’t go away for a week at least!”

Dash scrunched her face, not particularly liking the tone going around here. Not after she just adamantly decided to give it her best shot for Spitfire.

“Oh, whatever. Let’s get this going!” Dash stated strongly as she reached into the box and grabbed her necklace, fastening it around her neck and turning to look at all of them. “See? I didn’t explode in a giant fireball of pain, now quite bellyaching and get geared up!” she demanded, tapping one hoof into the other.

Applejack, Twilight, and Pinkie all didn’t hesitate, but Dash’s eyes shifted to Rarity and Fluttershy, who still seemed to hesitate. She sighed and glanced between the two of them.

“Please?” she added simply before looking towards Spitfire. “Can you help me do it for her?”

The two of them looked over to Spitfire as Fleetfoot continued to comfort her.

“Ooooooh…” Rarity moaned. “I will… I just don’t want another headache…” she said as she grabbed her necklace with her magic and put it on.

“Um…” Fluttershy stood still as her cover behind Rarity ceased the moment she stepped away.

“Please, Fluttershy?” Dash repeated, trying to sound the least demanding as possible.

“Oh… um, I… was going to anyway. I’m just… itreallyhurtlasttime…” she said really fast, shrinking down for a moment. “Hmmm…” she hummed meekly as she retrieved her element.

“We’re ready,” Twilight nodded towards Celestia as she placed the tiara on her head. Celestia smiled back, but Discord stepped over to her.

“The question is, are you?” he asked Celestia seriously. Celestia looked at all the Element Bearers, all the Wonderbolts, and everypony else staring at her. The only pony not looking at her was Spitfire.

“As long as the Element Bearers can maintain the lens… I will do my best to complete the spell,” she said, trying to suppress hesitation. The Element Bearers turned and moved into place, setting themselves up. But before Celestia could join them, Discord leaned towards her ear.

“Look me in the eye for a second will you?” he whispered. Celestia blinked and looked at him. “Is what you said about the spell actually true?”

Celestia flinched subtly.

“You lied, didn’t you… you do need more power to do it, don’t you?” Discord snorted. “You’re just trying to get back on their good side by ‘trying’ is that it? And lying on top of it? You really are just trying to snake your way around all this.”

Celestia stared at him, her expression frozen for several moments, but narrowed her eyes.

“So what if I did?” she hissed quietly back at him as Cadence stepped in front of the Elements of Harmony. “Who says I can’t try with what I can control? I’m VERY serious about that!”

“Is it really worth potentially losing your current form and being sucked back into a place where you can’t communicate with or help us?”

“Yes it is,” she huffed without hesitation.

“Seems like a wasted effort to me…” Discord rolled his eyes.

“You haven’t been put through what I have… Now butt out.”

Discord’s eyes widened and he turned back to Celestia, but she had already turned away from him. She moved in behind the Elements of Harmony and gave them a nod.

Dash whistled forward to Fleetfoot.

“Yo, Fleet!” she called making a head motion to the side. “We’re gonna do it!”

“C’mon, Spitty…” Fleetfoot grabbed her and gently tugged at her. Spitfire swallowed, but didn’t resist, keeping her eyes locked on Wave Chill as Fleetfoot pulled her back towards the rest of the Wonderbolts, who all gathered around her to keep her steady.

“Alright, we’re using the usual formation,” Twilight explained. “Once we’re all connected, we just need to hold it in place while Celestia does the rest. Everypony set?”

They all nodded, Dash nodding harder than the rest as she kept her eyes trained on Wave Chill’s bed.

“Cadence, you’re up,” Twilight gave a nod towards Cadence.

Princess Cadence took a deep breath as she stepped forward and her magic lit up on her horn.

“This should only take a moment,” she said with a nod. “Removing the crystal containers is not nearly as dramatic a process as creating them. I’ll have them ready for you in short order.”

“We’ll start the moment they’re free,” Twilight agreed.

Celestia kept her eyes forward from the back, but she glanced to her left as Luna approached her with concern.

“Please be careful…” she said weakly. “We wish for you to remain where we can reach you…”

“I’ll be fine, Luna,” Celestia assured her. “Even if I get pulled back into Soarin… I’ll find a way back out.” She said with a smile. Luna did not look convinced, but she also knew she wasn’t going to change her mind. So she stepped back and stood beside Discord, who was lightly shaking his head with his arms crossed.

Cadence tipped her neck up, the soft glow around her horn intensifying for a moment until it all gathered on tip of her horn in a ball.

“Here goes!” she exclaimed as she sharply whipped her head down. The ball of light jumped from her horn and into the air, stopping in the center of the room. It hovered in place for a couple of seconds before it pulsated rapidly and popped, sending a small, fast moving beam of light towards every single occupied bed. The beams struck the crystal surfaces, the light covering each crystal entirely, glowing brightly for only a moment before the magic appeared to simply wipe them away from the head of the bed down. The light slowly traveled over each crystal… until each one of them was gone without a trace and uncomfortable grunts and groans started coming from the bed occupants.

Fleetfoot flinched as she felt Spitfire’s hoof grip her shoulder very tightly. Wave was out, and he was stirring just like all the others. They were all still clearly in immense pain.

“Up we go!” Dash called to her friends as Twilight began the sequence, channeling the power of the Element of Magic. The others came to life and they began to rise. Dash was admittedly nervous at first. She talked a tough game, but she hadn’t forgotten how much it hurt when the Elements backfired. The others were all watching their Element as well as they began to glow and they began to lift up off the ground.

But the process continued without any sign of problems, Dash glancing about at the others and smiling as they all realized the Elements were not shaking, steaming, or giving them any headaches for that matter.

They could do this. Easy as pie.

They were all in position shortly, in their pentagon formation with Twilight in the center. Their eyes were filled with light and a white glow shined out of them as the rainbow ribbons began splitting out and connecting all of them together. All of the ribbons eventually made their way to Twilight and she threw her head up as the connection finished. But unlike usual, she did not direct it to fire outward, she held the energy in place.

“Your turn, Princess!” Twilight yelled back to her.

Celestia stepped forward, staring adamantly at Twilight, specifically at the back of the Element of Magic, her target. She took a long, deep breath, exhaling as she concentrated, the aura of her magic appearing on her horn. She held steady, bringing forward as much of the power as she could as carefully as she could, her image flickering as she worked to maintain her projection. She needed the projection to remain to even use the magic at all, so losing the form was not an option.

“Rgh…” she suddenly twitched and her image fizzled and waved for a moment, but she steadied herself and opened her eyes. “Looks like that’s all I’m going to get…” she said to herself, peering up at the yellow aura surrounding her horn.

Without waiting for another moment, Celestia tipped her horn towards the Element of Magic… and released it.

A thin, sharpened beam of divine alicorn magic shot out, striking the star on Twilight’s tiara.

“Ooooh!” Twilight flinched in surprise “Whooooaaaaaa!!!” she shuddered as a yellow outline surrounded the white glow encasing her. Celestia stuck her tongue out of the side of her lips, her eyes narrowing as she carefully navigated the flow to the five connecting points leading out to each of the other elements.

The rest reacted in kind, the warmth of Celestia’s power catching them all off guard as the zinging euphoric sensations climbed up and down their bodies. Dash recognized it… she felt the same way during her little incident in the gym recently, but it wasn’t nearly as strong… so it was up to her to keep the rest in line.

“Focus, girls! Focus!” Dash yelled. “I know it feels good! But we’ve got a job to do!”

It seemed to do the trick. While they all wore varying expressions with some more thrilled and stimulated than others, Rarity in particular, none of them were on the verge of losing their focus, all still aware of what they were trying to do.

“There!” Celestia smirked, panting lightly as she managed to navigate the magic all the way around the formation and back to the center. “Now… I just… Need to…!” she took a step forward, slamming her eyes shut as she pushed everything she was able to muster into the beam. She grunted uncomfortably as the flow expanded, striking the Element of Magic.

The effect that ensued was a spectacle, the elements of harmony acting like the sun itself as a wide ray of gentle sunlight expanded outward, bathing all of the bed occupants in its warmth.

“Ahhhh… AAGGH!!!!” Celestia suddenly groaned, her legs buckling and her image flickering madly.

“Celestia, STOP!” Discord stepped out with Luna close behind.

“Sister! You mustn’t!”

But both of them suddenly lurched backwards, yelping in surprise. Luna fell flat, but Discord fell to a knee, looking back just in time to see a blue magic aura vanish from around his tail.

“HNG!” Celestia opened her eyes, her image stabilizing. “I can… hold it together! I… can…”

Everypony shielded their eyes as the projected sunlight began to flash brightly in all directions. Even Dash and her friends were forced to squint as the light became too bright to look directly into.

But then with a sudden shrill crackling noise and a small blip, all the light vanished.

Celestia gasped and fell, her image becoming filled with static and barely holding together.

“Princess!” Twilight exclaimed, the ribbons of light between the elements receding and all of them lowering to the ground.

Twilight ran to Celestia with Luna, Discord, and Cadence close behind. Discord reached down to support Celestia, but his hands went right through the image.

“Ahhh…” Celestia gasped weakly as she opened her eyes, taking heavy breaths. “Ow… that was… not pleasant…” she commented.

Dash stared towards Celestia, then looked towards Wave Chill.

Nothing had changed. There were still crystals on his body.

“What happened?!” Spitfire yelled out as she stared towards Wave. “Did anything happen?!”

“It…” Discord blew air through his nostrils. “It doesn’t look like it…” he said with a grunt as he stared down at Celestia barely keeping herself together.

“Wh… what…? But…” Spitfire began shaking as several of the Wonderbolts grabbed hold of her.

“It failed?!” Descent yelled as he stomped forward. “Is that what you’re telling me?!” he snarled at Discord, who didn’t even look at him.

“Heh…” Celestia suddenly chuckled. Everypony blinked and looked down at her, her image stabilizing again, though she still looked drained. “On the contrary…”

Every pair of ears stood straight up as quiet crackling noises began to fill the air. Dash’s eyes widened as she looked back towards Wave and gasped.

“SPITFIRE! LOOK!” Dash exclaimed.

But Spitfire was already looking, her eyes stuck open as wide as can be as the crystals covering Wave… began to chip and crack.

“I barely had enough, but… I think I held on just long enough…” Celestia added as she sighed heavily and let her head rest on the ground, a smile on her face.

“WHOAIIE!” Fleetfoot yelped as Spitfire nearly shoved her off of her, breaking into a gallop. Dash stood aside, pulling Fluttershy and Rarity with her to clear the way as Spitfire charged towards Wave’s bed.

Spitfire skidded to a halt, placing both hooves on Wave’s bed as she stared at the crystals on his body.

One by one… they started breaking apart. Spitfire nearly went into shock. She held her breath, her heart thumping madly as her pupils shook.

One crystal gone.

Then another.

Then another.

And another.

No markings were left behind, all the scarring vanishing.

“Ah… ah…” Spitfire sputtered, sitting down as she clasped her hooves over her chest. The sounds of clinking and crackling filling the room as the crystals on every afflicted pony broke apart one at a time. Aside from the sound of Descent’s hooves galloping towards the Shadowbolts, not another sound was made, all of them watching in awe. Even Discord was in disbelief.

Spitfire blinked, freezing in place as the final crystal on Wave’s body shattered.

And he began to stir, his eyes twitching.

“Ngh…” he grunted lightly, his body shimmying a little beneath the blanket.

Then he slowly opened his eyes, staring directly up into the air with a very drained and tired look set upon his face.

Spitfire clasped her hooves over her mouth.

“Uhhhhh…” Wave groaned again, his eyes slowly opening wider and blinking. “Wha…?” he blinked a few more times, still looking straight up. “I…” he moved his arms. “The pain is…” he slowly shifted, placing his arms on the mattress and scooting back…

He started to sit up.

Spitfire’s body started shaking, light and quick breaths escaped from her mouth, and tears started squeaking out of her eyes as she watched Wave rise from the bed, slightly hunched over, looking dazed and confused.

“I’m… all better…?” he said in calm disbelief as he looked down at his hooves. Then he perked up, blinked, and turned his head, locking eyes with Spitfire. “Captain?”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!!!!!!!!!” Spitfire cried out, launching herself at him.

“Whoa!” Wave yelped as Spitfire tackled him, pushing him right back down onto the mattress with a very uncomfortable grunt. “GHK! Gah… C…Captain… Spitfire… I’m sore… ouch!” he sputtered weakly, his body jittering all over as she squeezed him.

But Spitfire refused to let go and refused to let up. She held onto him as tightly as she could, her body shaking, sniffling and whimpering as she dug her face into his chest. As groggy and confused as he was, Wave noticed… and instead of asking questions, he let it be. He was better… and Spitfire was overwhelmed. He’d figure out the rest later. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and placed a hoof gently on the back of her head, rubbing it gently as he looked over towards the rest of the Wonderbolts.

He scanned them, seeing the look of relief on their faces. Fleetfoot was leaning into Rainbow Dash and had her hooves clasped together in front of her face, crying her own tears of joy for both him and Spitfire. The Streak twins and Surprise were struggling to hold back Misty, who looked extremely eager to rush forward. High Winds was comforting Blaze as she held a jittery tear filled pout, both angry at him for worrying her and happy that he was okay. Air Mach had his glasses in his hoof, keeping his exclamations to himself as he acknowledged the recovery of a fellow stallion.

He frowned briefly when he saw that neither Soarin nor Silver were present, but again… he’d figure out the details later. He was roughly informed of what had been going on, but he had no idea how long he had been out.

But again, that could all wait as he returned his attention to the wailing mare in his arms, repeating his name over and over while squeezing him as hard as she could.

“Heeeeeeeeee!” Fleetfoot made a sound close to that of a tea kettle as she leaned harder against Dash. “Oh my god… Ahhhhhhhh, this is the best thing…!” she said quietly as she grabbed Dash and hugged her tightly.

“Whoa, whoa…” Dash chuckled as Fleetfoot nearly pushed her over, placing a hoof on her head and pressing down to keep her from bouncing.

Dash herself could scarcely believe it. It was one thing to suddenly have the hope that they could cure Wave, it was another to actually do it… and see him sitting up and free of the sickness. Add one extremely frustrated mare moved to tears, finally having something go her way? It was the most heartwarming thing she had seen in a long time. She also appreciated that the Wonderbolts were not crowding him, Spitfire clearly needed this moment… though it looked like the rest of Misty’s squad was having a hell of a time holding her back.

While most of her attention was on Wave, Spitfire, and the quietly squealing mare melting on her side, Dash took a moment to glance towards the Shadowbolts as they all slowly rose from their beds looking just as groggy and confused as Wave. Descent was quickly making the rounds, checking on each of them one at a time with Lightning Dust hovering behind.

Dash was happy for Descent too. He was holding a no-nonsense expression as he went around, but he wasn’t fooling her. He had spoken extensively on how important the Shadowbolts were to him and had often referred to them as if they were his own kin. He was putting on a tough guy act right now, but inside? She had no doubt he was ecstatic.

“I… huh…” Discord’s voice came from behind Dash.

Dash blinked and looked over her shoulder to see him standing near Luna, and Celestia as Twilight and Cadence moved in to help the clerics run checks on the newly cured patients. Discord was staring at the cured ponies, his lips parted as he scanned them over.

“I don’t know what to say…” he admitted as he looked back at Celestia. She was still sitting, panting, and generally looked extremely tired as she held onto her projection. She smirked at him and lifted her brow.

“I told you I could do it,” she said coyly with a wink before groaning and leaning forward a bit as her image flickered.

“Reckless as always…” Discord sighed and huffed, crossing his arms and looking away after being proven wrong. It was an interesting sight for Dash, to say the least. Discord refused to ever admit fault or a misstep to anypony else… but Celestia? He didn’t hesitate to admit anything to her. Gotta earn those white knight points it seemed.

“Huh?” Dash perked up as something caught her eye.

In the back… behind a pillar near the door…

Was that Sombra? The image of Sombra was subtly peeking around the corner. His head shifted, his eyes suddenly meeting Dash’s. He flinched so hard that his image flickered before he stepped back and was gone from view.

“Guys, help…!” Fire Streak suddenly called out as he, Lightning, and Surprise began skidding a little along the floor.

“She’s on a warpath!” Surprise exclaimed as Misty was starting to drag them along in her attempts to get to Wave.

Dash quickly scanned the others, but none of them were really paying attention. So she took matters into her own hooves.

“Hey, everypony… let’s wait outside,” she suggested as she managed to detach Fleetfoot from her and moved in front of them. “Let them have a moment… we can catch up with Wave later,” she suggested as she moved in front to block Misty. She placed a hoof on Misty’s chest and gave her a stern, but soft look, indicating that she wanted her to reign it in for now. Misty seemed to catch on, but her response was to make her eyes very wide and put on the most adorable disappointed pout Dash had ever seen.

Dash’s face twitched a little, but she held strong and shook her head no as she started helping them pull Misty back, the rest all turning to follow Dash’s suggestion. Dash ended up next to Fire as they pulled the unwilling Misty Fly along. She nudged him and chuckled.

“What a face, how in Equestria do you ever resist it?”

“With extreme difficulty,” Fire answered without hesitation as they all made their way to the door.

But they barely moved a few paces back into the hallway before they all stopped abruptly and stared directly at the image of Sombra. He was frozen in place a few paces ahead of them, legs up mid stride with his back turned to them, and looking over his shoulder with wide eyes like a colt caught stealing a jar of cookies. His eyes darted back and forth as the Wonderbolts just stared at him.

“You saw nothing,” he said before turning quickly, but he stopped immediately as Discord appeared directly in his path with his arms crossed.

“Oh I saw it alright…” he snorted. “How about you don’t touch me again with your filthy magic?” he asked sharply. Sombra flattened his brow, glancing back at the Wonderbolts to see Celestia drag herself out of the room with Luna in tow.

“Mrghrgh…” Sombra grumbled in defeat, sitting down. “I’d prefer not to touch you at all,” he shot back at Discord.

“What are you two going on about?” Dash asked as she approached them. Discord nonchalantly waved a hand towards Sombra. “This oaf pulled on my tail with his magic while Celestia was—”

“I did no such thing, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sombra cut him off, speaking quickly as he nervously glanced back at Celestia.

“Oh, how precious,” Discord rolled his eyes. “Did the big scary tough guy have an emotion? Heaven forbid!”

“I’ll pull your tail again and this time tear it OFF if you don’t hold your tongue!” Sombra threatened with a growl.

“Oh, stop it…” Celestia chimed in, shakily pacing towards them and sitting down between them. “We executed the cure successfully, but the two of you go right back to jawboning. This is their moment, let’s not make it about us,” she suggested.

“I did nothing,” Sombra repeated quietly.

“Hush,” Celestia shot him a look as he scoffed and turned away.

“Liar,” Discord added.

“That goes for you too,” Celestia turned her scolding to him.

“I’m not the one sneaking around and stalking your shapely illuminous flank,” Discord said sarcastically. Celestia’s eyes widened, but Sombra twitched and sharply turned around.

“That’s it,” Sombra growled, his magic dimly lighting on his horn as he moved to step through Celestia’s image to get in Discord’s face. “Your tail is coming off right—”

“Ah!” Celestia yelped and Sombra flinched in surprise as he ran directly into her. They toppled over one another, Celestia falling flat on the floor as Sombra rolled off her and fell on his back.

Discord’s face went blank as the two quickly sat up and stared at one another. After several moments passed, Sombra reached a hoof towards Celestia, his hoof touching her once softly before poking her in the shoulder several times.

“Huh…” Celestia tipped her head as she felt Sombra’s hoof push against her as if the two were solid. “That’s unexpected.”

“Oh, that’s just not fair!” Discord threw his arms up, growling angrily. Sombra suddenly smiled devilishly, turning and looking Discord in the eyes as he continued to poke at Celestia.

“What? Is there a problem?” he asked, sneering. “Does this anger you?” He poked her faster.

“YES!” Discord stomped, grinding his teeth together as Celestia reached up and grabbed Sombra’s hoof, sighing in frustration.

Dash cleared her throat. Loudly.

Discord, Celestia, and Sombra all stopped and slowly looked towards her.

“Sorry to interrupt this important conversation, but now that we have a moment I’d like to ask a few questions,” she asked while looking at Celestia.

“Do you not give up?” Sombra butted in angrily.

“I’m not talking to you, sore-highness,” Dash shot him a flat look as Discord turned and held in a laugh. “You already made it crystal clear that you’re going to be a stiff ass, now kindly shut it.”

“Mrghfrghrgh…” Sombra grumbled to himself again as he paced away and sat facing the wall.

“Now… Celestia,” Dash sat down, a frank and upfront tone in her voice. “I… well… first. Thanks for helping Wave. I can’t begin to tell you how hard things have been for Spitfire.”

“That stallion is special to her… As those others are to your counterpart. I’m glad I could help,” she said with a smile as Dash noticed that she still looked a bit fatigued.

“And are you fine?” she asked, tipping her head.

“I’ll be alright… but this will take some getting used to. Such a small amount of power nearly overwhelming me is foreign territory for me,” she explained while rubbing a hoof to her head.

“But you are stable… and so is the magic?” Dash pressed. “Should we go check on Soarin? Nothing happened to him, right?”

“I would have felt it if something did,” Celestia assured her. “I’m practically a detector for my own power now. The little I have control of is still very much connected to it. I’ll be the first to know if something ever goes wrong. I'm willing to believe you would have felt something too with the nature of your connection.”

“I see…” Dash hummed to herself, not sure if she liked the answer, but at least Soarin was undisturbed by what they just did. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything about Soarin or what’s going on with him? This is kind of important for me too since I’m being directly affected.”

“I wish there was more I could tell you,” Celestia admitted with a frown. “This is as new of a circumstance for me as it is for all of us. But now that I’m able to communicate outside of Soarin’s body, it should make figuring everything out much easier. Or at the very least figuring out how to stabilize him physically and mentally. I’m not sure we’ll ever find an answer to how… but who knows what we’ll find out?” She said while smiling towards Discord.

“Yeah, sure… it’ll be loads of fun with Sombra around…” Discord mumbled and turned to walk towards the other wall opposite of Sombra as Celestia rolled her eyes.

“Have fun with those two…” Dash said sarcastically.

“I’ll do my best to keep Discord focused,” Celestia assured her. “Though I have little sway over Sombra.”

“Not even a flank sway?” Dash smirked, catching Celestia off-guard. She chuckled nervously and tipped her whole body slightly to the side.

“Well… maybe…” she said nervously.

“So… um…” Dash’s tone suddenly changed. Celestia quickly picked up on it, noticing the drop in confidence.

“Yes?” Celestia smiled warmly at her.

“Can I…” she looked back at the doors. Her eyes remained fixed on them for several moments. “Can I come and see Soarin whenever I want? Discord kept turning me away before, but now…” she trailed off, the look in her eyes weakening considerably as her lips quivered.

Celestia blinked, looking up at the doors as well before putting two and two together. No doubt… after seeing Spitfire and Wave…

“Hmm…” Celestia rubbed her chin. “Probably.”

“Probably?” Dash pouted.

“I guess it depends,” Celestia explained. “Discord’s concerns about Soarin are very much reasonable. While the risk of a major disaster is averted, keeping him as balanced and at rest as possible is necessary if we are to get any progress or answers. We have to be wary that he’s in an unstable mental state and not to take too many chances with the effects your connection with him has on you both. Although… If you are able to keep yourself at ease around him, both physically and emotionally, then we can probably work something out. Please understand, we’re just taking precautions here.”

“I… okay,” Dash sighed. “That’s better than nothing.”

“We shouldn’t risk it,” Discord suddenly moved back towards them, speaking to Celestia. Dash glared at him, but Celestia shook her head.

“We can handle it just fine, Discord. I don’t want to keep her from somepony special to her.”

“Fine, fine… just don’t blame me if it causes problems,” Discord caved quickly, which was still odd for Dash to see.

Everypony perked up as the doors opened, all of them turning in time to see Spitfire walking through… with the most outrageously happy and satisfied look on her face that any of them had ever seen. She was almost swaying as she walked, barely able to remain upright as she moved towards the rest of them with Shining Armor, Cadence, and Dash’s Ponyville friends in tow.

It was an incredibly welcome sight for all of them. Hell, none of them could remember the last time they had seen Spitfire look just so darn happy. She stopped in front of all of them, placed a hoof on her chest, and released a long sigh.

“Hey there lover girl,” Fleetfoot giggled as she moved up and nudged her. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been reborn,” Spitfire quickly answered, pulling no punches as she sat down and smiled giddily, her eyes wandering up towards the ceiling. “I feel so… good.”

Fleetfoot placed a hoof over her mouth as she examined Spitfire’s demeanor, she bounced up and down in place briefly before reaching forward and giving her a big hug. The rest of the Wonderbolts gathered around to show their support, even Blaze showed a strange amount of affection towards Spitfire. They had some common ground over Wave Chill, after all.

“Wave is getting a quick check up by the doctors to make sure everything is fine. Aside from feeling a bit weak and sore, he should be out of there and back on his hooves in short order. We’ve got him back, everypony… and it’s about time.”

Hearing her say that clearly had a positive resonance with the Wonderbolts. Some good news after so much struggle. But before she could get lost in the euphoria with them, Spitfire quickly turned to Celestia, bidding the rest give her a moment as she moved towards her.

“Princess?” Spitfire sat right in front of Celestia, the two looking each other right in the eye. “Thank you. I… can’t begin to describe how much I appreciate this.”

“It is the least I can do,” Celestia nodded. “I don’t want there to be any doubt between us any longer.”

“Well,” Spitfire tipped her head to the side. “You have a ways to go before you’re out of that forest, but…” she smiled and nodded. “Can’t deny that that was a hell of a way to start.”

“I don’t expect it to be easy, but I’ll keep doing what I can until then,” Celestia agreed, making it clear that she understood and would not protest. She even quickly held a hoof up to stop Luna before she could come forward and argue. Celestia clearly had a lot of control over Discord and Luna and was making frequent use of it. It was something Spitfire could get used to for sure.

“Come along now, Celestia,” Discord suddenly stepped in. “We should really get back to work on Soarin,” he said while making a head motion towards Luna as well. He slowly looked towards Sombra and grunted. “You too I guess.”

“Do NOT speak to me, malformed fopdoodle,” Sombra hissed as he got up and moved in the direction of Soarin anyway. Celestia giggled to herself as Discord sighed and shook his head.

“Do NoT SpEaK To Me, MaLfOrMeD FoPdOoDlE,” Discord mocked Sombra’s voice with a nasally tone and scoffed. “Give me a break, somepony really needs to update their insult dictionary…” Discord grumbled to himself as he glanced at Celestia still giggling to herself.

Discord frowned, looking the image of Celestia up and down as she turned and looked at him curiously.

“I’m… really glad you’re here…” he suddenly said. “Really, I am…” he reached towards her and tried to touch her, but his hand went right through her. He sighed heavily and stared at his hand in disappointment. But then he perked up as a faint yellow light appeared around his hand and he felt a light tug on it. He looked up to see Celestia’s horn glowing faintly as she smiled at him.

“Thank you, Discord,” she said warmly. “Let’s go.”

And with that, they left the rest behind. Spitfire watched them leave as the rest of the Wonderbolts approached her, Rainbow Dash breaking away from Cadence and her Ponyville crew to join in as they gathered around.

“Well…” Spitfire looked at all of them. “Looks like something finally went our way,” she said with a chuckle.

“It’s been so long,” Fire Streak commented with a chuckle. “To be honest I’ve almost forgotten how it feels.”

“He’s… really okay…” Blaze suddenly broke her silence, still clinging to High Winds. “Holy Fuck… Chiller is… he’s fine, isn’t he? I’m not dreaming?” her voice shook.

“Don’cha know it,” High Winds gave her a heavy pat on the head, shimmering brightly as she yawned. “Both him, and the old bastard in the hospital. Looks like Squad Two lives on.”

“So what now, captain?” Fleetfoot happily asked while leaning against Spitfire.

There was a long pause as all eyes landed on Spitfire. Indeed, they were eager for a word of direction from her. She had not issued any orders or organized anything for the Wonderbolts since the battle ended.

So what would it be? Picking up the pieces? Getting back into a routine? Meetings with squads? Training regiments? Teaming up with Descent’s scouts for reconnaissance?

Spitfire looked up with determination in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but then froze.

The rest stared blankly.

“You know what?” Spitfire lifted a hoof and pounded it into the other. “We need a vacation.”

Everypony blinked as Spitfire turned around and spotted Cadence among Dash’s friends.

“Princess! You have a sec?” she asked. Cadence glanced towards her, turned and made her way over.

“Yes?” she answered, looking at Spitfire curiously.

Spitfire put on a slightly devilish smile.

“What’s the swankiest resort hotel around the Empire?”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh boy, here we go... :pinkiecrazy:

Well... would you look at that. Celestia bent the truth about her chances of saving Wave, but went through with it regardless just in case she could find a way. And her wager paid off it seems. Looks like a certain verbal beating she took over the end of the last arc has encouraged her to take a few chances for others. Gonna take more than that to wipe the slate clean, but finally getting Wave up and out of the Crystal sickness that spread through him some FIFTY CHAPTERS ago and giving the very pent up and disgruntled Spitfire her stallion back? As Spitfire said: Hell of a good start. Luna and Discord could learn a thing or two from her.

As For Sombra... looks like he won't be so cooperative, at least at this moment. Doesnt seem so mighty and comfortable when he's not full of presence and in command of great power, eh? And his attempt to push an (admittedly omitted) tidbit from Celestia ended with Descent telling him off for keeping them all focused on the past instead of looking towards the future... perhaps something Sombra should think about a little bit, hmmmm?

But, ah... isnt it nice? Wave Chill is finally better... i've missed him tbh, i never wanted to keep a major character down for so long, but alas thats how it panned out. This will be a great thing for Spitfire as well and... Now they're about to head to a vacation resort? No doubt Descent will protest, but the Wonderbolts really need a chance to reconnect.

And knowing the range of personalities we have here... it's bound to get extra silly :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Art in this Chapter by: Foxenawolf

Chapter 173: Shifting Down a Few Gears

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 173: Shifting Down a Few Gears

“……………What?” Star blinked as Dash walked by her and over to her bed. “Run that last part by me again?”

“Spitfire spontaneously decided that the force is going to spend a week at the most expensive luxury hotel and resort in the Crystal Empire.” She repeated with a straight face as she reached down and grabbed an empty duffle bag from beneath the bed. “We’re moving there tonight, so be ready to go in two hou—”

“ARE WE THERE YET?!” Twister yelled from atop Matteo’s head, several restraint belts wrapped all over his body, wearing a baseball cap, and with a trunk much larger than the room’s front door strapped to Matteo. Matteo squawked as the weight of the trunk tipped him backwards and the two crashed loudly on the ground.

“Be ready in two hours,” Dash continued, completely ignoring Twister as Matteo reached out from beneath the trunk and grabbed Twister by the neck as hard as he could. “Should probably grab some dinner too,” Dash added casually as Matteo started punching Twister repeatedly in the face, Twister’s head making squeak toy noises and the hat on his head changing to a different hat every time Matteo hit him.

“That’s… quite a way to finally speak up,” Thunderlane added as he slowly shifted away from Twister and Matteo. “No orders for two weeks and suddenly a vacation?”

“Aren’t you glad you stuck around now?” Dash chuckled, as she stuffed her belongings into her bag. The rest of the reserves had been sent home after a week of inaction, but Thunderlane had stayed since Applejack and the rest of Dash’s friends were still there. She was sure Bulk and Derpy were still around as well, but she hadn’t seen them in a while.

“I guess not,” he shrugged. “I hope Spitfire lets me in.”

“She will, and if she doesn’t I’ll pull strings,” Dash gave him a wink.

“I’m still wrapping my head around this,” Star blinked continuously.

“Allow me!” Twister’s head shot in between them, his neck elongating and speedily wrapping around a pillow on Dash’s bed like a snake and slapping a post-it note on it that read ‘THIS’.

“Do you object?” Dash asked Star with a tip of her head.

“Well, no!” Star crossed her arms and shrugged. “Just not what I expected.”

“I understand her completely,” Dash said as she zipped up her bag and jumped up on her bed, casually sitting her plot down hard against Twister’s elongated neck. His face turned blue and his head started inflating like a balloon. “Yeah, a lot of weird things just went down, but we have some color on what’s up with Soarin and Commander Wave Chill was just cured of the crystal sickness. I’ve been through the whole ‘lover awakens and is back in my arms’ scenario more than a few times now, believe me… she’s bouncing off the walls in her head right now and wants to be practical about what we all just went through.” Twister’s head was now bigger than her behind her and making squeaking balloon noises. “It was a pretty rough go, several of us ended up fighting each other, and she did not put on a good show of leadership or restraint, all of which I heard right from her mouth by the way. She wants us to reconnect. It’s an in-your-face out of nowhere way of doing it, but I think it’ll be awesome.”

Dash tipped to the side, letting her bottom off of Twister’s neck. He started blowing loud raspberries and flailing around, his neck retracting back to his body and launching himself across the room towards Squall by the window. He crashed into the window, but flattened like a pancake before slowly sliding off the glass and to the floor.

Squall didn’t look at him the whole time, he just kept staring out the window.

“Some of us could really do with some loosening up…” Star said quietly as she put her hooves on her hips and pouted towards Squall.

“I’m all for it,” Matteo suddenly chimed in as Thunderlane smirked at him.

“You’re the last one I expected to say that,” he said with a chuckle.

“You said it’s a resort, yes?” Matteo asked. Dash nodded.

“Yeah? Why?”

“Is it the one south of the castle?” Matteo pressed.

“I haven’t—”

“The one with the water parks?” Matteo cut her off.

“I don’t know, Matty!” Dash quickly said to avoid being cut off again. “I just know it’s a nice one.”

“A water park? That’s what has your attention?” Star asked curiously as she eyed Matteo up and down from the talons all the way up to his extremely stoic face.

“I like water parks,” Matteo said with a straight face. Dash, Star, and Thunderlane all glanced between one another and started snickering. “What’s so funny?” Matteo snorted.

“Do you even fit in water slides?” Thunderlane asked as they kept chuckling. Matteo just glared harshly at him. “Whoa, whoa… okay, okay!” Thunderlane backed off while gritting his teeth. He bumped into Twister’s large trunk, blinked, and looked up to see Twister wearing a speedo, a swimming cap, and a snorkel. He was standing on one hoof with his other on a barrel, his front hooves on his hips.

But Thunderlane furrowed his brow and looked behind him at the trunk instead.

“How did you even get this in here?”

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.” Twister popped up directly in front of him and pressed his face to Thunderlane’s.

Dash held a hoof over her mouth, still stifling laughter from Matteo’s apparent interest in water parks, but she averted her eyes and saw Star staring towards Squall over by the window by himself.

Dash sighed as she watched Star do nothing. She had actually given up trying to talk to him? Squall hadn’t been the same since the encounter with Ruin, despite the fact that the only things revealed were actually great things about him and what he cared about. He was either too embarrassed to look them in the eye or… he wanted to avoid the subject. Ruin did force something very personal out of him after all, and Squall was always very sensitive to his own inner thoughts and feelings.

Maybe the resort would help him loosen up. At least she hoped. She was getting tired of him being so distant. This couldn’t last going forward.

But for now she focused on getting herself ready to go and making sure the rest did. No doubt the rest of the Wonderbolts were getting ready as well.

“Oh, of course! I’d be happy to assist,” Fancy Pants said with a bow. “Just leave it to me. I can easily get the force a block of rooms at the Grand Ruby.”

“Thank you, Fancy,” Cadence nodded with a smile while turning to Spitfire.

“Wow,” Spitfire chuckled. “Must be a real nice place if not even you can pull strings there,” she said to Cadence.

“Oh I’d rather not overstep,” Cadence tipped her head and laughed nervously. “I can do it discreetly from time to time, but for around a hundred ponies at a time? That might be a bit much. Besides…”

“Besides, what?” Spitfire asked as Cadence glanced towards the sly smile of Fancy Pants.

“Ah, nothing… I won’t ruin it for him,” Cadence giggled as Fancy chuckled with her.

“Well then…” Spitfire shrugged. “I appreciate it, both of you. The Wonderbolts have been…”

“Through quite a bit,” Fancy Pants finished for her as he stepped forward and placed a hoof on Spitfire’s shoulder. “I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a few of them, no need to explain yourself,” he said while purposely not mentioning his discreet involvement during the battle. “And a good friend of one of yours is a close confidant of mine. It’s no trouble at all. I can have you in your rooms by late tonight, say, around nine o’clock… just in time to catch some well-deserved rest on the softest beds you’ll ever sleep on.”

“God, that sounds pretty good right now…” Spitfire shivered delightfully at the thought. “I’ll have us there by then.”

“Until tonight!” Fancy gave a quick wave of his hoof and turned to leave.

“The Grand Ruby, huh?” Fleetfoot chimed in as she stepped up beside Spitfire.

“I can’t think of a better resort in Equestria,” Cadence nodded. “Though I may be a little biased.”

“As long as I can get a drink, a massage, and chances to show off my flank, I’m sold,” Fleetfoot shook her head out and batted her eyelashes.

“Let’s keep the belligerence to a minimum,” Spitfire quickly placed a hoof over her head.

“Aw, but I wanna have fun!” Fleetfoot pouted.

“You can have fun without the hotel staff or other patrons sending complaints to me,” Spitfire grinded her hoof back and forth gently against Fleetfoot’s head.

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep!” Fleetfoot giggled as she reached up and grabbed Spitfire’s arm off her head.

“Thanks again for the help, Princess,” Spitfire nodded to Cadence. “We really need a break to unwind and I can’t think of a better way to do it. I hate to ask for more, but please do your best to… keep the gods focused on Soarin and not bickering with Sombra.”

“Think nothing of it, and…” Cadence gritted her teeth and looked up. “I will try, though I doubt there’s much I can do about it.”

“I appreciate the effort at least,” Spitfire chuckled as she pressed down harder on Fleetfoot’s head, preventing her from wiggling free.

“Oh, one last thing. This is perfect timing,” Cadence sat down and happily clapped her hooves together. “In an effort to keep the citizens calm in the wake of the very strange events, we decided to go ahead with this year’s Crystal Ball.”

“Crystal Ball?” Spitfire tipped her head.

“An annual celebration of the Crystal Empire’s founding!” Cadence smiled. “The date just so happens to be the last day of this coming week. It would be great to have the Wonderbolts attend and it would be a nice end to your resort stay. It’s a night festival starting at sundown that extends nearly from end to end of the Empire with all the citizens taking part, and it ends with a grand ball in the halls of the palace and the streets surrounding it. It’s a tradition that’s gone back since the Empire has existed, and it has never been cancelled. I can think of no better way to keep the citizens at ease.”

“Huh…” Spitfire blinked. “I don’t think we have any formal attire though.”

“DON’T LISTEN TO HER!” Fleetfoot zipped in front of her and jammed a hoof against Spitfire’s mouth, her eyes wide and sparkling. “We’ll be there!”

“FlrrtFrrt…” Spitfire mumbled while flattening her brow.

“Shush, I’ll figure out the clothes,” she winked.

“Fine…” Spitfire caved, gently pushing Fleetfoot’s arm down.

“Excellent,” Cadence stood up and nodded. “I’ll be sure to include you on the royal guest list then. Now I really should get back to Soarin and—”

“SPITFIRE!” an angry voice suddenly boomed from within the palace halls. Spitfire’s ears twitched and she sighed.

“Was waiting for this…” she said sarcastically as she turned to face Descent angrily stomping towards her with Lightning Dust nervously keeping up behind him.

Again, there was no sign of Starry Skies.

Cadence quickly glanced back and forth, silently mouthing ‘I gotta go’ before turning to leave them to what appeared to be an impending confrontation.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! A resort hotel? Now?! What did I just say about being too relaxed?!” Descent kept shouting, all those in his path moving aside as he stormed right up to Spitfire and jammed his face into hers. But she didn’t budge, holding a straight face as he scrunched up his. “Please tell me you’re joking, have you forgotten what the current situation is?!”

“I know exactly what the situation is, Descent, and this is what the Wonderbolts need right now,” she said firmly, not caving under his harsh glare.

“We have an enemy that’s still out there somewhere and you have the mind to think a vacation is the next course of action?!”

Fleetfoot yelped and backed off as Spitfire suddenly reached forward and grabbed a hoof full of the neck of Descent’s Renegade flight suit. She pulled hard, forcing his head down to be level with hers and narrowed her eyes.

“Now you listen to me, tough guy, because I’m only going to say this once,” she hissed sharply. “The Wonderbolts are NOT the Shadowbolts. We don’t operate the same way and we don’t follow your set of rules. There is a form and function to the way we work and that structure was majorly damaged during the chaos and confusion of everything that’s gone down since we ripped the Nimbus out of the ground in Canterlot. We don’t thrive on beating each other down or living in fear of an aspiring leader looking to off those above them to gain rank. We thrive on comradery, friendship, and family… our strength comes from our connections and our desire to fight hard for those fighting just as hard around us.”

She let go of Descent’s suit, but otherwise stayed right where she was, and Descent remained with his head tilted.

“So yeah, we have an enemy out there. Want us to be at our best? Then we need to do this, and after we do this, I have more plans to get us in the best possible position to take on our enemy. So YOU keep focusing on the Renegades, and I’LL focus on the Wonderbolts. Don’t go lecturing me on what you don’t understand.”

There was a long pause between them, both Lightning Dust and Fleetfoot standing perfectly still as the two glared at one another.

“Feh,” Descent scoffed as he stood upright. “Fine… but don’t come crying to me if there’s suddenly contact while you’re sipping cocktails at a poolside.” He quickly turned away, surprising all of them with how quickly he dropped it. Past disputes between the two of them never ended with a single argument from one side.

“Hold on a second,” Spitfire reached forward and grabbed him by the shoulder. Descent stiffened briefly, but growled.

“WHAT?” he said harshly with a loud snort.

“Turn and look at me for a moment,” Spitfire demanded. Descent slowly turned and glared, his scrunched expression twitching slightly. “Are you feeling alright?”

Descent’s eyes widened considerably for a brief second, but he quickly forced them back into place.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly, his face struggling to hold the overly serious look.

“You sure as hell don’t look like it, and you sure as hell aren’t acting like it,” Spitfire pointed out.

“Yeah, you’re usually twice as stiff and radiating at least three times the testosterone,” Fleetfoot chimed in, leaning against Spitfire and tilting her head in to get close to Descent. Descent pulled back and averted his eyes, saying nothing.

Both Spitfire and Fleetfoot glanced towards Lightning Dust as they caught a glimpse of her subtly waving at them from behind Descent. She placed a hoof near her mouth and whispered.

“Starry Skies.”

“LIGHTNING DUST!!!!” Descent rapidly turned and erupted at her.

“AIEE!!!” she yelped and scooted back as Descent loomed over her.

“You’re kidding me…” Fleetfoot pushed off Spitfire and lifted an eyebrow. Descent froze in place and scrunched his mouth as Fleetfoot moved up beside him. “She’s still avoiding you?”

“She’s avoiding everypony,” Descent murmured.

“No, I’m pretty sure she’s avoiding you specifically,” Fleetfoot nudged him in the shoulder as he sat down and grunted, not offering any response. “What did you do? Pop a stiffy when she turned all pretty and sparkly?”

“Fleet…” Spitfire rolled her eyes. But strangely, Descent didn’t retort.

“Must’ve been, she plays a good grump game, but anything saucy breaks her on the spot. And with what you’re packing down there, she probably—MRFF!” Fleetfoot was cut off as Spitfire put her in a headlock and stuffed a hoof over her mouth.

“Ignore her,” Spitfire said calmly to Descent as Lightning Dust kept her eyes averted with her face turning red. “So she showed up to join us during the battle, vanished again after it was all over, and still won’t show herself?”

“Hrm…” Descent hummed in frustration.

“What the hell is the big deal? Her crystal form?” Spitfire continued as Fleetfoot grabbed her hoof and tried to remove it from her face. “We had lots of ponies with crystal heritage ‘activate’ when we came within the shield. What’s the big deal?”

“Something is different about hers,” Descent cut in. “And it’s something she didn’t wish to share, it seems.”

“Is she hiding something?” Spitfire thought out loud.

“I really couldn’t care less,” Descent quickly interjected. “It doesn’t matter to me at all, I just want her back here with me where she belongs. I’m having a hard enough time handling things as is.”

“FWAH!” Fleetfoot gasped for air as she finally got free of Spitfire’s hoof. “Sounds like you could use a vacation!” she giggled while still restrained.

“Oh please, I don’t have time for—”

“You know…” Spitfire cut him off, a smile forming on her lips. Descent blinked, his eyes shooting open as he quickly turned around and glared at her.

“No.”

“You knooooooooooooooow…” Spitfire leaned towards him, a smirk forming on her lips.

“Abso-LUTLEY not!” Descent growled at her.

“Ooo…? Oooooooooooo? Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Spitty?” Fleetfoot joined in, leaning towards him.

“… I will fight you both.” Descent gritted his teeth.

“That settles it,” Spitfire clapped her hooves together. “You’re coming with us.”

“What did I JUST say?” Descent snapped, but Spitfire shrugged.

“Okay, put’em up, buddy,” she lifted her hooves. “I’ve beat up your other marefriend more than once. You know, the one who can crush steel beams with her eager thighs.” She started bobbing back and forth. “Just try me on for size, if you don’t come along quietly, I can make it so you wake up in a hotel bed three days from now.”

Descent’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits and his expression flattened considerably as Spitfire goofily wobbled her head around and rotated her hooves.

“Don’t try it,” Fleetfoot shifted low in between the two of them while making a sliding motion past her throat. “She did it to me once, it wasn’t pleasant.”

Descent continued to stare at the two of them, the corners of his mouth straining as they curled down as hard as they could. But then he blinked when he heard Lightning Dust chuckling behind him.

“Hrmrrrghrmrmmmm…” he slouched over and growled to himself. “No. My answer is still no, I need to—”

“You need a break, son.”

Descent flinched as Blazetail’s voice met his ears. Spitfire and Fleetfoot both glanced past him to see both him and Flashwind coming forward. Descent quickly turned and glared at Blazetail.

“This isn’t your choice to make,” Descent poked him in the chest. “I’m not going, and that’s final.”

“Really now?” Flashwind moved up beside her husband and lifted an eyebrow as she looked Descent in the eye. “Would you have gone if Starry wasn’t missing?”

“I…!” Descent shouted, but instantly trailed off, his mouth stuck open but nothing coming out.

“That’s a big fat yes!” Fleetfoot shifted in front of the two veteran Wonderbolts and stood on the tips of her hooves. Descent reclined and cringed.

“No it isn’t—!”

“Oh, it SO is!” Fleetfoot giggled as she reached up and tapped a hoof to his chin. “Your pretty princess would make it all better, eh?”

Descent’s eyes twitched unevenly.

“Are we talking about the vacation or Starry?!” he demanded, grabbing his mane and pulling on it.

“Look, Descent,” Spitfire came around and nudged Fleetfoot aside. “Let’s be serious. You’ve been working overtime on our behalf and taking care of just about everything for us from the moment you saved our asses in Canterlot. So let me put it this way… it’s about time you had a break, and we owe you one, so let me do this for you.”

Descent stared at Spitfire, his expression remaining hard and unwavering.

“No,” he sighed. “It’s not my way of doing things, plus I need to find—”

“There you go again,” Flashwind cut him off. “This is only about Starry, isn’t it?”

Descent went completely silent and averted his eyes from all of them.

“Tell you what,” Flashwind put both hooves on his shoulders. “Join them, go get off your hooves and rest. I’ll separate a small group of Renegades and will search for her myself. You’re not the only one who wants her back and helping out around here.”

“And I’ll take care of the scouting routes,” Blazetail chimed in. “The Wonderbolts are trying to recharge their own way… and something tells me it would do you good to partake.”

“Hrm…” Descent harrumphed in a disagreeable tone.

“Okay, how about this?” Flashwind reached up and forced Descent to look at her. “How about you do this to spend some time with your son?”

Descent froze, his ears standing straight up and his eyes widening as Flashwind threw the haymaker.

“Have you ever had any real quality time with him? At all?” she kept pressing. “You were only able to sneak in and out when he was younger and since you two reunited it’s been nothing but conflict. Don’t you think it would be good for him, and you, to have some time to actually connect?”

Watching Descent’s shift in posture was like watching butter melt in the desert sun. Flashwind’s proposal cut right through his tough exterior, prodding something extremely personal. It was as if she knew this was how he’d react.

Descent quickly turned away from her, clenching a hoof in front of his chest for a moment before he sighed and slowly glanced at Spitfire.

“I’ll… go.”

“Perfect,” Spitfire clapped her hooves together. “I’ll make sure you and Storm get a room to share.”

“Yeah, sure… that sounds great…” Descent mumbled, sounding completely defeated.

“Hmm…” Fleetfoot rubbed her chin. “We should bring Lightning Dust along too,” she nudged Spitfire.

“Eh?” Spitfire looked up and stared towards Lightning Dust. Dust stiffened as Spitfire’s gaze hardened slightly on her.

“Descent’ll be in a room with Storm, but do you really want to bombard him from all sides with how weird we can be? Let’s at least have one of his there for him to fall back on in case… Spitty?” Fleetfoot tipped her head quizzically as she saw Spitfire’s gaze grow harder. She glanced between her and Lightning Dust as Dust continued to hold perfectly still and look increasingly anxious. “Oh…” Fleetfoot perked up. “Right, uh… I almost forgot about—”

“No, that’s a good idea,” Spitfire quickly shifted her eyes away from Lightning Dust. “She can come too.”

“Aha… th…thanks…” Lightning Dust stuttered as she tried to play it off.

“Anywho!” Spitfire turned around and put a smile back on. “I for one… am looking forward to my first good night’s sleep in forever. We are meeting around eight tonight in front of the palace for roll call before heading to the Grand Ruby by nine. Don’t be late!” Spitfire winked towards Descent before trotting off with a bounce in her step. Fleetfoot hopped up and down a couple of times while giggling happily before following behind.

“See ya there, big daddy!” she called back to Descent before speeding up to catch Spitfire.

“Good choice, son,” Blazetail patted Descent on the back.

“Your son will appreciate it,” Flashwind added as the two turned and left as well, leaving Descent and Lightning Dust alone.

Dust made her way over to him, snickering lightly under her breath. Descent was staring directly ahead, a flat, unamused look stuck on his face. Dust looked him up and down.

“They got you pretty good.”

“Shut up…”

“C’mon guys, c’mon!” Dash yelled back to the rest of her crew as they made their way towards the Crystal Palace with their belongings. “We’re not going to be the last group to show up!” she added as she and Star trotted along the road illuminated in the night by the crystal lamps. Matteo, Thunderlane, and Squall picked up the pace to catch up with Twister standing upright atop Matteo’s head, looking through a telescope.

“HARD TO PORT!” Twister yelled, yanking on the left side of Matteo’s crest. He squawked and fell to the left, tumbling into an antique store. Squall kept going, but Thunderlane stopped to cringe and watch as Twister somehow navigated Matteo around the entire shop and back out without breaking a single thing inside. Matteo slid out of the shop on his stomach, his chin flat on the ground as he sighed.

“Why is it always me? Couldn’t he do this to one of you for once?” he asked with a grunt as Twister yanked on his crest feathers while straining and screeching.

“Isn’t really our fault, Dash!” Thunderlane called forward as Dash turned and glared at them.

“TWISTER! CUT IT OUT!”

“Kay.” Twister appeared directly beside her with a cute look on his face and an angel halo. Dash flattened her brow and flicked the halo off his head.

“As if anyone would buy that,” she said to him sarcastically as the halo was immediately replaced with devil horns. “Now quit foolin’ around! Let’s go!”

She picked up the pace with the rest following behind, eventually spotting several Wonderbolts gathered as they drew near the Palace gates. Seemed she was worried for nothing, because not even half of the force appeared to be there yet. Dash slowed down, the rest catching up to her as they trotted right up to Spitfire.

“Reporting for vacation!” Dash said jokingly with a salute as Spitfire turned to greet them.

“Pfff… good one,” Spitfire jabbed her in the shoulder. “Everypony is taking their sweet time, so sit tight,” Spitfire said with a slight grunt as she glanced up at the clock to see it was five past eight.

Dash nodded, turning back to make sure her squad was completely accounted for. Squall, Matteo, Star… well, Thunderlane wasn’t really, but he was there, and…

WHUMP

They all jumped as Twister suddenly slammed the massive trunk he had in the hotel room onto the ground and sat atop it with a tie-dye button down shirt, dark sunglasses, and summer hat. Thunderlane looked the trunk up and down.

“How did you get that out of the hotel room?”

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.” Twister popped up in front of him and got in his face again.

Good, that was everypony. Dash quickly scanned to see which Wonderbolts had arrived. Spitfire was obviously there. Fleetfoot and Air Mach were with her. Blaze and High Winds were there. Squad Three had not arrived yet and…

“Bwuh…?” Dash blinked as she saw Descent and Lightning Dust sitting nearby. They were out of their Renegade suits and each had a bag with them. THEY were coming with them? She didn’t know the details, but based on Descent’s grumpy expression she assumed it wasn’t his choice. She also noticed Starry Skies wasn’t around. Was she still missing or did she refuse? Knowing her, the very idea of Fleetfoot being within the vicinity would be enough to keep her away.

After a little more scanning, she spotted Squad Zero grouped together off to the side. Dash hummed quietly to herself as she saw them, specifically Shine Struck. It had been a long time since she had talked to any of them, and she and Shine never got a chance to really talk about witnessing Spitfire’s abilities to mimic like they do. As for the rest of them… they played a part in Spitfire attempting to shut down her plan during the battle, so it felt a little awkward, but… she just chalked it up to another few ponies she had to possibly re-establish with. If she could at least talk to Shine, that would probably take care of the rest. Aside from her, Dash mostly worried for Calm. If Starry Skies wasn’t around to harass, Fleetfoot’s other favorite target was him. A whole week at a resort? She’d find him eventually, not that the big dope would find anything big enough to actually hide him.

Dash perked up as something large moved past her. She leaned back slightly as Macho Savage stomped by, hooting and hollering his usual aimless jargon with Lead Runner and Point Dex right behind.

Spitfire perked up when she saw them.

“Rivet actually let you two out of the Nimbus?” she chuckled as Point Dex ducked under Macho’s swinging arms.

“Don’t look at me, Runner’s the one who dragged me out,” Dex huffed as Lead Runner patted him on the head.

“You needed a break, hun!” he cooed flamboyantly.

“And Rivet didn’t?”

“He kicked and screamed too hard when I tried,” Lead Runner waved a hoof and chuckled.

Squad Seven…

Dash narrowed her eyes slightly as she glanced around but… where was he?

“Um… hey…”

Dash perked up and she looked over her shoulder. The rest of her squad looked as well.

Storm Front had stopped in the same path as his squad, looking at all of them nervously with his duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

“How… are you guys?”

“I’m—”

“We’re fine.” Dash cut off Thunderlane, who blinked and froze as Dash spoke for him and turned her back again. “Just dandy,” Dash added with a slightly harsh tone as Storm Front flinched. He looked at the rest of them, leaning away slightly as he got yet another harsh glare from both Matteo and Squall. Thunderlane had backed off entirely, sensing the mood. Star was looking between the rest of her squadmates and Storm, but didn’t seem to know what to do. She wasn’t projecting disapproval like the others, but she still didn’t say anything.

Twister had his head lodged in the large trunk.

“Uh… that’s cool… yeah…” Storm sighed heavily, turning and moving to join his squad.

The moment he was out of earshot, Star put her hooves on her hips and looked between them all.

“Don’t you guys think you’re being a little harsh?” she asked. Squall just looked away. Matteo grunted.

“Direct betrayal isn’t so easily forgiven,” Matteo said strongly. “Especially when as egregious as this.”

“I know YOU are going to be stiff about it,” Star said while rolling her eyes. “But Dash… what about you?” she asked while floating over to her. Dash exhaled and shook her head.

“I’m not ready yet,” she said simply.

“Ready for what?”

“Him.”

“Why?”

“It still hurts, Star,” Dash explained as she turned to her. “To have somepony you’ve grown with and trusted as much as we have turn around and stab you that hard in the back.”

“Didn’t it all work out in the end? It’s not like anypony was thinking straight,” Star tried to reason with her, but Dash held her ground.

“Doesn’t matter… it was a whole different level of trust he shattered.”

Star tipped forward to say more, but stopped, sighed, and shrugged as she turned away.

What none of them knew, though… was that Descent had witnessed the whole exchange.

“Hmmm…” he hummed to himself as he glanced between Dash and Storm, taking careful note of how crushed Storm looked. “Hmph…”

“What’s up?” Lightning Dust asked, glancing at him.

“Nothing.”

“Where the hell is Fire?” Spitfire asked as she scanned the growing group of arriving Wonderbolts.

“Maybe Lightning Streak ate too many burritos at lunch again,” Fleetfoot shrugged and rolled her eyes. She slowly looked to her left to see Air Mach sitting perfectly still and silent. “Okay this is getting weird, why the hell haven’t you said a word all day?”

Air Mach gritted his teeth, grinning wide as he puffed his chest out and looked skyward. Spitfire looked over towards him and flattened her brow.

“Air Mach, when I told you to keep your mouth shut…” Spitfire paced up to him. “I meant just while we were talking to Celestia and curing Wave… you can talk now.”

“HWAAAAAAAAAH!” Air Mach exhaled loudly into the air. “HA!! No need to specify, captain lady! The great Animak makes his own challenges!” he shouted while pointing to the sky. “And now it’s time to hit this resort hotel with all I’ve got! Bring it on, relaxation! I’m gonna beat the shit out of you!”

“WHY?!” Fleetfoot pressed her ears to her head and quickly turned to Spitfire. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?”

“You wanted to know,” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow at her.

“You could have just told me that! AUGH!” she groaned as Air Mach continued to chant random things about ‘owning’ his upcoming vacation.

“Maybe I should have…” Spitfire cringed as Air Mach bounded over and started chanting to other Wonderbolts as well, allowing Fleetfoot to remove the pressure from her ears and sigh in relief. “Ah… There’s squad three…” Spitfire waved to the last of the top tiers to arrive.

But Fire and Misty only waved briefly before both Lightning and Surprise suddenly shouted something and pointed. Fire perked up as well, Misty catching on as she saw them react.

“Huh?” Spitfire blinked, but Fleetfoot nudged her with a smarmy giggle.

“Turn around hot stuff, you’ve got company,” she said while bouncing her eyebrows.

“What are you—?”

“Reporting, Captain!”

Spitfire’s heart nearly jumped through her throat. She spun around to see Wave Chill walking out of the Palace and only a few paces away. She was shocked for a moment, but her face quickly lit up with a big smile.

“Wave!” she giddily greeted him as she shifted forward, but froze in place, looking him up and down. “Oh, wait, wait… you’re… feeling alright? You’re out of there pretty quick… not sore or anything?” she frantically fretted over him, causing Fleetfoot to burst out laughing and keel over.

“I feel alright,” Wave assured her with a smile. “A little achy still, but those crystal dew baths they have in there sure are something.”

“Good,” Spitfire immediately leaned forward and hugged him. “Ooooooh you have no idea how good it feels just to see you up and on your hooves again…” she said as she pulled away and other top tier Wonderbolts started gathering around.

Blaze launched herself at him, falling short and sliding on the ground until she clung to one of his hooves.

“YOU FUCKING JACKASS!” she yelled as she clutched his leg tightly. “DON’T EVER FUCKING WORRY ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!”

“Good to see you, Blaze,” he chuckled as High Winds joined her side and put a hoof on her head gently.

“You look pretty good for a stallion that pretty much was just dead,” she said with a yawn, shimmering brightly.

“I’m just glad I’m not,” Wave gave her a nudge before looking about. “No Silver, huh?” he said with a frown.

“He’s still in the hospital I’m afraid,” Fire chimed in as he stepped forward, High Winds finally prying Blaze off Wave’s hoof. “He won’t be joining us, but he’s alive and well.”

“That’s good to hear at lea—OOF! Hi Misty!” Wave teetered backwards as Misty fly practically tackled him and nuzzled her cheek into his as she hugged him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Lightning reached forward to stop her from leaning into him so hard.

“I tried to stop her, my arm hurts a lot now…” Surprise whined from behind with fake teary eyes.

“Okay, okay…” Spitfire came forward, chuckling to herself. “Let’s not overcrowd him now… we’ve got plenty of time to catch up this coming week, everypony make sure you’ve got your things ready,” she ordered, causing them to detach and slowly disperse, all giving Wave a look or pat on the back as they left.

“Nothing has changed, huh?” Wave asked, returning his attention to Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

“Pffffffffffffffffthpbphtbphtb…” Fleetfoot blew raspberries. “May look like that on the surface but HELL that ain’t the truth.” She said sarcastically.

“They haven’t lost personality at least,” Wave pointed out. “Frankly, that’s all I want to see.”

“You… really are feeling alright?” Spitfire suddenly asked again, gently placing a hoof on his shoulder.

“Captain?” he tipped his head as Spitfire pouted.

“Just a few hours ago you were frozen in a crystal and covered in marks sprouting crystalized formations… it’s just gone?”

“I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” Wave smiled at her, which she returned.

“Guess it’s just hard to wrap my mind around… it doesn’t seem real.”

“I won’t claim to feel in tip top shape but,” Wave gave her an assuring nod. “I’m definitely not in pain anymore, just feeling a little stiff still. It was worse before the clerics took me to their recovery baths. Let me put it this way. It really sucked being stuck in bed for weeks with hard jagged crystals poking out of me. I think I could use some rest and relaxation too.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Spitfire chuckled, rubbing her hoof on his shoulder. “But either way, just take it easy… nice and slow.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Wave nodded. But Spitfire didn’t pull away, she flattened her brow, looked down, and sighed. “What?”

“You don’t have to use formalities with me, you know…” she said quietly, while slowly shifting her eyes up to him in a somewhat cute, pleading stare.

“Oh, heh… Sorry…” Wave chuckled. “I guess old habits die hard.”

Spitfire was about to let go of his shoulder, but he suddenly reached a hoof over to clasp it, catching Spitfire off guard.

“I’m going to go catch up with the others before we leave,” he nodded and gave her hoof a squeeze. “Thanks for always looking out for me… I never doubted you for a second, Spitfire.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened as Wave moved forward, pressing his cheek into hers and nuzzling all the way down her neck to her shoulder, pressing his body to hers and running his wing feathers through hers in an extremely affectionate gesture before moving on to go find other Wonderbolts.

Spitfire’s body shuddered delightfully throughout the whole motion, short breaths drawing into her throat as her fur stood on end and her wings flittered. She turned around quickly as the jolts rushed through her, watching Wave make his way towards the group and get warmly greeted by the other Wonderbolts.

It was a wonder she didn’t melt on the spot, the goofiest looking love-struck grin plastering itself to her face as her cheeks turned pink and she wobbled a little in place.

“God, you two are so damn CUTE,” Fleetfoot mused, while slyly watching Spitfire turn to mush.

“Eheheeeeeh…” Spitfire giggled in a euphoric daze. “Yeeeeeaaahhhh… we arrrrreeeee…” she agreed, her voice almost cracking as Fleetfoot nearly lost it watching Spitfire sway and babble.

“Though I gotta say, that was pretty casanova of Chiller,” Fleetfoot nodded, impressed. “Never struck me as the type to be so forward.”

“I… confessed love to him right before he was captured,” Spitfire said dreamily.

Fleetfoot’s eyes snapped to her and went wide.

“Whoa wait… I heard you say it to him before he was put under but…” She bounced up and down giddily. “When?! Where?!”

“When we were all forced to share a locker room and the vents weren’t working.”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT…” Fleetfoot bit her lips and almost fell over. “Hahahahahaha! You confessed you loved him in a room that smelled like literal ass?”

“And kissed him… softly,” Spitfire kept admitting without caring.

“Love in a time of stank…” Fleetfoot held her hooves out and closed one eye, slowly moving them apart. “Starring Spitfire and Wave Chill!”

“Oh, stop it…” Spitfire kept giggling, clearly only half there as the rest of her was still in a tizzy.

“But that’s great!” Fleetfoot affectionately pressed her cheek into Spitfire’s chest. “The two of you were always so stiff and by the book. Who would have thought rubbing the two of you together was the trick to loosen you both up!” she snickered.

“Hmmmmmmmmyeeeeeah…” Spitfire seemed to get a little more lost in herself again, which only made Fleetfoot giggle harder as she followed Spitfire’s eyes directly back to Wave Chill surrounded by other Wonderbolts.

“You look like you have some needs to be satisfied,” Fleetfoot nudged her while bouncing her eyebrows. Spitfire blinked and shook her head out, somewhat coming back to her senses but the hearts might as well have still been floating out of her ears.

“Oh, I don’t want to be too rough with him right after…”

She trailed off as Fleetfoot gave her a very flat-browed, blank look.

“Okay fine, I’m probably going to wreck him,” Spitfire admitted, while grinning and glancing away.

“Or you could let him wreck you. C’mon girl, belay the order and let him take command! You could use a good zero effort rutting,” she cooed.

“Mrrrffff…” Spitfire shut her eyes and bit down on her lip hard. “Stop it, Fleet… at this rate everypony’s gonna stare at me…” she whined as she crossed her back legs.

“Oh, it’s going to be so easy to mess with you from here on…” Fleetfoot grinned mischievously.

“Captain!”

“BRLARGH!!!!!!” Spitfire launched upward, her wings catching herself in a hover as she slowly floated back down. She turned to Fire Streak with her face blinking red as Fleetfoot fell over and rolled on the ground laughing.

“Are you… okay?” Fire snorted as he looked her up and down.

“YES! FINE! PERFECTLY FINE!” Spitfire frantically stated. “What is it?” she tried to cool down, but it wasn’t working at all. Fire smirked, unable to hide his amusement.

“The force is all here, I took the opportunity to do roll call while you were… occupied,” he said while trying to stay professional.

“Oh?” Spitfire blinked, looking past him and scanning over the gathered crowd. “Oh… thanks. Round up the top tier squads and bring them over here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Fire nodded, unable to get rid of the smirk.

Spitfire winced awkwardly as she reached up and touched her still very warm face. She took several long deep breaths to try and calm down.

“Having issues?” Fleeetfoot teased while touching a hoof to Spitfire’s shoulder and tracing a circle on it.

“HmmmmmMMMMMMMM…” Spitfire sat down and pressed her hooves to her face. “Not the bad kind, but… oooooooh… I can’t stop it…” she groaned. She kept her face in her hooves, but started to worry when Fleetfoot didn’t say anything.

“Give her a moment guys, she’s a bit heated!” Fleetfoot suddenly said while lost in a fit of giggles. Spitfire looked up with wide eyes. The rest of the top tier squad members were all sitting before her, their bags in tow, and looking on with varying degrees of amused or confused expressions at Spitfire’s current state. Wave was there too, and he was averting his eyes nervously with a smile on his face.

“Um… UM…!” Spitfire locked up, her face going blank as it remained bright red. Her eyes were fixed on Wave Chill. The others stared, waiting for her to say something, but eventually Blaze turned and lifted an eyebrow at Wave.

“Did you poke your nose in her cooch or something? She’s lit up like a fucking candle,” Blaze commented.

“No I just…” Wave chuckled, embarrassed.

“Not even at the hotel yet and they’re grinding each other,” High Winds commented with a yawn and turned to Wave after she stopped shimmering. “Warn me before you relieve the weeks-long morning wood with her, I don’t want to get caught in the blast radius.”

“OKAY EVERYPONY!” Fleetfoot chimed in, stepping in front of Spitfire who looked just about ready to explode. “Let’s split up and get everypony moving towards the hotel. Sooner we get there, the sooner we can crash, alright?”

That seemed to do the trick, the others nodded in agreement while clearly seeing their captain was a bit… unresponsive at the moment. They split up and started rounding up the Wonderbolts.

As Fleetfoot made her way around, she ended up corralling Dash and her squad with her, bringing them along as the group started moving as a whole. The two of them began chatting, but Fleetfoot suddenly frantically tapped Dash’s shoulder and pointed elsewhere. Dash blinked and looked to see Spitfire standing by Lightning Streak and Wave Chill. They were all gathering up their bags and getting ready to move, but as Spitfire got her bag on her shoulder, her eyes locked on Wave. He was conversing with Lightning and had his side turned to her.

Fleetfoot started giggling rapidly as Spitfire bit her lip and reached a hoof out, touching Wave’s waist just above his flank.

“Hm? Yes?” Wave casually turned and looked at her.

“HuhWHUH?!” Spitfire pulled her hoof back and turned red… again. “I, uh… NOTHING! Nothing… haha! I’m good, let’s go!” she turned and started walking really fast to the front of the moving group.

Fleetfoot slumped into Dash, cracking up as Dash blinked with a widening grin.

“Brace yourself, Dashie!” Fleetfoot stood up and winked at her. “It’s gonna get silly around here real fast!”

It was a bit of a walk to the resort, but it didn’t take long before they knew it was close. They could tell where it was from almost four blocks away. “Grand Ruby” was certainly a fitting name for the place, because with all the relatively blue crystal surfaces around the Empire, a structure made entirely out of red gemstone stuck out like a sore wing. The building was massive and the way light bounced off of it caused a shimmering rose colored hue that the surrounding blue surfaces simply couldn’t match.

Eyes grew wide and shifted up as they drew near the enormous resort premise stretching outward for several acres. The ruby architecture of the building itself was incredibly impressive. It almost looked medieval in comparison to other buildings nearby as if it was preserved from a long lost form of builders many thousands of years ago. It did not nearly stand as tall or as proud as the Crystal Palace, but it rivaled it in beauty, and certainly stood out being bright red with spires on the four corners and six stories high.

Fancy Pants was waiting for them outside the front gate. He waved down Spitfire as they approached.

“A few minutes early I see!” Fancy chuckled as he looked at his pocket watch. “Eager to get off your hooves?”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Spitfire nodded as she came forward and shook hooves with Fancy. “Also… wow. You know I think I saw this place from the above when we flew in on the Nimbus, but I had no idea it was a resort of all things…”

“Probably the best one you’ll find in Equestria,” Fancy bowed. “If it’s relaxation and a good time you’re after, there is no finer place.”

“Thank you again for covering this for us,” Spitfire smiled. “For more than eighty ponies? I hate to be a burden on your pocketbook like that.”

“Cover you?” Fancy smirked as he removed his monocle. “Why, my dear, I have no idea what you’re talking about!” he chuckled heartily as he replaced the monocle and turned his back to her. “Please, follow me in!”

“Eh?” Fleetfoot blinked, she and Spitfire glancing at one another.

“I dunno…” Spitfire shrugged. “C’mon.”

While they weren’t sure what Fancy was implying, the Wonderbolts filed in, all walking through the gates and past the wall encircling the property.

And they thought it was impressive from the outside! As they walked along the promenade towards the main building, they were met with a wondrous sight of the many areas and attractions strewn around. There were several restaurants, bars, one or two outdoor water parks with other themed pools and areas nearby. Outdoor stages for shows, a large fitness center detached from the main building that looked larger than the Nimbus gym, golf courses, private club areas… and that was just the front. The attractions stretched around and behind the hotel building as well. With the architecture of the building alongside it, it almost looked like one could call it a kingdom of entertainment with a castle in the center, everything lit up and being used by guests who appeared to be both from within the empire and from elsewhere. Some of them were surprised to see so many present, but it looked like Princess Cadence had done a good job at returning the Empire to normalcy after such a strange event two weeks prior. Tourism appeared to already be back in full swing, and why not? The Empire probably made a lot of bits off of it.

As they entered the hotel and walked into the lobby, nearly every single Wonderbolt had to do a double take. The inside was very modern and contemporary by design, almost completely the opposite of how it looked from the outside. Whoever owned and ran this place sure knew how to impress. The floors were smooth white crystal, leading to the ruby walls with several other surfaces including the ceiling, the chandeliers, the walkways of the upper floors above all colors that complimented the red hue of the buildings form. The lobby was wide open, several fountains and extremely comfy-looking chairs and couches strewn about. In the center was a large fountain that wrapped around a small collection of exotic trees and flower arrangements. There were live tropical birds perched on the branches of the trees, some of them squawking quietly and saying a few words they’ve probably heard over and over, but otherwise they seemed well behaved and weren’t bothering guests.

The group almost accidentally dispersed as everypony was too in awe of their surroundings to really pay attention to where they were walking. But they eventually all gathered around the central fountain and waited as Spitfire and Fleetfoot followed Fancy up to the front desk.

There were two stallions working at the reception, both unicorns. One looked older, the other looked like a fresh young hire. Both were dressed in nice suits.

“Hello! Welcome to the…” the young stallion greeted them and blinked, looking past them at the enormous crowd of Wonderbolts. “Welcome… to the Grand Ruby! How may I help you today?”

Spitfire and Fleetfoot glanced at Fancy Pants as he stepped forward and casually leaned an arm on the counter.

“Prepare forty rooms, please,” Fancy said before looking back at Spitfire. “Does that sound like enough? I’m assuming you want to have roommates.”

“Huh? Uh…” she did some quick, messy math in her head. They had the recruit squads too plus a few more here and there, so it was somewhere around one hundred. With two or three to a room, that would work. “Yeah, that sounds like enough,” Spitfire answered, but was still confused.

“Perfect,” Fancy turned back to the receptionist and smiled. “Forty rooms.”

The receptionist furrowed his brow.

“Do you… uh… have reservations, sir?” he asked, sounding slightly put off.

“No, but I need forty rooms,” Fancy repeated. The receptionist narrowed his eyes.

“Sir, there is a process here…”

“I’m aware,” Fancy nodded. “But I need forty rooms.”

“Sir, you can’t just come in here and make demands like you own the place!” the receptionist snapped at him.

The older receptionist looked up from his spot further down the desk. He grunted, turned, and walked right up to the younger and sharply pointed at Fancy Pants.

“He does own the place!” he snapped, nudging the younger stallion aside. “Sorry, Mr. Pants. Forty rooms? I’ll get them right away.”

Fancy smirked and nodded.

“Thank you very much,” he nodded before turning back to Spitfire and Fleetfoot, who were both staring blankly with wide eyes. “Now then, I have other matters that require my attention,” he bowed to them. “Enjoy your stay at the Grand Ruby!”

Without another word, he casually trotted between them and started making his way out. Spitfire and Fleetfoot just kept staring straight ahead as the two stallions behind the desk started frantically moving about, speaking with other staff members and shuffling through keycards.

“Well DAMN!” Fleetfoot finally spoke up as she and Spitfire glanced at one another. “I say we stay on a first name basis with Fancy Pants, what do you think?”

“Don’t even have to suggest it…” Spitfire said as she slowly shook her head in awe.

As the receptionists and staff went to work, the rest of the Wonderbolts were all gathered near the center fountain, enjoying the cool mist coming off the splashing water as the exotic birds chirped, squawked, and moved about overhead in the trees.

Dash was sinking into one of the couches, slowly losing her grip on consciousness.

“This has to be THE MOST COMFY thing I’ve ever sat on…” she mumbled. Star was to her right on the couch, Thunderlane in the seat across, and Matteo sitting on the floor beside Dash, facing her. Star was on the edge of the cushion, eyes still wide and sparkling in awe at the lobby. Twister was dressed in a hula skirt and a coconut bra, fanning Dash with a large leaf while blowing kisses at Matteo.

“How have I lived for thirty years and never knew this place existed?!” she bounced as she looked around.

“Huh… this is interesting…” Thunderlane spoke up, his nose stuffed in a brochure he picked up at the entrance. “I was wondering why the clientele didn’t look a hundred percent high end. It looks like the resort has several large discount deals if you want to stay and only use specific things… like the golf course, or for club attendance… there’s also a family special for cheap if you just want to use the water parks…”

“Not surprising,” Dash waved a hoof in the air as she sighed contently. “Fancy Pants is a really smart business pony. Want to know how he’s rich enough to own a place like this? Everypony is a potential customer to him.”

“You know him well?” Star asked, tearing her ogling eyes away from the lobby.

“One of my friends from home does a lot of work for his fashion businesses… and he also is the head distributer of Zap Apple Jam, which is made on the farm of another friend from home. So I used to see him a lot, yeah,” Dash explained, Thunderlane averting his eyes and rubbed the back of his head while awkwardly chuckling. Dash nearly fell asleep on the spot as she let her head fall onto the back cushion.

“When can we go to the water park?” Matteo suddenly asked.

“Tomorrow, Matty… I can barely keep my eyes open right now,” Dash said followed by a long yawn.

“Oh!” Star perked up. “Squall, you’re from the Empire!” she looked towards Dash and Matteo, but didn’t see him. “Have you ever been…?” she trailed off as she looked the other way and Squall was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s over there,” Matteo pointed. All eyes followed to see Squall sitting by himself in a chair halfway across the lobby.

“Auuuugh!” Star grunted in frustration and fell over backwards onto the couch. “That’s it… I give up…” she groaned and started fluttering her wings making tiny repetitive PLAP PLAP PLAP noises against the cushion.

“What’s up with him anyway?” Thunderlane asked as he tossed the brochure onto the table. “I know he’s a grump, but he wasn’t THIS bad when I showed up.”

“That Shadowbolt you guys confronted,” Dash waved a hoof at him as she sat up. “Ruin. He dug pretty deep into him.”

“Okay, what was up with that guy, by the way?” Thunderlane asked. “He was downright creepy.”

“He’s not like the other Shadowbolts,” Dash explained. “Though I’m not really sure how to describe him in short…” she blinked as Twister’s head slowly rose up behind Thunderlane, only his eyes peering over the back of his seat. “He’s kind of like Twister… but not quite as far off his rocker and he has a sick-twisted desire for chaos and pulling the strings of others for his own amusement. Also seems to get off on sticking his nose into personal feelings and exposing what ponies are afraid of.”

“That’s a scary thought…” Thunderlane cringed as he recalled their encounter.

“By the way, on your six,” Dash pointed.

“Huh?” Thunderlane looked behind him and yelped, falling forward off his chair as he saw Twister peeking over the back.

“On the plus side, Ruin can’t seem to handle Twister no matter how hard he tries, so… at least we have a way to fight back.”

“Right…” Thunderlane swallowed as Twister vaulted over the back, into the chair, several other seat cushions springing over with him and encasing him in a cushion fort on the seat. Only Twister’s eyes were visible from the darkness inside of it, repeatedly shifting back and forth with skepticism.

“But anyway, Ruin went after Squall for talking back to him…” Dash said as she slowly looked at Star.

“Hrmm…” Star groaned.

“He cut through Squall’s mind, dug out a lot of personal things about him, and coerced him into completely losing his cool by pulling all the things out of his head about his friendship with Star, what she really meant to him and how he actually enjoyed many of the ways she treated him despite the way he usually reacted. Then after laying bare Squall’s own desires, he threatened Star’s life,” Dash explained as Star turned onto her side and tucked her legs in. “I don’t think he actually intended to kill Star, but Squall went ballistic, I’ve never seen him so angry or desperate, and it was all over her.”

“Huh…” Thunderlane blinked as he moved away from Twister’s fort and sat on the floor. “He’s… been distancing himself because of that?” he tipped his head curiously.

“I KNOW!” Star suddenly sat up and pounded her little hooves on the seat. “How can he possibly think anything that came out of that was bad?! It only made me think better of him! Yet he’s ignoring me, and us, like he’ll get cooties or something!” she fell back over and groaned again.

“He is a closed book,” Matteo suddenly chimed in. “No doubt he never wanted to admit anything Ruin revealed.”

“How does that make it any better?!” Star sat back up and pouted at Matteo.

“I never said it did,” Matteo shook his head. “His feelings are very personal to him, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now,” he said as one of the exotic birds in the tree behind him started slowly shifting down the branch towards him.

“Well, yeah… but still…” Star huffed and looked over towards Squall sitting by himself. “Would it hurt him to, you know, acknowledge that I was… happy to hear all that?” she said shakily as her ears flopped down. “It’s not often you find out somepony… cares so much…”

Dash perked up as Star said those particular words, she blinked and glanced over at Squall, then back to Star. She hummed quietly to herself, tapping her chin.

“I’ll see if I can talk to him a bit,” Dash suggested. “I’ve been trying to respect his personal space, but… I’m not gonna sit back and let him shut you out.”

“I—”

“No,” Matteo cut off Star. Dash turned to him and lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, what?” Dash asked.

“Let me speak to him,” Matteo suggested. “It’s more likely that I will sway him,” he explained as the purple bird behind him got closer, stopped and started coiling and stretching out its neck repeatedly while staring at the back of Matteo’s head.

“I don’t see how…” Dash paused briefly as she watched the bird near Matteo make its way closer to him, sitting on the branch right beside Matteo’s head and tipping its head back and forth. “… How that would make a difference.”

“This requires a male perspective,” Matteo explained, causing Dash to flatten her brow.

“Oh boy, this again,” she said as she rolled her eyes.

“You mock me, but I am right,” Matteo stated firmly. “He is too stubborn and will take anything you say as nagging, while I can goad him into seeing that he’s being a coward. This will not be solved by a soft approach.”

“Who said I was going to be soft?” Dash fought back, trying her best not to start snickering as the bird next to Matteo lifted one of its legs and began gently grabbing towards his head, completely unbeknownst to him. Thunderlane was starting to scrunch up his mouth to stifle a laugh too.

“Whatever you have in mind, I guarantee it won’t be enough,” Matteo continued to insist. “Allow me to confront him man to man. I assure you this is the…”

Matteo paused as the bird pressed its foot into his cheek. Matteo slowly shifted his eyes over to look at the bird as it turned its head all the way upside-down and started leaning in and out as if it were examining Matteo closely.

Matteo just stared flatly at it as it continued to bob in and out. Dash, Thunderlane, and Little Star all snickering.

“Friend of yours?” Dash asked with a smirk.

“You insult me,” Matteo snorted as he glared down at her.

“Bird, meet bird,” Thunderlane joked.

“Did I see you in the bird bath the other day? I can’t remember!” Dash joked as she pressed a hoof to her nose to alter her voice.

“Hrmph…” Matteo glared at the bird, quickly turning his head, opening his beak, and letting out a quiet hiss. The bird whistled and quickly sidestepped away up the branch while several feathers on its crest tilted up. It remained on the branch two yards away, bouncing up and down with its wings spread out.

“Oh, that did it, now he wants to fight you,” Thunderlane joked, the three of them chuckling harder.

Matteo stood up and moved away from the tree, sitting next to Twister’s cushion fort instead.

“AS I WAS SAYING…” Matteo snorted. “Allow me to handle this.”

“I think I’ll do just fine, thank you. I don’t need a lecture in macho manliness,” Dash gave him a flat look.

“You twist my words,” Matteo furrowed his brow. “Believe me, he will not listen to you,” he insisted as a stick slowly started extending out from the ‘window’ of Twister’s fort. “I am not trying to challenge your status as our leader, this requires a personal touch.”

“And I think you’re full of it,” Dash rolled her eyes. “I don’t see how berating him will help. He’s not a griffon you know, is that how this works back home?”

“I’m simply stating what I believe to be…” Matteo’s eyes widened as the same purple bird emerged from Twister’s cushion fort on the stick with its head crest still up, bouncing with its wings extended. Matteo promptly balled up his talons and punched down as hard as he could atop Twister’s fort. It capsized in an instant and released a long raspberry as Twister’s tongue stuck out in between the cushions and flapped up and down. The bird leapt off and flew back to the fountain trees while squawking.

“This is going nowhere,” Dash sighed. “Star, who do you want to help?”

“I really don’t care who, honestly,” Star groaned. “Just get him to stop ignoring me!”

“HOW BOUT WE ALL HELP?!” Twister suddenly popped up beside Dash. “Dashie can be the good cop!” Twister slammed a police hat over Dash’s head. “Big Bird can be the bad cop!” Twister slammed a fedora over Matteo’s head and jammed a massive Cigar into his beak. “And I can be the obsessive roleplay shipper!”

Twister flung himself down onto the seat beside Star and pulled out two miniature action figures of Star and Squall.

“AnD ThEn…” Twister’s voice warped as his eyes stuck open wide and his head started rotating like an owl. “ThEy KiSsEd!” He started slamming the faces of the two figures together as Star’s eyes widened, mortified. “AND THEN THEY BANGED TOO!” Twister stood up, turned the figures around and started bumping their butts together. “POSTED THE STORY AT PRIMETIME ON THE WEEKEND! FIVE THOUSAND WORDS OF ROUGH SEX! 100:1 LIKE TO DISLIKE RATIO IN AN HOUR! AHHH CRAP TOO BAD, IT DIDN’T MAKE THE FEATURE BOX BECAUSE IT’S STILL FILLED WITH MANE SIX LESBIAN CLOP!”

“No! NO! STOP! ARGH!!!!” Star reached over and grabbed him by the neck, shaking him so hard that he made the noise of a clown gargling underwater. “YOU’RE NOT HELPING! Not here OR with Squall! I swear to Celestia!”

“Okay, okay enough…” Dash chuckled as she grabbed Twister from her and his body deflated like a balloon. “We’ll all try to get through to him and we’ll figure out how to do it together, how does that sound?”

“Agreeable,” Matteo said flatly as he spat out the cigar and carefully eyed the purple bird still staring at him from the fountain trees.

“Dashie, keys!” Fleetfoot’s voice suddenly came from behind her. Two sets of key cards dropped into her lap as Fleetfoot happily trotted by, humming as she went to give out others.

“You know what? I’m tired as hell, let’s just go get some sleep,” Dash suggested as she stood up from her chair.

“Yes, let’s please do…” Matteo growled, glaring at the bird as they all got up and went to collect Squall.

“Five-two-zero… five-two-two… five-two-four! Here we are.” Spitfire smiled as she stopped at the door labeled 524 with Fleetfoot and Misty Fly right behind her. She started fiddling with the keycards as Blaze slowly moved by behind them, grunting and straining as she pulled High Winds along, who was sleeping face down on the floor.

“Fucking… dammit… Windy! You couldn’t wait till we got to the room?!” she cursed as Surprise slowly bounced patiently behind them. They eventually got to the door across from Spitfire and Blaze nearly kicked it open once Surprise unlocked it.

“Why do these things never agree with me…?” Spitfire grumbled as the door mechanism kept flashing red.

“Try not using it upside-down,” Fleetfoot snickered from behind. Spitfire blinked and looked down at the card. She quickly turned it over and it worked on her first try.

“You didn’t see that,” Spitfire mumbled as she pushed the door open and made her way in with Misty eagerly close behind. Fleetfoot stuck her hoof on the door to keep it open as she leaned back and looked down the hall. A few doors down, the Streak twins and Wave Chill entered a room together.

“Whatcha looking at down there?” Spitfire called from within. Fleetfoot giggled and moved in.

“Just lookin’ at—WHOA…” she paused as she looked at the room. It was a large suite with a full blown living room, kitchen with bar-style seating, two bathrooms, and a three bed bedroom, all queen size. The ceilings were at least five yards higher than a standard hotel and there was access to a large balcony outside. “Damn!” she whistled as she followed the other two into the bedroom and claimed the middle bed. “I could get used to this!” she smiled as she started sinking into the cushy mattress. “Oooooo so soft…”

“You didn’t answer me,” Spitfire teased her as she flopped onto her own bed and sighed, glancing briefly as Misty Fly nestled herself onto her own mattress.

“Oh, nothing,” Fleetfoot smirked. “Just amused by the sausage fest down the hallway.”

“Wave and the Twins?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “You have that much energy? What’s stopping you?”

“Oh god, no I don’t have energy,” Fleetfoot stuck her head into one of her pillows briefly. “One: I’m really tired. Two: We have plenty of nights to party. And Three: They’re all taken, what are you, trying to goad me into going after your stallion? Or hers?” Fleetfoot bounced her eyebrows. Spitfire smirked back at her.

“What about Lightning Streak?”

“Lightning doesn’t count,” Fleetfoot said very quickly while cringing.

“He did while you were drunk,” Spitfire teased while tipping her head and resting it on her hoof.

“I don’t speak for drunk Fleetfoot,” Fleetfoot shook her head vigorously. “Nopony speaks for drunk Fleetfoot.”

“Remind me to have a talk with drunk Fleetfoot about her public citation record someday then,” Spitfire chuckled.

“Hey, c’mon, a girl’s gotta have fun sometimes!”

They both paused and looked over as rustling noises came from Misty’s bed. Misty was on her back rubbing it against the mattress back and forth almost like a house cat. Once satisfied, she flopped onto her side with her head against the pillow and appeared to fall asleep on the spot. She looked so comfortable that the sight alone was enough to force a yawn out of Spitfire.

“I think Misty has the right idea…” she said sleepily as she stretched her body out.

“Thank god we got her for a roomie,” Fleetfoot said with a sigh of relief. “Can you imagine how it’s going to go across the hall? Surprise, Blaze, and High Winds?” I give it two nights before the floor collapses beneath them.”

Spitfire smirked and averted her eyes.

“What?” Fleetfoot asked while giving her a smarmy look.

“The way it was organized had Surprise rooming with us. I… pulled some strings to swap her with Misty Fly.”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT…” Fleetfoot pressed her face into her pillow. “You left Blaze and Winds out to dry!”

“For some peace and quiet yeah, but I also kind of wanted to drive Blaze nuts,” Spitfire admitted.

“Oh you BITCH!” Fleetfoot burst out laughing, not considering her volume level because, well… Misty Fly. “I love it!” she added as Spitfire chuckled along with her.

Fleetfoot calmed down first, fixing her eyes on Spitfire as she held a hoof over her mouth and giggled happily. Fleetfoot rested her chin on her pillow, staring at Spitfire with very wide, almost sparkling eyes, her eyelids tipping up slightly as her lips started quivering as if she’d cry.

“Hm? What?” Spitfire asked as she finally caught the look.

“You… look so happy…” Fleetfoot said in a blubbery tone.

“Huh?” Spitfire blinked. Fleetfoot shook her head lightly.

“You really don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve seen you smile or laugh like this…” She sniffled loudly and buried her face into her pillow. “Don’t look, I’m gonna start crying like a baby over here…” she added, voice muffled.

Spitfire glanced down at her hooves, letting out a long sigh.

“I guess… I am feeling better, mostly. With Wave back in my life a huge weight was taken off my shoulders, but Soarin is still… I don’t even know what he is right now. The gods are saying he’s ‘fine’ for now, but he sure isn’t back to normal if he ever will be again. Am I selfish for being happy about one while the other is still—AH!” She yelped as Fleetfoot launched a pillow right into her face.

“NO! STOP THAT!” Fleetfoot pounded her hooves on her bed. “YOU WERE DOING SO WELL!”

“Blah!” Spitfire pulled the pillow off her face and furrowed her brow. “Am I not allowed to be worried about Soarin?”

“You’re allowed to worry about Soarin, but you’re not allowed to kick yourself in the teeth while doing so!”

“Sorry…” Spitfire sighed as she pushed the pillow aside. “I’m just naturally critical of myself, you know this.”

“Look, Spitty,” Fleetfoot scooted to the edge of her bed and propped herself up. “Let Soarin do Soarin and you just do you. Okay fine, he absorbed an immortal piece of ass and a sexy historical monarch stud to turn himself into one hell of a hunk of beef, fine, I get it…” she quickly rolled onto her back, her ears flat against the bed as she bit her lip and stuffed her hooves between her thighs, pressing them together. “And I kinda want it… but obviously I can’t have it.” She flipped back over. “But none of it is your fault and you have every right to be happy about Wave Chill! C’mon!” she angrily pouted. “Let yourself have this nice thing! It will be good for you!”

“I suppose…” Spitfire exhaled through her nose. Fleetfoot clapped her hooves together.

“Tell ya what,” she pointed. “I’m going to give you a challenge while we’re here. You have to thoroughly enjoy yourself without worrying about things you have no control over. How does that sound, think you can do it?”

“Easier said than done…” Spitfire said weakly with a shrug.

“YOU’RE DOING IT AGAIN!” Fleetfoot stood up and leapt from her bed onto Spitfire’s, tackling her and wrestling her onto her side. “STOP IT!” she demanded while gnawing on Spitfire’s ear.

“Ah! Hahaha!” Spitfire laughed as she tried to break free. “Stop! That tickles!” she managed to shift and thrust her hooves out, pushing Fleetfoot right off the edge of the bed.

“YEEP!” Fleetfoot grabbed the blanket, but she was already falling over the side. The whole blanket came off with her as she landed on the floor with a soft THUD. She poked her head out from the pile of blankets on top of her to see Spitfire catch her breath and turn to smile down at her.

“Okay, okay… you win,” Spitfire agreed. “It’s not like this isn’t the first time Soarin has gotten himself into something ridiculous and somehow came out of it just fine.”

“He’s been pushing his luck on that a little recently…” Fleetfoot said sarcastically as she slumped into the blanket.

“I’ll focus on having fun,” Spitfire assured her. “And… I need a massage… really badly,” she added while shifting her body about and causing a few cricks and cracks.

“Good, and…” Fleetfoot suddenly paused.

“What?” Spitfire tipped her head, but then watched as Fleetfoot’s mouth curled into a mischievous grin. “Oh no, what are you scheming… I don’t like that face.”

“Oh, nothing…” Fleetfoot cooed as she stood up from the blanket. “I just have an idea or two about how I can help you reach peak relaxation!”

“‘Relaxation…’” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling it has to do with your personal definition of that word?”

“Oh, trust me… you’ll like it!” Fleetfoot tossed the blanket back onto Spitfire’s bed. “But for now… we sleep. Misty is way ahead of us.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Spitfire yawned and started nestling herself into a comfortable position. “And Fleet… thanks,” she said as Fleetfoot made her way back to her own bed.

“For?” she asked as she slid onto her bed.

“For keeping me in line,” Spitfire said with some slight sarcasm and a chuckle.

“Hey, somepony’s gotta do it around here!” she giggled. “Sleep tight!” she rolled over and hit the light switch.

Spitfire started drifting to sleep quickly, the comfort of the nice bed and pillow winning her over without struggle.

But in the darkness, Fleetfoot was rubbing her hooves together, grinning mischievously, and bouncing her eyebrows.

Spitfire was going to have a great time and she was going to make SURE of it.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Looks like things are about to get weird :pinkiecrazy: But at the same time we have quite a few scenarios that will have to play out... in the most Wonderbolt kind of way, of course. Nothing is ever simple or normal 'round these parts :trollestia:

I admit, the part with the bird bothering Matteo came to me after i finished the chapter initially. I found this while randomly browsing the internet:

And simply had to make it happen somewhere.

Isnt it great to see Spitfire be such a stumbling blushing mess? She is not going to be able to control herself, but why should she? When's the last time she was allowed to feel this good? She may not know, but Fleetfoot sure does and boy is she gonna milk this for all its worth. Come on, dont you trust this face?:

As for Dash... she has two things on her hooves, Squall and Storm. Squall is just being, well, squall. considering Matteo and Twister want to 'help' with him, Thunderlane has his work cut out for him holding Dash back from strangling them both.

As for Storm... being maybe a little too harsh there Dash? There seems to be one particular detail about how she's treating him that is apparently shooting WAY over her head... perhaps some outside influence is needed for both of them to sort this out *glances at the grumpy dad in the corner* Ah ha... thats assuming Descent knows what to do with himself... after all... has the big tough, lifelong mercenary ever gone on a vacation before? :pinkiecrazy: Not to mention he's going to be surrounded by the Wonderbolts... who turn everything into a quite a shitshow no matter where they go.

It's time to kick back, recharge, and reconnect while the downtime presents itself. Buckle up kiddies, there be shenanigans on the horizon :rainbowwild:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

(Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf)

Chapter 175: Rest, Relaxation, Reassurance

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 175: Rest, Relaxation, Reassurance

“Despicable… Absolutely despicable…”

“For real? Really? That’s lower than low.”

Dash frantically looked back and forth. Fire Streak and Lightning Streak glared down at her.

“Wait… wait, no… I…” She reached towards them, but they vanished.

“What the fuck is your problem?!”

Dash’s head whipped around to see Blaze getting in her face.

“How could you fucking do that?!”

“Blaze! I—”

“Get lost,” High Winds moved next to Blaze and pressed a hoof to Dash’s chest. “Backstabbing bitch…”

“What?!” Dash tried to reach for them, but they both vanished as her hooves touched them. “I didn’t…”

“W…why Dashie…?”

Dash spun around to see Surprise sitting on the ground. Her tail was curled around her legs and she was crying her eyes out.

“Why did you do that to us?”

“Surprise! Please—!” Dash reached towards her, but she appeared to slide out of her reach.

“I thought we were friends! I thought… I thought…”

“No! No, no, no! We are! I just…”

Dash froze as Surprise vanished, the spot she sat instantly replaced by cream colored hooves. Her eyes grew wide as she looked up, meeting a harsh glare from Misty Fly. Dash couldn’t find any words as Misty’s eyes cut deep into her, and even if she had anything to say, it wouldn’t matter because it would literally fall on deaf ears. She didn’t know enough of the sign language to speak out either… forcing her to sit and struggle to remain steady as Misty forced her will forward.

Misty snorted, whipped her head, and turned her back to Dash.

“NO!” Dash yelled as Misty started walking away. She lunged forward, but she lurched as if something was holding her back. “MISTY!!!!!!” she yelled as tears started squeaking out of her eyes as Misty grew further and further away. “MISTY PLEASE!!!!!”

Misty vanished.

Dash frantically sat upright in bed. She gasped and panted, her breath heaving as a soft yellow glow shone from her body. She shook lightly, her eyes stuck open as tears dripped down her face.

But when she pressed her hoof down, she felt the soft mattress of her hotel bed.

“Ah…” she quietly exhaled, realizing that she was right where she was supposed to be. She pressed a hoof to her chest, feeling her rapid heartbeat slowly calm down, the yellow glow fading.

Just a dream… again.

That was the fourth time… it had happened every night since they arrived. More accurately… every night since she first saw the effects of the yellow aura in the gym, the effects of her soul connection with Soarin after having absorbed Celestia’s magic in full. Did her new awareness of it pop the cork off a new potential problem she had to deal with? Or did it just take a while to emerge?

Whatever it was, she couldn’t go one night without a vivid dream of some kind, as if the power ran wild whenever she went to sleep. But at least…

Dash reached over and checked the clock. It was 7:50. They typically woke up at 8:00. So at least the magic wasn’t disturbing her sleep… as if it wanted her to see everything she was dreaming about.

Dash lay back down on her back and sighed.

As for the dreams… They had been wildly different every night. First there was the outrageously sexual encounter with alicorn Soarin. The second night was ironically a re-enactment of Twister’s wave pool stunt, only with her and the others actively involved. She chalked it up to her watching the whole thing and the power having a sense of humor. The third was the entire first book of Daring Do. And tonight was…

Dash shuddered and she hugged herself.

All the Wonderbolts of squad two and three that were out there during the big fight… they…

Dash quickly shook her head out.

“It’s just a dream, Dash… just a dream…” she said quietly to herself.

But it didn’t stop it from feeling so real… or hurting…

She decided to do her best to forget about it and relax until the alarms were set to go off in ten minutes. She focused on what she’d want to do at the resort today, instead of on a rather unnerving nightmare.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooohhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

Snickers spread around the spa massage room as Spitfire dug her face into her pillow.

“FRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMRRRRRRRRGHGHGRHGRHGRHGRHGRHGRHG…”

Fleetfoot glanced towards Spitfire’s masseuse with a smirk. The unicorn stallion’s mouth was scrunched up slightly, pressing his hooves into the base of her wings as he struggled to hold his composure. Spitfire’s head lifted up and arched back as far as she could, a sharp exhale squeaking out of her mouth before she bit down on her pillow.

“Hrrrrrrnkkkkkkkfffrrrrrrr…” she groaned into it as her ears flapped up and down.

“It doesn’t matter how many times I see or hear it,” Fire finally spoke up as Spitfire kept making weird noises. “It’s hilarious every time.”

It was the fourth day into their little vacation at the resort and the top tier Wonderbolts had finally found a break in all the fun to hit the ‘Equestria renowned’ spa to see if it lived up to the hype. It only took five minutes for the massages to speak for themselves… and just like every time Spitfire got on a table with a good masseuse… she was putting on quite a comedy show. Fleetfoot and the members of squad two and three were all trying their best to not laugh and relax, circled up on tables all facing in towards one another as their bodies were turned into putty by the professionals. The unicorns were not only using their hooves, but also their magic to cover a wider range at once. It was a new and extremely relaxing experience for all of them.

“I will admit…” Spitfire’s Masseuse finally chimed in as he worked over Spitfire’s back. “This is a first for me, is this normal?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Every time,” Fleetfoot giggled. “A good massage is like a drug for her. The best way to get her to agree to something is to bribe her with a professional massage.” Fleetfoot sighed heavily, then inhaled sharply as her masseuse hit a very sensitive spot and worked his magic on it, literally and figuratively. “Hrmmmm… damn… you’re really good…” Fleetfoot cooed, biting her lip and blushing lightly as her wings flittered. She turned her head to lazily look over her shoulder at the stallion working on her. “Say… wanna come by my room later? I have other relaxation needs to be met.”

The stallion just chuckled while reaching his arm over to flash a gold marriage band just above his hoof.

“I don’t think my wife would like that,” the stallion said with a shrug.

“Awww… OH!” Fleetfoot twitched, then inhaled as her chin fell back to the pillow and her eyes rolled up a bit. “Talk about a… ah… lucky mare…”

Lightning Streak smirked while eyeing Fleetfoot’s masseuse.

“Sounded like that wasn’t the first time you’ve answered that question, bro,” he said while lifting an eyebrow.

“Correct,” the masseuse answered without hesitation. “But it’s not uncommon. Massage therapy removes stress and gives a great amount of stimulation at the same time, and…”

“Oo! Hrmmmmmnnnfff…” Fleetfoot groaned and hummed in a somewhat sexual manner.

“I’m familiar with her type,” the masseuse added as he kept perfectly serious.

“Haaaaaa, hear that?” Blaze pointed weakly towards Fleetfoot as she was slowly turning to mush. “You’re a fucking whore. Outside source. There is no argument,” she stated in a slightly wavy tone as High Winds snored, fast asleep beside her with her masseuse continuing regardless.

“Sorry Blaze…” Fleetfoot sighed happily. “I feel too good to kick your ass right now… maybe later if you’re so eagerrrrrrrroooooo…”

“It’s common, eh?” Lightning bounced his eyebrows and started turning to look at the mare working on him. “Babe, you free after th—”

She was already reaching a hoof towards his face before he finished turning, giving him a soft tap on the nose.

“Nope.” She said simply.

“Dang…” Lightning blinked. “Didn’t even get the question out that time…”

“Better luck never!” Surprise chanted with a giggle as they all chuckled.

“Fweeeeeerrrrrrahaaaaaaahhhhhhrrrrrrggggggaaaaaaaaacademyrecooooooooooooooord…”

There was a long pause as all of them slowly turned to look at Spitfire again.

“Chiller, what the fuck?” Blaze turned to Wave Chill. “Does she make these noises when you tube steak her too?”

“Ahaaaaa…” Wave awkwardly chuckled.

“Wait…” Blaze blinked, her eyes growing. “You fucking serious?”

“No! No… Well… she…” Wave faltered, freezing and scrunching his mouth and glancing at Spitfire RIGHT next to him.

“Spill it!” Fleetfoot demanded. “Tell meeeeeeeeeeee!” she giggled and bounced as her masseuse tried to press down and hold her still.

“HRNG HRGN GRH…” Spitfire suddenly grunted, stretching her arms and legs out as if she were flying, her ears still flapping up and down. Everypony watched, Wave holding as still as possible in hopes that she wasn’t listening to the conversation.

“Come ooooooon!” Fleetfoot snickered. “We all know she cold pressed you into a mattress at the recruitment party!”

Wave’s deep blue fur turned slightly red around his face as his eye twitched, but he exhaled and glanced at Spitfire briefly to make sure she was completely distracted… and she clearly was.

“Well…” he slowly tipped his head. “Not like this, but…”

“BUUUUUUUUUUUT?” Fleetfoot goaded as she, Blaze, Surprise, and… Lightning Streak all waited impatiently for an answer. Wave’s eyes darted between them and Spitfire. “She might as well be blackout drunk, just say it,” Fleet added as she waved an arm near Spitfire’s head.

“I… shouldn’t…” Wave tried to dodge the subject.

“Hell bro, loosen up,” Lightning chuckled. “You can’t land a mare like her in bed and expect us to believe your upright, professional act. It’s Fire’s job to keep his cheeks clenched, not yours.”

“Brother…” Fire snorted with a flat look.

“Um…” Wave swallowed. “Oh fine. She’s… vocal. Yes.”

“WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww…” Spitfire released a loud shrill noise that sounded like a squeal and a whistle.

Wave’s eyes locked on her, but her face fell flat into her pillow and started kneading back and forth against it.

“Elaborate please!” Fleetfoot encouraged, practically shouting into Spitfire’s ear. Wave noticed the utter lack of reaction from Spitfire, gently prodding her shoulder with a hoof.

“Merf.”

“You’re right, she is out…” Wave commented before looking back at all of them, still not quite loose about the conversation, but he knew he wasn’t getting out of it. “Well, I don’t know if it was just the party night when she was especially… in the need, but she was very… how should I put it?” he paused. “Rowdy and enthusiastic.”

“I need words,” Fleetfoot rotated a hoof. “Give me words!”

“I don’t remember specifically, really… honestly, I was more focused on how hard she was… er… pressing me.” Wave explained, his wings twitching once.

“Sounds like an ideal way to go if you ask me,” Lightning chuckled while pointing and winking at Wave.

Fire sighed, shaking his head and glancing back at the unicorn mare working on him.

“Apologies for the particular topic of conversation,” he said politely, but the masseuse shook her head.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” she said casually as the rest of the masseuses nodded in agreement.

“Huh,” Blaze rubbed her chin. “So you guys are saying that a massage can get the brain on fuckin’? Good to know!” she said slyly while shooting a mischievous look at High Winds, but she was still sleeping, and snoring. “Sheesh, you try to score points, but your babe is always out like a light…” Blaze grumbled as she rolled her eyes.

“So…” Fleetfoot smiled towards Wave while humming quietly.

“So?” Wave blinked. Fleetfoot made a head motion towards Spitfire.

“Don’t play dumb with me, bucko,” she giggled. “She came back to our room REAL happy the other night. Get a chance to hear what she says when she’s not firing rockets out of her banana basket?”

“Oh!” Wave perked up, quickly shaking his head. “Nooooo, no we didn’t… do THAT.”

“Really, huh?” Fleetfoot lifted an eyebrow. “Then why was she floating with her wings closed?”

“We did sneak off and…”

“And… aaaaaaaand…?”

“We just kissed for a bit,” Wave waved a hoof while averting his eyes and chuckling.

“WoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOO…!” Lightning wooed as Wave realized more than just Fleetfoot were listening.

“Hee! Go on!” Fleetfoot pressed, but Wave shook his head.

“That’s it,” he chuckled. “We didn’t have much privacy… it was just a less conspicuous area of the pool, covered a bit by hanging plants.”

“Hmmm…” Fleetfoot made kissy lips towards him. “Getting a bit needy yourself, huh?”

“Me or her?” Wave shrugged. “I was just sitting in the water, she wouldn’t let go of me.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Surprise giggled. Wave now being faced by all of them.

“No… not really,” Wave admitted.

“I always knew your soldier bullshit was a fucking act,” Blaze stuck her tongue out at him. “If I hear you calling her ‘captain’ or saying ‘yes ma’am’ to her one more time I’m gonna put you through a mattress myself and it WON’T be the fun way she did it.”

“Whoa, did you just switch sides?” Lightning snickered, bouncing his eyebrows at her.

“You fucking WISH!”

“Okay,” Fleetfoot sneered at Wave. “So come clean, you’re buttering her up for a killshot later, eh?

“Uh…” Wave’s eyes widened.

“Muhaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…” Spitfire suddenly exhaled and groaned as her masseuse slowly kneaded his hooves up her sides.

“I don’t think she’ll need any ‘buttering’ after this.”

“Oh, I don’t knoooooow…” Fleetfoot bounced her eyebrows.

“Honest question though… where would we?” Wave asked. “The whole force is here and we're at least three to a room organized by gender. Privacy isn’t really a thing at the moment.”

“Right… right…” Fleetfoot tipped her head a little, her smirk growing. Wave quickly took notice.

“What are you scheming…” he asked.

“Scheming? Me? I’m hurt! Oooooo…” Fleetfoot flinched slightly as her masseuse hit a spot between her wings. “Hurt gone… so goooooood…”

“I’ve been out for a bit, but I haven’t forgotten that face you make whenever you’re up to something,” Wave pointed out, earning a giggle from Fleet in between her relaxed groans.

“Now don’t you worry your dark blue little head,” Fleetfoot said while glancing at Spitfire.

“Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwd…” Spitfire started slipping off the table but her masseuse nudged her back into place.

“Hmmm… HMMMMMMM…” Fleetfoot hummed progressively louder as Wave looked on with worry.

“Better watch out, Chilldawg,” Blaze spoke up. “If you’re not careful she’ll be fucking your mare with you.”

“Like that wouldn’t turn YOU on…” Fleetfoot said smarmily towards Blaze. Blaze scrunched her face for a moment.

“Yeah, maybe, fuck you,” she snorted.

Their ears all stood up as a low pitched BONG of a bell in the center of the room sounded out.

“Time to finish up with these seven,” High Winds’ masseuse motioned to all of them except Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

“Awww…” Surprise pouted. “But it’s soooo good…”

“You’ll feel even better after the jacuzzi and the therapeutic showers,” her masseuse reassured her as they began wrapping up.

“We’ll join you after… ah… they finish with us… oooooooo…” Fleetfoot cooed as her body shuddered.

“SHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOWwwweeeeeeeeooooooo…” Spitfire’s neck twisted back and forth.

“Assuming she’s still alive after this…” Fleetfoot added.

“Alright, up slowly… keep your body relaxed,” Blaze’s masseuse instructed as they all slid gently off the tables.

“Windy, wake the fuck up,” Blaze reached to a spot right where her leg met her waist and gave it a good push.

“IIIIIIIIIIIII’M UP.” High Winds awoke with a start, but barely got a few inches off the table. “Whooooaaaa… my body feels wavy…”

“The jacuzzi room is down the hall and two doors on the left,” Fire’s masseuse pointed towards the door.

“Thank you,” Fire nodded while beckoning the rest to follow. They slung towels over their shoulders and left Spitfire and Fleetfoot behind.

As they made their way down the hallway, Wave caught Blaze staring at him.

“What?” he asked with a smirk.

“Nothing,” she snorted and pouted. “I… no. Fucking nothing.”

“She’s just really happy you’re here and doesn’t want to admit it,” High Winds explained while placing a hoof on her head.

“Windy, I’m gonna fuck you up…” she growled.

“Later,” Winds patted her head again with a yawn.

“I’m glad to be back with you guys too,” Wave smiled warmly at her, earning a pout from Blaze.

“Great, I’m still being such a baby about this…” she said with a quiet sniffle.

“Awwwwww… Blazey!” Surprise shifted over and squished her cheeks. “You’re such a softy under all those F-bombs!” Surprise gave her a big hug as Blaze bit down on her lip and hissing noises came from her nostrils.

“Careful, she bites!” Lightning joked.

“OH YEAH?!” Blaze spontaneously leapt at Lightning, latched to his back and grabbed a large amount of his mane in her mouth. Lightning didn’t even flinch as she started yanking on it and growling.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Fire asked, watching Blaze tug roughly.

“Kinda,” Lightning shrugged. “But hey, this is the most action I’ve gotten all week,” he added nonchalantly as Misty rolled up her towel and rat-tailed Blaze right on the plot with a loud THAWHAP.

“YAI!!!!!” Blaze yelped and fell off Lightning between him and Fire, but Fire reached out and caught her before she could crash to the floor.

“None of us think poorly of you for being happy, Blaze,” Fire reassured her as she put her hooves on the floor and refused to look at him. “We’re all glad to have Wave back too,” Fire explained, glancing towards Wave while making simple wing gestures towards Misty. She nodded vigorously in agreement.

“I’m a fucking pansy…” Blaze mumbled.

“No, you have feelings just like the rest of us,” Fire chuckled and patted her on the head. She gruffly grunted and whipped her hooves over her head, but he had already stopped.

“Thank you, Blaze,” Wave chimed in with a smile. Blaze peeked around Lightning, her pupils growing as she saw him.

“OOOOOOOOOH STOP IT!!!!!!” she whined, pushing around Lightning and pressing her face into Wave’s side. “Stop it stop it fucking… GAH!” she pounded her hooves against his side as High Winds came around and rubbed a hoof on her back, looking up at Wave and shrugging.

“Has she been like this since I woke up?” Wave asked with a light chuckle.

“She was a wreck while you were down too,” Winds added.

“Was fucking not…” Blaze’s muffled voice came from against Wave.

“I can’t blame her though,” Winds said as they all stopped in front of the door to the jacuzzi room. “I was a mess too. It was bad enough with you, when Silver went down too nothing felt right.”

Wave looked down and patted Blaze on the head.

“WILL EVERYPONY STOP DOING THAT!?!?” Blaze propelled herself off Wave and swung her arms around for a second before breathing heavily.

“I won’t leave you two hanging again, I promise,” Wave reassured them. Blaze instantly calmed down and pouted again.

“You better fu…” she paused and swallowed. "Please don't..." she said in a hushed tone.

“Alright, let’s hit the tub!” Lightning hooted as he pulled the door open.

The heated air rising from the large tub, which might as well have been an indoor pool with jets, splashed against their faces. But as they stepped in they all stopped as they saw another pony already present.

“Oh, look who’s here!” Fire said with a smile.

Rainbow Dash’s ears shot up. She blinked frantically as her head snapped to the door to see all the top tier Wonderbolts moving in.

They all moved in casually, tossing their towels aside as they made their way into the large Jacuzzi one by one. The tub was very large and even with all the new occupants there was easily enough room for more than double their current numbers.

Each one of them greeted Dash as they moved in and sat down around her, casually continuing conversation as Dash suddenly found herself surrounded after being in there alone.

She didn’t say a word and her mouth remained shut.

“Miss Dash?”

“GAH!” Dash suddenly flinched as Fire addressed her from right beside her.

“Did you hear me?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“I, um, sorry…” she shook her head out. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you are enjoying the resort.” Fire repeated.

“Yeah! Yeah… a lot!” Dash answered rather quickly.

Fire eyed her for a moment, but did not say anything else, giving her a smile as he went back to conversing with the others.

Dash swallowed, scanning them all. She was trying to act natural, but it wasn’t really working that well. Thankfully they seemed to be distracted by their own conversations. Every once in a while one of them said something to her, and she quickly answered.

But eventually… one of them got curious.

Dash perked up as she felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked to her left and saw Misty Fly tipping her head, giving her a look of concern. Dash’s eyes opened a little wider as Misty tilted her head back and forth. Conversations continued around them, but Dash looked the other way, freezing when she saw Fire staring past her at Misty.

Misty quickly shifted her attention to Fire, rapidly making signs with her hooves and wings. Fire watched her do so and sat still for a second after she finished before turning back to Dash.

“Is everything alright?” Fire suddenly asked Dash. Dash froze as everypony heard and she suddenly found every present pair of eyes trained on her. She twitched as she felt a hoof on her shoulder. She turned to see Misty touching her, the look of concern even stronger. “Misty says you look uncomfortable.”

That was it, she was toast.

Dash groaned, looking down at the bubbling water and sinking into it slightly. But nopony said a thing, simply looking at her and waiting curiously. Dash kept sinking until only her eyes were above the water, shifting them around and looking every one of them in the eye. After blowing a few bubbles of her own into the water, she rose up and sighed.

“Sorry… I’m fine, it’s just…” she quickly scanned all of them again. “You guys just have ironic timing.”

The Wonderbolts glanced amongst themselves, obviously not sure what she meant. As Surprise finished translating for Misty, Misty suddenly grabbed Dash by both shoulders and turned her to look at her. Her look of concern had increased even further, her pupils extremely wide. Dash stared into Misty’s eyes and within seconds felt compelled to talk.

“Damn, you’re right…” she glanced towards Fire. “It’s really hard to say no to her…”

“What’s on your mind?” Fire asked as the rest all scooted over. Dash placed her hooves on her temples and rubbed gently.

“I was thinking about everything that went down two weeks ago,” Dash half-heartedly admitted.

“Eh?” High Winds blinked. “Why so down?” she asked.

“Everything worked out, didn’t it?” Lightning added.

“I… guess,” Dash leaned back a little. “But…” she started but stopped, pausing for several moments.

“You’re a master of suspense!!!!!” Surprise yelled out, prompting Fire to firmly press a hoof over her head, her body making a drawn out SQUEEEEEEEEAK.

Dash took a moment to gather her thoughts.

“This is gonna sound odd, but… I’ve been having weird dreams recently,” she began. “I think it has to do with my connection with Soarin and what’s happening to him,” she paused and scrunched her mouth. “I’ll spare you the details of all of them but last night, I…” she looked up at all of them again. “It had to do with the Wonderbolts… with you guys and… you were all angry with me. You were all shouting at me, accusing me of betrayal.”

She didn’t look at them as she spoke, but all of them quickly shared Misty’s look of concerns to various degrees. Dash shook her head out.

“When I woke up, I realized it was just a dream, but… I haven’t been able to get it off my mind all day. I even ditched my crew and came here by myself because it was bothering me so much. I needed space to think about it. About what happened out there and what I did against you all…”

Dash looked up, seeing all of their concerned expressions, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

“I fought you guys…”

She paused for a long time.

“It felt terrible… It was so hard to do even though I was so sure of what I was doing,” she awkwardly fidgeted and groaned quietly. “I don’t regret what I did but… I still feel a little bad about clashing with all of you. I don’t care what the circumstances were. I had nearly forgotten all about it, but then the dream…” she shrugged and sank slightly. “I haven’t really had a chance to speak to any of you since, the dream made me wonder if… any lasting damage had been done.”

“Bwuh?” Blaze’s eyes twitched. “The fuck? You played water basketball with us the other day… and you’ve been around with all of us every day we’ve been here so far.”

“I mean, yeah, but that was before last night. Either way the whole force was out there,” Dash pointed out. “I was blending in with everypony. I’ve only had a chance to personally touch base with Spitfire and Fleetfoot since it all went down, I wasn’t sure about…” she paused and pouted at all of them. “Sorry, I don’t wanna sound like I’m uncomfortable with you guys, I just—”

She got no further. Dash yelped in surprise as she was practically tackled by Misty, nearly pulling them both into the water. Fire Streak blinked, his hooves lifted up mid sign.

“Wow, I didn’t even finish translating…”

“Misty?” Dash blinked as she reached back to prop herself on the tub and prevent them both from going under. Misty was gripping her in the tightest hug she had ever received and moments later she forced Dash to arm’s length and began vigorously shaking her head before glaring at Dash with her lips scrunched into a heavy pout.

“I think Misty speaks for all of us,” Fire said with a chuckle.

Dash’s eyes widened slightly and her lips parted a little as she saw all of them smiling at her.

“You’re worried about what happened out there?” Lightning asked, lifting his brow. “What, you think we knew what we were doing out there?” he asked with a chortle.

“I sure as fuck didn’t,” Blaze chimed in. “Sis was being a harsh bitch, but I followed her because I didn’t know what else to do.”

Dash’s face went blank, staring straight ahead.

“Look, Rainbow Dash…” Fire began while placing a hoof to his chest. “Let me confess outright. I was completely lost and confused while we were out there. We had fought our way through hell and back to make our way to the Crystal Empire… a destination that was supposed to mark success for our hardship and offer us respite. Our finish line, so to speak. But moments before we crossed it, Sombra happened. In the blink of an eye, one of our highest ranking commanders, most motivating leaders, and most trusted friends was taken from us. It was like the rug had been pulled out beneath our hooves.”

Fire looked around at the rest.

“My morale was shattered, and while we all forced ourselves to move on, I had no semblance of focus or drive. I heard everything that was said and discussed before the big confrontation, but I didn’t know the first thing to think about it. And when we discovered that we did not have the means to cure Commander Wave… any dim glimmers of hope I had been clinging to had completely vanished,” he said as he glanced at Wave Chill. “And then watching Captain Spitfire struggle as they encased him stuck a knife in my chest and I effectively lost any ability to think coherently. At that point, all I had left were orders. Spitfire’s words were clearly filled with unease and lacked any sort of confidence. It should have been obvious that she had no certainty in her own plan, but I didn’t know what else to do. I just went with it and blindly followed her orders, even when she informed us that we would be subduing you.”

Dash had gone completely silent. Misty was still hanging onto her, but she just stared at Fire as she took it all in.

“Pretty much that,” Lightning spoke up with a shrug. “We went through all that crap and got sucker punched right before we made it. I was depressed as hell.” He leaned way back in the tub and sighed. “Soarin is a bro, you know? He and I have been buds for a long time. It’s hard to see something happen to a guy like that and just be a-okay right after.”

“I was so sad the whole time,” Surprise chimed in. “And when I can’t find any reason to smile, then you know it’s bad!” she shook her head, a sad squeak coming from her hair as it deflated a little. “At that point I just wanted something good to happen. Something remotely happy. I didn’t care what it was. I followed Spitfire because I didn’t know what else to do… and everyone else was.”

“Sis had lost her fucking mind!” Blaze suddenly spoke up while splashing a hoof, but then she shook her head. “But were any of us thinking straight? I was still shaken from Silver almost dying…” she paused and pouted. “Which I still haven’t gotten over, by the way. So I had that hanging on me and then Soarin got fucked up too… and Chiller…” she sniffled. “Aw fuck me, I’m gonna start crying like a bitch again…” she groaned, jittering in the water.

“Everything was screwed,” High Winds continued for Blaze as she placed an arm around her. “Then we got the bad news on Chiller, which was the cherry on top of it all. Truth be told, I wanted to go to bed and hoped I’d wake up and find out it was all just a dream…” she yawned, her body shimmering and reflecting off the water in the tub.

Dash squeaked quietly in surprise as Misty tightened her grip on her again, this time wrapping her neck around Dash’s as well as she clasped her tightly.

Misty was shaking.

Dash thought she was going to cry. Misty couldn’t speak her part like the others, but the hug said everything Dash needed to know. Misty was quietly letting her know how she felt and it echoed the words of the rest. None of them felt the way her dream had depicted.

But Misty’s gesture did more than she could have known for Dash. Dash grew up as a filly watching and being inspired by Misty. She may never have been where she was right now if not for seeing her fly during her first trip to a Wonderbolt show. To have Misty herself strongly assure her that her fears were not reality was a special moment for her.

Dash looked at all of them once more, feeling much, much better. She gave a glance towards Wave as well. Even though he had nothing he could offer to the conversation, the fact that he was sitting at all was symbolic all on its own. Despite how much they had gone through and how hard it had been, here they all were soaking in a hot tub at a luxury resort spa, with Wave sitting right there with them like he had never been taken from them.

“Don’t doubt yourself or what you did for a moment, Rainbow Dash,” said Fire as he placed a hoof on her other shoulder. “If you hadn’t taken a chance, we would’ve kept following Spitfire without question. Thanks to you… we were able to see how irrational she was being and found the courage to stand up to her. And… when Fleetfoot rallied us against her, she too snapped out of it, realizing her mistake.”

“Heh, I dunno bro, I think we were only part of it,” Lightning chuckled. “Fleeties slapped her right across the face with a real zinger to nail it home too.”

“Was she wrong though?” Fire asked, chuckling with his brother.

“Huh?” Dash blinked.

“Invoked, the old ass,” High Winds explained simply. Dash blinked, not catching on. “Silver,” she added, but Dash was still confused.

“Honestly, Dash…” Fire continued, Dash’s eyes quickly darting back to him. “What you did out there wasn’t a blunder at all. It was exactly what we needed…” Fire sighed, looking down for a moment. “Something that was missing…”

Dash looked around at the rest and saw them all nodding.

“We were all so lost,” Fire went on. “So far out of our minds that none of us took a moment to think about what Spitfire was trying to do or whether it was actually a good idea or not. We didn’t even bat an eye when she caught wind of your plans and gave us the plan to restrain you. We couldn’t see anything happening around us, but you…” he poked Dash in the chest. “You saw what was going on and you took action against it.”

“It's what ol' Silver would've done for sure. He wouldn't have let that happen either but he wasn't there to do it. You pretty much did what he would have done,” Lightning added. “Grew a pair and… oh, that’s kind of weird here… anyway, you got in Spitfire’s face and said no.”

Dash flinched for a moment and felt like making the argument that Silver wouldn’t have snuck around, but she quickly remembered what Silver had said about all of it and let it be… because they… really felt this way?

“It didn’t feel good to hold you down!” Surprise whined and frowned. “We were just doing what we were told but… We can’t just blindly follow every order. That’s something the old donkey always drilled into our heads over and over yet we flat out forgot!”

“Yeah…” Blaze sniffled. “It’s what the old fuck would have done… if he was out there we…” she sniffled again, sharpening her glare. “We needed him out there, but he wasn’t…GAWD WHY THE FUCK CAN’T I STOP CRYING!?!?!” she shouted before dunking her face into the water and blowing bubbles.

“I think what Blazey is trying to say is…” High Winds began as she rubbed a hoof on Blaze’s back. “You played his part pretty damn well. It took all of us a second to catch on but…” she paused and yawned. “Hoooooaaaahhhh… eventually we saw it, and we gave Captain Spit the swift kick in the ass she needed.”

Dash stared blankly, straight ahead as her heart fluttered and her face felt rather hot.

“I… don’t know what to say…” she chuckled, blushing as she was bombarded with praise by… ponies that were still effectively her heroes.

“I certainly do,” Fire gave her a wink, causing her to freeze for a moment. “I can’t speak for the captain, but if I were in charge… after what you did out there?” He waved a hoof back and forth in front of his face. “Promotion. Directly into an elite squad.”

Dash’s pupils grew extremely wide and her mouth began a thin flat line. Fire chuckled when he saw her reaction.

“What, Dash are you kidding? You can’t fill the missing hooves of the Silver Lining in the middle of a disaster like that and expect not to be recognized as elite Wonderbolt material. That was a masterful move, a game changer that more or less saved us all.” he said as Dash’s eyes kept growing wider.

“Yeah, babe!” Lightning shifted over, bumping into Fire as he pointed at Dash. “You slapped sense into all the top Wonderbolts at once in the middle of an absolute shitshow and we all came out the other end alive? Shit, I agree a hundred percent.”

Dash started slowly sinking.

“Pffffff, guys…” High Winds laughed to herself. “Careful now, you’re gonna make her explode.”

Dash frantically turned her head away, but her eyes landed directly on Misty.

Misty booped Dash’s nose with a hoof and nodded happily.

In an instant Dash dropped into the water. Lots of bubbles shot up to the surface accompanied by a muffled, waterlogged squeal. The Wonderbolts waited patiently for it to finally die down. Eventually Dash slowly emerged, her wet mane slicked over her face. She let out a sharp, long breath.

“Oh my gosh, guuuuuuuuyyyyyssss…” she pressed her hooves to her cheeks. “Stop it! I’m… I just did…” she glanced about at all of them. They were all giving her smarmy looks that deflected any humble response she could think of before she could even muster it. “Okay fine, maybe I did a… thing…”

“The brash and awesome Rainbow Dash…” Wave began with a chuckle. “Utterly defeated by a little praise from her superiors? I have been out for a while!” he joked.

Dash blinked, quickly pushing her mane back and out of her face. She cleared her throat and puffed her chest out.

“Me? Defeated? Naaaaaawwwwww…” she flipped the last bit of wet mane out of her face. “It’s to be expected, sometimes I’m just too awesome for my own good!”

There was a brief silence as they all just stared at her.

But seconds later they all burst out laughing, Dash included, several of them dipping further into the water as they all shared a hearty guffaw.

“Man, you’re a riot,” Lightning commented as they all slowly calmed down.

“But…” Dash smiled, looking down. “Seriously though, thanks. And not just for the praise, for letting me know everything is cool and… for telling me how I somehow managed to fill a little of the massive space that Silver left behind for you guys. It means a lot to me, it really does.”

“Naturally,” Fire nodded. “Don’t let a bad dream steer your thoughts.”

“You were really worried?” Lightning butt in while standing up and leaning over the top of Fire’s back. “Hell, we like you even more now!”

“Brother…” Fire sputtered as he sank down a little. “You’re heavy…”

“YEAH!” Surprise leapt onto Lightning’s back. Fire grunted and fell into the water, bringing Surprise down to eye level with Dash. “So chin up, Dashie! You gotta be happy for all the partying we’re gonna do tonight!”

Dash’s ears perked up as Fire tried to force himself up, only to fall back under with both Lightning and Surprise on his back.

“Partying? Tonight?”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

As you may recall... earlier in the story Fleetfoot got approval for a photoshoot while they were on high alert for a Shadowbolt attack by bribing Spitfire with a professional massage. And the result was very similar... that mare sure has sensitive spots all over her body eh? (Wave take notes).:moustache:

A bit short, but... i decided to split this chapter in half. i wanted this moment for Dash to have the spotlight. Meaning the next chapter is already about 90% outlined so i can get started on it right away. :twilightsmile:

Come on Dash, you should have known the Wonderbolts wouldn't turn their backs on you. it was a rough go of things, but you did a lot more for them than you realized.

But one has to wonder about these dreams... what else will Dash be dealing with as she learns more about Soarin and their connection in conjunction with these new extraordinary circumstances? Seems things are only starting to show, good thing she's on a vacation and has time to experience and think about it :twistnerd:

But for now it's party time? We all know the Wonderbolts know how to party. Hopefully they won't get (too many) noise complaints or cause too much property damage :rainbowlaugh: Though lots of things can happen in such a silly atmosphere... some ponies might have some plans for other ponies, some ponies may be seeking out ponies that they are fed up with, and some ponies might get so drunk that... ah i dont want to ruin anything now, do i? :trollestia:

So buckle up, an emotional rollercoaster is inbound. We have a few ponies with lots on their minds :rainbowwild:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Chapter 176: Who's Ready To Get Wonderblasted?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 176: Who’s Ready to get WonderBlasted?

“COME AT ME BRO! YOU AIN’T SHIT!”

Spitfire’s ears were bombarded by Air Mach’s voice the moment she opened the door to her room and stepped into the hallway.

She stood still as Air Mach slid to a halt and ducked as a pillow flew over his head.

“WHAT’S UP BRO!?” he bobbed his head back and forth. “What are ya aiming at, the moon?! OH SH—” he flinched but couldn’t move in time as a couch cushion plastered him right in the face and knocked him over.

“SCORE! Three points!” Lightning Streak’s voice came from down the hall.

Spitfire didn’t even bat an eye, standing calmly as Air Mach got up and continued down the hall, Lightning Streak chasing after him, scooping up the cushion as he pursued. Once they were out of sight, Spitfire was still staring straight ahead.

“Thank Celestia we have this whole block of the hotel to ourselves…” she said with a sigh as more assorted sounds of laughing, partying, and music started hitting her ears.

“What is this weak crap?!” Blaze’s voice came from two doors down. Blaze peaked into a room where music was coming from. “Windy, for fuck’s sake, we’re partying, not doing yoga! Turn the music up!”

The music suddenly got extremely loud. Surprise came flying out of the room, crashing into Blaze as the two were pressed to the wall opposite of the door.

“TOO LOUD, WINDY! TOO LOUD! FUCK!” Blaze shouted into the blasting tunes.

Spitfire was still staring straight ahead with little expression.

“Thaaaaaaat’s the first of many noise complaints tonight,” she said with another sigh as the music turned down enough to stop pushing Blaze and Surprise, but remained very loud.

“Aw, give it a rest, Spitty!” Fleetfoot giggled as she happily trotted up beside Spitfire and brushed against her. “Worry about all that later! It’s time to cut loose!”

Spitfire glanced at Fleetfoot, her eyes shifting down to see several bottles of wine tucked under her wings. She lifted an eyebrow and glanced back into their room towards the kitchen area.

“Where did you get all those?” she asked, flattening her brow.

“Swiped them from the bar in the lobby,” Fleetfoot grinned. Spitfire’s eye twitched.

“Swiped? As in, you stole them?”

“Possibly.”

“And… nopony saw you do it?”

“I’m pretty sure everypony saw me do it,” Fleetfoot shrugged and snickered. Spitfire flattened her mouth and exhaled sharply through her nose. “Here, I got this along the way too!” Fleetfoot held out a purple exotic bird and placed it on top of Spitfire’s head.

Spitfire blinked, shifting her eyes up as the bird tilted down to look at her upside-down.

“What, did you really think we were going to behave ourselves tonight?” Fleetfoot winked and cutely stuck her tongue out. She wound up and spanked Spitfire hard on the plot, causing her to yelp and jump slightly. The bird squawked and took off, flying into the hallway as Fleetfoot trotted out and opened her wings a little to showcase all the wine.

“HEY GUYS!” she yelled as she put a bounce in her step. “I RAIDED THE WINE BAR!”

Rambunctious cheers rang out as several popped out of rooms to follow her as she found a room to set up in and ducked into it.

Spitfire stood still for another moment, but eventually she couldn’t help but smile.

“Ah what the hell…” she said as she turned towards the room Fleetfoot went to. “Let’s party.”

“Wow, where do we even start?” Thunderlane chuckled as he walked in front of Dash, Matteo, Twister, and Star. He peeked into the rooms one by one as they passed. Wonderbolts were gathered in several of them, some of them were playing music, and nearly all of them had cider. There didn’t really seem to be any particular direction anything was going in, it was just lots of fooling around, alcohol consumption, and clashing music of genres and styles that differed from room to room.

It reminded Dash of the party after her recruit graduation party, just in a hotel instead of Fleetfoot’s Canterlot home.

“The music is too loud,” Matteo randomly complained. Dash was only halfway through glancing in his direction before Star spoke up.

“You’re more than welcome to go back and sit in silence with Mr. Shiny McGrump-Face if you want,” she said in a very miffed tone.

“I did not say I disliked it, I just said it was too loud,” Matteo clarified calmly.

“HRMPH!” Star grunted, puffing her cheeks out as she kept her eyes forward.

Matteo and Thunderlane glanced at one another, neither of them daring to address Star’s mood. Dash reached out and grabbed Twister by the head before he could slither his body towards Star and do anything to annoy her. She stuffed his head under her wing and clamped down, causing him to flail and release a muffled scream, but she would save Star the annoyance.

She had just brought up Squall without any provocation, and it wasn’t a surprise after the little altercation they had had before they left to join the rest of the Wonderbolts. Star was insisting that Squall stop avoiding them and come to the party, but despite her best efforts he refused to look at her and it ended with a lot of angry yelling between them both. Needless to say, it was a complete disaster and Dash decided to get her away from him instead of trying to make anything of the situation in its state.

But while Matteo and Thunderlane were being a little more wary of the little ball of anger trotting with them, Dash didn’t pay it much mind aside from holding Twister back. She barely even glanced in Star’s direction. The Squall and Star problem was something important she had to address, but…

“Dash?” Thunderlane said her name.

No response. Dash’s eyes remained forward, slightly shifting. Thunderlane blinked and tried to follow Dash’s eyes, but all he saw ahead of them were Fire Streak and Misty Fly. Misty was riding on Fire’s back, silently laughing while holding a cider in the air while the two of them made their way towards one of the bustling rooms. After a couple of glances, Thunderlane couldn’t tell that’s where Dash’s eyes were, in a mostly vacant and blank stare.

“Equestria to Rainbow Dash, come in Rainbow Dash,” Thunderlane waved a wing in front of her eyes, but still got no reaction.

Twister suddenly popped up on the other side of Dash wearing a pilot helmet and flight mask.

“KSHHHHT, this is Milli Vanilli Chilly Willy to Rainbow Dash, come in Rainbow Dash!” he sounded like his voice was coming through a speaker.

“The f—” Thunderlane blinked and was nearly shoved to the wall as Twister popped up in between him and Dash with a different color helmet.

“KSSSHHHHT, I’m getting no response from Rainbow Dash either. Do you have a visual, Purple Fluffer Nutter?”

“Who are you talking t—”

Thunderlane flinched as Twister vanished and popped up again right in front of Matteo, behind Dash with another different colored helmet.

“KSSSSHHHHT, she must be below radar, give chase. I wanna see a major display of low level flying. Topper, Kent, you’re up first!"

Matteo casually balled up one set of talons and slammed them down over Twister’s head. After a loud BONK, the helmet remained in place while Twister’s body got completely sucked into it. The helmet fell to the ground and started rolling along the floor at the same pace they were walking.

Dash blinked.

“Bwuh? Huh?” she glanced around.

“Wow,” Thunderlane chuckled. “You didn’t see any of that?” he pointed to Twister’s rolling helmet. “You must be really out of it.”

“Ah, no, sorry…” Dash exhaled. “Guess I’m just a little tired,” she said as her eyes landed on Fire and Misty again. Misty rolled off Fire’s back, grabbed his arm, and tugged him into one of the rooms with others. Dash sighed, scrunching up her mouth slightly, but quiet grumbling from Star drew her attention away.

Dash glanced down and the subtly fuming Star.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Dash said, assuming Star would know what she meant. But she never found out because Star just kept grumbling to herself.

“You should have let me confront him,” Matteo chimed in, once again making his case, but Dash shook her head.

“Matty, no. I wasn’t going to open that can any further than it already had been. We’re supposed to have fun tonight and I didn’t want to ruin it,” she explained, glancing at Star again as her grumbling got louder. “Come on, we need to get Star a drink.”

“PLEASE,” Star agreed sharply.

“WHO’S READY TO GET TRASHED?!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from the same room Fire and Misty walked into.

“There.” Star pointed at the room. “We’re going there.”

Dash flinched and hesitated for a step or two, causing Matteo to bump right into her. Matteo glanced down and lifted an eyebrow, but Dash quickly got back up to pace, following behind Thunderlane and the rolling Twister helmet as they kept up with Star’s eager steps. Dash failed to not look suspicious at all as she ended up almost knocking Thunderlane aside while passing by him quickly, placing herself right behind Star as they turned into the room.

Dash came to an abrupt halt once again as she stepped into the doorway. Star kept moving, but Dash was locked in place, her eyes growing wider as she saw not only Fire and Misty, but also Spitfire and Wave Chill. Other Wonderbolts were present as well, but Dash’s eyes kept darting between these two particular pairs.

“HUE.” Twister suddenly appeared behind Dash, the size of Matteo and shaped like a rectangular prism that fit perfectly through the doorway. His lower jaw shot outward and smacked Dash in the plot, forcing her stumbling into the room and nearly stepping on Star. Dash blinked, shaking her head out as she stood upright and flinched as she found herself less than an inch away from the eager grin of Fleetfoot.

“Dashie! Glad you could make it!” she giddily greeted. “And perfect timing too! Come on over here!” she beckoned, but grabbed Dash by the arm and tugged her over to the other Wonderbolts. “We’ve got more than cider tonight folks!” She called to the group as she dragged Dash all the way up to the bar counter of the room’s kitchen and presented at least twenty bottles of fancy looking wine.

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow and scanned all the bottles.

“Wait… that’s way more than you were carrying…” she pointed out.

“Never said I made only one run!” Fleetfoot bounced her eyebrows at her. “By the way, if security comes looking for me, tell them I’m already on the train to Canterlot.”

“Dandy…” Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“COME ON!” Little Star’s voice suddenly boomed from below everypony else. Spitfire and Fleetfoot looked over to see several of the Wonderbolts look down and move aside.

“Whoa, short-stack on a warpath!” Lightning Streak yelled, several Wonderbolts chuckling as Star forced her way forward.

“I don’t have all night!” she yelled as she pulled Spitfire’s legs out of her way and hopped up by the wine bottles.

“Eager, huh?” Fleetfoot smirked. “Here let me—”

Before Fleetfoot could reach for a glass to pour for Star. Star grabbed one of the bottles of red wine, popped it open and jammed it into her mouth, taking several large gulps directly from it.

“Whoooooaaaaa!!!!” several Wonderbolts all burst out, several laughing and a few jokingly pushing back on others as Star chugged.

“GLARGH!” Star coughed as she finished a third of the bottle in one. “THIS… IS MINE!” she declared, grabbing a glass as she tucked the bottle and flittered into the air over to a couch.

“Yikes,” Fleetfoot blinked as she and Spitfire stared blankly. “Who shat in her oatmeal this morning?”

The two looked towards Dash, who was clearly unprepared.

“Uh…” Dash blinked and awkwardly tilted her head. “Long story. Squad issue.”

“Hm?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as she glanced in the direction of Dash’s crew. She shifted back and forth slightly, but then it hit her. “Oh, oh right…” she shook her head. “Thunderlane’s been sticking around and following you, I keep mistaking him for Squall.” She paused briefly and looked back at Dash. “Is Squall even here by the way? I don’t think I’ve seen him with you anywhere since we arrived.” Spitfire asked.

“Again, long story,” Dash said with a sigh.

“We’re working on it,” Matteo suddenly said from directly behind Dash.

“I’M… working on it…” Dash quickly corrected him after her nerves calmed down from him startling the hell out of her… again.

Spitfire looked back and forth between the two of them.

“I won’t ask,” she gave in with a shrug.

“Does it have to do with se—?”

Spitfire quickly forced Fleetfoot’s mouth shut.

“And she won’t ask either,” she assured Dash while giving Fleetfoot a firm glare as she gave a goofy look in return.

“What kind of wine do you have here?” Matteo asked as he moved by Dash to examine the bottles.

“I have no idea!” Fleetfoot giggled as she pulled away from Spitfire and made her way back around the counter. “But I’ll pour ya a glass, fluffy!” she cooed with a wink as she grabbed the first bottle she could reach.

Dash took a step back as Matteo waited patiently and Thunderlane made his way over towards some of the stallions to grab himself a cider. She stood still, staring straight ahead rather vacantly. Nearby, Spitfire had turned to Wave Chill, but he was looking by her.

“Hm? Is something up with Rainbow Dash?” Wave Chill asked Spitfire, motioning his cider occupied hoof towards her. Spitfire glanced over her shoulder, looking at Dash curiously. She hoofed her wine glass over to wave as she broke away from him and approached, waving a hoof in front of Dash’s eyes.

“Dash?”

“AYE!” Dash slammed her eyes shut and took a step back.

“Spacing out there, you tired?” Spitfire asked.

“A little I guess…” Dash said rather unconvincingly, but Spitfire didn’t seem to notice. “I’m fine.”

Spitfire looked her up and down as Wave approached behind her, balancing Spitfire’s wine glass on his wing.

“Got some things on your mind still, huh?” Spitfire guessed, but Dash didn’t answer, her throat tightening as Wave came into view. “I don’t blame you, I’m the same way,” she said as Wave placed a hoof on her shoulder and she briefly glanced back to smile at him. “I’m doing my best to just not think at all, but it’s hard not to. It’s not like we’re actually on vacation, we have things ahead of us and really wish I had more of a grapevine to anything Descent’s scouts are finding… but I don’t, and I don’t think we’re gonna get much time to relax, so I’m just enjoying it while I can.” Spitfire blinked and glanced towards the door. “Has anyone seen Descent by the way? Somepony drag his ass here, I wanna see what he’s like drunk.”

The way she made casual conversation with Dash felt good. Dash was happy that Spitfire was making a solid effort to be more friend than commanding officer like she promised, but that wasn’t what was on Dash’s mind at all… and she didn’t have the heart to contradict Spitfire at this given moment.

After retrieving her wine glass from Wave she smiled at Dash and made a head motion towards the counter.

“Here, come grab a drink,” she suggested.

“Oh uh… no thanks,” Dash put up a hoof and shook her head.

“Hm? Don’t drink?” she asked, tipping her head and smirking. “Soarin is definitely rubbing off on you,” Spitfire trailed off and her eyes went wide. “No, Fleet. That’s NOT what I meant!”

“What?” Fleetfoot’s voice came from further back. “What did you say?”

“I know you heard me! Cut it out!” Spitfire pressed.

“I’m innocent, I swear!” Fleetfoot added with a chuckle.

“I mean,” Dash rubbed the back of her head. “I could, I just haven’t in a while. More out of habit and yeah I think Soarin is a part of that.”

Spitfire flinched and nearly spilled her wine as Fleetfoot suddenly slid in from the side and pushed against her, smiling towards Dash with a wine glass in her hoof.

“No time like the present then, amirite?” she giggled and took a sip of her glass, Matteo casually moving by behind her with his own glass as he sat down nearby.

Dash looked towards Matteo as Spitfire began grinding her hoof against Fleetfoot’s head for almost getting her wine all over her.

Matteo didn’t drink immediately. He examined the wine closely, swirled it in the glass and took a long whiff of the aroma.

“Hm…?” Matteo tipped his head as if noticing something. He took a small sip and looked up, licking the edges of his beak as he tasted it. “What? Zangiovese?!” he suddenly exclaimed, his eyes wide as he looked at the wine.

“Gesundheit,” Fleetfoot said as she peered over her own glass.

“Let me see that bottle!” Matteo suddenly sounded very eager, startling Fleetfoot as she reached towards her.

“Uh… ‘kay?” Fleetfoot hoofed over the bottle, Matteo snatching it quickly and scanning the label, his beak hanging open slightly.

“How in the… this is Griffonese wine!” he exclaimed in disbelief.

“Huh, neat,” Fleetfoot tipped her head, going for another drink, but nearly spat it out as Matteo jammed the bottle into her face.

“Look, right here, on the bottle! The Haast Winery’s seal!” he pointed at a specific design that appeared to be crafted directly into the glass of the bottle.

“Could you elaborate already so I can get back to throwing down?!” Fleetfoot placed a hoof over her wine glass and held it away while hissing at him.

“Finding it outside of the Empire is impossible! We don’t export it anywhere,” Matteo kept staring in awe as Fleetfoot scooted away and finally took another drink.

“Well,” Spitfire spoke up from nearby. “This hotel is owned by Fancy Pants so… knowing him he found a way to get it here.”

“That’s… impressive…” Matteo put down the bottle and took another sip of the wine. “Just like home… Fancy Pants must have some intriguing connections to make such a transaction.”

Spitfire flattened her brow and huffed as she looked towards Fleetfoot.

“What?” Fleetfoot asked with a light shrug.

“So you didn’t just steal some wine…” Spitfire looked at the wine in Fleetfoot’s hoof. “You stole some extremely rare, expensive wine?”

“And this funny-looking lamp.” Fleetfoot reached out and pulled over a fancy stand-up lamp with three shades that Spitfire recognized from the lobby.

“Of course…” Spitfire said with an eye twitch before taking a big drink from her wine glass.

“Anywho-how-now…” Fleetfoot scooted back over to Dash, who was staring at the wine bottles a few paces away. “C’mon Dashie, I know you don’t usually drink, but we’re on vacation.” Fleetfoot kept looking at Dash as Spitfire cleared her throat loudly. “As I said, we’re on vacation, no matter what Spitfire says otherwise,” she reaffirmed with a wink. “So kick back with us! You know it will be fuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnn!” she coerced while wiggling her almost empty glass in front of Dash’s face.

Dash stared at the wine for a few moments, glancing around to see the rest of her crew all with a drink in their hoof or talon.

What would it hurt? It wasn’t like she had to get completely wasted or anything.

“Eh… okay, why not,” Dash agreed with a smile.

“That’s the wine and spirit!” Fleetfoot giggled happily as she started pulling Dash back towards the wine table. Fire Streak and Misty Fly were at the table, looking over the bottles with Lightning Streak and Wave Chill standing nearby with ciders in hoof.

“Hm… let’s see…” Fire said to himself as he rubbed his chin and looked over the bottles.

Lightning nudged Wave and made a head motion towards Fire. The two watched.

“This one looks good,” Fire said as he grabbed a bottle of white wine.

“WHHOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaa…” Lightning suddenly reacted, causing Wave to snort and spit out some of his cider. Fire blinked and looked towards both of them, seeing his brother furrowing his brow and pursing his lips as Wave coughed, trying to regain his breath.

“What?” Fire asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Bro, white wine? Really?” Lightning asked, tilting his head.

“What’s wrong with white wine?” Fire asked.

“Gonna have to ask you to hoof over your stallion card,” Lightning chuckled while making a beckoning motion with his hoof. Fire scrunched his face up.

“Oh, shove it,” he retorted, but focused on Wave still snickering. “Commander… not you too…”

“Sorry,” Wave snorted, while shrugging. “He’s… not wrong. It’s kind of a mare thing.”

“This is news to me,” Fire rolled his eyes. “I happen to like white wine so you can both…” he trailed off as he looked around at other Wonderbolts in the room. Among all those who had gotten some wine from Fleetfoot, not a single stallion among them had white, only red. The mares on the other hoof… “Really? How have I never heard of that?”

“What was that?!” Lightning yelled out, turning his ear towards Fire. “Sorry bro! Can’t hear ya over the sound of your schlong vanishing!”

“You know what, forget it…” Fire groaned, shaking his head as he reached for the white wine anyway. “I’ll drink this and enjoy it thank you very mu—”

He was cut off as Misty suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm. Fire turned to see her giving him a VERY loud pair of bedroom eyes. She had a bottle of red wine tucked under one wing, and two wine glasses balanced on her other wing. Fire remained still as Misty slowly ran her hoof up his arm, over his chest, and all the way up to his chin, bouncing her eyebrows as she gripped his chin and started pulling him towards a couch nearby while biting her lip.

Her intention couldn’t have been clearer. Fire smirked.

“Apologies, brother!” Fire called back as he was led away. “It appears one of us will be busy tonight!”

Lightning blinked and stared with wide eyes as several Wonderbolts wooed in the direction of Fire and Misty, others invoking the amount of burn that had just plastered Lightning in the face.

“Well… shit…” Lightning finally spoke up.

“He got you there,” Wave said while nudging him in the shoulder.

“WOOOOOOOOO!” Fleetfoot cooed loudly as she watched Misty drag Fire away. “Better brace yourself, Fire Stud! She looks in the need!” She yelled as she and Dash made it to the table, taking them both right through the path of Lightning Streak. “One side, Blue Balls,” Fleetfoot smarmily commented as she bumped her flank against Lightning’s to push him out of the way.

“Maaaaaan…” Lightning tipped his head back and turned. “I’m just gonna go stand over here…”

“No walking the dog in the corner now!” Fleetfoot taunted again, but Lightning just kept shuffling away.

“Harsh there, Fleet,” Wave winced as he looked back and forth between them.

“Oh, please,” Fleetfoot lifted her brow. “As if the way he acts doesn’t invite a swift kick in the junk once in a while?”

“Eh? Can’t really argue against that…” Wave admitted.

As Fleetfoot and Wave conversed, Dash didn’t hear a word of it, nor did she take notice of how hard the pendulum swung back into Lightning’s face. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of Fire and Misty, even as Fleetfoot continued to drag her.

Misty had pulled Fire down onto a couch, setting up the wine and the glassed on the table. She kissed him REALLY hard for a few seconds before placing herself in his lap and grabbing the wine and glasses to pour them drinks. And once the wine started flowing, there would no doubt be more public displays of affection of increasing intensity…

“ALRIGHT!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled out, causing Dash to flinch and come back to reality. “Take your pick, Dashie!” Fleetfoot motioned to all the wine.

Dash looked down and stared at all the wine bottles. She didn’t even know where to start.

“Uh…” Her eyes darted back and forth. “What… kinds are there?” she asked.

“We have…” Fleetfoot looked down and stared, scanning the bottles herself. Her eyes landed on the Zangoivese, briefly. “We have… uh… Zam…bol…areese.”

“Zangiovese,” Matteo corrected her from nearby.

“That one!” Fleetfoot pointed at him, and quickly looked back at the bottles. “And…” she went quiet, her eyes darting about. She grabbed some of the bottles, looking closely at the names on the labels. She tipped her head back and forth and her brow lifted and fell as she picked up one bottle after the other. She got to the last bottle and stared really carefully at the labels and fancy names, sticking her tongue out and flicking it up and down as she furrowed her brow. “Red and White!” she presented while slamming the bottle down and motioning her hooves to all of them with a nervous grin.

“Could always just get a cider!” Thunderlane suggested as he trotted by behind Dash with a cider in hoof. Dash nodded.

“You know, yeah, I think I’ll just have a…” she trailed off as Fleetfoot suddenly gave her big, teary, puppy dog eyes and a pout. Dash scrunched her face and exhaled. “Oh… alright, I’ll have…” she looked at the bottles. “This one.” She touched one of the bottles and turned it to read the label. “Um… ‘Pie not no ire?’”

“Pinot Noir,” Matteo corrected.

“What the wine expert said,” Dash agreed, making a subtle head motion towards Matteo.

“Excellent choice!” Fleetfoot exclaimed happily, rebounding back to a bundle of happy in an instant as she poured Dash a glass and gave it to her.

Dash just stared at the wine.

“Well, don’t just stand there! Go relax! Enjoy the music!” Fleetfoot urged. The moment she said it, the music blaring from the hall suddenly got about ten times louder.

“WINDY!!!!!!” Blaze’s voice came from the hall. “THE OTHER WAY! TURN THE VOLUME DIAL THE OTHER WAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

“From five rooms over!” Fleetfoot added casually. “Wow, how hasn’t Winds gone deaf from that?” she asked while staring at Blaze and Surprise flying by the doorway.

Dash was still staring at the wine, but quickly turned, keeping her eyes down as she moved towards the couch by a window where her friends were gathered. Star was sitting on the end of the couch with her bottle and glass, looking miffed. Thunderlane was still mostly hovering around nearby, Matteo had broken away to mingle, and she had no idea where Twister was. Without a second thought, Dash made her way over and sat in the middle of the couch next to Star, her eyes returning to the wine.

She took a slow sip, the taste catching her off-guard, but it was just a little unexpectedly tart. Rarity drank this stuff all the time, so she could handle it no problem. She started to slowly nurse it, taking small drinks at a time to take it slowly, slowly glancing towards Star. She was firmly wedged in between the cushion and the arm rest. She was quietly grumbling to herself and her glass was almost empty. The wine bottle was tucked away in a spot Dash couldn’t quite see clearly, so she didn’t know how much Star had yet, but she looked slightly buzzed already.

Dash started looking the other way, but her eyes landed on Misty and Fire across the room again. Misty was practically attached to him at this point. Dash quickly averted her eyes and gritted her teeth.

“Damn,” Lightning Streak’s voice came from near the door, the loud music still blaring from the hall. “Has Winds blown out any windows yet?”

Twister suddenly popped up beside him and slung an arm over his shoulder.

“Welp! Don’t wanna disappoint ya, chum!” He reached in between his legs and slowly pulled out a very long and very large alphorn, forcing several Wonderbolts to duck as he swung it around the room and slammed it to the floor with the open end directly in front of the window next to Little Star.

Twister took a massive breath, his chest inflating like a balloon as he inhaled for several seconds.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA, WHOA!!!!!!” Spitfire started moving towards the horn, but she wasn’t close enough to make it in time.

Dash sighed, placing her wine down on the coffee table in front of her. She casually stood up and walked around Star towards the horn, reaching into it. Twister lunged forward to blow into the mouthpiece, but the moment his lips touched it, he instead got completely sucked into it. A loud comical wheezing noise filling the room as his body compressed and was forced into the horn mouthpiece. All the Wonderbolts watched with a mixture of confusion and horror, but then Dash simply yanked him out the other end of the horn, holding him by the neck. Twister’s head spun like a top as Dash moved back towards the couch and sat down, keeping a firm grip on his neck the whole way. The moment she was back on the couch, Twister’s head stopped, staring right at her with a wide smile.

“Hey lady, ya need a blow?”

“No.” Dash thrust her arm down, forcefully stuffing Twister in between the couch cushions.

“GERONIMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo…” Twister’s voice slowly faded, sounding like he was falling a very long way as he completely disappeared into the couch.

Dash picked up her wine glass and took another sip. She perked up as she saw everypony in the room aside from Matteo, Thunderlane, and Star looking at her silently.

“What?”

“HEY!” Surprise suddenly yelled as half her body lowered down from inside one of the lampshades of the lamp Fleetfoot stole.egret “DID SOMEPONY SAY STOLEN WINE?!” She exclaimed as she dropped to the floor, the lampshade popping off and landing on her head like a hat. Dash pointed at her.

“You guys deal with her every day and you thought that was weird?” she asked. Surprise looked back and forth, blinking.

“What did I miss?” she asked as Twister’s head slowly peeked out from the top of the lampshade on her head. His hooves suddenly reached down and covered her mouth. “MRRRRRF!”

“Shhhhhhhhhhh…” Twister shushed as he slowly pulled her into the lampshade. It lowered to the floor as she vanished into it, Twister dropping back into it as well. After remaining on the ground for a moment, a small propeller sprouted out of the top, puttering quietly as it lifted off and began floating around the room in circles.

Everypony kept their eyes on it, Wave eventually shuffling over towards Dash.

“Is she going to be okay in there?” he asked.

“Wait for it,” Dash answered calmly without even looking at it.

The lampshade suddenly started shaking and sputtering. The sound of rubbery slapping came from inside of it as it shook.

“OUT!” Surprise’s voice yelled out as Twister was launched out of the bottom so hard that he flattened to the floor like a pancake with a low, drawn out fart noise. Surprise stuck her head out and glared angrily at him, holding out a rubber chicken and shaking it towards Twister. “Touch me like that again and Mr. McCluck is going somewhere you WON’T find him!” she threatened while stretching out the rubber chicken and making jabbing motions towards Twister.

She pulled herself back into the lampshade, flying it over to the wine table. She reached a hoof down and grabbed a bottle, pulling it into the lampshade with her before it turning and puttering through the air out the door.

“Well, that just happened…” Fleetfoot broke the silence, taking a large swig of wine as everypony slowly regained themselves.

Dash finally looked down at Twister as he re-inflated, but remained on the floor on his back.

“Well Twister, what do you have to say for yourself?” she asked.

“Nose Rub…” Twister said in a low hushed voice as a jar of vapo-rub tumbled out of his hoof and clattered to the floor.

“Thought so,” Dash sat back and took another sip of her drink.

Outside the room, the music from the hall got very loud again, but was abruptly cut off by a loud crash followed by yelling and lots of swearing.

“Noise and damage fees…” Spitfire mumbled to herself with a groan.

“No biggie…” High Winds said with a yawn as she walked by the open door. Blaze had Winds’ tail clamped in her teeth, trying to stop her as her hooves skidded along the floor. “All these rooms have sound systems…”

Less than a minute later the music started again from a different room.

Spitfire sighed, gripping her mostly full wine glass and taking a long gulp from it.

“Blah…” she stuck her tongue out after swallowing, shaking her head back and forth due from the wine’s kick.

“You want me to go stop her?” Wave asked with a chuckle as he moved up beside her.

“NO.” Spitfire grabbed him and held him firmly in place. “You’re staying right here,” she stated firmly before taking another large gulp of her wine, finishing off the whole glass. “Oh gawd this stuff is strong…” she said as she exhaled and bent down slightly.

“Watch out Chilly!” Fleetfoot giggled bounced up beside Wave. “A few more drinks and she’s coming for your willy!”

“MINE!” Spitfire grabbed Wave and yanked him away from Fleetfoot while snorting at her. Wave stumbled, almost falling over as Fleetfoot giggled madly.

“Whoooooooa easy there!” she snickered. “Relax, Spitty, I ain’t taking Cold Buns from you!”

“You better not,” Spitfire gave her the stink eye, clearly a little buzzed from the wine.

“Hrm…” Dash hummed, looking away from the three of them and down at her wine again. Could she just stop already? She was making it worse and she had no one to blame but herself.

She took another sip of her wine, instead looking towards Star beside her. Her eyes widened as she saw Star about to pour herself another glass, and the bottle was more than half empty.

“Whoahoho there…” she reached over and stopped her from pouring. Star just kept her eyes locked on the glass. “You need to slow down.”

Star just kept staring at the glass.

“You’re going to start stumbling around any moment at this rate,” Dash added.

“Just leave me alone…” Star said quietly with a heavy sigh. Dash blinked, hearing the clear sad tone in her voice. She gently took the wine bottle out of Star’s hoof and placed it on the coffee table before sitting back and taking a sip of her wine. Star was just sitting still in the same position.

“Don’t let Squall get to you,” Dash said as she clasped her wine glass gently in her hooves and swirled it gently.

“Sure is easy for you to say, isn’t it…?” Star mumbled. Dash blinked and stopped swirling her wine.

“Hey now…” Dash furrowed her brow as she turned to look at Star.

“Oh, don’t even try!” Star wailed a little, leaning back into the cushion.

“Star, stop that,” Dash said firmly as Star groaned. “I’m on your side here, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, great…” Star grumbled, leaning forward and grabbing the wine bottle off the table. Dash made a motion to reach for it, but stopped, letting Star pour herself more wine. “But that doesn’t mean you understand…” Star added, taking a very large swig of her newly poured wine.

Dash looked Star over carefully. She didn’t like the tone Star was taking with her but… she knew it was about Squall and not about her. Was probably a bit of the alcohol talking too, so she didn’t take it personally.

“Fine, if you’re going to be like that, we won’t talk about him,” Dash conceded and started to look the other way.

“Should I go reprimand him now?” Matteo’s voice came from right beside her. Dash nearly launched to the ceiling when she realized Matteo was sitting on the other side of her.

“FUGGINFGHPHERSH!!!!!!!” Dash was lucky she didn’t spill any of her wine as her body flinched and jittered. “Could… you… PLEASE… give us some sort of warning when you’re coming from now on?!” she yelled up at him as he held a straight face.

“All I did was sit down,” he said, lifting an eyebrow as Thunderlane joined them while chuckling.

“Then tap the wall!” Dash demanded. “Snap your talons! Or I dunno, you’re a bird, give us a chirp or something!”

“I do NOT chirp…” Matteo snorted, furrowing his brow. “I’m a griffon, not a bird.”

The moment he said it, the exotic bird from the lobby landed on the shadeless lamp right behind him. Dash’s eyes grew wide and her cheeks puffed out.

“What?” Matteo turned to look behind him and froze, coming face to face with the bird. Just like their first meeting, the bird placed a foot on Matteo’s face and turned its head upside-down. “You have GOT to be kidding me…”

“There’s enough bird in there to attract other birds, apparently,” Thunderlane commented with a chuckle.

Matteo opened his beak and hissed at the bird. It pulled back, but only a little, putting up its crest feathers and bouncing up and down.

“Looks like he was ready for it this time,” Thunderlane added as Dash tried and failed to hold her breath.

Matteo threw up his own crest feathers, glaring and hissing louder and he head-faked at the bird.

The bird squawked and flew off.

Dash and Thunderlane both burst out laughing as Matteo’s crest feathers slowly lowered back down to his head.

“So are you going to admit there’s a lot of bird in you now?” Dash asked as she tried not to spill her drink.

“No,” Matteo huffed as he furrowed his brow and stared straight ahead.

“Guilty as charged then,” Thunderlane poked him in the side. Matteo sharply turned his head to him, leaned down, and repeated the movement, thrusting his head towards Thunderlane while hissing and putting up his crest. “Whoa, WHOA! Okay! OKAY!” Thunderlane chuckled as he slid to the other end of the couch.

Dash looked back at Star as she continued to quietly chuckle, hoping that the shenanigans were improving her mood. Instead she saw Star putting down an empty wine bottle, a nearly overflowing glass of wine holding the last of its contents.

“Okay no… Slow down.” Dash said as she took the wine glass out of Star’s hoof. Surprisingly, Star gave no resistance.

“Hrm…” Star groaned quietly as Dash placed the wine on the table out of her reach. A second later, Star slowly tipped towards Dash, leaning her head on her side. “Sorry… for being mean…” she apologized. Dash blinked and glanced at her.

“A minute ago? Don’t sweat it,” Dash gently pressed a hoof to Star’s opposite shoulder and rubbed it. “I know you’re pissed at Squall, not me,” she assured her while taking a sip.

“I hate him…” Star said in a slightly blubbery tone. Dash stopped mid sip, blinking before she swallowed, licked her lips, and focused on Star. “If he really cares about me so much… then why is he being such a dick to me?”

Dash wasn’t sure what to say. Well, actually, she knew exactly what she thought about it, but it didn’t feel like a good time.

“It’s called being in denial.” For Matteo on the other hoof, being blunt was always an option.

“Matty, hush,” Dash looked at him sternly.

“Am I wrong?” Matteo added as he glanced towards the two of them.

“Well…” Dash tilted her head. “No, but… just let me handle this, okay?” she suggested while patting Star’s shoulder again.

“No,” Matteo said flatly, earning a frustrated look from Dash, but he shook his head. “You can’t ‘mare-talk’ me out of this one,” he said rather sternly.

“Hrmngh…” Star groaned, tucking herself harder into Dash.

“See? You’re totally helping!” Dash said sarcastically.

“I’m talking about Squall, not her,” Matteo pointed out, pointing towards Star before Dash could say anything. “Squall is hiding from his own feelings in plain sight. When Gilda and I fought and drew blood with our talons, we were bound by tradition to fight to the death. But when I was primed to deliver the deathblow and she met me with her defiant, fearless eyes… the anger in my heart was vanquished, replaced by an overwhelming urge to show her mercy. Her adamant pride in the face of my strength that could so easily crush her touched me so deeply that I immediately accepted what I felt inside for her… damning the traditions of my kind, an act looked upon as the most shameful of actions. I did not hide from it, nor did I ignore it and kill her. Now I have a wife and a family I cannot imagine life without.”

“Whoa… HOLD ON!” Star suddenly pushed off Dash, pressing herself back against the armrest as she looked at Matteo with a disturbed expression. “You’re pushing this into certain territory way too fast!”

“I was gonna say,” Thunderlane chuckled from the other side of Matteo. “Around here we don’t go from killing to being married in a few seconds,” he joked, but Matteo ignored him, keeping his eyes on Star.

“You wish for him to admit he cares for you, do you not?” he asked.

“Well…” Star looked down, her lips quivering. “Yeah, but…”

“You expect us to believe your intentions are not those of affection?” he pressed.

Star kept looking down, her face scrunching up and turning red as she puffed her cheeks out and pressed her little hooves against them.

“I stand by my words,” Matteo nodded and returned to his drink. He took a sip and glanced down at Dash, staring up at him quietly. “Still believe I shouldn’t be the one to confront him?”

“Hey, hey… could you rewind for a second?” A new, familiar, and somewhat buzzed sounding voice came from the other side of Matteo. Dash blinked, leaning over as Matteo quickly turned around.

Thunderlane was frozen as stiff as he could possibly manage, eyes open wide. Fleetfoot was casually sitting on his lap, rump to pelvis, and leaning against his chest with what was definitely her third or fourth glass of wine in her other hoof as she stared at Matteo. There was a slight alcohol induced blush across her cheeks and nose, and she was either unaware (or very aware) of what she was doing to Thunderlane.

“You and your wife got together while trying to kill each other?” Fleetfoot asked. “Whew!” she whistled and sat up straight, causing Thunderlane to whimper subtly. “Griffons sure have some interesting kinks.”

“It. Is. NOT… a ki—!” Matteo angrily retorted, but Fleetfoot looked away before he could finish.

“Whoa! Heyyyyyyy!” she bounced off Thunderlane and started walking towards the door as Descent was dragged in by Lightning Dust. “What took you two so long?! Come on in! It’s party time!” she giddily explained as Descent continued to resist.

“Sweet Celestia…” Thunderlane sputtered, eyes still stuck open as his wings and body twitched. “She sat down right on my—”

“It’s not a kink.” Matteo grunted, repeating to himself gruffly as Dash snickered to herself. But her attention was quickly drawn back to Star as she felt a grip on her arm. Star was hugging it tightly, groaning to herself.

“I just want him to say it to me…” she said with her face half buried into Dash’s arm. Dash pouted, not really sure what else she could say. “Is that really so hard? He doesn’t have anything to hide from me, I heard it all…” she slowly slid off Dash’s arm and turned over, laying back and resting her head on Dash’s leg as she sighed heavily, a good chunk of her mane flowing over her eyes. “If he was scared about what I’d think, what’s holding him back now? It didn’t push me away!” she brushed her mane out of her eyes and shared up at Dash. “Can’t he see that? What’s the big deal?”

“That’s just how he is, Star,” Dash shrugged, reaching down and lifting her back upright and let her fall back against the couch. “You can’t assume he’d act like a typical stallion in this situation.” She looked at Star for a moment, then reached for the wine glass she took away from her and gave it back to her. Star clasped it in her hooves, but didn’t drink. “How has he acted every single time we either find something out about him or he slips up and lets something out he didn’t want to?”

“Mrgh…” Star mumbled.

“Hostile?” Thunderlane chimed in, leaning forward to see past Matteo.

“See?” Dash pointed at him. “Even Thunderlane knows and he hasn’t been around to see half of it.”

“But I still HATE IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” Star suddenly wailed, throwing her head back and yelling. Dash flinched and quickly glanced around as several Wonderbolts looked in their direction. She reached over and shut Star’s mouth. “HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…” her voice continued anyway. As soon as she stopped and Dash let go, she took a drink from her wine glass, spilling some down the side of her mouth by accident as she swayed. Dash leaned slightly to assist, but Star remained upright on her own. “And then he had to go and tell me to ‘buzz off’ before we came here…” Star added quietly. Dash sighed and took a small sip of her own wine.

“No, that didn’t help at all.” Dash nodded. “And I’m pissed at him for doing that to you. We know why he acts the way he does, but that isn’t an excuse to be a jerk.”

“He’s a coward,” Matteo bluntly interjected.

“Matty, don’t you st—” Dash stopped halfway into a glare she planned to focus on him. She paused, blinked, and took a long sip of her wine. “Okay, you know what? I can’t argue with that one,” she agreed.

“Care and connection are not a weakness,” Matteo went on. “They are not things to be ashamed of. This is something he needs to see and accept, and if you allow me to handle this, I’ll—”

“Okay, Matty, look…” Dash cut him off as if she was waiting for him to go down that path. She leaned forward and set down her glass before turning to face him and pressing her hooves together in front of her. “I’m going to explain something to you right now…” she flattened her brow and looked him in the eye sternly. “Because I feel like you have yet to understand my stance on this. There isn’t a single fiber of my being that is convinced you are somehow incapable of laying it thick right over the top of Squall’s head. What I’m questioning is whether or not that’s what he actually needs.”

“It’s exactly what he needs,” Matteo said flatly.

“You said he’d believe I’m just nagging him,” Dash huffed. “So tell me… what exactly would stop him from believing you’re doing the same thing?”

“I won’t be nagging,” Matteo stated firmly. Dash opened her mouth to retort, but stopped and scrunched up her face. She felt like she was going in a circle, again.

But then she looked at Star and… maybe it was a moment of clarity from the small buzz she had going on, but she suddenly felt like she had an answer.

“Actually, you know what? Neither of us can do this,” she poked Matteo.

“Hm?” he lifted his brow curiously.

“The only one who can actually get through to him here is—”

“OO! OO! I KNOW!” Twister suddenly popped out of Matteo’s feathers and waved his hoof in Dash’s face. “It’s so obvious!” he slithered around Matteo’s body like a snake and launched himself at Thunderlane.

“GAH!” Thunderlane yelped as his cider bottle twirled into the air but somehow landed upright on the arm rest without spilling a drop. Twister leapt out in front of the couch holding Thunderlane over his head.

“CLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEARLY…” Twister grinned very wide. “We need the one who has been gone for a whole, accidentally-too-long story arc!”

“I… what?” Thunderlane tried to wiggle out of Twister’s hooves but he appeared to be stuck.

“Yeah, this guy!” Twister bounced Thunderlane up and down. “You know, the one the author had to go back and shoehorn into this scene in random places because he forgot he was here with us!” he dropped Thunderlane. “And then he SHAMELESSLY inserted Fleetfoot being a tease for extra waifu exposure!”

Dash’s expression had not changed the entire time. She simply leaned forward and looked Twister in the eye.

“Twister, you’re going to go nowhere with this explanation and then suggest you be the one to do it,” she said in a flat tone.

Twister’s eyes grew extremely wide, his mouth flattened into a thin line that extended way past the boundaries of his face on both sides, and a muffled screeching sound came from inside his head as a blinking neon sign popped up behind him that read ‘internal screaming’.

“Should I be confused, worried, or both?” Thunderlane asked.

“IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII HAVE BEEN SLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMED!!!!!!!!!” Twister yelled out dramatically. Matteo quickly reached forward and pushed Thunderlane out of the way as gallons of green slime suddenly fell from above, pouring all over Twister. “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!” Twister screeched as he fell onto his back and flailed around.

“Uh… thanks for the save,” Thunderlane said as he stood up and moved back next to Matteo.

“Think nothing of it,” Matteo nodded.

“AS I WAS SAYING…” Dash went on as Twister started log rolling all over the room and getting slime on other ponies. “Who really needs to take care of this isn’t you or me,” she said to Matteo.

“Then who?” Matteo asked with a snort.

Dash pointed at Star.

“Buh?” Star froze before taking a drink, one eye half closed. “I literally just tried, we all saw how that ended.”

“I really hate to bring him up, but…” Dash focused on Star. “When Ruin was effectively… torturing Squall with his own fears and feelings, there was something very important that he kept coming back to.”

“YES!” Twister suddenly appeared in front of them slime free, holding a large rolled up piece of bubble wrap. “He REALLY likes it when you take bubble wrap… AND CRUSH IT BETWEEN YOUR THIGHS!!!!!!” Twister jammed the bubble wrap between his legs and pressed his legs together. “HHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!” he overzealously grunted as loud pops sounded out. Matteo casually reached down and picked up Twister by the head, the bubble wrap dropping to the floor. “Oooo… Is that one of your kinks too?” he asked Matteo as he held him towards Thunderlane.

“Do me a favor and hold him steady,” Matteo ordered.

“Uh, okay?” Thunderlane agreed, clasping Twister’s head.

Matteo grabbed Twister’s body and pulled it way back, his neck stretching and making rubbery noises. After pulling back as far as he could, Matteo let go. Twister’s body snapped back, launching him from Thunderlane’s hooves across the room towards the entrance.

“WATCH OUT LADIES!” Air Mach bellowed as he stepped into the room from the hall with what appeared to be two large bell peppers hanging by a string from the base of his tail. “BIG PAIR OF STALLION BELLS COMING THROU—”

He was abruptly cut off as Twister crashed face to face with him, sending them both flying back into the hallway, slamming into and breaking down the door to the room opposite of it.

“ARE YOU FRIGGIN…,” Spitfire slammed a hoof over her eyes and groaned loudly as more crashing noises came from the other room.

“WOW! Good shot fluffy!” Fleetfoot cheered, showcasing the polar opposite reaction as she waved towards Matteo.

Matteo simply took a sip of his wine and nodded once as several Wonderbolts cheered and chuckled.

“Star, look at me,” Dash placed a hoof on her head, trying to keep her from being distracted. “Pay attention. I know this isn’t the best place to stay focused, but you’re in a mood when we should be having fun.”

“Focusing…” Star mumbled, taking a very large drink from her now almost empty wine glass. “And…” she twitched slightly and shook her head out, exhaling loudly. “And I think… I’m starting to feel it so… better make it quick,” she said, sounding a little more than buzzed at this point.

“One of the things Ruin highlighted more than once… was your persistence with Squall,” Dash quickly went on. Thankfully, Star was clearly still with her because she had a visual reaction. “He pushes others away. It’s almost like a reflex for him. He’s opened up to us a little bit here and there, but it’s never without some kind of hostility attached. Now tell me…” Dash poked her lightly. “Who ALWAYS pushed back on it? Who always tried to get through to him when the rest of us gave up otherwise?”

Star looked down at her glass, her lips scrunching up.

“You know who I’m talking about,” Dash winked.

“Hrm…” Star hummed. “Okay, yeah… I know I did, but… He’s being so much worse than usual. How am I supposed to feel when all the progress I thought I made suddenly doesn’t mean anything?”

“Who said it doesn’t?” Dash shrugged, leaning back into the couch beside her. “Don’t let a little bump in the road stop you. If he’s pushing harder, just push back harder too. That persistence is what he’s responded to, don’t give it up.”

Dash blinked as she heard a little glassy squeak. She looked down to see Star’s head down and her nose stuck all the way into her wine glass. She sighed heavily, the glass fogging up from the inside.

“Stop that,” Dash reached over, and pulled Star’s face out of her glass. “Look, I’m not gonna just throw you at him. I still plan to help a little, but ultimately you have to make the big move and let him know what all those things Ruin revealed meant to you. And if he throws it right back at you?” Dash punched a hoof into the couch. “Make sure he feels the whiplash real hard, get me?”

“I… okay…” Star murmured quietly.

“Food for thought,” Dash placed a hoof gently on her head and pressed lightly, Star sinking a tiny bit into the couch. “But we’ll take care of that later. Just kick back and relax tonight.”

“I need more wine.”

“No you…” Dash blinked. “You know what… I almost contradicted myself in ten seconds flat. Fleet! We need more—”

“Catch!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from nearby. Dash yelped, reaching out to catch an almost full wine bottle with one hoof while nearly dropping her own glass.

“Gimme,” Star made grabby hooves towards the bottle.

“I will if you take it slow. Let’s share this, not guzzle it…” she glanced at the bottle and noticed it was the wine Matteo had made such a scene over. “Even better… Matty?”

“Please,” Matteo agreed simply while holding his glass down for Dash to refill it.

Dash poured out the wine and held up her glass. She looked back and forth at Matteo and Star, then past Matteo at Thunderlane. She cleared her throat, grabbing all their attention as she held up her glass.

“Here’s to us making it out of so much crap alive,” she began with a chuckle, earning smiles from the rest of them. “May we keep stumbling like idiots with our heads cut off.”

Twister suddenly popped up in the group with them, his head was in one hoof, a giant mug of cider in the other.

“Way ahead of y’all!” he shouted proudly while bouncing his eyebrows. None of them batted an eye, not even Thunderlane, who leaned around and held up his cider.

“I only caught the end of it, but… what the hey… I’m glad to be back with you all. Cheers!” he nodded.

They all clinked their drinks together and took a drink, Twister stuffing the entire mug into his mouth, chewing and swallowing it before he started walking around and bouncing his head like a basketball. The rest kicked back and sank into the couch, Dash sighing and taking in the activity around as she continued to sip her wine.

Per usual, it was the typical Wonderbolt mixture of casual socializing with fun random silliness here and there… with Fleetfoot being the center of attention as she continuously made her way around and stuck her nose into everypony’s business. But that too was part of the usual. It looked like Squad Zero had arrived at some point. If not for Calm Wind sticking out above the rest, she probably wouldn’t have noticed, being slumped into the couch and all.

“Wonder how long that’s gonna last,” Dash chuckled as she pointed towards Calm looking down at others talking to him.

“Hm?” Matteo hummed as he followed Dash’s eyes.

“How did Shine, Bitz, and Swift drag him in here? Fleet’s voice is carrying halfway down the hallway.”

“I don’t follow?” Matteo asked as Dash blinked and glanced up at him.

“You’ve never seen her mess with him?”

“I don’t pay that close attention to every bit of fraternizing,” Matteo confirmed as he sipped his wine.

“Dunno if that’s the right word for it…” Dash tipped her head.

“What’s the right—?” Matteo started but he was cut off as Fleetfoot suddenly squealed and leapt up onto Calm’s back, cheering as she held a bottle of wine in the air. Calm froze in place, his eyes widening slowly.

“THE BLUE HORSIE RIDE IS HERE!!!!” she yelled while giggling. The alcohol was definitely starting to soften her up.

“Harassment,” Matteo answered his own question.

“I think he likes it,” Dash chuckled as she took another sip. “He’s just a big weenie.”

“Uh…” Thunderlane chimed in. “Nah, I think I know how he feels.”

“Really now?” Dash smirked and leaned to look past Matteo. “Enlighten me.”

“She kind of just sat on my lap a moment ago?” Thunderlane reminded Dash while puffing his cheeks up slightly. “And I’m pretty sure she specifically placed herself to… sheesh I’m lucky I didn’t…” he trailed off as he gritted his teeth and shivered.

“Salute?” Dash smirked.

“Dash, there’s no way you could understand…” Thunderlane let his head lean back. “I had THE sexiest Wonderbolt sitting on and leaning into me… When what was once only on magazine covers is suddenly rubbing herself on me, it’s kind of hard to not break.”

Dash lifted an eyebrow, then grinned smarmily at him.

“I’m telling Applejack,” she snickered.

“Nooooooo no no no, you won’t…” Thunderlane pseudo-pleaded as he kept his head leaned back and crossed his legs. “She’d squash my nuts into oblivion.”

“And I’d pay good bits to see that,” Dash chuckled as she took another sip.

“You’re evil… Hey, Matt, back up a fellow guy here,” Thunderlane appealed to Matteo.

“My wife would probably kill me in my sleep if I so much as glanced at another female griffon,” Matteo said with a straight face, causing Dash to nearly spit up her wine as Star ended up giggling weakly as well.

“Yikes, never mind…” Thunderlane cringed as he took a long drink from his cider bottle.

Dash continued to giggle to herself, amused at Fleetfoot’s effortless breaking of Thunderlane and the thought of Gilda extracting swift, harsh, and deadly revenge on Matteo… likely after bearing six more children for him at their current rate. She finished off her wine glass and exhaled, starting to feel a little warm and a perpetual grin appearing on her face as the alcohol began to take effect. Feeling good, she poured herself another glass, but kept it modest, only filling it up halfway.

Her eyes wandered around the room…

But she flinched and stared as her eyes landed on Misty and Fire. They were STILL on the other couch across the room… and it looked like both of them had gotten a little more than tipsy, Fire chuckling as Misty kept pushing him down on the couch, lying on top of him, and nuzzling her face into his neck like a cat.

Unlike before though, Dash couldn’t tear her eyes away. A lump built up in her stomach, one that told her to stop, but she couldn’t. Her eyes were fixated on Misty as she continued to be furiously affectionate towards Fire. At her current pace, she’d have him stuffed in between the cushions by the end of the night.

Dash slammed her eyes shut, forcing her head to turn and taking a big gulp of wine, emptying half the contents of her glass in one.

“Oog… ah…” she gasped, quickly feeling that wasn’t the best idea as the aroma went through her nose and cleared out her sinuses. She blinked, trying to refocus as her eyes eventually landed on Spitfire, but… Descent was talking to her?

Whispering seemed to be the better way to describe it. Spitfire had her head turned and her ear pointing towards him as he tipped towards it and spoke way too quietly for Dash to hear anything even though they really weren’t all that far away.

“Hrm…” Spitfire hummed, taking a quick sip of her wine. “Okay. Thanks, keep me posted.”

“I plan to,” Descent started to turn, but Spitfire reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Hold on there you… I appreciate the update, but you’re supposed to be letting the Renegades handle it,” she scolded him.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he grunted.

“That’s a start, now grab a drink and enjoy yourself,” Spitfire ordered.

“No thanks.” Descent tried to be firm.

“Fleet!” Spitfire yelled.

Within seconds there was a bit of commotion and a loud THUMP, followed by ponies parting as Fleetfoot trudged over… pulling along Calm Wind by the mane, whose chin was on the floor as his back legs stumbled along.

“Get this broody grump some wine,” Spitfire pointed at Descent.

“I said I don—”

“Done!” Fleetfoot had a glass of red wine poured and in Descent’s hoof in the blink of an eye. “Enjoy!”

“Hrmf… fine…” Descent sulked, moving back towards Lightning Dust, who had been laughing at the whole exchange.

With Fleetfoot distracted, Calm slowly rose up and tried to shuffle away, but Fleetfoot grabbed his tail and wrapped it around her neck like a scarf. Calm froze in place again.

“Fleet, are you torturing him again?” Spitfire asked as she glanced at Calm and sighed.

“It’s his fault for being so big and silly, hee!” Fleetfoot giggled, followed by a very loud hiccup. She let go of Calm’s tail and quickly covered her mouth while blushing.

“I think you better slow down a little,” Spitfire suggested.

“Not in your life!” Fleetfoot giggled as Calm started shuffling away. “Hey! Get back here you!” she yelled, following him and picking up his tail in her mouth as he tried to get away.

“He doesn’t stand a chance.”

Spitfire perked up as Wave moved up beside her and gently brushed against her side. Spitfire watched Fleetfoot for a moment and tipped her head.

“You know… I actually think it wouldn’t hurt if he…” she trailed off.

“Hm?” Wave glanced at her, but she shook her head.

“Eh, nothing…” she shrugged and took another drink. “The alcohol is flowing, she’s gonna be getting real crazy soon.” She paused and looked him up and down.

“Yes?” Wave smirked.

“Get over here you,” Spitfire planted a kiss on his cheek before leaning most of her body weight against him.

“Whoa there… haha…” Wave chuckled as he shifted his weight to support her.

Dash’s throat tightened, shutting her eyes tight again and drinking down the rest of her wine in another large gulp.

“FNGRNN…” Dash cringed as the taste shot through her mouth.

“I’d recommend smaller sips. Zangiovese has a tangy kick with a bitter aftertaste,” Matteo suggested.

“Yeah I noticed…” Dash said sarcastically as she blinked a few times and grabbed the bottle. “I’ll have more.”

“Suit yourself,” Matteo resumed nursing his drink slowly.

Dash poured out another glass… and it wasn’t until she finished pouring a rather large helping did she decide this was probably the last. She already had more than she intended and she was feeling it. She wasn’t drunk by any stretch of the imagination, but she was definitely more than buzzed and her body was warming up considerably.

She looked out into the surrounding Wonderbolts again, doing her best to keep her eyes off the two couples, and the most attention grabbing shenanigans was easily Calm Wind stumbling around, bumping into others as Fleetfoot kept climbing up on him, and falling off over and over again. Though it looked like it was becoming a comedy scene, several Wonderbolts in stitches as Fleetfoot seemed determined to not let him get away.

Dash chuckled to herself, taking a small sip as she watched the ‘struggle’, but the longer she watched… the more her mind started wandering to something else entirely. Watching Fleetfoot, a relatively small mare, especially compared to the big oaf Calm… with the assistance of her wine buzz was making her think of her current stature compared to Soarin’s large form. She couldn’t stop the image from morphing into what she was thinking about. Fleetfoot was slowly replaced by her, and the bumbling Calm was slowly replaced by Soarin, the rest disappeared from around them and Calm’s blundering turned into Soarin jumping around with her, the two roughhousing and laughing.

At first the thoughts gave her mixed feelings. She was imagining Soarin the last way she saw him and outside of a particular dream she had, she had no idea how he was doing or how things were going with figuring out his condition. It felt empty for her without him here. The rest of the Wonderbolts just couldn’t fill the one particular void that was an elephant in the room for her.

She hoped that with Celestia’s and Sombra’s help that Soarin could soon be at least awake and aware… and the less time it took the better. This was… how many times now that he had been out of her reach? Or down and out in some capacity? She was getting really tired of being forced into this scenario. Hell, she was tired of bad stuff happening to him in general. She was almost more put off by how often he got his face dragged through the mud than the fact that he accidentally absorbed a goddess’ power that could really wreak havoc unchecked.

But… at the same time she was looking at another side of all of this, and it was probably in part thanks to the alcohol.

Soarin had been put through so much and he was still alive, he was tough as nails, and now… through his actions, had unwittingly turned himself into an actual god. She used to joke about him being one… mostly in bed just to egg him on and get him going… but to actually do it? Maybe he took her too seriously. While this was messed up and all… she couldn’t deny that she could now technically claim that her lover was a god, even if it was just temporary… hopefully.

Dash’s lips curled into a smile, staring vacantly forward as her imagination continued to shape a scene that included the two of them. Soarin, pumped up and massive in his new Alicorn body and Dash jumping on him and climbing on him…

“Heh… fun…” Dash quietly said to herself. “Hmmmmmm…” she hummed as she slumped down a little into the couch, her alcohol induced buzz growing a little stronger and thus, her imagination starting to steer in… another direction.

Extremely relaxed, feeling warm, weakened mental restraint, and thinking about Soarin shot her thoughts right to the dream she had recently. Yeah, the one where she woke up thigh crushing and biting a pillow.

“Hmm…” her face turned redder as the lighthearted roughhousing her thoughts were imagining shifted… and started becoming a bit more affectionate. She took another drink of wine, definitely more than a small sip as she continued to giggle to herself. “Soarin…” she said very quietly, but Star’s ears twitched, glancing at her briefly before returning to her own drink.

She… really wanted Soarin there with them right now. She wanted him there for more than a few reasons. Fire and Misty Fly, Spitfire and Wave Chill, she had been thinking about Soarin before they even arrived at the party and then the two big couples of the group kept sneaking their way into her view and she just wanted Soarin more.

She set down her wine, still aware enough to decide that she probably shouldn’t finish the glass, but she had already had more than enough to completely loosen up and feel very light.

“Hm… hmhm…” she smirked, biting her lip as she looked up at the ceiling. Starting to be quite a bit less subtle as her daydreaming turned rather… raunchy. She didn’t notice that there was a very faint hue of yellow emanating from around her body. “Soarin…” she said his name again. A little louder this time.

She really wanted him there… And she had gotten to a point where she forgot where she was.

“Ahem.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” Dash hummed louder, a wide grin on her face.

“AHEM!” Matteo loudly cleared his throat and nudged her. “Dash, glowing.”

Dash blinked several times as she glanced down at Matteo’s arm, but in doing so quickly saw the yellow glow rising off of her.

“HRK!” Dash swallowed and flinched, quickly sitting upright. Her eyes darted back and forth as she scrunched her mouth, the yellow glow slowly fading until it was gone. “Phew…” she exhaled and wobbled slightly. “Whoa… sat up way too fast…”

“You should be a little more discreet,” Matteo suggested.

“I was, uh…” Dash leaned back. “Just thinking about something…”

“CLEARLY,” Matteo snorted. “Perhaps that’s enough for you if you can’t control that… light.”

“Yeah I think so too,” Dash agreed, pushing her glass further away, “But…” she blinked. “I’ve had enough to feel it… whew…” she sighed. “Wish Soarin was here…” she said to herself. Matteo heard, but he said nothing.

She looked directly at Spitfire and Wave again, the two of them starting to tip and sway a bit as they laughed and hung on one another.

“I’m my own monster, I swear…” Dash grabbed her mane and pulled it down over her eyes.

“HEY!” Fleetfoot’s voice giddily swirled through Dash’s ears. Dash looked up to see Fleetfoot bouncing on all four hooves towards Spitfire and Wave Chill. “Spitty! Can I borrow ya for a sec?” she said while giggling and leaning into Spitfire.

“Huhwha?” Spitfire blinked and looked down at her.

“I need a fellow mare for this,” Fleetfoot stuck her tongue out and bounced her eyes up and down while blushing.

“Uh…?” Spitfire glanced at Wave. He only shrugged.

“I just need her real quick!” Fleetfoot shimmied her body down Spitfire over to Wave and tapped a hoof to his nose. “I bring her right back, promise!” she assured him before grabbing Spitfire by the arm and dragging her.

“Whoa, okay, okay!” Spitfire chuckled as she stumbled along with Fleetfoot, the two leaving the room.

“Huh,” Wave tipped his head curiously.

“Heyyo, Chiller!” Lightning Streak suddenly approached Wave with Air Mach in tow. “We need to bring in more ciders from our room!”

“Come give us a hoof!” Air Mach punched the air triumphantly.

“Oh? Uh, okay,” Wave set his cider down and followed the two out.

Dash blinked, her eyes staying on the door as first Spitfire… then Wave Chill were both led out of the room one right after the other. Her head tilted back and forth… back and forth…

First Fleetfoot…

Then Lightning and Air Mach…

And they led Spitfire and Wave out…

“Oh jeez…” Dash exhaled. “Just what is Fleet up to…?”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

I think we all know where Fleetfoot is going with this. (And i couldn't fool any of you if i said otherwise) :pinkiecrazy:

But here we are, the usual Wonderbolt party shenanigans while also taking a dive into what's currently going on with Dash's Squad... it would appear an attempt to confront Squall went extremely wrong before they left for the party, and it sounds like it was initiated by Star, so neither Matteo nor Dash got a chance to do their thing. But as Dash noted, perhaps the most important factor here is Star herself. After all, Ruin did pry out the fact that Squall actually enjoys the fact that she would never leave him alone.

And i'll come clean since Twister called me out. I actually wrote more than half this chapter before realizing that i completely FORGOT Thunderlane was there with them...:twilightoops: And yes i also used him as an excuse to have Fleetfoot be a tease. (don't judge me...)

And for those who didn't catch them, Twister made two references in this chapter, the first was from Hot Shots (A movie thats a comedic parody of Top Gun):

The other "Nose Rub" followed by dropping the Vapo Rub was a reference to "Rose Bud" and dropping a snow globe from Citizen Kane:

(If you have not seen this movie, i'd recommend it. It was Orson Welles' first feature film back in 1941 and is considered to be one of the best and most influential movies ever, an opinion that has held up in movie ranking circles to this day)

So as i said in the blog, This chapter got long during the process so i cut this off from an outline that i've already finished, so i will be getting started on the next chapter right away.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Chapter 177: Cupidfoot

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 177: Cupidfoot

“Okay! Okay!” Spitfire chuckled as Fleetfoot kicked the door of their room open and pulled her in. “You sure are in a good mood, are you gonna tell me what has you so excited now?” she asked.

“HEE HEE!” Fleetfoot giggled, clearly a little drunk as she yanked Spitfire into the room and tried to whip her around into the middle of the floor. But Spitfire clamped down on her before she could let go. “YEEEEEE!” Fleetfoot shrieked as she fell into Spitfire’s chest, both of them laughing as they stumbled.

“I think you’re a little bit drunk,” Spitfire tapped a hoof on Fleetfoot’s nose.

“And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII… think you’re kinda sexy!” Fleetfoot leaned forward and nabbed a chunk of Spitfire’s cheek with her lips. “MMMMMMMMMMMMMWAH!” she comically kissed Spitfire, which was honestly more of a suck since Spitfire was almost pulled forward by it.

“Ow,” Spitfire chuckled as she playfully pushed Fleetfoot back. “Okay, settle down there…” Fleetfoot wobbled a little, but kept her hooves, her giggling unending as she began prancing around the room. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as she examined the room. It looked spotless and the beds were all made. It definitely did not look like this when they left for the party earlier. “Okay, what are you up to?” Spitfire asked with a smirk.

Fleetfoot bounced around the room cheerfully, placing a few candles out on the tables and shelves.

“So… I’ve got this super hunky stallion coming over tonight…” Fleetfoot began with a sly tone in her voice. Spitfire switched which eyebrow she had raised.

“Hunky stallion? Wait…” Spitfire blinked. “Did you actually manage to get Calm Wind to…?”

“Huh…?” Fleetfoot stopped as she placed a candle down. “Oh, no,” she waved a hoof out while looking away and sticking her tongue out playfully. “He escaped real fast tonight. Close though! He’s blue.”

“And…?” Spitfire prodded. Fleetfoot blinked, smiled, and shrugged.

“And he’ll be here soon!” she giggled before going back to sprucing up the room.

“Sooooo… why do you need me here again?” Spitfire asked as she moved around and looked at the setup.

“For a second opinion!” Fleetfoot grabbed two wine glasses and sauntered over to the coffee table in front of the couch, swaying her plot in an exaggerated manner as she moved. She carefully placed the wine glasses down and put a bottle of red wine in between them, moving them around and lighting the candle beside them. “How does this all look?”

Spitfire furrowed her brow.

“Wait a sec… this is our room. Misty too. Are you kicking us out for the night?”

“I would never do that to you,” Fleetfoot said while placing her hooves on Spitfire’s shoulders and pouted. “We’re just going to loosen up a bit here first and then we’re heading to his place.”

“Loosen up?” Spitfire asked with a smirk slowly crawling onto her face. “Dunno if you could get any looser.”

“There are two things you could be implying with that,” Fleetfoot snickered while bouncing her eyebrows.

“Alright, where is my ‘opinion’ needed?” Spitfire asked while looking around.

“How does this all look?” Fleetfoot quickly disengaged and waved her arms towards the couch. But Spitfire wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to judge.

“It… uh… looks good to me?” she struggled to answer.

“Is it romantic?” Fleetfoot cooed. “Should I dim the lights a little? How about… OO! Here!” she zipped over to the room’s sound system and turned on some quiet relaxing jazz music. “How about that?!” she giddily asked.

“It’s…. also good?” Spitfire awkwardly answered with a chuckle.

“WOO!” Fleetfoot cheers and clapped her hooves together.

“Anything else?” Spitfire asked, finding it all more amusing than anything since Fleetfoot just kept doing everything herself.

“Yes, actually!” Fleetfoot slid up to Spitfire and put her hooves on her shoulders again. She whipped her mane about a few times, put on her most alluring bedroom eyes, and batted her eyelashes at Spitfire. “How do I look?”

“Like Fleetfoot,” Spitfire said quickly, snorting while trying not to laugh.

“So sexy and desirable, got it!” Fleetfoot giggled, then smirked as she looked Spitfire over. “By the way, you’re looking pretty good too.”

Spitfire gave her a flat look, then lifted an eyebrow.

“Fleet, I’m starting to get the impression that I’M the one you’re trying to get in bed.”

“If you want, we can do that tomorrow night,” Fleetfoot snickered and winked at her. “But no, tonight it’s for this guy… and I’m just getting in the mood.”

“Mmhmm… right…” Spitfire leaned forward and turned her head, opening one eye very wide.

“Oh you stop that, hee hee!” Fleetfoot playfully batted Spitfire’s head away from her and got back on all fours. She went back to walking about the room with a sway in her hips and happily humming to herself.

“So…” Spitfire spoke up again, causing Fleetfoot to turn and face her with a light step.

“M’yes?”

“Tell me about this stallion already, will you?” Spitfire chuckled. “All I got so far is he’s blue.”

“Hmmmmm…” Fleetfoot tapped a hoof to her chin and smiled. “Gosh… where do I even begin?” she asked herself with a dreamy look in her eyes. “He’s very handsome… Has pretty dark blue fur and a matching majestic dark blue mane… it gives him such a dark, yet refined visage and presence…” she bit her lip, humming quietly as Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Anything else?” she asked as Fleetfoot’s love struck behavior amused her.

“Oh trust me, I’m just getting started!” Fleetfoot bounced back over to her and stood on the tips of her hooves. “He’s got a very professional demeanor, but underneath it is a fun and charming personality… He had me going at first, but once I saw the gentle soul underneath I melted… he had me hooked and I couldn’t get him off my mind. Treated me so politely too! Haaaaaa…” she acted faint and fell against Spitfire. “What else could a mare ask for?”

“Well then, he has you head over hooves,” Spitfire patted Fleetfoot’s head jokingly. “He sounds like a pretty nice…”

She suddenly trailed off and blinked, cocking an eyebrow as she thought for a moment.

Then there was a knock at the door.

“OH! He’s here already!” Fleetfoot giddily pushed off Spitfire and squealed. “Perfect! You get to meet him too! Trust me, you’ll love him!” she eagerly grabbed Spitfire and started dragging her towards the door.

“Uh… okay. “ Spitfire shrugged and went along with it.

Fleetfoot pulled her towards the door, but let go as they drew near. She took a quick look through the peephole in the door before quickly grabbing the doorknob.

“Oh, by the way…” Fleetfoot innocently smiled towards Spitfire. “The best part about this guy?”

Fleetfoot pulled the door open and quickly stood aside.

“OH LOOK, AN ACCIDENT!” Lightning Streak’s voice came from the hallway.

“What the- AH!!!”

Wave Chill suddenly came stumbling through the door. Before Spitfire could realize what was happening, Wave ran face first into her chest.

The two stumbled, but reached out and caught one another, their eyes locking and going wide as they froze.

Fleetfoot quickly shuffled over and stuck her nose right in between the small space left in between their faces.

“He’s for you! Not me!” she cheerfully giggled. “And don’t worry, Misty and I will find a place to crash tonight. Have fun you two!” She reached up, ruffling both of their manes before rushing towards the door and slamming it shut behind her.

Lightning was right around the corner with two cases of cider under his wings, looking right at her the moment she shut the door.

“HEE HEE! YES!” she pointed at Lightning and winked. “GOT’EM!”

Air Mach was pressed to the wall just to her left.

“Thought you weren’t gonna get the door after I knocked for a second!” he chuckled. “We good?” he asked as he looked back and forth between her and Lightning.

“Yeah, we good!” Lightning pumped a hoof in the air. “Hook, line and sinker! Chiller’s getting’ LAID tonight!”

“WOO!” Air Mach cheered. “GET SOME! What’re they doing? Lemme hear!” he tried to advance on the door to put his ear to it with Lightning close behind, but Fleetfoot quickly reached out and pressed her hooves to their chests.

“Hey, hey, HEY! NO. Leave them be. Go back, BACK!” she pushed against them repeatedly.

“Aw man…. Fine,” Lightning shrugged and turned.

“Deep chiller!” Air Mach yelled as Fleetfoot forced him to step back, eventually getting him to turn around. “GO DEEP!” he yelled again, laughing as he caught up with Lightning and the two turned the corner back towards the partying.

Fleetfoot followed them for a few steps, but eventually stopped. A spontaneous explosive mix of curiosity, hypocrisy, and alcohol had given her the sudden urge to stay for a moment. She gingerly stepped backwards until she had backed all the way up to the door and gently placed her ear to it.

Spitfire stared at Wave Chill.

Wave Chill stared back at Spitfire.

They both wore completely blank expressions as they had both had just been thrown into a situation neither of them had expected.

But after a few seconds of silence, Spitfire’s eyes began to twitch and her face scrunched up.

“That… little… sneak…” she pulled back, turning around and groaning with her head tilted back.

“Wow, uh…” Wave chuckled awkwardly. “Did we just get duped real hard?”

“For the love of Celestia…” Spitfire applied hoof to face. “Not that I mind where this ended up but… how the HELL did I not see what she was doing?”

“I knew she was up to something,” Wave moved towards her. “She was being suspicious while we were getting massages, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so soon or so elaborate.”

“Was that Lightning Streak out there?” Spitfire asked as she turned back to him.

“Yes, Air Mach too,” Wave nodded.

“Oh great, I know what they’re all talking about back at the party now…” Spitfire rolled her eyes.

They both went quiet as Wave stopped in front of her. The two looked into each other’s eyes again for a moment before looking out into the room that… Fleetfoot had set up.

They were alone, there was relaxing smooth jazz playing, there were candles everywhere and a bottle of wine sitting on the table in front of the very comfy couch.

After taking in their surroundings, a smile slowly crept onto Spitfire’s face.

“Well… prankster aside… she read me like a book.”

“We have this room to ourselves, don’t we?” Wave asked as he smiled as well.

They looked at each other again, smile meeting smile.

“Well?” Wave motioned towards the couch. “Shall we?”

“Get over here right now,” Spitfire grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him over to the couch, the two sitting down right beside one another.

Spitfire nestled herself into Wave as he reached out and poured two glasses of wine. With both glasses filled and the shine of the candlelight bouncing off the red tint of their surface, Wave lifted one over to Spitfire, keeping the other for himself.

Without saying a word, the two looked one another in the eye, exchanging comforting grins as they clinked the glasses together and both took a sip of their wine. They both sighed contently as they leaned back into the couch, pressing together as they got comfortable.

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed, taking another sip of her wine before letting her cheek rest against Wave’s shoulder. “I’m gonna belt Fleetfoot across the face for tricking me like that, but… she knows me too well…” she nuzzled her face into the crook of Wave’s neck. “I needed this so bad…”

“More than the massage?” Wave chuckled as he tilted his head to rest it against hers.

“Of course more than the massage. No question,” she giggled.

“Soooo…” Wave slowly leaned a little harder into her. “Should I expect you to start making lots of random weird noises?”

Spitfire blinked and pulled away from him with a confused look. Wave’s eyes widened slightly as he read what her expression was implying.

“Wait, wait…” Wave snickered. “Hold on a sec, you do know what you sound like when you get a massage… right?”

“Sound like…? What?” Spitfire’s ears flopped down. Wave started snickering louder as he held a hoof over his mouth. “What?!” she leaned back into him, looking concerned. “WHAT?!”

“You don't know about…? Oh man I hope I didn’t spill the beans by accident!” he said as he began to chuckle, trying hard not to burst out laughing. Spitfire shot him the cutest glare he had ever seen as she silently demanded he elaborate. He took a sip of his wine and tried not to choke on it. “You make very weird, squeaky noises every time you get a good massage.”

Spitfire’s eyes grew wide, her pupils shrinking to little dots.

“What…”

“You really do lose yourself when you get one, huh? I poked you a few times and you didn’t react. I can’t believe you didn’t actually know about it, it’s been a running joke among the Wonderbolts for years!”

“Oh my god…” Spitfire set down her wine and tugged on her ears, a massive red blush flushing all over her face. “That’s… so embarrassing, why did nopony ever tell me?! DAMMIT FLEET!!!!”

“It’s funny.” Wave chuckled. Spitfire puffed her cheeks up and glared at him. “What? It is?” he went on, barely containing himself. “Honestly right now I’m laughing more at the fact you are completely unaware of it.”

“HMPH!” Spitfire harrumphed and spun around, turning her back to him, crossing her arms and hunching over.

“Oh hey, come on…”

“It… feels really good, I can’t help it,” she mumbled. Wave reached out and touched her back. “Neh.” She shifted further away from him, grabbing her wine and taking a big drink from it.

Wave smirked, set his wine down and scooted up behind her, reaching both his hooves towards her and quickly pressing them to her shoulders.

“NEH!” Spitfire tried to pull away again, but Wave clamped down, holding her in place as he began to gently massage her shoulders. Spitfire’s ears stood right up as she blinked in surprise. “Oo… Ooooooo…” she cooed as her body shivered.

Wave chuckled as he felt her body relax, practically melting in her hooves.

“Right there… yeah… right there… ah…”

“Wow, you folded real quick,” Wave chuckled.

“You’re the woooooooorst…” Spitfire started leaning back closer to him. “Heeeeoooooo… ahhh…”

“And there she goes!” Wave snickered as Spitfire started making funny noises, reaching over briefly to take her wine glass from her before she spilled it.

“Stoooooop… fffffngaaaaaaa…”

Wave saw her leaning back and decided to shift himself, pressing his chest into her back and draping his neck over her shoulder as he reached his arms around the front of her body and began lightly pressing into her chest, stomach, and sides as well.

“HHRRRRMMMMM… HRNK… HRMFFFF… MERFFFF…”

“It’s like I’m playing music!” Wave joked. Spitfire suddenly pushed him back with her wings, spun around and launched herself at him, embracing him tightly. “Whoa! Haha!” he laughed as she nearly knocked them over.

“Screw you… and that felt amazing,” she said as she nuzzled his neck.

“So the massage earlier partially loosened you up… I guess now it’s up to me to soften you up till you’re floating?” he asked as they broke apart and leaned back into the couch again.

“Please,” she grabbed her wine glass and licked the last drops out of the glass. “We’ve only just started,” she said with a smirk as she held the glass out to Wave. Wave finished his glass and poured them both another.

With another glass poured for them both, they leaned back into the couch and into one another, nursing the wine as they enjoyed each other’s company and the relaxing atmosphere. They continued to loosen up, the wine slowly having an effect on them as they both felt warmer by the second and a little less subtle.

Wave kept sneaking a hoof over her shoulders, or around her neck, massaging her gently knowing that it felt so good for her. Spitfire couldn’t stop feeling tingly all over, biting her lip and humming as her hoof kept sneaking over Wave’s leg and clenching it periodically.

As the second glasses started to empty, the two of them started having a real hard time keeping their hooves off one another.

With two glasses down and what they drank before arriving now running its course, they were both more than just a little drunk. A third glass had been poured for both, but neither of them had taken a sip. As soon as Wave had finished pouring, Spitfire was climbing on him, sitting right on his lap and leaning forward into his chest.

“Hmmmmm…” Spitfire smiled as she slowly leaned closer to him.

“Oh just get over here,” Wave chuckled, slipping his hooves behind her back and head and pulling her towards him. Their lips met softly, both chuckling lightly as they pressed to one another and began kissing softly. Spitfire’s body shuddered, her lips slipping off his as she slid her head beside his, pressing her chest to his, tensed up all over.

“Hooo boy… I am feeling the wine now…” she pulled back slightly, placing her hooves on his shoulders and biting her lip as she showed bedroom eyes through her light blush. “Pinch me if I start acting too much like Fleet.”

“Do you see me complaining?” Wave smirked as he rubbed his hooves up and down her back and over the base of her wings.

“Would you like to file a complaint?” Spitfire sneered while tracing her hoof on her chest. Wave lifted an eyebrow as if silently accepting a challenge.

“Okay… I’d like to report an extremely beautiful mare sitting on my lap.” He said smoothly. Spitfire flinched, her bedroom eyes growing wide and the blush on her face growing deep. “I could probably look at her for hours and it’s preventing me from concentrating on anything else, I’d like to ask the captain to look into this for me… OH WAIT…” Wave reached a hoof for her face, but she quickly grabbed it and looked away from him, covering half her face with a wing.

“Waaaaaaaaave… there you go again…” her voice sounded squeaky. “Why’d you have to go and say that?”

“I’d like to file another complaint, the mare is clearly in denial. I’d like the captain to—”

“STOOOOP!” Spitfire giggled, pushing a wing into his face. Wave chuckled, grabbing her wing and pushing it down while smiling at her.

“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before…” he said jokingly as Spitfire continued to turn redder.

“We have!” she slumped back down on him and dug her face into his chest. “You don’t need to stroke my ego, I’m not some beauty model or anything.”

“I’m not in the business of lying to my commanding officer,” Wave chuckled as he patted her on the head.

“Quit it.”

“No.” Wave pressed his hoof down on her head.

Spitfire pouted at him, but blinked as he slowly slid his hoof down her cheek and caressed it.

“Spitfire, you’re beautiful,” he repeated. Spitfire scrunched up her face and started twitching. “Wanna know what was really nice?” Wave continued, a mischievous smile creeping onto his face. “Your face being the first thing I saw when I woke up.”

“Stop it…” Spitfire’s whole head started blinking red as she held her breath, puffing out her cheeks.

“For a second,” Wave put a little goofiness into his expression, holding back incoming chuckles. “I wondered if I was in heaven ahhh…” he tilted his head back. “What angel doth pulled me into the clouds?”

“OH SHUT UP!!!” Spitfire grabbed one of the couch cushions and stuffed it into Wave’s face. “YOU’RE SUCH A JERK!” she exclaimed, completely flustered as Wave burst into muffled laughter. “Whoa!” Spitfire yelped as the two tipped over.

“Oof!” they both grunted as Wave landed on his back and Spitfire fell right on top of him, the couch cushion slipping from her grip and falling to the floor. The fall left them staring face to face, Spitfire lying on top of Wave’s body with not even an inch between their noses.

They stared silently at one another for a moment, then Wave smiled.

“I really do mean it when I say it…” he brushed a hoof against the side of her head and into her mane. Spitfire’s expression went blank, turning red again. “You really are… You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re both beautiful and…” he ran both his hooves over her shoulders and down the sides of her body, running it over her muscles and every crook of her athletic physique. “You’re pretty damn sexy too.”

Spitfire tipped her head down and placed her forehead into his neck, clutching her hooves to his chest.

“So let me tell you that, okay? … Spitfire?” Wave blinked as he felt Spitfire shuddering. Eventually he heard what sounded like whimpering coming from her. “Spitfire, what’s wrong?”

“Sorry…” she sniffled. “I dunno why, I just suddenly…” she trailed off, sliding her hooves down his chest and wrapping them around his back, hugging him tightly. “It was so hard…”

Sensing the shift in the mood, Wave quickly brought his hooves up to gently caress her back and head.

“What is it?” he asked her in the gentlest tone he could manage.

“It was all so hard… everything…” Spitfire blubbered a little.

“Speak to me,” Wave coerced her as she sniffled.

“I was so happy when we… shared our first real moment. I had never felt so good in my life,” she began. “Then you got ripped away from me. First you were captured… then you were sick… and then so many bad things happened at once and I couldn’t lean on you for support. I was so lost and alone… I didn’t know where to turn and screamed at the top of my lungs when we found out there was no way to save you upon arrival.”

Wave stared up at the ceiling, listening very closely as she let it all pour out against his chest.

“Nopony has ever meant so much to me…” Spitfire went on. “And I was so worried that you were gone for good.”

“Spitfire…” Wave gently grabbed her head and tilted it up so her eyes were looking into his. There were light tears dripping down her face. He wiped the tears from her eyes. “Look at me and listen to me carefully,” he said as he gave her a firm look. “Put all of that behind you… and don’t look back. I’m right here with you now. You are touching me and I am holding you. We’ve both been through some of the worst experiences in our lives, but we’ve come out of them alive and we’re back in each other’s arms. If you ask me… I’d say it’s time to make the most of that.”

Spitfire stared wide eyed at Wave. That was just about everything she needed to hear coming from exactly who she wanted to hear it from. She leaned in, their lips meeting once more, but this time it was much deeper with more feeling behind it than she had ever put into it before.

They both exhaled as they pulled apart, staring calmly at one another with a shrewd lust in the air between them.

“Not the most of it…” Spitfire rubbed her hooves behind his head. “All of it.”

Wave smiled at her… and slowly started shifting, gently flipping them over and placing himself on top of her. Spitfire kept her body completely relaxed, letting him make the move without any resistance as the look of quiet desire in her eyes only grew stronger as he placed himself on top of her.

“Aye, Captain.”

“I’m all yours,” she beckoned him, relaxing her body entirely. Wave smiled as he lowered himself down, touching his body to hers.

“And I’m one lucky guy.”

Fleetfoot still had her ear pressed to the door. Her face was bright red with a goofy mischievous look on her face. She bit her lip and her wings twitched as she began to hear certain noises coming from the room… mostly from Spitfire.

But then her body jolted as if she had just been punched right in the gut. Her ear came right off the door and she stumbled backwards, falling onto her plot as she stared wide-eyed at the door.

There was a strong tightness in her chest as it felt like her breath escaped, making her feel lightheaded. Her body stiffened up as she looked down and blinked, her pupils darting slightly to the left and right.

Her ears turned towards the door as a faint muffled moan seeped through it. She slammed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth as she stood up quickly and cantered down the hall as if she wanted to get as far away from the door as possible.

“Are we there yet?” Star murmured as she lay flat on Dash’s back, facing backwards with her left cheek smushed into her fur.

“Our room is just around the corner,” Dash chuckled.

“We’ve been walking for five minutes,” Star groaned.

“We left the party thirty seconds ago,” Matteo chimed in from beside them.

“I’m pretty sure it’s been five minutes,” Star defended herself.

“It’s been five minutes since Dash cut you off for the night,” Thunderlane pointed out as he reached out and poked Star in the head.

“Myeh…” Star tried to move her head away, but didn’t give much effort. “I’m not that drunk.”

“You’re pretty drunk, Star… ah!” Dash wobbled slightly as one of her hooves stepped awkwardly.

“Ironic,” Matteo said flatly as Dash shot him a flat look.

“Yes, I drank too, but at least I can walk on my own,” she stuck her tongue out at him.

The party had more or less dispersed and Dash was heading back to their room with her friends. They had all had a bit to drink, some more than others. Star wasn’t so far gone that she was saying random things or forgetting where she was but she was definitely very inebriated. Though considering how small she was, there was a good chance she’d be really drunk soon, she had had more to drink than all of them combined.

Dash and Thunderlane were holding up alright, neither of them had really thrown down and Matteo unsurprisingly held his alcohol as if he hadn’t drank anything at all.

And Twister was moonwalking at the back of the group, it sounded like he was humming ‘He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,’ but it sounded like he kept mistaking the melody of ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’ as being a part of the song.

They probably could have stayed at the party a little longer, but it didn’t seem like much more was going to happen, so Dash made the call to get Star back and get her to bed before she could drink any more.

They had had their fun, but it was time to crash.

“Okay, Star, now we’re here,” Dash said sarcastically as she fiddled with her keycard.

“Yayyyyyy…” Star slurred.

But the moment Dash opened the door enough to see inside, she froze, holding the door partially open.

Her eyes landed directly on another pair of eyes, very wide eyes, looking towards the door from inside.

Squall was in the room.

Dash quickly shifted backwards while shutting the door.

“YEEP!” Star yelped as she slid off Dash’s back, but was caught by Matteo quickly reaching down.

“What’s up?” Thunderlane asked as Dash spun around and glanced between all of them. She said nothing for a moment, but then took a deep breath and pounded one hoof into the other.

“Everypony wait right here,” she ordered while pointing at the ground.

“Why?” Matteo immediately questioned. Dash pointed a hoof directly at his face.

“ESPECIALLY you!” she emphasized. Matteo narrowed his eyes and glanced at the door.

“He’s in there, isn’t he?”

“……………….maybe.” Dash said with a blank expression.

“You’re an awful liar,” Matteo huffed.

“It’s something I’d rather not be good at,” Dash shrugged and rolled her eyes.

“Huh… wha…?” Star groggily looked over from within Matteo’s gentle talon grip. “Squall? He’s here?”

Both Matteo and Dash looked down to her, then back at one another.

“Let me talk to him,” Dash spoke up before Matteo could, holding her hooves out.

“Eh? But…hrm…” Star started wiggling and reaching her hooves to the floor. Matteo lowered her down. She placed her hooves down and wobbled a little, but looked up at Dash. “Didn’t you just say I gotta talk to him?”

“I did,” Dash crouched down to look her in the eye. “But let me soften him up for you first,” she winked at her. “Thunderlane!” she yelled, glancing up.

“Huh? Yeah?” Thunderlane stepped forward. Dash scooped up Star in her hooves and held her out to him.

“Hold this.”

“Hey!” Star tried to fight for a moment, but not very strongly, going limp in Dash’s hooves. “Meh…” she sighed in defeat.

“Uh… okay,” Thunderlane grabbed Star and tried to keep his composure at the somewhat goofy tired face Star was making.

“Also…” Dash glanced to her left and thrust her hooves down.

“WOOOO HOO HOO!!!!” Twister whooped as Dash grabbed him by the neck before he could slither past her. She hoisted him up and stuffed him deep into Matteo’s fluff while giving Matteo a very stern gaze.

“Listen to me… YOU need to keep this idiot from going into the room while I do this, so please... just help me out here?” she asked. Matteo narrowed his eyes at Dash again. She was using Twister as an excuse to keep him out of the room and it was abundantly clear he was aware of that. But with a sigh, Matteo nodded.

“Fine,” Matteo agreed while pressing down on a lump that was now navigating around his fur.

“Okay, everypony sit tight!” Dash quickly turned around and let herself into the room.

The moment she was in and the door shut behind her, she spotted Squall by the sliding door that led out to the balcony, frantically fiddling with the lock.

“AH, AH, AH! Get away from that door!” Dash pointed right at him as he flinched and looked over his shoulder with wide eyes. After a moment of remaining perfectly still, Squall quickly turned back and continued fiddling with the lock.

Dash trotted over to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the door, but she barely got him away from it before he angrily yanked his arm away from her.

“For crying out loud!” He erupted, glaring at her and hissing through his nose. “Will you just leave me the hell alone?! How hard is it to understand that?!”

Dash let him yell into her face, holding firm as she looked him right in the eye.

“No,” she stated while pointing a hoof into his face. “Squall, I’ve always been willing to respect your personal boundaries so long as it doesn’t affect the wellbeing of the rest of us. You’ve been acting like this for weeks now, and since it looks like there’s no end to it in sight, I’m intervening right now. You need to quit being so cold to us, get yourself together, and move on.”

“What the hell do you know about me?!” he lashed out as Dash kept her composure. “What the hell do you care?!”

“Squall,” Dash planted a hoof to his chest. Squall flinched and froze, but kept his glare. “We were all right there when Ruin pried into your mind! Has anything changed about the way we treat you? What are you hiding from us for? What exactly changed?!”

“I DID!” Squall belted at her.

Dash blinked, her eyes widening a little. Squall instantly looked like he regretted saying it.

“What?” Dash tipped her head slightly.

“RRRRRRRRGHHHH!!!!!!” Squall pulled away, shaking his head out. “LEAVE ME ALONE! STOP NAGGING ME!”

Dash paused for a moment, trying her best not to show acknowledgement that he just said exactly what Matteo said he would.

“Squall, I’m not nagging you,” she said calmly.

“Yes you are!” he yelled right back before quickly turning and fiddling with the screen door again. Dash growled quietly to herself before rushing forward and pushing him away from the door.

“No, I’m not," she asserted as she forced him back and got into his face before he could protest. “I’m doing this because you’re causing problems for us! Some of us more than others!” she yelled while poking a hoof into his chest. “Star just drank herself silly at the party after you lashed out at her earlier! She sounds like she’s about to give up on you! STAR! GIVE UP! ON YOU!” she emphasized.

Squall’s expression drastically changed and all his attempts to stop it failed miserably. Dash immediately noticed. A look of disbelief had fought its way onto his face. Dash quickly lowered her voice, confident that had hit him hard.

“When I see her like that, I’m not just going to let it slide. Frankly, I don’t get why you’re being this way, not one bit.” Dash pulled her hoof away from him. “I want to ask you a serious question. Of what Ruin revealed out loud about you… what part of it was a bad thing?” She asked as Squall began gritting his teeth. “especially to Star?” she added.

“NO!” Squall swung a hoof out and pushed Dash aside. “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” he started cantering towards the door with his head down.

“SQUALL! GET BACK H—” she stopped mid-yell, her eyes opening wide as she spotted Matteo directly behind her, Squall running face first into his fur. He bounced off and stumbled back a few steps, his eyes going wide as they med the cold hard glare of Matteo.

“YOU.” Matteo reached an arm down and pushed Squall by the shoulder, his hooves skidding across the floor until he had his plot pressed to a wall. He held him still against it, but didn’t force him roughly into it after the fact. Dash quickly came to her senses and rushed towards them.

“MATTY! GRGH!!!” Dash grunted as Matteo reached his other arm behind him and held her in place by the head.

Matteo kept his glare firmly fixed on Squall, who glared right back, but looked a bit shaken. Dash frantically looked around as Matteo held her at bay, but Twister seemed to be absent, did Matteo leave Thunderlane alone to deal with him?

“You have run from this long enough,” Matteo stated, Squall growling loudly.

“Don’t start with me, Fatso!”

Matteo let go of Dash, pointing his free talon at Squall’s face.

“You are in no position to make demands,” he shot back, slowly looming further over Squall. “It’s time for you to stop hiding from yourself. What happened is long over and done with, yet you continue to run from it like a scared little colt instead of facing it like a stallion.”

Squall only growled louder and glared harder in response.

“You know what you are being, now tell me…” Matteo bent down to get closer. “Do I have to say it? Or are you going to gather up your dignity and stand up on your own four hooves?”

Squall didn’t say anything.

“Do I really have to say the word for you? The one you really hate?” Matteo egged him on.

“Don’t you dare…” Squall hissed at him.

“Matty…” Dash tried to speak up, but she knew it wouldn’t reach him at this point.

“Well…?” Matteo tipped his head slightly.

But Squall, again, said nothing.

“Coward,” Matteo said right into his face while giving a small head fake.

“NNNRGH!!!” Squall growled, trying to push forward. But he didn’t budge, Matteo was just too strong.

“YOU ARE BEING A COWARD!” Matteo yelled again. “OWN UP TO IT! What kind of self-respecting warrior is afraid of that which would give him strength?!”

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!” Squall roared again.

“YOU DON’T SCARE ME!” Matteo snarled. “YOUR INFANTILE YELLING HERE AND NOW ONLY PROVES ME RIGHT!”

“Matty! ENOUGH!!!!” Dash ran up and grabbed Matteo’s arm, but she couldn’t move him either. Everything was going downhill fast… REALLY fast.

But then Twister’s head suddenly sprang out from Matteo’s chest fluff like a jack-in-the-box.

“EVERYPONY HOL’ UP!”

“Oh dear god…” Dash said quietly to herself as she stopped pulling on Matteo’s arm.

Twister’s arms appeared out of Matteo’s fur and he pressed them down into it. His body made loud metallic creaking noises as he slowly pulled himself out of Matteo while never once moving his head from its position right in Squall’s face. His body walked towards his head, neck shortening until he was standing upright in front of Squall.

“It has come to my attention that we may not be taking the proper approach to this situation!”

Squall glared at him, but Twister reached up and squished Squall’s cheeks inward.

“What Slap-Happy Hot-Stuff McShimmerMeScar here really needs…” he trailed off as his face scrunched up. “Oog… hrgm… grgh…” he pounded a hoof to his chest. “Ahem… AHEM… BLAAAAARGH!!!!!!!”

Twister released a loud hard cough. A tornado spontaneously materialized around him and everypony and everything in the room was sucked into it, yelping as they were tossed about the room, but didn’t seem to be in danger of hitting anything.

But five seconds later it stopped, every object picked up landed perfectly and safely where it was prior and Dash and Matteo both landed softly on all fours.

There was suddenly a large roundtable in the center of the room with five Twister’s sitting in five of the six chairs with Squall occupying the last, looking back and forth confused as hell.

The Twister sitting in the middle of the quintet was the usual Twister, but the rest of them looked slightly different.

One of them was extremely old, had one eye squinted shut, and was endlessly shaking a cane in the air.

One of them was wearing very large, thick glasses, had a laptop computer in front of him, and was frantically typing away while biting his lip.

One of them was leaning back in his chair, his eyes were red and looking up slightly with a lit joint in his mouth.

The last was leaning forward and nearly grinding his hooves into the table, he had a long beard and an extremely serious look on his face.

“He needs a proper roundtable discussion on the topic of how to woo a mare!” the regular Twister shouted while throwing his hooves out to both sides. “Worry not! I brought together four well qualified experts to lead the discussion!” Twister leaned to the left side first and motioned to the old Twister. “Over here we have… The Hip Replacement!”

“QUIET SONNY!” the old twister slammed his cane on the table. “AFTER BEING MARRIED FOR TWO HUNDRED FORTY SEVEN YEARS AND A DIET COKE AIN’T NO ONE HERE THAT KNOWS MORE ABOUT THEM CRAZY MARES THAN ME!” he blinked and looked around. “Is it 4:30 yet? I’m tired.”

“And sitting next to him we ha—”

CLICKITY CLACKITY CLICKITY CLACKITY

Twister flattened his expression as the glasses Twister furiously typed away loudly.

“Ahem!”

“AH!” the glasses Twister slammed the laptop shut and hugged it to his body while frantically looking back and forth.

“We have, the Shipficcer!”

“What did you see?! Did you see anything?!” Ship Twister looking back and forth nervously. “No one is allowed to view my expertise on the subject of romance before I publish it!” Ship Twister quickly opened up his laptop, looked suspiciously around at everypony, and continued typing.

“Aaaaaaaaand to my right!” Twister swung his arm around, motioning to the joint smoking Twister. “We have The Baked Visionary!”

“Dude, like…” Baked Twister took the joint out of his mouth and blew a huge cloud of white smoke. “This one time when I was really high, I like… was telling this mare about another time I got high and… I mean… I think it was a mare? I can’t remember…” he took another long puff.

“And next to him we have—”

Twister was cut off as the final Twister slammed his hooves on the table.

“LET ME TELL YOU THE TRUTH ABOUT MARES!” he yelled while clenching a hoof, his beard growing longer and a handlebar mustache slowly extending outward. “They are sly creatures that will turn a stallion inside out the hard way should you take your eyes off them! What is the solution to such mares?! Beatings.”

The rest of the Twister’s stared wide eyed at the angry Twister.

“Well then,” Twister blinked and cleared his throat. “This is Memeri.”

“My personality forces thots to treat me with respect.” Memeri Twister stated firmly as the ends of his moustache grew longer and slowly curled upward while his eyes began to glow and point in different directions.

“SO THEN! Gentlestallions!” Twister clapped his hooves together as Squall’s eyes darted back and forth. “Here is the situation tonight. Our troubled stallion here is having a mare problem… his heart and soul has been poured out for her to see, but he now avoids her for some god forsaken reason.”

“A-HAH!” the Old Twister rapped his cane on the table. “Sonny’s got a classic case of a mare wanting his dick, but he can’t find it!”

“Dude, this one time… I couldn’t find it either…” Baked Twister took a puff, blinked, and glanced between his legs. “Wait, do I still have it?”

“Now now, let’s not jump to any obvious conclusions,” Twister nodded. “But as it stands, can we offer some advice to our client here as to how to properly woo his mare?”

“The moonlight shone gently through the window…” Ship Twister started speaking out loud as he typed away. “The two were only inches apart, taking in the innocently lustful look in each other’s eyes, their lips parting as fireworks erupted in their heads for the moment that had finally arrived…” his face was getting closer and closer to his screen as he went on.

“By Celestia, you virgin!” Memeri Twister angrily pointed across the table at Ship Twister. “Cease that degenerate drivel or I will give you a taste of my shoe!” he threatened while holding up a horseshoe in his other hoof.

“Dude, this one time… we were all getting high… my buddy fell asleep before the third round, so we stuck a carrot in his ass.” Baked Twister randomly said. “I don’t think there was a girl there... what was the question again?”

“SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO when I was a wee lad,” Old Twister barked. “I’d cruise down the road in my self-drawn carriage, pick up babes, and ride all over the neighborhood! Alco-dickety-hol only cost three wooden bits back then! You had to say ‘dickety’ with that word in my time cause only Griffons new how to make it and I’ll be DAMNED if I ever acknowledge them feather dusters!!!”

“They could feel each other’s breath on their faces…” Ship Twister went on, he was sitting on the table now, bent all the way down with his face pressed to the screen. “They held each other so close… the moment was tense yet so tender, the incoming kiss anticipated, yet so far away…” A horseshoe flung right into the side of his head, knocking him off the table and onto the floor. “Ow…”

“Hurry up and get to the part where he gives her the almighty three shoe beating!” Memeri Twister snapped from across the table. He slammed his chin to the table’s surface, dragging it as he turned his attention to Squall with his beard sweeping over the table. “In these trying times, all I have are horny thoughts, HORNY THOUGHTS!” he yelled while throwing his arms into the air. “But the question is, who am I horny for? My brothers, I am horny for Celestia!”

“Hey anyone up for some tacos? I’m hungry and I don’t know why.” Baked Twister chimed in while swallowing his joint and rolling another one.

“IN DEFIANCE OF CELESTIA!” Memeri twister pointed a hoof on the table and pointed the other towards Baked Twister. “The stallion here turned himself into a chimney! This is not funny! This is Paganism!”

“They grew closer and closer, so close it was as if they would never meet and yet their lips now were so near they could almost taste them!” Ship Twister continued on, now nearly humping his own laptop. “Surely this was fate! Surely this was meant to be! It had all come to this one particular moment in time, it was meant for them. He deserved this moment! She deserved this moment, and then…. THEY…”

“FIRST OF ALL…!” Memeri twister shoved Baked Twister off his chair to get closer. “The only thing she DESERVES is a beating with a rod, such as this one!” He tore a leg right off the table and held it up in the air.

“Damn, the floor is nice,” Baked Twister’s voice came from the floor.

“SECOND OF ALL—”

“ONE THOUSAND FORTY TWO YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS IN MY PRIME…” Old Twister cut off Memeri Twister. “I was so hot for Celestia that, now listen closely son, NOT EVEN SOMBRA… could compete with the thunder I packed above the sack!”

Memeri Twister slammed the leg on the table and ground his teeth together as he pointed at old Twister while his beard grew three more inches.

“May Celestia silence you, cut off your tongue, and destroy the very foundations of your being! You will not speak about that infidel Sombra!”

Old Twister glared across the table at him and slammed his cane to the table.

“Eat shit, sonny, I WILL talk about Sombra!” he shot back.

The two of them suddenly scrambled onto the table and smacked one another repeatedly with their cane and table leg. One errant swing sent Shipfic Twister’s laptop flying and smashing against the back wall.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! MY LIFE’S WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!” he wailed.

“Stallions, stallions, please!” Twister reached up, but was knocked down onto Baked Twister.

“Whoa, dude, what if like… we had hands?” Baked Twister asked as Twister rolled off of him.

Squall, Dash, and Matteo just watched blankly as Memeri Twister and Old Twister continued to fight, Shipfic twister continued to weep, Baked Twister continued to spout deep philosophy, and normal Twister lay out cold on the floor.

Suddenly a sign dropped down from the ceiling that read “The Democracy club” and “We’ll be right back.”

“C’MERE BITCH!” the fighting Twisters fell onto Squall and knocked him to the floor.

“RRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Squall forced them off and got to his hooves, seething hard. “SHUT UP!!!!!!!!” he yelled.

All the Twisters froze and stared at him.

“EVERYPONY JUST SHUT UP! SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!”

They all continued to stare. Then Memeri Twister pushed old Twister off of him.

“By Celestia, you ponies are dogs. I will go on as usual.” He trudged towards the door, left, and slammed the door behind him.

Squall forcefully shook his head out before breaking towards the door himself.

“Squall, wait!” Dash yelled as she chased after him.

But before he could reach the door… it opened.

Little Star walked in.

Squall gasped and screeched to a halt.

Dash and Matteo froze. Twister remained still as well, the other Twisters and the mess they left behind all suddenly gone. They watched as Star and Squall just stared at one another.

Thunderlane peeked through the door, stepping into the room himself as he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

“Sorry… she wiggled free,” he explained as the door closed, but not fully as he accidentally pushed the deadbolt lever over while stepping in.

Star and Squall continued to just stand still and look at one another. While Star’s expression was very neutral, mostly due to the alcohol, Squall looked terrified as if he had just gotten his leg caught in a bear trap.

Then in an instant, Squall spun around, turning his back to her, but he didn’t move an inch. He looked down, his breaths heavy.

“Hey…” Star spoke up, causing him to flinch. “Hey you…” she went on, sounding like the amount she drank was starting to hit her a little more. “Hey…” she wobbled up behind him and grabbed his tail. “You…” she started gently tugging on his tail. “Hey… hey… hey…” she kept repeating while tugging his tail over and over.

But Squall didn’t move.

“Why won’t you look at me?” she asked while letting go of his tail.

She waited patiently for a response, but Squall said nothing.

“Gosh…” Star said with a hiccup and wobbling slightly. “You’re so mean.”

Squall flinched hard, but kept his back turn.

“You’re real weird too, you know that?” Star leaned forward and pointed a hoof nonchalantly. “Why do you hate it when others like you?”

Squall’s body relaxed and he slowly turned his head, but not far enough to face or see her.

“It doesn’t make any sense at all, I don’t get you.” Star started to turn away.

“Wait!” Squall suddenly blurted out, turning halfway around and looking at her, but a moment later he froze and sharply turned his back to her again. Star huffed loudly, puffing her cheeks up.

“Oh, come on… What? WHAT?! Say something!” she prodded.

Dash, Thunderlane, and Matteo all watched quietly, letting Star take over the situation in her slightly drunken state. Twister was straining himself while gnawing on Matteo’s arm, but they were completely ignoring him, holding their breath.

“You’re so difficult…” Star said as she wobbled closer to Squall, approaching his back leg as he remained turned. Squall twitched hard as Star suddenly sat down and leaned her back against his leg. “But I like you anyway.”

Squall’s ears stood up.

“All that stuff Ruin said… that stuff about you…” Star rambled on as Squall slowly started turning his head to actually look at her. His expression had weakened considerably, no trace of hostility left to be found. “Yeah, he was being a jerk, but… wanna know something?” Star tilted her head, the two of them finally making eye contact.

Dash bit down hard on her lip in anticipation.

“That stuff about you?” Star let her head tilt and rest against his leg. “It was—”

SLAM

Everypony flinched hard as the sound of the front door crashing against the wall nearly spooked them all right out of their hooves.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! HIC!”

Dash spun around and looked at the door.

It was Fleetfoot.

“DASSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHIIIEEEEE!!!!!” Fleetfoot giggled, poking Dash in the chest. “HIIIIIIII!!!!!!!”

It was an apparently extremely drunk Fleetfoot complete with a perpetual rosy red blush, two wine bottles tucked under her wing, and a distinct inability to stand up straight without swaying or tipping back and forth.

“Fl… Fleet?!” Dash finally managed to say as Fleetfoot threw herself at her, laughing directly into Dash’s face as she gave her a big hug. Dash could smell alcohol for miles on her breath.

But then realization hit Dash and she quickly looked towards Squall and Star, only to see Squall was already halfway towards the bedroom and Star had tipped over onto her back, staring at the ceiling. Before Dash could yell towards Squall, he was in the other room and he shut the door behind him.

“My life is a joke,” Star said monotonously towards the ceiling.

“Star, no,” Dash stated firmly before glaring at the constantly giggling Fleetfoot hanging onto her. But the glare bounced right off her as she leaned in and started planting multiple sloppy kisses on Dash’s face.

“MWAH! MWAH! MWAH!” Fleetfoot kept going, more or less pulling on Dash’s face with each one.

“Ow! Gah! Fleet, stop that!” Dash tried to push her away.

“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Fleetfoot tipped forward and draped herself over Dash’s shoulder, but she leaned too far, sliding right over Dash’s back and hitting the floor with a loud THUMP.

Dash sighed and turned around to look her over as she sat up, popped the cork out of one of the bottles and took a delightful swig from it while humming.

“Ahhhh… that’s good stuff…” she sighed as she held the bottle towards Dash. “Ya want some? I only sucked on the end a LITTLE bit, ahaaaaa…” she let her head tilt back as she kept giggling every couple of seconds. Dash furrowed her brow.

“Fleet… how much wine have you had?”

“Yes.”

Dash opened her mouth, then closed her mouth. Technically that answered her question.

“HHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…” Fleetfoot squeakily hummed as she slowly tipped over onto her back, somehow not spilling any of the open bottle as she started rocking back and forth on the floor.

Dash glanced over at the rest. Matteo and Thunderlane were just staring wide eyed at Fleetfoot. Thunderlane in particular had his back legs crossed. Twister had vanished, Squall was still in the other room, and Star was still laying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.

“Okay, fine… what are you doing here?” Dash asked Fleet with another heavy sigh.

“Huh?” she blinked and stopped rocking. “Oh yeah!” she sat up and leaned really close into Dash. “I’m crashing here tonight!”

“Um… pardon?” Dash lifted an eyebrow, but Fleetfoot’s eyes suddenly snapped towards Thunderlane and Matteo.

“SO WHO WANTS TO SLEEP WITH ME?!” she yelled out cheerfully while waving her arms towards them. “I promise I won’t bite… that hard!”

“Hold up, HOLD UP!” Dash shifted to block her view.

“Oh?” Fleetfoot gave her a very sly look. “Dashie, ya shoulda said something!” She leaned in, wrapped her arms around Dash’s neck and seductively swayed her hips back and forth. “Just don’t tell Soarin! Unless he’d be okay with it?”

“No, he…” Dash trailed off and tipped her head slightly. “Actually he’d probably think it’s hot, but really we need to back up for a moment.” Dash gently pushed her off.

“Huh? Oh, okay I can do that.” Fleetfoot casually turned around and bent down, lifting her plot towards Dash.

“NO! THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!” Dash grabbed her by the plot and spun her back around. “Gear down for a second!” Dash demanded while grabbing Fleet by the face and pressing her cheeks inward. “Why are you here? Don’t you have a room?”

Fleetfoot suddenly made a very sad squished face with beady eyes.

“What? You don’t want me heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere?” she slurred with a sniffle. Dash flattened her brow.

“Fleet, that’s not what I said. I’m just curious why you just suddenly stumbled through my door, drunk off your ass, and announced that you’re staying,” she rephrased while letting go of Fleetfoot’s cheeks.

Fleetfoot stared blankly for a moment while keeping her lips slightly puckered.

“Oh right, yeah, that… hehe!” she giggled, stumbling backwards and falling onto her plot. With a wine bottle in hoof, she pointed towards the door. “I set up Spitty and Wave in our room. They’re wham-bamming the night away right now, so I need a place to crash!”

“So… you came to us?” Dash asked while looking her up and down.

“You’re the first one to let me in! HWEEEEE!!!” she tipped over backwards and rolled onto her back again while kicking her legs into the air lazily.

“Our door was open…” Dash sighed as Fleet continued to rock about, giggling like a filly.

“I know! How nice of you!” Fleetfoot sat up and launched herself at Dash for a hug, but this time Dash reached forward in time to stop her. “MWAH! MWAH! I love you too!” she made kissy lips towards Dash while making grabby hooves towards her.

With one hoof keeping Fleetfoot back, Dash looked over at the others. Thunderlane had moved to the couch to sit down and Matteo was looking around, probably for Twister. But the one Dash was really concerned about was Star, still lying face up on the floor, looking like she had decided she was living there now.

“Look, Fleet… I don’t want you to think I’m throwing you out right now, but this may not be the best time for—” Dash blinked as Fleetfoot suddenly slipped off her hoof, tucked the wine bottles into her wings and galloped towards the couch Thunderlane was sitting on.

“That couch looks comfy as HELL!” she yelled.

“Huh? AH!” Thunderlane yelped as she leapt over the arm and landed chest first on him. “OOF!” Thunderlane grunted as she slid over his lap and rolled to the other end of the couch.

“Wooooo! Haha!” she hooted as she downed what was left of the first bottle and threw it across the room. Dash winced, expecting a crash, but it landed in Matteo’s fluff and got stuck. “Bottle destroyed!” she giggled as she popped the cork out of the other, the cork launching off the opposite wall and hitting Dash between the eyes.

“OW!” Dash grunted as she rubbed her face, but as she regained her focus, Fleet was already gulping down more wine, eventually placing it on the coffee table and spreading her body out.

“Hmmmmm…” she hummed drunkenly as she laid on her stomach and rested her chin on the arm rest.

Dash gave Fleetfoot a long hard look, but gave in. With a heavy sigh, Dash walked towards the door and made sure it was shut and locked properly. It was clear Fleetfoot wasn’t going anywhere, hopefully she’d just pass out in short order.

With Fleetfoot lounging for the moment, Dash went to collect Star from the floor… because she was certain that wasn’t very comfy at all. Matteo passed behind her and by the couch as she moved, moving to turn the corner and passing right by Fleetfoot in the process.

“Hey, hey, hey!” She suddenly reached out and grabbed his tail. “WHOOP!” she yelped as Matteo kept going, pulling her right over the couch arm and face first onto the floor.

Matteo stopped and turned to look back at her as she pushed herself up and wobbled closer, eventually leaning into his side and sinking into his fur.

“Oh damn… you’re so soft…” she cooed as she leaned her whole body into him. Matteo sighed as she hummed and sank little by little into his fluff. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… Oh?” she suddenly stopped sinking. “Hoooo whoooooaaaaaa!” she perked up a little as she dug her hooves into his fur and felt around. “Holy shit, somepony is hiding some serious beef under all this fluff!”

“Stop,” Matteo reached back and pulled her off.

“Wait, wait, I wasn’t done…” Fleetfoot pleaded as she made grabbing motions towards his body.

“Enough. I’m married,” Matteo said sternly, holding her back by the forehead with a single talon shank.

“I know, but I can’t even touch?” she asked with a dramatic pout.

“No.”

“Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame…” Fleetfoot groaned in frustration. “Can I sleep on you though? For serious, you’re like… comfier than most beds I’ve slept on. I won’t hump that much I promi—YEE!” she squeaked as Matteo picked her up by the head.

“The couch will have to suffice,” he said flatly as he moved her back to the couch right as Dash placed Star down on the comfy chair next to it.

Dash snickered as he watched Fleetfoot give no resistance, dangling from Matteo’s talons as he dropped her back on the couch. With Star now situated… Dash blinked and quickly moved to sit down in between Fleetfoot and Thunderlane, hopefully deterring her from getting any more ideas.

But it didn’t seem to matter.

“Ooo! You!” Fleetfoot leaned over and fell onto her stomach while pointing at Thunderlane.

Thunderlane’s face went blank and he stiffened. Dash tipped forward and started reaching for Fleetfoot, but stopped, leaned back and smirked towards Thunderlane. This would probably be funny, so she decided to let it happen.

“Wait… Wait…” Fleetfoot sat up, wobbled, and held her hooves out in front of her while blinking. “Hold on a sec.” She reached for the remaining bottle of wine and took a large gulp. “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” she slowly stroked a hoof through her mane before shaking it out. She put on a pair of very seductive bedroom eyes and batted her eyelashes through her tipsy blush towards Thunderlane. “I think I sat on you earlier, right?”

“Snrk…” Dash put a hoof to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Thunderlane swallowed, glancing in Fleetfoot’s direction.

“Pardon me, Dashie!” Fleetfoot lunged forward, but ungracefully toppled right onto Dash’s lap.

“Gah!” Dash grunted as all of Fleetfoot’s weight pressed into her legs.

“Whoops! Slipped! Hee!” Fleetfoot clambered, up, pressing a hoof down to Dash’s thigh and up into her face as she pulled herself completely over her and fell against Thunderlane. “Hey… hey…” Fleetfoot pressed her body into Thunderlane. “I’m drunk and extremely horny, want to help me do something about it?” she asked while tracing a hoof into Thunderlane’s cheek.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” Thunderlane slurred as his face turned bright red.

“Is that a yes? It sounded like ye—EEP!” Fleetfoot lost her balance and slipped off his shoulder, her chest landing right into Thunderlane’s lap. “WAIT… WAIT… GIMME A SEC!” Fleetfoot pressed her hooves directly into his crotch as she tried to push herself up.

“FFFFNNNMMMFFVVVRRRRRRR…” Thunderlane bit down on his lip, his eyes twitching as Fleetfoot scooted her legs up and around, sitting her plot down right on his lap.

“THERE! I did it! HA! In your FACE alcohol!” she pumped a hoof into the air. “Wait… what was I doing again?”

“Thunderlane, breathe,” Dash chuckled as he looked like he was about to explode.

“I… can’t…” Thunderlane’s head twitched.

“OH! Right, right, right…” Fleetfoot turned her body towards him and straddled his waist. “I was trying to do… uh…” Fleetfoot leaned in real close and lifted eyebrow. “What’s your name again? Storm Front?”

“PFFFFFFFFFF—!” Dash threw her hooves over her mouth as Thunderlane’s ears dropped.

“Eh… doesn’t matter, just gimme some tongue,” Fleetfoot pressed herself as hard as she could into Thunderlane and leaned towards his mouth, flicking her tongue up and down.

“FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF—AH!” Thunderlane threw his wings out and pumped them down, forcing him off the couch and into the air.

“WHOA!” Fleetfoot yelped as she was lifted up with him, the two shooting into the air until Thunderlane’s head hit the ceiling. Fleetfoot was shaken free of him upon impact, the two falling in opposite directions. Thunderlane hit the floor with a loud THUMP, but Fleetfoot careened right towards Dash.

“OH SHI—” Dash noticed a little too late that Fleetfoot was dropping like a rock towards her, just barely moving her arms over her stomach to somewhat shield herself from the incoming impact of Wonderbolt butt.

Fleetfoot crashed plot first into Dash, forcing both of them half way into the couch between two of the cushions with Fleetfoot on top.

Dash flattened her brow, staring up into the air with her cheeks pressed together by the cushions and Fleetfoot’s nose dug into her chest.

“Fleet, could you pass out already?” Dash asked with a slight tone of frustration in her voice.

“Pah! Blah…” Fleetfoot gagged as she pulled back, relieving herself from a mouthful of Dash’s fur. But she blinked as she noticed she was on top of Dash with her jammed into the couch cushions. “Whoa, did we just do it? You look like you had a great time!”

“Fleet do you even remember the last few minutes?” Dash asked, furrowing her brow.

“If I don’t it must have been great! Wanna do it again?” she asked, giggling with a hiccup in between every few ‘hee’s. She tried to lean forward and kiss Dash, but Dash yanked one of her hooves out from between the couch and jammed it against Fleetfoot’s cheek. “Murglebrgle.” Fleet mumbled gibberish as the pressure forced her lips to pucker. “Oh wait, it’s coming back to me!” she sat up but didn’t get off of Dash. “I wasn’t doing you, I was doing…”

She and Dash looked over to see Thunderlane standing up right and facing the corner of the wall across the room.

“YEEEEEEAH! HIM! I knew something was off, you were a stallion like… five hours ago!” she brushed a hoof against Dash’s chest. “HIC!” Fleet hiccupped very loudly, her body nearly bouncing off Dash as she clamped her thighs onto Dash’s waist.

“OW! Okay, that’s it…” Dash pushed forward, forcing herself out of the couch and tipping Fleetfoot over onto her back beside her.

“Wai… wai… wait… is he still over there? Lemme over there!” Fleetfoot made grabbing motions towards Thunderlane as she remained upside-down.

“Think you’re gonna have to leave him be, Fleet,” Dash explained as she brushed herself off.

“Neh!” Fleetfoot stretched herself out as if it would help her get closer to him. “I wanna ride!”

“He’s taken,” Dash said while grabbing Fleet’s hoof to stop her from falling off the couch.

“Wha…? Him too?” Fleetfoot slurred. “By who?”

“My friend, Applejack.”

“Bwuhuh?” Fleetfoot sat up quickly and blinked, one eye half closed and her opposite ear flattening out. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait… that guy… is banging that juicy apple mare you know?”

“Yes,” Dash answered sternly, crossing her hooves.

“Hot DAAAAAAAAAAAYUM! He’s that good?! Want, WANT!” Fleetfoot started scooting off the couch. Dash reached out and grabbed her by the tail, but it didn’t seem to matter since she just rolled off and landed on her back. “Ow. Where are my hooves? I can’t find them.”

“Look, Fleet, I had my laugh, so leave Thunderlane alone. Things between him and A.J. are pretty serious.”

“Ah ha… found my hooves!” Fleetfoot squealed while looking at her hooves.

“Did you hear what I said?” Dash sighed.

“Yaaaaaaa yaaaaa fiiiiiiiiine…” Fleetfoot rolled up and clambered back onto the couch, resting her chest against the backrest and her chin on top of it. But then her eyes lit up again. “Oo! Wait! She has that MASSIVE brother! Can she set me up with—?”

“Fleet, you’ve MET his marefriend,” Dash quickly cut her off.

“Oh right… blaaaaaaaaaaaargh.”

“HEY!” a voice suddenly came from the cushions. Dash blinked and looked down to see Twister’s neck extending from the cushions with an angry look on his face and a nightcap. “CAN Y’ALL KEEP IT DOWN?! I NEED MY TEN HOURS!” he shouted.

Fleetfoot slowly turned her head, squishing her cheek on the cushion as she stared at Twister.

“Hey you, there’s no way you’re taken. Wanna bang?” she asked with a slur and a hiccup.

“FLEET, NO!” Dash reached over but Twister’s head and neck whipped around and knocked Dash back.

“Sorry ma’am,” Twister apologized, his nightcap tipping up and down. “I’m currently making love to a wheel of cheese down here.”

Fleetfoot just stared at him for a moment and lifted an eyebrow.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” she asked.

“REAL GOUDA!” Twister’s eyebrows bounced erratically before he dove back into the couch and loud thumping noises came from within it.

“Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh… well…” Fleetfoot turned around, nearly falling into Dash as she leaned her back into the couch. “It was worth a shot.” She yawned as Dash pushed a hoof against her to help her at least be upright.

For a moment Dash wondered if the worst was over. Fleetfoot was suddenly quiet, and the yawn hopefully signified she was about to fall asleep. But then Fleetfoot suddenly scrunched up her face and grunted.

“Mrghbrghrgh…” she leaned forward and grabbed the wine bottle left on the table and started gulping it down. Dash cringed and tried to reach for it, but hesitated long enough for Fleetfoot to yank the bottle out of her mouth and cough a few times. There wasn’t much left in the bottle, but Fleetfoot just stared at it as she took a few heavy breaths.

“Dashie…?” she suddenly spoke, letting a hiccup go before she wobbly turned and looked in Dash’s relative direction, but she was a bit off. “Dashie, you’re still there, right?”

“Uh… I’m right next to you,” Dash confirmed, tapping Fleetfoot on the shoulder. Fleetfoot blinked and turned her head the rest of the way, her eyes landing on Dash.

The look in her eyes was unexpected. It almost looked vacant or empty.

“Oh, good… you’re here…” she said lazily as she clutched the bottle. “Good, I’m not alone.”

Dash’s ears stood right up. What was that about?

“Uh… Fleet? Are you okay?” Dash asked. The obvious answer was no since she was probably a few miles over the line of blackout drunk at this point, but… this was a very sudden shift.

“Dashie…” Fleetfoot slurred again while hugging the wine bottle. “Why’s everypony around me taken?” she suddenly asked.

“Wha? Taken?” Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“Taken,” Fleet repeated as she let the bottle roll out of her hooves. Dash quickly reached out and caught it to set it down on the table. “TAKEN!” she yelled while leaning towards Dash, falling towards her. Dash yelped and caught her, Fleet going limp against Dash. “Everypony’s taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaken!” she wailed while pressing the crown of her head into Dash’s chest. She pulled back, took a deep breath and blew a loud raspberry into Dash’s chest.

“Whoaaaayeeee!” Dash twitched as Fleetfoot’s mouth buzzed against her. “Stop that.” She grabbed her by the shoulder and put her at arms-length.

“The hell do I gotta do, huh?” Fleet let her head hang back. “There something wrong with me? Is it a crime to be this sexy? How many magazine covers do I gotta shake my flank on?” she blinked and tipped her head back down, looking Dash in the eye. “That probably has jack shit to do with it.”

“Um,” Dash tipped her head.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…” Fleetfoot threw her hooves into the air, turned her back to Dash and dramatically leaned back into her. Dash caught her, allowing her to arch her back and hang limply. “I’m surrounded by lovey-dovey romance…” she lazily reached for her ears and yanked on them. “But I can’t get any of it to save my liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife…” she whined.

Dash stared at her, then let go. Fleetfoot dropped into her lap with a tiny squeak.

“Well,” Dash scratched the back of her head. “You, uh… don’t do yourself many favors,” she said bluntly.

“I know,” she immediately agreed. “But it still sucks.”

“Maybe you should—oof!” Dash grunted as Fleetfoot spontaneously turned over onto her stomach, pushing her wings into Dash inadvertently.

“I can shake my hips, flirt, and rub myself on others all I want, but that’ll never get me something… like…” she trailed off.

Dash’s eyes widened as Fleetfoot started sniffling.

“Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh…” she let out what sounded like crying mixed with a drunken wail. She stuffed her eyes against Dash’s thigh and she immediately felt the wetness from her face. “I’m so goddamn jealous of you… And Spitty… and Misty…”

Dash wasn’t sure what to say or do. This was such a sudden shift. She showed up acting very belligerent and now she was admitting that she didn’t want to be? Or something like that.

“Gee, Fleet, I—OW!” Dash flinched as Fleetfoot sudden bit down on her thigh. She grabbed her and forced her back upright. She was about to berate her, but by now the look in Fleetfoot’s eyes looked so vacant that she was clearly out of control of herself.

“Eh? What?” she asked as if she didn’t just bite her.

“…nothing,” Dash sighed, helping Fleetfoot rest her back against the couch. “Just… keep talking if you want,” she offered. She felt a little bad hearing what the alcohol had to say, but if this was something on Fleetfoot’s mind that she otherwise wouldn’t say… she was going to let her get it off her chest whether she meant to or not. She looked around to see both Matteo and Thunderlane had gone elsewhere… so she was the only one hearing it by now. Star appeared to be asleep on the chair.

“What’s it feel like?” she suddenly asked.

“What’s what feel like?” Dash asked, sitting back down.

“Having something real…”

Dash stared straight ahead.

“Meaning something to somepony,” Fleetfoot continued. “I like… like… like, like…” her head tipped to one side. “I just dunno what it feels like.”

Dash slowly glanced at her, but said nothing.

“I know what it’s like to be desired, but… it just ends there. I’ve never had more than that.” She turned towards Dash and almost fell into her again. “What’s it like to be needed?” she inched forward. “What’s it like to feel a loving touch?” she tipped further forward. “What’s it like to make love for more than just a quick bang? Tell meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…!” she fell against Dash, her neck draping over Dash’s shoulders. “Please… tell me… I wanna know…”

Dash gritted her teeth, glancing down as she reached up and embraced her.

“You know what it’s like, don’t you?” she sniffled. “To have somepony that cares about you so much that they would do anything for you? Somepony that’s always there? That fills in all the empty space?”

Dash’s heart sank. This was way more than she ever expected to hear and it was… depressing. She already knew about a lot of personal things Fleetfoot kept inside, and now she knew more, possibly more hidden than the others.

“Oh, since we’re on the subject,” Fleetfoot suddenly pushed off Dash, her eyebrows uneven as she swayed and struggled to focus. “Have you ridden Soarin yet since he got stupidly huge?”

Dash’s face contorted and her eye twitched.

“Seriously, have you? How big is he now?! Did it hurt? Could you walk after? Think he could get up and walk around with you still on? Right now you might as well be a living cock sock.”

“WHOA! WHOA!” Dash leaned back from her.

“What? I’m legit curious!” she asked.

Dash rubbed her temples, shaking her head slightly. This was so out of control, she was shifting back and forth so fast Dash couldn’t keep up with her.

“Huh. WHUH?! HEY!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled. Dash perked up and saw Fleetfoot looking past her. She looked over her shoulder and saw… Squall peeking out from the bedroom door. “HEY HEY HEY!!!!! THERE’S ANOTHER IN HERE!!!” Fleetfoot suddenly lunged forward, running into Dash and nearly knocking her over. Squall flinched and slammed the door shut. “WAIT! ARE YOU SINGLE?!”

“NO! Fleet, stop!” Dash grabbed her arm before she could clamber off the couch.

“Aw, don’t tell me he’s taken too…” she slumped down, draping herself over Dash with a wail. Dash pushed her off and tipped her upright, holding her by the shoulders.

“Well… uh…” Dash glanced away. “Not really, no.”

“Then lemme go, I need lovin’.” She protested, trying to wiggle free but her efforts were not all that strong.

“Fleet, listen,” Dash gripped her shoulders. “He’s off limits.”

“But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?” Fleet wailed, tipping her head back and flicking her tongue into the air.

“He…” Dash trailed off, glancing over at Little Star asleep on the couch. Fleetfoot tipped her head down and also looked towards Star, blinking. Dash looked back and quickly used a hoof to turn Fleetfoot’s head to her. “It’s complicated.”

“Huzzat?” Fleetfoot tried to look again, but Dash didn’t let her. “Wuzzat? Wuzzup with them?”

“It’s none of your business,” Dash said flatly before scrunching up her face as Fleetfoot pressed a hoof to her nose.

“Hoooooorrrrrrssssshhhhhhhhhit, it is now,” she slurred as her hoof slid off Dash’s nose. “What’s going on with them?”

“Long story,” Dash tried to deflect. Fleetfoot shifted slightly to look at Star again, then glanced back at Dash.

“Gimme the shhhhort version and I’ll be happy,” Fleetfoot offered.

“Fleet, no.”

“Fleet, YES! Tell me or I’m going in there for some hibbity jibbity on the hippity hoppity! You gotta convince me!” She suddenly lunged from the couch and started stumbling towards the door. Dash quickly got up and leapt at her, grabbing her by the tail and yanking her back.

“Leave them alone!” Dash demanded, losing her patience.

“Weh…”

“Okay, LOOK…” Dash stepped around and stood in front of her, glaring. “While we were trying to save Soarin, my squad was attacked by Ruin, and he targeted Squall. He did something weird and was able to pull a lot of private things out of Squall’s head, announcing them to all of us. He focused on how much he really cares about Little Star. But Squall is very tight lipped about his personal feelings, and since the encounter he has been very distant and difficult, even pushing away Star. She’s been a wreck, and just wants him to know that what she heard made her very happy and that she cares too, and that knowing how he feels is…” Dash trailed off, her eyes opening wide as she realized…

Didn’t she just hear this?

Fleetfoot was staring blankly at her… and suddenly her eyes narrowed considerably.

“What?” she blinked. “Excuse me? For REAL?”

Dash gritted her teeth and tried to pull her back to the couch.

“Just sit down, leave them be,” she tried to push the subject, but Fleetfoot started batting her hooves against Dash’s arm.

“Oh no. No. No, no!” Fleetfoot started hitting Dash harder. “No no no no no no NO!”

“Ow! Ow!” Dash let go of her. Fleetfoot stumbled a bit, but stood upright and pouted at her.

“Absolutely not!” she pointed at Dash, but was a little off center. “This is not happening on my watch!” she exclaimed as she grabbed the wine bottle and gulped down what was left in it.

“Fleet… SIT. DOWN!” Dash demanded.

“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH…” Fleetfoot gasped for air after finishing the wine, peeking into the bottle. “That’s all that was left? Meh… it’ll do.” She tossed the bottle onto the couch and clapped her hooves together. “OKAY!” she turned and reached for Star, patting her on the head vigorously.

“Mrf, anf, ah, wha…?” Star garbled as she woke up and blinked.

“Sit tight, tiny,” Fleetfoot said with a loud hiccup. “I’m gonna slap some shit… some slu… SENSE! Slap some sense into this jerk for you!”

“FLEET!” Dash reached for her, but Fleetfoot started flailing her arms and wings about, bopping Dash repeatedly and wildly to keep her away. As Dash backed off she nearly dabbed as she pointed the extended arm towards Dash.

“Don’t try to stop me, Dashie! This moron needs a swift kick in the junk!” she yelled before scooping up Star from the chair.

“Hey!” Star squeaked as Fleetfoot tucked her into her armpit like a hoofball. Both Thunderlane and Matteo had reappeared, watching from across the room at the commotion.

“And she’s coming with!” she exclaimed despite just telling Star to sit tight.

“Fleet, I’m serious! Just…” Dash suddenly trailed off as Fleetfoot trudged towards the bedroom to confront Squall… with Little Star in tow. Star’s eyes were half closed, looking as if she had no idea what was happening and barely able to focus.

But Dash shut her mouth, and let Fleet go.

Matteo and Thunderlane watched Fleet move, Matteo perking up and quickly glancing at Dash. Dash caught his eyes, lifted her brow, and subtly tipped her head towards the door as Fleetfoot forced it open and marched right in.

All three of them clambered towards the door, peeking in to see what would happen.

“HEY YOU!” Fleetfoot yelled as she stamped into the room, standing on her back legs and pointing towards Squall. Squall had frozen at the other side of the room, his eyes stuck open wide and his expression blank behind the last bed. Fleetfoot held Star up in the air. “CATCH!”

“BWUH?! AHHHHHH!!!!!” Star yelled out as Fleetfoot chucked her at Squall. She careened through the air uncontrollably, passing over the first bed, then the second bed, and…

Squall leapt out over the third bed and caught her, the two of them landing softly on the mattress. Squall blinked, slowly rolling over and looking at Star in his arms. Star slowly opened her eyes and they quickly fixated on Squall.

“HA! Gotcha bitch!” Fleetfoot hollered from across the room before she started stumbling towards them both. “If ya didn’t give a shit ‘bout her ya wouldn’t have done that now, would’ya’d’ve?! Whoop!” Fleetfoot lost her hooves and fell onto the second bed.

Squall flinched and quickly let go of Star, dropping her onto the mattress. He averted his eyes from her, fixing a glare on Fleetfoot instead.

“What the hell is your problem?!” he yelled at her. Fleetfoot stared at him from her back, her expression flattening into a forced serious stare. She rolled off the bed and moved toward Squall VERY quickly.

“Hrm hmm hrrrr hm HRM HRGH HROO HRAAA HRMMMMMMMMMMMMM?!” Fleetfoot hummed all sorts of odd noises as she approached and forced Squall all the way to the back wall.

“What the—QUIT IT!” Squall demanded as Fleetfoot got right into his face with one eye and pressed her chest against his shoulder.

“Alright… alright… alright…” Fleetfoot pressed a hoof into his shoulder. “FIIIIIIIIIIIIIRST of all… yer a helluva looker, that scar is turning me on. SECOND… of all… I don’t wanna hear any of yer lip.” She hooked an arm around his neck and yanked him towards the bed, slamming his chin down into the soft mattress with a loud grunt. “LOOK AT THIS MARE RIGHT…” Fleetfoot paused and blinked as she noticed her hoof was pointing at nothing. She looked around until she found Star propping herself up woozily to their right. Fleetfoot yanked Squall’s head around, dragging his chin over the mattress until they were facing Star. “LOOK AT THIS MARE RIGHT HERE!” she repeated.

Then she said nothing as the two of them stared at Star, who looked like she was having trouble staying awake despite just being tossed through the air.

And she continued to stay quiet.

“Grrr…” Squall started growling.

“Yeah, life sure sucks, doesn’t it?” Fleetfoot asked as she kept him pinned to the bed. “Get a good eyeful?”

“Let go of me!” Squall demanded while trying to wiggle free, but Fleetfoot pulled herself up on top of him and wrestled him down.

“YOU AIN’T LISTENING TO ME, ARE YA?!” she chortled as she pulled his head back by the mane, stuck a pillow under it and started roughly pushing his head in and out of the pillow. “Bad! Bad! Shame! SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!”

“Omf, blah! Omf, BLAH!” Squall gasped as he kept getting a mouthful of pillow.

“Let’s try this again!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she tossed the pillow aside and put Squall in a headlock, forcing him to look at Star. “LOOK. AT. HER.”

“The hell is even happening?” Star asked groggily, swaying slightly as one of her eyes remained half-closed in a drunken stupor.

“I’m looking! I’m looking!” Squall yelled out as he tried to lurch out of the uncomfortable neck hold. “Now get off!”

“Not until… until… uh…” Fleetfoot looked off towards the wall. “WhatWasIDoingInHereAgain…? Something about a… AH! Right!” she tightened her grip on Squall. “I ain’t lettin’ ya off the hook… until you understand what’s right in front of ya! Get me?”

“NO!” Squall barked.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page! Now…” Fleetfoot suddenly let go of him, his nose diving right into the mattress. Fleetfoot got up and scooted off the bed, but froze when she touched her hooves to the floor. “Wait… that sounded like a ‘no.’”

Squall pulled himself off the bed and started galloping towards the door, but Fleetfoot tossed herself sideways, ramming him so hard he slammed into the wall and fell to the floor.

“Whoooaaaa, WOOOOOOO!!!!” Fleetfoot wobbled and fell on top of him. “Score! What do I win?!”

“Should we stop this…?” Matteo whispered to Dash by the door. Dash kept her eyes glued to Fleetfoot as she somehow picked up squall and was stumbling backwards with him towards the bed again.

“Nah,” Dash snickered as Fleetfoot suplexed him back onto the bed, causing Star to bounce up into the air and land with a half-assed squeak on her back.

“You ain’t going nowhere, bucko!” Fleetfoot yelled triumphantly as she leapt over him and put him in a headlock again.

“What the hell do you even want?!” Squall shouted angrily. Fleetfoot’s face went blank for a moment.

“Hmmm… I’d like a big hunky Stallion to come get me right now, sweep me off my hooves and spend the night slowly pressing me deeper into a bed mattress…” she answered literally while twirling a hoof in Squall’s mane and twiddling her back hooves. “OH! And some post whoopdeedoo snacks! Maybe a massage… and how to find him the next time I want to do the horizontal fandango.”

“I MEAN RIGHT NOW!” Squall angrily clarified. “Why the hell are you bothering me!?”

“Uhhhhh…” Fleetfoot blinked and glanced about the room.

“Hey… could you…” Little Star’s voice suddenly came from near them. They both looked over at her as she sat up and barely managed to remain that way while weakly slicking a hoof at Fleetfoot. “Just… like… leave him alone?”

Fleetfoot just stared, but Squall’s eyes widened and he stopped struggling. Fleetfoot quickly noticed.

“Just… stop, for real…” Star said with a tiny hiccup. “Let him go.”

“There!” Fleetfoot let go of Squall and pointed at Star. “That’s why I came in here! Because of her… and you… and… her… and… FuckMeSideways something about you being a douchebag because…” Fleetfoot twitched. “Oh right…” Her eyes suddenly flattened into a grumpy glare. “YOU… don’t seem to get it.”

Squall didn’t take his eyes off Star as she tried to crawl forward, but only fell flat on her stomach with a tiny ‘merf’ as she hit the soft mattress. But then he was roughly pulled away as Fleetfoot grabbed him by the chin and forced Squall to look at her.

“Now that I actually ‘member what has my tail twistin’ up my ass, lemme drill something as hard as I can into that thick sexy head of yours,” she said as she stepped up onto the bed and stuck her face into his. “The deets didn’t make all that much sense to me, something about one of the Shadowbolts sticking his tongue in yer ear or something, but what came out of it… was that this lil’ lady right here…” she turned his head to face Star. “Is something real special to you… and she heard every word of it. Now that’s adorable, I think my fur is getting fluffier right now thinking about it… but then what did you go and start doin’?” She forced him to look at her again. “You’re avoiding her? You’re pushing her away?!” She sharply pointed at Star. “You made her so happy with all that and now yer trying to act like it never happened? What the hell is WRONG with you?”

She let go of Squall, but kept her face in his.

“Don’t you DARE… do that to her… and for Celestia’s sake don’t do it to yerself either!” She continued. “You have no idea how lucky you are…” Her face started to twitch lightly. “To have another you care so much about… who cares about you so much too,” she gritted her teeth. “Some would kill for just a glimpse of what that’s like…” She pounded a hoof against her chest. “ME… in particular!” she jammed a hoof into his chest and pushed. “So don’t go acting like nothing happened… don’t let something so special slip through yer hooves. You’d be a jerk, and moron to let it go… so DON’T.”

Squall’s eyes shifted to Fleetfoot, then back to Star.

“Ya get me now?” Fleetfoot said with a huff as she reached over and picked up Star. “She means a lot to you… and you mean a lot to her. Take it from somepony that wishes she could have something like that… Pull yer head out of your ass. Stop letting some old habits get in the way of something great. Pushing her away will hurt you even more than it hurts her. So EMBRACE IT. And don’t EVER let go.”

“Hwuh…?” Star groggily exhaled as she was moved. Fleetfoot gently placed her down against Squall’s shoulder. “Meeeeeh…” Star instantly slumped against Squall, draping an arm of his and smushing her cheek into his side as she appeared to fall asleep on the spot.

And Squall let her, his eyes stuck open wide as he looked down at the mattress, occasionally stealing quick glances at Star.

“Job well done, Fleet,” Fleetfoot said to herself with a nod as she wiped her hooves together, but then started tipping off the bed. “Whoa, whoa, WHOA!” her arms swung backwards and she tumbled off the bed and landed with a thump on the floor. “NAILED IT!” she yelled as she lay on her back and pointed towards the ceiling. “Eeeeeyaioooooh… I need another drink…”

“No you don’t,” Dash spoke quietly as she made her way in and stared down over Fleetfoot. She quickly looked at Squall and Star resting together on the bed. “Let’s let these two be alone,” she suggested as she grabbed Fleetfoot and hoisted her up.

“Ooo… where we goin?” Fleetfoot giggled as she slumped against Dash.

“To the living room,” Dash said simply.

“Ish there a bar there?” Fleetfoot asked. Dash paused for a moment and nodded.

“Yes.”

“Sign me up heeha!” Fleetfoot squealed as Dash pulled her towards the door. “Oh, hey Soarin!” She suddenly cooed as she reached out and grabbed the giant Soarin plushie that she somehow failed to see up until this point off of Dash’s bed. “When did you get here?!” She asked as she pressed her face to the plushie’s face.

“Fleet! Let that go, it’s…” Dash trailed off as she looked towards Squall and Star again. “Oh, fine, come on.”

With a little extra effort and with the Soarin plushie in tow with her, Dash managed to get Fleetfoot out of the bedroom and close the door behind her.

“Well then,” Thunderlane chuckled as Fleetfoot fell off Dash and clasped the Soarin plushie with all four limbs, giggling delightfully. “Who’d have thought that would do the trick?”

“Color me impressed,” Matteo nodded while raising his brow.

“Color me INNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!” Twister appeared next to Thunderlane, completely white while holding a box of crayons towards him.

“Did you know this would happen?” Matteo asked Dash as Fleetfoot began rolling around on the floor with the Soarin plushie. Dash shrugged.

“No, honestly… I let her go because she had just finished telling me how much she wished she had… well… exactly what the two of them have, or would have if Squall quit being a doofus. So my gut told me to let her go. She had an interesting way of going about it, but… it looks like it worked.”

“Mmmmmmmm hmmmheeheeeeee…” Fleetfoot drunkenly giggled as she started humping the Soarin plushie. “Ooooh Soarin, treat me like my mane is a rainbow…”

“OKAY…” Dash grunted as she tried to grab the plushie away from Fleetfoot. “That’s enough of that.”

“Noooo… NOOOOOOOO…” she wailed as she clung to it. “Let me have this Spitty!”

“Um…” Dash lifted an eyebrow. “Fleet, Spitfire isn’t here.”

“Bwuh?” Fleetfoot blinked. “Oh hi, Dashie! Wanna join us?”

“Fleet, that’s not actually Soarin,” Dash huffed. “And I’d appreciate it if you stopped.”

“Not with that attitude it is! Er… is not… is? Maybe? I dunno… Hey wait a second, is this a plushie?” she asked while lifting up the Soarin plushie by the back legs and looking carefully between them.

Dash sighed and rubbed a hoof to her face as Thunderlane chuckled and Matteo looked on silently.

“So…” Matteo spoke up while looking towards the bedroom door. “If we are giving them space… where are we sleeping tonight?”

“These rooms have like, seven comfy couches each, I think you can figure it out,” Dash suggested.

“Three,” Matteo corrected her.

“Okay Three, Mr. Literal,” Dash rolled her eyes. “And I think…”

“Oh hey! These couches have beds in them?! THAT’S AMAZING!” Fleetfoot yelled out, all of them looking toward her to see her throwing the cushions off one of the couches and failing to pull the fold out bed out of it.

“Guess that solves that problem!” Thunderlane chuckled as he went toward another couch and pulled off the cushion, only to have a blast of confetti smack him in the face, followed by a miniature Twister leaping out and clamping to Thunderlane’s face. “AH! GET HIM OFF! GET HIM OFF ME!!!!” Thunderlane yelled as he stumbled back and fell over.

“And there are five of us,” Matteo pointed out.

“Oh.” Dash blinked. “Right…”

“GRAH!” Thunderlane yelled as he ripped the tiny Twister off his face and chucked him across the room. Dash watched as Twister hit the wall and slid down into a trash can.

“Twister can sleep in there,” she pointed as she turned back to the others.

“HHHNNNNNGGGGGG—WHEE!” Fleetfoot squealed as she finally managed to get the bed out, stumbling backwards and running into Dash as the bed unfolded and slammed to the floor. “I diiiiiiid it!” she cheered, extending all four hooves up into the air as she lay on her back.

“Uhhhh…” Dash gritted her teeth and sighed. “You two go ahead and use the other beds, I’ll… figure out what to do with her.”

“What, you gonna sleep with her?” Thunderlane joked, having regained himself post Twister face humper.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Dash snorted and rolled her eyes. “I might have to share with her, but she’ll be out cold soon…” Dash blinked as she watched Fleetfoot crawl onto the bed and throw her arms into the air.

“Look ma! I’m on top of the world!” she yelled as she tipped over onto her side in a giggling mess.

“Hopefully…” Dash sighed. “Either way it’s that or she sleeps with one of you two and we don’t need her helping herself in her sleep, if you get what I mean.”

“Agreed,” Matteo nodded without hesitation.

“Yeeeeah… probably a good idea…” Thunderlane rubbed one of his back hooves against the opposite leg.

“Shows over, go, go… I’ll handle her,” Dash shooed them away, even though they were both only moving a little ways away to the other fold out couches. With the two getting situated and Twister playing very quiet classical music from the trashcan which was now labeled with a post-it note that read ‘your waifu’, she turned her attention to the extremely drunk Fleetfoot on the bed. “Okay you…” Dash took a stern tone as she reached for her.

“Izzat Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaashie?” Fleetfoot cooed as she reached out and grabbed Dash’s arms. “I hear a Dashie!”

“Yes, you do—WHOA!” Dash yelped as Fleetfoot yanked her down and clamped to her. Pressing her whole body against Dash.

“HUG!” she giggled as she squeezed Dash. “HUG MEEEEEEEEE!!!”

“Ow… Fleet… Stop…” Dahs pushed her off, but as Fleetfoot rolled over she kept grabbing at the air as if Dash was still there. Her expression shifted hilariously fast, going from a big smile to sad in seconds. She sniffled as she kept grabbing at nothing and eventually started wailing.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…” she cried as she let her arms fall. “Why do I always end up aloooooooooooooooone…”

Dash blinked as she watched Fleetfoot sniffle and hiccup, sighing as she shifted over and tapped Fleetfoot on the shoulder.

“I’m still here Fleet,” Dash assured her, flinching as Fleetfoot instantly rolled onto her side and clutched Dash’s arm.

“Don’t go! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” she wailed quietly. “I… I’m lonely…”

“I’m not going anywhere, Fleet… just go to sleep, you’re very drunk,” Dash patted her on the head.

“Hey, hey… hey… hey… hey………….hey…” Fleetfoot started tugging on Dash’s arm.

“What?”

“They… still in there?” she asked.

“They…?” Dash blinked and looked over her shoulder at the bedroom door.

“The tiny mare and scarface… they still…?” she trailed off, gripping Dash’s arm with all the strength she could muster. “Please tell me they are.”

“Yeah,” Dash lifted her brow, now feeling a little bad. “They are.”

“They… ah… good,” Fleetfoot curled up around Dash’s arm. “Good cause… I… I wish I… had something like them…” she mumbled into Dash’s arm, circling back around to what she was saying before she let herself into Squall and Star’s business. “I’m so jealous…”

Dash remained quiet and just kept gently stroking a hoof on Fleetfoot’s mane, hoping she’d fall asleep soon. At this point she just wanted Fleetfoot to conk out. She probably wasn’t going to remember any of this, but it was still hard to see her go through such hard emotional swings.

Then Fleetfoot suddenly sat up, letting go of Dash’s arm. She blinked and shook her head out, whipping loose tears off her face. She looked around and stared at Dash.

“What are we talking about again?” she asked. Dash snorted and applied a hoof to her own face.

“Okay, Fleet… sleep. Now. You need to sleep.”

“NO! I’m drunk!” she protested, then tipped her head back and forth. “Are you single by the way?”

“Fleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet…” Dash groaned as she felt like she was just punted back to square one.

“Hey, hey, no! We can’t sleep! The night’s still young!” she yelled while pointing at a clock that read 1:00am. “You’re real hot by the way, wanna join me for some tongue spelunking?!” she yelled very loudly.

Dash stared blankly, looking over her shoulder to see Thunderlane muffling laughter in a pillow.

“Or wait… wait, wait, WAIT!!!!” Fleetfoot grabbed the clock off the table next to the couch and pressed her face into it. “All the bars in Canterlot are still open!” she yelled while leaning into Dash and nearly knocking her over, her nose jamming right into Dash’s cheek. “Mlem.” she licked Dash’s face. Quickly grabbed her and put her at arm’s length.

“Canterlot…? Wow, you are really gone now…” Dash groaned as Fleetfoot kept making licking flicks with her tongue.

“C’mon! Let’s get everypony and—”

Dash’s eyes widened as Fleetfoot suddenly froze, her eyelids unevenly skewed for a moment before she fell towards the bed, landed chin first on a pillow, and started snoring quietly.

“FINALLY.” Matteo grumbled from elsewhere in the room.

Dash breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It was finally over. Talk about an adventure… and she felt bad that not just her, but others in the room had unwittingly heard a lot of very personal things from Fleetfoot, but there was no way she’d remember most of what happened considering how drunk she was, so she just had to make sure the others kept their mouths shut and it would all be fine.

She carefully nudged Fleetfoot, moving her to one side of the bed mattress and covering her with the sheet before she pulled some pillows over to the other side to sleep herself, slowly lying down.

“Merp.”

Dash froze as she was suddenly grabbed around the waist. She looked behind her to see Fleetfoot, still sleeping, but holding onto her tight.

“Mrfglrfg…” Fleetfoot mumbled as she pushed her cheek into Dash’s back.

“For the love of… I give up,” Dash groaned, giving in to the fact that she’d have to sleep with a passed out drunk clinging to her.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Well... it would appear that the real answer to confronting Squall wasn't Dash OR matteo, but rather an extremely drunk conveniently timed Fleetfoot and Thunderlane not checking if the door was closed behind him. WHO'DA THUNK IT?

So Wave and Spitfire got their time alone... It would appear that Fleetfoot was able to convince Squall to at least stop pushing Star away from him... but hmmmm... it appears that for all her flirtatious behavior and sexual demeanor that Fleet is a little lonely herself :fluttershysad: If only there were somepony that she often pounces on who would stop being a ninny and take some time to get toknow her and forge some connectionwithWITHHEWHO OH MAN WHO AM I TALKING ABOUT?! I HAVE NO IDEA HAHAHA! HA?

emotional outbursts aside, quite the fun drunk she is, no? :pinkiecrazy: What else does this resort stay have in store? We likely have 1-2 more chapters of it, in which things from here are built on, certain other character conflicts will be addressed, and perhaps we get some word about whats going on back at the Crystal Palace? :moustache:

Ok... so... i kind of have to explain Memeri Twister. It's a reference to a Middle Eastern news station translation service called "Memri TV" that gained internet fame for having hilariously ridiculous and unintentionally funny english subtitles. Not long after it was discovered, it became a meme where people would add their own subtitles to screen captures of the show and sometimes it was hard to tell what was from the actual broadcast and which ones were made up (Or they'd make them obvious, but it was still funny) I used a mixture of real and made up ones for the jokes here, but as an example of a real one: the part where Old Twister and Memeri twister started fighting and one yells "cmere bitch" while the words "Democracy club" flashed on the screen actually happened in a live broadcast. If you want to see some of them, you'll have to look them up yourself, because a large majority of them are very politically incorrect or not appropriate to post here lol.

Anyhow... i polan on taking this week off with Thanksgiving (and no work after tuesday), so i'm looking to get started on the next chapter next week. The amount of time it took me to do this chapter was a mixture of the length (couldn't really fix that) and the amount of space i had to fill in with this particular section of the outline (I don't preplan jokes or shenanigans) So im hoping the next couple of chapters are smoother.

Until then... Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy!

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Chapter 178: Fun for Some

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 178: Fun for Some

“Hnng…” Dash groaned as her eyes slowly opened. “Hrm…” she instinctively stretched out, a few satisfying pops from her stiff joints sounding out as she sighed and blinked a few times. She felt slightly off, but it wasn’t very noticeable. She didn’t drink anywhere near enough to be hungover.

After laying still for a few seconds, she tried to roll over, but didn’t get very far.

“What the…?” she lifted an eyebrow as it felt like something was weighing her down. She pushed aside the sheet covering her and… “Oh… right.”

Fleetfoot was clinging to her, fast asleep and snoring quietly. Her mouth was stuck open and a tiny bit of drool was dripping down her chin into Dash’s fur.

“Oh, that’s gross…” Dash huffed as she started shimmying her body. But as she moved, Fleetfoot suddenly clamped her thighs hard around Dash’s waist. “HRK! OKAY… FLEET…” she grabbed Fleetfoot by the shoulders and pushed down.

“Hgng…hrrmmm…?” Fleetfoot was stirred awake, opening her eyes slowly before quickly shutting them and wincing hard. “OooooooOOoooohhhh RRRgggggnnnnnnn…” she groaned loudly as she let go of Dash and her hooves went to her head. “My heeeeeeead… oh my gaaaaaaaaaawd…” she whined. “What time is it, Spitty?”

She slowly looked over and rubbed her eyes, blinking several times as her eyes focused. Her eyes met Dash’s flattened expression and she stared. She glanced down at the bed, then glanced back at Dash.

“Ha… niiiiiiiice,” Fleetfoot grinned weakly as she chuckled. Dash’s eye twitched as she quickly caught on.

“No, Fleet, we didn’t do it,” she said while rolling her eyes.

“Oh, really now?” Fleetfoot giggled, pressing the back of her head into her pillow. “I’m not in the business of ending up in somepony else’s bed by accident, ya know!” she flinched and grunted uncomfortably. “Ooooog…” she threw a hoof over her mouth and swallowed. “Oh gawd, I feel like shit…”

“How much of last night do you remember?” Dash asked as she scooted off the bed and stretched out.

“Why? Anything I shooooooould?” she asked slyly.

“Just answer the question…” Dash added in an exasperated tone.

“Aw, you’re no fun,” Fleetfoot blew a raspberry with her tongue. “Uuuuuuhhhhh… Oh, wait… I remember setting up Spitty and Chiller in my room after the party and…” she trailed off and stared at the ceiling for a few moments.

“Nothing else?” Dash asked, tipping her head slightly.

“Maybe it will come back to me when my head stops spinning…” Fleetfoot whined as she grabbed Dash’s pillow and pressed it over her forehead. “I dunno… yeesh, I drank a lot, didn’t I?”

Dash hummed quietly to herself as she glanced over towards Matteo and Thunderlane both up and moving about. Both of them were subtly glancing in her direction, catching her eyes. They seemed to both get the message that they were to say nothing… at least that’s what Dash hoped to convey as she shot them stern looks. She’s make sure to reiterate it later once Fleet was gone. She also looked towards the trash can. There was a periscope sticking out of it with Twister’s large eyeball visible in the lens, blinking as it spun in circles. The door to where Star and Squall spent the night was still closed too.

“Okay, seriously, how did I end up here?” Fleetfoot suddenly asked. Dash quickly refocused.

“You showed up here extremely drunk, let yourself in, and decided you were staying here for the night. After trying to have sex with all of us, even him…” Dash pointed at the trashcan. “”You passed out.”

Fleetfoot quickly propped herself up and stared at the trashcan. The lid opened and Twister slowly rose up from it with a big speaker on his head that played the sound of a string orchestra warming up before a concert.

“Eh,” Fleetfoot shrugged and let her head drop back onto the pillow. “Woulda been less weird than that time with Lightning.”

Dash eyes went wide as all the string warmups coming from Twister’s speaker suddenly spazzed out with uneven tunes and the sounds of strings twanging and breaking. Twister looked shocked with extremely wide eyes as the speaker slid off his head and landed in the trash can.

Without using his wings, Twister lifted out of the trash and flung towards Fleetfoot, hanging upside-down over her face less than an inch away.

“You need to tell me RIGHT NOW every single detail of this particular night that was allegedly weirder than me.” Twister asked in an extremely serious monotone.

“No. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Fleetfoot groaned as she pushed Twister away. “I’m not talking about that. Especially right now. I’m nauseous enough as is!”

Dash’s ears turned as she heard the sound of a door opening. She quickly turned away from the shenanigans to see Squall peeking out from the bedroom door. And then not a second later her ears also picked up what sounded like slightly muffled wailing coming from inside.

“Hey,” Squall flipped his head slightly towards Dash.

“Yeah?” Dash tipped her head as Squall pointed over his shoulder.

“She needs some water or… something. What helps a hangover?” he asked.

“Green tea,” Matteo’s voice came from across the room, drawing their eyes towards him. “There’s some stashed next to the coffee maker in the kitchen.”

“Could one of you make some?” Squall asked without hesitation. Matteo lifted his brow.

“You can easily do it yourse—”

“Yeah sure, I’ll brew some up,” Dash quickly cut him off while holding a hoof towards him. “Thunderlane!”

“Hm?” Thunderlane leaned into view from further back.

“Do me a favor and grab some cold water for Star,” she asked. Thunderlane looked over to see Squall peeking out.

“Uh, sure!” he agreed and made his way around Matteo, who had his eyes locked on Dash.

“Trust me,” Dash nodded firmly at him.

“If you say so.” Matteo shrugged before going about his business.

Dash was glad Matteo just let her do her thing, because at the moment Squall was trying to help Star, so best not pull him away from her. She made way into the kitchen, found the tea, and poured some water into the coffee maker to heat it up. She put enough in for two cups, figuring it would be a good idea to make some for Fleetfoot too.

As the water heated up, she watched Thunderlane bring a glass of cold water with ice to Squall. The moment he had it in hoof, he ducked back in and shut the door, leaving a blinking Thunderlane standing still with a door in his face.

“You’re welcome?” he said with a slight grunt.

Dash snickered to herself as Thunderlane turned away from the door shaking his head. Fleetfoot got Squall to stop avoiding Star… for the moment… but either way Squall was still being Squall.

With the water heated, she poured out two cups and put the teabags in, grabbing a saucer and placing one of the cups in it to carry to Squall first. She knocked on the door.

Squall opened the door and looked her in the eye, but he didn’t say anything.

“Careful, this is real hot,” Dash held the tea to him. He grabbed the saucer carefully and started closing the door without a word. But before he could close it, Dash stopped it with her hoof. “And Squall…”

“……what?”

“Thanks for looking after her,” Dash nodded and smiled.

Squall stared for a moment before grunting quietly and closing the door.

“As charismatic as ever,” Dash said sarcastically as she made her way back to the kitchen to get the second cup for Fleetfoot.

“Auuuuuuuggghhhh…” Fleetfoot groggily groaned as Dash approached with the tea.

“Regrets?”

“Never,” Fleet shook her head weakly as she stared at the ceiling. “I just… get the feeling I forgot something important, but my head hurts too much to remember.”

“Well…” Dash made her way around to her side of the bed with the tea. “This will at least—”

“AH!” Fleetfoot suddenly sat upright and threw her wings open, her feathers crashing right into Dash.

“Ah, SHIT!” Dash yelped as she lost her grip on the tea and it went flying out of her hoof.

The saucer and teacup landed on Twister’s head upside-down, the very hot contents splashing all over his head and down his body. The hot water sizzled all over him, but he remained completely still, not reacting at all.

Then in a very delayed reaction he gasped very loudly and slowly reached his arms into the air.

“I’M MELTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING! I’M MELTING I’M MELTING!!!!!" He screamed as he started slowly melting into a pile of green ooze. “Ohhhhh, what an AU, what an AU… who would have thought it’d still be going after eight years ohhhhh ohhhhh…” his words became garbled and bubbly as he became a puddle with blinking eyes.

Dash had ignored the entire thing, making sure she didn’t get hit by any of the scalding liquid before glaring at Fleetfoot.

“What? What is it?!” she pressed.

“I have to—HRPK!” Fleetfoot’s face suddenly turned greenish and her cheeks puffed out. Dash’s eyes widened as she realized what was happening.

Fleetfoot jammed a hoof over her mouth and leapt from the bed, stumbling frantically all the way to the bathroom and diving inside.

“BLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHH!!!”

Dash cringed hard and gritted her teeth as she and the rest heard Fleetfoot toss it all.

“It’s FINE…” Matteo grumbled. “I wasn’t planning on using the bathroom today...”

After a few more seconds of gagging and uncomfortable coughing, the toilet flushed and Fleetfoot slowly dragged herself out, propping herself up on the bathroom door.

“Okay…” she pointed weakly at Dash. “Maybe there are some regrets here… how much did I actually drink?”

“Yes,” Dash tipped her head and lifted an eyebrow. Fleetfoot blinked and stared at her blankly.

“Ha. Good one… ooooog…” she slumped down on the floor and rolled onto her back.

“So… what did you forget?” Dash asked, trying to finally get an answer.

“RIGHT!” Fleetfoot pointed a hoof to the ceiling. “Right… ah…” she slowly and shakily sat up. “I haven’t rented suits and dresses for the force yet, the Crystal Ball is tonight!”

“Oh.” Dash blinked. “I completely forgot about… wait, it’s tonight?” Dash looked at her quizzically. “There’s no way you can get a hundred suits and dresses by then.”

“Oh, yes I can!” Fleetfoot stood up and wobbled.

“How?” Dash lifted a hoof outward. “You’re going to get everypony’s size and measurements that quickly? I’m not a dainty fashion pony, but I know enough from one that is to know that’s just not gonna happen. Especially while you’re hungover as hell.”

“Trust me, Dashie!” she winked. “I got this! Oh dang…” she wobbled as she spun around and propped herself up as she made her way to the door. “Gotta take care of this hangover too…” she thought out loud as she let herself out.

Dash stared at the door for a moment before turning to Matteo and Thunderlane while shaking her head.

“There’s no way in hell she’s getting all that done by toni—”

“You’re going to gloat about this the whole night, aren’t you?” Dash huffed, donning a white dress as she walked with her Squad and several other Wonderbolts en route to the Crystal Palace. Fleetfoot’s cheek was just short of pressing against Dash’s, wearing a dress of her own as she smugly grinned and hummed cheekily.

“You underestimate my power, Dashie! Say my name! Hee hee!”

“Oh, stop it…” Dash chuckled as she pushed her away.

She had indeed pulled it off. They were all dressed up and heading through the street-lamp illuminated streets towards the crystal palace. Fleetfoot had come through on the rentals in roughly ten hours, but…

“Why do I feel like I’m dressed for a Prom?” Thunderlane chimed in while tugging at his tuxedo collar.

Dash had noticed fairly quickly, but hadn’t said anything. All the mares were wearing the same white dress with material that appeared to shimmer just like crystal ponies and all the stallions were wearing matching tuxedos.

“Turns out there’s a dress code for the ball!” Fleetfoot chimed in with a shrug. “Tradition, something, something, historical context so we all wear the same thing, I couldn’t tell ya, that’s just what the fancy clothes store told me!”

“So you cheated?” Dash asked jokingly, but Before Fleetfoot could reply, Matteo pushed by Dash and looked sternly at Fleetfoot.

“But how did you have all of our exact measurements?” he asked the same question Dash asked in the morning as he looked down at his tuxedo, then gave her a flat look. “This suit fits me perfectly… How did you—?”

“Trade secret,” Fleetfoot winked.

Dash, Matteo, and Thunderlane all looked to Spitfire.

“DON’T look at me, I DON’T know,” she quickly shook her head.

“BY THE WAY!!!!!!” Fleetfoot zipped all the way over to her and pressed into her side. “I want a full, detailed report on how last night went.”

“That’s private,” Spitfire said quietly while glancing at Wave on the other side of her. Wave tugged on his collar and cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Wrong answer,” Fleetfoot giggled while gently pressing a hoof into Spitfire’s blushing cheek. “I expect the report on my desk by the end of the night. That goes for you too Chilly!”

“Okay, listen here you…” Spitfire put Fleetfoot in a gentle headlock.

“EEEE! Hey! Hey!”

As Spitfire pulled her away, Dash took in the sight of all the Wonderbolts around her. She felt it somewhat odd that it seemed weird to see them all dressed up in near identical fashion, considering that they are always wearing the same flight suit. But as she scanned them, her eyes landed on Squall and Star keeping up behind her.

They were walking near one another. Not side by side or happily skipping along like best friends forever, but Squall appeared to cease his efforts to distance himself entirely. He hadn’t said much to them, but… that was typical Squall behavior, so they were back to normal. Baby steps.

“Hng!” Dash’s eyes widened as her body suddenly twitched and her heartbeat quickened. It was only for a moment, but it left her subtly shuddering with some of her fur standing on end.

Her eyes quickly locked on the approaching Crystal Palace.

She was startled but… the moment she put two and two together it was pretty obvious. Soarin was being kept in the Crystal Palace so…

She swallowed and composed herself. Hopefully nopony noti—

“Cold?” Matteo suddenly asked. Dash bit her lip, but took a breath and remained calm.

“In a climate controlled city? No.” she answered with slight sarcasm.

“Soarin?”

Dash’s face went blank as her eyes darted back to the palace. But after a moment she sighed and glanced towards Matteo with her face slightly scrunched up, to which he replied only by lifting an eyebrow. He had become very in tune with the abnormal things that happened to her regarding her connection with Soarin. Yet, it felt good to know one of her friends had caught on to her experience with it.

“That’s my best guess, yeah,” she caved and agreed with him. “We’re getting closer to him and… I’ve been away for a few days so I guess it just caught me off guard.” The answer seemed to do, but Dash suddenly felt her heart sink a little. “Kind of sucks though… we’re going where he is for a formal party, but it’s not like I can do anything with him.”

“You may remain in my company then, if you wish,” Matteo offered. “I am without my wife here, after all.”

“Heh,” Dash smiled weakly. “I guess I can do that.”

Twister suddenly sprang up and latched to Matteo’s back, staring down at Dash with wide eyes.

“And I can be the monkey on your back!”

“My back or hers?” Matteo asked flatly.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Twister pulled out a banana from… somewhere, and started eating it without peeling it while drumming his other hoof lightly on Matteo’s head. “Oop Oop Oop Eep Oop.”

“Snrk…” Dash snickered and shook her head with a light smile as Twister annoyed Matteo, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the Palace… that was now nearly right in front of them as they approached the front doors. “A formal event with dancing…” she sighed in frustration. “And I don’t get to have Soarin for it? Blah…”

Dash barely noticed as the event started. From the moment they entered the palace, to walking through the halls, to entering the large ballroom, to Cadence announcing the start of the event… she was daydreaming, her thoughts locked on Soarin as the close proximity of his presence distracted her.

The music was in her ear, conversations around her went over her head, the sight of dancing ponies and the noise of the festival ongoing outside the castle walls… none of it seemed to register.

It wasn’t until she was nudged in the side did she finally blink and take in her surroundings.

“Buh, huh, wha?” Dash stiffened and blinked, turning her head to see Matteo looking down at her.

“You’ve been staring at your drink for ten minutes,” Matteo pointed out.

Dash looked down at the glass of punch in her hoof, then back up at Matteo as she leaned back against the wall.

“I… sheesh…” she sighed. “I can’t believe I’m so out of it…” she said with a huff.

She stared out at the extravagant setting before her.

The Crystal Palace ballroom had been beautifully decorated. Banners, floral arrangements, and artwork all beautifully complementing the color of the crystal architecture. The music was soothing, the perfect mix of calm beats and upbeat melodies encouraging all kinds of dancing. The dance floor was packed full of crystal ponies, the Wonderbolts mingling… and causing a bit of a scene here and there. The courtyard outside was also full of life, many of the hors d'oeuvre and drink tables set up outside where most were mingling away from the dance floor. She glanced over her shoulder out a window beside her to see the streets beyond the palace gates bustling with fun and festivities.

“You’d think I’d be really into it, but I just can’t…”

“You know exactly why you aren’t,” Matteo nodded.

“Yeah, I know,” Dash sat down and tipped her head back. “Still feels weird.”

After a moment of staring at the ceiling, Dash stared out onto the dance floor for several moments.

She blinked, her eyes darting from couple to couple dancing. She caught a glimpse of Fire and Misty Fly, finding Spitfire and Wave shortly after.

But unlike the part the night before, something else was coming to mind as she watched it all. She was suddenly getting a massive flow of déjà vu… or maybe it was just nostalgia.

This entire set up, save for the dress code, was making her think back to the Grand Galloping Ball.

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed to herself, a smile creeping onto her face as she remembered the definitive moment in her life. The night that she and Soarin really truly connected for the first time. It felt so long ago now, though in reality it wasn’t any more than a year? She wasn’t sure, many of the recent events made time feel like it had ages ago.

“Thinking about it, huh?” a voice suddenly came from nearby.

“Huh?” Dash flinched and shook her head out lightly. She glanced to her left to see Lightning Dust approaching.

“I can see it in your face. Canterlot right?” Dust added as she moved beside Dash and sat down. Dash stared at her blankly for a moment before coming back down to earth and chuckling.

“Since when did you become a mind reader?” she asked jokingly.

“Just had a really good feeling,” Dust nodded. “Because honestly, that’s all I’ve been able to think of since I got here…” she said in a slightly somber tone.

Dash looked her over carefully and turned to ask Matteo if he could excuse them for a moment, but he was already up and moving, nodding at her subtly. He seemed to catch on without her saying anything.

“Well, actually…” Dash took a sip of her punch. “I’ve been mostly thinking of Soarin, since he’s pretty much in this same building but I can’t see him. You have great timing though because I actually was just thinking about the Grand Galloping Ball. This is giving me a hell of a strong flashback.”

“For better or for worse in my case…” Dust said mostly to herself as Dash glanced at her. “I’m not particularly proud of that point in my life. And at the Ball I—”

“Tried to dance with Soarin?” Dash finished for her. Dust’s ears twitched, but she just awkwardly glanced at Dash.

“Ah, he told you about that, huh?” she said sheepishly.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, things were different then,” Dash nudged her. “He told me about it shortly after the encounter with the Shadowbolts ended,” she smiled at Dust. “You’ve more than redeemed yourself since then, think nothing of it.”

“Have I though?” Dust huffed, puffing her cheeks up as she looked down. “I appreciate hearing it from you, but I did some… pretty bad things.”

Dash said nothing, listening intently as it sounded like Dust was trying to get something off her chest.

“I tempted Rapidfire over to the Shadowbolts, but worse, I humiliated Spitfire with her own emotions… I still think about that one from time to time, and… I’m pretty sure she still hasn’t forgiven me for that.”

She paused, Dash remaining quiet. Dust exhaled and shook her head.

“Listen to me hanging onto the past… I know, you don’t have to say it,” she said with a chuckle.

“No, I don’t blame you,” Dash assured her with a shrug. “We all make mistakes, but now here you are helping Descent and fighting alongside us so I’d say you’ve done more than enough to turn yourself around. Spitfire will come around eventually, if she can forgive me for what I just did against Sombra, then she can forgive you, at least I think. As for Rapidfire…? His situation was his own fault, I wouldn’t feel like you had all that much to do with it.” Dash turned and smiled at her, but Dust was still looking down.

“I pretty much realized how wrong I was after Nightshade… made an example of me,” Dust shuddered, hugging herself with one arm. “Thank Celestia for Descent… I wanted to get as far away as possible after she tortured me. I thought she had granted me a path to unimaginable power and strength, but in the end I was just forced into submission… I don’t know how Descent and Starry lasted so long in that environment.”

“Hmm…” Dash hummed, nodding along. She knew full well what Nightshade was capable of, so she could definitely relate to how Dust felt.

“Okay… though… really now,” Dust suddenly chuckled and waved a hoof into the air. “I gotta stop while I’m ahead… I’ve thought about this enough already on my own time.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it,” Dash jabbed her lightly in the shoulder. “It’s the party, right?” They both looked out at the dancing. “Just bringing up some old memories is all.”

“Yeah… Descent has already put me at ease about a lot of it… his life has been hell in comparison to what’s happened to me and yet he’s such a stone wall. It’s inspiring. I’m… really glad he’s been around for me. Few have done as much for me as he has.”

Dash’s eyes widened slightly as she glanced at Dust. Dust’s ears perked up.

“OH! Noooo no no no…” she quickly waved a hoof at Dash while blushing. “Gosh, I didn’t think about that one before I said it…”

“Hmmmmm…?” Dash hummed and snickered.

“No really, please…” Dust exhaled and touched a hoof to her cheek. “That subject with Descent is… really complicated. I’m not gonna stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, and it really doesn’t belong there, believe me.”

“Now you have me really curious,” Dash asked, leaning toward her slightly.

“Well…” Dust shuddered. “Wishful thinking when it comes to me, really. Descent is not a simple stallion at all. His motivations and priorities drive him forward without end and he has his mind set on a goal that’s very important to him. He really means it when he says the Shadowbolts are his family, I’m sure that was given to everypony, but I’d be hard pressed to find anypony out there who is more strongly driven towards his motivations. And while he cares for all of them, if there’s one thing he wants more than anything else, it’s to bring the missing piece of his trio back together, so he, Starry Skies, and Nightshade can be all together again. And yet, I’m almost certain that he knows there may be no way to achieve that… but he keeps going anyway. He’s doing it for them more than he’s doing it for himself. What he’s done for me may touch me on a deep level, but the last thing I want to do is get in the way of that… and for all I know he could harbor feelings for one of them, but I can’t speculate about that, it would be unfair.”

“I see…” Dash said a little awkwardly. “Uh… sorry for opening that can. That didn’t sound easy to talk about.”

“No, you’re fine, but you’re right, it isn’t. You’re also right about how he makes me feel, but it’s a subject I know has no place where things stand.”

“And he’s… like… how old?” Dash added.

“There’s that too,” Dust chuckled. “His son is my age. Maybe the way I feel is less romantic, more… family oriented. Given how strongly he feels about family, that might be the real case here.”

“I can relate to that too,” Dash nodded in agreement, knowing that Silver had an effect on her like that as well.

Dash’s eyes moved out towards the crowd again, but then suddenly shifted up towards Cadence as something very specific caught her eye.

“Luna…?” Dash said out loud lifting an eyebrow.

Indeed, Princess Luna was standing beside Cadence, looking out at the dancing crowd. What was she doing here? Wasn’t she supposed to be helping Discord with Soarin?

“Luna?” Dust repeated, following Dash’s eyes. “Oh, Luna’s here.”

“Yes…” Dash narrowed her eyes. “She is.”

“Eh? What’s up?” Dust asked curiously.

“‘S’cuse me, I gotta do something,” Dash finished her punch and gave a nod to Dust. She turned and made her way towards the stairs that led up to the large balcony overlooking the dance floor.

Dash kept her eyes on Luna until she was out of sight, carefully weaving her way through the crowd until she found the stairs and climbed them quickly.

When she reached the mezzanine overlooking the floor below, she locked onto Luna again and began making her way forward, but she only got halfway before several thestrels suddenly came forward from behind Luna and made a picket line between her and Luna.

Cadence and Luna both looked towards the commotion, both surprised to see Dash, but the two had differing levels of surprise. Cadence simply looked caught off guard, Luna had frozen… as if she could read the frustrated look on Dash.

But Dash snorted as the thestrels blocked her path, Captain P.L. eventually emerging and removing his helmet as he glared down at Dash.

“State your intentions,” P.L. ordered. Dash looked him right in the eye and lifted an eyebrow.

“You’re really blocking an Element of Harmony from Princess Luna?” she asked.

“Who you are matters not when you approach my lady exuding a threatening aura,” P.L. said sharply as the thestrels quietly hissed at her.

“Listen here, Puppy-Nuts…” Dash growled, but Luna suddenly cleared her throat.

“Captain… please let her pass,” she ordered. Dash blinked in surprise as the thestrels instantly backed off, but P.L. remained in place, his nose flaring and one eye twitching. Dash smirked at him smarmily as he lingered for another moment before doing as he was told and standing aside.

But the smiling was over once Dash’s path was clear. She looked right at Luna with a hardened gaze. There was something very important she wanted to talk about.

Luna awkwardly kept her eyes off Dash and on the crowd as she approached. Cadence kept glancing between the two of them, not sure what was happening.

“Luna,” Dash said her name as she stopped before her, glaring daggers into the side of Luna’s head.

“Rainbow Dash,” Luna replied, her voice sounding held back and reserved.

Neither said another word for several moments as Dash turned to look out at the crowd beside her. Cadence did the same, coughing quietly to herself with her head turned away as if signaling that she wanted to know what this was about.

“We suppose…” Luna broke the silence. “You wish to talk about what you saw us do.”

“Yes,” Dash answered without looking at her.

“Very well,” Luna nodded and looked to Cadence. “Cadence, might we be allowed privacy for a moment?”

Cadence looked between them both and nodded, grabbing Shining Armor by the arm and leading him away.

“Captain,” Luna glanced back at P.L.

“M’lady,” he pounded a hoof to his chest and bent his head down.

“Please give us some space,” Luna ordered. P.L. narrowed his eyes, glaring at Dash for a moment before bowing again.

“As you wish. Come!” he motioned to the thestrels, ordering them to shift out of earshot… but only just out of earshot, and by thestrel standards that was practically all the way to the stairs.

And with that, Dash and Luna were finally alone, standing side by side as they both looked down from the mezzanine.

“So…” Dash spoke up. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“What dost thou wish us to say?” Luna quickly answered. Dash shot her a look, but saw nor heard any sarcasm in her face or voice.

“I’d take anything along the lines of ‘thou shalt not wiggle thy full moon hams towards a stallion that belongs to another,” Dash said in a somewhat snapping tone. She was doing her best to remain reserved. She didn’t care if the instance allowed Celestia and Sombra to wiggle free from being stuck inside Soarin… to a degree. She was determined to rub Luna’s nose in it.

“You mock us, but perhaps we deserve it,” Luna huffed, puffing her cheeks out slightly. “Our sister gave us… quite a talking to over it.”

Dash’s eye twitched slightly. Celestia was barely in a position to berate anypony for their actions, but… that was an argument for another time.

“We wholeheartedly apologize for our advances on Soarin,” Luna went on. “But we believe it necessary to explain what… compelled us to such actions. It does not excuse us, but we wish to put it into perspective for you, so that you might understand.”

“You’ve gotten extremely horny over the course of thousands of years,” Dash cut in abruptly. Luna twitched hard.

“W…WE BEG YOUR PARDON?!” she asked with a look of disgust, but Dash just lifted an eyebrow.

“What, did Discord lie to me?” Dash tapped a hoof casually on the floor. Luna’s face scrunched up angrily.

“Oooooooh…. That… disgusting snake…”

“Okay, look,” Dash tipped her head. “He didn’t use those exact words, but that’s pretty much what I took away from it.”

Luna sighed, rubbing a hoof to her head as she shook it lightly.

“We… can’t deny the subject though the wording should be less crass,” Luna explained as she put her hoof down. “Perhaps he already told you this, but we have always felt strongly about staying true to the traditions of our kind. As a divine Alicorn, we are of the belief that we hold a higher purpose as omnipotent beings, and that is far more important than the pleasures of the flesh. Eons ago when our kind still existed beyond our sister and us, it was a strict rule that one was never to fraternize with mortals, and most of all not to tempt them and unleash one’s desires upon them. Romance and mating was only allowed between Divine Alicorns… and it was considered a sacred act… for Male Alicorns were very rare.”

Dash was listening intently, not expecting a brief history lesson on Alicorn sex, but it was interesting enough to have her attention.

“It was not often that mating resulted in offspring, perhaps the forces of nature keeping our everlasting nature in check, but when it did, the chances of it being a colt were incalculably small. Bearing a son was considered to be a sign from a power perhaps even greater than us.”

“Uh…” Dash blinked. “So… if I got this straight… divine alicorn stallions were basically… swimming in mares?”

“Perhaps in crude terms, yes,” Luna rolled her eyes. “But they were taught to understand their existence and to cherish their role, none used it to their advantage or anything like…” she suddenly trailed off.

“Bullshit,” Dash snickered.

“Okay, some of them did, quite eagerly… but some preferred to seek out an eternal mate… and any mare that found themselves being courted in that manner was always the subject of great envy. If I recall correctly, before we were nearly all wiped out, there were about two hundred of us… and a mere fourteen, including our father, were stallions.” She trailed off, biting her lip as she glanced down. “And…”

“I can see where you’re going with this,” Dash cut in.

“We were still quite young, at least by divine alicorn standards, when our kind met their end against the black dragons… we had not yet had the pleasure or desire of getting very personal with one of our few stallion counterparts. We had not matured in body and spirit until after we conquered the dragons with Sombra… so…” Luna suddenly shuddered, her body twitching as she inhaled sharply, clutching a hoof to her opposite arm. “Soarin’s current form is… the first time in our prime that we had felt the presence of a divine stallion and… it has been overwhelming us. Our body is reacting in strange ways, our magic simmers and percolates within us when we set our eyes on him. Desires we never knew we had keep rushing to our head as his aura fills the space around us…”

Dash started narrowing her eyes, but something was keeping her from getting angry. Luna sounded very confused and slightly frightened.

“We are not one to let ourselves lose control… yet when around him we want to. It is as if we become something we are not… but perhaps we just never got to experience this firsthoof and over the hundreds and hundreds of years since… this energy was never allowed out. To use Discord’s terminology, it’s very pent up.” She paused and looked down at Dash. “If there is one helpful thing we can take from this, it’s that the way our body reacts to him confirms that he truly has transformed into a divine alicorn. Otherwise this wouldn’t be happening to us.”

Dash blinked while staring up at Luna, but flattened her brow and looked out towards the dancing again. Luna acknowledged the lack of response and did the same.

“We hope you now at least know what has been ailing us.” Luna went on. “We wish not to take that which does not belong to us… the urges are just so… strong.”

“I GET it…” Dash chimed in, causing Luna to flinch. “But thanks.”

“You…” Luna’s eyes widened. “Forgive us…?”

“No,” Dash said sharply. “But it makes sense now at least… but you’ll have to tell me more about your… old life some time. There was a lot in there that went…” Dash made a hoof motion over her head. Luna stared at her curiously.

“Did our sister not…?”

“Celestia? Tell me what?” Dash looked at Luna with confusion.

“Oh! Our apologies… she spoke to Soarin on the subject, not thou. Yes, it is a very long story…”

“Though I find it a bit amusing that Celestia is lecturing you on what you should and shouldn’t do,” Dash snickered. “Considering… you know… Sombra…”

“Hrm…” Luna hummed in frustration.

“Based on what I’ve seen, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know those two pounded one another a thousand years ago. We’ve yet to get the full story, but that’s pretty clear.”

“Yes… Sombra…” Luna huffed. “Our sister always loved to bend the rules, but when Sombra came into the picture, she may as well have torn up the rule book entirely. But… we are not surprised, considering what we have been feeling from Soarin.”

“Sombra isn’t an alicorn, though,” Dash pointed out. Luna shook her head.

“Correct, he is not, but…” Luna nodded. “But he was like a god among mortals. There was nopony like him when he was King of the Crystal Empire, and we doubt Equestria will ever see a stallion like him again. Our sister was… always very popular among the alicorn stallions. Her beauty, her presence, and her carefree personality. She knew them all better than most, and those who wished for an eternal mate often tried for her hoof, especially…” Luna trailed off for a moment, looking up, but then swallowed and shook her head. “But she relished the attention she drew from the special few stallions among us, how those whom regularly commanded great honor coveted her.”

“Explains a bit, really…” Dash thought out loud.

“Excuse us?” Luna paused and looked at her curiously.

“Nothing, continue,” Dash beckoned, holding back a snort.

“You can imagine,” Luna tilted her head a little. “That in light of that lifestyle, our sister was quite used to being admired, and being treated like a treasure. When the ponies of Equestria bowed to us without order or provocation, declaring us heaven-sent goddesses… The look in our sister’s eyes the day that Sombra did now bow to her like the rest… We can remember it as if it were yesterday. Sombra’s will, his firm stance, the way he refused to stray from what he believed in. He did not care who or what we were… because he had a kingdom to lead and he was going to do it HIS way. Our sister could not take her mind off of him, she kept seeking him out, and the more she saw him the more she was drawn in by his character, his charm, his confidence, and his hard outer shell with a soft merciful center.”

Luna turned and pointed to her body.

“What is happening to us when we see Soarin… it is a natural pheromone reaction divine alicorn mares have around the stallions… having experienced it now for the first time, we can tell you it is a strong, near unbearable desire, one which my sister knew very well. We once questioned everything about her and her attraction to Sombra… but if he was able to touch her and arouse her so deeply without the alicorn effect… then he truly was an astounding stallion.”

“Hmm…” Dash hummed. “You know… it sounds a little weird hearing you give such an admirable breakdown of Sombra,” she pointed out. Luna cleared her throat.

“We detest him,” Luna hissed. “And we will not forgive him for leading our sister astray. But… one must give credit where it is due and our little secret about who he actually was is no longer under wraps so… one must be honest.”

“A little jealous of Celestia now?” Dash prodded, getting the exact look she was expecting in return.

“NO! Not at all…” Luna answered very quickly. “Sombra may have been great, but it was still wrong for our sister to fall in love with him.”

“That’s a real narrow way to look at it,” Dash poked her in the arm.

“You say such a thing after seeing what it has led to?” Luna shook her head harder.

“Let’s think about it without Sombra for a second here,” Dash suggested. “Not everypony is an extremely powerful, stubborn unicorn king. Who he was led to where we are. Had Celestia felt the same towards a similar stallion who didn’t end up putting us in that situation, would you still think it bad?”

“‘Tis a loaded question…” Luna mumbled quietly.

“What about you?” Dash quickly asked with a smirk.

“What… about us?” Luna asked quizzically.

“Come on…” Dash nudged her, feeling a little sassy. “You’ve been alive forever, you’ve gotta have felt a little bit of a hip wiggle for a stallion or two over time,” Dash paused briefly to interrupt the internal muffled scream that went off in her head after using pure Fleetfoot language without thinking about it. “Not everypony can be Sombra, but I doubt he’s the only good stallion you’ve met out there.”

“Oh? Um… we…” Luna’s face went blank and she looked away. “N…no… we have not.”

It sounded like a boldfaced lie. Dash had, for better or for worse, had gotten pretty good at picking out when Luna was lying. She thought very carefully for a moment, because she was FAIRLY certain she had recently seen something that could help her argument here.

Then Dash’s ears perked up and she looked over her shoulder, her eyes landing on Captain P.L.

“What about Puppy?” Dash chimed in. Luna twitched and quickly looked at her.

“P…P… P.L.? We would never!”

“Luna, I’ve seen your face turn red as a beet more than a few times around him, especially when serving you.”

“Oh…” Luna’s hooves went right to her face as she started turning red. “Oh no, no, no… that happens? How long has that… and he’s always right there?!” she started fretting, getting extremely flustered. “Improper! Indecent! Oh… we are so embarrassed…”

“Whoa, whoa…” Dash snorted, trying not to burst out laughing. “Somepony has a crush.”

“No. No we don’t. WE DON’T!” Luna tapped her hooves on the floor. “We… cannot do that to him…”

Dash lifted an eyebrow as she looked back towards P.L. He was staring right at them, just out of thestrel earshot… at least normal thestrel earshot, who knew if he was hearing every word of this. Luna’s reaction had her very curious though. She was never going to get any sort of life story out of P.L. so…

“So what’s the story with him?” Dash asked Luna, hoping to calm her down a little. “I’d hardly call thestrels normal, but how did such a… different physical specimen like him end up as your personal knight?”

Luna stared at Dash for a moment looking down and releasing a long sigh as her scrunched up mouth curled into a small grin.

“He is… a very special one,” Luna began, an audible amount of warmth in her voice as if the subject made her feel good. “He may never say something like this, but… We’ve always felt a very special bond with him. Unlike most of my thestrel guards… We’ve known him since he was barely a year old. You see… The thestrels pledged themselves to our protection when we saved their homeland from destruction at the wrath of the black dragons. We wished not to be worshipped like our sister, but they did not listen when we turned our back on them. It was a week after that they saved us from a gruesome fate from a black dragon, sacrificing many of their lives in the act. We felt compelled to accept them in return… and they joined our ranks against the scourge as my personal force. They continued to follow me when the fighting was over and took part in many battles thereafter, including the fight against Sombra.”

She glanced down and smiled.

“The thestrels are very… devoted. They have always been very serious about how they revere us and are probably the only group of beings out there who still worship my sister and us like all did long ago. However, they went the extra mile, they changed the very fibers of their culture around us, wishing for our presence in all of their most time honored traditions… one of which was the presentation of the young, allowing the newest born to take in the sight of Luna, their savior, for the first time. The captain’s mother was one of my most trusted knights… and we were thrilled when we learned that she had born a foal. We looked forward to the day that she was among those introducing their young to me… but when she did… there was quite a stir.” Luna glanced over at P.L. “We were very confused, and many around murmured and hissed quietly as gossip passed about… for the young thestrel colt before me was pure white, with large, bright red eyes. True to her way, his mother did not waver and remained stalwart as others stared and spoke of the strange sight that was her son, bringing him forward as if he were just like the rest. Our curiosity took hold, we broke the tradition of not showing specific interest or favor in one foal, but we had to know about the strange one before us. But as his mother spoke to us of how he was born albino… we were caught off guard once again as the colt squealed delightfully, hopped over to us, and hugged our leg while wagging his tail, staring up at us with the most adorable happy face we had ever seen in our lives.”

“Excuse me…?” Dash’s eyes went wide as she motioned back at P.L. “WHAT?”

“You find it strange and you would be right… for thestrels, even when young, have very natural bestial tendencies among their personalities that often make them appear feral, or primal. So you can imagine our surprise when… a young one, and a colt no less, was clinging to us with the brightest smile we had ever seen. The others hissed and growled, shouting and berating him and his mother for such an act, but we hushed them at once… and asked his mother what his name was…”

“Oh… Ooooohhh…” Dash blinked and tipped her head. “So that’s where…”

“Indeed… that’s where his strange, unfitting name came from,” Luna said very quietly while glancing back at him. “As the years went by his innocent demeanor slowly vanished as. To our and everypony else’s awe, the once cheerful little colt grew into the largest and most powerful stallion to ever wear the armor of the Lunar Guard, turning into the most devoted, stalwart, and unwavering knight. So you can imagine, as he became what you see now… that his name became quite silly and inaccurate. But though he avoids speaking of it, he refuses to change it… in memory of his late mother.”

Dash listened intently. She came over here expecting to jam her hoof halfway up Luna’s Moon for what she did to Soarin and to leave it at that, but now she was getting the life story of a stallion that she was, quite honestly, fairly curious about. But something suddenly caught her attention…

“Wait…” Dash blinked as she realized something very important. “You knew him when he was young… back during the…” She glanced back at P.L. “How is he still alive? Weren’t you sealed away for a thousand years?” she pointed out. Luna nodded.

“Yes… he was with us a millennia ago. As for why he still lives now…” Luna paused. “The fateful night when we allowed the nightmare miasma to turn us into the abomination Nightmare Moon…” Luna trailed off briefly, shuddering. “When our sister struck us down and in her anger, readied the elements of harmony to use against us… He…” Luna clenched a hoof in front of her chest. “He tried to protect us from it. Like many others, he had been brushed aside as our powers clashed with our sister’s, but when he saw what our sister was about to do… he rushed in, hoping to save us… his devotion to us remaining even as we stood before him corrupted beyond reason. We were both sealed in the moon…” Luna sighed heavily as she explored the bad memories.

Luna paused and looked over at P.L. This was the umpteenth time he had been looked at by the two of them and he lifted an eyebrow in response.

“After being defeated by you and your friends, our first few weeks free of the miasma were a personal ordeal,” Luna went on. “Our divine alicorn power had to reconstitute itself after being torn asunder by the miasma corruption, leaving us in a smaller, frailer state than the one you see before you. We felt small… pathetic… and though our sister had explained, we felt the eyes of all those around us… it hurt, and we were alone in this new world a thousand years removed from the one we knew. But…” Luna smiled. “P.L. suddenly appeared before us, immediately kneeling at our hooves and expressing relief. We were shocked, and in disbelief. He was clearly older, but how could he be alive? We thought we were dreaming, but... he was there, we could see him and touch him, it was as if our wish for comfort had been granted in our darkest hour. We can still remember how happy we were to see him. We threw ourself at him and hugged him tightly, and we must’ve cried for an hour on his shoulder.”

She looked back down at Dash and smiled weakly, sniffling once as if the memory itself was about to make her cry.

"We later learned that he had been expelled from the Lunar seal years before we broke free... the magic of the Elements freeing him in an effort to keep hold of our ever growing power under the influence of the Miasma. But despite our absences, he continued his duty, personally rebuilding the tattered Lunar Guard in hopes of our return someday and playing key roles in many events, including the last major conflict between the griffons and drakes. Knowing that his devotion never wavered, and that he continued to honor our name despite our disgrace it... sometimes it makes us feel as if we don't deserve him."

Luna turned her head away briefly rubbing an arm against her eyes and shaking her head out before continuing.

“So… he is very special to us. We owe him more than we could ever tell him, but he would never allow us to feel in debt to him… for he swears by his duty to always be by my side and watch over me…” she finished with the light blush reappearing again, which Dash picked up on… because she really wanted to get a clear answer on this subject.

“So… you feel strongly for him?” she asked. The corner of Luna’s mouth twitched noticeably. It was clear she knew what Dash was implying.

“He’s… very important to me, yes, and…” Luna swallowed, looking down. “He is always there, he’s always very protective of us, he always disputes when anypony speak poorly of us, he’s always the first to help when we are struggling with anything, quick to rush in and shield us when danger is near…” Luna touched a hoof to her cheek, her wing edging forward to hide her face slightly. “When somepony does those kinds of things for you unconditionally, through steel strength of will and heart… it’s hard for us not to feel… special in a more personal way. I’m sure any of the thestrels would defend us with their lives, but none of them make us feel as safe or as valued as him.”

“Gosh Luna, just say you love the guy,” Dash said bluntly with a huff. Luna shuddered and completely covered her head with her wing.

“N… No… Rainbow Dash, you must understand that we cannot…”

“Why?” Dash asked while flattening her brow.

“Because… Our feelings cannot change the fact that we are omnipotent and he is mortal. Eternal existence may sound like a great boon, but it is not without its burdens… and love is a dangerous thing for us to fall into.” Luna removed her wing from her face to reveal a very saddened expression. “We wish not to repeat the mistake of our sister… Sombra brought her great joy, happiness, and pleasure, but in the end it crushed her heart and led to great suffering and strife for all those involved. P.L. has… aged. The once flawless youth in his face has left… and he will only grow older. We’ve no doubt he will be by our side for a long time to come, but some day… he will die.” Luna sniffled, shutting her eyes. “We will never be prepared for that day as is… We wish not to forge a bond even stronger than that which we already share… for the stronger that bond is… the more it shall hurt the fateful day it is severed.” Luna finished, a single tear dripping from her eye that she quickly wiped away as she averted her face.

Dash stared at Luna carefully. Luna couldn’t hide how much she wanted the exact thing she refused to pursue, and the more she heard, the more her reaction to Soarin made sense… magical divine alicorn libido reaction notwithstanding. The sudden existence of a male divine alicorn would mess with her head regardless after being so stiff about following rules for so long.

But something about what Luna just said didn’t sit well with her. She was still miffed about what she did to Soarin, but… her other instincts were kicking in here. She didn’t spend years learning friendship lessons in Ponyville just to let something like this slide.

“I disagree with you,” Dash said firmly, causing Luna to blink and quickly turn back to her. “Sure it will hurt when he’s gone, but…” Dash glanced towards Luna, locking eyes with her. “What will hurt more? Losing a strong connection, or regretting that you never made it?”

Luna’s eyes grew wide, her mouth opening, but no words coming out.

“Just a thought,” Dash shrugged. “I get what you’re saying about being immortal and him being mortal, but… something tells me it would hurt more if you never let him know exactly how you feel… and I know how you feel about him, Luna, it’s pretty obvious.” She poked Luna in the arm. “Take it from somepony that won’t live forever… you don’t always get another chance. You will always miss if you never try to hit the target. Maybe he won’t say anything, maybe he will decline because of his duty… but at least he’ll know.” Dash looked back out towards the dancing down below. “Just knowing how much somepony cares means more than you realize…”

Dash blinked as she trailed off, her eyes landing on something waving towards her. She shifted her eyes to see Matteo waving up at her from below.

The moment she locked eyes with him, Matteo sharply pointed out at the dance floor. Dash followed his extended talon, and gasped quietly. She propped her front legs on the railing and stared down with her pupils growing larger.

Little Star was pulling Squall out to the floor to dance as the band began playing slow waltz.

Little Star happily tugged on Squall’s arm, her wings buzzing and floating backwards, giggling the whole way. Squall stumbled and winced, but offered no resistance as they weaved around the dancing couples and made their way into the center of the floor.

Squall looked back and forth nervously as they stopped, clearly not sure what he was supposed to do, but Star didn’t seem to care, keeping herself afloat at eye level, she grabbed his arms and lifted them up, placing it on her waist and pressing the other to his out to the side as she rested her little hoof on his forearm, unable to reach his shoulder.

Squall stared blankly, but Star gave him a wink and started to move, but while it was easy for her to float with the movements of everypony else, Squall’s hooves skidded and slid clumsily. He gritted his teeth and stared down at his hooves, frantically looking around at what everypony else was doing and trying to do the same, but he couldn’t seem to get it down.

He flinched and stumbled as Star tried to change their direction, tipping forward and bumping into her as his hoof slipped off her waist. He scrunched his face and looked up at her, but she only giggled at him before pulling his hoof back into place.

They continued, going around the motions again, Star looking like she was really enjoying herself as Squall looked extremely embarrassed. Star tried to switch it up again by clamping their hooves together and spinning out to twirl, but Squall was clearly not ready for it. He instinctively yanked her back, the two crashing into one another and nearly knocking her out of the air to the floor. Squall’s face turned bright red despite Star laughing about it. He turned and tried to leave, but Star quickly stopped him and pulled him right back out.

Seeming to not care at all if he was doing it right, Star pressed her hoof to his and started moving in a circle, Squall glanced up and down quickly, trying to stay with her and move his hooves awkwardly with the music. After a full turn, Star came back in and put his arms back into the dancing position, the two rejoining the steps of all the others. Squall looked like he was trying really hard to get it right… and then tried too hard, causing the two of them to bump right into another dancing couple.

Squall stared wide eyed as the stallion and mare looked at them with slight frustration, but Star huffed, placing her hooves on her hips and sticking her tongue out at them before grabbing Squall and pulling him to a more open spot.

With a space of their own, Star pulled Squall’s arms into position again, and looked him in the eye before either of them started moving. He looked very embarrassed, but as his eyes finally looked into hers, she just smiled warmly and tipped her head. Squall swallowed and looked carefully at his hooves on the floor, glancing about at how the other stallions were doing it for a few moments as Star patiently waited. After a moment he took a deep breath and nodded to her, a serious look on his face.

Star snickered as he put on his game face, giving him a head motion to start. He took control, taking the lead the best he could. It was still a little shaky and off beat, but he was getting the hang of it, staying in motion with the music and doing his best to relax as his hooves moved along the ground. He kept them in the same back and forth motion for several moments before taking a chance and moving them in different directions, but it was easier than he expected. With Star floating and keeping herself perfectly lined up with him, he was able to focus on his own movements.

The music began to pick up, heading into a climactic verse to finish off the song. With Squall now seeming to understand his movements, Star began to do a few movements of her own, detaching to twirl here and there and letting go in some spots for them to shift past one another before coming back together. She paid careful attention to the way Squall was moving, reacting to him so he could keep control of the dance.

As the music hit the coda, they clasped their hooves together, Squall twirled her twice. The second time may have been a little too hard as he pulled her in roughly, but lifted a hoof to press into her chest, stopping her right as the music ended with the two literally face to face.

With the music stopped, Squall’s serious eyes lightened, then grew wide as he realized just how close they were. Star was smiling very wide with her hooves placed on his chest, a reddish tint visible in her cheeks.

But as the music started up again, Squall suddenly let go of her, turned, shuddered, and started trotting away, moving towards a door that led to an outdoor balcony that overlooked the inner courtyard.

But the smile did not leave Star’s face, nor did she try to stop him. She let him leave and waited until he had made his way out the door before touching to the ground and moving to follow right behind him.

Up above on the mezzanine, Dash had her head tilted with her cheek resting on a hoof.

“That was so cute…” she said out loud, her eyes following Star as she reached the door and peeked out. “Eh?” Dash blinked and looked back towards Matteo to see him holding Twister by the tail as his legs spun fast, dragging Matteo’s entire bulk across the floor as they edged towards Star. “Oh, hell no… Luna,” Dash turned to her.

“Hm… yes?” Luna blinked, taking her eyes away from the general direction of P.L. Dash sharply pointed at her.

“I’m glad we had this talk, no touchy touchy rubby rubby the big hunky anymore, he’s mine, ya get me?”

“Uh…?”

“Good. Pardon me, I have something important to attend to,” Dash nodded before hopping up on the railing and spreading her wings.

She glided down towards the floor below, aiming towards Star as she made her way through the door to join Squall. She landed and skidded to a halt just in time to put Twister into a headlock.

“Oh no you don’t, you wacky son of a bitch,” she hissed at Twister as his eyes bulged out. “You are not allowed to ruin this for them. Let them have privacy.”

“Thank you,” Matteo huffed as he let go of Twister and shook his talons out.

Dash made a move to pull Twister away, but then stopped. Twister sniffed the air loudly.

“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…?” he hummed. “What is that fetid stank I smell…? Is that… a hypocritical thought?!”

Dash flattened her brow, grabbed Twister’s nose, and yanked on it until it stretched out from his face. She tied it into a knot like a modeling balloon.

“You’re going to, aren’t you?” Matteo asked flatly.

“Both of you can kiss my ass, I’ve been waiting for this too long,” Dash shot at them both as she leaned forward and pushed the door open just enough to see through… as Star slowly approached Squall.

Squall leaned forward, his hooves resting on the balcony railing overlooking the bustling fairgrounds outside the palace. The entire marketplace was alive and filled with cheer, decorated beautifully with floral arrangements and lights that danced off every crystal surface. Voices and laughter echoed up from below, the night of entertainment and fun well on its way… but Squall was barely paying attention to any of it.

He could see it all, but his mind was elsewhere as conflicted thoughts rushed through his head. He was completely unaware of Little Star hovering in the archway behind him, watching quietly… with a smile on her face.

She remained where she was for several moments, not wanting to immediately intrude. She knew he wasn’t avoiding her like he had before, and after the dance they just shared she had a feeling he had a few things on his mind.

What those things were though, she did not know… but she didn’t plan on letting him stand out there alone for long.

When she felt the moment was right, she let go from the arch and floated towards him.

“That was a lot of fun,” she broke the silence. Squall’s ears perked up, but he didn’t turn to look at her. She landed on the railing right beside him. “Thanks for dancing with me.”

Squall glanced at her, their eyes meeting for a moment before he looked back down at the commotion below.

“You’re welcome,” he said quietly. Star grinned, turning to face the festival below before scooting over and leaning against him, resting her head into his neck. She felt Squall stiffen up briefly, but he relaxed after a few seconds. Neither said anything for a few seconds. “Why do…?” Squall’s voice was barely audible.

“Yes?” Star prompted, not moving an inch from her spot.

“Why do you always do this?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“You’re always… touching me,” Squall asked in a slightly shaken voice. Star removed her head from his neck just a little.

“You don’t like it?” she asked with a slight pout.

“No! No… I…” Squall scrunched his face up and sighed. “I’m…” Squall swallowed as Star giggled and rested her head back against his neck. “I’m just not… used to it I guess. At least not the way you do it.”

“Not the way, I…?”

“My parents,” Squall twitched. “You know… you saw them.”

“Oh!” Star started snickering. “Oh yeah they…” she pulled her head off Squall’s neck and covered her mouth with her hooves to stifle giggles.

“What?” Squall asked with a grunt. “It’s not funny.”

“No, no…” Star shook her head. “That’s not what I’m laughing at.” She gave him a bright smile as he glanced at her. “I would never embarrass you like that, your parents are weirdos.”

“That’s putting it lightly…” Squall agreed, but twitched again as Star put her head against him again.

“This is different, I promise,” she said warmly as she nestled herself against him.

“Maybe I just…” he trailed off again, but Star let him gather himself. “Have a hard time seeing the difference.” He shifted so he could see her. “I’ve never really liked being touched, probably because of them. I prefer to keep my distance.”

“Were you afraid of us acting like them?” Star asked curiously. Squall said nothing for several moments, swallowing as he shrugged.

“Maybe? Probably…” he grunted. “I was always treated like a colt and my dad never stopped hooking me by the neck or smacking me on the back… my mom would always try to fix my mane in front of others and give me big hugs while baby talking… even now they do it. Maybe after a while I just assumed others would do the same thing if I let them. Just treat me like a little colt.”

“Is that why you’ve always kept your distance? You thought we’d belittle you?” Star asked.

“I don’t think that’s all. Maybe I just had too much affection from them that I…” he glanced at her. “Never wanted any other form of it.”

“Even just friends?” Star asked.

“That scares me too,” he said flat out. Star’s eyes widened at the way he described it. ‘Scared.’

“Ooooooh Squaaaaaaaaaaaall…” She turned and hugged his neck tightly. “No no no… you’ve been doing it all wrong!”

“Hrm…” Squall hummed to himself, averting his eyes.

“What your parents do is one thing, but everything else? You’ve missed out on so much in life!”

“…maybe,” Squall said without looking at her.

“Definitely,” Star loosened her grip and moved right in front of him on the railing as he sat down. “And… I think you already know how to be close to others, you just try to avoid it.”

Squall’s lips curled down, his eyes squinting slightly and he exhaled through his nose. Star placed her hooves on his shoulders.

“I know that look… and I appreciate that you didn’t say what you usually do,” she said with a small giggle. “Everything Ruin said… that’s really how you feel?”

Squall quickly looked down.

“It is, isn’t it?” she pressed, but didn’t demand.

“……yes.” Squall admitted very softly. “Everything he said was true.” Squall flinched as Star leaned forward and hugged him tightly.

“Thank you,” she said with a huff. “I just wanted to hear you say it because… it means everything I’ve done hasn’t gone to waste.”

“Hrm…” Squall groaned quietly, not hugging her back. “Look, I…” Squall reached up and gently pushed her off. “I mean…” he winced and quickly took his hooves off her. “Sorry, that was…, I didn’t mean to…” he frantically started stumbling over himself.

“Hehe…” Star chuckled and tapped a hoof against his nose. “Stop, relax, and say it…”

Squall’s lips puttered as he let his head hang down, his forehead bonking against the railing next to her.

“I’ve… never known what to do with you,” he said with his voice slightly muffled. “I never wanted anypony in my business, but you never stopped getting in my face while everypony else just stopped trying. You frustrate me… but…”

“But what?”

“For some reason I started to hate it more when you weren't there.”

Star’s ears stood up, blinking with a blank expression as Squall’s head remained against the railing beside her.

“You were doing exactly what I didn’t want others to do, but you weren’t being like my parents. It confused the hell out of me. For the longest time I didn’t know if I liked it or hated it, but when you saved me from Devil and were knocked out for a short while, it answered my question. I felt completely alone. You were right in front of me, but you weren’t there either and it drove me nuts.” He picked his head up off the railing, but still didn’t look at her. “All I’ve wanted to do since is protect you, but I didn’t want anypony to know that, not even you. It felt so wrong next to every way I’d lived my life up to this point.”

He paused suddenly as Star grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her.

“Does it still feel wrong?” she asked with a stern look in her eyes as she squished her hooves into his cheeks.

“……………………………………………………………yes?”

“Auuuughhh…” Star let her head hang back. “You were doing so well!”

“Sorry.” Squall apologized, his face still smushed by her hooves.

“Don’t be, because I know it doesn’t actually feel wrong to you,” she said as she let go, crossed her arms and nodded several times.

“What?”

“Squall, you’re a terrible liar and terrible actor,” she pointed at him. “It was noticeable. I could tell.”

Squall stared at her blankly.

“I could feel it from you, it was comforting and heartwarming, but it was impossible to get you to say anything. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, but I never got you to say it or admit it. Ruin spilling the beans for you was NOT the ideal way of finding out, but… when you never tried to deny any of it and instead tried to avoid me, I knew it was true.” She shut her eyes tight. “And those feelings… made me very, very happy. It hurt that you wouldn’t talk to me.”

“No, I didn’t mean…” Squall inched forward, but hesitated.

“Why did you have to go and do that for me?” Star grabbed his shoulders and nearly pressed her nose to his. “Why do you have to give me so much comfort, make me feel so happy…” she shook him lightly. “With so much annoyance and disappointment too?!” she stopped shaking him and gave him an angry pout.

Squall stared with a mixed expression for several moments with Star not taking her eyes off his.

“Whatever.”
“Whatever.”

Squall blinked as Star said it at the exact same time as him. Star’s pout instantly turned into a grin she simply couldn’t hold down, and seconds later she burst out laughing while holding her stomach.

“Whoa, whoa!!!” she stopped and swung her arms around as she started tipping backwards. Squall perked up and instantly reached his arm forward to grab her before she fell. Star made no effort to help him, remaining tipped back as she smiled at him. “I’ve got these, you know,” she giggled as her wings flittered behind her.

She leaned forward, but Squall didn’t take his hooves off her shoulders, nor did he lean back. His expression looked conflicted, shifting in every which direction, albeit softly, and not enough to never change the fact that he simply looked like he didn’t know what to say or do. But he didn’t have to say anything.

“Squall,” Star reached her hooves up and hooked them on his wrists. “Thank you for caring so much about me. And I’m going to tell you right now…” she leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek. “That this isn’t something you’ll regret.”

Squall’s eyes twitched, he gritted his teeth and shook lightly.

“Squall? HEEP!” Star squeaked as he suddenly pulled her in and hugged her as tightly as he could, pressing the side of his head into hers.

“Please… don’t ever go away…” Squall’s voice nearly cracked. “Please…”

Star nearly shed a few tears as she heard his voice sound so emotional. As soon as she had her arms free from his tight grip, she wrapped them around his neck lightly and brushed them up and down his fur.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she assured him.

“Promise?” Squall added very quietly.

“Promise.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” Dash hummed with a smile on her face and one hoof pressed into her cheek.

“It’s about damn time,” Matteo snorted.

“Shush, you,” Dash nudged him. “Be happy for him.”

“I am,” Matteo specified. “But likely for different reasons.”

Dash rolled her eyes as Matteo turned and stood up.

“We should let them be now,” he suggested. “Before he actually gets free,” he added.

Dash blinked and looked down at Twister tucked under her arm, his head was smushed up as he tried to yank himself out of Dash’s arm, his neck extending several yards back with his body where his legs skidded and pressed to the floor.

“Good idea,” Dash let go. Twister’s head launched all the way to his body, crashing into and disappearing into his body, leaving him to appear without a head or neck.

“OH BOY! HEADLESS PONY ON THE LOOSE!” he yelled, his voice muffled from inside his body as he galloped towards the dance floor. “BLEH! BLEH! BLEH!” he started jumping up and down in front of couples dancing.

“I better go corral him,” Matteo said casually as Dash nodded.

“Yeah, let’s get back to the…” Dash trailed off as she looked at all the dancing. Her ears twitched as the music slowed down into another slow song. She furrowed her brow and bit her lip, glancing back out the doors towards Squall and Star still embracing on the balcony. “You know what? No, I’m done here.”

“Hm?” Matteo blinked. Dash shook her head and sighed in frustration.

“Go make sure Twister doesn’t cause too much trouble for me, will you? I need to go for a walk.” She ordered before immediately turning and heading towards the exit.

“A walk? Where?” Matteo asked, but Dash was already moving.

She kept a steady pace, not taking one look back as she made her way out of the ballroom and into the main hall. There was nothing wrong with the party, but… she didn’t want to be there. What was the point of going to something like this when she didn’t have Soarin to enjoy it with? What was the point of getting dressed up? Looking really nice? Dancing? Sharing drinks and fancy little snacks? Didn’t do herself any favors talking to Luna about love interests and then watching Squall and Star have a special moment… she just wanted to be somewhere else.

She stopped in front of a mirror that was right by the main castle doors, looking at the dress she wore. It was a simple cut and paste rental that all the mares were wearing, but she couldn’t look at herself dressed up without thinking of the last time she was at a formal event… which she was just talking to Lightning Dust about, which was great because of Soarin.

“Feh…” she scoffed, unzipping the dress and unhooking all the straps, taking it off and holding it out in her hoof. “Whatever, somepony will find it and return it,” she said as she tossed it over onto a table and left the building.

She made her way out into the festival outside, but the way she moved one would think she was walking through a graveyard. Her expression was stiff, her strides were unmotivated, and she didn’t make eye contact with anypony. Little fillies and colts bounced by around her, laughter and cheer filled the air, but she didn’t care. In fact, she didn’t even know where she was going, she just turned towards the road that led all the way back to the hotel and kept walking.

She paused when she finally made it outside of the main festival grounds, feeling a sudden emptiness, or at least that’s what it felt like. She blinked and put a hoof to her chest, looking back towards the crystal palace.

“Grrrnngggghrrrnnnn…” She growled to herself, suddenly feeling like she was being torn in two by frustration. She didn’t want to be at the ball because she couldn’t enjoy it, but walking away from it took her further from Soarin, the sensations of being close leaving. “Dammit… I just can’t win, can I?” Dash grumbled, ultimately deciding to pick up the pace and just get back to the hotel. It was late, she had nowhere she wanted to be, so maybe she’d just turn in early.

She kept her eyes fixed on the road and tried her best to think of nothing, did her best to ignore the sensations from Soarin vanishing quickly.

Just get to the hotel.

Just get to the hotel.

Just get to the hotel.

Just get to the—

“What the?” Dash indeed got to the Hotel, but…

“Shhhh, haha c’mon, c’mon!

“We got everyone?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

“This is a bad idea.”

“Aw loosen up bro, you know this’ll be great!”

Dash stared blankly.

It was all of the top tier Wonderbolts making their way out of the hotel. Fleetfoot was waving them all to follow her as they snickered and giggled, dragging Fire and Wave along with them. None of them were wearing their dresses or suits. Upon closer inspection… the only one who wasn’t there was Spitfire?

“Yo!” Air Mach suddenly yelled and pointed towards Rainbow Dash. “Look what the cat dragged in!”

“Hey!” Fleetfoot zipped over to her. “Perfect timing Dashie! Come with us! Come on!”

“Bwuh?” Dash blinked as Fleetfoot pulled her over.

“Shhhhh!” Blaze hushed her while snickering. “Come on, fuck the formal shit, we’ve got a better idea!”

“Uh…” Dash blinked.

What did she just get dragged into?

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oh dear... what kind of trouble is Dash getting into now? The night's still young!

Ah good, it looks like Squall finally opened up. It's about friggen time ya stubborn stallion. Here's hoping this is the first step to him easing up a bit, but you know he's still gonna be Squall regardless.

For those curious, there were several references made to Final Fantasy 8 during this sequence:

The dance scene when Squall first meets Rinoa (the fmv shots only):

The bridge of the ragnarok (Try your best not to scream at Squall through your screen at this scene) also spoiler warning if you ever intend to play the game:

And the picture by Foxena is a reference to a shot of Squall on a balcony after dancing with Rinoa (with Star in Quistis' spot):

Some interesting other bits here as well eh? Lightning Dust making an appearance to reminisce with Dash about the events of Flying Sky High, and revealing some of her thoughts on Descent as well. Seems admiration for him among those removed from the Shadowbolts extends quite far. We also got a proper confrontation between Dash and Luna... and got quite an interesting bit of details out of it :moustache: Turns out Discord was pretty spot on, but at least Luna is acknowledging it... Now keep your divine hooves off Dashie's hubby, Luna. You've been warned :flutterrage:

So what's next? The next chapter is going to be the last of the 'vacation' chapters we've had going here and you can bet that means among all the shenanigans that are about to commence, there will be a proper plot relevant move back towards the current issue story events. The Wonderbolts and Dash have had a moment to collect themselves and bond after being thrown to hell and back... but we ain't done yet! :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

(Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf)

Chapter 179: The Mule Is On The Wagon. Repeat, The Mule Is On The Wagon

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 179: The Mule Is On The Wagon. Repeat, The Mule Is On The Wagon

The more they walked through the night and around festivities, the more confused Dash got.

The endless giggling, snickering, and sneaking around of the top tier Wonderbolts dragging her along…. without Spitfire present, had her under the impression that they were about to do something that was going to get her in trouble. Fire Streak kept insisting that they shouldn’t go through with it, which only made that feeling stronger. Though whatever they were about to do, Wave wasn’t raising any fuss. The fact that they got him to come along without Spitfire made Dash wonder exactly what this was about.

Why were they being secretive yet so conspicuous? Why bother sneaking about when they were literally moving through crowds who could see them clear as day? Curiosity was building just as much as worry and it was getting stronger. Being a captain of her own Squad had made Dash more serious about some situations, but all the same, time spent with the rabble-rousers among the Wonderbolts had made her interested enough in whatever they were scheming to cloud the other.

Eh, whatever they were doing, it had to be fun at least. If only Fire was protesting then surely it was going to be entertaining… and she needed to get her mind off… of…

Dash’s eyes widened as they turned down a particular street and a particular building came into view.

Her eyes grew wider as they started moving towards said particular building very, very quickly.

“Guys…” Dash spoke up, but none of them looked at her.

“OKAY! We all know the plan, right?” Air Mach smiled wide while pounding a hoof to his chest.

“We better, I only explained it five times,” Fleetfoot blew air through her lips as she elbowed Lightning Streak. “So long as DoucheMcNozzle here does his part.”

“GUYS…” Dash said louder as her eyes remained fixed on the building.

“Hey, I got this no sweat,” Lightning Streak stated confidently while flexing an arm and kissing the muscle. “I’ll have the clerk’s FULL attention… you know, assuming it’s a mare. Might have to improvise if it ain’t.”

“Good, he doesn’t know why we’re really sending him in,” High Winds said while standing RIGHT next to Lightning. Blaze quickly grabbed her by the nose and yanked her away from him.

“Hey, if it works, it fucking works!” Blaze hissed in a hushed tone.

“GUYS!!!!!!” Dash yelled out while stepping forward. Blaze quickly let go of High Wind’s nose and clamped down on Dash’s instead.

“HEY! Quiet the fuck down, will ya?!” Blaze snapped at her, but Dash reached up and pulled Blaze’s hooves free. She gave Blaze the harshest glare she could manage while pointing past all of them.

“What the hell…” Dash put both hooves out. “Are we doing at the hospital?!”

All of them turned and looked as Dash held her hooves stiffly towards the hospital building.

“Something very ill advised…” Fire streak spoke up with a long sigh. Dash blinked, shaking her head.

“It better not have anything to do with—”

“It does,” Wave cut off Dash, causing her face to go blank as she turned towards him. “It very much does.” He said while averting his eyes.

“Y’all need to unclench the cheeks,” Lightning chuckled. “You KNOW he’s gonna be on board!”

“YEAH!” Surprise pushed her way over to Dash and grabbed her by the face. “If we don’t get him out of there he might kill himself again!!!” she started shaking Dash lightly. “You don’t want that, do you?!?!”

Dash’s eyes found a way to grow even wider.

“Wait… get him…” her ears flattened outwards. “We’re sneaking Silver out?” Dash asked in a bland monotone.

“Yer damn right we are!” Air Mach hooted while pumping a hoof in the air. “And then it’s off to crash the grubbiest dive bar we can find in town!”

“…WHAT?!” Dash reacted as if she didn’t actually believe them up until this point.

“And you...” Fleetfoot giggled while grabbing Dash by the arm, tugging her along as they started moving. “Are gonna help us! Come on!”

Dash was still processing what was actually happening as she glanced around at them all, once again taking careful note of the fact that Spitfire was nowhere to be found.

“And Spitfire isn’t in on this?” she asked.

“Fuck no!” Blaze blurted out instantly.

“She’s going to be angry…” Fire said with an annoyed grunt. “And they’re going to make me talk her down… per usual.” He added as Misty Fly happily bounced along beside him, seeming very eager to partake in the shenanigans.

“Oh relax,” High Winds waved off Fire with a brief yawn. “We’ll just have Chiller bump the anger out of her later tonight the hard way.”

“There is reason to fear for my own balls in that circumstance, you know…” Wave said with a completely straight face and one eye twitching as Lightning Streak slowly tipped towards him.

“Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hoo hoo!” he hooted slowly in Wave’s ear.

“This is a terrible idea!” Dash tried to convince them with alarm. “Silver needs to rest!”

“What the fuck got shoved as far up your ass as the stick in Fire’s?” Blaze asked with an angry pout.

“Hey now…” Fire snorted with a flattened brow.

“Tell ya what!” Surprise leapt over Fire and floated upside-down in front of Dash. “When we get there… YOU can tell him he shouldn’t do it!”

Dash’s face went blank.

“She got you there!” Air Mach chuckled. “Come on, time’s a wastin’!”

“I’m doomed…” Dash said with some slight sarcasm as Fleetfoot grabbed her and dragged her along.

“So then I said… nah… THAT wasn’t that heavy,” Lightning Streak leaned his chest all the way over the counter and got up close to the very confused and perturbed mare working behind the front desk of the Hospital lobby. “Then I pointed to the barbell that had TWICE as much on it…” Lightning bounced his chest muscles up and down. “And said, but THAT might be… unless I’m too swole for that too.”

“Lightning, come on,” Wave faked trying to pull Lightning back from the desk. By the tail.

“Brother, must you flirt with every mare we come across?” Fire half feigned frustration, acting fairly natural despite it being an act.

“Sir… can I help you?” the mare asked as her face scrunched up, her eyes awkwardly shifting up and down between Lightning’s face and his dancing chest.

“Nah, nah, I’m just getting to the best part!” Lightning leaned further forward as the mare started groaning uncomfortably.

Blaze peeked out from the door leading into the back hall that the rest had just slipped into, lifting an eyebrow before letting the door shut and slipping towards the others as Air Mach surveyed the hallway ahead.

“For fucking real? Does Meat-Slap actually think that’s how to flirt with a mare?” she asked.

“Why are you looking at me?” Fleetfoot asked while furrowing her brow. “He’s made passes at you too.”

“I can’t tell the difference, honestly,” High Winds added with a yawn. “He sounds like a cock whether he’s faking it or not.”

“Yo, coast be clear!” Air Mach called back very loudly. “Let’s go get—!”

“SHUSH DAMMIT!” Fleetfoot clamped her hooved down over his mouth. “What part of ‘sneaking’ don’t you understand?!”

“Why the fuck didn’t we leave him with the other stallions again?” Blaze hissed.

“He was supposed to…” Surprise sighed and shook her head.

“And miss the fun? Never! I wanna see the look on the old coot’s face when we tell him we’re getting booze!” Air Mach once again said very loudly. Misty Fly grabbed him by the head and shoved him down to the floor with a quiet thump. She didn’t need to hear him to know he was being too loud.

Surprise made a few quick signals to tell Misty to keep his mouth shut for them before they began slowly moving through the hall.

Dash reluctantly went along with them, keeping her mouth shut tight aside from pointing in the direction of Silver’s room once or twice. She had many issues with what they were doing, but she knew she had no chance of dissuading any of them.

After a minute of slipping around the walls of the empty halls, they found Silver’s room and gathered around the door. Air Mach and Surprise both crouched down by the door.

“Standard breach maneuver!” Surprise said with an overly serious voice that couldn’t quite conceal her giggles.

“Really guys?” Fleetfoot chuckled. “There’s not even a lock on the door.”

“If we’re gonna do this, we’re going the full nine miles!” Air Mach snickered as Blaze and High Winds nudged Dash forwards,

“Sit the fuck down, and get ready!” Blaze smirked as she forced Dash down and pressed her into Air Mach’s back.

“Get comfy back there Dash!” Air Mach said in a silly voice as he rubbed his back against her chest.

“Kill me now…” Dash groaned.

“Alright, I’ll kick the door in!” Fleetfoot giggled as she tried to step out, but Blaze tugged on her tail.

“Fuck no, let me do it. You’ll miss on purpose and hump the doorknob instead.”

“I mean…” Fleetfoot motioned her hooves towards the door handle. “Kind of hard when it’s that shape, but I probably still could.”

“Why in the fuck did you answer that seriously?!” Blaze threw her arms out as her eyes twitched.

“Is somepony gonna get the damn door?” High Winds asked.

“Hold on,” Fleetfoot waved a hoof. “Blaze asked a legitimate question, I need—WHOA!”

Both Blaze and Fleetfoot ducked as Misty suddenly hurled through the air towards the door with both her back hooves outstretched. Her hooves slammed into the door, breaking the whole thing off the hinges and frame and slamming it to the floor inside.

They all just stared wide eyed for a moment, all leaning over to peek into the room. Misty was standing proudly on top of the flattened door.

All their eyes went right to Silver, who was awake and looking towards the door as if something didn’t just come barreling through it. This was the first time Dash had seen him in a little bit. By the looks of things a lot of his bandages had been removed, but the wrappings around his lost eye and the large splint cast on his smashed arm were still in place. The lack of everything else revealed just how scuffed up and scarred he was from his fight with Nightshade, but at least he didn’t look like a mummy anymore.

“The hell kind of circlejerk is going on out there?” Silver asked casually.

“Quick! Everypony in!” Fleetfoot waved them all in. “Somepony definitely heard that! Go! Go!”

Silver lifted his eyebrow as he watched all of them scramble in, seemingly completely unfazed by the sudden shenanigans.

“Put the door back up! Come on!” Surprise called out as she helped Blaze and High Winds force the door back into the frame. It didn’t stay up on its own, so High Winds sat back against it to hold it up. Silver glanced at all of them again, realizing that all the top tier mares were there… and then his eyes landed on Air Mach.

“This must be an elaborate operation to jump my bones. Honestly, Air Mach being here gave it away.”

“Damn you old bat!” Air Mach guffawed as he tipped his glasses down and trotted over. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you!” he winked and smirked while bobbing his head up and down.

“I was kidding, you know…” Silver subtly shifted his legs beneath the bed sheet. The rest all came over to him, once the door finally stood up on its own. Silver blinked as he noticed Dash among them, smirking slightly as she stayed in the back. After a moment, Silver hardened his expression and grunted. “Alright, let’s cut to the chase, y’all better be here to get me a damn drink.”

Dash’s eyes went wide as all the Wonderbolts turned and stared at her with varying degrees of wide smiles.

“SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?” Surprise giggled while squishing Dash’s cheeks.

“You better believe it, you old mule.” High Winds said as several of the others began poking and nudging Dash to tease her. “Are you hooked up to anything? By the way, it’s good to see you…” Winds yawned as she and Fleetfoot examined everything around him, finding that he was indeed not hooked up to any machines.

“Less talking, more getting me booze, fast,” Silver demanded as he started reaching his good arm towards them and trying to sit up.

“WAIT… wait…” Dash forced herself forward and pressed her hooves to the mattress and looked Silver in the eye. “Aren’t you on some heavy medication right now?”

“Pfff, I haven’t taken that crap all week,” Silver rolled his eyes. “Hard liquor. Now.”

“Silver…” Dash flattened her brow. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

“Hey!” Blaze leaned her head over in between them and glared at Dash. “Will you fucking SHUSH already? We are not going to a fucking dive bar without Silver!”

“Time honored tradition,” Fleetfoot winked at her.

“Tradition…?” Dash asked, blinking.

“You’ll find out!” Surprise giggled as she reached a hoof up and patted Dash on the head. “But we gotta get him there first! How are we—?”

She was cut off as Misty pushed forward and started pulling Silver off the bed.

“Whoa, hey!” Dash tried to stop her, but Misty held her at bay with a back hoof placed right in her chest. Dash was powerless as she watched Blaze and High Winds carefully move Silver onto Misty’s back, biting her lip as her eyes darted over every part of him that she knew was hurt or damaged.

“This works,” Silver agreed as they moved him, taking a moment to glance at the worried Dash. “Oh relax, will you? I can barely feel half my body anyway.”

Dash angrily pouted at him, earning a small smirk in return. She couldn’t stop him and she knew it.

“Hey, is the coast clear?” Blaze asked as she trotted over to Air Mach peeking out the door.

“Hell yeah, let’s get him the hell outta here!” Air Mach pumped a hoof before motioning all of them towards the door.

“This is so wrong…” Dash groaned to herself as she followed behind them.

“You know what they say, Dashie!” Surprise popped up beside her and leaned against her. “Two wrongs don’t make a right, one wrong may not be bright, but three wrongs sure are tight!”

Everypony stopped and stared at her silently. Surprise’s face went blank for a moment before she chuckled awkwardly and shrugged.

“Okay, maybe I made that up just now…”

All eyes went to Silver as he started snickering and shaking his head.

“I’m having fun already,” he said with a big smile. “Come on, time’s a wasting!”

Dash couldn’t help but crack a small grin. She didn’t approve of this at all, but that little laugh Silver just let out… and the tone of his voice? He couldn’t hide it from her, he was thrilled.

So despite her misgivings, Dash followed them out. Some clever maneuvering and a convenient escape route out of a nearby window opened by Lightning Streak gave them a quick exit into the brush outside the building.

“Careful! Careful! I got him!” Fire directed as Fleetfoot and Air Mach slid Silver off Misty and slipped him out the window.

“Don’t touch me with pansy-soft hooves like that, I’m not made of glass, dammit,” Silver grumbled at Fire as he tried his hardest to not put any pressure on Silver whatsoever.

“Forgive me for noticing you’re mostly broken,” Fire said in a slightly huffed tone as Lightning came by to help him all the way down.

“Save it for Misty Fly, the only one who’s allowed to touch me like that is my wife and she needs to give me a reach around first.” Silver added. Silver suddenly almost fell right to the ground, all of his weight going onto Fire as Lightning completely lost his hold on him while bursting into laughter.

“HRNG… BROTHER…” Fire grunted as he slowly lowered and set Silver on the ground. The rest hopped out the window behind.

“Score!” Lightning cheered quietly, continuing to chuckle as they all gathered around. “Mission accomplished!”

“So how long did the receptionist last?” Fleetfoot asked Fire with a smirk.

“She tried to send for the Crystal guard after two minutes,” Fire explained as he cracked his neck back and forth, looking down at Silver. “Did you put on weight while you’ve been in there?”

“HA! FUNNY GUY.” Silver shot right back at him.

“Two minutes? Yikes,” High Winds yawned, glancing at Lightning. “I always knew you were a two pump chump.”

“Nah, NAH,” Lightning Streak blew on his hoof and shook it out. “She just couldn’t handle all THIS…” he slowly ran his hoof down his chest as Fleetfoot started making gagging noises behind him.

“Alright, now that you’re done feeling me up…” Silver addressed Fire. “I’m beyond surprised that they got YOUR stiff ass to take part in this.”

“Er… well…” Fire sighed. “I didn’t exactly… agree,” he explained in frustration as Lightning Streak slid over and nudged him in the side.

“I got his ass in gear and on board, peer pressure from the big dick in the family you know?” Lightning kept nudging Fire in the side until Fire lifted a hoof to stop him.

“Jiminy Rustle,” Silver blinked. “You really shouldn’t refer to your twin brother’s ass and your own dick in the same sentence about coercion. You’re giving Fleetfoot wet dream ideas.”

“What?! HEY!” Fleetfoot turned bright red.

“Bigger you say?” Silver went on as Fleetfoot fumed behind him. “Have you compared or something? Hey, Surprise, ask Misty how big Fire is when she gets weird on him.”

“OKAY…” Fire rushed over and grabbed Surprise’s arms before she could eagerly make any hoof motions towards Misty.

“Heh heh… haaaaaaaa…” Silver chuckled. “Damn it’s nice to be out of that damn dusty hospital…” he said as he rolled over and lay on his side. Dash huffed and shook her head, but… she was enjoying this too.

But before she could approach and help him up.

“Sir…?”

Dash blinked, the rest freezing as they heard one voice that had stayed quiet.

Silver’s ears perked up. Despite his body only half functioning, he quickly forced himself back upright, his eyes wide and staring towards Wave Chill.

Wave smiled, making his way past the others and giving Silver a nod.

“It’s good to see you again, sir,” he added.

“Well I’ll be damned…” Silver’s voice was filled with a much different tone as his face slowly brightened. “No shit… look who’s finally back on his hooves. Come here! You, come on!” Silver beckoned him closer, holding his good hoof out.

Wave stopped in front of him, but Silver kept swinging his hoof out.

“Dammit, Blue Balls, gimme your hoof!” he demanded, his voice sharpening slightly. Wave flinched, but quickly reached a hoof out. Silver grabbed it and clenched it, squeezing hard.

Everypony watched quietly as Silver continued to smile and nod lightly.

“Now don’t expect me to ever say this again, but I’ve never been so happy to see you in my life…” Silver let go of his hoof, reaching his out and pressing it into Wave’s chest. “Now don’t you dare go contracting freak rock illnesses again, you hear me?”

Wave swallowed, looking as if Silver’s words touched him more than the others could realize, but he smirked.

“I won’t make any promises, sir,” he said with a light chuckle.

“Ah, shut the fuck up,” Silver laughed while lightly jabbing him in the arm.

“Hey, hey, hey, c’mon,” Fleetfoot suddenly broke the silence of the others and hurried over. “You reunited bros can hug and kiss after we make it to the bar. The longer we stick around here, the longer we run the risk of getting—”

Fleetfoot froze on the spot and everypony flinched as the sound of somepony clearing their throat came from close by.

Everypony slowly turned and looked out from the brush towards the nearby road.

Spitfire was standing in the middle of the path, facing all of them with a very flat look on her face while tapping a hoof on the stone road. She was still wearing her rented dress for the Crystal Ball.

Everypony’s eyes started darting to and from everypony else, all of them desperately looking at the others, expecting somepony else to speak up.

But eventually somepony did.

“What the hell’re you starin’ at?!” Silver yelled towards her, glaring hard. Everypony froze again with their eyes trained on Spitfire as all of them held faces that held a resemblance to a bunch of little colts and fillies caught in the snack cabinet.

Spitfire stared right into Silver’s glare for several moments… but eventually sighed and shook her head. She reached up and tugged on the zipper on the dress, getting it down just enough to loosen and shimmy out of it, stepping her legs out and pulling her wings from the designated holes. She balled up the dress and tossed it aside into the grass.

“Fine,” she said as she blew air through her lips. “Let’s just make sure he’s back in his bed by the end of the night.”

At first nopony said anything, they all stared blankly as smiles began to slowly form on their lips.

“Hell yeah!” Fleetfoot shouted first before the rest joined in, cheering. Dash placed a hoof to her chest and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Looked like in the end, the desire to go out and enjoy themselves with Silver was too much for even Spitfire to deny. “C’mon everypony! We got a shitty bar to find!” Fleetfoot hollered as they helped Silver get back on Misty’s back.

“About friggin time, let’s go already!” Silver grunted as Spitfire joined the crowd and shook her head lightly, grinning. “Hey… kids…” Silver suddenly spoke up in a much softer tone. They all looked to him as he rested his chin on Misty’s shoulder and smiled lightly. “It’s… great to see you all again.”

A collective warmth passed through them all, everypony remaining quiet, except for Blaze who sounded like she was trying not to cry while glaring angrily at him.

“Come on, let’s go have a good time,” Silver nodded. “Actually, wait, wait… Lightning, come here,” Silver waved. Lightning blinked and made his way over.

“What’s u—” he was cut off as Silver swung his hoof out and back-hoofed him across the face. Everypony flinched in surprise as Lightning stumbled backwards. “OW! What the hell was that for?!”

“I don’t know. I’m assuming you did something to deserve it while I was out,” Silver shifted and pointed into town as everypony burst out laughing. “C’mon, into town, I’m parched dammit!”

Lightning Streak pushed the door open, stuck his head in, and took a long hard whiff.

“KAFFF COUGHOOOOHHHHHHH WOW!” he coughed and backed out shaking his head out, a plume of grey cigar smoke wafting out and into the air. “That’s the most rancid one yet,” he turned and nodded to the rest, pointing a hoof over his shoulder. “It’s perfect, let’s give this place our money.”

The Wonderbolts had made their way through town and away from most of the festivities, venturing pretty far from any higher end districts. They were sticking their noses into dive bars down alleys and small streets in search of the ‘perfect’ dive bar, which Dash was beginning to realize whichever one was the dirtiest and smelled the worst.

“Really?” Fleetfoot stepped forward. “It can’t possibly be worse than the BWOAH… SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIT!!!!” she nearly gagged as she stepped back from the door. “Wow, that’s impressive, yeah this place is perfect.”

“Fuck’s sake!” Silver yelled from the group. “I know what the tradition is, but if you don’t get me a drink soon I’m gonna bust some balls, starting with the mares!” he ranted, Blaze and High Winds blinking and glancing at each other in confusion. “I don’t care if the bar down the street smells worse, I’ll take a crap in the middle of the floor if that evens it out. Alcohol. NOW!”

“Okay, okay!” Spitfire clamped a hoof over his mouth. “Let’s just get started, we’ve walked enough.”

“Hey!” a voice came from inside. They all looked in to see several pairs of less than thrilled eyes trained on them, the fairly grubby, unkempt, unshaven unicorn bartender glaring at them from behind the bar. He slammed a towel against it and snorted. “If yer gonna come in, come in! Quit standin’ in the door waitin’ for an invitation!”

“Blunt bartender, check,” Fire Streak chuckled.

“Whothefuck was that?!” Silver lifted his head up and glared at the bartender. “What’s this shithole called?” Silver looked up at the sign above the door. It read Heavy Onus. “You must be Heavy Anus!”

“Silver—HRMPH!” Spitfire was cut off as Surprise covered her mouth, giggling. The bar tenderer flattened his brow and scowled.

“My name isn’t—”

“I don’t care!” Silver cut him off. “Do you have booze?!”

The bartender lifted an eyebrow and stepped aside, revealing a large selection of hard liquor behind him.

“Then you’re my new best friend! Giddyup! C’mon!” he yelled while tapping his back hoof against Misty’s plot. Misty flinched and stepped forward, giving Silver a flat look for touching her like that as she started moving towards the door.

“You heard the old ass!” Fleetfoot giggled, grabbing Dash by the arm. “Time’s a wasting!”

Dash gave Fleetfoot a look as she pulled at her and moved in with the rest.

“You’re really going to get drunk again after this morning?” Dash asked her.

“I can’t possibly get as drunk as I was last night,” Fleetfoot giggled. “Also I won’t because I don’t want to black out when we have free entertainment!” she smirked while making a head motion towards Silver.

“If you say soOOOOOOOOH GOD!” Dash shuddered as she stepped through the door and the stench of the place surged through her nostrils. She pulled her hoof free from Fleetfoot to cover her nose and mouth as she blinked and looked around the place.

Simply calling it a ‘dive bar’ would be too generous. The place was an absolute pit. It had the look of a hole in the wall bar establishment, but like one that would collapse if somepony missed the dart board. It was as if it had been built a century ago and never once touched up or repaired, an old wooden tavern with drab stools, hard wood furniture, a pool table with the 3, 8, and 13 ball missing, and a jukebox that sounded off-key with the battered vinyl player struggling to play the records inside. The place reeked with the nastiest stench of mold, cigarette and cheap cigar smoke, urine and what could only be bad flatulence. The ventilation was so bad that it all just lingered, the two of the three windows boarded up and the only one that still had glass couldn’t be opened and had a large collection of cracks in the center as if somepony tried and failed to throw somepony else through it. Aside from the front door opening and closing periodically, there was no way for the stench to slip out and some fresh air to come in.

The ceiling was low and several beams extending from the not so sturdy looking pillars had to be ducked beneath at times due to the poor arrangement of the tables. Every patron, both mare and stallion smelled like they hadn’t showered in months, or that could just be the Earth stallion passed out with a cider mug in his hoof next to the bathroom door, which was thankfully shut. The bartender looked like the gruffest, least elegant unicorn Dash had ever seen in her life with a scruffy beard, a perpetually angry scowl, a corncob pipe sticking out the end of his mouth, and a chipped horn. He looked like he should be wearing a sailor hat, and based on his appearance he probably spoke like one too. He had his eyes locked on the Wonderbolts as they walked in, probably trying to figure out who the hell they were and why they had all just shown up at the same time.

Dash finally managed to pull her hoof away from her nose, her tongue hanging out in disgust as the nasty air kept filtering through her nose and lungs. But it didn’t take her long to notice that the Wonderbolts seemed completely unaffected, in fact they all looked eager and ready to have some fun.

“You guys… have done this before?” Dash asked Fleetfoot as she glanced about at all the skeptical and drunken eyes staring at them.

“A lot!” Fleetfoot giggled. “Trust me, you’re in for a treat, there’s a reason we went through the trouble to get Silver.”

Dash blinked and looked over at Silver, still riding on Misty’s back. He had his eyes locked on the bartender as they drew near, the bartender either unaware that Silver was glaring at him, or he didn’t care.

“Hoo boy…” Dash swallowed. She was unsure what she had gotten herself into when she first ran into them in the street, and now she was more worried. Though ‘worried’ with the Wonderbolts wasn’t necessarily bad, just extremely unpredictable.

“Blaze is buying right?” Lightning Streak suddenly spoke up with a clear joking tone in his voice, Spitfire rolling her eyes and giving him a hard nudge in the side.

“I ain’t buying you jack fucking shit,” Blaze shot back.

“Blaze is only buying whatever loosens up the space between Windy’s legs,” Fleetfoot giggled, slowly pushing High Winds towards her. She didn’t resist or disagree at all as she yawned.

“There is definitely NOT enough space for all of us to sit together here,” Wave commented as they approached the bar. The bar had more than twelve seats, but some of the seats were occupied and the most space in between any two was six seats. There was a lot of space with a group of three on the far right and a stallion with a mare on the left, but there was a passed out stallion face down on the bar smack in the middle between them.

“Well,” Spitfire scratched her head as Blaze and High Winds carefully helped Silver off Misty’s back. “I guess we could push some tables together? Fire, come here,” Spitfire motioned to him for help.

“Skittles.”

“Huh?” Dash blinked and perked up as Silver suddenly leaned into her and slung his good arm over her back for support.

“Help me over to the bar,” he asked in a rather subdued tone.

“Oh, uh… okay,” Dash obeyed, moving slowly with Silver against her towards the bar.

“Thanks.”

Silver suddenly slung himself off Dash, his arm whipping over her head and latching onto the passed out stallion at the bar. With one hard tug, Silver pulled the stallion off of the stool, tossing him to the floor with a loud THUMP.

Dash froze in place with wide eyes as all eyes turned towards the noise.

“What the…?! SILVER!” Spitfire yelled, quickly trotting over.

“Hey look, there’s enough space now!” Silver exclaimed as he slung himself onto the stool and leaned onto the bar. Dash stared down at the stallion on the floor, who simply rolled over and belched before stretching out and sitting up, rubbing his head and looking around groggily.

Everypony flinched as the bartender slammed a hoof on the bar and angrily leaned towards Silver.

“Okay buddy, I don’t know who you or your stooges here are, but if yer gonna waltz in here and throw my regulars around like that, beat it!” he snarled.

“That’s a real interesting way to say ‘what can I get ya?’” Silver casually shot back. “You serving drinks or stern looks? If that’s the best you’ve got then I hope your booze is better than your bark. You shake me about as much as a breezie shitting rainbows. Now is this a quality establishment or a half-assed milk bar?”

“Snrk…” Dash quickly covered her mouth, snuffing out a snort as Silver laid into the bartender.

“Sorry about that, sir…” Spitfire tried to help up the stallion, but he hiccupped and belched again, louder, and right in Spitfire’s face.

“Hwut, huh? Aw hell I’m late for work!” the stallion looked at his arm, even though his watch was on the other, before stumbling past them all, pushing the front door open and falling face first the moment he was outside.

“Hey!” Silver’s voice suddenly caught all their attention. He was looking over his shoulder at them as the bartender continued to glare daggers into him. “Who’s got ‘em?”

“Oh,” Fire perked up. “Right here,” he opened his wing and dropped a large bag into his hoof that made a lot of clinking noises as he came forward and hoofed it over to Silver. The bartender’s eyes suddenly widened as his eyes landed on the bag.

“There it is!” Silver grabbed the bag and slammed it on the table, the bartender still staring at it. At this point all the rest of the patrons were looking in their direction as well. “Now you look here, jackass,” Silver eyed the bartender. “You got a lotta booze back there. I don’t know what it’s worth or what your damn prices are, but…” Silver undid the tie on the back and yanked at the bottom, the bag spilling over and a large amount of bits pouring out onto the bar. The bartender’s jaw dropped as Silver lifted the bag until all the bits fell out, spilling into a pile and over the edges of the bar onto the floor. “The fucking Wonderbolts are here. All drinks are on us tonight,” Silver spun around on his stool, glaring at everypony else in the bar. “Ya hear me dirtbags?! We’re buyin’!”

Cheers erupted instantly, the Wonderbolts chuckling and laughing as Dash stared in surprise.

“Huh…” was all she could say, not even paying attention as Air Mach slung an arm over her shoulder and nudged her in the side with his other hoof, laughing.

“C’mon Dashie, pull up a stool!” Surprise giggled as she pushed Air Mach off of her and dragged her over, the Wonderbolts taking their stools to the left and right of Silver before the rest of the bar patrons gathered around for free drinks.

The bartender finally looked up from the bits and glared at Silver again, passing the pipe in his mouth back and forth a few times.

“I still don’t like ya,” he grumbled as he pulled all the bits off the bar and let them all fall to the floor on his side.

“Whoopdie shit,” Silver shrugged. “Order up, Anus.”

“My name is CrocEye, dammit.”

“Okay Cockeye Anus,” Silver snorted. “Less talk, more booze, time’s a wastin’.”

Croc paused and glared at Silver again, but Spitfire cleared her throat.

“Pardon him, he’s been stuck in a hospital for a few weeks. The sooner you get him something to drink, the sooner he’ll shut up,” Spitfire suggested.

“At least to you!” Fleetfoot added from beside Silver, leaning over and nudging Silver. “The rest of us won’t be so lucky!”

“Right… right…” Croc sighed, rolling his eyes as he scooped all the bits back into the bag they were brought in and threw it into the back room behind the bar. “Then I’ll take care of him first.” He whipped the towel off his shoulder and smacked it on the bar in front of Silver, who didn’t even flinch despite Fleetfoot yelping and nearly jumping out of her stool right next to him. “What’ll it be, asshole?”

“Before me, let’s get…” Silver looked back and forth. The Wonderbolts were all looking at him, waiting, except for Air Mach who was making hip thrusts towards the bar. “Ten ciders for them.”

“Ten?” Croc looked over them. “You’ve got eleven with ya.”

“I know,” Silver added sternly. “As for me…”

Silver looked past him and scanned the bottles of hard liquor behind him.

“The strongest shit you’ve got,” Silver requested sternly.

“The LunaShine it is,” Croc nodded without a moment of hesitation, turning and fishing an opaque, brown jug out from among the bottles. “Slack! Fabby! Get off your asses and get over here!” Croc yelled out as he placed the jug on the table. “We got a lot of drinks coming up! Give me a reason to pay you two already!”

“Snort… huh?” the smelly stallion asleep next to the bathroom jolted awake and stretched out. “Work…? Eh, fine…” he stood up, several mugs falling off of him and clattering to the floor. “Guess I could use some bits,” he said with no enthusiasm as he scratched his butt and trudged over. Everypony except for Silver cringed and held their nose, the stench that was somehow worse than the bar itself wafting by as Slack didn’t even bother pushing the ‘door’ on the bar open, stepping over it and rubbing his whole body over the top of it as he did.

“This guy has employees?” Wave said quietly to Spitfire.

“If you could call them that…” Spitfire shuddered watching Slack continuously reach back to scratch his ass as he touched everything behind the bar.

Croc looked up and around again as he wiped out a glass to give to Silver for the ‘LunaShine’.

“FABBY! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!”

“Eh heh… heh heh…”

The Wonderbolts all glanced at Lightning Streak as he… giggled.

“Wonderbolts, hmmmmmmmm? Nice hunks of stallion you’ve got here!”

All eyes, except for Silver’s went wide as they saw a very trashy looking unicorn mare with a rather wild mane and apparently no shame.

“You look ripe for the picking, babe… are you doing anything later?” Fabby asked Lightning as he continued to twitch with a very wide smile on his face.

“Holy shit you’ve got terrible taste!” Silver suddenly turned and glared in their direction.

“”Hey, she came to me, geezer, I just have that effect!” Lightning chuckled as he slipped an arm around the mare’s waist.

“I’m talking to her, not you!” Silver added with a snort.

The room was instantly drowned out with hysterical laughter, most of the Wonderbolts nearly falling off their stools as Lightning’s pupils shrank and his face went blank.

“Shit dude, I walked right into that one,” Lightning tipped his head back and let out a quiet chuckle. Fabby slipped off his lap and slid herself over the top of the bar to the other side in a VERY sexual manner as she and Slack started taking drink orders from them.

“Cmon, c’mon, how long are you gonna rub that glass for?” Silver swung his hoof towards Croc.

“Right right right, keep your cast on,” Croc grumbled while looking closely at the glass before setting it down, grabbing a few ice cubes and dropping them in. “You never know what Slack’s put his ass scratching hooves on around here.”

“Point taken,” Silver agreed, stealing a quick glance at Slack as he pulled out some mugs and rubbed his plot against the cabinet after it closed.

“Enjoy, and try not to pass out too fast,” Croc pulled the cork out of the jug and nudged it towards Silver before moving on to serve others.

“He has no idea who he’s talking to,” Fleetfoot giggled as she and Dash watched Silver pour out some of the dark blue liquor into his glass. Silver finished pouring, setting the jug aside and placing the cork back in it.

But then what he did next was not what Dash was expecting. She watched with Fleetfoot ordering her drink between them as Silver simply grabbed the glass with his good arm, swirled the contents of the glass in a circle a few times, took a deep breath and exhaled. Dash was curious, she expected him to immediately down the drink after how much he had been complaining about it.

“Yeah, yeah, okay… thanks, now good lord, go take a shower and stop scratching yourself!” Fleetfoot gagged as she grabbed a mug of cider from Slack and he moved on to serve Fire.

“Huh…” Dash said out loud, grabbing Fleetfoot’s attention.

“What, expected me to get something a little more intense?” she giggled. “Nah, I’m just gonna have some ciders to loosen up.”

“No, I’m…” Dash pointed past her at Silver. “Thought he’d go to town right away.”

“Oh, we always wait to all have our drinks first,” Fleetfoot explained with a wink. “Part of the tradition.”

“Oh…” Dash blinked as she saw Fabby leaning way too close to her face. “Gah, uh… just…” Dash looked around. If it was tradition, she’d just have one. “Just give me the drink please,” Dash quickly answered to get her out of her face.

“Okay, cutie!” Fabby cooed as she set the mug down in front of her.

“Hey yo!” Air Mach called out as he stood up and scanned the rest of them. “Silver, ya ordered for all of us right?”

“Yep,” Silver nodded casually.

“Don’t I get one too?” Air Mach pounded his chest.

“Nope.”

“Eh? Why not?”

“Because you’re an insufferable dickhead,” Silver said with a calm glance and in an equally calm tone.

Blaze, High Winds, and Surprise all got lost in a fit of giggles as Spitfire leaned over to Croc.

“Just give us one more, please,” she asked for him as Air Mach clenched a hoof in the air and shook it, grinding his teeth.

“I’m surprised you haven’t downed that glass yet,” Dash said, catching Silver’s attention briefly. He exhaled, shaking his head a little.

“I’m also taking it all in,” Silver suddenly spoke up, Dash and Fleetfoot perking up as Silver smiled, with his eyes on the glass. “It’s real strange when I think about it… me sitting here in a drab bar with all of you… just another one of our fun little nights.”

Dash and Fleet stayed quiet as Silver’s voice started to sound a little emotional, or at least as much as he was willing to let slip. Fire Streak’s ears had turned and he was glancing slightly as he waited on the other side of Silver for his mug of cider to arrive.

“Not too long ago I was locked in a battle to the death. Fighting knowing that it was all over and done for me… that I wouldn’t get to be a Wonderbolt anymore. That I wouldn’t get to do the little things anymore… like this… with all of you.” Silver smirked. “Heh… Funny how life works sometimes, eh?”

Dash, Fleetfoot, and Fire could only smile weakly as Silver opened up a little, lifting the glass of liquor up a little and glancing back and forth, seeing that they all had their drinks and most of them were looking at him.

“I’m still here after all. Cheers to all you kids.” Silver nodded.

They all lifted their drinks and said the same back, Blaze nearly in a fit of angry tears again as they all took their first drink of the night together.

“PPPPFFFFTTTPHPHTPHTPHTH!!!!”

Everypony flinched as Silver spat out his drink and glared angrily at it. They all froze and stared as Silver slammed his glass down.

“ANUS! What the hell is this?!” Silver yelled towards Croc while grabbing the jug and shaking it in the air.

“What’s your problem now?” Croc grumbled as he stepped over and crossed his arms.

“You call this alcohol?!” Silver shouted.

“You wanted the strongest stuff I got,” Croc didn’t bother yelling, having figured out Silver’s preferred method of talking.

“Really? That?!” Silver flattened his brow. “You call that strong? That was making love in a canoe!”

Fleetfoot blinked.

“Making love in a…?” she trailed off, glancing over at the others, her eyes landing at Spitfire, but she only shrugged. Croc looked like he didn’t understand either.

“FUCKING CLOSE TO WATER!” Silver clarified, the rest of them bursting into fits of chuckles and laughter. “You better have something better or else I’m taking all my bits back!”

“Our bits…” Spitfire said quietly to herself with a sigh.

“That put somepony in the hospital last time I served it,” Croc huffed while grabbing the jug, popping the cork and taking a whiff of it. “Sheesh this smells worse than the last time I opened it. Maybe you should actually swallow the damn drink before telling me it doesn’t kick like dynamite.”

Croc flinched as Silver jammed a hoof against his nose.

“You’re not gonna convince me that sewage is champagne and you can’t blindfold me, rub your dick on my face, and convince me it’s a popsicle! If I wanted to hear horseshit, I would’ve ripped ass! Now get me something with some actual brass clackers on it!”

Croc just stared with a flat expression as Fire, Fleetfoot, and Dash all nearly face planted on the bar while trying not to choke on their drinks. Eventually Fleetfoot regained herself.

“Like I said,” she giggled. “No idea who he’s talking to.” She leaned over and waved a hoof to get Croc’s attention. “You might as well serve him rubbing alcohol. He’s got the tolerance of a Yak after eating four hundred pounds of bread.”

Dash snickered as she couldn’t disagree. She remembered how many glasses of liquor Silver put down at the recruit graduation party without even flinching.

“Fine, fine, I’ll look to see if I have anything in the back,” Croc shrugged. “If it’ll make you shut it.”

“Make it snappy,” Silver snorted, tapping his hoof on the table. “And if you put anything else in front of me that weak I’m throwing both you and your bar Onus first onto a cathedral spire.”

Lightning Streak spit out an entire mouthful of cider right on Blaze.

“OH FUCKING GROSS!” Blaze wailed.

“For crap’s sake!” Silver pounded a hoof on the bar and looked back and forth even though Croc was still in the back. “Who does Fleet have to blow to get me a decent drink around here?!”

“Hey!” Fleetfoot glared as Dash nearly fell off her stool laughing.

“Okay Silver…” Spitfire leaned over and looked past the giggling Dash and Fleetfoot with a flattened expression. “I get you’re excited, but how about you reign it in a little?”

“How about you suck my whole dick?” Silver replied flatly. Spitfire flinching as Blaze and High Winds both burst out laughing behind her. “After being stuck in the damn hospital for weeks I’m not in the mood to behave myself so don’t even try me. I’m going balls deep and I better have something strong enough to make it worth the cliff dive.”

“I dunno dude,” Lightning snickered, leaning onto Wave’s shoulder snickering towards Silver. “At your advanced age, going balls deep might be problematic.”

“Are you coming onto me?” Silver shot right back, tipping his head and lifting an eyebrow. “Pool’s closed over here, jackass. Isn’t Blaze over there? Redirect the rocket, she needs to be molested twice daily or else she gets needy.”

“THE FUCK?!” Blaze popped up from her stool.

“He’s not wrong…” High Winds confirmed with a yawn.

“Hey, hey, it’s not like I’ve never offered, right babe?” Lightning chuckled while leaning over and trying to touch Blaze, but she hissed and swiped her hooves at him like a cat. “She just doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

“Not much apparently…” High Winds scoffed.

“Please,” Silver rolled his eyes at Lightning. “If I had a bit for every time you got laid, I’d be begging on the street. Besides, you’d be hard of hearing after sex with Blaze. Hey, Windy, how many times does she yell fuck when you—”

“A lo—”

“Oh shut the fu— shut up! I know I swear a lot, but I don’t swear THAT much!” Blaze argued.

“Are you kidding me?” Silver chuckled. “You can’t even sign your own name without writing the word ‘fuck’ somewhere.”

“Can confirm,” Surprise reached into her mane and pulled out a note. “She wrote it three times on this post-it note she left for me two weeks ago!”

“FFFFFSHHHFFFRRGGGGGGGHHHHH,” Blaze fumed as High Winds slowly pressed a hoof over her head to make her sit down.

“Sheesh he’s only been with us for an hour and he’s already got you blowing flames out of your ears,” High Winds chuckled as Blaze fumed under her hoof.

“Blaze… Silver,” Wave began, motioning a hoof between the two of them. “Silver… Blaze. Or have you two met before?”

“Eh, situation normal,” Silver shrugged. “She’s just as angry as I left her. Only now she’s crying too because she’s a big softy under the rage and missed me more than she’d ever admit.”

“Imma fucking murder you in your sleep…” Blaze mumbled with a loud sniffle.

“Really now, it’s not like we don’t poke fun at each other all the time… or every given minute.” Fire spoke up from the other side of Silver.

“And the king of fun poking is back!” Surprise giggled as she squished Blaze’s cheeks together as she silently fumed more. “Blaze is fun to poke! Hehe!” She started lightly poking Blaze all over as she failed to get away.

“Yeah well, even the king has to be careful,” Silver started tapping his hoof on the table. “I poked fun at my wife, but she took me seriously and now I have two kids.” He glanced to his right as Lightning walked by behind him to take a seat on the other side of Misty, putting her between the Streak twins.

“The only one we can poke fun at around here and get away with it is Misty,” he chuckled as Fire shot him a flat look. “Ain’t that right, Misty gal?” He moved to poke her in the side, but she very quickly reached out and grabbed his hoof, shooting him a glare. “Oh shit…”

“She doesn’t need to hear you when she can smell your unfuckable dumb ass from a mile away,” Silver pointed snorted. “If you wanna really get at her you need to be subtle and… WHOA THERE FIRE…” Silver turned his attention to the look Fire Streak was giving him. “That look is a bit hostile, you need a hug and kiss?”

“N—”

“Too bad, you’re not getting it. Though knowing how the two of you are I’ll get stuck in between one of your mushy PDA cuddling sessions by the end of the night.” Silver blinked and chuckled as Misty glared at him. “I dunno, looks like we can’t get anything past her either. She sensed your balls sucking into your body there, Fire. She’s got a lock on me now!” He suddenly turned and slammed his hoof on the bar and growled. “Where the hell did Anus go to get me a drink?! Appleloosa?!”

“Maybe he took Fleet too seriously and called up a supplier in YakYakistan,” Wave chuckled.

“Well he better get his head out of his Asscrackistan and get back here before I start flipping tables!”

“For crap’s sake, shut up!” a voice came from the back as Croc backed his way out the door and walked out with… nothing. Silver’s eye twitched.

“You’ve got five seconds to tell me where my drink is before I give Air Mach over here the green light to tell you his life story,” he threatened. “Trust me, it’s a fate worse than drowning.”

“Look, buddy, I got nothing as strong as that. You want me to just pour a bit everything I got into a jar for you to suck down?” Croc huffed, glaring at Silver.

“Now listen here you son of a…” Silver trailed off as his eyes fixated on something behind Croc. Croc noticed, blinking and turning, following Silver’s eyes with everypony else as they landed on a large jug of…. Something sitting on the top shelf by itself… and appeared to be glowing faintly from the inside. “What’s that?” Silver quickly asked.

“Oh no, I’m not serving that to anypony…” Croc denied very quickly. Silver reached over the bar and jammed a hoof into Croc’s chest.

“Don’t you fucking tell me what I can’t have! If I wanted any lip from you I’d take it off the tip of my tube steak. Now tell me before I decide to lay my knob across your porridge!”

Dash flinched in surprise as Fleetfoot snorted and nearly spat out all the cider she was trying to drink.

“Oh come on!” she whined while laughing. “How am I supposed to get a buzz if I nostril my drink every time Silver says something?!”

“That’s…” Croc looked back at the jug and sighed in frustration. “A bunch of minotaurs showed up here a few months back and brought that with them. They got drunk and stumbled out without it.”

“I’ll take some of that,” Silver demanded. Croc hardened his look.

“Buddy, it almost killed Slack when he took a sip of it and trust me, he can drink every one of you under the table at the same time.”

“Hey, hey…” Fleetfoot leaned forward and waved a hoof at Croc. “Hey… rear-end hole guy… you clearly have never met Silver Lining. He just compared your ‘strongest stuff in the house’ to water. I think he’ll be fine.”

“The difference is I know what my stuff is,” Croc huffed as he turned and looked at the jug. “That? For crying out loud, it glows in there… and hasn’t stopped glowing since I got it.”

“I’m sorry I can’t hear you over the sound of you not pouring me some of it,” Silver jabbed. “Now, before I get even older.”

“Your funeral, pal,” Croc sighed and shrugged as he pulled over a stepping stool, reached up to the top shelf and slowly tipped the jug until it slid off and into his hooves. He blew the dust off of it, turned, and dropped it on the bar in front of Silver, sliding a new glass over.

All eyes were fixed on the jug and the faint green glow coming from the inside as croc pulled the large cork out. A puff of green mist shot into the air followed by a green light that splashed against all of them.

“What the bitch?” Blaze uttered aloud as everypony else just stared with a mixture of awe and concern.

“Huh, neat.” Except for Silver.

The glow weakened shortly, as if opening the jug had unleashed some kind of unholy spirit and the contents had settled down. Croc poured out some into Silver’s glass, the liquid fizzing and foaming a little as it rose within.

“Whatever happens next isn’t my problem,” Croc said, crossing his hooves in front of him and shaking his head as he backed away.

Dash stared at Silver’s glass, her nostrils scrunching up as the wafting fumes hit her nose and everypony else’s.

“Good lord!” Dash clamped her hooves over her nose. “What even is that smell?”

“It smells worse than Lightning Streak!” Surprise yelled out, gagging on the air, prompting Lightning to blink, lift his arm and sniff at it.

“Silver…” Spitfire looked at him with concern. “You aren’t really going to—” she paused and cringed as the smell shot through her nose. “Drink that…?”

Silver didn’t answer her, staring at the drink and swirling it around in the glass, the liquid fizzing as it moved.

“Looks like he’s in the zone,” Wave Chill chuckled. “WHOA!” he yelped as Air Mach suddenly pushed past him and pounded a hoof to his chest in front of Spitfire.

“Y’all are giving me weak vibes here, WEAK!” he reached over the bar and grabbed a glass. “The hard ass legend, that’s me by the way, will take this on too!”

Silver only glanced and lifted an eyebrow as Air Mach grabbed the jug and poured his own glass.

“Nopony here drinks alone!” Air Mach lifted the glass in the air and forced himself in between Silver and Fire.

Fleetfoot briefly glanced at Spitfire, smirking and giggling.

“Funny you showed concern for Silver, but…” she made a head motion to Air Mach. Spitfire puttered her lips and shrugged.

“Moron gets whatever he deserves,” she said flatly as she ignored him.

All eyes went to Air Mach as he put the glass to his lips, but very visibly hesitated before what looked like was going to be one huge gulp. He instead slowly tipped the glass and took a very, VERY small sip, paused for a moment, and swallowed.

“HRMPH!” Air Mach flinched, his face contorting heavily as the glass dropped from his hoof and bounced on the bar top, tipping over and spilling its contents onto it with loud fizzling noises. “HOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY GOD!!!!” Air Mach started gagging and coughing, grabbing his throat as he slowly crumpled to the floor and started writhing.

Everypony stared wide eyed at him as he rolled from side to side, heaving breaths and wheezing as he ended up on his stomach and started banging his head on the floor.

“IT TASTES LIKE MOUTHWASH, WASABI, AND GUNPOWDER!” he yelled out as he rolled onto his back, his eyes wider than his glasses. “MOSTLY GUN POWDER. AUUUUUUGH IM ON FIRE ON THE INSIDE, MY SINUSES ARE CLEAR BUT NOT IN A GOOD WAY, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—”

Silver remained looking at his own glass as Air Mach dramatically voiced his discomfort. He glanced to his left briefly to see Dash staring at him as everypony else remained disturbed by what the mystery drink did to Air Mach.

Silver smirked and winked at Dash before putting the glass to his lips.

“SILVER, NO!” Dash yelled out, all eyes darting to Silver as he casually took a sip… well, a much larger sip than the one Air Mach took.

With the voice cracking wails of Air Mach still in the background, everypony stared at Silver, other bar patrons, Croc, and his two bartenders included.

Silver swallowed and shut his eyes.

His face scrunched up and twitched.

“Hrmgh…” Silver shuddered slightly. “HRM!” he sat up straight for a moment, taking a deep breath.

Then he smiled.

“Haaaaaa…” he exhaled, a faint puff of green mist releasing from his mouth. “Now THAT’S more like it!” he said as he held up his glass into the air. Shock quickly turned to disbelief from everypony around him, Croc specifically looked like he had just witnessed a miracle. Silver set it down and looked over his shoulder at Air Mach catching his breath on the floor. “Everypony, take heed,” he motioned to Air Mach. “This stallion has no dick.” He grabbed Fleetfoot’s cider mug out of her hoof.

“Hey!”

“Grow a damn pair, lightweight.” he poured what was left in it over Air Mach, splashing him with cider as everypony burst out laughing, several of the patrons and some of them cheering as well after Silver conquered the undrinkable drink like it was nothing.

“Sheesh…” Spitfire sighed heavily, letting her head hang down, but subtly chuckling herself.

But Fleet wasn’t amused, pouting hard at Silver.

“Really? I barely drank any of that as is, no thanks to you!” she whined. Silver shrugged.

“We bought out the damn bar, just order everypony another round.”

“Ugh… fiiiiiine,” she turned and looked around to see how much everypony had. “Yeah it’s about time anyway. Another round then? Who wants one?” she asked, getting confirmation from each Wonderbolts as she pointed at them, skipping Silver. Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“Fleetfoot, I’m offended that you didn’t ask if I wanted any.”

Fleetfoot blinked and gave Silver a look, then looked at his glass.

“You already have a drink and besides, you never drink cider,” she pointed out.

“You should still ask,” Silver tipped his head, looking away from her with a very forced frown on his face that wasn’t fooling anypony.

“Hmmmm? Why?” Fleetfoot narrowed her eyes at him.

“It’s the polite thing to do.”

“Ugh, fine. Do you want any—?”

“No.”

“Oh SCREW you!” Fleetfoot stood up from her seat and loomed over Silver with an angry huff as he smirked and took another sip of his drink.

Dash snorted and looked away while holding a hoof over her mouth. But after a breath she sighed contentedly, glancing at Silver and taking close note of how he looked.

He was smiling, and looked like he was enjoying himself quite a bit. Dash had many things on her mind but maybe… just maybe this was what she needed to relax and forget about it for a little while. She was having fun as well, mostly watching as the Wonderbolts include her in what was clearly an old fun time tradition of theirs. Fleetfoot was right, Silver was definitely required.

Silver wasn’t the only one enjoying himself though.

“Oh suck it up, it can’t be that bad!” Surprise loomed over Air Mach as he remained on the floor.

“I have never been in more pain in my life…” Air Mach wheezed, sticking a shaking hoof into the air. “I think my insides are turning inside out.”

“Probably hurts like hell,” High Winds added with a yawn.

“See?” Air Mach’s arm tried to point at her. “She understands.”

“I mean, come on,” Winds smirked, turning slightly on her stool to glance at him. “That stuff knocked all the ‘stallionly’ talk right out of his body. Gotta be some strong stuff if it closed his big mouth this hard.”

“Aiiiieee…” Air Mach wailed as Surprise, Blaze and High Winds all chuckled at his expense. “Why does my suffering amuse you so?”

“Because you’re a fucking jackass,” Blaze leaned down smugly got in his face. “Every ounce of your pain turns me on.”

“So you’re sayin’ there’s a chance?” Air Mach forced a smile with his eye twitching.

“Oh fuck, augh, ew,” Blaze pulled back. “What the hell, how did he reverse that on me so fast, AUGH! WINDY! I FEEL UNCLEAN! FUCK!” Blaze scooted her stool closer and pressed herself into High Winds.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure whatever’s left of what little he had was just obliterated,” she said casually.

“Mares can be brutal…” Air Mach sputtered.

“Welcome to my world, broski!” Lightning Streak yelled from the other side of the group.

“Oh boy, here we go,” High Winds sighed as she pulled Blaze’s nose out of her armpit. “Stop that, it tickles.”

“Haaaaa…” Silver grunted after taking another drink from his glass. “I simply can’t wait to hear the expertise of Chad BrokenCock over here.”

“Ain’t nothin’ broken over here!” Lightning nudged his way past both Fire and Misty and leaned against the bar beside Silver. “Hell I bet when you look at me all you can see are reflections of your younger, more studly self!”

Dash flinched as Fleetfoot jammed her nose all the way into her cider mug and blew a loud raspberry.

Silver just lifted an eyebrow as Lightning bounced both of his in his face.

“Hell, I bet seeing me is always the highlight of your day!”

“And then I want to kill myself,” Silver quickly added. Dash flinched again as Fleetfoot suddenly snorted into her mug, the cider shooting up and around her face. She pulled her nose out, coughing as the cider dripped down her head and neck as everypony around her laughed.

“You should’ve seen that one coming,” Spitfire commented as Fleetfoot pouted with cider all over her.

“Real talk though, geezer, real talk…” Lightning jabbed Silver in the shoulder. “You and I aren’t so different, eh? I’m just a young buck looking for a fu—OW!” he was cut off as Spitfire flicked a peanut from the bowl close by right between his eyes.

“Nice shot,” Wave nodded, impressed. Silver looked Lightning up and down, unimpressed.

“When I was your age I was so horny I would’ve made hankie to a stop sign if it looked at me the right way,” said Silver as he leaned slightly towards Lightning.

“Hey wait,” Spitfire blinked. “Lightning is twenty-eight. Didn’t you marry Serenity at twenty-five?”

“You saying that like it makes a difference,” Silver smirked. “She knows better than anypony, let me tell you…”

“No please fucking don’t,” Blaze whined.

“Don’t even try, he’s already primed and ready,” Wave chuckled.

“She had no idea what she was getting into when she met me,” Silver went on. “She unknowingly punched a one way ticket to pound town thinking I was just a normal, cute guy to date. Then I ran a train on her daily once she got there.”

“Okay NOW you’re just talking big,” Fleetfoot rolled her eyes.

“Ye of little faith in your wise elders,” Silver spun around and gave her a hard look. “It was no secret, I rutted her raw on the regular. First stop after every day of hard training, just ask Misty.”

Everypony looked at Misty, she was happily bopping back and forth with a mug of cider clasped in both hooves.

“Fire,” Fleetfoot made a head motion towards him. “Ask Misty.”

“Do I have to?” Fire asked with a flat sigh.

“That’s an order—OW, hey!” Fleetfoot yelped as a peanut bounced off the back of her head. She turned and glared past Dash at Spitfire casually sipping her cider with Wave chuckling beside her.

“Fine…” Fire caved, tapping Misty on the shoulder.

Misty blinked and looked at Fire as everypony watched in anticipation. Fire awkwardly made the proper wing and hand motions to ask Misty if Silver was being honest.

She watched until Fire was done, blinked, smiled innocently, and started nodding vigorously. Everypony burst out laughing as Silver loomed over Fleetfoot and tipped his head.

“I don’t LIE you little SHIT!”

“OKAY! OKAY!” Fleetfoot scrunched down into her school.

“I’m not an average stallion, I’m a goddamn meteor. Why do you think I have a dip in my back when I walk? If you’ve been carrying around my load all your life you’d be like this too!”

“You’ve probably lost some weight since then,” Wave chimed in.

“Not from there!” Silver gave a firm nod and took another drink.

Dash was trying her hardest not to start coughing. Her sides were beginning to hurt with how hard the urge to just start laughing hysterically at any given moment clawed at her. As soon as Silver got his drink the gloves had come off and he was going a little wild. Though it seemed to be happening pretty quickly. Was the mystery Minotaur drink actually putting some dents in the Iron Horse’s stalwart alcohol tolerance or was he just having a really good time?

“So you’re both old, but SHE’s the one that needs the Viagra to keep up with you?” Lightning nudged Silver in the side.

“That doesn’t make any damn sense,” Silver turned back to Lightning. “Viagra is for old stallions that have problems, that I DON’T have by the way,” Silver paused to take a sip of his drink and coughed out a cloud of green mist before poking his hoof into Lightning’s chest. “Pill my ass. A glass of wine or two is all you need to get a mare turned on. If you do all that and the mare still isn’t frisky, that means you’re the problem.” He took another drink, finishing off the glass.

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow, noticing he was drinking faster.

“Silver, I think you should slow down,” she suggested.

“I think you should shut the fuck up,” Silver calmly said as he turned to her and laid his good arm over the top of Fleetfoot’s head to point at her. Dash stared blankly, but snickered to herself after considering how opposite moderating Silver was to Little Star a night prior. “Happy hour isn’t over until I say it is, and I’m not done talking about how good I am at sex yet.”

“Sheesh, I don’t know how the fuck Serenity does it,” Blaze groaned. “If I were your wife I’d probably poison your dinner or something.”

“If you were my wife, I’d eat it,” Silver threw right back as he grabbed the glowing jug to pour another glass among howling laughter.

“Fuck me, I can’t win with him,” Blaze looked up and laughed lightly.

“We can try all we want,” Wave spoke up. “But trying to one up Silver is like walking into a lawn mower. It’s not going to end well no matter what angle you approach it.”

“A lawn mower that smells with a few blades falling off,” Fleetfoot snickered while poking Silver in the shoulder.

“When you reach forty years old important things start to fall off,” Silver shrugged.

“You’re forty-two,” Spitfire pointed out.

“If you’ve got the machinery I have between my legs, you’ll be going strong till at least sixty,” Silver nodded confidently while taking another, somewhat large gulp of his drink.

“Let me guess,” High Winds yawned. “I bet Serenity likes that too?”

“You’re goddamn right she does,” Silver slammed his glass down, some of the liquid splashing out. Fleetfoot’s eye twitched.

“I’m surprised you don’t have like… nine kids,” she said with a snort.

“So am I,” Silver agreed as he poured more into his glass despite not being done with what was already in it.

“Can we please stop talking about Silver’s dong?” Blaze asked angrily. “How the hell did this become the prime subject?”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed,” Spitfire agreed with her half-sister.

“I sense hostility, and a little bit of desire, are you asking me for a good time?” Silver asked Blaze.

“Fuck off you expired bag of cheese!” Blaze shot back at him.

“Now it’s just hostility, you sound a little mad. How about you and Winds go find yourselves a nice 24-inch double ended dildo and play teeter-totter till you feel better?” Silver suggested as Fleetfoot shot cider out of her nose… again.

“My liiiiiiiiiiiiife…” Fleetfoot whined as she applied her face to the bar top.

“I wouldn’t mind that right now,” Winds casually nodded in agreement while ruffling Blaze’s mane.

“Wouldn’t that be the same as every night?” Lightning Streak chuckled. “Or every time you two hit the locker room? Come on, confirm the age old belief among us guys that the mare’s locker room is where all the sexy lady on lady action happens where we can’t see it.”

“Brother…” Fire sighed as rubbed a hoof to his forehead.

“As IF…” Fleetfoot stuck her tongue out at him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I would like that, tell me more!” Lightning chuckled as he tried to make his way around Silver to her, but he was stopped halfway as Silver spun around in his stool and jammed his glass against Lightning’s neck.

“Don’t you strut your ugly mug around as if borderline gay shenanigans never happen in the stallion’s locker room. All it takes is one jackass rat tailing another before a pile of idiots are wrestling each other to the ground in the showers.”

The stallions all stared straight ahead as all the mares turned their eyes and ears towards Silver. Spitfire glanced at Wave.

“Don’t look at me, I always shower and get out,” he quickly explained.

“Likewise,” Fire agreed without hesitation.

“And you’re both full of shit,” Silver spun around, pointing at both of them in the process. “That’s how it’s always been, it was like that back in my day too. Never changed.”

“I thought you said your generation was more serious,” Dash pointed out, amused at Wave and Fire trying to avoid the subject as Lightning just shrugged and chuckled.

“On duty we were,” Silver snorted as he took another swig. “But every day at 3:30 it was always a game of grab-ass in the locker room with the lights off. Somepony would start a fight or pull a prank and all hell would break loose until Blazetail stormed in and climbed down the shit of whoever started it.”

“Not Blizzard?” Spitfire asked.

“No, he was the worst instigator.”

“And Blazetail ‘climbed down his shit?’”

“No, he would always get away with it, just like with everything else, that glorious bastard,” Silver lifted his drink into the air and smiled. “Here’s to you, Sir!”

“Silver, n—” Dash tried to reach for him, but Silver pounded the entire glass. Everypony cringed as he coughed several times, pounded his chest with the glass in hoof and belched very loudly.

“Ooo… that wasn’t a good idea,” he turned back to the bar and grabbed the jug. “But neither is this. Hell with it.” He poured himself more.

Dash gritted her teeth leaning towards Silver but stopping short of reaching past Fleetfoot.

“Should we stop him?” Wave’s voice caught Dash’s attention, she turned to face him and Spitfire. Spitfire shook her head.

“If you want to try, be my guest,” Spitfire said sarcastically.

“Point taken…” Wave shrugged as the two of them saw Dash looking at them. “At least we aren’t the only ones he’s worrying.”

“I mean…” Dash rubbed the back of her head. “He’s having fun and… well… almost died recently so I guess he deserves to have some fun but…”

“Yeah that stuff he’s drinking, I dunno…” Spitfire huffed. “It can’t be healthy or safe, I know he can hold alcohol better than all of us combined but…” she blinked and glanced down at the floor. “Oh for crying out loud, Air Mach. Get off the floor!”

“Captain, I can’t find my hooves… or my liver… I think it left me for good,” Air Mach sputtered, still on his back. “The light… I mustn’t go towards the light…”

“No, no PLEASE go towards the light! Do us all a favor!” Fleetfoot yelled with a giggle before getting a flat look from Spitfire. “Oh what? You have exactly ten seconds to tell me how him being gone would be a bad thing.”

“Fleet enough, that’s not funny,” Spitfire pouted. “Air Mach does his part.”

“In what?”

“In…” Spitfire blinked and glanced down at Air Mach as he started weakly singing the words to ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’ very slowly while coughing every few phrases.”

“SHE CAN’T!” Fleetfoot burst out laughing as Blaze and High Winds also guffawed. Spitfire glanced at Wave as he stifled a chuckle. “You can’t name one moment in the past where you’ve looked at all of us and said ‘Air Mach’ is the best choice for the job!”

“If Air Mach is ever the answer, what the fuck was the question?” Blaze asked curiously.

“Would you like to take it in the ass now or later?” High Winds answered without missing a beat, sending Blaze into a hoof kicking fit of giggles.

“Hey now, I do plenty!” Air Mach was instantly up as if nothing was wrong, leaning on Spitfire’s back and grinning while pounding a hoof to his chest.

“WOW,” Fleetfoot rolled her eyes. Spitfire groaned and let her face fall to the bar top.

“Captain Lady couldn’t answer because I bring all the most important qualities to the team! Ha!” he pointed to the ceiling, his hoof smacking right into one of the low hanging beams.

“Like a complete lack of shame?” Wave Chill asked with a chuckle.

“That ain’t true, I’m brimming with shame!” Air Mach turned to Wave, leaning harder against Spitfire.

“SNRK,” Fleetfoot snorted and shook her head. “Yeah no, it would take a high-powered steam shovel to haul a cubic inch of shame out of your ass.”

“Hey! That’s still an inch!” Air Mach proudly proclaimed, leaning even harder into Spitfire.

“That’s it. OFF!” Spitfire pushed her wings out, forcing Air Mach off her and knocking him back to the floor.

“And down he goes again!” Wave Chill chuckled as he took a drink from his mug.

“Hrrrgnnnn… Hrm…”

Everypony perked off and glanced towards Silver.

“Hrnk… Hrrrrrgh… Hnnnngrgh…” he groaned, leaning down towards the bar top as he twitched.

“Silver?” Dash spoke up first, a look of concern rushing over her as she leaned forward and propped herself on Fleetfoot’s shoulder.

“HHHHHHHNNNNNNGGGGGHHHHH…”

The entire place went silent as Silver tipped in one direction and a sound similar to a waterlogged phonebook being ripped in two drowned out everything else. It only lasted a moment before petering out to a long drawn out sound of a pony blowing through a blade of grass between their hooves.

And ten seconds later, it was silent.

“Haaaa…” Silver exhaled.

“Are you… okay?” Fleetfoot asked with wide eyes.

“I am now,” Silver sat back up and lifted his glass in the air, but then he suddenly swayed and hiccupped. “Ugh… oh that was sudden, gah…” he put his glass down and pounded his good hoof against his chest. “Wheeew… this stuff is good, heh.”

“Silver?” Dash repeated, less worried and more surprised.

“Eh? Wuzzat?” Silver turned and looked at them, and everypony’s eyes went wide. “What’s everypony staring at? I must look real good right now.”

“What the…?” Spitfire trailed off as she looked at Wave. Wave looked just as astonished as she was.

“Bro, no way…” Lightning Streak scooted around and got a good look at Silver. “Is Silver… drunk?!”

“Huh? Me? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaah…whoa!” Dash reached out, knocking Fleetfoot right off her stool with a yelp to stop Silver from falling out of his.

“Yeep!” Fleetfoot squeaked as she landed on her plot. “Ow! Hey!” she pouted, but Dash paid zero attention to her as she pushed Silver back upright.

“Thanks Skittles, I almost spilled my drink!” Silver took another large gulp. “HOOOOOOO…!” he exhaled hard, coughing lightly. “This IS the good stuff!”

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Wave chimed in. “Silver never gets drunk. EVER.”

“I told him it was a bad idea,” Croc suddenly moved past them behind the bar. “But no, he wanted it… so he’s getting it.”

“Hey jackass!” Silver yelled, pointing at Croc. “You better show your elders some more respect!”

“Fine, I respect you,” Croc tried to deflect and move on.

“Bullshit you do!” Silver yelled after him as Croc went to serve more drinks. “Feckin’ kids these days I tell ya, none of them know respect.” He turned, snapping his head towards Fire. “Especially you!”

“I, what?” Fire blinked, leaning back.

“I think?” Silver added before turning around. “Where the hell is Spitfire?”

“Oh lord…” Spitfire groaned as Dash leaned out of the way.

“There she is!” Silver yelled as he pulled himself out of his chair and put himself in Fleetfoot’s, knocking her out of the way as she was trying to sit back down. He pointed past Dash’s face at Spitfire. “Listen here you, you gotta do more to put these idiots in line or else they’ll never take you seriously!”

“Dare I ask what that means?” Spitfire asked, resting her cheek in her hoof.

“I’m glad you asked!” Silver chuckled, taking another long drink.

“Surprise. Goldmine alert.” Lightning Streak slammed a hoof on the bar. “Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!” He kept tapping his hoof.

“Way ahead of ya!” Surprise giggled, already scooting her stool nearby with her long list of ‘things Silver says’ wrapped around her twice and disappearing into her mane, a feather quill at the ready.

“So… listen up…” Silver leaned further, taking up a lot of Dash’s personal space as he tried to get closer to Spitfire. “If you ever want a pony to take you seriously… all you gotta do…” he turned and looked Dash right in the eyes. “You threaten to put your dick in their ear.”

Dash stared blankly as everypony went silent until Blaze suddenly snorted.

“Okay, that was the last thing I expected to hear, but somehow I’m not surprised,” she said, holding her stomach.

“Don’t you fucking giggle over there, I ain’t kidding ya,” Silver turned and pointed at Blaze before refocusing on Spitfire. “You hear me? Threaten to put your dick in their ear. They’ll laugh and go about their business.”

Spitfire just stared with a very uncomfortable look as Lightning Streak snickered.

“I dunno, Silver, that might be problematic for her.”

“Then you keep threatening to do it!” Silver went on. “Let them laugh and laugh, let them go on their way.” He narrowed his eyes. “And then one day… ACTUALLY DO IT.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened while the look of discomfort remained, laughter erupting around her.

“AND GUESS WHAT?!” Silver yelled out, leaning to his side, forcing Dash to catch him. “They will always take you seriously after that. They will fear you!”

“Does that actually work?” High Winds lazily asked.

“Sure does!” Silver took a sip of his drink. “Just ask Wave!”

All eyes snapped to Wave as he nearly spat out all his cider. Spitfire slowly turned her head around to focus her look of disgust on him. Wave avoided eye contact, coughing as he pounded a hoof to his chest. Fleetfoot hopped up and rested her chin on Spitfire’s head.

“Haaaa, see that?” Silver pointed at Wave. “His head went up a little when I said that because he clenched his ass cheeks against his stool.”

Fleetfoot glanced back and forth between them.

“Silver put his dick in your—?”

“NO!” Wave yelled at her, making her flinch and fall off Spitfire while laughter erupted again.

“Dude this is…” Lighting Streak held his stomach. “This is suddenly the best night ever. Hey, hey, someone keep him talking, keep him talking!” he encouraged.

But he didn’t have to, Silver shifted back over to his seat to refill his glass, Fleetfoot quickly hopping back up on the seat.

“I tell ya,” Silver putters his lips and shook his head. “Yer all a bunch of slack jawed pussies.” He held the jug up and pushed it into Fleetfoot’s face. “You should all drink some of this crap and you’ll become a sexual dragon, like me!”

“Augh! No!” Fleetfoot pushed against the jug. “It smells worse than the stallion’s locker room!”

“Back in MY day…” Silver went on, dropping the jug in Fleetfoot’s lap.

“BLEH!” Fleetfoot quickly put it on the bar and slid it back to Silver.

“None of you would have survived as recruits!” Silver swayed back and forth in his stool. “My first day of training, Blizzard sent me, Cannon, Steady, and Valkyrie out into a field of tall grass behind the compound. We didn’t ask why, we just followed orders, waded our asses out into the field, the grass reaching our chests. Flight instructor FlakJacket was out there waiting for us, and we didn’t have time to blink before he THRUST his arm into the tall grass and PULLED out a live garter snake!” Silver pounded his hoof to the bar. “HE BIT OFF ITS HEAD! AND SAID… ‘Welcome to the Wonderbolts.’” Silver finished in a forced deep and sinister tone.

“What the ffffffffff—?!” Fleetfoot lost it, several others guffawing as well at the less than believable story but…

“HUH…?” Blaze stared wide eyed with her mouth agape. Everypony burst out laughing again at her reaction as Spitfire sighed and turned to her.

“Blaze, please tell me you don’t actually believe that,” she said with a sigh.

“With him how the fuck do we ever know?!” Blaze grabbed her mane.

“I don’t tell lies Blazey Cakes,” Silver chuckled, swaying as he pointed towards her.

“WHAT. THE FUCK. DID YOU JUST CALL ME?” Blaze recoiled backwards into High Winds, her eyes twitching and her body shuddering.

“I’m calling you that from now on!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she fought back fits of giggles.

“NO. GOD NO. PLEASE NO.” Blaze threw her arms out.

“Can I call you that?” High Winds asked, scratching a hoof into Blaze’s mane.

“Okay maybe,” Blaze calmed down and bit her lip.

“Scissor me timbers, are you two about to do it right here?” Silver called out. “At least wait until we leave the bar or else we’ll have to rename this place Heavy Clam Jammer.”

“HRMPH!!!” Fleetfoot’s cheeks puffed up, she turned and jammed her face against Dash’s side and unleashed muffled laughter into her fur.

“AAAAaaaaaAAAAHHHH…” Dash twitched as Fleetfoot’s voice buzzed against her.

“CLAM JAMMER?!” Lightning and Air Mach both yelled out as they fell over backwards laughing, accidentally knocking Surprise off her chair as she furiously wrote down on her list.

“Okay that one was pretty good,” Spitfire cracked a smirk and chuckled along with Wave.

“Hey, does she ever fall asleep when you’re frisk twisting her?” Silver pressed, pointing at High Winds.

“Are we REALLY having this conversation?!” Blaze yelled, pulling her ears down as her face turned bright red.

“Sometimes you gotta just wake up,” Silver wobbled, facing forward and taking another sip from his drink. “You know what’ll wake you up fast? A tongue in the ass. That would wake me up fast. I’d be up and in a karate stance. You can’t let a pony assert their dominance on you like that without punching them in the face or else they’ll do it again the next night. Once they have you nervous in the service you’ll never get the better of them again.”

The Wonderbolts were now at the point of just glancing at each other and shrugging while laughing as Silver just went on and on.

“Bro…” Lightning shook his head out. “Silver’s old threat to visit us at night in clown makeup just took on a whole new meaning…”

“You better not have been doing that to recruits over the years…” Spitfire trailed off and looked at Dash. “Please tell me he hasn’t.”

“As far as I know, no… at least not to me!” Dash frantically replied, shaking her head.

“Yeah, that sounds like something he’d do to Lightning Streak,” Fleetfoot swung a hoof around and smacked Lightning on the back as he passed by.

“Ugh… URRRRRGH…” Lightning shuddered hard. “Fleet, no.”

“I’d rather rub one out with a hooffull of tacks,” Silver quickly shot back at her before looking at Lightning. “Look though, told ya it’s enough to scare a pony forever, see? He’s shaking like a dog trying to shit a peach seed.”

Silver suddenly leaned back and looked up as two older mares walked by to return their empty cider mugs. Silver whistled loudly at them.

“Heeeeeeeeeey! Ladies! Wanna make fourteen bits the HARD way?!” he asked, laughter erupting around him, specifically from Lightning Streak sounding like he was about to throw up a lung as he inhaled half his drink. Spitfire quickly looked at both the mares and shook her head, making a horizontal motion past her neck. One of the mares tipped her head and looked like she was thinking about it, but the other dragged her along and out.

“Okay Silver, I know you’re drunk, but keep it with all of us,” she suggested, but was visibly amused herself.

“What?” Silver shrugged. “I probably made their day, I doubt they’ve heard that shit in years.”

“Don’t make me tell your wife,” Spitfire added.

“She can join us!” Silver cheered as he put his glass in the air and took another sip.

“Sheesh, how much of that is he taking down?” Wave asked. “Is he going to remember anything from the past three days at this rate?”

“Why worry about that?” Lightning Streak chuckled. “Geezer’s got the right idea!”

“Brother, don’t go bothering all the mares,” Fire tried to cut in before he even started.

“Don’t be like that bro, I bet if I play my cards right, I could bag a mare here tonight!”

“HA!” Silver guffawed. “Nopony here is interested in your dysfunctional kickstand.”

Fire smirked at Lightning as snickers and chuckles came from around them.

“I rest my case,” Fire smirked before he was pulled into a surprise hug by a happily buzzed Misty Fly behind him.

“No you’re gonna stay right here,” Silver pulled Lightning Streak over to the other side of him. “Stay right here where you belong with the skin flute band,” he said as he shoved him right between Fleetfoot and Air Mach. Fleetfoot flattened her brow at him.

“Why did you include me in there?”

“You’re the lead singer,” Silver poked her in the chest. “And all your music really blows.” Lightning and Air Mach burst out laughing.

“Oh sure, like YOU know my sex life,” she stuck her tongue out at Silver.

“I could always ask.” Silver tapped a hoof on Lightning’s shoulder. Fleetfoot’s eyes shot open and she cringed.

“GAH! NO! NO! NO!” she turned to her cider mug. “AUUUGH!” she grunted as she chugged the entire thing. Dash blinked and turned to Lightning.

“I’ve heard this at least three times now, what the hell actually happened?” she asked. Lightning Streak threw on a bravado filled smile.

“It was NIIIIIIIIIIIIICE…”

“RRRAAAAAAAAGH!” Fleetfoot suddenly whipped around, grabbing Lightning by the neck and tackling him to the ground.

“Whoa, WHOA! WHOOOOOOOA!” he yelled out, Dash staring with a blank wide eyed expression as Fleetfoot started strangling him on the ground. Silver was too busy refilling his glass to care, and Fire was just watching from Misty’s arms.

“Aren’t you going to stop her?” Dash asked Fire with a smirk. Fire shrugged and shook his head.

“I’m okay with it,” he confirmed as Spitfire and Wave finally moved to pull Fleetfoot off of him.

“Dude…” Lighting slowly got up, Fleetfoot heaving angry breaths and snorting at him as the rest of the bar patrons barely paid any notice.

“Yikes, that was a violent reaction,” Wave commented as they put Fleetfoot back in her stool and she dug her face into her cider mug.

“And it was hilarious,” Silver added. “Goldilocks over here piped up and got smacked down real quick.” Silver glanced to his right to see Misty let go of Fire so he could grab his drink. “You two are getting rather intimate over there, quit snuggling up to me.”

“You’re acting like I have a choice,” Fire said with a chuckle. “When she wants something, she will not be denied, especially if it’s me.”

“I’m seeing a pattern here, how tight is the leash, huh?” Silver asked.

“Leash?” Fire blinked, touching a hoof to his neck.

“Not the one on your neck, chuckle-nuts,” Silver slammed another gulp of his drink. “She may follow you out to the golf course to kiss your balls and make your putter rise, but once it does she gives you a good yank and puts you right in her doghouse!”

“I’m confused,” Fire admitted. As the other laughed behind Silver.

“There was so much innuendo in there I’m still trying to write it all out!!!” Surprise whined as her list continued to grow in a pile of paper behind her.

“Made perfect sense to me!” Lightning guffawed while making his way over to Fire. “Face it bro, she’s got you wrapped completely around her hoof. She ever let you come up for air?”

Fire suddenly smirked.

“I’d say I’m faring better than you at least.”

“WHOA! SHIT!” Silver suddenly leaned over, getting into Lightning’s Face. “YOUR CAREER IS OVER! SIT THE FUCK DOWN!” Silver swung his cast arm around, smacking Lightning over the head with it and sending him flat to the ground.

“SILVER!” Dash reached over and grabbed him. “Stop!”

“Excuse me, WHAT?” Silver turned to her. “Since when do you give a damn about him?”

“Your arm... Silver. Don’t swing it around like that.” Dash clarified.

Silver stared and blinked. Then burst out laughing, others following along as Dash wondered what she had done.

“Nice Dash…” Spitfire snickered. “Lightning takes a hit on the noggin and you’re more worried about what hit him.”

“Oh… pfff…” Dash held her breath. She didn’t even think of it.

“Striking out left and right tonight…” Lightning wobbled to his hooves and hobbled back to the bar for more cider.

“So Fire, humor me here,” Silver turned back to him as Misty started running a hoof in his mane, looking a little happily buzzed. “So she doesn’t speak. Does that meeeeeeeean…” Silver rotated his hoof.

“Mean what?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Silver poured out more into his glass, but missed at several points, splashing it out on the bar. Dash scrunched her face, reaching over Fleetfoot to slowly pull the jug away from Silver as he turned back to Fire. “She make any noise?”

“Has she ever?” Fire tipped his head slightly, still confused.

“Not even when you…” Silver rotated his hoof again.

“I still don’t follow.”

“Fire! Come on!” Fleetfoot leaned over and threw her arms out, giggling. “It’s like you haven’t been listening the whole time, what the hell do you think he’s talking about?!”

“She gets it, but that’s cause it’s all she thinks about,” Silver made a head motion at her.

“Hey!”

“During… Ooooooooh…” Fire blinked, his ears flopping down. “Uh…” he turned and looked at Misty, who obviously couldn’t hear anything he was saying. “No, she’s quiet then too.”

“Quiet or silent?” Silver pressed, sounding way too serious for the subject matter. But he was starting to sway a bit much, he wasn’t just drunk, he was really drunk.

“Silent.”

“Not even a squeak or whistle? That must be weird,” Silver took a swig of his drink.

“Whistle…?” Dash spoke up, lifting an eyebrow as Blaze and High Winds snickered behind her.

“Yeah this one time I was making love to my wife,” Silver casually turned, but appeared to lose his posture on the way over and slumped down on the bar, sliding the rest of the way until he was facing Fleetfoot even though Dash was the one who said it. “But she kept her mouth shut since the kids were asleep. Celestia preserve me, she started to whistle and smoke came out of her ears.”

“What?” Fleetfoot twitched.

“I know right?!” Silver tried to throw his arm out but ended up lazily bopping it against Fleetfoot’s shoulder instead. “I didn’t know if I had shtupped her or if I had made tea!”

Fleetfoot tipped over and let her head hit the bar. Spitfire groaned and rolled her eyes as Surprise yelped and fell off her stool, tangled in her list.

“IT’S TOO MUCH, I CAN’T KEEP UP!” she wailed.

“It reminded me of the pressure cooker she bought the night before, but thankfully her head didn’t launch off her neck and hit the ceiling,” Silver rambled on. “Glad it broke, the things my wife cooked up with that unholy piece of garbage frightened me. I don’t think stuffed peppers are supposed to glow in the dark.”

“Good lord he’s drunk…” Spitfire commented, slowly looking up and looking at him with concern.

“And it’s the best thing ever,” Wave added, chuckling. “I’ve spent more time with him than all of you. Believe me, I’m not going to let him live this one down.”

“From that night forward we waited till the kids were out of the house before we got out the rub… the rubber… the… liquor… the…” Silver tipped his head down as he struggled to get the words out. “What am I trying to say here? Uh…” he slid down, resting his chin on the bar and holding his glass with his good hoof. “Rub… WAIT! WAIT! .... Rubber ducks and dick her…yeah that’s what I was saying.”

“Rubber… what?” Fleetfoot snorted into her mug. Fire blinked and tipped his head.

“Isn’t the joke phrase… ‘rubber buns and liquor?’”

“TONIGHT IT’S RUBBER DUCKS AND DICK HER!” Silver swung his cast arm around and jammed his hoof poking out of it against Fire’s chest. “NOW SAY IT!” he yelled.

“Whoa!” Fire yelped as Silver nudged him off his stool and he fell into Misty Fly. But she caught him and pulled him over, hugging him tightly while swaying and silently giggling.

“Speaking of smoke…” Silver scrunched his nose and sniffed the air. “Did somepony just light up in here? ANUS! WHY ARE PONIES SMOKING?!” Silver yelled for the bartender.

“Because it’s allowed here, jackass!” Croc’s voice came from the back room.

“Pbbbbbbltpbhtlt…” Silver blew a raspberry as he slid his body back across the bar and focused on Fleetfoot and Dash. “Sheesh, I can’t stand the smell of cigarette smoke. My late grandma smoked herself to death, she had four cats. Only one of them was left when she died and my old stallion decided to take it. Thank Celestia it was already 17 years old and only lasted a month before kicking it.” He leaned towards Fleetfoot, causing her to lean backwards into Dash. “But it lived long enough for me to learn that you can’t scrub the smell of nicotine out of a cat, believe me I tried as hard as I could. One whiff and you’d think it used to live in a coal mine or something…”

“Where is he going with this…?” Fleetfoot asked.

“Beats me,” Dash chuckled as Silver continued to ramble.

Dash perked up as two other ponies walked by them as Silver kept going. An earth stallion and a pegasus mare. The earth stallion was big. Well… his width was more impressive than his height, and he had a very big head with a huge nose. Looked very gruff and no nonsense.

The mare was the polar opposite. She was wearing an absurd amount of makeup, very fake eyelashes, her lips almost looked fake, and she had a very shapely body… which judging by the rest of her Dash wouldn’t be surprised if there was some cosmetic work done there too. There was a fancy looking saddle fastened to her that probably wasn’t as expensive as it looked. Most of the Wonderbolts had their backs turned as they moved by, the stallion broke off to squeeze his large self into the bathroom while the mare sat down near them at the bar.

“Whoa there…”

Dash’s ears twitched and she turned to see both Lightning and Air Mach leaning over to look at the mare. Spitfire looked at the two of them and followed their eyes.

“Wow guys, really?” she asked them as the two kept nudging one another and whispering.

“Hey now, hey now…” Lightning nudged Spitfire. “Let the stallions observe the hottie.”

“Hottie?” Spitfire snorted. “She looks faker than Silver’s medical record.”

“Hey, you finally noticed?” Silver chimed in. “What’s going on over there? What the hell is THAT?!” Silver said fairly loudly as he eyed the mare nearby.

“Something that these two apparently think is attractive,” Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Yeah it’s attractive,” Silver spoke up, shrugging. “If you’re into ponies that swallowed two whole watermelons and dipped their face in lead based paint. What the hell is she wearing, is that a saddle? Lordy, you two. That’s a red flag right there, be wary of mares in fancy saddles.”

“Oh yeah?” Lightning smirked as the mare just finished looking over at all of them. “Mare in the fancy saddle just eyefucked the SHIT outta me.” He said with a content nod.

“Is this the part where you get rejected again?” Wave asked. Dash opened her mouth to say that the mare showed up with a stallion, but she held her tongue… on the off chance this ended hilariously.

“Nah, you know what? I’m gonna do it,” Lightning chugged what was left of his cider.

“No you won’t,” Silver scoffed. “You’re going to shit buttersnakes and tell us about how you’re going to nail it, but if you could you wouldn’t be the leading contender for the swing-and-a-miss award. You think every mare wants your dick, but you can’t find it.”

“Just watch and take notes ya old donkey, you might learn a thing or two!” Lightning cracked his neck back and forth.

“This should be good,” Silver took another large drink from his glass and finished it off. “Hey, where’d the jug go?” he asked as he looked around, swaying pretty heavily.

“Good call, Dash,” Spitfire whispered to her as she eyed the jug.

“Mmhmm…” she hummed as the two watched Lightning saunter over to the mare… right as the large stallion emerged from the bathroom.

Lightning cleared his throat as he approached the mare.

“Hey pretty lady,” he scooted into the stool next to her as she shot him a sultry look. “Here all by your lonesome? Lemme buy you a drink.”

“Hmmm…” the mare hummed, lifting an eyebrow. “Actually…” she giggled while glancing up.

“HEY. BUDDY.”

Lighting flinched as a very large hoof slammed down to the bar right between them.

“Oh.” Lightning looked up to see the stallion glaring at him over his big nose. “Holy shit, you are a unit…”

“You LOST?” the stallion leaned down towards him and snorted in his face.

“Whoa there bro, I was just—”

“SCRAM or I’ll pound you flat.”

The rest of the Wonderbolts were watching with amusement at the predicament Lightning walked his way right into.

“Hey, hey, okay you don’t gotta be so touchy bro. You’re the one that left her out here,” Lightning tried to play it cool. There was no doubt Lightning could take the guy on easily, but they weren’t there to start a bar fight.

“You got to the count of three.”

“Bro…

“ONE…”

“Sheesh dude…”

“TWO…”

“Okay you know what…?

“THR—”

“HEY YOU!” Silver suddenly yelled. All eyes turned to him, including the large stallion. Silver was sitting upright and pointing over all of them. “Yeah YOU! With the big nose and three hundred pound jowls! I’m talking to you! YOU’RE with HER?!” he asked, motioning to the mare.

“Yeah? WHAT OF IT?” the stallion grunted, his glare now focused on Silver. At this point every single patron had stopped what they were doing, the entire bar stopping to watch. Croc emerged from the back room, but froze in place, eyes widening as he saw Silver staring down the big stallion.

“How the hell do you kiss him with that honker of his in the way?” Silver asked the mare while pointing at the stallion’s big nose. “Go to the hardware store and buy some hinges for that nose so you can move it out of the way!”

Blaze and High Winds both scooted away from the bar as the stallion trudged closer.

“Got a problem with my NOSE? Cyclops?” he grunted. Silver looked him up and down as Wave slowly shifted to place himself firmly between the stallion and Spitfire.

“Holy shit! Forget the nose, you are one ugly son of a bitch!” Silver went on. “You all seeing this here? Look at that! I bet if a blind pony touched his face they’d ask ‘why is there a pizza on this camel’s ass?’”

Wave Chill grabbed Spitfire and pulled them both away as the stallion trudged closer, snorting as he loomed over Dash and Fleetfoot, glaring at Silver.

“Butcher, Butcher just sit down,” Croc suddenly came forward and tried to talk the big stallion down. “He’s drunk. Didn’t you just get out of jail two days ago?”

“Step off Croc, I don’t like this guy!” Butcher growled as Dash started leaning back into Fleetfoot. Dash’s eyes hardened into a glare. As much as Silver was bringing this on himself, she didn’t like the way Butcher was advancing, or threatening.

“Hey, back off you big oaf. Sit down and have a drink,” Dash confronted him.

“You want some too?” Butcher glared down at her, but she held her ground, Fleetfoot peeking out from behind her.

“Sheesh he’s big…” Fleetfoot gulped.

“She sure as hell doesn’t want some from you!” Silver piped up again, leaning over to look at the mare. “And good gravy, how does SHE?! I think if I woke up next to you I’d chew my arm off.”

“Hey!” Croc moved over to Silver. “Will you just shut up?!”

“Anus, give it to me straight,” Silver poked Croc in the chest. “That’s one ugly mug up there, worse than the ones you serve cider in! Hell if I looked like that, I’d shave my ass and walk backwards!”

“THAT DOES IT!” Butcher shoved Dash and Fleetfoot aside. The two yelped, but were caught by Wave and Spitfire as the rest of them all came forward to stop Butcher from attacking Silver. But Butcher stopped in his tracks as Silver held up a hoof.

“Gimme a sec…” Silver reached down to the now revealed jug that was beneath Dash’s stool, and instead of pouring some out, tipped the whole thing up and took a large gulp from it. “PSHWOOOOO!” Silver exhaled loudly. “I NEEDED that… I was THIRSTY!” He looked up at Butcher, who was cracking his hooves back and forth. “Oh, what’s this? Uggo Thuggo wants to fight me?”

Butcher reached for him, but Silver swung both his arms up, the one in the cast falling as he swayed in his stool.

“BAD IDEA you bloated bag of cottage cheese!” Silver started rotating his one hoof in the air. “You know who I am, Tiny? I’m the Iron Fucking Horse of the Wonderbolts with a ham candle so fat it has a girth certificate! And you’re nothing but a fat cock that doesn’t know shit from apple butter! I’ve been on more high octane air raids than trips you’ve taken to the shitter in your life and by the looks of you that would be MANY! You’re like a seeping boil on the ass of a disease infested rat that deserves to be eaten by a Komodo dragon and shat off a cliff! You think you can fight me? Think again, assclown! I can cook one minute rice in fifty eight seconds and know at least seven hundred different ways to kick your ass, and that’s just with my bare hooves! I once took out the entire Canterlot Royal Guard with two punches… and the first one missed! So just try me you triple-truffle-shuffle blimp! I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it!”

All eyes just remained wide as Silver kept going… and going… and going… but Butcher had had enough.

Everypony gasped as Butcher rushed at Silver, but the moment he moved, Silver got up from his stool, leaned left and extended his good arm out, grabbing Butcher by the back of the head and slamming his face REALLY hard against the bar, so hard that his big nose went right through the wood.

Silver held his head there for a moment and glanced up at the shocked mare.

“Hey, could you help me out? HIC!” Silver asked, a loud hiccup making his voice squeak at the end. “I need you to find some baked beans and rub them all over my body.”

“Rgh…” Butcher started to stir, nose still stuck.

“Oh, hey, he’s still up!” Silver pulled his head free from the bar.

“Blarh!” Butcher coughed as Silver let go of him, growling loudly.

“Easy peasy…” Silver grabbed an empty cider mug nearby. “Off the HEEZY!” he yelled as chucked the beer mug, catching Butcher right between the eyes and knocking him over backwards almost right on top of the mare. She yelped and scooted back as Butcher landed on his back. Silver leapt onto Butcher’s chest and pointed at the mare again. “By the way my name is Richard Strong, but my friend’s call me Dick.”

Silver started punching Butcher in the face over and over.

And ironically, the Wonderbolts now found themselves rushing forward to stop Silver from beating up a pony twice his size after they were ready to protect him from him moments ago.

“Silver that’s enough!” Spitfire grabbed him by the arm and pulled at him.

“Silver! You made your point!” Wave tried to coax him as Dash helped the two of them pull him off Butcher.

“LEMME AT HIM! LEMME AT HIM!” Silver yelled.

“Whoa! Look out!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelled as Butcher grabbed a nearby barstool as he sat up and threw it in their direction.

“HRMPH!” Dash let go of Silver and slid forward, swinging her wing out to knock the bar stool away…

But it landed right in the middle of a table full of other bar patrons.

“Oh jeez…” Dash cringed. “Uh… sorry!” she yelled over to the table as the stallions got up and glared in her direction. “Ah hell,” She bit her lip as one of the stallions grabbed the chair he was sitting on. “Incoming everypony!” she yelled as the chair was launched towards them, hurtling towards Misty Fly… who was staring straight ahead and still bopping back and forth, completely oblivious to everything.

Without a moment of hesitation, Fire sprang towards her, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her down while throwing a wing out. His wing hit the chair, but only slightly diverting it, the flat backrest slamming into his side.

“RGH!” he grunted as the hit pressed him to Misty.

Misty nearly spat out her cider, swallowing before quickly turning around and staring at Fire with concern as he cringed. She looked at the chair clattering on the floor, then sharply turned her eyes towards the stallions standing up at the table, the chair thrower still at the end of his follow through.

An incredibly hard glare formed on Misty’s face.

“Uh oh…” Lightning grabbed Air Mach and forced him in front of him. “Everypony take cover!”

“Misty no!” Spitfire tried to yell, but obviously there was no point.

Misty picked up her bar stool and launched it at the stallions, knocking over two of them, and before any of them could begin to form any sort of response, Misty was in the air and diving at them, the stallions yelping as she took two more of them down and then fixed her eyes on the remaining three.

“YEAH! NOW WE’RE TALKING!” Silver cheered as he ripped free from Dash. “Hey Blaze, make yourself useful!”

“Wha?!” Blaze yelped as Silver grabbed her by the arm. “What the—YIPE!” she squeaked as Silver swung her off her stool and launched her at Butcher. Butcher flinched as Blaze hit him in the chest, stumbling back. Silver rushed forward, grabbed him by the neck and yanked him down, causing him to tumble towards the scene of Misty’s rampage.

“PONY'S ELBOW!” Silver yelled as he leapt through the air and jammed it down on Butcher’s back.

“Son of a bitch,” Spitfire grumbled. “Guys, stop them before this gets out of…” Spitfire trailed off as several more bar patrons leapt in and started throwing punches and chairs, Silver and Misty having their way with most of them. “Dammit.”

“I just finished fixing up the place from last time…” Croc groaned.

“Dash, Fleet, get Silver and get him out of the bar!” Spitfire ordered.

“I dunno Spitty,” Fleetfoot shrugged. “It looks like Silver’s doing just fine.”

“I know, I’m more worried about him killing somepony,” Spitfire grunted, earning a few snickers from the rest. “Everypony else help me restrain Misty, we’re out of here!”

“Well okay we’ll—whoa!” Fleetfoot perked up as Dash dove right into the crowded bar fight. “Hey! Hey! Wait for me!”

Dash ducked and weaved, doing her best to slowly make her way towards Silver. She was trying to be serious since it wasn’t like Silver was in the sturdiest condition but… at the same time she was trying not to laugh. It seemed like only having one functioning arm and only a half functioning body didn’t seem to slow him down at all, and he was still yelling all sorts of nonsensical stuff thanks to the alcohol.

“OOF!” Dash grunted as she took a wayward arm to the gut, slightly knocking the wind out of her. She crouched down and shook her head out, catching her breath as Fleetfoot caught up to her, but stopped in her tracks.

“YEEK! Lookout!” she yelled as she pulled Dash down. Dash looked up to see a screaming stallion passing over the top of them… multiple times. She glanced up to see Silver had the stallion by the back hoof and was swinging him around, smacking him into others coming at him.

“HAHAHA!” Silver laughed heartily. “Y’ALL EVER BEEN SO MAD THAT YOU HIT A MOTHERFUCKER WITH ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKER?!”

Dash and Fleetfoot just stared.

“You know, I kind of feel bad,” Fleetfoot spoke up. “Spitfire wants to get him out of here but he looks like he’s having so much fun.”

“Heh, I know right?” Dash agreed. “But… if any of these idiots gets lucky, Silver’s already broken, so…”

“Right, right…” Fleetfoot nodded. “Besides, we have the easy job.” She made a head motion to her right. Dash looked over to see Misty Fly elbowing Air Mach right in the stomach and sending him to the ground as she fought the rest trying to get her off the poor bastards she was beating to a pulp.

“Wow, she’s going all out,” said Dash, impressed.

“AAAAAAIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!!” The stallion screamed as Silver let go and launched him over their heads, crashing into a stack of glass mugs behind the bar. Dash and Fleet cringed as Croc started swearing up a storm.

“Whoa, whoa… dizzy…” Silver’s voice came from above them. Both of them looked up just in time to see Silver fall towards them.

“HUP!” Dash reached up, Fleetfoot doing the same as they propped up Silver. “Alright, come on Silver, time to go?”

“What? NAH!” he tried to pull free, but Dash poked a hoof hard into his chest.

“Don’t nah me, mister! It’s past your bedtime! Let’s go,” she scolded.

“Whuzzat? Bedtime? I don’t wanna!”

“Too bad!” Dash said firmly as she started pulling them along.

“Over here, Dash!” Spitfire waved to them by the door. The two nodded and quickly pulled Silver along, taking him outside.

“PHEW!” Dash exhaled as the fresh air hit her nose and mouth. “I will never take clean air for granted again!” she proclaimed as she and Fleetfoot pulled the mumbling, grumbling Silver over to a wall opposite of the door, Spitfire trotting over to meet them.

“Is he okay?” Spitfire asked with concern.

“Lemme go back in! I wasn’t done showin’ them my twenty-four inch premium monster package!” Silver yelled, trying to get back up, only to have Dash push him back down. Spitfire flattened her brow and snorted as Fleet snickered.

“Yeah, he’s fine…” Spitfire confirmed for herself.

The three mares flinched as a loud crash came from behind them. They all turned around to see a large hole in one window that wasn’t boarded up and Lightning Streak laying on his stomach on the ground. He picked up his head, blinked, and rubbed his jaw.

“Dude… she is going POSTAL in there!” he said with heavy panting, pointing a hoof at the window.

“Great…” Spitfire sighed, turning to Dash. “Dash, do me a favor and get Silver back to the hospital. Fleet! Let’s go!”

“Huh?” Dash blinked, but had no time to reply as Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Lightning all rushed back in to take on the apparently very difficult task of subduing an enraged Misty Fly. Dash sighed and glanced at Silver. He was looking up in the air and drunkenly chuckling.

“Heh… heh heh…” he looked down at Dash. “Hey, hey Dash…” he nudged a hoof into her side. “Did you know that Aspirin won’t bring a hooker back to life?”

Dash stared blankly at him for a moment.

“Good to know.” She reached for him and hoisted him up, supporting him with her shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you back.”

“That’s like if your son asks for a dog for his birthday and you get him a goldfish, you know?”

“Uh huh…” Dash nodded as she gently pulled Silver down the street with her.

“Right? Then to rub it in you tell him to take it for a walk and give him a leash made of dental floss, heh… heh…” Silver rambled on, dragging his back hooves as he leaned on Dash, drunkenly chuckling. “THAT’s when you know you’re a jackass. You feel me?”

“Yep,” Dash nodded.

Silver had been just sort of rambling since Dash started leading him back to the hospital. They had nearly made it there without any problems and incident, but while Dash was trying to focus on getting him back safely, she was snickering every few seconds at all the random stories and bits of ‘wisdom’ Silver was spouting. As weird as the night was, if Silver never got drunk as the Wonderbolts claimed, then it was a night to remember for sure. She just kept nodding and agreeing with everything he said, she figured if that was distracting him he’d think less about trying to get away and go back to the bar fight.

“…And that’s what happens when you eat cheese off the floor. I have a good refinery, but not that good.”

“Right…” Dash missed the first part of that one, but she was busy turning the corner, the hospital coming into view. “Finally, there it is.”

“There’s what?” Silver tipped into her a little.

“Hospital, Silver. It’s time to go back to bed,” Dash reminded him for what was at least the sixth time.

“Wait, night’s over already?” Silver groaned.

“Yes, Silver,” Dash reminded him as they started towards the building, Dash pondering how she was going to get him back in unseen.

“Hey, Rainbow Dash…”

Dash’s ears perked up.

“Dash… Skittles…” Silver rambled slightly, poking her in the shoulder. Dash glanced at him.

“Yeah?”

“I love ya.”

Dash’s face went blank.

“Uh, thanks?” she chuckled.

“Nah, stop that. Stop that,” Silver nudged himself into her. “I ain’t joking. I love ya.”

“I… love you… too…?” Dash awkwardly replied, tipping her head slightly.

“You made it all better. All of it.”

Dash’s ears stood up, sensing the tone in Silver’s voice.

“I don’t know what I’d be doing right now if you didn’t waltz your rainbow ass into the force,” Silver went on. “I had nothing going for me. I sat there and watched as the new generation slowly came in, one of the last of my time… over there, in the corner, just getting older and collecting dust. Things were going places I hated. It was just a matter of time before I was done, hung up the uniform, and I had nothing left behind except for a few medals and a cheesy portrait on the wall. Then a decade or so later anything I worked for would fade away.”

Dash glanced at him as he gripped her shoulder with his hoof.

“Then you came along and it lit a fire under my ass. It felt like a miracle or a twist of fate. When I saw what you could do I refused to sit there and watch. Just in the nick of time before I could quietly expire, you gave me a chance to leave something important behind, something that I knew wouldn’t fade away. You gave me a reason to get up in the morning and bite the ass off of a bear the way I used to and it felt great. Maybe I’d still have both wings and eyes if you hadn’t come along, but that’s a price I’d gladly pay for what I’ve been given from you.”

“Silver…” Dash looked away from him, her lips quivering as she suddenly felt warm.

“When I fought with that crazy bitch, I don’t think I’d ever fought harder for something in my life. I was doing it to protect all of you kids, sure, but… in the back of my mind, saving you was a personal, maybe even selfish priority. I wasn’t going to let your bright future end right there, no matter what. As if I was protecting my own daughter.”

“Silver!” Dash suddenly stopped on the spot, crouching down and placing a hoof over her mouth as her body shuddered.

“Hey, hey, what the hell? Don’t you start crying on me,” Silver poked her. Dash let out a loud sniffle and glared at him.

“You can’t say stuff like that to me and expect me not to!” Dash yelled as she reached out and hugged him. “You old jerk!” she stuffed her face into his chest. “I can’t imagine how I’d have gotten anywhere without you. When I thought you were dead I… UGH, DAMMIT!”

“Oops, I got mushy on you didn’t I?” Silver chuckled with a slight sway and hiccup. “I must be really drunk if I’m letting my guard down like that.”

Fan art by: Lazzari

“Ooooooh… I hate you,” Dash mumbled against his chest before pushing back from him and wiping some wayward tears from her eyes. “You always know exactly what to say to me, it makes me happy and pisses me off at the same time.”

“I try my hardest and have no regrets,” Silver ruffled her mane. “Now how about we go get another drink?”

Dash flinched and flattened her brow.

“Oooooh no, nice try you,” Dash hoisted him back up. “You’re going to bed and that’s—”

Dash looked towards the hospital again, but her eyes widened and she froze on the spot.

“Eh? Wha?” Silver looked up too.

Serenity.

Silver’s wife was sitting on the path just a few yards away, a flat look on her face and tapping a hoof on the ground.

“Oh, hi honey!” Silver chuckled, swaying and waving his good hoof in the air.

Serenity lifted an eyebrow as Dash remained perfectly still, frantically looking back and forth.

“Wow, you’re looking real good tonight! Did you get younger?” Silver added while almost knocking Dash over.

Serenity slowly rolled her eyes and shook her head, exhaling through her nose as she stood up and made her way towards Dash.

“Did he have a good time?” she suddenly asked. Dash blinked.

“Uh…” she glanced at Silver. He was letting his head hang back as he held onto her. “Yes?”

“He sure looks like he did,” Serenity huffed. “And I don’t know how you got him drunk… must’ve been some incredibly strong alcohol they were serving wherever you went.”

“Uhhhh… yeah,” Dash awkwardly rubbed the back of her head, surprised that Serenity was taking this rather… well. Almost as if she wasn’t surprised. Serenity looked Silver up and down as he whipped his head back down and looked her right in the eye.

“Hey darlin’ wanna play a game of find the snake under the bed sheets?” Silver bounced his eyebrows at her.

Serenity snorted and shook her head.

“Thanks for bringing him back safe, Rainbow Dash. I can take him from here.” She nodded.

“Oh? Sure…” Dash shield weakly, slowly passing him to her.

“It’s bed time for you, buster,” Serenity said firmly as she propped up Silver.

“Huh? Aw, but I was about to score!” Silver groaned.

“Oh, no you weren’t…” Serenity sighed as she started leading Silver towards the doors.

“Goodnight, Silver!” Dash chuckled, waving to him.

“Niiiiiiight!” Silver waved drunkenly. “Have fun mounting Soarin tonight!”

Dash’s ears flopped down, but she held firm. Silver was drunk after all, he didn’t know.

“Can’t really right now, but okay!” she awkwardly replied.

“Wait. Wait,” Silver planted his hooves and stopped Serenity, forcing them both to turn around. “Why not?”

“Eh?” Dash blinked as Silver started dragging Serenity back towards her despite her protest.

“Something up with you two?” he asked after stopping in front of her.

“Silver…” Dash flattened her brow. “You already know what happened, you got the whole story the other day.”

“Didn’t you barge your way in already?!” Silver got in her face.

“Yes, I… it got complicated…”

“You didn’t blow up the Empire so why are they keeping you out now?” Silver pressed.

“They…” Dash blinked. “Aren’t actually, they said I could visit, but it all just happened and they are working on him so…” Dash stared blankly. “Wait, they did say I could…”

“Then why the fuck aren’t you?”

“I…” Dash scratched her head. “Good question. I’ve been frustrated about that all night, but it was because Soarin couldn’t partake, not because… Wow, I could’ve gone at any time, huh?” Dash put it all together out loud. Either she had forgotten that part or she was being too careful about giving them space to work on Soarin. Celestia did give her the go ahead despite Discord’s disapproval. She didn’t regret running into the Wonderbolts for some fun with Silver, but before that she was angsting over something she ultimately had access too when she pleased, or at least had some decent leeway.

“Then go see him dammit! And if Discord doesn’t let you, put your dick in his ear until he takes you seriously!”

“Um…” Dash blinked.

“Oooookay Silver…” Serenity started pulling him away. “Bedtime.”

“Remember what I said at the bar! It works!” Silver yelled, letting his head hang back to keep looking at Dash. “Don’t you pussy out on meeeeeeeeeee!” he slurred as Serenity pulled him all the way to the doors and forced him through.

Dash sat still for several moments after they were gone, but… it didn’t take long for her mind to set itself on what she wanted. It was late but… screw it.

She wanted to see Soarin… and see if Celestia had any news for her. And if Discord tried to block her way she’d… well… try her best to emulate asserting herself in a way that Silver’s suggestion would since it would be kind of hard to do it his way.

She stood up, cracked her neck, and stared firmly down the path back towards the palace before breaking into a light, eager canter.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

I just wrote 21,000 words of Silver being a jackass and i have absolutely no regrets. :pinkiecrazy:

But hey, thanks to this night of fun it looks like it hit Dash that she had a way out of her frustration all along! Now i wonder if it will be a hassle to get in? :moustache:

Now that we've all had our fun, this officially marks the end of the 'vacation' chapters. Despite the next chapter happening on the same night, we're going to get a few wheels turning regarding what's happening and where things are going. :twistnerd:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! (And had a good laugh!)

(Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf)

Chapter 180: Like a Moth to a Flame

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 180: Like a Moth to a Flame

Dash paused, staring down at the hallway rug and subtly digging her hooves into it, her body shivering slightly. Funny how just a few hours ago she was doing her best to tear herself away from this feeling, yet here she was going right back to it.

The Crystal Palace halls were quiet. The Ball must have ended because most of the activity around her included servants going back and forth with dishes, decorations, and anything that could be considered ‘cleanup’. They all came and went from the direction of the ballroom and courtyard with some of the guards being recruited to help carry tables. Some of them glanced at Dash as she randomly stood in the middle of the hall, but they kept to their tasks.

Dash was too busy taking deep breaths to notice. It didn’t take long for the surging sensations to rush through her as she made her way back to the palace, and now that she was actually in the palace it was the Crystal Ball all over again, feeling Soarin so close by.

“Okay, Okay… come on, Dash, focus… eyes on the prize…” she spoke to herself quietly as she exhaled and refocused. All she had to do was get to the end of the hall and turn right… and the chamber where Soarin was being kept would be right in front of her.

She broke into a trot, holding back the urge to stop and bask in the tingling feelings rushing up and down her spine and instead began thinking about what angle she’d punch Discord in the face if he tried to turn her away. They said she’d be allowed in, but… she was pretty sure he’d still give her some bullshit reason to stay out.

“Eh…?” Dash blinked as she turned the corner and the chamber doors came into view down the hall. There was a lot of commotion just a few paces from her. Several servants with brooms and waste bins were moving about and sweeping below a large, broken stained glass window.

Dash stared up at it, then glanced down at all the glass being carefully picked up off the floor. She glanced down the hall, the chamber doors fairly far down the hall from it.

“Huh…” Dash tipped her head before continuing on. “I wonder how that happened?”

Her initial worries that the broken window had something to do with Soarin didn’t last more than a second, there was no sign of any other… destruction. There must’ve been some sort of drunken disagreement between partygoers or something, but… how did they break such a big window nearly the height of the palace halls themselves?

She shrugged to herself as she approached the chamber doors, neither guard reacting to her aside from a quick glance. She looked between them both as she lifted her hoof to knock on the door, but neither said anything to her so she went for it.

She rapped her hoof on the door three times, very hard to make sure it was heard. The guards again just stood their ground, so Dash waited patiently.

She leaned back and glanced back down the hall at the broken window again, looking to the guards right after.

“So, uh… how did that happen over there?” she asked them casually.

Bother guards blinked, glancing at one another awkwardly. Dash quickly noticed their reaction, but before either of them could say something, there was a sudden blip of purple light between them. Dash inched backward in surprise as Discord appeared directly in front of her. He crossed his arms and stared flatly at her.

“What?” he asked simply, sounding very miffed. Both of the guards inched away from him but stayed close enough to remain at their posts. Dash lifted an eyebrow, looking Discord up and down before tipping her head.

“What do you think?” she asked sharply, trying to firmly establish herself before she could get any resistance. “Use your brain.”

Discord snorted, grinding his teeth together as he glared down at her, but instead of fighting back, he turned around and waved a hand in the air.

“Alright, alright, don’t give me any of that Silver Lining sass,” he muttered. “Just come in and close the door behind you, please.”

Dash blinked in surprise as Discord walked through the door without opening it.

“Huh… I wasn’t expecting that…” she looked at the two nervous guards. “What is he so pissy about?” she asked.

The guards said nothing, glancing at one another again before both looking in the direction of the broken window.

Dash left it at that. The guards were clearly scared to say anything regarding the window or Discord. So instead of pushing the issue, she figured she’d find out eventually… maybe. She was more concerned with what was waiting for her beyond the doors.

Without further ado, Dash pushed the large doors open and let herself in, closing the door gently behind her like she was asked, but the moment the door was firmly shut, she spun around and quickly made her way around the large pillar blocking her view… freezing with eyes wide as she stepped around.

It was like the moment a week ago all over again. There were a lot of other things present in the room this time, but her eyes found their target in an instant.

Soarin.

He was right where she last left him, floating gently in the air within the stasis bubble, eyes closed, and breathing steadily. Dash felt her heartbeat quicken, placing a hoof on her chest as her eyes drank in the sight of him. Simply SEEING him again was already making this moment amazing for her, so what was she waiting for?

She swallowed, putting one hoof in front of the other carefully, making sure to focus on just entering the room instead of being distracted. She didn’t want to repeat what happened the first time and knew that her being allowed to visit him probably hinged on her ability to control herself.

So to help herself out, she tried to briefly focus on her surroundings as she made her way in.

The first thing she noticed was the ghostly image of Sombra sitting off to the side. What’s more, she looked in that direction first because she heard several voices talking. She was surprised to see Sombra was surrounded by several older Crystal Guards. They appeared to be joking, laughing, and telling stories with him. Dash quickly put together that they had to be the old knights she heard about, ones who were released from the thousand year old seal along with the Empire and once served under Sombra’s leadership. That had to be it… because Sombra looked happy. She watched for a moment as one particular knight brought up something that made them all burst out laughing while Sombra rolled his eyes and jokingly jabbed back about bringing it up with a very big smile on his face.

Maybe that was the reason Discord had his underwear in a bunch. Either Sombra strong-armed Discord into letting the knights in or Celestia let him do it and Discord couldn’t say no to her. Or maybe just seeing Sombra happy pissed him off? That was certainly believable. Perhaps it was the fact that they were allowed to see Soarin in his current form. They all saw him arrive under Sombra’s control, but… a sudden new divine alicorn existing was being kept under wraps the best they could to avoid confusion. If they were let in regardless, that would lend to the possibility of Discord being strong-armed though. But they seemed to care less about a male divine alicorn floating in the middle of the room and more about reconnecting with their once-lost king.

Speaking of Discord and Celestia… Dash focused forward, and while it put Soarin in her view, she noticed Discord and Celestia standing around a few tables set up closer to Soarin. One of the tables was piled high with books and scrolls, the other had an arrangement of food from bread, to a bowl of fruit, some carrots, pies, and salads. The book table must have been where Twilight was keeping all her notes, it looked just like her desk back home. The food was likely for anypony there that wasn’t a projected image and maybe… for Soarin too? Dash began to wonder if Soarin had been eating… he sure didn’t LOOK malnourished, quite the opposite. Perhaps his current state or the stasis he was in made it a moot point?

And speaking of Soarin…

As Dash grew closer to him, she suddenly couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She probably could if she tried, but she didn’t have the slightest urge to do so. Her body shuddered as she slowly took one more step, then another, then another until she was doing so without giving it a single thought. She spent all night wishing he was with her, so being careful was an afterthought. Her slow steps quieted the sound of her hooves on the floor. She moved right past a distracted Celestia without her noticing, the image of the sun goddess distracted as she watched Sombra and his knights with a smile on her face.

Dash could no longer control herself, she felt compelled to move closer and closer. Her eyes slowly grew wider, her mouth slowly opened like a young filly watching a shooting star in the night sky for the first time.

She closed in, coming within ten yards of Soarin, a yellow glow appearing around her body.

“Tia, really?”

Dash yelped as something grabbed her tail and gave it a hard yank, tossing her away from Soarin, her hooves skidding along until she slid to a stop near Celestia. Celestia blinked and perked up.

“What? OH!” she gasped, placing a hoof over her mouth as she saw Dash groggily sway and touch a hoof to her forehead. Discord snorted, crossing his arms and giving Celestia a flat look.

“She walked right by you and got dangerously close,” Discord pointed out as he leaned over and rested an arm on Dash’s head.

“Uuhhhh…” Dash groaned as she felt dizzy, barely noticing the extra pressure on her head.

“I, um…” Celestia’s face turned a light shade of pink as she moved a wing around to slightly cover her face. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

“CLEARLY…” Discord grumbled, shooting a glare towards Sombra and his knights over by the wall.

“Guh… HUH?!” Dash finally came to her senses, twitching once or twice as if waking up from a dream.

“And YOU…” Discord placed a hand over Dash’s head and pressed down. “For heaven’s sake, get ahold of yourself,” he berated her as she noticed he had a hold on her and shot him a flat look. “I agreed to let you come in, but not if you’re going to just saunter up to a ticking time bomb with your head in the clouds. Have you already forgotten what happened before?”

Dash glanced over towards Soarin. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, ignoring Discord’s grip on her for a moment as she took a deep breath and focused until the remnants of the yellow glow faded from around her body. As soon as her body felt calm again, she looked towards Celestia, then lifted an eyebrow as she did her best to face Discord from her disadvantaged position.

“Yeah, I remember,” she said in a sarcastic tone. “I shocked Soarin into letting your piece of ass and worst nightmare partially free from his body at the same time.”

Discord’s face briefly went blank until a loud snort and chuckle came from the direction of Sombra. Discord grumbled inaudibly, huffing in frustration and letting go of Dash as Celestia now had her whole face hidden by her wing.

“Thanks for the reminder,” Discord said in a very drawn out, frustrated tone.

“Ahem! Ahumm…” Celestia cleared her throat and put her wing down, face still slightly pink as she held her breath and exhaled. “Though, I would agree with Discord. Please do be careful. We are still unsure of his stability. He has remained mostly calm and your presence does seem to rouse him when suddenly in close proximity.”

“Sorry,” Dash shrugged. “It’s pretty hard to resist. My mind was sort of wandering as I walked in, I got too close by accident. I’ll behave myself, I promise.”

“You better…” Discord mumbled.

But Dash ignored him, instead looking over Soarin carefully, at least as carefully as she could from her distance.

“So…” she looked to Celestia. “I know it’s only been a few days, but how is he? I mean, he doesn’t look any different, but can you give me any updates?”

Celestia glanced at Discord, but he had his back turned to them and gave no sign of being helpful. She sighed and rolled her eyes, focusing on Dash.

“Well, I’m not sure I can give you a completely accurate assessment. Even with the help of Luna, Cadence, and Twilight we’ve barely made a dent in understanding how this happened or what to do next, but… while we haven’t made any ground, it seems that HE may have on his own. I can feel the movement of my magic within him and it appears to have calmed down quite a bit over the past five days.”

“Is that… good?” Dash asked, not quite sure. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” Celestia admitted, shaking her head. “I’m basing my read here on my own experience. What’s happening to him or how he’s feeling it could be entirely different for all I know. But what I CAN say for certain is that when I first opened my mind to the depths of divine power, the adjustment period was similar, the power settling in and the strain on my body and mind easing over the course of several days. I was unsure how the process would go for him, so it’s encouraging to see it play out similarly,” she paused and sighed. “But there are still many pieces to the puzzle to consider that are completely different, if you recall.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Dash agreed, earning a nod from Celestia.

“He’s a mortal… or was. He has little experience with magic. He’s likely being bombarded by visions and rushes of emotions no mortal should ever be burdened with. Really, I’m still in awe that we are even standing here looking at this right now…” she looked down at Dash. “I want you to be the first to hear me say… that for all my power, insight, and foresight, it appears there are still many things about our world and my power that I have yet to discover and understand. This was never something I’d consider to be possible.”

“Oh, believe me,” Dash spoke up in a sarcastic tone. “We’ve got the whole ‘not-so-perfect-after-all’ designation for all of you gods down pat by now.”

“I heard that,” Discord growled from nearby.

“GOOD!” Dash shot back loud enough for everypony to hear.

“Enough, enough…” Celestia waved a hoof back and forth in front of her. “We are in no place to deny that now. But back to the task at hoof,” she looked back to Soarin. “If I were to place my largest concern right now, it would be Soarin’s mental state. The magic may be settling in, but it has still altered him in drastic ways, both physically and mentally. I’m of the thought that he will be stable enough to release from stasis soon, and when we do he will awaken naturally… but what happens then…”

“You’re worried he’ll freak out?” Dash asked.

“That’s one possibility, similar to what happened when he first transformed. But even if he awakens in a calmer state, the mental burdens may overwhelm him. He could be entirely overcome with pain and sorrow very quickly and an emotional imbalance of that magnitude could also cause him to lose control of the magic.”

“And…” Discord moved up on the other side of Dash. “That would be a nice fat repair bill for the Crystal Palace… or for the entire Empire as we try to restrain him.”

“Wait, wait…” Dash held out her hooves, looking at Celestia with worry. “Pain and sorrow? Wha…?”

“Indeed,” Celestia nodded. “You see, when I reached into the depths of divine energy to obtain the power I wield today, I…” she trailed off, looking towards Soarin. “Actually… perhaps this isn’t something I should say.”

Dash’s eyes instantly flattened into a frustrated glare. Celestia noticed and quickly shook her head.

“No, no, no. You misunderstand me. I’m thinking ahead here,” she made a head motion to Soarin. “When Soarin awakens, if the burdens begin to destabilize his focus, one way we may be able to keep him calm is to have him express what he’s feeling directly to the one…” she motioned a hoof at Dash. “Who brings him the most comfort.”

“So me…” Dash tapped a hoof to her chest.

“Ideally,” Celestia nodded with a smile. “There is nothing secret about the burdens I’ve carried because of my great power, I just don’t speak of it much at all. It’s become something I’ve learned to live with over the course of centuries. I feel having you near and letting him speak to you will be a very effective way of keeping him calm in the face of what will be weighing on him. I’m sure your soul connection will do wonders to comfort him as well.”

“Assuming her proximity to him won’t amplify it instead,” Discord grumbled with a loud snort. “That’s the last thing we need,” he added with a not-so-subtle snarl under his breath.

Dash glanced up at him flatly for his tone, but she perked up when she noticed Sombra looking up from his knights and towards them from across the room, furrowing his brow at Discord. Her eyes shifted between the two of them… Discord was clearly in a mood, it was time she knew why.

“Care to tell me what’s stuck so far up your ass that you’re practically stuck in a straight line?” she asked bluntly.

Discord’s eyebrows twitched heavily as snickers and chortles came from the direction of Sombra and his knights. He stole a quick glance over his shoulder while grinding his teeth together.

“It’s been a FUN few days for me…” he grumbled. “Between keeping a leash on Tia’s horny little sister and putting up with the attitude of ye olde royal ghost prick over there.” He said purposely loud enough for Sombra to hear.

“I’m sorry, did I hear that correctly?” Sombra yelled over. “You seem eager to be put in your place again!” Sombra threatened with a clear tone of confidence that made his knights laugh some more as Discord appeared to do everything in his power to ignore him.

“I can vouch for Discord,” Celestia spoke up. “I’d prefer he be a little less crude referring to my sister, but he HAS been working overtime through this situation.” She paused and glanced towards Sombra. “Though the road has had its share of bumps and… disagreements.”

“Hrmph…” Discord huffed, crossing his arms.

“Disagreements… right…” Dash tipped her head and lifted her brow.

Dash’s eyes slowly drifted back towards Soarin. The moment she did… she felt herself inching in his direction again. She gritted her teeth as her body twitched, trying her best to keep herself still but the feeling was just… so… STRONG. The rush of euphoria flowed into every corner of her body, trembling and tingling as she kept leaning despite her best efforts to remain upright in place.

Discord perked up, his eyes locking on Dash as she stood up and started slowly shuffling her hooves, not even picking them up as if she was being tugged towards Soarin. He quickly lifted an arm, his aura appearing around it, but suddenly a yellow glow appeared around his arm, pulling it down. His head snapped to Celestia to see her horn alight. She looked him right in the eye and shook her head no.

“Let her try,” she whispered. Discord held his breath, scrunching his face as he pulled his arm free and kept it at the ready just in case.

“Nnngh…” Dash slammed her eyes shut, digging her hooves into the floor and forcing herself to stop. She tipped forward, the magnetic pull trying to force her along, but she held strong. With a solid effort, she forced herself to sit down and took several very deep breaths, holding the last one in as she opened her eyes and stared at Soarin. Her eyes slowly grew wider, a faint yellow flicker blinking in and out around her body. Every instinct was telling her to move forward, every thought was telling her to listen to the desire, but she was determined to not let herself be controlled by it. She was going to be a part of this… Soarin needed her to be here, so she couldn’t be a loose cannon.

But… it was such a strong pull, it was undeniably touching every inch of her and trying its hardest to break her. She felt so drawn to him… the desires involved filling her head and prodding at her endlessly.

She wanted to touch him.

She wanted to grab onto him and hold tight.

She wanted to press herself to him.

She wanted to kiss him.

She wanted to—

“HNNNGH!!!!” Dash reached up and smacked her hooves to her face repeatedly before whipping around and putting her back to Soarin. She sat upright stiffly, her wing feathers fluffing up and flittering as her eyes shot open wide and her face contorted awkwardly, a mad red blush flushed all over her face. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m good… okay, okay, all peachy!” She took a long deep breath and held it in for almost fifteen seconds, her eyes twitching. “HAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…” she exhaled loudly before panting with heaving breaths, beads of sweat dripping down her face. She bit her lip and shuddered. “Aieeee… wow… haaa…”

“You certainly don’t look peachy…” Discord snorted, putting his arm down.

“Ignore him,” Celestia quickly shifted in front of Discord and stuck a wing out. “That was a very solid effort,” she nodded and smiled. “We appreciate you trying to understand the effects and keeping yourself under control, I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been just now, considering what we’ve seen thus far.”

“You know what?” Discord walked right through Celestia’s image and loomed over Dash. “Come here.” He turned his hand over and made a beckoning motion with his finger. His magic aura surrounded Dash and lifted her up into the air.

“Hey!” Dash yelped as she tried to move, but was held still.

Discord lifted his other arm and snapped his fingers, a giant black sharpie marker appearing out of thin air. It uncapped itself and pressed to the floor, drawing a large circle in a fifteen yard radius around Soarin.

“See this line?” Discord pointed to the circle. “Don’t go past this line.” His magic moved her back and placed her outside the circle. “If you really want to risk staring at Soarin until fire shoots out from between your legs, you’ll do it from a safe distance where it’s easier to keep your hoohoo yahoos in check.” Discord glanced past her to see Sombra glaring at him. “And what are you staring at?”

“I haven’t a clue what that instrument is,” Sombra pointed to the sharpie floating in the air. “But stop putting unsightly marks on my palace floor.”

“YOUR palace?” Discord flattened his brow. “Give it up and get with the times you high sodium haunt.”

“I never actually died, so as far as I’m concerned it’s still my castle and it’s being unlawfully occupied,” Sombra stated firmly.

“Oh woe is you that another royal family that’s completely qualified to lead the Empire has taken your…” Discord paused. “You know what? No. I’m not doing this.” Discord flicked his finger, moving the sharpie over to Sombra. His knights backed away as it drew a circle around where Sombra was sitting as small as it could. “You sit in your circle, you’re in time out.” He harrumphed and turned his back. Sombra immediately moved aside out of the circle, his knights snickering as Sombra made bobbing head motions and silent mouth movements to mock Discord.

“Don’t let him discourage you,” Celestia said to Dash as she ignored the bickering and focused on her. “Gauging all of this is something we need, but I share his desire to be careful about it. I can’t fathom how powerful your soul connection with Soarin is now with my energy flowing through him.”

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed, her ears flattening. But then something hit her. She sat up straight and blinked. “Hmmm?”

She looked herself over and thought carefully about what was happening to her and how her body was reacting to Soarin and… why did feel like she had just talked about this… in a different context?

“Wait… wait…” Dash put her hooves out in front of her and wiggled in place on her plot until she was facing Discord and Celestia. “Question.”

“Hm?” Celestia hummed as they both focused on her.

“Earlier tonight, I confronted Luna at the Crystal Ball about her recent… habits,” Dash said with slight sarcasm. “I have my own words for it, but she gave me her version of the story, which was basically the same thing Discord told me, but without the implication of her being a skank.”

Celestia gasped and glared at Discord.

“You called my sister a SKANK?!” she yelled angrily. Discord rolled his eyes and groaned.

“THANK YOU, Rainbow Dash… It’s going to take me weeks to convince her that’s not what I actually said,” he grumbled.

“Whatever, close enough,” Dash pointed towards Soarin without looking at him. “Luna gave me a lot of ancient backstory jargon that I could barely process, but she mentioned something specific about female Alicorns. After some junk and specifics about traditions and higher purposes, she said something about how male alicorns can activate every single sex button on a female alicorn by simply existing and walking by them… or something like that.”

Discord averted his eyes and snorted, but Celestia quickly nodded.

“Oh, the pheromone reaction…?” she paused and glanced down, touching a hoof to her face and blushing slightly. “Goodness, it’s been so long since I thought about that…” she said quietly while glancing at Soarin.

“Yeah, well…” Dash waved an arm at Celestia to keep her focused on her. “Luna claimed she was too young to experience it way back when and said her absolute gnawing desire to press her moon all over Soarin was ‘confirmation’ that he had taken on a divine form.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Discord tipped a hand back and forth. “Tell us what we already know. What’s your point?”

“A part of my soul is in Soarin…” Dash made a hoof motion towards him.

“Yes,” Discord huffed.

“And my body is being… ‘charged’ by her power as a result.” Dash pointed at Celestia.

“Okay, and?”

Dash ignored his annoyed snippiness and pressed a hoof to her chest.

“Is that... why this is happening to me?” she asked.

For a moment the two just stared blankly at her, but Celestia suddenly perked up.

“Oh? OH!” she blinked as Discord’s eyes widened slightly.

“I know the soul connection thing,” Dash twirled her hooves in front of her. “But that’s been a thing for a while. Our connection and our usual libido were strong, but… it was never this unhinged. If Celestia’s magic is more or less working itself into me through the soul connection… is my body reacting the same way a divine alicorn mare’s would? Seriously, the moment I look at him I feel like I get lassoed around the neck and yanked towards him. And let me tell you, I get pulled towards him with all sorts of intentions that even Fleetfoot would think are extreme.”

“Huh? What is it, Fleet?” Spitfire asked as she opened the door to their hotel room.

“I don’t know, but…” Fleetfoot looked around and narrowed her eyes. “I feel like I’ve just been challenged…”

Both Celestia and Discord appeared curious. Dash was surprised that neither of them had considered it.

“Hmm…” Celestia looked down. “Hmmm…” she appeared to be in deep thought, her eyes eventually moving to Discord. “Hmm?” she hummed one more time, tipping her head.

“What are you looking at ME for?” Discord bent his body to the point where he was nearly at a right angle while lifting his brow before flattening it. “It’s YOUR energy.”

“If it’s HER energy inside Rainbow Dash…” Sombra spoke up again. “Then it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that she’s feeling that particular drive.”

In an instant, Celestia’s pure white face turned as red as a tomato.

“S…Sombra…” she stuttered as she completely covered her face with both her wings.

“Thanks for being ever so helpful…” Discord shot back at him without bothering to turn and look.

“My deepest apologies,” Sombra smirked. “I’m only sharing my personal insight, you know.” He added with a very sly tone.

Discord’s body straightened and stiffened as his eye twitched hard. He spun around and glared.

“That’s enough out of YOU. Get back in your time out circle!” Discord’s eyes glowed and the small circle on the ground slid along the floor until it was around Sombra again. Sombra immediately stepped out of it again.

“I might be mistaken, but I think I’ve struck a nerve,” Sombra glanced at his knights and made a head motion toward Discord. “Who wants to see me tie this bespawling bobolyne into a painful knot?” he asked.

All of his knights eagerly raised a hoof.

“Oh sure… SURE!” Discord trudged over to Sombra. “Please, keep taking advantage of the fact that you can touch me with your magic, but I can’t touch YOU!” He bent his head all the way forward to get in Sombra’s face. “That’s REAL mature of you, you know that?” he stood upright and threw his arms into the air. “Oh, how silly of me, I almost forgot how helpful you’ve been so far… OH WAIT!” he put his hands firmly on his sides and bent forward again. “You haven’t helped AT ALL!”

Sombra scoffed.

“I have better things to do than spin my wheels over something I know nothing about while endlessly being told what I can and cannot do by an insufferable buffoon.”

“BETTER things?” Discord growled. “Oh yes, going for strolls in the halls of the palace when you’re supposed to stay here sure is helpful! All you’re doing is scaring the servants and guests when they suddenly see the ghost of an ancient king casually wandering around, and leaving us one hell of a task to convince them that they’re just imagining things!”

“Didn’t I just say this is still MY castle?” Sombra snorted at him. “I will walk my halls as I please.”

“Shows how much you care about your precious castle when I caught you and you tried to kill me!” Discord pointed a finger into his face.

“I did no such thing.”

“You FLUNG me through a WINDOW!!!”

“Yet here you are!”

The two were nearly butting heads, or at least they would be if Sombra was solid.

“Oh, huh.” Dash tipped her head slightly. “So that’s how the window in the hall was…” she slowly looked to a frustrated Celestia. “I take it this is pretty much how working with them has been?” she asked as the laughter of Sombra’s knights filled the air, enjoying every moment of their king letting Discord have it.

“More or less, yes,” Celestia sighed. “Hold on, I have to go break it up… again.”

As Celestia moved towards the bickering duo, Dash thought carefully about everything that was just discussed. She decided to test herself, taking a deep breath and slowly looking in the direction of Soarin again, her eyes passing along the ground to see where the line was drawn before looking up and taking in an eyeful.

Her body jolted, the feeling welling up inside of her even at this distance. Before she could even think about holding herself in place, she tipped forward far enough to nearly fall forward, forcing her to stand up and place a hoof down to prop herself up. But the moment her hoof touched down on the other side of the line, she grunted and pulled it back. It felt three times harder to move backward than it did to move forward, but she stayed on the other side of the line. She had to get a grip. She wanted to be able to get close to Soarin, but she didn’t want to do it out of extreme, out-of-control surging desire and accidentally cause a magical reaction. If she was going to get close… she would do it under her own power… but how long would it take to reach that point?

Sombra perked up, tipping slightly and glancing between the gods as Celestia scolded them both for jawing at each other. He saw Dash facing Soarin… and saw her straining herself to remain in place. Sombra’s eyes darted back and forth between Dash and the gods. At the moment Celestia was focused on Discord. He took one last look at Dash, a smirk briefly creeping on his face.

“Furthermore, we can’t have you two always—”

“Will you butt out?!” Sombra lashed out, cutting off Celestia as he moved over and looked her right in the eye. “Perhaps you believe we can work together, but nothing makes me vomit in my own mouth more than the thought of working with this pathetic whiffle-whaffle!”

Celestia leaned back in shock as Sombra directed his anger at her. Discord growled and stepped in between them.

“Alright you…” he growled, wagging a finger in his face. “You listen to me. It’s one thing for you to not do anything to help us… it’s another entirely to act like an asshole while WE’RE trying our hardest to solve something that is very much YOUR problem! We might hate each other’s guts, but I WON’T tolerate you speaking to Tia that way!”

“I’m sorry, did I hear that correctly?” Sombra flattened his brow as his blue magic aura began to swirl around his horn. “You want me to throw you through another window?”

“DON’T even think about it!” Discord visibly shifted backwards.

“Sombra, stop it!” Celestia pleaded from behind Discord.

But as the two of them focused on him… neither of them had any idea what was happening behind them.

“Huh…?” Dash blinked as she suddenly felt something. She looked down to see a blue aura surrounding her body. Before she knew it, she was being pushed. She went right over the line and started skidding along the ground towards Soarin. Alarmed, she leaned back to resist, but as soon as she tried to push back, the magical force adjusted to prevent her from making any difference, her hooves sliding along the ground as she was slowly nudged closer. What started as panic was cut short as an extreme rush of euphoria surged through her, the shrinking proximity to Soarin having an immediate and drastic effect. She tingled and shuddered like mad, her body heating up immensely.

“Quit it with the magic antics!” Discord snarled at Sombra.

“Hmmm…” Sombra casually looked around the room, his eyes landing on Dash once as he continued to quietly nudge her towards Soarin. “It’s a shame there are no windows in here… perhaps I should just put you through the wall instead.”

“Sombra, enough!” Celestia walked through Discord, her yellow aura alight on her horn. Sombra fixed his eyes on her, but kept a straight face as he continued subtly working his magic.

Dash was being overwhelmed, her eyes began to glow yellow and the yellow outline appeared around her body as well. So many feelings and desires were welling up from deep inside of her. She was more than halfway into the circle now, and Soarin began to stir. The faint, perpetual yellow glow around him began to flicker unevenly, the same effect starting around Dash as well.

It was growing stronger… and stronger… and stronger still. Soarin’s lips parted, his teeth gritting together as he quietly grunted, the light surrounding them both reaching out and merging together as it continued to undulate.

But suddenly… the vacant stare in Dash’s eyes hardened into a harsh glare. She tensed her body firmly and exhaled, a look of pure determination on her face as she forced the raging surges of desire down, holding her body back from giving in to the pleasure.

She stopped resisting the push of Sombra’s magic and instead concentrated entirely on Soarin, now closer than she had gotten the whole time with less than five yards between them. As she focused, the flicker of the aura stopped around her. Though their auras were connected, hers became smooth and constant, the connection of the light between them holding tight as if trying to tame Soarin’s aura.

Sombra blinked as he felt Dash cease her resistance, and noticed her composure. He smiled subtly… and released her from his hold. She was standing very close to Soarin and she was holding herself strong.

“Feh, on second thought you are not worth my trouble,” Sombra scoffed as his magic receded from his horn. Discord blinked.

“What? That was very abrupt…” he said skeptically.

With one firm step, Dash began closing the remaining distance between them. She forced every attempt by the desires to rush outward down as she took another step, then another, moving right through the stasis bubble he was floating in.

She was moving on her own. She didn’t care how good the euphoric sensations felt, that’s not what she wanted. She didn’t want to lustfully throw herself at him… she wanted to comfort him. Hearing him grunt and seeing him wince… watching his face jitter, his lips and eyelids twitch… Those were the things she focused on because she wanted to put him at ease, and nothing was going to stop her from doing that.

Now standing directly in front of him within arm’s reach. She took action… reaching for his face to give it a comforting touch.

“What are you trying to pull?!” Discord leaned over Sombra and got into his face. “And what’s with that disgusting smarmier-than-normal look on your face?!”

“Hm? Oh, nothing…” his eyes briefly shifted to Dash and right back to Discord. “Nothing at all.”

Discord’s ears folded back and his eyes widened as he caught Sombra’s glance. He whipped around so fast that half his body went right through Celestia’s image, causing her to flinch and stumble.

“AH!” Discord yelped as his eyes landed on Dash, standing right in front of Soarin and about to touch him.

He thrust his arm out, his chaos aura flaring up around it. But before he could do anything, the blue aura of Sombra’s magic suddenly appeared around his hand, forced it into a fist, and yanked it inward, using it to make Discord punch himself right in the face. Discord’s head tipped back and he stumbled. Sombra tipped his head towards the tables near Soarin, wrapping his magic around the bowl of fruit. He lifted it and shot it towards Discord, moving it up and turning it over before slamming it down as hard as he could over Discord’s head. Several loud splurts and smushing noises rang out as Discord was forced all the way to the floor, chin slamming to the crystal as Sombra pressed the bowl as far down as he could, covering Discord’s entire head and smashing all its contents onto him.

Celestia was disoriented and distracted by Sombra’s sudden fruit attack on Discord, that it wasn’t until Discord was firmly planted on the floor did she realize what was happening. She gasped as she looked over to Dash… but it was too late.

Dash touched Soarin, gently pressing her hooves to his face. One on his cheek, the other beneath his chin.

Soarin flinched, a quiet breath releasing from his lips.

Celestia was frozen in place. Sombra released his magic from the bowl of fruit, Discord frantically tipping the bowl up to look towards Dash as dripping fruit juices slid down between his eyes.

But nothing happened… at least at first.

Soarin was perfectly still for several seconds… but over the course of those moments, the light surrounding him began to calm, the flickering undulations smoothing out and slowly dying down until his aura was as still as the one around Dash. His body relaxed, the jitters nowhere to be seen, no more grunts of discomfort escaping his throat. His mouth hung slightly agape, but his lips began to twitch gently… until they started curling up into a weak smile. He tipped his head towards Dash’s hoof on his cheek, as if reacting to her touch.

The sight made Dash’s heart flutter. Soarin’s movement, the feeling of him reaching for her hoof…

He could feel her there, couldn’t he? He knew it was her, he had to. Dash slid her other hoof along his chin and up the other side of his head until it was on the other cheek. Soarin sighed comfortably, tipping his head the other way to press to her other hoof.

Dash bit her lip, her body quivering slightly. He DID know it was her. He definitely did… and he looked so comfortable, so relaxed.

Dash slowly leaned in and brushed the side of her nose against his. She shuddered as she felt Soarin’s breath against her face, giving her goosebumps and her fur standing on end as a feeling of comfort rushed through her. What was going through her head right now was utterly destroying the uncontrollable urges, proving to be far stronger than the unhinged lust. Without missing a beat, Dash shifted forward, nuzzling her cheek against Soarin’s face tenderly as he tipped his head towards her to feel her close touch.

Celestia and Discord both watched carefully, neither moving a muscle as Dash and Soarin remained together. The silence was eventually broken by a satisfied chuckle from Sombra. Discord instantly flattened his brow and growled, forcing himself up and whipping around to glare at Sombra with the bowl of very smashed fruit still on his head.

“Are you out of your mind?!” he yelled at the very smug looking Sombra, as fruit juice continued to run down his face. He angrily pulled the bowl off of his head and tossed it aside as a windshield wiper appeared in front of his face, swishing back and forth to sweep the bits of fruit off of him. “The last time she got that close to him we were one second short of this whole chamber going up in flames! If something had gone wrong while you were being a dick with your magic, I wouldn’t have been able to stop it!”

“You know…” Sombra lifted an eyebrow and tipped his head slightly. “You lack an astounding amount of curiosity for a god who can supposedly do anything.”

Celestia had a hoof gently pressed to her lips, her eyes were locked on Soarin and Dash, watching with great interest as Dash continued to trade light affectionate gestures with Soarin.

“Curiosity has nothing to do with it!” Discord snarled at Sombra. “You’re lucky nothing bad happened! We have no idea what we’re dealing with here!”

“We’re dealing with an unknown,” Sombra quickly replied, not budging despite Discord glaring barely an inch from his face. “So tell me how not taking any chances will solve anything? How far have you two gotten in the past week, hmmmm?” he hummed, lifting an eyebrow. “Anywhere at all while you pussyhooved your way around things as if a simple twitch would make Soarin explode?” He made a head motion towards Dash. “You are woefully underestimating that one. She played a pivotal role in Soarin’s fight against me and in bolstering Soarin’s ability to become something thought impossible. This is the second or third time she’s been near Soarin? It’s only logical to assume she would have given the experience critical thought. AND… it would appear I was correct, she has found the will and focus to hold back the urges. It would appear her efforts are having quite the calming effect on him after all. Want to know how long it took me to figure that out? Five seconds… with a little nudge.”

His smug smile grew a little larger as Discord stood silently, grinding his teeth together.

“I rest my case,” Sombra shook his head to whip his mane about, facing his knights with his nose held high as they hollered and clapped.

“Sh…Shut up…” Discord grumbled and he glared at the floor.

“I decline.”

Ignoring the two of them, Celestia slowly made her way towards Soarin and Dash, watching with interest and a little bit of warmth in her heart as she watched Dash lovingly stroke her hooves up and down Soarin’s face and neck, nuzzling him gently. Her horn and eyes lit up softly, looking Soarin over carefully as she stopped before him, examining his body language and taking account of the magical vibes.

Dash pulled back from Soarin a little and smiled weakly at Celestia.

“Sorry if that was a bit much,” she apologized. “I… couldn’t help myself. Once I found the middle ground I just really wanted to comfort him.”

“No, honestly,” Celestia blinked as she continued to look Soarin over. “This was exactly the kind of breakthrough we needed. Discord has been very unwilling to try anything more direct or drastic. I admit I have been in agreement with him, but… by the looks of things, if you are able to focus and keep the surges of desire in check, your proximity to him is soothing him… quite a lot. I guess we owe Sombra for taking the chance, this will be good to know and…” she paused to look over at Sombra and Discord. Discord was yelling explicatives as Sombra used his magic to pull him down and grind a magically conjured hoof into his head as his knights laughed hysterically behind him. “I’ll… pass it onto them later…” Celestia said with an annoyed sigh.

Dash refocused on Soarin for a moment as he wiggled his nose around as if looking for her.

“Hey, hey, I’m right here you big doof…” Dash giggled, reaching forward again and hugging her arms around his big nose. Soarin sighed heavily as soon as Dash gripped him, his ears turning forward and backward a few times.

As she held onto him, she looked at Celestia curiously as she continued to shake her head at the two troublemakers she had been dealing with.

“Say… a minute ago I mentioned Luna bringing up a lot of things about the two of you way, way back.”

“Hm?” Celestia blinked and turned back to her. “Yes?”

“Stuff about divine alicorn society and such… which was apparently a thing.”

“Oh…” Celestia glanced down, mouth scrunching up a little. “Yes, it’s been… a very long time since then, it was very much real.”

“I heard you told Soarin a little about it already?”

“Yes, while Sombra was in control, he got some of our story, but barely a fraction of it. Mostly only what was related to Sombra.”

“I’d like to hear about it sometime,” Dash nodded. “From both you and Luna, especially with the current situation.” She made a head motion towards Sombra. “I wouldn’t mind some extra color.”

“It’s quite a long story, I’m afraid…” Celestia sighed, the subject seeming to be a little touchy or emotional as she looked at both Sombra and Discord.

“That’s what Luna said too,” Dash nodded. “I just wanted you to know I’m interested. Because right now… I just wanted… to see…” she started pausing, her eyes twitching lightly before she leaned her head back and yawned loudly. “I just wanted to see Soarin,” she finished. “Yeesh, what time is it?”

“Quite late,” Celestia smiled weakly as she refocused on Dash. “But we can definitely oblige at some point. I have a feeling you’ll be around more often from here on. Once Soarin is conscious again and stable, we can tell you all about it. Maybe even about…” Celestia suddenly trailed off as she looked over her shoulder.

“Hm?” Dash blinked, following Celestia’s eyes right to Discord.

“Hmmm…” Celestia hummed, biting her lip and placing a hoof over her heart. “Ex…excuse me… I should probably go stop them before Sombra gets any ideas.”

Before Dash could say anything, Celestia was up and moving, quite quickly, towards Sombra and Discord to break them up… yet again. She was curious about what had her skitter away so quickly, apparently something about Discord, but she was too tired to think too hard.

She frowned as she felt Soarin move, turning his head a little to nuzzle his nose into her chest. She was tired and needed to go to sleep, but she didn’t want to leave him either. But… thanks to Sombra it looked like she would get many more chances to come see him. She wanted to thank Sombra. Hell, she wanted to talk to Sombra in general since he had been a bit tight lipped about anything so far, but… he was a little preoccupied at the moment and she was too tired to wait around.

She slid her hooves over Soarin’s face and caressed his chin, a comfortable sigh leaving his lips.

“Hey you,” she spoke quietly to him. “I have to go now, but I’ll be back. I promise.”

Soarin released a breath from his nostrils that made Dash’s mane wave a little. She chuckled and stroked a hoof up and down his nose. She closed her eyes, leaned in, and planted a soft kiss on his cheek.

“I hope you wake up soon… I miss you.”

And with that, Dash slowly, and with some difficulty, slid her hooves over his face until she let go of him. Soarin looked slightly distraught as she let go, but otherwise he remained calm, the light around him soothed by his encounter with her.

The feeling of their point-blank proximity fading was borderline painful, but it was a slow decline as Dash stepped backward, keeping her eyes on him for several seconds as the noises of bickering in the background fell on deaf ears.

With one last look and one last smile, she turned and made her way out, the glow fading from her body slowly as she reached the door.

She left feeling better… much better than she had earlier in the night, but… damn, she was tired. It was time to sleep.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Now wasn't that rainbow pants-shittingly cute? Call the stampeding pack of corgis, we're going to ride the bicycle of dreams into friendship.

Ahem...

Well, it would appear Dash is better at controlling her personal urges than Luna, huh? Then again... Dash has more important reasons to approach Soarin, and it looks like those reasons far outweigh the insatiable drive being pumped through her by Celestia's energy. Sounds like there's a lot about alicorns Dash has yet to learn about, though she seems to be getting an unintentional personal crash course. At least now it seems to make perfect sense how Soarin lost control of himself that time WAAAAAAY back when celestia's magic emerged and turned him into a hip thrusting heat seeking missile.

And leave it to Sombra to tell the gods to get bent and figure things out himself. He spent his whole life taking chances so he's not going to stop now. Seems his faith in Dash after the role she played in his defeat was well placed... and it just burns discord's ass, doesn't it?

But it would appear Dash will play an important role in whatever happens to Soarin... and i know thats exactly what the readers want :rainbowwild:

And that officially concludes the 'vacation' section. From here... we'll be move along and get the next section of Arc 4's plot started! :moustache:

thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 181: Hidden Beauty

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 181: Hidden Beauty

CLANG

Fleetfoot nearly threw the barbell backwards into the rack, her arms slumping down at her sides. She gasped and wheezed for air as her wings unfolded and hung past her back, pressed to the padded bench press.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…” she wailed as she tried to catch her breath.

“Alright, that’ll do it for this workout,” Spitfire lifted a clipboard in her hoof and looked it over, stopping briefly to wipe sweat from her forehead with a towel after a few droplets dripped onto the paper.

“Rggghh…” Wave grunted, sitting on the floor nearby, reaching an arm up to grab his opposite shoulder and move his head around. “Damn…” He twitched, his towel slipping of his shoulders and falling to the floor.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…” Fleetfoot whined again as she slowly turned over on the bench.

“Good… good…” Spitfire checked off boxes on the clipboard. “Hit that mark, mmhmm…” she nodded as she spoke to herself.

She looked up at both Wave and Fleetfoot, paying little attention to how tired they looked as she nodded with a satisfied smile.

It was the third week since the three of them started this training regimen. She was certain by now the owners of the ritzy health club near the Crystal Palace were beginning to worry about just how often the three of them were there per day. But they were the closest gym to the palace and… they had no idea exactly what they were doing.

“I can’t feel my chest… or my neck…” Wave sputtered as he tried to catch his breath.

“You’ll be fine after we hit the dew baths,” Spitfire casually replied as she continued to read over the clipboard.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…” Fleetfoot wailed again, now lying flat on her stomach with her arms and legs hanging off the sides of the bench.

“Sure, for a few hours,” Wave tried to stand up, but twitched and sat back down. “Then we’ll work out again and I’ll lose feeling again in a different spot. At this rate I might just break something.”

“It’s been three weeks, Wave. Have you come close to breaking something yet?” Spitfire looked up at him and smirked. “That’s why we’re using the baths.”

“It’s been three weeks and you still don’t look like this is taxing you at all,” Wave gave her a look. “It’s like you’re not even trying.”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…” Fleetfoot cried, still on the bench.

“Hey, I’ve been trying!” Spitfire gave him a slight pout. “Where do you think this sweat came from? I didn’t dunk water all over myself. Don’t forget you were out for a while, I’m in better shape and… well…” she looked off and chuckled awkwardly.

“And you’re Spitfire, heh… ow…” Wave grabbed his neck again and moved his head around.

“Yes, there’s that,” Spitfire stuck her tongue out a little, pinching her arms to her body and giving her shoulders a small shrug.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…”

“Fleet, stop that.” Spitfire finally turned to her and gave her a flat look.

“I’m gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” she wailed.

“I’ve lost track of how many times you’ve said that,” Spitfire pointed out.

“I mean it this tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!” Fleetfoot rolled to her side and fell off the bench, landing with a soft THUMP on the rubber gym floor at Spitfire’s hooves. She rolled onto her back and let her limbs and wings lie flat. “See? I’m dead.”

“Oh, suck it up,” Spitfire rolled her eyes as she tucked the clipboard under her wing and turned towards a nearby gym bag.

“Why are you trying to kill meeeeeeeeeeeeee, what did I do to deserve this torture and why am I going along with it because you’re my frieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend?!” Fleetfoot kicked her legs into the air dramatically.

“Because I promised you it will be worth it… at least I hope,” Spitfire said the second part as quietly as she could. “We’re more than halfway done, just two more weeks to go so focus on that,” Spitfire suggested as she dug into the bag.

“I get what we’re trying to do,” Wave chimed in and sighed. “But are the dew baths enough? All this stress on our bodies can’t be good… can it?”

“Just hang in there for a little while longer, you’re both doing great,” Spitfire complimented them both, glancing over her shoulder at Fleetfoot. “Despite the whining.”

“Blow meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” Fleetfoot’s voice weakened as she exhaled all the air out of her lungs.

“You’ll have to consult my half-sister for that,” Spitfire said casually as she heaved a large plastic bag filled with powder and three shaker cups all filled with water out of the bag.

Fleetfoot’s eyes stuck open wide. She slowly tipped her head to look at Spitfire as she scooped the powder into the water cups and shook them up.

“Oh gawd… Hold on, I have to pre-gag,” Fleetfoot groaned as she looked at the ceiling and stuck her tongue out.

“Again… suck it up,” Spitfire made her way back over to them, jamming one of the cups towards Fleetfoot. “And drink up.”

“Neh…” Fleetfoot grabbed the cup, but stayed on the floor as Spitfire hoofed the other one over to Wave.

“Ugh… fine…” Wave complained as well, cringing as he looked at the greyish brown contents.

“NEEEEHHHHHHHH…” Fleetfoot puffed her cheeks up and kept her tongue out as she sat up. “I hate this crap, it tastes like a loofa!”

Wave and Spitfire both stopped mid tipping the cups to their lips and blinked.

“How do you know what a loofa tastes like?” Wave asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“I was really drunk, okay?” Fleetfoot huffed, finally gripping the cup and slamming some of the contents down quickly, but she barely got halfway through it. “BLARGH! For real Spitty, how hard would it be to add just a tiny bit of sugar to this or something?!”

“Not very hard, but that’s not what your body needs right now. If you want this to be worth it, you’ll…” Spitfire looked down at the cup in her hand, swallowing and scrunching up her mouth. “Ugh… deal with it.” She took a deep breath before taking a big swig of her own, the insanely bland, grainy taste hitting her throat. She shuddered as she took a few gulps before lightly biting her tongue and shaking her head out. It wasn’t like she disagreed with Fleetfoot, but… this was part of it. A quick drink filled with powdered calories, carbs, and protein dumped into their systems the moment their bodies went into recovery mode post-intense training, then jumping into the dew tubs to accelerate the muscle recovery and repair process WHILE the body was in that mode WITH the quick portion of nutrients. It really sucked, there wasn’t anything fun about it… but she had to know if this worked. She wasn’t going to let a possible boon like this go untested.

She slammed down the rest while bearing the nasty taste the best she could, tossed the cup back into the bag, and turned to Fleetfoot and Wave. She nodded firmly while doing her best to not wince at the aftertaste and hoping the two couldn’t hear the angry grumbling noises coming from her stomach.

“Alright, on the double,” she tapped a hoof on the floor. “Finish those shakes, we need to hit the baths before our bodies have a chance to relax.”

“Waaaaaaaaaaaah…” Fleetfoot whined before throwing back what was left in her cup. “BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!” she fell over onto her back, dropping the cup next to her as she rocked back and forth.

“Come on Wave,” Spitfire made ahead motion at him as she slung the gym bag over her shoulder and moved towards Fleetfoot. “Help me peel miss drama queen off the floor.”

“Right, right…” Wave shuddered as he stood up and shook himself out, moving gingerly over to the two of them as his body twitched.

With some effort, they got Fleetfoot up and slowly made their way out of the gym, Spitfire resorting to hooking one of Fleetfoot’s arms with the strap of the gym bag to drag her along. But regardless, she continued to moan as they started the short walk down the street back to the Crystal Palace.

“Please just kill me…” Fleetfoot wheezed as she let her head hang back.

“Oh just stop it already, Fleet,” Spitfire huffed as she dragged her along, moving at a slowed pace for both her and Wave lagging slightly behind. “You’ve never whined about working out before.”

“I USUALLY have time to REST!” Fleetfoot smushed her head into Spitfire’s shoulder.

“You’re resting right now,” Spitfire nudged her head out of her fur. “Ten minutes in the tubs, then we eat, then ten more minutes in—”

“In the tubs,” Wave cut her off. “Then a two hour break, and then we hit the weights again.”

“Actually we’re doing flight sprint suicides after this, but at least somepony is paying attention,” Spitfire chuckled as Wave groaned at the thought.

“EAT?! Aaaaaaauuuuughhhh… I forgot about that…” Fleetfoot wailed.

“How could you forget that part?” Wave asked as he tried to keep pace. “That’s the part I dread the most every time.”

“I’m not even hungry!” Fleetfoot whined. “At this rate I’m gonna get FAT!”

“Given how much energy we’re burning every workout, I doubt it,” Spitfire clarified. “Three weeks in and none of us have packed on a single smidge of pudge from it, so either you eat for the energy or the workouts will be even harder. Think of it as a tradeoff.”

“My liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife…” Fleetfoot’s voice cracked and faded out as they reached the Crystal palace.

Spitfire quickly dragged them both along, making their way through the palace halls to the cleric infirmary where the three dew baths were ready and waiting. The moment they came into view, Fleetfoot suddenly found the energy to move, reaching out towards her bath.

“Neh, Neh, NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHH!!!!!” she made odd noises as she dragged herself towards her bath and pulled herself up, over, and in with a gentle splash into the faintly glowing blue crystal dew. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh… Ooooooooooooh…” Fleetfoot let herself sink in all the way up to her chin. Spitfire chuckling as the bath was all it took for Fleetfoot to stop complaining. “Feels so good…” Fleetfoot sighed. “At least this part is nice…”

“And after the second dip…” Spitfire slid into her tub, doing her best not to splash since the clerics were real stiff about wasting even a single drop. “You’ll feel good as new and you’ll wonder why you whined so much.”

“Can’t hear you, too busy turning to mush…” Fleetfoot cooed as her head sank into the dew, only her nose and mouth above the surface.

“Strange definition of ‘good as new’…” Wave said as he slid into his tub and leaned back.

“Oh, don’t you start with me now too,” Spitfire glanced over at him and pouted.

“Just being honest,” Wave shrugged as he sank in. “It makes the soreness and stiffness go away but… I can still feel it, you know what I mean? Built up fatigue, you can’t fix that with this medical magic.”

“Yeah, stress, I know. I’ve been paying attention.” Spitfire nodded. “That’s why we take a whole day off every three days.” She paused as a satisfying tingling feeling caressed her sore body. “Hmmm… just relax. This will all be worth it in the end.”

“If you say so,” Wave sighed and sank in a little.

“I hope,” Spitfire said very quietly to herself as she leaned back and slowly got lost in thought.

She couldn’t deny the complaints or the mild frustration of the other two. She was feeling it too, maybe a little less than them due to her natural physical ability, but she was sore… tight… tired… you name it. She was doing her best to just suck it up in a way to help motivate Wave and Fleet. They knew why they were doing it… well, at least Wave did. She had let him in on her reasons for the experiment before they started. Fleetfoot? She really wanted to surprise her with the possible results so she didn’t say anything besides, ‘we’re going to try something new’. Either way, they both had reason to complain, she didn’t exactly communicate how hard the training was going to be. Way harder than anything they had ever done before and likely against all known recommendations on how not to hurt oneself when working out. But one thing had already been proven. The dew baths were doing something because none of them had sustained any unintentional injuries yet. And given how hard she had them hitting the weights and doing all sorts of flight drills, Fleetfoot probably would’ve gotten hurt by now. She wasn’t built for the kind of punishment she was being put through, yet she was holding together. Spitfire was very wary of the risks, and after hoofing the line didn’t end poorly, she took steps further and it still didn’t end poorly. It was a good sign… but if it ended up all not working for one of them, or the results were minimal, this would be frustrating for all of them.

Spitfire shuddered lightly as the tingling caressed her body, the dew working its effects on her and feeling pretty damn good. It seemed like things were going right, the dew baths were definitely repairing ‘minor damage’ to the body like they were supposed to in the way it cleared their bodies of soreness, repaired muscle fibers, and had them ready to go again quickly. Hopefully... the other effect Spitfire was looking for would work just as well. If they could achieve fast hypertrophy, greatly strengthening their bodies in a relatively short time, then it would be a ticket to being very much prepared for the next time they were forced into combat.

But there was definitely a downside, no matter what result they got. The dew was repairing muscle and relieving soreness, but… there was no magic or medical medicine answer to stress. Wave was absolutely right to bring it up. Hard workouts four times a day was an incredibly reckless amount of stress to put on the body. The day off every three days was quickly implemented after they started, and that fourth day of each cycle was pretty much spent sleeping and eating. She wanted to power them up, but not at the expense of sanity.

Spitfire exhaled and slid a little deeper into the dew, relaxing while still pondering further.

The results… the results were what mattered. In particular for Wave and Fleetfoot. Wave was behind. It wasn’t by his choice, but it was frustrating to him regardless. She really wanted this to work for him. For Fleetfoot? Well… Spitfire hadn’t forgotten what happened between her and Nightshade and what she learned afterward. Fleetfoot had a personal desire to be more than she was, something she kept bottled up tight. If this worked for her and she gained some of that strength she felt like she needed to be a better leader, then it would do wonders for her confidence. Well… confidence in herself at least. If there was one thing Fleetfoot didn't lack, it was confidence in the broadest definition of the term.

As for herself?

Spitfire sat up a little, lifting up an arm. She examined it back and forth, reaching her other hoof over and running it up and down, over her shoulder and down her chest. She smirked and nodded as she tensed and relaxed her arm a few times.

This was why she was more concerned about the others, because for her... there had already been some noticeable change. But she wasn’t surprised because that’s just how her body was. She had taken measurements of all three of them at the start, earning several ‘you missed a spot’ jokes from Fleet when she did it to Wave. The reason being that she needed to have records and references to see if this method worked. Growth, even just a little bit, was generally a month’s long process. If they could produce measurable increases in the arms, shoulders, chest, legs, etc, even of small variety, then it would be a monumental success.

She had taken the liberty of keeping a close eye on herself. She hadn’t had the time or patience to premeasure herself, but she knew her body well and she could see a difference, even if it was small. Now she just had to wait and see if they benefitted, since they lacked her genetics. They were three weeks in, and she couldn’t quite tell if it was working for them, but she also wasn’t holding a magnifying glass to them. Though she was excited for the other half of the stretch. There was always an adjustment period when taking on a new training routine, and they were on the cusp of that general mark. They were either going to be hit by shocking sudden strength gains, or they were going to fall flat… somehow Spitfire believed there wouldn’t be an in between.

They had either found a new secret recipe for success… or they were wasting their time.

But assuming this worked in their favor and all three of them came out the other side with a trio of impressive physiques and abilities to show off, she’d sell the idea to the rest of the force and get as many of them as possible onto the same routine. The gains in strength mixed with high intensity combat training and this super recovery program would ensure that the next time they crossed paths with the Shadowbolts, they would never know what hit them. Of course that also depended on them having time to train… and she had yet to take note of the potential drawbacks related to how long it would take for full recovery and rest once the program is complete. Then there was the possibility of the Shadowbolts showing up while they were training, which wouldn’t be good.

But why worry about that right now? The thought of punching her hoof deep into Nightshade’s face with even more force than she could before was too satisfying to worry about the finer details.

But that being said… she had a feeling she wouldn’t need to worry about a sudden or incoming attack any time soon.

Why? Well…

“Spitfire.”

“Hm?” Spitfire’s ears twitched. She opened her eyes and turned in the tub to see Descent walking towards her with Lightning Dust waiting by the doorway. He was in uniform with his red goggles pulled down around his neck. “Oh, Descent. Long time no see.”

“I saw you two days ago,” Descent furrowed his brow.

“Two days…?” Spitfire blinked. “Oh, right, right…” she sighed and rested her arms on the side of the tub. “This routine’s been messing with my head. Whatever, what’s up?

“Before that…” Descent lifted an eyebrow. “Would you mind telling me exactly what you’re up to now?”

“What’s it to you?” Spitfire asked while slowly turning her head to rest her cheek on her arms.

“I can’t help but notice that two of your wingmates appear to be dead,” Descent said with a snort as he made a slight head motion past her. Spitfire flattened her ears and pouted.

“They’re not dead, they’re…” she glanced behind her.

Wave was up to his chin and looked like he was asleep with his mouth slightly agape.

Fleetfoot had her head tilted all the way back, her mouth was stuck open wide and she was making continuous, high-pitched squeaking noises.

Spitfire’s face went blank for a moment.

“They’re fine.” She quickly turned back around. “I’m just conducting a training experiment.”

“Pushing yourself and these two past the point of exhaustion seems counter-intuitive,” Descent commented.

“Hey,” Spitfire reached a hoof out of the tub. “Hey.” She reached it towards Descent. He reclined as she tried to tap his nose. “Hey… you asked me what I was doing, but I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” she said flatly.

Descent opened his mouth, said nothing, and closed his mouth before shrugging.

“Fair enough.”

“Look, it’s simple,” she paused and glanced at Wave and Fleetfoot. Both of them looked completely out, but she lowered her voice anyway. “The short version is… I have a hunch that this stuff,” she tapped the tub. “Might allow us to cut a few corners in training for a real fast increase in ability,” she whispered. “With sped up recovery time and intense nutrient packing I’m wondering if it can really speed up the process. I’m testing the theory now and in a week I’ll know if it works in general.”

Descent stared at her for several moments as she leaned back into the tub.

“That sounds like a reach…” he finally said, tipping his head and switching to his other eyebrow. “Did you say… in general?”

Spitfire smirked and sat up a little in her tub, pointing to her shoulder and arm.

“It’s worked a little bit for me in just three weeks, but I need to know if it works for those not so physically blessed,” she explained while making a head motion to the other two.

“Uh… what am I looking at?” Descent asked while staring at her arm. Her smirk flattened out in an instant.

“I’ve made some progress in just three weeks, didn’t you hear me? Can’t you tell?” she pointed to her arm and shoulder again.

“You look the same to me.”

“Oh fine, Mr. Slab-of-Beef Stallion. Just trust me, I did,” she sat back into her tub with a snort. “I’m not going to break out a tape measure right now to prove it to you.”

“If you say so,” Descent rolled his eyes. “Sounds like too much risk for potentially little reward if you ask me.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Spitfire lifted a hoof from the dew and rotated it. “Now what did you really come in here to talk about?”

“Right,” Descent nodded, getting right down to business. “We just finished our third wide range scouting sweep of the week.”

“And…?” she paused and blinked when Descent didn’t immediately keep going. “Am I safe to assume the answer is the same again?”

“You’d be right,” Descent nodded with a quiet, frustrated snort. “Still absolutely no sign of the Shadowbolts.”

“And that’s after doubling the scouting radius, right?” Spitfire asked.

“We tripled it this time and still found nothing. And they can’t just hide something as large as the Flying Fortress behind a curtain. Wherever they are, it’s nowhere even remotely close to the Empire.”

“Hrm…” Spitfire furrowed her brow. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“Me neither,” Descent shook his head. “There is no scenario where I’d consider that they’ve suddenly just given up. We also know they can move and teleport both themselves and the ship, but… we have no idea if there’s a range on that and they can’t make it through the shield anyway. They can mask the presence of the fortress with cloaking magic, but a distortion in the air that large is easily spotted with a good set of eyes at close to mid-range. Regardless, they are either somehow hiding the fortress extremely well… or they are causing trouble elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere… but where would they?” Spitfire rubbed her chin. “Maybe we should dispatch some scouts to other cities and towns?”

“Already have,” Descent gave a firm nod. “But I have also been keeping tabs of Equestria wide news reports and papers and there’s nothing out of the ordinary…” he paused and exhaled. “That is… at least near the back pages of the paper. The first six pages every day are either talking about the recent incident in the empire involving a large alicorn that Princess Cadence claims was simply a massive magic experiment gone haywire… and breathless reports of wondering what exactly happened weeks ago and then I have to wade through Canterlot news reports about ‘where did the Wonderbolts go or what exactly blew a massive hole in the ground where their compound used to be.”

“Pfff…” Spitfire snickered and shrugged. “Eh, not surprised. It’s been nice to get away from the media for a while. We’re used to being bothered by them.”

“It confounds me that you could ever stand such publicity,” Descent winced and shuddered.

“It comes with the job. We’re famous entertainers alongside being a fighting force, not dark shady mercenaries like you…” she trailed off, tipping to the left to look past him. She saw Lightning Dust, but after a glance to her left and right, she lifted an eyebrow.

Descent looked over his shoulder to see what she was looking at, but when he saw, he grunted and looked away, drawing Spitfire’s eye back to him.

“Where’s Starry?” she asked. Receiving only a louder grunt in response. “Huh? I thought you said she showed up again finally?” She waited, but Descent didn’t answer. “Shouldn’t have asked, huh?”

Descent released a long sigh, turning his side to her as he folded his ears back.

“She did, but… I only see her outside the Empire. She’ll show up when we’re outside the boundaries and join us in our sweeps, but she’ll refuse to talk to me or even look at me. Then she’ll up and vanish again as soon as we turn back.”

Spitfire blinked several times and tipped her head.

“Why the hell is she doing that?”

“Does it LOOK like I know?!” Descent suddenly snapped, harshly turning his eyes back to her. But Spitfire barely flinched, her eyes only widening slightly.

“Whoa there, buddy. Cool it,” she said flatly with a snort. Descent grunted and looked away again. “At least we know where she is now.”

“That doesn’t make it any better,” Descent grumbled.

“It lets you know that she’s stuck around at least.” Spitfire lifted and tipped a hoof towards him. “If for some reason she didn’t give a damn about you or the Renegades anymore, she’d be long gone.”

“Yeah, fine, sure…” Descent mumbled, turning his back to her with little strength in his response.

“Maybe…” Spitfire trailed off as Descent started walking away and didn’t look back. “Okay, bye I guess.” Spitfire rolled her eyes as she turned around and lay back into her tub.

But the moment she did, one of the clerics approached and pointed to a watch.

“That was ten minutes,” he said, pointing to the watch. Spitfire perked up and sat up quickly.

“Alright, wake up you two!” she yelled to Wave and Fleetfoot as she climbed out of the tub without hesitation, shook herself out, and grabbed a towel. “Food time!”

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH…” Fleetfoot wailed.

Descent murmured and mumbled to himself in frustration all the way to the door. Lightning Dust stepped up as he approached, but froze and held still as she picked up his body language and slightly angry grunting.

“Let’s go,” Descent said sharply, making a single sweeping motion with his head in her general direction. Dust bit her lip, glancing back and forth and swallowing before she simply did as she was told, knowing better than to say anything based on his demeanor.

But as the two of them started down the hallway away from the cleric chamber, Dust’s ears stood up and she stopped, turning her head as she heard familiar voices nearby. After a few more steps, Descent noticed the clip-clop of Dust’s hooves stopped behind him. He paused and glanced over his shoulder, turning his eyes to follow hers.

“Dash!”

Descent’s ears twitched and he stood up straight as he heard a familiar voice. On cue, Rainbow Dash came around the corner, looking uninterested and a little miffed. A moment later, Storm Front appeared from the same hall, quickly trotting behind Dash.

“Come on, Dash!” he called again. “Hold up a second!”

“No.” Dash said sharply without turning around. Storm screeched to a halt. “Get lost.”

Fan art by: Lucky Autumn

Storm flinched hard, holding up a hoof towards her, but he couldn’t find anything to say as Dash continued on her way and turned another corner.

Descent and Dust stared as Storm sat down and stared at the floor, a look of dejection on his face.

“Wow…” Dust said simply with her eyes wide.

“Hrm…” Descent hummed, furrowing his brow. “Sit tight for a second,” he ordered, placing a hoof on Dust’s shoulder.

“Huh?” Dust blinked, turning to see a rekindled, serious look in Descent’s eyes. “Oh, uh… sure,” Dust nodded, sitting down to wait as Descent made his way over to Storm.

Storm didn’t seem to notice him as he drew near, sighing loudly as he stared at the floor and shook his head.

“Not much luck, it seems,” Descent spoke up as he stopped behind Storm. Storm instantly sat up straight and looked over his shoulder. Descent’s eyes twitched briefly as he took in the hopeless look on his son’s face.

“Dad…” Storm said, but immediately trailed off, looking back down at his hooves and sighing again. “I… don’t even know why I’m bothering. I’m guessing you haven’t tried to talk to her yet either?”

“I’ve been too busy,” Descent shook his head as he stepped up beside Storm. “But given how much time has passed, I was of the thought she’d come around by now, if only a little.”

“Well that hasn't happened,” Storm grunted.

“Clearly.”

“I just don’t get it!” Storm rapped a hoof on the floor, raising his voice as frustration bubbled over. “I screwed up! I get it! Why does she keep rubbing it in like I don’t know that?! It’s not like she’s never made mistakes!”

“Calm down,” Descent looked down at Storm, furrowing his brow.

“She put me in such a difficult position!” Storm turned to Descent and threw his arms outward. “What the hell was I supposed to do? Tuck my tail between my legs and act like nothing about it bothered me?!”

“STORM.” Descend grabbed him by the shoulder and pressed down. Storm flinched and froze. “CALM. DOWN.” He repeated in a much harsher tone. “Acting like this isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

Storm gritted his teeth and averted his eyes.

“S…Sorry…” he apologized weakly. “I’m just at the end of my rope. I’ve tried to let her know I want to make up for it, but she won’t even look at me and the rest of her squad is following along without question. They’ve chosen their side, everypony that was beside me when my whole journey started now want nothing to do with me.”

“Storm,” Descent lifted an eyebrow. “Your actions affected them as well, I don’t think ‘sides’ have anything to do with it.”

“I… well… yeah… but, I mean…” Storm struggled, rubbing a hoof on the back of his head as he kept his eyes down.

“Storm, I am not defending the way she is treating you, but… I can’t say I’m surprised by it. Betrayal is not something so easily—”

“BETRAYAL?!” Storm frantically looked up and threw his wings out, shaking his head. “That’s not… No, I didn’t…” his voice lost all its strength very quickly as he looked at the floor again.

“Storm, look at me,” Descent ordered. Storm hesitantly tipped his head up to look him in the eye. “Did you, or did you not go behind their backs to rat them out to Spitfire?”

Storm’s face visibly twitched uncomfortably as Descent described with those particular words.

“Rat them out…? No, that’s not what I did!” he gritted his teeth. “I reported them because I thought what they were doing was wrong!”

Descent narrowed his eyes into a thin glare, strengthening his grip on Storm’s shoulder. Storm gasped as he felt the pressure, his eyes opening wide as Descent stared right through him.

“Listen to yourself, boy,” Descent grunted. “What are you trying to do? Dress up your actions in pretty, professional words to make it sound the way you want?”

“I…” Storm’s voice sputtered.

“Considering what Rainbow Dash was trying to do and the amount of trust she thought she had in you… How do you think she saw it, hm? I’m pretty sure the first word that would come to mind isn’t ‘reported’, I can tell you that much. This isn’t something you can hide from, most certainly not behind your rank or rules, and if that’s really the way you’re seeing this situation then you need to take off the goggles and look with your own eyes.”

He let go of Storm, who scooted backwards, eyes wide and mouth closed. Descent kept his glare fastened to his face as he lifted a hoof and pointed to his eyes.

“What did they see? What did they feel? Did you ever stop for a moment to think about that? Or were you too busy trying to frame it so that you couldn’t possibly be in the wrong? Think, Storm, think!” Descent lowered his hoof and tapped it to his chest. “A friend, whom you hold great trust in, just double crossed you. They broke your trust and you looked them in the eye in shock and disbelief while you were being restrained. How would you feel? Tell me.”

Storm blinked and looked down, his eyes shifting back and forth slowly.

“I… would be angry… But…” he slammed his eyes shut. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about that!”

“But you weren’t the one who was betrayed, were you?” Descent crossed his arms and lifted his brow. “You were the betrayer. It’s easy to ask for forgiveness when you’re the one who did wrong, but not so easy to give forgiveness when you’re the one who’s been wronged.”

Storm slowly looked up, but averted his eyes. Descent shook his head.

“I’m sure that isn’t something I really have to explain for you, but you clearly aren’t acknowledging it. Claiming that you only ‘reported’ them is dodging the point and cushioning the severity for you. And it isn’t as simple as just saying you broke their trust.” Descent blew a hard breath through his nostrils. “Betrayal is a very strong word. It implies breaking trust for personal gain. You can tell me you didn’t betray them all you want, but you did what you did because you feared for your standing in the Wonderbolts just as much as you feared what they were doing was wrong, am I correct?”

“Y…yes…” Storm admitted fairly quickly, feeling smaller and smaller under the shadow of Descent.

“Then they have every reason to feel the way they do,” Descent snorted and tipped his head a little. “Take it from somepony who HAS been betrayed… on several occasions,” he lifted a hoof and clenched it. “It isn’t something you just forget, nor something you ever let them forget after the fact.”

Storm didn’t know what to say, he sat still and stared, caught completely off guard by the stern, harsh approach taken by Descent after the casual conversation they had about it back at the resort.

“Now… THAT BEING SAID…” Descent suddenly shifted, tipping his head the other way, releasing a long sigh and flattening his brow. Storm perked up, blinking several times. “I’m not about to compare how I’ve lived to where you currently are. The situations are nearly polar opposites. The Wonderbolts do not operate in a dog-eat-dog world like the Shadowbolts do. They are a professional organized team based on trust and reliance on each other to have their backs through thick and thin. In such a world it is far more believable that one can attain forgiveness for mistakes given that every effort is made to reestablish trust. The way I see it… While the way Rainbow Dash and her friends are treating you doesn’t surprise me, however I disagree with the way she is denying you any attempt to make amends, even if it’s just a start. Several weeks have gone by, it’s high time she at least acknowledges you.”

Storm listened carefully, but could only sigh and shrug.

“Then what do I do?” he asked, sounding hopeless. “I’ve tried everything.”

Descent opened his mouth to speak, but his ears twitched and he quickly glanced towards the nearby hallway. He saw something, but it moved too quickly for him to make out what it was. He scrunched his face for a moment before looking back at Storm.

“You might as well do nothing right now,” he suggested, but that was clearly not what Storm was hoping to hear.

“What?” he blinked. “But… were you going to…?”

“I was, but…” Descent snorted. “If they refuse to listen this far out from the fact, then you’d be better off waiting for the proper moment. If words aren’t going to reach them, then only action will.”

“Great…” Strom slumped down, grumbling in frustration.

“You’d best just not bother and go about your life. Use this time to learn and reflect on what you did instead. Perhaps this will lend you wisdom towards thinking freely and not always blindly following rules or orders.”

“Yeah, sure…” Storm grunted, clearly frustrated. Descent furrowed his brow, assuming his last words went in one ear and right out the other. “I… gotta go.”

Storm abruptly stood up and turned down the opposite hallway, leaving very quickly while keeping his head down.

Descent exhaled, shaking his head lightly. Did he want to help his son? Of course. But could he? Likely not and it wasn’t hard to see.

As Lightning Dust stood up and made her way towards him. Descent quickly turned his head to look down the hallway nearby. Again, something pulled back quickly, but this time he saw it long enough.

“That’s twice. Come out.” he ordered with a gruff snort.

“Huh?” Dust blinked and looked towards the hallway.

A grumble of frustration came from around the corner. A second later… Rainbow Dash stepped out, face scrunched up with a flat look.

Descent waited for her to step out into the open before tipping his head and lifting his brow.

“Snooping, are we?” he asked, slightly annoyed as he made his way over and stood before her. Dash looked up at him, narrowing her eyes and holding firm under his gaze. After a moment of tense, less-than-friendly glaring, Dash scoffed and whipped her head to the side.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you about Storm.” She turned around to leave.

“Hold it,” Descent reached out and grabbed her shoulder. Dash flinched, but instantly reached her arm up to throw his hoof off of her as she swiftly turned back to him and growled.

“Stop while you’re ahead!” she angrily yelled in his face. “Storm made his choice and Daddy isn’t going to bail him out!”

“Shut up and listen to me.” Descent hissed, holding tightly to her as she tried to pull away. “Do you actually think I’m going to defend what my son did to you? Why do you think I made the counterplan after he snitched on you to Spitfire?”

Dash stopped trying to yank free, blinking twice.

“Hrmph…” she grunted, folding her ears back and looking away.

“He made a grave mistake and got what he deserved,” Descent narrowed his eyes further. “But stop ignoring his attempts to apologize.”

“Really?” Dash rolled her eyes and pulled her shoulder free from his hoof. “Hell no. I’m never trusting that dickhead again.”

“So I suppose his constant desperate attempts to show humility and acknowledgement of his error mean absolutely nothing to you?” Descent asked. Dash inched her head towards him and scrunched her face up.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” her tone became sarcastic. “I swear I just heard you say something to him about how betrayal isn’t something that can be forgiven so easily… I was SNOOPING remember?”

“I seem to recall Spitfire, for all her stubbornness, found it in herself to forgive you for disobeying her direct orders, did she not?” Descent pointed out. “You didn’t even have to apologize.”

“That’s not even remotely the same thing and you know it,” Dash huffed at him. “Spitfire and I had a mutual disagreement and we both had a reason to meet in the middle after the fact. So nice try, this is completely different.” She pointed a hoof in his face. “Storm didn’t just betray me, he thought his Wonderbolt rank was more important than helping me push back against bad orders. Even worse, if he didn’t want to be a part of it, he could have kept his mouth shut, but he didn’t. He ratted us out for his own sake. I don’t care if everything eventually went our way. It HURT, Descent. It felt like everything the two of us had been through together suddenly didn’t matter to him. I don’t care how much he wants to apologize, I’m not forgetting this just because he feels bad. When you hurt someone on a personal level, you can’t just stick a band aid on it and call it a day.”

Descent let her speak her part and when she finished, he didn’t say a word at first. He narrowed his eyes to show some reaction, but he quietly acknowledged to himself that he couldn’t argue with most of what she said.

“I mean…” Lightning Dust suddenly chimed in, drawing their attention as she rubbed the back of her head and looked down. “I can see where she’s coming from there… Spitfire has yet to forgive me for what I did to her back when we were still Shadowbolts. I can’t say I’ve tried to apologize, but… I really hurt her, I hurt her deep down, a lot. I just know she won’t be willing to hear it,” Lightning Dust froze and blinked as she spotted Spitfire exiting the room nearby with Wave Chill and Fleetfoot in tow and turned towards them.

“That’s not a good comparison,” Descent snorted. “Spitfire is a batshit nutcase,” he said at the exact moment Spitfire was walking right by them.

Spitfire paused, Wave continuing on with a slight chuckle as she stared at Descent with a furrowed brow and a slight pout. Descent glanced towards her, not even flinching as he saw she was right there.

“You heard me,” he reiterated and made a head motion. “Keep walking.”

Spitfire rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration as she continued on after Wave.

“Just think about it,” Descent went on as he turned his attention back to Dash. “There’s plenty of reason for you to be spiteful, but don’t act like he doesn’t exist forever. He can’t begin to earn back your trust if he believes you’re not even watching.”

“For Celestia’s sake,” Dash shook her head and growled. “I’m being lectured by a mercenary, who once tried to kill my lover, about earning trust. The irony in the air is so thick I can rub my ass on it.”

“A mercenary who has seen with his own eyes how much different the life you live is from my own,” Descent firmly clarified while leaning forward a little. “In my world, betrayal is a scar that never heals. In yours, there is always a chance to earn back what is lost. DON’T take that for granted.”

The two traded harsh glares, neither budging under the pressure of the other.

Amidst the intense, and overly-lengthy stare down, Lightning Dust perked up as she saw Fleetfoot dragging herself along the same path as Spitfire and Wave Chill.

“UUuuugghhhhhh…” she groaned. “I feel like I’ve been shat through a sewer pipe while rutted by a freight train.” She slowly glanced towards Dash and Descent, her ears standing straight up and her posture instantly correcting. A giant smile slapped itself to her face as she grabbed the towel off her shoulders, and rolled it up as if prepping a rat tail. But after glancing around, her ears dropped back down and she pouted. “Awwwwwwww, what?” she whined. “Where’s Ms. Grumpy Buns? I heard she came back!”

Dash blinked in surprise as Descent’s glare instantly broke and his entire body visibly twitched. He turned and re-fixed his glare on Fleetfoot, grunting loudly and angrily in her direction. Fleetfoot’s eyes went wide and she leaned backwards as Descent’s glare slammed into her. But before she could say anything, Descent abruptly whipped around and stomped away. He stormed out while grumbling loudly and nearly shoving anypony that got in his way aside. Fleetfoot stared blankly for several moments, then looked to Dash and Dust. Dash looked surprised as well, but Dust avoided eye contact with her.

“Was it something I said?” Fleetfoot asked, catching Dust’s attention. “What am I missing here? Did they hate-bang or something?”

“N…no,” Dust fidgeted awkwardly at Fleetfoot’s casual dirty suggestion. “No.”

“Did she run away from him again?” Fleetfoot asked, pausing for exactly one second. “After having sex?”

“They didn’t have sex!” Lightning Dust blurted out, instantly throwing her hooves over her mouth and blushing as several guards and servants glanced in her direction. Dash couldn’t help but snicker, nearly forgetting about how angry she was at the prior subject.

“What? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” Fleetfoot threw her arms out. “It’s a legitimate question! She could use it, really.”

“NO.” Dust shifted forward and leaned into Fleetfoot’s face with a huff. “Listen… She has shown up again, but she only appears and joins us while we’re flying scouting routes outside the shield. She disappears the moment we head back.”

Fleetfoot stared at Dust, blinked once, and cocked her eyebrows so far it was a wonder her whole face didn’t turn with them.

“What?!” she said loudly as she looked towards Dash.

“Don’t look at me.” Dash shrugged.

“But why?” Fleetfoot looked back to Dust, grabbed her by the shoulder. “WHYYYYYYYYYY?!” she moaned, shaking Dust lightly.

“Ow, ow, stop that!” Dust pushed her off and held her at arms-length. “Probably the same reason she vanished in the first place.”

“Wait, the crystal thingie?” Fleetfoot furrowed her brow. “Really?”

“That’s what I’m assuming,” Dust nodded. “Why else would she only appear when we’re not within the range of the Empire’s magic?”

“What about that has her head jammed further up her own ass than normal?” Fleetfoot groaned, throwing her arms up.

“Why are you still asking me like I know?!” Dust grabbed her ears and tugged on them.

“What’s her problem with it?! She looked so good!” Fleetfoot started ranting as she turned to Dash. “What in the hell is wrong with that? Her crystal form was really cool… and kinda hot, not gonna lie,” Fleetfoot added in a more casual tone, tipping her cheek to her hoof and nodding.

“Maybe that’s the problem?” Dash thought aloud.

“Hiding from me? Moi? You think I scare her that much?” Fleetfoot giggled.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Dash snorted with a brief chuckle. “Her crystal form looked very different. Everypony I’ve seen crystalize changed to a slight variation of how they usually look. She practically transformed into another pony. Cadence seemed to take interest in her form, you think there’s something we just don’t know? There’s gotta be a reason she’s acting so personal.”

“Why do you have to go and start sounding so smart about it?” Fleetfoot shifted over and pressed into Dash’s side. “Who gives a damn about all that?! This is wrong, she’s treating everypony she trusts like complete strangers. We can’t let her do that, especially to Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome at the head of the pack!”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, just leave it be,” Dust tried to talk her down, but Fleetfoot rushed up to her and grabbed her by the face, squishing her cheeks together.

“Oh, we’re gonna do something about it alright!” she shouted. “All three of us!”

“What?” Dash flinched. “Me?”

“Yes you!” Fleetfoot giggled while pulling Dust by the face over to Dash. “If you didn’t want to be part of my shenanigans, then you shouldn’t have sat right where I can see you!”

“Sh-shenanigans? Wha…?” Dust struggled to speak with her face still compressed.

“You can call it whatever sounds the most fun!” Fleetfoot patted a hoof into Dust’s mane. “We’re solving this problem right now! Starry would kill me in my sleep if she had the chance, but I like her anyway, so I’m not gonna let her do this forever. If GruntHard Testosterone won’t take the time out of his day to go look for her, then we’re going to do it for him! Now who’s with me?!”

“Uh…” both Dash and Dust slurred at the same time.

“Perfect!” Fleetfoot let go of them both and clapped her hooves together.” Now let’s… oh, wait… right, hmmm…” she hunched down and tapped a hoof to her chin. “I gotta keep on this freaky workout routine…” she mumbled while tugging on her towel.

“Routine?” Dash blinked, her ears perking up.

“TONIGHT THEN!” Fleetfoot stood up straight and threw out her wings. “After I’m done stuffing my face with whatever unappetizing CRAP I have to eat tonight, let’s all meet up and go look for her!”

“Look for…?!” Dust trailed off, groaning. “Will you give it up? Our best scouts haven’t been able to find her the whole time she’s been at this. It’s like she appears out of thin air every time. What makes you think we’ll have any luck?”

“Au contraire, young grasshopper!” Fleetfoot put on a very smarmy look. “The Renegade scouts may be good, but they lack my expert thot detection skills!”

Dash and Dust just stared at her for a moment.

“I…” Dash’s eyebrow twitched. “I don’t think that description really fits Starry Skies.”

“Believe me, Dashie, there’s a thot in there!” Fleetfoot giggled. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to smell her from a mile away! I can tell she ALWAYS wants attention from DarkScar McChunk-of-Hunk. She’d press her ass cheeks to a window to make him notice her if it came to that!”

“Fleet, that’s something you'd do…” Dash pointed out with a flat look. Fleetfoot swiftly placed herself directly in front of Dash, put on a very serious look and leaned so close to her that their noses pressed together.

“Dashie, I want you to look me dead in the eye and tell me that you wouldn’t do that for Soarin.”

“Wha-hey!” Dash’s face turned bright red and her wing feathers furiously fluffed up.

“It’s settled then!” Fleetfoot gleefully cheered as she spun around and smiled. “Operation: “Find Blackberry Studmuffin’s lady-friend will commence tonight!”

“Could you please just call him Descent?” Dust asked with a frustrated groan.

“And not imply what he’s packing? NEVER!” Fleetfoot giggled while sliding the tip of a hoof under Dust’s chin teasingly.

“This is not going to end well, is it…?” Dust asked with a long sigh.

“Meet me at the north gate tonight!” Fleetfoot ordered cheerfully as she turned and started down the hall. “Be there! If you don’t show up, I know exactly where you two sleep! Toodles!” she left, the sound of her giggling echoing down the hall.

Dash and Dust didn’t look at one another, both staring straight ahead for several moments.

“Why is she so excited about this?” Dust asked, breaking the silence.

“Honestly?” Dash huffed. “I think she just wants to cause trouble.”

“No,” Dust shook her head. “This isn’t right, it’s prying into their privacy. I’m absolutely not going to do th—”

“Why did I show up?” Lightning Dust grumbled, rubbing a hoof to her forehead and pacing back and forth beneath the street lamp. “I have no idea why I showed up.”

“Believe me, you probably made the right choice,” Dash exhaled as she leaned up against the frame of the northern gate and stared up at the late-afternoon sky. There was a light drizzle sprinkling down from above, a light flurry of snow from outside the Empire’s shield turning to rain the moment it entered the comfortable climate-controlled interior of the dome. “I showed up because I’ve seen what happens when you push back against Fleet… it isn’t pretty. You should ask Blaze about it sometime.”

“I think I’ll pass…” Dust scrunched up her mouth and shuddered. “I won’t lie, it felt like there was a threat hidden in there somewhere when she talked to us... I’m not sure why, but I felt it.”

“Smart,” Dash nodded. “Better just get it over with than take on whatever she would have done otherwise.”

“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!”

Both of them perked up, looking down the road to see Fleetfoot trotting towards them with a wide, excited smile on her face.

“You both showed up!” she added with an extra bounce in her step.

“Did we have a choice?” Dash asked sarcastically.

“Nope!” Fleetfoot giggled as she stopped right between both of them and bopped back and forth. “And it’s a good thing you did! Or else I would’ve had to give you both the ol’ wham-bam-thank-ye-ma’am!”

“The… WHAT?” Dust blanked as one of her eyes twitched.

“Alright ladies, huddle up!” Fleetfoot grabbed Dust by the neck and yanked her over to Dash. Dash tried to dodge, but Fleetfoot hooked her as well and brought them all uncomfortably close together facing the wall beside the gate. “This is an operation of the utmost importance,” she began in a comically serious tone. “All those unwilling to do whatever it takes to achieve success, leave now.”

“Kind of hard to leave when you’ve got me around the neck like this,” Dash said casually.

“Makes the choice easy, doesn’t it?” Fleetfoot chortled before turning to Dust and nearly head-butting her. “So lemme tell you what I think! I think your scouts didn’t have the right idea back when they looked for her! They aren’t in her head like I am!”

“And you’re in her head… how?” Dust asked quizzically, flinching as Fleetfoot pressed a hoof over her mouth.

“Speaking out of turn will result in spanking… LOTS of spanking… that you may or may not enjoy,” she failed to keep a straight face as Dust’s eyes widened considerably. “No? Aw, you’re no fun. ANYWAY! She’s not entering the shield, right…? But there’s two things that matter here. One… she’s gotta eat and two… and more importantly… she likes the Big D too much to stray too far from him. So obviously… that means she must be staying as close to the shield as possible, staring in while thinking about him! With drama like this there’s always some sort of longing from afar. Believe me, she’s the kind of grumpy brood-queen that would do something like that!”

“And…” Lightning Dust lifted an eyebrow. “You put all this together how?”

“I have my ways,” Fleetfoot said in a slightly sultry tone while bouncing her eyebrows at Dust and biting her lip. Dust tried and failed to pull back from her, her eyes quickly darting to Dash. Dash held a completely straight face, seemingly unaffected by Fleetfoot’s shenanigans as she lifted a hoof and pointed at her.

“If there are sexual implications of any kind what-so-ever, she’s drawn to it like a magnet,” she said casually.

“She gets it!” Fleetfoot giggled.

“And I thought Rarity was bad…” Dash added under her breath with a sigh.

“COME ON!” Fleetfoot cheered as she released Dust, but tugged Dash around as she stood upright and pointed. “Time’s a wastin!”

“Alright alright!” Dash reached up and pressed a hoof to Fleet’s chest. “Just let go of…”

Dash trailed off, blinking in surprise.

Fleetfoot let go of her and happily trotted out the gate with Dust behind her, but Dash just stared at Fleetfoot. She glanced down at her hoof, then looked Fleetfoot’s body up and down.

“Freak workout routine, huh…?” Dash lifted her brow and tipped her head, recalling what Spitfire had said to her after the two met with Silver several weeks back, and the mention of an experiment. “What has Spitfire been putting her through? That’s some seriously quick…” Dash thought aloud to herself, but trailed off, setting the thought behind her as she quickly trotted behind to catch up.

As soon as she caught up with them, they took flight, Dash and Dust reluctantly following behind Fleetfoot as she claimed to be following her ‘Baedar’, which was apparently short for ‘Babe Radar’. And eventually Dash convinced Dust that she should just stop asking questions and go along with it. There was no convincing Fleetfoot she couldn’t find Starry and there was no making her reconsider the whole thing in general.

The flight was otherwise calm and smooth, the light drizzle of rain providing a slight refreshing feeling as opposed to discomfort or hindrance. Fleetfoot shifted once or twice as they flew across the northern plains and slowly approached the outer edge of the Empire’s shield and began to fly along its reach, about a thirty yards out from where it touched the ground.

But Dash wasn’t sure if Fleetfoot actually had any kind of lead, or if she was making the slight turns to convince them she did. One glance at Dust confirmed that she was thinking the same thing. With a flat, somewhat annoyed and bothered look, she wasn’t convinced Fleetfoot really had any idea what she was doing either.

But her enthusiasm was impossible to deny. And Dash knew better than to deny Fleetfoot something of this kind. It would be best to just let her get it out of her system and then they could get back to—

“Oo! Ooooo!” Fleetfoot came to an abrupt halt, throwing her wings out to air brake and causing both Dash and Dust to run right into her back.

“GAH!”

“OOF!”

The three got awkwardly interlocked and they fell into a three pony pile onto the ground, tumbling a few times before they came to a halt on the slick grass below. Fleetfoot was the first to sit upright as Dash and Dust groaned and rolled over.

“Okay, maybe that was a bit abrupt…” Fleetfoot awkwardly chuckled.

“Ya think?!” Dash sat up and furrowed her brow. “What did you even do that fo—MRPH!” She was cut off as Fleetfoot pressed a hoof over her mouth.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!” shushed Dash. Dash glared at her, but Fleetfoot smiled and wink. “Target spotted!” she said in a hushed, yet excited tone, and pointed. Dash blinked, her eyes growing wide as Fleetfoot pointed into the distance but… she didn’t see anything.

“Wait… Wait…” Dust finally sat up and shook her head out. “Are you kidding me?”

Dash didn’t see anything at first, but… then she squinted, looking carefully at something that looked slightly off well into the distance.

Against the green of the grass, the grey of rocks, and the brown of tree trunks, where the shield met the ground, right outside the shield, on a fairly large rock… was something lavender-colored.

“Is that actually her?!” Dust exclaimed.

“SSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot full out leapt onto Dust, knocking her onto her back and shoving her hoof over her mouth. “Sheesh! Don’t either of you understand the point of stealth?!”

“Stealth?” Dash snickered. “When did this become a sneaking mission?”

“Always has been,” Fleetfoot turned and threw a smarmy mischievous look towards Dash.

“That’s gotta be a mirage or something caused by the shield,” Lightning Dust said as she sat up again and flattened her brow. “I refuse to believe you just found her like that.”

“Then put on your best skittering hooves because we’re about to approach and confirm the target!” Fleetfoot giggled as she lowered herself to the ground and began shuffling along at a pace one could definitely call ‘skittering.’

Dust glanced at Dash… Dash shrugged.

“You gotta stop looking at me like I have answers for you,” she said with a chuckle before lowering down and following behind Fleet at a more normal stride. Dust scrunched her face and did the same.

Fleetfoot led them on what seemed to be an oddly specific and overly elaborate path through the grass and between the few rocks and trees strewn about. Every time Dust asked what she was even doing, Fleetfoot shushed her and cited her rank in the Wonderbolts despite it having nothing to do with navigation skills.

Dash just went along with it, wondering why Dust was even trying after multiple clear examples of why she shouldn’t question Fleetfoot. She may not be Surprise or Twister, but trying to get reason out of her when she was feeling silly was like trying to get Blaze to stop swearing, it just wasn’t going to work.

But despite the oddness of their path, they did eventually come to a stop behind a large boulder that jutted a good five yards out of the ground. Fleetfoot pressed her back to it while biting her lip as Dash and Dust shimmied along the ground and stopped in front of her.

“We got her!” Fleetfoot whispered very quietly.

Without a word, Dust flattened her brow, standing up and moving to the edge of the rock to peer around it… and her jaw dropped.

The barrier’s edge was just under thirty yards away and a boulder similar to the one they were hiding behind was sitting with half of it inside the barrier and half out. The top surface of the rock was also flatter and longer.

And wouldn’t you know it? Sitting on the portion of the rock that was outside the barrier, with her back turned, was Starry Skies.

Lightning Dust pulled herself back behind their rock and blinked, furrowing her brow considerably before glancing at Fleetfoot.

“You’ve got to be joking,” she said quietly while looking at a very smug Fleetfoot. “How the hell did you find her so damn easily?!”

“The obliteration of your doubt in this moment turns me on. Hold still and lemme rub my flank all over you to solidify my victory anals of history.” Fleetfoot giggled.

“That’s… annals, Fleet,” Dash corrected her.

“I know EXACTLY what I said, Dashie!” Fleetfoot snickered while shaking her butt back and forth. Dust scrunched up her mouth and inched back over to look again. Fleetfoot tried to move with her, hoping to rub it in more, but she squeaked as Dash grabbed her by the tail and pulled her back.

“Fleet, tell me truthfully… did you REALLY know where she was going to be?” Dash asked skeptically.

“Oh no, not at all,” Fleetfoot whispered with a wink, admitting it flat out without hesitation.

“Buh…?” Dash blinked.

“It was a really lucky guess, hee hee!” Fleetfoot stuck her tongue out and wiggled her ears up and down.

“Is it wrong that I believe that LESS?” Dash asked with a grunt.

“What can I say? I’m just mysteriously talented when I want to be!” she turned and pointed. “Now come on Dashie!”

“Hm?” Dash blinked and looked up.

“Let’s get out there and slap some sense into—HEEP!” Fleetfoot yelped as Dash grabbed her and shoved her down.

“Dust! Quick!” Dash frantically said as quietly as she could. “Get down! Get down now!”

“Wha—?” Dust blinked and looked over her shoulder, but before she could do anything, Dash reached forward and yanked her down by the tail. “Ow!”

“Hey! Whoa! Getting eager here!” Fleetfoot yelped while kicking her legs in the air as Dash held her down by the neck.

“Both of you shut up!” Dash hissed at them both. “LOOK!”

Dash pointed into the sky. Both of them looked up.

Dust gasped.

Fleetfoot also gasped, but it was much girlier and accompanied by a slight squeal so high that it was nearly silent.

“STARRY! STARRY SKIES!” a deep voice called down from above.

Descent flew in from overhead, passing right over the three hiding mares while somehow not noticing their colors below. His eyes were locked on Starry as he came in for a landing.

“Starry! There you are!” he yelled one more time as he landed on the flat surface of the boulder on the inside of the barrier.

Starry stirred, then suddenly flinched hard as she frantically looked over her shoulder as if she had just been snapped out of a dream. Her eyes widened considerably when she made eye contact with Descent.

Though neither of them moved for a brief moment. Descent was clearly not there to sit and stare. He advanced towards her, his first step triggering an immediate reaction. Starry stood up quickly, turning and spreading her wings.

Descent quickly broke into a gallop, passing through the barrier. The cold nip of the northern air rushed against him, the droplets of rain splashing to his face replaced by a tiny flurry of snowflakes bouncing off his nose. He slammed his back hooves to the ground, propelling himself forward and extending his arm as Starry pumped her wings down and lifted off.

“AH!” Starry yelped as Descent hooked his hoof around her leg just in the nick of time. His weight halted her rise and he quickly pulled her back down.

“Enough!” he yelled as her hooves slammed down to the rock. “I’m not going to let you—”

Before he could finish, Starry whipped around with a loud growl, wound up a hoof and threw a punch.

But Descent caught it, his hoof grabbing her wrist mere inches before she clocked him right between the eyes. Starry stiffened, grinding her teeth with heavy breaths hissing between them. She held her arm in place and tried to force it forward even though she knew well she couldn’t overpower him.

But then Descent slowly pushed her hoof down. Starry’s eyes widened and her breath left her lungs as her strength faded on its own.

Descent looked… sad. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes, his face, and the look he was giving her all said the same thing:

‘Why?’

Descent let go of her hoof, her arm slowly returning to her side as she inched backwards. Her ears flopped down and her body shuddered for a moment before she turned her back to him and sat down, hunched over.

Descent sat quietly, staring at her back for a while. He saw no reason to be forceful because she wasn’t running anymore. While their former Shadowbolt ways had them always alert for sneak attacks from those trying to get ahead… for some particular reason, this moment where Starry Skies attacked him without provocation? It seemed to hurt more than it would have if she had connected.

“Starry,” Descent finally spoke up. She didn’t move aside from her ears twitching. “Why have you been hiding from us?” he asked.

He got no response. She just sat there.

“Why have you been hiding from me?” he reframed the question, and it seemed to hit a little harder. Starry visibly stirred and shifted a little further away from him, but she still said nothing. Descent sighed with a hint of frustration, exhaling through his nostrils as he furrowed his brow. “If there’s something you’re afraid of, fine… but don’t be afraid of me.” He said a little harshly, Starry visibly reacting again. “Starry, look at me.” He asked.

She didn’t.

“For Celestia’s SAKE, Starry, LOOK AT ME!” he raised his voice as he took a few steps towards her.

“No.” Starry finally spoke, bringing Descent to an abrupt halt one pace away from her. Her voice was weak, but held a defiant tone regardless. “I can’t face anypony right now.”

“Why?” Descent immediately asked, only to get the silent treatment again. But he already got something out of her so he refused to give up. “Is it because of your crystal form?”

“I…” Starry twitched as he brought it up, but frantically shook her head. “No, I just can’t,” she deflected.

“Why not?!” Descent demanded. His eyes grew wide in surprise as Starry suddenly whipped around and got in his face.

“BECAUSE IT’S A LIE!” she yelled, practically screaming, small tear droplets resting on the corners of her glaring eyes. “IT’S ALL A LIE!” she repeated, heavy breaths heaving in her throat.

Descent did not waver, nor lean back at all. He held perfectly firm in place, looking at her as seriously as he could.

“What is?” he asked firmly, staring right into her glare without an ounce of weakness.

“My…” Starry began to shake lightly. “My…” She crumbled, turning her back to him again. “I can’t… I just can’t.”

“I don’t even know what you’re apparently lying about,” Descent said with a loud huff as he flattened his brow.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Starry quickly added.

Descent stared at the back of her head for several moments, flattening his ears out as he tried to wrap his thoughts around what she could possibly be talking about, but no matter what he tried to piece together, nothing came to mind. However… maybe that didn’t matter.

“Then don’t,” Descent said as he turned and started walking back towards the barrier. Starry perked up and quickly looked over her shoulder as Descent moved away from her. “I could care less about whatever it is, so you don’t have to tell me anything. Besides…” he stepped through the shield and continued a few paces before turning to face her. “I went for years without telling you I had a son because I didn’t want to bother any of you with it, so why would I force you to talk about this? That would be hypocritical of me now, wouldn’t it?”

Starry’s eyelids lightly twitched as she turned herself halfway around, the tear droplets still holding on in the corners of her eyes.

“We’ve been in this together from the start and I’ve always leaned on you for support for as long as I can remember. That’s what matters to me,” Descent continued. “Without Nightshade around all we’ve had is each other. While you’ve been out here hiding away I’ve been struggling to handle everything on my own. I can't do this on my own, not without you.” He touched a hoof to his chest. “I need you, Starry. You’re more important to me than a few secrets.”

Starry inhaled sharply, averting her eyes and putting a hoof over her mouth as she continued to shudder.

“So please… stop running from me. I don’t give a damn what you look like or whatever it means.” Descent tapped his hoof to the rock below him. “Now get in here. And I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

Starry stared at him, eyes wide as he sat and waited. If there was one thing she knew about Descent, it was that he never blew smoke. He always said what he meant and he always meant what he said. So all the things he just said about her weren’t just his way of coercing her and… he really would sit right there forever if he had to.

She slammed her eyes shut, the single tears in each one finally squeaking out and running down her face as she gritted her teeth and scrunched her brow. She didn’t want to… but at the same time she couldn’t stop herself.

Without opening her eyes, she stood up and turned towards Descent. With slow, shaking steps, she made her way towards the shield.

Descent perked up, watching intently as Starry forced her way towards him. He said nothing, sitting quietly and letting her do it herself.

She reached the shield and slowly moved through it, Descent squinting slightly as her body shined brightly. Her fur gained its shimmering form, her mane lengthened and flowed down to her sides, sparkling elegantly. The surface of her face softened, twinkling blips of light bouncing from her eyelashes and off the ends of her head.

Descent watched with curiosity and slight awe as the effects of the crystal magic worked all over her, with the end product remaining a softly glinting spectacle as the drizzle of tiny raindrops lit up like dim fireflies as they fell against her.

She stopped right in front of him, her body shaking as she slowly opened her eyes glaring hard at him. It was a harsh contrast to the beauty of her form, but… it was still Starry Skies.

He looked her over as she held the perpetual scowl, but her composure began to falter as a small smirk crept onto his face and he started to chuckle.

“WHAT?” she said in a harsh yet slightly blubbery tone.

“It’s a shame you didn’t attend the Crystal Ball,” Descent said while tipping his head slightly. Starry’s eyes grew wide, her angry glare shattering. “You’d have been the envy of the crowd looking like this.”

Starry’s face turned so red that it almost completely drowned out any sign of her lavender hue. She looked straight down, a mumbling stammer escaping her lips as her body jittered madly.

“Come on,” Descent reached a hoof towards her. “Let’s—OOF!” Descent grunted loudly as Starry Skies punched him REALLY hard right in the gut. He lurched forward as all the air got knocked out of him, his eyes stuck open wide as he twitched, placing a hoof to the ground to stop himself from falling as he tried to regain his breath.

“Y…you… fucking… ASSHOLE!” Starry forced out, her voice broken and shaking as she kept her hoof firmly pressed to his stomach. “You… You… I…”

Descent blinked as Starry suddenly thrust herself against him, wrapping her arms around his body and digging her face into his chest.

“I hate you…” she sputtered, tears falling from her eyes as she shuddered and sniffled.

“Heh…” Descent smirked, keeping himself propped up as he lifted his other hoof and wrapped his arm over her shoulder. “For the right reasons, I hope.”

“Come on, let’s head back.” He slowly held her out at arm’s length and gave her shoulder a squeeze as she kept her eyes down. “Everypony’s been worried about you.”

Descent blinked as she forced herself out of his grip and dove back into his chest.

“In a minute…” she said with a muffled sniffle. “I don’t want to go back crying like a wimp…”

“Fair enough,” Descent chuckled, gently rubbing a hoof against the back of her head.

Meanwhile…

“Dust… help me out here…” Dash whispered to her. But Lightning Dust didn’t pay attention, she was busy staring from behind the rock, a hoof pressed to her lips and warm fuzzy feeling filling her from top to bottom as she watched Descent and Starry. “DUST!” Dash said louder.

“Huh…?” Dust blinked and glanced over her shoulder.

Dash was restraining a bouncing, wide-sparkly-eyed Fleetfoot. She had one hoof pressed over her mouth to muffle a very high pitched continuous squeal that was trying to force its way out.

“We need to get her out of here now before she ruins this for them!” Dash made frantic head motions to Fleetfoot.

“Oh god…” Dust gritted her teeth, stealing one more glance at Descent and Starry before she hopped down and hurried over.

Working together, the two of them restrained and kept Fleetfoot quiet, hoisting her up and flying low to remain out of sight.

Once they were a comfortable distance away, Dash removed her hoof from Fleetfoot’s mouth.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HEE HEE!!!!!” Fleetfoot squealed right into Dash’s ear as she swung her hooved back and forth in front of her face and giggled. “That was so damn CUTE! Aaaaaaaaaah! The two of them are so into each other I can TASTE it! Why’d we leave? They were probably about to bang!”

“For the love of… cut that out,” Dust huffed, furrowing her brow at Fleetfoot. “Does everything have to end with sex for you? Descent’s reasons for caring are so much more than that.”

“Hey,” Fleetfoot reached a hoof out and pushed it against Dust’s nose. “You. Don’t ruin this for me.” She turned her attention to Dash. “You’re with me on this right? C’mon… you know you wanna go back and watch!”

“No,” Dash said while lightly tapping a hoof to Fleetfoot’s forehead. “Bad Fleet. We’re going to let them have their privacy.”

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…” Fleetfoot moaned dramatically in disappointment as Dash and Dust slowly dragged her back to the Empire.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Now wasn't that so violently adorable? Looks like complimenting Starry Skies with flattery will earn you a bruise or two :rainbowderp: But hey... she needed it, especially from the one pony she trusts. There's clearly something about her crystal form she doesnt want anypony to know about, but Descent would rather not hear about it at all than have her hide away when he needs her, and communicating that to her did more than he could realize.

Storm... this is a hard learned lesson you're going through. Dash may be acting a little harsher than needed, but she isn't wrong. Maybe you'll get your chance, but best to listen to your dad for now. You dun goofed real hard and dug yourself a hole, now you gotta lie in it for a while.

And Spitfire, don't kill your wingmates :trollestia:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Art in this chapter by: Foxena

And in case you couldn't read it or missed the teaser blog... Foxena is a troll:

Chapter 182: Breakthrough

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 182: Breakthrough

Another two weeks came and went, and while not much changed regarding the Wonderbolts, the Renegades felt whole again with Starry Skies back among their ranks. Though she still did her best to remain out of sight and wore a hooded cloak whenever others were around, she was at least present and Descent felt a large burden eased off his shoulders. Her return had no effect on their luck gathering any information on the Shadowbolts, and word sent to other cities gave them nothing either, but… at least all their scouting work was easier to manage now.

Yet with all this time passing, the Wonderbolts were becoming a bit restless. They had been put on a regular training routine again as soon as they had returned from their little vacation a month back, but they had gotten little to nothing in terms of direction from Spitfire since. They went about their daily routines, got their daily workouts in and faffed about the empire otherwise, but when were they going to figure out what to do next?

The Shadowbolts had been gone for a month, Spitfire had focused all of her attention on something none of them could see save for a glance or two from time to time of her with Fleetfoot, and Wave… but most of all? Despite all the time spent surveying and even employing the help of the rest of the elements of harmony… Princess Celestia and Princess Luna still could not make heads or tails of what to do next with Soarin.

And they were beginning to run out of ways to assure Rainbow Dash, whose patience grew thinner by the day despite the clear calming effect it had on Soarin. Making him feel better was all well and good, but… it would be nice to know they were getting somewhere.

“Nnnnggg… hhhnnnggg…” Soarin grunted, the glowing form of his soul flickering slightly as Celestia looked him over, the quiet white expanse within Soarin’s mind echoing quietly as Celestia’s magic hummed. There was nothing around aside from her, Soarin’s soul, and the resting form of Rainbow Dash’s soul lying close to him.

Celestia sighed to herself as she glanced back and forth over him, a yawn escaping her lips as she slowly lifted a hoof to hover in front of her mouth when—

“Well?”

Celestia squeaked and jumped in surprise.

“Oh, for the…” she spun around to angrily pout at the newly arrived Sombra, standing behind her as if he didn’t just appear abruptly when she wasn’t looking. “How many times do I have to ask you not to sneak up on me?”

Sombra furrowed his brow.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t be so high strung,” he snorted. “All I did was rematerialize here, it’s not my fault you were standing right in front of me.”

“Hrmph…” Celestia huffed and returned her attention to Soarin. Sombra stared at the back of her head for a moment.

“So are you going to tell me how it’s coming along or are you going to jump again if I so much as twitch near you?” he asked sarcastically.

“Nothing,” she quickly answered with a slight hint of frustration in her voice.

“Nothing?”

“He’s still…” Celestia paused. “Struggling.”

Sombra cocked an eyebrow, stealing a glance at Soarin.

“Struggling? Or just stirring like he has been for who knows how many weeks now?” Sombra asked with a grunt.

“At this point does it really make a difference?” Celestia suddenly blurted out, shooting a slight glare at him over her shoulder. “I don’t know! I was of the thought that we’d at least get a conscious response out of him by now, but…” she exhaled sharply through her nostrils, turning her eyes back to Soarin at her hooves. “Perhaps his soul being that of a mortal is making this process more difficult to adjust to than I could ever gauge or imagine.”

Sombra’s eyelids twitched and his ears flattened out as he heard the words leave her lips. He scoffed loudly and gritted his teeth.

“Alright, that’s enough of this…” he grumbled as he moved towards her.

“Hm?” she blinked. “What are you—HEY!” she yelped as Sombra grabbed her by the shoulder and forcibly pushed her aside.

“I grow tired of your insistent gentle approach,” he started reaching for Soarin. “I’m going to wake him up, even if I have to shake him by the neck.”

“SOMBRA!” Celestia growled, her magic flaring up on her horn and grabbing his arm with her telekinesis. “No. We’ve been OVER this!”

“Oh we have, but I tire of it. It’s been nearly a month since we started this whole process and we’ve made little progress to speak of. Now let go of me so I can wake him up.”

“I said no!” Celestia turned her head, her magic tugging at Sombra and shifting him slightly away from Soarin. “And unless you want ‘YOUR’ castle damaged and the Crystal Empire citizens put in danger, you’ll do nothing of the sort.”

Sombra snarled, bracing the arm that Celestia had her magic hooked onto. His muscles tensed and he gave it a hard yank, pulling his hoof to his chest.

“Ah!” Celestia yelped as she was tugged by her own magic and stumbled towards him. She came to an abrupt halt as her chest crashed into his. She barely had enough time to lift her head before he was right in her face and glaring one of his hardest glares barely an inch from her.

“Then WHAT do you suggest?! If you have a better idea then ENLIGHTEN me, Celes!” he roared loudly, her body shuddering as his voice boomed into her ears. “I grow weary of sitting around and wasting time with nothing to show for it!”

Celestia released her magic and tried to pull herself back, but he gripped her by the shoulder and forced her back towards him, keeping his chest pressed to hers as he leaned his head forward. She tilted her neck back as far as she could, his assertive positioning allowing him to loom over her despite her slight size advantage on him.

“You continue to treat Soarin like a delicate object! If he were so fragile, he would have never survived absorbing your power in the first place! Staring at him and prodding him with a long stick from time to time is no way to solve this conundrum and you KNOW IT!”

Celesita’s pupils shook as Sombra snarled right into her face. The strength of his grip digging into her shoulder so hard she felt as if she had no strength to move.

“What’s the one discovery we’ve made thus far? Hm? Tell me!” he demanded.

“Ah…” Celestia exhaled, but her voice cracked.

“The way Rainbow Dash calms him!” Sombra answered for her. “And how did we find that out?! Because one of us here decided to think outside the box!” he reminded her. “Stop thinking like Discord! You’re better than that! I expect better from you! So do it!”

He held her in place, his glare refusing to yield to make sure that he got his point across to her.

Celestia was frozen, staring directly into his hard gaze. His grip was so strong, his chest was still pressing to hers, and the power in his voice refused to fade from her mind.

“I…” she stuttered, her ears began to twitch and her face felt hot. “I…” she swallowed as her face began to gain a rosy hue.

Sombra’s eyes twitched and he flinched as he saw the sudden change of color in Celestia’s face.

“FEH!” Sombra scoffed, quickly releasing her and taking a step back. As soon as she was free, Celestia turned her side to him and placed her opposite hoof to her cheek, stealing quick nervous and somewhat awkward glances at Sombra as her face turned redder. “Of all the… blasted…” Sombra grumbled, rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth. He shot a sharp glance in her direction. “Really, Celes?”

Celestia released a long breath as she moved a wing in front of her face and peeked over the top of it.

“Sorry… I… well,” she struggled. “You’re… you know…”

“Enough,” Sombra huffed. “I’ve made my point.” He turned and took a couple of steps before his image flickered and dematerialized.

“Oh GOD…!” Celestia blurted out the moment Sombra was gone, shuddering and wing feathers fluffing up as she lowered herself and sat down. “He… hasn’t changed one bit…” She took a long deep breath and stuffed both hooves over her face, puffing her cheeks as she let the air out slowly and made several high pitch mumbling squeaks.

“AIE!!!” Luna yelped as Sombra’s image appeared outside of Soarin, directly in front of her and walked through her, snorting and grumbling to himself.

“Don’t you start with me too,” Sombra growled at her as she stumbled back and watched him stomp along.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there…” Discord slithered around and popped up in front of him. Sombra could have kept going, but he stopped and hardened his glare even further as he locked eyes with Discord. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” he asked, but Sombra said nothing. Discord glanced towards Soarin as Luna held a hoof to her chest and caught her breath. He lifted an eyebrow and looked back down at Sombra. “You were in there for all of a minute or two, did Tia kick you out?” he asked with a smirk he couldn’t quite hide.

“I go where I please,” Sombra growled, only answering the first question as he walked through Discord. Discord flashed, teleporting himself back into Sombra’s path and sticking a hand out, wagging a finger back and forth.

“Oh no no no, you didn’t answer me,” he sneered. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me why she threw you out.”

“I left on my own,” Sombra snorted and took a step forward. “And you have no power to deter me,” he said firmly as he walked through Discord again.

“DID YOU leave on your own?” Discord crossed his arms and curled his upper body around without moving his waist or legs. “Hmmmmm?” he smarmily hummed. Sombra stopped in his tracks, furrowing his brow as he realized what Discord was trying to do.

“If you simply can't go without knowing all the tidbits of my business,” Sombra started sarcastically while glancing over his shoulder. “I left before my presence could overwhelm her… not that you’d know what that’s like.”

“Pbthpbtpbptb…” Discord blew a raspberry and rolled his eyes as he turned the rest of his body around to face him. “Oh I’m sure that’s exactly what happened, Mr. Big Talker.”

“I only speak in truths, you uncoiled saddle-goose,” Sombra grunted, but then smirked and slowly turned halfway around. “Unless you require even more details.”

“Pfft, save your breath,” Discord shook his head. “I know you can’t help swinging your self-proclaimed massive iron bells around every chance you get. Even if she slapped you across the face, you’ll find some absurd way to spin it as some sort of alpha-male victory to everypony who didn’t see it. You didn’t last but a few moments in there with her and were real quick with the storytelling this time, so… I will safely assume she threw you out for not behaving and be satisfied with myself.”

“Whatever polishes thine tiny stones,” Sombra gruffly harrumphed.

But before he could turn and leave, Celestia suddenly appeared beside Soarin.

“Sister?” Luna spoke up, drawing Discord and Sombra’s eyes to her.

Celestia had her head tilted down, her pupils shifting back and forth slowly. After a moment she looked up and flinched as she saw them all staring at her, but specifically… she was staring at Sombra.

“”Oh… Y…you’re still here...” she stuttered, cheeks flushed and causing a rather interesting effect with her translucent appearance.

Luna blinked, glancing between Celestia and Sombra while Discord stared blankly at her for several moments.

“A-HEM.” Sombra loudly cleared his throat, causing Discord to twitch. Discord flattened his brow and glanced over his shoulder at Sombra. Sombra lifted an eyebrow and smirked at him.

“Shut up,” Discord snorted.

“Shall I describe how it wasn’t even my intention?” Sombra added with a snicker.

“I said SHUT UP!” Discord snarled, twisting his upper body around to glare and snarl.

“Sister!” Luna spoke up, stepping towards Celestia with a bit of anger and concern. “What did he do to you?!”

Celestia glanced at Luna, quickly averting her eyes while biting her lower lip awkwardly.

“Nothing… he did nothing…” she quickly deflected, earning a confused look from Luna.

“Nothing…?” Luna tipped her head to the side. “Then… why…?” she glanced between them again as Celestia tried to avert her eyes further.

“I yelled at her,” Sombra spoke up, causing Celestia to flinch. “Take of that what you wish,” Sombra turned his side to all of them and tipped a hoof toward her. “Don’t look at me, apparently she enjoyed it.”

“For the LOVE of…” Discord grabbed his ears and pulled on them so hard they popped off. His ears released high pitch screams as he squeezed them in his hands. He spun around to face Sombra, letting go of his ears as they bounced from his hands and attached back to his head. “ENOUGH! If you want to go out there and spook a bunch of ponies, BE MY GUEST. Just GET OUT!”

“As you wish,” Sombra chuckled heartily and turned to leave as Luna stared at Celestia with a flat look that screamed ‘really?’

“Hrgnn… Hrnn…”

All four of them froze.

“Ah… ghraaa…”

All eyes sharply turned to Soarin.

“Hhrgnnnnnnn…” Soarin was grunting and stirring, his eyelids twitching.

Sombra and Celestia’s images began to pulse and flicker, both of them looking down and their eyes widening.

“Is… is he…?” Luna thought out loud.

Discord stood up as straight as his body could manage as he frantically glanced between Sombra and Celestia.

“Both of you, get back in there!” he yelled as he pointed at Soarin. “NOW!”

“Come on! Up tempo! Up tempo!” Spitfire yelled to Fleetfoot and Wave as she sat up from the leg press machine and motioned to it. “Wave get in there! Fleet! On the incline!”

Wave let his dumbbells down and let them bounce on the rubber floor. He rolled off the incline bench and passed by Spitfire with a nod as he changed the weights on the leg machine and took her place.

“Up, Fleet! Let’s go!” Spitfire yelled as Fleetfoot lay flat on the mat nearby.

“Hrmmmmmm!” Fleetfoot gathered herself and pushed herself up as Spitfire rolled another pair of dumbbells over.

“Get down, let’s go! Almost done with the warmup rounds!” Spitfire yelled as Fleetfoot jumped onto the thirty-degree bench and Spitfire hoisted the dumbbells up to her. “Last reps, last reps!” she yelled as Fleetfoot began pumping the weights up and down and Wave dug his hooves into the leg machine platform. “Go! Go! Go!” Spitfire yelled as she hooked the stopwatch dangling around her neck with her hoof and looked at it. “Three… Two… One… aaaaaaaand TIME!”

Wave let the machine clang into the safety locks and Fleetfoot let the dumbbells drop to the floor with loud thumps. Spitfire furrowed her brow.

“Fleet… dropping weights,” she said sternly, but Fleetfoot extended a wing and gave her the middle feather.

“One, the floor and weights are made of rubber. Two… at this point I don’t give a damn,” she said as she sat up and swung her arms back and forth. “Gawd… I’m so glad we’re almost done with this…” she said with a huff.

But Spitfire couldn’t help but smile subtly as the two easily got up and moved around after the usual intense warmup. Did either of them realize that they used to be nearly dead at this point back when they started? Both of them were up, moving around, and looked ready for more.

But this was the last day, and Spitfire was pleased with what she saw. Now the question was… could they see it? It was time to find out.

“You can whine all you want,” Spitfire chuckled. “But…”

Fleetfoot and Wave both perked up as they detected a different tone in Spitfire’s voice.

“That’s a wrap,” Spitfire slung a towel over her shoulder. “We’re done.”

Fleetfoot and Wave stared blankly at her.

“What?” Fleetfoot broke the silence.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Wave turned back towards the weights and shook his arms out to stay loose. “I didn’t stick with this the whole way to stop short at the very end. Let’s finish the workout.”

“Valiant attempt at being motivational, Wave,” Spitfire chuckled while tossing her towel at him and hitting him in the face. He flinched in surprise, catching the towel before it slid off his face.

“Wait, what?” he looked at her quizzically.

“I didn’t stop us to treat you two, I did it on purpose because…” Spitfire trotted over the barbell bench. “We’re going to do something else during this last workout,” she smiled while leaning her arms against the bar. “Both of you warmed up? Nice and loose? Feeling fresh after our day off yesterday?”

Fleetfoot and Wave glanced at one another briefly before nodding.

“Perfect! We’re going to do an upper body strength test, just like we did at the start. It’s time to see if this was as much worth it as I hoped.”

“As you… hoped?” Fleetfoot picked out, furrowing her brow as they approached the bench.

“Don’t look at me like that just yet,” Spitfire winked at her as she came around the weight plates and picked up forty-five pounder. “You can throw me down the stairs if this was all for nothing, but we won’t know until we give this a shot, and…” she slapped the first plate on and went for a second. “I’ll go first so I can disappoint myself if it comes to that. Wave, help me out,” she said as she motioned to the other side of the bar.

“What else do you want on it, twenty-fives?” he asked, but before he could get an answer, Spitfire stacked the second forty five over the first. Wave quickly reached out in case the bar tipped, but the rack was wide enough to even it out. “You’re… double plating? You aren’t going for reps then?”

“You bet your ass I am,” she nodded as she sat down on the bench. “Now load it up.”

Wave looked at the other side of the bar, then looked back at her. She probably couldn’t smirk at him any harder than she was at that moment so he didn’t bother protesting.

“If you say so,” Wave shrugged and grabbed the first plate.

“Um…” Fleetfoot watched as Wave loaded the other two plates on the bar. But before she could voice any concern, Spitfire shot her a wink.

In reality, Spitfire wasn’t sure if it had worked as intended. She sure felt stronger, after all that, but by how much was she really? If they were going to find out by turning up the heat like this, she was going to take the risk herself.

“Now spot me,” Spitfire made a head motion to Wave as she lay flat on her back and hooked her hooves on the bar.

“Lift off?” Wave asked while hovering his hooves over her bar. Spitfire took a moment to brace her arms and tense her chest, she eyes the bar over her head and with a grunt, gave it a nudge. The bar bounced against its rack. Spitfire blinked… then smiled.

“Nah, I can get this up no problem,” she gripped the bar and took a deep breath, arching her back and driving her arms up. “HUP!”

Wave flinched in surprise as she managed to get the bar off the rack without his help, but stood at the ready with his hooves out just in case.

“Hnng…” Spitfire lowered the bar down, keeping steady until it was an inch over her chest. She halted for a moment, then pushed back up, breathing out as the bar steadily rose and returned to the starting position… and held it there for a moment.

“One,” Wave said out loud, watching her carefully. “You good?” Wave asked.

But Spitfire wasn’t listening to him, she was staring up at the bar over her head. The last time they had done strength testing for the entire force, she had lifted this exact weight, but could only do one rep and if not for Soarin spotting her, the second rep would have landed right on her chest. When they did a quick strength test before this training regimen, she did forty pounds less just to gauge her current strength.

But right here and now, holding this weight over her head with one rep done? She felt like she had barely spent any strength at all.

A fire of excitement lit up in her eyes.

Without another word, she lowered the bar again, and pushed it up again. When Wave reached out to grab it, he had to pull back because she did a third… then a fourth…

“Haaaah! One more!” Spitfire ground her teeth together. “I’ve got one more!”

Wave blinked, looking up at Fleetfoot only to see she wore a similar wide eyed look, but he quickly refocused as Spitfire breathed in and let the bar down one more time. She grunted as she reached the bottom, the movement back up halting after an inch. Wave reached his hooves under the bar, but he didn’t grab it.

“HHHNGG!!!!” Spitfire growled, her arms and chest holding steady as she pushed the bar the rest of the way up very slowly. But Wave didn’t need to help her, carefully keeping his hooves under the bar until she made it to the top. “HA! HAHA!” Spitfire laughed to herself as Wave grabbed the bar and helped her clang it back into the rack. She immediately sat up clenching her hooves and shaking them up and down. “YES!!!!” she cheered to herself, happily looking back and forth between Wave and Fleetfoot.

Wave was just staring at the bar with a blank look on his face. Fleetfoot was staring at her with wide eyes and her jaw hanging open.

“That… What…?” Fleetfoot pointed at the bar. “I know you’re like… different when it comes to this stuff, but… How…?”

“Heh…” Spitfire grinned, clasping her hooves together in front of her and tensing her muscles, holding it for a moment before relaxing and swinging her arms back and forth. “Wave!” she turned, slid her plot down the bench, and leaned an arm on the bar. Wave flinched and looked up, his eyes meeting a smug stare as Spitfire took a somewhat sultry position as she got close to his face, whether she meant to or was just feeling too good to think about it otherwise. “You’re next,” she placed a hoof to his chest and traced it up the center of it until she reached the base of his neck. Wave swallowed, caught off-guard by the somewhat uncharacteristic flirtiness.

“Er… okay.” Wave nodded as Spitfire hopped off the bench and patted it with her hoof. She glanced at Fleetfoot as Wave made his way around. She was still staring at Spitfire, her eyes scanning her body over.

Spitfire said nothing, but smirked to herself. She was aware of her natural physical ability, but even SHE was surprised by what she just pulled off. She was confident there would be an improvement for them too. With how hard they had been working and how focused they were on recovery in between every workout, neither of them seemed to take notice of how their bodies showed visible change. How Fleetfoot hadn’t noticed yet was a mystery, but either way they were both in for a surprise. She called Wave next on purpose, waiting eagerly for him to get in place with the same weight. She had been holding back from saying anything to him over this last week, but…

“Okay… I haven’t done this weight in a while,” Wave said with slight hesitance.

“None of that,” Spitfire leaned over the bar and poked a hoof to his nose. “You’re going to do more reps than I did.”

“I seriously doubt that,” Wave snorted with a slight pout. Spitfire knew why he was doubting himself. He had already expressed his disappointment in what he had lost while out of commission and sickly. It appeared that he still harbored some inner doubts about her promise to get him back up to speed with the rest, but little did he realize…

“Come on, up,” Spitfire tapped the bar as he hooked his hooves with it.

“One… two… three,” Wave counted down, Spitfire helping him get it off the rack, but she let go of it quickly before he could bring it into place. He flinched in surprise… but then stared as he managed to stabilize the bar overhead with little trouble.

“Come on, let’s go!” Spitfire twirled a hoof above him, unable to hide a slight smile on her face.

Wave breathed in… down, and up. The look of surprise on his face the moment he finished his first rep sent a surge of giddiness through Spitfire, but she did her best to contain it. Wave continued, adrenaline taking over as he pumped out another… and another … and another… and kept going. Spitfire glanced at Fleetfoot, now frozen in place as she watched Wave both reach and surpass Spitfire’s rep count by two before he slammed the weight back into the rack.

“Haaaa…” Wave exhaled as he sat up quickly, a look of shock on his face as he panted and stared down at his hooves. “Wh-what…?” he asked out loud, looking down at his body briefly. “That was…”

“More than you could do before?” Spitfire finished for him. Wave glanced back at her.

“A little bit, yeah but… how did I even get back to…” he paused halfway as Spitfire lifted her brow and tipped her head slightly. “You know, you said you were going to do it, but I… admit I didn’t think it would actually work.”

“This is why you don’t doubt your captain, soldier!” Spitfire teased him, sticking her tongue out at him, but quickly looking passed him towards the still frozen Fleetfoot. “It worked on you better than I could have hoped! Which means…”

Fleetfoot’s eyes finally shifted, catching both of them looking at her.

“Fleet! You’re up!” Spitfire cheerfully pointed to the bench as she nudged Wave off of it. Fleetfoot blinked several times and flattened her brow as she looked at the weight loaded on the bar.

“Spitty, what in our history together makes you think I’m capable of lifting that much weight?” she asked while scrunching up her face. “I dunno what the hell is going on, but… you’re a freak and he’s a stallion. I’m gonna get crushed by that!”

“You’re not lifting this, silly,” Spitfire rolled her eyes as she moved to take one plate off and motioned for Wave to do the same. Fleetfoot watched as one plate was removed from each side, but Spitfire shook her head when Wave went for the second. Fleetfoot stared at the plate left on each side.

“That’s… still a lot. I only did a hundred for one when we—HEY!” she yelped as Spitfire stacked a ten pound weight onto one side and hoofed another over to Wave. “Are you kidding me?”

“Fleet, down,” Spitfire pointed to the bench.

“I can’t do that!” Fleetfoot huffed in frustration. “That’s fifty more pounds than the most I’ve ever done!”

“Fifty-five,” Spitfire corrected her, pointing to the bench again. “Now get over here. You saw what we just did. It’s time to challenge yourself. Don’t worry, I’ll spot you.”

“Mmmmmmmrrrrrrrrph…” Fleetfoot groaned under her breath. “Fine… You better hang onto it.”

“Just do it,” Spitfire nodded sternly.

“Alright, alright already…” Fleetfoot made her way over and took her sweet time getting down into the bench.

As she waited, Spitfire glanced over at Wave. He had made his way to the gym mirror and was looking himself over, turning from side to side and staring in disbelief. She smiled at his reaction… and at knowing what she had discovered. It worked for her… it worked for him and got him back to peak shape and more… and now…

“O…okay…” Fleetfoot exhaled as she hooked the bar with her hooves. “Hhhrmmm… Spitty this looks so heavy…”

“One…” Spitfire began the count to get her to focus.

“Whoa, whoa, okay okay… Fleetfoot set her shoulders.

“Two… Three!” Spitfire gripped the bar and Fleetfoot squeaked, shutting her eyes as she scrunched up her face and the bar was hoisted out.

She waited for Spitfire to release it and give it to her, but… the bar remained floating.

“Spitty, it’s up, let me take it,” she grunted out.

“I already did.”

Fleetfoot’s eyes shot open. She looked up to see Spitfire was hovering her hooves under the bar.

“Come on, down and up! Let’s go!” Spitfire cheered her on.

Fleetfoot stared for another moment before taking a deep breath and lowering the bar as slowly as she could. It was heavy, it was hard, but… she managed to get it to the bottom of the rep all by herself and… she nearly gasped at the realization that she didn’t feel stuck.

“UP!” Spitfire yelled as Wave turned to watch as well.

“Hrmmm!!!” Fleetfoot slammed her eyes shut and pushed. The bar slowly rose, inching upward and pausing once or twice as she moved.

“Come on! Come on!” Spitfire yelled. “You can do it!”

“Hnnnggg…” Fleetfoot gave it one more solid push… “HAH!” she exhaled loudly as she got the weight back up.

“Yeeeeah!” Spitfire yelled triumphantly as she grabbed the bar and moved it back into the rack. “Fleet! You did—whoa!” Spitfire leaned back as Fleetfoot nearly propelled herself off the bench and almost smacked Spitfire in the face with her wings. She skidded to a stop a few yards from the bench and locked her eyes on the bar. Her pupils shifted back and forth as if she was trying to confirm whether or not she was looking at the bar she just lifted.

“Wow…” Wave stepped up, looking towards Fleetfoot with an impressed look.

“Eureka,” Spitfire tapped a hoof to the bar and nodded with a triumphant look on her face. “Oh it’s so nice to see.”

“Hold up… HOLD UP!” Fleetfoot threw her hooves up and shook her head out. “What the hell is going on? What happened to me?” she sounded somewhat frantic.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Spitfire quickly made her way around and grabbed both of Fleetfoot’s hooves, gently pushing them down. “To US… Fleet. This was exactly what we were trying to do. Just calm down for a second and come over here…” she glanced down at Fleet’s body and arms. “You’ll be loving this in a minute or so,” she said with a wink as she tugged Fleetfoot over towards Wave, telling them both to sit as she went over to her gym bag and began rummaging through it.

Wave and Fleet sat quietly. Wave out of patience, Fleetfoot because… she was very confused. Spitfire removed a clipboard and a measuring tape from the bag. She hummed casually to herself as she wrapped the tape around several parts of her body, occasionally tensing her body, nodding, and jotting something down.

“Oh that’s neat…” Spitfire suddenly said after several measurements, chuckling to herself as she eagerly turned around and zipped right over to Wave.

“Whoa there!” Wave blinked as Spitfire reached around his body to position the tape in several places.

“Flex,” she instructed as she pulled the tape tight around his chest. Wave obeyed, and did so again and again as she took the measurements and jotted down on the clipboard.

“I feel like Lightning Streak,” Wave joked as Spitfire took careful note and everything.

“Lightning Streak doesn’t have any mares willingly asking him to flex his muscles,” Spitfire pointed out with a snicker.

She finished jotting everything down.

“Good, good… Fleet, your turn.”

“What is even happening?” Fleetfoot asked in a somewhat hysterical tone as Spitfire lifted the measuring tape towards her. “Answer me dammit.”

“Fleet, RELAX!” Spitfire chuckled, lowering the tap for a moment as she nearly burst out laughing. “Now let me see your arm.”

“You did this before too… are we getting new suits or something?” she asked, sounding somewhat out of it. Spitfire nearly burst out laughing, reaching a hoof up and tapping it to her head.

“You are silly,” Spitfire said plainly while shaking her head. “If you haven’t picked up on it yet, you will in a second. I put you two on this routine for a reason… you know. Now flex your arm.”

“Oh so now you’re gonna tell—” Fleetfoot stopped abruptly as she did as Spitfire asked, her eyes growing wide and nearly choking on her own breath in surprise as she saw the muscles in her arm press to the measuring tape and force it to slide up the numbers. “ME?!” Fleetfoot pulled back, but not before Spitfire took note and grabbed her clipboard.

Fleetfoot stared at her arm, keeping her eyes locked on it as if waiting in fear of it being possessed by something. Spitfire reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back over. She took several other measurements, but didn’t need to tell Fleetfoot to tense at all because she was already sitting as stiffly as she could manage.

“Yes, YES!” Spitfire giggled to herself as she finished writing things down and looked over the clipboard.

“Well… I think I understand now,” Wave spoke up as he moved towards them, running a hoof up and down his opposite arm. “But, now you’ve only piqued my curiosity. I see what happened, and it happened just like you said it would but… I wasn’t expecting to be this… fast? How exactly did you make this happen?” he asked as Fleetfoot remained in a state of rather humorous shock.

“Look!” Spitfire eagerly held the clipboard out to Wave. It was a chart divided into columns and rows. Three pairs of columns with their names above them and columns for body measurements or the chest, arms, legs, and shoulder. Wave glanced back and forth between, noticing that the numbers on the left of each column pair were higher than the ones on the left ranging from half an inch to a full inch increase in the value for all three of them. “I took these five weeks ago, FIVE WEEKS!” Spitfire pointed out excitedly. She tipped the board aside, looked down at herself and flexed an arm, tensing up the muscles. “That’s all it took!” she reached out and poked Wave in the chest. “Both Fleet and I have built some noticeable muscle mass and strength and you...” she traces a hoof over his chest muscles. “Not only did we get you back in shape, you got even more from it than expected! Don’t you two understand what this means? An increase like this is usually only possible over the course of a few months of very hard training and strict regimen! We had to put a questionable amount of strain on our bodies, but we made it through without breaking and… it worked! It actually worked!”

Fleetfoot stared blankly as Spitfire started bouncing up and down in place giggling quietly to herself like a filly that just opened the first gift of Hearths Warming.

“Captain…” Wave snickered as he reached out and pressed his hooves down on her shoulders. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you act so much like…” he glanced back at Fleetfoot.

“Sorry…” Spitfire blushed lightly and shuddered lightly as she shook herself out. “I can’t help it.”

“Could you answer my question now?” Wave asked again with a smirk, but then he blinked. “Wait… unless it has to do with…?”

“It’s all thanks to the Crystal Dew baths!” Spitfire finished for him with a wink. “When they first told me how it worked and could pretty much fix minor injuries. I poked around to find out what defined ‘minor injury’ and asked if the effects would apply to muscle recovery! Technically speaking, working out and training in general breaks down muscle fibers and during recovery they repair themselves, which is how they gain strength and mass. Under the assumption that the effect was one and the same, I decided to test whether or not the baths would work in terms of speeding up the process of muscle recovery and allowing us to basically workout twice to three times as much as we normally would while also yielding twice to three times the results and… it looks like it worked!” she threw her arms out excitedly, then twitched and shuddered. “Oooo…” she swallowed as she grabbed her shoulder and rubbed it. “Though clearly it’s not without its drawbacks… we put a hell of a lot of stress on our bodies and as you both know very well… the fatigue was extreme, even with designated full rest days. But hey!” she nodded happily. “We did it! It worked!”

“Uh…” Wave looked down at himself again. “I really don’t know what to say except… wow.” He looked up at Spitfire with a somewhat awkward smile. “Can’t say I enjoyed the stress but… I never thought something like this would be possible, and technically we did it naturally, right? The magic simply supported and quickened our bodies’ otherwise natural recovery? That makes it even more unbelievable.”

“Believe it, Wave. I found a way to give you your sexy Wonderbolt body back, so no more moping, got it?” Spitfire joked.

“Oh, you’ll hear none from me now!” he chuckled as she poked him in the shoulder.

“But…” Fleetfoot squeaked, still staring straight ahead at Spitfire. “Why did you include me?” Fleetfoot asked, her voice shaking with some lingering disbelief. “I get Wave, but why me?”

Spitfire looked over to her, her eyes shifting down to examine Fleetfoot’s body briefly as she smiled.

“I needed more than one mare to test it on,” Spitfire explained as she made her way over to her. “Stallions have certain advantages when it comes to this and we all know we can’t trust my body to accurately represent the mare side of things,” she said with a chuckle as she gently placed a hoof on Fleetfoot’s shoulder. “But c’mon, Fleet… think about it,” she flashed a warm smile. “You said you wanted to be stronger, to be more than you were, right?”

Fleetfoot’s eyes opened wide.

“I didn’t forget,” Spitfire winked. “You left an impression on me when you told us everything. You were the first I thought of when putting this together, I didn’t want it any other way.”

“I…” Fleetfoot began to quiver.

“Honestly I’m surprised you didn’t say anything yet. Knowing how much you like mirrors I thought for sure you’d see it,” Spitfire chuckled. “But I guess you were whining all the way through for a reason, you must’ve just been that exhausted.”

Spitfire paused and saw Fleetfoot didn’t react at all to what she had just said. It looked like she was still fixated on Spitfire’s reason for including her. So… Spitfire turned her around and faced her towards the gym mirror.

“Go on,” Spitfire nodded and gave her a nudge. “Have a look.”

Fleetfoot slowly inched towards her reflection in the mirror. She stopped no more than a yard from it, staring with disbelief as her eyes scanned her body. She turned from side to side, tipped her head back and forth. The longer she stared, the more Spitfire’s joke about her not noticing began to finally register in her head… and the more her ability to lift weight she was sure she couldn’t began to make sense. Everywhere she looked over herself… improved muscle tone and a noticeable increase in mass all over. She had always had an extremely sleek physique, so it was impossible to miss the new shapes peeking out from her frame.

“Looking pretty strong there, huh?” Spitfire spoke up as she moved up beside Fleetfoot. “Still feel like whining now?” Spitfire asked jokingly.

But she had no idea how properly timed her approach was.

Fleetfoot’s eyes immediately shifted to Spitfire, taking in the details of her powerful body and the muscles that all who knew her were all too familiar with. A moment later, Fleetfoot looked at her own again in the mirror. Obviously she was nowhere near the large physical specimen Spitfire was but… now her own body had a similar look. Even if it was much less, there was enough there to hit her on a personal level.

Spitfire, along with Soarin and Dash, had learned everything about her best kept secrets after Nightshade exploited them. Letting it out was hard… knowing they all saw the magazines that she marked up was hard… knowing they saw her emotional self-depreciation upon pages with Spitfire on them was hard.

And Spitfire… did not let it go without doing something about it.

“Mmmmmrph…” Fleetfoot suddenly whimpered, her ears flopping down as she stared at the floor.

“Fleet?” Spitfire tipped her head. “What’s wrong? Whoa!” Spitfire flinched in surprise as Fleetfoot suddenly hugged her REALLY tightly and buried her face into her fur. After a moment, Fleetfoot tilted her head up, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I DON’T DESERVE YOU!!!!!” Fleetfoot wailed, digging her face back into Spitfire’s chest, sniffling.

“Fleet…” Spitfire smiled, pressing a hoof into her mane.

“You’re the goddamn best…” Fleetfoot blubbered as she turned her head and pressed her cheek in. “I’m never complaining ever again.”

“You’ll be complaining again in no time,” Spitfire snickered as she hugged Fleetfoot back. “But really… I had to do this for you after all that, it was never even a question,” she slowly held out the sniffling Fleetfoot at arm’s length. “Now how about we put you and Wave on display for the rest of the force?” she asked with a smirk.

“Display?” Wave chuckled as he approached them. “Dare I ask?”

“Obviously we need to get the rest of the force in on this now,” Spitfire nodded. “But I don’t see why we can’t have a little fun ‘convincing’ them that we’ve got ourselves a breakthrough.”

“Sooo…” Wave tipped his head goofily. “Prance back and forth, swing our flanks towards them and do my best ‘Lightning-Streak-in-the-gym’ impersonation?”

“Might as well,” Spitfire giggled while pushing him away jokingly. “Show off the muscles and you’ll convince well over half of the stallions in seconds. With how much testosterone we’ve got flowing through our male ranks, the promise to ‘get swole’ will be all they need. As for the ladies…” Spitfire gently pressed a hoof into the still sniffling Fleetfoot’s mane. “Fleet here will be all the convincing they need to know it’s worth their effort. Sure they all know me and my body, but the famous sleek and slender Silver Arrow also noticeably built up her body over a short period of time? I’d say that gets their attention. What do you think, Fleet? Ready to show off what you got?”

Fleetfoot stared at her blankly.

“I never thought I’d hear you encourage me to do that,” she said with a somewhat awkward tone. “But…” she swallowed and nodded, wiping her eyes. “Yeah… I… kinda really wanna,” she smiled, confidence creeping back into her tone as she glanced down and ran a hoof over her opposite arm and shoulder again.

“Then it’s settled,” Spitfire nodded. “Both of you cover up with something and go get me the top tier squads first,” she ordered, but paused when she glanced at Wave. “Actually, grab Rainbow Dash and her squad as well. Meet up with me in the palace after you get them, I’m gonna need a lot of the Crystal Dew from the clerics!”

“Wait, you’ve never been to the Crystal Coliseum?” Thunderlane asked.

“No,” Squall answered simply, keeping his eyes forward down the street, walking steadily behind Rainbow Dash and Matteo as Star lay draped over his head. Star tipped her head curiously.

“Aren’t you from here?” she asked, grabbing one of his ears to stop herself from sliding off.

“No, I’m definitely not a crystal pony…” Squall answered sarcastically.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Star huffed, tugging lightly on his ear.

“I’m not surprised, actually,” Dash called back from in front of them. “It’s not like he’s been living here that long. The Crystal Empire only just reappeared… how long ago again?”

“Uh…” Squall scrunched his face as he failed to remember.

“Almost two years,” Matteo answered without turning to look.

“Really?” Dash blinked and looked up to him.

“I’m estimating, if I recall when the news reached the Griffon Empire correctly,” Matteo shrugged. “Still, likely more than enough time to attend gladiator events.”

“Pffft…” Dash rolled her eyes. “They play sports there, Matteo.”

Matteo turned to look at her and lifted an eyebrow.

“In a coliseum? Would that not be a stadium?”

“Practically the same thing here, big guy. We don’t make sport of killing each other in front of crowds around here,” Dash chuckled.

“Yeah we do it behind closed doors instead…” Star joked, recalling some of the ‘training matches’ that got out of hand when they were still just barely new recruits.

“Whatever, it isn’t my thing,” Squall refocused the conversation.

“Says the Wonderbolt,” Thunderlane said quietly with a snicker as the group turned down the main market street square near the Crystal Palace.

“I bet your dad loved going,” Dash suddenly said while shooting a smarmy look back at him. Squall blinked in surprise.

“How… did you know?”

“Well, it was something you avoided. Not very hard to narrow down the reason,” Dash winked and kept moving.

“Fair enough,” Squall rolled his eyes. But then they all came to a sudden stop as Dash halted in her tracks. She looked back at all of them, then around the area.

“You know I can’t believe it took me this long to notice,” she sighed in frustration. “Anyone see where Twister went?

Not a second after she asked, an extremely loud whistle came from nearby. They all looked over to a cart news stand to see Twister sitting next to a magazine shelf placed beside it. He was holding a magazine up in the air over his head and tilting back and forth while pointing to its cover.

“YA’LL GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW AND CHECK OUT THIS HOTTIE ON THE COVER!” he yelled as loud as he could.

“Huh?” Dash blinked and squinted, trying to make out what was on the magazine. “Hottie on the…?”

“SSSSNNNNNRRRRKKKKKK!” Matteo suddenly snorted very loudly while quickly covering his beak and looking away, his body twitched as he chuckled.

“Eh? What?” Star blinked and looked at Matteo. Matteo lifted a talon and pointed at Twister.

“That… it must’ve been those pictures… and the cover is…” Matteo barely managed to say as he tried as hard as he could to keep his composure.

“Pictures? What do you…?” Squall trailed off, his face going blank as his eyes grew wide. “Wait… pictures… oh no…” then he flinched really hard. “WAIT… THE COVER?!”

“Oh! OOOOH!” Star propelled herself into the air off Squall’s head. “OH MY GOSH! LEMME SEE!” She took off towards Twister, much to Squall’s dismay. “LEMME SEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!”

“NO!” Squall yelled desperately as he tried to stop her, but she was long gone.

Twister happily held the magazine out for Star to get a full view as she reached him. She grabbed the edges of it and nearly pressed her face to the cover.

It was the latest issue of Equus Aviation. This particular issue was titled: “Wonderbolt Special”

And plastered right on the cover of the magazine… was a rather spicy headshot of Squall that looked to be one taken while he was trying his hardest to get away from Photo Finish. But it appeared her skill with a camera came through, catching a moment that made him look extremely handsome, further modified by clear touching up and editing. Beneath him was written: “New hot Bolt on the block!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH HEE HEE HEE!!!!” Star released a high pitched giggly squeal. “Guys! Guys! Come look!” she yelled back to the rest as Twister swept his mane about and struck a head position and expression that perfectly mimicked how Squall looked on the cover.

Matteo and Thunderlane started making their way over, but Dash paused to glance back at the frozen Squall. He had a look that was harshly mixed with shock and mortification. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“Come on, cover boy!” she chuckled as she grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him over as he groaned with discontent.

“Wow! Look at all of these!” Star giggled as Dash finally pulled Squall to them. “There are so many pictures of you!” she beamed at Squall as she shifted over and pressed against him while he stared with wide eyes at the pages. Thunderlane and Matteo packed in as well as she paged through them. “This one is great!” she pointed to one of him glaring at the camera. Twister slowly rose up from behind the magazine, making the exact same face. “Oooooo or this one!” Star pointed to one of him looking away and up. Twister mimicked that one as well.

“These were all taken before you got your scar,” Matteo pointed out.

“Wow, Photo Finish really knows how to catch that sexy side of you, huh?” Dash teased while nudging him in the side.

Squall’s eye twitched.

“I hate this.” Squall said flatly.

“I’ll take twenty!” Star giggled while moving over to the magazine rack and looking for more.

“HEY!” Squall growled, but Dash reached up and pressed a hoof on his shoulder.

“Let her have this, you,” she chuckled. “I could’ve told you your face sells, Squall!” she added with a smirk. “Are there other pictures in—?”

Dash was cut off as Twister suddenly flipped vigorously through the pages, stopping them right on a picture that featured all the ‘serious squad’ members the Wonderbolts rounded up and forced in front of the camera. Matteo was smack in the middle of the picture and looked like we was just about ready to murder everyone sitting around him with how angry he looked.

Matteo blinked and stared as Dash and Thunderlane burst out laughing. Squall stared for a moment as well before s snort escaped his nose and he couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

“YOU LOOK SO MAD!” Thunderlane blurted out as he tipped over. Twister rose up from behind the magazine with a fake beak, imitating Matteo’s glare in the picture. Without a word, Matteo flattened his brow, grabbed Twister’s fake beak, pulled it back, and let it snap into his face. Twister screamed in such a high pitch that it was almost inaudible as he slowly fell back down behind the magazine.

“Look at all these though!” Dash laughed as she leafed through the pages. “These are great! And… there’s a ten page section here devoted to Fleetfoot…” Dash’s eyes went wide and she leaned her head back. “When did she take THESE?!”

“Whoa there, let me take a closer look,” Thunderlane grabbed the magazine from her and stuffed his head into it. Dash gave him a flat look and pushed the magazine down enough to see his eyes whipping back and forth.

“I’m sure Applejack would appreciate this,” she said while lifting her brow.

“Do what you will, I have already won,” Thunderlane joked as Dash snorted and pulled the magazine away from him.

“Yeah yeah sure and I… whoa…” Dash puckered her lips and blinked several times as she came across some pictures of Soarin. Obviously the pictures were of him before his recent transformation, but… they were really high quality. “Hold on a second I need a moment here…” Dash said with a loud exhale and using a wing to fan herself.

“Are there any other pictures of—” Thunderlane tried to grab the magazine from her, but she quickly turned away from him.

“Hold on, I’m… uh… reading…” she said as she bit her lip and her face turned a little red.

“‘Reading,’ right…” Thunderlane snorted as he kept trying to grab it from her. “You can lock yourself in the bathroom later, Dash… come on, give it here.”

“Oh fine, fine…” Dash averted her eyes, subtly giggling to herself as she placed a hoof on her chest and shuddered. “Let’s see what else we have…” she let the rest look in again. “Seriously though, there are so many fun pictures in here!” Dash repeated, paging through several group shots, some funny, some serious, some solo shots taken for profile pages. A lot of photos that were taken after the cameras were stolen appeared to make it into the magazine. They were a bit misaligned at times due to Soarin and Lightning Streak starting a game of hot potato with the camera, but a lot of funny group shots came of it. Lightning Streak, yanking Fire into a picture with him and Air Mach by the neck. Misty Fly peeking into the focus of the lens with Blaze yelling towards her and High Winds dozing off beside her. Soarin hamming it up with Air Mach, the two of them flexing their muscles with Spitfire stuck between them and flattening her brow. One of Dash looking up with wide eyes as Surprise dove in from overhead with her arms spread out. “I could look at these for hours, they’re…”

Dash trailed off as she turned the page and suddenly came upon a picture that made her freeze. Thunderlane, Squall, and Matteo all leaned in.

“Uh…” Dash’s face went bright red.

“Oh, it’s you and commander Fleetfoot,” Matteo pointed out quite casually as Squall’s pupils shrunk and Thunderlane puffed his cheeks out.

“WHOA THERE…” Thunderlane exclaimed. “WHOOOOAAAAAA HO HO HO THERE!”

Dash slammed the magazine shut as her face turned redder than a tomato. She remembered the shoot started with her and Fleetfoot, but… she had no idea how the pictures would turn out. She recalled loosening up a bit, working the weights, showing off and all but… they looked WAY more risqué and body focused than she was expecting. It didn’t help that it was an entire exclusive section, with at least ten photos, and the first page was titled “Meet Fleetfoot’s new friend, Rainbow Dash!”

“I… don’t remember… doing that… or that… or…. DID I ACTUALLY POSE LIKE THAT?!” Dash stuttered. “HEY!” She yelped as Twister whisked the magazine out of her hooves, positioned himself in front of the guys, and opened it. “HEY! HEY!” she yelped, glancing over to see Star still ruffling through the magazine rack. “GUYYYYSSSSS!!!!”

“Yowza…” Thunderlane blinked.

“That’s an impressive position…” Matteo commented.

“I’m definitely not that flexible…” Squall commented.

“AS I WAS SAYING…!” Dash grabbed the magazine away from them, red in the face and grinding her teeth together. “There sure are a lot of fun pictures in here!” she repeated, albeit a bit sarcastically.

“That’s why I’m buying a bunch!” Little Star giggled as she heaved a stack of at least twelve of them out of the rack, swaying as she fluttered over to the counter.

“Kill me…” Dash groaned, realizing there was no hiding this from the force… or anypony for that matter. She was in sexy magazine pictures with Fleetfoot, every stallion in Equestria would know who she is now.

“Does anypony have any bits?!” she asked as she held several of the magazines against her face, pressing her cheek to the cover of Squall. “I wanna buy all of these!” Star giggled, absolutely oblivious to Dash’s new ‘plight’.

“GOT YA COVERED!” Twister held up a big brown bag labeled ‘Squattle funds’ and slammed it on the counter, startling the stallion sitting behind the register.

“Whoa! With that we can buy even more!” Star giggled as she went over to grab more of them, never once questioning where Twister got the bits from. “Come help me carry these guys!” she asked, smiling from ear to ear as Dash, Thunderlane, and Matteo came over to grab the cheap plastic bags the cashier was fitting them into.

“Why are we buying so many?” Squall asked with a huff as he stepped up beside Star.

“We gotta hand them out to the rest of the Wonderbolts!” she beamed before her face slid into a smarmy smirk and she grabbed one of the magazines off the pile and held it up next to her head. “And the guy on the cover is a real looker, eh?” she said as she tapped the cover and bounced her eyebrows. Squall furrowed his brow. “Ahhhh I could just look at him all day!” Star held the magazine out in front of her as she acted like a fan girl.

“Please stop…” Squall rolled his eyes and stared up and away from her. Dash snorted and started chuckling at Squall. His displeasure made her own seem more comical and she got over it rather quickly.

“I just want to…” Star suddenly leaned in and pressed her lips to the cover. “MMMMMMMWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAH!” she dramatically kissed it.

“Oh, come on!” Squall scoffed as he turned around and stared at the ground.

“Sheesh Squall, she’ll eat you alive if you let her keep that up,” Dash chuckled as they gathered up the bags of magazines, watching as Star kept trying to get the cover in front of his face and he turned in circles to avoid her.

“Here, me next!” Twister popped up next to Star, copying Squall’s face on the magazine again and pointing to his cheek. Star instantly flattened her brow.

“Okay, close your eyes,” she said as she tucked the magazine under her arm.

“AW YEAH! HERE IT COMES BOYS! I MADE IT!” Twister yelled out as he closed his eyes.

“Yeah, just hooooooold still now,” Star cracked her hooves and pulled back a hoof.

But before she could punch him, Squall moved by her and drove a hoof directly into Twister’s face. Twister’s face made a loud sucking noise that sounded like a smooch before catapulting backwards at what was most certainly not the angle he should have flown backwards at that conveniently sent him flying directly at Matteo. Matteo looked just in time to see Twister stuff into his thick fur and vanish into it. Matteo snorted in frustration.

“What is it with him and my fur?” Matteo grunted as he went about gathering up the bags without even bothering to fish Twister out.

“Sorry,” Squall apologized, turning away from Star as she tried not to burst out laughing. “It was too tempting.”

“Why are you staring at me?” Matteo asked Thunderlane as he saw him looking at his fur. Thunderlane shook his head without averting his eyes.

“He’s going to fly out of there right at me. I may have been gone for a while, but I was around him enough during recruit training to know he’ll—”

He was cut off as Twister suddenly fell from above, crashed into him, and forced them both to the ground as an overly dramatic crashing noise filled with rumbling and glass breaking echoed from nowhere.

“You probably shouldn’t have said anything,” Dash pointed out as Twister started screaming and rolling in circles around them all while holding one of his legs.

“OW MY KNEE! OH GOD MY KNEE!”

“Well I was half right,” Thunderlane sighed as he slowly stood up and rubbed the back of his neck.

“We have all the magazines?” Dash asked as Matteo hoisted the majority of the bags into his talons and around his arm. “Good, let’s—”

“Rainbow Dash! There you are!”

Dash perked up, turning to look in the direction of the familiar voice. She smiled when she saw Wave Chill’s head poking out from the crowd and making his way down the street towards them.

“I’ve been looking all over for you and your squad!” He said as he drew near.

“Commander!” Dash said in a happy tone, unable to keep her smile from growing. But when he finally got close enough to pull away from the busy ponies moving about, Dash was momentarily distracted by a light blue cloak he wore that covered his entire body down to the top of his hooves.

“If not for Matteo it would be impossible to find you in a crowd like this,” he chuckled as Dash returned her eyes to his and smiled again. Wave noticed and tipped his head to the side. “What?”

“Sorry,” Dash shook her head and waved a hoof. “It’s still just nice to… you know… see you up and about,” she explained as the others moved up behind her.

“Heh, I wasn’t down for that long, was I?” Wave shrugged.

“It sure felt like an eternity,” Dash added before glancing at his attire again.

“I hate to interrupt your fun here,” Wave began before she could ask. “But Spitfire wants you and your squad to report to the palace clerical hall immediately.”

“The clerical hall?” Dash blinked. “Right, we’ll be right on our…” she trailed off, looking at his cloak again. She also couldn’t help but notice that he was unusually upbeat, and that he relayed Spitfire’s orders within that tone. Whenever it came to orders, Wave always turned back into the sharp soldier type. “Okay… this is killing me.”

“Hm?” Wave blinked as Dash motioned a hoof to his cloak.

“Why are you wearing this? The weather is literally perfect here at all times, but you’re dressed like it’s about to rain,” she asked while lifting an eyebrow.

“Oh, heh…” Wave smiled. “Well… I think I’d best let Spitfire meet with you first. Then it will make sense,” he said with a wink. “Come on, let’s not keep her waiting.”

“If you say so…” Dash huffed before waving to her squad. “Let’s head on over, guys.”

“Wait a sec… are those…?” Wave glanced at the magazines in the bags as they started moving.

“The photoshoot magazines!” Star chimed in cheerfully.

“Oh great…” Wave sighed, chuckling along with (most) of them as they turned towards the main palace road.

“You’re staring at me again…” Wave pointed out as he led Dash and her crew through the palace halls.

“Sorry I can’t help it!” Dash chuckled. “Funny looking cloak aside, something’s different and I’m about to yank at least three of the six colors out of my mane if I don’t figure it out. Did you change your mane or something?” she asked as they veered towards the cleric hall.

“Noooooooo,” Wave rolled his eyes and laughed. “Stop driving yourself nuts,” he suggested as they approached the hall. Dash noticed that the rest of the top tier Wonderbolts were there or arriving. Those arriving were being led by Fleetfoot… who ALSO wore a cloak. “Just be patient and Spitfire will explain everything, including this,” he assured her while patting his chest and the cloak.

“That’s everypony!” Fleetfoot nodded triumphantly as the groups met up.

“You too…? Okay, spill it!” Dash demanded while throwing her hooves out towards Fleet. The rest of the Wonderbolts looked towards her, then eagerly at Wave and Fleetfoot as if Dash had conveniently asked what they were all wondering aloud.

“Hey… hey…” Fleetfoot pressed a hoof to Dash’s nose. “Relax, Dashie. I’ve gotten enough about it from these jokers behind me already. We’re not ruining the surprise.”

“Surprise?” Dash blinked.

“What?” Surprise leaned over to look at Dash.

“No not…” Dash flattened her brow, scrunched up her mouth, and blew a full breath out of her nostrils. “This is killing me you two…”

“Well we’re all here, shall we?” Wave suggested.

“Yep!” Fleet nodded vigorously as she grabbed the door to the cleric hall and pulled. “Let’s do th—”

“WHAT?!”

Fleetfoot froze with the door halfway open as Spitfire’s voice angrily boomed from within. They all flinched in surprise and glanced between one another for a moment before gathering up and peeking in through the door.

Spitfire was locked in an angry glaring match with one of the head clerics. The middle aged unicorn stallion wearing a white cape with a red patterned hood was defiantly holding his ground and looking right back into the hard gaze of Spitfire.

“What do you mean you can’t?!” Spitfire added, her face scrunching up.

“If I must repeat myself…” the stallion huffed. “We cannot possibly hoof over such a large quantity of it… I doubt we even have that much available. It’s out of the question!”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Spitfire looked over to a window and motioned to it. “The whole damn Empire is made of Crystal. How could you possibly not have enough?!”

“We can’t just grab a crystal and squeeze it like a towel!” the Cleric angrily shot back. “The formation, collection, and refinement of crystal dew is a long and delicate process and what we have in storage right now is the result of several years of work spanning back to before our realm was sealed away a thousand years ago.”

“You didn’t seem to give a damn about it these past five weeks,” Spitfire pointed out while lifting an eyebrow.

“What you asked for was but a small amount and it was approved by Princess Cadence. Now you ask the same for nearly a hundred ponies? The reserves would run dry within weeks!” The cleric explained harshly.

“I’m afraid I must agree with Minhoof, Spitfire…”

All the Wonderbolts watching from the door flinched as Princess Cadence strode up behind them. They parted to let her through and approach. Spitfire shifted her glare to Cadence, her eyes catching a glimpse of all the Wonderbolts in the doorway as well. Upon seeing their captain lay eyes on them, Dash and the rest of the top tier Wonderbolts made their way in behind Cadence.

“A messenger told me everything… and what you are asking for is not something I can approve of.” She said with a nod as she stopped before Spitfire.

“So you’re just gonna fill me with the same crap as this moron?” Spitfire motioned to the stallion.

“Spitfire, that ‘moron’ you are speaking to is Minhoof. The only surviving Cleric from the age of Sombra’s rule. Without him, the art of collecting and refining the crystal dew to create the healing baths would have been lost to history. You ought to show him some respect for what you’ve been able to do already… and to heed his concerns about asking for so much.” Cadence motioned a hoof to Minhoof. Spitfire shot him a look, but he did not show any sign of smugness or condescension, so she only grunted and averted her eyes.

“It would be both impractical and unwise of us to simply let you burn through our entire stock of dew,” Minhoof began, not a trace of hostility in his voice. “You have made your case clear, but we also rely on the dew to help treat the old, the wounded and the sick. Surely you cannot expect us to abandon the medical boons our citizens have access to for the sake of foreigners who only just showed up recently and caused enough commotion to last a lifetime.”

“Now you listen here, we…” Spitfire trailed off as she poked Minhoof in the chest. But she went no further, stuck at that exact point. She was about to express her belief that what they were up against was a danger to Equestria as a whole, but she couldn’t think of a way to say it without claiming Minhoof was being selfish. The irony of saying that was not lost on her. Her reasons for partaking in her experiment were to give the physical abilities of the force a boost. The threat of the Shadowbolts and the powers pulling their strings loomed over them all, but she was not willing to force measures that would drastically affect the livelihood of others, particularly civilians. Taking the ‘at any cost’ approach would make her no better than Nightshade.

She pulled back and turned around, looking at the floor for a moment as she pondered.

“I trust you understand where we’re coming from?” Minhoof spoke up. “It is not out of greed that we deny you your request. You are merely asking for more than we can possibly provide or allow.”

“Which is why I’m going to alter my request,” Spitfire turned around and pointed at him, stealing a glance at Cadence as well. “I asked for enough to handle a cycle of four days, four baths for three of those days and two baths for the fourth… over the period of a month. You can recall how much that was in total?”

“I still have it written down, yes,” Minhoof nodded.

“Taking that into account… what is the maximum number of ponies I could put into the program with the amount you would be willing to provide me?” Spitfire asked, earning a flat look from Minhoof, but before he could say anything, Spitfire shook her head. “Don’t give me that look. I’m respecting your position… so I ask that you also respect mine. I’m not doing this for personal gain, this is for a much greater purpose, helping us take on a foe that poses a threat to Equestria. I want to get the most I possibly can out of this without causing a shortage of a very important resource from the Crystal Empire.”

Minhoof listened to her every word, the two keeping their eyes locked as everypony else looked on including the rest of the clerics present. He put a hoof to his chin, a smile appearing on Spitfire’s face as he appeared to ponder her request.

“Fifteen,” Minhoof said as he looked up and nodded. “Based on the last recorded numbers of our dew stores, it’s safe to assume that that would equate to roughly half of our stores. I’m not willing to go beyond that, especially if you plan on descending another dogfight onto the Empire’s military. We used quite a bit to treat the wounded after the last amount of cacophony you caused.”

“Fifteen…” Spitfire blinked, ignoring his comment about the prior out of control battle that transpired. She unfolded a wing and held it out in front of her, counting on her feathers as she whispered names to herself. “Air Mach, Blaze, Winds, Fire, Lightning, Misty, Surprise… With the three of us doing more, that’s ten…”

Her ears wiggled as she looked over to Dash and her squad standing among the top tiers. She went back to counting.

“Right, them too so… Dash, Matteo, Little Star, Squall… Twis—” she paused, looking over at Twister. He was currently inching upward off the ground. No wings were involved, and he was standing still like the rest, just… slowly rising upward and nopony else seemed to notice. “Twister…” Spitfire sighed. “Hrm…” she hummed.

She personally felt like it wasn’t enough and it would be a wasted opportunity for some. While she had thought about maybe letting Descent and a few of his Renegades in on it, but they already had some advantages they didn’t and she’d rather they focused on their scouting work. She wouldn’t mind having a slight leg up on him anyway. Which ultimately shifted her attention to elsewhere… namely, who among the Wonderbolts currently had the most potential for results?

It didn’t take long for her to look over at Dash again… and recall how impressed she was with their recruit class. One particular new Wonderbolt came to mind.

“Give me sixteen,” Spitfire said to Minhoof with a nod. Minhoof’s eye twitched.

“You’re kidding me, right?” he grunted.

“No I’m…” Spitfire trailed off as she looked in the direction of Dash again, her eyes shifting a little bit to her right. “Hmmm… you know what? Make it seventeen.”

“I said FIFTEEN…” Minhoof growled. “And I’m not sparing more than that.”

Spitfire suddenly stepped forward and grabbed him by the collar of his cape, yanking him towards her. Several clerics and Princess Cadence gasped as Spitfire glared into his face. But despite the sudden use of force, Minhoof didn’t flinch, nor show any surprise.

“Give. Me. Seventeen.”

“I said no!” Minhoof refused to be intimidated.

“Look, I’m being NICE, right now,” Spitfire huffed. “If you want me to express how angry I am that I can’t do this for my entire force, I can, but I’m compromising to respect your own needs. You said fifteen would be about half the stores, so seventeen shouldn’t make that much more of a dent into it. Give me that much, and it will be the last you hear from me about it.”

The two kept their glares locked, neither giving an inch in silence for several moments. Minhoof sighed in frustration, turning his head to look at Cadence.

“What say you, Princess?” Minhoof asked, sounding just about done with the situation.

“That’s fine! That’s fine!” Princess Cadence frantically waved a hoof out as she came forward and used her magic to pull them both apart. “You can have enough for seventeen,” she agreed while giving Spitfire a perturbed look. “Now stop disturbing the clerics, they have work to do!”

“I’m glad we understand one another,” Spitfire nodded, brushing aside Cadence’s annoyance. Minhoof only grunted and shook his head as Spitfire made her way over to the now ever more curious Wonderbolts. “Alright, everypony follow me, let’s get out of this stuffy room,” she ordered while twirling a hoof in the air.

Everypony watched her walk by them, a look on her face that didn’t quite look satisfied. Though it appeared she only got a fraction of what she originally came here for, so they didn’t question it. They did as they were told and followed her out into the hallway, the group gathering by the wall a few paces down the hall.

“Okay Sis…” Blaze spoke up as they all settled in place. “I dunno what the fuck was going on in there, but it clearly has to do with whatever secret thing you’ve been up to the past weeks. Are ya finally gonna tell us?” Her words resonated, the rest of the top tiers nodding in agreement, and Misty nodding as well as soon as Fire finished translating for her.

“Yes, Blaze, I am,” Spitfire nodded to all of them, waving to Fleetfoot and Wave chill to come towards her. “And I appreciate you saying that part for me,” she said with a smirk as Wave and Fleetfoot took their place beside her. “So…” she clapped her hooves together once. “I’m sure all of you have noticed, that on the rare occasion you’ve spotted Wave, Fleet, and I, we’ve been shambling around looking like we can barely walk straight the past month… there is a reason for that.”

Dash perked up, recalling Spitfire bringing up some special training routine in the past… and recalled Fleetfoot bringing it up off-hoof once or twice.

“Yeah I assumed you were all drunk,” Lightning spoke up with a chuckle. “Thought Chiller was letting go a bit after what he was put through.”

“We were not drunk,” Spitfire flattened her brow as the rest chuckled at Lightning. “Unless you count the amount of endorphins forced through our brains after some of the things I put us through. BUT, ANYWAY… Ahem!” Spitfire stepped aside. “I am pleased to say… that my little experiment was a success.”

The Wonderbolts glanced among themselves as Spitfire held an arm out to her side and stood there for a moment. She eventually flattened her mouth and opened her eyes narrowly.

“Fleet, Wave, that was your cue,” she said without opening her mouth much.

“Huh? Oh, right right,” Wave chuckled as he came forward.

“What? Was this rehearsed?” Fleetfoot huffed as she followed behind him. “Would’ve been nice to see the script first, Spitty.”

“Just get over here,” Spitfire snorted and rolled her eyes, putting a smile back on as the two now stood beside her, cloaks still covering them completely below the neck. “As I was saying… my little experiment was a—”

“Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’re yooooooooooooooooooooung…!” High Winds, voice came from behind Fire.

“Boooooooooooooo! Get to the pooooooooint!” Blaze’s voice also came from behind Fire.

Fire Streak furrowed his brow and tipped back, sitting down right on top of both of them.

“OW! FUCK!” Blaze yelped as she and Winds got sandwiched between Fire’s plot and the floor.

“Thank you, Fire,” Spitfire huffed. “If you’re all going to be difficult about this I’ll skip to the part that matters. The three of us just did nearly a years-worth of hard training in a matter of five weeks!”

There was a brief silence.

“Yay?” Surprise tipped her head curiously. Spitfire’s face went blank. Fleetfoot giggled and leaned over to her.

“Remind me again why you let me handle the planning for all our air shows?” she whispered.

“Hush, you…” Spitfire pressed a hoof over her head. “Okay fine, I was trying to be grandiose and suspenseful about it, but that’s clearly not working. I’m trying my best to still be excited about this despite what just went down in there with Cadence and the cape-wearing old fart, so listen up!” Spitfire took a step towards the group. “Want to get strong as hell in a short time? Want to really kick the Shadowbolts in the teeth so hard their heads spin next time we meet them? We now have a way.”

She was met with stares, and mostly confusion, particularly those who had little to no idea what she had been up to.

“Um… that sounds nice, but… unrealistic?” Fire chimed in.

“I liked the part about kicking teeth, but… what?” Blaze added.

“I’m sold, Captain! Let’s kick some teeth!” Air Mach chimed in, slinging his arm onto Blaze’s head and leaning so far that they would have ended on the ground had High Winds not extended her wing out for support. “Wait, you said something about getting strong too?” he asked, tipping his glasses down, seemingly unaware of Blaze growling and trying to bite his arm.

“We found a way,” Spitfire repeated. “And you’re probably wondering why Fleet and Wave over here are wearing these stupid cloaks.” Spitfire paused and smiled as she got several nods in response. “Well… because I knew none of you would take notice of me since I look like this all the time,” she motioned to her body. “And you can thank Descent for confirming that… but even if it worked for me, you all also know that my body tends to be a bit more… reactive than most when it comes to training. But that’s precisely why I had these two join me, because if I couldn’t convince you…” She turned and nodded to Fleetfoot and Wave. “I knew these two would!”

All eyes moved to Wave and Fleet.

“Alright stallions, and fillies…” Fleetfoot grabbed the string that tied the cloak around her neck and slowly tugged on it while leaning heavier to one side and sticking her flank outward. “I wanna make this last so I’m gonna do it niiiiiiiiiice and sloooooooooooow.”

Wave held still after grabbing the string on his cloak and gave Fleetfoot an awkward look.

“I suddenly feel very dirty…” Wave said jokingly.

“Okay, stop,” Spitfire growled at her. “If you’re going to be lewd about it, then let Wave go first.”

“Awww fine…” she pouted. Without any more distraction, Wave untied the strings… and cast the cloak aside.

Dash blinked twice before her eyes grew wide. Loud gasps came from around her as looks of shock and surprise washed over the whole group. Spitfire grinned from ear to ear as she saw the reactions from all of them, even Lightning Streak stopped jokingly acting like he was watching a striptease the moment the cloaks came off.

“Holy… shit…” Dash was the only one to speak as her eyes scanned up and down. “He… He’s…”

Wave Chill smiled, turned a little to the side, and stood proudly. Suddenly, Wave’s happy mood suddenly made a lot more sense. Dash had seen him several times since he had been cured from the crystal sickness. There was one thing that had been pretty clear to her and everypony else, his time stuck in bed, sick and drained while barely able to nourish himself had caused a noticeable amount of atrophy. None of them doubted he’d be able to get himself back into shape but… right here, in front of them now after disappearing into an experimental routine for five weeks, stood the Wave they all knew from before his affliction. He looked strong, his body looked great. All his lost muscle mass was back… and maybe even then some.

“Um…” Blaze stared blankly.

“Wow…” Winds added, her eyes open uncharacteristically wide.

“BROOOOOOOOOOOOOO…!” Lightning Streak and Air Mach shouted in unison as they leaned their necks way back. Fire was speechless beside him as Surprise and Misty both stared with wide sparkly eyes.

“PRESENTING…!” Spitfire slid over to Wave. “Exhibit A! Wave Chill! Our crystal afflicted commander who was down and out for so long it was a detriment to his physical conditioning…” she trailed off and hooked a hoof into Wave’s arm, catching him off guard as she hoisted it up and tapped her hoof against it in several spots all the way up to his chest. “But just five weeks on this breakthrough training routine and he’s gained it all back!” she let go of him and nodded vigorously. “I have the stallions’ attention now, don’t I?” she chuckled while pointing to them specifically.

“Me? I guess, I…” Fire blinked and turned to see both Lightning and Air Mach staring with wide eyes from behind him. “Oh.”

“Picture it, boys,” Spitfire put her hooves out in front of her, making sure to look towards Matteo and Squall behind Dash as well. She paused as she noticed Thunderlane, but it didn’t derail her train of thought. “If Wave went from weakened back to his old self this fast and built himself back up THIS well… just imagine what he could gain from doing it again from here? Now think of what you would all gain if you did it too!” She snickered as she leaned against Wave. “What’s the wording you guys like to use? Wanna ‘get swole?’”

“Damn captain, you don’t have to ask me twice!” Lightning Streak pounded a hoof to his chest. “Bro! Bro!” he grabbed Fire Streak’s shoulder and shook him. “Dude, we’re gonna get jacked!”

“Apparently…” Fire sighed and rolled his eyes.

Dash glanced behind her, looking at Squall and Matteo sitting quietly. Neither of them were ones to be silly or rambunctious, but both of them were staring in awe at Wave. Dash didn’t know what was going through their heads right now, but they were definitely impressed, and she was doing her best to not say anything and let Spitfire be the one to eventually mention their involvement.

“Of course though…” Spitfire pushed off of Wave, some showmanship starting to bleed into her presentation. “I can see it in your eyes, ladies… It’s impressive, but… ‘Wave is a stallion and Captain Spitfire is a freak.’ And I don’t blame you for thinking so. After all… Stallions have it easier when it comes to strength and muscle building, but…” she stopped by Fleetfoot, who was smiling extremely wide. “If you want proof that this will be worth your time… I made sure to have something to show you all as well!” she made a hoof motion to Fleetfoot.

“Can I strip now?” she asked coyly. Spitfire sighed, knowing Fleetfoot just wanted to hear her say it.

“Yes, Fleet, you can strip…”

“Woo!” she went right back into character, biting her lip and sliding her hoof against the top of her cloak as she bounced her eyebrows up and down. She glanced at Spitfire and nearly burst out laughing when she saw her looking flatly at her again. “Relax, I’m joking,” she giggled. “Trust me… I REALLY want them to see!”

Fleetfoot undid the string, grabbed the cloak, and tossed it aside.

The reaction was not filled with quite as much shock as with Wave, perhaps because they expected something different, but instead… the air was filled with quieter wondrous reactions.

Dash’s eyes darted over and along Fleetfoot’s body as she stood confidently with herself on display, turning around and around for all of them to see. Fleetfoot’s physique was sporting some noticeable new mass, the once smoother and softer surfaces of her body now sporting impressive sharpened muscles. There was so much new tone and new shapes adorning her figure that it was hard to believe they were looking at the same super slender mare they all knew too well.

“Just look…” Spitfire motioned to Fleetfoot while looking at the rest. “Seriously… LOOK. This is FLEETFOOT… one of the smallest and thinnest mares in the entire force. Five weeks on this routine proved she actually does have some muscles hidden in there somewhere!”

“Hey!” Fleetfoot pouted, turning a glare to Spitfire as some chuckles came from the group.

But the chortles and snickers quickly ceased as the rest, especially the mares, returned their attention to Fleetfoot.

Spitfire was joking, but… what she was saying wasn’t wrong. If this routine put some muscle on Fleetfoot of all ponies… then it would work for any of them.

“And I should mention that it’s not all just for show,” Spitfire slung an arm over Fleetfoot’s shoulder. “She also bench pressed one-fifty-five when I put them to the test.”

High Winds flinched as Blaze suddenly sputtered and nearly tripped forward beside her.

“WHHHHAT?” Blaze blinked. “How much?!”

“One, five, five,” Spitfire simplified it. “Fifty five pound more than her previous max out. And I’ll spare you the numbers, but Wave and I did a lot more too.”

“See something ya like, eh Blazey?” Fleetfoot cooed, turning to one side and flexing her arms, shoulders while squeezing her chest in front.

“Okay, one…” Blaze pointed at Fleetfoot. “Fuck you. And two…” she turned to Spitfire. “When in the fuck do we start?! Holy shit, I want that!”

“Finally something we have in common babe!” Lightning chuckled as he tried to drape an arm over Blaze, but she furiously avoided it. “Sign us the hell up captain!”

“Whoa, whoa… hahaha...” Spitfire held out her hooves as all the top tier moved up to express their intense interest, even Fire looked like he couldn’t contain himself. “Let me explain how it works first…”

“Wow…” Dash said to herself as Spitfire broke into a long word salad about dew baths, recovery time, and dieting. She could get the gist of what she was saying, but something else had a majority of her curiosity at that moment. If she were to go on this routine… with how much her body was already being ‘supercharged’ by her soul connection with Soarin… Suddenly Spitfire’s previous mention of her possibly being a ‘secret weapon’ made sense. Who knew what her potential could be… assuming she could keep control of herself.

“And that’s pretty much it,” Spitfire ended as Dash returned her attention to the group.

“Pretty much it?” Surprise scratched her head. “That was extremely complicated.”

“Made sense to me,” Fire tipped his head slightly.

“NOPONY ASKED YOU!” Surprise leapt up on his back and tugged his ears with her hooves as he shrugged.

“Look, the short of it is… we work hard, we eat well, we rest and recover using the dew baths,” Spitfire chuckled as she gently removed Surprise from Fire’s back and looked around at the rest of the group. “And if you do all that, we’ll be packing on some serious new strength. I plan to mix in some of our usual training routines in terms of combat and flight drills as well to give us an all-around increase in effectiveness. If it works for the muscles, it should work for the skills too…” Spitfire trailed off slightly and sighed, puttering her lips and furrowing her brow. “Now if only we could’ve gotten the enitre force to partake.”

“Oooooh, so that’s what that was all about in there,” High Winds put together as the rest caught on.

“Spot on,” Spitfire grumbled. “But if we can’t do it for everypony, we can at least do it for a select group while the rest continue with their usual training. We may not be able to get the whole force charged up, but I think seventeen of us will be more than enough to really punch the Shadowbolts in the mouth the next time they show their ugly mugs.”

“Seventeen…” Fire bobbed his head up and down, counting out how many top tier Wonderbolts they had in action. “But with us it’s only…” he trailed off as Spitfire made a hoof motion towards Dash and her friends. “Oh?”

All eyes went to Dash and the reactions of the rest sitting behind her were mixed. Dash already knew of Spitfire’s intentions, but aside from her, the only one who seemed to catch on was Matteo, sporting a rather eager grin at the edges of his beak. Squall wasn’t paying much attention, Star looked very confused, Thunderlane had spent most of the meeting wondering if he was even supposed to be there, and Twister couldn’t enjoy his sandwich.

“That’s because Rainbow Dash’s squad… will be joining us,” Spitfire confirmed.

“Whoa, hold on… WHAT?” Star reacted as Squall’s eyes snapped forward as well. “We… are going to…?”

“That’s right, isn’t it Dash?” Spitfire smiled towards Dash. All of them looked to Dash, who gave a wink to her squad.

“She mentioned something about this to me before,” Dash explained. “But I wasn’t sure what it was all about.”

“Uh… I mean…” Star’s eyes darted between Dash and Spitfire. “Captain, I don’t want to sound like I’m not chomping at the bit, but… why us instead of more experienced veterans?”

“A question worth asking that I was hoping you’d ask,” Spitfire nodded. “I’ll give you two reasons. First, you are all from the most exceptional class of recruits we’ve had in my time as captain, something everypony here would agree on.” She paused as the rest nodded. “Second… You all stood with Rainbow Dash and rightly challenged my misguided orders during the battle for Soarin. I’d say you’ve earned the right to partake, and knowing your potential, I’m excited to see the results.” She moved towards them as they continued to give varying looks in response. “Now Dash…” she placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “That means I expect you to keep them all on task. As captain of your squad, you need to make sure they give me their best and stay focused.”

“Yes ma’am,” Dash nodded, but then Spitfire flattened her brow and pointed over her shoulder.

“SPECIFICALLY… I want you to make sure HE takes it seriously,” she said flatly. Dash glanced over her shoulder to see Twister still trying to take the first bite out of a sandwich, but the sandwich appeared to be a plastic prop. “Or at least do your best,” Spitfire added. “I don’t want to have wasted a tub on him.”

Dash rolled her eyes as Twister started spinning violently in midair while grappling with the fake sandwich, turning back to Spitfire.

“You might as well ask him to lay an egg,” Dash said sarcastically as Spitfire stepped back.

As soon as she said it, Twister casually strolled up to Spitfire, handed her an egg, and casually strolled back the way he came.

“Look, the point is…” Spitfire began as she tossed the egg aside. “I want to make sure they get as much as possible out of this. While I meant everything I said, Star is right… I could use more seasoned Wonderbolts, but I decided not to. Initially only you were under consideration, but I don’t want to take you away from your squad and what you’ve built with them,” Spitfire stopped for a moment and blinked. “Which is ironic, considering that’s exactly what I’m doing to Storm Front, but that’s beside the point.”

A jolt went right through Dash as she heard the name. She scrunched her brow considerably. Spitfire saw it and quickly shook her head.

“Save it, Dash… and before you say anything, I’ve heard from Descent. I’m bringing him in because he’s also a member of your recruit class, and in case you forgot, was vaulted into the elites for being top of the class.”

“Trust me… I remember,” Dash huffed and looked away.

“I’m going to say this now, don’t let your personal quarrels with him distract you,” Spitfire ordered.

“Fine, fine…” Dash grumbled, but it only made Spitfire glare harder. Dash quickly realized what she did and quickly cleared her throat. “I mean… yes, ma’am.”

“Good, now then…” Spitfire began to turn.

“Wait a second…” Dash spoke up again as she tipped her head and bobbed it up and down, mouthing numbers as she counted. “That brings the total to sixteen… didn’t you say seventeen.”

“Yes I did,” Spitfire pointed. Dash followed her hoof, but her eyes landed on Matteo. She cocked an eyebrow.

“Uh, Captain… I know he’s fat, but he’s not that fat. I think he’ll fit in just one.” Several fits of laughter broke out as Matteo narrowed his eyes at her.

“No, Dash…” Spitfire said in between chuckles. “You, hiding behind him there. Thunderlane, right?”

Dash perked up, quickly looking back to see Thunderlane poke his head out from around Matteo so fast he nearly fell over.

“Wh… wait, WHAT?” Thunderlane exclaimed as Matteo shifted aside. “Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, Captain…” he held his hooves out frantically. “I’m only a reserve.”

“You’re being promoted, effective immediately,” Spitfire quickly shot back with a smile. “You did hear me say that your class was one of the best I’ve seen, right? I brought Silver Lining in to be the senior flight instructor of your class for a reason. Any recruit who trained under his watch is one worth recognition.”

“Uh…” Thunderlane sputtered as Dash made her way over to him and nudged him in the side.

“You’ve stuck around after all the other reserves left, so consider yourself in the right place at the right time,” she nodded at Dash. “You hung around with this motley crew a lot before the recruit squad selection. I don’t see any reason not to include you knowing that kind of support will help not only you, but the rest of them perform at the best of their ability. You also just missed out on being part of Foxtrot. If any one of these five had not been in the program, you would have made it no question.”

Thunderlane stared blankly, looking half astonished, half embarrassed as if he never expected any sort of praise. Dash nudged him while smirking at Spitfire.

“He was also part of the group we employed to throw Derpy Hooves at you,” she added. Spitfire kept her smile on as one of eyes twitched, several chuckles coming from behind her.

“Yes… that too…” she said while faking a smile with twitching lips.

“I… gosh…” Thunderlane rubbed the back of his head and looked down, averting his eyes from the entire group as none of them, not even any top tiers, gave words of protest. “To think I was probably heading back home in a day or two…”

“Welcome back to the team, Thunder,” Dash smacked him on the back hard enough to make him lurch and teeter. He looked over his shoulder at Dash and the rest of Foxtrot. Matteo and Star looked happy to hear it. Even Squall, while not showing it much, seemed to be pleased. Twister was grinning mischievously while rubbing his hooves together.

“Well… just like old times I guess,” he chuckled nervously. “Uh, thank you ma’am,” Thunderlane swallowed and nodded to Spitfire, saluting. “I’m… not sure what to say.”

“Give me your best effort and you won’t have to say anything,” Spitfire nodded and winked to him. “Okay, everyone…” Spitfire turned back to address them all at once. “I want to give Fleetfoot and Wave a few days to rest. So take a few days to loosen up, get a few workouts in, and make sure you’re ready for some extra hard work. One of the drawbacks of this training has been the buildup of mental and physical stress. We have an idea of how many days of work and rest balance are needed, but I don’t want anypony hurting themselves, so be prepared to keep a close eye on yourselves and don’t be afraid to let me know when you need extra time to recover, but at the same time remember that we will be pushing our limits fiercely, so be sure it’s only when needed, though I know none of you to be lazy. We have a full gym with facilities rented out for the next month or so a few doors down from the main palace road. I’ll send word when we’re ready to begin and we’ll all meet there to go through our routine. Until then—”

“RAINBOW DASH! WHERE IS RAINBOW DASH?!”

Everypony nearly jumped out of their skin as an extremely loud voice boomed through the hallways and made the windows shake. Dash covered her ears and twitched as she shook her head out. There was only one pony who could yell that loud.

They all turned to see Luna galloping down the hall, her eyes locked on Dash as she inadvertently knocked aside several crystal guards who couldn’t get out of her way in time.

“Luna…?” Dash blinked, barely able to say or think anything else before Luna screeched to a halt right in front of her.

“Rainbow Dash, you must come with us! Hurry!” she managed to yell without lifting to Royal Canterlot Voice levels.

“Huh…?” Dash blinked. “What’s…?”

“Now! We must go!” Luna tapped her hooves on the floor vigorously.

“What the hell?” Spitfire spoke up, taking a step towards them. “Is something wrong with Soarin?”

“Nay!” Luna shook her head. “But we need Rainbow Dash now!”

Dash glanced at Spitfire. Spitfire shrugged.

“Well, you heard everything so go a—”

“YIKES!” Dash yelped as Luna grabbed her by the arm, lifted into the air and started flying down the hall back towards the inner chambers before Spitfire could finish.

“—head…” Spitfire furrowed her brow as she rolled her eyes and turned back to the rest of them. “Wonder what that was all about?”

Everypony else either shrugged or shook their heads, but then Fleetfoot spied the bags Matteo was holding.

“Huh?” she blinked. “Oh! Is that the Wonderbolt issue of Equus Aviation?!”

“Oh my god…” Squall instantly turned his back.

“Luna!” Dash yelled as she flapped her wings, trying to pull her arm free. “LUNA!” Dash yelled again, finally getting a nice even flap that pulled herself free, only to send her tumbling on the ground and stopping on her back. “Ow…” she said with a sigh. But in an instant Luna was standing over her with her face all the way into hers.

“Please! We must go!” Luna yelled, while trying to grab Dash again.

“Hey! Enough!” Dash pushed Luna’s hoof away. “If you’re going to yank me around, tell me what’s going on!? Why are you doing this if there’s nothing wrong with Soarin?!”

“Soarin is AWAKE!" Luna yelled.

Dash’s eyes widened to their limit.

“WHAT?!?!?!”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Wakey wakey! It's time to hire a hitman on me for that cliffhanger! :pinkiecrazy:

Whew... long chapter. Not much to say about the start, more of the same shenanigans with Sombra. But it looks like he still has quite the effect on Celestia, much to a certain other god's dismay. Guess she's so used to being treated by others as a see all end all goddess that can do no wrong that Sombra's willingness to be blunt and assertive against her word... gets her off? WELP APPARENLTY... GO TAKE A COLD SHOWER CELESATIA.

Looks like Spitfire's training experiment bore fruit! Gotta feel good for Wave and Fleetfoot, both getting the benefits first to address things that were weighing them down. Too bad it appears that Spitfire's original plan hit a snag and she'll onyl get to have a select few take part in the training. but it looks like she had a good idea ahead of time just in case. Congrats to Thunderlane! Welcome back into the thick of things. Quite a stroke of luck for a pony i often make the butt end of 'unfortunate circumstance' humor.

Also, Squall is best cover model... don't @me.

And for those who noticed that i went through the trouble of naming a certain head cleric within the crystal Empire SEVERAL times... Keepign up with my continued references to it in the story, Minhoof is a direct reference to very old final fantasy (FF2) character named Minwu, whom also holds a similar job as the head White Mage of Castle Fynn and the WIld Rose Rebellion:

So hey... yeah... Soarin is awake... wonder what this means and what will happen? Guess we'll find out soon! :twistnerd:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Chapter 183: Through Different Eyes

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 183: Through Different Eyes

Rainbow Dash raced down the halls of the Crystal Palace, keeping up behind Luna as the two galloped towards the inner chambers.

“He’s stable?” Dash asked, now free from being dragged along. “You said everything is okay, right?!” she pressed as the two turned a corner.

“We said nothing is wrong!” Luna answered. It only took Dash a moment to notice that answer seemed off.

“Is there a difference?!”

“Nay!” Luna shouted, then paused. “Well… Perhaps!”

“Perhaps?!” Dash glared. “Perhaps WHAT?!”

“Nothing was wrong… when we left!” Luna clarified. Luna swallowed, as if she could feel the stabbing of Dash’s glare in the back of her head. “No time to explain! We must make haste to aid Discord while he still has things under control!”

“You lied then?!” Dash growled loudly as they turned the last corner and the door to Soarin’s holding chamber came within sight.

“We said what we had to!” Luna shot back with conviction. “We need YOU, and wished not to put others in any danger! Captain Spitfire would have surely followed if we had done otherwise!”

“Nice excuse…” Dash grumbled. “Whatever, let’s just go!”

As they drew near the large doors, Twilight and Cadence came around the corner from the other direction. Twilight waved her hoof.

“Princess Luna!” she yelled as she flagged them down.

But then out of nowhere, Dash felt something. It hit her hard like she had just been punched square in the chest. She exhaled loudly, lurched forward and stumbled while nearly losing her hooves from underneath her. Her hooves skidded along the floor and a faint yellow glow appeared around her as she frantically pressed a hoof to her chest and felt her heart racing.

She looked up with her eyes stuck open wide and short of breath. She could see Luna, but she was blocking Twilight and Cadence from view. She couldn’t hear anything, an intense ringing in her ears.

It was as if something had stirred within her, awakened, and… it hurt.

“Make haste!” Luna yelled to the two other Alicorns. “We must—!” she cut herself off as she looked to her left and noticed Rainbow Dash was no longer keeping up with her. She slid to a halt just a few paces from the door and whipped her head around to see Dash hunched over, a look of shock and pain stuck to her face. “Rainbow Da—?”

A loud crash rang out. The walls shook, the windows clattered, the chandeliers jingled, and several wall-mounted furnishings dropped and bounced on the floor below. The giant doors to the chamber flung open, knocking both guards aside roughly as Discord hurled through them. He slammed into the opposite wall with a loud, pained grunt and so much force that the surface buckled and caved in, partially lodging him in it. Luna had barely escaped unscathed, one of Discord’s arms nearly grazing her nose as he flew past, but the shock faded quickly.

“Discord?!” she yelled out. She, Twilight, and Cadence galloped towards him as he tipped forward, peeling off the wall and falling into a heap on the floor below.

“GRRGH!” Discord growled as he quickly pressed his hands to the floor, and propped himself up on one knee, panting with heavy breaths and his chaos aura flickering and distorting the space around him. His eyes opened and he saw the three Alicorns standing over him, concerned. “What are you doing?! Don’t worry about me!” he yelled as his eyes shifted to see Dash struggling nearby. He forced an arm out, pointing at Dash. “Get her in there! NOW!”

The alicorns all looked to Rainbow Dash at the same time. Twilight was the first to move, pushing past Luna to rush towards her friend.

But right before she could reach her, Dash suddenly looked up. Her pained expression replaced with a hard glare. Yellow light was flickering in her eyes and seeping between her gritted teeth. Twilight yelped as Dash thrust herself forward, her hooves finding the floor as she galloped past Twilight. Her body felt like it was burning up from the inside, but she was not focused on the heat, pain, or pressure… because all of those things were making her panic. Panic for who was on the other side of the open doors.

She raced through the doors, but the pillar that once lay right on the other side of the door was completely gone, only rubble left where it once stood. It gave Dash a clear path, but no sooner did she cross over the remains of the pillar did she come to an abrupt halt, her eyes going wide as they took in the sight at the center of the room. Luna, Cadence, and Twilight all ran in behind her, and collectively gasped.

Soarin was standing in the middle of the room, the protective bubble completely gone from around him. His hooves were awkwardly set, his body was hunched forward and jittering. His eyes were stuck open extremely wide with shrunken, shaking pupils as he stared directly ahead. He was grunting, gasping and groaning painfully with his lips parted and teeth jammed together, little droplets of saliva trickling down his chin. He violently lurched his neck back and forth in stiff motions, his wings flexing involuntarily. Bursts of blue and yellow light were flashing in his eyes, seeping between his teeth and dancing about the horn as a flickering erratic aura encircled his entire body. Dash’s heart began to beat faster and faster. The heat building up in her body was reaching near unbearable levels as the yellow glow around her grew brighter.

“How did this escalate so quickly?!” Luna exclaimed as they all looked on in horror. “When we left he was only—”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!” Soarin cried out, his voice echoing as he threw his head up into the air and a strong burst of pressure exploded out from around him. Dash winced as she felt a small gust of wind, but a loud BANG rang out behind her as the three Alicorn Princesses were struck by the invisible force and sent flying backwards into the walls.

Dash looked over her shoulder in surprise, her eyes widening as she saw Twilight, Luna, and Cadence all pressed to the wall, grunting in pain as they were held in place. Luna tried to force herself forward, her magic flickering on her horn, but she couldn’t concentrate as every attempt to free herself just ended with her being forced right back.

“RRRRrrrrrrgh GGGRRRHH!!!!” Soarin growled painfully. Dash looked back at him just in time as Soarin’s horn flashed brightly, small streams of blue and yellow magic ejecting in all directions. They flung into the walls, pillars, floor, and ceiling, exploding upon impact and chipping or breaking small chunks of the crystal surfaces.

“Ah!” Dash yelped, shielding herself as one of the yellow beams flung towards her and hit her in the arms. The beam exploded, sending her skidding backwards on her hooves. “Ow!” she winced, surprised she felt any bite of pain with how much her body felt like it was on fire within. But then she looked up and had no time to do anything as one of the blue beams was within inches of striking her in the chest.

It hit… and exploded.

But Dash remained in place, blinking as she felt absolutely nothing, not even a pinch. The occurrence felt awfully familiar, but she didn’t bother thinking about it… because right here and right now, she needed to take action. Soarin was struggling, he probably had no idea where he was or if anyone was there. From the start, she had been the one who pulled him free of pain at the behest of the magic within him… and it was time for her to do just that once again.

She fixed her eyes on Soarin, her hooves moving on instinct as she broke into a gallop towards him. The unbearable burning inside of her did not slow her down, to her… it was only a motivator. Soarin was in pain and she was feeling it… it was his pain, not hers. With this firmly planted in her mind, she skillfully maneuvered, dodging back and forth to specifically avoid every yellow beam that hurled her way, ignoring the blue as they smacked against her and did nothing to stop her advance.

“I’m here Soarin!” she yelled out to him as she closed in. “I’m here!” she slammed all four hooves to the ground and leapt up, reaching out for his neck. “I’m HEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!!!!!”

She came within inches of touching him… but then Soarin grunted and lurched, his body moving forward and out of Dash’s reach. She yelped, swinging an arm out and grabbing his shoulder before she could shoot right over him. She stopped herself, but her momentum swung her down and her stomach smacked right into his back at the base of his neck. Knowing he could lurch again at any moment, she whipped herself around and wrapped her arms around his large neck as far as she could, giving it a tight squeeze.

“SOARIN!” she yelled, growling. She could not see it, but the yellow aura shining around her began to merge with his own aura. “DAMMIT! SOARIN, GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!”

“ARGH! AGH!” Soarin cried out, lurching back and forth, but Dash held on for dear life, the glow around them both growing more intense as the light from Dash continued to merge with the light around Soarin.

“COME ON! YOU CAN BEAT IT!” Dash yelled out. “YOU CAN WIN! YOU ALWAYS DO!”

At first… it appeared as if nothing was happening. But after another moment of carnage… Soarin’s movements began to slow down, becoming less stiff and erratic. The blue light within his mixed aura began to grow brighter, it began to press against the yellow light, pushing it back down closer to his body while also running over Dash, encircling them both. Soarin’s grunts became weaker and less labored, his body swaying gently as the expulsion of magic from his horn ceased. Dash inhaled sharply in surprise as she felt the heat within her body rapidly recede, as if a brisk, satisfying breeze had rushed through her and extinguished a raging wildfire in one fell swoop.

“Ah!” Dash yelped as Soarin tipped suddenly and stumbled. She was swung off his back, but she held on tight to his neck, her chest pressing to his as she touched her cheek to his fur. “Relax, Soarin! Relax…” she spoke to him. “Please… please…” she whispered as she held on.

“Ah… haaaa…” Soarin shuddered, his eyes stopped jittering and his eyelids stopped straining. Listening closely, Dash could hear his breathing stabilize and even out. She could feel his pulse calming down in his neck. The blue light surrounding them both expanded further, the yellow light struggling to fight against it.

Soarin’s legs began to wobble and he slowly lowered himself down to the floor, laying on his stomach and shutting his eyes tight as the blue light pushed the yellow light into his body, completely out of sight.

“Ah… ah… oooooooh…” Soarin groaned as his body twitched lightly.

Dash loosened her grip, sliding off his neck and sitting her plot on the ground. She kept her arms up, supporting Soarin’s large head with her hooves as he slowly lowered it down. She shifted and leaned back, slowly guiding Soarin’s head until his chin rested in her lap.

“Oof…” Dash grunted slightly, the weight of his massive head pressing into her, but she sucked it up and dealt with it. “Shhhhhhh… it’s okay… shhhhhhhhhhhh…” she gently shushed as she gently stroked on hoof up and down his cheek and the other through his mane.

Soarin’s eyes opened weakly, he looked exhausted. They slowly shifted back and forth, landing on Dash’s body.

“Th… that… voice…” Soarin rasped with slow, heaving breaths. “Is… is that…?” His eye facing her struggled to look up. “Dash…? Rainbow… Dash…?”

Dash immediately leaned back so he could see her, his eye locking with hers and opening slightly wider. She smiled at him, her face wrought with concern.

“Yeah… it’s me.”

Soarin stared for several moments. Then his eyelids shuddered and subtle droplets began to form in his eyes.

“I… oh…” he sniffled. “Thank god… I’m…” his voice sputtered. “I’m so… tired…”

Dash flinched in surprise as Soarin dug the side of his face into her stomach while simultaneously forcing an arm forward and wrapping it tightly around her lower back.

“Humph!” Dash gasped as Soarin pulled her in so tightly that she could barely breathe. His grip was so strong, it felt like she was being squeezed in a vice. After shimmying herself a little, she finally found a position that gave her room to breathe. But then she frantically looked over Soarin. His eyes were closed. At first she was afraid that he had gone back to sleep, but upon closer inspection, she could see his eyelids flickering. He opened and closed them every few seconds in very slow and weak movements.

Dash breathed a sigh of relief and held Soarin’s head gently as the two sat still with the softly pulsing blue glow encircling them. Not only did Soarin look relaxed, but she felt really good too, relieved from the burning heat and instead filled with a soft, comfortable feeling that swirled happily within her.

She blinked, her body tingling for a moment as the good feeling seemed to grow. She stared at his face, then ran her eyes down his neck and towards his massive body… she bit her lip as her eyes ran over the muscles on his enormous frame.

No. Dash, no.

She slammed her eyes shut. Holding her breath and puffing her cheeks out as she could feel it all welling up. The familiar euphoria surge… it wasn’t new.

Control… control… control… Don’t let the stimulation take hold… don’t be overwhelmed. Soarin needed soothing… her personal desires would have to wait, especially those that were being egged on by things beyond her control. She took several deep breaths, calming herself so she could remain focused.

She slowly opened her eyes and stared at his face as she continued to gently stroke it. It was crazy how much effort it took to do so now with how large he was. Soarin sighed contently, nestling his head further against her in response to her touch.

She looked over towards the others. Luna, Twilight, and Cadence were gathering themselves after falling from the wall. Discord was standing in front of them, arms outstretched and a purple shield bubble surrounding him and the three mares. Discord lifted an eyebrow as he made eye contact with Dash. There were no words exchanged between the two, but Dash assumed he was looking for an all clear of sorts. Dash nodded, releasing a hoof from Soarin for a moment to beckon them in.

Discord snorted and released the shield as the groaning alicorns shook themselves out and rose to their hooves. Once their senses had returned, they all carefully approached as Dash went back to stroking Soarin’s mane and face.

“Well…” Dash spoke up as they stopped a few paces away. “He’s definitely awake,” she said with some slight sarcasm. Luna was the first to step a little closer, though still kept at least three paces from them. She froze for a moment, her eyes locking on Soarin, but she quickly ripped them away, staring towards the wall to the right.

“And… how fare thee?” she asked, her eyes glancing at Dash, but quickly returning across the room before she could look at Soarin. “Are you stable within? There is no ple…pressure?”

“There was a little bit of a surge just now,” Dash explained without looking away from Soarin. “But… I was more worried about calming him down.”

Luna blinked, her eyes widening in surprise at how casually Dash referred to the lustful temptations as an afterthought. She slowly looked towards Soarin again, but the moment her eyes caught just a small bit of his body, she twitched and forced herself to look away again. She had been handling the magnetic draw well recently, but Soarin being conscious and his power flowing seemed to amplify it to a degree. Though she did not fear losing control of herself, especially with everypony else right there, she was taken aback by how easily Dash seemed to be handling it and didn’t want the others to notice.

Cadence broke from the group, pacing around and examining the damage done to the floor, walls, and pillars.

“Thank goodness he stopped,” she said aloud as she took account of all the broken chunks of crystal and the cracks and divots everywhere. “That could have been much worse…”

“Yeah, that was—” Twilight was cut off as Discord grunted loudly.

“I don’t want to hear another WORD from that jackass about me being too careful!” he grumbled as he crossed his arms and angrily tapped a finger against his left arm. He glared hard at Soarin and shook his head. “I can’t believe how easily his energy ripped right out of my hold! We’re dealing with a monster here!”

“Discord!” Twilight quickly stepped in front of him and held a hoof out. “Please! Let’s keep our wits about us here!”

Discord refocused his glare on her, but Twilight shrugged it off, putting a hoof to her lips and shushing him while motioning to Rainbow Dash as she continued to comfort Soarin.

Discord snorted and turned his back, walking all the way to the first stable pillar he could find in the room. He leaned against it and grunted to himself as he watched Twilight, Cadence, and eventually Luna all begin to carefully inspect Soarin.

But soon his eyes found their way to Dash’s hooves and the way they were gently holding Soarin. He blinked and stared as Dash gently ran her hooves up and down, and how he reacted to her touch.

“Hrmph…” Discord flicked his snake tongue as he looked away and rolled his eyes.

Several minutes went by. Eventually, Soarin appeared to be fully relaxed, his body no longer twitching at all, and even the blue glow surrounding them both was very dim.

“Hngh…” Soarin stirred, his eyes flickering open as he nestled his face into Dash’s stomach.

Dash took notice of how relaxed he looked, so she broke the silence.

“Hey, sleepyhead… how do you feel?” she asked, trying to be lighthearted as Twilight, Cadence, and Luna eagerly waited.

Soarin slowly opened his eyes all the way. He looked tired and restless, but Dash could not begin to describe how good it felt to look into his eyes again.

“I… don’t know…” Soarin answered.

That wasn’t an answer Dash was expecting. She glanced up to see the three alicorns were similarly surprised.

“Where… am I…?” Soarin continued. He tried to move but grunted loudly as he barely managed to budge and blue light flickered around him. “Why… am I so heavy?” he asked as his eyes continued to look around before they landed on Dash again. “Why… are you so small?” his voice grew a little in octave.

Everypony flinched as he suddenly tried making a solid effort to move.

“Wait, Soarin, WAIT!” Dash tried to stop him, but it was too late. The moment he tried to force his hoof down, he only got a few inches off Dash’s lap before several bright blue and yellow flashes shone from his horn and eyes.

“Aaaaaah!” Soarin grunted, his head falling back into Dash’s lap. She grunted as his heavy head fell back into her and she quickly hugged his nose as the lights died back down.

“Careful!” Discord suddenly spoke up as he came back over to them. “For the love of Celestia BE CAREFUL!” he demanded angrily.

Soarin’s eyes opened and closed upon hearing him.

“Is that… Discord?” he asked. “Wonderful…”

Dash couldn’t help but snort. Even in his current state, Soarin found a moment to be sarcastic about the local chaos lord. It didn’t get past the others either, Twilight looking away to chuckle as Discord gave them all a flat look.

“Soarin…” Dash spoke up as she gently rubbed his face again. “What can you remember?” she asked, bringing all of their attention back to him as she tried to start getting some perspective out of him.

Soarin said nothing for a moment, but his eyes shifted here and there as if trying to piece an answer together.

“I was fighting Sombra…” he began weakly. “Celestia tried to do something… I tried to stop her… after that…” he paused and held it for a long moment. “After that…” he paused again. “I… ahhh…” his body began to quiver.

“Soarin?” Dash quickly lowered herself down to place her chin on the top of his head.

“I…” he began to choke up. “Oh god…”

Something about recounting it was shaking him to the core. Dash quickly glanced at the others, but none of them seemed to have any idea what it could be, not even Discord. Dash quickly tried to change the subject.

“Shhhhh… it’s okay Soarin,” she squeezed his neck. “Listen to me. You’re in the Crystal Palace. The fighting ended. You’ve been out for almost two months and—”

“M…MONTHS?!” Soarin suddenly flinched, his eyes opening wide. “Only… two... months? But… it… it felt like…” he trailed off.

“What?” Dash tried to softly press. “Felt like what?”

“It was like… a nightmare that wouldn’t end…” Soarin went on as he pressed his head harder into Dash. “It felt like… years… decades… like…” he twitched and winced hard as his body shuddered madly. “What’s wrong with me? Why does everything feel different? I’m awake but… I don’t feel like I am.”

Dash bit her lip, not sure what to say. Then her eyes were suddenly drawn away as Discord snorted loudly.

“You know what…?” Discord grumbled as he walked over and put himself into Soarin’s line of sight. “We might as well get this part over with. If he wants to know why something feels off, then best show him now.”

He snapped his fingers and a large mirror appeared above his head. He grabbed it and planted it on the floor.

The others froze, even Dash. Among them, there was a desire to yell out, to tell Discord it wasn’t a good idea, but at the same time, none of them could find the words. It was true that the reality of the situation could not be denied, but was a sudden smack in the face really the best way?

Fan art by: Lazzari

It was too late, because Soarin was staring with wide eyes at his reflection. A loud expulsion of air ejected from his mouth with a squeak and a crack as if a gasp that was either too weak or too strong shot from his lungs. Dash quickly tightened her grip on him as he tipped his head up slowly, gazing dead ahead with his mouth agape and his eyes twitching. The look in his eyes suggested he wasn’t believing what he was seeing, that or what he saw defied belief, it was hard to tell by those watching.

Luna, Cadence, and Twilight, whether they meant to be or not, were all visible in the reflection of the mirror, standing behind him and Dash. His eyes, after darting between his own and the horn on his head several times, started shifting to each alicorn in the mirror with him.

Luna.

Cadence.

Twilight.

It was as if he couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing, but he had three examples right there in the very image before him that signified exactly what he couldn’t believe. But he wasn’t just an Alicorn… his bodily appearance was similar to…

“You’ve become a divine alicorn,” Discord broke the silence, stepping around the mirror and leaning against it while looking sternly down at Soarin. “And before you bother asking… no, we haven’t a clue how it happened.”

“Ah…” Soarin began to shudder. “AH…!” he gasped loudly as he stared at himself in shock. The faint aura surrounding him and Dash began to brighten and flicker again. Discord flinched and growled as he shook his head out.

“Oh, me and my BIG mouth!” He quickly dispelled the mirror and threw his arms forward, erecting a bubble of chaos magic around Dash and Soarin as the three alicorns quickly jumped back.

But Dash quickly leaned herself down, pressing her chest to the side of Soarin’s head and giving him a big squeeze.

“Soarin! Soarin, no! Relax! Just relax!” she spoke to him.

It seemed to do the trick. Soarin stiffened, his breathing remaining calm despite the look of shock on his face as the aura receded and stopped flickering. When Discord saw him ease up, he grunted and removed the barrier. Luna, Cadence, and Twilight made their way around to his side.

“What was that about not being careful?” Twilight asked Discord with an annoyed pout.

“Oh, shut up…” Discord flicked a finger at her, a squeaky hammer appearing over her head and giving her a single bop with a loud SQUEE.

“Soarin, listen to me…” Dash began in a serious tone as she whispered into his ear. “Be calm… and relax. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere. There is a lot to explain, but… you’re safe, I’m safe, the Wonderbolts are safe, and you are not dreaming. Look at me…” She gently reached her hooves under his chin to support him and help him look into her eyes. His frozen stare hurt her, but she knew he could hear her voice. “You are still YOU… and we want to know everything you’re feeling. If you need a moment, then take one. Just relax and rest… now come back down here…” she slowly directed his head back into her lap and nestled him against her comfortably. She could feel him shaking upon coming into contact with her, but it quickly died down as he nuzzled into her again. “Guys?” Dash looked up at the other. “Help me tell him everything we know and everything he’s missed… we need to get him up to speed.”

They all glanced at each other, except for Discord who stared squarely at Luna. Luna inched back slightly upon meeting his eyes, but swallowed and nodded.

“Where do we even begin?” she said as she stepped forward.

Soarin lay comfortably in Dash’s lap. While his eyes held a bit of disbelief still, hearing the explanation in full seemed to bring him pause. The truth was the truth, no matter how absurd it may be, and getting the full rundown was giving him much to think about as Luna did her best to recount it all with input from the others. There was some satisfaction for him as well, hearing Luna not spare herself or certain others from their missteps. Though hearing the admissions added to the overall feeling of the situation… that what had happened was beyond them all.

“And now we’re here,” said Dash, tying up the last bit as they finished telling Soarin everything.

Soarin sat still for a moment, looking at nothing in particular as they all waited for him to say something. But no matter what he said, they all felt less worried about his mental state, for he seemed to partially accept that things had suddenly gotten incredibly strange. And considering what he had already been put through before this… that was a high bar to reach.

“Hm…” he finally hummed. “And to think calling me a princess used to be a joke…”

Dash chuckled at first, as did the rest. But they all quickly stopped. Despite the rather joking statement, Soarin did not look amused at all.

“And you said… the spirits of both Celestia and Sombra are inside me… along with everything else?” he asked, looking towards Luna and Discord.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Discord snorted. “Though as far as I know… Sombra is merely along for the ride. You became this because you somehow managed to withstand the full force of a power that nearly destroyed Celestia herself when she dared to unlock its potential ages ago.”

“Then MAYBE…” Dash cut in sharply while glaring at Discord. “Soarin can tell us more about how it all happened?”

“Just a few minutes ago he said he couldn’t—”

“I can,” Soarin abruptly cut off Discord. “I’m…” he sighed. “I feel a little better now, my head’s clearer. Just let me…” he shuddered. “Sit… up…”

“Whoa, whoa, wait!” Twilight frantically put her hooves out.

“HRGH!” Soarin grunted loudly as he tried to move again, loud crackling noises came from the horn and around his body as the blue aura flickered and tiny yellow sparks danced from his eyes.

“Easy, Soarin. EASY!” Dash reached out and supported him as his effort gave out.

“Son of a bitch…” Soarin grumbled as he exhaled. “It feels like a laser rave party in my head every time I try to move…”:

“That’s because you’re an unstable mess,” Discord pointed out. “So please for the love of all that is holy, STOP trying to move. Your body was not made to handle this.”

Dash blinked in surprise as she saw Soarin furrow his brow and scowl as Discord spoke.

“I can do it,” he said defiantly.

“What did I just—?”

“I. CAN. DO IT." Soarin repeated, his voice suddenly echoing a little as his eyes flashed, one blue and one yellow.

Discord visibly flinched and inched backward a step. His eyes darted back and forth right after, hoping none of them saw his reaction. Luckily for him, they were all focused on Soarin.

“Dash… can you help me sit up?” Soarin asked, tilting his head so he could look her in the eye. Dash smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, let’s get you up… but you’re kind of really heavy now so…” she looked at the alicorns. “Twi? Cadence? A little help?”

It was not lost on any of them that she specifically didn’t ask the two omnipotent beings in the room, but neither Twilight nor Cadence hesitated when asked. The two carefully approached as Luna and Discord looked on. Dash directed them to where they should help support Soarin. Discord slipped one hand behind his back, balling it up into a fist as his chaos aura encircled it. He wasn’t going to take any chances and was ready to intervene if need be… or at least try.

“Hrgn…” Soarin grunted as he slowly leaned up with the three sets of helping hooves. Blue fizzles and pops jumped from his horn frequently throughout the process, but he focused on keeping calm, allowing his extra support to do most of the heavy lifting as they slowly tilted him up… and eventually got him sitting upright. “Haaa…” Soarin exhaled and took a few deep breaths, finally sitting up under his own power.

The three took a step back to let him balance himself. Dash’s eyes grew wider as she took him in. She slowly looked up, getting a good look at just how large he was with both of them sitting on the same level plane. He loomed larger over her… very large…

“Wow…” Dash whispered to herself as her cheeks became a little rosy.

“Are you fine?” Cadence asked Soarin. Dash flinched, but quickly realized Cadence wasn’t talking to her. “Want us to pull the table over to lean against?”

“I’ll manage, but thanks,” Soarin declined. He took a moment to look around, and for the first time see all of them from his new higher point of view. He looked down at each one of them, even Discord was lower than him. “This is so… odd,” he admitted before turning to Dash. He blinked as he saw the way she was staring at him. “Dash?”

“Hm?! W-what?!” Dash stuttered, stiffened, and blushed. “NOTHING! It’s nothing!” she answered a question no one asked, then quickly hid her face with a wing. “You’re just… really… er… big.”

“Oh, spare me…” Discord rolled his eyes and snorted. “Well, come on, you’re up. Now start talking, we’re waiting.”

Soarin didn’t take notice of Discord’s tone. Instead he gathered his thoughts.

“Let’s see…” he pondered out loud. “Okay so, I remember Celestia unleashing her full power… and then I tried to absorb it using the lessons I had learned about magic focusing. I couldn’t do it on my own, even with Dash’s support… so I forced Sombra to help me…”

“Forced?” Discord blinked. Soarin looked up at him, but Discord snickered and shook his head. “Nothing, carry on.”

“I guess that’s the best way I can put it. Sombra had given up trying to harness her power and his spirit was floating helplessly among the surge. I nearly absorbed what was left of him while I was trying, but when I realized it wasn’t going to happen, I… grabbed him and demanded his help. He told me not to give him orders, but he helped me anyway. And together…” Soarin trailed off.

“Hmph…” Discord grunted. “Your version is a bit different than his, but it looks like he wasn’t just blowing smoke. That’s what really happened then?” Discord looked away. “Two mortals… who are just too stubborn to die? Even against the endless depth of Celestia’s power? Could it be that…?”

“Discord…?” Luna spoke up, tipping her head.

“Nothing,” Discord shook his head and exhaled. “Nothing. I’m just thinking out loud.”

“So what happened then?” Dash asked while sitting down next to Soarin and gently rubbing his arm. “You started saying something before but—”

She froze as Soarin’s eyes opened wide and he twitched lightly. She quickly shut her mouth tight and grabbed his arm with both of hers. Soarin shut his eyes and swallowed, shaking his head.

“Sorry… sorry…” he assured her upon feeling her squeeze. “It… I…” he took a deep breath. “I’m not sure exactly how to describe what happened next.”

Discord perked up, his ears turning forward intently. He quickly glanced at Luna, who seemed to be just as intrigued. Neither Twilight, nor Cadence could possibly understand the specifics of their interest.

“After Sombra helped and all three of us—" he gave Dash a quick glance, “—worked together against Celestia’s power… I’m assuming it was the moment we succeeded… The struggle ended and the pain and strain was gone like it never existed, but I found myself… somewhere. I don’t know where, like I was floating in an empty space. No matter where I looked, I saw nothing, no matter how much I tried to call out, my voice didn’t make a sound. But after a few moments, I began to… hear something. It sounded like voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then I began to see things, things that were blurry and without features. The voices kept getting louder and the images flew by faster and faster, but I was never able to discern what was being said nor what I was seeing. As it went on, I began to feel something, an emptiness in the pit of my stomach, my body began to twitch and tingle and emotions I could not describe started surging through me. And none of them were pleasant… sorrow, anger, fear, anxiety, anguish, hopelessness… desire, jealousy, envy, spite, resentment… and… none of it felt like my own. It was like the infinite voices pounding in my head were calling out to me, the flailing images shooting all around me, some coming right at me as if reaching out to me with the voices. It became overwhelming so quickly… but it didn’t stop. It went on and on and on and only got stronger as time passed. And it felt like it went on for an eternity… it felt like years… It drove me mad, all I wanted was for it to stop, but it wouldn’t and there was nothing I could do about it. And… the moment when I finally gave up hope… I woke up.”

Everypony sat still as he finished. The looks on everypony’s faces implied that none of them expected such an explanation. Dash, Twilight, and Cadence all stared in shock, surprised at how vividly horrifying it sounded. The gods, on the other hoof, were strategically out of view from the rest. Discord was twirling a finger in his scraggly beard and looked to be in deep thought. Discord stole a glance at Luna. She looked visibly stricken and very uncomfortable, confirming that she was thinking the same thing as him despite her different reaction. Discord knew what scared her and knew there was no way she was going to speak up about it. So he did instead.

“It sounds to me…” Discord stepped forward as everypony looked at him except for Soarin. “Like you experienced the price of the power that’s now yours,” he said while glancing at Luna. Luna said nothing and looked away quickly.

“What do you mean?” Soarin asked.

“Celestia was not born with the depth of power she wields. She earned it through great risk to herself, one that she felt necessary to truly become the goddess Equestria needed. Opening one’s mind to the bottomless depths of divine alicorn power is dangerous and can utterly twist, consume, or even destroy those who try, even immortals. She took the risk because those who once stood high before her did the same…” he trailed off for a moment, looking in Luna’s direction. “But it’s a risk that most were unwilling to take. And those who did… but failed, did not walk away unscathed… or at times even at all. That which can entirely snuff out what is eternal is not something to be taken lightly.”

Luna was still looking away, but she shuddered as Discord’s words slid through her ears.

“Yet those who did and succeeded… did not do so without great agonizing pain as both the body and the mind must be… adjusted to be what the power needs to exist, and the wielder feels every bit of it. Perhaps that’s what Soarin experienced… something similar to what she did,” Discord continued. “Though honestly, that’s just speculation, we’ll have to ask her the next time she’s able to project herself outside of him… and I’m assuming that’s only an option when he’s asleep.”

“She’s right here, you can ask her now.”

Everybody jumped in surprise as Sombra’s voice came out of Soarin as his eyes and horn flickered with blue light. Nopony flinched as hard as Soarin, who jittered and winced. He immediately hunched forward and pressed a hoof to his head, blinking rapidly.

“What in the HELL was THAT?!” Soarin groaned as he opened and shut his eyes a few times and tipped his head.

“What was what?” Sombra’s voice came out of him again, the same blue flashes coming from his eyes and horn. Soarin grunted and put both hooves on his head as it happened again.

“Oh, wonderful...” Discord growled, rolling his eyes.

“Sombra?” Soarin shook his head out and glanced back and forth. “What? Where are you?”

“In here, where else?” Sombra said with a snort as Soarin’s eyes and horn lit up.

“You can talk from inside me?”

“Apparently I can.”

There was a long pause, everypony staring blankly at Soarin.

“Oh, that is NOT right…” Soarin complained while rubbing his hooves on his forehead below the horn. “I don’t like that one bit…”

“Do you want Celestia to speak or not?” Sombra huffed.

“Okay, stop, STOP! Rgh…” Soarin shouted while blinking. “That’s… so damn weird! Don’t tell me Celestia can do that too…”

“I can,” Celestia’s voice came from Soarin, his eyes and horn blinking yellow instead.

Soarin perked up and blinked several times.

“Okay, that’s even worse…”

“I’ll take it over the regal douche…” Discord glanced away and muttered to himself, seemingly the only one not still silenced by the revelation.

“Apologies…” Celestia spoke again, her voice notably softer than Sombra’s. “This must not be very comfortable.”

“That’s… putting it lightly…” Soarin groaned as he continued to rub his head.

“Are you… okay though, Soarin?” Dash asked, the flashing of blue and yellow lights concerned her, since they were typically paired with him struggling to control himself.

“I’m fine, Dash… it’s just… weird having voices come out of me that aren’t mine.” He explained. “It feels like an involuntary vibration in my head.”

“Do you want her to explain or not?” Sombra spoke up in full voice.

“Gaaaaaaaah…” Soarin winced and lurched again.

“Sombra… lower your voice please…” Celestia spoke softly again. Sombra snorted, but said nothing else. “How is this, Soarin?” Celestia asked, softening her voice a little more.

“That’s… bearable, yeah…” Soarin clarified, scrunching his face up. Dash took notice of his expression. Obviously, he was uncomfortable, but he also looked… annoyed?

“What you experienced…” Celestia began, nearly trailing off at the start as if gathering herself. “Are the burdens one carries when walking down this dangerous path. The depth of divine alicorn magic is near bottomless, it is a power so great, wild, and unstable that our bodies and minds naturally prevent us from accessing more than a sliver of it. It was always said that it was nature’s way of still having some sway over us gods, keeping us from being destroyed by our own power. As Discord said, however… there are those of us among the divine who have taken the chance and suppressed these natural barriers… opening up our minds to the true depths of our power. The risk is great, and if unprepared, it can easily destroy or corrupt one beyond all recognition. All those whom have stood tallest amongst the divine have done so, and when Luna and I were the only Alicorns left, I too took the chance to fill the void left behind by those destroyed. No true god stood, and Luna was too young. I had no choice.”

Celestia paused for a moment, making a noise that sounded like a vocalized shiver before she continued.

“What you described was precisely what I experienced. Voices, thoughts, emotions… things that did not belong to me. Though I myself cannot say for certain, I believe that one who wishes to become all seeing must accept what comes with such a gift. By putting yourself in the role, you open up your mind to the thoughts, wishes, emotions, and desires of others. You become their eyes and ears. You become their hope… what they believe in. Unfortunately, what pours forth the loudest from the beings of the world are the unpleasant. Pain, desire, longing… anger, hatred, hopelessness… any negative emotion or state of mind is like a voice constantly shouting in your head from a million directions all at once. It is a test… a brutal realization that this is what you are asking for. It feels like it lasts forever and if you break, you will be rejected and be destroyed or… worse. Since you found the will and the means to absorb my energy, all my power has been passed to you, and thus, with a new vessel, the process had to begin anew. You were tested, just as I was. I shudder to think how it all felt to you, being unprepared and of mortal flesh no less. I had the advantage of an immortal body and the opportunity to steel myself for the worst.” Celestia paused. “It pains me to say that you never truly stop hearing the voices, but… over time I have learned how to live with it. It is simply part of being a god. You can’t solve every problem in the world, but it’s a reminder that… you are important to those who look up to you. You understand them in ways they may never even know.”

Celestia finished explaining and stayed quiet for a moment, but when no one spoke up, she did again.

“Would you like to add anything?” she asked.

“What could I possibly add?” Sombra spoke up in full voice again, causing Soarin to twitch. “I’m trapped in this debacle you’ve created just as much as he is.”

“Okay, you stop talking for a moment,” Soarin slammed his eyes shut and growled.

“I will speak if I so desi—”

“NO! SHUT UP!” Soarin yelled, cutting him off as blue and yellow sparks jumped from his horn. “RGH…!” Soarin grunted and put a hoof to his head as Dash squeezed his other arm tightly and the others leaned back slightly. “CELESTIA…” Soarin forced out with his teeth jammed tight. “Are you listening to me?”

“Y… yes?” Celestia answered quietly. “I am.”

“Good,” Soarin narrowed his eyes. “Because I have a lot to say… where OTHERS can hear me. So you better listen.”

Dash blinked in surprise, Soarin’s tone turning very sour. This was not lost on the others either as they all listened.

“What gives you the right to decide the fate of another?” he asked very sharply.

“I… what?” Celestia’s voice stuttered. Discord’s eyes twitched, but he held his tongue.

“You heard me,” Soarin pressed.

“I… would never do such a…” she trailed off, the manner in which she stopped while she was ahead implied she caught herself from saying something.

“Good thing you stopped,” Soarin growled. “At least you know you’re full of crap. And I’m not even talking about everything you pulled before this went down.”

“Okay now hold on, you…” Discord stomped forward and pointed a finger at Soarin.

Soarin shot a hard glare in Discord’s direction, snarling as his horn crackled with blue and yellow flashes. Discord froze in place, forcing his displeased expression to remain in place as he felt the magical pressure pulsating from Soarin. He didn’t forget what happened when Soarin awoke, but he certainly didn’t want Soarin to get the idea that he was… cautious.

“Celestia…” Soarin continued. “You decided it would be just fine to kill me to get rid of Sombra.”

There was a long silence. Celestia said nothing.

“Did you even for a moment consider that when you brought all your power crashing down on us?”

“It… I…” Celestia struggled. “I was sacrificing… myself…”

“No, stop!” Soarin cut her off. “You’re making this about you?!”

“I was doing what I thought was right!” Celestia quickly added, raising her voice a little. Soarin twitched as her voice reverberated in his head, but he shook it out and snorted.

“It was right to kill me? It was right to kill Dash? We were taking on Sombra, we were holding out against him, and suddenly you thought ‘oh gee, I’ll just kill them all?’ Really?”

Celestia said nothing.

“Hmmm…” Sombra hummed quietly to himself. Nopony could see him, but he was listening with great interest… and had a slight smirk on his face.

“I want you to think about that because you didn’t seem to care.” Soarin went on. “And frankly, on top of everything that’s led to me sitting here, with my body blown up out of proportion, seeing shit, and shouldering your burdens now too? I’m kind of at the end of my rope with you… and gods for that matter.” He glanced at both Discord and Luna. “It almost makes me sick to know that I’ve apparently become one now, if this is the company I have to share. Forced into a position held by a bunch of idiots who have lived too long and don’t seem to be any the wiser for it.”

His words were harsh, several present flinched almost every word. All except for Discord, who looked to be shaking a little, though it was not out of shock like the others, rather he was doing his best to control himself and not let out the harsh words he really wished to throw back at him. Rainbow Dash simply stared at Soarin’s chest as she held tight to him. His words resonated through her head and spoke volumes to her as if they were things she herself had wanted to say for a while, but never found the appropriate moment.

“I will always be grateful that you saved my life after the Ponyville tornado incident…” Soarin momentarily softened his tone. “Personally pulling the strings of my fate to let me live on? I’d be a real asshole to not thank you for that… But that’s where it ends… because the way everything has gone since has been nothing but a big selfish personal ploy for your own means and ends. I never asked for any of this, I never wanted to be in the position I am now. Who knows how this may have all turned out differently… maybe I’d be here anyway, but regardless… you kept me in the dark, you kept ALL of us in the dark about what was really going on and what this was really all about. You’ve thrown my life for a hellish loop, you’ve made things complicated for Rainbow Dash, and you sent the Wonderbolts blindly into a battle that has led to deaths… DEATHS… ponies we won’t be getting back when this is all said and done.”

Soarin paused for a long time after saying that, and he wasn’t afraid to admit that it was to really rub it in.

“The blame for all of this mess rests on YOU and only YOU. I hope you understand that.”

“That’s ENOUGH!” Discord suddenly blurted out, causing the rest to flinch as he took a strong step forward and pointed. “Don’t act like her actions alone are responsible for everything happening here! Unless you already forgot about the other spirit residing in your head?”

“I beg your—”

“Really now?!” Soarin cut off Sombra, catching him off guard. “The one you messed up and turned into the mad king with your magic when he was old, weak, and vulnerable?!”

Discord flinched hard, tilting back slightly as Luna’s eyes went wide and snapped to him upon seeing his reaction. He looked towards Luna, Cadence, and Twilight, who all stared, perplexed.

“I didn’t, I don’t know what…” he growled, his eyes darting back and forth before he shook his head out and crossed his arms in front of his mouth. “NO! I did no such thing and if that’s what he told you, he’s lying!”

“Oh?” Soarin snorted. “Should I ask Cele—?”

“That’s not important!” Discord swiped both his arms out, leaning towards Soarin, but stopping before he could take another step as Soarin’s two auras began to rise and flicker again. “You ought to show a little more respect to the only one in that big head of yours who really understands what your body is being put through! No doubt she’s the only one who can figure out how to fix this!” he yelled hysterically. It sounded like he didn’t think about a single word he said before he said it and that precisely influenced the manner of reactions he got as a result. Soarin’s eyes had grown wide and his expression had turned extremely sharp as he glared hard at the flailing lord of chaos.

“Oh huzzah!” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from Soarin’s head as he flinched and shuddered. “Look everypony! Here comes Celes’ ever so dependable and dutiful white knight to save her from the mean and nasty TRUTH!”

Somehow, hearing the sound of Sombra’s voice seemed to make Discord quickly get over his slight fear of getting too close to Soarin. He stomped closer and pointed a finger at Soarin’s forehead from only three paces away.

“NOPONY ASKED YOU!” Discord snarled.

“She didn’t ask you to fight her battles either, did she?” Sombra’s voice shot right back as Soarin’s eyes remained faintly lit blue. “I’d say Soarin has every right to give her a piece of his mind! Was anything he said wrong? Well?”

“Enough piling on!” Discord snorted. “We’ve been over this plenty of times now! Celestia admitted her mistakes the moment you two wiggled your shadows out of Soarin’s ears! What more do you want from her? Or does forcing her to apologize over and over again get you off?!”

“Answer the question, scoundrel!” Sombra yelled back, causing Soarin to lurch his neck forward and slam his eyes shut.

“I’m not having an infantile yelling match with you when I can’t even see you!” Discord huffed and turned his back.

“As if you’d have the STONES to ever look ME in the eye and spout your drivel,” Sombra said condescendingly, causing Discord to flinch and immediately turn around. He glared into Soarin’s half open eyes.

“Listen you…!”

“NO.” Sombra’s voice came firmly. "YOU listen to ME.”

Discord paused, grinding his teeth together, but not getting any closer as Soarin blinked and sighed in frustration while holding a hoof to his head.

“From one stallion whose life was upended by a god to another, I understand his anger… I understand it all too well. To hear you so nonchalantly dismiss his words spoken from his heart… words that needed to be heard after he’s been so forcefully tampered with… it sickens me more than you could ever fathom. And considering how I feel about you already, that’s quite the achievement. So I will not stay silent while you remain so brazenly dismissive. I was dealt with and gone long before either of you could truly gaze upon what became of me at the behest of the gods… Now you two can take a good look at Soarin… and see what your actions have wrought.”

The speaking was uncomfortable to Soarin, but… Soarin was listening and looking at the ground. The words uttered by Sombra from within him speaking volumes to him and drowning out any thought towards his discomfort for a moment.

“Mayhap it’s time YOU learned to be a little more respectful,” Sombra went on as Discord scrunched up his face. “For t’would be a vast achievement of well-deserved irony… if a day would come that Soarin, in this form you gods have created for him, becomes far more powerful than even you…”

Discord’s eyes narrowed into a hard glare, but he did not step forward as Sombra went on.

“Or… mayhap your hesitance to bring yourself near speaks that which is unspoken? Has that day… already come?” Sombra added snidely.

Discord snarled loudly, balling up his fists as his magic flickered from them. Sombra guffawed, causing Soarin to gasp and nearly tip over forward.

“Oh! Look at that! What are you going to do, chaos me? Go ahead and try! Maybe Soarin will put you through a wall this time!” Sombra continued to goad Discord, practically yelling at this point.

Soarin slammed his eyes shut tight as Dash released his arm and pressed herself to his side instead, putting her arms as far around Soarin’s body as she could to try and keep him stable. Soarin grunted, a few blue and yellow sparks dancing from his horn as he shook his head out vigorously.

“Okay… OKAY!” Soarin yelled out. “That’s ENOUGH! God! It feels like my head is going to split in two when you shout like that! Ugh…” he exhaled as Sombra apparently listened and said no more. “This is not something I’m getting used to…”

“Hrumph!” Discord grunted loudly, turning his back and crossing his arms again as his magic buildup subsided.

Celestia had been notably silent, but that was perfectly fine by Soarin. If he had managed to shut them both up, hopefully they’d give him a moment to let his head stop spinning. But without a doubt… Soarin felt satisfied. Everything he said to Celestia, he meant. Sombra was right, he spoke from the heart… and it was about damn time he got to really give her a piece of his mind. But while he was enjoying the silence in his head… he felt compelled to do something.

“Sombra…” he said quietly.

“Hm?” Sombra hummed, hearing his name but also keeping his voice down.

“… thanks.”

“Hrmph…” Sombra only grunted, but Soarin was more than sure that after Sombra’s strong defense of him, that he appreciated it.

“Alright… alright…” Twilight suddenly came forward now that there was finally a break in the back and forth. She found her way between Soarin and Discord, but was noticeably closer to Discord as she held her arms out towards both of them. “I can see that this is a… fairly heated personal spat and I don't want to get caught in the middle of it, but… I think we would be wise to take a step back for a moment. Soarin is awake, mostly stable, and we have everypony tasked with making heads or tails of the current situation present. We should make use of this opportunity while we have it… it’s not like we’ve made any progress the way things have been so far.”

“Agreed…” Cadence came forward to join Twilight. Feeling compelled as the other one from outside looking in to coerce cooler heads. “Let’s not risk too many rising emotions. It appears Soarin’s auras were moving with his words and emotions and…” she paused and looked around at all the damage littered throughout the chamber. “I’d prefer it if we don’t test the structural integrity of the palace more than we already have.”

“Er… sorry about that…” Soarin looked away nervously.

“No need to apologize!” Twilight quickly turned and cheerfully approached Soarin with a big smile. The forced nature of her tone was not subtle at all, but she and Cadence were clearly trying to get them all to refocus. “It took me a long time to get control of my own Alicorn magic… and mine probably isn’t even a fraction of yours by comparison, not to mention it isn’t divine level. But even with my prior knowledge and training it was hard for me. So I can’t imagine how intense it is, but… I can understand the discomfort and difficulty to get it under control to a point. You’re in good company here in that regard,” she said while motioning a hoof towards Cadence.

Dash lifted an eyebrow, sensing that Twilight was maybe stretching the idea of understanding a little bit, but a quick glance at Soarin told her he felt the same way. It appeared he appreciated her best attempts to be upfront and level with him about the situation.

“Princess Celestia,” Twilight spoke as her eyes shifted to Soarin’s horn. “Can you hear me?”

She stood still as everypony waited for a response, but none came. Twilight glanced back and forth before clearing her throat.

“Princess…? Are you there?”

“Oh, I… yes, sorry. I am.” Celestia finally spoke again, her voice quiet and not all that confident sounding. Soarin’s eye twitched as Celestia’s voice came from him again. He shuddered and clutched an arm around Dash, squeezing her rather hard. Dash flinched and grunted.

“Ow… st…strong…” she sputtered.

“I really wish this wasn’t a thing…” Soarin complained for the umpteenth time about the voices vibrating through his head. He quickly loosened his grip on Dash upon noticing he was more or less squeezing her to hell and back.

“Is there anything different about your surroundings inside Soarin’s mind now that he’s awake?” Twilight asked as soon as Celestia confirmed her presence.

“Don’t bother asking,” Sombra answered instantly. “All we can see right now is whatever Soarin is looking at.”

“I… wasn’t asking you…” Twilight furrowed her brow and pouted.

“Sombra is correct, my faithful student,” Celestia answered. “We are currently seeing through Soarin’s eyes. The moment he awoke, we were taken by surprise by a rather forceful and uncomfortable pull that ultimately stripped us of our free movement and sight within. Right now it feels as if we are being held down in one spot with bindings that can’t seem to figure out how tightly they wish to grasp us. So right now, yes… whatever Soarin is looking at, so are we.”

“This just keeps getting better…” Soarin complained with an annoyed grunt as Twilight stared and blinked several times, processing what Celestia described.

Without saying a word or looking away, Twilight’s magic lit up on her horn and her telekinesis grabbed a notepad and quill from the pile of books and papers strewn about by the table that somehow remained intact after Soarin’s magic spasms. The pad and quill shot over to her, the pad flipping to a blank page and the quill beginning to write before they were even in her line of sight.

“Interesting… hmm…” she started pacing back and forth as she stared down at the paper and scribbled notes. “So while Soarin is asleep they can move freely in his mind, but when he’s awake they become… a part of his mind? No, that seems like a bit much, maybe they simply attune to his active mind or… the flow of energy is so unchained that they’ve been forced into a position? But wait… Princess Celestia mentioned a forceful pull… given the way Soarin awoke and lost control, could it be that his mental state is a part of this? Could they be released to roam within again while he is awake if the energy was calmed? Either would help support my theory that a fair amount of Celestia’s energy is directly tied to the very makeup of his new body if Soarin’s state can actively force her to a position, but if Sombra is seeing too then it implies an equal amount of his energy is doing the same? But it can’t be because the energy of Sombra’s soul isn’t nearly as immense as Celestia’s, maybe we…”

Everypony stared at Twilight as she droned on and on and on, save for Discord who still had his back turned to them all.

“What manner of aimless gibberish is this?” Sombra suddenly chimed in. Soarin winced and rubbed his forehead, but Dash looked up at Soarin’s head, shrugging the moment Soarin glanced at her.

“This is her every day. Haven’t you been paying attention? She’s been working with Luna and Discord a lot, hasn’t she?”

“I have not been paying that close attention,” Sombra admitted without hesitation. Dash flattened her brow.

“Glad to know you’ve been helpful,” she said in a very sarcastic tone.

“Hold your tongue, colorful driggle-draggle.” Sombra snapped.

“Oh no… NO.” Soarin slammed his eyes shut, causing the blue light shining from his eyes with Sombra’s voice to squeak out and dissipate for a moment. “Absolutely not. If you’re going to literally live in my head rent-free, you’re not allowed to use your expired insult booklet on my mare.”

“I am not allowed to speak in my own defense?” Sombra huffed.

“Soarin, it’s fine, I don’t give a—”

“That’s right your MAJESTY,” Soarin cut off Dash. “You can spout off words I’ve never heard of at Discord all you want, but you WON’T do it to Dash, got it? You’re not the king of MY head, so you’re gonna follow my rules. Now for CRAP’s sake, STOP TALKING! It’s still giving me headaches!” Soarin exhaled as he hunched down and shook his head out. He glanced at Dash, who was giving him a concerned look. “What, you just want me to let him talk to you like that?”

“Heh…” Dash smirked. “No, actually,” she said with a wink as she hugged Soarin’s arm.

“Hrmph…” Sombra quietly grunted.

“Now…” Twilight stopped and turned, facing away from Soarin as she scratched the bristles of the quill against the back of her ear. “As for the subject of Soarin’s stability… we need to figure out the exact factors that are at play here, keeping him under control…” She started flipping through the pages of her notes. “I swear I wrote this down somewhere…” she mumbled as her magic began shuffling through books on the other side of the room and pulling other papers out, putting her magic multitasking skills on display. “C’mon… where did I put it?” she huffed as she scanned all the random papers she had floating around her. “Hmmm… Hmmm…”

“Um…” Dash raised her hoof. “Twi…?”

“Oh, come on! How did I lose it?!” Twilight whined. Discord snorted, the first noise he had made in several moments as he looked towards Twilight.

“For pity’s sake…” he slid over to her without moving his legs and clamped one of his hands down on the top of her head.

“Eep.”

She yelped, everything held in her magic falling and scattering on the floor as Discord turned her entire body around to face Soarin and pointed a finger at Rainbow Dash.

“You really had to write that one down?” he asked with a grunt.

“…OH… right,” Twilight smiled awkwardly. “Rainbow Dash.”

“I sent for her immediately for a reason, you know…” Discord began as he removed his hand from Twilight and crossed his arms again. “I feared the moment he awoke he would… well…” Discord motioned a hand around the room towards all the damage. “Do this. Thankfully I was right. It looks like their soul connection is strong enough to pacify him even in this state.” He glanced at Twilight to see her scooping up all the notes with her magic and hooves. “Alright that’s enough with the notes already,” he grumbled and snapped his fingers, causing all the papers to whisk out of Twilight’s arms and begin folding themselves into assorted origami animals.

“Hey! Discord, I need those!” she yelled as the paper animals all flew, bounced, and escaped away from her.

“No, you don’t,” Discord snorted. “Nothing we tried to do before now matters because all we did was flail and fail to figure out anything. Now that he’s awake and he hasn’t ended the universe as we know it, only one question matters now…” he hardened his gaze towards Soarin. “Can he keep it under control?”

Everypony looked at Soarin.

Soarin weakly shrugged.

“Hell if I know… my head nearly exploded just trying to sit up.”

“And that's a problem,” Discord pointed out rather harshly. “You’re awake now… and you’re not putting on a lethal rave party, but how much of that is you and how much of that is attributed to the little rainbow clinging to you right now?”

Everyone’s eyes shifted to Dash, who was still clinging quite tightly to Soarin.

“Well, you know how to find out,” Sombra’s voice came from Soarin. Discord twitched heard and scrunched up his mouth.

“Thank you Mr. Tall, Dark, and Obvious…” he grumbled while rolling his eyes.

“Okay…” Twilight stepped forward quickly, hoping to quell any possible quarreling before it could start again. “We might as well give it a go. Dash?” Twilight turned to her and Soarin. “Can you try stepping away from Soarin for us?”

Dash blinked, tipping her head up to look at Soarin and meeting his eyes. She pouted and huffed. She wanted to help, but in truth she just didn’t want to let go of him.

“Alright… I’ll give it a shot,” she agreed and began to slide her arms off of him.

“WAIT!” Luna suddenly blurted out. “Wait, wait…” she held her hooves out and looked at everypony else. “Perhaps we should step back first… over here…” she beckoned for the others to join her as she began backing up towards the wall as far from Soarin as she could.

“Oh, good idea,” Cadence agreed as she and Twilight moved to join, all of them standing with Luna by the wall as she erected a sturdy shield, leaving an opening to let the others in. Luna blinked and glanced towards Discord, who remained standing firmly in place as Twilight and Cadence made their way into the shield.

“Discord? Come here,” Luna encouraged.

“I’ll be fine right here, thank you,” Discord said without taking his eyes off Soarin.

“But…”

“I said I’ll be FINE,” Discord said with a loud snort, twirling a finger out in front of him as he glared at Dash. “While the non-nipotent of us here are still young, Rainbow Dash.”

Dash flattened her brow at his pushiness, but they needed to figure this out. She glanced at Soarin again, once again building up the urge to release herself from him… it was easier said than done.

“Soarin…” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from Soarin in a quiet whisper. “Prithee shoot that conniving snake in the face with a magic beam.”

Soarin blinked in surprise.

“Sombra, please…” Celestia’s voice whispered in response with a sigh. “Let’s take this seriously.”

Soarin shut his eyes and shuddered, blinking as even the whispers felt weird. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t enjoy doing what Sombra suggested. He was more worried about possibly putting a hole through the entire palace if he were to try. He took a deep breath and looked down, meeting Dash’s eyes.

“Ready?” Dash asked with very noticeable hesitation in her tone. Soarin swallowed and nodded.

“Go for it.”

Holding her breath, Dash let go of him, but remained right next to him.

Nothing happened. Both of them quietly sighed in relief.

Keeping her eyes glued to him, Dash took a few small steps back.

As she moved, Discord shut his eyes for a moment, opening them to reveal a faint distorted purple glow within them with a chaos stream faintly rising up from them. He locked his eyes on the two of them and squinted. Through his magic and his sharpened gaze, he was able to discern the faint traces of the auras that surrounded the two of them, normally invisible to the naked eye. There was an intertwined mixture of blue and yellow encircling them both and a clear tether between the two of them that attached their auras. With Dash moving slightly further back, the tether appeared to be stretching, but it was holding firm.

Discord perked up and clenched his fist, his magic flaring up as Soarin suddenly twitched hard. Dash froze in place, her eyes going wide with concern as Soarin grunted.

“I’m… okay,” Soarin assured her as he shuddered slightly. “Was just a little discomfort for a moment, keep going.”

Discord kept his mouth shut, putting his fist behind his back to hide it as the magic remained alight. He watched very carefully as Dash continued to shuffle back until she was about five yards away. He began to grind his teeth beneath his lips as the aura tether between them stretched thinner.

Soarin suddenly grunted, exhaling as he lurched forward and hunched down.

“Soarin!” Dash yelled, fighting the urge to rush back to him as Discord nearly drew blood from his hand, clenching his fist to the point where his bear claws dug into it.

“I’m alright!” Soarin called out, quickly holding a hoof out in case Dash planned on coming back to him. “I can do it! This is… augh…” he shook his head out hard. “It’s just… stinging a little, nothing I can’t handle.”

“For how long, I wonder…” Discord said under his breath as he kept his eyes glued to the aura tether straining. “Keep going,” Discord called to Dash.

Dash only stole a quick glance at Discord, not taking notice of the light in his eyes as she held her breath and continued to move away. Soarin pressed his hooves into the ground, his eyes shut and his teeth gritting as Dash slowly reached ten yards from him. Discord’s fist shook behind his back as he watched the aura tether strain and shudder. It looked like it was about to give way, shaking vigorously as it was now just a thin line. The yellow hue was completely gone, only the blue was still connecting them. Everything was telling him to step in and stop it, but… the thought of putting up with Sombra ridiculing him for doing so kept him from intervening. He wasn’t a coward and he wasn’t afraid of Soarin… he would not suffer the consequences of giving Sombra any more of that impression.

“RGH!” Soarin grunted loudly, sweat beginning to drip from his brow as his aura became visible and started flickering. Small yellow and blue flashes shone in his eyes and sparks jumped from the horn.

Dash stopped again, her face wrought with fear of moving any further away.

“Keep going…” Discord growled.

“But…” Dash sputtered.

“KEEP! GOING!” Discord yelled. “But do it VERY slowly!” he ordered as he began shifting his fist to his side, readying himself for anything as he kept his eyes glued to the sliver of a connection remaining. “Keep concentrating!” He yelled to Soarin next. “Hang onto whatever feeling in your head is keeping it at bay!” he coached as he watched the connection stretch, but remain the same width.

Soarin’s breaths were heaving, his body was locked up and shuddering, his grunts were becoming louder and more labored.

“Steady… steady…” Discord said to himself as he watched the blue light connecting the two hold on, no longer growing thinner as Dash moved further away. He was suddenly filled with a thrilling feeling, that he might push the limits and throw it into Sombra’s face that he can figure things out.

But then Soarin lurched, gasping loudly the moment Dash reached twenty yards away.

Discord’s eyes grew wide as the remaining tether between their auras snapped and whiplashed towards Soarin, the pulse of blue shooting into him and causing an immediate, extreme reaction.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” Soarin cried out as he dropped to the ground, the two colors of auras erupting around him, the blue shooting up around his body and the yellow expanding to encircle it. Soarin threw his head back, shouting towards the ceiling as his body was engulfed in light, blue and yellow streams shooting from his eyes, mouth, and horn. He tried to shut his eyes, but the light only forced its way through his eyelids.

“SOARIN!!!!!” Dash called out.

“CONFOUND IT!” Discord immediately lifted his fist and tried to lob the magic stored within towards him to create a dome over him, but twin streams of blue and yellow light shot up over Soarin, intertwining and merging together to create a green ball of light. The ball fired a single focused stream in the direction of Discord. The beam struck Discord’s fist and knocked the chaos magic right out of it. “ARGH!” Discord yelped in pain, quickly grabbing his wrist as his hand twitched and sizzled. “WHAT ARE YOU STANDING AROUND FOR?!” Discord yelled to Dash. “GET BACK TO HIM! NOW!”

Dash blinked and quickly set her hooves. She broke into a gallop, but the moment she did, the green ball of light over Soarin exploded, shooting yellow and blue ribbons of magic in all directions, once again smacking into the pillars, walls, and floor of the chamber. One of the yellow streams struck the ground and exploded, kicking dust and debris up into Dash’s eyes.

She yelped and stumbled, her hooves slipping and falling onto her side. She cringed as she desperately tried to force herself up and wipe the dust from her eyes to regain her bearings. Soarin cried out again, a large burst of air pressure ejecting from his body. To Dash it felt like a passing gust of wind, but it smacked into Discord and threw him backwards. He slammed into a pillar behind him, the solid surface crumbling from the impact and collapsing into a heap with him buried beneath it.

“DISCORD!” Luna yelled from behind her rattling shield, the pressure forcing against it with more power than she had ever felt in her life as Twilight and Cadence took cover behind her.

“RGH!” Discord grunted, the debris exploding off of him as he rose up and glared at Soarin. His eyes darted between him and Dash, still dazed and struggling to regain her vision. Thinking as quickly as he could, Discord curled up into a ball, his chaos magic enveloping him and turning him into a large snake. He shot along the ground, slithering erratically to avoid the magic beams and impacts until he reached Dash. He changed back the instant he reached her, grabbed her by the back of the head, and leapt towards Soarin, holding Dash’s head like a basketball as she yelped, unable to see what was happening. He lunged forward, stretching his arm out with Dash’s head, avoiding the magic and smushing Dash’s face into Soarin’s chest.

Another large burst of air ejected from Soarin. Dash remained against him, but Discord was sent hurling backwards, flailing and yelling hysterically as he flung towards Luna’s shield… and hit it so hard that his face went through it. His neck got lodged after only so much of it made it through, the rest of his body curling up and over with his butt smacking into the shield directly over Luna’s head.

But his effort wasn’t in vain.

Soarin’s magic calmed down at an incredible pace, the auras receding. He stopped grunting in pain, and instead hunched down, breathing heavily while covered in sweat as steam rose from his horn.

“Ow… ow, ow, ooooooh…” Soarin groaned, holding one hoof to his head as the other immediately found Dash and wrapped around her.

“Blah!” Dash spat out a hunk of Soarin’s fur as she pulled her face free, only to yelp and be forced back into him as he squeezed her to him with his arm. She managed to turn her head in time to avoid another mouthful of light blue, but did not resist or complain about how hard he held her. She quickly loosened her arms and hugged him as much as her arms could manage around his large body.

“Discord! Are you alright?!” Luna asked frantically as she, Cadence, and Twilight stared at his head sticking through her shield.

“Hgn…” Discord grunted, slowly opening his eyes and twitching. “Ggh… Just… terrific…” he said with a heavy sigh as he reached an arm up and pressed it against the shield from the outside, trying to dislodge his head.

“Here, let me…” Luna began releasing the magic supporting the shield.

“No, Lulu, WAIT--!”

The three alicorns yelped as the shield vanished and Discord’s entire body fell on top of them, forcing them all to the floor with a collective grunt.

“Or not…” Discord sighed as he carefully slithered his body off to avoid being poked by any sharp horns. He picked himself up and rubbed his head, shaking his entire body out and cracking his neck as the rest rose up behind him. He looked out to see Dash giving him an angry pout. “What’s that look for?” Discord grumbled as he hobbled forward, trying his best to conceal a slight limp. “We have our answer now don’t we?” He rolled his eyes and looked away. “That damned… moron…” he grumbled under his breath. “I let him get to me and this is what happens…”

“Princess!” Twilight yelled as she galloped out towards Soarin, Cadence trotting behind while furrowing her brow at the new divots and broken pieces of the room strewn about. “Can you hear me? Is everything alright in there?!”

“Yes, Twilight, I’m fine,” Celestia’s voice came from Soarin, but it was very faint. “Though… allow Soarin to rest for a moment before I say more.”

“We told you to join us in the shield…” Luna huffed at Discord. He only gave her a single glance and snorted.

“Oh stuff it, Lulu… I’m not a fragile dandelion,” he rolled his eyes and held a hand out to Soarin, doing his very best to keep his face from scrunching up in pain as his stiff joints ached. “I stayed out here to stop it in case that happened… and I ultimately did, regardless of how… ungraceful it was.”

“I for one found it quite funny,” Sombra’s full voice came out of Soarin. Soarin twitched and strained his neck upward. “I particularly liked the part where your face broke through Luna’s—”

“ARGH!” Soarin grunted, cutting him off. “Stop talking! My head hurts enough as is!”

“Shut UP in there, jackass!” Dash growled while glaring up at Soarin’s head. “This is hard enough for him without you running your mouth!”

Sombra said no more, but the faint noise of grumbling could be heard from Soarin’s head. Discord smirked, though it didn’t last long as an aching pain ran down the back of his neck and shoulder.

“Rgh…” he let slip, quickly turning away from Luan as her eyes shifted to him. “Alright, let’s give him a moment…” Discord quickly changed the subject, going over to a pillar and leaning against it, though making it look as though he was simply thinking about what had happened instead of masking the pain he was in.

A few minutes went by and eventually Soarin’s breathing calmed down. His heartbeat had calmed, and so had Dash’s. Soarin gently rubbed a hoof up and down Dash’s back while looking up at the others.

“I’m… good now,” he said weakly with a long sigh. “That hurt like hell and I still have a slight headache, but… I don’t feel like I’m going to explode anymore.”

“Think you can manage letting Celestia speak?” Twilight asked cautiously.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Soarin nodded as Dash tightened her grip on him. He looked down at her and returned her squeeze with a light one of his own, narrowing his eyes a little in anticipation of the vibrations in his head.

“Princess? Can you tell us what happened now?” Twilight asked, focusing on Soarin’s forehead.

“Yes… in truth, I was barely touched,” she began as she kept her voice down. “I could sense the movement of my energy, but I did not feel any strain on my spirit, nor any on Sombra as far as I can tell, or that he has told me at least,” she paused as a quiet grunt came from inside Soarin’s head. “So I feel no different than I did before it happened.”

“Oh thank goodness…” Twilight sighed in relief. “I guess that means you’re safe from any small mishaps but… it looks like Rainbow Dash’s presence is required at all times for him to remain stable.”

“All times…?” Dash blinked, leaning her head away from Soarin’s chest and blinking. “That…” she furrowed her brow as she thought about everything happening with the Wonderbolts, particularly starting Spitfire’s new training routine she was excited for in the next few days. “That might be… a problem,” she said with some misgivings in her voice. She wasn’t sure what to say because it was two things very important to her pulling her in opposite directions. “I can’t be here 24/7…” she said again, sounding even more distraught. Soarin caught her tone and glanced down at her, seeing how unsure she looked.

“You saw what happened,” Discord chimed in. “He’s awake, but if you aren’t being pressed against his body he’ll lose control. Your connection is strong, but the effective distance appears to be small,” he explained without revealing what he witnessed through his magic vision, twirling a finger in his beard as he thought.

Dash looked down and exhaled long and loud as Soarin kept his eyes on her. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, it sounded like she was being forced to make a choice she didn’t want and—

“I’ll stay,” Dash cut off his thoughts. Soarin blinked in surprise as Dash looked towards Discord with determination in her eyes. “If I have to be by his side for his sake, then that’s where I’ll stay.”

Soarin’s ears flopped down, he didn’t doubt her words, but he could tell she felt forced to make the choice.

“Dash…” he tried to speak up, but Dash looked up at him firmly.

“There’s a lot going on with the Wonderbolts right now, but I will NOT leave your side if that’s what it takes to figure this out. I won’t risk your life by not being here.”

Once again, Soarin could tell she was making a hard choice, she couldn’t hide it from him.

Twilight stared at the two of them as everypony went quiet. She looked down and began pondering something as she turned to Luna.

“Luna? Is there any other option?” she asked.

“Twi,” Dash sharply huffed. “I’ve made up my mind.”

“I know, Dash,” Twilight turned to her, holding a calm and unwavering expression. “But I also know you wouldn’t set aside the Wonderbolts so easily. You want to help Soarin, but you aren’t happy about being stuck and I’m willing to bet there are things going on right now that you are eager to be ready and able to participate in.”

Dash stared with her mouth open.

“How did you—?”

“Dash, I’ve known you for years,” Twilight chuckled. “It’s written all over your face, you can’t hide it from me. If there is some way we can solve this dilemma, then I plan to find it. Let’s explore every option before we lock you in place.”

“I… um…” Dash stuttered.

“Dash,” Soarin spoke up. “I love you.”

Dash’s ears fluttered up and down like little wings for a moment before she looked up at him. He was smiling down at her.

“And I know you love me,” he continued as he gently rubbed a hoof on her shoulder. “Knowing you’re willing to stay by my side indefinitely if needed is just another reminder of that. But you’ll never have to do anything else to prove it to me. I know it.”

“Hrm…” Dash hummed as her cheeks flushed a little. Soarin shook his head.

“I don’t want to keep you from doing your part with the Wonderbolts, let’s hear them out, okay?”

Dash’s ears flopped down as she pouted and glared up at him, but any attempt at toughness failed to hide how rosy her face had become.

“Okay… fine…” she said as she tipped forward and buried her face into his fur with a quiet ‘merf’.

“Any ideas, Luna?” Twilight asked again. Luna blinked and turned her head to Discord. Discord lifted an eyebrow as Luna’s eyes met his.

“Lulu, sooner or later you’re going to have to stop looking at me for all your answers,” he said rudely. Luna furrowed her brow and rolled her eyes.

“Fine, we won’t bother with your opinion then.” She sharply replied.

“What?” Discord blinked. “That’s not…” he stuttered for a moment and snorted, rolling his eyes. “Feh…”

“Mayhap…” Luna tapped a hoof to her chin as she turned back to Twilight. “We… lull him to sleep?”

Both Soarin and Dash immediately gave disapproving looks towards Luna.

“That’s… not ideal,” Soarin expressed.

“Would that even work?” Cadence chimed in, joining the other alicorns. “He was far more than just unconscious before, right?”

“We used a powerful stasis spell,” Discord chimed in. “One that I’d prefer we don’t use again. We had no choice the first time, there was nothing else that could have possibly calmed down the power raging from him, but right now I’d rather avoid it on the likely event it puts him out for months again. We’d be back to square one. If we can get away with a simple sleep spell now that the power has fully planted into him…”

“Sister,” Luna spoke while staring at Soarin. “Tis your power, may we impart your wisdom on the matter? Would a state of magic induced sleep keep it at rest?”

“I can’t say for sure…” Celestia replied quietly.

“I guess we won’t know unless we try,” Discord grunted. “Seems to be the way things are going to be for us now in general…”

“Such unproductive thinking, the lot of you…” Sombra suddenly spoke up. Soarin winced a little, but Sombra’s voice was noticeably softer than before. Discord looked ready to lash out, but he just glared for the moment as Sombra continued. “How does this discussion always end up with Soarin being locked, held, controlled, or tied down? How is he to thrive when hidden away in a bubble? How is he to learn if simply put to sleep whenever faced with a challenge? Have any of you considered how HE can help with this? How long are you going to dictate how he comes to learn to control what he now wields?”

“Okay, listen you invisible cockwad…” Discord snapped, stomping towards Soarin and pointing to his face knowing that Sombra was looking right at him from within. “I know you’re so eager to constantly talk down to us, but thinking five miles ahead isn’t going to help. The goal right NOW… is to not accidentally set off an unmitigated disaster here.”

“Does HE not have a role in that?” Sombra shot back, but continued to keep his voice respectfully low. “How are we to get anywhere if he is not allowed to become accustomed to his new body? His new power? How are we to divert such an incident if he doesn’t take hard, firm steps to gain personal control? It is baffling to me that you all continue to brush him aside in this entire equation. You keep treating him like an object or an experiment gone wrong instead of the able stallion he has proven himself to be! If he had the strength of will to withstand and ultimately conquer the power of Celestia herself, then surely he has the will to control it! WHY are NONE of you acknowledging that?”

“Oh, so you want us to simply cut him loose and let him roam free? Fly around? Make faces at the guards and steal apples from the market?” Discord said sarcastically as he threw his arms out while furrowing his brow. “I don’t think you are taking this situation seriously! He is housing the most powerful reserve of magical energy in all of Equestria within his body! A power he has absolutely no understanding of or any semblance of stable control over! Something that’s too much for most GODS to handle! He’s quite literally a walking, talking time bomb right now that could be set off by one wrong twitch!”

“GODS, huh?” Sombra’s voice began to rise, Soarin winced a little. “So that’s it then? YOU think he’s dangerous? Time for you to drop the act, you pike-twirling wandought! You’re scared of him! You worry that if he’s given any chance to grasp the wonder of what now resides within that he, once a mortal, will grow beyond your control!”

Discord looked about ready to explode, his eyes were glowing and even his horns began to light up with chaos auras circling them.

“I’m afraid… there’s more to this,” Celestia suddenly spoke up, Discord’s aura buildup halting as her voice met his ears.

“Oh, wonderful…” Sombra snorted. “I truly wished for your word on this matter…”

“Sombra, you are not fully grasping all the implications of this phenomenon. You speak of his freedom allowing for his growth, and I can’t deny that… perhaps with time… that would be a smart course of action but…”

“I’m listening… you had better convince me,” Sombra grumbled.

“In this day and age… there is no monarchy. But I am still a symbol to these ponies, a being they look up to. While I try lightly govern and keep things in order, I do not guide them and I do not solve their problems for them. But regardless, I’m their goddess. I’ve always existed as far back as they can remember and far beyond several generations… and I have always watched over them. No matter what you may think of me, and no matter what mistakes I’ve made behind the curtain, this is my role in their lives. Luna and I are all they know… we are constant and they believe in the two of us.”

“Oh, thanks,” Discord mumbled.

“And… um… D-Discord too,” Celestia said in a forced and hesitating manner. “The point is… what would happen if a new god were to suddenly appear before them? This is no different than one of the problems I kept posing to you while you sought the power of a god for yourself. It would cause confusion… maybe even hysteria and panic. Strange things may happen all the time in Equestria, but there are constants many believe to be unchanging. The sudden rise of a new god with no sign of me would…”

“Would what?” Sombra cut her off abruptly. “That’s absurd. Simply ‘something new’ would scare them all away? Sounds more like a terrible excuse if I’ve ever heard one. So you’re saying the massive battle around the crystal empire barely a month ago was a regular afternoon? How many ponies saw ME when I entered the empire? That was somehow different? The horn and the wings didn’t say ‘god’ to them?”

“It takes more than having the appearance of an alicorn,” Celestia added. “You did not have any ethereal presence… and you did not have the proper horn.”

“We aren’t gods,” Twilight spoke up while motioning to herself and Cadence. “Just alicorns.”

There was a brief pause, then Sombra huffed.

“Preposterous, the lot of you…” he growled. “Do what you will… I’ve said my piece and I tire of arguing.”

“It’s not a matter I expect you to understand,” Celestia said. “Considering what you tried to do recently…” she added with an unexpectedly sharp tone.

“So…” Soarin spoke up quickly, hoping to stop the talking in his head. “I guess… right now my only option is sleep? Free movement sounds nice but I’m not sure I trust MYSELF at the moment.”

“Afraid so,” Discord nodded.

“You are NOT putting him back to sleep for a long time though,” Dash demanded.

“Stasis is not our first choice, no,” Discord shook his head. “But I don’t want you to complain to me if we end up having to…”

“I…” Dash paused and glanced at Soarin. “WE… have plenty of reasons to complain to you.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, okay, fine, whatever you say…” Discord twirled a hand in the air and rolled his eyes back and forth. “You hate my guts, that’s not exactly a mystery anymore, but let’s not do this right now. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t act like Sombra.” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward a little. “Be mad if you want… but we are trying to get to the bottom of this, something that is very much within both of our interests. So I hope we can at least set aside our differences for the time being and cooperate on that front because we don’t like this any more than you do.”

Dash pouted and scrunched up her face until her eyes twitched, but she eventually sighed and stuffed the side of her head back into Soarin’s fur.

“Fine… I guess.” She turned her head and pressed her nose into his body. “I just don’t want you taken away from me… AGAIN.”

“If all we must do is lull him to sleep,” Luna spoke up. “And that is enough to settle the power, then waking him back up is just a matter of dispelling it. It would be a snap.”

“I swear if you’re lying to me about that…” Dash slowly turned her head, brushing her cheek against Soarin as she shot a hard glare at Luna.

“We… Um…”

“Dash,” Twilight stepped forward and touched a hoof to Luna’s side. “Please.”

“Sorry, Twi… you haven’t been put through what we have…”

“I’ll do it if I must,” Soarin chimed in, giving Dash a squeeze as she mumbled to herself. “So long as you make good on that,” he said directly to Luna, stealing a glance at Discord as well. “I don’t want to wake up months out of the loop again, and…” he looked down at Dash, tipping his nose down to touch it to her head. “I want to see her… A LOT.”

“Oh don’t bother worrying about THAT…” Discord rolled his eyes. “We are not waking you up without her around. She’s the only thing keeping you from turning everything in a hundred mile radius into a fine mist.”

“Right, right,” Twilight nodded as she came forward to Dash. “Assuming this works… think you can come by here at least once a day? Even with Wonderbolt duties?”

“YES.” Dash answered the instant Twilight asked. “I’d have done it even if you told me not to.”

“Then it’s settled…” Luna nodded and turned to Discord. “Let us cast the spell.”

“Hmph…” Discord grunted, but did not protest as Luna began gathering magic in her horn and Discord did the same in his fists as he kept his arms crossed.

As they gathered their magic, Dash pushed herself up, standing on her hind legs and reaching up to place her little hooves on Soarin’s very large chest.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, alright? I promise.” She assured him even though the spell hadn’t even proven successful yet. She didn’t care, she only wanted to expect the best outcomes now, especially for him.

“I look forward to it,” Soarin nodded with a weak smile. “We’ll get through this together.”

Dash’s lips began to quiver and her ears flopped down as Luna and Discord focused their magic forward and the misty mixture of blue and purple began to inch forward and mix with Soarin’s aura.

“I love you,” Dash said, quickly pushing herself up as far as she could. Soarin saw what she was doing and leaned down. She touched a hoof to his large cheek and kissed him, briefly crossing their lips to interlock their mouths passionately. His mouth was a hell of a lot bigger than the last time she kissed him, but she didn’t give a damn. It felt like ages… Dash’s body shuddered as she felt something that had been missing from her life for far too long now.

Behind them, Twilight turned away, reaching a hoof up to her eyes to wipe them as she sniffled. Cadence quickly turned to her and gently rubbed a hoof on her shoulder.

As the two parted… Soarin smiled at Dash, his eyes looking tired as the magic swirled around him.

“I…” he paused and yawned. “Love you… too…” he managed to get out, sounding very drowsy. “Hmmmmmmm…” he hummed, sounding content as he slowly began to tip down. Dash flinched, realizing he… all of him, was starting to lean into her. She quickly reached both arms up and grunted as his weight pressed down on her. She tensed her body, carefully walking her hooves up his neck and gently letting his body flop to the floor before cradling his head and lowering it into her lap.

Soarin was asleep. Dash could both hear and feel his steady breathing as the faint traces of the spell continued to swirl about his body. He looked very peaceful.

“Blah!” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from nearby. Everypony looked to see his image materialize a few paces away. “Finally…” he grumbled while shaking himself out. “Being stuck at the mercy of another’s movement and vision was NOT to my liking.”

Despite the irony of the statement, everypony just stared at him. He blinked and glanced about.

“What?”

“If you’re out here…” Twilight thought aloud. “Does that mean it worked?” They all stared at Sombra until Celestia materialized near him. She looked her image over, glancing at Sombra as well before tapping a hoof to her chin.

“Hmm…” she hummed. “The moment he fell asleep… the hold on us completely released and we could move freely in his mind again.”

“In that case…” Luna looked at Dash, but Discord was already waving a hand at Dash.

“Try stepping away from him now,” Discord ordered as he came forward and a chaos aura began to build up in his hand again. “And do it very slowly, please.” He added with a slightly annoyed huff.

Dash looked down at Soarin, looking back and forth across his body resting on the ground as she cradled his head in her lap.

“Can somepony get me a pillow first?” she asked, looking around. “A large one preferably.”

Discord lifted an eyebrow.

“Why?” he asked with a snort.

“For SOARIN, ya dingus,” Dash shot back at him while flattening her brow.

“He’ll be fine, let’s just get this over with,” Discord twirled a finger towards her.

Dash gave him the hardest death glare she could muster. Discord, not having it, shot it right back at her, even using his magic to distort his face to perfectly mimic the look she was giving him. But before anything could escalate, Cadence stepped between them and shook her head at Discord.

“Enough,” she said sternly to him before turning to the others. “Twilight, could you go grab one of the guards outside and go fetch the cushion from the lounging couch in my chambers?”

“Oh! The red one? Sure, I’ll be right back,” she turned and cantered towards the doors, moving at a quickened pace knowing that Cadence was trying to prevent any more dust ups. Discord shook his head and grumbled, crossing his arms and turning his side to Dash, specifically to put his back to Sombra, who obviously found the situation amusing. Cadence turned to Dash and made her way towards her.

“Ignore him,” she said flatly while making a head motion towards Discord. She moved right up beside Dash, showing no fear of getting close to Soarin as she sat down beside Dash and looked down at Soarin with her. “We’ll make sure he’s comfortable first,” she assured Dash while placing a hoof gently on her shoulder. Dash smiled weakly at her for a moment before returning her full attention to Soarin, gently stroking his face as she sighed and watched him sleep.

Cadence remained by Dash’s side as they waited for Twilight to return. After a few moments, Cadence looked up and was surprised to see Sombra staring at her. The moment they made eye contact, Sombra quickly looked away and awkwardly played it off by blinking and shaking his head out.

Soon after, they could all hear Twilight thanking the guard outside and she appeared moments later carrying a large, long cushion through the air with her magic. The moment Dash saw her approaching she shifted, taking care to keep Soarin’s head elevated as Twilight slid the cushion under his head. Dash slowly lowered Soarin’s chin to it… but unexpectedly, the moment Soarin’s head touched the cushion he snorted, stirred, and grabbed the cushion in his arms, pulling on it and shifting, nearly knocking them all aside until most of his body was resting on it. He released a nicker from his throat as he rolled onto his side and stuffed the side of his head into it, only stopping when his horn jammed into it and pierced through the surface with a quiet RIP.

Cadence gritted her teeth and winced as the cushion tore a little.

“Ooo… er… it’s fine I can… always get it replaced…” she said with an eye twitching, Twilight holding a hoof over her mouth and looking away, knowing that Cadence was rather fond of her lounging couch.

But Dash couldn’t help but smirk and chuckle at Soarin’s sudden movements.

“I can confirm he is definitely sleeping,” she said as she reached down and gently stroked a hoof through Soarin’s mane as he tipped his head slightly to her touch.

“Okay…” Discord spoke up as he turned back to her, his aura still on his hand. “Now try stepping away from him.”

Dash reluctantly huffed, looking back and forth and Twilight and Cadence as they stepped back. She stared at Soarin and nodded.

“Alright…” she said with her hoof still in Soarin’s mane.

Very slowly, she removed her hoof from Soarin and stood still. With a deep breath, she took slow steps backwards until she was a yard away from him.

There was no visible reaction. Celestia’s and Sombra’s images did not flicker nor react in any way. After taking account of everything Dash took another deep breath, and continued to step backwards.

Five yards away… Soarin continued to sleep peacefully, though Dash noticed that a particular feeling began to build up in her body… it felt like a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Discord shut his eyes and opened them, once again looking through a veil of chaos magic. He was surprised to see that both of their auras were calm. They both had a large blue aura encircling them both and a yellow glow encircling the space directly around their bodies. They were tethered again, but the tether looked soft, and was not behaving like a rope pulled taut. It simply touched their auras together, and grew thinner the further she got away without any signs of strain or shuddering. He was puzzled, unable to explain the nature of the auras behaving in a much different manner. But as Dash stepped back even further, he noticed that while the blue aura remained steady, the brightness and intensity of the yellow around them appeared to recede along with the tether thinning out… but not once did it show signs of becoming unstable.

Dash could not see what Discord was seeing, but the euphoric feeling of being near Soarin was pulling back side by side with the yellow auras shrinking and the tether slowly shrinking in width as she moved further away from him. But either way, this was nothing new to Dash… she was already aware of the temptation and euphoria that was being caused within her with Soarin’s new form, that didn’t make it any easier to pull away though.

Eventually, Dash moved all the way to the wall… and Soarin remained sleeping peacefully. A collective sigh of relief filled the room. Discord watched as the tether detached from them, but it did so slowly before an equal amount slowly floated towards them both as opposed to all of it snapping wildly in one direction.

“Hm…” Discord hummed simply, not sure what to take away from it.

“Looks like that did the trick,” Celestia said with relief as Discord let the magic in his eyes and hand dissipate. “It seems sleep will be our essential tool in keeping him under control when Rainbow Dash isn’t present.”

Discord groaned, crossing one arm over his body and reaching his other hand up to rub his eyebrows with his finger and thumb.

“I guess that’s it then…” Discord signed as Dash made her way back over to them. “There was no reaction at all… and assuming it has nothing to do with you still being at least within range, I guess that means you can come and go freely so long as the spell keeps him asleep.”

Dash was relieved to hear it, but… she looked at Soarin and pouted, reluctant to leave.

“My argument still stands,” Sombra suddenly spoke up as his eyes shifted between Celestia and Discord specifically. “Do not rely on this quick solution. He must learn to live with the power and how to control it. The sooner he does, the better. Do not continue to stand in his way.”

“You’re so incredibly dense, I swear…” Discord grumbled, sounding one hundred percent done with Sombra. “You speak as if it’s so simple. Well it isn’t going to be, no matter how many times you insist, so just stop while you’re ahead.”

“And yet AGAIN… you are discarding the fact that he ABSORBED Celestia’s power.”

“But you helped him,” Celestia spoke up. “And so did—”

“I supported him with my will power, nothing more,” Sombra snorted. “I was not the one withstanding the surge. He handled that all on his own. Do not hold him back,” Sombra stated strongly.

“I’m pretty sure you saw how easily it slipped out of his control!” Discord cut in again, snarling. “I know you don’t have the longest attention span, but not even you can deny the dangers here! Throwing him into the water that he might learn to swim is definitely not the right approach to take.”

“You truly mean to tell me, that after such an achievement, that he is incapable? That is insulting to all that he’s been put through. You are failing to convince me you’re not afraid of his potential!”

“Will you STOP with that already?!” Discord growled loudly. “Your petty attempts to mischaracterize my approach doesn’t change anything!”

“The words offend you still!” Sombra stepped towards him. “Mayhap I’ve plunged a dagger and reminding you twists it ever more? A wounded dog can bark as loud as it wants, it will not dissuade the dog with the stronger bite!”

“Okay, what are you scheming here?!” Discord stomped forward and narrowed his eyes skeptically and lowered his neck to get down in his face. “You’re not very subtle, you know… you’re trying to corner me with this, but why? Hm?” Discord narrowed his eyes further. “How about YOU come clean?”

Sombra held firm, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hold back unsubtle signs of a smirk. Discord furrowed his brow.

“You know what I think…? I think you’re trying to encourage Soarin to become what you couldn’t. You’re enjoying this. It thrills you that he’s become something that troubles us. It amuses you to see us have no idea what to do about it and you want Soarin to figure it out before we can... Do I have the right of it?”

“Hmmm…” Sombra couldn’t hold back a sneer. “Does it BOTHER you?”

Discord’s eyes snapped open wide and he grinded his teeth together.

“STOP IT!” Celestia suddenly put herself between them, glaring at them both. “Heavens above! The two of you are insufferable!”

“I dunno, Princess…” Dash suddenly spoke up as she glanced between Sombra and Discord. “I think I’m starting to enjoy watching Discord squirm.”

Discord shot her a flat look as Sombra turned away and chuckled to himself.

“Rainbow Dash, please…” Celestia sighed. “Discussion, cooperation, and compromise are what’s needed right now.” She looked towards Sombra. “I cannot disagree with Sombra. Soarin’s interaction is very much going to be a part of this, but…” she looked at Discord. “I agree with Discord that we can’t simply cut him loose or let him go unchecked. He needs guidance…” She turned to Dash. “And support.”

Sombra and Discord turned their backs to one another and both snorted loudly.

“Are you two done with each other now?” Celestia asked in frustration.

The two both snorted again. Celestia rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Men…” she said under her breath as she exhaled loudly and made her way over to Dash, her fellow alicorns coming together with them. “Let’s not let their rivalry keep us from being both practical and forward looking. You may return to your duties, Rainbow Dash, but… pray return here whenever you can or wish that we might wake Soarin and work on whatever we can with his participation.”

“If there is an emergency or something goes awry, we shall send for you posthaste,” Luna added.

“I like this idea,” Dash nodded. “And…” she trailed off while looking towards Soarin. She stared for several moments, her ears flopping down a little before turning to Twilight and Cadence specifically. “Please take good care of him and make sure he stays comfortable.”

They all looked over to Soarin just in time to see him hook his arms on the cushion and start rubbing his face and neck into it before rolling onto his back and nickering again. Dash snickered and put her hoof over her mouth.

“Though… he looks pretty comfy already, huh?” she added.

“I’ll do everything I can, Dash. I promise,” Twilight assured her, coming forward to give her a hug.

“Thanks Twi, I know you will,” Dash thanked her, hugging her back.

As soon as Twilight released her, Dash turned to Soarin. Without a word to Celestia or Luna, she made her way back over to Soarin. She inhaled quietly, her heart fluttering as the feeling of warmth built up in her again, but she kept her focus, knowing that she had to get going and check in with Spitfire. She had a couple of days until their training began though, so she’d be seeing plenty of him.

She stopped in front of him, and briefly lowered herself down to the cushion. As soon as she touched down, Soarin seemed to sense her and roll towards her, pushing against her. Dash giggled and placed a hoof in his mane, rubbing behind his ear.

“Sleep well you big… er, bigger goof,” she said softly as Soarin’s ear bobbed up and down at her touch. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she planted a kiss on his cheek.

Soarin exhaled comfortably and though he tipped a little when Dash stood back up, he did not stir, nor look uncomfortable as her touch left.

Feeling not quite satisfied, but definitely a lot better… Dash turned and made her way out, keeping her eyes down and away from everypony else in the room to conceal… how hard it was to pull herself away from him again.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Well then... Soarin has finally awoken, but it looks like he's far from stable. But at least he finally got to give a few gods a true piece of his mind. Alas, he is stuck with Sombra and Cerlestia inside his body, who can see through his eyes and speak from within him... this should lead to some interesting situations going forward with a proverbial angel and demon almost literally on his shoulders (which one is which though, hm?)

Something tells me Soarin and Sombra are going to get along well... so long as as Sombra keeps his ancient insults away from Dashie. But SOmbra seems to have struck a nerve with Discord... but something tells me SOmbra doesn't want it to be a secret. How fitting for him would it be if Soarin really did fulfill what he once believed was his true calling?

But then again that depends on Soarin... and as far as we can tell, Soarin doesn't want anything to do with this, yet here he is... in a dramatically altered version of himself now forced to shoulder burdens only meant for gods... and a long way to go before he can have some semblance of control over it. But With Dash's help, maybe he can get the hang of it quickly, at least while she's around to help him focus.

Dashie will be seeing her large stallion very often now... but lets not forget she has something interesting coming up for her... Afterall... Wonderbolt training is never straight forward. Wonder what Spitfire has in mind exactly?

Sorry for the long wait on this one. As you can see... it was a stupidly long single scene, i couldn't have believably broken up this sequence anywhere. And on top of that i had computer issues and some personal problems that popped up along the way. Thanks for bearing with me, here's hoping the next chapter gets things back on track.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 184: What Did You Expect?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 184: What Did You Expect?

“Hrmmmmm…” Dash hummed as she stared into the empty room, her hoof pressed to the open door to her right. No one was there, but she was early. She was well aware of it too, she left well before her squad was ready because she just didn’t feel like sitting still.

She was at the gym near the palace that Spitfire had rented out for them all for the next… well, Dash didn’t know for how long, but they had basically bought out the place and screwed over any members belonging to the facility for their special training. They were told to meet in this room down a back hall, which looked like it was normally a yoga room with a wooden floor and a wall mirror. Though a few tables had been set up along one of the walls, stacks of chairs were sitting near them, and on the other side were two large whiteboards that looked hastily mounted to the wall. No doubt this was going to be some sort of meeting room for them, it was about the same size as the meeting rooms in the compound.

Dash blinked.

The compound… huh? The Nimbus. She had been so focused on Soarin this whole time that it had been a while since she had even thought about it. They effectively left the giant airship behind upon arriving at the Crystal Empire. She knew that Spitfire had had a long meeting with Rivet about it at one point, but she never got the details. Every now and again she had gotten a glimpse of the ship sitting out in the open on one of the palace lawns. There were a lot of ponies moving back and forth between it, but aside from that she had no clue what was going on. She had no idea what was waiting for them in the near future. Would they even need it? They seemed pretty planted in the Crystal Empire, at least for the time being.

Time…

Dash glanced at the clock above the white board and huffed. She was twenty minutes early. She was willing to bet nopony else was going to show up for at least—

“Rainbow Dash?”

Dash blinked and turned to the door. Spitfire was walking through, carrying several papers and a few clipboards.

“You’re early,” she added as she went over to the tables and set everything down. “Where’s the rest of your squad?”

“They’ll be here,” Dash exhaled. “I just… got tired of waiting.”

“Hm…” Spitfire hummed in response, shuffling the papers around. But she picked up on the lack of enthusiasm in Dash’s tone. Or at least that’s what it sounded like. Spitfire slowly stopped organizing the papers and glanced over her shoulder. Dash looked preoccupied with her thoughts. “So…” she spoke up. “How is… Soarin doing?”

Dash’s ears twitched as Spitfire’s question caught her off-guard. It was like she read her mind. She had told them all about Soarin waking up shortly after he awoke. The hardest part was convincing them that it probably wasn’t a good idea to visit him at this time. She hated it because she felt like that was agreeing with Discord and Luna, but she wasn’t blind to the current situation Soarin was in.

“The sleep spell is definitely working as Luna said,” Dash began as she turned to face Spitfire. “Though the past few days his state of comfort has been… varied, I guess is the way to put it. They’ve been able to wake him up as easily as they put him back to sleep, but… sometimes he’s been well rested, other times he looks exhausted and tired.”

“Hrmmmm…” Spitfire’s ears flopped down. “Has he talked to you about that?”

“Yeah,” Dash nodded. “It’s the voices. He says sometimes he sleeps like a foal and wakes up like he just had a good rest, but sometimes the voices and negative emotions come at him and he wakes up feeling like he hasn’t slept at all.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around that… hearing voices of others and all that stuff. I wish I could hear it right from him, maybe it would make more sense? I dunno.” Spitfire looked away and huffed.

“I’m still trying to really frame it myself,” Dash agreed. “It’s supposedly something Celestia just… deals with. But the way Soarin talks about it, it sounds like it happened randomly. One moment he’ll feel like his head is clear and he can focus, the next he’ll start twitching and hunch over a little, even when I’m there it can hit him… sounds like it isn’t something our connection can stop. As much as I want to strangle Celestia, she has been quick to come forward and talk him through it every time. But I get the feeling this isn’t something he’s getting rid of, so long as he’s like this.”

“Hearing terrified voices… feeling the negative emotions from all ponies in Equestria… what the hell, I hate this…” Spitfire said, repeating similar thoughts she had the first time Dash talked to her about it. “He’s… doing better though?”

“We’ve only had a few days, but he does seem to be getting a little more stable,” Dash shrugged. “So I guess?”

“That’s better than nothing,” Spitfire tipped her head, her voice clearly frustrated. “I take it… there still isn’t a clear idea about when I… WE can visit him?”

“If it were my choice I’d take ALL of you to see him right now,” said Dash. “It would be the best thing for his mental state, but…”

“I know,” Spitfire sighed. “It’s complicated. I want to scream for these words coming out of my mouth, but I can’t blame Luna for purposely going around me when she came to get you for him. The last thing any of us need is me or anypony else getting seriously injured right before starting our new training routine. If he really blasted chunks of crystal right off the palace walls, it was probably a good thing we weren’t there.” Spitfire looked Dash in the eye. “Has he… tried doing anything magic wise?”

“He’s… well…” Dash rubbed the back of her head. “I can’t say for sure. We haven’t tried pushing the boundaries again yet. I plan on suggesting that in the next few days, even if Discord says no. I want him to start getting a grip on this so you can visit him. I promise, as soon as we have a better idea where he stands, I’m bringing you all there whether Discord likes it or not.”

“Just… don’t push him too hard,” Spitfire scrunched her lips and pouted. “I appreciate you thinking of us, but—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Captain,” Dash cut her off. “You want to see him badly.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened as Dash gave her a stern look. She turned away and sighed.

“I can’t fool you, can I?” she said while shaking her head.

“Yeah, you’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m just so tired of this, tired of what going on with him,” Spitfire began as she sat down and tipped her head back, staring at the ceiling. “Watching my best friend get his face dragged through the mud harder and harder over and over again is really starting to get to me. Eh, who am I kidding, it’s gotten to me pretty hard. I can’t even begin to fathom going through what he’s gone through.” She blew a long breath through her nostrils and looked down at the floor. “It’s a good thing he’s the toughest son of a bitch in Equestria… because I’d have lost my mind by now if it were me, hell long before this point… How is he hanging in there? How is he still sane? It’s absurd and it kills me to watch it all happen.”

Dash didn’t know what to say, she wasn’t expecting Spitfire to start pouring her heart out like this.

“I envy you, Dash, I really do.” She suddenly said, looking Dash in the eyes. “I wish I could help him like you can… the whole magic connection thing or whatever the hell it is. Whenever he’s in danger, you’re the one he needs. Whenever he loses control, you’re the one that can stop it. Whenever he is fighting hard, only YOU can help him. You’re pretty much the only reason he’s still alive. What the hell can I even do for him? Nothing by comparison, absolutely nothing. I have to sit and watch…”

She trailed off and pouted for a moment.

“Do you remember…?” she continued. “When we had to work together? To bring him back.”

“Oh…” Dash blinked. “After the tornado?”

“Yeah, that…” Spitfire nodded. “Celestia needed both of us. I didn’t have a damn clue what we were getting ourselves into at the time, but… the two of us together, we pulled Soarin out of certain death. I… don’t think we’ve ever really talked about that have we? I never really expressed how that felt, what it meant for me. I’ve flown hundreds of missions and fought an equal amount of battles, but… no success or victory in my life ever felt as good or as meaningful to me as being part of the reason my best friend would live another day. I didn’t get any medals for it, and nopony saw it except for you and whoever else was there, but it’s the most important achievement of my life.”

Spitfire sighed heavily and sat down.

“But since then I’ve done jack shit. He’s been living in his own personal hell since, but only you can help him now. It makes me so mad that we have to rely on you for that, it makes me feel useless.”

“That’s not true,” Dash immediately said as she finished. Spitfire looked up quickly and tipped her head. “Spitfire, this is going to sound cheesy as all hell, but don’t think for a second you haven’t done anything for him. You’re his goddamn best friend. I may be needed for the magic crap, but I can’t replace you… or Fleetfoot. You think he’d suck it up as hard as he has if he didn’t have you to think about too? You know how damn stubborn he can be.” Dash pointed to the wall. “I bet he’d come crashing through the wall right now if someone told him you were in trouble. He’d jump in front of you to block a gust of wind if he thought it would hurt you.”

Spitfire snorted and covered her mouth as she chuckled and cracked a smile.

“Yes… yes, that’s accurate,” she said with another snicker. “He’s always been such a knight in shining armor even when he doesn’t have to be. I guess you’re right…” Spitfire looked away. “Maybe I’m just jealous of you. I wouldn’t rub my body all over his flank the way you do, but I wouldn’t mind it if I could jab him in the shoulder now and then to keep his magic under control.”

“Hey, who am I, Fleetfoot?” Dash asked, chuckling along with her.

“If every stallion in Equestria was Soarin, you probably would be,” Spitfire jabbed back with a sneer.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Dash crossed her arms and nodded in agreement. “Heh… listen, I’ll do what I can. Seeing any of you would be a big help for him, we just need to get him to a safe point first.”

Both of them perked up as the door suddenly opened, Squad Three appearing as Misty came in first with the others behind her.

“Bro, I’m just sayin’.” Lightning Streak was talking to Fire as they entered. “You gotta really grip it and squeeze HARD. If it doesn’t feel tight, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Alright, alright. If you say so,” Fire shrugged and rolled his eyes. They all came to a halt and looked to see both Dash and Spitfire staring at them with blank, wide eyed expressions. Fire huffed and flattened his brow.

“We’re discussing weight lifting…” he said flatly as Surprise burst into a fit of giggles behind them.

“With your brother, I never know,” Spitfire chuckled.

“I MEAN…” Lightning slung his arm over Fire and motioned towards Misty. “We COULD’VE been talkin’ about—” He was cut off as Fire slung his own arm around and placed a hoof on Lightning’s head.

“NO.” Fire grunted as he shoved Lightning down to the floor, still guffawing to himself.

“Who the fuck is squeezing who?” Blaze’s voice came from the door as she walked in with Wave and High Winds behind her. “I heard Lightning’s voice, that’s already a bad sign.”

“Squeeze DEEZ NU—”

Fire pushed down harder on Lightning.

“WEIGHT. LIFTING.”

“Who are you squeezing while weight lifting?” High Winds asked sleepily.

Before Fire could say anything, a loud crashing and the sound of scuffling came from right outside the door. They all turned just in time to see Fleetfoot and Air Mach come flying through the doorway, Fleetfoot had him in a headlock and flipped him under her before they hit the ground, dragging Air Mach’s side along until they stopped.

“Oh yeah?! How does your damn stallionly shit like that? Guess what pal, I’m stronger now so when you give me your crap it’ll hurt even more when I slap your shit!” Fleetfoot barked at him as he just kept a silly grin on his face.

“Joke’s on you, I’m into that!” he said with a sputtering chuckle.

“Oh, for the love of…” Fleetfoot let go of him, grabbed him by the shoulders and heaved him along the floor. He laughed heartily as he slid along the ground and crashed into the stacks of chairs, several of them toppling and crashing down on him.

Spitfire winced, reaching a hoof up as she watched the chairs continue to topple and fall on Air Mach. She gave Fleetfoot a flat look.

“What? He tried to squeeze my—”

“GOOD MORNING CAPTAIN!” Wave Chill stepped in front with a big awkward smile as he saw Spitfire’s eyes twitch.

“We haven’t even started and we’re already breaking stuff…” Spitfire sighed and shook her head, but she perked up as Dash nudged her in the side.

“See this?” Dash winked at her. “This is what we need to get back to Soarin. One minute with these jokers would put the biggest smile on his face and you know it.”

“Heh,” Spitfire smiled at her. “Yeah, I know it…” she took a deep breath and let out a long breath. “This is going to be some interesting training…” she said to herself as she scanned the room and saw Dash’s squad walk in. Squall was in front with Little Star perched on his back. Thunderlane was nervously shuffling in behind him, his eyes immediately darting to all the casually bantering superior officers he was suddenly surrounded by. “And look who’s here,” Spitfire made a head motion.

“Oh, they made it,” Dash nodded as Matteo came through the door with an orange lightly clasped in the end of his beak. Dash shifted her neck back and forth. “Where’s—”

Dash’s question was answered before she asked it as Twister leapt past Matteo and grabbed the orange out of his beak with his own mouth.

“What the—HEY!” Matteo yelled as he began rumbling after Twister.

“There he is,” Dash nodded casually as the other Wonderbolts began hastily moving out of Matteo’s way as he chased Twister… who was wiggling through the air as he stayed afloat… instead of using his wings… somehow.

“I said this before, but,” Spitfire spoke up, tapping Dash on the shoulder. “Keep them focused. I know your squad can be a little—”

Spitfire was cut off, leaning back as Twister suddenly popped up in front of her, holding a jug of orange juice next to his head. The jug had the words “fresh SQUEEZED" on it written in black marker. Spitfire flinched again as Matteo’s arm shot out in front of her and he grabbed Twister by the neck. Two brass bugles popped out of Twister ears, but made a sound akin to a clown horn and the words on the jug changed to “ow” before Matteo yanked him away.

“—Weird.” Spitfire finished.

“I’ll do my best but I won’t make any promises,” Dash sighed as the sound of Matteo punching Twister rang out behind them. She knew that’s what was happening because of the very random sound effects blurting out.

“Good, because I’ll have my hooves full with my own band of idiots,” she chuckled as she turned her attention back to the elites, quickly spotting Air Mach chasing a swearing Blaze around with a chair on his head.. “But, eh, who am I kidding, I was expecting this. They aren’t recruits… they’ve all moved far beyond the green and wide eyed phase, but… I planned ahead,” she said with a wink to Dash.

“Planned… ahead?” Dash tipped her head curiously.

“You’ll find out in a minute,” Spitfire gave her a nod as she scanned the room again, doing a silent headcount. “It’s not time yet, but looks like… hmmmm… we’re still missing—”

“I’m here! I’M HERE!” Storm Front suddenly burst into the room, briefly drawing all eyes to him as the door slowly creaked shut behind him. “Sorry I’m late! I’m… uh…” he frantically looked at the clock. “Oh, wait…”

Dash stared wide eyed for a moment before furrowing her brow. Spitfire quickly stepped in front of her.

“Far from it, Storm. You’re the last one, but everypony’s early,” she informed him as he sighed in relief.

“Oh, good…” he exhaled as he walked in. He glanced at Dash’s squad, but quickly looked away as he met a look from Squall that was even harsher than the one Dash was giving. He looked unsure of what to do with himself, being the only one present from his Squad and not on the best terms with his fellow cadet class.

Spitfire quickly turned and firmly pressed a hoof to Dash’s nose, wrinkling it up a little.

“None of that,” she said sternly. Dash grunted and rolled her eyes. “I mean it, Dash. Handle your personal disputes elsewhere. When we get started with this training we are GOING and we are NOT stopping to deal with any squabbles. I need everypony razor focused… YOU especially. I’m not wasting the extra potential hiding in there being connected to Soarin and all,” she explained while moving the hoof down to Dash’s chest and tapping it.

“Yes, Ma’am…” Dash replied with clear reluctance, but Spitfire let it go.

“Good,” Spitfire nodded and turned to the rest. “Okay, okay, OKAAAAAAAAY!” she yelled while stepping forward and throwing her wings out. “Everypony settle down!” she kept yelling until the shenanigans finally ceased and they all looked at her. “Since everypony is here, we might as well get started. Now line up! Over here! Let’s go!” she motioned to them while pointing to a spot on the floor in the center of the room. “Across here, facing the whiteboards!” she added as they all casually sauntered over and lined up, only Dash’s squad and Thunderlane showing some quickness in their step. The rest took their time and shifted together in a mostly unorganized order.

Spitfire waited patiently until they were in place before scanning the line back and forth and nodding.

“Alright everypony, listen up. You’ve all heard this already, but let’s go over the plan again,” she began as she started pacing back and forth. “Today we are beginning a high intensity, high volume training routine that will make use of the Crystal Empire’s unique therapeutic Crystal Dew and its recovery properties. Fleetfoot, Wave Chill and I, after some experimentation, found that the stuff does indeed work for muscle recovery the same way it does for its primary purpose of healing minor injuries… so we, as the top elites of the Wonderbolts, are going to make use of it. I’ve had my fill of the Shadowbolts punting us around with all their enhanced abilities and false magic… and I’m sure you all feel the same. So… the goal of this training will be to push ourselves past our limits… so we can punch them right in the mouth the next time they think they can just walk in on us and push us around.”

She stopped in place and turned to look at Wave and Fleetfoot.

“Since Commander Fleetfoot, Commander Wave, and I have a slight head start on all of you, the first week will be focused on easing the rest of you into this, but once you’re all familiar with it, we are going HARD and STRONG. The cycle will be three days of training, then a whole day off for rest and recovery. After repeating that three times, you will get an additional day off for two full days of rest… before we repeat. With how hard we will be flying drills, lifting weights, and practicing combat… you’ll be glad to have those off days. If I recall, Commander Wave nearly slept for 18 hours straight when we took a break a few weeks back.” She commented with a smirk. Wave nodded to confirm as several eyes went to him.

“I won’t lie to any of you…” Spitfire went on. “The physical toll on your bodies will be unlike anything you’ve ever experienced… but I’ve no doubt that each and every one of you is capable of succeeding. Stick through this like the three of us did and you won’t be disappointed. Any questions?”

The moment she asked, Fire Streak lifted a wing in the air. Spitfire nodded to him.

“Captain, I don’t doubt the possible results, but… what about our readiness to handle an attack? If the Shadowbolts show up while we’re all beaten up and exhausted…” he trailed off, confident his point was clear. Spitfire pointed at him and gave a single nod.

“Excellent question, Fire. Truth is… we are taking a gamble with this, but I made this decision based on the facts of our current situation. If I feared the chance of a Shadowbolt attack was imminent, we wouldn’t be doing this… however…” she turned and began pacing again. “There has been no sign of the Shadowbolts for weeks. Descent has been scouting day and night for the Shadowbolts since the battle over Sombra, but even extending the range of his search by hundreds of miles at a time… they have yet to turn up a single sign of them anywhere near the Empire. Yes, I know they can do that flashy teleporting thing and have even moved their entire Fortress with it before, but one… I doubt they’ve fully repaired it based on the condition we left it in after tea-bagging it with the Nimbus…” she paused as a few snorts came from the line. “And two… we got a good look at how effective the shield is around the Empire during all the fighting. None of them were allowed in and I’m going to assume that goes for their teleporting as well. We can consider the Empire a safe haven, for the time being.”

Dash’s ears twitched. Spitfire was right… for all the Shadowbolts except… one particular individual among them. But… Dash still had no idea what to make of Ruin, especially after the odd nature of her last encounter with him. It was like he wasn’t even a part of them. Dash shuddered as she suddenly felt something… but she wasn’t sure what it was. Out of nowhere… something in her head was telling her to look to her left. She shifted her eyes, glancing to her left. She blinked and her eyes widened slightly as she saw Twister staring at her from the other side of Thunderlane.

Twister bounced his eyebrows twice and grinned.

“Any more questions?” Spitfire asked. Dash snapped back to reality and looked towards Spitfire as she walked by in front of her. As soon as she passed, Dash looked to her left again, but was shocked to see that Twister was no longer there, and Squall was standing next to Thunderlane. Dash quickly glanced to her right to see Twister standing in a goofy pose with his head tilted back, his cheeks puffed up and his chest stuck out like he was standing attention as hard as he could.

“Hrm…” Dash furrowed her brow and hummed to herself as she refocused.

“Alright then!” Spitfire smiled. “Let’s not waste any more time!” she said enthusiastically as she started moving towards the line.

Everypony watched curiously as Spitfire made her way over to Fleetfoot and Wave Chill and waved her hoof.

“Gimme some room here,” she asked. The two shifted, allowing Spitfire to turn and back her way into line between them. Everypony stared at her as she took a deep breath and exhaled. “ALL YOURS!” she yelled.

Everypony glanced amongst themselves. Dash tipped her head and blinked. What was Spitfire—

KA-BAM

Everypony nearly jumped out of their fur as the door was kicked open so hard it nearly came off the hinges…

…to reveal none other than Silver Lining.

“Rise and SHINE, suckass PUNKS!” he yelled as he hobbled into the room.

Everypony stared wide eyed in disbelief, even Dash. It was Silver alright… but as if he already wasn’t enough of a hardass, he now looked the part ten times more. No longer sporting any bandages, his numerous scars from the fight with Nightshade were on full display, a black eyepatch covered his lost eye, the stub of his missing wing was wrapped, and his crippled arm had a wooden walking cane fastened to it that was braced to his shoulder.

None of them knew he had been released from the hospital and based on Spitfire’s smirk, she kept it from them on purpose… and it quickly set in that Silver… was going to be a part of their new training.

“Silver?!”

“Silver!”

“Oh damn! SILVER!”

Several spoke up, the reaction ecstatic as several of them, Dash included, immediately broke from their line to rush towards him.

Big mistake.

“WHO THE FUCK SAID YOU COULD GET OUT OF LINE?!” Silver belted at the top of his lungs. Everypony froze in place, Dash screeching to a halt and running right into Surprise from behind. The only one who kept moving for a few steps was Misty, who stopped, glanced over her shoulder, and then tipped her head at Silver. Those who had not rushed out glanced at Spitfire to see she too looked caught off-guard.

“Are you the WONDERBOLTS or the goddamn DICKWAD brigade?!” he shouted, making them all flinch again, save for Misty who smirked at him. “LINE UP! IN ORDER BY SQUAD AND RANK!” he yelled, slamming the tip of his cane against the floor. “NOW DAMMIT! Or I’ll show you how my new friend here likes to say hello!” he kept tapping it against the ground hard enough to make their ears twitch. “Trust me, she’s a rough lady! And only a few of you might enjoy it!”

Everypony immediately started moving back to line up without taking any time to ask exactly who he was talking about. It was frantic and a little jumbled as they tried to get into the proper order, causing them to not line up as fast as Silver wanted.

“Better hurry up!” he yelled as he started hobbling towards them, seemingly locking onto Thunderlane who was unfortunate enough to be furthest out. “SHE SEES YOUR ASS BLUNDER!” Silver yelled at Thunderlane, smacking the stick to the floor harder as he got closer. “AND I THINK SHE LIKES IT!”

“AAAAH!” Thunderlane yelped as he leapt right over the top of Surprise and tumbled to the floor next to Dash before standing upright as fast as he possibly could.

Dash snorted quietly to herself as she watched him struggle, but was quickly distracted by Storm Front frantically moving to the other spot beside her. Right… Squad 7, the lowest rank present before her. He didn’t look at her… and was likely more scared of Silver than he was of her at the moment. At first Dash was curious why he looked so scared, but then she remembered… Storm had never had Silver as an instructor.

“That’s more LIKE IT!” Silver belted as he glared hard right at Thunderlane. He slowly shifted his eyes back and forth before turning and hobbling down the line. He made eye contact with each and every one of them, taking in extremely varied expressions he was getting in return. Some still looked surprised, some looked confused, a few of them, including Dash, looked excited, and a select few looked terrified. “You all know who I am!” he shouted before stopping, turning quickly, and getting right into Lightning Streak’s face. “BUT LET ME TELL YOU ANYWAY UNLESS SOME OF YOU BIG TALKING WET NOODLES FORGOT!”

Lightning’s ears slapped down to the sides of his head as he winced and narrowed his eyes to avoid getting Silver’s spittle in them. But he didn’t say a word.

“I am Senior Flight Instructor Silver Lining!” Silver went on as he began pacing up and down the line again. “Apparently the Captain thinks she has some magical new training method that’ll give you all big muscles!” he said as he passed by Wave and Fleetfoot, eyeing them both for the entire time they were in his peripheral vision. “But I’m here to tell you that’ll amount to JACK SQUAT. If anything it’ll only give you BIG HEADS! We don’t need any bigger heads around here! If Fleetfoot’s head gets any bigger, it might actually be half the size of her sex drive!”

“Hey!” Fleetfoot shouted.

Silver turned around so fast half his joints crackled. He rushed over to her as fast as he could hobble and got right into her face.

“YOU GOT A GODDAMN PROBLEM WITH ME, PLAP-HAPPY McTHUMPING BUNS?!” he shouted so hard that her mane got blown back as her eyes grew wide and she leaned backwards. “YOU MAY HYPNOTISE STALLIONS BY WALKING DOWN THE HALLWAYS WITH A THAT HORNY DUCK WADDLE ASS-SWAY IN YOUR LEGS, BUT IF YOU SPEAK OUT OF TURN AGAIN I’LL SHOW YOU A REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAL HEAVY DUTY PENDULUM THAT YOU CAN BET HANGS REAL LOW AND CAN BE USED AS A WEAPON!”

Fleetfoot released a tiny high pitched squeak as her pupils became small dots within her wide eyes.

“Silver…” Spitfire spoke up from beside Fleetfoot, sounding frustrated. All eyes immediately went to her, except for Silver’s as he slowly and menacingly turned his head to glare at her with his one eye almost completely open. He slowly moved until he was standing in front of her as she kept giving him a flat look. “When I said I wanted you to oversee the program, I didn’t mean go full drill serg—”

She came to an abrupt halt as Silver thrusted his head towards hers so fast that it was a wonder that he managed to stop less than an inch from head-butting her.

“DON’T you blow your SASSAFRASS up my ASS!” he shouted into her face, Spitfire stiffening and her eyes widening. “YOU don’t get a free PASS to HARASS me with your SASS!” he moved forward, causing Spitfire to instinctively inch backwards, her ears flopping down as Silver’s voice boomed past her head. “If you want to AMASS first-CLASS results, you’ll get in line with the rest!”

Everypony watched in awe as Silver backed her all the way up to the wall and the moment she could go no further, Spitfire began lowering herself down as Silver kept moving forward until he was literally looming over her and looking straight down at her.

“Now be a good LASS and shut the fuck up or I’ll put your head through some GLASS and plant your ASS in the GRASS!”

Silver instantly spun around and started walking back towards the line, leaving a frozen and completely shouted down Spitfire still crouched to the ground against the wall. Everypony stared, but didn’t dare say a word as Silver made his way in front of all them again.

“Hey wait a second…” Blaze spoke up as he passed by. “You said ass twice.”

THWACK

“OW! FUCK! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGHHHHH!!!!!”

Everypony sharply turned their attention from Spitfire to Blaze as she began rolling on the ground while grabbing her head. Silver casually lowered his walking stick back to the ground.

“DAMMIT! SON OF A BITCH! SHIT! FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…!”

“So… did everypony have a good vacation?” Silver asked in a more casual tone.

“FUGIN FRGBLBRH SHHHHHFFFFUCKGRGHBL!” Blaze kept rocking back and forth.

“Anyone…?” he asked again in the same tone as Spitfire suddenly shuffled into line and stood at attention beside Fleetfoot, who had her eyes locked on Silver’s cane arm. That seemed to be the case for most of them.

Silver stopped in front of Misty Fly. The moment he locked his eye with hers she glared and put on a goofy looking grin. Silver lifted an eyebrow and leaned forward, turning his head to look her right in the eye, the silence between them filled with the background noise of Blaze’s muffled swearing. Beside her, Fire Streak’s eyes were darting between Silver’s head and his cane, but Misty didn’t budge. After a few seconds, Misty winked at Silver and stuck her tongue out at him. Silver snorted and quickly held back a chuckle. He couldn’t intimidate her if he tried, she had known him for too long.

“Must’ve been a shitty vacation if nopony has anything to say!” Silver chanted as he kept moving down the line. But those who weren’t currently terrified knew better. He was trying to get them to speak out of turn.

He started making his way towards Dash as Blaze finally stopped swearing, but before he could focus on her, he saw some movement beside her.

Storm Front was shaking in his hooves while staring directly ahead and maybe even holding his breath.

“Okay, new question!” Silver shouted as he made his way over to Storm. Storm visibly stiffened even more when Silver made eye contact with him. “Anyone feel like they’re about to shit themselves?” Silver asked. Storm swallowed hard, trying his hardest to hold still as Silver started leaning in very slowly. “Anyone feel a little… rush in the buns? HMMMMMMM?” Silver said as he leaned in so close that Storm could feel Silver’s breath on his nose. Storm scrunched up his face, his eyelids narrowing a little as he did everything in his power to hold steady. “Whoa can anypony hear that?” Silver said right into Storm’s face. “That’s either the sound of two wet balloons slowly rubbing together or somepony is clenching their cheeks harder than Fire Streak and THAT takes practice!”

Several snickers and snorts rang out from the line, but they all stopped in an instant as Silver slammed the tip of his cane to the floor.

“WHO’S SNIVVELING IN MY LINE?! WHO, HUH?!” Silver began hobbling up and down the line. “HUH?!” he yelled again as he stopped in front of Matteo and started directly into his chest fur. “SOUNDED LIKE YOU, FAT FLUFF! WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE?!”

“Sir, excuse for what sir?!” Matteo shouted, not missing a beat.

“I’m asking the fucking questions around here!” Silver yelled at Matteo’s chest. But then he glanced up at Matteo, smirking briefly as Matteo answered the same way he had during recruit training without even being told to. “Was that you snickering in line?!”

“Sir, no sir!” Matteo answered.

“You better not be lying to me, Tubby!” Silver jammed his good hoof into Matteo’s chest feathers, but nearly stumbled forward when it sank in further than he was expecting. When he pulled out his arm, Twister was gnawing on his hoof. Silver scowled and stuffed Twister back into Matteo’s fur before stepping back and quickly lifted his cane up. “Cause if you are, my friend here won’t like it! If you lie to her, she’ll put it somewhere so hard you’ll have a limp for a month!”

“Sir, I know sir! I’m married, Sir!” Matteo answered.

Silver did an immediate about face, nearly spitting all over his hoof as he shoved it over his mouth and tried to stifle laughter. Everypony held still as Silver burst out laughing, only a few brave souls glancing at Matteo to see he was still standing at attention and not moving a muscle.

“ALRIGHT! LAUGHING TIME IS OVER!” Silver turned back around, causing everypony to stiffen up again.

Silver perked up and glanced towards Rainbow Dash.

She was standing at attention, but she couldn’t hide a grin creeping onto her face. Silver couldn’t help but smirk. She didn’t have to say anything, he could read it.

“OKAY! Everypony turn your attention to the white board!” Silver turned and started moving across the room. Several ponies exhaled and relaxed. “DID I SAY AT EASE?!” Silver snapped around and shouted. Everypony immediately stood upright and froze again. “Now PAY ATTENTION!” Silver yelled as he smacked his cane against one of the white boards so hard that it unhooked from the wall, hit the floor, and fell forward with a loud, clattering crash.

Silver stared at it for several moments as everypony in line held their breath, none dared utter a peep. Silver said nothing, playing it off and moving over to the other one next to it, grabbing a marker off the tray.

“NOW PAY ATTENTION!” he repeated. “I’m going to explain how this routine will work!”

Silver turned to the board, uncapped the marker with his teeth. And wrote:

‘WHATEVER HURTS THE MOST’

—in big letters across the entire board.

He capped the marker, smacked it into the tray, and spun back around.

“Any questions?!”

Nopony moved for a moment. Lightning Streak slowly raised a hoof into the air.

“DIDN’T THINK SO!” Silver yelled as he pointed to the door. “TEN LAPS AROUND THE EMPIRE! We’ll start from the north gate! That sounds like a good warmup to me! And by the way, when I say ten laps I mean the first one is ON HOOF!” he yelled as he made his way down the line again.

Everypony flinched. On hoof? The Empire was… enormous. Even just one lap was…

“Keep your wings pinned to your body like Blaze to High Winds when they’re alone in the locker room!”

“Hey! Fuck y—”

THWACK

“GAAAAAAAAAAHHH FUCK!” Blaze yelled out as she fell to the floor again and Silver lowered his cane back to the floor. Wave and High Winds tipped slightly away as Blaze rolled back and forth bumping into them both.

“When you start your second lap…!” Silver went on as if Blaze wasn’t swearing at full volume on the floor nearby. “THEN you can let those wings loose and get airborne! And for the love of Celestia’s ass stuck in Soarin’s ass, you clowndick chucklefucks are goddamn WONDERBOLTS! So you BETTER give me some up-tempo flight pacing! So help me if I see one of you slacking… I will track you down the next time you go to the bathroom, break down the partitions, tear off your head, and SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK! … AND THEN YOU WILL FLY TWO MORE LAPS! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!”

Nopony said a word as they just stared straight ahead with varying degrees of reactions to the threat.

“SIR! YES, SIR!”

All eyes went to Rainbow Dash. She was standing upright as strongly as she could, she had her chest puffed out, her eyes looked ready for action, and she was grinning. She looked absolutely pumped to get started. Silver smirked, letting out a single quiet chuckle.

“WELL THANK YOU, SKITTLES! At least one pony over here is ready to suck it up and hit it hard! Now what about the rest of you?! SOUND OFF LIKE YOU GIVE A DAMN!!!!!!!!!"

That seemed to do the trick. The Wonderbolts were competitive in nature, and when Dash stepped up to the plate, none of them wanted to be shown up.

Not to mention… who was going to be training them. Yeah… he scared them shitless, but… training under the great Silver Lining? For many of them… it would be like old times again. Times they really missed.

“SIR, YES SIR!” Yelled everypony else, except for Blaze who was still crouched down and rubbing her head.

They waited for his next instruction. Silver looked back and forth, but… something was different. The hardness of his gaze had vanished. He was smiling.

“Heh…” he glanced down. “It’s good to be back with all of you again.” he said quietly, but loud enough for all of them to hear. A few of them began to relax, finding it hard not to smile or feel good as they heard it.

But then Silver suddenly slammed his cane to the floor again.

“JUST KIDDING, I FUCKING HATE ALL OF YOU! NOW CHOP-CHOP! LET’S GO! ON THE DOUBLE!” he yelled while pointing at the door. “LAST ONE OUT GETS A HELL OF A RED MARK NEXT TO THEIR CUTIE MARK!” He finished as he waved his cane in the air. “NOW, DAMMIT! NOW!”

Within three seconds it suddenly became a mad cluster as everypony made a beeline for the door while all trying to squeeze through it at the same time. The only one who didn’t move immediately with the rest was Blaze, still slightly dazed.

“SHIT!” she yelled as she galloped after them, finding herself stuck at the back of the group as they forced their way through the door one by one.

“Ooooooooh?” Silver hooted as he started moving towards them. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH?!” Silver started waving the cane at the last stragglers. Fire, Storm, Surprise, Wave, and Blaze were all frantically pushing at the back of Matteo as he fought to wedge himself through the door side by side with Lightning. “Look out! Here she comes! DON’T BE LAST!!!!!” He kept closing in as Lightning finally squeaked past and dislodged Matteo. Storm, Surprise, and Wave shot through the door, but when Blaze tried to cut off Fire, he placed a hoof over her head and pushed her chin down to the floor. He leapt over her and literally dove out the door, crashing to the floor outside and leaving Blaze as the last one in an unfortunately bent over position. “FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!” Silver yelled as he wound up and smacked the cane right into Blaze’s plot.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOWWW!!!!! FUCKING HELL!!!!!” Blaze yelped as she bounced and stumbled out the door while seething. “WHOSE FUCKING BRIGHT IDEA WAS IT TO ATTACH A BLUNT OBJECT TO HIM?!” she yelled, her yelling growing more distant until Silver was left alone in silence.

Or so he thought.

He was about to leave and head towards the north gates, but somepony cleared their throat behind him.

“Hm…?” He turned to see that Spitfire was still there, giving him a very flat look. “The hell are YOU staring at?”

“Silver…” Spitfire groaned, rubbing her temples. “Look… I want your help with this but you really don’t need to—”

“To what? Do things MY way?” Silver cut her off and pointed at her. “You asked me to oversee the training, so this is what you’re getting. This is what they're getting. I’m surprised you expected anything less.” He tapped his cane against the floor. “You want the best? You’ve got the best. You want them to get the most out of it?” He hobbled towards her. “They’ll get the most out of it, even if I have to beat it into them. That goes for you too.” He thrust his head forward slightly, causing her to flinch as he got right in her face. “Look at Rainbow Dash,” he narrowed his eyes. “You’ve watched her grow, you see what she’s slowly becoming. How do you think she got there? Hm?” he lifted the eyebrow over his eyepatch. “You think she’s come as far as she has because I went easy on her?”

Spitfire relaxed and blinked as Silver’s words sunk in.

“The answer you’re looking for is no. She’s incredibly talented… and I made sure to squeeze every ounce of that talent out of her by pushing her to her limits, even if it hurt. If you want me to do this… I’m not letting it go to waste. If this so-called crystal crap treatment does what you say it does. I’m kicking all your asses to hell and back until you leave all former generations of Wonderbolts light-years in the dust. You will all be faster, you will all be stronger, and you will all be better than any Wonderbolts who ever came before you… And you know what? Want to know who ELSE really wants to kick the Shadowbolts in the teeth so hard that they shit out their tonsils?” Silver swung his head left, his mane flowing away from his eye patch. He turned to briefly face his lost wing nub towards her, and then rapped his cane on the floor. “ME.”

Spitfire didn’t know what to say. But frankly, she didn’t need to say anything. Silver was as convincing as ever and any disapproval of his preferred methods were instantly gone.

“By the way…” Silver kept tapping his cane on the floor. “You’re the last one out.”

Spitfire flinched and her eyes went wide as Silver’s face hardened into a glare.

“And because your sister took a hit she didn’t deserve, you’re getting two… COME HERE.” He started shifting towards her with his cane waving in the air.

“Oh no… you stay away from me with that!” Spitfire inched backwards and shook her head.

“WHAT’S THAT?!” Silver leaned and started hopping closer to her. “YOU WANT THREE?! AIN’T YOU KINKY, CHIEF!”

“AH! Okay! OKAY!” Spitfire shifted and ran around him, ducking as he swung his cane towards her anyway. “I’m going! I’M GOING!!!!” she yelled as she rushed out the door to catch up with the rest.

Silver followed her all the way to the door before he stopped, leaned against the door frame, and smirked as he watched her sprint down the hall and turn the corner. He stayed there for several moments before turning back into the room.

“Ahhh…” he let out a long sigh. “This is going to be a good time…” he stopped and looked at the white board and his ‘plan’ written on it. “Eh…” he tipped his head. “I’ll come up with something…” he turned around and left the room, making his way down the hall. “Gonna need plenty of drills, maybe some combat exercises, formations… right and the gym, lots of weight lifting… Gotta make sure they keep together too. Maybe throw in some fun stuff to mix it up, team building, a few competitions… they won’t grow if I don’t let them enjoy themselves here and there too…”

He turned the corner as he took his time as he hobbled along… In reality, he only ordered the first lap be on hoof so he had time to get out there before they started flying.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Well! Looks who's back to kick ass and take names? None of them are going to halfass this training with Silver in charge... and it looks like even Spitfire got more than she bargained for.

But lets be real... Silver may be one hell of an intimidator and a hardnose piece of metal, but i doubt any of the Wonderbolts would have it any other way. The Iron Horse is back on his hooves and ready to be a part of the team again.

Sounds like things are slowly advancing for Soarin as well. Here's hoping he can gain some more control soon because it sounds like Spitfire really needs to visit her best friend.

Lastly, this amazing piece of fan art by Lazzari will be going into the previous chapter. I just wanted to make sure everyone saw it here first because WOW!

Thanks for reading hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 185: Looking Deeper

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 185: Looking Deeper

Help me… please…

I don’t know what else to do!

“Rgh…”

Hopeless…

It’s over, they’re gone…

“N…no… stop…”

What do you mean lost?!

It hurts so much… why does it hurt so much?

“Agh…aaaaagh…”

They don’t love me…

What does HE do? Why is HE so special?!

“I c…can’t… take… rgh!”

I don’t want to go… I don’t…

Please… why won’t anypony HELP ME?!

“AAAARGH! GET AWAY FROM ME!”

Soarin awoke with a start, swinging his arms out at something he thought was swirling around him. But there was nothing. He only fell forward, barely catching himself on his hooves, gasping and wheezing with sweat dripping down his brow.

“Haa… ugh…” he shook his head out. “The… voices… again…” he rubbed an arm over his eyes. “Dash…? You there?” He looked up.

But something wasn’t right.

Soarin blinked as he looked into a space that definitely wasn’t the Crystal Palace chamber. It was a pure white space… and he was looking directly at Sombra and Celestia. The two were staring in surprise. Their positioning, with Sombra leaning forward and pointing a hoof towards Celestia’s chest, suggested that some sort of argument had just come to a complete halt.

“………Wha?” Was all Soarin could muster at first as nothing made sense about what he was looking at. “What the hell is this? Where am I?” he asked while looking directly at the two of them.

“You… can see and hear us?” Celestia asked.

“Watch her, she’s a sharp one,” Sombra said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes. Celestia flattened her brow and pursed her lips, but she didn’t say anything back to him, focusing on Soarin.

“We’re inside your mind,” she clarified. “Do you remember wh—“

“Oh!” Soarin exclaimed, cutting her off and blinking. “Wait… yeah I remember this now. This is in my head…” Soarin felt disoriented as he suddenly recalled. It was easy to remember once the memories bubbled back up. Being stuck in this space while not in control of his body, fighting Sombra, and absorbing the power of a goddess were hard things to forget. “I haven’t seen this in a while, but… yeah, it looks the same only…” Soarin looked down at his arm and squinted, easily noticing the yellow glow surrounding him. “Yeah, that…”

“This is a tremendous development!” Celestia suddenly declared while rushing forward. Soarin tilted back as she got right in front of him and smiled.

“If not being able to sleep is your idea of great…” Soarin groaned, rubbing his eyes again as he still felt groggy. “Damn voices… feels like I haven’t slept at all”

“No, no, no…” Celestia giggled while waving a hoof. “You are looking within! You can see us in here! This is a large step forward and it couldn’t have happened without developing some spiritual stability with my power.”

“…oh.” Soarin replied unenthusiastically. “Cool, I guess?”

“Er… pardon me,” Celestia exhaled and regained herself. “That was a tad overzealous of me. It’s just good to know that the power is settling further. This wouldn’t be possible otherwise.”

“Ah, the preacher of false hope sings songs of battles won before they’ve even begun,” Sombra said off to the side, sarcasm still very much lining his words.

“Ignore him,” Celestia immediately said sharply. “This IS a positive milestone. We have a ways to go before you gain outer control, but you can now communicate with us while you slumber… This will be convenient going forward.”

“If you say so…” Soarin said with a sigh as he sat up and reached a hoof up to his head towards his mane.

But as he did, he froze.

“What the…?” he blinked as he ran his hoof back and forth several times over a very specific spot.

Something was missing.

He quickly looked at Celestia again, noticing that she was bigger than him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, WAIT… I’m…?” he looked himself all over several times before looking straight up and rubbing a hoof over his forehead again.

“I’m… normal?”

“Your spirit and your soul… as we are and have been in here,” Celestia nodded. “Your physical body has changed without, but you are still yourself within. You just have… well…” she looked down at herself and shrugged. “You’re the one with the divine glow now.”

“Suits him better if you ask me,” Sombra spoke up from the peanut gallery again. Soarin glanced towards him and lifted an eyebrow.

“He’s cranky…” Celestia said with a sigh.

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Soarin joked. But then he suddenly perked up. “Wait! I’m in my mind… WE’RE in my mind! That means…” he frantically looked around back and forth and eventually over his shoulder.

He found exactly what he was looking for. A few yards behind him… the piece of Rainbow Dash’s soul, curled up and sleeping soundly.

“DASH!” Soarin yelled, finding the motivation to get up and move as he galloped over to her.

“Yes,” Celestia smiled at his excitement. “The fragment of her spirit is still here.”

Soarin skidded to a halt and reached a hoof toward her, but came to an abrupt halt an inch from Dash’s head. He quickly looked towards Celestia with a blank look.

“What?” Celestia blinked.

“Nothing overly weird is going to happen if I touch her… right?”

“Overly weird?” Celestia tipped her head.

“For HEAVEN’S sake!” Sombra growled. “Are you really going to ask for her permission to touch your beloved?”

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Soarin glared and pointed sharply at Sombra. “You! You sound like you need to go take a walk or a nap or something.”

“Excuse me?” Sombra snorted and furrowed his brow.

“I don’t know what she said to you, but don’t take it out on me,” Soarin huffed and then pointed at Dash. “After all the weird shit I’ve been put through, it’s a legitimate question.”

“I… Can’t argue with that reasoning,” Celestia giggled and shook her head. “It’s a piece of her soul and the two of you are deeply connected. If you touch her here, I believe at most she might feel something akin to a subtle warmth or comfort from within her.”

“You ‘believe?’” Soarin picked out.

“It’s more likely she won’t feel anything. It could depend on how strong the connection has become… or maybe not… I think…”

“You keep talking like you know then subtly adding that you don’t really know. Which is it?” Soarin exhaled.

“JUST DO IT!” Sombra yelled, causing them both to flinch. “Mercy almighty!”

“You know what?” Soarin lifted a hoof in the air. “I agree with him.”

Soarin turned back to Dash, leaned down, and slowly reached for her, softly touching his hoof to the side of her head. Her image was translucent, but he was able to touch her as if she was solid. He gently stroked her cheek, causing her to stir, but she leaned into it, remaining at rest as she shifted closer to Soarin.

A big smile formed on Soarin’s face. This was something he really needed with what he was going through. He slowly lowered himself down and curled his body around her, Dash’s spirit nestling into his body as if she knew he was there.

Celestia’s cheeks were growing rosy, placing a hoof to her chest as she watched Dash’s soul pin itself to Soarin as if she were really all there.

“Now if only she could be in here with me too… like she was before,” Soarin said to himself. “I’d like her to be able to see me like…” he looked over his body again. “Like myself again.”

“That might be possible,” Celestia spoke up as she made her way closer to them. “Though I’m not sure how at the moment. If this piece of her is in here and she was able to take control of it once, there’s no reason to believe she can’t do it again. Though under what sort of circumstances, I can’t say.”

“Hmm…” Soarin hummed. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but he understood. “No need to rush it… one step at a time.”

“Indeed,” Celestia agreed with a nod.

Soarin took a moment to focus on Dash, the feeling of her spirit pressing to him relaxing him in ways he hadn’t felt in a long time, but eventually he looked over to Sombra still sulking further away from them. His ears twitched and he turned to Celestia.

“You know, Celestia…” he began.

“Hm? Yes?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Soarin looked back to Sombra. “We’ve been over most of this already, but… how much of it was true?”

“How much of…?” Celestia tipped her head.

“Your reasoning behind putting Sombra in me. I know the truth, but I want to believe that you didn’t just flat out lie… you must’ve believed in some of it. You said you wanted to create something with us, a warrior to fight against something, right?”

Celestia flinched and averted her eyes.

“Was that all a lie?” Soarin asked.

“Of course it was,” Sombra’s voice came from across the area. “By now that should be clear.”

“Look, I didn’t ask you,” Soarin directed towards Sombra. “I already know what your answer is going to be to everything. I want to hear it from her.” He looked back to Celestia. “At this point there’s no reason for her to lie to me about this.”

“Your naivety is astounding,” Sombra snorted.

“Says the one who thought sitting his ass down on a big chair a thousand years later would guide him to the key to godhood,” Soarin shot back without missing a beat. Sombra’s entire body twitched and he spun around to glare at him, but Soarin was already focused on Celestia again. “Celestia?” Soarin nodded to her, encouraging her to speak.

She took a moment before saying anything, stealing a single glance at Sombra loudly grumbling to himself before releasing a long sigh.

“I did believe in it, yes,” she began with a nod. “I knew of the great danger in the shadows and believed the two of you together in one body and mind would help us face it. However, my certainty of the success was… shaky at best. We’d be facing the enemy with or without you and Sombra. All I truly cared about when I made the transfer was… getting Sombra back.” She paused and made a head motion towards Sombra. “And he was right when he said I knew of the tornado and did nothing. I needed a reason to hide the transfer of his soul. But… in the end maybe I even convinced myself that the creation of a ‘hero’ was the true purpose. I believed my own distraction to hide from my own selfish actions. I convinced everypony else the same thing… Luna… Discord… your friends… everypony.”

Soarin stared carefully as he listened. His eyes were locked on her face and her expressions. Nothing was off, she did not hesitate on a single word and spoke smoothly. Her eyes never left his, and her face remained constant. Nothing about what she said sounded fishy… in fact, it sounded like a full blown confession.

“Hmph…” Sombra huffed off to the side, glancing over his shoulder as he also recognized these things, though he refused to acknowledge them.

“And believe me when I say…” Celestia went on. “I myself can barely believe the irony of where we are now. I lied about what would happen… released a vengeful spirit that cared not for what I wished… but the one I wronged the most defeated him… and ultimately created what I had spent so much time pretending was the true purpose… though becoming a full-blown divine god was most certainly not part of that idea. And even more ironically… we may actually need a power as strong as this to…” she suddenly trailed off and broke eye contact for the first time since she started.

“To what…?” Soarin quickly asked.

“DON’T BOTHER!” Sombra suddenly growled, snorting loudly and kicking the ground.

“Okay…” Soarin flattened his brow as he pointed at Sombra and looked to Celestia. “What has his tail in a knot? He’s been pissed since I showed up here.”

Celestia only looked down at her hooves.

“Or was that what you were about to say and stopped?” Soarin put together.

“I said don’t bother!” Sombra’s voice boomed as he faced them and started making his way over. “She won’t tell you anything. Apparently she still feels the need to stand by that damned SNAKE as if he’s done nothing wrong and deserves secrecy!”

Soarin’s eye twitched at one particular word… “Secrecy.”

Celestia gritted her teeth and spun around to glare at Sombra, clearly miffed.

“You keep twisting my words to be what YOU want to hear about him!” she shot back. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to accept that Discord is as much a part of this as you! If he hasn’t told me anything it’s because he doesn’t know!”

“And you trust him?” Sombra rolled his eyes. “After what he did to me?!”

“This isn’t about YOU!” Celestia stomped a hoof. “For the hundredth time! Why does everything he does have to be about you? It’s funny that you cry foul and push away all my attempts to make amends with you, but once Discord is involved you want all my attention and sympathy!”

“Spare me…” Sombra grumbled and turned his back.

“I won’t ask what that was all about,” Soarin shrugged. “But what’s this about secrets? I thought we were done with those.”

“There are NONE,” Celestia said flatly as she turned her back to Sombra. “I can’t tell you anything about something I myself know little to nothing about.”

“So…” Soarin narrowed his eyes. “Discord is the one keeping things from you now? Shoe on the other hoof, huh?”

“Oh no, please don’t start acting like him…” Celestia groaned as Sombra audibly snorted. “The truth of the matter is… the nature of what’s been eluding us out there is still mostly unknown,” Celestia began explaining, sounding like she was forcing her voice a little to hammer down the idea that she wasn’t blowing smoke. “We have seen little of what it is really capable of, and only have the warped abilities and nature of the Shadowbolts to thank for knowing anything about it at all. I asked Discord to personally look into it a few months after I hid my power away… because if there’s anypony that can find that which no one else can, it’s him. He obliged, but… something is horribly wrong now.”

Soarin blinked, not expecting her to end with that.

“Care to elaborate?” he pressed. But he didn’t have to push her, Celestia looked eager to explain.

“I’m sure you’ve…” she suddenly trailed off. Soarin tipped his head. Celestia swallowed and looked away slightly, the eagerness in her expression fading a little. “Sorry,” she cleared her throat, her tone softening a little, sounding sympathetic. “I’m sure you may have noticed how Discord has… changed as we’ve gone through all this?”

Soarin looked at her carefully, narrowing his eyes a little as he took a moment to think. But as he did, his eyes slowly opened all the way up again.

“He…” Soarin blinked as he continued to run through all his recent and not so recent encounters with Discord he could remember. “You know… now that you mention it…”

“His head is stuck further up his own hind quarters?” Sombra interrupted. “Frankly, I’m impressed, I didn’t think he could get it in any further.” Sombra finished with a satisfied snort, but when he noticed that both of them were ignoring him, he turned away with a quiet harrumph.

“Yeah, he hasn’t really been acting like himself, has he?” Soarin pointed out. “I’ve been so distracted by everything happening to me I didn’t really notice, but now… what the heck happened to him? It’s like he’s completely different.”

“Yes,” Celestia nodded. “Normally he’s always laid back, often scheming pranks, and never without a smirk or shifty sneer that keeps you on your hooves. He enjoys that others are on edge around him, waiting for him to play a trick or spring a trap. His control of the space he occupies is something he relishes. He finds humor in any situation and never lets an opportunity to entertain himself go to waste, especially at the expense of another if possible.”

“And that’s not how I’d describe him recently at all,” Soarin added.

“Most definitely not,” Celestia agreed. “I was only able to communicate with him spiritually after I was forced to shed my form, but we spoke often. He was the only one who knew where I was and the only one who could speak to me… so I confided in him to keep me apprised and if I had anything I wished to be investigated, he was my only option. During all that time, he continued to be his usual self… up until I asked him to personally look into the matter of the Shadowbolts’ so called ‘client’, whom I was beginning to believe was actually in control of them. He accepted without hesitation and went on his way without a care in the world, but… things suddenly began to change. At first I didn’t notice, he’s always been very good at keeping his worries to himself, but over time it was very easy to spot that he wasn’t acting like himself anymore. When the infamous prankster god of chaos is suddenly behaving himself more often than not… the difference might as well be night and day.”

“When you asked him to look into…?” Soarin trailed off, tilting his head a little and scrunching up his face slightly. “What was that name again? I can’t remember.”

“Kayn Ost.” Celestia nodded.

“Yeah, that one!” Soarin pointed. “That guy…? Girl…? Thing? All I know is they supposedly gave the Shadowbolts the crystals when they hired them, with the Shadowbolts in our face at every given moment I often forget they’re part of this.”

“Yes, Kayn Ost…” Celestia sighed. “A name that made Discord chuckle the first time he heard it, though he never told any of us why. When he accepted my request and the shift in his demeanor became too drastic to ignore, I confronted him. Though he acted natural, the moment I asked him about the investigation… he turned pale. He tried to change the subject and dodged the question entirely. When I pressed him about it, he eventually snapped his fingers and vanished.”

“This just keeps getting better,” Sombra grumbled as he moved over to them. “Let me guess, this is the part where you express sympathy for him… and then you tell us you never asked him again because you were afraid to hurt his feelings.”

“As a matter of FACT…” Celestia shot a hard, frustrated look at Sombra. “I DID ask him again… SEVERAL times. You think I would let something so obviously out of place go unaddressed? It only got worse from there. He became increasingly distant and eventually unapproachable and even stopped pranking the guards standing outside the basement chambers before speaking with me. He still did some odd things with his magic here and there, but he’s become bitter, always scowling and not enjoying a single moment. I’ve watched him when I could from my viewpoint within here too… and it’s like he’s become the very opposite of who I know him to be. It’s been a slow decline and every time I’ve asked him about the investigation it just seems to make it worse.”

“I take it the moment he thought I was dead and gone was the first time you’ve seen him act like a clown in a while?” Sombra asked while lifting an eyebrow. Celestia rolled her eyes.

“The situation with you didn’t help his mood much either,” she mumbled loud enough for him to hear.

“Oh, I do apologize,” Sombra made a blatantly flamboyant gesture. “I certainly don’t want to upset him!” he said in a mocking tone.

“So…” Soarin spoke up, furrowing his brow. “Why haven’t you demanded he tell you? He’s clearly hiding something from you.”

Celestia shook her head.

“Discord doesn’t hide things from me.”

“HA!” Sombra guffawed. “Wow! Really now?! I believe somepony here implied I was naïve in my endeavors, would they like to redirect that implication?” he said while slowly glancing at Soarin. Celestia narrowed her eyes.

“Do I really have to explain why he wouldn’t?” Celestia shot at him while inching her neck forward to get in his face. “Because I’m pretty sure it’s the same reason you wouldn’t either.”

Sombra held firm as Celestia leaned in, narrowing his eyes to match her.

“What are you implying?” he growled.

“Should I shake my sun-marked flank to remind you?”

Sombra quickly scrunched up his face and blew air through his nostrils, but said nothing as Celestia lifted her brow and smarmily tilted her head.

“I rest my case,” she said, satisfied.

“Not with ME you haven’t!” Soarin said sternly, drawing both their attention to him. “I’m not going to take ‘I’m a fine piece of ass’ as an answer. Convince me, dammit!”

Celestia turned away from the grumbling Sombra, taking a long deep breath and releasing it.

“Fair enough,” she nodded. “I’ve known Discord for a very long time…” she paused and glanced at them both. “And by long time, I mean thousands of years. I’m very familiar with how he thinks, acts, and handles himself. I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, that something is very, VERY wrong here. Discord is an extremely resourceful individual. It is near impossible to hide anything from him due to his curiosity, inductiveness, and persistence all with chaos magic at his disposal.” She turned to Sombra. “He was the only one who figured out what I had really done to Soarin… and all it took was recognizing your magic. He felt and pinpointed the exact sting of your offensive magic for the first time in a thousand years when Soarin lost control during a training session. He’s always been like this… able to deduce and unearth any and all information to satisfy his intense need to know and understand the nature of everything he experiences no matter how deeply it’s hidden or buried.”

“So he’s a nosey prick…” Sombra said quietly to himself while rolling his eyes, but Celestia ignored him.

“With all that said…” Celestia went on. “If there is one thing Discord cannot stand… it’s when he comes face to face with something he can’t figure out. When he is met with an unsolvable dilemma or something he simply cannot comprehend… he loses himself. Discord wields frightening power, the ability to bend reality to his heart’s content is not a power to be mishandled. There have been incidents in the past where he has abused his power for his amusement, but even before he accepted reformation and agreed to keep his powers in check, there was one thing that always remained constant. He will not use his power to unfairly get the better of somepony. He believes that he is of unmatched wit, wisdom, and ability and refuses to use his powers to simply remove challenges from his way. He has too much pride to take the easy way out of things.”

“Him?” Sombra piped up. “Pride?”

“Did he simply erase you from existence when I fell in love with you?” Celestia asked while looking Sombra in the eye. “Believe me, he could have at any point. He couldn’t understand what I saw in you, but was determined to prove that he was better than you instead of simply making you vanish. And when he couldn’t, he was driven mad. But even in his rage, he ‘defeated’ you by making his move when you were physically aged and mentally weakened. Did he destroy you then? Or did he not offer you what you were seeking? If I recall correctly… you accepted and gave him the opening to corrupt you.”

Sombra held a glare that twitched slightly every few words. He could not speak against anything she said.

“I can only recall two other times in our long life that I’ve seen Discord acting like this,” Celestia continued. “The first was with Sombra. The second was during the last Griffon-Drake war, when the chaos of the fighting became so unhinged that he was released from his seal and—”

Soarin perked up.

“Blizzard Strike?” Soarin said, cutting off Celestia. Sombra blinked and quickly turned to look at Soarin. Celestia looked surprised.

“I’m impressed you know of this…” she admitted, tipping her head. “How did you know about it? Unless…”

“Silver told me the story,” Soarin explained. “Blizzard Strike was his mentor.”

“Pardon me,” Sombra shifted forward and put himself in front of Celestia. “Please do go on. I’d like to hear more of this one who put that snake in his place.”

Celestia sighed, nudging Sombra aside.

“You know most of it then,” she continued to Soarin. “Blizzard turned Discord’s focus away from Equestria and solely to him. He outsmarted Discord time and time again. I remember watching from afar, I remember seeing the flabbergasted looks on Discord’s face as every challenge or trick he brought was calmly handled by Blizzard. Discord could not comprehend it, he could not figure out why he couldn’t get the better of this one, old stallion. There was anger, frustration, and at times… fear. Discord was afraid of Blizzard. The way in which Blizzard easily got the better of him at every turn was reminding him of something very familiar…” she trailed off while glancing towards Sombra. “Though perhaps it was even worse this time… for Sombra was by every measure a powerful, symbolic, and influential king and stallion of the highest caliber… Blizzard was a Pegasus stallion past his prime and not even the highest ranking member of a special military force.”

“I need to meet this Blizzard Strike,” Sombra spoke up strongly. “Now.”

“Might be a little hard, buddy…” Soarin sighed.

“Indeed,” Celestia tipped her head down. “Blizzard was killed in action before Discord could best him. Unwilling to accept that he would never get another chance to defeat him, Discord willingly sealed himself away without any of us lifting a hoof. In a way…” Celestia glanced at Sombra. “Blizzard truly defeated Discord more than you ever had.”

“Hmmm…” Sombra looked down. “Such a pity… sounds like he was quite the stallion.”

“But my point is…” Celestia quickly kept going. “Discord only behaves this way when caught out of his element. And the way he is behaving now… is just like how he behaved when you and Blizzard became a part of his life. If he had this figured out, he would have told me. Based on his current behavior, my best guess is that he either doesn’t know or hasn’t put together enough to be satisfied yet… or he is afraid of something and refuses to admit it. As a matter of fact, I’m willing to believe it could be both.”

“I still say he’s hiding something,” Sombra snorted.

“Then you haven’t been listening to me at all,” Celestia sighed.

“Have I? Your trust in him is so woefully misplaced. You don’t ever wonder if he’s scheming something? Your insistence on an answer tucks his very tail between his legs! Why not think further? Perhaps he thought you’d forget… perhaps he’s the very entity you asked him to look into!”

“Enough!” Celestia pouted at him. “That is an absurd accusation! Have you forgotten I’m involved? Discord would never harm me!”

“You think yourself such a treasure don’t you?”

“You certainly did!”

“I’ll take your word for it…” Soarin spoke up, catching both their attention quickly. Celestia looked surprised, but Soarin quickly shook his head. “You know what I think. I don’t need to repeat what Sombra just said, but… everything you said just now made sense.”

“Nothing she said made any—”

“Stop,” Soarin cut off Sombra while swiping out a hoof. “Just stop. You already can’t say anything unbiased about Discord. You haven’t been around him through all this, I have and I can confirm his change in behavior. I know all about Discord’s dust up with Blizzard Strike. My wingmate, Silver, told me the whole story. If she says this is the same, then I believe her. Because if she’s lying… Silver is lying. And Silver DOESN’T lie about Blizzard.”

Sombra held still, saying nothing as his gaze clashed with the resolve in Soarin’s eyes.

“Now… that being said…” Soarin slowly turned back to Celestia.

“I asked him again the other night,” Celestia said before he could ask.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Soarin smirked briefly. “I’m assuming you got no response.”

“I did not,” Celestia shook her head. “He just said ‘I’m working on it’ then demanded I focus on you. He did not look happy that I brought it up and barely looked at me the rest of the night. I’d have pressed him more, but I needed his help with Soarin and he’d have vanished if I had gone further.”

“If he doesn’t know anything, he should just admit it,” Sombra grumbled.

“You know he never would,” Celestia shrugged.

“If he’s scared of something, he should also admit that.”

“Would you?” Celestia narrowed her eyes and tipped her head towards him. Sombra quickly turned to face her.

“I fear NOTHING, I’ll have you know…” he growled.

“Oh, here we go…” Celestia rolled her eyes.

Soarin stared flatly as the two began bickering once again, rubbing a hoof to his forehead and letting out a long sigh.

“Wonderful…” he said to himself. “I’m stuck with them no matter where I am…” He slowly looked down at Dash’s spirit nestled into him. “Really wish you were in here with me right now,” he spoke to her as he gently ran a hoof up and down the back of her head. “I’d take you over these two in a heartbeat.”

He briefly looked up to see Celestia and Sombra shouting, Sombra trying to out-loom her, but Celestia kept herself as tall as possible to prevent him from doing so while poking a hoof on his shoulder. It looked like it was going to go on for a while.

He looked back down at Dash.

“I wonder what you’re up to right now…?”

“I DIDN’T ORDER A MEAT SLAPPING SALAD FOUND IN A DUMPSTER FIRE FOR LUNCH! BUT IT SURE SOUNDS BETTER THAN THE TASTE IN MY MOUTH SEEING THIS PERFORMANCE RIGHT NOW! PICK UP THE PACE! COME ON!”

Silver’s voice boomed from below as Dash gasped and panted, pumping her wings through the fatigue as she pitched down, slammed to the grass, turned, and took off again, several others passing by her as she changed direction before they all did the same.

Flight sprint suicides… Silver wasn’t holding back. Having to land, turn, and take off again and again didn’t sound too bad on the surface, but going forty yards forward, then thirty yards back over and over until they covered a measured one hundred yards from the start point to the end point? And then flying all the way back to the start and starting over again? AND… each round was endless until Silver blew his whistle and they had to finish whatever full lap they were on? Yeah it was rough… and this was their fourth round of five.

Dash was about halfway through a lap, she and everypony else way too gassed to react to whatever the hell Silver just yelled at them. Dash was only catching quick glimpses of her team, Squall, Matteo, and Star all equally struggling through. Thunderlane was forcing himself along the best he could as well and… Twister was shooting through the air with his wings pinned to his body while screaming into an open jar of peanut butter. Silver didn’t seem to pay any mind to Twister, probably for good reason. He was more interested in the rest of them, the ones who were taking it seriously, and at this point the lines between recruit and elite were blurring greatly, everypony so tired that they were all forcing themselves along. Even the three who partook in the testing of their new routine were looking ready to drop. The great Spitfire herself sounded like she was about to heave up a lung as Dash passed by her.

This was no joke, it was only a couple of days in and Silver was already pushing them as hard as he could. He said something about easing them in, but apparently that was only a day or two before breaking chairs over their backs.

“I better not see any of you taking breaks!” Silver yelled. “If any of you stop before I blow the whistle or doesn’t finish their lap after I do, I’ll kick you so hard in the junk or the foal maker that you’ll be screaming like horny cats stuck in a taffy pulling machine! AND THEN I’LL DO IT TO EVERYPONY ELSE TOO! NOW MOVE, DAMMIT! MOVE!”

Dash kept herself focused.

Land, turn, take off…

Hard wing beating to pick up as much speed she could manage…

Land, turn, take off…

Silver’s eyes darted about, doing his best to keep tabs on every single one of them. With a subtle nod and a quiet hum to himself, he reached for his whistle and began reaching it towards his lips.

“URGH!”

Silver stopped lifting the whistle, his eyes snapping to Fire Streak as he began faltering from his flight path and slowing down.

“GAH!” Fire grunted again as he began lowering towards the ground.

“FIRE!” Silver belted in his direction. “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!”

“C’mon, cap!” Surprise broke from her path and swooped down to grab Fire by the arm. “We gotta… keep moving…!” she encouraged between wheezes.

“I… GRH!” Fire forced his wings back into motion, pushing his way back up into the flight path as he continued on his way.

Silver kept his eyes on Fire, specifically waiting for him to land on the end line and get back into the air towards the start.

The moment Fire was back up, Silver blew the whistle.

Only a lucky few were near the start line. They landed and crashed onto their backs and sides, gasping and panting the moment they had stopped. Those still in flight pushed to finish the lap, Dash included, but…

The moment Silver blew the whistle, Fire faltered again. He immediately eased up and glided toward the ground.

“FIRE STREAK!” Silver yelled again, louder and stronger.

“Bro!” Lightning Streak followed him down, but stopped short of landing. “Come on! Finish the lap or Silver’ll tear us new ones dude!”

“Just GO!” Fire yelled angrily at Lightning, coughing as he hunched down. “I feel like I’m about to vomit, for pity’s sake!”

Lightning frantically glanced over to see Silver glaring at them.

“SHIT!” Lightning grunted as he forced himself back up and flew towards the starting line. He was the last one to finish, leaving Fire behind.

Dash, sitting and propping herself up as she leaned back huffing and puffing, saw Lightning hit the dirt and roll onto his side. She looked around to see everypony around her, all similarly looking half dead.

“I think my heart exploded…” Thunderlane whined from behind her. “Twice… maybe three times…”

“Paaaaaaaaaaain…” Little Star wailed as she lay draped over Matteo’s head. “PAAAAAAAAIN.”

“Why are you on my head?” Matteo asked between heavy breaths.

“It’s softer than the GROOOOOOOOOOUND!” she wailed.

“I dunno what you’re all talkin’ about, I feel fine!” Twister stated proudly while standing on his back legs and pounding his chest. “In fact I feel like dancing!” He bounced once to his right and several loud cracking noises sounded from all over his body. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” Twister collapsed into a limp pile on the ground. “MY BONES! I CAN’T FEEL MY BONES!”

“I’m too tired to enjoy his suffering…” Squall mumbled as he stared at the shimmering magic dome of the empire extending overhead.

“Take a breather, five minutes,” Silver addressed them all calmly as he moved past Dash.

Dash and those who had the energy to do so looked up, surprised at Silver’s tone. But they weren’t complaining, five minutes was a godsend after what they had been doing.

But Dash kept her eyes on Silver as she remained propped up. Silver had only moved to the starting line a few paces away. He was staring at Fire with a serious look on his face as Fire slowly made his way over to them all, dragging one hoof at a time while puffing and wheezing. He had his eyes down, but Dash couldn’t tell if he was avoiding eye contact with Silver or he was just too tired to look up.

As Fire closed in, Silver suddenly moved towards him. Curiosity piqued, Dash turned her ears and paid attention as Silver met Fire ten yards away from the start line.

“Fire.”

Fire Streak stopped in his tracks, looking up quickly and blinking as his eyes met Silver’s. Neither moved for a moment, but soon after Fire tipped back, falling onto his plot and hunching down to keep catching his breath. He didn’t answer Silver.

“The hell are you doing out there?” Silver asked, keeping his voice level.

“I…” Fire grunted and shook his head out. “I started too fast. I was completely out of steam.”

“No shit you started too fast, I was watching,” Silver narrowed his eyes. “Why didn’t you finish through the end like everypony else?”

“I could barely breathe at that point, Silver,” Fire said plainly. “I nearly lost my lunch too.”

“What kind of excuse is that?” Silver flattened his brow.

“It’s…” Fire trailed off immediately.

“If your brother was being held down by a Shadowbolt at the finish line and was about to be killed, would you have stopped because you are ‘out of breath?’”

“What?” Fire glared. “Of course I would have pushed to save him.”

“Surprise too?” Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Misty?” Silver switched eyebrows. Fire just hardened his glare. “That’s the one you won’t answer? I was expecting your brother.”

“YES! I would!” Fire answered forcefully.

“So why did you stop here?” Silver pressed without faltering.

“We’re just training right now, I was just—”

“Just nothing, shut the fuck up right now,” Silver leaned down and got in Fire’s face. “The effort you give in training is the effort you give when lives are on the line. I won’t accept anything less.”

Fire gritted his teeth as his glare faltered under the strength of Silver’s. He looked away in frustration.

“Look at me, son,” Silver said calmly while tapping his cane to Fire’s chest. Fire hesitated at first, but listened, turning his head back to look Silver in the eye. Silver did not look angry, he looked serious. Fire suddenly couldn’t look away. “You are the captain of a top tier Wonderbolt squad. I know I don’t need to teach you any lessons about effort or pushing your limits. You know all that already so I’m not going to waste your time… Just don’t forget that there are those who depend on you, those that I know you would never let down.”

Fires eyes snapped open for a brief moment as Silver took a step back. He blinked and looked down.

“I know you’re better than that, because I’ve always trusted you to have my back and I know everypony else can trust you to watch their back. You’ve always motivated others with that dependability… so be that example for them here too.”

Fire’s eyes remained down, but open. His jaw was slightly agape as he listened. Silver slowly made his way by him, walking a half circle around him.

“Show them even in training that you’d never stop halfway. Even if you started too fast and are out of breath, that you’d squeeze out that last bit of effort. If they see you do that, they will always believe you’ll be right there to help them.”

“You hearing me, son?”

Fire remained silent for another moment before slowly looking up towards the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“…yes sir,” Fire said with a nod. He slowly pushed himself up to all four hooves and continued on his way back to the rest.

Silver only watched Fire moving for a moment before he caught Dash staring at him. He smirked before following behind Fire and turning his back to all of them and sitting on the starting line.

Dash kept her eyes on him, trying to process everything she just saw. There was something about it that had her interest but she wasn’t quite sure what. Silver shooting her a look right after also made her wonder if… he was hoping she was watching.

But before she could come to any conclusion, she and the rest nearly leapt off the ground as Silver blew his whistle so hard it left their ears ringing.

“EVERYPONY UP ON THE LINE!” he yelled as he started hobbling back to his spot. “Last one before we hit the gym! Come on! Up! Up! Before High Winds falls asleep again!

“I’m too tired to sleep…” High Winds whined as they shuffled forward and lined up. Fleetfoot blinked.

“Wait, what…?”

Silver blew the whistle again before anything else could be said.

There was a slight delayed reaction, but within three seconds of hearing the whistle, all of them were back up in the air, beginning what was, thankfully, the last round.

Upon landing at the first mark, Dash immediately noticed that Fire was at the head of the pack again. It surprised her after his admission that he started too fast last time, but he was pushing ahead again. She refocused after nearly passing the next line, keeping her mind on her own aching body and wings as she continued the drill.

Like all the rest it felt like an eternity, but the whole time Dash couldn’t stop noticing Fire out of the corner of her eye. As the drill went on, Fire looked just like he had in the previous round, but this time he was pushing through it. Even when he started to fall behind a little, he still kept pushing.

Dash stole a glance at Silver as the round began to go on longer than all the previous ones. He had the whistle in his lips already, but he was keeping a close eye on Fire. Dash passed Fire, tapping to the start line to finish a full lap and begin her next. Fire touched down right after she did, and the moment Fire was back up on his next lap…

Silver blew the whistle.

Dash pushed on knowing she had to do one more lap, but every turn she noticed Fire was keeping up with her and the few other unfortunate souls caught at the start of one last lap. And… he remained with them, pushing himself all the way despite looking more tired than the rest. It was almost as if he had willingly put himself into the same position as before, but this time refused to falter.

Dash touched down upon finishing her lap and stumbled until she fell to her haunches. Blaze tumbled past her, with Fleetfoot and Spitfire skidding to a halt nearby. Fire touched down next and wobbled step by step until he fell onto his side, wheezing. His brother landed behind him and fell ungracefully face first with Surprise bouncing off his back and bouncing continuously with several squeaks until she ran into Blaze and caused a half-effort f-bomb.

Silver made his way over to them, lifting his arm once to catch Twister before he could collide with him and tossing him off to the side, landing on his head and spinning like a top. Silver smiled, his eyes fixed on Fire specifically as he walked among them for a moment.

“Alright, good job,” he said as he stopped and glanced around. He waited a few more seconds to let them catch their breath. “Okay, break time’s over. Everypony on your hooves! Up! Up!” he ordered, the Wonderbolt forcing themselves up with varying degrees of effort and success. “Enough humping the grass, come on! To the gym! Let’s go!”

Eventually they were all up and slowly moving along. Silver didn’t push them along, knowing he had just laid them all out with the suicide drills, but made sure they were on their way and at least moving faster than him. They had no excuse to move slower than an old stallion with a limp and a cane.

And they all did… except for Dash, who lagged behind and made her way over to him. Silver glanced at her, clearly noticing her curious gaze, but pretended not to notice.

“Nice try, I know you can walk faster than me. Get moving,” he ordered.

“Oh stuff it,” Dash rolled her eyes. “I was wondering—”

“Fire?” Silver cut her off.

“Yeah,” she nodded. Silver couldn’t hide a slight grin.

“Did you hear all of it?” he asked.

“Just about,” Dash nodded. “I was kind of expecting you to… well…”

“Crawl up his ass and out his mouth for not finishing the drill?”

Dash’s face contorted slightly.

“I GUESS that’s a way of putting it…” she said with a slight shudder.

“I didn’t need to,” Silver shook his head. “Spitting in his face wasn’t the solution to what he did. I wanted to get through to him.”

“You clearly did,” Dash tipped her head a little, looking at Silver carefully. “It was like he completely changed for the last round.”

“That’s because I touched on something personal for him.”

“Pardon?” Dash blinked.

Silver turned his eyes to her, looking her up and down, the look on his face was dead serious.

“Listen up, Rainbow Dash…” he began in earnest. “One of these days you’re going to be a real leader around here. It doesn’t matter what your rank ends up being… you’re going to be in a position where others will always want to follow.”

Dash kept moving, but she was stunned, not expecting it.

“And one thing that every leader needs…” Silver went on. “Is a deeper understanding of those who follow them. Just being their friend and being chummy isn’t enough, nor is ranking over them. You need to dive deep… and uncover everything you can so you understand them. You need to know what motivates them, what worries them, what they are afraid of, their strengths, their flaws, everything... because once you do… you can do more for them than anypony that they simply give a salute and nod to.”

Dash listened to every word carefully, taking her eyes off him and staring towards the rest of the Wonderbolts ahead of them.

“Fire Streak is a dependable stallion,” Silver continued as Dash’s eyes found and fixed on Fire among the group. “Probably the most dependable Wonderbolt on the force. His strongest attribute is his desire to never let anypony down,” Silver paused. “But that’s also his weakness. There’s nothing he’s more afraid of than not being there for somepony. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the heat of battle or in everyday life. The thought of possibly not being there for somepony in need is what gets him out of bed in the morning and keeps him up at night. You ever wonder why he holds the record for learning Misty’s sign language from scratch? He wanted her to know she could depend on him. Notice how often he’s rushing to the defense of others in combat? He wants them to know they have somepony watching their back.”

Silver shrugged as Dash turned her eyes back to him.

“All I did was remind him of who he is, who I know him to be, and who others know him to be. It lit a fire under his ass without me raising my voice once.”

Dash perked up and lifted an eyebrow.

“So you took advantage of something that scares him to get him to do better?” she asked. Silver snorted.

“Oh yes, please put it that crudely. I feel like marshmallows and rainbows on the inside right now,” Silver joked.

“Sorry, that’s kind of how it sounded,” Dash nudged him and chuckled.

“But you understand me?” Silver asked, looking her in the eyes.

“Yeah, I get you.” Dash nodded as she looked towards the group ahead of them again, specifically her squad. “I guess I haven’t given that angle much thought. I already know my own squad inside out…” she found Thunderlane and Storm Front among them. “And some others partially. I haven’t had much of a chance to get really personal with the other Wonderbolts.”

“Food for thought,” Silver said plainly while giving her a tap on the side with his cane.

Dash continued to stare at the Wonderbolts, a determined look slowly creeping onto her face. Silver noticed… and smiled.

But only for a moment.

“Now move it, Skittles!” he yelled, causing her to flinch hard. She turned to him just in time as he got right into her face. “I don’t need help crossing the fucking street! Catch up with the group! If your ass isn’t bench pressing by the time I get there, I’ll bend the bar around your neck and force you to squat walk all the way to the blacksmith to get it welded off!”

Dash swallowed and nodded.

“Yes s-WHOA!” she yelped as she tripped over her own hooves and fell face first.

Silver blinked in surprise and stopped as Dash rolled over and glared at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it… awareness…” Dash grumbled. Silver snorted and failed to hold back a chuckle.

“That wasn’t me.”

“Oh, yeah suuuuure it wasn’t,” Dash pouted as she slowly pushed herself up.

“She’s over here,” Silver waved his cane, showing it was opposite of her.

“Like that would’ve stopped you.”

Silver stared at her for another moment.

“Get to the gym or I’ll tell the entire force you spooned with Fleetfoot over vacation.”

“WHAT?!” Dash flinched hard. “That was HER not ME and she was blasted! How the hell did you—?!”

“GO OR I’LL START YELLING!” Silver belted.

“FFFFFGHR… YES SIR!” Dash yelled before turning and moving much faster than her body preferred at the moment, rushing forward to catch up with the rest of the group.

Silver watched her pick up the pace despite the drills they just finished. He smiled and chuckled.

“Heh… you’ll do alright, Dash.” He picked it up a little himself, hobbling after them. “You’ll do alright.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

(Art error: Yes, Fire Streak should be crystalized, thats on me. I completely forgot to note that to Fox when she worked on this. Lets just say hes so tired that it switched off for a moment, lmaoIdunno)

Silver always knows. Silver ALWAYS knows. :pinkiecrazy:

Looks like Dash has a new assignment from Silver, a better understanding of her fellow Wonderbolts. After seeing how Silver handled Fire pulling up mid drill, she got a nice look at how things go far beyond his yelling and shouting funny things at them. Even when he can't fly by her side anymore, he still has a thing or two to teach her. :rainbowdetermined2:

As for Soarin... looks like some things are falling into place, albeit slowly, but more importantly... Kayn Ost, how long has it been since the elusive name has been uttered? We finally have some color on them... or rather, that there has indeed been some investigation going on behind the scenes, but to what success? Discord seems to be quite disturbed by the situation, and its hard to tie down and question a being that can snap his fingers and vanish at will. Is Celestia right about her read of Discord's behavior? or is there something else entirely? I guess we'll find out going forward :twistnerd:

Sorry for the much longer year end hiatus. I got to comfortable in my break and became a pile of (buff) pony mush that struggled to cook up the usual motivation as i got back into it. Hoping to get back into swing.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 186: Baby Steps

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 186: Baby Steps

“Ready?” Dash asked as she placed a hoof on Soarin’s arm. Soarin stared down and swallowed, nodding nervously.

“Yeah,” he said with some hesitation.

“Okay, slowly now…” Dash gave his arm a light squeeze.

Soarin shuddered and grunted as he slowly lifted his other hoof and took a single step forward.

Fan art by: Lazzari

The moment his hoof touched down, his body jittered and a few sputtering sparks emitted from around his body.

“Ow…” Soarin winced, exhaling and lightly sweating.

“Did it hurt?” Dash gritted her teeth, looking up into Soarin’s uncomfortable expression.

“A little bit…” he admitted while glancing down at her. “Got a sharp dizzy spell the moment my hoof touched down but… didn’t last,” he explained as he took a deep breath.

“Keep going?” Dash asked as she leaned in to press her shoulder into his arm.

“Yeah… I can keep going…”

Discord and Luna were standing off to the side near the pillars by the chamber entrance. This was the second time they had allowed Soarin to attempt some movement in his new form and while he was faring better than the first time, he still struggled to get anywhere and couldn’t do so without Dash perpetually in contact with him. Soarin was determined, but watching a grown stallion have to relearn how to walk wasn’t very heartening.

“This is hard to watch…” Luna said quietly towards Discord.

“Hrmph…” Discord grunted. Luna glanced at him quickly, he looked angry at something, but she ignored it.

“To see a being of such power struggle with something so little, don’t you agree?” she went on.

“Hrmph…” Discord grunted again. Luna scrunched her mouth slightly, but didn’t look at him.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to just—?”

“YES, Lulu,” Discord cut her off sharply. “And don’t make me say it again!”

Luna flinched in surprise, taken aback. She stared at him, perplexed.

“What?” Discord snarled at her when he caught her eyes.

“N…nothing…” Luna furrowed her brow and looked back towards Soarin and Dash.

“Try another?” Dash asked. Soarin quickly nodded.

“Yeah, just let me…” Soarin trailed off as he took a third step, but this time was more careful about the movement and how hard he put his hoof down. As it touched, he winced, but didn’t grunt. “Okay… there…” he said with a loud breath. “That wasn’t as bad as the first two.”

“You got this,” Dash smiled and rubbed her hoof up and down his arm. “Just keep going slowly.”

“Heh…” Soarin suddenly chuckled. “Who would’ve thought I’d find myself learning to walk again? After this, I’m NEVER going to take my legs for granted…”

“Hey…” Dash stepped forward a little without letting go of his arm. She reached a hoof up and made a grabbing motion with it. Soarin lowered his head down, assuming that’s what she wanted as she placed her free hoof on his cheek. “You’re a friggin’ lead squad Wonderbolt. I think you’ll get this down quicker than you think,” she gave his cheek a little playful nudge. “Come on, again.”

Luna glanced at Discord again as Soarin continued his slow steps. Her eyes scanned his face all over as it remained stuck in a put off position.

She quickly looked away as Discord’s eyes darted to her, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Out with it,” he said bluntly. Luna rolled her eyes and sighed.

“You’ve been in a mood,” she said as she looked at him with a frustrated expression. Discord’s eyes went wide for a brief moment, but he quickly reverted and snorted loudly.

“You can blame—”

“Sombra,” Luna cut him off. Discord twitched and he turned to her, lifting an eyebrow.

“Well?” Luna tipped her head, furrowing her brow more. “Are we wrong?”

“As a matter of fact, you are,” Discord snorted. “You can blame your sister for it.”

Luna’s eyes grew and blinked several times.

“What? Our… sister?” she asked as if she had misheard him.

“Yes, your sister,” Discord repeated with a loud grunt. “She needs to get OFF my case.”

Luna had no idea what to say. She just stared at him curiously. Discord puttered his lips and shook his head before turning his back to her.

“Me and my big mouth… Now you’re going to nag me too.”

“…about?” Luna asked reflexively.

“See?” Discord threw one of his arms up and sighed. “You know what? No. I have things to do, keep an eye on them, will you?”

“What?” Luna flinched. “But you said not to let them do anything without—”

Discord snapped his fingers and vanished into thin air.

“…you.” Luna finished as she slowly looked over to Dash and Soarin. Both of them were staring at her as Luna’s face went blank.

“Oh, can you smell that?” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from Soarin, causing him to wince as his eyes flashed blue. “The air in this room is suddenly much fresher.”

“Hey!” Soarin reached up and pressed a hoof to the side of his head. “WHAT DID I SAY about talking right now?!”

“Sombra, you’re disrupting his focus…” Celestia’s voice came through very quietly.

“T’was worth it,” Sombra concluded in a much softer tone.

“Uuuuuh…” Dash pointed to where Discord was previously standing. “Didn’t he say something about us not doing anything unless he was around?”

“He did…” Luna said plainly with a nod.

“Whatever, we don’t need him,” Soarin spoke up. “I feel fine.”

Soarin took another step, surprising Dash as she quickly moved with him to stay close.

“Ooo…” Soarin winced a little, then shook his head out. “This is getting easier with every step, and Dash is keeping it all stable.”

“Just… please…” Luna gritted her teeth. “We implore you, be very careful. We cannot contain any outbursts without Discord’s assistance.”

“Relax,” Soarin scoffed. “I’m tired of relying on Discord for everything,” he said as he took two more steps, rather quickly. “I can’t get anywhere with him always forcing me to go slowly. I didn’t get anywhere in my life going easy on myself, so why should I believe that’ll work now?” He took three more steps, Dash kept up with a trot as Soarin’s large stride outpaced her.

“Soarin, not so fast!” Dash urged him, but Soarin shrugged.

“It’s nothing, I’m getting used to this alreaaaaaaoooooohhh…” he came to an abrupt halt as he got really dizzy all of a sudden.

“Whoa, whoa, HEY!” Dash grabbed his arm with booth hooves and Luna froze like a statue. “Soarin!” she growled and furrowed her brow.

“Crap… hold on…” Soarin teetered and wobbled as he slowly lowered himself down to the ground. “Dammit…” he cursed as he lay on his stomach. “So much for how long it took me to stand up…”

“No one to blame but yourself there, bucko…” Dash scolded him as she made her way in front of him, running her hoof along his shoulder to his neck as she did. Soarin’s aura shuddered a little, but remained calm, no sparks flying from it.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…” Soarin assured her while taking a few steady breaths. “I just… gah… gotta stay down for a moment.”

Luna turned away and quietly released a large breath she had been holding onto for several seconds, placing a hoof over her chest as her heart beat quickly. She wasn’t confident at all that she’d be able to handle anything going wrong without Discord and Soarin nearly just gave her a heart attack.

“Princess Luna.”

“EGADS!” Luna nearly jumped to the ceiling as a crystal guard was suddenly standing before her.

“Er… Princess?” the guard blinked as Luna slammed her mouth shut and blushed in embarrassment.

“We are… ahem… yes, what is it?” She frantically tried to level herself out and remain dignified.

“Princess Twilight has requested your presence,” the guard reported with a polite bow.

Luna blinked, quickly looking around as if to remind herself that she was the only god there… not including Soarin, of course. And Discord was…

“Ahem…” she cleared her throat and shook her head. “Apologies, but we must decline. We cannot leave Soarin unattended at this—”

“Go on, Luna,” Celestia’s voice came from Soarin. Soarin winced reflexively, but Celestia was keeping her voice down enough for it not to bother him. “If he remains at rest until you return, Rainbow Dash is all that’s needed to keep the power at rest. Please go see what my student needs.”

Luna did not look thrilled at the idea, but she swallowed and nodded.

“Very well…” she said reluctantly. “But if Discord yells at us, it was your idea. We shall return.” She turned back to the guard. “Please lead the way,” she instructed before following the guard out.

Soarin waited for the door to close behind Luna before glancing up at his horn.

“I’m honestly surprised you’re okay with this,” he spoke. There was no reply. “Celestia, I’m talking to you.”

“Oh, apologies,” Celestia’s voice came quietly from him. Soarin’s eyes twitched slightly, but she was keeping her voice down. “I’m trying my best to not speak so you can focus.”

“I know and I appreciate that, unlike…” Soarin stopped himself. A quiet low hum came from Sombra. “Yes, I know, I stopped because I knew you’d say something.”

“Honestly,” Celestia continued. “I’d prefer having at least one of them present, but… I know you must be exhausted with this whole process by now. I firmly believe being at rest harbors no danger by now so… enjoy a little break. Once Discord left, I knew it wouldn’t be hard to convince my sister it was fine. Twilight has good timing, no?”

“Huh… you read my mind,” Soarin chuckled.

“About time,” Dash huffed as she laid down in front of him and nestled her side into his large chest. “It would be nice to have some more time without those two staring at us constantly.”

“You can say that again…” Soarin slowly moved an arm around Dash and pressed her lightly into him as he lowered his neck down to drape it over her back.

There was a barely audible breath taken by Sombra that was quickly snuffed out as if somepony was covering his mouth, followed by quiet muffled grumbling. Neither Soarin nor Dash noticed.

“Hmmm… you make a good pillow…” Soarin said lazily as he let the full weight of his head press down over her back.

“Oof!” Dash grunted and rolled onto her side. “H… heavy…” she chuckled as she reached an arm up and pushed up on his chin. “Careful ya giant… I’m literally pillow sized to you now.”

“Hey, you’re strong, don’t act like you can’t lift my head off you whenever you want,” Soarin joked as he purposely nuzzled into her back, making her giggle.

“Ahaha, hey! That tickles!” she shook lightly as his ear and mane brushed into her stomach. “WHOA!” she flinched and arched her neck back as the tip of Soarin’s horn nearly poked into her cheek. “Just watch that thing on your head…”

“Oh, sorry,” Soarin stopped and pulled back a little. “Still not used to having this.”

“I mean… you had the fake one before,” Dash pointed out as she pushed herself further into his chest to shift the weight of his head into a more comfortable spot.

“It’s bigger and longer now,” Soarin explained, making Dash snicker.

“And I’m glad nopony walked in right before you said that,” she joked as Soarin snorted and couldn’t hold back a smirk.

“Speaking of lifting…” Soarin shifted. “How has the super-duper secret training with Silver been going?” he asked in a humorous tone.

“Pff…” Dash rolled her eyes. “You joke but, Spitfire sure likes to treat it that way,” she shrugged. “We haven’t gotten very far into it yet, but… with Silver in charge you can probably guess how it’s been.”

“Hard-nosed, no nonsense, no rest, and getting yelled at a lot?” Soarin immediately guessed.

“Pretty much,” Dash chuckled. “But, for real, it’s been something. Super intense and… working our asses off three times a day with the recovery sessions mixed in? It’s weird, like I feel exhausted now and then, but more up here…” she tapped a hoof to her head. “The hardest part so far has been keeping mentally tough… physically?” She rotated her shoulders a bit. “The crystal dew baths really do speed up recovery, we couldn’t train like this otherwise. The results Spitfire, Wave, and Fleetfoot showed off don’t lie though… I’m pretty psyched to see myself at the end of this too.”

“So am I,” Soarin said with a very specific tone that Dash picked up on quickly.

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” she snickered while flipping a hoof past his cheek. “Hell, I don’t even know what to expect… even without the dew baths I’ve been more ‘charged up’ thanks to… you know…” she pointed back and forth between them. “All that god energy with that part of me still in you thingy. That mixed with this training?”

“Something tells me Spitfire considered that already,” Soarin chimed in.

“She did, actually…” Dash confirmed.

“Figured,” Soarin nodded. “She’s not one to pass up opportunities.”

“Almost scary to think about, maybe I’ll be even more badass than you by the end of it,” Dash nudged him. “Watch out, I’m gonna break your lifting records!”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now,” Soarin shot right back jokingly as the two shared a good chuckle. But then Soarin sighed, quite heavily. Dash perked up, but she didn’t have to ask. “I envy you Dash… and the rest.”

“Huh?”

“I’d have killed to get another chance to train under Silver… except I’m stuck here dealing with this while the rest of you have all the fun.”

“The rest of… oh,” Dash blinked, she heard what he said, but something else came to mind.

“What’s up?” Soarin asked as he glanced down at her.

“Oh, sorry… I heard you, but… made me think of something Silver put me up to,” she explained.

“Oh?” Soarin blinked curiously.

“He… well he didn’t flat out say it, but he suggested that I try to learn more about all the Wonderbolts,” she explained. “Laced with his usual way of prodding me just the right way to make me motivated to do something, you know how he is.”

“Saying something without saying something and motivating you without being direct? Nah, totally isn’t Silver,” Soarin chuckled, Dash sharing the laugh.

“Really though… he suggested that I’d be a leader someday, regardless of my rank. I kind of get that with how I’m leading my own squad already, but…”

“You DO remember that he chose YOU to train personally, right?” Soarin bopped his nose gently against the top of her head. “You know as well as I do that Silver doesn’t spout bullshit.”

They both went silent for a moment.

“About things like this at least,” Soarin added as Dash giggled and pressed her back into him.

“I’m glad you said it before I had to,” she snickered as she slumped down a bit, feeling very comfortable against him. “Anyway… Fire Streak bailed in the middle of one drill. He didn’t pace himself, so I get it, but… Silver didn’t tear into him, he spoke to him personally and the next run, Fire pushed through even though he didn’t pace himself again. I heard the whole thing and Silver used Fire’s own motivations to… well… motivate him. After that, Silver encouraged me to dig a little deeper and get to know the top tiers better. Learn what motivates them all, what scares them, what their goals are… stuff like that.”

“Sounds like he’s trying to make you into the next him,” Soarin suggested.

“Pff, yeah right. I could never…” she slowly trailed off as she actually thought about it.

“You know I’m right,” Soarin chuckled, giving her a light squeeze.

“Oh stop…” Dash sounded slightly flustered. “That’s…”

“The great, tough talking Rainbow Dash, defeated by the mere mention of someday replacing the most badass Wonderbolt of them all,” Soarin joked, then started jittering his hooves against her body. “And by tickling too.”

“Ah! Hahaha! STOP!” Dash grabbed his arm and pouted at him. “You’re the worst!”

“I’m the worst, but I’m right,” he winked.

“Hrmmm…” Dash hummed as she lifted his big arm and rested her chin on it. “I guess I also just don’t like thinking of the Wonderbolts without him.”

Soarin blinked as she spoke, noticing the shift in tone. That made more sense than anything else. He quickly changed the subject.

“So…” he gave her another gentle squeeze. “How long ago was that?”

“A few days ago,” Dash answered, tipping her head into his arm.

“Have you…?”

Dash nodded as Soarin trailed off.

“Already have. Three of them and it was interesting… I got my first chance a few days ago and I can’t believe who I ended up starting with…”

“And time!” Silver’s voice boomed, followed by the clanging and clattering of weights hitting racks and bouncing off the rubber floor of the gym. Several gasps and heavy breaths filled the room as the Wonderbolts rolled over, stepped back, or sat up from the gym equipment. “Good work! Now get up! STAND UP!” Silver yelled as he walked among the disheveled Wonderbolts. Some were up and leaning on the wall or equipment, but a few were sitting or flat on the ground. “OFF THE GROUND!” he yelled at High Winds.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” High Winds weakly replied as she slowly rolled over and pushed herself up. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…” she continued as she moved over to lean against the wall.

“HEY!” Silver yelled towards Squall sitting on a bench. “This ain’t a bus stop! On your hooves!”

Squall offered no retort as he tipped forward and nearly fell flat as he tried to get on his hooves, Dash reached out and caught him.

“Do I still have a body? I can’t feel it…” he said with a loud grunt as Dash helped him stay up.

“I’ll let you know after I find mine…” Dash agreed as both of them stumbled over to Matteo and leaned against him.

“Ow…” Matteo twitched as the two propped against him, but complained no more as the three watched Silver yell at everypony who wasn’t up and moving about.

“I guarantee you all that it’ll hurt much less later if you get off your asses and move around! First off, to keep that blood flowing! Get a jumpstart on recovery! Second and more importantly, I WON’T reposition your cutie marks to between your ass cheeks if you do! Consider your options carefully! Unless your name is Lightning Streak! His mark already disappeared into his ass long ago!”

“Huh? When did that happen?” Lightning Streak groggily looked back at his flank.

“Holy shit, he actually checked,” Silver said in a more casual tone as several chuckles and snickers came from the group. “Spitfire, Wave Chill, Fleetfoot, help me out here.”

Silver made a head motion to the three of them as they made their way over. Having already tackled the weightlifting portion of the new training during the trial run, they often fared better than the rest at the end of the long intense gym sessions. They followed Silver over to a large refrigerator that had clearly been wheeled in and plugged into the wall as it stood out from everything else along with the fold-up table standing beside it.

Silver opened the fridge… and a bright light shone from inside, the sound of angels singing filled the room as mist ejected from the inside. Silver’s three helpers stopped in their tracks and everypony else looked over as the heavenly music played.

Ten seconds later, Silver pressed the pause button on a tape player and smacked the fridge with his cane. The music stopped and the bright light flickered and turned off at the same time.

“Shake time! Get ‘em while they’re unappetizing!” Silver yelled out as a few groans came from the Wonderbolts.

“What the hell was all that?” Spitfire asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Dramatic effect,” Silver said casually. Spitfire just kept looking at him funny. “I was bored.” He added.

“Why is the mist still gushing out of it?” Fleetfoot asked while hesitantly inching towards the fridge as if it might be rigged with something else.

Silver scrunched his face up as he glared at the fridge. He turned and reached an arm into it… way farther than he should have been able to.

“C’mere you son of a…” he yanked his arm out and pulled Twister out of the fridge. Mist was billowing out of his ears. “Did you eat my fog machine, Numbnuts?!” Silver yelled. Twister only opened his mouth and a cloud of mist crashed into Silver’s face. “Hey Fatbody! Catch!” Silver yelled as he swung around and chucked Twister towards Dash’s squad, specifically Matteo.

As he screamed over the Wonderbolts with a trail of mist behind him, Twister suddenly changed course to hit Thunderlane and knock him over before bouncing back towards Matteo and disappearing into Matteo’s fur.

“How did I know that was going to happen…?” Thunderlane sighed as he slowly sat up and mist began to rise from all over Matteo’s body.

“I don’t even try to stop him anymore,” Matteo said with a huff as mist began seeping out of his fur and into the air.

“Everypony grab your shakes and get to your tubs!” Silver yelled. As Wave, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot began passing out the shaker bottles conveniently labeled with each of their names. Dash tightened her lips around her teeth as Fleetfoot approached and held hers out to her.

“Trust me, I agree…” Fleetfoot nodded and stuck her tongue out.

“Tastes like tree bark and packing peanuts…” Dash groaned as she popped open the lid and stared at the brownish grey… chunky looking liquid.

“Apparently it’s chocolate flavor,” Fleetfoot shrugged.

“Blaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Little Star tipped her head back. “This could not be FURTHER FROM CHOCOLATE!” she yelled before she started chugging while glaring at the ceiling.

“Well… if it’s for the recovery…” Dash sighed, knowing what was in it and what it was for. They were going to need every bit of carbs, calories, and protein for their bodies to keep up with all the punishment, and for the crystal dew to have the maximum recovery effect.

With everypony slamming down the tastiest shakes in Equestria, Silver funneled them out of the gym and towards the back hallways where they had all the tubs set up in several rooms near their designated meeting room. In reality they had just turned all the yoga and group exercise rooms into their own personal setup.

“Hmrph!” Dash grunted as a huge chunk in her shake slammed into the back of her throat. She stopped in her tracks and grunted as she rapped a hoof against her chest. “Blargh… god that was gross…” she sputtered as she blinked and noticed she had fallen behind the rest as they all started turning into the rooms with the tubs.

She picked up the pace to follow, only to find the room with her squad had all the tubs taken. She moved over to the next room… and the next… and all the tubs were being climbed into already. They were using metal chest high tubs that were smaller than the Crystal Palace infirmary tubs, so there was no sharing… and Star was already stuck with Twister.

“Crap…” Dash huffed. There were only two tubs left. When they were setting up the place, they ended up having to keep two tubs separate due to only so many fitting in each room. So every time they went for the recovery tubs… two of them ended up being separated from the other three groups. It was no big deal, but Dash had made a mental note to avoid being caught in that situation… yet here she was.

She glanced at the door a few paces away. She could hear the sound of sloshing as whoever else got separated climbed into their tub inside.

“Please don’t be Storm…” Dash whispered to herself. “Please don’t be Storm… Please don’t be Storm… Please don’t be Storm… Please don’t be Storm… Please don’t be Storm… Please don’t be—”

She turned into the room.

“Whoahooooo, whatup babe?”

Dash stared blankly into the room… at Lightning Streak reclined in the tub beside the last empty one.

“Yo, wanna share? These things got plenty’o space if you can fit next to my hardware,” he bounced his eyebrows.

“Actually this is worse,” Dash said to herself as she sighed, rolled her eyes, and made her way towards her own tub.

“Is that a no?” Lightning chuckled.

“You tell me, buddy,” Dash shot him a flat look as she lowered herself into the dew and immediately felt the tingling effects against her fur.

“Well you never actually said no,” Lightning winked at her and leaned back with a smarmy look on his face.

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF…”

They both looked over to the door to see Silver standing right outside the doorway.

“HA! Best of luck, soldier!” Silver banged his cane against the door frame before moving on.

Lightning leaned forward and rested an arm on the front of his tub.

“Think he was talking to me or you?” he kept up his tone. Dash just gave him an unamused look.

“Knowing how often he jams your own hoof in your mouth, I think we know the answer to that.”

“Hey, you never know,” Lightning turned to the side and lazily waved a hoof in the air. “Silver and I are more in tune with each other than you’d think. It’s a stallion thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Look me in the eye and see how much I think you’re full of shit,” Dash casually shot right back.

“Ha… man… you’re just as harsh as he is,” Lightning chuckled.

“And I find it hilarious that you still flirt with me,” Dash pointed at him. “You’d think by now—”

“Yo, captain obvious, no shit,” Lightning laughed and leaned back into his tub. “Soarin’s your man, I ain’t blind and you two rub yourselves on each other every chance you get,” he winked. “Gotta keep playin’ the game though. Being a stud ain’t something I can turn off,” he said while brushing a hoof through the fur on his chest.

“OH I’m SURE…” Dash groaned, rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hold back a snort or two.

“Babe, I heard that,” Lightning snickered. “You get me.”

“No I really don’t,” Dash shrugged. “But fine, you got me with that one.”

“Heh…” Lightning nodded before sighing and leaning back to soak up to his neck.

Dash did the same, but as she sank in, something hit her… something the two just said in exchange.

‘You get me.’

‘No I really don’t.’

Dash blinked… and slowly reached a hoof up to press it to her temples.

She couldn’t believe she was about to start the whole thing with LIGHTNING of all ponies.

“Hey, Lightning,” Dash leaned forward, trying her hardest to dread any impending regret.. “Let’s change that.”

“Er, change what?” Lightning blinked, stopping himself from sinking all the way into his tub.

“Get any ideas out of your head before I say any of this,” Dash pointed. “But you’re one of the first Wonderbolts I got to spend actual time with outside of the lead squad. So…”

“Whoops,” Lightning smirked. “Sorry, already getting ideas.”

“STOP,” Dash growled as Lightning chuckled.

“I kid, babe, go on,” he chuckled as he waved a hoof at her.

“Why do you do what you do? What keeps up that act for you?” she asked.

“This is a little out of nowhere,” Lightning lifted an eyebrow.

“Just answer the question,” Dash snorted while flattening her brow.

“Dunno what to tell ya,” Lightning shrugged. “I just like to have fun. I don’t have to worry about putting on airs or keeping up appearances with the Bolts and I love it.”

Dash blinked, her ears perking up.

“I’ve just gotten used to being able to swing my ass around for shits and giggles. Everypony knows me here and nopony has to figure me out. Shit, it would suck if that wasn’t the case. That’s something I love about being a part of the force, we all get each other. I can be a jackass without them hating me and it makes life more fun. You gotta really understand your friends, you know? You gotta know they can let you be who you are. Good thing too, cause someone’s gotta balance out how hard my bro keeps his asscheeks clenched at all times, heh.”

Dash listened carefully as he kept going, taking mental notes. ‘Understanding one another’ stood out to her… because she recalled more than once in the past, Lightning getting along with Surprise well because he ‘got her’ more than some of the others.

“If you can’t be yourself around your best buds, it’s no better than being alone, ya know?” Lightning added, leaning back in his tub and exhaling loudly. “Damn, that’s a thought that scares me. Being alone.”

Dash’s ears perked up again.

“I just couldn’t be me if I was alone. Being me is all I’ve done over these years as a Bolt. Hell, I’d get arrested for acting the way I do anywhere else, heh…” Lightning chuckled weakly, but cringed, the thought visibly bothering him. “Ugh… shit, I can’t even think about it. Let’s not talk about that.”

“I see…” Dash tipped her head. Being alone scared Lightning? Though it seemed his definition of alone was broader than the word itself. He felt as if lacking his friends’ understanding was no better than being alone… because he couldn’t be himself. And if he couldn’t be himself, then what would he be? Dash pretty much knew him as the ‘tactless flirt’ to a humorous degree. If that was stripped away from him, he’d basically be an entirely different pony. Not even Silver would be able to poke fun at him the way he does ruthlessly. She never considered just how wrong it would feel if he suddenly was just, normal. And the thought scared him too.

Dash had to admit… his answer made her see him a little differently. That had to be exactly what Silver was talking about.

“So enough about me, how about you?” Lightning suddenly leaned forward. “I opened my heart to you, babe. Are we lovers now?”

“Oh god,” Dash shuddered. “You were doing so well and then you blew it!”

“Ha!” Lightning leaned back, a little too hard. “Whoa!” he fell all the way into his tub with a loud SPLOOSH. He came up with his mane slicked down all over his face. “Is this the part where you kiss me while I can’t see you?”

“If you want to kiss my hoof coming at your face at high velocity, sure,” Dash said with a flat look.

“Heh, brutal…”

Later that day at our next gym session, I got another answer unexpectedly… and I swear I’m not doing this in any particular order to get certain ones out of the way.

“HRMPH!” Dash grunted as she pushed forward, the handles of the chest press machine grinding into her hooves. She held it for a second before pumping out another rep, then another, then another.

“THREE!” Silver yelled out. “TWO… ONE!” he finished his countdown, several clangs sounding out in the gym as everypony dropped their final rep. “NEXT STATION! MOVE IT!”

Dash bounced off the seat, shifting over to a similar machine that was more upright for shoulders. But she came to a halt as Air Mach remained on it, pushing out more.

“HA! HA! HA! WAHAHA!” he grunted and laughed.

“Hey, come on, move it!” Dash growled at him.

“I ain’t done here!” Air Mach stated proudly.

“HEY!” Silver’s voice boomed towards them. “Don’t make me say it again, Slapdick! Move to the next fucking station!”

“HA! NOT TILL I’VE CONQUERED THE ENEMY THAT IS MY BURNING DELTS!” Air Mach yelled out.

“Whoa!” Dash stepped back as Silver nudged past her, grabbed Air Mach and pulled him off the machine.

“Fuck’s sake, the shit I deal with, get your dumbass to the next station I swear to Celestia I’m gonna beat the fuck oughtta you before the day is over…” Silver grumbled in a barely coherent collection of words. Air Mach was still grinning as Silver threw him on the ground, wound up, and swung his cane right into Air Mach’s plot. “Now GIT!”

“WOOOO HOOO I LOVE ME EXTRA PAIN!” Air Mach yelled out as he bounced to the next station.

Silver rolled his eye and shook his head as Dash chuckled and sat on the machine. Air Mach seemed to be the only one with enough energy to ham it up while everypony else focused. Twister was one thing, but Air Mach was very much capable of focusing on the work and Silver was working overtime to get him to do so.

“THREE!” Silver called out. Dash quickly placed her hooves on the handles. She winced as the slight present stiffness from the rest of the work out made the motion harder than usual. “TWO! ONE! GO!” Silver yelled out.

“HUP!” Dash grunted as she pushed up on the handles, but they only lifted an inch before slamming back down. “ACK!” she gasped, before glancing at the weight stack. It was set way higher than she could lift. “Son of a…” she snorted as she quickly moved the pin up several stacks. Somehow she doubted Air Mach was getting quality reps with the weight set that high. She glanced up to see Silver staring at her and quickly got back to it, pushing the weight up and down.

“Steady pace!” Silver yelled out as he moved past her. “Push! Push! No half-assing it and no slacking!” He chanted as he hobbled around the gym, passing by each Wonderbolt as they pushed through their reps at their stations. It was all upper body work tonight, with several stations set up with three push movements followed by three pull movements around the whole set up. “I want you all to visualize!” Silver went on as he moved. “The weight you are pushing right now is the only opponent you have! If you don’t give it your all, your opponent will defeat you!” He made it all the way around, turned and started walking back among the grunts and gasps of the Wonderbolts and the creaks and clanks of the machines and weights. “I don’t know about you, but I never got under a weight thinking to myself ‘oh man, this shit’s gonna crush me…’ hell no!” Silver rapped his cane against the bench Wave Chill was one, pushing some seriously heavy dumbbells at an incline. He got down into Wave’s face. “I got under every weight thinking I was a GODDAMN GORILLA and I could do ANYTHING I put my mind to!” He disengaged from Wave and made his way past High Winds as she hit a soft wall in the middle of her cable rows and started slowing down in her reps. “Don’t give out on me High Winds!” Silver leaned down and rapped his cane against the pole of the machine, very close to where Fire Streak was doing pulldowns, causing him to flinch and lean slightly. “I guarantee that if I was still young and full of pent-up sexual energy like Fire Streak, you wouldn’t be half-assing it in the presence of my big-dick TESTOSTERONE pulling this weight faster than you!”

“The hell does that even—?”

“TALK IS CHEAP! LIFT THE DAMN WEIGHT!” Silver cut her off as a few snorts and chuckles came from around the room. He turned and kept moving, making his way back towards Dash. “Work hard! Push hard! Don’t just lift the weight, DEFEAT the weight and…” Silver trailed off for a second. “Luna’s ass cheeks alive, I’m starting to sound like Air Mach. Be right back, I have to go kill myself!”

Several clangs rang out as more than half the bolts burst out laughing.

“HEY! YOU’VE GOT TWENTY MORE SECONDS! HAHA I MADE A FUNNY! NOW PUSH! PUSH!” he yelled as everypony instantly got back to it. Silver approached Dash, moving by her as he checked his stopwatch. “THREE! TWO! ONE! TIME! MOVE STATION!”

Dash exhaled and brought her last rep all the way down, clangs and clatters ringing out as she hopped off the machine and rotated her shoulders to stay loose as she made her way over to the dumbbell rows, but…

“AHHA! AHHA! AHAAAAAA! YEAH!” Air Mach shouted out as he kept going, swinging the weight up and down with his left arm.

“Seriously…?” Dash furrowed her brow.

“WHAT. THE. FUCK. DID I JUST SAY TO YOU, ASSCLOWN?!” Silver pushed past Dash again, and slammed his cane down on the pad of the bench right in front of Air Mach’s face, but Air Mach didn’t budge, he just sneered and stared at Silver over the rims of his pointy glasses.

“Sorry! Can’t hear ya! Too busy beating the shit out of my opponent!” Air Mach shouted right back.

Without a second of hesitation, Silver thrust his cane down, pressing it over the dumbbell in Air Mach’s hoof and preventing him from doing another rep.

“MOVE. STATION.” He growled, but Air Mach kept his grip on the dumbbell, his smile growing wider.

“Oh, what’s this? The great Animak’s opponent has an ally?!” he tightened his grip on the dumbbell. “Stack the odds on me all you want! I WON’T LOSE!”

At this point, everypony else had stopped moving and was watching the staredown as Air Mach struggled to pull the weight against Silver’s strength. It didn’t matter that Silver was half the functioning hardass he used to be, he was still THE hardass.

“Don’t make me say it again, Chucklenuts,” Silver threatened.

“Air Mach, quit grandstanding!” Spitfire yelled from across the gym.

“YOU KEEP YOUR TRAP CLOSED OVER THERE!” Silver shouted, causing Spitfire to flinch hard and freeze as several others held completely still. “I’ll count to three, and if you don’t drop the weight I’ll drop you,” Silver snarled.

“You challenging me?” Air Mach’s sneer turned somewhat maniacal. “Joke’s on you, I’ve been WAITING for this day!”

Silver narrowed his eyes.

“Three.” Silver suddenly reached out, grabbing Air Mach by the neck with his good arm and swatted his wrist with his cane. Air Mach grunted, dropping the weight as Silver swung his cane under Air Mach and lifted him up from below, using leverage to swing him over his back towards the gym floor. Air Mach put out his hooves, his two back legs bracing as the rest of him hit the ground, he threw Silver’s cane off of him, and wound up a punch.

“AIR MACH!” Spitfire yelled out as she and several others took a few steps forward.

Silver had plenty of time to dodge… but he stayed put, taking Air Mach’s hoof directly to the face on purpose. The force shifted him back an inch, but he grabbed Air Mach’s arm, twisted it back, and put all of his weight into him, wrestling him to the ground and putting all of his weight down on top of him.

“GAH!” Air Mach gasped as his chin pressed to the floor and Silver pulled his arm back awkwardly. Everypony stopped as Silver subdued him, even Spitfire holding still, not sure what to do. Dash had not budged, knowing better than to get in Silver’s way.

“How do you feel now, PUNK?!” Silver yelled as he put continued pressure into Air Mach’s back. “Was it worth it? HUH?!”

“You bet… your ass it was! Hahaha!” Air Mach guffawed.

“Every day you convince me more and more that you have a death wish!” Silver piled on, pressing harder into his back.

“HRK! HAAAAHAHA!” Air Mach just laughed harder. “Deathwish? Don’t underestimate me! I don’t fear death cause I ain’t ready to die! Animak has one fear! That someday no one will remember his name! So until I write my name in the anals of history… dying isn’t optional and I will fight EVERYPONY in my way… even you, sir.”

Silver’s expression went neutral, holding a slight glare as he stared down at Air Mach.

“First of all, it’s ‘ANNALS’ of history,” Silver said calmly. “For fucks sake, that’s the fourth time you’ve said that? Get that right or else some might get some ideas.”

“Guh!” Air Mach grunted as Silver let go of his arm and got off of him, placing his cane back down and pushing himself back up.

“Now up,” Silver ordered as Air Mach stood back up and stood confidently in front of Silver. “Use that dumbass energy of yours to hit the reps hard, but I swear on the heavy balls of Cerberus, STOP interrupting the station flow. You’re not the only one working out here so quit fooling around.”

“YES SIR!” Air Mach turned and made his way to the next station as if Silver hadn’t just beat the shit out of him.

“EVERYPONY BACK TO IT! GET READY!” Silver yelled out, catching a furrowed brow of Spitfire for a moment. “Something on my face, lady?!”

Spitfire flinched and swallowed.

“No sir!” she yelled and did as she was told.

But Dash was only half focused, she was staring at Air Mach as she made her way into position for her dumbbell rows, he was still hooting and hollering as he sat at the lat pulldown. Dash picked something out during all that… Air Mach, in his grandstanding, mentioned he fears being forgotten… maybe his reasons were a bit… outlandish, but it mattered to him.

“I saved you the trouble of talking to him yourself,” Silver’s voice suddenly came from behind her. Dash jumped in surprise as Silver gave her a hard pat on the shoulder. “You can thank me later,” he added as he moved by.

“Huh…?” Dash’s ears twitched and she blinked.

“THREE!” Silver yelled, glancing back at her and winking with a smirk. “TWO! ONE! LET’S GO!”

Last one was today, just a few hours ago. I wasn’t really expecting it.

“You were really killing it tonight, Spitty,” Fleetfoot giggled as Dash followed the ladies into the locker room. They spread out into the room, throwing down towels and sitting on the benches. “Give us a chance to keep up, will ya? Making us all look bad.” Fleetfoot went on, winking as Surprise and High Winds snickered nearby.

“How’s it any different than I’ve always worked out?” Spitfire asked, lifting an eyebrow as she tossed her towel into a hamper against the wall. “Okay… Maybe my max effort is a bit stronger now thanks to the training test run?”

Rainbow Dash exhaled and cracked her neck as she made her way past Spitfire, looking her body up and down as she tossed her own towel in the hamper.

“You tell us, Muscles,” Dash joked, giving her a nudge. “You can’t outlift three of the stallions and act like it’s nothing.”

“That’s not fair to them,” Spitfire pouted at Dash. “Fire, Lightning, and Air Mach weren’t a part of the test training. I was already close to their numbers before, they’ll probably get ahead of me again by the end of this.”

“Dunno, Cap,” High Winds wound up her wing and spanked Spitfire, causing her to yelp. “Knowing how your body operates, if you keep going this hard you’ll leave your stallion in the dust again too.”

“Oh stop… Wave’s really doing well now, I’m not going to make it a competition,” Spitfire huffed.

“For all you know he might be into that!” Fleetfoot bounced her eyebrows and sneered. “I should ask the mattress at my Canterlot house that still has the imprint of his body in it.”

Spitfire scrunched up her mouth and puffed up her cheeks, blushing as she glared at Fleetfoot, the rest howling with laughter around her. Dash was sharing a good guffaw with the rest of them, but as they did, something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.

Blaze had just entered the locker room. Apparently she was lagging behind, but she had definitely been in the room long enough to catch some of what was being said and… she had no reaction to it whatsoever.

Dash blinked in surprise, tilting her head. Blaze kept moving past them towards the sinks. She didn’t even glance at any of them. It was far from normal for Blaze to pass up any chance to pile on her sister and joke about with Fleet-themed sexual teasing.

“Look, I’m not making it a competition,” Spitfire huffed, shaking her head as the rest continued to chortle. “I’d never do that to him intentionally, especially with how proud he is with his post-recovery bounce back.” She paused and gave them all a flat look. “And I want all of you to look me in the eye and tell me Silver wouldn’t notice if I didn’t give it my all.”

They all looked among themselves and casually shrugged and nodded.

“She’s got a point there,” Surprise giggled. As Misty trotted behind her towards the showers, playfully balancing her shampoo bottle on her nose as she made her way by them. “Hey, Misty’s got the right idea, it’s time to lather up!” Surprise cheered as she bounced after her.

“I’m not even gonna ask how she’s doing that without her legs screaming at her…” Little Star shook her head as she gave Dash a nudge. “You coming?”

Dash looked at her curiously.

“To… the showers? Are you waiting for me?” she chuckled.

“Hey, you’re the one who knows… them,” Star gritted her teeth and glanced over as Spitfire made her way around the lockers and towards the showers.

“They aren’t going to cook you and eat you, Star…” Dash snickered, but then yelped as High Winds suddenly snapped her with a towel.

“C’mon, Rainbow Cheeks, time to get wet,” she joked, yawning as she followed the rest.

“Okay, I see what you mean,” Dash snorted as Star pouted at her. “Come on.”

Dash threw her towel over her shoulder and the two made their way to the showers, but Dash came to a sudden stop before they got there. In the bathroom section of the locker room, Blaze was standing with her hooves on the counter, staring into the mirror in silence.

“Oh… shoot…” Star spoke up, causing Dash to look back at her. “Guess we’re waiting,” she pointed to all the shower heads being taken… except for one.

“Do I hear hesitance?!” Fleetfoot suddenly poked her head around the corner. “Get in here shorty! Time for TEAM BUILDING!” she giggled while grabbing Star and yanking her into the showers. “You get to be the loofa!"

“AH! HELP! I DON’T WANNA BE A LOOFA!!!” she yelped as the rest of the mares burst out laughing, Dash admittedly included.

“Fleetfoot, leave her alone…” Spitfire sighed.

“I can’t help it, she’s so tiny and adorable!” Fleetfoot chuckled.

“Star, come here…” Spitfire moved aside to give her the shower between her and Misty. “Use this one, I’ll keep the instigator at bay.”

Dash was trying not to laugh. Star was getting the full Wonderbolt experience for sure now. But since there were no showers left open, she had to wait.

“Anyone seen Blazey, btw?” High Winds spoke up.

“I’m surprised it took you that long to ask!” Fleetfoot snickered. “Humping the shower pole ain’t as satisfying, is it?!”

“I’m out here!” Blaze suddenly yelled from the bathroom, her tone sounding very off compared to usual. Both High Winds and Spitfire visibly reacted, while both Fleetfoot and Surprise clearly didn’t. And obviously, Misty continued to happily shake about as she washed up without a care in the world.

“The hell are you doing out there?!” Fleetfoot yelled in a silly tone. “There’s plenty of room between Winds and I!”

“No, stop,” Spitfire quickly reached over and pushed a hoof down over her head.

“Ow! Wha…?” Fleetfoot looked at her quizzically.

“Yeah, it’s good, let her do her thing,” Winds added, yawning and coughing as water sprayed right into her mouth. “Gah… ew… shower water…”

“Huh…?” Fleetfoot blinked, glancing at Surprise. Surprise just shrugged. “Alright then…”

They all went about their business showering up, but Dash was still looking towards Blaze. She had never seen her like this before and it was very out of left field. Although… the thing that surprised her the most was probably that she didn’t drop an F-bomb when answering from the bathroom.

“Hmm…” Dash tipped her head and hummed as she wondered… and she had plenty of time to because Blaze didn’t move from the spot. She just kept staring in the mirror even after some of the others finished showering.

High Winds was the first to finish, making her way out and directly to Blaze while draping her towel over herself. Dash tried to keep an eye on them as she made her way in, but she heard nothing, only saw Winds talking to her and Blaze nodding periodically. But it wasn’t long until Dash had to focus on her surroundings thanks to Fleetfoot intentionally smacking her plot against hers and saying she ‘marked’ her.

Dash did her best to mind her own business while she finally got her turn to wash up, the others leaving one by one and Blaze eventually entering, same blank look on her face. Spitfire yanked a confused Fleetfoot out of the showers away from her, and once Misty was done and out, it was just her and Blaze left.

Blaze didn’t look at her, nor did she say anything. She just showered quietly.

Dash’s curiosity was killing her at this point, but with the clearcut reactions from High Winds and Spitfire compared to the others… it had to be something very personal. But what? Blaze was literally yelling and swearing just a couple of hours ago like she always does. What happened between then and now? The only thing that had happened between was their last lifting session of the night after the most intense and inexplicably violent game of tag she had ever played thanks to Silver’s additional ‘rules’. Blaze was acting like her normal self during tag… especially when Fleetfoot pinned her down and started licking her ear.

So… was it the lifting after? Dash was mostly zeroed in and focusing during it… all she could remember was that Blaze was paired up with Spitfire.

By the time the two of them finished showering, only a few of the other mares were still there. Blaze did not follow Dash out, staying in the shower area and wiping herself down with a towel far longer than needed. Dash moved by High Winds to her locker, noticing that High Winds was done and ready to leave, but staying put.

Dash kept minding her own business, drying herself off at her leisure and keeping tabs on what was going on around her. The moment Spitfire left, practically dragging Fleetfoot out with her, Blaze finally emerged. High Winds was up and moving towards her before Dash could blink. She looked away, but kept an ear turned.

Dash didn’t pick up much, but the few words she could make out were ‘okay?,’ ‘I’m fine,’ ‘is it…?’ ‘Yes, you know.’ ‘wait?’ ‘no… later’.

Dash ruffled up her mane in her towel, turning slightly and peeking out from it to see Winds giving Blaze a big hug. Blaze’s expression was hard to describe. She didn’t look sad, but she looked off. There was some emotion in it, but it was incredibly hard to read.

High Winds let go of her, and gave her a quick rub on the cheek with a hoof before turning and heading out. Dash was left curious and without answers… but then she suddenly realized she was stuck in an awkward situation. Blaze CLEARLY caught her looking right after High Winds left, the two of them were the last two in the locker room… and Blaze’s locker was right next to hers.

Dash felt put on the spot. If she hadn’t gotten caught staring she would have just kept quiet and gone about her business. But she had been seen… and now Blaze was drying off right next to her. She felt like there was no way to avoid it now.

“Hey, uh…” Dash suddenly spoke up before she could really figure out if it was a good idea. She mentally kicked herself as Blaze glanced at her.

“What?” Blaze asked, her tone slightly terse, but not entirely hostile.

“Um…” Dash rubbed the back of her head. “You okay?” Dash awkwardly asked. “Er, sorry…” she quickly turned away. “It’s none of my business.” She frantically tried to damage control as Blaze released a long, heavy sigh.

“It’s fine,” Blaze shrugged. “I’m just being… stupid.” She said as she dug through her locker.

Dash blinked in surprise… and proceeded to stare curiously at Blaze without really realizing she was doing so for several seconds. She opened her mouth several times, intending to speak, but kept shutting it before anything could come out.

“Okay, you can stop it,” Blaze looked at her flatly.

“I’m…” Dash quickly turned away. But she took a deep breath and exhaled, gathering herself. “It’s none of my business. Sorry about staring.” She awkwardly repeated.

“Don’t be, this is all me,” Blaze shook her head. “At least you noticed. Fleet can be a real unobservant bitch sometimes.”

Dash flinched, not sure what to say.

“But it’s not like I say anything to her about it so… fggrrrrgh…” Blaze dug her head into her towel. “And now you’re gonna wanna know about it. Why do I do this to myself?”

By now Dash was utterly shocked that Blaze had gone this long without swearing… a particular comment about Fleetfoot notwithstanding. But… Blaze was clearly not aiming any ire at her personally.

“Well… I’ll be honest with you,” Dash began as she tossed her shower towel into the hamper and shut her locker. “I’m curious and… also worried,” she paused as Blaze glanced slightly in her direction. “I mean… I could tell something was a little off as soon as you walked in. It’s not every day you aren’t… well… the loudest one in the room.”

“Heh… ain’t that the truth…” Blaze sat down on the bench down the center of the lockers. “Hell, that’s the funny part about it all, isn’t it? I gotta be loud or…” she trailed off.

“Or…?”

“Guess I’m talking now, aren’t I?” Blaze groaned, rubbing one hoof through her mane.

“Look, you don’t—”

“Can it, Dash,” Blaze cut her off. “I need to get this off my chest, you’re right here, and you had the absolute balls to try and go behind my sister’s orders and keep a secret plan that would’ve probably gone smoothly if you weren’t ratted out… so I know I can trust you to not go blabbing to the others about my problems.” She paused and looked into the blank stare of Dash. “What? You don’t think I trust you at this point?”

“I’m getting mixed messages here,” Dash chuckled. Blaze blinked, her eyes darting back and forth as she replayed the words in her head, she groaned and snorted.

“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!” she belted, pulling her towel over her head.

“No, no, please…” Dash inched forward. “I know what you meant, so…”

“Do you have any siblings, Dash?” Blaze asked, slightly muffled by her towel before she slipped her nose and mouth out, keeping her eyes and head covered.

“Siblings?” Dash stopped moving and blinked.

“Brother, sister, you know those family members we both love and hate to tolerate and the like?” Blaze kept talking with just her nose poking out of the towel. Dash rolled her eyes at the sarcasm, but shook her head.

“No… I’m an only child.”

“Hrm…” Blaze exhaled through her nostrils as the towel slowly slipped off the back of her head and down to her shoulders, leaving her mane frizzy as she looked down, looking both disheveled and distraught. “You might not know much where I’m coming from then, but… eh, whatever…” she blew a puff of air upward to bounce a loose strand of her mane out of her face. “Wanna know what really sucks? Being related to Spitfire.”

Dash flinched slightly. She wasn’t expecting that, but the way Blaze said it was clearly missing some context.

“Look, you know we aren’t entirely related… we are half-sisters with different dads, but… that doesn’t stop her from being my family and… she casts one hell of a shadow. A REALLY BIG shadow…” Blaze slowly looked at her. “You get where I’m going with this?”

Dash swallowed and nodded, slowly moving to also sit on the bench, sensing this could take a few minutes.

“Put me and her side by side, fucks sake if I wasn’t missing the one extra color in my mane, I might as well be a baby version of her. She’s better than me at everything, by A LOT. And do I have any hope of ever being on her level? Fuck no. I’m not even close. She’s way more than I’ll ever be. Look, I know I’ve earned my rank in the Wonderbolts, but it’s still hard, you know? When a pony that’s almost a carbon copy of you is better, faster, bigger, and stro—I mean come on, have you SEEN how buff she is?!”

“Very often, yes…” Dash chuckled lightly as Blaze’s words were slowly shifting from depressed to ranting. The biggest tell was the sudden return of the cursing.

“She could squat THREE of me for crying out loud! Maybe four! I have a hard enough time pushing Windy’s fat butt off of me the morning after a rough night! How am I supposed to compare? EVER?”

“Um…” Dash blinked.

“Don’t answer that… fucking a…” Blaze sighed. “Because I know the answer already. There’s nothing I can really do about any of it. We may both look like our mom, but clearly what we got from our Dads was different. I’m not a freak-monster-athlete-battle-warrior-princess-fuck-whatever like she is… but it still gets to me sometimes… you know?”

Dash just stared, knowing there really wasn’t anything she could add, but Blaze looked like she preferred that and just kept talking.

“Like, I know my own rank in the Wonderbolts is nothing to scoff at, I’m a commander in the second highest squad of the entire force… my squad captain was mother fucking Silver Lining. I’ve earned my keep… but…” Blaze pouted and looked down. “My older sis is the youngest lead captain in the history of the force…and lives up to that title and then some every moment. She’s not perfect, but she’s a damn beast so she doesn’t have to be, she can make mistakes and it won’t change the fact that she’s the best of the best day in and day out. Normally this doesn’t bother me all that much, but all this group training we’ve been doing? I’ve had a front row seat to how much better she is than me twenty four seven. And today I was her partner when we hit the weights and watched her put up numbers the stallions would be proud of while I’m doing my best just to stay ahead of Surprise.”

Blaze grabbed her towel and threw it back over her head, yanking it to flatten down her mane and released a muffled growl.

“I can be a real stupid moron sometimes, Dash…” she said with a sigh.

Dash looked Blaze up and down. It was interesting to hear this because it was somewhat similar to when she had her heart to heart with Fleetfoot not so long ago. Being in Spitfire’s shadow was the common denominator, but the context of the reasoning differed.

“I don’t think so…” Dash finally spoke up as Blaze slowly slid the towel far enough to reveal her eyes. “I don’t have a family like yours but… I can understand the feeling of being overshadowed. I’ll tell you what, Blaze… I thought I was the SHIT before I really got to know the Wonderbolts. It wasn’t until I got to spend some actual time with Soarin and he showed me what he could do that it really hit me. I was nothing, at least not by comparison. Watching Spitfire and Fleetfoot just piled that feeling on and then I had my free training day… you know where I’m going with this. I can’t speak for your personal feelings, but when it comes to looking up and seeing how far ahead some are? I’m right there with ya.”

“Yeah…” Blaze replied quietly. “You know, what the fuck am I even complaining to you for? I’m a squad two commander whining to a recruit squad captain about being behind a superior, I bet I sound like a real asshole…”

“Everypony’s allowed to have goals, Blaze…” Dash chuckled. “And even the best of us will always have misgivings. Rank doesn’t decide that.”

Blaze stared at her blankly.

“What?” Dash blinked.

“You really have spent a lot of time around Silver, huh?” Blaze huffed. “I swear I was waiting for his voice to come out of your mouth if you kept going.”

“Er…” Dash blushed slightly. She still wasn’t used to others comparing her to Silver… nor had she figured out how and why she kept getting that reaction.

“You know what…?” Blaze went on, turning back to look at the floor again. “There’s a bit of jealousy and envy… yeah… but I don’t think that’s really what gets me the most,” she slowly looked back at Dash. “I think… I’m scared.”

Dash’s ears twitched and stood up as Blaze tipped back on the bench, but balanced herself to avoid tipping over.

“Our family have been Wonderbolts for several generations… and even before the Wonderbolts existed, we were apparently all very successful in the military of… whatever the fuck was being put together by Celestia at the time. I don’t think we’ve had one gap anywhere, there’s always been at least one. Our mom was a high tier Wonderbolt… and Spitfire’s Dad was a top Tier… Squad Three under the Gold Squad and answered directly to Jet Stream, or was it Hurricane? I dunno, it was one of the Gold Squad members. Both of them retired with high honors… and many achievements. My Dad…? He’s probably drunk in a bar somewhere… I don’t even know if he has a job right now, but whatever, that’s not fucking important.” Blaze huffed. “Spitfire is the one… she’s the shining beacon of the family carrying on the legacy with the blood of two great Wonderbolts… I was a mistake, an accident. I’ve fought tooth and nail to get this far, but… will anything I do actually matter? Will I contribute anything...?”

Dash sat quietly and listened, Blaze returning to the tone she was in prior. Part of Dash wanted to bring up that she was a squad two Wonderbolt again, but… she wanted to hear everything Blaze had to say. She felt like this was a rare occasion.

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve got a lot of weight on my shoulders, Dash…” Blaze sighed. “A different kind of weight than what Spitfire carries. I feel like I need to do anything and everything... to keep myself from being swept under the rug. I want to leave my mark, I want to be standing right beside her… to have that respect she has, to not just be an asterisk in her shadow with a ‘oh huh there was some sister of hers in here somewhere too’ designation. I need to be a part of this… Even if all I can do is support her… fuck it, I’ll support her as hard as I can, I will DO IT. If I can’t be as good as her… I can sure as hell help her. I… something happens to me when Spitfire is in danger… this batshit amount of courage just explodes in me and I do things I probably wouldn’t do otherwise… I threw myself at fucking Nightshade for crying out loud… I watched everypony get fucked up by her and cowered like a little filly before Silver sent me back to get Spitfire. But once she was there, all it took was her losing the upper hoof for a moment for me to leap at her like a burning spider monkey… I’m that desperate Dash… I’m that obsessed with being a part of what she represents. I was scared shitless of Nightshade but didn’t give a flying FUCK when I saw Spitfire was in trouble. I could’ve gotten my head ripped off, I didn’t care…”

Blaze paused for a moment, then suddenly slammed her hoof on the bench.

“Sorry…” she apologized after Dash flinched. “It was either the bench or my own face and punching myself would’ve been pretty fucking stupid so…” Blaze whipped the towel off her head and took a long, deep breath. Dash just stared at her patiently until Blaze turned and locked eyes with her. “I probably just overwhelmed you with all the shit I just offloaded, didn’t I?”

“A… little bit, yeah…” Dash tried not to chuckle.

“Sorry,” Blaze apologized again.

“No, don’t apologize,” Dash quickly held a hoof out and pressed it to Blaze’s shoulder. “Like… that was some heavy stuff, I’m kind of shocked that you’d pour your heart out to me like that. Seems more like something you’d confide in… I dunno, High Winds for?”

“Windy’s heard this so many times by now I’m surprised she hasn’t left me yet,” Blaze puttered her lips. “I bet I annoy the shit out of her with it, frankly. So… I didn’t really want to bother her with it again.”

“Somehow I doubt she’d up and leave you for a personal problem, considering… how into each other you two are. I assume Spitfire is aware too…?” Dash asked, recalling the way she yanked Fleetfoot away before she left.

“Yeah… she is… which makes this all silly, huh?” Blaze mumbled. “I can’t hide it from her. Even if we butt heads now and again we are family, you know? She sees right through me and has known this for years. She’s smart though… she knows that she is the reason I feel this way and instead of getting into me about it or telling me to stop she tries to avoid the subject all together… leaves me alone to cool my fucking jets and stop being dumb… but she always comes back to make sure I’m okay eventually, she’ll do the same now too.”

“Stop calling it dumb,” Dash spoke up with a quiet huff. Blaze perked up and glanced at her. “Blaze, this is something important to you… it’s something you care about. Want to know what stuck out to me the most through all that? How much you want to help Spitfire. You do that because you care about her… maybe there are some other motives pushing you, but you can’t tell me that you charged Nightshade without any part of you being worried for her as your sister.”

Blaze looked down and took a long deep breath, sighing loudly.

“You’ve got that right. Considering how fucked our family is, she’s the only one I’ve really got. Heh, isn’t it weird that I’m both worried about the family and calling it fucked less than a few minutes apart? Man, this is how my head works Dash…”

“But it pushes you forward,” Dash emphasized. “You know what you really want. The reasoning might get tied in a few knots sometimes, but you’ve got your mind set on the right thing.”

“You’re giving me too much credit…” Blaze snickered, giving Dash a flat, somewhat goofy look.

“Heh, well…” Dash puckered her lips a little and glanced off to the side. “I’m looking at the positive side of it. Because that IS there and you can’t tell me it isn’t. I’m gonna give you credit for it and you’re gonna like it.” Dash gave her a playful jab. Blaze chuckled and playfully pushed Dash’s arm away.

“Well, I know you’re a stubborn bitch too so arguing with you ain’t gonna change anything, is it?”

“You’re goddamn right.”

“Heh,” Blaze visibly relaxed, and finally cracked a genuine smile. “Thanks, Dash… I feel better already.”

“Glad I could—”

Dash froze as Blaze tipped towards her, hooked her by the neck and pulled her towards her, pressing her lips into Dash’s cheek.

“MMMMMMMWAH!” she goofily planted a very sloppy kiss on Dash’s cheek, practically bouncing off of her and tipping her head back, laughing lightly in the air. Dash turned bright red and stared at her blankly. “Soarin’s one lucky son of a bitch, you know that?” Blaze said, then paused and almost burst out laughing at Dash’s face. “Oh you can’t fucking convince me that’s the first time you’ve been kissed by a mare. You know Fleetfoot,” Blaze stood up and spanked Dash’s plot as she started making her way towards the exit.

“YIPE!” Dash yelped as she leaned forward and stumbled off the bench.

“I’d bet a fuckload of bits she tried to make out with you when the two of you spooned after the hotel party,” she added, sticking her tongue out at Dash as she threw the locker room door open. “C’mon, let’s meet up with the others before they get any ideas, you know they will.”

Dash angrily scrunched up her face, blushing harder.

“How the HELL does everypony know about that?!” she growled as she hurried after Blaze.

“You spooned with Fleetfoot?”

“Oh, COME ON!” Dash snorted, pressing both hooves against Soarin. “That's the first thing you have to say after all that? Frickin’ pervert,” she chuckled while poking her hooves into him several times.

“Hey, you’re the one that included it in the story,” Soarin shrugged, cracking a smirk. “I mean… My mare cuddling up in bed with the Wonderbolt poster girl? Sounds kind of hot.”

Soarin nearly burst out laughing as Dash gave him one hell of a ‘I’ll kill you’ look.

“Okay, okay, I’m joking,” Soarin chuckled while tipping his head down and bopping his nose to her forehead.

“ANYWAY…” Dash huffed. “I followed Blaze and we met up with the others for dinner… then I came here.” She finished, as Soarin lifted his head back up and stared off at the wall for a moment.

”Hmmm…” he hummed in thought.

“Didn’t know any of those things either?” Dash asked.

“I’ve known Lightning long enough, picked up that part about him a while ago. He’s a real ham, but he’s a great guy under all the bro talk. Air Mach doesn’t surprise me at all, he’s been saying things like that for years. Blaze is the one that surprised me.”

“Really?” Dash blinked. “With how close you and Spitfire are, I figured you knew a lot about Blaze too.”

“Eh…” Soarin tipped his head and rubbed the back of his mane. “I mean… I do, but… I’ll be real, their family isn’t a subject that comes up often. I know some of the details, but they don’t like to talk about it for obvious reasons.”

“Right, different dads,” Dash nodded. “She mentioned some of it while she was talking to me, but I’m missing a lot of context.”

“It’s complicated,” Soarin shrugged. “I can tell you that between their mom and the two dads, there really wasn’t an innocent party in how the situation evolved… and led to Blaze. But I’m not really at liberty to talk about it, nor would they want me to. I always figured it’s just something they don’t really want to be a part of their lives, especially Blaze. That’s why it surprises me. Blaze is the last pony I’d expect to care about her family legacy. I always assumed she wanted to be as far away from it as possible, especially when it comes to Spitfire and what she’s capable of. She’s always been such a rebel so…”

“Seeing her in a whole new light huh?” Dash turned and rested her back against his stomach. “I never would have guessed either.”

“Hard to see through the curtain of swearing and the hail of F-bombs sometimes,” Soarin chuckled as he slipped an arm around her.

“Heh, that’s for sure,” Dash agreed as she hooked her arms over his and held it to her. “But now I can see why Silver pointed me in this direction. I feel like… I understand them much more now,” Dash paused and rolled her eyes. “Lightning and Blaze at least, Air Mach was pretty obvious all things considered. I’ll definitely have to figure out the rest…” Dash trailed off and her face went blank.

“What?”

“I just realized it’s gonna be a bit hard to get insight from Misty.”

“Could always ask Fire,” Soarin suggested.

“Probably,” Dash shrugged. “Though he’ll probably want to know why.”

“So who’s next?” Soarin asked, giving her a light squeeze.

Dash perked up as he asked, remaining quiet for a moment. She hadn’t really thought about doing them in any specific order, they were just sort of happening as she went. And right now… she was here.

“Actually…” she tipped her head up, pressing the top of her head into his fur. “I feel a little weird asking this, but… what about you? Is there anything you’re afraid of?” She asked. Soarin looked caught off guard, but she found herself giggling. “Oh yeah, as if anything could scare or surprise you at this point, right?” She kept giggling until she realized Soarin wasn’t answering. In fact, he appeared to be deep in thought.

“I’m afraid of losing you,” he suddenly answered, tightening his hold on her. Dash’s ears stood up and her face flushed a little bit, but she quickly smirked and snorted.

“Oh stop that, I know you’ve got more on your mind than—”

“Dash, I’m serious,” Soarin cut her off, looking down at her with a stern look on his face. Dash squeaked and blinked several times, his stare smacking right into her as if it were a brick wall. Soarin sighed, looking off elsewhere in the room. “Maybe there were things that I was scared of before… I can actually think of several things, but… not anymore. Nothing scares me more than that. Yeah I know there’s that whole, if one of us dies, the other will too thing, but… that isn’t even a whisper in my head beside the pure thought of just… you being gone.”

“S…Soarin…?” Dash swallowed, her face getting brighter as she felt his gentle hold on her tighten a little more.

“Dash, I literally cannot imagine my life… or my future without you being a part of it. After all we’ve been through together and how long you’ve stood right by my side regardless of how crazy it’s all gotten? Your life has gotten turned inside out and upside-down by me… and despite it all you’re still sitting here in my arms. Would I ever find that kind of dedication and devotion from somepony else? I doubt it. I’m lucky to have you… and that isn’t luck I’m willing to take for granted… EVER."

Dash thought she was going to melt into a puddle. Her eyes were wide and her head was tilted all the way back, watching as every word that left his lips added another butterfly in her stomach. Badass butterflies of course… that were fluttering… A LOT.

“And I know you’ll still be here with me when we finally get through all of—OW!” Soarin yelped as Dash suddenly flinched, lurched forward, gasped, and accidentally bit down on his arm.

“GAH! Hah… hooooo…” Dash wheezed “ahhhh…. I’m uh…” she felt incredibly hot. “S….Shit… I’m sorry, I…” She stuffed her face against his arm and released a muffled ‘merf’ into it.

“Are you okay?” Soarin asked, ignoring the weak sting on his arm and he looked at her curiously.

“I… wow…” Dash shuddered, her fur bristling as she turned and looked up at Soarin with wide eyes and awkwardly twirled some of her mane with one of her hooves. “I think… uhm…” she stuttered.

Soarin blinked, starting to lose composure slightly because Dash suddenly looked so damn flustered. He had no idea why, it was just super cute.

“You just did SOMETHING to me…” Dash finally squeaked out. “I… god I dunno, you’ve said stuff like that to me before, but for some reason it hit me REALLY hard that time and I… HMMMMPH!" she puffed her cheeks out and slammed her eyes shut.”

“Huh,” Soarin lifted an eyebrow. “I know you’ve been handling… some alicorn-specific urges with our connection and Celestia’s power but…”

“I guess it works on the… romantic side of things too,” Dash exhaled loudly and pressed a hoof to her chest as her heart fluttered vigorously. “That was INSANE, like… listening to you say all that just built something up that exploded in me or something… Lordy lord, who am I, Rarity? I don’t think I’ve ever had such a dainty girly girl reaction to something like that in my life…”

Soarin smirked.

“I dunno, maybe it had nothing to do with the connection,” the sarcasm in his voice was as clear as day as Dash flattened her brow and glanced up at him. “Maybe I just have that effect.”

“Oh STOP IT! You RUINED IT!” Dash giggled as she turned around and started rapping her hooves against his chest.

“Uh oh, I’m under attack!” Soarin chuckled as Dash’s small hooves bopped against him over and over again. The two burst out laughing, Dash leaning into him and Soarin leaning over, embracing as they shared a good laugh that lasted several seconds.

Eventually their laughter died down, but they remained pressed to one another.

Nothing was said between the two of them for several moments, as if they just wanted to stay there like that for a long time.

“Soarin…?”

“Yeah…?”

Dash slowly pushed back, looking up at Soarin and their eyes locking.

“Do you really mean it?” she asked quietly. “You really want to be with me… forever?”

Soarin cracked a small smile, lifting his large hoof and gently running it up Dash’s cheek.

“I don’t lie to you…” he said reassuringly, the two of them slowly inching their faces closer together. “And you know that.”

They closed their eyes and tilted their heads, their lips growing closer…

“REMOVE thyself from me! What are you doing?!” Sombra’s voice suddenly blurted out from Soarin. The two of them flinched, Dash sputtering and leaning in, face crashing into Soarin as he grunted and pressed a hoof to his forehead.

“SOMBRA!!!!!!!!!!!!” Celestia yelled, for once not observing her tone of voice for Soarin’s sake. “What’s WRONG with you?! Why would you interrupt them?!”

“Me? What’s wrong with you?! Trying to rub thyself on me like that?! Had you kept your hooves to yourself I’d have kept mine words to myself!”

“I LEANED on you! I did not RUB myself on you!”

Dash and Soarin pushed back from each other and looked each other in the eye, both of them flattening their brows in frustration.

“You’re kidding me… really, you two?” Soarin grumbled. “I was close to forgetting you two are squatting in my mind for a moment, I was that happy.”

“My apologies, Soarin,” Celestia spoke up. “I was enjoying your romantic moment together and Sombra felt the need to speak out because, heaven forbid, I touched him.”

“Touch? You grabbed my arm and tried to rest on me, that’s more than touching me!” Sombra barked back.

“Oh, that does it!” Celestia huffed. “Now you listen to me!”

“Ow! Hey! Stop that! Now she’s hitting me!” Sombra growled.

“Me touching you was no reason to interrupt a perfect intimate moment for the two of them. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Oh, now I’M the one with no shame?!”

“Don’t change the subject, buster! You could have dealt with it and not shouted out like…!”

Their voices merged together as they began bickering at each other. Soarin harrumphed and shook his head.

“So much for our privacy…” Soarin sighed. “How old are they? Bajillion year-olds and they’re arguing like kids…” Soarin blinked as Dash turned her back to him and leaned into his arm and stomach. “Hmm?” Soarin hummed, looking down at her as she nestled herself against him.

“Let ‘em argue,” Dash sighed. “I think they’re just jealous.” She paused, and tipped her head back to look up at him. A big smile crawled onto her face. “But hey, Soarin…?”

“Yeah?”

She pushed herself up and planted a gentle kiss on his lips.

“That sounds nice, I want that too,” she winked at him before getting even more comfortable against him, the arguing of Sombra and Celestia growing quieter. Soarin smiled right back, wrapping an arm around her.

“That’s all I wanted to hear.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxena

Dash already getting a start on getting to know her fellow bolts, eh? The plan going forward is not to stop the plot for the sake of these scenarios and have them happen with the flow, but after setting up this theme last chapter, it needed at least one spotlight so you guys know what kind of thing to expect going forward... we are goign to get a lot of deeper looks into all of our longtime Wonderbolts here ;)

Interesting insights though, especially with Blaze. Somewhat similar to Fleetfoot, but comes from a much different angle. its easy to be jealous of Spitfire, it seems, but really now, how can't some of them be? shes such an unnaturally gifted phenomenon at the top of the pack, many of them have had to at least think it at some point. Though i think my favorite one to do this chapter was Lightning Streak... i always felt like i didn't have much goign for him beyond "johnny bravo" so it was good to finally open the door a little more for him.

And i made sure we got a nice fat dose of Soarindash at the end there... cheekily interrupted of course because thats cliché and i'll show myself to hell now lel.

Once again thank you everyone for putting up with my slacking off between these two chapters. Hoping it get my ass in gear and be responsible about it, that was way too long to keep you guys waiting, in my personal opinion.

Thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 187: It's A Start

MLP: FiM

Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 187: It’s A Start

“You good?” Dash asked as she trotted at a quickened pace.

“Mmhmm,” Soarin hummed casually as he moved, walking at a steady and nonchalant pace around the room. He was putting one hoof down in front of the other with no trouble at all, and the best part was Dash wasn’t even touching him, just next to him. It looked like he had gotten the hang of moving his new body, at least in a low key manner.

“You sure?” Dash asked… for the fourth time since they started. Soarin glanced down at her and smirked.

“Ask me one more time, I dare you,” he said with a chuckle.

“Hey!” Dash pouted. “I’m just being careful, alright?”

“Well I’ve made five laps around the room without exploding into bright lights so I think I’m alright,” Soarin joked. “Nothing feels off.”

“Yet,” Dash added.

“You stop that,” Soarin gave her a playful glare.

“So… you’re okay right?” Dash instinctively asked again.

“I warned ya,” Soarin abruptly stopped and before Dash knew what was happening, Soarin reached out an arm and scooped her up.

“AHH!” Dash yelped as she was effortlessly hoisted right off her hooves and into the air. Soarin lifted her right over his shoulder and pushed her onto his back. She immediately clasped her arms around as much of his body as she could, her chin pressed to his lower back as he started moving again.

“In fact, I’m feeling pretty good right now, how about we pick up the pace?” he said confidently as he accelerated from a walk to a trot, Dash laughing as he started moving before she could reposition herself.

“No! Cut that out!” Discord’s voice came from across the room. But before Dash could so much as glance in Discord’s direction, Soarin turned and moved directly towards him and Luna.

“How about you eat shit?” he shot back with a smirk as he passed right by them.

Discord’s eyes went wide and he blinked as Dash snorted loudly from Soarin’s back. Discord’s aura flared up a little in his fists for a moment, but he let it dissipate shortly after. He glanced at Luna as she failed to stifle a few regal giggles.

“Yeah, yeah… laugh it up,” Discord growled and rolled his eyes.

“We’re surprised you activated your magic at all,” Luna pointed out.

“Had to vent,” Discord looked away. “I know very well that…” he trailed off, quickly closing his mouth. Luna looked up at him, but Discord avoided eye contact.

He couldn’t believe that he almost blatantly admitted how powerless he was up against Soarin’s current state, regardless of how well Soarin could control it. His chaos magic could not overpower the energy swirling within Soarin and he wasn’t willing to try his luck and be… repelled and likely humiliated. He certainly wouldn’t dare imply that he had gotten used to… being beneath him, so to speak.

“Forget it,” Discord huffed as he felt Luna’s stare still glued to him. “Nothing.” He evaded as he kept watching.

Soarin continued on his quickened pace around the room, Dash now turned and facing forward, clinging the best she could to his neck and laughing with him

“Hold on a moment.”

Soarin flinched as Sombra’s voice suddenly popped into his head with a soft blue glow from his horn and eyes, but it didn’t hinder him.

“What’s up?” Soarin asked as he slowed down. He had been slowly adjusting to Sombra and Celestia being able to speak through him. It still sent a bit of a twitch through his head but he had gotten used to it, even if it was still weird.

“Face us towards the snake, will you?” Sombra asked.

“The sn—oh,” Soarin stopped and turned to face Discord.

“No, I don't want to talk to you,” Discord preemptively snarled as he heard Sombra’s voice.

“No one cares what you desire,” Sombra calmly shot back.

“Then WHAT?!” Discord snapped.

“Acknowledge him.”

Discord was ready to shout back, but stopped and lifted an eyebrow.

“I said ACKNOWLEDGE him,” Sombra repeated as Soarin stayed curiously silent

“For what?” Discord growled, narrowing his eyes.

“We are all seeing it and we are all thinking it. Now I want to hear you say it. Admit that Soarin can handle this. There was a word foreign to me in his statement that you eat something, but I believe it was a strong retort.”

Dash slammed a hoof over her mouth to hold back hysterical laughter. Sombra was in for a lot of confusion if they ever got out of here to see the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“It’s time you acknowledged his progress,” Sombra went on. “Because I have yet to hear you give him any positive encouragement or reinforcement.”

“No one cares what you desire either, you know…” Discord grumbled, grinding his teeth together.

“Even now you refuse!” Sombra lifted his tone a little. “Soarin could barely stand weeks ago, now he trots in circles around this room with ease! He is gaining control of his new form and all you can do is grumble and growl, sneer and scowl! He has outgrown your expectations, but you think it beneath you to give him any praise at all!”

“How about you mind your own business?” Discord snapped. “If you want his ass kissed so badly then you do it!”

“Forget it, Sombra,” Soarin broke his silence, startling them both. He glanced back at Dash, smiling at her for a moment before resuming his trot. “I don’t need his praise. Don’t want it either, honestly.” He shot a quick glance at Discord. “I’ll climb the steps one at a time… let my progress speak for itself.”

“Hmm…” Sombra only hummed in response, but Discord didn’t need to see Sombra to know what the look on his face was.

“Tch…” Discord scoffed, looking away and staring at the next pillar over.

“He has made quite a bit of progress,” Luna spoke to him quietly.

“Don’t you start with me too, Lulu…” Discord grumbled, keeping his voice down as well.

“Are we wrong?” Luna asked plainly as she looked back out to Soarin moving quickly about. “We have to say… that we haven’t felt the least bit worried or on edge for several days now. My sister’s power seems to have found its roots within him. There have been no sudden reactions or flares or—”

“Lulu, I’m not blind. I know,” Discord cut her off. Luna blinked.

“Then why dost thou hold thy tongue?”

“You…” Discord exhaled loudly, his ears flopping down as he puttered his lips. “You wouldn’t understand, Lulu.”

“We beg your pardon?” Luna furrowed her brow. “Try us.” She encouraged as Discord sharply looked at her.

“Okay, fine. Have you unlocked the full potential of your divine power yet?” he sharply asked.

Luna flinched, staring wide eyed as she found no words.

“No? I thought not. I rest my case,” Discord added and looked away again.

Luna angrily glared at the back of his head, harrumphed and returned her focus to Soarin. Discord glanced over his shoulder at the now very pouty princess and sighed.

“Stop that,” he spoke up, earning another harsh glare. “That wasn’t an insult, it’s a fact. And don’t act like I’d spite you for being spared that kind of pain… or the burdens that come from the end result.” He looked out towards Soarin. “Honestly, sometimes I’m jealous that… you’ve never had… to…”

Luna tipped her head as he trailed off.

“Okay, fine… look…” he suddenly turned and looked her in the eye. “Celestia’s power has stabilized, at least when Rainbow Dash is around. BUT…” Discord lifted a finger and inched a little closer to Luna’s face, hardening his gaze. “The very last thing we need… is him becoming full of himself. He is a mortal that now has access to near limitless power… that’s a dangerous thing for a mind that is just a fledgling compared to those who have lived as long as we have. I fear he will never grasp just how powerful he is right now. I don’t care if he somehow managed to withstand the process of awakening, he is as much a danger to himself as he is to all around him. A certain amount of extreme care is still needed to avoid any disasters… ESPECIALLY when we start to see just how much we can separate the two of them. I don’t want him getting a big head and accidentally blowing up the whole east wing of the palace with a sneeze.”

Luna’s glare had slowly faded as Discord laid his case out.

“We… suppose that’s fair,” Luna sighed, still a little miffed.

“And I’ll gladly put up with Sombra’s insufferable childish jargon if it means keeping Soarin level headed,” Discord added as he stood up straight and leaned back against the pillar. “There are more important things at work right now than my personal spat with that idiot. So Soarin can walk and trot, fine… but what about flying? More importantly, what about the magic? Even with Rainbow Dash glued to his underside I’m not looking forward to him finally using that alicorn horn. Let’s not pat him on the back until he’s more aware of just how dangerous he is, mmkay?”

“Fine…” Luna huffed with nothing she could really say against it.

The two turned their attention back to Soarin, watching as he picked up more speed and reached a canter. But he didn’t go any faster due to his massive strides taking him very far step by step… and Dash stating that she was starting to get dizzy.

“Okay, okay…” Dash gave his neck a squeeze. “Ooo… haha alright slow down before I toss my last meal.”

“Heh, sorry,” Soarin chuckled as he slowed down to a walk. “Need to get off the ride?” he joked as he glanced over his shoulder at Dash.

But as he looked he came to a stop, his eyes shifting from Dash… to his wings. He glanced back and forth between them as Dash shifted and blinked to stop her head from spinning.

“Hmmm…” Soarin hummed to himself. “I wonder…” he thought aloud as he slowly made his way back to the center of the chamber.

“Huh…?” Dash blinked, finding her equilibrium and tipping her head curiously.

“My wings,” Soarin stated with a nod. “I haven’t actually moved them from rest since I got this new body.”

“Want to try?” Dash asked quickly, her interest immediately piqued as well.

“Well…” Soarin thought for a moment. “Celestia?”

“Yes?” Celestia replied after a brief moment with a gentle yellow glow from his horn and eyes.

“Anything I should know about Alicorn wings?” Soarin asked. There was a pause.

“What’s to know about them?” Celestia replied, a hint of confusion in her voice.

“Anything different about them from regular Pegasus wings?” Soarin asked, being patient. “I mean, is there a difference?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” Celestia replied with a giggle. “I’ve always been an alicorn.”

“Oh, wait… right…” Soarin blinked as Dash snickered. “That was a dumb question,” Soarin admitted with a shrug as he looked at his wings again.

“I guess the one thing I do know is that they are bigger on a scale basis compared to my body than the average Pegasus. Aside from that though, I can’t say,” Celestia explained. Dash shifted to get a good look at Soarin’s wings.

“Upon closer inspection I can definitely say,” she glanced at Soarin and smirked. “You have huge wings.”

“Thanks, I couldn’t tell,” Soarin smirked right back at her as she chuckled and bopped a hoof against his nose. “Help me out though, can you give me a rough estimate? Compared to how I looked before, did my wings size up evenly with the rest of me?”

“Can’t you tell?” Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“You’re the expert on my body here, right?” Soarin added a lot of smarm to his voice as he bounced his eyebrows twice.

“Okay, you’re right about that,” Dash snorted and rolled her eyes. “Alright wise guy, gimme a sec…” She looked over Soarin’s wings, but after a moment she pouted. “You know that’s a good question… it’s been a while since I’ve seen you… normal.”

Soarin flinched subtly as she said it. There was clear disappointment in her voice, even if he looked very impressive now, it was still an abnormal and unwelcome circumstance for the two of them. He made a mental note to press Celestia later on Dash’s ability to look within him with the piece of her spirit… he still looked like his normal self inside his mind, after all.

“Okay, but I think I can… figure it out,” Dash added, touching a hoof to one of his wings and running her hoof over it while looking between it and his body. “If I’m processing this right… I don’t think it’s one to one. They do look a little bigger compared to your body than they were before.”

“Hm… okay I can’t see how that’ll make a big difference. Alright I’ll try to move them,” Soarin nodded. Dash shifted and clasped Soarin’s neck, making sure she was pressed to him as much as she could be to offer her connection support.

Soarin took a deep breath and slowly… very slowly… inched his wings outwards from his body, holding them still after the small brief movement.

Discord tipped forward from the pillar, but stopped and leaned back while snorting. He kept his eyes glued to Soarin and gathered chaos magic in his hand hidden under his armpit… just in case.

“Well, so far they feel like wings,” Soarin joked. “That didn’t feel off at all, so let me…” Soarin trailed off. Dash looked over her shoulder, her eyes growing wide with wonder as Soarin slowly but surely opened up his wings all the way, stretching them out. They loomed over her, their impressive shape and size revealing themselves in full. “There… that felt perfectly normal…” Soarin nodded, looking at his wings. “I see what you mean, Dash. They do seem a lot bigger, now that I’m seeing them.”

“Holy shit…” Dash said quietly.

“Dash?” Soarin glanced at her.

“Ignore me,” Dash swallowed. “I’m just internally swooning like crazy back here.” She openly admitted as her face felt warm, staring at Soarin’s enormous wings.

“Oh, really now?” Soarin snickered as she gawked.

“Yeah my stallion’s wings are only three-maybe four times the size of me now, pardon me while I strain to contain the urge to clamp my thighs as hard as I can on your back right now.” Dash rambled as she kneaded her hooves into his back.

Discord loudly cleared his throat, causing them both to look towards him.

“Spare us, please…” he grumbled while tapping a finger on his opposite shoulder. “If you’re going to try anything else just get on with it!”

Soarin furrowed his brow, a quiet chuckle coming from his mind as the horn gently pulsed blue.

“Ah the sweet, sweet sound of a scoundrel’s dissatisfaction…” Sombra said with a chortle.

“Sombra…” Celestia sighed.

“Alright… so…” Soarin ignored Discord and refocused on his wings. He folded and opened them a few times, increasing the pace of doing so each time. “Seems to be working consistently with no issue…” he turned them into a flight position and moved them up and down slowly, mimicking flapping motions. “That seems to be working too…” He grinned. “Okay! I’m going to try and lift off, okay?” he said to Dash, not even gracing Discord with a glance for any approval. Dash nodded, nestling herself against him and holding on.

“Go for it, big guy,” she winked. Soarin smiled confidently, stared straight ahead, and took a few deep breaths as he lifted his wings up.

“Here goes nothing…”

Discord clenched his fist, the aura becoming slightly visible under his arm. Luna gulped, watching with interest.

“Hrm!” Soarin pumped his wings down.

BOOM.

A sound akin to a large firework blast rang out. Soarin yelped as he was launched halfway to the ceiling and a hysterically powerful burst of wind blasted outward from beneath him. Discord was pressed flat to the pillar and Luna was knocked right off her hooves, tumbling to the floor and smacking into the back wall. All the tables near the center of the chamber were sent skidding and flipping with all of Twilight’s notes and books being tossed dancing into the air.

“Whoooaaa WHOOOOAAA!!!!” Soarin yelled out as he ended up way higher than he thought he’d be, wildly kicking his hooves as he stared at the floor below. As he began to fall, his instinct told him to try and hover.

He flapped his wings again, another loud bang ringing out. The entire room rattled and everything strewn about was launched again, including the two gods as Discord was forced off the pillar and sent tumbling into the wall next to Luna, who had just gotten pressed face first to the wall again.

“Yikes!” Dash yelled, holding on for dear life as she and Soarin nearly crashed into the clattering ceiling chandeliers.

“Gah! Too much again!” Soarin exclaimed as he looked down and tried to process how two regular wing beats managed to throw him so high into the air.

The chamber doors swung open and several crystal guards rushed in, looking around for any trouble.

“It’s okay it’s okay!” Soarin yelled out, taking a few quick breaths as he began to fall slowly with his wings outstretched. “I can get this! I just need to…”

“Princess Luna!” One of the guards called out as the group rushed towards Luna and Discord pressed into the wall. They were completely oblivious to Soarin in the air above them, nor did any of them seem to wonder for a moment why they couldn’t see him anywhere. Luna flipped upright and looked up to see Soarin moving his wings up for another flap. She blinked and glanced at all the guards.

“Oh dear…”

Soarin pumped his wings down, but only halfway in an attempt to decelerate his fall. Regardless of the lessened motion, another strong burst of wind shot downward and hit the ground like an invisible explosion. Luna and Discord shielded themselves for impact, but the unaware guards were toppled, smacking into one another like dominos as the tables were knocked all the way to the walls with one slamming into Discord. Twilight’s books and papers flew through the air like they were in a snow globe with one of the books careening towards Luna and impaling itself on her horn.

“Aye yai yai!” Soarin gritted his teeth and repeated the motion, trying to be even gentler with the small wing strokes. But while it did slow him down, nothing he did stopped the beats from blasting strong gusts downward and smacking about everyone and everything in the room.

With everypony else in the room stuck under the pressure, Soarin eventually touched down. He remained silent for several seconds, blinking as he stared straight ahead and kept his wings outstretched.

“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY shit…” he finally broke the silence as he looked back at his wings.

“Wow…” was all Dash could say as the two began glancing about the room.

Soarin winced slightly as he saw the absolute mess the chamber was in. He turned all the way around to see Discord shoving a table off of himself and Luna standing up with a book stuck halfway down her horn. The groaning guards rolled off one another, slowly lifting themselves up and correcting their armor pieces that had shifted and turned on them.

“Er… sorry…” Soarin grinned awkwardly at all of them. “I guess my wings are… well… a hell of a lot stronger than I thought. I didn’t do anything differently… I think?”

“Hrmph…” Discord stood up and brushed himself off, turning to Luna as she failed to get the book off her horn with her magic and began pushing at it with her hooves. Discord twirled a finger, yanking the book off Luna’s horn.

“Ow!” Luna yelped as her neck was forced forward, blinking and shaking her head out.

“See what I mean now?” Discord asked her as he tossed the book aside.

“Alright…” Luna sighed. “We see what you’re saying…”

“Progress aside, his body is still foreign to him. It’s the body of a full blown god,” Discord said as he pressed a hand to his neck and cracked it back and forth. “He’ll never be ready to fully understand what that means. If this goes to his head at any point, it’s going to be a mess… one that we may not be able to clean up, unlike a few books, papers, and tables.” He huffed, motioning to all the paraphernalia strewn about. “It’s in everypony’s interest to keep him grounded, no matter what it takes to do so.”

“Anything wrong in there, you two?” Soarin asked, glancing up at his horn.

“Hm? No…” Celestia answered first. “All is well, but that was… interesting. I knew my wings were strong, but perhaps their size and power were just something I was used to and knew how to properly control.”

“Most impressive,” Sombra spoke up right after, his tone reflecting his words. “It would seem you are far stronger than you realize.”

“Not by my own power, but stronger, definitely,” Soarin nodded, knowing full well where the strength stemmed from.

“Now do it again,” Sombra added. Soarin blinked, thinking for a moment before glancing at Discord grumbling to himself off to the side.

“Oh,” Soarin rolled his eyes, but chuckled. “No, that’s enough for now.”

“Shame,” Sombra said simply. “Still impressive. Perhaps you should explore the depths of that strength for yourself. I’m curious to see the power of a divine alicorn in the hooves of a stallion who is properly trained in strength and body.”

“I’m curious about that myself,” Soarin lifted an arm, tensing the muscles in it as he ran his eyes over it and back towards his wings again. “But… another time, I think we’ve caused enough carnage in here for now… and something tells me it’ll be more fun without Discord around,” he added quietly.

“Hmm…” Sombra hummed. “I’m pleased you see things my way.”

“Just…” Celestia spoke up, sighing quietly. “Don’t be too overzealous, Soarin.”

“I’ll be careful,” Soarin assured her. “If anything, my little attempt at flying didn’t hurt at all or make me feel off… aside from my usual wing motions nearly throwing me through the roof,” he turned his head to look at Dash on his back. “But I probably have you to thank for that, Dash.”

Dash was holding still, clinging to him and staring right at him… blushing bright red.

“Dash?” Soarin lifted an eyebrow.

“Gimme a minute…” her voice cracked slightly as she nestled herself harder into him. “That was… good lord, your wing power… I’m freaking turned on right now.”

“I’m seeing a common theme here,” Soarin answered without missing a beat, chuckling to himself.

Discord snorted and turned away from the two of them.

“And she’s NOT helping…” he growled. Luna tipped her head to the side.

“But we need her to—”

“I KNOW…” Discord cut her off. “That’s why I hate it.”

“Okay, I’ll be back tonight!” Dash called back as she left through the chamber doors and the guards closed them behind her. They had just put Soarin back to sleep and she left feeling pretty satisfied… in more ways than one. She was happy to see Soarin gaining more and more control over his body. Though she still worried about the fact that it was required for her to be nearby. Discord mentioned they were going to start testing how much they could be separated soon. But she left shortly after to avoid getting caught between Discord and Sombra as the inevitable jeering began. She had to get to afternoon training soon.

Something she noticed as she walked was she was getting used to the feeling of being near Soarin slipping away. It sucked having such good sensations ripped from her every time, but it was becoming normal and didn’t make her feel quite so down anymore. Her ability to adjust to the weird and the strange had had plenty of time to set itself in stone recently.

But regardless, she focused more on how great it felt to see Soarin gaining control and… was starting to really like watching him in that big, strong, muscular, powerful bo—

“Rainbow Dash!”

“YEEP!” Dash yelped, broken from her half day-dream as a familiar voice came from down the hall. She frantically gathered herself as she saw Twilight quickly making her way towards her.

“Is everything alright? I felt the palace shake!” she asked in a worried fit. Dash stared at her blankly.

“Twi, that was twenty minutes ago.”

“I…” Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth. “Was trying to finish a good book I was reading…” she admitted in a hushed tone. Dash couldn’t hold back a loud snort as she threw a hoof over her mouth and snickered. “Look, beside the point! Did something happen?” She pressed, looking past Dash towards the chamber.

Dash was hit by a sudden wave of realization. All of Twilight’s VERY NEATLY organized books and notes were just thrown into an accidental whirlwind and tossed in all directions in the chamber.

“No, everything is fine,” Dash shook her head calmly and shifted herself in front of Twilight’s view. “We let Soarin try out his new wings and it turns out divine alicorn wings are really damn strong... I’d steer clear for now, Discord has his tail in a knot and stuck halfway up his ass over being smashed against the wall… again.”

It wasn’t the entire truth, but… she hoped Twilight would buy it. In her opinion, Twilight’s panicked freakout over her books and notes would be worse. Best avoid the full freakout and lower it to a little freakout once the guards and Luna had a chance to pick up everything and at least put it all back on the tables… out of order and not where Twilight wanted it.

“Oh, but it went alright?” Twilight focused on her.

“Yeah! Just some huge bursts of wind… that shook the palace. Like I said, strong.” Dash sensed she had her attention. “Yeah here, walk with me for a sec,” she continued the slight ruse, motioning for Twilight to follow. She did so without questions. “You actually have good timing, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Dash changed the subject. “Why are the rest of the girls still here? I don’t mind that they’re here, but I saw Big Mac, Braeburn, and Bulk all went home, right? I didn’t see if Derpy left…”

“Derpy is still here,” Twilight nodded.

“Right…” Dash flattened her brow. “And I know why. Oh, and I saw Fancy is still here too, but what about…?”

“I asked them to stay,” Twilight nodded.

“Yeah?” Dash tipped her head. “Well I guess we may still need the Elements of Harmony… whatever we’re eventually going to go after probably isn’t as much of a… complicated case as Sombra.”

“Actually, I wasn’t really thinking about future use of them, specifically,” Twilight clarified, piquing Dash’s interest. “Though that would be a good thing to keep in the back pocket.”

“Why then?” Dash asked.

“I just get the feeling that it’s safer for us to all be in one place for now,” Twilight explained, looking Dash in the eye. “It’s been a while, but do you remember what you told us about your time in Shadowbolt captivity?”

Dash stared straight ahead and blinked several times as she tried to recall what Twilight was talking about.

“Oh, wait… you mean… when Soarin and I were captured after the Grand Galloping Ball? Man that feels like it was ages ago,” Dash rubbed a hoof through her mane as she recollected.

“Yeah, that,” Twilight confirmed. “Descent told you something about their orders to ‘scatter the elements’ when they attacked Ponyville with the tornado, remember?”

“Yyyyyyyyyyyes…” Dash’s eyelid twitched. The Ponyville tornado incident again… it was strange to think about how full circle things were coming as of late.

“I know a lot of circumstances have changed since that, but… After coming here and seeing exactly what you’ve all been fighting against, I don’t think I want to take any chances, especially since we all revealed ourselves to them while trying to stop Sombra.”

“Hmm…” Dash hummed, thinking it over.

She hadn’t thought about that in a long time. She had been so distracted by the Shadowbolts’ current objective: Soarin himself. At least he appeared to still be their objective… assuming they ever saw them again at the current rate of fruitless scouting reports from Descent.

Twilight had a point. The ever elusive… thing, Kayn Ost. The enigma apparently pulling Nightshade’s strings and by association the Shadowbolts’. If Descent’s explanation all that time ago was accurate… He, Nightshade, and Starry were sent after the Elements of Harmony. But at this point Dash wasn’t sure if that was the intention or a front given to the Shadowbolts themselves to conceal the true goal from even them. Especially considering Celestia’s role and her deliberate actions in letting Soarin be brought to the brink of death so she could have an excuse to transfer Sombra’s lingering soul into him. Did this Kayn Ost know what Celestia desired beforehoof and set things into motion to give her the opportunity?

Her head was beginning to hurt just contemplating it. Frankly, she still didn’t know what was ultimately real anymore. Who the hell was Kayn Ost? Did he/she/it/whatever actually exist? They kept being named here and there, but never actually seeing them or learning a single thing about them made her wonder if they were being played by something else entirely. But… at the same time, she could not deny what she saw from Nightshade. When the two clashed while chasing Sombra… she seemed scared, desperate even. None of the things that made Nightshade the frightening animal she is were present when they fought. It felt like she was rushing… like she was more worried about something… or someone else.

And of course… she couldn’t forget the… technically impossible things she was able to do. The things that Twister coerced her into pulling off. She had yet to get any sort of serious encounter with him since, but after the fact? It felt like Twister was purposely trying to prepare her for something… and she doubted her ‘jump’ past Nightshade was the ‘moment’. If things like that were possible and not just the machinations of silly ponies like Twister, Surprise, and Pinkie… then she wouldn’t write off any possibilities about Kayn Ost for now.

It was all such a brain knot, so much for her to think about too much without getting a migraine. But she was glad she seemed to not be the only one considering… alternate possibilities. Despite barely being a part of it, Twilight was already thinking ahead, just in case.

“Dash?”

Dash blinked and shook her head out as Twilight’s voice pulled her out of her own head.

“Sorry… I was thinking about a lot of stuff.” Said Dash with a sigh. “You’re all staying then… How did the ladies react to that? I bet it was interesting.”

“It took some strong convincing for most of them. Rarity and Fluttershy were the most insistent on returning because of their responsibilities,” Explained Twilight.

“Wait…” Dash’s ears twitched. “A.J. wasn’t?” she gave Twilight a confused glance.

“Oh, she was at first, but Big Mac and Braeburn told her they’d handle the farm if she had to stay.”

“And… she took that for an answer?” Dash pressed, still not believing it.

“Of course not, but Mac is surprisingly… articulate when getting Applejack to calm down. It was interesting to watch.”

“Huh…” Dash tipped her head back and forth and nodded. “Okay then. And I take it Pinkie had no problem.”

“She’s treating it like an extended field trip,” Twilight chuckled.

“Typical,” Dash rolled her eyes and smirked as the two of them turned a corner and nearly ran directly into somepony. All three of them came to an abrupt halt.

“Oh! Sorry, I—” the new voice began but abruptly cut off. But Dash heard enough.

Dash and Twilight were face to face with Storm Front. Twilight was halfway through apologizing herself and taking steps to go around, but she stopped when she saw Dash and Storm just staring at one another. In particular… she was examining the sudden cold glare that was on Dash’s face while Storm just held a blank expression.

After another moment or two, no other words were spoken and Storm slowly continued on his way, the two keeping their eyes locked until he was past them and moving on.

“Hmph…” Dash grunted to herself as she started moving again. Twilight quickly refocused and hurried to keep up.

“What was that all about?” she asked as she reached Dash.

“None of your business,” Dash harshly replied. Twilight gasped, coming to a halt and her eyes growing wide. Dash flinched, stopping too as she put a hoof to her head and groaned. “Sorry… that was uncalled for, you didn’t deserve that,” she admitted, sighing as she turned to Twilight, looking a little ashamed for saying such a thing to her. “It’s… very complicated… and I don’t really want to talk about it…”

“FASTER!” Silver belted as he watched Dash, Squall, and Matteo take a tight turn around a pole. The last obstacle was dead ahead, a hoop that was only big enough for one of them at a time. “Dammit, I know you three can turn faster than that! Now don’t be last!”

“Rgh!” Dash grunted, forcing her aching wings to beat harder as they approached the end of the makeshift obstacle course. She glanced to her left to see Squall gaining on her. He took the turn better than her and had momentum on his side. “I don’t think so!” She tried to cut him off, but he shifted back and forth, keeping her from getting in front of him. He eventually ended up side by side with her as the hoop rapidly approached, both of them fighting for positioning.

But both of them seemed to completely forget that there was a third flying with them. Their efforts to gain the upper hoof on the other had slowed their pace slightly, and a mighty audible burst of wind from behind reminded them.

Dash and Squall grunted, both of them being knocked out of their trajectory as Matteo made his presence known, wedging between them. He released a labored breath of air, the effort from his Wing Burst technique taking just about everything he had left as he struggled to keep his wings outstretched to glide the last few yards.

“Oh no you don’t, Fluffy!” Dash grunted as she surged forward. She locked her eyes on the very, very small opening she had to slip over Matteo’s wing and through the hoop just before he did… but it looked much more doable for the first nineteen of the last twenty yards.

Matteo pulled his wings in to fit through the hoop and Dash was forced to turn herself to the side to protect her face.

And it was at that precise moment of high velocity impact that Dash was very glad the hoop was covered in several inches of soft padding.

“OOF!” Dash gasped as she flipped upward into the air, tumbling helplessly for only a moment before she spun herself upright and pumped her wings to stabilize, but…

“FINISH THE COURSE!” Silver’s voice boomed from below.

“Dammit…” Dash scrunched her face into a pout as she saw Squall pass through the ring and follow Matteo’s descent. Matteo stopped just short of crashing, his talons and back paws skidding and stumbling as he came to a halt with Squall taking a few steps before turning and teetering back and forth as he tried to catch his breath.

Silver yelled at her again, but Dash ignored it. She heard him the first time. She pumped her wings and zipped back around, shooting through the hoop and coming in for a landing herself, exhaling and wiping sweat from her brow as she touched down and trotted lightly until she was between Matteo and Squall. Her endurance was noticeably on display as she appeared not nearly as winded as them, but she didn’t care… she finished last in their run.

“Next up! The Horny Brigade! Get up to the starting line, let’s go!” Silver yelled out.

“PLEASE stop calling us that…” Spitfire sighed as she, Wave Chill, and Fire Streak stepped forward and readied to take off with Fleetfoot, Blaze, and Surprise bursting into fits of giggles behind them. Silver sharply turned to the laughing trio.

“The Little Shits are on deck!” he pointed at them.

“Hey, I’ll fucking take it,” Blaze said with a shrug.

“Last two runs, let’s go!” Silver shouted. “I’m tired, hungry, and on the verge of breaking my cane over Lightning Streak’s head for something he probably did that I don’t know about!”

“Bro, what?”

“HORNY BRIGADE, THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!” Silver yelled over Lightning as Spitfire’s group began their run on the course.

“That looked rough,” Star’s voice reached Dash’s ears as she came up beside the three with Thunderlane and Twister in tow. Twister literally in tow as he held onto Star’s tail with his mouth and was being dragged limply behind her. Star appeared to not even know he was there. “You with me?” Star waved an arm in front of Dash’s face.

“Sorry,” Dash huffed in between breaths. “Didn’t hurt… much, but it was a hell of a collision.”

“Why are you angry?” Star asked with a pout, glancing at Squall and Matteo gasping and panting for air.

“She didn’t win,” Thunderlane answered for her. Dash shot him a hard glare. Thunderlane tipped back slightly but lifted an eyebrow. “What? Am I wrong? I’ve known you long enough.”

“Is that it?” Star asked.

“Yeah…” Dash admitted with a sigh.

“Oh, stop… It’s just training. Probably won’t be the last time Matteo’s big fluffy butt gets in your way.” Star chuckled as she looked over to Matteo. He struggled to roll onto his stomach to give her a halfhearted glare.

“If I weren’t so exhausted I’d roll you into a ball and bounce you off a wall for that one,” Matteo wheezed.

“Oh sure, try me big fella,” Star narrowed her eyes and at him and fluttered up to be eye level, Twister dangling from her tail with a blank expression on his face. Squall furrowed his brow and tried to pull him off of Star, but regardless of how much force he yanked him with, he didn’t let go, nor did his motion affect Star.

“I don’t like losing,” Dash grumbled, Thunderlane chuckling beside her. “I don’t care if it’s just training. Especially if I had a real chance to get out of that on top.”

“Sure that’s all that’s bothering you right now?” Thunderlane asked. Dash looked at him quizzically. Thunderlane glanced at the rest of her squad before lowering his voice. “Like I said, I’ve known you long enough. You pout over losing races, but you never look angry.”

“I hate that you’re right,” Dash averted his eyes.

“Eight-ball corner pocket,” Thunderlane winked and pointed a hoof at her.

“Oh, shut up,” Dash flipped her hoof up to knock his away.

They braced themselves as Spitfire slammed down nearby, skidding along the grass to a halt with a large burst of wind following behind her.

“And the title of horniest goes to Spitfire, if there was ever any doubt!” Silver yelled out, several Wonderbolts bursting out laughing and Dash cracking a smirk of her own. Spitfire’s eye twitched and she glared at Silver as Wave and Fire landed behind her. “Oh, what’s up over there?! You wanna piece of me?!” Silver yelled, shaking his cane in her direction. “You’re about twenty years late to the party and my wife would legitimately kill me so stop being horny!”

“Just let it happen, you know he won’t stop,” Wave nudged her as he caught his breath.

“I’m going to force feed him that cane, I swear to Celestia,” she mumbled.

“Something tells me that won’t go well for you either,” Wave added as they moved out of the way.

“HEY! SKY BLUE BUTTOCKS!” Silver yelled towards the last group where Fleetfoot was rolling on the ground laughing. She stopped and sat upright.

“He talking to me?” she pointed to herself.

“YEAH, IM TALKING TO YOU!” Silver answered. “You laugh, but you’re far worse and you know it! You’re the fastest one here, if you don’t beat Blaze by at least ten seconds, you’re sharing a tub with Lightning Streak after!”

“Bro, YES!”

“AUGH!” Fleetfoot was up with her wings spread in an instant.

“What about Surprise?” Blaze asked, pointing at her.

“If she beats Fleetfoot instead of you, YOU will be sharing a tub with Lightning Streak!”

“BRO, DOUBLE YES!”

“AUGH!” Blaze was up and next to Fleetfoot ready to go with Surprise giggling and bouncing up beside them.

“Lightning, I’m pretty sure he’s saying you’re a punishment,” High Winds pointed out.

“I’ll punish ‘em alright!”

“LITTLE SHITS! THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!” Silver yelled.

Fleetfoot pressed a hoof over Blaze’s head and shoved her down before launching into the course as fast as her wings could carry her.

“OW! FUCKIN, YOU CHEATER!” Blaze shouted as she took off behind Surprise.

“All’s fair in love, war, and avoiding Lightning!” Fleet yelled back as she pulled way ahead real fast. She wasn’t going to have any problem finishing way ahead, but Silver’s threat was more than enough motivation.

Dash chuckled as she watched the last run begin, but sighed as she looked down and saw Thunderlane looking at her again. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“It’s nothing important.” She continued. “I just ran into somepony I didn’t want to see right before this session and… I snapped at Twilight while angry about it. I feel like a jerk for doing it and it’s his fault.”

“His…? Oh,” Thunderlane looked over his shoulder, his eyes landing on Strom Front among the Wonderbolts, but he furrowed his brow slightly. “Uh…”

“What…?” Dash narrowed her eyes.

“No, nothing,” Thunderlane tried to deflect.

“Spit it out,” Dash insisted.

“Well okay, if you really want me to,” Thunderlane shrugged. “How’s it his fault that you snapped at Twilight?” he paused, holding his mouth shut as Dash scowled at him. “Hey, I tried to let it go, you told me to say it. You gotta admit it’s a legitimate question. How’s that his fault?”

“Alright, don’t talk to me,” Dash huffed and looked away.

“Well, okay,” Thunderlane shrugged. “Just saying,” he added before turning and moving towards the rest of her squadmates.

“RAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!” Fleetfoot slammed down to the ground, screeching to a halt before immediately turning around and looking to see if Blaze was close by. But she wasn’t even close, the other two coming in at least twenty seconds behind her. “Oh thank goodness… haaaaaaaaaaah…” Fleetfoot tipped over, gasping for air with a smile on her face as Blaze and Surprise came in for a landing.

“You cheap ass BITCH! I’d have done it if you didn’t fucking cheat at the start!” Blaze shouted at her, but Fleetfoot just wearily waved an arm in the air.

“There was too much at stake, Blazey Cakes. Surely you understand.”

“NO. ONLY WINDY CAN CALL ME THA—HRMPH!!!” she was muffled as High Winds came by and hooked a wing around her.

“Come on, save the energy for training tonight,” she said calmly as muffled swears came through her feathers.

“That’s a wrap! Everypony hit the showers! Recovery tubs in thirty!” Silver called out. “No loli-gaggin’, no slackin’, and no flossin’ the cat, that means YOU two!” Silver yelled directly at Blaze and High Winds.

“Why ya gotta single us out like that?” High Winds stated while dragging the still swearing Blaze along in her wing.

“I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night! If you two are late again you will run the whole course over again three times BEFORE we start our evening training session. And DON’T think I won’t make you!” Silver belted out. “By the way this is a fair and balanced system of authority, you are all equally qualified for an ass whooping by yours truly! So that punishment applies to EVERYPONY.”

As soon as the words left his lips, the Wonderbolt all visibly quickened their pace towards the gates to get to the gym showers.

“That’s what I like to see! Your ass is grass and I am the weedwhacker!” he began hobbling after them. “Don’t let me catch you! I don’t care how tired you are! If I get there before any of you with a leg not working I’ll make you fly the course again anyway!”

“HE’S ON A WARPATH!” Surprise cried out as she broke into a shaky gallop.

“Don’t need to tell me twice, I’m not getting spanked by the cane again!” Fleetfoot shuddered, picking up speed as well.

The group became a little unhinged, all of them bumping into each other. Dash found herself caught in the middle and was not ready for Misty to get her legs tangled with Wave’s right in front of her. Like dominos on a shaking table, the Wonderbolts all started toppling over one another, Dash falling right over Misty and rolling onto her stomach.

“OH SHIT! OPEN SEASON!” Silver yelled out as his voice and the sound of his cane pounding into the dirt grew closer. There was a mad scramble as everypony tried to get up, but something ran right into Dash’s side as she was rising, knocking them both back down.

She turned over to prop herself up and came face to face with Storm Front, who was on his side, looking right at her. While everypony else kept moving, they both froze and stared for a few moments. It didn’t take any time for Dash’s eyes to narrow into a cold glare. In seconds the two of them were the only ones left, and neither of them seemed to care that Silver was approaching. Storm flipped over and stood up first. It looked like he was about to turn and leave with the rest, but he stopped… looked at Dash, and offered a hoof to help her up.

Dash didn’t accept it. She scoffed, pushed herself up, and turned a cold shoulder, going on her way.

Storm said nothing, just staring with little expression as Dash went on her way. He heard Silver’s hoof-steps, but didn’t bother looking. He just sighed, shook his head, and started moving.

“Storm.”

Storm stopped cold in his tracks as Silver spoke up. He blinked and looked over his shoulder.

Silver was looking past him, his eyes locked on Dash as she rushed to catch up. His comical air was completely gone, he looked like he was in deep thought. Eventually, his eyes turned to Storm.

“C’mere for a second.”

“Alright, here’s the plan!” Air Mach yanked Dash, Fire, and Fleetfoot all down into a huddle.

“Ow, ow! Stop tugging on my chinstrap!” Fleetfoot growled at him as he nearly yanked her headguard off in the process.

“With the ball in hoof,” Air Mach let go of Fire and he nearly fell face first to the ground. “I’ll form up behind you three creating an arrow that will pierce the heavens themse—”

“For the last time…” Fleetfoot cut him off by grabbing the strap on his head guard and tightening it so hard that it slammed his mouth shut. “You are NOT carrying the ball every round! It’s Dash’s turn!”

Dash shook her head out as Fleetfoot’s retort pulled Air Mach’s hoof free of her, reaching up to make sure her head guard and pads were still all in place.

“What’s there to plan anyway?” Fire asked as he picked himself up. “We just need to force an opening to let her through. There’s no time to be fancy about it.”

“Ha! I like your style!” Air Mach ripped free of Fleetfoot, causing her to yelp as he spun her around. Air Mach chest bumped his padded front together with Fire’s. “Beat them head to head! I like it!”

“It’s what we did the other two times…” Dash said with a slight chuckle.

“What’s going on over there, a circlejerk?! Don’t make me come over there for a yank, I doubt any of you could handle me!” Silver’s voice boomed. The four of them looked over to see Silver tapping a hoof. “It would add flavor to the ring, eh? Must be hard when only one of you is packing any heat!”

“Thanks old timer!” Air Mach grinned and pointed at him.

“Keep telling yourself I was talking about you!” Silver belted. “Now get lined up!”

“C’moooooooon!” Lightning Streak yelled out, drawing their attention to the other group of four waiting. “Get over here so I can hit my bro for fun!” he beckoned them with Misty, Thunderlane, and Spitfire standing behind him.

Fire huffed as the four made their way over, grabbing the small, grapefruit sized playground ball off the grass and pressing it to Dash’s chest.

“I call dibs on blocking my brother,” Fire said with a snort.

“Let’s go, into the starting spots!” Silver called out, the rest of the Wonderbolts watching behind them.

Dash and her team made their way to a line that was marked by two tall poles reaching about ten yards into the air and standing twenty yards apart. Forty yards across from them was another pair of poles… and where Lightning’s team was waiting.

“Oh boy! Skittles has the ball this time!” Silver yelled out. “Would be a shame if a team with the LEAD CAPTAIN let her through the line!”

Spitfire’s eye twitched as they waited for Dash’s team to get in place. Her eyes locked on Dash.

“I’ll take the back,” Spitfire declared. Lightning blinked and glanced over his shoulder.

“Eh? Didn’t you just bury your boyfriend in the dirt? I thought it was Misty’s turn.”

Spitfire reached over and grabbed Misty’s shoulder. Misty blinked and looked at Spitfire. Spitfire didn’t make any sign language to her. Misty stared into Spitfire’s eyes, then looked over to see Dash was holding the ball. A moment later, Misty turned and nodded to Spitfire, whisking a hoof out behind them as she stepped forward to stand beside Thunderlane and Lightning.

“Looks like she’s the back again,” Thunderlane nodded.

“Welp, so long as Misty’s okay with it,” Lightning shrugged.

Dash took her place behind Fleetfoot, Fire, and a very eager Air Mach. She tucked the ball into her arm and glanced back and forth at the poles on both sides. This was her first time carrying the ball… and suddenly the space she was limited to work between felt much smaller than when she was in front guarding. But… she just had to stay behind the others, look for an opening and then just had to beat whoever was behind them to get over the line on their side while staying in bounds. So… she had to beat…

Dash’s heart jumped into her throat for a moment.

That was definitely Spitfire taking up the back position… and she was hitting her with one hell of a glare.

Dash shut her eyes tight, swallowed, and focused. She could do it… she could take on Spitfire. It’s not like it was the first time and, well, this time it was a full contact training exercise with protective padding. Nothing compared to when they were at each other’s throats while chasing Sombra. But out there, Spitfire was not emotionally sound. She looked calm and razor focused here. There was something naturally intimidating about it, but Dash wasn’t going to back down from a challenge.

“Remember!” Silver called out to them. “You’re allowed to take anypony to the ground and hold them down, but THAT’S it! I’m looking at YOU, Fire!”

“Me?” Fire blinked.

“Why just him?” Lightning yelled out, chuckling.

“Because if I was your brother I’d want to kick your ass too! More than I already want to!” Silver added, laughter erupting behind him. “Now… GET YOURSELVES SET!”

Dash spread her wings and planted her three unoccupied hooves. Her teammates in front all did the same. Across the way, the defending team prepped themselves as well. Spitfire was behind them now, but Dash felt like she could see her waiting regardless.

Silver put his whistle to his lips and held it there for a few moments.

FWEET

The instant the sound of the whistle filled the air, all eight participants launched, staying barely five yards off the ground as they charged at one another. Dash kept herself centered a few yards behind Fire Streak with Fleetfoot and Air Mach on his flanks. They were blocking her view of the other team, but all she needed was to see the moment of impact.

The two front lines slammed into each other. Fire and Lightning collided fiercely, Fire yanking his brother to the left. Air Mach crossed in front and absolutely decked Thunderlane from the side, shoving him right out of his path and out of bounds. Fleetfoot shifted as she approached Misty, ducking as Misty thrust herself forward. Knowing she was at a strength disadvantage to Misty, Fleetfoot twirled, hooked her arms into Misty’s and tugged as hard as she could, directing her path to one side of Fire and Lightning grappling at a standstill.

It all happened so fast… but Dash saw her opening. The twins were locked, Misty was redirected to one side, and Air Mach just absolutely ruined Thunderlane’s day. She had a clear path to the right of the twins with a lot of room.

Now she just had to get past…

Dash’s eyelids twitched as Spitfire shot into view from behind the twins, locking her flight path perfectly with Dash’s. Dash gritted her teeth, pushing her wings out and putting on the brakes knowing full well that her current speed and path was a one way ticket to getting taken down.

Spitfire reacted quickly, slowing herself and shifting her position to keep Dash centered in her sights. There wasn’t much time to think, so Dash took the initiative and pumped her wings, pushing her forward. Spitfire stayed hovering in place, arms out and eyes on Dash’s chest to watch her movements carefully.

Dash feinted to the left before snapping back to the right.

Spitfire did not fall for it. She didn’t move until Dash shifted right and heaved herself forward with arms outstretched. It looked like she was going to give Dash one hell of a hit dead on.

But then Spitfire’s eyes widened as Dash threw a punch with her free hoof. Spitfire shifted as little as possible to avoid it as she readied to clamp down on Dash and tackle her, but by the time she realized what was happening it was too late. Dash wasn’t trying to punch her, she was trying to get an arm onto Spitfire’s side.

“HMPH!” Dash exhaled as she forced her arm out, pushing it into Spitfire. The force caused her to twist, her body spinning right out of Spitfire’s arms.

“AH!” Spitfire yelped as Dash’s body got in the way of a wing flap. She lost control and fell, crashing to the ground.

“Whooooaaa!!!!” Dash yelled out as she lost control, unable to even out as she hurled towards the goal line. Seeing she was about to crash, she grabbed the ball in both hooves and stretched out, hoping it would be enough to cross the line.

Tensing her body, she hit the ground and bounced a few times before skidding to a halt.

The moment she stopped she looked up… and noticed the ball was an inch short of the line. She thrust a hoof down to push herself over the line, but the instant she began to move…

“WHOA BRO! CHILL! CHILLLLL!!!!”

“RRRRRAGH!”

Fire and Lightning Streak came down from above, crashing down right on Dash’s back.

“OOF!” Dash gasped, the ball flying from her hoof and rolling down the line… but not crossing it.

“I got it!” Fleetfoot yelled out, disengaging Misty. But Misty grabbed her tail in her teeth. “EEEEYOW!” Fleetfoot yelped as Misty yanked her down to the ground and shot towards the ball.

But the first one to get to it was…

“Ah! I got it!” Thunderlane landed and grabbed the ball, looking back and forth to find the line to cross. “Wait is this our line or—”

And then he got hit by Misty… twice as hard as Air Mach hit him. The ball popped right out of his hoof and flew up into the air. Everypony watching winced as Thunderlane got dragged through the dirt, but all eyes quickly went to the ball as it began to fall, heading towards the other side of the line.

“HRRRGH!!!!!” Spitfire shot in from the back, shooting towards it and reaching out…

But her hoof was just a hair short, the ball tapping off of it and landing on the other side.

Spitfire hit the ground, bounced, and rolled, her chest and head guard flying off as the force undid the straps.

Air Mach landed by the ball, grabbed it, and held it in the air.

“HA! SCORE!” he yelled out triumphantly, even though his only contribution was somehow losing his grip on Thunderlane.

“I dunno what the hell I just watched, but I loved it!” Silver guffawed as he blew his whistle. “Score for Fire’s team!” He blinked as he saw Fire Streak and Lightning Streak still wrestling on the ground… with Dash stuck under them. “HEY! Slapdicks! Drill’s over!”

“Tell him! GAH!” Lightning grunted as Fire kept grappling and shoving him down, bending him over Dash’s body. “Help! He’s gone nuts! He’s gonna grab me by the balls any second!” Lightning sputtered with a lot of grass in his mouth.

A few of the Wonderbolts began moving, but Silver swung his cane out, causing all of them to stop in their tracks. He hobbled towards the twins, grabbed Fire, and yanked him off Lightning.

“Oof!” Fire gasped as he landed on his back.

“Yikes, thanks geezer—WHOA!” Lightning yelped as Silver grabbed him and threw him too. “Ow! Hey, c’mon dude what was that for?”

“Cause you’re a goddamn instigator,” Silver gruffly snorted before turning to Fire. “I understand the urge, son… but next time don’t wrestle him on top of somepony else.”

Fire blinked and looked over to see Dash getting up and brushing herself off.

“Oh, well… I was kind of just…”

“Focusing on the important things,” Silver winked and chuckled, earning a smirk from Fire.

“Man, I can’t win can I?” Lightning complained as she got up and cracked his neck back and forth.

“Great competitive spirit!” Silver yelled, nodding. “Now clear out, next two groups up!”

As Dash made her way over to the sidelines, she felt a wing brush against hers.

“Dash.”

Dash looked to her left to see Spitfire walking beside her, a serious look on her face. But it only lasted a moment, her lips curling into a grin.

“That was a hell of an impressive move, good going,” she complimented. Dash was caught off-guard. She’d been trying to be more casual with Spitfire as of late, but… it was still praise from the best of the best.

“Heh… thanks, too bad I didn’t cross the line though,” Dash shrugged, trying to hide some shivers of satisfaction.

“You got past me,” Spitfire chuckled, giving her a playful pat on the back.

“Oh, I just—”

“Hey, HEY!” Fleetfoot appeared on the other side of Dash and pushed into her, sandwiching herself in between the two. Spitfire rolled her eyes and shifted to avoid squishing Dash. “Nopony’s ever gotten past Spitty in the hoot-n-holler drill before, you know… not even me or Soarin! She’s like a hawk wearing magnets when she’s the defense back. So screw the ball, you won where it counts!”

“Fleet, that’s not true, you got past me once,” Spitfire huffed.

“Yeah, cause you let me,” Fleetfoot gave her a look.

“No I didn’t…” Spitfire sighed.

“Yes you did and you can’t convince me otherwise, we’ve been over this. I know you let me slide by that one time,” Fleetfoot gave her a smarmy look.

“Listen here you…”

“Yeeeek!” Fleetfoot squeaked as Spitfire reached over Dash to hook Fleetfoot by the neck and stopped, letting Dash move on before she pulled her into a headlock. “Your innocence is a sham! You can’t deny it!” Fleetfoot giggled as Spitfire pulled her along.

Dash chuckled as she took her place by Silver with all those who had just gone and a few who remained with two new teams going in.

“Dash,” Silver’s voice caught her attention. She looked to see him smiling. “Very nice moves,” he said with a wink. “Next groups ready!” Silver turned back and blew his whistle.

Dash remained still, staring straight ahead with a blank look as one eyelid twitched every few seconds or so. That was a lot of praise to take in at once. She wasn’t one to be frozen by praise, but considering the two who just heaved it at her… she felt justified in being a tad… giddy.

“Ooooh… man…” Thunderlane wobbled up beside her. “Someone stop the merry-go-round… I want to get off…” he mumbled as he leaned into Dash and grabbed her shoulder for support. Dash blinked, breaking from the clouds her head was stuck in and gave him a look with a chuckle.

“You just can’t catch a break in there huh?” she said while reaching over to help prop him up.

“Matteo in the first round… Air Mach and Misty Fly in the second? Are they all just waiting for me to be not looking or something?” he whined as he stood up on his own power.

“I think you just have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, buddy,” Dash joked, nudging him in the arm. “A certain barn on a certain apple farm comes to mind.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Thunderlane nodded as Silver suddenly blew his whistle several times.

“HEY! What the HELL is going on out there?!” he yelled. Dash and Thunderlane looked out to see both teams looking very confused. “Where’s the ball? That’s the only one I could find in the back, I swear to Luna’s tits if you somehow lost it—”

Silver flinched and put up his hoof to catch something hurling at him at high speed. He stopped it, shook his head out, and looked down to see Twister’s face and mane on a perfectly round green ball.

“LOOK AT ME, I’M THE BALL NOW,” he said as he glared at Silver.

Silver blinked, looking at Twister flatly.

“Careful what you wish for,” Silver wound up and threw Twister back towards the teams. He hurled towards Squall, who caught him and fell over on his back. “The goal of this round isn’t to cross the line! It’s to smash the ball against the pole until his spherical ass becomes a cube! Bonus points if he becomes a rhombus instead!”

“What does that even—” High Winds began asking, but Squall was up and charging towards the nearest pole like he’d never get a chance like this in his life.

“SQUALL!” Little Star yelled, only for Matteo to chase after him… with just as much vigor.

“NO! BUZZ OFF!” Squall yelled as Matteo tried to reach him. “I’M DOING THIS!”

Little Star just stared blankly at the two of them as some confused Wonderbolts joined the chase.

“Well, could be worse,” Dash chuckled while glancing at Thunderlane again. “You could be the ball.”

“Don’t give Silver any ideas…” Thunderlane shuddered as the two listened to the absolute cacophony coming from the two teams brawling over who got to smash Twister into a metal pole.

“I’m getting ideas, what are you gonna do about it?” Silver’s voice came from over his shoulder.

“I SAID NOTHING!” Thunderlane yelped, falling over himself as he moved to the other side of Dash.

“Good lord, son,” Silver puttered his lips as Thunderlane peeked over Dash. “I ain’t gonna cook and eat you.”

“You once threatened to watch us sleep in a clown wig and makeup,” Dash spoke up while tipping her head slightly.

“Threatened?” Silver bounced one eyebrow and cracked a small grin before bringing his whistle to his lips and blowing into it several times. “ALRIGHT! That’s enough of that! Don’t kill each other over an idiot!” Silver yelled out as he hobbled towards the action.

Dash and Thunderlane stared blankly, then glanced at each other.

“I will never sleep again…” Thunderlane said in a monotone.

Silver eventually got Squall and Matteo to stop fighting over Twister and called all the groups back. They had one more matchup to go before calling it a day. Once they had all settled down and everypony had put any padding back in position, Silver twirled his hoof in the air and blew his whistle.

“We’re going to make this interesting for the last matchup!” he announced. He lifted a bucket into the air. “THIS… is a bucket!”

“MY GOD…” Twister stepped forward and glared at the bowl.

“There’s more!” Silver went on.

“NO…” Twister moved right up in front of Silver. Without ever once looking at Twister, Silver lifted up his cane and smacked Twister over the head so hard that he started vibrating. He began making the sounds of a jackhammer as he dug a hole into the ground up to his mane.

“Everypony’s names are in this bucket! I will draw one at a time for each position on both teams!” he explained. “Spitfire, come here!”

“Hm? What do you—OOF!” she grunted as Silver swung the bucket out and smacked it against her chest guard.

“Hold this, I only got one arm.” He ordered. Spitfire furrowed her brow.

“Do you just want me to draw them for—”

“No.” Silver glared at her, causing her to freeze and blink. “ALRIGHT!” Silver nodded, tapping the bucket with his cane as Spitfire held it. “First up! The three for the front line for the defending team!”

“Aie!” Spitfire squeaked as Silver jammed his hoof into the bucket and almost made her drop it.

“First!” he pulled out a small paper. “Wave Chill!” He pulled another. “Second!” He crumpled up the paper and threw it at Misty. She flinched as it bounced off her face, then blinked and furrowed her brow. Silver pointed at her, and tilted his head towards the poles. “Third!” he yelled out as Fire translated for her in full. He pulled out another. “Fat Fluff!” He paused. “That’s the bird, not Lightning Streak, sit down!” he yelled at Lightning.

“Wait, when did I—?” Lightning tilted his head.

“And the defense backer!” he rustled around the papers and yanked one out. But he only opened it slightly, a subtle gesture that Spitfire noticed. “Oh, huh, look at that… Rainbow Dash!” he yelled out, opening the paper in full to show her name.

“Oh, nice,” Dash nodded as she moved over to Matteo, Wave, and Misty, getting a small hoof bump from Misty as she came over.

“What was that about—”

“NOW THE OFFENSE!” Silver cut off Spitfire. “Front line is as follows!” he yelled, rustling the papers in the bucket again. “First! Fleetfoot!”

“I call dibs on touching Wave!” Fleetfoot called out while looking RIGHT at Spitfire. Spitfire flattened her brow. “You’re too easy Spitty!” Fleetfoot giggled.

“Hey, Princess Irony, get over there!” Silver ordered.

“I’m going, I’m… HEY!” Fleetfoot spun around and glared at him.

“SECOND!” Silver yelled out, reaching into the bucket. “Blaze!”

“Fuck…”

“I heard that, you got a problem, lady?!” Silver smacked his cane on the ground.

“With her, not this!” Blaze quickly pointed at Fleetfoot.

“C’mon, Blaze! So I planted your ass in the dirt for a whole minute the first round, I’m not so bad when you get to know me!” Fleetfoot taunted while wiggling her butt.

“SEE?!” Blaze pouted at Silver.

“Get over it and get over there, it’s not my fault she lives with one hoof up your ass at all times,” Silver rotated a hoof.

“Ugh… GOD, did you have to put it THAT way?” Blaze winced and stuck her tongue out as she went over.

“Yes. Anyway, THIRD!” Silver reached for the last for the offense line. “Squall! Step up and show them your edge, lord!”

“My what now?” Squall lifted an eyebrow as she moved over to join the two.

“Sheesh, these teams are fucking stacked one way…” Blaze huffed as she looked at the overall size advantage the defense had.

“Relax, Blazey Cakes, let me handle the four hundred pound feather duster and you two can figure out Wave and Misty,” Fleetfoot winked at them. Squall blinked several times.

“YOU’RE going to take Matteo?” he asked incredulously.

“What, ya doubt me, handsome?” Fleetfoot batted her eyelashes at him, causing him to nervously lean back. “Trust me, I got this. I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve, just ask Angry McF-bomb over here,” she giggled while making a head motion towards Blaze.

“Don't fucking ask me about it!” Blaze growled as Squall just decided to keep his mouth shut.

“LASTLY!” Silver yelled out as he reached into the bucket. “The ball carrier!”

He pulled a paper out of the bucket, but as he tried to carefully unfold it like with Dash, it slipped and opened in his hoof. The name on the paper was ‘Air Mach’. Silver quickly closed the paper against his body and looked at Spitfire. She was staring right at the paper… and had clearly seen it. She looked at Silver curiously. Silver gave her a quick firm look, then turned to the rest.

“STORM FRONT!” he yelled out. Spitfire’s eyes widened and she tilted her head. “Get over there, kid! You’re up!” he yelled while looking over to Dash and seeing her visibly react to the name.

“Ah… right,” Storm trotted over, receiving a hard glare from Squall as he approached, but it was overshadowed by Fleetfoot swinging over and scooping up the ball.

“Here ya go! Show us some moves that would make your dad proud!” she cooed while shoving the ball into his hoof.

“Eh? Um…” Storm front looked over to the other team, it was intimidating enough to see the size advantage they had, but… also to see Dash behind them. She was glaring harder than Squall. “Yeah sure.”

“Everypony get lined up!” Silver yelled out, glancing behind him as he felt a hoof grab his shoulder. Spitfire was looking him dead in the eye, and didn’t look amused.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, clear concern in her voice. “Why did you call Storm instead?”

“What do you care?” Silver sharply shot back. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Now get your fucking hoof off me before I rip off your arm to replace my broken one.”

Spitfire flinched and quickly pulled her hoof back, the hard emphasis in Silver’s voice convincing her that he’d really consider it.

“Fire,” Silver called over to Fire Streak. Fire looked to see Silver moving towards him. “I need your help with something…”

The two teams took their positions… and as she set her hooves in position behind Misty, Wave, and Matteo, Dash wasn’t sure at all about what was going through her mind. She stared right through the gap, past the other team’s line, and at Storm Front holding the ball behind them.

“It’s a drill, Dash…” she said to herself. “It’s a drill, just take him down and get it over with…” she said under her breath as she blew air through her nostrils. “And maybe hit him very hard…” she gritted her teeth and growled. “Asshole deserves it…”

“Dash…? Hello?” Wave’s voice reached her ears. She blinked and shook her head out, looking up to see her three teammates staring at her.

“Sorry, what was that?” Dash asked, reaching up and tugging at the strap of her headguard to make sure it was snug.

“I asked if you are ready,” Wave nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good to go,” Dash nodded, getting an eager wink and nod from Misty.

“Use me to conceal your movements,” Matteo suggested as he checked his very large custom fitted pad guards. “They can’t predict the movements of what they can’t see.”

“Sure,” Dash replied flatly. Matteo noticed.

“Is everything alright?” he tilted his brow.

“Yeah…” Dash glanced at Storm again. “Everything’s good.”

Matteo stared at her for a moment.

“I’ll clear a path to him, worry not. Don’t hold back,” Matteo said quietly. Dash blinked in surprise, but Matteo was already turning to get set.

“Heh…” Dash smirked as Matteo saw right through her. She took her place and waited for Silver to start the last drill.

“Everypony get set!” Silver called out, biting down on the whistle and holding it in his teeth. As the two teams readied themselves, Silver first looked at Storm for a moment, then shifted his eyes to Dash, staring at her for several moments.

He held the whistle still in his teeth a little longer than he had any other time, his eyes narrowing slightly as he saw Dash twitching, hooves inching forward.

FWEET

Dash had to pull up slightly the moment she started, because she nearly launched right past her own front line upon taking off. She tapped off Matteo’s back and shifted to stay in formation as her team careened towards the incoming offense. The distance closed rapidly and she kept her eyes peeled for shifts in both lines to figure out her route to Storm.

With Matteo in the center, all three of her line moved left to stay lined up with the other team. She was surprised to see Fleetfoot in the middle, a confident smirk on her face as Squall and Blaze kept up with her in a slight triangle formation with Storm hidden behind them. Dash was confident she would only have to worry about keeping track of Storm. She kept her wings beating, but mentally prepared herself to make a quick shift to execute Matteo’s Air Burst the moment she had Storm in clear view. All she had to do was wait for Matteo, Wave, and Misty to plow into the offense and push them aside…

Dash’s eyes widened, a thought striking her mere moments before the two lines clashed…

Fleetfoot… in the middle and taking on Matteo? With a smirk on her face?

“MATTY! WATCH OUT!” Dash yelled, but it was too late.

“ALLY OOP!” Fleetfoot yelled out as she executed a perfectly timed inline twist while simultaneously grabbing Matteo’s outstretched arm. Matteo squawked as his arm got yanked down, Fleetfoot pumping her wings to force his momentum sideways. Matteo was thrown right out of line and crashed into Wave, Fleetfoot wrapping an arm around Wave’s neck to pull both Mateo and Wave down to the ground into a rough landing, the three tumbling towards the out of bounds lines.

Dash just barely avoided the collision, and shifted back on course just in time to see Blaze and Squall catching Misty in a double team block. They struggled against her, but Misty couldn’t rip free as the two forced her aside… effectively clearing the way for Storm.

It was now just the two of them. Dash locked on, glaring at Storm as they careened towards each other. Dash’s nostrils flared, her lip twitching with her teeth grinding together as their eyes locked… and something in her began boiling up…

Anger… she was angry. VERY angry… she was thinking about what he did and it was pissing her off. Up until now she didn’t really have a way to vent it aside from giving him the cold shoulder. But right now? The point of the drill was to take him down and she had free rein to hit him as hard as she wanted. She wanted to knock his block off and now was her chance.

Storm hardened his gaze, feinting left before propelling right. Dash didn’t fall for it, keeping her eyes on his chest and staying lined up with him. He couldn’t shake her, she was going to let him have it no matter what kind of moves he tried.

But then he caught her off guard. Instead of trying another juke, he dropped to the ground and rapidly slammed his hooves against the ground to execute his Surface Tap maneuver… and threw himself directly into her.

“OOF!” Dash grunted as Storm’s shoulder drove right into her chest pad. She was pushed backwards, her momentum completely turned around as Storm pumped his wings to try and physically force her all the way back. “GRH! YOU SON OF A—” Dash snarled as she clamped down on his shoulders, threw her body out to get her wings level, and beat them furiously to regain control. Storm brought his free arm up and around, locking it with hers and forcing her to tilt so she couldn’t drive him down with her wing beats.

They came to a stop, the two grunting and growling in each other’s faces as they tried to gain the upper hoof on the other. The only direction they moved was side to side as they yanked and pulled, Storm’s positioning preventing Dash from overpowering him or getting any movements off that would shift the balance.

“GGRRRRHGH!” Dash growled angrily. She was already pissed at him for personal reasons and now she let him get an advantage in a one on one contest… she knew she was better than him and she let him catch her off guard in front of everypony else. “RAAAAAAH!” Dash yelled out as she began swinging her body back and forth wildly, trying to throw him off, but she couldn’t.

“Ah! Ggh!” Storm gasped and grunted as he refused to go down, and kept up his efforts to push through.

Off to the side, the Wonderbolts were watching with unease… something seemed off to them as they all stared at the rather violent lock between Dash and Storm. Blaze and Squall wrestling with Misty and Fleetfoot somehow holding down Matteo and Wave in awkward positions didn’t even register to them.

The only one who didn’t look on with worry was Silver. He was watching very… VERY carefully.

“HUP!” Storm took a gamble and stopped his push, instead trying to drop down again for another surface tap with Dash holding onto him. Dash snarled in his face, trying to get a push as he dropped and turned him a little bit too far for him to cleanly do it… but he did get two hooves down. There was a half-force push, nudging them forward in Storm’s favor, but Storm’s head lurched forward and collided with Dash’s neck. She coughed and exhaled harshly, feeling light headed for a brief moment… before something REALLY snapped in her mind.

“HRAH!” Dash clamped down on Storm, her eyes flickering yellow, her muscles tensing as her grip dug into Storm’s shoulders.

“AH! OW!” Storm yelped as Dash’s hooves dug into him, but before he could do anything, she was heaving him over her head, hooking her arm into his neck and slamming him to the ground on his back behind her. The ball went flying from Storm’s hoof at the moment of impact.

With the competition still on his mind, Storm tried to turn over and look for the ball, but before he could, Dash thrust a hoof down, pushing his shoulder to the ground to keep him on his back and lifted a hoof into the air.

Storm’s eyes widened as he saw the look of rage on Dash’s face… her eyes had a dim yellow glow in them that was slowly growing brighter. All he could think to do was put up his hooves to defend himself, and he did so just in time.

Dash roared as she began punching down at him repeatedly, first with just one arm, then with both.

“GAH! DASH! DAAAAASH!” Storm yelled out her name as her hooves slammed into his arm guards over and over, the strap buckles squeaking and cracking as the force of the blows tugged at them and the padding began to split and tear.

Dash didn’t stop, her swings just kept getting harder and wilder, as if she had lost all reason. She was pissed at him and on top of betraying her he had just humiliated her in what should have been an easy victory for her.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Spitfire yelled out. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” She spread her wings to take flight with several others readying to do the same.

But Silver’s cane swung out and smacked into her chest pad.

“SILVER?!” Spitfire yelled right into his ear as he blocked her. “WE HAVE TO—”

“YOU WON’T DO A FUCKING THING!” Silver’s voice boomed. “AND NOPONY ELSE WILL EITHER!” he added, his voice reverberating through everypony’s ears and freezing them all in place. “YOU WILL STAY RIGHT HERE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!”

Not even Spitfire could come up with a response, frozen stiff by Silver’s voice as he gave the order. In all her years knowing him, it was the most forceful and powerful tone that had ever come out of his mouth and it was terrifying…

But why…? Why was he letting Dash attack Storm?

“FIRE!” Silver suddenly yelled. “GO! NOW!”

Spitfire flinched in surprise as Fire Streak took flight… but it wasn’t towards Dash. He was on an intercept course, shooting into the path of Misty Fly as she shot towards Dash and Storm. He reached out and grabbed her, pulling her out of her trajectory and wrapping his arms around her. She frantically shifted to look at him, giving him a very confused and alarmed look, but Fire did not let her wiggle free, he held on tight as he gently landed. It was hard for him to look her in the eye with how frantic she looked, but once he had a good hold on her he used a free hoof to point at Silver.

Misty looked to Silver, then back to Fire… immediately understanding the hesitant look on his face before she refocused on Dash and Storm, and bit her lip as Dash continued to punch and pummel Storm.

All Storm could do was protect his face, he stopped trying to find ways to get her off because he could not.

Dash was completely out of her mind. She was not thinking about anything else. She was just angry, angry at him, and she was taking it out on him.

She swung and she swung.

Again and again.

The urge within her to beat the shit out of him just would not cease.

She was completely unaware of the yellow flickering light in her eyes.

And then she just suddenly and abruptly stopped.

She still had a hoof lifted, but she did not bring it down. She stared down, her look of rage suddenly shifting hard to a look of hard, horrific realization.

Storm still had his arms up, turning his head slightly to peak between them. He saw the look on Dash’s face and slowly… and carefully, parted his arms.

The two just stared at one another for several moments, the only noise between them and all of the Wonderbolts silently standing still… was the sound of a single set of hoof steps offset by a cane in the grass slowly growing closer to them.

Silver stopped a pace away, looking directly at Dash.

Dash’s ears slowly lowered, flopping to the side of her head as she turned her head and her eyes met Silver’s. Silver did not look angry, he simply stared at her with a stern, focused gaze.

“Well?” He spoke to her. “Are you done?”

The words stabbed right through her, his tone driving the knife especially deep. She quickly got up from Storm and trotted several paces away, sitting on the ground with her back turned to everypony. Silver watched her until she sat down and blew a long breath through his nose. Without a word, he turned to Storm and reached out his good hoof. Storm just stared at it.

“C’mon kid, get up,” Silver beckoned with a slight head tilt. With a little bit of hesitation, Storm grabbed Silver’s hoof. Silver helped him stand up, the arm guards falling off as he stood. Silver looked down at the damaged pads and straps, then looked over to Dash, still sitting silently with her back turned. “That’s it for today everypony, hit the showers and hit the tubs.” Silver called out to all of them.

But none of them moved. Silver narrowed his eyes and looked over his shoulder at all of them.

“Don’t make me say it again.”

That did the trick, everypony was moving. Many looked over their shoulder on the way, but nopony questioned Silver as they made their way back towards the Empire gates. Storm got a move on so quickly that he left his broken arm guards behind.

Silver waited for everypony to be on their way and out of earshot, including how long it took for Fire to tug Misty away and Squall to grab Little Star for the fifth time after she kept slipping away and trying to get to Dash.

Once it was just the two of them left, Silver scooped up the broken arm guards and made his way over to Dash. She did not look at him as he approached or placed himself right beside her. She was hunched forward, and staring blankly at the ground. Silver looked her up and down once before tossing the arm guards at her hooves, directly into her line of sight.

Her eyes locked on them and she stared at them before suddenly glancing at Silver. She turned her head shakily to look up into his eyes.

“I… Uh-I…” her voice was weak and scared. “I’m… sorry, I…”

“Stop.” Silver said simply. Dash quickly shut her mouth. “I don’t want an apology… I want you to tell me what you just did.”

Dash’s ears twitched as she stared, swallowing as she tried to find her voice.

“I… got angry… and…” she took deep breaths in between nearly every word. “I… let it control me, I—”

“No. Try again,” Silver cut her off abruptly. Dash flinched, sitting up a little bit as she blinked in surprise.

“What…?”

“Try. Again.” Silver repeated. “What did you do?”

“I… attacked Storm when I shouldn’t have.” Dash found her voice, more or less saying it again with more details.

“Still wrong,” Silver snorted. “One last try, third time’s the charm.”

“What the HELL do you want me to say?!” Dash blurted out, a bit of a wail in her voice as her eyes turned into a glare and tiny tear beads squeaked out of the corners of her eyes. “That’s what I did! What else is there?!” she shouted in his face before glaring hard… a glare that bounced right off of Silver like it was nothing.

“You attacked a FELLOW WONDERBOLT."

Silver put harsh emphasis on those two words.

Dash’s glare faded in an instant.

“Got anything to say to justify that?” he added, lifting an eyebrow.

“I… we…” Dash turned her shoulder to him and gritted her teeth. “It’s… complicated, a personal matter between us that got to me and…” she trailed off.

“AND…” Silver took over. “That changes anything?”

“Silver!” Dash quickly turned back to him. “He—”

“I know what he did,” Silver cut her off again. “You told me. And guess what? HE told me too. I asked him without mentioning anything about you and he told me the same thing you did.”

“I really doubt that,” Dash grumbled.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Silver furrowed his brow. Dash flinched so hard her back cracked.

“OW! No!” she shook her head as she turned slightly left and right to loosen up. “I mean HE… um… AUGH!” she groaned loudly, throwing her head back and looking up into the sky.

“He ratted you out to Spitfire because he thought it was the right thing to do.”

“He betrayed my trust!” Dash made sure to specify.

“So that’s your excuse for trying to hurt a wingmate?”

“Stop trying to take him out of this!” Dash snapped at Silver, turning her whole body and leaning towards him.

“HE IS A WONDERBOLT!” Silver inched forward and yelled. Dash froze in an instant, her fur bristling as the force of Silver’s words rushed through her. “AND SO ARE YOU GODDAMMIT!” Silver added with just as much force.

Dash sat completely still, eyes wide and staring at Silver as he let out a soft snort and tapped his cane in the grass.

“None of us are perfect! Both of you had a reason to do what you were doing and he got the drop on you! Need I remind you that you were intent on disobeying direct orders from the captain?! Forget what the orders were for a moment and whittle it all down! We had betrayal on one side and insubordination on the other! But guess what both of you had in common? You were both doing what you thought was right, which is what I’d hope you always do! And if Storm is as smart as I think he is, he knew there was no way to convince your stubborn ass otherwise so he did what he believed had to do!”

Dash looked away.

“So tell me, Rainbow Dash… Now that it’s all said and done and we’re standing where we are now… why has only ONE of you two tried to patch things up?” Silver asked.

“I…” Dash fixed her eyes on the ground. “I just can’t forgive him, Silver, I—”

THWACK

She was completely cut off as Silver suddenly smacked her upside the head with his cane, really hard.

“OW! WHAT THE FFFFFFFFF—” Dash yelped, grabbing her head.

“Whoa damn! Cane got ahead of herself there! She can be a fickle gal, let me tell you!”

“What was THAT for?!” Dash growled, angrily turning to Silver.

“Who cares? It already happened! It’s over and done with!” Silver shrugged and looked down at his cane. “Looks like Cane feels bad about it, ain’t that sweet of her? But guess what? Cane isn’t going anywhere so you’d best stop being angry at it and move on!”

“You hit me for THAT?!” Dash whined while throwing a hoof out and furrowing her brow.

“Don’t you talk to me like I’d ever hit you!” Silver snorted. “I warned you all at the start about Cane! She forgets herself sometimes, but she’s a good lady at heart! Now is it gonna be worth your time to be angry at a goddamn stick or are you going to let it go?!”

“You are NOT helping!” Dash yelled in Silver’s face.

“Hey! Hey! Talk to Cane, not me!” he waved his cane in front of her.

“SILVER, I’M NOT GOING TO FORGIVE STORM!” she shouted while pounding a hoof in the ground.

“DON’T!” Silver shouted right back while pounding his cane into the grass.

Dash blinked, stepping back and shaking her head out. She was so confused that she forgot about the sting on her head.

“You better not let him forget what he did for the rest of his damn life!” Silver pointed his cane at her. “But holding an endless grudge against him won’t do either of you any good! If you keep glaring him down like he shat in your cornflakes every morning, he won’t learn from his mistake!”

“Oh, so I’m just supposed to pretend it’s alright?!” Dash threw an arm out. “So HE feels better?”

“Yeah YOU sure sound like you feel pretty good right now, right? My eyes aren’t the best, but I can tell the difference between a toothpaste and ass cream tube and I don’t think I need to tell you which one you definitely need right now!”

“Hmmrrrrrrgh…” Dash groaned, sitting down and pressing her hooves to her forehead, rubbing her temples as she mumbled and grumbled to herself.

Silver watched her for a moment, but when it was clear she wasn’t going to stop for a few moments, he sighed and slowly moved over next to her.

“Listen to me, Dash,” he sat down beside her. “And stop that before you give yourself a worse headache,” he said as he reached over and pulled her arms away from her face.

Dash slowly looked up. She didn’t look at him, but she was looking towards the Crystal Empire as the sun set over the skyline. Silver did the same for a few seconds.

“I get it. He stabbed you in the back,” he began. “No one is saying otherwise. But in his eyes, you were out of line, there’s no way to explain around that. In the end nopony was right. He wasn’t right, you weren’t right, hell, not even Spitfire was right and all of you went to extremes, broke trust, and hurt each other for what you believed in. It was a shitshow for sure, but… the important thing is that you both learn from it instead of dwelling on it. It’s when we are at our worst… that we learn how to take firm steps forward and better ourselves. If we don’t take those steps and stay stuck in place, then we will stay at our worst.”

Dash said nothing for a moment.

“Silver?” she finally spoke. Silver glanced at her. “Have you ever had a teammate… or a friend do you in like that?”

“The way you asked that makes me think you already know the answer,” Silver smirked.

“I had a feeling,” Dash sighed, letting a long breath through her nostrils.

“A few times. Can’t say any circumstances were as fubar as what happened to you kids, but… we were stuck in the middle of a war. Things went tits up all the time and when you’re fighting for your life you’ll learn who really has your back… and who needs to be reminded that they should. I could name a few names here, but the worst one was Hurricane for sure. I’ll never forget that one.”

“Hurricane?” Dash blinked. “From Gold Squad?”

“The very one,” Silver nodded. “We were trying to get supplies to civilians caught in the conflict and… got raided by drake scouts. I ended up with several hundred pounds of boxes falling on top of me. Hurricane was right in front of me, but left me there to get some distance even though there were no drakes within attack range of me at that point. Blizzard got me out soon after, but then later Hurricane also tried to blame me for the attack, saying I didn’t keep a good enough lookout even though we were attacked from the trees. He threw me under the bus… because that was the fourth supply line we lost in two weeks and Blazetail was at the end of his rope with him.”

“What…?” Dash blinked, tipping her head a little.

“Mmhmm,” Silver nodded. “Blazetail tore into me, and I was so shocked that I took it all without a word. I was pissed at Hurricane for it… and I avoided him for several days until Blizzard got a hold of him and got him to spill the beans. He really was afraid of Blazetail’s short fuse at the situation and tried to save his own skin. He apologized to me… but there was no way in hell I was ever going to let him live that one down, I didn’t care how high he ranked over me. But… I couldn’t afford to hold a grudge against him. He admitted he screwed up and I accepted that because we couldn’t afford any spats in our ranks, not in the middle of war. And after that, he was never too far from Blizzard and I, always coming to us when we were in need in the middle of all the action, with Jet Stream in tow of course. Blizzard used to joke that his way of saying sorry was dragging ‘the scary, quiet one’ behind him so she could really give hell to anyone attacking us.”

Dash slowly looked up, her eyes tracing just above the Crystal Empire skyline. Silver glanced at her, taking note of the look in her eyes as she thought to herself.

“You and Storm need to set things straight,” Silver went on. “You’re both Wonderbolts, part of the same family. It’s okay if a family doesn’t get along sometimes, but you can’t let it prevent you from being there for each other when you need to be. When you’re constantly at odds, you can forget what’s most important,” Silver placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t forgive him… because he needs to remember what he’s done to be better in the future. Give him a fair chance to make up for it and if he really wants to make amends, he will. And you... need to let him have that chance. Stop giving him the cold shoulder so you can get that cloud of anger out of your head and focus on your training. When it comes to life and death, you’ll both need to be at your best, and so long as this continues between you two, you won’t be.”

Dash looked back down, her eyes shifting side to side while staring at the ground. Silver smirked, lifting his hoof and giving her shoulder a firm pat.

“But keep it in your back pocket. In retrospect, you’ll have a way to burn his ass whenever you want to take him down a notch. Remind him of this shit and it’ll twist his tail in a knot.”

Dash blinked and looked at Silver quizzically.

“What, you think I never reminded Hurricane that he shrank like a little bitch in front of Blazetail? Nah, I reminded him… Often.”

“How many ranks above you was he?” Dash asked.

“I didn’t give a shit, he earned it.”

“Heh…” Dash chuckled, finally cracking a small smile. “Well…” she took a long deep breath. “Alright… I guess I’ll talk to him after we eat tonight…” she trailed off, her smile fading as suddenly as it appeared. Silver noticed.

“It’s not going to be easy, but I think you already know that,” Silver let go of her shoulder.

“Yeah, I know, but…” Dash huffed, blowing a puff of air at her mane, making it float up and back down. “You’re right… as usual. I’ll do my best.”

“Leave the rest of the schmucks to me too. I’ll let them know a few details to put them at ease and keep Spitfire off your back for this.” Silver offered.

“I appreciate it.” Dash stood up, looking down at Silver’s cane. “By the way, your cane can go screw itself.”

Silver let out a hearty guffaw.

“NOW we’re talkin’!”

“Urp… blah…” Dash belched quietly as she walked out of their dining room, patting her full stomach and covering her mouth as she silently let out two more from all the food she just admittedly rushed down. She was extremely hungry after training, but she was also in a hurry… and being one of the last to sit down and eat didn’t help. She looked back and forth around the lobby of their hotel lodging, but aside from looking out the window just in time to see a random Pegasus crash face first into the gym next door, she saw nothing interesting… and no Storm. A few Wonderbolts were lingering, but most of them had already called it a night early and were probably already succumbing to a food coma. It was barely past seven, but none of them would complain about extra sleep.

Dash had business to attend to though. She wanted to find Storm and get this over with. Just because she knew Silver was right didn’t mean she was thrilled about it… but again, Silver was right. She had to at least look him in the eye and talk things over. He was in the dining room with the others just now. He didn’t look in her direction, but he only left a minute before she did.

“Where did he go?” she thought aloud and huffed. She spread her wings and hovered into the air to look down the hallway on the second level. All of their rooms were down there and unless he went Mach 3 from the dining hall there was no way he was already in his room at the end of the hall.

“Ma’am, no flying in the building, please!” the receptionist called from the front desk.

“Oh right,” Dash snorted as she lowered herself back down and folded her wings. The small hotel next door to the gym was already not thrilled about having to house them free of charge for several months, Spitfire made it clear they were to follow all of their rules to make things easier for them. “So if he isn’t in his room, then…” Dash looked to the front doors. Without another thought, she made her way over, and left the building.

Her instincts were right. The moment she stepped outside, she heard what sounded like Storm’s voice among the many noises of the Empire’s market district. She looked left and right, her eyes locking on the source. Storm was a little ways down the road… and he was talking to Descent.

She started walking towards them and wasn’t subtle about it at all. Storm had his back turned to her.

“You guys must be getting really tired of finding nothing, huh?” Storm asked, tipping his head.

“But it’s necessary,” Descent nodded. “So long as we remain here in the Empire, the Renegades will keep up the scouting operations. They may have yet to show themselves anywhere near, but the last thing I want is for us to come under attack on the very day we halt our efforts. There are many ways to die, but I’d prefer it not to be irony.”

“I guess that makes sense…” Storm nodded back. “Though I assume that’s not all that you’ve been doing?”

“Of course not,” said Descent. “We are keeping our skills sharp with training exercises whenever we are not out on patrol. Cycling groups in a rotation.”

“I take it that’s been a lot easier since you found Starry?” Storm asked with a smile.

“You have no idea,” Descent rolled his eyes and sighed. “The moment she stopped hiding she had the Shadowbolt half of the Renegades scared of her all over again.”

“I’m surprised you need help in that regard.”

“She’s better at it than I am, if you can believe it. Also, if you run into her, don’t ask any questions about her crystal form,” Descent warned.

“Why?” Storm blinked.

“Ask the poor bastard that spent last night in the infirmary,” Descent chuckled.

“Point taken…”

“Speaking of training, how has your special routine been… going…” Descent looked up as he trailed off. He stared directly at Rainbow Dash, who was now standing right behind Storm.

“Huh?” Storm tipped his head. Descent made a quick upward head tip while staring over his shoulder. Storm looked behind him. “GAH!” Storm jumped, turned, and backed his plot right into Descent’s chest.

“Oof! Hey!” Descent reached up and pressed a hoof into Storm’s back. “What’s this about?” he asked curiously as Dash stood perfectly still and held a serious expression while Storm’s hooves skidded on the ground.

“She tried to KILL me an hour ago!” Storm’s voice cracked slightly.

Descent cocked an eyebrow and looked between the two of them, taking note that Dash did NOT look ready to do anything like attack his son.

“I’m clearly missing some context here,” he thought aloud.

“Relax,” Dash said sharply, causing Storm to freeze and blink a lot. She turned her attention to Descent. “Sorry to interrupt. I need to borrow Storm for a few minutes.”

Descent looked into Dash’s eyes carefully, examining the determination in them. He glanced at Storm, who looked half confused, half ready to soil himself. He didn’t know the details, but Dash wanted to talk to him?

“By all means,” Descent nudged Storm forward.

“Bwuh…?” Storm said dumbly, only looking back once before locking his eyes on Dash.

“You,” Dash snorted towards Storm. “Walk with me.”

She turned and started walking down the road.

Storm just stared at first, but after another nudge and nod from Descent, he swallowed and started following.

“O… okay…”

The two made their way down the road into the busy market square. Dash didn’t look over her shoulder at any point, nor did she listen for Storm’s hoofsteps while they still stood out from the approaching busy square. She just assumed he was coming along, and if he wasn’t, then he wasn’t really serious about saying his word. Storm knew exactly what this was about.

The evening rush was in full swing. The square was very busy, ponies moving to and fro, many stopping at shops and stalls on their way home from work. With a quick glance, Dash spotted a coffee shop near the north side of the square. It had an outdoor seating area with the chairs and tables stacked and stored after closing early in the afternoon.

As she moved and weaved between the ponies in the crowd, she took her first look over her shoulder. Storm was with her… mostly. He was two pony lengths behind and trying his best not to run into anypony. He still looked quite nervous and confused. Dash thought nothing of it, knowing it was her fault for trying to beat his face in not even two hours ago. She locked eyes with him and made a head motion to follow her before making her way towards the coffee shop.

As soon as she was free from the bustling activity, she stepped into the seating area, hoisted one of the tables up from the stacks and slammed it down behind her with a loud CLANG.

Storm came to an abrupt halt as the table came really close to hitting him. Several other ponies flinched and glanced as well, but went about their business. Dash lifted a chair from the nearby stacks, planted it on the ground and pushed it across the concrete to Storm. Storm only placed his hoof on the chair as Dash slammed another chair down on the other side of the table and sat in it roughly, dropping her elbows to the table and looking right at Storm with a flat expression.

“Sit down,” Dash finally spoke as Storm just stood there at first. Storm swallowed and sat down, leaning back in the chair. “So…” Dash began, but trailed off, furrowing her brow.

“S… So…” Storm echoed her. Dash sighed.

“Come on, go ahead,” she grumbled, waving a hoof at him.

“With… what…?” Storm blinked.

“You’ve been trying to talk to me, so talk. I’m listening now.”

Storm lifted an eyebrow curiously.

“Did somepony force you into this? Did my Dad—?”

“No, it was somepony else,” Dash cut him off. “You can probably narrow it down, but I wasn’t forced, I was CONVINCED that we need to do this. So, go on. I’m listening.”

“Fair enough,” Storm sighed. “I… well…” he stalled, then shrugged. “Hell, I dunno. At this point I don’t think saying ‘sorry’ is gonna cut it, will it?”

Dash flattened her brow. Storm tipped his head slightly and lifted an eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he quickly went on. “Just hear me out. I did what I did for a reason, okay? It was nothing personal against you.”

“Convince me,” Dash said simply, a hint of annoyance in her voice. Storm just stared for a moment, still looking a little nervous. But after a deep breath he hardened his gaze a little.

“Okay, I’ll come right out and say it. I thought what you were suggesting we do was completely off the wall insane. You weren’t just disobeying orders, you were scheming behind Spitfire’s back to upend the plan for your own and that didn’t sit well with me at all.”

Dash’s body tensed a little bit, but she didn’t let it show. She listened carefully.

“Fine, look…” Storm firmly placed a hoof on the table. “I really hate to bring this up… but I know what went through your head in that moment, and it’s probably still going through it. And… I want you to let me say all of what I’m about to say without interrupting me, okay?”

Dash just stared for a moment before rotating a hoof, prompting him to continue.

“I know exactly how it looked to you… Here is the guy who got the better of you during our cadet training and was elevated right into a high-tier squad… stabbing you in the back because he was more worried about keeping his rank than helping his friend.”

Dash’s eyes twitched and she scrunched her face a little, but she kept quiet as he requested.

“Let’s just put that out there because I know that has something to do with it,” Storm said quite firmly. “And… it DID… because including me in your plans really put me on the spot. I’ve been under crazy pressure since I got chosen. I always feel extremely behind the curve and inadequate, like I constantly make mistakes, and like I’m doing nothing to actually earn the position I’ve been put in. I didn’t care how many times Soarin told me I was doing alright, or anypony else for that matter, I never felt like it was enough. I’m surrounded by the best combat flyers in all of Equestria, just some runt that made a good impression and now I’m wedged between the biggest names of the Wonderbolts. I joined the Wonderbolts because I wanted to make something of myself, something of the little that I had thanks to a father I barely knew and now I suddenly have something that smacked me right in the face and has me scrambling every day to live up to the expectations. I’m afraid of losing it, I’m afraid of not being able to do enough. So when you told me what you wanted me to do, I panicked. You couldn’t have known how I felt… you brought me in there under the assumption that I’d be right on your side with the rest of our cadet classmates, but you had no idea what I’d been dealing with. You were asking me to throw everything I was struggling to keep afloat into the fire… for a plan that I thought was insane. I was at odds with everything happening just as much as everypony else, but you wanted to throw yourself against Spitfire’s orders? Knowing what she’s capable of? It was ludicrous and… I thought it was only going to make things worse than they already were.” Storm exhaled and leaned back in his chair again. “THAT… is why I did it. Yeah, I went behind your back. Use any words you want to describe backstabbing because that’s exactly what I did. But I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. So… I’m sorry, and maybe I regret it a bit now, but in that moment, that was what was going through my mind.”

Dash said nothing.

Storm just stared.

Their eyes remained locked in silence for several seconds, nothing but the noise of movement and the voices of many other ponies in the square swirling around them.

Eventually… Dash let out a long, exasperated sigh and relaxed her body, leaning back into her chair.

“So that’s it, huh?” she asked.

“That’s it,” Storm nodded.

“Well, I guess that’s that then,” Dash huffed and glanced towards the square.

“Got nothing to say to me?” Storm furrowed his brow slightly.

“No, I really don’t,” Dash shook her head, her eyes still averted towards the crowds. “If that’s how it all was in your head, then that’s all I needed to know.”

“So what now?” Storm asked. “Am I still on your shitlist or are you finally going to act like I exist again?”

“No, you’re on my shitlist for life,” Dash said frankly while turning her head back to him. Storm’s face contorted into a slightly annoyed pout. “But…” Dash went on, shaking her head again. “I’m done being angry about it. We have much more important things to focus on right now. I don’t need this camping in my head.”

“So you’re basically saying I’m not forgiven?”

“No, and you won’t be,” Dash leaned forward and looked at him sternly. “Better get that into your head right now because that’s not changing, but… it’s time to move on from it. If you want to make it up to me, then prove to me you can still be the guy I trusted before this went down. That’s what I need and that’s what you need. You don’t have to do it now, but when the time comes, do what you need to do for that.” She turned to the side and looked out into the square again. “Neither of us are going to go anywhere if we keep this spat up, so I’m done with it.”

“I guess that’s better than blowing me off completely,” Storm rolled his eyes, but accepted it. “I guess that means we’re cool, then?”

“If you want to see it that way, fine,” Dash said without looking at him.

“Really wish you’d be clear with me.”

“What part of ‘you’re still on my shitlist’ wasn’t clear?” she asked, glancing back at him.

“No, it was crystal clear,” Storm nodded. “Don’t worry, I get it. But… I’m gonna say something right now even though you probably don’t want to hear it.”

Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry that things happened the way they did,” Storm apologized, but without a sliver of resolve leaving his face. “But… I did what I believed was right, just like you would have. And with whatever is waiting for us out there… I hope that we… that no one in the force finds themselves in a situation like ours again.”

Dash’s expression softened slightly… because if nothing else that resonated with her.

“That I can definitely agree with,” she said with a nod.

Storm reached a hoof towards her. Dash lifted an eyebrow and stared at him quizzically.

“What, too much?” he asked. Dash let out a long sigh.

“No… I’ll humor you.”

Dash sat forward and reached out a hoof. They clasped hooves, and shook just once.

“I’ll focus on myself and you can focus on you. And hopefully we can find common ground at some point. Deal?” he proposed.

“Deal,” Dash agreed.

What neither of them knew… was that their little private chat was far from being private.

Off to the side, mostly out of sight… Silver Lining and Descent were peeking over nearby bushes.

“Hmm…” Descent hummed as he saw them shake hooves.

“It’s a start,” Silver nodded.

“You didn’t have to get involved,” Descent grumbled.

“I do whatever the fuck I want, Scarface. I had better luck than you.”

“Fine, fine…” Descent rolled his eyes.

They both flinched and blinked as Dash suddenly looked right at them. They both quickly dropped behind the bushes.

“What the… HEY!” Dash yelled.

“Huh?” Storm looked over his shoulder.

Descent and Silver exchanged very quick glances.

“I saw you two! Stop hiding!” Dash yelled out.

Without a moment of hesitation, Silver started making clicking and sizzling noises with his tongue and teeth. Descent had no idea what he was doing.

“THERE ARE NO CICADAS IN THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE!” Dash angrily yelled out.

“Who was…?” Storm looked at her and pointed.

“Silver and your dad.”

“Bwuh…?” Storm looked again.

“Such a BEAUTIFUL moment of friendship!” another overdramatic voice suddenly called out. “Like something right out of a piece of fanfiction, I love it!”

“I know that voice…” Dash flattened her brow as the two of them turned to a table to their right to see Twister flopped over on his back over it, clapping his hooves together while staring at them with wide starry eyes.

“Brought several unnecessary tears to my old eyes! WAAAAAAAAAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” Twister wailed as streams of water jettisoned from his eyes.

“Really, Twister?” Dash growled towards him.

“Anyone else hiding around here while we’re at it?” Storm snorted.

“We’re here too,” Matteo’s voice suddenly came from their left. They both looked over to see Matteo, Little Star, and Squall all sitting at another table, all looking rather annoyed while glaring at Twister. Dash shut her eyes for three seconds before opening them and blinking a lot.

“Don’t look at us,” Little Star huffed. “Twister dragged us here out of nowhere.”

“For the love of…” Dash let out a heavy sigh. “Looks like privacy isn’t a thing around he—” she flinched and leaned back just in time as one of the metal chairs flew right over their table and crashed into the stacked tables with a loud clang and clatter. “WHO THE F—”

“AWARENESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” Silver’s voice came from above. Dash frantically looked to the bushes, then up into the sky to see Descent flying away, air-lifting Silver with him as the two escaped.

“What the hell is even happening right now?” Storm asked. Dash looked back to see Twister laid out in Storm’s lap, still crying and blowing his nose loudly into a handkerchief that had the words ‘EMOTIONAL DAMAGE’ embroidered into it. Dash just shook her head.

“I’ve learned to stop asking questions…”

“By the way, were your eyes glowing yellow when you were punching me?”

“………No.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

woooowe, that was a long one, huh? We've got Soarin slowly figuring out how to exist in his new form (at least with the assistance of Dash), Discord being frank about how he feels about it all a, Sombra being Sombra, and man Soarin's wings are powerful now huh? Something tells me he's never quite going to know exactly how to control what he now has, but thats what strapping his wifey to him is for. Seems to help at least.

And JEEZ Dash... a little pent up anger? Seems like she let her grudge against Storm simmer a little too long and, well, she knew her emotions were causing odd things to happen to her, being soul linked to Soarin and all, and it just boiled over here, but... Silver's set up set her straight pretty quick. Leave it to Silver to know exactly how to scare her and get her to talk about things she really didn't want to.

And it looks like Silver's efforts were not in vain. Dash and Storm finally had a mature talk about what happened. Bridges aren't going to be rebuild in an instant, but they're both getting nowhere endlessly throwing more matches onto the fire.

Anywho... apologies for the long wait for this one. But hey, it's the first time i've done a 20Kish chapter in a while. i tend to avoid those these days for this very reason, but hope it makes up for the longer wait time.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 188: Even the Best of Us

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 188: Even the Best of Us

“Ugh…” Soarin groaned as he pressed a hoof to his head. He shook it out and blinked. “The hell is with this headache? Go away already.” He complained as he looked around, not that there was much to see while his body was asleep and he was in spirit form inside his mind. Dash’s image was laying nearby, like it always was, and Sombra was sitting alone off to the side. With Celestia currently projecting herself to others outside to speak with Luna and Discord, that’s all there was within.

But that was the weird thing. Why did his head hurt in here? It would have made sense if he was awake and controlling his new body. Little headaches happened all the time while he was learning to control his new self. This was the first time he had felt discomfort within since his body changed, and it started the night before. Dash didn’t show up that evening like she usually did. They all assumed she got caught up in something and decided to call it a night early, but it was not lost on Soarin that his discomfort started last night. Was it because his body had gotten used to regular times being awake and being down for longer was disorienting? Hell if he knew, it was just annoying the hell out of him.

He decided to think about something else, but again… there wasn’t much to catch his interest. The only other pony in there with him in an active form was Sombra.

He cocked his head to the side curiously as he looked towards him. After taking a closer look, Sombra wasn’t just sitting and staring at nothing. He was using his magic to conjure what appeared to be a chess board. Pieces on both sides were moving here and there and Sombra appeared to be deep in concentration.

But before Soarin could think much of it, another pang of pain shot through his head.

“Agh!” Soarin grunted a little louder and quickly pressed a hoof to his head.

It was loud enough to catch Sombra’s ears. The pieces on his chess board stopped moving as he perked up and looked over his shoulder at Soarin.

“For crap’s sake…” Soarin muttered to himself as he bent down slightly.

“Are you… unwell?” Sombra asked curiously, sounding a little surprised.

“I’m… fine,” Soarin lied, sucking it up. “I’ve just had a headache since last night for some reason.”

Sombra tilted his head slightly

“A headache…?” he echoed, quickly glancing about. “While in…” he trailed off. After remaining silent for a moment, his chess board vanished and he stood up.

“Yeah, it’s just been—” Soarin stopped abruptly as Sombra suddenly left, vanishing into thin air. “Dandy… hrgh…” Soarin grumbled as he continued to push against his forehead.

But he barely had a moment alone.

“Ow! Ow! Sombra, stop it!”

Sombra came barreling back into Soarin’s mind with Celestia in tow. Quite literally in tow as he dragged her along in with a large chunk of her big tail clamped in his teeth. As soon as he tugged her all the way to Soarin, he spit out her tail and pointed at him.

“Something is wrong here.”

“What…?” Celestia blinked and looked at Soarin. Soarin perked up, seeing them both staring at him. He looked back and forth as Celestia’s face became more and more perplexed.

“Am I missing something here?” Soarin asked. Celestia quickly stepped towards him.

“Are you… okay…?” she asked in a very unsure tone.

“I have a headache, it’s been bothering me since last night,” Soarin answered.

“In spirit form…?” Celestia lifted an eyebrow. “In here?” she added while looking up and around. “While under the stasis spell?”

“Yes…?” Soarin huffed, increasingly not in the mood to speak to either of them.

“That’s… peculiar,” Celestia rubbed her chin. “Why is that happening? Why now of all times?”

“I assumed you’d know,” Sombra chimed in with a snort. “Did I stoop to touching you for no reason at all?”

“Stoop?” Celestia’s eye twitched and she sharply turned to him. “That’s funny coming from a stallion who once couldn’t keep his hooves off me for more than a minute.”

“Your tail tastes terrible by the way. When was the last time you bathed?”

“How is it supposed to taste?!”

“Okay, STOP!” Soarin blurted out, causing them both to flinch. “NOT right now! My head hurts enough already!”

“Hmph!” Celestia turned her head away from Sombra. “Then perhaps he shouldn’t have opened his…” she trailed off as she slowly glanced back at him… only to see Sombra had his eyes looking elsewhere.

“Perhaps that has something to do with it,” Sombra pointed.

Soarin and Celestia followed his hoof… all the way to the resting spirit of Rainbow Dash.

“Ngh… rgh…” her image was grunting quietly. It looked uneasy and uncomfortable. Restless and twitching as it rocked slowly from one side to the other like it was having a nightmare. Faint yellow light was flickering around her as she winced and shuddered.

“Dash…?” Soarin tried to turn and move towards her, but he quickly stopped, feeling dizzy as he took a step. He put a hoof to his head and swayed, nearly falling over.

“Is there something going on with Rainbow Dash right now?” Sombra asked, moving up and resting an arm against Soarin’s side to keep him from tipping over.

“I… don’t know…” Soarin struggled to get out as he swallowed a few times. “She seemed fine yesterday, but… she didn’t show up last night like she usually does.”

“Indeed, I recall…” Sombra hummed to himself as he looked to Celestia. She was looking at the ground, again rubbing her chin, but looked incredibly perplexed.

“We would have heard if anything drastic had happened…” she thought aloud.

“Mayhap it not be of the body?” Sombra spoke, causing Celestia to look up. “Perhaps of the mind?”

“Something mentally or emotionally you mean?” Celestia tipped her head.

“Correct,” Sombra nodded.

“If it is…” Celestia bit her lip. “And it’s having a negative effect on Soarin? On his spirit as a whole? This is a troubling development…”

“Dash…” Soarin grunted and shuddered. “Is something wrong…?”

“DASH! Hey Dash, hold on!”

Rainbow Dash flinched and stopped mid-stride as Star’s voice came from behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Star fluttering through the hotel hallway towards her. She squinted a few times, her eyelids feeling a little heavy. A lot had happened yesterday and she was hoping a good night’s sleep would help her feel better, but apparently that wasn’t in the cards. She hadn’t slept well and was really hungry.

“Why did you leave without me?” she asked as she came in for a landing and clattered her little hooves to the floor.

“…I dunno,” Dash said simply before continuing on. Star quickly started after her.

“Are you okay?” she asked as she picked up the pace to get slightly ahead of Dash, pouting.

“I dunno,” Dash repeated unenthusiastically. Star kept looking at her for a moment.

“Is it about yesterday?” she asked outright. Dash glanced at her, but didn’t say anything. “Bingo?”

“Star, stop it, I don’t want to talk about it,” she groaned and tried to walk a little faster, but Star kept a step ahead.

“When are you gonna talk to me about it? You can’t just ignore me, I’m worried about you!” she pleaded as they made their way down the stairs and headed towards the Wonderbolts’ dining room, the aromas of breakfast pulling Dash’s nose through her exhaustion toward it.

“There’s nothing to worry about. I did what I had to do with Storm,” she tried to end the conversation, but Star wasn’t having it.

“…Which part are you talking about?” she asked.

“What do you mean which pa—”

Dash froze in place as they entered the room.

A majority of the Wonderbolts were already there… all conversation stopped and all eyes went to her the moment she stepped through the door.

Dash’s eyes widened and darted about. The expressions pointed in her direction were mixed. Some blank, some unsure, and some worried. Storm Front was sitting with the Streak twins. The moment he saw Dash walk in he shifted so that Lightning blocked him from view. The only two who stood out otherwise (aside from Twister face down in a bowl of oatmeal with a snorkel) were Matteo and Squall, who looked around the room as everyone went silent before noticing Dash had arrived.

“Gee, I dunno…” Star began very quietly from behind Dash. “The part where you tried to violently beat the crap out of Storm?”

“What’s everypony sitting around for?!”

Dash and Star flinched as Silver barged in from behind them and stomped into the room.

“EAT, DAMMIT!” he shouted. “Pre-training meeting is in forty minutes!”

The reaction was slightly delayed, but everypony quickly went back to eating. But some continued to glance back up at Dash as they chewed.

“Skittles!” Silver grunted towards Dash still standing in the doorway despite Star moving to get food. “No standing around! Move it!”

Dash gritted her teeth, looked down, and whisked her head to flip a portion of her mane in front of her face. Avoiding eye contact with everypony, she went to get her food.

Silver watched her move with little confidence as she got her tray and moved through the rest of the Wonderbolts towards her squad. He saw the glances from the others as she moved with poor posture and energy. She sat down on the other side of Matteo, and tried to remain as far out of view as possible from the rest of the force.

After a few moments, Silver simply snorted, turned, and left the room.

But Spitfire had been watching him. She glanced between Dash and the door and furrowed her brow.

“Alright, alright… that’s enough of this dumpster fire!” Silver grumbled loudly, stomping around and glancing back and forth at the tired, panting Wonderbolts as he weaved among them. “Hit the showers and get to the tubs! Fuck’s sake, afternoon training better go smoother than this did or else you’re all flying laps around the empire until your assholes are squirting buttermilk!”

There was a pretty clear lack of reaction to a single word he said. He scrunched up his face and jammed his cane against the ground.

“MOVE IT, DAMMIT! GET OUTTA HERE!” he added menacingly. Several of them flinched, but they all started moving, a lack of energy among them as they picked themselves up. “GO!” Silver added as they shuffled away towards the empire gates. Silver looked back at the courses and equipment he had hauled out beforehoof, miffed that they barely got to use any of it due to lack of productivity.

Needless to say, the morning training session had not gone well. The Wonderbolts were flat, lacking enthusiasm and focus. Some were performing well regardless, but most were underwhelming compared to what Silver knew they were capable of. He only chewed out Lightning Streak and High Winds before realizing that there was something off with just about everypony… like something else was on their minds.

Silver was certain he knew what it was… and it bothered him.

“Hey, Silver…”

Silver jumped in surprise, but after a quick glance over his shoulder, he flattened his brow. It was Rainbow Dash, she was standing right behind him and looking distraught.

“What?” Silver acknowledged sharply, sounding very frustrated as he looked forward away from her. Dash froze at his tone, and when Silver noticed she wasn’t saying anything, he tapped his cane on the ground. “Spit it out, what is it?” he added in the same tone.

“I…” Dash started shakily. “I talked to Storm yesterday, like you said to,” she forced out. Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“I was there, remember?” Silver reminded her as he turned to face her.

“I know, but…” she bit her lip and looked down.

“But what?”

“Did I do something wrong?” she quickly looked up again. “I don’t feel good about it and…”

“And…” Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“I don’t know!” Dash blurted out, shaking her head. “I don’t feel like anything got fixed! I almost feel worse! And now everypony is staring at me like I’m a stranger and avoiding me on top of it!”

Silver let out a long, drawn out breath.

“Well, what do you know!” Silver rolled his eye. “If it isn’t the consequences of your own actions.”

“What?” Dash blinked, furrowing her brow. “What actions? I took care of it! We talked it out!”

“You also tried to beat his face in with everypony watching, with a hell of a lot of anger and no hesitance,” Silver pointed out, Dash freezing with her pupils shrinking. “What were you expecting? For everypony to shrug and go about their day like nothing happened?”

“Didn’t you talk to them?” Dash asked desperately, her voice cracking slightly. “You told me you were going to handle it!”

“I told them it was a personal matter and you two were working it out.”

“… That’s all you said?” Dash sputtered.

“What else was I supposed to say?” Silver tipped his head. “Explain why you were foaming at the mouth and trying to rearrange his face? You thought I was going to fix that mess? I handled the part I said I would. It doesn’t change what you did or what they saw. I did my part and Spitfire’s off your back, now you have to do the rest.”

“But…” Dash trailed off, barely able to utter another word.

“Get moving,” Silver turned his back to her. “I didn’t need to tell you any of this. By now you should be wise enough to put this all together yourself.”

Dash stared at Silver’s back, completely at a loss. She wanted so badly to say more, but she simply couldn’t find the words. She looked down, gritted her teeth, and started walking. She moved right past Silver without looking at him.

Silver’s expression softened as he watched her move by. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short of doing so. He let her go.

As soon as she was out of sight, Silver exhaled loudly, slamming his mouth shut and puttering his lips briefly before he turned to take inventory of all the equipment he brought out into the field.

“Feh…” Silver grunted as he dropped a drawstring bag filled with protective padding they didn’t use back into the equipment room. He glanced around at all the options he had for the next training session aside from what he decided just to leave out in their spot in the field, but muffled murmurs and voices from outside were distracting him. He couldn’t make out much of anything being said, but the Wonderbolts were conversing as they made their way through the halls of the gym to the exit, and there were little to no jovial sounding tones.

He was too bothered to think straight so decided he’d have them hit the weights in the afternoon instead, but before he could turn around…

“The consequences of your own actions…”

Silver stopped in his tracks, startled for only a moment before immediately recognizing the voice. He looked over his shoulder to see Spitfire standing in the doorway.

“I’ve known you to be a lot of things, Silver, but I never thought one of them would be a hypocrite.”

Silver narrowed his eye into a thin glare as Spitfire moved all the way up to him and stood face to face.

“I’m sorry, would you like to repeat that?” Silver growled.

“Hypocrite,” Spitfire repeated without missing a beat. “You heard me.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re picking a fight with me,” Silver snorted.

“I AM,” Spitfire took a step forward, leaving an inch between them as she glared. “And you aren’t going to yell your way out of this. I’m addressing you as captain of the Wonderbolts, not as one of your trainees, so you are going to sit and listen to what I have to say.”

There was a harsh silence between the two of them as they exchanged the hardest glares they could muster. Silver didn’t need to wait long to read the resolve in her eyes.

“Alright, lay it on me,” Silver obliged.

“You better believe I will,” Spitfire quickly continued. “I disapprove of your recent actions. Because I know exactly what you did yesterday and I’m calling you out for it blowing up in your face.”

Silver’s eye twitched.

“I know how you are… You like to make use of your age and experience to put others on the right track. You like to teach us hard lessons and sometimes you use questionable means to do so. And… that’s fine. You’ve been doing that for years and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t effective. And I get it, you wanted Dash to move on with her spat with Storm. That’s something I wanted to happen too, HOWEVER…” Spitfire’s eye hardened. “You definitely mishandled this one.”

“Do tell.”

“Don’t get smart with me!” Spitfire jammed her head forward, nearly pressing her face to his. “What did you just say to Dash out there? ‘I don’t need to tell you any of this.’ You know what went wrong and no amount of glaring at me or talking big and scary is going to convince me otherwise! I regret not telling you to shove it up your ass when you held us all back while she attacked him and I’m honestly ashamed none of us jumped in against your orders! You let it keep going when it was already way across the line and you know it!”

Silver held still, saying nothing.

“Want to know why I’m calling you a hypocrite?” Spitfire went on. “At what point when Dash talked to you outside just now… did you admit to her that you engineered that whole situation?”

Silver twitched.

“‘Consequences of her actions’ huh?” Spitfire moved back an inch and pointed a hoof at his chest. “What about yours?”

“I did what I had to do and they talked it out. That’s what matters.” Silver averted his eyes and tried to start walking by.

“Silver, come off it.” She pushed her hoof into his chest to stop him from moving. “Look me in the eye and tell me you correctly gauged how much animosity she had bottled up towards him.”

Silver slowly looked at her.

“TELL. ME.” Spitfire demanded.

“Hrmph…” Silver grunted. “Okay, fine. I was expecting her to let out some pent up anger, but I didn’t foresee her losing her mind and going that far.” Silver shook her hoof free and turned around back into the equipment room. “Either way they talked it out.”

“Yeah let’s just ignore the rest of it then?” Spitfire snorted. “Because you got the ‘intended result’? You can’t convince me that you’re okay with how it happened.”

“She’ll work it out.”

“‘Work it out’ huh?” Spitfire repeated sharply. “I’m not even going to ask what you told her to say or do with him. But did you at least tell her to apologize to Storm for trying to actually hurt him? I’m not about to assume you didn’t give her some sort of helpful advice, but whatever they had to talk through, she at least owed him that much. Well?”

Silver said nothing and remained facing the wall.

“You didn’t, did you?” Spitfire groaned angrily. Silver blew a sharp breath from his nose, but didn’t turn around. “Silver, look at me.”

He didn’t at first, but after a moment, he glanced over his shoulder at her.

“I’ve always been hooves off with you,” Spitfire began as she took a step towards him. “I’ve let you operate your own way because of how effective you are and how much everypony looks up to you and trusts you. That couldn’t be clearer than right now where I’ve put you in charge of kicking our asses into the best shape possible. But as Captain of the Wonderbolts I HEAVILY disapprove of how you decided to handle this because you’ve personally thrown a wrench into the most important thing I want to come out of this training altogether.”

Silver lifted an eyebrow, turning halfway to face her a little more.

“You were not with us. You could not know just how eye opening the fight to catch Sombra was for us… or for me. The Wonderbolts? We could hardly hope to have called ourselves that during that complete shitshow. Nopony felt right, emotions were running amok, I disregarded how anypony was feeling about the situation I was putting them in, and I screamed my lungs out like a child at Sombra to give me back my friend like he was on a time out. I had a whole squad of recruits try to act under my nose and I forced the others to restrain her like she was an enemy, only to have those same ponies hold me down when they realized how out of control things were and stopped me from making even more mistakes. We were all so out of synch it’s painful for me to look back and know I was at the head of it all.” She tapped her hoof to her chest. “The whole thing made me sit down and take a good look at myself. I didn’t just consider what happened here in the Empire, I also considered what Nightshade did to the elites in the canyon… and how they described to me what YOU did to face her. I came to a very easy conclusion.”

Silver remained silent, but he was finding it hard to keep his expression firm.

“We can’t let things get in our heads anymore. We need to keep our emotions in check. We have an enemy that thrives on taking advantage of fears and intense feelings and we got a good look at how things break down when we’re all off our game and unable to rely on one another. I refuse to let that happen again, we can’t afford to go through another situation like that. I’ve made it a priority of mine… to strengthen everyone mentally. We need cool heads, to keep our emotions in check and to build up the strongest trust and reliability we can. The fun side of the training, the jawboning, the joking, and everything in between are very much a part of this process. We will be FOCUSED. We will be STRONG. We will be ONE… with no doubts about who we are, who we can trust, and who we can rely on. So you can’t blame me for being pissed at you for throwing Dash at Storm, thinking you could do no wrong, and now the Wonderbolt with more potential than I could ever dream of is suddenly feeling extremely uneasy about herself and the rest of the Bolts don’t know how to feel about what they saw her do. You slammed us right into a brick wall and forced this process quite a few steps backward.”

“Hmph…” Silver looked away again.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Nothing,” Silver turned his back to her.

“Silver, you screwed up.”

Silver’s head snapped around to glare at her over his shoulder.

“Just OWN it! You messed this one up!” Spitfire demanded.

“We’re done here, I’ve heard enough,” Silver turned and walked past her. Spitfire did not stop him, watching him walk by her and towards the door.

“What the hell are you afraid of?!” she asked harshly. Silver froze abruptly mid-step and turned his head slightly, but didn’t look at her.

“If you won’t admit it to me, fine! But what about Dash?” She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. “What? Are you worried she’ll find out her wise old mentor isn’t perfect?”

That did the trick.

“Listen here you…” Silver turned around and took a step towards her.

“No, YOU listen to ME!” Spitfire met him halfway and pressed a hoof into his chest. “She has her work cut out for her to put things right, but so do you. You are an invaluable asset to all of us, Silver. I put off the old protocols of forcing you into retirement for a reason, but understand this… I won’t tolerate any careless, extreme methods like this anymore. If you want to teach a hard lesson to anypony, you’ll do it without pitting Wonderbolt against Wonderbolt. Friendly competition and some rough-housing is fine, but if any of them are at odds or angry with one another, we’ll solve it another way. Understand?”

“Sometimes hard lessons require hard hits,” Silver scrunched his face up, leaning a little into Spitfire’s hoof, but she quickly retracted it.

“Good lord, are you even listening to me?!” she threw a hoof into the air. “You really can’t admit you did wrong, can you?”

“Maybe we don’t see eye to eye on this,” Silver shot back.

“Maybe you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, I don’t know!” Spitfire swiped her arm outward. “Sure doesn’t feel like you have. Silver, nopony cares if you make a mistake. You’re not perfect, none of us are! I almost feel like I’m talking to one of the gods right now!”

Silver heavily furrowed his brow and glared at the comparison.

“Yeah, contort your face till it sticks that way, forget it! I’ve said my piece,” Spitfire said, fed up as she started walking past him, but instead of leaving she stopped by the door. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The little quest you sent Dash on,” Spitfire looked over her shoulder. “The one to get to know the elites better.”

Silver lifted an eyebrow.

“You can’t get things like that past me, Silver. Dash isn’t a subtle mare and her behavior doesn’t shift focus like that so suddenly without you involved. She’s been talking to them about what motivates them and what they’re afraid of, right?”

“What of it?” Silver snorted.

“Maybe she ought to learn more about you too.”

Silver’s eyes shot open, but not quick enough for Spitfire to see as she was already on her way out as she delivered the last remark. He stood in complete silence, save for the quiet creaky hinge of the door whining as it slowly came to a stop.

“Hnrg…” Silver shuddered, winced, and reached his good arm up to grab his cane side shoulder. It wobbled as he slowly lowered himself to sit down on the floor. “Gah… hah… hooo….” He took a few deep breaths and stared down at the ground.

He didn’t move for several moments. When he finally did, he lifted a hoof towards his head and slowly removed his eyepatch. He lowered it down in front of him, staring at the patch with his good eye. It was strange, focusing on it at such close range. Even though his other eye was no longer there he still felt as though he had both fixated on the patch.

“Blizzard…” he said to himself, releasing a long, frustrated sigh. “You wouldn’t have screwed this up, would you?” he looked up at the ceiling and turned his ears out as if something, someone would speak to him.

But nopony did. He blinked as he kept staring up for a few more moments before looking down at the patch again.

He snorted and shook his head.

“What the hell am I saying? You made mistakes too,” he lifted the patch back towards his head. “What am I even asking you for? You wouldn’t have to tell me that. By now I’m wise enough to put that together myself. You always used to say that mistakes are just life’s way of showing you your flaws… so you can better yourself.” he fastened the eyepatch back into place. “Maybe it’s time I stopped acting like I don’t have them anymore. I’ll fix this. It’s what you’d do too.”

He slowly stood up and started hobbling towards the door. He stopped in the doorway, standing in the same spot Spitfire did right before she left. He looked down, then back into the storage room.

“Heh… god dammit, Spitfire,” he shook his head and chuckled. “If I ever hear any words out of you about not being up to the job of Lead Captain again…”

He kept chuckling to himself as he closed the door behind him.

---To be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Looks like even Silver slips up from time to time, and looks like he's got some trouble admitting it. But it appears Spitfire has gotten through to him, even if he wont admit it to her and now he's going to do something about it (whatever that may be, Silver will be Silver so who knows what he will cook up).

It would appear though... that Spitfire has spent quite a bit of time reflecting on her own past mistakes. And despite just being berated, Silver is fully acknowledging her growth as the captain of the force. It wasn't all that long ago (For them... not for us lol) that she tried to hand over command to Silver and he declined, now here she is reprimanding him as his superior without a shred of hesitation. She seems well aware of what went wrong and has a plan to make sure it doesnt happen again.

As for Dash... she seems a bit lost and uneasy at the moment. No doubt whatever Silver does from here will help her out of this funk, but despite her and Storm setting their thoughts straight, she owes him some words for other things. But the worrisome part is that her mental state seems to be having an unexpected adverse effect on Soarin through their connection. Up to this point in this arc shes been riding a bit of a confidence high from her exploits and victories, this conundrum has put her in a troubled state and revealed a troubling development for the two of them together.

Got a lot here going into the next chapter, but my goal is to try and keep these shorter if i can going forward instead of having multi-scene/multi-character focus chapters that stretch for 50-60+ pages on my word docs ._.

With that all being said here are a few pieces of fan art i received recently!

A remake of one of the first pth fan arts i ever received by Catalyst, you all remember this one from very early in the story:

A comic depiction of the recent scene where Dash overheard Spitfire and Silver talking (but wasnt being subtle with her tail around the corner) by Valentine X:

And a recent scene depiction of Dash helping Soarin Walk in his new form by Lazzari:

thanks for the art you three! they have been added to their respective chapters and credit has been added to the story cover to whoever needed it.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 189: I Don't Mess Around

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 189: I Don’t Mess Around

“C’mon, c’mon, everypony in,” Silver rotated his hoof, the Wonderbolts filing into their briefing room. “Let’s go, time’s a wastin’.” His voice lacked the level of enthusiasm he usually poured into every given moment, but given how well the morning practice went, he wasn’t expecting to get much done the rest of the day. “Let’s go, let’s—”

He paused as Spitfire walked in. The two of them locked eyes as she passed.

“Let’s go, c’mon,” Silver continued once she had moved by. He was also still thinking about his exchange with Spitfire earlier. He had already come to a conclusion about what he had to figure out, but it was still fresh in his mind. It didn’t help that he was somewhat distracted about just exactly how he planned to ‘fix’ the current state of things.

When the current flow of Wonderbolts ended, Silver checked over his shoulder into the room. It looked like everypony was there and there was nopony else in the hallway. But it only took a moment for him to notice a distinct lack of the most recognizable mane in the force.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t there.

At first Silver wondered how he hadn’t already noticed. Dash had been the first one there almost every meeting and he even poked fun at her for it a few times. He somehow didn’t notice her absence.

Silver took another look out the door, looking both ways down the halls. No Rainbow Dash.

Silver turned and looked up at the clock on the wall. They were already ten minutes behind schedule… and again, Dash had yet to be late to any meeting.

With the Wonderbolts murmuring and conversing around him, Silver made his way down the center of the room between the tables, taking a direct turn halfway through to approach Dash’s squad. It was a quick turn that startled everypony in the row, Little Star, Squall, and Thunderlane all flinching and staring as Silver approached them. Matteo held his composure without fail and Twister turned to face the opposite way of everypony else.

“Foxtrot,” Silver addressed them as he stopped and looked between them all.

“Sir!” Only Matteo replied.

“At ease, Fluffy,” Silver snorted. “Where’s Rainbow Dash?”

The question seemed to catch them off guard and even caused a few heads to turn toward them. But he didn’t get an answer. Matteo looked at Thunderlane, Thunderlane looked at Squall, Squall looked at Little Star, Little Star looked at Twister. Twister slowly looked over his shoulder with a devilish smirk on his face. He lifted up a small jar in his hoof and bounced his eyebrows a few times.

Silver grabbed the jar out of Twister’s hoof, turned it over, and slammed it down over Twister’s head. His whole head somehow comically fit itself into the jar without any resistance. Twister started letting out muffled screams and flailing his arms around, falling over onto the floor as Silver turned back to the others.

“Well?”

“Uhhhh…” Thunderlane looked at Squall again.

“Haven’t seen her,” Squall answered simply.

“She’s usually here before we are, Sir,” Matteo added.

“What they said,” Star tipped her head towards the stallions. “I haven’t seen her since lunch, I assumed she’d be here.”

“Hrm…” Silver flattened his brow. He looked over his shoulder and within seconds caught Spitfire staring right at him with a hard gaze. Silver narrowed his eyes at her briefly before glancing about the room again. The rest of the Wonderbolts seemed to catch on that Dash wasn’t present, or at least some of them. Those who weren’t looking around were slumped in their chairs or looking low on energy in general.

Silver’s eyes returned to Spitfire, who was still giving him a hard look. Silver snorted.

“You stop that.” He growled at her. That got everypony’s attention. All eyes went to him and Spitfire.

“Excuse me?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow.

“That look you’re giving me,” Silver turned to face her. “Cut it out.”

“You know why I am,” Spitfire huffed. “Do you really want to do this here? In front of everypony? I’m not afraid to do it just because they’re all here, you know,” she stated firmly.

“Do what now…?” High Winds said quietly while blinking.

“I don’t think that’s what they mean, Windy…” Blaze shook her head, but her eyes widened. “At least I fucking hope not.”

“You don’t scare me,” Silver made his way across the tables, approaching her. “And if you think you do, you forgot who I am.”

“Silver…” Spitfire stood up from her chair and placed her hooves on the table and leaned forward. “Back off, NOW. Or I’m letting you have it.”

The room became very tense, confusion all around as Silver walked all the way up to the table and leaned over it to get in Spitfire’s face. They glared fiercely at one another for several moments.

“We’re not doing a damn thing here,” Silver scrunched his face.

“You don’t scare me either, Silver,” Spitfire snarled.

“I should,” Silver tilted his head, moving his good eye closer to her. “Because you know what I’m capable of doing. And right now…”

Everypony froze as Spitfire lifted a hoof from the table and balled it up.

“You should calm the hell down because you’ve already made your point.” Silver cocked his head back and forth. Spitfire blinked, her head jittering slightly as Silver’s expression softened to a familiar joking look of his. “I don’t mess around,” Silver tapped a hoof on the table. “We’re fixing this right now.”

“Wait… What?” Spitfire thought her brain was going to twist into a knot.

“Did I stutter?” Silver rapped his hoof on the table. “Or were you all talk this morning?”

“Bwuh…?” But before she could fully register what he was getting at, Silver did a full 180 turn and whipped her across the face with his tail. “OW!” she winced as she fell back into her chair.

“LISTEN UP, EVERYPONY!” Silver made his way to the front of the room. “Especially you, Storm!” he pointed at Storm Front as he faced them all.

“Huh…?” Storm looked around at the others as if Silver was referring to somepony else.

“YES YOU!” Silver’s voice boomed. “UNLESS THE SLAP DICK NEXT TO YOU STOLE YOUR NAME!” he pointed at Wave.

“Don’t look at me, it’ll make it worse,” Wave quickly whispered to Storm before he could look at him.

“I want all of you to read my lips…” Silver stood up straight and put on a serious glare. “I fucked up.”

There was a long, somewhat painful pause. That wasn’t what any of them were expecting him to say.

“So like…” Lightning Streak broke the silence. “You were on the bottom?” The white board eraser came screaming from the front of the room and smacked him right between the eyes so hard it made his chair tip back. “BRO!” Lighting yelled as he fell backwards and off his chair with a loud crash.

“Now that...” Silver pointed towards Lightning. “Was the intended outcome of that throw!” he proclaimed triumphantly, then pointed at Storm. “But what you all saw happen between Rainbow Dash and Storm during last night’s training?” He shook his head. “No. I have a confession to make,” he lowered his tone and looked towards Storm. “I made that situation happen, but apparently I completely misjudged where she was. I knew about the situation between you two, but I didn’t gauge how angry she was about it.”

He scanned the room. All eyes were on him and all ears were turned, even Lighting on the floor.

“Everypony listen up because I’m about to get sappy and I ain’t repeating it!” he yelled out. “The Wonderbolts are very important to me. You’re ALL very important to me. Yes, even the ones of you I want to kick in the ass on a regular basis.”

“Aw…” Fleetfoot cooed. “That’s—”

“ESPECIALLY YOU!” Silver reached his cane over and smacked it down right in front of her.

“AH!” Fleetfoot tilted back, and smacked the back of her chair against the table behind her.

“But you all know, at least I hope you all know by now… that I’m hard on all of you because I care. And while I can be a bit harsh and very direct in the way I teach you… sometimes my experience goes to my head and I think I can do no wrong. Here? I did wrong. I threw Rainbow Dash at Storm knowing full well there would be a scuffle. I was expecting it, and was going to use it as a way to teach her a hard lesson about holding grudges and letting her emotions distract her.” He paused and looked at Storm again. “Like I already said, I wasn’t expecting her to go at you that hard, or legitimately try to hurt you. What’s worse, when I saw it getting out of hand I let it happen instead of trying to stop her. I got the situation I wanted afterward, but look at what it did to everything else? You’re all looking around wondering what the hell is wrong with her, no one is focused, and for the first time in the history of her being a training perfectionist, Rainbow Dash didn’t show up for training. I sure as hell didn’t want this to happen…” he looked over to Spitfire. “And by the way…” he made his way back over to her and slammed his cane down in front of her. She didn’t flinch. “See this mare here?”

Everypony looked at Spitfire, she lifted an eyebrow as Silver began circling the tip of his cane around her head.

“Yeah this mare right here, the one with the glare stiffer than Wave Chill when she shows up anywhere covered in sweat.”

“Silver…” Spitfire flattened her brow as a few snickers came from the Wonderbolts and Wave’s fur made a full tone change.

“Do NOT fuck with her!” Silver yelled out suddenly, causing them all to flinch. “Unless your name is Wave Chill!” he added.

“SILVER!” Spitfire shouted, turning red herself as Wave somehow didn’t start whistling like a tea kettle.

“Alright enough jokes,” Silver kept a straight face. “But I mean it. She finally pulled her head out of her ass and she ain’t messing around anymore. She’s the reason I’m up here shitting rainbows at you right now. She called me out for that shitshow and didn’t let me weasel out of it… and believe me I tried. You can bet your ass she won’t be screwing up to the point where you have to tackle her and hold her down in the heat of battle anymore!”

“I really can’t tell if you’re praising me or not right now…” Spitfire hummed in frustration.

“Good, can’t let you think you’ve got me figured out, can I?”

“Wha—?”

“TRAINING IS CANCELLED FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!” Silver cut her off, everypony else genuinely surprised. “We have something more important to handle right now. Everypony needs to be on the same page, and right now we’re all over the damn book. You’ve all heard my piece, now we have to go find where Skittles is hiding!”

There was a long pause.

“Well don’t all speak up all at once!” Silver snorted. “Anypony have any ideas where she may be?”

Most eyes went to Foxtrot, but they again all shook their heads.

“Don’t look at us,” Star waved her hooves. “We haven’t a clue.”

“How are we supposed to find her?” Fire Streak spoke up. “She could be anywhere, the Empire’s a huge place.”

“Yeah, just ask Descent how long it took to find Starry Skies,” Wave added.

“PLBPLBPLBPLBPLBPLB… WAVE… FIRE…” Fleetfoot held a hoof out. “Everypony… come on now, really?” she said as she hopped off her chair and trotted out. “You’re all kidding me right? If she’s not with us, there’s only ONE place she’d be and you all know it.”

“Hurry up and—” Silver stopped mid yell and blinked.

“Yeah, see?” Fleetfoot giggled as a few more pairs of ears perked up. “You know!”

“If she were you I wouldn’t have had to think,” Silver rolled his eyes.

“She might as well be me when it comes to her hubby,” Fleetfoot winked and giggled.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve heard her admit she’s a fucking whore,” Blaze tried to say under her breath. But Fleetfoot spun around and gave her a smarmy look.

“What’s that Blazey Cakes? You wanna piece of me too?” she bounced her eyebrows as she inched closer to her.

“You stay the FUCK away from me!” Blaze shouted while backing herself all the way into High Winds. Silver brought his cane around and pressed it over Fleetfoot’s back with a snort.

“You can have a threesome after we catch a Rainbow,” he grumbled.

“Uhhh… Quick question!” Surprise waved a hoof in the air. “If she’s with the big guy, how are we gonna get to her? The guards glare at us just for walking past the door.”

“Luna and Discord likely won’t let us in either,” Fire added.

“They’ll let us in,” Silver grunted.

“They won’t even let me in, Silver,” Spitfire spoke up, lifting an eyebrow.

“They WILL let ME in,” he said harder. “Come on, everypony on their hooves, NOW!” Silver ordered, the Wonderbolts finally showing some signs of enthusiasm as they scooted from their chairs and stood up. “We’re going to kill two birds with one stone here. We’re going to find Rainbow Dash, and assuming she’s where Fleetfoot’s built-in thirst radar is pointing, we’ll pay our first commander a long overdue visit as a team! Something I’m sure he could really use with all the bullshit he’s gone through.”

“Built in thirst radar?” Fleetfoot blinked and shrugged. “Eh, sure I’ll go with it.”

“Lead the way, Thirst Radar!” Silver pointed at Fleetfoot.

“Okay, you don’t need to call me by it…” Fleetfoot pouted as several chuckles and snickers rang out.

“HA! You’re a fucking THIRSTY THOT!” Blaze shouted out, smacking Fleetfoot upside the head before running out the door.

“Oh, them’s fighting words!” Fleetfoot charged after her as the rest began filing out.

“Situation normal,” Wave shrugged and shared a hearty snort with Silver as he passed.

“Move it!” Silver waved to the rest as they moved. “Just because I cancelled practice doesn’t mean we slack off! Let’s head down there with some energy! We’re letting ourselves in even if we have to kick the door down! Hup, hup, hup!”

Silver kept herding them all out the door… until the only pony left in the room with him was Spitfire, still sitting at her table. They stared at each other in silence… it was like deja-vu if not for the different mood.

“Something on my face?” Silver asked abruptly.

“Pfft…” Spitfire rolled her eyes. “Really? That’s what you’re going to say?”

“What were you expecting me to say?” Silver tapped his cane on the floor and gave her a narrow look. Spitfire shrugged it off and tilted her head.

“Well, I was expecting you to drag it out for a very long time because you can be a real stubborn donkey. I sure wasn’t expecting you to turn around and smack us all over the head with an epiphany less than twenty-four hours later.”

“Look in a mirror, you convinced me,” Silver turned his back to her and faced the door.

“Since when does what I say sway you so easily?” she asked before he could take a step.

“Since you pulled your head out of your ass,” Silver repeated while looking over his shoulder. “Weren’t you listening to me just now?”

“Yeah I was, very flattering…” Spitfire huffed.

“And I mean what I said,” Silver turned to face her. “I don’t blow smoke, Captain.”

Spitfire flinched. It was such a small thing, but… Silver referring to her formally?

“You looked me in the eye and you put your hoof down… the way a good Lead Captain of the Wonderbolts should,” Silver went on. “Yeah, I didn’t want to admit I messed up, but I had no ground to stand on against you. And once I saw Dash didn’t show up for training? Straw that broke this old donkey’s back. You were completely right and I was barking up a tree I couldn’t climb… so I decided to fix it.”

“I…” Spitfire blinked and looked away. “Huh… I actually don’t know what to say.”

“Good, cause I don’t wanna hear it.”

Spitfire snorted loudly and let her head fall to the table with a THUNK.

“I swear to Celestia, Silver…” she slowly looked back up and shook her head. “Even in times like this, you’re a jackass. How did Blizzard ever handle you?”

“He was worse than me,” Silver tipped his head to the side and lifted an eyebrow. “I got it from him, and it ain’t changing.”

“…good,” Spitfire smirked and stood up. “Come on… let’s go catch up with the others.” She suggested, reaching a wing towards his cane arm.

“What the—?” Silver felt her wing on his arm and quickly shook it off. “I can walk god DAMMIT!” he shouted. Spitfire flattened her brow.

“You just sent everypony ahead and you’re walking with a cane,” Spitfire pointed at his legs. “You want them sitting outside the chamber for twenty minutes before you get there?”

Silver returned her flat expression… and snorted.

“Okay fine… you’ve got me there,” he admitted.

“Exactly, come on,” Spitfire nestled a wing under his cane arm and lifted him slightly so he could walk at the same pace as her. He grumbled all the way out of the gym.

“Hng…” Soarin groaned, rubbing his head perpetually. He sat beside the image of Dash in his mind and waited… and waited. Nothing had changed since morning. Dash’s soul was still churning uncomfortably as it lay beside him and Celestia had been outside his body speaking with Discord and Luna for hours…

And Sombra was back to sitting on his own. Soarin tilted a little to get a better look and notice that Sombra once again had the conjured chess board in front of him, moving the pieces about as if playing against an invisible opponent.

At this point Soarin was completely fed up with his headache, it felt like a vice tightening on his head a quarter turn every couple of minutes. Desperate for a distraction, he was actually considering talking to Sombra. While the two had shared some agreements and opinions on the gods, they had hardly broken the ice. And as much as he wanted to stay by the side of Dash’s soul squirming slightly as it slept. He needed something else to think about.

He reached down and gave Dash’s head a gentle stroke.

“I’ll be back,” he whispered to her as if she was really there sleeping, but it was the thought that counted.

Feeling slightly dizzy as he stood, he hobbled towards Sombra, slowly curving around to try and get into his peripheral vision as he approached. Eventually Sombra perked up and glanced to his left as Soarin came into view. He didn’t say anything at first, simply watching Soarin as he came around and got closer, noticing that Soarin was mostly looking at the conjured Chess board.

“Do you need something?” Sombra asked rather bluntly, lifting an eyebrow.

“What are you doing over here?” Soarin asked. Sombra shifted his eyebrows to the other side.

“Why are you asking?” Sombra added, using his magic to shift the board out of view. It was almost like a colt hiding a toy from another. Soarin gave him a flat look.

“You’ve been at that since this morning and I want to think about something else besides my headache.” He tried to look past Sombra, but he only shifted the board further behind him. “What’s so secretive about a Chess board, anyway?” Soarin asked.

“Hm…?” Sombra blinked, looking surprised. “You know of Chess?”

“Are you kidding me?” Soarin asked, but when he got no answer he realized that Sombra was not joking. “You’re not kidding me.”

“I did not expect it to still be known,” Sombra said truthfully as he slowly slid it back around.

“Yeah, it’s probably the most recognizable board game out there, as far as I know it’s existed for… well farther back than I could know.” Soarin explained.

“Fascinating…” Sombra didn’t answer the question as he looked back down at the board. “To think that there are more pieces of my world still intact than I thought.”

“Did you play it a lot?” Soarin asked, sitting down and doing his best not to think about his head.

“Hm…” Sombra hummed while nodding. “Quite often, yes. Though I’m unsure if ‘play’ is quite the right word for it, nor would I really consider it a game in the grand scheme of things.”

“What do you mean?” Soarin asked, genuinely curious as he scanned the chess board.

“While I did enjoy it as a pasttime, it held a much greater significance in the era of kings and domains. Before the Black Dragon Scourge and before the Celestial sisters descended from the sky, Equestria walked a thin line of peace at all times. Disputes and skirmishes were common… the pettiest offenses could threaten wars. A kingdom’s survival hinged not only on the mettle of their armies, but also the strength of their ruler, be it in body and mind.”

Sombra motioned to the board, his horn lighting up and the pieces all resetting to the starting positions.

“My father introduced me to the game as a colt, and while it was all fun and games at first, he slowly revealed to me over time that there was much, much more to it. Chess is a battle of wits, planning, foresight, misdirection, and execution. To succeed against the toughest opponents, you must think several moves ahead and think of every consequence that might stem from every action you take.” Sombra explained as he moved the pieces around. Eventually he pushed both kings together side by side. “It wasn’t until I was older that I understood what my father had done… he had prepared me to be the next king… in more ways than I could have imagined.”

One of the kings tipped over and clattered to the board. Sombra turned and looked Soarin in the eye.

“The fragile peace of our kingdoms…” he continued. “Surely we’d have destroyed ourselves long before the rise of the Black Dragons… had it not been for the game of Chess.”

“Eh…?” Soarin blinked, trying his best to follow.

“Heh,” Sombra smirked. “A realm is only as strong as its leader. If the head of the beast is not fastened on straight, it cannot hope to survive. Even I cannot say who it was, nor when the game found its way before us all, but it was the cornerstone of solving unending disagreements. While it could not divert all conflicts… many, many wars were averted via a chess match between the rulers of two nations at odds. When I became King, I found myself sitting across the board from another ruler quite often.”

“Let me guess… you never lost?” Soarin tilted his head. Sombra glanced at him and furrowed his brow.

“Of course I did,” Sombra snorted.

“Oh…” Soarin blinked. “Guess I just assumed since you’re always—”

“Though it wasn’t very often.”

“THERE it is,” Soarin stifled a guffaw.

“You jest, but I had to be skilled at it,” Sombra shook his head. “It was seen as an alternative to war when possible, and I held the interests of my kingdom and my citizens in my hooves with every move I made. The very pawns on the board were the ponies I was, in a way, fighting for with my knights and soldiers close behind. All the pieces on the board mattered, every choice I made mattered. Sometimes I had to make sacrifices, sometimes all it took was a little nudge in the wrong… or right direction to change the course of everything. For that reason… I practiced when I could, often against subjects or knights of mine who showed a particular aptitude for the game.”

“Did they ever beat you?” Soarin asked.

“Sometimes,” Sombra didn’t hesitate to answer. “They would grovel and apologize, but I always put an end to that quickly. I was grateful to them for exposing weaknesses in my strategy… my mistakes were to be learned from, to make me better, just like everything else in our lives are meant to. Personally, I would envision them on my board when the time came for me to sit across from another king. It was because of them that I could perform my best, and I would not let them down.”

“Sheesh…” Soarin suddenly turned and rubbed the back of his head.

“Something the matter?” Sombra asked curiously.

“I dunno, it’s kind of hard to imagine a game like chess being so… significant? I’ve never known it as anything else than a little fun. It’s hard to believe that it was such a powerful tool for solving disputes… did all the kings really just get up and honor the outcome?”

“HAH!” Sombra guffawed. “Most of them did, but a particular few were… testy about it.” Sombra reset the pieces on his board. “The Czar of the drakes at the turn of the century… Czar Makar…” Sombra shook his head while chuckling. “He partook in the practice just like the rest of us, but he despised it… he humored it because he felt himself superior to all, but in reality he had the intelligence of a smooth stone. The drakes were always showing up on our border and making demands, often for the most trivial and odd things like any crystal they could set their eyes on. Even though their numbers were insignificant compared to my army.”

“They showed up and asked for crystals?” Soarin blinked.

“Drakes are nothing more than a shadow of their ancestors, discarded runts of ancient dragon hordes. They lack all manner of social dignity, have easily sparked tempers… and like their ancestors, have a similar affinity for anything shiny that they think is treasure. At first I disliked being forced to a chess table with Makar, but I quickly figured out he would do the same thing every time. And…” Sombra moved the pieces on the board one at a time until white checkmated black in less than ten moves. “I learned how to beat him in a minute… and it helped that he never questioned why I chose the side that moves first.”

“And I take it he eventually got fed up?” Soarin asked.

“That he did,” Sombra nodded. “But not honoring the outcome of a match meant all agreements were off, and to ME… that was my cue to run my sword through his chest.”

Soarin perked up.

“So you killed him?”

“T’was the way of the times,” Sombra nodded with a loud snort.

“And you went to war with them for it?” Soarin pressed.

“It was over in a week. The griffons were all too happy to join us for what was already to be a thrashing. The Griffons will tell you it was their triumph in their second war with the Drakes, but they’ll leave out the part where the Drakes provoked the Crystal Empire first.”

“Seems a little excessive…” Soarin chuckled awkwardly.

“Had you been one of my era… you’d think differently.”

“And that wasn’t the only time?” Soarin pushed on.

“Correct… but…” Sombra looked down at the chess board, resetting the pieces again. “As much as I excelled in combat… a game of chess was much preferred when possible. I wished for my kingdom and my citizens to thrive… and they would not if we were always at war.” Sombra paused, looking down at the board. “Perhaps that meaning is long gone from the game… but…” he moved the pieces around a little. “It is at least something I can still do… and remember my time as King.”

Soarin glanced between Sombra and the board. He observed the way Sombras eyes moved about the board carefully, even though he was playing against nopony.

Against… nopony…

Soarin’s ears stood up and he looked down at the board. The whole reason he asked was to get his mind on something else other than his headache.

So why not…?

“Would you like an opponent?” Soarin asked.

The pieces on the board all froze as Sombra looked up, surprised. Soarin made his way to the other side of the conjured board and sat down.

“I’m not the best, but… better than playing against yourself, right?” Soarin looked over the board. “Can I touch these?” Soarin asked while reaching out and tapping a hoof to the black king. “Yeah, looks like I can.”

“Hmm…” Sombra hummed, a small smile curling on his lips as he watched Soarin touch the pieces and look them over. “Why not?”

Soarin flinched as the board flickered, the pieces reset, and the board turned around so the white pieces faced Soarin.

“Your move,” Sombra nodded.

Soarin smiled and reached for a pawn, but…

“Sombra! Soarin!” Celestia suddenly appeared like she had just barged through a door. Soarin blinked as Sombra immediately dissipated the board. The two turned to look at her.

“What…?” Sombra asked with a grumpy huff.

“Sorry,” Celestia brushed a strand of her mane out of her face. “Rainbow Dash just showed up.”

“What…?” Soarin perked up. “Right now? Isn’t it…?” he trailed off, scratching his head as he assumed it was training time.

“If she’s here we can figure this out, quick! The spell!” Celestia waved her hooves out, sounding a bit eager.

“Feh, fine…” Sombra sat back and sulked.

Soarin did not let it go unnoticed. Sombra really did want to play chess with someone, but… Dash came first.

ALWAYS.

“Hrgnnn…” Soarin grunted as he sat up and slowly opened his eyes, not thrilled that his headache was just as bad as it was on the inside as he awoke. He wasn’t surprised, but he had little time to think about it as he heard some commotion.

“Hey, HEY!” Discord’s voice sounded out along with the noise of cantering hooves. “Give him a second to—”

Soarin opened his eyes just in time to feel something slam right into his stomach.

“OOF!” Soarin exhaled and lurched forward as he felt arms clutch as far around his body as they could manage. He blinked and looked down, but couldn’t see anything. He inched his neck forward to look past his chest, finally seeing a blue body… with a rainbow tail attached that was curled around it. “Dash?” Soarin’s head was nearly upside down as he looked through his arms to see Dash clinging to him, her face shoved into his stomach fur, and visibly shuddering.

“Mrph…” she made a noise against his body.

“Dash, what’s wrong?” Soarin asked with worry, but she just kept her face pressed to him. “Dash?” Soarin touched a hoof to her shoulder. “Dash, c’mon, talk to me,” he gently brushed his massive hoof up and down her back. “What’s…” he stopped, trailing off as he glanced up to see Discord standing just a couple of paces from them with his arms crossed. Soarin flattened his brow.

“What?” Discord snorted.

“Do you mind?” said Soarin as he made a head motion past Discord.

Discord’s face scrunched up, but before he could say anything in response, a magic aura from Luna clasped Discord’s shoulders and started pulling him back.

“Thank you,” Soarin thanked Luna as Discord grumbled and glared at her. “Hey, it’s okay…” Soarin returned his attention to Dash. “Take your time…” he continued rubbing a hoof up and down her back.

“What is she do—MMPH!” Sombra’s voice chimed in very briefly before he was audibly muffled.

“Thanks, Celestia,” Soarin said very quietly to himself, keeping his eyes on Dash as her grip on him refused to let up. She did not move from the spot, and he had yet to see her face with how hard she was pressed into him. Soarin tipped his head as he felt her take a long breath and waited for her to say something.

“MMMMMMMMMRRRRRRRPHHHHHHH!!!!!” Dash suddenly screamed against his body.

“Aaaaaaiiiiiieeeeeeeaiyai!!!!” Soarin vibrated as Dash’s voice buzzed against him

“PFAAAAAH!!!” Dash pulled her head back and leaned her head all the way back, looking up, but not at Soarin, a slightly vacant stare in her eyes. Soarin shuddered as the last of the tingling over his body ceased and looked at her curiously.

“Dash? What the hell was that?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“S… Sorry…” Dash finally spoke, her tone shaking and weak. “I…” she pulled her head back towards him, but just rested her forehead against his fur. “I had to let that out…”

“Is everything okay?” Soarin asked, as if the answer wasn’t already clear. “What’s going on? Why are you here right now?” he asked while gently embracing her with one hoof. “Don’t you have training right now?”

“I wanna be here…” Dash replied simply. Soarin’s ears twitched. He looked over at Discord and Luna, then back down at her.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” he pressed, hoping to get an answer eventually.

“I don’t know…” Dash mumbled.

Soarin flattened out his lips. He felt like he was getting nowhere, but Dash was clearly distressed about something and he was getting to the bottom of it.

“Hey,” he tried to gently pull her away from him, but she had a tight grip on him. He didn’t want to be forceful, but he had no choice. “Look at me,” he tugged at her a little harder than she was expecting and felt her hooves grabbing at him as he pulled her free and put her where he could see her. She was staring at his chest and grabbing her hooves at it. Whatever was bothering her, apparently squeezing him as hard as she could was the only thing she thought could fix it.

Soarin was worried. It was clear something was wrong, but what in the world had Dash acting like this? It was very uncharacteristic of her. She’d grown so strong willed and minded over this whole adventure and suddenly she was avoiding eye contact, talking like an awkward teenager, and clinging to him like a lost filly?

The sudden role reversal was almost giving him whiplash, but he’d overcome so much recently thanks to her, so it was time to keep it a two way street. He reached down, placed a hoof on her chin, and gently tilted her head up to look her in the eyes. Dash’s blank stare made him feel uneasy, but he was determined.

“Talk to me… please…” he pleaded. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Dash’s eyes seemed to fill with life on the spot, or at least she went from staring vacantly to looking right back into his eyes. She only stared for several moments, but eventually she leaned forward, smushing her chin onto Soarin’s hoof and reaching an arm up to grasp his.

“I… I’m sorry…” she apologized, sighing heavily. “I’m serious though… I don’t know. I did some things, I thought what I did was right, but then it wasn’t? Even though I was told it was? But then I was told it wasn’t? But also it was? I’m so confused!” she spoke quickly and Soarin could barely follow.

“Er…” Soarin’s eye twitched.

“That probably didn’t make any sense…” Dash groaned, sliding past his hoof and moving up against him again, pressing her side into his stomach and sitting down. “I’m not even sure what happened.”

“With who and what?” Soarin tried to pick her brain.

“Storm… and Silver… and stuff…” she mumbled. “And… stuff…” she repeated.

“Storm and Silver?” Soarin tilted his head to one side. “What about them and—”

“I tried to beat up Storm in a training game.”

Soarin’s face went blank.

“Uh…”

“Then Silver told me to not forgive him.”

“For… beating him up…?” Soarin tilted his head to the other side.

“Now everypony looks at me funny and Silver told me I deserve it…”

“After he… wait… how did it go from that to…” Soarin’s face was contorting as he tried to make heads or tails of what she was saying.

“I DUNNO WHAT TO DO!!!!” Dash screamed, smacking her head into his stomach repeatedly.

“Ah, ah, ow, Dash…” Soarin reached down and held her still.

“I thought I knew what I was doing, but apparently I didn’t, and I don’t know what happened with Silver, I did what he told me but it was wrong? I’m so confused and I feel bad about what I did to Storm… well now I do, I didn’t at first, but I feel I should? But… but…” Dash grabbed her mane. “RRRRRRRGHH!!!!!”

“Ow!” Soarin winced as a sudden tenseness in his head flared up. He quickly placed a hoof to his head, his headache really coming in hot the moment Dash groaned out loud.

“I dunno what I did here,” Dash simmered down a little and shook her head. “I’ve been so sure of myself constantly, then I did this and I somehow have NO idea what to say or do?”

Soarin swallowed, putting up with the lingering pain in his head.

“You gotta tell me more, Dash… start from the—”

They both jumped as the sound of yelling suddenly came from outside the chamber. They quickly looked as both Luna and Discord whipped around as well to face the door. It sounded like the guards were having an argument with… somepony shouting very loudly.

“What in the world is going on out there?” Discord said as he moved towards the door. He lifted his hand and twirled it in the air, his magic grabbing one of the doors and pulling it open.

“—THAT CRYSTAL TIPPED SPEAR OF YOURS SO FAR DOWN YOUR THROAT THAT IT STICKS OUT YOUR ASS! AND YOU’LL NEED TO GO TO A SPECIAL HOSPITAL THAT SPECIALIZES IN REMOVING SPEARS FROM DIGESTIVE SYSTEMS TO GET IT OUT BECAUSE IT SURE AS HELL AIN’T GONNA PASS WHEN YOU TRY TO—”

Discord closed the door. He turned around and stared into the chamber.

“What is HE doing here…? WHY is he here…?” Discord said to nopony in a monotone.

Soarin blinked, ears turned towards the doors.

“That was… definitely Silver!” He looked down at Dash, but she was frozen, eyes wide. “Oh… uh…” Soarin looked between her and the door. “Is he… looking for you?”

The door began to jostle and move. Discord quickly turned around and reached an arm towards it, his aura clasping both of the large doors and holding them shut. Soon after, a loud banging sounded out against it from the other side.

“OPEN UP, DAMMIT!” Silver’s voice bled right through the thick doors.

“Absolutely not! Especially not for you!” Discord growled back. “I don’t know why the hell you’re here, but beat it! I have enough to handle in here and I’m not adding YOU to that list!”

“Oh, don’t have time for me, huh?! Quit hiding behind that door you tiddlywink-lip-puckering-son-of-a-taco-night-shit-shaped PUSSY!” Silver had to have his face pressed to the door. It was the only way to explain how his voice was so loud through the door.

“Who is that…?” Sombra’s voice came from Soarin’s head, sounding intrigued. “I demand to know whom is angering that snake so.”

“Give it a moment,” Soarin nodded. “If he wants in… he’ll get in.”

“LEAVE… don’t make me say it again!” Discord snarled, still holding the door shut as it jostled. “What the hell are the guards out there doing?”

“One of them is gonna have a limp for a month and the other knew better than to fuck with me after that! If you want me to leave so badly, come out here and make me yourself, you goddamn flaccid COWARD!”

“Oh, that tears it!” Discord thrust his neck forward, using his magic to phase his head through the door. “Listen here y—”

Discord was abruptly silenced as his head was suddenly violently forced back through the door and he was sent tumbling back from the door.

“GYAAAAHH!!!!” Discord wailed as he rolled to a stop on his back and grabbed at a giant reddening mark in the dead center of his face between the eyes. “OW! OW!” he whined, kicking his legs in the air.

Consequently, his magic grip on the door faded. One of the doors flung open and hit the opposite wall with a loud THUNK.

The quiet tap, tap, tap of Silver’s cane came from the entrance as he made his way in. Soarin’s eyes widened. He felt Dash shiver and lock up against him, but… it was the first time he had seen any other Wonderbolt since he gained his new form.

And what a sight for him to see. The last time he saw Silver, he was clinging to life, barely alive after his stand against Nightshade. To see him again, missing a wing, wearing an eye patch, supported with a cane, and covered in scars… but still carrying himself with the same rock hard, no nonsense, imposing strength? The sight was energizing… and to top it all off, Silver didn’t even look at him, he was glaring directly at Discord writhing on the ground and kept making his way towards him.

“Name.”

“Huh…?” Soarin blinked as Sombra’s voice chimed in again.

“Who is that stallion?” Sombra repeated. “Tell me.”

“You’re about as sharp as a bowling ball!” Silver snorted at Discord. “You really thought you could stick that ugly piece of abstract art you call a face through a door without getting my John Hoofcock?” Silver grunted while walking beside Discord and looming over his face.

“YOU!” Discord ground his teeth together and clenched his fist, chaos magic building around it.

“Discord!” Luna took a step towards them but froze as Silver shot a hard glare at her. “Eee…” she squeaked, not daring to take another step.

“Quit grandstanding, you won’t do it,” Silver lifted an eyebrow as he glared down at Discord. “You never did it to Blizzard.”

“You PUNCHED me!” Discord growled, the aura on his fist glowed harder. “Blizzard never punched me!”

Silver reached down, grabbed Discord’s arm and pulled the magic filled fist right up in front of his face.

“Then DO IT!” Silver barked at him.

The room went silent, the sound of swirling chaos magic echoing as nopony moved.

“TCH!” Discord scoffed as he relaxed his hand and the magic receded.

“I’m not Blizzard,” Silver let go of Discord’s hand, but then pushed his face right into his. “But you’re still Discord.”

Discord held his glare, but his eyes were shuddering.

“ANYWAY!” Silver turned to Soarin and Rainbow Dash, his first step was right on top of Discord’s chest, causing him to grunt uncomfortably as he started moving towards them.

Silver looked up and down as he slowly approached. Dash was right there, but his eye was completely focused on Soarin all the way until he was standing just a few paces away from both of them. Luna was twitching in place, biting her lip and staring with wide eyes at the scene. She kept looking back and forth between them and Discord, but strangely Discord seemed, or at least appeared not to care. He was still on the floor and glaring at Silver as if he wanted to do something, but just simply couldn’t.

Silver glanced Soarin up and down for the umpteenth time, still not sparing one glance towards Dash as she shuddered.

“You’ve gained weight,” Silver said with a single tap of his cane.

“HRMPH…” Soarin held his mouth shut, his cheeks puffing out as he tried to stifle a laugh, but he failed miserably. “HAHAHAHA!!!!” he blurted out, leaning down so far that he nearly bent Dash all the way to the floor.

“What’s so funny, chuckle nuts?” Silver asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“After all this time, that’s the first thing you say to me?” Soarin asked as he continued to chuckle, wiping a tear from his eye as he tried to catch his breath.

“Whaddya want me to do? Grovel at your hooves and call you princess? Ain’t happening, kid.”

“No, absolutely not,” Soarin quickly waved a hoof in front of his chest. “But hell, you—”

“Hold on,” Silver cut him off.

“Huh?”

“Stand up,” Silver ordered.

Soarin blinked, but shrugged. But Dash clinging to him made it hard.

“Dash, you’re pulling on me,” Soarin whispered to her.

“Skittles, relax.” Silver spoke to her without looking. Dash squeaked and froze. “I’ll get to you in a minute, let him stand up.”

Dash instantly let Soarin go, but kept her back turned to Silver, looking carefully over her shoulder. Soarin stood up, Silver watching as he loomed over him.

“Okay now wh—” Soarin began but Silver just leaned very far to the left and lowered his head a little.

“Alright good, you’re still a stallion,” Silver said very casually.

“Wait, HEY!” Soarin crossed his back legs. “What part of ‘don’t call me princess’ wasn’t clear?”

“Had to confirm. I heard you have Celestia sucked so far into your ass that a horn came out your forehead, had to make sure it was her horn and not yours.”

“I beg your pardon?!” Celestia’s voice came blurting out of Soarin as his eyes flashed yellow.

“Aaaaaaand you’re a mare now, make up your mind, kid.”

“No, Silver, that was Celestia… she is in my…” Soarin stopped and blinked. “She’s in here.”

“Why’d ya hesitate? Please complete that sentence for my personal amusement,” he ordered.

“No.”

“Wise-ass,” Silver smirked. “Alright… enough…” he tapped his cane on the ground and looked Soarin in the eyes. “It’s good to see you’re still you, kid.” His tone had completely shifted.

Soarin’s lips parted, the situation only just now really hitting him. After being locked away like some sort of danger… Silver just let himself in, walked right up to him, and acted like nothing had changed.

He had no idea how much he needed that.

“Heh…” Soarin smiled, looking down. “Good to see you’re still alive and kicking, even if you are missing a few parts.”

“My head’s screwed on straight and my voice still works. You kids won’t get rid of me so easily,” Silver nodded.

“You’re damn right we won’t,” Soarin nodded back.

“You.” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from Soarin with a blue flash in his eyes. Soarin flinched in surprise, but Silver didn’t budge. “Your name.”

Silver narrowed his eye, looking carefully right into Soarin’s eyes as they glowed.

“Let me guess…” Silver snorted. “You must be the stick-up-the-ass jack-wad who tried to steal Soarin’s body.”

“I…” Sombra paused. “What is a jack-wad?” Sombra whispered, followed by a snort and snicker from Celestia. “I’m—”

“You’re Sombra, I know,” Silver cut him off. “Now what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I wish to know thy name,” Sombra tried again.

“My name is Sturdy Cockstrong, now answer the question.”

“Sir Cockstrong, I commend thee for the way you—”

“PPPPFFFFFFFF…” Silver’s demeanor completely broke down. Soarin couldn’t hold it in either, nor Celestia.

“What?” Sombra chimed in curiously.

“Holy SHIT, he didn’t even hesitate! Somepony clearly hasn’t been around for a thousand years, huh?” Silver heaved a few breaths while holding his hoof out towards him. “Forget it, I already got the rundown from her,” he pointed to Dash. “If you really want to call me that, sure, but my name is Silver Lining, second commander, Wonderbolt squad two.”

“I commend thee,” Sombra repeated. “Any stallion who stands defiantly in the face of a god has my respect.”

“Who, that?” Silver pointed at Discord. “Anypony with a pair of balls and a sense of smell can tell he’s full of shit. He likes to talk like he knows everything but starts shaking like a dog trying to shit a peach seed the moment you grab him by the horns and look him in the eye.”

“I like this stallion, I like him a lot,” Sombra chuckled, his voice changing pitch as if he was speaking to somepony else, a sigh from Celestia confirming that was the case.

“Anyway,” Silver tapped his cane on the ground, and focused on Soarin. “Great to see you kid, but I’m not here just for you.”

“Mph!” Dash let out a muffled squeak.

“Crap’s sake, Skittles, I told you to relax,” Silver huffed as he made his way forward. Dash just stared, her back still turned. “Turn around.” He stated firmly, but she didn’t move. “NOW.” He added.

Dash turned quickly, but still held still as Silver walked right up to her and lifted a hoof. Dash shut her eyes. She didn’t know why she did… would Silver actually hit her? Well… yeah maybe he would, but would he here? Like this in front of Soarin?

She felt something. Her lips parted and she let out a short breath. But it wasn’t any sort of strike… it was a soft pat on her shoulder. She slowly and nervously opened her eyes to see Silver standing right in front of her, his good arm lifted and his hoof placed on her shoulder.

He looked… regretful?

“I owe you an apology,” he said.

Dash stared straight ahead. It was so far from what she expected to come out of his mouth that it gave her mental whiplash.

“Ah…?” was all she managed to say as her thoughts spun in circles.

“You heard me, Skittles,” Silver snorted and gave a firm nod. “I’m sorry.”

Dash just blinked.

“I think you broke her,” Soarin chuckled.

“Yeah, no shit,” Silver snorted as he tipped his head. “Listen to me, Rainbow Dash,” he went on, gripping her shoulder. “I bet you’re wondering what the hell I’m on about right now and I don’t blame you because I’m an asshole who tried to pass off my own mistake as your problem. Everything bothering you right now is my fault, not yours. I’m here to own up to that.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, let’s hold up right there for a moment!” Discord suddenly slithered in beside him. “Are my ears deceiving me?”

“Who the hell said you could get up off the floor?” Silver shot a sharp look towards Discord and scowled. “We’re having a moment here, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, please go on… I want to hear you admit fault, and relish it,” Discord said with a smarmy smile.

“Okay, I regret not sticking my hoof down your throat and turning you completely inside out. It would have smelled really bad, but at least you’d be fucking dead.” Silver growled at him.

“Heh… heheheh…” a chuckle came from Sombra as Soarin’s eyes flashed blue.

“Been there, heard that,” Discord snorted. “And I am thrilled that you two are already laughing at each other’s petty jokes…” he added while glancing towards Soarin’s head.

“If he hates your ass then we’re already best friends, now shut up and back up, Noodle-dickless,” Silver grunted while turning back to Dash. “Now as I was say—”

“THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THERE?! CAN WE COME IN NOW?!” Blaze’s voice suddenly boomed from the hallway, followed by the sounds of her being restrained and a lot of muffled swearing.

“Was that… Blaze?” Soarin blinked as he looked over.

“Nice going, jackass.” Silver puttered his lips and glared at Discord. “You threw off my timing and now the portable f-bomb dispenser just gave it all away.”

“Wait… hold on a moment…” Discord glanced between him and the door.

“MIGHT AS WELL COME IN NOW! BLAZE, YOU’RE FLYING LAPS LATER!” Silver yelled out.

“Did you bring the whole…” Soarin trailed off, his eyes going wide as the shuffling of hooves came from the door.

“No! Enough!” Discord growled as he turned towards the door. “We’re not supposed to be crowding him with—GAH!” Discord yelped as he took a step and tripped over something, falling face first to the floor.

“Awareness,” Silver stated flatly as he set his cane back on the floor.

“For the love of…!” Discord looked up but it was too late. The entire special training group of Wonderbolts was already in and making their way forward.

While Dash had no idea what was happening, Soarin saw exactly what was happening and he couldn’t find the words. The moment the Wonderbolts appeared around the pillars being led by Spitfire and Fleetfoot he thought he would start crying on the spot. He held it back of course, but he’d be lying if the sight didn’t touch him so deeply.

“Whoa…” Fleetfoot uttered quietly as they approached, the mood among them much different than Soarin. They had all seen him after he changed to this form but… he’d been kept locked away from them for so long that many of them had forgotten just how massive he was now. Even Matteo bringing up the rear of the group probably only reached up to the top of his chest.

And of course, the fact that he was literally a divine alicorn, the horn, the ethereal mane and everything.

“G…guys…” Soarin stuttered, a big smile forming on his face as they all filed in and stood behind Silver.

“Long time no see, Soarin,” Spitfire spoke up with a nod.

“I swear nopony ever listens to me…” Discord muttered as he turned his side to them all and stomped away.

“There’s a reason for that,” Silver shot at him, just barely catching what Discord said under his breath. Discord glared at him, but Silver completely ignored him, leaving Discord to storm off muttering to Luna’s side and plant himself against the wall snarling all the way.

“I… god, I don’t know what to say…” Soarin sputtered a little, trying his very hardest not to lose it.”

“We’ve—”

“Hold up there,” Silver held his cane up in front of Spitfire. “I’ll let you guys at him, but… we need to take care of Rainbow Dash first. Your half-sister let the cat out of the bag too early.”

“The fuck I did, you took too long,” Blaze grunted.

“Laps and wing ups,” Silver added.

“WHAT-MRPH!” Blaze got muffled by High Winds’ wing.

“But you know… maybe it’s better you’re all in here…” Silver scanned the group until he found what he was looking for. “Storm, c’mere will you?”

Dash flinched as her eyes locked on Storm. Storm pointed to himself briefly before swallowing and coming forward, saying nothing as he shuffled through the Wonderbolts.

“Alright Dash,” Silver turned back to her. “We need to talk about what happened… because it sure as hell wasn’t just your fault and it was wrong of me to side step it later as if I didn’t trip over my own hooves at all.” He glanced at Storm. “I knew what was going on between you two, and I don’t regret the advice I gave you after it all went down, nor do I have a problem with you two talking it out after, but… hoo boy did the process of getting there go off the rails like the Equestria express driving round a mountain during an avalanche.”

“Er…” Dash looked away from him nervously. “Well…”

“I’m done pretending everything turned out alright, cause it clearly didn’t. So there are two things that need to happen. First…” Silver hooked his arm around Storm’s neck and yanked him over.

“Oof!” Storm grunted as he stumbled forward and came face to face with Dash. Despite their differences, both just stared blankly at one another.

“Apologize to Storm,” Silver stated firmly as he moved himself beside them. “You two can grit your teeth at each other all you want, but we won’t be having anymore unhinged unauthorized Wonderbolt on Wonderbolt violence.”

“Unauthorized?” Wave Chill whispered to Spitfire.

“Don’t look at me,” she shook her head lightly.

“Maybe we should ask,” Lightning Streak snickered.

“I’m pretty sure violence against you is always authorized,” Fleetfoot added.

“Hush from the peanut gallery!” Silver yelled over his shoulder, causing the four to stiffen up and shut up. “Well, what are you waiting for, an order?” Silver asked as Dash’s eyes darted between him and Storm. “As if I have to tell you to do what you know is right.”

Dash swallowed. She was still confused but… Silver engineered the current situation for a reason. Silver never did anything without a good reason. And… he was owning up, so she had to follow his example.

“I’m… sorry, Storm,” Dash said slowly. “It was… a bit much, I dunno…” She took a deep breath. “I dunno what I was thinking, I was just really, really mad and I let it get the better of me.”

Storm said nothing. But he flinched, knocking him out of his thoughts as Silver gave the back of his leg a light tap with his cane.

“Ah… um…” Storm awkwardly looked down. “It’s… alright. Don’t worry about it. We…” he looked back at Silver again, jittering briefly as Silver’s eyes remained locked on him. “We already said what we had to say to each other.” He paused. “You can punch really hard by the way.”

“PFF!” Silver blew air through his lips as Dash blinked. “Bit of jackass in you, huh? Must get it from your dad.”

“Wait, what?” Storm tipped his head but Silver turned around.

“SECOND… there’s one more pony that needs to offer an apology” he rapped his cane on the floor while looking over the rest of the Wonderbolts. “That would be me… to everypony, because a couple ponies behind me weren’t there for the first one. Remember this kiddies because I’m about to get sappy on you twice in one day. If Tartarus doesn’t freeze over then I’ll have to do it myself when I get there someday.”

Ears turned and perked up among the group. Spitfire’s lips parted slightly and her eyes opened a little wider.

“Sometimes… I like to believe I can do no wrong,” Silver began. “I look at all you kids and act like I always know better and always know the right answers. I yell, shout, and swear in your faces no matter what’s going on to whip you into shape and keep you in line. I strut like the alpha male and assert myself no matter where I am, especially over dumbasses like Lightning Streak.”

“There it is,” Lightning pointed at him. “I was waiting for that.”

“Shut up, Moldylocks. ANYWAY…” Silver went on as a few snickers came from the group. “I may act like I’m perfect, but I’m not. I make mistakes too, and I made a big one here. Captain Hardass over here gave me the business for getting in the way of her own goals she’s set for you all,” Silver motioned to her. “And after seeing the cloud hanging over Rainbow Dash, I have to come clean. That crazy shit that went down is on ME. I take responsibility for it. I want all of you to come together and have a strong bond just as much as the captain does. I gotta read the situation better next time before I decide to teach any lessons. So—”

Silver cut himself off as Misty Fly suddenly rushed up to him with wide eyes and stared directly into his eye with concern.

“The hell…?” Silver blinked as Misty looked him over carefully. He glanced towards Fire Streak, who was stuck halfway through a word in sign language. He was staring blankly at Misty.

“I was… just translating for her,” he explained.

Misty suddenly put a hoof to Silver’s forehead and then put the other to hers.

“Oh,” Silver flattened his brow. “For crying out loud…”

“SHE THINKS HE’S SICK!!!!” Fleetfoot cried out before bursting out laughing and falling over on her side. Laughter broke out as Misty continued to tip her head back and forth.

“Is it really that strange to hear me say this?”

“Yes.” At least five of them answered.

“You’re all a bunch of comedians…” Silver reached up and grabbed Misty’s hoof. He furrowed his brow at her, but she only shrugged and stuck her tongue out at him playfully. He gently pushed her away before snorting. “Anyway, I fucked up. Quit looking at Dash like she killed a pony, I put her and Storm in that spot in the first place. Everypony getting along and having a good time is part of all this and I’m not gonna have my mistake muck that up anymore. Got it?” Silver glanced among them. They all nodded. “Good.”

“So…” Storm looked at Dash a little sheepishly. “Does that mean we’re good then? About everything?”

Dash blinked and twitched.

“What?” She gave him an odd look. “No. This has nothing to do with that.”

“HA!” Silver guffawed as he overheard them, turning to Storm. “Nice try kid, but hell hath no fury like a mare scorned. You’re not slipping out of the other thing.”

“I noticed…” Storm sighed.

“But enough… I said what I came here to say…” he turned to Soarin. “Now it’s time to kick back and catch up with our overblown first commander, what do you say?”

“Huh? I—” Soarin barely started before Fleetfoot rushed past Silver.

“HEY BEEFCAKE! HOW YA BEEN!” she giggled while bouncing up into the air and hooking an arm as far as she could manage around the back of his neck. “Jeez! I can barely get halfway around your fat neck!”

“Don’t crowd him!” Discord yelled from the back, but none of them listened. The rest of the Wonderbolts moved forward, all ecstatic to see Soarin for the first time in what felt like ages… and Soarin looked beyond happy to be surrounded by his friends and wingmates again.

“Discord.” Celestia’s voice suddenly echoed in Discord’s head telepathically. Discord flattened his brow and placed two fingers on the side of his head.

“What?” he asked flatly, replying with his own telepathy.

“It would appear Soarin’s headaches have vanished entirely. He shows no signs of pain or discomfort any longer.” She explained.

“Hmm…” Discord glanced towards Rainbow Dash. She was smiling and chuckling as the Wonderbolts conversed with Soarin, her own teammates all sitting around her. “Then her mental state really does directly affect him… wonderful…” he sighed, removing his fingers from his head as he leaned back and continued to watch the activity.

“You okay?” Thunderlane asked Dash as they sat back and watched the elites practically climb all over Soarin, some literally. Dash only glanced at him first, taking a quick look at the rest of her squad.

“Yeah,” she nodded, smiling as she watched Soarin open one of his massive wings, Fleetfoot and Surprise both perching on it and staring in awe. Lightning Streak and Air Mach were taking a rough estimate of Soarin’s bulky arm and forcing Fire to put his arm together with theirs to gauge just how big Soarin was. They were all being so casual, as if Soarin being an Alicorn didn’t mean a damn thing. And Soarin looked so damn happy. “I’m doing just fine.”

“Rainbow Dash.”

Her ears perked up and her whole squad seemed to flinch in surprise and move aside before she could even glance. She looked to her left to see Spitfire approaching with a smile on her face.

“C…captain?” she addressed her, swallowing. Spitfire didn’t say anything for a moment as she moved right beside Dash and sat down, looking out towards Soarin as well. “Um…” Dash began to fret. “I’m sorry about what happened,” she quickly apologized.

“Hm? Oh, about Storm?” Spitfire glanced at her. “Apology accepted. Don’t dwell on it though, it’s been addressed.”

“Ah… okay,” Dash looked away and tilted her head down. There was another small moment of silence between them, and it piqued Dash’s curiosity. She’d thought Spitfire would be the first one over to get up close and chat with Soarin, why was she sitting with her?

“I want you to know something, Dash,” Spitfire suddenly spoke up. “Because if I don’t tell you… there’s no way he ever will,” she said with a chuckle, her eyes averting slightly from Soarin.

“He…?” Dash said to herself as she followed Spitfire’s eyes… to Silver, who currently had a flailing Blaze in a headlock while otherwise sitting casually. “Silver?” she asked.

“Mmhmm,” Spitfire hummed while nodding. “I want you to understand exactly what you’ve done.” She cracked a grin while looking at Dash. “I haven’t known Silver as long as some, but for the time that I have… I have never seen him so quickly or so WILLINGLY admit he made a mistake.” She looked back to Silver. “I knew what was going on before you went after Storm. Silver pulled another name to be the runner for the other side, but he called out Storm. I should have stopped him right there, but I didn’t and we all know what happened. I found Silver later and let him have it, but he did what he always does… claimed it all went as planned and was unable to admit he miscalculated at least not without me twisting his arm and even then it was half-hearted. Now I get it, Silver likes to be the adult in the room and that’s fine, he’s older and wiser than all of us. That’s how he’s always conducted himself but sometimes he goes a little far, and good luck trying to find someone willing to say that to his face. I walked away from my talk with him feeling like I accomplished nothing. Just like every other time I’ve expressed my discontent with some of his methods, he just tried to stonewall me.”

Dash kept her eyes on Silver as she listened, but perked up when Spitfire placed a hoof on her shoulder.

“But this time… he turned around, backtracked, and came one hundred percent clean not just to me, but to everypony else in less than twenty-four hours. He was a bit of an extravagant jackass about it, of course, but I felt like I had just been clotheslined… and the way Misty reacted to his apology to all of us just now is all you have to know. Silver NEVER does this, EVER… and there’s only one piece of the puzzle that’s different here…” she said while giving Dash a light shake.

Dash looked Spitfire right in the eyes blankly.

“What’s that?” Dash asked.

“Dash… really?” Spitfire gave her a look.

“…oh. You mean…” Dash pointed at herself.

“No, I mean Fleetfoot.”

“Oh, um…!” Dash put her hoof down quickly.

“DASH!” Spitfire burst into a fit of laughter, leaning into Dash and bumping her forehead against the top of Dash’s head. “YES, I mean YOU.”

Dash’s eyes twitched and she tilted her head slightly. It was obvious but she was still in a bit of a tizzy over the whole situation.

“Aright, alright, let’s set the joking aside… I’m serious,” Spitfire nodded firmly. “Silver turned around faster than I’ve ever seen… and he did it after seeing what his little plan did to YOU,” she poked Dash in the chest. “YOU… are the reason he threw aside his ironclad pride to come clean with us like this, not to mention he did it in front of those who might use it against him, like Discord. You mattered more to him than any of it.”

Dash blinked and looked back to Silver. He now had both Blaze and High Winds in a headlock… under one arm. Blaze was still flailing, but it looked like Winds had accepted her fate and was taking a nap.

“We’ve all been through a lot…” Spitfire went on. “We’ve had enough life changing experiences to last several lifetimes… but we’ve all grown stronger, we’ve all become better… physically or mentally. And we’ve all discovered things about ourselves… and changed ourselves for the better. Silver might act like he reached this point a long time ago, but he’s changed too. And you’re the reason he has.”

“Uh… gosh…” Dash looked down, cheeks flushing a little. She reached up and pulled a hooffull of her mane up to cover her mouth and nose.

“It’s impossible to be perfect, but that just means you’re never done discovering ways to be better… thanks for keeping Silver on that path,” Spitfire smirked. “But don’t you dare tell him I said all this or else he’ll have me flying laps for the next three weeks.”

“Th…” Dash tried to speak but her voice petered out.

“Yeah?” Spitfire leaned a bit so Dash could see her.

“Thanks… for telling me,” Dash said through her mane. “That really means a lot to me… especially for Silver.”

“Of course,” Spitfire nodded.

“Say, Dashie!”

Both of them flinched as Fleetfoot suddenly appeared on the other side of Dash, leaning on her the same way Spitfire was albeit at a much shorter height.

“Have you and Soarin bam-bam’d in the ham yet with him like this? Hoo boy, he could wear you like a sock!” she giggled uncontrollably while leaning hard into her.

“But some things NEVER change…” Spitfire grumbled, reaching over and grabbing Fleetfoot by the head. “Come here YOU…”

“YEEEEEE!” Fleetfoot squeaked jokingly as Spitfire pulled her away. “I’m innocent, I swear!”

“And Blaze would never curse,” Spitfire replied sarcastically as she dragged her away.

Dash couldn’t hold it in any longer, she let her mane drop from her face and snickered at the ever so well timed shenanigans of Fleetfoot both killing and helping the mood at the same time.

She felt better… a lot better… and seeing the scene before her with Soarin and the elite Wonderbolts was just the icing on the cake. Silver once again proved that he knew what was best for her… even if he had just done the opposite accidentally. He fixed it while also doing something great for Soarin… and based on what Spitfire said, he did it for her just as much as him.

She felt vulnerable… but it was in an informative way. She hadn’t faced a personal situation like this in a long time, riding the high of her achievements, accomplishments, and assertion through the toughest situations. Suddenly being thrown into an emotional loop brought her back down to earth a little… and she felt like she needed it, especially with all the strange powers, magical energy, and enhanced physical prowess currently flowing through her.

She kept her eyes locked on Soarin and the Wonderbolts as her squad and Thunderlane rejoined her side. She glanced at all of them, then blinked as she looked back and forth.

“Where’s Twister?” she asked. Matteo was shaking his head before she finished saying his name.

“On our way here a cart filled with bread and pork chops came rolling through the palace halls. He leapt on and said something about porkchop sandwiches, caught fire, and rode the cart right out the doors into the central courtyard. Haven’t seen him since.”

Dash stared blankly at Matteo after how stoically he explained all of it, but just shrugged.

“Typical.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxenawolf

Who says the characters in the story are done growing? Believe me they aren't and some of them still have room to despite their roles thus far. Looks like Rainbow Dash's well being was more important to Silver than keeping up certain appearances. Dash made a mistake, but Silver very much had a hoof in what went down and looks like he swallowed his pride to do what needed to be done.

And he fixed it while also doing something else that needed to be done, kicking the door down in Discord's face and bringing the Wonderbolts to see Soarin... which both gave some much needed joy to Soarin and also ran right in the face of Discord's demand he must be kept isolated... because it didnt seem to be bad at all, in fact it helped eh?

This scenario has reminded Dash that for all her success and growth, she is still young and has lots to learn. She let her anger get the better of her (not to mention there was some clear magical reaction when she did) and it proved she's just as vulnerable as she is strong and has to be more mindful of herself. She's gone far, but she's still a rookie all things considered.

And interesting insight into Sombra's life briefly there, eh? The game of Chess between kings used as a means to avert wars? Looks like he was quite good at it (as if there was any doubt). Sombra and Soarin were abruptly interrupted before they could play, but this surely wont be the last time you see it. (Gee, chess... have i brought this up before? many times? nah... :pinkiecrazy:)

We again have two new fan art pieces by nightalein that have been added to the story.

First from chapter 121 after Starry willingly used a crystal to bring the captured Falcon to land on the Nimbus:

second from chapter 151 when Cadence spots and examines Starry Skies' crystalized form:

thanks for both!

Also again... i apologize for how long this chapter took me. Been a rough few months for me work and stress wise so i haven't put much time to writing as i usually do. i cant guarantee i'll pick up the pace again any time soon, but im working on it as i can so thanks for bearing with me.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 1 (Part 1: The Wonderbolt Tryouts)

(Timeline position: Two months after the events of That's Not Quite How He Told It...)

(For timeline info, please visit my homepage)

“Rgh!” Applejack grunted as she grinded her elbow into the table. She glared with her eyes forward, locked on her smug opponent. Their right hooves were clasped together, and she forced all of her strength to her left. She could barely move it.

“Ohboy,ohjeez,ohman,ohwow,ohcripes,ohdarn,ohmy,” Pinkie Pie peered over the edge of the table with her eyes wide and a smile hidden by the tabletop. She bounced giddily as she watched the hoof wrestling match continue.

Behind Pinkie, also present in the quiet environment that was Sugarcube Corner after business hours, were Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy. Unlike Pinkie, they sat one table length away as they observed. Twilight watched with interest, keeping calmer than the rest. Fluttershy peeked out from behind her. She had pulled out one of Twilight’s alicorn wings and mostly hid behind it. She wasn’t very fond of these contests. Rarity sat a little close, not anywhere near as close as Pinkie, but she kept leaning closer. Her mouth hung agape as she stared at Applejack’s opponent.

Applejack grunted again as she tried to force her hoof down with a sudden lurch, but her opponent held firm.

“Ain’t gonna work A.J.,” a smug voice taunted.

Applejack was hoof wrestling Rainbow Dash.

“I ain’t losin’ to you!” Applejack growled and ground her teeth together.

“Bring it!” Dash smirked. Applejack was strong. It took a lot of effort for Dash to resist being pushed down, but that was just it: She was able to hold firm. The two of them competed in a lot of things, but hoof wrestling was the one thing Applejack ALWAYS won. It was a contest of pure strength. Who would ever bet on a pegasus beating an earth pony? At least an average pegasus.

Over the past few months, Dash had become far above and beyond average.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH!” Pinkie bounced up and down beside them, “It’s too intense! I’m not hyper enough for this shit!” She darted behind the counter, ripped open a full bag of sugar, and started guzzling it down.

The mere sight of a pegasus overpowering an earth pony was unbelievable. It was even more incredible because the earth pony being overpowered was Applejack. She was a naturally strong, hardworking, and heavy lifting farm pony. She was strong amongst her own kind.

If it were a Wonderbolt with a strength role like Soarin, this wouldn’t have been quite as exciting. All of Dash’s friends knew she had been training hard, but they never thought they’d see the day she overpowered Applejack.

“Damn!” Applejack cursed as Dash began to push her hoof down. She strained against it, but her arm was getting tired. Their strength seemed about equal, but Dash was now proving her endurance. Applejack just couldn’t keep it up as the long match went on.

“C’mon!” Dash called out as she had Applejack’s hoof halfway to the table. Applejack tried as hard as she could to resist, but she couldn’t stop it.

“Ah!” Applejack exhaled as her strength gave out. She lurched to her right, her hat fell off her head, and the back of her hoof struck the table.

“HAHA! YES!” Dash instantly lifted off from the table and pumped her hooves in the air. Applejack panted lightly as she looked at her hoof resting on the table. Her arm was slightly numb from all the stress.

“That ain’t right,” Applejack shook her head as she scooped her hat off the floor. She placed it firmly back on her head, crossed her hooves, leaned back in her chair, and pouted.

“Can’t beat these guns!” Dash gloated while flexing her right arm and kissing it. Right after she did a pang of discomfort shot through it. “Oo! Ow!” Dash shook her arm out as it throbbed.

“Careful Dash,” Twilight chuckled as Dash hovered back down and rotated her arm a few times. “Let’s avoid celebration injuries,” she suggested as Dash grinned sheepishly. Pinkie Pie popped up behind Applejack.

“Aww, why the long face?” She asked while rubbing Applejack’s shoulders. Pinkie had bits of sugar speckled all over her nose and mouth and she was vibrating slightly.

“Whaddya think Pinkie?” Applejack snapped.

“I think you look funny when you shake like that!” she giggled as she began to bounce a little harder. Fluttershy fluttered up behind Pinkie, placing her hooves on Pinkie’s shoulders to try and stabilize her. As soon as she touched Pinkie, Fluttershy started shaking in midair and was quickly thrown off with a quiet yelp.

“Don’t be a sore loser Applejack,” Dash waved a hoof at her. Applejack glared, but Dash only shrugged. “You’re still up fifty seven to one in hoof wrestling,” she chuckled. Applejack sighed.

“Yeah… TO ONE,” she shook her head, “I lost to a pegasus in hoof wrestlin’. Now I gotta live knowin’ that,” she sulked. Pinkie slowly rose up from the floor behind Applejack. She held up a small bottle of jimmie sprinkles and shook the bottle so it made rustling noises. Applejack shot a glare at Pinkie, who bounced away while giggling.

“A.J., I’m not just any pegasus,” Dash smirked at her, “I’m not a little flower like Thunderlane. Just cause you can overpower him doesn’t mean I’ll go down as easily,” she winked. Applejack stood up roughly from her spot and glared daggers at her. Fluttershy quickly hovered up between them, placed her hooves lightly on Applejack’s chest and shook her head with wide eyes. Applejack grunted and sat back down. Fluttershy sharply turned to Dash.

“Stop it,” she said quietly with an angry pout. Dash obeyed, not wanting to fluster her little friend. She flinched as Pinkie bounced by behind her at double her usual rate of pronking.

“Applejack,” Twilight walked up to her and smiled, “Rainbow Dash has been training real hard to become a Wonderbolt. You saw what they were capable of. If anything you should be happy she’s made such great progress.”

“I’m doubling my workload,” Applejack ignored her.

“Applejack, what did I just—,”

“I ain’t lettin’ this go Twilight, stop tryin’,” she put sternly. Twilight sighed and shook her head. Rarity made her way over to Dash while looking her up and down.

“Darling, I don’t mean to tread upon your—,” she poked Dash lightly on the arm, “new, well-earned, physique…, but does your dress even fit anymore?” She had an unnecessary amount of concern in her eyes. Dash flattened her ears.

“Rarity, I’m not that much bigger than I used to be,” she looked herself over. She had built up some muscle, but she wasn’t bulging all over. Still sleek and aerodynamic, just a little stronger than she used to be, “I’m not gonna turn into Bulk Biceps, I severely lack the required testosterone, thank Celestia,” she rolled her eyes. Rarity was still looking at her with worry as if she hadn’t heard a single word. Dash flattened her expression to match her ears, “Rarity, how often do I wear my dress anyway?” Rarity suddenly looked up, alarmed.

“It’s not about how often it’s worn!” she grabbed Dash by the cheeks. “It’s about having one ready at all times! Stop working out so much! I want to finalize adjustments!” she shook Dash lightly. Dash quickly reached up and gently pulled Rarity’s hooves off her face.

“Well actually,” Dash began, “I got something to tell you all,” she said a little louder to get all of their attention. Even Pinkie stopped bouncing and glanced over, but still shook a little.

“What is it?” Twilight asked while tipping her head to the side. Dash looked between all of them and smiled.

“In a week,” she began, her hooves lightly tapping on the floor in excitement, “the Wonderbolts are having open tryouts!” she beamed happily. A collective wave of surprise rushed over her friends.

“I need more sugar,” Pinkie stated before zipping back behind the counter.

MLP: FiM

Piercing the Heavens

By: Calm Wind

Fan Art by: Coco Candy

Chapter 1:

A loud *CLANG* rang throughout the gym as Soarin dropped a barbell back into its rack. He shook his head out, whipping bits of sweat from his mane. He hated hind leg workouts. So much more stress on the body and he would feel it just walking for two days after. He had to keep his body even though, unless he wanted to look like their over-inflated, top heavy strength coach.

“Soarin.”

He grunted to himself in discomfort as he rubbed a hoof against his forehead. Damn headache just wouldn’t go away. His head had been giving him hell lately. He wished he could figure out why. It was probably just the dark power again. He thought by now he’d be used to it.

“Soarin?”

His head had been in a tizzy frequently lately. Maybe he was overworking himself despite the inner power keeping him energized at all times. Nah, maybe it had just been too long since he saw Dash. Every time he visited her, it went away for a while. His recent visit to Ponyville was much longer. Maybe that’s why the repercussions came back harder this time.

“SOARIN!”

“Huh?” he blinked as he picked up his towel. He turned to his right and saw Spitfire glaring at him, Fleetfoot giggling behind her. “What?”

“Soarin, what the hell?” she tipped her head to the side, “I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past ten minutes!” she flattened her ears, “I know you get super focused when you lift weights, but you were off in your own little world there.”

“Uh… sorry?” Soarin wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. In fact he was surprised to see a lot of other Wonderbolts now occupied the gym. It was just him Spitfire, and Fleetfoot earlier. How did he miss all the others? He wasn’t paying attention at all.

“As I tried to ask about five times,” Spitfire continued, “I was wondering if you’ve got your selection criteria ready for the tryouts next week.”

Soarin sat down on a gym bench behind him and wiped his face off with his towel. He blinked and then looked back at Spitfire.

“Wait, did you say tryouts?” He asked quickly. Spitfire’s eyes widened as Fleetfoot fell over laughing behind her.

“Soarin! Are you joking?! Please tell me you’re joking!” Spitfire slapped a hoof to her face.

“I’m… not?” He answered truthfully. Spitfire sighed heavily and let her head hang down.

“Soarin, this has been schedule priority one for a month! Have you paid attention in any of our last three meetings?! I’ve brought it up every time! Augh~!” She swung her head back in frustration. Soarin really had not remembered a single instance of it.

It was true, his mind had been very occupied, but unlike previous months, it was a mix of things. The constant on his mind was obviously Rainbow Dash. There weren’t many moments where she wasn’t on his mind in some shape or form. That was no mystery to his friends. The other he had kept to himself. He had been fighting throbbing headaches recently that seemed to come and go quickly. He had figured out ways to feel them coming and fight them, but at times it required intense concentration. It had happened in all three of the previous meetings he had had with Spitfire and Fleetfoot. Talk about bad timing, apparently he missed something about a tryout?

“Soarin, we have to make adjustments due to our loss of Rapidfire. We can’t have a three pony squad,” she explained, “Obviously we will have to move somepony qualified up to the lead squad, but we need a replacement to fill their spot in their squad. We are having an open tryout for recruits and the general public to find out who will join the elite squads. Got it?” she looked directly at him, but he just stared.

“Oh! Uh… yes?” he answered. She was not convinced.

“Hold up Spitfire, I know that look and so do you,” Fleetfoot leaned on Spitfire’s shoulder and snickered. It took Soarin another moment to break his vacant gaze and see that Fleetfoot was pointing at him. “I think somepony is making love to his lady up in here,” she tapped her hoof to her head. Spitfire gave Fleetfoot a very uncomfortable look as Fleetfoot burst out laughing. Soarin flattened his eyes and ears.

“Soarin, do we need to have the focus talk again?” Spitfire reminded him of her threat. If he focused on Dash instead of his job, he’d be demoted. Soarin was well aware. That wasn’t the case.

“No, we don’t. And Fleet, that’s not why—,” Soarin was cut off as a sharp throbbing felt like it squeezed his entire forehead in a vice. “ARGH!” he flinched really hard, stood from the bench, and slammed his hoof against his head. His eyes were shut tight, but when he squeaked them open he saw both Spitfire and Fleetfoot looking at him with surprise and concern.

“What was that!?” Spitfire trotted up to him and placed a hoof on his shoulder. Soarin quickly tried to change the subject.

“Nothing! It was nothing!” He put his neck up straight and hid any sign of pain from his face.

“Don’t give me that Soarin!” Spitfire scolded him. “It’s the dark magic again, isn’t it?” she was too sharp. Soarin sighed and nodded.

“Yes,” he rubbed his hooves softly against his temples, “for a while actually,” he decided just to tell her. It would save him the trouble of Spitfire breathing down his neck about it for weeks. “I’ve been focusing hard not to show it, that’s probably how I missed all the info. Was there anything else important in those meetings?” he asked.

“Pfffft,” Fleetfoot held in a laugh as Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Yes, but we’ll talk about that later,” she pointed at him, “You’ve seen Luna about this right? Like I suggested?” she asked. Soarin averted his eyes. “You… have… right?” she looked at him sternly again.

“No,” Soarin admitted. Spitfire let out a long, annoyed sigh.

“Soarin, I feel like your mother. This is your well-being we’re talking about. Why haven’t you? Are you waiting for your brain to explode?” she berated him. She was right, but Soarin was getting tired of it. It was his problem, not hers! Why was she getting on his ass about it? He quickly turned and grabbed his towel.

“Okay! Okay! I’ll go tomorrow, just let me finish my workout!” he snapped.

“Soarin!” Spitfire called after him, but he trudged off.

“You two are a great a source of drama,” Fleetfoot chuckled as Spitfire sighed again.

“How did I get put in the drama category?” she made a head motion in the direction of Soarin, “He’s the one with the spooky powers and crazy long distance fillyfriend.”

“Speaking of Dash,” Fleetfoot changed the subject, “think she’s gonna show?” Fleetfoot followed Spitfire as the two made their way over to the stretching mat.

“She better,” Spitfire scoffed as they sat down and began stretching. “She’s… probably…” Spitfire grunted as she reached her arms as far past her back hooves as she could, “the best… prospect… ever,” she exhaled as she sat back up, “I sent her ten invites, I hope she’s figured it out.”

“Ten?” Fleetfoot chuckled as she finished her stretch and rolled onto her back, grabbed one of her hind legs, and extended it upward, “Careful, she might get a different idea,” she winked.

“Must you always go sexual with everything?” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow at her. “Oh,” she stopped mid stretch, “I’ll have to tell Soarin later, but let’s get this clear right now. No favors.”

“What was that about me being sexual?” Fleetfoot bounced her eyebrows.

“Dammit Fleet…” Spitfire groaned as Fleetfoot laughed, “I’m talking about the selection process. We’re looking for the best possible candidate, which means more than straight strength and skill. It means character and integrity as well. When I said no favors, I meant for Dash. We’re good friends with her, but we cannot choose her based on that. Everypony gets a fair chance, hence, no favors.”

“Of course,” Fleetfoot replied with very little thought.

“I figured you already had that down. It’s Soarin I’m worried about,” she thought out loud as she motioned for Fleetfoot to help her with a stretch. They faced each other. Spitfire spread her back legs out and held her hooves forward. Fleetfoot grabbed them and pulled lightly to stretch Spitfire’s lower back.

“Let me guess,” Fleetfoot asked as she tugged, “you don’t want him to be swayed by her irresistible, sassy charm,” she smirked.

“It’s weird hearing you call somepony sassy,” Spitfire scoffed comically, “Yes and more. Of course I’m afraid of their relationship being a factor in his decision. I’m also worried about his focus. It’s bad enough with these apparent headaches he’s been having, but it will probably be even worse with her around,” she brought it up again. Fleetfoot tugged harder once and let go. “OW!” Spitfire whipped backward and rolled back slightly before sitting up, “What was that for?” she questioned as Fleetfoot stared at her flatly with her hooves crossed.

“You need to drop this whole distraction thing, Spitty,” Fleetfoot’s ears flopped down, and then back up.

“Thing?” Spitfire blinked in confusion. Fleetfoot looked past her.

“Oh wow, perfect timing,” she tipped her head to the side. Spitfire followed Fleetfoot’s eyes over her shoulder. Squad two had just entered the gym.

“C’mon! Hop to it!” Silver Lining barked through the doors. High Winds walked in first, releasing a big yawn as she passed.

“Heard ya the first thousand times, jackass!” Blaze barked back at Silver as she passed. He didn’t even look at her.

“Sir! I’m here sir!” Wave Chill burst through the doors and saluted.

“Then go!” Silver pushed him along.

Spitfire kept her eyes trained on Wave Chill for a brief moment, but quickly broke it, hoping Fleetfoot didn’t see.

“What are you talking about Fleet?” She tried and failed to play it off.

“Nice try. Maybe you should start practicing what you preach,” she pointed back towards squad two. Spitfire followed her hoof and her eyes landed on Wave Chill as he hit the weights with a little too much gusto. Again, she stared longer than intended.

“Wait, NO!” She shook her head. “Fleet, Wave doesn’t distract me!” She tried to defend herself.

“And Lightning Streak is the perfect model stallion,” she called Spitfire’s bluff instantly while leaning forward. “Yesterday you pushed a door labeled 'pull' for like, twenty seconds cause you were trying to watch him run the obstacle course at the same time,” she snickered as she recalled.

Art by: Those Kids In The Corner/Catalyst

“Er—,” Spitfire blushed and grimaced. She was hoping nopony had seen that.

“Go easy on Soarin alright? Now that you know what it’s like to have your own distraction.” Fleetfoot smiled contently, but Spitfire tried to retaliate again.

“There’s nothing between—!”

“Stop,” Fleetfoot put a hoof over Spitfire’s mouth, “Look me in the eye and tell me there’s nothing between you two. I dare you,” she had her eyes set sternly on Spitfire. Spitfire held her breath, puffing her cheeks out.

“Ugh! Fine, I get it.” She crossed her hooves and pouted. Fleetfoot clapped her hooves together.

“Good!” she scooted herself over the mat into Spitfire’s view, “just trust Soarin okay? Yeah, he and Dash are head over hooves in love with each other, but Soarin is a professional. He will do his job, and Dash will appreciate it. At least I hope she does.”

“Fair enough.” Spitfire answered plainly, rising to her hooves, and trying to leave quickly.

“Hey!” Fleetfoot got up and chased her. “You’re not even gonna say hi to your hubby!?” she joked as she chased Spitfire out of the gym.

“Tryout’s?! That’s wonderful!” Twilight was the first to speak up after Pinkie’s initial sugar binge reaction. “What’s the—,”

“WHARRGARBL!” Pinkie cut her off as she poured more sugar into her mouth. All of them glanced over to her, slightly disturbed. She stopped briefly and looked at all of them calmly. “I’m sorry you all had to see this,” she apologized before tipping the sugar bag back into her mouth and falling over with it onto the floor.

“A-hem!” Dash cleared her throat to pull the attention away from Pinkie. “So, because Rapidfire is… missing,” she wanted to say dead, but they never found him after the Shadowbolt compound fell, “they need to fill an elite squad spot,” she puffed her chest out, “To make it more interesting, they’re letting outsiders into the tryouts alongside already existing recruits! I’m a shoo-in for the elite spot,” she whisked her mane around, “but if I somehow don’t they’re gonna recruit any others that look good too!”

“Oh, and you’ll get to see your prince too.” Rarity batted her eyelashes with starry eyes. Dash had gotten used to Rarity trying to barge her way into her love life.

“Trust me, I’ve thought about that.” Dash smirked. “He’ll be busy, but he can’t escape me.” She said smugly while beating a hoof against her chest.

She was, indeed, beyond excited for Soarin as well. Why wouldn’t she be? This could be the chance to dissolve the long distance! At last, she could be near her stallion every day. She envied the hell out of Fluttershy and Applejack. They had their stallions in town. Fate was a twisted bitch. Dash and Soarin were by far the most into each other compared to the other two couples, yet they were forced apart. Just the mention of him suddenly gave Dash the urge to find him and pin him to his or her bed ASAP if she could.

His last visit during her farm work was long and awesome. They spent so much time together, she had never been happier! It was the longest she had ever gotten to be with him, and it destroyed her inside out even more than usual when he had to go. Now her heart was scratching and clawing for what she had to do to never be without him again. The tryouts gave her the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: Become a Wonderbolt, and effectively be within reach of her love.

“That’s great!” Twilight smiled and glanced at her friends, but most of them suddenly looked sad. “Oh, but…” Twilight caught on. Dash sensed the change in the mood. They figured it out. Time for the hard part,

“Yeah,” Dash had thought about this. This is exactly why she gathered all of her friends together tonight at Sugar Cube Corner, “If I get selected, I might be moving away...,” she swallowed and looked away, “For a long time if I’m made a recruit, or for good if I’m selected for the elite spot,” her ears drooped. She wasn’t as prepared for this as she thought. This was her dream, but did you have to leave your friends behind to follow your dreams? They were gonna be okay without her, right?

“W-w-w-why t-t-t-the l-l-l-l-long f-f-f-f-faces?!” Pinkie appeared next to Dash, eyes almost wider than her face, and shaking all about due to sugar overload. “I-i-i-if i-i-i-i-I k-k-k-know—,” Dash rolled her eyes and slammed her hoof over Pinkie’s head, holding her steady, “Oh! Thanks! If I know Dashie, she’ll still be the bestest friend to all of us forever and will visit us as often as possible!” Pinkie finished as Dash felt her arm lose grip. Pinkie was sent into a fit of uncontrollable fast paced pronking and bounced right out the front door.

“She’s right,” Rarity smiled and gave Dash a hug. “We’re being selfish. This is very important to you! We’d be terrible friends if we didn’t show our support,” she turned and looked as Twilight and Fluttershy smiled. Applejack was still brooding. “Applejack!” Rarity snapped at her with a whisper. Applejack sighed and put on a fake smile.

“I’ll miss you so much Dashie,” Fluttershy hovered up and gave her a very big hug. Dash hugged her back and chuckled.

“I’m not leaving yet Fluttershy,” Dash squeezed her back lightly. “I still want to get in a few tune-up workouts in, but I promise, on my element of loyalty, that I’ll spend as much time as I can with all of you before I go,” she assured them.

They all flinched as a loud *POOM* came from a window nearby. They all turned to see Pinkie flat against the window with her face pressed to it. They cringed as she slowly slinked off the window, making an ear wrenching rubbing noise against the glass as she slid off. Dash chuckled and shook her head.

“Rest assured, I’m gonna miss all of you so bad. How could I ever forget the best, most fun friends in existence?”

Dash had a dream to follow. Sure, she'd have to leave her friends behind, but she'd be back. Ponyville would always be home. It was time to be awesome, and she had awesome friends who would always be there for her.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Hello! :D Yep, it's time for Soarindash part 3! Everybody buckle up! Cause this ride's gonna be even wilder than the last ;)

The opening chapter was short and sweet, but as you will read, things are already being set in motion. Since i'm not rushing for a contest, i hope i can take time to put as much effort care into every single chapter (And clean each one up before submission with the help of my editor: Kestrel) But don't worry, i plan to update every two to three days. So it will be constant just like before :)

(Also, if your wondering about Soarin's ponyville visit. He makes a surprise visit in my previous story: The Weight of Responsibility. He's not the focus of the story, but he plays a minor role.)

AND HERE...

WE...

GO!

Chapter 4: Strong Dash and "Princess" Soarin?

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 4:

Three… Four… Five… Dash counted in her head as she steadily pressed the barbell up again and again.

She and Scootaloo had a nice morning flight. Scootaloo couldn’t go too long without having to rest, but it gave Dash a chance to show her little fan a few speed drills. Now they were back in the cloud house, making good use of a surprise gift Soarin had given Dash during his last visit.

Dash remembered it well. It was the day before Spitfire and Fleetfoot stopped by again so they could all fly back to Canterlot together. It was strange at first. The whole night it felt like Soarin was stalling her. Every time she tried to drag him back to her house, he suggested something else and led her away. He was stalling her, buying enough time for a hired crew to stop by her house and set up something.

When they finally returned, Dash found her house had an extra extension of clouds on one side. Cloud houses weren’t very hard to build or add to. Unlike conventional board and nail architecture, it was a simple matter of professionally molding and shaping an enchanted cloud that was incapable of being dissipated or changed once set in place.

So she had a new room? Neat.

What was in the new room was the real surprise. Soarin led her in through a new door cut into the wall of her living room to reveal a complete home gym. Everything she would need to do strength training like the Wonderbolts. A bench with an attached barbell and plates, a rack of dumbbells, a stretching mat, and a few cable machines, a whole set of magically imbued equipment that would stay afloat on the cloud floors. The room was complete with a wall length mirror, a few Wonderbolt motivational posters, and a large framed and signed mug shot of Soarin smiling suavely for cameras at a recent news conference.

He claimed the picture was meant to be a joke, and she didn’t have to keep it there, but she kept it up anyway.

“Nothing motivates me more than your smug shit-faced grin,” she had said to him jokingly upon seeing it.

He also ended up giving her full, written up workout and matching diet plans to go with it. He had thought of everything all for her. Damn she loved him. He went out of his way to provide her with everything she would need to work hard, get stronger, and be the best she could be. Come time for Wonderbolt tryouts, she would be ready. Thanks to him, she’d be more than ready.

Then she pressed him to the bench and…

Dash realized she did twenty five warm-up reps when she was supposed to only do ten.

“Whoops, pay attention Dash,” she chuckled, blushing lightly as she remembered the night that followed his gift. She set the bar back into the rack and released her hooves from the hoof holds attached to the bar. Obviously a bar is pretty hard for a pony to grab. There were special circular caps welded to it that a pony could slide their hooves into. It kept the bar steady so Dash didn’t have to worry about it slipping and landing painfully on her stomach or neck. That would really suck.

She stood up from the bench and circled around to add weight to the bar. Something had become clear to her during her experiences with the Wonderbolts. It wasn’t just all about the wings. For the longest time throughout her life, she had lived by the belief that simply being fast and having lots of wing power was the essence of being the perfect flyer.

She sure was proved wrong quickly. The first indication she got was just how buff every Wonderbolt was, even when just the lead squad visited Ponyville. Soarin was obviously very big and muscular due to his role as a thrower and he could only pull off the Sonic Blast-off so easily because of his pure strength, but the others weren’t beanpoles either. Spitfire and Fleetfoot, while not quite as toned as Dash had recently become, both sported rather impressive bodies for mares. Rapidfire was in shape too, but screw that douche.

Having a strong, sturdy body was almost more essential than the wings. The Wonderbolts were able to perform complex maneuvers at extremely high speeds. Pitching and turning while under the intense pressure of wind resistance required ridiculous core strength. Then if one managed to hold strong under the pressure, they’d also have to sustain it. Strength and endurance: they were beyond important.

This was the answer Dash had been readily searching for in terms of the question: just how the hell could Soarin turn and maneuver so easily in tandem with using the Sonic Blast-off? Whenever she did it, she could barely shift from a straight line. Conclusion: Soarin was a beast. He was clearly the strongest Wonderbolt. Dash had seen multiple male Wonderbolts while she was last in the compound and none of them compared to him in terms of size or strength (or good looks). She saw him bench press over two hundred pounds multiple times in one set for crying out loud.

“Heh,” Dash chuckled to herself as she slid the weight plates onto the barbell. Two hundred pounds? Forget it. The most she had managed was a hundred twenty five, and she could barely do it once before having to put it down. At least she had made progress. She had effectively increased the amount of weight she could press by thirty pounds since she started. She most likely had the diet to thank for that. Soarin’s advice rang true: “Want a strong body? Better eat right along with the training.”

Another place a well-trained body would help her was in the combat department. Nightshade beat the tar out of her during the tornado incident. When they fought the Shadowbolts again, it was after a good three months of heavy work at Sweet Apple Acres. Dash found herself staying toe to toe and exchanging blows, especially when she fought Lightning Dust. Dust was quicker and landed so many punches, but Dash proved to be sturdier and shrugged each one of them off.

She had nearly forgotten that the Wonderbolts’ combat capabilities were technically secret. There was such a huge focus on it at the compound, but they were just stunt flyers to the general public. Dash planned to use this to her advantage. She’d be combat ready before the rest of the recruits even knew about it. All this extra training would make her shine.

She put one hundred pounds on the bar and laid back down to do another set. She counted in her head again as she made sure to keep good form. She got to eight and her right arm seemed to give out slightly. With an extra effort, she pushed the bar all the way up and set it back in the rack.

“Ow…” she winced as she shook her right hoof. It seemed like it was still a little tired from hoof wrestling Applejack. Whatever, it was minor, nothing she couldn’t deal with by just sucking it up. She rotated her arms to keep her chest muscles loose—

“HALP!” A voice came from nearby. Dash blinked. She was thinking so much about Soarin and the Wonderbolts that she had completely forgotten about Scootaloo. Dash turned to check on her.

“Pffff!” Dash snickered as she looked towards the mat. Scootaloo had managed to get a fifteen pound dumbbell off the rack, but somehow also managed to get pinned beneath it upon landing. She wasn’t being crushed or choked by it, but she was effectively stuck. Dash chuckled as she rose from the bench and trotted over.

“HAAAAALP!” Scootaloo repeated while kicking her back hooves and trying to push the dumbbell off. She got it to move an inch or so each try, but it fell right back down before she could get free. Dash reached her wing out and placed a few feathers on the handle.

“Hello?”

“Try again, I’ll only help a little,” Dash explained, knowing Scootaloo would prefer doing it mostly herself. Scootaloo held her breath as she tried pushing again, “Whoa!” Dash stopped her, “You’ll blow your brain out of your ears like that. Take a deep breath and release it as you push,” she nodded with a small grin. Scootaloo did as she was told. She took a breath and exhaled as she pushed the dumbbell up and off of her, rolling it to the side.

“This is hard,” she said as she remained on her back, looking up at Dash upside down.

“Hello?”

“I didn’t help you at all actually,” Dash said while briefly preening the wing feathers she had on the dumbbell.

“Huh?” Scootaloo looked over at the dumbbell. Dash chuckled.

“It makes a difference when you breathe,” she winked, “holding your breath makes it harder.”

“Hello?”

“Okay, I’m definitely not imagining it. Scoots, do you keep hearing something?” Dash looked about the room. She stopped when her eyes fell on the doorway to the living room. There was a little yellow head with a pink mane peering around the wall. “Fluttershy?” Dash lifted an eyebrow.

“Um… Hi,” Fluttershy spoke up a little as Dash noticed her, “I’m not interrupting anything… am I?”

“Not at all, how long have you been there?” Dash asked, estimating she’d probably been standing there for at least five minutes.

“I’ve been here for an hour,” she admitted quietly while walking out from behind the wall and looking up at Dash.

“An hour?!” Dash stared at her in disbelief, “I’ve only been home for twenty minutes!” Dash couldn’t hold back a few chuckles, “You’ve been here the whole time? You’re like a ninja.”

“I was sitting on the couch, you walked by me twice,” she said while looking away. Something was definitely eating at her. Fluttershy was generally not rambunctious, but she looked a little sad.

“You just really blend in then,” Dash commented while trying to recall her surroundings just minutes ago. How did she miss Fluttershy right in her living room? She was a small pony but sheesh…

“I just, didn’t want to get in your way, you looked busy,” Fluttershy swayed back and forth while looking at the floor, “and I didn’t want to bother you during a workout,” she kept trying to justify her lack of assertiveness. Dash shook her head.

“Fluttershy, my home is your home, we’ve been over this. At least you made it into the house this time,” she smiled, recalling a time Fluttershy waited outside in the rain for half an hour before Dash realized she was at the door. “So what’s up? Why the long face?” Dash picked up on Fluttershy’s expression.

“Oh nothing,” Fluttershy looked up at Dash, “I just thought I’d… you know…spend some time with you,” she kept her sad expression as she explained herself.

“Fluttershy stop looking at me like that, I’m gonna start crying,” Dash joked while placing a hoof down on Fluttershy’s shoulder.

“I’m just sad you’re leaving soon, I know it’s a week away, but…” tears started welling up.

“Oh man, c’mere,” Dash quickly drew her into a hug, “I’m only gonna be in Canterlot, I won’t be too far.”

“I know, it’s just that you’ve always been there for me my whole life! I’m going to miss you so much,” Fluttershy held back the tears in an uncharacteristic show of resolve. “I’m happy for you… but I’m going to miss you.”

“Hey, now!” Dash put her at arm’s length. “I may be going, but you’ve got Mac to take care of you now! Be happy! But I’ll still visit as much as I can, so no tears okay?”

It was true. The two of them had been friends since they were young fillies. They even moved to Ponyville at the same time. Fluttershy really cared about her. The violent tackle and questioning when Dash disappeared after the royal ball was a clear indication.

“Okay,” Fluttershy smiled.

“HAAAAAAAAAALP!!!!” Scootaloo suddenly yelled from behind them. Dash turned around to see Scootaloo stuck beneath the dumbbell again.

“Dammit Scoots,” Dash mumbled with a smirk. She briefly turned to Fluttershy and patted her shoulder. “I gotta get back to my workout. I was supposed to do my next set like, five minutes ago.”

“Do you mind if I just, stick around? I want to spend as much time with you as I can,” Fluttershy asked.

“Like I said, you’re always welcome,” Dash answered as Fluttershy followed her into the room. Dash stopped by Scootaloo and this time just easily lifted the dumbbell off. “Take it easy Scoots, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“But I wanna be like you!” she huffed and crossed her arms as she sat up. Dash ruffled Scootaloo’s mane with her free hoof.

“Patience, young one. I didn’t get like this overnight,” Dash flexed her arm and gave Scootaloo a smile before turning towards Fluttershy, “Hey could you put this back for me?” she asked while holding the dumbbell towards her. It seemed like a logical request, seeing as how the dumbbell rack and bench were on opposite sides of the home gym.

“Oh, okay,” Fluttershy reached out. Dash handed her the dumbbell, and only realized just as she let go that it was probably a horrible idea, “EEP!” Fluttershy was instantly pulled to the ground by it. Dash winced as Fluttershy crashed softly against the mat.

“Seriously Fluttershy? It’s only fifteen pounds,” Dash lifted an eyebrow. Fluttershy was flat on the floor, stomach first. The dumbbell had bounced and was leaning against her right shoulder. She tried to move, but it was too heavy.

“Um… help?” she whimpered.

“You’re too delicate for your own good,” Dash sighed and shook her head. Maybe it would be a bad idea for her to leave Fluttershy behind. The poor tiny pony would break in two if a feather landed on her. She had Big Macintosh now though. If he couldn’t keep her from harm, nothing could. It was sad that she would be leaving her friends behind, but they were all finding new directions in their lives. Dash’s path just split off a little, they would never truly go separate ways. Never.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!”

Soarin stepped into Spitfire’s office as Fleetfoot guffawed her lungs out. He flattened his brow, eyes, and mouth as he glanced at her angrily. She rolled back and forth on the ground, clutching her sides and kicking her back hooves up in the air. Soarin sighed and tried to ignore her. Spitfire sat behind her desk, eying him quizzically with one eyebrow lifted.

“Uh, do I want to know?” Spitfire asked while switching which eyebrow was up.

“Well—” Soarin tried to start, but…

“HAHAHA WHA… WHAT THE HELL… OH GOD, MY SIDES HURT AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” Fleetfoot rolled onto her stomach and flapped her wings while pounding a hoof on the floor.

“Is that a prop or something?” Spitfire asked while eyeing the horn and how it was fastened to Soarin’s head. “Nightmare Night isn’t until next month. How the hell did you buckle that strap with hooves?” Spitfire made small circular hoof motions in front of her as she contemplated it.

“No it’s not a prop, it’s—” he tried speaking again, but…

“I just… can’t…” Fleetfoot walked up to him while still engulfed in her own laughter.

“Fleet…” Soarin glared at her.

“Just when I thought you’d never surprise me again… ha ha ha! Seriously Soarin what the—” she reached up and tapped the horn with her hoof.

Art by Scootafail/Chiwee

Soarin felt a pang of discomfort shoot through his head, down his neck, and over his back all the way to the tip of his tail.

“Rgh! Fleet!” He growled. Suddenly he felt a strange sensation. It felt like every nerve in his body from his hooves to his ears was firing. The sensations condensed and seemed to gather in his forehead. The horn began to glow bright blue. “SHIT!” Soarin yelled as Fleetfoot’s eyes widened and she pulled away. Spitfire stood up from her desk sharply, rubbing her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Soarin quickly crouched down and aimed the horn at the floor. He cupped his hooves over the tip and braced himself.

Luckily, the magic spasm was only a fraction as strong as the one that destroyed the window back in the palace. The magic discharged towards the floor at point blank. A loud POW sounded out, followed by a weak shockwave and small bits of blue light squeaking out between Soarin’s hooves. The wave pushed Fleetfoot and Spitfire back a few inches from where they stood. Stacks of papers on Spitfire’s desk blew into the air, the loose chairs in the office all shifted, and the potted plant beside the door fell over.

“Ahhh! Damn!” Soarin stood up quickly and shook his hooves as a small trail of steam rose from both them and the false horn. Fleetfoot’s jaw dropped.

“Holy shit…” she blinked. “That was real magic, wasn’t it?”

“What tipped you off?” Spitfire said sarcastically as she sighed at all the papers in a mess on the floor. She made her way around the desk and approached Soarin carefully. “Soarin, what in Equestria is going on?” she asked in concern as he blew on his hooves. He glared at Fleetfoot who kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t as much of a joke anymore.

“Do you want the long, confusing version? Or the short and blunt version?” Soarin rolled his eyes as he sat down and looked towards his longtime friend.

“I’d prefer the version that makes sense,” she pointed at Soarin’s head, “cause I’m pretty sure I just saw a pegasus use magic through a fake horn,” she stated.

“Okay,” Soarin tipped his head back and forth, “Apparently the dark magic Celestia used on me back in Ponyville should have killed me by now. When I went to see Luna, she and Discord slapped this false horn on me so the magic would have the means of being channeled. I’m gonna be summoned later for instructions on how to control the basic forms of magic,” he turned to Fleetfoot, “I was told it would remain under control for now, but apparently making me mad makes it react so I’d appreciate you not pushing it Fleet,” he tipped his head towards her and raised both his eyebrows. “Okay?”

“Yep,” she answered simply with her eyes still wide. Spitfire scrunched her face for a moment before shaking her head.

“That’s the version that makes sense?” she blinked as she thought it over. Soarin shrugged and sighed.

“I don’t get it either and I wish all this damn crap stopped happening to me,” he complained as he looked up to see the tip of the horn in his vision, “but I guess I have no say in it so I’m gonna have to be a pseudo alicorn for a while,” he shifted his eyes to Spitfire. “I was told to rest today too, I hope you don’t mind…”

“Fine,” Spitfire said with a deep breath and a hint of annoyance. Soarin caught on.

“Spitfire, you know this wasn’t my choice, right?” Soarin made it clear. Spitfire shook her head and looked at him sternly. He knew that look and knew exactly what was coming along with it.

“First of all Soarin,” she began as she leaned her side into her desk, “you picked a great time to have issues. If you had listened to me before and seen Luna earlier, you would’ve dealt with this off-season and not right before a major recruitment drive. Secondly,” she pushed off her desk and pointed at him, “you have my support in this situation as your best friend, but keep in mind that it’s my job as the lead captain of the Wonderbolts to keep active members in the lead squad. If you don’t get this figured out and under control, you WILL get replaced. It’s how our system works. It’s fair and it’s honest. I can’t let personal matters get in the way. Understand?” they stared at each other, Fleetfoot glancing between them without making a sound.

“Yes, ma’am,” Soarin replied professionally.

“Good, now go figure this stuff out, and please try not to blow any holes in the walls or through other Wonderbolts,” she nodded to him.

“I’ll… do my best,” Soarin’s voice was filled with very little confidence. Add one more thing to the list of stuff bothering him, possibility of losing his job he worked so hard for. It wasn’t his fault, not in the slightest, but Spitfire was handling this like a good captain should. She wouldn’t be the captain if she didn’t handle things sternly and without emotion guiding her decisions. Soarin turned to leave, but Spitfire trotted up and put a hoof on his shoulder.

“Soarin,” she said his name. He stopped and turned to look at her, but was surprised when she hugged him before he could fully turn.

“Spitfire?” he blinked and looked up at Fleetfoot, who still had her mouth clamped shut.

“Just know… that I’m here to help you, as your friend, not as your captain. The decisions I have to make do not change the fact that I care and that I’m worried about you,” she squeezed him tight. It was unexpected, but Soarin smiled. He was glad Spitfire made the simple gesture. He needed support right now. The one pony that could give him the most was out of his reach, but Spitfire always found a way to help him out no matter what.

“Thanks Spitfire, I URF!” he grunted as she jabbed him in the side and grinded her hoof against his body.

“Seriously though, it was that bad?” She released the embrace and looked him in the eye sternly, “Next time I tell you to get something checked, don’t be such a damn stallion. Your stubbornness could have gotten you killed. I don’t think Dash would like that very much either,” she winked, “Promise me?”

“When you put it that way, how could I deny?” he chuckled, referring to Dash. Spitfire rolled her eyes but smiled as he nodded. “I promise.”

“Now go rest your head… horn… thingy,” she struggled to find the right word. As Soarin turned, Fleetfoot began to snicker. Soarin stopped and turned to her with a flat expression.

“What?” he asked in annoyance. She shook her head and waved a hoof.

“Oh… nothing, nothing at allhhrrnkkkk,” she couldn’t keep it down and started giggling quietly. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow towards Fleetfoot.

“Real big help as always Fleet,” she shrugged. Soarin turned and faced Fleetfoot.

“What is it Fleet? Say it now while I’m in a better mood so I don’t blow up the compound,” he requested. She glanced up at the false horn, her lips wobbling as she tried to hold in the laughter. She couldn’t contain it. Soarin and Spitfire waited patiently, whilst both tapping a hoof on the floor, as Fleetfoot’s laughter rang through the office once more.

“Sorry!” she apologized while still shaking with giggles, “You have my support too Soarin… it’s just…” she looked up at the horn again, then to Spitfire, “Spitfire what do all the alicorns we know have in common?” she suddenly asked. Spitfire blinked and looked between Fleetfoot and Soarin.

“What do you—” Spitfire’s eyes widened. She flinched and quickly put a hoof to her mouth and puffed her cheeks, letting one snort go. Fleetfoot lost herself in a fit of giggles before doing a pirouette, throwing her wings out and extending her arms towards Soarin.

“Presenting! Princess Soarin!” she shouted at him with the goofiest smile imaginable plastered to her face. She keeled over, kicking all four hooves in the air as she lost herself in laughter again. Soarin stared dumbly at her with his ears and brow flattened and his mouth agape.

“You know, I should’ve seen that one coming,” he said with a grumble. Then he heard more snorting. He looked in disbelief towards Spitfire. She was clutching her stomach and had a hoof placed firmly over her mouth, but she was shaking and letting a few giggles escape. Spitfire. Giggling. Was it really that funny? “Seriously Spitfire? You too?” he said with a heavy sigh. “Thanks, I guess,” he shook his head and turned to leave.

“Oh, no!” Fleetfoot continued with a comically dramatic tone, "Our princess left the premise without her strap on!” Soarin froze hard, but Fleetfoot continued, “…horn!” She added with fits of uncontrollable laughter. She didn’t know that’s what it was really called, but came dangerously close to making him spill the beans. He quickly trotted out the door before she could go any further.

Spitfire watched him leave while still trying and failing to hold it in. She let go of her mouth and let the laughs out while getting up, stepping towards Fleetfoot, and roughly pushing her head down with a wing.

“DAMMIT FLEET! I was trying to be supportive!” she said while trying calm down.

“Aw, c’mon! That wasn’t too far!” Fleet giggled as she pushed free of Spitfire’s feathers.

“You always go too far Fleet,” Spitfire shook her head. “But seriously, how many more things can go weird for him? I know we’re busy, but if we get the chance, we should take him to Rusty’s or something…”

---To be Continued ---

Author's Note

For those of you who liked Rusty, yep, he's making another appearance, this time with Fleetfoot in the same scene, this should be fun. I apologize if Dash's scenes seem like filler. The main focus of this first part is OBVIOUSLY on Soarin, but i'm trying to come up with ways to keep Dash as part of the story, because she IS one of the protagonists. Something important will happen for her in the next chapter though.

Also, Sorry for the slightly longer wait than usual >_< i didn't get a chance to type at all on Sunday so it took me an extra day than originally planned.

ANYWAY, to make it up, my next chapter is going to have three scenes, not just two :D Also i'm hoping to have it out either friday or saturday :)

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 26: Preparing for the Gauntlet

(NOTE: FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN MY BLOG POST: DUE TO UNDERESTIMATING HOW LONG CHAPTER 26 WOULD BE IF I WENT THROUGH WITH THE ORIGINAL PLAN, THE FINALE OF PART 1 WILL BE CHAPTER 27. I DIDN'T WANT TO DROP 40k WORDS ON YOU GUYS SO I BROKE THIS CHUNK OFF TO GIVE YOU MORE CONTENT WHILE I WRITE IT. ENJOY!)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 26:

“EVERYPONY UP! EVERYPONY GET THE HELL UP!” Soarin shouted from the doors of the barracks as he and Silver Lining made their way down the aisle, banging their hooves against every bunk frame as they moved down the aisle.

“No snoozing! On your hooves! NOW!” Soarin yelled again as the cadets began to shift out of bed. Silver Lining growled when he saw the slow pace of everything.

“I want every one of you sorry sacks of shit out of here and in the mess hall in ten minutes!” Silver yelled as he and Soarin turned and headed back down the aisle. “So help me Celestia, if you’re the last son of a bitch out the door, I will duct tape your eyeballs the back of your head so you can WATCH me kick your ass!” he threatened.

The cadets all froze for about a second before they started moving at about three times the pace. Soarin grinned and glanced at Silver as they walked.

“How do you come UP with that stuff on the fly?” Soarin chuckled.

“Experience, son,” Silver smirked as they got to the entrance and turned around. Some cadets were already heading out the door.

Dash trotted quickly out of the bathroom and headed for the doors. She still had a good four minutes, no eyeball duct tape ass kicking for her. She looked to her right as she made her way down the aisle.

She passed right by Arctic Blast’s new bed. She had moved immediately after the scene last night. Arctic was still sitting on the bottom bunk. As Dash walked by, Arctic narrowed her eyes into the sharpest glare her face could muster and locked onto Dash. Dash met the glare head on, not flinching or hesitating in Arctic’s lack of intimidation.

Interesting.

To be honest, Dash wasn’t expecting Arctic to be angry. She half expected to wake up the next morning and see Arctic crying in the corner.

Dash shrugged it off. It didn’t matter. Arctic was beaten. Dash had won. If things were different, Dash would be worried about her spilling the beans to everypony. The Wonderbolts all knew about it already, so they could easily say whatever, but even the cadets wouldn’t hear her out. She had been so damn annoying. None would believe a word she said.

So she was angry. Big whoop, she could kiss Dash’s ass. Arctic deserved no sympathy and got every bit of what was coming to her.

“Hmm!” Dash lightly grunted as she made a brief stop by her bunk. She had literally rolled out of bed and run to the bathroom, so she didn’t have much of a chance to stretch out. She bent down and reached her arms out first, and then stretched out and shook both legs. They were a little sore, but nothing that would slow her down. She reached her neck from side to side. Nothing happened on the left. A loud KRICK sounded out on the right. “Oo, yow!” Dash blinked and chucked as she shook her head out.

Last but not least, the wings. The wing joints right where her shoulder muscles met the wings were pretty tight, but once she got them moving she was sure they would be fine. She fully extended her wings. The right wing was fine. But when she moved the other, she flinched and cringed as the muscles in her right wing cramped up. She quickly stretched and flexed her right wing multiple times until the spasm died down.

That wasn’t good.

She carefully moved her right wing around slowly. Nothing there, but she feared making sudden movements. A brief wave of panic rushed over her. What perfect timing to have a wing problem.

The sense of dread faded quickly though. It was just a small cramp. It’s not like she strained a muscle or dislocated anything. She’d just have to make sure she was well hydrated before the tests started.

They did have an hour between breakfast and the testing for preparation… Dash decided she could make use of that time. The athletic trainers were on duty for the cadets if they required assistance. It would probably be a good idea for her to get her wing checked out, just to be on the safe side if nothing else.

Either way, the number of cadets present in the barracks was dwindling fast. Taking Soarin’s advice of not pissing off Silver, she quickly moved into the aisle and towards the exit.

Dash made it to the doors, taking a long, but subtle glance at Soarin as she passed. Food time, wing check time, then impressing her stallion and the others time. It was going to be one hell of a day.

Arctic snarled quietly as she watched Dash walk all the way down the aisle and out the door.

That bitch. That ugly, over-muscled, butch stallion stealer!

Arctic wasn’t sad. In fact she was nowhere near. Last night she cried a little, but the tears slowly dried up and all she could feel was pure, untamed rage.

Soarin was supposed to be hers. She had it all worked out and Rainbow Dash ruined it! She ruined EVERYTHING! She must be leading him on. There was no way a stallion like him would choose a mare like Dash over her.

Today would be the day. Today she would out-fly Dash in EVERYTHING! She would show Soarin who was the better mare. He would come to his senses and be hers!

Rainbow Dash was going down. She would see to it personally!

Soarin carried his tray towards the door to the mess hall side room. He smiled as he looked over his food.

Fewer cadets meant the chef’s could prepare actual food. Soarin had never been happier to see a fresh bowl of plain oatmeal, and some scrambled eggs that had actually been left in the pan for more than ten seconds. Today was going to be a stressful day, but he was at least glad he could get a decent meal in.

He casually trotted to the side room door and opened it.

“FIRE!” Blaze’s voice met his ears from inside. All Soarin saw was a pair of bands stretched taught on both sides of the door frame, leading inside. He instinctively ducked. A paper plate covered with whipped cream went searing over his head.

A loud PAFF signaled that it hit something behind Soarin. Soarin looked over his shoulder and saw Silver Lining, standing completely still with a plate full of whipped cream stuck to his face. Soarin looked into the room to see Blaze and High Winds both looking towards the door with looks on their faces that screamed “Oh shit…”

Soarin quickly stepped aside as the plate slowly peeled off Silver’s face to reveal a whipped cream covered glare and scowl.

“Aheheh…” Blaze put her hooves behind her back and smiled.

“She did it,” Winds pointed at Blaze, sat down, faked a yawn, set her face on the table, and pretended to be asleep.

“WHAT?!?!” Blaze turned sharply as Winds began fake snoring. “Winds! You damn traitorous bitch!” she reached down and shook Winds, but she continued to feign sleep.

Silver whipped his face back and forth until most of the cream fell from his face. He just grumbled as he passed behind Soarin and sat by himself at the unoccupied table.

Wave Chill was sitting at the table with Blaze and High Winds, minding his own business and staying out of their antics.

“That’s my ass in a vice for weeks…” Blaze sighed as she sat back down. High Winds released a very loud fake snore beside her. “YOURS TOO, BACKSTABBING BITCH!!!!” she yelled at Winds, who only snorted in reply.

Deciding not to take any chances, Soarin joined Silver Lining. Silver didn’t look like he was in the mood for conversation. That was fine by Soarin. He wanted to enjoy his first semi-decent meal in three days.

“Hey Wave!” Blaze yelled even though Wave was directly across from her. He set his food down and sighed.

“What?” he asked unenthusiastically. Blaze sneered.

“So have you and Spitster had make up sex yet?” she couldn’t stop her sneer from growing. Wave said nothing. He merely stared at Blaze from across the table with his ears and brow as flat as possible. He went back to eating. “It was that good, huh?” Blaze chuckled as she leaned back.

“Dude, just do her already…” Said Winds as she sat up and yawned.

“Good morning Windy,” Blaze said while rolling her eyes.

“There will be no doing of your half-sister…BLAZE,” Wave grumbled back with a surprisingly harsh tone.

“C’mon… if there’s anything she needs it’s a good screw. Maybe it’d loosen her up…” she slammed her hooves down on the table and leaned as far in towards Wave as she could. “IF YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN…” she bounced her eyebrows up and down. “Back me up Windy, you know I’m right!” Blaze sat confidently, but received no response. She blinked and turned to High Winds. She was actually was asleep on the table this time. Blaze sighed, reached a hoof down low beneath the table and leaned towards High Winds. By her body movements it suggested Blaze was reaching towards Winds beneath the table. Winds suddenly sprang up.

“WOOO!!!!” she bounced in her seat, blinked several times, and glanced back and forth. “What I miss?” she asked.

“Blazey being the usual bitch!” Fleetfoot’s voice suddenly sounded from beside Blaze. Soarin glanced over and saw Fleetfoot slap a tray down beside Blaze before using her head as an armrest. He was glad he chose this table, Wave was screwed.

“Fleet… you’ve got ten seconds to get your damn shitty hooves offa me before I—”

“Before ya what?” Fleetfoot cut off Blaze while sitting her plot down on the table, making goofy expressions into Blaze’s face, and tapping her hooves against Blaze’s head. Blaze’s face turned red and she grinded her teeth together. “Lemme hear the lion cub roar!” Fleet taunted. High Winds sighed as she leaned her face against her hoof.

“Here we go again…” she said nonchalantly as she yawned.

“I’ll wreck you Fleet! I swear I will!” Blaze barked. Fleetfoot lifted an eyebrow.

“I don’t typically swing that way, but if you really want to, I don’t think you’ll be on top,” Fleetfoot giggled as Blaze looked as if smoke would fly out of her ears any second.

“THAT’S IT!” Blaze leapt up and tackled Fleetfoot onto the table.

“Hasn’t Blaze… learned by now?” Soarin sighed while shaking his head and helping himself to his oatmeal. He glanced over to see Fleetfoot on top of Blaze on the tabletop. Blaze was flat on her stomach with Fleetfoot sitting on her back. Fleetfoot began noogying Blaze’s mane while Blaze yelled multiple obscenities, some of which Soarin was sure she made up. Wave had his head on the table face down with his hooves pressed firmly against the back of his head as the mares fought in front of him. Silver Lining grunted.

“I’ve given up on her ‘learning’ just about anything,” he grumbled as he ate his pancakes.

The door opened and Spitfire stepped through. She quickly tipped her head to the right as a plastic cup flew over her left shoulder and bounced off the wall. She flattened her brow when she watched Blaze and Fleetfoot roll off the table and began grappling again. Instead of trying to stop it, Spitfire just let it happen. Blaze was way too stubborn. No matter what Spitfire said, Blaze would never learn that Fleetfoot was way out of her league physically. Spitfire could see it as she sat down beside Silver Lining… Fleetfoot’s devilish grin. She was letting Blaze fight longer this time. Fleetfoot could easily pin her down at any point, but she was purposely letting Blaze think she had a chance.

She just let it be and turned to her breakfast.

“So Soarin,” Spitfire began as Blaze and Fleetfoot fell over onto the floor behind her. “Have you talked to Rivet yet?” she asked as Fleetfoot stood up and cheered, but Blaze leapt up and clamped onto her back.

“Yeah, I spoke to him before I came here,” Soarin nodded as Fleetfoot turned and slammed Blaze against the opposite wall. “I’m meeting him right after breakfast to make sure all the courses are up and ready to go,” he picked up his water cup as Blaze and Fleetfoot ran into their table. Silver’s cup tipped and spilled a little before he quickly set it upright.

“You’re sure you want to use course eight?” Spitfire suddenly brought up. Soarin looked up from his food towards her as Blaze and Fleetfoot bounced off of Silver and fell to the floor beside their table. “Do you think any of them will actually finish it?” Spitfire added.

“If they want to be Wonderbolts we gotta make sure they can take a few bruises,” Soarin shrugged.

“Bruises or concussions?” Spitfire flattened her ears and eyed him sternly. She reached her hoof up as Fleetfoot pushed Blaze towards her. She pressed her hoof against Blaze’s back, and pushed them away from her.

“Like you’ve never taken big hits?” Soarin turned his head to the side to focus on eye on her and cock his eyebrow. “If the past year is any indication, I think toughness is a key factor.”

“Fair enough…” Spitfire sighed as she went back to her food. Fleetfoot suddenly put Blaze’s head to the table.

“Surrender?” Fleetfoot asked while holding Blaze down and bouncing her eyebrows.

“How about you fucking blow me!” Blaze spat back with her right cheek pressed to the tabletop. Fleetfoot snickered, puckered her lips, and started blowing air onto the exposed side of Blaze’s face. Blaze growled in response. Fleetfoot let up just enough to allow Blaze to push off the table and the two began grappling towards the door.

“Just don’t kill anypony alright?” Spitfire said to Soarin, completely ignoring the fighting mares. Soarin nodded.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen,” Soarin assured her as he finished his food and drank the last of his water. He glanced over to the mare scuffle and saw the door open. Fire Streak walked in and immediately held his tray up to avoid spilling anything as Fleetfoot and Blaze ran into him.

Soarin rolled his eyes and gathered up everything onto his tray before standing up.

“I’ll get down there and run checks on everything as they set up,” he directed at Spitfire. She simply nodded with her mouth full of food. Soarin walked around the table, but stopped and blinked at the scene before him.

Misty Fly had pushed past Fire, handed her tray to him, and somehow managed to pry both Blaze and Fleetfoot apart. She had them both pinned to the floor on their backs with an arm against their chests. She was glaring at both of them. Fleetfoot was just smiling and laughing, Blaze was… trying to convince Misty it wasn’t her fault.

Blaze… talking to Misty.

Talking to Misty.

Blaze, for real?

“Hey! I didn’t do shit! She started it! I only fought back!” Blaze kept yelling as Misty glared at her. Fleetfoot couldn’t stop laughing.

“Blaze…” Fire sighed and she turned her head sharply to him. Since he was holding his tray in one hoof and balancing Misty’s tray on his back with his wings, he made a head motion towards Misty and flopped his ears up and down a few times. Blaze stared in confusion.

“What the hell is that supposed to… oh…” realization hit. “Dammit…” Blaze sighed.

Fleetfoot giggled, crossing her legs and putting her front hooves up behind her head as if reclining while underneath Misty’s weight.

“Hard to talk tough when you literally can’t be heard, eh?” Fleetfoot taunted.

Soarin walked up and carefully stepped around them.

“Excuse me,” he said casually as Fire let him by.

“Hey! Princess FakeMcHorn!” Fleetfoot called after him, but Soarin didn’t grace her with a response.

He didn’t have time to get caught in any shenanigans. Spitfire’s concern was well placed. He had to make sure he had everything set and a plan to prevent any serious injury. He wanted to see who was prepared to take a few hits for victory, but he wanted to prevent any trips to the hospital.

Dash poked her head into the training room after having hovered outside the door for a good minute or so. She was actually a little nervous about walking right in. This was the professional Wonderbolt athletic training staff! She didn’t want to just barge in and seem pushy, they were the best of the best, and they worked for… and with the best of the best. She flinched slightly as a small chime on the inside of the door made soft clanging tones.

“Hello…?” she said nervously as she looked in.

“Well, don’t just stand in the doorway…” a voice came from the other side. Dash yelped as the door opened and she almost fell in. “What do you need?”

“Uh…” Dash looked up into the eyes of a large, yellow earth pony stallion with a short black mane wearing a Wonderbolt officer uniform.

An earth pony in a Wonderbolt uniform? Dash glanced past him and saw more of the training staff. They were a mix of the three races. Apparently the Wonderbolts had a lot more earth ponies and unicorns employed then Dash ever knew about. She had seen a couple of the other trainers before when she last visited. In fact, she recognized the trainer across the room as the one who helped pop her wing back in after that battle against Nightshade.

The stallion cleared his throat, making Dash jump.

“Oh! Uh… sorry, I’m having a wing problem…” she quickly said with a grin while holding out her left wing. The stallion nodded and looked over his shoulder.

“Go over to the first table on the right. He pointed before heading into an office that was built into the wall opposite of the entrance. Dash nodded long after the pony had moved away. She slowly trotted into the training room.

The training room was a long room that was about fifteen feet wide from front to back. There was a wide aisle in the center and lining the walls every three feet or so were blue, padded trainer tables. There was all sorts of equipment placed upon single shelves that extended the length of the room on both sides. Dash had no idea what any of them were used for, but some of the ponies present were getting pre-workout treatment and it was clear these trainers knew what they were doing. There were also a dozen large, metal tubs closer to the entrance. They looked like one could sit or stand in them. Upon close inspection as she passed, Dash noticed one was filled with water and had a thermometer in it that was reading very hot.

“Excuse me,” one of the cadets walked past Dash with wobbly steps, he lifted up and slowly let himself down into the tub before relaxing.

A therapeutic hot tub of sorts? It had to be, Dash had heard of taking hot baths before a period of strenuous work, and taking an ice bath right after. The mere thought made her shiver. A super cold bath? That sounded terrible!

Dash made it to the first table on the right side and stood next to it. She looked up as a brown unicorn mare with a slightly darker brown mane, tied up in a ponytail, also wearing the officer uniform, trotted up to Dash and patted her hoof on the padded table. She had a silver earring in each ear, and the hoof she had up on the table had a gold marriage band around it.

“Hop on up, sweetie,” she said with a smile. Dash paused for a moment, blinked, and then quickly did as she was told. She sat down on the edge of the table, with her back hooves dangling off the end. “You’re a new face. What can I help you with?” The mare asked with an even mix of concern and professionalism.

“Um…” Dash suddenly worried she was being stupid and there was really nothing wrong. Upon looking around there were a few cadets that were dealing with what looked like much more serious problems. She didn’t want the Wonderbolt trainers… the BEST trainers to waste time on her. But she was already too deep, so she went for it. “Well, this morning my left wing cramped up on me,” she said nervously while slowly extending her wing.

“A wing cramp? That’s an easy one. Lay flat and I’ll take a look, okay?” the mare tapped the bed again while moving to Dash’s left. Dash quietly sighed in relief. They were there to help them with anything, just as Spitfire said. Plus, this mare seemed very friendly. She couldn’t worry about wasting their time. Dash slid back on the table and gently laid her body down while folding her arms in front of her to rest her chin on. “Extend your wing and let it relax at your side,” the mare ordered while standing back.

Dash carefully unfolded the wing and let it drop off the side of the table. The mare approached Dash and looked her over.

“Hmm…” the mare pondered out loud as she reached up and began applying light pressure around Dash’s shoulder muscles near the wing joints. Dash prayed to Celestia, Luna, and… even Discord that the mare didn’t accidentally hit her extra sensitive spot beneath her wing joints… the one that Soarin liked to ‘torture’ her with. The mare pressed around carefully until Dash felt something sting slightly.

“Ooo!” Dash bounced slightly on the bed.

“Found it,” the mare said casually. “Looks like you’ve got quite a big knot right here,” the mare lightly tapped her hoof on the tender spot.

“Is it bad?” Dash asked while holding her breath. The mare chuckled.

“Oh no, it’s nothing bad at all. I can easily work this out for you,” the mare suddenly left the table and went over to a metallic box of some sort with a lid and handle on it. The mare pulled open the lid while grabbing a large towel off a nearby drying rack. Steam rose up from the container as soon as she opened it. She put the towel down on the table beside the bin and used her magic to pull a ribbed pad out of the container. She let it hang above the container for a moment, letting water drip off of it before placing the pad on the towel, and wrapping it until there were two layers of towel completely around it. She picked the wrapped pad up in her magic and walked back over to Dash.

“To be honest, it’s refreshing to see one of you with a less than cringe worthy problem,” she said as she set the pad on the vacant trainer table beside Dash. As soon as she said it, the door flew open and slammed against the wall beside it. Thunderlane stumbled into the training room and collapsed on the floor.

“Can somepony please help me? I think my body is broken…” he whined as he struggled to stand. His body still had bandages here and there, and his black fur was probably still hiding lots of bruises. The mare helping Dash sighed.

“Him again?” she shook her head as the yellow stallion trainer emerged from the office and helped Thunderlane up before dragging him over to a table a few spots down from Dash. “He’s got a bruised everything, I swear,” the mare chuckled before lightly placing a hoof on Dash’s back. “Okay, I’m going to get a little rough on the knot in your shoulder to make the muscles relax and then you’re going to put this heat pad on it to increase blood flow to the area and loosen up your shoulder,” the mare explained while pointing to the pad on the other table. “This might hurt a little. Ready?” the mare asked. Dash gulped.

“Yes,” she said reluctantly.

“Okay, try to remain relaxed, it will be a lot less painful if the muscle doesn’t bunch up while I’m working it out,” the mare said as she propped her front hooves up on the table. Dash tried her best to relax, but remembering the last time she was at the mercy of a trainer… they used a trick on her and it was a sudden sharp pain. It fixed her wing, but damn it hurt.

Only this time there was no fake countdown… or any countdown for that matter. The mare suddenly placed her elbow onto the knot between Dash’s shoulder and wing and pressed down hard on it.

“Whoa!!” Dash flinched and tensed up slightly.

“Stay relaxed,” the mare said calmly. Dash forced her body to relax and inhaled sharply as the mare continued to work the point of her elbow roughly into the balled up muscle.

Then suddenly, the mare began to hum. Dash blinked and glanced slightly towards her. The mare’s magic was glowing faintly around her horn. It slowly extended to Dash’s back and Dash’s eyes widened as she felt a slight tingling sensation around her shoulder muscle.

After a few seconds, the pain began to lessen and lessen until Dash could barely feel the pressure at all.

“There we go, now it’s cooperating,” the mare said as she stopped humming and made a few more circles into Dash’s back before pulling away. “Here you go,” the mare hovered the heat pad over towards Dash. She grabbed an extra little pad for resting the head on and handed it to Dash. “This should be more comfortable on your arms,” she said while Dash let her slide it into place. The mare hovered the heat pad down onto the spot that was just knotted up.

Dash immediately felt the warmth of the pad through the double layered towel. It was warm, but not searing hot. It had to be pretty heated though if it felt this warm through two layers of thick towel. The mare pressed it gently against Dash’s back.

“Keep this on for ten minutes and call me over so we can stretch your wing out,” she smiled at Dash while patting the table with her hoof. Dash looked up and saw the wall clock. She took note of how long ten minutes would be, then looked back down at the trainer and nodded.

“Thanks,” Dash smiled back.

“Don’t mention it,” the trainer replied. “By the way, my name is Siren Bliss. I’m the head of athletic training here,” she introduced herself and held out her hoof. Dash’s eyes widened slightly as she quickly shook hooves. The head of the Wonderbolt trainers just helped her? That was… unexpected and awesome! Although... Her cutie mark was a purple heart with a music note over it.

“Nice to meet you,” Dash replied, while still staring at the cutie mark. She meant to tell Bliss her name, but her brain was too busy figuring out the connection of microphones to medical practice. Bliss noticed Dash’s confusion and followed Dash’s eyes to her flank. Dash quickly realized she was seen. “Ah, sorry, it’s just… not the cutie mark I expected on an athletic trainer,” Dash chuckled. Bliss smiled.

“I get that a lot. This may be my profession, but singing is my hobby,” she smiled warmly.

Speaking of singing, what exactly happened when Bliss started humming? It was as if her magic soothed the area around Dash’s cramped muscles. Dash was about to ask, but the door chimes jingled again and caught Bliss’ attention.

“Ah, saw that coming…” Bliss smiled. Matteo was standing just inside the door, looking around the room. Bliss turned around and looked deeper into the training room. “Can I get one of you big, strong earth stallions to push these two tables together for me?” she yelled in the direction of three earth stallions and pointed to the two empty tables to the right of Dash. One of the stallions quickly closed a cabinet he was searching through and trotted over to the second and third trainer tables on the right side. He pushed them together as Bliss moved over to Matteo. “Same thing honey?” she asked as she approached him.

“Yes,” Matteo said simply with a nod.

“Double table’s already set for you, second on the right next to the rainbow mare,” she made a head motion towards the table beside Dash as she walked around him and used her magic to open a cabinet near the door.

Matteo looked up and instantly spotted Dash. She smiled and waved at him, receiving a nod in return as Matteo walked over and lifted his hulking body up onto the double trainer table. Even with two tables together he almost didn’t fit. He was all muscles now, but Dash could only imagine how much space he took up back when he was ‘Fatty Matty.’ Matteo glanced at the wrapped head pad on Dash’s back between her wings.

“Wing issues?” he asked as Bliss walked around holding several rolls of blue athletic wrappings and white athletic tape in her magic. Dash nodded.

“Wing cramped up this morning,” Dash said with a slight sigh of frustration. She looked over curiously as Bliss dropped the wrappings and tape on the wall shelf above the trainer tables, and then used her magic to pull over a large wooden box.

“How are the wings feeling this morning?” she asked Matteo as she stepped up on the box so she could actually see over him. Matteo tipped his head back and forth as he made circular motions with his folded wings.

“A little stiff, but the wrappings are still doing a better job than my wing braces. It’s usually much worse,” Matteo explained.

“Good! Then we’ll keep doing it. Up,” Bliss tapped his left wing. Matteo unfolded his massive wing and it extended so far over that it cast a shadow over Dash. Dash continued to watch as Bliss used her magic to grab the roll of athletic wrapping first. The wrapping was a soft, stretchy material that didn’t stick, but could be wrapped around joints in certain patterns. Its main purpose was to surround the area being wrapped before it was covered with the tough, sturdy athletic tape. It would be extra painful to peel tape right off the fur… or in Matteo’s case, the feathers.

Bliss focused the wrapping around the base of Matteo’s wing joint before moving up his wing a few times and stopping just before where his wing feathers began. She placed her hoof down on the wrapping and tore it off from the roll before she brought the tape up and repeated the entire process with the tape, covering the wrapping. She tore off the tape at the end and patted the wrap with her hoof.

“Is that good? Too tight? Too loose?” Bliss asked. Matteo glanced at his left wing. He folded it, extended it, gave it a gentle flap, and tried moving it about a little. He nodded to Bliss.

“Perfect,” he said simply as he refolded his wing.

“Alright then,” Bliss smiled, hopped down, and dragged the box around to the other side. Dash tipped her head as she pondered what the wrappings were for. She glanced up at the clock. Still six-ish minutes to go with the heat pad. She had nothing better to do, so why not?

“Say big fella,” Dash caught Matteo’s attention as Bliss hopped up on the other side of him. “You look like you have much WORSE wing problems, unless this is for something else…” she said while shifting the way her head rested on the pillow pad. Matteo sighed.

“You’d be right,” he began as Bliss tapped his right wing and he opened it up for her. “My wings have never agreed with me much.”

“How so?” Dash asked, trying to pass the time, but she was also genuinely curious.

“I’m… abnormally large for a Griffon…” Matteo paused as he heard snickering. He turned and looked at Bliss. She had paused in wrapping up his wing.

“Sorry,” she giggled. “Just… really? You don’t say?” she forced herself to stop laughing, took a deep breath, and went back to wrapping Matteo’s wing. Matteo looked back to Dash to see her holding in a chuckle herself. He rolled his eyes and continued.

“Because of my size and weight, a lot more stress is put on my wing joints and tendons. The bases of my wings tend to be incredibly stiff the next morning. Having them taped up like this…” he lifted his left wing to show the taping. “…helps stabilize my joints and prevents the muscles from overextending each time I flap my wings.”

“Wow… that sucks,” said Dash as she thought about how much of a pain that had to be, in more ways than one. “So wait… are you hurting from yesterday because the pie battle was unexpected?” she referred to the surprise fake mess hall from yesterday. Matteo shook his head.

“I have wing braces I wear normally. They are black so I doubt you could see them on my wings. They help a little, but not as well as taping. Again, it’s not that I can’t fly without it… it just makes the next morning less painful.”

“Well, if today is as rough as Soarin says it’s going to be, I’m sure the wrap will help,” Dash nodded.

“No doubt,” Matteo nodded back in agreement. “It’s about time things got more physical too. Yesterday was… rough for me,” he said with a dissatisfied grunt. Dash picked up on it.

“I was wondering actually…” she began with a snicker. “How did you do in the fake murder myst—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said quickly and flatly.

“That good, huh?” Dash smirked.

“Done,” Bliss chimed in from his right side. “How is it?” She asked as Matteo repeated the same motions from before.

“Perfect again. Thank you.” Matteo gave her a nod of approval. Bliss smiled and pointed towards the entrance.

“Just make sure you sign the exit record before you leave,” she said as she turned to put away the tape and wrappings. Dash watched Matteo as he slid off the table and moved his wings a few more times.

“How heavy are you anyway?” Dash suddenly asked. Matteo stopped and turned to her. The look in his eyes was a mix of frustration and hesitation. “What?” Dash added with a touch of amusement.

“As long as you promise not to call me Fatty Matty…” he requested while averting his eyes slightly. Dash chuckled and shook her head.

“I know muscle weighs more than fat you big oaf. I gained like... ten pounds during my training and with the way I ate and the way I look now I know it wasn’t fat. Plus… you’re a giant, you’ve gotta be heavy,” Dash assured him with her knowledge of body composition. She felt like such a nerd throwing all this stuff around that Soarin taught her, but if she was gonna be an egghead about anything, it would be about athleticism.

“Hmph…” Matteo grunted and looked away. “I weigh three hundred seventy-five pounds.”

“HOLY SH—” Dash shut her mouth as Matteo glared at her. She swallowed and smiled. “Aha… I mean… wow, that’s a lot… I can see why you have wing issues then… wow, I can’t imagine carrying that much weight around every time I fly.”

“It’s a burden, but also an advantage at times…” Matteo trailed off. Dash looked up at the clock.

“Oh… Bliss! All done over here!” Dash called out. It was funny. Dash walked into the training room extremely nervous about annoying the professional trainers. Now she was calling to them from across the room. Bliss being so friendly really helped her loosen up, not to mention Bliss helped her shoulder muscle loosen up physically as well.

“Be right there!” Bliss called as she kept shuffling through the cabinet of medical supplies.

“I’m going to head down to the auxiliary gym, good luck today Rainbow Dash. May we both meet tomorrow as Wonderbolts,” Matteo gave her a nod and made his way over to sign the clipboard by the exit.

Dash looked up and saw Bliss approaching. She was carrying what looked like a small bottle that seemed to be filled with pills by the noise it made as she moved it in her magic. She pointed at Dash as she passed.

“Go ahead and take that off, I have to—”

“OW! Ah!” Thunderlane yelped from a few tables down on the left side. Bliss paused and glanced in Thunderlane’s direction briefly.

“I have to go reassure him he isn’t dying first,” she joked while rolling her eyes and continuing to Thunderlane. Dash carefully removed the pad and tossed it over to the double trainer table as she listened in.

“Something has to be wrong! I can barely move without my body screaming at me!” Thunderlane complained to a pegasus mare trainer. Bliss tapped the trainer on the shoulder. The trainer looked at her and shrugged.

“I’ll handle this,” she winked. The pegasus mare lifted off and went to check on other cadets.

“Sweetie… you walked here, right?” she asked while turning to Thunderlane.

“Uh… yes…” Thunderlane answered.

“No limping?”

“None.”

“Can you move your wings freely?”

“Yes.”

“Does any of the pain restrict movement?”

“No…”

“Taadaa! There is absolutely nothing wrong with you!” Bliss did a pirouette and bowed to him.

“What? But I swear everything hurts!” Thunderlane scrunched his face in frustration. Bliss sighed.

“Look… Thunderlane, was it? You took a beating by Surprise’s S.O.U.P. course, and we checked you out yesterday. There’s nothing wrong with your body, you are just a little banged and bruised,” she held up the small bottle in her magic. “If it hurts that much, take two of these,” she opened the bottle and poured out two clear blue pills. “These are anti-inflammatories. It will help reduce any swelling or pain around the bruises.”

“Painkillers?” Thunderlane gave her an uncomfortable look. Bliss giggled and rolled her eyes.

“No, those are illegal, silly. These reduce swelling. They don’t cut off your nerves. Now take these with water and suck it up a little, okay?” she gave him a friendly, but stern look.

“O-okay…” Thunderlane took the pills from her, hopped off the table, and headed to a water cooler they had in the opposite corner of the entrance.

Bliss turned around and headed back over to Dash, who was snickering as she watched Thunderlane.

“Some ponies just don’t have a pain threshold…” Bliss said with a shrug as she came around the table to Dash’s left wing.

“Yeah, Thunderlane has always been a bit of a whiner,” Dash chuckled.

“Relax the wing please,” Bliss ordered and Dash let her wring flop down. “You know him?” Bliss asked as she began rotating Dash’s wing.

“Yeah, we’re both from Ponyville,” Dash answered as Bliss worked her wing. Bliss pulled it into a full extension, supported it on her shoulder and leaned up to give the shoulder to wing muscle a good stretch.

“He must be good if he made it to today though,” Bliss mentioned. Dash nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, despite the whining, he’s a diehard. He complains about pain, but he never stops trying. I think the Wonderbolts are liking that. He’s freaking out about having made it this far,” Dash added with a chuckle.

“No doubt,” Bliss smiled as she brought Dash’s wing down, got on the other side of it, and repeated the stretch going the other direction. “So… Ponyville…” she suddenly began with a curious tone in her voice. Dash waited for her to continue, curious because she hadn’t met many ponies from other cities who knew much about her tiny hometown. Then the hammer dropped. “Judging by your mane and tail… Are you… Rainbow Dash? Soarin’s ladyfriend?”

Dash’s eyes widened and she instantly stiffened, causing her wing to close and push Bliss forward. Bliss caught herself before face planting and quickly turned around with a smirk on her face.

“That must be a ‘yes’!” she said with a giddy smile.

“SHHHH!!!!” Dash shushed her while looking around. She didn’t think anypony heard it. She hoped they didn’t.

“What?” she asked while pouting. Dash sighed.

“I don’t want any of the cadets to know!” she whispered loudly. “I don’t want them to think I’m getting any special treatment!”

“Are you?” Bliss looked at her smugly. Dash was ready to shush her again, but she stopped. She hadn’t gotten any special treatment… that was true.

“Um… no.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Bliss smiled brightly again while lightly trotting in place. Dash held her hooves out and made small downward motions, hoping to signal Bliss to quiet down.

“Bliss! I just don’t want anypony to think I am… so please?” Dash bit her lower lip and kept glancing about.

“Oh, fine,” she rolled her eyes but giggled. “It’s just so nice to finally meet you. Commander Soarin never stops talking about you,” she said with a dreamy smile. “Love is so precious…”

“Yeah, I’ve heard he does that,” Dash chuckled as Bliss got all mushy and dreamy on her.

“Oh, let’s finish that stretch,” Bliss laughed sheepishly as she got beneath Dash’s wing again to stretch it some more. “Let me tell you something Dashie,” Bliss spoke up as she started pushing Dash’s wing. “That’s quite a stallion you’ve attracted. Not just physically, but in every part that matters too,” she pulled back and shook out Dash’s wing lightly before letting her refold it. “It’s hard to find a good stallion, but when you do… never let go of him. Trust me,” she winked while tapping her hoof on the table that had the marriage band around it.

Dash’s eyes widened briefly at Bliss’ gesture, thinking Bliss had pushed the subject a tad forward, but she calmed down quickly. Bliss was talking about the amazing opportunity she had with Soarin. While Bliss didn’t know all the details of their relationship, it was merely a kind gesture to show that she also knew what it was like to find a stallion that fully reflects what made her happy.

“That should do it!” Bliss smiled and stepped back.

“Thanks…” Dash stood up from the table and lightly flapped her wing a few times. It felt almost as good as new. “Awesome! And…” Dash blushed slightly as she thought over Bliss’ words. “Yeah, he is kinda totally awesome,” she chuckled as she hopped down. “Just keep that down for me okay?”

“The lips are sealed!” Bliss promised while making a locking motion over her mouth. “Good luck! Oh, and make sure you sign your name and write why you came in on the clipboard by the door,” she pointed. Dash nodded.

“Will do,” she looked at her wing and gave it to hard test flaps. “And thanks again!” she waved as she made her way over to the sign out sheet.

Now all she had to was grab her uniform and head for the auxiliary gym.

To be honest, Dash was feeling very focused. She was worried about the little new romantic experience last night distracting her from the tests. However, it was just the opposite.

She smiled to herself as she walked through the halls and back towards the barracks to grab her uniform. She was glad she and Soarin got heavily romantic last night. She had been grinding her teeth to spend time with him since she arrived. Soarin’s incredibly tender and caring gesture to her last night satisfied the urge and more. Now she just wanted to kick some ass.

Dash felt super charged. This was a defining moment of her life. Also, the more she saw the kinds of great ponies and great facilities the Wonderbolts had access to, the more she felt excited for potentially getting a chance to make full time use of them. That, and all the amazing ponies she’d be able to just spend time with.

Time to kick plot and take names.

“No… no, that’s too straight, we need to have them more staggered,” Soarin pointed his arms in different directions as Fire Streak and Wave Chill glanced up at him. “If the pendulums are too straight, it will be easy for them to time a linear shot through them. This course is all about uneven paths and changes in speed,” Soarin explained.

“Any farther and I doubt any of them could make the turn, commander…” Fire scratched his head as he flew up to Soarin and looked down to get Soarin’s view.

“Again, Fire, it’s not if they can make the turn, it’s how they handle not being able to make a clean turn,” Soarin explained to him. Fire gave him a look mixed with confusion and disbelief.

“This is why I never run your courses, Commander, you’re going to kill one of the cadets with a course like this,” he warned. Soarin shook his head.

“We need Wonderbolts that are willing to take hits. Taking it easy on them is not an option,” Soarin clarified.

“Right here?” Wave called from below after dragging a large metal pole further away.

“That’s perfect!” Soarin pointed at him and winked. Wave backed away from it and blinked.

“Commander, this turn is suicide!” Wave reached his hooves towards the contraption.

“Wave, not you too…” Soarin sighed and shook his head.

The turn in question was right after the exit of a very cramped tunnel. There was a metal pendulum swinging in front of the tunnel exit, barely within sight as one traveled through the tunnel. A large, padded wall was erected about seven feet from the end of the tunnel. One had to react to the swinging pendulum while shooting out of the tunnel, and then turn before running face first into the wall. Then they had to fly along the length of the wall and make a sharp turn around the corner, before another pendulum, possibly swinging at them depending on one’s luck, appeared as an obstacle.

“Okay, both of you watch,” Soarin grunted as he flew down into the middle of the course where the tunnel started. Soarin pushed his goggles down and cracked his neck while focusing on the tunnel.

With a loud grunt he pumped his wings hard and pushed himself into the tunnel. He picked up speed as he winded around the inside and fired out the other end past the currently still pendulum. Right before he smacked against the wall, Soarin thrust his wings out and threw his arms and legs to the right to turn his body as he braked, he slammed his hooves against the wall and kicked off, speeding around the corner and dipping beneath the other, currently non-swinging pendulum. He dove down so as not to traverse any more of the course before he pitched around and flew back up to Wave and Fire.

“See? It’s doable,” he nodded while crossing his arms.

“Yeah… for YOU, sir…” Wave scrunched his face while looking back at the deathtrap of a course.

“Look, I have it all figured out,” Soarin sighed while shaking his head. “Just trust me, okay?” Soarin shrugged as he started floating away from them. “Now get the rest of those pendulums up… and please put them where I told you the first time.”

He turned and glided a little ways away. He stopped beside the little yellow stallion, who was holding the blueprint and looking it over. Soarin pulled up beside him and glanced at the blueprint.

Soarin scrunched his brow and looked carefully at the blueprint before glancing up at sets of padded walls all fitted with spring hinges that were being moved into place on a course further over. They were special walls, set up like double doors that one had to strike with their body in order to make it through them, the spring hinges resisting the movement and forcing the walls back into place after being hit. They gave a ‘breaking the door down’ feel. As Blaze and High Winds moved them into place Soarin scratched his head.

“Didn’t we pull those out to reinforce them?” he said. The little yellow stallion kept eyeing the blueprints carefully. “They broke after two hits last time,” Soarin added. He glanced at the little stallion. “You didn’t… upgrade them ALREADY… did you?” he asked. The stallion still didn’t answer. Soarin sighed and rolled his eyes. “RIVET!”

“Ah! Huh?” the stallion flinched and looked up from the blueprints at Soarin.

“Welcome back to Equestria,” Soarin chuckled as he shifted around to look at the blueprints. “Did you already make the changes to the blast walls I requested?”

“Yeah,” Rivet replied quietly. Soarin blinked and looked at him in surprise.

“Wha… Rivet I left those things in pieces last time I used them. You fixed them… and made the upgrades already?” Soarin asked in disbelief.

“All I had to do was improve the spring coil as well as add a second one. There’s a padded reinforcement lining on the inside of the coil box as well. A small decrease in the size of the spring guarantees less stress on the coil itself. Normally that would decrease resistance, which we didn’t want because of how easily you blew the other one apart. So by adding a second one to the mechanism, it allows us to use smaller coils, but gain extra resistance. It should be able to withstand any force you apply to it… as long as you don’t purposely try to overstress it,” he glanced at Soarin, who was staring dumbly at him.

“That was a lot of words for, ‘holy shit, you work fast,’” Soarin chuckled. Rivet frowned and shook his head.

“I didn’t do that much,” he said as he looked back at the blueprints. Soarin reached over and pulled the blueprints down.

“Rivet, I broke these four days ago and was pissed because I wanted to use them in the tryouts,” Soarin pointed at the blast walls. “And they’re already fixed, upgraded, and ready to use… wait, did you run tests on them too?!” Soarin remembered that part of Rivet’s process. Rivet kept his eyes averted and nodded.

“Yeah, I had them test it right after I finished,” he sighed. “I thought Calm was gonna break them, but they held together.”

“Ha! Calm couldn’t put a dent in them? If that’s the case, I doubt anypony will…” Soarin smirked. “How many times did he try?”

“A lot,” Rivet said with slight displeasure. “I lost count at eight. Bitz and Shine ended up stopping him before he hurt himself… but not after he plowed over Swift once by accident.”

“Pfft!” Soarin held in a laugh. “Calm is too determined for his own good. Those four crack me up. I bet they’re fun to work with,” Soarin looked to Rivet. Rivet smiled weakly for a moment.

“Yeah… they’re cool,” he said quietly as Soarin eyed the new blast walls.

“I gotta try it out,” he quickly dropped down and waved for Blaze and High Winds to move back. There was a section with three of the blast walls in a row. There was only ten feet separating each one. Soarin took a deep breath and shot upward into a long loop, arcing down and picking up speed as he leveled out and seared towards the first wall. He focused on it, and gritted his teeth as he brought his hooves up to his chest and thrust his right shoulder right at the crack in the padding between the two panels of the wall. The walls flung open as Soarin rammed his shoulder against them. As soon as he felt the first strike he threw his other shoulder forward as his momentum thrust him at the second wall. Again, the wall was forced aside by Soarin’s mighty shoulder blow. He felt slightly disoriented after the second hit, but two blinks refocused him three feet from the third. With no time to thrust his shoulder, Soarin pulled back both hooves and punched them into the wall to force it open as he sped through.

Soarin pulled up and hit the brakes as he came around to see all three walls had realigned quickly. The new blast walls were perfect. They actually required a good amount of force to break through. The older ones were too easy to push aside, and tended to swing violently back and forth for a good ten minutes before they settled. Soarin grinned in satisfaction and flew back up to Rivet.

“How are they?” Rivet asked from behind the blueprints. Soarin glided up with a smile.

“They’re—”

“YIKES!” Rivet suddenly flinched, frantically folded the blueprint unevenly, tucked it under his wing, and flew right up against Soarin as if hiding in the shadow of Soarin’s large body. Soarin blinked in surprise.

“Whoa! What the—”

“Hey! Everypony! Half an hour till go-time!” Fleetfoot’s voice came from the entrance. Soarin glanced down to see her waving her hooves in the air before leaving.

“Oh,” Soarin chuckled as Rivet peeked over Soarin’s back. Fleetfoot was on schedule keeping duty. She had been put in charge along with Silver Lining to make sure the cadets were all on time and the day proceeded as scheduled. Soarin was more than certain Spitfire assigned her the job on purpose to keep her mostly out of the gym so Rivet could do his work.

Rivet sighed in relief as he grabbed the blueprint from beneath his wing and unfolded it again to continue surveillance of the building.

“Anyway,” Soarin chimed in, “to answer your question before Silly McRivetSquee walked in, yes. It’s pretty much perfect compared to the older one. You do awesome work, kid.”

“No, it’s nothing big…” Rivet quietly deflected the compliment. Soarin flattened his ears.

“Yes, it is,” Soarin countered while pointing at the blueprints. “Do you think I could put these things together? Absolutely not.”

“I’m…” Rivet floated slightly away from Soarin while averting his eyes and shaking his head. “I’m not that special…”

Soarin sighed heavily as he kept up with Rivet’s subtle escape hovering. He put himself right next to Rivet and ruffled his mane lightly.

“Sure Rivet… sure…”

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

WOO! okay! well you finally know who the little guy is! He's actually the wonderbolt Chief equipment engineer! Fleetfoot! He's a professional! Leave him alone!

so there we have it, i can't believe i thought i was gonna fit all of chapter 26 into 20K words... this is barely a 4th of the content i had planned xD

lots of new names were dropped in this chapter too huh? they will be important in the future ;)

So i already have a good chunk of chapter 27 complete... and it will be the TRUE finale of part 1. i apologize for the confusion, i really underestimated my plans.

i would expect chapter 27 either tuesday or wednesday depending on the legth and how long Kestrel will need to edit such a beast of a chapter. i will keep you all updated on it via my blogs :)

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!!!

Chapter 36: Getting to Know Your Fellow Weirdos

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 36:

“Thirty minutes till lights-out!” Silver yelled out as he recruits began moving about in the barracks. “You’ll want to be in bed when they do! You won’t like me in the dark!” he continued as he made his way through the crowded room. The recruits seemed to move aside for him as he walked as if her were a higher being. That was probably the mindset he was going for. “Thirty minutes!” he yelled again before disappearing into his room on the far end of the wall and slamming the door behind him.

He never gave any orders, so the recruits proceeded casually as the scheduled bedtime drew near. It wasn’t that late. It was only 8:00 pm with lights out at 8:30. It didn’t matter what time it was though, all the recruits were ready to drop face first into their pillows. The wakeup call was at 6:30 am, giving them a good ten hours to get however much sleep they needed. However, after Fleetfoot’s little ‘expect the unexpected’ test, the recruits weren’t sure if they could actually believe any sleeping times given out.

In reality, Fleetfoot’s test had drilled something important into their heads: never be surprised, always be ready to get up and go. But it would be easier without the stiffness.

“Damn…” Dash took a few deep breaths as she sat on the edge of her bed and rotated her wings slowly. The ice bath helped, but she was definitely going to feel it in the morning. She reached for her footlocker and opened it, tipping the cover back until it rested against the wall. She reached in and pulled out her binder. She opened to the only piece of paper that was currently in it: the schedule.

It was set up like a calendar, with each box filled with whatever activities were planned for each day throughout the month. There was a clear pattern due to the color coding of each box, but Dash had yet to actually read the schedule. She was curious what sort of routine she would be following.

There were four colors in the boxes that always followed the same pattern: blue, red, white, and yellow. It didn’t line up with the weeks. Sometimes the pattern would overlap with the weekend. So by the looks of things, Dash was going to have to get used to the same four day schedule for at least a whole month. It was technically a month. She and the recruits had just finished day one of the first four day cycle. There were eight cycles of four days stretched over thirty-two days. The colors in each cycle stood for what was going on that day with a key at the top to help clarify.

Blue stood for strength and conditioning. They had done a lot of conditioning over the course of the first day. Not so much strength work aside from thousands of wing-ups and push-ups… and wing-push-ups, but Dash was sure there would be more strength work approaching.

Red stood for elements and combat. By elements Dash assumed they meant handling fire, water, and the like… but combat?! They were going to get combat training so soon? She wasn’t expecting that, but at the same time felt excited. She had fought alongside the Wonderbolts in the past, but she only had basic fighting knowledge. She could fly fast and throw punches, but she had no technique to match them. The Wonderbolts fought with incredible flight precision and control, executing maneuvers and special, unique abilities in the blink of an eye. The thought of being able to do the same was exhilarating.

Dash made a double take upon reading what the white boxes stood for. A free day? It didn’t say ‘day off.’ Dash recalled Soarin talking about days where they had nothing scheduled, but were expected to get some training in at their leisure. She wondered if that’s what ‘free day’ meant.

Then finally, the yellow boxes stood for… meetings and demonstrations. Dash groaned up reading the word ‘meetings.’ She could only avoid lectures for so long. She’d do it, but she was never good at sitting down and staying still for long periods of time. She WAS however intrigued by the ‘demonstrations’ portion. If that meant watching the elite Wonderbolts practice or use cool techniques, she’d be all for that.

After that, the boxes repeated. So it looked like their schedule would be two days of hard training followed by a day of rest/light training, and then a day of informational stuff; rinse and repeat. It seemed doable.

Dash blinked as she eyed the very end of the schedule. The thirty-third day on the schedule was not filled in. It was only marked by the Wonderbolt logo. Seeing it at the end of the schedule made Dash feel all tingly. She couldn’t believe how close she was. This was her last challenge to overcome before officially being considered a member of the Wonderbolts. She’d still be one if she was sent home, but to her… being selected to stay as part of the five pony recruit squad was the true entrance to becoming a Wonderbolt. She was the top pony all through the tryouts… she could do this.

Dash looked up from the schedule as she heard a rustling sound from the corner of the room. Actually, the noise had been constant the whole time she had been looking at her schedule.

She glanced behind her, over her shoulder into the far left corner of the barracks. She spotted Matteo shuffling about his bed. His pillows and sheet were on the floor and he moved while holding a corner of the bedspread in his beak. It apparently had come undone and Matteo was trying to fix it, but the more he pulled and tugged to try and straighten it out, the more the spread slipped off the mattress.

“Rgh…” he grunted in frustration, dropping the corner he had in his beak and moving around to try and fix the bit on the other side that had come undone. He tried to anchor the bedspread down with a talon as he pulled on it, but the instant he gave it a yank the spread slipped out from beneath his talon. The elastic edge snapped up and struck him in the neck. He glared at it and tried again… this time pulling harder in his frustration. The spread snapped back again, but this time so hard that it was yanked from his beak. The spread came completely loose and fired off of his mattress, balling up as it flew through the air.

Matteo’s eyes widened as the bedspread, turned projectile flew through two bottom bunks before shooting towards Squall, who was reclined in his bed, and crashed softly into his face. Squall flinched hard as he was suddenly faced by the bedspread, flailing his hooves for a second before yanking it off and looking around with an extremely sharp glare attached to his face.

Art by: MyLittleXyo

Matteo came around the bunks and approached calmly. Squall locked his eyes on Matteo and snarled.

“What the hell was that for?!” Squall snapped at him.

“Accident,” Matteo said calmly.

“Bullshit!” Squall hissed while bundling up the bedspread into the tightest ball he could and chucking it at Matteo’s face. Matteo reached up a talon and easily snatched it out of the air before shaking his head.

“No. It was an accident,” Matteo clarified without losing any composure. He turned away from Squall. “Sorry,” he added simply before heading back towards his bed in the corner. Squall just blinked and rolled his eyes.

“Whatever…” he said to himself before reclining again.

Dash was doing her best not to lose it. From watching big, strong Matteo trying to make a bed, to Squall getting an unpleasant smack to the face with a piece of cloth that smelled like griffon, to Matteo’s ridiculous composure taking on the broody douche mood of Squall… it was quite the comedy show.

Her eyes fell back on Matteo as he tossed the balled up bed spread onto his bare mattress and released a long sigh. Dash snickered as she got up and trotted over to Matteo’s corner. She approached and moved up alongside him, noticing his eyes locked on the mess that was his bed. Dash chuckled as he glanced at her.

“Gilda makes the bed at home I take it?” she asked sarcastically with a smug grin. Matteo looked back at the bed in pieces, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and exhaled.

“Yes,” he admitted straight out. “I’m not the most… skilled housekeeper…” his voice almost sounded ashamed. Dash almost found it humorous. She hopped up on the bed and began pushing the bedspread apart.

“Okay, not being able to make your bed won’t bring shame to your family name big fella. Come on, grab this end,” Dash offered to help as she tipped her head down and pushed one edge towards him with her nose.

Matteo obeyed and grabbed the free end of the spread as Dash pulled the other towards and over the other side. Together they managed to get the elastic band cleanly around both bottom corners of the bed before repeating the process with the top. They tucked the bedspread around the head of the mattress and Dash nodded contentedly.

“Easy!” Dash blurted out. She blinked and glanced at Matteo, who was slightly glaring at her. “Uh… I mean, with two doing it!” Dash corrected with a weak smile. Matteo let one amused snort escape his nose.

“Thank you,” he said before he reached for his pillows and sheet on the floor. Dash smiled and nodded as she came around in front of Matteo’s bed. She was about to head back to her bunk, but she stopped before she could make it completely past his bed. She turned and leaned on his mattress as he fluffed his pillows.

“So…” she casually began. “Had a good first day?” Casual conversation. It’s not like she had anything better to do. Matteo glanced at her again before returning to his pillow.

“It was fine,” he put plainly. “More conditioning than I’m used to, but the wing-ups were nothing.”

“You don’t say…” Dash said sarcastically while stretching and folding her stiff wings while eying Matteo’s massive wings. “You never even flinched whenever Silver came up to you. Gotta admit, I’m pretty impressed,” Dash droned on randomly. Matteo shook his head.

“This wasn’t the first time I’ve had one of higher rank yell in my face,” Matteo explained as he tried to drape the sheet evenly over his bed. After three failed attempts he just tossed it on. “Before I was rejected from the Sky Wings we had recruitment camps, sometimes I had three or four instructors in my face at a time. Remaining composed and steadfast in the face of all challenges is the most important trait of a griffon warrior…” he glanced towards Silver’s room. “Instructor Silver has more presence and willpower than any I’ve ever encountered… but he doesn’t quite match the force of three or four griffons. Also, Silver’s yelling is a bit more… on the clever and humorous side. All I ever heard from griffon instructors were plain, bare-faced insults,” he turned to Dash and shrugged. “It was bad at first, but they did it so often I got used to it very quickly.”

“No wonder you’re so stone-faced,” Dash chuckled as Matteo opened his foot locker and rummaged through his belongings.

“I take pride in that, you know…” he said as he closed his locker and looked around.

“Sounds like the Wonderbolts mixed with the Canterlot Royal Guard…” Dash mumbled to herself. “Guess we don’t need to worry about you at all,” she joked as she looked back to him. Her interest piqued as Matteo suddenly reached his neck as high up as it could go and fixed his eyes on something. Dash followed where he was looking, but she was too low to the ground.

“I’ll be fine,” Matteo pointed. “I’d be more worried about him.”

“Huh?” Dash, curious, extended her wings and gently lifted off until she was at head level with Matteo. She flattened her ears and brow as she looked across the top bunk in front of them and to the next.

Twister was sitting on the bed, hunched over with his back legs tucked into his chest. His expression was completely blank, his eyes were both open very wide, his ears were drooping down, and his mane had lost all of its static and was flat against his head and neck. He had wrapped his tail around his body, pulled it up to his face, and was resting his head against it while stroking it very slowly.

Dash stared for a moment, but then shrugged as she turned back to Matteo.

“He’s just being weird… as usual,” she said rotating a hoof up by her ear. Matteo shook his head.

“He’s been like that all day. I know instructor Silver intimidated him… but I thought he’d be back to his usual antics by now,” Matteo said with an actual hint of concern in his voice. Dash looked between Matteo and Twister a few times. Matteo showed no interest in going over to say something. She didn’t blame him. While Matteo showed concern for a wingmate, he wasn’t very fond of Twister. You wouldn’t be either if Twister had a reality bending chase with Surprise around your body.

So Dash took a moment and broke away from Matteo. She hovered over to Twister, not quite sure what to say. She went with a casual approach and rested her arms on the side of his bed while hovering the rest of her body in place off the edge.

“Hey Twister, what’s—” she instantly paused as his head twitched twice to the left then thrice to the right. He turned his head sharply towards her. Blinked one eye, then the other, lowered his head between his tucked legs and did two forward rolls on the mattress, but remained perfectly in place. Dash slowly backed up as he completed the motions and went right back to where he stared, stroking his tail. “—up…” Dash finished while carefully moving back into place.

“Nothing is up. There is only down. Downdowndowndowndowndowndowndowndowndown…” he became progressively quieter until his mouth was moving, but the word ‘down’ vanished.

“Uh… I know you’re usually a little loopy… but are you okay?” Dash asked. Twister’s pupils moved in opposite directions away from one another.

“The FISH was DELISH and it made quite a DISH,” Twister replied as a creepy expression made its way onto his mouth. It looked like he was trying to make his usual disturbing grin, but something was preventing his mouth from cooperating, so his mouth twitched and lurched as he failed to move it properly.

“I’ll take that as a yes…” Dash backed away fast this time and quickly made her way back over to Matteo. Matteo blinked and lifted an eyebrow as Dash rapidly approached him again. “Okay…” she said while staring blankly at him. “Maybe there’s something… a little more wrong with him than usual,” Dash glanced back to see Twister rocking back and forth on his plot and sucking on one of his hooves.

“You call that a little?” Matteo furrowed his brow, slightly disturbed.

“You wanna try talking to him?” Dash shrugged while pointing towards Twister. Matteo glanced at Dash, then back to Twister who was now on his head and slowly spinning in a circle.

“Not particularly, no,” he said while very subtly shaking his head.

“We’ll see how he is in the morning,” Dash bit her lower lip and rubbed the back of her head. “If he’s still… more abnormal than usual, I’ll let somepony know…”

“FIFTEEN MINUTES!!!!” Silver suddenly yelled from his room before slamming his door again.

“Ah, I gotta wash up still,” Dash said to nopony as she glanced at Matteo. He was still looking uncomfortably towards Twister. Dash slipped away casually and went for her toothbrush in her footlocker. She grabbed her towel from a bar above it before heading towards the bathroom. She stopped as she passed Thunderlane’s bunk.

Thunderlane was lying flat on the bed, face down in his pillow, arms and legs sprawled out and hanging over the edges, wings included. He was releasing quiet groans of discomfort that were muffled by his pillow. Dash snorted once and shook her head while holding in a chuckle. Day one and Thunderlane was already half dead. This was going to be a hell of an experience for him.

Dash entered the bathroom and trotted up to the first of the four sinks that lined the wall to the right of the door. She turned on the faucet and let the water get moderately warm before reaching her hooves in and splashing some against her face. She rubbed her face a few times, stopped, and put one of her ears up.

She thought she heard something… it sounded like a scraping noise, but there were so many other things going on right outside she just ignored it. She grabbed her towel and wiped her face clean before grabbing her tooth brush.

As soon as she shut off the water, the scraping noise sounded out again, but this time it was directly behind her. She turned around just in time to see Little Star pushing a small plastic stool along the floor with her head. The tiny mare nudged it towards the sink beside Dash and hopped up, placing her toothbrush and towel on the counter. Dash blinked and kept her eyes on Little Star as she went on the tips of her back hooves and just barely reached the faucet handles to turn on the water.

She sighed as the water began flowing in her sink and stole a quick glance at Dash. Dash quickly looked forward and quickly tried to put toothpaste on her brush, but because she rushed, the toothpaste missed and landed on her hoof.

“Smooth,” Little Star chuckled as Dash gulped. Dash wasn’t quite sure how to approach anything regarding Little Star. Dash’s eyes told her: ‘filly,’ but Dash’s brain told her: ‘thirty years old.’ It was a strange situation indeed and she found herself at a loss. Her brain was so incredibly stuck on what to do that Dash didn’t realize she was staring directly at Little Star, toothbrush tucked into the back of her mouth, and toothpaste slowly foaming up to the point where it dribbled down her lip.

Star looked up at Dash and flattened her ears back.

“Something on my face, honey?” she asked Dash. The low mature tone coming out of the filly body still kind of freaked Dash out. Dash realized what she was doing and almost swallowed all of the toothpaste. She yanked the brush out of her mouth and instantly spat into the sink before shaking her head and reapplying toothpaste to the brush.

“S…sorry…” Dash said nervously while starting her brushing over. Star shrugged and started cleaning up as well.

Dash finished brushing her teeth and rinsed her mouth out, glancing over at Star again. Forget it, this was just getting awkward. Dash had been curious so she went for it.

“Look um…” Dash slammed her mouth shut tight as star looked up at her.

“Yrsh?” Star said with her toothbrush lodged in her mouth. Dash took a moment to think. Was there any way to put this without sounding like she was prying?

“Um… well… uh…” Dash stumbled over her words. Star spat out her tooth paste and tipped her head slightly.

“You want to know how I’m so small?” Star finished for her. Dash’s ears flopped down. Star easily figured it out. Dash hoped she hadn’t annoyed her.

“I… sorry, forget about it…” Dash turned back and started gathering up her stuff.

“No, no, no…” Star chuckled as she rinsed out her mouth. “Look,” she smiled at Dash as they both gathered up their things. “Like I said before, I get this all the time,” she gave Dash a warm smile as they began walking out of the bathroom.

“I was just worried you were… sensitive about it,” Dash admitted while walking alongside the tiny mare. Star shook her head.

“I got over it a long time ago. It’s part of my life, so why let it get to me? I still do things any other ponies do, just from down here,” she joked with a little hop.

“Eh, just for the record…” Dash said with slight embarrassment, “I’m not looking at you like something is wrong, I’m sure it’s just a family thing or something…” she quickly made clear. Star actually started giggling.

“It’s funny actually,” she smiled brightly. “I get THAT more than I get questions about why I’m so short.”

“Oh…” Dash was relieved, but still felt a little awkward.

“Anyway…” Star cleared her throat. “When I was very young, my parents were vigilantes that fought against magical foes in secret to keep them from disturbing the peace of Equestria…” she went on. Dash’s eyes widened considerably as Star continued. “One day when I was a filly, our enemies made a bold attack on our home. My parents fought them off, but not before a curse was placed upon me… keeping me in the shape of a young filly… forever…” she trailed off while holding her head high.

“What…?” Dash blinked as they exited the bathroom. Star burst out laughing and the two stopped after a few steps back into the barracks among the rest of the ponies.

“I’m kidding,” Star chuckled while waving a hoof towards Dash. “Honestly, I’m just this short. Long lost family trait I guess,” she shrugged. Dash stared blankly at her before a small grin curled onto her lips and she began chuckling herself.

Dash just got completely punked. She literally bought the story until Star told her it was made up. Dash had a feeling she was going to get along with Star just fine.

As the two stood there in front of the bathrooms and shared a good laugh, Squall emerged from the stallion bathroom and came to a brief halt. Dash and Star were in his path. He waited for all of half a second before walking forward and roughly pushing past both of them.

“What the…?” Dash grunted as she was shoved aside. Star was knocked completely over on her plot. Dash glared at him as he moved by. She was losing her patience with him fast. “Hey! What the hell is your—”

“Really, REALLY?!” Star cut off Dash. Dash shut her mouth as Star shot up from the ground, absolutely fuming. She lifted off and zipped up beside Squall. “You could’ve said EXCUSE ME, you know!”

“Whatever…” Squall replied as he kept walking.

“Oh no buster! How about you say sorry?!” she poked him in the cheek. He quickly moved his face away and scoffed.

“Whatever…” he repeated, and kept walking.

“WELL?!” Star flew a circle around him using her small wing flutter technique. He growled and swiped a hoof up at her. She darted to the side to avoid it. “Say it!” she demanded. He gritted his teeth and swiped at her again. She once again zipped out of the way arm right back into his face.

“WHATEVER!!!!!” he barked at her. The two were butting heads… which was actually amusing because Squall was a pretty big stallion, and she was so tiny.

“HEY!” Silver’s voice suddenly poured into the barracks.

Absolutely EVERYTHING stopped as all the ponies turned to him.

“You two!” Silver directed at Star and Squall. “Angry sex is prohibited!” he yelled before looking at the rest of them. “Lights out in exactly thirty seconds! If you aren’t in bed in—” before he could even finish, all the recruits had scrambled and were in their beds. He stopped, blinked and shrugged. “God damn, I’m proud of you idiots…” he said quietly before stepping out a little. “GET SLEEP! You’ll need it every night. If you get out of bed for any reason besides using the bathroom… don’t turn around, it will be less painful from behind.” The collective shudder almost made the whole room shake. Silver turned back around and reached for a light switch installed next to his door. “GOODNIGHT!” he threw the lights off and went back into his room. Slamming the door of course.

Well, it was one day in the books… and quite a few more to go. Dash had a lot on her mind, but she was so tired, she just wanted to sleep. Easy enough.

A recruit across from her bunk sneezed.

Two seconds later the P.A. came to life.

“I hear you existing…” Silver’s voice slurred through the speakers creepily. Dash’s eyes opened very wide, slowly.

Okay, maybe sleeping would be a little hard with Silver and Celestia knows what kind of antics he was capable of…

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Yeah, a bit short... but the reason for that? i got 2K words into the next scene and realized it had been a long week. So i cut this off at the end of the scene in favor of getting yous another chapter, of probably the same length out either tomorrow or sunday.

So yeah, my work hours are slowing down my updates... but i have too much planned out for this story. Updates WILL remain constant and i WILL finish this story... and then move onto others. Don't worry about me stopping cause it ain't gonna happen.

Little Star is a jokester! Squall's an ass! Thunderlane thinks he's dead! Twister is messed up... even more! Matteo can't make a bed to save his life! SILVER CAN HEAR YOU EXISTING!

anyway, like i said, expect chapter 37 either tomorrow or sunday... cause it's already halfway done. ;)

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!

Chapter 43: Storm Remembers, Silver's Personal Training, and Misty Fly fixes EVERYTHING

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 43:

“Everypony up! EVERYPONY UP! Drop your cocks and grab your socks… if you have one!” Silver’s voice shook Dash and the recruits awake as he began tapping something repeatedly against the floor.

Dash sat up in bed, but was surprised when Silver didn’t give the order to stand attention. He was tapping the butt end of a mop against the floor to generate the endless rapping noise.

“Come on! Get up! Today’s not a training day, but you’ve got a sleep schedule to keep! Waking up at the same time every day will keep you alert and ready for anything!” he instantly eyed a recruit starting to lie back down in his bed. It was the first bed on the left side and really close to the wall. Silver picked up the mop, twirled it around once in his hoof, locked on target, and fired it like a javelin towards the bed. Right as the stallion’s head hit the pillow, the mop passed over his nose by only an inch at best and the butt of the mop lodged into the wall.

“AH!” the stallion yelped as his eyes widened at the mop wobbled above him. Silver stomped over to the stallion and glared down at him.

“SLEEP. SCHEDULE. SON,” he reached up and dislodged the mop from the wall. “Don’t make me get my clown wig out for you tonight,” he threatened before turning back to the rest of the recruits. They were all now wide awake and listening. “Today… is the third day in our regular recruit training cycle! Every third day of the cycle is classified as a ‘Free Day!’ Don’t you all go and start smiling at me like I’m looking to screw! Free days don’t mean you get to slack off!”

He held up the mop and swung it around in the air.

“First! Every free day morning, I will assign a few of you asswipes to clean our barracks! I will also come around and inspect your bunk spaces and footlockers! Don’t let certain elite Wonderbolt idiots, such as the member of the Streak family that was shot out of his mother like a cannon rather than born normally like his brother, make you think being disorganized is okay! Organization and cleanliness are important life factors as well as Wonderbolt factors… you WILL keep your shit together!” He tossed the mop at the stallion he had just scared half to death. “You’re the lucky first mopper! I assure you that you did nothing to make me choose you!” Silver said sarcastically. He turned back to all of them.

“You will also be expected to get in your own training sessions to work on any personal skills or anything else you need to work on! Wonderbolts become well known for their signature moves! This is the time to work on them! Just don’t get in the way of any elite squads while you’re at it or so help me Celestia I will make you scrub the toilets with your tongue!” he threatened, making the recruits shiver.

“Lastly,” he put up his hoof. “If you have any injuries or issues… today is the day you go to the training room to get it worked out! We don’t have any physical training tomorrow, but I don’t want your ass on a trainer’s table when we have meetings and demonstrations! Any questions?!” he paused for one second. “Good! At ease! Breakfast is at the usual time!” he ended as he began making rounds to inspect the bed spaces.

Dash turned and went for her footlocker. She opened it and began shifting things around. She had no idea to what extent the lockers were being inspected, but if it looked clean, maybe Silver would simply move on. All she had in her locker was her Daring Do book, her picture of Soarin, her toiletries, and six or seven Wonderbolt recruit flight suits. They were kind of in a ball and thrown in. She quickly moved to try and fix them… but folding clothes had never been her forte. She tried and failed to fold a few, but luckily, Little Star had hovered over.

“Oh dear, this won’t do!” Star shook her head. “Here, let me help,” she offered. Dash instantly handed Star the uniform she was holding. In seconds, Star had it in a perfect square, and placed it in Dash’s locker. Dash subtly shifted her small pile of uniforms to Star, seeing as how the little mare had pretty much taken over. Dash stepped back and turned to take a look around the rest of her bunk for anything that was out of place.

“What the…? It looks like a holy shit bomb went off in your locker!” Silver’s voice caught her ear as she looked up. Silver was staring at a locker that was a complete mess, belonging to a mare across the aisle. However, that was all he said before telling her to clean it and moving on.

With Star’s help, Dash felt safe, and it was a good thing too, because Silver had turned right around and cut across the aisle right as Star finished with Dash’s locker. Silver took one look at Dash’s locker and nodded.

“Acceptable,” he said simply before turning and moving away. Dash sighed in relief, but jumped when Silver placed a hoof on her shoulder. “By the way, Skittles… come to my room after breakfast,” he ordered.

“Y-yes sir!” Dash answered quickly as her body went stiff, intimidated by his touch.

He said no more and moved on. Dash kept her eyes on Silver for a moment before exhaling and shaking her head out. She stepped back to let the unfortunate mop pony wipe the floor near her bed before she glanced up at the clock. Breakfast was really soon. She looked back down and flinched.

Twister was standing before her, barely an inch between their faces. Dash blinked and glared at him. Twister’s creepy smile crept onto his face and he waved at Dash casually. Dash rolled her eyes.

“You’re kinda really messed up… you know that?” Dash commented as she shook her head in disgust. Twister hugged himself and shivered.

“Ooooooo hoo hoo! Please do say more!” he coerced. Dash flattened her ears.

“Uh… no?” she tried to figure out his game.

“Thank you kindly,” he bowed as he did during the night before and moved towards the door without actually walking. His hooves slid along the ground as if they had wheels on the bottom, but his wings were fluttering and Dash could see he was actually about half an inch off the ground.

Thunderlane trotted up beside Dash and watched Twister leave.

“Uh… what was that all about?” he asked. Dash quickly shook her head.

“Trust me… you don’t wanna know…”

So what exactly did Silver want her for?

Dash contemplated as she reached the doors at the end of the barracks hall and pushed them open into the lobby.

The first thing she saw as she walked was a familiar brown, yellow maned stallion leaning up against the mail counter. It was Storm Front, and he looked rather excited. Dash slowed down and kept her eyes on him. What had Storm so happy? Was it Derpy related? Was he sending her a letter?

“Ah, here it is!” the orange pegasus stallion stood up from beneath the counter with an envelope tucking behind his wing. “Sorry about that, you’re the new guy right? We haven’t gotten a box set up for you yet,” he unfolded his wing and handed the letter to Storm. Storm smiled and shook his head.

“It’s no problem, thanks!” he nodded to the mail pony as he took the letter and quickly turned it over to see his name written on it. His smile grew as he did.

Dash stopped in her tracks and watched as Storm stepped over to a chair in a lounge area to the left of the main entrance and quickly opened the letter. He pulled up the piece of paper inside and unfolded it to read. As he read, Storm looked happier and happier. Dash was convinced now, it was definitely Derpy related. Dash’s curiosity got the better of her and she found herself heading over to Storm.

“You look happy…” Dash chuckled as she approached. It actually took a moment for Storm to respond. He blinked and looked up.

“Huh? Oh! Hey Dash, what’s up?” he said very cheerfully. Dash smirked, and stifled a laugh. Storm looked SO HAPPY.

“Actually I was just passing through, looked over here, and saw you smiling so hard you were practically glowing,” Dash joked as she leaned closer to him. “Let me guess… is that from Derpy?”

“Heh… no actually…” Storm looked down at the letter. His smile remained, but it didn’t look giddy, it looked more warm and caring. “It’s… from my dad…” he said with a small sniffle. Dash halted her lean in and her eyes widened slightly.

Storm’s… father?

As Dash recalled… Storm really loved his father… but the family situation…

“This is the first letter I’ve gotten from him in a long time,” Storm began while keeping his eyes locked on the letter. “I heard that some mail got sent here from home… I only get letters from one pony at home, so you can imagine why I was so excited,” he explained as his eyes sanned the words again. Dash kept quiet. While she was curious, she didn’t want to pry into personal things, but he saved her the trouble. “He apologized for the sudden long gap in between his last visit… and how he hasn’t been able to send me any bits lately. He’s doing his best to get a little together right now, things have been rough for him… but he said not to worry about him, that he’ll do whatever he can to support me and my mom… and that he’s proud of me…” Storm suddenly turned his face away from Dash.

Dash blinked as she saw Storm reach up and wipe something from his face.

“Your father...” Dash chimed in, “I remember you talking about him back during the tryouts. I remember you speaking very highly of him… he sounds like a really great guy,” Dash smiled.

“Yeah… he is…” Storm sighed as he set the letter down.

“His son really took after him then,” Dash stepped forward and gave Storm and playful nudge. Storm chuckled. “Does he know you’re a Wonderbolt now?” Dash said as she patted Storm’s shoulder. Storm shook his head.

“No I haven’t told him. I can’t send letters to him… I have no idea where he lives. The only times I ever got to tell him how much I appreciated him were his few visits,” Storm’s ears drooped and he sighed again. “I just wish things were different… I hear it’s already hard enough to be a good father… he managed it while never being welcome in our house. Mom always pushed him away… but he still made the effort to help me… he made it work… kept me going…” he folded the letter up and placed it back in the envelope. He looked up at Dash and chuckled. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to vent so much personal stuff to you…”

“Oh!” Dash perked up, she was listening, but it was a lot to process at once. She felt bad for Storm. It sounded like he had an incredibly rough time through his life due to his family. It was a wonder to her that he had turned out to be such a nice guy, such things usually leave a pony bitter and inconsolable. It was probably due to his father. Storm himself had talked about how his conception was a drunken mistake… but it really said a lot about Storm’s father that he tried to help and support him regardless. Making ends meet, putting together whatever he could for his son… being a successful father in a hostile environment…

Storm's father sounded like an amazing guy indeed. Dash hoped she could meet him someday.

“It’s alright… I know a thing or two about listening to friends with stuff on their mind,” Dash gave Storm a wink. “How about we go get breakfast? We still really haven’t fully caught up, I wanna hear more about your squad and your training,” Dash suggested while making a head motion towards the hall to the cafeteria. Storm smiled and tucked the letter beneath his wing.

“Sure… and thanks Dash, for listening,” he nodded to her.

“So…” Dash smiled. “Write to Derpy lately?”

“Three times in the last week,” Storm answered while blushing and puffing his chest out pridefully.

Now this was how one was supposed to tell another about their lives… not by tying them to a chair in the bathroom opposite of their gender and speaking poetically…

Stupid Twister…

Breakfast with Storm was fun, and Dash got to hear a lot more about Storm’s new experiences, but she couldn’t stay too long. Back to the moment she left the barracks and all through breakfast, she had been both wary and curious of the fact that Silver wanted to see her. She knew he had some extra training planned for her, but already? She didn’t think he’d start right away.

Nevertheless, she didn’t want to lollygag. So as soon as she finished her breakfast, she excused herself from Storm and began the short walk back to the barracks.

The hallway was pretty clear. It seemed most of the compound was busy eating breakfa—

“HEY! HOW YA BEEN!?!?”

“AAHHH!!!!!” Dash shrieked and leapt to the ceiling, barely stopping herself before hitting her head against a light, and hovering slowly back to the floor. She blinked and turned her head, starting right into the overly beaming smile of Fleetfoot.

“F-f-Fleet?!” Dash frantically said as she forced her head and heart to calm down.

“Theeeeeeeeeee one and only! Gosh, I feel like I haven’t talked to you forever!” she smiled and bounced a couple times.

Dash was about to smile and say something back… but then she remembered something. Something that had been sort of lingering in the back of her thoughts for a long time and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Suddenly being in the presence of one of the lead squad members caught her off guard.

“Dash? What’s up?” Fleetfoot’s smile disappeared. She tipped her head to the side, her face wrought with concern.

Dash didn’t even realize she was doing it. She had a look of hesitation on her face.

Soarin… and one other member of the lead squad had chosen against her for the lead spot. Was it Spitfire? Or Fleetfoot? Dash still felt a little ashamed for her actions that ultimately lead them to their choice… she wasn’t sure what to say.

Fleetfoot suddenly blinked.

“Oh… wait…” she put her hooves on Dash’s shoulder. “The tryouts, right?” Fleetfoot completely read Dash’s mind. Dash still didn’t say anything, but she nodded. Fleetfoot sighed and shook her head. “Look Dash… I voted for you. I tried, I really did.”

“Huh?” Dash’s eyes widened. Talk about an instant solution. Fleet voted for her? Meaning Spitfire voted against her? That was strange, she could have sworn Silver said something about Spitfire’s expectations of her… but maybe that was just it… Spitfire had expectations of her and wanted to see Dash overcome mistakes… or… maybe… okay, she was making her brain hurt. Fleetfoot let go of Dash and smiled.

“I didn’t like what you did to Bitchy Blast either, but to be honest, I probably would have done the same thing in your place. I gave you the benefit of the doubt,” Fleetfoot explained. While Dash was relieved to hear it… she still felt like it was just a sugarcoated way of saying she still did something wrong.

“Uh… thanks I guess…” Dash looked away from her and started walking. Fleet quickly followed.

“Hey! Wait!” she stepped in front of Dash. “We’re still friends though… right?” she asked while making a pouty face at Dash. Dash stopped and looked at her. After five seconds Fleetfoot lowered herself down a little and gave Dash enormous puppy dog eyes too. Dash couldn’t hold it in. A few snickers escaped her mouth.

“Okay, okay…” she chuckled. “Of course we’re still friends Fleet…”

“YAY!” Fleetfoot bounced up and gave Dash a hug.

This was… much different compared to Soarin and Spitfire. Both Soarin and Spitfire were very clear about remaining professional when around Dash and not showing anything that could lead to suspected favoritism… but Fleetfoot wasn’t even trying. Dash actually found it refreshing. They started walking again as Fleetfoot released her.

“Seriously… it has SUCKED seeing you all the time and having to keep distance! We can finally hang out! We gotta plan it some time!” Fleetfoot sounded very eager to spend time with Dash… and it made Dash feel all tingly, even though she had known Fleetfoot for a while, just hearing a lead squad Wonderbolt express interesting in hanging out with her… her life had changed a lot. “How’s old Grey Lining treating you guys by the way?” she giggled.

“Grey…? OH!” Dash chuckled. “He’s tough as hell…” Dash smiled. Casual conversation with the elite squad… not quite what she expected after all that had happened.

But then Dash suddenly felt the need to ask a very important question… now that she, in fact, had a lead squad member beside her.

“Say… Fleet…” Dash slowly spoke up.

“Hmm?”

“I’m just curious… is everything okay with Soarin?” the instant she asked Fleetfoot froze mid-step, as if surprised.

“How did you…?” Fleetfoot trailed off before shutting her mouth.

“How did I what?” Dash blinked and quickly turned to Fleetfoot. “How did I what?!” Dash asked a little more anxiously. Was she right about something being wrong with Soarin? Fleetfoot shook his head.

“Oh… nothing, to be honest I don’t know what’s up with him…” Fleetfoot shook her head. There was an honest tone in her voice, nothing frantic or forced. “All I know is he’s not been around for a day or two. Spitfire knows something, but she refuses to tell… freaking heat-thighs…” Fleetfoot grumbled upon mentioning Spitfire.

“Ah…” Dash’s ears flopped down, disappointed. She was hoping for some answers… but if even Fleetfoot was left in the dark, she doubted she’d get any info. She was about to ask more about Soarin but—

“Oh! Gotta run, nice to finally talk to you again! Keep kicking ass!” Fleetfoot suddenly crouched down and skittered along the floor. Dash watched in confusion as Fleetfoot nearly slithered along the ground towards… of course…

“Rivet!” Fleetfoot yelled as she leapt over a couch in the lobby, towards the unsuspecting little yellow stallion.

“YIPE!!!!!” Rivet yelled as Fleetfoot full out tackled him, sat up, held him up to her face and began nuzzling him while squealing delightfully.

Art by: GlitterDash (Deviantart)

Rivet began squeaking and flailing his hooves about.

Dash burst out laughing as she continued into the lobby and passed right beside them.

“Good luck dude!” Dash said to Rivet as Fleetfoot gave him a nice big squeeze. Fleetfoot began giving him ridiculously loud smooches on the cheek. Rivet blushed furiously as he pressed his hooves against her chest, trying and failing to push her away.

It was good to see Fleetfoot was still good old Fleetfoot. It was also nice to know that Fleet had chosen her. It made Dash feel more comfortable around her. She had to do this all right. She wanted so badly to be able to mingle and exist among all the Wonderbolts as one of them…

So for starters… she didn’t want to keep Silver waiting. Rivet was on his own… poor, lucky guy.

The whole exchange with Fleetfoot, while friendly and heartwarming, only made Dash worry more about Soarin. Soarin had not been around the past day and a half?

She could no longer ignore the possibility. Especially with all the random heart jumps and even more so with the nightmare… she had to go to him. She decided that after whatever Silver Lining wanted with her, she would go to Soarin’s room.

She… still wasn’t certain how it would go. They had yet to confront each other since she barged into his room and yelled at him for a justified decision he made. She didn’t like how he retorted… but she started it. She would have to face him and apologize. Would it be easy? No. But she wanted to make sure he was alright. She couldn’t shake the fears that something was incredibly wrong… nor could she shake the feeling that their disconnected status was partly to blame for it.

They had a disagreement… but… she’d never want to hurt him. Ever.

She still loved him.

So she would do whatever was necessary… but seriously… where the hell was Silver Lining taking her?

Dash glanced around the hall as she walked behind him. She had never been all the way down the east wing of the compound. She had seen everything in the west wing mostly from her previous visit months ago during her training day with squad three, plus the large auxiliary gym used throughout the tryouts was at the very end of it. In the east wing, she had been to the mess hall, the battle dome, and the medical facility and that was it. Those were the first three facilities in the east wing, she had never gone further.

They passed the trainers almost a minute ago. Dash observed her surroundings as she and Silver slowly made their way all the down the east hall. Lots of doors, most of which were either locker rooms or gym entrances… possibly a few meeting rooms? She didn’t know if the east wing was set up the same as the west, it looked a little different.

Silver did take her all the way to the end of the hall. They stopped at the very last door before the window looking out towards Canterlot Castle not too far away. He didn’t say a word. He just pushed open the last door and made a head motion for Dash to follow.

Dash moved without question, hearing voices inside. She stepped into a small gym. It had to be only forty yards long and twenty yards wide. It was much smaller than any of the gyms she had seen thus far.

“Come on! Give me another dammit!” Blaze’s voice was the first to stand out. Dash looked over to see Blaze setting her hooves firmly in the ground near the left wall with her eyes fixed towards High Winds standing ten yards away. Blaze had about ten feet between her and the wall behind her. There was a large, thick mat behind her on the floor, and another one propped up against the wall.

“If you say so…” High Winds shrugged with a yawn as she spread out her powerful wings. She cupped them forward as she raised them straight up above her body before thrusting them down hard. A powerful FWOOSH echoed from Winds as Blaze shut her eyes and tensed her muscles.

POW

The blast of wind unleashed by High Winds struck Blaze.

“ARGH!” Blaze grunted as she was lifted off her hooves and thrown against the soft mat against the wall. She bounced off as the wind dispersed against the wall. Dash winced as a small gust of wind rushed against her. High Winds created gusts so powerful that they bounced off surfaces? That was unreal.

Blaze fell face first into the mat on the floor and quickly picked her head up once she had her hooves down.

“Damn!” she got up as the mat against the wall behind her slowly tipped over. “Again! You won’t knock me back this ti—” The mat fell against her back, forced her back down and smushed her between the mats. Winds was down on the ground doing one winged wing-ups effortlessly. It was crazy how strong her wings were.

“Face it, Blazey,” Winds began as the top mat began to lightly bounce and swears squeaked out in between them. “Only Silver can hold against my wing power…” she yawned and effortlessly switched to her other wing. Blaze’s head popped out from in between the mats. She glared and pouted and Winds.

“Ye of little faith in me Windy?” Blaze whined as she struggled to get free. Winds placed both wings down and began HOPPING UP AND DOWN on them.

“I prefer to eat my sandwiches… not have faith in them…” Winds slowly lowered herself to the floor, reclined on her side and her eyelids began to fall.

“Hey! Windy! A little help here?!” Blaze fumed as High Winds fell asleep.

Dash chuckled as Silver stepped in behind her. He just shook his head as he went to an equipment closet off to the side.

“What battle armor size did you measure out to?” he asked before opening the closet. Dash blinked and stared for a moment.

“Oh uh… Mare size, medium or large, sir,” Dash quickly answered, remembering she was told either of the two sizes would fit if adjusted correctly. Silver nodded and disappeared into the closet.

Battle armor, huh? Looks like Dash was getting her first personal training session. She was actually a little nervous… especially after Silver laid out the heavy expectations the Wonderbolts apparently had for her. She was curious though… was the rest of squad two going to be involved with her training as well?

“RGH!!!!” Blaze grunted. Dash looked back over to see Blaze still sandwiched between the mats. “Hey! Water colt! Help me out will ya?!” Blaze yelled over. Dash didn’t see past her before. Wave Chill was further back on the left hand wall. He was standing near it and… had a garden hose? Dash stepped out to get a better view.

Wave indeed had a hose. There was also a small crevice and a drain near where he was standing. Wave was dripping wet.

“A little busy here Blaze…” Wave chuckled. He held his wings out and held perfectly still. “HRG!” he suddenly grunted while giving his whole body one hard shake before hopping forward. Wave was suddenly completely dry, and there was an outline of his body made of water left behind where he first stood. It lingered for a couple of seconds before the outline collapsed and splashed to the ground.

“I know you LOVE getting WET dammit, but if you hadn’t noticed, Windy thinks she’s real funny again!” Blaze complained while pointing towards High Winds… who was doing wing-ups in her sleep.

“Fine, fine…” Wave chuckled as he approached. He hoisted the mat up, allowing Blaze to wiggle out from between them.

“BLAZE! WINDS!” Silver’s voice suddenly boomed as he emerged from the closet. High Winds awoke with a start, and turned herself around to look while still using her wings as legs. Blaze flinched and accidentally bumped into Wave, shoving him forward onto the mat. Wave lost his grip on the top mat and it fell on top of him, stuffing only his head and neck between them. He flailed and pushed against the mat until his head came loose and quickly turned around. “Idiots…” Silver mumbled before he handed Dash the pieces of combat training armor. “I need you ladies to help Dash put these on. Make it quick, I want to get started," he ordered.

“‘Kay…” Winds nodded as she walked towards Dash on her wings.

“Why can’t you do it? Blaze complained as she passed by Silver.

“I’d rather not feel up one of my recruits,” Silver said plainly as he headed for the right hand corner of the gym and grabbed a large, thin, folded up mat. He tugged at it until it was all unfolded and began spreading it around on the floor.

“Alright let’s get these on…” said Winds as she got back on her hooves and grabbed the chest and body piece.

“Lazy old fart box…” Blaze grumbled as she picked up on the arm guards.

“Arms up, come on…” Winds ordered. Dash quickly complied and held her arms out so Winds could get the straps around her body. This was a little weird for Dash. Members of Wonderbolt SQUAD TWO were giving her personal attention. She flinched as Winds reached beneath her chest to grab the strap around the other side. Winds stopped and blinked. Dash held perfectly still, unsure of the reason for the halt. Suddenly High Winds whistled.

“Damn, Colors… do you work out a lot?” she suddenly asked. Dash’s ear flopped down and she blushed a little. She hadn’t gotten any comments in a while. She was still used to it, but not from such a high-end source. “I sorta saw it when we did the strength testing, but yow…” from any other pony it would have sounded more awe inspired, but Winds made everything sound ho hum in her sleepy tone. “Blazey, check out the guns on this lady,” Winds dropped the strap, grabbed one of Dash’s arms and pulled it forward. Dash was already thoroughly embarrassed. Blaze already had Dash’s other arm, but wasn’t really looking at it.

“Huh, waddayaWHOA!” the arm guard dropped out of Blaze’s mouth as she stared at Dash’s arm. Dash scrunched her face. This was VERY embarrassing. She felt like Fluttershy, locked in place in a situation she couldn’t escape. “Holy shit, did you get into Pec Bounce’s protein stash? We gotta smaller version of Autumn Rain here, eh Windy?” Blaze commented as she poked Dash’s arm. High Winds reached under her again and continued fastening the body piece of the training armor.

“She put up 135 pounds on the bench press, more than once,” Winds pointed out. “And sheesh, no wonder…” she poked Dash in the chest as she finished tightening the strap.

“Pff, what a little show off,” Blaze sneered as she and High Winds fastened the arm guards. “I like you already! Er… what was your name again, was it Skittles?” Blaze suddenly asked.

“Seriously, Blazey? Her name is Rainbow Dash, kinda hard to forget,” Winds rolled her eyes and pointed at Dash's mane as they moved to help Dash with the leg guards. Dash just remained still, not wanting to get involved in the conversation.

“Hey! At least I don’t sleep through half of my damn orders…” Blaze stuck her tongue out at Winds as they fastened the leg guards. Blaze handed the headpiece to Dash, but Winds was still behind her.

“You gotta give me your workout routine…” Winds said as she suddenly place a hoof on Dash’s flank. Dash stiffened. Seriously, these two were balancing right on the line between compliments and harassment.

“HEY!” Silver’s voice shot across the gym and floored all of them. “YOU CAN OIL HER UP LATER IF YOU’RE THAT INTERESTED! I HAVE A SCHEDULE TO KEEP!” he barked, not really helping how embarrassed Dash already felt.

“PFFFT…” Blaze only rolled her eyes and moved on to reset her fallen mats. Dash sighed in relief, feeling released from her awkward position, but—

“EEP!” Dash yelped in surprise as High Winds spanked her plot.

“Go get him, Rainbod!” she chuckled to herself as she yawned and followed Blaze. Dash’s eyes darted about, before she relaxed and continued on towards Silver, adjusting to the awkward feeling of walking with all the body armor.

And she thought Lightning Streak was two hooves on with her… When she visited the Wonderbolts in the past, Lightning Streak more or less lightly harassed her, but Blaze and High Winds were terrible. Seriously, it was easy to give Lightning a jab or swift kick to the nuts, but Blaze and High Winds were more… prankish about it. They caught Dash in a moment where she really couldn’t do anything about it.

Dash lifted off and glided along the ground as she used her free hooves to attach the headpiece to her face. It wasn’t until she landed on the thin mat laid out by Silver that she realized she was given no hoof pads like she had the day before. She faced Silver, stood at attention, and awaited instruction.

“At ease,” Silver instantly said. Dash didn’t expect that, she stood casually and looked at him carefully as he cracked his neck and shook out his front hooves. He took a deep breath and looked towards Dash sternly. “Rainbow Dash, listen up and listen well. As I’ve told you before, I am taking it upon myself to make sure you reach your maximum potential. However, I can beat you senseless all I want, it’s not gonna make a damn difference if you don’t give it your all…” he paused briefly before shifting and twisting his body and limbs, multiple cracks and pops sounded out before he shook his head out. “I’m an old Wonderbolt… I’ve managed to keep up with the young’uns for longer than most… but it won’t be long before my edge dulls for good, I’m outshined by these kids, and I’m forced to retire… it’s just how it works. Like how old Steady Wing of Squad 3 was replaced by Surprise… some younger Wonderbolt with fresh skill and ability… will replace me.”

Dash listened carefully as he spoke. Silver was indeed old for a Wonderbolt. The Wonderbolts lived by a strict code that those with the most refined skills and ability were those selected to lead and be elite. It was rare when a Wonderbolt lasted past the age of thirty-five. Misty Fly was thirty-seven, but as Dash had seen, her skills still had plenty of sharpness to keep her in the ranks. Silver on the other hoof, was really pushing that statistic to the curb. Forty-two years old, been a Wonderbolt since before Dash was even born, considering how much wear and tear there was on his body over time it was incredible that he could still operate at such a high level. However, by the tone of his speech and what he was saying… he was aware he wouldn’t be at it much longer.

This was also strange. She had gotten so used to Silver yelling at her as a drill instructor. Hearing him speak to her normally was… different. She felt like he was stripping away the recruit and the veteran… replacing them with an even plane.

“Now hear me out… Forget our rank and designation… and forget the Wonderbolts. I’m going to level with you as one pegasus to another,” he continued. “You have more potential than any recruit I’ve seen in my twenty-four years of service… I feel it is my duty… to leave something behind before I’m forced from rank. Therefore…” he sharpened his eyes. “I’m going to teach you everything I know.”

Dash’s eyes widened. Silver Lining? Teach… her?

“Keep in mind… this is part of my evaluation of you,” he spoke up again. “I EXCPECT you to be capable… if it appears you are not what we hoped, then your ass is gone… got it?”

Dash gulped. Was she supposed to answer that?

“Well? Come on Skittles, are you a wuss or a warrior?!” he raised his voice. “DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND. ME?”

Dash caught on. What was she standing around and staring for? This was… a REALLY BIG DEAL! She was so shocked that all this was being thrown her way, she didn’t realize the opportunity that was being laid at her hooves! Sure things were going to be harder for her, but… she was being offered personal training from a Wonderbolt that was good enough to outlast two generations beyond his time in the force. This was not only an opportunity… it was an offer… an honor… one HELL of an awesome chance! She gave one strong nod.

“I’ll give it my best shot sir!” she replied vigorously. Silver’s expression didn’t change.

“You better give me more if you want me to be impressed,” he quickly stated. Dash felt a sharp shiver run down her spine, but she refused to show it. “Dash, you have one goal… from now until I decide I’ve taught you all I can. You have to beat me in combat.”

“What?!” Dash blurted out.

“You heard me. You have to beat me. Plain and simple…”

“Um… but… you aren’t wearing any gear…” Dash pointed out. She was wearing the full training armor. Silver… was just in his uniform.

“Don’t need it… especially not against a rookie,” he said harshly. “All you have to worry about is defeating me… absolutely nothing else,” he walked towards Dash and stood right in front of her. He was larger than her, not quite as big as Soarin, but he came close. He lowered his face down into hers. “Or is that too hard for you to understand?”

“N—no sir!” Dash answered, barely holding her ground beneath his presence. She kept a strong expression despite how much he intimidated her. However, Silver saw right through it.

“Are you scared of me?” he narrowed his eyes, his pupils barely showing through the thin slits of his eyelids. The glare was harsh and fierce. Dash could feel herself sweating. She tried as hard as she could to remain composed.

“No! No sir! I’m n—”

Before she could finish Silver pulled back, shifting his body in the same motions and patterns as he did before nearly punching Squall’s head off. It was so fast up close too, Dash barely saw any of the movements before his hoof was careening right towards her face.

“EEE!” she squeaked and shut her eyes tight.

But nothing happened.

Dash slowly opened her eyes and jumped in surprise. Silver’s hoof was less than half an inch away from her eyes. She exhaled and took heavy breaths as her heartbeat quickened. She glanced over at the other squad two members, the three of whom stopped what they were doing, seen Silver throw the punch, and then all sighed in relief when he didn’t actually connect it. Dash quickly turned her head back, looking directly at Silver’s hoof once more.

“Rule number one,” Silver began as he lightly tapped his hoof against Dash’s forehead once. “Never be afraid of your opponent. It doesn’t matter how big, strong, or fast they are… if you fear them, you lose the battle before it even begins,” Silver put his hoof down, but kept his gaze on Dash.

Never be afraid… easier said than done. But was that why, in the past… Dash was never able to best Nightshade? The mere thought of the frightening mare from her past made Dash cringe. That was just it though. She was always terrified of Nightshade, even when she had Misty or Soarin fighting by her side. It always felt like Nightshade was invincible. Was it because Dash was afraid of her from the start?

Dash was broken from her thoughts as Silver pressed his face into hers again. Making sure not to slip up on a lesson Silver had JUST spoken… she did her best to remain poised beneath both his harsh glare, and the slight pressure of him butting heads lightly with her.

“Rule number two…” he spoke. “Intimidation will always win.” He bared his teeth and began snarling quietly. Dash’s eyes were stuck wide open. There was nothing she could do about it. Silver just said not to be afraid of your opponent… well too bad. She was scared shitless by him. “It doesn’t matter if the intimidation is in the form of threatening your opponent… or taking and returning the threat right back at them. Force your will onto your opponent and let them know you will fight… If you tell me you’re going to kill me, I’m going to tell you to just try it… get me?”

Dash nodded, forcing her face to remain stoic.

“Good,” Silver removed his face from Dash’s but barely moved away. There was only about an inch between him. He moved back purely with the intention to allow Dash a better view of the glare he was giving her… which somehow sharpened even further. “By the way… I’m going to break you in half.”

“Wh…” Dash’s demeanor dropped. Her ears drooped and she declined slightly. “What?”

“You deaf or something?” Silver stepped forward, not allowing her to pull away from him. “I’m going to break you in half.”

“Uh…” Dash shivered under his presence. Hold on… she was doing exactly what he said not to do. But… it was so hard. “No… y-you’re not…” she tried to say back, but it was heavily staggered and shaky.

“Was that supposed to convince me?” Silver growled. Dash swallowed and mustered a slight glare.

“No… no you’re not…” it was still weak, but no longer shaky.

“All you’re telling me right now is I could beat you into submission without getting a scratch…” Silver commented harshly. “Convince me, dammit! Tell me I’m not! AND MEAN IT!” he yelled. “So again… I’M. GOING. TO. BREAK. YOU. IN. HALF.”

“No…” Dash gritted her teeth and held her ground. “You’re NOT.” she was scared… but she refused to back down.

“Oh really?” Silver stomped one of his back hooves. The vibration passed through the entire mat. Dash held firm.

“REALLY!” Dash yelled right into his face, stomping her back hoof just as he did. Silver sneered for only an instant.

“Prove it.”

In the blink of an eye, Silver’s hoof was heading for her face again. Dash refused to cower again. Silver’s motion and direction was identical to his first punch. She twisted her body left, falling back-first to her left as Silver’s hoof passed right by her right cheek. Dash quickly pressed her wings to the ground catapulting her body back up. She forced her body to twist back right. This twist was much stronger than the first, spinning her all the way around so the back of her left hoof swung towards the side of Silver’s head. She was aiming for a blind spot… she was going to land a blow!

Silver reached up his right hoof without looking. The back of Dash’s left hoof colliding with the back of his right.

“Argh!” Dash yelped as her hoof bounced. Silver’s body was as hard as a rock! Dash pushed back and regained her hooves. She was up as Silver turned to her. She quickly continued her attack, taking the initiative. She was in the zone, so she aimed right for his face. Silver stepped forward as Dash readied a punch while readying a punch of his own. Dash threw her punch… and just as with Squall, Silver stepped into it, taking the punch to the face while throwing his. Dash’s hoof crashed against his face the same time his punch collided with the cheek guard of Dash’s headpiece.

Dash was sent flying away from him and tumbled to a halt on the mat. She quickly turned over to stand, but Silver had already pinned her to the ground. He lifted up his elbow, and dropped it towards Dash’s face.

Dash shut her eyes.

But again, nothing happened. She cracked her eyelids open to see Silver’s elbow barely an inch from her face. He lightly reached it forward and tapped it against Dash’s forehead.

“Boom,” he said calmly before he released the force he was applying to Dash, stood up from her, and offered her a hoof. “Rule number three…” he began as Dash accepted his hoof and he helped her stand up. “Never go to the ground if you can avoid it. A wall that’s knocked down no longer stands in the way of those it was halting… if you go to the ground, you are giving your opponent a perfect opportunity to knock you out, severely injure you, or worse.”

Dash caught her breath as she contemplated those words.

When she battled Nightshade with Soarin… she was knocked to the ground, and Nightshade drove her hooves into Dash’s back, dislocating her wings.

Everything, absolutely everything Silver was explaining to her was relevant in battles she had fought in the past. She was in awe at both his skill and experience. It was no wonder he was still an active Wonderbolt.

“Whoa!” a new voice suddenly came from the door.

Both Dash and Silver glanced over. Misty Fly was walking through the gym towards them, tugging Fire Streak along behind her.

“The hell…?” Blaze cocked an eyebrow at them as they passed, and Wave moved aside as Misty nearly ploughed right through him.

“Sorry 2nd commander…” Fire formally apologized to Wave as Misty dragged him along.

Dash glanced at Silver as Misty approached. Silver’s eyes narrowed slightly and he grunted as he fixed his eyes on Misty. Misty Fly let go of Fire when she drew near. She walked right up to Silver and stared directly into his glare.

Dash looked between them. Nothing was exchanged for at least half a minute. Not that Misty could talk or anything. Dash stepped back, realizing that something was going on here that she didn’t want to interfere with. The two oldest Wonderbolts were having a stare down… what was it all about?

Suddenly, Silver began making wing and hoof signs to Misty. He knew how to talk to her. Dash wasn’t surprised in the slightest, Silver was capable of many things. His symbols seemed a little shaking and slow compared to Fire and Storm Front, but he was able to speak with her nonetheless.

Dash watched as the two kept making signs between each other. It was calm at first. They did so without much expression. Then suddenly, Silver glared and his motions became harsher. Misty glared right back without hesitation and her signs became rougher as well. Dash backed away from the two and slowly made her way around towards Fire as Misty and Silver continued to ‘argue’ silently.

“Uh… hey Fire…” Dash nudged him. “What are they saying?” Dash asked. She only remembered a few basic symbols in the sign language. Fire sighed and shook his head.

“Misty wants to take you somewhere… Silver is not having it. Silver is angry she interrupted… Misty just told him to shove it up his—” Fire stopped and his eyes widened. “I’m not repeating that one…”

“Take me somewhere?” Dash glanced back at Misty as she made a few harsh motions with her hooves followed by she and Silver butting heads and glaring into each other’s faces. Fire and Dash both took a step back as the two glared and bared their teeth at one another at point blank. Fire and Dash stood perfectly still as Silver and Misty held their positions for at least a whole minute. Wave, Blaze, and Winds had all stopped what they were doing as well to view the stand-off.

Eventually, Silver’s glare retreated to a normal stern expression. He removed his face from Misty’s and sighed while shaking his head. He turned away from her and gave her an single, exasperated wave with his hoof.

Misty took a step back and gave him one solid nod as she puffed her chest out in victory.

Dash couldn’t believe it. Did Misty just… assert herself over SILVER LINING?! As amazing as Silver was… yet again, Misty Fly proved to Dash that there was no pony out there quite as amazing as her. Before Dash could realize what was going on. Misty was fiddling with the straps on Dash’s armor.

“Whoa!” Dash yelped in surprise as Misty began removing the armor from Dash. Misty looked up at Fire and made a stern hoof motion towards Dash. Fire reluctantly nodded.

“I apologize Miss Dash…” he said as he began helping, by removing the arm guards for her. “Apparently this all has something to do with Soarin, Misty is just dragging me along to—”

“SOARIN?!” Dash’s ears stood up. Misty was trying to take her to Soarin? Why didn’t she say so in the first place?!

Oh… right… but, Soarin?! Did they need her for something?!

Dash suddenly reached up and undid the headpiece as quickly as she could. She ended up ripping free from Misty’s and Fire’s grip as she frantically removed the rest of the armor. She looked at Misty and nodded. Misty smiled happily and made a head motion towards the exit. Misty grabbed Fire’s arm and yanked him along as Dash followed close behind.

Wave, Blaze, and Winds all looked back at Silver incredulously as the door closed behind Dash. They too, were in awe that Misty had coerced Silver.

“The HELL are you all staring at!?” Silver growled at them. They quickly went back to training as Silver continued grumbled to himself.

Dash suddenly felt very nervous as she followed Misty and Fire up the last steps to the third floor. She had been hoping for a chance to go to Soarin. She had so many bad feelings… the heart jumps, the nightmare… she felt like they were all connected to Soarin, especially after she found out the little bit of information. How her presence calmed the vigorous magic within him.

They stopped outside Soarin’s door. Misty pointed at Fire and made a motion that looked like knocking. Fire obeyed, stepping forward and knocking on Soarin’s door. He gave the door two knocks before a purple aura surrounded the doorknob and the door opened by itself.

“Yikes!” Dash yelped as Misty quickly pushed her from behind into Soarin’s room with Fire following right behind.

The first thing Dash saw upon entering was Discord standing beside Soarin’s bed. Why was he there? Whatever the reason, Dash’s focus was hit by an oncoming train… as Soarin came into view.

Dash gasped. She couldn’t speak… what she saw before her was… frightening.

Soarin was laying on his back in bed. He was panting, sweating, and clutching his sheets. His eyes were shut tight, he moaned and groaned constantly, and he looked like he was in so much pain. There were two small purple rings of chaos magic circling around his horn. Discord was holding one of his hands out towards it as if he was helping contain whatever was ailing Soarin.

“Well it’s about time little miss Dashie…” Discord huffed as he glanced at her. “Really, I thought you’d be here in an instant after the past couple nights…”

“Wait, what?!” Dash looked to him.

“You’ve had a bad feeling about Soarin for two days… and did nothing? For shame…” Discord shook his head back and forth in disapproval. Dash looked back at Soarin, then to Discord again. She glared hesitantly, not quite sure if lashing out was the right thing to do… but even after her little disagreement with Soarin, something challenging the way she felt about him, felt so… heartless.

“I had no idea! How was I supposed to know something was wrong?!” she spat at Discord, shaking slightly. “We’ve…!” she looked away and grimaced. “We’ve been…”

“Apart,” Discord finished for her. “In more ways than one, I might add…” he switched the magic to his left hand so he could turn and look directly at Dash. “You had a fight… one that I believe you started…” he glanced at Soarin. “He didn’t like it and lashed back… I don’t blame him. You were being quite irrational…”

“I…” Dash’s glare faded and was replaced with remorse.

“Oh, cut that out. I know you’ve already come around… but you still haven’t made the time? Like I said, for shame…” he shook his head again. That really put Dash off. Her glare returned and she was ready to give him a piece of her mind.

“What the hell?! What was I supposed to do?!” she snapped. Fire Streak backed away slightly, but Misty remained still, waiting for the two to finish. Dash was letting Discord have a piece of her mind, but Discord stood perfectly still and composed. “I couldn’t just… just…” Dash looked down. She had duties, she had responsibilities. “Soarin wouldn’t have liked it if I skipped out of training for his sake!”

“That’s because he’s a stubborn ass too,” Discord cut her off.

“But… But I… I couldn’t…”

“Dash…” Soarin suddenly spoke. Dash’s wings flared out and she gasped as Soarin’s voice made everything else in the room stop. “Rainbow… Dash…”

“S…Soarin?” Dash completely refocused all of her attention on Soarin. She came around to the right side of his bed opposite of Discord. She put her hooves up on the bed and stared at him with worry.

Discord looked over towards Misty, who was already looking back at him. Discord gave her a nod. She returned the nod, reached over and pulled Fire over to her.

“Stay back for a moment Dash,” Discord suddenly warned her as he reached both of his hands towards Soarin’s forehead and hovered them above the horn. He focused his eyes on his hands as a bright glow of chaos magic surrounded them. There was a weak flash of light that spread out from his hands before it slowly condensed inward. The light collapsed between his hands and completely surrounded the horn.

Discord slowly moved his hands away. The two circles were gone, but instead a faint purple aura surrounded the horn. Soarin ceased panting and groaning. His body relaxed and the pain left his face. Then he slowly opened his eyes. They were bloodshot with heavy eyelids… as if he hadn’t slept in days. Discord reached down and cupped the back of Soarin’s neck with one hand, while shuffling his other beneath Soarin’s back.

“Sit up,” Discord ordered as he applied gentle pressure to assist. Soarin blinked multiple times as he obeyed. He looked really out of it, or at least very fatigued. It was strange. Soarin had gone for so long never feeling tired… but was the magic putting so much strain on his body that it was draining him completely? “Slowly now,” Discord eventually got Soarin to sit upright in bed. “It’s not polite to snooze when you have company, you know,” Discord snickered.

Soarin shook his head out lightly and rubbed his eyes. He glanced up at Discord, and then down at Misty and Fire.

“Misty Fly…? Fire Streak…?” he kept staring at them. Misty suddenly rolled her eyes, stomped her left hoof on the floor and sharply pointed towards Soarin’s left. Soarin blinked and slowly turned his head.

He looked right into the concerned eyes of Rainbow Dash. The shock that ran through Soarin was almost visible. His eyes shot open and his weary wobbling ceased as his body stiffened up in surprise.

“Dash?” he said her name quietly.

“Soarin…” she said his back, barely audible.

The two remained still and stared into each other’s eyes for seconds that felt like hours. It was as if neither could muster any words… both of them were caught quite off guard. The moment ended very anti-climactically… with both of them averting their eyes from each other in a mix of shame and being unprepared.

What was to be said? They had both thought about it… but now there were other factors involved. Things had happened. Apologies were needed, but what about Soarin’s current state? What was to be addressed first?

“Oh kill me, I think my brain is going crawl out of my ear and beat me to death with its cortex...” Discord broke the silence and looked towards Misty. Discord snapped his fingers, causing a small pop of chaos energy to flare in front of her. Misty blinked, shook her head out and looked towards Discord. He rotated one of his hands, as if telling her to ‘go ahead’ before he backed up, reclined against the wall, and crossed his arms. As he leaned, he passed right through the wall, disappearing completely.

Misty grabbed Fire’s arm and pulled him along as she moved directly towards Dash. Soarin’s eyes moved to Misty as she approached. Misty reached out to Dash and turned her so she had Misty in plain sight. With both Soarin and Dash looking at her, Misty looked at Fire and nodded. Fire sighed.

“I shall translate for Misty Fly…” he said unenthusiastically before giving a signal to Misty he was ready.

Misty nodded in satisfaction before turning and glaring at both Soarin and Dash. They both stared at her, confused as to what Misty was planning. Misty proceeded to make multiple gestures with her hooves and wings while looking directly at Soarin and Dash. They kept their eyes locked on her as she made the swift motions with a clear purpose. Fire cleared his throat, and then began to translate.

“Pardon me, but this is what she is saying…” he clarified before getting into it. “I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you two…” Fire looked uncomfortable repeating some of the words Misty was trying to communicate, but he did it anyway per her request. “You are both being ridiculously stupid. I know the whole story… and seriously, what the hell? Take a good look at yourselves… a good, long look at yourselves. I want you to look deep inside and ask… are you being reasonable?” As Fire spoke, Soarin and Dash both glanced at each other at the exact same time. They both quickly looked away and looked down before returning their eyes to the mercy of Misty Fly. Fire continued to translate.

“Forget the magic and forget everything else. Look at your lives! Look back at what you two have had together!” Fire tried his best to add emphasis where Misty seemed to make more vigorous motions. “Is this any way to handle a simple disagreement? Are you suddenly never going to speak to each other again? I can’t stand watching you two be like this! I’ve rarely seen two ponies who care about each other as much as you two do… and you’re going to let stubbornness get in the way? I refuse to let you two do this to one another. I don’t care if it’s not my business…” Fire kept his eyes on Misty as she ‘talked.’ Misty had a strange look in her eyes. One that could only be described as: ‘worried.’ Fire kept up.

“Don’t let something so special end because neither of you can admit you’re wrong. Don’t make such a terrible mistake. I implore you…” Fire kept translating as he kept his eyes on Misty. This was… beautiful. Misty’s words were so sincere and honest. She was doing everything in her power to save what she thought was near perfect love. It was something only Fire could fully see. The amount of passion and effort she put into each motion. She was going all out for Soarin and Dash, it was unlike anything he had ever seen. “So please… please, please, please…” Fire continued as he kept his eyes on Misty. “Put aside your pride… there’s no need for it when you’re in love.”

Soarin and Dash glanced at each other again. This time their eyes lingered on each other before going back to Misty. As for Fire, he was seeing a side of Misty he had never seen before. Misty was… literally an expert on what it means to love somepony. Fire was caught off guard by it. In fact, he almost felt honored that Misty wanted him to translate something so powerful.

“Forget pride… you’re supposed to be vulnerable to the one you love. Don’t be stupid… I beg of you,” Fire looked to Misty as if she was supposed to continue, but that’s where she stopped. It almost looked like she was slightly shaking.

Misty looked at Dash, and then at Soarin. The look in her eyes was sincere.

She was right.

Misty was absolutely right.

Both Soarin and Dash thought over Misty’s message carefully. They were being stupid, plain and simple. Their dispute, from the beginning, was irrational. Dash lashed out at Soarin, and he lashed back. The two were stuck with their pride at the helm, assuming the other owed them an apology. After how much they had been through and how many moments they had shared… were they really doing this?

This wasn’t the time to be at odds. Especially with the current circumstances.

Soarin and Dash both turned and looked at each other. As they did Misty smiled and bounced subtly while moving closer to Fire. Soarin and Dash averted their eyes, but their bodies remained facing each other with Soarin sitting up in his bed, and Dash standing just off to his left.

Then, at the same time, they both looked up at the other confidently.

“I’m sorry Soarin—”

“Dash I should apologize—”

They both stopped, stared into each other’s eyes, and said nothing. They were both so worried about who was supposed to apologize first… and they just apologized to each other at the same time.

Really…

Truly…

What the hell were they doing?

Dash looked down briefly, before looking into Soarin’s eyes while keeping her head tilted slightly down. She put her hooves up on the bed while reaching her left hoof towards him.

Soarin instinctively reached his left hoof towards her… and the two locked hooves while looking into each other’s eyes. They could almost see the regret between them. How? How could they have so easily been blown apart by a simple argument? Misty was 100% right. They were being completely stupid.

Soarin and Dash didn’t throw themselves at each other. They didn’t embrace, nor did they kiss. They simply held hooves and stared deeply into each other’s eyes, trying to figure out what the hell they were thinking.

Fire sighed as he watched the two lovers reunited. Great. It worked. Hooray.

He flinched as he felt a yank on his arm. He looked at Misty as she made a head motion to the door. Fire looked at her in confusion. Misty caught on and pouted, pointing at Soarin and Dash. Fire glanced at them before looking back to Misty. She pointed towards the door.

“Oh…” Fire said to himself as he realized Misty wanted to give Soarin and Dash privacy. He nodded to Misty and followed her as they left.

“I guess that’s that…” Fire mumbled to himself, knowing full well Misty couldn’t hear him. Soarin and Dash were given a good talking to… and now they could go right back to how they were. In love, and nothing between them. If anything Fire got to help Misty, so for that he was happy.

Fire turned to Misty with the intention of giving a smile and making a few quick gestures, but the moment he faced her he was nearly knocked over as she dove at him and gave him an incredibly tight hug. Fire’s white face turned the same color as his mane as Misty bounced up and down against him.

Apparently… she was ecstatic.

By the time Fire had enough nerves firing in his brain to move and hug her back, she had already put him at arm’s length. The bright smile never left her face as she put her right wing to her mouth and extended it towards him to say ‘thank you.’

Fire gave a weak smile in return while still lightly blushing. He made ready to reply, but Misty caught him off guard again.

She kissed him on the cheek… again. Fire became a wide eyed statue on the spot. His face disappeared in a shade of red as Misty pulled back, still smiling. She lifted both her eyebrows comically at his reaction before smiling and shaking slightly, which would be giggling if she had a voice. She tipped her head to the side, looking at him as he continued to remain still. She playfully stuck her tongue out at him and gave him a wink, before she turned to leave. As she turned she whisked her tail up and lightly bushed it gently against the bottom of his chin before making her way to the stairs. Before she disappeared from view, Fire swore he saw a faint shade of red on the side of her face.

Fire was frozen… as ironic as it sounded, he literally found no strength to move. Misty just literally flirted the SHIT out of him. He was so worried about how he felt about her… he didn’t even think to consider that maybe she…

“SNRK… pffff!”

“Shhh… quiet! He’ll hear you, silly!”

Two voices brought Fire back to reality. Two voices he knew very well. He flattened his ears and brow and rolled his eyes as he looked over his shoulder. A few doors down, peeking out from his room, were none other than Surprise and Lightning Streak. Lightning was low to the ground, and Surprise above him.

“You can come out now…” Fire said, annoyed. Lightning stepped out, as soon as he moved, Surprise yelped and fell to the floor. Lightning looked back at her before smirking at his brother again.

“Bro… you SURE she doesn’t want you?” his sneer grew larger as he spoke.

“I…” Fire cleared his throat. “Well… Misty Fly seems quite interested, but…”

“NO BUTS!” Surprised appeared in front of his face. “Except Misty’s butt! And your thinking about it riiiiiiiiight…” Surprise slowly moved her hoof to Fire’s forehead before lightly resting it upon him. “Now.”

“Dammit...” Fire scrunched his face and blushed.

“And now…” Lightning walked up behind him and placed both his hooves on the sides of Fire’s head. “You’re thinking about more than that!”

“GAH!” Fire flared his wings out and pushed them both away as they burst out laughing. He gave them both quizzical looks. “Just what were you two doing in there anyway?” he tried to fire back. Surprise instantly scoffed and gave him a very over exaggerated shrug that lifted her off the ground slightly.

“Oh please… yeah sure, we were TOTALLY banging in there…” she said sarcastically. Lightning blinked and looked at her.

“Wait… we were?” he asked. She flattened her eyes and stare at him incredulously.

“HA!” she guffawed. She took a very deep breath and puffed her cheeks out. As she did her face became angular like a stallion’s and her mane poofed up and became jagged. “You wish you could have some o’ this!” she said in a voice nearly identical to Lightning’s. Lightning just shook his head.

“That’s cold…”

Fire had stopped paying attention to them altogether as Surprise continued to mock Lightning. He had his eyes locked on the stairs where he last saw Misty. He reached up and gently placed a hoof over where she had kissed him.

He had a lot to think about again… but maybe… this time it wouldn’t be so complicated.

“Now don’t get comfortable you two…” Discord reappeared in Soarin’s room before either of them could say anything else. Soarin and Dash were about to share a soft… still rather unsure hug, but Discord had cut them off long before they could get near.

“Discord… really?” Soarin commented. He was still feeling a little out of it, but he was awake enough to realize and try to do something in their current situation.

“Don’t give me that,” Discord glared at him while putting his hands on his hips… or whatever constituted as his hips. “We still have a very important matter to solve and I’ve been doing you too many favors. Luna would have my head on a silver platter if she knew how much I was helping you… but Celestia demanded it… so I will follow through.”

“Celestia?!” Dash perked up at the name. “Wait… where is she? Twilight told me she hadn’t heard from her in almost a year!”

“That is none of your concern… in fact I demand that you don’t worry about it, because I need your help… yes, you little Dash,” he pointed directly at her. Dash blinked in surprise.

This was… weird. Discord had gone about three sentences without a pun or practical joke. He was moving and speaking with a purpose. Doing something the way it was meant to be, which was odd for a god of chaos to do.

“Me?” Dash pointed to herself as she glanced at Soarin.

“Yes, you.” Discord nodded sharply before looking at Soarin. He approached the bed and pointed directly at Soarin’s false horn. “In case you haven’t noticed… my magic is the only thing keeping Soarin from being overwhelmed. The chaos magic is holding the dark magic at bay. I’m not allowed to interfere in the lives of other ponies, but I refuse to let such a powerful magic run rampant. Under my rules as a god… I cannot fix it. That’s why I wanted you here, Dash,” he explained as he made his way around the bed to her. “Your imprint on the magic is strong… you have an immunity to it… as well as the ability to push it back. The magic fears you because you were the main catalyst of sealing it away. Captain Spitfire did her share… but it is a mere fraction compared to the impact you had.”

“So… are you going to tell me or keep beating around the bush?” Dash asked exasperatedly.

“Dash, he’s right…” Soarin suddenly spoke up. He had to tell her. She deserved to know… because he knew she could help him. Dash looked to Soarin as he continued. “Dash… it hurts… it’s been unbearable… the magic nearly took control of me a couple of days ago. I’ve never felt more pain in my life…” Soarin glanced up at the purple glow surrounding his horn. “If Discord hadn’t stepped in and stopped me, I don’t know what would have happened. Please… listen to him and do what he says…” Soarin reached over and clutched her hoof. “Please…”

Dash looked down at Soarin’s hoof as it held hers. She could feel his grip, the amount of pressure he was applying. He was silently begging her to comply. If what Soarin said was true… she owed Discord for even being able to see him right now… and feel his hoof linked with hers. She looked back at Discord.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked with a purpose.

“First I must ask you…” Discord slithered up and behind her while grabbing her chin and turning her head back towards Soarin. “Just how far… are you willing to go for him?”

Dash locked eyes with Soarin. Soarin was staring right back at her. Was this a trick question? They had an argument… but as Misty had just pointed out to them, was that any reason to lose the one who truly made you feel complete? Dash grabbed Discord’s arm and yanked his hand off her chin. She looked at him sharply and glared.

“I’d fly around Equestria twice while beating your face in,” she snarled at Discord. “NOW WHAT DO YOU NEED ME TO DO?!” she repeated louder. Discord smirked as he slinked his snake body up behind Soarin while making a hand motion towards the horn.

“The only thing keeping the magic from destroying him inside out… is my magic,” he said while poking the tip of the horn. “I’m already doing more than I’m typically allowed. Soarin MUST learn to control the relentless power of the magic on his own. When you first came in, I purposely had a weakened version of this spell encircling the horn… because I didn’t want him to become too used to my assistance. I CAN’T assist him at all times. Either he controls it… or he dies,” Discord said very bluntly.

Dash’s eyes widened as Discord finished. Her grip on Soarin’s hoof tightened instinctively. Discord chuckled as Dash glared at him.

“Oh Dashie, my dear… that’s precisely why I brought you here!” he chuckled as he slinked back over to Dash. “I’m confident your presence will give Soarin the ability to master the magic… to chain it down… to show it who is boss so to speak! You think I actually want to kill him? I’m hurt you would think so lowly of me…” Discord disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the bed. Soarin looked to him.

“So… you’re going to let it go…?” Soarin asked with a hint of worry in his voice.

“Yes… I am,” Discord nodded. Soarin gulped and took a deep breath before turning to Dash. He smiled at her before looking back at Discord.

“With Dashie at my side, I can do anything,” he stated confidently. Dash felt her heart pump with glee as those words left his mouth. In their time apart… she had almost forgotten what a single word from him could do for her.

“I hope you’re right about that…” Discord said with hint of concern. He reached his hand towards the horn, but looked at Dash before he did anything else. “Listen carefully… both of you,” he glanced between them. “I’m going to remove my barrier preventing the magic from flowing… once I do, there’s no telling what might happen,” he looked specifically at Soarin. “This will hurt… believe me. The magic is going to try and control you the instant I take my magic down. It is up to you to make it behave. Use everything you’ve been taught thus far. I know you only have the basics… but we have no other choice.”

“I understand…” Soarin nodded reluctantly. Discord looked towards Dash.

“Your presence is essential to this being successful,” he addressed her. “The magic is afraid of you… be ready to do whatever you must to remind it of your presence,” he explained. “Soarin is going to be exposed to a tremendous amount of pain… it is a pain he has already felt… but it is a pain you can help ease. Don’t forget that,” Discord finished and turned back to Soarin. “Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be…” Soarin nodded. Dash clutched Soarin’s hoof tighter as Discord focused on the horn.

She would help him. She didn’t care about anything else. Not even her own well being. She just cared about him and she would do whatever it took to help him.

“May fortune favor the foolish…” Discord mumbled to himself as a purple aura surrounded his hands. The magic surrounded both his hands and the horn, joining the auras together. Discord took a deep breath and exhaled…

And then he ripped his hands away from Soarin… taking the aura around the horn with him.

Soarin’s eyes snapped open, nearly bulging out of his head as the comfort surrounding his head vanished in an instant… and was replaced, by pure… excruciating… agony.

“AHH!!!!” Soarin cried out. His head flying forward towards his lap as Dash held on tight to his hoof.

“Soarin?!” Dash yelled in concern as his grip on her hoof tightened considerably.

Soarin grunted and groaned as his body twitched and writhed. His eyes slammed shut, but faint trails of dark blue light escaped between them as his horn began to glow as well.

From off to the side Discord watched carefully. He already had chaos magic swirling around his hands, ready to act in case Soarin proved unable to control the magic. If he couldn’t do so even with Dash beside him… there would be consequences… MAJOR consequences.

“RGHHRR!!!!! AHHH!!!! AARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!” Soarin cried out as his neck arched backward. His eyes and mouth forced open and bright flashes of light shot out from them.

“SOARIN!!!!” Dash yelled, but soon grimaced as a sudden prickling feeling made its way along her nerves and through her body. It was coming from her arm… and from the hoof that was clutching Soarin’s. Before she could figure it out, a sudden force seemed to rush from Soarin’s body into her. It was only a small pricking sensation at first… but then like dam breaking, an enormous amount of pain rushed into Dash’s body. So much that she couldn’t hold on for more than three seconds. “AAAAAHHH!!!” She cried out as she let go of Soarin and forced herself backward.

Her back slammed against the wall behind her. She reached up her right hoof, clutching her left as the pain slowly subsided. Her eyes snapped open and she looked at Soarin. That was… an unbearable amount of pain that just rushed through her. She had only felt it for a total of three seconds before she ripped her body free.

Was Soarin…

Feeling that pain constantly?

Oh god…

OH GOD…

“AHHHHH!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Soarin cried out as a dark blue aura surrounded him. “RRRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!” He lurched and flailed about, his body straining in directions beyond his control. “AAAAAAAH!!!! D…DAAAAAASSHHH!!!!!” he suddenly called out her name as the glow intensified around him and a bubble of dark blue light suddenly enveloped him.

“Hmph…” Discord huffed. That was it. Game over. Dash couldn’t hold on. Now there was no way Soarin was going to gain control. The magic had already flared out. Discord stepped forward, ready to do what he ultimately… didn’t want to do.

He had to kill Soarin.

As long as the magic was still bound to him, killing Soarin would destroy the magic completely. Discord didn’t know what Celestia was thinking when she decided to put such a burden on Soarin. Sure, it was to save his life and ensure he would be around to take part in his future… but that was wishful thinking. Discord had to kill him. Celestia was clearly mistaken in her choice.

Discord reached his hands forward as the bubble of dark magic expanded around Soarin. The chaos magic spurted and flared around Discord’s arms as he reached for the bubble.

However… as soon as Discord’s hands touched the dark magic… an invisible force lashed out at him.

“What!?” Discord exclaimed in surprise as he found himself being battered by waves of dark energy. He tried to push back against them, but no matter what he did, he was slowly forced backwards. “No… NO!!!!” Discord yelled out as he tried to force his way through the dark magic with all his might.

This wasn’t right… he was able to overpower the dark magic before. Why couldn’t he do the same now? Was the magic… was the entity… the form of the power within Soarin… did it adapt to Discord’s magic? While such a circumstance seemed unreal… it was happening right before their eyes. Discords magic appeared to be ineffective. In fact, it was being countered. It was as if the magic within Soarin had learned from a previous defeat… and now could not be affected by chaos magic.

This was bad.

This was REALLY bad.

Discord strained himself against the magic as it suddenly grew in size and power. It forced Discord all the way to the wall. He held his arms out and winced as he struggled to keep his arms outstretched. It wasn’t long before the force pounded against him, and held him firmly against the wall.

Dash watched the whole thing. She was still with her back to the wall, and still clutching her hoof.

So much pain.

The pain transferred to her through Soarin was unlike anything she had ever felt. Yet she was staring at Soarin as he wailed, screamed, and cursed. She watched as the magic swirled around him… as the magic forced Discord back… and as Soarin called out her name in despair… she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to do something.

He was truly feeling so much pain? He was being tortured with the pain that Dash could barely hold onto for three seconds? She couldn’t stand idly by any longer. She had to act.

And she had to act NOW.

“SOARIN!!!!” Dash yelled out his name as she pressed her wings to the wall and pushed herself towards him. She braced herself as her body collided with the bubble of magic that had repelled Discord… but to her surprise, she passed right through it. No resistance… not even a sting. It was as if the magic didn’t know how to push her away. Perhaps it was up to her after all.

Dash moved towards him as unseen forces flared and lashed out. The pure pressure of the power surrounding him was making her steps difficult as she shielded herself and reached for him.

Tear were pouring from his eyes. Dash felt her chest tighten upon seeing such an awful sight. Soarin’s eyes were englulfed in a dark blue light… but his neck was arched back, the tears ran like a river down his cheeks and dripped form his chin… and he yelled and screamed her name.

She refused to let up. She would never ever leave him again.

Dash reached out, forcing her body completely towards Soarin. She landed on the bed in front of him, and wrapped her arms around him completely.

For a moment she felt nothing… then she saw the glow surround her limbs as well…

Followed by pain…

Good sweet Celestia… pain… SO MUCH PAIN.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” Dash wailed as the agony crept into her body and filled every corner of it. It was unbelievable… and unbearable… was this the pain Soarin was feeling right now? Was this pain on his shoulders all this time? Was she… avoiding him while this amount of pain was upon him? “RRRRGHHH!!!!!” Dash tensed her body and sucked it up… HARD. If this was truly the pain Soarin was feeling… she refused to let him feel it alone.

Soarin could feel it. The pain had lessened. He could barely see because of the light pelting his eyes, but the pain was suddenly cut in half… which could only mean that somepony was sharing his burden. He forced his head down and slammed his eyes shut. The dark blue light squeaked from between them as he tried to regain his focus.

“AAAAAAHH! RGGH!!!! ARGGGGGGGGH!!!!! OOOOOOWWWW!!!!!!!” a voice beside him cried out. He knew the voice… and he could feel warmth against him. It was Rainbow Dash. Dash was there. The magic’s hold on him had weakened considerably… but that only meant it was attacking Dash.

Soarin opened his eyes slowly, the faint dark glow still emanating from them. it wasn’t too bright… he could actually make out a few things around him.

His eyes landed on Dash as he slowly turned his head. She was clutching her body to his. He could see the magic flowing from him to her. He could see tears squeaking from her eyes… but most of all… he could hear her wailing in pain.

And that…

He REFUSED to stand for.

“HRRRRGHHH!!!!!!!!” Soarin suddenly grunted as he slammed his eyes shut and forced his mind to focus. He hurt all over… but he didn’t care. Dash was in pain and sharing his burden… he had to make that end. “LISTEN… TO… ME!!!!!!” Soarin managed to say as the glow faded from his eyes to reveal his absurdly determined gaze. “GET… AWAY… FROM HER!!!!!!” Soarin belted as he eyed Rainbow Dash.

A sharp yellow glow appeared around Soarin’s horn.

Yellow.

A color than had yet to appear from it.

As the yellow glow intensified, it began to suck in all the dark blue light around him. The aura slowly retreated from around Dash… and slowly pulled the bubble of dark magic back towards Soarin.

“DON’T… THINK... YOU CAN… RUN FREE!!!!” Soarin yelled as if berating the very magic that poured from him. “I WILL… CONTROL YOU!!!!” he tightened his grip around Rainbow Dash as he strained his mind to the limit. The yellow light slowly forced the dark blue light back into the horn. “HHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Soarin grunted as the last bit of blue light got sucked into the horn… and was held down by the yellow light.

“AHH!!!!! HA… ha…” Soarin relaxed his body as the dark magic no longer lingered around him. Dash’s grip on him lightened as she leaned back and wobbled in her spot on the mattress.

Discord removed himself from the wall and held a hand to his head as he shook out his noggin.

“That…” Discord blinked as he tried to comprehend what happened. “What WAS that…?”

“Uhh…” Dash shuddered as she sat beside Soarin. Soarin was panting and wheezing, a hoof pressed over his heart as the beat slowly calmed down.

He felt… good?

Scratch that, he felt amazing!

But…

Soarin looked towards Dash. She was shaking, hugging herself, and whimpering. She had felt a good amount of the pain he was experiencing… he didn’t blame her.

Dash shivered and clung her arms to herself as she slowly looked up to Soarin. She felt a light dripping on her arms… it was her own tears falling from her eyes. She had never felt anything more painful in her life… and if she was correct… she only absorbed SOME of the pain that was rushing through Soarin.

How…? How did he handle so much agony? She stared into his eyes, his face stained with his tears much like hers.

Soarin looked back at her, relieved that he was able to control the magic… somehow. He had no idea how he did it… but all he wanted to do was save Dash. Funny how the one you love can push you beyond your abilities.

Dash bit her bottom lip as the memory of the pain she had just experienced was very present in her head.

Soarin had been feeling this pain…

No… she had absorbed some of it… Soarin was feeling TWICE the pain she had just felt… apparently over a longer period of time than just the past couple of days…

And she…

She hadn’t gone to him? She avoided him because of their little dispute?

Tears began to well up in Dash’s eyes again as the truth of the matter struck home.

Soarin… the stallion she loved despite the snag they had recently run into… was in an incredible amount of pain… and she had avoided him…

She never felt like more of a bitch in her life.

“What…” Dash shook her head, whipping the tears from her face before staring directly into the concerned eyes of Soarin. “What is…” she sniffled sharply and the tears began to flow harder. “What is WRONG with me?!” she blurted out as she gritted her teeth, scrunched her face, and the tears flowed without anything in their way.

“Dash!” Soarin called out to her as he reached for her.

“Soarin!” Dash instantly clambered towards him over the mattress.

Dash reached her arms around him and dug her face into his chest. Soarin instantly felt the wetness of her face against his body and quickly wrapped his arms around her, cradling her body with his left hoof and pressing his right against the back of her head.

They were one… and together again… but oh, how tragic it was for them to find each other in such pain. Something truly dreadful… made them realize how much they truly meant to each other.

Tears from Soarin’s eyes dripped from his face and onto Dash’s head as he pressed his chin and nose into her prismatic mane that bunched up beneath the pressure of his hoof against her head.

He held her as tight as he could.

And she held him with just as much strength.

It was becoming clear just how important they were to each other. Misty’s message to them had struck home even harder now. They needed one another… not only in love… but literally in life. How could they have ever been apart… even if it was just a small quarrel? How could they do that to one another…? They needed one another.

Dash vowed to herself right there… especially after the horrifying image of Soarin screaming and writhing… that she would never leave his side again. The stallion that meant so much to her.

Soarin did the same. He loved Dash with all his heart… he’d never let anything get between them again if he couldn’t help it. It was clear she had an impact on his magic… he wouldn’t have been able to contain it with the newfound yellow magic if not for seeing her share his burden. Without her… he felt as though he couldn’t truly exist.

Neither said a single word.

They sat there… and cried as they held onto each other. Never wanting to let go ever again.

Off to the side, Discord was not so happy. His hands twitched and strained as he glared and gritted his teeth.

The magic within Soarin had literally overpowered Discord. That wasn’t right. Discord had not foreseen such an incident. Sure Dash had helped Soarin repress the magic… and whatever that yellow magic was… managed to absorb the dark magic… but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t satisfy Discord.

The dark magic had somehow become stronger… to the point where Discord’s chaos magic couldn’t fight it. He had to do something… nothing was allowed to be more powerful than a god… it was worse than heresy… it was against the very laws of reality.

The chaos magic sprung to life around Discords arms. He snarled at Soarin… ready to do what he felt he needed to do to keep the balance of reality in tact…

But then he stopped.

He took a good… long… look at Soarin and Rainbow Dash.

His glare faded. His anger subsided. His magic dissipated.

Love.

Discord felt the need to destroy the magic… but…

“TCH!” Discord scoffed as he turned his back to the embracing couple. He lingered for another second before he disappeared into thin air, leaving Soarin and Dash alone.

Neither Soarin, nor Dash had let up their grip on the other. Dash’s tears had thoroughly drenched his fur around his chest just as his tears had made her mane quite damp. But neither of them gave a damn.

For two weeks they had been apart and denied themselves the satisfaction of the true bond they shared. Having the other close after two weeks… felt like they had been apart for hundreds of years.

Soarin could feel the warmth of her body as she clung to him.

Dash could feel his calm heartbeat from within his chest.

Never again.

Never would they be so stupid ever again. Especially with the way things were. Soarin meant the world and more to Dash… the fact that she almost lost him after two weeks of a dumb quarrel… it was almost too much for her to bear. Losing Soarin would be no different than killing herself… and she was sure Soarin felt the same way about her.

And she would be right.

“Dash…” Soarin spoke. His eyes still shut, the tears still flowing, and the strength of his embrace on her unwavering. “I love you Rainbow Dash… I love you and I promise I’ll never be so damn stupid again…” he felt her shift, but she remained nestled in his arms.

“I love you too Soarin… dammit, I swear I love you with every inch of my being…” she sniffled and shook her head against his chest as her tears continued to fall. “I’ll never ever leave you again… I swear it on the element of loyalty… I will never… leave you…” she swallowed and squeezed him tighter. “If I ever do something dumb like this again… please punch me in the face… I don’t know what the hell I was thinking…” she said as her sniffles continued endlessly.

Neither said anything else.

The two merely sat and held onto each other.

The tears refused to stop falling from both of their eyes.

But they didn’t care.

All that mattered was that they truly understood what was at stake… and what they had to do to never lose the incredible bond, and the unbreakable love that they had come to cherish.

Art by: Scootafail/Chiweee

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Oy my brain... it is mush...

so here it is... the three chapter long special. Sorry for the longer wait... i hope the length and content of the chapter makes up for it.

Also a special thanks to Scootafail for the AMAZING pic... and to Kestrel for forcing his way through this so we could release it tonight.

Next chapter? Yikes... i think im gonna take tomorrow off of writing xD

So i dunno, whenever my brain cools down, i'll pump out another chapter (meaning i dunno... knowing me it could be two days cause im weird like that.)

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

(i need to go to bed... >_<)

Chapter 69 (Part 2 Finale (Section1: The Banquet))

(For those who have not seen my blogs, I, once again, underestimated the length of my finale. It would have been literally 50K some words had i stuck to the plan. I decided to break it into two "halves" so the readers can absorb everything from the first half before proceeding to the second. The second half is already has 10K words written, so it will be out soon.)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
Chapter 69 (Part 2 Finale (Section 1: The Banquet)):

“So this is our idea of a ‘banquet’ set up?” Soarin wondered out loud as he and Fleetfoot walked around the setup in the battle dome. “Plastic chairs and tables in a wide open dome stadium with a padded floor and a small wooden podium…”

“What did you expect?” Fleetfoot shrugged.

“I thought we might TRY this year,” Soarin answered with a chuckle.

“Face it, princess, we’re not the fancy types,” Fleetfoot nudged him in the side. Soarin rolled his eyes.

“Wow, you almost went a whole week without calling me that,” he shot back.

“I know right? I must be off my game,” Fleetfoot giggled as Spitfire came into view.

“Oh, there she is,” Soarin reacted as he saw Spitfire approach the podium while carrying a few plaques. She added the stack alongside three others. The plaques were the symbol of recognition given to all those who made it through recruit training. Something to congratulate them and officially welcome them into the Wonderbolt ranks. Since the reserve was just as much a part of the team as the rest, they would all be receiving a plaque as well. They were simple brass plates fastened to a wooden frame. Upon the plate, the Wonderbolt insignia and a few words and the name of the pony it was being given to, proving the right to be called a Wonderbolt. Five of these plaques had a silver plate instead of brass. These were given to the five chosen to be a recruit. Soarin wanted desperately to take a peek to see if Dash made it, but he was sure she did. Only Silver and Spitfire knew who made it, and after all that had happened, they would be stupid not to choose her.

“Ahhhhh… wait…” Fleetfoot reached forward and grabbed Soarin’s tail. Soarin came to an abrupt halt.

“There are better ways to get my attention,” Soarin winced as he shook his tail out. “What’s up?”

“You may… wanna leave Spitfire be for now,” Fleetfoot suggested while tipping her head back and forth.

“That’s a hoot coming from you… why?” Soarin pressed. Fleetfoot flattened her brow.

“Fine smarty panties, go get your face ripped off,” she waved him off before turning towards the doors to assist the caterers entering. Soarin blinked for a moment, glancing back at Spitfire before lifting an eyebrow. He had a feeling what Fleetfoot meant, but nothing LOOKED wrong with Spitfire. Knowing her though, she was sucking it up and keeping a straight face.

Soarin walked towards the podium as Spitfire continued to busily organize the plaques and shuffle a few papers on the podium.

“Spitfire,” he said her name plainly as he approached.

“Mmhmm?” she replied half-heartedly as she looked about the setup.

“Are we all set with the plaques?” he led off with what she was doing.

“Mmhmm,” she repeated.

“Looks like some of the guests are arriving…” Soarin said as he looked out towards the doors. A few families were already in and congregating. A few recruits began poking in as well. “The recruits are coming in too.”

“Mmhmm,” Spitfire repeated again. Soarin gave her a curious stare before subtly shifting closer to her to get a better look. It was well hidden by her flight suit, but she was… sweating, profusely. That instantly told Soarin what was wrong. She was having some… warmth issues. Quiet heated warmth issues. Talk about horrible timing. He decided to just go along with it. She probably didn’t want to hear about it.

“Did we eventually get ahold of all the families?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said differently as she took a deep breath and sighed.

“Which ones did we not find?” Soarin asked curiously.

“Mmhmm,” Spitfire suddenly repeated. Soarin tipped his head slightly.

“What company did we cater from?” he asked.

“Mmhmm.”

“How are we handling the seating arrangements?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Spit, my mane’s on fire.”

“Keep up the good work.”

“Spitfire!” Soarin yelled her name in frustration as her concentration seemed to completely fade. She flinched and shook her head out before turning it towards him. “You aren’t even listening to me!”

Spitfire groaned, putting down the papers and rubbing her forehead with her hooves, taking deep breaths.

“Spitfire, you—” Soarin instantly shut up as Spitfire growled and smacked her head down against the podium. Soarin stared with his jaw slightly agape as Spitfire sharply looked up at him, reached out and grabbed a good hooffull of his suit around the chest before yanking him towards her.

“LOOK… SOARIN…” she began slowly, the two so close Soarin could hear the slow vibration of a snarl in the back of her throat. “I’m having one of the SHARPEST cycles of heat I have EVER experienced right now, and I have the right mind to blame you and the rest of you sexy stallions walking around with your tight suits and sexy muscular bodies… especially Wave Chill. So DON’T try my patience right now, I MIGHT send one of you to the hospital. UNDERSTAND?!”

“Yes ma’am,” Soarin instantly replied his eyes wide with tiny pupils and his ear folded backward in submission.

“Good,” Spitfire yanked him down, forcing Soarin to fall into a heap on the floor before she went back to quintuple checking everything.

Soarin quickly stood up and walked away with very quick and light steps. Once he was a good distance from her, he sighed in relief, plopped down in a nearby chair, and rested his chin on a table. Yeah, Soarin had seen Spitfire in heat before, but she was right THIS was by far the worst she’s been. Again, horrible timing. He hoped Wave didn’t try talking to her. He might end up with his face through the podium.

Fleetfoot hovered down from above, turned upside down and leaned her head down in front of Soarin’s.

“And that my friend... is why you never question Fleetfoot the Wise!” she crossed her arms and nodded triumphantly. Soarin rolled his eyes and stood up from the table.

“If you're a paragon of wisdom,” he said as he started walking towards the guests. “Then we’re all screwed.”

“Hey!” Fleetfoot turned right-side up and glided after him.

“Yes?” Matteo glanced down at Dash as the two of them and Little Star approached the battle dome. Dash took a moment to answer because she was still trying to get over how awesome Matteo’s custom flight suit looked. It was already shaped differently to fit the griffon body type, but the mask looked so awesome. It had a different shape to fit his head properly and the opening for the nose was larger, extending down close to his chest so he would have enough space to fit his large beak through. It gave his uniform more of an open-chest look, showing off a good portion of the white feathers that extended down from his neck. The suit also really showed off his powerful body. His thick fur and feathers more or less hid his powerful muscles. The tight flight suit… not so much. He was an intimidating sight.

“I was wondering if Gilda or your family was showing up, it’s a long way from the Griffon kingdom.” Dash asked once she finally regained her focus. Matteo looked back up for a moment as if contemplating.

“I confirmed with Captain Spitfire that Gilly is making the trip, which was surprising because she’s bringing the cubs with her. She already has trouble keeping Teodora under control at home…” he explained. Dash assumed that was one of his children. It still blew Dash’s mind that Matteo was already the father of two soon to be three, and it blew her mind even more that Gilda was a mother. “My mother,” Matteo continued, “did not respond to the invitation.”

“Huh?” Dash tipped her head slightly. Matteo shook his head.

“Nor do I expect her to. She is not very fond of ponies… I doubt I have to explain why,” he glanced down at Dash. Dash blinked for a moment before wincing.

“Oh… right,” she had almost forgotten that Matteo’s father was killed by a pony. His mother’s lack of interest was understandable, even if her son was receiving a high honor. That was a tough thing to overcome. “Wait a second…” Dash’s ears shot straight up and an amused smile appeared on her face as she thought over everything Matteo had just said. “Did you just say… Gilly?!”

Matteo flinched so hard that all his feathers puffed out, comically sticking out of the ends of his flight suit and a few flying off his body.

“You… didn’t hear that,” he frantically said while turning to Dash and bending his neck down to be eye level.

“Oh, I think I did,” Dash sneered. “Gilly? That’s so damn cute. I might just have to call her that!” Dash flinched as Matteo stopped in his tracks and grabbed her by the shoulder. He actually looked a little worried.

“No. Please, if you call her that, she’ll know it was me, and I’ll be lucky if I wake up with any feathers left on my body the next morning,” Matteo pleaded. Dash chuckled.

“Whoa! She doesn’t like it does she?” she continued to snicker at how quickly Matteo got flustered. The only thing he was afraid of was his wife? Even though he almost killed her before they mated, maybe pregnant Gilda was a mood swing force to be reckoned with.

“She’s alright with it in private, but… last time I called her that in public she kicked me between the legs so hard I had a limp for a week,” Matteo shivered as he recalled.

“Wow, tough love…” Dash blinked as he eyes widened at the thought.

“I prefer a strong mate, but it means I have to watch what I say. We did try to kill each other before we were married after all,” Matteo grumbled, clearly in disbelief that he let his pet name for Gilda slip.

“Welp, can’t make any promises!” Dash replied smugly as they started walking again.

“I am thrilled that you find my misfortune amusing…” Matteo sighed as they moved along. Star hopped up on Dash’s back.

“Say Matty… you have two cubs, right?” she asked. Matteo nodded.

“Yes, two. Soon to be three.”

“How old are they?” Star asked, curious after Matteo mentioned Gilda’s trouble controlling one of them.

“My daughter, Teodora, is four years old. My son, Gianni, is four months ol—”

“AWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!” Star cut off Matteo. “She grabbed Dash’s mane and shook it slightly. “Dash! We get to see a baby griffon!!!! They are so adorable!” she exclaimed as Matteo sighed with his beak closed, making a whistling sound through his nose.

Dash had a feeling the banquet was going to be fun. She had a lot to look forward to.

They reached the doors to the battle dome and entered with anticipation. However, it seemed they were a tad early. The Wonderbolts were mostly present, moving about and making sure everything was set up, but only a few recruits and families had shown so far. Nopony Dash recognized at least, and no sign of any griffons either.

“Looks like we’re still a little early,” Dash spoke out loud.

“That you are,” Soarin’s voice caught Dash’s ears. All three of them turned to Soarin as he approached, however Soarin was only looking at Dash… looking her up and down to be precise, taking in how she looked in her full uniform. He definitely liked what he saw. “The guests have only just started arriving. We’re going to have an hour or so of socializing before we sit down for dinner and give out the honors.”

“Hey Soarin!” Dash greeted him happily, completely disregarding rank. Soarin didn’t mind one bit, but Matteo visibly flinched. Dash would never get used to addressing Soarin in any other way, and that’s exactly how he wanted it.

Little Star reached over and tugged on Matteo’s sleeve. He glanced down at her. She made a head motion away from Soarin and Dash. Matteo lifted an eyebrow, confused. She pouted at him and pointed at Soarin and Dash basically staring at each other in silence for a moment.

“Oh,” Matteo answered quietly before he and Little Star moved away.

“You look…” Soarin began as he looked Dash up and down. “Pretty badass,” he said with a smirk. A smirk that she returned.

“Heh, thanks. These suits really show off the body, don’t they?” she asked while walking in a quick circle. She giggled as Soarin didn’t reply because he was too busy staring wide eyed. He shook his head and blinked.

“Sorry, could you repeat that? I was… incredibly distracted,” he bounced his eyebrows twice.

“I bet you were!” Dash laughed as she gave him a warm smile as she looked him over, then looked down at her uniform. “Soarin, it is kinda amazing to finally be wearing one of these right beside you…” she sighed very contently as she took it in. Soarin quickly picked up on her tone.

“You know it,” he nodded while stepping forward and placing a hoof on her shoulder, getting a closer look at her. “It really fits you well, I love the way your mane stands out against it. And… it feels really good to share the uniform with you. I’ve been thinking about this since the first time we parted ways a year ago. To see it right in front of me,” he looked over her uniform again, then back at her. “It’s an incredible sight. Like a dream come true for both of us.” He smiled.

Dream…

Dash suddenly thought about the dream she had earlier, about her and Soarin chasing each other in the clouds and waking up right as the two began cuddling.

“Say, Soarin, I…” she paused because Soarin was looking over her shoulder. “Soarin?”

“I think you better turn around,” Soarin said with a smile. Dash blinked and turned around… just in time to see—

“RAINBOW DAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!!!!” Scootaloo came flying right at Dash’s face and she latched to her head.

“Whoa!” Dash yelled as she stumbled back. “Scoots?!” Dash smiled as she reached up and pulled the filly off of her face. “Scoots!” she yelled while hugging her little sis tightly.

“Ohmigosh, Dash!” Scootaloo pushed off and her eyes grew wide when she saw the Wonderbolt uniform. “You look so AWESOME!” She exclaimed before turning and looking at Soarin. “Hi Mr. Sorewings!” she said with a smirk and an eyebrow raise.

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” The sound of Fleetfoot laughing suddenly came from behind them. Soarin flinched hard and quickly turned to see Fleetfoot on her back, kicking her hooves into the air while laughing. “SOREWINGS?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!”

“Rgh…” Soarin rolled his eyes and looked back at Dash with a goofy pout.

“I told her,” Dash winked, pointing at Scootaloo while smiling and sticking her tongue out at Soarin.

“Wait…” Scootaloo looked at the horn. “When did you become a princess?”

“HHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot burst out laughing again. Soarin’s ears folded back and he scrunched his face. Dash giggled at his unamused look, glancing at her friends to see all of them trying to hold it back as well.

“Wait, Scoots, did you come here all by yourself?” Dash asked her little admirer.

“Of course she didn’t,” a very familiar voice, one of five voices that Dash missed dearly caught her ears. Her eyes widened as she looked up. “Hey Rainbow Dash!” Twilight repeated as she stood between Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack. Bulk Biceps and Derpy walked in right behind them, waving.

Dash just blinked a few times before failing to hold back misty eyes. Her friends. They were all there.

“GUYS!!!!” Dash cried out happily as she sprinted towards them. Soarin smiled as he watched Scootaloo follow close behind and join in as all of Dash’s friends came together with her and gave her a giant group hug. “I’ve missed you all so much!” Dash exclaimed happily.

“We’ve missed you too, darling!” Rarity said as they all stepped back from the hug, except for Fluttershy who clung to Dash like she hadn’t seen her in centuries. Rarity, of course, was incredibly overdressed, wearing one of her favorite silky blue and white dresses with a large light blue hat, decorated with yellow feathers.

“And I’m glad to see not much has changed,” Dash snarkily commented upon seeing Rarity’s outfit.

“Dressing for the occasion my dear!” Rarity giggled while flaunting her dress.

“I DRESSED UP TOO!” Pinkie exclaimed while appearing directly in front of Dash. Under normal circumstances Dash would have been startled, but after spending so much time around Twister she was used to silly ponies and sudden face to face comments. Dash took a step back and looked at what Pinkie was wearing. “Rarity said to dress for the occasion! So I did!”

Pinkie was wearing a crude replica of a Wonderbolt uniform and had a pair of fake wings taped to her back to go along with it. Dash burst out laughing.

“Pinkie Pie, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again! You are SO random!” she said in between laughs. Dash blinked and glanced down at Fluttershy, who was still hugging Dash as tightly as her little body could muster. “Fluttershy, you can let go of me,” she said with a chuckle while patting her on the head.

“No!” Fluttershy stated adamantly before flinching and squeaking. “I mean, if you don’t mind, that is…”

“Fluttershy has been worried sick about you day in and day out,” Twilight explained as Fluttershy refused to let go.

“Aw, Fluttershy…” Dash reached back down and gave her small friend another big hug. “You’re such an awesome friend to always worry so much about me."

Fluttershy only replied with a tiny squeak. Dash glanced up, realizing that one pony had yet to speak. She glanced up and saw Applejack standing behind Twilight. She was frantically looking around the room while biting her lower lip. Dash rolled her eyes, knowing exactly who she was looking for.

“Hey, A.J., nice to know you were worried about me too!” she joked while snickering.

“I know YER fine, sugarcube… I’m worried about Thunderlane! Where th’heck is he?!” she questioned while stepping forward and nearly shoving Twilight aside in the process. Twilight sighed.

“Yeah, Fluttershy has been worried sick… but I swear Applejack hasn’t slept since you guys left!” Twilight said with a little bit of frustration towards Applejack as she continued to look around.

Dash chuckled to herself as she watched Applejack glance about. She could picture it clearly, Applejack stubbornly never shutting up about how much she was worried, to the point where Twilight had to walk around with cotton balls stuffed in her ears.

“A.J., Thunderlane isn’t here yet, I’m a little early,” she explained. “Hold yourself, he’ll be here soon.”

“Horse apples!” Applejack stomped, the incredible mess of emotions passing over her face was an incredibly comical and amusing site to Dash. Applejack really was head over hooves for Thunderlane. It was a strange relationship, but damn, the two were dedicated to each other.

“Rainbow Dash! You did it!” Derpy suddenly hovered forward and hugged Dash on the other side to avoid squishing Fluttershy. “I knew you’d do it, cause you’re awes—”

“YEEEEEAAAAHHH!!!!! VICTORY FOR RAINBOW DASH!” Bulk stomped down behind them and yelled at the top of his lungs. Dash chuckled, returning Derpy’s hug with her free arm briefly before turning and giving Bulk a light jab in the arm.

“Great to see you guys too! It wasn’t the same without you!” She smiled.

The banquet hadn’t even started yet, and she already felt like a million bits. She glanced at all of her friends that made the trip as Fluttershy finally found the means of letting go of her. They all showed up, her family was going to show up… this was a great moment in her life.

“Hey Dashie! You look great in that uniform!” a new voice similar, but just slightly lower pitched than Pinkie Pie’s came from behind her. Dash recognized it instantly.

“Thanks Surprise! It’s—” Dash froze the moment she turned around and looked at Surprise. Surprise was smiling brightly, her ears flopping slightly as she looked at Dash in confusion.

“What?” she asked as Dash stared.

“Dashie, whatcha lookin’ at?!” Pinkie’s voice came from behind Dash. Dash’s eyes widened when she realized what was about to happen. From off to the side Soarin blinked and scrunched his face to stifle a laugh. This would be good.

Pinkie Pie looked over Dash’s shoulder and her eyes instantly locked with Surprise’s.

The two stood perfectly still as Dash quickly shuffled out from in between them and over to Soarin’s side. The rest of Dash’s friends blinked and stared at the duo as well.

Pinkie and Surprise remained still… until the two took steps towards each other at the same time, tipping their heads back and forth in sync, literally mirroring every movement the other made, but in a way that seemed like it was unintentional. They now stood nearly face to face, looking at each other carefully.

“I literally have no idea how this is going to end,” Soarin chuckled as Dash backed up to him. Dash glanced over at her friends who were all watching Pinkie and Surprise with a mixture of wonder and fear because Pinkie was staring at a literal doppelganger of herself that was white, with a yellow mane and wings. It didn’t help that Pinkie was wearing her make shift Wonderbolt uniform and had paper wings taped to her body.

Pinkie and Surprise turned sideways, but kept their heads turned looking at each other. They looked closer at each other, pulled back, and moved their heads in again a little closer, moving their ears and eyebrows in synch as they moved together. They turned their bodies back forward, their eyes remaining locked.

“Hmmmmmm…” they both hummed to themselves at the same time, Pinkie reaching her left hoof up to rub her chin and Surprise reaching her right up to do the same. They both turned around and took a couple of paces away, stopped, and both looked over their shoulder at each other at the exact same time. They both slowly looked back before quickly looking over their shoulder again… but doing it at the exact same time.

“What am I watching?” Fleetfoot said as she stepped up beside Soarin and Dash. Her eyes widened when she saw Pinkie and Surprise together. “OH SHI—” Fleetfoot was cut off as Dash quickly threw her hoof over Fleetfoot’s mouth and slowly shook her head.

Pinkie and Surprise turned sideways again. They both slowly lowered their heads to the ground, keeping their eyes locked as the two simultaneously began shaking their plots and whipping their tails back and forth. The stopped at the same time and glared at each other, standing back upright and closing the distance between their faces again, looking very carefully at each other only an inch apart. They turned and faced their bodies towards the doors to the battle dome, keeping their heads turned and eyes locked. They began walking towards the doors, nodding steadily at each other as they walked.

One of the doors opened and Squall walked through, a look of disinterest and anxiety on his face. He barely noticed the two silly ponies in time, stopping right in his tracks a few paces from the doors. Pinkie and Surprise moved upon Squall, placing him between the two of them. Pinkie turned her back to Squall and rubbed her chin in thought. She smiled before pulling a fake moustache out of thin air and placing it on her nose. She turned and slowly poked her head around Squall’s chest. At the same time, Surprise also peeked out slowly and she was also wearing a fake moustache.

Pinkie pulled her head back, the moustache falling off her face as she thought again. She suddenly dropped her body to the floor to look under Squall’s legs, but Surprise did the same. They both sprung back up and turned their backs to Squall, contemplating once more.

“What…?” Squall simply didn’t move, worried he would get dragged into whatever these two were up to.

Pinkie smirked and rubbed her hooves together, turning her side to Squall and trotting out with quick tapping steps… which Surprise did at the exact same time at the same pace. After a few steps, Pinkie switched to bouncing, which Surprise did as well. After five bounces, Pinkie began marching with straight legs, somehow making her fake wings flap, yet another motion that Surprise managed to attempt completely in sync with Pinkie. The two stopped and pouted at each other, faced each other again and remained still for a moment before they started bouncing back and forth while sticking their tongues out and blowing raspberries at each other.

On her final step, Pinkie did a pirouette, Surprise didn't spin around, but copied Pinkie’s “TADAH!” along with putting her arms out once Pinkie finished the full turn. The two quickly turned around.

“I’m beginning to wonder if they really are trying to figure something out, or if they’re just fooling around…” Soarin snickered as the shenanigans continued.

“I’ll guess both…” Dash commented as she sighed.

Pinkie smiled and pulled out a long, green balloon, blowing it up, and shaping it until it looked like an alligator. She and Surprise turned back to each other, holding one arm behind their back. They stepped forward, coming face to face again. They suddenly both pulled out balloon animals and placed them on their heads… Only Surprise had a red balloon giraffe instead of an alligator. They both pointed and smiled at each other. The smiles turning to a pouts. Pinkie and Surprise both reached up and tipped their balloon animals to each other like they were hats, but Surprise lost her grip on her giraffe and it fell to the floor. Pinkie blinked, reached down, grabbed the giraffe and handed it back to Surprise before the two put the animals back on their head. Pinkie took her animal right back off, Surprise moving her hoof, without the animal, but quickly reaching back, grabbing the animal, and catching up to Pinkie’s motion.

The two kept straight faces despite Surprise’s little hiccups. They both turned around and began thinking again.

At some point, Twister had walked into the dome. He had watched the scene unfold, and decided to be a troll, walking up to Surprise as the two had their backs turned. Surprise flinched as he stood beside her, quickly trying to push him away. Twister tumbled away from her, but got up and put himself right back beside her while smirking and bouncing his eyebrows. Surprise grabbed him, put him to the floor, and stood on his back just as Pinkie turned back around. Surprise smiled and mimicked Pinkie’s neutral stance, only she was standing on Twister.

Pinkie lifted an eyebrow, but Surprise lifted the wrong one.

“Ah, phooey, you win!” Surprise giggled as she stepped off Twister.

“YES!” Pinkie Pie pumped her hooves in the air. “I’m Pinkie Pie!” she bounced up and down happily.

“I’m Surprise!” Surprise replied just as happily and bouncily.

“That was fun!” said Pinkie.

“I know!” said Surprise.

“I like cupcakes!” they said in unison. They froze and blinked at each other.

“Did we just become best friends?!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“I THINK WE DID!” Surprise bounced up and fluttered her wings in excitement before the two hugged while giggling.

“YOU BET WE ALL DID!” Twister appeared between the two of them as they hugged.

“EW! NO!” Pinkie and Surprise both reacted before they sandwiched his face between two pies.

“Right,” Dash turned away. “I’m gonna act like all that just didn’t happen, I think my brain’s better off not being put through a reality bending wringer,” she shivered as Soarin burst out laughing.

“That might be a good idea…” he agreed. “Oh! Dash!” Soarin pointed towards the doors. Dash blinked, following his hoof until her eyes landed on somepony stepping through the doors.

It was Thunderlane.

Dash’s gasped quietly in excitement as Thunderlane walked in, not looking in Applejack’s direction. She didn’t say anything at all to Thunderlane about her friends coming, she didn’t think to. He was in for one hell of a surprise. In fact, Applejack had immediately locked onto him the moment he walked through the door.

“Oh man, Thunderlane’s gonna get tackled, isn’t he?” Soarin chuckled as he saw Applejack shaking slightly.

“Yep, I’m gonna say in three…” Dash began. “Two… never mind there she goes,” Dash snickered as Applejack took off towards Thunderlane in a full gallop.

Thunderlane clearly heard the sound of thundering gallops, looking up, but not in the right direction, it wasn’t until Applejack yelled.

“THUNDERLANE!” she called out. His ears stood up instantly and he turned just time to see her diving at him through the air.

“ApplejaaaaaaAAACK!?” Thunderlane yelped as she slammed into him. He instantly threw his arms up, pushing back on his hind legs as he braced himself… and caught Applejack out of the air, spreading his wings and pumping them to turn himself upright.

Applejack felt the whole process of them not falling, really expecting herself to knock him over with such a leap. She didn’t care because she missed him so much, but… he caught her? She pulled back slightly, looking into his surprised eyes first before looking down and seeing that he was indeed floating in the air, holding her up with little trouble.

It seemed like Thunderlane gained a little bit more than the right to wear the uniform. Especially after all that training. As awed as Applejack was, her eyes locked right back into his.

“Applejack… what are you…?” he didn’t get any farther because she wrapped her arms tightly around him and squeezed to the point where he could barely breathe.

“Thunderlane!” she called his name again as she held onto him. Thunderlane looked up from her to see the rest of Dash’s friends from Ponyville, realizing that they had all come, including Bulk and Derpy. Despite how he had been feeling, Thunderlane found himself smiling. All his friends… and his special mare had come to see him? He had to smile. He reached one of his arms up around Applejack’s head and tucked her head into the crook of his neck.

“Hey Applejack…” he said quietly to her.

“I missed you so much!” she said with a sniffle.

“I missed you too…”

“Awwwww…” Soarin smiled while puffing and folding his wing feathers.

“Do I look that mushy when we hug?” Dash asked jokingly, equally enjoying the moment she just witnessed despite her tough act.

“Three times as much,” Soarin snickered while pulling her in with a stealthy wing.

“Hey!” Dash giggled while poking her nose into Soarin’s side. Fleetfoot scooted up to Soarin’s other side. Soarin had completely forgotten Fleetfoot was still standing next to him. She pointed at Thunderlane as Soarin patiently awaited the incoming snarkiness.

“Somepony’s getting Thunderlaid!” she said cheekily.

“You should go walk off a cliff for that one…” Soarin said as he groaned. “Hey!” he yelled as Fleetfoot dropped to the ground, skittered beneath Soarin’s legs and joined Dash beneath Soarin’s wing.

“I know who else is getting some tonight!” she said while cheek to cheek with Dash beneath Soarin’s wing. Soarin quickly opened his wing and reached his hoof over to shove Fleetfoot out as she giggled like a little filly.

“Well,” Dash smirked and gave Soarin a smug look as Fleetfoot escaped. “I hope she’s right.”

“Oh, I hope she is too!” Soarin snickered back.

“SOARIN!” Spitfire belted from across the room. Soarin flinched and turned his head towards her. Spitfire was conversing with Silver Lining and Fire Streak. “Can you come over here for a second?!” she asked, or rather, demanded pretty harshly. Even from across the room, Soarin could see she was blushing madly. Silver and Fire looked incredibly confused, but Soarin knew it was because of her heat. They were having a captain meeting… and the two other captains happened to be stallions, she probably wanted him to take over while making an excuse about checking on something else.

Soarin gave Dash a pat on the shoulder.

“I gotta go help Spitfire, I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” Dash gave him a wink as he turned and walked away.

Dash refocused on her friends as Thunderlane and Applejack made their way back over as well, Applejack completely leaning into him as they moved. Pinkie was still goofing around with Surprise, which included continued harassment of Twister as he kept trying to join in. The rest however, were all grouped together near the entrance along with other recruits and more guests as they continued to shuffle in.

Twilight stepped forward as Dash approached them.

“Say Dash, could you introduce us to your friends you kept mentioning in your letters?” she asked, visibly eager. Dash had sent multiple letters home to her friends over the course of her training, giving them updates on how she was doing, how Thunderlane was doing, and giving the details on the fun, strange, and interesting. Within these categories were stories about the training, details on Silver, and details on her new friends she had made. Dash left out a lot of information around Soarin’s recent conditions, feeling it wasn’t her place to share them, but Twilight, living up to her title as the Princess of Friendship, was clearly excited to meet these interesting comrades of Dash’s.

“Sure! Let’s see…” Dash looked around and obviously, the first one she spotted was Matteo. “Ah! Okay,” Dash glided over. Her friends’ eyes all widened as Dash flew up to Matteo and pulled him over.

“What is the meaning of this?” Matteo asked calmly as Dash started pulling him along.

“My friends from back home want to meet you, c’mon you oaf!” Dash grunted as she struggled to pull him.

“Alright, alright…” Matteo took control of his movement. Dash led him over to her friends, who all looked up at him in awe.

“This,” Dash motioned to Matteo as she floated up and sat on his shoulder. “Is Matteo, you guys remember the griffon I mentioned, right?” Dash smiled. None of them spoke for a moment, and Fluttershy was gone? “Hey, where did Fluttershy go?” Dash asked before going any further.

“Fluttershy…” Twilight said with a sigh as she looked over her shoulder. “He’s not going to eat you…”

Fluttershy peeked out from behind Twilight, shivering as she looked up at Matteo.

“Sorry, he’s just… so big…” she said very quietly.

“This coming from a mare who dates the largest pony in Equestria?” Dash chuckled as Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight continued to look over Matteo.

“Golly Dash, I know ya said he was big, but I didn’t think y’meant the size of a barn!” Applejack remarked as Matteo gave a small bow.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said politely.

“Such manners!” Rarity beamed delightfully as Matteo looked at her quizzically. “Forgive me, I wasn’t quite expecting that… Dash has spoken highly of you, I assure,” she tried to save. Matteo looked towards Dash briefly.

“I have no doubt… I would do the very same for her,” Matteo nodded in approval. He glanced down at Fluttershy, who squeaked and hid again the instant his eyes landed on her. Dash leaned towards one of his ears.

“She’s a little scared of griffons in general, don’t take it personally,” she whispered. Matteo shook his head.

“I’m used to inadvertently intimidating others, it comes with being this size,” he explained.

“Also, your wife kinda harassed her when she visited Ponyville… Fluttershy is scarred pretty easily,” Dash replied with a cringe. Matteo scoffed.

“If it were anyone else, I’d shake my head, but knowing my wife, I can definitely see her doing that…” Matteo sighed.

Dash glanced down at Scootaloo standing beside Rarity. The little filly’s eyes were wide and her pupils large, staring in complete awe at Matteo. As soon as Dash’s eyes landed on her, she knew what she wanted to do next.

“Say,” Dash began as she looked around. “Matts, have you seen Star around?”

“I heard my name?” Little Star popped up from behind Matteo’s head. Dash yelped in surprise and tipped off Matteo’s shoulder before catching herself in flight.

“Whoa! Star, who are you, Twister?” she said with a chuckle.

“I heard MY name!” Twister said from behind Dash. Dash turned around quickly and backed away from Twister… and then Surprise appeared behind HIM.

“GET BACK HERE!” Surprise yelled before pulling him away. Dash ignored the ‘crazy battle’ going on between Pinkie, Surprise, and Twister behind her as she turned back to Star.

“Actually…” Star shrugged. “I saw you guys talking and was bored, so I came over!”

“Well come down here for a second,” Dash asked motioning to Scootaloo on the ground. Star glanced down at Scootaloo before hopping up off Matteo and hovering down. Scootaloo was tipping her head from side to side, as if incredibly confused and curious at the tiny pony flying down to her. In fact, Little Star and Scootaloo were roughly the same size! “Scoots, this is Little Star,” Dash motioned to her. “She’s thirty years old,” Dash added, making Scootaloo’s eye grow wider.

“WHAAAAAT?!” Rarity reacted, drawing all the attention to her. “Ahem…” she grinned and blushed. “Sorry… that’s, wow, quite interesting…”

“I get it often, don’t worry,” Star giggled back to Scootaloo. Dash walked over to Scootaloo and put an arm over her.

“Scoots, take a long look at Star, okay?” Dash instructed. A little nervous meeting a stranger, Scootaloo remained silent as she looked over Star. The little pony wearing the Wonderbolt uniform and everything. “Got a good look?” Dash asked.

“Uh-huh…” Scootaloo nodded.

“You are looking at living proof that you can overcome physical challenges no matter how hard they are. Our training here in the compound required incredible strength, speed, and resilience… three things Little Star is short on due to being so small. Yet here she is wearing a Wonderbolt uniform.” Dash explained.

Star smiled as she saw Scootaloo’s eyes light up. Dash walked up to Star.

“Scoots here had a bad case of stunted wings… but after some very useful advice from Soarin during a visit to Ponyville, she’s been getting better. I thought meeting you… would show her just how far you can go with disadvantages,” Dash said with a wink. Star smiled and looked back towards Scootaloo.

“Keep working kid… if you never quit… anything is possible. Trust me, I’ve been there,” Star said while reaching forward and patting Scootaloo on the shoulder.

“Y-yes ma’am!” Scootaloo replied with a voice full of vigor.

Dash, satisfied with the introduction of Matteo and Star, started looking around again. She decided against trying to get between Pinkie and Surprise to get to Twister, instead looking for Squall. Did she really want to introduce him? It was something she had thought about beforehoof. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but she mentioned to them in her letters that he was a bit… grumpy at all times, so they’d be ready for it.

“There he is!” Dash said to herself as she saw Squall sit down at a table by himself as if avoiding all other pony contact. How typical. “Just a moment,” Dash said to her friends as she glided towards Squall. “Squall!” Dash called as she approached. Squall’s ears stood up and he looked towards Dash. As she landed, he turned his head back forward, ignoring her. Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know, let’s party and have a good time,” Dash said sarcastically as she grabbed Squall’s arm. “Get your ass over here,” she disregarded his moody behavior and pulled him out of his seat.

“What? Why?!” he snapped, clearly uncomfortable.

“My friends want to meet you, come on,” she replied, his tone and snippiness once again failing to bother her. Squall’s eyes widened and he looked up to see that Dash was dragging him towards a group of mares.

“No!” He reacted, but failed to halt Dash from dragging him.

“Oh, don’t be a chicken, it won’t hurt to just say hi,” Dash chuckled. The interesting part of the situation was Squall GAVE UP trying to pull away after one or two attempts. Had he continued to physically express discontent, Dash would’ve given up and let him go, but he didn’t. It seemed like he was really trying to be more friendly… if one could even call it that.

As Dash dragged Squall over to where her friends were conversing with Star and Matteo, she noticed that Thunderlane and Applejack had disappeared. She smirked to herself. Honestly, she didn’t blame them at all. After how Applejack literally threw herself at him, she was probably eager to get a little bit of privacy, even if it was just sitting down somewhere and talking.

“This…” Dash called out as she dragged Squall in front of her and pushed him the rest of the way. “Is Squall!” she stepped to his side and motioned a hoof to him. Besides his eyes darting between the mares, Squall didn’t say or do anything. “Gonna say hello?” Dash asked as she picked up on what she believed was nervousness? Squall had already showed a great deal of anxiety towards the banquet, but this was a little different and on the spot.

Squall remained still for five seconds before scowling, turning, and walking away. Dash made no effort to stop him, she just sighed and shrugged.

“That’s Squall in a nutshell,” Dash chuckled.

“He’s definitely the talking type,” Twilight said sarcastically as she turned to Rarity… who had stars in her eyes. Dash noticed too as Rarity sighed.

“It’s too bad he’s not the social type… all’s forgiven when you’re that handsome!” she cooed while rubbing one of her hooves in a circle on the floor.

Dash lifted an eyebrow. Yeah, sure, Squall was a pretty attractive stallion, but…

“Psst,” Twilight caught Dash’s attention as she stepped towards her. “Rarity’s been a bit… desperate recently,” Twilight whispered to her.

“Recently?” Dash said with a snort, earning a flat look from Twilight.

“Derpy?!”

“STORM!!!!”

Dash, Twilight and the rest all looked over in time to see Derpy and Storm Front rush at each other and embrace tightly. The two hugged and nuzzled each other while laughing and smiling. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Little Star all got lost in the d’awwws as Twilight glanced at Dash. Dash pointed towards Storm.

“Looks like he found us! That’s Storm Front,” she explained. “The one who… beat me out of the elite spot,” Dash’s hesitant pause was clear, but luckily Twilight was paying more attention to Storm. Dash looked over and saw Rarity looking love struck again. Dash quickly hopped over. “Rarity, really?”

“What?!” Rarity shrugged. “Sure, he’s taken, but that doesn’t mean he’s not attractive! It’s not fair, Rainbow Dash, you have so many great looking stallions around here!”

“He… is…” Twilight’s shaky voice caught Dash’s attention. Dash turned and saw Twilight shuffling towards them while keeping her eyes on Storm. “Pretty cute…” Twilight finished with a blush. Dash glanced between both of them.

“Sheesh, who did you say was desperate, Twi?” she understood their interest. Dash thought Storm was pretty attractive herself. It just didn’t matter for her because she had Soarin.

“This is the stallion Derpy has been so happy about back home?” Twilight sighed. “What a lucky mare…”

“DOES THAT MAKE ME GREAT LOOKING TOO?! Twister’s head suddenly dropped down from above right within the view of Rarity and Twilight. The two yelped in surprise and stumbled backwards. Twister fell to the floor and log rolled towards them, but Dash stepped on him, holding him in place.

“And finally, this idiot is Twister,” she said with an exasperated tone as Twilight and Rarity stared wide eyed at him. “He’s basically Pinkie Pie with less sugar, more insanity,” she explained.

“PONY’S ELBOW!!!!!!!!” Pinkie’s voice came from above. Dash looked up, yelped, and stepped aside as Pinkie fell from above and jabbed her elbow down into Twister’s gut. Twister exhaled and coughed up a fully inflated red balloon. Pinkie grabbed it and pointed down at him. “No eating my balloons!” she demanded.

“PONY’S ELBOW PART TWO!!!!!!” Surprise fell from above and repeated Pinkie’s move, jabbing her elbow into Twister’s stomach. Twister coughed up a miniature bicycle. Surprise snatched it out of the air and pointed down at him. “And no eating the tiny bikes! Those are for the squirrels!” she yelled, placing the bike on the floor, pulling a squirrel out of thin air, placing it on the bike, and watching as it hastily pedaled away.

“Thank you ladies, may I have another?!” Twister said with his eyes going in different directions.

“Well—” Pinkie began but shrieked when Twister was suddenly draped over her back.

“THAAAAAAANKS!”

“HEY! GET OFFA-HER!” Surprise yelled as she jumped on Pinkie’s back as well. The three started rolling around so fast they appeared to be a blurry ball of green, pink, and white, with hooves flailing about and occasionally one of them coming up for air.

“Right…” Dash gave a single nod before bringing her attention back to reality.

“We’ve got a bunch of families heading in!” Silver Lining’s voice suddenly came from nearby. Dash and company all turned to see Silver walking amongst those who were already present. “We’re going to be eating soon, so find your families and find a seat so we can get started in a timely manner!”

“We better go wait by the doors,” Matteo spoke up, directing his words to Little Star.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” she agreed before turning back to Dash and her Ponyville friends. “It was nice to meet you all!” she waved before the two turned towards the doors. Satisfied, Dash nodded to Twilight.

“I better go watch for my folks as well, you’d better go find A.J. and Thunderlane…” Dash paused and looked towards Rarity. “And Rarity, pry your eyes off of Storm, he’s Derpy’s,” Dash said as she nudged her.

“Uuuuugh…” Rarity groaned as Dash left them for the time being.

It was exhilarating.

It felt so good to see her old friends again, and so good to introduce her new friends to them. There were a few hiccups, but it went well, especially introducing Scootaloo to Little Star, that was something Dash had wanted to do since she met her new little friend.

As Dash reached the doors, families were already pouring in. It seemed like the few that were already present had broken off from a group that was being guided around. Dash was about to hover up and take a look, but the first thing she saw… was a large group of ponies absolutely surround Little Star.

Dash had to stop and watch, especially after having the little confession session with Star about an hour before.

One, two, three, four, five, six… plus two older ponies. It was Star’s family.

Star disappeared between all of them as they happily converged on her. They were all average sized, standing at least twice her height, if not more. They were all dressed nicely too, wearing suits or uniforms that indicated high status in whatever profession they had pursued. They were also a mix of the three pony races. Some earth, some unicorns, and some pegasi alike. Moments after she vanished between them, they held her up in the air, all cheering for her as she smiled happily. She dove back towards them, giving them each huge hugs.

“HEY!”

Dash flinched as a high pitched voice, came from in front of her. Dash looked forward and saw nothing before blinking and looking down.

Standing before Dash, was a little griffoness standing before her. She was standing firm with her little chest puffed out and glaring at Dash with a pair of yellow eyes. She was the same color scheme of Matteo. Dash wasn’t the squealing type… but did she just run into one of Matteo’s cubs?

“You Rainbow Dash?!” the little one demanded. Dash blinked and smirked, incredibly amused. She lowered herself down to be a little closer to eye level with her.

“That’s me kid! What’s up?” Dash asked. The griffoness pouted angrily.

“Hey! I ain’t no kid! You take that back or I’ll belt you across the nose!” the she snapped back at Dash while shaking a balled up set of talons at her.

“God, that’s cute…” Dash chuckled as her challenger bounced back and forth as if getting ready to scrap.

“Teodora! Where did you go?!” a familiar voice yelled out angrily. The little griffoness froze and turned around. Dash glanced up and her eyes went wide.

“Oh man, what?!” Dash reacted at the sight, trying not to laugh in disbelief. It was her old pal… Gilda.

Gilda stepped out from the crowd of ponies and made her way towards the little griffoness. It was the same Gilda she used to hang out with… but… also not. First, she was very pregnant. Her stomach was only a few inches from the floor. Matteo said he had another child on the way… it either inherited his size before birth or he was getting two more, not one. She looked a little disgruntled, her feathers a bit out of place and a bit of a neutral expression, not happy, but not angry either, it was hard for Dash to put her hoof on it. Her crest feathers were also trained in the other direction, left instead of right. The finishing touch? She was walking on one arm and two legs, cradling a tiny griffon cub in her other arm that shared who was eagerly looking around the room at all the commotion.

“Teo, I told you to stay with… oh… wow…” Gilda froze, her eyes widening considerable and her beak hanging open when she saw Dash. Dash smiled at her as Teodora began throwing little punches into Dash’s chest.

“What’s up Gilster?” Dash asked, just letting Gilda’s daughter bop her over and over again.

“You know…” Gilda’s shock faded and she gave Dash a familiar smirk. “I knew you were here… my big dumb husband told me… but I still never thought I’d see you wear one of those uniforms.”

“The first thing you say to me is that you didn’t have faith in me…” Dash snickered. “Some things never change, huh?”

“GRRR!” Teodora growled, biting Dash’s hoof in her beak. Dash looked down and lifted her hoof up, Teodora dangling from it.

“She’s definitely your daughter,” Dash chuckled, turning her hoof so Teo could see her. “You got a long way to go before you can be as awesome as me, kid,” Dash said as she moved towards Gilda.

“Some things definitely never change, eh miss awesome?” Gilda snorted, giving Dash a smile as Dash planted Teo in front of Gilda.

Dash looked up at Gilda and smiled. The circumstances were much different than Dash could ever have imagined, but she had been wanting to see Gilda again. The last time she saw Gilda, things didn’t go so well, in fact, it led to them disagreeing and Gilda storming off angrily. Not like it was a pleasant visit to begin with, Gilda had been quite the bully while visiting.

It seemed as though Gilda had simmered down a little. The fire was still alight in her eyes, but her attitude seemed to be much less rash. A few years and becoming a mother probably had quite an effect on her. It looked like both of them had done quite a bit of maturing recently, but Dash was sure, just as with Gilda, that they would always have a little bit of rashness they were known for when they were younger.

“Well?” Gilda suddenly asked.

“What?” Dash blinked.

“I’m surprised you haven’t done it yet,” Gilda smirked.

“Done wha— oh!” Dash shrugged. “Sorry… guess I’m just a little shocked seeing you with two kids and stuffed full of baby,” Dash chuckled.

“Oh, shut up and come here,” Gilda shook her head as Dash came forward as Gilda opened her wings. She had one arm occupied so she had to flutter to stay up. Gilda balled her talons into a fist as Dash reached forward. They bumped hoof and talons before clasping them together, lightly pulling each other in for a light chest bump before pulling each other into a friendly hug. “Good, you still remember. I would’ve belted you across the nose,” Gilda said as they split apart.

“Oh, of course I wouldn’t—whoop!” Dash reacted as something tugged on her mane. She glanced down to see the baby griffon in Gilda’s arm with her mane in his beak.

“Saw that coming,” Gilda chuckled as Dash remained bent down. “Gianni likes to grab and chew on things…” she fluttered her wings again as she reached her arm over and placed a single shank over the nostrils of the little griffon. “C’mon Gianni, if you wanna breathe you gotta let Dash go.”

“Ah…” Gianni squeaked as he opened his little beak and released Dash’s mane.

“Dang Gilda, you of all ponies—er… griffons were the last one I expected to have adorable children,” Dash joked as Gianni reached out his little talons, trying to grab Dash’s mane as she pulled away.

“Yeah, yeah, they definitely inherited a bit of dolt from their father,” she rolled her eyes as Gianni began to make short little wailing noises as he kept reaching for Dash’s mane. “Looks like he really likes your mane.”

“Like I said… too adorable to be yours,” Dash joked. Gianni’s noises started to sound like little cries. Gilda sighed, reaching up and pushing her crest feathers back over to the right and leaning her head down. Gianni instantly looked up, reached up and grabbed one of Gilda’s feathers in his beak. “That looks comfortable…” Dash snickered at Gilda bending her neck down for her son.

“He’ll have his fill in a few seconds,” she explained as she let it happen. Dash shook her head as she smirked at Gilda.

“So… I can’t believe you married Fatty Matty, especially after how much you hated on him when we used to hang out.”

“Oh, he told you?” Gilda snickered as Gianni finally let go of her crest and she stood upright. “Did he tell you how it happened?” she asked.

“Yeah… you never told me griffons basically try to kill each other every day,” Dash exaggerated, but based on what Matteo had told her, the difference in culture was so vast it was mind boggling. Gilda had never said a word about it to her. Maybe that explained her more harsh nature towards her friends in the past.

“Well, to be honest I started it… but when he didn’t kill me? I was stunned. He’s so stupidly in love with our ancient culture. The fact that he couldn’t bring himself to kill me after we fought a crazy battle? Warriors never spare their enemies… he let me live, meaning he couldn’t bring himself to remove me from his life. This ain’t stuff you can write Dash, I may not like our culture, but I knew it enough. It touched me on a different level. I don’t expect you to get it.”

“I don’t, but hey, you’re not dead and right after that he did this,” Dash pointed at Teodora. She nipped at her hoof, but Dash moved it and patted her on the head instead.

“Yeah…” Gilda grunted in frustration. “Then he did this,” she bounced Gianni once. “And this…” she glanced at her swollen stomach. “Never would have guessed it from when he was a fat blowhard, but he can’t keep it between his legs sometimes,” Gilda said very bluntly, making Dash feel a little awkward.

“What was that about my legs?” Matteo suddenly appeared from the side behind her. Gilda flinched, nearly dropping Gianni.

“AND I DON”T KNOW HOW HE’S SO QUIET!” Gilda complained as she turned and looked up at her husband. Dash stepped back and watched as the two conversed.

“I’m surprised you actually came out to see me,” Matteo said flatly. Gilda snorted.

“Just cause I thought it was a stupid idea doesn’t mean I’m not gonna support you,” she fired back. She looked Matteo up and down, taking in the view of his custom Wonderbolt flight suit. “And this is interesting, did they use all the materials in the factory to make it?” she jeered.

“I love you too,” Matteo said sarcastically as Teodora jumped up on his back and climbed up to his head.

“Hey dad! I bet I can beat you in a fight now!” she challenged. Matteo simply looked up as she grabbed his head feathers and began pulling on them

“I have no doubt Teo,” Matteo replied while shaking his head. Teodora clung for dear life as she shook back and forth.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” Gianni suddenly wailed while holding his little arms out towards Matteo.

“Looks like he wants daddy,” Gilda held Gianni out to Matteo. “Good thing too, cause my arm is tired.”

“Heh…” Matteo reached his large shanks and received Gianni. He brought the tiny griffon all the way to his chest and Gianni immediately grabbed and held onto Matteo’s body. “How’s my little warrior doing?” he asked as he looked down at his son.

“Ah!” Gianni replied, holding onto his father as tightly as he could.

Dash finally got to see it. Since the moment Matteo pulled out the picture of Gilda and showed Dash the ring, she HAD to see this for herself and it was a very touching sight. Dash didn’t see herself in such a situation anytime soon, but seeing it first hoof like this was very heartwarming. Married, a family, two children, and a very weird, but interesting couple. Dash couldn’t stop smiling as she watched Matteo’s cubs climb on him.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Squall ran up to Matteo and hid behind him.

“What the…?” Matteo reached up to hold onto Gianni as he turned and looked at Squall.

“NO! Don’t move!” Squall pleaded.

Pleaded? Dash had never heard that tone from Squall before.

“What are you talking about?” Matteo glared at him as Teodora looked down at Squall from Matteo’s head. Dash stepped past a confused Gilda to get a better look at Squall.

“Please! Just don’t move!” Squall demanded in a hushed tone. Dash peered around Matteo and saw Squall digging himself into Matteo’s side, shivering, with a look of pure horror on his face. Matteo and Dash looked at each other, both confused beyond words. What the heck had gotten Squall so scared?

“Hey everypony!” a voice that could only be described as ‘happy,’ came from the doors. Dash and Matteo looked over to see two ponies walk in. A large, white pegasus stallion with a very long black mane that hung down past his shoulders and a grey pegasus mare that was about half the stallion’s size with a dark red mane that was tied into a bun. They both looked to be past their prime, around Silver’s age.

The stallion stepped into the middle of the crowd, took a very long, deep breath and exhaled so loudly, it sounded like he was coughing.

“Gotta say this place is awesome! And this!!” He motioned to the battle dome. “A combat dome?! NEAT! I bet I could throw a good punch or two in here!” He yelled while going back on his hind legs and making a few jabbing motions at random ponies. “Ha! Ha! Yeah! Can’t handle— Oh! AH!” he fell flat on his face. “OW! OW! OW! Leg cramp! LEG CRAMP!” he yelled while kicking one of his legs back.

“Oh, dear…” the mare walked over and helped him up. “Honey, the doctor told you to be careful rearing back,” she said in a very motherly tone that was so strong it almost sounded like condescending.

“Ha!” The stallion stood right back up. “The doctor doesn’t know me. If he wants to hold me back like that, he’ll have to fight me for it! Swear on me mum!” the stallion pounded his chest.

“What…?” Dash blinked as she and Matteo along with everypony else in the dome was watching the strange couple that entered the dome.

“Who’s this idiotic chump?” Gilda asked as she lifted an eyebrow. As they looked on, Matteo suddenly sharply looked over his shoulder at Squall, who was stiff as a statue, and then looked back at the two ponies.

“Wait a minute…” Matteo pondered out loud. Dash looked up at Matteo.

“Huh?” she looked at Matteo curiously as he looked between squall and the ponies. Dash looked at Squall as well, and her eyes widened.

“Dear, we should find our little colt now, don’t you think?” the mare asked him with the same overly motherly tone.

“That’s right!” the stallion pounded his chest. “Where’s my little tyke!?” the stallion looked around.

“No…” Matteo started.

“Way…” Dash finished.

“YOOHOO!!!!! SQUALL?! SQUALL BUDDY?! WHERE YOU AT SQUALLY WALLY JOLLY TROLLEY?!” the stallion yelled incredibly loudly causing most to cringe.

Squall released a quiet whimper as he continued to hide behind Matteo.

Dash and Matteo were left utterly speechless. Dash looked over to see Little Star staring as well with her jaw dropped. Storm Front was close by, looking towards the two with a very disturbed look on his face.

SILVER had an absolutely blank look on his face as if he, of all ponies, had no idea what to say.

Squall took a fatal chance, and poked his head out to check… but the white stallion was looking directly at him when he did.

“HEYYYYY!!!!!! There’s the champ!” the stallion pointed.

“OH GOD!” Squall ducked right back behind Matteo as the stallion and the mare approached.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m clearing out,” Dash spoke very fast before backing away with Gilda. Matteo looked up at the approaching ponies, his two children still hanging on him. He gently grasped little Gianni on his chest, and spread his wings while reaching up to grab hold of Teodora. She bit down on his talons as he grabbed her, but he let her act tough as he lightly pumped his wings.

“You’re on your own,” Matteo said to Squall as he lifted off slightly and glided towards Gilda and Dash. Squall flipped out when Matteo moved.

“NO! Nonononononono!” Squall tried to grab Matteo and pull him down, but it was too late.

“SQUALLY!” the stallion stepped right up in front of him, standing a whole head taller. Squall froze and stared up at the stallion with wide, terrified eyes. The stallion put him in a headlock and began giving Squall a rough noogie. “How ya been ya little rascal, you…”

“AGH!” Squall grunted as he pulled and tugged on the stallion’s arm. “DAD!!!! QUIT IT!!!!” he whined as the mare walked up behind them. Squall fell to the floor as the stallion let go. He quickly got up, but not before the mare grabbed his cheeks.

“Awwwww, I haven’t seen my wittle baby for a whole month! You had mommy sooooo worried!” she cooed while holding his head down to her level.

“MOM!!!!” Squall’s face was bright red, embarrassed beyond belief. As his mom let go of him, he laid flat on the floor, placing his hooves over his head and groaning.

“Why the long face, son?” Squall’s dad forced him up off the floor and put him in another headlock. “I know what’ll cheer you up! Nothing like a song about home to put a smile on your face!”

Squall’s face went pale, or at least as pale as his dark fur allowed as his ears flopped down and his pupils shrunk.

“Oh! Yes! I love singing!” Squall’s mother stepped up beside his father.

“Anypony who knows the words, JOIN IN!” Squall’s dad encouraged before he and Squall’s mother started singing the anthem of the Crystal Empire… painfully off key as Squall remained stuck in his father’s grip. Squall wore a look on his face that screamed ‘kill me’ as Dash looked on with the most uncomfortable look her face could muster.

THESE two ponies… were Squall’s parents.

Based on his behavior, Dash had often entertained the thought that perhaps Squall’s behavior and quick temper were caused by something family related. However, when she thought about it, it was more focused on possibly being abused or having a rough time.

Not…

THIS.

She had been watching for all of three minutes, and Squall’s parents had already taken the title of most annoying and embarrassing ponies she had ever seen in her life. Squall looked like he was contemplating punching himself in the face until he was brain dead.

“This was not what I expected…” Matteo spoke up from beside her.

“You and me both, big guy…” Dash agreed as she continued to try and wrap her mind around it, which proved difficult with how many excruciatingly broken notes Squall’s dad was hitting as he sang. Gianni started crying on Matteo’s chest and Teodora started screaming while covering her ears. Matteo and Gilda quickly moved away to find some distance between their kids and the terrible, terrible singing.

Dash didn’t know if she could even call it singing. It wounded like sompony was stepping on a peacock. Scratch that, it sounded like somepony was stepping on A LOT of peacocks. Dash was certain even she could hold a better tune with a pillow strapped to her face while being flogged with a wet towel.

“Would somepony like to explain what I’m looking at?” Soarin asked as he walked up behind Dash. Dash glanced at him before shaking her head.

“I dunno, but I really hope it stops soon…” Dash grimaced and shivered as more incredibly awful tones reached her ears.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” Squall’s dad exhaled as they finally finished singing. “Nothing gets me hungry like a good song! C’mon son! LET’S EAT!” he yelled as he began dragging Squall along.

“Daaaaaaad! Let go!!!!” Squall wailed as they moved, only to be turned away from the buffet being set up by Fire Streak because it was, in fact, not time to eat yet.

“I’ve seen some shit in my life, but I really don’t know how I feel about this…” Dash said as she slowly shook her head. Soarin was about to reply but another voice cut him off.

“I know right? I’ve heard clown horns that sound better.”

“Yeah…” Dash nodded, blinked, and her eyes went wide. She sharply turned to her left.

“I could do much better! I am awesome after all!” said the pony beside her. A pony that was a slightly darker blue than Dash… but had a short rainbow mane. He turned his head to Dash and gave her a wink.

“DAD!!!!!” Dash leapt at him without a moment of hesitation.

“Whoa!” her dad yelped as she nearly knocked him over. He returned the embrace as she looked up and saw her mother, pink with a sky blue mane that acted just like Dash’s.

“Hey Rainbow Dash,” her mom smiled as Dash let go of her dad and hugged her mom as well.

“I haven’t seen you guys in FOREVER!” Dash exclaimed happily as she held her mom at arm’s length.

“Hold up, hold up,” Dash’s dad stepped up between them. “Let’s see this…” he gently pushed Dash back before stepping beside his wife. The two looked Dash up and down, taking in the site of her in her very own Wonderbolt uniform.

“It looks really good on you,” Dash’s mother smiled.

“Good thing she inherited my mane,” Dash’s dad said snarkily. “Otherwise she’d be all one color.”

“Yes dear,” Dash’s mom shook her head and rolled her eyes while giving him a nudge to the ribs. “I’m proud of you Dash,” her mom continued as she stepped forward. “If only your grandfather could see this. I doubt anything would have made him happier than seeing you wear this uniform,” Dash’s mom gave her another hug.

Dash hugged her mom tightly, understanding what she meant all too well. It all started with the old Wonderbolt poster her grandfather gave her as a filly. The poster that sparked her interest in the Wonderbolts… and that had been attached to her ceiling above her bed so every single day she woke up, it was the first thing she saw. She had come a long way since then, she could hardly believe it, but it felt so good.

“Yeah, you’re almost as awesome as me now!” her dad came in from the side to join in a family hug.

“Thanks for ruining the moment…” her mom giggled as she pushed her dad away from the hug.

This moment. The moment that Dash had been waiting for her whole life. Whether she was part of the recruit squad or a reserve, she was a Wonderbolt, the flight suit was proof. How much different would her life be right now if she hadn’t run into Soarin a year ago?

Soarin.

Dash looked up from her parents and over her shoulder. Soarin was standing slightly off to the side, smiling at the sight of Dash and her parents.

That’s right, Dash remembered she had to blow her dad’s mind.

“A-hem!” Dash cleared her throat as she stepped away from her parents and began backing towards Soarin. Soarin blinked and perked up as Dash moved towards him. “Mom… and especially dad,” she emphasized with a smirk.

“You all know Soarin of the Wonderbolt lead squad right?” she motioned to Soarin. “Soarin, these are my parents,” she motioned to her dad first. “This is my dad, Rainbow Blaze,” then she motioned to her mom. “And this is my mom, Firefly. Not to be confused with the very first captain of the Wonderbolts,” Dash added with a wink.

Soarin gulped. He knew this moment was coming, but he didn’t expect Dash to go right for it. He was about to meet her parents. Dash meant everything to him, and the last thing he wanted to do was to come off as an idiot in front of her folks. He took a silent, deep breath and waited for his chance to say the usual ‘nice to meet you,’ or ‘it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,’ or whatever seemed more fitting to the situation. However, the subject quickly shifted… as Soarin noticed both of them staring at his forehead… directly at the fake horn.

“Uh…” Dash’s dad tipped his head sideways.

“Pardon me… It’s a pleasure to meet you, but…” Dash’s mom scratched her head. “I have to ask, why are you wearing a horn?”

“Uh…” Soarin winced. What was he supposed to say here? What if he explained it and they suddenly felt it was strange and or dangerous for their daughter to be with a stallion like him? Was this a lost cause from the beginning? Luckily for him, Dash stepped in.

“Sheesh, nice way to introduce yourselves,” Dash rolled her eyes at her parents before stepping up and pointing to the horn on Soarin’s head. “It’s a very long story, it would take a good few hours to explain fully at least. In short, Soarin has been through some interesting things lately, and at one point learned he could use magic. So he was given this fake horn to channel and practice it.” Dash explained.

Soarin remained quiet and kept his eyes on Dash’s parents, hoping they would except that. To his relief, Rainbow Blaze actually looked impressed?

“That’s pretty cool actually,” he nodded as Firefly looked as if she was simply thinking about it.

“So let’s try this again,” Dash chuckled. “This is Soarin, of the Wonderbolt lead squad. And… LISTEN UP DAD…” Dash paused to glare at her father. He lifted an eyebrow slightly, but gave no other response. “Soarin, is my coltfriend.”

Firefly had believed her from the start, giving little to no reaction to Dash’s words besides a smile. Her father, on the other hoof, seemed adamant to be stubborn about it.

“I dunno, Dashie. I know you like to talk yourself up. Prove it!” he smirked. Dash pouted at her dad.

“You’re such a ass,” she put flatly, earning her a look of disapproval from Firefly, but Rainbow Blaze chuckled, turned around and spanked his plot.

“And it looks great, doesn’t it!”

Soarin was trying SO HARD not to crack up. He could see clearly where Dash got her personality from. Watching Rainbow Blaze was like watching an older, stallion version of Dash. It was both amusing and hilarious. However, Soarin felt the need to help out his lover. He felt like this could be a little much, but it seemed in order to convince her brash father, Soarin felt he would have to make a brash move.

“Yeah, she’s my marefriend,” Soarin suddenly said in a confident tone as he leaned down and kissed Dash on the cheek. Dash flinched in surprise, a small blush appearing on her face as Dash’s parents both visibly reacted. Firefly’s eyes widening only slightly and Rainbow Blaze freezing on the spot.

As Soarin pulled back, he looked between all three of them and instantly felt like he went a little too far. Did he just make a mess of things?

“Well then!” Rainbow Blaze suddenly laughed. “Fine, you win, Dash,” he admitted defeat. It took Dash a moment to react. She, herself, was surprised Soarin pulled such a sudden move on her.

Dash looked to her parents. Looking for just as much of a reaction as Soarin was, but Firefly seemed to think Soarin’s move was adorable… Dash knew those eyes well. As for her father, Dash had a feeling that all along, he believed her, but was just yanking her chain… he did that a lot.

“I like you!” Rainbow Blaze stepped forward and placed a hoof on Soarin’s shoulder. As usual, Dash chuckled at how forward her father was. The Equestria famous Soarin was standing before him, and he just treated him like a buddy. “It’s a little weird that you’re walking around with a horn strapped to your head, but my daughter was never normal either, so you’re a perfect fit!” he chuckled.

“Uh… thanks?” Soarin snickered as Dash’s dad gave him a friendly jab in the shoulder.

“Hey!” Dash leapt at her dad and the two got into a friendly scuffle that was quickly broken up by Firefly.

Soarin watched the family interact with a warm feeling in his heart. Dash’s family was pretty cool. He was glad his first meeting with them went smoothly, even if it was a little weird. Then again, Dash was by no means a normal mare. She was quirky, spunky, and full of fighting energy, so it was to be expected that at least part of her family shared that spirit.

The whole thing made Soarin think. What did it make him think about?

His own family.

Something he honestly had not thought about in a very long time. His mother, his father, his two little brothers. When was the last time he visited them in Manehatten? He couldn’t even remember. His life had been so hectic and strange and his family didn’t even know. Dash had taught him just as much as she had taught her over the past year… and here she was reminding him of the importance of family.

He missed his mom… and his dad…

He missed his brothers…

How did they fall into the back of his mind? They were important to him. They really were…

“All recruits! Gather around!” Silver called, grabbing all of their attention.

“Huh?” Dash looked back to see Silver flagging them all down over near the tables. Soarin noticed lots of elites were gathering as well. They turned back to Dash’s parents, quickly. “Looks like they need us. Sit tight, I’ll be back,” Dash smiled, giving both of her parent s a quick hug before she and Soarin hopped up and glided towards Silver.

Soarin released a very long sigh of relief as they moved, earning a smirk from Dash.

“What, were you holding your breath the whole time?” Dash asked. Soarin chuckled and nodded.

“More or less, I was nervous,” he admitted.

“The mighty Soarin, afraid of my parents?” Dash teased as he shrugged.

“Hey, setting a good impression is extremely important, especially when it comes to meeting the family of the mare I love,” he bounced his eyebrows. “But yikes, I thought I blew it when I kissed you.”

“Nah, my Dad needed a good slap to the face. In fact, he could use several,” she joked.

“You definitely take after him,” Soarin said with a smile before she nudged him in the shoulder.

“I don’t know how I should take that!” Dash couldn’t help but giggle as the two landed with the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“Dad! BUZZ OFF!”

Dash and Soarin looked to see Squall trying to push his dad away as they approached the group as well.

“I want in on this top secret meeting!” he guffawed as he kept walking forward. Luckily for Squall, Silver walked up and put a hoof against Squall’s dad.

“Sir, kindly wait with the rest of the guests,” he said very sternly.

“Oooo, super top secret!” Squall’s dad grinned. “Very well! Can’t spoil any surprises!” he said before turning around and giving Squall a few rough pats on the head. Squall groaned and looked down, refusing to make any eye contact with anypony as they gathered. Matteo, Star, and Storm were all looking at him with mixed expressions. Matteo had a seldom seen look of surprise on his face. Star had a look of sympathy, and Storm… looked pissed off. Dash had no idea why, but he looked incredibly miffed.

Soon the rest of the recruits and the Wonderbolts gathered around, save for Spitfire, who was still up at the podium. She should have finished organizing things up there a while ago, but Soarin had the feeling she was hiding to stave off her… problems.

“We’ve got a lot more guests showing up than we anticipated,” Silver explained. He motioned to the tables that were set up in a scattered pattern, rectangular tables that could sit four on each side. “Our setup is inadequate, we’re going to push these tables together to make lines of long tables leading towards the podium,” he pointed towards the center of the dome where Spitfire was ‘working.’ “We’ve got a few tables being brought here form the mess halls right now, we have to get this banquet underway soon, so when the maintenance staff walks in, everypony help them out, alright? Dismissed!”

Almost right after Silver explained it, the maintenance crew started coming through the doors, trying to clear a path through the guests so they could fit the new tables through. Being earth ponies, most of them were probably fine carrying the tables, but Silver said they needed them quickly, so they all moved to assist.

Some of the Wonderbolts went to make a path, politely alerting the guests to move aside as the maintenance crew moved. The rest went to assist with the tables or move the ones already present into place. Soarin went to help bring in the new tables. Dash, along with Matteo, Squall, Star, and Storm stayed behind to move the other tables.

As Dash and the others were directed by Silver and moving into place to lift one of the tables, Star found her way next to Dash.

“Um…” she began as they lifted the table and hovered in the air with the help of Matteo on the other side. “Did you see…?”

“Squall’s parents?” Dash finished for her as they moved.

“Yeah…” Star nodded as they set the table down.

“Kind of hard not to see them. Honestly, Star…” Dash shook her head. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

“I’m not…” Storm Front suddenly said as he walked up behind them.

“Storm?” Dash blinked and stepped aside to let him in. Just as she observed before, he looked incredibly angry. He was grinding his teeth together between speaking.

“I’ve got a few words for that asshole and I hope he hears them loud and clear…” Storm snarled as he moved alongside Dash and Star to the next table Silver wanted moved.

“A few words?” Dash asked with interest as Storm joined them. Dash glanced over to see Squall standing among the ponies moving tables, but not actually helping. He seemed reluctant to even move as ponies worked around him.

“Some damn good ones,” Storm snarled as he glanced at Squall as well.

Dash didn’t like where this was going. If the last scuffle the two stallions had was any indication, Strom Front and Squall did not get along very well. Up until now, they knew literally nothing about Squall’s life, but clearly something about what they just all witnessed had Storm a little more than extremely pissed off. In fact, Dash had never seen Storm more angry, not even when he was yelling at Squall about family a few weeks ago.

She, herself was trying to put everything she saw together. Squall, from the beginning had exhibited very strange behavior. Challenging authority when he simply could not win. Acting tough one moment, becoming a coward the next. But most interestingly… appearing to enjoy being yelled at or berated.

Dash just witnessed Squall’s family publicly humiliate him without batting an eye or thinking about how ridiculous they looked… was there a connection? More specifically, was his sharp and venomous behavior a result of… that? She was so confused.

“Hold on…” Star suddenly spoke up, directing her words at Storm. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves…”

“Shove it, tiny…” Storm said in an incredibly rare display of snippiness. “He’s full of crap, and you better believe I intend to let him know,” Storm growled as they moved the second table.

“Whoa, whoa!” Dash reacted as Star’s jaw dropped.

“Storm…” Matteo cut in as Star appeared to be rendered speechless by the sudden mean tone Storm had taken. “Calm down,” Matteo said with a strict tone as they placed the second table on the ground. Storm glared harshly at Matteo.

Dash looked between the two of them as she slowly stepped back. Storm and Matteo had a mutual respect for each other, one that was earned through working together during the tryouts and through what both of them had achieved. Matteo only ever spoke highly of Storm… so it was no simple act when Matteo spoke out against him.

“Matteo… don’t act like you understand,” Storm growled while looking up at Matteo.

“I understand perfectly, if not more…” Matteo huffed down at Storm. It looked like Matteo was reading his intentions where Dash could not. “Just leave it be, it’s not worth it.”

Dash was trying to figure out what they were talking about, but she couldn’t put her hoof on it.

“Next table! Let’s go!” Silver yelled to them . They started moving, Storm and Matteo glaring at each other the whole length.

“Guys…” Dash shifted in between them as they moved. “Stop, please.”

“Dash… butt out!” Storm snapped at her.

Dash’s eyes went wide. Storm Front… the seemingly perfect friendly pony who had been nothing but nice to her, just personally lashed out at her. Anypony else she wouldn’t have given a damn… but Storm? The more she was around him, the less perfect he seemed. At the beginning, he was friendly and unbreakable… then the incident with Squall in the hallway… now this… Storm was exposing cracks in his armor. Perhaps his past affected him more than he let on. Was his friendliness a front he put up to disguise what drove him absolutely mad?

“Storm…” Dash tried to get to him, but because Storm was so focused on glaring at Matteo as they moved to the next table…

He managed to bump directly into Squall.

Squall looked up for an instant, but the moment he saw Storm, he looked right back to the ground.

Dash, Star, and Matteo all stopped, despite the orders Silver was giving. They were afraid a similar scenario would play out compared to a few weeks ago.

“You…” Storm growled as he glared at Squall.

“Rgh…” Squall merely grunted in response.

“Is that really all you have to say?!” Storm quickly snapped at him. Dash and Little Star both flinched as Storm rose his voice. Matteo remained calm, but he clearly didn’t like the way storm was acting. “Look at me,” Storm demanded. Squall kept his head down. Storm snarled at him. “Look. At. Me,” he demanded. Again, Squall simply stared at the ground. “LOOK AT ME!” Storm shouted at him, drawing the attention of a few around him. Including Silver.

“Hey!” Silver trotted up between the two of them. “The hell? Do I have to separate you two again?!” Silver asked as he stood above and between the two of them. Despite the pony of superior authority standing between them, Storm looked right past Silver as if he didn’t exist, glaring at Squall as harshly as he could.

“What is wrong with you?!” Storm yelled in Squall’s direction. Silver scrunched his face and turned to Storm, but Storm didn’t waver. “No, seriously, I want a god damn answer from you!” Storm spat at Squall.

Squall didn’t say anything, nor did he move anywhere. He stood perfectly still as Storm looked over Silver towards him, glaring at Squall as he looked straight down at the ground.

“You’re the biggest pile of shit I ever met in my life!” Storm yelled at Squall.

Dash watched curiously as Silver moved to restrain Storm. However, about three seconds after, Silver let Storm go, giving him a free path right towards Squall. The look on Silver’s face changed, as if his sudden inexplicable actions were intended. Like he wanted Storm to go to Squall.

“Leave me alone…” Squall said quietly.

“You can’t even look me in the eye? You’re pathetic and a coward!” Storm snapped. If there was one thing Squall hated, it was being called a coward. Squall looked up, glaring and gritting his teeth… but there was a distinct amount of desperation in his expression, as if he wanted to retort but there was nothing coming to him. In fact… he had faint traces of tears in the corners of is eyes. “Ha! A crybaby too? This just keeps getting better and better!”

“Storm!” Dash came up behind him, but sharply hesitated, remembering well what happened last time she tried to restrain him. Dash desperately wanted to stop him, they were too far away from the guests for them to see or know what was going on, but the last thing Dash wanted was for Derpy to see Storm like this. If another fight started it and she saw Storm throwing punches, it would absolutely crush her.

“You…” Storm growled at Squall as he dominated him in the battle of glares. “You walk around here every damn day with a scowl, and attitude, and acting like the whole damn world is against you. Why? Cause your mommy and your daddy forgot to change your diaper in front of everyone?”

“Shut up!” Squall’s voice cracked as he lashed back. “It’s not funny! You don’t know what it’s like! Living my whole damn life being humiliated! Treated like a baby! Not being taken seriously!” he yelled. Squall’s confidence seemed completely shattered, as if his darkest secret had just been revealed. Storm however, took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose without taking his crushing gaze off of Squall.

“Yeah, you know what?” Storm tipped his head and leaned into Squall’s face. “I don't know what it’s like,” Storm said quietly.

Dash’s eyes widened. Of course… that’s what this was all about. Squall’s ears flopped down and any traces of anger seemed to slowly fade as Storm continued.

“I don’t know what it’s like to have parents who come to visit me. I’ve never had somepony around to ruffle my mane and tell me I’m a good colt. A hug is something I was lucky to get every month or so,” he paused and sharpened his glare further. “I don’t care how much you don’t like them, you have a mother and father who clearly love you and cherish you. Yet you huff, whine, and cry like nopony in Equestria has it as hard as you do…” Storm made sure each of his words stabbed deep.

Dash suddenly couldn’t bring herself to try and stop him anymore. Storm had a point… and what better pony to drive it home? Their situations and personalities were almost perfectly opposite.

Squall had, while incredibly annoying, a mother and father that loved him and cared about him. Yet Squall was bitter and sour because he despised his parents’ behavior and form of affection.

Storm on the other hoof, had had an incredibly rough life with a mother who only ever spoke to insult and blame his father for everything. And said father, while he cared and tried hard for Storm, was barely ever around. Despite it all, Storm was as sweet and friendly as a pony comes, trying to be happy and kind to those despite life not being that way to him.

“You know what you need to do?” Storm grunted in disgust. “You need to fucking GROW UP!” he put as harshly as he possibly could.

“Stop!” Little Star suddenly hovered up between them and faced Storm. “Storm, STOP it!” she demanded while holding her little hooves up and pushing against Storm. “Leave him alone!”

Dash was surprised. Star was defending Squall?

“Star, back off, this isn’t your problem,” Storm hissed at her.

“I don’t care, you’re being way too harsh on him!” Star exclaimed.

“Too harsh?!” Storm looked at her in disbelief. “Did you hear a word I said?”

“Yeah! I did! But you’re acting a little high and mighty, don’t you think?” Star backed up a little as if trying to show she wanted to shield Squall. She glanced back at Squall, who looked broken, looking down with small tears built up, but refusing to fall. “Don’t compare your problems!” she stated strongly as she glared back at Storm.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“I know a thing or two about not being taken seriously your whole life… it has its own sting,” she calmed down as she explained.

Squall’s ears stood up and he looked up at Star’s back. His face suggested he was surprised as his jaw hung open slightly, as if he never thought somepony would defend him, OR make an argument about knowing how he felt. Storm blinked and backed off slightly, finding weight to Star’s words as he thought them over carefully. He was so sure he was in the right, but Star’s little intervention instantly made him look at it a little differently..

“Are you all done now?” Silver suddenly stepped back in and pushed them all apart. “Good,” he continued before they could answer. “Now let’s quit the drama and move these damn tables already! Double time it!” he ordered. The rest of the ponies began moving with him.

Dash and Matteo stopped in their tracks and looked back at Storm, Star, and Squall. The three of them remained in place for a moment before Storm grunted and turned away to help out. Star turned to Squall and hovered up to him. Dash was too far away to hear them, but Star was clearly checking on him and making sure he was alright.

Dash didn’t know what to think of the situation. It was almost as if there was no side to take. She agreed with Storm that Squall’s behavior was a bit irrational, but she also felt Star was right about Storm being too harsh. If anything, she started to see how a few pieces fit together. Squall always complaining that nopony took him seriously. It finally made sense why he smiled whenever he was yelled at. He wanted to be treated sternly, it made him feel like he was being taken seriously. It was odd, but Dash had a feeling there was a purpose.

“Uh…” Matteo suddenly spoke up as he and Dash started moving another table.

“What?” Dash broke from her thoughts and looked up at him. Matteo was looking in every direction.

“I barely even noticed in the commotion… but…” he looked down at Dash. “Where did Twister go?”

Dash blinked and looked up. She glanced around the whole area, but Twister, was in fact, nowhere to be seen. Not even around Surprise and Pinkie.

“Huh?” Dash reacted as she came to the same realization.

However, they didn’t have time to dwell on it. They had to set up the tables and get the banquet started.

With some quick work and a lot of yelling from Silver, the tables were soon all in place. The guests were called over and everypony found a nice place to sit before moving towards the finely prepared buffet with the dinner for the night.

“Wow… actual food. I think I’m in heaven,” Dash chuckled as she filed in line behind her mom and dad. Thunderlane was right behind her, conversing with his little brother, Rumble. Dash had been occupied, but Thunderlane’s little brother at some point had showed up as well. Thunderlane gave him a pat on the head before turning and looking towards Dash.

“Hey, Dash,” he spoke up, tapping her on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” she replied while turning to face him.

“What was that all about a few minutes ago?” he asked. He was not around the little exchange between Storm and Squall. Dash opened her mouth to reply, but found herself hesitating, not quite sure what to say.

“Uh…” she blinked as the line moved forwards slightly. “Honestly, there’s a bit much to tell, I doubt we’ll have enough time here. I’ll tell you later,” she suggested. “Oh!” her curiosity suddenly took over. “Have you seen Twister anywhere?” she asked.

“Twister?” Thunderlane repeated while blinking. He looked around a few times. “Uh… no actually I haven’t.”

“Well, I dunno what the hell he’s doing,” Dash released an exasperated sigh. “He better get back before the squad is announced.”

“What about you, little dude?” Thunderlane turned and asked his brother. “Have you seen a crazy green pony with a blue mane floating around?”

Where could Twister be? It was strange for him to just disappear like that. Actually, what was Dash thinking, strange was normal for Twister, so for all she knew, he could just be fooling around elsewhere for the time being. Somehow, she had a feeling that he would show up RIGHT as the ceremony welcoming the recruit squad and the reserves began. Call it a hunch, but he was weird like that.

“Yeah I have no idea where he—” Thunderlane was turning back around towards Dash when he accidentally bumped into an old, bright red pegasus stallion with a blown back orange and yellow mane.

“Whoa!” the stallion stumbled, barely keeping his tray steady. Thunderlane instinctively reached out and caught the old stallion, preventing him from dropping his tray.

“Ah! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there!” Thunderlane quickly apologized.

Dash blinked, gasped, and her eyes grew about three sizes.

“Oh it’s quite alright,” the old stallion chuckled. He looked to be a good ten or fifteen years older than silver.

“Are you alright?” a new voice entered. A yellow mare of the same age with a long white mane came up to him.

“I’m fine Flash, don’t worry,” The old stallion turned and smiled at Thunderlane. “No harm done, son.”

Thunderlane sighed in relief as the old coupled moved away, happy that he didn’t do any more damage. He turned back to Dash—

“Dash?” he blinked and looked at her quizzically. Her eyes were wide and her jaw looked like it was about to unhinge and fall to the floor. “What’s up with you?” he asked.

“Th-th-th-th-that…” she stuttered as Thunderlane looked at her curiously.

“Eh?”

“THAT WAS… AHHHHHH!” Dash put her hooves to her head and released a very high pitched squeal.

Thunderlane looked back towards the two old ponies as Silver and Misty Fly suddenly hurried over to them, both of them smiling and looking incredibly happy to see the old pair. He looked back to Dash, who looked like she was about to burst.

“That was Blazetail and Flashwind!” Dash exclaimed, looking like she would faint. Thunderlane blinked, glancing back at the old couple before looking at Dash again.

“Who?”

“OH MY GOD!” Dash wanted to slap Thunderlane upside the head as hard as she could.

Blazetail and Flashwind were in attendance?! AND NOPONY TOLD HER THEY WOULD BE THERE?! Dash couldn’t believe she just randomly encounted the two ponies that more or less inspired her to get to the point she had just reached. She doubted the two of them would recognize her, but they were there… and they would see her in her moment where she officially became a Wonderbolt. The night that was already awesome just became so much MORE awesome!

It was also interesting to see Silver and Misty act so… giddy. The two of them literally flocked to Blazetail and Flashwind. It was understandable though, of all the current Wonderbolts, the only two that would possibly have a more personal relationship with the two former legendary captains would be the two oldest Wonderbolts.

Dash hadn’t seen much of Soarin, Spitfire, or Fleetfoot since the banquet began. They were sitting near the podium. Dash remembered the recount of the lucky encounter from Fleetfoot and Spitfire, how they were competing in a Manehatten amateur stunt flying contest when Blazetail and Flashwind just happened to be passing by and stopped to watch. She never really asked if they got to know the old captains very well, but Dash assumed Spitfire at least had to know them if she was chosen as their successor…

But again… seeing Silver giddy was cracking her up. He was cracking her up, the way he looked so happy and bright eyed as he conversed with Blazetail. However, Dash was more interested in the way Misty Fly was interacting with Flashwind. Misty had immediately hugged Flashwind upon approaching and Flashwind looked incredibly happy to see her as well. It wasn’t long before they had released each other… and Flashwind began making wing and hoof signals to talk to Misty. They were shaky, and nowhere near as refined or quick as Fire Streak’s or Storm’s, but Dash knew well how much Misty adored it if anyone could speak with her.

Dash finally reached the buffet and quickly picked up more food than her plate could carry. It was a simple catering service buffet, but after how much crappy food she had eaten in the mess hall, something like this looked like a feast fit for the princesses themselves. She was still a bit overwhelmed knowing her original inspirations were present, but she managed to get back to her seat with her parents without spilling anything in her excited state.

The banquet itself was great. Dash really didn’t know what other word to use to describe it. ‘Great’ seemed like the only and best way to put it. She was with her parents, she had connected with old friends (who were also sitting at the table with her family), she was among idols, new friends, family... DAMN, it was just an awesome experience.

To top it off? Great food! What more could she ask for?

The dinner progressed smoothly, with Dash’s friends reconnecting with her and Dash telling them all great stories of her experiences at the compound. Pinkie Pie literally could not stop laughing every time Dash talked about Silver. It was to be expected though. Of everything Dash told them about, she knew Silver was going to be popular.

Dash had spent a lot of time with Silver. She had come to respect him almost as much as one would respect their own father. And she also knew… that she would never be short of amusing stories to tell, because Silver was one heck of an interesting and hilarious individual if he wasn’t directing it at you.

The banquet continued to progress smoothly… and right up to the point that Dash had been both eager… and secretly dreading to see. Spitfire had gotten up from her seat and was heading to the podium. Dash knew what was coming, and she was about to find out how long she could hold her breath. Recruit squad, or reserve… she would be happy. But seriously, she wanted to be on the recruit squad so badly. Why? Because she felt like she earned it, she didn’t want to be separated from her new friends, and she wanted to stay within close proximity of Soarin. Being a reserve would make that a little difficult, no different than they already had been doing for a while with the long distance relationship.

Well, it was about to happen. She was about to know. She, her old friend, her new friends, her parents, and those who had faith in her were all ready and listening as Spitfire cleared her throat into the microphone to draw the attention of everypony.

“Hello everypony,” she began as the last few conversations ended and all were looking at her. “I hope you are all enjoying this event as we are, because not only is it a time to reconnect with friends and family, but also a time for us to honor those who have achieved the right to be called Wonderbolts. For those of you who don’t know, of the twenty recruits that have all performed admirably, only five of them will be selected to stay in the compound with us, the other fifteen will be sent home, but with the title of Wonderbolt reserve. No matter which of you are chosen for the recruit squad, you have all earned an equal honor. The reserve Wonderbolts are just as much a part of our force as the recruit squad, something I will go more into later.”

Dash felt like she was going to fire up to the ceiling from her seat, she was so excited she thought she was going to burst.

“Would all the recruits, as well as squads one, two, and three all please come up here? Spitfire motioned to the small stage the podium was set up on, elevated about a foot off the ground.

“That’s your cue,” Rainbow Blaze leaned back and nudged Dash. Dash looked at her father and shivered as she smiled. This was happening, this was the official induction.

She eagerly got up and started moving towards the stage. She was excited, but also a little anxious and nervous. She remembered Silver telling her how harshly she would be evaluated compared to the others. He made it clear she was one of the best, but because of that there were much higher expectations placed on her. She could only hope that she met them.

Being closer to the stage, the three elite squads were on stage and lined up by rank before the recruits began piling on. Soarin and Fleetfoot directed the recruits to line up in front of the elites. Dash could distinctly feel the rapid thumping of her heart beating in her chest. She ended up between Thunderlane and Matteo as they all turned and faced their family, friends, the rest of the Wonderbolt elite, and now that Dash got a better look, there were definitely more old, retired Wonderbolts in attendance. It was hard for her to take her eyes off of Blazetail and Flashwind, but she picked out a few others she remembered from her fillyhood. She recalled seeing some of them fly alongside Misty Fly back when Dash would see her shows. Misty was very young back then as proven by how much older some of the retired Wonderbolts seemed.

Dash glanced to her left, jumping briefly in surprise when Twister was suddenly on the other side of Matteo. Just like she predicted, he showed up right when the ceremony started. She wasn’t going to question him, he did his own thing. But then again… she began to wonder if Twister’s parents were there. He had done nothing but goof off the whole banquet so far, she didn’t even think about it. And she would have to wait, because Spitfire was starting up again.

“All twenty of you…” Spitfire began again, causing Dash to stiffen in excitement. “Once we hand you these plaques,” she motioned to the table beside her. “Will officially be recognized as Wonderbolts Reserve and recruit squad alike. Please come around as we call your name. Little Star,” Spitfire began as they turned and started moving. Each one of them passed by Spitfire, received a plaque from Soarin, and proceeded down the line, shaking hooves with each of the Wonderbolts from squads one through three.

Dash felt more and more anxious as the line moved. She was just receiving her plaque, they weren’t calling out the recruit squad yet, but holy crap, she wanted to know so badly. The names were being called one by one, and Dash barely noticed when Thunderlane’s name was called. She blinked when she realized she was next, barely able to steady herself before—

“Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire called her name. Dash swallowed before moving past the podium. She glanced at Spitfire and saw her smiling. It was amazing to see Spitfire look upon her like that, even if they already knew each other well. Before they were just friends, now she was acknowledging Dash as the captain. Spitfire also looked a little strange though. She looked abnormally stiff, as if she was holding her breath. She was also sweating. Maybe she was nervous too? Dash couldn’t tell, nor could understand why she would be. She didn’t have time to contemplate it because she had to keep moving.

Soarin handed her a plaque, and bounced his eyebrows once at her subtly. She held in a snicker and rolled her eyes as she moved to Fleetfoot. Dash barely had time to tuck her plaque under her wing before Fleetfoot reached out and gave her a hug instead of shaking her hoof. It was brief and surprising, but Dash smiled and returned it quickly before moving down. She passed Silver next, who gave her a faint grin and a nod as they shook hooves.

To anypony else, the gesture would have seemed insignificant. A simple acknowledgement from a superior officer. However, to Dash it meant more. She could feel it in his eyes and the way he looked upon her as they exchanged the hoof shake. Pride. He looked proud to be a part of her rise into the Wonderbolts. The look put her at ease as she continued, because why would he look so thrilled if his personal student wasn’t staying in the compound with him?

She moved down the line. Wave Chill simply gave a warm smile, Blaze and High Winds both winked at her in a joking manner. Fire Streak gave her a strong, firm hoof shake, Misty gave her a hug, Lightning Streak jokingly blew a kiss at her, which she replied with sticking her tongue out. Finally, Surprise shook her hoof so hard and rapidly, Dash thought she was going to bounce right off the stage.

Dash felt a roaring flame in her heart as she came around and relined up at the front of the stage. Passing by each of them while wearing the uniform and holding proof of her ascension beneath her wing felt incredible. Each one of them had had a role in her being there today. Some of them more than others, but each of them held a place dear in her heart. It was something she would never forget, and she could only hope to repay them for someday.

As they all retook their places in front.

“Everypony, please welcome our twenty newest additions to the Wonderbolts… Silver?” Spitfire looked towards Silver Lining as she, Silver, and the rest on stage floated up so they could be seen over the recruits. All the Wonderbolts, current and retired all stood from their seats as well. Silver cleared his throat.

“ALL RANKS ATTENTION!” Silver yelled.

“AYE!” All the Wonderbolts replied, even Blazetail and Flashwind.

“ALL HONOR SALUTE!” Silver yelled. Dash watched with absolute goosebumps as in unison, all the Wonderbolts pounded a hoof to their chest, then tapped and held it to their foreheads.

“AYE!” they all acknowledged. The rest of the guests watched with interest and wonder as the Wonderbolts held the salute for a good fifteen seconds.

“ALL RANKS! AT EASE!” Silver called out as they floated back down and the rest of the Wonderbolts retook their seats.

Dash definitely had to make that down at the top of her list of ‘coolest things that had ever happened to her.’ That was the old Wonderbolt salute. She had barely seen it used during her time here, but as she had read, it was usually used only during times of conflict or military operation. They were all just acknowledged on the deeper level of their new rank.

“Now…” Spitfire returned to the microphone. “Matteo…” she called a name again. Dash glanced to her left at him. He looked surprised as well. “Twister… Little Star…” Spitfire continued naming names, but they didn’t know what to do. “Squall…” she paused. “And Rainbow Dash.”

Dash flinched. What were they being called out for? Was this going to be about the test?

“Could you five please step back for a moment?” Spitfire ordered. Dash and the rest looked between each other curiously. Dash more specifically, looked at Thunderlane as she and the others call moved back while he stayed forward. “Now… you fifteen in front,” Spitfire started again.

Dash instantly had bells and fireworks going off in her head. Fifteen? That meant…

“Or as I should refer to you now… our new reserve Wonderbolts,” Spitfire revealed.

Dash instantly looked back and forth with a massive smile on her face. Little Star looked like she wanted to scream happily. Matteo’s eyes widened. Squall’s jaw dropped. And Twister’s usual smirk remained. Dash felt something poke her from behind. She turned to see Silver nudging her.

“Quiet down…” he said sternly as Spitfire started speaking. The five of them instantly did their best to hold in their excitement, but it was hard… oh man, it was hard.

“Now, before any of you go on thinking that you’ve fallen short…” Spitfire began, as she instantly saw a few faces among the other fifteen, including Thunderlane, fall a little. “I want to be very clear that the Wonderbolt reserve is an incredibly important part of our force… in fact, I would almost go as far to say you are one of the most important parts of our force because you represent our prowess and our duties outside of the compound.”

Dash listened intently as all she found she could think of was Thunderlane… aside from her current giddiness of course. At first she thought Spitfire was just going to give them a generic, ‘you are important too’ speech, but as she spoke, it seemed to go much further than that.

“As members of the Wonderbolts away from the compound, you are given full authority to take action in any crisis or during any trouble that may occur. Local law enforcement and guard militia will give you their full cooperation as long as you show up in uniform and proof of your Wonderbolt certification which we will issue to you later. As Wonderbolts, we protect Equestria to the best of our unique abilities… and because of our reserve Wonderbolts, our reach can extend far beyond Canterlot. Be the watchponies and the protectors of your homes, and be ready at all times because we call upon our reserves much more often than you might think. This is not a goodbye… this is good luck, and we look forward to seeing you often.”

The change in the air surrounding the reserves was clear and extreme. All the dejected looks turned into ones of both surprise and motivated.

Protectors of their homes... full cooperation from local authorities… it almost sounded like a super hero role. That may have been a childish way to think about it, but to Dash… that sounded like the best way to think of it. The Wonderbolts were special ponies that were trained to be the best, and protect those who cannot protect themselves… it made sense to send a good number of them off to be out in the world, at home and at the ready to act if need be.

“As I said, you will be properly equipped with what you need before you are dismissed a few days from now,” Spitfire added with a smile. “You may be seated… you five,” Spitfire looked back at Dash and the others as the new reserve Wonderbolts stepped down from the stage and took their seats. “Please step forward.”

The five of them looked between each other. Dash couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it! After how the elite selection after the tryouts went, she was terrified that something was once again going to prevent her from reaching her goal… but now here she was… with four ponies she had suffered through a lot of pain, sweat, and tears with… about to be welcomed as the new recruit squad. She almost couldn’t handle it, nor did it seem the rest of them could either. Star’s wings were struggling not to flutter, Squall still had his jaw nearly to the floor. Dash had never seen Matteo with such a ‘happy’ look on his serious face. Twister had a banana in his ear.

“Last but not least…” Spitfire started up again. “We obviously have you five,” she said with a chuckle, which earned a few laughs from the crowd as well. “Why did we call you back? Because you’re not going home after this… you are staying right here with us.”

Dash was inadvertently tapping her hoof on the ground, she wanted to hear Spitfire say it so bad.

“Mares and stallions,” Spitfire looked out at the crowd as she motioned to the five on stage. “These five...” she paused and looked at Matteo. “Individuals… have shown us some of the most remarkable flying abilities and combat potential I have ever seen in my years here as a Wonderbolt. “Each of them was hoof picked for special evaluation by our reliable veteran, Silver Lining, and let me tell you, his selection was well picked. Not only did they perform well above and beyond the heavy expectations put on a group that was already one of our best ever… they broke through those expectations and wowed us further. Not to mention these five are the first recruits in Wonderbolt history, to turn and attack the black dragon image during the test.” Spitfire paused. Dash watched as a murmur of awe spread among the retired Wonderbolts. Knowing she had impressed such an inspiring crew was all the more inspiring in itself.

“Squall, Little Star, Rainbow Dash, Matteo, and Twister!” Spitfire nodded to them. “I’d like to officially welcome you all as our newest five flyer recruit squad!”

Hearing the words directly from the captain’s mouth made Dash’s heart leap in her chest as she was sure the same happened for the others. The effect was doubled when Spitfire began clapping her hooves together. Which led to the Wonderbolts on stage doing the same… and eventually the whole crowd joining in.

Dash and the others looked around at friends and family alike… taking in the sight of everypony clapping and acknowledging them. Dash’s eyes darted around the crowd, first landing on Blazetail and Flashwind. She blinked and moved to her friends from Ponyville and her mother and father. Finally, her eyes moved to Storm Front, who was sitting beside Autumn Rain at a table with squad seven. He was clapping as well with a smile on his face.

Little Star suddenly moved towards Dash and hugged her tightly. Dash returned the hug as she looked up at Squall. Squall was looking down, but his eyes had lost any trace of sadness from the incident earlier. Dash looked out to see Squall’s parents hooting and hollering like crazy before she turned back to Squall. She reached out and gave him a light punch to the shoulder. Squall instantly looked up at her, his eyes wrought with disbelief. She winked at him before nodding. He simply stared at her as she turned to Matteo. Matteo balled up one set of his talons and held it out towards Dash. Dash reached up and bumped her hoof with it. Twister jumped up on Matteo’s head, wearing a ten-gallon hat. He pulled it off his head and began swinging it around.

They had made it.

All five of them had made it. They were a recruit squad. They survived the grueling training together and now they had the chance to become even more. What an amazing day this was shaping up to be… one they would never forget.

With the dinner over and the ceremony complete, all those attending were directed back towards the doors of the battle dome as the catering crew and maintenance crew began cleaning everything up. Dash and the others took this chance to rejoin their friends and families for a short while before the event ultimately ended.

Dash spent a few moments taking in the moment with her new squad, but Twister disappeared once again right after the ceremony was over. Dash wanted to ask him about his family, but was Twister deliberately avoiding it? He was tricky like that.

As soon as she was back among her family and old friends, Dash was swarmed. Pinkie, Fluttershy, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, and Scootaloo gave her a huge group hug full of congratulations and excitement. Of course, Dash considered the fact that she was now going to be staying in the compound permanently. However, with her schedule more open now, sometimes with more than one day off in a row, she would find plenty of chances to go home and spend a night or two with her old friends. They were ecstatic when they heard this, especially Fluttershy, and Scootaloo, who both seemed more worried than the rest of them. Dash was quick to let Scootaloo know she could have full access to her cloud house gym back home, and she even asked Bulk Biceps to keep an eye on her, with the added benefit of using her home gym as well. She knew he wouldn’t complain.

Dash reconnected with her mother and father as well, both of them giving her a big hug and telling her how incredibly proud they were of her. Dash promised she’d visit them as well and see about getting them tickets to any shows she might participate in. She was so glad both her father AND her mother were able to make the trip. Both of them worked long, harsh hours, but they both made the effort to come see her. It was beyond touching.

But just as she pulled away from her parent’s hug, Dash noticed Applejack hesitating as she walked by. Dash looked in the direction Applejack was walking, and saw Thunderlane sitting on the floor with his brother trying to talk to him. However, Thunderlane didn’t look the least bit thrilled or happy… not even after the very motivating speech Spitfire gave.

“I’ll find you guys before you leave,” Dash said to her parents. “I’ve got a few ponies to talk to.”

“We’ll be right here, honey,” Firefly nodded.

“Don’t take too long, there’s only so much attention I can give you,” Rainbow Blaze joked, earning a nudge from Firefly.

Dash chuckled as she moved away from her parents and towards Applejack.

“Yo, A.J.,” she spoke up. Applejack flinched and yelped before quickly turning and looking towards Dash. “Your stallion still being an idiot?” Dash asked. Applejack sighed and looked back towards Thunderlane.

“He’s been mopin’ the whole time!” Applejack quickly stated with frustration in her voice. “I dunno, Rainbow, I almost get the idea he ain’t happy t’see me!”

“Whoooooaaaa…” Dash shifted in front of Applejack. “A.J., that’s far from it. He’s being a stubborn idiot… c’mon, let’s go talk to him,” she said as she grabbed Applejack and began pulling him towards Thunderlane.

“Huh? But, what am I supposed t’say?” Applejack questioned as they moved.

“Let me talk first,” Dash winked at her. “I’ve been wanting to talk to him anyway, he’s had more than enough reasons to be happy, but I don’t think he’s seeing them. You’ll know when to speak up, trust me,” Dash assured Applejack as they moved towards Thunderlane.

“But you’re a Wonderbolt, big bro!” Rumble exclaimed as he stood before his brother. The little colt was incredibly confused as to why his brother was sad. Dash didn’t blame the little guy, Thunderlane was being silly, and she intended to make that loud and clear for him.

“Hey kid, go talk to Scootaloo for a sec, we need to talk to your brother,” Dash said while nudging Rumble along.

“What? But she has cooties!” Rumble whined, earning a snicker from Dash.

“Not as much as Sweetie Belle, trust me, you’ll live,” Dash assured him as she nudged him along. Rumble obeyed and left Thunderlane with Dash and Applejack. He didn’t even acknowledge them though, he was sitting still and looking down. What was wrong with him? Dash couldn’t believe the way he was acting. He had more than enough reasons to be absolutely thrilled and here he was moping. Well, she had to fix that.

“Thunderlane…” she spoke up. Thunderlane looked up at Dash and shifted his eyes to Applejack before looking back down. “Good gravy, Thunderlane…” Dash groaned in frustration. “I thought you’d be better once Applejack showed up, what gives?”

“You know exactly what gives Dash…” he replied while speaking to the floor. Applejack made a move towards him, but Dash reached out and blocked her, shaking her head. Applejack narrowed her eyes and bit her lip as she sat down and let Dash handle it.

“No, actually Thunderlane, I don’t…” she half-lied. She more or less knew the reasons he was down, she just wanted to hear it from him.

“Really, Dash?” he turned and snorted. “Look at you, working so hard and having something to show for it. I went through hell, somehow didn’t die in the process, and now I’m being sent back home. Feels great…”

“That’s stupid,” Dash IMMEDIATELY replied, earning a glare from him but she shook her head.

“Thunderlane you are WEARING a Wonderbolt uniform!” she raised her voice a little as she stepped forward and places a heavy hoof against his chest.

“But I’m just—”

“A reserve?!” Dash cut him off. “Did you hear a single word Spitfire said? You’re role is just as important, if not more! You’re going home, yeah, but now you can protect that home as a Wonderbolt! Seriously, Thunderlane how much praise does it take for you to understand what you’ve accomplished? Yeah, you pained your way through everything, taking more punishment than the rest of us combined, but you still made it! You’re in the top twenty of three hundred pegasi that showed up during the tryouts. BOTH Soarin and Silver have personally gone out of their way to praise you and your efforts and you’re MOPING?! Tell me how that makes sense because it doesn’t make sense to me!”

“I…” Thunderlane had his mouth open, but found no words to say back. He didn’t know what was different about Dash, but it was much different compared to when Soarin and Silver confronted him. Maybe because she knew him well? After all, when Dash told somepony the truth, she told it hard.

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is for a pony to come as far as we have?” Dash continued. She glanced briefly at Applejack. Applejack perked up, as if Dash was giving her a signal. “Do you know what’s going to happen when you get off the train at Ponyville? You are going to be treated like a hero. A Ponyville Wonderbolt, I’m more than certain the two of us are the first,” Dash finished as she took a single step back, letting Applejack by.

“Thunderlane, I don’t know why yer so down!” she picked up right where Dash left off, walking right up to him and giving him a big hug. “D’ya have any idea how proud Ponyville is gonna be of ya? How proud I am of ya?” she reached up and forced him to look at her. “You went into this blind and earned th’right to be proud of yerself too! I didn’t…” she hesitated and looked away. “I didn’t think ya’d get very far at all. Not cause I didn’t have faith in ya. I just thought you were in over yer head,” she looked back into his eyes. “But, now yer wearing that uniform and ya look so much stronger than ya did before ya left. I’m so happy for ya… Yer an amazing pony Thunderlane, don’t ever think yer not… please.”

The effect Applejack had on Thunderlane was so clear and present that it made Dash chuckle to herself. She had such a hard time getting through his thick skull, but Applejack could push her way in freely, it seemed. Dash was confident Applejack had turned his thoughts around.

What did Thunderlane say to her when they sat across from each other on the train to the tryouts?

She’s still too soft on me, like I break if I so much as fall off a chair. I feel like I need to be better for her, to be stronger. I want her to acknowledge me as an equal, not something she has to watch out for.

Applejack had done just that. That was Thunderlane’s true goal after all, and he clearly had not forgotten it. He may be sad he was leaving, and down because he wouldn’t be staying with his new friends anymore, but he had a home to go back to and protect, along with family and friends that would be awaiting his return with open arms.

Deciding to leave the two lovebirds alone, Dash turned and started walking towards the crowd again. However, she only got about halfway to them before spotting somepony else that was sitting off to the side by himself.

It was Storm Front.

Dash blinked and looked around for Derpy, wondering why she wasn’t with him. She quickly found her answer when she saw Derpy surrounded by a Fire Streak, Wave Chill, and Fleetfoot. They seemed to be talking to her about the record she so casually broke during her time at the tryouts. Derpy looked like she was having the absolute time of her life, having such famous pegasi talk to her so eagerly. She was so excited she couldn’t keep her wings closed.

Storm must’ve broken off and sat down while Derpy was busy… but why? He was awfully far away from the rest of the crowd. This was the kind of behavior she expected from Squall, but definitely not Storm.

She immediately altered her course and trotted towards him. It was strange… he was smiling. He wasn’t looking down, or moping, he looked happy. Then why was he sitting alone? Since he didn’t look sad at all, she went with a casual approach.

“Heya, Storm!” Dash slowed to a walk and approached slowly. Storm looked towards her and nodded.

“Dash, congratulations!” he said reaching out and giving her a hug. To be honest she was confused. Beyond him sitting off to the side, this was quite a sudden turnaround from before. He was about to murder Squall before the banquet started and Dash tried to stop him. He wasn’t the least bit shaken up? She had come to see that Storm’s efforts to be nice twenty-four seven could be his way of coping with things. There was no way anypony would let something slide so easily?

“Thanks…” Dash said with a noticeable tone of worry in her voice that Storm picked up on.

“What’s up?” he asked as he held her at arm’s length.

“With me?” Dash tipped her head curiously. “I’m perfectly fine… I was more curious about you,” she admitted. Storm kept the smile on his face as he looked at her for another few moments before taking a deep breath and releasing a long sigh.

“I’m… fine…” Storm clearly lied. “Okay, that’s a lie,” he admitted immediately after. “Look, Dash, sorry about how I was acting earlier. I shouldn’t have gotten so critical of Squall,” he apologized. Dash was surprised. Storm despised Squall. The two never got along, especially after the little fight they had in the hallway. Storm had apologized to Dash for giving her a bloody nose right after, but he refused to give Squall the light of day. Now here he was rethinking it?

“It’s no big deal Storm, you—”

“It is a big deal Dash, I shouldn’t have attacked him. Seeing him act the way he does with the kind of family he has pushed me over the edge. I thought only about how his life was compared to mine and didn’t think how he could have other issues because of it. I was being selfish, but didn’t even consider it until Little Star stepped in to defend him.”

“Hey,” Dash sat down beside him. “Don’t worry about it. After the way he egged you on a few weeks ago, you had every right to be angry.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s right,” Storm shook his head. “I’m so fake Dash… I try to be nice and level headed at all times to make others happy, but I’m never actually happy myself. It’s all a front to hide how painful my life has been. Whining and bellyaching about it feels pathetic to me so I just bury it. I just showed all of you how I really am… Bitter, angry, and unhappy. But even here, I feel selfish because look at what I’ve got now, look at what I’ve achieved… I should be so happy, but it feels so empty,” Storm sighed again and looked towards the crowd. Dash just looked at him from the side, not quite sure what to say. It was hard to hear Storm like this because he had been nothing but one of the nicest stallions she had ever met. Forcing oneself to be happy was something Dash had never experienced. “I’m jealous of you, Dash,” he suddenly said.

“Me?” Dash pointed to herself. Storm was jealous of HER? That seemed backwards. Storm had fought for and earned the chance to jump from cadet to elite, something that had never before been awarded or achieved. He was officially and rightfully part of Wonderbolt elite squad seven at such a young age. How could he possibly be jealous of her?

Dash followed Storm’s eyes and saw that he was looking straight at Squall, Little Star, Matteo, and a suddenly reappeared Twister. Twister and Star were both hugging Squall, who looked like he had no idea what to do in response as Matteo chuckled behind them.

“Dash… I’m honored that the Wonderbolts have accepted me into the elites, but it’s been incredibly difficult. I feel so small and just… THERE. They’ve been trying to make me feel welcome, Soarin especially, but I still feel so stiff and nervous around them. They are all friends and have been friends for a long time. I feel like I was adopted into a family I know nothing about and put right at the dinner table before I could unpack my bags. The training and the shows have been difficult as well. I suddenly have to perform on such a high level. I was given no time to adjust and my failures sting twice as much because of the elevated expectations,” he pointed towards Dash’s new fellow squad mates. “Look what you have… and what you experienced. Four great flyers who you got to live and learn beside. Taking on challenges, successes, and failures together while I’ve been forced to feel all of mine alone. You were also all privileged with the honor of being trained by one of the greatest Wonderbolts to ever live. You have no idea how much I wish I could be in your spot. I had no ceremony, no salutes, hoof shakes, or mentions besides briefly at the end of the tryouts. I feel like I missed out on an incredible experience. And…”

He paused for a long time as he stared out at the group. Dash thought long and hard as she listened. She never thought about looking at it this way. All this time she thought Storm was the luckiest pony alive, achieving what she herself wanted so badly to get. She hadn’t thought about the drawbacks of the situation. Had she been in his place, she would not have had all the amazing experiences over the past month. No getting to know her new friends, no training with unexpected twists and turns, and most of all, no time with Silver… or any of the incredibly difficult lessons he had taught her. Storm had missed out… she never thought she’d feel that way, but Storm had truly missed out on an incredible experience.

“And…” Storm repeated, his voice getting shaky.

Dash looked at him and saw he was staring out at Dash’s squad mates still. All the families had joined in. Squall’s parents were going around giving each of them hardy pats on the back. Star’s large family came over to congratulate each of them, Gilda brought Matteo’s cubs over. Even Dash’s parents and her Ponyville friends came over to talk to them. Squall remained silent as Star’s brothers and sisters spoke to him and tried to do the same to Twister. Little Star instantly scooped up little Gianni, squealing with delight as the tiny griffon grabbed her mane in his beak and gnawed on it. Matteo introduced himself to Dash’s parents and Gilda snickered to herself as Teodora tried to get away from Squall’s parents.

“And…” Storm repeated once again. This time in a choked up voice, followed by a sniffle. “You all have such great friends… and families who all came to see you… and…” he slammed his eyes shut. “And…”

“Storm…” Dash suddenly felt very sad. All this time she thought Storm was living the dream, but he was far from it. Her ears flopped down as she turned to him and placed a hoof on his shoulder. She could feel him shaking. He was trying so hard not to cry. Something she now knew he did daily. Putting on fake smiles and always looking 100% fine when in reality he wasn’t fine at all.

“And… I wish… I wish I had…” he gritted his teeth. Straining his eyes to keep any tears from squeaking out. Dash turned square to him and reached her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Storm, let it out,” she said sternly as she held onto him. She felt his head shake back and forth. “Storm, don’t make me say it twice,” Dash ordered. “Let. It. Out.”

“I’m such a dumbass…” Storm choked out as Dash felt something drip against her he shoulder. She was wearing her uniform, but a soft PAT PAT PAT confirmed that Storm stopped holding it in. The tears had to fall fast to already be dripping from his face.

Art by: Foxenawolf

There had been lots of tears today. Dash wasn’t surprised due to the nature of the event, but all the tears that had fallen held different purposes.

Tears of Joy…

Tears of humiliation…

Tears of regret…

It was a powerful day indeed.

It was just so strange to Dash though, to see Storm like this. His defenses had come down more than once in the past, but when they did it was out of anger, something she’d expect anypony to do. Here, he was crying, letting his bottled up sadness rush through. Dash never thought she would be in a situation where she comforted Storm. After how perfect he had seemed for so long and after seeing how well he handled Derpy, he seemed like the type who would do this for others more than anything.

But Storm Front was living proof that nopony can be perfect, even if they seem like they are.

Feeling the need to help in some way, Dash decided she and the others would have to do something about this. Before the recruit training began, Storm was one of them as a cadet and had spent a good amount of time with them. He tried spending time with them during the past month, but they were so busy he hardly ever got the chance. Now that they would be on their own, more open schedule like he was, she was sure they could make the effort to reconnect with him. That would be something they could do over time, but right now? He needed somepony… and she had just gotten free from the elite Wonderbolts crowding her.

“Storm, sit tight, okay? I’m gonna get Derpy,” she assured him. She felt Storm nod in response against her shoulder before she pulled away. She kept her eyes on Storm as she initially backed away. The mask of his uniform was completely stained by his tears. He had to have had a lot bottled up because it was crazy how fast the tears flowed. Dash turned and quickly ran into Derpy. She pointed out Storm, saying nothing more besides the fact that he really needed her.

The moment Derpy saw Storm crying she gasped and galloped to him. She didn’t even ask what was wrong, she immediately hugged him as tightly as she could and Storm instantly returned the embrace, holding onto his special somepony like his life depended on it.

Dash smiled as she saw the two together, slowly turning around to rejoin the others while thinking about how they could reconnect with Storm once everything started up again, but as she turned she ran nose-first, directly into Soarin’s chest.

“Blah!” Dash grunted as she pulled back and looked up at a chuckling Soarin. “Sometimes I swear you do that on purpose.”

“Who me? Noooooo…” Soarin said while looking away comically. Dash rolled her eyes and shook her head as Soarin looked over her shoulder at Storm and Derpy. “Well done over there,” he said while glancing down at her. Dash blinked.

“Were you eavesdropping?” she said while lifting an eyebrow. Soarin shook his head.

“Didn’t mean to. I’ve been trying to fully befriend Storm for a while. Haven’t quite gotten there yet, but I’m making the effort. I was about to go confront him myself, but you beat me to him. After that, I overheard everything,” he explained.

“Oh,” Dash frowned. “I really feel bad for him, I was gonna see if my new squad and I could spend more time with him once everything gets started again. We knew him pretty well during the tryouts it’s been hard since then though,” she explained her plan. Soarin nodded in agreement.

“That would be good for him. Like he said, he looks like he never fits in even when he is. It’s gonna take him a while to shed those nerves around us. Spending time with you guys again will definitely help.”

“I hope so, he needs more love all around,” Dash added. They both looked towards Storm for another moment before Dash glanced back towards her squad, family, and friends. Soarin noticed her looking and quickly put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Go enjoy yourself, but could you pass a message around the rest of our new guys for me?” Soarin suddenly asked.

“Hm?” Dash listened with interest. Soarin smiled.

“Once the banquet is over and all the guests have left, go change out of your uniforms and meet in the lobby,” he said with a wink. Dash tipped her head to the side.

“What for?” she questioned curiously.

“This is the formal celebration. The real party is tonight at Fleetfoot’s house!” Soarin said with excitement. Dash’s eyes widened.

“A party… at Fleetfoot’s?” She blinked followed by a look that was half amused, half worried. “I dunno if I should be pumped or terrified!”

---Part 2 Finale to be continued---

Author's Note

So there you have it, half of the planned finale. I can't believe i thought this was only going to be 24K words... >_<

Well then! Squall's parents! Who would've thought?

Gilda! And Matteo's cubs! Aren't they just the cutest?

Little Star defending Squall?!?!?!

Storm... not so perfect anymore is he? Nopony is perfect... and those who seem perfect, usually have something underneath that nags at them.

Dash made the recruit Squad! YAY!

But oh man... Party at Fleetfoot's?! THE WORLD WAS NOT READY!!!!!!!!

As i've said, the second half already has 10K words written. For those who have not seen my blog, i'm going out of town this weekend. I'll have my laptop with me but i don't know how much i'll be able to write. Still, it shouldn't be too long before i finish and finally end part 2, marking the halfway point of the story. Yikes, this has really come along way hasn't it? 500K words... yikes :twilightsheepish:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 89: Rising From the Shadows

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind
(This Chapter was edited by Lucky424)

Chapter 89: Rising from the Shadows

“GET IN YOUR FORMATIONS!” Soarin yelled out above Dash as she looked up towards him. “Squads one through ten, high altitude! Everypony else, low altitude! GO! GO!” he pointed as he and the rest of the high tier elites pitched upward to focus on the Shadowbolts above. A majority of the Shadowbolts turned towards them, firing their eye beams, trying to knock them out of the sky. The Wonderbolts took a few hits, but most of the beams missed their marks, the high tier elites showcasing tremendous dodging skills as the beams of magic shot by. The days of running the obstacle courses were paying off.

With most of the Shadowbolts focusing their fire on the high tier elites, it allowed Squad Zero and the rest to approach below with less resistance. They were still heavily outnumbered though, even with more than half of the Shadowbolt force focusing above.

Dash looked back down as her squad joined her side.

“Hear that Dash?!” Star scolded as she flew beside her. “Don’t scare us and fly off like that again!”

“I hear it loud and clear, Star!” Dash stole a brief glance at Squall, Matteo, and Twister behind her. “We’re sticking together now!”

Squad Zero flew in front of them in an erratic formation. Shine kept yelling at them to stay in a line, but Calm, Swift, and Playbitz kept shifting out or forward. They definitely looked eager to fight, and after the little scuffle Dash and her squad had with them a while back, she was glad they were on their side. Anti-magic combat… she wondered if she’d finally get to see what that meant.

Squad zero suddenly spread out as they all closed in. Shine turned and looked at the rest of them.

“Try to stay behind us!” she yelled out. Squad zero was a separate squad with no real authority of the rest, but the low tier elites and the recruit squads knew why they were out here, so they gladly complied.

Dash shifted, motioning for the rest of her squad to follow as they merged into a group that followed behind Shine Struck.

Squad zero flew in front of them all, and pulled their hooves back as they fearlessly charged headlong into the barrage of incoming magic blasts.

“Hrrrrggg…” Shine began to release a low growl as the magic beams began to focus on squad zero and careen towards them. Dash locked her eyes on Shine, watching carefully as she and the rest of squad zero readied themselves. “HAAAAA!!!” Shine suddenly yelled out and punched forward as one of the magic beams came within inches of her.

Her hoof struck the beam of magic… and Dash’s jaw dropped as the beam pulsed and bent, deflecting heavily and arcing over her.

She knocked aside a beam of magic with her bare hoof.

The rest of the Wonderbolts behind them watched in awe as squad zero led them forward, Calm, Swift, and Playbitz deflecting the magic beams with sharp, strong, heavy swats and punches directly into the incoming beams.

“How are they doing that…!?” Matteo exclaimed in disbelief as he looked over to see Calm shrug off two blasts of magic that hit him in the shoulders before swiping his hooves to deflect another.

Dash wanted to know just as badly. It didn’t seem so simple.

The Shadowbolts were visibly surprised when their magical attacks were suddenly being struck aside, but they kept up the barrage. With squad zero in front, the gap closed quickly, and soon they’d have a low altitude dogfight on their hooves.

Dash was ready to fight, but she was determined to figure it out before they broke away. Deflecting magic? That was an invaluable technique to have, and she had no doubt squad zero spent a long time mastering it, but if she could at least deduce the motions…

Was it in the swing of the arms? No it had to be something else. They were using both swatting and punching motions. Was it the angle of the impact of hoof to beam? Possibly, it looked like they were striking the blasts in the dead center of the beams, or flat on the edges depending on how they attacked it. Could it be the timing? Connecting the blows right before impact? Could it be a mix of all of those?

“Damn…” Dash cursed as they reached the cloud of Shadowbolts and were forced to disperse as the squads clashed with them. They were right back where they started, taking on the Shadowbolts only now also worrying about freaky laser eyes. Dash was determined to stay with her squad as well. As much as she was concerned about Silver before, she felt a little bad about leaving them behind.

“Arrow formation! Matteo and Squall take the wing positions!” Dash ordered, her squad quickly moving into the wide, bent formation with Dash in the lead, Star and Twister at her sides, and Matteo and Squall on the edges. “Let’s take a wide arc approach!” Dash continued as they began soaring through the cacophony. Silver was able to deduce battle strategies and be aware of the Shadowbolts’ movements, she had to try and analyze their situation like he did. “Most of them are focusing inward!” Dash yelled as she noticed squad zero in the dead center of the dogfight, taking down every Shadowbolt that got near. There were quite a few Shadowbolts hanging back and firing at squad zero from a distance. Most of the Wonderbolt squads were already locked in combat with Shadowbolts. They had yet to be engaged, so Dash saw an opportunity for them to aid squad zero. “Let’s comb the perimeter and take out the hostiles firing inward!” Dash ordered while pitching to her right, her whole squad following in the arrow formation towards the outer edge of the dogfight.

The Shadowbolts along the edge were completely focused on squad zero in the center. None of them saw it coming. Dash drove her hooves into the side of a Shadowbolt mare, throwing her to the ground as they flew. With their wide formation and with the two bigger members of Foxtrot on the wings, they were able to sweep with a wide attack range. Matteo and Squall shifted and pitched on the edges, making small adjustments to their flight paths to intercept and Shadowbolts that came into their range as Dash focused on taking out any directly in front of their wide, turning flight path. Twister and Little Star kept their eyes peeled, ready to act if any Shadowbolts tried to surprise them.

Dash stole a glance towards squad zero, thinking back to all Silver had said to her about them. How they were wild, and more like fighters than soldiers. Seeing them struggle to stay in formation before definitely spoke for Silver’s analysis, but they were proving him wrong elsewhere.

Just looking at the numbers and the sheer size of the Shadowbolt force, victory did not look easily won. Silver had said that when the time came, he didn’t believe that squad zero would hold their ground, that if things turned away from their favor, they’d get scared and run.

That definitely wasn’t the case here. Sure they looked wild and undisciplined, but they were taking the fight to the Shadowbolts. Shine, Calm, Swift, and Playbitz were using very personalized styles of combat, and taking the Shadowbolts down almost faster than she could keep track of them, the explosions of pink light surrounding them so quickly that Dash couldn’t tell which ones were caused by the magic beams, and which ones were caused by the bursting Shadowbolts. Even while fighting, they were able to deflect the magic being fired at them, keeping their eyes on the sky for any beams shooting towards them.

They were holding their own just fine. It almost looked like they didn’t need Foxtrot to take out the Shadowbolts hanging back and taking aim at them, but Dash suddenly had the desire to do her part… and then go join them.

“TWO! FROM ABOVE!” Star yelled out as Dash blindsided another Shadowbolt. Dash looked up and glanced to her left to see Twister wearing a white helmet with an orange visor and chin strap.

“I SEE THEM!” Twister yelled in a deeper than usual voice. Dash rolled her eyes, admittedly amused that Twister found moments to be goofy, even during a crisis situation.

“They’re all yours, you two!” Dash yelled. “Matteo! Squall! Give them a boost!” Dash ordered. Without a moment of thought, Matteo reached out and grabbed Twister by the head.

“Do something weird,” he said as he twisted his body and launched Twister upward.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” Twister yelled out as he shot upward.

“Be careful,” Squall said as he turned and grabbed Little Star’s arm. The moment he saw Star smile he scrunched his face and puffed his cheeks out. “Not that I… care or anything,” he tried to play it off. Star giggled.

“You’re so sillEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!” she shrieked as Squall launched her upward before she could finish.

The two of them launched past the pursuing Shadowbolts. One of them was the larger stallion type, the other, one of the mares. Twister executed his Spiral Turn, allowing him to completely change directions with the smallest arc possible, despite moving so fast through the air. He landed right on the back of the stallion and began thumping his hooves against his head like a drum.

“I CAN PLAY THE DRUMS?! SOMEPONY CALL MY AGENT!” Twister yelled as the stallion grunted, pitched downward, and the two began falling towards the ground uncontrollably, Twister slowly beating him over the head repeatedly as they fell.

Little Star quickly fluttered her wings, allowing her control of her trajectory as she took a wide arc while staying in pace with her target below. She flapped her little wings hard as she deduced her flight path, shooting downward fast and hard while keeping lined up with the Shadowbolt. Because of her stature and smaller hooves, she was able to pinpoint a very specific spot on the Shadowbolt’s back right between the wings.

She put all of her weight and force into the strike as she smashed down into the Shadowbolt. Its wings bent awkwardly, reacting to the shock, before quickly losing control of its flight and tumbling down, exploding shortly after Star released it.

“NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!” Twister suddenly appeared beside her and grabbed her arm. She blinked and looked towards him, noticing his mane was blown backwards and looked like three spikes. “WE GOTTA GO FAST!”

“YIKES!” Star yelped as Twister suddenly accelerated from a dead stop to nearly twice his full speed and caught both of them back up with the squad.

Dash blinked as she saw Twister pull back into the formation, glancing at a flustered Little Star right after.

“How did you guys catch up so fast?” she asked as Matteo and Squall continued to deliver haymakers to Shadowbolts in their path. Star shook her head, shrugged, and pointed at Twister. Dash turned to see Twister facing in the opposite direction, pumping his wings as if he were flying, but moving backwards in synch with them.

“WHICH WAY’S BACKWARDS?!” Twister yelled out in a serious tone. Dash looked back towards Star.

“Let’s just go with Twister found a way,” she said with a chuckle as she looked back forward. They had just completed a full flight around the dogfight.

“I don’t see any more along the edges!” Squall called out.

“Shall we join the fight?!” Matteo asked eagerly while grinning towards Dash. Dash smiled back at him while pointing towards squad zero.

“I think they’re showing us up!” she yelled while looking at all of them. “Let’s go right to the center!”

“AYE!” They all called out in agreement as Dash pithed hard to the left, leading them right into the fray. It was nowhere near as congested as it was before since the fighting had split into two separate battles above and below, but there was still the hazard of pegasi shooting by from every possible direction, not to mention the beams of pink magic more than made up the difference.

“Stay aware!” Dash yelled as they weaved through the fighting, keeping in formation the best they could. “No collisions! We’re breaking through!” she encouraged as they drew closer to squad zero.

Dash noticed that squad zero was slowly branching apart every few seconds, only for Shine Struck to yell at them to stay together. Again, a little disorganized, but all the more reason for Foxtrot to assist. Sure, Dash encouraged her squad towards them with a bit of cocky competition, but in reality… she was eager to fight beside the experimental special force. She wanted to see if she could copy their moves. She was too distracted during their first encounter in the compound, now was her chance to watch them closely. Strange fighters like these were sure to have some interesting moves.

“Want some help?” Dash called down as she and squad Foxtrot angled down towards squad zero. The four ponies looked up and smiled as the recruits joined them.

“Heh,” Shine chuckled as Dash put her back to hers. “We already owe you for the little scuffle…” she said while shooting a quick glare at the stallions. They all looked away in embarrassment. “But why not? Just try to keep up!” Shine nudged Dash.

“That’s our line!” Dash grinned as they all readied themselves.

Matteo floated back to back with Calm Wind.

“I promise I won’t steal your feathers this time,” Calm joked as Matteo scoffed.

“I’ll get you back one of these days,” he said back with a grin.

Squall and Playbitz floated side by side.

“Bet you can’t scowl them to death,” Playbitz joked as Squall just flattened his brow. “Come on! You should try! I bet you could burn holes through their heads without eye lasers!”

“Srnhk…” Squall snorted quietly and tried desperately to hide a smirk.

“Laugh buddy! Laugh!” Playbitz chuckled as Squall shook his head.

Twister and Little Star hovered beside Swift Justice.

“The wacko and the little lady? Eh, I’ve had stranger things happen to me,” Swift said with a smirk. Star lifted an eyebrow and pointed at Twister.

“Stranger than HIM?” she said while blinking. Swift turned to her and brushed a hoof over the front of his mane.

“Let me tell you…” Swift started as Twister turned faced the back of Swift’s head and started slowly moving closer as his eyes grew wider. “Some ladies can get real creative when turning down a date,” he was completely oblivious to Twister now leaning over the top of his head and looking down with eyes wider than his face. “There was this one time… eh, maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about this… what are you laughing at?” Swift blinked as Star was trying to stifle laughter. Swift looked behind him, but Twister was back in his spot as if he hadn’t moved at all.

Finally, Dash and Shine, the two copycats, were back to back as the Shadowbolts readied to charge at them.

“Looks like we’ve got something else in common,” Dash spoke up.

“Oh? What’s that?” Shine asked as her eyes scanned the approaching enemies. Dash looked around at the members of her squad mingling with the members of Shine’s

“We’ve both got a little band of yahoos that we put up with,” Dash chuckled.

“HA!” Shine guffawed and shook her head. “Too true… but right now?” Shine and Dash backed up with the others, the seven of them bunched together, floating a few yards off the ground and eyeing the Shadowbolts as they began to charge. Shine nodded. “Right now, I’m glad I have these yahoos! SQUAD ZERO! GO!” she yelled out.

“Take it to them, Foxtrot!” Dash added.

Multiple Shadowbolts charged from all directions, including from above and from below. Beams of magic fired towards them as well. Squad Foxtrot and zero expanded outward to meet them head on.

If one were to view the clash from a distance, it looked like the Shadowbolts completely blocked the two squads from view, but as they charged in they were repelled, thrown backwards, and exploding into light. It created a spectacle similar to fireworks as the Shadowbolts shot in all directions and exploded.

If one could see within the cluster, they would know exactly what was causing the little light show.

“RAH!” Matteo roared as he punched a Shadowbolt stallion in the face so hard that it exploded before it even had a chance to fly backwards. Calm Wind bumped into his back before rolling around in front, holding two Shadowbolts by the neck. He tossed one of them gently towards an incoming Shadowbolt. The Shadowbolt put on the breaks and caught her comrade, but right after, Calm pulled back his other hoof.

“CATCH!” he yelled while chucking his second captive as hard as he could towards the other two, the impact sent all three of the Shadowbolts flying.

“Look out!” Matteo warned as he looked up. Calm glanced up as well.

“Whoa!” he reacted as the two put their arms up to guard. A cluster of ten Shadowbolts crashed down upon them

“HRG!”

“GRRRHH!!”

The two of them grunted as they thrust their wings out and tensed their muscles. The air resistance on their large wings slowed them down enough for a heavy, but controlled landing on the ground a few yards below. The ten Shadowbolts pushed down against them, but with Calm’s back hooves and Matteo’s back paws on solid ground, they were able to lock themselves down, their combined strength preventing the Shadowbolts from pushing them flat to the grass.

The Shadowbolts suddenly dispersed and landed, surrounding the two of them on the ground.

“Ten on two?” Calm chuckled. “I’ve got nine of them, think you can take on—huh?” Calm was cut off from his sporty speech as Matteo reached back and grabbed Calm’s arm with a very tight grip.

“HRRRRRAAAAHHH!!!!” Matteo roared out as he turned his body and yanked Calm right off the ground.

“WHOOOAAA!!!” Calm yelled out as Matteo swung him around in a circle like a flail, bludgeoning five of the Shadowbolts around them with Calm’s large body. The other five leapt up to avoid before turning and readying to attack. “RGH!” Calm grunted as Matteo began to let him back down. The moment Calm’s back hooves touched the ground, he turned and hooked his hoof around Matteo’s arm.

“WHAT THE—?!” Matteo’s eyes went wide as he felt himself get elevated.

“HAAAAAAA!!!!” Calm used his strength, and the momentum built up by Matteo’s swing to do the exact same thing to Matteo, swinging the massive griffon around and up to knock out the last five Shadowbolts.

Calm let go as the Shadowbolts all burst and Matteo slammed back down to the ground.

“That makes us even, I guess,” Matteo smirked and snorted.

“You’re damn heavy…” Calm chuckled as they turned back to back to face more Shadowbolts that faced them on the ground.

Just above them, Squall was grappling with a Shadowbolt mare. She had latched onto his arms and was holding him still as an identical mare behind her focused on them with her eyes glowing. Squall could see the incoming magic attack, but he couldn’t do anything while locked with another. The Shadowbolt fired the eye beams, but Playbitz jumped in front.

“NOPE!” he yelled goofily as swiped his hoof out and knocked the magic away before spreading his enormous wings out and giving them a powerful flap downward. With a loud FWOOSH, he catapulted at least thirty yards into the air and immediately let his wings go limp as he fell back down and drove his elbow into the magic using Shadowbolt.

“RGH!” Squall finally got one of his hooves free and punched the Shadowbolt holding him right in the face. She fell away from him, giving Squall enough space to take his stance and charge forward. “HOOORYAAA!” Squall yelled out as she delivered six rapid punched to the mare’s stomach before she shot backwards and exploded.

“Watch your back!” Playbitz yelled out as he reached out and pulled Squall aside before punching a beam of magic, sending it right back at the Shadowbolt who fired it and knocking them right out of the air. “HA! YES! Love when I get the full reflect!” he turned and grinned at Squall. Squall just stared at him flatly. “Hey dude, you’ve gotta have fun!”

Squall suddenly charged at Playbitz, but at the last second he shifted around the side of him and got into his stance.

“HOORYAA!!” Squall cried out as he delivered a heavy one-two punch to the same Shadowbolt, who wasn’t completely taken down by the reflected magic. The Shadowbolt exploded as it fell. “You should talk less, almost got yourself killed.”

“Couldn’t talk less if I tried,” Playbitz snickered and shrugged before spreading his wings and repeating the powerful downward flap. He shot upward again before falling downward… but there looked like there was no reason to do so. At least until two Shadowbolts came flying by, both chasing other Wonderbolts. Playbitz fell back towards Squall, knocking down both of the passing Shadowbolts and sending them crashing to the ground before he put on the breaks and stopped level with Squall. “Okay, that was lucky, but hey! It was fun!”

Squall just rolled his eyes as the two went back to work.

Further to their right, Star was hovering at the ready, her wings fluttering with a low buzz. Twister was reclined and reading a book. Neither had moved from their spot since the whole thing began.

“Uh… can we fight now too?” Star asked as Swift zipped past them, knocking down three Shadowbolts that were charging. They didn’t take much damage, but every attempt a Shadowbolt made towards them was met with Swift shifting and moving past and in between Star and Twister with ease, showcasing unnatural agility as he knocked them back.

“Hey I’m just doing my job,” Swift chuckled as he shot between them to block a Shadowbolt before shifting back around them to swipe away two magic beams. He turned to Star. “I don’t attack much…” he turned around quickly as a Shadowbolt with an outstretched hoof approached. Swift brought up his hooves and gently grasped the stallion’s arm before turning his body and pushing upward. The motion caused the stallion to completely change direction and run right into a Shadowbolt mare behind them. “I’m a shield, really. So actually, I’d appreciate it if you did some attacking,” Swift said with a smile. “How old are you by the way?”

“WHAT?!” Star blinked as the question came out of the blue… literally.

“Just curious!” Swift bounced his eyebrows as he shot to the left and knocked down three Shadowbolts heading for Twister before moving back between them and throwing his wings out, deflecting three incoming beams of magic with them.

“Not the time…” Star huffed as she turned to Twister. “C’mon Twist, we need…”

“WAY AHEAD OF YA!” Twister yelled out as he appeared behind a stallion that was freshly repelled by Swift, grabbed the stallion’s mane with his hooves and began yanking. “GURL, DO YOU EVER USE SHAMPOO?!” Twister yelled at the stallion as he pulled on his mane, directing the stallion’s flight path to run into any other Shadowbolts that Swift blocked or redirected.

“Right…” Star shook her head as she tried to follow Swift’s movements and began delivering strong two legged kicks to any Shadowbolt she could get near to after they were disoriented by Swift.

“I’m still curious!” Swift cooed as he caused two Shadowbolts to turned directly down and smash into the ground with little more than a pat on the back with his wings. Star glared at him as she kicked a Shadowbolt stallion right in the face, shattering his goggles right before he could fire a magic blast from his eyes. The stallion cried out in pain before exploding.

“Old enough to kick your ass,” Star said with an angry pout.

“Ouch,” Swift chuckled as he continued to shield both Twister and Star from attacks while they did the attacking for him.

Floating higher than the rest, Dash and Shine fought back to back, taking down every Shadowbolt in different ways almost every time.

Dash used Twister’s Spiral Turn to shift and dodge an incoming charge only to quickly take a stance like Squall’s and deliver several rapid blows to the Shadowbolt.

Shine knocked away a beam of magic before reaching up and gently redirecting a Shadowbolt into another like Swift.

Dash used Twister’s technique again, followed by Matteo’s Air Burst to propel herself around before using Storm Front’s Surface Tap on the back of a Shadowbolt mare to propel her roughly to the ground.

Shine shifted in front of Dash, punching two beams of magic to deflect them away before she spread her wings out and gave them a powerful, downward flap just like Playbitz. It only sent her about ten yards in the air as opposed to thirty, but it gave her enough launch to shoot up between the two Shadowbolts firing magic at them from above. She quickly took an offensive stance and used her own martial arts techniques to take them down.

“OOF!” Dash yelped as a blast of magic caught her in the shoulder. She turned to look, but was tackled from above, sending her down towards the ground with a Shadowbolt stallion in tow.

“DASH!” Shine yelled as she tucked her wings in and started freefalling with her wings bend back like Playbitz.

“I’ve got this!” Dash growled as she spun the two of them around, putting the Shadowbolt below her and kicking off. The Shadowbolts slammed to the ground, exploding on the spot as Dash touched down and skidded to a halt near Matteo. “Ah!” Dash’s eyes widened as she looked straight forward towards five Shadowbolts that were all focused on her with their eyes glowing. “WHOA!” she yelped as Calm Wind suddenly thundered by along the ground right past her, his hooves nearly making the ground quake as he charged headlong towards the five Shadowbolts.

They fired their magic, but instead of blocking them, Calm simply kept charging forward, the beams colliding with his chest, shoulders, and face, but he powered through them, growling as he bull-rushed the five Shadowbolts and knocked them all down like bowling pins.

Dash flinched and braced herself as Matteo used his Air Burst behind her and propelled past her to follow Calm.

Dash’s ears stood up and she turned around just in time to lock hooves with a Shadowbolt stallion. Dash growled and firmly set her back hooves in the ground, skidding slightly as she held strong against the stallion’s force.

“INCOMING!” Shine yelled out.

Dash looked to her side and saw Shine shooting along the ground, having leveled out from her free-fall. She put her hooves to the ground and began galloping without losing speed, just like Calm. She only stayed grounded for a moment though, using her hooves to spin herself and launch into flying kick, catching the Shadowbolt stallion right in the cheek and transferring all of her momentum to him. He went flying and crashed into two passing Shadowbolts, causing all of them to burst from the force.

“You know…” Dash chuckled as she and Shine set their hooved, facing in opposite directions side by side. “It’s refreshing to see another pony that copies moves. They keep telling me it’s a talent, but I sometimes feel like a slacker for not having any personal techniques.”

“I know right?” Shine smirked as they kept their eyes peeled for any other approaching Shadowbolts. “I know it’s unique… but we’ve got nothing to call our own.”

“Seems pretty cool right now thought, huh?” Dash chuckled.

“Having a copy buddy is pretty neat,” Shine turned and gave Dash a wink.

“Shine!” Calm Wind suddenly yelled as he and the rest of the two squads regrouped together. Calm and Matteo were on the ground with Dash and Shine while the rest floated right above them. “They’re… backing off…” Calm continued as the Shadowbolts began moving away.

For a moment they all felt as if they had a respite, but the feeling was very short lived.

The Shadowbolts down low all began disengaging and shooting upward to join the larger battle above.

“Shoot!” Shine gritted her teeth. “We have to back them up!” she yelled out.

Dash blinked as she looked at the cloud of Shadowbolts overhead.

How? It didn’t matter how many of them they destroyed. The Shadowbolt numbers were still nearly the same as when they started. Thinking back to Silver’s observations, there were only five variants of Shadowbolts. Could these really just all be fakes? Magical clones? Doppelgangers? If that was the case, could there me… only five ponies creating all of these clones? Five ponies taking on the entire Wonderbolt force? If that was the case… what did it mean for the Wonderbolts?

No.

Dash glared towards the cloud and set her hooves firmly in the ground.

If that was the case, then they’d fight until they found the five responsible. The Wonderbolts had already adjusted and were aware of the magic attacks. As soon as they figured out how these clones were being maintained and created they’d find a way to counter that too. The Wonderbolts were at a serious disadvantage right now, being forced to figure things out while fighting, so until they could effectively counter attack, they would fight!

Without another word, Dash executed the Sonic Blast-off, forcing the rest to brace themselves as an air cone burst right beside all of them. Dash shot from the ground and turned herself right into the fighting above. She neglected sticking with her squad again, but seeing the Shadowbolts above multiply made her worry about Soarin, Silver, Storm… hell, it made her worry about all of them. Reckless? Maybe, but she doubted the high tier elites were able to stick in formations with how many Shadowbolts were suddenly surrounding them.

“Dammit, Dash!” Star growled. “Come on guys! Let’s go after her!” Star turned and ordered the rest of Foxtrot, miffed that Dash had gone off without them again. As the rest of Foxtrot gave chase, Shine Struck just stared in the direction that Dash flew in.

“Did… did she just use… Soarin’s…” she blinked with wide eyes.

“Yo! Little Captain!” Swift called to her. Shine instantly flattened her brow.

“What did I say would happen if you called me that again?!” Shine hissed at him as he and Playbitz moved towards Calm.

“You can squash my blue balls into oblivion later, we gotta join the fight!” Swift yelled casually while pointing upward. Shine sighed, glancing towards the divots left in the grass from Dash’s Sonic Blastoff before shaking her head out and galloping towards Calm.

“Going up!” Calm nodded while sitting down and cupping his front hooves together. Playbitz hopped up first, stepping into Calm’s hooves before Calm thrust his arms up, launching Playbitz into the air towards the battle overhead. Playbitz forced his wings down hard to increase his speed, shooting right into the battle, and most likely through overhead. Calm repeated the motion with Swift, catapulting him upward, leaving only Shine. “You okay?” Calm asked while eying Shine curiously.

“Yeah… just surprised,” Shine nodded before hopping up. “Don’t throw me too hard this TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMEEEEEE!!!” she shrieked as Calm launched her upward with the same amount of force as the others.

“Whoops,” he chuckled before turning, setting his hooves and getting a hard, running start before spreading his wings and rising up to join the battle.

“There’s just no end to these guys!” Storm Front yelled as he made a sharp turn followed by throwing his arms out to avoid an incoming beam of magic and take out two Shadowbolts. “We’re getting nowhere! OOF!” he grunted as a Shadowbolt mare body slammed him and started driving him through the air.

Soarin dove in from above and pulled Storm free while driving his other hoof down over the Shadowbolt’s head.

“Welcome to the party!” Soarin said sarcastically to Storm. He turned and received a blow to the face from a Shadowbolt stallion. “ARGH!” Soarin grunted as he staggered backward, barely keeping his flight steady as he glared at the stallion pressing the attack. A light blue and white streak suddenly intercepted the stallion, nearly cutting him in half as he exploded. Fleetfoot arced around, taking down two more in her path as she joined Soarin’s side.

“I can barely see past them anymore!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she looked around. “I swear there are even more of them! EEK!” she suddenly shrieked as multiple beams of magic began raining down. Fleetfoot, Storm, and Soarin all shielded themselves as several Shadowbolts descended towards them while firing their eyebeams.

“Dammit!” Soarin growled and forced his magic to life. The horn glowed brightly as he tensed all of his muscles, creating a thin globe of light around the three of them. The magic began bouncing off, but each impact upon the surface of his shield made him wince with discomfort. The magic had held up so far, no major problems or headaches, but he wasn’t willing to push it very far.

If things kept looking worse though… could he afford to hold back?

“Soarin! Careful!” Fleetfoot winced each time she saw Soarin cringe. Just as worried about his magic as he was.

“I’VE GOT YA GUYS!” Air Mach’s voice sounded out from above. “Yoooooooooou’re really pissing off the most STALLIONLY STALLION’S BURNING PASSION LARIOT STRIKE!” Air Mach yelled out his usual attack gibberish as he hooked two of the Shadowbolts firing from above his arms while getting the other three caught in it as well as he fell. Soarin released the shield as Air Mach shot by them, putting a hoof to his head for a moment as he wobbled and regained his focus, but almost immediately they were being charged again from the side.

“This is getting…RGH!” Soarin grunted as he blocked one Shadowbolt but was hit in the side by another. “REALLY frustrating!” he yelled as he jabbed his elbow into the surprise attacker while grabbing and throwing the other down. “And what’s taking Spitfire so long in the compound?!” Soarin looked back towards the Wonderbolt compound, suddenly realizing that they were being pushed back towards it slowly. “This would be a hell of a lot easier with her helping!”

“I swear…” Fleetfoot spoke up as she shifted to avoid an incoming attack. “If she has some sort of secret plan that she’s been keeping from us again I’m gonna… oh hell…” she paused as she Soarin and Storm all looked around them. Multiple Shadowbolts had gathered around them, all focusing their glowing eyes at them. “Got another shield handy, princess?” Fleetfoot gulped as she floated back towards Strom and Soarin.

“Still feeling dizzy from the last…” Soarin grunted as he glanced at Storm, who was also looking towards him in hopes that he’d have another shield. Soarin tried, but he just couldn’t concentrate.

They could only brace themselves as the Shadowbolts all fired.

But they were lucky another squad had just entered the battle.

Swift, Calm, Playbitz, and Shine all rose up from below, placing themselves around the three Wonderbolts in danger. They began swiping and punching at the beams, knocking them in all directions. Calm, Shine, and Playbitz all remained level with the squad, turning when needed to intercept beams while Swift zipped all about around them, deflecting any beams that’s got past or came from above or below.

“BROTHER!” Fire Streak’s voice rang out from nearby.

“I’M WITH YA BRO!” Lightning Streak replied. The two dove in side by side, spinning in unison before pushing off of each other’s hooves and tackling three of the Shadowbolts on each side.

“SURPRISE!” Surprise popped up, grabbing two more of them by the heads and knocking them together. The last two turned and aimed at her, but Misty fly flew in from behind them and struck them in the back of their necks so hard that they both fell limply and exploded immediately before the other eight fell from squad three’s counter.

“About time you guys got up here!” Fleetfoot said as she shifted beside Calm and nudged him in the shoulder. Calm scrunched his face and kept looking forward while holding his breath.

“Sorry about that,” Shine said as she faced Soarin. “Thought we could take out the stragglers first, but…”

“Yeah…” Soarin grunted. “There’s seemingly no end, watch out!” Soarin yelled as he pulled Shine out of the way and drove his hoof into the face of an incoming stallion, forcing him out of flight and tumbling. “Keep your guards up! This fight isn’t ending anytime soon!”

“Let’s go!” Playbitz yelled as he and Calm immediately pumped their wings and dove into the dog fight.

“Hey! Guys! Stay to—” Shine tried to yell to them, but they were already locked in battle. “Ugh! Big DOPES!” she yelled as she grabbed Swift by the arm. “Let’s go! We need to stick together!” she ordered.

“Yes… ma’am…” Swift said dreamily while staring towards squad three. Shine blinked, furrowed her brow, reached back and smacked Swift upside the head. “OW!”

“You can flirt with Surprise after!” Shine ordered as Swift rubbed the back of his head.

“Alright, alright! Sheesh, a guy can look, can’t he?”

Soarin watched them leave as he turned and blocked another incoming attack. The Shadowbolts were getting more aggressive, and as was pointed out, there was most definitely even more. He turned to see only Storm at his back, noticing that Fleetfoot had followed after Calm and Playbitz. So much for staying with their squads. Not like it lasted very long. It was only a few moments into the fight before he was stuck with only Fleetfoot and Storm. The only squad that seemed to be sticking together well was squad three.

Squad zero wasn’t staying together, not that he was surprised. They were a squad, but they were not trained in squad tactics. Having them there definitely gave the Wonderbolts a boost of confidence with their abilities, but it looked like they were doing little to conclude the battle… until they figured out how these Shadowbolts were duplicating themselves, it was an endless defensive.

It was all one big mess. Soarin could only imagine what was happening in Canterlot right now. A massive fight with magic and explosions broke out over one of the most iconic places in the center of the city right next to the royal palace. The royal guard was probably shitting themselves trying to figure out what was happening, and he was sure any citizens nearby were running for their lives.

Speaking of the royal palace…

Forget where Spitfire was… WHERE WAS LUNA?! Soarin didn’t expect Discord to help them, but the fight had already been going on for at least twenty minutes. If Luna hadn’t arrived on the scene by now, then she was deliberately not helping… which only made more questions arise… since Luna had revealed she had encountered the Shadowbolts in the past during her whole Nightmare Moon incident. What was going on, and would they live long enough to find out?

“Huh?” Soarin blinked as something caught his eye.

As he was blocking one of the yellow, grey maned stallions, he caught a glimpse of the exact same Shadowbolt a few yards away… but he was wearing a harness with a pouch… that had three pink crystals strapped into it!

“STORM!” Soarin yelled as he pushed the Shadowbolt off of him before grabbing Storm by the shoulders and turning him towards what he was seeing. “LOOK!”

“Huh?” Storm blinked as he saw the same stallion Soarin saw amongst the multiplying Shadowbolts.

“We’ve gotta catch that stallion!” Soarin yelled. “See the crystals?!”

“Oh!” Storm quickly broke free from Soarin’s grip. “I’m right with you!”

The two pumped their wings, pushing themselves as hard as they could towards the Shadowbolt wearing the pouch. The stallion turned and looked at them as they approached before turning and beating his wings hard as well, trying to escape.

“OH NO YOU DON’T!” Soarin yelled as he and Storm pursued.

That was it… they were right. They had to be right. There were definitely Shadowbolts among all these fakes controlling all the clones. If they could catch this one, they might finally figure it out and tip the scales.

“We’re gonna have to have a little talk about flying off without your squad…” Silver said to Dash as the two found themselves back to back again.

“Fine, later,” Dash quickly replied as she grabbed and struck an incoming Shadowbolt mare in the chest. “You won’t get to if we all go down here!”

“Don’t have to remind me,” Silver swiped his arm out, clothes-lining a Shadowbolt stallion before driving his elbow down into him. “But I’m breaking every one of these chuckledicks until they’ve had enough, so count on it!”

Dash smirked as she turned and thrust both of her hooves forward to clip a Shadowbolt that flew by too close. She looked up and around, biting her lip while growling.

“I don’t know if the ‘chuckledicks’ are ever gonna stop appearing…” she said with a little less gusto as they continued to fight off Shadowbolt after Shadowbolt.

“I saw a real one,” Silver suddenly said. Dash’s ears pointed up.

“Huh?” she blinked while turning to Silver.

“Right before you joined me, I saw a red Shadowbolt mare with a long white mane… carrying a bag with crystals strapped to it,” Silver explained as he ducked a punch and made the Shadowbolt in front of him regret trying.

“Did you go at her?” Dash asked eagerly, curious if their theory about the multiplying Shadowbolts was right.

“I tried, but she got away in the congested air space,” Silver admitted.

“What?” Dash held her hooves out towards him. “You didn’t, like… shoot lightning at her or anything?”

“What am I, a unicorn?” Silver lifted an eyebrow at her. “I need help from Wave and Blaze just to make the damn stuff before I can use it!”

“Who’s talking to who about flying away without your squa—OW!” Dash yelped as Silver turn and rapped her over the head. “What was THAT for?” she demanded as she shifted to dodge a magic beam.

“Thought you were a Shadowbolt for a second,” Silver shrugged and chuckled as he turned and full on head-butted an incoming Shadowbolt stallion, causing him to burst immediately.

“Damn, old, sly bastard…” Dash ground her teeth together but with a noticeable smirk.

Despite the quick laughs and the enjoyment of fighting beside her mentor, Dash could clearly see it.

The Wonderbolts were beginning to waver. A few had already been injured and fallen to the ground, struggling. With the Wonderbolts growing tired and with these clones never ending, it was only a matter to time until the rest of them were felled, unless they could find the ponies controlling them. Squad zero had given them a chance… and were providing support and cover from the magic attacks, but beyond that, they’re presence wouldn’t change the outcome if they didn’t solve the mystery!

Dash was feeling the pressure. She and Silver, along with a few others were further out into the courtyard away from the compound, but they were slowly being forced back. It wasn’t long before they were pushed all the way back to the compound, and then what would happen?

The Shadowbolt numbers remained strong while the Wonderbolt numbers were beginning to fall. Several of their ranks had dropped to the ground in order to help their fallen comrades, leaving even less to fight above. Seeing fallen Wonderbolts hit the dirt made Dash worry, she hoped there would be no serious injuries, or… casualties, but they were a military force, and these were very unfavorable odds… a very dangerous situation where such things were highly possible.

From what she had seen, a few royal guards were scrambling outside the walls of the compound. Scrounging together all the guards they could to help clear the area, directing any civilians away from the sudden battle in the skies over the center of the city.

Dash began wondering… could Luna see what was happening? The thought had crossed her mind and she was sure she wasn’t the only one. The castle was right next door to the compound, but the royal guard had yet to make any show besides crowd control and Luna hadn’t even made an appearance. What was up with that?!

“Son of a…” Dash said between panting after throwing a Shadowbolt mare into another. “How much more…” she wiped sweat from her brow. “Can we take?” she was losing steam. There had to be something they could do. She had looked so carefully at each Shadowbolt, but none of them appeared as Silver had described and they didn’t have the luxury of time to stop and look around.

“ARGH!” Silver suddenly grunted and was pushed into Dash’s back. She yelped and quickly turned to grab him as he fell against her.

“Silver?!” Dash exclaimed as Silver shook his head out and glared at the Shadowbolt stallion in front of him.

“Damn… where’s my second wind when I need it?” he retook control of his flight. “Don’t fail me now, body!” he growled as he charged back forward and socked the Shadowbolt right in the face, sending him flying and bursting.

Even Silver was becoming taxed. And that was something Dash couldn’t stand knowing. Silver was tough, yes. He was unbreakable, maybe… but his body was still old and worn out. She didn’t want him taking too much punishment or else he’d be in extreme pain for a few days. That thought alone was enough to nearly kill her. She could barely stand to think about it.

Surely Soarin, Fleetfoot, Storm, and the others were in similar danger. Dash had no idea where Spitfire had disappeared to. Did it really take that long to get all the staff to safety? Or was there something else Spitfire had to protect in the compound? Either way, many ponies that Dash cared about were in danger. She now more than ever was determined to end this. She forced herself to focus, trying like no tomorrow to spot something, anything in the cloud of ever increasing Shadowbolts for something that looked different.

She scanned left. Dodged a punch and countered.

She scanned right. Threw a Shadowbolt over her shoulder.

She scanned down. Kicked an enemy between the eyes as they tried to grab her back hoof.

She scanned up and… BINGO.

Call it luck, call it chance, or call it awareness without a hook trip… whatever. Dash spotted, if only for a very brief moment, a cream colored Shadowbolt mare with a red mane… wearing an additional accessory that held something glowing.

“THERE!” Dash yelled out before immediately twisting and thrusting her wings down to perform the combo of Twister and Matteo’s moves. Silver flinched as the burst of wind from Dash’s wings crashed down on him, but he looked up just as Dash bulldozed through three Shadowbolts to reveal the mare carrying the crystals. Without a moment of hesitation, Silver forced his stiffening wings into motion and followed after Dash.

The chase was on, and a hazardous chase it was at that. Dash kept her eyes locked on the Shadowbolt mare as she ducked, weaved, pitched, and twisted through the battle, avoiding magic blasts and other pegasi shooting by them.

Dash grunted as she saw movement in her peripheral vision. Clones of the Shadowbolt she was chasing were suddenly charging in from the right. She was wondering when the Shadowbolt was going to start sending the copies of herself to attack, but Dash was hoping she’d know what to do when they arrived. Unfortunately she didn’t. She was only keeping up with the Shadowbolt because all of her focus was on her backside. If she looked away for even a half a second she risked losing track of her. With the way things were going, it was not a risk Dash could afford to take, what would she do?

“KEEP MOVING!” Silver yelled out as she shifted up beside her, twisted left and put up a guard to absorb the attacks. “I’ll keep them off you! Just get her!” He ordered as he pushed the clones away.

“Right!” Dash agreed as she kept her eyes completely locked on target. She’d let Silver handle the clones so she could completely concentrate on the objective.

Silver continued to shield Dash as they flew, and the more they worked together, the more they slowly closed in.

Then the Shadowbolt suddenly dove down towards the ground.

“Get back here!” Dash yelled while using Twister’s Spiral Turn to pitch down sharply and stay on her tail.

“Ah!” Silver wasn’t expecting the sudden change in direction. He tried to follow, but he was intercepted by a Shadowbolt stallion. “OOF!” he grunted as he took a shot to the gut, he quickly smashed his hoof over the stallion’s head, causing him to explode, but he had lost sight of Dash. She was on her own.

Dash was closing in. She almost had her. A few more seconds and a little bit of luck and she would be within range to grab the Shadowbolt’s back hoof. They dropped down below the general altitude of the fighting, shooting along about ten yards off the ground below. Dash kept shifting and weaving as they shot by Wonderbolts who were defending their downed comrades from Shadowbolt clones.

“Huh?” Dash blinked as she looked past her target. There was another Shadowbolt approaching from the left, curving in. It was another crystal wielder. The yellow and grey maned stallion! He formed up beside the mare and flew side by side with her. Dash glanced to her right briefly as Soarin and Storm suddenly flew in beside her.

“Another one!” Storm yelled as Soarin nodded.

“Nice work, Dash!” Soarin complimented as the three of them gave chase. “The more we find the better!”

All three of them gave chase, but their eyes widened as the two ponies ahead of them began to glow, followed by three clones splitting off of them both, all six surging directly towards them.

“I GOT IT!” Storm called as he angled down and pointed his hooves at the ground. Without slowing down, he angled his front and his back hooves, and double tapped them all on the ground. His Surface Tap propelled him upward, doubling his speed and pushing him in front of Soarin and Dash. He turned and drove his back hooves into the mare and stallion clones leading the pack, knocking them into the four behind them, effectively throwing them all off balance, but slowing him down as well.

Soarin and Dash shot through the opening that Storm created, continuing their pursuit. They lost a little bit of ground, but were still on their tails and closing. The Shadowbolts made a wide U-turn as they neared the outer walls of the compound courtyard and began speeding back towards the fighting, angling up in hopes of losing Soarin and Dash.

“We’ll lose them if they get back in there!” Dash yelled.

“Then I have to take a shot!” Soarin decided. His magic was already causing him minor headaches, but unless he hit them with something strong, he wouldn’t slow them down.

“Soarin, don’t hurt yourself!” Dash demanded as she looked at him sternly.

“I’ve got this!” Soarin gritted his teeth. He knew how to make it work. The answer was flying right next to him. “I just need your help!” he added. “Give me your hoof!” he twisted so his stomach was facing her she glanced at him as he moved in. She turned her stomach to him as well, so they could get close without their wings smacking against one another. She didn’t have to ask, she knew what he was doing, and if the past was any indication, it would definitely work.

She reached her hoof towards him and he clasped her hoof in his. Soarin glared towards the two Shadowbolts and concentrated, growling while using intense emotion to fuel a violent flow of magic through his body. He let it rush towards the horn as it began to glow, quickly brightening as the aura around it expanded. Dash glanced down towards her hoof and her ears stood up in surprise. A blue aura was surrounding their clasped hooves as well.

“YES!” Soarin smiled as he continued glaring. He was charging up an enormous amount of magic, and with Dash’s hoof locked with his, there was no pain build up whatsoever. “It’s working!” he pointed his horn towards the pair of Shadowbolts. “Eat this!” he yelled as the glow around the horn got drawn into it, the surface of the horn shining even brighter before an enormous, thick burst of magical energy exploded from the end of the horn, shooting towards the two Shadowbolts in a beam that was at least a yard in diameter.

“WHOA!” Dash yelped as she and Soarin were nearly brought to an abrupt halt from the recoil.

The beam traveled quickly towards the two Shadowbolts, but right before impact, both of them turned, the three crystals jumped out of their harnesses, and all six crystals encircled them. The crystals angled, pointing inwards and slightly in front of them. A single beam of magic fired from each one, the six beams collecting in one spot, creating a sphere of pink energy. A beam just as large as Soarin’s jettisoned from the sphere and went on a collision course with Soarin’s attack. When the beams collided, a large explosion erupted between them that made the whole area shake as the shockwave burst outward, pushing against all within range and shattering the thin windows of any building within three blocks of the compound. The compound shook, the ground and foundations all rattling, the reinforced windows barely holding in place.

Soarin and Dash shielded themselves as the shockwave passed them, looking back up at their foes. Soarin was panting and wheezing. His head felt fine because of Dash’s proximity to him, but the attack took its toll. He definitely wouldn’t be able to do it again for a few minutes. Dash glared while grinding her teeth together. The Shadowbolts turned and were about to enter the fight again. They were going to lose them.

Soarin and Dash didn’t know what scared them more. The fact that they had no idea what to do next, or that two Shadowbolts they didn’t even know just easily repelled an incredibly strong blast of dark magic. Just how powerful had they become with the crystals… and if so few Shadowbolts could do this… what were they capable of as a whole force?

Not that it mattered. It seemed like the Wonderbolts would soon have to make a retreat or something. Once the two Shadowbolts got back into the crowd and disappeared, their last chance was gone.

“I don’t think so!” A voice yelled from above. Soarin and Dash looked up above the two Shadowbolts to see Playbitz freefalling towards them from above, spreading his enormous wings as he fell, determined to knock the two Shadowbolts out of the air.

“Yes!” Soarin smiled as he forced his wings into motion. Dash followed close behind. Playbitz wasn’t alone either. Calm Wind had just propelled himself upward from below, and Swift had appeared, shooting out from the mass of fighting with Shine Struck following behind him.

The two Shadowbolts came to an abrupt halt, the crystals still surrounding them as Swift and Shine blocked their path. They looked above, below, and behind them, taking note of Calm rising towards them, Playbitz falling, reading to strike, and Soarin and Dash approaching from behind. The mare turned to the stallion.

“The clones aren’t going to work on the elites and these newcomers,” she said in a flat tone. The stallion grabbed one of the crystals out of the air. It began to glow in his hoof as he brought it towards his mouth.

“Let the clones handle the stragglers, we have a few we need to take down personally,” he spoke into the crystal.

“Did he just—” Dash said to herself as her eyes suddenly widened. “CALM! PLAYBITZ!” she yelled out. “LOOK OUT!”

They never saw it coming.

The larger, light grey stallion with a purple mane came shooting out of the battle and charged his shoulder headlong into Calm’s chest.

“ARGH!” Calm grunted as he was pushed along. The stallion was smaller than him, but clearly strong, since he managed to change the momentum of Calm’s bulk with ease.

At the same time, higher up, the dark blue stallion with the turquois mane dropped in from above, ramming Playbitz in the side and forcing him to level out before they grappled.

Both of the stallions were wearing pouches with crystals attached.

“YIKES!” Swift suddenly yelped as he placed himself in front of Shine. A sudden barrage of small, thin, pink magic bolts rained towards them. Swift began using his arms and wings, swiping them quickly all around as he tried to block every single one of them. But the barrage was so intense that a few slipped by his perfect guard, causing small explosions upon impact and forcing him away from Shine.

The last one, the red mare with the long white mane, was positioned nearby, the pink glow and her crystals surrounding her body as she held her hoof forward, the small bolts of magic firing from around it.

“DAMN!” Soarin yelled and picked up speed as the two they were chasing turned towards turned towards Shine. “Dash! Go help her! I’m going to get the rest of the elites I can find out here!” he ordered as he pitched up towards the fighting.

“Right!” Dash glared forward as she rushed towards Shine.

Shine breathed a sigh of relief as Dash circled around and faced the two Shadowbolts with her.

The Shadowbolts didn’t say a word. They just stared at the two of them as Soarin’s voice rang out from above.

“ELITES! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, GET OUT HERE NOW!” he yelled.

“Aren’t you going to turn your clones on us?” Shine growled towards the two Shadowbolts as the top elites began approaching.

“No,” the yellow stallion immediately answered. “We’re going to erase you ourselves.”

“We’re just waiting…” the cream colored mare looked up and sneered. “For you all to show up so it’s easier.”

The other three Shadowbolts suddenly dropped in and rose up, all five of them now facing Shine and Dash.

They only felt outnumbered for a moment though. Calm Wind, Playbitz, and Swift Justice all floated back up, surrounding them. Shortly after them, Soarin returned with Fleetfoot, Air Mach, and Storm Front. As well as Squad two and three… and Foxtrot joining right behind, having finally found and caught up with Dash.

As it stood now, the Wonderbolts surrounded them. Twenty-one Wonderbolts and five Shadowbolts as the rest of the Wonderbolts continued to struggle with clones, the battle raging over head while a few still stood below defending the steadily increasing number of those who had been knocked down and out.

“It’s time to end this… and I prefer it this way,” the larger grey stallion said in a low voice as his crystals unhooked from his pouch and floated around him.

“They really think they can take us all on?” Blaze snorted.

“Don’t underestimate them,” Soarin said from nearby. “We have no idea how far their magic prowess has evolved,” stay on your guard.

“Shall we?” the cream colored mare giggled as the rest of their crystals rose up, each of them now with three crystals surrounding them.

The Wonderbolts all focused and readied themselves as the crystals began spinning around their respective Shadowbolts. All three of them began to glow as they pulled their limbs into their bodies and a bright light started shining from each of them.

Soarin recognized this. It looked just like what involuntarily happened to Rapidfire when he absorbed too much power and lost control. After the glow there was…

“EVERYPONY BRACE YOURSELVES!” Soarin yelled as he threw his hooves up over his face. Nopony questioned him. The moment they saw Soarin put up a guard, they all did the same.

The Shadowbolts all threw their arms and legs outward.

A large explosion of pink magical energy fired from around them. The shockwave crashed against the Wonderbolts, throwing them in opposite directions and pushing all clones and additional nearby Wonderbolts away from them as well.

“RGH!” Soaring cringed as the magical energy nipped and pricked at him, mere contact with the pressuring aura proving to be painful. He was thrown from his position, as were the others, and when he turned upright, he was near Calm Wind, Blaze, Squall, and Surprise. The others all tossed in other directions. Before Soarin could try figure out a regroup strategy, the larger grey stallion was flying headlong at them, the crystals still floating along with him.

Soarin focused and readied to counter. The stallion was about the same size as him, he could take him head on.

But then the crystals began to glow as the stallion held his right arm out to his side and an intense pink light shined from his hoof. A large collection of magic extended from his hoof and elongated until it was about two yards long, taking the form and shape of a longsword.

“What?!” Soarin blinked shifting to dodge instead of block. The stallion swung his hoof down, aiming the blade for Soarin’s head. Soarin barely moved out of the way in time, turning his body as the blade whisked right past his cheek… but nicked him. “AH!” Soarin cried out as the strap holding his goggles snapped around his head and his goggles fell off his eyes, the strap cleanly cut on the right side. Soarin reached up as he put distance between himself and the stallion. He felt a sharp sting on the side of his face as he touched it. Upon bringing his hoof down, there was some blood on it.

It was a sword alright… and a very sharp one too.

“Stay away from that blade!” Soarin yelled as the stallion charged at him and the rest with Soarin as they looked for opportunities to attack. But with the magic sword, it was going to be difficult.

“KEEP MOVING!” Silver yelled as Fire Streak, Playbitz, and Little Star flew behind him. Pink spheres were rising up all around them, exploding seconds after. No matter where they moved, the spheres just kept following, rising up in front of them as if they were locked onto their movement. The only thing keeping them from getting caught in the blasts was the speed of their flight. “Damn!” Silver cursed as he glared towards the yellow stallion. He was floating in place, simply following them with his eyes as the glowing crystals continuously orbited him.

“ARGH!” Fire Streak yelped as he flew too close to one of the globes and took a direct hit.

“AH!” Little Star was blown to the side by one and struck by a second soon after.

Both of them flailed in pain as they fell towards the ground.

“NO!” Playbitz yelled as he saw them fall, the spheres of magic still rising and exploding around him and Silver.

“STAY WITH ME!” Silver ordered.

“BUT—!” Playbitz glanced down as Fire and Star continued to be battered by the exploding spheres.

“THAT’S NOT UP FOR DEBATE!” Silver stressed.

“I CAN TAKE HIM!” Playbitz retaliated. Silver glared back at him amidst the explosions.

“I’M NOT GOING TO REPEAT MYSELF! DO. NOT. DO IT—” Silver never finished. Playbitz spread his wings out and flapped them down hard, propelling himself into the air before falling back towards the Shadowbolt. He swiped his hooves from side to side, knocking away any spheres that popped up in front of him.

As he closed in and readied to strike, the stallion simply shifted aside, causing Playbitz to completely miss and shoot past.

“Ah!” Playbitz yelped as he put on the breaks and landed roughly on his hooves. When he looked up, he was completely surrounded by the pink spheres. “Aw… hell…”

“Dammit!” Silver yelled from above as he watched the spheres explode and leave Playbitz cringing on the ground, suit all torn up. “I told Spitfire… I TOLD her they would never listen to orders!” Silver growled as he continued to fly away from the spheres, hoping to find some way, any way to counter this Shadowbolt.

“SHE’S FIRING AGAIN!” Fleetfoot yelled out as she, High Winds, Wave Chill, and Twister all turned away from clones of the cream colored mare and braced themselves.

An intense, wide wave of pink magical energy surged against them, engulfing them all as it pushed them backwards.

“Ah! OW! OW!” Fleetfoot yelped and wailed as the surge of energy ripped and tore at her suit, causing sharp burning sensations all over.

When the energy wave ceased, Fleetfoot quickly shook off the pain and flew towards the Shadowbolt mare, but before she could get close, the mare began to glow and ten clones jumped from her aura, heading directly for her and the others.

“We can’t get to her!” Wave Chill yelled from behind as Fleetfoot engaged the clones.

“Rgh… what do we do?!” Fleetfoot wondered desperately as she caught a glimpse of the mare charging up her energy wave attack once more.

“C-can’t… move! AH!” Storm Front cried out as more magic beams from Shadowbolt clones struck him.

Storm, Air Mach, Lightning Streak, and Swift were all being held stationary in midair, surrounded by crackling volts of pink energy as clones of the blue Shadowbolt stallion fired their eyebeams continuously at them.

The Shadowbolt himself was hovering in the middle of them, the crystals flowing and pink ribbons of energy swirling around his arms as he held the four Wonderbolts in place, completely helpless.

“COWARD!” Air Mach yelled as he struggled and was continuously struck with the magic eyebeams. “FACE ME! FIGHT LIKE A STALLION!” he belted as the Shadowbolt simply stared at him without uttering a response.

“GET BACK! ARGH! AH!” Matteo grunted and cringed as the tiny bolts of magic pelted him endlessly.

They had been forced to the ground and Matteo had placed himself in front of Dash, Shine, and Misty Fly as the red mare held her hoof out towards them and continued to fire the small, pin sized beams.

“Matteo!” Dash yelled as she and the other two mares shielded themselves.

“I CAN… TAKE IT!” Matteo yelled as he began forcing his back legs to the ground and walk forward.

“Matt! We can—AH!” Dash yelped as clones of the red mare appeared behind them and began firing eyebeams at Dash, Shine, and Misty.

Misty gritted her teeth and tried to take off, but the moment she appeared over Matteo’s head, the Shadowbolt extended her other hoof, firing a separate barrage of the small bolts towards Misty. Misty writhed and cringed as the tiny explosions erupted all over her body, forcing her into a sudden downward turn and crashed into the dirt painfully. She curled up and braced herself as the Shadowbolt didn’t let up on the barrage, peppering her as she lay on the ground.

“ARGH!” Soarin cried out as a large portion of his suit got torn open by the pink blade. Only he, Squall, and Calm remained fighting against the grey stallion.

Blaze and Surprise had tried to sneak around him, but were both felled quickly from multiple blows from the sword. It was a sharp blade, but it didn’t cut through after impact. Both Blaze and Surprise had large, painful looking gashes where the sword had landed, but they were both smacked away by it afterward. It proved that none of them would be losing limbs, but the blade was still sharp enough to cause nasty wounds.

“Damn!” Soarin cursed as he continued to dodge and dodge. There was no opening for attack. The stallion was too aware and too skilled. The sword only made it harder to discern a time to attack. “Squall! WAIT!” Soarin perked up and reached forward as Squall charged directly at the stallion.

“FOOLISH!” the stallion yelled as he swung the sword upward, but Squall twisted, just barely avoiding the blade at the expense of a few tail hairs and feathers, before taking his stance.

“HOORYAAAA!” he cried out as he delivered the rapid strike right into the stallion’s chest.

“ARGH!” the Stallion lurched backwards, but growled, looking up much sooner that Squall anticipated.

“HOORY—” Squall only got halfway through his battle cry as the stallion punched his left hoof forward, striking Squall right in the mouth. “URH!” Squall grunted as he staggered backward. His eyes widened as he saw the stallion raising the blade up into the air.

“SQUALL! WATCH OUT!” Soarin yelled out and tried to reach him, but he didn’t make it in time.

Squall tried to lean back, but as the stallion brought the blade down, the very tip caught Squall in the forehead, ripped through his flight mask, and tore into his skin as it sliced down between his eyes, cutting his goggles in half, ripping his mask down the center, and slipping off the side of his nose.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Squall cried out as the stallion followed through the swing and a splash of blood flew from the sword’s surface.

“SQUALL!” Soarin yelled out in horror as Squall immediately brought his hooves to his face, his goggles falling from his eyes as he slowly fell towards the ground and landed roughly while cringing, grunting, and wailing in pain, his own blood trickling down his hooves and arms.

“Heh…” the stallion scoffed. “He would have been better off taking the body blow,” the stallion chuckled as he turned to Soarin and Calm.

Soarin looked around them.

This was bad…

This was REALLY bad.

These five Shadowbolts were far more powerful than they could have predicted. They were all completely unprepared for the unparalleled display of magic from them. The last time they encountered the crystals, it was simple magic blasts, emotional control, and absorbing power to increase strength, speed, and durability. Such things were such a surprise then, but this…

An army of doppelgangers…

Solid, sharp weapons…

Homing exploding spheres…

Waves of burning energy…

Unbreakable telekinesis…

Showers of exploding pins…

Each of these Shadowbolts had mastered a form of magic, making it their own and making it incredibly powerful, much like how the Wonderbolts all had signature moves. And the crystals gave a mere five Shadowbolts… the power to take on the entire Wonderbolt force?

They were doomed.

They had no answer.

Squad Zero’s effectiveness was against the Shadowbolts they once faced… not these monsters.

Soarin didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want to believe that this could actually be the end.

All the elites were being taken down by these five Shadowbolts… and as many as forty five Wonderbolts now lay burned, beaten, or cringing on the ground as all the remaining Wonderbolts had landed to desperately defend their fallen brethren from the swarm of clones above that these five Shadowbolts were able to maintain despite being focused on the top elites.

Where?

Where was Spitfire?

There was no way she had abandoned them, but she had yet to appear from the compound. Did something happen in there? Were there more Shadowbolts than these five who snuck through? That would make everything they were doing out here for naught.

And…

Where, oh where…

Where was Luna?!

Up on the observatory balcony of the royal palace…

Princess Luna sat with her eyes fixed towards the Wonderbolt compound.

She had been watching the battle from the very beginning and the sight absolutely tore her heart in two. She looked down at the floor and slowly shook her head.

“So… in the end… it happened anyway,” she said with a long, regretful sigh. “I’m sorry, Sister… I tried to prevent it, but in the end, your premonition came true…”

She sat in silence. The gentle breeze of the mid-morning air blew softly against her face, catching her starry mane and causing it to flow softly. If she could not see, nor hear the battle before her, it would feel like a serene, peaceful day. She took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Well?” a deep voice spoke up as a shadow of a stallion slid into her view from behind.

Luna shut her eyes, remaining in the darkness of her own eyelids for a few moments before she slowly opened them…

And looked back up at the battle with a determined expression…

“Save them.”

The moment the words left her lips, the stallion blew a loud, three toned whistle and lifted off, shooting past Luna.

Less than a second later, Luna looked up as shadows of ponies flying overhead began passing by her.

Multiple shadows…

HUNDREDS of shadows…

The wind kicking up from their wake rushing against her as she sat and watched them all take off and shoot high into the sky.

Luna looked back down towards the fighting…

But despite the hardened expression… a tear ran down her right cheek.

“Please…” she said to herself as the shadows of pegasi continued to pass over her. “Please… forgive me…”

“MORE CLONES BEHIND!” Calm Wind yelled as he and Soarin continued to evade the sword swings from the grey stallion.

“DAMN!” Soarin yelled as he turned after avoiding, only to get caught and held by five clones.

“Soarin!” Calm tried to get to him, but was forced to back off as the stallion pressed his attack towards him.

The clones piled onto Soarin, trying to grab him and restrain him.

“GET OFF!” he yelled as he tried to rip himself free. With his wings pressed to his body, he began to plummet towards the ground. The clones continued to snarl bite and pull at him as he tried to get free, Soarin grunted as he fought, whipping his head around and yanking his limbs. His mask got caught and pulled, ripping it in half over his horn and revealing his face as he growled and snarled at the clones holding him.

He looked up to see Calm get away from the Shadowbolt and catch up to him, ripping the clones off of Soarin one by one until he could grab hold of Soarin and pull up, the two just barely avoided the courtyard walls, but…

“CALM!” Soarin yelled as the Shadowbolt appeared behind them with the sword wound up and ready to swing. Calm looked behind himself just in time to see the sword slam into his back.

“GRAH!!” Calm yelled out in pain as sword created a shallow cut on his back before smashing into him and forcing them down towards the ground, beyond the walls of the compound. Calm held onto Soarin, protecting him with his body as they slammed so hard into the red stone wall of a coffee shop right across the road from the compound that the wall buckled and collapsed. Soarin fell out of Calm’s grip and rolled off to the side as Calm landed face first, his goggles ripping from his face and shattering as they hit the ground. The wall crumbled and a large pile of red stones piled on top of Calm as he yelped and grunted painfully.

Soarin lay on his stomach on the ground.

“Grrhh… ahhh…” he strained himself as he tried to push himself up. His head hurt, his vision was blurry, he was still bleeding, and his ears were ringing. Every attempt to get up at the moment was for naught, for even though he had more than enough strength to stand, the pain and the disorientation kept him from making any progress.

Calm was down, trapped beneath rocks.

Squall, Blaze, and Surprise were all hurt and needed medical attention.

And the last he saw, none of the other Wonderbolts were faring well either.

He desperately wanted to get up and help…

He wanted to save all of them…

He wanted to save Dash…

But he couldn’t.

Even if he found his equilibrium, these Shadowbolts were too much, even his magic proved useless.

He looked up as his vision finally focused and saw the Shadowbolt charging towards him with the sword high over his head, approaching to bring it down over Soarin.

There was nothing he could do.

The only thing that could save them now…

Was a miracle…

Soarin’s eyes widened as a large stallion suddenly landed directly in front of him.

“YOU?!” the Shadowbolt yelled out in surprise as he changed the course of his attack without hesitation, bringing the sword down towards the stallion that now stood between him and Soarin.

“HM!” the new stallion grunted as he brought up his hoof.

The sword clashed against the new stallion’s hoof, creating a loud POW and CRACKLING noises as the sword was repelled and the grey stallion was sent back by the recoil.

“Wh-what?!” Soarin blinked as he saw the sight before him. The new stallion charged forward and rammed the Shadowbolt hard, forcing him back. He spread his wings and pumped them forward, creating space as he readied his sword again.

Soarin could now see the new stallion more clearly…

And what he saw… he didn’t understand…

The new stallion that had saved him… was wearing a Shadowbolt uniform…

But the headpiece was gone, and instead he wore a red headband with tassels, plus a pair of red goggles.

“Find your hooves Soarin!” the newcomer said sternly in a voice that made Soarin’s eyes widen. “Get up and fight. The ground is no place for a warrior like you.”

“I can’t believe it…” Soarin blinked as he forced his head up to get a better look at the new stallion.

The stallion reached up and pushed the red goggles onto his forehead before turning his head back to look at Soarin.

The large, powerful body…

The dark grey fur…

The swept back, dark blue mane…

The serious glare…

The multiple battle scars…

And the stern deep voice…

Soarin couldn’t believe his eyes.

Art by: Foxenawolf

“D…Descent?!” Soarin’s jaw dropped as Descent snorted through his nose.

“What’s wrong? Turning back into a colt on me? I said GET UP! We have a battle to fight!” Descent looked back up at the Shadowbolt.

Soarin had absolutely no idea what he was looking at. Descent was wearing the same uniform as the new Shadowbolts that they had been encountering… but… he was here to help?

Soarin had had enough. The past hour of his life had been more confusing than anything else he had ever experienced in his life. All he knew was that Descent was here… and most likely more Shadowbolts with him… perhaps a different band? A whole different force? He wasn’t going to ask now.

But he hoped Descent had brought enough fighters with him… because they had quite an imbalance to—

“RENEGADES!!!!” Descent yelled up into the sky. “GIVE ‘EM HELL!”

Soarin didn’t know his eyes could get any wider than they already had, but they did as he looked up into the sky.

Any and all Wonderbolts that were still fighting stopped and looked skyward as well.

Shadowbolts wearing red headbands and goggles suddenly began pouring down from above.

The Shadowbolt clones all focused upward as a large overcast of shadows overtook them.

There had to be one hundred… two hundred… no… even more. At least three hundred Shadowbolts raining down from the sky towards the clones, all wearing the altered uniform.

‘Renegades’… Descent had called them. By definition the word described somepony who deserted or betrayed an organization, group, or set of principles… That was exactly what Descent had done the last time they met, leaving the Shadowbolts behind with Starry Skies and Lightning Dust due to the situation the Shadowbolts had been led into by Nightshade’s delusions.

Renegades indeed… had Descent found himself an army of those who sympathized with him?

Whoever they were, they were clearly on the side of the Wonderbolts, because as soon as the large force of newcomers collided with the Shadowbolt clones, the clones began bursting and exploding nearly on contact. They were being brushed aside and destroyed incredibly quickly.

“DAMN!” The Shadowbolt stallion turned his back to Soarin and Descent as the crystals glowed and he began creating more clones. The other four Shadowbolts did the same, taking moment to create new clones as the enormous force of doppelgangers was nearly cut down by a third in a few moments.

There was clearly something Soarin and the Wonderbolts didn’t know. The ease of which the ‘Renegades’ were taking down the clones didn’t look like a feat of strength or a special ability. It looked like highly trained precision.

“RGH!” Soarin grunted as he forced himself to his hooves and stared towards Descent. “Ah!” his ears perked up as three clones landed right in front of Descent.

“You Wonderbolts need to be more perceptive,” Descent began as the clones began powering up their eyebeams. “You’re new ‘special squad’ has the right idea when it comes to deflecting the crystal magic… however…” the eyebeams fired. Descent reached up his right hoof and did nothing more than lightly swipe his hoof back and forth, only moving his forearm. The blasts were all knocked aside. “They are wasting movement. It doesn’t take a full swing, just a flick of the wrist. As for these annoying copies…” Descent focused as the three clones charged. “The focus of the magic that generates them is in the head… all it takes is one solid blow to the skull between the eyes…” Descent shifted forward and delivered three blows, landing one to each clone right between the eyes above the nose of the goggles. They all instantly burst into light. “And they are easily dispatched.”

“Whoa…” Soarin blinked as Descent gave the little crash course.

“The Wonderbolts are not as weak as these Shadowbolts have made you appear,” Descent continued as the Shadowbolt stallion leapt at him again. “You just didn’t know how to fight them…” Descent set his hooves and focused on the stallion. “If you know their tricks,” he raised his left hoof and smashed it against the blade of the magic sword. “Then it evens the playing field!” he yelled as he swiped his hoof out and forced the stallion back again. “You can’t win, Blade…” Descent suddenly addressed the Shadowbolt.

“You are such an annoyance!” Blade spat back while growling. “I will not be made the fool again!” he took to the air and the crystals began to glow again. The sword on his right hoof shortened by half and a second blade of the same length extended from his left.

Descent glanced back at Soarin.

“Are you ready now? Or do I have to do this without you?” he asked sternly.

“Don’t patronize me,” Soarin scoffed. “I’ve had worse… from you,” he reminded Descent as he cracked his neck. “I don’t know what the hell is going on and expect an explanation later, but right now, I really want to kick these guys in the ass… REALLY hard.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Descent crouched down and shot upward. Soarin forced his wings outward and took flight right behind.

Fighting side by side with Descent… this was definitely something Soarin never expected to do.

Blade, as Soarin picked up the grey stallion’s name, flew away at first, forcing them to give chase. Descent caught up very quickly, forcing Blade to attack, but even with his dual swords, he couldn’t land a clean hit on Descent. Every swing was batted aside by Descent’s knowledge of countering the pink magic. Soarin knew that was something they’d have to learn.

As Soarin chased after to provide support, several very familiar ponies were assisting the rest of the Wonderbolts.

“Holy shit…” Fleetfoot said to herself as she painfully glided along, staring up at the Renegades as they absolutely pelted the Shadowbolt clones. “AH!” she was only distracted for a moment, but it left her open as the cream colored mare unleashed her energy wave again.

Fleetfoot cringed as she threw her arms up over her face, but she felt nothing. She peeked out as the wave passed by around her and noticed a Renegade had flown in front of her. It was the large, muscular, pure white mare with the blond wavy mane and battle scars. She was flying headlong into the wave, but with her hooves forward, physically diverting the energy wave in a cone shape around her and Fleetfoot until it dissipated.

“YO! I’M READY!” the grey stallion with the brown mane they encountered at the blimp dropped down beside the mare and hopped up on her back.

“Then curl up!” the mare ordered in a hardened voice as three clones split from the Shadowbolt mare and flew towards them. The grey stallion curled himself up as tightly as he could into a ball before the white mare grabbed him off her back, wound up and chucked him as hard as she could towards the clones.

“WOOOHOOO!!!” the stallion hollered as he pinballed between the three clones, bouncing off their heads, and causing them to explode before screaming headlong towards the Shadowbolt mare.

She dropped down, dipping into conjured shadows that danced around her. After the Renegade passed over, she lifted up from the shadows to attack, but as soon as she did, the red Renegade stallion with the orange-yellow, blown back mane slammed down to the ground, wound up and punched at the stallion ball, sending him right into the stomach of the Shadowbolt mare. The Renegade ball uncurled and latched onto the Shadowbolt’s back, driving her downward and crashing to the ground with her.

“You kiddies sure know how to stir up trouble!” the red stallion chuckled while rotating his arm.

Fleetfoot blinked, in awe of what had just happened before she turned to look at the incredibly buff, white Renegade mare beside her, looking her up and down, almost as impressed with her body as she was with all the moves she just witnessed.

“I gotta find out her gym routine…” Fleetfoot said to herself as she followed after them to continue the attack.

Storm Front was beaten and bruised from all the magic blasts taken, and while he was still being held stationary, he looked on with awe as the blue Shadowbolt stallion tried desperately to lock onto two Renegades. The white, grey maned stallion who glided along swiftly, holding his wings tight and steady as he zoomed around, and the red stallion with the slicked back white mane, who made such dramatic shifts in speed and trajectory that he couldn’t be caught.

Suddenly a yellow hoof reached out and grabbed the arm of the blue Shadowbolt.

“What?!” he turned to see the yellow Renegade mare with the long, straight white mane. Just as she had done with Spitfire back in Cloudsdale, she pulled the Shadowbolt onto her back and without losing motion, gave a little hop that launched the Shadowbolt into the air.

The red stallion began making his irregular shifts before suddenly bursting towards the Shadowbolt with his mane creating a white streak behind him. He body slammed the Shadowbolt right in the side.

“GAH!” the Shadowbolt grunted as he flailed through the air. Before the white stallion veered up and glided above before smashing his hooves down, knocking the Shadowbolt down to the ground. Upon his impact, Storm and the rest of the Wonderbolts being held were released from the magic binds.

Storm looked up in awe as the three Renegades all bumped hooves. Were they allies all along?

Silver continued to pitch and weave, avoiding the exploding spheres as they continued to rise up around him.

“Hey!”

“Yoohoo!”

Silver looked up as two Renegades flew over his head. The two mares that assisted the runaway from the Cloudsdale arena. One pink with a smooth yellow mane, the other yellow with a pink frizzy mane. They were both waving at the yellow Shadowbolt controlling the spheres.

“Bet you can’t hit us!” the pink Renegade taunted while sticking her tongue out at the Shadowbolt.

“Hmph…” the Shadowbolt glared at them.

Silver took a hard right and veered off as the spheres began following the two mares instead. He pulled up and stopped in the air, hovering to catch his breath.

The two mares weaved in and out, passing by each other, turning and twisting with perfect synchronization. Silver blinked and tipped his head as he watched them move.

“Wait a minute…” he continued watching, taking note of the mares and how they moved in tandem. It looked just like how the Streak twins moved.

“TAKE A DIVE, BIG GREEN!” The yellow mare yelled up into the air as the spheres continuously failed to keep up with them.

“Big green?” Silver blinked again. He had heard that before!

The Shadowbolt looked up as an enormous shadow suddenly cast over him. He looked up to see the massive green Renegade stallion diving towards him. The Shadowbolt focused upward, forming multiple spheres in the green Renegade’s path. The explosions all struck home, engulfing the giant pony… but he cut right through them, unfazed.

“AHH!” The Shadowbolt yelled, shielding himself as the giant pony crashed into him, and drove him all the way down to the ground. When they hit the grass there was a loud BOOM as large chunks of dirt and grass exploded up into the air, flying in all directions.

Silver shielded himself, as debris flew up and battered against him. He quickly looked back down and stared in awe at the enormous stallion standing over the Shadowbolt in a crater, the Shadowbolt pressed into the dirt at the bottom as the Renegade snarled at him.

“These moves…” Silver’s jaw dropped. “That nickname…” he shook his head as he wondered how it took him so long to realize something. “These ponies… they couldn’t be…!”

“Must… keep… moving!” Dash ordered herself as she zipped through the air around the red Shadowbolt mare.

The situation was way beyond fubar. Matteo, Misty, and Shine were all down, the ‘new Shadowbolts’ had just appeared overhead and were fighting the Shadowbolt clones, There were additional clones firing their eyebeams at her from below, and she was flying for her life as this Shadowbolt mare shot an endless stream of pin sized magic bolts towards her. The only thing that kept her from being pulverized again was her speed, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep that up.

“AUGH!” The Shadowbolt mare suddenly cried out and the stream of magic bolts ceased.

Dash glanced down as she continued to avoid the clone eyebeams and saw the mare tumbling towards the ground. She barely leveled herself out before hitting the ground and looked up, growling in Dash’s direction. What had just happened?

“Heya Dashie!”

Dash’s ears perked up as a familiar voice came from her left. She turned her head and stared wide eyed as a turquoise mare with a yellow and orange patterned mane shifted up beside her wearing the cut off Shadowbolt uniform with the red goggles and headband. It wasn’t a new face to Dash at all.

“Lightning Dust?!” Dash blinked.

“That uniform looks pretty good on ya!” Dust smirked and winked behind the red tinted lenses towards her.

Another pony suddenly barrel rolled in and shifted to form up on Dash’s right.

“Let us handle this,” said the new mare in a flat, serious tone. The same uniform as Lightning Dust, purple with a swept back mane with lavender tone patterns.

“Starry Skies…” Dash stared with her mouth ajar as the two, who she hadn’t seen in a very long time, nor knew if she’d ever see again, were now flying side by side with her as they dodged through the constant barrage of clone eyebeams from below.

“Dust! Let’s take her down!” Starry ordered while bringing her front hooves up.

“YEAHHEAAAHHHH!!!!” Lighting Dust cheered while doing the same.

Art by: Foxenawolf

The two of them shifted forward, placing themselves in front of Dash as the clone beams focused and the Shadowbolt began firing her stream of magic again. Starry and Dust held their hooves forward and began flicking them back and forth, knocking away every single form of magic, eyebeam and tiny bolt alike as they shot towards the Shadowbolt.

“Wow…” Dash watched in awe as the two cut through the magic in front of them as if it wasn’t even there.

“Damn you!” the Shadowbolt mare yelled as she tried to step back and generate more clones, but as soon as they jumped out from her body, Starry and Dust delivered a single blow to each of them in the forehead, causing them all to burst.

“Give her one right in the jaw, Dashie!” Dust yelled back as she and Starry pulled up, giving Dash a clear path directly at the Shadowbolt. Dash’s eyes widened and then glared. She didn’t hesitate for a moment as she pumped her wings harder and pulled back her hoof. The Shadowbolt was trying to back away, but she had no avenue of escape. Dash gritted her teeth and prepared Silver’s full motion swing.

“THIS IS FOR HURTING MY FRIENDS!” Dash yelled out as she swung her hoof forward, putting subtle shifts into the motion as she was flying forward.

Her hoof connected with the cheek of the Shadowbolt, completely breaking her left goggle lens to pieces and bending the frame as the force of the blow sent her flying.

“Whoa-ho!” Dust hollered as the Shadowbolt mare flew backwards through the air before bouncing to a stop on the ground. “Damn! What a punch!” she commented while smiling down at Dash.

Dash dropped to the ground and skidded to a halt on her hooves. She grunted and panted as she caught her breath, but took a moment to look up at Starry Skies and Lightning Dust as they turned and shot towards the rest of the battle.

She shook her head and smiled.

What a drastic… but fortunate turn of events.

“I’ll gut you!” Blade yelled into Descent’s face as he kept trying to swing his swords, only to have them repelled each time.

“Highly unlikely,” Descent said calmly as he pressed his attack, driving Blade directly towards the Wonderbolt compound.

Soarin kept in pace close behind as Descent forced Blade to crash land right outside the front doors that led into the lobby.

“GRRRHH!!!” Blade growled as he struggled to stand. “You’re fools! All fools!” he belted as Descent and Soarin landed a few yards away. “What do you hope to gain, Descent? Why do you resist and lead all of our brothers and sisters astray? You’re denying the truth!”

“The only truth I know is that my family was wrenched from my grasp and forced to serve a master they’ve never even seen,” Descent snorted. “I’m simply taking back what was mine… and I plan to take back the rest.”

Soarin didn’t say a word. He had no idea what they were talking about, but he had a feeling he’d know soon enough.

“You’re standing in the way of my objective… Blade…” Descent glared sternly. “And the Shadowbolt code dictates that I dispose of any who stand between me and my objective… even if it’s you. Or have you been so far consumed by your own pleasures that you’ve forgotten the very words you used to live by?”

“Preach to me all you want…” Blade spat back. “Your efforts here have been for naught. By now, our Shadowbolts inside the compound will have killed them all, leaving the Wonderbolts with no support, no staff, no administration, and most of all, no lead captain. Without that to guide them, they will fall apart. You’ve lost.”

“WHAT?!” Soarin found a reason to speak up as his eyes widened and his ears stood up. Descent quickly put a hoof up, barring Soarin from making any moves forward.

“Relax, Soarin,” he turned back to Blade. “Actually… I sent a detachment into the compound the moment we arrived… and they reported back to me a minute later saying they didn’t need to step in.”

“What? Lies!” Blade growled. Descent shook his head.

“And I wasn’t surprised… I think you’ve heavily underestimated a certain Wonderbolt,” Descent smirked.

A loud crash suddenly sounded out from above and Blade looked up. Three Shadowbolts, all with a single crystal floating with them, had crashed through the hanger window above the lobby doors. They flailed as they fell down and landed painfully in a pile with shards of glass showering down upon them. They gasped and groaned as they rolled off one another.

“What is this?!” Blade turned his back to Descent and Soarin, the swords disappearing from his arms as he stared in disbelief at the compound. A few more screams rang out from inside, followed by two Shadowbolts crashing into and knocking down two of the doors, bouncing on the ground, and sliding painfully to a stop. As one of them tried to stand, a third Shadowbolt flung out of the doors and slammed into him, knocking them both down.

“AH! STAY BACK!” a voice yelled from inside before a yelp of pain. A Shadowbolt’s face smacked into a window beside the doors, pressing against it before something forced it through the glass, shattering the whole window as he fell to the ground and curled up in pain under the bits of falling glass.

Blade’s eyes darted back and forth in disbelief until a Wonderbolt shot out of the window above with two more Shadowbolts hooked by the neck in her arms.

It was Spitfire.

And she looked more or less unscathed.

“AND…” she wound up and threw them both towards the concrete. “STAY OUT!” she added as the two landed brutally and rolled around, groaning. Spitfire turned back towards the compound hanger window. “DON’T MAKE ME COME IN THERE AND GET THE REST OF YOU!” she yelled and shortly after, twenty more Shadowbolts came shooting out of the compound, fleeing for their lives, most of them wobbling in their flight, and some grounded because their wings were bent out of shape.

Soarin stared up at Spitfire and blinked. No wonder Spitfire didn’t join them. She was busy fighting inside the base, taking on and effectively beating down at least twenty-five to thirty Shadowbolts. From the looks of things, they were of lower rank, holding only one crystal as opposed to three, but still… holy crap.

“See?” Descent chuckled as Blade growled and turned to him, he looked past Descent at the battle behind them. The other four Shadowbolts were down and the clones were dwindling at an alarming rate

“Mark my words Descent…” Blade snarled. “You will regret opposing us… all of you will,” he reached up and grabbed one of the crystals, pulling it down towards his mouth as is began to glow. “We can’t win in these circumstances. Everypony retreat, NOW!” he yelled before the glow intensified around him.

“HEY!” Spitfire yelled as she dove towards him, but right before she could grab him, Blade disappeared in a bright flash of light that engulfed a wide area around them. When it faded, the rest of the Shadowbolts around them were gone as well.

Soarin, Spitfire, and Descent all looked out towards the courtyard where four more bright flashes shined out and the remaining clones exploded.

Soarin stood still for a moment, before releasing an enormous sigh of relief and falling down onto his plot.

They were victorious… but it wouldn’t have been that way if not for…

“So it’s you,” Spitfire spoke up as she pushed her goggles up and approached Descent. Descent pulled his goggles down and nodded.

“Indeed it is. It has been a while, Captain Spitfire,” he replied politely.

“So… the red goggles and headbands… something told me you were a part of it,” Spitfire deduced. “A separate band of Shadowbolts?”

“That is correct,” Descent gave another nod.

“So how about we set some things straight here…” Spitfire tried to start up but Descent held up a hoof.

“Hold on,” he stopped her. “Before we start any long conversations,” he looked out towards the aftermath. The Renegades were landing and helping the fallen Wonderbolts along with any of the Wonderbolts who were still up and able to move on their own. “We should see to it that the wounded are tended to. From what I’ve seen we have some severely injured to take care of.”

Spitfire took a look of her own out towards the torn up courtyard of the compound. She nodded in agreement.

“Never thought I’d hear a Shadowbolt suggest something like that,” she said.

“Please,” Descent nodded. “Call us the Renegades.”

Spitfire liften an eyebrow, but Descent promised answers after the more important task at hoof was taken care of, their wounded. She turned and moved towards the compound doors before shouting inside. “Somepony get Bliss and tell her we need her full medical staff out here NOW!” she yelled before turning back out.

Soarin was just staring at Descent, his moment of relief still passing over him. He looked out and watched as the Renegades aided the Wonderbolts, never once considering he’d see a scenario like this.

Just how much had they been left in the dark about… and why?

He perked up as several Renegades approached. Specifically, it was all the ponies they had encountered in Cloudsdale. Soarin shook his head and smirked. All the trouble they went through with this group… and they were on their side all along.

“Oh…” Soarin perked up. “I had a feeling those two would show…” he said to himself as he spotted two familiar ponies in front of the approaching group. Starry Skies and Lightning Dust. So the whole crew was meeting up again.

Descent turned and walked towards the Renegades as they landed.

“Well?” he asked as he moved towards them. Starry Skies began to speak, but Soarin’s focus was drawn by Spitfire as she approached him.

“Sorry…” she apologized, her ears flopping down as she looked over Soarin’s damaged flight suit and body.

“For what?” Soarin blinked. “Oh,” he quickly realized what she meant.

“I wish I could’ve helped you guys out here… I could see what was happening out the windows, but I couldn’t abandon the staff. They would’ve all been hurt or worse had I not protected them. I’m just as responsible for them… and they can’t defend themselves. The security team wasn’t fairing to well against them, I can assure you. I had to completely take over., despite her reasoning she still sounded sad. Soarin quickly shook his head.

“Spitfire, trust me, we were doomed either way until Descent and his new group… er…” Soarin looked back out. The number of pegasi Descent had brought along was far greater than the Wonderbolts. “Force… I should probably call it. I’ll give you a full report later, but the five Shadowbolts we just scared off were completely ponyhandling me and all of the top elites with incredible magic techniques. These new guys seem to know how to counter them, but we sure didn’t…”

“What about Squad Zero?” Spitfire suddenly asked. “I sent them out here as soon as I could… did they make a difference?” she asked with an eager tone in her voice.

Soarin frowned, knowing that she wasn’t going to like his answer.

“They got us out of a bind at the beginning, but after that they were brushed aside just as easily as we were,” he described to her. He winced when he saw her expression quickly turn down.

“Dammit…” she kicked her hoof lightly on the ground and turned away from Soarin.

“Sorry…” Soarin apologized, not quite knowing what else to do. He knew how important Project Zero was to Spitfire. Squad Zero helped, but they weren’t prepared for the new brand of magical techniques.

“I’m going to get such an earful from Silver later…” she sighed as she shook her head. Soarin glanced back over at the courtyard and blinked.

“Speak of the devil,” Soarin pointed. Spitfire looked up to see a group of Wonderbolts approaching. Fleetfoot, Silver, Dash, Misty, and the Streak twins, all up and flying towards them. They were all wobbling a little, but they were managing. They all stared at the Renegades as they passed before coming in for a landing by Spitfire.

“Hey!” Fleetfoot pouted towards Spitfire as they came to a halt. “Where were you?!” she demanded as Spitfire rolled her eyes. Soarin answered for her.

“She was busy beating the crap out of thirty some Shadowbolts that snuck into the compound while we were out here,” he chuckled as Fleetfoot and the rest all stared wide eyed at Spitfire.

“I mean HEY!” Fleetfoot threw her arms out to her sides while faking a smile. “You’re awesome! Haha…ha…”

“Soarin… are you alright?” Dash asked as she stepped towards him and sat down beside him. Soarin smiled and nodded.

“Hard to believe I am… but yes. More importantly, are—”

“You know I’m fine—OW!” Dash yelped as her left wing cramped up. “Ow, ow, ow…” she continuously said as she shook it out. Soarin just smirked at her as she stuck her tongue out at him. “Maybe I’m a little beat up…” she admitted while puffing her cheeks out. She looked back at Spitfire as she conversed with Silver, and the Streak twins. Misty was staring towards the Renegades as they continued to converse with Descent.

“So what’s with our… friends?” Dash asked as she looked back at Soarin. Soarin shrugged.

“Descent, Starry Skies, and Lightning Dust… apparently got together a bunch of Shadowbolts who sympathized with them. I think he called them the Renegades. Never seen or heard about the rest of them though besides that they toyed with us a lot recently. I just had no idea there were so many of them,” he perked up as Descent lifted up off and flew towards the sky. He had very little time to wonder because Spitfire had started walking towards the Renegades as they continued to converse without Descent. “Come on, let’s join them,” Soarin made a head motion as he got up and followed behind Spitfire, Silver, Misty, and the twins.

Starry Skies noticed them as they approached and turned.

“Well,” Starry began in a flat tone, neither smiling nor frowning as the Wonderbolts approached. “Never thought we’d be flying in to save you guys after all we’ve been through, but there are strange times.”

“I would sure as hell say so,” Spitfire agreed in her own way. “So what’s—”

Spitfire stopped and her eyes widened as Lightning Dust turned around to face her. Dust’s smirk disappeared instantly and was replaced with a look of shock, followed by dread as her ears flopped down and she backed away slightly.

“You…” Spitfire glared and released a low growl from the back of her throat.

“Whoa there,” Soarin quickly stepped up to Spitfire and put a hoof on her shoulder as she gritted her teeth. Starry turned and glanced at Dust, before looking between her and Spitfire.

“Oh, right,” Starry shrugged.

“Spitfire, go easy…” Soarin tried to keep her calm as her sharp gaze continued to stab at Lightning Dust. Soarin glanced at Dust as she began to shift behind Starry Skies as if hiding in complete shame. One of the Renegades behind her stepped up curiously, but Starry turned and shook her head while waving them off.

Spitfire had every reason to be put off by the sight of Lightning Dust. Even if Dust wasn’t thinking straight under the influence of the crystals, she was still the pony that put Spitfire through one of the most incredibly excruciating experiences of her life. The feelings of jealousy and loneliness she was feeling at the time amplified to the point where it caused physical pain and ripped control of her own body from her, forcing her to attack her friends in a blind rage, aware of every move but unable to stop it. Even if Lightning Dust was being led astray at the time, it would be quite a while before Spitfire could ever look upon her without anger welling up in the pit of her stomach.

Dash frowned as she saw Lightning Dust hide behind Starry. Sure, what she did was terrible, and nearly completely broke Spitfire’s spirit, but Spitfire didn’t know what horrors Dust went through afterward. Nightshade probably caused more physical and mental damage to her than Spitfire could even fathom. It didn’t excuse what Lightning Dust had done, Spitfire’s anger was just, but at least Dust learned the truth and consequences of her choices soon after.

“So…” Soarin tried to interject as he addressed Starry Skies. “Now that we’re not, you know… trying to hunt you guys down. How about we finally meet your other captains here? I’m assuming that’s what they are?” Soarin asked while referring to the rest of the Renegades behind them.

All the Wonderbolts were startled as the Renegades all burst out laughing, save for the muscular mare, who only smirked and the giant green stallion who let out little raspy ‘heh heh heh’s.’ Soarin blinked and looked back at the Wonderbolts in confusion as Starry Skies simply smirked.

“Hah…” she scoffed. “First off… we don’t have captains or squads. Descent is our leader and we follow his guidance. Aside from that we have no ranks, no authority. We fight for each other and for the goals of the Renegades… and secondly…” she glanced at all the Renegades behind her as they all finally stopped laughing. “I don’t think you need to ‘meet’ them… in fact, they all came over here just now… to see you.”

“See us?” Soarin blinked, the rest of the Wonderbolts present stepping up beside him curiously.

“Well guys?” Starry turned and looked at them. “Go on, you’ve been bothering us about this for months. Get on with it already.”

The Wonderbolts all watched curiously as the Renegades behind Starry and Lightning Dust all stepped forward.

They all looked between each other and nodded… before reaching up towards their headbands and goggles.

As they slowly removed their headwear, their manes shifted without the compression of the headbands, and for the first time, the Wonderbolts saw their faces… their eyes…

Dash looked at them carefully. For some reason, some of them looked familiar, but she didn’t know why. She scanned the first five before glancing at the other Wonderbolts, but all of their jaws had dropped and their eyes were wide as can be. Dash blinked and looked back, scanning the rest of them until her eyes landed on the grey, brown maned stallion they encountered in Cloudsdale. She… recognized him… then it hit her… she remembered getting a certain poster signed… by a pony that looked just like him. Hold it… it was him. She looked to the pony’s left and held in a squeak when she saw the last two. The red stallion with the blown back orange and yellow mane and the yellow mare with the straight, long, white mane. She would never forget those two!

“THESE… THESE… THESE…!” Dash stuttered.

“My god…” Silver slowly pulled his goggles off as he began to smile. Dash turned and looked at Silver, not believing what she saw. “I knew it… god dammit, I KNEW IT!” Silver sounded so overjoyed, unlike anything Dash ever heard from him before.

Silver began looking at each of them slowly as the rest of the Wonderbolts were at a loss for words.

First he looked at the enormous, heavy set, green stallion.

“Bomber…”

The red stallion with the slicked back white mane.

“Comet…”

The white stallion with the grey mane.

“Steady Wing…”

The two identical twin mares, on yellow and pink, the other pink and yellow.

“Pixie… and Fairy…”

The large, incredibly muscular, white mare with the wavy blond mane and battle scars.

“Valkyrie…”

The grey stallion with the brown mane.

“Cannon Ball…”

Silver turned his head towards the last two he locked his eyes on the old red stallion and the old yellow mare standing together.

“And of course… Blazetail and Flashwind…”

Dash’s eyes grew wider as Silver… sniffled. Silver had the biggest smile on his face and his eyes were getting watery.

“All of my… old… friends!” he exclaimed as a tear squeaked out of his right eye.

“Youngster!” Blazetail called over to Silver. “Are you crying on me?” he said with a smirk. “Getting soft? Dammit kid, there’s no place for tears in the Wonderbolts!”

“Ha… haha…hahahHAHAHA!” Silver threw his head back and burst out laughing.

Dash stared at all of the Renegades. She recognized Blazetail and Flashwind immediately, but the others… the names Silver just said were beginning to click.

Back at the party… when Silver told her the stories of his old fellow Wonderbolts… and then later when they had the heart to heart after she discovered Silver in his room. He described all of his friends being chased out by the Wonderbolt code…

These particular Renegades… THESE WERE RETIRED WONDERBOLTS!

Dash and the rest of the Wonderbolts flinched as Misty Fly suddenly fired out from behind them, flinging herself at Bomber and grabbing the enormous, stocky stallion as far around his big neck as she could while hugging him tightly and rubbing her cheek against his.

“Heh, heh, heh…” the giant stallion reached up as he chuckled raspily, returning the embrace with one of his massive arms. “Bomber never forget Misty Fly…” he said happily. Misty was smiling with her mouth open wide, suggesting she’d be squealing uncontrollably if she had a voice. Steady wing hovered up beside them as Misty let go of Bomber, and she quickly dove at him, giving him an enormous hug as well. He was her former wingmate after all, and after Silver described how hard it was to watch his friends leave, Dash imagined it was just as hard for Misty, especially a squadmate.

“I’ll be double damned…” Lightning Streak spoke up as he and Fire streak started walking towards the Renegades.

“Old Steady Wing… I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him…” Fire smiled. “Pixie and Fairy too… how could we forget our old mentors?”

“They sure as hell had me fooled,” Lightning chuckled as they approached Pixie and Fairy, receiving hugs from both of them.

Dash turned and looked at Silver, who still sat beside her.

The shock was still strong with her, but what she didn’t understand was why he was just sitting there. She reached out and nudged him with her hoof.

“Silver…” she said his name. He turned and looked at her. She never thought she would see Silver crying, even if it was just a tear or two. It was as if he was so surprised by his own reaction that he could barely move. “Go on,” she gave him a little push.

Silver looked back towards the Renegades for a moment, before he slowly stood up and walked towards Cannon Ball and Valkyrie. As he approached he simply stared up into Valkyrie’s eyes as she stoically looked down at him. For a moment nothing happened, but then Silver looked down and began to choke up again.

“God dammit… you bastards…” he sputtered as the rest of the Renegades, Bomber, Comet, Cannon Ball, Pixie, Fairy, and Steady Wing all turned towards him. “You… you bastards!” Silver repeated as tears began to fall down his face. “Never thought… I’d… I’d… see any of you… ever…”

“We missed you too, Silv,” Valkyrie suddenly spoke up in her low serious tone before all of them reached in and gave Silver a group hug. Silver reached out, grabbing onto as many of them as he could as they surrounded him.

“Damn all of you… damn… all… of… you…” he said as he let the tears fall.

“Oh my gosh, I’m gonna cry…” Fleetfoot held her hooves up to her mouth as her eyes grew watery. “Silver is so happy… I’ve never seen him like this before…” she said as she sniffled and wiped her eyes.

Soarin turned and glanced at Dash as she sniffled as well. She looked at Soarin and quickly tried to play it off.

“Nothing, I’m alright,” Dash shook her head. “It’s just…”

“Just what?” Soarin smiled as he reached over and hooked his arm over her shoulder.

“I’m just happy for Silver… I can only imagine how I’d feel if all of my best friends were suddenly gone… seeing this,” she looked away from Soarin. She said nothing else, and Soarin didn’t press her.

“Now then…” Spitfire, Fleetfoot, Soarin, and Dash all looked away from the touching scene as Flashwind spoke up and approached them with Blazetail walking behind. Spitfire sighed and shook her head.

“That explains how the Renegades always knew where we’d be and when to appear…” Spitfire said while furrowing her brow. “You two are always wandering around the compound… I can’t believe how hard we’ve been duped.

“We had our reasons,” Blazetail spoke up from behind. “The Renegades were in need of extra assistance. We were happy to help for the good of the Wonderbolts, we even called up a bunch of our old friends,” he looked back at the Renegades surrounding Silver, Misty, and the Streaks. “These were the only elites we could track down… there are quite a few more among the ranks, but most of them were lower ranked or early retirees.”

Dash could barely contain herself as she watched Spitfire converse with Blazetail and Flashwind. She couldn’t believe that she not only was looking at the old, legendary Wonderbolt captains, but she had also fought in a battle beside them… and most likely would be doing the same soon.

“How about we start from the top…” Spitfire held a hoof out. “I appreciate you looking out for us in your own way… but… why?”

“I will answer that…” a voice came from above. They all looked up, Wonderbolts and Renegades alike as Descent flew down from above and landed between all of them. “But first, like I said before, we need to secure everypony out here and get medical attention to those in need. After that… We’ll tell you everything you need to know,” he paused and looked up into the sky. “Isn’t that right? Luna?”

All eyes immediately turned skyward again.

Princess Luna herself floated down from above, landing softly beside Descent. Spitfire and Soarin immediately locked their eyes on her, having not seen her for a while, not to mention the memories of all the secrets kept from them very fresh in their heads.

“Indeed…” Luna spoke up. “The royal guard is on their way to assist with the wounded. Once all the Wonderbolts have been tended to… we have much to discuss, and we fear very little time to waste…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

I want to start by pointing out the magnificent brilliant bastard who was the first to figure out that the Renegades that all appeared in Cloudsdale were indeed all the old Wonderbolts Silver mentioned (even named and identified each one) as well as Blazetail and Flashwind. That user is Dreihorn. It was the very first time Driehorn had commented on my story, and what a way to introduce yourself... deducing a mystery that most of my commenters have been toiling to figure out. Hats off to you, i am still very impressed at how observant you are, i was certain it was just well hidden enough to throw everyone off :raritywink::moustache:

anyway WOW! That was a long and epic chapter... and no doubt it revealed a mystery ive been keeping for a long time. And you can bet a LOT more questions will be answered in the next chapter (Might take a day or two off though, my brain is fried :pinkiecrazy:)

There were quite a few things left unsaid in this chapter as well as a few things happening that were not adressed (such as Squall... oh gosh that had to hurt :twilightoops:) but rest assured, next chapter will take care of those as well as bring many other things to light... including why Luna has been so desperately keeping things from the Wonderbolts, believe me, she had her reasons.

Also... i would like to point out that on june 3rd... this story will officially be a YEAR old! :pinkiegasp: i cant believe ive spent so much time on this story... and believe me im glad i have, the experience has been wonderful :rainbowkiss:

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 98: Nimbus Rising

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 98: Nimbus Rising

There were no words that could describe what Spitfire and Silver were seeing with their own eyes.

The Wonderbolt compound…

Their home that was marked for destruction…

Tearing itself right out of the land they thought it was built upon and slowly rising skyward.

All this time and all these years… they had been oblivious to the true nature of the compound? The capabilities of their symbol of pride and power? The security of its walls, the very beds that they slept in… all within a massive flying vessel all this time?

Multiple propellers had sprouted from the top, including one much larger and higher than the rest. Propellers had appeared below as well, helping the compound rise up from its foundations. Three smoke stacks behind it spewed flames and large puffs of smoke.

They thought they had seen all of it, but as it continued to rise, large, wing-like apparatuses extended outward from the base platform. They looked to be on a rotating axis. Finally, a large structure ripped up through the grass of the backyard from the base of the middle smokestack, ripping through the grass the compound had brought up with it to reveal what looked like a massive tail fin.

What was this?! It was unlike anything Spitfire and Silver had ever seen!

Unbelievable…

But…

While it was rising, the thin theories of the former captains proving to be true, they were NOT out of the frying pan just yet!

Spitfire forced her eyes away from the awesome site, looking around frantically at all the Wonderbolts and Renegades who couldn’t tear their gaze away from the phenomenon of the compound. Her eyes moved from them, landing upon the Shadowbolt fortress.

The cannon was moments away from firing. While the compound was slowly moving upward, it was still within firing angle. Spitfire did multiple calculations in her head as she took in everything she saw.

The Shadowbolts had only just now started pulling back, many were pouring out of the compound as well, mostly startled by the sudden movement, some chased out, some looking as though they were aware of the cannon being fully charged. Assuming that whoever was in control of the fortress had any heart at all, they would wait for the Shadowbolts to be clear, or at least the commanders. As she studied the speed of the compound’s ascent and its apparent acceleration…

It looked like it would be clear of the attack angle before the cannon could fire!

Where the Wonderbolts and Renegades currently sat, they were also much closer to the compound than the Shadowbolts were to the fortress.

Spitfire made up her mind. It was a judgment call… one HELL of a steep judgment call. But she knew her Wonderbolts well and knew Descent’s Renegades were just as capable.

They could do this!

“EVERYPONY!!!” Spitfire yelled out, drawing all attention away from the steadily rising compound to her. “FALL BACK TO THE COMPOUND!” she yelled. As expected, everypony looked at her as if she was crazy, especially Descent.

“HAVE YOU GONE MAD?!” Descent yelled out from above. Spitfire glared up at him as he floated above her, pointing towards the compound.

“Use your damn eyes Descent!” she yelled while moving her hoof towards the fortress. “It’s going to clear the angle of attack!” she turned and looked around at the rest. “We can all gawk LATER! COME ON!”

Without another word, Spitfire took off towards the compound, wincing as she felt the massive wind pressure pushing from the compound propellers.

“What is she thinking?!” Descent shook his head, but then his eyes widened as all the Wonderbolts began taking off, following right behind Spitfire, forcing themselves through the heavy cross breezes as they forged back towards their rising home. The Renegades all looked towards Descent as he continued to shake his head. “Fools, ALL FOOLS!”

“Faith,” Silver spoke up from right below him. Descent blinked and looked down as Silver pushed his goggles back over his eyes.

“What?” Descent lifted an eyebrow.

“You heard me,” Silver snorted. “Spitfire is the lead captain for a reason, you know. We believe in her to make the right decisions and we trust her judgment,” he turned and painfully extended his wings. Descent scoffed.

“You say that after her breakdown earlier?” he growled. Silver looked over his shoulder.

“Yet you went along with her split plan to make this happen?” Silver pointed at the compound. Descent remained silent as Silver turned and followed behind his fellow Wonderbolts, clearly struggling as the strong gusts from the propellers battered him from left and right, but he flew on.

Descent watched as all the Wonderbolts fell back. He gritted his teeth, looking back and forth between the compound and the fortress, slowly realizing that, while once again incredibly slim, there was a chance of success.

“Grr…” Descent growled to himself. He felt like an idiot, but… there was something about the passion and drive of the Wonderbolts that seemed to be having an effect on him. He found himself believing in the unbelievable. Hell, watching the Wonderbolt compound sprout propellers and tear out of the ground had him believing anything was possible at the moment. So… he caved. “FALL BACK! TO THE COMPOUND. LET’S GO!” he yelled, the Renegades’ eyes widening further as they stared at their leader. “ARE YOU DEAF! MOVE IT, OR GET LEFT BEHIND!” Descent added as he pumped his wings, propelling himself after the Wonderbolts. The Renegades hesitated, but…

“What are y’all floating around like dumbasses for?!” Lightning Dust flew out in front and rotated her arm. “You heard him! COME ON!” she turned and followed.

There was doubt and uncertainty. But as with their leader, if there was anything that rang true in the minds of the Renegade Shadowbolts, it was that anything was possible after all they’d been through. As reckless as it felt, they remained loyal to their leader, following right behind him and Lightning Dust.

“RGH!” Silver grunted painfully as he forced through the pain in his body. It was already enough of a struggle flying against the rapid, powerful cross winds generated by the propellers of the compound, but the state of his body wasn’t making it any easier.

Forget catching up with the Wonderbolts, the Renegades were beginning to shoot by him.

“This is nothing!” he yelled as he forced through the pain.

Pain? Why was there so much pain anyway? He was on pain meds, he wasn’t supposed to feel it. Unless… there was so MUCH pain coursing through his worn out body that the painkillers weren’t even enough to completely hold it back.

His eyes widened as he felt a sudden sharp pang of agony shoot through his right wing…

It had been a very long time since he had engaged in action or combat scenarios, not to mention three days in a row. As his right wing seized up and he felt his flight stabilization collapse, he wondered just how broken his body really was.

The crosswinds were now in control of his path as he tilted sideways and began to tumble.

Of all the times for his body to give out…

Of all the times…

“COME ON! COME ON!” Spitfire forced herself to turn around and hover in place as she reached the edge of the newly uprooted platform. The heavy gusts from the propellers were strong, far stronger than any wind she had flown or held herself against, but she was capable, as were the rest of the Wonderbolts. “Let’s go! Everypony inside!” she pointed as she took careful note of every Wonderbolt passing by. She tallied them all off in her head as they passed, knowing exactly how many were out there, but before she could count the last few, she saw Descent, Lightning Dust, and the Renegades approach.

Before she saw Silver…

Spitfire’s eyes widened as she landed and galloped up to the edge, feeling more secure against the wind with her hooves grounded. She peered over the edge as the Renegades shot by, following behind the rest. It didn’t take her long to find her target because he was the only Wonderbolt left… and he was falling.

“SILVER!” Spitfire yelled as she instantly kicked off the edge and dove. She was struck and battered by the cross breezes again, but she quickly stabilized herself. Despite her dive, she felt like she was being slowed down by the constantly crossing gusts. Silver was in her line of sight, tumbling with what looked like a hurt right wing, and she wasn’t sure if at her current speed, that she would be able to catch him before he crashed. She wasn’t sure if it was smart to try using any acceleration methods either, because who knows what effect they would have with the blasting winds of the propellers around her. They might knock her out of the sky instead of helping her.

Her options took a turn for the worse. Not only did she feel she couldn’t reach Silver in time, even if he survived the fall and she retrieved him, could she fly back up to the compound before the Shadowbolt fortress fired? The compound was rising, making her flight back longer, and would she make it while also carrying Silver?

Such terrible, terrible decisions that she had to make on the fly.

It was her responsibility as the lead captain to do everything necessary to protect her fellow Wonderbolts, but if she couldn’t reach Silver in time…

It would be her duty to survive for the rest of them.

Spitfire gritted her teeth, cursing herself for having to make such an awful decision, but if… if she didn’t turn back now…

She slammed her eyes shut and readied to turn back around.

“I GOT HIM!” a voice called out from above.

Spitfire’s eyes shot open just in time to see Lightning Dust shoot by her at an incredible speed, her wings folded backwards at right angles as she kept her body perfectly straight. She was cutting right through the powerful winds in a way Spitfire had never seen anypony do before. It was almost like she was flying with no wind resistance at all!

Obviously the sight of Lightning Dust instinctively sent a bit of tense anger through Spitfire, but she did her best to force the thought aside for the time being as she saw Lightning Dust effortlessly shoot through the cross breezes, catch up to, and grab Silver. Spitfire’s dashed hopes of Silver’s survival rekindled and she stayed on course to meet the two as Dust put Silver’s arm over her shoulder and began forcing the old Wonderbolt back up.

Spitfire took a quick look at the Shadowbolt fortress before she reached them, glaring at Lightning Dust for a moment before placing Silver’s other arm around her shoulders.

Silver had his eyes slammed shut beneath his goggles, his teeth grinding together, and releasing painful hissing breaths between them with faint groans of pain. His right wing was completely limp, but twitching with intense muscle spasms.

“Come on!” Lightning Dust yelled as she began to pump her wings. “We can still make it!” she encouraged.

Spitfire didn’t say a word to her in response, but completely agreed. They could make it, and they would. Working together, they quickly built up vertical speed, working against the heavy downdraft from the propellers towards the platform.

Spitfire could see Descent and Air Mach looking over the edge, beckoning for them to hurry as they kept glancing at the flying fortress. The Shadowbolts didn’t look even fazed by the new development, the cannon still charged and about to fire as if the compound was still sitting right where it started. Perhaps they felt confident the explosion would engulf the compound despite its sudden rise.

Spitfire stole a glance at Silver’s face as he continued to grimace and wince in pain.

She suddenly couldn’t believe that she was about to turn and leave him behind. She almost felt ashamed that a Renegade ended up being their key to saving him, as if she should have been able to do it. She didn’t know what Lightning Dust’s strange flight method was to cut through heavy winds with ease, but it didn’t matter.

She almost left Silver behind. That thought alone tore at her.

But there was no sense dwelling on what didn’t happen. That was something Silver himself was famous for telling many of them over the years.

If anything, she was more miffed that she now more or less owed Lightning Dust for helping her save on of their most valued members.

That thought had her fuming.

“Come on! Come on!” Air Mach encouraged them as Dust and Spitfire managed to get Silver over the edge and onto the platform. They quickly handed him off to Descent and Air Mach before they all broke into a gallop towards the front doors of the lobby, where High Winds and several other Wonderbolts were flagging them down.

The intense pink glow from the Fortress cannon grew brighter.

“THEY’RE FIRING!” Descent yelled as they drew near the doors.

Spitfire looked back. They had risen to a point where they were level with the fortress, the cannon was still pointed down, but were they high enough to completely avoid the attack? Spitfire quickly turned her head around facing the doors as Descent and Air Mach got Silver through with Lightning Dust right behind them.

A deafening noise exploded from behind her. It sounded like a magical discharge mixed with an ear piercing thunderclap.

Spitfire didn’t look.

She just dove forward through the doors.

A blinding flash of pink light illuminated the area as the built up energy within the cannon discharged. Just as it had been the night before when Luna held her ground against it, an enormous, constant stream of pink magical energy shot from the cannon barrel and careened towards the Wonderbolt compound’s former foundations.

The beam looked even wider than the day before, an increase in power confirmed by how the Shadowbolt fortress itself was slightly pushed backwards by the recoil.

The fortress had not shifted to compensate for the Wonderbolt compound’s sudden rise from the ground, but the blast was so large that it was on course to still clip the bottom of it.

The Wonderbolt compound continued to slowly rise, even as certain doom was flying towards its general location…

Closer…

Closer…

Closer…

The blast reached the compound…

And struck the large propeller hanging off the bottom. The propeller was blown right off, the metal ripping and tearing away from the base of the compound. But even without the massive downward rotor, the rest of the propellers compensated and it continued to rise.

Yet despite the close call, the cannon blast struck the ground below the compound.

The explosion that followed was of catastrophic proportions.

The ground shook as an explosion of pink magical energy expanded outwards in all directions, sending dirt, dust, and debris up everywhere. The tremors caused by the shockwave were felt throughout Canterlot, or at least by those who were left in the city. Anypony and anything within a few miles of the city likely felt it as well as the echoing shockwave of the blast following the flash of light slammed against every surface, shattering every window, and crumbling any building with weakened or old frames.

Even Canterlot Castle felt the pressure of the blast, miraculously holding itself together as it sat right beside the enormous explosion. The royal guards all pressed to the ground and held onto their helmets as the shockwave ripped by, pushing them along until they were up against the walls. Every stained glass window shattering to pieces, giving way as its strong foundations held firm against the pressure.

The Shadowbolts watched, protected by the shield that surrounded the flying fortress. The gleam of the bright pink light reflected off the lenses of their goggles as they watched. They sneered as the explosion extended outward, completely engulfing the Wonderbolt compound despite its attempt to take flight.

They had won. The cannon ceased firing as dust soot and smoke shot up from the impact zone. The fortress began to teeter again, the crystals flickering as the power had been all but completely drained. The commanders began using their crystals to slowly conjure a portal to move the fortress. It had been so satisfying to simply walk up to the front door of their target and blow them to smithereens. Some of them were so amused they were nearly brought to laughter. Many of them looked back out towards the expanding cloud of dust that was left in the wake of the explosion.

They had destroyed the Wonderbolts, completely eradicated them…

Or…

At least they had thought…

All the Shadowbolts looked back towards the dust cloud in disbelief as the remnants of the crumbling and collapsing noises, post-explosion had faded… and were replaced by the sound of propellers?!

The Wonderbolt compound suddenly launched from the cloud of dust, shooting off towards the northern mountains, spinning uncontrollably as if it had been pushed roughly by the shockwave of the explosion, thrown completely out of control.

“AH!” Dash yelped as she and everypony were thrown to the ground. They slid around on the ground uncontrollably as the compound tipped, swayed, and turned.

Matteo reached out and grabbed Dash, Twister and Storm as they were tossed about, pulling them both into his body as they slammed against the metal fencing that separated the control area from the creaking and groaning machinery.

Lightning Streak hooked his hoof around a railing as he reached out and grabbed Misty Fly by the back hoof. She frantically looked around for Fire, spotting him as he came tumbling towards them. She reached out for his hoof… but only managed to scrape the edge of it before the compound harshly shifted again. Her eyes widened and she began to claw at the floor, trying to go after Fire as he violently rolled around, slamming painfully into surfaces and crying out in pain. She kicked at Lightning Streak, but he held onto her tight. As much as he wanted to help his brother, he knew that if he let go, she would be caught in the same predicament as him.

Rivet held onto the levers and valves for dear life, staring up at the boiler with wide eyes as the irregular motion and inertia was causing pipes to burst and the fire to pulse uncontrollably. The firebox door unlatched and swung open, striking him in the chest and forcing him to the floor. He latched his hooves to the open grate, holding on as tightly as he could despite how painfully hot the metal bars were from being exposed to the fire. He slammed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth as he struggled, but in the end, the pain was too much to bear. He let go…

But Fleetfoot and Starry Skies caught him, the two moving towards him to the best of their ability when they saw him struggling. They dropped to the ground with him, digging their hooves into the floor as hard as they could in attempt to keep themselves in place. They all yelped as Swift and Shine both tumbled into and over them. Swift was attempting to grab Shine, but his efforts had only thrown him into a tumbling state as well. Playbitz skidded by on his hooves and opened his large wings, catching both of them before pulling them in to protect them as they continued to roll around.

A few Shadowbolts who had failed to retreat were also being thrown about, crying out in anguish as they lost track of their crystals, a few of said crystals being thrown into the machinery and crushed upon contact with the massive gears.

“I’ve gotta—AH!” Rivet yelped as he tried to get up and move back towards the boiler, but the lurching and shaking forced him back down. Fleetfoot and Starry Skies could barely hold their ground. There was no way he would be able to move.

All three of them looked up a set of light blue hooves slammed down in front of them, followed by groans of pain. Calm Wind stood before them, bloodstains running down the sides of his Wonderbolt suit from the re-opened wound on his back. He grunted and gritted his teeth, using his strength to hold himself steady against the violent motions of the compound.

Before Fleetfoot or Rivet could voice their worry, he reached forwards and latched the firebox shut before turning around and pulling the three back towards the boiler. He grabbed Rivet out of their grip and held him towards the boiler controls.

“I’ll keep you steady!” Calm yelled painfully as Rivet quickly came to his senses and began fiddling with the many levers and valves, his eyes dancing about at all the indicators as they spun in circles uncontrollably.

“I can’t do this all alone! I need help sealing the valve leaks!” Rivet yelled. Calm put Rivet down before reaching back and pulling both Starry and Fleetfoot forward, holding one in each arm.

“HELP RIVET!” Calm yelled as he released them and fell flat on his face, painfully pushing himself up right after to make sure they all remained in place.

“There!” Rivet spotted his tool bags rolling past them. He dove over and caught them as Calm reached out to pull him back in. Fleetfoot was fretting over Calm and the fact that he was bleeding profusely, but Rivet shoved multiple rags into her hooves, doing the same to Starry. “Use these to block the—AH!” They were all thrown backwards, slamming into Calm. But the large pegasus held his ground and pushed them back up, grunting and hissing in pain as he forced himself to stay in place. “Use these to block the steam leaks! Tie it around as tight as you can!” Rivet managed to say this time as he turned and began turning valves to fight the pressure, tossing any blocks of wood that were still nearby into the fire.

Starry Skies and Fleetfoot did as they were told, doing their best to block the leaks as Calm held his hooves to their backs, preventing them from being affected by the shaking and lurching.

Dash peered out from over Matteo’s arm as he held onto her, Twister and Storm, using his free talons to grip a railing and keep them in one spot. She watched as Rivet, Fleetfoot, and Starry fought to keep the boiler running. She cringed at the sharp screeching, creaking, and groaning noises coming from every piece of machinery around them.

Her ears perked up as she felt… a draft? They were inside, how could there be wind? She forced herself up in Matteo’s grip, turned her head to look past the boiler, and her eyes widened.

There was a hole in the wall at the far end of the engine room. It definitely wasn’t there a few moments ago, probably caused by whatever sent them into such a shaking state. She could only just see it over all the machinery and up the walkway opposite of the one they came down, but…

She could see outside. She could see Canterlot passing by below them!

They were airborne and moving! Well… more like spinning.

But it worked! It really had worked! They were airborne!

Now they just had to not die in a fiery boiler explosion. Hopefully Rivet was on his way to preventing that.

As the compound hurled away from the explosion and continued to spin out of control, multiple Shadowbolts were poised to pursue, but…

“YOU IDIOTS! STOP!” Blade yelled as he, the rest of the commanders, and multiple other Shadowbolts were straining themselves to help the fortress stay afloat in its weakened-post firing state. “You eight right there!” He pointed to a small group as the rest of the force moved in to assist with fortress. “Grab two Falcons and pursue! Shoot them right out of the sky!” he ordered. The eight Shadowbolts glanced between each other briefly. “NOW!” Blade added, startling them all before they frantically took off upwards towards the fortress itself.

As the Shadowbolts hoisted their fortress up and waited for their portal to grow in size, two giant hatches below the fortress platform unlatched and slowly slid open. Bright pink lights began to shine from within accompanied by the sound of small propellers beginning to turn.

“Everypony hold onto something!” Spitfire yelled out as ponies were thrown all about the lobby, some coming dangerously close to the new hole punched in the floor by whatever had risen from the center of room. Spitfire and Silver were shoved against a wall, Spitfire purposely trying to keep him from moving due to his current inability to hold himself steady.

Descent was reaching out, grabbing every pony he could and sliding them along the floor towards the walls, trying to get as many as possible to a position where they could stabilize themselves. However, he was only one of a few who was able to hold themselves against the motion of the violent spinning and lurching.

Bomber and Valkyrie each had multiple ponies hanging onto them as they gripped the edges of the walls leading into the east hallway. The rest of the retired Wonderbolts did their best to get as many ponies into the halls as possible, which were much safer than the punctured lobby.

“RGH!” Squall grunted as he was thrown to the ground. He reached out and held on to the edge of the mail counter, holding on with the will to survive alone. He was incredibly dizzy from all the spinning, which didn’t help the fact that he was already dizzy from the pain in both his face and now in his back from shielding Little Star from the Shadowbolt attacks.

The compound suddenly lurched hard, tipping the other direction and forcing many ponies to the floor.

“AH!” a scream caused Squall’s eyes to widen. He turned his head to see Little Star thrown over the top of the mail counter. She landed roughly on her back and began to roll towards the opening in the lobby floor. Squall gasped, his face wrought with pure terror.

“NO!” Squall yelled as he willingly let go of the mail counter, kicking his back legs against it to slide across the floor towards her. Star hit an upturned floor tile and bounced into the air, tumbling uncontrollably up and right over the gaping hole. Squall turned his body, spread his wings, and slammed his hooves to the ground while giving a hard flap of his wings. The force pushed him up and carried him over the hole in the floor. He collided with Little Star, catching her in his hooves and pulling her into his body tightly as the two flew over the hole, landing on the other side. The two tumbled along the floor and slammed into the wall on the other side of the lobby, Squall’s back taking the full force as he grunted in pain.

Star had her little wings covering her eyes, wailing and shivering as Squall held her tight, doing whatever he could to keep her from harm as everypony continued to be thrown about.

But after that one giant lurch that had thrown them all around, the compound began to… stabilize?

“What the…?” Spitfire looked around as she slowly rose up to her hooves. The compound was spinning, but the last major shift was in the opposite direction. She carefully moved towards the front doors, keeping her hooves grounded against the motion of the compound, and peered out. Their spinning motion had completely stopped.

As she looked out the glass doors, she could see that they were way past the outskirts of Canterlot, but they were heading directly for the northern mountain range!

“This isn’t good!” Descent yelled as he stepped up beside her. Spitfire looked back to see him as well as the rest of the ponies, both injured and healthy alike began to look up and around in confusion. They weren’t dead, but they had no idea what was going on. And if nothing else happened quickly… they were going to crash right into the mountains!

Spitfire looked down at the floor, her mind racing on what to do, they had gotten the compound up, and it was definitely moving. But since the plan was so farfetched, none of them had considered what to do if it had actually worked!

“We’re going to crash!” Descent yelled out as the first mountain grew closer and closer.

Suddenly, loud grinding sounds like those of rusted metal echoed from their left and right, and behind them. The compound began to tip gently to the right.

“HOLD ON!” Spitfire yelled out as she and Descent both dropped to the floor. The ponies all yelped and screamed as the whole compound shifted, but Spitfire kept her eyes looking out the glass doors. The compound not only tipped, but it turned, just barely avoiding the mountain.

“Is somepony… STEERING this thing?!” Descent yelled out as he too looked up and witnessed them narrowly avoid the mountain collision. They held on tight as the compound tipped back in the other direction, turning the other direction to avoid colliding with another mountain. They were flying low… and navigating through the mountain range. All the ponies who were up and able to stand were pressed against the windows watching as the compound continued to pitch left and right, turning and making small changes in altitude. Everypony yelped and winced as many near collisions were averted.

“Apparently somepony is!” Spitfire agreed as she and Descent continued to watch their flight path skillfully move through the packed mountains, moving further north and entering the snowy region of the range. “And whoever they are, they better keep this up, because I have NO IDEA what to do next!” she yelled as everypony yelped, the compound shaking as the compound grazed the edge of a mountain, but quickly stabilized.

Rivet leaned back from the boiler controls as he looked around him. He touched his hooves to the ground as he felt only slight motion moving forward as opposed to random, erratic shifts.

“Did we even it out?” Starry Skies asked as she landed beside Rivet.

“Somepony did something,” Rivet explained as he gave off a momentary sigh of relief. “All we can do from down here is make sure it all runs. I’m gonna assume whatever we activate worked, because we’re not dead.”

“We’re moving alright!” Dash called from off to the side as she, Twister, and Storm pulled themselves away from a very tired Matteo. “Look!” Dash pointed up past the machinery. Rivet and Starry looked up to where Dash motioned and saw the gaping hole in the wall.

Mountains, moving mountains… and judging by how it was navigating through said mountains, it was safe to assume something up above had taken control. The steady, smooth tipping back and forth as the compound moved indicated that.

“Aieee…” Starry sat down on the metal floor and exhaled. “This has been the weirdest day of my life… and believe me that’s saying something,” she whined as Dash walked around and finally got a look at all the loud creaking machinery without being thrown around.

Her eyes landed on Calm first as Fleetfoot tried to help him move. The sight of the large pegasus made Dash cringe, the way his suit was drenched in his own blood from beneath his suit. He was going to need medical attention and a lot of it. Her eyes shifted to see Misty Fly galloping past Rivet with Lightning Streak cantering behind her. Dash’s curiosity and worry over the look of dread on Misty’s face encouraged her to move and peek around to see what they were looking for.

It didn’t take long for her to see. She gasped.

Misty had flung herself to the floor, landing down by a very battered and beaten Fire Streak, who lay with his back turned. Misty had grabbed his shoulders and was looking him over frantically, shaking him lightly in hopes of getting a response.

As Lightning approached them, they both let out a heavy sigh of relief. Fire was cringing and groaning, showing signs of not being dead. They worked together, helping Fire turn over to reveal large portions of his suit around his chest and neck had been shredded by sharp surfaces, exposing a few nasty cuts with several bruises to go along with them. He had by far felt the worst of the sudden movements in the compound. Misty carefully lunged her body into his, hugging him as tightly as she could without aggravating any of his wounds.

“HEY!” A voice boomed out from nearby, specifically up one of the long walkways. Dash and Lightning Streak both looked away and up the path to see Macho Savage with two Shadowbolts in headlocks beneath his arms. “A little help here, brothers! Got a few stragglers trying to quit the ring, OH YEAH!” he yelled out as he smacked the heads of the Shadowbolts together and knocked them both out. Point Dex and Lead Runner appeared behind him, both grappling with a Shadowbolt as well.

Lighting Streak was already galloping towards them, before Dash could give chase. With Lightning Streak’s help they would be able to handle the few over there. What had caught Dash’s attention were the three Shadowbolts nearby them who were curled up on the ground and crying.

Dash saw Storm moving towards them and quickly got up to follow, but before they could get close…

“Don’t even bother,” Starry spoke up, catching their attention. “Nothing you can do will help them.”

“That’s a very cold thing to say,” Storm grunted as he furrowed his brow at her. Starry shrugged and rolled her eyes.”

“Fine, kid… go ahead and try, it won’t work,” she said in annoyance. Dash stayed where she was, but Storm adamantly stepped over to the first of the ‘broken’ Shadowbolts and reached out to touch him.

“NO! NOOOOOO!” The Shadowbolt shook and frantically pulled himself away from Storm, slamming his body into the nearby metal fence divider and curled up again.

“See?” Starry said while giving Storm an ‘I told you so’ look. Storm frowned as he turned and took in Starry’s ‘triumphant’ expression. Dash couldn’t take her eyes off of the Shadowbolts on the ground. Twice now she had seen the immediate withdrawal effects of the crystals and it was terrifying to see a pony break so easily, as if they never had strength at all… only frailty masked by false power.

Her attention was drawn away as Rivet yelped, a cloud of steam from a loose valve blowling loose directly above him. He quickly turned the knob and shut it off.

“Sheesh!” he grunted as he shook his mane out and continued to work the controls.

“Are you sure you know how to work this thing?” Starry commented as she furrowed her brow. Rivet didn’t even look at her, concentrating on the boiler as he replied.

“It’s not a matter of ‘if I know how it works’ anymore…” he stated as he shifted, pulled a lever, loosened some valves, and opened the firebox to throw more wood in. “It’s—” Dash, Starry, Rivet, and the rest all cringed as a painful rusty creaking noise came from one of the nearby pieces of machinery. A couple of ugly sounding clanks and clatters later, it continued to operate normally. “It now depends on if this old machinery can keep working. The stuff I fixed will be fine, but all the stuff down here?” he shook his head, shifting to look past the boiler, up and out the hole in the wall at the edge of the engine room. “We better find a place and the means to land soon… because I don’t know how much strain some this old equipment can take,” Rivet pushed his goggles down and wiped his brow before replacing them back over his eyes. “As long as we have no more trouble it should be fi—”

The compound suddenly lurched violently again. All the ponies yelped as they were thrown off their hooves and to the floor. It wasn’t as harsh as the previous sudden movements, but there was no way the compound had made such a drastic shift on its own.

Dash frantically got to her hooves and looked up out the opening, wondering if they ran into a mountain, but the same lurch came again, the floor tipping forward as if something was striking the compound from behind? And it didn’t stop there. It happened again, then again, then again. It definitely wasn’t a collision.

Rivet got to his hooves, tripping over himself as the floor began to shake but quickly continued to monitor the boiler as the propellers compensated for the new movement. It was putting extra strain on the mechanical parts of the engines, especially the older ones close by that started to creak and groan.

“Me and my BIG mouth!” Rivet growled.

Spitfire yelped as she barely managed to keep her hooves, the sudden vibrations startling her and all those around her right after they believed they were in the clear.

“What’s going on?!” she yelled frantically as she looked outside. They were clearly not hitting any mountains and their mystery pilot was still managing to navigate even with the sudden disturbances.

“Are we being attacked?!” Air Mach stepped up and pressed his face and goggles to the glass doors. “Those bastards have a lot of nerve! I oughtta go out there and…”

“Don’t be an idiot!” Spitfire reached forward and pulled him away from the doors before he could force them open.

Spitfire let go of him mid-pull, causing him to crash to the floor. Why? Because something moved into her field of view outside before she could fully pull him back.

Two large… things… flew past the compound. They were both dark grey, just like the Shadowbolt fortress, but they were much smaller. Both were triangular in shape, about twenty yards wide at the back tips of it and twenty yards long from back to front tip. There were bright glowing crystals fixed on the back of them, which looked to be acting as propulsion as they were kept afloat by two propellers, located on the back tips.

“WHAT. THE. HELL. ARE. THOSE?!” Spitfire pointed as she turned at looked at Descent. Descent ripped his eyes away from the two contraptions outside as he glared and growled at Spitfire.

“After my reaction to the flying fortress, do you honestly believe I’d know?!” he yelled as they both looked back outside. The two small aircrafts crossed and arced around, heading back towards them.

They could see the front of them now, they had a large glass windshield on the front, revealing a Shadowbolt at the controls with one or more moving behind them. Mounted on the front beside the windshield were two smaller versions of the normal cannons sported by the Shadowbolt fortress. The crystals at the back of the cannons began to glow as they approached.

“GET DOWN!” Spitfire yelled as she, Air Mach, and Descent leapt away from the doors.

The two crafts aimed directly at the lobby doors and began firing their cannons, peppering the remainder of the courtyard all the way up to the lobby doors themselves with large blasts of the pink magic. The compound teetered and swayed as it was assaulted, the crafts pulling up and raining magic down upon the rest of the building as well as they pitched away to avoid the propellers.

They flew past and made another U-turn to continue their assault on the defenseless compound as it struggled to navigate through the snowy mountains under pressure.

Down below, Rivet fought with the boiler with every bit of effort he could muster. Point Dex and Lead Runner had left the Shadowbolt stragglers to Macho Savage and Lightning Streak, joining Rivet as he shouted orders at them.

“KEEP THE VALVES STABLE! DON’T LET THE SECONDARY BOILERS OVERHEAT!” Rivet yelled to them as the compound began to shake and jostle again.

Dash and Storm were thrown back and forth against the walkway railings as they both tried to move towards the opening in the engine room wall. Their hooves slipped and slid as the base continued to shake. They constantly ran into each other, but were quick to help the other stay up as they both wanted to figure out what the hell was happening.

They reached the top of the walkway and stopped beside one of the fixed engines as the gears thundered and screeched in effort to keep the propellers turning. They didn’t dare get close to the gaping hole in the wall in fear of falling out. With how much the compound was being pushed back and forth it wasn’t a risk they were willing to take but…

“WHAT THE—?!” Storm reacted suddenly. Dash glanced at him before following his eyes.

“Uh…” Dash blinked as her eyes widened, spotting the two flying contraptions that were assaulting the compound. She slowly shook her head. “I’ve seen more messed up stuff in the past couple of days that I have my whole life… and I know some weird ponies…” Dash really didn’t know how to react. Just what was the extent of the Shadowbolts and their endless bag of unbelievable tricks? Magical cannons were one thing, but small flying ships as well?!

“AH!” Storm quickly dropped to the floor and pulled Dash down with them as the ships turned and fired on the compound. They braced themselves as the compound shook and rumbled.

“Well that explains the shaking!” Dash yelled as she pushed herself back up.

They’re attention was drawn away as a painful crackling noise of metal straining came from below. They both turned and looked back down the pathway to the boiler, spotting multiple sparks flying from the old, rusty machinery down below.

“RIVET!” Fleetfoot yelled as she pointed to the old grinding contraptions.

“I KNOW!” Rivet yelled back as he looked over his shoulder. “I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH MORE THIS OLD MACHINERY CAN TAKE!” all the ponies below winced and shielded themselves as one of the nearby engines screeched and a few pieces snapped, flinging metallic pieces away from it with loud clattering noises. “It’s starting to break apart-AUGH!” he yelped as steam valves began to burst around him, one of the valve handles shooting right off and bouncing off Rivet’s arms as the steam rushed from it. He barely ducked in time before taking the super-heated steam to the face.

“AIE!” Dash shrieked as the compound lurched heavily, causing both her and Storm to trip and fall over each other. The two tumbled down the walkway, grunting and yelping all the way to the bottom until they sprawled out on the floor beside one of the old engines.

“Yikes!” Storm quickly covered Dash with his wing to shield her from sparks that showered down over them. Dash looked up, grabbed Storm, and forced her other hoof down, shifting them across the floor as a large gear snapped right off of the engine and landed with a loud clang where they once lay.

“This isn’t good… this isn’t good!” Rivet yelled out as he fought the valves, cringing as the heat of the nearby steam blasts caused him to sweat. The pressure was increasing with how much the engines had to compensate, the old mechanisms continued to groan and creak as more and more pieces began to break off. “WE CAN’T HOLD OUT MUCH LONGER!” he yelled as the boiler itself began to groan under the pressure.

Outside, the two crafts turned about and followed behind the teetering compound. They gave chase and this time aimed their cannons for the propellers, as if the previous attacks were meant to just toy with the Wonderbolts.

The small ships angled upward, getting some altitude before tipping down and firing their cannons down upon the compound from above. Pink explosions erupted all over the roof, slowly zeroing in on the propellers on the right side. Painful grinding and snapping noises echoed out as two propellers on the right snapped off and hurled away from the compound driving into a snowy mountainside. A third was blown off near the front, whipping backwards and colliding with the massive pillar that held the large central propeller.

Smoke trails began spewing behind the compound as it heavily tipped to the right, its uplift now uneven. Yet even as the Shadowbolt aircrafts passed, the compound tail fin shifted heavily to the left, the wings tipping up and down to slowly move back upright. It continued to navigate around the mountains, compensating for the loss of the propellers by keeping the rudder locked to the left.

But no matter how many clutch maneuvers the unknown pilot of the compound made, it was only a matter of time before they were brought down by the attacks.

“HEY! WE’VE GOTTA DO SOMETHING!” Air Mach yelled to Spitfire and Descent as the ponies within the lobby and around the compound continued to scream and yelp in horror. Nopony had control of anything, their faith being placed completely in Rivet and whoever was steering. What else could they do? They had bet on a farfetched long shot and woke up a beast that none of them knew how to operate. They were trapped in motion, at the mercy of the Shadowbolts and their continuous string of strange, frightening technology.

“Colt, if you’ve got any ideas, I’d like to hear them!” Descent yelled.

Air Mach growled and got directly in Descent’s face and butted heads with him.

“HOW DARE YOU REFER TO ME AS A COLT!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “I AM A STALLION! AND A STALLION DOESN’T LIE DOWN AND WAIT TO DIE! HE ACTS!” Descent shoved Air Mach off and pointed towards the doors.

“If you’re so willing to go out there and attack those flying contraptions then be my guest! By now you’d think you’d considered that they’re probably shielded just like the fortress!” Descent snapped back at him.

“He’s right, Air Mach!” Spitfire pushed her hoof over Air Mach’s head to force him down and away from Descent. “Attacking what we know nothing about is asking to get killed!”

“So we’re just going to sit here and be—” he was cut off as the compound shook again. An explosion from above was followed by the compound slowly tipping to the right again. They all yelped in surprise as a massive propeller blade fell down in front of the doors and jammed into the courtyard platform. “Either we try or we die! Isn’t that how we got this far to begin with?!” Air Mach continued while shaking Spitfire’s arm off.

“The idiot’s got a point!” Silver’s voice suddenly caught their attention. Descent, Air Mach, and Spitfire turned towards Silver as he hobbled towards them. His left wing was folded, but his right was still extended. He kept whipping his right wing as if trying to get it to unlock. “I have an idea!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Spitfire shifted to Silver and placed a hoof on his chest. “You are NOT going anywhere with that bad wing!”

“Even if they’re shielded,” Silver kept talking regardless of Spitfire’s concern. “I doubt those things will stay afloat if we bring an avalanche down on them!”

“Silver are you listening to me to me?!” Spitfire growled. Silver looked at her briefly.

“No!” he yelled in her face before turning to Descent and Air Mach. He pulled his right wing in, and with a final effort, thrust it outward as hard as he could. A loud CRACK came from his joints and he cringed, extending his neck outward in pain. “WHOOOOOAAAAAHOHOHOWWWW!” he yelled out, but after moving his right wing about, it seemed like he had control over it again. He folded it up at his side and stared sharply at Air Mach and Descent. “They just made a pass and we’re moving around one of the largest snowcapped mountains in this range as we speak! If we can cause an avalanche, we could get them caught under the pressure of the falling snow!”

“SILVER!!!!” Spitfire tried yelling, but he continued to ignore her.

“BOMBER! VAL!” Silver turned and yelled towards his two former wingmates. Bomber and Valkyrie both turned and moved towards him quickly. “With me! Are you two coming?!” he asked as he turned to Descent and Air Mach.

“You’re crazy… but I’ll be damned if this day hasn’t already been crazy enough!” Descent grunted, admitting to himself that Silver had an effective idea, one that he was impressed he came up with so quickly under pressure.

“You know I’m ready!” Air Mach yelled, spreading his wings and waiting for the rest.

“NO!” Spitfire placed herself in front of them and forced her wings out to bar their path towards the door. “I’m not letting you take such a stupid risk! You’re staying right here! That is an ORDER!” Spitfire yelled.

“Captain…” Silver growled. “After all we’ve just gone through here, NOW you’re worried about risk taking?” Silver pointed out.

Spitfire’s eyes widened. Silver had a point, she took a massive risk just to get to where they were… why was she being so stiff about it now? Actually, she knew exactly why. The circumstances had shifted from a situation where they had some control to a situation where they had no control, Spitfire’s bane. She switched from believing in them, to worrying endlessly about letting anypony get in the way of danger.

“Wake up, Spitfire!” Silver yelled into her face. “This is no time to play things safe! Either we take chances, or we all die! We’re heading out there!” his expression softened for a moment and he placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Let us handle this. Everypony in here is frightened. Stay with them, the sight of their captain gives them hope,” he said as Spitfire remained still, blinking at his words as Silver turned and nodded to the other four.

Spitfire unfroze as the five galloped past her and towards the doors.

“WAIT! STOP!” she tried to stop them, but Blazetail and Flashwind rushed forward, grabbing ahold of her and pulling her back. They understood Spitfire’s concern, and as the lead captain it was her JOB to be concerned, but she was still young. She had never been in such a situation before, and she would have to learn how to send her faithful wingmates into danger. “SILVER!!!!!!!!”

Silver grunted, his body still incredibly stiff as he took off into the pressure of the propeller drafts. Descent, Air Mach, Valkyrie, and Bomber all following right behind him as they flew right over the edge of the compound platform and dipped down to remain out of sight of the two flying ships.

Valkyrie pulled up beside Silver as he continued to grimace.

“You okay?” she asked in a flat tone. Silver lifted an eyebrow and turned his head to her, staring as if Tartarus had just frozen over.

“Are you going soft on me, Val?” he asked with a snort. She glared at him.

“I could make the pain worse if that’s what you really want,” she hissed back.

“Heh heh heh…” Bomber chuckled behind them.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Silver chuckled as he smirked at Val. “I’ve had worse, I’ll be fine. Let’s do this!” he encouraged them all as they glided along the snowy mountainsides. “Air Mach! Descent!” he yelled back to them. "I need you two to get their attention and draw them towards the mountains as close as you can. Keep one eye up though, I don’t want to explain to the rest how I buried you two in the snow!”

“YES SIR!” Air Mach broke off immediately and fired towards the ships as if he was eager to take them on despite their capabilities. Descent chuckled as he turned to follow.

“Idiocy can be refreshing when it comes with grit,” he said to himself as he followed behind Air Mach.

“Bomber! Val!” Silver yelled out. “Formation attack pattern! Delta Sky Sweep! Target: high altitude snow caps, nine o’clock! Let’s move!”

It had been a long time since Silver had called out battle formations… this was one that wasn’t even used anymore, but he knew the moment he called it out, Valkyrie and Bomber would close in behind him. They did quickly, bringing a smile to his face as waves of nostalgia hit him like a brick wall. Flying in formation with his old wingmates made him feel like he was back in the last Griffon-Drake war.

“Hold steady! Wait for the others to get their attention!” Silver yelled out, grimacing at the continued pain throughout his body as the three made a wide turn towards the targeted mountain.

Air Mach sneered as he shifted up below one of the aircrafts. He got as close as he could, a magic shield appearing and preventing him from touching it about a yard from the hull. Regardless, he moved RIGHT in front of the ship and landed on the top of the shield, looking directly into the window at four Shadowbolts, three stallions and a mare, who all stared out the window at him in surprise.

“Hey, hey, hey, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY!” Air Mach yelled while knocking a hoof against the magical shielding. “You call yourself stallions?! Hiding in mechanical doodads and behind magical shields, I bet your balls have sucked so far into your crotches that it doesn’t even hurt to take a bat between the legs! ESPECIALLY YOU!” he pointed at the mare. The ship began lurching back and forth trying to throw him off, but he remained firmly on the shield. “Listen up and listen well you sorry excuses for stallions! You think you’re cute little helicopter triangles scare me?! Who the hell do you think I am?! I’m the great Animak! A name you better remember because it’s going down in history as one of the most stallionly stallion names ever! Now how about you come out here and fight like a-WHOA!” he yelped as the ship came to an abrupt halt.

Air Mach grinned and quickly spread his wings, turning up right and around while smacking his plot in their direction.

“If you’ve truly got the balls, come and get me!” he yelled as he turned and started flying towards the mountain. The cannons on the ship trained on him and began firing as the Shadowbolts piloted it after him.

Descent was much more straightforward with the other ship.

“RAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” Descent yelled as he dove from above and drove his hooves into the shield as hard as he could. It sent a shock of pain through him, the shielding absorbing most of his force, but he hit it hard enough for the ship’s flight path to buckle and force it to regain control. Descent shook his hooves out as he flew in front of the ship and charged at it again. However, it was not meant to be an attack. He waited specifically for the ship to turn its cannons towards him before he veered off and began dodging the magic fire. Upon looking over his shoulder, he smirked in satisfaction. The ship had changed course and was going after him. If there was one thing he knew about a lot of his former comrades, they would often drop an objective for a moment in favor of giving somepony a piece of their mind. They completely fell for it and were coming after him.

Descent looked about until he saw Air Mach being chased by the other ship, and pitched hard to move towards him. The ship followed right behind, the two ships forming up side by side at the same time as Air Mach and Descent. The two flew them as close to the mountainside as they could.

“It’s our turn!” Silver yelled as he, Bomber, and Valkyrie flew up over head and pumped their wings to get ahead of the ships below. “Staggered drag pattern! Drive on my mark!” Silver yelled. Valkyrie shifted behind Silver, and Bomber behind Valkyrie. Once they were in a line, Valkyrie rose up a yard higher than Silver’s flight path, and Bomber rose up two yards, creating a staggered formation that put each of them at different levels. They flew directly beside the thick snowy mountain side about twenty yards above the ships. Silver waited until they were a good thirty yards ahead of the ships below before giving the order. “NOW!” he yelled out.

Silver, Valkyrie, and Bomber all veered away from the mountain side before turning back in, tilting sideways, and ramming their front hooves into the snow on the mountain side as hard as they could. They kept pumping their wings, dragging their hooves through the snow as deep as they could in three lines, Silver the lowest, Bomber the highest, and Valkyrie in between them. The three separate heavy cuts in the snow caused a chain reaction. The heavy drifts buckled beneath the force, Silver creating the disturbance with Bomber and Valkyrie both using their great strength to knock it all loose.

With their efforts, in their wake less than a second after they passed, the drifts broke apart, and fell, dragging a lot of snow with them. They successfully caused an enormous avalanche.

“MOVE!” Silver yelled down.

Descent looked up and quickly turned, moving away from the mountain quickly with Air Mach following directly behind them.

The two ships couldn’t turn anywhere near as fast or tightly as Descent and Air Mach and the massive collapse of snow from the mountains thundered down against them. The shields activated, but the force was too much, pushing both of the ships down harshly. They were completely engulfed, disappearing in the falling snow as the avalanche rushed down and buried them.

“YES-ARGH!” Silver cheered, but suddenly cringed as his right wing seized up again. He tipped harshly to his side, but Bomber quickly shifted forward to catch Silver on his back.

“Got you,” he said simply as he and Valkyrie turned back towards the Wonderbolt compound.

“I think your age is catching up to you,” Valkyrie said to Silver with a smirk as she flew beside Bomber.

“Shut up and let me enjoy victory…” Silver chuckled as he grunted in pain.

Art by: Foxenawolf

"I don’t know if we can call it victory just yet!” Descent spoke up as he and Air Mach flew up beside them. He pointed at the compound as they chased after it. “I don’t know about you…” he shook his head as they drew near. The compound was swaying, multiple propellers had ceased working or were gone, and smoke was trailing behind it, some rising from the base of propellers that were still straining to turn. “But the compound doesn’t look like it’s doing so well!”

“Well, come on!” Air Mach yelled. “We can’t be left behind!”

“But are we flying back to our deaths?” Descent asked, but he was already being left in the wake of the rest as Air Mach, Valkyrie, and Bomber with Silver in tow all shot back towards the compound. “Well, we’ve come this far… A fool I’ll be.” Descent shrugged as he followed after them.

“COME ON!” Rivet yelled as more and more steam valves burst along the boiler and its pipes. “COME ON! HOLD TOGETHER!” he yelled as he continued to work with whatever wasn’t broken. Point Dex and Lead Runner were busy on the other side of the boiler, doing what they could to keep up what Rivet couldn’t see on his side.

Despite their efforts though, it seemed like a lost cause. There was no way the old machinery could keep it up forever.

Dash and the rest had taken to bracing themselves, as if they knew either a crash landing or an explosion was coming. They had huddled in groups on the edges of the lower engine room. Sparks were flying everywhere. The old engines continued to rip and tear apart, destroying themselves in their own decrepit, rusty state.

Metallic pieces were falling all around them, clanging against the fence that separated the work area from the engines themselves, a few sparks had caught fire, the friction of the old parts becoming too hot. The strain was ripping the engines to pieces, overheating and groaning immensely.

“Ah!” Rivet looked up and quickly pushed himself away from the boiler controls. The main pipe right above him creaked and split, shooting steam down where he stood, barring him from getting back near the valves. The fire in the firebox was roaring uncontrollably with the loss of pressure control and the frame of the boiler itself began to bend, edges bursting and shooting flames out of it.

Dash, Matteo, Twister, and Storm were all huddled together Matteo, keeping them all steady and in place. Squad Three was all together beside them, Lightning doing his best to anchor Misty and Fire down as Misty held tight to the injured Fire.

Dash clutched Matteo’s arm. She could feel it… a steady downward motion. They were going down.

The compounded swayed and lurched as it continued to move forward. Several explosions erupted from the mechanisms that turned the propellers both above and below. Most of the rotors came to a halt, leaving very few operating. If not for the giant propeller in the center still turning, the compound would surely have dropped like a rock.

The unknown pilot of the compound fought it the best they could. The descent could have been fast, but the wings and tail fins were stuck upward, using the passing air to tilt the compound slightly up and force it to stay afloat as long as possible as it continued to shift just enough to avoid hard collisions with mountains.

The compound made a painful turn around and straightened out as it came upon a stretch of straight, slightly uneven ground that extended between several mountains. It was just in time too, because the remaining small propellers failed, coming to a halt as the central propeller strained against the weight of the entire compound on its own.

It grew closer…

And closer…

And closer to the snow covered ground.

Spitfire looked up towards the lobby doors, she had been so busy making sure everypony was safe and secure she didn’t think to check outside until she felt a few unexplained tremors and downward motion.

It brought her relief when she saw Silver and his makeshift team return, but upon looking outside and seeing the ground fast approaching, she knew what was going to happen next. All they could do was hope they survived… and that whoever was piloting could bring them down as softly as possible.

“EVERYPONY!” Spitfire yelled. “BRACE YOURSELVES!”

All ponies dropped to the ground, holding onto railings and edges, friends and wingmates alike as they realized what was about to happen.

The compound grazed the ground, bouncing back up slightly, but came right back down. The front of the courtyard platform came forward and jammed into the snow covered ground, kicking up an enormous amount of snow as it began to skid forward. The propellers beneath the compound all creaked as they hit the ground, bent, crushed, or completely snapped off beneath the weight of the compound as it continued to forge forward along the ground.

Dash yelped and screamed as she and everypony else below were thrown about, the shaking even worse than when they were spinning as the compound dug through the ground.

Spitfire was thrown forward, nearly falling through the gap in the floor as she tumbled. She ran into Wave Chill, who reached out and pulled her in as he also held onto High Winds, the three were thrown into the wall beside the entry doors. Yelps and screams of terror rang throughout the lobby and the compound, everypony being thrown about violently by the shaking. Loose furniture and other paraphernalia were tossed everywhere, lights unlatched and fell, ceiling tiles dropped and broke to pieces on the ground and on top of ponies.

But everypony held on for dear life.

The compound continued to skid through the snow, still moving with all the momentum gained by the Shadowbolt fortress cannon blast.

It started moving dangerously close the end of the straight stretch, where a solid mountainside waited for it.

But as it grew near…

The compound began to slow down, the cushion of snow along the uneven terrain absorbing its forward motion. It grew closer and closer to the mountainside…

But as the edge of the platform closed in on the mountain, the compound slowed down…

And stopped less than ten yards from the mountainside.

Save for all the missing propellers…

They crash landed in one piece.

--- To Be Continued ---

Author's Note

Oh jeez, our heroes can't catch a break from all this action can they? :rainbowderp:

Thank god somepony was at the controls, or else their little escape would have ended with a splat on the mountainside... i wonder who took control though? :pinkiecrazy: (Short answer: you'll find out soon :twistnerd: And no, the compound didn't fly itself, it's a flying vessel but it's not alive :rainbowlaugh:)

And i have to say... part of the reason im taking the break soon (After chapter 99, i had to break this chapter up) is because all the action has tired me out mentally. Things are going to slow back down for a little bit now and im thankful for that. (How so? Again, next chapter :pinkiecrazy:)

I can effectively say however, that this sequence marks the halfway point of part 3, or at least i THINK it does, because knowing me that could easily not be the case :rainbowlaugh:

Now as mentioned above, im taking my break after chapter 99 because i split it off from 98. Per usual im gonna assume a release next week. After that i plan on taking a little bit of time off to gather myself and deal with some things. And by little bit of time i mean a week most likely, maybe + a day or two more tops, i just need the writing stress off my shoulders for a few days.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the craziness these past few chapters! :pinkiecrazy::eeyup:

(Also, Bomber definitely earned the nickname "Big Green" for a reason :rainbowderp: Round of applause for Fox drawing him and Val perfectly on my description alone. She nailed Bomber's gentle giant look and got Val's muscular physique down pat as well.)

Chapter 112: The Art of Deception

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 112: The Art of Deception

“You sure you’re okay? That was a little frightening, to be honest.” Spitfire looked Dash up and down as she and the group touched to the lobby floor. Dash sighed, having answered Spitfire twice already before making it down.

“Spitfire, I’m fine,” she reassured her as she put a hoof over her heart. “This has been happening with us recently. There’s nothing actually wrong with me, it’s just me feeling the strain Soarin’s magic is putting on him.” She gave Spitfire a forced, reassuring smile just in case the first two weren’t reassuring enough for her. However, it didn’t seem like her answer helped.

“I don’t know if that makes me feel any better…” Spitfire huffed and furrowed her brow.

Dash quickly picked out that she was referring to Soarin. Of course she was worried about him too. As if Dash collapsing and crying out in pain wasn’t already a little horrific, it meant Soarin was doing the same, wherever he was at the moment.

“Soarin is fine,” Dash said while giving Spitfire a light tap on the shoulder. “The fact that my heart shocks only lasted a few moments means that he managed to get it all under control. You know him… too stubborn to let anything overtake him.”

“This is very true…” Spitfire rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Just wish the dumbass would find his way back here and stop worrying me already,” Spitfire growled with her personal way of showing she cared about Soarin. “But right now… we have somepony else to worry about, and we have to act fast,” she stated as they neared the center of the lobby.

Most of the Wonderbolts were still present from earlier, but Silver and Fire Streak were just arriving with any and all who had broken away during the brief hiatus for planning.

“Everypony gather in!” Spitfire yelled out. “Gather in! Let’s go, let’s go!” she called as the Wonderbolts all amassed near her. She hovered up and looked them over, trying to make sure they were all present. “Silver! Fire! Head-count! Do we have everypony?”

“Negative!” Fire shouted back as he and Silver floated above, counting the squads. “Lead Runner and Point Dex aren’t here!”

“Must’ve gone down to help Rivet some more…” Spitfire pondered to herself. She didn’t want to start until she had everypony, but this could also kill two birds with one stone. She looked around until she spotted Macho Savage. “Macho Savage!” The moment she finished the first half of his name, he was already charging up to her.

“You RANG, Captain Lady-Badass?!” he answered while flexing one of his arms and kissing it. Spitfire remained still with her mouth open and an eyebrow raised for a moment.

“On second thought…” She turned back to the crowd. “Storm Front! Is Storm Front here?”

“Yes, ma’am?” Storm pushed his way out of the sea of Wonderbolts and walked up while saluting. He stole a quick glance at Macho Savage, who was bouncing his chest muscles continuously.

“Here…” Spitfire reached back and dropped a small piece of paper out of her wing into her hoof. “I need you to go down to the engine room and get Lead Runner and Point Dex up here… but while you’re down, can you also give this list to Rivet? There’s a few things I need him to do for our plan. Hurry back, we need to get this going.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Storm saluted again before turning and rushing towards the west hallway. He passed right by Dash, giving her a quick nod of acknowledgement, but nothing more since he was handling a direct order from Spitfire.

“Sit tight everypony!” Spitfire called out to the Wonderbolts. “As soon as Storm Front gets back, we’re going over our plan to save Wave Chill!” Her words were met with cheers, bringing a confident smile to her face.

Dash looked out towards the Wonderbolts as she patiently sat and waited. It was awesome to see all the Wonderbolts look so enthusiastic. Spitfire was definitely not the only one who wanted to take the fight to the Shadowbolts. Even though they technically weren’t going in to ‘fight’ them, if they managed to pull off this crazy plan they put together it would drastically raise morale and show the Shadowbolts they weren’t to be taken lightly.

But so what if the plan was crazy… the Wonderbolts were trained to handle out of the ordinary things. If the second day of the cadet tryouts was any indication, they were meant to be ready to do anything, no matter how weird or against the norm it may be.

Dash perked up as the sound of clip-clopping hooves close by caught her attention. She turned in time to see Silver plop down on the floor right beside her while looking her over. Dash just blinked and stared at him, waiting for him to say something, but he continued to examine her carefully. She smirked and chuckled.

“I know, I’m a lot to look at, right?” she said jokingly, but Silver didn’t respond, he just continued to look her over. “Silver?”

“You are okay, right?” he suddenly spoke up while looking at her sternly. While his eyes were serious, his gaze betrayed a hint of worry. “You didn’t just say that to Spitfire to tough it out? You’re not sucking it up to hide something wrong?”

Dash stared blankly at Silver, her right eye twitching once.

“Do you have any idea how ironic that sounds coming from you?” Dash asked while giving him a funny look.

“Answer me.”

Dash flinched as Silver inched his head forward while glaring. Her little comment bounced right off. He really was being serious. She quickly swallowed any more sarcasm before answering.

“This isn’t the first time it’s happened… wait, weren’t you listening when I explained it to my squad?” she tipped her head curiously.

“I… was.” Silver released a long breath through his nostrils. “Just making sure, that’s all.” He looked away from Dash and stared straight forward. There was a distinct lack of comfort in the way he sat, and he couldn’t hide the worried look in his eyes, no matter how hard he tried to wear his usual, stone face.

“Silver, what is it?” Dash asked, sensing there was more to this than met the eye. Silver shook his head.

“Nothing,” he replied flatly. Dash pouted.

“Don’t pull that with me, buster. What’s wrong?” she pressed. Silver turned his head to face away. Dash promptly stood up, walked to the other side of him and sat down, causing him to turn and look back in the other direction.

“Silver?” Dash said his name calmly and gently. She wanted to know what was bothering Silver about this, but his demeanor made her want to be careful about it. He took a deep breath and hung his head.

“My mother died of a heart attack,” he said, breaking the silence. Dash’s eyes widened and she lost any breath that would have formed a response. “It happened right in front of me two years ago.”

Dash quickly put a hoof over her mouth and leaned back a little. She didn’t have the means to speak as is, but she covered her mouth just in case. She suddenly felt incredibly bad for asking at all. Silver turned and glanced at her. He was wearing a straight face, but again, Dash could see right through it.

“When I saw you fall on the floor and grab your chest just now, crying out in pain… it brought back a pretty bad memory I only recently really got over.”

“I…” Dash let a single letter slip. Silver’s ears flopped to the side of his head as he looked back forward.

“Not to mention I’m also on heart medication for overstressing my own body. I’m constantly wary and admittedly sensitive to things like this.” He paused and swallowed. “It was just a little hard to see somepony else important to me show… signs. Even if they are from something entirely different and unrelated.”

It took a moment, but Dash stared directly at Silver with her ears pointing straight up and her fur tingling.

Did Silver just say… somepony important to him?

Did she really mean that much to him? She had felt a little like it before, but he really did care about her. She was his student, but she had almost become like a daughter to him.

And realizing that made Dash feel really warm on the inside, but she still felt sad. Sad that she forced him to bring up his mother, and sad that what happened to her probably really scared him.

Silver grunted and looked up at the Wonderbolts.

“Forget it, I can’t let things like this distract me right now. We have an important mission ahead of us and—”

Silver looked down in surprise as Dash suddenly hugged him around the chest. While startled, he didn’t say anything or protest at least for a few moments.

He scrunched his mouth and glanced back and forth.

“You’re hugging me in public,” he said as he scanned the surrounding crowd, but nopony was looking.

“I know, deal with it,” Dash replied with her cheek pressed lightly near his burn scar. Silver looked down at her and released a quiet sigh before she continued. “Sorry about scaring you, but I promise, it’s not a health problem or anything remotely close. It’s just… what do you always say? ‘Some crazy divine alicorn bullshit?’”

Dash smiled as she both heard, and felt Silver release a few chuckles. She gave him another squeeze.

“But… thanks for caring. Really, I mean it,” she added.

Silver looked down at her, easily picking up the sincerity in her words. Rainbow Dash was a gruff, tough talker. But when she wanted to let somepony know how important they were, she made sure they felt it.

After another brief glance around to make sure they were still out of view, Silver reached up one of his hooves around Dash’s shoulder and gave her a few gentle pats.

It was funny how things worked sometimes. The first time the two met, Silver was launching spit into her face while chewing her out for laughing at his verbal domination of Thunderlane. The strict nature of their relationship remained, but had changed over time. What started as drill instructor and recruit, turned into mentor and student, and had now reached a level where it was the father and daughter neither of them had ever had. They both had their own families they loved and cared about, they weren’t filling a gap in their lives, but their relationship had really helped them thrive in tough times. Dash had found comfort in Silver’s presence and word of wisdom, and Silver had found a pony that had earned his full trust… something he didn’t give out easily.

“For the last time…” Starry Skies’ voice suddenly boomed from the doors to the recruit barracks nearby. Dash released Silver as the two looked over to see Fleetfoot pushing Starry Skies into the lobby, with quite a bit of difficulty. “I’m NOT buying it! And dammit, STOP TOUCHING ME!” she growled as Fleetfoot pushed her in the side with the crown of her head, Starry’s hooves squeaking against the tile floor.

Fleetfoot stopped for a moment, pressing her hooves against Starry while looking up and giving her a flat look with puffy cheeks and her ears folded back.

“Sheesh, are you this defiant in bed too?” she asked as Starry’s eye twitched. “Yow, I feel sorry for the Shadowbolt stallions. How many sets of beans and franks have you squashed into oblivion?”

“I DON’T let stallions in my bed!” Starry barked at her.

“Not with that attitude you won’t!” Fleetfoot giggled.

“I said I DON’T! Not that can’t!” Starry gritted her teeth, struggling to give Fleetfoot stable responses.

“Oh, so you’re into mares then?” Fleetfoot smirked while shifting up and rubbing her side against Starry. “Hey! Either way works for me!” She turned up the smarm and leaned over to Starry’s ear. “I’m into both!” she whispered, preemptively ducking as Starry immediately threw a punch that whiffed and sent her falling forward. Fleetfoot shifted and puckered her lips as Starry stumbled. “Mwah! Mwah!” She jokingly blew kisses at Starry as she got up and scowled at her.

“STOP THAT! And quit trying to change the subject!” She turned back towards the doors. “Now you’re just trying to piss me off again!” She started walking back towards the doors, but yelped as Fleetfoot grabbed her tail in her teeth and yanked her back.

“Oh no you don’t!” Fleetfoot said with her voice muffled by Starry’s tail.

“No! OW! Let go!” Starry demanded. “I’m going back to—”

“Starry Skies!” Spitfire suddenly called out as she approached the two. Starry stopped and blinked as she looked towards Spitfire. “We need your help. Do you have a few minutes?”

She looked back at Fleetfoot and lifted an eyebrow as Fleetfoot spat out her tail.

“Bleh! Yuck, do you ever shampoo your tail?” she complained as she made gagging noises. Starry glanced between Spitfire and Fleetfoot as Fleetfoot eventually stuck her tongue out at her defiantly. “Seeeeeeeeeeeeee?”

“Alright, alright, fine…” Starry grunted as she focused on Spitfire. “What is it?” she asked flatly.

Dash watched for a few moments as Spitfire explained to Starry what she needed of her regarding how to imitate several general behavior mannerisms of Shadowbolts. She was curious to see how squad three was going to handle it, but for the moment her focus was drawn away, specifically by several multiple cracks and pops from beside her.

She looked towards Silver to see him slowly moving his neck back and forth while also rotating his shoulders and opening and closing his wings. His joints were making so much noise, Dash started to cringe.

Eventually Silver exhaled and shook himself out a little as if it were just a regular routine with his worn out body. Dash had seen him do this more than once, but after their discussion a minute ago something else was on her mind. The state of Silver’s body was not a new topic to her, but given their current situation, Dash was worried about something more specific.

“Say…” Dash spoke up, getting Silver to glance down at her. “Speaking of your heart and pain medication…”

“What about it?” Silver narrowed his eyes briefly as if predicting Dash was going to try and talk him into being more careful or something… again. But Dash didn’t let his look deter her, this was actually important.

“I just thought about this and I’m wondering. We’ve been out of reach of any cities or anything for that matter. Do you…” she frowned slightly. “Do you have enough?” she asked. Silver’s expression quickly lightened, not expecting it. “I mean, not so much the pain medication, I’m worried more about the heart medication. You take it every morning, right?”

“You think of every way to worry about me, don’t you?” Silver sighed.

“I’ve made it part of my job as your student to worry about you.” She poked him in the arm. “I don’t think you have grounds to argue. I mean, your body makes enough noises to have its own album.”

“I have enough,” Silver answered before she could comment any further on the creaky nature of his bones and joints. “Knowing the unexpected nature of our work, I always made sure to have a large supply, or at least one large enough to be comfortable without it being discovered,” he explained, earning an eye roll from Dash. She had made it clear more than once that she didn’t like him being secretive about a few of the factors that kept him going. “But…” Silver continued, causing Dash to perk up and listen intently. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you. I was supposed to pick up more the day after all of this started. So I’m more than halfway through my current supply.”

“What?!” Dash reacted, but Silver shook his head quickly, knowing that was exactly how she would react.

“Settle down. I’m serious about having more than enough to last for now. But if we plan on following our goal of reaching the Crystal Empire, I hope we do it soon. I prefer to be comfortably supplied.”

“Yeah, I think I’d prefer that too,” Dash’s ears turned down as she looked away. Silver looked her over briefly before placing a hoof on her shoulder.

“I’ll be fine, Dash,” he reassured her. Dash shook her head.

“You keep saying that, but—”

“And you better bet I’m going to keep saying it,” he quickly cut in before she could worry more. “And I don’t bluff. I’ve been really straining my limits, but I’m pulling through this one way or another,” he strengthened his grip on her shoulder. “I can promise you that much.”

“You better keep your word on that,” said Dash as she gently leaned against him briefly. “Cause I’ll kick your ass if you go and get yourself killed.” She turned her head and glared up at him. Silver chuckled and snorted.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dash wasn’t satisfied, but then again she’d never be in this case. She didn’t want Silver to push himself, but nothing she could say or do was going to change his mind, the stubborn old bastard.

So instead of dwelling on it, Dash looked back out towards the Wonderbolts just in time to see Spitfire lead Starry Skies up to squad three.

“Well, they were all different in their own ways,” Starry Skies spoke to Fire Streak while rolling her eyes. “But honestly, there were a few things that were more or less the norm. The Shadowbolts, at least when we were all still working in the fortress, tended to be either super serious, scary looking, incredibly weird, or had an attitude problem. If you’re any of those, you’ll blend in.”

Fire blinked and stared at Starry.

“What?” Starry lifted an eyebrow. Fire tipped his head and scratched his head.

“That’s a rather… simple explanation,” he commented. Starry shrugged.

“Hey, you wanted to know, that’s what I know. I’m not an expert on pony personalities or anything, it’s just what I always saw,” she said flatly.

“Sounds easy enough!” Surprise chimed in while popping up beside Fire. Starry folded her ears back and winced, leaning backwards upon seeing Surprise. She hadn’t forgotten the… encounter she had with the silly pony back when they were still under Nightshade’s orders. She looked up past Fire and Surprise to see Lightning Streak as he pounded a hoof against his chest. Seconds later he released a very loud, low pitched belch. Beside him, Misty was staring sternly at a stubborn strand of her mane that was falling in front of her face. She kept blowing at it to push it up, but it kept falling right back down.

Fire looked over his shoulder as Surprise bounced back over to the rest of his squad and smiled.

“It’s not much to go by, but I think we can handle it,” he said with a nod.

Starry lifted an eyebrow as she watched Lightning Streak inconspicuously reach back and scratch himself while Surprise sat on Misty’s back, smoothing out Misty’s mane for her as the silent pony smiled delightfully.

“Right…” Starry said with little confidence in her voice.

“What?” Fire asked while tipping his head the other direction.

“I have a hard time believing it,” she said bluntly. Fire chuckled and waved a hoof in front of him.

“Don’t worry, we’re quite good at getting into character,” he assured her with a wink.

“If you say so,” Starry shrugged and shook her head as Fire started to ponder out loud.

“Serious… scary looking…” he spread his wings and hovered up into the air to look out among the Wonderbolts while wondering who else to assign to his portion of the operation. While he and his squad were going to act into their roles, he wasn’t going to expect the rest of those he brought along to do the same. He needed ponies that either looked or acted the part already. “Weird… attitude…” He stopped and smiled, his eyes lighting up as he slowly touched back down to the floor. “May I ask for your assistance a little further?”

Starry sighed and flattened her brow.

“Why?” she asked without enthusiasm.

“I’m going to gather up the other ponies I need for this mission then I’d ask for you to meet us later when we’re getting our gear for a little more help on this matter,” Fire explained while reaching up to pat her on the shoulder, but she took a step backwards to avoid it before it could land.

“Fine, just make it quick, I have things to do,” she huffed.

Fire gave her a quick nod before turning and approaching Spitfire, who had just finished explaining the operation to the rest of the Wonderbolts. Luna was sitting beside Spitfire as well.

“Captain. Your Majesty.” Fire saluted to Spitfire and gave a brief, courteous bow to Luna. “Based on Starry’s brief explanation, I believe I know who will be perfect to help my squad with this job.”

“Oh?” Spitfire quickly focused all of her attention on him, giving him a quick nod. “Alright, let’s hear it.”

“Keeping the risk of other well-known Wonderbolts being discovered, I would like to enlist three particular recruits. Recruit Twister, Recruit Squall, and Recruit Rainbow Dash.”

“WHAT?!”

Spitfire, Luna, and Fire all flinched as Silver Lining’s voice pounded their ears from a few yards away. They all looked over to see Silver get up from beside a startled and confused Rainbow Dash before making his way towards them with a glare and heavy steps. “That’s…” he stopped before he could get any further due to Spitfire turning away from him and looking back at Fire.

“What’s your analysis?” Spitfire asked Fire as if Silver wasn’t even there.

“Hey!” Silver growled. Fire Streak glanced between Spitfire and Silver with a blank, unsure expression.

“Um…” Fire failed to give his reasons under the harsh presence of Silver. Silver snorted and looked towards Fire.

“Give us just a moment here,” he said calmly before returning his eyes to Spitfire, but she was still focused on Fire.

“Silver…” Spitfire moved her eyes to him and narrowed them. “Let Fire give his reasons for the selection.”

Silver locked eyes with Spitfire for a few moments before he succumbed, grunted and held his mouth shut.

“Fire?” Spitfire said simply as she refocused on him.

“Er… yes…” Fire nodded before clearing his throat. “Based on what Starry Skies has just told me for the ‘outer look’ of typical Shadowbolts I feel they are the best mix. Starry suggested traits around the lines of mean looking, attitude, and strange. Squall’s usual expression mixed with the scar fit the first, Dash carries a rough attitude about her, and Twister speaks for himself. While we have others who may slightly edge them out in these traits, at least the first two, the three of them also happen to be on the same squad. This will make them more efficient since they are familiar with each other already. Rainbow Dash’s colorful mane won’t be an issue with Luna’s spell. She can…”

“Dammit, Captain I’m going to interrupt him right there, you can’t put Dash up to this,” Silver cut him off.

“Silver…” Spitfire scrunched her face at him. Silver appreciated that she was done questioning her captain abilities and acting like she was supposed to in her position, but he felt she was overlooking something very important. It was part of HIS job as second captain to speak out if he felt she was missing something.

“Captain, listen to—”

“No, YOU listen, Silver!” Spitfire suddenly snapped at him. “I don’t know where this is suddenly coming from, but if this has anything to do with personal concern for Rainbow Dash… STOP. It doesn’t matter if she’s still new, she’s a Wonderbolt. She earned the right to be called one. So if Fire wants to make use of her, he can.”

“I am not questioning her abilities!” Silver growled as if insulted that Spitfire suggested he’d ever think such a thing. “Have you already forgotten what happened to her a few minutes ago outside your office?!” he reminded Spitfire of Dash’s collapse and reaction to Soarin’s issues beyond her control. “Doesn’t seem very smart to send her out on a crucial mission like this when she could suddenly fall and draw attention to herself, does it?”

Spitfire remained quiet, just staring flatly at Silver for a moment before exhaling through her nose.

“Silver, if you did as I said and had let Fire finish… I was waiting to hear his justification to bring her along. Normally I wouldn’t allow it, given the reasons you just stated, but our third captain isn’t a fool,” she paused glancing at Fire. “Let. Him. Finish.”

“Hmph…” Silver grunted and sat down as Dash slowly shuffled up behind him.

“Well, Fire?” Spitfire refocused. “How about we give Silver an answer. Assuming you do, in fact, have an answer to this little issue.”

Fire swallowed before speaking up again.

“I… actually had considered what Silver is talking about. I was with you two when it happened to her. However, I feel including Dash in this mission is imperative because… well…” Fire paused and glanced at Rainbow Dash. “She’s the only Wonderbolt here that’s been inside their fortress.”

There was a brief pause as Silver’s eyes widened slightly. Spitfire glanced towards Dash as well as Fire turned back to Spitfire.

“And I doubt we have time for any of the former Shadowbolts to draw us up a map,” Fire added. Spitfire nodded lightly to herself.

“Hmmm… that does make sense…” she pondered.

“Well, uh…” Dash stuttered, drawing their attention to her. “I can’t say I know the layout like the back of my hoof or anything. If it was really a copy of our compound, they’ve definitely modified it. But… I think I have an idea of where they’re keeping him.” She recalled while remembering both the dungeon of the fortress as well as the frightening experience in Nightshade’s ‘office,’ if one could even call it that.

“Dash, be truthful,” Silver turned to her and looked at her sternly. Spitfire, sensing Silver and Dash had an understanding, didn’t stop him from confronting her. “Is it worth the risk? If you get another shock in the middle of the infiltration it could be a disaster.”

Rainbow Dash looked directly into Silver’s eyes. Just like earlier, they were stern, but worried.

She looked past him towards the others. Fire was patiently waiting for her answer, Luna looked unsure how to feel, and Spitfire remained stoic, keeping her professional air as her eyes remained locked on her and Silver.

Dash looked down and took a deep breath. She slowly lifted a hoof and placed it over her heart while closing her eyes.

She and Soarin had been sharing this connection for a while now. She could remember the first time she felt it. It was when they had their little fallout after the tryouts. She was sleeping after a day of grueling training under Silver Lining when her heart jumped in her chest and woke her with a start. They were at odds at the time, but it was the first sign that there was something more to what they had… and it slowly pushed her to realize just how important they were to one another. While she didn’t need a magic connection to love him, the worry that was pulled forth from her heart for his life and safety proved to her that their short term split was one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

With love, they overcame the little rut in their relationship. And then with love, Dash watched over him when she could, keeping tabs on him and always being ready to help when the magic was being difficult. One would think learning their lives had become literally connected in life, death, and spirit would have had a lasting shock on them, but once they knew, it was almost as if they didn’t mind… or they already knew how important they were to one another regardless.

Now the connection had grown and become strong. They had survived more than one life and death situation, strengthening their spirits and in turn strengthening their connection. Now Soarin could have just a brief blip in control over his magic and Dash would feel it.

During the last shock minutes ago, as she dropped and clutched her heart in pain, she felt like she could hear him. She could hear Soarin screaming as if she was right there beside him. She was also certain she could see him. Her eyes were shut, but he was there, in front of her. She shouted to him, encouraging him to get up, convinced her voice would reach him.

Would her voice reach him if she just… tried? Maybe, but to avoid looking a little crazy, she wouldn’t try right now. Perhaps later, but in the moment she saw Soarin… and she saw him overcome what was causing him pain.

He stood up and faced the surrounding blue aura with the help of somepony bathed in a yellow light. When everything faded, the pain was completely gone and she was able to stand up as if nothing had happened. This wasn’t the first time she had witnessed Soarin assert his dominance over the magic, and each time he needed to, everything was fine with him after… for the most part.

But after what she saw in her head among the pain… she was confident. Soarin was a pony who could adapt to pain and anything else that might slow him down. The shocks she was feeling were incredibly strong, suggesting there may very well be something very, very wrong with the horn and the magic, yet she saw Soarin regain control.

“I saw it…” Dash spoke up. “I saw Soarin when I was in pain. He was in danger, but after I yelled to him, I saw him stand up and regain control. I can’t predict that he’ll remain under control, but… I can’t really explain. I can just feel it. He’s doing everything he can, so I’m sure there won’t be any more problems, at least for the time being.”

Silver clearly didn’t like that answer. He released a long sigh while narrowing his eyes at her. She didn’t give him the solid answer he was looking for, Dash understood that. But it wasn’t like any of them could feel what she felt. It was a feeling in her heart that was reaffirmed by their spiritual connection. They just had to believe her… just like how she believed in Soarin.

“Dash…” Spitfire spoke up as she moved beside Silver. She looked uncertain, but her eyes were much different from Silver’s. “I trust you.”

Silver quickly looked towards Spitfire, but she was already shaking her head at him.

“I know Silver, but the fact remains that Fire’s analysis stands. Dash is the only one who has been in the fortress and will be an indispensable asset to our success.”

“Captain…” Silver sounded like he was stuck between wanting to protest and acknowledging there was sense to the decision. He just worried about Dash’s condition after all, nopony could criticize him for that.

“Also…” Spitfire smirked. “If she’s as connected to Soarin as she says, then you and I both know there’s good reason to believe her here. I mean, you know how much of a stubborn dick Soarin is… always making us worry, but always finding ways to be alright…” Spitfire sighed and shook her head. “If we know we can trust Soarin, then we can also trust Rainbow Dash.”

“This is an awfully large gamble, you realize,” Silver said, not in disapproval, instead just to be clear. Spitfire nodded.

“I know, but making gambles is part of the job, something you’ve always been very good at showing us,” she said, giving him a nod of acknowledgement. Silver didn’t reply, he just stared, thinking it all over. “Besides,” Spitfire continued. “Don’t forget she’s not going in there alone. I’m also trusting squad three to not only watch over her and the rest we send in… but also to be able to improvise should anything happen. I firmly agree with Fire’s plan, and believe it is the best course of action.”

She and Silver remained silent, eyes locked for several moments before Silver closed his eyes and exhaled.

“Yes, ma’am…” he said, even though he was not given an order or asked to acknowledge anything. He turned and began walking away.

Dash watched as he moved towards Blaze and High Winds. Part of her desperately wanted to follow him, but at the moment, she needed to pay attention. She had been selected for the mission after all, and once the little briefing was done here, she had to track down Squall and Twister.

“Fire,” Spitfire continued while turning back to him. “Now that we are back on the task at hoof… I couldn’t help but realize that you only named three ponies. That brings your team to seven… but we have ten Shadowbolt uniforms to make use of. Are you planning to only take seven, or…?” she trailed off while waiting for an answer. Fire shook his head.

“No, ma’am… I have three others I wish to bring along, however it comes not in the form of a decision, but in the form of a request,” he explained.

“Go on…” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow.

“A large portion of this mission relies on the Wonderbolts using their showtime skills and routines… so due to their pure combat nature, I would like to ask your permission to use three of the ponies from squad zero.”

Both Dash and Spitfire’s ears stood up as Fire made his proposal. He continued.

“We need Wonderbolts that are lesser known, and while the Shadowbolts have encountered them along with the rest, it was not until just recently. Plus, while they are not on the level of the top tiered squads, they have a degree of skill and combat prowess that stands above others I would consider,” he explained thoroughly.

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed while slowly smiling. “Brilliant thinking, Fire… I hadn’t even considered squad zero. And. I assume you’ve put thought into how they’d fit the mold Starry suggests?”

“Playbitz, Swift Justice, and Shine Struck,” Fire nodded. “While Calm Wind’s strength would be useful, I feel he would stand out too much. He’s… well… very big. We’ve met a few ponies of great size lately, but I feel it could possibly draw attention. Any little factor we can shave off of a potential list of worries will be helpful. I had the same reasoning for excluding Matteo from Foxtrot, being a griffon aside of course. Little Star as well, only for the opposite reasons. I don’t want to take a bet that the Shadowbolts have more filly sized members.”

“To the point and addressing every factor… I knew I could count on you, Fire.” Spitfire nodded while smiling in approval. “There’s no time to waste,” she stated as she looked down at Dash. “Rainbow Dash, gather up your squad and meet us by the recruit barracks.” She looked up over Dash’s shoulder. “Blaze! High Winds! Go find squad zero and bring them to the barracks entrance!” she ordered, leaving Silver out to respect him being deep in thought. The two mares of squad two gave Spitfire a wave before hovering up and floating around the crowd to find their special ops squad. “Princess, let’s head on over,” Spitfire nodded to Luna before giving one last glance at Dash.

Dash watched as Spitfire and Luna headed towards the barracks, the weight of the situation slowly sinking in as she got up to find her squad. She was hoof-selected to take part in a dangerous covert operation to retrieve one of their top commanders…

Was she up to the task?

Of course she was. Somewhere out in the mountains, Soarin was doing his best and probably straining himself to get back to them… and she wasn’t about to give any less effort in what was asked of her.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Little Star asked as she hovered beside Matteo. Dash glanced over her shoulder at Squall, Matteo, Star, and Twister as they weaved through the mingling Wonderbolts, some of which had dispersed and come back with their flight suits and goggles already.

“It’s kind of hard to fully explain,” Dash avoided the question as they made it into the clear and approached the barracks. Matteo narrowed his eyes when he saw squad zero approaching as well, shifting his gaze between them and the gathering of the top tier squads ahead of them, missing Soarin and Wave Chill of course.

“We’re being split up, aren’t we?” Matteo spoke out. Dash froze mid-step, quickly looking back at them again.

“What?!” Star shouted in surprise. Squall’s only visible reaction was to open his eyes a little wider. Twister kept walking and ran right into Squall’s plot, flying forward suddenly as if he had crashed full speed.

“Uh…” Dash gritted her teeth uncomfortably as she looked her friends over. She was avoiding the subject for two specific reasons. Those being the two giant eyes of worry that Star was giving her right now.

“Based on Captain Spitfire’s description of the plan… and that you’ve asked us to follow you…” Matteo continued as Star’s eyes only grew wider. “Not to mention we’re heading towards the Princess and the top three squads with squad zero along with us… the fact that all together we’d make thirteen… not ten… and now with your reaction on top of it, I’m assuming some of us have been selected for this covert mission.”

Dash’s jaw dropped as Matteo picked every detail apart seamlessly.

“Tell me he’s wrong, Dash…” Star hovered forward and grabbed Dash by the cheeks and looking at her sternly, lip quivering.

“Um…” Dash stalled again. Little Star never liked the idea of them being split up for something dangerous. It was her interaction with the rest of them that made her finally realize her dream after all… even if it had led directly into a crazy scenario. She had been particularly clingy of them recently after two specific events: Squall receiving his scar and then being separated during the compound takeoff.

“Foxtrot!” Spitfire’s voice rushed from behind them. They all turned to face the barracks to see Spitfire tapping her hoof. “Double-time it! Let’s go!”

“I’ll let Spitfire explain…” Dash said briefly before they quickened their pace to join the rest.

They approached the group with squads one, two, three, and zero all waiting for them. Dash glanced at Star as they came to a halt. Her worried expression was killing Dash, but this wasn’t her decision to make. Dash also quickly scanned over squad zero. Calm and Playbitz were standing attention, Swift was shooting points and winks which were being shot back by Air Mach. The only one that looked towards them was Shine Struck, who gave a quick wave and smile to Dash.

“Listen up!” Spitfire broke the silence. “By now you’re all aware of our plan of action… and that if we can bring down the shield, the final phase of the operation is a covert infiltration of the Shadowbolt fortress…” she explained while pacing back and forth. On her second pass, she stomped a hoof hard to the floor halfway and turned sharply to them. “The reason we have summoned you is because members from both your squads have been hoof-picked by third captain Fire Streak to aid his squad in the infiltration. Fire Streak?” Spitfire stepped back and Fire came forward.

“The following members of your squads have been chosen to be part of our special objective,” he began as he looked back and forth. “As I call your name, step forward.” He focused on squad zero first. “From squad zero… Swift Justice, Playbitz, and Shine Struck.”

Dash watched as the three blinked in surprise, stepping forward hesitantly. Calm Wind’s ears flopped down as he frowned, definitely not thrilled that he was being left out. But Fire’s reasons for doing so were justified. Calm would possibly stand out, even with a color change. She wondered if his back injuries were part of the choice as well, it hadn’t been too long since he was brutally wounded.

“From Recruit Squad Foxtrot…” Fire continued, causing Dash to look back forward towards him. “Squall, Twister, and Rainbow Dash.”

Twister scooted forward without moving his hooves.

“AYE, AYE NUMBER THREE CAPTAI—”

“WHAT?!” Little Star completely cut off Twister as her eyes grew even wider. Dash winced, glancing back to see her fall onto her plot with her jaw dropped. Dash quickly turned back, but stopped halfway when she saw Squall also looking back and frowning. Squall perked up, realizing Dash was looking at him. He quickly looked forward, acting like nothing had happened.

“You six—” Fire Streak started up again, drawing their attention back to him— “Have been chosen because you fit certain criteria we’ve deemed necessary to the operation. You will be detached from the rest as they carry out the grand distraction. Our role in this mission is far and away the most important and dangerous, but I wouldn’t have selected you if I didn’t think you were up to the task. Captain?” Fire passed pack to Spitfire.

“Calm, Little Star, and Matteo. You three will still play a role in the operation. Little Star, you will join with the rest of the recruit squads helping the unicorn staff and Renegades move out image projectors into place,” Spitfire explained, not reacting at all to Star’s worried mannerisms. “Matteo,” she looked towards him. “You will first help with the equipment as well, but then join with Bomber and Valkyrie. They are leading a force of our strongest members to simulate the tremors of the dragon ‘landing.’” She looked towards Calm. “Calm Wind…” Spitfire paused and blinked. “Actually, await further orders… I was going to have you join the strength team and help with the tremors… but how is your back? are you fit for duty?” she asked. Calm remained still for a moment before rotating his shoulders and moving his back around. He winced a little, but didn’t show any visible pain.

“It’s a little stiff, but it won’t slow me down,” he replied quietly. Spitfire nodded and scratched her chin.

“Either way, stay put for the moment, I want to assess everything else first before deciding what to do with you,” she ordered.

“Y-yes ma’am…” Calm replied reluctantly. Shine quickly turned around and pouted at him.

“Oh, don’t do that, you big doofus… we’ll be fine, don’t worry about us,” she assured him. Swift appeared behind her and rested his hooves on her head.

“Yeah dude! I’ll bring you back a souvenir!” he chuckled as Shine huffed and pushed her wings back to throw him off. Shine turned and started scolding him for using her as an arm rest, but Playbitz shifted over and nudged Calm in the side.

“Don’t worry,” he winked. “I’ll make sure they don’t kill themselves.”

Dash turned towards her own squad after watching the brief exchange. Spitfire had turned to discuss something with Fire, so she took the moment to address her squad.

“Star…” Matteo sighed as Dash approached. Star was sitting right beside him, completely slumped down, droopy ears, droopy neck, droopy frown, everything. It almost looked a little forced. “Stop that.”

Dash walked up to Star and looked down at her sternly.

“Star, stop… this is the lead captain’s decision. If I had it my way, we’d all be in this together, but we can’t.”

Star shook her head.

“I know… I’d just rather we all stay together,” she voiced her discontent while letting her long mane fall over one of her eyes. “We’re going on a very dangerous mission and we’re going to be separated? I don’t like that… you guys are important to me…”

Dash frowned as she looked back at Squall and Twister. Twister was balancing on his front hooves in front of Squall… who was completely ignoring him, facing the top squads. She looked back at Star, not quite sure what to say.

As motherly as always, Star was acting like a mom whose children were moving out… only a little more intense since it was a dangerous military operation. Star’s care for them was made clear daily by the way she spread affection, even if it was met with protest. Dash didn’t want her squad to be split up either, her captainship naturally pushing her towards feeling responsible for all of them, but again, it was Spitfire’s call to approve Fire Streak’s plan.

If only Dash could find a way to reassure Star. She acted like a mother, but was looking at her like a sad filly… and her small stature didn’t help with that.

“Hey.”

Dash blinked and turned around to see Squall looking over his shoulder at Star.

“Cut that out,” he said with a snort. Dash was ready to give him a good glare, but… “We’ll be fine. Do your part, we’ll do ours, and then we’ll all be back together.” His words were hard and unrefined in his usual fashion, but his point was clear. His personal unique attempt at reassurance didn’t change much though. He flattened his expression as Star shifted her large worried eyes to him. “I mean it,” he added gruffly, trying to get a visible reaction, but again, Star remained unchanged. Squall scrunched his face before turning to Matteo. “Hey… bird,” he addressed Matteo, earning a glare for the rather crude identification. “Keep an eye on her… alright?” he asked, his sharp tone remaining despite the nature of his request.

Matteo was just as surprised to hear it as Dash was, the two blinking and staring at Squall as he turned back around and faced forward, ignoring Twister’s continued attempts to be silly.

“HRNK!” Matteo grunted as Star suddenly leaned over and latched onto his arm tightly, squeezing the daylights out of it. He looked down at her, but her eyes were still trained on Squall.

“Can you?” Dash asked Matteo, reaffirming Squall’s request as she patted Star on the head. Matteo exhaled through the nose holes on his beak, creating a soft, low pitched whistle that slowly faded.

“I will watch over her,” he agreed.

“Thanks,” Dash smiled. She turned and stepped up beside Squall and Twister as they awaited further orders. She noticed Squall taking another glance back at Matteo and Star. “They’ll be fine too,” Dash said to him. Squall quickly looked towards her for a moment before facing forward.

“Hmph…” he grunted in response. Dash could only smile. He sure had a way of expressing it, but Squall cared just as much as Star did. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have said anything to her.

Rainbow Dash, Squall, Twister, Shine Struck, Swift Justice, and Playbitz all sat, waiting for further direction as the Wonderbolts continued to converse amongst themselves and with Princess Luna. It looked like they were wrapping up, but before Spitfire could turn to them…

“Hey! Hey, sis!” Blaze suddenly chimed in, waving an arm fiercely towards Spitfire. “What the hell are we going to do?!”

“Elaborate please, without swearing if possible,” Spitfire huffed while acknowledging Blaze.

“How the fuck are—aw jeez, already failed. Anyway, we’ve got our little band of sneaky freaks put together, but how the hell are—”

“That’s…” High Winds cut her off and yawned. “Two…”

“Shut the hell up, Windy,” Blaze growled quietly as High Winds mouthed ‘three’ to herself. “What are our squads gonna do? You want to put on a show for them, but we’re missing Chiller and you’re missing Princess McBangsRainbows. Last time I checked our shit doesn’t work without them!”

“Four,” Silver broke his silence while nonchalantly putting a hoof up beside his face to block an incoming punch from Blaze.

“Oh… that’s right,” Spitfire blinked. “Hmm…” she blinked and glared at Fleetfoot as she nudged her in the side.

“Way to go announcing the plan and forgetting your own squad,” she teased while sticking her tongue out.

“Oh, shut it… this won’t be hard to fix…” Spitfire rolled her eyes while thinking.

“HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!” Air Mach suddenly shifted up in front of her and pounded a hoof to his chest, causing Spitfire to flinch in surprise as he made his presence known. “I can do double duty! Chills was good with water right?!” he asked, but instead of waiting for a response, he pointed directly upward and fluffed his cape. “FEAR NOT! I may not be the Chiller of Waves or in heat captains…”

“Hey!” Spitfire glared, but he leapt up to hover above her.

“But I am the great Animak! An effect specialist! The best there is!”

“Surprise is better than you…” High Winds said monotonously as Air Mach paused.

“THE. BEST. THERE. IS!” Air Mach repeated.

“Hmmm…” Spitfire turned away from him to ponder some more, a light, annoyed blush on her face from Air Mach bringing up her mare problems of the recent past.

“The clown college reject might be onto something,” Silver chimed in. “It’s been a while, but we do have some joint squad routines. He might just be dumb enough to handle the double workload.”

“Yes, we do,” Spitfire nodded in agreement. “And he just might be crazy enough to pull it off…” she added while looking towards Air Mach flatly as he tried to pull Fleetfoot into posing with him. “Air Mach! If we do a joint routine, do you think you can handle an effects job meant for two?”

“I was ready BEFORE I was born ready!” Air Mach yelled, grunting as Fleetfoot jabbed him in the side to push him away.

“I question my sanity saying this, but I’m counting on you to hold to that,” Spitfire nodded before turning away and pondering further. “But… that still leaves Soarin’s spot. We need pony that's strong, can throw us, and—”

She flinched as a sudden yelp came from nearby.

“I FOUND ONE!” Fleetfoot called out cheerfully.

She was sitting right up against Calm Wind and had her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling his head all the way down to her level. She was smiling towards Spitfire with her eyes incredibly wide as if puppy begging Spitfire into saying yes. Calm gritted his teeth as he was yanked down, blushing in embarrassment at the unexpected physical contact from her.

Spitfire smiled, quickly coming to a resolution.

“Actually… that’s perfect,” Spitfire quickly decided. Silver cleared his throat behind her.

“Captain, the routine? Are you expecting him to learn it and perform it on the spot? What about the Power Acceleration?” he expressed logical concern.

“Hey!” Fleetfoot yelled towards Silver as her grip tightened on Calm’s neck, causing him to grunt and his wings to flail a bit. “First of all, he changed the name to the Sonic Blastoff, second… If you guys can trust AIR MACH to improvise with two roles, then you get bet somepony much smarter than him can do the same.” She pointed at Calm as his tongue stuck out of his mouth and face began to turn blue…er since he couldn’t breathe. “Besides, the main function of Soarin in our routines is to catch and throw us! Hear that Calm? You get to touch me a lot!” she teased, but blinked when she got no response.

“I agree with Fleet,” Spitfire nodded. “Calm’s got a head on his shoulders. It may be a little difficult, but it shouldn’t be too hard to explain. He’s even stronger than Soarin, so he won’t have to adjust much there, but we may have to tweak it a little to make up for the lack of Soarin’s signature move. Yes, this could work, but Fleet… let him go before you suffocate him.”

“Oh!” Fleetfoot flinched as she let go. Calm gasped and fell flat on the floor, taking harsh breaths for air. “Teehee! Sorry!” Fleetfoot giggled while blushing and goofily sticking her tongue out.

Both Silver and Dash watched Fleetfoot with a large degree of amusement. It was incredible how fast Fleetfoot’s mood could swing up and down. She was her normal silly self one moment, questioning life another, and then before they could blink she was right back up on the happy scale.

“Alright Calm…” Spitfire walked up to him as he caught his breath and stood. “Come with us, we have to explain a couple of things.”

“Yeah! Like how you’re gonna get to feel all this!” Fleetfoot teased as she scooted over to him and ran her hooves down her body. Calm’s face turned bright red as Spitfire reached over and pushed Fleetfoot away.

“Fleet! Enough!” she ordered as Fleetfoot giggled her way back towards the crowd. Spitfire sighed, looking towards Fire Streak. “Alright, go get ready, meet back in the lobby in one hour,” she ordered before turning back to Calm and rolling her eyes. “Come on Big Blue Blusherton…” She grabbed him by the arm and forced him to start walking. “Pay attention and try to ignore the instigator…”

“You heard the captain!” Fire Streak called out to his team. “We have an operation to prepare for! Follow us!” he ordered before he turned and led squad three towards the barracks, Princess Luna following behind.

Dash quickly followed with the rest, eager to get things started, but not before both she and Squall glanced back. Star was still hanging onto Matteo’s arm, even though he had it up in the air and was trying to gently shake her off. Dash also looked towards Silver following his squad.

She hoped they would have a moment to regroup right before the operation started… because she wanted to assure those she cared about that they’d all pull through. Would they? No way to know, but it was the thought that counted.

“What took you guys so long!?” Starry Skies yelled as Fire Streak approached with his squad, Luna, and the detachments from foxtrot and zero.

“Had a few loose ends to tie up,” Fire said politely with a bow. “I hope we are not causing you too much inconvenience.”

“Uh…” Starry lifted an eyebrow. “Right… well come on, let’s get this over with,” she encouraged.

“This way,” Fire Streak motioned to the empty barracks one door down from where their Shadowbolt captives were being monitored. Fire reached for the door and opened it, holding it while standing aside and looking at Starry.

“What?” she stared at him quizzically. Fire motioned to the door, signaling her to enter. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Fire said patiently. “Never had a stallion be courteous to you before?”

“I’m no dainty lady pony, you jackass…” Starry scrunched her face.

“That’s not—” Fire stopped as Misty Fly suddenly placed herself behind Starry and pushed the crown of her head against her plot.

“HEY!” Starry yelped as Misty forcefully moved her, Starry’s hooves skidding on the floor as she slid into the room. “Stop that!” she demanded, but it fell on deaf ears, literally. Once Starry was in the room, Misty turned back and smiled at Fire.

“Well, come on,” Fire motioned to the rest as he chuckled, holding the door open until all of them were inside.

Dash made her way into the room, which was dark due to the lights being off. She wondered why they were brought to this room specifically.

“Did they get all our stuff?” Lightning asked as he reached for the light switch and threw it on.

Dash squinted for a moment as the lights blinked on, but once they adjusted they focused on the center of the room.

“WOOHOO! We’re in business!” Surprise cheered as she bounced towards the center of the room.

The unused barracks was bare of any living necessities, only the bunk frames and mattresses lined up along the walls. The only thing out of place in the empty template was a pile of Shadowbolt uniforms and goggles that sat in the center of the room.

“Oh man…” Dash chuckled to herself, drawing Squall’s attention.

“What?” he asked curiously.

“WHAT?!” Twister asked from her other side. Dash pushed her wing down over Twister’s head before turning to Squall.

“I’ve encountered the Shadowbolts more than once before I even became a Wonderbolt… fought against them too, remember?” she reminded him of their talk in the Cloudsdale hotel. “This is gonna be weird,” Dash said with a smirk.

“Hmph…” Squall replied in his usual fashion.

“BUT NOT AS WEIRD—”

“As you,” Dash finished for Twister as she thrust her other wing down to catch him as he appeared between her and Squall. She looked towards Squall as he simply faced forward, a blank, stoic look on his face. “By the way… thanks for helping me console Little Star.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Squall quickly denied.

“Yes you did,” Dash pushed right back as Squall shifted his mane to block her from his view.

“I just wanted her to stop,” he stated as if it meant nothing.

“Because you didn’t want her to worry, right?” Dash added for him.

“No, I—”

“It’s okay to care about somepony, Squall.”

“I’m not… I mean…” Squall growled while glaring at her. “Why do you keep saying that?!”

“Squall, I’m not trying to imply anything here,” Dash looked at him seriously. Twister popped up behind Squall, holding what looked like tiny figures of Squall and Little Star. He was wearing a sign around his neck that read: ‘I AM’ as he touched the noses of the two tiny figurines together while grinning from ear to ear.

Dash shot him a heavy glare, causing him to duck back down as Squall glanced over his shoulder. “You can care about another pony without it implying there’s something between you two. That’s something that comes with being a friend. I only say it because I can see it. You care about Little Star. You’ve naturally responded to the ways she’s treated you and stuck up for you. Or am I wrong?” she lifted an eyebrow and tipped her head. “You wouldn’t be faking this… would you?”

Squall looked down at his hooves, a silence growing between them for a moment as the sounds of squad three looking over the Shadowbolt uniforms filled the audible void for several seconds.

“No,” Squall said weakly as he turned his head away, but kept looking down.

“No, what?” Dash sought clarification.

“I’m not faking it,” he answered. “I wouldn’t do that to her…”

“And that’s all I wanted to hear,” Dash smiled while turning to face in the same direction.

“Yeah, yeah…” Squall grumbled.

“Be proud of it,” Dash quickly encouraged. “And hold onto it.”

Squall didn’t respond, but lack of response was often a sign he was thinking things over. While Dash didn’t want him to feel conflicted right before a dangerous mission, she wanted him to acknowledge what he was doing. After all, caring about something or somepony yielded a strength of its own that he could draw upon.

“Alright,” Fire Streak spoke up while turning to Starry Skies. “Starry, now that we have our whole troupe and the disguises put together—” he motioned to the Shadowbolt uniforms spread out on the floor— “Could you give us a rundown on typical behavioral norms within the Shadowbolt environment?”

“First what we’re like, now how we act?” Starry grumbled in frustration. Fire nodded.

“My squad never misses any details. We must have as much knowledge as possible if we are to successfully impersonate or imitate,” he explained as he beckoned Lightning, Surprise, and Misty Fly.

“Fine…” Starry rolled her eyes as Fire Streak turned around to face foxtrot and zero.

“Everypony gather in and pay attention!” he ordered before turning to Princess Luna, who had been more or less sitting quietly throughout everything. “I beg your forgiveness, Princess,” Fire bowed. “We understand you are merely here to use your spell, but we need to get through every tidbit.”

“That is quite alright Third Captain Fire Streak,” Luna gave him a smile and a nod. “We are at your disposal. This is a Wonderbolt operation, and we are ready to assist however it may be. Do what thou must, then we shall help you before reporting to our role in the operation.”

“Your patience is divine, milady,” Fire bowed again.

“Sheesh bro, suck the royal teat some more…” Lightning spoke up in his usual, casual fashion, causing Fire to flinch and sharply turn to glare at his twin. But Fire only sighed as Surprise burst out laughing, falling onto her back as Starry Skies also snorted and covered her mouth. When Luna failed to hold back a snicker, Fire sighed in defeat and refocused.

“WELL THEN!” he yelled out before forcing a smile towards Starry, his eyes shifting between her and Misty Fly, who was silently giggling while Surprise relayed what happened to her. “Please, enlighten us,” he asked while motioning to himself and the Wonderbolts in the room.

“Apparently you all need to know how Shadowbolts behave…” Starry began with a slightly awkward tone. “It’s starting to creep me out how much you guys are asking about us, but apparently you’re onto some wild idea of how to breach the fortress. So listen, cause I’m only gonna explain this once.” She made sure to point out how much she didn’t want to be there.

As she began, Dash glanced at Squall and Twister. Twister was poking Squall in the shoulder constantly. Squall kept glaring and growling at him.

“Twister, stop,” Dash whispered as Starry went on.

“Being a Shadowbolt is all about toughness. Our code dictates that strength runs parallel with respect. So the stronger and more dominant you are, the higher up you are considered. This method, over the years, has been both effective… and hilariously stupid.”

“Come again?” Fire asked while lifting an eyebrow.

“Shut up, I’m talking,” Starry angrily pointed at him. “The code has bred an environment where if anypony crosses another, it ends in a fight. It doesn’t matter what it’s about. Simply bumping into somepony in the hallway or swiping the last dessert in our meal hall is just as likely to start a fight as blatantly sucker punching a fellow Shadowbolt.”

“Squall—!” Dash’s voice caught all their attention just in time to see Squall turn and punch Twister right in the face. Twister bounced along the floor until skidding along slowly. Squall looked around at the rest.

“What?! He was poking me!” Squall complained.

“JUST LIKE THAT,” Starry pointed at Squall. “I guess you really found good candidates, huh?” She lifted an eyebrow at Fire. Fire simply lifted his brow while smiling and tapping a hoof to his forehead.

“Yeee!” Luna suddenly yelped as Twister, who never stopped skidding, had slithered up and latched to her arm. Luna was shaking her arm vigorously, trying to get him off.

“Yeah… I’d say you picked the right ones,” Starry reiterated before turning back to them. “That’s the core of the usual shenanigans. Fights break out regularly and over the dumbest things, but our code is that the strongest leads, so Shadowbolts are always trying to assert dominance whenever they can,” she paused and watched as Surprise tried to help pull Twister off of Luna. “Idiocy is common as well, and I know you guys have that one down…”

“Any little things, other info you can give us?” Fire asked.

“I’m getting to that,” Starry snapped at him. “Something else that is common are little factions. Groups tend to form, usually around five or six Shadowbolts who act like a ring of trust. They look after each other and help if others get into scuffles… at times.”

“Dude…” Lightning interrupted. “How the hell did you guys ever work? Sounds like it was a grade-A shit show to me.”

Starry Skies stomped up to him and got in his face while scowling.

“You’ve never known the leadership of Dante or Nightshade,” she said in a very harsh tone with a growl in the back of her throat. Lightning merely reclined his neck back with his nonchalant expression remaining in place. “What the strongest says, goes. I’ve seen ponies die BRUTAL deaths for challenging the word of the Shadowbolt leader. Rule by strength is also rule by FEAR.”

“Yo… like… yeah… I get it…” Lightning replied casually. Starry snorted, her ears folding back as she didn’t get the desired reaction from him. With an annoyed grunt, she pulled back and continued.

“There have been many occasions where ‘alliances’ were formed between these small groups, so the fact that you have ten will work to your advantage. Though…” she paused and thought for a moment. “I heard something about drawing out the Shadowbolts before you head in, right?” she asked, earning a nod from Fire Streak. “Then you may want to assess the situation depending on how many Shadowbolts are sent out, if they send out any at all. It would also be wise to mix respect in with the challenges. Don’t engage every Shadowbolt directly. Let some appear dominant to you. Move aside for them sometimes, don’t get in their way… don’t be afraid to challenge them back if they come at you though, it will make it more believable. The more gritty you appear, the more convincing it will be, just don’t overdo it. Make it natural.”

“Question,” Playbitz suddenly raised a hoof, bringing all eyes to him. “Won’t it be clear that we’re imposters even with color changes? I mean, don’t the Shadowbolts know their own members?”

“Remember the groups I mentioned?” Starry quickly replied. “You’d be surprised how unwilling some of the Shadowbolts are to work with each other, much less remember each other’s names. It’s all about making a name for yourself, making a living, and not letting anypony get in your way. Granted that nothing with the crystals comes into play, as long as you follow everything I’ve just said, you’ll fit right in.” She cleared her throat and turned to Fire Streak. “That should do it.”

“Indeed, that was a very complete explanation, thank you,” Fire complimented with a nod.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Starry rolled her eyes. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”

“Hold on,” Fire quickly stopped her. “Would you mind staying just a little longer? I’d like to get your opinion on a few things.”

“For the love of… UGH!” Starry groaned before sitting down and brooding. “FINE! Just, seriously! I wasn’t kidding about having things to do!”

“My apologies,” Fire chuckled as he beckoned his squad. “Let’s get these uniforms sorted out.”

As squad three rummaged through the uniforms, Dash glanced over towards squad zero. It had been a while since she had gotten a chance to interact with them. She was curious about how Shine was doing. Both of them had a bunch of idiots to keep under control, but aside from that, the two related well. Not to mention their similar skills and personalities.

With a few minutes to spare, Dash decided to take the chance. They were about to go on a mission together. They had already worked together once, but it was spur of the moment. This was a real, planned out mission.

“A mission with our squads together, huh?” Dash led as she walked up beside Shine. She expected a snarky or confident response, but Shine didn’t say anything, she didn’t even look at her. “Shine?” Dash called her name while tipping her head. “You okay?” She gave Shine a little poke.

“Huh?” Shine looked up at Dash, blinked and shook her head out. “Oh, sorry… Just a little nervous,” she admitted with a weak smile.

“Whoa, wait a second, you? Nervous?” Dash looked her over. That was new. Shine was typically spunky and full of energy just like she was. There was that moment with Silver after they fought off the Shadowbolts where she showed some vulnerability, but that was after taking a beating.

“Our squad is under a lot of pressure, Dash,” Shine explained with a sigh. “We were brought in on high expectations and… we haven’t really delivered.”

“What are you talking about?” Dash reacted. “How can you say that? We’re still alive thanks to you guys. We definitely wouldn’t have gotten the compound started without your help. Hell, Calm saved Rivet and Fleetfoot from taking a hit that might have killed them both.”

“That was more of a miracle though,” Shine chuckled. “Things went to hell and we somehow managed to make it work. Here?” she shook her head. “This is a real operation and a lot of trust is being put in us.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I guess ‘anxious’ would be a better word. We keep getting more and more chances to prove ourselves that I don’t think we deserve. It won’t keep happening forever. If we screw this up, that’s it… I can’t see them trusting us again. I’m surprised they trust us now.”

“You guys can do it,” Dash answered with a scoff and gave Shine a hearty pat on the back. “Keep that chin up, you guys are some of the most impressive ponies I’ve ever seen! The Wonderbolts brought you all in for your natural talents and you stand among the Wonderbolt elites in terms of skill and ability with minimal training.”

“Thanks, but…” Shine frowned, furrowing her brow. “I think it’s become clear it takes more than talent to succeed. We’ve got awesome moves, we’ve got natural talent, but it has yet to really be the answer to any of this. The discipline and the drive of the real elite Wonderbolts has been what’s kept us all alive. We’re just a wild card.” She turned and smiled at Dash. “Sometimes I wish I could have experienced it like you have, Dash.”

“Becoming a Wonderbolt?” Dash asked, just confirming.

“Yeah,” Shine looked up at the ceiling. “Starting from the bottom, being a part of a group who grows and learns together, having great mentors like Soarin and Silver Lining. We didn’t get that. I never thought I’d be a Wonderbolt. I never once considered it, but now that I’m here I see what I could have had, had I tried. I envy you, Dash.”

Dash returned her smile, while also realizing this was the second pony in a few hours to confess envy to her. Did she really have it so good? She had been to hell and back. It wasn’t easy, but she had gained so much, much more she ever would have had she just stayed home, been lazy, and move clouds for a living.

“Instead of having a cushion and working my way through, I’m put on the spot, in command, and under pressure. It’s a little hard to deal with sometimes…” she trailed off as she leaned and looked past Dash, lifting an eyebrow.

Dash looked over her shoulder to see Playbitz trying to be buddy-buddy with Squall… which was kind of working, while Twister kept somehow finding Swift, despite him using his blending in tactics and riding around on him.

“And on top of it, I have to keep these dummies under control,” Shine sighed as they watched Squall growl at Playbitz and Swift turn the tables on Twister.

“I know the feeling too well…” Dash grunted while rubbing her forehead.

It was funny, the more Dash thought about it, the more she felt foxtrot and zero were near parallels of each other. They both had a big, strong bruiser, a pony with a scarred face, a weird or silly pony, and a captain who was brash, confident, and could copy the abilities of her own Squad. It was off just a little bit with Little Star being the odd one out as the fifth on a five member recruit squad, but everything else ran side by side. Their personalities differed a bit, but in terms of function, look, and ability, they were almost mirror images. While their first encounter was… interesting and a little violent, every encounter since they had gotten along just fine. Dash felt this would help them work together now as well.

“So…” Shine suddenly spoke again as she ignored the shenanigans. “About this little connection you have with Soarin…”

Dash’s ears pointed straight up and she flinched. THAT came out of nowhere. And… yeah… Shine had a crush on Soarin, Dash knew this. They had talked about it before, what was she supposed to say here?

“Errrrrrrummmmm…” Dash slurred as she tried to buy time, but Shine only giggled.

“Stop…” she gave Dash a playful jab as she laughed. “I know, I know. I could easily talk about how jealous I am, but I just got done doing that over something else, so I’ll spare you,” she said while sticking her tongue out. “But, really I am…” she snorted and made a funny face. “Look at me being all her-derp, super depressing right now!” she continued as Dash snickered at her face.

“Hey, look…” Dash put a hoof on Shine’s shoulder as she slowly stopped chuckling. “I know we’ve been through this, but I want you to know I don’t feel threatened by you or anything…” Dash honestly didn’t know what else to say, and felt a little awkward.

“Hey, it’s simple,” Shine ceased the goofiness in favor of sounding genuine. “It doesn’t matter how much I like him. He chose you, he loves you, he’s happy. Besides… I’m willing to admit my infatuation with him is more of a… girlish celebrity crush. But hey,” her face turned goofy again, looking up while biting her lip and blushing. “Can you blame me? That handsome face… those muscles… that plot… eh hehehe…” she giggled as Dash stifled a laugh by puffing up her cheeks.

“Hey now… that’s enough,” Dash waved her hoof sheepishly while starting to blush a little herself. “Though I won’t disagree…”

“But really…” Shine replaced her blushy face with a smile. “I do care about him. I’ve been so tense and under pressure since coming here and he’s done nothing but make me feel welcome and comfortable. He’s always been so nice, greeting me with a smile despite our controversial status in the ranks. He really has helped me a lot… I can’t help but feel a little flushed and giddy when he’s around. And that’s exactly why I hope he’s okay. He’s a special stallion, Dash.”

“He definitely is…” Dash agreed with a warm smile while putting a hoof over her heart. “And he’ll come back. So what if a mountain fell on him, that’s not enough to hold that stubborn doofus down.”

Shine returned Dash’s smile, but suddenly perked up as she felt something tap her shoulder. She looked to her right, but there was nothing. She immediately flattened her brow.

“Swift…” she grumbled as an invisible snicker sounded from nearby. Dash shook her head.

“I guess for now we’ll just have to deal with—”

HONK

Dash yelped and angrily looked behind her as Twister scurried off with a clown horn, flailing his arms.

Dash and Shine looked at each other and both shrugged.

“Is this the right room?!”

Rivet’s voice suddenly came from behind them. All eyes turned to see him grunt and scrunch his face.

“Finally!” he sighed as he walked in. “I’d appreciate more specific directions next time, I looked in every barracks for you guys.” Rivet had his work goggles propped up on his forehead. He was covered in oil and grease marks, looking like he was literally just pulled away from his work on short notice. He had a pair of Shadowbolt goggles dangling around one of his wings.

“Ah, Rivet!” Fire Streak acknowledged him as he entered. “I hope our requests weren’t too much trouble.”

Rivet shook his head as he walked past Dash and Shine towards Fire Streak.

“It was no problem, all but one of the projectors were still in one piece. It only took a moment to replace the broken parts. I’m having my staff move them into the lobby as we speak,” he explained as he opened his wing and dropped the pair of Shadowbolt goggles into his hoof. “I was able to—”

HONK

He was interrupted by another blast from Twister’s clown horn. He blinked and looked over in time to see Dash taking a swipe at Twister while scolding him. Swift appeared behind Shine, ready to rest his hooves on her head again, but Playbitz pulled him away and put him in a headlock at the last second.

Rivet lifted an eyebrow and shook his head before turning back to Fire.

“I was able to enhance this pair of goggles with the experimental x-ray technology as requested, though I admit it was a little difficult with the smaller, different shape. I didn’t have time to fully test it, but it should work as long as you don’t get too rough with them.” He reached out and handed the pair of goggles to Fire Streak, who held them up and looked them over.

“Ah, I see. The controls are all in the same place,” he nodded as he eyed the small buttons and switches on the sides. “Thank you, Rivet.”

“No problem, now I need to—”

“Hey! Rivet!” Lucky suddenly popped his head in from the door. “The lever cable snapped again!”

“What?!” Rivet’s jaw dropped as the rest looked between Rivet and the former mail pony. They all figured it had something to do with repairing the compound’s flight mechanisms. “Who keeps breaking it?!” Rivet fumed before pointing at Lucky. “Tell those idiots not to touch anything else on the bridge before I can get back up there!”

“You’re the boss!” Lucky gave a wave before quickly heading back out. Rivet sighed and turned back to Fire Streak.

“Anything else you need from me?” he asked with a tone of frustration. Fire chuckled and shook his head.

“No, that will be all… you look like you’ve got your hooves full,” Fire commented as Rivet rolled his eyes.

“You have no idea…” he replied before spreading his wings and taking off towards the door in a hurry.

Fire streak took another look at the pair of enhanced goggles before looking around at everypony and smiling confidently.

“Alright, time to suit up,” he nodded. Everypony stepped forward and sat down nearby to receive a uniform. Princess Luna also came forward, ready and waiting to use her magic for the cosmetic changes. She flinched after taking a few steps as Twister appeared right before her, bent over in a pleading manner.

“MAKE ME PRETTY!!!” he whined with a feminine tone, his eyes donning fake eyelashes. As he grabbed her arm and shook it. Luna tried to back away, an uneasy look written all over her face, but she only dragged him along with him.

“Dammit, Twister!” Dash groaned as he continued to misbehave. “Please respect the Princess’ personal space!” Dash ordered. Twister shifted beside Luna and motioned to her.

“BUT SHE TAKES UP SO MUCH!” he cackled as his head tipped to the right and kept turning until it was upside down.

“EXCUSE US?!” Luna reacted in shock as she glared down at Twister, but he vanished seconds later.

Dash didn’t even look. She just thrust her hoof out to the side. Twister’s face ran directly into it, thwarting another attempt to blow the clown horn in her face. At the same time, Shine reached out into thin air and wrapped her arm around something. Swift became visible in her grip, gasping as Shine held him in a headlock.

“Swift… that’s enough,” Shine narrowed her eyes at him.

“Just… practicing… for… the… mission!” Swift sputtered in her grip.

“Right…” Shine rolled her eyes and let go, letting Swift drop right to the floor.

“HEY!” Surprise bounced over to them. “Silly things are going on over here! I like it!” she beamed, but then dropped Shadowbolt uniforms at Dash and Shine’s hooves. “It’ll be even sillier when we put these on!” She kept beaming as she turned and bounced away to put on one of her own.

“Well… here goes,” Dash said to herself as she picked up the Shadowbolt uniform.

The moment she held it in her hooves it didn’t feel right. She stared at it for a long time before even looking for the holes to put it on. Sure, the Renegades wore an altered version of it, but no matter how many times she looked at it, she associated it with the enemy. And now… she was going to be wearing it. How ironic.

She looked around to see she was the only one who hadn’t started yet, so she pushed her inner thoughts aside and turned the suit around until she found where to start. She slowly, awkwardly slipped her limbs in first, pulling the suit up her body with her teeth until she had it around her back and up to her chest. She felt herself shivering as she continued. Why so much hesitation? Did it really feel that wrong? She found her mind slowly turning to something…

Nightshade.

The memories were ever fresh and still disturbing. Nightshade’s involvement in the current situation or if she was even alive had still yet to be determined, but the fact remained that this all began through her or at least with her as an extension. Wearing the same uniform as her was going to look weird and feel wrong. Was she the only one who felt that way?

As she readied to stretch the mask over her head, she looked up.

Everypony else was already fully dressed…

Yeah, she was the only one. Dash took a deep breath, and pulled the Shadowbolt mask over her head. She closed her eyes as the latex nestled down against her fur, waiting a moment or two before opening her eyes.

Despite how she felt during the process… in the end she felt fine. In fact, her interest was instantly drawn away as she examined everypony around her. It looked so backwards it was almost funny.

Starry Skies, out of interest she couldn’t hide, was up and walking around while examining the Wonderbolts in Shadowbolt garb. She stopped right in front of Squall, who had sat right back down after putting on his issued uniform as if nothing had changed. He wasn’t wearing the flight mask.

“Damn,” Starry cracked a smirk as she looked Squall over. “I don’t even think we need the color change with you, you look like the genuine article, that scar really sells it.”

Squall replied by scowling at her and growling as if she was making light of him. Starry lifted an eyebrow and pointed.

“Exactly, keep up that attitude and they won’t suspect a damn thing,” she acknowledged. Squall’s expression quickly lightened when he realized he played right into it. He grunted and looked away as if interested in something else.

“Hey!” Playbitz scooted over to Starry and pointed to his scars. “How about me? Pretty mean looking badass, huh?” he bounced his eyebrows. Starry just stared at him before lifting her brow with an unamused expression.

“No, you still look like a goober,” she flatly commented before turning and moving on.

“Awwww…” Playbitz forced a depressed tone as Fire Streak took the center of attention once more.

“Good fits? Everypony comfortable?” he asked as he went around. He stopped in front of Dash as she looked at him with a smirk. Fire tipped his head curiously while sending a smirk of his own right back. “Why the look, Miss Dash?”

“Oh, nothing…” Dash shook her head while chuckling. “It’s just…” she looked past him towards Lightning Streak, Misty Fly, and Surprise. “It’s so weird seeing top elite Wonderbolts wearing Shadowbolt uniforms.”

Fire Streak looked over his shoulder at his Squad as they all examined each other. Misty and Surprise had their masks pulled down already and were looking themselves over. Surprise pulled a mirror out of nowhere and slammed it down before wiggling her plot at it.

“Hmmmmmmmmm…” Surprise hummed while narrowing her eyes to give it a careful examination. “Does this color make my butt look big?”

“I dunno,” Lightning Streak began no less than half a second after she asked, leaning back towards her plot. “Lemme take a closer look—OW!” he yelped as Misty Fly grabbed him by the tail and yanked him away, easily deducing by his motions alone what was going on. “Sheesh,” Lightning scratched the back of his head as Misty glared at him. “I just can’t win…”

Misty gave him a stern nod before turning and flashing one of her usual cute, bright smiles… which completely and utterly clashed with the Shadowbolt uniform and mask.

“Yes…” Fire Streak chuckled as he turned back to Dash. “It does look quite interesting, doesn’t it?”

“And unconvincing,” Starry Skies sharply cut in as she approached Fire and Dash. “You’ve impressed me with how many details are being covered, but…” she looked over at the rest of squad three. “You guys look way too happy, are you sure you can pull this off?”

“Oh…?” Fire smirked while leaning slightly closer to Starry and giving her smug eyes. Starry leaned back slightly in disgust, but before she could react, Fire turned away and approached Misty Fly.

Misty’s eyes naturally brightened and her tail swished back and forth across the floor when she saw Fire approaching her. Her eyes quickly changed and focused as Fire sat down, unfolded his wings, and held his arms up. He pointed to Starry, touched and slid his hoof from the back of his chin to the front, and then held his arms out in front, chopping his hooves diagonally downward below his chest.

Misty blinked and leaned to her right, taking a long, careful look at a confused Starry Skies. She lifted an eyebrow before sitting back down and focusing on Fire. She smiled as she pointed a hoof to her chest, then tapped her hooves to the edges of her chest, and then pointed at the floor while shooting him a wink. Fire nodded and subtly shifted aside.

The moment Fire had cleared a lane between Misty and Starry, Misty launched herself from her spot, wings spread and gliding as she zoomed towards Starry.

“WHAT THE?!” Starry shuffled her hooves and squared herself up, crossing her hooves in front to guard as Misty rammed her.

Gasps rang out from everypony else as they stood up or backed away from the sudden clash.

“GRH!” Starry growled as she planted her back hooves. They skidded along the floor as Misty forced her backwards and all the way to the wall, crashing against it roughly. Starry opened her eyes and glared, but was met with the terrifying face of Misty.

Misty was baring her teeth, growling and snarling loudly from the back of her throat. Her face was completely scrunched into a terrifying scowl that made Dash and the others outside of squad three cringe in fright.

After a hapless struggle, Starry failing to remove herself from the wall or push back against Misty, Misty suddenly let up. She shed the horrific expression in an instant and pulled Starry off the wall while grinning confidently. Misty couldn’t speak, but every bit of her expression screamed ‘how about that?’

Starry flattened her brow and snorted, but then turned to Fire and nodded.

“Alright…” she sighed and pointed at Misty. “That was pretty damn convincing.”

Misty turned to Fire, hoping to get confirmation on what Starry said. Fire simply gave her a nod and a wink. Misty smiled brightly while clapping her hooves together victoriously.

“This is part of our act, Starry,” Fire explained while walking up and sitting beside Misty. “We’re experts at getting into character at a moment’s notice.”

Surprise suddenly zipped right past Starry and rammed herself into Fire’s side.

“Ooof!” Fire grunted and barely stopped himself from falling flat. He looked up in time to see Surprise directly in front of his face.

“HEY!” she yelled, her voice slightly deeper with a raspy tone. “I heard you like shit talking behind my back!”

Fire didn’t miss a beat. He puffed his chest out and stomped up to Surprise, butting heads with her.

“Oh yeah?!” Fire shot back, his voice free of the usual gentlestallion softness. “I just say it how it is!”

Starry flinched as Lightning Streak grabbed her by the shoulder, pushing her aside as he trudged up to Fire and Surprise.

“YO!” he yelled, his voice altered to sound much harsher than his usual casual tone. “WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT MY MARE?!”

Fire shoved Surprise aside and reached up, grabbing the neck of Lightning’s Shadowbolt uniform and tugging it towards him.

“You want a piece of me, ass-clown?!” Fire barked into his face.

Dash was watching with her jaw dropped and her ears flopped down. This looked so very, very wrong… It was so unbelievably out of character for all of them… but that was the point wasn’t it?

“Bring it!” Lightning Streak barked right back at his twin as the two thrust at each other and locked their arms, grappling, grunting, and growling as Surprise cheered behind them.

“Tear his ugly wings and face off!” Surprise shouted while pumping her arms into the air. As they continued to fight for dominance, Misty suddenly stepped in and grabbed them both around the necks. She thrust them both to the floor in a way that looked both incredibly rough and painful. Fire and Lightning struggled under her grip, but she delivered several ‘kicks’ to both of them, which they reacted to as if really being hit.

After a few more seconds, they all froze in place.

“Well…?” Fire turned his head to show he had not taken any serious hit at all despite how hard Misty threw him down. “How was that?” he asked as Misty let him up. He stood up with Misty, Surprise, and Lightning Streak all smiling beside him.

Everypony else, Starry, Luna, Foxtrot, and Zero… all just stared with wide eyes and nearly unhinged jaws.

“I dunno bro, I think we knocked ‘em dead!” Lightning laughed while reaching a hoof over to Surprise. Surprise giggled and accepted the hoof bump before they both exchanged one with Misty as well.

“Uh…” Starry was speechless. In fact, she looked like she was trying to avoid smiling. “Wow… that was pretty accurate. Well…” she scratched her head. “Maybe it was a little much for an everyday scuffle, but make no mistake, I’ve seen fights like that happen. I’d keep the intensity down a tad just in case. You may pull other Shadowbolts in otherwise. But… DAMN!” she sounded completely convinced now. “You weren’t kidding… that was pretty damn good.”

“It’s what we do,” Fire bowed, prompting Lightning Surprise, and Misty to all bow as well.

“Keep that up. The ‘never back down’ mindset will help you blend in, but like I said, keep in mind to respect some as well, especially if you come across one of their commanders,” Starry added a few more tips before turning to the rest, who will still staring in awe. “You see what they just did guys? Take mental notes and do the same, it may just be the difference between life and death.”

“And on that note,” Fire cleared his throat and turned to Luna, pulling up the flight mask and strapping the pair of X-ray goggles over the top of his head and moving them into place. “Everypony gear up and gather around.”

“Time for makeup! Woo!” Surprise squealed giddily as the rest came forward.

Dash gulped as she took her place beside the rest and Fire gave the nod to Princess Luna. Now on top of wearing the uniform, they were going to be given a color change as well. Dash was very proud of her appearance, more so than most knew. The rainbow mane was something she flaunted with pride, but obviously, it would completely give her away in this instance. It was only temporary, but it would still be weird. She took a deep breath as Luna closed her eyes and her horn began to glow.

As Luna built up her spell, Dash kept her eyes on the blue light. It reminded her of Soarin, even though it was a slightly different shade. He had loosely been on her mind the whole time, but couldn’t help but wonder how he was faring. She hadn’t felt any other magic strains in her spirit. She could only hope he had found safety.

Soarin would be fine, which she told herself over and over again. She believed in him, and knew he would come back… besides, he would want her to focus on her responsibilities and duties. That’s something he liked about her after all, she was determined and focused. So… she put her faith in him and set her mind to the task at hoof, waiting for Luna’s spell.

A few moments later, Luna opened her eyes, a dark blue light shining from them as the glow around her horn intensified. She lowered her head to point her horn at the group and a wide beam of blue light extended forth.

They all stood completely still as the light surrounded them and moved up and down them. Luna exhaled and brought her head back up, the glow from her horn and the light all fading.

“There we go,” Luna nodded with a smile.

Dash blinked and looked down at her exposed hoof… it was… yellow?

She looked up, but before she could examine anypony else, her eyes landed on Starry, who stared in disbelief.

“Whoa…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

First two images in this chapter are by: Foxenawolf

third image is by kikirdcz

fourth image by: Scootafail

Oh isn't this gonna be FUN?!:pinkiecrazy:

And wow, i really forgot how much i like writing squad three, it's been a while since i've given them focus as a group. I'm going to have a lot of fun with this whole sequence :scootangel:

And awwwwww. Silver can't help but treat Dash like the daughter he never had, as much as he tries to look tough and gruff about it :rainbowlaugh:

And fleet... stahp, i can't breathe.

If it felt like this chapter ended abruptly, thats because, as i have mentioned, i decided to break off the section i had planned for Soarin and Rapidfire in this chapter. I instead want that to be it's own chapter (it's only 6000 words, but believe me, it would have completely overshadowed the events you all just read... which i didnt want to happen.)

Chapter 113 is done, im just waiting on some art for it. But thats fine, i wanted to make sure everyone had the weekend to read this long chapter first :twilightsmile: And i've already started on chapter 114 :pinkiecrazy: Huzzah for productivity! :twistnerd:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :eeyup:

Chapter 132: Guardians of the Night

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 132: Guardians of the Night

The Wonderbolts all stood attention, immediately heeding Spitfire’s call as she paced back and forth, gathering her thoughts.

“We have a number of things to address right now,” she began as she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “First and foremost, we need to help Silver. I need a small group, preferably with one of the larger Wonderbolts, to transport Silver back to the Nimbus and get him to Bliss. I don’t know how much she can do for him, but he needs any treatment she can give him immediately.”

Everypony glanced around as she explained, most of them thinking the same thing. Fire was the one who eventually spoke his mind.

“But… Captain,” he took a step forward. “What about—”

“The Lunar Guard?” she finished for him. “I’ll get to that in a second, but Silver is obviously not an option for them anymore. Let’s see…” she trailed off as she looked around at all the available ponies. The Renegades were definitely an option, but none of the former Wonderbolts were present. None of the Renegade Shadowbolts Descent had brought along fit the preferred criteria for transport. But even if they did… she wanted Silver to have Wonderbolts with him. After another brief glance around, she perked up and leaned to her right. “Squad Zero! Come here!” she beckoned them.

The elites and Squad Foxtrot all moved aside to let Squad Zero to the front. They all stood attention once forward, but it looked a little awkward. Spitfire didn’t notice immediately.

“Listen up, I want you four to take Silver back to the Nimbus as quickly and gently as you can. Load him up on…” she paused as she finally noticed them nervously fidgeting. She tipped her head and lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

“We’re screwed…” Swift mumbled quietly, getting a face full of feathers right after as Playbitz extended one of his large wings and smacked him in the face with it. Shine, Calm, and Playbitz all held their mouths shut and tried to remain perfectly still as Swift coughed and spat Playbitz’s feathers out of his mouth. Spitfire tipped her head in the other direction, conveniently switching which eyebrow was up in the same motion.

“We… uh…” Shine spoke up as she averted her eyes. “We didn’t…” She swallowed. “Do a very good job of following them like you asked…” she admitted with a painful tone of shame, the rest cringing as she dutifully reported their performance.

But Spitfire only blinked once before holding up a hoof.

“Stop,” she shook her head. “What’s done is done. I’ll get the details later, but don’t worry about it right now. There is no one pony to blame for everything that just happened… we are all carrying fault and we’re going to have to live with it. For now, let’s keep our focus on the task at hoof.”

Several ears pointed up as those words came out of Spitfire’s mouth. Specifically, ‘We are all carrying fault.’

Soarin in particular, watched her carefully as she continued to address Squad Zero, noticing a clear distinct difference from how she was acting not long before. She had been expressing such a difference since she arrived, but to hear her openly acknowledge a mistake was the most unexpected development yet. Soarin wondered what had happened back at the Nimbus after he had left.

“Now please…” Spitfire continued as she stepped up and placed a hoof on Shine’s shoulder. “Forget about anything that went wrong, what’s important right now is Silver.” She made a single head motion towards Silver. “Now load him up on Calm’s back and get him to Bliss, on the double!” she finished with a nod.

“Yes, ma’am!” Squad Zero finished with strangely high exuberance as if they had been given a second chance at life.

But as the exchange finished, the ponies of Squad Zero were not the only ones to move. Spitfire was surprised at first, but quickly calmed down as every elite and every member of Squad Foxtrot moved by her quickly, all of them gathering around to help or be close to Silver as the process began.

Calm walked up beside Silver and lowered himself down. Shine, Swift, and Playbitz were the first to reach for Silver, but they all pulled back as the Streak twins came forward, Fire by Silver’s head, Lightning by Silver’s back hooves. High Winds and Misty Fly both bent down and shimmied their hooves underneath Silver’s back from the side as the Streaks gingerly supported his head and flank, keeping his body as straight as possible.

Dash stepped up, wanting desperately to help too, but stopped when she saw Silver already surrounded by the four elites. She bit her lip, her ears flopping down, but relaxed when she felt a wing drape over her back. She glanced to her left briefly to see Soarin standing beside her, his wing gently pressing down against her as the rest of the Wonderbolts worked to help Silver.

“Alright, on three…” Fire spoke up, bobbing his head as he began a countdown to keep Misty on rhythm with them. “One… Two… Three!”

The four of them began lifting Silver very slowly.

“RRGGHHH!!!” Silver grunted the instant they began, all of them flinching and freezing, gritting their teeth as they felt him cringe and watched him breath heavily. Silver’s good eye slowly opened, the eyelids only parting just enough for him to see through. His eye shifted up and down, back and forth, getting a good view of what was going on around him.

The look in his eye said it all… he wanted badly to make some sort of sarcastic comment or tell them to just get on with it, but he had gotten to a point where rest was the only message his brain was sending.

Lightning looked up at Fire, their eyes meeting for a moment before they exchanged a brief nod.

“Alright, let’s keep going…” Fire said reluctantly. “Slowly… slowly…” They continued picking Silver up, eventually getting him in a position where his painful reactions weren’t quite as harsh, but it was a gruesome sight for the rest nonetheless. After getting Silver up, Blaze and Surprise trotted over to the other side of Calm, ready to reach out and balance Silver as they moved him up over and onto Calm’s back.

It was a long, rough process, but eventually they had Silver placed on Calm’s back as comfortably as they could manage. With the task complete, they all took a moment to reach out and touch Silver softly, each one of them offering words of encouragement and acknowledgement and letting Silver know they were keeping him in their thoughts. Dash slipped out from under Soarin’s wing, moving forward with Storm, Squall, and Matteo to do the same. Soarin followed right behind Dash, Air Mach slowly limping his way up to him as well as Spitfire remained behind, watching with pride at how the others showed great respect for Silver.

Spitfire tipped her head and blinked as she noticed only one pony not gathering with the rest. Fleetfoot was sitting slightly behind them all. Something looked off about her. It was also strange because while her suit looked absolutely mangled, torn, and ruined, her body didn’t look too damaged. How did her suit get so messed up without her having visible injuries of matching severity? She didn’t have a long enough window to examine her further though. The Wonderbolts all stepped back as the other three members of squad Zero came together, Shine taking a moment to speak to them as they prepped for takeoff.

Spitfire took the opportunity to look over the others and assess them. She wanted to get to Fleetfoot, but the others were just as beaten up. They still had a mission to complete, and she would take as many Wonderbolts as possible… but only if they were ready, able, and capable of going on.

And one pony for sure didn’t look like he fit that description.

“Air Mach,” Spitfire spoke up as she trotted forward and stopped in front of him. Air Mach was in the middle of sitting down as she approached. The moment he heard his name, he forced himself to stand upright and tried to suppress any signs of struggling… but he failed miserably. His suit was heavily torn up, much like Fleetfoot’s but the gaps in his revealed several nasty bruises and other wounds. He looked more beat up than any of them, leading Spitfire to believe he had likely tried leaping at Nightshade by himself at some point and paid the price. Spitfire felt the answer was obvious, but she asked anyway to let him get a word in. “Can you fly?” she asked.

“HA!” he smiled while pointing upwards. “CAN I FLY?! What kind of question is… oh… ow… ah…” he suddenly shivered and his arm fell right down at his side, his wings twitched furiously as he lowered himself down onto his plot and cringed. “Cramp… cramp, cramp, cramp, ow, ow, ow…”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Spitfire answered for him. He clearly didn’t like it, releasing a heavy sigh.

“Damn it…” he cursed, grumbling quietly to himself. Air Mach was tough as nails and prided himself on ignoring pain, but he finally met his match. There was no way he was going to continue on with them. Spitfire decided to make the call for him, but took quick note of the rest first, her eyes landing specifically on Blaze and High Winds. The two of them and Rainbow Dash were the only ones still close to Silver. After quickly thinking it over, Spitfire decided it would be best for them.

“Blaze, High Winds,” she called to them, both of them taking a moment or two to finally pry their eyes away from Silver and look towards Spitfire. Spitfire waved a hoof at them before pointing at Air Mach. “I want you two to do me a favor, grab Air Mach here and follow behind Squad Zero. Once you’re back at the Nimbus, and Air Mach has the help he needs, I want you two to stay by Silver’s side. Got it?”

There was a brief pause as the two mares simply stared for a moment before replying.

“Yes, ma’am…” they answered together in a less than jubilant tone. It was clear where they wanted to be, and Spitfire was willing to grant them that, but the same thing could be said for somepony else…

Dash was still staring at Silver. She pulled her eyes away once upon hearing the order for Blaze and High Winds, but went right back to Silver as she thought over what the two other mares had been told.

Dash… wanted to stay with Silver.

“I’ll come too,” she decided as she took a step towards Silver. But…

“No,” Spitfire’s voice stopped her dead in her tracks. She froze, wanting to retort, but said nothing as Spitfire slowly approached from behind. “I know why you want to Dash… but that’s all I'm willing to spare right now. I want the rest of you with me until we figure out our next move.”

“But…” Dash bit her lip and shut her eyes tight. it came down to a fight between her feelings, and her duty. She didn’t want to leave Silver’s side, not for a single moment, but there was also much to be done and she couldn’t just walk away from it.

“D...Dash…”

Dash’s ears stood up and her eyes shot open wide as the raspy voice came from nearby. Her eyes immediately landed on Silver atop Calm’s back. Calm was looking over his shoulder and the rest of Squad Zero had leaned over upon hearing him speak as well.

“S-Silver?!” Dash stepped right up to him, reaching a hoof up to Calm’s back, but stopping as she saw Silver’s head turned and his good eye trained on her. Despite the weakened look he wore all over, there was a certain stern air rising forth from his gaze.

“Do… as the captain… says…” Silver sputtered, taking heavy, wheezing breaths. “I’ll be waiting… at the Nimbus…” he moved his head back and forth once, failing to shake it. “I’m not… going… anywhere…”

Dash gritted her teeth as she watched him struggle, it was almost too much for her to bear. But it was still Silver. And any order, request, or suggestion from Silver was something she would always follow no matter what. It had become second nature to her, and especially now, after what he put on the line for her and all of them, there was NO WAY she was going to say no to him.

“Alright…” Dash nodded, reaching up and gently touching a hoof to Silver’s shoulder and gave it an even gentler squeeze. “I’ll come find you the moment I get back… okay?” she reassured him.

Silver simply gave a nod in response. A reply that was more than enough for her because she wanted him to rest and save his strength.

Soarin watched as Dash stepped back and Calm slowly rose up off the ground, standing up while holding Silver steady. Soarin let Dash and Silver have their moment, waiting patiently and looking around at the others. He glanced towards Spitfire, still curious about what had driven such a sharp change in her behavior. She was currently speaking with the other Wonderbolts and had just finished talking to Blaze and High Winds as they prepared to take off with Air Mach in tow.

Soarin flinched and blinked as Spitfire suddenly turned away and looked directly at him. Soarin wanted to avert his eyes, but her look of concern prevented him. He watched as Spitfire looked back at Air Mach briefly before turning back to Soarin and making her way over.

Soarin knew exactly what was coming, and based on what he had just pulled, sneaking out and defying orders, he didn’t see any real argument he could give to plead his case. He sighed heavily and grunted as Spitfire stopped right in front of him.

“You don’t have to say it,” Soarin said while shaking his head and looking away from her. “I’ll head back too…” he said in a slightly defeated tone. It hurt his pride to cave so easily, but again, he had no right to defend himself after such an inexcusable blunder.

“No,” Spitfire replied simply and quickly. Soarin blinked rapidly before turning his head back to her.

“Huh?” He tipped his head curiously as Spitfire shook her head.

“I want you here. I’m still not sure how many of us are going to be at my disposal. I just wanted to check on you. From what I saw, you were trapped before you could do any fighting… are you unhurt?”

Soarin was speechless. He definitely wanted an explanation when the opportunity presented itself.

“Uh… yeah, I’m fine… I was violated a little, but did not engage in any combat,” he explained, but he could see Spitfire looking directly at the fake horn. “Yes, I know… a little piece chipped off of it, but otherwise I’m fine…”

“Alright,” Spitfire nodded without any argument, but quickly noticed the odd look Soarin was giving her. “What?”

“Er… nothing,” Soarin shook his head. “I’m just surprised you’re, you know… okay with me being here after…” he reached a hoof up and let it sway back and forth, trying to indicate their quarrels without actually bringing them up.

“We’ll talk about that later,” Spitfire acknowledged him, but it sounded more sincere than it did stern. “Be ready, once I have the others on their way and I get a better idea of how everypony else fares, we’re going to continue on to meet the Lunar Guard,” she said as she pointed at him and turned away.

Soarin had nothing. Spitfire was… well, it wasn’t fair to say she was acting ‘differently.’ In fact, she was acting more like she usually did before the pressure of the current conflict was thrust down upon her shoulders. What had caused her to turn back around so quickly? Despite his curiosity, it didn’t matter how. It was simply uplifting and refreshing. The bottomless pit of stress that Spitfire seemed to be in throughout was clearly taking an extreme toll on her. As her best friend, it had been hard for Soarin to watch, not to mention it was negatively affecting him and the rest as well. He hoped it wasn’t just spur of the moment… because he knew Spitfire… and if she was back to her old self, it would be an enormous boon for all of them.

Soarin turned and looked to Dash as she finally stepped back from Silver, giving the departing Wonderbolts space as Spitfire moved up between all of them and began looking around, getting her bearings. Soarin quickly shifted and walked up to Dash. He didn’t say a word to her, but the moment she saw him by her side she learned over and pressed her cheek into his shoulder.

“Ah, this way,” Spitfire pointed. “That’s the direction we came from, follow it, fly high, and stay alert, you’ll eventually find the Nimbus. It’s hard to miss. The canyon we landed in is easily the biggest one in the area.”

As Spitfire explained the path to the departing groups, Soarin kept his focus on Dash, draping his arm over her back and rubbing her opposite shoulder. Dash’s eyes were fixed on Silver and didn’t leave him, even once Calm started moving.

“Get going!” Spitfire encouraged as Squad Zero took flight. Blaze and High Winds followed right behind, supporting Air Mach with one of them above and one of them below him as they lifted off.

Dash’s eyes remained locked on squad Zero, staying on them even as Spitfire turned and walked back towards them, passing by Soarin and Dash while giving them a brief glance. She said nothing, giving Dash all the time she needed to keep an eye on her mentor until the departing groups were gone from sight.

Even when they were all gone from view, Dash still stared out into the distance for another moment or two. Soarin blinked and looked down as he felt an extra, gentle pressure on his hoof he had over her. She had reached up and was giving it a light squeeze.

Dash took a deep breath, finally pulling her eyes away and glancing up at Soarin for a moment, the two simply staring into each other’s eyes as if Soarin’s eyes were now the only source of immediate comfort for her. But Dash didn’t let the moment completely consume her. Silver was taken care of for the time being. Now it was time to refocus and await Spitfire’s orders.

“Fleetfoot?” Spitfire’s voice met both of their ears as they turned to join with the rest. “Where did Fleetfoot go?”

The two of them turned around to see Spitfire looking back and forth between Squad Three and Foxtrot. Just as Spitfire’s words suggested, she was not among the others gathered. Dash looked around as well. In fact, she was hoping she found Fleetfoot first, because based on what she had witnessed during the encounter with Nightshade… Fleetfoot was likely distancing herself for a reason.

Dash blinked and leaned to look by Soarin, spotting Fleetfoot sitting with her back turned to the rest, off to the right and slightly hidden behind a rock. She was still wearing what remained of her completely ripped and mangled suit, pulling on a loose piece of the spandex gently with one of her hooves. Spitfire had still not seen her yet, walking among the other Wonderbolts and looking completely in the wrong direction as they started looking as well.

“Oh, there she is,” Soarin suddenly spoke up while pointing and turning. Dash immediately sprang into action. She hopped out and placed herself in front of him, reaching a hoof and touching to his chest. Soarin stopped and looked down at her as she stood in his way.

“No, let me go,” she suggested.

“Huh? Why?” Soarin asked while tipping his head. “She’s my friend too, you know.”

“I know, but…” Dash shook her head. “Just trust me.”

Soarin looked at her carefully as he shifted his eyes to Fleetfoot again.

“Actually,” Dash continued while leaning to look towards the rest of the Wonderbolts and Spitfire. “Keep Spitfire busy for me, will you?”

“Okay… what’s this about?” Soarin narrowed his eyes, clearly demanding an answer since it involved one of his close friends. Dash pouted and glared at him.

“This is for HER sake, not some secret between us,” Dash put her hoof down. “Now go distract Spitfire.” She pressed, but Soarin didn’t budge. So she took a different approach, she softened her eyes, let her ears flop down, and gave him a sad look. “Please?”

“SNRK…” Soarin immediately snorted and puffed his cheeks out. “Okay… because of that utterly failed attempt to sway me with cuteness, I’ll do it.”

“Hey!” Dash huffed as Soarin patted her on the head.

“Face it Dash, I know you too well, now go. I’ll do what I can, but I’ll make no promises. You know how Spitfire is,” he finished, ruffled her mane, and turned to make his way towards and hopefully stall Spitfire.

“Jackass…” Dash grumbled with a smirk as she reached up and smoothed out her mane before turning and moving towards Fleetfoot.

She took a deep breath and centered her thoughts on what she was about to address. There was nothing to smile about with it, so she got her chuckles from Soarin out of her system before getting serious. Fleetfoot was likely to be scarred by the… ‘experience’ Nightshade gave her for a long time to come. As the only pony who witnessed it and heard everything said, Dash felt a strong responsibility to do whatever she could to support her. Fleetfoot was one of the few elites that she always felt comfortable and casual around despite rank, a friend before a superior officer. It was time to be that friend for her.

She slowly approached, but didn’t sneak or lighten her steps, she wanted Fleetfoot to be aware somepony was approaching. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say or do exactly, but just being there for her would be a good start. A good way to handle it would be to let Fleetfoot speak first to make sure she was willing to do so. Then from there she could decide if it was necessary to offer any words of comfort or if she just needed a friend’s presence to listen.

Dash took another deep breath and readied to call her name quietly.

“FLEETFOOT!”

Dash flinched as Spitfire’s voice shouted from nearby. Dash cringed as she watched Fleetfoot visibly twitch and release a very high pitched, nearly inaudible squeak and she disappeared completely behind the rock. Dash glanced to her left to see Spitfire moving quickly towards Fleetfoot, not even noticing Dash as she trotted towards her.

Dash’s ears flattened out as she looked further to her left to see Soarin slowing down and stopping while gritting his teeth and wincing. He turned his eyes towards Dash, meeting her stare of disapproval. He just shook his head and shrugged, more or less admitting that he instantly failed to do exactly what Dash asked him to do.

Spitfire, completely unaware of why Fleetfoot was acting the way she was acting, moved all the way around the rock. She stopped in front of her and looked down, slightly bewildered at why Fleetfoot was sitting down and hunched over in a way that looked incredibly weak and hesitant.

“Are… you okay, Fleet?” she asked. Fleetfoot didn’t answer. She just stared up at Spitfire with wide, slightly traumatized eyes. Spitfire blinked, tipping her head slightly. “How are you faring?” she continued, hoping for an answer and hoping to get the ball rolling on their task. “Are you able to fly?”

Dash bit her lip as she continued towards the two of them, noticing how much the situation was already deteriorating. Spitfire was completely oblivious and Fleetfoot wasn’t going to answer… she had to save her.

Fleetfoot, as Dash predicted, didn’t say a word. She just kept staring up at Spitfire for several moments. As Dash grew closer she noticed Fleetfoot began looking down at Spitfire’s body too, moving her eyes over it a few times before returning her eyes to Spitfire’s face and pulling her head back, looking ashamed while releasing a muffled, closed-mouth sound that resembled a wail.

At that point it was beyond clear to Spitfire that something wasn’t right. It was written all over Spitfire’s face, which prompted Dash to pick up her pace before it could go any further. Spitfire was completely unaware that she was inadvertently part of what was bothering Fleetfoot.

“Fleet…?” Spitfire asked as she stepped forward, furrowing her brow as Fleetfoot started looking at her body again. “What’s wrong?” Spitfire looked down at her chest, wondering what had Fleetfoot so interested.

“Spitfire! Er… Captain!” Dash called out as she finally reached them. Spitfire took a moment before she turned her head towards Dash. She watched as Dash swiftly stepped in front of her, putting herself between her and Fleetfoot while holding up a hoof and giving her a slightly awkward look. “You… Um…” she was shooting from the hip, looking for anything that might convince Spitfire to back off.

“What happened to her?” Spitfire asked with concern as she tried to look around Dash, but she shifted to prevent her while opening her wings. “Rainbow Dash…” she said her name with a flat, stern tone. Dash swallowed and shook her head, finding only one word that could really describe the situation.

“Nightshade,” Dash said before shutting her mouth and holding her breath. Spitfire blinked and lifted an eyebrow.

“Elaborate please,” Spitfire ordered, but they both flinched as Fleetfoot released another helpless noise.

“She… uh…” Dash slammed her eyes shut. “She…” she paused took a breath. “Please, Captain. Not now, give her some space… please?” Dash asked. Her voice filled with worry for the shivering mare behind her. “Nightshade… did something pretty traumatic to her that I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to talk about.”

“And how are you exempted from leaving her alone?” Spitfire pressed, immediately picking out what Dash’s intentions were while making it very clear she wanted to know what was wrong with her friend and if she could help.

“Because I’m the only one who saw it happen,” Dash quickly explained, Spitfire’s stern glare immediately lightening as she blinked. “Nightshade exposed something… very personal and—” Dash suddenly felt a rough tug on her tail. She looked over her shoulder to see Fleetfoot had grabbed it and was hugging it, hiding her face in it as she shuddered.

“I don’t think she wants to share it… So let me handle this?” Dash suggested.

Spitfire looked over Dash down at Fleetfoot as she clutched Dash’s tail, hugging it like a foal would cling to a blanket or stuffed animal. Fleetfoot was hiding from her. While it hurt a little bit, the fact that she wasn’t trying to avoid Dash confirmed her claim that she saw it… and that Fleetfoot didn’t want to share or confide in anypony else. Spitfire sighed looking down at the ground for a moment before moving her eyes back to Dash. Her eyes were filled with great concern, but she put together what was happening and nodded.

“Alright…” she agreed reluctantly, placing a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “I’ll leave it to you.”

Dash frowned as she heard the clear tone of disappointment in Spitfire’s voice. Spitfire turned and walked away, moving back towards the rest. Dash could see Soarin looking over as well, but she expected and trusted Soarin to mind his own business here. She knew he was likely just as concerned about Fleetfoot, but…

“Mrrrrph…” Fleetfoot released another noise, this time muffled by Dash’s tail.

Dash was certain that only she had a shot of comforting her… after all, she had witnessed something she knew Fleetfoot didn’t want her to see… and heard things she didn’t want her to know.

Now that she finally secured privacy, Dash slowly turned around, bending her body so that she wouldn’t pull her tail out of Fleetfoot’s grip. But the moment she turned, she yelped as Fleetfoot sprang up and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Yikes!” Dash reacted as Fleetfoot got right in her face with an absolutely mortified expression, pressed her nose against Dash’s and lightly shook her as her pupils grew wide into pleading eyes.

“Dash…” she spoke, her voice squeaky and broken as small droplets just short of tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. “Please… please… please, please, please, pleasepleasePLEEEEEEEEEEASE promise me that you will NEVER tell anypony about what Nightshade did to me!” she begged Dash with a look of extreme desperation taking over her face. A face that was usually happy, silly, bubbly, sly, or full of harmless mischief. It absolutely killed Dash to see Fleetfoot looking so off key.

“Fleet…” Dash reached up and placed her hooves on Fleetfoot’s arm, pushing her away from her face lightly. But Fleetfoot started shaking her head roughly.

“PLEASE!!!!!!!” she repeated, her voice sounding choked up. “I don’t…” she sniffled. “I don’t want them to know… It’s already bad enough that you know… so, please?”

Rainbow Dash was really stricken by how hard Fleetfoot was fighting to keep what happened under wraps. Dash had dealt with personal, private struggles herself… things she wished to keep away from the eyes and ears of others… but they were the kind of things that if they were found out by some close to her, she knew they would listen and try to understand. Fleetfoot showed no such confidence in that scenario. It seemed that what she felt she had to hide carried a tremendous personal weight. So much so that she didn’t even trust her closest friends to be friendly and fair about it.

But this was all about her body? Not being an imposing figure? About not being strong enough? About being the small one in the leading squad?

Those were things that Dash felt could be easily solved with simple and honest positive encouragement, but that was only if those were HER problems. She didn’t know how Fleetfoot’s mind worked. It was strange that a pony known all over Equestria for her sleek body and sex appeal had issues with said body and looks in a way. But based on what Dash witnessed… it was for unconventional reasons. It seemed that Fleetfoot clearly had an idea in her head of what she felt was important for the position she held and worked hard for, but felt ashamed for not being satisfied with what she had already accomplished and been known for as if ambition and humility were crashing into one another and creating a strong uncertainty. She was unable to criticize herself and seek out efforts to improve how she wanted because she didn’t want to look like she was ignoring what she did have…

Or at least something like that. Thinking about it was making Dash’s brain hurt because it was much more complicated than she could possibly imagine without explanation or insight.

But if she was going to get anything out of Fleetfoot, she had to lead with comfort. She reached around Fleetfoot and pulled her into a hug.

“I promise I won’t, okay? URK!” Dash grunted as Fleetfoot immediately hugged her back, but squeezed her as hard as she could in the process. “Fleet… a little tight there…” she sputtered as she tapped Fleetfoot’s back.

“I’m so sorry…” Fleetfoot suddenly apologized. “You must think I’m so selfish…”

Dash frowned as Fleetfoot almost instantly confirmed one of her speculations. If she led with that, then what others would think about it was a large part of it all.

“Fleet…” Dash pushed Fleetfoot off of her to hold her at arm’s length and look her directly in the eyes. “I don’t think anything differently of you. You are allowed to have personal problems,” she clarified her indifference and quickly shifted the subject to show what she was really concerned about. “I’m not worried at all about what I heard, I’m more worried about what I saw,” she looked down at Fleetfoot’s body. “Nightshade literally forced your body to change its shape radically… I’m not even going to try to imagine how painful it must’ve felt… please, tell me how you are feeling. Are you doing better or does it still really hurt?” she pressed her concern for Fleetfoot’s wellbeing, hoping to soften Fleetfoot’s defenses and get her to open up. But she wouldn’t pressure her. There would be NO forcing of the matter.

Fleetfoot pulled away from Dash, shifting backwards out of her reach. She looked away from Dash averting her eyes and tipping her head down a little. She reached a hoof over to her opposite arm and rubbed it gently as her ears flopped down, the motion of her hoof pushing against a tattered flap of torn spandex that still clung to her arm.

“I’m… fine…” she answered quietly and very unconvincingly. Dash didn’t believe it for a second. There was no way she was fine after… that.

“Are you?” Dash asked, not moving or making any motions towards her, just asking while keeping her tone quiet and welcoming. “Fleet, please forget about the other stuff for a moment, your health is more important to me. So please be honest…”

Fleetfoot took a long, deep breath and released an equally long sigh as she shivered, gripping her opposite arm tightly.

“Well, my body feels… stretched out…” she said with long pauses in between before slamming her eyes shut and dropping her hoof down from her arm. “OKAY! It… it really hurts,” she reached both arms up and hugged herself tightly while tipping down slightly. “Everything stings. My body feels like it’s been turned inside out and back again. It’s not the kind of pain I’m used to, it’s different, it’s lingering, it’s constant, even when I’m at rest… I… it… it’s probably not even all there yet. There’s still a lot of numbness all over and new aching pains flaring up all over the place. I’m sure I won’t be moving much come tomorrow, the soreness is going to be unbelievable…” she sniffled and shook her head. “I’ll manage…” she repeated despite the very negative description… and without sounding any more convincing. “But…” she added in a very hushed tone, instantly shutting her mouth and opening her eyes, her pupils shrinking as if she had just made a grave mistake. There was no way Dash couldn’t have noticed the swift change in her expression.

“But what?” she asked, feeling a little stupid right after because she felt like she was pressing, but if Fleetfoot had something she wanted to say, she would say it.

“But it… wasn’t…” Fleetfoot struggled. Dash tipped her head, making the effort to hold back anything until Fleetfoot had her chance to put the right words to whatever it was. But in the end she failed to get it out, instead mumbling quietly with her head hanging.

“What?” Dash asked, not hearing her clearly at all.

“It…” Fleetfoot squeezed herself tighter as she once again, couldn’t find any octave higher than a mumble. Dash remained in her spot, waiting patiently, but in the end Fleetfoot couldn’t do it. She shook her head quickly. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” She declared, pulling back from the issue. But that was alright.

“Then we don’t have to,” Dash agreed out of respect for Fleetfoot’s feelings. “And again,” she stepped towards her. “Don’t worry about anything I saw or heard. I promise I won’t tell a soul, but you don’t have to feel bad about it. We all have our personal insecurities, I’m definitely no exception.”

Fleetfoot shook her head harder.

“But mine are so selfish and stupid—EEP!” Fleetfoot squeaked as Dash lightly bopped her on the head with her hoof.

“STOP,” she said sternly as Fleetfoot looked up with wide, teary eyes and scrunched her face up. Dash rested a hoof on her shoulder. “I’m not going to judge you. That’s FINAL. Okay?” she flashed a warm smile. “And only I saw it, I’m not telling anyone else. So please, don’t worry about it… but…”

Fleetfoot squeaked and lowered herself a little, stopping just short of curling up, but Dash followed her, keeping her hoof on her shoulder.

“But,” Dash continued. “If you ever want somepony to talk to, I’m all ears, alright? That goes for your troubles, anything that just happened here, or anything else you ever want to get off your chest. You told me you were a friend I could count on back when Soarin and I had our little argument… I hope you still think that so I can repay the favor.”

Fleetfoot’s ears flopped down as she slowly reached forward and gave Dash a hug, resting her chin on her shoulder. It was much less sudden and much more gently this time, so Dash gladly returned it, embracing Fleetfoot as she felt her shiver lightly.

“Thanks, Dashie. I—EEEEEEEEEEEK!”

Dash flinched and blinked as Fleetfoot suddenly shrieked, pulled herself out of the hug and lowered herself down in front of Dash, poking her nose into her chest.

“Fleet? What’s wrong?” Dash asked as she stared in confusion. Was she… hiding?

“Is everything okay over here?” Soarin’s voice suddenly came from behind Dash. Dash immediately flattened her brow and folded her ears back. She turned while keeping herself in a position for Fleetfoot to remain mostly hidden. She fixed her flat gaze of disapproval towards Soarin. He stopped two paces from them and tipped his head, lifting an eyebrow as he received the look.

“Nothing,” Dash said sternly while angling her eyes into a slight glare. “Absolutely nothing, now shoo,” she ordered while waving her hoof towards him. Soarin tipped to the right, catching a glimpse of Fleetfoot hiding behind Dash for a moment before Dash also tipped to block his view again.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” he said with a huff, obviously wanting to know what was wrong with his friend to the point where he was ignoring her earlier pleas. Dash sharpened her glare further.

“Mare talk, not for stallions.” She was sending every possible signal for him to back off, but he was being stubborn. Soarin just lifted an eyebrow in response while giving Dash a slight pout. “Soarin,” Dash smiled, but it was purposely forced. “I already told you to let me handle it. You failed to stop Spitfire from coming over here and now you failed again by ignoring my request. That’s a double fail, now I suggest you not make it a triple fail… don’t make me come over there and kick you, I will.”

“Pfff…” Soarin puffed his cheeks out, finding Dash’s incredibly blunt words to be amusing, but he still didn’t move. Dash released an exasperated sigh and reached a hoof up to rub her forehead.

“Triple fail it is,” she slowly shook her head back and forth before looking back up at Soarin with a more serious, concerned expression. “Look, Soarin. I know you’re worried about her, but… this isn’t any of your business… so, please?”

Soarin listened to her carefully, tipping a little to get another glance at Fleetfoot. She was shivering and he could hear her whimpering very quietly. Soarin frowned, sighed, and looked away.

“Alright, Sorry for being pushy… I’m just worried about her.”

“Wait, what? That’s a problem…” Spitfire’s voice came from nearby, pulling all of their attention away towards her.

Spitfire was standing in front of Fire Streak and the rest of Squad Three as Storm, Squall, and Matteo listened in nearby. Something didn’t look right, both Fire and Spitfire had a look of realization on their faces… and not the good kind.

Soarin took another brief look towards Dash and Fleetfoot before turning and moving towards the group to see what the problem was.

Now alone again, Dash decided it was time to bring Fleetfoot back into the here and now. They were not in the clear yet, depending on Spitfire’s orders. She turned and tapped her on the shoulder gently.

“Come on,” she said with a smile as Fleetfoot looked up at her, sitting up fully now that Soarin was gone. “We still have work to do.”

Fleetfoot stared at her for a few moments before sniffling loudly, wiping her eyes, and nodding. Her face wasn’t completely devoid of her current emotions, but she acknowledged anyway. Dash helped he stand up, and after she did, Fleetfoot reached up and grabbed the remaining tatters of her suit mask. She pulled it off and dropped it on the ground.

“Might as well… this suit is done for anyway…” she said as she looked back at the ripped, torn, and stretched out remains of her suit. Dash waited patiently and watched as Fleetfoot reached down and removed what was left of the suit, shimmying her limbs out and pulling pieces over her head, letting each of them drop to the ground. Dash looked down at the pile of destroyed Wonderbolt spandex, wincing as she recalled the horrific sight of Fleetfoot’s body being manipulated and expanded, her muscles growing against their will and pushing the suit past its limits until it rest upon her in pieces with stressed seams and torn edges. Dash couldn’t even begin to fathom how much physical and emotional pain Fleetfoot was experiencing right now, but the fact that she was willing to go on for the time being was a testament to her toughness that she seemed unwilling to acknowledge. As Fleetfoot said, Dash was more than sure the pain was still catching up to Fleetfoot. Dash recalled how sore her muscles felt for a day or two after a serious workout, that feeling was bound to be tenfold for Fleetfoot in the coming days. Not to mention she’d probably be less than emotionally stable.

As Fleetfoot dropped the last pieces of her suit, she took several deep breaths and tried to compose herself. There was a very visible wobble and shudder in her limbs. But it was hard to tell if it was emotional stress, physical stress from the pain, or a mixture of both. Dash likely wouldn’t know because Fleetfoot was clearly trying to suck it up.

“Oh!” Dash blinked as she watched Fleetfoot. Fleetfoot was without her suit, but… she didn’t have to go completely without gear. Dash reached to her neck, grabbed the goggles and pulled them off of her head, reaching them towards Fleetfoot. “These are yours…” she offered, remembering she used them after they were dropped. Fleetfoot stared at them for a moment, her ears drooping down. Dash suddenly winced, realizing that the whole reason she had Fleetfoot’s goggles were because Nightshade had seductively removed them from her face and dropped them nearby before she… worked her magic on Fleetfoot. But Fleetfoot closed her eyes and took another long breath.

“Thanks…” she said as she reached forward, grabbed the goggles and slipped them over her head, letting them dangle around her neck. It was hard to see Fleetfoot so down and shaken, but it was inspiring to see her make the effort to move on. Dash had no doubt she wouldn’t be the same for a while, but she’d be there for her. Fleetfoot would do the same if the situation were flipped around.

With Fleetfoot back on her hooves and with some of her troubled feelings vented, the two of them turned, following behind Soarin to see what the commotion with Spitfire and Fire Streak was about.

“It’s gone?” Spitfire said as they made their way over, both of them stopping beside Soarin, but Fleetfoot strategically placing herself so Dash was in between them.

“Well… I mean, I was holding it when we were first attacked. I must have dropped it then…” Fire Streak explained shamefully as he rubbed the back of his head.

Dash blinked as she absorbed everything being said. Soarin nudged her.

“What are they talking about?” Soarin asked while leaning his head down towards her. Dash suddenly perked up.

“Oh… the map…” her jaw hug slightly agape as the revelation hit her as well. They were kind of… relying on that to find their way to the Lunar Guard.

“It could be anywhere around here… or destroyed, I completely lost track of it,” Fire Streak continued as he glanced over his shoulder at his three squad mates, looking first at Surprise and his twin brother. “Have you two, uh… seen the map anywhere?”

“Nope…” Surprise immediately replied while holding a very fake, worried smile.

“Was I supposed to be looking?” Lightning asked as he scratched his plot. Fire flattened his brow as if he was hoping he’d get a little help. He turned to Misty and made a few motions that were not part of the sign language, but indicated the map by making unfolding motions in front of his face while looking at her with questioning eyes.

Misty caught on, blinked, and shook her head.

Fire’s ears drooped down as he turned back to Spitfire while biting his lower lip, at a loss for words. Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“Don’t dwell on it, Fire. You were pulled into combat. Frankly, I’d be more surprised if you somehow managed to hold onto that thing the whole time,” she chuckled, but then looked away and down at the ground. “But this is a problem…” she said as she looked over everypony, glancing over her shoulder at Dash, Soarin, and Fleetfoot, and also looking over to where Descent and the Renegades were gathered and waiting nearby. “I know the general direction of the meeting spot, but the problem isn’t finding it, the problem is Captain P.L. and the guards themselves. Knowing them, if they see us looking or searching for them, they may get suspicious. The paranoid idiots…” she trailed off with a quiet growl.

“So what are we going to do?” Fire asked as he stepped up.

Spitfire reached up and rubbed her chin as she pondered, humming to herself continuously.

“Hmmmmmmmm…” she kept going as she turned and looked around at the others again. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” she parted her lips to reveal her gritted teeth. It wasn’t a good sign. She looked stumped and clawing for ideas.

As Dash watched Spitfire turn in circles, hum, and ponder their options… something else suddenly caught her eye.

Misty Fly was blinking and twitching as if something was bothering her. Then her ears suddenly twitched and she looked up.

Purely out of curiosity and reflex, Dash looked up too…

And didn’t even have time to yelp…

As Twister crashed right on top of her, freefalling from above without even using his wings.

“GAH!” Dash grunted loudly as she was painfully forced the ground, drawing everypony’s attention over to her. The moment Twister had flattened Dash to the ground, he sprang upwards with a loud SPROING and flailed while screaming wildly and arcing back down, landing in the middle of all of them headfirst, his head going right through the rocky ground and getting stuck in it. His body remained stiff and upright for a moment, shaking back and forth and making a loud springy noise similar to a door stopper being forcibly flicked repeatedly.

When his body finally stopped shaking, it slowly lowered to the ground while making a whoopee cushion cheer.

Everypony just stared at him in complete silence.

“Uh…” Spitfire was the first to make a sound, if one could even call it that. But she was quickly overshadowed as Dash released a very loud, angry growl, pushed herself up from the ground, and stomped over to Twister. She reached down and grabbed him by the legs, yanking on his body until his head finally popped out of the ground. There was a comical amount of whiplash that followed, sending both him and Dash backwards and to the ground, Dash on her back With Twister sitting on top of her while swaying back and forth.

Dash immediately pushed him off, making him fall forwards and face first, but before he could pull anything else, Dash got up, grabbed him by the neck, hoisted him up and turned him around.

He was smiling very wide with his eyes pointed in opposite directions, almost all of his teeth were missing, his goggles were broken, his nose was bent, his mane looked like it got in a fight with a blender and lost, and his suit mask was horribly ripped up. He released a long, low squeak as Dash glared at him.

“Gravity… you are a HARSH mistress!” he said in a silly tone.

“TWISTER!” Dash yelled angrily in his face as she held him up. Twister suddenly shook his head so fast that his head became a blur. When he stopped his head was replaced with Soarin’s. Dash’s eyes went wide and she pulled her neck back. Twister blinked.

“Oh, WHOOPSIE!” he giggled as he shook his head incredibly fast again, his own head returning when he stopped, completely devoid of any damage, goggles, suit, teeth, and all. “HOI!” he yelled loudly as his facial features suddenly slid away from his face and floated beside his head. But Dash was NOT amused, anypony else nearby backing away slightly as they watched her growl and glare. Dash reached over, grabbed his facial features and slammed them back onto his face, causing his head to tip backwards with a limp neck.

“WHERE… THE HELL… DID YOU GO?!” she asked while forcing his head up and snarling right into his face.

“Baltimare, for a convention. I got Ashleigh Ball’s autograph!” he answered while bouncing his eyebrows rapidly and pointing to a signature of an odd name across his chest. Everypony else aside from Squall and Matteo all glanced back and forth as they wondered what the hell they were watching. Surprise was behind Lightning Streak, peeking over his back while wearing protective goggles and earmuffs.

“Twister,” Dash’s expression turned from angry to flat and unamused. “I’m going to shake you now. And I’m not going to stop shaking you until you tell me where you were.” Before Twister could give any response, Dash grabbed him by the shoulders and began shaking him hard. Twister released several uneven garbled giggles that sounded like a clown laughing while being electrified as he shook.

When Dash stopped shaking him, Twister suddenly had a bright red hat with an M in the middle of it on his head and a thick black moustache under his nose.

“The Mushroom Kingdom! Woohoo!” he said with a strange accent.

Dash shook him again. Upon stopping, Twister’s ears had become twice as large and pointed and he wore a green pointed hat that hung down behind his head.

“Hyrule! HYAH! HYAH!”

Dash shook him.

When she stopped, his head was completely covered with a red helmet that had a blue visor.

“Zebes! Come by later and I’ll give ya the SKREW attack!”

Dash shook him.

After she stopped, Twister had a red and white hat on and balanced a red and white ball in one of his hooves. A mouse that had yellow fur sat on his shoulders.

“Kanto!” he chucked the ball towards Matteo and bounced it right off his beak, making him squawk in surprise.

“RGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!” Dash shook him even harder, and when she stopped he was back to normal.

“Okay, okay, ya got me!” he wailed dramatically while letting his head lean back, but then he whipped it forward and pressed his nose against Dash’s, his nose releasing a loud HONK. “I was recording some video about ponies and doors!” he said with a snicker.

“TWISTER!!!!!!!!!!” Dash yelled in his face as loud as she could, his whole body and mane flailing backwards like he was getting blasted by strong winds.

But before she could go any further, a set of talons rested down on her shoulder.

“Rainbow Dash… stop,” Matteo suggested as Dash simply let go of Twister and let him fall into a heap on the ground.

“Rgghhhh…” she growled, knowing more or less what Matteo was going to say, but she wanted to let off some steam about Twister regardless.

“I really don’t think he would have made much of a difference against Nightshade,” Matteo continued.

Dash, reluctantly, had to agree. She stared down at Twister as he sat in front of her, his body contorting and springing back and forth while making accordion noises. Matteo had a valid point. Twister’s antics had only consistently worked on one pony, Ruin. And they only seemed to work because Ruin was the same… only not as crazy as Twister. Ruin employed the same tactics, but seemed to be just attached to reality enough for Twister to overpower him… which said something towards how off the chain Twister was.

The truth of the matter was that Twister’s antics had not always worked on the Shadowbolts, so chances are he would have just ended up in the same bind as the rest of them had he stayed.

But that most certainly did NOT let him off the hook. Dash shot Twister a very sharp glare as he stopped bouncing back and forth and looked right back at her with the most absurdly cute puppy dog eyes imaginable.

“Wherever the hell he went…” Dash spoke up again. “He disappeared on us while we were in danger and could have used the assistance… I’m pretty sure that’s NOT how Wonderbolts are supposed to operate!” she leaned forward, pressing her nose to Twister’s doing her best Silver Lining flight instructor impression as she glared and growled in his face. “Well?!” Dash yelled as Spitfire started walking towards her, likely to get control of the situation and get back to the important task at hand. But before she could reach them, Twister’s lips curled into a smile so wide that it almost detached from his face. Dash only growled louder. “What do you have to say for yourself?!”

“I found the map.”

Everypony froze and went dead silent as Twister suddenly pulled away from Dash… and held a folded piece of paper up in front of him. Dash’s pupils shrank.

“WHAT… BUT… YOU… HOW…?”

Dash couldn’t find the words as Twister leaned towards her and bounced his eyebrows rapidly, one of them dethatching and launching towards the sky.

Spitfire immediately started moving again, taking two more steps before she reached over the top of Twister and grabbed the paper. But as she tried to lift it out of his hoof, Twister lifted up with it, his hoof stuck to it. Spitfire flattened her brow and gave the paper one shake. It caused Twister to launch off of it and crash against the ground while making the sound of a brick being thrown through a window. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as she looked down at him. Twister was curled up into a ball with his face barely visible next to his plot. He was holding a cassette tape player that was making the continuous glass crashing noise. He slowwwwwwwwwly reached over and hit the ‘stop’ button on the player while grinning creepily up at her, his missing eyebrow floating down from above and reattaching in a raised position.

“Right…” Spitfire said with a long sigh. “Well then,” she took the paper in both of her hooves and slowly unfolded it and turned it over. She blinked several times and nodded. “Well… this is definitely the map we drew up back at the Nimbus,” she said as she glanced at Twister, who was lying in a hammock between two rocks with sunglasses and a mixed drink. Spitfire rolled her eyes and turned towards Fire Streak. “Fire, here. This is it, right?” She handed the map to him. Fire quickly turned it around and looked it over.

“Huh, yes, this is it. And we were…” he paused as he narrowed his eyes and moved them about the map. “We were right here when we got attacked.” He looked up from the map and looked around the surrounding area for any indications of their previous flight path. “Yes, yes… we’re still near the path.”

“Good,” Spitfire nodded. She looked back towards Twister, but had to turn further to see him now sitting beside a still very shocked and bewildered Rainbow Dash. He was sitting with a big smile on his face and a halo floating over his head. Spitfire flattened her brow… again.

The full extent of the details eluded her, but from what she saw and heard, she assumed Twister vanished during the fight with Nightshade, his complete lack of injuries and suit in pristine condition were enough to tell her that. On the flip side… he did just recover the map for them. It certainly didn’t make up for what appeared to be desertion, but it at least allowed them to continue. If it were anypony else, Spitfire would accuse them of desertion, but Twister? She didn’t know him as well as Dash’s squad did, but she knew one thing… that he was crazier and more random than Surprise. So she was willing to look at it from a different perspective. She also agreed with Matteo in doubting he would have made much of a difference against Nightshade.

So everything else aside… They lost the map, he found it. Considering what they were trying to accomplish, that was good enough for her for now.

“I don’t know all the details,” Spitfire began while still looking towards Twister. “But thanks for bringing us the map and—” she paused as she blinked and he disappeared. She immediately looked down to see Twister below her, completely clasped to her right arm while still looking at her with the innocent smile, but with his tongue sticking out between his teeth.

Spitfire didn’t flinch or recline in any way. She just stared down for a moment before she picked up her hoof in attempt to pull it free, but he rose with it, remaining attached to her. She shook it a few times but Twister didn’t budge, and he made squeak toy noises as he shook. Spitfire sighed through her nostrils and glanced up at Dash.

Rainbow Dash snorted.

“Matty?” she said without looking at Matteo. He slowly stood up from his spot and nodded.

“Gladly,” he said with an almost eager tone as he approached Spitfire and locked his eyes on Twister. He reached up his right arm and balled his talons. Spitfire held still as Matteo brought his arm down, slamming his talons down over the top of Twister’s head…. really hard. Twister ripped free of Spitfire’s arm, but as Matteo followed through with his intentionally violent strike, Twister was suddenly attached to HIS arm instead. “Oh, for the love of…” Matteo growled as he stepped back and began shaking his arm roughly to no avail as Twister made sounds that resembled a hot tea kettle in a paint mixer.

“Alright then!” Spitfire turned away and let Matteo deal with Twister as Dash, Storm, and Squall approached to assist. She stepped back towards the rest of the Wonderbolts, opening her mouth to call out orders, but she suddenly stopped before doing so. Soarin, Fleetfoot, and Squad Three all stared at her, waiting. Surprise even had her hooves up ready to translate for Misty. But Spitfire went no further. She closed her mouth and a look of concern appeared on her face as she examined each one of them carefully. They all looked very tired. She glanced over her shoulder as well to see Dash, Storm, and Squall had all already given up on removing Twister from Matteo, including Matteo himself as they all sat, looking too exhausted to try.

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed as she continued to look them all over. “Shouldn’t get ahead of myself here…” she mumbled quietly to herself.

“Spitfire,” Descent’s voice came from behind her, but she didn’t look. He trotted up beside her and waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. He cleared his throat loudly in a second attempt, but she still didn’t look at him, at least not for a moment. Descent scrunched his face angrily, but before he could vent said anger, Spitfire finally looked at him and blinked.

“Sorry, just give me a second,” she said free of the sharp tone she usually took with him. Descent’s face quickly returned to normal as he tipped his head curiously. “Everypony, come in for a second,” Spitfire suddenly beckoned all of the remaining Wonderbolts.

Descent waited patiently as Spitfire moved away from him towards the Wonderbolts, all of them doing as they were told. Spitfire observed the curious looks she was getting, but she could see through them. They’re appearances said it all. With the exception of Soarin and Twister, everypony looked incredibly tired and very beaten up. There was barely a full, undamaged suit among them, putting several wounds and nasty bruises on display. She also observed how they moved. There were clear signs of uneven steps, limps, twitching muscles and subtle wincing in their faces.

They had a mission to complete, but not before she completed her first duty as their captain.

Ensuring their well-being.

With everypony huddled up and close to her, she looked into every pair of eyes while wearing a stern, yet concerned expression.

“Everypony, please listen to me,” she began, a lead off statement that was unique to them as opposed to the usual ‘everypony listen up!’ The number of things that seemed different about Spitfire just kept piling up. “I’m going to be completely straightforward. I would prefer as many of you to continue on with me as possible. But…” she paused as her eyes scanned over them all again. “I want it to be your choice. I’m not the one who just took a beating of a lifetime and I’m sure some of you are in some serious pain right now.” She had already ordered Air Mach to return, but the extent of his injuries and pain were front and center. She wanted the rest to make an honest assessment of themselves. “There is no guarantee that the remaining path to the Lunar Guard will be without peril. So, please… if you are not confident you are able to go on or if you are in need of assistance or attention, please head back to the Nimbus,” she appealed, moving her eyes between Fleetfoot, Squad Three, and Squad Foxtrot, understanding that Soarin had not engaged. “This isn’t an order, this is a request,” she added on the end.

Fire Streak looked down at the map in his hoof before glancing back at the others. His eyes landed on Surprise as she finished translating the orders to Misty Fly. Misty’s eyes widened for a moment before narrowing into a glare. She sharply turned her head towards Spitfire with a hard pout and made her way over with a subtle limp in her steps, pushing Lightning Streak aside.

“Misty?” Spitfire reacted reflexively her eyes widening slightly as Misty Fly placed herself right in front of Spitfire and roughly shook her head back and forth.

“Heh… well…” Fire spoke up, pausing for a moment as Lightning Streak stumbled and fell over on his side. “If Misty is staying put… then so are the rest of us,” he said with a light chuckle. She had it worse than all of us,” he explained as he turned and helped Surprise pick Lightning Streak up off the ground. “Squad Three has been roughed up, but we’ll tough it out,” Fire spoke for his squad with a smile, Lightning and Surprise both standing beside Misty and nodding. Spitfire just smiled in response before turning to Foxtrot, her eyes landing right on Dash. “I want all of you to be honest as well,” Spitfire said before any of them could respond, but Dash immediately stepped up and pointed at Soarin.

“If he’s going, I’m going,” she pressed without hesitation. Spitfire glanced at Soarin, who just shrugged. Spitfire furrowed her brow.

“Rainbow Dash, please carefully consider how your body feels,” she implored, but Dash only shook her head.

“If he dies I die, so it doesn’t really make a difference how my body feels, does it? I’m going where he goes,” she firmly made clear. Spitfire lifted an eyebrow, but she couldn’t hold back a grin.

“Still not listening to me, huh? Alright, you’re in. What about—”

“I go where my captain goes,” Matteo cut Spitfire off, feeding off Dash’s light case of defiance.

“You bet that goes for me too,” Storm added as he stepped up beside Dash, glancing past Spitfire at Descent for a moment and giving his father a nod. “I mean… she’s technically not my captain, but… er, you get what I mean,” Storm added awkwardly, realizing his blunder after trying to sound hard and serious.

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Squall grunted as he remained behind Dash. Dash blew a single breath upward, making her mane bounce before making a light, backwards head motion.

“That means he’s coming, and Twister didn’t do jack-shit, so I’m taking him along whether he likes it or not,” Dash finished while glancing at Matteo’s arm. Twister was still attached to it, but somehow had turned upside-down.

“Very well,” Spitfire acknowledged them all, taking a moment before turning to one last pony.

Fleetfoot.

“Fleet…” Spitfire spoke quietly as she laid eyes on her. Fleetfoot flinched, blinking as if she wasn’t fully paying attention. She turned and looked into Spitfire’s eyes, immediately leaning back slightly. Spitfire shook her head. “I think you should go back,” she quickly gave her opinion. Fleetfoot’s eyes widened slightly, but otherwise she gave no other reaction. “I don’t know what happened, but I don’t want you to push yourself… so please?”

Fleetfoot looked away from her, locking eyes with Dash. There was no exchange between the two of them, but as Fleetfoot slowly looked back at Spitfire, her eyes passing Soarin once as well, they suddenly narrowed and she shook her head.

“No,” Fleetfoot answered.

“Fleet?” Spitfire blinked in surprise.

“I’m coming along,” she stated somewhat firmly. Spitfire glanced over at Dash for a moment, before refocusing her concern on Fleetfoot.

“Are you sure?” Spitfire asked her, stepping up and placing a hoof on her shoulder.

“Yes, I need to,” she explained with little detail. Her voice was shaky, it sounded far from determined, but Spitfire was going to stick to her words. She would not force anypony’s decision here… but she made a mental note to keep an eye on Fleetfoot. She didn’t know what was going on, but she’d look out for her regardless.

“Alright…” she gave a nod, agreeing despite sounding reluctant. She turned back to look at all of them. “Looks like everypony’s coming along then.”

The Wonderbolts all nodded as Spitfire finished, but Fire still looked a little uncertain.

“But Captain… what are we going to do about—”

“Excuse me,” Descent stepped over and in front of Fire.

“Hey!” Fire flinched and huffed as Descent cut him off, but Descent completely ignored him.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as she leaned over to look at Fire behind him, but Descent shook his head.

“I don’t care, I was tired of you pushing me aside,” Descent grunted a clear tone of frustration in his voice. “I want to touch base with you to I can get the Renegades on their way, so humor me before you do any more sappy hoof holding.”

Spitfire shifted which eyebrow was up as Descent’s tone and manner seemed way off, noticeably so. Something was clearly bothering him, and it wasn’t really a mystery what. So she let it be and honored his request.

“Okay, go ahead,” she encouraged him without a hint of dissatisfaction towards his behavior.

“Our presence will not be helpful. The Lunar Guard has mistrusted us from the beginning. So instead, we will do some scouting and return to the Nimbus. You are confident your Wonderbolts are able to make the trip?” he asked while glancing up at them, taking note of how beaten up they all looked.

“It is their choice to make to come along. If they believe they are capable I am not going to dissuade them,” Spitfire answered without a smidgen of doubt. Descent furrowed his brow.

“That’s sounds rather irresponsible,” he commented.

“Nopony asked you for your opinion, Descent. I trust them to be honest with me as much as I trust them to understand the situation and make a good judgment. They say they are able, so as their captain, I will lead them. Do what you will with the Renegades, we’ll return with the Lunar Guard in tow as soon as we can.”

Descent didn’t move as she finished, scrunching his face as he looked at her carefully. Spitfire tipped her head a little.

“Yes?” she asked, sensing a question.

“Tell me, how do you intend to convince Captain P.L. without Silver Lining?” he questioned. Fire Streak grumbled behind him.

“That’s what I was going to ask…” he said under his breath as he tapped his hoof from behind Descent. Spitfire shook her head quickly as if she was anticipating the question.

“That’s easy,” she began. “I’m going to do what I probably should have done in the first place. I’m going to walk right up to him and convince him myself. As Captain of the Wonderbolts, it’s my duty to speak on our behalf…” she paused and sighed as she looked off in the direction the rest of the ponies departed moments ago. “Had I considered that duty before all of this… I probably could have spared Silver a lot of pain,” she looked back at Descent and shook her head again. “But what’s happened has happened, and my blunders have already had consequences. I will take control right here and now and make my appeal to Captain P.L. directly. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s my responsibility.”

“Hmph…” Descent simply grunted in response, his tail flipping and nearly swatting Fire Streak in the face behind him. “Good luck with that… he’s a real charmer.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve faced him down. Believe me, I know he’s going to be stubborn,” Spitfire winked at Descent, pointing at him right after. “And when I get back I’ll talk to you about what Flashwind said to me. It’s something I think you should hear too.”

“Oh, joy…” Descent snorted loudly while rolling his eyes. He turned to leave without another word, but stopped when his eyes locked in the direction Nightshade disappeared in. He stared for several moments, his expression softening just long enough for Spitfire to notice.

“How about you?” she suddenly asked. Descent blinked, but didn’t look at her.

“What about me?” he asked with a very quiet snarl.

“Is everything alright with you?” she elaborated. Descent sharply turned his eyes towards her and glared.

“What do YOU care?” he snapped at her, a silence extending between them right after with the Wonderbolts and Renegades both looking on as their Captains stared at each other. Spitfire didn’t say another word on the subject. She just gave him a nod.

“I’ll see you back at the Nimbus,” she said calmly as she turned and moved back towards the Wonderbolts. Descent’s eyes widened and his face softened again as Spitfire turned away. She had let it go, sensing that he was frustrated. Not wanting to go any further, Descent also let it be, turning back to the Renegades, approaching Starry and Lightning Dust while twirling a hoof in the air.

“Everypony get loose!” Spitfire called to them as she walked past Dash. Dash kept her eyes on her as she moved towards Squad Three, Soarin, and Fleetfoot. “Take your time, make sure your wings aren’t cramping up. I want this to go as smoothly as possible!”

Dash moved her eyes to Fleetfoot for a moment, easily noticing the way her posture still radiated a lack of confidence. She wasn’t sure if Fleetfoot was forcing herself to come along or if she was trying to fight back against the anxiety. Either way, she was coming along. Dash made a mental note to keep an eye on her in case she needed the support. She didn’t care if Fleetfoot was one of the highest ranking Wonderbolts, she was currently vulnerable, very vulnerable, and as her friend she would act if necessary.

But at the moment, that could wait… because Dash had to make sure she was ready to go.

Doing as she was told, Dash slowly stood up. Her legs felt a little wobbly. It didn’t surprise her. A mixture of Nightshade beating the crap out of her and her pain receptors being lit on fire by the torturing aura would do that. Two of her legs were worse than the others, one in front and one in the back, they were covered by the suit at the moment, but she was certain there were some nasty bruises upon them. In general she felt very drained, roughly about a third of her usual energy. She blamed that on the aura, they were under that spell for at least fifteen to twenty minutes, maybe even more. The constant pain was definitely something that could tire one out. The rest of her body was no better. There were sharp pains here and there. Her shoulders felt like they had been ripped off and put back in place. She had taken several harsh body blows, and the icing on the cake was the two places Nightshade had… well… bitten her on the right side of her neck where the shoulder connected and on her lower lip, which was slightly swollen on the inside as a result. She had no doubt she was going to wake up the next morning feeling like she had been run over by the crystal express. It was probably going to feel like that for more than a few days.

But honestly? How the rest of the body felt was beside the point. It was her wings that mattered. She had put more strain on her wings during this encounter than she had in almost all of her previous battles combined. That mixed with the beating she took and how she ended it with a Sonic Blast-off… she had to make sure she hadn’t completely broken herself. She held her breath as she slowly started opening her wings. She had been keeping them still since the fighting ended as a matter of comfort, but it was time to assess them.

“Hrg…” Dash growled quietly as her right wing had a little bit of difficulty. Her left wing smoothly opened all the way, but her right wing shook as it got halfway and slowed way down. “Come on…” Dash grunted as she put in extra effort. She flinched as a loud POP came from it before it fully opened. “OH! Ow…” she cringed as she shivered. “Dammit…” she sighed as she started moving it around, little clicks could be heard coming from the joint as she did. She hadn’t felt that in a while… and she was almost surprised that she had. She had had problems with her right wing joint back during the Wonderbolt tryouts. The stress she put on it over the course of those three days was similar to how hard she pushed it here. Over the course of time after the tryouts, they had ample rest and recovery time in between harsh training, at least for the muscles and joints, in between the fighting. Her right wing was feeling stiff again, but she was confident it wouldn’t keep her from at least flying. She exhaled as she began moving both of her wings around, her left moving without trouble, but her right clicking quietly with each pass.

That was going to be annoying… She was going to need some help from Bliss when she got back… or maybe one of her assistants, Bliss was going to be busy with Silver, Wave Chill, and the other Shadowbolts… okay, who was she kidding, she felt bad thinking this way, but she only wanted Bliss to focus on Silver. The others could wait, they had to. She wanted Silver to get all the attention he needed, no less. But Bliss would make it work… she hoped. Luna was handling the crystal stricken ponies… so Bliss would be able to take care of Silver… right?

Dash shook her head out and refocused. Her mind was wandering. She felt alright, or at least good enough to fly. She decided to check on the others in her squad as she turned and looked towards them. They were all up and checking themselves, all just about as beaten up as Dash. The lingering pain was showing in their posture and how they held themselves. All except for Twister, obviously, who was spinning on his head like a top around all four of them.

Dash ignored Twister as she looked them over, but noticed something. Squall and Matteo were completely occupied with testing how their bodies felt, but Storm looked distracted. He was moving about half as much as the other two, and kept looking up and away from them all.

Curiosity killed the Dash. She glanced over her shoulder to try and follow Storm’s eyes, and she was not surprised to see that Storm was looking towards Descent, watching in small intervals as his father spoke to the Renegades and got them ready to leave. She heard a sigh from Storm, bringing her focus back to him as he went about checking his wings, pulling a loosened feather free before preening them back into place. Sensing that his focus was off, Dash decided to go check on him, walking towards him slowly. She was doing her best to push aside her worry for Silver to keep her mind on what they still had to do. Storm had to do the same.

“Hey,” Dash called to him as she approached. Storm didn’t react for about three seconds. He finally flinched, blinked, and looked at Dash.

“Sorry, what?” he asked. Dash lifted an eyebrow and snickered.

“I didn’t say anything yet,” she pointed out as Storm’s ears flopped down and he sighed. “What’s up? You look like something is bothering you.” Dash got straight to the point, quietly sending a message that she was both curious and willing to help. Storm had gotten used to it, picking up on it quickly, but his answer was not so straightforward.

“I… well…” he failed to start. It didn’t sound like he was dodging the subject, more like he was trying to find the right words for it. Dash didn’t need a full explanation. She knew who he was thinking about. She just wanted to know what was on his mind about it. She waited patiently as he thought over it all. “You probably already know,” he suddenly said as Dash glanced over her shoulder again.

“Descent?”

“Yeah…” Storm nodded as she looked back at him. “My father and everything that just happened… I can’t stop thinking about it,” he said as he sat down and opened and closed his wings a few times. “I mean… you were not exaggerating one bit about Nightshade. Despite knowing about her already, nothing could have prepared me for that,” he explained as he looked away from Descent and towards Dash.

“I did the best I could, but she’s not that easy to describe,” Dash agreed as Storm looked back at Descent.

“I believed every word you said, but… Before this I had also asked my dad about her and…” Storm took a deep breath and exhaled. “The way he described her was completely different. He only said good things about her, his words held so much admiration, respect, and… even some care. Yet, we faced her… I came this close to believing he wasn’t talking about the same pony. But then when she looked at me…”

Storm paused and simply stared at Descent. Dash looked back and forth between the two of them while recalling the moment that Nightshade picked up Storm, looked into his eyes, and freaked out.

“Her reaction… the way she pulled away so suddenly, then she said ‘you’re not him,’” Storm continued. “I wasn’t sure what to think of it at first, but then when my dad showed up and Nightshade completely broke down…”

“There’s got to be a connection there… I mean, have you looked in a mirror lately? You and Descent couldn’t have more identical eyes,” Dash pointed out as he paused, but Storm was lost in his thoughts.

“There’s something there, there is truth to his words. The way my father called out to her, the way he ran up to her, the way he collapsed when he thought she was dead… it really was the Nightshade he was talking about.” Storm looked back at Dash, his eyes filled with concern. “He can’t hide it… My dad isn’t the most expressive around others, but after seeing all of that, I know he’s probably very troubled right now. But I don’t know what to do… if I should go confront him and tell him what happened before he arrived, or if I should leave it be… oh…” Storm looked up over Dash. “Well, guess I know the answer now…”

Dash looked over her shoulder to see Descent take off with the Renegades all following behind.

“I doubt I would have confronted him right now anyway…” Storm finished while sighing. Dash shook her head.

“Had I known Descent was your dad at the time, I probably would have told you what he told us about her,” Dash spoke up, recalling her story to her Squad and Storm came before the Renegades appeared to assist them. “Honestly, I didn’t even consider it. I was willing to believe Descent, but until now I had never seen any sign that the Nightshade he always talked about existed. The way she reacted to him was…” Dash trailed off because she couldn’t find the words to it.

A pony who was basically the object of her nightmares turned into a scared little filly when her old comrade arrived and confronted her, acting and showing uncontrolled emotions in a way she had yet to witness. Silver’s break down of her was one thing, but he only exposed some things beneath the surface and got under her skin. Descent’s arrival made her change completely, like buried feelings and fears came pouring out.

There was definitely a lot going on that they didn’t know about. Was Descent the reason Nightshade had remained hidden? Was she afraid to face him? Starry too? Was she still holding onto the special connection that Descent had described?

Everything was becoming so complicated. Scratch that, everything was already complicated. Now it was just getting more complicated. Every time they found answers, it seemed more questions spread out from them. First evidence of dissent within the Shadowbolt ranks through Moon, now Nightshade’s strange behavior… what the HELL was going on?

“Shit…” Dash suddenly reached up and rapped a hoof against the side of her head. Storm blinked and looked towards her.

“What?”

“I came over here to hear you out and help you get focused, but it backfired and I’m thinking too much too…” Dash shook her head and chuckled awkwardly. Storm chuckled along with her before taking a slow, long breath.

“Let’s forget about it for now. I want to know what’s on my father’s mind, but really, we should focus. If we don’t get to the Crystal Empire, none of us are getting any answers,” Storm suggested.

“Wow, you turned it right around on me,” Dash smirked as she turned to check on Matteo and Squall sitting nearby. She couldn’t see Twister anywhere, but she had a feeling he was sneaking around, waiting to pull a prank. She took a step back to make sure Storm was included as she checked on them. “So guys… how are you all holding up?” she asked, drawing Matteo and Squall’s attention to her as well.

Matteo was the first to speak up as he folded his wings and sat down, but not without wincing as one of his back legs shuddered.

“I’m… fine…” he said, pausing in between to grimace.

“I guess I’m alright,” Storm relayed as he turned to face all of them as well.

“Hmph…” Squall only grunted as he remained standing but looked away. Dash kept her eyes on Squall for a moment while furrowing her brow.

“Squall is that a yes or n—”

“I CAN’T FEEL MY BODY!!!!!” Twister yelled as he popped up in front of Dash and started repeatedly punching himself in the face.

Dash casually lifted up a hoof and pushed Twister aside, sending him tumbling away.

“Well,” Dash said as she took a breath and stepped towards Matteo and Squall. “We survived, somehow. But there you go. That’s Nightshade.”

“Hmph,” Squall grunted again. Dash lifted an eyebrow at him but didn’t get a chance to say anything.

“She is truly fearsome,” Matteo spoke up as he shook his body out, his feathers and fur puffing up for a moment before naturally smoothing into place. “It was like fighting a demon. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed by an opponent before.”

“Hmph…” Squall grunted again. Dash flattened her brow as she looked towards him.

“Okay Squall, are you going to say something or just keep grunting?” she asked him before anypony else, particularly Twister, could cut her off.

“Nnnnnngh…” Squall groaned as he shook his head, cringed, and shut his eyes.

“If I’m reading him correctly,” Storm began from behind Dash. “Then for once I think we wholly agree on something. Everything we just talked about aside… she was… disturbing…”

“Hmph…” Squall grunted again.

“Something seemed to be amiss between her and your father,” Matteo spoke up, earning a nod in return from Storm.

“Dash and I were just talking about that,” Storm explained. “She completely caved in when my dad appeared, it was almost like she was seeing a monster… something she wanted to get away from or… I don’t even know,” Storm ended with a sigh as his ears flopped down.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted.

“Strong ties perhaps?” Matteo pondered out loud, echoing things Dash and Storm had already touched on. Dash quickly realized they were getting off focus again, but it was actually hard to stay focused when such an intriguing and mysterious subject was looming above them. “Nightshade was your father’s former captain, no?” Matteo asked.

“Hmph…” Squall grunted.

Not only Dash, but Matteo and Storm also looked towards Squall with mixed flat and curious expressions.

“Whaaaaaaaat…?” Squall slurred as he continued to cringe. Dash lifted her brow.

“Squall, are you okay?” she asked.

“She creeped the living HELL out of me, okay?” he admitted while gritting his teeth and glaring at them. He grumbled to himself and looked away as if embarrassed to admit it, even though all of them pretty much felt the same way. “Don’t think I’ve ever been more creeped out or disturbed in my life…” he added.

Twister suddenly popped up in front of him, his goggles shifting down around his neck without even touching them as he opened his eyes wide and leaned right into Squall’s face.

“IS THAT A CHALLENGE?!” he yelled. Squall scowled at him.

“No, piss off.”

“Down Twister,” Dash stepped up, placed a hoof over his head, and smushed him all the way to the ground. “You’re in time out for not helping,” she talked down to him as he managed to shift and look up at her with fake teary eyes.

“BUT MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” he whined comically.

“Everypony ready over here?” Spitfire’s voice suddenly interrupted them. They all looked up towards her, except for Twister who kept bawling like a foal beneath Dash’s hoof and flailing his arms. Without taking a single look at Twister, Dash glanced at Matteo and Storm, both of them giving her a nod. She looked towards Squall, hoping the same. It took him a moment or two, but he nodded as well.

“We’re a little bit shaken,” Dash began as she turned back to Spitfire. “But we’re ready and able to fly, ma’am.”

Spitfire looked between all of them carefully before glancing down at Twister on the ground. He was now gnawing on Dash’s arm while making growling noises like a small dog. She lifted an eyebrow for a moment before looking back up at Dash.

“Alright then,” she acknowledged while making a head motion towards the rest of the Wonderbolts. “Line up, we’re going to get moving.” She turned and started walking back towards the others. “Let’s get moving everypony! We need to get this all wrapped up by nightfall! Let’s go!”

Soarin’s ears perked up as Spitfire gave the order. He immediately fell in line as Spitfire approached and touched base with Fire Streak.

“You’re in charge of navigation, Fire,” she spoke as she motioned for Squad Three to take the lead.

“Yes, ma’am!” Fire dutifully replied as Spitfire backed up and took a spot beside Soarin.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Spitfire encouraged as Fleetfoot placed herself behind them and Foxtrot brought up the rear.

As Soarin waited for the order to take off, he couldn’t help but notice how long it was taking. But it didn’t take him long to figure it out, he was the only one who had not taken a beating after all. He watched the shaky movements of Squad Three in front of him, glancing back and observing the same from Fleetfoot and Foxtrot, and even a little from Spitfire as well. Everypony looked banged up, barely a full, clean flight suit among them. Fleetfoot had completely shed hers. Well, it wasn’t like his was perfect, he still hadn’t picked up a new suit since a control panel fell on him on the Nimbus bridge. Despite his suit though, he was ready to go and full of energy. But this was likely going to be a slow paced flight. Where did all of HIS energy come from? It was more than just being in better physical condition. Maybe he was having a little high from not being held down for the first time in, well, he couldn’t remember the last time Spitfire gave him free reign to decide whether or not to go on a mission.

He glanced down at Spitfire as she waited patiently, allowing the rest plenty of time to get themselves ready and situated.

“Lead on when ready, Fire,” Spitfire spoke up. “And don’t push yourself. Take it slow if you need to. We have more than enough time.”

“What happened to before nightfall?” Lightning Streak spoke up ahead of her in a slightly sarcastic manner.

“If it’s really going to take you that long to fly a few miles then I’m putting you on a diet,” Spitfire shot back at him as Surprise snickered.

“Fair enough,” Lightning shrugged as Fire looked over the map, checking on Misty Fly beside him before looking back at Spitfire.

“Alright, everypony set?” Fire asked, earning a quick nod from all of them. “Let’s be off then.”

Soarin focused forward, easily keeping pace with them as they all spread their wings and slowly took to the air. His ears were filled with several painful or stressful grunts as the Wonderbolts forced their battered bodies into flight. They started moving, picking up the pace slightly, but never picking up much speed all together. Soarin instinctively wanted to push himself harder, but he held himself back for the sake of the rest.

The situation was almost a little amusing for him… for once he was the only one not currently having problems. Despite its severely damaged state, his horn was being quite calm at the moment. He was worried when the small chip popped off of it, but he had no negative reaction overall… yet.

He found his natural instincts welling up within him. The fact that he was the only one in good physical condition brought forth his protective reflexes. He knew Spitfire didn’t want him along despite her giving him the choice for once, but now that he was along, he felt it was for the best all together. Spitfire seemed confident that they’d be without resistance, something that he felt too considering the leader of their opposition just ran away scared, but despite that he felt it was his duty to watch over them. They were all beaten and hurt, he was not… so on the off chance they ran into trouble, it would be up to him to protect them.

Soarin was now in full lookout mode. He kept his pace in following Fire Streak, but constantly glanced back and forth as they re-entered the canyons and moved about the surrounding cliff walls. He also looked back several times as well to check on Dash and her squad… but mostly Dash. It got to a point where Dash noticed and kept giving him odd looks every time he looked back.

But something else drew Soarin’s attention as he looked back for the eighth or so time. Fleetfoot was doing a rather lousy job of staying in their lined up formation. Or was it intentional? She was flying perfectly in pace with the rest, it just looked like she was trying to… distance herself from the others? He really wanted to know what the little talk Fleetfoot and Dash had was all about, but he doubted another attempt would be met warmly based on how the first attempt went. Fleetfoot also had a tendency to act strange when things were really bothering her… so maybe she’d open up later, he didn’t know for sure.

Soarin looked back at Dash again, and this time she stuck her tongue out at him while glaring. Soarin smirked, knowing it was more than likely she knew exactly what he was doing. She had been subjected to a lot of his protective tendencies after all. He blinked and looked past Dash for a second as some antics behind her caught his eye.

Twister was not flying, instead he was riding on Matteo’s back while wearing a cowboy hat and swinging a lasso in his teeth. He suddenly threw the lasso out. The rope fit perfectly over Squall’s head and tightening down around Squall’s chest. Squall just growled when he saw the rope, and quickly shifted far out of formation wide to the right. Twister was yanked off of Matteo and began flailing as he was dragged through the air behind Squall.

Soarin glanced back at Dash as the scene played out behind her, but she simply flattened her brow and rolled her eyes.

All was normal.

As Soarin refocused forward and Fire led them over the top of a canyon and towards another one, Soarin turned his attention to Spitfire. They were simply following Fire for now with plenty of visibility as the sun was only beginning to set. Perhaps he had a moment to ask her about what was going on. Particularly what had prompted such a sharp change in her demeanor before arrival?

It didn’t take Spitfire long to notice that Soarin was eyeballing her as he flew beside her.

“Yes?” she asked as she turned her head towards him. Soarin didn’t mince words he got right to the point.

“So what went on at the compound? How did you end up flying out here all by yourself?” While the second question wasn’t quite as important to him, it did seem quite strange for Spitfire to take such an action considering their situation.

“Flashwind,” Spitfire replied simply as she looked back forward. Soarin blinked.

“What about Flashwind?”

“Well…” Spitfire glanced upwards. “We had a little… talk,” she said with an interesting tone. It almost sounded a little awkward. It was very noticeable.

“Doesn’t sound like you enjoyed it,” Soarin commented while lifting an eyebrow, but Spitfire quickly shook her head.

“No… no,” she glanced at him again. “It’s not what you think… It was just a bit embarrassing considering I had just gotten done railing on Descent for telling me I was doing things wrong… only to have Flashwind do the exact same thing… in a way…” Spitfire sighed. “She took a much different approach and boy, was it effective.”

Soarin watched Spitfire carefully as she smirked, chuckled, and shook her head lightly. He waited for her to elaborate, but she suddenly looked towards him.

“First, I want to apologize to you,” she suddenly offered. Soarin’s eyes went wide and he blinked several times. “I shouldn’t have brought up what you said to the whole force. I knew you were just lost in the moment and worried about Rainbow Dash. I was also lost in the moment when I repeated it to assert myself. It was unnecessary, I shouldn’t have done that.” Her tone was clear and very sincere. Soarin was almost speechless.

But now that she had apologized, he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to do the same. Spitfire had said it herself… there was no one pony at fault in this situation. They had all been blundering left and right. Soarin took a deep breath, his ears flopping down as he looked towards the ground below.

“Honestly…” he began with a shameful tone. “I should be apologizing too. It doesn’t matter what you did. I disobeyed your orders and flew out on my own. I saw a vision of Dash in trouble, but I decided to sneak out instead of gather help,” he paused, not expecting a reply. Here too, there was no one pony to blame since it was Spitfire’s actions that led to him not trusting she would help. “In fact…” Soarin started again, but then his ears pointed up and he gasped quietly. He had almost completely forgotten about something… rather awful he did before he left. “Aw, hell…” he cursed to himself.

“Hm?” Spitfire hummed, lifting an eyebrow as she looked him over. Soarin shook his head, sighing in shame, again.

“I owe one of our recruits a BIG TIME apology when I get back too…” he explained without going into detail. Spitfire was curious.

“What did you…” she trailed off and blinked. “Wait, was it Little Star by chance?” she asked, Soarin flinching the moment the name was mentioned.

“Er… yes,” Soarin gritted his teeth and averted his eyes. Spitfire stared at him for a moment, but looked back forward instead of pressing for him to elaborate. Soarin kept his eyes averted. “How did you know?” he asked as he glanced back over. Spitfire only shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter right now. Do what you believe you have to do,” she suggested as she took a quick breath and exhaled while focusing. “There is no basis or reason for us to look at everything that went wrong and point a hoof at a specific cause of it all. There are too many of us at fault here. If anypony is to take the blame, it should be me since I lost control of not only myself, but everypony else…” she glanced at Soarin. “But blaming myself won’t help either. Everything went to hell in a hoof-basket faster than anyone could react and we’ve taken a huge blow because of it. It’s time for us to take a long look at ourselves, refocus, and start anew…”

Soarin listened to her words carefully, very interested in what prompted all of this as he had been from the moment she arrived. It made him realize they had strayed off-topic. So he took the chance to get back on the rails.

“So… what exactly did Flashwind say?” he asked. He had seen Spitfire and Descent argue… it never was a productive or useful process between the two. What did Flashwind do differently?

“Like I said,” Spitfire quickly and almost eagerly began. “Her approach was entirely different. She started in a similar way to Descent, asserting herself and even physically dragging me off against my will, but once we had privacy, she sat me down and… we just talked. The first thing she did was make it crystal clear that she didn’t want to lecture me and then from there she completely softened up. She wanted to know what was on my mind, why I was making certain choices and decisions, and what was driving those choices. Her tone was very welcoming, I was skeptical about her claim against lecturing me at first, but she genuinely gave me the impression that she was trying to reach out, to connect with me as somepony who was once in my hooves as a lead captain. I never got verbal confirmation it was her intention, but if it was, it worked perfectly because… well, I pretty much unloaded all of my thoughts and feelings. Everything about the situation, everything about the Shadowbolts, everything we were dealing with between the Wonderbolts and the Renegades… Luna and Discord… Wave… You… all of it.”

Soarin listened intently as she went on, watching as she paused and thought to herself for a few moments.

“I let it all out and didn’t leave a single detail behind,” Spitfire continued. “And she listened. She never interrupted. She never tried to stop me and tell me I was wrong. She simply sat there and listened to me. And when I was done, we sat quietly for a few moments, looking at each other in silence for at least a minute. It felt so refreshing to get it all out of my system. It was a moment of relief. But then she asked me one question. And only one question,” Spitfire turned her head and looked right at Soarin. “She asked… ‘Does it feel right?’”

Spitfire paused, looking back forward as they pitched and turned within the canyons. Soarin said nothing, taking the same stance Flashwind had, he wanted to hear all of it without interruption.

“The answer was simple and right in front of me,” Spitfire went on. “No… it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right at all. NOTHING felt right. Cruel realization hit me like a back-winged slap to the face… Realization that I had absolutely no control over the current situation, or anything for that matter. Not even myself. I instantly began wondering how it all crashed and burned so hard. I felt so… stupid. I had literally just led a gung-ho, unorthodox, yet confident charge against the Shadowbolts to rescue Wave Chill that put every single one of us on a much needed victory high. Then… the moment Wave’s crystal infection appeared, I let it topple and crash right back down as if the hard won victory had never happened and I dragged everypony else down with me. It showed just how little control I had over myself and how little I was aware of the effect my emotional stability had on the whole force. Then it all just started spiraling downward further and further. My focus was thrown way off, my actions caused my comrades to be thrown off, and my decisions started being heavily influenced by outside forces, friend and enemy alike. Looking back, I’m so ashamed of how I let my emotions overwhelm me so easily, despite all the effort I had put into training them and keeping them in check before this recent conflict began. I was also not taking care to think of how the rest of you felt. Being aware of the emotional state of the Wonderbolts at all times is something I’ve always pitched as a cornerstone of my ethical and moral code as the captain… I certainly wasn’t practicing what I preach. Everything was just plain wrong… and I told Flashwind that’s how I felt.”

Spitfire paused again, taking another long breath and exhaling.

“So… I asked her what I should do. And she, being the wise, perceptive former captain that she is, pointed out that it was entirely up to me. Clever mare… I was so quick to ask her even though outside influence was making it all go wrong.” Spitfire chuckled. “She didn’t tell me what to do, but she offered a suggestion as my former captain whom I respected greatly when we were younger. She suggested I do something she used to urge me to do all the time when you and I were still recruits. She told me to simply… go for a flight. To clear my mind… to relax… and to refocus on what I felt had to be done… what I truly believed was important instead of being caught in a web of chaos that never seemed to end while constantly influencing my actions.”

“She told you to leave?” Soarin finally spoke up, surprised.

“I know,” Spitfire nodded. “I told her it was out of the question, but she immediately pointed out that I either consider her suggestion, or go walk right back into what was causing all my problems. So again, I asked myself what I felt was right, and I immediately chose to follow her advice. So I went for it. I slipped out and went flying on my own to clear my head. I wasn’t worried about running into Shadowbolts. I trusted Descent’s scouting report and it’s not like I’m incapable of holding my own. In the end… it was the right choice because the quiet surroundings, the gentle breeze in my mane, and the relaxed pace of my wings helped me think… and ultimately figure everything out. Then by chance I ran into Blaze flying as fast as she could and… you know the rest.”

She ended, Soarin keeping her eyes on her for several moments as he thought it all over. He released a single chuckle, drawing a smirk from Spitfire.

“What?” she asked with a smile.

“Remind me to thank Flashwind later for kicking your ass and getting out here to save us,” he said in a light hearted manner as Spitfire rolled her eyes.

“Heh, I dunno, Soarin. I’d sooner thank whoever tipped off Descent that I was gone. Nightshade had my number… I wasn’t going to win.”

“She had all of our numbers…” Soarin added with a grunt. “We may have survived, but… this isn’t going to help morale. She took all of us on so easily, we didn’t stand a chance. We can never match her.”

“Not necessarily,” Spitfire quickly interjected, drawing a curious glance from Soarin.

“Hm?” Soarin hummed while lifting an eyebrow.

“I’ll explain later,” Spitfire pointed at him. “There’s nothing we can do about Silver. Whether he lives or dies, he’s out of the fight completely. Not having him around will be a blow to morale, but… Taking on Nightshade may not be as difficult as you think. But like I said, I’ll explain later, it’s something everypony needs to hear.”

Soarin eyed her carefully, but shrugged and gave her a half-hearted salute.

“You’re the boss,” he said jokingly.

“Oh, stop that,” Spitfire chuckled as the two looked forward and kept up in formation. Soarin was about to make a personal check on Dash, but there was one last thing on his mind.

“So…” he spoke up, getting Spitfire’s attention once again. “I’m just wondering… After all we went through and everything with… you know…” he pointed at his horn. “Why are you suddenly okay with me coming along?” he asked, even though she had already given him somewhat of an explanation. But now that it was more of a personal conversation, he was curious what she would say.

“Because you’re my first commander, a pony I trust, and my best friend. Do I need more reasons?” she stated. Soarin blinked in surprise, but smiled warmly in return. Spitfire snickered as she shook her head. “Is that enough sap for you? Not that I could ever match the sap levels between you and your little Rainbow.”

“Eh… Maybe I could use a little more…” Soarin joked while shifting forwards a little. Spitfire stifled a few laughs while puffing up her cheeks.

“Alright, let’s get serious now… focus,” she ordered, pointing at Soarin before looking forwards at Squad Three again.

With that taken care of, and his curiosity pretty much completely satisfied, Soarin glanced over his shoulder at Dash, shifting himself backwards and taking care to keep his distance from Fleetfoot for her sake as he moved back.

“Hey,” Soarin said simply as he formed up beside Rainbow Dash.

“H-hey…” she replied a little shakily, but smiled even though she was clearly straining herself a little. Soarin immediately noticed her slight struggle with flight, something the rest were showcasing as well. He felt bad that he hadn’t checked on her sooner. Dash gave him an odd look as she noticed him looking her up and down. “What?” she asked with a brief giggle, followed by another grunt.

“How are you doing?” Soarin immediately asked. “Aside from… the obvious, I mean,” he clarified while gritting his teeth and tipping his head to the side awkwardly. Dash sighed as her ears flopped down.

“Which obvious?” she asked with a less than enthusiastic tone.

“Which?” Soarin blinked but then quickly put it together. “Oh…” He was referring to Nightshade… but of course, she was thinking about Silver too.

“Aside from my right wing bothering me a little, physically I’m doing somewhat fine, but everything else? No,” Dash shook her head. “I’m not doing too well right now. But it’s not like I have time to let it get me down,” she explained, but try as she might, she knew she wasn’t going to convince Soarin that her mind wasn’t elsewhere. Soarin sighed as he looked back forward, keeping pace side by side with her.

“I’m sorry I got tricked so easily,” he apologized. “If I hadn’t fallen for such an obvious trap I could have defended you…”

“Honestly, I’m a little glad you weren’t given the chance,” Dash said in a tone that sounded conflicted. “I’ve no doubt you would have made a difference against Nightshade, but…” she glanced over and up at his horn. “Who knows what would have happened…”

Soarin glanced up at the horn as well. He reached a hoof up and gently touched it to the surface. The moment it made contact he felt a very faint tingle of pain and dizziness, but he felt around until his hoof slipped over the small chipped piece that popped off when he was trying to rip free of the prison. It was very small, but just large enough to feel it.

“I guess you’re right,” Soarin sighed as he removed his hoof from the horn and looked down. “But still… I could have helped Silver. I could have split the burden… even if he lives he’s probably never going to be the same…” Soarin instantly shut his mouth as he heard Dash exhale.

Nice one… Dash was feeling down and Silver was part of it. Way to bring it up and remind her just how bad the situation with Silver was. He frantically tried to shift the subject.

“How are your friends holding up?” he asked as he glanced back at Storm and the rest of Squad Foxtrot. Soarin kept his eyes on them for a moment as he noticed Twister still flailing from the rope he had lassoed Squall with. Twister was now wrapped up in the rope himself. He started bouncing back and forth, unwrapping and wrapping again like a yoyo.

“They’re shaken, but managing,” Dash replied without glancing back. She flattened her brow as Twister started making all sorts of strange noises. “One of them deserves to be shaken a lot more though…” Dash grumbled with a faint growl, drawing Soarin’s attention to the miffed glare on her face.

“I take it Twister did one of his disappearing acts in the middle of the fight?” he asked, trying to keep the subject away from Silver.

“He did it before the fight even started,” Dash said with a grunt and a pout as she kept staring forward. “And I’m really starting to lose my patience him. I’ve gotten used to his antics and this is something he’s pulled a lot already, but this was NOT the time… we could have used his help, as little as it may have been.” Dash snorted and shook her head. “He’s not off the hook, but I doubt I’m going to get any kind of explanation out of him. Nothing is worse than constantly having to deal with a moron that keeps getting away with being a moron…” Dash kept grumbling, earning a smirk from Soarin, but he felt like this was somewhat backfiring too.

First he brought up Silver… and made her sad. Then he brought up Twister… and made her angry. Okay, third time’s the charm, he was going to avoid another ‘triple fail.’ There was one other thing to talk about, and this would, hopefully, be different because it equally affected them both.

Nightshade.

Soarin took a moment to look back at Storm Front, wondering how much he knew about Nightshade, being Descent’s son and all.

“Did you ever mention Nightshade to them before?” Soarin asked, shifting the subject as he looked back at Dash. It seemed to do the trick. Dash’s face went from angry to serious as she looked down in thought.

“Yeah, they know. When we were in Cloudsdale I told them at the hotel the night before the show,” she explained.

“So they already knew…”

“But being told about Nightshade and experiencing Nightshade are two entirely different things,” Dash added with a wince and a shudder. Soarin grimaced and nodded.

“God I couldn’t agree more…” he said as he looked back forward.

They remained silent for a moment, both thinking about Nightshade as they continued on.

“Up and over!” Fire yelled back, all of them pitching up and over the top of a cliff wall. “Stay low!” he yelled as they glided along the ground towards the next canyon, keeping up their previous planned procedures despite their assumption that they were in the clear.

“So this is the third time,” Soarin voiced his thoughts and trailed off.

“Huh?” Dash looked towards him.

“Sorry, just thinking out loud,” Soarin shook his head, but turned to look at her anyway. “The third time we’ve faced off against Nightshade…” he kept speaking his mind. Technically, it was the fourth, but the second and third were so close together between their capture and release that it seemed like one large battle. “The other two times we’ve crossed paths… they seem so long ago. To be honest, with everything that’s happened over such a short time, I had almost completely forgotten about them, and her.”

“I sure haven’t,” Dash said with a shiver. “But then again, she hasn’t violated you as much as me.”

“No doubt…” Soarin winced as he watched Dash visibly react to simply thinking about Nightshade. “Though… this time. It’s making me wonder.”

“About?”

“Things were a lot different this time. The circumstances are completely different with the Renegades being involved. Did you see the way she acted when Descent and Starry showed up?” he asked rhetorically. “It really got me thinking… Remember when Descent confronted us in the Shadowbolt Fortress before letting us go?”

“Gosh, how could I forget… that was the most terrifying day of my life,” Dash recalled.

“What happened between them here reminded me of what Descent told us… about him, Starry, and Nightshade. How he described their connection, their trust, and their bond. Descent ran towards her like he was trying to save her… and she…” he trailed off as he thought it all over.

“Hmmm…” Dash hummed. “You don’t think…”

“Think what?”

“I mean, something that’s been loosely on my mind since Nightshade showed up out of nowhere and beat the living crap out of us,” Dash began. “And it made me think even more once Spitfire showed up. You saw her and Spitfire fight… she only tried about half as hard against all of us before facing Spitfire. She is RIDICULOUSLY powerful… but that’s just it,” she turned and looked at Soarin. “If she’s so strong and so powerful, then why hasn’t she come out and attacked us sooner? Why send the commanders and the other Shadowbolts after us? Also… Descent and Starry said themselves that they never encountered her when they were carrying out Luna’s orders during the tryouts. Descent was just as unaware of her as we were.”

Soarin kept his eyes on her as she finished explaining, thinking over what she said and everything he saw before Nightshade retreated. It was one of the strangest scenes he had ever seen and didn’t fit anything they knew about Nightshade. It was almost as if the sight of Descent and Starry terrified her… it even brought her to tears! But what kind of tears? Without actually being in Nightshade’s head, there was no way they’d know.

But based on what he had seen and how it all played out, Soarin felt there was one believable conclusion.

“Do you think…” he began as he kept looking at Dash, drawing her eyes to his. “Do you think Nightshade has been hiding from Descent and Starry?”

Dash and Soarin just stared at each other, no answer floating between the two of them, but the question was definitely one worth asking. The more and more they learned about the Shadowbolts, the more they wondered if there was something really wrong going on within their ranks on many different levels. Were the Wonderbolts the only victims in this conflict?

But if that was the case… what was driving them? It had to be more complicated than just the crystals. They knew of some background figure possibly calling the shots, but they had nothing, no facts or insight. At this point it had been all about survival. Hopefully they’d get some answers soon.

“There!” Fire yelled as they flew over the top of a new canyon and pointed down into it. Both Soarin and Dash looked forward and then down to see a vast, deep, wide open canyon below them with several large formations jutting out from the cliff walls and all the way down. Fire, however, was pointing towards a very large rock overhang that was near the center and extended very far out like a natural solid canopy. It was hard to see from their current angle, but it looked like there was a large cavern beneath. “That must be it!” Fire yelled back to the rest.

“Everypony prepare to descend!” Spitfire ordered as everypony who had shifted returned to formation, even Fleetfoot. Twister didn’t stop his antics, but nopony expected him too.

“There, let’s land there,” Spitfire pointed as they evened out, gliding beneath the large overhang and immediately being covered by the overhead shade. The area was very wide open, at least fifty yards from entryway to the opposite cliff wall, but they couldn’t see the end of it, the lack of light cutting off visibility about halfway into the cavern. The overhang above them was roughly twenty yards tall, maybe slightly more, visibility of the ceiling cut off even earlier.

In short, it was dark, and hard to see, the only light coming from the edge of the massive rock formation that led back out into the vast canyon.

With Spitfire and Fire Streak in the lead, the Wonderbolts came in for a landing… but it wasn’t the most graceful approach. Soarin landed just fine, Spitfire’s post battle stiffness didn’t bother her too much, but the rest had sloppy landings. Dash and Surprise both landed and buckled immediately, falling forwards onto their chests. Fleetfoot and Lightning Streak both hit the ground a little hard, stumbling as they landed and running into those in front of them.

“Whoa, there…” Soarin immediately reached down, helping Dash up as the others received assistance as well. It was hard to watch, but nopony could possibly blame any of them after the beat down they took. It was already a wonder that they were able to fly, some of them struggling greatly from the moment they took off.

“Well… this is it,” Fire spoke up as Misty Fly and Lightning Streak helped up Surprise behind him. He looked back down at the map and nodded. “Should be, at least.”

Spitfire stepped away from the Wonderbolts as they gathered themselves and looked around, squinting, but failing to see very far into the darkness ahead of them. The others approached and joined her once they were all back on their hooves, a few limping.

“Yep,” Spitfire nodded as she looked up at the dark shadows extending up the ceiling. “This definitely looks like the kind of place thestrals would prefer…”

“Mmmnnnnnnnggggnnnnn…” a low, quiet groan came from behind her. Spitfire looked back, leaning to see past Soarin, who was also looking behind him. Fleetfoot was crouched down behind him, looking very uncomfortable.

“You alright back there?” Soarin asked.

“No…” Fleetfoot replied with a squeak. Soarin blinked, but then remembered.

“Oh, right,” he said with a light chuckle.

“It’s not funny…” Fleetfoot gave a lackluster defense. “They have sharp teeth…”

Rainbow Dash was standing right behind Fleetfoot, examining her body language carefully. The others seemed fine, but she certainly had a dislike for Luna’s guards. Dash herself had had little contact with them. She had never actually had a personal conversation with one either so she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Aside from what Silver had told her and little bits she had heard here and there about their rather fierce, wild nature, she knew nothing.

“They’re probably around here somewhere, let’s look around,” Spitfire ordered as they began moving. Dash kept up behind, but was forced to stop for a spell as it took Fleetfoot a few moments to gather herself. They moved further in, getting darker every step of the way, but the light from the open end was just enough so they could see.

As they walked, Dash glanced back at her squad, shifting her pace so she backed up and walked among them.

“Have any of you guys ever met a bat pony before?” she asked them casually.

“No,” Storm and Squall immediately answered at the exact same time.

“Are those the ones with the gills and fins?” Twister asked while popping up beside Dash, but she didn’t even look at him.

“I have read of the thestrals,” Matteo spoke up, catching Dash’s attention. “Just never met one.”

“Oh? What do you know?” Dash asked curiously as Twister sat down on her back with a box of popcorn, but again was completely ignored.

“My father once told me stories about encountering them, but aside from that, they also fought alongside the griffons in the last war with the drakes. Back before I left for Canterlot, I spent a lot of my free time in the Grand Griffon Gallery. They have complete records of past battles and wars.”

Matteo paused as a snicker came from nearby. But it wasn’t Twister. He looked past Twister to see Storm holding a hoof over his mouth, desperately trying to stifle laughter. Matteo pulled his goggles down and glared at him.

“Find something amusing?” he asked with a snort.

“No… sorry…” Storm grinned while waving a hoof. “Just… I mean… ‘Grand Griffon Gallery?’” he asked as he tried to hold in more laughter, earning a snicker from Dash as well. Matteo flattened his brow and sighed as he looked forward.

“Is it amusing that I like to read archives?” he asked flatly.

“Uh…” Storm blinked. “That’s not what I’m laughing at…” he explained as Matteo looked back at him. Squall grunted and shook his head.

“What kind of name is that for an archive?” Squall pointed out since the point was eluding Matteo. Matteo exhaled loudly as he finally caught on.

“I didn’t name it…” he grumbled with a snort.

“OO! OO!” Twister bounced off of Dash’s back and onto his. “CAN I RENAME IT?!”

“No,” Dash said as she grabbed Twister’s tail and yanked him off Matteo’s back. Twister crashed to the ground and Squall purposely shifted over to step on Twister as he passed, Twister releasing a loud squeaky toy sound as he was trodden on. “I haven’t had much interaction with them at all,” Dash continued on, trying to bring her point back. “What do you know about them?” She reposed her question.

“THE GREAT GOOFY GOOBER?!” Twister popped up between them while holding a guitar and strumming it so hard while puckering his lips that all the string snapped at once. With one swipe of his arm, Matteo batted Twister aside.

“The records are mainly of battles, but there were a few bits and pieces describing them that I found intriguing. They are a very rare species of pony, mostly unseen by most of the pony population. They tend to stay away from cities and large concentrations of the pony population, as many of their natural instincts are very disconnected from civilized society. They are nocturnal, which goes without saying. Seeing one out and about in the middle of the day is a very rare occurrence.”

“GOOD GRACIOUS GONZALES?!” Twister popped up while wearing a wrestling mask, but was instantly pile-driven by some invisible force. Nopony paid any mind.

“Disconnected from civilized society?” Squall spoke up from behind. “Sounds kind of like you griffons if you ask me.”

“Squall…” Dash said as she looked back at him with a disapproving pout.

“I saw that one coming,” Matteo said while rolling his eyes.

“Well,” Dash shrugged. “They sound a little intimidating, but the Wonderbolts seem to be okay with them…” she paused while looking straight ahead of her at Fleetfoot. “Well, most of them at least. I just hope we can convince them without Silver…”

“GOING GOING GONE?!” Twister yelled, popping up with a baseball cap and bat, pointing up towards the ceiling at an angle. Squall growled loudly.

“God, SHUT UP!” he yelled, flinching as Twister instantly turned and pressed his face directly into Squall’s.

“NO U!” Twister yelled back as he started bopping his forehead against Squall’s.

“Boys, stop it,” Dash said flatly. Twister turned to face her.

“NO-MRPH!” Twister was muffled before he could repeat himself as Storm reached over and shoved his hoof right into Twister’s mouth.

“Thank you,” Dash said simply as they kept walking behind the Wonderbolts. She blinked as they suddenly came to a stop. Dash leaned up and over, glancing past Soarin to see Spitfire looking at Fire Streak as he pulled the map back out.

Dash suddenly realized… If they were in the right place, they would have surely seen the Lunar Guard by now… this wasn’t good.

“Bro…” Lightning Streak spoke up amongst the silence while glancing at his brother. “You sure we’re in the right place?” he asked as he shifted up beside Fire Streak. Fire rubbed his bottom lip along his teeth as he opened the map again and squinted as he tried to get a clear look at it in the dark. He blinked as Surprise suddenly popped up beside him holding a flashlight, shining it on the map. Fire only glanced at her before looking back at the map, not even bothering asking.

“They should be…” Fire trailed off for a moment as his eyes darted about the map. “They should definitely be right here. I know I’m reading the map correctly… Unless there happens to be more rock formations like this… which is highly unlikely.”

“Yo, lemme see that,” Lightning reached for the map, but Fire quickly pulled it away as he grunted in frustration. “Hey, c’mon…” Lightning tried to reach over, but Fire kept it away, Surprise releasing a squeak as she got wedged and squished between the two of them.

“Brother, if I’M mistaken, I doubt you’ll fare any better,” Fire said bluntly.

“Why ya gotta be like that?” Lightning asked while rolling his eyes and reaching for the map again as Surprise dropped the flashlight and it turned off.

“That’s enough you two,” Spitfire spoke up, the brothers stepping away and letting Surprise free. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions until we are sure. Keep looking,” she ordered to everypony as she glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes landed on Fleetfoot, who was still looking hesitant and somewhat hiding behind Soarin. “Fleetfoot, relax. You’re not going to get bitten again.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” Fleetfoot shot back quietly while shivering. “Besides, it’s more than that. They creep me out in general,” she explained as she shook her head. “You know they like to hide in the dark and pop up out of nowhere, I bet that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

Spitfire sighed as she looked back forward, but the now freed Surprise shifted backwards and pressed against Fleetfoot’s side while giving her a smile.

“Aw, you gotta think positive, Fleety!” Surprise said with an oddly cheerful tone considering what they all just went through, but she was probably forcing it just for Fleetfoot’s sake. “They’re a little freaky, but the batties are our friends!” she kept going, earning odd looks from everypony else as she looked up towards the darkness hiding the ceiling above them. “I’m sure once we find ‘em it’ll be hugs and fun all arou—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!”

Everypony flinched as Surprise suddenly shrieked at the top of her lungs. They all looked towards her, noticing that she was frozen in place, jaw nearly unhinged as her neck was stuck back and her eyes as wide as possible as they looked above them.

Everypony else instantly looked up. Several gasps sounding among them as they all were met with a rather chilling sight.

Yellow, glowing lights…

All in pairs.

They weren’t just dots either. They were shaped like glaring eyes.

“Uh…” Soarin gulped. “I think… we found them…”

The surrounding area that was once silent was suddenly filled with the sounds of hissing and screeching that started quiet and slowly grew in volume. The yellow eyes began darting all about, loud echoing noises of quick, leathery wing flaps filling the air as bursts and gusts of wind rushed against the Wonderbolts.

The Wonderbolts were soon forced together, wincing and shielding themselves as they felt pressure from the passing wakes of what felt and sound like hundreds of pairs of wings beating very close by, the yellow lights shooting and zipping about as the hissing and screeching sounded like it was literally right beside them.

“AAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!” Fleetfoot screamed as she latched herself to Soarin’s leg and nearly knocked him over. But while the rest were trying to keep their hooves, Spitfire stood firmly and stepped forward.

“STOP!” she yelled loudly in the most commanding voice she could muster. “I SAID STOP!” she yelled again, flinching as she felt the presence of the hidden ponies whisking by. She was about to yell again, but a VERY strong gust of wind suddenly slammed into her. “RGH!” She grunted as she was forced several steps backwards, running plot-first into Fire Streak.

The moment she was pushed back into the pack with the rest of them, the passing gusts and blasts of wind suddenly ceased.

Everypony slowly looked up, Soarin removing his wings from over Rainbow Dash and Fleetfoot as the other larger Wonderbolts did the same after shielding the smaller.

“Oh man…” Lightning Streak remarked as everypony looked around… right into the glowing, yellow eyes of hundreds of thestrals surrounding them. They were barely visible in the dark shadows, their purple armor and dark fur colors ranging from black, dark grey, dark blue, and dark purple, all helping them blend in. But their yellow eyes shined brightly, reflecting the very little light coming from far behind them and causing the whole area to sport a faint yellow tint.

They had completely flanked the Wonderbolts, all glaring as they leaned forward as if daring any of them to try and make a move. They hissed, snarled, and bared their sharp fangs, imposing their presence on the Wonderbolts like trapped prey.

The Wonderbolts, while mostly remaining vigilant and poised, didn’t move a muscle. They came all the way out here to meet with these very ponies, but after this welcome… was this not a well thought out decision? Twister suddenly released a high pitched scream while sitting on top of Matteo’s head. Matteo quickly grabbed Twister by the head in his talons and slammed Twister face first to the ground to shut him up, showing that even the stoic griffon was on edge in the face of such unfamiliar circumstances.

“ENOUGH!” Spitfire suddenly yelled, causing everypony else to flinch. It only seemed to anger the thestrals as they only snarled and hissed louder while all taking a step forwards. But Spitfire didn’t flinch or give an inch as she growled right back at them. “WE’RE THE WONDERBOLTS!” she yelled, which again only seemed to make the situation worse, some of the thestrals now just inches away and hissing into the faces of a few of them.

“Captain… they don’t seem to care…” Fire Streak stated as he leaned away from a thestral showing off his fangs, keeping a wing over Misty even though she was the only other pony aside from Spitfire glaring back at the thestrals.

“HOLD!”

A very deep voice suddenly yelled from somewhere behind all of the thestrals.

The Wonderbolts all blinked in surprise as the thestrals instantly all stopped growling and hissing and took a few steps backwards. They kept glaring at the Wonderbolts, but they had given them space and stopped trying to intimidate them… all on a single word.

Dash looked up as she pushed herself out from beneath Soarin’s wing, looking around as she tried to find the source of the voice. It was the deepest voice she had ever heard, around the same octave as Matteo, but without the griffon accent.

Based on the immediate reaction of the Lunar Guard, Dash had no doubts towards who the voice belonged to.

A few of the thestrals to their left suddenly began hissing again, but a loud THUMP of a hoof striking the ground caused every single one of them to flinch, and the small number that hissed again shut right up.

Dash’s eyes widened as something appeared in the shadows behind the thestrals that stood directly in front of them.

Another pair of glowing lights… but they weren’t the same. They were at least two to three heads higher than any of the Lunar Guards… but they weren’t yellow.

They were red.

Spitfire growled quietly as the pair of red lights appeared, but she didn’t move. Dash watched from right behind her and Soarin as the thestrals in front of them slowly parted, creating a path in their ranks.

The sound of hooves quietly made itself known in the silence surrounding them all, a heavy clip-clop that bounced and echoed off every nearby surface.

Dash’s eyes widened in a mixture of fear and awe… as a very… VERY large thestral stepped out of the shadows and into view. He was easily the size of Descent, maybe a little larger, but his appearance in general was much different compared to the other thestrals.

He was completely covered from head to hoof in a full suit of grey armor. Its design patterns were similar to the purple armor the rest of the guard wore, only it had no openings, armor plating covering his legs and neck, and a closed full helm completely covering his head with small slits for his eyes and a vented grate near his mouth. Very little of his body was exposed, but what Dash could see surprised her.

White fur stuck out from the joints in his leg plating, a snow-white tail hung down behind him, white thestral ears, one of which was missing a large chunk, were sticking up from the full helmet, and a pair of very large, white, bat wings rested at his sides. White? Dash had never seen a thestral that hadn't had very dark colored fur. Then again, that wasn’t the only thing that was different… since instead of glowing yellow eyes, a pair of glowing red eyes peered down at them from between the tiny eye-slits of his armored helmet.

Dash had no doubt about it… this had to be—

“Captain P.L.” Spitfire spoke up as the rest of the Wonderbolts stared at him with a wide variety of varied expressions and reactions. For some it seemed like the first time ever seeing him. “Tell your soldiers to stand down, I do not appreciate—

“You have exactly one minute to convince me you are the real Wonderbolts,” he abruptly cut her off, his deep voice given a strong, metallic echo by the confines of his helmet as his eyes continued to glow from within.

Dash closed her mouth to stifle a quiet yelp of surprise as she and the rest of the Wonderbolts flinched, but Spitfire just gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes.

“Alright, you listen to me, P.” she began as she took a step towards him and pointed right at his face. “You know EXACTLY who I am! Spitfire! Captain of the Wonderbolts! And we most certainly don’t have time for your paranoia!” she stated firmly, keeping her presence firm and determined to not mince words.

“That will be up to me,” P.L.’s voice echoed. “Forty-five seconds left.”

Spitfire stopped growling and instead huffed as she got right to the point.

“Princess Luna sent out her signal to you this morning,” she explained, thinking it would be more than enough, but P.L. shook his head.

“And you’re late,” he pointed out without a moment of hesitation.

“We had to FIGHT our way here, you know!” Spitfire threw a hoof out and motioned to both herself and the battle damaged Wonderbolts.

“And where is my Liege?” he asked, never waiting more than a second to speak after Spitfire.

“We…” Spitfire sighed while grumbling. “We ran into some trouble, if you didn’t notice the first time I said it,” she said while waving her hoof at the rest of the Wonderbolts again. “In fact, we wouldn't have made it if it were not for Luna making an effort to save us all at her own expense. She’s in our infirmary recovering as we speak.”

“How convenient. Thirty seconds,” P.L. said simply in response. The thestrals suddenly began snarling and hissing again, edging forwards as their captain’s countdown reached the halfway mark, but P.L. suddenly threw his large wings out, a loud burst of wind erupting from them and bouncing off the surrounding walls. The thestrals all pulled back again and held themselves in check as P.L. refolded his wings.

Spitfire didn’t say anything else for a moment, growling to herself as she contemplated what to say. Soarin edged forward and stopped right behind her.

“Spitfire… what are we going to do? Fight them? That’s not gonna help at all, but that looks like where we’re going…” he spoke with concern. Spitfire didn’t even look at him though as she lifted up a hoof and slammed it down, emulating the same hoof slam that P.L. had used the best she could in another attempt to assert herself.

“For Celestia’s sake, P.!” she pointed at him. “Cut out the crap! How many times have we met and spoken in the past year?!” while her voice was firm, the choice of words sounded desperate and the Wonderbolts easily noticed. But then again, what Spitfire had already said was all they had to go on. She was clearly confident it would be all she needed to say… and was banking on it working. If P.L. didn’t believe them yet, there was little hope of anything else working.

“Fifteen seconds,” P.L. said stoically as he lifted up a hoof and made one circular motion with it. On cue, the rest of the guards began growling and hissing again, edging forwards towards the Wonderbolts.

Things were not looking good.

Dash had her hooves set firmly and defensively even though Soarin still had his wing over her. Under normal circumstances she’d be scolding him for being overprotective, but she was too concerned about what would happen after fifteen more seconds to care.

“Well this is nice…” Storm commented as the thestrals slowly closed in, forcing the Wonderbolts to all bunch together again.

“I swear,” Squall growled. “If one of these dickheads touches me, I’m beating their helmet in.”

“Easy Squall…” Dash said back to him as she tried, and failed to slip out from beneath Soarin’s wing. The situation was far from in control, but she didn’t want any of her squadmates to do anything stupid.

“Ten seconds,” P.L. said as he started turning around and facing away from them.

“It seems we’re in for another confrontation…” Matteo said with a grunt as he glared down at the thestrals hissing at him while bearing their fangs. Twister pushed up just enough from Matteo’s talons to scream again, but was promptly pressed right back down.

Dash gritted her teeth as she frantically looked around at the Wonderbolts. They all looked completely stumped. Spitfire used everything at their disposal to convince P.L. but she still couldn’t get through to him. She made it clear she was going to speak on behalf of them all as the captain… but apparently that wasn’t good enough for P.L. either.

When Luna said that her guards didn’t trust anypony, she wasn’t kidding! No wonder Descent didn’t come along with them. If the Lunar Guard was this paranoid, the Renegades may have been attacked on the spot. Was P.L. already stretching his willingness to listen because they were the Wonderbolts?

Dash blinked. Something dawned on her.

Wait… the Wonderbolts… P.L. gave them a chance…

Nothing Spitfire was saying was convincing him… but what about everything Silver had just told her before Nightshade attacked them?

THAT WAS IT!

“Five seconds,” P.L. said as he now had his back turned to them. He lifted up his hoof to make another motion, holding it in place until the final seconds counted down.

“DAMMIT, P!” Spitfire yelled, slamming her eyes shut.

It was now or never, Dash took the chance, and made her move.

She ripped free from beneath Soarin’s wing, pushed herself past Fleetfoot, Misty Fly, and Fire Streak, before finally reaching forward and shoving herself past Spitfire.

“Dash?!” Soarin yelled, gasping in horror as she galloped right towards P.L. The rest of the Wonderbolts all turned, their eyes widening as the thestrals immediately turned and dove at her.

“GAH!” Dash yelled as multiple guards grabbed hold of her and roughly threw her to the ground. Dash struggled to get free, but the guards began kicking her while she was held down.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Spitfire yelled in alarm as she tried to rush forward, but was instantly caught by three thestrals and restrained.

“GRH! ARGH!” Dash grunted and gasped as the thestrals beat her.

“STOP IT!” Soarin yelled as his eyes and horn began to glow.

Dash’s ears perked up as she heard Soarin yell, accompanied by her heartbeat quickening. Determined to act before any fighting began and before Soarin decided to do anything rash or have a magic episode… she forced her head up and glared towards Captain P.L. as he completely ignored what was happening and readied to give the rest of his soldiers the signal to attack.

“BLIZZARD STRIKE!” she yelled, grunting as she was kicked again. “SILVER LINING!” she added before one of the guards put a hoof to her head and forced it down to the ground.

P.L. froze in place, his hoof not budging as he held it in the air.

“HOLD!” he suddenly yelled out at the top of his lungs.

The thestrals all flinched and immediately ceased movement. Those focused on the Wonderbolts all took a step back and those brutally subduing Dash all instantly stopped. While they followed the order without question, all of them had shifted their eyes from the Wonderbolts to their captain.

P.L. slowly turned back, stopping hallway around and turning his head to look at Rainbow Dash, his glowing red eyes focusing on her from beneath the full helmet.

“You owe Silver Lining!” Dash yelled as she tried to yank herself free. The thestrals had stopped hitting and kicking her, but they were still holding her against the ground.

P.L. didn’t move for a moment, but eventually fully turned, squaring his body to Dash. Dash shook her head free of the hoof holding her chin to the ground. She glared up at P.L. as he stared back down at her from a few yards away. She held the glare as harshly and firmly as she could muster.

“Let her up,” P.L. suddenly ordered. The thestrals holding Dash down all blinked in surprise, hesitating to follow his word for the first time since they showed up. “NOW!” P.L. shouted at them as they hesitated. The thestrals instantly released her and backed themselves away into the crowd of guards.

Dash huffed as she slowly pushed herself up off the ground. She was miffed. Her body was already stiff and achy enough and now the Lunar Guards decided to give her a few more body blows. She faced P.L. waiting to see what happened before she said anything else.

Dash waited… but then watched as P.L. slowly reached a hoof up and grabbed the side of his helmet. Dash gulped, but held firm as P.L. slowly pushed on it and removed it.

Her eyes widened slightly and her heart jumped, but it wasn’t because of Soarin. It was a… mixture of reactions.

P.L. whipped his head back and forth as he freed it from the confines of his helmet before he opened his eyes and refocused on Dash. His appearance was… stunning. His face was aged, hardened, and covered with some nasty scars that looked to be caused by something with very sharp claws. His mane was long, smooth, and pure white, hanging down behind his neck. Upon seeing his white tail along with the other parts of him that were visible, and the red eyes, Dash had wondered. But now it was clear. He was albino. He stared down at Dash with his red eyes held in a constant, serious gaze as if sizing her up. He was easily one of the most intimidating ponies Dash had ever met… which was one half of her reaction. The other half? Despite his demeanor, Dash could not deny that he was incredibly attractive. He looked to be as old as Silver, but he definitely aged more gracefully than him.

Dash was brought back to the present as P.L. slammed his helmet down to the ground, a move that made everypony, the thestrals included, flinch in surprise. Leaving his helmet behind him, he slowly walked forward until he was standing a yard from Dash. He narrowed his eyes and snorted.

“I’m listening,” he spoke, his deep octave voice filled with a hint of annoyance. “But my patience wears thin. Choose your words carefully…” He narrowed his eyes. “Because if you fail to satisfy me… you’re dead.” He threatened.

Behind them, Spitfire ground her teeth together and started leaning forward, but stopped when Soarin reached forward and grabbed her by the shoulder. She turned her head and glared at him, but Soarin only shook his head, the blue light slowly fading from his eyes.

“Spitfire, let’s see what happens,” he suggested, voicing his curiosity towards Dash’s bold approach. She was naturally a bit head-strong, but the Dash he knew wouldn’t make a move like this without something in mind… and considering she had long been under Silver’s wing, there had to be something.

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hum as she softened her glare, but before she turned around, both she and Soarin perked up… something that sounded like a high pitched, quiet squeal was coming from behind them. Both Soarin and Spitfire looked back to see Fleetfoot and Surprise both staring wide eyed with their wings open and their faces absolutely covered in bright red blushes. “Fleet? Surprise?” Spitfire blinked as Fire and Lightning Streak both turned to look as well. Misty was standing beside them too, she was biting her lower lip, but she kept her wings under control and was not blushing… much. Storm, Squall, and Matteo all looked over as well in confusion.

“What’s gotten into you?” Soarin asked.

“He’s… so… sexy…” Fleetfoot stumbled over her words as she reached up a hoof and fanned herself, her wings jittering. Spitfire stared at her awkwardly.

“Who…? Oh…” Spitfire immediately flattened her brow as she glanced back at the standoff between Dash and P.L. “I take it you’ve never seen him with his helmet off before… but, really? Seriously, ladies?” she sighed in frustration. That explained why Misty was not reacting, she had seen P.L. helmetless before, but Fleetfoot and Surprise had not. However, considering the situation, this was hardly the time to be swooning. “Stop that and pay attention,” Spitfire said in a hushed but harsh tone. It wasn’t that she disagreed with them… it just was NOT the time. “You do realize that they are threatening to kill us?”

“I think I’m in heaven already…” Fleetfoot cooed. All trace of her previous demeanor gone for the moment as if she was never severely hurt or ever afraid of thestrals.

“Take me now!” Surprise giggled as she leaned and draped herself over Fleetfoot’s back and sighed. Spitfire rolled her eyes and looked back forwards, Fire, Lightning, and Soarin all doing the same to pay attention where the rest of the mares were struggling.

Ignoring the odd swoon spell going on behind him, Soarin watched carefully, still very curious and interested in what Dash was going to do. The two were still just staring at each other. If she had a plan as he expected, he hoped she wasn’t hesitating, because P.L. looked just as short on patience as he claimed to be.

Dash, to be completely honest with herself, was a little scared. She wasn’t showing it, but P.L.’s threat to kill her if she didn’t deliver had rattled her a bit. But from the get go, she was keeping one thought in her mind, ‘how would Silver go about this?’

He certainly wouldn’t be afraid. No, not one bit. He would look P.L. directly in the eye with equal strength and show absolutely no fear.

Silver wasn’t here… he had been removed from the equation. But that didn’t mean his presence was gone. SHE… was there. And she was determined to fill the hooves of her teacher.

Dash took a deep breath and mirrored P.L.’s actions. She reached up and removed her hood, putting nothing in between their faces besides the empty space in the middle. She stepped forward a little to show that she was willing to do so and glared up into his eyes as he waited for her answer.

“Griffon-Drake War,” Dash began, keeping her voice solid and firm. “Sky Skimmer Mountain Range. Il Corvo Fortress. The Battle of Talon Peak.”

P.L.’s eyes twitched. His glare softened, but only a little.

“Silver Lining and Blizzard Strike were with you and fought beside you when the drakes launched a surprise attack on the fortress. During the battle, you were caught in the middle of several drakes after jumping headlong into their formation on the second pass…” as she spoke, one of P.L.’s eyes opened slightly wider. “You were on the verge of being overpowered, but Silver threw a volley of lightning your way, right into the pack of drakes around you. It gave you an opening to break free.” She paused, allowing it to sink in, but P.L. still said nothing. So she went on. “Afterward, Blizzard Strike forced you to thank Silver for helping you, and you said you owed him one.”

As Dash finished, everything went silent. Every pair of eyes, both Wonderbolt and thestral went to P.L. Even the mares had broken from their dreamy spell once Dash had started talking.

P.L. suddenly narrowed his eyes, bared his teeth and released a quiet, low growl. But he only did so for a moment, his face returning to normal. His eyes were still hard and serious, but there was a glint of curiosity within them.

“You…” he finally spoke. “Your name?”

“Rainbow Dash,” Dash replied without hesitation as she kept her glaring eyes trained on him.

For a moment, P.L. didn’t say another word, his eyes were moving very subtly, looking Dash over from head to hoof.

“How do you know about all that?” he asked. Dash’s ears twitched, but she knew exactly how to reply.

“He told me about it. Silver Lining is my mentor.”

P.L lifted an eyebrow as he continued to look her up and down. He then looked up and around at all of them.

“Where is he now?” he asked, a question that Dash was prepared to answer after Spitfire’s failure to convince him about Luna’s whereabouts.

“Silver just sacrificed everything to save us all from certain death. He stood in harm’s way for our sake and just barely escaped with his life. He is being transported back to our compound as we speak,” Dash paused and gave a single nod. “If not for him… we would have never even made it here.” She finished and waited for a reply, but didn’t get one. P.L. looked skeptical. Dash narrowed her glare further and snorted. “If you don’t believe me, you are more than welcome to come and see for yourself. Then you can see we’re telling the truth about Luna too.”

The way Dash had said it came naturally, but to the ears of the rest of the elite Wonderbolts, she had no idea how much she had just sounded like Silver. P.L.’s glare returned, telegraphing that he was not thrilled. But he never got the chance, Dash kept going. Something about the way P.L. was reacting was lighting a fire within her. She was reading something from him that was failing to reach the others. She felt in control of the situation… and the way P.L. was reacting reminded her of the way others with authority or power reacted to Silver.

“Look,” she took another step. The thestrals reacted, a few of them hissing, but none of them making any moves as P.L. stood still. “Either you come with us and find out for yourself if I’m telling the truth…” Dash motioned to the Wonderbolts. “Or you can kill us, go home, and try to sleep at night knowing you may have left the leader you swear allegiance to behind to die. It’s your choice.”

All eyes went to P.L. again as his red eyes remained locked on Dash. His face scrunched, one of his eyes twitching subtly. Was he… considering it?

“Tell me,” he spoke up again. “If you are really Silver Lining’s student… and he has told you of me…” P.L. scrunched his face further. “What… else… has he said?” he asked in a strangely awkward tone that sounded very different compared to his speech patterns up to this point.

Dash opened her mouth to speak… but she stopped herself as she thought carefully.

She was about to echo Silver’s praise of P.L. where he described just how skilled and strong he was… but then something told her that wouldn’t work. If she were to be convincing about Silver Lining to somepony who knew him well…

“That you’re a dumbass,” Dash said while somehow holding a straight face.

“DASH!” Spitfire yelled in shock from behind her, all the thestrals turning and glaring at her while hissing and snarling. But P.L…. only blinked.

“That you tend to get yourself into situations that you can’t win all the time because you’re bat-shit insane. That you have poor judgment, you always bite off more than you can chew, and, I quote, ‘I swear the bastard does it on purpose.’”

Dash held herself firm as she finished, ignoring the growling, hissing, and snarling being aimed at her by the rest of the thestrals, but eventually they quieted down as they slowly realized their captain… was not saying anything in his defense.

Then P.L. looked up into the air, closed his eyes, took a breath… and released a long, loud exhale.

“That is… truly something Silver would say…” He opened his eyes and turned around, saying nothing for a few moments as all the thestrals watched him. He started muttering to himself, a mixture of barely audible sounds, words, and grumbles, shaking his head a lot before he turned back around to face Rainbow Dash. The two locked eyes again for a short moment before P.L. released a loud snort. He looked back and forth at all of his soldiers and opened his right wing. The moment he did every single thestral squared up, facing him directly and standing attention. “LUNAR GUARDS!” he yelled. “Everypony line up rank and file! Prepare for immediate departure! We are going to follow them!”

While none of the thestrals broke rank or moved from their spot, the looks upon all of their faces were of shock and disbelief that the faceguards of their open helmets could not hide. P.L. growled and slammed a hoof down on the ground, creating a loud, resonating BOOM that shook the entire cavern.

“NOW!!!!!!!!!!” he yelled at them.

Without another word, the thestrals began somewhat organizing themselves, moving away from the Wonderbolts and gathering together into a bustling group behind P.L.

The moment Dash realized that she had successfully swayed P.L., a tremendous wave of relief crashed into her. He legs wobbled and she felt a little light headed, but she fought back against it, making sure she stayed perfectly firm while upfront. Still… her chest absolutely swelled with pride as she watched P.L. direct his soldiers.

She really wished that Silver could have seen all of that.

Soarin and Spitfire approached from behind Dash as P.L. finished pointing about and moved to grab his helmet. Dash noticed Spitfire first, looking to her right to see her captain as Spitfire gave her a mixed look of intrigue and approval. Dash smiled back, but perked up and quickly looked to her left as Soarin brushed up against her side.

But before any words could be spoken, they’re attention was drawn back to P.L. as the metallic sound of him dislodging his helmet from the rocky ground echoed throughout the cavern. They kept their eyes on him as he looked at his helmet for a moment, before turning to face them while holding onto it. He stepped up to the three of them and glared.

“I’m not yet entirely convinced…” he began and snorted. “So we will be watching your every move. If one of you so much as us breathes without us seeing it, I’m ordering my soldiers to turn on you.” He made himself very clear, earning a glare from Soarin, but an eye roll from Spitfire.

“Sheesh P, don’t hug me too fast or anything.” Spitfire said sarcastically as she looked between Dash and P.L. “Tell me… how did she do it, huh? You're willing to listen to a recruit but not the captain?” she asked, growing annoyed with the overly paranoid approach of the Lunar Guard. She found no shame in what had just occurred, but she was curious.

P.L. averted his eyes, exhaling through his nose, the air hissing through his nostrils as he grunted and shook his head lightly. He suddenly turned his head back and glared at Dash.

“The way she speaks… the way she confronted me and was brutally honest…” he released a quiet growl and looked away again. “It was just like… THEM…” he snorted loudly and bared his teeth a little. “Just like Blizzard and Silver. And that irritates me…” he explained as he grunted and looked down at his helmet, holding it out in front of him. “But that’s not all… I have NEVER told anypony about that embarrassing blunder of mine… and how I owe my life to Silver Lining. And Silver is not a pony that goes around telling everypony or gloating about things like that, so if she knows…” He glanced at Dash again for a brief moment, but said no more on the topic. He spun his helmet around and slipped it back over his head. When it was back in place, he turned to face them with his red eyes glowing through the small slits. “A knight never forgets his debts…” he began, his voice regaining the metallic echo caused by his helmet. “They are almost as important to one as their service to the very liege they swear their life to. My debt to Silver is one I’ve yet repay.” He paused and looked away from them. “If he really is at your compound… then it’s about time I kept my word.”

Dash, Soarin, and Spitfire absorbed everything he said, Spitfire taking a breath of relief as she grinned towards him.

“Thank you,” she said in earnest, but P.L. shook his head.

“Save your thanks,” he shot back sharply. “We will be watching you… and should you be lying about my Liege… all bets will be off. If not for the painfully accurate recount of… an old friend… I would not have even considered this.”

Without another word, he turned and walked away into the crowd of thestrals as they followed his orders, readying themselves for takeoff.

Dash released a long relieved breath, placing a hoof over her heart as it thumped rapidly. It was nothing being caused by Soarin, but she was really nervous throughout all of that. To have it all turn out positive was amazing, it made her feel good, really good… like she had made a major difference.

“Dash,” Spitfire spoke up, drawing her attention to her captain. Spitfire flashed a bright smile while nodding. “You gave me a heart attack there, but… nicely done. I honestly, didn’t know what to do,” she said with a chuckle. Dash felt her heart swell again, like it might just leap out of her chest. Having the approval of Spitfire made her feel giddy no matter how many times or under what circumstances it happened. She smiled back, but found blood rushing to her face too as the compliment sunk in.

“Heh… aw shucks…” Dash glanced away as she giggled quietly to herself. She took a breath to compose herself, not letting it go to her head. “I just…” she swallowed and looked back towards Spitfire. “I just did what Silver would have done… that’s all.”

“Ha!” Soarin let out a single guffaw behind her as he placed a hoof on her shoulder. “You sure did, I almost screamed when you called him a dumbass. But hey, it worked.”

Dash shared a laugh with the two of them before looking back and forth and releasing another sigh of relief.

“To be honest, we’re lucky… Silver literally just told me about all that when we were flying. All right before Nightshade attacked,” Dash explained.

“Well, I’m sure glad he did,” Spitfire nodded as she put her hoof on Dash’s other shoulder. “And nice delivery,” she said with a joking sarcasm. “You scared me too, but… it worked so I can’t complain.” She gave Dash’s shoulder a solid pat. “Good work, now let’s get moving here,” she said as she turned away and walked back towards the rest, shouting orders to them.

Soarin stayed by Dash’s side, gently brushing his hoof back and forth on her shoulder, getting her to look at him again. She looked right into a smarmy smirk.

“Oh? I don’t know if I like that look you’re giving me,” Dash said with playful sarcasm, still feeling up in the clouds from the mixture of her success and the praise from their lead captain. Soarin chuckled as he tipped his head slightly.

“I dunno about you…” he began while narrowing his eyes to complete the smarm. “But that was pretty badass. It’s like you’re trying to be or something,” he joked while nudging her with his wing. Dash smirked right back at him, seeing his smarm and raising him double.

“Trying? Please,” Dash opened her wings and swung her plot around to bump it into his side, swishing her tail up and brushing it along his flank. “I don’t have to try. You DO know who you’re talking to, right?”

“Oh, of course,” Soarin snickered while putting his wing over her head and ruffling her mane.

“Hey!” Dash giggled as she reached up and swiped at his wing.

“Alright lovebirds, let’s get going!” Spitfire yelled to them as she passed by on her way to speak with P.L.

Soarin watched Spitfire go by as Dash pulled his wing down and playfully bit down on it while growling. Soarin chuckled before reaching up a hoof and tapping it on her forehead.

“Okay, time to focus,” he said as she willingly released his wing. “Go check on your squad,” he encouraged. He paused as Dash pouted at him, but suddenly smiled before shifting towards him and planting a peck on his cheek. She turned and whipped her tail in his face before trotting off towards her squad before he could ‘fight back’.

Leaving her chuckling stallion behind, Dash made her way towards Foxtrot. Matteo, Storm, and Squall all turned to her as she approached. Storm was smiling as she drew close, as was Matteo, well in his own way. Squall wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t quite wearing his scowl either. She couldn’t quite read it, but that was nothing new. Twister wasn’t under Matteo’s talons anymore, but she had no doubt he was right nearby.

“Now that…” Storm spoke up and pointed at her as she stopped in front of them. “Was cool,” he commented with a wink. Dash smirked and shrugged.

“Heh, what can I say?” she said smoothly, feeling extra casual, finally free from tension for the first time in what felt like years.

“A strong show of courage,” Matteo added while reaching up and balling up his talons before him. “To sway a commanding figure is no small feat.” Dash just lifted an eyebrow as Matteo complimented her in his usual, slightly different manner, but she smiled none the less. She only glanced at Squall for a moment. Now closer she could see what looked like a bit of admiration? It seemed like it anyway, but he didn’t say anything, and she didn’t expect him to. The thought was enough for her though, it wasn’t often Squall gave any form of a compliment.

“Seriously, you were staring that freaky bat down!” Storm complimented again while laughing. “That was awesome!” he yelled as Matteo nodded beside him in agreement.

“Quite inspiring,” the griffon added while keeping his enthusiasm much more under control compared to Storm.

It was happening again. Dash was reveling in feeling like a badass, but the praise was making her blush again, she could feel it. She quickly looked away while putting a wing up over her face.

“O-okay guys,” she stuttered slightly while chuckling. “I know I’m great, but… sheesh stop it, you’re making me blush…”

She flinched as Twister’s face suddenly popped through the feathers of her wing. He reached forward and grabbed her cheeks.

“LOOK AT HER WITTLE BLUSHY CHEEKS!” Twister said in a high pitched, squealy tone while pinching Dash’s cheeks and pulling on them. Dash immediately flattened her brow and grabbed one of Twister’s arms to stop the pulling… but he didn’t let go.

“Twister… you have exactly five seconds to let go of my face,” she threatened.

“NU.” Twister said back while bouncing his eyebrows up and down in an uneven pattern. Dash snorted and began her count down.

“One.”

“NU.”

“Two.”

“NU.”

“Three.”

“NU.

“Fo—”

Dash swung her arm around, catching Twister by the neck and pulling him into a headlock, ripping his hooves from her face in the process. Twister began flailing and wailing as she held onto him tight.

“BUT YOU SAID FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he cried out comically as his wings started flapping and held his body up in the air while Dash hung onto him.

“Come on guys,” Dash looked towards the other three and nodded with a smile. “Let’s get moving.”

As Dash turned and moved towards the elites with her squadmates in tow… and one unruly one in her grasp, she thought about everything that had just happened in what was beginning to feel like the longest day of her life.

The flight and narrow escape of the Nimbus…

The heated disagreements and exchanges…

Nightshade appearing and literally leveling them all…

Silver sacrificing himself and just barely surviving…

Spitfire showing up just in the nick of time and putting her battle prowess on display…

The revelations about Nightshade, Descent, and Starry…

It had been one horrible, painful, or confusing experience after another. It was such a huge relief to have something go RIGHT, even if it was in the form of another scare at first.

And to top it off? The day wasn’t even over yet. She still wasn’t resting easy on the subject of Silver. Until she got back and got a rundown on his condition from Bliss, she was not going to feel full relief.

Their success here in regards to the Lunar Guard, while great, was not going to negate everything else that happened either. Nightshade and the Shadowbolts had really worked them over. Most of the top tier elites would no doubt be out of commission or barely half full strength as they pushed on towards the Crystal Empire. They had the Lunar Guard on their side now, or at least they would once they saw Luna, but that hardly replaced the top tier elites. Dash could only hope… that their new allies would be up to the task and would be the difference make that pushed them through to their destination.

They still had a rough road ahead.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by Foxena and Penumbra.

And the thestrals have finally arrived. Was really excited to reveal P.L. An albino thestral, a true pony of the night as harsh light and sunlight are actually harmful to him, hence why he wears that full suit of enchanted armor. I've been waiting SO LONG to reveal him because i felt he was one of the coolest character's i've ever designed... and Foxena sure did him justice. Although i admit, i wasn't going to add the part about him being super handsome at first, but after i teased that image of him to a certain follower of mine and she swooned something fierce... i decided it would be a fun touch :rainbowlaugh:

Quite the move by Dash, Silver was taken out of the picture, and despite Spitfire's willingness to step forward, it took the student of Silver, using his own blunt words to convince P.L.

This is gonna get interesting ;D

What does P.L. stand for? Oh you may find out soon :moustache:

Fleetfoot isn't doing too well, yeah her instincts kicked in when P.L. showed up, but believe me, she's not going to be doing too well.

And it looks like Flashwind mentally kicked SPitfire's ass and helped get her back on track... now hopefully she can keep it that way.

Oh and for those of you who didnt see the blog i posted, what Twister said about recording a video about doors... He actually did have a cameo in this collaboration video (Skip to 8:09):

Once again, i apologize for how long it took to get this chapter out, i dont intend to make a habit of it, but i there wasnt much i could do about it. Sometimes life gets in the way.

Already 4000 words into chapter 133, so hopefully it wont be as long of a wait for the next :twilightsmile:

Thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 151: Unexpected Reunion

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 151: Unexpected Reunion

The flow of time in Dash’s head seemed to stop completely as her thought process crashed and tried to restart. She just had to think it, didn’t she. She just had to consider how much worse it could be compared to just dealing with Shining Armor and Cadence. Because the exact moment the thought crossed her mind… there were her friends from Ponyville walking down the steps and standing before all of them.

Dash’s eyes were frozen in place, staring straight ahead at no pony in particular as if the stairs behind and between Applejack and Twilight were the most interesting set of stairs she had ever laid eyes on. Her fellow squadmates were all glancing between Dash and the new arrivals as if expecting her to say something, but no words came, nor did they even form in her head. Dash was too shocked and quickly filling with dread. The look on her face and way she was feeling would make one think she was staring at her incoming, impending doom. Which was kind of funny, considering that the only thing flinging towards her at the moment was a small, adorable yellow Pegasus who was wailing like a baby as she flew by all the other Wonderbolts.

“RAINBOW DAAAAAAAASH!” Fluttershy cried out as she flung towards her. She had somehow gone from a dead stop beneath Applejack to full speed towards Dash in an instant, nearly tripping up Applejack as she shot by everypony.

Despite Fluttershy’s small size, relative delicateness, and thin overall stature, Dash was not ready for it, nor was she thinking about bracing herself.

“OOF!” Dash grunted loudly and painfully as Fluttershy slammed into her chest, clamping her arms around Dash’s neck and latching her back legs to her as well. Dash coughed and stumbled backwards as the sudden jolt surged through her. If not for Matteo quickly reaching out and bracing her, she would have fallen right over.

“YOU’RE OKAY!” Fluttershy yelled. It wasn’t often she raised her voice, but it seemed to only occur when she was incredibly angry or incredibly worried. “I WAS SO WORRIED!” she immediately confirmed as her tiny voice projected. It sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

“Rgh… grh… hnnnggg…” Dash twitched and winced as Fluttershy’s little yet strong squeeze sent already raw nerves into a frenzy. She was trying her best not to show pain, but at this point everything hurt.

"WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS TO ME?!" Fluttershy's voice suddenly grew angered as she pulled her face away and glared at Dash. Storm, Squall, and Star all inched away with their eyes wide as the tiny pegasus suddenly looked like she would explode with hidden rage. "STOP IT!" she yelled while shaking Dash by the neck.

“Fluttershy, darling!” Rarity was the first to react to Fluttershy’s sudden move, elegantly weaving her way through the Wonderbolts with her magic lighting up her horn. “Be careful! Rainbow Dash doesn’t look well!” her magic surrounded Fluttershy and tried to pull her free, but the moment it tugged on her, Fluttershy squeaked and clamped down harder, refusing to let go.

“C’mon now, Sugarcube…” Applejack chimed in as she advanced towards them, taking the exact opposite approach of Rarity and walking in a straight line. She seemed to completely ignore the Wonderbolts, her shoulder glancing Spitfire’s and nearly knocking her over as she passed. Spitfire furrowed her brow and glared at Applejack as the rest of the Wonderbolts in her way quickly moved aside to let her through. “Let the poor gal breathe…” Applejack suggested while grabbing Fluttershy by the scruff of her neck and pulling her off with the extra leverage from Rarity's magic.

“EEP!” Fluttershy squeaked as she dangled in the air in front of Applejack like a kitten, her innocent demeanor suddenly returning as she curled her arms and legs in.

Dash grunted and exhaled the moment she was relieved from Fluttershy’s tight grip, but was still completely at a loss for what to say or do in this situation. Her eyes were wide and her pupils were small, she had a secret to keep for the sake of Soarin, the Wonderbolts, and their mission to upend the narrative set forth by the gods. Now she was staring directly at a group of ponies that she physically could not bring herself to lie to.

Okay fine, maybe she had told a lie or two in the past, but it was to cover up an embarrassing mistake or an instance where she somehow failed to be awesome, but this wasn’t the same. They were in a crisis situation… how could she leave her friends in the dark with something so drastic on the line?

“HEY!” Pinkie Pie suddenly popped right up in front of her, Dash nearly yelped, her voice cracking to the point where it resembled a creaking wheel falling off of a cart. “YOU AREN’T DEAD!” she yelled right into Dash’s face while pressing her nose to hers, a loud HEEEEEE sounding from Pinkie as she smiled wider.

This was the one time… the ONE TIME… that Dash wished the crazy pony that popped up in front of her was Twister and not Pinkie.

“YOU LOOK TIRED, BUT YOU SHOULD TELL US ALL ABOUT HOW YOU DIDN’T DIE!” Pinkie went on, basically yelling as she pushed her nose harder against Dash’s. Before Dash could even attempt to form a reply, Twilight’s magic surrounded Pinkie and pushed her flat to the floor, a party horn sounding out and confetti blasting upwards as she hit the floor.

“Rainbow Dash, I’m so happy to see you alright!” Twilight began, not even addressing Pinkie giggling on the floor as she stepped over her and gave Dash a very gentle hug, a nice soft approach compared to the others. Dash was still locked in her own silence, her mouth hanging slightly agape and her eyes frozen wide as Twilight pulled back from the hug and quickly looked her over. She took in everything, the state of Dash’s body, how tired, she looked, analyzing every little detail like she always did. “Is everything alright?” she asked, prompted by Dash’s lack of response, probably the lack of response throughout the whole reunion. “You look so… drained…” she asked with a very worried tone as she glanced at all the others, clearly noticing Dash looked a bit different in terms of exhaustion level. “Are you hurt?” The gentle approach vanished as she stepped forward. “What happened to you?” she pressed as Dash began to quiver. “Where is Soarin?” she rapid-fired questions at her, stopping just short of touching her as she drew closer and closer.

Dash felt like she was going to burst.

“OKAY! OKAY!” Spitfire suddenly cut in breaking into stride and stepping up to Dash and Twilight. She grabbed Twilight by the shoulder and forced her away from Dash before placing herself in between them. “That’s enough! Give her some space please!”

Twilight gasped as she was pushed back, her eyes going wide with shock as the forceful maneuver.

“HEY!" Applejack barked, dropping Fluttershy from her mouth and stomping forward until she was between Twilight and Spitfire. Snorting as she bent her neck down slightly, using her slight size advantage over Spitfire to assert herself, but Spitfire had faced down much larger ponies, Applejack didn’t stand a chance.

“Stop crowding her,” Spitfire explained firmly, not wavering or flinching one fiber of her being under the glare of Applejack. “She is under a unique situation of physical and mental stress.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes further before lifting an eyebrow.

“Think ya coulda said that without shovin’ Twilight?” she asked with a grunt.

“Just like how nicely you said ‘excuse me’ before passing by me a moment ago?” Spitfire shot right back in a calm, smooth tone that immediately irritated Applejack.

“Now listen here you—”

Applejack was about to bite back, but a bright light flashed behind her and she was surrounded by Twilight’s magic. The magic forced Applejack aside as if she were as light as a feather, clearing the way for a substantially MORE worried looking Twilight to rush forward.

“Wait… Physical and mental stress?!” Twilight exclaimed, a clear amount of panic in her voice as she got right into Spitfire’s face. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with her?!” Twilight demanded desperately. Spitfire continued to remain firm, determined to take control of the situation.

“Princess,” Spitfire spoke, causing Twilight to freeze in anticipation. “I’m going to have to ask you to calm down and back off so I can explain.”

That was clearly not the answer Twilight wanted to hear. She stood on the tips of her hooves and leaned in, almost knocking her head against Spitfire’s as her eyes turned into a glare.

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH HER?!” she repeated, this time in a demanding tone as opposed to a desperate one. Without a moment of hesitation, Spitfire leaned back slightly to avoid clashing faces and grabbed Twilight’s shoulder tightly.

“CALM. DOWN!” she growled while leaning forward and looming over Twilight.

Dash was on the verge of hyperventilating as the scene unfolded right in front of her. Her eyes were shaking as they mostly remained on Spitfire and Twilight, darting about at the rest of her old friends every few seconds as well. Applejack looked like she was ready to punch Spitfire in the face. Rarity and Fluttershy had both backed away, eyes wide in fear of conflict. Pinkie Pie was sitting nearby with a large tub of popcorn, shoveling large hooffulls into her mouth while wearing a pair of 3D glasses.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight and the rest of Dash’s friends perked up and froze as Luna’s voice met their ears. Everypony turned and looked towards Luna as she sat nearby with P.L. sitting right behind her. She had remained quiet in the back the whole time, but felt the need to speak up before the situation got too out of hoof. Though Twilight’s sudden reaction and shift in expression caught Dash’s attention more than anything. Knowing Twilight, she probably couldn’t believe that she had completely overlooked one of the Divine Sisters sitting right there in the room.

“Do as Captain Spitfire says,” Luna calmly asked. “Rainbow Dash is in a very frail state. Please do not pressure her.”

They all complied instantly. Twilight backed off, Applejack forced herself to calm down, Pinkie Pie even scooted back, all of them giving some distance as they moved back to stand with Fluttershy and Rarity.

Dash and Spitfire noticed their move, as they were sure the rest had seen as well. It confirmed what Spitfire had speculated and what Dash had feared. Unwavering loyalty to Luna and her word as a goddess. There was no way around it. The Elements of Harmony were fiercely loyal to Celestia and Luna. Spitfire was simply assuming, but Dash understood what she was seeing all too well.

Everything, absolutely everything that she and her ponyville friends had been through in their lives up to this point had happened because of how they came together under the guidance of Celestia to become the Elements of Harmony, the mystical guardians of Equestria whose combined efforts gave them control over a powerful magic likely more powerful than Celestia herself. It was their first adventure to become the Elements that defined everything about them. The chances of any of them suddenly believing that Celestia and Luna could not be trusted… was dead zero.

Twilight had done as she was told, but she was clearly still worried about Dash, she could not hide it even if she tried.

“We’ll explain everything,” Spitfire spoke up to make use of the opening Luna provided. “Just please give Dash some room to breathe.”

Twilight swallowed and nodded, almost looking a little… ashamed? It wasn’t directed at Dash. Instead, she kept her head tilted down slightly as she turned to Luna.

“I…I’m sorry Princess Luna… I…” Twilight glanced briefly at Dash. “We really only had one thing on our mind coming in here. I should have addressed you first.” She spoke shamefully… it was borderline depressing how she sounded. It was as if she committed a highly dishonorable act by not acknowledging Luna. It only further confirmed their loyalty.

“Fear not, Princess Twilight,” Luna spoke in a comforting tone. “We understand your great concern for a close friend.”

Twilight remained still for a moment, shaking slightly before her head snapped up, revealing very concerned eyes once more, only this time focused on Luna.

“But…” Twilight rushed towards Luna, skidding to a halt in front of her and staring up with desperate pleading eyes. It was as if Luna’s request to calm down had already run its course through her mind before it all tumbled back down to what was worrying her. “I have so much to ask you too! I’m so relieved to see you safe and sound, but… Where in Equestria is Princess Celestia?!”

The rest of Dash’s friends perked up and listened intently for Luna’s response as Luna blinked and leaned back slightly in surprise. Spitfire exhaled through her nose and flattened her brow, wishing Twilight would shut up so she could actually bring them all up to speed already. The longer she was delayed the longer she had to keep her Wonderbolts and the Renegades here instead of in their hotels and resting.

“I thought she might be with you too! I haven’t heard from her at all and all of the messages I’ve tried to send her have been turned back around to me!” She paused briefly, but before Luna could muster an answer, Twilight gasped. “Wait, she’s not STILL out of commission is she?! I thought that was only temporary! And if she is, where is she?!”

“We…” Luna tried to speak, but winced and leaned back further as Twilight suddenly spread her wings and hovered up into the air.

“Or is that not the case?! Did something else happen to her?! Is she alright?!” she was talking faster and faster in an extreme panic, pressing her hooves to the sides of her head. “Is she hurt?! Is she missing?! Is she… Is she…” she grabbed Luna’s face, breathing hard. “WHERE IS SHE?! WHAT’S GOING ON?!”

As Twilight was nearly shaking Princess Luna, all of her friends had turned and were inching closer to Luna as well, all hoping to hear something about Princess Celestia.

Dash blinked as Spitfire suddenly glanced over her shoulder and lifted an eyebrow at her. Dash groaned quietly and pressed her mane over her eyes, slight embarrassment adding itself on top of the already heavy situation. She peeked through her mane towards Luna to see the shocked look on her face as Twilight began pressing her hooves into Luna’s cheeks. P.L. was surprisingly not moving a muscle, perhaps because Twilight was also a princess.

But WHY Luna was silent was no mystery to Dash or any of those who had been traveling with her. Luna obviously had no problem speaking up when she had answers, but she knew nothing about Celestias whereabouts. Was she staying quiet because of Twilight’s crazy advance, or because she was too embarrassed to admit to her sister’s special student that she had no answer?

Twilight yelped as two magical auras suddenly surrounded her and pulled her away from Luna. Both Cadence and Shining Armor stepped towards her with their horns alight and working together to hold her back.

“Twily… enough already,” Shining Armor said sternly as the two lowered her to the ground before them. Before Twilight could say or do anything, Shining placed a hoof on her head and pressed down. “Yelling in Luna’s face isn’t gonna get you answers.”

“Hrmmmm…” Twilight’s ears drooped down and she pouted at Shining. He shook his head.

“Oh no you don’t, those eyes aren’t gonna work on me here,” he said as he tipped his head and lifted his brow.

“Auntie Luna…” Cadence spoke up as she let her husband handle her sister-in-law. She stepped up to Luna and looked towards the Wonderbolts and Renegades. “Wonderbolts… Everypony… please,” she tipped her head and sighed. “I think Twilight speaks for all of us. We know so little about what’s going on beyond the small details included in your letters… And we have no word or guidance from Princess Celestia to show us the way. Please, tell us everything. How did it begin? Who are you fighting? What has happened from the time you escaped Canterlot until now?”

There was a brief silence that spread to every corner of the room. The focus was on Luna first, but she hesitated again, giving Spitfire the window she was looking for. She didn’t want Luna explaining things anyway.

“Well…” Spitfire spoke up, clearing her throat to draw everypony’s attention to her. She stole a brief glance at Dash as she collected her thoughts. Dash perked up when she saw Spitfire looking at her, but it was strange, there was little she could read from it. Spitfire stared at her for another moment or two before looking back at everypony else. “It’s a long story…”

And so Spitfire began from the beginning.

They were going to be there for a while, and frankly, Dash didn’t pay attention to a word that Spitfire was saying. Shining Armor, Cadence, and her ponyville friends were all listening closely, but she didn’t have to. None of the Wonderbolts or Renegades did. They lived through the whole thing and were tired as hell. They knew they were there to be a part of Spitfire’s explanation and were getting a little miffed that it was taking so long for them to let her speak.

But Dash couldn’t even find time to feel miffed. She was still struggling to come up with some idea of how to handle the situation she was suddenly thrust into. She was caught completely off guard by her Ponyville friends and had absolutely no idea what to say or do. And the fact that she had given them no response at all likely had them even more worried and curious.

She knew that the moment they broke this meeting, they would come after her. They would demand to know what’s wrong even though they were asked to give her space. They were stubborn like that… Dash would do the same thing for any of them. And the more they pried from her, the closer they’d get to digging EVERYTHING out of her. They’d want to know everything going on and it would be hard to look them all in the eye and mislead them. How was she going to do it? How was she going to get out of it?

As Dash focused heavily on her impending ‘doom’, she failed to notice something. As Spitfire was telling their story to the rest, the tips of her wings began to move subtly. She kept moving them in a repetitive manner, and after a moment… Misty Fly suddenly perked up and glanced at Spitfire’s wings.

She watched for three or four repetitions of the motion patterns before nudging Fire Streak. Fire blinked and looked towards her as she inconspicuously tipped her head towards Spitfire. Fire noticed the secrecy of Misty’s movements and quickly played along, looking straight ahead at the others before shifting his eyes just enough to see what Spitfire was doing.

She was making half sign language signals. Fire watched carefully in his peripheral vision, eventually deducing exactly which symbols Spitfire was trying to send to them. Not to mention he was impressed that she managed to multitask the signs while giving the full and thorough explanation of their exploits.

After watching Spitfire’s signals for several seconds, Fire glanced at Misty Fly at nearly the exact moment she glanced at him. Without a word exchanged between them, they nodded, signaling that they both got the message. Fire worked his own wingtips, on his wing facing Misty, folding them all down except for five. She gave him another faint nod before they both looked forward.

Exactly five seconds passed…

Misty suddenly wobbled, she looked down and her eyes narrowed as she bumped against Fire. Fire looked at her as she bounced off of him and turned, her hooves shuffling until she was facing Dash and her squad. Fire Streak quickly reached out and grabbed her over the shoulder, slamming his hooves to the floor as he stopped her from falling right into Rainbow Dash.

Spitfire instantly stopped talking and everypony quickly looked towards the commotion. Fire had just barely stopped her from falling face first on the floor. Storm, Squall, Star, and Matteo all looked right down at Misty in front of them, but Dash was so distracted that her reaction was painfully late. Her ears twitched and she looked down a full two seconds after everyone else.

Fire helped stabilize her before lifting a hoof into the air and waving it at all of them.

“She’s alright,” he said as he let his hoof down and gently rubbed it on Misty’s shoulder as she leaned into his chest. “She’s been a bit woozy since we’ve landed,” he explained.

“Does she need to go lay down?” Spitfire asked with concern.

Fire quickly bent down and made a few signs to Misty with one hoof and wing. She blinked and watched, quickly shaking her head.

“She’s fine, sorry to interrupt,” Fire answered for her with a nod.

“Alright, so as I was saying…” Spitfire turned back to the rest as Fire and Misty remained facing Dash and her squad. Dash was about to turn her attention back to Spitfire and the rest, but her ears twitched as she heard something.

“Psst… Rainbow Dash,” she blinked and followed her ears, looking directly at Fire Streak to find both he and Misty Fly were looking directly at her… and Misty Fly didn’t look one bit tired or ‘woozy’ as Fire claimed. The rest of Dash’s squad looked but Fire quickly and subtly shook his head. “The rest of you keep looking at Spitfire!” he ordered in a sharp tone that somehow remained incredibly quiet. Dash stared with wide eyes, wondering what was going on. What just happened? Was it just an act?

“Listen carefully,” Fire continued to whisper as he and Misty remained focused on Dash. She could just barely hear him, there was no way anypony behind them or up around Spitfire could hear it. “Recall the state you were in a few hours ago, not too long after Soarin was taken,” he began. Dash just kept staring. “Spitfire wants you to feign that condition. The fatigue and the lack of ability to speak clearly.”

“Uh…” Dash quietly replied, if it could be called a reply. She was so confused.

“Those are the captains orders,” Fire gave a small shrug. “My guess is it has to do with the unexpected arrival of your friends. And if it is, I agree,” Fire nodded, showing just how much of a wavelength he was on with Spitfire’s thinking. “You have to convince them to let you go for now. Don’t come face to face with them until you’re prepared to.”

Dash absorbed everything she was told and glanced at Misty, who was looking at her with an expression just as serious as Fire’s. She swallowed and nodded, receiving a nod from both of them in return before they started turning around and instantly going back into character, Fire acting like he was helping Misty get back on her hooves.

What a fiasco this had become. She was hoping the stress would be over for now, only to be thrown right into more stress. Though it was quite clever of Spitfire to suggest it. For a moment Dash was wondering how it would work, but then she remembered that she had yet to say a single word out of shock. She just had to keep acting like she had trouble speaking… and then maybe lean back into Matteo to look more mentally taxed and broken.

For the first time in her life, Dash found herself purposely acting WEAK in front of her friends. She’d have to add that to the ever growing list of ways the world had turned upside down.

With Spitfire’s indirect order in mind, Dash kept up the act, eventually leaning into Matteo for ‘support’ and he played along with her. And while she sat there, purposely looking weak, it gave her a chance to examine each of her friends as they listened and took in Spitfire’s recount of their endeavors.

Shining and Cadence both sat stoically, absorbing everything the best they could. Twilight was tipping forward, her eyes wide and her wings twitching, clearly listening for anything related to Celestia. Applejack was showing little emotion. Her ears were turned, but her expression was hard and slightly frustrated, perhaps still not happy about how Spitfire muscled her way in between Twilight and Dash. Rarity was listening intently, a hoof lightly touched to her mouth as certain details drew quiet gasps from her. Fluttershy was leaning up against Rarity, her eyes wide and shivering slightly as certain frightful and scary details emerged. Pinkie Pie was sitting on a beanbag chair, that she got from who knows where, she wore an excited, suspenseful look on her face as she wore a foam hoof that had the Wonderbolt symbol and a ‘#1’ on it.

Spitfire’s words were reaching Dash too, but again, she had lived it. Hearing about it all over again was nothing compared to living through it, though it did well to remind her of a few life changing and terrifying moments she’d never forget. Hearing about Silver again was especially difficult, not that it was a surprise, but it reinforced how worried she was about him. They had just taken him to the hospital. and she was desperate to know what his status was.

Dash perked up as her Ponyville friends and the royal family suddenly gasped and reacted quite loudly. Of course… Spitfire had just brought up King Sombra. And a second reaction came soon after, when they mentioned that Soarin’s absence was due to Sombra possessing and taking full control of Soarin’s body.

Their reaction was expected, again reinforcing the need to keep their plans quiet. To them, Sombra was simply a villain, and any attempt to convince them of their revelations would likely be scorned as foolish.

Dash felt like she was being stabbed through the heart every time she looked at one of her friends. She had to lie to them, it hurt to just think about and would hurt even more to do. It didn’t matter how many times the thought crossed her mind, it hurt just as much every time.

Twilight was immediately shaking her head as Spitfire finally finished.

“H-how…?” she asked. “How did all of this happen without me knowing? Why didn’t Celestia send me a…” she trailed off, her eyes widening as she remember Celestia’s absence. It was a telling statement, Dash, Spitfire, and the Wonderbolts all seeing just how reliant Twilight was on the word of Celestia. The more loyalty to the gods was showcased, the more they realized just how isolated they were in their thinking. “You have no idea where she is?” she asked desperately even though it was brought up more than once in Spitfire’s speech. Spitfire shook her head.

“The only one who seems to know anything about Celestia is Discord… and he has been frustratingly tight lipped about it, constantly citing that he is only doing as Celestia asked.” Spitfire’s eyes were drawn to Luna as she visibly twitched and looked away, avoiding eye contact as Twilight immediately looked to her in hopes of getting some answers.

Twilight didn’t seem to register much of what Spitfire said, she was staring forward with her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open, none of Dash’s friends behind her seemed to find any words either. Cadence looked down and shook her head.

“This is… much worse than we could’ve imagined,” she began as she looked to Shining. “Sombra is still alive? And he has control of Soarin’s body?” she tipped her head and narrowed her eyes, deep in thought. “And Auntie Celestia was storing his soul in her body? Why in Equestria would she do that?”

Spitfire glanced at Luna again. Luna was gritting her teeth and shut her eyes tight. Spitfire huffed, knowing that Luna purposely avoided the topic earlier and looked determined to do so again now.

“And we’ve never seen the one in control of the Shadowbolts?” Shining Armor chimed in. “That’s beyond troubling too… We have the Mad King on the loose and an entity the gods fear lurking in the shadows?”

Spitfire nodded, acknowledging Shining as she sought to move on.

“That is currently how the situation stands,” she confirmed. “Believe me, it has been a few steps deeper than hell for us. We can see who we’re fighting, but we can’t see the one pulling the string behind them. Our singular goal has been survival with no actual way to overcome or defeat our enemy. And… right before we achieved our goal, a problem that had been quietly resting in the back of our minds for the whole journey suddenly sprang up and took over Soarin, effectively making our problems twice as complicated.”

“BUT WHERE IS CELESTIA?!” Twilight suddenly blurted out while grabbing large hooffulls of her mane and tugging on it, her eyes wider than thought possible as she took heavy breaths and freaked out.

“PRINCESS…” Spitfire sharply spoke, getting really sick of Twilight’s inability to control herself. “We just told you everything we know. If we knew where Celestia is, we would have said so. And FRANKLY…!” her tone took a very angry sharp turn. She instantly stopped, catching herself before she could go any further. She almost started railing on Celestia and how much she was sick of the being kept in the dark. Forget Dash, she almost let slip extreme discontent herself.

“Frankly WHAT?!” Twilight pressed, stepping up to Spitfire. Spitfire took a deep breath and sighed, putting a hoof to her face.

“Nothing, never mind…” she deflected and quickly went into damage control as subtly as she possibly could. “This had been a very confusing, frustrating, and uncomfortable journey for us.” She glanced towards Luna, hoping to send a signal to her that she should agree and be honest about it like she was. But Luna remained silent. Spitfire huffed and looked back at Twilight. “The only one who knows anything about Celestia is Discord, and he’s refusing to speak about it. That’s all we know about her, full stop.”

“Why?!” Twilight growled while stomping her front hooves on the floor. “Where is Discord?!”

“Twily…” Shining stepped up to her and placed a hoof on her head again, his voice a little more stern this time. “You need to simmer down.”

“RGGGGGH!” Twilight grumbled loudly, voicing her frustration loud and clear. And apparently that's what finally got Luna to speak up again.

“Discord left us shortly after Soarin was possessed,” Luna spoke, Twilight instantly calming down and sharply turning to her. “He told us of what he knew, which was more than even we knew… and then he vanished and we have not seen him since. And it does not appear that he is sneaking around like he usually does,” she explained before looking towards Spitfire. “And… you must forgive Captain Spitfire’s tone and bluntness. We have had a few clashes amongst ourselves during the journey.”

Dash’s friends and the royals perked up, quickly looking between Luna and Spitfire.

“Clashes?” Cadence asked with a mix of surprise and curiosity.

“Yes,” Luna nodded. “We have been at odds over several things… And have had a few spats over how to proceed. We’ve had our share of yelling matches and disagreements as wel—”

“You YELLED at Princess Luna?!” Twilight suddenly blurted out towards Spitfire, cutting off Luna and wearing a look of absolute shock. While none were as intense as Twilight, the rest of them looked shocked as well… but it was all directed at Spitfire. Spitfire furrowed her brow and did her best to hold in an annoyed growl.

Yep… The loyalty to goddesses was so thick she could almost chew it.

“Princess Twilight… everypony… please…” Luna tried to redraw their attention. “The situation was dire and most unpleasant. You cannot blame Spitfire for being frustrated.”

Spitfire’s eyes twitched hard. She kept her mouth closed but her teeth jammed together as her lips subtly scrunched up.

Luna’s phrasing irked her beyond belief. She made it sound as if she herself had done absolutely nothing wrong. Luna had admitted mistakes directly to them, but the moment she was back in front of her ‘faithful’ subjects, she simply could not admit wrongdoing, could she? Spitfire held herself back, she wanted to explode at her after all they had been put through, but she forced herself to remain disciplined towards their plan. She briefly glanced around at her fellow Wonderbolts and Renegades. It appeared she wasn’t alone, and if not for High Winds covering Blaze with her wing, her clear and visible anger might’ve given them away. She was glad she wasn’t the only one who was deeply put off but Luna just now, but they all kept up the act, or at least kept it up enough for none of the others to notice.

“But now that we are all here,” Luna continued. “We are sure Spitfire is eager to work with us to resolve this crisis and return to order.”

Okay now Spitfire was on the verge of exploding. She didn’t say a word, and the Wonderbolts didn’t say a word, but now it felt like Luna was simply being audacious. Was it because she was suddenly back in an environment where SHE was the ‘leader’ that she felt she could speak in such a way? Whatever it was, they held it in. They held themselves back hard, because despite Luna angering them, if she was truly convinced that they would kneel to her orders now, then that would work to their advantage. As long as Luna was sure she was in control and the rest followed her word, then it would be easier to subvert them.

It took a moment for Twilight to stop staring… or somewhat glaring at Spitfire for her apparent ‘heinous’ crime of disagreeing with Princess Luna. But once again, Twilight caved to Luna’s word, accepting it without question.

“O…okay…” Twilight took a deep breath as she finally looked away from Spitfire and instead focused on Dash again.

Dash swallowed and froze up as Twilight’s eyes landed on her. Thanks to being pressed against Matteo, there was no real shift in how she was already holding herself, but it was a shock nonetheless. And it felt so weird to feel that way. Twilight wasn’t even making any faces or glaring at her, or anything like that. She quietly exhaled as Twilight smiled at her, but she still felt tense.

“Well…” Twilight began as she gathered her thoughts and glanced down slightly. “It sounds like it was a rough trip… I don’t know what to say about the Shadowbolts, but Sombra is clearly the top priority.” She began pacing in a circle. “Obviously there’s no way he can get through the Crystal Empire’s shield. The Crystal pretty much almost destroyed him in our first encounter. But he still needs to be dealt with… and based on his rather one-track-minded behavior when we last saw him, he’ll likely come here first! If that happens, we’re ready for him!”

Spitfire lifted an eyebrow as Twilight suddenly sounded like she had everything so easily figured out. Twilight turned to them and smiled, nodding right at them.

“We brought along the Elements of Harmony! All we have to do is replicate the seal we used on Discord! It doesn’t matter how powerful he is, nothing is as strong as the power of friendship. His negative spirit won’t stand a chance."

Despite the rest of Dash’s friends nodding in approval along with Shining, Cadence, and Luna… The Wonderbolts and Renegades just stared. Spitfire’s mouth opened slightly, her brow flattening as she tried to reprocess Twilight’s words to make sure she wasn’t actually going insane.

The power of ‘Friendship’… against what they all just experienced. Granted, none of them aside from Dash had ever witnessed the power of the Elements of Harmony before, there was no way they could just solve it all in a snap like that. It almost felt insulting after all they had been through to hear such a crude idea. It stabbed even deeper to see Luna nodding in agreement.

Not only that, but did Twilight completely overlook the fact that Soarin’s body was being used by Sombra? Spitfire felt compelled to bring it up, but had determined to keep her mouth shut unless necessary.

The only pony among them that was not put off by the simple ‘solution’ put forward was Dash. In fact, she had to hold in a gasp. She noticed the same thing Spitfire had, albeit a bit more intensely.

Did Twilight really, truly just casually suggest that they use the sealing power of the Elements of Harmony… on Soarin?

Her eyes darted back and forth, nopony seemed to be reacting so…that’s definitely not what she was suggesting, right? She was talking about Sombra right? Dash flinched as Spitfire moved in front of her, looking over her shoulder and staring at Dash for a moment. She could definitely see it written all over her face.

“Excuse me, Princess,” Spitfire cleared her throat and exhaled through her nostrils. “Aren’t you forgetting about Soarin?” she asked while tapping a hoof against the ground.

Twilight stopped and stared at her curiously.

“You HAVE been listening to us… right?” Spitfire added rather sharply. Twilight blinked and her eyes opened slightly wider.

“Oh! No, I have not forgotten, I’m only talking about what must be done about Sombra…” she glanced at Dash. “His soul possessing Soarin’s body is clearly an obstacle but…” she suddenly trailed off.

“But what?” Spitfire pressed, keeping her tone sharp. Twilight only hesitated more before looking towards Cadence and then Luna as if looking for one of them to butt in. Luna did the honors.

“Captain Spitfire, we understand what Soarin means to you and the Wonderbolts, but there is more at stake here than his life alone…” she looked at Spitfire for a moment in silenced before continuing. “Ideally, we wish to save Soarin from such a terrible fate, however…” she closed her eyes. “Sombra MUST be dealt with as quickly as possible. We cannot afford to spend time looking for another solution. If we have no answer to this predicament in short order, we will have to seal Soarin away with Sombra.

That did it. Dash felt like every bit of breath had escaped her lungs.

Spitfire’s eyes had widened as she fought the urge to immediately lash out at Luna. She wanted to absolutely let her have it. She thought that she had gotten through to the goddess, that she had gotten her to soften up and see things from their perspective, if even just a little bit. But from the moment they set hoof in the Crystal Empire it seemed like any lesson Luna had learned had been completely lost, and this took the cake. After all they went through she would so easily sacrifice Soarin?

She had to hold it in though, as she was sure the rest were. They all remembered the plan, and that Luna was the main individual they were trying to lead on. But what were they to do here?

It was such a drastic proclamation! They had to keep up the agreeable act, but it would be absurdly suspicious if none of them lashed out at the very idea.

“HEY! WAIT A MINUTE!”

Spitfire’ ears shot straight up and everypony else flinched as Fleetfoot suddenly yelled from the center of the group. She hobbled forward, almost tripping over her own hooves as she pushed her way past Lightning Streak and stepped up beside Spitfire. She gasped and shuddered, her legs buckling as she leaned and fell against Spitfire, but before Spitfire could offer help, she stood right back up on her own and glared at Luna.

“You’re gonna just give up on him?! After all we’ve been through?!” she yelled, her voice almost cracking as she forced the words out. “That’s so damn heartless! How can you even suggest that!”

The Wonderbolts and Renegades were all frozen. Spitfire glanced over her shoulder to see them all holding fast, clearly at odds with themselves over whether to stop Fleetfoot or not. The only one who was remaining calm was Descent. He was looking down, his eyes scanning the floor. Spitfire had no doubt he was thinking about the absurd conclusion himself, he considered Soarin a rival of sorts after all.

But Spitfire soon found the rest were looking at her, as if they had no clue what to do and wanted her to stop it or get it under control before they snapped themselves.

But… Spitfire just turned back around and watched Fleetfoot.

“We’re not using your stupid elements on him! Screw whatever the ‘power of friendship’ is supposed to mean!” Fleetfoot kept yelling, nearly in tears. “I don’t care who’s controlling him! You’re acting like he doesn’t matter at all! Well he matters to us!”

Spitfire kept her eyes on Fleetfoot as Dash’s friends and the royalty stared at her with a mixture of shock and confusion.

Perfect. This was working perfectly. Fleetfoot had let her guard down, but she hadn’t said anything to give them away yet. Spitfire waited patiently…

“Soarin is still alive out there! Rainbow Dash isn’t dead so he’s not dead either!” she stomped a hoof. “So for fuck’s sake! Step back and think about how to save him first! We don’t even know if Sombra—”

“FLEET!” Spitfire shouted right behind her, silencing her immediately. She wasn’t sure where Fleetfoot was going to go with it, but the moment she brought up Sombra, she stopped her just in case. The timing was intentional, she wanted Fleetfoot to voice their discontent without giving away their plan. “That’s enough, calm down,” she placed a hoof on Fleetfoot’s head gently.

“Spittyyyyyyyy…” Fleetfoot whined as she closed her eyes and a one tear got loose, running down her cheek.

“No, I agree with you completely,” Spitfire nodded, earning surprised looks of varying types from those both behind and before her. “I understand that Sombra is a threat and agree he has to be dealt with…” she lied, glossing right over their plan to send a signal to those aware of it. “But if you want our help,” she sharpened her eyes towards Twilight and Luna specifically. “I want a GUARANTEE that we will look into ALL POSSIBLE OPTIONS regarding Soarin before we are forced to use whatever this seal magic is. I don’t want us to do this and then find out later that we could have saved him.”

Twilight and Luna exchanged glances before Twilight turned and looked towards Cadence as well. She was at a loss for words, looking for somepony to step in again. Spitfire wondered if she was even considering what she had just said. To her it looked like Twilight was looking for one of the other alicorns to justify their initial plan.

“Captain Spitfire,” Cadence stepped forward. “We cannot overstate how dangerous Sombra is,” she tried to explain, just as Spitfire expected. “We know how much Soarin means to you, but one pony’s life cannot be put above the thousands… millions at risk with such a fiend on the loose.”

“Princess,” Spitfire growled. “With all due respect—”

“Captain, please… let me finish,” Cadence cut her off, her ears drooping down. Spitfire blinked, not expecting the subdued tone after dealing with both Luna and Twilight. “We will honor your request and do everything we can to find a solution before moving forward.

“Cadence…” Luna spoke up. “We cannot afford to—”

“I know, Auntie,” Cadence cut her off too, clearly trying to keep the situation under control as Twilight also looked to her for reasons, the rest of Dash’s friends looked equally as eager, all of them agreeing with Twilight without question. Or at least all of them but Pinkie, it was hard to tell what she was thinking or feeling with the same smile plastered to her face non-stop. “We have the numbers and the means among our wizards, clerics, and scholars to dig into our libraries and exhaust our magical texts quickly. But…” she turned back to Spitfire. “We will not drag this out. If we cannot find a solution, then we MUST proceed as planned.”

Spitfire narrowed her eyes briefly, but sighed.

“Alright,” she agreed to the slight discontent of the Wonderbolts, but she quickly reassured them. “EVERYTHING!” she yelled while pointing a hoof at Cadence. “No page unturned, understand? I won’t accept anything less.”

“You have my word,” Cadence accepted with a nod.

“I…” Twilight stepped forward suddenly, brushing against Cadence. “I didn’t want to make it sound like Soarin wasn’t important…” she slowly glanced at Dash. “I know he means everything to Rainbow Dash, and I didn’t mean to imply we weren’t going to try. Knowing Sombra is still alive has me thinking a mile a minute. I’ll do what I can to help too, we just can’t overstate the danger Sombra presents.”

Every word met Dash’s ears and she could see the nods of agreement from the rest of her friends sitting behind Twilight.

But she… was not convinced they were sincere. How? How could she feel that way about her friends? Was it because of how easily they obeyed the word of Luna? How Twilight was unwilling to question her? How she and the others seemed appalled by Spitfire disagreeing with Luna?

What was happening to her? How did it come to this?

As she stared at her friends and tried to figure out if their smiles and words were sincere or not, she began framing the situation in her head.

Everything she had been put through up to this point had opened her mind incredibly. The impossible had become possible, the farfetched had become normal, but more than anything else… trust had become selective and subject to frequent change.

Before all of this happened, Dash never dreamed of doubting the word or actions of the divine sisters. Over the course of this insane journey, they had been walloped right off their pedestals and shown to be fragile and vulnerable, not so different than the rest of them. Even Discord, usually so sure and determined in his beliefs had shown himself to be subject to the very whims and emotions that haunt and taint those who he felt are ‘beneath him’.

Allies were now being scrutinized while some enemies were being trusted. The enemies themselves seemed lost and confused. And now they were conspiring against their allies, not to aid their enemies, but to approach an ancient being that may not really be the villain they were always led to believe.

The situation barely stood on its own four hooves and felt more convoluted than the Equestrian rail map within a quarter-mile radius of Canterlot Central Station. But that seemed fitting considering just how out of control everything had become. Dash had seen the world through a whole new lens that changed her view on so many things throughout all the fighting, running, and surviving. She was sure the rest of the Wonderbolts felt the same way.

Nearly everything they thought they knew was wrong, all turned on its head.

And now here was Dash, looking at five ponies she had had unforgettable adventures with and treated like family…

While wondering if she could trust them.

From where she sat she could look into every pair of eyes. She didn’t even have to get close to see it, to see that there was little depth in their vision. They were all still locked in, trapped in the word of comforts and direction that Dash once knew. They were still caught in their ‘understanding’ of how the world was supposed to work, how Dash once framed it in her mind.

There was no doubt about it. They would never question Luna… and they wouldn’t dare to even think of ever questioning Celestia is she were present.

They all knew what Soarin meant to her, she didn’t doubt that… but she doubted their willingness to exhaust every option. The moment Luna gives them the order to use the elements against Sombra, they would do so without a second thought.

How upside down and topsy-turvy had Equestria become that she felt like she couldn’t trust her best friends?

But… what would happen if she refused to link up with them? What would they say or do should she revolt and not allow them to seal him away?

What if there actually was no way to save Soarin? Would she still go through with it? They needed her for the Elements to actually work, but would she be able to do it? Could she bring herself to seal Soarin away?

Dash felt faint. This was all too much. Thoughts were colliding, narratives were spinning, and uncertainties were beating her over the head with bricks.

At this point she just wanted to go lie down before she threw up.

It looked like they were wrapping up, she had stopped paying attention, but talk had continued about meeting soon to formulate plans and details.

“We will do everything in our power to help as well,” Cadence spoke, the first thing Dash picked up as she came back around.

“The Crystal Guard will be at your disposal,” Shining Armor added, but Dash couldn’t tell if the two royals were speaking to Spitfire or Luna.

Cadence scanned the Wonderbolts and Renegades as Luna began asking Shining more about the Crystal Guard. Dash did her best to avoid eye contact, doing everything she could to not draw any more attention to herself. She was somewhat behind Spitfire too, who had turned and was checking on each of them during the brief break of conversation.

But then Cadence suddenly perked up and blinked, drawing Dash’s attention back to her. Cadence tipped her head curiously, her eyes directed elsewhere. Dash subtly pushed away from Matteo to see what she was looking at.

She was looking towards Descent, but her eyes were not on him specifically, it looked like she was looking near the floor where he was sitting. Dash tilted slightly further…

Starry Skies was sitting behind him and was hunched and scrunched in a manner that suggested she was hiding. Only… her tail was not quite behind Descent.

Descent had been lost in thought, but suddenly noticed Princess Cadence looking in his general direction. He too, followed her stare until he noticed Starry’s tail behind him.

“Hm?” he lifted an eyebrow as he looked down at Starry. Starry flinched and looked directly up at him, half of her face hidden by her new long mane. “Starry, what are you—?”

He was cut off as he suddenly noticed Cadence walk right by him. She stopped mid stride, her eyes widening as she found Starry Skies. Starry’s head instantly snapped to Cadence. She froze as their eyes locked.

Cadence’s eyes opened a little wider, scanning Starry up and down with intense curiosity as she examined the traits of her crystal form.

Fan Art by nightalein

Several other looked over as Descent turned and backed up a little, revealing the stare down.

Before either of them could speak, something else strange happened. Subtle elegant sparkles began to shimmer upon them both, as if their crystal forms were reacting to one another. It wasn’t the bright flashing that happened every time High Winds yawned. It was calm and soft like somepony was shining a light towards them. Cadence broke eye contact and looked herself over, examining the shimmers upon her crystal form, but Starry did not dare move.

As the strange encounter continued and now had the attention of everypony, Dash noticed something. Starry’s crystal from, from the moment she first saw it, seemed very different from the Streak twins and High Winds. It was much prettier, the way the light bounced off of her was different and the physical changes were much more drastic.

Upon closer inspection… Cadence’s crystal form was just like Starry’s.

“Um…” Cadence finally broke the silence. “Pardon me…” she addressed Starry as their bodies continued to calmly twinkle in each other’s proximity. Starry didn’t say a word, nor did she even blink. Cadence took a single step forward. “Your crystal form… it’s…” she trailed off, glancing back and down at her own body for a moment. “What’s your name?”

Without warning, Starry suddenly shot up onto her hooves, turned, and broke into a gallop, heading right for the end of the hall.

“Starry!” Descent yelled, but she didn’t stop.

“Whoa! Starry?! Where are you—?!” Lightning Dust tried too, but neither of their calls swayed her. Lightning Dust took a few steps after her, but stopped before she could get very far. Starry was already out the door and long gone. Dust turned and looked back at Descent, completely confused. “Uh…” she didn’t go any further, Descen’t eyes were locked on Starry’s path. She wasn’t going to get any word out of him. Instead she looked to Cadence beside him. “Excuse me, but what was all THAT about?”

“I’m… no entirely sure,” Cadence shook her head, noticing that the extra shimmer about her body had ceased. “She looked oddly familiar, but I can’t quite place my hoof on it…”

Descent’s ears stood up and he quickly turned to face Cadence.

“Familiar?” he asked, hoping she would elaborate, but she had nothing else to add, leaving the three of them curious, but clueless.

“Well then!” Spitfire suddenly chimed in, pushing her way forward and getting in between them. “That was all VERY interesting, but I’d like to move this along. I still have some thing I want to discuss, but…” she paused as bright flashes erupted from behind her accompanied by the sound of High Winds yawning loudly. She looked over her shoulder at the Wonderbolts, squinting with the rest of them as they shielded their eyes from their endlessly sleepy wingmate. “I’d like to send my colleagues off to their hotels now. I wanted them here for the run-through of events since they were involved, but the rest we can handle without them. I want them to get off their hooves and shut down before they collapse.”

Lightning Dust shot Spitfire a brief scowl for pushing her way in between all of them, but Descent barely moved, still lost in his thoughts about everything he had been seeing regarding Starry Skies. Cadence heard Spitfire’s request loud and clear, and despite her curiosity, she agreed that they had to stay focused.

“Alright… send them along,” she nodded, Spitfire turning the instant she agreed as if she planned to send them regardless.

The Wonderbolts glanced amongst one another as Spitfire hastily turned and moved towards them. While some of them were indeed tired and wanted to get out of there, they were not on the verge of collapsing and were more than willing to be present per Captain’s orders. But the moment Spitfire reached them, she waved her hoof towards her face, beckoning them all to huddle up close. Foxtrot remained in place, but the top elites all gathered in. She specifically reached out and pulled the Streak twins towards her.

“Get Dash the hell out of here,” she whispered. “I wasn’t expecting her hometown friends to show up. Take her to a hotel and put her in a room before they try to press her further, because they will.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Fire nodded, Lightning giving a quick nod as well. Spitfire glanced between all of them. “Keep it up everypony,” she slowly looked over her shoulder. “I think we have a good position he—” she froze as her eyes crossed Captain P.L. sitting apart from where Luna and Cadence were conversing. His ear was turned towards them. Spitfire held her tongue, but flinched as he slowly turned his head to look at them, lifting an eyebrow and clearly curious. Spitfire instantly chastised herself silently for being a little too lax, forgetting about how sensitive thestral ears were.

Everypony else glanced towards him and suddenly realized the situation, but Spitfire was not about to let the plan crash and burn here.

“What?” Spitfire suddenly said towards P.L. in full voice as he held a serious look towards them. Spitfire turned and tipped her head, throwing a hoof out to her side. “Don’t you have a Moon to wax?” she asked while pointing at Luna, grabbing Fire’s plot and brushing a hoof over it.

P.L.’s eyes narrowed into a harsh glare as he scrunched his lips. Fire flinched and awkwardly stood still as the rest of the Wonderbolts broke into a fit of chuckles and giggles. P.L. snorted, and stood up, making his way back over to Luna’s side.

“Phew,” Spitfire sighed as Misty Fly yanked Fire’s plot away from her and hugged it tightly while pouting at Spitfire. Spitfire snickered as Fire glanced at her uncomfortably. “Sorry, spur of the moment, let Misty know your butt belongs to her.”

“Uh…” Fire didn’t quite know how to reply to that, Spitfire waved a hoof.

“Get going,” she quickly refocused them. “I can handle the rest on my own.” She ordered before immediately turning and moving back towards the royals, hoping to distract them long enough for Dash’s sake.

Dash saw the whole thing play out, but barely registered most of it, too focused on how many angles the situation was poking her from, but Fire quickly approached her and Matteo, placing a hoof on her shoulder.

“Let’s go, Rainbow Dash,” he ordered. “While we have your friends distracted,”

Dash looked Fire in the eye, hearing what he said, but not responding immedietly. She was acting ;tired’ like she was told, but the scenario was almost wearing her down to the point where she didn’t have to act. She glanced past him to see her friends were still looking in her direction constantly. Spitfire was doing her best to keep them focused, but it wasn’t coming easy.

“Okay…” Dash nodded as Fire quickly helped her up and pushed her in front of Matteo to get her out of view.

“Matteo,” Fire pointed at him. “You are in charge of her until we reach the hotels, follow us.”

“Yes, sir,” Matteo complied, agreeing to do what he had already more or less been doing thus far.

Dash sighed weakly as they began moving.

So much for relaxing…

“Oh… ah…” Dash suddenly slumped to the floor, prompting Matteo, Storm, and Star to all stop in their tracks. Squall took a few more steps before he stopped and turned.

Dash was hunched over, sitting on the floor while panting and sweating. She held a hoof over her heart and took several deep breaths.

“Oh my gosh…” she quietly said to herself as she continued to breath in and out deeply. They had just made it to the end of the hall that lead from the doors that now, thankfully separated Dash from her Ponyville friends. Squall glanced back and forth between Dash and the rest of the Wonderbolts moving on. They had not noticed that Dash had stopped.

“What is it?” Matteo asked Dash as he rested his talons on her back. “Is it Soarin again?”

Dash took another long, heavy breath and exhaled while shaking her head.

“No…” she answered simply. Matteo blinked and tipped his head slightly.

“Then what’s wrong?” he asked. Star hovered up beside him and nudged him lightly in the shoulder.

“Matty, come on…” she lowered herself in front of Dash and gently cupped Dash’s cheeks with her little hooves. “Isn’t it obvious? Those were her best friends from back home!”

Matteo just stared at Star for a moment. Squall kept glancing between them and the Wonderbolts until the top tiers were out of sight. He grumbled and sat down, facing the others while remaining a few paces away as Storm, Star, and Matteo remained around Dash. Matteo finally blinked.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, seriously.

“Really?” Star flattened her brow and put her hooves on her hips. “We’re all trying to keep the Wonderbolt plans a secret!” she said in a hushed tone so none of the stationed guards nearby could hear. “Those are her best friends! It’s hard to lie to your best friends…” she trailed off for a second as Matteo showed no visible response. She snorted and flattened her brow. “Okay, how would you feel if you suddenly had to lie to your wife?” she asked while poking his chest fluff.

“My wife lies to me all the time,” Matteo immediately answered. Causing Dash to let out a snort and chuckle. Star rolled her eyes and poked him again.

“I’m talking about YOU, not her,” she pressed him for a straight answer.

“If I had to lie to her for her own good, I would,” Matteo again answered without hesitation, but Star didn’t let up.

“Okay and how would she feel if she caught you lying?”

“She would swear a lot and hide my oranges from me.”

Star opened her mouth to continue, but went completely silent, blinking as Dash, again, found herself snickering as the exchange went on.

“Uh…” Star slurred. “That’s oddly specific.”

“I like oranges,” Matteo stated the obvious.

“We know,” Storm suddenly cut in as Star kept scrunching her face at the odd thought. He was shaking slightly as well, failing to hold in a few chuckles.

“But I have no trouble lying if I must,” Matteo continued. “Griffons follow logic and reason over emotion.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you have emotions,” Storm asked with a slight smirk.

“I don’t let them get in the way,” Matteo snorted, not picking up Storm’s sarcasm.

“Okay, okay, forget about it,” Storm waved a hoof in front of his face. “The problem is pretty clear. Dash just had to face her best friends. And knowing how loyal Dash is to us, I can only imagine how much it hurts for her to lie to them.”

“That’s not all,” Dash finally spoke up after fully catching her breath. “I know the prince and princess too. They’re related to Twilight.”

Storm blinked and looked towards Dash, his jaw hanging open for a second.

“Holy hell, how did you keep a straight face in there?” Storm asked as his eyes widened.

“I don’t know,” Dash admitted with a long sigh. “I felt like I was going to throw up. My heart’s still beating hard…”

“What’s the big deal?” Squall suddenly spoke up. They all looked towards him wearing varying looks. Dash was too anxious to really show much of a reaction. Matteo, of course didn’t change his look. Star was giving him a very flat look, as if wondering why he bothered to speak. But Storm was glaring at him hard. “It’s not like it’s that hard to lie to somepony,” Squall added. His elegant crystal form sure didn’t change his attitude at all.

Dash blinked and glanced at Storm, immediately knowing what was going to happen next. She honestly REALLY didn’t want to deal with them arguing right now.

“What?” Squall asked as he surveyed the looks being thrown his way.

“Gee, I dunno Shimmer Me Timber…” Storm spat at him as he stood and stomped towards him. “It’s usually considered normal to like other ponies.” He said harshly while pressing a hoof to Squall’s chest hard enough to push him back. As he was forced into the next hallway, Squall quickly reached up and gripped Storm’s hoof as he scowled, scrunching his crystal visage.

“The HELL did you just call me?!” he snarled.

“Guys… Stop,” Dash tried to speak up, but she was too short on breath to manage a strict tone.

“Stooooooooooooooooooooo…”

Matteo blinked and looked back and forth.

“What is that noi—?”

“Guys, COME ON!” Star cut off Matteo, fuming at the two stallions as they continued to find different reasons to be at each other’s throats. “Not now!” she yelled towards them while waving her hooves up and down angrily.

“I outta rub that shiny face of yours with sand paper until it’s grainy!” Storm hissed at Squall as the two butted heads.

“How about you LAY OFF! Why the hell do you care about how I think?!” Squall snapped right back.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORM!”

Dash perked up, her ears twitching as she also picked up the approaching noise.

“What’s that sou—?”

Before Dash could complete the thought, Something grey and yellow shot out from the adjacent hallway and slammed right into Storm. Storm grunted loudly as he was ripped right off his hooves and thrown to the ground. Squall’s eyes widened, his voice cutting off and going silent mid yelling with his mouth stuck open.

Storm sild to a halt on the floor, wincing and twitching with his teeth gritted and his eyes stuck open. Dash, Star, and Matteo quickly stepped up to see what had just slammed into him, only to find…

“D…Derpy?!” Storm managed to react, his surprise and shock cutting right through the pain of impact as he felt the intense squeeze of a very happy and squealing Derpy hooves on top of him, her arms wrapped around his neck and snuggling him into submission. Dash, Star, Squall, and Matteo all stared, taking a moment to register that they were indeed looking at Derpy Hooves, Storm’s look of absolute pain going right over their heads.

“STORM STORM STOOOOOOOOOOOORM!” Derpy continued to squeal and yell his name as she hugged him tighter, Storm’s face nearly turning blue as his body nearly lit on fire within.

“Aie… ah… owowow…” Storm’s voice cracked as he shuddered within the oblivious grip.

“Derpy Hooves?!” Dash finally managed to say as she continued to stare at the two of them on the floor.

“Help…” Storm wheezed, but Dash didn’t even look at him.

“Derpy, what are you doing here?” Dash asked, confused.

“My, my!” A new voice came from down the hall. “If it isn’t Rainbow Dash of Ponyville!”

She couldn’t put her hoof on it immediately, but Dash had definitely heard that voice before. She quickly looked down the hall from where Derpy came, Squall, Matteo, and Star doing the same, all too surprised to register Storm’s pleas for salvation from the floor.

Walking towards them, was none other than Fancy Pants, the famous billionaire business pony from Canterlot. Dash had not seen him in a long time, but she knew that he was teaching Soarin how to use his magic before everything went to hell.

But what was even more surprising, was that he was being followed by Big Macintosh and Braeburn? She spotted Mac soon after seeing Fancy, but it wasn’t until Braeburn had stepped out from behind him that she saw him. Did they follow Applejack here from Ponyville?

“Fancy Pants? Braeburn? Mac?” Dash said each of their names, the only words that came to mind as she struggled to piece it together. It was a mixture of being surprised and being tired. She glanced back at Derpy, who looked like she might accidentally kill Storm with cuddles based on how he subtly writhed in her grip. She noticed the rest of her friends staring at her too, wondering who these three new stallions were. “What are you guys doing here?” she asked, completely forgetting that she was supposed to be following Fire and the Wonderbolts. They were long gone at this point.

“I was told by your good friend Rarity that the Wonderbolts were on their way to the Crystal Empire,” Fancy broke right into an explaination as Braeburn flashed them all a jubilant smile and Mac just remained stone faced. "As soon as she told me she and her friends were on their way to help the Wonderbolts I felt the need to follow and assist as well. The Wonderbolts and I have worked together on more than one occasion after all.” Before he could say anything more, Braeburn slid forward patting a hoof on his chest as he startled Fancy.

“Granny didn’t want Applejack and all her friends heading here on her own with all the crazy hoopla hittin’ the newspapers! So she sent us along to look after the ladies,” he gave his part, only to smirk and glance up at Big Mac who stood silently behind him. “Of course this big lug’s mind was made up before Granny said a word. No way he was lettin’ his little Fluttershy go without him, ain’t that right big fella?”

“Eeyup,” Mac answered simply as he just stared forward at none of them in particular, even though Matteo was blinking and trying to comprehend how he managed to find another pony that was just as large as him aside from Bomber. Dash glanced at Matteo briefly, snickering for a second before Fancy took over again.

“We saw you land, but weren’t expecting you to be in the palace so soon!” Fancy chuckled as his magic removed his monocle and wiped it off with a cloth. “I guess that concludes our tour then, gentestallions!” he said cheerfully as he replaced his monocle and looked over his shoulder. “Oh? Hm…” he tipped his head slightly. “It looks like we lost one on the way.”

Both Mac and Braeburn looked back as well.

“Eh? Did he take a wrong turn?” Braeburn asked as everypony around Dash looked on except for Storm, who might actually be dead now.

But after a moment, Dash’s ears stood straight up, Realization slapping her right across the chops.

“Wait… one more…” she glanced at Mac specifically. “If you guys followed along. Then that means—!”

“Guuuuuuuuuuuys!” a voice echoed from down the hall. “Where did you go?!”

Dash’s eyes grew wide as she heard the voice, Matteo, Star, and Squall all blinked as they snapped their eyes towards the voice coming from around the corner not too far away.

“WAIT!” Star pressed her hooves to her cheeks as she shot up into the air and hovered in place. “IS THAT—?!”

“Helloooooooo!” Guys! Give me a sign or something! I’m lost here!”

A stallion wearing a Wonderbolt flight suit appeared from around the corner.

“Where are—” the Stallion looked towards the group, his eyes landing on Dash and the rest. He froze for a moment, his ears standing straight up, before smiling sheepishly. “Oh… uh… hey guys!”

It was Thunderlane.

Dash’s eyes lit up.

“Thunderla—”

“THUNDERLANE!!!!!!!!” Little Star squealed and launched towards him as he approached.

“How’s it goi—HURK!” Thunderlane gasped as Star slammed into his neck and latched her arms and legs around it.

“Omigosh! It’s been so long!” she giggled as she gave him an affectionate squeeze. She detached quickly and hovered beside him as she walked, smiling giddily while keeping her hooves firmly pressed to her cheeks.

“Hey Star!” Thunderlane chuckled while patting a hoof to his neck. “It really hasn’t been that long…”

“It sure feels like it!” Star pouted at him as the two made their way past Fancy, Braeburn, and Mac, reaching Matteo, Dash and Squall.

Dash just remained in her spot, letting Thunderlane come to her as a big smile remained on her face. Matteo had already gotten up and moved forward to meet them, but Squall had not. Dash glanced at him and noticed he was furrowing his brow and scrunching his lips with a very frustrated look engraved on his crystal face. Dash snickered, know that it was because Star hugged Thunderlane. Dash stood from her spot and cleared her throat.

“You snooze, you lose, Shiny,” she said cheekily, batting her tail against Squall’s chest as she followed behind Matteo. It took Squall a couple of seconds to register.

“Wait, WHAT?!” he blinked and growled, grumbling as he turned his head away and remained in place, leaving himself and a possibly still alive Storm still being crushed behind as the rest met Thunderlane.

“Well met, Thunderlane,” Matteo greeted, not dropping his demeanor at all save for the subtle evidence of a smile curled at the end of his beak.

“Long time, no see you big lug!” Thunderlane gave Matteo a pat on the arm as Star landed on his back and hugged him again, clearly excited to see their old friend from recruit training.

“Thunderlane…” Dash said with a clear bit of fatigue in her tone. “You are a sight for sore eyes…” she said honestly. After seeing her old friends from Ponyville, seeing one she might be able to trust was sending waves of relief through her.

“Look who’s talking,” Thunderlane looked between them, taking in their injuries. “What the hell have you guys been through? You all look like hell,” he put bluntly, but none of them disagreed.

“It’s a long story,” Dash said with a heavy sigh, her ears drooping a little, but before she could go any further, Fancy Pants stepped up to them and cleared his throat.

“Pardon my brief interruption, but I believe it’s safe to assume we will be passing you off to your friends?” he asked Thunderlane. “If so, we’ll be returning to the mares.”

“Oh, should I…?” Thunderlane motioned a hoof from his chest towards Fancy.

“Oh no, my colt, stay! Catch up with your friends,” he nodded with a smile as Mac and Braeburn already started moving towards the main hall where Spitfire and the others were still meeting.

Dash smiled as Fancy and Thunderlane agreed and parted, happy to see he was staying with them right now. It was good to see an old familiar face without the added stress attached, at least so far. She loved her squad and Wonderbolt friends to death, but there was definitely a piece missing when he left to become a reserve.

“Whoa…” Thunderlane suddenly tipped to the side to look past Matteo. Dash refocused and looked over her shoulder to see Squall still brooding a ways behind them… and that Derpy had finally released her death-grip on him and was letting him both sit up and catch his breath. But she knew what had Thunderlane’s attention.

“I know right?” she smirked. “Check out our personal glamorous grump over here!”

“Squall!” Star yelled over to him as she detached from Thunderlane and motioned to him. “Come on! It’s Thunderlane!”

“Feh…” Squall grunted and whipped his head to the side, again forgetting that his crystal mane lacked the flow to get the desired whip motion.

“Saw that coming,” Thunderlane chuckled. “But… how did…?” He motioned to his face while still looking towards Squall. “That happen?” he asked, making a sweeping motion across his face. Dash caught on.

“Oh, the scar? Blade did that to him,” Dash explained in brief. Thunderlane glanced at her and tipped his head.

“Who?”

Dash’s eyes opened a little wider. She dropped the name so casually. She hadn’t realized just how much Thunderlane had to get caught up on. He didn’t even know about the Shadowbolts. There was so much they had to fill him in on, maybe he could come with them back to the hotels.

“Oh, right… you don’t know anything about them,” Dash called out her own mistake. Thunderlane kept looking at her, waiting for more, but she shook her head. “Sorry, I’ll have to explain that later,” she deflected before perking up and looking around. “Oh, did Bulk make the trip with you guys too?” she asked as she looked back at Derpy. Storm had his breath back and was now hugging her tightly, doing his best to hide how much her ‘attack’ hurt because he wanted to give her the hug right back.

“He’s here, but the moment you guys landed he went looking for his dad,” Thunderlane explained.

“Oh, right,” Dash nodded. “Pec Bounce.”

“He’ll be around though, he wants to see you too,” Thunderlane smirked. “I mean, you’ll probably hear him coming.”

“Oh, I know,” Dash smiled and rolled her eyes jokingly as she turned to look at Storm and Derpy again, but the moment her eyes were fixed in the direction of the overly affectionate duo on the floor, they were instantly drawn away towards the doors to the main hall. They were slowly creaking open, and Twilight’s head suddenly poked out. “Oh crap!” Dash yelped and swiftly slid over to Matteo, hiding behind him.

“Huh?” Thunderlane glanced over at the doors, his eyes landing on Twilight as she frantically looked in the opposite direction first. “What’s—?”

“Hold your tongue!” Matteo quickly ordered in a hushed tone and he grabbed Thunderlane by the nose with his talons and held his mouth shut. He quickly opened one of his large wings and curled it over Dash to hide her from view.

But before Twilight could look in their direction, Cadence appeared from the doors as well and walked up to her.

“Twilight, please,” Cadence tried to put a hoof on her shoulder, but Twilight shook it off. “Let it go, they are exhausted.”

“I can’t!” Twilight reached up and tugged on her ears, groaning. “I need to know what’s wrong with her! She’s my friend!”

Spitfire suddenly appeared from the doors as well, clearly frustrated that Twilight refused to listen to her.

“Princess, I know how you feel,” she also tried to put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, but gripped it strong enough that Twilight’s effort to shake it off failed. She was breathing a little heavily, her mind fixed on both Dash and likely still Celestia as well, which wasn’t helping. Twilight tended to get a little loopy if there was any sort of issue regarding her teacher. “Dash is under my responsibility,” Spitfire continued as Twilight began to shake in her grip. “And she needs—?”

Twilight suddenly spun around and pushed Spitfire’s arm away, her magic coming alight around her horn and a faint glow surrounding her body.

“You don't know how I feel!” she screamed in Spitfire’s face, breath hissing through her teeth as they remained jammed shut. “I don’t care about your responsibility! She’s my FRIEND!”

Spitfire’s face immediately scrunched into a harsh glare as Twilight completely overlooked how she currently felt about Soarin.

Matteo didn’t move, hoping that they would go back in and not look towards them. Dash groaned as she remained hidden beneath his wing. She had been distracted by Thunderlane, but now remembered the situation she was in, the sick feeling in her stomach re-emerging.

“Grh…” Matteo suddenly grunted. Dash peeked out to see Twilight’s eyes had snapped towards them.

She prepared herself the best she could, knowing full well Twilight was about to push her way towards them. But right before she could…

“COMING THROUGH! CLEAR THE WAY!”

The voice came from behind Dash. She quickly recognized it as Mahogany, one of Bliss’ assistants. She turned and looked to see both her and Witching Hour leading a group of Wonderbolt trainers through the hall, each of them pushing along a stretcher that carried the afflicted Shadowbolt captives, and Wave Chill of course.

Keeping Dash pinned to his side, Matteo quickly moved out of the way, Thunderlane and Star moving with them as Squall stepped the other way towards Storm and Derpy. It wasn’t a new sight to Dash, but she quickly looked towards Thudnerlane to see his head tipped. He obviously didn’t recognize any of them, his curiosity mostly drawn by the crystals spread upon their bodies… but then his eyes widened when Wave was wheeled past.

“C…Commander Wave Chill?” Thunderlane said to himself as his eyes locked on the stretcher passing by. He quickly looked back to Dash, his eyes darting to Matteo and Star as well. “What happened to him?”

He didn’t get any response though. Star frowned, her ears drooping as Matteo closed his eyes and sighed lightly. Thunderlane looked to Dash, his eyes demanding an answer, but Dash was too busy watching Wave go by too.

It looked like the commotions and the incoming medical staff had also caught the attention of Twilight and Cadence.

The two princesses went completely silent with shock as the group of sick ponies was wheeled towards them. Mahogany and Witching both waved to Spitfire, beckoning the staff to keep following them as they approached.

Spitfire bit her lip and frowned as she quickly spotted the stretcher holding Wave. It didn’t matter how many times she saw it or how under control it currently was with Moon’s help. The sight stung her every time.

She looked up briefly, finally seeing squad Foxtrot as Twilight had. She blinked and shifted her head from side to side, looking for Fire Streak who was supposed to be leading them away, but he wasn’t there. Her eyes darted between Foxtrot and the afflicted, quickly putting together a plan. She didn’t know where Fire had gone, but now it was up to her to keep Twilight’s attention. She didn’t like having to use Wave and the other sick ponies as a distraction, but it was her only option right now.

“Wh… what is this?” Twilight stuttered, putting a hoof towards her open mouth as the afflicted ponies were wheeled before them.

“My goodness…” Cadence was in a similar state. “Are those… crystals coming out of wounds?” she asked, a slight tone of horror in the back of her throat.

Spitfire quickly stepped up, putting herself into the princesses’ view and making sure they were focused, not looking towards Dash and her squadmates. Chance would have it that Wave was wheeled up directly behind her. She looked down at him for a moment, receiving a weak smile from him. She returned it, but it didn’t last, her lips curling down into a frown as she returned her focus to Twilight and Cadence.

“These are the sick ponies I mentioned, the ones I requested be brought here as opposed to the hospital,” she explained. I don’t think the doctors will be able to help them,” she paused and glanced back at Wave. “The circumstances leading to this particular affliction differ to some of them, but they’ve all been fighting this… ‘disease’ for a while now.” She watched Twilight and Cadence as her explanation sunk in. They were both at a loss for words, staring at the sick ponies with their mouths slightly agape. “We haven’t a clue what to do,” Spitfire continued. “But seeing as how their sickness seems to be crystal and magic related, I thought your wizards and clerics would be better suited to look at them.”

“I…” Twilight broke her silence briefly, shaking her head. “When Rainbow Dash sent me her letter she mentioned something about chaos magic crystals and asked me to do some research.” She looked towards Spitfire. “I found nothing about it in my library, nothing al all… but did those crystals cause… this?” she asked intuitively.

Spitfire nodded while stealing a subtle glance down the hall. She didn’t think to ask anypony to look into the crystals. Smart move by her, even if it came up empty.

“All of them but Commander Wave Chill were using said crystals,” Spitfire explained, waving a hoof towards the sick ponies. “And this is what happened to them once they were deprived of them. It took a short while for it to happen though, so it seems to be a serious form of withdrawal. Wave Chill’s situation was different…” Spitfire’s ears drooped down. “He was captured and… tortured, his body heavily exposed to rays of the crystal magic according to the report I received. He became afflicted shortly after we rescued him.”

She waited a moment for the two to absorb that before getting to the real point.

“I’d also like to mention that we’re certain the endgame of this spread is certain death. The Shadowbolt I mentioned helping us, Moon, recently slowed their progression, but whats slowly happening to them we also saw happen to a few high ranking Shadowbolts, only they were heavily exposed, using three crystal at once. When their crystals were destroyed, they solidified and shattered. Dead.”

Twilight and Cadence both gasped, frantically looking over the crystal afflicted ponies.

It seemed to do the trick, Spitfire had successfully taken their attention away from Dash as Cadence sprang into action. She took a few steps ahead of the medical staff and pointed down the hall.

“Bring them right this way!” she said with a purpose. “We’ll take them right to the grand study so our experts can get to work!” She quickly turned to the closest guard to her. “You there! Send word out, I need all of our wizards, clerics, and scholars to cut short their teachings and seminars and return to the palace at once! This is an emergency!”

“Right away,” the guard nodded sotically before leaving his post.

“I’ll come too!” Twilight quickly joined Cadence’s side. Cadence glanced back at Spitfire as they started moving. She was giving her a harsh stare.

“I have not forgotten my promise, I will evenly split the duties so we may address Soarin as well as this," she reassured her. Spitfire gave a hard nod of approval. "Let my husband know where I am as soon as you finish coordination in there!” Cadence yelled back to her before the two Princesses led the medical staff around the corner.

Spitfire kept her eyes on them until they were out of sight and comfortably out of earshot. She took a deep breath and started turning back towards the main hall, but stopped when her eyes landed on Foxtrot again. She remained still for a moment before shifting and trotting towards them instead.

Dash poked her head out from Matteo’s wing, her eyes locking on Spitfire as she drew near. Dash bit her lower lip as she examined Spitfire’s face. It was mostly a blank expression, she couldn’t read anything from it, but she was worried nonetheless, biting her lower lip as she worried about what her captain would say. She didn’t handle the situation in the main hall very well, was Spitfire angry with her for it?

“Didn’t see that one coming either, huh?” Spitfire spoke as she stopped before them. Dash blinked, Matteo releasing her from his wing as she stepped out in front of Spitfire, her ears slightly drooped.

“I… what?” Dash asked sheepishly, trying to figure out what she meant. Spitfire made a head motion towards the main hall.

“I know how your friends are, Dash, but…” she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Try your best to avoid them. I’ve no doubt you’ll keep our plans secret, but the less they hassle you the better. I don’t want you under any more stress than you already are.”

Dash’s ears slowly turned back up, relieved that Spitfire wasn’t angry, but at the same time she felt distraught. Avoid her friends? Sounded simple but…

“That’s… easier said than done,” Dash exhaled. “For more than one reason. Don’t even get me started on how impossible it is to avoid Pinkie.”

“I know, but…” Spitfire gave her a firm nod. “We have to make this work. We have to do it for Soarin.” She placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Dash understood loud and clear, the two of them had more than just a wingmate riding on this. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that,” Spitfire added. Dash shook her head.

“No, ma’am,” she answered.

“I thought so,” Spitfire flashed her a weak smile. She looked up for a moment past Dash and down the hall, still no sign of Fire or the others, they were long gone. She looked between all of them again and eventually found Thunderlane. She tipped her head for a moment, examining the Wonderbolt uniform before quickly remembering him. “Ah, Thunderlane,” she said his name, Thunderlane stiffening and standing attention instantly. But she gave no order to be at ease, she simply turned to Dash while pointing at him. “I plan on calling in the reserves, so feel free to fill him in on everything. Just make sure he understands the words ‘Top Secret’.”

“T…top…?” Thunderlane’s eyes grew wide, not finishing the thought as Spitfire scanned them again and saw Derpy with Storm on the floor. It was hard for Spitfire to forget that adorable face, not to mention the fact that she shattered a track record held by a Gold Squad captain. “Her too I suppose,” Spitfire pointed at Derpy. "She’s earned enough of our respect to be in the know.” She turned around and made a hoof motion in the air. “I don’t know where the hell Fire went without you, but leave the palace and try to find them. They’re all staying at the hotels around the palace so somepony should be able to point you in the right direction. Get some food and some rest, see the doctors if you have to.”

She picked up a hoof to start walking, but before she could place it down, Dash suddenly rushed forward.

“Wait!” she called to Spitfire as she placed a hoof on Spitfire’s side. Spitfire stopped and glanced at her, lifting her brow. For a brief second, Dash got a good look at Spitfire up close. She hadn’t really noticed it until now, but Spitfire’s face had signs of fatigue that she was trying her best to hide. It was no surprise, considering how much stress she had been under, so Dash decided to make it quick. She opened her mouth, but did not speak for a moment. Her body moved on instinct as if she wanted to asked something before she knew exactly what it was, but it didn’t take long for her to piece the words together. Aside from Soarin, there was only ONE other thing on her mind. “Where… did they take Silver?” she asked, her voice weak and pleading. “I want to—”

“No,” Spitfire answered quickly. “Go to the hotels.”

“But—”

“Dash, do as I say,” Spitfire cut her off, her tone sharp and stern. “We just sent him to the hospital and I’ve no doubt he’s in the emergency room as we speak. Don’t go over there and cause a scene, let the doctors do their work. I’m worried about Silver too, but until we hear from the hospital, there's is nothing more we can do for him. He’s in their hooves now.”

“Y…yes ma’am…” Dash backed off reluctantly, her ears falling to the sides of her head as she looked at the floor, visibly quivering. Spitfire’s eyes softened as she watched Dash’s body language, she sighed, realizing that she was a bit harsh. She knew how much Silver meant to Dash, hell… to all of them.

“And… please,” Spitfire softened her tone as she placed a hoof on Dash’s head. “Let the others know I’ll be at the hotel as soon as I take care of everything here. I intend to rest too, I’m sure some of them are worried I won’t.”

“Okay…” Dash said quietly, still looking at the floor.

Spitfire perked up, looking down the hall past them as Fire Streak and Misty Fly suddenly appeared around the corner, looking frantically left and right before spotting Foxtrot and rushing towards them. Fire gritted his teeth as he saw Spitfire with them.

“Sorry!” he apologized quickly as he stopped and gave Spitfire a salute. “I… thought they were following us, I take full blame,” he quickly admitted with Misty Fly sliding to a halt beside him and nodding continuously.

“Don’t worry about it, Fire,” Spitfire quickly shook her head. “Disaster already avoided, they’re all yours.” With her hoof still on Dash’s head, she gave her mane a gentle ruffle. “Now get going, take a load off,” she ordered before turning and making her way back to the main hall.

With Spitfire gone and Dash left with a mixture of anxiety and reassurance, they turned and began following Fire and Misty through the halls with Thunderlane and Derpy sticking with them.

Again, Dash felt relieved about Thunderlane and Derpy being with them, and felt even better that Spitfire gave her full permission to tell them everything. After being so shocked and having to keep her lips tight around her old friends from home, it would feel good let it all out instead of keeping it down and choking on her words.

“Uh… hey…” Thunderlane suddenly spoke up as they moved, looking back and forth. “I just noticed… where is Twist—”

“DON’T!” Matteo and Squall both yelled.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Disaster averted.... or at least temporarily :rainbowderp: Dash just can't catch a break now can she?

And... can she trust her old friends? They are so blindly loyal to the divine sisters... Twilight nearly made it sound like they weren't even going to try to save Soarin. She admitted to being in fast bookhorse mode quickly after, but in the end will she worry more about Soarin or Sombra? Obviously she will think of Dash... but if push comes to shove... will she defy Luna?

Well at least it wasnt all that bad, BEHOLD! The return of Derpy and Thunderlane! (And the male characters from the rest of my stories too! :eeyup:)

...

Okay seriously, where is Twister?!

(Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf)

Chapter 161: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 3: Lost Way)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 161: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 3: Lost Way)

Pitch and weave.

Pitch and weave.

Pitch and weave.

Dash never felt more focused, or more like she had gone insane in her life. Flying at top speed through a densely packed forest that was primarily made of rock hard, jagged edges sounded like a one-way ticket to killing herself. They had been flying for less than a minute and she had already had more close calls with things she could easily have impaled herself on than she could count.

But desperation was a hell of a motivator. She had a goal locked in place, and was hell-bent on success. And by the looks of things, her squad was following her lead.

Dash shot through the crystal forest, narrowly missing certain disaster over and over again as pure instinct drove her flight path with a squeaking and whimpering Fluttershy latched to her back, clinging to her Wonderbolt suit so hard that Dash could feel it tugging around other parts of her body. She had no window of time for anything else aside from what was directly in front of her. Perhaps she could afford a glance or two, but only if properly timed.

But she didn’t need visual confirmation, the wingbeats in the air right behind her were audible. Her squadmates were with her. Squall’s steady wing pace, Little Star’s fluttering buzz, and the strong pounding of Matteo’s large wings against the air were all constant in her ears.

Yet she’d probably know regardless… because a few of her Ponyville friends weren’t quite adept to intense movement and being very vocal about it. Rarity in particular was screaming so dramatically you’d think her mane was being ripped off. Twilight was yelping similarly to Fluttershy, but Applejack was more interested in hanging on to Matteo… and probably Rarity. As for Pinkie? She was actually ahead of them, her go-kart stunt still in motion and ripping along. She had already crashed twice, but just zoomed ahead of Dash moments later each time.

Dash just paid Pinkie no mind since she seemed to know exactly how Dash was taking her route. Among her shifting and weaving, she was following a path that ran parallel to the flow of soldiers, thestrels on the trail of Sombra. She was making sure to keep just enough distance that she didn’t get caught in any of the tussles breaking out between them and the Wonderbolts or Renegades. From the looks of things, the confusion between the Wonderbolts and Renegades had not reached the fighting on the path yet. Descent’s Renegades had not caught up with the flow, Dash having left them behind after they sprang their apparent backup plan on Spitfire. All the more reason to keep moving, it was bound to get completely out of control if that cacophony caught up to them.

As they moved, Dash squinted, her eyes picking up bright flashes ahead. Blue flashes. It had to be Sombra using his magic to repel attacks or defend himself. At first she thought that was an indication they were close, but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see what was causing it. The surfaces of the trees and leaves were so reflective that any sort of light was pushed and bounced all over.

But they couldn’t have been far. She couldn’t see him… but she could feel him. She could feel Soarin’s presence growing stronger. That meant they were gaining ground. So she sharpened her focus further and kept speeding along, confident that her squadmates would be right behind her every inch of the way.

“DASH!” Matteo suddenly yelled, Dash flinching in surprise at his loud booming yell, but her ears perking up quickly. “SPITFIRE IS BEHIND US!!!!!”

Dash’s eyes went wide, but she kept them forward. She waited a few painful moments until she had just a little bit of clearing in front of her before she glanced over her shoulder.

She couldn’t hold in a gasp… because when Matteo made the declaration, she didn’t realize just how close behind their pursuers were.

Spitfire was no more than ten pony-lengths behind them… and it wasn’t just her she had ALL of the top tiers with her. Fleetfoot was formed up right behind her. Blaze, High Winds, and Air Mach were doing their best with squad three flying in an organized line formation right behind them. Some other high tiers were in tow as well, but clearly struggling to keep up with the best of the best.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” Fluttershy suddenly screamed shrilly directly into Dash’s ears. Dash immediately snapped her eyes forward.

“WHOA!” Dash twisted left, just barely missing a head on crash with a tree trunk. She hardened her focus and regained control as quickly as she could, continuing on the path in front of her.

“RAINBOW DASH!” Spitfire yelled from behind them. “STOP IMMEDIATLEY! THAT IS AN ORDER!!!!!”

Dash gritted her teeth.

Order? Really now… Did Spitfire really expect her to listen after what just happened?

“KEEP MOVING!” Dash yelled, addressing her squad. “GO! GO!”

Dash flinched as a white and yellow blur suddenly zipped past her as if it had been thrown or launched.

“C’MERE YOU!!!!!!!” Surprise yelled, as she shot by them and aimed for Pinkie and her go-kart just ahead of Dash.

“Oooooo! A challenger appears!” Pinkie giddily exclaimed as she tipped her head backwards to look at Surprise closing in, her go-kart still steering perfectly around the trees even though she wasn’t looking forward. The flames sputtering out the back of the engine lit the tip of her mane on fire before she could look back upright. “I’M ALL FIRED UP!” she yelled as her head was engulfed in flames… but she didn’t seem to be burning nor was her mane affected in any way.

Silliness ensued as Pinkie began zipping and turning in random directions. Surprise kept up, but despite her efforts to outsmart Pinkie with her own antics, she kept falling just short of catching her.

Any worry Dash would normally have for a friend was non-existent for Pinkie. The moment her head caught fire, Dash knew Pinkie was going to be just fine. She ignored the antics and focused all of her energy on moving forward and guiding her squad along.

But with periodic glances behind her… it was clear confrontation would likely be unavoidable.

Spitfire and Fleetfoot were catching up, proving that their rank held weight as the rest struggled to close the distance at the same pace. The rest of the top tiers were keeping their pace, but not gaining much ground as they dipped, weaved, and turned through the trees. But, a lot of the high tiers behind them were disengaging? By the looks of things, they were breaking off and heading towards the mess of struggles they were flying parallel to, looking to assist the Wonderbolts that were caught in fights with the crystal guards or thestrels. Some of them appeared to be more worried about their fellow Wonderbolts than Spitfire’s mad pursuit of Dash…

Only Fleetfoot was keeping up with Spitfire as the two kept closing the gap. Dash knew they couldn’t outfly them… the only thing that was keeping them ahead at the moment was her desperation to succeed and her wingmates’ willingness to help their captain in need.

But no amount of willpower or emotion would give her an edge over these two. Dash steeled herself, knowing she might have to make an abrupt stop and take a stand. It was only going to be a matter of seconds before Spitfire was within reaching distance of Matteo and…

Dash blinked as she glanced over her shoulder again.

Spitfire had picked up the pace?! And… she had flown right by Matteo and Squall, now catching up to Star. Spitfire’s eyes were locked directly on her… she was moving right past all her wingmates!

Dash had nearly forgotten that Spitfire was like her… able to copy techniques of others, only she was about ten times better at it. She must’ve used one of the many midair acceleration techniques they had at their disposal the moment Dash had turned away.

Spitfire pounded her wings with hard, strong strokes. She was mixing High Winds’ and Matteo’s wing movements together to propel herself forward with hard efforts and causing bursts of wind in her wake that slammed against Dash’s wingmates and even hindered Fleetfoot a little.

Dash glanced again and again, gritting her teeth as Spitfire kept making her way forward and started moving up to place herself parallel to her.

Eventually… they were flying side by side, Spitfire shooting glares at her as she appeared to wait for just the right moment to make a move without crashing into something ahead of them.

Dash had no idea what to do. She had to keep moving, and she had to protect her friends from Ponyville… she couldn’t do that while also fighting Spitfire!

Spitfire tipped away… then growled loudly while shifting back hard, looking to ram right into her. With no other option, Dash tensed her body, waiting for impact.

But then Descent suddenly shot in from between nearby trees, slipping right between the two of them and intercepting Spitfire before she could hit her.

Dash blinked in surprise as the two got tangled in the air. When she saw Spitfire and the Wonderbolts in pursuit, she assumed the Renegades had been left behind. But it looked like Descent wasn’t giving up. His quick intervention allowed Dash to pull ahead again. But Spitfire was not deterred.

“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAGH!” She yelled as she hooked Descent’s arm, pulled him underneath her body, and slammed her hooves into his side. The blow sent him hard into the ground right beneath them in a very rough and violent crash.

“GAH! AGH!” Descent grunted painfully as he bounced and tumbled. But before his momentum stopped, he punched at the ground as he rolled upright to push himself back into the air and follow after Spitfire again. She had clearly believed she had left him in the dust because all of her focus was on Dash again, the loud BANGS and POWS of air pockets bursting behind her rustling the leaves of the trees as she executed one acceleration move after the next.

“Ah! HEY!” Fleetfoot yelped as she was hit by the shockwaves, Spitfire’s moves once again pushing her off course. But Spitfire didn’t pay her any mind… nor did she see Descent catching up again.

Dash glanced over her shoulder to see the chase, finally catching a glimpse of how Descent was moving up so quickly. Loud crackling noises from nearby trees rung out as Descent kicked his hooves off the trees as he passed them in a way that resembled… Storm’s Surface Tap technique? He was using his son’s own moves to propel himself forward and keep on Spitfire.

He caught up to her again, shooting above her and hooking an arm around her neck. Spitfire’s reaction was quick, shooting an arm up to stop him from getting a clean hold before he tightened his grip. They kept weaving and moving to dodge the trees despite being caught in a struggle.

“DESCENT!” Spitfire roared. “BACK OFF!”

“MAKE ME!” Descent shot back as they continued to struggle.

“WHOA!” Blaze suddenly yelled out behind them. Dash shot a quick glance over her shoulder to see Lightning Dust shoot in front of her and High Winds. She shifted and forced them to redirect, causing High Winds to crash right into Misty Fly as Blaze split off the other direction. They quickly fell behind.

But before she could get excited, Dash’s eyes widened as she spotted Fleetfoot. Her record breaking speed was keeping her in the chase despite being tossed around by Spitfire’s wind blasts. Not even the tight maneuvers between the trees could slow her down with her shifty, speedy agility. She had quietly made her way right up behind Matteo as Spitfire and Descent had drawn away most of the attention… and she was focused on the two mares riding on his back with a hoof outstretched. She was inches away from grabbing Rarity by the tail!

But a purple hoof shot in and grabbed her arm.

“What the—?!” Fleetfoot looked to her side to see Starry Skies right beside her, gripping her arm. Their wings clashed, Starry’s strength proving to be greater than Fleetfoot’s as her wings kept in motion while Fleetfoot’s body was nearly turned sideways by the force. But Starry held on tight to Fleetfoot’s arm, forcing them both away from Matteo and right into the flight path of the Streak twins, forcing them to break off course and get in the way of Air Mach in the process.

“DON’T STOP! WE’LL KEEP THEM OFF YOU!” Descent shouted to Dash as he continued to struggle with Spitfire. Dash had already refocused on not crashing into trees but she heard him loud and clear. She nodded firmly as if she was looking Descent right in the eye and kept going as fast as she could manage, her squad keeping up behind her despite the forest growing denser and denser the closer they go to the edge.

All of the top tier Wonderbolts were still on their tail. The efforts to hinder those behind had slowed them down, but they were top bolts for a reason, making up the briefly lost ground quickly through precise and skillful maneuvers.

Descent, Starry, and Dust did everything in their power to keep the best of the best Wonderbolts at bay… though, in reality it was Starry and Dust struggling to stop eight Wonderbolts at once with Descent forced to focus all of his effort on the most dangerous one of all.

Despite being told to keep going, Dash felt the need to do something. There just happened to be one little mare flying with her that didn’t have a passenger to worry about.

“Star!” Dash yelled back to Little Star while keeping her eyes forward. “Get back there and help them!” she ordered, hoping to provide some assistance.

“Right!” Star nodded, catching on to Dash’s reasoning quickly. After a quick look over her shoulder, she spun around and put on the brakes, holding her little wings out to resist her forward momentum. She slowed down abruptly and seconds later, was flying right towards Fire Streak’s face. Before Fire could react, Star had slammed into his head and latched herself to his face.

“GAH!” Fire yelped in surprise, running into Air Mach as he was thrown off course.

The distraction was brief, Fire quickly reaching up and pulling Star from his face, tossing her aside. But she quickly used her hover-fluttering prowess to remain in the air and quickly zipped into the moving fray to assist Starry and Dust.

It wouldn’t stop them, but Dash was certain one more pony would at least help even the odds a little. Three trying to stop eight was better than two. Or… actually it was more like seven, since Surprise was still trying to catch Pinkie Pie ahead of them. Despite Surprise’s equal ability to engage in shenanigans, Pinkie was just enough steps ahead to elude her.

Dash forced herself to keep her eyes forward as Star’s voice joined the grunts and gasps of the struggle behind her. She was worried about her, but she trusted her. Star was a capable little ball of toughness and could handle herself. She was already worrying enough about her Ponyville friends including the jittering, yelping, and whimpering Fluttershy that was clinging to her back for dear life. She also had to worry about, well, not dying from a head on collision with the very solid surfaces whipping by her as she flew.

Squall and Matteo were keeping up with her. It was no surprise that Squall was keeping the pace, but it was a wonder that Matteo had not fallen behind at all. The flight path was becoming an unbelievably tight fit for his large body, and he was carrying two mares on his back on top of it. His suit had a few rips and tears in it from close calls, but he was still with them.

Their focus on success was just as strong as Dash’s, her wingmates drawing the determination from her as she forged on.

The blue flashes of light ahead of them were growing brighter. The rays of light were bouncing and reflecting everywhere, but the intensity had increased. They had to be closing in. It didn’t take her all that long to be freed from Spitfire and Sombra was…

Dash blinked as she recalled Sombra’s escape. He had Soarin’s wings, but he retreated on hoof. She had no idea why, maybe he didn’t know how to use them? Either way, being grounded meant he was RUNNING from those flying after him and likely fending off Luna, P.L., and maybe thestrels and crystal guardsmen in the process. Or at the very least the thestrels and guardsmen that weren’t caught tangling with Wonderbolts or Renegades. Being on hoof also meant they’d catch up quickly as long as they kept moving.

The flashes were growing brighter still. They were closing in. There was no mistaking that it was Sombra’s magic, now they just had to—

Dash’s ears stood up, her eyes widening as she heard a sound that she was SURE she had heard not too long ago.

Loud, shrill noises… PINGs and PANGs… and they were growing louder!

“INCOMING!!!!!!!!!” Dash yelled as loud as she could.

Not only did Dash’s squad perk up… but there was a sudden lull in the scuffle behind them as well. Spitfire and Descent both looked in her direction as did the rest of them.

Everypony let go of everypony and scattered as countless light blue beams of magic began surging by, bouncing off the crystal surfaces and crashing to the ground. Pinkie and Surprise surged ahead like it was nothing, but Dash and the rest were abruptly forced to slow down and take extreme evasive action.

“STAY TOGETHER! STAY TOGETHER!” Dash yelled, as she fought to stay on course despite being thrown way off her path. Squall grunted and twisted to avoid a few magic beams passing by him, but he was almost dragged to the ground as his maneuver nearly threw Twilight off of his back.

“AHHH!” Twilight yelped as she clung to Squall’s neck, her wings flapping and flailing as she struggled to hang on. Squall grunting as she slipped right onto his wing and prevented him from flapping it. He forced himself upright with an upward flap of his other wing and bounced his hooves on the ground to keep himself in the air. He quickly tipped himself opposite of the direction Twilight was falling to shift her back onto his back.

Dash stole a quick glance towards him she pitched back and forth so rapidly that she was almost getting dizzy. Carrying Fluttershy felt like she had nothing on her back at all, but she worried for Squall and Matteo. Squall had managed… he was coming around and staying with her with Twilight in tow, but she had lost sight of Matteo. He had been swallowed up among the streaming blue lights, kicked up dust and explosions shooting up all over along with her pursuers and defenders moving all over the place behind. She could see Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Descent still, the rest popping up here and there but otherwise lost in the cacophony behind. Fleetfoot looked like she was more worried about saving her own hide, but Spitfire was still focused on Dash, trying to make her way through the barrage of magic with Descent still in tow.

Where was Matteo?! Dash couldn’t see him among the carnage, nor had he somehow managed to slip ahead of them. Was he forced to slow down since he was carrying Rarity and Applejack? It wasn’t like Rarity was much of a load to haul. Applejack… well, she was bulkier and heavier but Dash had seen Matteo hit numbers in the gym that were at least three time’s Applejack’s weight. Hopefully he didn’t lose either of the two mares. Applejack was strong enough to hang on, but Rarity? She wasn’t known for physical prowess…

But Dash’s distracting worries were put to rest as Rarity’s shrill, dramatic scream became audible from within the mess and slowly grew louder until Matteo suddenly burst right through the center of the madness. He had his arms crossed in front of his face as he willingly charged headlong into the magic beams shooting in the other direction, forcing his way through the barrage instead of trying to avoid it. His arms and body were being struck by the magic, small explosions peppering his body and ripping the sleeves, hood, and chest section of his suit to shreds as he pumped his wings and surged ahead.

“GGRRRRAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!” He growled fiercely as he gritted his beak and toughed his way through the hazards to catch up. He flew right past Descent and put himself between Spitfire and Fleetfoot. With an extra effort, he thrust his arms out and grabbed them both by the arm in his talon shanks.

“What the—?!” Spitfire blinked in surprise, so focused on Dash that didn’t notice Matteo right beside her until he had already grabbed her.

“HRPMH!” Matteo yanked Fleetfoot right out of the air, swinging her around the front of his body towards Spitfire.

“YeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!” Fleetfoot shrieked as she was whipped around, Matteo aiming to hit Spitfire with her own squadmate.

But Matteo wasn’t trying to hit just ANY Wonderbolt.

But right before Fleetfoot hit her, Spitfire turned all her attention to her wingmate. With her free arm, Spitfire reached out and placed a hoof on Fleetfoot’s back. Her timing of placement was perfectly, tensing her arm and bending it back to completely cushion Fleetfoot’s momentum as if she had hit a soft surface.

“What?!” Matteo’s eyes widened after his attempt yielded zero results, and he had already let go of Fleetfoot. Spitfire lightly bounced Fleetfoot into the air, allowing her to easily twist and regain control of her flight before any magic beams could strike her.

It was like watching something out of a magic show. Matteo’s eyes were stuck open wide as Spitfire executed the ridiculously complex motion with ease to prevent Fleetfoot from taking any damage whatsoever… while also remaining upright and on path and resisting his pull all at the same time.

Spitfire scowled at Matteo, and before he could let go of her arm, she wound up her now free hoof and swung it around, delivering a strong arm chop right to Matteo’s forearm…

A very strong arm chop. Accompanied by a few painful sounding CRICKS and CRACKS.

“ARGH!!!!!!” Matteo grunted painfully.

“MATTY!” Dash yelled as she glanced back and saw him grimacing in pain, pulling his arm back and cradling it with the other as he drifted away from Spitfire. He somehow kept his wings pumping and forged forward through the magic that continued to pepper him as visible, extreme discomfort spread all over his face.

Dash didn’t know what to do, if she slowed down, Spitfire would catch her, but it looked like Spitfire was…

It was too late, Spitfire was already following up, swerving towards Matteo! She was winding up again and her eyes were locked right on his head! She was going to—!

“I DON’T THINK SO!” Applejack’s voice suddenly boomed as she held tight to Matteo’s neck, swung her lower body over the top of Rarity, and thrust a strong kick towards Spitfire.

“OOF!” Spitfire grunted, throwing an arm up in the nick of time to absorb the hit, but Applejack’s strength pushed her hard, sending her away from Matteo and nearly right into a tree.

“That’ll teach ya!” Applejack taunted as Spitfire evened out and was forced to pitch further away before grappling with Descent again. “Keep going big fella!” Applejack yelled to Matteo as she swung back over onto his back.

Rarity was still screaming.

“AND GOSH DARN IT, WILL YOU CUT THAT OUT?!” Applejack yelled as she grabbed her hat and yanked it down over Rarity’s head.

Ignoring the argument that ensued on his back, Matteo pushed on, toughing his way through the magic just a little more until he caught up with Dash and Squall, still cradling his arm.

“Matty!!!” Dash yelled as she formed up next to him, remaining mindful of incoming magic as he finally began dodging as well. His eyes were locked forward, concentrating despite his limp arm. “Your arm! Are you okay?!”

“IT’S FINE!” Matteo yelled without looking at her. “It’s just… rgh…” He grimaced. “It’s probably fractured. I can still move it.”

Dash gritted her teeth, stealing glances at him, but he shook his head.

“It’s not important! We can’t stop now anyway!” he reminded her… even though she didn’t need to be. Dash swallowed and forced her eyes forward, even more thankful than ever for her squadmates.

“Hey, bird-brain!” Squall suddenly formed up on the other side of him. “Quit crying like a bitch and suck it up!” he yelled. Dash was about to shoot him a glare, but Matteo scoffed loudly.

“Save your jests! I’ve taken worse hits from my wife!” Matteo shot back before pumping his wings harder and surging ahead, Squall following right behind. Dash cracked a smirk as she sped up as well, confident that they could build a solid lead on the rest with them all caught in the mix-up behind them. She just hoped Star was doing alright.

“Dash! Ahead of us!” Matteo suddenly yelled as they kept on. Dash blinked, but she couldn’t see much past the trees and barrage of magic.

“What is it?!” she asked as she twirled and twisted to avoid incoming beams and trees.

“Sombra! The Princesses and their knights! And guardsmen! All straight ahead!” Matteo clarified.

Again, Dash squinted, looking as hard as she could, but she couldn’t see past the flashes, tress, and barrage of magic.

But duh… of course she couldn’t see anything. She was talking to the one with the eagle eyes.

“Matty, take point! GO!” Dash yelled, a rush of adrenaline filling her body as Matteo managed to spot their target ahead.

They kept on dodging and weaving, steeling themselves and keeping their eyes forward as the noises of struggle continued behind them. They had pulled ahead, but Spitfire and Descent’s voices could still clearly be heard. But Dash held strong, Matteo and Squall feeding off her determination as they surged ahead.

And… their efforts slowly paid off.

“I see them!” Dash yelled as they kept moving. She could finally see Sombra among the flashing lights. Luna came into view as well, her darker colors standing out among the light blue trees. P.L., Shining Armor, and Cadence were in pursuit as well with several crystal Guardsmen and Thestrals all in tow. It was hard to get a clear view, but she could make out their shapes and movements.

By the looks of things, neither Luna, Shining, nor Cadence were using their magic at all despite Sombra spraying every tree he passed with small bursts of magic. It was preventing them from getting near him as he continued to gallop along.

Dash was right, he was galloping. Maybe he really didn’t know how to use Soarin’s wings.

But then Dash perked up as she noticed something else. The edge of the forest was growing near. And while the forest was allowing Sombra to fend them off, it was also preventing him from unleashing his power in full. If he got out into the open…

“GO! CATCH THEM!” Dash yelled out, doing her best to speed up without losing maneuverability. Squall and Matteo followed right behind her.

Dash glanced ahead and to her right briefly…

“WILL YOU JUST SIT STILL?!” Surprise yelled as she dove at the ground and missed horribly as Pinkie sped by in her go-kart.

“NO CAN DO!” Pinkie giggled as she drifted to and fro around the trees.

It was still going on. Well, at least Pinkie was staying on task… in her own way.

Dash focused her eyes forward, as long as they kept up their pace, stayed on rack, and kept avoiding the incoming magic…

On a whim, Dash decided to check the other direction. To her right was the shenanigans between silly ponies… but then Dash glanced to her left, and time seemed to slow down.

When?

How?

Spitfire was suddenly right there… right on the other side of Squall! She had snuck up on them from the left and Descent was nowhere to be found!

Neither Matteo, nor Squall were looking at her, both focused on moving forward.

Dash had roughly a moment of time to react… Spitfire was reaching for Squall? No, she was reaching for Twilight!

Without an instant of hesitation, Dash halted her left wing and beat her right down hard. Using the technique of her missing squadmate to twist and shift towards Matteo. Through pure luck, she had pushed at the moment that Matteo’s wings were down and she zipped right over the top of Rarity and Applejack. Fluttershy shrieked as Dash made the sudden move, squeezing her little arms around Dash’s neck… but Dash had no choice, if she had waited any longer she wouldn’t even have a chance to prevent it.

Her aim appeared to be slightly short. She was on a collision course with Squall. Dash gritted her teeth, realizing she was going to collide with Twilight on Squall’s back. All she could do was hope Twilight was hanging on tight enough.

Twilight yelped as Dash crashed into her, bouncing off her back. Squall grunted in surprise as Dash glanced off his passenger and…

“RAAAAH!” Dash yelled as she extended her leg and swung it around. She ran into Squall’s lifted wing, but pushed it completely aside as she threw the kick towards Spitfire.

But by the time Dash was turned enough to see her target… Spitfire was… reaching for her leg?

Realization dawned on her as Spitfire grabbed her by the back hoof…

She had just gotten baited hard.

Dash immediately folded her wings up high over her back to cover Fluttershy as Spitfire yanked her in, grabbed her by the shoulder and body slammed Dash into the ground below them.

“GAH!” Dash grunted in pain as her face was pressed right to the ground, the hood of her mask was yanked awkwardly and torn completely off with a loud RIP as the shreds were left behind in their wake. Shrill squeaks of fear from Fluttershy squeezed between her closed wings as Dash was turned and her right side was dragged painfully along until they slowed to a stop.

“DASH!” Squall yelled as he and Matteo came to an abrupt halt. Matteo’s eyes went wide as they landed. He quickly arched onto his hind legs, throwing both Rarity and Applejack off of his back before stepping forward, facing all of them. He turned his back to the magic barrage and opened his large wings to shield them all as he grunted from the rapid pelting that ensued.

Squall frantically looked back and forth between Dash and Matteo.

“What are you looking at me for?!” Matteo growled at him as he grimaced and grunted. “HELP HER!”

“Go!” Twilight suddenly said as she jumped off Squall’s back. “I’ll take care of this!”

Squall blinked and watched as Twilight shifted around Matteo, her magic gathering into her horn. With a flick of her neck, the magic shot out and expanded, creating a large shield that anchored into the ground. She gritted her teeth, her legs shaking as the shield was pelted by Sombra’s magic, but it freed Matteo. He gasped and fell forward, barely supporting himself with his good arm as the other remained gingerly against his body. Applejack and Rarity quickly reached up and helped support him, Rarity almost instantly buckling under his weight until she activated her magic, but Applejack held up just fine.

Squall quickly turned towards Dash and Spitfire struggling on the ground, gritting his teeth and taking flight towards them. Dash had no advantage, she was under Spitfire, she was smaller than Spitfire, weaker than Spitfire, and she was also clamping her wings down to protect Fluttershy. He had to even the odds!

But as he drew near, a light blue blur appeared over the top of Spitfire. Squall blinked… and the moment his eyes were open again, Fleetfoot was right in his face.

“OOF!” Squall grunted as Fleetfoot rammed him in the chest, her speed making up for her lack of size and weight as Squall felt like he had just been hit by train moving in the opposite direction. Fleetfoot disengaged after connecting for half a second, moving aside as Squall tumbled out of the air and hit the ground hard, bouncing a few times before coming to a halt. He tried to force himself up quickly, but Fleetfoot came around and drove her hooves into his back, keeping him down.

Dash had one eye open as she strained against Spitfire’s strength, and it widened as she saw Squall pinned in an unfavorable position just like she was. She could also see Matteo being supported by her friends further back. The situation had gone from in their grasp to worst case in a matter of seconds.

It wasn’t long until the sounds of all the scuffling they had left behind had returned and were growing louder.

Dash couldn’t see much from her point of view, but Lightning Dust suddenly crashed to the ground on her back near them, quickly rolling onto her hooves and lifting off before High Winds slammed to the ground from above.

Dash turned her head the other direction as she tried and failed to get out from beneath Spitfire. On their other side, Starry Skies whisked by them. A loud painful noise of a hoof connecting to a face rang out shortly after with Starry tumbling back the way she came from. She got to her hooves and leapt backwards as Misty Fly zoomed by in pursuit, the Streak twins right behind her.

“RRRRRGHHHH!!!!” Dash growled as she shook her body, trying to force herself free of Spitfire’s hold. She threw an elbow back, knocking one of Spitfire’s arms free and pushing herself up. Her wings lost their grip on Fluttershy as she rose and pushed against Spitfire. The little Pegasus squeaked and tumbled to the ground, curling up and shaking on the ground beneath Dash and Spitfire as their hoofs beat the ground around her in their struggle. Spitfire eventually got a hold of Dash and pushed her up onto her hind legs, growling as she charged forward. Dash tried to dig her hooves into the ground, but she never got enough leverage. Spitfire pushed her back further and further, her hooves slipping and sliding along the ground until Spitfire slammed her back into a nearby crystal tree. “GAAAAH!!!” Dash cried out as she was sandwiched between the tree and Spitfire’s strength.

“STAND DOWN, DASH!” Spitfire yelled into her face. “You can’t win this fight! GIVE IT UP!”

Dash’s eyes widened.

Give it up?

Spitfire was telling her to give up?

Dash growled, glaring right into Spitfire’s eyes as she gritted her teeth and managed to grab one of Spitfire’s arms with her hoof.

“N…NO!” Dash yelled.

“DAMMIT DASH! I SAID FORGET IT!” Spitfire spat right back.

“NO!” Dash refused again, yanking as hard as she could as she sharpened her glare further.

“GIVE… UP!!!!!!!!!!!” Spitfire repeated as she knocked Dash’s hoof away and delivered a jab to Dash’s stomach. Dash gasped in pain, but refused to hunch over or show any weakness. She tried to force herself forward again, but Spitfire picked her up a little and slammed her again, pressing Dash’s back against the tree. Spitfire pressed a hoof to her neck and applied an uncomfortable amount of pressure while holding her still.

“N…N…” Dash struggled, her eyes twitching as it got harder to breathe. Spitfire wasn’t using lethal force, but damn it hurt.

Give up, huh?

It was hard to believe who she was hearing this from… from the mare she was supposed to respect as a leader, as a motivator.

The very leader that had lost control of both herself and everything happening around them right now. She wasn’t the only one at fault, not by a longshot… but the current state of the Wonderbolts and the reason Dash had decided to break away? It was her.

She refused to let Spitfire tell her what to do… not right here and now.

Give up?

Give in?

Let go?

Did Spitfire even know who she was talking to?

Silver didn’t give up when everything was set against him… He got his face beaten against a wall and a whole wing ripped off while fighting a battle he couldn’t win… for something he believed was right.

Silver would NEVER give up… so why the hell would she?!

“NEVER!” Dash yelled as she suddenly pushed hard against Spitfire.

“RGH!” Spitfire grunted in surprise as Dash managed to jostle her a little. But Spitfire was having none of it, she pushed right back down, using her superior strength and size to keep Dash pinned. She pressed a hoof harder to Dash’s neck to disrupt her breathing and keep her from gathering her strength.

But as Spitfire held her and looked directly into her eyes…

Spitfire didn’t know what it was… there was a sudden rush of thoughts flowing through her mind paired with a rush of emotion. She couldn’t pinpoint what kind of emotion, but it was being caused by Dash… by the way Dash was looking at her.

It reminded her of… something. All the fighting and cacophony around them seemed to fade as Spitfire’s thoughts zeroed in on what she was feeling. Her hardened glare didn’t waver, but her eyelids began to subtly shake as her thoughts raced.

The look on Dash’s face and in her eyes… it was making her feel upset? Making her feel like she had messed up? Like she had made a mistake? All of these things, but in a very specific and particular way.

The feeling wasn’t a mystery to her. She was able to pinpoint it quickly.

It was the same feeling one got when somepony they respected was disappointed in them. When somepony they looked up to was ashamed of them.

Why?

How in Equestria… was Dash making her feel this way? It was as if she had seen that very same glare before from somepony else…

Whatever it was… it had torn her awareness of her surroundings away completely. And because of that, she had no idea that a certain combative stallion was shooting towards her at an alarming speed.

“ARGH!” Spitfire grunted in surprise as Descent blindsided her, ripping her completely free of Dash before the two tumbled to the ground and began grappling each other.

Dash fell forward, landing on her stomach as she panted and gasped for air. She pushed herself up and her eyes widened when she got a good look at Descent.

His goggles were gone, his suit was severely ripped up, showing off a lot of his scars, and his face was bloody, VERY bloody.

“GRH! HAVEN’T YOU HAD ENOUGH?!” Spitfire roared as the two got to their hooves and began pushing against one another.

“I'LL TELL YOU WHEN I'VE HAD ENOUGH!” Descent shot back as he forcefully held her in place. “KEEP GOING, DASH!” he yelled to her. “DON’T LOOK BACK!”

Dash swallowed, nodding briefly before she quickly turned and made a break for her squadmates, scooping up Fluttershy from the ground with her wing as she passed.

“MEEP!” Fluttershy squeaked and somehow curled up more, but Dash quickly placed her on her back.

“It’s me, Fluttershy, we’re in the clear, hang on!” Dash yelled back to her. In an instant she felt Fluttershy’s little arms grab hold of her neck again, so Dash focused on the rest of the mess she had to clean up. She didn’t take flight just yet, weaving back and forth as the beams of magic continued to fly, though the intensity had weakened, suggesting Sombra had gotten further away.

She had no time to dawdle. Matteo was not under duress, but looked like he was still in pain while being propped up by Rarity’s magic and Applejack with Twilight still shielding them all. She just had to free up Squall, who was currently being kept down by… Fleetfoot?

The thought of Fleetfoot overpowering Squall was as ridiculous as it sounded, but by the looks of things, Fleetfoot had put her superior skill to work. She had him thoroughly locked in a very bent and awkward position, holding one of his arms outstretched with her front hooves and… had Squall’s neck locked tight between her thighs. Of course she knew how to use her thighs effectively…

Though Squall seemed unaffected by the suggestive maneuver and instead was trying, and failing, to get any leverage on her at all. Dash charged towards them to help, but she wouldn’t have time to fight Fleetfoot. She needed a way to get her off him quickly and put her in a position where she couldn’t recover fast. Fleetfoot was all about speed. Any slip up and she’d be on them again in an instant.

As she continued her approach, Dash glanced to her left… her eyes widening as she saw Blaze nearby holding Little Star to the ground and yelling all sorts of colorful words at her. And her mane was on fire with small flames in three different places, but she didn’t seem to notice.

With little time to think and only few, rather specific options at her disposal, Dash thought up a plan quickly.

“Hey Fleet!” Dash yelled as she grabbed Fleetfoot’s shoulder with one hoof. Fleetfoot flinched in surprised and looked up at Dash. “You can blame Soarin for this one.”

Dash thrust her other hoof over Fleetfoot’s body and pressed hard on a spot high up Fleetfoot’s inner thigh, rubbing it vigorously for all of one second before—

“AAAIIIIYYEEEYYYEEEE!!!!!” Fleetfoot released a very odd, high pitched noise as her body shook with jitters, her face turned bright red, and her legs immediately released Squall’s head. “Oo, ah, eeeeeee!” she continued to squeak and yelp as she curled her body in and hugged her arms around her stomach. With Fleetfoot stuck in a moment of strong sweet spot spasms, Dash hooked her arm underneath Fleetfoot, and shifted her weight to lift her up on her shoulder as she continued to shudder with her eyes wide.

“BLAZE!” Dash yelled as she turned, taking care not to let Fleetfoot swing and smush Fluttershy. “FLEET NEEDS A DIDDLE!” she yelled before winding up and throwing the squeaking Fleetfoot in Blaze’s direction

Blaze’s ears folded backwards and her eye twitched as she turned towards Dash.

“Fucking wha—OH SHI—!” Blaze yelped as Fleetfoot slammed right into her, snuffing out the flames in her mane and knocking her right off of Star.

“Squall, come on!” Dash turned right back to Squall and helped him up and rubbed his neck. He had a mortified look on his face.

“I feel completely violated,” he said in disgust, but Dash couldn’t hold back a smirk.

“Yeah, having your head stuck in the crotch of the Wonderbolt poster girl sure was bad, wasn’t it?” Dash said with some slight snark, giving him no time to retort as she quickly turned and galloped back towards Matteo.

Squall followed with Little Star rejoining them as they quickly shifted their path to line it up with Twilight’s shield. Magic beams were still flying and bouncing off the trees, just not nearly as intensely as they had been minutes ago due to their pursuit being halted. They skidded to a halt in front of Matteo, Dash looking over the hunched griffon as he was still supported by Rarity’s magic and Applejack.

“We gotta move!” Dash yelled as she placed a hoof on Matteo’s side. “You still with us, big guy?!”

“HRMPH!” Matteo grunted as he suddenly forced himself up. Applejack and Rarity yelped, both tipping over and falling as he stood tall again, or at least tried with all his forward way still on one arm. “Never felt better!” Matteo proclaimed, sucking it up as he visibly scrunched his face in pain. Dash was ready to express concern… but quickly stopped herself. The stubborn look in Matteo’s eyes as she stared up at him told her to shut up before she even tried.

She needed his help and he wouldn’t agree to stand down anyway.

“Let’s get after it then!” she said adamantly, earning a brief smile from Matteo as she ducked around them and nearly stepped on Applejack on the way. They were all accounted for. Well, except for Pinkie, but she was probably just fine. “Twilight! Let’s—”

But Dash stopped as Twilight suddenly dropped the shield and blinked. Dash’s ears stood up and she stared in the same direction she was.

The magic beams had ceased.

“SHIT!” Dash cursed. “COME ON! WE HAVE TO MOVE NOW!”

“HMPH!” Sombra grunted as he shot out of the Crystal Forest in stride, not slowing a single step as he locked his eyes on the Crystal Empire in the distance. He snorted, hardening his glare as his heavy thundering steps slammed into the snow covered ground, kicking up large white fluffy clumps as he thundered along. Small snowflakes gently battered against his face as he charged, the light flurry of snow completing the image of his home before him

He didn’t look back. He knew he was still being pursued, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to turn and engage them, he didn’t want to waste his time. He only wanted one thing. He only had one goal… the rest could wait until after he had what was his.

But he was barely thirty yards from the forest edge when he sensed something.

His eyes widened and he slammed all four hooves into the snow, skidding to a halt as several bright flashes of purple, distorted light sparked and popped in front of him. A large mound of snow shot up from the ground, blocking his path. The purple flashes continued to blink, popping and crackling up the snow mount slowly as the snowfall surrounding them suddenly picked up, the wind whistling and the flakes growing thicker and the view of the Empire slowly fading until it was hidden by the dense snowfall.

When his hooves finally stopped sliding… Sombra looked up and around as the sudden pick up in the weather, but when his eyes landed on the snow mound that had popped up in his path. There something atop it… rather, a certain individual was standing on it and looking down on him.

Luna, Cadence, P.L. and several Pegasus guardsmen and thestrals shot out of the crystal forest behind him, but they all came to a very abrupt halt, not only surprised by the sudden appearance of a snowstorm, but also by what they saw directly in front of them.

“You…” Sombra snarled, a loud hiss rushing between his teeth as he gritted and bared them.

“D…Discord?” Luna stuttered as she stared at the peak of the snow mound and all those surrounding her hesitated to move another inch near the very dangerous standoff.

“Yes…” Discord scrunched his face as he glared down at Sombra, faint sparks of his chaos aura flaring up around his body. “Me.”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

This should be fun... but what might Discord have in mind after his magic was so easily pushed aside before? Guess we'll find out.

As for the rest... Looks like Spitfire is starting to see ghosts. Or what she's doing has gotten so far out of her hooves that she can no longer ignore just how much she's lost her way... too bad she's dragging the rest of the Wonderbolts into this with her... or is she? They are following Spitfire despite how far she is taking things. They are just as lost as her yet remaining loyal, perhaps because they dont know what else to do? Perhaps they have no idea what else they can do. Regardless they are clearly agreeing with Spitfire and the way she has decided to handle this, so we can't let them off the hook either. But you have to wonder whats going through their minds during all this. Fleetfoot can't be happy about attacking Dash. Much less Misty Fly and the rest of her squad.

From the looks of things, nopony really knows what they're doing or why they are doing it. Are there any ponies out there right now who are 100% sure of what they're doing? Aside from Dash...? Doesn't appear to be, regardless of which side they've picked to be on. Now, Ironically, Dash is finding herself being protected from the Wonderbolts by three ponies who were once adversaries as Shadowbolts. Doesn't that just top off how screwy this is becoming? When will the madness end?

~~We're just getting started~~

Thanks for reading! Hoped you enjoyed!

And for those wondering, yes this was completely intentional:

Chapter 162: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 4: Bending the Rules)

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 162: Wonderbolts Never Die (Arc 3 Finale Part 4: Bending the Rules)

The glares chilled like the whistling winds.

Sombra and Discord had their eyes locked on one another, neither one of them paying a single thought or glance to those who had emerged and gotten caught in the intense pressure of their auras. Luna could barely stay upright as she was battered by the magical pressure, all those with her locked to the ground and unable to move.

But while their focus was equally unwavering, the control they had over themselves differed. Sombra was holding still, his aura and body calm as he glared up at Discord on the snow mound. Discord on the other hoof, looked like he was barely keeping his power under control. His glare was accompanied with gritted teeth and his lip pressing against his snaggletooth. Pops and crackles of purple light sparked and flashed subtly around him, reacting to his emotions as he looked down at Sombra… a position that was clearly planned.

“Hmph…” Sombra snorted, breaking the silence. “I was wondering when you’d finally show your face,” he spoke in a condescending tone despite being positioned below Discord. “So what is your scheme within all this madness, hm?”

Discord said nothing, his eyes twitching as Sombra’s words reached his mind. He was watching Soarin’s enhanced body, the lips were not moving as Sombra spoke, but there was no denying what he was feeling. It was Sombra, and nothing but Sombra.

A powerful shockwave of pressure suddenly burst outward from beneath Discord, the snow mound beneath him imploded and sent chunks of snow in every direction. Everypony around was blown backwards, sent tumbling along the ground. Luna was knocked right off her hooves and slid several yards back. But Sombra only winced as the snow chunks blew to pieces as they struck his aura and leaned back slightly as the burst struck him, barely phasing him as Luna grunted and struggled behind him. She eventually pushed herself back up, but it was an immense struggle.

Discord remained in the air for a few seconds, floating in place as if the snow mound were still there. He continued to glare and grit his teeth as he slowly lowered to the ground. Sombra did not move from his spot, he simply watched as Discord descended slowly and eventually landed right in front of him, now willingly standing in his shadow as he loomed at least a head taller than Discord.

The crackling of Discord’s aura became more intense, the blips and sparks of his aura colliding with the flowing waves of energy rising from Sombra. The howl of the wind and the snowfall grew more intense.

Luna blinked in surprise as her wobbling legs struggled to keep her upright, her eyes locked on what she could see of Discord behind Sombra’s massive bulk.

He was… facing Sombra directly? After the way he brushed them aside and after all of Discord’s talk about nothing mattering anymore? What was he doing?

“Was that supposed to scare me?” Sombra asked with a snide scoff as he narrowed his eyes down at Discord.

“Shut your trap, you abomination!” Discord snapped up at him, clenching his fists at his sides. Sombra easily noticed Discords arms shaking and the energy seeping from his closed hands.

“You mean to fight me?” Sombra asked, the same tone persisting.

“Why ELSE would I be out here?” Discord snarled. “As if anypony else could even scratch you in this state! I’m putting an end to this… and an end to you!”

“You?” Sombra lifted an eyebrow and snorted. “Put an end to me?” He shook his head and scoffed. “Feh… you are nothing. Have you already forgotten what happened last time? I doubt your magic is suddenly capable.”

“I took the wrong approach last time…” Discord’s glare hardened to the point where his eyelids and pupils twitched. “So what if my magic doesn’t work on you… I’m still the god of CHAOS!”

Discord threw his arms outward, his aura exploding from his body and expanding greatly until it completely encircled the gentler, more controlled flow of Sombra’s. The pressure in the air increased ten-fold, the swirling winds and snow growing stronger and turning into a full-blown blizzard. Luna and her followers were pelted by the thick flakes, all of them forced to shield themselves as if they were caught in the middle of a hurricane.

Large purple ribbons of light began to flow from Discord and flail about around him. They appeared to bounce off invisible surfaces in the air… but as they did, they left behind what looked like streaks or tears, as if pulling and clawing at the very fabric of reality around them.

Luna noticed immediately, and it alarmed her immensely.

“DISCORD! NO!” she yelled as she tried to force herself forward, but was only pushed backward and to the ground. “BE CAREFUL!” she demanded as she watched Discord willingly violate the golden rule of his freedom.

But Discord didn’t listen, the energy flow persisted as the ribbons of light continued to rip and tear at reality. Each rip was minor, closing up quickly, but Discord was clearly bending the universal existence around him.

And as he did… he began to enlarge. His body grew in size, growing larger and larger in scale until he stood a head taller than Sombra.

Sombra calmly looked about as the process unfolded. This wasn’t just a simple size increase. Discord didn’t need to pull at time and space just to do that.

“I CAN DO ANYTHING!!!!!” Discord yelled as his eyes glowed brightly, streams rising from his eyes similar to Sombra’s. "And if the magic approach didn’t work… then maybe a more physical one will!” He yelled as he pounded a fist into his palm, purple sparks erupting from his hands and shooting all about with loud crackles and pops. “It’s time to do what I should have done a long time ago!” he roared as the power increase ceased and the winds and snow lost some of their intensity. Luna quickly found the strength to stand again… barely, though the rest had no such luck as the pressure still persisted. But Sombra looked unimpressed.

“Bending dimensions to your will to relatively double your natural size and strength while everything else around you remains the same…” Sombra spoke as he put together what Discord had done. “And…?” he followed up, completely unfazed as who was looking at who from where was swapped once again.

“You’ve taken everything from me!” Discord’s voice boomed and echoed as if his pocket of warped dimension was distorting his voice. “You took what I cherished most away from me long ago… and now here you’ve done it all over again! I’ve let you get away with it both times! I have nothing… thanks to you! Nothing left!” Discord paused and snorted. “I’m done feeling sorry for myself, I’m done wondering why I couldn’t prevent it… I did the same thing a thousand years ago and it didn’t take long to remember how well that ended up working out for me!” He pointed harshly at Sombra. “You STILL exist! You STILL persist! So if it’s the last thing I do, I will make you PAY! I will make you regret it all!”

Sombra remained silent for a few moments as his head remained tipped up and his eyes focused on Discord. Slowly… his eyes began to narrow as everything Discord just said sunk in.

“I’ve… taken everything… from you?” Sombra said each word slowly, a low, angered growl surfacing from his throat. “Hypocrite… Hearing you say such words to me… is beyond despicable!” he said as the aura around his horn grew brighter, his sword and shield conjuring at his sides with several miscellaneous pieces of weaponry appearing behind him. “I had hoped to save this moment for later… I cannot give you the pain you deserve where I stand right now. But if you have the gall… the AUDACITY to make such claims of me, then I will spare a moment to make you eat those words right here and now!”

They glared fiercely at one another as Sombra’s magic aura began to swell, his output of magic power matching the emotion in his voice from his rebuke of Discord’s words. Soon the auras were actively pushing against one another, the swirling winds and snow picked up again slightly. Luna’s magic came alight, her auras rushing to her legs to help prop herself up as grunts and gasps of her followers behind her rang out, the pressure nearly pushing them into the ground as they tried to get up.

Luna could scarcely believe what she was seeing. She was witnessing power on proportions that not even she could comprehend, let alone generate. She could throw out powerful, destructive spells, but nothing she could do created such a feeling like the one forcing her and everypony else down. It was like the magic in the air itself was heavy, its power so strongly condensed into a small area that it was nearly solid and thick.

Was this… what she was capable of? What Discord meant when he spoke of her unwillingness to make the sacrifice for greater power as her sister and parents had? She had never seen Celestia do anything like this before… but could she…?

But as Luna stared, she suddenly noticed something.

Discord was twirling one of his fingers subtly as he kept his eyes locked on Sombra’s. There was no magic or build up with the motion… it was like he was trying to signal something?

Lulu.

Luna’s ears perked up as Discord’s voice suddenly echoed in her head.

This is our chance. I will keep this lummox distracted. Go find the Elements and get them within range.

Luna blinked. Discord was… putting on an act? He was helping with her plan?

Only you can do it, if I let up at all and free the rest, Sombra will get suspicious. Get your little moon-cheeks back into that mess in the forest and secure the Elements!

Luna stared, swallowed, and gave a single nod.

Good girl, now hurry! I don’t know how long I can fight him or hold this form before—

“WHAT THE—?!”

“LOOK OUT!”

“WHOOOOAAAAA!!!!!”

Luna looked behind her as the new voices came within range… and the moment she turned…

Rainbow Dash crashed to the ground right next to her, Fluttershy flinging from her back and landing with a tiny squeak. Further back Matteo and Squall hit the ground hard, flinging Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight from their backs and to the ground. Pinkie’s go kart zoomed in and stopped in front of them. She blinked and looked everypony over.

“Oh, right…” her go kart sank firmly into the snow and she fell face first to the ground with a loud whoopee cushion noise.

Right behind them, Descent and Spitfire crashed, followed by Starry, Lightning Dust, and the rest of the top tier Wonderbolts. Fleetfoot bounced off Spitfire and landed head first in the snow close by… then proceeded to grunt and squeak as the Streak twins… and then everypony else landed in a pile on top of her. Surprise was the last, bouncing off the top of the pile with a loud honk before landing on top of Pinkie Pie.

“Gotcha!” she yelled. “Wait, we’re stuck, aren’t we?”

“Yep.” Pinkie replied nonchalantly.

In an instant, all of them were caught in the same situation as the rest, none of them could get up, all locked to the ground as the pressure forced them down.

Luna’s jaw dropped.

Well… she found them.

But then Dash stood up as if nothing was touching her, or as if she was barely shouldering the same weight as the rest. She frantically looked around at her squad and her friends, legs wobbling as she wondered why they were being pushed down. She stared out towards Sombra and Discord. Sombra’s back was turned to her, but Discord blinked…

And took his eyes off Sombra, noticing all the Elements already there… all caught in the situation he created instead of at a safe distance like he wanted.

And that moment of hesitation…

“HRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!” Sombra roared. Charging forward with his sword swinging right towards Discord’s neck.

Discord frantically looked back at Sombra and threw his arms up in front of his face. His chaos magic erupted from his wrists just in time, Sombra’s sword slamming into it. Blue and purple sparks flew everywhere from the collision as the powerful magic clashed. A moment passed after the initial strike before an enormous invisible shockwave erupted from the impact. It blew everypony backwards, sending those on the ground tumbling and even knocking Luna to the ground. Dash was thrown back, luckily running into Matteo’s soft feathers to cushion her fall. Dash propped herself up against Matteo, her eyes widening. She had no idea why she was still able to move a little while everypony else wasn’t, but there was no way she was getting near Sombra if they kept emitting forces like that.

Discord dug his legs in, his wrists grinding together as the blade of pure magic pressed into his guard. He kept his eyes glued to the sword as Sombra pushed, noticing that the blade lacked complete sharpness, and had slight signs of instability.

“Heh… not completely in control, ARE YOU?!” Discord taunted as he pulled back an arm, straining himself to hold the sword at bay with his other arm as he wound up to throw a punch, his chaos magic swirling in his fist.

“Hmph!” Sombra swung his shield around and threw it up in front of him as Discord lunged forward, his fist crashed into Sombra’s shield, causing another powerful blast of wind that pulsed outwards from them and knocked everypony further back.

Dash blinked as Matteo was pushed away from her. She fell backwards and landed softly in the snow, looking up and around. Again… she wasn’t being affected the same way. She felt some pressure, but clearly not nearly as much as everypony else.

“HRRRGH!!!!!” Discord grunted as he pushed forward, Sombra’s shield straining and losing its form slowly, cracks appearing in its shape. Sombra narrowed his eyes and kicked his hooves at the ground, swinging his sword in front of him as he leapt back. Discord was forced to jumped back to avoid it, the two splitting apart and shifting simultaneously, moving until they were slightly further away from the rest with several yards of space between them.

They held their positions briefly, neither moving as they stared one another down. Discord briefly glanced towards the Elements of Harmony again, grinding his teeth beneath his lips as he looked for Luna. But for the moment, she wasn’t in his view. He quickly returned his eyes to Sombra to avoid being caught off-guard again, gathering his magic into his fists again as Sombra cracked a smile and pointed his sword towards Discord.

“Not half bad…” he said with a hint of gamesmanship in his voice. “I might enjoy this yet…” he added. Discord’s eyebrows twitched as he heard the sporty tone. His clear recognition of Sombra’s lack of full control didn’t seem to faze him one bit.

And that pissed him off.

Sombra didn’t hesitate another moment. He restored the form of his shield, twirled his sword to the left and right before placing it against his shield and breaking into a gallop towards Discord. As he closed in, Sombra’s horn glowed brightly, his shield rising up and floating around his head. He whipped his head around and lunged it forward, his shield slinging around and launching flat-face first right at Discord.

Discord crossed one of his fists across his body, keeping the other primed and ready. He roared as he swung the back of his hand around, smacking the shield right out of its path. He was ready to throw a heavy haymaker at Sombra with the other… but Sombra had sped up while Discord was distracted by the shield.

“HHRRRRAAAAAAAAH!” Sombra roared as he repeated the exact same attack as his first, only this time with much more muscle and momentum behind it. Discord didn’t have time to guard this time, one of his arms was at the end of a swinging follow-through, so instead he altered his poorly timed haymaker and opened his palm to grab the blade.

But the moment he did, his hand was forced right back into his chest.

“OOF!” Discord gasped as his body was bent backwards, but thanks to his snakelike body he was able to whip his legs around and back in time to straighten out his body and slam his hooves into the snow.

But it wasn’t enough. Discord’s legs shook and buckled as his hooves were pushed along the ground. Sombra just kept galloping as he pressed, picking up speed as he surged along. Discord swung his other arm up, grabbing the sword alongside his other hand, but he couldn’t stop Sombra’s force no matter how hard he pushed back.

Discord scowled, his horns lighting up. Sombra’s eyes went straight to Discord’s horns, widening slightly as large packs of snow shot along the ground to a point in their path and a mound exploded upward beneath him. Sombra grunted as the snow propelled him upward, his sword, shield, and his other miscellaneous magic weapons dropping to the ground as he flew up. Discord halted his slide and leaped up to take advantage of the situation, pulling back for a hard right hook.

Sombra’s horn lit up, streams quickly shooting down to his weapons and touching his shield. It flew up towards them… but didn’t make it in time.

Discord’s fist connected squarely to Sombra’s jaw, the force of the blow doubled by the ejection of chaos magic from his closed fist after the initial strike. A loud POW thundering like an explosion and a punch combined rang out, another burst of air rushing from the impact and slamming into all the spectators. Sombra was launched downward, spinning from the force of the strike, but before he could hit the ground, a burst of blue light erupted from his body, bouncing him up from the ground before he regained control of his body and landed on all four hooves. His body was facing Discord, but his head was still turned and his eye twitching above where he received the blow.

Discord slowly descended, landing softly in the snow as he cracked a small smirk at Sombra.

“Ohhhh that felt really good…” he said to himself, a sudden wave of euphoria rushing over him. “Sorry, did that hurt?” he taunted, his personal vendetta driving his emotions despite the real reason he was fighting.

Sombra remained still for a moment with his head still turned… but eventually snorted and slowly turned his head to Discord.

Discord blinked… there was no bruise, not even a blemish on Sombra’s face.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” Sombra said as he returned the smirk, verbally swatting the one right off Discord’s face as it was replaced with gritted teeth and a low growl. “I thought you said you were going to fight me with your fists… Yet you used magic to hit me with the snow?” Sombra asked smarmily as he cracked his neck.

“I never said I wouldn’t!” Discord snarled at him, Sombra’s unfazed confidence gnawing at him like an itch he couldn’t scratch. And it only got worse as Sombra held the same look towards him as his all of his weapons slowly returned to him.

Discord watched as his weapons moved, eyeing the bow, spear, mace, and axe that neatly grouped up behind Sombra as his sword and shield remained at his side.

“Are you even going to use those, or are you just trying to look cool?” Discord snapped, his fists clenched as his magic sparked from them.

“These?” Sombra asked while floating the four additional weapons in front of him briefly before replacing them behind. “Just in case I feel like beating your face in with one of them as we go.”

Discord’s eyes widened, fighting against his eyebrows forcing his expression into almost a deranged looking glare.

“But, I think my sword and shield are good enough for the likes of you,” he taunted.

“Oh… that DOES IT!” Discord fumed, his aura exploding around him. “I’m so sick of you thinking you’re better than me!”

“Thinking?” Sombra replied without missing a beat.

“RRRRGGGHHH!!!!!!” Discord growled and crouched to ready a charge. But he flinched and halted for a second, closing his lips over his gritted teeth and taking a long breath to keep his cool. One of his nostrils was twitching, but otherwise he managed to suppress all signs of anger. He knew what Sombra was doing… this was no different than it was a thousand years ago. But that thought alone was enough to burn him up.

Discord’s eyes shifted briefly as he caught a glimpse of Luna propping herself up on Captain P.L. He shifted his eyes the other direction and saw Rainbow Dash standing among the elements all locked to the ground. He took brief note of Spitfire and the Wonderbolts, but they couldn’t move just like everypony else.

He growled to himself and flipped a finger again, tipping his head slightly as Sombra slowly took a battle stance.

Lulu, you need to get the Elements away from here! He shot telepathically to Luna. Rainbow Dash is under the pressure of my aura, but not Sombra’s! Get her help to move the Elements, move them out of here, and get them charged to fire!

That’s easy for you to say! Luna shot back using the same wavelength. We can barely move as is and you keep knocking us over! You’re pushing your powers too far, the fabric of space and time are straining and you expect us to move five ponies stuck under the pressure?!

If I had known they were about to fly into my range I WOULDN’T have done this! It’s too late for me to back down, I have his focus, now you need to do your par—

Discord’s eyes widened as Sombra charged again.

“TCH!” Discord charged as well, but kept in mind what Luna had just said about the constant pressure. In this form, the ejection of magical pressure from his body were twice as strong, and mixed with Sombra’s ludicrously powerful aura in his current state, every clash would just get in the way of the plan.

They grew closer and closer, about to hit each other dead on. Sombra swung his sword around, and Discord pulled back his fist…

But Discord vanished in a bright flash the moment Sombra swung, leaving behind a large purple tear where he stood. Sombra’s sword slashed through it, sparks flying as it halted within the light.

“URGH!” Sombra grunted as he yanked the sword out, the purple light clinging to it like goo as if he was pulling it out of a vacuum. He turned his head quickly to the left and right, his shield swinging around to his right as Discord reappeared and tried to grab him by the neck. Discord’s hands slammed into the shield and he quickly bent his arms to apply pressure to its surface with his forearm. But despite the advantageous position, he couldn’t make Sombra budge.

“How utterly inept and careless,” Sombra growled as he looked through the translucent form of his shield towards Discord, glancing briefly at the dimensional tear again as it shuddered and closed up. “You would risk the very balance of reality so thoughtlessly?”

“I don’t care!” Discord snapped back as he continued to press to the shield. “If I have to bend a few rules to put you in your place then that’s the way it will be!”

“Bend a few rules?” Sombra snorted as he pushed his shield out.

“Rgh!” Discord grunted in discomfort as Sombra forced him backwards. His hooves slid through the snow as Sombra turned to face him directly.

“It is a wonder that anypony you gods look down upon can revere you,” Sombra growled.

“Revere? Don’t talk to me like I’m THEM! I could care less about mortals!” Discord hissed at him. “I act for myself! And right here and now, this is about YOU and ME!”

Sombra stopped pushing his shield. With Discord halted, he walked right up to him. The shield’s surface was the only thing separating the two of them as Discord glowered through the blurry surface… with Sombra only returning a flat, displeased look.

“Gods and goddesses… How can any of you call yourselves such things without your skin crawling with disgust?” His eyes narrowed. “You are the worst of them all, living with such a high and mighty opinion of yourself… yet you don’t even pretend to care.” He subtly shook his head. “A thousand years go by and you haven’t changed at all… But I have.”

Discord’s eyes shot up as Sombra’s sword came swinging down from overhead. He was forced to take his arms off Sombra’s shield and throw them up to avoid being struck right on the noggin. Discord grunted as the sword struck his for arms, forcing him down on a knee and putting him at eye level with Sombra. Sombra slowly floated his shield out of the way as his sword pressed down. He took a step forward and glared at Discord, whose eyes were shut tight as he strained against the magic blade.

“I once cast the thought of immortality aside. While those who stood around me laid down their swords and bowed at your hooves, I remained up… because to me, such a gesture is earned, not granted.”

“RGH!” Discord was forced to both knees and hunching down, with Sombra standing slightly over him.

“They all praised you for what you were, not what lay beneath. I cared not for your supposed divinity, I was not interested in such things, nor did they impress me.”

Discord suddenly released one of his arms from the sword and swung it around towards Sombra’s face, but his shield shifted quickly. Discord’s fist slammed into its surface and halted without Sombra batting an eye.

“But it was foolish of me to ignore…” Sombra went on as Discord struggled, his chaos aura flickering and popping as he tried to concentrate it. Discord opened his eyes wide as his teeth grinded together, meeting Sombra’s eyes right in front of his, the red pupils just barely visible beneath the rising blue fumes of magic. “Your power was great, greater than anything I could have imagined, yet I did not recognize this or the dangers. Not from Celes, not from Luna, nor from you. I rolled my eyes and scoffed at all of your attempts to put me in my place. I relished your attempts to fight me as if my strength alone was enough.” Sombra snorted, a puff of mist shooting from his nose, through the cold air, and right into Discord’s face. “How foolish of me… I did not know of your smitten loyalty. I did not know that you were keeping yourself in check for her. I let my guard down, and the moment a rift appeared between the naïve love I shared with the one you coveted… you cast your power upon me and it destroyed me in an instant. My aged body and broken spirit were not a factor, not even at my strongest could I have prevented it. You were capable all along.” Sombra’s expression scrunched into an enraged glare. “I have felt what you’re capable of… I am the only one who truly knows the danger you represent… and it is for that reason that I act. Celes kept my soul intact, clinging to it even though it was filled with hatred for all of you… as if everything that had been done to me would not matter and that I might ‘come around.’ But the only conclusion I’ve come to over these long years of confinement… is that you’re all a disease on this world. If this world needs gods… then you are NOT the ones to be them, your actions and irresponsible abuse of your powers prove that you are unfit for such a designation. The citizens of Equestria deserve better! If they are to have a god that watches over them, then that god must put them first! As King, this was directive… I thought I could not aim higher, but I see now that I was wrong. I am the only one who understands, the only one who has felt it all… it is I who will put an end to it, put an end to YOU! And then I’ll pursue a way to take on that role myself for the good of all!”

Discord’s aura suddenly flared up, sending a pulse of chaos magic surging outward with a BANG. Yelps and gasps rang out from the trapped spectators as they were all smacked by the force. He forced his body and up, keeping his fist on the shield as he pushed his other arm against the sword.

Sombra’s magic erupted around his horn and his aura exploded around his body as he tried to keep Discord down, but he couldn’t. His eyes darted about Discord, noticing the air around him was bending, distorting his view of the snow. Discord glared into Sombra’s eyes as he slowly rose up, eventually putting them at eye level again as he pushed back, clearly pushing against the fabric of reality itself for extra strength.

“SHUT UP!” Discord yelled into his face. “DON’T YOU DARE TALK DOWN TO ME! DON’T YOU DARE SPEAK OF HER EITHER! YOU ARE NOTHING! YOU ARE MORTAL! YOU ARE—”

Discord was abruptly cut off as Sombra slung his head forward and head butted Discord right in the face, loud cracks coming from Discord’s snout as Sombra’s horn smashed to his head between his own horns and slammed against the top of his head, the sharp jagged surface slicing his scalp and leaving a nasty wound.

“AAAAAAARRRGGHH!!!!” Discord yelped in pain. His aura floundered, and his strength once again buckled beneath Sombra’s force. Only this time he was pushed all the way down, his body coiling awkwardly as Sombra brought his shield overhead and slammed it against the blade of his sword, forcing Discord to the ground and into the snow.

Discord grunted and gasped in pain as Sombra held him down, pushing the weight of his body down upon his shield as well as he loomed over Discord. Discord was breathing heavily, his eyes opening into a defiant glare over his crooked snout as he remained pinned.

A trickle of blood rolled down from the cut between his horns, sliding between his eyes and over the side of his nose. Discord’s eyes shot open, his pupils shrinking as it dripped over his lips and he tasted his own blood.

“Hmph… “Sombra snorted. “Tell me… would a real god bleed?”

Discord’s eyelids began to shake, his shrunken pupils jittering as they focused on the trickle of blood splitting as it ran down his awkwardly bent snout.

Something in his head snapped. His ears started ringing loudly, drowning out all other noise as if he had gone deaf with only two things in his view as his eyes remained focused.

His own blood.

And Sombra standing over him.

His pupils began frantically darting about.

All eyes were on them. All eyes could see them. All eyes… could see him bleeding at the hooves of a mortal.

He had been injured… he never got injured, ever. He had taken licks, he had felt pain, he had taken the brunt of magic and even been sealed in stone… but he had never once received a real physical wound.

And to receive it from Sombra of all ponies? The history between the two of them and the implications of what Sombra just exposed to those around them were too much… and it set something within him ablaze.

Suddenly everything else disappeared, nothing else mattered.

All that was left…was rage.

Discord’s aura suddenly shone from his body, the color darkening and slowly building outward. Sombra blinked and looked at Discord’s aura as it began to reach up to him, an odd tingling rushing over his body as the aura touched him.

“HRM!” Sombra released his sword and shield from Discord and leapt backwards, quickly putting a comfortable amount of space between the two of them. Discord’s aura kept oozing outwards, its blurred, darkened color leaving no room to see through it as if it was taking a physical form. A crackling noise drew Sombra’s eyes down to his sword and shield. Bits of Discord’s aura were… stuck to them? Not only that, but the arms appeared to be shuddering and losing their consistency. Sombra flinched as he felt a slight burning sensation on his body, looking down and seeing similar bits of the aura crackling on his fur.

Sombra quickly detached the sword and shield, letting them vanish before he bent down and thrust his body up, a pulse of blue light shooting from his body and pushing the bits of Discord’s magic off of him. He looked down and watched as the pieces of magic hit the snow and burned right through it, sizzling and sending steam into the air.

Sombra scrunched his face as he returned his focus to Discord, re-conjuring his sword and shield. His shield lifted to his left and his sword twirled before hovering near his right shoulder and pointing towards Discord. He stood at the ready and watched Discord carefully.

Discord did not give any effort to push himself up, his body simply tipped upward and onto his hooves as the solid form of his aura grew even larger, resembling a roaring flame as it began to seep upward off of him while simultaneously dripping below. His teeth were grinding together, heavy, heaving breaths escaped from his mouth and nostrils, and his pupils had disappeared behind the thick purple light rising from his eyes.

To all those watching it was an eerie and horrifying sight, something strange was happening to the god of chaos and he almost looked ghostly in appearance with blood running down his face. But Sombra held firm and took in the odd sight without giving an inch.

Discord lifted his arms up, moving them outstretched to his sides and clenching his fists. His solid aura began to glow, distorted undulations of light and blurred waves pulsing within the aura’s frame. The air around him began to heavily distort, his aura reaching out to each distortion nearby and swallowing it whole, causing it to expand and grow unevenly. Then the wound on his head suddenly sealed up and his snout corrected its position with a loud, nerve-wrenching crack.

Sombra’s eyes darted about and around Discord, watching as the air continued to bend and the powerful flurries of snow danced in random directions around it. He tipped his nose up, feeling the course of the winds shift rapidly, sometimes flowing in several directions at once and causing his mane to flop all over his back and neck.

Discord began rising into the air, purple light oozing and dripping below him, loud pops and crackles filling the air as ribbons of magic began forcing itself from the thickened distorted aura surrounding him. They jettisoned in all directions and began tearing at the fabric of time and space, leaving tears that struggled to fix themselves this time as the output just kept going.

“DISCORD!!!!!!!!!” Luna yelled from behind them. Sombra’s ears turned, but he didn’t look at her. “STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU’LL DESTROY EVERYTHING!”

But Discord didn’t seem to hear… or maybe even care. The power surge just seemed to continue, as if he was letting everything go out of pure rage. His power was pouring free, his disdain for Sombra and the emotions they evoked destroying all sense of control and reason. All thoughts towards the plan faded, and he was focusing every bit of his wrath on Sombra.

Screams and yelps erupted from those near as the winds grew intense and continued to shoot in random directions. Blips of purple light began to flash all around. The ribbons of magic shooting from Discord were crashing to the ground, and bouncing off thin air. The very space around everypony felt like it was being tugged at and strained.

Luna continued to plead for Discord to get a hold of himself, but her words did not reach. She forced herself up against the building pressure and forced her magic through her body to flow and gather so quickly that it caused intense discomfort all over. Her horn came alight with her alicorn magic, the aura glowing brighter and brighter as the magic built.

She aimed and fired an immensely powerful beam that erupted from her horn, shooting right by Sombra and careening towards Discord.

But when the beam grew close, it suddenly wobbled, bent, and split in several directions, sent up down and all around in random patterns, some spiraling and swirling, others zigzagging like an out of control fireworks show. Ponies covered themselves, bracing themselves as Luna’s magic wildly flailed everywhere… and even struck her eventually too.

Luna was sent to the ground, falling on her side as she stared with her mouth agape. Her magic had no effect at all, she couldn’t stop him.

But Sombra was not fazed.

“Hrmph…” he grunted as he reached his sword forward and pointed it towards Discord. “Disgraceful… that you would throw caution into the wind and let your power rage freely. That you would care not for a single life that may be destroyed by your actions.” He shook his head as the rest of his arms floated up from behind him. His axe and bow moving up next to his shield and his spear and mace setting beside his sword. “Furthermore… you are tearing the very fabric of stable existence within the reach of MY kingdom… MY home…” All of the weapons sharply pointed towards Discord. “I won’t allow it!”

Sombra’s aura erupted outward, the forces of his magic pushing back against Discord’s. The pops and crackles of purple light that filled the air were forcibly moved, some shot back towards Discord while others fizzled out.

With a mighty roar, Sombra flung himself towards Discord, all of his weapons primed to hit him with everything he had.

Discord threw his arms forward, his magic building in his arms.

The pulses of magic that shot outward from them both grew stronger and stronger as the distance between them closed, all those surrounding them powerless to get close, much less even move as the two clashed and the unimaginable power that filled the air weighed down on them like a thousand pounds.

But only one was able to stand, only one was able to move… because she was only feeling half of it.

Dash’s legs buckled and shook as she held herself steady. The winds were slamming into her from all directions and the heavy pressure from Discord’s magic and the bending reality around her battered and clawed at her.

But she felt nothing from Sombra, his magic passed right by her as if she wasn’t even there, as if she was immune. She felt so powerless despite being the only one who could hold herself steady. She could feel the power surging from Sombra, but she felt it within instead of without. He was drawing from Soarin’s spirit… Using Soarin’s body and soul to push his power to the max. Soarin was right there… he was right in front of her, but she couldn’t get near, she couldn’t reach out to him lest she step directly into the chaotic mess Discord was creating.

She could only watch as they clashed, as Sombra thrust himself headlong into the dangerous distortions, cutting through them as he and his weapons took on the powerful solid aura that seeped from Discord.

Her eyelids shuddered as they clashed again and again, each strike caused the surrounding forces to intensify. Yelps and cries rang out from all those around her, friend and adversary alike.

She felt like she was watching Soarin be sacrificed, his body being used to fight a battle that wasn’t even his. It didn’t matter that Sombra’s power was fighting back the dangerous aura, it still terrified her.

Her ears perked up.

She blinked twice.

What the hell was she standing around for? What the hell was she hesitating for? She didn’t have time to sit and spectate… she had a clear advantage in this situation and she had to use it!

She turned to look toward her friends and squad, but the moment she turned, a powerful burst of magic erupted from another clash. She yelped as the force pushed her forward, causing her to stumble and almost trip over herself. It took several steps to get control of her body, the gale force winds and the pressure from Discord doing everything in their power to force her down. But she eventually fought it all back and anchored herself, gritting her teeth as she stared at her hooves.

She had to fight it, she had to hold steady! If she could get her friends away from all this, they could focus the elements and—

As Dash looked up, she froze on the spot.

The force that struck her and caused her to stumble… had pushed her towards none other than Spitfire.

Dash’s eyes grew wide as she stared. Spitfire was on the ground and stuffed into the shallow snow cover just like everyone else, but she was trying… trying really hard to stand. Her teeth were jammed together, her eyes were shut tight, her body was shaking with her muscles twitching madly as she pushed with all her might. Right beside her, Fleetfoot was on her side, gasping in discomfort as the pressure forced itself down on her. Her goggles had been pulled off by the downward forces and her eyes were shut as she grimaced painfully.

Why? Why was she just standing there? Dash had no idea what had come over her. She was being chased by these two and the rest of the Wonderbolts. She didn’t have time to second guess her actions.

But the moment Fleetfoot struggled to turn her head and opened her eyes… Dash saw the emotions within them, the confusion and fear. At that moment she knew exactly why she was hesitating. Because regardless of what was happening and how messed up things had become…

They were still her friends… they ALL were.

“D… Dash…!” Fleetfoot suddenly called her name reaching a hoof out as if she was begging for help.

Dash flinched as Spitfire’s eyes shot open the moment she heard Fleetfoot speak. And the difference in her eyes compared to her wingmate was stunning. There was no fear, there was no pain. There was a terrifying volume of anger within them, and Dash could feel it rush upon her in an instant. Though there was something else too. And Dash didn’t look closer until she noticed Spitfire’s eyes were not completely focused on her.

Her eyes were shifting between her… and Sombra.

And all through her struggles to fight against the tremendous magical pressure, she never took her eyes off her two objectives. She was still fighting. Still fighting for Soarin. It didn’t matter how she was going about it or whether or not Dash agreed with it… because she knew she was fighting for him.

Dash’s heart sank. Seeing Fleetfoot struggling on the ground and Spitfire fighting so desperately tore at her from within.

She couldn’t hold herself back. She had more important things to worry about, but at the same time, she didn’t want to pass up the opportunity.

“Spitfire!” Dash suddenly hardened her gaze and pushed herself forward. She willingly trudged right up to her captain, not fearing any of the circumstances they were currently under. “Listen to me!” she went on, reaching up and placing her hooves on Spitfire’s shoulders.

Dash winced for a moment as Spitfire’s eyes suddenly hardened and focused entirely on her, a growl escaping her throat. But she was not deterred, and gripped Spitfire’s shoulders, feeling the intense vibrations coming from her as she pushed with all her might.

“You have to trust me!” Dash yelled, keeping her expression as serious as she could. “You have to understand why I’m doing what I’m doing!” she pleaded. They both winced and braced themselves as another pulse of magic slammed into them, Fleetfoot crying out beside them. “My friends and I have a plan! They aren’t doing this for Luna, they’re doing it for me!”

Spitfire’s eyes twitched as Dash spoke. Dash wasn’t sure if she was getting through to her or not.

“We’re going to use the Elements of Harmony!” Dash tried to explain while tapping the element of loyalty on her neck. “But we know more than one way to—”

“NO!” Spitfire suddenly retorted, Dash’s ears turning away and twitching at the volume of Spitfire’s voice. “How do you know they aren’t playing you?!” Spitfire suddenly started arguing, her voice straining as hard as her body. “How do you know they don’t have orders from Luna?!”

“Because—AH!” Dash yelped as loud explosions rang out, the clashing of magic growing more intense by the second. “Because they’re my FRIENDS! And they’ve earned my trust!” She sharply pointed at Fleetfoot. “Would you ever suspect Fleet of playing you?! What about Soarin?! They would never lie to you! And my friends would never lie to me!” Dash tried to argue back, but Spitfire angrily shook her head.

“Then you shouldn’t have gone behind my back!” Spitfire spat as she grunted and nearly fell. “You won’t get ANY trust from me after that stunt! They are compromised! YOU are compromised! I won’t… ARGH!” Spitfire slammed to the ground, but instantly forced her hooves down. “I WON’T… ALLOW IT! Not when so much is on the line! Not when we could lose Soarin forever!”

Dash pulled back and looked down. She gritted her teeth, but she didn’t growl nor show any signs of anger.

“Then I’m sorry…” Dash apologized and looked up at her.

Spitfire gasped. Looking directly into Dash’s eyes.

Because it was there again.

The same look she gave her while pinning her down. The familiar look that she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“We have the same goal, Captain…” Dash said with a slight tone of disappointment. “But…” she looked towards Fleetfoot. She had her eyes glued to Dash, her pupils large as if Dash’s words were sinking in to her despite not sinking in to Spitfire. Dash exhaled and looked back at Spitfire. “But if you won’t help me or listen to me, then I’m just going to have to do it my way.” She turned away her side to Spitfire, but kept her eyes on her. “And maybe then… we’ll find out which of us is really compromised.”

Dash left it there, an uneasy look left in Spitfire’s eyes as Dash made her intentions clear. She held still for a moment, keeping her eyes locked in a hard glare for an additional second. Something wasn’t right with Spitfire. Her face was a mess, conflicting emotions rapidly shifting in and out. Dash could tell that her words stung, but the determination in Spitfire’s eyes refused to completely yield. Nothing was going to convince Spitfire to believe her… only the end result would. Dash turned away and readied to focus on her squad and friends…

But she had barely moved before a loud explosion rang out. Dash yelped in surprise as she was blown right off her hooves and crashed right into Spitfire, several yelps rang out as ponies nearby and all over were sent tumbling back. Dash bounced off of Spitfire and landed right between her and Fleetfoot, looking up to see Soarin’s body crash to the ground a few yards in front of them.

“GRH!” Sombra grunted as he skillfully turned the ungraceful landing into a roll that put him right back on his hooves, standing up as small magic streams shot from his horn and pulled all of his weapons back over to him. “Hmph…” he snorted as he looked towards Discord. The chaos magic still raging out of control around him, the magic ribbons still ejecting and shooting all over accompanied by the flashes of light as reality strained around him.

For a moment, Dash and Spitfire both completely forgot about each other as they focused their attention to Soarin… or Sombra.

It was a constant battle in their heads to view him in such a state… it was Soarin’s body… but it was enhanced to enormous proportions and it wasn’t in his control. The way he moved and carried himself didn’t look right either. They kept wanting to believe they were looking at Soarin, but they were really looking at Sombra.

“So… This is truly how dangerous you can be…” Sombra spoke, all of his weapons circling him as Discord panted and growled, his eyes empty as if his power had completely taken him over. Sombra set his hooves and snarled. “Then I have no choice… but to test the limits of this body!”

Sombra’s weapons halted, his sword and shield remaining fixed at his side as the rest of them continued to circle and float into the air. Sombra’s horn shone brightly, the aura encircling him swirling up and expanding as a bright glow surrounded his frame. His pupils vanished beneath the magic rising from his eyes as his magic built up, his power rushing forth as its output grew closer and closer to matching that of Discord’s. Though it was different, the power increase was smooth and the flow was graceful, the polar opposite of how Discord’s power was behaving.

“HRM!” Sombra grunted, throwing his head up. The subtle streams of magic that connected to his weapons overhead suddenly shuddered as Sombra pumped large amounts of magic through them. The streams grew large and bright as the flow traveled through them, and when they reached the weapons, each one of them shone brightly before duplicating multiple times until there was least six of each, spears, maces, axes, and bows.

Sombra whipped his head around, his mane flowing from one side of his head to the other as the motion caused the weapons to scatter and start encircling both him and Discord. The sudden rush of the weapons everywhere with Sombra’s power attached cause powerful winds that smashed into the already crazy gusts being blown everywhere by Discord.

Dash felt something. It felt like something within her was straining. It wasn’t just her heart… it felt like every inch of her was being tugged on as if she was pushing herself or working really hard. Sombra was letting his power grow flow fiercely, and she recalled Discord at one point mentioning that Sombra’s current state was a combination of his and Soarin’s collective willpower and strength. Was she feeling the strain on Soarin? That had to be it.

But something in the air had shifted as well. Dash still couldn’t feel any of the outward force from Sombra, but she could tell.

“AH!” Fleetfoot suddenly yelped beside her. Dash quickly looked towards her to see Fleetfoot grabbing at the ground, her body slowly lifting up against her will but moving no higher than an inch. Dash looked to Spitfire to see her quickly dig her hooves into the snow to grab a hoof full of ground beneath her, preventing her from rising, but Dash could see her body inching upward a little.

Dash’s eyes darted about as audible reactions came from every direction. The downward pressure of the auras had shifted. The strong magical presence was now physically lifting everypony right off their hooves. And it was definitely being caused by Sombra because Dash was still grounded as if nothing had changed.

“HRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Sombra roared, launching himself at Discord again. As he did, his weapons began flying wildly everywhere, shooting around in all directions while turning to make passes towards Discord, effectively acting like a small army as Sombra charged wielding his sword and shield.

As everything picked up, so did the uplift. Ponies were flung into the air, flapping their wings to no avail as the powerful clashing winds began tossing them about.

Dash frantically looked towards her friends and her squad. Matteo had anchored himself to the ground, his talons digging into the earth underneath him. Star was stuffed into his feathers, Squall was braced against him, and Matteo had Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie tucked under his wings... where were Fluttershy and Twilight?!

Dash forced her wings out, fighting against the powerful winds as she readied to take to the air and search out her two friends caught in the growing mess of flailing ponies, but before she could…

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” Fleetfoot lost her grip and was flung into the air.

Dash’s body just moved. She didn’t even think about it. The moment Fleetfoot had left the ground and was whisked up into the air, Dash turned and launched after her. Only fighting against the winds and pulses from Discord, Dash cut right through the magic flinging everypony about, reaching Fleetfoot in seconds. She grabbed Fleetfoot around the stomach, holding on tight before doing a hard U-turn and shooting back to the ground. As she descended, she glanced back and forth quickly, looking for Twilight and Fluttershy, but she quickly noticed several other familiar faces caught in the typhoon. Surprise, Blaze, and Fire Streak were among those being hurled to and fro, yelps and cries of pain were ringing out as ponies collided roughly in midair. A familiar sounding grunt caught Dash’s attention, turning to see High Winds being tossed about as well, trying her hardest to move towards Blaze. She glanced to her left and saw Lightning Streak, Air Mach, and Misty Fly on the ground, all huddled together and holding themselves to the ground desperately.

Dash gritted her teeth.

Not on her watch… not while she had the means!

She slammed to the ground next to Spitfire, quickly pushing Fleetfoot towards her. She grabbed one of Spitfire’s arms and reached it over Fleetfoot before helping Spitfire find the ground again.

Dash looked up. Spitfire was glaring at her, but there was confusion as well.

But did she really need to explain herself? Spitfire was more messed up right now than she thought.

“HOLD ONTO HER!” Dash yelled right into Spitfire’s face while pointing at Fleetfoot. “I’LL SECURE THE OTHERS!”

Spitfire’s eyes widened, but Dash didn’t stick around to see it. She turned and launched again, locating Blaze and High Winds first as she kept her eyes peeled for her missing Ponyville friends. She dreaded the thought of Twilight and Fluttershy getting caught in all the collisions, but the Wonderbolts were stuck in this too. She wasn’t going to let them get hurt as long as she could do something about it!

She was forced into hard pitches and twists as bodies began flying everywhere in front of her and around her. Despite the constant bright flashes of light coming from the direction of Sombra and Discord, it was easy to stay on target. She just had to keep her eyes on the blue of High Wind’s flight suit as the guardsmen and thestrels blended together in their purple and sparkling armor. Though their armor was what made this dangerous. Dash avoided contact at all costs, a head on collision with solid metal was not an ideal outcome.

She eventually reached High Winds, quickly hooking her arms with hers. Winds looked up at Dash immediately, her eyes wider than Dash had ever seen them beneath her goggles.

“Hold on! We’re getting Blaze too!” Dash yelled to her, not asking for her to agree or acknowledge her.

High Winds was heavy, Dash felt like she had to try twice as hard to move her than she’d usually have to. She was bigger than Fleetfoot and carried some extra muscle weight from her large wings and strong back, but Dash felt like she was trying to lug Soarin around. It had to be the pull from Sombra’s magic. Dash was playing a game of tug-of-war with it as forces invisible to her yanked at Winds in her hooves.

But she persevered, turning them through the cacophony and lining up with Blaze. But she was far off, struggling and flailing at least twenty yards away with no clear path to her.

But High Winds took care of that for Dash.

“I’ve got this!” she yelled to Dash, opening her huge wings and keeping her eyes locked on Blaze. Dash blinked, quickly latching onto Winds as tightly as she could the moment she recognized the motion.

A loud POW rang out as High Winds thrust her wings forward, a blast of wind shooting in front of them and knocking aside a large number of the ponies flying in their way. Right after she finished the motion she did it again in the other direction, another loud BANG ringing out as the force propelled them in the direction of Blaze with perfect timing to match Blaze’s flight path. Dash squinted, the wind battering her face without her goggles, but the distance between them and Blaze closed immediately. Dash thrust her wings out to put on the brakes and turned them both in midair as High Winds reached out towards Blaze.

“Got you!” High Winds yelled out as she hooked her hoof with Blaze, instantly pulling her in and locking her arm around her tightly… and by the neck, unintentionally.

“GACK!” Blaze choked as High Winds put her in the headlock, her tongue sticking out as she kicked her back hooves about.

Dash didn’t pay her any mind, she quickly whipped them around with her, gritting her teeth and putting the strength of her wings to the test as she pulled two ponies along, both being tugged at by all the magical forces. She scanned the ground as quickly as she could, relocating the trio of Misty, Lightning, and Air Mach clamped together on the ground and holding on for dear life.

The moment Dash found them, she pitched down, throwing all of her weight into the movement as she tried to aim them towards the three on the ground.

But it was poorly timed. They were struck by a thestrel, the side plate of his armor jamming right into Dash’s side.

“GRGH!!!” Dash grunted painfully, but held on tightly to the two mares as they were sent into a spiral. They were still moving towards the group, but Dash tensed her body as a rough landing was imminent.

Dash squeezed her arms around High Winds with all her strength as they crashed. Dash yelped in pain as she hit the solid ground beneath the snow, landing on the same spot that was just hit by the thestrel and sending a numbing sting through her body. They slid and rolled to a stop, Dash on her back with High Winds on top of her, and presumably Blaze still in her grip since Dash could still hear the gagging noises from her.

“Rgggghhhhhhhhh…” Dash groaned and arched her neck back as her nerves flared in her side, but as she opened her eyes, she found herself staring right into the eyes of Misty less than a few inches away. Misty was blinking, looking startled. Dash opened her mouth to yell, but… right… Misty. She turned her head to Lightning instead. “You! Lover colt!” Dash yelled as she shifted and pulled herself out from beneath High Winds. “It’s your lucky day, hold onto these mares and don’t let go!” she yelled as she pulled High Winds in and hoofed them over to Lightning.

“Uh…?” Lightning slurred in reply, but Dash was already turning. Though she stopped for a moment to reach in and force High Wind’s arm off Blazes neck.

“FWOOO! FUCK ME!” Blaze swore as she gasped and took heavy breaths, but squeaked in surprise as Dash grabbed her and shoved her in between Lightning and High Winds. Dash forced her in until she was nestled so deep between them that her cheeks were smushed between their chests and her goggles were crooked. “I hate being small sometimes,” Blaze managed to mumble with her lips squished together.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEthisiskindafunEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!” a shriek came from very close by.

Dash’s ears perked up and she turned around quickly, spotting Surprise passing by overhead. Without a word, Dash leapt up pounding her wings down hard to execute Matteo’s Air Burst maneuver the moment her hooves were off solid ground. She zipped right towards Surprise, but was blindsided by a flailing crystal guardsman, his swinging arm smacking her right across the face.

“OOF!” Dash grunted as she spun around, her momentum carrying her forward and right by Surprise. Dash shook her head out and quickly put a hoof to her nose. A light trickle of blood dripped from it. “The things I do for friends,” Dash said to herself as she pressed her other nostril shut and blew through her bleeding one, shooting a wad of blood out of it before she refocused and used Matteo’s move again, this time avoiding nearby soldiers as she reached and grabbed Surprise by the tail.

Surprise was extra small… so Dash decided to save some time. She pulled Surprise in and rolled her into a ball. As expected, her body literally rolled into a ball. She was no different than Pinkie. Dash gripped the Surprise ball firmly and turned her eyes back to the group on the ground.

Misty was still staring at her.

Without a moment of hesitation, Dash wound up and threw Surprise towards Misty. Surprise made a whistling noise as she shot through the air, Misty reaching up and catching her before stuffing her between herself and Lightning. Unlike Blaze, she actually fit since her body might as well be silly putty.

With only one Wonderbolt left in the air, Dash turned to track him down, but she was forced to shield her eyes, yelping as a blinding flash of light and ear piercing screech came from the incomprehensible duel going on in the center of the mess.

She squinted, holding herself steady among the gales as she spotted Sombra and Discord face to face, nearly all of Sombra’s weapons crossed in front of him and slamming them into Discord’s solid aura, they were winking into it slowly, blue sparks flying as Sombra roared and pushed onward. Dash yelped as the erratic streams of pink and purple magic began ejecting from Discord, tearing up the fabric of reality and shooting outwards towards all the ponies being whisked around.

But then suddenly, beams of blue light began shooting in all directions from Sombra’s horn. Each one was small, concentrated, and powerful, intercepting every beam that zigzagged outward from Discord before they could reach anypony. Sombra’s full aura was also extending outward, all the random flashes and dimensional distortions remaining inside and near the two of them.

He was protecting them all… from Discord?

“WHOOOAAAAA!!!!!”

Dash’s ears perked up and she turned towards the voice…

And was clocked right in the gut by Fire Streak’s back.

“OOF!!!!” Dash exhaled loudly, the air blowing out of her lungs as she found herself an unwilling passenger. She grabbed on to Fire and held on for dear life as she was suddenly whipped and flung around at the mercy of the forces affecting him. “FIRE! OW!” Dash tried to get his attention, but Fire was upside-down, and clearly in a panic with no real ideal way for him to gain any control. His wings were flapping madly and kept smacking Dash right in the face. “OW! OW! OW! STOP IT!” She yelled, her voice wheezing and short on breath as she tried to regain her air, but Fire wouldn’t stop flailing.

So Dash reached an arm out and grabbed his wing, pinning it down to his body before giving him a rough jab in the sensitive joint right beneath it.

“YEOW!” Fire yelped, finally looking in Dash’s direction. He barely had time to realize it was her before Dash got right in his face, nearly pressing her forehead to his upside-down nose.

“GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF! I’M TRYING TO EVEN YOU OUT!” Dash yelled. Fire instantly froze all movement, earning a flat look from Dash. “Sheesh!” she grunted as she grabbed his body and spread her wings flapping them down to try and get some lift while keeping a hold of Fire. She eventually managed to push them over, getting Fire upright before making sure she didn’t turn upside-down herself.

But the moment she tried to direct their flight, Dash was lurched and yanked along with him again. She held on tight and kept trying to get control with her wings, but Fire was too heavy, she couldn’t kill his momentum. He tried to help, but every time he opened his wings, they got batted awkwardly by the magical forces. It didn’t take long for Dash to realize she was fighting a losing battle.

And then it got worse.

Dash looked up in between her attempt to force Fire along with her, her ears turned to a new noise. LOTS of new noises.

It sounded like hundreds and hundreds of ponies were suddenly being hit… and she wasn’t far off.

All of the Wonderbolts, the Renegades, the additional Crystal Guard soldiers including the earth ponies and unicorns, and the straggling thestrels… everypony that had been fighting in one giant cluster that they left in the dust during their chase through the forest…

They were beginning to emerge, shooting out from the forest, most still engaged with one another with so many loyalties strung about that it almost resembled a free for all. The groups emerging were large, the count easily reaching over a hundred in seconds.

And every single one of them was being sucked right into the typhoon being generated by Sombra and Discord.

“LOOK OUT!” Dash yelled to Fire, the two of them tucking themselves into one another as the swarm approached, all visible space disappearing as everypony was cluttered in, the grunts and cries of pain and collisions never ending.

Dash and Fire were immediately bounced all over the place, completely defenseless and helpless in the air for at least twenty seconds before something collided with them from an upward angle. They were sent spiraling downward, neither willing to let go in fear of putting their head and neck in danger of a hard landing.

They both grunted painfully as they hit, Fire taking most of the impact on his back as the jolt pressed Dash into his chest. They tumbled and rolled, the uneven forces that pulled on them causing an awkward imbalance in the way they bounced and slid. Dash forced herself to focus, knowing full well that Fire would be yanked right back up if she didn’t anchor them down soon.

With a hard effort she let go of Fire, rolled onto her hooves and slammed them to the ground, pushing herself up quickly before reaching a wing out over fire.

“GRGH!!!” She grunted uncomfortably as Fire pressed into her wing, the magical forces trying to yank him right back into the air. Her wing wasn’t strong enough to hold him by itself, so as soon as she had her bearings, she reached up both hooves and pressed down on his back, forcing him face first to the ground and digging his nose into the snow.

A muffled noise came from in the snow as Fire audibly voiced his slight mix of frustration and confusion, but Dash got low and braced herself, getting right into his ear.

“Grab hold of the ground! I can’t do this by myself, you’re too fat!” she yelled, disregarding choice of words in the heat of the moment.

“Fwah!” Fire exhaled as he pulled his face out of the snow, but clasped the ground with his hooves. “Fat?” he said to himself in a confused tone, but said no more as Dash started forcing him along the two moving gingerly as the wind and magic tugged at Fire.

They slowly made their way along, Dash doing her best to move him towards the rest of the huddled Wonderbolts. She could see Misty staring at them, her eyes wide and locked on Fire as Dash pulled him towards them.

But despite being close, despite having nearly all the top tiers out of danger…

Dash could hardly bear it. She was gritting her teeth and her eyes were twitching. The air was now filled with hundreds and hundreds of helpless ponies… many of which were Wonderbolts and reserves. Her instincts that kicked in to help the Wonderbolts that had made an impact on her life was growing into a desire to help ALL of them.

But how the hell was she going to do that? She couldn’t and she knew it, but it hurt. She didn’t care what the current orders were, and she didn’t care that Spitfire had her head up her ass. The Wonderbolts were part of her.

They were family.

Hearing their cries among the tremendous mess above was tugging at her heart.

But as she stared up into the chaotic mess of ponies above her. She realized she wasn’t the only one fighting it.

She spotted Descent trying with all his might to stay in control. He had Lightning Dust tucked in one of his arms and was frantically looking around, probably looking for Starry.

She also noticed Bomber. He was easy to see due to his size, but he was holding onto at least six Renegades. Valkyrie was close by, fighting her way through the forces with Cannon Ball and Comet in literal choke-holds as she looked for others.

Luna had herself encased in a shield, but was shooting her magic in all directions towards every thestrel and guard she could see with P.L. desperately trying to get to her as he was battered and hit from all directions.

Shining Armor was anchored to the ground, struggling to keep a shield stable around him and Cadence as she tried to make use of her Alicorn magic in a similar manner to Luna.

Dash couldn’t beat herself up… because everypony was caught in this. If anything, the true side of everypony was showing through in this moment of chaos.

She would do her part. She would get Fire to safety, she wouldn’t let the desperate look in Misty’s eyes remain. Once she did that she would…

Dash’s eyes widened.

Twilight and Fluttershy! They were somewhere up in that mess!

With a sudden dread setting in Dash pulled Fire along, nearly dragging him through the snow until he reached the Wonderbolts. Misty eagerly reached out, tugging Fire into their group. With him taken care of, Dash quickly turned to take flight.

But she stopped when she felt a tug on her tail. She blinked and looked over her shoulder.

She was staring right into the eyes of Misty. She had taken her goggles off and had one arm clinging to Fire.

Dash blinked and noticed that they were all looking at her.

Misty reached a hoof to her lips, held it for a second, and then lowered it down towards Dash while smiling.

Thank you.

Dash felt her throat tighten. It was such a simple gesture, but it hit her very hard. Despite the current situation and what had happened only a few minutes prior at the forest lake…

They were still the Wonderbolts. They were still her friends.

Dash smiled back at Misty, glancing towards Spitfire and Fleetfoot nearby. Spitfire had her eyes locked on Soarin and Sombra still, but Fleetfoot was staring right at her.

Dash’s began to quiver, she bit her lip and turned away.

She was glad they were safe… all of them.

And now it was time to find Fluttershy and—

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

Dash took a hard step back as something pink, clear, and round bounced off the ground right in front of her. Dash shook her head out and watched as whatever the hell the thing was shot right back up like a super ball. Right before it got swallowed up in the swarm above, Dash saw something within it.

Twilight and Fluttershy?! They were both in a shield generated by Twilight, but by the looks of things, they had no control of it. They were being punted around the cacophony overhead like an out of control pinball.

Target locked. Dash didn’t wait another second. She spread her wings and shot up into the air… but then gritted her teeth as she realized this wasn’t going to be easy. Ponies were everywhere, the little space she had to maneuver earlier was completely gone. How was she going to…?

“HRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” A loud battle cry came from Sombra, followed by another loud BANG and screeching as flickering lights danced all about. A pulse so strong that it visibly distorted the air shot outward. Dash braced herself, but it passed right by her…

“OH SHI—” Dash quickly took evasive maneuvers as bodies began flying at her, the pulse from Sombra hadn’t touched her, but it pushed the swarm of ponies in all directions. She was instantly forced to shift from wondering how she was going to get through it to doing it. But the sudden burst had given her a chance. For a moment everything was spread further out and she had her two encased friends in her sight. It was time for less thinking and more fancy hoofwork.

Using the ponies being tossed around as hoofholds, she began using Storm Front’s Surface Tap maneuver, tapping and bouncing off the ponies in an erratic zig-zag path to maneuver through as quickly as possible before the window closed up.

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” Dash repeated as the grunts and gasps of those she used as literal platforms followed each bounce and quickly closed the distance as the amount of room around her slowly closed up again.

With one last tap off some poor thestrel sap, she reached out, extending her arms out towards the shield. Fluttershy was curled up in Twilight’s chest, and the shield was just big enough to encircle them both in that position, so the shield was about the size of a large exercise ball. Dash would have no problem grabbing it and—

The shield suddenly bounced off a pony flinging by, and Dash barely turned her head in time before the shield smacked her right in the side of her face. She immediately latched her arms around it, but her cheek and half her face were smushed against the surface. Twilight looked up immediately as the hollow THUNK reverberated through her shield. She turned her head towards Dash and reclined back as she saw Dash’s face pressed to the shield surface with her lips pursed and her eye open wide.

“BLAH!” Dash pulled her face back and shook her head out.

“Dash?!” Twilight’s muffled voice come from within, but Dash cut her off.

“Don’t drop the shield!” she yelled, and didn’t even wait for Twilight to respond before she dove down with them firmly in her grip. Fluttershy shrieked again, Twilight holding onto her tight as Dash slammed to the ground and placed them in front of her. Without thinking about whether or not they were tethered in place inside of it, Dash began rolling them along the ground, taking care to make sure they weren’t picked back up by the magic. But the two began to shriek and yelp because… they were flipping within the shield as it rolled along.

Dash ignored them, reluctantly. She was more focused on getting them back together. There was no telling how much longer this mess was going to continue. Pulses from the clashes between Sombra and Discord just kept flaring outward, in fact they had become more constant. She still had a window to get them all away and get positioned for the elements! She just had to hurry!

She glanced towards the center as she rolled them towards Matteo, the quickened pace of the pulses catching her attention.

It looked like Discord was still seeping with power, his magic still running wild, but Sombra was absolutely wailing on him. His weapons were cutting deep into Discord’s solid aura, beating it back every time it tried to lash out, his multiple weapons shooting about and making passes as the multiple bows kept up a barrage of arrow fire.

She was going to put an end to this. The longer the fight between the two went on, the longer everypony was in danger of getting hurt.

She rolled the two all the way up to Matteo, her squad and her Ponyville friends all looking up as she arrived.

“That’s everypony right?!” She asked frantically as she quickly looked about at all of them.

“Oog…” Twilight groaned as she dropped her shield, her eyes spinning as Dash grabbed her and Fluttershy. “I think I’m gonna…”

“SWALLOW IT!” Dash yelled at her as she stuffed her two remaining friends into Matteo’s grip. She quickly shared a glance with Squall and Star before focusing on Matteo. “Listen to me, Matty! I need you to hold onto them as tight as you can!” She aggressively turned to Star and Squall. “You two! Get out here, hang onto me, and help me support Matty! We need to get me and the rest of the Elements out of this mess so we can—”

Before she could finish, there was an incredibly bright flash of light followed by an ear piercing explosion. Dash’s ears were filled with a shrill ringing shock as she lurched forward and fell flat on her face. She would’ve hit Matteo if it weren’t for him being forced backwards. He remained on the ground, his strong talons anchoring him and all those clinging to him, but the unbelievable force caused his talons to dig through the dirt beneath the snow and slide several yards back.

Knowing that she only felt half of it, Dash rolled over onto her back quickly, her ears still numbly ringing as she looked around at ponies falling from the sky and being flung in all directions. She yelped and curled up, protecting her face and body as several Wonderbolts, Renegades, thestrels, and crystal soldiers bounced off the ground around her.

Luck was on her side, she was not struck by anypony that fell near her, but as she slowly uncovered herself, the first thing she noticed was that the hurricane forces? The intense pressure?

They were gone. Only the natural snowfall that was there from the start remained, the mist that blurred the view of the Crystal empire fading, its image appearing in the distance between the thick flakes of snow.

Her hearing slowly returned, the groans and wails of pain of all those who were finally free from the chaos rolling around and shakily propping themselves up.

Dash frantically looked about. The top Wonderbolts were still relatively near where she left them. Her squad and friends were still nearby. Luna had been tossed away from them, but she could see her further back… Where did Sombra and Discord go?

Dash yelped loudly as something suddenly shot in from the left of her vision, crashing hard to the ground no more than ten yards away from her. Snow and dirt shot up into the air, the ground rumbled as whatever had crashed dug deep into the ground and left a trench in its wake as if it was being pushed along.

And eventually… it came to a halt. And once the mist, dirt, and snow had cleared, at the end of the carved path... Was Sombra.

But he was standing upright, looking down at the ground beneath him. Dash blinked as the rest of the debris and clutter had cleared from view… and revealed Discord underneath, Sombra’s hoof pressed to his chest as he stood over him. Discord was on his back and covered with scuff marks and bruises, gasping and wheezing as blood trickled from his nose. His aura no longer had its solid form and was nothing but a dim flicker. Pink steam began to rise from his body along with a loud whooshing hiss as his body slowly shrank and reverted to its normal size beneath Sombra’s hoof.

“GRK!” Discord suddenly grunted in pain, slamming his eyes shut and gritting his teeth as Sombra moved the hoof from his chest to his neck and applied the same hard pressure. Pointing the tip of his sword at Discord’s face as he bent his neck down and leaned his face towards his.

“Krk…grk…rgh…” Discord continued to choke, his body jittering under the strength of Sombra’s hoof.

“Now answer my question,” Sombra spoke down to him as he cast a shadow over Discord, his eyes locked on the blood dripping from Discord’s nose. “Would a real god bleed?” he asked again, his tone sounding a little more condescending than before.

Discord just lay there, twitching.

“ANSWER ME!” Sombra roared down at him as he inched his sword closer, pointing it right between Discord’s eyes. “AND SAY IT LOUD ENOUGH FOR EVERYPONY TO HEAR!” he demanded.

Everypony surrounding them was still in the process of finding their hooves. Bodies were numb and heads were spinning, but nearly every pair of eyes that had managed to turn were focused on Sombra and Discord.

“Grk…” Discord sputtered, his left arm twitching. Sombra glanced at the arm as it slowly lifted up, but rose no more than an inch from the ground. Discord’s arm twitched, his hand and fingers jittering as if he could barely move it.

But then he suddenly clenched his fist, extended a finger forward, and sharply pointed it towards Sombra.

“Wha…?!” Dash yelped as some invisible force picked her up off the ground. And before she could say or do anything, she found herself shooting through the air towards Sombra.

Her eyes opened wide.

Her wings were being held down.

She could only stare as a collision with the side of Sombra’s head was imminent.

But mere inches away from contact, Sombra’s eyes shot open and shifted to her.

Sombra reacted swiftly, tilting back while lifting his head up. Dash shot right beneath his chin, the strands of her mane coming so close to touching him that it couldn’t be visually measured.

The moment Dash was past him, Sombra slammed his shield down over Discord’s hand.

“AHHHHH!!!” Discord cried out as his hand was smashed into the ground, a second cry of pain following shortly after as Sombra swung the sword around and pinned his other hand as well.

But Sombra was jittering… shaking. His eyes were stuck on Rainbow Dash as she hit the ground and tumbled through the snow just a few paces away from them.

Dash grunted as she came to a halt, shook the snow out of her face and mane, and rolled over onto her back to prop herself up.

She and Sombra locked eyes, silence filling the air between them as they stared at one another.

Dash couldn’t take her eyes away. She knew she wasn’t looking into Soarin’s eyes, but she kept looking anyway. Sombra’s red pupils were showing right through the magic vapors, but they were shrinking and shaking, the whites of his eyes nearly swallowing them whole. He looked spooked, terrified, as if he had had a brush with death.

“W…why…?” Sombra’s voice suddenly met Dash’s ears. “WHY?!” he repeated as he gritted his teeth, but the look of shock refused to fade. “Why can’t I sense you?! It’s like you’re not even there yet my eyes are not deceiving me!”

Dash remained still, as did everypony else as they tried to figure out what was happening. But then Sombra began frantically looking back and forth between Discord and Dash. He turned his head at least six times, a low, frustrated growl escaping his throat until he whipped his head around and stared in the direction of the Crystal Empire, now completely visible in the distance without the artificial snow storm in the way.

“Dammit!” he cursed before glaring down at Discord. “I’ll get back to you later!” he snarled before pulling all his weapons back and turning towards the Empire…

But not before pausing one more time to glance at Dash.

Without another moment of hesitation Sombra broke into a gallop. Throwing his head into the air and releasing a burst of magic skyward. The beam splintered and flew backwards, raining down over the struggling ponies.

Yelps and grunts rang out as everypony shielded themselves, the small beams peppering them from above and exploding on and around them with small POOFS and POPS.

Dash didn’t move a muscle. The magic landed around her, but everything that touched her passed right through. She kept her eyes on Sombra as he galloped away, but soon reality slapped her in the face. She didn’t have time to wonder or daydream, the surprise of being tossed at him had faded several seconds ago and now she was just wasting time. She turned to look towards her squad and friends, but…

“GO!” Luna suddenly yelled at the top of her lungs as she moved as quickly as she could towards Discord and slid down onto her haunches. “GO AFTER HIM! STOP HIM!” she yelled to all the thestrels and Crystal Soldiers as she used her magic to prop up Discord. Dash frantically looked around as those loyal to goddesses began moving, helping comrades up and charging after Sombra by land and air. Several unicorns held their ground and began firing magic in Sombra’s direction, but shields popped up behind him and deflected each blast that managed to reach him. Shining Armor quickly ordered them to hold their fire and give chase instead, pegasi among the soldiers lifting them up to pursue.

But they weren’t the only ones who had sprung into action. While no orders were spoken, a wide majority of the Wonderbolts and Renegades were up and trying to stop the soldiers and thestrels, some taking off after those who were already giving chase, others engaging before they could follow Luna’s order. They were acting on the only directions they had been given so far, but mass confusion was wedged in between all of it.

Some of the Renegades were helping the Wonderbolts… Some of the Renegades were fighting the Wonderbolts… and some of the Renegades were fighting each other! With the Renegades split between veteran Wonderbolts and Descent’s followers some ponies had no idea who to direct their ire towards.

Before Dash knew it, chaos had erupted around her all over again… and this time it had nothing to do with a duo of super powerful magic users. Ponies were everywhere, some were following after Sombra, some were locked in combat where they were, but now it was so hard to tell who was fighting who that it looked like everypony was fighting everypony. Some of the Wonderbolts eventually figured out which Renegades to go after, but the mass bulk of the force comprised of the reserves had no idea what was happening.

But under all the madness, Dash had to move. She quickly focused on her goal and started galloping towards her group as Matteo, Star, and Squall did their best to try and move the Elements of Harmony away from the fighting.

“GUYS! COME ON!” Dash yelled to them, preemptively spreading her wings to take flight the moment she reached them and scooped up Fluttershy. “WE CAN STILL—”

She was suddenly and abruptly cut off as something struck her HARD from the side with so much force that her body stiffened momentarily as she hit the ground and rolled to a stop.

“Ah! Ghgggghaaaaa!” She grabbed her side as pain slowly crept into her ribs. Her eyes slammed shut as a large amount of discomfort spread through her body, cringing as simply taking breaths sent sharp pains through her side. She rolled over on her back as the pain stabbed at her, her eyes going wide as two yellow hooves slammed into the snow on both sides of her.

She was staring up, directly into the eyes of Spitfire, who glared down at her with her face scrunched up in anger.

“You aren’t going ANYWHERE!” she yelled into Dash’s face.

But before she could say another word, her eyes widened and she looked up. Her hooves immediately left the ground from around Dash.

Dash yelped in surprise as Descent suddenly appeared over her as well, slamming right into Spitfire. The two locked arms and began grappling, growling at one another as Descent tried to force her off Dash, but Spitfire held her ground.

“GIVE IT UP, SPITFIRE! YOU HAVE NO PLAN!” Descent barked at her.

“NOT LOSING SOARIN IS MY PLAN!” she barked right back. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CARE ANYWAY?!”

Dash remained still with no real avenue to get out of the situation, she was stuck beneath them and at risk of being stomped on until one of them moved the other.

But then she blinked, her eyes opening wide as she stared past them into the sky.

“Uh… guys?”

“SOARIN IS A WARRIOR AND RIVAL! I HAVE PLENTY REASON!” Descent yelled.

“Guys?”

“BIG WHOOP! YOU JUST WANT TO FIGHT HIM AGAIN! THAT’S ALL YOU CARE ABOUT!” Spitfire yelled back.

“Guys?!”

“IF YOU WON’T LISTEN TO ME THEN I’M NOT GOING TO BOTHER EXPLAINING MYSELF! Descent roared.

“Guys?! Guys! Guys!!!!!” Dash pointed.

“AND IF YOU’RE GOING TO PUT ANY TRUST IN PONIES ALIGNED WITH THE GODDESSES THEN YOU CAN GO FU—”

“GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Dash yelled as loud as she could.

Both of them suddenly stopped pushing and looked down at her.

Dash was pointing in the air towards the sky.

They both looked up.

“Oh…” Spitfire blinked before her face scrunched up and she growled loudly. “Just… fan-TASTIC!”

Shadowbolts.

They were pouring out from the clouds above… with Nightshade in the lead.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Oh GOODY! As if this wasn't already crazy enough, our good old Shadowbolt buddies finally drop in. What the hell took them so long anyway? They certainly aren't going to help calm the situation down at all.

Quite the supernatural battle we had going on there... the power was so immense that everything around them was punted and tossed about like little specs of dust in a wind storm. Discord let his power run rampant... seemingly out of anger and rage. So much for rules, though perhaps it gave us a glimpse into how powerful the gods are supposed to be... and how much Luna is not meeting her full potential. After all, Discord has chastised her for it.

But in the end, Sombra still proved to be more powerful, despite Discord letting it all go. It would seem that combining his power, mind, strength and will with Soarin's own body, strength, and will has indeed created a terrifyingly powerful being... but it sure did seem like he was trying to protect the rest from Discord, or if nothing else stop him from damaging his home.

At this point it looks like Dash is the only one whom he is truly afraid of... and speaking of Dash... somepony is filling the hooves of a certain missing veteran, but is Spitfire too out of her mind to notice?

And where is Sombra going? Where can he run? The crystal empire is being protected by a shield and he's surrounded by several armies that are fighting over what to do about him, and he does not seem to interested in fighting or hurting any of them, besides Discord and Luna at least.

I guess we'll find out, won't we?

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 174: I said Keep the Shenanigans to a Minimum!

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 174: I said Keep the Shenanigans to a Minimum!

“C’mon slowpoke!” Soarin flew backwards, hooves resting behind his head as he smirked at Dash following him. “Come and get me, I can do this all night!”

“Oh, those are fighting words!” Dash sneered as she pumped her wings. “I don’t care if you’re an oversized alicorn now! I’m still gonna beat you!” she jawboned right back as she streaked through the star filled night sky, illuminated by the full moon.

“I dunno, I think you just like my flank!” Soarin taunted as he turned to try and get away. “My biiiiiiiig godly plot!”

“You’re damn right I do! HA!” Dash ponded her wings, mixing Matteo’s Air Burst and High Winds’ wing motions together to accelerate greatly, catching him in an instant and wrapping her hooves around his large neck.

“Ahhh! You got me!” Soarin exaggerated dramatically as he stopped flapping his wings and let the two of them freefall.

They crashed into a very thick cumulus cloud with a soft POOF, the two of them laughing as they bounced along its surface until they rolled to a stop.

“RAWR!” Dash playfully growled as she leapt onto Soarin’s back, clambered up his neck and gnawed on his ear.

“Oh no, I’ve been captured!” Soarin hammed it up, a yellow aura appearing on his horn. “Whatever will I do?” his voice turned sly as a yellow aura surrounded Dash and lifted her off his head.

“Hey! Come on, no fair!” She tried to struggle, but was firmly caught in the magic. Soarin chuckled and rolled over onto his back, nestling himself into the cloud as he watched Dash flail to no avail. He smirked as she eventually gave up, crossed her arms, and puffed her cheeks out. “Cheater.”

“Like you aren’t enjoying this view?” Soarin shifted one hoof behind his head and rubbed the other on his chest. “These dashing good looks,” He whipped his head about, his ethereal mane waving majestically. “This new large body… these massive muscles…” he bounced his chest. “I’m straight from your wildest dreams, eh?” Dash’s eyes opened wide, her lips scrunching up and her face turning slightly red. Her wings twitched furiously “I’ll take that as a yes.” Soarin bounced his eyebrows and released his magic.

“Ah!” Dash yelped as she fell and landed right on top of him. Within seconds she had propped herself up. Her legs were straddled on his stomach and her hooves were pressed to his large chest muscles. Her mouth hung slightly ajar, her body heating up as she stared at his muscles and started slowly moving her hooves up and down.

“See something you like?” Soarin chuckled.

“I feel something I like…” Dash quickly answered, her body shuddering as she leaned down to press her body to his. “You are… so…” she couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Give it all a thorough examination,” he ran a large hoof over her back and down to her flank. “Be naughty now, I expect no less,” he said, giving her a light spank.

Dash’s body tensed and she slid herself slowly along his very muscular body closer to his head.

“Gawd…” she slurred as she felt him all over. “As if you weren’t already sexy enough before… Oo!” she cooed as Soarin brought his hoof around and lifted her whole body up with it, seemingly without any effort at all.

“How about now, even sexier?” he smirked as he bounced her up and down over him. She latched onto his arm and crossed her back legs, watching his chest and arm flex as he held her up. She reached out toward him, making grabby hooves.

“Mine… mine, mine, mine, gimme!” Dash desperately wailed as he lowered her back down. She quickly pressed herself down and ran her hooves over his chest very eagerly. He wrapped his arm around her back and gently pushed her against him. She let out a quiet, sharp exhale as he did. Her eyes snapped to his, wide and twitching as he held a sultry stare.

“I’m all yours, Dash.” Soarin flashed her a handsome smile that seemed to glint in the moonlight. “Give me your best. Let’s see if you’re as awesome as you claim to be.” He bounced his eyebrows and beckoned her forward with a hoof.

“Oh… oh god… ah…” Dash dug her hooves into his chest, quickly pulling herself up and over towards his head. “Yes, you are mine. All mine, dammit.” She sat her plot down on top of his chest, wrapped her legs as far around his neck as his shoulders and surrounding muscles would allow. “You big hunk of buff, meaty stud… I want it, I want ALL of you!” She pressed the rest of her body to his neck. “I wanna feel you! You that took down a king and a goddess… only YOU could, NGH!” She rubbed herself against him and forced her head into the crook of his neck with her body jittering. “You’re literally a god now! Ooooooh yes, I want to ride you like the god you are!” Her breath hissed sharply through her nose and teeth as she ravenously nuzzled into him. “Ngh… NGGHHHH! YES!” After a few seconds she sat up, grabbed his cheeks, and stared right into his sexy gaze. “COME HERE! NOW!” She rushed in towards his lips.

“NNnnnnnngggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh…” Dash’s eyes slowly opened, her body feeling hot and tensing sporadically all over.

She blinked a few times, her ears standing up as she realized Soarin wasn’t in front of her and her surroundings were that of their hotel suite. Her eyes shifted down to see that she was biting down hard on a pillow that she also had wrapped in an extremely tight squeeze hold with her arms and thighs. She was also faintly glowing yellow.

She froze in place, the glow fading and her eyes opening wide as she saw Little Star staring at her… and trying her hardest not to laugh.

Dash frantically released the pillow, throwing it and all the surrounding sheets aside before sitting upright stiffly with a blank look on her face. Her eyes darted about in a few directions before they landed on Twister peeking over the top of the mattress. His eyes were pointing in different directions with a sign planted next to him that read ‘IGNORE ME.’

“Well then…” Star started giggling to herself while lifting an eyebrow at Dash. “Sounded like quite the adventurous dream you were having.”

Dash’s eyes somehow opened wider.

“Oh… my gosh… was I sleep talking?” she asked as her ears flopped down and her face filled with dread.

“It was a lot more than talking,” Star snorted and looked off with a hoof over her lips.

“THAT WAS A WEIRD ONE!” Twister suddenly blared through a megaphone into Dash’s ear. Dash cringed as his voice pounded through her head before pressing a hoof to her ear and glaring at him.

“Oh great, you can see into my dreams now too?”

“IGNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!” Twister blared into her face, blowing her mane back.

“OW! GAH!” Dash hunched down and rubbed her hooves on her ears. Twister put the megaphone down and went back to staring in different directions. Five seconds later he put the megaphone back up.

“YES I CAN.” He spoke normally into it.

Dash grabbed the megaphone from him and slammed the wide end over his head. It slid down his body, his head popping out of the mouth piece.

“What was I saying?” Dash asked Star embarrassingly.

“Some…” Star held her breath for a moment, the ends of her lips curling up. “Very raunchy things…” she couldn’t stop a fit of giggles.

“Allow me!” Twister’s megaphone melted off of him and he hopped up on Dash’s bed. He licked his hoof and ran it once through his mane and turned it into the same shape as Dash’s mane. He then wound up with an arm outstretched and spun in a circle before walloping himself right in the face. His face caved in and shot back out with a loud SPROING and his face was now identical to Dash’s.

Dash moved to stop it before it began, but her eyes widened when Twister reached between his thighs and pulled out an enormous artistically accurate plushy of Soarin that was twice his size and threw it onto the bed.

“Oooooooooh Soarin!” Twister cooed, his imitation of Dash was way off despite how accurately he mimicked her appearance. “Come here you big hunk of stud!” He pounced on the plushy and began humping it. “The way you swallowed a grumpy old king and a sexy shapely goddess turns me on!” He shifted forward and grabbed the head of the plushy, pulling out what appeared to be a silicone replica of an alicorn horn and strapping it to the head of the plushy. “Now your horn is EXTRA big! I simply CANNOT ignore your girth!” Twister grabbed the horn off the plushy’s head and shoved it into his mouth, swallowing it whole. He latched to the plushy and started rolling all over the mattress with it. “You got the best features of both Sombra AND Celestia now!” he stopped rolling and flipped around, slapping his hooves against the plot of the plushy. “My GOD your enormous ass excites me so!” he exclaimed as he started rubbing his cheek against the plushy butt. He suddenly rolled off and grabbed the pillow that Dash was latched to when she woke up. “Hey Soarin, wanna see me make ENTIRE pillow disappear into my va—”

“STOP.” Dash thrust her arm out and punched him in the face. Two clown horns popped out of Twister’s ears and let out a low pitched HOOOOOOONK as her hoof sunk several inches into his head, his facial features all getting sucked in and his mane spazzing out back to its normal shape. “I get it…” she snarled flatly before looking over at the large Soarin plushy. “And I’m keeping this,” she said casually as she tossed the plushy over to the head of her bed. “Please tell me that was exaggerated,” Dash asked with concern as she looked back to Star.

“Those weren’t the exact words but… it was close,” Star shrugged and smiled weakly.

“Great…” Dash sighed as she tried to pull her hoof out of Twister’s head, but she quickly realized it was stuck. “Oh, for crying out… Star, a little help here?”

Star fluttered over to Dash’s bed and grabbed Twister’s waist. The two pulled as hard as they could in opposite directions, barley making any ground as they struggled.

As they strained, Matteo pushed the bedroom door open and stepped in.

“Can we grab breakfast?” he asked, asking zero questions about the situation in front of him. “I’m hungr—”

Dash’s hoof ripped free from Twister’s head, Twister and Star both launching across the room towards Matteo. They crashed into his chest, but met no resistance, vanishing into his fluff without Matteo feeling anything. Matteo blinked and looked down at his chest, touching his talons to it.

The closet door across the room slid open and Twister and Star flew out of it, crashing to the floor.

Star immediately rolled over and sat up, blinking rapidly as she looked between Matteo and the closet.

“What the hell just happened?!”

“Trust me kid,” Twister shifted over and slung an arm over her shoulders, slowly motioning the other hoof towards the closet as the door slid itself shut. His lips extended from his face towards her ear. “You don’t wanna know…” his stretched out lips whispered.

Thunderlane walked in behind the still very confused Matteo.

“I’m with Birdo, let’s eat so we can…” he trailed off as his eyes landed on the giant Soarin plushy on Dash’s bed. Dash just stared blankly at him. “Is that why you were making those weird noises all night?”

“All night…?” Dash’s eyes grew wide with realization. “HOW LONG WAS I—?!"

“Most of the night,” Matteo answered as Dash grabbed and pulled on her ears. “Thankfully quietly, I fell asleep no problem, but it sounded like you were enjoying a very tasty meal and agreeing with somepony a lot.”

“FOOD! YES FOOD!” Dash suddenly leapt up on the bed hysterically. “BREAKFAST! LUXURY! ALL THOSE GOOD THINGS ARE WAITING FOR US! HAHAHA!” she shuffled quickly past all of them and out into the living room of the suite. She stopped at the door and turned around to see all of them slowly following… except for… “Where’s Squall?” she asked in a slightly flat tone.

“He left ten minutes ago,” Matteo answered. Dash flattened her brow and grunted, Star groaning in frustration behind her.

“Okay, that does it. Ignoring us is one thing, alienating us is a different ball game and I’m drawing the line here.”

“Allow me,” Matteo lifted a talon. “He’ll think you’re nagging him.”

“Matty, really?” Dash sighed. “We just had this discussion last night.”

“And I believe we agreed,” Matteo nodded.

“We didn’t agree on anything!” Dash groaned as she stepped towards Matteo and glared at him. But before they could say anything else, Twister popped up between them and stretched out his arms to put them around both their shoulders.

“HUDDLE UP, TEAM!” he yanked them both in and pulled them down low. “Here’s what we’re gonna do!” his arm around Matteo extended further until it reached all the way around him and reached into the center of their huddle with a pair of very small elastic shorts in his hoof. “I’m gonna force this pair of hot tight pants on him, then give him the ultimate wedgie of his life time…” his hoof around Dash reached out and grabbed Little Star by the tail.

“HEY!” she yelled as Twister held her upside-down next to the shorts.

“Then I’m going to forcefully spank Thunderlane with Little Star’s body in front of Grumpy McGrunt-a-lot’s face until he’s learned his lesson!”

“Why me?!” Thunderlane exclaimed from outside the huddle.

Twister’s neck extended, shooting his head from the huddle until his face was pressed to Thunderlane’s

“CAUSE I BET THAT PURTY MOUTH O’ YERS SCREAMS REAL NICE.”

Everypony flinched and Twister screamed, diving under the living room carpet as Matteo’s stomach suddenly growled so loudly that it almost echoed about the room. A bush popped up from the carpet and Twister peeked out from it wearing a safari hat.

“Aye… the beast draws near!”

“You know what I do agree with?” Dash spoke up to Matteo. “Your stomach… let’s get food.”

“I hope they have oranges…” Matteo said as they finally made their way out.

“Ready? Ready?” Air Mach snickered as he, Lightning Streak, Fire Streak, Macho Savage, and three other Wonderbolt stallions huddled together in a shallower part of the pool. There was a circular mirror floating in the water in between them.

“Yeah, do it!” Lightning Streak yelled.

Air Mach grabbed a plastic toy bucket floating in the water next to him and flung it into the air directly above them. The moment he let it go, they all reached out and locked arms onto each other’s shoulders, staring down into the mirror and watching the reflection of the bucket overhead.

“Hold fast! No moving!” Air Mach snickered as the group started to jostle and shift slightly.

“It’s coming down!” Fire Streak called out as they saw the bucket reach its peak and start falling back towards them.

“Ooooooooooooooooooh…” they all started as the bucket closed in.

It bounced right off Air Mach’s head with a loud KLUNK and he fell flat into the water with a splash.

“OOOOOOOOOH! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!” the rest of the stallions broke apart and laughed as Air Mach emerged from the water holding his head and laughing with them.

“Again! Again! Come on!” Lightning Streak cheered as they re-huddled and grabbed the bucket for another throw.

“What the hell are they doing out there?” Fleetfoot asked with a giggle as she pushed her sunglasses down, lying flat on a pool chair as she watched the stallions repeat the silly game.

“Hrm…?” Spitfire tipped her head up from her reclined position in her chair beneath an umbrella, pushing her own sunglasses down in time to see the bucket fall and hit Fire this time, hooting and laughter ringing out again. “Being stallions,” she said as she stretched out and reclined again, but kept her head tipped enough to keep watching. “Looks like the lifeguard already gave up on them.”

Fleetfoot looked over to see the unicorn stallion lifeguard slumped into his chair and glaring at the Wonderbolt stallions with his hoof propping up his cheek.

“I’m surprised they got Fire to join in,” Fleetfoot giggled as she glanced towards Misty Fly nearby. She had a chair pulled all the way up to the edge of the pool and was sitting on the end of it, leaning forward as she watched the stallions and laughed silently to herself.

“Everypony needs a little fun now and then, even Fire,” Spitfire said nonchalantly as she leaned her head back and sighed, feeling relaxed. “As long as they don’t break anything I don’t care what they do.”

“I think they ripped that mirror out of a suite bathroom…” Fleetfoot pointed out.

“That sure lasted…” Spitfire exhaled sharply through her nose.

“OooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH…”

The bucket hit Macho Savage at a weird angle and ricocheted into Lighting’s face.

“WHOA HO HO!” The stallions broke apart as Lightning fell back and sunk into the water as the bucket got stuck on his face.

“I kinda wanna join…” Fleetfoot giggled as she swiped the sunglasses of her face and cheekily glanced at Spitfire while biting her lip.

“Knock yourself out.”

“Hee!” Fleetfoot sprang up and leapt all the way from her chair into the pool. Spitfire flinched slightly as the water splashed against her, but smiled as Fleetfoot swam towards them. “Hey boys! Make room!”

“ACCESS DENIED!” Air Mach yelled as he turned to join the stallions and locked arms with them while wiggling his plot back and forth at Fleetfoot. “No mares allowed!”

“Oh, you THINK so, huh?!” Fleetfoot tried to push her way in between them. “Lemme in!”

“Hold the line!” Lightning Streak yelled while laughing. “Don’t let her in!”

Macho Savage suddenly threw the bucket into the air without the rest of them seeing it.

“Don’t make me get rough!” Fleetfoot threatened. “I will!”

“Wait,” Fire glanced about. “Where’s the buck—”

KLUNK

It hit Air Mach over the head.

“OOOOOOOOOH!” the stallions yelled out as he fell into the water and yanked Lightning Streak down with him.

“HYEEP!” Fleetfoot yelped as she was squished between their bodies and dragged under too, but she was the first to emerge with her mane all slicked down and a smile on her face. “Ha! Now’s my chance!”

But before she could lunge into the ring of stallions, Lightning’s arm reached out and wrapped around her stomach.

“Don’t think so, babe!” he chuckled as he yanked her towards him. “Must be my lucky day!”

“Oh god no!” Fleetfoot gagged, pressing her hooves to his chest and trying to get free.

As she struggled one of the stallions threw the bucket back into the air.

“Hey! Hey! Bring her over! Put her up in the center!” Air Mach yelled.

“Eee!” Fleetfoot yelped as Lightning passed her up above the stallions and they all held her up above them. “Hey! Put me down!” she demanded as the bucket started falling back down.

“Where’s it gonna land, where’s it gonna land?!” Lightning laughed as they started forcefully pushing each other around since their arms were occupied by Fleetfoot instead of holding onto one another.

But as the bucket fell, Surprise suddenly leapt into its path, the bucket landing perfectly on her head like a helmet.

“SURPRISE, BITCHES!” she yelled as she fell towards them with her arms and legs outstretched.

“INCOMING!” Fire yelled out as the stallions began pushing and shoving against one another, some of them trying to grab and pull others back to keep them from getting away. Fleetfoot shrieked as the stallions lost their grip on her and fell into the water.

“OOOOOO SHI—” Lightning was cut off as Surprise landed right on top of him, forcing him down into the water. Fleetfoot shielded herself as the water splashed into her face.

Lightning popped his head out of the water and looked back and forth as Fleetfoot and Surprise next to him.

“Man, this just keeps getting better!”

“HOLD THEM BACK!” Air Mach exclaimed as the stallions came back together around the mirror with the bucket. “The circle of stallioness must not be defiled by estrogen!”

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” Lightning chuckled as he put both Fleetfoot and Surprise in headlocks. “I got ‘em!” he yelled as he scooted in towards the stallions, but turned around to hold the two mares just out of the circle.

“Brother, must you put your rear in my face?” Fire complained as Lightning’s plot kept bouncing against his and Air Mach’s faces while he held the mares out.

“Deal with it bro, we have to maintain the ring of dudes!” he chuckled as he looked at Fleetfoot and Surprise struggling in his grip. “Don’t act like you’re not enjoying this, ladies.”

“You WISH!” Fleetfoot snapped back while sticking her tongue out at him.

“Bucket’s going up!” Fire yelled, tossing the bucket into the air and they took their positions while staring at the mirror.

But the bucket barely got halfway up into the air before one of the poolside chairs suddenly flew into the reflected view and started falling towards them.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” The stallions all shouted, instantly letting go of each other. They scattered in different directions as the chair splashed into the water and the lifeguard started angrily blowing his whistle.

Spitfire blinked and glanced over to see Misty Fly on her back and rocking back and forth laughing next to where her chair used to be sitting.

“Keep the shenanigans to a minimum I said… They’ll totally listen to you, right?” Spitfire said quietly to herself as she sighed as she let her head rest back against her chair. “We’re going to cause so much trouble here before this week is over…”

She glanced up as she heard a splash, watching as Misty swam through the water and tackled Fire Streak from behind. Blaze and High Winds both flew in and dove into the water as the mares and stallions started a silly battle of the sexes with several other Wonderbolts gathering and joining in. Inner tubes, beach balls, and other assorted pool paraphernalia flying in every direction as the lifeguard gave up and slumped back into his chair again.

Spitfire smiled as she watched the hilarity ensue.

“Ah, who cares…” she sat up and shifted to the edge of her seat, resting her chin on her hoof as she watched the Wonderbolts go at it. What were a few complaints from the hotel staff if she got to watch Fleetfoot smack Lightning Streak over the head with a giant inflatable banana? It was going to be all business after this, so it would be good to cut them loose and let them have fun.

In fact… she suddenly wanted to jump into the fray herself.

She swiped off her sunglasses with a smirk and stood up, taking a few steps towards the edge of the pool, but… she stopped.

She blinked and looked about at the group in the pool. It wasn’t all of them but… all of the top tiers were present except for…

“Wait a second…” she said to herself as she looked back and forth at the crowd. “Where’s Wave?”

Wave Chill was nowhere to be found. And considering the stallions had roped Fire into their silly game of bucket-chicken, it was strange that Wave wasn’t there too.

“Hrm…” Spitfire hummed, putting a hoof to her lips as she scanned the Wonderbolts again, making sure she didn’t just miss him.

“OOOOH YEEEEEEAH!”

“GAH! FUCK!”

Macho Savage suplexed both Blaze and High Winds into the water.

“He’s not with Blaze and High Winds either…Hrm…” Spitfire hummed against as she shifted her eyes. “Why aren’t you out here?” she asked out loud as she turned and started walking to look around other parts of the pool.

Dash slowly floated along, sitting back in an inner tube as the lazy river decided where she went.

“Haaa…” she sighed as she passed beneath trees and stone decorations placed along the sides. “We just got here and I’m already feeling refreshed…” she hummed happily to herself as mist from a waterfall gently splashed against her. “This place is good.”

Simply calling it a ‘pool’ barely did it any justice. This particular water park section of the resort had the most interesting pool set up Dash had ever seen. One started by climbing up stairs on an artificial cliffside that had several water slide entrances at the top, but it also sported the start of several slow moving water ways that slowly moved down the other side of the artistically crafted ‘mountain’ allowing guests to relax as they floated to points where a small, slight incline slides seamlessly pushed them down to the next waterway. At the bottom was a lazy river that split in several directions, guests floating down whichever the current put them on and passing beneath bridges that connected the ‘islands’ in between the streams. Each waterway eventually led to a larger pool area that was shaped as if it were a large lake, where most of the regular pool fun and water slide exits were.

This was the second time Dash had started at the top and slowly floated down. The water slides were tempting, but right now she was just in the mood to be a lump on her tube and take it all in. She had had plenty of excitement in the morning anyway… not to mention she definitely saw she was glowing yellow faintly when she awoke from her… very elaborate and outrageously sexual dream about Soarin. She’d wonder about that and if her yellow aura enhancements were to blame for that later though.

She turned her head to the side as a small group of young colts paddled by, laughing, splashing, and chasing one another as they rushed passed her along the river flow.

“Hard to believe this place was under siege two weeks ago…” she said to herself, looking back into the sky. “Either most didn’t know what was actually going on or Cadence is just that good at being persuasive…” Dash furrowed her brow. “Or she came up with a story to explain it… She’s sneakier than she looks…”

She glanced ahead to see that she was nearing a turn that led into one of the larger pool areas, and no sooner did she see it, did she hear a lot of commotion nearby.

“WhoooooooOOOOOooooAAAAAA!” Lightning Streak yelled as he suddenly launched into the air with Misty Fly grappling with him. Surprise zipped up and started hitting Lightning over the head with a beach ball repeatedly until all three of them fell back down with a loud splash.

Dash floated around the corner into the pool just in time so see Fleetfoot holding Macho Savage in a headlock. He was flailing around trying to get her off and flat out punched Air Mach in the face while doing so. Dash winced as they came near and barely missed her, falling into the water shortly after.

Nearby, High Winds had Fire Streak in a half nelson and Blaze was tickling him as he laughed uncontrollably.

“Man, they have a lot of energy,” Dash chuckled as she continued to casually float into the middle of all the Wonderbolt cacophony. Normally she would join right in, but she was being a little wary of her… body situation.

She lifted up her arm and looked at it, turning it over and over, tensing and relaxing it a few times. She didn’t mind a little roughhousing, but considering her sudden increase in strength and the clear presence of Celestia’s magical energy within her… she wanted to relax a bit first, just calm down and level out… at least initially. They had a whole week at the resort, so maybe after a day of relaxing she’d be willing to turn it up a notch.

She floated away from the shenanigans and started floating past the water slide exits. She watched as several colts and fillies shot out and splashed gently into the water, laughing and screaming as they paddled to the edge of the pool and clambered up to go again.

But then the water coming out of one of the slide tubes suddenly slowed and got very weak as if something was blocking it. Dash blinked and eyed it curiously for a moment, when suddenly a whooshing burst of water shot out of it, followed by Matteo emerging from it and landing in the water with an enormous splash. Dash shielded herself as water splattered all over her, followed by holding on as several waves caused her inner tube to bob up and down.

Matteo’s head eventually rose out of the water and moved towards Dash. He was large enough to walk on the floor below and keep his head above water. His crest feathers were slicked over his eyes, but he seemed to know Dash was right in front of him. Dash couldn’t help but snicker.

“Hey look, you fit!” she exclaimed as Matteo shook his head out vigorously and his head proofed up.

“In this one, yes. A few others have been problematic,” he said casually as Dash smirked and lifted an eyebrow.

“You really are loving this, aren’t you?” Dash said with a chuckle. “I gotta ask, how did this come about, Mr. Stoic Warrior?”

“Gilda and I took Teodora to The Shells when she was three.”

“The Shells?” Dash blinked and tipped her head as Matteo floated beside her, his head turning to face her.

“It’s a rest and relaxation destination a few miles away from the western border of the Griffon Empire near the ocean. It has many attractions, including amusement parks and several water parks and resorts,” he explained.

“Huh…” Dash lifted her brow. “The way you’ve enlightened me about the Griffons, they never struck me as the vacation resort owner type.”

“We aren’t,” Matteo shook his head. “It’s owned and run by Hippogriffs.”

Dash stared at him blankly.

“Have you never seen a Hippogriff?”

“All I’m picturing are hippos crossed with griffons,” Dash admitted honestly.

“They are similar to griffons, only with the body of a pony as opposed to…” Matteo trailed off, briefly bouncing up to reveal his soaked lion half briefly before submerging it back in the water.

“Huh, neat,” Dash nodded. “Related at all?”

“Perhaps. Ancestors possibly, but I have never looked into it,” Matteo said as his avian instincts started kicking in and his feathers swished about in the water.

“So you went to this place and…?”

“I think I had more fun than Teodora did,” Matteo said with a straight face.

“Was she too busy trying to fight every other kid she saw?” Dash asked with a smirk, drawing a sigh from Matteo.

“No, she didn’t start acting like her mother until she turned four. She was still very squeaky and bouncy at the time.”

“And you still had more fun than her at a water park? I’m sorry, that’s just so weird to imagine,” Dash said with a snicker.

“Gilda said the same thing,” Matteo shrugged. “I didn’t understand what was so confusing. It was fun.”

Dash kept snickering while trying not to look at him.

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing…” Dash waved him off as she failed to hide the amused smile. The thought of big Matty running around a water park full of kids having a great time was just so... goofy.

Her ears perked up as she picked up familiar laughter. She could hear Thunderlane and Little Star. She sat up and looked over the edge of the pool in the direction of a large wave pool that was placed just a few yards from the pool’s edge. A wave cycle had just ended.

“Hey let’s go group up,” Dash beckoned Matteo as she tucked herself in and fell through the tube into the water. She grabbed the tube with one arm and paddled to the pool’s edge with Matteo simply walking through the pool behind her.

As the two emerged to transfer to the wave pool, Star caught a glimpse of them and waved them down, encouraging them to join. Dash glanced about as they moved, sighing when she saw no sign of Squall anywhere. They saw him at breakfast, but he was sitting alone by himself off to the side and before any of them could confront him, he had left. After that they ran into him at the room before heading down to the pool, but he forced his way past them and trudged away, ignoring Dash’s demands for him to stop and turn around as he vanished around a corner. She was reaching the end of her rope with him, eventually she was going to stop holding back for the sake of everypony trying to relax and have fun. He was pushing his luck.

She struck him from her mind for now. They’d track him down eventually. For now… fun.

Dash jumped into the pool with her tube over her head. She lost her grip on it, but popped up in the hole in the center and started kicking her way towards Star and Thunderlane. Matteo simply started walking from the slanted edge and kept wading down into the water until it was up to the middle of his neck again.

“The next cycle is about to start, get over here!” Thunderlane yelled as they drew near.

“I’m ready!” Dash exclaimed as she and Matteo reached them and she pulled herself up onto the inner tube. “Bring it o—”

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

Dash’s eyes went wide as the loud horn sounded from behind her. She turned to look over her shoulder as several other guests in the pool started yelping and gasping in surprise. Something large and wooden suddenly rushed in front of her line of sight.

She didn’t bother to look up, down, or side to side. She just flattened her brow and pressed a hoof against it to float back and get a better view.

It was a small replica of an old wooden ship complete with white sails. ‘H.M.S. PayMeNoMind’ was written on the side. Several of the other guests looked on with confusion as the lifeguard on duty just stared blankly.

“I was wondering where he was…” Dash said with a sigh as loud CLONK noises sounded from the boat until Twister appeared at the edge of the deck. He was standing on his hind legs while wearing a dark trench coat and a white ship captain’s hat. He had a pipe in his mouth, a scruffy blue beard that matched his mane, and a peg leg. He angrily gritted his teeth, chewing on the mouthpiece of the pipe as he shut one eye and opened the other very wide while glaring down at the rest of them.

“Call me… Fishmael…” Twister said in a hard, serious voice. On cue the next wave cycle started in the pool, the waves slowly building up. Matteo cocked an eyebrow as he stared at Twister.

“I understand the reference, but Fishmael was the narrator. The captain was Greyhab.” Matteo pointed out.

They all flinched as a loud thunderclap echoed from above. A thick dark cloud that was conveniently the exact same size of the ship appeared above it and began down pouring over it. Bright flashes of lightning and loud booms of thunder roared as Twister forced himself through rushing winds and rain towards the bow of the ship. He pulled out a long telescope that extended all the way past the wave generator, got into the face of a guest sitting at a table behind it. A straw popped out of the lens and drank all of the guest’s mixed drink before zipping all the way back and slamming in front of Twister’s face. He chucked the telescope over his shoulder and slammed his peg leg onto the railing, glaring forward as the rain beat against his face.

“The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run!” Twister chanted as a loud boom of thunder roared out overhead. “Over unsound gorges! Through the rifled hearts of mountains! Under torrents’ beds! Unerringly I rush!” The ship lurched as the waves grew larger and nearly threw him to the deck. He stumbled back towards the mast and grabbed hold of it, his angered scowl never fading. “Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!” he proclaimed while shaking a hoof at the thundercloud.

“Twister, you’re scaring the kids,” Dash said flatly.

She yelped as Twister’s arm extended down and grabbed her right out of her inner-tube and pulled her onto the deck beside him, instantly drenching her with rain.

“Pony madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing… When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form!” he pulled Dash close and dragged her to the stern, placing her behind him as he grabbed the ships wheel and forced it into position as the wave cycle was now in full force. “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go laughing! All my means are sane, my motive and my objective are mad!”

“Is this going somewhere Twister?” Dash asked in a flat tone as the ship swayed and lurched. His head completely turned around without him moving his body.

“Talk NOT to me of blasphemy, Dash!” his head spun wildly in circles before popping back into place with a loud THUNK. “I’d strike the sun if it insulted me!”

Down below Star and Thunderlane had subtly moved behind the boat, but Matteo remained in place, still with just his head poking out of the water as he stared up at the display.

“This is incredibly overdramatic,” he commented.

Twister suddenly released an extremely loud and long gasp, ripping free from the wheel and rushing to the edge of the deck, extending his telescope all the way down into Matteo’s face, the lens growing wide with Twister’s blinking eye visible in it.

“Um…” Matteo leaned back slightly.

Twister pulled the telescope back and broke it in half over his leg. He leapt up and grabbed the mast, hanging off it by a rope as a loud clap of thunder boomed… followed by a heavy metal drum rhythm and heavy guitar following soon after.

“SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER!!!!!”

Twister whipped down and grabbed Dash by the neck, pulling her over and pointing down at Matteo.

“WHEN YOU SEE THE WHITE WHALE!!!!!!”

“Twister now you’re really scaring the, OOF!” Dash grunted as the ship lurched and the two of them were thrown to the deck.

“BREAK YOUR BACKS AND CRACK YOUR OARS, MEN!”

Twister clenched his hoof and shook it at the thundercloud.

“IF YOU WISH TO PREVAIL!”

“Alright, that’s enough of—” Dash tried to reach for him, but he grabbed her by the head and forced her to look at his peg leg.

“THIS IVORY LEG IS WHAT PROPELS ME!”

“Wah!” Dash yelped as Twister threw her overboard, landing in the wave pool with a splash.

“HARPOONS THRUST IN THE SKY!”

Twister held a pool noodle into the air before rushing over and glaring over the side at a very confused Matteo.

“AIM DIRECTLY FOR HIS CROOKED BROW!”

Twister’s eyes popped off his head and shot down right in front of Matteo.

“AND LOOK HIM STRAIGHT IN THE EYE!”

“I’m not a whale…” Matteo said calmly as Twister’s eyes shot back up and smacked back into his head. He threw the pool noodle over his shoulder, reached into his trench coat and pulled out a hysterically large, grey cannon that he slammed up against the side of the deck, causing the boat to tip.

“WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!”

The cannon tipped all the way down, the massive barrel pointing directly at Matteo’s face. It was easily five times the size of his head.

“HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL!”

The cannon started shaking violently, making creaking noises that grew louder and louder until…

PATOOIE

A tiny suction cup dart attached to a piece of yarn shot out of the cannon and gently stuck itself to Matteo’s beak.

Matteo blinked and stared at the dart. Little Star burst out laughing as Matteo just sighed.

Near Star, Thunderlane was eyeing a piece of loose wood that was sticking out the side of the boat. He curiously grabbed it and pulled it out. The boat suddenly capsized, breaking to pieces as the thundercloud dissipated and the heavy metal music suddenly went way off key, the sound of several drums breaking and guitar strings snapping filling the air as the boat became a pile of driftwood.

“Uh…” Thunderlane let the loose wood drop out of his hoof as the wave cycle ended. “Oops?”

Twister angrily burst out of the water, throwing several planks of wood aside and stuffing his nose into what appeared to be an assembly instruction booklet.

“What is this CRAP?!” he angrily grumbled. “I paid all those bits for this cheap ass piece of…” he trailed off, closing the booklet and turning it over. The word ‘IKEA’ was printed on the back in big black letters. “Really? We already used this gag, come on!”

“You know, Twister…” Star spoke up as she swam over to him. “You go through a whole lot of trouble to do things that end up being completely pointless.”

“Young LADY!” Twister turned and picked her up out of the water, all the wood sank and vanished under the water. “Whatever are you doing?! You can’t go swimming without your water wings!” he exclaimed with worry as she flattened her brow.

“Twister, I know how to—”

Twister swung her around and shoved her into a single large water wing that was twice her size, stuffing her body down until her wings were pinned back and only her head and arms poked out.

“What the…?!” She tried to wiggle free but she was firmly stuck.

“That’s better,” Twister nodded contently. “You go have fun now!” he gave her a gentle push and she started floating away from them.

“HEY!” she yelled, wiggling her arms to no avail as the next wave cycle started up gently. “Guys, help!” she pleaded.

“Should we help her?” Thunderlane asked Dash. Dash stared towards Little Star floating into the next round of waves, but Twister was furiously paddling after her on a makeshift raft, suddenly looking very ragged and disheveled like a shipwrecked cast away.

“WILSON, NO!” he yelled as she chased after Star.

“Nah, she’ll be fine,” Dash shrugged. “Let’s get back to the other pool while we can.”

“Agreed,” Matteo quickly nodded while pulling the dart off his beak.

The three of them made a quick and discreet exit, leaving Star to handle Twister as they jumped back into the nearby section of the main pool and got settled in.

It took a moment for Dash to realize how… quiet it was. The Wonderbolts had apparently moved somewhere else?

Her ears turned as she picked up several familiar voices. She glanced up towards the section of the lazy river visible from below on the fake mountainside.

“Ah, there they are…” Dash chuckled.

The Wonderbolts were all grouped together on several inner tubes, linked up and moving much faster than the current was flowing while hooting and hollering and holding up assorted inflatable pool toys they had either found or stolen from nearby stands. High Winds was at the back of the group, using her powerful wings to propel them along with Air Mach standing on the front of the tubes, pointing forward triumphantly. They were knocking aside anypony that got in their way, and every time they left Dash’s view, she knew where they were based on which lifeguard blew their whistle at them.

“I fit in the water slides, by the way,” Matteo’s voice caught Dash’s attention as she turned to see Thunderlane eyeing him carefully.

“Oh? Prove it!” Thunderlane smirked at him.

“Very well,” Matteo accepted the challenge and the two waded off towards the waterslides.

“Final approach! Extend the runway!” Air Mach’s voice pulled Dash’s attention back to the Wonderbolts. They came shooting out of the exit of the river and rushing along through the center of the pool, High Winds just letting them coast instead of powering them anymore. They eventually came to a halt in the center of the pool, and the moment they stopped it devolved into chaos, several of them grabbing each other and yanking or tugging them off their tubes into the water while laughing.

Dash leaned forward, her instincts telling her to join the rough housing, but she hesitated again, sitting back as she remembered she was trying to be careful. They had a week, the chances of them going to the pool again was more than guaranteed. Instead, she wondered about her absent squad member, glancing about the pool again despite knowing that the chances of him being there were practically zero.

But as she started looking around, her eyes unexpectedly landed on another dark and broody pegasus.

Descent was sitting one row of chairs back from the edge of the pool underneath an umbrella with Lightning Dust sitting next to him.

“Huh… right, I forgot he was here,” Dash said to herself as she dropped into the inner tube and started floating it in their direction.

Lightning Dust perked up and waved towards Dash as she approached, ditched her tube and lifted herself out of the water. Descent locked eyes with her as she came around the chairs, but only for a moment before snorting, staring forward, and flattening his brow. Dash lifted an eyebrow and snickered.

“Yeesh, Descent. Settle down. Don’t have too much fun or anything,” she said sarcastically as she sat down beside Dust’s chair.

“Hrm…” Descent grunted and turned his head further away. Dash blinked and looked at Dust. Dust shrugged and sighed.

“Don’t bother,” she said while shaking her head. “He’s been like this all morning.”

“What’s the hold up?” Dash asked, looking back at Descent. “We’re here to relax.”

“I’m fine,” Descent replied instantly, sharply turning his back to them. He flinched as his eyes landed on a family walking by. A mother, a father, and two fillies pulling their parents along while giggling. Descent scrunched up his face and turned to face forward again. He looked extremely uncomfortable.

“What in the world is making you so stiff in a place like this?” Dash asked.

“I’m fine,” Descent repeated.

“See?” Dust sighed and leaned back, shaking her head again.

“Wow,” Dash huffed. “Lighten up a little.”

“I’M FINE!” Descent yelled while shooting a glare at her. His eyes widened and he looked around as several other guests glanced in his direction. He stiffened and quickly looked down, gritting his teeth. “Frggghhhhhnnnnn…” he grumbled while slumping back and crossing his arms. Dash and Dust just stared at one another, at a loss.

“Okay…” they all perked up as Fleetfoot suddenly vaulted over the chair beside Descent and flopped down on it in a sultry pose complete with her hip and flank popped up. “What’s Mr. Battlescar McHarumphGrump brooding about over here?” she asked in a somewhat silly tone. Descent’s eyes twitched and he sharply turned to look at her. He immediately saw the way she had positioned her body and grunted angrily.

“Buzz off, hussy,” he hissed.

“Ooo… sharp tongue,” Fleetfoot cooed while sticking out her tongue. “Sounds like you need to relax! Want some help?” she asked while slowly sliding a hoof up her flank to the curve of her waist. “I’m pretty good at helping with that. I can act like I have a stick up my ass like Starry too if that’s your thing.”

“Fleet, don’t…” Dust nervously lifted a hoof towards her as she brought up Starry Skies.

“What?” Fleetfoot giggled. “Isn’t that what he likes?”

“Leave her out of this,” Descent growled while shooting her a harsh glare.

“You keep giving me reasons to bring her up,” Fleetfoot shifted to lay on her stomach, keeping her head turned towards him while resting her chin on her hooves and bouncing her eyebrows.

“You clearly don't understand the relationship between us,” he added, his tone growing harsher by the word.

“You suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure about that?” Fleetfoot teased.

Dash stood up from her spot, made her way around and sat down on Fleetfoot’s chair directly in front of her.

“Hey!”

Dash leaned back and pinned Fleetfoot to the chair.

“Alright, if you want to talk straight, talk to me,” Dash suggested as Fleetfoot wiggled behind her. “Is Starry the reason you can’t relax?”

Descent stared at her, but didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Dash pressed a little. “Want to fend her off or not?” Dash asked while making a slight head motion behind her.

Descent glanced between Dash and Fleetfoot. Dash was holding a serious expression while Fleetfoot was peeking out around Dash’s plot, biting her lip and still bouncing her eyebrows.

“No,” he said with a grunt. “It’s not her.”

“That’s a big fat lie. YEEP!” Fleetfoot squeaked as Dash leaned back harder and dug her elbow into Fleetfoot’s side.

“Then what is it?” Dash asked as Descent looked away from her. She looked at him carefully and decided to follow his line of sight. Eventually she saw the family that passed them just a few moments ago. The mother and father had settled in and the fillies were both charging for the pool, jumping in while laughing.

Dash perked up when she thought she might have just put two and two together but… her ears folded back. She didn’t want to bring him up but… she was legitimately curious.

“Is it Storm?” she asked.

“No,” Descent denied, looking elsewhere.

“I bet—” Fleetfoot was instantly muffled as Dash shoved a hoof into her mouth and her cheeks puffed up.

“I already asked that,” Dust cut in. “He’s being a closed book.”

Dash eyed Descent carefully as he kept his gaze averted.

“Okay then,” Dash nodded. “Act like I don’t have a nosy rabble-rouser pinned behind me for a second…” Dash flinched and pulled her hoof out of Fleetfoot’s mouth as she started licking it. “Spitfire invited you here to relax, right? I’m surprised she got you to agree—”

“I didn’t.”

Dash pulled back for a second and held up her hoof while blinking.

“Okay, I’m surprised she managed to drag you here against your will,” she corrected. “But now that you are, what is keeping you from loosening up? Be honest, I’m legitimately curious.”

Descent looked at her for a long time while completely avoiding eye contact with Fleetfoot. Eventually he turned and started slowly scanning the entire area around him until his eyes eventually landed on Lightning Dust. He let out a long sigh, scrunching up his face as he slid down and slumped against his chair.

“I’ve…” he hesitated, his tone very quiet. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Dash lifted an eyebrow, staying silent for a second with the others as she tried to wrap her head around what he just said. But then realization hit her.

“Oh…” she leaned back. “Oooooooooooh…”

“There, are you happy?” Descent grumbled with a snort.

“Huh…” Fleetfoot broke her silence, Dash glancing at her to see the trickery gone from her face as she clearly put it together as well.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve told you about my youth at some point,” Descent kept his tone hushed. “You think I’ve ever been to a family resort before?” He flattened his brow. “I… don’t know what to do here.”

Dash quickly looked towards Dust. She looked surprised as well, but she had to be thinking the same thing as her. She had lived a civilian life before joining the Shadowbolts, but Descent? He never knew his family, abandoned as a colt on the streets of Canterlot, scavenging and surviving with Nightshade and Starry Skies until they joined the Shadowbolts. Aside from the situation that led to Storm Front, the greater majority of his life had been nothing but battle and mercenary work.

It was incredibly odd to see Descent so uncomfortable, especially considering where they were on top of it.

“Well…” Dash tipped her head slightly. “Then why not…” she motioned towards the pool. “Get out there and give it a try?”

Descent blinked and looked towards the pool.

“Alright fluffy, can you fit in this slide?” Thunderlane motioned towards a smaller tube slide clearly designed with colts and fillies in mind.

“Absolutely not,” Matteo admitted outright, but Twister suddenly appeared behind him and grabbed him by the crest.

“Not with that attitude!” he shouted, yanking Matteo down and stuffing him face first into the slide. Matteo squawked as he got halfway in before getting stuck. Twister stood behind him with a giant croquet mallet. “FIRE ONE!” He wound up and struck Matteo’s butt with it, forcing him into the slide. The slide vibrated violently and shook with a loud BANG when he reached the bottom before oozing out the other side and dropping into the water ungracefully.

Descent’s face contorted slightly as he looked towards the rowdy group of Wonderbolts nearby.

“HEY LADIES!” Lightning Streak yelled out, he had a kiddie inner tube that he somehow got over his body around his waist and he was riding on top of the large inflatable banana they had been carrying around with his thighs clenched tightly around it, waving the front end of it towards a bunch of Wonderbolt mares. “WANNA PEEL MY BANANA?!”

“I… no…” Descent’s face twitched awkwardly. “I’m fine right here.”

“Ooooooh no. No no no.” Fleetfoot forced herself up, nudging Dash away from her. She moved right over to Descent and grabbed his arm. “You are not spending a week at a fancy resort and sitting around while we have fun.”

“Stop it,” Descent grunted, trying to pull his arm back, but Fleetfoot held tight.

“No. You’re coming out here and that’s final,” Fleetfoot demanded.

“You can’t force me,” Descent held steady as Fleetfoot yanked at his arm.

“Dash! Dust! Help me out here!” Fleetfoot called to the other two. “We gotta move this lump of grump into the pool!”

Dash and Dust smirked at one another, quickly getting up and joining Fleetfoot in grabbing Descent and pulling him off his chair.

“Hey! Enough!” he yelled as he tried to resist. “Cut it out!” he yelled as he realized he couldn’t hold them back. Perhaps normally he’d be able to hold the three mares back, but one of the three was making use of some newly acquired strength. As they drew near the edge of the pool, Descent turned his attention to Lightning Dust. “Dust, stop!” he urged. But she didn’t listen.

They put him at the edge of the pool, and with one mighty heave, they threw him in with a big splash.

“Blah!” Descent grunted as he came up, sitting with the water at neck level and narrowing his eyes into an angered glare.

“Woo!” Fleetfoot hooted as she jumped in next to him and splashed water all over him, Dust and Dash following right behind. They all came up laughing and splashing water towards Descent as he sat still and huffed.

“Well? Are you all happy now?” Descent gruffly asked.

“Nope!” Fleetfoot leaned towards him. “Not until you start enjoying yourself!”

“Well that certainly isn’t happening right now,” Descent grumbled. He flinched as Fleetfoot reached a hoof out and booped his nose.

“That’s because you’re still being a grouch! Loosen up!” she giggled.

“Hey guys, have any of you seen…?” Spitfire suddenly walked by the edge of the pool and trailed off as Descent turned and stared at her wide eyed. Spitfire’s face instantly scrunched up and she failed to stifle a few breathy chuckles.

“WHAT?” Descent hissed sharply at her with a glare.

“Nothing, nothing…” Spitfire kept chuckling while waving a hoof and gathering herself. “Have any of you seen Wave Chill anywhere?”

“Oooooo?” Fleetfoot cooed towards her, but stopped abruptly and blinked, looking over towards the rest of the Wonderbolts. “Actually that’s a good question… I didn’t even notice he wasn’t with us.” Her ears flopped down and she pouted. “That’s depressing. Has he really been away from us so long?”

“Hmmm…” Spitfire hummed while scanning around.

“I saw him leave towards the south building from the lobby,” Descent suddenly spoke up. Spitfire sharply turned back to him for a moment.

“Uhhhh…” she turned towards the lobby and held a hoof towards it, turned to face north, then swept her arm around to point south. “That’s where… huh… why is he…?” she thought out loud.

“Go, go, GO!” Fleetfoot cut her off and made pushing motions towards her. “Go find him! We’ll handle this sourpuss!” she encouraged happily. But she didn’t even have to say it, Spitfire had already turned and left.

“Can I get out of the water now?” Descent grumbled as he started wading towards the pool’s edge.

“Oh no you don’t!” Fleetfoot giggled, grabbing him and holding him in place. “You’re going to come over here and play!”

“I don’t ‘play.’ I’m not a child,” Descent huffed.

“Tell that to Misty Fly,” Fleetfoot argued while pointing towards Misty as she beat Lightning over the head with the banana he had between his legs moments ago. “No excuses, Hot Stuff, time to let loose.”

But regardless, Descent still resisted, bracing himself against the bottom of the pool.

Fleetfoot eventually stopped and let go of him, making a hoof motion for Dash and Dust to stop by swiping a hoof across her neck.

“Okay, how about this?” she suddenly sounded serious, catching Descent’s attention. “You know who’s over there right now? There’s at least one Wonderbolt I bet you want to go have fun with.”

Descent just stared, but then his eyes widened slightly. Dash caught on too, biting her lower lip and holding her breath. She’d let Fleetfoot handle this.

“Yeah that’s right, you know who I’m talking about,” Fleetfoot crossed her arms and tipped her head. “Dont’cha, daddy?”

“Oh…” Lightning Dust perked up as she scanned the crowd and saw Storm among the Wonderbolts gathering around and putting together teams for water basketball on the other side of the pool.

“Your son’s right over there, he’s having fun,” Fleetfoot made a head motion towards the group. “Never had a chance to do family stuff? Well, now’s your chance.”

Descent kept staring towards storm, his face twitching uncomfortably. He blew air through his nostrils and glanced down.

“I… suppose…”

“Great!” Fleetfoot cheered happily. “C’mon! Let’s go!”

“Hey! Stop pulling me!” Descent growled as Fleetfoot and Dust started pulling him along. Dash stayed behind, seeking out her inner tube to bring over and watch. But she only moved it a few inches before she stopped and stared.

“Ah forget it…” Dash smirked. Pushing the tube aside and breaking into a full swim to get over and join. She’d just be careful.

“Hey guys!” Fleetfoot yelled as she drew near. “We got another player!”

Descent stiffened as several Wonderbolts looked in his direction.

“Whoaaaa, hey! Now we’re talkin’!” Air Mach yelled out, coming by and jabbing Descent on the arm.

Descent blinked and stared blankly as the general greeting he got was pretty much similar to Air Mach.

They all just… went with it.

“Dad!” Storm yelled as he waded over, quickly catching Descent’s attention as Fleetfoot to team up. “You’re gonna play with us?”

“I… yes,” Descent answered calmly, still not sure how to act. But Storm barely seemed to care, he looked extremely happy and excited to see him out there.

“Hey! My dad’s on our team!” Storm explained as he pulled Descent over to Macho Savage, Air Mach, and Lead Runner.

“We get the mercenary? NOICE!” Air Mach clapped his hooves together. “Hear that Savage? We’re about to kick some major ass!”

“Oh YEAAAAAAAAAH! The Madness is REAL!” Macho shouted and flexed hard.

Descent lifted an eyebrow as the two hooted and hollered.

“Don’t worry, hun,” Lead Runner slid up beside him. “This is perfectly normal!” he said with a wink as Descent slowly tipped away from them.

“The plan is to use them as bait,” Storm whispered to Descent with a snicker. “They make good distractions, we’ll be scoring hoops easy.”

“What… exactly are we playing again?” Descent asked.

“Basketball,” Storm nodded with a smile. Descent stared blankly.

“Er…”

“Oh dear, daddy doesn’t get out much, does he?” Lead Runner hummed.

“Doesn’t matter if ya don’t know the game!” Macho trudged over and kissed his arm. “So long as the BEAT GOES ON! YEAH!” he posed without actually explaining anything.

“It’s a five on five game where we pass this ball around and try to throw it through one of those hoops,” Storm quickly explained, seeming to completely disregard that Descent had no idea what basketball was.

“Hm, easy enough.”

“Whose ass we kickin’ first?!” Air Mach exclaimed as they all moved towards the others.

“Y’ain’t kicking it!” Lightning came forward with Blaze, High Winds, and two other Wonderbolt stallions. “You’ll be kissing it when we’re done with you!” Lightning turned his flank towards them and spanked his plot.

“Reeeeeeally, eh?” Air Mach tipped his glasses down and bounced his eyebrows towards Blaze and High Winds.

“His fucking ass, not mine!” Blaze angrily pointed at Lightning and did a quick take at Winds before clutching her around the neck. “And only I’m allowed to kiss hers! Back the fuck off!”

“Promises, promises…” High Winds said sleepily as Blaze tightened her grip on her.

Descent remained silent, his lips and eyelids twitching.

“You okay, Dad?” Storm asked with a chuckle as they moved towards one of the hoops.

“This is… normal?” he asked weakly as Lightning and Air Mach continued to jawbone one another. Storm looked out to see Blaze hissing like a cat at Air Mach as he bounced his eyebrows at her and High Winds again while puckering his lips.

“More than you’d think,” Storm shrugged. “C’mon, get over here.”

“I…” Descent’s eyes darted back and forth, noticing that he had his back to the basket. “I thought we had to get the ball in the hoop?”

“We’re on defense,” Storm pointed at Lightning holding the ball with his team all facing the hoop. “We gotta get the ball back first.”

“Oh. I can do that,” Descent nodded, his gaze sharpening and cracking his hooves as Lightning’s team started coming towards them. Storm blinked as Descent started rushing through the water towards Lightning. Lightning saw Descent coming and turned his body, holding the ball away.

“Oh, wait, Dad!” Storm gritted his teeth. “You can’t—”

“OOF!” Lightning grunted loudly as Descent punched him right in the gut. Lightning exhaled and fell face first into the water while dropping the ball.

Everypony froze as Descent reached over and grabbed the ball. He turned and launched it at the hoop, throwing it way too hard and causing it just to bounce roughly off the backboard back into the water.

“Hm, a bit too hard…” Descent said to himself, but then blinked and froze when he saw everypony frozen and staring at him… except for Blaze, who was laughing her ass off.

“Bro… for real…?” Lightning gasped as he rose from the water, clutching his stomach.

“What?” Descent asked, completely oblivious.

“It’s a game, dude… not a death match…”

Descent tipped his head to the side curiously, quickly looking back at Storm to see him wincing a little.

“Buddy!” Air Mach reached over and pulled Descent aside. “Pal!” he added hooking an arm over Descent’s shoulders, causing him to recline in disgust. “I like your moxie! But, hey… let’s not kill the other team, got it?”

“More rules…?” Descent asked, scrunching his face.

“Yeah, uh… Dad…” Storm chuckled as he came over. “That was a little too much. Aggressive defense is good, but… you don’t have to, like, attack them. Just get in their way.”

“Hey, hey…” Lightning caught his breath and grabbed the ball. “A little full contact makes this more fun, but… just do it without the punching and kicking.”

“Yeah,” Air Mach nodded. “So more like… THIS!” He suddenly lunged at Lightning and tackled him.

“WHOA, SHIT!” Lighting started keeling over. “Lesbo 2! Go long!” he yelled, chucking the ball in High Winds’ direction. She leapt up and caught the ball, but Lead Runner shifted over and reached up, curling his arm around hers as she came down with it.

“Give it here, hun bun!” he cooed, but Blaze grabbed him around the chest.

“OFF!” Blaze demanded, pulling Lead Runner off of Winds.

“I got this…” High Winds turned and shifted forward a little before aiming at the hoop. With both hooves on the ball, she shot it towards the hoop. But the moment it left her hoof, Macho Savage leapt in and swatted it away.

“TOWER OF POWER!” he yelled as he dove at the ball and snatched it out of the water. “TOO SWEET TO BE SOUR!” he chanted as he flung it back out towards Air Mach.

“Woo! Good work Savage!” he turned his back as Lightning tried to grab it, throwing his wings out to push him off.

“Like that,” Storm pointed as Descent stared.

“I see… so…”

“You can get rough, just don’t kill anypony,” Storm smiled. “Just have fun.”

“Alright…” Descent flattened his brow and snorted. “I’ll try.”

“C’mon, let’s get in the fray!” Storm laughed as he dragged Descent in to join the game.

The game continued without any more… incidents. Descent seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly, keeping in mind that he could get physical as long as it was in more of a playful manner and not the hard-knocks combat he was used to.

After a few chances on both offense and defense he had gotten down, passing, shooting, and defending with the rest of them. He loosened up too, the competition helping him relax as he played the game with the Wonderbolts. Soon, he was throwing a little shade of his own, jawboning a little with the opposing team and exchanging hoof bumps with Storm and his other teammates as they executed good plays. The sight of Storm having fun also seemed to put him at ease. If Storm was enjoying having him there with them, then it was worth it to him.

“Take the shot! Take it!” Lightning goaded Descent. Descent was squared up, quite a distance from the basket. “C’mon tough guy! Make it rain from downtown! You won’t do it!” he waved his arms up and down, splashing the water.

Descent glanced to his left and quickly whipped the ball towards Storm, moving closer to the basket.

“Aw, I knew you didn’t have the—” Lightning started taunting as he backed off, but Storm caught the ball and instantly launched it right back to Descent. “Whoa!” Lightning tried to stop himself, but he was falling back.

Descent locked his eyes on the basket, and put a soft touch on it as he shot the ball with a high arc. The ball seamlessly swished through the net.

“Care to finish that statement?” Descent said with a smirk as Lightning just stared with his jaw open.

“THAT’S GAME! HELL YEAH!” Air Mach cheered and made his way over to Blaze and High Winds. “Alright ladies, pucker up!” he taunted while turning his plot towards them and wiggling it.

“Ew! Fuck off!” Blaze yelled.

But High Winds, instead of saying anything, grabbed air Mach by the tail and simultaneously yanked him down while thrusting a leg up… RIGHT between his legs.

A group wide flinch followed by a long drawn out ‘oooooooooooooo…’ rang out. Every stallion both shuddered and covered themselves as Air Mach’s voice screeched several octaves higher. He keeled over, and floated face down on the surface of the water, bubbles and a waterlogged scream coming from near his head.

“Aw, did my leg kiss too hard?” High Winds pressed her hoof over his head and forced him down into the water, his body sinking with it. Once the initial shock faded, it all fell into laughter, every one of them getting a chuckle out of it as Air Mach felt the pain he brought upon himself.

Storm glanced towards Descent, a wide grin growing on his face as he saw his father laughing along with the rest of them. Descent was having fun… and he got to spend time with his dad. Storm didn’t know how much he needed it, and apparently Descent didn’t know either.

But as the Wonderbolts dispersed to take a quick breather, Descent suddenly froze, his eyes grew wide and he exhaled as if he had lost all his breath. Without a word, Descent turned his back and started baking his way towards the edge of the pool.

“Dad?” Storm called to him, but Descent kept going. Storm quickly followed behind, catching up as Descent reached the poolside, turned, and rested his back against the wall, and slumped a little, staring down at his distorted reflection in the water. “Dad! What’s up?” Storm asked as he caught up and looked Descent over carefully. “You okay?”

“I don’t know…” Descent quietly replied as he pressed a hoof to his chest. Storm tipped his head curiously. He knew there was no way Descent had overexerted himself playing a game of water basketball. “I guess… It just…” he suddenly spoke again, pausing for a moment. “Caught me off guard.”

“The game?” Storm asked, still confused.

“Not just the game… them,” Descent looked up towards the Wonderbolts. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I’m not sure how it makes me feel. It feels good, but… for some reason I feel bad too.”

Storm tried to wade through the words coming out of Descent’s mouth, but he eventually felt like he was thinking too hard.

“It sounds like you had a good time, Dad. That’s all.”

“Really?” Descent grunted, furrowing his brow. “Is it really that simple?” he asked aloud as he stared towards the Wonderbolts again. “Has my life really been so devoid of joy? All I did was play a game with some acquaintances… They welcomed me like I had been there all along… why does that feel so odd to me? Should it?”

Storm smiled weakly, turning and planting his back against the wall next to Descent.

“Welcome to normal life, Dad,” Storm said while giving him a nudge.

Descent stared at him for a short while before looking back at the Wonderbolts, slowly shaking his head.

“So this is… fun. This is the kind of thing you experience every day with them…”

“Yep,” Storm nodded. Descent released a long, drawn out sigh.

“I always throw around the word ‘family’ to describe the Shadowbolts, but… it looks like I really don’t know what the word means beyond being comrades in arms.”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t sell yourself short like that,” Storm jabbed Descent in the shoulder. “That’s just as much a part of it. You care about the Shadowbolts right?”

“They are everything to me… the only thing really,” Descent said without hesitation.

“Then you do understand it, this…” Storm motioned out towards the Wonderbolts, pausing as several silly interactions caught their eye. “Is just a part of it you’re not used to.” Storm smiled. “And I’m glad I got to watch you experience it for the first time… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile like that before. After all you’ve done for me, it feels good to help you for a change.”

Descent looked at Storm and slowly cracked a smile, reaching up and ruffling Storm’s mane without saying anything else. But as he turned back, his eyes landed on the family he saw earlier. They were enjoying themselves at the poolside, the two fillies being held up in the water with foam bubbles as the mother and father splashed along with them. His smile faded and he sighed.

“I’m sorry that I could never give you a normal life and childhood…” he suddenly said. Storm blinked in surprise before following Descent’s eyes over to the family. The two of them sat silently and watched as the family laughed and played. Storm slowly glanced towards Descent, noticing a subtle look of regret in his eyes.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Storm assured him, returning his eyes to the family. “I know that Mom never accepted things… or you and me.”

“Which is partially my fault too,” Descent cut in, but Storm quickly continued.

“I don’t think it would have made a difference if you were there, really,” Storm admitted, but he quickly reached out when he saw Descent flinch. “Hey, hey, but… look… circumstances aside, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if the two of you never ran into each other. And regardless of how she treated it all, you did your best to come and see me, take time to be with me and make sure I turned out alright even though you never had a father figure to do the same for you. That says something about you, whether you realize it or not, especially for me as your son.”

Descent stared at Storm, looking into his eyes quietly as he spoke.

“Don’t let Mom bring you down. The two of you made your choices when it came to me. Which one do you think left an impression?”

Descent’s eyes widened a little as Storm shook his head.

“I’m not going to suddenly ask the two of you to kiss and make up and come home and get along. I know that’s never gonna happen. But you didn’t screw up. You couldn’t have been better to me.”

“Hmmm…” Descent hummed, letting his head tip a little as his lips curled into a smile. “Thanks… I needed to hear that.”

They both leaned back, relaxing as some hustle and bustle among the Wonderbolts carried out. It looked like new teams were being drawn for the next round of games, but there was a bit of a silly tug of war going on between team captains.

Storm lifted his neck slightly, seeing Fleetfoot get out of the pool and trot off somewhere, but the moment he looked back towards the Wonderbolts, his eyes locked with Rainbow Dash’s.

She had stopped while wading around to help pick teams and stared at Storm for a moment. Storm stiffened, gritting his teeth. Descent perked up, noticing the two of them, and catching a brief glare from Dash before she sharply turned and moved elsewhere.

Storm released a heavy sigh and sank into the water until it was at his chin.

“Alright,” Descent huffed. “Could you explain what’s going on between the two of you?”

“Huh?” Storm blinked, glancing up at him weakly.

“She did the same thing to you earlier, I saw it,” Descent explained. “Why?”

“She’s still angry at me for ratting her out to Spitfire,” Storm explained. “She’s been giving me the cold shoulder for the past two weeks.”

“The past two…?!” Descent started, his ears standing up before trailing off and flattening his brow as he searched the crowd for Rainbow Dash. “Hold on, has she said why?”

“No… I mean, I don’t think she has to?” Storm rubbed the back of his head. “I’m guessing it’s just because I ‘double-crossed’ her or something but…”

“But…?”

“I don’t know,” Storm sighed. “I mean, what was I supposed to do?” he asked, sounding frustrated. “It’s not like I told on her out of spite. I thought what she was doing was wrong and felt my involvement would jeopardize what I had earned! And… I mean, come on. It ended up working in her favor anyway!” Storm just started rambling. “I don’t know, I just hate this. I’ve tried to apologize but she won’t have it. Matteo and Squall keep glaring at me too. None of them were in my hooves there, how could they know how I felt?”

“Enough,” Descent placed a hoof over Storm’s head. “You did what you felt was right, yes?”

“Yeah…” Storm huffed. Descent growled as he found Dash in the crowd again.

“And despite that she’s…” he scrunched his face up. “And Spitfire…” he scrunched his face up more. “Of all the…”

“Dad?” Storm lifted an eyebrow as Descent snorted.

“Let me handle this,” Descent nodded firmly.

“No, Dad, I can—”

“No. This isn’t something she can hear from you. If she’s going to act this way when something is blatantly right in front of her, then I’ll give her something to ponder.”

“Hrm…” Storm hummed as he sat back up in the water, staring towards Dash.

“Come on,” Descent pushed off the wall and grabbed Storm by the shoulder. “Don’t think about her for now. I’ll take care of her next chance I get. For now let’s go rejoin the game. Who knows when we’ll be able to do this again?”

Storm smiled weakly, doing his best to push Dash from his mind as the two made their way back over.

“Hurf… Come on…” Wave Chill grimaced, his arms trembling. “Come on… come on!” he grunted as he slowly pushed up the dumbbells. “Dammit!” he yelled as he failed to get to the top of the rep and let his arms fall, tipping the dumbbells aside and letting them thump against the rubber floor mat. He sat up, huffing and puffing with sweat dripping down his face.

He hunched over as he caught his breath, grabbing a towel beside him and wiping his face with it before tossing it aside in frustration. He slowly looked up into the mirror on the wall, staring at himself as his chest heaved in and out.

“This is…” he glanced down at the sixty pound dumbbells. “That was so hard… rgh…” he grumbled as he looked down at his hooves and squeezed them. “Come on!” he stood up and started pacing around, rotating his shoulders and cracking his neck. “That was only sixty!” he whipped his head around. “Four reps? Really?” He huffed and sat back down on the bench he exhaled loudly, rubbing his hooves to his temples. “Settle down… settle down… relax… you were out for a while… just…”

He glared down at the dumbbells. With a loud hissing breath he reached back down and hoisted them up, tipping back on the bench again.

“Come on!” he repeated, gritting his teeth and taking a heavy breath as he went for another set.

As he struggled, Spitfire quietly placed a hoof on the doorframe on the other side of the empty fitness center. She peeked out, watching Wave in between all the equipment strewn about, tipping her head curiously as he pushed out three reps before failing to get through the fourth. He let the weights drop out of his hooves and just laid on his back, his arms dangling down at his sides.

“Shit…” Wave said quietly as he stared up at the ceiling, his eyes fixed on the large fans overhead. “This is terrible…”

Spitfire put a hoof to her lips as she slowly pieced together what she was seeing. Why had he come here? Of all the places to go first at a fancy resort… he came to the gym?

Was he… testing himself? He had been out of commission for quite a while, after all.

“Damn!” Wave sat up quickly and started pacing around again for a few moments. Eventually he left the bench behind without putting the weights away and made his way over to a punching bag hanging near the stretching mat. He cracked his hooves and stood on his hind legs, giving it a few light punches before turning up the heat and boxing it at a high pace.

Spitfire hummed quietly to herself and furrowed her brow as she watched him exert himself. His pace didn’t last very long, his punches slowing down and his breaths becoming heavy quickly. But regardless he kept on, gritting his teeth and pushing on as sweat dripped from his face.

She wanted to rush in and tell him to stop. She told him before they left that she wanted him to take it easy… and that was just referring to any shenanigans. Yet here he was pushing himself in the gym.

But at the same time Spitfire began to wonder what his motives here were. Wave was, if nothing else, very dedicated and dutiful. She would confidently wager that he was less interested in relaxing and more interested in making sure he was still fit for duty. He didn’t take part in anything the rest of them had been put through upon reaching the empire, nor a good chunk of the action that got them there, so she could see how his mind was elsewhere compared to them.

But the frustration was clear and present. It was somewhat hard to watch him struggle.

“Haaaaa…” Wave’s hoof slipped off the punching bag and slumped down at his side. He wobbled backwards onto the large stretching mat and fell right to his plot, sitting down and hunching over as he caught his breath.

That was all she could take.

Spitfire stepped into the gym, making her way around the equipment. The rubber, cushioned floor mostly masked the noise of her hooves and Wave’s heavy panting likely made it impossible to hear her coming.

She reached the edge of the mat and stopped, staring at the back of his head as he heaved and grumbled to himself.

“Hey.”

Wave flinched and his ears stood up, quickly looking over his shoulder to see Spitfire standing right behind him. Though the look in his eyes hurt her… not personally, just… he looked angry. If what she just saw was any indication, he was angry with himself.

“Captain…” Wave said weakly as his ears flopped down. Spitfire gave him a pout. “Er… Spitfire, sorry…” he sighed, turning his head back and shaking it slowly. “Great… You’ve been here for a while, haven’t you?” he asked as he continued to breathe heavily.

“I…” Spitfire hesitated.

“What a subpar display for a top tier Wonderbolt…”

“Whoa, whoa, okay…” Spitfire walked around and sat down in front of him. “Stop that while you’re ahead.”

“Am I wrong…?” Wave asked, looking up at her with a flat expression. Spitfire returned the flat look, but refused to answer the question.

“This is a weird place to go first when we’ve got a whole resort to make use of,” she tried to shift the subject. Wave clearly noticed, but didn’t retort. He just sighed and looked away. “Are you gauging yourself?” she asked. She got no response, and wasn’t happy about it. “Wave, come on. It’s me,” she said in a slightly sharp tone. “It’s not like you to be like this.”

“Yeah… I was,” he said with a huff. “I’m…” he looked at himself in the mirror. “Further behind than I thought I’d be. It’s very discouraging,” he explained, clearly reluctant to do so. He glanced towards the dumbbells. “I mean… come on, I may not be the powerhouse commander Soarin is, but I know I’m strong enough to rep out sixties. I could barely get through four,” he shook his head and took a deep breath. “And I’m so winded already… I haven’t been in here long.”

He suddenly stood up and moved towards the mirror, standing right in front of it as Spitfire stood up as well. He examined himself closely, looking over his body and turning to view his arms, legs, and side. Spitfire made her way forward, standing beside him.

“And how much weight have I lost?” Wave groaned. “I’ve lost so much strength and muscle…” he made a nonchalant hoof motion towards her. “Hell, you look bigger than me right now…”

“Wave!” Spitfire caught his arm and clenched it. “Enough!” she demanded, giving him a worried look. His eyes widened when he saw her eyes and he looked away. “Why are you acting like any of it’s your fault? You spent weeks on a bed, infected by a condition that had you effectively immobilized and in constant pain, and were barely able to be fed anything that would help you maintain yourself as we worked to save you!”

Wave gritted his teeth, slowly sitting down as Spitfire held onto his arm.

“You think this suddenly takes away a rank or respect that you earned? I sure as hell didn’t think you would be in top shape right off the bat…” she gently placed his arm down. “You’ll get back to where you were, I believe it.”

“Will I, though…?” Wave suddenly asked, his voice rasping a little from his heavy breaths. Spitfire pulled back slightly and blinked, not sure what he meant. “It took me a very long time to get to where I was… If it were you, there’d be no doubt, but not all of us are as genetically gifted as you.” He motioned to her body again. “For most of us it took years of training to crawl our way to our strength and ability… and maintaining it through constant training and diet was key. I started working my butt off when I was a teenager… I’m hardly as young as I used to be, can I really get back to where I was? This decrease is… alarming.”

He looked up and was surprised to see Spitfire holding a very incredulous blank stare.

“Not young?” she repeated, tipping her brow. “Wave, seriously? Who are you, Silver? You’re twenty-six!” she threw her arms out. “Well within your prime! And you’re a stallion! You’ve got plenty of hormones still flowing to build up strength and muscle!”

“Okay, maybe that was a bit dramatic,” Wave admitted, glancing away from her. “But it’s still… disheartening…” he hummed to himself as he clenched and relaxed a hoof. “I put a lot of work in to get where I was, to see a lot of it disappear hurts…”

Spitfire looked him over carefully, listening closely to the tone of his voice. Wave wasn’t one to exude pride or stubbornness like several other stallions in the force, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. She could tell this was personal for him. After all, a Wonderbolt’s body was like a temple. Sharp, refined, well taken care of, and routinely maintained for peak performance. For a Wonderbolt with Wave’s success and position, it had to sting to see some of that lost.

But was it all really lost?

“Here,” Spitfire suddenly stood up, making hoof motions.

“Huh?” Wave blinked.

“Up, come on,” she ordered as she kept rotating her arm. “On your hooves.”

Wave stared for a moment, but quickly did as he was told. He stood up and faced Spitfire as she shook her body out, cracked her wrists and neck, and took a few breaths.

“Come at me.” She beckoned, taking a slightly lowered stance.

“And do… what?” Wave asked curiously. Spitfire instantly snorted and her stance weakened for a second and she chuckled.

“Spar, you dope. Come on, give me your best!”

Wave didn’t say anything, in fact he just stood still, hesitating to do anything. Spitfire flattened her brow.

“You came here to test yourself out, didn’t you? What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Give me your best shot!”

Wave swallowed and eventually nodded. Spitfire found it strange that he didn’t say a word, but it didn’t matter to her. He bent forward slightly into his own ready stance, signaling that he was complying.

Wave rushed forward, bringing up his hooves. Spitfire kept her eyes planted to his chest, looking to read his movements, but… she didn’t have to. He projected his attack so blatantly that she knew where he was going a full second before he threw the punch. She shifted aside and caught Wave by the arm, holding him in place. He didn’t throw another attack.

“Really?” Spitfire lifted her brow at him. Wave sighed.

“I told you… I’ve lost a lot,” he said as his ears fell.

“No,” Spitfire clenched his arm tightly. “Bullshit.” She furrowed her brow. “There’s a difference between being rusty and holding back.”

Wave’s eyes widened.

“You didn’t want to hit me,” Spitfire called him out and shook her head. “Better get serious, Wave. Because I am!” she suddenly yanked him forward, turning her back and heaved him right over her shoulder, slamming him to the soft mat.

“OOF!” he grunted, his back arching slightly as it smacked uncomfortably to the mat.

“UP!” Spitfire yanked him back up, letting go of him as he stumbled a few steps back. “Throw another weenie punch at me and I won’t aim for the mat next time!”

Wave rubbed the back of his neck, staring at Spitfire with wide eyes. But it seemed her point had been driven home. He exhaled, and wiggled his arms out before placing them back on the ground and locking a glare on her.

“Fine… here I come!” he shouted, a competitive tone in his voice as he rushed forward again.

Spitfire smiled as she examined his form and movements. He was coming at her faster and he didn’t project anything outright. In fact, he wasn’t throwing a punch at all, he charged right into her, the two grappling as they clashed. Spitfire’s hooves skidded a little, but she quickly stopped them both in place. Wave pushed off and began throwing quick jabs. Spitfire went fully defensive, brushing and knocking aside his punches. Her eyes darted about as she kept track of his movements. She had no problem doing so, but… he wasn’t making it easy. She knew his abilities well, as she did the rest of the bolts, but while there was a clear decrease in the power behind his attacks… his technique wasn’t showing any wear.

She grinned subtly as Waved pressed his attack, keeping her on the tips of her hooves as she did her best to control the movements, keeping them near the mats and away from other equipment. As it went on, Wave started to tire rather quickly. While she was barely breaking a sweat, he was panting fairly hard about a minute in.

So she decided to end it.

As Wave threw another punch, she purposely dropped her guard and braced herself. Wave’s hoof caught her right in the cheek. She grunted and stumbled backwards, but kept her hooves.

“Ah!” Wave immediately dropped his stance. “I’m sorry! I—”

“Gotcha!” Spitfire lunged forward and tackled Wave around the waist, throwing them both onto the stretching mat. As soon as they hit, Spitfire rolled and shifted her arms about, locking his arms behind his body and her legs around his, effectively pinning him in place.

“Ow… ow… ow…” he quietly uttered as he was stuck in the uncomfortable position. “You win… uncle…” he surrendered, even though she wasn’t waiting for it. Spitfire burst out laughing, releasing him as she rolled onto her back and kicked her legs.

“Wave, wow…” she kept giggling as she sat upright. “I can’t believe how quickly you folded up… I’ve been hit in the face before, you know.”

Wave sat up and pouted.

“Is it hard to believe I didn’t want to punch you in the face?” he asked.

“You’re such a sap,” Spitfire nudged him playfully. “But listen up and listen well,” she suddenly pointed sharply at him. “That was good.”

“It… was?” Wave blinked.

“You may have lost a little strength and endurance, but guess what?” She winked. “You haven’t lost a step technique-wise.”

Wave stared at her for a moment before looking down and shrugging.

“Well, I…” he smiled weakly. “I guess that counts for something, huh? Ahhhhhhhhhh…” he suddenly hunched forward, shuddering as he grabbed at his shoulder and neck.

“Wave?” Spitfire quickly leaned towards him.

“Ow…” he cringed. “Just… a stinger…”

“Oooo… I guess I did a bit much…?” Spitfire looked away awkwardly.

“No this… ah…” wave leaned back, lifting and dropping his shoulders. “This is just stiffness, I’ve been feeling it here and there since I was cured. How long was I in bed again?” he asked in jest as he rubbed his neck again.

“Where?” Spitfire shifted, moving herself behind him and gently placing her hooves on his back.

“Uh… Up around my neck and shoulders is the worst, there are some otherrrrrrrooooooooooo…” Wave suddenly shuddered as Spitfire began gently kneading her hooves around the base of his neck and traps. “Oooo… ah… oh…” he twitched a little.

“Right there?” Spitfire asked, snickering a little as Wave reacted to her touch.

“Yes, that… ahhhhhhh…” Wave shivered. “Not too hard, just…”

Spitfire softened her touch as she felt around the knots.

“Yes… perfect… haaaa…” Wave confirmed as he tipped forward slightly. “That feels good.”

“Where else?” Spitfire asked as she kept rolling her hooves into his shoulders.

“Around the wings…”

“Here?” She slid her hooves down to the base of his wings and felt around.

“Yeah, all around them… ooo…”

Spitfire chuckled as Wave continued to melt in her hooves.

“Wave… I don’t think you’re as far behind as you think. If you’re this stiff all over…” she said as she continued to massage his wing joints. “You could still be recovering.”

“I’d believe you, but…” Wave sighed. “It’s hard not to notice the muscle loss.”

“Wave, again,” Spitfire briefly stopped and gave him a soft pat on the head. “You are a stallion, and young. You’ll work that back before you know it. Everything else too.” She reassured him as she went back to massaging.

“I guess I’m more worried about the short run,” Wave said while shaking his head. “It’s not like I have all the time in the world, right? We could be back in combat at a moment’s notice…”

Spitfire perked up, her arms pausing as something hit her.

“Oh… OH!” she exclaimed. Wave glanced back at her, confused.

“What?” he asked.

“This is… oh, this is perfect!” she clapped her hooves together.

“Should I be worried?” Wave blinked awkwardly.

“No, not at all, in fact… well, let me explain,” she smiled as she put her hooves back on his body and kept kneading her hooves around. “It’s ironic that you mentioned a lack of time to train… because I’m in the middle of working on something that… if I’m right… might give us a way to significantly improve ourselves physically over a short amount of time.”

Wave stared.

“Pardon?” he lifted an eyebrow.

“I know, I know,” spitfire nodded. “It sounds too good to be true but… I may have found a way to make that a reality… within limits. I just need to run a few experiments after our week here at the resort before I consider it for the force, and…” she squeezed his shoulder. “I want you to help me see if it really works.”

“Now should I feel worried?” Wave chuckled.

“Not at all, in fact, if I’m right… and I really hope I am… we could get you right back to where you were and maybe even stronger, really quickly!”

“It does sound too good to be true…” Wave sighed, but shrugged. “But… if you say so.”

“It won’t just be you,” Spitfire let up on the massage and shifted around so they were facing one another. “I plan to test it on myself and Fleetfoot too,” she assured him. “It was just going to be Fleet and me at first, but… you’re now the perfect test subject. Plus, you’re a stallion…” she poked him in the chest. “I need an accurate idea of how it works for both genders considering physical, structural, recovery, and overall muscular differences.”

Wave blinked and looked her up and down.

“Why bring Fleet then if you’re doing it?” he asked with a slight smirk. Spitfire lifted her brow smugly.

“Because I don’t trust my body to give an accurate result. I put on muscle faster than some of the stallions do, come on. Blah blah blah, freak of nature and all that, yeah? I’ve heard that one a few times,” she stuck her tongue out at him. “She’s tiny and sleek. I can’t think of any other mare we have that’ll show more visible results. If we see it work on her and…” she poked him in the chest. “We slap everything you lost right back on you, then we might just have a one way ticket to catching the Shadowbolts completely off-guard next time we see them.” She finished with a nod.

Wave didn’t say anything for a moment, but slowly smiled and looked her up and down.

“You looking at something…?” Spitfire smirked.

“Hmm… maybe…” Wave chuckled. “Sorry about moping,” he leaned back a little. “I didn’t doubt you when you promised to cure me and you came through. So… I guess I'm confident this idea of yours will work and I’m already over it.”

Spitfire’s smirk grew slightly as she leaned closer to him.

“You didn’t answer my question…” she hummed as she scooted herself up to him. Wave’s eyelids twitched for a second as he caught her vibes. He leaned forward and blatantly ran his eyes up and down her body.

“Just admiring the ‘freak genetics,’” he joked. Spitfire’s lips parted, revealing a grin.

“Here, take a closer look.” She closed the remaining space between them and rested her arms over the front of his shoulders. The two tipped over, Wave gently rolling onto his back as Spitfire lay on top of him.

“This sure took a turn…” Wave snickered as Spitfire bit her lip. “I should get down on myself more often if it ends with you on top of me.”

“Well? Don’t keep the ‘freak genetics’ waiting,” she said slyly as she traced a circle on his chest.

Wave waited no longer, sliding his hooves down back, down her flank, then back up her hips and over her waist. She shivered at his touch, releasing a quiet moan that was muffled by her teeth biting harder on her lip.

“I can’t tell which one of us needs this more,” Wave joked as he felt Spitfire’s body twitch against his. He flinched as she suddenly reached forward and grabbed his face.

“ME.” Spitfire pulled his head towards her as she dipped down and kissed him very hard, lips parting instantly as she forced her tongue into his mouth.

Wave let out a muffled chuckle as he slid his hoof behind her head and went with it. He sure as hell wasn’t going to stop her.

But after a moment, Spitfire suddenly perked up, pushed her hooves to the mat and bent upward, looking around frantically as she remained straddled over Wave’s waist.

“Spitfire?” Wave blinked, slightly disappointed.

“Phew, I…” Spitfire sighed in relief. “I almost forgot that we’re in a public area… nopony is here though, thank god…”

“Oh… right,” Wave snickered. “Probably should… do this somewhere more private, shouldn’t we?”

“Well,” Spitfire lowered herself back down to him. “For the moment… we’re alone… So we can still enjoy ourselves… a little bit.”

“Until Fleetfoot suddenly appears and ruins it, right?” Wave joked. Spitfire giggled.

“Shhhh, don’t say that or it will happen!” she joked, her eyes slowly sharpening back into the bedroom variety. “Hmmm, but let’s stay here a few more minutes… then you should come out and join the fun.”

“I’m okay with that…” Wave smiled as Spitfire leaned back down and the two locked lips again.

Neither were aware enough to notice the gym entrance open and close VERY subtly.

Fleetfoot slid against the wall just outside the gym doors. She sat down, put a hoof to her chest, and breathed out.

“Hoooooooooo, that was too close!” she said to herself in a hushed tone as she wiped sweat from her brow. But after a moment of rest she squeakily giggled and gently tapped her hooves together. “Celestia alive, they are SO… HORNY…” she snickered to herself. “This is going to be easy!” she cooed as she rubbed her hooves together.

She stood up and started trotting back towards the pool.

“Wonder what ‘experiment’ she was talking about though…”

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Man it feels good to write this kind of thing again. :eeyup: Lots of fun, silly, and some heated moments! And a couple of things set into motion as we go here :moustache:

Looks like Dash is goign to have more trouble with the new power than she thought... not that it was a BAD thing, but thats gotta be embarrassing :rainbowderp: And Dash, you wanted Twister back, so you get what's coming to you :pinkiecrazy:

For those who may not have understood the reference, Twister's sailor scene and the quotes are a reference to Moby Dick, a famous piece of classic literature written by Herman Melville. It's a story told from the view of a sailor named Ishmael about Captain Ahab, a man who has an insane obsession with hunting down a white whale who bit off his leg. But the second part when Heavy Metal music plays and Twister starts yelling is a reference to "Blood and Thunder" by Mastadon, a heavy metal piece inspired by the novel. And Twister's appearance in the picture is based on a frame from a VERY OLD comic (I first saw about 15 years ago in high school). This frame specifically:

I'd post the whole comic, but its graphic at the end. If you want to see it just look up "Mastodon blood and thunder comic" in google and you'll find it easily.

Ahhhh Descent... welcome to the Wonderbolts, enjoy your stay! :rainbowlaugh: Though you have to feel for the guy, living his life so seriously that just having a good time feels weird to him? What better group to help him out with this than the Bolts? Maybe he'll learn a thing or two... and get to spend some time with his son while he's at it.

The picture featuring Descent and Lightning Streak was half inspired by a commonly seen stillframe from the anime Kill-la-kill:

But obviously with Lightning Streak Shenanigans in place of the other character. Kill-la-kill was made by the same creators who made Gurren Lagann, whom Air Mach and Lead Runner are references to.

Poor Wave Chill... while its not surprising that he's a little behind, anyone who's ever worked hard on physical improvement will know what he's going through hurts. But it looks like Spitfire has found a perfect subject for the Male side of her 'experiment'. This is the second time she's brought it up, the other time to Dash, though it looks like she's doing some trial runs first before getting the rest involved.

In the mean time... go on you two, we all know you NEED it! :ajsmug:

And is Fleetfoot ever the instigator or what? :rainbowlaugh:

Apologies for this one taking longer, obviously it ended up being longer, but i have specific 'blocks' of things happening while they are here at the resort and they need to stay together. There's more fun, drama, and heated moment on the way! :pinkiecrazy:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

Chapter 190: The (More) Power(ful) Flyer, Part 1

MLP: FiM
Piercing the Heavens
By: Calm Wind

Chapter 190: The (More) Power(ful) Flyer, Part 1

“So we’ll have to start from scratch?” Luna asked, a look of concern on her face.

“No, I don’t believe so,” Fancy Pants shook his head. “Soarin is a capable stallion. I believe the basics I’ve already taught him will apply. The real question will be the adjustment of the approach. I cannot say I’m familiar with… the magic of a god.”

“As you shouldn’t be,” Discord huffed, his back turned. Fancy glanced at Discord and cocked an eyebrow.

“You’ve been quite welcoming since I’ve arrived,” Fancy said sarcastically. “For a god of mischief and chaos, you do seem quite tense.”

Discord glared over his shoulder, but before he could say anything, Luna stepped in.

“Ignore him,” she opened a wing to block Fancy’s view. “We are confident in your ability to help.”

“Hmm…” Fancy tipped his head to glance past her wing, looking Discord over carefully as he grumbled. “Much appreciated, there’s just a few other things I’d like to know before I consider how to handle this…”

The conversation continued off towards the entrance of the chamber. In the center, Rainbow Dash was watching from afar, sitting beside Soarin.

“Getting a little déjà vu from this, huh?” she asked, giving Soarin a little nudge as she leaned back into his arm.

“You could say that,” Soarin agreed. “But if he’s here to help with the magic situation, I’m all for it.”

“To whom are they speaking?” Sombra’s voice chimed in, Soarin’s eyes flashing blue.

“That’s Fancy Pants,” Soarin answered without hesitation, completely used to somepony else’s voice in his head at this point. Sombra said nothing for a moment.

“Fitting name, if…” Sombra trailed off.

“If?”

“I’m unfamiliar with his particular choice of attire, but I’ll assume my sense of style is a bit…”

“Outdated?” Soarin finished for him with a snicker.

“I shall give him the benefit of the doubt,” Sombra said with a snort.

“Trust me buddy,” Dash spoke up, pointing at Fancy. “That’s a nicely dressed stallion by today’s standards. He probably paid a small fortune for that suit.”

“Ah, a member of the aristocracy?” Sombra followed up.

“Well… yeah? I guess?” Soarin scratched his head.

“You guess?”

“Fancy is a bit unique, but that’s another story altogether,” Soarin explained. “The long or short of it is… he’s got more money than a dragon that stole three other hoards, but he’s far from a snooty bit-pincher. Interesting guy, honestly.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Sombra said with a snort of agreement. “But now the question presents itself… why was he allowed in here without fuss?”

“He taught me the basics of controlling magic back when I was just dealing with your power and a fragile hood ornament strapped to my head,” Soarin nodded. “My guess is they want his help again with… well…” Soarin glanced up at the spiral divine alicorn horn. “This.”

“A simple unicorn? To teach the use of divine magic?” Sombra asked skeptically.

“Fancy Pants is well versed in many subjects,” Celestia’s voice chimed in, Soarin’s eyes flashing yellow. “He’s an equestrian-wide renown connoisseur of multiple practices.”

“But more so than you on this particular subject?” Sombra grunted. “I’d say that’s hard to believe, but knowing you I guess I shouldn’t be—”

“Please just stop while you’re ahead,” Celestia cut him off with an exasperated sigh. “I tutor talented young unicorns that show great potential. A grown stallion who lived his entire life as a pegasus is a much different case.”

“Is it really?” Sombra scoffed. “I could probably teach him myself, this feels redundant.”

“We need Soarin to relearn basic control on a new scale. The power flowing within him now is infinitely more powerful than what he wielded before. He doesn’t need to twirl around swords and spears with exaggerated delusions of majestic grandeur.” Celestia harshly retorted, catching both Soarin and Dash off-guard with the slight tone of sass.

“DELUSIONS?!” Sombra reacted quite loudly, causing Soarin to wince. “I’ll have you know that my magic is of a lost—”

“No, NO…” Soarin cut him off. “That’s enough, I don’t need a headache right now.”

“Oh, so she gets a word in, but I can’t?” Sombra complained.

“Most of the time I cut you two off it’s before she can snap back at you for being a jackass, it’s your turn,” Soarin put his hoof down firmly, much to Dash’s giggling amusement.

“Feh…” Sombra grunted. “‘Exaggerated’ she says…”

“It’s like you’re their dad or something,” Dash snickered.

“I’m really starting to feel like it,” Soarin said, rolling his eyes.

“Hmm,” a loud hum from Fancy Pants drew their attention back towards him. He looked towards Soarin for a moment, then back to Luna and Discord. “Hm,” he hummed again, then cleared his throat loudly… twice, causing Discord to look over his shoulder.

“What?” Discord asked, reading Fancy’s look.

“I hate to bother, but… would you two briefly accompany me to meet with Princess Cadence? I have some ideas on how best to approach this, but I’d like to address them with her in person, with your input of course,” he motioned to them both.

“We don’t need to go anywhere,” Discord said with a huff as he glanced towards one of the two guards that accompanied Fancy into the chamber. “You,” Discord said sharply towards one of the guards, making him flinch. “Go get the princess.”

The guards stiffened, blinked, and stared.

“Any day now,” Discord rotated his hand.

“Er…” the guard’s eye twitched before glancing towards the other.

“Is the princess available right now?” Discord followed up, flattening his brow.

“Um…” the guard continued to glance between Discord and the other guard.

“You don’t know the princess’ schedule? What kind of guard are you?” Discord hissed.

“Ahem!” the other guard loudly cleared his throat. “She is holding court right now, and meeting a few representatives from Canterlot soon. She won’t have much time to spare in between.” The other guard explained, his shivering counterpart exhaling loudly and averting his eyes.

“Which means she can’t come here right now,” Discord snorted. “Too bad then.”

“Then we’ll just have to catch her in between, come on then,” Fancy made a head motion to the two of them and started moving.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Discord said sharply. Fancy halted mid step and glanced over his shoulder.

“I don’t see the problem with a brief detour, is Soarin really as unstable as he looks right now?” he said with a very, VERY clear tone of sarcasm while motioning to him relaxing with Dash at his side.

“Don’t you start giving me any lip,” Discord grunted.

“That is reserved for my wife, but I appreciate your interest,” Fancy smirked.

“I like this stallion too,” Sombra’s voice slithered in from Soarin’s direction, causing Discord to flatten his brow and flick his snake tongue about.

“One of us could stay…?” Luna suggested weakly, trying her best to not get in between them.

“Go on, you two,” Celestia spoke up, drawing all eyes towards Soarin as his eyes flashed yellow. “Soarin is perfectly stable, so long as Rainbow Dash is at his side, he’ll be fine.”

“Absolutely n—” Discord stopped mid retort. He looked Soarin right in the eyes, the yellow tint still within them. He could almost feel Celestia giving him a hard look even though he currently couldn’t see her. “Fine…But let’s make this quick.” He gave in, pointing towards Soarin. “We’ll be right back, no funny business.”

“I do as I please!” Sombra spoke up.

“I WASN’T talking to you!” Discord shot back as he followed Luna, Fancy, and the guards out the door, leaving Soarin and Dash behind alone. Or at least alone with Sombra and Celestia.

“Ah… Solitude…” Sombra chuckled.

“Stop.” Celestia huffed at him.

“If only we could have some actual private time,” Dash sighed, pouting at Soarin’s forehead as Celestia and Sombra started quietly bickering… again.

“Can’t have nice things, can we?” Soarin cracked a small grin.

“Either way… I have afternoon training in thirty minutes,” Dash nestled her back against Soarin’s stomach. “So they better make this quick.”

Dash’s words slid through Soarin’s ears and prompted a heavy sigh.

“I really wish I could join you guys. It sounds like you’re having so much fun,” he said somberly.

“It’s been half fun and half brutal,” Dash explained, seemingly missing the tone in Soarin’s voice. “Silver’s been really kicking our asses, but we can’t stop laughing either. You know how he is.”

“AND you’re getting trained by Silver on top of it,” Soarin added. “I’m jealous as hell.”

“I’ve never worked so hard in my life,” Dash continued while reaching a hoof over and rubbing a hoof between her shoulder joints. “I can’t imagine how exhausted or broken I’d be right now without the crystal dew.”

Soarin looked down at her, his eyes scanned her all over with a smirk forming on his lips.

“I can tell you’re working hard,” he said slyly while moving a hoof towards her.

“Hm? Ah!” Dash yelped, startled as Soarin touched a hoof to her back and began running it softly over her body. He moved it around her shoulders, past her chest, and down her arm.

“You’re looking great. I mean, you already did, but believe me, you can’t hide gains from me when they’re on my favorite body,” he said with a flirtatious tone. Dash smirked.

“Who said I was hiding it?” she said while lying down on her back beneath him, reaching her arms behind her head and crossing her legs to ‘display’ herself.

“An opening!” Soarin suddenly yelled goofily, plunging his head down and vigorously nuzzling his nose into her stomach.

“AH! HAHAHAHA! STOP! HAHA!” she laughed uncontrollably as Soarin continued his assault. She brought her arms and legs around and clamped them down on Soarin’s big nose. “Ha, now I’ve got your nose and I’m gonna keep it.”

“Oh no,” Soarin joked with a nasally tone. “Whatever shall I do.”

“Did you forget we are here again?” Sombra’s voice suddenly came from Soarin with a flicker of blue in his eyes.

Soarin snorted loudly, blasting a puff of air against Dash’s stomach that caused her to squeak and let go of him.

“I didn’t forget, I just don’t care,” Soarin grumbled back at him.

“You are terrible,” Celestia spoke up with a flicker of yellow. “Why do you keep spoiling their fun? Don’t act as if you never did cutesy things like this to me before.”

“Hold thy tongue,” Sombra grunted.

“I recall you really liked the sounds I made when you tickled the spot on my ne—”

“I SAID HOLD IT!” Sombra’s voice sounded like it was turned away and several paces further away. Dash snickered.

“It’s constant sexual tension comedy hour with these two, huh?” she said while cocking an eyebrow.

“Sexual ten—?!”

“REPHRASE THAT!” Sombra’s yell overtook Celestia’s reaction despite still sounding like he was turned away.

“Come out here and make me—oh wait, you can’t,” Dash taunted. Audible Sombra grumbling began sounding from Soarin, but it grew quieter until it vanished.

“That’s my girl,” Soarin nodded contently. Dash sighed while leaning back into him again.

“But… yeah, you know I really wish you could join us. I finally get to train exclusively with the elite Wonderbolts and the one I want to train with the most isn’t there? I hate that,” she explained.

“Yeah,” Soarin smiled, she had picked up on what he said early. “I’d kill to hit the gym with the rest, or just do anything. I wouldn’t even mind flying laps, especially if I get to do it all with you too.”

“Mmhmm, I’m enjoying myself for sure, but it’s just not complete without you.” Dash sighed.

“Then take him with you,” Sombra suddenly spoke up again. Both of them perked up. “Who is going to stop you?”

“Sombra…” Celestia groaned, sounding fed up, but Sombra wasn’t having it.

“Cease thine moaning and groaning. Am I wrong?” Sombra snorted at her.

“Just stop it,” Celestia tried to put her hoof down.

“AM. I. WRONG?” Sombra repeated more harshly. “Who would stop them? Who could stop Soarin from doing what he wants? If you can’t answer me that, then I don’t want to hear it.”

Soarin and Dash looked at each other.

“You’re tired of being stuck here, correct?” Sombra went on. “Just get up and leave. Be done with it.”

“SOMBRA!” Celestia shouted. “Enough! He’s being kept here for more than one reason!”

“Enlighten me,” Sombra grunted.

“You know why already, don’t play dumb,” she scolded.

“If it was something you’ve discussed with your sister and the snake, I rarely listen.”

Celestia let out a long, hard, exasperated sigh.

“His control is not the only issue… and at this point we’ve mostly addressed that, especially with Rainbow Dash present. But we can’t just suddenly expose the general public to a new divine alicorn. It would cause mayhem, gossip and attention that we are explicitly trying to avoid. There are already many questioning why I haven’t made any recent appearances. We have more important matters to worry about than uproar among the citizenry, MUCH more important things! We don’t need public interest crashing over us while we’re trying to take on grave threats to the land!”

“They already saw me in control of his body with wings and a horn walking through the streets of the Empire,” Sombra pointed out. “How would this differ?”

“Cadence has already successfully passed that off to the general public as something related to your lingering magical power released. And your former knights have agreed to remain tight lipped. It’s been handled.”

“She lied to her own citizens?” Sombra asked in disbelief.

“Sombra you were IN THE ROOM when we discussed this!” Celestia shouted. Sombra went quiet for a moment.

“…I told you, I don’t care to listen.”

“Perhaps you should…” Celestia groaned.

“My opinion still stands,” Sombra pressed. “Soarin should do as he pleases. He has reached a state of body and spirit that transcends anything a mortal should ever be able to achieve and his reward for doing so is to be isolated and hidden? Locked like a bird in a cage? It’s not truly a cage that can hold him, simply one he’s been told he must stay in. One push would bend the frail bars aside and he could roam as he sees fit.”

“Sombra, he isn’t you,” Celestia cut in.

“This isn’t about me, Celes. This is about what SOARIN wants. He really could just walk out of here, couldn’t he? Perhaps the gods don’t want him to… but what would you do if he did? How about it, Soarin? Care to test whether or not these deities have the gall or the balls to stop you?”

“Soarin, please listen to me…” Celestia suddenly addressed him instead. “Don’t let him push you, we need to be wary of exposing you. We wouldn’t have kept you here like this if it wasn’t a serious issue.” She explained calmly.

But her words didn’t seem to reach him… or he heard them, but had already made up his mind. Dash blinked, examining Soarin’s face as his eyes seemed to light up, and this time it wasn’t some hue to designate who was talking within him.

“Nah.”

“W… what?” Celestia stuttered at Soarin’s simple response. Sombra was not visible to him, but if they could see him, his ears had stood up and a grin was forming on his lips.

“I want to go train with Dash,” Soarin nodded firmly.

“NO!” Celestia shouted desperately.

“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” Soarin said back as he slowly stood up. Celestia was speechless, but Sombra quietly chuckled to himself behind her. “But… I hear and understand what you’re saying, Celestia. I don’t want that kind of attention either. So…” he looked down at Dash, a look of mischief on his face. Dash looked right back at him with a similar look.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Dash smirked.

“Lay it on me, Dash,” Soarin nodded. “How are we going to sneak a big ass Alicorn out of here and to the gym?”

“Are you alright?” The guard who answered Discord asked his fellow guardsman, still catching his breath as they stood at their posts outside the chamber.

“Why did he ask me? Why does he always ask me?” the shuddering guard whined while taking a few deep breaths.

“Why don’t you know her highness’ schedule? Part of our duty is to—”

“I know, I know,” he cut him off, releasing a long sigh and trying to stand up straight. “Normally I do, but what the heck is even going on here? We’re suddenly guarding some new Alicorn god? With the god of chaos himself glaring at us and the princess ordering us to keep this all a secret and hush-hush to anypony and everypony? Aren’t you bothered by this?”

“Not really, they told us to stand guard so we are,” the calm guard shrugged.

“Guarding what and why?” the nervous guard threw an arm out. “All three of them in there could probably vaporize us with a cough, what’s to ‘guard’? And again, who even is that in there?”

“Soarin the Wonderbolt, so they’ve been saying,” the calm guard shrugged again.

“But an alicorn?”

“So they’ve been saying,” he repeated.

“You’re way too casual about this.”

“I think you need to relax,” the calm guard snorted. “Just stand at your post. There’s nothing to be scared of. If it really is Soarin, then we have nothing to be scared of.”

“I…” the nervous guard sighed again. “I guess you’re right. Soarin’s a Wonderbolt, he’d never do anything bad to—”

He was cut off as both of them suddenly felt pressure on the opposite sides of their helmets. Before either of them knew what was happening, they were pushed towards each other, their helmets slamming together so hard that they were knocked out and fell to the ground.

“Oh! Er…” Soarin winced as he looked at the two guards on the ground at his hooves.

“Whoa there, big guy…” Dash gritted her teeth nervously as she moved around him and poked one of the guards. “That was…”

“Maybe a bit too strong,” Soarin swallowed and chuckled nervously.

“Well…” Dash looked back and forth down the large hallway. “Whatever, it did the job,” she scanned the hallway, her eyes shifting from pillar to pillar, crystal in structure that ran parallel to the big carpet in the center of the hall on both sides. They were large, but… so was Soarin. “Come on, this way, stay on this side of the pillars.”

“You’re the boss,” Soarin nodded, keeping against the wall opposite of the large near wall height windows that extended all the way to the high ceiling and looked out into the center courtyard. Keeping him out of sight inside was one thing, the amount of ways he could be seen from the outside was another. The last thing they needed was a gardener or attendant to spot them through one of the massive windows while they were worried about the guards.

Dash glided from pillar to pillar, looking back and forth and beckoning Soarin to each one as they slowly made their way to the end of the hall. This process continued for each pillar despite not a single pony coming down it the whole time.

“Maybe overdoing it a little?” Soarin whispered to her as he made his way behind the second to last pillar before the end of the hallway.

“Hey, who’s in charge of this operation?” Dash narrowed her eyes at him and poked him in the arm.

“Clearly a master of sneaking through empty hallways,” Soarin snickered.

“Hush, you,” Dash looked out and plotted her next course. The grand hallway that led to the castle entrance was right in front of them, but they needed to cross to the other side of the current one first. “Wait here a sec.” Dash instructed before acting casual, stepping out and trotting to the connecting hallway. She looked both ways, spotting some guard activity, but nothing more than those standing post or patrolling. They didn’t have that heavy of a presence and were all strewn about.

Dash glanced over to see Soarin staring at her patiently. She made a bunch of hoof motions trying to quietly explain that she would tell him when to cross… but he just blinked at her, held a hoof out, and lifted an eyebrow, because none of the motions she did made any sense. Dash blew a burst of air from her nostrils and just held a hoof up to clearly mean ‘wait.’

She looked back into the main hall until the few patrolling guards were as far away as possible, then quickly turned and beckoned Soarin as she jumped behind a pillar on the other side of the hallway beside a large window.

Soarin took one step and stopped, tipping his head curiously. Dash let out a few quiet grunts while making more intense beckoning motions.

“Okay, okay…!” Soarin quietly whispered while chuckling, amused at how ‘seriously’ Dash was taking this. He didn’t want to be caught either, but she was getting intense about it. He made his way across the hall as quickly and quietly as his large hooves could manage.

“What in the world are you doing?” Sombra suddenly spoke up in full voice when Soarin reached Dash.

“HEY! SHHHHH!” Dash whispered harshly while hopping up and clamping her hooves over Soarin’s nose and chin. “QUIET!”

“Dsh tht wsnt mm…” Soarin mumbled between his lips.

“Why are you sneaking around?” Sombra went on, Soarin’s eyes flickering blue.

“I said SHUSH!” Dash hissed, clamping Soarin’s mouth shut harder.

“Hmrrmph,” Soarin honked comedically. Dash blinked and quickly let go.

“You be quiet!” Dash tapped a hoot to Soarin’s forehead beneath the horn. “Don’t blow our cover!”

“Just walk out,” Sombra continued to exercise zero voice control. “Who is going to stop you?”

“Sombra…” Celestia’s voice sounded quietly behind him with a long sigh.

“Who’s in charge here, mister?” Dash glared at Soarin’s forehead.

“Look in his eyes if you’re talking to me, that’s where I see from too,” Sombra snorted.

“I’ve already picked a spot!” she hissed at him. “Now zip it!”

“What’s going on over here?” A voice suddenly came from nearby.

Dash and Soarin quickly looked over to see two guards standing in the entryway to the other hall, both of them staring directly at Soarin.

Everypony stood silently for at least fifteen seconds, eyes darting back and forth at all those present.

Dash suddenly launched upward, grabbed one of the large decorative curtains hanging from the nearby tall window and gave it a hard yank. Several PLINKS and CLANKS of the rings fastening it to a bar above the window rang out followed by clattering as they fell to the ground, the curtain floated down and fell over the top of Soarin, completely covering him from head to hoof, but not far enough to drape over his head and down his front. Dash grabbed the edges of the curtain and pulled them shut, clamping them together to hide Soarin, despite his big nose and horn sticking out from them.

“WHOA, HEY YOU TWO!” Dash yelled hysterically. “Princess Cadence said no one is allowed to see this… uh… NEW STATUE until its revealed, uh… NEXT WEEK! It arrived early though, so…”

“Hey, why are Crantz and Stern on the floor over there?” one of the guards said while looking towards the clearly knocked out guards laying on the floor outside the chamber doors. Dash rushed towards the guard and turned his head back to her.

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT,” she said firmly before rushing back to pull the curtain back around a very amused Soarin, a dumb smile now applied to his nose and mouth sticking through. “You know what? I gotta move it now, I’ll be reporting to the Princess that you saw the statue before it was ready, come on, let’s go!” Dash pulled on the curtain, forcing Soarin along into the other hallway. Upon seeing several guards near the entrance she quickly turned and almost pulled the curtain off Soarin as she forced him down the other direction, looking for another way out. “Oh and this statue is totally not walking, don’t be silly!”

The guards watched Dash pull the covered Soarin along until they vanished into a back hallway.

“That was Soarin, wasn’t it?” One asked the other. “Should we…?”

“If you think you can fight a giant Alicorn, be my guest,” the other shrugged.

“Phew… okay…” Dash looked back and forth from behind the large stack of crates. She had led Soarin through the halls and past many skeptical guards and palace staff into a storage and loading dock attached to the back of the west end of the premises. “I think we lost them,” she put her hooves on her hips and nodded triumphantly.

“You are an absolute paragon of stealth and subtlety,” Soarin chuckled as he pulled the curtain off of himself.

“Hey, we made it here, didn’t we?” Dash turned and pouted at him.

“I’m pretty sure the whole palace knows I’m out now,” Soarin smirked at her.

“Details, details,” Dash shrugged.

“That was utterly unnecessary,” Sombra added.

“Hey!” Dash pointed at Soarin’s head again. “I thought I told you to zip it!”

“What does that even mean?” Sombra asked.

“It means she wants you to shut up,” Soarin explained, increasingly amused at the situation, but he was having a hell of a lot of fun.

“I will not,” Sombra snorted. “Cease this escapade, you’re wasting time and effort.”

“Wow, who called the no-fun police? Did you ever send anypony to the dungeons for smiling when you were king?” Dash asked flatly.

“The no-fun police…?” Sombra said quietly to himself curiously.

“Gotta remember he doesn’t get current day slang or jokes,” Soarin pointed out.

“Oh I know, don’t ruin this for me,” Dash waved a hoof at Soarin, causing him to throw a hoof over his mouth and stifle a guffaw. “Oh right, right… we need to move,” Dash planted her back to a crate and peeked out into the warehouse. There was nopony else there, but they now had to figure out how to get Soarin through the public streets and to the gym without being seen. The palace was one thing, most of the guards were aware of Soarin in some capacity so being spotted wasn’t that big of a deal in there. The joking was over, Dash knew that they couldn’t afford to expose Soarin outside.

But how were they going to…

Dash blinked, her eyes landing on the loading docks. The warehouse was attached to a back trail that ran beside the palace and out a small gate into the streets of the city. There were several carts parked in the dock… one of which was very large with six wheels and appeared to be built for two ponies to haul whatever heavy cargo it was needed for. There were rolled up tarps and ropes stashed in the cart.

“Oh, OH!” Dash trotted out towards the cart. “This is perfect!”

“Hm?” Soarin glanced back and forth before following behind her.

“We can put you in here and cover you up!” Dash motioned to the cart as Soarin approached and looked over the set up.

“With the tarp? But…” Soarin looked himself over. “Even with that over me it’ll be kind of obvious something pony shaped is in it. Plus are you sure you can pull all my w—”

“Way ahead of ya,” Dash cut him off, rapping a hoof to her chest, motioning to two other carts parked that were overflowing with hay. “I dunno what the heck the crystal palace needs hay for, so we can probably borrow all this and dump it on top of you!”

“This is starting to get real silly,” Soarin chuckled.

“Starting to?” Sombra spoke up with a scoff.

“You didn’t answer my other question though,” Soarin chuckled while tapping Dash on the head. “Hiding me in there is one thing, can you actually pull my weight? You may have noticed I’m about three times larger than I used to be and I outweighed you by a bit before this too.”

“Hey, HEY!” Dash narrowed her eyes at him. “Look at these guns,” she said while sitting back, lifting her arms and flexing her muscles. “You know what else is bigger since you got fat? These puppies,” she nodded while striking a few more poses of increasingly ridiculous bravado. “I’ll have you know, I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Heh,” Soarin chuckled and pressed a hoof down over her head.

“Hey!” She giggled as she grabbed his arm and tried to push back.

“If you say so, little Miss Muscles,” Soarin joked as he let up. “Don’t blame me if you strain anything,” he added as he moved over to the cart without any hesitation and examined the wheels from atop the loading dock. “This thing is secured… right?” he said to himself as he stepped into it and put his weight down. The cart shifted slightly, but the wheels knocked against boards that were holding it in place. The more concerning thing was the loud painful creak of the wooden frame as Soarin stepped all the way in.

“See? You’re fat,” Dash joked as she reached in and grabbed the ropes and tarp.

“This thing feels like it’s going to snap beneath me,” Soarin commented as he lay himself down in the cart. “Are you sure this is—HRMPH!” Soarin was cut off as Dash used a pitchfork to hook a large batch of hay from one of the carts right into his face.

“Eat your porridge,” Dash said in a silly gruff tone.

“Pah!” Soarin spat out bits of hay. “Yuck, raw hay.”

“Lookout, backing up the load!” Dash called out as she continued to shovel hay into the cart over Soarin.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Soarin used a wing to shield his face as it piled higher and higher around him.

“Just a few more, and then we’ll—”

Dash flinched as she suddenly found it a little more difficult to lift the pitchfork.

“What the…?” she gave it a few stronger tugs, but it felt weighted, like there was something else in the hay, but Dash didn’t consider that, she was just miffed that it was suddenly stuck. “Oh come on, you! HNGRH!” she put more strength into it, forcing the pitchfork up and swinging it over her shoulder, throwing another large hunk of hay towards Soarin.

“OOF!” Soarin grunted loudly as the hay hit… and something else hit him too.

“MARF!” a voice came from the hay as it bounced off Soarin and landed in the cart.

Both Dash and Soarin stared at the hunk of hay. But after a moment, Dash flattened her brow.

“Wait a sec…” she grunted as she recognized the voice. She dropped the pitchfork and stomped over to the cart as Soarin just stared at the clump of hay that sat right in front of him. Dash jammed a hoof into the hay and felt around while furring her brow little by little until she found exactly what she was looking for, grabbing it.

“WOO!” the voice came from the hay again.

“Get out here you!” Dash grunted as she yanked her hoof out… revealing Twister with his neck gripped firmly in Dash’s hoof.

“Oh, HAI MARK!” Twister cheerfully exclaimed while tipping his head to one side.

“What…?” Soarin blinked, but Dash pulled Twister forward and pressed her nose to his with a loud HONK as she glared at him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked firmly.

“I was looking for the fridge,” Twister replied calmly.

“Why were you looking for the fridge?”

“I wanted a snack.”

“You ended up in a pile of hay in the Crystal Palace loading dock warehouse while looking for the fridge for a snack?”

“I am not a clever stallion.” Twister’s eyes spun in circles.

“You’re full of crap and you’re lucky I tolerate you, why were you really sneaking around? And if you say ‘don’t worry about it’ we’re going to see how far we can fit the handle of this pitchfork up your ass.”

“Worry about it,” Twister bounced his eyebrows. Dash immediately reached for the pitchfork and held it towards Twister’s head. “I didn’t say the whole thing so you only get to go halfway.”

Dash scrunched up her face, held her breath for a few moments before sighing heavily and dropping Twister. He landed perfectly upright on his hooves.

“I should really know what to expect from you by now,” she said with a huff before jamming a hoof to his chest. “Whatever, since you are here for some godforsaken reason, you can help me. I’m—”

“Sneaking Soarin out of the palace and to the gym to have fun times with everypony?” Twister answered.

Soarin glanced back and forth between the two of them as Dash stared flatly and Twister’s bouncing eyebrows bounced faster and faster until they were making a low buzzing noise.

“What?” Twister snickered. “I read the first five thousand words of this chapter you know!”

Dash shoved the pitchfork into Twister’s hooves.

“Just help me load the cart,” she grunted. “Now that you’re here you can make yourself usef—”

“DONE.”

Dash blinked and looked over to see all of the hay in the cart with Soarin sputtering in surprise, bits of hay bouncing into the air as he snorted and coughed until finally sticking his nose out of the top of it.

“What is happening?” Soarin asked with just his nose poking out the top.

“I second that, who is this… unhinged lout?” Sombra’s voice chimed in.

“I’m a plot device!” Twister fell from above on top of Soarin.

“OOF!” Soarin grunted as Twister rolled right off into the hay next to him, sinking in like it were water.

“A what?” Sombra pressed as Soarin poked his head out and shook off some hay.

“Here I’ll show ya!” Twister rose out of the hay and pressed a button on his flank. A propeller extended out of his… plot. It unfolded and began spinning up until he floated into the air. He kept floating up higher and higher and higher… “OH CRAP!” he yelped as he neared the ceiling of the warehouse. “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” Twister screeched as the propeller touched the ceiling, stopped, and caused him to spin rapidly instead.

“Um…” Sombra and Soarin said at the exact same time.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dash and Twister said at the exact same time, Twister suddenly sitting right next to her. Dash clenched her hooves and bit down on her lip as Twister flailed like an inflatable tube mascot in front of her, but she ignored him and hopped down to the harnesses.

“Alright… so…” she examined the cart harness. “Shoot… this was made for… HEY! TWISTER!” she yelled up at him as he danced atop the pile with Soarin inside of it. “Get down here and help me pull this—”

“I’m more of a pusher, HHHHHHNNNNGHHH!!!!” Twister was suddenly behind the cart, pressed between it and the wall of the dock below the platform, pushing against it and making all sorts of silly noises.

“Rgh, forget it, I’ll do it myself,” Dash rolled her eyes, deciding her time was better spent just going for it instead of getting Twister to cooperate.

“Are you really sure you can pull all this and me?” Soarin suddenly asked from behind her. She let out a long breath through her nostrils and looked over her shoulder as she fiddled with the harness, seeing Soarin poking his head out of the hay.

“Ask one more time, I dare you,” she threatened jokingly.

“Are you—”

“SHUT.” Dash pressed her hoof to his nose and forced him back into the hay.

“If you say so, I don’t think Twister is going to actually help,” Soarin chuckled from in the hay.

“That goes without saying,” Dash said without hesitation as she hooked herself up to the cart and tugged on the straps with her teeth. She glanced back to see Twister still straining himself between the wall and the cart. “YEAH, that goes without saying,” she repeated, blinking as she looked up to see Soarin’s horn sticking out of the hay. “Hey, I know you’re happy to see me but put that away.”

“…what?” Soarin’s confused reply was delayed.

“Horn is sticking out of the hay, tuck your head in more,” she said with a snicker.

“I’m already as far into this haystack as I’m going to get.”

“Suck in your gut,” Dash joked.

“If I pull myself in any more my ass is going to stick out the back. Which one is going to give me away more, you think?” Soarin puttered his lips, sending a few bits of hay outward sprinkling over Dash.

“You really can’t fit any further?”

“No.”

“Hmmm…” Dash thought. “Maybe we—”

She paused as Twister suddenly casually trotted around with a spring in his step. He casually hopped up onto Dash’s back, pulled out an empty paper towel roll, and slid it over Soarin’s horn. It fit perfectly on it. He nodded in satisfaction, hopped down, trotted back around the cart, and resumed straining himself to push the cart.

“Screw it, let’s just go with it,” Dash shrugged. “Okay, ready?”

“You’re the one pulling,” Soarin reminded her.

“Wise ass,” Dash smirked. “Okay here we goooOOOHHHGH HOLY…” Dash verbally reacted, the harness digging into her shoulders and body as she tried to heave the cart forward and… it was really damn heavy.

“What’s wrong?” Soarin asked.

“Nothing, I’m good, I’M GOOD!” she sputtered as her muscles tensed and she jammed her hooves against the ground. “WE’RE MOVING…” she exhaled loudly and took another deep breath. “EVENTUALLY.”

“I told you I was heavy.”

“NAH, LIGHT AS A FEATHER!” Dash grunted as the car began to inch forward. “YEAH, NOW WE’RE TALKING! Just have to… GRH… get… you… moving!” she slowly started gaining some momentum little bits at a time, the inches turning into yards and finally a slow walk, though every step was a hell of a push. “Ho kay! We’re moving!” Dash cheered as she got the cart in motion and pulled it out towards the back road leading to the high end district streets.

“You sound like you’re about to give birth,” Soarin joked from the hay.

“QUIET YOU! HNNNNG…” Dash groaned as she kept on pulling. She wasn’t even going to bother looking back to check if Twister was helping at all, she just assumed he wasn’t and focused on moving the cart. As if the weight wasn’t enough it was also slightly off center, the left side of the two pony harness system empty as she pulled it entirely from the right.

It was stupidly heavy, confirming that Soarin’s worries were very much warranted, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She WAS strong enough to move it, just, well… with lots of effort. She didn’t mind a warm up before training, even if it was a bit strenuous for one. Even if she burned a bit of energy here, it was worth it in her eyes to get Soarin there to have a good time.

Now all they had to do was…

“Uh oh…” Dash blinked as she heaved the cart down the trail.

Somehow she didn’t think to consider that a back route into a warehouse attached TO THE PALACE wouldn’t be entirely unguarded. There was a checkpoint and gate at the end of the trail separating it from the roads outside the premises… and there were two guards and another attendant all standing near it.

Dash’s first instinct was to stop and figure something else out, but the three of them were already looking right at her. And considering how everything had gone so far, she decided to just wing it.

“Stay quiet back there,” she said quietly to Soarin.

“What?”

“SHUSH!” Dash hissed as she kept on moving the cart, the confused looks of the three ponies becoming more and more apparent as she got closer.

“Hoo boy! Ain’t this a load!” Dash began to ham it up as she grew closer. “Heya boys! Do me a favor and open on up! This was a bitch to get moving, let me tell you!”

“Hold on a minute…” the two guards stepped out and blocked her path.

“Shite…” Dash said under her breath as she slowed down and came to a stop. “What seems to be the problem officer?” she asked, doing a terrible job of acting natural.

“Who are you, what are you doing on this road, and why are you pulling a two pony cart filled with hay by yourself?” one of the guards asked, straight to the point.

“And…” the other guard chimed in while looking up. “Why is there an empty paper towel roll sticking out the front of it?”

“That? UH…” Dash looked over her shoulder and back at the guard rapidly.

“I mean WOW how’d that get in there? Haha… seriously, though, could you open the gate? I’m running late here.” She flattened her brow, trying her hardest to salvage the situation.

“We don’t have any deliveries on the schedule for the next three hours,” the first guard shook his head. “And the hay is typically going IN, not out…”

“Look I was told to, uh… take this somewhere,” Dash struggled, clearly not convincing them. “This was a last minute thing, um…”

“The princess asked you tooooooooooooooooooooo…” Twister voice whispered into Dash’s ear.

“This was an order from Princess Cadence just now,” Dash said without taking a moment to wonder how Twister spoke to her from… wherever he was, he wasn’t behind the cart any more. “You can go ask her if you want, but I have to get a move on, I’m already running late.”

The guards glanced at one another and stared for a few seconds. Dash bit her lip. Were they actually falling for it? She didn’t want to have to force her way through anything, but she doubted they were going to—

“Hey,” the second guard speaking up made Dash flinch, but he wasn’t talking to her, he was motioning to the third stallion with them. “Check the cart.”

“Huh?” Dash blinked, freezing in place as the stallion nodded and started making his way over.

“Standard procedure for transfers we’re unaware of, it will just take a moment… if you’re not hiding anything,” the first guard explained as the two of them suddenly grabbed their spears from up against the gate and held them out in front. Not pointed at her, but having them at the ready.

Dash wasn’t sure what to do, the stallion checking the cart was going to find Soarin. It wasn’t like the guards could stop them, but they were going to be found out for sure.

She waited, holding her breath as the stallion ran his hooves through the hay. He pushed aside clump after clump, shifting around the cart until…

The stallion gasped quietly and inched backwards, staring with wide eyes as Twister’s face appeared in the hay, glaring at him with a hard gaze and hilariously thick eyebrows. The two locked eyes, the stallion speechless as Twister’s glare remained constant and strong.

After staring at each other for several seconds, the stallion let go of the hay, letting it fall back over Twister. He stepped back and blinked, tipping his head to one side.

“Is everything alright?” the second guard asked.

“Uh…” the stallion swallowed. “Yeah, everything is fine.” He turned and made his way back to the gate, leaning against the wall beside it and staring straight ahead.

The guards glanced at each other again, but both shrugged.

“Alright, go on through,” they waved Dash on. “Open the gate.”

The stallion by the gate just stared.

“Hey, open the gate!”

“Huh? Oh yeah,” the stallion got up and unlatched the gate, swinging the doors open.

Dash was keeping her mouth shut. She didn’t know what just happened, but… they were letting her through. With a hefty heave and hiding the strain best she could. Dash dug her hooves into the ground and forced the cart back into motion. Once past the gate and one right turn later, they were on the main road and on their way, though she still stood out a little pulling a two pony cart by herself.

“How in the hell did we make it through that?” Soarin spoke up quietly from the hay.

“I’m not gonna ask any question and neither should you,” Dash chuckled.

“Good choice!” Twister’s voice came from beside her. Dash blinked as the cart suddenly seemed lighter. She looked beside her to see Twister in the other harness and actually helping.

“You had something to do with that, didn’t you?” Dash asked with a slightly amused smirk.

“What, me?” Twister sneered, his head turning all the way upside down. “Never!”

Dash rolled her eyes.

“It’s never a coincidence with you, bucko,” she said with a chuckle, but didn’t ask any questions… because it was Twister after all, who’s still asking questions at this point? It was a straight shot to the gym from here, and Soarin was in tow, that’s all that mattered.

---To Be Continued---

Author's Note

Art in this chapter by: Foxenawolf

For those wondering, the piece of art and Twister's shenanigans were a parody of this meme generating scene in one of my favorite old animes "Fist of the North Star" which is basically the Japanese equivalent of He-Man in terms of the "very cool at the time" factor, now hard to watch without laughing at how silly it all is:

Anywho... Soarin seems to becoming more and more brazen with how much hes willing to stretch the rules, with a little encouragement from the instigator voice in his head of course. He's starting to gain what Discord feared, the understanding that they really can't control him. Though it looks like he's at least sympathetic to the idea of keeping him from the public eye. i doubt he wants that attention either.

As for this chapter and how it was split up... if it feel like nothing really happened here, that because it was planned to have at least three more scenes in it, theres a lack of payout in terms of some things i was setting up with these shenanigans that will come to light in the second part of it with relevance to the plot. Just given the current pace i wanted to at least get this section of it out to give you all some fun stuff for the time being.

As for my current pace. I plan to make a blog sometime in the near future giving some actual color on my current status and live etc because my pacing is just not going to be the way it used to be going forward and i'd like to actually describe it all to you instead of just saying "ive been busy" i've always been up front with everyone here so i'd like to do that.

For now tho, i hope you enjoyed some shenanigans.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!